Issue 37

i. Winter’s Breath
Frosted whispers weave the night,
Tendrils curling, stars alight,
A tapestry of silence sewn,
In crystal shards, the chill is grown.

ii. Spring’s Awakening
Beneath the shroud, the earth will sigh,
Green fingers stretch, the blooms comply,
A riddle spoken in budding leaves,
Where sunlit laughter softly weaves.

iii. Summer’s Rapture
Heat dances on the pavement’s grin,
A riotous glow where shadows spin,
Melodies of cicadas hum,
And golden hours come undone.

iv. Autumn’s Lament
The wind becomes a poet’s hand,
Ink of dusk spills over land,
Leaves pirouette, a fading song,
In twilight’s embrace, we linger long.

v. The Cycle Unfolds
Each season turns, a clock unwound,
In spirals strange, our roots are found,
The earth, a canvas, vast and bold,
In every shade, a story told.

vi. Nature’s Embrace
We dance along the edges blurred,
In moments lost, in breaths unheard,
For life’s own rhythm, wild and free,
Is painted in this symphony.

vii. The Stranger Within
Embrace the odd, the unseen grace,
The fleeting time, the empty space,
For in this dance of ebb and flow,
We find the seeds of what we sow.

 

Luke Ross is an accomplished yet humble writer with beginnings in poetry and roots in “LA Urban street style writing.” He takes inspiration from famous and historic poets such as William Blake, Robert Frost, and Alexander Pope.

 

a dragonfly skims across a surface, and the entire lake creases
underneath its weight. we are tucked within overgrown reeds
that prick my ankles raw. it’s dusk. the mosquitos are emerging
to gnaw. you scratch at the red welts lined along your arm with a
ferocity no one can explain. “stop that,” I scold. I snatch your hand
into my own, examine your blood-crusted cuticles. I take a tissue
from my pocket and wipe the residue away. “you’ll make it worse.”
every time, and my words never get through. you, ruined girl: nails
sharp enough to slit. skin of ivory fissures / eyes of bruising flax.
you shrug, turn back to watch the sky. before us, the egg yolk moon
hangs so low, we can pluck it from its perch and swallow it whole.
it’s dusk, still. it’s always dusk here. the cicadas are beginning
to sing. you confess that you are being eaten alive, and I think I am
being eaten alive, too. tongue first, then mind. do you remember? age ten
we crafted matching glass bead bracelets. you flung yours upwards
and it shattered against the sky. I think that day, the sky split too. one day,
I fear you will gather the leftover glass / sky shards and file yourself
hollow. but for now, there is a crevice in the clouds where twilight
may filter through, light cradling the cusp of your jaw / kissing
the slope of your nose in a language I wish I could speak to you.

 

 

Lia Wang loves stories so much, she decided to create her own. She is the Director of Chapters for The Young Writers Initiative, and her pieces have been recognized by Scholastic Art & Writing, Ice Lolly, JUST POETRY!!!, among others. When not starting another draft, Lia can be found tracing shapes into the clouds. Find her at https://liawangwrites.carrd.co/.

I am turning seventeen and
I miss my seventh.
If I could speak to him,
in the reflection of
a puddle,
or behind
a mirror,
to the button-eyed and breathless,
pure hearted and progressing,
oblivious and open-hearted sprout,
I would simply let be.
For in his gaze of unknowing,
a universe of wonder blossoms.

To whisper warnings and cautions,
to burden an unburdened heart,
to bring about gnawing anxieties,
would be like grasping at him through
the puddle,
or shattering
the mirror,
that separates us –
letting the phantoms of my world
seep into his.

I am envious, though,
of how his young eyes
capture a world
different than mine –
saturated, slow, serene,
of how sun-kissed sand
feels to his hands,
of how his ears perceive
the melodies of birds
like symphonies,
while I catch only
fleeting murmurs or flutters.

I wonder, though, will my seventy
miss my seventeen too?
What if I peer into
the puddle,
or stare at
the mirror,
and visualize before me
a face weathered soft by time,
who hides tomorrow’s storms
as I hid mine
from the boy in the puddle.

 

Eziz is a young poet whose touching, nostalgic works explore growth, innocence, and connection. He enjoys sports and volunteering in the community while trying to make an impact on others through his writing. With each of his works, Eziz strives for an emotional impact on readers by provoking reflection and raising empathy through the universal language of poetry.

