Category: Uncategorized
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The Differences Hard to Accept by Raegan Bush
You sniff that patchEverySingleTime.To me?That’s grass.Green and boring and plain and ordinary, but to youIt’s green, it’s fun, it’s full of scent, it has something secret.Something unknown to me.Something I’ll never know. Something I’ll never know. Something I’ll never know.I don’t know what thatSomethingIs to you.I know that it is not the onlySomethingKnown to you…
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A War with Age by Julia Elliott
Summer was time offLunch was combined with RecessHomework was funGrades did not matter Summer was now for jobsLunch was just to eatHomework was dreadedGrades were everything Being different was considered weirdBeing a nerd was not cool at allGirls liking girls was kept secretBoys liking boys was feared Different is uniqueBeing smart is sweetBeing lesbian is…
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Until It’s Too Late and I Am the Voice by Patty Flook
UNTIL IT’S TOO LATE Walking through the schoolyardsickened by what I see.All this hatredbut nothing surprises me. Innocent people hatedbecause of who they are.They wear long sleevesto cover their scars. They want to feel pain;What this world has come tois such a shame. The words you say neglect them.But the bully doesn’t care,Your pleas mean…
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The Secret Intuition, Complete Darkness, and The End by Oscar Mendieta
THE SECRET INTUITION I got lost in that bonfire of longing and poetry,in that invocation that your song has,the secret intuition that then decided,that dawn was the one who would find us. With the beautiful daring that the heart hasand the burning passion that consumed us there,we were calm that burned as the new day…
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In My Island Body by Pauline Locsin-Kanter
Sixty-two and a half, plus nine in the feet, blessed with 16 inches around the calf, makes for an island girl as strong as someone who wrestles with the expectations of being as petite as the skinny Asian next door. Skinny doesn’t mean fit, nor does it mean strong. It is smaller in physique that…
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Mother’s Daughter by Carla Bender
Does any daughter feel she keeps an upper hand to her mother? Holding steady was difficult enough, but the time had come for their biannual mother/daughter day together and the pair were going to see a play. The play outing was a perfect occasion for the two so opposite of each other, for they both…
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Be a Drop of Water by Michael Bloom Ford
An ember combusts and flies into the river.Try as it Might, the ember is put out and washed away. A boulder rolls from the mountain into the river.It is still and buffeted by the river with Patience. A sliver of silver pops up from the bed of the river.Mutability carries it until it is round…
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Dreamin’In by Jennifer Henry
Empty bed, strange butclean. Time-worn sheetshide, indifferent, wherepale blanket meets. Musty humid airlingers, stale scents.Departed guests leavestagnant remnants. The a/c rattles,tepid air spurts.Heavy paisley drapesflutter, adverse. I climb between thesoft sheets and sigh,toes bare, mind racing,and wonder why. Images flit by,black and white, shadesof gray. Old movies.The actor fades. A bony old manreliving lifeas he…
The Bottom Shelf Review 