Softly, Softly

Softly, softly

That night, I shed three tears
For the neighbor’s boy.
The nail polish chipped the next day,
Deep red flakes scattered across the bed.

He was made up of doors like bricks.
Each one shattered as he shattered.
We sat together on the porch, his chest
Heaving, back against the splinters.

A black eye as your father shook hands
With my face. I heard the contract in his fist;
Stay away at all costs, in exchange for life.
Get that gay sh-t out of my sight. All for a kiss.

There’s something about our place,
Sun-warmed and smelling
Of Orange-Glo cleaner. Your hands,
Down my throat, could touch my soul.

Someday, we’ll clean the dread from the rug,
The tears from the cracks in the floor.
Maybe we’ll get married. Maybe we’ll be happy.
They’re lies both of us told, but neither could forgive.

I thought about what you had said,
The words in the glint in your eyes.
Write me farewell in the cigarette smoke.
I’ll sing it back, softly, softly.

burning giraffe

Deep in the jungle
There was a big rumble
A mythic creature appears
Very hairy neck
Great lengthy legs
I can smell the smoke in the air
What could it be
Something from hell
A burning giraffe appears
I ring the bell in surender
Such a scary thing
Whipping his neck
Burning everything in sight
From across the ocean
A tsunami starts to form
Coming out of the water
Emerges a frost monkey
The air cools to frost
20 feet tall and frozen inside
As he marches across the water it turns to ice
The giraffe pretends to be brave
But we all know he’s not
You smell the beef in the air
The giraffe can win but at what price
As a war breaks out
The frost monkey gets burnt out
In the distance I see a great big wave
The afghan tiger arrives to make both of them his slave
He is way too mighty
And way too clean
It’s crazy to think that he’s still a teen
He is him
Severing these animal up I thought it was a cuisine
Little did I know afghan tiger worked for the man
The man’s so strong
He lives in the gym
He’s some gloomy
The rumor going around is he kills these beast for fun
He’s so evil
I hate him so much
He sends his men after me
l know I’ll die
So i’m going say bye bye

Dear Mother

My life is an erupting volcano,
hot and fiery and scorching to the touch.
Maddening arguments that burn myself and others.
Lava flowing so fast I can’t slow down and see it.
Smoke clouding my eyes and unraveling before me.
Erupting whenever I see the woman that is called mother.
A fierce and fiery look in her eyes makes me tremble.
Fireballs of words hurled at each other.
The aftermath is just lonely black dust.
Dust covering my face and choking me.
Standing in the stillness before the next eruption.

Depression

Depression.

Depression is the thing staring down on you from above.
Never blink.
Like a never-ending staring contest with your mind.

Watching, Waiting for the right time.
Filling you up with anxiety and sadness.

A locked door.
The only way to unlock it is the key.
The key to the light outside the darkened room.

The room that stands alone.
Trapping souls one by one.
Until they disappear.

By one snap of your fingers.
It all goes away.

Gone
Gone
Gone

Life Hurts

Life hurts

I waved my hand
Picking up a long-handled shovel,
I turned back. There was no blood on it,
And it looked harmless enough laying there all clean and bright.
Burying my face in the iron-grey hair,
I cried and begged god
Not to let my grandfather die.
I had the Frisco Railroad on my left,
And the Illinois river on my left.
On one occasion I found
A beautiful knife stuck in the bark of a sycamore tree, forgotten by a careless fisherman.
The cut grew so big I could’ve laid down on it.
I couldn’t wait any longer.

Says Who?

The qualifications of the judges always comes to mind in any competition, and incredibly so in a field like poetry. There are lofty contests with scholarly judges in universities around the world, and perhaps some of the students who shared with us here will go on to participate in that sort of excellence. But who is there to see a grade-school poem for what it is, here? Who can judge the emerging artistry of now?

The first part of that answer is not a who, but a where: Austin Community College. With the imagination of Dean Mathew Daude-Laurents, ACC runs a variety of Vision+Voice competitions meant to showcase the wonder and necessity of subjects that require more creative and critical thought. The K-12 competition celebrates where that thought grows from, and the importance of early education.

This competition has seen a variety of judges throughout its cycles, but all share a similar appreciation and a connection to ACC. The 2022 cycle brought a unique mix of perspectives and experience. So who are they? In their own words:

W. Joe Hoppe taught Creative Writing and English at ACC from 1996-2020. He has a Master’s Degree in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from UT and was a post-graduate Michener Fellow. His poetry has appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies, and he has two full-length poetry books: Galvanized (2007, Dalton Publishing), and Diamond Plate (2012, Obsolete Publishing). His newest collection of poems is Hotrod Golgotha (2020, Obsolete Publishing). Joe has served as a Vision+Voice judge since it began in 2013.

