Walking Through A Child's Heaven

WALKING THROUGH A CHILD’S HEAVEN 2011-2012 WITS Digital Anthology

Walking Through A Child’s Heaven 2011-2012 WITS Digital Anthology

Contents Writers in the Schools

4

Dear Reader

5

• Corey Friedman, Lincoln High School

6

Heaven

• Mary Rechner, WITS Program Director

Fuego y Hielo / Fire and Ice Dark Skinned Boy Tornado •

The Bridge

• Jesse Turner, Wilson High School

• Sierra Neuvirth, Grant High School

10

11

• Ben White, Roosevelt High School

12

13

• Haley W. Huckins, Grant High School

22

• Ashley Kinnaman, Franklin High School

27

• Sean Roberts, Wilson High School

Remembering the Fall Bass and Baseball Blood Cousins The Memory

9

Nina Lerma, Wilson High School

Evil, Lonely Trees

• Louie Hollingsworth, Wilson High School

28

• Maya Morley, Cleveland High School

29

When the Plane Hit the Giants Trapped in Dreamland

• Meggie Kirchner, Franklin High School

• Joshua Howe, Open Meadow High School

31 33

Writers in the Schools Writers-in-Residence Angela Allen, Lorraine Bahr, Carmen Bernier-Grand, Elyse Fenton, Nicole Georges, Amanda Gersh, Cindy Williams GutieĚ rrez, Emily Harris, Hunt Holman, John Isaacson, Sara Jaffe, Amy Minato, S. Renee Mitchell, Laura Moulton, Alexis Nelson, Mark Pomeroy, Ismet Prcic, Donna Prinzmetal, Katie Schneider, Devan Schwartz, Arnold Seong, Matthew B. Zrebski Visiting Authors Chimamanda Adichie,Tom Brokaw, Heidi Durrow, J. Hill, Anis Mojgani, Abraham Verghese Participating Teachers Barbara Berger, Matt Boyer, Gene Brunak, Annelise Bulow, Mike Cullerton, Jaque Dixon, Stephanie D’Cruz, Anne Dierker, Jerry Eaton, Bianca Espinosa, Stefanie Goldbloom, Kelly Gomes, David Hillis, Cindy Irby, Melinda Johnston, Paige Knight, Tom Kane, Andy Kulak, Stephen Lambert, Dylan Leeman, Dave Mylet, Steve Naganuma, Marie Pearson, Arlie Peyton, Karen Polis, Michelle Potestio, Mary Rodeback, Alicia Smith, Kris Spurlock, Henise Telles-Ferriera, Erin Tillery, Dana Vigner, Virginia Warfield, Alice Weinstein, Amy Wright, Tracey Wyatt WITS Liaisons Dave Mylet, Eric Levine, Brady Bennon, Linda Campillo, Sandra Childs, Mary Rodeback, Mike Cullerton, Tracey Wyatt, Matt Boyer, Paige Knight Participating Principals Sue Brent, Petra Callin, Margaret Calvert, Carol Campbell, Peyton Chapman, Paul Cook, Shay James, Andrew Mason, A. J. Morrison, Vivian Orlen, Macarre Traynham, Charlene Williams District Liaison Melissa Goff 4

Dear Reader, Like many of the adolescents we serve, Literary Arts’ Writers in the Schools (WITS) program is changing rapidly. Our core residency program, begun in 1996 at Grant High School, continues to provide Portland public high schools with semesterlong writing workshops taught by professional writers: poets, playwrights, journalists, fiction writers, memoirists, and graphic novelists who model the disciplined passion of a creative life and reinforce the importance of the writing process: creating new work, revising, editing, and publication. Each residency culminates in a celebratory student reading at independent bookstores, libraries, galleries, and cafes.

To help teens connect the importance of strong writing and creative thinking to the “real world,” we coordinate school visits by local and touring professional authors (Abraham Verghese, Chimamanda Adiche, and Tom Brokaw). Hundreds of students attend our lecture series over the course of the season and are provided free tickets, books, and transportation. At each lecture, 2,500 adults model a passion for reading and appreciating new ideas in an intergenerational environment.

Literary Arts brings The Moth, a popular storytelling troupe, to lead a weeklong school-based MothSHOP, which culminates in students telling stories to their peers. WITS collaborates with school librarians to host a city-wide teen poetry slam, “Verselandia!” WITS also offers one-day college writing workshops at several schools, pairing volunteer writing mentors with students to help them develop their college admissions essays. WITS provides extensive logistical support for all of these activities, as underfunded schools do not otherwise have the administrative capacity to take advantage of these opportunities.

