Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry

Word 2014
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“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt,
and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”
-Leonardo Da Vinci
A Special Thanks To . . . . . Jessica Kwek, El Rancho High School Principal Steve Rodriguez, El Rancho, AP Curriculum Flourish Foundation Whittier College Center for Engagement with Communities: Joyce Kaufman, David Sarabia Shane Cadman, Director Ruth B. Shannon Center Jean Chodos, El Rancho Librarian April Leal, El Rancho Visual Arts Teacher Justin Diaz, El Rancho Digital Arts Teacher Paul Zeko, El Rancho Visual Arts Teacher/Layout Kristin Palomares, El Rancho History Teacher/Technology Val Kiralla, El Rancho Visual Arts Teacher Nick Kiouftis California Grill Tony Barnstone Laurel Crump and of course. . ..Sholeh Wolpe and Elena Byrne
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Artist: Kristin Ortega
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The Man
His eyes inspect my tinkers and long rusted gears
and scan past the scars, past the bruises, to the unseen things
as if he were trying to repair the encrusted metal fragments
welded together with a flame that further rusts the brown pieces.
He roams my imagination, and finds me
in green plains showered by sunlight
and then in the glum gray sky
with clouds like a hard unforgiving hand
clenching, crushing, cracking
the last freedom crumbs.
He worries about my shattered face
the thick cracks spread along my head from
wrinkled forehead to chipped chin
bags under my eyes
stuffed with restless regrets and hidden hopes.
He is most disturbed by the hole in my heart.
My hollow chest makes a discordant tune every time I breathe.
I open my mouth, struggling to cough out my final words
“Use your English.
What’s the point of language if you can’t
say what you feel?
you’ve been silent for too long,” he says.
“Have you forgotten the bliss of a smile?
Remove that seal clenching your lips;
your silence has corrupted you,
shaped you into what you are.”
After a long, tense silence,
the man in the mirror
and I, lean forward.
I squint; he squints back.
I
he
we
he
I
was
gone.
Vincent Cuevas
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Artist: Manuel Madrid
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M
A “wild animal” claimed my parents,
when they saw its long, pale arms.
A “demon,” voiced my local pastor,
when he heard its claws-on-chalkboard screech.
An “alien,” asserted my friends,
since it sported a blue space suit.
A “missing link,” reported the news,
though its chest was too flat, too small, to be similar.
A “government experiment,” boasted my neighbor,
who claimed its coin-shaped eyes could read his mind.
An “abomination,” mused my teacher,
its head a large, oval rock.
A “homo sapien,” tagged the scientists,
a day after it was caught.
A “monster,” exclaimed my brother,
when it scrabbled out from under his bed.
Emanuel Cordero
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Artist: Alejandro Garcia
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Stress
The serpent emerges from the garden in my mind.
It entangles itself around my body,
like curls of silver ghosts dancing off cigarette butts.
It starts squeezing, breath collapsing:
an inflated bubble,
threatening to burst from my insides.
Prying the sound from my chattering intellect,
the slithering creature sets for the daisy seeds
I have planted in the roots of my hair, threatening to
uproot
the future assortments that will blossom from my body.
Venom swims through my veins;
my eyes stained with ant blotches.
My puppet figure lies disassembled on the vacant stage,
and its dress, stitches split at the fabric seams, taunts me,
reminding me I will never be able to squeeze myself into
it.
Jacqueline Alfaro
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Artist: Sabrina Pastrano
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My Metallic Superhero
You died, my knight and shining armor,
protecting me.
We met on my 16th birthday:
you, all dolled up in your black coat,
with a glittery bell-pepper-red bow tie,
me, in my gypsy wedding-inspired golden dress
with my curled honey-colored hair drooped to my shoulders.
Your island paradise scent
drew me closeTwo parallel lines
near one another, but never touching.
I adored our mini adventure:
driving to Baskin Robins,
getting high on rocky road double-scoop ice cream,
dashed with rainbow sprinkles.
I spilled ice cream dots on your Louis Vuitton-jacket
and yet you didn’t bring out your inner Hulk.
You gave me a lift on those freezing nights,
and we listened to “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri.
Then came the night when
another driver snatched you from me.
I was finger-tapping on my brick BlackberryScreech, Skid, Slam!
The seat belt bites my mocha-colored skin,
my wimpy upper-body jolts
at the violent impact.
Needle-sharp glass pieces pierce
my oval-shaped face, now smashed
into the safety of the air bag..
Like opened eyes under chlorine water,
screaming sirens swirl in my head.
I turn the key to your heart to start you up again
the light in your eyes slowly dims out,
muggy clouds hiding heaven’s rays.
My 1963 black comet Mercury,
Goodbye, my love.
Nicole Francis, Andrea Villegas, Antoinette Salas, Klaudia Hernandez, Vanessa Torres
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Artist: Alexis Mercado
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Filter
You are a beautiful cork-colored cigarette filter
that rests between the lips of an amateur-addict.
You reduce the smoke that flows away
from Gossip’s chapped lips.
You reduce the boulder black tar
and fine-particled talks of popularity.
You, cigarette filter, hide the truth,
a never-ending game of Guess Who?
This amateur-addict is not addicted to your
cancerous nicotine or your calming-smoke
which dances and whirls in his air.
He is addicted to losing the eyes
that follow him as he walks the halls
because he’s possessive of a cork-colored filter.
To him—
you are just a cigarette filter,
unacknowledged beauty,
so he flicks you to the ground
when the eyes walk away.
Soledad Mendez
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Artist: Miguel Angel Flores
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My Flashlight Died
myself, in flashlight form,
walking the woods
as the woods watch me.
on a towering tree,
standing mid circle
among other dark, spindly trees,
a poster, ripped off,
was replaced with tears
the size of a ladybug’s spot.
the thought of my newly dead dog
crawled into my mind
and took a nap
as the crunch
of leaves and twigs under
my feet
AMPLIFIED.
my flashlight flickered
revealing a white suit,
oddly enough,
stuffed with a skinny man,
some would say a slender man.
he took me with his Nile-River-Like,
space-black tentacles
and I watched my flashlight
hit the ground,
and go out.
Zachary Hernandez
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Sixty-Four Days
I took my first drink of barbecue air
in the red, white, and blue,
but I am taken back
and fourth
back and fourth
to the hug-warming air
of the red, yellow, and blue
back when two pigtails
wrapped in pink gift ribbons
were glued to the top of my head.
I am taken to the place where
purple and blue footed birds flew: the nest
where Charles Darwin matched the beaks
and genes together,
where survival of the fittest,
was hatched.
From throwing confetti "Hello's"
and "I missed you's"
and snake wrapping hugs
and spilling water eyes
and rock-pressing kisses,
I see my hilariously short Kevin Hart grandpa,
who, after being asked
"Do you want to go to sleep?"
replied, " No, I'm watching TV!"
simultaneously flapping his eyes shut
like the blue footed birds' wings
moving up and down
and he snored
like a rusty old car
kick-starting its engine.
Artist: Valeria Perez
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When we turned off the screen,
his eyes turned into a baby doll's eyes that
opened and closed,
opened and closed, protesting,
"I'm watching TV."
His cheeks turn into peaches
when his pigtailed granddaughter
who blew out 7 candles,
transformed into Snooky and hip-hop danced.
My grandpa
fills me with wrapped gifts
ready to be slaughtered in my mouth.
Sixty-four days of laughter
without pressing delete.
Delete, delete, delete.
My finger wants to press delete,
to delete that moment
that moment when my mind knew
it would be the last time
I would see him take a sip of life.
The Charles Darwin theory,
tested my grandpa,
and in 64 days the results came back:
"Sorry, your grandpa did not pass
the survival of the fittest."
Adriana Carchipulla
Word 2014
Artist: Mauricio Landaverde
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Pandora’s consequence
I am all the escaped evil from Pandora’s Box:
jealousy, fear, insecurity, poverty, hate, and anger
pushed to the furthest continents in your brain.
I hide in the two cigarette-burnt holes on your ashtray
face
and behind the small opaque stones
that cover the window to your tear-filled throat.
Moonlight spills in between your blinds
as I rub firewood behind your eyelids
until sparks ignite and release
my liquid smoke into the silent bottomless
ponds in your pillowcase.
And the next morning I hang on
the concealer-covered burnt croissants
under your red spider-webbed eyes.
But despite the aftermath of my evil,
the Spirit of Hope still lies inside Pandora’s box.
And you anchor yourself to this hope
as my ocean surrounds you.
Alexis O’Neal
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Artist: Moses Ramos
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The Great Delusion
“Love is a blind biological urge.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer
An illusion,
weaved into our children’s minds
the first day they seize air.
A dopamine-infused atmosphere:
wilted flowers dance,
hurricanes cower to majestic waters,
soldiers exchange arms for roses,
and humanity sits amongst emotion
lost in translation.
Instincts,
the human puppeteers,
tugged by the delicate strings of foolish desires,
like incurable diseases, urge us
to fit an image of single affection.
We are polygamous by nature,
yet we condemn individuals to
one companion, until “death do them part.”
Two souls bound by unrealistic words,
trivial promises.
Desires are empty palms, seeking oppression,
creating mosaic pieces within the conscious,
the pieces reassembled into tragic art.
