Poem by Mary Barsoum

She’s a colorful person, says the hand made art pieces

Exposed like a museum on the walls.

She’s a swimmer, says the swimsuits and towels hanging around the room

Wreaking the smell of chlorine;

Who likes being comfortable, posses the sweatshirts hanging on the walls

Guarded by fuzzy slippers.

She is also unorganized, says the clothes on the floor

Waiting to be hung up

And a procrastinator says the multiple alarms set on her alarm clock,

Next to a sticky note that says “get up”.

However, she is a also a driven person in tune with her future proudly yells the hospital ID,

Belonging to the local hospital.

An adventurous young lady too, says the world map on her wall

Surrounded by pictures of her journey around the world.

Academically, her strong suit is math, according the to scrap pieces of graph paper

Sprawled on her desk, covered with equations.

But what she values most, are her friends and family says the pictures of her smiling memories,

Plastered on the space left in her room.

Painting by Kathy Doherty

 This is a painting I created over the summer. It's abstract and representational of how my friend described what life is like: there are empty pathways all around different colors; there are sometimes with more colors and some people prefer some colors to others. The colors represent emotions and events in life.

Black Rose by Tallulah Fair

Black Rose

My dad is a black rose.

His dark, tattooed look disguises dads underlying glow.

With the clothes on his back raggedy as a chewed up dog toy,

And the tiredest of eyes that could sleep for a year straight,

No one can hide the strength and care that this man has, it's written across dads wrinkled cheeks.

His laugh as bubbly as they are blown,

Like Santa on Christmas, fills the house with joy.

His long beard changes from black to gray like day and night

After a long 6 to 6 work shift, 3 more gray have grown like weeds.

When his tired eyes are visible to the world

But he disguises them with his last string of hope.

That's when my heart is aching for his pain.

I begin to long for him to know how much I'm grateful for all he does.

I know he won't show it, but he's hurting.

I cry for his unshown weakness and provide him with my utmost loving version of myself.

I want him to know I am here for him, I want him to see that I care.

I wish to return all his petals that have fallen for me back where they belong.

My dad is a black rose, the prettiest rose in the garden.

Youth by Kaitlyn Alves

Youth

Life is so short, yet we always seem to wish it away

When we turn a new age we always find ourselves wishing to be older

But as we get older responsibilities come,

Paying the bills

Taxes,

And voting.

But what we don't realize is as soon as we’re old

We want to be young and carefree again.

And as we lay to rest forever we think at how short our lives were.

Take everyday as your last and don’t worry about what the future holds

Because you’ll never know when it will be gone.