your vision, your voice
Why spend your life dancing in the footsteps
Why hide in the shadow
Don’t understep
When you can shine in the spotlight
When I dance I fly around the world spinning
While i’m leaping over houses over buildings
through the air I can fly fast and ruthless
And I can fly steady and slow
Flying makes me happy
When I fly the Radio sings for me
flying its my key to life
I will never stop flying
Gorzycki Middle School
7
Horses are nice animals
They are not flammables
You can ride them everywhere
They will not care
They like to run
It gives them fun
You can get a horse
But please don’t divorce!
Canyon Creek Elementary School
5
Sugar, cherry
Sugar, punch, watermelon
Blue, red, bumpy, hooky
Pop, snap, crackle, fizzle, jump
Canyon Creek Elementary School
5
I have a sister and I feel different emotions with her. Sometimes I am angry, sad, happy and disappointed with her. But at the end she is still my sister and I still love her.
Govalle Elementary
4
They make me whole
They make me realize my
own worth
And not once have they
loved anything but all of
me
Identity is strange
But I’ve loved finding
mine with you
Beautiful and intelligent
No label could ever veer
He, She, They,
What’s the difference?
I only see them for them
And I love this love
Early College High School
11
Aquatic life glides across a canvas screen
and I enjoy the false magic,
because the advertisers hugging children with
plastic arms, always guarantee
a future enthrallment.
But I want to go beyond the glass that makes
Aquariums two dimensional projections in classrooms,
to finally slice the restless
waves, burying identical suburbs
under castles of sand.
I will find the white whale that protects
my saltwater heart.
Soon, the depths will procure
a gleaming token of independence.
For now I settle, with the cheap
string of pearls pressing
against my neck.
James Bowie High School
12
Walls
Walls that have seen me grow up.
A small girl who ran and played.
Every sleepover, play date, and mess that was made.
Seen every fight and every night that I cried.
It’s seen toys and decorations go,
and said goodbye to friends that I used to know.
Seen hundreds of movies and read many a book.
watched me eat meals my mom would cook.
Seen my changes in style and clothes.
Watched me dance and put on shows.
Seen dusting, vacuuming, and complaining galore.
Seen mountains of clothes bury the floor.
And in all these years the walls have filled.
Become wrapped like a present in posters, calendars and poster boards.
Now the time has come to unwrap the silent watcher.
The four walls that surrounded me.
Almost like stripping a museum of its history,
the posters and paper come down.
I look at the blank walls and only now I realize,
that they’ve been looking back at me all along.
Stony Point High School
10
A snowy mountain cap within the grass,
as malleable as clay, the lamb
cross-eyed, gazing
at paper wings of a butterfly
suspended in light.
On the opposite side of the range,
the closeness of flanks disrupt any chance
of sleep. The sheep climb
over rusting machinery
To the sound of assembly line bells and tv static.
Wrapped in rainbow blankets,
the sheep decay in their unmarked graves.
Both domesticated followers, victim
to shining shears that snip away wool in clumps
Leaving a rash of pink flesh,
vulnerable and guilty, an empty manger
littered with crushed straw. Heartbreak then
begins to ebb away, eroding
as it always does.
James Bowie High School
12
What once was Parisian dreams,
slinks out of the warm sun
with a hint of abandonment.
The museum is silent now,
Except for the falling glass tears
of the nameless;
a weeping woman.
Critic muse the final piece,
sipping their acrylics, blended with
a dash of red wine.
Gripping the stem of their glasses with moldable judgement.
They place authenticity
Upon the staircase of eyes
enshrined in agony,
encased in oil.
Disjointed limbs slice
The composition.
A period of deep blues becomes
violent and bright.
The minotaurs are unleashed.
And the scattered fragments leftover
from their massacre, are hung in gold
and called cubism.
James Bowie high school
12
Seeping sands of an hourglass
A graceful, solemn stream
Trickling down, oblivion waiting
Looming on the edge of a chasm
A fleeting unknown unfurling over the
Seeping sands of an hourglass
Feelings of unease bloom
Deepening with a surge of dread-
A graceful, solemn stream
A pounding rhythm, a drum-like beat
Sound spilling over shards
Trickling down, oblivion waiting
Ann Richards
9