MPitS     Point Arena Charter High School
2005/2006

Untitled

There is a difference
Between those who love you
And those who bore you
Between the eyes that watch nervously as you learn
Grow, eyes that tear up as you grow up too fast,
And eyes that look like your own
Between the hands and heart that guide and cherish you
And those that took you gently from the doctor's arms
The heart whose rhythm was your world
There is a difference between you
And the world, between who you were
Who you are and who you might have been

A difference you must see, acknowledge
One you can never overcome, never understand
Why you are the one left to face it
Your lips leave a smudge on the glass over their faces
Wipe it with your sleeve and place the frame back on your bedside table
Your tears will have to fall on different shoulders

Unconditional love is no longer guaranteed
to you, but it is still out there for you
you must learn to trust in a way that only you can understand
trust that he will not mind the snot you leave behind on his coat
trust that though her eyes don't mirror your own, her love still blankets you
trust that there are people left you wont judge you
when you are wrong

Mom and Dad
These palindromes are deleted back to front
Front to back, from your vocabulary
The sheer curtain between you and the pity in other's eyes is torn down
It may take time for your shoulders to straighten,
for love to escape from your heart
You must overcome

There is a difference between who you are now
Who you were then
The you that you will become and who you might have been
There is a difference between how those would have thought of you
And how they will see you now
Now you have to make a difference

Gina Lappe
12 th Grade, Pacific Community Charter High School




Role Models

There is something I want you to know but I'm sure you already do. This is the age of acceptance the age of if it feels good do it. Morality is merely a state of mind and is as flexible as a rubber string. Love is disguised as sex and physical attraction because it rarely last. We are led to follow and obsess over the lives of actors and musicians. The poverates always telling so many truths and lies that soon you no longer know the difference. Roll models that cheat on their spouses who get married and divorced within a matter of months. They may be good actors but I would never look at them as roll models, their lives have no stories that haven't heard before. High school is often the same you hook up, cheat, breakup.

Paul Rogers
11 th Grade, Pacific Community Charter High School



Untitled

Man I don't know what to write

I had an idea but I'm in a fight.                                             

Trying to think of something fast ain't easy                        

Because if I get too rushed it sounds quite cheesy.          

I'm working hard at getting it and its not funny       

The more I think I'm getting closer the more it feels like its runny.

By runny I mean it falls apart when you are only half way

It slips between your fingers before you can even say hey!

This is kind of weird, writing about not writing      

But that's no reason for plight.

Aidan Nivan
10 th Grade, Pacific Community Charter High School



Provisional Permit                   

My lingers clutch the wheel                  

My sisters in the back and goes on

And on about her problems at school

Boys and girls

I look off the road as an Escalade

Swerves to miss me                      

I recognize the stereotype  

I think about screaming out the window

"Watch Out"

I decide not to

The car continues to move

Should I brake going 60 and spin out?

I test the limits

But some hormone keeps me back while another

Pushes me on

Feelings flood my mind

Why should I stay on the road?

What keeps me from killing everyone

With the turn of a wheel

Is it emotions?

Problems?

Bad driving?

There is nothing between death and me, but my mind

My fingers touch the wheel

As I roll into a curve

Zack Babtkis
10 th Grade, Pacific Community Charter High School




Untitled

Dinner last night was non-existent

just a dream

just a dream in a haze of Monday night

I wish a girl would jump in my lap

and tell me with conviction

that I was hers

but my girlfriend is non-existent

The time of stuffing a crushes locker

with passion filled flowers is over

Dreams I care about can never be revived

I've given up on wish

and have decided to allow time

to pass until a miracle comes along

and slaps me in the face

See what missing a meal does to you;

the feeling of an empty stomach

resembles the feeling of an empty heart

that must be why I have indigestion.

Paul Rogers
10 th Grade, Pacific Community Charter High School




Untitled

Why do Americans have to complain?

It is like that there is always something to

complain about

If we could just be happy for once

it's either we are in a pointless war

or we aren't in a war

The American people are never to be satisfied

The problem is that our government is too loose

It allows the division of its people

Europe does not have this problem

We are supposedly "better than them"

There are to many uprisings in our past

Most that were pointless

Such as the Boston tea party

It is looked at as the turning point

but if you ask me

it was a few drunken men that did something stupid

The king taxed the tea and he had every right to

Our government taxes us

so what's the difference

There is also the Boston massacre

This is odd because from what is shown in our text

Dylan Volpe
9 th Grade, Pacific Community Charter High School

 


There is no manual on baby-sitting.

