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Front Row: Kathryn Minturn, Victoria Eborall, Mel McConnell; Back Row: Chris Cantu, Abigail Heath, Kenneth Ash, Olivia Olson, Mikayla DeWid;
Not Pictured: Isaac Mazengia, Alex Fawley |
Mikayla DeWid for “Red”
First Place, Youth Poetry
First Place, Youth Poetry
Olivia Olson for "Wonder"
Second Place, Youth Poetry
Second Place, Youth Poetry
She fell in love with the moon
And danced with the stars
She glittered like the comets
As they passed her by
Her sparkling eyes traced the constellations
That speckled the sky
But nobody looks up anymore.
The azure sky flushed pink
Like rosy cheeks on a cold day
A nebulous purple followed
As the first stars blinked their salutations
A world of wonder above her
But nobody looks up anymore.
But in two dimensions
Starry nights can be seen
Trapped in the reflection of puddles
And of shiny screens
Since nobody looks up anymore.
She screamed at the world
She begged them to see
But nobody listened
They looked down at the scuffed tips of their boots
Whose only glimmers were captured from the sun
Her golden setting friend asked her
Why they couldn’t see
And she replied it must not be as obvious to them
As it is to me
For nobody looks up anymore.
And one day, that girl, once so filled with wonder
Started looking down too
And danced with the stars
She glittered like the comets
As they passed her by
Her sparkling eyes traced the constellations
That speckled the sky
But nobody looks up anymore.
The azure sky flushed pink
Like rosy cheeks on a cold day
A nebulous purple followed
As the first stars blinked their salutations
A world of wonder above her
But nobody looks up anymore.
But in two dimensions
Starry nights can be seen
Trapped in the reflection of puddles
And of shiny screens
Since nobody looks up anymore.
She screamed at the world
She begged them to see
But nobody listened
They looked down at the scuffed tips of their boots
Whose only glimmers were captured from the sun
Her golden setting friend asked her
Why they couldn’t see
And she replied it must not be as obvious to them
As it is to me
For nobody looks up anymore.
And one day, that girl, once so filled with wonder
Started looking down too
Abigail Heath for “The Old Woman”
Honorable Mention, Youth Poetry
Honorable Mention, Youth Poetry
Esaac Mazengia
Honorable Mention, Youth Poetry
Honorable Mention, Youth Poetry
Victoria Eborall for “Happiness”
First Place, Youth Prose
First Place, Youth Prose
“Mommy, it’s cold.” Her five year old shivered in the backseat as the wind rushed through the open convertible. “Can you put the roof back on?”
“No. We need to breathe.” She answered shortly, but she rolled the windows up. The heat, however, remained off; she’d made sure to layer duct tape over every vent before leaving. “There’s blankets under my seat." Her child squeaked as the seatbelt locked. “I can’t reach them from my booster seat.” “You can get them when we stop at this next light.” “But the light’s green, Mommy. Doesn’t that mean go?” “Right now it doesn’t mean anything.” The car rolled to a stop and she turned back to face her two children, their faces flushed, and smiled. “Grab them quick, dear.” Her five year old squirmed out of the booster seat and pulled out four blankets. “Buckle up nice and tight.” And with that done, she tucked the blankets in beside them. “I love you guys.” “I love you, Mommy.” Her two angels echoed, and she smiled at them with sad eyes. “Here we go.” And she shot through the intersection as fast as she could get the car to go. She escaped with nearly a dozen almost accidents, the speedometer almost at a hundred. A similar scenario played again and again until she was finally arrived at her best friend's home and pulled sharply into the sloped driveway. Glass cracked underneath her as she stepped out of the car and stood on the asphalt. “Stay in the car, okay?” She said, smiling, as she walked over to the backseat and gave each child as best a hug as she could manage over the side of the car. “I love you.” “Love you too.” The two children replied together, promising to stay put. Upon reaching the front door, a trapped breath rushed from her lungs; she couldn’t tell whether it had been from the stench or her nerves. The door and walls of the house were coated with grime, mold spread like continents across the front window. Just unlocking the door and pushing it open coated her with grime. She looked back at her two children, and her resolve solidified: reality could be ugly, but it was important. With another breath she stepped inside. The door closed behind her. It was a perfect house. From the moment she entered the sheer perfection struck her. In just the short walk through the foyer she was reduced to childlike ecstasy: looking at everything and marveling at it all. Her best friend was in the living room. Holding hands with her husband, the two of them sat on a perfect couch in front of a glowing television. Like clockwork, a muffled sound would come from the television and they would laugh in harmony. A sudden notion overcame her: couldn’t her family be happy here too? They could all sit on the one couch together, laughing and smiling. She could imagine the scene perfectly, but she paused. What was so perfect about it? She forced herself to truly look at the perfection around her. Why was it perfect? With all her might she tried to focus on something that could justify the claim. All the explanations she'd had before now slipped away, like water before Tantalus, as she reached for them. She couldn’t pinpoint a single feature, let alone a perfect one. While they were still watching the television, she ran over and turned it off. The