The beige and brown welcome sign outside of our front door is cute

And in vain

A dormant formality

If you can even call it that

A supposed homey touch to my parents’ quaint abode

And yet, outside of close family

No one may come in

This time it is because of size

A small apartment squishing in a family of four

And the belongings of those family

Bags and bags wrapped each month

Instead of each year

The “Mayers” name has become synonymous with “Claus” for the Salvation Army

“Minimalism” as well

At least as minimalist as a 20 year-old young woman and a 53 year-old older woman with an extensive wardrobe can be

Even before the downsize, maximizing space has become a familial way of life

The prior townhouse which was almost the precursor for our next dwelling

You would maximize space by minimizing guests

An alien practice

Given that in the dwelling prior, which had three floors worth of space

4 including the basement

5 including the big backyard with the wide patio,

Hosted many gatherings and overnight endeavors that would make you question the entirety of our current behaviors

A past practice that started all the way at our first domicile

The only place for a long time I was truly able to call home

Even in fond memory

A home that taught me love

A home that taught me family-oriented care

A home that taught me intelligence is bliss

Gave me a scholarly basis before I found out that it comes in other forms

A home that taught me to embrace my child-like pleasures

And the kind personality that comes with those joys

Those qualities became the gateway for me to grow as a person and know when to put myself first

Now, in my current “home”, my family uses “minimalism” to breed ease

For myself, I would rather maximize my qualities, my pleasures and kindred tethers in anyway I can

Just as my first home welcomed me to do for myself

Dear Barringer,

You gave me so much. Barringer, you gave me love. Barringer, you gave me peace! I know God was there and you would care for me. Barringer, you showed me how to be a woman. Barringer; I learned to survive. Barringer, you showed me one of the most important things. Oh Barringer, you took me in, you kept me warm. Barringer, you showed me so many things and how I needed to perform. You gave me so many tasks. I wasn’t sure what I was able to do. Barringer, you showed me a life and then where I could come home to. I’m here and you told me all the mistakes I made as a mother, as a wife. Even when I struggled, you showed me a place where I knew I belonged. Through the right or the wrong, you were there. I put up a fight and I knew it was worth to fight for. You help me through. I’m so glad I got to be here. I’m so glad I got to love you so, no matter what I am going through and no matter what I see I’m glad you were there. Through parenting, through wifing and through journeys of love. Knowing that joy. I love that I experienced peace. I find it because that’s what God allows me to have. In a place where I find so much. I AM thankful because it is a place where I learned, and found finally that I love me!!!

Forever Grateful,
ME

Dear Ireland,

Over the rock-laden hills,
through the scrubby grass
and across the wild seas
you called my name,
you called to me alone.
You offered up your solace and solitude
as a refuge for reflection and healing,
holding up a mirror to my soul
And asking, who are you?
And I did not know.

But each day as I climbed
to the peak of Dun Aonghasa
gazing out over the hillsides,
listening to the cows,
those cows who are not afraid of heights
and to the waves crashing upon the cliffs,
those waves whose persistence
have shaped a landscape.
It is here where shattered little pieces of my heart
found their way home.

I too had been out with lanterns
looking for myself.

Here on Inis Mor’s hillsides,
across rocky ridges
and over sparkling seas
I lay still,
the haunting emptiness inside of me opening up,
inviting me to recognize and honor the gifts within me.

It was time to lose the lanterns
in order for my own light to shine,
to see myself through a new lens
and to rediscover my place in this world.

Dear Ireland,
I came to you with two faces,
the one I showed the world. . .
and the one in the mirror.
I have heard your whispers.
I close my eyes and finally hear the voice,
the one that has been calling me home.

Dear Yereance ave,

What a time we had.

There were memories that took place within those four walls that marked a monumental point of my path.

I remember stepping into the second floor of my first own apartment with my 4-year-old daughter thinking “this is life.” 

I was finally free! 

Free from dealing with critical attitudes and colliding of heads 

I was free from the roaches climbing on my bed,

I was free!

Little did I know that freedom was coming, but not in the way I imagined. 

I was free from others, but I wasn’t free from ME.  

I was free from yelling and complaints, but I wasn’t free from the sorrow and the pain that looked me in the mirror day after day.

And in those moments where I couldn’t brace my daughters crying and my pain simultaneously

I ran back to mother to drop my child off so I can live my life on Yereance ave.

Drinking with my friends and somehow me, the person who was the life of the party, was slowly flatlining. 

With every shot of Bacardi and inhale of the freshly rolled up weed 

Joy was backwashed in the shot glass 

The wind blew my purpose through the trees.

