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I may not be the most compelling individual
Not even the most appealing specimen,
But I am smarter
Than any man I see
Because I think with my head
Rising up,
Reaching the heavens
Tasting the dulcet air which the gods release in my lungs.
I'm not the one shrinking away
Slowly becoming invisible
Yes, I can speak this way, despite my gender.
Unlike you I can last all night—
Reading a book.
I may not have
Silk woven hair
Not even those cherry syrup-coated lips
Designed by male-controlled companies
With a "feminine touch"
I may not have the longest nails.
After all, I have better things to do
Than listen to cheap gossip
and be poisoned by toxic waste that destroys mostcreatures of the earth.
Yet I have a voice
Which paints my emotions
Freely to you,
Like a starving artist
that can do absolutely nothing
But bleed her concepts
With tedious instruments.
I may not have
Any man I desire
Or a body
Comparable to Naomi, Tyra, or Giselle.
But still
The fire in my eyes
And the passion that burns within me
Steaming flames that slowly blaze my every pore
And glow my skin.
People fall to me
Wanting to know more
About the mysterious efforts
Not made by a man.
I am proud
Of who I am
In spite of what your Cosmo teaches you.
I am a woman
Who is satisfied with herself.
Yet all youpeople
Try to break me down
An image that stares at me
With its mocking laughter
That I crush with my bare skin
And smirk in response
I am a woman.
Embrace me. I have.
Me and You Apart
by Salma Aljahmee
Weep not, my heart
I said it to myself, to my lonely part
I knew saying the words could've not set us apart
Me and you apart
Where have the words gone, who knows?
I could not say them, can't figure out the cause
Why tearing up the rose
Amlee, we are apart
You forgot me what could I say
I know I didn't say
The words that day
But could I say them today?
Still, me and you apart
I really felt pain
In every drop of blood in my vein
Since me and you became apart
I thought the lines would clash
If I said them in a flash
I said YOU and then, left a dash
But could I say them now
I promise not to quit or even put a slash
Unless you want us to be apart
Here are my words coming out
There are the words without a doubt
There are not anybody's they are not bought
Disaster my life without you
You are the one that I love
The only one I always dream of
-------
I can say the words again to the whole universe
Of course
Because it is killing me the remorse
At Fear
by Johnetta Jenkins
When I'm at fear
I wonder who
will guide me through
this pressure.
When I'm at fear
I wanna know who cares.
I'm a private shadow
walking in steps
behind my only best friend.
I'm there to guide someone
in ever so lasting.
In tempting coldness.
I'm a shadow when I'm scared.
I am the world when I'm alone.
My sorrows is the rain when I cry.
One thing comes to mind.
I'm at fear even when I'm not there
for you.
I may be sad you're unhappy
but to this world, I'll always be fine.
The Soul's Revenge
by Laura Ramirez
Two Different Directions by Veralyn Williams
They walk into a room,
And every homeboy turns his head.
And once their coats come off,
Homeboys start thinking of them in bed.
They move on to the dance floor,
And start shaking their behinds.
Then the boldest brothers step up,
And get behind them and start to grind.
The song is now over,
And it is time to move around.
The homeboys grab their hands,
And ask "are you two down?"
"Negro, please," one of them says,
"You ain’t even worth my time."
While the other one is thinking,
But damn he sure is fine.
The party’s almost over,
And they’re about to call it a night.
When the same homeboys approach them,
And ask "what up us for tonight?"
The one who was quiet before,
Smiles and says, "I don’t know."
The other girl, who’s not interested, says,
"Nothing, we got to go."
Two girls who were so much alike,
Are moving in two different directions.
One seeking stability,
The other just seeking affection.
My Autobiography
by Kendra James
Most of the time, I doubt I'll ever make a difference in someone's life or leave a mark in the world.
Most teens are in a hurry to grow up, but I'm not. I'd say I'm more of a kid at heart. I can be serious when I have to be; but I still read comic books, watch cartoons, love X-men and Spiderman, and argue that Marvel is better than D.C. I blow money on candy and the arcade; I love video games - I even still play with my old Sega Genesis.
I still wish I could fly.
But I do know how to act my age. I love to go to museums. I love animals, but I hate zoos. I love art, art culture, yet my art is less than perfect. Education is very important to me, I love learning new things, and I love knowledge.
I love literature, Charles Dickens is one of my favorites, and Shakespeare, I mean who can't get enough of him? John Steinbeck and Edgar Allen Poe, and Anne Rice. I love history, why not, I'm always living in the past?
I love reading and learning about different times. I have a weird fascination with the 1960s, Kennedy's assassination, and old music. I write poetry (not mushy poetry). My poems are depressing poems, satires, and stuff that just pops into my head.