couple wasn’t upset, their smiles didn’t even falter, they just moved their attentions from the television to her. She threw on a smile for them, and their returning smiles outshone the sun. It took no more than a mere suggestion to get them outside; her best friend followed behind her husband. “It’s so-” Her best friend’s husband started, but the wind took the vision away. He appeared to collapse in on himself, and crumpled to the ground in pain as his mind desperately reached out for the gas. “What are you doing?” Her best friend's voice was dry and harsh as she addressed her. “I’m saving you. There’s this gas that the air makes when it’s put through the air conditioner, and it makes you feel happy, and it makes you see what you want to see. But,” She grabbed her hands in her own. “It’s not real. I swear to you it isn’t real. And,” She gestured to her children. “Real happiness is possible, and it’s so much more better. We can have it. Both of our families. Together.” |
Her friend pulled away.“Happiness? Saving me?” The words were like acid. “Your husband only left you because he got deployed out past The Edge of the World. You know what I have to do to keep my husband? A/C always on, pretending that that broken television still works all hours of the day, and if I speak one word to him he’ll think we’re getting divorced.”
She gasped. “You knew, didn’t you?” Her expression softened for a brief moment, but with a sigh the hardness returned. “Even if the gas can’t make me see everything as perfect and good anymore, it still makes me happy. And that’s better than anything the ‘real’ world has offered me.” She turned away and pulled the front door open. Her husband rushed back inside, and just before following him she turned back, all pity. “Real happiness doesn’t exist, dear. It didn’t exist before the gas, and it doesn’t exist now….You and your family are welcome here whenever you finally realize that.” Then she put on a smile and walked into her house, the door shutting behind her. Defeated and tired, she walked back to the car alone. Her heart ached to mourn as she climbed back into the car, but she had children to worry about. “I love you guys.” She said, and two little voices echoed the same words from the backseat. With a half-hearted smile she peeled out of the driveway. When she was out on the road she had no room in her thoughts to consider anything other than the road, her family, and The Edge of the World; it was a refreshing break. Her car pulled to a jarring stop in the same grove of trees where her husband had crossed The Edge of the World. The moment she finished parking she ran to see it. It was nothing like she remembered. Where had stood a bottomless void at the edge of a jagged crevice, there was now a line of shoulder-height cement road barriers that stretched the town’s perimeter, with just enough of a gap for a car to squeeze between them. She peered through the gap; there was an enormous grass field, sprinkled with park benches, and on a few of those benches sat military men, eating sandwiches out of paper bags. It was a pleasant scene--one which she doubted, until she realized that she could pick out specific details--and it terrified her. Of all the memories muddled by the gas, the day that her husband had left was perfectly clear. It had truly felt like watching the love of her life kill himself. The Edge had gotten its name because it’s where the world ended. She’d seen her husband step over the jagged crevice, spiral into darkness; she’d grieved. She ran back to the driver’s seat and slammed the door behind her. Her hands desperately gripped the steering wheel, like that would control all that the gas changed and all it didn’t. With a choking sob, she dug her forehead into it’s pleather material. “Mommy?” The small voice of her five year old spoke from the backseat. “Yes, Peaches?” “Let’s not go fast any more.” Her five year old said, voice shaking. A kind laugh worked its way up through her belly, and it was a good sort of weird feeling. “Okay. I promise.” The sweet child grinned, filled with joy once more, and the five year old’s mother couldn’t help but smile to herself. Behind her sat her two darlings, and before them awaited the future. Perhaps she was making the right decision after all. She looked at her rearview mirror once more, at her smiling children, and reached back to touch them one last time before their lives started anew. But they weren't there. Panic constricted her insides like barbed wire as she whipped back to try, praying that she’d been wrong. But, with one last gust of wind, there were no children, or even car seats, to be seen. It felt like all of the oxygen had been syphoned out of her. Her eyes locked onto the still-swaying keys shoved into the ignition. An air conditioning vent with its duct tape peeling, and the button to roll the convertible's roof up right beside them. But beyond them: green grass, a world that didn’t have an edge--if she were to turn the key. She reached out her hand. |
Kenneth Ash for “A Blade Won’t Cut It”
Second Place, Youth Prose
Second Place, Youth Prose
Chris Cantu for “Water”
First Place, Adult Poetry |
Water is how I present myself
flowing shining endlessly running over stones and gravel speckled ancient streambeds spilling glinting rushing sunlight past roots and fishes knitting the gold ferns between mosses twisting the silver sky over branches shifting flexible landscape of water is how I present myself but rock is who I am |
Mel McConnell for “There's More to May”
Second Place, Adult Poetry
Second Place, Adult Poetry
There's more to May than peonies' curling silk
Around a green and yellow-threaded heart.
