Category: 2017-18 Submissions

Love
love is the thing in the sky
that is always going by

when you try and catch it
you end up down on your knees
like you were stung by a million bees

love
love is the thing in the sky
even after you die

so don’t give up no matter what comes by

We come from salty waters and the buzzing of bees
We come from sandy hands and scraped knees
Fresh fruit that melts on your tongue
Climbing the trees where it once had hung
Earth underneath our fingernails
Hair blowing beneath mighty sails

I was blossomed from the beauty of the tides
I can see it in the reflection of my father’s eyes
Warm as the sun and blue as the sea
I can see the home where my ancestors used to be
And when he speaks of the ocean I find myself falling in love
Warm waves, thick air, sun shining from above

Palermo gently calls my name
I know my father feels the same

Yet when I ask why my family left, I watch his eyes go dim
I suppose the American Dream has died along with a little part of him

---

L.C Anderson High School

11th

I am from rattling toy trains
From television cartoons
And rainy dark days

I am from old rickety wall to wall homes

I am from joystick games
from flickering light bulbs
and common power loss

I am from deer hopping through the neighborhood and rolling grass fields

I am from climbing trees
and catching frogs
Vicky and Rodney

I am from fast food joints

I am from void of space and Earth’s core

I’m from zeppelins and cars

From lumbering cruise ships

From the now non existent Czechoslovakia
I am from the pages of a history torn out like an unwanted shirt

 

---

Gorzycki Middle School

6

When I could roam the city, the tracks would take me
Down to the stash house
With the rusted tin hinged on its edging
The radiation warded my rougery
So I always found another way around
Only till a party would flank me could I muster my strength
We dressed in the grounds’ gray mud,
Slipped soundlessly beneath the stakes,
And left no monument undocumented
Seconds and minutes passed
The spores ignited our hearts and our brains
I forged a blunt weapon in the fire of my blitz
Bashing the chamber, more and more!
Anything inside could be mine, would be
Erupted by the clash of cold metal colliding with my molten arm
And just like that, we split
Panicked scratch of a hurried drag out the compound
My divided party stood against the keeper of this place
Waned, I exhaled its sick air

---

Austin High

11

My Family is a Tree

My family is a tree with branches holding up the leaves of our relationship

My dad is the trunk of the tree strong and sturdy but even the trunk can fall at some times

My mom is the spring and summer leaves bright, stunning and, beautiful

My brother is the chipmunk of the tree digging into everyone’s business

My grandparents are the roots, making us all who we are

My stepmoms are the apples of the tree coming in and they turn out to be sweet

And I’m the leaves, connected to everyone in some sort of way

---

Gorzycki

6

The Pool

I love the pool, water so clear, so cool, the bubbles as far as the eye can see. That is really where I’m meant to be. If I had a wish I would be a fish. Swimming on forever, and my school, would be the people at the pool.

---

Diane Gorzycki Middle School

6th

I have recorded something
Over your recording
On TV.

And you were
Probably wanting
to watch it.

Forgive me,
Bear Grylls is
More entertaining
Than golf

---

Gorzycki

6

Will you be there?

When I was five and you thought I had cooties

I wondered if you would still want to be friends.

When we started middle school and you started having feeling for girls

I wondered if you would still stand by my side or leave for the first girl that walked by.

Will you be there when we go to high school and I grow into my body?

Will you notice me?

Those little hints I threw at you,

Will you follow the trail,

Or go towards someone else’s gingerbread house?

Even when you have fallen for me I wonder if you will stay.

Will you be there once we get married

Or do I not give you enough?

Will you still be there even when you have seen me at my worst?

Will you pity me?

Will you be scared of me?

What will you do when I am at my lowest point?

Will I be too much to handle?

Will you comfort me?

What about when we have spent years married together?

Will you wake up one day and decide you don’t want me anymore?

Instead of reassuring me of my insecurities,

Will you find the constant need for approval annoying?

Will you see the stretch marks trailing down my arms and legs,

And see them as the ugly scars reminding you of how fat I was?

Will you look at me and just see a stranger lying in your bed?

Will you walk to the bathroom,

Stare back at me through the mirror,

And decide…

You don’t love me anymore.

And you never knew if you did.

Will you?

---

L.C. Anderson High School

9th

I guess it’s karma
For all the nights I would purposefully keep myself awake
My own form of self-suffering
Of self-destruction
It was how I kept control
Taking away the one thing I thought I always had
Sleep

Now that’s what I can no longer do
I rest hour by hour
Minutes by minute
Nothing to nothing
All it does is make the dark circles under my eyes grow
They start shaping from color to formations
Now they’re bags
Insomniac or no

But in the end I’ll forever be a believer in the Art of Self-Destruction

---

L.C. Anderson High School

9th