Month: January 2018

One more time
One more hit

I said I would stop
I said prison changed me

I said I would do it for the kids
I said I would do it for my family

Now I sit begging for another dose
Heroine
Meth
Speed
Cocaine
Why do you control my life?

One more time
One more hit

Sirens blare
Police men yell

My instinct tells me to run
My instinct tells me to hide

On my knees I sit
On my knees I am cuffed

4
5
6
7 times

How many times will I visit prison again?
Heroine
Meth
Speed
Cocaine
Why do you control my life?

One more time
One more hit

My eyes roll
My eyes close

Overdose takes over
Overdose takes me

Now I’m gone
There won’t be another time
There won’t be another hit

---

W. Charles Akins High School

11

Cloud
I am a cloud
Now you probably think I’m joking
Or a kid who has dreams of flying with nothing holding me down
No
I am a cloud
But not the nice kind
I don’t float freely in the sky
I am a cloud that’s chained to the ground
No I’m not fog
Nor am I actually a cloud
Just a kid
I hold a cloud
In my band
It weighs me down
Like the challenges I face
I want to be like a cloud in the sky
Or even the fog on the ground
Only because
They are free
Free to do as they wish
My cloud it chains me to the ground
Why couldn’t it be real
And allow me to float free in the sky
I am a cloud
Not the free kind
But a cloud
Not a real one
Just a prop
Barley noticed on a field of performers
I’m a cloud
Who doesn’t float free

---

Bowie High School

9

today is not the day to
stand down
today is not the day to
take cover
today is not the day to
fall back

today is the day to
rise up
today is the day to
fight back

for our sisters
persecuted
proclaimed
beautiful

for the people
undone for being
themselves
and the love they feel

for the dreamers
who will not be silenced
the most American of
all of us

for anyone
oppressed
deprived
unable to see
the love through
the haze of fear

yes, there will be a day to
stand down
there will be a day to
fall back

but that day will only come when
the battlefield is
a sanctuary
the fire
a field of wildflowers
and the enemy
is walking home with us
hand in hand

---

Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders

7

My dear love is scrawny and a nightmare,
Glowing eyes like knives cutting the darkness,
Appeareth grey shadow with matted hair,
Why she cometh from the trees such a mess?
A lion’s roar quieter than her cries,
Begone meowing feline vagrant pest!
What is this dancing bear before my eyes?
Persistent, unwelcome hobo houseguest.
Yet, her wails pluck my delicate heartstrings,
Caressing my leg with whiskers and love,
Purring motorboat sprung from its moorings,
Precious, fuzzy gift sent from up above,
This unexpected present on my door,
Barbed thorn now beloved forever more.

---

James Bowie High School

10

It would not be this: Scraping
shards of glass into a dustpan
Dim lightbulbs
spit out a
warm light. Sticky, sour,
fermented lemonade
mixed with sweat,
a bottle shaped dent
In the dirt-brown tile.
It would be: Blue
buttercream frosting
sticking to your tongue, swallowed
sodapop still fizzing,
fingerpaints still staining hands,
even after three or four washes,
like the faded glow
of a nightlight
you’ve already turned off.
Still, I can’t get
the bitter citrus out of me,
Even after three washes.

---

James Bowie High School

11

There’s something
no one ever talks about when
they’re in suburbia.

It’s supposed to be a
flawless middle class union, half
metro, half marsh,

but steel edges
of silver silos and skyscrapers
teeter on tearing

the fragile fabric
of the starless almost-city sky.
You hear it most

nights when the
street racers wrench through
pitch highways

and the crickets
punch the identical houses’
plywood shutters.

You hear it when
there’s yelling next door, one
half matrimony,

one half the
inescapably loud swarm
of change.

---

James Bowie High School

11

I don’t want to pray for forgiveness
like I’m pinned by the wings
to God’s corkboard.
But when the iron in my blood
is towed toward the magnet that is
her in her
sunny Sunday best, I don’t stop myself
from choking on the
Lord’s Prayer.
Instead,
I indulge my shame.
Like a sleepy child
I’ll never want,
it yawns
for frivolous things,
like fragrant rose bouquets,
or monotonous love.
I ignore the tired requests that
I need to answer.
Only I can unearth up my roots, hidden
in the tangled churchyard.
Only I can sever the rubber bands
that I tentatively snap against my heart,
but I have lost both
the shovel and
the patience.
Trying to dig gets me nothing
but dirt under my nails and
empty hands. Stubborn
(or maybe even divine)
intuition
say that if there is
anything left
of who I am inside,
it is years
from being covered
by wedding gowns and
tiny, blue swaddling clothes. Still,
what I wouldn’t give for a frivolous thing,
like a sham love,
or a heart
that didn’t want to hide.

---

James Bowie High School

11

Observe how he
presses his hand on
her lower back,
guiding her through
their shared workspace.

See how she hands him
her tattered sweater and
he stops shivering,
even though
it’s filled with holes.

If you squint,
you can see it in him,
carrying her
bobby pins in the front pocket
of his shirt at a party
while she dances
with someone else.
Think about these things.

Feel their weight:
the gentle palm,
the striped sweater,
the copper pins.

Feel their weight
and know:

Love is not things,
you do not carry it with you.
Still, find this
secondhand embrace in
the memorabilia of
someone else’s love.

---

James Bowie High School

11

O dog
don’t give me that look
that look of sadness
that look of desperation.
The look…
Like you’re all alone
and nobody loves you

Aren’t I the one who feeds you
who takes care of you
aren’t I the one you love

But no
You’re doing the look
you’re acting pitiful
but I see through you dog! ha
I know your game
your ideas
you’re trying to toy with my emotions.
But you can’t
you can’t
you can’t do it.
And now see what you’ve done
you’ve made me give in
and you’ll do it again

O dog

---

Gorzycki

7