2024 Ralph Munn Creative Writing Anthology

2024
Ralph Munn
Creative Writing
Anthology

2024
Ralph Munn
Creative Writing
Anthology

© 2024 Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
All rights revert to the individual authors.
Printed and bound in the United States.
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2024
Ralph Munn
Creative Writing
Anthology
Committee Chair
Sienna Cittadino, CLP – Allegheny
Committee Co-Chair
Lauren Zabelsky, Office of Programmatic Services
Editorial Committee
Tyler Burkhart, CLP – Allegheny
Mary Lowman, CLP – West End
Thomas Ndiaye, CLP – Main
Sean Roulier, CLP – Brookline
Cynthia Zelmore, CLP – Southside
Matt Zeoli, CLP - Main
Book Design
Justin Visnesky, CLP – Main,
Communications & Creative Services
Copyediting
Adrienne Jouver
Cover Illustration
Nera Akiva

TABLE OF CONTENTS
About the Contest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Editor’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Judges’ Biographies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Short Prose
1st place
“My Halmoni’s Miyeok-Guk: The Language of Love”
by Hyunsoo Kim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2nd place
“E Jomi Tomar O Amar (The Land is Yours and Mines)”
by Hritika Basu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
“Stamped: What a Trail Remembers” by Hannah Hammons . . . . 29
“Fortune Cookie” by Natalie Augustine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
“Isobel” by Basil Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
“Brother, Son, Human” by Dylan Reddy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
“The Legend of the Icelandic Sea” by Isabella Cheatham . . . . . 49
“Intimacy Between Eyes” by Maryam Sadullaeva . . . . . . . . . 53
“Brown Boy” by Elena Maria Silva . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
“One Night Only” by Aniyah Wilson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
“When Honor Dies” by Silas Conner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
“O.C.D.- Of Comforting Dichotomy”* by Eden Leskovac . . . . . 73
“The Black Jeep” by Elizabeth Yost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
“The Flower and The Moon: Blooming in the Dark”
by NieZhay Jefferson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
“How to Befriend a Crow” by Sophia Whitman . . . . . . . . . . 89
“It’s Raining Tonight” by Alonah M. Darwin-Jackson. . . . . . . . 95
“Flaws” by Alonah M. Darwin-Jackson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
*Trigger warning
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Poetry
1st place
“The War Factory” by Luke DeMaria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
2nd place
“When I Grow Up” by Linda Kong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
“Aren’t We All Fishing For Something” by Linda Kong . . . . . . . 107
“There Is An Ache” by Veronica Betta. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
“Dear Dad” by Lucy Potts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
“My Mama Told Me” by Elena Maria Silva . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
“Bristlecone” by Hannah Hammons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
“Ascendant” by Nickolaus Colbert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
“Waiting Room” by Caroline Praveen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121
“Like You Would Know” by Jack Miller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
“June Way” by Quincy Sauter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
“Diary of An Idiot Ghost” by Torri Zanella . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
“Winter Woe” by Raz Kraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
“My Sister’s Champagne Will Still Taste Better”
by Lilly Kwiecinski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
“Puppet” by Emi Nueur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
“The Man That Built Me” by Joseph Szyjko . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
“Blank Paper Never Tasted So Bitter” by Lilly Kwiecinski . . . . . 139
“Obsession” by Karin McCray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
“Ode To My Childhood Home” by Eva Lutz . . . . . . . . . . . 143
“The Mirror” by Lilly Larkin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
“The Cat Cemetary” by Bella Minyo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
“Koch’s Snowflake” by Ivy Wegner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
“Engraved” by Micaela Domingo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
“Outside My Universe, The Umbrella” by Ashley Jang . . . . . . 157
“Pearly-White” by Em Dollahon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
“Skin” by Chantel Blye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
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ABOUT THE RALPH MUNN CREATIVE WRITING CONTEST
Born in 1894, Ralph Munn started his library career
as a reference librarian in Seattle in 1921, became
Flint Public Library’s Librarian in 1926 and then on to
the Directorship of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
in 1928 until 1964. During that time, he held the
positions of Director and Dean of the library school
at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now
Carnegie Mellon University, until it became part of
the University of Pittsburgh in 1962. An endowment
fund created to honor his legacy now provides
support for creative writing opportunities for young
adults through the Library.
Thanks to research by Sheila Jackson and the
Development Office, we know that the original use
of this endowment, contributed by friends of Ralph
Munn, began in the 1960s for a lecture series on
librarianship and transitioned to use for creative
writing workshops in the 1970s, under supervision of
the Carnegie Institute, which oversaw the fund. After
a hiatus in the 1990s the contest was revived in 2007
with additional help from other bequests. Library
staff and volunteers led workshops and formed an
editorial board to judge entries to the contest and find
professional writers to choose contest winners. In the
first year, the contest took off, receiving nearly 300
entries, and it has not stopped being a popular and
anticipated part of Teen Services.
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Since the creative writing contest joined forces with
the Labsy awards under the Teen Media Awards
banner, it continues to evolve as a way for Allegheny
county teens to be acknowledged, published, and
awarded for their work and creativity. The libraries
in the county are proud to support this creative work
and provide spaces, mentors, and resources toward
that end.
Tessa Barber
Chair, Ralph Munn Creative Writing Committee
(2015-2016)
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EDITOR’S NOTE
It has been a true pleasure returning to the world
of Ralph Munn, after several years away. I am
impressed, grateful, and proud of the work that the
writers contributed to this year’s anthology. I offer
a huge thanks to all the teens who submitted their
writing to the contest. Sharing your work is a brave
and meaningful action that serves you and your
community. So, thank you!
I’d also like to thank all of the Carnegie Library staff
who worked on the Ralph Munn reading team this
year. Your openness to the submitted pieces and your
dedication to honest critique were invaluable. You all
do wonderful work in the lives of youth.
A big thanks to our judges, Gaia Rajan and Kit Frick.
Your expertise and insights are vital.
Many thanks as well to the Carnegie Library staff
who helped make the contest function and helped
to produce the anthology. This includes many staff
from the Office of Programmatic Services, Creative
Services, and more. A big thanks also to Adrienne,
our faithful copyeditor.
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Far from last is my thanks to all the caring adults who
supported these writers. It would be hard to overstate
the impact your time has. Whether you are family
members, educators, or mentors: thank you.
I hope you enjoy reading this year’s entries.
Sincerely,
Sienna Cittadino
Ralph Munn Committee Chair
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JUDGES’ BIOGRAPHIES
Prose
Kit Frick
Kit Frick is a MacDowell fellow and ITW Thriller
Award finalist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She
studied creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College
and received her MFA from Syracuse University. She
is the author of multiple thrillers including, for young
adults, Before We Were Sorry (originally published
as See All the Stars), All Eyes on Us, I Killed Zoe
Spanos, Very Bad People, and The Reunion, and for
adults, The Split. She is also the author of the poetry
collection A Small Rising Up in the Lungs. Kit loves a
good mystery but has only ever killed her characters.
Honest. Visit Kit online at KitFrick.com and on
Instagram @KitFrick.
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Poetry
Gaia Rajan
Gaia Rajan is the author of the chapbooks Moth
Funerals (Glass Poetry Press 2020) and Killing It
(Black Lawrence Press 2022). Their work is published
or forthcoming in Best New Poets, the Best of the Net
anthology, The Kenyon Review, THRUSH, Split Lip
Magazine, and elsewhere. They are a Kettle Pond
Writers fellow, Copper Canyon Press intern, and
reader for Poetry Northwest. They live in Pittsburgh
and online at @gaiarajan on Twitter or Instagram.
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Short
Prose
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1st place
“My Halmoni’s
Miyeok-Guk:
The Language of Love”
Hyunsoo Kim
2nd place
“E Jomi Tomar O Amar
(The Land is Yours
and Mines)”
Hritika Basu
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14 Short Prose

Hyunsoo Kim
Winchester Thurston High School
Grade 9
My Halmoni’s Miyeok-Guk:
The Language of Love
“Food is symbolic of love when words are inadequate.” - Alan D. Wolfelt
I, like the African spur-thighed tortoise, will live for more than one hundred
years. Or, at least that’s what my dad told me whenever I acquiesced to
eating miyeok-guk, a traditional Korean soup mostly comprised of miyeok
(seaweed). My family and I were sitting at my halmoni’s (grandmother) dining
table during our annual visit to Seoul, next to her collection of perfectly
polished, sparkling Swarovski animal figurines and our blotchy childhood
crayon drawings stuck onto the steel fridge. After another routine dinner
of my grandparents’ playful bickering and scooping more—and more and
more—and still more food onto our plates, my halmoni suspiciously eyed
a mound of the dense, mossy-green sea vegetable pushed up against the
curve of my bowl, as far away as possible from the parts of my meal that I
actually found appetizing.
In a stealthy attempt to convince me to eat, my dad told me that seaweed
was the key to the problem most likely to haunt a little six-year-old
girl: how to evade the cold, inevitable grip of death, obviously. My halmoni,
slightly more tactful in her approach, claimed that the reason for the century-long
lifespan of tortoises was their affinity for the squishy algae sitting
untouched in front of me. Near immortality is extremely tempting, especially
to a kid who’s barely lived any life yet, so, naturally, I wolfed down the
rich broth with its swollen grains of white rice and slippery green seaweed
in hopes that it would grant me a long life. Unfortunately, in the years since,
I have come to terms with the cold, hard fact that my halmoni’s miyeok-guk
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will not magically give me the lifespan of a tortoise. In turn, I have begun
to appreciate the humble soup for the story it tells: one that came ages
before my halmoni and will end long after I am gone. My family history is
chopped, stirred, and set at a low simmer in every pot of our miyeok-guk.
My halmoni’s miyeok-guk is one of the most delicious symbols of my
proud Korean heritage. Since the time of the Goryeo Dynasty, Miyeok-guk
has been traditionally eaten by women who have just given birth, as a part
of the healing process. The practice of Korean women eating their mother’s
home-cooked miyeok-guk after childbirth has held fast for generations.
My halmoni was given miyeok-guk when my mother was born, and, thirty
years later, she cooked the soup for my mother the day I first graced everyone
with my ethereal presence. The day my cousin was born, I watched my
halmoni lug a large aluminum pot of the revitalizing, near-magical soup to
the hospital, like many others filling the bleak, sterile white hallways with
the enveloping, comforting aroma of home. When miyeok-guk is served
for dinner, neither my mother nor my halmoni can resist talking about the
day they’ll be making it for me. They will be waiting for a while, but I’m
looking forward to one day eating a warm, savory bowl of cultural history
on behalf of a baby that can’t chew yet, just like all the women in my family
did before me.
Koreans also eat miyeok-guk on their birthdays to honor their mothers
who also drank the rich broth the day they brought their children into
the world. In Korean households, it is common to wake up to the smell
of seaweed and garlic making its way through the house on your birthday.
Miyeok-guk is nearly the equivalent of the American birthday cake, but,
unlike the average birthday cake, you can eat as much miyeok-guk as you
like, and you’re still—technically—not spoiling your dinner.
The history in a pot of miyeok-guk is more than the history of my family—it’s
the history of Korea. Each spice, sizzle, and slurp tell the story of
a Korean’s diligent efforts. Thin sheets of seaweed floating in broth reveal
how Korean American immigrants worked to embrace and preserve their
culture well enough that, decades after they first arrived, I can access most
Korean ingredients that are foreign to the American palate right here in
my city. My miyeok-guk and I sit somewhere in the middle of an unending
timeline of the accomplishments and hopes of the Korean people.
The first ingredient used to make my halmoni’s prized miyeok-guk is
240g of Hanwoo beef chuck. The beef is stir-fried, then added to the pot
of steaming broth. The Hanwoo is a breed of cattle that has been native
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to the Korean peninsula for over two millennia. They were originally used
to pull equipment in rice farming, but they were consumed by all, rich or
poor, after the expansion of the economy in the 1960s following the brutal
Korean War that nearly demolished the nation. However, after enticing
people beyond Korean borders, Hanwoo beef is now a premium product
with international acclaim. Today, the unique taste of Hanwoo encapsulates
memories of all the special occasions I have celebrated in closeness
with my family.
After the beef, 30g of dehydrated seaweed is added to the pot. Since seaweed
is sold as a dried product, it must be soaked in a bowl of warm water
until it’s tender before it is tossed into the pot. Honestly, I have no idea
why it can’t just soak in the broth, but the look my halmoni gave me when
I suggested this sacrilegious amendment quickly tempered my curiosity.
It was not easy getting my American friends to try seaweed growing
up. They stuck to their goldfish crackers and sandwich cookies while I
crunched my way through packets of flaky dried algae. However, many
Americans seem to now embrace this foreign food. With seaweed breaking
into international culture as an exotic new trend, it’s common to find new
flavors and seasonings for seaweed—from boba tea to kimchi— at most
grocery stores. And, I promise, I will be patient with them when they eventually
find out that nori is not the Korean word for seaweed.
After the beef and seaweed, add two short shots of soup soy sauce to
your boiling pot. Believe it or not, some Ancient Chinese records suggest
that soy sauce actually originated from Korea in the Koguryo Dynasty, rather
than from China itself. Like most of the traditional Korean diet, soy
sauce not only adds flavor to dishes but also has a surprising variety of
health benefits, such as the inhibition of cancer and diabetes. Soy sauce
tastes like winning.
After the soy sauce, add one spoonful of sesame oil before adding a quart
of water. When my nose picks up the familiar nutty aroma of sesame oil,
I’m always reminded of my halmoni. Every summer, while we’re visiting her
house, she leaves the apartment at dawn to return hours later with fresh
sesame oil made by her friends. This oil isn’t like the mass-produced bottles
of sesame oil you get at Asian supermarkets around the globe. My halmoni
has a store of reused plastic water bottles to hold it, and she carefully wraps
them in old newspapers secured by red rubber bands, so they don’t leak on
the fifteen-hour flight back to America. The smell of fresh sesame seeds fills
the room with vibrant memories of my halmoni’s powdery floral perfume
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and her familiar dialect, spoken in the deep countryside of Korea.
Miyeok-guk talks to me, and it has a lot to say. A humble bowl of warm
broth, rice, beef, and seaweed whispers stories of my heritage, stories that
are at once unique and universal. As a Korean American, I’ve had the opportunity
to interact with people who only speak Korean, speak more Korean
than me, less Korean than me, or no Korean at all, but one thing they all
understand is miyeok-guk. Sharing miyeok-guk cracks open the language
barrier, making room for stories of the animals and plants in Korea, the
traditions we practice, and the nourishment provided by every culinary dish
we have enjoyed over centuries of struggle and success. Miyeok-guk, with its
genuine, unmistakable language, has told me stories for years, just like my
halmoni, and I know that both of them have hardly scratched the surface.
Miyeok-guk is a language my halmoni often uses to speak to me. I don’t
have sense memories to go along with the fables that my halmoni weaves
as I follow her around her little kitchen. However, if I pair her childhood
stories with the soundtrack of a piping hot bowl of her miyeok-guk, the
picture becomes slightly less fuzzy. During the ten months every year that
I’m away from Korea and my halmoni’s familiar cooking, I often find myself
wishing to go back to her little apartment in our neighborhood of
Masan. But if I close my eyes over a steaming bowl of miyeok-guk, I’m as
good as in Korea.
My halmoni’s love language is cooking for her family. She wakes up
before anyone else in the house to prepare quality food for us. My halmoni
comes back from the supermarket with several bags on each arm filled
with the best ingredients, products that she specifically picked out for her
beloved American grandchildren. She dices, simmers, and stirs the ingredients
with care while humming the melody to her favorite song (which,
surprisingly, is the American classic “Take Me Home, Country Roads”). Her
cooking tells us that we are loved with every waft of garlic and gochujang
that makes its way through each room in the apartment. She whispers saranghae
with every antioxidant and protein.
I’m sure it wasn’t easy for my halmoni to grow up in Korea, a very conservative
and patriarchal country that often limits women’s roles to the
home. It’s mind-blowing to think about what my halmoni endured because
she has X chromosomes. Her brothers were fed rice, while the women in
the family were given a mix of barley and other grains as a substitute. My
great-halmoni even broke my halmoni’s leg when she was in sixth grade because
she refused to do the housework. Korean women across generations
18 Short Prose

have been burdened with the task of housework and cooking, on top of being
whatever counts as a “good” wife and mother. Although cooking for our
family could easily be a reminder of the familiar sting of gender inequality,
she does it with pleasure, out of the goodness of her heart. I’m happy that
she still wants to cook us soup when the world is her oyster.
It is important to my halmoni that her miyeok-guk is for us, her immediate
family. Family is about shared history, and my halmoni’s Korean food
makes sure that, even though we live across the globe from her, she can
still share with us a glimpse of the past that made us possible. Eating food
that only exists because of the hard work and cleverness of my elders fills
more than just my stomach. Miyeok-guk feeds my soul and connects me to
the lives of my ancestral family, their dreams and spirits escaping the bowl
with the hot steam.
Food as a symbol of love and communication across languages isn’t restricted
to halmonis passing down heritage and nourishment to their children
and grandchildren. I can also go to H-Mart and return with my own
arms full of Hanwoo beef and dried seaweed, so that I can engage with my
own vibrant heritage and homeland while in America. Over the years, I’ll
tweak the recipe just enough that I can leave behind something special
when I give the recipe to my own children one day. Although, I doubt my
recipe will be able to recreate my halmoni’s miyeok-guk with its faint notes
of nostalgia and mouthfeel of hot August nights with good company. But
hopefully, when they listen to its rolling boil, my children will hear the
echoes of my love, passed down from halmoni to mother, mother to daughter,
and back again, yet endlessly forward—and just maybe, that’s what my
halmoni meant when she told me I’d live forever.
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20 Short Prose

Hritika Basu
SciTech
Grade 9
E Jomi Tomar O Amar
(The Land is Yours
and Mines)
Vignette #1
The world is awake. Even with my eyes closed I can see it.
The sun smiles and the trees wave.
The warm breeze jogs at a slow pace.
Outside, a bike rides past and the bell sings, “Good morning.”
Mami calls for chai. I move towards the table and find small snacks
scattered upon it. The blue tablecloth scratches the top of my legs as I slide
into a chair. My eyes follow the floral designs lining the fabric. A steaming
mug is placed in front of me almost immediately.
The TV buzzes as reporters deliver the latest.
Auntie next door sings a hymn during her morning puja. The melody
floats out of her doorway and into ours.
Baba and Dadu talk over the news; a bad habit they share that has Mami
shaking her head. She brushes my cheek and urges me to eat, then mutters
about luggage and hurries elsewhere.
The kettle whistles and Thamma complains about the volume of the TV.
Dadu turns it back up when she steps into the kitchen.
Some sound is noise. Some sound is life.
I close my eyes and let the steam dance over my face.
In this moment I hear life. In this moment the world is awake.
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Vignette #2
Baba tells me to stop searching and start watching. At first, I don’t know
what this means.
So, I wait and see nothing because I search for everything.
It’s only when I search for nothing that I begin to see everything.
We pass between villages.
I watch.
Grassy jade fields. A mother and her calf grazing.
Shining rows of wheat. Huts built of mud and hay.
I watch.
Men walking barefoot along dirt roads, a pail full of water in each hand.
Women holding large baskets above their heads not far behind them.
I watch the car come to a stop beside a wooden sign labeled ‘Pit-Stop.’
My eyes squint through the blazing sun that immediately pinches my skin.
Baba guides us around the crowd of people. Some travelers, some locals.
I watch.
Rows of seats occupied.
A baby cries, a mother coos. Friends laugh and cheer. Servers rush
between tables.
I watch.
Baba orders us food. He also orders for the driver.
We call him Uncle because everybody is family here.
I watch a server chase a stray dog out of the restaurant.
The smell of steaming masala chai forms a cloud around us.
Freshly made pakora bhaji and green chutney.
In this moment I realize how small we are.
I start to see everything and search for nothing.
22 Short Prose