If you would like to join this team that makes our work with youth so successful, please make a donation to Writers in the Schools at http://www.literary-arts.org/ product/donate/.

Mary Rechner Writers in the Schools Program Director 5

Heaven

Corey Friedman, Lincoln High School No one, perhaps, has ever felt so dispassionately towards a utopia. Some people cannot fathom in the deepest corner of their mind a proper utopia. To them, it is unattainable. As history and the works of philosophical twentieth century writers have shown, a dystopic, authoritarian, government-controlled society is a more humanistic and realistic place. But I was not there. I was not in a world where books were taken from my hands and incinerated; I was not where my every step was being monitored, nor was I afraid to break any absurd laws. They cared not what I did or said because I was the only one there and, if I were so inclined, I could have ran outside and screamed any which word I chose, and it would have echoed forever, the frequencies of my yell recycling themselves through and through my ears. I could break any law I wanted because I wrote the laws and, if I had the need, I could change the laws. I looked down at the void that seeped up through the translucent canopy of clouds. I should have had no difficulty, no inhibitions, no preoccupations, yet with that, I never felt the satisfaction of triumph, because there was never a challenge. No troll would stand beneath any bridge to which I walked, for it would never have been there to obstruct my path. There seemed to be no solution to the peace.

Being virtually omniscient, a curse within itself, had left me with no viable answers to my paradox.

As I sit here, the hour should be any, and the season should be forever, looking out from my bleached, perfect balcony, I ponder for hours my malady. I find nothing to help me, nothing to hinder me. I have not, for eternity, been able to sleep, taunted by the stillness 6

of the sky. I look out into the azure around me, the endless azure, whose overwhelming and infinite depth nearly frightens me. I toss and turn and howl out to the endless, empty, and nonexistent edges of the universe, asking my omnipresent brain why I am here. I ask, How long is forever? to the clouds. I won't ever not be here. I wanted to discard the self that I knew, and return, revitalized, but there were no witnesses to whom I could display my redesigned self, so I did not. The loneliness overcomes me and the desire comes upon me to go ramble to heavens for a purpose, and for a moment I feel energized, but with this excuse I would walk endlessly, looking for an oasis of abnormality in this vast, dry paradise.

When I open the door, a mass of clouds sprawls out into the ether before me. They clump together at an idyllic temperature, with unremarkable continuity, making for themselves no distinct shape from others, leaving the smooth, soft plateau of heaven. How gruesome this stark wasteland is. I lay down on my side, now my eye pressed against that upon which I had stood, and I can clearly trace the symmetrical halves of the clouds and the sky, divided by a drawn-out, exaggerated line of contrast whose invisibility was evident. My wandering mind takes me down a stream to nowhere, my house, the only wrinkle in this faceless desert. And, immortalized by that infinite horizontal line at which my eye gazed, my fate is sealed, crystallized in external peace while my insides tear at each other for some miniscule, primitive form of entertainment, exhausted by environmental serenity, and craving human love and human conflict and human fear that would have abounded in my jubilant, dramatic, old life.

The void must have me distracted. I must get up. Walking for hours, and I see nothing but the same thing I have seen for the billions of years I have been here. And it is only now that I can fully comprehend the books I had had in my life, the war stories, the horrors, the dramas, 7

the interest incited in humans by tragedy, by terror, by love, by triumph, and why the classic stories never had peace from start to finish and don't flow peacefully throughout time and space, that they must be scratched and bruised on their journey. But now, at the timeless finish line, I see what lies at the end of a true journey, for I have traveled through life, and I want to go back, and I understand the instinctual and rational fear in men of death. To escape would be the path to elation for me, to find something tangible, and I pray, let me touch earthly existence, the only spoil I have ever had a human life.

8

Fuego y Hielo / Fire and Ice Jesse Turner, Wilson High School

El fuego es apasionado.

El hielo es solitario.

El fuego es c贸modo.

El hielo es cascarrabias.

El fuego es destructivo, mata.

El hielo es quieto y tranquilo.

El fuego misterioso te trampa.

El hielo permanece aun cuando me muero.

Fire is passionate.

Ice is solitary.

Fire is comfortable.

Ice is a grouch.

Fire is destructive, it kills.

