First Place, Poetry
"Haunting"
by Grace Sowyrda
I feel like a ghost,
a wrinkled white bed sheet.
Cut out eyes,
that’s all they see.
The white exterior
masking the stains.
They see me
haunting the hallway,
sitting alone,
but they are too afraid to admit
that ghosts are real.
So they walk
right through me.
Finalist, Poetry
"Sad Songs"
by Liz Collins
Here is a link to audio of this spoken word poem (text is below).
When I met you I was a little girl who watched movies with her mom and wore her bones as though they were armor.
I had a wardrobe of my grandfathers sweaters that I would wear because they made me felt loved and that was as close as I thought I would ever get to beautiful
When I was little and I asked my grandmother to braid my hair or hold my hand she would say "little girl, you love to be loved. Don't let that get you into trouble."
When we met, you didn't love me but my god were you trouble. You were a blur of motion so quick and so dodgy I could barely distinguish your eyes from your soul but I tried, and I told myself every day for 2 years that one day I would see them both clearly
On our first date, you left your wallet at home, but that home was broken and I had never experienced that so I thought I understood why you left it. I don't remember much about that movie, but I do remember that you were the first boy to kiss me anywhere but on my lips and to this day you will live on my cheek, and when you made me cry (and oh god did you make me cry) I would feel the tears run over where you kissed me and I would remember why I loved you
You hated my taste in music, though you never really made an effort to listen to it, but I prefer sad songs and that doesn't appeal to everyone, so I thought I understood why you disliked it. One year and three months after I met you, you got into a fight with your mom and I stayed with you until the morning. That night, you screamed and thundered so hard you lost your voice and broke your hand, and quietly, when the storm had passed, you sobbed into my neck "I love you"
That was the first time, and the most beautiful sad song that I had ever heard. Seven months later, you remembered you hated sad songs and took it back for three songs that were more your taste. But when we were together, every day was a sunset and every night was a storm and every week seemed to be the eye of the hurricane that was your life your family needed me, you needed me, your teachers needed me, everyone was calling on me to save you. I tried, I tried so hard I had to call back on you to keep me from drowning and you clutched onto your life raft and reminded me that you had it worse. You were drowning in a bigger ocean and clearly I didn't understand it. I never did see through your eyes clearly, only glimpses of hurt and anger on nights when the ceiling broke down on us and I molded myself into the rafters would your soul limp out, but when I offered band aids or crutches it reminded me instead that it was broken in ways I couldn't understand and retreated
I tried so hard to stop the world from turning so you would catch a break from the dizziness of your life but you kept a paddle behind your back and when things stayed to slow for too long it always seemed like something would push us off again.
It's been three months since you told me you were sorry and three months since the last time I felt hopeful about anything but I've learned a lot about boys who move fast, boys I don't understand, boys who need me to inflate their life rafts, but carry needles with them too. You cannot love a boy who will not listen to your sad songs when you need him too. You cannot let someone's slightly larger ocean prevent you from realizing when you are drowning in your own. If the boy who's house burned down, is the one who burned down his own house it might not actually be a good idea to help him rebuild, and you can't save someone who hates to be safe. I loved you like a sad song.
Finalist, Poetry
"Ember Sky"
by Colleen Gair
Under the burnt sky,
you make me promise
to love you
more than him
You’re good at asking for the impossible.
I’m good at making promises I can’t keep.
And him,
well, he’s a master of ignorance.
So we continued
with our secrets in our back pockets
where they might fall out
without us noticing
and litter the path that we move away from
or they might remain
until one day
they are randomly removed and examined
in confusion.
We are safe now, you and I
walking under the ember sky.
"Haunting"
by Grace Sowyrda
I feel like a ghost,
a wrinkled white bed sheet.
Cut out eyes,
that’s all they see.
The white exterior
masking the stains.
They see me
haunting the hallway,
sitting alone,
but they are too afraid to admit
that ghosts are real.
So they walk
right through me.
Finalist, Poetry
"Sad Songs"
by Liz Collins
Here is a link to audio of this spoken word poem (text is below).
When I met you I was a little girl who watched movies with her mom and wore her bones as though they were armor.