Vignette #3
Breathe it in.
The streets pulse with orange.
Fruit stands and street vendors yelling out to passersby on the road
Always bright and full of life at any time of day.
Women shine like gold.
Decorated from head to toe with sparkling jewelry
Spirals drawn onto their palms in dark henna.
Shops glow pink.
Bargaining until throats go dry
Special care taken in every stitch of handmade clothes.
The people glow red.
Deep-rooted humility forever unmatched
Honest love everywhere.
Colors explode across my vision and paint me speechless.
Breathe it in.
Vignette #4
Each morning, I sat with Dadu in the living room. Every time, he would
settle in the same seat, positioned directly in front of the television. Without
fail, he flipped to the same channel, rested his arms on the sides of the
chair and focused on the screen.
All morning, the news played.
If I forget to focus, the words loop in my head like a ball bouncing
back. and. forth.
From time to time, I’d ask questions. He’d describe a general election
or college campus riots,
but always in few words.
He never spoke more than he wanted to, and he hardly ever wanted to
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speak more. Today felt like no exception.
He asks me if I ate. Then he asks nothing at all.
The news anchor is a woman dressed in a bright pink sari. She speaks
in falsetto.
It’s like a ringing in my head going
back. and. forth.
We stay watching for fifteen minutes. In all honesty, I don’t really know
what’s happening.
But I get no answers because I ask no questions.
“Would you like to go somewhere?”
This offer comes out of nowhere. Before I think of an answer, my head
nods ‘yes.’
Dadu clicks off the TV. The reporter’s shrill speech drowns out. I sit in
silence until he emerges from his room wearing different clothes.
For a moment, there’s a pause. We stare at each other
back. and. forth.
Sticky heat coats the black roads outside. Men slide past one another,
stepping over cracks in the steep sidewalk and shifting around stray dogs.
A woman on the street holds out a plastic cup and shakes it, adjusting the
flayed dupatta covering her head.
Dadu urges me forward. Strong smells of snacks and sweets waft out of
stores as we pass by. A chorus of horns beep in unison, arguing loudly with
one another. They bicker
back. and. forth.
We walk on for five minutes in silence.
At some point, Dadu nods his head to the right, and we turn into a narrow
street. A left turn leads us into an open doorway.
On the wall, in faded, red letters was written Bazar. Underneath it was a
row of flower garlands with a small price tag attached to each.
I pause for just a moment to wonder exactly what we had come for.
When I turn to look at Dadu, he’s already looking at me.
I survey the shelves nearest to me, finding a variety of items. Some
24 Short Prose

ands are familiar. A shopkeeper in the Indian market back home has
them imported in.
Dadu lets me look for a while. Most things I pick up are junk foods that
Mami never lets me eat. Still, Dadu offers to buy them.
When the cart is still empty after ten minutes, he guides me over to a
large blue cooler. Inside are ice cream cones covered in blue, purple or pink
wrapping.
I furrow my brow.
He nods his head once and crosses his arms behind his back.
“Take six.”
The cooler hums against my legs as I shuffle through the flavors.
Vanilla, coconut, mango, lychee. A plastic shopping basket is placed on
my right and all four go in. I ask Dadu to pick the last two and after a hesitant
pause, he reaches into the cold box. In go two more cones, pineapple.
His sudden spontaneity confuses me, but I choose not to question it.
Not on the way back.
Not in the house.
Not at the table when he sits with me and unwraps a coconut cone.
And I get no answers because I ask no questions.
Vignette #5
Tucked under the folds of my mind is the memory of laying in the dark
as a child, hiding from bad dreams in Mami’s lap. Her fingers combing
through my hair and stroking my cheek.
Tears would drop, my heart would stop. But Mami was always there.
In the face of fear, she’d pray, calling to the lords for my peace.
She’d whisper through the darkness,
so, I chose to believe.
have faith, betu
It stuck with me through the years. Like the smell of spices on an apron,
or taffy to teeth.
Like muggy July weather and the sticky surrounding heat.
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Inside the Temple, I feel it stronger.
I make the rounds to face each deity, palms faced together and aligned
with my center.
Each step we take reminds me of the nights I’d spend in the dark,
whispering prayers, calling to the lords for safety until I’d finally drift off.
In the silence of the sanctum, I hear only one whisper in the back of my mind
so, I choose to believe in this lifetime.
have faith, betu
Vignette #6
My seeds were planted deep in the dirt
Poking up through the ground with unconfidence.
Soon I stand on my own
Hiding under the shadow of the forest around me.
Years pass and I turn sickly grey.
I get tired of being tired.
Roots grow out from under me
Getting caught in the soil and spreading like a spiderweb.
They tie me to the land
And within days I grow stronger.
My bark gets tougher so the words don’t hurt. I find love within leaves
and trust in the moss growing on branches.
The birds rest on my arms
Settling in and finding a home in my warmth.
I learn that I can only accept growth if I accept myself.
Eventually I find beauty in my nature;
Brown skin
26 Short Prose

Flowering branches
The grass growing under me
Eventually I find beauty in my roots.
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28 Short Prose

Hannah Hammons
Winchester Thurston High School
Grade 11
Stamped:
What A Trail Remembers
1: Traction
I gripped the handlebars firmly, wobbling as I focused on the trail ahead.
My brother and I learned to bike when we were young. It was no surprise.
Before we had mastered walking, our dad propped us on his bike’s crossbar
while he rode. We then straddled the seats of scoot bikes, learning
balance with two wheels under us. We used to stretch our legs behind us
as the spinning tires pulled us forward. Graduating to pedals gave our feet
new stability; the wheels became an extension of our bodies. My brother
and I would chase each other with our new mechanical legs. Unlike the
familiar firm concrete of our driveway, the dirt trail in front of me was
new and unpredictable.
The muddy path compressed as I pedaled. Roots and rocks jumped from
their underground lairs out at my tires. Dad promised that we had the technical
skill to ride the mountain bike trails in Frick Park, so I kept my pedals
in rhythm as I followed behind my brother.
We reached the crest of a hill and slowed to a stop. The trail arced like a
roller coaster. Darkened puddles collected at the dips. The fresh air in the
park seemed to refill my tires with a bounce. But I was nervous. I didn’t
know what was ahead of me. Every curve and jump forced me to react swiftly.
I stepped off the ledge. Faster and faster, my wheels gained momentum,
carrying me up to the next crest. I slowed to a stop and planted my feet
firmly on the ground. My brother followed with less caution. He pedaled
so fast, he looked like the roadrunner chased by the coyote—his brakes left
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untouched. The sodden mud pit at the trough between the slopes caught
his wheels. He was launched forward, and his face planted into the mud.
He lifted himself out of the mud and ran the bike up the slope to meet me
with a grin on his face.
When we continued on the trail, I followed tentatively behind my brother.
After watching him crash, I wouldn’t let my fingertips let go of the
brakes. I was too afraid to let go of control. My brother, however, trudged
on without fear. The birches popped in and out of the trail, forcing us to
weave around their flaking trunks. We weren’t used to the unpredictability
of the forest, and soon enough my brother’s front tire collided—this time
with the base of a snowy skinned trunk. He went head over handlebars
and slid into the mud again. I slowed to a halt with my hand gripping the
brakes. I approached my brother expecting tears in his eyes. Instead, a
huge smile lit his face, which was painted with mud. He was happy. Not
because he fell from his recklessness, but because he embraced the freedom
of the journey. He wasn’t afraid to fall face first. I picked up one of the birch
branches and threw it as far as I could. I made a wish as it flew through the
air. Be braver. Don’t use your brakes as a crutch, try to fly a little. You won’t
be able to explore new trails if you don’t take risks.
2: The Tortuga Guardians
The back of my throat was pierced by the winter Kansas City air, and my
clogging steps crunched the crisp leaves. I was running ahead with my
cousins. The four of us were unwilling to wait for the rest of the pack as
we weaved through the trails of Grandpa’s property. And as time passed,
our resilience splintered. The playful banter quickly turned to bickering. I
heard Dad call to me from the back of the group. My brother and cousins
continued to swat each other with their branched swords, and tears beaded
at the corners of their eyes.
Grandpa had stopped to look at a mushroom that buried its rhizomes in
the roots of an oak tree. His pace was that of a turtle, and as I stood with
him, time slowed. My brother and cousins continued to run ahead, and I was
stuck, as if I was embedded in the roots of the tree just like the mushrooms.
“You can play with them later. Your job right now is to be a Tortuga Guardian.”
So, I stayed, and my dad left to mediate duels of bark-hilted swords.
Grandpa and I admired the fungi, and I heard a bird call from up in the
canopy. “Do you hear that flicker?” Grandpa asked. I looked up to the trees
and saw the flash of yellow against the bare twigs.
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“I do.” I knew Grandpa was on the board of the Nature Conservancy, but
I didn’t know he was such a birder.
As he rambled on about his adventures birding all over the world, I
couldn’t help but crack a smile. Throughout the rest of the hike, we identified
all of the birds we could, cataloging them in the notes app on Grandpa’s
phone. Being a Tortuga Guardian was no longer a burden that pulled
me away from playing with my cousins. I was able to slow down and learn
more about Grandpa and the world around us. I learned that he walked or
biked every day of his life. I learned how he purchased the land we hiked on
from developers and put the hundreds of acres of trails into conservation. I
learned that he was a student of the environment.
From that point on, every time I saw the flicker of feathers out of the
corner of my eye, I thought of Grandpa and how birding meant so much to
him. I would flip through the catalog in my head until I heard Grandpa’s
voice confirm my identification. I imagined him pointing up at the sharp
colors among the needles of an Eastern Hemlock.
The chilly hikes in Frick Park aren’t exactly like the ones in Kansas. My
steps crunch the frozen dirt, pulling me from my daydreams, reminding me
to look up to the trees and pay a little more attention to the world around me.
3: People Walking By
I sat down on the spongy chair, anxiously unthreading the knots at the edge
of my sweater. My mom swatted my thigh, “Stop that, the Rabbi should be
here soon. Just sit still.” I heard steps approaching from down the hall. I
raised my shoulders, rolling them back until I heard a pop. A straight posture
is more presentable.
A woman wearing a steamed navy skirt entered the room. Her tallit
hung at her sides, yet the knots on the strings were still tight. She sat behind
the cedar desk and flattened her skirt. She broke the silence with a
dreaded question.
“So, what are you thinking about for your Bat Mitzvah?”
My head spun. My whole life, I dreaded attending Sunday School. I
dreaded High Holiday services. I dreaded my cousins’ B’nai Mitzvahs,
where the air was dry, and the seats were cramped in a synagogue filled
with people with whom I had no personal connection. I looked down at the
frayed edge of my sweater. I straightened the kinks in my back, unclasping
my hands from the brakes and went for the jump.
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“I want to have my Bat Mitzvah in Frick Park.”
As soon as I spoke, the Rabbi’s eyes widened, with what I couldn’t determine
to either be disappointment or fear.
The Rabbi spoke sternly, “I’m afraid we cannot do that. I… ahem… love
your passion, however a Bat Mitzvah needs to occur in a place of worship.”
My heart dropped.
“But I think nature is my place of worship. I don’t feel connected to Judaism
in a synagogue. My Grandpa is Jewish. He says the same thing.”
My voice was shaky, and I could feel my fingertips touch the lever of
the brakes.
“I’m sure your grandfather is a lovely person, but there are many logistical
issues with holding a Bat Mitzvah in the park. What if someone walks
by? How will they feel disturbing such a sacred moment?” The Rabbi never
said no, but every statement was followed by a reason as to why a Bat Mitzvah
in the woods wouldn’t work.
The back of my eyes tensed. “That’s not any different than being in a
synagogue. There are people I don’t want to be there. I don’t feel connected
to the community.”
“Maybe you would feel connected to the community if you actually came
to temple. This is a Bat Mitzvah, not a wedding.”
As we left the room, my mom reassured me that we would figure something
out.
4: Enwrap Yourself With Light
Folding chairs sat on the wooden overlook atop Firelane Trail. The rustling
leaves echoed with the muffled mutters of ancestral song. I am not a
religious person. I hate the idea of a god or an afterlife. Yet, when I am in
nature I understand the meaning of a soul. I understand why the human
condition feels a higher presence when admiring the stars. When I stood
in front of the crowd on the podium, I felt calm with sycamores and alive
with the aster. I didn’t feel like a fraud while speaking Hebrew, and I didn’t
feel trapped as I do in a synagogue.
I finished the final Aliyah of my Torah Portion and called myself a Bat
Mitzvah. Bar’chu et Adonai ham’vorach. My tallit laid over my shoulders—a
Pendleton blanket with the tzitzit tied to the corners. My tallit wrapped
me with the history of my family. My indigenous blood spoke through the
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squirrels’ chatter and the warm wool against my nape. My Jewish blood
harmonized with my prayer and tickled my calves with the dangling knots. I
may honor my faith unconventionally. The light that I carried and wrapped
myself in on that day follows me on the trails. Adonai touches me with the
sun and the sweet calls of the songbirds. I have reclaimed my faith through
my tethers to these 600 acres of trails.
5: Stamp the Dirt
I was told to meet the group by the toolbox at the base of Roller Coaster
Trail. We all circled around the metal box. It was me and ten men in
their mid-30s. We each grabbed as many tools as we could and headed to
the worn trail. We brought along a collection of hoes, axes, square- and
spade-headed shovels, rakes, and a heavy wheelbarrow. The Pittsburgh
Parks Trail Steward told us that we were going to carve a new trail into the
hillside, to divert traffic from the rain-damaged path.
I was in charge of the wheelbarrow. My job was to dig the clay out of
the base of the slope and push the full wheelbarrow up the trail. I was to
dump the clay and stamp it with the back of the shovel, packing it into a
banked curve. As I pushed the wheelbarrow up the hill, it rolled backwards.
I slid down the steep slope with the loose leaves and decomposing organic
matter. As I steadied my footing, I pushed against gravity, putting all of my
weight into the wheelbarrow and cycling my legs as fast as I could. The
wheels dug a trench into the ground as I pushed. When the wheelbarrow
slid backwards, I caught it with my thighs. Its metal lip imprinted a line
onto my legs. I soon lost track of the number of trips I had taken up that
hill. I didn’t listen to the music the others played or their bantering. Instead,
I sat with my thoughts. I made up stories of the new adventures that
would arise from my contribution to the trail maintenance. What children
would learn to ride a bike here? What families will bond over shared mud
stains on the backs of their sweatpants?
When I got home that afternoon, I climbed the stairs to wash off the
caked dirt and sweat. After taking off my pants, I noticed an indigo line
stretching across my thighs. The purple-inked bruises were a mark of the
future joy that I helped to bring to the park: the smiles that mirrored the
wrinkles of the oak bark, the laughter that cawed with the crows, and the
tears that flowed into the trenches to drain the rainwater.
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6: That’s Fine
It was hill interval day. After our two-mile warmup along the Nine Mile
Run Trail, we gathered at the base of Falls Ravine Trail. When we began
our first rep, our breath hadn’t caught up with our heart rates. The cold air
burned the inside of our throats as we gasped for any extra fuel. The hill
towered in front of me. My anticipation of reaching the top was crushed.
“That’s fine,” Coach called as he biked behind us.
I couldn’t help but become envious as I saw how easily he biked up the
hill. When I run up a hill, my legs burn. My breath travels straight to my
muscles, and my body cries out, unable to cure the suffocation. The faster
I pump my arms, the faster my legs follow the rhythm. But the pain that
comes with running is intoxicating. No matter the deficit in my reserves,
my brain is tricked with a euphoric poison. My body deflates after the head
rush of running on little oxygen.
I can’t help but associate the trails of the park with intoxicatingly painful
cross-country memories. A hard workout along a creek burns itself into my
brain. It contaminates the later dog walk with a friend. The same burning
sensation creeps in, not into my muscles, but into my brain. It fogs my perception
of the red oaks and skunk cabbage. Those same footsteps are now tainted.
7: Tortuga with Binoculars
After Grandpa died, I went to Frick Park to escape my thoughts. As I walked
along the trail, a knobby branch laid across my path. Suddenly Grandpa
was beside me again, holding his walking stick, an eagle’s head carved at
the top. Of course, that memory was fleeting. Later that year in Science
Olympiad, I offered to study for the ornithology event. My desk was soon
scattered with leaves of flashcards, each one for the various species of songbirds
and falcons. But I didn’t need those flashcards when I was in the
park. My grief fed my brain with the correct identification of every feather
and every song. I was reminded of Grandpa as the larks harmonized and
woodpeckers drummed the trees. I walked those woods until my feet were
prickled with exhaustion. The numbness in my limbs reminded me that I
was still alive.
And when the time came for the competition, it felt like I was competing
for him. With every question I answered and taxonomy sample I identified,
I felt I was reconciling my grief. When I remembered Grandpa, he was
now associated with my growing knowledge about birds. The final part of
the test was bird calls. When the proctor played the call, I heard a familiar
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olling rattle. Grandpa’s voice echoed in my ear: Do you hear that flicker?
During the awards ceremony, I sat in my seat anxiously awaiting to
hear the top five places for the State Ornithology medal. After 5, 4, 3, and
2 went up to receive their medals, I felt ill, like there was a pit of pine tar
in my stomach.
“First place in Ornithology is… ” (They announced my school’s name, but
I heard Grandpa saying my own.)
I sat frozen in my seat, like crusted maple sap on a winter day. As I
walked across the stage to receive my medal, my heart finally felt steady.
Grandpa could sleep now. I have eternalized his passion for birding. I won
this award for him.
8: Conquering Slag
My earbuds always warm the edges of my brain. Atmospheric music, rhythmic
guitars, and audiobooks set to 1.35x speed creates the haze. As I walked
through the park, the pebbles of gravel passed slowly compared to my usual
running pace during cross-country practice. A small trail branched from
the wide path and crawled up the left-hand slope. The trail met the edge
of the incline, and a cable hung from the top of the hill. With sure footing
against the slag that blanketed the slope, I grasped the cable and climbed
to the top. I relaxed into the soft stone slag and opened my eyes to the view
in front of me.
I could see the whole park. The miles of trails were pinched into an
ant’s playground. I saw the bridge I built on one of the single-track trails.
I saw the stretch of trail where we practiced our hill sprints. I saw where
my brother learned to use his brakes for the first time, and where I learned
to ride with less caution. I felt the light breeze that was like the soft brush
of the tzitzit. I could feel the imprint I left on the park as I breathed in
the chilly air. I remembered the countless hours I spent with the dirt and
whistled in harmony with the finches. A red-winged blackbird flew by, and
I remembered Grandpa’s countless bird feeders that stood like soldiers in
his lawn, attracting house wrens, red-winged blackbirds and ruby-throated
hummingbirds. I realized that just like the legacy slag from the Steel Mills
that piled into the park hill I sat upon, I carry on Grandpa’s legacy by
fostering natural spaces for others to flock and fly in. The trails provide a
path to a home outside of the confinements of construction and concrete
barriers. The same stone that layered the walls of my house crumbled into
the slag underneath my feet. The park became a part of me.
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36 Short Prose