Ice is quiet and calm.

The mysterious fire sets a trap for you.

Ice remains, even when I die.

9

Dark Skinned Boy

Sierra Neuvirth, Grant High School His pants were always low; his eyes were hard to connect with unless it was you and him alone. This was discouraging. There were smiles in his eyes that always shined past that dark coating of brown. His eyes were always a little too glossy. He had full lips that weren't too big but the perfect pout instead. When he'd hold a cigarette to them it was the perfect excuse to stare, but at any given time I would have preferred to feel them. I liked his skin; it made me thirsty. It always looked hydrated and healthy but not too shiny. It was dark. He was tall, the perfect height to lean against, to feel protected. He acted brand new at school, and perhaps this was an additional factor to how much I wanted him. When we were alone it was different. He'd stare at me while my eyes were on the TV set against the wall and when I'd notice he'd clear it up with simple sentences like, “I can't help it, you're so cute,” or, “Your eyes are so beautiful.”

10

Tornado

Nina Lerma, Wilson High School

I am a vortex of destruction.

I twist and twirl and absorb anything in my way.

I can't help it, I'm a natural disaster.

Bikes, houses, street posts, cars, anything. I've had it!

You better stay away, because I'm coming your way.

11

Evil, Lonely Trees

Ben White, Roosevelt High School

Gnarled hands rise, tortured, from the murderous sand, creating a forest of death, but they didn't want to be here. Slowly they're destroying the world, plotting to take over the world with their plans corrupted and twisted. Yet they didn't choose to be here.

You can hear them moaning, groaning, trying to escape.

12

The Bridge

Sean Roberts, Wilson High School The play starts on a freeway overpass in the middle of a big city around late afternoon. The traffic on the overpass zooms by as fast as the cars on the interstate below. The edges of the street and sidewalk are lined with leaves and bits of old wrappers and other trash. On stage the audience can hear the sounds of cars on pavement as the lights come on. A kid is seen entering from stage right and walking to the center of a bridge. He looks over the edge. The lights go down, and when they reappear he is now sitting on the railing, looking out over the freeway.

TOM: Who would have ever guessed that the easiest way out isn't forward, but down?

(TOM talks to himself, trying to prepare himself for what he's about to do. TOM looks about high school age.)

I've taken tests, oh, I've taken plenty of tests. Tests for English, math, science, almost every subject really. I got through all those thanks to the classes. The teachers, they'd tell me what I needed to know, give me work, so I'd be prepared for those tests. I didn't always do well, but at least I always knew why because I didn't study. Then there's the one class I never got the chance to take.

(TOM fights back a sob.)

13

If someone could only teach a class about love.

(TOM sits there quietly for a moment, listening to the sounds of the traffic.)

ALAN: (A man, about middle age, enters from stage left, crossing along the bridge toward TOM. He stops, looking at TOM.) Is everything alright, kid?

TOM: What does it look like? Are most people sitting over a freeway okay? And I'm not "kid,” my name's Tom. ALAN: Alright, Tom, I'm sorry if I offended you. My name is Alan. Do you want to tell me what's bothering you?

TOM: Why should you give a damn? I'm not your kid. Hell, you probably care less than my parents. They said, “Oh it's ok, you'll be alright, just give it time, just drive it off,” and so I drove, and here I am.

For a few weeks I've driven across this bridge, and I finally realized, what better place than here to meet my end?

14

ALAN: Well you're right, I'm not your parent, nor do I know what happened, but I doubt sitting here is going to help matters. Why don't you just climb back over here and we can talk?

TOM: Why would you want to talk to me? I'm just some kid you saw looking ready to jump. I don't think you care what happened at all; you just don't want a dead kid on your conscience.

(TOM pauses for a moment, and turns his head to look at ALAN.) Am I right?

ALAN: Well...

(ALAN trails off for a second, trying to think of what best to say.)

I've heard that talking about what's going on can help someone realize that it's really not as bad as they thought. Want to give it a try? Want to try telling me what's going on?

TOM: I guess I could tell you if you really want to listen, but I don't see why anyone would. Who really cares about the sad drama of a teenager?

15

ALAN: Go ahead.

(ALAN leans his back against the railing, gazing out toward the audience. Over the course of TOM's next monologue, the lights dim very slowly, as if the sun is setting.)