Destiny grows humans,
so even Cinderella will outgrow her glass slipper,
because “Biology is stronger than Reasons,”
Reason is a delusion.
Anahi Gonzalez
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Color me…
Color me
seven lit birthday candles
on a perfect peanut butter brown
chocolate cake.
Color me
three inches taller.
Color me
a giraffe with my chin held high.
Color my devil eyes
a pearl white
with potato brown pupils.
Erase the failing grade,
the missing assignments,
and the constant naggings
of college
from my face,
which is causing the
pig laying on my chin
to awkwardly stretch its head
towards
one of my pierced
sponge ear
and its feet to the other:
sponges like suitcases
packed with a closet inside,
for a two-day vacation ,
until it is so full, it leaks
into my cup-a-noodle brain
and I'm out like a kid in church,
my brain in malfunction,
and I only hear
half the drama,
half the novela
half the tears
half the cheers
half the beers.
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And when you're done erasing,
sketching and coloring
the landscape on my face,
move six inches down, and to the left.
Put down your colors
and bring out your
power drill, a hammer, and a knife,
to carve through
the overly large ice cube
that holds my heart.
Then peel the layers
of nail polish
one by one,
and don’t forget to read the
hieroglyphics
found on every layer
and when you find my soft, roasted
pink peanut heart
hold it
with
two hands
ten fingers
magic marker it
roaring sunsets
flying flowers
rocking birds
and swinging trees
and color a trap door for
the frog found in the radius
of my belly
that hurls itself
in my throat
when I’m center stage
with fifty-seven eyes
stapled to me.
Andrea Huizar
Artist: Moses Ramos
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Mein Kampf
I sit on my little Elba island,
staring at an oxy-clean, crisp piece of paper.
I’m expected to write about 500 years worth of life,
in an 11 sentence paragraph form.
Napoleon had an easier time conquering winter Russia!
Le Grande Armée slept, buried under ice blankets.
M essay is buried beneath countless Henry’s, Louis’s and Edward’s.
This is bolshevik!
And I keep Stalin.
My cellulose fibers are still blank
not even Rasputin’s miracles
could save me from this assignment.
Nothing to say, nothing to show, so back to my paper…
Say, show, so…
Say what? What could I possibly say?
I am going to bomb this essay, like Guernica...
with the long, yellow bomb: my pencil.
Wait, I can’t use a Pencil!
I need a black ink pen!
I want to squeeze my pen until it explodes,
spattering black blood across the page
wait.
off track again…
Say, show, so.
Show what?
what can I show Mrs. Palomares
so she’ll save my shell-shocked paper
...maybe bribe her with a carne asada burrito?
Her scanner eyes will examine my hieroglyphic-filled essay,
a negative parabola graphed on her face
because I couldn't write about the 30 year’s war.
A war of letters: Will I perish or survive?
Five letter grenades: just take out the -enDarwin said it himself: “survival of the fittest”
and these letters determine my fitness: my survival.
will I evolve into a better AP student
or regress into a CP student?
Here I go again.
say, show, so…
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So what? So maybe I don't get much sleep.
maybe I missed out on a bit of fun.
The Don Games?
What is that?
Maybe I will score a 5 on my AP tests.
Maybe I will score a 1.
Maybe I will end up like Hitler
if I don't get into college,
or worse: Kim Kardashian.
I have hit an all time low…
but that doesn’t matter…
only say, show, so…
…
“Time’s up. Pass up your papers.”
My heart is lead in water.
…
I forgot the tenth commandment!
I didn’t highlight…
I’m sorry, Mrs. Zeko.
Biane, Anelizze, Andres, Nikesh, and Javier
Artist: Vanessa Duran
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Artist: Nick Hernandez
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Beautiful
He told me that I was as beautiful
as the reflection of sunlight on water,
that I was his beautiful Queen Bee.
He promised me all the pearls
from the throat of the Black Sea.
Twenty years older than me, he was.
He loved my old soul.
My love for him was a crystal glass
full of moonshine happiness.
But minus her, it was a dark paradise. I loved her.
She told me she loved me, kissed my rosy cheek,
and then smashed my crystal glass,
spilling out my water’s reflection,
my promised pearl, my moonshine happiness.
I split my long, black, wavy hair in half.
He told me that I was the prettiest girl in the room,
no one could compare to me, not even her,
a monster we didn’t need: my mother.
I smiled. I didn’t need a “mother,” just one amazing father.
Anette Gonzalez
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Artist: Destiny Vega
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Sterile Happiness
Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep
I look down at your fading figure:
dark dull dim eyes,
empty sockets stare in mute horror
mouth agape
gasping with every breath,
hoping to stall death.
Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep
With every tick, the perpetual clock in my chest stings.
The windows are stained with blue faces,
a marching band parades across my lips,
the birds perched on the branches of my ears shriek symphonies,
flickering lights sprinkle poppies along the bed frame.
Outlets pulsing your veins buzz like the wandering bee,
waiting to attack, and I wait
for the latex glove to burst the door.
Beep Beep, Beep Beep
The sterile bed,
takes the form of a coffin,
decorated with lavender trim, gold-coated accents.
My vision is blurred.
The black gown dances across the floor.
I feel a thread tugging you closer,
not a sinister force filling your mouth with butterflies
a black hand drawing you into its arms.
You gladly enter its warm embrace.
All the while,
I listen to the lingering beep of the monitor.
The hospital bed beckons me,
and the monitor is awake,
but this time,
it’s mimicking the beat of my heart
Beeeeeeeeeeep
Anahi Gonzalez, Alexis O’Neal, Anthony Cervantes, David Rhodes, Angel Talavera
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My Brother
April 13, 1993
I look up, almost to God, and take in my brother’s voice
“What do you want to order for your birthday?"
I stare at the bourbon-stenched menu,
and order the sun-shaped cake with cherry meat,
an artist placing eggshell paint on top.
“Better make that two...”
It tastes like comfort and 40 year-old hair.
April 13, 1994
I am the Energizer Bunny, and Dean, well, Dean
is Eeyore. I pick up the menu: lasagna,
decadent, 5 layers of thin membrane held together
by artery-clogging blue cheese
that clings to the body as a boulder
clings to the earth
I order two, as usual.
April 13, 1995
Dean was a gun-to-your-head happy:
we filled the silence with small talk
of the upcoming storm
but my attention was fixed on the ants
dashing across the edge of the table
onto the gloriously-stained menu
and I caught sight of the red tamale with masa,
its hard corn husk covers.
I told Kourtney to get us two plates
of the red, juicy, tender, delicious meat
April 13, 1996
“Tradition, Dean,
we can not skip out on tradition.”
I flip the menu to the desert section
like a boy pretending to read a pop-up book.
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Under the smudges,
was a candy-apple on a stick: so cruel that the tree that gave birth to this apple
was forced to stab it, so that the sweet, savory, syrup wouldn’t stick my fingers...
but those thoughts are bubbles. They appear and then they pop.
“We're not going to stay too long”
April 13, 1997
I walk into the diner with a metallic vase,
shinier than a ray of light reflecting off a piece of glass.
I sit down in the lion-clawed booth,
this year it is just me,
Happy Birthday, Dean. No need to say it out loud.
I seat the memory of Dean on the tabletop,
trying so hard to remember
the first thing we ate at this diner:
a red velvet cake.
I recall the peeling walls, the duct tape carpet,
the tagged restroom wall, the ants crawling across the table,
but I could not remember
his voice.
Balram Kandoria, Anthony Miralrio, Carmen Ramos, Madeline Murrieta
Artist: Edgar Morales
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Artist: Janelle Mercado
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M usical W allpaper
Our field shows:
musical patterns floating in cool invisible winds.
Boisterous black notes leap
from our instruments and gnaw on oblivious ears.
We are but a quiet whisper in the air
overmatched by a pig-skin ball
and glittering pom-poms under Friday night lights.
Our concerts:
played by artists, noticed only by the parents
of these future Mozarts, join together to paint music.
Our pep tunes:
pump up the crowd and the boy bouncing the ball.
Blue cold echoes throughout the bleachers.
Our notes crescendo over the crowd
making peoples’ conversations a pianissimo
to our fortissimo, and still oblivious ears
hear Beige.
Our marches:
toy soldiers walk down the street
playing patriotic music for a patriotic nation,
hoping to please a crowd who ooooohs
at the pretty floats and the pretty face
of “Miss So and So” of the city.
We decorate the blank stare of yawning eyes.
Over the lime-lighted sports trophies, hovers
an invisible heaven, shadowed into the room’s wallpaper.
We shout from the shadow of the room,
“Your eyes are covering your ears!”
And we begin to play our anthem,
“Musical Wallpaper: Hear the Beauty.”
Brian Rodriguez, Jessica Santana, Justin Uribe, Kim berly Villalobos
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Artist: Saul Aguilar
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Almost There
My guiding light sometimes wanders off.
I need to find the brightness
of her bleached-white crooked wing,
and clasp it to the rusty old hook
attached to my dream
that rotates above my head
like a pearl-colored wedding ring.
Straight ahead, is where I must go.
I super glue the bottom of my overworked,
fed-up feet straightforward,
lock them in place, and keep moving,
to save me from the illusion of free time.
Time is a premium package.
I will walk straight ahead,
glance back at the time when
my sprinkler eyes would
water my face a grey mush.