I had a wardrobe of my grandfathers sweaters that I would wear because they made me felt loved and that was as close as I thought I would ever get to beautiful
When I was little and I asked my grandmother to braid my hair or hold my hand she would say "little girl, you love to be loved. Don't let that get you into trouble."
When we met, you didn't love me but my god were you trouble. You were a blur of motion so quick and so dodgy I could barely distinguish your eyes from your soul but I tried, and I told myself every day for 2 years that one day I would see them both clearly
On our first date, you left your wallet at home, but that home was broken and I had never experienced that so I thought I understood why you left it. I don't remember much about that movie, but I do remember that you were the first boy to kiss me anywhere but on my lips and to this day you will live on my cheek, and when you made me cry (and oh god did you make me cry) I would feel the tears run over where you kissed me and I would remember why I loved you
You hated my taste in music, though you never really made an effort to listen to it, but I prefer sad songs and that doesn't appeal to everyone, so I thought I understood why you disliked it. One year and three months after I met you, you got into a fight with your mom and I stayed with you until the morning. That night, you screamed and thundered so hard you lost your voice and broke your hand, and quietly, when the storm had passed, you sobbed into my neck "I love you"
That was the first time, and the most beautiful sad song that I had ever heard. Seven months later, you remembered you hated sad songs and took it back for three songs that were more your taste. But when we were together, every day was a sunset and every night was a storm and every week seemed to be the eye of the hurricane that was your life your family needed me, you needed me, your teachers needed me, everyone was calling on me to save you. I tried, I tried so hard I had to call back on you to keep me from drowning and you clutched onto your life raft and reminded me that you had it worse. You were drowning in a bigger ocean and clearly I didn't understand it. I never did see through your eyes clearly, only glimpses of hurt and anger on nights when the ceiling broke down on us and I molded myself into the rafters would your soul limp out, but when I offered band aids or crutches it reminded me instead that it was broken in ways I couldn't understand and retreated
I tried so hard to stop the world from turning so you would catch a break from the dizziness of your life but you kept a paddle behind your back and when things stayed to slow for too long it always seemed like something would push us off again.
It's been three months since you told me you were sorry and three months since the last time I felt hopeful about anything but I've learned a lot about boys who move fast, boys I don't understand, boys who need me to inflate their life rafts, but carry needles with them too. You cannot love a boy who will not listen to your sad songs when you need him too. You cannot let someone's slightly larger ocean prevent you from realizing when you are drowning in your own. If the boy who's house burned down, is the one who burned down his own house it might not actually be a good idea to help him rebuild, and you can't save someone who hates to be safe. I loved you like a sad song.
Finalist, Poetry
"Ember Sky"
by Colleen Gair
Under the burnt sky,
you make me promise
to love you
more than him
You’re good at asking for the impossible.
I’m good at making promises I can’t keep.
And him,
well, he’s a master of ignorance.
So we continued
with our secrets in our back pockets
where they might fall out
without us noticing
and litter the path that we move away from
or they might remain
until one day
they are randomly removed and examined
in confusion.
We are safe now, you and I
walking under the ember sky.
First Place, Prose
"I Understand"
by Caroline Scanlan
Nights were hard.
Sarah kept the mirror in her room covered by a bedsheet most of the time, when a glimpse of her body in the mirror would send a pang of longing to lodge deep in her stomach. She kept her eyes closed in the shower as she undressed and washed, feeling her way out of the bathtub until she felt the comfort of the towel around her chest. Even covered, she kept her eyes up, focusing on the growing wisps of her bangs and the curls now falling down to her shoulders. Only in pajamas--thick, heavy sweatpants and a loose, long-sleeved shirt--was she safe.
There were nights, though, when she couldn’t look away from her own distorted reflection. She would run her fingers through her growing hair, light brown like her father’s but coarse and curly in texture like her mother’s. She would cringe touching her jawline, too rough and dark for her liking, hard bone where there should be soft skin. Her shoulders were always too broad for the dresses she chose, so she only wore thin straps, though she hated how it exposed the freckles and discolorations on her collarbone.
It wasn’t until her eyes grazed her chest that Sarah’s eyes would begin to tighten and sting. Everything was just so wrong; corners where there should be curves, flat where it should be round, and her ribs drew into her hips in a straight line instead of the rounded flare she knew was meant to be there. She would long to soften the skin so rough under her fingertips and feel nothing but smooth silk instead of the coarse hairs burning her inside and out.