TOM: It was all great; we were great. I asked her out at the end of sophomore year, Geri that is. All that summer things went great, we went to parks, got food, laughed, talked, and laid there looking up at the clouds and the stars. It was a wonderful summer. Then junior year started and I asked her to homecoming. She said yes.

(TOM begins to sound happy rather than melancholy.)

We went to the game, or rather, she went to the game, and watched me play. Junior year, and I was already one of the best receivers on our varsity team. Some people said, after that game, that I won it for our team! I caught the winning touchdown at three seconds remaining. Anyway, we were voted the junior class homecoming king and queen. Everyone said we were meant for each other. That year went by great. Then prom came around.

Again, I asked her to the dance and of course she said yes. That tux and corsage must've cost like $500, but it was worth it. That beautiful smile as I walked in her door to pick her up. She was gorgeous. I don't mean like some model or anything, not that false, too-perfect look, she just had a natural-born beauty. That dress, damn that dress was hot on her. She was blushing from the 16

moment I put that corsage on her wrist until we got to the dance.

It was a wonderful night. After school got out we had another great summer with each other and friends. Senior year wasn't quite as great, but I blame that on how busy both of us were with our classes. We didn't get as much time together, but I know we still loved each other all the same and just as much. We were voted homecoming king and queen for a second year. It was a great, big, busy, love-filled year...up until prom.

(TOM stops, looking down. He puts his head in his hands, and begins sobbing slightly. After a time, he composes himself and looks out at the freeway again. The lights change from natural to the appearance of street lights, three across the stage, leaving TOM and ALAN centered in the middle one.)

ALAN: (ALAN waits patiently, but after a while, the silence becomes too much for him to bear.)

So, then what? What happened there that went so badly?

TOM: Well, everything has to have an end, doesn't it? Even the good things, the best things? I took her to prom again. It was another wonderful night. I went to the bathroom after having too much soda. I come back, and a slow song's playing, so I look for her so we can dance. When I find her she's wrapped in the arms of my best friend, chest to chest. I don't mean like two people dancing close, I mean like she had her chest pressed up against his. I mean I trust 17

the guy, but not that close with my girl. Before I get to them I saw something that stopped me dead. She kissed him, my best friend, and then if that wasn't bad enough, the fucker kissed her back.

Can you believe it? My best friend from third grade, and my girlfriend of almost two years, and they're kissing. I got so mad then. I ran at him, socked him across the jaw, knocked him down, and started beating the shit out of him. I didn't hit him nearly as much as I wanted to before a few of our linemen pulled me off of him.

(The anger is easily apparent on his face, and he slides a little further off the railing.)

ALAN: (After TOM again leaves a long pause, ALAN again disturbs the silence.)

So your friendship and relationship ended just like that?

TOM: No. Well, actually, yeah, I guess so. I went from a straight-A star football player to being suspended and then failing all my classes that last semester. Obviously Geri and I were through.

I could barely even look at her without either wanting to break into tears or rage. Reece and I, well, he told me later, after I could listen, that he wasn't interested in her, that it was all her idea. I don't know if I believe him, I mean, I trusted both of them, but either way, it was over. So now school's over, I've lost all the scholarships I earned, no colleges I applied to want me anymore, and who knows what'll happen next. My whole life ruined in a single 18

night. I wish I'd never seen them there. I'm sure something else would've happened eventually, but almost anything would have been better than what happened that night. My great shot at a future ruined because of that night; why not just end all of my future here, now?

ALAN: This doesn't have to be the end. If you go to a community college you can get your grades up, and then you can apply to colleges, and you may not get scholarships, but you can always explain what happened, like you just did with me. You got good grades for a long time, and only one spot on your record, and you were a star player on your school's team. Just because some things were ruined doesn't mean you can't fix it. There are other girls out there. You can meet someone new. I guarantee it, in fact. You walk off this bridge with me I guarantee you can find a new girl.

TOM: How can you know?

(TOM turns to ALAN again.)

How can you know I'll have a good life after this?

ALAN: Because I was worse off than you. I never finished high school; I 19

barely got halfway, even. I dropped out and became one of those guys you see with the shopping carts, getting what money I could to buy drugs or drinks. One day I saw my reflection in a window, and it hit me how the man I saw was not, not in any way, the man I remembered being. After that I saved every bit I could beg from people until I had just enough to get one set of nice clothes and a shower and a haircut. This may be bragging, but I was always bright, quick with words and wit. I just walked into a bank, and asked to talk to the manager. After a couple hours talking with him I was hired. I still don't remember exactly what I said, nor do I remember just about anything for the rest of that day, but I managed to live at a homeless shelter, and work at a bank for about a month before I finally was able to get my own place and start a real life for myself. So now I'm actually running that bank.

