Third Prize 
 

PLACELESSNESS  

 

Home (v.): return by instinct to its territory after leaving it (Oxford Languages)  

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Teach me how to piece a  

home from ruins– debris of false promises  

choking any last square of hope Hope is that  

thing with feathers, but are those feathers  

bricks that can form a foundation  

lay the groundwork for a bed I can  

call mine Or the iridescent lie of birds  

that drafted nests with others  

You flew me seven thousand seven hundred miles  

to unwelcoming land– soil that doesn’t hold the imprint of my  

feet, floating mouths that string myths into sentences  

 for children I was only a child struggling to  

remember my sister’s face how she bought me  

three egg-tarts at the Changle airport  

how airports are placeless We’re in Fuzhou and Sydney  

and New York And this place whose name  

started with mei was my new home  

with a father I never knew Teach me  

with your music box that played Mozart’s Turkish March on 

loop how the song is still the same  

how home is still home. And I am your daughter. 
 

  Yan Zhen Zhu 
  Brooklyn Technical High School  

 
NICO  
 
Raymond is my father  
Raymond may be my name  

But I am far from Raymond  
I have not left my family for no reason  
But I did leave  
I have yet to be drunk  
One day I may be  
He chose the drink over me  
I still have his name  
I'm not addicted to cigarettes  
Yet I’ve still seen smoke from common threats  
He grew up with common clothes and harder problems  
I grew up with ripped threads 
He grew up fostered  
House to house  
I grew up dead broke  
Staying at my mom’s friend’s house to water bugs in our couch  
I refuse to be the same  
I am no better than he is  
He still thinks Chicago is where I remain  
Maybe there’s a reason for his name  
I never missed my dad  
He usually missed my birthday  
Showed up drunk at my birthplace  
Pissing on the floor  
Would’ve thought I was a mistake  
I still bear his name  
He’s had addictions  
I’ve had addictions  
We both had and have our problems  
He’s asked for forgiveness  
I’ve asked for forgiveness  
We are the same  
Forever in god's name I swear we are different  
I am still Raymond others can’t see the difference 
I am no junior to someone who has failed to follow through  
Yet I have failed too  
How can you love someone that never gave you the chance to understand you  
How can you love someone who was supposed to be there for your short youth? 
I’m in a war with how similar I am to my father  
I battle with my identity 
I battle the common idea of loving everyone in your family  
But how can you love someone you don’t know?  
I am far from Raymond 
I am Nico.  
 

Raymond “Nico” Crozier 
Martin Van Buren High School   

​

Second Prize 
 

SPINE  
 
I coughed into the ground and grew a garden. How irretrievable sanity is.  
How pure the rise of wilted lilies, flowers of my mind.  

I wish I could topple to the ground  

like a dead queen’s tower, my life  
a castle of sand.  
I want to be  
Small & strong.  

I am proud of my love for pain.  

I have been warned of my crooked spine from a young age,  

but threats of a brace never touched me, I know each vertebrae personally,  
I starved to let them shine.  
The backbone  
of my mind is made of pictures  

of women who don’t want me.  

Their voices form 
the sinew of my dreams.  

The tumble of their hair:  

brown, black, or gold  
flow in the blood of my thoughts.  
The backbone  
of my life is nothing but gelatinous  
potential. A prod and it gives way.  

A push or a poke & it changes shape. 
 

  Rooney Kim  
  The Brooklyn Latin School  

​

 

SHOTGUN  

​

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO MY WEDDING! THERE WILL BE 
A BRIEF CEREMONY AND NO RECEPTION. EVERYONE MUST 
WEAR WHITE AND SOME KIND OF HAT. (ALTERNATIVELY, YOU 
CAN JUST ARRIVE NAKED)  

ALL GUESTS MUST ALSO PURCHASE AN APPROPRIATE GIFT USING 
MY ‘SMITH & WESSON’ OR ‘SPECTRA TECHNOLOGIES LLC’ 
WEDDING REGISTRIES. (ALTERNATIVELY, YOU CAN BRING A CAT 
WITH YOU, JUST NO PUREBREDS)  

 

I picture it at least once a week.  
Vows and flowers cocked  
And people I don’t know clapping.  

 

Those I know are shocked;  
Enormous eyes  
But mine are loaded, steely,  

 

Locked.  
It might be you there with me.  
(Or do I know you too well now?)  

I’ll shoot our names into the altar to make sure  
That I still misspell yours  
And not mine.  

 

Tear off in a rental car,  
Bared chests, lost deposits.  
Trading hickies as tin cans crackle back at the churchgoers  

 

Like friendly fire.  
A din so loud I can’t hear myself wondering:  
(Are you even a Democrat?)  

 

The joy is in the half-jokes  
That illuminate the waste.  
Like: “Me-ow! Look at that pretty gas station boy.  

 

Should we stuff him in the trunk and take him 
on our honeymoon?” (Your nails cut deeper 
into my back now. Why?)  
We see the burn pile, the shell casing, the match  

 

In that brief flash of spread out smile.  
But even blind, the ash still piles inside us; 
full up past the eyes. (What color are yours 
again? Were they a gift from your mother?)  

 

The high is lost at Motel 6  
Where I pull your pin and toss you backward over the 
threshold. And you hole up in fetal position and do not 
touch me for the rest of the night.  

 

But in the morning when fuse lines blur  
(And nothing more is owed)  
You’ll fragment,  
We’ll share your dress  
And hiss, purr, and  
Explode.  
 

  Otho Valentino Sella   
  Bronx High School of Science 

 
First Prize 
 

PRE-OPERATIVE LOVE POEM  

Má què suī xiǎo, wǔ zàng jù quán. Although a sparrow is small, my 
father tells me, it still has all of its guts.  