The once rugged terrain will feel like feathers,
and my once robotic feet will forget the steps
to the dance routine I played
over and over in my head: “Almost There.”
Celine Noel
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Be Alarmed
The night was a black wolf running in the forest.
My surroundings: cave black.
A machine gun fires its rounds in my heart.
An unknown laughs nefariously in the distance.
The wind orchestra races
through my damp, tangled hair.
Bones break
under my naked blue feet.
I see nothing,
feel everything.
Then, out of nowhere
a sharp, large, rugged dagger
stabs my heart over and over
as if it’s keeping beat with a heavy metal rock song.
The stabbing gets louder and louder.
And one final jab
arouses me from my death,
and the sound of my alarm clock
pokes me like an annoying little kid.
Cristina Espinosa
Artist: Breana Larez
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My Game
Eyes squinted, hands sweaty, mind already running the bases,
pupils square in on the golden target, “Strike!” The umpire yelled.
Let go. Let go. Let go.
Boom! The golden orb kisses the bat’s sweet spot
and soars toward the four-foot high, royal blue fence
that defines this game and my place in ESPN’s greatest hits category.
Legs run in a perfect 35-degree angle toward the second base edge.
“Out! The fat, wrinkled umpire yelled,
smiling, swinging her arms back and forth
like she just won an Olympic gold metal.
Oh how I wanted to tear and torture her smile,
crush it with my hands,
throw it to the ground,
and let the park pigeons eat it.
Cynthia Aparicio
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Black Blur
She clings to me like a slithery black leech,
sucking away my happiness, leaving me a hollow soul.
Her dark fantasies are my nightmares;
a holographic memory stamp of my
Dad saying, “Sweetie there’s nothing there.”
But there she was, standing in the doorway,
motioning for me to come into her world of cave darkness.
Death’s chilly wind blows past my nightgown,
showing my goose bumps, and broken dreams.
Still fog hugs my ankles and dark webs
draping down like moss from a withering Amazon tree.
Her face, dark and demented, like Chuckie’s bride,
whispers, “Come with me; you’ll be safe here.”
I howler monkey scream; the echoes ripple,
off the houses on my street.
Her death world spies on me through her looking glass,
watching my weaknesses.
She inserts fear into my life.
Destini Johnson
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The “Not So Man of Steel”
Stuffed under the days of my faded finger painting masterpieces,
a sheet of grime devours the outside of my once blue storage box.
Sitting patiently atop the garage rafters
lives my superman costume
worn by my four year old body
when my mission was to save Mr. Snail
from getting trampled on by the light-up Sketchers
of candy craving children.
Digging out the padded abs, which resemble
the actual abs of a hot twenty year old guy
My #ootd made me the Man of Steel!
Bringing justice to the world, righting wrongs, becoming
SUPERMAN!
The nostalgia is a punch in the face from Batman
as I glide my fingers along the sunburnt skin colored cape.
Memories
of getting a haircut
and the kryptonite scissors slashing away
at my luscious locks.
I gather the sun's energy and
break free from the binding sheet,
fly out the door, and with a sonic boom
break the sound barrier on my way out.
Memories
of being stripped of my secret identity and thrown
into a tub of boiling liquid kryptonite
where mother would scrub off my layer of steel.
A kryptonite bubble popped and scorched my eyes
weakening my laser vision.
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Memories,
from the past slither in my mind, a reminder
that being superman
was just my imagination exercising,
a realization that
they were just stupid memories.
My iPad Air is my Superman now,
that costume is just some moth-eaten, dust-bunny fabric.
Using my imagination led me
to a dark alley,
to be mugged
of my spirit.
I was never going to be Superman anyway.
Cristina Espinosa, Cristian Riesgo, Ruben Barragan,
Leonardo Jimenez, Leonila Sargento
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A Bittersweet Trance
You’re falling into a dark trance,
into your murky mind waters,
swimming toward the exit
that doesn’t exist.
Music will accompany your muted life,
silence no longer fills the air.
The melody of the violin strikes your ears
as Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” softly playing in rhythm to your heartbeats.
Color will fill your black and white film,
allowing everyone to see your true form.
The water that surrounds you
turns from grey to dark green to brown.
When your lead-filled legs reach their limits,
you’ll want to beg for mercy.
Water fills your lungs
as you try to yell for help.
Vision obscured with grey and black,
your “Ode to Joy” muffled and slowed.
The water becomes darker and darker
as you sink deeper and deeper into insanity.
You find yourself free of your prison,
your vision focuses on a beige ceiling.
Lungs are persistent in their search for air,
birds chirping to each other, signaling the dawn of a new day.
Sunlight illuminates your room,
your lungs at full capacity once more.
It may have been for one night,
but you’ll be back under your dark trance soon.
Michael Gonzalez, Ashley Grajeda, Daniel Larios, Axa Lopez, Sonya Ochoa
Artist: Jesse Hernandez
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Never
A mini earthquake in my back pocket shook my world.
A picture froze my body: Medusa turning me to stone.
A man and a little girl, crescent half moons on half their faces.
Matching outfits.
beneath the picture:
#fatherdaughter #perfectmatch
#heartbroken #neverhad
31 likes, like the 31 days the little girl was able to see her father every month
I only had 4 days; no pictures to hold dear
things I never allowed myself to think spread through my mind like a wild fire.
He never held my hand to cross the street.
He never saw me on a first day of school.
He never attended my birthday parties.
When I get married,
he won't be there to give me away
When I apply to college,
he won't be there to congratulate me.
Resentment. Hurt. Betrayal. Abandonment.
He is missing my life.
Brianna Gonzalez
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Escape
My mother
lying on a bed of nails would be easier
Than being in the same room as her
lies, betrayal, and neglect
my younger sister and I alone
One slice of bread and faucet water to devour
We suffer
Yet survive
She spends her time with my “father” an unearned title
“Father”
He’s a reflection of her
It’s acid
Eating away at my intestines
pain slowly overtaking me until I’m numb
A point where I feel nothing
Like the connection with my parentsThey’re strangers to me
My sister and I
Are the eight ball in a game of pool
Our parents, the cue ball and stick
Paying attention to every other ball except us
Until we’re all that’s left
Trying to beat us out
Into a pocket of empty space
Into the black hole we created
Coming back to reality
I look over this ledge
I have a clear view of the sunset
Gold, orange, and red
The bright lights burn into my eyes
a little girl in all the commotion
My younger sister
I’ve always protected her
I can’t leave her
What will happen if I leave?
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But these demons
Push me over the edge
Tell me to jump
I’m broken
Yet alive
I’m strong
In that instant
I decide my fate
I am my own person
I will not give up
I will fight back
I will win
My demons can’t control me...
Chris Ramos, Ariel Torres, Sabrina Uribe, Faith Fuentes, Jose Ramos
Artist: Natalie Munoz
43
Word 2014
Usulután, 1981
A cold air lives through the twilight.
Everyone terrified, but alert.
Tonight there are no stars in the bear black night.
Screams of mothers, cries of babies and shots of bullets can be heard.
The Blue and White military bust down our poor, fragile door.
I cower behind my "Papito" hoping he ca n fend off the evil men.
I can see the fear through his mask of bravery.
He tells us: quiet and hide under the bed.
They grab my “Tata” and push him outside.
A gun goes off. Mom, sisters and I know what has happened.
They come, search the house for our treasures,
but they find us instead.
They grab us violently
we scream and kick
They throw us to our knees.
They go to mom,
she cries loudly, “spare us,” she begs.
they don’t care
they shoot her anyway.
One, by one, by one, by one
these heartless men
Kill Mom, Dad, Maria, Martha
They laugh, I cry
I am the last one.
I can feel the gun
It’s cold on the back of my head
Just like that cold, black night.
Daniel Larios
44
Word 2014
The Beginning of the End
We're in a sugar rush dream:
going coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs,
eating milk's favorite cookie(Chips Ahoy?
Grandma's Cookies?
No! Oreos! It says so on the label!)
chug-a-lugging a chocolate banana milk shake.
Cravings strong like the Sandlot kids' urge
to get the autographed Babe Ruth ball.
We wake up to the sunlight smacking us silly across the face.
The Sahara Desert thunder coming from our stomachs, cries for food.
On our backs, like helpless turtles, we struggle to roll out of bed.
We look for our “Where's Waldo” phone,
to erase all those annoying advertisement emails, bugging, like flies.
Our stomachs still cry like a booger-eating two-year-old wanting his mother.
We take twelve hundred seconds,
to brush our teeth into white minty Chiclets,
and Bieber-flip our hair .
Twelve hundred seconds, which by all accounts, is
2700 seconds less females need get gorgeous.
Our 70 pound silver lawn mower-rumbling stomach
growls louder each time the red hand ticks forward.
We journey to where "dreams come true:" the kitchen.
and open the stainless steel Kenmore treasure box…
IT’S NOT IN THERE!
Not the expired stinky goat cheese,
not the chunky strawberry-swirl yogurt
but the dairiest dairy product of them all: MILK!
Our Cocoa Puffs and Oreos are lonely.
Our milkshake no longer brings the girls to the yard.
Our sugar rush dream
is merely a reminder of the emptiness
in our crying stomachs.