A life can change if you put all your effort into it.

TOM: You really did that? You managed to go from nothing to running a bank?

(He slides to a safer position on the rail.)

But I doubt I have anything like the mind you must have had to get that job. I need school for that, and I need money to pay for that schooling. That's something I can't get without years of work.

ALAN: Well I might be able to help with that. You see, we at the bank 20

want to help young people who may have had a rough patch in their life get back on their feet. We want to help someone like you get that education they could have missed out on if not for us. Every year we offer a couple of scholarships. One is even a full ride to whatever school you want. You write the application; I'll put in a good word with the board.

TOM: Alright.

(TOM climbs down from the railing, standing unsteadily for a moment, then takes ALAN's hand, and gives it a firm shake.)

Thank you. I really don't know what I can say.

ALAN: No one should have to go through what I did.

(ALAN walks TOM across the bridge, and stops him just before they go offstage.)

Good luck, alright?

(They shake hands again.)

TOM: Yes. Thank you so much. Good bye.

(ALAN walks off stage. The lights go down as TOM takes one last look back at the bridge.)

21

Remembering the Fall

Haley W. Huckins, Grant High School The year is 1328. The reign of King Edward III has already begun. It is mid-winter, in a time the peasants like to call “The Deep.” For it is a time of deep things. Hibernation, illness, freezing days and nights, and starvation, everything that hollows cheeks and takes away the innocence of the young. The mood is somber, even though it is the eve of Yule. Rain splatters down, sloppy and unrefined, like a young one just months out of the womb trying to paint. But the prisoners, or “stick men” to villagers, in the Royal Dungeons can hear the rhythmic quality to the drops as they splat against the old stone roof, muffled only slightly by moss.

One man in particular, in a shadowy cell guarded by more Royal Guards than any other cell in the grimy, cold dungeon, listens to the melancholy tune of the rain. It reminds him of his poor Ma, many years gone now, how she used to sing in that aged, world-wise, soft and leathery voice of hers, of happier times. Yes, this criminal, this so-called “highly dangerous” young man once knew a place fondly called Home. And he had loved it. Silence settles over the castle as the prisoner thinks of what he lost. A flash of creamy, pale skin and beetle wing, depthless black eyes is all the warning there is.

Then the prisoner's world explodes, blood like wine running down the walls, swirling in front of his eyes, dancing under his parched tongue. He screams for mercy, forgetting in his agony that he does not deserve it. And then the shadows come alive and stalk towards the prisoner, before opening their gaping maws and swallowing him whole. Like a star, out he blinks. Another soul has entered the netherworld.

22

I do not remember much of that following year. The Hunger never left me. It constantly gnawed at my bones, weakening me to the point of blacking out. Eventually, though, my bloody vision began to clear once more. Day by day, I became aware that a world existed beyond the Call. The glorious swish and trickle of sanguis in the veins of the living all around me. My senses slowly bloomed open, expanding much more than what was regular. That was when it hit me that I, Dracon LeMeer Salander, was a monster. Merely a thin, mangy body that had been vacated, and then possessed by true evil. Denial crashed through me, but evil leaves no room for tears. I soon got used to the hollow feeling of my chest. Boredom crept in. Filled to the brim with the delicious body wine of mortals, I had no interest in the few living left in my dungeon. So I decided to explore.

Master, the powerful vampire king that turned me, as I later learned, was not surprised to see me when I entered his sacred throne room for the first time. Though his refined lips curled slightly in disdain at my rancid meat smell and torn, bloodied clothes.

Only weeks later would I understand that, and feel that same holier-than-thou attitude. It demanded respect, no matter what. Life in Crimson Castle became grand, and I rarely had enough time to miss the shadowed, protective corners of the cell that I had called home for five years. Many years passed in a blur of rich, splendid balls that lasted for days, countless pure, charming maidens that, in their heart of hearts, hungered for the wild love I could give them, and a constant stream of the finest blood known to the creatures of eternal night. Then a star fell to the earth, or so I like to say, and set my heart aflame.