Until one day I lied to my boss and said I wasn’t feeling well and made a decision to work from home. 

My sister and I were in this 800 sq ft box smoking in our zone 

until I got up to take a shower.

As the water flowed from the shower head 

I heard a voice whisper 

“You have a destiny for greater things.”

I thought to myself, “surely I am high” me? Created and destined for more? So the voice I ignored. 

and suddenly I hear the voice speak again 

The voice repeated, “You are destined and intricately made for more,” shaking me to my core. My slowly failing heart felt revived because this time, I listened. 

It was as if the divine silenced all the noise around me so that I could hear and receive the truth of my value

It was as if my higher self stepped out from the future timeline to tell me it’s okay. It will get better if you decide today to change your ways.

 Wisdom was speaking in my very eardrum, releasing the sound of true freedom. 

It was then that I no longer tried to escape myself. Instead, I decided to face myself! 

It was because of you, Yereance ave that I began the journey to discovering my value, my identity, my purpose. 

So Yereance ave, I thank you for the doors you opened and the home you created for that short period. Because it was then when the initiation of my power began. The journey of me coming home to this exact place and time where I am truly home, the home within me.

Dear Binghamton,
 

You don’t owe me anything.

When I first came to you, I had nothing more than a Subaru full of my most prized possessions and my two daughters. We scurried toward you in the night’s dead to escape what had been my prison for the last six and a half years, living out a sentence for the crimes I had committed in my youth and leaving with scars, holes and a battered ego all held together with the thinnest threads of string crafted out of the budding love I was growing for myself.

You were both my end and my beginning.

You taught me love. Joy. Righteous anger. You opened my eyes to what the world is actually like. In you, I rediscovered my passion for music and poetry. I found love in the little things. Blue birds chirping outside my windows and opening peanut butter jars for squirrels. The dark eyes of a loving man. The betrayal of a new friend. Beautiful moments that all bring me to a place inside myself that I would never have found before.

You made me learn safety in myself. To practice discernment, to use my voice for love.

Binghamton, you have taught me so much. More than Hardeeville, Baltimore, Silver Spring and Columbia combined.

Binghamton, you made me come alive.
 

Thank you,

Miss. Imani

Dear Billings, Montana,

My new home. The city I have grown to love over the past two years.

I had never even considered your existence. A phone call in March 2023 revealed to me that the Bible college that had accepted me was relocating there. Therefore, I, too, was moving there.

You were a city to which I had never been. Still, I spent two days driving across the country towards you, experiencing a myriad of emotions: relief, sadness, fear, apprehension, anxiety, anticipation, excitement, to name a few.

You were the city I drove toward, knowing there wasn’t a single person there who knew of my existence. Strangely enough, the thought relieved me more than I would have imagined. Driving toward you, I felt the heavy blanket of sadness for all I was leaving behind, yet knew I needed the change. You were the light at the end of the dark tunnel that was 2022. You offered the hope of a comforting change.

You were the city I drove toward, facing the fear of the future as I apprehensively pondered the uncertainty of a new start. A new start for a burnt-out teacher, taking a year to be a student again herself. I drove on as the anxiety crept in, as it often does. Would Bible college be everything I was hoping it would be? Could I make any friends? Would I find a job? Were the Montana mountains really greener, or would I feel alone as I did in Oklahoma?

And you were the city I drove toward, full of anticipation and excitement for the major life change I was making. For the first time in years, I felt optimistic, as though my life was about to be better. This hopeful yearning was enough to drown out the fears and anxiety. Beyond ready for a new adventure, all I desired was to blend in with the other students, focus on God, and heal in peace.

I’ll never forget the moment I crossed over the Montana state line on August 21, 2023. I felt a weight lift from my shoulders as I admired the mountains on either side of the road. When I saw your sign, I knew I was almost there, almost to you, my new beginning. The word ‘Billings’ promised much at that moment.

In your city, I started tutoring college students in writing during my studies. This caused me not to blend in (as I’d planned), but to stand out to professors. You were the city where I became an adjunct writing professor (something I had dreamed of for 10 years) under the mentorship of the most talented writing professor I’ve ever known.

I realized I did not want to leave you when the allotted year was coming to a close. I made you my permanent home in 2024 (at least for now). You are the city I wake up in every morning, feeling so thankful to live here. The city I’ve fallen in love with, the city that gave me back my spark. You’ve brought incredible opportunities into my life, both for my career and my personal life.

