In these submissions, I found the stars at midnight. I found defiance. I found the rawness of this generation and many of the little moments and questions that come naturally to us. Happy reading.
Three teenage creatives contributed multiple pieces to this themed collection. You can find out more about them at the bottom of this post.
by Erica Larsen
I am many miles from who I was when I could see the stars.
I was smaller and shyer as I laid out a mattress in the bed of a truck
and covered my chilly arms with a thinning quilt
to shield them from the whistling wind.
I looked to the sky and saw an inky blackness
splattered with glittering stars, lined with tree-tops, and lit by the moon.
My fingers spelled stories among the stars in the sky,
heroic tales of nymphs and mythic dragons,
as the cricket-songs lulled me to sleep.
I am many miles from my home among the trees.
Here, I cannot see the stars.
My mattress is soft and my blankets are heavy.
Here, my old ceiling fan spins its clicking cricket-song,
chilling my skin like wind,
and my fingers spell out stories
on the page of my notepad instead of the sky.
Here, the tales are less heroic,
but they are just as beautiful.
I am many miles from who I will be when I once again see the stars.
I hope to return one day
to my home among the trees,
to lay out a thin mattress in the bed of a truck,
and point out the glittering stars.
I hope to bring my notepad,
so I can spell out my past upon it,
and let the whistling wind rustle the pages
as the cricket-songs lull me to sleep.
by H. Ries
Dear Abby,
How do I help my friend mourn her grandfather when I cannot stand by her and I don't know if she even wants me to?
I like to take my walks on snowy Sundays. I take my glasses
off and watch the flakes turn from molecular clusters into motion
against the staticity that is now. It reminds me that time continues.
The sun casts her shadows longer each day. Flowers open
their shriveled petals until they bloom.
His name was Salvador but they buried him on Easter.
One by one the street lamps flicker
on. Their amber light is nectar on my chapped lips. Warmth.
Golden bubbles against a frozen April night.
I want to bake her banana bread and crawl under a giant afghan to binge her stupid reality shows. We pass under her window and I clamp my icy fists to avoid throwing rocks, flowers.
“Where are we going?” asks my mother. The snow has claimed
her hair, forming white tendrils. An unmoving medusa.
“Home”
- Cold in Colorado
by Autumn
from a young age i was
destined to be broken and i
fell from heaven a cluster of
rejected shards.
i stung my mother giving birth and the
baby she had tried so hard to conceive gave her a
load of medical bills and surgery for her
forever aching hips that worked so hard to
push, push, push, me out into a blank and empty world that
rejected me instead and perhaps my embryo self
whose eyes could not close knew
more truths about this harsh society then i do now.
when i was younger i would
play and the scars would appear
a multitude all over and i would
trace them like miniature constellations in some
obscure game of connect the dots that only i could see.
when i grew older i was truly
growing younger still and the
words my mouth had tried so hard to learn
the shape of each "r" a struggle to my lips
failed me yet again and i became lost and
soundless once more and
i could no longer cry out or yell for my
baby lungs had stopped breathing air and
lines began to appear along my wrists and
hips and stomach with a fierce efficiency and it
was not long before i would trace and retrace these too.
now that i am older i am still broken, my voice a collection
of shards and fragments but i have begun
to find my place in this world that i
unaffectionately call my home.
maybe when i ascend to the glittery heavens above or am
thrown into the eternal abyss i will wonder
why the stars are so apart and do they not like to
play connect the dots too but in my
journey to find myself i have begun
to realize that speaking can bridge
the gaps that small lines can not and
perhaps the stars that hang as glowing lanterns in the sky
sing their own special song and so
maybe one day i will too.
today i play connect the dots with a
pencil and notepad, scribbles dancing along the
margins and written words scratching up the inside and i
no longer try to run away from the universe that claims me as its child
and instead i have begun to embrace the void and
fill it with a galaxy of my own.
By Erica Larsen
The thing about defiance is that it’s never quiet.
I don’t mean that it’s never whispered down the line with a quick “pass it on” tacked to the end, because it often is. I don’t mean that it’s never silent, because it often is. I don’t mean that it’s never written, because it often is, or conveyed through color and shape on a canvas rather than fists and demonstrations. It often is.
When I say that defiance is never quiet, I mean that defiance always affects someone. It makes their mind race and keeps them up at night. It fills pages with poetry, canvases with color; defiance is a preamble to creation. Defiance never sleeps. Defiance spreads quickly and noticeably. And defiance is never quiet.
