Salt stubbornly clung to the air, even through the flames. Its pungency folded into smoke, filling frayed edges of my memory. Amongst brackish clouds of rubble whipping around me, a metal tang lurked, ambushing my tongue. Sweat climbed my back warily, as if even it feared the ominous column of heat. The farm house GrandpopContinue reading “Lariat by Rohan Mahapatra | Honorable Mention 2025 Rural Teen Writing Contest”
Tag Archives: poetry
soul river, bone dry by Maxwell Harris | Winner 2025 Rural Teen Writing Contest
it isn’t supposed to be so hot this far into september, but still i stand outside the neighborhood grocery, my hands too full of swollen paper bags to wipe at the oil-sweat-dirt compound smeared across my forehead. instead my glands soak through my soles and into the asphalt underfoot, and i return a part ofContinue reading “soul river, bone dry by Maxwell Harris | Winner 2025 Rural Teen Writing Contest”
The Ribcage by Britta Nilsson | Winner of 2024 Rural Teen Writing Contest
We’re lying in the road letting the end of the sun soak into us and you say, “Is my ribcage showing?”I roll over and see the stretched flesh, the gentle pulse, the boneslike a door ajar and oh I’m starving. I answer yes andyou sit up to pull a jacket over them.“Sorry. I don’t knowContinue reading “The Ribcage by Britta Nilsson | Winner of 2024 Rural Teen Writing Contest”
Dr. Parton's Literacy In Place 