The inch-high spears of March
Are tall enough to jostle me in May
As I pass by,
Thick perfume calling out a silent cry.
Unfurling green keeps sun from those below,
Fierce tendrils wrap around a neighbor's leaf.
A hundred seeds begin the day alive
Where only one can thrive.
Soft aphids suck--born pregnant, so we're told,
Fat slugs embrace beneath a loosened stone;
Their chewing starts a war between
Invertebrates and me.
Thrips flourish, whiteflies too,
And tiny curled-up worms;
Green caterpillars dangle from their twigs.
I threaten spittle-bugs:
"Don't think to hide in little balls of goo!"
I lose my struggle for a dream in May.
That winter-fashioned picture in my head
Of living tapestries and miracles in bloom
Drawn out on paper squares--
"Exquisite shapes! A thousand shades of green,"
I told myself, "The best we've ever seen!"
But May is here.
Stems rearrange themselves, my visions mar,
Not asking my consent.
They're shorter, taller, fuzzier by far
Than what their labels swore was their intent.
There's more to May, I know, than swelling buds
Or birdling's hungry cries--
And I am older now,
And sometimes wise.
Around a green and yellow-threaded heart.
The inch-high spears of March
Are tall enough to jostle me in May
As I pass by,
Thick perfume calling out a silent cry.
Unfurling green keeps sun from those below,
Fierce tendrils wrap around a neighbor's leaf.
A hundred seeds begin the day alive
Where only one can thrive.
Soft aphids suck--born pregnant, so we're told,
Fat slugs embrace beneath a loosened stone;
Their chewing starts a war between
Invertebrates and me.
Thrips flourish, whiteflies too,
And tiny curled-up worms;
Green caterpillars dangle from their twigs.
I threaten spittle-bugs:
"Don't think to hide in little balls of goo!"
I lose my struggle for a dream in May.
That winter-fashioned picture in my head
Of living tapestries and miracles in bloom
Drawn out on paper squares--
"Exquisite shapes! A thousand shades of green,"
I told myself, "The best we've ever seen!"
But May is here.
Stems rearrange themselves, my visions mar,
Not asking my consent.
They're shorter, taller, fuzzier by far
Than what their labels swore was their intent.
There's more to May, I know, than swelling buds
Or birdling's hungry cries--
And I am older now,
And sometimes wise.
Mel McConnell for “Eddie Flynn and The Consolidated Love Affair”
First Place, Adult Prose
First Place, Adult Prose
Kathryn Minturn for “White Lady”
Second Place, Adult Prose
Second Place, Adult Prose
Celeste twirled off the dance floor and stopped herself with both hands on the punch table splashing pink froth from the bowl onto the white linen tablecloth. She pulled herself around, faced the other dancers and laughed nervously. They all laughed until the first beat of the Charleston jerked them into a fervent gyration of arms and legs. The tall waiter offered her a crystal cup of punch and her hand shook when she accepted it. She took small sips while her heart pulsed against her tight bodice.
