Braden Booth

Doubts steal in your mind on insect feet when you’re back home
They don’t when
You’re in unfamiliar waters
But when you sip from
The cool well you grew up on
Your muse the moon of your childhood
You start to feel a familiar unfamiliarity with happiness
I lay my hand on my desk
Imagining braille in needles
Spelling out
C-O-L-D
This desk has seen
Too much
Everything of me
Held a Bible
Kids new international version
And a chemistry book for my first lost love
That of learning
But lithium and Leviticus both went unread
As I wrote instead like Marco
Polo!
Of travels and fine food
Silk and perfume
Or whatever the midwestern equivalent is

I etched experience into this desk
And the first hard frost of November can’t erase it

 

Braden Booth is a Missouri-based poet. His work is uniquely inspired by the classics, as well as his upbringing on a Southwest Missouri cattle farm. He is a poet capable of a familiarity and respect for the great poets of the past, while still burrowing into the gritty realities of our modern life. Braden is currently a sophomore at the University of Missouri, where he’s majoring in Psychology and minoring in Creative Writing. He has been published in EPIC Magazine and is currently an intern at Persea Publishing. Braden seeks to bring forth a wholly American form of poetry, a form reminiscent of Cummings and Whitman yet rooted in the land he came from and the small town he grew up in.

darkness—that perpetual question—
crashes over my room, my bed, me
my reckless mind breathes life into
a new world, one with:
perpetual football on the tv /
half-drunk coffee resting on the counter /
two-player video games /
a tissue box lying untouched /
shaving cream bottles by the bathroom sink /
the sound of laughter /
tardiness that never drags past fifteen minutes /
a smile that kisses the corners of my eyes /
a living room safe from jeering spirits /
a mother who can get out of bed without collapsing /
my awful dad jokes /
and a dad to share them with.

 

Emily is a high schooler from California. In her free time, she enjoys making low-quality memes with Imgflip and struggling to debug her code.

It’s June
and there’s still a
lump in my throat.
I’ve tried everything.
Tea. Medicine. Intimacy.
Burning the photographs
and attending therapy.

I drop a bird at your door
and I know you don’t understand:
I love you in a way that’s different
violent, and blue.

I almost confessed it to you
but on its way out, it was too large
and got caught in the tube.
Now it’s trapped in my throat
and even grandma doesn’t know what to do.

 

Lily is a student and writer based in Miami, Florida. She enjoys writing poetry, short fiction, and plays. Her work has been published previously in Aries Magazine, Silent Spark Press, and produced on her high school stage. When she is not writing, she is lending a hand at the theatre.

As language comes together
Tiny etches on a page
They bring a forth a symphony of life
They evoke passion
Dancing as they leave my fingertips

It’s funny how powerful they are
A train of thoughts
Picking me up in a daze
And dropping me off in the space between dreams and reality

It’s frightening their force
Miners working through the night
Shoveling tears from my eyes
And pick-axing at my heart, bit by bit

It’s inspiring to see their worth
Each one is a drop in an ocean
A ring in an old tree
An atom of life
Coming together to create beauty

How do I summarize all this
With just one tiny word
At the top

 

Leah is a high school senior in Blaine Minnesota. She enjoys restoring classic cars with her dad and spending quality time with her family and friends.

Plump valves of fruit flesh drip
juice blood into my cuticles.

My heart’s fruit and pulsing skin
Squeaky smooth against my lips.

One bite to find the round seed,
The star, and cherry flesh, the fuchsia halo.

Stained teeth spit pit
And toss the hanger stem.

 

Marguerite is a lifelong lover of words and stories. A current senior in high school, she began writing in third grade and continues to write every day. Marguerite is a 2024 Denison University Reynolds Young Writers Workshop alum, a 2024 Cincinnati Overture Awards finalist for short fiction, winner of the 2023 Montgomery Women’s Club award for Poetry, and received regional recognition for the 2024 Scholastic Art and Writing Award for flash fiction. Marguerite hopes to study neuroscience, English, and philosophy in college.In her free time, she enjoys playing tennis and walking with her dog, Ted.