your vision, your voice
2017-18 Submissions
Dirt underneath my fingernails
Is better than the dirt on my body
Made by filthy hands
And all of their defiling.
I want to wash it clean.
It’ll never be enough
To scrub away the stain.
No innocence left untouched.
I want to make the world run red
Or even muted black and blue,
But even then I cannot run
Fast enough away from you.
LC Anderson High School
11
In the dimness you whispered
Your young life away
Begging, “please don’t leave me here”
But how can I stay and still remain human?
I see and so I feel
Is it hubris to think like this?
I call it truth; truth you do not know
Whose absence you feel
But cannot understand.]
The silence was your voice
Drifting, drifting, not all there
Drifting, drifting, disappeared.
LC Anderson High School
11
Murmuring flow of a stream
Lively roar of perfection
In the moon, a certain gleam
Crying in the reflection
Sweet, coiling tendrils of mist
Leading a path through the night
A blushing bloom will persist
Its only wish to glow bright
Twinkle against the dull sky
Brilliant splash of daydream
A quiet, whispered “Goodbye”
Murmuring flow of the stream
Ann Richards
9
Cruel words spilling out from inside
It’s okay to scorch the air
It’s better than choking internally
Burning your lungs with every repressed inhale.
Suffocating in detail.
What do you want me to hear?
What can I even say?
Of course it hurts.
But share with me your pain.
I want to melt all of your edges
And reshape the disarray.
My hands are too stained to clean up any mess.
If you want a savior you’d best find someone else.
I will paint with the colors of our madness
And find meaning that outlasts our faltering breaths.
LC Anderson High School
11
I am early morning school days
And late nights under yellow lights.
I am paper with blue lines running free.
And the starless night breeze.
I am misty eyes gazing out at skylines
Through glass
I am a shattered drinking cup
Tipped, falling, falling, crack.
Find traces of me in dusty books.
Worn pages, rolling verses, softened by overuse.
I am the moment after a good joke
And the bad ones, too.
Awkward.
LC Anderson High School
11
One day I will be free of the emotions that rattle me.
I want to be more than what flows overhead
The little that resolute thinking does
Is not enough to turn tissues into tougher stuff.
Gratefulness and guilt intertwine in my mind.
Unexplainable tears and irrational fears at the slightest provocation.
Why do happiness and hardship both
Inspire sadness?
It is easier to hate myself than you, undeserving
Yet, mostly unspoken, my thoughts occasionally arrive at shadowed destinations
With both of us their passenger.
I’m sorry, I say, unmovingly
And recede into unintention, stagnant and assuming.
If only I could strengthen my will would those restless waters still?
Or would I again be out of control, windless, breathless
Away from home, my destination still unknown?
Time too late, just wait.
I will grit my teeth and bear my imagined, brittle, inward burdens
When did first world problems became too heavy to hold?
The more I cling to my own wellbeing, the more unwell I feel.
I’ll give myself away instead and see what returns
Not everything, for sure, but things better shared than owned.
A peace for us all.
LC Anderson High School
11
I see ruin, I see mars
I see no better lands afar
Broken bottles and tin cans
Are not found on streets but in grasping hands.
The blight whispers to the city’s sands.
Shifting channels and tides of change
We, alone, still remain.
LC Anderson High School
11
I am trying my hardest to become more than who I am.
I’m doing it for you. Please try to understand.
The metamorphosis you hate
Is the change that puts food on your plate.
And the words that settle like frost
so cold
Are the words that have held you
as you grow old.
The hands that are rough try to be gentle for you
But I’m sorry if the transition isn’t always so smooth.
I know that you’re young.
But I’m still young, too.
And the fear that you feel
Is fear we both share.
The nights that you hate spending
alone
Are the nights that I’m working
to give you a home
And a tomorrow
That will love you as much as I do.
LC Anderson High School
11
Something we all have…
Some choose to deny it
Some choose to embrace it
Some are conquered by it
And some make it their everything to conquer it
We are consumed by it
Our biggest obstacle
No escaping, no hiding
But those who choose to vanquish this from their lives
Are the ones that succeed
But that is a feat of the greatest lengths
Even the greatest of people try this journey of astronomical proportions
And come back empty-handed
We have to break through
We have to realize it can’t hold us
So many people try to find a solution
But people have to understand, there is no formula
So many inspirations yet so many infections
There is no cure, to this virus that everyone has had since the beginning
It is what has made us the way we are, cautious, afraid, careful
People feel like they’re on the edge
People feel like their not good enough
People are trapped by their own thoughts
People are held back
It does that to everyone, no matter who you are
Fear
Walsh Middle School
6
I gaze into the darkness
Watching my step
Anything can happen in the darkness of trees
Waiting before me is what I have long lingered for
Hope
To much can end badly
But just enough
Can set me free
I reach out to g r a b it but nothing
Then I realize it has always just been me
Gorzycki Middle School
7