“A soft pinging plays as the stewardess who’s probably been working in this airport for far too long asks, for the third time, for a passenger to give up their seat on the overbooked plane. The terminal is cold and stiff, unlike the hot and stuffy air awaiting me in 600 miles and 4 hours. I look out the large windows facing the tarmac.”
“One Sunday morning, my mind felt like a cloud of haze and dust. I had only gotten four hours of sleep the night before, and I felt myself strapped to the covers, unable to rise out of bed.”
“As my being develops and evolves in the world, so does my sense of self. The different layers that shape my identity each tell a different story, and looking back at my past experiences, I am not ashamed of who I have become despite the ever so present obstacles that face me and the countless other people that look like me.”
“I looked for Ryan all over the first floor. I couldn’t find him. I went upstairs to his room. He was probably in bed since he was sick. I entered, and I couldn’t believe what I saw.”
“There is a very fine line between reality and imagination, or in this case hallucination, but sometimes that line is so thin that you don’t know on which side you stand. It’s so hard to know and harder to find out. Are we losing our minds? Am I? Are you? I really think so.”
“Vera, in her own quiet way, had always been as proud as a cat. She never claimed superiority, never went around with a stiffly straightened back, but like a cat, she always licked her wounds in secret and never let anyone know she was injured.”
“A woman with a stroller, the baby / Kicking its feet and the aging leaves / Crunched under wheels. / Red;”
“HER EYES ARE SO GREEN THEY BURN! like the curling pages of a magazine, chemical coating dyeing the flames. The Emerald City ablaze, the serpent’s tongue, the forest floor of the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve sin and sweat. And when you look at me with them, ooh girl, but I feel it all the way to my toes.”
“I remember the day they discovered the time capsule. They first described it as a white, bowl-shaped contraption containing a golden disk. We didn’t know what it was and where it came from. Scientists studied the disk and eventually determined how to operate it. And then the sounds started playing: unfamiliar rhythms and tunes.”
“His hair is flawless; his eyes are perfect, / His music: my very inspiration, / His dreamy face is another aspect, / Singing to me in each situation, / But lighting up a smile on the faces, / Of countless devoted, adoring fan, / Does not equal knowing his embraces,”
“A dark-haired Girl with pale, lifeless eyes, no older than seventeen, but with a countenance hardened beyond her years arrived here around six months ago with no expectations and no purpose.”
“As the 1790s neared in the newly formed United States, it became evident that the Articles of Confederation — the very document that established an independent nation — had to be rewritten.”
“She knew what she had done, and that she was okay. Really, she was just fine. She had always been one to easily persuade herself of opinions she wished to hold.”
“In 1977, Robert Black walked up a steep driveway and into his one-level house in rural Virginia, expecting to see his mother in the kitchen. Instead, he saw an overturned pair of electric beaters, still dripping with cake mix, sitting on the counter. He called for his mom and received no reply. Suddenly, he understood what had happened.”
“Long, long ago, the beings of planet G-23 did not know the art of war. But the future, with its winged ships and armored spacesuits, dragged them out of their peaceful stasis. Ava Maria saw the first encounter from the port window of her room, her twelve-year-old human fingers against the reinforced glass.”
“I watch the little spots of color / Dance around the night air / Like lightning bugs / Twirling into the night sky / And disappearing from sight.”
“You have read multiple books by brown people about brown people that made you feel as though the authors didn’t really know what it meant to be brown. Still, you continue to read these books because they inspire the writer in you.”
“The breeze lifts my hair to the sky,
to the sun,
to the curve of my right ear.”
“Strawberry frosted donuts with rainbow sprinkles on top, eaten before going to the train store. Watching toy trains rush by on wooden tracks, licking the frosting from my fingers.”
“Today Is A Good Day, But Tomorrow Is Unknown,
The Past Already Happened. That’s Why I Left It Alone.”
“Listen, baby girl, I am sorry for doing that to my sister, and I told her I was sorry. I was on heavy drugs, but now I am a clean person. I have been sober for twenty-three years. I am hard on you because I don’t want you to end up like me.”
“‘Aren’t they mad though, after the last fight?’ I asked, looking out into the desert of Hell. The sky was a bloody smear across the red landscape. No demons marched over the horizon, brandishing swords. There was only the barren wasteland and the burning sun.”
“Long ago, when mankind was still young, it was hunt or die.”
“Her yellow nightdress looked as though a young woman may have worn it in the fifties, but now, it was a thing too used for this world. Her face was so deflated that her cheeks resembled nothing but shadowed caverns and her eyes were so wild and wide, that they were more white than brown.
But the rich, chestnut brown they held was beautiful— beautiful like warm brownies on a snowy afternoon; truly, stunningly beautiful.”
“Hope is a test
A test you have not studied for
A test you cannot study for
A test you will fail”
“Some people have courage
I do not always think I had it
But now I know I did”
“the birds sighed your stolen song most begrudgingly right after you left
To kiss another’s cheek”
“From a young age, the dream was planted in their minds after being packed into the bed of the family pick up truck, full of blankets and barbeque for the tailgate, as they winded down the dirt roads towards the stadium.”
“Why do i feel like i can’t breathe?!
Why do i feel like i can’t get out of this box?
Why can’t i speak?”
“When she was twelve, I was fifteen.
She wore a bunny suit. No one talked about it.
Before she was a bunny, though, she was the neighborhood cadaver.”
“Once when I asked the Worldwielder about this he smiled, gave me a pat on the head, and hinted, “non-Euclidean,” before climbing the great big staircase to the places above.”
“On the surface America maintains the hallmarks of a healthy democracy: the right to vote, the right to a jury, and the right to an attorney. But underneath this glimmering sheen of equitable justice lies a dark labyrinth of policies and bureaucracies which ensure that we live in a nation of two justice systems: one for the rich and one for the poor.”
“Fear is his ghost
It binges and gluts on a sane head
With words that are upchucks of senseless ragamuffins:
Their meanings need no coaxing”
“All of a sudden, we heard the fire alarm go off. The smoke in the room got worse. I turned around to realize that the reaction never stopped, and I finally pulled the fire alarm button and everyone went in panic mode.”
“There will never be any clear path for misery, so all we can do is to keep loving those who are hurt.”
“So, it wasn’t long before
The monster and me were tamed again
He needed someone to blame
Because the burden was too heavy for himself
The man in the monster wants freedom
But the monster won’t leave him
There is a war raging between them
I hope the man beats him.”
“He carries urgent reminders that are easily forgotten. Notes to self that are underlined and circled and highlighted. During class he sits upright, brainstorming a highbrow comment to share while small-talking his peers with a pretense of confidence.”
“Starts up going great,
Then it ends it bein late.
Sittin on the bench thinkin’ about how ima survive this world,
Almost 10 o’ clock”
“i’m sorry your tongue started bleeding
when i told you my name, given my hands
tell the same story and my back has the
same stains as a girl whose essence you once
stapled to your ceiling so if there
was an earthquake, she would be above you”
“They say what don’t kill you will make you stronger. I’m still here, so what does that mean? The hood has a way of engulfing everything in its path and spitting it back up. They say there aren’t many places for young black men like me.”
“My innermost weakness is the song that motivates and guides
the wisdom of the painting dreamer.
The official opportunities
of an endless crimson sky.”
“A Light that conquers the rest
Letting the Puzzle Pieces Really connect into Place
Letting it Fall into the shines of a Better Tomorrow.
Make A Better Tomorrow!”
“…the ones who had been hanging
from street lights and shooting stars,
who asked for help in the form
of loud music, slow dancing,
painting in dark colors, tying
red balloons to doorknobs…”