​

Today, childhood is a vestigial organ slumbering beneath  
my forehead, and the world is another broken body  

I can’t live inside, but with a familiar pulse against my chest my 
arms feel like mine again. My baby doesn’t mind the blood  

on my face or the way I slip on womanhood like my mother’s red 
dress I never quite grew into. She traces the contours of my  

exoskeleton and names the bones. Frontal. Nasal. Mandible. My 
reflection in the hospital mirror metamorphoses into the fetal pig  

I dissected in the laboratory junior year. A nameless loss swathed in gauze on 
the operating table. Here’s to the scent of formaldehyde fresh  

from the womb and forgiveness like dissolvable stitches in a party basement. The 
years of our exile curled up inside each other like nesting dolls.  

Here’s to the nose I fractured before my infant skull was finished fusing, and 
here’s to the heart I sutured while democracy collapsed outside.  

When they slip the anesthesia into my restless veins and implore me to count 
backwards to darkness, I just think her name  
all  

the  

way  

down. 
 

  Josephine Low   
  Hunter College High School  

 

Foreign Language Award 
 

SEHNSUCHT 
Ich schaue aus meinem Fenster und wundere mich, was mir die weite Welt zeigt.  

Santorin, vielleicht  
Blau und Weiß gestrichen  
Je schmaler die Gasse, je leichter zu vergessen.  
 

Oder Venedig?  
In der Gondel ist alles einfach,  
Kanäle wie diese hat man noch nie so gesehen  
 

Kann aber auch Paris sein  
Alles glänzende Träume, die man sich mal vorgestellt hat  
Liebende Paare erinneren mich, an was sein könnte  
 

Tokyo, wenn ich mich abenteuerlustig fühle  
Die Fremde öffnet neue Türen,  
Zeige mir, was ich nie erfahren werde…  
Jedenfalls nicht vor einer mickrigen Lucke.  
 

Mein Fenster zeigt aber irgendwie nur eine einzige Realität.  
 

Zuhause—  
Die Wände von meinem persönlichen Gefängnis und die Wirklichkeit des Lebens. 
 

Ich bin immer nur hier. 
 

LONGING 
 
I look out my window and wonder what the wide world will show me  

Santorini, maybe 
Painted blue and white  
The smaller the alley, the easier to forget.  
 
Or Venice? 
In the gondola everything is easy, 
Canals like these have never been seen before 
 
It could also be Paris 
All brilliant dreams that we once imagined 
Loving couples remind me of what could be  
 
Tokyo, when I’m feeling adventurous  
The foreign open new doors, 
Show me what I will never experience… 
At least not in front of a measly window.  
 
My window, however, somehow shows only one reality.  
 
Home-- 
The walls of my personal prison and the actuality of life. 
 
I’m always just here. 
 

  Amidala Barta-Zilles  
  Bronx High School of Science 
 

 
‘PRINTEMPS’ 

 
l’hiver me mord. 
je suis fatigué de le froid antiseptique– 
ca pique 
je rêve de printemps, j'ai plein de remords 
remords pour mes vœux d'hiver 
mais je regarde comme mère nature marche 
partout où elle marche le sol fleurit 
et la terre se colore 
elle apporte avec elle la pluie. 

Alors que mère nature se promène 
L'hiver meurt lentement. 
 
Alors que mère nature se promène, 
Elle apporte avec sa renaissance 
elle-même nous est née nouvelle chaque année, 
Avec beaucoup d’autres. 
Alors que mère nature se promène 
Nous renaissons. 
Il y a beaucoup de naissance. 
 
désolé - chaque fois qu'une saison arrive, 
nous oublions la joie de cette époque. 
Je déteste l'hiver maintenant, 
mais bientôt je détesterai le printemps. 
printemps, les empreintes de mère nature. 
le printemps, 
les marques de la naissance et 
de la renaissance. 
 
 
SPRING 
 
winter bites me. 
I'm tired of the antiseptic cold— 
it stings 
I dream of spring, I am full of remorse 
remorse for my winter wishes 
but I watch as mother nature walks 
wherever she walks the ground blooms 
and the earth is colored 
it brings with it the rain. 
 
As mother nature walks 
Winter is slowly dying. 
As mother nature walks, 
She brings with her rebirth 
she herself was born new to us every year, 
With many others. 

As mother nature walks 
We are reborn. 
There are many births. 
 
sorry—every time a season comes, 
we forget the joy of that time. 
I hate winter now, 
but soon I will hate spring. 
spring, mother nature's footprints. 
spring, 
birthmarks and 
rebirth. 
 

  Zora Kuehne    
  Bronx High School of Science 
 

 
CARO, AMORE MIO  
 
anche quando fa freddo  
anche quando ho freddo  
mi riscaldi  
con il calore della tua anima  
il calore del tuo cuore 
il calore delle tue mani  
mi copre 
ora, dopo un lungo periodo di brividi  
finalmente ho caldo 
non a causa del sole 
non a causa dell’estate  
non a causa di nessuno altro 
perché sei  tu 
solo tu 
per sempre tu 
e il tuo calore  
che mi guarisce 

​

​

MY DEAR LOVE  
 
Even when it is cold 
Even when I am cold  
You warm me 
With the warmth of your soul 
The warmth of your heart 
The warmth of your hands 
Blankets me  
Now, after a long time of chills 
I am finally warmed  
Not because of the sun 
Not because of summer 
Not because of anyone else 
But because of you 
Only you 
Always you 
And your warmth 
Which heals me. 
 

  Juliet Esposito-Parente  
  Tottenville High School 

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