Friday, June 3, 2011
2011 Edition
Thanks to all the students and teachers who helped create this edition, especially Caroline W., Olivia A. and Lauren C. The banner design is by Ellie Z. this year. There is a lot of creative talent at Cave Spring High School. Keep it up! Please let me know of any errors or ommissions: apfeiffer@rcs.k12.va.us.
When Choosing a Path Before Me by Anna A.
When choosing a path before me,
I stand still and alone.
I drift not where the winds shall blow.
Solid, I stand like stone.
Before, decisions took so long,
They lingered in the air.
The difference between right and wrong,
Now kept with love and care
One must commit to fully be.
Failure is not disgrace.
When we lose we finally see,
Life’s sudden change of pace
The world is different than before,
Invest your soul in life.
With happiness and nothing more
We forget bitter strife
I stand still and alone.
I drift not where the winds shall blow.
Solid, I stand like stone.
Before, decisions took so long,
They lingered in the air.
The difference between right and wrong,
Now kept with love and care
One must commit to fully be.
Failure is not disgrace.
When we lose we finally see,
Life’s sudden change of pace
The world is different than before,
Invest your soul in life.
With happiness and nothing more
We forget bitter strife
30 Minute Musings by Colleen T.
They are ants, and I am the child with the magnifying glass.
But that isn’t right, I muse. It’s overused. Overrated. A child with a magnifying glass has little power, other than the ability to roast an insect from the inside out and watch it writhe, with the option of total disinterest. I am no child with a magnifying glass, I think, dragging my left foot on the ground, feeling the rough concrete pull against the calluses on my toes. I am no god, either. No ultimate, over lording figure pondering my creations. I chew on the straw that leads to my small box of apple juice, watching someone—a tall, tan girl—pick at her nails as she chats with a boy. Both are four floors beneath me. I can’t hear the entrails of their conversation, nor even really pick out any words. Simply various laughs and shrieks as I rub my tired eyes.
I’ve already tried speaking to someone new, merely because I couldn’t find a friend. The talk was short lived, with my seemingly unwilling partner averting my gaze, as I tried to follow through with the basics I’ve learned from television and my mother. Something light, generic, said with a smile and enough personal space given. Perhaps my smile showed too much teeth, or my voice was uncomfortably, unnaturally happy, for all I was given back were curt answers and a tightening of the arms around the body, as if I were somehow going to do harm.
I think on it now, as I brood on my status and these moving colors beneath me. It seems all of my first impressions end up portraying me as the candy wrapper mistakenly hung in the Louvre. There are better options than my awkward silences and my outbursts of hyperactivity. I remember being asked if I was bipolar. The question seemed foolish and strange.
“No,” I replied, and left it at that, perplexed. The thought now makes me smile, and I drag up more juice, swishing it around my cheeks. I am many things, but not bipolar, nor a god, nor a bored child on a hot summer day. I contemplate this. If I am none of those, then what ultimately am I? A breeze passes through, and I tap my fingers on the peeling railing, peering down and being somewhat bothered that there are so many beating hearts down there, and then there is mine, pulsating to its own discomfited rhythm up here. Of course, I am the girl in a blue cotton dress on the top floor with an apple juice box, unable to find her friend and resorting to comfort through the evening light and imagining conversations I will never have. But I should be more than that.
I should be better than that.
There is no pride in where I am. This time spent reflecting on such subjects is something to be ashamed of. I should be down there with them. I should be them. Laughing and shrieking and striking banter with cute, sensitive boys. I should practice smiling for people and looking them in the eye, instead of wandering barefoot on concrete floors trying not to pass by the same people twice.
I am frowning as I come to the realization that I don’t know exactly who I am. The sun is setting when I learn that all that I am is a girl leaning over the railing, dragging my feet along the floor, and praying someone will bother to say ‘hi’. Someone is blowing bubbles down below as I discover that I am nothing that I have imagined myself to be. I am no universe with stars. I am no tree in fall. I am no god reviewing creation. I am no child with the intention to kill.
I am a girl, freshly out of juice, supporting myself on a paint-chipped railing and pulling my feet along the concrete floor, contemplating who I am.
