Category: permission

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

Cherry Blossoms sway
The cold wind spreads their sweet breath;
The sparrow flies North

---

Lamar Middle School

6

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

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

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

It was a dark night
I looked up; all the starts were gone
I was left in the woods
All lost and scared
There were so many open areas
I heard animals
Raccoons, snakes
They were everywhere
I felt I heard people
They were talking
So I ran the opposite way
I then found myself home

---

Mendez MS

7

As the Night-cat’s wings spread,
My feet heavy as lead,
The Night-cat whispers to the Moon-dog,
A tree crumbles into a rotten log,
The Night-cat’s eyes begin to glow,
Then her eyes stare at me with great sorrow,
I back away as she crosses a moon-lit petal,
Suddenly my legs turn to metal,
The Night-cat moaned a tear-jerking cry,
As the silver pond lilies started to die,
She then flew to me in a longing way,
And in a soothing, creamy, soft voice she began to say,
“We live among blossoms in bloom,
I am midnight and he is Moon,
you should not be here among the golden stars,
you should be down on Earth, with your murdering cars.
You are a people, many I can see.
You are sweet as cherry tea.
Leave now and you will see,
How beautiful life can be.”
I looked at her, and she looked at me,
They I saw the lifelong beauty,
meadows of green, and skies of blue,
It’s so amazing what one
Cat
Can
Do.

---

Lamar Middle School

6

A cat and butterfly
Make me cry
With happiness
They are hard to miss
Elegant and beautiful
They inspire the soul
Give me wings
Like we are kings!
Make my life more colorful
Not a damp lump of coal
They are my night and day
I am not to stray
I miss them now
I don’t know how
I let my cat and butterfly get away

---

Lamar Middle School

6

Foggy eyes, grabbing at a
Lack of glass
Only dark fuzziness in front of her

A window coated in 3 years worth of dust and dirt,
A thin sheet of water descending in front of her face,
A screen of a spring door
speckled with dead fly legs

The shards of her glasses
Pressing
Into her palm, her eyes left
Naked

Withering weeds caressing her ankles
The enraged wind licking her bare shoulders
The faint smell of distant roadkill assaulting her nose

An empty black sky, clinging to her fingertips
Her hands pressing through
endless layers of black brick walls

She could hear coyotes calling
cubs nearby, yet
Nothing was seen.

---

James Bowie High School

12