Young Writers’ Archive – The Third Edition

Space Dream
Excitedly dashing home wanting to decree, decree, decree.
Everyone must listen to me, to me, to me.
About the galaxy where there’s no gravity, gravity, gravity.

Wouldn’t stop talking about the universe and the planets we want to see, to see, to see.

Finally drifted off to sleep his dream was blank, blank, blank.
He could see some little lights but his dream was not yet frank, frank, frank.
Excited and now in space, but the space debris was mank, mank, mank.
Sitting on mercury roasting mash mallows on the sun. STICK ON FIRE! Give it a yank,yank, yank.

Arriving at Venus, no welcome in sight only rough red rocks that drove me away quickly, quickly, quickly.
Dashing from Venus and staggered on to Earth the bubbly sea quenched his thirst and made his throat tickly, tickly, tickly.
Landing on mars to cool down my drink using the ice pockets but the ice shards were prickly, prickly, prickly.
As I bounced to Jupiter I felt like I was being watched by the planets eye.  Turbulence from Jupiter turned my ice

water to a slush puppy but now it tastes sickly, sickly, sickly.

Round and round on Saturn’s rings, but the rings were made out of all sorts of uncomfortable things, things, things.
Ur anus was laughed at and also wretched at, so he floated off like he had wings, wings, wings.
Neptune was skipped past even faster than Ur anus because of the trump gas it possessed and now my eye stings,

stings, stings. Stressed and frustrated because his eye was hurt so he picks up Pluto and he flings, flings, flings.

His mouth drops open because he’s so amazed by the Milky Way, then a bunch of rocks fly into his mouth choke, splutter, spit!

Falling on his knees his head is sucked into a black hole that has been sitting there like a silent hoover bump, voom, suck!

It pulls the rocks out of the boys mouth, then boom, bang, gasp!

A brilliant flash of light and the boy wakes up!

 

© Flaym Davis-Turner, Age 9

 

Truth served on a plate

As with every other morning

Scrambled eggs and baked beans

Mixed with salt that hurts the wound

I drink Patience every morning

So that it would enter into my system

Orange juice acid in the stomach

Lunch comes in a box

Amongst packets of crackers and cheese

There lies Hope

Sandwiched between all the irrelevant

The oven ‘dings’

A loud piercing sound that has

Gifted upon the table a carved chicken

Stuffed with Faith

That has roasted till brown

Yet becomes delightful in the mouth

I eat and drink what is to become of me

 

© Tanya T, Age 17

 

An Old-fangled Reminder

Tattered and torn.
An old-fangled reminder
of the earlier times,
lies on the floor in bits.
Telling a story unheard of.
It all seems like a puzzle to me.

I try to gather the bits of photographs and rearrange it.
I see our picture , with all smiles on our trip to the Essel world.
I was 8 yrs old then.
Long tousled hair, your radiant smile still smittens me.
You were there with me on that rainbow ride.
I was petrified to go on the huge ride .
But you held my hand,
Lets go on that ride, you said.
You always knew my fears.
And like on the ride ,
You always held my hand
Whenever I was in need of one.

Always ready to sacrifice
In your own beautiful way.

But I let you down .
And I think I lost your trust.

We live together ,
We share the same dining space,
Yet I feel miles apart.
I cry when it’s dark,
You cry when it’s dark.

Now all I have are memories,
Like the old-fangled reminder
Of the earlier times,
Of the happier times.

But with all my might,
With all the courage that still lives with me.
I just want to let you know
With all the sacrifices you made for me,
and all that I’d taken for granted
That I have loved you and
I always will to deep down my soul.
And I hope , I will some day
be able to say  this to you.
“Thank you for always being there for me, Mom”.

© Reesha Masood, Age 18

 

 

 

Kiiroichurippu

Here is where we begin

the start of a bloom I wished I had fully grasped.

Before you

I yearned for the sun to spring upon

A flower with petals I could kiss

Delicate; Fragile at the same time

Then you arrived

Like summer in winter –

No promised roses

But curves in the collarbone I had found familiar

Planting my lips on those cheeks

Six hundred and twenty times till the last

In a world like ours

You spoke a different language of love

That confuses me amidst the seasons

Then here is where we end

No longer came calm seas or oceans

With Mulan and rosewood boats

Instead, salty tears running down

Like the Yangtze River

Watering and planting half-truths

Lies, white lies, or everything in between

Nothing.