Natalie Augustine
CAPA
Grade 11
Fortune Cookie
Everyone fights tooth and nail for fortune cookies. The Gods gave us a
wild world, so any clarification is immeasurable. Someone found a dumpster
in an obscure alleyway stuffed with the capsules, and my neighborhood
erupted.
Some took sticks and dueled like Neanderthals. Some negotiated. I disguised
myself. With eyeliner-made wrinkles, an accent, and a back-of-closet
Slavic headscarf, I cleared the crowd. People only find sympathy through familiarity,
and I happen to live in a community heavy with Polish immigrants.
Today marks a new beginning.
Generic. I wished I’d gotten a promise of wealth like my old neighbor
had a month ago, but I shouldn’t complain. Last year my cousin found a
cookie wedged in a park bench: Emotions will come to you like a fervent
tide. He proposed to his girlfriend that night. Day after, he filed a lawsuit
against her for overusing ice from the fridge. Later he wound up on the
news, manic and attempting to burn down a candle store as an apology/
romantic gesture.
The woman in the apartment across from me must not like her fortune.
That, or her cat is being declawed. I feel bad, my Polish getup was a direct
knock-off of her. People often give her spare fortune cookies when they
have them. This is a generous act. Cookies can sell for a couple hundred
dollars. In return, she’d give them a hug.
I have a heart, so naturally I knock on her door. She doesn’t answer. I
realize I’m still in the Babcia mirage, but she hasn’t even checked the peephole.
Her screeching has only gotten worse. I check under her doormat; of
course she keeps a key there.
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The lights are off. All but one curtain drawn. There’s no movement, but
she keeps piercing my ears. On the counter, next to the ingredients for a
soup, lies a slip of paper.
You will be as agile as a cricket.
Crawling on a radish, I found her. Rubbing wings were the source of the
cry. It’s too dark to be certain, but I swear I can make out wrinkles on her
forehead. She hops over to the stove, jumps frantically between the burner
and the gas knob. Only stops to stare me down. Stationary on the burner,
she starts to cry again, though this time softer, a plea.
I wouldn’t like to be a cricket. She doesn’t seem to like it either.
I look at my reflection off her chrome stove, then peer into the cricket.
My wrinkles have started to smudge, and they lack her crow’s feet and
smile lines. I notice her apartment is bigger than mine. Better stocked, too,
especially for someone who lives alone.
To pay homage, I give her a final stare, then document her wrinkles on
my face in Sharpie.
38 Short Prose

Basil Lee
CAPA
Grade 10
Isobel
Isobel died on the curb in front of an IHOP when her tail caught under the
wheel of the motorcycle of some kid who presumably wanted pancakes but
instead walked away with blood on his hands. Isobel didn’t hold grudges
against the good people working at IHOP, or the civilians who would
pour in for years after to put their hard-earned money towards a steaming
hot plate of pancakes. Isobel did not even wish ill of the teenager whose
motorcycle took her life. It was an honest mistake, she assumed, not an
elaborately orchestrated attempt on her life. As such, even as a ghost she
had no wish to haunt him, or any breakfast establishments connected to
her demise. Isobel resolved only to return to life as it had been, since as
a matter of fact she did not consider the road outside of the International
House of Pancakes to be her home. She had lived there for about a year.
What was sixty more?
Time marched on and nuclear families moved in and out, as quickly and
busily as patrons of a restaurant paying their bill and leaving. To Isobel,
they all blurred together, a mess of adults who would leave for work in the
morning and be back before picking their kids up from school, the routine
was always the same as it had been when Isobel was alive. She couldn’t
say she felt at peace because she didn’t feel much of anything at all. Time
marched on, and one day someone different moved in.
They were not so naïve as a child but didn’t walk with the certainty of an
adult. Most families came to the house with boxes upon boxes which were
unpacked and filled room after room of the house’s vast floorplan. The newcomer
brought one tightly packed box, which they opened and left on the
floor in the bedroom. It was never fully unpacked, but they would take from
it what they needed. Strangest of all they came alone. Isobel waited day after
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day for their companions to come with the rest of their belongings, to fill the
spacious house and clear the dust from the unmoving air. She waited for so
long that it almost began to feel like she was alive again, time passing slower
and slower with every tick of the newcomer’s small plastic Peanuts-branded
clock, which they had placed in the living room, Isobel’s favorite room. The
second hand made a deep thock sound as it rotated around the red panels
of Snoopy’s house. The newcomer lined up their steps to the chime of the
clock. They paced around the ground floor, their bare feet sliding dangerously
across the wooden floors, thock, thock, thock.
The constant rhythm of the plastic Snoopy and Woodstock making their
rounds did not bother Isobel nearly as much as the newcomer’s deviance
from the rules and routine which had been the law of the land for nearly
60 years. They had no work or school to leave to. They had no kids to pick
up from school. Isobel could not recall a time of such unease and restlessness,
not even that fateful day at the IHOP. She began to take out her
frustration on whatever stupid knickknacks had been left lying around by
the newcomer (or should she call them the intruder, or maybe the parasite).
Isobel nibbled on the leaves of overgrown houseplants, since the parasite
could not be bothered to trim them to the proper length. She batted and
scratched at loose paper and bound books stacked on the floor, since the
parasite never thought to pick them up and arrange them on any sort of
desk or shelf. The parasite slept in the master bedroom, which left Isobel
indignant as she did not see them fit to be the master of this or any house.
One night, when the parasite left the door ajar, Isobel nudged it open with
her head and snuck into the room to do her housekeeping duties. Of course
she would start with trimming the houseplants, of which there were a few
overgrown on the small table adjacent to the bed. Isobel jumped to the
table and sunk her teeth into an overhanging leaf. She was feeling rather
proud of her topiary work, when the parasite rolled over, then slowly sat up.
Isobel froze, her back arched and her hair standing up on end in a kitschy
Halloween decoration silhouette. The parasite reached past her, almost
brushing her whiskers, but their hand went to the bedside lamp instead.
Isobel’s pupils contracted into slits from the dim light. The parasite tilted
their head, “Hello.”
Isobel blinked. The parasite leaned in toward her. Isobel braced herself
to shudder but found that she felt more relaxed than expected. She tucked
her feet underneath her, sitting politely to make a good impression.
“This your house?” asked the parasite, glancing around. “Real nice place,”
40 Short Prose

they noted, nodding at the high ceilings and intricate carvings framing the
wide windows.
Isobel’s ear twitched. After half a century of observing human speech,
she had a knack for deciphering their language, but regrettably she had
never found a way to use their words back at them. She held eye contact
with the parasite and punctured another leaf with her teeth.
“Hey, hey. I keep them overgrown on purpose.”
Isobel narrowed her eyes. The parasite patted the side of the bed next to
them. Isobel recognized the gesture, tentatively placing one paw after another
on the master bed, which she had never been allowed on when her first
family slept in it. It was nice up there, she found, so despite the infringement
of the rules she took the offer of laying down on the plush blankets.
She was relaxed enough to barely notice that the parasite had swung
their arms through Isobel’s non-corporal body, in an attempt to sweep her
up while she was least expecting it. The parasite noticed, of course.
“How long have you lived here?” they wondered, staring at the creature
in front of them. “Probably longer than I’ve been alive.”
A flick of Isobel’s tail indicated yes.
“I’m Smokey,” said the parasite, Smokey. “I’m 18.”
Isobel didn’t move.
“And this house is on Isobel Street,” said Smokey. “So, if this is your house,
can I call you Isobel? Not super original. It’s a nice name though.”
Isobel had nearly forgotten the origins of her name, since as it so happens,
death and 60 years of afterlife will take a toll on your memory. She
sat up properly, to face Smokey. Smokey still couldn’t touch her, so they
held their hand in mid-air between where Isobel’s ears would be, imitating
a gentle pet.
“I’m sorry to intrude,” they said. “I don’t own this house. I’ll be out of
your hair soon.”
Isobel licked her nose.
Smokey looked to the bedroom window, squinting to make out anything
other than pitch black.
“You hungry?” they said. It sounded like an offer. “IHOP is open 24 hours.”
Isobel didn’t move.
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Smokey got out of bed and knelt over the carboard box, fishing out a
tote bag.
“Here, I can put you in this, and—” they recalled their first attempt to
pick up Isobel. “I guess you don’t need that, huh.”
Isobel shook her head. Smokey shrugged and slipped on a pair of red
sneakers with fraying laces.
Isobel didn’t recall the trek to the IHOP being so long back in her day.
Smokey kept turning corners that looped them back around in circles or
taking side streets that only added extra mileage to the walk. Isobel trotted
alongside them nonetheless.
“You know, I’m glad you’re in the house with me, Isobel.”
Isobel looked up at Smokey. She meowed but there was no sound.
“It’s really lonely being in that big old house all by myself. But you probably
know that.”
Isobel never thought she was lonely.
“My parents bought the house. I’m just staying here until I can find a
stable place for myself.”
They turned in the entirely wrong direction. Isobel sighed but silently
matched their footsteps with her paws.
“They’re both pilots, so, they’re never home and they never have been,”
Smokey shrugged. “I’m used to it, duh. Having a huge place all to myself
just kind of, I don’t know, rubs it in.”
Smokey turned back around at the end of the block. Isobel wanted to
feel relieved that they were finally headed in the right direction, but she
found that she was rather enjoying wandering with Smokey.
They walked in silence the rest of the way. Papery leaves crumpled under
the outsoles of Smokey’s shoes, cracking and disintegrating into the
stained sidewalk with every step. Isobel couldn’t recreate the sound but
matched each of her steps in perfect time with Smokey’s, so that the crisp
crunch would hide the dissonant silence every time her translucent paws
phased through the leaves and the cement.
Most of the walk was illuminated only by dim streetlights, small glowing
specks over the vast sleeping city. Isobel and Smokey were almost blinded
by the white light of the IHOP, blanketing the surrounding block with an
inorganic irradiance and the mechanical whir of power flowing through the
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fluorescent tube lighting baked into the ceiling. Isobel’s translucent body
was almost invisible when they stepped inside, so she stayed pressed up
against the cuffs of Smokey’s jeans. Smokey shivered when Isobel stepped
over their ankles. A sticky digital kiosk clocked the time as 4:17 AM. The
light of the screen reflected in Smokey’s eyes as they pored over the menu
items. They looked around their shoes for Isobel.
“Want anything?”
Isobel didn’t move. She was turned away from Smokey, staring out of the
huge glass window behind them. She looked to the curb. Smokey crouched
down to Isobel’s level and squinted. Everything outside was still.
Smokey pushed themself back to a standing position, wiping their hand
on their jeans after pressing it to the syrup-coated tile floor. Isobel was
still looking at the curb. She remembered, just for one second, that maybe
this place meant something to her, too. Since she had died, she had only
known the house. She never bothered to reminisce about the other places
she once called home. Though there were people living in Isobel’s house at
the time, her family was found in the manager of the International House
of Pancakes (years before the bouncy acronym became ubiquitous shorthand).
Her name was long forgotten, but when Isobel wandered up the
street the manager took a liking to her, feeding her burnt scraps of batter
and giving her special permission to sunbathe at the entrance. Perhaps this
person was even the one to give Isobel her name, but that memory was
too deeply buried for her to recall. Most days, this manager blocked off a
small section of the road, laying traffic cones around Isobel’s favorite spot
to lay in the sun. The day that Isobel was struck, the manager had taken a
week of leave for a short vacation, and perhaps her replacement was not as
stringent when it came to Isobel’s traffic cones, leaving her out in the open,
defenseless against a newly motorcycle-licensed child.
Often a ghost haunts a house because they have unfinished business of
some sort, their desire to cling to life strong enough to bind them to the
world of the living. Isobel didn’t think she had unfinished business. Perhaps
she had not moved on as well as she assumed. Never once did she return to
the place where she had died, which coincidentally had also been the place
she had felt the most loved. Isobel recalled returning to the house because
she feared that the family would not get along without her. It didn’t seem
to bother them in any major way that she was gone. She waited for them
to show signs of missing her for so long, she had forgotten what she was
waiting for, and now they were long gone. Perhaps it was time to move on.
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After a long time of fiddling with the confusing user interface of the
IHOP digital kiosk, Smokey ripped the receipt out of the printer and
scanned the barren dining room for a clear table to sit at while waiting for
their French toast.
“C’mon, Isobel, let’s find a place to sit,” they said, beckoning at the area
around their feet, looking for signs of afterlife. Isobel was nowhere to be found.
44 Short Prose

Dylan Reddy
Environmental Charter High School
Grade 10
Brother, Son, Human
I didn’t know Danny Rearick Jr. very well, but I was there at his funeral.
Shivering and mournful, his entire family shuffled onto the porch of the
wood house being used as the offices for the funeral service. It was only a
short drive from my house, and it sat perched before the hill of a droopy
forest in late autumn. We stood around and tried to avoid eye contact with
the tiny box in the middle of the slippery wood hut that held his ashes. The
people around me were not unfamiliar, I saw them at parties and walked
next to them in my mom’s childhood best friend’s wedding party. Jen, my
mom’s childhood best friend and Danny’s loving younger sister, stood a
couple people away from me with her mom holding onto her arm. They
were both devastated. Everyone was. Even the sky and the trees and the
wind and the soggy wood under our feet seemed to have a constant frown.
I have my own Danny. Actually, I would say I have a handful of Dannys
in my life. He was the son who always made bad decisions. Ones that had
to do with drinking. That’s what took him eventually. A heart thing induced
by a lifetime of drinking. I don’t know what exactly happened, and even
though that nosey part of me desperately wants to know, I try not to pry
when it comes to drinking and heart stuff. Usually, you don’t want to find
out anyhow.
My Danny—you know, the one I was just talking about—is my oldest
brother. There’s a much larger age gap between him and me than with Danny
and Jen. He also wasn’t much of a drinker. At least, not to my limited
knowledge of his life and its actual story. Because of our drastic age difference,
I was fed less than true information about the things he did by
the adults around me. Sometimes it was to teach me the lessons they just
couldn’t seem to teach him, but sometimes it was just so that I was manipu-
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lated into turning against the already waning connection I felt with him. My
Aunt Jen has probably listened to a million people say the exact same things
that have been said to me. I wonder if she’s learned the same thing from her
Danny that I have from mine, which is that nobody deserves to be seen as
one simple thing. Not when the actual Danny could drink his life away and
still make a person laugh the hardest a person could, or when my Danny
could cry to our father in the backseat about being in and out of rehab and
still manage to be one of the only people I would trust in a heartbeat.
The tough part is that in the grand scheme of things, I’m lucky. My Danny
is still around. He still has the capacity to grow and change. It’s scary
how quickly a person can go from having an entire life ahead of them to
gone in just a second. It’s scarier to realize that being lucky doesn’t make
you feel any better about the people who don’t get that luxury.
His neighbor was the one who found Danny. She was there at the funeral,
and, incredibly traumatized as my mother would call her. She recounted
to us the stench that wafted from his apartment for a while before he was
found. We listened as globs of tears flowed from her eyes, each and every
one of us beginning to understand just how hateful life really can be once
it’s taken away. And of course, just how dehumanizing it is to do normal human
things, like dying. I know his family, particularly my Aunt Jen, blames
themselves for not calling. Parts of them will always wonder how things
would have been different if they stopped for a visit every once in a while.
The truth is though, that she was always thinking about him. He was not
forgotten, and after that funeral he never will be. Not by me at least.
After some words from an uncle who is so religious he talks about it on
the radio everyday (no I’m not kidding, he talks about god on his radio talk
show) and two poems dedicated to him in his memory, they carried him off
the porch and to the burial site. We followed behind, flowers in hand. They
were old and wrinkly, but they were some of the most beautiful blooms I’ve
ever seen. I think funerals do that to tiny, insignificant things, like a flower
from a garden; they make them become something more than just a pretty
sight to see.
They lowered him into the earth, a tiny box in a tiny hole dug by his
mother and little sister, and one by one we placed our flowers in with him.
In some ways it was incredibly moving and lovely, but that might just be because
they were playing Blackbird by the Beatles. Play Blackbird on a rainy
day in the middle of the forest and a person would be crazy to say they
don’t feel some level of connection to the people around them. In others, it
46 Short Prose

felt like an injustice to the pain I could tell everyone was feeling. The energy
was unlike anything I’d felt in my entire lifetime. It was the first time
I ever felt what it meant to be consumed and degraded by the melancholic
abilities of a death far too young.
In the weeks before his funeral, my mom was helping out with the arrangements.
She offered to pay for Danny’s memorial tree and to lend a
helping hand if anyone needed it, so his death was always on her mind. I
learned a lot about his life then, the family struggles, the drinking struggles,
the living struggles. He hung between every conversation we had. Even
though he was always there, we never really called him by name. He was
always just “Jen’s Brother.” It wasn’t until the funeral when his name fully
solidified in my head. Danny Rearick: Brother, Son, Human.
We went home after a memorial dinner at the golf club up the hill. That
was it. A couple hours of red cheeks, bowed heads, and lukewarm penne
pasta, and suddenly we were home. Just like that. I kept those poems dedicated
to him in my pocket for the next few days, just sort of sitting there. I
didn’t want to let them go. They felt way too important to just throw away,
even though they weren’t the most profound pieces of writing I’ve ever
read. I think what really did it was the dedication from my Aunt Jen to her
older brother, and her mom to her son. They forgave him. Plain and simple,
they said: “Danny, we forgive you and we love you.” That was all they had
to say. No other words would have done what those could have.
I may never learn to forgive the Dannys in my life. For all I know, I
might turn out to be a Danny myself. But what I do know is that I hope to
learn forgiveness. I hope that the world finds grace, that forgiveness will be
plentiful for years and years to come. I hope each and every one of them
have long stories of struggle and triumph, love and forgiveness. Especially
for the past, current, and future generations of Dannys that are bound to
be born, I hope the universe opens its arms to those of us who continue to
be loved despite it all.
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48 Short Prose

