September 2, 2023

Fae Merritt (age 9)

AN AUTOCORRECT POEM

Cats are coming
Dogs are not very friendly
Monkeys created a new life
Koalas have a lot of explaining to do
Pandas need help from your parents
Foxes have been doing the wrong thing
And bats are in the same house as you
BATS ARE IN THE SAME HOUSE AS YOU
 

from 2023 Rattle Young Poets Anthology

__________

Why do you like to write poetry?

Fae Merritt: “I like writing because it’s fun to make up stories and write about your ideas. It can be not real in the world but it becomes real when you write it.”

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August 26, 2023

Jaylee Marchese (age 15)

FUNERAL

You’re a carefree, bouncy kid
who still enjoys the little things like
the sticky summer season every year
and riding horses and fishing
at the old docks past sunset.
 
Every year, your family goes on vacations
and you genuinely enjoy every second of them.
Your parents go on date nights now and then,
they hold hands in the front seat of your Yukon,
and your family feels undoubtedly like it’s yours.
 
Then, you notice things start changing.
Family game nights dissolve into nothing—
the Monopoly board is stowed in the
hallway closet like it’s unthinkable.
You’re sure that family movie nights only existed in your head.
 
The nights get longer and longer because
the yelling and arguing through
paper-thin walls put a pit in your stomach that fuels insomnia.
Most of your heart-wrenching summer nights are spent
staring at the ceiling, the clock flashing 1:00.
 
It’s painted the color of pessimism.
You spend those pitiful mornings afterward
explaining to your impertinent brothers that
it was nothing—just mangy conversation.
You wonder how this became your job.
 
The pancakes taste like an enigma.
The tension at your breakfast table is so thick,
you could cut it with a knife and the
hard truth that your parents’ marriage is
in shambles would come spilling out of it.
 
Your parents can barely stand the insanity anymore, and neither can you.
For an hour before, you’re hiding in the hallway bathroom,
shaking, because every part of you knows it would always
come down to this—an unassuming Sunday evening.
You tread on eggshells to the corridor.
 
They sit you down in your congested living room,
the fear clinging to you like sweat. The air is
stiff and unbreathable here because the truth is lingering in the corner of the room,
like a ghost, watching your skin turn pale
and your words slur into liquid.
 
You’re holding onto the tattered sofa for dear life,
your fingernails making deep impressions in the leather,
because you feel like your house is only seconds away
from being completely engulfed in flames.
Your impatience is a lump in your throat.
 
With soft voices, they tell you the things that you already
know, but hearing them out loud and from their own
mouths breaks your heart tenfold.
“Nothing is really going to change, Darling.”
“Everything will.”
 
Seven p.m. on a Sunday afternoon turns into
a teary-eyed teenager, belittled into a sobbing puddle
on the hardwood. Your brother says that you’ve
traded the chaos for the quiet.
You wonder why there couldn’t have been an in-between.
 
You don’t quite remember the next few months, just that
they’re dreary and you’re completely distant
from yourself. You’re going through the motions, while
the consciousness of yourself hides under the bed,
its eyes shut tight like it’s watching a horror movie.
 
At some point, you move half of
yourself into your grandparents’ house.
You paint the walls with the fever that won’t break,
and set the desire you have to
deteriorate on the bedside table, like a houseplant.
 
You make a point to never call this place
home because it can’t be farther from it. Really,
your heart belongs somewhere situated between two forever-moving
people, whose favorite game becomes
tug-of-war with the way you feel.
 
Dinner eventually turns into three-hour therapy
sessions. Family feels more like a game of house that you’re
stuck playing. The same mantra you’ve attempted to live by,
“Nothing’s really going to change, Darling …” is
beaten to a pulp and tossed in the trashcan with leftover dinner.
 
The next few years go by in what feels like
a montage. You’re watching yourself grow up in blinks, trying to
compensate for the sudden loss of childhood.
You feel like you’re still
grieving every part of yourself.
 
You think you deserved a funeral after that day in August,
and you never got one.
There’s an empty grave somewhere with your name on it,
and you’re stuck carrying around the
skeleton that belongs in it.
 
Your parents try their hardest,
but neither of them is around as much anymore. It
becomes your responsibility to raise your brothers and
it becomes your responsibility to raise yourself.
You overwhelm and you break yourself in the process, but
 
you aren’t allowed to cry because everyone
around you needs you to be completely solid.
You feel like you’re holding onto the kid you used to be
while everyone already sees you as
an adult—like you grew up the day everything ended.
 
You feel like you’re splitting down the middle trying
to make yourself belong to two people
who couldn’t get farther apart. With time, you realize
that the insanity was never really put to rest. It was only diluted,
like water on a grease fire.
 
You’re a mother.
You’re a sister.
You’re a teacher.
You’re a role model.
All the while, you’re a kid.
 

from 2023 Rattle Young Poets Anthology

__________

Why do you like to write poetry?

