This is a short selection from a bigger piece I have been writing. I wanted to combine something mundane, like electrician work, with things that invoke the fantastical, like magic or a tavern. The combination of old and new is something I wanted to play with, as well as ideas of cultural confusion and identity. This story and by extension this excerpt have been reworked multiple times. Starting as a political drama, then a family conflict, then a story about revolution, and finally I settled on this. A story about someone trying to make it in the world, with cultural baggage that affects almost every part of their life. I drew from my experiences of being a child of an immigrant to make characters imperfect in the practice of their culture. Like so many of us raised in between cultures, we forget or are scared to truly be what we are. I want to show a glimpse of that in my work.

When I first began my eating disorder, I broke down every month, knowing it was wrong and I should launch out of the cycle. I knew that the social media I was consuming was harming me and eating me up from the inside. But, it called to me at every turn and I could not let it go. Surprisingly, social media helped me make my recovery. One of my best friends is from an eating disorder support group founded on a social media platform. The poem represents my experiences and the raw feelings I had while both going through the disorder and coming out of it. It was not hard and relapses occurred, more often than I would have liked them to. Pressure from my parents came as stress from my school began increasing but this poem is my way of claiming and owning my recovery and proving that it happened and that I know that I can do it.

I am passionate about this issue.

Struggling with body dysmorphia and finding my identity, I found myself in a conflicted position where I could no longer differentiate between what I loved and what I hated – I felt like I hated everything. Whether it was the negative way I viewed myself, or my failing test score, or even just a lack of understanding my culture, I felt the only time I was able to express my feelings was through writing. I came up with “self inflicting” as a way to purge my insecurities onto paper. I identified my weakness, which wasn’t about how I looked or what I accomplished but about my inability to appreciate. Writing my feelings and creating “self inflicting” made me understand that I am someone to laugh with, make memories with, hang out with; the only negativity that exists about me is the negativity I put on myself (self inflicting). Through my writing, I have released my negative emotions and have come out a stronger person who now chooses to love herself.

I wrote these poems to process the complex emotions I’ve felt while nearing the end of my childhood. In the first poem, “Bon Appetite,” I touch on the double-edged sword that is creating art for public consumption. While creation is often cathartic, it has also made me feel naked and vulnerable—like a pig set for slaughter. As I’ve grown up and infused my work with more heart and truth, I’ve sometimes felt more like an object of others’ opinions than my own person. In the second poem, “Ivory,” I explore how humans justify and romanticize our often-selfish behavior. Everything we create and every decision we make comes with hidden costs, and all too often, we ignore these costs to appease our conscience. As I mature, I’m trying to confront and correct the ways in which I do this. The final poem, “Older,” is inspired by my changing relationship with an adult figure in my life, who I once idolized. As I get older, my eyes become more attuned to their flaws and their painful humanness. It’s almost like I’ve taken off the rose-colored glasses of youth, and while this is empowering to an extent, it also leaves me feeling… disillusioned about everyone and everything I once thought I knew.

This story takes place in an absurd world that parallels our own. Watch as speculation and obsession goes too far. Discover the truth behind the whimsy of this place.

This ekphrasis poem is written about a line in the song "sarah" by alex g. It is a love poem about giving up yourself to someone else even if they dont necessarily reciprocate that love and loyalty. I wrote this poem for a class, but I feel like I really put my heart into it and I am very proud of it.

A small collection of poems. The poem is about my parents fears and struggles and fears of coming into a new country with nothing but adream. The Haikus are about how deeply I think music can heal and how a rose is symbolic for many things

I wrote this piece about my mother, who I constantly look up to, and my fears that I won't be able to grow into as good of a person as she is. This piece reflects my own insecurities and uncertainties as well as the complexities of mother-daughter relationships. The whole story is also a love letter to my mom, and a verbalization that I deeply appreciate everything she has done for me.

When I was taking creative writing last year, I struggled quite a bit since I never liked writing in the first place but taking that class changed me and help me think of writing as an art form. This year as a senior, I found writing my personal statements and supplements pretty fun. This poem was something I wrote earlier this year, during the process of writing this I never knew what the outcome would be and just like the waves my writing just went with the flow. And somehow my hands brought me to a poem about unrequited love which is a little bit funny because I was the happiest ever during that time. I had just came back from a trip in Hawai. I really loved the clear blue waters and decided to use that for the overall theme of my poem. This poem was written to mimic the way Walt Whitman used to write his poems the repetition, the lone lines written in free verse. This one of my favorite poems I've ever written and I'm happy to share it.

Since my grandpa passed away from cancer in the September of 2023, I felt like something, or someone, was missing. I didn't realize how empty the house felt without him there. It felt like we were still, like everything was waiting for the day he would return. But what I wanted to capture most of all in my blackout poem wasn't the lonely wind, it wasn't the fading pictures, it wasn't even the hollow house. It was the hope, the growth. Although he's no longer here with us, he's everywhere. This blackout poem was designed to capture that feeling.

My poems come from my heart really either when I am sad,angry,focused,happy really any emotions I try to write when it comes to mind I let it flow when it wants to I don’t think I will share what my poems mean to me and how I interpret them but rather let you as the reader let your feelings and experiences and emotions decide what you take them as

This small collection of poems is a metaphorical note on winter and the theme of loneliness that grows during the colder time of the year. Something I realized, while looking at my dogs ashes next to where the Christmas tree goes, is that those isolating emotions tend to be much more real to me during the holidays. All of the biggest emotional events that took place in my life happened in December and/or the winter time all together. The title of the collection is a metaphor for my personal outlook on the holidays, and how I still find a darkness in something I should be jovial about.

This story is a little bit about my life and where I used to live. It gives you an idea of how my life was and what was going on.

People tend to ignore mental health. Going to in-patient treatment is often seen as wrong. We need to realize that mental health is crucial. I'm sharing my second in-patient treatment experience, where I battled between wanting to get better and staying in the familiar pain. It's a call for understanding and a reminder that love and the belief that things will be okay matter a lot in the midst of struggles.

The two things I value most are human expression and human connection, two aspects of existence which I find to be very intertwined. No matter where I am, what I’m doing, or my state of mind, I always like to document my thoughts, feelings, figments of my imagination, and especially poetic moments on a document on my phone. I call this sort of journal my “poetic ramblings,” and I enjoy not only writing in it to capture moments, but looking back on my previous writings and reliving these abstractly articulated memories, however bitter or sweet. My entries in this journal represent my most authentic self, and I believe that reading a single piece from it will allow anyone to know me and understand my mind instantly more intimately. Every year since middle school, I have been aware of various creative competitions, and every year without fail, I consider them, look forward to them, and then leave them for the next year as I become so busy. However, this is my last year of high school, and I am so excited to finally share my art, seizing the opportunity to make a connection with an audience, even if only with a single reader.

Masculine Femininity is a different perspective on lesbian relationships and how that even if the relationship consists of two women, gender stereotypes are still prominent. This peice means a lot to me as it's based off my own experience being in a relationship with another woman. I've never seen this topic written about before so I wanted to bring a little light to it and hope other people can relate.

This piece was written to be something much different from a traditional Christmas story.

This is just a story about 2 boys.

This is my experience of growing up short in a town full of really tall people.