Isabella Cheatham
Fox Chapel Area High School
Grade 11
The Legend of
the Iceland Sea
Imagine you have just arrived in the small village of Vik. The trip of a lifetime
is just beginning. You sit in the backseat of the car. The outside world
is freezing cold. Your parents said to pack warmer clothes, but you think
a rain jacket is all you need. To be fair you’re only ten. They should help if
they think you need better packing skills.
You are in the car for a few more minutes and arrive at this strange
house. Your dad rings the doorbell as your family stands behind him. The
people in the town said this is the location to pick up the boards. You stand
there for what feels like 30 minutes and a small man finally peeks out of
the door. He seems to be confused why you are there but then realizes and
goes back inside as you continue standing there freezing.
He comes back with two surfboards and two dry suits. The one looks
extremely small, but he says it is all he has. Your dad hands him a handful
of cash, and he goes back inside. You think how strange the interaction
was, but then you climb back in the warm car. The boards are strapped to
the roof, and you are heading on your way again. Your dad says you will be
there in ten minutes.
You pull up to what looks like an abandoned beach. There is a church in
the distance which looks eerie from the rolling hills surrounding it. You see
the black sand in the distance and arrive in a parking lot that looks rundown.
There are barely any other cars in the area but you don’t care as you
are so excited. You made it to the beach in Iceland. To surf.
You get out of the car to put your full dry suit on because you can’t go
into the freezing cold water without it. The dry suit that is three times too
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small and your mom has to wrestle it over your tiny body. You are lying on
the car seat as she pulls it up around your body. You scream and laugh because
it seriously does not fit at all. It goes all the way up around your head
squeezing you as you walk, but you do not care. It is too amazing of a view
and an adventure to worry about your circulation being cut off. You have
dreamed of being on the black sand beaches; you don’t care if the water is
negative degrees, you still are ready to run in. Your mom tells you to stop,
and you are waiting for your little sister who says she is not even going into
the water. You look back at the car and your sister ends up climbing out in a
tiny swimsuit with a hat and gloves on, not nearly enough to keep her warm.
Your mom is shouting at her for running away in a little bikini. You laugh
because it is freezing yet she looks so happy in barely any clothes at all.
Your dad has the two surfboards in his hands as you both are always up
for an adventure. You run down the beach getting close enough to feel the
water on your feet even though they are covered by the dry suit. He tells
you to wait as he goes in the dark water first. It looks like the water is pitch
black, which makes you a bit nervous. You watch as he easily swims out
on the board. This is typical, as you’d both been surfing for years, and he
seems to be fine and you can hardly wait so you run to the water and start
paddling out on your own, smaller board. Slowly you get closer and closer
to Dad, ducking under the waves as you glide farther out from shore.
Suddenly, he starts screaming at you to swim in. In a panic, you turn
your board around and paddle as fast as your little arms can. You feel anxiety
rising in your throat. This isn’t typical. You run out of the water.
Your mom is sitting up on the hill of black sand and is bundled up in a
hat, gloves, scarf, and huge jacket. She is in no shape to go into the ocean.
You don’t know what to do as you run up to her. Both of you don’t know
what is happening. All you can see is him splashing up and down. Screaming
with his hands flying in the air. She runs to the edge of the water, and
you can tell she is debating on running in or not.
You and your sister sit, watching what is to come. You think maybe it is
a shark, as you are young and don’t know what else it could be. Your sister
is crying in her tiny bathing suit, now feeling how truly cold it really is. The
wind hits you both and tears start to fall down your face as well. The beach
seems too quiet even as he is screaming from the black water.
You realize now that the beach has been empty the whole time you are
on it so no one would be able to help anyway. You watch in terror as your
mom stands on the edge of the water not knowing what to do next. Finally,
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you see your dad get onto his board and start to swim to shore. He washes
up onto the black sand, heaving for air. He is okay.
The next day the locals tell you stories of the rip currents that have
plagued that beach for centuries. Only the best surfers go to those waves.
The locals laugh when you say you were in the water at the same time as
your dad. They are sure you are lying because if your dad struggled to get
out how could you.
They tell you folktales about the trolls who live on the island and control
the sea. They say that these trolls must like you, as they did not drag you to
sea, like they did your dad. That night you see a little troll covered in moss
emerge from the mountain outside your window. This is the last time you
will ever go surfing in Iceland.
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52 Short Prose

Maryam Sadullaeva
The Ellis School
Grade 11
Intimacy Between Eyes
Nothing is more intimate than shedding tears your immigrant mom
couldn’t. Hearing your mom’s stories and just sitting there. Eyes filled with
waves crashing against your lower eyelid. Lips quivering like a string being
pulled more and more.
Almost ripping
but still holding on.
And there is your mom, with no reaction. Who never shows sadness and
keeps fighting. But in her eyes, you could see how she feels about this image.
This image of her Asian daughter, whom she fought for every single
day, was ready to burst. Burst into tears on her lap.
But when I came home from school one day and told her what had happened
to me, she had a different reaction. She was enraged and in disbelief
at how I went through something like this. In 2022. Her eyes were filled
with pity
and disappointment.
Not disappointed in how I broke down because of this event, how weak I
was during it, or how I let the waves escape my eyelids. But disappointed in
this life, this country. The people and humanity. This person who hurt me.
Disappointed that this is still a thing.
Then she hugged me.
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54 Short Prose

Elena Maria Silva
Allderdice
Grade 9
Brown Boy
I am my mother’s daughter; I am her face, her voice, and her skin. I am her
grace, and I am her stubbornness. My brother is everything I am not; he
is my father.
As kids we live like our skin doesn’t matter, it is only when we become
adults do we point out all our flaws and scars; scars we have taught ourselves
to embed in others. We are after all the creators of our own hell.
My brother’s skin is worn, calloused, brown. Mine is smooth, freckled,
and white. It is not a reflection of our qualities; it is merely genetics at work.
He is subject to most of the worst. Perhaps it is best that way; the comments
roll like water off of him. And the subtlety I am subjected to, burns a hole
so deep it seems the only answer is to fight fire with fire. My brother and I
no longer have a relationship, but when we did, almost every day became a
conversation, comparison, of the comments against us. We were not trying
to outdo each other, we were acknowledging the way we are treated by those
who fit in the box we would never be a part of or invited to.
I can see it in the summer, on my legs and hands, the bronze of my family
before me. But it is fleeting. I am lucky to lose these parts of my culture.
The only common ground my brother and I share is the dinner table.
You will not find us together anywhere else. Naturally all of our hardest
conversations have been at one (usually a two-seater at Murray Avenue
Grill, sometime around 6:00 p.m.) The first time my brother and I went out
together, we felt so adult, we felt so undefined. In some way, his need to
feel independent fueled these types of conversations that we had never had
before. He began to tell me of what his classmates said to him. And what
they didn’t need to say. Even now I hear his voice parroting the hate he had
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heard one too many times before. “Are you even a citizen?” they say. “Go
back to Mexico,” they say. “Leave us alone,” they say. They do not bother to
know we were born here like them, and our ancestors were not children of
Mexico. I am biased now. I associate him with any version of anger. But at
that point he was not the aggressor. He was the victim.
They love to say we do not belong here. But this is the only place we
have ever been. We have no grasp on the language, aside from the odd
words our parents taught us or the curses they wish we never heard. We
are not enough of a country we’ve lived in all our lives. And it is not easy
to know where our people were before us, and so we accept America like a
safety blanket. They say our names are too hard, but my name is the only
connection I have to a culture I am desperately holding on to. I don’t know
who I am without it, because all I have ever been is this label.
I don’t like to relive conversations with my brother. Perhaps it is because
I know we won’t have any more in the future that are worth my love. Or
maybe it reminds me he was never on my side. And yet, I find myself craving
this memory.
I resent the fact that I do not want my brother. I resent the fact that
he played the part of the stereotypes they place against us. I resent him
for taking those pills, and I resent him for telling me. In the end, we are
nothing more than two kids grasping at our own false realities. His, a world
where brown boys’ bodies don’t break with drugs. Mine, where I am a perfect
reflection of my culture and a perfect replacement for my brother.
56 Short Prose

Aniyah Wilson
PA Cyber Charter School
Grade 10
One Night Only
June of 1970. Cella’s Coast, Massachusetts. Mandella Danes was the 17-yearold
daughter of the owner of the Danes’ Family Bakery. With the approaching
summer season, tourists and locals alike looked to Danes’ Bakery for
sweet treats and replenishing refreshments.
The Danes’ Family Bakery sat on the main street of town overlooking
the beach, a large yard accompanied by a beautiful garden was parallel to
it and was used to grow most of the ingredients in the bakery’s cakes and
breads. The father and daughter pair lived above the bakery in a spacious
apartment, leaving Mandella with the best view of Cella’s Coast.
Mandella took her usual bike route: the park, the gardens, Town Square,
and then took a detour to the military base at the far end of town. She
heard from her friends that new troops would be setting up camp and recruiters
would be scattered around town.
Riding past the tents and enlisting center, she spotted hundreds of
young men, a few were familiar faces. Faces she had once seen sitting next
to her in biology class or sharing a table at Cella’s Diner on a double date.
One face stuck out to her the most, an olive-skinned boy with thoughtful
eyes in combat boots and green army attire. It was Dennis Carlton, an old
classmate from middle school who had moved away. He looked more mature
but still charming; his brown hair was slicked back, and he seemed
confident as he smiled and waved kindly to Mandella.
Unfortunately, Mandella looked away too quickly to notice him noticing
her, causing Dennis to take the unintentional gesture personally.
After coming home to her father closing early, Mandella learned that
the bakery would be catering for the Troops’ Welcome Mixer. It was being
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held at the local country club to welcome older soldiers to the community
and integrate the new soldiers into the base smoothly. That night, dozens
of donuts, cookies, cannoli, bread, and wafers were created at the hands of
Mandella, her father Mike, and a few of the workers at the bakery.
Staring at the ceiling fan of her beach-themed bedroom, Mandella
thought deeply about the mixer. She saw it as an opportunity to catch up
with Dennis and have fun with her friends; summer always brought positivity
to her eyes. The sounds of waves crashing against the sandy shore
acted as a lullaby, letting Mandella drift off into a deep sleep.
Mandella, Donna, and Christine got ready at Mandella’s house. They
swooned over the thought of getting to dance with gentlemen as they
curled their hair and slipped on their matching heeled shoes.
The three girls walked to the Country Club, arms entwined, where the
celebration was being held. Upon entering the building, a pair of twins
eager to accompany them greeted them at the door. Donna and Christine
happily obliged to dance with the boys named Gale and Dale, while Mandella
soon became a wallflower, still recognizable in her bright dress.
The large ballroom was decorated with red, white, and blue balloons
and streamers while swing music from the live band flooded the ears of the
young townspeople. Dennis spotted Mandella from the refreshments table,
bringing her a scone and punch to be polite. Mandella and Dennis talked for
a while, clearing up the situation from the day before. Sitting on the sides of
the venue, the two talked about Dennis’s enlistment; he stated that he wanted
to protect his country and family. They also talked about Mandella’s plans
after school; she wanted to become a nurse, to help those in need.
“You know, this summer there’s a bunch of nurse volunteer jobs open. It’s
just taking temperatures and patching men up after combat training, stuff
like that,” Dennis suggested, maintaining eye contact as his arm rested on
the back of Mandella’s chair.
“Really?” Mandella asked as her eyes lit up the entire room. “I’d love to!
It’d keep me busy this summer and I’d get proper training.”
Dennis nodded reassuringly, promising that he would put a good word
in for her.
“Mandella, I really enjoy talking to you but I’m itching to dance,” Dennis
admitted as he cautiously rose from his seat to glide towards the dance
floor, pulling Mandella as she smiled shyly. Her slender wrist held a green
corsage pinned to a white ribbon, matching Dennis’ green army dress uni-
58 Short Prose

form. Swaying in a pool full of young soldiers and female students, Dennis
and Mandella were singular, like the only two people in the world. Though
they had not seen each other in years, fate tied them together with an invisible
string. With his chin resting on Mandella’s head, Dennis could not help
himself from playing with her sleek hair. Mandella noticed but refrained
from stopping him, she found it contradictory; seeing someone so gentle
and endearing get shipped off to kill and fight for a country that would not
do the same for them.
She could have fallen asleep in his arms right there if the band had not
been playing so loudly, but the night was ending.
Looking up at Dennis, she realized she was not looking up at Dennis
at all. Staring at his army uniform jacket, limp, in her hands, Mandella
had been pushed far in her memories, 49 years to be exact. The swaying
couples were now brown boxes, the ballroom now her father’s half-empty
apartment, and her white tulle party dress now a nightgown. The sullen
elderly woman held Dennis’s jacket up high, examining the achievement
patches she sewed on when his sick mother could not. Swiping her fingers
across the grooves of his copper metal name-pin that read Dennis J. Carlton.
Reaching down in the waterproof inside pocket to find dog tags that
once sparkled around his neck now dull and rusty with age, like the town
of Cella’s Coast.
Cella’s Coast lost its magic long ago. Five years after the war, hundreds
of troops made it to the train station carrying bags of unnecessary souvenirs
under their arms and ones of granted shock beneath their eyes. Donna’s
husband Gale was the one soldier Mandella knew personally who came
home. He arrived only with news that Dale and Dennis did not make it. He
handed Christine and Mandella their spouses’ belongings as they broke
down beside each other, trying to keep their composure. Shortly after the
returning troops attempt to settle in, Mandella heard Gale was different;
snapping at small noises and unable to sleep at night. She felt guilty that
Gale still had to suffer, even after finally being at home.
Walking towards her old bedroom for the last time, she could hear the
sweet sound of Donna and Christine joking along with her when they had
their weekly slumber parties. Girlhood only grants you fleeting moments;
ones like shooting stars you forget to wish upon.
Peering longingly out of her large window, the view of the garden was
severely overgrown. Mandella lost her passion for gardening after her father’s
sudden death which came shortly after Dennis’s. Now sitting at her
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vanity, a picture of her and Dennis on the night of the mixer stuck to the
old mirror. Dennis always looked the same to her, no matter the age. He
was timeless, living eternally in her heart, away from the dangers of enemy
lines and the traumas of deep trenches. His smile still made her blush shyly.
Mandella kept her hair the same length, continuing to let Dennis play
with it softly when they danced. The only difference now was its gray color,
something she would have liked to see Dennis with. Mandella lay on the
empty mattress, holding the photo close to her heart. She waited patiently
for the sound of the rise and fall of waves on the shore to sift through her
window, but they never came.
60 Short Prose

