By: Rose Blake

Darkness

When darkness settles—
what happens to the light, what happens
to laughter, what happens to my
might when darkness drowns
the corners of my room.

I curl within and hold on—
like I’ve got a friend in my inner tomb
when the darkness eats the light.
I scream and stomp but no one hears
except the sharp ear of darkness.

Looking back, I decide that darkness
never took anything—not the luscious light,
not the the laughter or my might,
not even my friends—
they’re simply gone for the moment—
for the hungry stretch of night.

I Am the Jabberwock

*In response to Lewis Carrol’s “Jabberwocky”

From wonderland where time is slow
and we count the ticking sadness—
I am the Jabberwock—here I stand,
jaws and claws, one broken heart
and two brown hands. I am the Jabberwock
begging to go back to the land that’s gone—
where birds slice thick air—
I am the Jabberwock
and here, beside you,
I must lurk.

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Rose Blake, a high school student, grew up in Atlanta, Georgia filling notebooks with the things she couldn’t say out loud. Her poems live at the intersection of heartbreak and hope — honest, unfiltered, and unmistakably her own. She writes because sometimes words are the only thing that makes sense.