10

I hate
Comparison
I dread
The deep
Judgment
Of difference
I’m irritated
How it
Winds through
Society
Sinking into
Our automatic
thoughts
I loathe
Any second
Glance
That isn’t
Quick acceptance
In my head
Even the
Angry words
I am writing
It bothers me
How you might
Be using
Any negative
Words about
This poem
Because
Your comparing
It to others
Right now
And you
Don’t think
There’s anything
Wrong with that

Doors open
Doors close.
Doors creak
Doors squeak.
Doors are entryways
Doors are dead ends.
They whisper
They yell.
Doors are big
Doors are small.
They protect
They unveil.
Doors share secrets
Doors keep secrets.
Doors open
Doors close.

My father needed
very few things
to stay content.

A pack of cigarettes
and her quick wit
to smoke them with

He found her in med school
Ironic,
where he won her over
with peppermint sticks.

His candy
and hers
Both balanced between
their lips.

It went like this
for 20 years
He’d smoke
She’d laugh.

But his work
left her alone
and in time her,
sweet tooth died.

So she left him.
alone with worthless
Cigerettes.

My father needed
very few things
to stay content.

A pack of cigarettes
and her quick wit
to smoke them with

He found her in med school
Ironic,
where he won her over
with peppermint sticks.

His candy
and hers
Both balanced between
their lips.

It went like this
for 20 years
He’d smoke
She’d laugh.

But his work
left her alone
and in time her,
sweet tooth died.

So she left him.
alone with worthless
Cigerettes.

My father needed
very few things
to stay content.

A pack of cigarettes
and her quick wit
to smoke them with

He found her in med school
Ironic,
where he won her over
with peppermint sticks.

His candy
and hers
Both balanced between
their lips.

It went like this
for 20 years
He’d smoke
She’d laugh.

But his work
left her alone
and in time her,
sweet tooth died.

So she left him.
alone with worthless
Cigerettes.

Memories
Written By Leah Kanoff

Memories are something that stay forever.
They hold her back, they move her forward.
Thy maker her laugh, cry, makes her wish she could turn back time.
Some memories break her heart in two.
Let go? Or, hold on?
Twelve written pages later, she hasn’t stopped writing, hasn’t make up her mind, hasn’t sent the letter.
Letting go makes her want to hold on even more, but holding on breaks her heart too.
Can she really let go of someone who has helped her so much?
But can she change herself to hold on?
Change her heart to not want more? Change her heart from falling in love?.....
Sure she can try, but could she really do it?
Would she only lying to her own heart then?
Her heart skips a beat when the phone rings, reminding her how much she really want to pick up the phone and just talk to him, but doesn’t…….
But she can’t live for yesterday she has to start living for tomorrow, the future, not the past.

I lie awake uncovered and cold,
Ready to be fixed and read to be mold,
Into what my parents think I should be
But as I see it, thats just not me.

Their dreams for me expand as i go
I want to be free and I want to grow,
Into myself and to reach my dreams,
Too bad they don't know what NO really means.

I want to be a tattoo artist,
But no, they want me to be a biologist.
Art is my life they just don't understand,
That I can make magic with the stroke of my hand.

I need them to understand how I feel.
I'm not a banana ready for them to just peel.
I'll become something that I really want,
I dont care if they laugh, I don't care if they taunt.

A small bit of pain stained my face. Two of my left-hand fingers slid down two tiny scratches beside my eye. They had been drawn by my cat’s claws. The room was bright, the light slipping through the slats of the softly tilted blinds. The bright would be gone soon. Thinning; it set shadows on my unmade bed, on the worn, slightly dusty paint-stained floor, on the paint lines of my bright blue desk, on the couch with the old purple checkered blanket. I was sitting on the soft blanket, with the deep ink stain from when I was seven and my cousin left a pen sitting on it, and the few soft little holes where it had caught on the springs of the couch. My feet were browned around the edges and slightly sparkly from the silver glitter I had poured over my floor a few weeks ago. My light blue shorts were sprinkled with drips of water that had come from my hair which was still damp, and gathered up against my neck, cold and uncomfortable.

Lacking luster,
Short of shine.
Feeling flustered,
Subtle signs.

Inkling of illness,
Pressing for prospect.
Stifling stillness.

Ideas? Incorrect.

I don't think you know this,
The way you make me heart beat,
I don't think you know this,
I didn't want to be the cheat.

I don't think you know this,
And I know how you must feel
But I'm sorry I was a jerk
And made your heart just peel.

I don't think you know this
The way I made you cry,
I didn't think about your feelings
And now my hearts run dry.

Prom is just a dance. It is just a dance with fancy dresses waving around the dance floor, everyone acting like they are Cinderella for a night. Well I, my friend, am too a Cinderella. I am a Cinderella without the happily ever after, or the handsome prince. I am the never ending Cinderella story, but don’t feel sorry for me, for I am not the only one. There are plenty of people out there just like me. Well here is my advice to you all; don’t give up, for all you know the next frog you kiss could be that prince.

The night I lost my sister I felt like a part of me had disappeared into thin air. She was like the second half of me that I never knew that I had, even though she was a year older than I.
We had just moved into our new house in Wilder from Windsor and were adjusting to the new change. My parents had just then put us in our own bedrooms. Ever since we were born, we had been sharing the same bedroom. Then, it didn’t seem like a big difference. I mean, we were still right next to each other, so what was the big deal, right?
Well, I didn’t know it then, but it was a big difference.
One day, I was getting ready for school and she was lying on the couch. Mom had said that Kristen was sick and couldn’t go to school that day. I shrugged it off; I figured that it was a common cold, that anyone could get it. But when I got home, she was still lying there. I remember she looked so pale that it scared me.

Lead, ink, stone and paper.
Impermanent, like us all.
Still and motionless, without life
They won’t do at all.
It’s all erased, the chalk, the marble
By the moving sands of time
Unconstant, changing, until it’s faded
And I’ve no more to rhyme.
I want my words to leave a mark
And I want them to sing out loud
They can’t stay inside my heart
Because these words are just too proud.
They want to live, they want to be
Something unachievable by touch of the pen.
They shatter the glass around my voice
And will do so again and again.
They are there, and they are here
Breathing their voice into my head.
Bearing down on me at all sides
Starving to be fed.
Nothing – my blood, my heart- can liberate my words
In the way they should be free.
They want to vibrate and create their own world
Until they’re bursting out of me.
And I find, when my vision goes dark,
These words are all I have left.
Somehow I know they’ll lead me on