Poetry

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.

I clench my jaw
And performatively lift
The ends of my lips
I have them now
14 desperate eyeballs waiting
For this moment
I am the star, suspended
In a web of my own making
Amidst the stench of cafeteria broccoli and
A jungle of multi-colored chirping birds
Their eyes are flies
Caught in my web
Of tenuous laughter

I swallow their approval like flies
Gulping each down
Until they dance in my belly
I have become
What they wanted
And erased me

 

Alison Hwang is an avid creative writer from California. Her work has been recognized by Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Skipping Stones, Rising Phoenix Review, and more. She is also an artist who illustrated part of “Weston Finds Wonder,” a children’s book with the Clinton Foundation. When given the gift of time, Alison loves secretly dancing her heart out in her bathroom, trying to find the things she lost, and reviewing local restaurants.

You are not who you think you are. They will tell you it to your face, they will say it with such courage and bravery and confidence that it is so correct, that it is an irrefutable fact of life. You are not who you think you are.

You are not who you think you are. They will tell you no, you don’t actually like that. No, you don’t actually dislike that. No, you are not that type of person. No, you are not actually a boy, you are still a girl. No, you are not actually a girl, you are still a boy. No, you are not neither, you are one or the other. You are not who you think you are.

You are not who you think you are. They will tell you no, you don’t actually want that. No, you don’t actually not want that. No, you don’t know what you want. No, you can’t choose for yourself. Aren’t you too confused? Aren’t you too weak? Aren’t you unprotected?

You are not who you think you are. You will tell yourself that to your face in the mirror, with such courage and confidence and bravery that it is so correct, that it is an irrefutable fact of life. No, you don’t actually like that. No, you don’t actually dislike that. No, you are not a boy, you are not a girl, you are not neither or both or in-between. No, you don’t want that. No, you don’t not want that. No, you can’t choose for yourself. No, you are not yourself. What are you? What are you? If not yourself, then what?

You are not who you think you are. Those words will surround you, cover your eyes in a haze that’s soft as wool yet crushes you like a hydraulic press. Those words will slither down and wrap themselves around your body, clinging tight to your limbs, digging right into your skin, and you will sit there and accept it, because you don’t know any better. You are not who you think you are, and you do not know who you are, and both facts exist at once in a way that hurts and hurts and hurts and traps you in an eternal prison, a cage in your own mind, a cell around your heart.

And the bindings will only stay on until you go back and reflect on everything everyone has said. Have they lived your life? Do they pioneer your body? Do they wake up every day with your eyes and your skin and your flesh and your breath? Do they wake up with your thoughts and your feelings and your brain? Do they? Do they?

And, you’ll say, the answer is no, of course they don’t. Because you do that. You have lived your life, you have walked in your skin, your shoes, and nobody else has. That’s where the problem is, isn’t it? The fallacy. And as you realize that, the bindings will become slightly looser, knowing that the truth is found, knowing that you’re finally aware. How does a human describe life as a rose when they’ve never been one? How does a wolf describe life as a lamb when it’s never seen such a thing? How does one describe someone else when they are simply not that person?

And that’s it. There it is. The knife to cut the bindings, the fan to bat away the haze from your eyes, the purifier for the air entering your lungs. The words you need to change, the phrase you need to find.

You are not who they think you are.

 

Axen (he/xe) is a writer, artist, and currently a high school sophomore. He writes science fiction and dystopia, though dabbles in poetry on the side.

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.

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.