Christina Brunson is a single mom; grandmother; sister to sixteen siblings; friend; multi-passionate entrepreneur; writer for a local news magazine; poet; ghostwriter; advocate for people and the arts; and a Creative Writing major. She’s one who challenges those who say she can’t do whatever she’s capable of. Simply put, she’s unapologetically vivacious and unstoppable.

Juniper Maldonado is a writer and poet who found their passion for literature as a student at ACC. They have since had work featured in the Rio Review and acted as co-editor for the Spring 2022 issue. They are currently busy hosting poetry readings and interning at ACC in support of the Creative Writing Program. 

Ysella Fulton Slavin is the Outreach Coordinator for LHAC and is an adjunct professor for ACC Composition and Literary Studies. For over 20 years, she taught Literature and Creative Writing at El Paso Community College, was faculty sponsor for the award winning literary journal Chrysalis, and founder of EPCC’s Community Literary Center PaPaGaYo. She has an MFA from American University and her work has been published in numerous literary journals such as Folio, The Juggler, American Literary, BorderSenses among others. She is also the author of the novel Pomegranate published by Stanley Publishing and is currently working on its sequel Rosemary and Cilantro.

Both Juniper Maldonado and Christina Brunson were students at ACC during the course of the contest, both familiar and passionate about poetry and still in close contact with a student’s mindset. Similarly, Joe Hoppe and Ysella Fulton-Slavin’s experience as educators kept a sense of focus on the author’s point of view throughout the judging process. Vision+Voice is committed to continuing the trend to strengthen and foster the growing writing community.

Hospitals

I am starting to remember how
The hospital lived inside of me.
and despite the anesthesia telling me
that this was peaceful solitude
My mind was never at peace
Falling through those god-forsaken words,
You will be okay.

I would hear about sick children
On the news
With bold, red text highlighting their disease.
But this time?
It happened to me.

The sharp air only ripples
A little bit, when someone screams
From down the hall.

And everything is plain. White. Serene.

For a time, there was a boy lying almost dead
In a torn hospital bed adjacent to mine.
I could hear his thoughts sometimes
Whirring in his mind like a sad tune
Everything echoing off of the nauseatingly bright
white walls.

I asked him one day
To stitch his skin
Into mine
To share our flesh.

No
the doctor says
That boy is dead.
Heart failure, she said.

I slowly turn my head.
Syringes scattered across the floor
Beads of dark blood oozing from the needle.
His skin, slowly turning into
A pale rag, a damp sickly rag
That someday, nurses will hold
And think nothing of.

I wake up the next morning
With anxiety medication
Coursing through my body.
Through my brain.

Is it over? I want it to stop. I want everything to stop.
I’d pray to God to leave this place.
But I know I have wished far too late.

Don’t Say Goodbye

We sit right next to each other, the same position as when we first met,
Me on the right, them on the left just like in that science class in 7th grade.
Or in your room, the bed with the blue blanket, and the small desk
your dog that almost grew to like me.
Or my old room, the desk against the windows,
the afternoon sun shining onto my wall from the crack in my curtain.
The two of us together again, in the starbucks, in the tech theater class we did nothing in.

Despite your tip I still haven’t started exercising.
I instead stare at the wall, and think of you in a dark room you’ve never seen.
My desk, and bed are now in a different room, different layout, different feel.
I sometimes look over at you, and for a second I’ll be excited to see you
a remnant of my optimism wanting to cling to you.

I’ve come to realize that we weren’t attracted to each other
a realization I’m sure came to you first. You were always better at understanding social cues.
Funny how we acted like we had anything figured out in 8th grade.
A mix of middle school hubris, and the curiosity of what intimacy is like.
our bodies becoming a screen to imagine another, taking roles we barely understood.
The only thing we gained was bragging rights, and the things we lost I’m only now learning.

Sitting next to each other again, a familiar stranger.

A Lollipop To Feel Better

Why have we been wronged?
We live in a society that takes
and takes
and takes.
I want to be given the rights I deserve,
So many wins and loses.
So many changes.

My life of 16 years has lead to this passing moment,
the seconds pass by,
so easily forgotten.
Only some are burned into my memory.
They pop up as frequently as a passing breeze,
There one moment,
gone the next.

When I was younger,
I moved around to different states,
different countries,
different continents.
I have seen cultures that have prospered,
and some that are ruined.
Each one forging a new perspective of my world.

Let me escape with the rest of the luck I have.
With words,
With letters,
From some random language.
My mind is constantly consumed
by worlds that will never exist
With people that were never real.

I cry for my game,
I feel so deeply for a thing that I run for,
bleed for,
hurt for.
I despise everything that makes me feel like this,
But I play to feel some triumph
In life, in my mind.

Noises constantly in the background,
Songs,
Voices,
Music.
I love every word spoken that tells me
‘I understand you’
In a million different ways.

My society rips away anything I could hold close,
No empathy,
No sorry’s,
They give me a lollipop,
Say ‘A band-aid can fix it!’
As I sit in my grief with no other hope of escaping.
I understand the world and everything it takes.