Billings, Montana. You were an inhale of fresh air for a woman who was suffocating. In your cold, thin mountain air, I finally felt as though I could breathe. To someone feeling the chill of solitude, you were a warm, comforting blanket. You were the bandage God used to mend my broken heart. You’ve brought green sparkle back to my eyes, and my laugh has returned with fervor.

Billings, Montana. My new home. I wish I had been as happy in Oklahoma as I am under your bluffs. However, I realize if I had been, I would have never driven across the country seeking the refuge of your majestic mountains.

Thank you, Billings.

—Mandi

Style Score-89%

Dear Columbia, I was never supposed to walk your halls. Never to experience the pain and suffering that came with you. Even through the trauma of it all, that experience changed me for the better. You never dimmed my light, you actually brightened it. It was you who taught me how to stand tall through moments of great pain and controversy. You held up a mirror to me to show that while like a broken crayon, I can still create a masterpiece within myself. I was able to piece together the puzzle of my life and frame a work of art. Thank you for turning my moment of perpetuity into power.
Love, Jalona

To the hospital who held his last heartbeat,

You were the place where time stopped making sense.

I remember the way the air in your halls tasted. Stale coffee and antiseptic, the metallic tang of fear resting on my tongue. The way the clocks above every nurse’s station seemed to tick louder the longer we stayed, as if counting down to something none of us wanted to name. I remember the fluorescent lights that never dimmed, how they made everything look slightly ghostly.

You were the place where I learned the language of machines. The steady whoosh of the ventilator, the jagged spikes of the oxygen monitor, the way alarms could shatter the illusion of peace in half a second. I learned to read the faces of the doctors before they spoke- the slight tightening around their eyes, the way they’d glance at the floor just a beat too long. I memorized the creak of the chair beside his bed, the one that molded to my body after so many nights spent upright, listening to the symphony of his breathing.

You were the place where I became an expert in small horrors. The way his skin bruised from IVs, blooming purple and yellow like fading sunsets. The sound of his cough, wet and ragged, as if his lungs were tearing themselves apart. The way his wedding ring tightened on his finger when he gained weight from all the steroids, how I quietly brought it home once it couldn’t fit anymore, how I pretended not to notice.

But you were also the place where I learned the vulnerability of quiet kindness. The nurse who brought me graham crackers and peanut butter at 3 a.m. because she knew I wouldn’t eat unless someone made me. The cleaning lady who paused her mopping to squeeze my shoulder when she saw me crying in the stairwell. The doctor who didn’t look away when my vision blurred, her face softening with something like grief.

I hated you for your indifference—for the way your elevators still dinged cheerfully while my world collapsed, for the way life marched on in your gift shop and cafeteria as if nothing was wrong. But I also owe you for the moments of grace you allowed. The morning sunlight that spilled across his bed just before he woke, illuminating his face for a few perfect seconds. The way the night nurses moved like shadows in soft light, smoothing fresh blankets over my husband’s shoulders, pressing a warmed one into my hands without being asked. The social worker who handed me tissues and didn’t flinch when I screamed into her chest.

You were the place where I learned how much love could hurt. The place I learned that grief isn’t a single blow but a thousand small losses- the last time he said my name, the last time he held my hand, the last time I helped him sip water through a straw. Where I learned that hospitals don’t just hold bodies, they hold entire universes of hope and despair, sometimes in the same room.

I don’t know if places can be haunted, but you haunt me. Not with ghosts, but with memories—the scent of his shampoo on the pillow I brought from home, the sound of his laugh echoing down your too-bright halls, the weight of his head on my shoulder during the rare moments when the pain meds let him rest.

You were the place where I lost him. But you were also the place where I loved him, fiercely and completely, until the very last second.

-The Woman Who Learned to Breathe Again in Your Hallways

For a trip to Colorado
By Kiki Pape

All I can say is two words.
Two syllables
That ended up defining my one future.

Thank you.

I want to thank Colorado for my passion
I want to thank Colorado for my smiles
I want to thank Colorado for my memories

By accident, you introduced me to an escape
That led a teenage girl on a journey to apply for peace of mind.

Snow always felt silent.
To a crazy mind from Michigan that needs a break.

Visitors who have come and gone from 114,
There is one family that never will.

Dear Teal Lake,

I couldn’t tell just how much you had changed. All I have are some brief memories of standing in your waters and boating with my father over your glassy surface during annual vacations from sixty years ago. That was before anyone knew just how sick he was. Lung cancer claimed my dad shortly after I turned eight-years-old. I had no clue what the ramifications of losing my father would be. Looking back, I see them all too clearly now.

