As writers, we are creators of the future world. We are the modern oracles, the prophets warning about the danger; we have changed  history through the power of our dreams. Be these ambitions, goals for the future, a shot in the dark: I have a dream, a fantasy/To help me through, reality. Be it a dream for the world, for yourself, for generations to come: I dreamed the world had all agreed/To put an end to war. Be it a vision, an awakening, a nightmare: Now here I go again/I see the crystal visions. Or simply the weird things that go on in your head while you sleep: And oh, my dreams/It's never quite as it seems. It’s not a popular belief that it is wise to chase your dreams, and the dreamer is quite looked down upon, however, they - along with writers - are exactly who the world needs right now. As writers, it is our responsibility to make sense of these dreams, and share them with the rest of the world. Dreams are a universal language, and if anything can bring us together, it’s our visions for the future; our tendency to hope, to create, and to fantasize. 
Dreamin', dreamin' is free.
Works cited (in order of appearance): I Have A Dream - ABBA, Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream - Ed McCurdy, Dreams - Fleetwood Mac, Dreams - The Cranberries, Dreamin’ - Blondie.

Dreams Of A Mediocre Ballerina
- Charlotte Whelan (10) -

 What was my childhood dream?
“What, you don't think I dreamed of working at a software company as a child?”
(pause)
I wanted to be a ballerina, it was my dream, I even took classes. I was never very good at dancing let alone ballet but boy I loved it. 
Everything disappeared when I danced, I was always the happiest dancing. Like I said I wasn't very good, mediocre at best. I tried out for competitive actually, didn't make it on the team, hurt my pride quite a bit but I never stopped. I tried out every year, never made it. The instructors pitied me, not enough to let me join though. It didn't matter to me all I wanted to do was dance no matter what level I was. It was the only thing that mattered. 
Every halloween I was without fault a ballerina up till high school where it wasn't cool to dress up. I danced all through high school and even a year of university. Never stopped loving it, I joined the University dance team. I finally felt like I was improving and found a team that really felt like family. It was the happiest I've ever been. Second year I tore both of my ACLs, fueled on the high of improvement, I overworked myself and tried a jump I knew I couldn't do. Had to fully stop dancing, it killed me.
(pause)
 I didn't leave my room for days, I just didn't know what to do with myself. I went into a full blown depression which was dramatic of me because it was just a sport. It was a lesson learned on overworking myself I guess, never did something like that again. My parents were right, they always thought ballet was a waste of time, looking back I guess it was because look where I ended up. They had always told me that I needed to have an actual career, oh I forgot to say I wanted to be a professional ballerina. It was the plan A through Z. 
After the accident I was back to square one, thousands of dollars in debt and no idea what to do with my life. I ended up here, it changed my life. I got a stable income, good pay and leave. I don't dance anymore, they cleared me too but I just couldn't, I couldn't go back, it's been years. I wouldn't even know how to start. Not that I would, it's in the past. It needs to stay there. Some things just weren't meant to happen. 
Picture
Image by Charlotte Whelan

Rogue Fairy
- Thea Faruquee (10) -

Act 3, Scene 1, Line 169
​
[Enter TITANIA's fairy servants: PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, DEWDROP, MOTE, and MUSTARDSEED]

TITANIA:
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.

PEASEBLOSSOM:
Hail, mortal.

COBWEB:
Hail.

DEWDROP:
I bethink not, nor shall my mind be swayed!
O What knave is this that dareth here prowl?
Neither sir nor beast of smell so fowl
Methinks he comes with folly in his eye
To jest and mock thy grace, and thus defy

TITANIA:
Henceforth, all begone! 
Leave us to our quarrel alone!

Snowglobe-ish
- Amelie Pellerin (10) -

The sun hadn’t shown her face in several hours, and you know you’ll fall away to your dreamland before the next minute ticks by. Your eyes have hardly been closed for long. It’s scarily quiet outside, making it appear even more frozen outside than the forecast would say. Your blanket tucked underneath you, you reminisce about the peacefulness of the street outside. Because when you awaken from your slumber, parking tickets will have been given out and piles a meter tall of heavy snow frame the edges of the road. It’s not all that dark out, though. The sky is a pale, glowing gray, partnering the waxing gibbous to create a hazed roof to the human world. The muted light illuminates harsh, shadowy angles, with heavy lines around your room. The heavy snow on the ground, as well as on your exterior window sill, makes you feel like the only one alive to experience it. You dig your head deeper into your pillow, and by the time the next police car passes, its light switching from red to blue, then from blue back to red, you are no longer conscious to witness it.
Picture
Image by Amelie Pellerin

