Here the ocean breaks with a riptide repetition.
Here the beach is a silent cacophony,
like the composition of a forest.
Here the mountain erodes in quiet stupor.
Hear the growing vastness of absolution.
Hear the record spin and sing.
Here the birds are nesting in soft dirt.
Hear my beating heart.
Hear the rhythm of my rivering veins.
Here the honored rebirth of expectation.
Here the sculptor of a graveyard garden.
Here the moon, like a comatose monolith.
Hear my girlhood.
Here Youth,
who blames infinity —
wanton, waiting —
from lighthouse lengths,
fog flashing, alive with rain,
the quiet finality of remembrance
growing
as Youth prays for forever
(like laughter reborn
from love, it tastes of lemon-
ade, stolen heaven)
tendrils reaching farther,
almost Olympic, alas
her naivety whistles her home
to the womb, skeletal
hum — deep, vast —
still beating in her mind
while Eve watches the skies,
unknowable as desire,
which create like lips,
of a girl in love —or a lost
tempest, to drink in the seas.
Hear me, humanity.
Here, Youth
By Alice Rosenberg
After Santiago Vizcaino and Paula Bohince
Alice (she/her) is a rising senior who lives in Manhattan. She’s loved poetry for as long as she can remember, and recently attended a workshop with the Kenyon Review. Her poetry and prose have been published in her school’s literary magazine, newspaper, and the zine she co-created. Outside of writing, she performs, stage manages, produces, and directs with her high school theater company.