POETRY
A Study of Days
Annabel Kermaier
Yesterday:
A house of bricks
Neat edges
Aligned
Cracks filled with white cement
No flaws
Impervious to wolves
And winds
Today:
A house of wood
Splintering
Ill-fitted
Gaps and rusty nails
Creaky, drafty
Flimsy
And about to catch on fire
Die For You Again
Adina Bak
I can’t stop giving everything to you,
A black hole from which I can’t escape.
Then you ask me what I would do for you.
Well I would die for you again.
You’re a toxic poison, lethal when I encounter
But nonetheless I’m addicted,
You think, “it’s okay if I drown her”
Because you know I would die for you again.
I don’t know what we’re fighting over but I know you’ve already won,
But now I must put up the fight.
I have been caged for far too long.
I need to find myself again.
Rami Fink
Build Me Up
Elana Felig
A brick house
Not sturdy enough to hold them up
Bricks as red as her eyes
She tried to be as strong as the bricks that held up their house
She tried to be stronger than him
But he proved otherwise
Without that secret room in the brick house
She would have no strength
In simpler words, she would have nothing
Bricks as red as her cheek after his last throw
She knew that she could take no more
She left behind that brick house
She left behind that secret room where he could not find her
She ran from the one thing that protected her
But now you wouldn’t recognize the girl from the brick house
Because her face is not red anymore
She’s found a new place to feel invulnerable
She did not need a room to hide from fists or words
She found a new place
Sturdy enough to hold herself up
A wooden house
Fireflies
Nadav Lemberger
Fireflies create something from nothing.
They create gold from air.
They create light from darkness.
They create dance from motion.
They create beauty from static.
They create life from time.
But time always moves on.
Gold cannot stay long before fading.
Light is swallowed by the darkness.
Beauty drowns in the seas of stillness.
The fireflies stop, and fade away.
Away, into the night.
Which swallows light and drowns beauty.
But they return.
They return to create gold from air again.
They return to make the sky dance with flashes of color
Flashes of beauty.
Flashes of fire.
Flashes of life.
But fire always burns brightest before it fades.
Life always dances most desperately before being ground to dust.
Because one day
The fire will not return.
It will burn so bright,
And never burn again.
It will burn so bright in the flames of its own making
That it burns itself out.
It will end.
End forever.
It will end in a blaze of glory
Greater than any other we have known
But so small.
A small blue speck burning itself to death
In the great cosmos.
The darkness that swallows light
That drowns beauty
Encyclopedia of Minds
Annabel Kermaier
REALITY
defined by a curtain
thin and insubstantial
edges fluttering softly
gently lulling
billows forward
a flash of something dream-like, then gone again
DREAM
infinity filled, somehow
with thought-beasts
all possibility, potential
chaotically tumbling
pushes against the boundary
spills past the curtain
BEAST
long claws and teeth
sharp edges
well suited for shredding, especially curtains
maker of gaps
improbable but nonetheless there
maybe therefore
GAP
aperture, crack, flaw
doorway
overflows with insanity
route through which fantasy spills
contaminating reality
with the obscured
.jpg)
Rami Fink
An Unknown Text
Josh Kaplan
I received a text this morning.
I contemplated
should I open or not.
I decided to open it another time.
A week went by, then another
then I received another text from this mysterious number.
I decided to look.
I opened it.
It was a text from a long-lost childhood friend.
He asked how I was.
I said I was good.
We chatted for a little.
Then our conversation ceased.
We have not spoken in the 5 years since.
Forever
Shirah Abrahams
One after another
The never ending possibilities
The never ending goals
The never ending steps
As I climb
As I crawl
I keep getting one step closer
I think I’m near the end,
but then I see more steps
more goals,
more possibilities.
I stop and think...
Will I ever reach the end?
For Honor
Nadav Lemberger
Honor.
Such a peculiar word.
Such a peculiar reason.
A peculiar reason to give up so much.
To give up everything.
For honor.
But this is not honor.
This is cowardice.
They say it is too early.
Too early to lose it all,
Too early to join them,
To lose it all for nothing.
For honor.
I say nothing.
There is nothing to say.
My father fought his father.
My grandfather fought his grandfather.
But why did I fight him?
Why did I lose everything to fight him?
For honor?
No.
For fear.
For fear of going on.
Of living.
When his bullet finally sank into me,
And the black finally closed in,
I realized.
I realized I didn’t want it to end.
I didn’t want to lose.
Not for honor.
But the black was closing in,
Suffocating,
Finally,
Forever.
