Category: age

Leanna Bai // ODE TO MY PIANO

I know that expressing my gratitude
is quite overdue.
You’ve been with me
before I knew what it means to live
completely and utterly passionately—
No.
You taught me.

You’ve been patient all this time
when I’d smashed your bright, shiny keys in frustration
when I’d played too hard and ripped the delicate plastic coverings
of your bright, shiny keys.
You’ve felt warm teardrops
drip onto the surface of your bright, shiny keys.

Even so,
as my fingers prance left and right
you give soul to the universe
and tell untellable stories.
When your voice is heard,
the mind explodes with a myriad of colors.

I know that I’ve worn you out all these years,
and I have to say your bench is quite uncomfortable
but I will not trade the bright, shiny keys
that taught me what it means to live.

Aylin Bruce // SEVEN-YEAR OLD

Surrounding me are the monsters
The ones that pinch my cheeks
That dig their nails in
Leaving stained crimson on my face
Oblivious to the hot flush of my embarrassment Masked with o​bnoxious​ grins
They pose the grim question:
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
After an unsettling pause
My tongue pierces the toxic air
“Everything.”
Discordant cackles suffocate me
Roaring louder and louder
Escalating like a symphony
Soon they resume their cryptic conversations
While I sit lonely and stare at my feet
Dangling above the floor
Wondering where Mommy is
Why do they think of me as a fool for my absence of grey hair When we can simply all dance together?
Your scorns
Will dwindle into ashes
For the future belongs to me

Hannah E. // FUNERALS

Funerals
I’ve decided
Are for the living.

When someone dies
They pass the pain in their life onto the people left behind.
And when you lose someone you love,
Every little task
Is energy draining
and life sucking.

It’s a war to think,
And a battle to feel.
And reality comes in little waves
And fully submerge you and you’ll drown.
And the harder you fight,
The harder it is to breathe and to think and to just
Be.

And then every little memory builds up until they all crash and  suddenly
There is a hole in the shape of them in your heart.
Your world goes colorless
All emotions and feelings are stripped from your everyday life.

The sound of their name
Rolling off of someone’s tongue
Puts a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes
but you smile,
And pretend everything is all right.
Because everything is.

You only grieve when there is nobody to see you at your most vulnerable,
To see you heave and shake
Until your knees buckle and everything blurs
And you have to focus on
In…. and out
In… and out
Because suddenly,
It has became in out in out in out and the room is shaking
And the world is spinning
And it hits you

Like the ground does when you walk down the stairs
Missing the last step,
That this was how they felt.
Because before you lost them,
They lost themselves.

And all of your unused love for them disintegrates into grief and hate
Hate for not doing anything when it crossed your mind
Hate for not reminding them that they were so loved
Hate
For not saving their life
Because you were too blind to see they were drowning.

Grief is the price we must all pay for love
We need to have both to truly appreciate love
And truly feel grief,
Because I think deep down
Grief is just expired love.

So we take all of our expired love,
Dress like death,
And prove that we will love again
With each shiny teardrop
That streams down our trembling cheeks
Every time someone we love falls
Like a leaf from on orange oak tree
On a brisk October morning.

Noelle Germanetto // HOME

Outside my childhood home
Is my backyard
That is full of memories
filled with Imagination,
Wonder.

In my backyard we could be anything,
Go anywhere.
It could be a kickball stadium,
A jungle,
Secret spy headquarters.
Anything we dreamed of
It was.

Every evening
Before it grew dark,
We would start a new journey
Of wonder.

Until The street lights
Turned on
And our parents
Called us home.

And we slowly transitioned back
To reality
Waiting to see where
Our imagination could take us next.

Mimansa B // THE BULLY

Every day go to school
Recess
Your least favorite time of the day
Go outside
No one around to play with

Look there’s that little boy
He seems cool
Go talk to him
Make friends
It’s not as hard as it seems
At least that’s what they say

But the truth is
Your heart tries to stop you
From making new friends
Because every time you let someone in
You find out what they’re all about

Yet you risk it
Slowly approaching him
Head down
One foot in front of another
Slowly

He smiles
You’re still afraid to lift your head
He offers his friendship
You take it
Then he takes you
To use

Said it was a game
But what game demands
Only your nose to bleed
Only your heart to pump
Only your chest to scream

Said you were ready for a fight
But the moment he comes in
Your hands play hide and seek
Disappearing behind you
Nowhere to be found
Let the fist meet your face
Do it because you endure the pain
Every time he curses your name
He wants the satisfaction
And you want him to suffer

There is no excuse for what he did
But he has felt inferior since he was a kid
Mother?
He does not know what that means Father?
He’s been drowning in bottles
Whose best friend is pain

And him?
You might think his best friend
Is the popular kid on the basketball
team Who wears shades
And shades everyone behind their
back
Right?

Wrong.
His best friend has been his tears
That put him to sleep every night
Instead of lullabies
His fear is not losing a game
But the belt that is held in his father’s hand
He still has proof in the form of scars
Which he gives you to vent out his frustration
To make you feel his insignificance
In this large world.

