Youth Poem
Untitled
by: Anna Koffskey

Look at the grass,
How it waves in the breeze.
Lithe and long,
Careless and carefree.
Roots and soil below,
Trees and clouds up high.
It basks in the sun,
Turns itself to the sky.
From seed to a blade,
Each Lawn it adorns.
Now called a weed,
It defies all scorn.
I feel the grass underneath my toes,
Whispering secrets nobody knows.

Teen Poem
Untitled
By: Raegan Jones

I grew up in a house
Where walls were thin
And voices were not.

Arguments bounced
From kitchen to hallway,
Sharp as shattered glass
Not the kind you see,
But the kind you feel
In your chest.

The bottle sat on the counter
Like a third parent.
Sometimes it was quiet.
Sometimes it spoke to her.

I learned to read footsteps
Like warning signs.
Learned which doors to close softly.
Learned how to disappear
Without leaving.

Growing up meant
Being the calm
In a storm I didn’t create.
It meant loving someone
Who was fighting something
Bigger than me.

There were nights
When I pressed a pillow
Over my ears
And promised myself
I would be different.

And I am.
Because changing
Isn’t just getting older
Its deciding
The yelling stops with you.
The chaos stops with you.
The story bends
In your hands.

I grew in the noise
But I am becoming
Someone steady,
Someone soft,
Someone strong
Without shouting.

Adult Poem
Blackberries
By: Nicole Durand
A memorial poem for my first beloved daughter, Nora Marie.

We have blackberries.

Growing wild, seeds probably scattered by the robins and wrens that fly overhead.

Hundreds of tiny bundles of sweet and sour, ripe and not yet fully formed.

We trimmed and snipped and plucked and stuck to the thorny weeds, venturing into the terrible to get to the wonderful.

I collected them gently, my hands stained with the juices, and I thought

my god

this was the color of your skin, after you left this thorny, wild world, for the next.

Your fingers purpled and blued, nails shaped just like your daddy’s. Your hands cooling in mine, tinged like a berry medley.

I wish I could find you again.

A wild surprise, sweet and a little sassy.

That shocking stork drifting through the in-between, not here or there, spreading seeds of hope, and blackberries.