Fun things to do, Jonathan Cedat

There are fun things to do like playing ball in the street.
There are fun things to do like playing in the heat.
There are fun things to do like playing at the park.
Your life is a bore you need a new score.
There are fun things to do then stay at home.
There are fun things to do then watching TV.
There are fun things to do then going on the computer.
So go play once a day.

May,Joanie McGranaghan

The pale face
Turns to dust
As you lie there
Waiting…wishing…
You look so different
Its really not you
Your cheeks
They’re cold
They feel
So cold
When I press mine
On yours
Its hard to breather
To speak
What do I say?
How do I manage?
As you lie there breathless
I wait for your heart
Your heart to beat again
The disappointment
Is slowly breaking my heart
I look at you
Dying over there
Alone, so pal
In the coffin
Surrounded by flowers
All your loved ones
We all cry
You lie alone
Some don’t take it
They leave
Mommy takes my
hand
While I stand
Waiting…wishing…
Watching over you
The day it ends
The last time I see you
So I say my
Goodbye
and
I love you

The Truth About Pens and Paper,Chrissy Garcia

A pen that refuses
To leave the paper
Is one that is destined
To make a mark.
When pages are blank
With no mind of their own
That is when they are most
Happy
Are the most ignorant.
Ignorance:
A vice and a virtue.
Is it better to study the darkness
Or to study that which is aflame in color
That ensures a damaged heart?
Is there such a thing as
Knowing too much?
A blank piece of paper
Is a servant
And is told secrets
Even if they wish not to listen.
A pen, too is a slave
To knowledge
But it has no mind
To call its own
To begin with.
Neither pens nor paper are gifted with choice
But one feels pain
When they are told the truth.

Untitled, Bellene Fisher

When I was younger, I saw the moon. He was my best friend. He slept with me during the day and ran around with me in the midnight blue, lighting up my path. He made everything look more beautiful. He made water glitter; pavements shine like they had been touched by pale angels. Everything he touched looked like it was leading to heaven. But the moon would disappear for weeks at a time. The water had no angelic luster and the pavements had no heavenly shine. I was alone cold and depressed. Bad things started to happen when the moon wasn’t there. When the lonely weeks slowly dreadfully passed and he crept back so we could unite like when I was younger. I saw the moon but he was the worst friend that couldn’t make a commitment.

Untitled,Wesley Young

As I walk down the empty hall, it gives me a feeling of restriction, as though no matter which direction I walk in or stairway I go up, I'll be trapped inside the isolating and depressing walls of the demonic institute that can be described as high school. As I walk down the hall approaching my locker of dismay and disorder, I see a door my that sets off a rush of memories from my childhood. It was a spring day, a Thursday like any other Thursday with people trying to recover from the disaster of Wednesday. I recall it was the last period of the day, and I was in a moderate mood considering the cage-like classroom I was sitting in...math. The meniacal dictator returned math projects of doom, as she handed me ine without even giving me a look of acknowledgement. I thought maybe there was a chance that she would nod her head at least and give me the fulfilling feeling of knowing I did well without seeing my grade. She didn't. As the depression set in, I peeled back the front cover, and it sucked my soul into the ink that read 6 1/3, the grade absorbed more than my soul, it absorbed all the hopes and dreams I had of passing math. As I stand outside of the classroom of death in the hallway of evil, I shake my head and turn to go to the weird and wacky writing center.

Desire

What I desire

Love, Money, and Power

Anything from a one night stand

to the one and only.

From a penney

to a million dollors.

To being able to control myself

to WORLD DOMINATION.

I desire so little but yet

so much.

For I am greedy

Because I desire

EVERYTHING!!!

