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Still
Every Time
Dear John
Goodbye My Friend
Downhill
Rules for
Mind Games
1. This page is for original work by students in grades nine through 12. If you didn't write it yourself, don't send it.
2. Include your name, school, home address and home phone number.
3. Each submission is published with the author's name and school. No exceptions, no pseudonyms and no initials are permitted.
4. Please, send only ONE item. The amount of space for Mind Games is limited, and we want to feature as many authors as possible.
5. Remember, variety is good. Be creative in your choice of topic.
6. Dedications to significant others are NOT printed.
7. Send all submissions to flipside@wvgazette.com.
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 STILL
We visited when we heard the baby was dead
With only a month until birth.
And I was allowed to place my hand
Over the swell of that still ocean
For the first time, and it was not my own
Not my broken thing.
Yet my cousin let me touch
The gorgeous crescent delicate and hard
Like the first carving of molten rock
Of a planet. The skin peach pink colored and creamed in green
Strokes of stringed veins.
Beneath this stretch was the dead child. A girl.
Eyelids not yet slitted to open. Curled
Upside-down like a pearl earring.
Clotted capillaries running like cherry branches
Over smooth verandas of a soft and inwardly opened skull.
Lips in a delicately wrinkled death smile.
Her heart the size and hardness of an aggie
Shelled forever and never to be flicked
Into the yawning vastness of a future sky.
Her fists curled and drifting in a bowl
Of syrup. Drifting without complaint in the tide
Of the faceless mother's movements.
Toes chipped with dead skin snowflakes.
Warm and blanketed this limp and dreaming mass
Her stomach already consuming itself.
And the child is becoming its own first meal.
Racheal Rose
Richwood High School
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EVERY TIME
Every time I ask you
What to do ... What to say
How to feel ... How to pray
I get ignored ... I get shot down
Put in the back of your decrepit mind
Every time I want you
To leave me alone ... to let me be
To go away ... To set me free
You pull your reins tighter
Tighter around my neck
Every time
I fall in love ... My heart breaks
I fall down ... I make a mistake
I get ridiculed for my decisions
Scolded for my evil thoughts
The ONLY time
I feel loved ... I feel needed
Is when I know ... he has also bleeded (sic)
And I know he is the only one
Who cares about me
Britney Harper
Duval High School
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DEAR JOHN
Once I lived to be with you, and you lived to be with me, too.
Once I cried for you, and you cried for me, too.
Once I loved you, and you loved me, too.
Once I needed you, and you needed me, too.
Once I believed in you, and you believed in me, too.
Once I wanted you, and you wanted me, too.
Once I made love to you, and you made love to me, too.
Once I died for you, and now we are through.
I took my life; I did it for you.
I only wanted to be ... wanted to be with you.
So I did what I did, and thought our love was true.
I see you've moved on, and forgotten about the past.
I never would have done that, but I thought our love would last.
I hope that you are happy with this newfound girl.
I never would have done it, but I hoped for so much more.
One day you'll wake up to realize that I'm really gone
I hope you will truly miss me, for I love you ... Dear John.
Betsy Ross
Poca High School
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GOODBYE MY FRIEND
Goodbye my friend
I won't forget the laughter
Or the smiles in the halls
I won't forget the tears
Or the screamin' on the road
Goodbye my friend
Remember the shows
And all the ball games, too
Remember the "outcasts"
And the classes
Goodbye my friend
Memories were made
Ones I won't forget
Memories are cherished
In my heart, always
Goodbye my friend
I'm leaving physically
But you're always in my heart
We are at the crossroads
But we will meet again
Goodbye my friend
I miss you already
Even though we haven't left
Never forget me
You are a part of me
Goodbye my friend
Rikki McCormick
Poca High School
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DOWNHILL
Dad once told me that if a bear
Ever charged I should run it downhill
So that it might break its legs.
And I imagined that scenario --
My two legs like slim, flesh-covered scissors
Tiptoed and running precisely sleek
In the deadly creation of speed and chase.
The rituals of prey leaving my body
Cut like a long chain of paper dolls
Mocking that moment when humans
Slipped from animal.
Saying evolution is only forgetting
The smell of another.
Thousands of years of assumed
Intelligence compacted and bunched
Nerve endings bearing pain
As it might be sour fruit
Savored by only another lonely enough to take
Or the serpent I may take in wont or love.
The trees -- graceful enough to dance
While standing still and legless
Saying you do not belong here anymore
Saying that I commit sin
Because I have those strange perfect legs
To run away from sin.
And the bear -- I know nothing of him.
His thick legs snapping to crumble
Like petrified branches.
His guts aching in hunger and anger
Tilted down toward me by a force
That is stronger than both of us.
As all planets, as all monsters
And saints I know of.
Gravity maybe, momentum maybe.
All I am is a white frightened star
That he sets his eyes on as he falls
And falls.
And I remember Eden as an explosion
Of human blood from a human fruit.
I remember that garden.
Racheal Rose
Richwood High School
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