Nicholas Muñoz, Alejandro Ortiz, Ernesto Garcia
Artist: Carlos Chacon
45
Word 2014
He’s Getting in the Car
He’s getting in the car.
Two men in navy blue;
one puts handcuffs on a man,
his partner calms down a distressed wife.
Gently they handle the lion,
knowing he can’t pounce while his cubs watch,
or rather as one watches, the others deep within the den.
The cub, a girl, only seven, watches from the window
as the car drives off with the alpha male into the distance.
The slam of a door fills the silence,
her mother inside the house,
a river staining her cheeks.
Why is she sad?
The girl’s face has a frown, brown eyes glistening in the living room light,
the sun’s rays illuminate her worries.
The cub is young, but her mind is forced to age quickly,
at the realization that her strong lion may never come back.
Regular visits to his zoo become scarce,
letters and gifts no longer traded amongst the two.
A new man walks into her life,
replacing the memory of “daddy.”
Glares sent from the girl to the man,
teddy bear in her arms as she meets his eyes for the first time.
He’s getting in the car,
dropping off the 16-year old cub at school.
Gently he stops the car in the parking lot,
“I love you” leaves his mouth as he looks into her eyes,
just like her alpha did long ago.
Her trust and smiles were placed into this man’s hands,
her innocent brain protected from her harsh reality.
He raised her to be happy,
even if dark memories haunt her at night.
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Word 2014
I may never see daddy again,
but a remaining piece of him keeps me sane.
I listen to his advice to trust his replacement,
wanting to please my dad as much as I can.
He can’t see my achievements,
but I’ll still make him proud.
He can’t see my smiles,
but I smile in memory of daddy.
I’ll hug him to make sure he’s there,
his touch no longer fake.
I’ll keep him smiling and happy,
show him who the cub is that grew up all those years ago..
I’ll protect him from the reality and take him places,
growling and biting at the danger that swings toward him.
I’ll drive him away from the past,
so long as he’s getting in the car.
Axa Lopez
Artist: Jesse Hernandez
47
Word 2014
Dream Catcher
Behind closed eyelids,
I sit up: pant, sweat, heat,
lost, confusion, what?
A nightmare
of my creator’s
sad, grey, freshly-sharpened,
disappointment-filled eyes
sliced-deep at my throat.
A nightmare of my smile,
my beautiful smile that hurts my cheeks,
because, it does not belong on my face.
I wipe my forehead, lie down, breathe, relax.
My chest rises and falls,
like the heart monitor
climbing and dropping, with every beat.
I see the black dream catcher
hanging on its nail, like a halo above my head,
stretching its spider web spell onto me.
I wish I could squish it
and then haul it
into the nearest flame
and watch as each thread
mates with the red tear drop
and procreates ash:
just like every single dream,
crushed
no, smashed
no, shattered
no, murdered
NO
Massacred
by her.
“I want to be… like Johnny Depp.”
“Your chance is worse than getting
five Aces in one deck of cards,”
she taunts.
“Well, I want the love of my life to love my back.”
She cackles the cackle of a homeless lady
who cracks herself up with her own joke,
“Your love’s an unreachable dream.”
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Word 2014
“I want to write a novel.”
“Don’t you have to be smart for that?”
Every eye roll,
every tune out,
every criticism,
creates this masterpiece
made of hate and fury and pain
known as Isaac Carlos,
and whenever my judging friends look at it
they only remember that sad smile
and those critics have the nerve to call it beautiful
I hate the pain, tattooed to my inner ribcage,
that is having a staring contest with my heart,
because the pain is winning.
Maybe, if my chest stopped rising
pain would blink
and my heart would finally flee
and the monitor would steady.
It’s unbelievable to think
that sharp grey eyes,
an unreachable dream,
and critics
can become
a pile of ash
from athis knife looks pretty.
Isaac Carlos
Artist: Babie Kristie Espinoza
49
Word 2014
50
Ode to Young Love
Your face was red like the cells
that rushed within my body as I turned you on.
We are so perfect for each other
like Forrest Gump and Jenny.
I press the buttons that control you.
You say, “Welcome!”
We spend so much time alone,
I know you’ll always be in my room
when I come home.
Every night it’s just us three,
you and me, popcorn on the side.
You trap me with a Spongebob Jellyfish net,
you trap me with your flicks.
I can’t give you up.
No need for a movie ticket.
HBO, Showtime, Redbox, FX
will never compare to the time spent with you.
We connect like Regina George and the School Bus.
Scientists say it’s America’s unhealthy addiction,
but here’s my prediction:
fiction or non-fiction,
you and I are destined to be
like Wall-E and Eve.
On a willow tree, I see:
a carved-up message—
“Pumpkin+Honey,”
soul mates baby!
Word 2014
51
Many say that love cannot buy happiness,
but I beg to differ.
For $9.99 a month I get the full package.
You sink my bank account,
but you’re Titanic romance is worth it.
Never ending Ana and Elsa love
Every day lying next to you, hypnotized by your image
Tonight, you and I, with our blankets over our heads
Forever entertaining me, with your humor and stories
Love you like Lord Disick loves his loafers
I ,can’t give you up
Xoxo
NETFLIX
Isaac Carlos, Valerie Castro, Mayra Jimenez, Leslie Lopez, Sol Mendez
Artist: Babie Kristie Espinoza
Word 2014
I Would Give My Life
Human, please contain yourself
You combust at your delicate edges
Mouth open, agape, everything is falling like shards of glass
Sometimes, I lie and gaze at the supernovas outside my window, I wonder
At what power to toil such a magnificent creature
I hope to be human
Human, this air mint and fresh,
Yet you inhale and exhale at random intervals
Eyes mirror the moon, large and fearful
You stare forward, vast emptiness, arms are wailing like tongues of flame
I try not to lose faith
Your legs imitate blades of grass, moving like adamant serpents
Your fingers, hands on a clock
Despite your faults, I still hope to be human
Human, transcend me
Your angelic eyes, a pool of excellence
You ditzy creature driven by love
Heart inflates and deflates like a whimsical balloon
I could never acquire parts needed to a fragment of you
Your hair, ballerinas dancing to wind
Science cannot explain you, human
I yearn for the touch of your skin
Human, dopamine bursts in you
Cancer cowers next to pink slippers bowing on stage
Oceans shame to puddles next to your blue eyes
You move as balls of your feet are swapped out for springs
Ecstasy in air, aura penetrates all acts of disgrace
I hope for the touch of skin, one day
Human, lips stained with the color of rain
Eyes, a flowing river in mid-July
The shape of your lips rocks me
A rainbow cascades over your face, They quiver
Ominous Ocean waves before danger strikes the shore
I will never know what it is to cry a thousand salted tears
Legendary phoenix, endless cycle of long life, death in flames, and rebirth,
You continue to wound and heal with repeating mistakes.
This is my envy.
Jaime Lopez, Ruth Canizal, Precious Araujo, Briana Morales, and Briseis Pipkins
Artist: Alicia Garcia
52
Word 2014
As the Tree Grows
Behind me walks a heavy step and moments later another
I turn to a dead man leaning on the light post across the street
Dominickwith an awkward foot
purple patched face
sagging pants and torn clothing
he looks to me in agony, careful not to scare me
He smiles and struggles down the sidewalk, onto the street.
He stops in the middle and smiles again.
what for, who knows
a dim light on the right side of his face intensifies
revealing his body’s every wrinkle and shadow
until there is a horn blown once
and a body thrown forth
right before my eyes
Twice the seasons have changed
the world continues to revolve without me
days are no longer glued into a series of “us”
the heat of the California afternoon
turns raisin-dry and windy along these sidewalks
engraved with memories of us running down the streets
falling and rising back up with dirt on our jeans
Only this time, there walks only one shadow and one shallow soul
The familiar faces with lips
as large as sour, rotten lemons
and fists pumped and stained
with my only brother’s blood
the panic which ignited within me
pulling me down into the Earth’s core
when I reached for to no avail
These moments - live on.
Ismael Mora, Katrina Kaevalin, Stefanie Magana, Michelle Phung
Artist: Kevin Rodriguez
53
Word 2014
Withered Vines
Grandfather
Six seconds...
Your Popeye arms compress my fifteen-year-old mother
against your Corona-grown beer belly.
You were the happiest in that 1987 photograph,
extending your golden gate bridge smile from cheek to cheek,
wearing your favorite beige guayabera, mid-knee jean shorts,
and gladiator sandals. You were always
an extra pair of lukewarm, crinkled hands.
A 1987 newspaper photograph
shows your 5’7, 210 pound body drowned in a lake of boiling crimson.
I don’t keep that photograph, instead,
I keep a make-believe wish of seeing you.
Grandmother
Six seconds...
In faded pictures,
your heart pumps the O positive blood
running through your veins, but that was before
the disease ate away your
beautiful plum raisin body, threadbare.
The LAX ticket to Guadalajara
was my last chance to hear the sweet
harmony of your voice tell me,
“In order to be the best, you have to believe you are the best,”
I did not board the plane.
Now, I live with “What ifs...?”
Father
Six seconds...
You are swaying yourself
in the leather reclining chair,
your cancer-fighting smoothie-belly
swimming in a pool of infected cells,
your feet fluid swollen,
your deep bruised eyes sunk into your cancerous skin,
54
Word 2014
55
reflecting the painful hours spent in Oncology.