By Wesley Mazzara

Confusion,Tatiana Cadet

I feel like a writer with a blank page and no pencil,
I don't know where to start or where I'm going from here
I feel like a young child who's lost its way
and is left wandering around in search for a familiar face
I feel like the famous index finger that wanders from one choice to the next
"Inny, minny, miney moe..."
Or a never ending duck duck goose game minus the goose:
"Duck, duck, duck, duck...."
I feel like a young toddler tired and exhausted
But afraid of the dark, and lost without his night light
Or a little girl crying for her favorite teddy bear
I feel like a female who
Has no idea what her purpose in life is
Doesn't know when she'll ever make the right decision
Feels lost and (blank) about her feelings & emotions
And who doesn't know how it feels to be loved
I'm a young lady who can't see past her caramel brown skin
Her thick thighs, fat butt or her 36C cup
Can't see behind the dark circles and bags that cushion her eyes
Or her magnetic love handles & shoulder length brown hair
I can't see anything because I'm confused
Confusion
You'll feel like a flower lacking sunlight

What I need

As I am right now I an incomplete,
As I take steps towards the future I ponder,
"What do I need? What is it that will make me whole?"
Is it money I need?
Is it power I need,
Is it love I need?
Or is it something beyond comprehension.
What is it that I need in order to be complete?

WHAT!!!
I just don’t know...
I think so hard
But I’m losing my mind
And I begin to understand
I was never incomplete
I am who I am
Nothing more Nothing less

Just Me.

By Wesley Mazzara

Decision

The time has come,

The time when we must choose,

The time that will determine everything,

The time where things will change,

The time for you to think,

The time the future becomes reality,

The time we spend in solitude is over,

The time to embrace society,

The time has come,

Its time to deside.

By Wesley Mazzara

John 3:16,Ashley Alongi

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.
I know this verse
along with others
I try to believe
I try to understand
That God gave his only
because God can only have one son?
and he has to die?
But I let it pass
I hold my questions
Because I know of unhelpful answers
So I go to church
I learn my creeds
I learn my sacraments
I learn about Doubting Thomas
Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed
Do we know what happened to him?
Afterlife wise that is…
No?
So I sing the hymns
I read the scriptures when asked
I repent for sins and wait for some feeling of forgiveness
I dig deep down to the bottom of my soul and wait
Wait for a feeling
a feeling that everyone else seems to have
a feeling I desperately want
a feeling that never comes

Let Everything Burn,Anthony Herrero

My nose stings with the intake of third world country.
Stale sex, urine and beer wrapped around
buildings promising futures and dreams
entrapping innocents and bystanders
I don't want to be here.
Don't want to watch his form
sprawled out like a chewed rag doll atop ratty cardboard.
No one should. His body sinks into it sadly almost...
Willing it to swallow him whole. I want him to stay like this.
Alone and broken, lusting for the innocence he robbed me of.
I could sit and watch his eyes, red and pulsing
roll back to the top of his skull. Stare right into the whites.
The image is a warming one. Then he would trouble no one.
Not. Even. Me.
And yet, this Hispanic woman I swore was a street whore
clops to a sudden stop; she gazes as I gaze
I know what will occur
The hell that shall be wrought. Her thousand bracelets clink and slink
in time with her jumpy, jarry movements. Spikes skulls swirls.
It's all on display to see. Pitch black hair, curves bathed in latex.
I shudder and am repulsed as they speak. Enjoy one another.
Their smiles are sickening. What use is it to warn them?
Of the son they'll nearly destroy together?
Or the daughter who will learn to earn the loss of innocence faster
than both of them put together?
Is it fair to tell him of the blood he'll spill, the girl he'll yearn for?
The son she'll abandon, the daughter she'll give up on?
I refuse to warn them of the future and it's radio shattering,
sword hurling, fury infested single sectioned path they'll walk
I don't feel like interfering and letting them miss out
on the misery handed from
Father to Son
Mother to Daughter
Parent to Child
It's so much easier to observe the match kiss the paper
and
let everything burn

Need, Joanna Vogel

I am waiting for quiet, for a very specific
kind of hush. I am
waiting for a time when there aren't
any words that I don't
want to hear.
I am waiting for there to be
no words at all –
only eyes; only teeth and lips and
long hair that kicks up everywhere,
swirls like a wild halo of golden leaves
when you drive with all the windows down.
I am waiting for hands.
Specifically, I am waiting for your hands,
for your arms, waiting to be wrapped
in you. I am waiting
for you to forget
everyone else
but me. I am
waiting. I am
waiting…

