Author: LaylaM

4:00 a.m. mealtime

A ginger snap.
Spicy.

It’s stale,
it falls apart
like sand in your mouth.
You were expecting
a crunch.

The ginger snap looks
like a tea cookie.
When you dip it,
the liquid rolls
off the oil
and you end up
eating it dry, again.

By the time they are all gone,
the cinnamon numbs
your tongue
and you have forgotten
what you were eating.

Bowie High School

10

Isolated Wounds

The Great Wall of
So many accumulated bricks
Held together by the
Single Memory
That planted
a garden of weeds
Now overgrown
Left freely to
Take Over the neglected
Castle and all it’s walls
And all it’s grounds.
The knights that used
To visit have long
Turned away and
The ones who aren’t
Scared of the daunting
Appearance and attempt
To scale the thorny
Overgrown walls and
Traverse the infested
Corridors
In hopes to break the spell
And uncover the
hidden princess
Leave with even more cuts
And bruises than if one
Had just left the foreboding
Palace alone.
All are kept out for the
Princess is the one who waters
The garden and fortifies
The walls with her own
Mistrust and Tears.

Clint Small MS

7th

Memory

Orange trees
painted white one-third
of the way up,
supposedly to keep the ants
and scorpions
from indulging.

I never believed that.

The smell of chlorine
punctured the air,
and the water evaporated within
seconds
of touching the pavement.

Running barefoot.
Black-bottom feet, impervious to the gravel
below.

We were always barefoot.

Peanut butter sandwiches
on potato bread washed
down by bitter iced tea
soaked up the heat.

There was no such thing as “sweet” tea.

Skin so tan,
almost the same shade
as the dirt;
hair so bleached,
almost as pale
as the sun’s glare.

We never used sunscreen.

An endless 12 foot deep pool
held ultimate diving contests
from the once-blue
diving board;

goggles and water wings never forgotten.

Laying on rafts with cupholders,
blankly gazing
into the everlasting
azure sky.
We made up stories as the temperature

rose to 112 degrees.

The heat makes the day
glide through honey;
roads release
apparitions and cars

Bowie HS

11

Future Me

A Single drop of sunlight falls
Wind blows in my gray hair
Darkness fades and I’m overwhelmed with free life
People open their windows

Children play in the streets
I step in the grass
I know it’s over now
I can feel it in my bones.

I remember when I was a little girl
Sweet and innocent
Faced with the deep, dark world
Of shut doors, closed windows, and no children outside.

I was little but strong
I had all the power to change the world
So I did
Darkness is dead
Sunlight is born
Because we did it.

Ann Richards School

8