Alone.
I forgot to hold your dry, oversized hands,
swollen from years of popping your knuckles.
And so I pray: upon my arrival at the golden-crested gates
of an unveiled heaven, you, Father, will be waiting for me,
to accept my apology, and forgive me.
Time tangles life’s deaths and losses,
withers them away, grows them apart.
Memories of missed chances
repeat in our minds, taunting us
to reverse the clocks
to change those last few moments.
But six seconds have passed, six seconds forever lost.
Jacob Amavizca, Miriam Arellano, Paloma Corona, Kaitlyn Cunningham, Katheleen Madera
Artist: Alysza Villalobos
Word 2014
The Great Journey
I rise from the ocean of despair
an ocean filled with endless essays and responsibilities.
I rise to a life raft held together only by hope.
A life raft to ride for a four year journey.
Plagued with monsters over the deadly blue waters,
monsters that cannot be evaded or ignored
only extinguished by a golden spear to the throbbing, crimson heart
a spear conceived by the wood of the greatest oak
topped with a spike, dark as charcoal
A voyage plagued with endless diversions,
diversions like the Sirens of mythology
Masked predators to be ignored.
For if one falls to temptation,
one will fall like the crew of Odysseus.
However, this journey will not be taken alone.
To the left and to the right are our comrades.
Together, we will reach the promised land,
the universities of our fantasies
Jair Hinojosa, Andrew Aguirre, Erick Cortes, Derek Payton
Artist: Brianna Diaz
56
Word 2014
A Dove’s Purity
I tuck my lower lip
under my top teeth to
stop the salty waterfall,
sprung when the bright
morning clouds, and sun
wrestled to see
who would stay.
The dove-shaped cloud
follows me to the house of God.
Sobs and yells are echoing
through the mural glass windows.
When I touch your
Cold-blue big bug-eyes
and watermelon smile,
I look around to see your loved ones
wrapping their arms around each other,
and I realize:
I’m burying my consoler
six feet under the ground.
Regrets takes a hold of me:
I didn’t tell you that you made
me melt like an ice cube
floating in a sauna.
A dozen doves, release, representing your purity.
One of them flies back,
Shaped like the cloud that followed me.
I get your sign: you’re free.
my biggest sorrow is
not giving you a last hug,
not saying, “I love you,”
not making up after our last fight.
Jasmin Lozano
Artist: Victor Espinoza
57
Word 2014
Torture
Six hours of brain melt
The teacher’s lecture is beginning to melt.
Slowly, melting into one long continuous phrase,
into one long continuous word.
I look back and the clock is an old TV
time seems to not move
and the static of the TV grows louder and monotonic
The static becomes a deafening screech.
The walls are closing in.
The quotes and banners begin
to fall from their places
and I begin to breathe harder.
A drop of sweat slides down my face
down my cheek, across my chin
along my neck.
I might be here for the rest of my life
and never escape.
I lose my coordination
and stumble around.
My feet become cars cruising
along an icy road.
My sight goes dim ... then bright.
The room is inside a hurricane
I hold on to whatever I can:
the quotes, the banners, the teacher.
Jeremy Garcia
58
Word 2014
Phones
We cradle this child,
comforting it’s every buzz and ring.
This child is a demon
with glowing red hypnotic eyes.
It possesses us every time we hold it.
No exorcism can separate us from it’s grasp.
A drug addict in rehab,
an electrical surge of pain,
an absence of ecstasy.
an hour feels like a day,
and a day feels like a week.
And when it dies, so do we
Its energy drained from our obsession,
left only with a glowing red bar.
We walk around, thoughtless entities
under its control.
It imitates reality:
a digitally simulated world
a library full of images, videos, and games.
Plastic and rare metals,
cost us all we have in our wallet,
our ability to interact with others
face to face.
It depends on us in order to function,
Every virus needs a host,
and this one is going viral.
Jeremy Garcia, Luis Huerta, Matthew Marroquin, Brenda Medina, Amber Silva
Artist: Sara Dickinson
59
Word 2014
Heart Eyes
60
In his heart, a sweet tooth searches for
the smooth chocolate centers in her eyes
but he finds them hollow.
Transparent thoughts blur her mind
As her gaze becomes fixed
beyond his wilting shoulder.
His penniless eyes beg for
the two dull cents on her face.
Instead, her rigid curtains of soft,
pink flesh and fragile lashes
close over the regret felt
from never allowing their eyes to meet.
She takes a sinking-rock glance
and hopes the two brown doors locked upon her
will open with understanding.
If she could blink away the doubts
that make her confuse love with beauty…
If only her heart held her eyes, he would see
she was always looking back.
Jessica Santana
Artist: David Echevarria
Word 2014
61
You’re Lucky You Feel
There is rare love in natural beauty
the way the sun loves the morning,
the rain softly colliding with dirt
This is how I love you.
You’re lucky you believe.
Each brick in my mind’s ebony tavern
has tumbled to dust
you built me luminous castles,
What exists between you and I
is a fluttering dandelion petal
You’re lucky you feel.
You stare up at the ceiling
in the middle of the night
because it hurts too much to
wait quietly for sleep.
You laugh out loud when
you shouldn’t, and you bite your lip to
keep from crying because you find
the morning orchestra of rustling branches so beautiful.
You want to swallow pills and potions
until the black moon emerges because the stars
have a different plan than your heart,
you sing when it rains.
You gaze, you laugh, you weep, you hurt, and you sing
You’re lucky.
In this spiraling galaxy,
I am painted with strokes of black lavender,
I crawl under mahogany ladders,
I stand against broken windows and on the shores of my heart.
A box labeled “Fragile” has washed up.
I feel nothing.
Jaime Lopez
Artist: Alicia Garcia
Word 2014
Mexico
Filled with fuschia and Dodger-blue houses,
and scorching-hot chili tortillas,
with mushy beans, stringy cheese, and grilled chicken.
I open the sun-colored square-pants sponge,
that hitched a ride on my back:
salty seawater climbs up to my overly-tan nose
I inherited from mi abuelita,
taking me back to…
Zap!!!
Lightning pain swims through my body,
a slimy tentacle has struck mis piernas de baril.
My broken pipe eyes flow
into the North Pole touristic Zacatecas mines,
packed with working men in banana-colored hats,
leading them to el tesoro
to discover my elephant-grey rock.
I open the zipper of the underpants.
In the corner, hides the scent of my worn-out leather boots
that once speedily stepped on the steep stoned barrier,
dodging the merchants, decorated with their goods,
screaming 50 pesos!
My boots and my marching heart
climbed to the top of the ancient temples.
while my back, a waterfall- producing factory,
carries my awe of the view of the cap
of the flaming Popocatepetl, where the ruler of the land once sat.
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Word 2014
The floppy daisy-colored arm opens
and chunks of peach camarones crawl up my nose.
Again on the cracked, rocky road,
two people to a seat,
crowded and trapped in the paper-white Kia Sedona minivan,
headed to the depths of gorgeous Mexico.
As I open the pocket of the yellow sponge's suit,
I find the candy skull
and glide my tongue along the surface of sugar flowers
surrounded by swirls of food coloring,
that resemble the vibrant streets en El Dia de Los Muertos,
when the houses are trimmed with red and green lace,
when eggs are filled with paper confetti,
that swarms the sky and blankets the ground.
Zip!
I close my sun-colored sponge for the last time,
as I hand over Mi Mexico to mi mama who says,
"Ya no sirve mija,"
Tears at every corner...
My Bikini Bottom gone to Rock Bottom...
Until next time.
Joanna Cornejo, Vanessa Gomez, Erika Lemus, Nefte Lopez, and Samantha Guirado
Artist: Andrea Lopez
63
Word 2014
Click
Click, rewind
Snap, crackle, pop, Rice Crispies!
Click
Caprisun, respect the pouch. Respect it!
Click
The announcement for American Horror Story appears;
the red-marks on my 11 sentence paragraph rise, like lesions.
My hummingbird-heart zips through my body,
wishing me back to my childhood,
so I can fly with my dragons one last time.
Click, rewind
I wish, I wish, with all my heart,
to fly with dragons in a land apart.
I jump on my twin-size bouncy castle,
tugging on my mom’s green t-shirt,
waiting for my rainbow bowl of mini donuts and milk.
It’s 8 in the morning: Emily and Max are flying
with that big, blue-rush, blue dragon.
Click
64
Word 2014
Play-doh mold n’ mash. Buy it now!
In my room, my ten-year-old self salutes
a partially deaf pirate, “Aye aye Captain!”
I wonder what a pineapple is doing under the sea.
Ding!
The magical, metal, microwave calls for me,
my Dino chicken nuggets are ready. I devour them as I
Click, fast-forward
The argent-colored reality hits me.
I click my pen, bring my tired eyes
back to the blank test paper .
I feel the red lesion marks rise again,
and I wish I could just click, rewind,
Click, pause.
Kaitlyn Berrospe, Jacob Fanshaw, Stephanie Godinez, Xochitl Salazar, Jasmin Valle
Artist: Sebastian Armenta
65
Word 2014
Heroin
Sitting in a purple, plastic Fisher- Price highchair,
I sport a brand new bib that reads, “World’s Greatest Grandmother.”