I write songs, I play the piano, and I'm trying to learn guitar. I even learned to play the violin. I hate the violin. I love to sing - I sing in my church choir. Don't ask if I'm any good though. I love dancing - I think I know how to dance, my mother thinks otherwise.
Generally, I hate meeting new people, but I'm always polite. I do enjoy the company of people who are different, though, who don't conform to society. I always talk politics, it's never anything good, but I talk about it nonetheless (even though they say you're not supposed to). I have politics coming out of my ears.
When I entered the ninth grade, I wished for a good, memorable four years. I got nothing. I took a lot of interesting classes, and joined a few programs, tried to figure out what I want to do with my life. For a while I thought I wanted to be part of the business world. I enjoyed finance; I believed I could be good at it. But after taking A.P. government, I learned a lot of interesting things and thought I might want to pursue law.
Then I changed my mind.
I read the New York Times everyday. Maybe I'll be a journalist. I hate war, and I'd like to help others on a greater level. Maybe I'll join the Peace Corp. It's been like this forever. I must hold the record for most "career-oriented confuzzled" teenager.
Throughout life, we all learn something different about ourselves, as we get older. I'm seventeen now, and maybe, just maybe, I'll have more interesting things to write about in my autobiography in the future. That is if I don't die at an early age.
I Want A Death
by Liz Platt
I want a death that's long and slow. I want to feel death like I feel your body smell death like red wine. I don't want to sleep my death away, packed up in a coffin in a nursing home that's already dead. No, I want to taste death, bitter chocolate, I want a knock-down drag-out screaming crying die death. I want a death they'll be talking about for years. I want to see death coming and meet it half way. I want a blood death sweat death falling from the Empire State Building death airplane crashing on a mountain death train wreck reality check getting eaten by a tiger death but I don't want to die of hungry days cause it's better to burn out then to fade away. I want a "doctor, I've never seen anything like this before" death. I want to go to heaven and say "my death was so much cooler than your death" death. I want a sword-fight death, poison death, arsenic in my martini death slipped in by that old lover cause I hurt his heart so bad death. Slit wrists death last kiss death then fade away to darkness death Harai Karai death knife in the back death a drowning like Ophelia death a being crushed by a piano that's dropped out of a window death. A rope death a dope death a violin-case mob shoot-out death a death like Cleopatra. Cause if you can measure a person's life by the way they leave I want to go out with a spark in the air. I want a smooth death a fine death a white light at the end of a tunnel death. I'm an actress and I want my exit applause.
Square n
by Jaselyn n Justiniano
Emerging from my mother's cervical channel, I was a two-dimensional square—upside-down—a square— right side up—a square—tilted to the left or the right, still a square with four equal sides and four ninety-degree angles.
At age three, instead of compelling my sandbox playmates to rebel against the kiddy-leashes our mothers tied to our shirts as we left Oval Park, I joined the somber row of toddlers sitting listlessly on the eroded park bench. I gave Mommy my sleeve, to which she clipped the dreaded polyester, candy-striped cord that chafed my skin as it forced my footsteps to follow hers. Questions lingered in my mind: why did Mom tie the same cord to my sleeve that Dad tied to Sparky's collar? Why couldn't I tread my own path?
Through tempests, sunshine, rain, or snow, I maintained my ninety-degree angles and confined my emotions because I feared rebelling against my Mom. Neglecting my innate desire to kick and scream, my desire to please Mom eclipsed every emotion that compelled me to defend my inalienable right to life and liberty.
During confrontations, I'd bow my head apologetically, heeding my Catholic upbringing to turn the other cheek. At age eleven, a church elder mistakenly chastised me for throwing a crumpled paper ball at Sister Caraballo, an old hag who was notorious for viciously pinching children's arms for falling asleep during the sermon. Would I tell the elder that Sister Caraballo had it in for me since I failed to recite John 3:16 in Sunday school or would I confess to a crime I didn't commit and defiantly vow to do it again? Instead, I apologized to the wicked witch. At age 15, however, my willingness to conform changed. Thanks to my Global History teacher Mr. Tarr, my physical properties began to subtly morph and bend. Mr. Tarr inundated his students with evidence disproving God's existence. While most of the class passively accepted his theories, I researched. No matter how often I presented Mr. Tarr with evidence to the contrary, I could not sway his views. We argued incessantly but remained at an impasse. Nevertheless, I learned to question what I was taught rather than sit back, accept it, and spit it back on exams or term papers.
From the moment I was conceived until the time I entered high school, I learned the difference between fitting snugly into conventional ideologies and pulling away from them to expand my perceptions. Squares never realize how plain they are, they never realize they lack one dimension that separates them from three-dimensional shapes. Nothing fits into a square. Squares only conform to the things in their surroundings. A cube has volume. Things can be placed into and removed from a cube. I've evolved from a square into a cube.