I apologize for a cold summer.

 

© Tanya T, Age 17

 

 

 

 

Demons

Green fields, flies and flees.

Our home. One by one- bees, coldness, mosquitoes and darkness; invade my room.

Each tiny predator, pushing, puncturing-beating me.

Holding me hostage.

Silly me, you left the widows and doors wide open.

Again. I trusted you’d try to close them. But you didn’t.

You’ve welcomed in demons.

And you

you ran into the wild woods without glancing back once.

 

© Rahela Khatun, Age 17

 

A Letter:

To someone very dear to me,

I can feel your heart beating fast but gently in my ears.
It’s grazed and barely half alive, a piercing cry and pleas beseeching ‘make the pain stop’ you didn’t tell me,

the dysfunctional beats of your worn out heart did.

I hold your hand, they’re not yours they feel aged and no longer full of life- not young or vibrant like you should be,

rather, like an old piano left gathering dust in a corner.

like they’ve been dipped in your own head drowning it in the process a million times.

And your eyes, your eyes that once shone brighter than the moon now looks like they’ve been hunting for demons all night.

Wide awake just to keep me and the others alive. And every time I look at you I see a frozen river,

colder than ice staining the delicate structure fashioned so perfectly.

If I look deep, and search not your heart but mind I could see right into you.

I see broken brain cells crackled and popped. Toyed around with for ages.

And I see no atoms alive hopeful for life. Your mouth punctured and stitched into a frown.

You do not have to be afraid anymore, I know I can’t change the trauma but I’m here…

I know.

Love, your not so little sister.

© Rahela Khatun, Age 17
A Patients Waiting Room

Can you just get on the plane and leave already.

The void between us is making the air so heavy.

Why is life time’s enemy? Out of all the adjectives and plosives and onomatopoeic phrases to be used,

why can I not find the correct conglomerate of words to build a sentence with to help me tell you how I feel.

I can’t deal with the anxiety.

You; sat next to me in the airport breathing oh so scarcely.

Your emotions are strangling my neck holding me down, trapping all the profound words of love I should utter.

I need you to keep me in balance for the tears building may knock me over.

Ironically, I am here so that you have a hand to hold. I try to look you in the eye, the hands of time ticking ever so slowly.

You’ve been summoned by the Lord, and you need to go, we stand and hug for a while, you offer me a manipulative smile.

I try to speak but there’s nothing in me, i stagger across my own tongue,

for the bullets I shoot are going to be punctured in me, not you because you are a rock,

and I cannot see me in you. so I say nothing, hoping the silence will suffice.

Before you turn to leave I manage to say “don’t wait for me, we might not end up in the same place,

but if we do then I’ll be standing near the gates”.

I want your last moment in this world to be like the feeling when you’re on the plane on your way home.
© Rahela Khatun, Age 17

 

 

 

 

How many footsteps on these floors,
bodies in these beds?
How many conversations in these corridors,
emotions in these empty spaces?

©Martha O’Brien, Age 16

 

 

Strings

Sometimes I feel like a marionette
Toyed with and taunted by you
A pull, a pluck, a pinch of a wire

 

Again I am all askew

A knot, a tangle, a twist
A dysfunctional playmate worn thin
A painted on smile to hide the chagrin
Abandoned, utterly dismissed

Beyond my control
Strings attached

 

 

© Tasha Bharucha, Age 16

 

 

Breathe

 

 

Art in the Garden

 

 

 

© Cameron West, Age 17

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Revised Personal Essay

I feel happy here, I feel loved, I have friends, I am always

 

running off to a friend’s house to play, skipping to the pool or

 

prancing off into the woods to have another adventure.

Everyone’s naive right now. My friends and I have no clue what race is.

And if we do, we have my dog idea. None of us discriminate;

none of us make subtle racist  remarks…(full story here)

 

 

© Jorge Perez, Age 15

 

 

© Jonny Barbieri, Age 3

 

 

 

Johnny Ladykiller

It was late, but Johnny didn’t notice, he just knew everything around him was

soaked in black. He slipped his overcoat off of one arm and returned the bent

cigarette to his mouth before slipping out of the other sleeve. After smoothing the

coat over his forearm he groped the wall for the light switch, letting his fingertips

rest over the telltale cold metal plating… (full story here)

 

 

 

© Miller R. Murray, Age 18

 

 

 

 

 

 

