Category: 11th

You still smells the way you did then

Stuffed in a draw put away
Forgotten

Darkness kept the hunter green and silver from mellowing
when the four of us relocated

The white walls and furniture
no variety in a never ending color

The smell of chep cleaner lingered
It was once your house
I rescued you from a trash can when we finally moved

You were a secret grandma and I kept
for over ten years
Only we knew that you hid
in the empty guest bathroom drawer

I knew exactly what you were

In a way your a stand in for my grandfather

Did you know that you ran away and got married to your high school sweetheart
And you ran one of the best home remodeling companies Houston, Texas had ever seen.

As an infant I have been told stories that I would only speak gibberish to you

No one in this world can ever call me Lizzy but you
Betty never did remarry
She didn’t even date

Until then
You’re in my closet
Kept hidden until I forget
Or leave

---

James Bowie High School

11

A sharp snap against the cracked concrete.
My body veers to the left at street sign,
the city still hasn’t come out to fix the half bent
Hillside Terrace.
Tall homes loom over my shrunken form.
A single pale light illuminates from a window
a woman hunches over a bright screen.

Lime-green shorts
dance through the front yards and lawn gnomes,
Through the flower beds and twinkling christmas lights.

Shoes
smack, echo through cul-de-sacs,
the only sound for miles and yet it’s still too loud.

A lonely bark from a nearby house,
maybe it can sense something
is happening, like how dogs can sense earthquakes.

Or maybe it wants to feel the freedom I’m feeling, sprinting
despite the stitch in my side, running through the solemn streets
and breathing life into the rising sun.

Slowing down a breath fills my lungs.

It’s just me, the lady, and the dog

to witness what happens every morning since forever.

A cold stillness that washes away with the wind. And with the blink of an eye it’s gone.
People wake up, drink coffee, and go to work.

They drive into the sunrise only to go to another place that is only slightly interesting.
And when they come home the

icy veil layers over the world once again.

---

James Bowie High school

11

Clarity is frosted glass,
You can see the imprint of what’s in front of you
But it’s distorted.
Incoherent.
Is it even really there?
I see what my brain preserves is on the other side,

But what if my brain is wrong?
Seeing what it wants to see.
Seeing what I fear to see.
Seeing myself alone,
No one there to support me,
No one there to comfort me,

Just me and my glass,
That’s useless.
It’s frosted over,
The same way my heart is.

Maybe this is it,
Clarity is something I can’t obtain.
Something so essential, yet so foreign.

Do you see what I see through that frosted glass?
Do you see your family in tears, waving goodbye?
Do you see yourself alone?

---

James Bowie High School

11

It’s hard to put all the memories into paper.
There just aren’t enough words in the world.
All of them together
could not describe
how beautiful it used to be
to feel completely destroyed,
and yet,
to be more alive then ever.

There just aren’t enough words in the world
to describe the way you made me feel,
or to express how much I loved you.

Language isn’t enough
to take the images and rip them apart
into something beautiful
so you can be able to see them.

Words are the limit.

And I’m sure I can tell you
that there isn’t enough time either,
to sing everything out loud
or to do it all over again.

It’s just impossible.

So it tears me into pieces
knowing that what happened happened,
and it will only live inside me,
as a memory.
Hunting me,
because nobody will ever know,
and nobody will ever understand
how it is that this thing inside of me
has the power to slowly
slowly
slowly
burn out my little human soul.

---

James Bowie High School

11

A red dress,
Unconfined in the wind’s grasp.
Whipping like ocean waves,
Hugging her torso.

A runaway,
Atop a mountain cliff,
Abandoned.

Lost souls,
Grotesque and decaying,
Wear red.

A vibrant cry for help,
Craving attention.
Princes with white horses,
Never come.

A damsel in distress,
Her mind floods with misconception,
No savior in sight.

The bold statements,
Like a false smile,
Conceal broken minds.

---

James Bowie High School

11

She didn’t even notice your eyes.
I thought maybe she’d outgrown your face.

It was the first thing I noticed.
I remember asking her once
if they had filled the room as much as it felt they did.
If they had grabbed her too
by the coat and demanded their independence from the lousy rendition of brown.
The honey highlights had beaten me senseless.
Belittled and torn, my knees gave way.
And as I lay and beg for more,
you conceal your weapon.
And look away.

and she laughed
her eyes lacking the intensity of yours
And replied that they resembled a pot of the
darkest, blandest, and most bitter coffee.