Even more nerve-wracking was what lay below the band of her sweatpants. Sarah would take one deep, halting breath, looking at the ceiling, before she would cover the mirror again. Nothing good ever came of obsessing over her body: it wouldn’t change anything.
Not yet.
The reminders--it would be what she wanted someday, though it may take years--were what kept her from trying to do it herself.
All this would be bearable, Sarah thought, if it were a problem she could face alone. If it was only her problem, she could keep this anxiety contained to the privacy of her bedroom. But, as is the nature of society, her friends and family had decided it was also their problem. If she could remind herself, gently, you are a girl, you are a girl, she could face the world nervous but sane. It was when the people around her destroyed those reminders that the cracks in her mind began to show.
“You are a boy, Michael,” her father never ceased to snap at her every morning she came downstairs with a new blouse or just a touch of eyeliner that could be seen. “I raised a son and I expect you to act like one.”
“I just don’t get it, Mikey,” her mother would plead when she came home with armfuls of skirts instead of ties. “Did we do something wrong? I thought you were happy.”
“He-she! Are you like a drag queen or something?” one classmate had shouted the first day she asked for Sarah instead of Michael. “You’ll never be a real girl.”
Don’t remind me, she had wanted to say, but she stayed quiet.
“Yeah, he- I mean, she, wants to go to a movie tonight,” her friends would call in the hallway, always taking that extra second to catch the mistake. Sarah never faulted them for it; after seventeen years, of course, you do get used to one gender. That didn’t mean hearing “he” wasn’t like a punch to her gut.
Sarah lay face-down in her pillow, forcing the memories out. Just wait, she would tell them in her made-up scenarios where she was brave and fearless and didn’t hide herself in shame. Just you wait.
Mornings were hard.
Patrick’s morning routine was much longer than he wanted it to be. Showers weren’t in and out; he had to scrub his hair meticulously, keeping it neat though it hung much longer than he wanted it to be. He didn’t keep his eyes closed, though some days he desperately wanted to. He didn’t cover his mirror; in fact, he kept one close, always scrutinizing every detail of his jaw, his mouth, his eyes.
Too round, he grunted. Always too round. He wasn’t thin; his belly often hung over the top of his jeans, and his thighs were just a little too big to fit. Even so, he was okay with a simple binder to cover his chest, flattening him enough to be satisfied.
“Keep your beautiful hair, darling! There are boys with long hair!” his mother always cooed, and so he twisted it up in a small bun to get it off his shoulders before covering it with a knit hat to hold it in.
You’re a boy, he told himself every morning in the mirror, and he was starting to believe it.
School was his safe haven, now that his teachers had agreed to call him Patrick when they read off names in attendance. His friends called him “he”, not “she”, and after four years of public “Hello, ma’am”s it no longer felt like a knife in his stomach when someone made a mistake. He had learned the confidence to tell them I’m a boy, actually, and they would listen and apologize even when his voice was too high to be believable some days.
It was only weekends at his father’s house, less now that he had turned eighteen, that felt like going through hell and back. He blamed him for the divorce and the lawsuit, hand landing too heavy on his shoulders when he would say “how much of a lesbian his daughter had become.” Patrick was too tired, too exasperated, and too terrified to correct him.
Besides the third weekend of every month, though, he was beginning to grow into the man he was planning to become. “I get it,” his therapist told him. “It’s going to be okay.” Soon, he wouldn’t have to wait anymore.
Soon.
“Hi, Sarah.” How did she transition so well?
“Hi, Patrick.” How did he transition so well?
“You look really good in that dress. I can give you some of my old ones, if you want.”
“Oh, okay... ” Can we trade bodies, too?
“It’s no trouble. I know how much it sucks.” If there was a way, I would.
“You can say that again.”
I understand.
I understand.
Finalist, Prose
"Casper"
by Dante Giugliano
It was just seventh grade, but it felt like World War 3. If anyone was to let their guard down, they could be turned on instantly. You were judged by what you wore, how much money you had, and especially who you were friends with.
So when your class went on something like a field trip, it was obviously vital to stay in a popular group. You wouldn’t want to be caught dead with a nerdy kind of kid, the kind that sits alone at lunch and doesn’t have friends and cares too much about school.
