Category: Uncategorized

Written by an anonymous young person from Echo Glen Children’s Center,
11-13-2024

Two kids
who never got taught right from wrong,
One with a bright future
and the other who took the wrong path.

The other always encouraged to do right
but can never do right himself
Always teaching
always observing
to protect and to shield the younger one from danger

He never really knew
that everything he did
would fall back
on the one little kid
with a bright future

They were twins, damn near,
doing everything together
Always with one another
because they were all they had
Their father was never there
and their mother was always sick
but at least they had each other

Until one day, the path the older one chose to take
led him to death
His little brother reacted the worst way possible
Getting into gangs,
violence,
robbery,
and even murder.

Everybody else looked at him as a criminal.
As he wishes he could just go back
to that one little kid
with a bright future.

The bright future continued to dim,
just as the life from his older brother’s eyes did

He too, had to figure out why his older brother chose this path
The only way to do that,
was to walk the path his older brother once did.

Upon walking that path,
he had suffered hardships,
that he would not have known
if he didn’t choose this for himself,
At the end of the day,
he figured out why his older brother chose
to die,
to live,
and to teach.
The way he did

We’ll never know
how that one little kid with the bright future
will turn out
because he himself,
has not figured that out

If rain is a leaking prayer
that washes the questions of yesterday’s pain,
then what is fire?
Does it burn today’s scars inside out
so tomorrow wears a new skin?

Beyond the womb of soil
that cradles bodies before their time,
beyond the umbilical cord
of a mother’s last lullaby,
beyond the slaving trees
that bow to the master wind,
lies the tunnel of my throat,
leaking a boiling scream
for the father who never came home,
for the brother swallowed by fire,
for the hands I once held
now buried beneath a sky of silence.

Who watched the rivers choke
on the ashes of their own children,
who heard the streets wail
beneath the boots of war?

And unlike the breath of nations
who swallow their acrid grief
into the belly of silence,
this land finds relief—
purging its suffering
from the casket of its past
down to the curve of its broken smile.

Leaving me choking on the dust of war,
leaving me sinking into the hole of exile.
And what can be deeper than a hole
in the heart of a land
if not a grave cradling its people?

If trials are the gravity
that drowns a nation in despair,
then love is the buoyancy
that stops us from calling the ground home.

In twirling years to come,
when the ink of our destinies fades into dust,
will we be colours, remembered and cherished?
Or will we be smoke, whispered and forgotten?

First, introduction
New life, enter with a cry.
No world corruption.

Sleep well, my dear.

Not fearing to fall,
So many fun, new things to try,
Time to do it all.

Live loud, my dear.

Room light always on.
Parents shake their heads and sigh,
Where has the baby gone?

New fear, my dear.

Into growing pains
Spread broken wings, learn to fly,
Fight the parents’ reins.

I cry, my dear.

Med schedule to tend.
Never shall I fear to die,
Feel far from the—

Goodbye, my dear.

scissors, forceps, knives, probes, and scalpels
i wish to be dissected,
ripped out, severed, on display,
my insides laid bare by my hollow frame.
i wish to be sterilized,
to be considered corrupted –
though stripped of my humanity,
my individuality –
capable of a purity, untouched and baptized.
i wish to be studied,
to be nothing more than a collection of organs,
ceasing to be,
yet existing lifelessly for you.
i wish to feel naked –
exposed, nude, vulnerable,
now deaf to the carnal whispers
your gaze trace upon me.
i wish to be reduced to my body,
but be more than a body to you.
i wish to be a spectacle,
as my vacant eyes momentarily meet yours,
you feel nothing,
blind to your own image within me.
i wish you to look at me,
and forget the soul that lived within,
binding us to the same fragile thread of being.

Featuring: Billy Morrison

Solid, still, losing the will to live
Cold, hard, watch me hit the ground

Hollowed out
Crumbling in doubt
Here I stand empty and without

My future that was bright and glowing
Is now hidden with moss growing

My foundation
Is devastation
From my own terminal isolation

Lights no longer shine from inside
Windows are blown out on either side
With the front doors opened wide

And now my bones in these decaying brick walls
Are all I have after it all

Tittering, shaking, everything is breaking
Chipping, cracking, watch me start shattering

Broken pieces
Rust increases
While hope inside decreases

My future that was all but assured
Is now in reverse
With absolutely nothing to preserve

My feelings
Have no meaning
As my walls start bleeding

Now nothing inside thrives
And nothing will survive
Because nothing inside feels alive

Feeling pieces starting to chip and fall
I’m crumbling across all four walls

Forgotten, unsteady, here I stand ransacked and empty
Taunted, haunted, watch me get demolished

Decaying in despair

My condition is anything but fair
Because I’m beyond repair

With my interior devastated
Everything I am is now dilapidated

And now, at the end of the day
Nothing is here to stay
As all I am fades away

Despite the past reaching out and calling
My walls are now falling
And there’s nothing to do but watch it all dissolve
Because my bones are still hidden in these walls

I died that day. A piece of me fell. Collapsed. Transformed into a primordial; sucking the tears of my crying soul. What was left of me? Death? Wallowing to avoid the joys of life – attempting to keep myself anything but grounded. I never wanted to be alive until I nearly died at the hands of someone else. Until my oxygen hit 92 : lying on a stretcher : getting wheeled in an ambulance. Is that possible? Is that sane? Am I sane. When I stared at the man poking my arm with a needle to make sure I was still alive, to make sure i bled. If I bled, therefore I was.

I had almost forgotten what they
Looked like before this state
Leaves wilted completely
They had given up
I know I did
A week ago they were bright red
Alive and well
Just as I was

The week ended
As did their life
Then my hope slipped away
And dug itself back into the earth

I am the oldest son.
I am the second son.
They won’t call me their son.

Make me into your monster,
as if I have a choice.
I carry that with pride.

They say I killed their daughter.
She bled out in the living room.
Her blood is on my hands.

I held her dying hand.
I witnessed her last breath.
She wouldn’t save herself.

Her heart beats in my chest,
a phantom of my own
thanks me with every beat.

It is the monster’s heart
that has kept me alive.
I won’t apologize.

Late-nineties darkness
You were bent over
Some september shore
Like a construction crane
Beneath a pimpish fur coat—
A womans, surely
White, draped lavishly, comically
Down to the pine-burl knees
I remember you hunched forward
False scowl, as an old man plays
Into his many odd jokes
In one hard hand:
A glistening muskie, most of your height
Beneath you both, wet grass
Around you both, total blackness
I love that picture, almost as much
As I would have loved you
Thank you
For my middle name

Nighttime falls, I hear distant cries,
Memories of your precious life,
How I loved your midnight calls,
We danced in the moonlight to my chest.
Held tight.

You struggled to get into this world,
But you made it out in your own time,
Only to be taken too soon, eleven months later,
By a silent perpetrator.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome,
the taker of your breath as you slept.
Time to wake but not a peep,
I sensed your absence when my eyes first opened.
I picked you up but no longer were you there,
I wanted to close my eyes and find you,
How would I ever live without you?

You were taken away far too early,
Our future is stolen from us,
but death could not erase our past-
I refuse to give it the time we shared.
So, I lay down this sackcloth suit,
And I will spend the rest of my life.
Celebrating you.