Waiting,Tatiana Cadet

So many things to look forward to
to wonder about, to be frightened by,
Like the future.
Waiting for the future to come
Waiting for a miracle or a revelation of some sort.
Who's waiting for the right time to talk to their child about sex?
Who's waiting for the right time to quit smoking?
Who's waiting for the right time to improve or make a change?
Who's waiting for the right time to be educated?
Who's waiting for the right time to speak out loud?
Who's waiting for that right person, the Prince Charming or Princess To Sweep them off their feet?
Who's waiting for the right time to listen & pay attention?
Who's waiting for the right time to get tested?
Who's waiting for the right time to do something about global warming or pollution?
When is the right time?
Why wait, when the right time is now?

I am waiting for my time to shine
& my voice to be heard
and recognized as more than merely a child
or just another teen....
Maybe that time is NOW!

I am waiting for,Ashley Alongi

I am waiting for a poem
To fly in through the window
Introduce itself and decide to stick around for a while
Or one to sneak into the room
Shifty eyed
And plant itself on my paper when I’m not looking
I'd take in a homeless poem
Down on its luck
Or a sick poem
And with some revisions I’d nurse it back to health
I'd prefer it not to be with someone already
Or it to be well to do
It can come in stumbling drunk for all I care
And I won't question how it got here
Because right now
I am waiting for a poem
And I’m getting pretty desperate…

I am waiting for, Anthony Herrero

I am waiting for you.
I am waiting for the clouds to part,angels to sing.
I am waiting for this cell phone to lose meaning.
I am waiting for your guard to drop.
I am waiting for your walls to drop.
Not like molasses,that's much to slow,I've endured so much already
But like change down the sidewalk,rolling so fast you've gotta sprint to catch it
I am waiting for the music to hush.I am waiting for words - my words - to form literal meaning.
I am waiting for people to follow the rules they made.
I am waiting for the rules to get tired of boxing us in.
Slowing our every motion.Invisable last second,at my neck the very next.
I am waiting for my lungs to breathe evenly.
I am waiting for your voice to chirp happily.
I am waiting for the sun to rise.
I am waiting for a true blue new beginning.
I'm so sick of being needy,When I'm this good at everything I do.
I am waiting for my friends to cease dying.
I am waiting for pain to become gain.
I am waiting for the fire to quit burning.
I am waiting for Karma to take affect.
I am waiting for rules to be followed.
Isn't that all we have?Aren't we empty-handed when we disobey?
I am waiting for the pen to be mighter than any sword.
(Or,persay,a gun in these modern times.)
I am waiting for the good guys to win.
(the bad guys to end up in jail.)
I am waiting for endings to be joyful celebrations.
(for endings to have depth and meaning.)
I'm still waiting for you.
to have you
see you.
you.

Self Portrait Of a City Chick,Tatiana Cadet

The rocky roads and cracks in the cement
As i walk up the sidewalk
The crowds of city buses
And cluster pedestrians
My pace begins to hinder
As I look around
At the faceless people
That surround me.

I wonder if they see
The same blank image
Where my face belongs
I walk alone up the path to my destiny
And wonder why these aliens
Who are supposed to be like me
Are nothing like me at all.
They wander down the hill in groups
As I struggle to arrive to the top
AloneI wonder what lies above
Is it even worth this lonely walk
That is known as my fate.

Self Potrait of a Hallway,Bria Scott

Dirty and worn
paper ball here, pencil here
completely covered in tile, various hues of blue
if only I could speak
Sweat and shampoo , is it?
That smell is very much eminent wherever I go
Right here, he did it, he pulled it
And as they shuffle one by one
into me, on me, I surround them
Thy are engulfed as they follow me to their destination
Some run, some walk , talk, some are nervous
Claustrophobia perhaps?
He grabs her ass right there
She tripped you man
I see it all
I know it all
If only I could speak

