Blue Marble Review

Literary Journal for Young Writers

Greta Starling

Disasters

By

The Notre Dame Cathedral burned down. My friend looks bored in his picture with it and I will never be able to take a better one. The Twin Towers exploded before I was born. The Appalachians are shrinking and the ice caps are melting and Everest grows higher and less attainable every day and I want to travel the world but what if, when I’m ready, it’s not there anymore?

 

a fire slowly

swallows my religion while

people are singing

 

 

Greta Starling is a teenage writer. She enjoys reading and writing; some of her favorite books are by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli. Her favorite poets are William Shakespeare and Natasha Tretheway. Follow her on Instagram at @greta_writes.

Paper Boats

By

Summer means different things to people. For some, it means that school is over—giving way to the indulgence of tantalizing s’mores eaten around a campfire on a warm, starry night. For others, it means spending more time with loved ones through family vacations and Fourth of July barbecues. For me, it means all of the above and so much more.

One of the most memorable aspects of my summers was floating paper boats with my brother. Near my house, there was a pristine and clear river with numerous, jagged rocks jutting out of the water and oak trees adorning the sides of the river. I remember bringing stacks of notebook paper with us every summer, which my brother and I folded into paper boats. I always colored my paper boats with a dark blue crayon while my brother colored his with a bright yellow crayon. Afterward, we would set the boats afloat on the river and watch them flow slowly along the stream, seeing which boat would go the farthest. After a few minutes, the boats would always get stuck on a protruding branch or rock. Back then, I always wondered why my boat could never avoid all of the obstacles and reach the end of the river, which led to a large, turquoise-colored lake. Over the many summers that I went to that same river, not once did my boat ever reach the lake without getting stuck at some point along its voyage.

Now, when I think of my boat getting stuck in front of a rock or a fallen tree branch, I cannot help but compare life to those paper boats that were floating along the river. Like a paper boat, people face numerous, different obstacles at some point in their lives. Some obstacles are small, like the rocks that were barely breaking the water’s surface. Other obstacles are big, like the thick branches that manipulated the river current. Like the paper boat, I have had plenty of small rocks blocking me, but I have only had one branch stand in my way: celiac disease.

Celiac disease caused intestinal damage every time I ate gluten, which prevented nutrients from being absorbed properly. I was diagnosed with celiac after the Thanksgiving break in my junior year. Before knowing I had celiac, I felt as if there was an invisible, unyielding tree branch that I was constantly pushing against. It drained my energy and incited headaches and stomach aches throughout my sophomore year and a quarter of my junior year. It became so difficult to concentrate during my classes that I stopped taking notes and resorted to merely listening to the lectures in my classes. I kept feeling as if there was something hindering me—blocking me from my full potential—but I did not know what it was.

There had to be a reason why I felt too tired to play my favorite sports, such as soccer, and had severe headaches that discouraged me from reading my favorite novels. The only remedies that helped me cope with this were to get nine hours of sleep and maintain an optimistic outlook. Fortunately, after my diagnosis and adhering to a strict gluten-free diet, I saw the tree branch for the first time and watched it become completely submerged under the relentless river current. Like a boat being liberated from the grasp of a branch or rock, I was able to flow freely, but I was still far behind the other boats.

In order to catch up to the other boats, I had to toss overboard some of my most prized possessions—Speech/Debate and Men’s Chorus. My gastroenterology doctor recommended that I utilize senior year to recuperate, as my immune system was drastically weakened. Thus, after this year, I believe I will be caught up with the other boats as we diverge into different paths towards our respective colleges.

 

 

Shivam Patel is a freshman at the University of Southern California and attends as a Presidential Scholar. He graduated from La Cañada High School in 2018. He has interned at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, worked as a courtesy clerk at Sprouts, and volunteered at USC Keck hospital for four years. He is a celiac disease student ambassador, and was in choir and on the speech and debate team at his high school.

