Rejected College Essay
I sit on a grey leather seat and I have been seated for over four hours. I roll down my window and Tennessee air hits me, unlike New Jersey air. We are close to the campsite we have been driving to for weeks. My hair whips around my face but I still keep it long […]
This One’s About Mock Trial
How come I didn’t write about this sooner? I have literally no idea. I can’t even imagine how quickly this past year went, even the previous year… It’s all just a big blur of objections and rule numbers (which, thank you for knowing them all, especially Rule 403). I don’t know how the entire team […]
Crab
You’re a crab. Look, I figured it out– you’re not drab but maybe a blue-backed, uncracked crab. You’ve got claws. You’ve got weapons at your disposal– but you think you know it all. And yet, in the same breath, you put yourself down. No matter how strong the ground is you can drill yourself deep. […]
whisper
I know you hear me when I whisper, On the darkest nights as the standing trees shiver. Listen to my half words, tunes — whistler on an instrument we barely know. I know you hear me when I whisper. It’s barely a fraction but my lips fissure and I see the branches about […]
Skilled
I just want to be really good at everything. I want to be able to draw whatever I want whenever I want and have it be relatively identifiable, relatively reasonable to hang on a wall and have people understand why or wonder how someone could have expressed themselves in such a way. How did she move […]
People Don’t Talk About That
I have met you. I know you– but really, I doubt you remember me. I want to scream in your face: “Where are you from?” but you’d probably say something like Maryland or just forty minutes away or something like that but that’s not what I mean. I want to ask: “Did we share a […]
Bottle
I wish I had some bottles. They would be clear and hand crafted from some country town in France where they speak with thick accents and put flowers in everything. They would put flowers in the bottles and wrap some twine around them as accent pieces. They would be really nice. I could hang them […]
Yeats’ Nights
Had I the fabric of the night, entwined with the constellation’s stars, the black and the purple and the grey night, of crabs and dogs and belts of stars; I would lay that cloth on the grass: so as we could lay on it together; but now we do not lay on just grass: for […]
Requiem for School
It’s been twenty days and in many ways I call that poetic justice. Because, though a poem will suffice, there are many more ways to conjure an audience who can ponder the wonders of life with me. But all I can do right now is attempt to rhyme and sort through lettuce and thyme […]
Me
I take too long to respond to most of my conversations mainly because I’m preoccupied with the constellations of freckles or hairs or stars that I can see from where I’m standing. And I put a nice cover on my keyboard only to take it off when I get bored of the marshmallow feel of […]
Acrostic
Everyone said goodbye today. Velvet shoes and gowns were left behind but everyone kept memories with them. Even though it’s all over, is it ever really over? Remembering everything seems like it’s too much right now so maybe I’ll just let myself have random memories of today forever. Yesterday, I never thought today would come. […]
May 27, 2017
Even when I told you I did not like the city, you did not believe me, because all the nitty-gritty of that city is what you like about it. You said that it’s pretty, and that if I had any pity left in me I would go and see this city of yours. So I […]
Backpack
I stare at your backpack, hoping for change. It’s a strange feeling when that happens, when you know that someone will come back but they just haven’t. Not yet. No, but they might. I suppose they have to if they’re ever going to get work done. But do they even want to? Maybe they left their backpack […]
The Unrecorded Conversation
[typed string0=”There are certain things left unsaid. And while that’s all right, I doubt if either of them will remember anything. In this life, there are just so many– too many– things to remember. They have to remember their own names, their ages, their gender, and how fast the speed limit is on the road […]
Reading
There is a cliche that would be easy to say: Reading is an adventure. But it’s so much more than a park tour or a fictional lecture. It’s swimming, it’s baseball, it’s an old oak, 30 feet tall that no one intends to cut down. It’s an orange feather, it’s curl-up blanket weather, it’s New […]
Museum Misunderstandings
Standing in the Natural History museum, two people (Person A and Person B) are viewing different displays. Nearby, a large group of students are chattering, filling out papers for school, and pointing at different displays. A: Did you see that– B: Dinosaur? Yeah, there’re a lot. A: They’re a lot of what? B: A lot […]
Spring
I dress like it’s Spring every day. I dress in the anticipation of the flowers blooming and the sun staying up for a little bit too long. I would want everyone to dress this way, but at the same time, it feels like I’m a Spring flower in a world of black winterberries. I feel […]
Everything
What if everything you’ve ever read was something that was secretly about you? Every news article, email, ad, all aiming towards you and intended to be about you. What if the person next to you, supposedly just typing on their keyboard, is writing about you, hoping that you’ll read it? What if I’m writing about […]
A Girl
Below the universe, there is so much more to see. But, alas, she lies on her back, her arms stretched, her dress a puddle of fabric. She’s trying to be someone she’s not: a persona too far-fetched. She can not tell the constellations apart, but nonetheless gives stories to the stars she keeps […]