The Things We Left Behind
LUZ
Photo and poem by Maria Priebe Rocha, age 18
A babbling baby girl drinking in the world,
Saucer eyes trained on anything and everything,
Chasing the warmth of her innate lust for life–
She falls, stumbles, skids her knee,
Then gets up and starts running again,
Her mother unable to even ask if she is okay
She runs so fast. She shines.
The blue-ish glow disappears and the same
No-longer-baby girl stares with sunken eyes
Into her blackened reflection. No longer babbling
But mumbling in regret, no longer running
But glued to the blue seat’s rough fabric,
Choked by imperfection’s infinitely Impossible hold.
Her self-doubt and silence like a black cloud
Surrounding her endlessly.
The babbling comes again from a TV speaker,
Fruits of her sister’s tender labor, a gift to the family.
A ray of light shines through, breaking the blackness,
Breaking the silence, breaking the cycle.
persimmons and loose syllables
Photo and poem by Britnie Nguyen, age 21
i am reaching for persimmons
while she lives on this Earth as the soil beneath my feet
bittersweet loose syllables -
i knew they were never enough
still, i hold onto the onsets and rimes
cr00ked accents
not knowing my own mother’s tongue
wanting to know everything and more
but i am feeble
i yearn for everything
and more.
I only offer
“mẹ khoẻ không?” *
*also known as: tell me your biggest fears; your wildest dreams; of the streets you grew up in; your favorite melodies - why is that one song your favorite karaoke song?; your first heartbreak; mom before she became mom; of your once tender hands, before they only knew service and only served you; i love you; i hope you ate today; did you skip out on your meals; i miss you but i have too much pride to say it out loud; i know i don’t tell you enough, but i love you; you should know that christine loves you as much too
MY YOUNGER SELF AND I
Photo and poem by YL, age 19
I sit in the backseat of a car,
The tips of my fingers gently pressed against the window,
As I look out attentively,
At the trees, the pedestrians, the road signs, the buildings, the view.
Green as the freshly mowed lawn,
Blue as the sky clear of clouds,
Red as the stop sign standing tall in warning, Yellow as the daffodils being tended,
Says my Younger Self who sits beside me.
I can see the movement of her mouth, I can see the direction of her finger,
I can hear the syllables of her words, Yet I can no longer comprehend.
I turn back to the window,
Watching the children laugh,
The sun float high in the sky,
The bees bouncing from flower to flower,
All captured in dull shades of grey.
Grey lawn, grey sky,
Grey stop sign, grey daffodils,
I whisper back to my Younger Self,
As my breath fogs up the window.
AWARE
Photo and Prose by a HS, age 18
I am hot. Get me out of here. My butt hurts, I can hear my stomach growling, and beads of sweat fleck my grubby cotton tee-shirt still caked with spray paint and ice cream. Coach Jordan needs to get voice lessons. Her voice makes me cringe. It's been hurting all our eardrums since seventh grade. I'm sitting with my classmates, the class of 2021, on the stone wall along the entrance of my high school. I’m smack dab in the middle despite being named Scullin, you see we have a lot of last names that are in the t-z range. None of us are paying attention to Coach Jordan or Principle Schultz, all letting the time slip by as fast as possible despite it all feeling painstakingly slow. The sun bares down on our backs, the heat from the rock we sit on permeates through the jean cut offs we all wear, and the sweat starts stinking up the array of hangry teenagers. But is this discomfort the universe's way of punishing us for being too nonchalant about this keystone moment of our young lives..?
Where am I? What am I doing? I am graduating?!??! Well, I’m practicing to do it tomorrow. All of the sudden instead of my superficial, hot, tired, sore, angry feelings, its loss and hope that I feel. I am confused, because I don't like some of these people, so why do I suddenly feel grief? Is this the second to last time I will be seeing them in my life? I'm never going to sit next to Seth S. ever again…
Two young fish swim by an older fish, they say “hello” and in response the old fish asks “How's the water treating you today, boys?” They turn to each other, “What is water?!?!??!”
Looking back, I will see Seth again, in some way or another. As long as I take time to look up and be aware.
TWO WEEKS
Photo and poem by SG, age 15
Two Weeks, the time it takes to change your life
The time in which waves of life
exit their comfort shell
Arbitrarily, moving towards people in need of it
Yet people reject it
whilst in search of false hope
thinking they've clung
thinking that the dilemma is solved
And moving forward
Only for the process to occur again, redundantly
Two Weeks