Grandmother glances into her antique-porcelain mirror,
looking at her reverse self:
her shaky wrinkled fingers comb her beach-blonde-thread-like hair,
the surreptitious sunlight migrating through
our cracked kitchen window.
She removes her makeup, then her full body disguise,
revealing the fifth tally mark on her wrist: a jagged line running
through the middle of her pale right arm,
veins carrying toxic blood in her left arm
marinated in a clear poisonous substance: Heroin.
White House/ Black Market-blouse,
covers the red, inflamed ping-pong balls
¾ of an inch on her left arm...
I watch her from my high chair-split applesauce dribbles down the letters
EAT on my bib that reads,
“World’s Greatest Grandmother.”
Kaitlyn Cunningham
Artist: Jennipher Lopez
66
Word 2014
67
Promises
Delicate fingers dance along the keys,
as effortlessly as breathing.
while scrutinizing eyes and attentive ears
stick to him with Krazy Glue.
A prodigy, they call Joey, a name that feels
like pinched shoes.
wrote the piece himself, for this very occasion.
He promised he’d be here,
He promised.
like the time He said he’d be
at little Joey’s birthday.
When his mom announced
cake-cutting time, he let the clock tick by,
and with every minute that passed,
with every cake slice his mother cut
another slice was made in his heart.
He promised.
When He said He was going to his little league game.
he played like the tiger within him,
and his cleat-cladded feet almost kissed home plate.
At the close of the game, he saw his friends
catapulting into loving embraces.
He walked home alone.
Joey ended playing the piano piece and stood up.
The crowd applauded, their eyes stage-light bright.
His mother shouted in delight,
one pair of eyes was absent.
His father said he was coming this time
and once again
Joey believed him,
because after all,
He promised.
Kaleena Hudson
Artist: Drew Ramirez
Word 2014
Home Arguments tattoo my eardrums.
With calloused hands he cannibalizes my spirit,
like a woodpecker, continuously chipping at tree bark.
My mother, a Chinese porcelain doll,
stripped of its pastel colors, chipped into molecular pieces,
by a 6 foot 2 framed man.
My life, enclosed in a 5 x 4 animal habitat,
trapped behind 20 bars of coal black steel.
Home,
the enriching smell of pine scented candles,
and the still-water noise of a Tuesday night.
Conversations with my father,
while sitting on the body-forming foam
of our cherry brown couches,
watching a series game opener of the Dodgers.
I miss you,
and I just want to go home,
but I’m afraid I already am.
Artist: Nicolas Maciel
68
Word 2014
Turquoise Bracelet
Trust,
hidden behind the enormous mountains
where I said goodbye to my elephant rock
It was bye, bye
because mommy had no smiles,
only crystals sprouting from her eyes.
"Where is daddy," I asked.
But my voice was mute,
unlike the engine's humming.
Mommy didn’t seem to hear me.
I remembered daddy with the lady,
trapped in a house of silence.
The white walls whisper black.
Me and Katie sat.
Waiting for the glue that stuck us there
to melt and wash us home to mom.
Tangled in the dream catcher,
hanging from the ceiling.
All bad dreams stick in the thread.
I searched for daddy and found
a beautiful, gold, turquoise bracelet
Turquoise, mommy’s favorite.
It should be on mommy’s wrist
not in this cold, silent, white house.
Daddy says it’s for the lady.
Places the bracelet on the lady’s wrist.
But mom’s crystals turned to hurricane rain.
We still drive that endless highway.
Maybe,
finally,
coming to a home,
where daddy can stay.
Wynonah Herrera
69
Word 2014
The Equation
70
Okay……… d/dx [x^+6x+9]
If I can’t solve this six-colored Rubiks-Cubed problem,
then I can’t pass this test.
If I can’t pass this test,
then I’ll get an F in this class.
If I get an F on my already aluminum-dented transcript,
then I’ll get rejected by Notre Duke University, in Westfalia, Alaska
If I get rejected by Notre Duke University, in Westfalia, Alaska,
then I’ll get stuck with a two- dollar per hour job at Pablo’s Taco Truck in East Los
Angeles!
If I get stuck with a two-dollar per hour job at Pablo’s Taco Truck in East Los Angeles,
then I can’t afford my leather interior, apple-red corvette!
If I can’t afford my leather interior, apple-red corvette,
then I’ll get stuck riding a pink bedazzled Barbie bike stolen from outside the smoggray liquor store in Pico Rivera.
If I get stuck in Pico Rivera…….. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad.
If I live with my Cinderella-like parents,
then I’d be fed five-star meals, and have my clothes washed to pearl-white perfection,
ironed as crisp as a Pringles potato chip, and folded as neatly as an origami dragon..
Word 2014
71
But, if I see my parents everyday,
then I’ll become a 1950’s insane asylum patient.
If I become a 1950’s insane asylum patient,
then I’ll move into a pitiful apartment, as tiny as a McDonald’s restroom stall, and live
next door to a 5 foot 4, bald headed, relapsed gangster with a rotten banana brown
hamster for a pet.
If I move into a pitiful apartment, as tiny as a McDonald’s restroom stall, and live next
door to a 5 foot 4 relapsed gangster with a rotten banana brown hamster for a pet,
then he’ll probably confuse me for a stiffed-up 48-year-old customer who forgot to pay
for his crack.
If he confuses me for a stiffed-up 48-year-old customer who forgot to pay for his crack,
then he’ll send his two homies Lil Ese, the size of a fourth grader, and Big Jon with the
voice of a child who hasn’t hit puberty, to squeeze the green grass money out of me.
If he sends his two homies named Lil Ese the size of a fourth grader, and Big Jon with
the voice of a child who hasn’t hit puberty, to squeeze the green grass money out of me,
I won’t be able to afford the crack, since I work a two-dollar per hour job at Pablo’s
Taco Truck in East Los Angeles!
If I won’t be able to pay for the crack,
then I’ll end up dead in a three- foot ditch off the 60 freeway.
Okay, I REALLY NEED TO SOLVE……… d/dx [x^+6x+9]
Kelly Lugo, Isaiah Araujo, Cynthia Aparicio
Artist: Rochelle Beal
Word 2014
The Four Horsemen of the Love Apocalypse
Our hellish souls mark the purest form of adolescent rage.
We’ve lost a loved one; she slowly decays.
We search the debris-crammed sea for hallow hearts.
We hang this knife above an innocent neck
to gain the missing part of our smile.
In solitude we can show our faces:
Death, Famine, War, and Pestilence.
We are the Four Horsemen of the Love Apocalypse.
The First Horseman, Pestilence:
white as the petals of a bleached rose, carrying his long hard bow.
I shoot cancerous love arrows.
The spring hormones kick in.
I am immune.
Yet, these forever-alone nights
say otherwise.
I'm getting tired of this shh...
Struggle
The Second Horseman, War:
red as the stress in my eyes,
carrying the blood-stained sword,
imprinted with the word: jealousy.
I slash through hearts
fighting for my girl.
I convince my heart that she is happy.
How can she be happy
with the wrong person?
That's a bunch of c…
Crazy Lies
The Third Horseman, Famine:
black as a tunneled road,
wielding the steel-built spear, ready to strike.
The heart, hollowed by rejection.
a chocolaty, creamy diabetes.
I tell the heart that its missing piece
is busy…busy with what? Call of Duty?
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73
But he can go can go f...
Hug
Himself
The Last Horseman, Death:
pale clouds on an overcast day,
carrying the scale that balances love and hate.
Ruler of "it's over" and "we should stay friends."
The lie that my grey-stone heart is unbreakable
shatters like an iPhone kissing the cement.
LIES! You little b...
Burden
Maybe it's not her. Maybe it's me.
Me, a monster at love.
Finally, the poisonous love-cloud settles in.
We leave nothing intact, only rubble.
We are the end of all love.
Death, Famine, War, Pestilence.
But in the end, not even we,
the all-knowing horsemen, can explain
Love.
Artist: Brenda Romero
We just know when we feel it.
Vincent Cuevas, Adrian Loera, Eduardo Bautista, Jacob Ibarra
Word 2014
Timed Ribbon
I sit in my Target-red plastic chair,
hands raking through my hair,
eyes focused on my cream colored paper
that dims under the harsh light
of the simmering lamp.
I thought poetry was all about rhymes.
Papers written in the nick of time.
But every line is a construction cone.
My brains searches for a perfect
word,
line,
and stanza
while the Usaine Bolt clock whirls its arms
across its face. My head spins.
And suddenly, moments swirl together,
tied like a ribbon in a Christmas Eve present.
And when unwrapped, it reveals the perfect
stanza,
line,
and word
that illustrates the work of a man:
A man is made to make memory mosaics
from a glass chip of our life art.
Sydney Sison
Artist: Adrianna Castro
74
Word 2014
Party's End
Everyone's wormy legs
wiggle waddle wonder wobble
on the dance floor.
The music
jumps, jiggles, and jives.
Bobble heads
sway into one another
before letting go.
Soda pop and beer cans
on the cloth-covered, circular tables
vibrate.
Crabbed fists punch
the blowing, booming air…
while she is tangled in the deepest darkest fenced corner
feeling his rough, burning hands
slowly, silently, slide all over.
Her eyes shut.
His hands leave her
purple and red spots
on her arms and neck…
before letting go.
Later she lays
pale, plain, painted
in slimy red puddles.
