Vision+Voice

Is resilient
Is tough
Cosmic collisions can get to Earth
But Earth is resilient
And

A place full of laughter
A place full of fun
Where people and animals live in unison
Until

We use the earth
And find all its secrets
And destroy the beautiful gifts it has given us
Until

We change
We save the earth
We preserve its beauty
Until

All is the same as it was before

It started with the doubt that gnawed in my mind to the core
then the searing self loathing leaving my soul in ashes
But it was the loneliness that enabled the
shears to snip strings to shreds

It sounds like your voice
tangled in my thoughts
The shadow of your arms
wrapped around my waist
It sounds like the tug of a smirk when you whisper
into my neck and me into yours
the feel of your fingers makes shudder
a look at your lips and my heart flutters
The way we’d lean into each other

After all we never went through

---

Ann Richards

9

Have you ever just wanted
To let go to not be here
That the feeling you have
Makes you feel miserable and not loved
That the thing you want
Could be deadly but you hold back

That feeling that you’re hated
Nor loved but also abandoned by everyone
You feel like it’s over
You imagined a world without you there
You think they will be happy
Because you know it’s a way out

In the end it’s truly
Extremely sad when it comes to that
Point in your life when
When you have made the choice to
End it all for yourself
Because you know that suicide’s right there

Postscript from DaneS’s mom:

He wrote it for all the people who feel bad but don’t have a voice to share. He did not write it about how he feels.

Perhaps his poem will spur conversation and let some child know there are others who struggle like they do and reach out.”

---

Murchison

8

“It never happened”

The words are burnt onto my tongue
Its burn, a constant reminder of the truth.
An ache in your chest, a stinging in the eyes,
the flashbacks proof of fact and lies.

I hear sirens blare its sound throughout the hall,
yet I know they’re not there to save me.

The end is near, I fear, but with a final push,
I jump up, racing, the stairs growing nearer as sweat and tears blind me.

The resolution, I gather, will come as long as I don’t listen to those who yell,
“It never happened”

---

Ann Richards

9th

In the bureau in my room

A stack of drawers sit atop one another

Filled Up With

Clothes

Clothes

Clothes

 

Each drawer is likewise to the first

Except the last

The last drawer on the right is

Lessons

Laughter

Pictures

Memories

Junk

Love

Overflowing with

 

All the adolescent mess that make me, me

All the funny times

All the lessons learned

All packed into

The last drawer on the right

 

---

Gorzycki

7

Tears stream down the unconscious child’s cheeks,
as her hair,
matted with dried blood,
flows gently in the harsh winter air.

Her mother’s arms,
loosely wrapped around the girl’s small frame,
are shaking with fear.

Fear,
not for the innocence bleeding in her hands,
but for herself,
and her own clear conscience.

The destination grows nearer,
as does the child’s safety.

When,
at last,
the mother walks in.

Hesitantly,
she hands the child,
her own flesh and blood,
blood that is now stained onto her hands, clothing, wall,
to a nurse.

The events that follow are vague,
as is what had occurred before.

Still, the truth is hidden in the family,
whispers and glances prove to be evidence,
and tears,
fact through the fiction.

All that is known will be revealed through time,
but, until then,
the child shall live her life without thoughts of her past.
Without the torment of not knowing the truth.

Blissfully unaware.

---

Ann Richards

9th

“Family” is old oak with long branches —
That stretch across many places —
And will crumble when one breaks —
And will continue to grow — and never stop —
And family — is everywhere — all around you —
And the pain must be in the breakage —
That could rip apart the family
That kept so many of us connected —
I’ve heard it in the earliest of day —
And the great dead of night —
Family is always around you,
just like old oaks and fresh pines.

---

St. Mark Lutheran School

8th Grade

Ocean Love
I walked out into the ocean
Felt the water rising past my ankles, my hips, my chest.
Wave after wave
Furiously beating down
On my back
The salt water stings
But I open my mouth and tell her,
(the ocean)
tales of you anyway.
And after I have finished confessing
The salt in her body turns to sugar

---

Anderson High School

10th