Tyler Clayton

Once time to travel to Wisconsin or go to the mountains.
Always time to play fun board games, like checkers and chess,
there was always peace and time to relax,
there was no hassle trying to travel to school in the morning,
And nothing to do in the afternoon.

Now,
I move from school to soccer,
soccer to home,
home to conquering homework,
and the homework to bed.
On weekends, I have games for my travel teams,
and I have to go get groceries more often.

I miss the days of peace and time to relax,
I miss the time I get to travel.
I miss the fun board games.
I miss the past as a child.

 

Tyler is a student at St. Patrick’s School in Rolla, Missouri.

I want to call your name,

the noise ricocheting sharply like a shot around the narrow walls

and fly down an alleyway filled with light to meet you

midnight-blue skirt pleats billowing like petals, breeze caressing my skin

I want to secretly slip my hand in yours for a fleeting moment

as we bob along, buoyed by an effervescent zephyr

separating and coming back together, weaving like singing swallows

across the gentle cobblestone waves

the rosy hint of morning sun on your lips

and the fresh scent of summer in your hair

I want to succumb to the pull of promise

and prowl the bustling shopping streets of Ginza at lunch break,

burning up with the thrill of doing the forbidden

and the giddy excitement of being free

I want to run and run and keep running forever

in a sobbing sky

the gray mist blooming over emerald rice paddies

splashing in puddles and feeling the wet, sinking, soaking chill

and watching you fling the shaking droplets from your limp, hanging hair

I want to laugh like there’s no tomorrow

the air squeezing out of my lungs in gleeful bursts

as we try, and fail, to snag a plushie from the claw machine for the sixteenth time

and walk away with empty hands, light wallets and brimming hearts

I want to lean against you on the subway ride home

reaching up to tightly clasp the oscillating handles

and not quite being tall enough, but that’s okay

I want to press a soft kiss to your cheek

as the sky dims around us

holding a cup of bubble tea in one hand and

the faded smell of leather and eraser shavings in the other

I want to feel the world grind to a halt

hearing the melodic chime and the rush of crisp, biting night air as the doors open

letting in a constellation of serendipity

idyllic, infectious, intoxicating, igneous, ichorous

I want to lie on a velvet carpet of viridity

watching the festival glow like an ember of hope

a village, a tradition, a home coming alive

tucked into the crook of silent, listening mountains

seeing “大” branded into the sleeping valley with apoplectic torches

and the fireflies performing their sacred dance

rising up, up, up into the satin curtain of darkness without a care in the world

and vanishing as soon as their light begins to shine

I want to discover more

in you

and in me

than we ever thought possible

cradling the strawberry moon in our hands

holding the orphic fire in our souls.

 

Emma Chan is a sophomore at Kent Place School in Summit, New Jersey, where she plays the piano for her school’s Chamber Orchestra. She is a page editor and staff writer for her school newspaper Ballast. She loves writing and hopes to pursue history, philosophy or literature in college.

I.

The day I became a definition, I sat
on white paper, cloaked in a gown

thin as my sinew and skin, shaking,
a mere apparition.

They call it
median arcuate ligament syndrome,

a name I can barely pronounce, its
harsh syllables impressed against

my lips. I wonder how the med students
wrap their breath around the words,

recite all the diseases with their
typewriter tongues, the terms that will

replace their patient’s names. Those
doctors always said I had tiny veins,

told me to make a fist the size of the
plums my mother peels.

She knives around the pits. Slices
golden flesh to reveal a whole seed.

I watch the juices slip down her forearm.
Waxed fruit splitting open, unearthed

like a wound.

 

II.

I am fourteen. My breath stammers the
number of times I’ve stayed in a hospital

like a voice dripping punctured
sonnets. Air grows stale when you’re

confined to four plastered walls,
caustic and calcimine. Back then,

I wanted liberation. To stop wearing
this body as a bone-house.

 

III.

I shiver on the table, my thoughts
the blood spilt on the blanched paper

beside me. With each prick I’m reminded
of the fleshy fruit, whose wisteria

hues I once let bleed in a pale palm
when I was no river thin wraith.

Here, I imagine peeling myself
from seven years of pain and needles

and false labels from sharp tongues
uttering empty syllables,

searching a skeleton in blinding light
for the things they can name. Here, I

allow knives to slit belly, like the fish
partitioned to the bone. Let hands take a

fraction of this body, birthing a scar
as proof.

Understand, I am no definition. I bite
into a plum, its juices forming veins

larger than mine. And hope that scar
doesn’t fade.

 

Rachel Brooks is a high school junior at Christian Heritage School in Trumbull, CT, where she is editor-in-chief of the literary magazine. She is also a Genre Editor for Polyphony Lit and writes articles for her local newspaper. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.

 

*This poem was awarded a Gold Medal in the 2020 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and was previously published in their online gallery.*

I find it lying in the grass beneath the shade of a jack pine.
Red streaked saliva drips off yellowed fangs and pale gums
while its chest pulls in shallow breaths that rise and fall
like the restless boughs above its body.
When I look down into its hazel eyes and unpleading pupils,
I know there is nothing anyone can do.
Even still, I stand beside it.
I stop watching the blood trickle from its side.
I close my eyes and imagine its undeath.

The wolf sucks bloody saliva back into its mouth.
It stands up while pulped organs and shattered bones
reform. The bullet spits out of its side and flies
across the field – back down a rifle’s barrel.
The casing leaps back up from the grass and glides
into the chamber at the slide of a lever. The casing
remarries the bullet when the man pulls the trigger.
He lowers the gun, locks eyes with the wolf,
And watches it walk backward into the woods.

 

Nick Trelstad is a twenty-one-year-old poet and undergraduate in the College of Saint Scholastica’s English program. He has had previous works of poetry published in literary magazines such as Sink Hollow.

 

 

i want you to come back to me
healed because i’m selfish & you left
me to wade through the weight of losing
you. i’ve spent so much of my life wrestling
with death & all it has taken
from me.

i pushed through
the silence & the static. the light settled
into my skin when i clawed
my way back. metal tooth ravaging
as i paced along my mind’s
interior.

now i know
no one could keep you. you,
closed-doors & driver’s seat
laughter. you, cold december
& bloodstained
mercy.

 

Cassidy Black is a psychology student, libra sun, and postcard collector from rural Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in Rising Phoenix Review, Ghost City Review, and Recenter Press Poetry Journal, among others.

 

Khayaban-e-Ghazi road:
Red light, stop.

Knock! Knock!
Can I have some money?
God bless you and your family.
Can I have some money?
At our window, the old man begs

AC leaks from the corners of our white Lexus.
The tan leather seats provide safety and comfort for our family.
The dam of privilege is broken.
Two limbs remaining.
Two wooden structures in place for each leg.
Mismatched foam flip flops.
A kameez dusted with mud,
stained with tobacco,
and absorbed with the stench of Pakistani gutters.

My eyes recede under the influence of shame,
body numb, clogged with feelings.
Please! Please! Can I have some money?
Crinkled change from a dinner outing,
converted to the old man’s meal for two days.

The red light of income flickers.
Pivot, wobble, limp.
Crooked teeth on display,
Squinting eyes filled with mirth.
Pivot, wobble, limp.
The dusty pavement has been reached.

His weak hand lifts up,
like a salute from a soldier.
At the dusty rocks he waits
for the light of income to shine again.

 

Nour Gajial, is currently a sophomore at Lakeside High School in Washington. Most of the time you might find her drawing, writing, or rowing on Lake Washington. In her free time she enjoys listening to music and spending time with her three-year-old brother.