He would have been the magnetic north I needed for my life’s compass to work properly. Without my father, I was all over the map. No guidance. Questionable choices. Poor decisions. General unhappiness. Culminating in hitting rock bottom. With the support of friends, I started over. My wife took a chance on me as a reclamation project. I’ve done my best to validate her decision.

My mother never took me back for a Teal Lake vacation. She was even more lost than I was without my father. My mom was either unwilling to make the six-hour drive back to you or afraid of the memories awaiting her. Perhaps both.

But I never forgot about you and longed to return to your shores, maybe to glimpse ghosts from my past. Over the decades apart, your popularity waxed and then waned. Today, your resort business is just a shell of what it once was. They filled in the pool with dirt rather than water. Nature has reclaimed the golf course. The barn with the mounted skull of the 24-inch Northern Pike that I caught as a boy collapsed long ago. But you were still there, awaiting my return. My wife and youngest child indulged my flight of fancy and agreed to a vacation in one of the few rental cabins left on Teal Lake.

No ghosts and few memories greeted me as we explored the property along your shore. The best option seemed to be to make some fresh memories, and so we did. The property exuded tranquility. Sunsets were glorious. Your water inviting to slide into or glide across by boat.

There was one special moment after an hour swim out to Raspberry and Bird Islands and back that I’ll never forget. Exhaustion and exhilaration consumed me as I laid back in your waters and floated. I stared at the clouds overhead as they seemed to come closer. Were they were coming down to envelop me, or was I was rising toward them? I sensed definite movement, and a rendezvous with the clouds seemed very real and imminent.

It’s funny how your senses can deceive you. I decided against being swallowed by the clouds and perhaps being magically transported to a parallel universe, an alternate timeline, heaven, or a rural pig farm — my idea of hell. After I blinked and looked away, I found myself still on my back in your water with those mischievous clouds far up in the sky. I felt content to be right where I was with chapters, or at least pages, still to write in my book of life. With new memories of Teal Lake to complement the old, faded ones.

Fondly,

My Vanished Leningrad,

Venice of the north, land of the midnight sun, white night parties, and echoes of a grand dynasty tragically romanticized by Tolstoy that I was first introduced to, you are gone.

When we first met, I was swept up by your beautiful decay, formerly grand palaces, a few sparkling gems kept pristine for the slow trickle of tourists that began pouring in from the west before your latest incarnation.

Communism was on its death bed when I arrived as a tourist, staying with locals, not given the highly curated experience of the finest, presenting a falsely painted face to the west. I saw the wrinkles when passing by the lines for potatoes, the dark circles under your eyes when there was no butter or benzine in the city, and smelled your pungent body odor while crammed into a metro car when the hot water was turned off during the Summer. I fell for you, warts and all.

That Summer of 1990, six months before you would once again be reinvented, you embraced me and made me feel beautiful. Leaving the world of Los Angeles’ unrealistic beautify standards, I was now the exotic other that caught men’s eyes. I was ochi chernye, the dark eyed, dark hair beauty that men opened doors for, raked over with covetous eyes that were enthralled by the tall, strange American woman who was just twenty-one and eager to bite the fruit of worldly knowledge only travel could impart.

You seduced me with your grand architecture, enchanting me with art that I had only ever seen in books. Like a modern girl transported to a time long past, eyes wide with wonder, I traipsed through galleries lined with Rubens and Rembrandts at The Hermitage, treading the same intricately laid parquet floors that once felt the kiss of women’s courtly silk gowns, trimmed with lace, courtesans’ necks adorned with obscenely magnificent jewels.

Sitting with strangers in restaurants who would, in lyrically cadenced broken English, ask me about my supposedly exciting life growing up in Los Angeles, I was equally entranced to learn about their own lives growing up in a culture as foreign to me as if I had been transported to a different reality.

A life lived in innocent security in suburban America, I was thrown into a world where if you wanted to hide valuables, you closed the curtains and turned off the lights before stashing the American cash you brought into the country to avoid curiously prying eyes. The family friend who you traveled to the Soviet Union with would later take hundred-dollar bills to the black market to trade for the rate of thirteen to one when the official rate was a mere six dollars to one ruble. One did not speak too loudly for neighbor snitched on neighbor, reporting snippets of overheard conversations through paper thin walls to the KGB and local police, the GAI. Even cars, a luxury in Communist Russia, side-view windows were pulled off and brought indoors to avoid being pilfered and sold on the pervasive black market, the true economic engine that ran the city beneath the facade of centrally run government control, control that was crumbling during those last few months.

I was temporarily living a life worthy of a spy thriller, traveling beyond your authorized area my visa was approved for, hoping I would not get caught. A guileless American tourist testing the edges, giving the freedom loving middle finger to your Orwellian rules. I held no romantic notions about espionage, but for the briefest of moments, I was able to live the safe version of the spy fantasy.

