I may smile for the camera
I might fool my friends with laughter
When I was 15 I was a bubbly, outgoing girl. I spent as much time as possible with my friends, and was called a social butterfly by many.
But underneath the lies
You will find the truth that hides

Glittering glass shards,
Ice daggers frozen hard,
Savagely darting at dark in attack;
Flash through existence,
Strike all resistance,
Shining, they shiver and shatter the black.
Silver ice swirling,
Flung through space hurling
And twisting in crystalline needle-like form;
Half flake, half flurry,
Desperate in hurry
To battle the stillness and conjure a storm.
Flecks of sharp mirror
Cracked, yet still clearer
Than water, fly frantically with no respite;
Not snow, but ice flakes

Vast is the ocean
Singing its song
Roaring and free.
Lulled by its motion
Ringing along
Silently.

I catch the waves
Slapping the sand
Washing me clean.
My soul, thirsty, craves
This peaceful land
It’s beauty to glean.

Blue is the sky
Soft are the clouds
Drifting up there.
Rest draweth nigh,
Sleep now enshrouds
Every care.

All is silence.

I'm going to be published in the coming or next edition of The Harvard Review! (a new non-fiction story) I wanted to share this news with my AP family... thank you for loving my words and giving me a reason to write. You are my audience and without that I'd have been a ship without wind (gone nowhere, haha). So much love and gratitude - Sarah

It sowed a summery seed
her voice across
the gap
of lifetimes, tape
and dreams

crackled in my
subconscious, sounding
both how I knew it would
and also like nothing
heard before
I implore
her, speak to me
she

was a spirit,
so I sense,
who struck out on adventure
who laughed freely and

Aquilus opened his eyes to silence.
Silence. Perhaps he was still dreaming of a better life, then. His mind had been screaming all night that it seemed a hallucination to his ears.
He moaned slightly. He didn’t remember much after the cheers roared louder than the wolves howling. He didn’t remember riding home, and he certainly didn’t remember how he was now in bed. The prince propped himself up with an elbow and was met with the face.
The face of his father.

You who killed because of Him-
Died for Him in the end.
You who persecuted because of Him-
Were persecuted for Him.

Could it be that such men
Can be moved by one Mover?
I listen to them silently,
Tears in my eyes.

Music made for adoration
Of the God they tried to kill.
Led by one and accompanied by many
Portray pure worship.

How foolish, how childlike,
Were they as they sang to their
Persecuted Parent?
One would never know.

When days flit by like birds on wing
And shadows lie o’er all the earth,
When silence is no longer thought
A virtue to be sought;
And when all forms of decency
Have come to end, to shameless end,
Each action disregarding that
Which moral law requires.
When all of mankind seems to shout
The end of right, of truth and light,
As they proclaim, no conscience weighs
No heart for mercy prays.
Oh! when will daylight break this night,
This night of endless hurt and pain?
Will all the earth remain untouched

Holly dropped through the familiar bedroom window, bouncing to sit cross-legged on the old pink sheets of the bed. She wrapped her fingers around her ankles, glancing up at Chiara where she sat at her desk. Her eyes narrowed. A history book lay open and idle, Chiara’s pencil rapidly tapping against the glossy paper as she stared at her friend with wide, blank eyes. Holly cocked her head, raising her eyebrows.

“So you finally broke! What was the catalyst?”

Chiara drew in a slow breath, lowering her eyes to the history book. “Well,”

PLEASE READ NOTE before reading
____
There was a moment of silence
After the movie ended
Where nobody spoke.
And I sat there, for a minute
but then it drove me away.
And I stood in the kitchen
Listening to "What a Wonderful World" play
Flighty strumming.
A man sung about how
everything was good.
And I longed to be in there.
Among the mute bodies.
Sharing in that moment.
But I couldn't.
Do it, that was.
Walk in there.
In the face of emotion.
And be the thing they watched