Hand-Scrawled Lines

Hand-Scrawled Lines

I want to breathe 

Both with looming skyscrapers, 

And mountains stretched high, 

To feel the sun 

Smiling on my skin, 

And cold water 

Enveloping me in a splash, 

To climb trees 

Not just to have a new perspective, 

But to be one, 

To sit tangled 

In soil’s masterpiece 

And simply be a rough draft, 

To write my own final copy 

With hand-scrawled lines 

Broken with poetry, 

Smeared with tears 

Dripped from joy 

And sadness, 

Filled with budding wildflowers 

Of hope and inspiration, 

To bind the pages 

With thread woven 

With every smile I’ve beamed 

With the sun, 

With the breaths I’ve taken 

With the mountains 

And the city, 

With everywhere I have seen, 

And every perspective 

I’ve been. 

EvieC

VT

14 years old

maelynslavik

VT

14 years old

The Voice

October 2024

  • Listening to Wind

    It is September, yet I can still hear the beach. The sea moves and swells; it tumbles to the shore, dusts itself off, then rushes back towards the sand. I think this could heal me: the sound of wind,...

  • Need Less. Give More.

    Need less. Give more. Stop looking for the sorrow in life. Watch the good things grow. Don't give up. Live your life to the fullest. Life is the one thing you can't redo. Find the joy in the ordinar...

  • Escape

    With the curtains thrown wide we see the world gray and we know it's the fault of our own Spent far too long bearing crown, sword, and shield we forgot from what it was made and let's pack up our ba...

  • Getting Older

    I'm getting older. I often struggle to notice. I'm with myself all the time, I know myself better than anyone. The thing I always fail to know is how much I've grown. I don't notice until I think ...

  • Nothing Can Reach Me Here

    Sometimes the drive home is just too good to end. The darkness envelops the road ahead, the road behind, the fields of either side. Nothing can reach me here. The tires whine on the road's pavement,a...

  • Birthday #2

    Aging is such a hard concept to get your head around. The world moves, and sometimes it’s easy to forget that you do too, in ways that are impossible to see or fully understand. You blink and suddenly...

  • Hand-Scrawled Lines

    I want to breathe Both with looming skyscrapers, And mountains stretched high, To feel the sun Smiling on my skin, And cold water Enveloping me in a splash, To climb trees Not just to have a new persp...

  • The Blackbird

    There’s a blackbird outside my window, but he doesn't sing. His golden eyes glow like horizons, pupils like sinking ships. He smiles sometimes, his crooked smile. He says “Embrace God and embrace lov...

  • To Be the Fox

    Now, I know it may seem common, even shallow — to answer with such a simple thing, but 'tis what draws my heart — the Fox, silver fur, dancing in moonlight. Could I choose, I would be one with her, s...

  • Ourselves

    We are running from Ourselves Because we have built Ourselves As a single entity Connected by invisible strings Wiring the universe Together but Tethered back From living From breathing From existing ...

  • Credo

    Those who are lost have forgotten the body does not stop or start at the skin, but continues to be one being. You are the world as much as the world is you. You are a patchwork of experiences, eroded...

  • The Ocean

    I’m at the ocean again, and I feel at home again. The salt breeze always reminds me of seaweed, green string stitched into blue silk, brown tangles piled on the rocks' edge. I just say it all adds to ...