“I will never fall in love again,”

Says that one high schooler

Who has already fallen in love with ten guys in her high school life.

A flirt, giggle, conversation here and there,

Sooner or later, the first kiss comes,

Then the holding hands in the hallway,

Then the small, cute dates.

But life likes to flip tables.

You’ll see the arguments,

The fights that blow up out of proportion.

The vicious remarks, the nasty resentment,

And finally, the breakup.

And you’ll find yourself saying,

“I will never fall in love again.”

Jennifer Shin

Eyes held open by tiny nails dug into the eyelids,

Screws uplifting the side of the mouth to create an authentic smile,

Hands handcuffed together, folded neatly on one’s desk.

Out eyes are forced to stay open, but our ears are shut.

Mouths are moving, but no sound is heard.

We are robots.

In compliance with the school system,

We instinctively do what is right.

Our fingers instinctively write our names on the top of the paper,

Our hands crawling, blindly searching for that notebook,

That one notebook that carries all our papers.

Our papers are filled with scribble marks and doodles-

Our high school transcripts track every move we make.

Autopilot. Instinct.

Be a good student,

Society says.

But when does it end?

Jennifer Shin

Time is a constraint,

In which we often lose ourselves to.

Seconds, minutes, hours, days, years,

It slips from our fingers.

We long to freeze it one day,

Fast forward the next,

Time often takes ahold of us.

But the moment our ears suck in the beautiful melodies,

Or the moment our eyes fly through the lines of a page,

Or the moment our phones start to play that one movie-

We surpass those confinements of time.

An escape to reality

Means to search for that passion.

A passion for words, stories, adventure and fantasy-

Anything but the reality we are in.

Escape.

Close your eyes.

And forget the world was in control,

Forget the existence of time

And find your passion-

The key to escape.

Jennifer Shin

The clock strikes midnight.

The house is silent except for the clicks on the keyboard.

Fingers type rapidly, books are splayed open on the bed.

Papers are shuffled into piles, my legs criss-crossed, balancing a laptop.

Headphones eliminate the sounds of the rest of the world.

My eyes, red-rimmed from sleep deprivation,

My face, etched with tension and stress,

My fingers, sore and numb from writing paragraphs-

I am exhausted.

Desperate to finish the night’s assignment,

I sacrifice my sleep.

We work hard in school

To get a job, to make the best of life-

But it gets hard everyday

To find a reason to smile.

Burnout.

Jennifer Shin

The rustling of pages, the flesh that seeds its virtues

On which the sun shines- galvanizing the soil in which it

Grows outwards; the sky grazes its touch,

Crinkling in the wind as the seasons pass

And the burrowing of rodents in nooks of bark

Only to find the shaving into thin sheets-

But knowledge must live; carelessly diffusing through the air,

Breathing: it takes shape through words, softly spoken to mine ears

Ever conforming to the minds of greatness and living as language

Through generations. It can be found in

The solidity of leather-bound papers wrapped snugly as it slumbers

In which mine eyes douse with life when lifted to the world.

As streaks of light rip through the sky; as wetness oozes into the earth

Ensconced in a corner will thou be’est kept

When hours hath past, days unkempt by the toils that plague the soul-

Unto light penetrates once more

Whisking all the terror away into thy sweet fantasies

O, the graces thou bringest! under darkness have thou been swept,

Stripped of thy dreams, yet I endeavour to give thee hope:

Of thou I beseech for reciprocation, and thou obligest as

I relish in thy melodious line, carrying me to sweeter realities

In nectarous ecstasy! I bid thee farewell

And thou shalt live on in blissful reverie,

Unbeknownst to thou: for thou shalt forever be of but one purpose.

Akshatha Bharadwaj

In...

​

W - Winter coats come off their hooks
I -  Igloos are made
N - Numerous presents are gifted
T - Trees are covered in ornaments
E - Evenings are long
R -  Rain turns to snow

Cheyenne Hanke

Love is passion                       

Love is fear

Love is kindness that we hold so dear

Love is a million butterflies,

Fluttering around your stomach all at once

Love is love no matter the gender

Love is why our world is so much better

Love is what makes us human

Love doesn't discriminate

So why give it so much hate?

If they’re happy leave them be

This isn't some kind of political victory

Just because it went public now

Doesn't mean that it didn't exist then

Love is to Love as Life is to Live

Cheyenne Hanke

In…

A - Apple cider and candy apples bring out the sweetest people.

U - Uncontrollable laughter fills the air.

T - Trees begin to shed their leaves.

U - Unlikely adventures take place.

M - Many children dress up in search of candy.

N - Numerous people deal with the cold.

Cheyenne Hanke

Their faces forever engraved into my mind, forever behind my eyelids. Three people gone due to the monster. No longer will I hear their laughs, see their smile or be calmed by their voices. No longer will I be surrounded by their presence, just their memory. The monster took them, though it is not a monster. It is addiction.

Cheyenne Hanke