the lighting in my house
always glows orange at night
maybe it’s the ghosts
of the Goldfish I snuck
from the pantry; I was nine

tiptoeing through the narrow hall
eyes adjusting to the fuzzy darkness
the wooden cabinets creak
as my hand slips in
groping for the prized bag
running my slender fingers along
the curves of every miniscule fish
before shoving each one into my watering mouth

I always did like to eat the tails first
but no one was awake; I wouldn’t dare
chomp down on the innocent crackers that night

I hope you enjoyed this short one! It’s actually super old– maybe almost two years? I always come back to it and laugh… there’s something childish yet sinister about the imagery. It really shifts depending on how you want to look at it. Please feel free to leave feedback and writing challenges in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

As the sun dips below the horizon
a bit earlier each day, I'm thinking

of how easy it is to watch the seasons
go by from your window, time flying

by and us dragged along on its coattails.
When will it be time to break out

our routines, see new sections
of the sky, and embrace adventure?

I want to see new places, not just
project them in my head while reading

a book. It's almost time to grow up, 
they say, as if growing up is a singular 

event with a beginning and end,
and we're all ready for the next step,

to hop on a plane and never come back.

I hope you enjoyed this piece! Just some short thoughts as a high school senior working on college apps and endless choices. Feel free to leave feedback in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

Hi everybody,

As you may know, I run a youth literary magazine named Intersections Magazine. We are currently accepting submissions for our fourth issue and we would love to read your poetry and prose!

I highly encourage any of you writers out there to submit, particularly if your work centers around current events or any social issues that especially impact young people like us.

You can find us at intersectionsmagazine.org, @intersectionslitmag on Instagram, and @__intersections on Twitter (2 underscores).

Our submit page on our website is linked here https://www.intersectionsmagazine.org/submit or you can just head straight to our submission form if you have a piece you’re ready to send our way!

We also submit submissions to our blog through a separate submission form here.

Even if you’re not interested in submitting or not a young person, I highly encourage you to check Intersections out– we feature some amazing work and we would greatly appreciate any support 🙂

Brooke

It's 4 p.m. and we've hit
the afternoon slump, but while I slouch
in my chair my mind is elsewhere,
thinking of the year that just passed us by.
It doesn't feel like the time to buy balloons,
gather around a cake, 
nor the time to pack my backpack 
with pencils and notebooks,
lace up my shoes and head to school
in the frigid mornings only for the sun
to peek out and make us sweat 
forty minutes later. 
Another rotation of the four seasons,
of beginnings and endings,
tests and weekends spent trying
to relax but catching up on homework
anyways, and I know I'm dramatizing this
but I can't believe we're already here
again.
In this moment, I am still sitting,
trying to stretch out the day before
everything hits us all at once
and I don't know why I'm so scared
but I am. Sit with me
and let's talk about it.

I hope you enjoyed this piece! It pretty much sums up my feelings about my seventeenth birthday (which was one day ago by the time you’re reading this! Crazy!) and the start of my senior year, which are pretty much intertwined as there’s only 4 days between my birthday and the first day of school. So much has happened and even though senior year is still a whole year that’s ahead, I’m already reflecting on high school and all the time that’s flown by. It’s an emotional and overwhelming time, especially when you add in the chaos of college applications and whatnot. I hope you all are doing well and enjoying the last bits of summer. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

Because summer was fleeting
and we wanted to soak up every drop,

we fell asleep on lounge chairs 
and laid out for hours,

still managing to avoid getting our hair wet.
Our skin burned and turned colors

when we dug our fingers into it, 
proving even this innocent fun

had consequences. Outside all day,
turning pink and golden,

hair getting lighter, our heels
adjusting to the heat of the bricks

as we padded them over to the pool,
all we could do

was enjoy this moment while it lasted.

I hope you enjoyed this short piece. I absolutely CANNOT believe that summer is coming to an end. Hopefully you all have enjoyed the past few months. Please feel free to leave feedback and writing challenges in the comments! Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

The hills were never as green
as a few months after they burned.

They're brown now again
and we're starting to think about

the next blaze that will
the next innocent fire that goes wrong

and spreads across acres,
smoke pouring into the sky

and blowing away from here.
It is no longer an "if";

it's a "when" and the hottest
months are yet to come.

We wait in the heat,
sweating in anticipation,

living the same lives regardless.

I hope you enjoyed this piece! Since almost the entire year is “fire season” where I live in California at this point, it’s always kind of nerve-wracking thinking about the potential natural disasters ahead. Please feel free to share feedback and writing challenges in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

And I laugh at the time we tried
to turn back the clocks,
the days when I wore
a broken watch to make myself feel
better about wasting time.
Maybe it wasn't wasted after all,
if we're looking back now
and smiling. Another old calendar
is thrown out and I think of all
the moments we scribbled
dates and times in, the next meeting
and the next scheduled time to relax.
As the months go on, when AC
switches to heat and the clothes
are swapped in the drawers, 
think of the writing. The words
in the corners of assignments,
lines we didn't think we'd use.
Time doesn't just get away from us,
it runs, and we haven't figured out
not to chase after it.

I hope you enjoyed this piece! It’s kind of a fun one– I always love writing about time. I hope you all are enjoying your summers… as you might glean from this poem, mine is speeding away too quickly! Feel free to leave feedback and writing challenges as always. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

Hi everyone!

If you’re interested in reading some great poetry and prose, it would be much appreciated if you checked out Intersections Magazine’s latest issue. You can find it at intersectionsmagazine.org — we just updated our website a couple weeks ago 🙂

It’s been such a wonderful experience reading submissions and hearing people’s stories, crafting a magazine and designing the website. Hopefully you enjoy it as much as our team has enjoyed putting it together.

As always, feel free to let me know what you think! Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

The old man in the brown, buttery leather chair’s 
eyeglasses are fogging up, but his eyes remain 
closed as he listens to the sound machine’s bird calls

I give him a nod for showing up—my father hasn’t
People come in and out, the doors shutting tightly
behind them. I memorize their faces until my short-

term memory empties them, but the old man remains
as he sits back, keeping his eyes closed. His name
is called, and I’m stuck waiting alone.

I hope you enjoyed this super short piece! I actually found it when looking through some poems I wrote over a year ago, and it’s crazy to see the differences in my writing– the different topics I was drawing inspiration from, the different forms and styles, etc. I like this little piece, but I definitely am proud of the positive progress I’ve made with my writing since writing this. Please feel free to leave feedback and writing challenges in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke