Secret Questions

Can love shed light
In your darkest corners?

Can hope bring joy
To eyes haunted with death?

Can silence find the words
You don’t dare speak?

Can a scream
Inspire the world?

Can a floating lily
Hold up the world?

Can a moth find the courage
To resist the flame?

Can a secret question
Find an Answer?

Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders

6

Things to Remember

You might think
Light fights off the shadows
But it only conceals them

It might appear
That fire kills and destroys
But it gives warmth

You might fear
A place that isn’t heaven
But it is just a place
For people too hurt to love

You might assume
Your actions speak louder than words
But your words could change a world

You might wish
That everything is fine
While your world crumbles around you
But you have to love what is with you

Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders

6

Collision

Chasing daydreams
On golden wings
Through stars
And silver light

Bottling love
In crystal flasks
On a sunlit pier

River singing
Peaceful songs
And lilting melodies

Dew speckled blossoms
Blooming in
The blood red dawn

A haunting chorus
Silent and loud
In the golden dusk

Silver snowflakes
Crashing softly down
Clinging into icicles
Melting into hope

Lovely harmony
Crashing apart

Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders

6

Who I Am

Who is Sydnie?
Sydnie is annoying she’s way too dark
And well the whining we’ve had enough of that
That’s what I was identified as to many when I was younger
Now that Sydnie from years ago is very different
The whining she stopped that
The darkness she loves that
If you identified her now you’ll just know she does
that

Ann Richards School For Young Women Leaders

7th

Paradise

Paradise
What a flawed concept.
Perfect places
Do not exist
Utopia
is a falsehood
There will always be turmoil
and sadness
and despair.
Paradise
crams your mind
with imperfect perfection.
like air
inside the lungs.
dried streams
in a storm.
This concept
Of idealism
will never
exist
truly
like
dragons
or
hallucinations
or
good argyle.
Even universes
of our own creation
feel
isolated.
and
lonely
What a flawed concept.
Paradise.

Lamar Middle School

7

When Plate Tectonics Move

When Plate Tectonics Move
By Rachel Paiz

When plate tectonics drift apart
They leave behind a permanent scar
They eventually form as an ocean ridge
Which can lead up to a mountain bridge
That nobody knew would ever exist

Oh when plate tectonics converge as one
An earthquake has begun
In the earth’s surface
Present and in past
Isolating and diverging
Valleys start to form at last

From the deepest ocean trenches
To the highest mountain tops
There is a rising volcano that never stops

Beneath the earth
The rocky inner layer core rises up more
Like it never did before

Boundaries transform moving side by side
Eventually connect and glide

David Crockett High School

9th Grade

Jake’s House

Jake’s House

There was a man whose name was Jake
Who had a house upon the lake
Every morning he would wake
And for breakfast have a piece of cake

He had a private fishing hole;
He always used a long cane pole
He fried his fish on red hot coal
And served it in a great big bowl

For a pet, he had a cat

Wolcott High

12

Trail of Tears

A million tear drops to be found
Falling empty to the ground
Forced to leave the rivers, forest, freedom and their homes
And nature speaks thru them all alone
but makes no sound
Their steps are no where to be found
Oh their sadden souls
That nobody else would come to know
Just their lost shadows
Who knew would come to grow
Maybe their melodies would echo their goodbyes
But you can still hear their soulful cries

David Crockett High School

9th