Master had hosted yet another masquerade ball. I was making my rounds, on the prowl, and so far failing to find a treat that suited 23

my time-refined taste. It was in the instant that I finally gave up, deciding I could wait one more night, when a smell like no other filled me. Like roses in the rain and a delicate evening breeze, it cleared my mind, sharpened my senses, and broke the dam of my heart. I was no longer the predator. I was simply looking for the one that would complete me. My mate.

She stood in the center of the giant ballroom, swaying gently, intently listening to a story some older woman was telling her with aristocratic grace. Her slender body was draped with fine silk brocade, cendal, and ecarlate. The woman's body, cloaked with hues of the richest reds, proudest purples and most graceful gold as it was, certainly was the highlight of the evening and the envy of most of the women present. I was reduced to stares myself.

With hair like woven midnight sky and lips that looked to be coated in shimmering blood, plus her rich mocha skin, she truly was perfect for the role she was portraying. The Egyptian princess.

Then her scent reached my hiding place in the maroon shadows. White phlox, sweet white trillium, wisteria, celosia orange, and hoya vitellina flowers seemed to bloom and release their sweet scents right under my nose. All those delicious aromas soared over my tongue like mist, tasting like dew and the finest sugar. Hunger raked at my stomach and the ostentatious ballroom turned a dangerous shade of garnet. But rational thought had thankfully not completely left me. This woman, this foreign goddess of flora, was disparate from anyone I had ever come across in all my years. She could not become my meal, though she was a feast to all my senses. I was determined to have this enchantress at my side for the rest of eternity.

So began a night-long seduction, a splendid dance between cautious soulmates. The woman's name was Ascilia, Princess Ascilia 24

Isolde Terrowin of Blair castle. She was fond of Latin, as well as fluent in it. Hence, we were able to have long conversations that no one else was privy to. I called her “dilectus domina” which means “beloved lady” and “gemma cor meum” which means “gem of my heart.” The night seemed to melt away as I whirled around the ballroom with my princess, smiling softly for the first time in years. Every night that week we slow danced together for the entire evening. Finally, the week's end came. It was time for my final step. I'd seduced and charmed, teased and laughed, and at last it was time to see if it had done any good.

Once again, we were the last couple to leave the ballroom.

Sliding my arm around my lady's slim waist, I pulled her close and breathed, hushed, in her ear, “Dilectus domina, would you honor me with a kiss goodbye?”

Ascilia smiled demurely, tucking a strand of her jet black hair behind her ear. As soft as butterfly wings, her lips graced mine, gentle and sweet. Then a shadow seemed to slink like a wretched beast into her eyes. Looking poignant, she murmured, holding me close, “Why must we say goodbye? If only it were possible, I would spend the rest of my years with you.”

I sighed, only crowing with elation on the inside. It was difficult staying in character. My lady loved me! Utterly serious, I stared deeply into Ascilia's eyes as I said, “That is your wish, so it shall be.”

With that, I captured her lips in one more scorching kiss, then extended my fangs and slid them into her golden neck. Ascilia's blood was ambrosia on my tongue, cool and honey-like. Close to the edge of insanity, I made myself stop. I was not here to sample the wine. This was my mate's transformation. It wouldn't do to kill her.

25

Thirteen days. That's all it took. My Ascilia woke up with the Hunger raging, fierce and raw. She was an excellent addition to Master's coven, if I do say so myself. And so it went, for two centuries. We danced, we laughed, we loved, we drank, and never was there a happier vampire couple. Alas, good times always pass.

It's been a century since my beloved was staked and then burned by a rogue traitor. Three centuries since Ascilia and I left our coven.

But now I am home once more. Pain, brought on by reminders of all that has been lost in time, crashes through me, like thunder and lightning. My coven has long since abandoned this place and it shows. The once-gorgeous ballroom, with the crystal and gold chandeliers and heavy velvet curtains, has been overrun by spiders and dust. Who knows what lurks in the heavy darkness that devours the ceiling? Not I, nor will I ever. Shuddering, I slip from the room. My feet lead me to the dungeon. It is much like the ballroom.

Filthy. Sinister. Dank. As for my old cell, it is in as sad a state as the others. I will put an end to that soon. Soon, this castle, Crimson Castle, will be a striking portal back in time, to days of old. But for now, I will sleep once more in the darkest corner of my cell, to wait out the burning, fatal day. And when evening comes, I will take my rightful place in the sacred throne room and carry on the legacy of the Night Lord.

