By Gabriel Cheng, age 16, New York.

1. Rift

Beyond the horizon,
the sun begins its descent
into darkness. From my boat,
an off-white wooden petal floating
on the summer-calm Winnipeg,
I breathe in the forsaken festival.
Unshackled by night, swirling
mixtures of maroon and black
frolic in the sky, like children of the sun
set free. Slowly,
the hero of this requiem creeps up,
its luminescence pale and misty.
Then the stars, tarnished and enigmatic,
arrive, disrupting their lives
to reach the moon, everything
attempting to rivet a frayed bond.

I am an outcast in my home
shrouded by inanimate shadows and feign,
witnessing from afar a tale of sorrow
for what could have been,
Kites mingling above star-kissed hills,
fingers clasped with another’s under
a candle-lit table, the laughter of children
orbiting the room like Earth orbits the sun.

As the ceremony comes to an end,
my body tilts with the breath of the sea,
another wandering soul exhumed
on a boat drifting towards and away.

2.  Anticipation

I wake up to my alarm, groggily, fumble for the snooze button,
My heart racing from the jolt. As the blaring ceases

I rub off relics of the night, expecting clarity, only to be greeted
by flurries of light cast from the window-framed sky.

The door creaks as I stumble out of the shadows and into a man-made ravine,
the corridor dividing the subconscious as the sky does heaven.

I enter the kitchen and grab a naked piece of toast. I pop it in the oven,
watching expressions crease along the crusted ridges of its face.

With each bite comes the nostalgia of emptiness sunken deep
inside and lurking within the cavities of my stomach.

I shove the remaining sliver in my mouth and swallow.

The futility hisses in my ears like an engine and something
pounds in my chest fiercely, trying to escape. But I don’t.

I descend the winding stairs leading to the blue expanse,
walk down the asphalt weathered by a trillion steps.

I search for a raindrop, a signal I’m heading down the right path.
I look to the sky and wait,

a moment of silence
anticipating its touch.

—By Gabriel Cheng, age 16, New York. He adds:
“I am a multilingual Asian-American teenager. Poetry and prose have always been my passion, driving me to become an editor-in-chief for my school’s award-winning literature and art magazine, as well as news editor for our campus newspaper. Through both of these positions, I have cultivated a desire to spread my knowledge and to teach others. Outside of school, I’ve built on this commitment to cultural access by tutoring English to Ukrainian children, and then teaching chess after the language lessons.”