Category: Uncategorized

Create. Destroy. Craft. Then rest.
Trying to resist the pull of relapse.
Create. Destroy. Craft.
But a void stirs quietly beneath the skin.
Submit. Rejected. Dejected.
Try again.
Send another.
Apply once more.
One hundred rejections deep.
Create. Destroy.
Tethered to the life of my art.
Shards of doubt press inward, sharp and constant.
Doubt. Shout. Create. Destroy.
Create. Submit.
Create. Craft.
Bound to this aching need to make.
Rejected. Never accepted.
Despondent, I fall back again.
Create. Craft. Bound. Submit.
Create. Craft. Bound. Submit.
Create. Craft. Bound. Submit.
And then—
Accepted. Relieved. Seen. Accepted.

Tiny Opossum
Treed, and eating an onion
Reflective eyes bright

Bit, baby turtle
I almost mowed off your head
Silence, I saved you

Crows, murderous crows
We exchanged shiny gifts once
You ate my pepper

Skinny Deer of night
Your eyes are so brightly lit
Seen only by light

Raccoon of the woods
Bandit eater of night trash
The cutest felon

Great gray fox sneaker
You sleuth in shadows covert
What does the fox say

Stray cats of Piedmont
Frivolous fights of feral
Who feeds you catnip

Goofy turkey tom
long neck bird of autumn’s din
Roast at three fifty

Blue-tailed skink hiding
I saw you slither away
Will you sit with me

Skunk of black and white
Putrid sprayer of my dog
I smelled you for months

One always imagines the little bird in the forest
through which it flies
until it reaches a clearing
in the green and sunlight

But what if this little bird dreams of the sea
and feels trapped in the meadow within the woods

It dreams of storms
of salty drops of water
chasms
grottoes
waves that threaten to swallow it whole
and winds that will carry it away

The little bird is weary of the green,
uneasy among the trees
Furiously, it flies to the clearing
clutching a branch with bitter claws

The little bird wants to taste stones
feel cold dampness beneath its feathers
and be overwhelmed by the North

That enchanting smile that
you left turns me into an
ocean of serenity. I remember
your deep, bright eyes looking at
me with admiration whenever I
look up into the sky. Rest in peace,
my dear loved one.

Brown hoodie, faded letters
Lined with fleece and cloth
Might be old, but never better,
I’m not all too posh.
Inside these folds of cotton
I peer out with only eyes
With hands stuffed in my pockets,
I tell myself not to cry.
My knees up to my chest,
And the fabric’s tight in an embrace
That gives me the comfort
I can’t find in no one’s face.
With the drawstring tight,
I pull myself into a cocoon
With the drawstring tight,
I peer for the last time at the moon.
And suddenly there’s
Red and blue
There’s sound, but I can’t hear it
And black dots pepper my view
When finally I come to,
I lay in a white bed
With a hood about my head
And empty holes around the neck
Where the drawstring don’t poke through.

Written by a young person at the Child Study and Treatment Center

What If?

Me and you
What would we do?
Can I trust you?
More importantly
Can I trust myself too?

You’ve been on my mind
day after day
The more I think
the more you go away
I wish you knew
how much I cared for you

What if?
Me and you!

The brisk of wind swayed a golden rye

and atop—

Rays of rainbow brushed the sky.

I’ve never been surer: you killed my heart.
I knew of its death in bone before brain.
Such a catastrophe of sunken skin lumped
together in an upended scar, cluttered at
the center of my heart. It seems

you knew, all along, about a vertical
sabotage. It’s all over my apartment floor.
There’s a blood stain in the kitchen.
I mistook the crimson for tomato sauce.
Dotted in turmoil on the polka of my tea
towels. I’m afraid I make too much pasta.
A Carbonara maestro, if you will. Pesto basil,
a bowl of pear green, topped in oily golden
nectar, sits on the table most evenings.

This morning,
I stood stiff as a mountain. Every nerve
avalanched down my blanched skin.
Drenched in metallic sap with salt, I ended
up slipping on a bloody pulp and it heel-
toed along my foot. The heart slingshot,
lodged behind the oven, and when I
gently bent to further inspect my
heartbroken mess, just then, discerning
it was long dead.

The Cold wind whipped through my hair, making it blow to the chilling breeze
The trees had an uncanny nature that made them stretch like old, decayed fingers, reaching out
As I went up the stairs, my hair was flying in all directions
As I looked up, the sky was fully dark and crowded, with piercing green eyes looking at me.
Inside the mansion, the fog did not ease, making even the slightest movement haunting
The bleakness only added to the eerie atmosphere
As lightning clashed, blinding me with a creepy gleam.
I could make out some figures inside.
As I walked forward, the figures emerged,
Talking next to the casket.
And then everything went dark.

I sit and wonder about these tears in my eyes
These last couple of years they’ve come from your lies
You used to tell me that I was your only one
You said that in me your life had finally begun
But, now it seems as if you have found someone else
To replace the feelings, you said with me you felt
I can only blame myself for this pain
For these endless feelings of despair and shame
The only thing that makes me seem like a sap
Is that I would take you back as the drop of a hat
Because my love for you is deeper than any wound
I just hope you come to your senses soon
So that we can be together again at last
The way we were in the not-so-distant past
The times when you were my pedestal, and I was your Queen
When I was your throne, and you were my King
Please don’t turn your back on our love
Because I know that God has sent it from above