My Neighborhood
by Sabah Aljahmee
I was born and raised in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen. Hamaza' s Neighborhood, is the neighborhood that I used to live in. It's on 45th street. It's difficult to describe my neighborhood. My house is located between a hotel and bakery. The colors of the house are green and beige on the outside, but it is very light beige on the inside. If you are inside the house, you feel that the house doesn't need a light. If you are outside the house, you would see two windows and underneath them a door. The door's colors are green and a little bit red. On the top of the door, on your right, it says "House Number 10", but in Arabic. This house is like a garden to me. I lived there for almost 16 years, from the time I was born until the time I came to the U.S.
My neighborhood is clean and has very nice neighbors. My neighbors were like my family, because I knew them from the moment that I knew life. They stood all the time beside us in our sadness and happiness.
In the front of our house, there is Alqorbany's building, which has four floors. Behind our house is Alhrazy's house, which has two departments. Of my many neighbors, Alqorbany and Alhrazy are the closet to us. Beside Alqorbany's building, there is a store, which is the store that I always used to buy my candies from. During the time I lived in Hamaza' s Neighborhood, I never thought that I would want to move to another house, or even leave it for a few days, because I always felt so safe. Especially during Ramadan, our holy month of the year. I used to feel even safer during this month.
I used to go to the roof of our house each night, because I like to watch the light of the moon. Sometimes, I used to write poems on the roof and other times just read. I never felt bored. In Yemen, I wasn't the kind of the girl who likes to spend her free time outside the house. But in N.Y, I don't like to spend my free time inside the home.
I think if you ever thought of visiting my neighborhood, you will never feel strange. You will feel that you are living in your neighborhood. I am sure that you will feel you are living between your own family. But the difference would be the language and the culture. I know my neighbors very well, they are kind and they always try their best to make the strangers feel comfortable. At the end of this simple description about my neighborhood and my neighbors, I want to say sometimes I feel sad, because I left my neighbors and my house.
Don't Buy the Hype
by Roylena Watson-Reynolds
A friend just asked me if I had the new Jordans. I'm sorry, does he mean the new $250 Jordans? It might be rude to answer a question with a question, but do you know how many groceries, how many college applications, or what percentage of my senior dues that could pay for? This is the same guy who asked me to borrow a dollar for lunch yesterday, yet he has $250 to spend on sneakers. Maybe I'm being a bit melodramatic, but to these ears, this scenario sounds like a real problem. If there is one thing that I have learned throughout my high school experience, it has been that money and expensive apparel do not make us better people, but they will definitely make us superficial if we allow our desire for them to consume us.
As a senior, I have had a few years to observe the metamorphosis that students undergo during the summer between freshman and sophomore year. They often enter the tenth grade with the mentality, "Ok, I've got my foot in the door, I've been exposed, I know what high school is all about; now it's time to create my own identity". Ironically, this new identity often consists of nothing more than an upgraded, more expensive wardrobe. But we females really go the extra mile. We must go through the trouble of losing those ten pounds of "baby fat" left over from junior high, getting our eyebrows plucked from our faces, and discovering that new hairstyle that most compliments the new "attitude." Males have to be wearing the pants in the store that sag most off of their behinds and they must have nice cologne, to impress the "ladies." However, there is one common trend between the sexes: finding the smallest book bag possible. No one wants a large book bag, they have to disguise their intelligence, they don't carry notebooks—too cool for that.
When people go through this change, true colors start to shine through. One can now identify the followers, the leaders, and those who just don't know what to do with themselves. Fortunately enough for me, that year I had other issues to work out and just missed the train to becoming a really superficial person. Instead of the latest trends, I was dealing with the deaths of my father and grandmother within one week of another, two years earlier. I had successfully suppressed my grief, but all of a sudden I found myself asking questions like, "What could I have done to prevent this?" and "how come this had to happen to me?" I didn't know how to balance those feelings with everyday demands and my focus was not on my appearance or even grades. At the time I was worried about my soul, where I stood in life, and as a result, my grades plummeted. While my peers worried about their sneakers, and believe me they did enough worrying for both of us, I was mapping out the type of person that I wanted to become, what I had to change in my character, and how I could climb out of the pit in which I found myself, as far as grades.
With counseling from friends and some introspection, I realized I could not change the past, and in the future, I would not be able to change the inevitable. Now as a senior, I know all I can do is worry about my attitude toward the situations around me and all I have to help me achieve the personal and career goals that I aspire to, are my education and the people who love me. This realization has served to help me bounce back in my schoolwork as well as craft meaningful personal relationships that are not superficial.