Silas Conner
Freeport Area High School
Grade 9
When Honor Dies
— Prelude —
I doubt anyone will ever read this. I doubt there’s even a planet out there
with life intelligent enough to understand this. I’m not sure why I even
bothered to transmit this at all.
If you are reading this, then I ask you one thing. If there was one choice
you could make to preserve the honor of Racrial, I ask that you remember us.
Remember how we laugh, how we cry, how we love. Remember how we fight.
How we stand. How we fall. Remember how we lead, how we serve. How we
lie and how we show honor. We may be dead, but we are not forgotten. We
will not truly die until the last words of the last book crumble to dust. Because
we, the Calligraphers, we are words. We exist in every glyph that you
scrawl, every key that you type and every sentence you form. In every letter,
you honor our memory. A memory of a people who were once great.
Without further ado, I present the history of the last days of the planet
Racrial according to me, a solitary bodyguard. I hope you learn something.
— 1 —
I was in the throne room, talking with Frisin, the king, when a servant
burst through the door.
“Sir!” he wheezed, he doubled over, panting for breath. “Your—your majesty—”
He seemed to be in a hurry to tell the king some very important
news. I tensed.
“What is it, man?” Frisin snapped, standing up.
“Your majesty, the Calligraphers, they’ve—they’ve started attacking people.”
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Frisin stood, shocked for several moments before replying. “What did
you just say?” he asked. He appeared completely baffled. Why were the Calligraphers
attacking? The Calligraphers were the priests of Frisia.
“The Calligraphers, sir. I just saw one, he was—” he shivered. He had
clearly just come from something quite… traumatic. “—he was killing people.
With these black tendrils.”
A scream that bespoke pure terror echoed in the outside hallway. The
man wasn’t lying. The threat was confirmed. I leapt into action immediately.
“Get the reserve guard,” I ordered the servant. “Tell them to get the king
out through the back exit. Then get out with anyone you find along the way.”
He nodded and left.
“But Kalack, what about you?” asked the king.
I picked up my old Peron. The weight of the long, pole-shaped weapon
felt familiar in my hands. “Someone’s got to hold them off.”
“But you’ll be killed!”
“That’s a risk I’m going to have to take.” I gave Frisin a salute. “If I don’t
make it out, sir—”
“Don’t say that. You’ll be fine.”
“I will see you soon then, sir.”
“Soon.” His guards soon arrived and towed him towards the back hallway.
Mere moments after he’d left, the door banged open again. But it wasn’t
a servant this time. It was a face I recognized.
“Tor?”
My old friend smiled. Not a nice smile, a smile for an old friend. This
was a smile that said, “You’re never leaving alive.”
Well, I’d see about that.
“Kalack. Look at you!” said Tor as he strode into the room. “You sure are
living the life. The fanciest Peron. The nicest armor. The cushiest job. Why
couldn’t I be a bodyguard?”
Several more Calligraphers were coming up from behind him, but he
held them back. Black tendrils of shadow pooled at their feet. The darkness
they were made of seemed to be made of chaos itself, like wild energy
incarnate.
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“You know why, Tor.”
“Yes. Because you couldn’t help but be better than the rest of us.” I was
silent. “Well, that doesn’t matter anymore. Now, which way did the king
go?” After I refused to answer, he growled and stepped forward. I saw a red
light gleaming in his eyes. Blackness curled around his body. He looked like
death himself, coming for my soul. “Kalack. Tell us where he went, and you
won’t die. You’re still one of us.”
I looked him right in those smoldering red eyes and raised my Peron.
“You won’t have him.”
He growled. “Fine. You can die then. Just like everyone else on this god
forsaken planet.”
“Gladly.” I ran towards him, the point of my Peron at the head of my
charge. He laughed and several of the tendrils of shadow rose to knock
away my blow. I swung the butt of the Peron, adorned with deadly spikes,
at his chest. He grunted at the blow, but it drew no blood. Glyphs! Was he
invincible? It didn’t matter, I supposed. I just needed to buy time.
I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my back. I swung around, knocking aside
a solid tendril of darkness that had been attacking me. It disintegrated at a
swing from my Peron. I twisted and made a jab at Tor’s face which was easily
parried. Glyphs! There was no way I could beat him. I fingered the small
piece of parchment at my belt. Before I could think better of it, I threw it
at the ground in front of Tor. It activated, sending a blast of white light in
a massive explosion. I had positioned myself carefully and was hurled out
of the window on the other side of the throne room. Perfect. The last thing
I saw before blacking out was the magnificent golden palace of Frisia with
ugly black curls of smoke billowing up from the windows.
— 2 —
I sat in an empty temple. This temple, once a metropolis of life and worship,
was now a tomb of the religion it once was. The last priest of Calligraphism,
I couldn’t be sure how soon I would be killed. Or worse. It was my faith that
preserved the last memories of my god.
I dipped my quill into the inkwell on the ground by me. I sat cross-legged
on the dirty sandstone floor of the temple, a large piece of parchment and
a bottle of ink in front of me. Then I began to draw. My quill moved across
the paper in fluid motions, drawing the Glyphs that I was so familiar with.
Death, the skull that represented the fallen. Stone, to give a structure to my
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tribute. And the final glyph, the one that was the core of every calligraphy.
Order, to bring it together and form the spell into what I wanted it to be.
As the final part of the ritual, I walked to the center of the temple, where
a circular basin of Felk shimmered with a golden light. Despite its glow, the
watery substance was as clear as a pane of glass.
I blessed the calligraphy and placed the parchment into the pool. It
drifted to the center of the Felk, then the glyph I had drawn began to glow.
White light spilled from the lines of ink like sunlight pouring through a
stained-glass window. I watched with solemn eyes as the paper shattered,
bursting into pieces of golden light. Before the shards of light reached the
pool, they began to form into the image of a man drawing in midair, his
gaze intent and his quill furious. The light finally coalesced into a model
of stone. The figure stood atop an altar that had the words “For the Fallen”
engraved upon it. Below the words were the names of all who had once
served in the temple.
I finished by saying, “I honor all of those who have served here. You may
have been taken by chaos, but you will not be forgotten.”
Somber, I walked out of the temple. I wandered over to the king’s tent. I
knocked on the wooden post outside.
“King Frisin?”
“Kalack, is that you?” came his voice from the tent. “Come in.”
I pushed into the tent. He was pouring over a map of the world.
“What are you doing?”
“Kalack, look at this,” he said. He was pointing to a large scribble on the
map. “Kalack, we can’t outrun them,” he said. I was silent.
Tor had been pursuing us ever since the fiasco at the palace. We’d been
on the run for over a week. The group—a small one—included me, the king,
and a few bodyguards. In the last few days, however, Tor had been catching
up with us rather quickly. I knew, deep down, that there would be a confrontation.
I wasn’t so thrilled to be faced with it.
“Right here,” the king said, motioning to the map, “is where I’m projecting
him to catch us to meet.” He was pointing at a small city on the border
of the kingdom. I’d never heard of it before.
“There’s no way we can outrun him?” I asked. It was a frail hope.
“Not by much.” We were both silent. Thinking of that day brought an air
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of solemnity with it. I broke the silence.
“Sir, as your bodyguard, I feel it is my duty to ensure your safety and
protection at all times. We should keep moving and try to stay ahead of Tor
for as long as we can.”
“Kalack—”
“Sir, please just humor me.”
A few hours later, our camp was packed up and we were on our way. To
where, I had no idea. We were running. Running from something that was
so unspeakable, unthinkable, that it made me tremble in fear and weep
with sorrow.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Tor. He’d been my friend ever since… well,
ever since I can remember. We’d apprenticed together, played together,
worked together. But then… Well I got offered a position as the king’s bodyguard,
and he didn’t. That had driven a wedge between us. No longer did
we go out drinking together or spend time with each other. We’d still wave
at each other and chat, but it could never again be like it once had been.
He was jealous.
Tor was still ambitious. In fact, if I remembered correctly, he’d been
the High Calligrapher when everything had gone down. The church leader
would have had quite a bit of power and no small pension, but nothing so
grand as my prestigious position. And that had led to our further drifting.
Eventually, there was only a sense of formality and obligation between the
two of us. Our old friendship was no more.
And now… Well, now he had turned into that. That thing. I shivered just
thinking about it. When we’d fought, I’d sensed a force behind his movements.
Not deliberate but driving. Tor was driven by chaos. Pure, raw, lust
for destruction and power. He was connected to nothing but his passion
for pandemonium.
As I marched, a heavy pack on my shoulders, I felt a salty tear trickle
down my face. I realized something, then. I loved Tor. Yes, he’d become
evil. Yes, he’d taken control of the other Calligraphists. But I still loved him.
Where was the Tor who made me laugh? Where was the bookworm who
couldn’t keep his nose out of a book? The indoor-bound child who had to
be dragged by his toes to get him outside?
The memories flooded me, and I couldn’t hold them in. I fell back from
the group. I sat down on the barren ground and buried my face in my
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hands. Then I started weeping. I cried for the man who used to be so close
to me. I sobbed for the person that had been taken over by the evil force of
chaos. I grieved for the child who had grown into the monster he was today.
Where was my friend? Where was the person that had helped me through
the most trying of hard times? In those tears, I felt the truth. The hard, cold,
mean truth. Tor was gone. He was dead already. In his place was a monster,
bent on seeing the world burn. And I was the only one who could stop it.
— Interlude —
Four months ago
Tor observed the woman chained to his wall with as much sorrow as curiosity.
He could sense the power within her, the power that flowed through
her veins. She was the key to all of his troubles. At the same time… it was a
person. Chained to his wall.
The power he sensed, it was the power that was in every human. Over
the last couple of months, his research had led him to believe that each
person had some kind of power, a shard of divinity that lived on even after
their physical body died. There was a way to take that power, imbuing a
human with another’s soul.
Tor was trying to find a way to extract that power. He needed it. For…
for Kara. Oh, Glyphs, how could he go on without Kara? Kara, his love, who
had died prematurely. He was determined to bring her back.
He walked up to the woman. Tears were forming in his eyes. He felt the
grip of the knife in his hands. His arms—indeed, all of him—were trembling.
Was he really planning to kill a person? What was wrong with him?
“You don’t have to do this,” she said. Hope, longing, and fear battled for
dominance in her eyes. Glyphs, what was he thinking?
He had to do this. For Kara.
He closed his eyes.
“This is for you.” He raised the knife, slitting the woman’s throat. He had
to think about why he was doing what he was doing, or it wouldn’t work.
He was doing it for the power.
Warm blood trickled down his hand. He opened his eyes.
At first, nothing happened. Tor was rather disappointed. But before he
reached the wall to hang his knife back up, he noticed something. Black
tendrils, seemingly formed from shadow, forced their way out of her body.
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They made their way across the chamber and into the knife that Tor held.
From there, the power seeped into Tor himself.
He had a giddy feeling of a massive increase in power. As he did, he almost
felt like some of his meaning left him. Some of his sanity, of his ability
to understand purpose, slipped away from him. But it didn’t matter. It was
a small amount—perhaps he’d been hallucinating.
And the power, it felt strange. Dirty. It was as if the shard of divinity
imbued in that woman had somehow been corrupted by him. He felt as if
he should be disgusted at what he’d done, but he had next to no emotion.
Tor shivered. He’d have to be careful with this, otherwise it could go very
wrong very quickly.
— 3 —
Here I was. I had finally come to my deathbed.
I stood in the tower of the Manor in Terelime. The small city was very
different from what I was used to at the capitol. Each city had a manor,
similar to a palace, but it housed the city’s Noble Lord instead of a king.
Terelime was built on a hill surrounded by desert.
Black cracks, like veins, twisted from Tor’s forces and stopped at the
city walls. Beyond the veins was darkness. A massive, incomprehensible
darkness that flashed with twisting shadows and chaotic forms. It bespoke
terror, destruction, and most terrifying of all, the death of the last of the
Calligraphers.
Over the last couple of days, I’d done some thinking, going through my
memories of the disaster and of the ancient prophecies. They’d foretold of
an event such as this. Pure chaos descending upon the last civilization. I’d
just never thought I’d be a part of it.
I sighed and made my way down the staircase. Surly Tor would attack
any day. It was anyone’s guess when.
Downstairs, I found Frisin at a table surrounded by advisers.
“Ah, Kalack!” the king said. “Great to see you!”
I gave a weak smile. “I’m not feeling too great. Tor is camped outside,
ready to attack. It’s only a matter of time.”
He frowned. “Kalack, come over here. We’ve got a plan.”
“What?” I asked. A plan? Surely nothing could repel Tor and his forces of
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chaos. Still, I sat down beside Frisin. “A plan?”
“Yes!” said King Frisin enthusiastically “We’re planning to make a stand.
Right here. Right now. We’ll stop Tor and crush his armies.”
I was silent. The plan was a desperate one. One that had no chance
of success. In fact, it wasn’t really a plan at all. It was a final stand, a last
display of what Racrial had to offer. It was all that remained of our honor.
“We’ll draft all the men in Terelime,” the King continued, “and use them
in our last defense of the city.”
“It’s not going to work. You’re dooming these men,” I said. Someone had
to say it. Might as well have been me.
He took a deep breath. “They’d be doomed anyway. Better that they die
fighting.”
I nodded. Better to die fighting beside your fellows than alone and
afraid. Better to know you had accomplished something—regardless of
how small—than seeing your family die in front of you and knowing you
couldn’t do a thing about it.
“Then let’s go die.”
— 4 —
I looked out over a sea of people. Nearly a thousand men were gathered
in the town square. Looking at them, I lost the last shreds of hope that we
could win. Many of the men had no equipment whatsoever, and only a fraction
had full sets of armor. This battle was no longer about trying to win. It
was about preserving our honor.
I stepped up onto the podium. For whatever reason, I had been chosen
to speak to the army before the battle. I was no bard, but I’d used the Calligraphies
of Loud Speech and Charisma on myself, meaning that my words
would be louder, and my speech would be more powerful.
“People of Terelime,” I said. The men quieted, looking up at me. “None
of you are looking forward to what must happen next. I understand that.”
Quiet murmurs of agreement rose from the crowd. “But you are the last of
us. The men who stand here, ready to fight. You are the last people who
will fight on this entire planet. Our high priest has chosen evil. Instead of
preaching order and meaning, he ensues chaos and destruction. He has
come here today to wipe you all out. Make no mistake, he intends to kill
you and your families with no emotion or care for your lives. I’ve seen him.
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I’ve talked with him. He will not compromise.
“So, the time has come for us to make a stand. We, the people of Terelime,
will not be forgotten. We may be killed, we may be trampled to the ground.
But we will stand on that stone out there and we will defy. We will show
that universe that it can throw every tool it has against us. It can turn our
friends, our neighbors, and our lovers into demons. It can tear us into pieces
and scatter those pieces to the wind. But it cannot take our honor.
“Today, I invite you to die. I don’t deny that you will fall on that battlefield.
But you will not die cowards. You will die with fire in your hearts and
honor on your sleeve. So, in the name of everything that is honorable, everything
that is true, I call you to war. For everyone that has been lost, and
for those who will be lost. Will you join me?”
A massive cheer rose from the crowd. I was quite surprised, honestly.
But the men cheered their approval and my spirit rose. If nothing else, I’d
done something for these men. I’d given them the will to fight. And we’d
need everything we could get in the fight ahead.
An hour later, I stood facing the darkness. Chaos swirled in there, a mad
force of indiscriminate destruction. And here I was, one man, with a ragtag
band of men who’d never seen combat in their lives trying to fight it.
I was on the verge of calling out for Tor when he strode from the blackness,
wearing a robe made of shadow. His eyes were an electric red that
glowed with a chaotic energy.
“Kalack, what do you think you’re doing?” said my old friend. His voice
was laced with an energetic frenzy that made him seem quite insane.
“Tor, you took everything from me. From this world. I intend to see you
be given justice.”
He laughed. The man had the nerve to laugh. “Kalack, I never expected
you to understand me. You never understood me. Ever since we were boys …”
“Face me.”
“What?”
“Man to man. Friend to friend. Face me.”
Tor looked rather amused at this statement. “You really think you could
destroy me?”
“Too scared, Tor? Too afraid to kill me?”
At the words, something almost seemed to leap from him. A terrible, fe-
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ocious monster that clawed to get out. “Fine. I’ll face you. And I’ll kill you.”
I quickly took hold of my Peron. The spear-like weapon felt familiar
and comfortable to me. Tor summoned his own one, a black pole of metal
forming out of cracking energy. I rushed him.
The duel felt familiar to me. How many hours had I spent dueling back
at home? I didn’t know. But something about it felt primally right. I fought
with precise, practiced movements. Not Tor. He fought with the power of
chaos behind him. His attacks were powerful, wide, and erratic. I grunted,
blocking a swing. This was going to be tough.
We fought like that for almost five minutes, me making precise movements
that countered his chaotic ones. It was clear that I was ahead. Finally,
I managed to plant the point of the Peron in his left arm. To my utter shock,
he didn’t bleed. Upon contact, he evaporated. He disintegrated into black
smoke. I stood there, so shocked that I didn’t notice the twisting blackness.
Tor was re-emerging, no sign of a wound. What? And behind him was… an
army. A vast army of chaotic souls that danced around wildly, cackling and
screeching.
“Tor, why must you do this?” I screamed. Tor looked at me, sorrow in his
eyes. His army of demons rushed up behind him. And the last thing I saw
was my old friend turning away, unable to face me as I died.
Then everything went black.
— Epilogue —
As Tor oversaw the destruction of the last city on the planet, he felt a stab
of pain. Not physical pain, he was immune to that now. It was the pain of
loss. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something. Glyphs,
this chaos shrouded his mind, it was relentless. He could only seem to
focus on one thing. Gaining power, becoming the most destructive force
in the universe.
Something tickled his mind, a memory. A reminder of why he’d begun
this quest. He had been doing this… He’d started for…. for what? He couldn’t
remember. The darkness clouded his mind. And yet, despite the darkness, he
could feel something, something cold. It pressed against his neck.
He reached down, pulling out a silver necklace. As soon as he saw the
glistening ruby, he remembered. It had all been for Kara. The necklace had
been a gift from her, a wedding present. Now she was dead.
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That was why he’d done all of this. Why he’d killed his old friend.
He focused, grasping the gem in his hand. Then, not knowing how he did
it, he channeled his energy. He didn’t try to bring her back, he just probed.
He asked the universe if it was possible. The universe answered him.
He felt the vague sensation of a wall. A block. The more he pushed, the
more it resisted.
Tor slumped to his knees, agonized beyond anything he’d ever felt. Tor
had ravaged nations and worlds, but it was all for nothing.
He’d failed.
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72 Short Prose

