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cassie
by Maddie Maschger
i think i talked myself into a self-fulfilling prophecy again
like some self-righteous modern day cassandra
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Ten Years (and why I still talk about Nico di Angelo all the time)
by Daisy Solace
It’s 2013. I’m 11, living in Saudi Arabia, and anticipating House of Hades’s release with bated breath, counting down the days. It’s all I talk about, my best friend is getting sick of me. I’m insufferable, and I like it. I haven’t been into Percy Jackson for very long — just about a month by this point, but it’s found its space in my head and settled there.
As a kid who had always felt ALONEALONEALONEalonealonealone, it’s nice to read about a boy who’d changed schools so much that he has no friends, except for the one whose job it is to protect him. It’s nice to read about a boy who knows the truth: that the best people have the rottenest luck. It’s nice to read about a boy who, despite this, fights. After rows upon rows of pleasant protagonists, there’s a certain level of solace (pun intended) in Percy Jackson. He’s not easy. He’s not agreeable. He’s angry, rowdy, and, as Percy would come to say in the musical, impertinent. As a fellow impertinent child, I’m delighted.
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3 poems
by Belana Beeck
There are many secrets here we must discover
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As everything seems to be undercover -
Sand Angels
by Darcy Duncan
Into the dark we swim.
You tell me your name underwater.
It sounds different than it did on land.
More like mine: anonymous.
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A Flare
by William Doreski
A flare on a dark horizon
draws our attention inland.
Something metallic is happening,
something more primal than war.
You want to slap on a backpack
heavy with food and munitions
and hike to the edge of things,
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Sphinx Street
by Glen Armstrong
It has barbs but doesn’t cling,
seeps through one’s shoeslike puddle water.
It once slowed down to listen
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LA Live
by Ebony Haywood
After sunset— after parking meters doze to sleep, after attorneys in starched suits snap their suitcases shut, after happy hour at City Tavern and rush hour traffic on Broadway, after tired fathers in high-rise condos feed, bathe, and tuck their children into bed— there is energy: emerging from the warm concrete to electrify the air across Figueroa, Wilshire, and Olympic, the heart of Downtown Los Angeles. I feel this energy pulsing through the lights of The Staples Center, swarming with Kings Hockey fans donning oversized black and white jerseys. Outside the Regal Movie Theater, men in their blue jeans and women in their high heels, looking awkward, await their dates. I see their eyes brighten and then avert with acute embarrassment from the gazes of passersby who don’t wave and smile back.
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The Person Whose Face I’ve Taken
by Seohyun Ryu
Stranger
held me with only one hand
“who are you” i cried
she whistled “i am you but smaller and weaker”
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Turning Disasters Off: Backyard Edition
by Terry Trowbridge
You can’t cut back on funding! You will regret this!
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– Transportation Advisor, SimCity 2000