But that isn’t right, I muse. It’s overused. Overrated. A child with a magnifying glass has little power, other than the ability to roast an insect from the inside out and watch it writhe, with the option of total disinterest. I am no child with a magnifying glass, I think, dragging my left foot on the ground, feeling the rough concrete pull against the calluses on my toes. I am no god, either. No ultimate, over lording figure pondering my creations. I chew on the straw that leads to my small box of apple juice, watching someone—a tall, tan girl—pick at her nails as she chats with a boy. Both are four floors beneath me. I can’t hear the entrails of their conversation, nor even really pick out any words. Simply various laughs and shrieks as I rub my tired eyes.
I’ve already tried speaking to someone new, merely because I couldn’t find a friend. The talk was short lived, with my seemingly unwilling partner averting my gaze, as I tried to follow through with the basics I’ve learned from television and my mother. Something light, generic, said with a smile and enough personal space given. Perhaps my smile showed too much teeth, or my voice was uncomfortably, unnaturally happy, for all I was given back were curt answers and a tightening of the arms around the body, as if I were somehow going to do harm.
I think on it now, as I brood on my status and these moving colors beneath me. It seems all of my first impressions end up portraying me as the candy wrapper mistakenly hung in the Louvre. There are better options than my awkward silences and my outbursts of hyperactivity. I remember being asked if I was bipolar. The question seemed foolish and strange.
“No,” I replied, and left it at that, perplexed. The thought now makes me smile, and I drag up more juice, swishing it around my cheeks. I am many things, but not bipolar, nor a god, nor a bored child on a hot summer day. I contemplate this. If I am none of those, then what ultimately am I? A breeze passes through, and I tap my fingers on the peeling railing, peering down and being somewhat bothered that there are so many beating hearts down there, and then there is mine, pulsating to its own discomfited rhythm up here. Of course, I am the girl in a blue cotton dress on the top floor with an apple juice box, unable to find her friend and resorting to comfort through the evening light and imagining conversations I will never have. But I should be more than that.
I should be better than that.
There is no pride in where I am. This time spent reflecting on such subjects is something to be ashamed of. I should be down there with them. I should be them. Laughing and shrieking and striking banter with cute, sensitive boys. I should practice smiling for people and looking them in the eye, instead of wandering barefoot on concrete floors trying not to pass by the same people twice.
I am frowning as I come to the realization that I don’t know exactly who I am. The sun is setting when I learn that all that I am is a girl leaning over the railing, dragging my feet along the floor, and praying someone will bother to say ‘hi’. Someone is blowing bubbles down below as I discover that I am nothing that I have imagined myself to be. I am no universe with stars. I am no tree in fall. I am no god reviewing creation. I am no child with the intention to kill.
I am a girl, freshly out of juice, supporting myself on a paint-chipped railing and pulling my feet along the concrete floor, contemplating who I am.
Mebby by Colleen T.
We have taken our fears and strung them through with red strings, and looped them around our necks together.
We have pulled flowers from dirt and shaken them and smoothed out ruffled petals together, coloring them in with old crayons and creating something beautiful.
We have, together, been shoved in the corners of people’s minds along with the subconscious like how they need to buy milk this Tuesday, and the regret they still feel when they see a dead squirrel along the side of the road.
I have written down on napkins everything I hate and everything I love, and all of my half-formed, awkward philosophies I have printed on the bottoms of my shoes, and presented it all to you in a cardboard box, tied up with my perpetual confusion, and you have accepted it.
We have come a long way, you and I. I am no longer the weak, underexposed child who sank into that plush red chair, trying to get my hair to cover my face, so no one could see that I was about to cry. The people we know and the people we don’t know are no longer the people who passed by me, uttering a half-hearted “you okay?” and leaving the moment I mustered out a choked “fine”. You, yourself, are no longer the girl who didn’t leave after most figured their duty to their fellow man had been completed. You are no longer the girl who sat by and worked through my bumbling sentences and fat tears to understand.
I had not talked to you before that, but suddenly, you had become my life line. And so I clung to you, and, to my luck, you who are no longer the you you once were did not abandon me, and, for that, I am indebted to you for forever and a half.
We have become something of a pair, a disjointed partnership. The energy I force upon you, with my shrieks and my smiles and my obnoxious laughter, is tenuously balanced out by your never-failing composure and your grace and the sound of you saying my name like a mother would scold a child.
We have taken the wire they cut clay with, and cut ourselves into delicate chunks, and shared one another with one another as we try to get a feel for another human being, another piece of support. I have watched you fall apart and grow again, as you have witnessed my taped-together serenity shatter without notice. I have seen you become who you are, and I hope desperately to see who you become and who you will be and if you will rescue any other girls sinking into a plush red chair that defines themselves. I hope you are happy, and I hope you are smiling when you die. And I hope I die before you, because summing you up in a eulogy would be impossible, and, as you know, I don’t handle that sort of pressure with any semblance of poise.
