Published WOrks
Poem for Thick-Skulled Annoyances
Published in the Blue Marble Review Winter 2023 Poetry Issue
I do not wish to speak with you
of matters great or small.
I take no joy in seeing you
when I walk down the hall.
I see the knives stuck in friends' backs
when eyes light on your face--
I will not be the fool to stand
beside you in their place.
My intuition's rarely wrong
and you set it abuzz;
I've learned by now that crazy is
as someone like you does.
I do not wish to speak with you
with any grace or class,
I wish you'd stop trying to talk
and just let me walk past.
https://bluemarblereview.com/poem-for-thick-skulled-annoyances/
Rotten Fruit
Published in TeenInk online
Icy tendrils wrap vicelike round my heart
The dread of one becoming obsolete
This terror seeks to wrench my soul apart.
As one whose fate was inscribed from the start
As rotten fruit turns brown and over-sweet
Icy tendrils wrap vicelike round my heart.
And as the shame of second place so smarts
It blooms and fruits, cloying and indiscreet
This terror seeks to wrench my soul apart.
The chasm of mediocrity imparts
The rotting melancholy of defeat
Icy tendrils wrap vicelike round my heart.
If wanting desperately were called an art
I'd be immortal, pure, without deceit
This terror seeks to wrench my soul apart.
I'll rot like fruit not taken from the cart
My happy resolution incomplete
Icy tendrils wrap vicelike round my heart
This terror seeks to wrench my soul apart.
https://www.teenink.com/poetry/all/article/1193471/Rotten-Fruit
Darlene
1st Place, Prose, California Baptist University High School Creative Writing Contest
Darlene is not okay, and everyone at school knows it. But it’s the kind of thing that never gets beyond hallway whispers because everyone has bigger problems. And whether or not she’s okay, she seems to have high school figured out. Somehow she seems to have cracked the code of high school. So if Darlene is not okay, everyone turns a blind eye. They want to be her, after all. No one really thinks she’ll do anything. Darlene is one of those people that you look at like a piece of art. She’s a jellyfish, floating and beautiful and purposeless. She does everything, and in that way she’s a blank canvas, a place for everyone to project their desires. She’s perfect: a mirror where anyone could see what they wanted to. And so nobody really worries about her. Everyone has problems, and everyone wants to be someone else. But a girl who everyone admires can’t really want anything, even if she secretly desires everything. It’s okay, though. Everyone wants her at their parties, at their sleepovers, at the study session. Smart enough to know what she’s doing, pretty enough that no one begrudges her for it. If Darlene is not okay, then no one is. But Darlene is not naïve. She’s not a virgin, not a homebody, not a snitch. She’s done everything a girl can do without being known for it. She’s not a party animal, but she won’t turn down a drink. Today, of course, is no different. And she’s with the guy she likes, but he won’t look her in the eye. Every word seems to disappoint him. It seems when you think a girl is everything, she’ll never be able to be what you want. So when Darlene’s hand slips from his, he doesn’t resist. And while he is on his phone, she is grabbing a beer. She tells herself it isn’t different, but it is. So she drinks whatever is put in her hand and dances with whoever wants her. She’s sitting on the couch and lets anyone kiss her, hoping this time there will be a spark. But instead there’s just more drinks and more boys and even some girls. She wants them to be something more, but having someone in your arms is better than nothing. She likes the attention, really. When she’s the girl everyone wants her to be, she can almost forget that she’s human, too. The hangover is brutal, but it pales in comparison to the storm. She sees herself on the screen, with her blouse open and her hair strewn everywhere. And it’s hell, because now people see her as something rather than whatever they want her to be. Darlene gets to class fifteen minutes late with red eyes and mascara trails down her cheeks. But people don’t look at her like she expected them to; where she expected pure derision, there’s judgement but also some respect. They look at her like a human, and she feels like one too. So she embraces the new persona, the rock and roll, the messy hair and day old makeup. People wanted whatever they wanted before, but this time they wanted her. So the study sessions and sleepovers fade away, replaced with house parties and concerts. Clear lip gloss becomes red lipstick. She’s a mess in the most alluring way, and people run to her like storm chasers racing after a tornado. She’s the rush, the daring, the danger. Darlene is not okay and everyone loves it. Of course it gets tiring, everything does. The shine wears off, and the once-in-a-lifetime becomes the everyday routine. People see her as more than a projection, and that means they can like her, but it also means they can hate her. And the hatred is new, and it’s delightful. She doesn’t want to be admired anymore. Darlene wants to be infamous; it’s the only real way to be remembered. Maybe she misses the adoration, but it was never real. This is. So she sleeps with people’s boyfriends and laughs in their faces and her parents see her less and less. Her grades falter but any attempts at conversation are met with blank stares and eye rolls. This is life now. There’s no future, no past. There’s a role she fits into and Darlene won’t give it up. If she’s honest, she doesn’t want to fight. Not with her parents, not with her teachers, not with the girls whose boyfriends she seduced and abandoned. But Darlene isn’t honest anymore. She’s a character, and she plays it well. She walks into her house and sees her parents stony faced on the couch. They tell her to sit and she does, but nothing more. And she just looks at them. Her mother seems tired. There are wrinkles and gray hairs she does not recognize. Her father has whiskey in his favorite glass, and he drinks it to avoid looking at her. Darlene is sure that if she saw herself she wouldn’t recognize her reflection either, which is why she’s stopped looking in mirrors entirely. When her mother speaks, her voice breaks. Her father refuses to say anything, and the silence is suffocating. Tears trace black trails down Darlene’s face, and she doesn’t wipe them. She doesn’t care who sees them. They all know that Darlene is not okay. They no longer care. So she runs because what else is there to do? What else can a girl do but run? She’s been running this whole time, after all. It’s not like she was ever secure, ever really herself. No one ever knew her, so why does it matter now? She could start all over, be someone new again. As long as she keeps running, she doesn’t have to live with the wreckage behind her. She’s the storm now. And Darlene doesn’t stop moving but she’s really somewhere else. Which means she doesn’t see the lights emerge, doesn’t notice the grass turning into pavement. And she certainly doesn’t hear the horns or the screeching. The one thing she does notice is the fade to black. She wakes up hazy and aching, the world painted in smoky shades of grey. The picture clears to clinical white sheets and blue gown and she hears beeping like the world’s most ominous metronome. But she sees her parents and for the first time in months they’re really smiling. She rubs her eyes and there’s no makeup left, none of the smudgy darkness that was all she knew. And oddly enough, there’s cards. It seems even with all the damage she’s done, there are still people who care enough to send something her way. She doesn’t know if they’re real, if they even matter. But something is better than nothing. And when her parents hold her, she feels the warmth she’s been looking for. Today, for the very first time, there’s no pretense. And they really see her. Neither the doll nor the demon, but something completely ordinary. Darlene has lived her whole life as someone else. But something about being bed bound and helpless really makes her think, makes her feel. She has visitors, some girls bringing flowers, some guys bringing snacks. They’re people Darlene knew, but they’re strangers now. So she never opens the cards and leaves the flowers in the packaging. She talks to her parents, and they help her plan one last escape. Because really, there’s nothing left for her here. No matter how much they might wish otherwise, it’s painfully clear that Darlene will never be okay here. So she embarks on her last adventure, her last fresh start. There’s no more running, no more fiction. And for the first time, that doesn’t scare her. Darlene is not okay, but maybe she can be.