easterday poetry award winner 2020-2021

My Bittersweet Tooth for Burning Canned Worms

I am the hand bursting out from the mushroomed surface of your lawn
The movie screen behind my eyes plays the explosion on repeat
Dying monsters and I roil and writhe beneath dirt, rejecting defeat:
I am the five year old who, buried alive, turned dirt-balls into edible black holes.

Rough ribbons of us appear everywhere I go, still burning my skin to hot ashes
I realize these awful sessions must be evacuation drills of the heart
As subconscious adult firefighters rain down the meaningless crushed ice of apologies
On adolescent lava-born lyricists who unbeknownst to them can't be killed.

I stuff good mornings and good nights in spots from which this love has spilled.
Through the tenebrosity of our conversations I steal 32 tiny nightlights
It always comes back to your inextinguishable smile strewn apart,
To the briny waves of chance drowning the terrified five year old within.

I fear the historic fireworks of emotion in those cherry bomb eyes
And these safety scissors cannot cut your holding hand from mine
Then the sepia being from years ago begins to really squirm
Because it seems like now we’re opening a whole new can of worms.

You’ve been away melting snow caps I would use to seal bottles of scary truths
But maybe the worst truth is you will never be fully extracted from me, nor I from you.
In the end nothing fun nor filthy is untouched by these king-sized feelings

And the horrors I hold for you are ripples in this savory mirror.
Moyinoluwa Blessing Akeju, NJ, Burlington Township High School

Eulogy of Fault

Somewhere, felled bodies will spill

apology as they clatter on the floorboards.

The sun’s gleam burning it all, I have dried

the hourglass crisp. The horizon dims,

then tilts. Clutching a ‘60s movie scene, I stroll

down an endless one-way highway. Crinkles

of half-written promises etched on my tongue,

I only listen for the faintest drifts

of my own repentance. Last summer, I brought

you here under a valley of tainted confessions,

our mouths drowned in charred questions: should I

sing fate into psalms. Will I suppress this dream.

Either way, I will be left sinking into an oasis

shimmering in all our sins. Now, we have returned,

bodies entwined against torchlight,

with no remedy for this fault line. Together, we drain

the flesh of memory, gaze at sorrow coiling

into erasure. My love, only we can wrap a nightmare

flickering in napalm. Come, watch with me:

these arms flailing in the moonlight.

Sophie Zhu, NY, Williamsville East High School

on driving through an american city

east on exit 8b, and mile 3 of highway-faded concrete,
carried on s p a c e d, swiftly crumbling pillars [over the neighborhoods they decimated]. | | | / / __ you c-r-e-e-p in

at dusk—and downtown is deserted.
* tycoons hold court only from 9-5.

then, harsh raps on the filthy window and a reeling
man staggers across barkley/4th. “spare a dime, a
quarter?” + begging with clouded eyes, he rounds
the dim corner—and d i s a p p e a r s.

(i think of those huddled tonight, swathed in
thin blankets, shivering below rusted railroad
underpasses that snake out to desolate suburbs.)

onward… past decayed liquor shops, drab asphalt lots.
dark rowhouses punctured by gaping, grassy tracts—
like grotesque rot, these relics of defunct
prosperity, ravaged hulks littered with shards of glass gleaming—scintillating in murky moonlight.

(i think of those fortunate enough to depart, leaving
nestled in warm cars i think of those neglected,
abandoned—to the cruelty of : : unrelenting Time.)

Henry Hsiao, NJ, West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North

in light of

you breathe like an accordion, shuddering, your body emptying, because you

hate knowing he’s the sun to your icarus, feel the wax dripping, and

the sensation is a wisp of smoke you won’t find this

way and you’re a moth drawn to this flame, but you know

that you’re also a black hole, the darkness in

smiles submerging all light, and this, you can’t let this go, he

can -will- hurt you but you’ll close your eyes, and you

burn because you know this won’t matter.

Amy Liu, NY, Hunter College High School

Fenwick’s Local Shrink

Fierce flames f l u t t e r in onyx skies.
Scorching embers release scintillating sparks
that dance in the infinity of the galaxy.
Virgo ~WINKS~ as the hopeful glimmers f a l l lifelessly
onto comforting dunes. Their cries expire,
drowned by the MUR/mur of the @tlantic’s
salty spray. The {moon} poised over jet black
waves, illuminates silky streams of surf.

Pursed Lips whispEr tAleS of infidElity

and reveal l o n e l i n e s s. Troubling thoughts

swaddled by pearly grains of sand that listen

but *do not understand.* Calloused hands

create friction and warmth thoughts burning up,

blazing fingers fidgeting, laden with guilt.

$ecrets are lost, swallowed by the swirling tide.

Words tReMbLe and s [L] i n k into the icy depths.

Tor\men/ted souls, tor\men/ted seas blazing embers, burning ?hearts?

Mother Nature hears ignores the c r i e s (with cupped ears.)

Flares sparkle in hazel eyes, “Leo” watches from above

Nature’s therapy: *whispering To THE SEA *

Tony Liberatore, MD, Loyola Blakefield High School ​

Yours, Where it Counts

You took that bone-colored abacus, clicking away

with bone-thin hands.‘I need to buy gloves.’

Craving, carving into the snow-filled driveway

you didn't live on.‘They’ll forget it come spring,’

insisting to brush it off, you called it yours

and I asked why you’d want a tool so

weathered. ‘You can always take my calculator.’

But you smiled and declared this was the

best thing you’ve ever collected, the only

thing that you wanted more than gloves

and a bed frame that wasn’t as lonely.

And you stared in wonder at such a small

miracle found in a trashcan at the end of

a driveway across from your part-time job.

I promised that I’d try to buy you gloves,

only for you to laugh and cry and shove me hard

into the snowbank, counting the beads,

calculating the dues, and wishing me dead.

'I'll let you in once you stop wanting me.'

That was the last day I saw you.

Simon Braustein, MD, Richard Montgomery HS