A Hardy Sapling (1st Place, Judges’ Pick)

By Joel O'Flaherty

Within the blackly acrid soil of the trailer park, amongst broken glass and cig butts, you struggle to grow. Hungrily chasing glimmers of sunlight: the brightness of her smile, warmth of her embrace, an unbroken promise like liquid gold. 

These are fallow lands, yet she nurtures you all she can.

He calls you a weed, forever tangled underfoot. You’re wilted by his scowl, shrunken by his slap. And when his eyes are glassy, a kick bends you crooked with a snap, but never broken. 

She sobs as she cradles you.

‘Stop wailing,’ he spits. ‘Children are tougher than they look.’

Quotes from ‘A model for the fragmentation kinetics of crumpled thin sheets’ by Jovana Andrejevic (2nd Place, Judges’ Pick)

By Caroline Jenner

“The formation of a crease is how the stress is relieved”

Hands shielding head, she protects her face.  His booted foot hits elbow, rib, wrist.  Her body pleats and tucks itself in contrition.

“The role of a pleat is effectively to protect as much of the sheet as possible from further stress”

Carefully she plaits her hair, corrugated against her scalp, less purchase for grasping, drunken hands.

“The sheet is stressed so something needs to happen to relieve that stress”

With furrowed brow of concentration she slides the knife into soft flesh, watches him twist and crumple in wide-eyed disbelief.

When the Party’s Over

By PR Woods

The snake-like green balloons were impossible to inflate and lay limp on the sofa, full of shared spittle. Deirdre stayed after to help tidy but there wasn't much; pass the parcel – an hour of wrapping for a minute of tearing – and pizza trodden into the rug.

“Why didn’t Daddy come to my party?” she asked. Deirdre took that as her cue to leave. 

I wanted to say, ‘you’ll get over it, kiddo; I did’. 

But instead I wrapped her up in my arms like my own pass the parcel, and promised her he’d come next year.

My Body is not a Temple

By Anna Sharples

My body is a cabin far from the village

Built by my own hand

With hardened, weathered logs—

So it never falls.

The inside is barren and cold.

Hot rain warms the glass

And storms cause it to shake—

But it never falls.

The wind whips up a prison

To keep secluded from the world

This wooden hut of sorrow—

And it never falls.

When the storms pass on by

And the sun dries the rain

Only scratches remain—

Because it never falls.

Bitter Lemonade

By Kelli Johnson

My life’s never been a storm you could weather, be you steel-spined or tougher than leather.

No great crusade or ‘battle well-fought’—just remounting a horse that’s bucking me off.

Don’t mean to spill milk o’er my own sorry lot. I just think it’s sad and should not be forgot, how

whenever a rubber ball bounces too high, it’s quickly abandoned, presumed lost in the sky.

Everyone tells you to hang in there, right? But lately that rope is a little too tight.

Fall seven times? Sure, then stand up eight—but nine, ten, eleven…

…may just seal my fate.

Life in Color

By Camsyn Clair

I was born with skin darker than paper bags and hair that laughs at anyone who dares attempt to tame it. It puffs into a ‘fro unless coaxed into locs, which you call dreadlocks when there’s nothing dreadful about them. 

Or about me.

You call my mother aggressive if she stands her ground and my father dangerous if he flees, even when his hands are up. Your pervasive lies seep through my skin and fill me with self-doubt.

But my people know better. They uplift me, and I watch you gape when, despite your words, I declare:

I love myself.

Wrung Out

By Louise Walton

I’m folding laundry at home after school.  My pyjamas. Papa's shirt. Karl's socks. Mama's worn scarf. The jasmine detergent never quite erases that familiar garlic aura, but they're clean. Safe.

Only a short while ago they tumbled around, wet, grotty and battered, dragged again and again into the foaming currents of unrest, homelessness, callous border-laws and patched-up dinghies. Black winds overhead and cold graves below.

Pavel's vest. Karl wears it now.

A new load finishes. The clothes are wrung out, stretched to their limit. But they'll mellow in the afternoon sun, returning to shape as they remember warmth again.

A Candle in the Window

By Felipe Orlans

A tall candle braves the night - a bright flame burning, welcoming the weary traveller home.

A lone light fluttering in an evil wind.

A fruitless vigil, as a shallow grave lies cold by the wayside, unmarked.

In the morning, a congealed puddle of melted wax is sole witness to dreams lost,

Once burning, filled with hope and yearning.

