by Genna Christie
My anger burns
I feel it pulse
I want to punch something
Anything
But I can’t
That’s not acceptable
The relief I would feel
The hole in the wall
Wouldn’t account for
The guilt I would have
The trouble I would be in
The pain I would feel
It stops me a lot
The aftermath feeling
The regret
But I’m angry
Always angry
Everything sets me off
I can’t let anyone see it
I’ll be pushed away even more
But I can’t feel that way either
I can’t let the anger overtake me
But it does
I can’t get it out
How do I get it out?
by Jacob Davick
The year is far from now
And the world has gone far
Astronauts are common
I can join them where they are
I go up in a ship
The journey is long
We go far far away
I become the new Armstrong
My shuttle stops
We have arrived
The window opens
As my body floats weightless
To the window I fly
I see God’s little craft
And all I can do is cry
It would be much less like a cry
A lot More like a sob
While pain can't make me cry
God makes my heart throb
I don’t bother to cry at pain
Or the stress in my life
But I think I’ll cry one day
When I marry my wife
Maybe it’s because
Life is full of depression
So i can save my tears
For glimpses of heaven
by Elizabeth Humphries
Always and forever
That’s a very long time
But that is what we will do
Together forever
Your hand in mine
My hand in yours
Her hand in his
His hand in hers
We are like one
For I will leave you never
We will be with each other
Always and forever
by Julia Baker
Everything that falls
must break, but still
I sat on the edge with you
knowing
I could shatter.
Loving you was the most
exquisite form
of self-destruction.
When the sun hit your waters
you were a bottomless pool,
I was afraid of falling in
and never coming up for air,
which I did,
but when I caught my breath
I jumped right back in,
and deeper than before.
I was so far into the vast ocean
that I didn’t even see
you pushing me.
Falling.
Falling.
Falling.
A thud alarms that I’ve hit the ground
I wait for my legs to collapse and shatter
but they don’t.
I look up with confusion
how have I not broken?
Everything that falls must break.
Unless,
the fall is just the first stroke
of your beautiful picture.
by Keegan Imami
Little
rose,
tiny and naked,
it seems
as though I could clasp you like this
and carry you,
through full glass
and crawling waves;
the bells shook the sky
and returned me
to the ground.
And like the night
you were rolled
and waxed
into trembling meteors
that fell from
the arc of my
arms.
O, roselet,
when our eyes met
a curious terror
came over
me, absorbed me;
tempestuous and gentle like California redwoods,
seeing something in me
I hadn’t realized in myself.
And in the masts
and seagrass
I felt your hair,
lifting it to my mouth and nose
and breathing in
all the dirt and ash and salt and pine.
When my heart stopped
and I stifled,
your hands I
would find in
the raging grains
and honeycomb of autumn’s coronation;
yet in that instant
I saw it to be
a mirage born of desert air.
Your touch I craved,
your bright body,
what slept beneath your loose clothes —
but I could not have you.
I could not behold your nature,
as I couldn’t your name
nor voice,
but in it all, intact and new,
as if the cloud cover
had newly given light
to the
sealed fire between us.
O, Darling of sweet fruit and flower,
like the cost of time
it is your kind that keeps me up at night,
the ones, sadly, I never see again.
Clara Monahan
I think of grannies in their floral moomoos
Jumping up and down in a rave
Hair rollers rattling alongside flailing arm noodles
I think of how their walkers
Would fit in the mob of sweaty legs
I stare at the back of the head in front of me
Imagining my hand rubbing his scalp
If he’d turn around
And make an uncomfortable frown
I might reach my hand out
Wondering if I have the guts
I draw on my paper and get real weird
As I give my poor creation:
18 chins and miscellaneous hairs
All over his misshapen 2D head
Maybe it’s a self portrait
Of my heart
My guts
I think about drama in my church
I am certainly not a part of
How the pastor’s kids get along
Or if they bite each other
I wonder what Mrs. Galindez would do if I bit her
I would have to go home
And maybe not come back
…
This is why I’m afraid of telepaths.
by Sophia Taylor
Beams of brilliance warm
All but me.
Standing in the swarm
All but me.
A tadpole in a pond
All but me.
Everyone feels at home
All but me.
Never feel attached
Like a thread
Snatched by the rubble
Of a tumbling crash.
A constant concussion
But without me who really cares
Who I am?
Am I wanted?
Do I matter?
If I took a step away
Into the cool, damp
Living forest, would I disappear?
Would I be the death that
Wrecks the whole system?
Could I be alone, or are people
What’s keeping me alive?
Giving me sustenance,
Giving me shelter.
I want to be alone,
Just not lonely.
by Cadie Weldon
SUN-DRENCHED, yet you never run dry,
Always drowning in mystery.
Your lucent silhouette, absent of headache and heartbreak,
cherished and delicate.
And on your white quilting: absent of fingertips or eyes,
on your pallid palms there are no lines softly sewn,
Yet your stare could hold me better than any hands I’ve ever known.
So diabolically Angel-like, swan-like,
In moonlight and starlight.
Even in the dark I can feel your brilliance—
The kind that makes you believe in God.
Screamed like a baby on a piano key,
Played so violent yet so tenderly,
Your beauty— paper thin on bleached skin.
It drives you to madness…
And I feel so dizzy, I feel so dizzy like I
Could fall to the ground you grow from.
And if I lie there, if I lie there you’d grow
Above my grave.
So promise you’ll call to me in that tragedy
With your beauty sung like a melody
And then if Love could be carried I’d set
Mine down into a garden hose.
Oh my White Rose, Oh my White Rose
I’d water you day by day
Till we both wilt away.
Oh my White Rose, Oh my White Rose.
Everything beautiful pays homage to the way I think of you.