The Last Time you Saw Someone (or a not so depressing piece of work), Maya Orr

It was the first and last time I ever saw her. I'm still crossing my fingers that I'll never run into her again. She was an idiot. Seriously. She looked nice though - very pretty. I know this for a fact because some guy walked up to her and gave her this corny pick-up line. You know, the one about rearranging the alphabet to put u' and 'i' together? Though maybe he was on a dare or something. I don't know. Anyway, her response? "I thought they were already next to each other." She meant every word. She was totally clueless. I was a bit weirded out but didn't really care. I didn't know her. I didn't want to know her. Problem solved - except not. I was waiting for my best friend to arrive, and as if she had been waiting for this cue, she did arrive. She didn't see me at first, but she did see the clueless girl, walked towards her, hugged her (they knew each other!?) and when catching sight of my, made her way over, girl in tow.
"Hey, remember when I said I was going to bring a friend?" my friend asked. No, actually, my mouth began to form. "Yeah, so, this is her. Bridget, meet Maya. Maya, Bridget." Thanks for letting me answer oh dearest friend. With introductions over with, we headed for food, settling on a pizza place. Simple but a good choice. Or maybe it would've been had Bridget NOT taken twenty minutes to decide no, she didn't want pepperoni, she wanted mushroom and the pink Vitamin Water. Really? How long does it take to decide that? Then she took it a step further and the cash register (I swear, the cashier looked ready to kill himself - I couldn't blame him): "How much do two quarters and a dime worth again?" Oh, please spare me. Whatever. By the time she bought her slice, I was on line for a second one. Oh give me a break, I didn't have breakfast. No break was given. he new girl somehow thought that we had been bonded to sisterhood at our introduction and let all her thoughts fly out of her mouth the second she thought them. Unfortunately, each was insulting and/or dull-witted. She talked about how all the guys like her, they were all staring at her (yeah, because you're an idiot, I felt like shouting), how greasy the pizza was, and why did they put so much grease on the pizza? Then she went on to saying how I was lucky that I didn't care what other people think about me, so on and so forth. Argh! Would someone shut this girl up? Lovely lovely Diane, my knight(ess?) in shining armor, my best friend in the universe (even though she had been the one to introduce us in the first place) took control of the conversation, talking about more educated things, touching on politics and reasoning behind certain actions in not-so-political settings. Bridget had no words to say, looking incredibly dumbfounded (a Kodak moment for sure). Thank God for small miracles, huh? I don't know if I described it, but her voice, ugh. It was like...melted sugar over needles - way too sweet with a way of attacking the mind causing instant headaches, and don't let me get started on her laugh. Although I'd like (not) to give more examples of her stupidity, I think I've (blessedly) unconsciously blocked those memories since they were so traumatizing. I don't know how Diane ever became friend with her, but last I heard, she moved to California. Watch out Hollywood. No, seriously. Pick up and run away. Now.

Super Best Friends, Ashley Alongi

It had started with child abuse. Or perhaps it was a symbolic sign telling me he was ready to leave the nest. Maybe. But for the sake of the story we’ll call it child abuse. Behind the Plexiglas window of the cage there she was, unmistakably the mother of all the little ones running around. In other words….fat. And there he was, much smaller , brown with big black eyes, inching over towards her. And like any loving mother would, she pushed him over with her head and let him fall over failing his tiny arms and legs about. That’s when I knew he was the hamster for me.
Thinking back on it now, following him with my finger probably wasn’t the most effective way of keeping track of him, but whatever way I did he was the one who wandered into the tiny cardboard box. This unnamed creature was enjoying all the comforts of gong to a new home. A brand new cage and food in the backseat. My mom had even put on the cars AC, which was a rarity. And yet he felt the need to squeak the whole way home. And that when the name Squeaky was born.
He spoiled me. After he was gone I couldn’t understand why the other would do certin things, like fall asleep in my pocket. Thinking back again, he probably was a narcoleptic. Every small thing he did excited my 9 year old self. The first time he walked from hand to hand, the way he put food in his cheeks to the dance he did when he peed. Everyday I would take him out for hours, most of the time forgetting he was there, catching him just in time before he would run under my bed , never to be seen again. He probably would have been fine though seeing as how he and the cat had come to a mutual agreement that if they didn’t bother one another they would be cool.
The day he died I can remember perfectly. He had a bloody nose that morning, but that wasn’t odd because he has been getting them more and more lately. I remember leaving him sitting on my mother, calling to him as I went down the stairs to school that I would see him later. I remember that day at school, someone had sunflower seeds at lunch and I had brought some home for him. But when I reached home I found my mother standing in the driveway to tell me that after three years and four months of companionship, that Squeaky was dead. Not believing I rushed upstairs to see him with a tissue draped over him like rodent CSI had shown up. One of his eyes was open and his body was rigid. This was not the Squeaky I knew. I refused to pick him up having m mother burying him in the front lawn while I watched from the window. But as she brought the empty cage upstairs I took on of the sunflower seeds from my hand and buried it next to his grave, Not only because he was my first pet, but because however lame it was, he was my first best friend.