Of course you wouldn’t.
We were on the seventh grade field trip to Canobie Lake, a local amusement park. Mark was to my right, as always. He was chomping down food contemptuously, shoving down his oily popcorn like there was no tomorrow, which we knew was always a risk if one of us did something out of line. Of course I don’t mean we’d actually die, but we would die socially, which could be a whole lot worse.
Beck was to my left. He was the cool kid of our group, walking along, looking like a seventeen-year-old with his hair gelled back and his large athletic body striding confidently a few feet ahead of the rest of us.
And finally Caleb was on my far left, away from me and Mark, luckily. Caleb was very grouchy and- how else can I say it- dumb. He wasn’t the nicest to us, but we couldn’t seem to push him away. I didn’t question that, and neither did anyone else. He was quite large, about 120 pounds, but not fat. He wasn’t extremely muscular, either, but I guess he was just big.
And then there’s me. A scrawny little kid with dark hair. I weighed myself every night, but I could never reach a hundred pounds. I wanted to be big, like Beck, or even Caleb, but I just...couldn’t.
I couldn’t do a lot of things.
I was about to find out how weak I really was.
There we were, cutting across the park like it was our job. At the time my mind was racing about how I looked, moved, even sounded. I was lucky to be in a group, and I didn’t want to lose that. But of course it wasn’t easy, no no. You had to remember those minutiae that characterized you, and you had to look cool while doing it. Everything had to be perfect. Everything.
But it wasn’t. I hated being like that. Always being judged.... I felt like I could never just take a breath. Never just act casual. It all had to be an act. A perfect, dumb, act.
“Hey,” Mark said, breaking into my self-pity, “What ride do you want to go on?”
I looked around and saw some kids screaming on a nearby rollercoaster. “Uh, that one,” I managed to croak, “the Yankee Cannonball.”
“Hey, Beck,” Mark said, “Want to go on the Cannonball?”
Beck shrugged, the words barely seeming to penetrate his wall of aloofness. That was good enough for the rest of us, and we all turned in unison.
The Yankee Cannonball loomed ahead of us, a teetering monstrosity of shaky wood and zooming metal. Some kids are afraid of roller coasters. I was afraid of people thinking I was afraid, and then laughing at me, so I put myself one step ahead of the others hoping I would look excited to get there.
That’s when I saw him. Casper the Loser.
Casper was a nerdy kid in my grade who had no friends and was constantly made fun of. I felt bad for him sometimes, but even I had made fun of him before. For example, just a few hours before on the bus ride to Canobie, someone didn’t smell too great. I was terrified that people would think it was me, so I panicked and yelled something like, “Geez Casper, haven’t you heard of deodorant?” It didn’t seem like such a big thing, but I knew it embarrassed him because he didn’t talk to anyone for the rest of the bus ride.
Casper was sitting on a bench doing a homework packet. He looked up as we approached, and his ears turned red with embarrassment.
I stopped dead in my tracks. The fact that he was sitting there, alone, doing homework in the middle of an amusement park was just so...bleak.
I know what I should have done. It would have been simple to invite him to come along, but social suicide was not an option.
He stared right at me. Our eyes locked...there was no escape. My mind raced. Talk to him or keep walking? Be nice or be cool? Have friends or be a good person?
“Hey, Casper,” I managed.
His face lit up with hope.
Beck brushed by me. So did Mark. Casper’s eyes followed them nervously.
Caleb nudged me from behind. “Ya forget how to walk?”
I panicked. It felt like I was being pulled in a hundred directions, and all I could think about was what would happen next, and what people would think of me, and even though it would only take a few words to invite Casper along, my heart was pounding, and I just couldn’t do it.
My gaze fell to the ground. “See you,” I mumbled in defeat.
And then I walked away. From my fears. From what was right. From a better version of myself. I got on that roller coaster, and I screamed the entire time.
The entire time.
Finalist, Prose
"Sallowness"
by Emilie Magnan
She leans her head down and kisses his lips, softly, smiling against him as if somehow her smile will transfer into his lips and into his brain.
She knows it won't.
She parts from him, tucking back the hair that fell in her face, and sees.