VOICE OUT

I was raised by the bullfrogs

that lay idle under the winter sun

and damaged every metal vehicle

that dared honk at them

they taught me to release

my unnaturally low voice,

labeled as so unlady-like

so absurd

so disgusting

at least,

that’s what my mother taught me.

but my croaky voice

is my trademark. the throaty

vibrations echo as far as the cows

upstate; my lover swears he can

hear it in his dreams

the bullfrogs taught me that every voice

deserves to be heard by every

succeeding generation and every

word that leaves my lips

must be worthy of all adulation and admiration

no words must be wasted,

no syllable must be thrown away,

no punctuation mark must be disregarded,

no voice should be silenced from the world.

© Patricia P, Age 14

 

KING

King, listen to my plea:

the crops are dying and people

are crying for the Lord as they flee

the chains that are snaking

the ground, making their way

to the ankles of those who have no refuge

King, look outside your windows

that are graced with stained glass:

the seeds that have been sown

by the blood of our ancestors

now reside in the roots of wilted

bushes and desolate land—

no fruit can be bore

if there are no farmers to till the land

if the stench of death

lingers in the air

King, for once in your reign,

take off your crown, remove the stern

look of authority on your face;

your subjects are on their knees

they are praying and saying

that they will see paradise soon

your inaction, your inability to act

has resulted in the one and only fact

that your kingdom is falling apart

and what was once the heart of it all

is now the reason for its destruction

© Patricia P, Age 14

 

Cherry Blossoms

I want cherry blossoms to fall before my eyes, like the graceful raindrops that fall for her.
I want to don the persona of a likable person as if I could hide mine.
I want to sigh because of her love, not because of her absence.
I hold my hand out in the darkness, helplessly hoping for a warm hand, while I recieve that of a
ghosts’.

Minds deceive and desire, but souls demand, because they know best.
It wants her to extinguish the fire that is my paranoia kindled by my past.
It wants her to fend off the solitude that I’ve trained like a soldier to ward off the jacks and the
jokers, for she will be my only queen.
It wants her to turn this hopeless game of solitaire into a game of poker, and on the table is my
sanity, my judgement, and my love and hers.
With it, I could buy a sunset, a dinner for two, a feeling of love, and two rings to seal it.
It could all be mine!
No, it could all be ours.
But, this is fantasy.
For now, it’s a spiral back to hell, with a cold shot of whiskey to numb the pain of my words for
her being ripped from my stillbeating
heart and being strewn across campus.
It’s back to the river for me, because no cherry blossoms fall on the Styx.

© Caelum Lefevers, Age 15

 

Mix!

If you are happy and you know it
Mix, Mix, Mix

© Maanya Gadeela, Age 2

 

From Alexia

How I know my heart

I’ve seen my heart

on a very special machine.

Grey, pulsing

jelly on my tummy.

They can beat differently.

Different noises,

boom boom,

Bah -bah-bah-bah-boom

like a lion in my chest.

Whooshing, whirring

Bah-boom, bah-boom.

My sound is excitingly rare.

© Alexia Rachael, Age 6

 

 

Why Such A Hurry

Tugging on his hand, I groaned, “Hurry, papa,”

He shrugged, his eyes smiling at me

“Why such a hurry?” he questioned

I stopped short, unsure of my words

“Why not?”

He laid his wise fingers atop my head, looking up at the sky

“Hear the wind?”

“You can’t hear wind, papa,”

“Listen,”

He covered my eyes, and I heard it

Rusting leaves and bird calls

Ah, so this is what the wind sounds like

“Smell the sun?”

“You can’t smell the sun, papa,”

“Try it,”

I sniffed the air, and there it was

Fresh and crisp, the scent of the bright spring sun

Ah, so this is what the sun smells like

“Feel the life?”

I took his hand, engulfing the atmosphere

Warm, wrinkled and calm

Ah, so this is what life feels like

“Why such a hurry?” he repeated

© Abby, age 14

 

 

A.R.O Plane Heroes And The White World (full story here)

 

 

 

 

 

© Krish Misra, age 7

 

 

 

 

Roses are red

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,

No you won’t predict what I shall do,
A pot is brown,
Some chairs are blue,
Clothing is White and are you too?
Leaves are green,
Birds are black,
And do you know whats after that?
But none of this matters,
Not all of all of that,
What matters is you,
And have you any idea what’s inside that?

© Eva Ford, age 9