Sirens fill the air.
Red and blue lights blind eyes.
Black uniforms
carrying badges
investigate the scene.
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Word 2014
76
Just as everyone's owl eyes
search shocked, scared,
a minivan,
a phone in hand,
her mother,
bolts carelessly.
Fear-drenched tears
a woman,
D
R
I
P
she collapses
into a sitting dog position
and…
lets go.
Vanessa Torres-Celaya
Artist: Jazmen Mercado
Word 2014
Beyond The Glass Window
The fresh paint on the navy blue house that sits across the street,
highlights the red roses, hand-crafted by God, lining the crack-free walkway.
Autumn daisies, stand tall next to the mailbox labeled “RODRIGUEZ”
printed in big, black, bold letters
and blooming sunflowers chirp underneath a large clear window.
The neighborhood envied this luxury.
The front window reflects the sun’s powerful rays
onto the steps of my wooden porch.
The drapes on their window are an open zipper,
revealing a portrait above their mantle:
two adults, one child: two females, one male.
But the child’s father had the nerve to pass away
as she slept, dreaming of pink ponies.
Two dolls sit beneath their Giant palm tree, in the center of the garden:
a Bratz doll, and a Ken doll: The Bratz doll’s hair is tussled,
dirt smeared wide across its face.
A young girl rushed out of the freshly painted navy blue house
screaming “Mommy’s a monster!”
Tears roll down her doll-pink cheeks, like broken pipes
of a public water fountain.
She wears faded black Toms,
a red flannel: wide holes on the collar,
above denim Capri shorts.
Her mother, the giant palm tree,
leaves purple bruises on her left cheek,
cuts on her already scarred knees,
and holes in her right pulmonary artery.
The young girl, runs to the garden, scoops up Ken,
brings him to her chest.
Her silk lips whisper,
“I miss you Papa. One day, very soon,
I will be with you, again.”
And her plastic soul melted into the black soil,
heated by the blue sun reflecting off the glass door,
and the neighborhood envied this luxury.
Leslie Lopez
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Word 2014
Fairy Tale Lies
As a child, the truth was engulfed in pixie dust.
Nightly reads of Ariel,
a little mermaid who sold her body and voice
to be with a man she barely knew.
Fairy tale lies
Nightly reads of Aurora,
a beauty who slept for years,
waiting and waiting,
for a prince to wake her with a kiss.
Fairy tale lies
Nightly reads of Snow White
A princess, fairest of them all
naive enough to be poisoned by a stranger,
awoken by true loves kiss
Fairy tale lies
Nightly reads of Cinderella,
a maid who dreamed of so much more,
went crazy talking to mice
limited by time; enslaved by her own family
Fairy tales lies
Nightly lies sealed with each turned page
each tuck in bed
each kiss goodnight
Tonight, as her parents close the door,
she opens her notebook and begins to write.
Not about magic and happy endings that filled her mind
But the truth,
Hidden from her all her life.
Brianna Gonzalez, Shaniah Santos, Wynonah Herrera
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Word 2014
Mission 00Z
“Ten four, Roger, Roger. Private do you have a visual?”
“Negative.”
“We need a pristine bleached kill.”
Withered, rugged, flared mountains, strongholds,
across the landscape.
“50 yards closing in.”
Our mission objective is to take down codename
“Mount Vesuvius.”
“20 yards closing in.”
We move north, across a dried, cracked,
barren, curved desert. In need of Chapstick.
Above us, two inverted caves full of green goop
housing monstrous creatures inhaling feverishly.
The slightest mistake will compromise the mission.
The vanilla ice cream man is clothed in a red vine suit,
bursting at the seams.
One wrong move and BAM it's all over,
we become freckles upon his face.
“Five yards and closing in.”
The operation begins: hills and craters, guard the huge mountain.
but we are armed with Epiduo guns, hydrogen peroxide bullets.
We line up for the kill: Target in sight.
POP! like a stomped-on water bottle,
the creamy wreckage oozes from "Mount Vesuvius."
The enemy is annihilated; only a subtle scar
on the pale-skin landscape remains
as a memorial to the now popped pimple.
Mission 00Z Accomplished
Natalie Torres, Steven Banuelos, Cassie Fischer, Anthony Payan
Artist: Alexis Mercado
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Word 2014
He Lies: I Love You
He pulls me close, his hands claw machines, gripping their prize
He peers straight into my eyes,
his eyes, tree bark brown with beautiful golden caterpillars dancing in them
He leans in close, his smell of sickening sweet lavender intoxicating me,
swirling into my lungs, like soft ribbons of deceit
He presses his lips to my ear, and slowly pours in his poison words.
He lies:
“I love you.”
He who has no name
He who should not be named
He who is not worthy of a name
He who has no face, only a blank, opaque stare:
A milky white stare that becomes clear only
when his eyes were set on her,
the other girl.
But I…I plug up my ears
with the words he feeds me.
A hanging knife swings
above my exposed back, a thin string of yarn.
He is holding scissors to the string.
“I love you,”
I hear.
“I am lying to you”
He means.
Sidney Carroll
Artist: Javier Garcia
80
Word 2014
81
My Favoritest Thing
When I was a little kid, littler than I am now,
people asked me "What is your most favoritest thing
in the whole wide world?"
And I would think and think and thinkBut I wouldn't. Because thinking thinking thinking
is for the unsure.
My savior of the universe,
composed of speed and powerthe essence of manhoodfour wheels is two wheels too many.
My bike makes my mouth turn upwards
like a sunflower to the sky.
My bike is Country-Time lemonade yellow.
No need for gas, I put my foot to the capital A l (13)
I put my fingers to the brass
and drop the bass.
Forty pounds, my metal behemoth's
silver lacquer, enhances
the glow of its stained metal.
The bass drum ain't got shiitake mushrooms on it.
My tuba is love, my tuba is life.
Your love is an obnoxious loud bass
While my love is the sweet licorice tune
Of a dark chocolate violin.
I pluck the slim strings to a staccato
of vibrating echoes. A composition of lows and highs
surrounding the air. I end my final note with a bow,
this is my design.
What is my most favoritest thing in the world?
I had a car, plastic heart of electric.
I had a bike; rusted, falling apart.
I have a guitar, six strings.
No brand name,
but that is my favorite.
It does what it does.
Nothing more, nothing less.
It does what I need.
Artist: Cynthia Galvan
Luis Hurtado, Gema Montano, Elizabeth Martinez, Alec Valentino, Andre Vasquez
Word 2014
A Road Trip To Success
I’m riding passenger side in my dad’s ‘65 Ford Mustang.
My dad asks what my plans are for the future
and suddenly the road becomes an endless void.
The mouse inside me says, “I don’t know.”
He puffs up like the bags underneath my eyes,
“I don’t know isn’t an acceptable answer anymore.”
My school counselor reminds me that I’m trapped
inside an hourglass. I must escape to avoid
ending up like the women on Skid Row.
But the sand in the hourglass
tickles my neck.
threatening to suffocate me under textbook sandpiles.
My counselor asks, “What do you want?”
What do I want?
I can’t even figure out if I should order Rocky Road
or Mint and Chip when I’m at the ice cream shop.
I need, is a compass
to direct me the sun that I can not find
even though its right outside my window.
My mother says its because my curtains are black
but she doesn’t know about the dark cloud
that follows me,
that never stops raining.
I am the anxious storm waves
sculpted by the school’s misperception
that I am able to make life decisions.
When I blew out my fifteenth candle,
I also blew out my fourteenth and thirteenth
and twelfth, and, and, and...
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Word 2014
so my mother can tenderly embrace
me with gentle words.
My counselor hands me the hourglass.
two brown eyes blink away the sand,
that has crested the bridge of my nose.
Passenger side in my dad’s 65 Ford Mustang,
I search my dad’s eyes
for a hammer
that will break the glass.
Sophia Perez, Daisy Ramirez, Sarah Tisherman, Julia Vasquez
Artist: Marissa Gomez
83
Word 2014
Frames
Crevices parade down the worn edges.
hairline cracks and a gray veil
lay on the glass encased in the frame.
It hangs from a feeble, rusty nail,
stranded on a barren-blue wall.
Within the frame is a picture of a somber creature
with porcelain moon eyes,
witnessing efforts to strike a soaking wet match.
The creature is frozen in a silent scream:
kneecaps pressed to the ground, fingers woven together,
unblossomed tulip eyelids,
dew seeping from the corners, cascading onto the worn edges.
The frame trembles,
disturbing the dust, lifting the gray veil.
A slab of drywall whispers
“You will never be good enough.”
then pins the creature to the ground,
a vulnerable fly on a Venus Fly Trap.
The frame pounds against the blue
three short beats, three long beats, three short beats.
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Word 2014
The creature violently shakes to escape
a crimson restraint jacket.
Percent signs and integer numbers
slowly peel the creature’s skin off
and the letter F, crawls into skin,
wearing it like a mink coat.
The rusty nail can no longer hold the frame up.
The picture drowns in bleach.
The frame dives until its elbow meets the floor
and lands on its back.
Looking at the fish scale glass
there is no picture,
only a faint reflection,
of me reflected in the framed mirror.
