© 2016 Michael Riedell’s UHS Creative Writing Class All rights remain with the individual authors Layout & Design by Blake More & UHS Creative Writing Class Funding for Poet Teaching and this anthology was provided by Mendocino County Office of Education California Poets In The Schools with help from the California Arts Council For information about California Poets InThe Schools, contact: CPITS 2131 19th Avenue #203 San Francisco CA 94116 415-221-4201 www.cpits.org Foreword Asylum. It’s a powerful word. And in truth we had a pretty heated debate about it at the beginning of the year when we were choosing a name for the class. Asylum won, and I was content. Sure the word conjures visions of dark cells and strait jackets but, looking it up in the American Heritage Dictionary, I find it comes from “Middle Englishasilum , refuge, from Latin asȳlum, from Greek asūlon, sanctuary.” Sanctuary seems like the right word: a place of safety and protection. In fact, it’s not until the third definition that the more common meaning arises: “An institution for the care of people, especially those with physical or mental disabilities, who require organized supervision or assistance.” Disabilities? Clearly not. Supervision? Not much. Assistance? Hopefully. The case for a little craziness, though, goes back at least to Socrates, who said that the poet of “sane compositions” will be “utterly eclipsed by the performances of the inspired madman.” Allen Ginsberg, an excellent example of an inspired madman and a favorite of ours this year, stated it more bluntly: “Follow your inner moonlight, don’t hide the madness.” So if you find a little madness, a little “inner moonlight” in this book, don’t be...well...shocked. We’ve got the support of even Emily Dickinson--cousin Emily, as I like to call her--who explains in her usual concentrated style, “Much Madness is divinest Sense — / To a discerning Eye.” The therapy we need may just be the sharpening our ability to discern all the sense in madness. Given our work this year, these writers are off to a fine start. M.R. 5-2-16 Table of Contents Au, Abigail 6 Ayala, Ana 16 Barrera, Joshua 25 Bjerk, Olivia 36 Borges, Miranda 43 Butow, Seth 53 Caudillo, Bailey 56 Caudle, Kylee 66 Deguzman, Dylan 75 Fernandez, Analidia 85 Fillmore, Gene 95 Fitzpatrick, Bridget 105 Ford, Alycia 114 Goltz, Geneve 120 Hernandez, Jessica 127 Hernandez, Leila 134 Ilar, Vanessa 143 LeBlanc, Dax 152 Long, Autumn 161 Lopez Gonzales, Isabel 167 Munguia, Joseph 177 Pacheco, Jose 186 Ramirez, Jazmin 198 Rich, Imani 202 Richards, Lynesia 212 Rieger, Clarissa 223 Rodriguez, Liliana 231 Silveira, Taylor M 241 Warren, Katana 251 Michael Riedell 264 biographies 269 Abigail Au sleep walking there is no more telling whether this is a dream or not when i can’t feel my fingers and the distance between us is measured in lightyears and i forget how to speak and think when I only remember how to love and the way you fascinate me you pull me into your opalescence and i can only wish that it is not a dream this is when i sleepwalk i am so captivated and delirious in a way that only the moon understands when i sleepwalk i do not recognize that i am chasing after a wilted flower lovelight i hate you so much that i love you i hope that maybe someday i can show you your beauty the tips of your ears carry more perfection than all the stars and the planets rosy with the epitome of lust and shadows your cheeks become metallic is it because you have shed too many tears i know you are too exquisite to rust its funny how i can look and reach so far into your soul i can pull oceans out through the holes in your throat there’s just something about you that makes me want to dance the earth’s dances and sip flames out through it’s core till i cough out ashes and hatred your lovelight dwindles along the sidewalks and i think that the reason why you are so beautiful is because azaleas grow from your body like hair and even the seven seas cannot even begin to wear blue the way you do 6 SHOCK THERAPY indian summers we were fairies in the night running half naked in the streets as lace clung onto the most sacred parts of our bodies buildings and light and impermanence rush past us memories carried in the wind that made our noses red a nd watered our bloodshot eyes seconds dying after seconds over time we learn to cherish even the dustiest fragments of reality i want to show you bliss and show you the way that stars can glow brighter than kryptonite its is times like these that mother nature would rise me up onto her shoulders and tell me that you and i were the reason summer had lasted so long because your hair reminded her of crushed autumn leaves because we lived for poetry and we lived for decay when i found myself in a place where even tears were no