Eden Leskovac
City of Bridges High School
Grade 11
O.C.D.—
Of Comforting Dichotomy
“The Comforts You’ve Found In Your Illness”
“I feel like it doesn’t control you as much as you control it” is a phrase tossed
around more than once by my mom whenever the topic of OCD comes up.
I accept this. I feel it must be right. I feel like I have it “better” than
most. It’s severe, it’s uncontrollable, my mind is always analyzing it, and it
manifests in unfortunately obvious ways. But its severity is too strong to
question, just not severe enough to fix by force, since I don’t want it to be
fixed by force. Fixed by force implies my logic, my survivalist logic of this is
dangerous, avoid it, is wrong, despite common sense saying that avoiding
germs is right. When the public treats very real germs as ludicrous, it seems
undesirable to join their thinking.
My symbiotic relationship with my mysophobic OCD could take on a
commensalistic, parasitic, or even somewhat mutualistic form. It’s a constant
stream of diplomatic negotiations of the self instead of bloody fights.
If I approached it as a leader who was a bit too passionate, a dash too
desperate, a tad too feeling, it would be unprofessional, and I would have
unrealistic expectations. The treatment would be worse.
Regardless, the thought of “fixing it” does not bring a feeling of less
stress; the idea seems like it brings more. It plants visions of exposure therapy
in my mind. It makes me picture a therapist who doesn’t understand it,
equivalent to germs in a trench coat, under the skin of a face as their only
mask with eerily welcoming hands they expect me to shake. Soft hands,
hands that have never cracked under too much hand soap, hands that will
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touch their face to keep it on right, pulling the corners of their collective
mouth into a condescending smile as they say you’re not going to die, you’re
being dramatic, you’re taking this too seriously, get off our backs. They’ll
pat me on the back as a sign of support, and millions of germs hop on me
in a way where I can just feel it.
I can physically feel the germs collected on my hands after touching
something certainly dirty. The sensory overload is stronger than anything
tangible, like the fabric of a shirt I use to wipe my face in places my hands
cannot, and carefully maneuver to (hopefully) scratch in my forehead with
a different part of the collar than the corners of my mouth, or the nares of
my nose.
It’s a much dirtier device than thoroughly washed hands, but it touches
nearly nothing but my “clean” chest, despite functioning in the same way
as a towel, one of the dirtiest objects in common circulation. Towels are
used by clean hands, and only turn dirty from sucking up what your hands
leave behind.
In a public environment, there are germs on the:
• Doorhandle (to leave the room)
• Doorhandles (to enter the room with a sink)
• Faucet (both sides, depending on the sink)
• Soap cap (the scariest part if it comes up short, and there’s nowhere
else to turn)
• Sleeve (of yours, to hit every faucet and doorhandle on the path back)
• Jeans (of yours, to dry your hands on something other than a towel)
For a meal, these are typically worth the risk, unless I become accustomed
to carrying my own tongs everywhere I go, in a specifically-treated
pocket. For the skin on my face, I would only be depositing the germs I
couldn’t shake, and, through sick irony, collecting more on every trip back
to a bathroom or kitchen.
But I’m still lucky. I’m lucky enough to pretend not to notice the germs
that I feel like a sixth sense. I’m lucky enough that if social contracts force
my own hand, I can shake someone else’s. I’m lucky enough that there’s a
chance, depending on the day, I won’t viscerally react. I’m lucky that I know
exactly where it’s preserved. I control it, I tuck it away, and I quarantine it,
even when I can’t kill it.
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It doesn’t pain me physically. It discomforts me. It’s like something just
out of place, just out of reach. It technically, literally digs into my skin, but
it feels like it just sits on the surface. The way it digs into my head is much
more noticeable. I map out the exact relations of my personal space to my
peripersonal space to my extrapersonal space, pushing the limits of how
severed it really is from the body, or the further tucked-away mind.
When I wonder why I can feel such invisible germs, I’m brought to wall
after wall of articles about OCD, germaphobia, and mysophobia. Nobody
has given this phenomenon a name or respected its worth as a phantom
sense. When they’re independently addressed, tucked in the middle of lists
of symptoms, they’re dubbed distorted physical sensations that one might
struggle to control.
These sensations are distinctly different than the ones I have for objects
and others. The world is a land of hazards I’m constantly clocking for their
threats, even down to my own clothes. When I directly contact one, I feel it.
They’re only delusions in the way one claiming a replica or model of a real
subject is delusional.
But I’m lucky, as I can bargain with myself. If I compartmentalize the
state of my body, I can compartmentalize my feelings in my mind. I navigate
this risky game with on and off switches as my ration of respite. I’m on,
breathing and feeling whatever’s necessary, until I can safely be off, turning
on the steaming water of a shower, all but peeling off my skin, and reforming
it into something usable, comfortable.
My projected mental fortifications secure me well because they’re
grounded in common sense, and my observations, since yes, I did see you
touch that bag without washing your hands after, and I know that bag was
on a doorhandle that someone touched after sneezing into their hands, and
after you touched that handle and moved it to another room, the belongings
inside were passed between hands and tables that have all touched
one hazardous object, and then each other’s, so I’m sorry, but if this is all
I’ve observed, arguing won’t make it any better, because what have we both
missed? There is no magical step that takes away the germs without cleaning,
so please just wash your hands.
Doesn’t this mean I’m in control? I can be pliable, if necessary. If you
tell me to “adapt or die,” you’ll find I already have. I only subverted your
expectations. Your definition of adapt brings me closer to death than mine,
with my practices deliberately created to survive and thrive, in public
and my own home. But their inconvenience to you is a life-changer to me,
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and that’s why you’d prefer I died quietly, without complaints, in a bed
of blankets plucked from my floor, in the very same clothes I wore to the
store, touching the same bottles of loratadine, and diphenhydramine, perphenazine
and fluoxetine, sertraline and clomipramine as every other hand
contemplating what was wrong.
In my preservative modes (with a constantly updating mental game
plan on how to return to my cleanest state) I still can swallow my feelings,
force-feeding myself (literally, sometimes, if no sanitizer is in sight and
contaminated lunch is better than none at all) actions I have no interest in,
or am even repulsed by. If I’m asked too nicely or too forcefully (as a doorin-the-face
second offer when I feel too bad to say no, this is also bad for me,
or an obligation, morally or by requirement) to do a task that sets off all the
mental alarms, I can do many (not all, but many) through the most gritted
of teeth and most slow, unproductive, reluctant movements.
You might get your task done just as you want it, with my mental anguish
neatly hidden out of sight; you might get it done many minutes after
you want it, completely incorrectly, but I swear to you, with as much
bargaining as my brain allowed. I opened several full trashcan lids before
giving up and putting it beside the garbage, I promise, did you hear the
running water under my fingernails for minutes and minutes when I came
back? Isn’t that proof enough? Or is such scrubbing nothing out of the ordinary,
even nothing worth noticing?
I’m lucky enough to survive in unclean spaces, as in, spaces between my
home and a garbage dump. Public spaces with cleaning standards I cannot
trust to be the same as my standards, even if I can’t always have that way
in my home. (The RSD-grade betrayal of objects in your safe space being
tainted and avoided is a hell I wish on no one, and even those who live
alone might deal with it from the traces of their past self, pitting the limited
energy of life against the mental anguish or dodging every hazard).
But life in these in-between spaces is a transitional state of being, even
for hours at a time. A state I adapt to, and I cannot carry back to my ideal
environment. Once I am through the front door, the strict routine begins.
What to touch and what not to touch:
• Set phone and second glasses on the red step stool, overran with unrecognizable
papers
• Tuck your bag against the front wall, with any other dirty objects
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• If returning from a moderately less dirty location, set these on the
counter and clean the counter when cleaning objects
• Wipe off the phone when you use it again, after your shower
• Place your dirty coat around the other dirty coats, and isolate the
“cleaner” coats
• Remove shoes somewhere between the door and the bathroom
• Touch no surfaces until changing out of dirty clothes and then washing
your hands
• Only handle towels and pajamas with clean hands
• Lather soap over every surface of your body that’s been exposed to
dirty surfaces, and typically the rest
• Wash your hair more times a week than any professional recommends
because you never notice a difference anyway, and whether or not you
can be bothered to dry it
• Wipe off every object you brought to the dirty location, unconcerned
with water damage
• Avoid all likely breeding grounds for cross-contamination
There’s no room for personal error, no room for laziness. If I bump the
wrong surface, my chemically weathered hands can bleed just one more
time. On my laziest day, there is still a change of clothes and a sudsy cloth.
The negotiations I make with myself become law. They’re clearly, legibly
typed in my mind. The contradictory nuances are natural to live by. What
truly goes and what doesn’t would be even lengthier and more complicated,
but with enough time to reflect and transcribe, I could easily answer what’s
allowed and what’s forbidden. But it boils down to one simple rule, the rule
I stress when my (already watered down, littered with rumination I don’t
mention, since doing so often leads to a guilt trip) requests are considered
unreasonable or ridiculous: Anything “dirty” is cleaned off when into clean
spaces, or it’s isolated.
What is “dirty?” If it comes from the outside world, it’s usually dirty.
Of course, hospitals and schools are the worst offenders, but cars, offices,
homes of friends and family, and walks that last too long all make me dirty.
I get changed whenever I return to the house. I will wear clothes I like
less around tons of people precisely because there are tons of them around
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while preserving my home. As the only one who goes through the embarrassment
of a fistful of wet wipes in my pocket that never feels quite clean
to clean off my section of the car, I would prefer if they followed suit every
time, but what could I do? Just as I succumb to the exhaustion of avoiding
a chair in my own home rather than spending a few minutes cleaning it off,
they succumb to the exhaustion of feeling controlled by an extra task in the
daily routine, something nobody needs).
That’s the aspect of control I barely have, but I’m good at pretending I
do. The strongest use of my restraint is the aspects of this I let go, I gaslight
myself out of having an issue with, I deliberately ignore to avoid the stress
it feels my requests always bring. I can’t ever really forget, I will always be
bothered, or even distressed, but nobody else thinks about it in the first
place. If the parts I can’t keep quiet about are always met with an eyeroll,
down to bringing a wipe on a silver platter and requesting someone spends
three seconds wiping what they’re clutching off and still ending up just
insufferable sometimes, then I have to hold back what I can.
My proudest moments of repression are the mundane:
• Of course, I don’t tell guests where they can and cannot sit; the most
I’ll do is not allow them on my bed, something only someone looking
for a fight would argue, someone you don’t invite over more than once
• I don’t ask my mother to clean her purse, her credit cards, her jackets,
this is an imposition I’ll have to avoid myself
• I pretend everything about her is clean until confronted with a contradictory
sight
• I don’t pull away when family and friends who know me, just not well
enough to know me, force my hand into theirs as they say goodbye
• I don’t mention to those who should know me that I’d prefer if they
didn’t put the most obviously unclean objects on tables or in the middle
of rooms for me to dodge
My home, my safe space, is also a microcosm of the world at large. It’s
my involuntary training grounds, for noting down the new divisions of
what’s a safe space, or moving insanitary objects out of sight, out of mind,
and off my skin.
I prefer to use my disorder as a tool of self-preservation. It’s a label of
understanding, three letters as a shorthand to those who really get just how
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ad it is, and a shorthand to those who don’t really get it to rely on all their
cleaning, germaphobic stereotypes, and amplify them.
I feel like an abuser of rules for thee, but not for me with everything I
can’t bring myself to do, but worse, with everything I could, by force, put
myself in the mode to do, but find just too uncomfortable to ordinarily
force myself to do.
Does this make me lucky? Am I in control just enough to survive, but
just too lost to do anything icky? Lucky might be the wrong word. I might
have flipped it into a glass half-full scenario. Indeed, I repress all the times
I’ve pushed myself out of my comfort zone, with only traces of disgust
in my mind, in the same way I dismiss the daily struggles of avoiding a
doorknob (sometimes so persistently my muscle memory gets confused on
when the doorknob is used, and the side of the door becomes just as dirty,
and I feel trapped).
The mental walls it builds me surround the space I occupy, and the
space in my mind. It’s inevitable for them to turn into the constructs of
an inescapable home. This kind of Stockholm syndrome (just as dubiously
real) is the only way I know to navigate the world, protecting me from
the threats my own mind creates, but reflective of real, concrete, scientific
threats I can’t and shouldn’t forget about.
My discomforts will always come with the comfort that I feel uncomfortable,
and just uncomfortable. I am not being killed by the very thing
that keeps me from succumbing to death and illness. This taxonomy of
my priorities has not scrubbed off every germ, but it hasn’t scrubbed off
every scrap of my skin, either. Its disorder brings me a very specific order,
instructing how I interact with the whole world. It saves me from myself
as much as it puts me into those very same disastrous situations. What you
expect is what you get, but worse, always a little bit stronger than when
you last checked. But not for me. It’s only bleeding out in the same ways
it’s always been from a different, or more thought-out angle. I’m lucky to
know it so well.
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80 Short Prose

Elizabeth Yost
West Allegheny High School
Grade 12
The Black Jeep
It was a dreary morning on my way home from a night shift. Rain drizzled
from the milky gray clouds, and the roads were slick with water. All I could
see in the dim dawn light was the road ahead and behind, bordered by dark
forest. I felt like I hadn’t seen a car for the whole drive.
I glanced in my rearview mirror. The road was just as empty as it had
been for the last half hour. I was only about fifteen minutes away from
home now. I couldn’t wait to go to sleep.
The radio droned on, tuned to a news station. I picked up the occasional
story. A cat supposedly coming back from the dead, reported sightings of
a “killer clown,” and a missing girl. Creepy shit for six in the morning. I
turned it down.
I glanced in my rearview mirror. A car had appeared on the horizon
behind me. It had one headlight out. I peered closer. It was a black jeep.
Ugh, I thought. Jeep drivers are always idiots. Hopefully I’m home before
he’s riding on me.
I crested a hill, then another. When I glanced in my rearview mirror
again, the jeep was
there, the same distance it had been before, cresting the first hill. It was
barely in sight, and it disappeared from my view as I started down the hill.
Weird. Usually, people ride your ass on this road.
The rain picked up as I turned a bend, and the squeak squeak of my
windshield wipers bumped up. I turned the radio back up to drown out the
annoying noise.
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“… and off Route 77, a black jeep found in a ditch with no driver to
be found… ”
Creepy coincidence.
I glanced in my rearview mirror. The black jeep was gone. I looked back
at the gray road in front of me.
A shiver went down my spine. I felt like I was being watched. There is
someone in my backseat. There is someone in my backseat. There is someone
in my backseat. There is someone in—
My backseat was empty when I glanced in my rearview mirror. There
was the black jeep again. Its singular headlight winked in the rain. It knew
something I did not.
Jeez, you’re freaking yourself out. Keep your eyes on the road, I scolded
myself. You’re just tired. It’s a normal day, nothing is wrong.
I felt antsy, and my left leg shifted around uncomfortably. I craved the
relief of pulling safely into my driveway. My throat tasted bitter with dread.
My hands shook, and despite myself, I was looking in my mirror again.
The jeep was there, as it always had been. I couldn’t recall a time when it
wasn’t there. It had been there my whole drive.
I tore my eyes away from the mirror and back to the road. Still no one.
Not a single sign of life, except me. The black jeep was not living. The black
jeep was not real.
It had been there my whole drive.
It was not real. It had been there the whole time. It was not real.
My eyes left the road, and I stared at the black jeep in my rearview mirror.
I could barely feel the steering wheel under my fingers. I felt myself shaking.
I forced myself to look back at the road. Gray, never-ending. Someone
is in my backseat.
No one is in my backseat. It is not real. Gray. Never-ending.
I glanced in my rearview mirror. The jeep was much closer now. There
was no driver. It is not real. It is not real. It is not real.
I looked back to the road. It is not real. Gray, never-ending, not real,
road. The black jeep was in front of me on the road. How? It is not real. It
is not real. I will just drive through it.
I pressed my foot into the gas. My car rumbled. My windshield wipers
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squeaked. The radio droned about cats and clowns and black jeeps. Black jeeps.
I pressed my foot into the gas, and I drove through the not-real black
jeep. It was real.
It was real.
It has always been real.
My head leaned on my steering wheel, bleeding.
The black jeep drove slowly past me, past my wrecked car, and a concerned
man stared into my window. He was real.
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84 Short Prose

NieZhay Jefferson
McKeesport Area High School
Grade 10
The Flower and The Moon:
Blooming in the Dark
When something you love so dearly is something that is constantly hidden
from you, what do you do? The Moon was having this very predicament.
She loved what she provided for the people; the ability to party in the dark
or rest in silence. She wouldn’t have asked for a better job. That was until
she met Flower.
Flower was a beautiful being that the Moon had only begun to recognize
over time. She had sprouted from the ground spontaneously one winter,
which is what caught the Moon’s attention in the first place. Flower wasn’t
very big, definitely not as big as Moon, but this was no issue. Her beauty
was able to shine beyond size. In the Moon’s opinion, she was perfect.
Despite all of these observations, the Moon felt she stood no chance of
conveying her love to her Flower. You see, Flower depended heavily on the
Sun. She didn’t need the Moon as much as the Moon needed her, and this
left the latter feeling conflicted, hurt, and maybe even a little desperate.
One thing she never was, though, was jealous. What could she do? Flower
and the Sun had been together since before she had even come into the
picture. She stood no chance. At least, that is what she thought.
Feeling dejected and rejected before even making a shot, the Moon felt
content with just being there occasionally for Flower. It didn’t matter how
much it hurt. The Moon would watch from the dark as her Flower and the
Sun would interact and complement each other so well. She would watch
as her Flower wrapped her petals into a tight coil as soon as her disgustingly
cursed light took over the sky. It pained her, but there was nothing
she could do.
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Then, one night, the unthinkable happened. Just as the Moon was preparing
to settle in and watch the beauty that was her Flower shut herself
from the night, she was taken aback when Flower was the exact opposite of
closed up. Her petals were flowing in the soft wind of the night, in all their
glory, exposed for anyone to see.
The Moon watched in a haze. She couldn’t believe it. Was this really
happening? All of her dreaming and wishing could never have prepared
her for this. She did not turn away out of fear of missing even a second of
this blessing.
Flower stood confidently in the Moon’s light. She beamed, absolutely
glowed. Her beautiful pink petals, soft and fragile yet strong and steady,
splayed for all of the night goers to see. Her stem was firm, leaves perfectly
shaped. The longer Moon watched, the taller Flower seemed to stand. A
rapid thumping began to sound, neither of the two quite sure which of
them it was coming from, but they recognized it as a heartbeat.
Flower stared. Moon stared. Everything was still.
Then, she began. A dance as graceful as the leaves on the wind during
the fall, as synchronized as the falling snow coating the ground she sprouted
from during the winter. Her petals and stem and leaves swayed and
flowed to a tune that only she could hear, but the Moon tried her best to
imagine it. She did what she could to carefully assess every shift in posture,
every wiggle, every pose.
As it came to the end, the Moon realized that this dance had been crafted
for her specifically. The way Flower opened and closed her petals, twisted
away from the light and bent at her mid base. It all resembled the Moon
herself. Moon jerked. Flower continued, and she began to see her for what
she was.
She was a Flower.
She was an Angel.
She was the Light.
She was a Flower.
And when she was done, the Moon beamed brighter than before. At the end,
both Moon and Flower came to the realization that the thudding from before
was the sound of their two souls entwining as one. It was them becoming each
other’s. It was beauty and grace and love and tragedy, their story, embedding
itself into the both of them and bursting color and darkness on the inside.
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From that night on, Moon never let herself feel distraught again by the
light that the Sun provided for Flower. She remembered the dance and
reminded herself:
She was her Flower.
She was her Angel.
She was her Light.
She was her Flower.
And that they were one.
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88 Short Prose

Sophia Whitman
Upper Saint Clair High School
Grade 11
How To Befriend a Crow
Here are some things to know about crows: first, is that they are smart, second,
is that they have a sense of time, third, and most importantly, is that
they are as loyal as dogs or siblings or the best of friends.
When I was six, I was eating a bowl of salted nuts on my front porch
steps at exactly 3 o’clock in the afternoon. It was a muggy summer day, and
I was about to go back inside to the relief of air conditioning when a black
bird landed at my feet.
I sucked in my breath in the hopes I wouldn’t scare it away. It cocked its
head at me, and I felt it looking into my soul with those beady little eyes.
It wasn’t a pretty bird by any means: ruffled feathers, scrawny talons, and
those eyes, oh the eyes.
But at six, I saw a sleek creature the color of night and an animal with
an intelligent gaze. Gently, still not daring to breathe, I held out my hand, a
pile of peanuts, almonds, pecans, and walnuts laying in the palm. The bird
pecked up an almond and promptly flew away.
I named the crow Tinsel, in the hopes he would bring me shiny things,
and every day after that, he showed up at my house at three sharp. Sometimes,
if I wasn’t waiting on the porch, he’d come tap at windows around
the house with his beak to try to find me.
My elementary school was dismissed at 3:15, and I would hop off the bus
at 3:30. According to your Nona, Tinsel would wait patiently on the front
steps for half an hour. And every day, I’d talk to him, pet him carefully on
the head, and feed him a couple nuts, oats, or dry cereal at about three
o’clock. He was always on time, even when I was not.
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On my ninth birthday, my wish for crow gifts came true. I don’t know
where I got the notion that crows could bring you things, maybe Aesop’s
Fables, but my non-birthday wish was the perfect birthday present.
My birthday that year happened to be two days after school had been
let out for the summer, so I was disappointed I hadn’t been able to bring
cupcakes to my class or go down to Mrs. Stewart’s office to get a happy
birthday pencil. And on top of all that, my best friend who lived next door,
Nessa Gallagher, was already away at summer camp. Your Gramps did his
best to cheer me up, taking me to the zoo while Nona baked my birthday
cake and slathered it in buttercream.
At the zoo, I rode the merry-go-round and got yellow popcorn from a
stand next to the elephants. We must have gotten home a bit before three,
so my dad and I sat on the front steps and watched the sky for Tinsel. He
swooped down that day with a soda tab.
At twelve, Tinsel was the best friend I had, and seeing him every afternoon,
come rain, snow, sleet, or hail was just a part of my routine. My
school friends and I bickered constantly, but not me and Tinsel. The February
of my seventh grade year was a rainy one. Even though it was winter,
the groundhog had said spring would come early, and instead of flakes of
snow, I was pummeled with fat, cold raindrops.
Before climbing off the bus, I pulled the hood of my rain jacket over my
eyes. I ran to the front porch to find Tinsel shaking water from his feathers
under the overhang.
“Me too, Buddy,” I said and wiped the droplets from my coat. I squatted
down, the heels of my shoes soaking my jeans. I tapped his wet feathered
head with two fingers. When I held out my palm with a handful of sunflower
seeds, he dropped a dusty blue button, the kind that might go on a girl’s
school sweater, from his beak in exchange for his snack.
When I was thirteen, I came down with a fever. I lay in my bed, wrapped
in extra blankets, but I couldn’t seem to get warm. I could hear Dad,
Gramps, clanging around downstairs to make me hot cocoa. Your Nona put
a thermometer in my mouth and clucked her tongue at the numbers my
temperature read.
“You’re not too sick, so I won’t take you to the doctor, but you have to rest
so that you’ll feel better for Christmas,” she said. “I don’t think it’s the flu,
you just stayed out too long in the snow, baby.” She brushed my bangs back,
kissed my hot forehead, and left me to sleep.
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I dipped in and out of feverish nightmares for the rest of the morning.
Mom woke me up around noon and coaxed some soup into me, and after
that I continued to sleep. At one point, I thought I heard someone knock on
the door, but I didn’t answer, and no one bothered to come into the room.
That night, I forced myself to take a hot shower. I didn’t want to get out
of bed, but I always felt better when I was clean of the cold fever sweat.
When I had finished washing, I padded back into my room to change into
fresh pajamas. I was about to draw the blinds when I noticed something.
I pushed open the window and leaned out into the freezing winter wind
with my hair dripping wet and wearing nothing but a towel. The sound I’d
drowsily heard wasn’t knocking on the door; it was tapping on the window.
I plucked a silver half dollar from the second story windowsill, retrieving
an early Christmas gift from my crow.
When I was a sophomore in high school, so probably around fifteen,
Nessa Gallagher and I rekindled our friendship. We had grown apart since
the days of roaming the neighborhood running through sprinklers in front
yards, but that year we were the only sophomores in the precalculus class.
The day before our first test, she’d rung my doorbell and invited me over
to study.
That year we also decided we’d join a school club together, preferably
the weirdest one we could find. We chose fencing. We slicked our hair back
and went to club practices a couple days a week. After we’d learned enough
basic skills, we’d enter into tournaments every few weekends. Neither of us
ever won, but Nessa was a natural and placed a handful of times.
Nessa had turned sixteen that September, while I had to wait for June,
so soon enough, she was able to drive me with her brand new shiny license,
though your Nona was always skeptical of her driving skills. She worried
and worried until I got home safe.
“You be careful, Jude,” she’d warn. “Nessa is easily distracted, and she
drives too fast.”
One afternoon, as we turned into my driveway after majorly losing one
of our first tournaments, Tinsel was perched on the front stoop cawing. I
got out of the passenger’s side.
“Hey, Tinsel,” I called. He picked something up in his beak and hopped a
little before taking flight. I had never tried this before, but I held out my arm,
and he landed on my elbow. His claws scratched me, but I was too impressed
to care. My arms were already sore and bruised from fencing anyway.
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You know the face Aunt Nessa made when she saw you last year? And
she was so surprised how tall you’d gotten? Well, Ness gawked at the sight
in front of her with that same expression.
I told her all about Tinsel. We went inside to get him a pistachio and
took his fourth gift: a house key. We had no idea who it belonged to, but
it looked new enough. Nessa always suspected he’d taken it from under a
doormat and that if we tried all the front doors on the street, we’d eventually
find whose it was.
I let her take the key, which she kept in her fencing bag for the next
three years as a good luck charm. She gave it back to me the day we graduated
high school.
At sixteen, Paul pulled slowly into my driveway, much slower than Nessa
ever did. If he knocked over our mailbox, he’d face the wrath of my mother.
I’d just been on my first date with your father and the butterflies in my
stomach hadn’t died down. If anything, they’d worked their way into my
throat. I was choking on butterflies.
Paul was always a nice boy. The first thing I noticed when I met him was
his name, old-fashioned. He told me he was named after his father and his
father’s father before that. I told him I didn’t know where I got the name Jude.
That made him laugh. My favorite thing about Paul was his laugh. He
had a good smile, and he laughed a lot. Alright, hon, I’ll get back to the crow.
When your dad successfully avoided knocking over the mailbox, I hurried
to the front door, where my mom, and Tinsel, were waiting. The bird
was tapping his talons like my third impatient parent, a trinket clutched
in his beak.
Nona opened the door, and I waved to Paul. He flashed me a smile as he
drove off. When Paul had turned the block, I knelt down and took the gift
from Tinsel. It was a ring with an old and coppery band and a tiny green
stone set in the center. Yes, you can see it. Careful, don’t scratch it.
Age 18, I took my first look at my college dorm. It was cramped, a set of
twin beds and desks crammed into a cubicle. My roommate Caitlin and I
had tried to make it feel less dreary, but the room still didn’t feel like home;
it felt like a claustrophobic Pinterest board.
I stared out the window overlooking campus and took a deep breath. I
would be happy there. My old friends and I would stay connected, and I’d
make plenty of new ones too. Your Nona had promised to take good care of
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Tinsel. On my bed was one last unpacked box, if you could even call it that,
tiny in comparison to the ones I’d stuffed with clothes. Inside, a soda tab, a
button, a coin, a key, and a ring.
I glanced at my watch. That day it was three on the dot, but now it’s…
nine o’clock, and I think someone was supposed to be in bed a while ago.
Do I think you’ll ever make friends with a crow? I don’t know, maybe one
day. Do I think Tinsel remembers me? Oh, honey, I think Tinsel has probably
lived his whole life, but he was a very good friend to me for twelve years,
which is already a very long time for a crow to live. Sigh, these are going to
have to be tomorrow’s questions.
Goodnight, love.
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94 Short Prose