His skin is pallid in the feeble light of the moon, his eyes dark and liquid and ringed with the bruising of his insomnia. His dark curls are disarrayed, his pale lips like death and especially not turned up in the way she hoped.
" ." He says, words formed but with no accompanying sound.
"Could you say that again?" She murmurs, brushing a single curl from his forehead and resting the pads of her fingers on the long scar down his chest.
"Прости, я не хотел тебя обидеть." (I’m so sorry, I never mean to hurt you.) His thin, fragile, worn-to-the-bone hand reaches, brushing blow-abraded knuckles against her cheek, like the faintest whisper of a military secret. He doesn't cry anymore, but it looks as though he could if all his tears hadn't dried up with the scar tissue.
She smiles, weakly. The room is cold and the sheets are scant and he isn't warm to sleep beside and every day is a constant gnawing fear that he, or someone else, will kill her, because she is a capitalist in Soviet lands, and a deep regret for the thought she should never have entered his apartment or his bedroom or his bed or his life without a gun and intent to kill.
"It's okay."
He blinks, slowly, the deep purple moons underneath his eyes now stretching to his eyelids, where thin veins run against the surface of his lashes. His breath is shallow, and there's a soft wheeze of cigarette smoke and choked-on liquor.
"Mikhail, get some sleep. You need it." She sinks onto the other pillow, nothing more than one of the couch pillows arranged distractedly on the other side of the bed for her.
From this angle, he looks like he could be anyone. A childhood friend all grown up, a young father passed on the street, her dead best friend Eileen.
"Я не могу спать." (You know I can’t.)
"I know. But I can try to sing to you. Maybe it'll at least help."
"ты пыта́йся." (Try.)
She hums softly, just to carry the tune and mark through the instrumental part. "When I was seventeen..." she sings, the soft, whispery quality of her night-time singing barely registering in her own ears as little more than the vibrations of her skull.
She watches him blink slowly, looking up at the water-stained ceiling, each long crack a seam which the demons must come through. The bridge of his nose and its irregularities are clear in the faint light, though perhaps only because she's become accustomed to them. At last, he closes his eyes, and sighs a deep, rattling sigh.
It's nights like these, when he falls asleep before her, that she really thinks about life and what it means to be alive. They have both been dead countless times, from blood loss, from trauma. It isn’t enough to say they are alive anymore. They sit somewhere between life and death, dipping sinusoidally each way. Staring at the hills and valleys of her lover's face, she ponders then why humanity only needed to go to space when two rival forces were having a pissing contest. Why prove our place in the universe before completely destroying our actual footing in the universe? Why even care about what is beyond when looking beyond our boundaries empathetically seems impossible?
Why care?
She feels the dull ache in her eyelids telling her to sleep, but she ignores it.
She wonders when she stopped singing. She didn't notice.
Softly, trying not to wake him if he is asleep, she touches her bare shoulder to his. Cold.
She feels the ache in her shoulders. A long day of work, her burdens, the world's burdens -- she's not sure which occupies the space tonight, yet she slackens her muscles and falls asleep on the couch cushion covered in cat hair and cigarette ash and evaporated spirits, looking at the seams in the ceiling and thinking how much they look like faultlines.
Finalist, Prose
"Stranded"
by Gavin Loughnane
The morning sun blinded his sand crusted eyes, and his throat burned from the salt water. Peter struggled to lift his partially buried body out of the fine sand, and slowly rose with his weak legs. He saw the partial wreckage of his 35-foot fiberglass cruiser, mangled against the jagged rocks about a hundred yards off the coast. Still weary, Peter slowly stumbled around in the sand, trying to get a bearing on his location. The barbed rocks that imprisoned his once prized possession created a small cove around the beach. Reflected in the still water, Peter saw the dense forest of palm trees and lush tropical plants behind him. Squinting his burning eyes, Peter tried to look for any sign of a boat, or land mass in the distance, but to his dismay, found nothing. As far as Peter could tell, he was alone.
He continued to stare aimlessly into the distance, until the blistering heat of the sun on the back of his neck encouraged him to seek shade in the forest behind him. “The only thing worse than being shipwrecked, is being shipwrecked with a bad sunburn, right?” he thought to himself. As he made his way to the cluster of trees, he strained his brain trying to figure out where he might be stranded. Almost suddenly, the memories flooded back to him. Peter remembered the fight he had with his boss at the marketing company, which wasn’t a rare occurrence - his boss was one of the many people who didn’t appreciate his brilliance; however, this one was different.
