Award-Winning Writing – Page 2

Pineapple Upside-Down

Julio says the Americans tear him apart like he’s a weed and then he sucks on his lollipop, viciously, like he wishes he could grey his lungs with tobacco. We stare out the window at the dead street. Nothing grows here, not money or weeds or the wax palms of el Quindio, the ones Julio tells me about. Higher than the Eiffel Tower, he says, combing their fronds through the sky, grasping. Sometimes, I can see them in my head, hazy and vivid like a dream.

on the last day of summer i forgot my bathing suit

waved goodbye to my sneakers on the shore.
shoulders draped in cloth like a pietà.

Gutter Truths

Honesty.

The pen doesn’t work. Outside, the rain whispers down onto the road. It murmurs through the gutters in a language I can’t understand: the rain only speaks in truth.

Nothing is Terrifying

The sun is gone, but the night is hot. I sit as far away from the fire pit as I can, fingers tracing patterns in the sand. It’s dry and powdery, and still a little warm. The sparks from the fire jump and fizzle. I feel the flashes of pain as they land on my bare legs. I don’t mind; a part of me even likes it. Fire on bare skin, and I win.

Helen

She burst into the courtyard. It was quiet; the cobbles glinted in the bright moonlight. Although her feet ached from running, she did not dare take her sandals off. The streets were sticky with the blood of the wounded, even this far into Ilium.