My Dictionary, John Zurz

For my seventeenth birthday a friend of mine gave me a most unusual gift: a subscription to a series of a word a day e-mails. It almost made me feel like those people who buy those calendars that give them a new word each day to help them expand their vocabularies. I say almost because those people tend to use their new words incorrectly and or at the wrong times. And so for the last year I have been getting these e-mails with different words in them.
For the longest time I had used a dictionary my mother bought me when I was in grade school, it is one of those dictionaries with the words most people use, one without fluff words. By fluff words I mean words that aren’t in a person’s essential vocabulary. After all who would call a kindergartener learning his ABC’s an abcidian? Odds are they wouldn’t understand and neither would most people. It evokes an image of a class of geniuses who are trying to find the meaning of life, not your average kindergarten class. In the dictionary my mother bought me I went and looked up words that I needed to know for vocabulary tests and such. When middle school came I began looking at certain four letter words that one begins to hear on TV and such. While we all now know what “hump” means there was a time in each of our lives when we merely thought that it was a small hill, bump, or that thing on the back of the old man drinking beer outside of the corner store.
It may sound odd to be talking this way so soon, but remember I am a teenager and as most people that looked through dictionaries was because it could be reasoned that they might have pictures or descriptions of said four letter words. As it goes the “S” section of my dictionary was the first to become worn. The others were soon to follow. You can always tell what kind of dictionary you have by the definitions of the words in it: the more primp; conservative dictionaries will give the bare minimum when it comes to defining certain words. The other kind would give slightly more detailed definitions, while they do not come close to the Urban Dictionary, they are quite telling. It’s funny how the way the dirty words are defined will tell you what kind of product you are looking at.
For the longest time words have been giving negative connotations when they do not deserve them. Since when did liberal become a four letter word? Or even conservative for that matter? ‘Son’ now can be used to refer to a friend or acquaintance, and has been for a few years. Pop culture has influenced our vocabulary more than we think. A character of the popular show The Simpsons, Homer’s catch phrase has been added into the dictionary. Now and forever “Do’h” has been immortalized as a word to be used when someone screws up or hurts themselves. The primp dictionaries won’t have it, but if you want to know what “Hunky Dory” means odds are it will be in there.
The same friend that gave me the present of the e-mails that bring me new and pretty words to use has a vocabulary to match. All of the words she uses are nice and pretty, she may curse every now and again but she sounds much more natural when speaking with her flowery vocabulary. I suppose that is the kind of vocabulary one gains when they like to write poetry. As for myself I am constantly using words I never even knew I knew how to use when I am writing. It may seem odd but none of them are large words, they all seem to be quite short, quaint even. I am no poet nor do I pretend to be, I have no pretty words to use. While they some may be quaint, they all sound rough, even when I use the nicer sounding words they always seem to come out jagged.
For some reason when I write anything I tend to ignore the word “stuff”. When teachers would go over our work they would say don’t use “stuff” or “things”. In writing these two words have become as bad as curses, they are not to be used, while when speaking no one ever says “don’t say stuff”. There seems to be a disconnect, both are ways of communicating, of expressing an idea so what goes for one should go for the other. Shouldn’t it?
I suppose the word a day e-mails may be considered the most useful present I have received in my long eighteen years of life. I especially enjoyed the week where they used words that sounded dirty but actually weren’t. Though they may not have been useful, (When would be the right time to ask someone if they were masticating?) it was certainly entertaining. I may not be in bated breath, but I certainly look forward to seeing what new gem is in my inbox tomorrow morning.