Dreams Versus the Moon
- Sofia Bjornson (10) -

Hello it's Tally again, I um, I couldn't find you last night. My dad said it was because there were clouds in the way of the sky. 
The doctor said my dreams were called night terrors and that they can be scary but that I am safe and they are normal. So how come they don’t feel normal? How come I wake up screaming and freezing in the middle of summer? My dreams keep me scared all day, I think about falling back asleep. The only time I can take a breath that fills my lungs is after. Once I’ve woken up and come out to find you. You're all I have to talk to and the only thing that listens. 
But it must be hard to stay stuck in the dark all the time, it must be so scary. Maybe that's why you get smaller, sometimes even hide from the dark. But you come back, you still shine every night keeping me safe from that dark around you. In the daytime I’m awake and light is everywhere. My dreams can’t get me then so I can feel better, but as soon as the sun sets and I get tucked back into bed nothing is there to stop my sleep from hurting me. No one is there waiting with a nightlight to chase the dreams away. No one keeps me warm or listens to what new creature came to get me. Except for you, you glow and you watch from the sky as I find a place to see you, then you let me tell you all about those scary things in my mide. Maybe you had night terrors too and the moon doctor told you there was nothing wrong. Maybe you just like to have company too…
I, um, need to go to bed now but I just want you to know that I am happy you're so brave, I’m happy that you keep me company when I can’t sleep without scary dreams and that you remind me of reality kindly.  If you ever need a friend in the dark I am happy to do my best and listen to whatever helps you fall back asleep. 
Bye now, I’ll probably be back tomorrow.
Picture
Image by Sofia Bjornson

A Dream
- Lily Smith (10) -

When we dream,
Our minds soar higher
Than we can reach with our two hands.
We no longer see the ground beneath our feet,
Nor the walls around our lives,
Nor the depths in which we could fall.
We see ahead, above, up high.

When we dream,
The fragile string 
Connecting our hearts and our minds
Is cut loose.
Allowing our feelings
To come from somewhere deeper within us.
Allowing rational and reasoning
To peel away from our souls.

Some dreams carry meaning,
Have significance beyond simple pleasure.
An eagle whose cries
You hear tear through the night.
A feather whose presence
Is heavier than stone.
An ancestor whose touch
You feel graze your skin.

The Ups and Downs
- Sharon Tharris (10) -

When I was little I wanted to be a princess. I would wear sparkly dresses and was very polite to everyone I spoke to. I thought it would be great to be rescued from an evil dragon and live happily ever after. What I didn’t know then is that princes can be really really dumb. Some of them don’t even get real names! There were three prince charmings, three! The stories were only interesting because of the princesses but you can’t have a princess without her hollow skulled prince. 
So then I wanted to be a knight. Bright shiny armour and clothes with pockets. Sounds pretty great doesn’t it? Getting sent on a quest to find treasure with your friends just to watch your friends die. Once you come home no one remembers you. Maybe being a knight wouldn’t be so great.
Well I don’t want to be a princess and not a knight either so what’s left? Becoming an evil overlord and I was quite good at that. I had my few evil minions who were very loyal to me and a seemingly never ending list of people to torment. Except I wasn’t very good at being an evil overlord because my minions were very nice people who bake cookies for you when you have a bad day. And my enemies turned out to be more evil than me. 
Not sure where to go from here. Might try being a scientist next.

There Exists A State
​- Wilder Clark (12) -

There exists a state
Where I let my body go still
Where I let my mind wander in visions above
For I rest not upon an aspiration
But a wish
A wish to turn it all back
A wish to make my glory days more glorious
A wish to drown the nightmares
A wish to right my wrongs
A wish to live in this state
But like an empty promise
It cannot materialize
Only exist
Exist as a state
A state of dream
A state of nightmare
I dreamt that I could write my story differently
While nightmares of my failings live and breathe
It is my state
My state of hopes and fears
My state of joy and rage
My state of factualness and falsehood
My state of reality and fantasy
My state of comfort in the wake of torment
But when the sun rises before me
It destroys the illusion I had
The perfect tale I want
I wake from my slumber to find
That my choice of life is vision
Illusion of the mind
But time cannot quell exhaustion
So I wait for the hours to pass
For reality to be whisked away
To rest this overworked mind
To sleep with a smile on my face
Knowing that my visions were never for naught
For as long there is a wish brimming inside me
There exists a state

Fluidity
- Miranda Bell (10) -

I swam in the sea;
the waves got trapped in my hair.
Droplets slip off the 
wet dolphin-skin sky, a grey
and slippery day;
I drop Time in the water,
waves pull it away.
The tears, like the rain
are only here to cleanse me.
Night touches the sea,
and the waves spit out a pearl
silver and shining,
an eye that rises 
while the world sleeps.

Movie's Over
- Juniper Code (10) -

Most would think souls would be in a library, you know, like an archive. Where all things are kept. This isn't true though, believe me, I am going to see it- where the souls are kept that is. They don't reside in an archive, or a gallery, or even a storage unit for that matter. They live in a movie theater. Times are changing, you know, and things are done the way they used to. Libraries are dusty, boring. And it won't be long now, until it's all in an online application, once the big boss gets his way.
Anyways that's where I am right now, taking a tour of the theater, because I'm new. Rows and rows of seats line the circular walls, like the coliseum. The seats go up and up, each row getting higher, disappearing into the blackness. In the center is a holographic screen that plays ads of afterlife upgrades. Those with said upgrades can watch whatever they please. Some watch their favourite movies, most watch adult films because they can't do the real thing anymore. 
The souls look almost like red blood cells but supersized and floating just above the seats. The most wealthy souls can customize their orb to be whatever color they want. You’d think we would be different in death, but still, just like in life, humans are bred to consume, always greedy for more, the rich and the poor alike are never satisfied. To my left, in a high seat in the distance, I see the late queen. Her orb looks like a disco ball. A little odd but, rock on girl!
From behind me, a floating cloak covers a bright green orb, a deep voice speaks from inside. “You don't belong here, living one”.
“Oh I’m sorry I didn't know, it's my first day!” I say.
That's when alarms start to go off and the room is covered in red flashing lights.
“Looks like they have found you, either that or John Lennon is trying to escape again, he just won't stay dead!”
Picture
Image by Juniper Code