It's just assumed that once you're fifteen,

And if you're a girl,

You can hold a baby in your arms without panicking.

That Mother Nature sets in,

And suddenly your breasts lactate,

Your reflexes sharpen,

You understand the language of babble

You can tell one cry from the next.

There is no manual on how to baby-sit,

As you take her from her parents,

Hold her with both hands and watch them leave through the front door,

Lock the deadbolt.

Your arms are heavy, suddenly,

With this creature who isn't yours,

Who stares at the room around her with wandering eyes,

Whose mouth opens slightly,

whose silky hair touches your cheek when she turns her head.

They have told you the minimum:

"Support her head", "hold the bottle up",

and "wink at her, she loves that".

But there is no manual, no disclaimer, no expiration date.

No, you've just landed yourself with a baby,

A living, breathing being,

And with all the weight in the world

You take her from her parents' arms

And it's up to you.

But you should know.

Don't all women?

Aren't all women good mothers?

Don't they nurture?

When they're born, aren't they born knowing

That someday, they'll have their own?

So if you're fifteen, and you're a girl,

You'd better practice for what will someday be you.

Someday you'll change diapers and vacuum

And take the stroller around the neighborhood.

You'll have a husband, and he'll go out,

He'll make some money, and he'll come back.

And after seven years, you'll fall out of love,

And who knows, you'll probably have another one,

maybe a third, a fourth,

Your arms will be strong from so much lifting.

So much holding on and raising up.

You'll be the expert of vomit,

The expert of cleansers,

of burping, crying, calming,   and soothing,

Of Gerber Baby bottles, of strained peas and mushed potatoes,

Of how to pee and hold a baby and tie your shoe at the same time.

Of taking care of someone,

Of giving things up,

Of being docile.

And you'll teach her to be docile,

Until she has her own.

There is no manual on baby-sitting,

But I guess it's pretty self-explanatory.

Just hold her when she cries, feed her when she's hungry,

Take her for a walk,

Right?

I can do it.

A girl over fifteen.

Sounds great.

Danielle Spoor
12 th Grade, Pacific Community Charter High School



Remember.

Put away the pain, look past the now,

It wasn't pain then

Or was it?

It was whatever you made it to be.

So put on some music,

That song you hoped never to hear again.

Bend down, squeeze yourself under the kitchen counter,

Rummage through the bits and pieces of trash,

The ones that missed that basket.

And find the remaining scraps of paper,

Those ones you tore up,

from the picture by your bed,

so long ago.

Piece them together, with a little tape,

Trying not to look at the forming mosaic of pixilated memories.

A lock of hair,

half of a smile,

an eye.

The purple and black striped shirt. It never did fit right.

Trying not to remember. Trying not to.

Not yet, anyway.


Turn the lights down low,

Put your headphones on.

Hear the song,

The one you two sang in the car,

And the lyrics seem to have been written about you.

The one you swore not to listen to ever again.

Misplace the now, the people there,

Don't worry, its not that you don't care about them,

But you need them to cease,

Desist and not exist.

For a moment at least.


Bite your lip if you must,

The song is almost over now,

Pick up the collage you made,

Of the picture portrait you tore up,

So long ago.

Remember.

 

Leo Barton
12 th Grade, Pacific Community Charter High School




Rip for Destruction

There are few, but enough

many, but too little

a nickel used to buy a meal

but now you find them hidden in pigs

There used to be silence

a species of silence so silent it can't be found

but now Stupid Unusable Vehicles or SUVs

suck the earth of all achievement

and leave it rapped, crippled, empty, bare

It's selfish, and we know this, but

we continue to mate and add

to our already monstrous population

What we need is force

we've already been warned

tsunamis, earthquakes, bombs, wars

how much more can we really take?

Asa Parsons
10 th Grade, Pacific Community Charter High School




Transition

I remember

going in to the bar and getting turned back into the cold

"this isn't an Amtrak Station."

We sat on a fake wooden bench

I caressed the thin plates with my numb fingers

and tugged on my mother's elbow flap

twisting it into shapes

I though back to

the slanted yellow wall at the top of the stairs

in our old Boston apartment

the walls were bumpy

and the smell of mothballs would

come out on hot days

I remember

the bristly bushes

on the way to our new house

I wanted to touch them

Zack Babtkis
10 th Grade, Pacific Community Charter High School




Welcome to the back alley

thoughts run off mystery

who is a person that you understand?

questioning the look in someone's eye

people are a mass of flesh

but there must be something else there

shivers hearing someone talk

followed by silence

just daily lives

I trip on someone lying in the gutter

I think they might be dead

going back

smoke rises and hovers

people begin to slump

this image follows me

what is its reason?

but others have it too

I see it in the eyes.