Walking your streets, I observed locals staring at me with curiosity and suspicion, my face reflecting my western European roots, a stranger’s face in a strange land. Towering cottonwood trees producing a dusting of white, coating the streets with small drifts of fluff coated seeds, lazily wafting down like a gentle fall of snow in Summer, lit golden by the sun.

My circadian rhythm was upended and in disarray without the dark of night to guide my body, full of boundless energy as long as the sun shone. You made me dance my mad dance, like the red ballet shoes, driven to the point of exhaustion, unable to stop with your ceaseless and never-ending tune of sun and activity.

I hear you go by St. Petersburg these days. Oligarchs in Rolls-Royces and their spoiled children in Ferraris, who never knew privation, now prowl your streets. The city you once were still lies beneath. I saw you in your hungrier days, earnestly wooing me, and that is how I’ll always remember you, when you opened my eyes and became my first foreign love.

From America with Love,

Elise

Dear Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge,

I’ve got to hand it to you. You did everything possible to convince us to succumb to the cold. You gave us the darkest of nights. You raked us with your wicked winds and froze us with your biting cold. You got us lost. You tempted us with hope, then ripped it away. More than once, you made us think our baby was dead.
Through it all, we survived. All of us. True, the missus and I succumbed to permanent damage from our icy walk. We suffered the loss of our toes and still feel pain in our extremities when the mercury drops. But we are alive.
Though the cold is what ravaged our bodies, still reminding us thirty-two years later with every painful step we take, it was the isolation that has given me nightmares. Thoughts of your extreme remoteness and barren high desert emptiness keep me up some nights. Trapped in the depths of your vastness with no hope for aid terrifies me still.
As I have already said, all three of us survived. You failed. We faced starvation. We stood against your blasting snow and sub-zero temperatures. We shrugged off your threat of howling coyotes. Hidden in your furthest corners against all these obstacles, we triumphed.
It was touch and go for a while, but with our will to endure and our drive to keep our infant son alive, we did not go quietly. We fought every inch of our long march to thwart your plans for our destruction.
Maybe it was a test of our will. A test to see if we could, despite the most difficult predicament, keep our baby alive. Did we find you so we could prove our worth? I’ve thought about this often over the years. Was it a challenge set forth by some unseen force to probe the limits of human endurance? The spiritual side of me, seeking beauty in all things, tells me this scenario is possible.
My more pragmatic side, however, always wins this debate. It was an initial mistake on our part not to inform anyone exactly where we were headed. After that, we faced decision after decision, any one of which, if chosen poorly, would have ended in our demise. We made the correct call time and again until we found our way out of your labyrinth of death. That we are still here is a testament to an undying will to save our baby.
We beat you. Yes, we still bear the scars to remind us, but we beat you. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of those nine days. Decades have gone by, and the baby is now a man with children of his own. Not only did we beat you, we thrived despite your efforts to end us.
Our suffering has become an inspiration to others. People say things like, “I could never have done what you did. I’d be dead for sure.” My response is always the same. I tell them that I would have said the same thing if it had never happened to me. You can never know what you’re capable of until you are tested, like we were. When the life of your innocent child is in your hands, you will stop at nothing to save them.
Your efforts to kill us have only fostered a stronger will to survive and confidence in our ability to do so. It has also given hope to those with whom we share this story. In a way, your methods of culling the human population have only increased and fortified it.
So, while I hate you for trying to kill me, my wife, and our son, I thank you for making me the person I am today. I am strong. I am resilient. I appreciate the little things. I have faced death and won. I live a good life and can say, with confidence, much of it is because of how you changed me.

Sincerely,
Jim

Dear Hospital,

It’s crazy how five days could end up feeling like three weeks. I guess the days kind of blur together when they’re all pretty similar and you’re spending the majority of them wallowing in loneliness and self-pity.
After the EMT escorted me to one of your rooms, she left me alone with my thoughts and a criminally prepared meaty dish. The sunshine blasting through the window made me both glad not to be enduring the Georgia summer heat, but envious of everyone who had the freedom to do so.

Over several months in early 2020, I noticed several unusual changes in my body that no one had answers to—at least, not for a while. One night, on a road trip home from a family reunion in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I was worried my already not-perfect vision was worsening. The traffic lights looked unusually blurry, and the words on the road signs looked as if they were fused together. I assumed it was time to return to the optometrist and maybe get a stronger glasses prescription. It wasn’t that simple.
Before my family and I left Pittsburgh, I spent more time than I was used to napping whenever possible, and my movements started resembling those of a baby deer. I remember being terrified that going down the stairs of the Airbnb would be the death of me. The constant fatigue certainly didn’t help either. Maybe I should eat more? Maybe I should eat better? Maybe the summer heat was sucking up all my energy? No, it was more than that.