longer clear and ran down cheeks like burnt sugar you had always told me to be dangerous like the red of a blood orange could i ever love a star the way i loved you i found myself falling in love with the constellations one night i see all of the other girls helpless desire constructed in their eyes but then i understood as i saw the fabrication of stars above me i found myself falling in love THE WRITING ASYLUM ANTHOLOGY 7 tree spirits don’t pay rent i have become the mountains leathery hill sides that drape above the curves of my lips bronze rust atop mauve sea shells lips that loved the taste of silver it only takes one to be a gypsy i cling onto the spirals of a wounded tree beneath the eves and clove-hearted wonders that skip across lakes like stones i set sail along the imbalances of the universe and watch the circumference of the earth tip like the edges of a toddlers cup i would take you into my creeks if only you would shelter me from your currents i would strike lightning bolts into your veins and listen to the rattle of water kettles that made knees shake and cluttered up your footsteps stay awhile and maybe we could bundle ourselves in an old wicker chair with a newfound hope that shimmered like spiderwebs we danced with the sunbeams that tumbled through windowpanes like golden coins though i am the rotting wood and you are the hungry fire with ecstasy that coiled around your spine like lanterns the moon would turn to gold and the wind would build us temples i could melt your worries like candle wax if only you would let me because the most fragile souls are the ones that live the least your aura your aura is so potent with sunsets and secrets i see the way you glisten in the sun like lapis lazulis at the bottom of a creek 8 SHOCK THERAPY i felt nostalgic for a love we never had she once told me that it is dangerous to be afraid of a little danger sitting in the grass of a moonlit garden black hair that wilted onto bare shoulders i heard a tale on lost love i loved him the way i love the ocean boundless but i feared him the way i fear space where no one can hear my cries trapped in a distance so haunting and so silent and frigid words left his desert lips that wove a net to catch my aching corpse that wept at the thought of withdrawal my restless limbs leaned against his own that were beginning to forget he began to sound like someone who flossed between their teeth with apology and realization in a careless movement thrust me into angry tides i felt nostalgic for a love we never had and then on i began to fear the ocean i began to yearn for darkness so i wouldnt have to face the cruel reality that slit my jaw with the sharp of its eye i felt nostalgic for a love we never had with soft strained tears that seemed to have weighed her cheeks down like tar she put out her cigarette and looked up into the stars appearing much older than she had before ive heard that you age at vulnerability i hope that she is right when she says that we are reborn by morning the reasons why we were meant to forget dreams the day i forget you is the day i no longer understand the placement of my own fingers when i can no longer read between every wrinkle and freckle on your body you would be the sky and i would be the creaky floorboards beneath it to catch you when you spiral down with the formation of clouds and blue and star do not worry about denting the wood as long as the scratches and splinters are from you As long as when you strum the chords of my spine you still hear music and pluck the junipers that bloom at the cuticles of my fingers we stood with our breathes swirling, embracing electricity strung between our pupils like a clothes line and we stood so close our memories touched THE WRITING ASYLUM ANTHOLOGY 9 with you i am a sun dancer is it the way that your sneakers squeaked in the summertime grass in the waves of dawn buried deep down in the mad of mind below the way you would lower your voice to speak to me deep and rumbling like fallen pebbles you used to lean in close close enough so that i could see the creases in your skin and i could feel your thunderstorm words and concealed laughter it sounded the way the trees rustled when the wind would dance between its branches when will i see you again im tumbling drowning in the blues and greys and browns in your eyes call my name across the floor and i promise that your voice would sound like wind chimes with the veins on your skin a forget me not blue and your cold lilac lips in the winter is it the way that your teeth chatter and your hands shake when you write that i love you you brought hurricanes into my heart with an ethereal touch that froze my fingertips you had me dazed in the mint of your permafrost breath i want to watch you walk in the perspired grass