Winter Poems 2023

Everyone thinks my hopes for my future are weird,

But it is normal and average that I fear.

Growing up and living exactly like everyone else is not my desire,

There is a different type of life that I acquire.

I don’t mind working a nine to five,

I just need to have other activities that help me feel alive.

While my neighbors are driving their kids to summer school,

I want to be across the country lounging in a rooftop pool.

When my sister asks me to watch her kids so she can have one night to relax,

I want to be on a first class flight to Paris eating airplane snacks.

I believe there is a lifestyle for everyone and I’m not judging I swear,

I just would rather live differently, freely, with a little less care.

Hannah Kirkendoll is a senior at Timberland High School who loves writing in her free time and hopes to pursue a career in nuclear medicine.

my marrow is now toxic with clove & nag champa

I’m convinced the ground is not, in fact, lava

but wisps of candle smoke spilling from the trees

the air here is rich with damp bark, drenched earth, amanita

I lie at the base of the fox hearth, all cozied up & guessing

pebbles & branches marking my soft back

I exhale all the built-up chimney soot, cedarwood, mold spore

take in the warm vapour pouring in from the sun rays

close your eyes, dear—the wind is ripe &

nipping

Clover O’Mordha (they/them) is an emerging poet currently studying at The University of Akron. They are pursuing an MFA in poetry and enjoy cays, books, thrifting, & tofu pudding.

my name is maya walker & i am a prospective student
at your institution. i am interested in english literature.
spanish language. classics. studying abroad. i am interested

in a small school in a big city; a big school in a small
city; a campus within a city, like nyu but not nyu. nothing rural,
nothing suburban. i can’t stand suburbia: house after

house after house in a row. one of them is my house, my
childhood house now. the house i’m moving out
of to come to your institution. no, university, not institution.

institution sounds like an asylum & i’ve had enough
of those. what’s that? no, i’m not insane. just deranged enough
to apply to your school out of all the schools, your school

with little mental health resources & no family to help me through
my panic attacks. oh, i’m sorry. not panic attacks. let’s call
them anxiety episodes, nervous fits, the jitters. anything to make

them sound less scary. anything to make me not a hazard to
your university. i promise i’m a good student. i promise i’ll try to be
a better student. i promise i’ll try to be a better student than

the ones who’ve dropped out after their first semesters, the ones
who realized they weren’t fit for life away from home. i promise
i’m fit for life away from home. why else would i be applying here?

it’s so far. it’s so close. it’s so urban; i can get lost in the
buildings & people & say at least i’m not alone when i’m tired of not
being heard, of being not good enough for you. dear university,

i promise i’m good enough for you. i promise i won’t give up on you like
i gave up on high school sophomore year. that was a fluke. i’ll never
give up on anything again. dear university, i’m applying because you’re

my safety school. because you’re my reach school. because i have
no other choice. i’m applying because i’m tired of my home. i’m applying
because nothing on campus reminds me of home, & i like it that

way. I’m applying because what choice do i have, because i have to go
somewhere. i’m applying because i need a fresh start, because
i always have one on your campus. thank you for your consideration.

 

Maya Walker is an avid reader, tea drinker, and lover of words. She is the founder and editor in chief of Fulminare Review as well as an executive editor at Spiritus Mundi Review and a staff writer for Immortal Journal. You can read her work at The Augment Review, Ice Lolly Review, Fifth Wheel Press, and others, or find her at the abyss of ink known colloquially as the Instagram page @maya_whispers_words.

room like the inside of a lightbulb gone
dark. a daughter
already not a daughter
places her hand on a chest
forever burning, quickly now.
those curtains taming light. bed beneath
a quilt beneath
a father, draped in navy wool.
summer so hot it cracked in your mouth.

room in strict geometry:
heaving with every breath, easy patterns
slipping to ribbed floorboard–
hall constricting like
a throat. she lowers herself to a goodbye
below breath. i begin forgetting
even as light leaves those corners.

later, he wakes again and again
calling out to blurred edges, asking
if we have left, if he is staying

 

Elena Ferrari is a junior at Milton Academy and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her poetry has been recognized regionally and nationally by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and is published or forthcoming in Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine, Magus Mabus, and The WEIGHT Journal. When not reading or writing copious amounts of poetry, she can be found annoying her cat and drawing force diagrams.

Seventeen is like this:
I am sarcastic and stubborn
Sweet and sensitive
I feel helpless and also full of hope
I’ve never been braver, but only because I’ve never been more scared

Seventeen is like this:
I am eager for the future to arrive, and yet I wish it would slow in its approach
My hometown is a prison
And my hometown is who I am
Part of me will always be here, and part of here will always be in me

Seventeen is like this:
A middle finger is a salute
Fast food is its own love language
We are wild and stupid and brilliant
There’s a dialect you speak at seventeen that you will never be fluent in again

Seventeen is like this:
I scream into the void at the top of my lungs
I haven’t found my voice yet
I am nearly an adult and I’m still a little kid
I am a mess of contradictions and I am a blank canvas

Seventeen is like this:
It’s beautiful in spite of and because it’s ugly
Seventeen is freedom
Seventeen is purgatory
Seventeen is the cusp of something great

Seventeen is the most important year of my life, at least until I get to the next one

 

Katelyn Caulder, 17, is a queer poet from Lakeville, MN who enjoys YA novels, iced coffee, and dogs. In her free time, Kate competes on her school’s speech team, teaches karate, and plays guitar.

i don’t tell them / of the sawdust mouth / the sandpaper / curled like a / prawn or the clogged-up
/ throat / the gravel-flooded eyes / or how the / blue blood / rushes to my head / twitches and /
rolls / down my wrists / like violet tears / like / desert-dust / in / stead i / tell / them / of being /
dragged / nine feet under / water breath / less kicking and / screaming / with no room / to rise up
/ for air / i tell them / of the black seaweed that / catches / round the curve / of my throat /
pulverises my wind / pipe into snipped-out hearts / i tell them of the cockles / and oysters that /
catch on / to my finger /

tips; hooks tethering / me / to the ground / the tinfoil half-moons / i spill / from the cusp of / my lip
the / oily silver bubbles that / foam around / me like / pearls smooth / and round / the stars / that
shiver / over the face / of the water / clear and blue / and still and / silent / as death / i tell them /
to imagine a / windowless / room / and the / walls / closing / in on / you / like / fangs / i tell them /
it’s your soul / erupting / like a lotus / imploding / over the face / of water / before scattering / like
an ash / or / any / dead thing /

and / i tell them / it’s / not / poetry / but it / could be /

it could be

 

Nabiha Ali is sixteen years old, and lives in Lancashire. When she’s not writing poetry, she enjoys playing with her pet budgies and writing stories she knows she’ll never finish. This year, she has been shortlisted for the national BBC Young Writers Award with Cambridge University. She is also a recent winner in the 15-17 years of age category for the Solstice Prize for Young Writers.