Love water is a charm and a heart Teamwork is what I call fantastic part of a world, part of a world with never ending fun with never ending fun and the love of a heart Peter Shuster-Raizberg, 7New York, NY
February 2022
The Word
I look through boxes for things I want to keep, taking out those I need, leaving in those I don’t Need or want. Then suddenly I see, At the bottom of the box, A word. It’s a scary word, a horrible word, A terrifying word. I don’t want that word. I don’t see why I’d ever want that word. I close the box, but on the floor in front Of me, there I see The word. It creeps closer. I start to run. Imagine! This disgusting word chasing me Away from the box, out of the room, Into the hallway. I look behind, and there, Still chasing me is The word. I trip on a memory. The word catches up and Before I can stop it, it jumps in my ear. I feel it Slide into my nerves, settle in my brain. I crouch on the ground as the word sends Vivid images and pains. That dreadful word. Eventually the word quiets. If nobody Says anything it just sits in my brain, Sending me occasional sparks of electricity. But one day, as I simply exist, Someone dares to say That awful word. The word fires a jolt to my brain. I jump up and run away. Running and Running and running from my own thoughts. But there’s no escape. I wonder why I ever Went and found That stupid word. But the most distressing thing Is the way other people Can say it. Without flinching or hesitating, Without lying down and dying, They simply say—somehow they can say— The word. Ava Espinoza, 12Palo Alto, CA
I Say It Drizzles, You Say It Pours
A meditation on what makes each of us unique—and strange Lauren has declared that I am officially an alien. She declared it when we stood, or rather huddled, by the door as the rain supposedly “poured” outside. The word “poured” was thought of by a group of abnormally dry and cold North Carolinians who claimed that a mere trickle was a waterfall. They began debating whether or not to bring out the van. The rain intensified. It was a nice sort of intensifying-ness—the sort that makes a drizzle into a good, steady rain. All the while, Lauren felt my hair, mystified as to why it had nothing more than a drop of water on it when we had walked through the rain to get here. This led to her declaration of my alien-ness. My nearly waterproof hair was not the only cause of her theory. There had been a number of other observations she had made: my sensitivity to what people deemed “normal” in terms of humidity, my fascination for humans, my unnatural love for alligators. This had brought her to conclude, “You know, you are an alien. Some sort of waterproof, alligator-loving alien. You probably came here to study humans.” Maybe she wasn’t wrong. I don’t know. I do have some strange qualities, most of which I’m really not sure could be considered normal. I looked at the crowded room, filled with kids who refused to acknowledge they were kids, some with bright-green hair, others with words scrawled with marker (some permanent) on their arms, holding projects as unsuspicious as a piece of paper or as threatening as . . . well it wasn’t clear exactly what they were, but they were dangerous, no doubt. I looked at the kids who were smaller than most, and others who were taller than most, and the kids whose poems nobody could really understand, but which we liked anyways, and the kids who, for some reason, managed to draw unnervingly realistic scratches on their legs and faces with paint, in preparation for a Halloween months away. Ah, yes. I’m the alien. I glanced at Lauren, standing next to the door, the same person who had dumped what could have been a pound of sprinkles on her ice cream at lunch, declared it tasted like plastic, and proceeded to eat it all anyways, the same person who asked me (quite logically) why I was having salad for lunch right after we both agreed that salad only makes people hungrier and was altogether useless. I thought about the time we sat upside down on the couches and untangled string for a group of kids who wanted to do something with it, which was most likely just as dangerous as the projects in other kids’ hands. I thought of the kids who talked excitedly about dancing before the dance, and then spent the entire time eating Cheez-Its out of the vending machines, and all the people who wanted to call for a van just because of a few drops of water. Ah, yes. I’m the alien. Sonia Teodorescu, 13Tampa, FL
