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a space for youth writing on mental health & identity
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 In this evanescent scene, the gentlest of spans,
Tracing your gaze, heart's palpitations, a world in a glance.  I was a victim of the amygdala,
tongue outstretched to catch cyanide like raindrops, my eyes spiraling compases searching for the North Star.  my parents insist that you and i became friends
in middle school. they never used to see you around so often, they say; sure, you might’ve showed up here and 
Golden shovel of Ocean Vuong’s “A Little Closer to the Edge”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/88734/a-little-closer-to-the-edge
 The smell of salted meats and warm bread
Fill the air of the longhouse Occupied by the trespassers.  Dad had left to go to the game with his girlfriend. I was waiting for him to leave before I
scrambled into the kitchen to make a pasta for myself, and myself only. I told Alexa to play some music, and slid from counter to counter as I washed grape and roma tomatoes I had picked a few days earlier.  Trigger Warning: blood/bruises
Metal, kiss your lover concrete once more As rubber teeter-totters over the edge of Eden  The skittish bird flits through empty forests
and finds herself dipping and flipping until she is a bluejay.  This is how the story begins: in third grade, you decide to slit your eyelids someday. You had
never wanted something so badly. *  Trigger warnings: death, cancer, mention of alcohol
he is dying in the next room, lungs choking on life feeble body turning to ashes around the disease inside of him  Grime between your teeth, dirt under nails, oil on skin spread thick; you peel a chubby finger
from hallowed cheek to flickered cheek under eye, across nose, stomach unfurling down groin to calf to feet.  Dimming street,
Incandescent glows of youthful memories, Who sauntered through the darkened night? Who sought for peace and tranquillity?  TW: This piece briefly mentions an instance of grooming and anorexia.
What’s left of the sun peeks out in golden slivers of decaying daylight through the barnacled legs of Route 60. It’s my first time wearing a bikini, and it’s made of a flimsy purple nylon, already sun-bleached and fading.  & you should not be here pressing palms to alabaster
you are to me, the scavenged shreds of my homeland  Are not you what you see in the mirror
Are not you a shining star, full of awe, that knows its place |
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