After partaking in several doctor’s appointments, it was decided I should stay with you for several days so they could figure out what was really wrong. Aside from the obvious symptoms, what was wrong was having a bed that alerted nurses whenever I got up. What was wrong was having my regular whimsical wardrobe replaced with unflattering hospital gowns. What was wrong was being too wobbly, so I couldn’t shower without a nurse nearby to catch me if I fell. What was wrong was only eating fruit and drinking water, ginger ale, and orange juice, because nothing else I was given was edible. What was wrong was not being able to fall asleep at night because I was alone and scared. What was wrong was not feeling like myself because I wasn’t wearing my signature long braids. If I knew I was being hospitalized, I would’ve braided my hair to my liking way before.
Every day came with a new surprise during my stay with you. Certain events were pretty consistent, like the nurse check-ins, temperature and blood pressure checks, and the blood draws. But one day, a woman entered my room with a pamphlet on Christianity and briefly spoke to me about God. On another day, two doctors came into my room and took cerebrospinal fluid from my lower back. Then, I was wheeled out of my room to get put in a much colder room while my brain was examined.
After every encounter with a medical stranger, I was always brought back to my room to sleep, read, scroll through Pinterest, or talk to my friends or family on the phone.
But no matter who I spoke to on the phone during those five days with you, they all felt far away. While I was getting poked for blood, they were engaging in family dinners. While my hunger was diminishing due to the smell of the food your staff prepared, which was killing my appetite, they were eating takeout. While I was being supervised while taking a shower, they were going to the pool.

While my stay with you might’ve been necessary to give me a proper diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, being with you definitely messed with my brain. I was stunned to find out I was only with you for five days when it felt like three weeks. It took me some time to get used to eating decent food again, waking up every day in my own bedroom, and being able to get out of bed without setting off an alarm. It also took a while for my clothes to feel like they were mine again after not being able to wear any of them until my final day with you.

And yet, as I sat by the window in my mother’s car on the way home from my time with you, wearing my red dress and matching knit hat, I felt the edges of myself start to settle again. The time with you had taken five days, but the time left behind a strange echo—like I’d stepped out of time and back into a life that needed reassembling.

Sincerely,
Amanda Glover

Snow on the ground
Chill breeze in the air
Footprints in the mud
Birds flying gracefully in the sky
I sit on the bench overlooking the lake
The bench that sits alone
Surrounded by metal barriers
Near the clear waters
Looking into the distance
I calmly relax the body
The body that
Walked around the lake
The body that
Cautiously walked on icy paths
The body that
Inhaled the fresh crisp air
The body that
Needed the rest
Rest from feeling
Rest from carrying the weight
Of the world
Rest from thinking
I sit on the bench that
Wrapped its arms
Around my body
The bench that
Accepted every part of me
Every part of my story
Every part of my healing
The bench that
Let me know
I was safe
Safe from the world
Safe from the hurt
Safe from all
That was holding me down
Snow on the ground
Chill breeze in the air
Footprints in the mud
Birds flying gracefully in the sky
I sit on the bench
And cry
Cry for the little girl
Who needed love
Who needed assurance
Who needed guidance
Cry for the woman who
Is finally free
Free from the pain
Free from the enemy
I get up from the bench
And walk away lighter
Than when I sat
I walk away
With my head held higher
I walk away
With love
With dignity
With respect
With purpose
The bench that sits alone
Will forever feel like home.
– Lynx Lake. Prescott, Arizona.
The bench that changed my life. Put my healing journey in perspective.

Style Score 100%

I went to the same high school that Junie B. Jones went to

But even though we lived where the same roots grew

It was not the same story

I’m a part of the only graduating class that held graduation in the street in front of the school and not on the football field

The only class where our Senior Trip in the spring almost got cancelled because of snow

The 20th Anniversary of Red & White Night

I lived in the town next door
A 5 min drive but a 30 min walk away
Just outside the radius where the bus could pick me up

I walked to high school all four years
All four years I took dance instead of gym
All four years I had the same best friend
And all four years my father was in prison

He actually got out right before graduation and I told him not to come
That year was not just the biggest year of my life but my whole family
My single mother
my sister and my brother
I’m turning 18,
sister turning 16,
brother turning 13

