Poems!

Poetry  |  Candice Jost-Ward

A Child's Perspective

Through the eyes of a child
Everything is something
Infinitely more fascinating
Than what it really is.
A blanket of snow
Is really the perfect opportunity
To build an empire made of ice
And to conquer your enemies
With freezing cold bullets,
Your own arm being the trigger.

A dog is not a dog,
But, in fact,
A black stallion
To be rode into battle
Even though he keeps trying
To run away.

What is simply a carpet
To the untrained eye of
The adult
Is a dangerous
Journey comprised of burning lava
And dragons that can
Only be held back by
Pillows and armchairs.

And in the world of a child
Any plate containing mashed potatoes
Is a chance to impress mom
By replicating Mount Everest.
And though she acts
Like she is angry,
She has only forgotten
What it is like to see
The world in vivid colours.

So when her smile fades
Away at night,
To a child this is
The perfect time
To sneak into her room
And remind her that her bed can fly,

That they are captains on a ship
Fuelled only by their laughter, and,
As long as they both don't stop,
They are able to go anywhere.

And even though
To the untrained eye of the adult
It is only a mother lifting her kid
Up high and imitating the sounds
Of a rocket ship
In dimly a lit two-bedroom apartment,
To a child
It is the happiness
Of their mother
As she remembers
What it feels like to laugh again.

Villains

Depression is the most intrusive villain.
No restrictions
No boundaries
No limits.

Like a seed it plants itself
In the deepest parts of the brain
So as to grow roots there.
No one could ever hope to reach.

Most villains wish to rule the world;
They are the ones we were warned about,
The ones we were always most concerned
Would take over.

No one warned you that the most invasive one
Would be yourself.
A piece of your own mind,
Hellbent on destroying itself.

No one told you how all things vibrant
Would fade to grey,
And not the beautiful grey you used to
Love during a thunderstorm.

Your father made sure you understood 
To never talk to strangers,
To stay aware 
Of your surroundings.

He never explained that the hands
To one day hold you captive
Would be the calloused ones
That grew from your own subconscious.

You always knew to fear 
The monsters people could be
But the worst one by far
Found a better hiding place than underneath your bed.

This one hides behind your ribcage
Deep within the chambers of your heart 
Stabbing holes inside your chest
Each time you laugh.

Depression has this eerie way
Of sneaking up and somehow turning
Sunshine into this insidious 
Kind of darkness.

Most villains want to watch the world burn,
But this masochistic criminal
Only wishes to see its own body
Turn to ashes. 

You Are Like The Night Sky

Since childhood
The night sky has always seduced me with its quiet, ominous presence.
So please understand that when I compare the glow in your eyes to the blazing trail of Halley’s comet
It is not to be confused with the potential for disaster.

What I mean to say
Is that your soul burns brighter than our solar system's sun.
And even when you are sad your tears are glistening
Like falling stars streaming down your cheeks.
Your trembling lips are meteors smashing into planets
Only trying to be a part of something other than itself.

Your aching heart is a black hole
Once a massive star,
Destined to collapse within itself,
Desperately trying to be bright again.

Your thoughts are Jupiter's storm:
Wild, disarrayed and dangerous,
Always so beautiful
From a distance.

Your subconscious belongs
To the depths of the universe,
Unexplored for fear of getting
Lost between the galaxies.

You are the lucid night sky
And I have always loved you from afar. 

Pearls of the Desert

Our Special Mysterious Writer Article 

Short Story  |  Merlin* 

Our story takes place in a far away country, so far that even rain could not reach it. Flowers and trees were a mere myth only children believed in. Water was so scarce many died everyday from dehydration. The golden mountains of sand were full of buried corpses, so much that it was frequent to walk on a beloved one’s bone by accident.

In this extreme environment lived a small man. He tried to make sense of his own life in a community that clearly didn’t want him around. He worked all day with the men, desperately trying to find any water or food.

The small man called himself an optimist. Even under these atrocious circumstances, he would never give up on humanity. Sadly, it is humanity that gave up on him.

The small man was getting bullied and made fun of at any possible occasion. The ones he considered his brothers were either dead or picking on him. The ones he considered his sisters barely spoke or looked at him.

But one night, in the wild silence, he climbed on a golden mountain to observe the sky. Millions of stars all stared at him, all sad memories of their past selves. And that night, with the moon as his only friend, he cried, his tears dripping into the sand.

Days passed but still the small man kept his guard up with the sun. He ignored the ones who destroyed his self-esteem the best he could. However, when the night would fall like a curtain over the sky, he would climb again. His eyes would blur in the darkness and he would still pour all of his emotions into the dry sand.

Hope was long gone for him, until life gave him a chance. Through the sand, a small sapling started to form. The small man, astonished, amazed, immediately felt the green leaf with his finger. This time, he cried of happiness, of joy. The legends were true: trees did exist.

The waves of time kept raging on as many years passed. The green stem grew into a small tree and then into a bigger one. The small man cried everyday at the feet of the plant in secret, hoping to find his emotions useful. What he didn’t realize is that wrinkles grew on his forehead and his hair started turning grey. The taller the tree was getting, the emptier the small man’s eyes looked.

As he was working with the men one day, he proclaimed he grew a tree. Yes, they heard right, a fully grown tree. The small man was hoping they would finally accept him, finally stop to treat him like less of a human.

Instead, they told him he was a fool, a feeble. Nobody was going to believe the laughingstock of the village was able to do anything with his sad existence.

The man ran home. He gazed into the mirror only to see a mess. A rusty sinking ship. A dying old man following a dying old dream.

The tears flowing down his cheeks, he went to the tree. He observed a solid branch and threw his tool around it.

When the sand settled, he was dangling at the end of a rope, hanged on the tree fueled with his own sadness.

Nobody cried for him. Nobody acknowledged him. His whole life was only a whisper carried by the wind, his soul an echo in the roots of his sorrow.

The next day, the small man did not get to work. He did not help the men nor did he look at the women which would not return him his looks. The word was getting passed all around the village. The small man was gone.

The first to find his remains was a little girl, three days later. She shouted so loud her mom thought she broke her arm or worse. Many followers gathered to look at the wonderful creation that rose from the tears of the small man.

The tree was majestic. His branches would reach so high it looked like it held the sky above from falling on their heads. Its leaves would flow down like green water, covering the cadaver of its only father.

The men who worked with the deceased man gave it a name: the weeping willow.

His funeral was held on the golden mountain, next to the willow. The whole village attended his burial, realizing they were the monsters of the story. The regret was filling their lungs; their eyes were full of a dreaded sorrow.

Bright pearls of regret were falling down their faces, dripping into the dry sand.

From that day on, everyone went to the tree. In their darkest nights, in their lightest days. Kids, dads, moms, no matter their age. They all went to the willow for the same reason: so that the small man never dies.

The humongous shadow of the tree engulfed all of its guests. Feeling the imaginary hug of the old leaves, each laid a waterfall made of thousands of sparkling drops on the sand.

The weeping willow became a legend amongst the people, and with it the small man. The powerful sorrow he kept hidden in his guts for so many years was able to form the greatest accomplishment any human had ever made. People named their children after him, hoping they would achieve great things just like him.

They all slowly forgot he made great things because society bullied him. They all slowly forgot he cried for nearly twenty years and received no help. They all slowly forgot the man who gave everything for his community.

Legend says that when the wind dances through the thin leaves, his weep can still be heard in the darkness.

***

*Fictional name of our anonymous writer. Try to guess who it is and find him! Hint: he is a Champlain student (does that really help?)