For honor.
Forevermore
Mia Hahn
She comes from the water
Pure,
Wet,
Reaching the shore with striking eyes of wonder
She slowly slides into the sand,
Taking smooth,
Sparkling grains into her small palm
And letting them cascade through the cracks of her fingers,
She feels the frigid water pierce her bare legs as she crouches to the ocean floor,
But she doesn’t mind,
And lets the lapping waves move onto her.
Breathing in and out, in sync with the ocean,
She is sucked back in.
She plays along with the waves,
Allowing them to take her
In
Then out.
A white wave develops, gripping her body
But her smile is yet to fade
When harsher and harsher waves form
The merciless ocean drags her in
Leaving her laying on the floor
And her imprints in the sand she once admired
Are washed away by the crashing waves.
JoJo Schachter
Lara Jacobowitz
A Glass Bottle
Josh Kaplan
It was a bottle,
A bottle that would store my thoughts for eternity.
That reality was shattered.
The bottle shattered.
My soul spilled out,
My thoughts spilled out,
My enemies spilled out,
My friends spilled out,
My heart spilled out.
I thought it was just a bottle,
I realized it was so much more.
It was the bottle,
The bottle of my life.
Lara Jacobowitz
Beauty From Pain
Rochel Leah Itzkowitz
In every instance she was stabbed in the back,
She felt a piece of her heart crack,
Her poor feelings were under attack,
And she had no idea how to bounce back.
She felt pushed down,
Wore a perpetual frown,
Never wanting visitors around,
Her life was a ghost town.
Her emotions readily burst from her frail heart,
For her life she wished for a fresh start,
But that was the roughest part,
Because her lack of hope yearned for her to fall apart.
One day she grew strong, a new trait,
Something far from her deep hate,
Her new persona she desired to update,
A new hairstyle will be the way to alleviate.
Vignette
Annabel Kermaier
Water glittering on glass shards
A twitching windshield wiper
And crumpled aluminum
With rain pattering on it
A hand, pale and reaching
Fingers fluttering
Tendons straining
Nails ragged, used
Blink, and the hand goes limp
Slam of a car door
Tires crunch over wet leaves
Driving away
Music plays, or sirens
Quietly, like the smoke
Darkness
Then nothing
When Duty Calls
Rochel Leah Itzkowitz
Holding a rifle in my arms,
Sinking into the deep mud,
Aiming at the opposing forces,
I am fulfilling my job to protect.
Missiles lighting up the night’s sky,
Injured soldiers falling to the ground,
Blood dispersed all over the battlefield,
Nevertheless, it is my job to protect.
As the war progresses,
My bag hung on my back becomes heavier and heavier,
The mud I am submersed in becomes deeper and deeper,
My muscles ache due to my immense lassitude,
Nonetheless, it is my job to protect.
Everything stops for a moment,
My racing thoughts cease to exist,
As I hear the cries and yells from behind me,
Turning my neck,
Small children are petrified in the wake of war,
Needing my guidance.
Needing me to protect.
It then strikes me,
It is not my job to protect,
Rather, it is my responsibility to protect,
My obligation to protect,
And nothing can stand in my way.
Talia Sperber
Today and Tomorrow
Brooke Kohl
Today the sky is bleak
Gray
Cloudy
And my insides match
My mind feels the same way
‘Today is not a good day,’
It tells me
And I agree
Today I feel so bleak
Gray
Cloudy
My emotions a mess
It feels like tomorrow will never come
And even if tomorrow does come
Will it really be better?
The weathermen say it will
But they are wrong so often
My mind thinks that too
‘They’re wrong about tomorrow,’
It tells me
And I agree
Today my mind is messing with me
I know it’s wrong
But I also don’t
Maybe tomorrow it won’t lie
Maybe it and I will be one and the same
My mind doesn’t think so
‘Tomorrow is going to be terrible,’
It tells me
And I agree
Today the sky is crying
No one wants to go outside
No one wants to move
But we have to move
Have to make today count
But really, what is today?
There are so many todays
So many tomorrows
So many yesterdays
What’s wrong with wasting one of them?
My mind doesn’t know
‘Today doesn’t matter,’
It tells me
And I agree
Today will end soon
Will join the past in the past
Tomorrow is a fresh start
What’s here today
May be gone tomorrow
Maybe the sun will come out tomorrow
Maybe tomorrow will be better
Maybe it will be worse
But no matter what
It won’t be like today
My mind agrees
‘Tomorrow will be different,’
It tells me
And I agree