I thought about your eyes after that.

---

James Bowie High School

11

I want to be 6 years old again
So I can color and watch spongebob
On the living room couch
While my mom cooks in the kitchen
And I smell some type of cake
I don’t worry about anything
And I laugh when spongebob annoys squidward
Because it’s simply funny
There’s no deeper meaning
Life is simple

Instead I sit here on my bed
Back bent
Cross legged
Holding back tears that will never flow
Because it’s much too late
And I think of everything
And I think back of when I was 6
And I knew who I was
I was Anaïs
With 2 dots on the ï
But now I don’t know what that means

Maybe it was butchered
by one too many teacher or sub
Beyond recognition
Or maybe I killed it myself
Slitting its throat
And wringing out all the good
Like a dirty kitchen rag
So that all that’s left
Is a colorless and useless shell
Of what I could have been

But it doesn’t matter much
I think it’s too late anyways
Because I’m still sitting here
Back bent
Typing
Feeling like I can’t get out of bed
But I know I have to
Because I can’t let myself down
More than I already have
And I can’t die
So I guess I’ll have to survive

---

Anderson High School

11

I need not write.
My head doesn’t overflow
Spilling liquid thought out of my brimming brain bowl.
My mind doesn’t turn predatorial
Seeking words like rabbits, hunting sentences like deer.
My heart doesn’t feel protective,
Loving writing like a mother cat guarding newborn kittens.
For me, writing is taking a picture
I will never use or look at ever again,
But I feel obligated to record it
To make it real
To remember it.

My brain is a bookshelf.
Writing is running my hand across the spines,
Cataloguing and classifying,
Curating and coordinating.
There’s comfort in knowing
They’re all still there.

Sometimes I face great problems.
Problems unexpected and unyielding,
Problems testing my patience and will,
Problems identifying problems.
In this, writing does not help.

How could writing alleviate
My sadness sliding south?
How would writing ameliorate
My fury falling at the finish?
How should writing unweight
The pressure of potential perfection?

But when I am at rest, when I have no need to fight,
I curate my collection, and find some comfort when I write.

---

LASA

11

Transcending the binds of god’s eyes

The mind of man freed by the void

Frozen gales consuming all

Illusions created by forcefit lies

Satiated by suffering nothing is faithful

Winters eye is freeing the soul

Hallowed ice shatters all hope

Frozen to the core men will now weep

God’s cold wrath harvesting the liars

Wiping away their tears and sins

Meek men embrace their dissonance

Bathing in blood wrought by their ignorance

A world consumed by permafrost

Identity erased by winters gaze

---

WEISS HIGH SCHOOL

11

Life is lived in but a day
It begins with the sunrise,
Bright and shining,
Full of hope and light.

And it begins to ascend,
bringing you through the early trials and triumphs of childhood.
You grow stronger,
brighter, and fill the world with your light.

There may be others trying to dampen it,
stifle it and make it do their bidding.
They block it with rain clouds of sorrow and greed
that pour to the earth.

But It does not last.
You will rise above them,
make it through,
let the light follow its own path, if you are strong enough.

This path will lead you through the struggle of becoming your own person,
the choices you will be forced to make,
the people you will choose to love
the life you are determined to live.

And you will reach your highest point,
the brightest part of the day,
when the light is strong enough to pierce through even the darkest and most shut off of minds and make them see your light as something formidable to oppose.

You will burn away the shadows of doubt,
and be as bright and certain as the midday sun.
This period is brief,
but it is the most important.

It will be burned in your memory,
it will make you who you are are in later life,
when you begin to descend back to the earth.
You will revel in the afternoon, continuing to make your light as bright and beautiful as it was in your prime.

And you may bring even more light into the world,
to start It’s own day,
blaze it’s own path
burn as brightly as you once did.

This will be your largest legacy, this new dawn.
The light it shines reminiscent of yours,
reminding you of time passed by.
You will help this light shine to its fullest potential, even if it means dulling your own.

And as your light fades you will remember what glory you used to have
be thankful to those who encouraged you
as you do your own child
watching them grow brighter by the day.

As your colors die away, you hold on to the love you have had in your life,
the brightness in your memory.
You will shine till the last, until your light is finally extinguished, and you give in to the cool, dark embrace of the silver night.

---

Rouse High School

11