So here’s to you, Mebby. Here is my heart and my soul and my flesh and the blood that slips about underneath it all. Here is me, not the same me you rescued, but me nonetheless. And I think of all it took to bring us together, and I thank the God we both occasionally believe in for tears.
We have pulled flowers from dirt and shaken them and smoothed out ruffled petals together, coloring them in with old crayons and creating something beautiful.
We have, together, been shoved in the corners of people’s minds along with the subconscious like how they need to buy milk this Tuesday, and the regret they still feel when they see a dead squirrel along the side of the road.
I have written down on napkins everything I hate and everything I love, and all of my half-formed, awkward philosophies I have printed on the bottoms of my shoes, and presented it all to you in a cardboard box, tied up with my perpetual confusion, and you have accepted it.
We have come a long way, you and I. I am no longer the weak, underexposed child who sank into that plush red chair, trying to get my hair to cover my face, so no one could see that I was about to cry. The people we know and the people we don’t know are no longer the people who passed by me, uttering a half-hearted “you okay?” and leaving the moment I mustered out a choked “fine”. You, yourself, are no longer the girl who didn’t leave after most figured their duty to their fellow man had been completed. You are no longer the girl who sat by and worked through my bumbling sentences and fat tears to understand.
I had not talked to you before that, but suddenly, you had become my life line. And so I clung to you, and, to my luck, you who are no longer the you you once were did not abandon me, and, for that, I am indebted to you for forever and a half.
We have become something of a pair, a disjointed partnership. The energy I force upon you, with my shrieks and my smiles and my obnoxious laughter, is tenuously balanced out by your never-failing composure and your grace and the sound of you saying my name like a mother would scold a child.
We have taken the wire they cut clay with, and cut ourselves into delicate chunks, and shared one another with one another as we try to get a feel for another human being, another piece of support. I have watched you fall apart and grow again, as you have witnessed my taped-together serenity shatter without notice. I have seen you become who you are, and I hope desperately to see who you become and who you will be and if you will rescue any other girls sinking into a plush red chair that defines themselves. I hope you are happy, and I hope you are smiling when you die. And I hope I die before you, because summing you up in a eulogy would be impossible, and, as you know, I don’t handle that sort of pressure with any semblance of poise.
So here’s to you, Mebby. Here is my heart and my soul and my flesh and the blood that slips about underneath it all. Here is me, not the same me you rescued, but me nonetheless. And I think of all it took to bring us together, and I thank the God we both occasionally believe in for tears.
Rats by Colleen T.
I am seven years old when I witness my first murder.
It is early spring in Georgia. The ground is mush and the day is overcast. So far I have spent my time drawing mermaids in the storage closet on the second level. My mother is cleaning out the garage.
I am reworking a scaled tail as Patrick throws open the door, leaning over on his knees, his chubby face matching his cropped orange hair. I have to come downstairs, he says. Mommy found something.
I refuse at first, intent on making sure the fins of my mermaid are proportional, but he grows indignant. Mommy found something, he repeats. She found rats. Don’t I want to see the rats?
I abandon my mermaid to follow him.
My brother and I weave through the mess of the garage in sock-clad feet, mindful of fallen screws and nails. We stop as we reach my mother’s thighs. She’s standing above a frayed cardboard box in the middle of the driveway, filled with her old work papers. I don’t see any rats. I’m ready to go back inside. But Patrick shrieks and points. Rats! Rats! A sleek shot of gray dashes from one edge of the box to another. I ask if we can keep them. My mother is adamant. Rats are dirty, disgusting nuisances. We will not be keeping them.
Mr. Tarpley wanders over to stand across from us, peering down into the box after a quick spit on the gravel. Yup. You have rats. He wheezes and laughs, rubbing his right hand against a stained denim jacket. He pushes his glasses up and calls for his son. Matthew appears in the doorway of our neighbor’s home, tall and nearly sixteen now with a brown buzz cut and wide cheeks. Mr. Tarpley leans forward yelling the Truskeys have them some rats, and he needs a gun. He turns back around again.
He bends over, and sticks his hand in the box, flipping over shredded and discolored charts. I gasp. My brother tries to get a closer look, but my mother’s sharp-nailed hand grips his shirt. A bundle of baby rats, all sleek fur, bolt in various directions. I’m desperate now. I want one. But my mother repeats herself. No rats. Rats aren’t pets.
