Month: January 2019

The last night of November
The frost crept through the door.
It seeped through my fingertips
And turned my blood to snow.

World still dark
Warm and milky, your breath tickled my cheek.
Your gentle scent and mild heat
Nestled against my arm and neck
And began to thaw
The ice from my lungs.

Together in near silence,
Two slow breaths formed as one
With your weight upon my chest.
I am comfortable in your presence.

The shivers in the air dissipated against your frame.
The dawn chased the dreams, faded, from my mind
And drew the sleep from my eyes.
I see you, my wordless companion;
Has it already been eight years?
Sophie, my precious pup, life is better when you’re near.

---

LC Anderson High School

11

Missing words and captive thoughts
Under fire
Never enough
The lights stay off and eyes go blind
I only want to see tonight.

Lonely spaces are
Left unspoken and undone.
Shadows creep from all the corners.
Eyes can’t see as hearts grow numb.

I hold this dirt, this little dust.
It is my world and my country,
The ground below and the sky above,
Hold my everlasting loyalty.
But this starved land can’t save a soul
And it won’t protect my family.

I’ve forgotten how to ask for the things I need
Because, here, even hope has lost its meaning.
I don’t know about hope, but I know there is hunger
For a brighter night and for a tomorrow
Filled with food and family
Threatening to break free.

Growing pains bringing change;
I’ll feed my hopes on this.
For while my world has closed its eyes
I won’t sleep tonight.

---

LC Anderson High School

11

I am left unanchored and alone
Just a small thing made of dust.
No better than birds or sun-bleached bones
Worm trails and river stones.

I am made of winds and grass,
Cicadas, mouse-holes, roots of plants.
Rivers, dewdrops, wells, and webs
Small things held in little hands.

Happy, angry, missing faces
Sad eyes and forbidden places.
“There’s no place I want to go but home
Where I am safe and well-fed.”
Well-said.

---

LC Anderson High School

11

Dirt underneath my fingernails
Is better than the dirt on my body
Made by filthy hands
And all of their defiling.

I want to wash it clean.
It’ll never be enough
To scrub away the stain.
No innocence left untouched.

I want to make the world run red
Or even muted black and blue,
But even then I cannot run
Fast enough away from you.

---

LC Anderson High School

11

In the dimness you whispered
Your young life away
Begging, “please don’t leave me here”
But how can I stay and still remain human?

[Your eyes
Milky, cloudy, blind
Could not see the light from dark.
It is better, then,
Or else you would have starved for color
The way you starved for food.

I see and so I feel
Is it hubris to think like this?
I call it truth; truth you do not know
Whose absence you feel
But cannot understand.]

The silence was your voice
Drifting, drifting, not all there
Drifting, drifting, disappeared.

---

LC Anderson High School

11

Murmuring flow of a stream
Lively roar of perfection
In the moon, a certain gleam
Crying in the reflection

Sweet, coiling tendrils of mist
Leading a path through the night
A blushing bloom will persist
Its only wish to glow bright

Twinkle against the dull sky
Brilliant splash of daydream
A quiet, whispered “Goodbye”
Murmuring flow of the stream

---

Ann Richards

9

Cruel words spilling out from inside
It’s okay to scorch the air
It’s better than choking internally
Burning your lungs with every repressed inhale.
Suffocating in detail.

What do you want me to hear?
What can I even say?
Of course it hurts.
But share with me your pain.
I want to melt all of your edges
And reshape the disarray.

My hands are too stained to clean up any mess.
If you want a savior you’d best find someone else.
I will paint with the colors of our madness
And find meaning that outlasts our faltering breaths.

---

LC Anderson High School

11

I am early morning school days
And late nights under yellow lights.
I am paper with blue lines running free.
And the starless night breeze.
I am misty eyes gazing out at skylines
Through glass
I am a shattered drinking cup
Tipped, falling, falling, crack.
Find traces of me in dusty books.
Worn pages, rolling verses, softened by overuse.
I am the moment after a good joke
And the bad ones, too.
Awkward.

---

LC Anderson High School

11

One day I will be free of the emotions that rattle me.
I want to be more than what flows overhead
The little that resolute thinking does
Is not enough to turn tissues into tougher stuff.
Gratefulness and guilt intertwine in my mind.
Unexplainable tears and irrational fears at the slightest provocation.
Why do happiness and hardship both
Inspire sadness?

It is easier to hate myself than you, undeserving
Yet, mostly unspoken, my thoughts occasionally arrive at shadowed destinations
With both of us their passenger.
I’m sorry, I say, unmovingly
And recede into unintention, stagnant and assuming.

If only I could strengthen my will would those restless waters still?
Or would I again be out of control, windless, breathless
Away from home, my destination still unknown?

Time too late, just wait.
I will grit my teeth and bear my imagined, brittle, inward burdens
When did first world problems became too heavy to hold?
The more I cling to my own wellbeing, the more unwell I feel.
I’ll give myself away instead and see what returns
Not everything, for sure, but things better shared than owned.
A peace for us all.

---

LC Anderson High School

11

I see ruin, I see mars
I see no better lands afar
Broken bottles and tin cans
Are not found on streets but in grasping hands.
The blight whispers to the city’s sands.
Shifting channels and tides of change
We, alone, still remain.

---

LC Anderson High School

11