Revolution Chaput has done it again with yet another poetry win!
“I think art is our most valuable tool in communicating, and I enjoy indulging in it,” says Rev, “I also really like fun facts!!!”
Exigency; Or, The Holiday Without
The detective meets me scratched, drenched, and ruined. Earth’s many blows are secured by thick, anoxic air, and the rain feels foxlike.
He asks me what’s wrong, and I call myself a murderer, not understanding the words as they form around my mouth. The admission is like chloroform when lifted gently to kiss the senses.
I see the look passing over his face, how he taxonomizes grief. It reminds me of the beetle pinned to cloth in an antique box. I scream. I keep waiting
For the day that everything morphs and trembles and burns,
That the wounds fumble out of their stitching
And sutured lips undone, speak harm into the body,
Allowing infection to burrow itself into bone marrow.
Sweat tempts my neck and awful swaths of hair fall uncaringly tight on my face. Begging for him to turn me in,
I allow myself to be driven home,
I allow myself to open the door, to trace the outline of my loss,
I allow myself to be hugged by the people who were horrified by my absence.
We are animals, and we do not really recognize each other, though I am certain we did
Only yesterday.
Clandestine longing erupts in my throat, and I am a collage of my love for that which passes. It is a chambered tantrum, tachycardia skittering lightly across the vein. I become a toddler, brooding about bedtime. And I wish you could read me just one last story, one last chapter, one last word, or simply laugh at that being my last request.
I weave myself together, and my clothes dry slowly. We feast,
We smile, we love, we cry;
We find new versions of our lives and learn to live them.
There has been no murder.
The Poem of the Month competition will begin again in Fall 2025.
All students, staff, and alumni are invited to enter!
See Miss Hodge for more information on the Creative Writing elective, or see Mrs. Hawkins to sign up!