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Tulips
By Jordan Muscal, 17, Texas INT. GROCERY STORE, MORNING The automatic doors of a grocery store open. The AC buzzes loudly. Through the speakers, a country radio station blasts. A…
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Dear Mother
By Amanda Reid, 15, Illinois Dear Mother, You pushed me to do stuff I didn’t know I could do, Believing in me when no one else did, Always having faith…
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I Miss You, Grandma
I miss you Grandma, I know I'm not supposed to start a letter like that, but I’m also not supposed to write to someone who is no longer with us.
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Penelope
I stitch my shroud, in quiet contemplation It is time that I race against, leaving rough edges I never hope to finish.
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Space for Being Single
David Brooks, renowned New York Times columnist and journalist, recently published an article entitled “To Be Happy, Marriage Matters More than Career,” in which he posits, unsurprisingly, that marriage receives…
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The Stranger in the Photo
It is August 24th, 2008. I am clad in a backwards tan cotton twill cap, a linen tank top, and a pair of striped green seersucker shorts.
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Old Photo Album I Found at an Antiques Store
You, holding the baby, crouching in a meadow, a child yourself. Your father: straight short hair, dark suit, slow face. Here he is holding you, here he is with your…
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As I Await My Departure
As I await my departure I drum my fingers on the desk I’ve made home.
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An Unofficial College Girl’s Guide to Adaptation
It’s not easy to look up from a year of college with neon blue hair, a different major, and crying because you and all of your new best friends/ life…
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Eulogy
Here lies a lesson for all daughters who swim towards stubbornity, who seek to satisfy that self-indulging instinct,
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If you’re reading this…
If you’re reading this, plant some flowers. As each academic break nears, I begin to excitedly anticipate returning home. I always miss my family, my farm, and my community. Duke…
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Dear Mother
dear mother, my magical cocoon, the safe haven within the walls of childhood where rose-tinted flowers grew beside hope-laden trees,
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Winter
I hated winter. I spent 17 years of my life dreading the end of fall because I knew what would come next and I hated every second of it.
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A New Life
I lay quietly now, like the hush during a funeral. Father stands lofty, towering over mother. Her halo darkened with each passing second.
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Self Interest
What novelty is there in another’s heart? What new skies are there in another’s eyes? Perhaps it’s because my own bosom
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Smiles and Tears
I’ve forgotten how to smile. My muscles get cramped after too many pretenses. It’s easier to just loosen the upward tension.
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My Little Family
My little family started at Newark Airport with donuts and dreamy gazes. My little family is the eighteenth cohort, a dazzling crew that amazes.
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Equipoise
Another relationship up in flames, Over just when it’s begun. I pushed too hard, I felt so sure this was “the one.”
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You Zhi San
This piece is a depiction of a young girl with a traditional Chinese oil paper umbrella in southern China. As a Chinese-American visiting the home country of my parents, I…
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Aching Streets
The work is about language barriers/expectations I faced as an Indian American. The poem can be read three ways (the left side on its own, the right side on its…