It was a big year
So much was happening and I shed so many tears
Not the point of this poem
But I would like to set the scene here

I look back and my high school is the place I hold most dear

This school is in a small town with big town energy

A Homecoming Parade that shut down every street in every direction

I would wait all year to taste chili while watching art be formed out of ice downtown

Every Thanksgiving even after I graduated you’d see all the alumni at the football game

It was my escape just a town over but I still didn’t understand why so many people stayed

I felt stuck and caged but I was young

I would walk those streets hoping for the day I would never see them again

I cherish now what I hated then

Knowing now that this town and that high school changed my life

This is where my relationship with learning became stronger

My love for History and Literature grew

Becoming my double majors later in college

For the first time I would share short stories and poems with my English teachers outside of class hours

And as of 2024 I became a published poet

This is where my history teacher let me lead a class about the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr

Later becoming the first school I substitute taught at

This is where I spent time putting books back on shelves in the library

Where I played 3 sports and auditioned for a musical

I got a call back but wasn’t there when they called my name

Only because I was on a bus going to a football game

Cheerleading my senior year led me to join the dance team in college

This town and that high school is where I gained so much knowledge

No not the right words, not enough

To this town and that high school I pay homage

I have so much appreciation for people who may not remember my name

Teachers and other students all the same

There isn’t enough thank yous to suffice

To this town and that high school that changed my life

Dear 32 acres of pine tree forest and boulder mountains,

My family and I call you, “The Property.” But that name does you no justice. It sounds so simple, so barren and lifeless, so ordinary and unique. The opposite of everything you are.

My family loved spinning the tale of how our family ended up at The Property. Just outside of Cotopaxi, Colorado, my great grandparents built their house 9,000 feet high in the rocky mountains in an isolated community called Indian Springs. I listened, amazed and uncertain, as the story continued with the twist that both of them had seen this spot in a dream and set out to find it, succeeding only after a couple of years. Their dream led them across the Arkansas river, up a windy dirt road surrounded by impossibly high pine trees, and through moss-kissed boulders clustered haphazardly throughout the forest, as if the gods had shaken them in a cup and rolled them across the earth like dice.

They built their house without help, just each other and a few lengthy stretches of optimal weather. They also installed a solar panel, dug a well, constructed a greenhouse, and in only 5 year’s time they were not only living comfortably in a cozy, two story masterpiece in the spot they had dreamed of, but they were self-sufficient.

My grandma also added that in her dream, my older sister Kyla and I would find treasure somewhere in the mountains on The Property. My daydreams filled with Cherokee artifacts and chests of rubies and turquoise.

When they shooed us off, we didn’t mind. We had games to play. I soon forgot that story, but it always lingered in the back of my mind.

Life on The Property was magical. We ran barefoot across all 32 acres. We knew every climbable tree, every cave that was bear-less, every pathway across the jagged disfigured rocks. Chasing each other from sunup to sun-down, we blended into nature like two baby fawns.

We created and played a game called “Niamalis.” In Niamalis, a group of orphans were forced to flee their miserable life at an orphanage because of a series of earthquakes, and upon climbing a nearby rock formation, they accidentally fell into an invisible portal leading to the magical world of Niamalis. Each orphan had unique magical gifts, from the ability to shoot fire from their palms to the ability to shapeshift into and communicate with birds. It was a wild story, and we played it every single day.

But the summers would always come and go much too fast.

During the school year, we lived in an uncomfortably small trailer with our mom, stepfather, and other little sister, Aspen. My parents never left their room, as they were hiding a drug habit I was too young to understand, and so my mom micromanaged us from behind the door, from sunup to sun-down.

By the time I was 6, Kyla who was then 8, and I were responsible for getting ourselves up and ready for school, making our own meals, doing our own laundry, cleaning the house and the dishes, and watching our younger sister, Aspen, who was only 3.

I battled a lot of frustration during that time. Wanting to have nice clothes for school but no laundry soap to wash them, wanting to take a bath but feeling scared of the thin brown layer of something that coated the bath tub wall and floor, wanting to make my stomach stop feeling so hungry but not having the food to soothe it, trying to make friends but struggling with bullies and indifferent teachers, wanting clean dishes but not having the dish soap to clean them, were a few of the major frustrations I faced daily.

I thought that if I could somehow complete these impossible tasks our mother burdened us with the responsibility of figuring out ourselves, that she would be proud of us, and want to spend time with us. Any time at all. But even during the times the house was stocked with laundry detergent or dish soap, my mother was never satisfied with the work we completed, and she remained in her room, untouchable and out of reach.