Alonah M. Darwin-Jackson
Penn Hills High School
Grade 10
It’s Raining Tonight
Little brown girl, it’s raining tonight. She hastens to the door, 4c curls overflowingly
dangle from her crown and begin to poof. It’s dewy and humid
out. Little brown girl, where’s your umbrella? She comes home dreary and
drops her things off at the front door. Onto the couch, she slouches and
unbuttons her grey linen and cotton blended pantsuit. It’s 7pm and the sun
begins to fade into the vesper leaving a gloaming view in the evening sky.
As beautiful as it looks, as time-stopping as this short rest feels, she finally
lifts off the couch with an “ugh.” Leftovers mold in the back of the fridge
and dinner plans for later with friends have been canceled. “What a day!”
Hunching into the dining room to empty out papers from the long and laboring
week, she notices that the vintage Kedok record player, unorganized
and unevenly placed on the old dining room vanity, had been unplugged
after previously playing an album of Marvin Gaye’s Midnight Love. Changing
the record with a stretch and a yawn, little brown girl, it’s time for
bed. Without hurrying, she began whistling along with the tune of Erykah
Badu’s Mama’s Gun album. Orange Moon is playing, and the mood has
shifted. Dim lights brighten as she showers off the outside dew. The moody
and dilute strain of lyrics by Mrs. Badu herself had loosened tension off her
shoulders. Oh, little brown girl, wash off the blues and like an orange moon,
reflect the light… Tonight, it rains, there isn’t any more sunshine, the sky
had turned to an indigo shade of blue with a bleed of purple. Tonight’s dusk
had settled, and the serene sound of crickets chirped through the walls.
Blurred, defining sound creeps up the shade-grown toned walls while the
pitter-patter of rain drops balances the strain of music playing and records
spinning. This real good space is a soul-craving, unbidden locale. And with
much ease and lucidity, the record player begins to play “Day Dreamin” by
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the famous Anthony Hamilton. Spewing graciously, a classical essence of
soul and raw emotion. Little brown girl, drain the water and open a window,
the music is playing and it’s raining tonight.
96 Short Prose

Alonah M. Darwin-Jackson
Penn Hills High School
Grade 10
Flaws
My mind is the receptor of philosophical and sensible ideas. Could it be,
that thing I desire is simply a cure to my curiousness. As I jot conceptions
of my reality, I remain in tune with what’s outside as well, waiting to take
a step in after being wet from soaking on the outside pitter-pattering, rain
storming, world. “Shh, be quiet!” I’m in the library of my mind! It’s ill-lit
here, and I can heed the intellectual and speculative canvas paintings on
the walls. Mulberry painted walls stand tall and stocky. Shadows lurk and
creep as the hallway mirror reflects bustling scenery from tall city skyscrapers.
I’m writing a novel. Based on what exactly? Well, that’s an inquiry
that’ll have to remain for a while. After reading A View from The Cheap
Seats by Neil Gaiman, I realized something. That thing a writer is held accountable
for encompasses the hunger of the reader behind the precise and
adroit written pages, waiting to turn and read what comes next, to hunger
for an answer to their question, “What will happen next?” As the writer, I
hold myself to a high standard of conveyed brilliance and expressed intellect
I acquire yet hold so steadily close to myself. Despite the moments in
my days of which I spend a large percentage of in my mind, I wander in
spaces of it I’ve never been in before. As unfamiliar as this sounds, I enjoy
the contemporary feeling of joy midst something new, something different,
something left for questions and no answers. Why exactly? As such a
thinker, my whereabouts turn the pages for me. I find answers to things
left unanswered. And like a light bulb above my head, a new page is turned
and an idea, a proposition has been aimed. I imagine a chunky and broad
book, pulled off the shelf of a beautiful library full of books untouched and
untampered with. The book was written by Edgar Allen Poe. I open the
book and blow on the pages, dust wings into the air causing me to sneeze.
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The smell is bright but mature and old, and the lingering dust creates a terrain
of a smoky dark room with a small, reflecting light and a crackling, lit
fireplace in the center. Up against the towering wall, charmed with marks
of abstract art and genius, light-crafted illuminations, the fire crackles and
my mind is at ease. Holding this book feels like holding a piece of gold. I
peer out of a small window above a tall, twirled ladder holding the book,
and I beam with admiration and fondness. During these moments, I’m in
awe, infatuated with my mind, my library filled with books and nooks, untouched,
undiscovered, and unnoticed gems, flaws.
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Poetry
100

1st place
“The War Factory”
Luke DeMaria
2nd place
“When I Grow Up”
Linda Kong
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102 Poetry

Luke DeMaria
West Allegheny High School
Grade 12
The War Factory
We push them to their breaking point, then we push them further.
The factory fuels them with blood until they’re dead.
Just another machine out of order.
They’re produced so they serve with fervor.
We powered our private jets with the oil they bled.
We push them to their breaking point, then we push them further.
From the moment we deploy them, it’s murder or be murdered.
When they go to their cold, metal coffin, there will be another
in their stead.
Just another machine out of order.
They’re all clanged together by another dead-eyed worker.
They fight till the village roads run red.
We push them to their breaking point, then we push them further.
We keep them in line like a herder.
They’re taken care of till there’s a thought in their head.
Just another machine out of order.
We assemble them for our country, and they live and die to serve her.
The factory’s their birthplace, six feet underground’s their only bed.
We push them to their breaking point, then we push them further.
Just another machine out of order.
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104 Poetry

Linda Kong
North Allegheny Senior High School
Grade 11
When I Grow Up
Today in English class, Ahab is torn open
by his hatred for the White Whale. The teeth rip
into his leg again & again, each time
the captain refusing defeat. We fish his body
out of the sea & drag it into the classroom,
dissect why Ahab could never leave the ocean
on his own: does fear or love
grip the heart more tightly? Every day
the lanternflies murder themselves
on my tongue; they flutter in every orifice
ready to be crushed; fear is the song
in my lungs, my voice, my vision.
Every seed I plant in my garden is wrong.
I wonder if I’ll ever love something as much
as Ishmael loves the sea. I am lost
in a sea of futures & in all of them
I have already died; in all of them
a bird, having never spread its wings,
builds a nest on the ground & tells itself
that someday, it will learn to fly; in all of them
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a girl, fishing for stars in an empty ocean,
floats into a storm & clutches the sides of the boat
as it fills with ink, having never learned to swim.
I am afraid of a future without a lifeboat—
I am afraid of the future where I have one
& drown anyway. The speaker of my poems says
that every poem she writes is about the apocalypse
because she cannot choose a moment beyond this one,
because she grieves for every possibility the future
does not hold. Every time someone asks me what I want
to be when I grow up, I promise myself
that one day, I will stop being afraid. I am so
tired of being afraid. I promise myself that I
will set the lanternflies free, that I will let them
tear me open in escape & ravage the world
with desire. I want to let my garden grow wild,
I want the vines to overtake the backyard
& turn it into something unrecognizable, I want
for there to be no wrong answers—
When I grow up, I want to be an artist.
I want to fall in love with the world.
I want to be in love with it all.
106 Poetry

Linda Kong
North Allegheny Senior High School
Grade 11
Aren’t We All Fishing
for Something
It is past midnight & I am at the dining table staring
into RGB LEDs that tell me Madison is the Father
of the Constitution. The air is stale & unmoving
except at the window, so I open it & stare wide
into the darkness & let the wind inhale me. When I tumble
into the outdoors, the girl perched on the crescent
moon begs me to sit at the edge of the world with her
& fish. So I do. I sit & fish for thoughts in the starry
well-water. What is poetry? the girl asks, & I tell her
it is the fisherman, who spends long hours on the sea;
it is the joy of his first catch; it is the fish gasping
for breath; it is the jingle of coins at the market;
it is the busker’s jazz drifting through the afternoon;
it is the man plucking off the fish’s scales; it is the child
who asks to take the fish home; it is the mother
who reluctantly agrees; it is the imitation of the ocean
in a fishbowl; it is the bustle of routine; it is the water
turning green; it is when the mother takes out the trash;
it is the raccoon that picks at bones; it is the cells
that decompose; it is gnawing & growing & waiting &
arriving & dead & alive all at once. Poetry is the way
by which the poet lives, I say. Who is the poet? the girl
asks. That’s for you to decide, I say. Are we poets too,
the girl says & the sky begins to cry, so we watch ripples
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form until the sun rises. Until dawn sops up the water
from our clothes, cradles us in its arms, & puts us to sleep
even after the night has left.
108 Poetry

Veronica Betta
Keystone Oaks High School
Grade 10
There Is an Ache
When I dream of home,
It is not my own house.
It’s my best friend’s, who I know has never been scared,
And has never flinched when their mom brushed their hair,
And whose mom talks softly to me, like I’d break.
There is an ache,
Deep within me,
And I know that it is not leaving.
There is an ache,
Sitting right behind my eyes,
And I know that it is waiting for me.
I know that it is waiting, always waiting, for when I see my sister cry
because my mom and I yell so loud.
Waiting, and patiently so, right above my head, like the hot water of a
shower—ready to burn when it falls down my face.
I know that it might not be there, just maybe, if my mother’s father had
never been angry.
If my mother had never been scared.
If she never flinched when the brush was brought to her hair.
I think maybe I’m just like her.
I think we’d both be better off if I had my grandfather’s humor, and
maybe his faith, and not his grief and his anger.
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And I think the only bones in my body that truly like my mother are
the ribs protecting my heart,
Because they know that it would break if the thought got through.
110 Poetry

Lucy Potts
CAPA
Grade 12
Dear Dad
after Dear Mr. Fanelli by Charles Bernstein
You dragged me to the white
building at 7 in the morning
just to sit in the cramped room
with other children
I didn’t want to know
on a matted carpet
with numbers,
a dollhouse,
VeggieTale books,
a poster of a cross.
You would go where
the rest of the adults went,
where the sun through glass
shined pink and blue
and the benches still
smelled as fresh
as they did for the ax.
The water was real.
I would sit alone
and half-listen to verses
about Jacob and Jesus.
You would listen
to your own stories.
When you were called
to sing his praise
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I could always hear
the organ play
from the end
of the hall,
the words never
far behind.
I told you what story
I learned when you asked
but could never
remember after stripping off
the clothes deemed holy enough
for church.
Dad, I’m sorry
I complained the whole way
through suburbs,
past manicured grass and gargoyles,
and asked if this was the service
they served cookies after.
I’m sorry I didn’t know
who Peter was,
why water was poured on my head,
the branch we belonged to:
Methodist, you told me again
and again.
I knew what it meant
to you then.
I want you to know
that despite my eye rolls
at the ministers
and my questions
about the structural integrity
of the sanctuary,
I found comfort
in a higher being
the nights my sheets
remained tucked
and I witnessed every star.
I’ve read all of Genesis, Exodus,
Mathew.
112 Poetry

Every time I hear a siren I pray,
not always because I’m thinking
of God, but because
I’m thinking of you.
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114 Poetry

Elena Maria Silva
Allderdice High School
Grade 9
My Mama Told Me
My mama told me,
to be tall, to be strong
to be short of nothing
I replied with little—but a smile.
She told me
I am a people to represent
and a home to care for.
I replied by saying I needed her help
on math equations I knew she didn’t understand.
I wanted more time.
My mama told me I
am enough. In her words,
I am enough.
I replied by showing her the mirror I looked at myself in,
the mirror that told her
she was enough.
My mama told me my name before I learned the vowels.
She told me my name before
I learned
her own.
I replied by never forgetting the name she gave me
never forgetting
I carry her name with mine.
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My mama told me it was time to walk on my own.
To the house,
To the store,
To the rest of the world.
I replied with photos of the places she never got to see.
The sacrifices she made so that I could be there were not left behind.
My mama told me
Everything and nothing
So she could be
her own.
And I replied with,
everything and nothing.
116 Poetry

Hannah Hammons
Winchester Thurston High School
Grade 11
Bristlecone
Dry rocks pile on the deprived dust
Acting as scales from the scalding sun
Spindly shrubs wick moisture
From the earth death sleeps
Yet the Bristlecone Pine stands tall
Branches stretch mangled to the sky
The bark twists the layers sedimentary
Ants inscribe their history between the grooves
Fossilized into a bone white
Its roots bury hidden below dead minerals
Its leaves lost from the fires of above
Knots kink its eggshell exterior
Weathered from whipping winds of sand
For millennia the Bristlecone is alive from inside
It kills parts of itself to conserve the water within
Precious is the insidious condition that suffocates life
The ground is left deserted
Until a cone settles the solemn soil
It creates home in its desolate dolomite
The rocky soils welcome for no one
I follow the sodden footsteps of mothers
Who climbed along hills across the seas
In soils that were replenished until the soil turned weak
It bled and soon their roots rotted
From the inside out they cried
Until their withered husks were shipped away
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Home skipped their stripped lips
As they settled in a lonely grave
And I have grown without leaves
Nothing to reach the sun and remember the rains
Of my old home I am left alone
My legacy is only a memory
They say forget the lush leaves
Now that I live with the dust
They say forget the floods
Now that my roots are stuck in dried clay
When your family has experienced genocide
It is your responsibility to remember
To remember the tradition and culture
To remember your people
When everyone else has forgotten
You have to face the whipping winds of sand
And outlast the drought
Alone
But the cool mist of raindrops is hard to remember
When the rocks you lie in have never wet
When the sun blares on your back
When you have been weathered down to your bone
The Bristlecone Pine reaches to the skies
It contorts with the dances of the winds
And sings to steal the sun
My tears are the rain
118 Poetry

Nickolaus Colbert
Westinghouse Arts Academy Charter School
Grade 11
Ascendant
I spread my wings,
with skin hanging down,
a veiny, webbed propatagium.
All to catch the air
and push myself higher.
Out of their sight
and above the clouds,
I do not see any sky.
Focusing on my own path,
I am ignorant to the oblivion.
Their ceiling is my ground:
sturdy and unrelenting.
It divides us like a fence and
I am blind to the other side
because if I see injustice,
I’ll just fly higher.
If I witness violence,
I’ll just fly higher.
If I get a glimpse of birds without nests,
I’ll flap my wings until it’s out of sight.
My floor begins to creak;
thunder booms as I chirp.
What happened beneath the clouds
penetrated my porcelain tiles
and seeped up through my linoleum.
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The floor of pure white
is sullied by a moldy gray,
Soaking my plush shag.
The ground is cracking
and unable to be salvaged.
The raindrops are pooling,
creating puddles and lakes.
To four corners the cracks spread,
tarnishing my fluffy, golden world
just to leak out of my floor
and bleed out my mistakes
to the people I neglected to see.
I flap my wings to distance myself.
I’ll fly higher so I can no longer
make out anything that is below me.
I’m just an Icarus who flew too high
with wings protected by a warranty,
and paid his way through the golden gates
with a black card
but I will never fall down.
120 Poetry

Caroline Praveen
South Fayette High School
Grade 11
Waiting Room
I pace fervently past forty reception
chairs and a stack of ancient Time magazines.
In this hushed sanctum of anxious anticipation,
I witness tears marking both
fortuitous occasions of nascency
And ill-fated instances of demise. They seem
to hide their ardor behind Nov 26, 2012: “The Petraeus Affair”
and May 2, 2016: “Leonardo DiCaprio.” But not me.
I’m meant to be your rock. But
trapped with my most sweeping thoughts
in this building saturated with the forefront
of our nation’s health, all I can do is
walk so restlessly I might as well
dig a groove into these
hospital floors.
Here, time is not measured in
seconds or minutes or hours or days
but rather by the rhythm of my pounding heartbeat,
incessant in its attempt to propel me past
the anxiety that consumes
me in this waiting room.
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122 Poetry

