loneliness

Personal Narrative·Ugochinyere Agbaeze, age 11 — A girl waits alone in the rain when her mother doesn't meet her at the bus stop, remembering past loneliness and finding comfort when her siblings arrive.

Poetry·Mazzi Maycotte, age 10 — A tree enjoys the rain but feels lonely when no children come out to play, wishing it could walk and talk like humans.

Poetry·Mazzi Maycotte, age 10 — A child crosses rivers, lakes, and mountains to reach school, only to be invisible in the classroom—unseen, unheard, like a ghost.

Poetry·Rhône Galchen, age 11 — A solitary figure contemplates a metaphorical mountain that blocks their path, yearning for waves of change while trapped between states of black and white.

Story·Carmen Flax, age 10 — A ghostly lilac figure wanders through pine forests and black rivers on an October night, crying out in sorrow before retreating into shadows.

Story·Isabel Swain, age 12 — A girl awaits her mother's return for a crucial school interview, only to learn her mother is hospitalized and she'll enter foster care.

Story·Vandana Ravi, age 12 — A girl who struggles to speak finds solace in a book about a unicorn and a friend, escaping into its world during lunch before returning to face school.

Story·Julia Li, age 12 — A girl feels like an alien at school, invisible until classmates realize her father is rich, then suddenly everyone wants to help her.

Story·Anyi Sharma, age 10 — A man recently released from prison hosts a dinner party where guests flee one by one, revealing his isolation as reality dissolves into forest imagery.

Poetry·Anna Calegari, age 12 — A speaker sees herself as a monochrome old photograph in the mirror, noting only pink shoelaces and purple under-eye bags break the grayscale of her reflection.