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I wanted to reflect on the grief of seeing how friendships change once you prioritise yourself. All I do is handle...I never live. Every day I wake up knowing that my 24 hours will be on loan. I feel like I don't live my life. I get out of bed, and I start sorting out things for my Mother - mop a floor, get some wood, set the fire. I don't mind helping her, she's my Mother, but it's rarely received with gratitude. Hard work should earn me a thank you, rather than asking me to

I wanted to write about this difficult time of the year, which I feel keeps coming back, every time with a slightly different theme. November drags me to bed I have the river’s frost in the veins I feel blood burning ice expanding into the pipes into the capillaries Abyssal sounds and inaudible words underground of arctic days Behind swollen eyelids Surface’s memories flicker, underwater figures, each piercing its needle deeper, into the heart. A heart I know is mine, but I c

About the Writer: Nasta Martyn is an artist, graphic artist, and illustrator. She graduated from the State Academy of Slavic Cultures with a degree in art and also has a bachelor's degree in design. The first personal exhibition, "My soul is like a wild hawk" (2002) was held in the museum of Maxim Bagdanovich. In her works, she raises themes of ecology. In 2005, she devoted a series of works to the Chernobyl disaster, drawing on anti-war topics. The first big series she drew

This piece is about the grief of the love that never was, a grief that arrives softly like cold wind. There’s a kind of winter that doesn’t appear on the calendar. It arrives when you realize that the love you feel has no destination, only a trajectory. Like the frost that forms on windows overnight, beautiful, fragile, destined to melt with the first ray of sunlight that dares to touch it. He and I have retreated into our own inner winters. We still see each other on Tuesday

This piece is about growth and change using ice as a metaphor. I used to wonder whether ice enjoyed being stepped on. As we walked across it, thin veins rippled beneath its skin. Dirt carved small cavities into it, leaving indents and uneven crevices. I used to wonder, too, if ice liked the moment of breaking—being crushed back into a semi-liquid form, drawn closer to its younger, simpler state: water. Maybe I have too much hope. Maybe ice prefers the act of freezing, the sat

Incandescence This poem is a call to heal the transgenerational wounds passed from mother to daughter and to embrace the power of being a creative woman. It invites accepting one’s place in the light and allowing oneself to be fully seen by the world. Attend la lumière,           Avançant aveuglément,                                  Le cœur angoissé,    Par la chute.                   Libère tes mots,                                Délit ta langue maternelle,                

Silence is a poem that explores perfectly hidden rage by embodying female rage, portraying a condition in which a woman is left alone with herself and can only turn to the sky to feel her anger. In the idea that a woman is closer to nature as the bearer of life, her rage resonates in the violence of the storm, which becomes the only way for her to express it vicariously. La tempête de Dieu, Un fracassement passionnel, Un grondement insatisfait.   Ressent-il ma colère ? Il hu

Oraison is a about a promise of vengeance following the narrator being sexually assaulted, and the silence surrounding it. A poem that becomes a prayer and later a promise to oneself, allowing the narrator to reclaim her vital energy and to revolt against the condition and inevitability of her situation. Sanglante vengeance, Venimeuse, S'enracine,  me  nourrit.   Il ne reste plus rien de moi, mes pensées sont lointaines. Qu'ai-je vendu ? Le diable a entendu l'aubaine, Aveugl

Moments Fleeting is written by Fatima H. Dia. A counter to the bleakness she felt when she wrote Dear World, I Can't Sleep. There are moments, countless moments, when eternity seems bleak I wander round and round, wallow in defeat But in the depths of night, where darkness looms In the split of a second, a voice blooms It sings; There’s a story to be told, somewhere there Between winking stars and river breaths Somewhere here With frolicking winds and call

Dear World, I Can't Sleep was written shortly after the 2020 Beirut Port Explosion that rocked Lebanon's core. A literary expression of the aftermath. The explosion was a result of years of instability manifested in one literal and physical blow in which Lebanon still feels the effects of. This piece was also written to address immigrants' never-ending conflicting relationship with their home countries. I left, I did. Have you ever felt guilt so deep it embeds itself in yo

A poem written by aspiring poet Fifi I’ll take my tea the same hue as the  Finch on the feeder, And I’ll keep a life that sounds Like voices muffled by a wall. Looking out on this grey lawn, Sometimes  I wish  I’d never have to say anything At all. I can hold silence  And I can tolerate time. But I could never quite find  Words with the right rhythm or rhyme. About the Writer: Fionnuala Murtagh is an 11th grader at Marblehead High School who’s trying to understand how to move

In the midst of the genocide in Gaza, I protested using the only way I knew how to, so I wrote the words down and I hoped people would listen, but hesitated to post it anywhere else due to my anxiety of being judged by others, but I came to the conclusion that I need to be the voice for the people who can’t speak. I wrote this poem to stand with the people of Palestine and to protest against the systems that prevent aid from reaching them. As I lie here in my nice warm bed, A

This essay is about how school teaches us to follow rules, but not to question them—how we’re taught to write five-paragraph essays but...

The poem is in a confessional style, a raw outburst that showcases pain and maybe regret. It 's full of exaggeration to make the...

This personal essay talks about how, as a teenager, you start noticing little things: being told to dress or act a certain way, seeing...

This poem explores how greed and the loss of empathy can strip away our humanity. Written as a response to a world where people turn on...

This poem is a critique of systems of education and authority that condition people to obey rather than speak out, and expresses how...