Jack Miller
Quaker Valley High School
Grade 11
Like You Would Know
What do you know of paradise?
Have you ever held that golden glint
Between your fingers and let it
Spill across your open palm?
Little rivers along the wrinkles.
Have you ever looked out and
Seen the glimmering horizon,
Green with envy and the hope
Of broken promises, the pull of a masochistic
Lust to drown yourself in the emerald beauty?
Have you ever heard the lark of
Sweet nothings in the time between
Dawn and morning when the air is
So fragile it shatters from the
Tremble of your lower lip?
No.
You hold nothing but ashes in your
Gnarled palms, wedged beneath nails,
Shading the crease of the knuckles,
Never to be washed away, dissolved
In the ink of your haunted maundering.
And you’ve seen no green light.
It glows from behind you, illuminating
Your silhouette onto the sorry wreck
Of alpine tickets, photos by the fireside,
An illusion of calm. You sailed that ship
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Into the rocks, and now you watch as your
Shadow veils the faces of the drowned.
You are the only griever at the funeral.
And in the dawn of mourning,
When the air has already fractured across your skull,
You cannot hear the musings of your love.
Only the whispers of what she’s become,
Beautifully damned to haunt your age.
124 Poetry

Quincy Sauter
Winchester Thurston High School
Grade 10
June Way
I run through the alley barefoot
Running over the gravel and stones
Of June Way
“I have to toughen my feet up for summer”
Eilidh is in front of me
Always a little older
Always a little faster
I look at her and hope I can be
Just as cool as she is some day
I still see her sometimes
Passing nods on the street
Now June Way is used for walking
And running is only for thoughts
I don’t talk to Eilidh
I wonder if she
still remembers me
But I know she still sees me
Sees me in the water guns
Sees me in the bunk beds
And subway surfers’ games
Of our childhood
I think that is the beauty
An ever-changing world
We don’t always need each other forever
As long as we had each other then
For those summers
In June Way
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126 Poetry

Torri Zanella
West Allegheny High School
Grade 12
Diary of an Idiot Ghost
In laughter’s guise, I dance my weary role,
A fragile soul adrift, in a world so stark,
Like fallen leaves, I drift through endless night,
Lost in the chasm, where the light grows dark.
A fragile soul adrift, in a world so stark,
My laughter masks the pain, a painted guise,
Lost in the chasm, where the light grows dark,
I walk the path of life, in mute disguise.
My laughter masks the pain, a painted guise,
A marionette am I, in this grand play,
I walk the path of life, in mute disguise,
Strings of society pull, night and day.
A marionette am I, in this grand play,
I crave oblivion’s touch, to set me free,
Strings of society pull, night and day,
Yet, I yearn for a world, where I can be me.
I crave oblivion’s touch, to set me free,
Like a moth drawn to the flame’s fiery spark,
Yet, I yearn for a world, where I can be me,
In laughter’s guise, I dance my weary role.
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128 Poetry

Raz Kraft
CAPA
Grade 9
Winter Woe
The icy December winds engulf my hands,
curling around my fingers like the antithesis of a glove,
and it catches me in a tornado of cold, throwing me back into
past Decembers.
A wind that feels like needles pressing into my skin reminds me of the
annual aches that accompany winter.
A voice in my head sings: it’s nectar reaping season again! (and the other
voices wail their despair.)
But I say this year will be different.
I say this year will be different; but after dipping my hand into
the freezing gusts
and relishing in the unbearable cold, I’m not so sure anymore.
Am I really strong enough to resist the sharp steel allures of the
winter’s cold?
I ponder as I sit cross-legged on my bed, chest constricting from
the python grip of relapse.
Am I a fool to think I won’t surrender to December’s metallic essence?
My hands are not my own anymore; I grab at my forearms,
hyperventilating.
What sorrow are the biting winds of December laced with?
My blood screams to be let loose, to be freed from its prison of flesh.
How is the summer’s foliage able to shield us from such misery?
I quell my dry sobs and bodily tremors by reminding myself that
this is on a deadline.
Soon the sun will come back and evaporate the sludge from my lungs,
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loosen the black tendrils curled around my heart,
melt the deep-rooted pain off my skin.
Winter woe will be a mere memory when summer serenity resurfaces.
And then I will be myself again; I will be reborn.
I will stand in the sunlight, listen to my body sing, feel my gold re-emerge,
and I will glow.
130 Poetry

Lilly Kwiecinski
Winchester Thurston High School
Grade 11
My Sister’s Champagne
Will Still Taste Better
I’m sat at a half empty table
and there are more people than there’s ever been in my house, ever
my sister is freshly 18 and she graduated happy and bubbly
what seemed like hundreds gathered around as she opened a
bottle of champagne
and poured glasses for everyone near her
my parents did this for her birthday and their anniversary and for
New Year’s Eve
I never liked champagne very much, but I liked this sweet one we
drank years ago
so they saved a bottle for when I had an achievement, but
I’ve been praying it comes before my 18th birthday, but I look at it
every once in a while
it’s grown dusty and I fear it will not be sweet
when I finally am able to take a sip
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132 Poetry

Emi Neuer
Winchester Thurston High School
Grade 10
Puppet
Talked with a ventriloquist
who sent wishes down clef.
Mouth careless,
And seen my Brain—go round—¹
Tentatively I wake with nothing
Only a body tethered.
How well I am bent between index
And give now to audience
—bewitched—
¹–after Emily Dickinson
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134 Poetry

Joseph Szyjko
West Allegheny High School
Grade 12
The Man that Built Me
Perhaps,
Perhaps in another life,
Perhaps in another life I was there.
I know that I should not blame myself.
I was only thirteen when You left.
But You and I both know,
I will carry the blame.
Regret,
Regret is a feeling so regular to me.
Am I even phased by it anymore?
I should not regret my actions.
I was but a boy.
But You and I both know,
I will carry the weight of regret.
You are gone,
Like the sunset of yesterday.
Yet, You lay next to my bed at night.
Yet, You watch over my every move.
Yet, You walk next to me.
I can feel You,
Yet, I know that You are gone.
You were the strongest of all men.
Plagued with polio as a child,
You could not be a soldier,
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As You had wanted.
Yet, in my youth You were my knight.
And now look at You.
You are no more than a box of ash.
Maybe,
Maybe had I spent more time with You,
I could have learned.
You had so much to teach,
And I know that You wanted no more,
No more than to watch me learn.
I watched,
I watched You slowly die.
Nothing has hurt quite so bad since.
I have become numb to this world.
I was only thirteen when You left,
But it was at thirteen that I became an adult.
It was at thirteen that Christmas lost its magic.
It was at thirteen that I had to make a man of myself.
Who else could pick my mother and my grandmother up?
Who else could try to be so strong?
You taught me that.
You taught me to be strong.
You taught me to be a gentleman.
You taught me to be respectful.
You taught me to be mature.
I know,
I know I have not always followed Your example.
I have made mistakes.
I have fallen so many times.
You have picked me up.
You showed me,
There is a lesson to be learned,
From every cut, every bruise, and every scar.
Yes,
There were times.
I’m sure You knew.
136 Poetry

When I bit off more than I could chew.
But through it all,
You were there,
By my side.
You never gave up on me.
I remember,
Your final night.
You had a picture as a child.
It helped You sleep.
I could not visit You in the hospital,
So I gave that picture to my mother.
To put on the bedside table.
I knew it would help You fall asleep,
For that final time.
You fell asleep on September seventh.
Picture by Your bed.
You did not awaken.
And I did not get to say goodbye.
Why can I never say goodbye?
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138 Poetry

Lilly Kwiecinski
Winchester Thurston High School
Grade 11
Blank Paper Never
Tasted So Bitter
I dreamed my teeth
were made of colored pencils
and as I bit the paper
they chipped
with every colorful idea I tried to make come true
the paper folded and crumpled
under my overflowing thoughts
my perfectly pressured jaw
of unparalleled precision to detail, was no match for my canvas
it wasn’t until I let go, of my potentially flawless canvas, did I realize that
my teeth were not as colorful as I thought
they were chipped and crooked, but
the paper was bare and untouched
I cried onto the plain paper
for my pain was very, very real
however, what did I have to show for it?
no color, no idea, no perfectly placed lines or shaded figures
my mouth was dry now and my gums were tired
but I bit and I bit, I begged and I pleaded
for the color to appear, to show
how beautiful it could be
how beautiful I could be
but it did not
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140 Poetry

Karin McCray
Carrick
Grade 10
Obsession
Obsessive, I wouldn’t describe myself this way
I’m like a sea of beautiful things the way I express
affection like obsession.
Wanting attention but hating aggression.
Peculiar like Jullians or Juilliards
Pretty like black roses with red thorns,
The fruit of labor couldn’t detain me,
But your words and opinions chain me
Like the dog in your backyard.
Jealousy and depravity pull me down like gravity
And wanting the worst for others often makes
for insanity.
Wanting control of everything, impossibly
Possibly a sign of something bigger
Like a paradox or an anomaly.
Dizzily, Dismally, Insatiable for creativity,
Threatening all opinions like an activist, like a pacifist
I swim through seas of minds trying to find peace
In raging fire like an arsonist.
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142 Poetry

Eva Lutz
West Allegheny High School
Grade 12
Ode to My
Childhood Home
you were my mother’s apartment, our first home with just the two of us.
i was five years old, chaotic and messy,
and painted your bedroom four different colors, because i couldn’t
quite decide.
sometimes the neighbors complained about the way i yelled
and jumped
and ran down your halls
and rode my bike in your parking lot.
every summer, i watered the bright green ivy that my mother hung
from your balcony,
until the winter came and browned the leaves, then i’d get out my sled,
and play until spring turned the snow into slush. i made friends with
the kids across the hall, eight summers and eight winters passed,
most of them would eventually disappear, and i did too.
although four years have gone by since i’ve seen you, i am not
separate from you.
there are pieces of me that still reside with you and have become
part of your structure,
a handprint left on a window, or paint on a carpet.
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144 Poetry

Lilly Larkin
North Hills High School
Grade 11
The Mirror
the mirror bore someone unrecognizable
someone older
she was no longer a little kid
(don’t you dare imply otherwise)
she was a teenager now
indicated by the
blood-scabbed pimples that littered her chin
lonely were the nights spent
in front of the mirror
looking down at her wrists
looking up at the sky
saying “Why, God. Why?”
she could not hear an answer
car lights flashed past her window
and she imagined what it would be like
to run into the street
and feel the warm embrace
of an automobile’s front bumper
no one knew the extent
of the pain
not until much later
she carried it with her
tired
weak
hoping someone, somewhere could end her misery
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she thought to herself
“someday, this will all be over”
yet was unsure she’d live to see her 14th birthday
she was just a little kid
(don’t you dare imply otherwise)
the mirror spares no one.
146 Poetry

Bella Minyo
Shaler Area High School
Grade 11
The Cat Cemetery
My Dear
It’s that time of year again
April 13th
Your birthday. You’d be twenty today
With graying whiskers and a lethargic gait
A nest of blankets became your home, in your home,
But you always had a smile on your face
Never did I think I’d lose you
Until that fateful day—how cliche
It started with the trembling legs
Then unable to eat another day
Then a lack of water, when before it could never satiate
September 3rd
I remember it like a first kiss: you don’t want to remember it
Hazy, distant emerald eyes reflect into my own
“Will I be okay?”
“I don’t know”
A measly explanation, but I trick myself into thinking it’s all right
I bite my lip and grip your favorite blanket as you sit and gently watch the
other pets walk on by
Perhaps you’ll recognize them in the cat cemetery
My teeth jitter in my mouth in anxious anticipation
I count every last second I have with you, refusing to let it go to waste
Never admitting my deepest fears to myself… it’ll all be okay?!
Tick tock tick tock
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I can’t stand the chatter and the sunny rays, please… just go away!
Nothing feels right
I just was told you can’t stay
And now I must prepare
To bring my best friend to the cat cemetery
We wrap you up and hold your paws
You looked into my eyes
Innocent. Unknowing.
I can’t see through my eyes as your face fades away, covered by an unwilling
cascade
Then the sound: a slight gasp
Then the feeling: your limp body
Then the silence
The news delivered
Death got its way
The cat cemetery she goes
The tears won’t stop coming
Even to this day
Eight months and a handful of cycles, waiting in a fruitless fashion
They’ll never go away
Because I can’t visit your grave in the cat cemetery
Try as my thoughts willed me to
There’s just too much to keep me here—yet not enough of you in sight
I’m sorry I tried to forget you
It’s the only way I could bury the pain
Perhaps, if I was Atlas, I would have found a way
But I was just sixteen
I had school and work and dance and clubs… waiting for me
While I was waiting for you
To walk through my bedroom door, hop up on my lap and plod on my desk
I’d giggle and gently scold
“I’ve got homework today!”
But your dark green eyes would stare back
Innocent. Alive.
“I love you,” they would say
“I love you too”
All the time. Every day. It never goes away.
148 Poetry

Maybe love is what keeps the cat cemetery away, try as I wish to
be there someday
Love is what keeps it—you—alive in my mind, my heart forever
But until then I’ll wait till the last gasp on my lips has escaped,
And I hope to one day join you in the cat cemetery
Where your eyes will meet mine
“It’s been a while, sister, are you okay?”
Brown eyes, weary, almost gray, find a way to communicate
“I’ve missed you, sister, but with you here again… I’ve not to dismay”
“The cats here are really great, and we get my favorite gravy and
toys every day!”
A droplet escapes from my eye, missing the long shiny ebony coat
Her over-fluffed white paws
Nothing will ever be the same
But at least I know she will be happy
In the cat cemetery
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150 Poetry

Ivy Wegner
Shaler Area High School
Grade 11
Koch’s Snowflake
Forever seems like a long time.
It’s hard to think about, isn’t it?
Think about it.
Do you feel your mind stretching?
Does it hurt?
Do you give up?
Can you swallow the idea?
Can your brain absorb the thought?
No, the answer is no.
Do not try to argue
Don’t pretend to be smart
Forever is Forever
While we cannot understand it
we find it everywhere
It reminds me of something my math teacher said
Koch’s Snowflake both continues and ends
He says it’s possible, is it possible?
Think about it.
When time ends, does forever start?
No, forever is forever, it only continues
connected to your beating heart
ingrained in each and every sinew
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When time ends you do too
Or is that only half true
The human mind cannot understand
The human mind is based on time
My head hurts
It doesn’t fit
The snowflake is expanding
it cannot be confined
I am running out of time
You, the whole thing
The whole beautiful snowflake
Both continues and breaks
Forever, you continue forever but,
Time stops, so does your heart
Are you your heart?
The snowflake is expanding
it cannot be confined
The physical bloody beating muscle
the bones, the skin, the eyes to your soul
Your soul. You are forever
Part of you stops
The other is beyond comprehension
It hurts and stretches your brain
Forever seems very hard to obtain
Because you can’t
Koch’s Snowflake, so close to an answer we will never have
But what if we could
The math teacher, the helper, the guiding light
Forever is not solitary
For some it means eternal plight
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… or wait I was supposed to say light
Enough said, you will find forever when you’re dead
But that snowflake, it’s something I will never comprehend
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154 Poetry

Micaela Domingo
Westinghouse Arts Academy Charter School
Grade 11
Engraved
I’m smiling in public,
But crying in front of mirrors,
Scars covering my body.
Bloody cuts to signs of survival
Wounded skin that I now have,
Due to words and actions.
Our first word,
To laughs, then “I love you.”
Only if yours for me was real.
Toxic and abusive
Words spat at me,
Actions leaving me with imprints.
Touch, engraved into my skin,
Praying to flee my flesh,
To be set free from remembering.
I should not carry this weight,
The thoughts scream and pound,
The pain a frantic burn.
I am not your property,
Yet every breath of mine
Feels connected to your body.
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156 Poetry

Ashley Jang
North Allegheny High School
Grade 11
Outside My Universe,
The Umbrella
I lived in a clear umbrella
Too small for me now to get in
Too short for me now to fit in
But
This small umbrella was once my universe
Though looking small
It was my ball
Though looking short
It was my port
Standing little in this once my everything universe
I wandered in this small ball
And danced for happiness
I would dance from day to night
Not having to worry about a single fright
Then, I would rush to the small port
And travel for blissfulness
A trip that allowed me to leave everything behind
The memories that I still ought to find
And when it’s time
I smelled golden flowers blossoming
I heard golden waves swirling
I touched golden leaves changing
I saw golden crystalized diamonds pouring
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As I grew taller
The umbrella got smaller
And I realized that I was living in a yellow umbrella
An umbrella that made everything look as beautiful
As gold
When I had to move out
I had to face the truth
I trembled as I moved reluctantly towards the edge of the umbrella
I felt the cold breeze rush in
Something I have never encountered before
The short living flowers
The noisy clashing waves
The decaying leaves
The cold, harsh snow
Without the yellow tint
Everything was scary
Nothing was merry
As I reached out to the new expanded universe
My eyes widened to the truth unfolding in front of me
The rain so wet it drenched my entire body
The sun so hot it burnt my skin
The breeze so harsh it tangled my hair
The snow so cold it made me shiver
With all these new experiences
The world that I have never seen
I realized what was unseen
Behind the umbrella my parents built
Now I am seventeen
With an umbrella in gleam
Not comfy as before
Not golden as before
Not protective as before
But
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A new umbrella that I built
Wider than ever
Is now opened to the unknown universe
Though not knowing what will enter in
I wait patiently with the countless promises
That my umbrella will grow
To fill this entire universe
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160 Poetry

Em Dollahon
West Allegheny High School
Grade 12
Pearly-White
Teeth,
the little mounds of enamel, sitting so
neatly in our mouths. Ideally, nice and
proper.
That’s what’s acceptable. Shiny,
white, and straight, ready to put on
a smile.
But, what if I don’t what to smile?
Unacceptable, improper idiot.
Your perfect teeth must be shown.
They need to know the beauty that you hide behind
those plump pink lips. They can’t wonder if you’re
concealing a mouthful of monstrosity. Cracked,
crowned, and rotting.
I won’t allow it.
But please,
my cheeks are tired from holding up the
smile I fake.
I can’t take one more moment…
Hush! I will hear no more from you. I told you,
Smile, not speak.
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162 Poetry

Chantel Blye
Clayton
Grade 10
Skin
You have to pick a side at birth,
White or black
There’s no in-between.
And really, it’s not your choice
Because the skin you’re born with doesn’t change.
And once you get older, you start to question things,
Like do they really see me?
Or do they just see another black kid walking down the street?
Will today be the day my mother grieves over the loss of her child?
I mean, black tells stories of where we’ve been,
and where we are headed
But does where we are headed even matter,
When for every 10 steps forward we take 10 steps backwards?
You have to pick a side at birth,
white or black
There’s no in-between.
I wish it was our choice
But the skin you’re born with doesn’t change.
When you live in a world where you don’t see you in every space you’re in
You start to question your worth.
Stand out or fit in?
And in certain rooms you wonder how you are viewed.
But despite it all, my skin is brown
And my ancestors paved the way so I can tell a story,
A story that shows where I’ve come from and where I’m headed
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2024 Ralph Munn Creative Writing Anthology
Written by Allegheny County high school students, grade 9–12
Compiled by Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh staff
2023 Cover Art Winner: Nera Akiva