Category: 2022-23 Submissions

Underneath the orchid tree;
Book in her hand
The wind dances around me and around her head band,
Sitting alone under the sun
Tap,
Tap,
Tap,
Her pen trampling around the paper
Alone under the orchid tree

Sun setting;
Face wetting;
As she reads, reads, reads,
For hours and hours;
Alone under the orchid tree

Night time has come
The moon howls out;
Howl,
Howl,
Howl,

Goodnight little one,
Alone under the orchid tree.

The ocean, just like all of us, swaying and sometimes on the bumpy side.
Knowing that we always find our way home, following the bright glow of the moonlit sky.
Watching the sun and the moon go by me and the sand touches the tips of my cold, salty water and the moon crying as it awakes.
The sun soaring off the beautiful face of the sky.
I see one glow shining brighter than the tiny stars.
The moon is as big and beautiful as can be.
The hard stream of the rain trickles, and as soon as I know it, the clouds are covering my moon.
I feel as stiff as the metal bars of a prison.
Trying to reach out, but the droplets pushing me down.
I’m not able to see the face of sky, with my moon disappearing into the grey clouds.
That moon was my heart, and that moon was as sweet as a tart.
I wash away in the seaside of the shore.
I hope my moon will come back.
Never lacking my moon forever more in the starry night with the little glimpses of the tiny stars around it.
I know I will see my luminescent moon again.

I love my dog.
He is so sweet.
He loves to cuddle.
This is why I love my dog.

Toledo Bend is a lake that covers the horizon like a blanket of excitement

Sitting on a dock staring at the color-changing sunset wishing you could fly up and touch it

Tubing with a speedboat going 70 mph while seagulls fly above your head like they want to join in

Staying up late so you can have a BBQ with strangers, but somehow they feel like family

Wishing, hoping, and dreaming that you could stay here forever to enjoy the BBQs, tubing, sunsets, and the lake

But you know that you have to go and come again next Summer

I still feel that Toledo Bend is my home, it’s the place where I belong

Once in my bed I lie awake
The time is half past twelve
I believe through and through that my life is at stake
The earth moves around my cells

I feel the dirt under my fingertips
my fingerprint matching the tree stumps
I lay my head kissing the grass with my lips
Yellow and black, a small bee bumps

I begin the process of melting into the Earth
My skin evaporates into the atmosphere
I have been newly birthed
yet my heart is not full of fear

So next time you look up at the trees
Take care to remember that you are looking at me

And now, my world, it’s time for me to leave
Death, say goodbye through a dense cloudy lens
A brisk, sorrowful treasured life to grieve
Peek through the vale, and losing dearest friends
Who deemed this just, measures deeply cruel?
When I came here my years began at one
Twelve lives, twelve grades, my twelve years of school
I bid farewell, the journey now is done
Snap my fingers, I stare upon the dawn
Turn away, sweetly bid my world adieu
Pray tell me now, I beg, before I’m gone
Did I earn it? What is it that was meant?
My acceptance will wash me of my sins
New lives, new years, for now I’m one again.

Laying down wondering if I should…
Should I? Do I have the energy? Will it even change anything?
I need to get up and practice.
Practice makes perfect, they say…. Is that even true?
I ask myself why can’t I get up?
It’s my passion. My everything.
Why can’t I find it, I know I can do it.
My favorite thing in the world…. So why?
Then why can’t I get up?

10 years of dance.
I love it, I love everything about it but…
Motivation
Missing, but essential if I want to improve.
And I do, I do want to improve.
I force myself.
Get up and practice, GET UP, GET UP!
I finally lift myself out of bed….
I feel weighed down… I can’t do it. Can I?
But I have to…. I have to.

I did a star
for my brand identity project last year.
And I presented
(rather eloquently)
on my stated reasons.
But most real reasons
remain hidden.

So here we go:
my name means star in Italian
my birthday is July 7th, or Tanabata
(look it up).
My school’s mascot
is a star.
I love looking at the stars.

But for the real reasons…
when I was younger I would wonder
how we can see the light.
How can the heart of a star
produce such power and glow yet only show up as a pinprick
of light in the endless dark deep sky?

Now I know.
There are too many stars in the sky
for a single one to shine that bright.

When I was younger I would wonder
how we can see the light.
How can the heart of a star
produce such power and glow yet only show up as a pinprick
of light in the endless dark deep sky?

Now I know.
Each star may seem insignificant from Earth but
each one has its own solar system.

And if that star were to be extinguished
so would everything around it.

And even though we might not notice that absence on Earth
the solar system would.

And the power and glow of each star is fully appreciated and needed
within its solar system.

And the power and glow
within the heart of each star
may only show as a pinprick of light on Earth
but each pinprick makes the world a little brighter
in the endless dark deep sky.