Come nightfall, she’ll light another candle.

Try Again, Again

By Christy Hartman

Yesterday Caroline brought my sweet nephew to visit. My anguish covets her bliss; I smile and shush my shattered heart. Jealousy burns crimson, like tearing flesh. 

Today I returned to work. Three days is enough, right? My second customer screamed her disappointment. “Not mad at you dear, but what about customer’s always right?” Missing the return-by date for jeans is tough. So is my baby dying inside me. “Yes ma’am.”

Tonight, my husband whispers the perfect things; his words are entirely inadequate. His grief is valid. Mine is inescapable. Our fuse is short. I’ll try again, again.

The Weeds Will Survive Us

By Nancy Gerrard

I’m learning resilience from the weeds, told time again of their unwantedness. Chickweed, nettle, yarrow and burdock. Feverfew, meadowsweet, borage and clover. 

They know their worth. 

Still, they won’t refuse to soothe an old arthritic joint, flush out a cold, build up bones and tend to broken skin.

Picked and cut, drowned and burned, plucked and snipped. Forgotten.

They will grow through the cracks long after there are no more hands to tend.

Summer Break

By Bonnie Callahan

I cuddle into the blanket my nan knitted for me, my bubblegum pink stainless-steel cup, filled with iced ginger tea and plastered in Taylor Swift stickers, tucked in beside me. 

My heart aches with the urge to cry almost as violently as my gut convulses with the urge to vomit.

The Red Devil, a poisonous, melted-popsicle-colored punch, drips directly into my heart through a door the doctors built beneath the soft cotton of my Camp Marley t-shirt.

You are a warrior, they tell me.

I wish I believed them.

Six more rounds. Surviving until senior year will be my victory.

What Remains Of Us

By Josefine Goldapp

When the fire had died and the dust settled, roots started breaking through tar and cement.

Buildings had collapsed, reducing cities to glass and stone.

Water flooding tunnels and tracks, drowning out what used to be. Our so-called legacies, fading away, without anyone left to cling onto them.

Now there is an evergreen covering 9thstreet. And a flower growing from the cracked wall of my first apartment. Two fawns stroll through an empty theater.

And for a bright and horrible and wonderful instance we were here. Holding hands in places now covered in moss, places so empty they are blooming.

The Freezing Hand Game

By Emma Moran

I drive overnight to Dad’s. Ruth’s in the kitchen, holding a book he’ll never finish.

‘I can’t…’ she says.

I think back to long childhood car journeys, inventing games to pass the boxed-in hours. We’d slide hands out the window and see who could leave theirs longest, enduring icy rain needles, Dad singing ‘Call meeeeee Al!’ to distract us. The winner would make a show of reviving their frozen, dead hand.

I fetch ice-cubes from the freezer; place one in each of our hands. We clutch our ice-cubes and each other; watch water drip onto the linoleum until they’ve melted.

Searching for Crumbs

By Jan Sargeant

Wrinkled breaths pause as commas. Words tumble through grey brain fog to land in a heap on the page, stumbling and fumbling to be heard, grasping and gasping, seeking only the stillness of understanding wrapped in that bag of frozen peas. You pray as you kneel, memory crumbling like the crust of the pie now shattered across the floor, scuttling from hands which refuse to admit defeat, even while hot laughter creeps through that crack in the wall and points its long gnarled finger at you. You meant to fix that, and you will. Tomorrow.

The Violet

By Robert Burns

Amelia sat alone in her sweatpants and reset the phone in its cradle, another date declined. The tired face in the dressing mirror mocked her. She’d grown older, uglier.

“What’s wrong with me,” she asked the dead African Violet on the nightstand, a gift from him. A houseplant she’d killed along with his affections—another casualty of their doomed love affair.

The violet beckoned. Drawing near, Amelia found a new sprout poking its sleepy head above the soil.

She sat back. “Well, good for you! Still alive.”

Amelia smiled. “Now, what should I wear to the party tonight?”

Seasoned

By Sally Tate

Now there is only softness. Our limbs twine together, then lean into the autumn wind as it thickens with chainsaw and wood smoke.  

We know that winter will come, press all the bright things back to earth, but we do not grieve the sun. The sweetest apples are also the heaviest and we have learnt to let them fall.

When the time comes, we’ll reach for each other, blind fingers feeling for scar and ring.  In the darkness we’ll spin a whispering web, spread tendrils of warmth, weave root, with earth, with leaf.