Winner of a Scholastic Art and Writing National Gold Medal

 

we ride against fragile blues, wild dirt;

the island air blows unabashed

on our salt-watered tongues. we jam our throats

with local treasures souring home

 

to inorganic strangeness, and so goes our warmth.

you tell me not to sense, but to feel:

the exotic sweetness that coats each unsuspecting

tooth, catharsis seeping into every gap and void,

 

hardening a sticky trail as it dribbles down

and down; so i find my gaze buried deep,

the buggy’s wheels lumbering on sand tracks

heading to "god knows where," you laugh;

 

and there’s something carefree you find

in nomadic wheels, knowing nothing of their past

or of their future. now we fly

over jagged rocks and you toss your flaxen mane,

 

you billow as one with the maldives blues, as if

oceans are not truly blue elsewhere, as if

swallowed shells are crushed in your churning heart

and washed out whole as dawn inevitably stirs;

 

but you cannot accept the inevitable. now

the divine syrup’s hot trails chase down my throat

and i twist my ache to meet your golden

frame. lips jerked into a grin that must bear

 

the good aliveness, bathe each tooth. i dare it to burst

and i know this feeling all too well; the abandon

makes the world my home, the sweetness my anchor

 

to you.