In my head, I am thirty-five and happy
I am a father
My daughter is not of my flesh and blood, but she is of my heart and soul
And I love her like Van Gogh loved sunflowers
We take long walks to the park and home from school
At night I play her lullabies on the ukulele
Just like my father did for me
On Saturday, I say hello to my friends at the diner
And we laugh and laugh and sometimes cry
In the mornings I shave my face
And take my testosterone in practiced, robotic motions
I feed my cat and water my plants
Pour pancake batter into a pan while I harmonize with the record player
Outside, the lawn is green and blooming with dandelions
And at night, stars freckle the darkness above my head
I know all their patterns by heart.
In reality, I turn off the news
I get down from the roof
And I text my friends, “be there in five.”

 

Will Walters is a Chicago-based poet, author, singer, songwriter, composer, and producer. His hobbies include baking, playing the piano, talking to his plants, obsessing over horror podcasts, and dancing with his sister to Taylor Swift. You can find his debut album “Dawn” on all major streaming services.

The world ––its bad auditory nerves making the wailing of a girl
sound like blues. & they danced on, most of the boys in the neighborhood.
Once, in class, when asked what reaches boiling point sooner than liquid,
I answered: my seething bitterness against the world of men.
But I love my father still, I hate to see my brothers weep.
I’ve loved a boy so much that I named my poem after him.
The toad raced over by a car on untarred road was what he made my heart.
I do not mean I welcome all men. Mediastinum quakes–– bald men
with barb-wired beards make my heart craves flight.
Considering where the disobedience of Eve has led us
I surmised, that everyman has the right to retribution against us,
which I dread wouldn’t favour them either. What do you call a home
without mothers? Isn’t grave a garden without flowers?

 

Ramatu Audu (she/her) is a Nigerian teen writer of Ebira descent. She hopes to grow from a budding stage of writing into a pro.

~a poem in two acts~

 I
The White Swan

 The cygnet exhales,
a fledgling wraith
suspended in the eternal silence of stage,
breathing as a specter, as a phantom,
breathing in conjunction with the
perpetual bourrée of her toes — which,
entombed in threadbare satin,
waltz across hardwood
to the 4/4 rhythm of her racing heartbeat.
Her face is an enigma,
her mind a fortress,
cloaked behind a pristine, unshakeable exterior
gleaming deceptively in milky footlights.

Spectators embrace her measured sorrow,
her rueful fragility, parceled into the guise
of the white feathered tutu and coiled bun,
a perfect picture of purity,
a falsehood;
with every développé, she exudes melodrama,
her composure as fictitious as the recherché
folktale on display.

No captivated admirer across the lake can perceive
how the rouge lipstick and Tchaikovsky measures
muffle her heaving gasps. Her serenity is contrived,
her solemness calculated,
no whisper of uncertainty nor hesitation
revealed to the spectator,
no room to falter,
not until she pirouettes offstage
whereupon she sheds the shackles of her tortured promenade.

II
The Black Swan

 Faintness consumes her haggard silhouette,
the avalanche of applause
a distant quake behind her,
out-anguished by the scream
of her searing muscles
and molten toes.
The mangled mass collapses alongside a water fountain
whilst clarinet sonatas chime
like birdsongs, or nightmares
somewhere far beyond.
Unrecognizable now, she is,
a shell of the majestic swan she’d been
mere moments before,
yet still perilously, sensationally
human.

One adagio to rest.
Catching her breath, she readjusts the ribbons on her shoes —
loops of blush satin,
square-knotted at the ankle —
knowing that this aching pocket of
time was the product of all her
childhood ballet slippers and missed birthday parties
exchanged for an itch for transcendence,
a bargain sworn in blood from
the wellspring of her naive heart
and yet — without remorse.

The wellspring becomes a fountainhead
as sweat streams from her hairline.
She cannot stop,
she cannot rest,
for she is cued once again
to tombé from stage right — and to conceal,
without wavering, from those who watch:
the dichotomy of dancer.

 

Sophia Campbell is a high school junior who is deeply passionate about writing. She has published three novels, including She of the Shadows (2024), and has received multiple awards for her work, including a Scholastic Silver Key. She has worked as a guest editor for Dr. Ralph Bauer of the University of Maryland on the Early Americas Digital Archive. Additionally, she trains in ballet at a professional level and has performed at the Kennedy Center in various productions.