2nd Place

Middle School-Shore Country Day School

Grade 8

The Star Charts

by Sarah Kennedy

The charts on heavy paper

made into stories by words unknown

The lines scratched on ancient walls,

to inspire, and to mystify

On the deck over the cruel sea,

they lit the way for progress

And the gash of stars that swept a path

were for so many a way home

So who are we to fathom

the depths of what they show?

They are our ally, always watching

and our most enigmatic mystery

For what do we know of lights in the sky? 

3rd Place

Middle School-Waring School

Grade 8

Middle

by Cole Cunningham

Flowers stay bright forever,

At least I think.

And that grey rat gnawing at my head

Stays there, at least I think.

I can only tell by the stink of his stained teeth.

I can’t get flowers out of my head.

I guess the grey rat enjoys that.

The Netherlands is probably full of grey rats.

Still, my mouth is turning to a windmill.

And my neck, topsoil.

Among all this, I’m just fine.

Nothing worries me, at least I think.

My head grows long stems,

And becomes laced with red and orange.

Thorny roses, and biting tulips.

Grey rats flock to me.

And people skate on the dikes in my head.

2nd Place

High School-The Clark School

Grade 11

Fireflies

by Elayna Sturm

You poured a shot of night into your glass.

Let it stand on the coffee table outside

before you drank it, to see

if it would attract any fireflies,

and so it did.

All allured by the promise

of a sweet summer night,

only to drown

in the flat sky of March.

3rd Place

High School-North Shore Recovery High School

Grade 12

The Last Time We Were Together

by Ashley Freda

I was twelve years old, in Hershey Park

with my dad and Kayla

Kayla wanted me to go on this rollercoaster, the Loopdy-Loop

I didn’t want to

I was scared

I asked her if it went upside down

She promised it didn’t

As soon as we were strapped in

She told me, “We’re going upside down, loser!”

I ended up liking it

That was the last time I left New England

The last time we were together

The last time we were a family

Bats

by Griffin Wells

First Place

Middle School-Waring School

Grade 8

We looked at bats today.

Some guy with coins and each little star

sleeping and fishing by the lake by his forehead

taught us about them.

He had hand puppets that he was good at talking to

(they had been friends for a while, I could tell).

And he was supposed to let us try them out but I saw

the fear in his eyes when talking to anyone but his puppets.

Nonetheless, all five of them were seized.

Now it was raining by the lake

and there were too many catfish,

so the stars decided to pack up their apples and rods

and leave.

He glanced at the line of seedlings in little Styrofoam cups.

I decided to talk to him, pointing to one of the bats in his books,

but someone tapped their watch

and it was raining, hard. Droplets the size of my thumb.

He called for his bats,

pocketed them protectively

                                                               and left, storming.

The Soldier's Introspection

by Temujin Frost

First Place

Beverly High School

Grade 12

Paint it red.

Let the lakes, once hosts of love, choke on the murky amber.

The paste.

The soothing cream to diseased lip.

Boils on the side of the tongue.

The fly carcasses on your mother's dining room table.

You'd kill just to see them again.

You, tainted, broken, rebuilt with staples, leather, brass, and porcelain ego thin as fine china.

Eyes bulging from your skull.

Muddy morphine veins popping from picked skin.

Soldier on.

Scattered dog brains on seaside rocks.

Rotting strawberry under violet skies.

Carcass glowing under moonlight.

The water ripples with guilty pearls.

Soldier, this is where your mind dies.

Chrome revolvers,

stainless, gleaming, and pure in comparison to any soul.

Endless summers spent swimming in sun-kissed skin.

The shimmering silver cross hung over her breast was forever tainted.

It's silhouette flipped, splayed and forever a guilty stain on my blood washed memory.

My walking deathbed memoirs.

Plagued, sweet, rotten,

happy.