Zack Babtkis
10 th Grade, Pacific Community Charter High School




I remember m y grandmother's shag carpet

the greeny-yellow color mixing with my sister's hair.

I remember her old TV too,

clicking through the fuzzy channels, adjusting the antennas

knowing that we really just liked playing with the knobs.

I remember her couch, the springs squeaked as we bounced

up and down

up and down.

I remember the stove in the kitchen

it was scary, but fascinating

I remember jumping every time it popped as it turned on.

I remember her counters, her sink, the old metal teapot

and the sound it made when the water was boiling

I remember being jolted out of sleep as my mom

rushed into grandma's kitchen

"someone was screaming"

It was the teapot.

I remember my mom saying there was the first sign

she talked to my dad about chocolate and my grandma's fridge

being dirty and her house being too cold in the winter.

I remember being left at the park and the fear that made my sister cry

I remember that being the second sign.

Hanna
9 th Grade, Pacific Community Charter High School




I remember when he would come in after dark

dirty and smelling of gasoline from his tractors and chainsaw

I remember waiting by the front door

excited and thinking of what gift he would bring me this time

I remember waiting for hours, never getting bored

with my simple five year old thoughts

I remember the excitement that would run through me

when I heard his truck pull into the drive way

I remember waiting eagerly by the door

brushing my curly blond hair out of my eyes

I remember the sound of his boots against the pavement

I remember the way he teased me, opening the door so slowly

I remember watching the knob slowly move

I remember when he would open the door, always expecting me

I remember jumping into his arms

searching his shirt pocket for my present

I remember hugging him and shoving my face into his shirt

I remember the smell of Old Spice, more powerful

than the rest of his scents

I remember the reason I wrote this poem

Christina
9 th Grade, Pacific Community Charter High School





My Favorite Memories

I remember cantering on a field and waking up

with my horse grazing next to me

and my hand and head aching

I remember the sand sifting through my toes

as I ran in the waves

I remember being rolled up in a huge comforter

shivering from not wearing a wetsuit when I went body boarding

I remember flying down the hill on my snowboard for the first time

I remember walking the streets of San Francisco

with my sweatshirt soaked all the way through

I remember falling off my horse and right into a fence

I remember sitting up and laughing about it with Alexa

Aubrey Power
9 th Grade, Pacific Community Charter High School




I remember not knowing why someone would waste

so many spoons by hanging them on a wall

I remember the indent of the wall

at the bottom of my grandma's stairs

it haunted me because a long time ago

a child fell down those stairs

I remember my grandma would never cover the indent

it was a warning sign

I remember going to visit my grandma last year

and noticing the indent had been covered by a picture

it was like my grandma didn't need the warning sign any more

I was no longer a little girl playing on the stairs

I remember Goldie the gold fish, my first ever pet

I loved Goldie dearly until my brother flushed it down the toilet

I remember the small memorial on the toilet

in honor of Goldie

Ariel Robili
9 th Grade, Pacific Community Charter High School





I Remember My Family

I remember you

I remember the 38 sweaters knitted

I remember the hard, cold ground

I remember the gun shots in the distance

I remember the abuse you gave me

I remember not being able to close my jaw

I remember the water taking over my lungs

I remember going blind

I remember the school where I taught

I remember running through the city while it burned to the ground

I remember meeting you in a café

I remember running off to Greece

I remember being embarrassed of my brothers

I remember being born

I remember my trailer

I remember the drunken fight

I remember my frog

I remember tasting blood after you kicked me

I remember knowing everything about you

I remember never seeing you

Alexa Meisner
10 th Grade, Pacific Community Charter High School




I Remember San Carlos

I remember bugging my brother

while he was doing homework in his room

I remember sitting and watching him do his art

I remember his room in the house in San Carlos

the window looking out back

the whole window sill covered in odd shaped bottles

filled with highlighter-tainted water

I remember turning on his black light

and watching the bottles glow along with everything white

I remember playing games with him

I remember the tickle of death

I remember calling him NaNa

I remember playing pool when we were little

having to play while sitting and wacking the table

I remember me and my sister playing with his blue chalk

even when we knew we weren't supposed to

I remember sitting and watching the grown ups

playing pool and wishing I was that good

I remember Thanksgiving, when the pool table would turn into a dinner table

and the whole family filled the house

all the kids would go up into our rooms and trash them

even if we blocked the stairs, shut the doors and told them not to

Danielle Kronk
9 th Grade, Pacific Community Charter High School

 


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