Holding onto the table with one hand, she moved to the end and sat on a chair that was covered with a white organza slipcover. Her breathing slowed, but her legs ached and she couldn’t get comfortable in the chair. She rested her cold, damp cheek in her palm and closed her eyes. Her plumed headband felt like a vise. Where’s Nic? He said he’d be here tonight, but when? I need him now. The black and white marble floor reflected the dancers who bounced on it like water on hot oil. In the window behind her, the headlights from the cars entering the circular drive brightened the back of her smooth, brown bobbed hair briefly then melted off as they wheeled away. “Celeste! Come dance with me.” A stocky redhead with beefy freckled hands grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. “Oh, Harry, I…. I’m waiting for Nic.” “That billboard! Everybody’s waiting for that guy, but he never shows. Don’t be such a cancelled stamp, Celeste, c’mon,” he said and towed her out to the floor, plowing through the knee-crossing, wing-flapping dancers. Celeste stood still while Harry circled around her. The twinkling from the chandeliers stabbed into her eyes like needles and she almost gagged on the too sweet smell of gardenia perfume mixed with cigarette smoke and men’s cologne. The loud pulsing and beating of music, laughter, and voices bruised her as she slinked quickly off the floor dodging arms and airborne feet. “Hey! Where’re ya goin’?” Harry yelled and then shrugged his shoulders and grabbed the nearest girl around her waist. Celeste leaned against a fluted column far from the cacophonous band and hung her head, eyes focused on the floor, trembling slightly. “Hi ya, honey.” Celeste opened her eyes and saw Nic de Stefano’s tan face. His sculpted cheeks and smooth brow barely moved when he smiled. “Ah, Nic, I’ve been looking for you,” she said and grabbed his sleeve. “Have ya, babe?” he said as he kissed the palm of her hand and led her out onto the shiny floor. He spun her around with a flourish that made all of the other dancers move back in a wave. Some laughed, some clapped. “Hey Nic, who’s your victim this time?” a man in a red cumberbun shouted. “Watch out Celeste!” said a woman in acid blue. The band played a waltz. Nic pulled Celeste into the satin lapel of his tuxedo and entwined her thin white arm with his. She could feel his bicep through the sleeve of his tux. The feather of her headband brushed the collar of his coat as she rested her cheek against his chest. He smelled like expensive Kentucky Bourbon. Celeste began to tremble and Nic held her tighter. She tilted her head up and said, “I need you, Nic.” “Sure, baby, sure,” he said and kissed the corner of her mouth. He slowly turned and swayed backward in three-quarter time. “Now. Please Nic.” “Ah, now Celeste. Don’t you want to dance some more?” he said. She could feel the laugh coming from his hollow chest. “No. Let’s find a room.” “Okay, okay. Whatever you say. We outta find a room somewhere in this fancy dump.” She clung to his arm as they crossed the entry hall and mounted the carpeted stairs. |
“Hey, where are you two going?” Harry yelled from the dance floor.
“Be careful, Celeste!” a woman said and cackled. The couple followed the wide curve of the marble balustrade to the second floor and glided down the hall. The walls were covered in cream damask punctuated by shiny brass and crystal light sconces. Celeste half-closed her eyes and let Nic lead the way. He opened the door to a library where a couple was entangled together half-naked on a wing-back chair. Nic smiled a crooked smile back at Celeste who couldn’t see in the room. “Barneymugging,” he said, stifling a laugh. “Nic. Hurry.” Celeste said. “All right. All right,” he said and smoothed his hand along the curve of her butt. “Mmmmm…,” she said, moaning. The next door he opened led to a fire-lit bedroom. A low camel-backed couch and upholstered chair huddled around the fireplace. Flickering shadows danced on the blood red velvet wallpaper and the flames crackled. Celeste pulled Nic to the couch. “C’mon. It’s just us now.” She lay down. Nic moved in with glowing eyes. “Where’s the money, baby?” “I’ll give it to you later, I’m good for it.” “No, sweetie, I gotta have it before.” “Please Nic, please,” she said and whimpered. “Aw, sweetheart I love it when you plead. I can’t without the money, ya see? A man’s gotta make a living.” She rolled over, reached into her cleavage and pulled out a wad of bills. “Here,” she said and rolled back on her side expectantly. “No so fast,” he said and laid the bills one by one on the side table. “Nic!” “Now, that’s more that enough – thank you for the tip.” “Ahhhh,” Celeste groaned and pulled the skirt of her dress up to her waist. The cheeks of her rear were naked beneath her garter belt. Nic unclipped one silk stocking from the belt and rolled it down with deft fingers. The back of her knee was bruised and showed a constellation of needle marks. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a silver, textured case. He removed the heroin-filled needle and began to stroke the inside of her thigh. Then he rubbed the back of her knee quickly and efficiently in an almost clinical manner. “Relax,” he said, no longer cordial, “or the needle won’t go in.” Celeste went limp against the rough fabric of the couch and breathed heavily. She barely felt the prick of the needle. Nic smoothed her dress down over her legs and patted her butt. “Good-bye, baby, have fun,” he said and closed the door with a click behind him. Celeste grew warm and pulsed with energy. She inhaled deeply and sighed as her nerves began to sync and her blood rushed to every cell. She rolled over on to her back and smiled. Euphoria expanded within her and then exploded in her skull. Her eyes blurred and she panted in panic. Heart pounding, she tried to sit up, but her stomach tensed and she retched. She passed out. She stopped breathing. The fire ebbed and the shadows deepened. The flames grew silent. |