Peter had taken it too far this time, and wound up on the sidewalk, holding a cardboard box full of his pointless desk ornaments. He had then stopped by his roomy one bedroom apartment, which overlooked the San Diego Bay. It was a very expensive apartment for someone in their twenties, but money never seemed to be a problem in Peter’s life, mostly because he never had anyone else to spend it on. Peter had placed his box of office possessions on the small table in his kitchen, and then headed out for a cruise in his boat, to forget about the day. Peter struggled to remember what had happened next, and decided to put it off for the time being.
As he entered the palm forest, the temperature quickly dropped to about a cool 70 degrees, and a breeze blew in from the beach behind him. Peter heard the dull, rumbling sound of running water, and headed over to investigate. He pushed away the engulfing plants around him, and stumbled into a grassy clearing which was split down the middle by a shallow stream. Peter approached the stream, cupped some of the water, and tentatively brought it to his lips, the crisp taste of fresh water filled his mouth. Peter continued to drink from the fresh stream until his throat stopped burning, and he no longer tasted salt water and sand. Peter surveyed the clearing around him, and decided that it was the perfect area to build a shelter.
The hint of a smile broke through his face, as Peter started to reassess his situation. He was sick of having to work nine to five jobs as a cube monkey. He always figured that there was more meaning to his life than that. Maybe this was the opportunity he had been waiting for his whole life. Thoughts of the best selling book he would write when he was rescued were already filling his head, and why stop there? There would probably be a movie deal, too. Of course, Peter would play himself. Hell, he might even impress a few directors and star in some of their new movies too. Peter liked the idea of becoming an actor, but he loved the idea of becoming a household name. A familiar growl escaped from his stomach, and interrupted his thoughts.
Peter looked up at the sun, which appeared to be sinking rather quickly. He decided to go out searching for food. As Peter started walking out of his clearing, he thought about marking the trees as he went, to avoid getting lost. But Peter decided against it. After all, he had an excellent memory, and would surely be able to find his way back.
Another growl from his stomach convinced Peter that food was the priority over shelter. Peter decided that he would try his luck at hunting for dinner. He had seen some South American tribes hunting boar on the Discovery Channel, and they made it look pretty easy. Peter scanned the ground around him for hunting materials and quickly found a long, sharp stick. As Peter slowly paced through the forest floor, looking for the unlucky boar, or maybe even tiger that was about to meet its demise, he couldn’t help but think about what a good scene this would make in his movie. “This might be the scene that wins me an Oscar” Peter thought to himself.
Once again, Peter began to think about the future, and about how much this shipwreck would affect his life for the better. But a frightening thought kept nagging him in the back of his head: “How will anyone know where to find you?” Peter’s mood dampened as he tried to find an answer, for no one knew Peter had gone out on his boat the previous night. The harsh reality was, it could be weeks before anyone realised Peter was gone at all. He certainly didn’t have any friends who would be checking in on him. Peter quickly dismissed these thoughts. He decided that he would eventually build a big signal fire, but not until he had information for his future book. He certainly didn’t want to waste such a great opportunity. Peter smiled, and reassured himself that there was no way to waste it, after all, there was no one else around to screw it up.
Peter’s thoughts were again interrupted, this time by a “roar” that sounded like a semi truck. Peter jumped at the unexpected sound, but quickly regained his nerves, and decided to investigate. He tried to imagine what could have made the monstrous noise, and more importantly, could this be the climax of his novel? As Peter continued towards the sound of the noise, he approached a steep, muddy hill. After several unsuccessful attempts to climb the hill while holding his “spear”, Peter decided to drop the stick. After all, fighting the animal on the other side with his bare hands would make the story that much more exciting. As Peter approached the top of the hill, any fear he had was overwhelmed by the anticipation of his rise to stardom. Peter swung one leg over the sharp crest of the hill, slipped, and tumbled down the muddy embankment on the other side. He landed forcefully on his stomach, and tried to regain his senses. Peter lifted his head, and to his horror, he was face to face with a two lane highway, a Holiday Inn, and the return to agonizing normality.