The Poet

They watch our pencils scribble filled pages
Our feet rub against the rugged floor as if we are walking down a path
A path
A path to nowhere
Nowhere but the letter on the graded paper that is supposed to rule who we are
Shows that apparently, we are flawless
A
Just a letter we are raised to think is the answer
But if that’s the case
Why are A’s so short term yet a symbol on a page filled with something we thought was real, so indefinite

A smile is plastered across our faces
They think that all we can see is a
5 out of 5
A 10 out of 10
And a 50 out of 50
And the only thing we ever fear is that 50 out of 50 turning into
45 out of 50
39
34
Failure
You are a Failure
Words we never really hear clearly but an echo that uneasily runs through our thoughts
Manipulated by unheard whispers
Echoing behind us

They think it’s easy for us
They think we don’t even have to try
But god,
They don’t know
That a b+ for us, is treated like an F in our isolated society

A
The letter from the alphabet
That is supposed to be the only answer
A

Because they think
That for us
Perpetually raised hands
Are all we can be
above unheard whispers
Unheard words
And unheard screams

Your eyes can’t lie
And when she smiles
You can see it in her eyes
Filled with frowns
A broken heart
A lost story
Carried through the wind
A shadow cast in the sky
A scar left behind
Buried beneath the cold earth
When stars can’t align
You’ll see it in her eyes
The twinkle gone
The cold air a little thicker
A little stiller
You can see right through her
Her soul is too empty
She needs a hand to hold
She thinks that she’s alone
Because we’re all too afraid to speak up
We sit there silently watching her drown
No one helps her out
We build walls of innocence around ourselves
And watch her world crumble through our glass windows
Because
We live in a world of bystanders
A world of quitters
And fakers
And rumour makers
Because We all live in constant fear of being pushed down
We watch her eyes frown and just sit there
Pretending that her smile is real

Hating without knowing
Loving without thinking
Feeling without saying

Our fingers will always be intertwined
And when you
Can’t Reach my hand
I’ll find yours
Because I’ve lived long enough
That,
I can see through the darkness
when you can’t

Her eyes are too puffy
And her face is too red
Suffocating
They see her
She looks lonely,
but Ok
They never will know how she ended
Because they just couldn’t look deep enough into her eyes and see that that missing puzzle piece,
Was them
All they needed to do
Was to hate a little lighter
Love a little deeper
Feel a little louder
But they stood there,
Silent
Watching
Pain
Watching a life crumble
Because there fingers weren’t interlaced
And their hearts weren’t there
Her only lullaby
Was
A champagne bubble laughter filling empty rooms
And silent screams never heard
Ice cream, and late night bike rides were just lost fairy tales
She couldn’t even imagine these things
What it was like,
To go home, and for them to be there
Just someone standing there, asking her “how was your day?”
Maybe if more people had hearts
More people could feel
She’d wouldn’t have let go

I was three
And
He was my daddy
And she was mommy
And i thought there hearts were forever stitched together
And just maybe,
The thread wouldn’t break

He said he was going somewhere else
An apartment
Just across the street
I’d see him less
Less, but enough
he said

And she,
She was hurting
They both were broken
I thought that I could fix the thread

Please don’t break
Please

Maybe i was too young?
Too dumb?
To stitch two hearts back together

Please Don’t break

I know
I was only three
Hadn’t seen this world enough

maybe broken souls are too often in this mankind
And thread just isn’t thick enough

Please don’t break

We walk on beauty
Breathlessly lost
Mistaking beautiful
For
Ugly
We lock up Effervescent hearts in
Rusty cages
And pretend our
fake
Is
Real
We find
Tranquility
In
Duplicitous people
All broken and dented

Why can’t we see the world through our hearts and let our souls breath
Why can’t we let the world be seen
Through the truth
Not a fake broken statue
Why can’t bandaids and duct tape fix us
Why can’t we live in a quintessential world
Where will we find our lost shadow beneath the hollow sun
Why can’t there be a light found

With big cities
No stars can shine
Because in artificial light
The truth can’t glow
In the midst
of the wind’s lullaby
Blowing over us

We shatter

by Chaya and Hailey

Your final breath
Fills this empty room
Just me and you
Soon, just me
I know you’re going somewhere better
Where your head will brush the clouds
The pain will be over
But I want you to stay
And don’t think that I don’t know that you are suffocating in this air
And that I am selfish for thinking that you should stay here and suffer for me
And I know that when you get there,
You will be happy
You will be smiling
And when this room is empty
Without you
Without me
I’ll see you again
I’ll just have to wait

In the morning
When dawns peak whispers chilly fog onto our cheeks
The air is thick
Filled with loneliness
Empty
But full
Full of sadness
Full of lies
The trees sway and breath
But we,
We stay still as we suffocate
In the morning
When we put on our masks
Falseness drowns inside us
We know
But we can’t explain

In the morning
When the moon’s been left behind
And the sun crawls back up into the clouds
We know it’s time

It was big and yellow
The door was red and tall

It was a halfway empty home
It was too big for us
It was beautiful though
And the walls reflected and absorbed the hot sun
And cold snow

Like every single memory stuck to the walls
Half colored papers plastered on refrigerator doors,
And it wasn’t really just my home
It was my life
For 6 thick years

They’re taking us away

On a train

A train overly crowded

Filled with people that own the eyes of agony

And soldiers with the eyes of abhorrence

Ima is crying

Aba is crying

Sister is crying

What is going on?

I sing to myself

BARUCH ATAH ADONAI-

I get cut off

Who was that?

From a soldier

Me. I whisper

My heart is beating expeditiously 

Like it will jump right out of me

Tears trickle down my cheeks as I try to force a mask of concealment 

They take me away gripping my arms like a lion to its prey

I don’t know
I guess you guys are my everything
You guys have
Shaped me
And tried to break me
You’ve bent me
And threw me down
And picked me up

I just wanted a chance to say thank you
For every single day you stood by my side like if they tried to shoot me you’d take the bullet
Every single one of you,
We’ve built bonds out of thread made of personality
We are all different
Unique in every single possible way
Artists that can paint the canvas like another world
Readers
Runners
Athletes
Writers
Actors
Dancers
Coders
Genius‘s
You’re all like dream catchers
You hold the pain and happiness of a thousand nights

Thank you
I can’t say those words enough times for you all to realize
How much you mean to me

I remember
A huge family
And a small room
good food
And big smiles
I remember
That there,
We wore slippers inside
And The air smelled like rice straws, and smoke, and incense, and flowers
I remember
There was a man
He Was someone I looked up to like the clouds
And he was so kind
He smelled of soy sauce, and delicious food

I remember
Standing under a cherry blossom tree
Looking up
Slurping noodles
And absorbing the air

I remember
That we went in the summer
The air was thick
And hot
Warmth wrapped around me like a blanket of the sky
And the time went too fast

I remember
That at dawn
When the sun scraped the black skies and stars away,
It was time to come home

I know that I always knew
That i was a Jew
But not what a jew really is
Now,
I know
I know that those few survivors wear tattoos like scars
Numbers
Embodied on our skin
Because they thought that we weren’t humans
Because our hearts followed thoughts they didn’t like
And
We are stronger than fakers, and we live past our own shadow
And
That’s what I am,
A Jew

My first breath
And Thought
Was in Missouri
A blink into dawn
And a moons quiet shadow
My firsts
All began there
My first ice cream cone
And daylight bike rides
in kansas
Though I was born a state Away from my childhood
There was a line
A road
A jump between us
Just a breath away