Matthew arrives now, smiling, with two handguns and a packet of bullets especially made for shooting rodents. Mr. Tarpley grabs one of the firearms from him, loads and cocks it. My mother pulls my brother and I back to the garage.
Matthew and Mr. Tarpley are ready now, pointing at the box with glossy pistols, Mr. Tarpley’s foot resting against the edge. He counts. One. Two. Three. The cardboard box is flipped over and suddenly baby rats are scurrying frantically in all directions. A blast, the box jumps, papers flying. I shriek. The first gunshot is followed by another, and pellets are flying off of the driveway, rats are leaping and falling dead all in the same moment. Matthew is nearly shot in the foot in the chaos, trying to escape the rats himself. But Mr. Tarpley stands firm. He notices a shadow to his left, and shoots a final time in its direction. The last rat collapses, limp. Mr. Tarpley lets out a scraggly laugh.
You don’t have no rats anymore, he says, and spits.
It is early spring in Georgia. The ground is mush and the day is overcast. So far I have spent my time drawing mermaids in the storage closet on the second level. My mother is cleaning out the garage.
I am reworking a scaled tail as Patrick throws open the door, leaning over on his knees, his chubby face matching his cropped orange hair. I have to come downstairs, he says. Mommy found something.
I refuse at first, intent on making sure the fins of my mermaid are proportional, but he grows indignant. Mommy found something, he repeats. She found rats. Don’t I want to see the rats?
I abandon my mermaid to follow him.
My brother and I weave through the mess of the garage in sock-clad feet, mindful of fallen screws and nails. We stop as we reach my mother’s thighs. She’s standing above a frayed cardboard box in the middle of the driveway, filled with her old work papers. I don’t see any rats. I’m ready to go back inside. But Patrick shrieks and points. Rats! Rats! A sleek shot of gray dashes from one edge of the box to another. I ask if we can keep them. My mother is adamant. Rats are dirty, disgusting nuisances. We will not be keeping them.
Mr. Tarpley wanders over to stand across from us, peering down into the box after a quick spit on the gravel. Yup. You have rats. He wheezes and laughs, rubbing his right hand against a stained denim jacket. He pushes his glasses up and calls for his son. Matthew appears in the doorway of our neighbor’s home, tall and nearly sixteen now with a brown buzz cut and wide cheeks. Mr. Tarpley leans forward yelling the Truskeys have them some rats, and he needs a gun. He turns back around again.
He bends over, and sticks his hand in the box, flipping over shredded and discolored charts. I gasp. My brother tries to get a closer look, but my mother’s sharp-nailed hand grips his shirt. A bundle of baby rats, all sleek fur, bolt in various directions. I’m desperate now. I want one. But my mother repeats herself. No rats. Rats aren’t pets.
Matthew arrives now, smiling, with two handguns and a packet of bullets especially made for shooting rodents. Mr. Tarpley grabs one of the firearms from him, loads and cocks it. My mother pulls my brother and I back to the garage.
Matthew and Mr. Tarpley are ready now, pointing at the box with glossy pistols, Mr. Tarpley’s foot resting against the edge. He counts. One. Two. Three. The cardboard box is flipped over and suddenly baby rats are scurrying frantically in all directions. A blast, the box jumps, papers flying. I shriek. The first gunshot is followed by another, and pellets are flying off of the driveway, rats are leaping and falling dead all in the same moment. Matthew is nearly shot in the foot in the chaos, trying to escape the rats himself. But Mr. Tarpley stands firm. He notices a shadow to his left, and shoots a final time in its direction. The last rat collapses, limp. Mr. Tarpley lets out a scraggly laugh.
You don’t have no rats anymore, he says, and spits.
It’s Too Bad by Anonymous
It’s too bad,
That you lost the moon,
While looking for the stars.
It’s too bad,
That you never really knew,
What you had.
It’s too bad,
That you heard the squawking seagulls,
Over the soothing sea.
It’s too bad,
That you can’t put your life in drive,
Living,
But not alive.
It’s too bad,
That you think this life,
Is all you really have.
That you lost the moon,
While looking for the stars.
It’s too bad,
That you never really knew,
What you had.
It’s too bad,
That you heard the squawking seagulls,
Over the soothing sea.
It’s too bad,
That you can’t put your life in drive,
Living,
But not alive.