Things got worse when one of my mom’s friends shaved all of my hair off after I had tried to cut a section of it myself. It was not only unnecessary, but it had a devastating effect on my self esteem and my social life.

I started getting into fights at school because I couldn’t tolerate being bullied. My peers knew I was a girl with a shaved head, but they were relentless, insisting I was a boy who had become a transgender. It seemed like the teachers and staff were not aware that I was a girl, gently trying to persuade me to quit saying I was. I would just stare at the ground, furious tears welling in my eyes. I was sure they could have looked at my file and seen an “F” in the gender category, but if they did, they didn’t show it.

(Since I am part Native American, it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch for Cheyenne to be a male name.)

Whenever my mom would come to the school, it felt like a twisted sitcom, where the subject bounced around but never was directly said. I kept hoping that someone would confirm that I wasn’t a boy but a girl, and that the students shouldn’t be harassing me about my gender. Unfortunately, at the time I didn’t have the words to express that need and it always slipped through my fingers.

At school, I was an outcast in a war zone. At home, I was a “quit buggin’ and finish cleaning!”

I felt very alone, and powerless to make change.

But then summer would come, and my sister and I were free, running barefoot through the dry tundra grass, hair billowing in the wind like sails, cheeks flushed, smiles finding our faces once more. The Property was like a whole other world. It didn’t matter that we were orphans, or that our home was a disaster, because we had fallen into Niamalis, and if we trained and practiced our skills, we were undefeatable.

As life moved on, each twirl of the Earth’s rotation around the sun brought more and more chaos. When I was 13, they sentenced my stepfather, to whom I had grown very close, to 48 years in prison. I was homeless and on the streets one Christmas when I was 15, and part of me wonders if the rage I felt could have been the fuel that kept me alive in the bitter Colorado cold. When I was 21, I had my daughter, and my favorite Aunt Teri passed away, just barely missing the chance for them to meet. We lost my great grandfather and this year, when I am now 29 years old, we lost my great grandmother.

I hope one day I will get to find the treasure that she predicted we would find in her dream. I hope I can bring those excited smiles back onto my sister’s face, and I hope I will hold on to the faith that miracles can happen.

Dear 32 acres of pine tree forest and boulder mountains,

You have given me strength, and motivation, and peace. Some may never see you as more than random trees and rocks, but I see you like an old friend, whom I love dearly.

One could even speculate that the treasure had already been discovered. During those sunny summer afternoons, among small barefoot prints pressed into the dirt, wild flower crowns and giggles that echoed for miles, we had found an escape from our pain and sorrow.

My family still lives there to this day, and I’m sure my family always will. Because we know that it’s not just the beauty and the memories that make it so enjoyable.

Dear Property, you are also proof that Heaven exists.

But Im In no rush to get to Heaven.

I’ve got a piece of it right here.

90%

I’m sorry I couldn’t do it anymore. I danced the dance, jumped as high as I could, and played the part. In the end, I could tell that nothing I did was good enough for any of you, and your looming eyes constantly judged me. I could feel the walls closing in with invisible pressure. For a while, I thought that the pressure and constant suffocation were just parts of life. You’ll never guess, it’s not. I escaped it — the clamor, the fake smiles, and the disdain. No one cared for me, no one treated me as an individual; I was a cog in a wheel. I was just another person to be sucked into the machine.

Now I’ve found my tribe, I found those who would let me be who I was meant to be. I moved hundreds of miles away, and it was just far enough to feel things that every human is made to feel. I finally feel hope. Nature, humanity, and a compassion that everyone deserves to feel, these things lift my spirit. This is the place, this is the Grand Canyon.

Yes, I live and work at the Grand Canyon. I stare at a hole in the ground for eight hours a day with a simple job and great benefits. I have a tiny community, but its more than you could ever be. I have real responsibility to this community, and it treats me well. When I was ill, it gave me strength, and when I was afraid, it gave me safety. Yes, the tourists are a bit dumb, but they are funny, and if you give them ice cream, they are nice.

Genuineness was not your forte. However, here it abounds. I never felt so much freedom from people in their own cliques and prejudices. I love it here, but to be honest, I wouldn’t have been as grateful if it weren’t for you. Yes, here it is isolating, and there is little to no excitement or class, but the people here care for each other. When I’m on the edge of the cliff, about to fall into the canyon, people here pull me away and pick me up instead of waiting for me to do it. People see each other’s struggles, and most care. I care.

I am part of a larger whole. A paint stroke in a masterpiece. I am so grateful it was to something that is so beautiful, and frankly I am glad it’s not you. Though my isolation may lose me to the world, I found myself. I found my people. I found my home.