Peter McCallion // AYE SIR

Propped up against the wall
Waiting and holding on to the last grip of civilian life.
Our heads were shaved and that was when it set in,
We were now recruits.
The swamps of both the training grounds and the packed barracks was home.
I had entered what was supposed to be a barber shop
But what barber shop has only one option?
Three chairs were laid out,
Three barbers waited parallel to the chairs.
Hair covered the floor like leaves on autumn grass.
All 18 years prior erased away with the buzzing
Sting of the razor.
Drill Instructors barked orders,
Move move move!
The words bounced off the cold, gray slabbed walls.
Simple instructions now became complex orders.
I practiced in my head how to march
Lo right layo!
​I had hoped the earlier I started the faster we would march on the concrete parade deck
Filled with the footprints and stories of those before.
Soon we entered a room with grey plastic boxes stuck to the wall.
The boxes were rounded off on the edges
Stirps of plastic flakes were barley holding on the main box.
Before I knew it the box was opened and my hand on the phone that was inside.
We read off a laminated paper with instructions that sounded robotic.
I have arrived safely at Parris Island.

Darragh M. // COOKIE

The stinging smell of coffee beans surround us
We wait in line to pay

The chocolate chip cookie sits in it’s glass jar,
Untouched, full of sugary goodness.

I beg and plead, but my mother won’t budge

All I ask is for this one cookie.
It has been a hard day

This cookie is the holy grail
And my quest is to retrieve it
I want this cookie more than anything else at that moment.

But she doesn’t want to hear it.

A dark gloomy rain cloud appeared over my head,
Rain running down my face

Sohail Mohammed // WARM COLORS

I ask people to take in all the intoxicating smells
And hear the wind whistle like a flute
Or admire the satisfying colors that nature has painted

Hear the birds and squirrels, singing and playing
Leaves crunching beneath their feet

Feel their hearts listening in peace
And eyes satisfied with the beauty

Only to realize that the tree has no more life
Hearing the leaves crunch beneath their feet
Slowing deteriorating to nothingness.

Inviting the air that brings along a cold death
Slowly freezing all the lakes and ponds
Everything comes to an end

Anna F. Honohan // DESPERATION FOR YOUTH

Dying roses
Lose their vibrance
Petals fade
Red to brown
Smooth to shriveled
The girl picks off the
Roses dying petals
Hoping to remove any
Sense of its death
Greying hairs
Once full of color,
Now lose their vibrance
Brown to grey
Silky to coarse
The woman plucks off her
Dying hairs
Desperate to remove any
Sense of her death

Amanda Flashner // MISS YOU

September 2007
“Girls I need to talk to you”
“Okay dad”
“Your mom has been diagnosed with a carcinoma ”
“Ooh, cool! Is that like a superpower?”
“No, she is very sick, but will fight”
“Okay, can we go outside now?”

October 2007
My mom told me she would be losing her hair.
She was going to shave it off on Rosh Hashanah,
It means head of the year,
the Jewish new year.
My beautiful mother,
She is fighting for her life.

January 2010
Mom, do you have cancer?”
She looks startled,
I just figured out the secret.
“Yes, honey I do”
“Will you die?”
“I will do everything in my power not to”

November 2011
My mom just had major surgery.
The surgery was a success.
Her lifelong dream was to see giraffes.
For her birthday we are surprising her,
We are going to see giraffes.

August 31, 2012
Today is my 10th birthday
It is the last birthday I will have with her
She got me rollerblades and a card.
It’s a smiling ostrich

November 2012
I get a text
my mom has been admitted into the ICU
They need to operate immediately
She doesn’t know when she will be home.
The surgery is a failure,
She will never eat again.

December 19, 2012
She is still in the ICU
Today is her birthday,
she is turning 56
I write her a letter.
I don’t think she will remember it,
but it starts with
“you are the best person I have ever known,
Please keep fighting, I can’t lose you yet.”

January 2013
My mom is home again.
She is still dying, but maybe there is hope, right?
No.
The doctors sent her home to die.
24/7 nurse care, watching my mom be fed with IVs and tubes,
I don’t care, I can’t lose her.
I won’t.
I cry myself to sleep each night

She is still the light in my life,
she is still fighting,
for the 10-year-old daughters, she will never see graduate,
get a job,
live their lives.
I hope what she has is enough.
I hope she is proud.

February 25, 2013
6:00 pm a call comes.
Nobody will tell me what’s going on.
WHAT IS GOING ON?
She couldn’t have died yet… right?
The last thing I say as I walked out of the room is
“I love you, and I hope I see you again.”
What if I never see her again?
My dad walks in
He can’t be here.
If he’s here it means my world is ending.
“Girls, your mother passed away”
I let out a heart clenching scream that shakes the walls.
She’s gone and there is nothing I can do.
I fall asleep that night with tears running down my cheeks.
I am 10 years old and I just lost my mother
The one person who is supposed to be there for me.

My mother lived,
The first year,
The second year,
The third year,
The fourth year,

The fifth-year she died.
She is the best person I will ever know,
She was strong, beautiful, intelligent, and kind
She taught me how to be better in everything I do,
to love, and hope no matter how difficult.
I love her and always will.