It’s too bad,
That you think this life,
Is all you really have.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
The Anniversary by Zev W
T’was exactly one year ago
On a trip overseas, I would go
Understanding my roots,
In a tie and a suit,
My other worries, I’d forego.
Visit death camps in Poland, we did
And learned stories of those who hid
From the flames of hate,
From the Auschwitz gate,
From those too blind to save a kid
This blindness and hate, I could not believe.
The pleasure they got watching others greave
Behind their curtain of federal power,
Their mask to make the citizens cower,
Many innocents, they would bereave.
When we returned home, my friends and my peers,
We went back our lives, without any cheers
We could never forget
The infamous threat
With which only love can interfere
On a trip overseas, I would go
Understanding my roots,
In a tie and a suit,
My other worries, I’d forego.
Visit death camps in Poland, we did
And learned stories of those who hid
From the flames of hate,
From the Auschwitz gate,
From those too blind to save a kid
This blindness and hate, I could not believe.
The pleasure they got watching others greave
Behind their curtain of federal power,
Their mask to make the citizens cower,
Many innocents, they would bereave.
When we returned home, my friends and my peers,
We went back our lives, without any cheers
We could never forget
The infamous threat
With which only love can interfere
Serenity by Will G.
Take me to the place I want to be
An unknown land or an unchartered sea
Take me to the place that I need
A serene, beautiful, worthy, life I would lead
Take me to the place where I can rest
Away from the imperfect life I detest
Take me to the place where I can consider and comprehend
A place where no one ever meets a bitter and cold end
Take me to the place where we can drink from the fountain of youth
Sit under the sun and let our thoughts become aloof
Take me to the place where there are no worries
And our lives aren’t moving in such a hurry
Take me to the place of promise and good will
Where all our promises will be fulfilled
This truly is the place that I want to be,
Somewhere, somehow this place will come to me
Would a Red, Red Rose? by Anonymous
Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains
Shackled to trite genius.
To persist with eyes that belongs to others
Is to dwell in the forest of shadows, the valley of despair
Would the sun glow any less brilliantly,
o, if thy neighbor worshipped the moon
Man, destined to imbibe the ambrosia of freedom,
drinks from the tainted well of conventional wisdom
The Nectar of life is sweeter
When it is thy Nectar
Be the dam, the iron arbiter of greatness
And allow greatness only to flow from greatness
like a wild river, if thou desire
Think, for the sanest of all is nothing more than the voice in thyself.
Shackled to trite genius.
To persist with eyes that belongs to others
Is to dwell in the forest of shadows, the valley of despair
Would the sun glow any less brilliantly,
o, if thy neighbor worshipped the moon
Man, destined to imbibe the ambrosia of freedom,
drinks from the tainted well of conventional wisdom
The Nectar of life is sweeter
When it is thy Nectar
Be the dam, the iron arbiter of greatness
And allow greatness only to flow from greatness
like a wild river, if thou desire
Think, for the sanest of all is nothing more than the voice in thyself.
My World by Laura P.
They are screaming
So many voices all trying to make me listen
How can I choose when to listen?
They all seem to be valid but
I don’t know which one is real and which one is deceiving me
Except One
One is out there calmly speaking
A voice pure and true
But the other voices try to hide it from me
I want nothing more than to listen to that one voice
My head is hurting too many voices
The voices of the world
I yearn for that voice; the only one that is truth
They are trying to crush me, trick me, conquer me
The voices are confusing
My heart is aching for that voice
Sorting through the lies, the deception, the screaming
That voice of truth is calling me but I’m lost!
How can that voice be found in all of the chaos of the world?
The other voices try to lure me away
I know what I want though
In my heart I know my soul needs that voice
When I find it the other voices can deceive me no longer
How can I find the path to that voice?
So many voices all trying to make me listen
How can I choose when to listen?
They all seem to be valid but
I don’t know which one is real and which one is deceiving me
Except One
One is out there calmly speaking
A voice pure and true
But the other voices try to hide it from me
I want nothing more than to listen to that one voice
My head is hurting too many voices
The voices of the world
I yearn for that voice; the only one that is truth
They are trying to crush me, trick me, conquer me
The voices are confusing
My heart is aching for that voice
Sorting through the lies, the deception, the screaming
That voice of truth is calling me but I’m lost!
How can that voice be found in all of the chaos of the world?
The other voices try to lure me away
I know what I want though
In my heart I know my soul needs that voice
When I find it the other voices can deceive me no longer
How can I find the path to that voice?
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