26

Bass and Baseball

Ashley Kinnaman, Franklin High School

My talent is not within my hands Rather it flows through my fingertips Emitting a melodic tune as I strum the bass.

Ever so gently, ever so smooth I pace my band I set up my band Like I would set up my pitcher back in the day.

Back in my Chicago Cubs days I have found my place on stage.

My ruby earring glimmering in the spotlight.

My bass resting on my leg, Jazz flooding the air, This is the place to be.

27

Blood Cousins

Louie Hollingsworth, Wilson High School

I see blood in you.

You see blood in me.

I see blood in all around me.

I see the blood that makes you.

I see the blood that makes me.

I see the blood that makes both me and you.

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The Memory

Maya Morley, Cleveland High School Listen! I hear him screaming! I see the blood gush out my father's side down to the floor every day. Every day I see and hear these things. It's like I'm reliving that very moment every time I think about it. Like it's...my constant reality. Every time I think about it I feel like I'm going to black out from how real it feels. You might think I'm crazy telling you all this, but I torture myself this way for a reason. If you paid attention you would know. Every day I dissect that horrific scene to see if I can remember anything new.

To see if I can find a clue as to who took my brother and if there is any chance I can get him back home safe. I'm hanging on to hope by a single thread. My brother was taken by rebels. DO YOU KNOW HOW IT FEELS TO LOSE A PART OF YOUR FAMILY? To have them taken right in front of you and there is NOTHING you can do about it? That boy! My very own brother—taken by boys his own age—with guns and knives willing to draw blood to have him! I wanted to fight back! I wanted to murder those little monsters. But what can you do when little boys come into your home with GUNS AND KNIVES ABDUCTING YOUR CHILD? You could fight them...but you would probably end up dead and your boy still taken right in front of you. You people sit in your homes drinking tea and cozying up next to the fire while such genocide is happening in Uganda. People like you couldn't give two blinks about our country, but I would hope you'd care about stopping a man making a child army because he thinks it's what our Lord wants. I wonder what God he is talking to because to me it sounds more like the devil! How can our “almighty and merciful God” let such acts occur? How can

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he sacrifice our children's safety by letting a madman run around killing his own people? So God, if you are supposed to be our “almighty and merciful savior” then when is the “saving” going to happen?

When are you going to show a little “mercy” and help toward all the mothers and fathers to keep their kids safe from Kony and his soldiers? I want you to listen. TO ME. To the children! To your hearts! What is happening in this world and has been happening for a while needs to stop! So PLEASE, STOP what you're doing for a minute and listen to those in need!

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When the Plane Hit the Giants Meggie Kirchner, Franklin High School

Pure innocence of that of a child Skipping in the fields of daisies Twirling in the sun Every day is full of smiles Blissful moments that never seem like they will end There is no bad in the world There is no evil in the world In the mindset of a five-year-old The worst that can happen is someone cutting in line Blind to the misdeeds, pain and suffering all around Everything is okay Everything is good Everything is happy But when that plane hit the giants in the sky Reality came falling down with the ashes, the flames, the hopes of those unknown, the people who breathed their last breaths With reality came a new vision There is bad in the world There is evil in the world

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Everything isn't okay Everything isn't good Everything isn't happy With a new vision awareness came Awareness of the lies, the pain, the distrust, the anger, and the hurt Awareness of being willing to take what is most valuable Awareness of a being who deceives to get what they desire Awareness of a being who sent my two giants in the sky Crumbling, crumbling down in a downward spiral 'til there was barely anything left The blame is always on you Even if there is nothing to blame you for The shouts and yells sound louder than bombs All you want is it to stop But soon you join in when you're called out When your neck is on the line “If you didn't...”

“Why can't you...”

“Do you even...”

Smiles, sun, skipping, all soon turn into dark clouds that never leave Pure innocence of that child is stripped away by the hungry adults who want their innocence back All because that plane hit the giants in the sky

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Trapped in Dreamland

Joshua Howe, Open Meadow High School On the frying pan called ground Melting rubber, bubbles from my shoes Screeching monkeys called children Dance on the playground Boiling fear rises from in me Sobbing as tears fall like rain Collapsing like a two-legged chair Tears sizzle as they fall Escape, A puff of smoke Squeal of springs as you rise Dreams disappear When you realize you're dreaming Not me Like worms wiggling around my skin Realization hits me I want out But I can't escape Walking through a child's heaven Trying to find a door A window Anything to leave this dream But...Is this a dream?

Is this real?

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