Stuck

By

your name isn’t supposed to have layers
when you say it, the taste shouldn’t last longer than a moment
it’s the kind of sweet that lingers on your tongue
dances around and reminds you of your identity
and dissolves as soon as you lick your lips

but how do i taste the sweet when i possess
a glossy name punctured by two oozing, messy words
stuck at the top of my mouth, sticky with embarrassment
jeong yun. no matter how many times my friends tried to fish it out
i’d clamp my mouth shut and tell them it wasn’t important.

that was a lie. obviously i cared about the words that
carved out my existence, i just didn’t have the luxury
to break off and share like loaves and fishes
at least, not for a crowd eager to grind it all up into
something they could laugh at, gray sludge from
what was once a fragment of my heritage.

it coated my childhood, a membrane of syllables
not meant to be pronounced with a foreign tongue
but it always was, always butchered
its pink flesh pinned to your American tablecloth
each sound cutting it into pieces to fit a foreign palate
baptized with vanilla and cinnamon that drowns out
ginger, sesame, and soy

they wouldn’t just be laughing at me
but my grandfather, who dreamt of how
my name would carry the sky and the stars
walking on water across the ocean to America.
but when they mutilated my name with exaggerated syllables
and mocking tongues, i couldn’t carry the world on my back anymore.
i could barely manage the weight of the mess contained in my mouth,
colorful cultural flavors locked away—
i crucified them with my tongue,

saying it to an audience who’d never tasted it before.
a menu they don’t care to read but love to critique
arrays of names beautiful to all but the audience
each name got its own package, two sprinklings of preface saying
“i know it’s not a common name, i’m sorry”
i’m reassuring them that it will be over soon
and it is. i spit it out painfully, and as the name leaves my mouth
jeong yun — so does my comfort, everything spilling out
as i struggle to hold my mouth closed before
i vomit up my pride.

it’s funny how protective i am of my middle name
when for most of my life, it was my only name
leaving sticky residue on my official transcript, my passport,
and the standardized test that i hid under the fold of my elbow
worried someone would detect the alien sequence of letters
and make me seem more foreign than i want to be,
forcing me to swallow my name, whole.

 

Joanne Park is a junior at Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose, CA who writes and performs poetry. She has previously won a number of awards for the Scholastic Art and Writing competition, been published in the Young Writers Anthology, and edits for both her school’s literary magazine and school newspaper. Outside of writing, she loves to compete in speech and debate, where she is exposed to both classical philosophy, current events, and critical theory.

 

Little Girl Big

By

(tiny) little girl; wait
bigger with others;
(not she)
little wait,
little looks toward bigger bigger (with friends)
little wants bigger little wants friends;
big joyous, (except for little)
a little wish
to be big

 

Sophia Baldassari is a Gold Key winner in Dramatic Writing at the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and also won first place at the Hoboken Library’s Playwriting Competition. She was one of the top poets for the month of August 2016 and received the Staff Pick for her poetry on Teenink.net and has had online articles published on teennewsnet.com. Sophia was also a finalist for Dramatic Interpretation in the Hudson County Regional Forensics Competition and will have her play, Jenna Meets Death, performed at Manhattan Repertory Theatre in March 2019. Her selected work as an award-winning actress includes the NYC premiere of The Great Holiday Debate, Meet Me In St. Louis, Twelfth Night, The Proposal, and A Midsummer’s Night Dream.

Pyrrho Walks into a Busy Street

By

Rain glances off the glass until I think
It might just break. The only other sound’s
The screech of tires, the whir of engines hot.
I’ve turned the volume down until I am
Alone, and daring thoughts to think themselves.
The only thought there is is one like this:
The cars look like they’re made of shadow stuff-
Like blots of ink and sketchy, shiny stars.
Headlights diffracted, bodies in the dark.
Not much like cars at all. If I would turn
The wheel a little farther to the left
And let the car drift into traffic lights
We might just crumple, origami fold
Or we’d pass through, dark specters in the night.

 

 

Grady Trexler is a senior at Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School in Richmond, Virginia. He will graduate in 2019. In addition to writing, Grady likes to listen to music and debate.

A Confession to the Moon

By

I wonder how we stay awake?
I’m lying down on my soft bed;
I simply never close my eyes.

Your moonlight filters through my blinds,
Crickets chirping into the night.
I wonder how we stay awake?

Cosmic dust settles inside my lungs.
Just thinking about the stars,
I simply never close my eyes.

Only to yearn for your soft touch,
A gentle caress on my skin.
I wonder how we stay awake?

I think of how he looks at me,
I know he sees me differently:
I simply never close my eyes.

How much do I need you now?
I’m wrong about you once again.
I wonder how we stay awake?
I simply never close my eyes.

 

Jordyn Slavic is a sophomore Writing and Publishing major from Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School. She’s been writing from a young age, and  enjoys poetry and creative nonfiction.