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Junior Melina Staats
Self love is the realization that
You must not lose your wonder and interest in the world
Interest in the clouds that change and shift as they stroll by
Interest of the mountains and hills that reach for their lives
The rivers and creeks that are in search of their mother
The plants that try to chase the wind, just wanted to play
See if you cannot view the world with a child’s eyes,
How can you see yourself in such a way
To see your wildness and perfection in the rocky terrain
Romanticizing without faulted or apology

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Junior Melina Staats
Flowers aren’t the same
They can show itself when, where and however they choose
They are neither good nor bad
Poisonous or not
See…
Flowers do not fall on this
Human-made scale
They are completely in tuned with their complexity

Lost in His mind

Junior Amanda Mattson
A boy is locked in a box
Not any box
An open box
He cannot leave
Although the box is open

The boy walked to the edge
Unable to move
All he can do is think
His mind held him back

He paced up and down
But not once did he leave the box
Nervous and controlled
By his own mind

The boy sat
Tapping his finger against the cold blue walls
Of this box
Tap tap tap

The boy forever stayed in his mind
Trapped
Afraid
Controlled
So this boy could not pursue his dreams

A Sense of Hurt

Anonymous

-Melancholy
-noun

A feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause. A prolonged brand of sadness caused by any reason. A very personal and heavy sadness. It’s more than simple desolation or dejection, melancholy feeds on pensive self reflection in such a low state, reflecting lower and lower on itself until you can’t see anything other than sadness. The kind of feeling to cause someone to not eat. The feeling that causes someone to cut themselves off from their friends and even the people they love. The feeling that makes someone feel like they’re a burden to their friends. The feeling that makes you constantly self-deprecate, and hate yourself because of the small things, the thing that makes you feel like you need to be a certain way. It’s a lie you tell yourself so you hate yourself more. It’s something that doesn’t just go away, no matter how much people tell you to stop, it doesn’t just go away.

-Desolation
-noun

Anguished misery or loneliness. A feeling of chronic emptiness and loneliness. Abandonment of ourselves, and not listening to our own hopes and desires. Emptiness because of loneliness or the feeling of abandonment. An abandonment of yourself that can lead to anxiety, depression, guilt and shame. The feeling that can describe a person or place, empty; isolated. The feeling that can make someone blame their hurt only on them. A sense of ruin and of devastation. A feeling that can make someone feel completely alone in a room full of people; isolated misery. The thought of having absolutely no one and nowhere to go to when all you see are open arms and open doors welcoming you.

The Scared Girl

Anonymous

It was a man, says the heavy, echoing footsteps coming
Down the hall. The man was angry, says the powerful
Voice traveling down the hall. The shaking of the girl’s
Body, says she was scared. The girl was young, says
The boy band posters hanging on the wall and the pile of
Stuffed animals on the bed. She could see him coming,
Says the open door. She was worried for her sister, says
Her trembling breath, as the man walks into her sister’s room.

It was winter, says the bright, glistening snow shining
In through the window. The pink sparkly boots, still wet
From the snow, says they hadn’t been home very long.
It was loud, says the little girl’s hands, still wearing her
Mittens, as she covers her ears trying to block out the
Yelling. The shopping bags sitting by her door, says
They had gone shopping that day.

The man was upset about something with the shopping
Trip, says the loud bang of a shopping bag being thrown
Across the room. The loud, echoing bang of the door
Being slammed shut, says that the man couldn’t control
His anger. He was a strong man too, says the door knob
That broke off from the force of the slam. The little girl
Was sad, said the tears streaming down her face.