Manny Cruz, Sidney Carroll, Crystal Sanchez, Destini Johnson
Artist: Javier Garcia
85
Word 2014
86
Sunset
The sky was dragon fruit
and the sun was a Chinese lantern
grazing the horizon.
She rose out of the lake
like a silhouetted mermaid.
Her Siren voice enchanted me.
She always danced in the shadows.
I never knew why
until twilight
uncovered her opaque mask
and caught me in her Medusa gaze.
Cement filled my insides
and a black sadness trapped me
in a sarcophagus of thorns.
Black ink tears fall
when I hear your now eerie crow call voice.
My eyes had set like the sun
and never rose quite the same.
-Manny Cruz
Artist: Dalia Valle
Word 2014
The Mistake
As the starving ocean swallows the crimson sun,
a dim light flickers in a Bates-like Motel.
Mother adjust her latex gloves, flexing her fingers one by one.
Peacock-yelling at her daughter to get into the bathtub, rusted and moldy.
Cigarette in one hand, brush in the other, Mother
tames her six-year-old’s red rapunzel hair.
With seizured movement Mother throws the brush into the sink,
caring not if it lands on the countertop.
With earthquake hands, she grabs the scissors,
looks over to her daughter who is holding on to her hair
as tightly as a snake wraps around its prey.
One sharp intake and Mother starts slashing, cutting, and chopping.
Like smoking rubber from a tire screeching to a sudden stop,
the daughter howls at her mom, “STOP!”
Mother, looking like Freddy Kruegar, stares into her eyes and
continues the slashing, cutting, and chopping.
Splatters of red, like Stella Rose wine,
land everywhere: toilet, bathtub, floor, mirror, mother’s shirt.
Tick-tock goes the clock, the daughter shields her face
her hands wanting to be a bulletproof jacket.
After all the slashing, cutting, and chopping, Mother looks into the mirror,
drops the scissors and says, “What have I done?”
The daughter jumps up cheetah fast, looks at herself in the mirror
and screams, “Tomorrow is picture day, and my hair looks horrid!”
Mother nods, “We should have gone to the salon.”
Mayra Aguirre, Hoyuki Iniguez, Anette Gonzalez, Itza Alarcon
Artist: Jessica Barraza
87
Word 2014
iSee
you.
I heard what you told your parents,
the slithering lie that slipped from your sinister lips
and slid into your parents’ ears.
“Andrea and I are just going to watch movies all day.”
I wasn’t fooled,
for I have heard that line before.
But you have never lied to me.
I see
your index finger pressed against your pink-painted lips.
Shhh.
Don’t worry. I’ll keep your secrets.
I’ve locked myself away from the rest of the world,
only letting you in.
I see
That pear-shaped birthmark on the small of your back,
half hidden by your low-rise denim waistline.
I see
you naked.
I catch a glimpse, yet you force me to avert my gaze.
And as I lie on my back, staring unblinking at the ceiling,
I muse over the countless images of you that I have stored away in my memory.
You sing along to Darius Rucker’s Southern State of Mind,
ignoring me completely.
In the corner I sit, hoping to catch another glimpse of your watermelon curves.
I see
him.
Electrifying jealousy rushes through my circuits.
You apply an extra coat of mascara
because he, that slime ball,
short, with rabbit teeth,
waits for you in his beetle-black, egg-shaped car
and makes you forget all about me.
I lay waiting
for you to spider-crawl back.
You, my beauty, always crawl back.
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I feel
you reach for me.
Finally.
Your index finger rests against my side,
your butterfly touch turns me on,
as you nestle me into your braided fingers.
I know that you will never leave me for long,
For I belong in your back pocket.
Until, of course, I ring
and you answer
with your sweet apple pie voice,
“Hello?”
-Marissa Armstrong, Iván García, Jennifer Guerra, Sydney Sison, Natalie Woo
Artist: Dalia Valle
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Word 2014
90
The Test of Patience
The fated quiz, the Big One, looms over me,
like the Eye of Sauron: its scorching stare
follows me to my math seat.
An inevitable fate: the destruction of Alderaan awaits me.
A deposit of tungsten develops
in the chasm of my stomach.
A disturbance in the force, the test,
sits at my desk, beaconing me.
The chained chairs hold the apprentices
who dared to trek about the horrors of this labyrinthian test.
I, too, sit in the execution chair
that bites and roars before being subdued
by my wiggly wand,
and with my cracked dagger, I cut into the test,
inspect its innards, and find teeth that mimic me.
The teacher, relaxing and watching
relaxing, and staring
relaxing, and laughing in her mind
leans back comfortably and drinks in her diet coke.
The math apprentices dance through the traps on the paper
but I ………
then, like a refreshing potion, I remember! Sine over cosine!
tangent!
The witch casts her spell
and the test clones itself.
I collapse upon my desk, pencil blunted, dead on the floor.
The hex wears off as I give the teacher my test.
the thing worse than Jar-Jar Binks is now away from me,
and I may freely cry.
The fated quiz, the Big One, far away from me,
grows distant, like a galaxy far, far, away,
while I await my fate……an A minus? Agh……
Emanuel Cordero, Zachary Hernandez, Michael Neely
Artist: Miguel Angel Flores
Word 2014
Scraped Chins Don’t Last Forever
My parents’ divorce is
the scar beneath my chin
carved on a sticky summer night,
while I was road-running around the block.
The cement grabbed my foot and my chin slid
into home plate, a homemade chin grater.
Half my open wound, my mom
scoops me up,
Van Gogh’s Scream perfectly painted on her face.
A hole,
in my chin,
in my life,
oozing, losing the raspberry blood
and my father’s attendance at family parties.
Scraped chins don’t last forever.
My mom
phones the other half of my wound.
But he,
does not care
about the hole in my chin
about the hole in my life.
He does not show up
at the white-walled mansion.
Scraped chins don’t last forever.
The doctor,
successfully sews seven stiches
to close the hole in my chin.
The hole in my life is too big
to simply “sew up.”
Natalie Woo
Artist: Bryan Guevara
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Word 2014
Pirate Loot
You, blinded by a delusional eye-patch,
search for a crescent smile upon my face.
In your twisted dream,
the treasure you seek is a bubble.
You lead a crew, in search of the chest
filled with pure golden curves
to plaster onto my face.
But, instead, you guide them to the wooden board of death.
They leap into the ocean of your mistakes and lost dreams,
clenching on to the metal anchor of your lies.
Your sidekick parrot Bermuda-Triangles your secrets
under its blunt, blasphemous tongue
as you clench another bottle of Bacardi,
barely holding your balance, swaying left and right
like a ship against a chaotic current.
Pirate, oh Pirate, what lies at the bottom
of that burned rotten coffin?
Nicole Francis
Artist: Sabrina Pastrano
92
Word 2014
93
Ode To My Paper
Teachers tell me to tattoo your tongue with a poem filled
with purple puppies dancing, with butterflies singing kumbaya,
with The Spaceman on Venus.
The Spaceman wears a red astronaut suit
with a matching turquoise tutu.
You, you little piece of snow laying on my bed,
you intimidate me.
Time melts over a car radiator into
Shaquille O’Neal-chunks of crunchy nutty chocolate
when I try to tattoo your tongue.
When I try to tattoo your tongue,
the foul stench of the maggot-filled green river water
suffocates my small room.
The Spaceman says, “procrastination isn’t bad;
procrastination won’t make your teacher mad.”
But you, you little snow ball paper
you yell for your tattoo artist.
You screech for my needle.
You holler for a new tongue tattoo of:
purple puppies dancing with butterflies singing
kumbaya with The Spaceman on Venus.
I give the biker his incomplete tattoo to grade.
But it is just one assignment, right?
right?
right?
Oliver Cervantes. Demi Garcia. Melanie Mayorga. Lindsay Rodriguez
Artist: Jacqueline Ceballos
Word 2014
Our Cocoon
We lived in a gray metallic spaceship.
Life on Earth was something outside of us.
I melted whenever her voice touched the tips of my ears.
We played like cubs, biting and scratching until we fell asleep.
Sometimes I tethered myself outside the ship
because we couldn't stand each other's company.
Sometimes she did the same.
After seven months our ship's oxygen levels fell
to the last two velvet bars of our tolerance's gauge.
She insisted on leaving so that I could breathe better.
I knew if she left she wouldn’t have long to live.
So, I held one end of the tether; she grabbed the other end.
The world was a black hole; its gravitational pull was getting stronger.
There were promises of return.
Now I float alone in this ship breathing better,
knowing that she only wasted my oxygen.
Oliver Cervantes
Artist: Jacqueline Ceballos
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Word 2014
Educational System
It’s called the “educational system”
but all we hear is the sound of the blood-stained whip
and the clanking of the loose chains around our ankles.
Guards order us to stand straight,
to follow the rules with no complaints.
We count the ninety minutes on the Alice in Wonderland clock,
careful to not make mistakes,
memorizing all the fifty states.
Sure, we get that glistening A on the test,
but we get a crimson F in the class called
Life.
We want to color outside the lines;
instead we must connect the dots,
the dots that take us to the trails end:
the decaying, wooden Pandora box
buried deep in the bog, never again opened.
.
We all turn out to be the masterpiece
painted on the same rough canvas.
-Samantha Quirarte, Hugo Martinez, Jesus Mendiola, Alex Conway, Cecily Hugues
Artist: Christian Hudson
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