“Red Manhattan”

Cesia Pino-Mercado

Untitled

Hannah Bouchard

Sometimes I look to her and I feel empowered. She is such a strong woman. To know what I know about her is like reading one of those horror non-fiction war books in history class. The type of book you can’t imagine as real, the one nobody likes to read. But I did. The things that happened to her, I would never wish upon my least favorite people. She is brave.

Sometimes I look to her and I see a shattered mirror. Fragments of her are a part of me. The good ones that everyone praises and the bad ones that manifest deep within me. I will know her for the rest of my life and beyond. She will only know me for a part of hers, not all of it. I hold her dearly in my heart, the way she needed to be when she was just an innocent little girl in a cruel, evil world. She was hopeless.

Sometimes I look to her and I pray she loves me, like she loves her solitude. But she can’t. I am her. I am everything she doesn’t like. Something she despises. Something I can’t change. Something that twists a knife deep within my chest, piercing my heart. It makes me choke on the mouthfuls of blood that want to pool at her feet and scream “I love you”. I look to her as if she was the one who strung the stars in my night sky. But each day it feels as though it is her goal to pluck each and every one from it. Crushing them in her palm and dumping them in the treacherous murky waters known as my mind. She is precarious.

Sometimes I look to her and I want to change. She spent long hard years carrying me, nurturing me, supporting me, just for me to be something she can’t stand. I would carve runes into my flesh, reorganize every bone in my body, change anything and everything for her. But I can’t help feeling as though she does not think the same as me.

She is “Mom”.

“Living Under the Shade”

Mahimn Dave

“After school”

Kaitlyn Valenti

I sit in my trunk observing around me. At 2:06, the bell rings, students flush from the building, flooding the parking lot, eager to go home. Engines yell awake and friends catch up. After traffic dials down, and everyone leaves, the lot grows quiet. Small gusts of wind blow the trees, making them whisper the only song they know how to sing. Skinny stems sprout from the ground, giving the field a great deal of hair. Somewhere in the belly of the trees buzzes a soothing sound like it’s alive. I stay crossed-legged, my foot falls asleep buzzing with the trees.

“Forgotten Memories”

Elena Hymes

“Sorrows Over The Unknown”

Jillyan Connell

In sorrow’s depths, where shadows linger deep,

A heart adorned with hopes and dreams untold,

Within a womb, a precious life to keep,

Yet fate’s cruel hand, a tale of grief unfolds.

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A silent storm that rages deep inside,

A love so tender, now lost, and none can pierce,

The ache, the emptiness we cannot hide.

A life unseen, yet felt so deeply loved,

A future dashed, a tale left incomplete,

A mother’s arms bereft, her dreams removed,

The pain relentless, never to retreat

But in the darkness, glimmers of a light,

A love that lingers, though the child takes flight.

Though sorrow’s weight may seem impossible,

In shattered dreams, a strength begins to rise,

For deep within, a flame burns indomitable,

A mother’s love, enduring, never dies.

In whispered prayers and tears that fall like rain,

Her spirit finds solace, though scars remain,

She finds a way to heal, to rise again,

To honor the life that brought her joy and pain.