Even the bells at my high school seem to long for normalcy. I thought I imagined the familiar chime when I walked past the other day, and strangely enough, the sounds of a lost year persist. They ring announcing to no one when each class would have ended. They eerily echo through an empty school. Marking the things we’ve lost and the time we will never get back.

For the past two months, it’s felt like I’ve been missing out on my own life…

February 14, 2018
I will never know what it was like to be there that day.
Screams and gunshots echoed through the hallways of Stoneman Douglas High School.
17.
Dead.

I will never know the way the students and teachers that hid in fear,
while the gunshots sounded and bullets flew.
They held each other close,
protected by closet doors and barricaded classrooms.
Silent tears running down their cheeks.
I don't know the way they consoled each other
or the way they prayed together on their knees,
telling themselves everything would be okay
when they all knew it wouldn't.

I will never meet the heroes from Stoneman Douglas.
I won’t have the chance to shake their hands and thank them.
As they quickly ushered students into classrooms
or blocked the unforgiving line of fire,
they risked themselves,
their own precious lives,
to save another’s.

Gray and blue umbrellas navigate their way through vast crowds,
huffing loudly as they push past others.
Mumbling something about being late and the "stupid rain.”

They don't notice the reticent melody tapping on their umbrellas.

Waiting cars honk impatiently.
Creating a never ending symphony,
the director, a traffic light.
Their wipers fly back and forth aggressively,
As if they could wipe away the storming clouds
or honk away the endless drone of rain.

They don't notice the way their headlights light the darkening city.

Office building draw their blinds tightly,
for who can bare looking out upon gray skies and gray buildings?
they hold their noses high,
for they are much more important than another lousy day.

They don't spend enough time to notice the beauty of the drizzling rain

The subways groan and rattle.
Trails of rain water cover the waiting platforms,

She spent her life folded between the pages of books.
Words clenched tightly in her fists.
Her beauty laced through her fingertips.

Her name hid her story.
Unnoticed, she endured.
She was a name on a page,
a face in the crowd.
No one noticed the beauty laced through her fingertips.

She ruled over kingdoms of isolation.
Spending her passing moments in thought, 
disconnected and rejected from the world.
No one complimented the beauty that laced through her fingertips.
 
Her glazed green eyes stared straight ahead,
 her head unmoving.
She pursed her lips tightly.
No one asked her if she was okay.
Still, beauty laced through her fingertips

Her cheeks stained red.
She disappeared,
No one noticed the beauty that laced through her fingertips,
until she was gone.
Published In: The Voice
Published On: 10/11/2017
 

He looks into my eyes intently,
the corners of his lips upturned in a slight smile.
I blush, and avert my eyes quickly.
I look up again, embarrassed and awkwardly try to smile back 
and almost fall down the stairs.
 

Thursday is Pacer day.
Always accompanied with a vast number of groans and excuses,
as we pray we won’t be that kid to collapse on the ground or start throwing up.
With effort, we drag ourselves to our starting lines.
Girls in the front, boys in the back.
The familiar voice drones on and on.
Explaining the dreaded Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run.
And the music starts…
We run from line to line,
Only 20 meters.
It starts slow and friendly and then progresses to an angry dizzy dash.
Will it ever end?
Your face will start dripping and a hole will burn through your side
And you wonder what your gym teacher would think if you just collapsed,
in the middle of the gym floor,
Because that is all you can think of, besides water.
All you hear are the numbers
70…71…72…
Time doesn’t pass in minutes anymore, instead just in the endless pacer beeps

She was beautiful from the inside out,
which made her even more beautiful from the outside in. 
 

We are all scared to say goodbye to the familiar
to risk it all
We find ourselves staring over the edge.
Not yet ready to jump...

Sometimes all you need is a push

 

Shooting through the sky like a shooting star
Towns and cities disappeared into pinpricks
We darted through wispy clouds
The window grew cold to my touch

The towns and cities disappeared into pinpricks 
I gazed onto the world below
The window grew cold to my touch
Chills went through my bones

I gazed onto the world below
Hundreds of places, and people I could never know
Chills went through my bones
I grew dizzy from it all

Hundreds of places, and people I could never know
We darted through wispy clouds
I grew dizzy from it all
Shooting through the sky like a shooting star
 

The best writing advice I have received is to not erase. I think this is important and it has stuck with me for so long is because sometimes we write and we don't like what we've written so we "erase" that line or paragraph. I have been one of those people who does this, wanting my writing to be perfect the first time around, which it never is. By not erasing you are preventing this. Even if it's bad, keep the idea. You can always come back to it and make it better instead of getting rid of it nd forgetting it. Keep the idea, the line, stanza, whatever. Trust me it will be beneficial.