I was six when I asked my mother why only the men in our church could talk to God.
She was in the kitchen, cooking, and I was coming out of the adjacent bathroom. As soon as the words left my mouth, I heard the click of the stove being turned off, the padding of my mother’s slippers on the tile floor. She appeared beside me and tugged on my hand, pulling me to the carpeted ground. It was quiet for a long moment as my mother chose her words.
“The Church says it’s because women can have babies,” she told me. “That’s our way of being close to God. It’s our way of serving Him.”
I furrowed my brow. “I don’t want babies. I want to talk to God.”
My mother looked at me with emotion in her eyes. “I know. I want to talk to Him, too. It isn’t fair, Erica. It isn’t fair.” I could tell there was more she wanted to say, but she simply hugged me and stood up to finish dinner.
It felt strange to me that she didn’t have an answer. My mother always had the answer.
The Pants Quilt is a beautiful patchwork of color. In the foreground, striking black trees stand tall upon gray mountains. They are backed by a stunning purple sky. The sun sets behind a silver mountain—or maybe rises, it’s hard to tell. A river connects the two scenes. I know very little about art, and even less about quilting, but the Pants Quilt has always amazed me. That amazement has come partly from the breathtaking scene it depicts, but I think the really poignant part of the Pants Quilt is what it is made of. It is made of defiance.
I was seven when, on a chilly December Sunday morning, my mother came out of her bedroom before church dressed in a purple blouse and gray slacks.
This was odd for me to see. On Sunday mornings, my mother always wore skirts. My sister and I picked our best dresses from our closets. It was just the way it was. Women didn’t wear pants to church. But it was ten minutes before we were to leave, and my mother seemed to have no intention of changing.
My hands found my own long skirt, and I felt the fabric, smooth under my fingers. My mother seemed to think that nothing was out of the ordinary, and no one dared to mention the pants. The determination and defiance in her eyes warned us away from that
We loaded into the car and drove the mile to the church building. As we walked in, I was overwhelmingly aware of the eyes on us. Though no one said a word, it was obvious that everyone had seen my mother’s pants. I couldn’t tell whether their prying eyes were full of contempt or admiration.
I didn’t find out about the backlash my mother received for wearing pants on that day until much later. We’d left the Church a year or so back. I’d just gotten a Facebook page and I was stalking my mother’s timeline.
My eyes slid over the page, not really digesting the words, but they caught on a photo attached to a post. It was a photo of a beautiful piece of art. I couldn’t tell what medium it was, but the vibrant purples and the black trees popped out at me. I clicked on it.
It was a quilt. Upon further research, I discovered that the quilt was created by my mother’s friend. It was made entirely of pants, donated after a December 2012 campaign that called for women to wear pants to church.
There were comments on the post, and despite my good judgement, I clicked on them. They were hostile. There were angry men, who seemed to think that women wearing pants in church was a personal attack on their masculinity. There were passive-aggressive women who described my mother and her friends as “selfish” for focusing on such a “non-issue” when there were so many crucial problems to think of.
I thought back to my mother and the defiance in her eyes on that cold day as I read comment after comment. The anger was loud, but the truth is that support was there too. There were personal stories of women who felt seen, women who wished they’d seen this campaign earlier so they could contribute, women who wanted to make more quilts. And I smiled, because my mother’s defiance had touched me.
Defiance is never quiet, even when it isn’t spoken. No, defiance is deafening. It’s the determination in my mother’s eyes. It’s the question asked by the socially-aware six-year-old. It’s a purple quilt made of donated pants. Defiance is a voice that speaks into the silence. Defiance gives a voice to those who are afraid to use their own.
Defiance is a preamble to creation, and defiance is a preamble to change.
Contributor bios:
Autumn is an aspiring teenage writer and photographer. When not doing either of these, she can be found playing softball, welding, or backpacking.
Erica Larsen is a young writer from the USA. Her work primarily consists of poetry and short fiction, and focuses on a variety of subjects including queer identity, femininity, and social justice. She is an avid supporter of the em dash, space, and the color yellow, and outside of writing, Erica enjoys peer tutoring and doing gymnastics. You can find more of her work at www.makeyourownmagicwriting.weebly.com.
H. Ries is an aspiring poet and explorer. When not doing the latter, you can find her outside with a mug of tea and a good book. You can find more of her work at figsandplums.blogspot.com.
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