Writing

A SECRET

Is when you fill a bottle of water And freeze it

And the water grows

Solid ice until you're bursting

And you break

Until all that is left are the guilty shards of glass

They melt like ice

But appear sharp nevertheless

Until they break again.

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A RICE SANDWICH

The alarm clock screams in my face. ¡Despertate! Ya son seis. I run downstairs with lunch on my mind even though it's barely morning.

My ears perk up as I realize what day it is. It's toga day. I need a sandwich.

We're out of jam. There isn't any rice millet left. I need coffee. Did I remember to do my homework? Toni must be so excited for toga day. I think my phone just buzzed. Be careful and don't wake up your parents and get a sandwich before you get distracted. Stay on track. Sandwich. We're out of jam. We're out of rice millet. Just bread for toga day.

I frown and look at the thick peanut butter on the plate as I turn around and yank open the cabinet door. Don't wake up your parents. Get your sandwich. You already got a sandwich. No, you have a piece of bread with peanut butter. Oh, look, rice cakes. Now they're on the floor. Why did you grab it so aggressively? Pick that up before the dog sees it. The dog isn't here. Hey, where is the dog? Sandwich. Rice sandwich. With peanut butter. And rice. And bread. For toga day.

Hello, says mom coming around the corner. I jump and crack the rice cakes that are now lodged in shards on the peanut butter on the bread. Rice on a sandwich? Questions mom. Yes. Sandwich on a rice. What? Rice on a sandwich. For toga day. Happy toga day. I made a rice sandwich.

________________________

TO REMEMBER A DREAM IS A GIFT

Until you wish for a nightmare

Until the dreams become memories

And they turn around to face the back of the stage Stalking away, they leave the other half

________________________

THE INVISIBLE SIDE

There was nothing you could do There was nothing you could do

But when you could do something to change that You didn't.

And now you watch them and you have deafened them

It replays in your mind

You noticed

And you did nothing.

And the others were blind

And there was nothing you could have done And there is something you want to take back.

Sometimes you have no skin and when you can't remember You could have remembered You would have remembered

But you didn't know how.

You could have helped

But you didn't.

If you tried you would have And you didn't

What happens now?

What can you do now?

Nothing.

This is what it feels like to regret.

This is what it feels like to try to sleep

To try to breathe

To try to walk

But you don't know how

And there is nothing you can do.

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WESTSIDER'S BOOKSTORE

There is a bookstore, not far from the restaurant. Westsider's used and rare books, I read as we enter the door. Our sisters tug Laura's mom away like a child eagerly dragging a wagon up a road. I love it here, Laura says. I step forward and stop, absorbing the scent of old furniture and dust that smelled like attics and mysteries recalling a memory you love.

The narrow aisles next to the staircase held shelves upon shelves of old stories nobody would remember the author of. I continue walking to the back of the cave of books, and stop at a three foot tall stack of small murder mysteries. Agatha Christie. This is the kind of place that opens a secret trapdoor when you tug on a book just right, I say. I trace my fingers along the torn spines, My fingers picking up small flecks of lint that seemed to be sitting patiently waiting to be cleaned, not noticed until a hundred years.

Sec-ret tunnel, sings my friend. They gently tug at the tip of a book as it tilts until it doesn't.

I continue tip-toeing around the corner, barely avoiding a mysterious woman with a long feathery coat that looks like it took twenty seven birds to create. She frowns and finally stalks away, the sound of her heels muffled by the fringing carpet when Laura gives me a smile as they point up the stairs.

Halfway up I pause and look over the bent banister at a thousand books crammed into the tight but tall room, like my mother's socks in an overweight suitcase when she forgets to pack her bags. I continue stepping upwards until I reach the top. Secret tunnel, I say.

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ALL WORKS PUBLISHED IN THE NIGHTINGALE-BAMFORD SCHOOL LITERARY JOURNAL 2023