WINNER:
A Personal Type of Chaos
By: Sarah Vargas
You’ve grown.
Time has stopped, but you’ve grown.
From the moment that the sun breaks the sky’s darkness though,
To when black ink swallows the setting, orange glow
You don’t feel much development
It must happen while you sleep.
The smooth hair and bright eyes from that first week are gone now
A reluctant mess greets the screen
Hasn’t that thin piece of glass seen much more than your disheveled reflection by now?
And the sadness you hold - or maybe it’s hope,
Pours from your skin
So many worries...
But maybe they’re better hidden for a while
And the paper stars that flap in the wrinkled sky
Seem so far away
They’re so brilliant
So far
Too far, it seems
And months later,
Some of the blows land softer than others, evidently.
Some of the blows reach only you, and not everyone under the blotchy, unpredictable sky.
Do you hate or love this place that you live in?
You do love this place.
But maybe it’s all the things you can’t see that you hate
The isolation, and the dead glare from pixels, and the humming of laptop batteries, and that feeling that creeps up your throat at night, because how can you possibly sleep in your prison cell?
But that’s being dramatic.
It’s only a classroom.
RUNNER-UP:
Quarantine from a South Texas Asian
By: Kiron Ang
There once was an Asian in Rome
As in Italy, the country of robes—
He stood in the streets,
And held up a read
That told racists to leave him alone.
That happened more often than not,
Asians not calling the cops—
In France or in Spain,
Or with Texans to blame,
They don't want to piss people off.
Now to continue my joke,
For ponder and prodding and poke:
Consider the reason
For claiming harsh treason
On people that so rarely spoke?!
Appears it to me like a case
Of people just being afraid!
And as I cry in my room,
Like minorities do,
Here, I try to save face.
Our country tell us that they hate US;
The countries we left don't try to reclaim US...
So why do you blame US
For coming from Asia,
When our President can't even save US.