**Note: If you would like to submit a creative piece for consideration, you can e-mail work to brandon.simpson@bville.kyschools.us. We will consider poetry, short story, or essay submissions; you may also submit original artwork. We reserve the right to reject submissions, but we will respond to all submissions with feedback.
Knots
By: Peyton Mills
“What I meant was--”
“I was trying to say--”
“I don’t know why I feel that way--”
But I do.
I once heard a man on the radio or news
describe anxious thoughts and
OCD tendencies as corridors and rooms
and alleyways to drive down and
explore their offshoots.
But they’re not.
Not to me anyway,
as much as I once thought that
the man on the radio or news or
blues station or whatever was right,
as much as my own mind envisioned
these once dimly lit mental images.
They’re just not.
A fisherman from birth,
it was upon the banks
of the river I frequent,
my line tied in loops
and whorls that mirrored
my sun-bit hands, that it hit
me what my own thoughts were like:
knots.
A palomar knot tied around a granny
with a loop into a uni,
or a lazily wound arduous arbor
cinching into an improved clinch
where sections of searing line
burn into my brain as my
fingers work methodically to
untie their messy hair.
I see my girlfriend with a
grand dress on at prom,
her eyes as bright as the mirror
of my oft visited river,
and tie a butterfly loop around her,
hanging a loose halyard around the
exposed curve,
before pulling over a snatch
of something a friend said--
“I really didn’t mean to hurt you; I just meant…”--
and sliding a slip knot onto a uni-to-uni and
conjoining the two snippets of life like
sentimental talismans.
The two mingle and stew,
and I add a dash of the past with
a highwayman’s hitch
and get an itch in my mind
and a stitch in my side.
There’s names to analyze
and dates to remember
and classes to pass
and worries of weight
and blasts from the past
that make my head ache,
all with their own strand of
fickle fishing line.
And there’s my fingers,
dutifully untying the knots
one-by-one,
and bleeding.
Love Letters of Blue
By: Peyton Mills
Blue is the color
of the ink
I use to write
love letters to you,
scrawled signature loops
that swoop in between
notebook lines
and burn
my anxieties into the page,
for my ink is my kindling
and my mind a flame.
I remember my mom
signing her divorce papers
in blue ink, the way her name
tilted upon the page
as if mirroring her tears
and how it dried in smudges,
battered but legible.
That was her too.
One day
maybe I’ll show you
my love letters so you can see
the blue ink,
and maybe--
just maybe--
as I did with my mother,
you’ll see how my blue ink
mirrors me.
I Am Not Ready to Die Yet
By Peyton Mills
I am not ready to die yet,
there’s far too much left
to see, for I’ve never felt
a salty breeze blown across
another country or felt
my fingers brush back
the leaves of elephant ears
in the jungle and had the water
collected there caress my skin.
I am not ready to die yet,
for I am not at peace,
and to die would be
to never smooth out
my dog’s dark fur
or dig my toes
into years-old sediment,
diving beneath the lapping waves
of the creeks I call home,
again.
I often wonder
when I’ll hold you again--
I am not ready to die yet--
and I need to breathe you in,
feel your fingers
on my skin,
your hand in mine,
a weight to bar my head
from the clouds on high.
I am not ready to die yet.
I need to laugh
one last time,
and cry,
and run across
the burning sand,
and feel loved again.
I need to tell one more story,
fill up one more notebook,
use up one final pen--
and I’m not ready to die yet.
I want to ache
from missing you,
and have my breath taken away
from the top of a mountain,
feel the gentle tug
of a bass on my line,
the rumble of an engine
between my thighs.
And I need to see my family
even if just by candlelight,
and have them tell me
that they love me
and it’ll all be alright.
I need to clamp onto my Bible,
say a prayer
and count to ten,
feel the presence of my God
in those final moments then.
But even in that fleeting instance,
with the sacraments prepared,
I know the last words I will utter,
still feeling unprepared:
I am not ready to die yet.
Hamlet
by Isaac Gray
I am the prince of Denmark;
My name is Hamlet but many call me mad.
I appear crazy to avenge my dad;
I keep to myself, never one to be stark.
Quite often I roam the halls at night,
I groan to be or not to be.
My father's vengeance is all that matters to me.
Often I talk to my own knife.
Horatio is my one and only friend;
My uncle Claudius is a fiend.
I will make sure the deed is clean;
Horatio will help me ascend.
Many will call me crazy,
But I am really hazy.
