The America We Have Made
By Arjun Kodial America, where everyone is free But only in theory America, the melting pot With wealth and prosperity, that only some have got America, where people yearn to come and stay But is America the best it can be today? From fighting to bloody riots to political melee And racism, uncertainty, and bitter hate filling the air like poison gas Is this the America we represent? Or is this the America we resent? If only everyone could live in peace and equality America, I dream for what it could become one day |
Flower
By Matthew Fisher Like a flower, you have a chance You may wax, you may wane, Things may look up, things may look down But like a flower, you stand strong With your head and stem held up high, You may never get a chance, but you still have one if you believe. Like a flower, you have a chance That your children will live on That it doesn’t end with you And that hopefully, With a chance Like a flower, You can bloom. |
Temporary Pain, Permanent Actions
By S. Green Have you ever felt like you were drowning? Have you ever felt like you were going away? You were slowly fading out. You are nothing. We will all end up that way. Our impact will never last. We will all go too fast. No matter who you are you have hardly any time at all. Life sucks when you live it. Death seems like a gift. But the people around you just don’t get your drift. You want to continue in your pain no more. Life is just not worth living no more. The people around you fade out while you stay in their place forevermore. Life drags on but death is short and sweet. If your life itself is darkness then death can’t be beat. This is my life. I am drowning in my sorrow. I don't want to see tomorrow but I do. People need me but it hurts to stay. Why does life punish me this way? I don’t know what my parents will say. I am trans I am pan and I don't know why. I am trans I am pan and I don’t know why I try. Why oh why am I me. I am not needed. I am not necessary. I don’t need to be here. I am to fear for my life. It’s an internal struggle. I am but a flaw on the Earth's perfect surface. This internal struggle will continue on, but I have now found my reason. My loved ones are my passion and I have learned my lesson. To see your loved one in pain is nothing but torture. To never see them again forevermore is lightyears apart from that. You eventually learn to live with the pain. Eventually, you hope to rid yourself of the weight on your chest. The sadness will pass over in due time, but the memories will stay seared in your mind. My only wish is that no one else has to understand this. If you can’t find a reason to stay, let the little things be your reason. Let your friends, teachers, family, or pet be your reason. Let the fact that not being able to see the sky, ocean, trees, or animals be your reason. Your reason, however small, will let others not go through the same pain. Your pain and their pain will eventually subside, but you will never come back again if you leave. You are the cause of that difference. Stay strong for your future. The present is only temporary. Live on for your reason. “Your reason to stay, no matter how insignificant you think it is, is a reason to live on, and if you live on your dark time will eventually be over.” |
Sr-90
By Joseph Vendetti its name was trinity. three dainty syllables with a monster behind them. an elegant word, and with it, destruction. the desert bled for a summer, wounds caked with an explosion’s debris. who knew that the parting kiss of nuclei would poison a country? a beta particle picked up a harmonica one day and started to play the fall-out blues. no one understood why they had such an urge to sing along or why they knew all the words by heart. by throat. by marrow. by god, they didn’t know how radioactive they were. drink your milk so you can grow up strong and cancerous. it is in the cows, too, my dear. the song of a half-life; an oracle dedicated to the past. a time-stamp etched in bone. in this way they will know the years we inhabited, when they unearth our skeletons from the ground that will hold them. i wonder what they will name our time. i wonder how different it will be from whatever bright-eyed name we give ourselves. when you were younger they asked for your baby teeth. they wanted to see just how much strontium-90 you had in you. i told them i did not want to know. they laughed- “as if we were ever going to tell you.” before hiroshima and nagasaki went up in flames, there was trinity. it was born at 5:29 July 16, 1945. a bullet in the flank of jornada del muerto. who knew that the parting kiss of nuclei would poison a country? isotopes skipped town and plastered themselves across the continent. a silent silver. a sliver of shivering neutrons. it is fading. a slow death rattle; half-lives spent. rotting by thirties. i heard my collarbone whisper yesterday: they all knew. they gave me the wind to sink my teeth into. don’t think for a second that they will not do it again. |