Poetry

The white sweat burns, stiffens my spine,

stains white bedsheets in the shape

of an un-motivated-bothered body.

 

Standing up, my eyes glazed over

with white static, head flipped

like an hourglass, white chemical

sands trickle and transmit through the hour.

 

After each cycle of step,

the breath in my chest is white cold;

a vast cathedral with pitter patter hallowing tolls.

 

Sclera are wide open, red dead trees

spawn against a white sunset.

The skin underneath is wrinkled

like a white water current. Mother

rafts around me. Her speech

is delayed subtitles, white outlines

that blend into bedroom walls.

 

I pretend I am in control,

watching myself crawl fetal

back into bed. White light

merry-goes round me,

leaves me in the night.

 

The day is done and I am dirty

like fresh linen. White is the daze

that paints the inside of my head.

 

CG Marchl is currently sixteen years old and attends Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 as a Literary Arts major. Besides writing, her hobbies include jewelry making, embroidery, and watching movies.

When karma shot him in

the bubble tea shop, they

shot you too. Heart fell straight

out of your chest, plopped across

the bamboo floor, thrashing like a

fish out of water. Its ugly veins

rupturing, spitting ostensibly.

A desiccated, carved out

hollow. Nightmares of

tapioca balls exiting the

revolver, ricocheting off

the walls, smearing all the

love letters you traced with

him in spilled sugar. How

to not burst whilst

rearranging burnt

bergamot orange and

darjeeling tea to call each other

“honey.” Now he bleeds

oolong like he used to

inhale it from your mouth in

between shifts, in

between the eternal spaces

where you didn’t utter it

back.

 

Grace Zhang is a seventeen year old from Princeton High hungry to get out of the bubble and experience the world. Her work has been nationally commended by the Scholastic Art & Writing awards and is forthcoming in the National Poetry Quarterly. Some things she likes are liminal spaces, peach oolong bubble tea, and the mundane morning stars.

This is not a poem

and I am not a poet

when I can’t find eloquent words to describe

that more blacks are incarcerated in America right now

than in apartheid South Africa

when beautiful words fail me and I can’t express

the worries of the deprived through the complexity of language

that our key policy makers and leading civil servants

have never had a job outside of politics

that sixty percent of Jews identify as atheists since the holocaust

no, I am not a poet

when I can’t find crafty words to illustrate the fact

that before 2008 Mandela had been on America’s list

of most dangerous terrorists for more than half a century

that

massacres and genocides and partitions and conflicts

give way to erratic sensationalizing where no one can hear the cries

that when the ending is unsatisfactory

not many stick around to watch

some wax lyrical about the tragedy and the shock

about something tangible lost by something intangible

the pleasures of life lost to the end of a sharp knife

the joy of living lost in a bullet wound

but the real comedy is how some fail to acknowledge it at all

chaos befallen on them who dared to utter a syllable

lest someone knows it was their fault

the plot twist is that there is no plot twist

and I wish there was some metaphor

to lower you into this grief

but that is why this is not a poem

and I am not a poet

but it’s fair to say

the heart’s crafted to evermore persist

a rugged pioneer of time, relentless optimist

that sometimes it’s an act of bravery even to exist

but you see

I’ve crossed lines, not followed traditional poetic form

failed to construct elaborate metaphors to explain

that immigration isn’t a choice

that a person probably has more Muslim blood

than the people in the mosque they conspire to blast

never is survival available to all those who deserve it

and so it goes

how do I explain all this and still retain artistic worth?

the wanderers, the grievers- here they are doomed to roam

hatred boils in them and sears the world like a blazing scar

and humanity falls when tyrants are hailed

but how can one be falling, if flying feels the same?

how does man forgive himself

for all the things he did not become?

a refugee buried within suffering

for a war he cannot comprehend

but it’s all done now

anger surrounds us

hate courses through us

yet this hate is unaware

of the humanity she births into us

we are made of all the things that break us

just to keep us alive

maybe I should’ve just said that, but I didn’t

because

this is not a poem

and I am not a poet

of things that seem out of place in today’s world

like writing a poem which isn’t one

 

Aarushi Bhardwaj is a school student from India and has been previously published in Teen Ink Magazine and The Hindustan Times.

LOVE is a hot steamy shower after an

afternoon of sled riding.

 

LOVE is Dad singing U2 songs you have heard 27,000 times before

and grilling steaks, saving the rib eye for you.

 

LOVE is a thin slice of vanilla cake with sugar-sweet pink icing,

 

LOVE is only having to pay 25 cents for a gumball,

$5 for a thrift store orange dress,

and $0 for a hug from your second grade best friend.

 

LOVE is clean linen sheets pulled tight over a medium firm mattress

and the smell of lavender,

the “click-click” of heels on tile,

blue and orange squawking macaws.

 

LOVE is anything that makes you feel like you are hurtling 100 miles per hour over the moon,

even when your teal-painted toes are resting firmly on the ground.

 

Anna Weber is a senior at North Royalton High School. She loves writing, and her work has been published in Inkwell, her school’s literary magazine and she has taken the creative writing course this year. Anna will be attending Calvin College and plans on majoring in Speech-Language Pathology. She has not been previously professionally published.

After an afternoon

Of long talks,

And boardwalks,

I found myself at your door

Trying to change

Something I knew

I couldn’t.

The ocean seemed

To pulsate behind me

Like my chest

As I took a deep breath

Before knocking on your

door.

And when you opened,

My heart stopped

And I crumpled to

dust.

 

Charlie Weerts is a fifteen-year old, trans boy. He is a poet who plays ukulele and enjoys wearing tropical print shirts.

Our conversations have narrowed

What were once wide

And busy highways

Are now dirt country

Backroads, almost

bike paths or walking trails

They are slender streets with

Unlit lampposts

We’ve been reduced to talk of

Cigarette prices and

“How’s your mother been?”

“Good, thanks for asking”

Sometimes I catch you on roads

We’ve been down before

You’ve asked me questions

Three or four times since

I met you and the answer hasn’t

Changed. Our lanes are lacking

Soon I suppose

we will meet a dead end

But when I think of how

Our spacious streets were once

Open and endless, like we’d

Be driving forever,

I cannot stop the car.

 

Alexa Bocek is a young writer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania whose work has appeared in The Claremont Review, Literary Heist, Mystic Blue Review, and Pulp Literary magazine. She’s an editor and staff member of BatCat Press. She has also won several awards and honorable mentions for her poetry, fiction, and screenwriting. She’s been writing for several years and attends the Lincoln Park Performing Arts school as a Literary Arts student.