Jaylee Marchese: “I write poetry because it feels natural.”

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August 19, 2023

Lindsay Lin (age 10)

HOW TO DEAL WITH STAGE FRIGHT

Imagine the judges
watching you
are donuts.
 
You can have a bite
after every word
of your poem
or every step
of your dance.
 

from 2023 Rattle Young Poets Anthology

__________

Why do you like to write poetry?

Lindsay Lin: “I like to write poetry because I can explain my thinking in a different way than others. I want to be an author in the future.”

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August 12, 2023

Lily Karpman (age 13)

THE OLD GREEN RECLINER

I miss the old green recliner
The smell of fried chicken as I opened the door to my dad’s car
The sound of him cooking in the kitchen
Waiting to ask him something until after he mowed the lawn
Throwing a football with him in the backyard
I miss how cool I thought he was when he worked at Wegmans
Going on hikes as a family
Having him chase me and my brother around the house
Him coming upstairs at night to tuck me in
Cooking a meal for him and my mom to have a date night
I don’t like our new recliner
That helps my dad stand up
So he can get in his wheelchair
And drive himself around the ground floor
Waiting for my mom to help him back in the chair
I don’t like our new van
That’s wheelchair accessible
So my dad can drive down our ramp sidewalk
And ride in his wheelchair to my soccer games
Which are the only times he gets out of the house
I wish it wasn’t like this
That my mom wasn’t so stressed
Because she has to help him
Which takes up so much time
That she has to work late into the night
I wish I didn’t have to think about it
But every time I go into our living room
He’s in the recliner
With the wheelchair across from him
Watching TV
And he isn’t walking around the kitchen cooking like he used to
He isn’t picking us up after school with a big box of Royal Farms for us to eat when we get home
He doesn’t mow the lawn anymore
He isn’t throwing a long ball to me in the backyard
Because he can’t
We don’t still hike as a family
We don’t still cook for our parents’ date night in the backyard
We don’t still wait for dad to give us a good night kiss after mom tucks us in
And we don’t still have our old green recliner
 

from 2023 Rattle Young Poets Anthology

__________

Why do you like to write poetry?

Lily Karpman: “I am not a person who verbally expresses their feelings a lot but through poetry I can express exactly how I feel. It is much easier to give the pure feeling through poetry instead of verbally because poetry can be anything. Graceful or sharp, sweet or bitter, the words of every line in every stanza can perfectly express a feeling. So that is why I like writing poetry: it helps me express a feeling at its purest form.”

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August 5, 2023

Wimberly Horan (age 5)

DEAD GRAVES

Dead grevs
in tha midel of nower
but stil sort of preti
 

from 2023 Rattle Young Poets Anthology

__________

Why do you like to write poetry?

Wimberly Horan: “I like to write poetry because it gives me a different way to express my feelings.”

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July 29, 2023

Vy Hong (age 14)

DARKNESS OF MIND

She lies in the darkness
Thinking of what used to be
Suffering is part of life
No one told her it would be this hard
 
Thinking of what used to be
She cries alone in her room
No one told her it would be this hard
Her mind is a prison cell she’s stuck in
 
She cries alone in her room
Remembering the moment
Her mind is a prison cell she’s stuck in
There’s no one to help her
 
Remembering the moment
Opens the wounds of his words
There’s no one to help her
She slips and falls off the edge of sanity
 
Opening the wounds of his words
She sits at the bottom
She slips and falls off the edge of sanity
Her mouth is silent as her mind races
 
She sits at the bottom
Thinking of the scars he left
Her mouth is silent as her mind races
Deep cuts let her heart bleed out
 
Thinking of the scars he left
How suffering is part of life
The night closes in and clouds block the stars
She lies in the darkness
 

from 2023 Rattle Young Poets Anthology

__________

Why do you like to write poetry?

Vy Hong: “While I don’t often write poetry, I find that it is a good way for me to become inspired to write. Writing poetry allows me to get into a headspace to sit down and write, which is most of the time the hardest part. Some sort of accomplished feeling comes from creating anything you’re proud of and poetry often helps me stay motivated to continue writing and continue feeling accomplished and proud of myself.”

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July 22, 2023

Kakul Gupta (age 15)

HAIKU

 
 
teenage photos—
why i look
different all the time
 
 
 
 
lonely night—
watching him
through telescope
 
 
 
 
hatched egg—
the town no longer
uninhabited
 
 
 
 
new startup—
counting the commas
in statement
 
 

from 2023 Rattle Young Poets Anthology

__________

Why do you like to write poetry?

Kakul Gupta: “I like poetry because poems help me declutter the barrage of thoughts that envelop my consciousness through the day. Specifically, haiku, as it pivots on capturing the ephemeral moment of heightened awareness—the ‘aha’ moment as it is called—which is quite challenging as well. But whenever it happens, however rare it might be, it gives me immense pleasure. This is what propels me to write.”

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