Category: 2017-18 Submissions

My crazy cat loves to sleep
But most of all she loves to eat
She’s very calm and lazy at first
Until at night she likes to bite

She scratches all our furniture
She meows so loud it’s like a giant roar.
And then she goes to scratch the door
Then she meows even more.

Then there’s cat hair everywhere
Some over here and some over there
But we still love her and that’s a fact
Because she’s my one and only crazy cat.

When the sky is as blue as a blueberry,
As blue as the water,
It is the color of joy and peace.
But when it is grey,
It is the color of death and disappointment.

What does it mean when the sky is orange?
What does it mean when the sky is purple?
The color of the sky can always mean a bunch of things.

That is the joy of peacefulness
and the disappointment in the color sky.

When the wind blows, it comes to you and me.
When the wind touches me, it feels like a cool breeze on my skin.
The wind makes things move like a tornado and a hurricane, too.
The wind blows, and the whole world breaths it in like you and me.

The wind is dust and air, but it is still the air.
And when trees dance as the wind blows, it is the best gift on a hot sunny day.

It is the the cool breeze with everything we love put together to make the wind blow, blow, blow.
The wind might make a path like a stream or a river, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is
the wind blows to you and me.

---

Boone Elementary

4th

My brother, smart for a baby,
But what do you know?
He’s completely crazy.
Not a surprise,
He likes sports,
He even sprints across a basketball court.
Runs out the door, no stopping him now,
the only thing you can do is try to chase him down.
All he wants is candy,
All he wants is lollipops,
and if he gets none, he will throw a fit.

He screams at night when he doesn’t want to go to bed, and when that happens,
his face will turn completely red.
“Don’t cry. You have to go to bed,” my mom always said. My baby brother, free at last,
We all say, “You’re growing up so fast!”

---

Boone Elementary

4th

Dad
I´m sorry for eating
The Jason´s Deli mint
On your dresser

I said I didn´t
You know I did
It was back when
I was a little kid

I´m pretty sorry
Please forgive me
But it was
So cool
So minty
So fresh
Well then
I don’t regret it
I guess

---

Gorzycki Middle School

6

Night is a void of darkness
as pure as the universe itself.
No one can see in that void of darkness,
and all that is heard is the soothing
hoot of an owl.

That is the Night
as the clock strikes 12
all the windows go out
like a deep empty abyss of nothing.

That is the Night
While chasing the blazing sun
the night is
creeping over the Earth
inch by inch waiting for sunfall.

---

Boone Elementary

4th

Afraid.
That’s what I was
Afraid of the dark
Afraid of embarrassment

I was scared of everything
Disappointment
Loneliness
Nothing

I’ve changed
I’m still afraid,
but I’m better, braver
I won’t cower anymore

I have the bright side now
Proud parents
Friends
Everything

Brave

---

Gorzycki Middle School

6

I’ve always dreamt of finding a true love .
A boy whose heart in purest place ready
To join with mine that we may reign above.
We’d live it out as our love was steady.
He would be my fairytale; my charming
And daily swear to be forever mine.
But boys like this are often alarming.
Lies are spoken to impress – as they do.
Truth hides a greedy boy who doesn’t care,
Who plays the royal yet ‘perfect’ I see;
He takes his treasure then gets out of there.
Hopeless as it seems there is one for me.
Now it may not be a dashing mister,
But thank God I was given a sister!

---

Anderson High School

9th

Sometimes
Art says love is dead.
When it does
it’s right, by the way
Still
Cherry lipped, with pointed shoes
they parade their darlings
Past the doomsday preppers
Past the kaleidoscopic billboards
and into the frill
of flaxen light.
To them
It must mean something

---

Gonzalo Garza Independence High School

12th

to be woman
and white
is to have the middle of your sentence become the beginning of his

to be woman
and brown
is to have your skin only be considered after
his
after hers
it is to have a poem about you begin with a story that isn’t even yours

your body

subject of my sentences
let my feminism shine brighter
intersectional
representational

your name in my mouth
chew on it long enough to stain my teeth
brush it off when I decide it is no longer useful

and what could be whiter than that

---

Anderson

11