Dark colors hold heat
press it now,
into stomach and thighs,
grass and soil damp
from rain that washed away
a spider’s home.
Foreheads leaned against a window pane –
we cry sometimes,
let grief mirror the sky’s.
Next morning,
sunlight streams past window sills,
slips through leaves and slides down bark.
Patches of shadow hide
from warmth I cannot feel
behind closed doors,
punished with air that cannot move.
Drag my mother’s expectations,
my father’s deepest wishes
strapped around my ankles.
Averted eyes and discarded children’s toys,
coughs that can’t hide smirks and never try to.
Someone records the misery with a handheld
and plays it back when they get bored.
Every day
a new someone laughs.
Kayli Wren is a 17-year-old writer in her senior year at St. Anne’s Belfield High School in Virginia. She has previously been published in Teen Ink and Tupelo Press Teen Writing Center’s annual anthology, Crossroads III. Kayli has been fascinated with the written word since kindergarten and has recently been developing her love for writing both poetry and short stories. In her free time, when not writing, she enjoys watching movies, acting in theater productions, eating Pad Thai, and baking lemon squares.
–Art by Menerva Tau