Rogue Fairy
- Nadia Golah-Rusnak (10) -

Act 2 scene 1 

​PUCK: How now, spirit! Whither wander you?
INVIDIA:
I plucked flowers for Titania’s flowr’y bed,
When I heard royal news had spread.
PUCK: The king doth keep his revels here to-night: Take heed the queen come not within his sight;
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she as her attendant hath
A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;
She never had so sweet a changeling;
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
But she perforce withholds the loved boy,
Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy: And now they never meet in grove or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen, but, they do square, that all their elves for fear Creep into
acorn-cups and hide them there.
INVIDIA:
Aye, how tragic for it is true,
Yet I am not so blue,
My love for Oberon won't go away,
How I wish that he and I could stay,

PUCK: What did thou say I could not hearest thee.

INVIDIA:
Just how I wish that those gent would maketh up,
For the seasons art all mixed up,
Art thou Rodin Goodfellow who wander the night,
I heard you give the mortals a good fright.
PUCK: Thou speak’st aright;
I am that merry wanderer of the night. I jest to Oberon and make him smile when I a fat and bean-fed
horse beguile, Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
And on her wither’d dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And ‘tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh, And waxen in their mirth and sneeze and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there. But, room, fairy! Here comes Oberon.

⌜Exit Invidia and Puck⌝

Hang Up the Phone
- Gabriella Morin (10) -

I step out of bed, bare feet on the floor, they quickly slide into my slippers. My knees are stiff, my eyes sore, my back aches. I need a new mattress, I can’t afford a new mattress. I’m in an awkward state of adulthood. Still poor from my degree, but not as bad as three years ago. I mean I’m not duct taping my showerhead together, or living off of rice and saltines, but I’m still pirating all my TV, watering down my already watered-down shampoo, and I’m not very well equipped if something goes awry and I need an extra few hundred bucks. But hey, at least I can say “I’m Dr. Naomi Cohen”. Good God, when did I get so old? Thirty-one… that’s how old I am today. 
I step into my washroom, stare at the patches of water damage I’ve been begging my landlord to check out for the last 7 months, the crooked shower curtain rod, and then at the stained mirror. My reflection stares right back at me. I look at the creases on my forehead that seem to be getting deeper each time I look. Gray strands sprinkle my hair, and my tired, cloudy eyes can’t see the difference between the brown and gray. 

This Side Kick Has Complaints
- Sharon Tharris (10) -

I have recently discovered that I am not real. That my whole world is not real. I exist solely in the subconscious of some stranger that I will never really meet. I think in their world they call them writers. Magical people who create life with words and ideas but not real life. I have no blood that could stain the crisp white pages that my existence rests on. My life laid out for anyone to see. They see me grow and change and throw myself onto the sword to save the hero. Because my pitiful non-existence comes with the bonus of being an incompetent side kick. I slip up over and over and over again so that this stranger can find the perfect way to kill me off.

The worst part is knowing this. Knowing that everything I do doesn’t matter. I don’t even get to choose what I do each day, what I eat for breakfast, what clothes I wear, where I go. I’m nothing but a pawn these magical writers use to get their point across.

​The Evolution of Dreaming (In the Scientific World)
- Sofia Bjornson (10) -

Dreams are something that we all experience even if you don’t remember having them. What was thought of them before we understood them, and how well do we really understand them now? We are about to take a look at some of the history behind what dreaming has been, was understood to be, and what we know now. 

As you can imagine dreams are a pretty weird thing our brains do during sleep, the realism, and often abstract oddness of them is interesting. For that reason, dreams have had quite a history, from prophets, to myths, dreams have had a story to tell. The Greeks believed that dreams were divine experiences and that all dreams should be taken seriously as gateways to the gods themselves. With there being personified entities that were dreams in many poems, and stories. In the norse myology dreams held significant prophetic value, so much so that the Scandinavian peoples had dreams so memorable their stories lasted through time. A dream from the ninth century had by Ragnahild, Queen of Halfdan had a dream of a beautiful tree that grew tall with green stems, white branches and a red bowl. This dream is said to have prophesied the reign of her son, the first king of Norway. 

Goodbye Lit
- Kayla Nixon (12) -

If a poet rearranges a soul,
in mere stanzas,
what could a program do,
in four years?
Gawky and awkward at thirteen,
I struggled finding my way,
between classrooms,
but since the beginning,
I’ve never felt lost in Lit.

In these hallowed halls,
my imagination ran wild,
inventing fairies, pirates, 
and epic love stories.
The rain fell hard into the night,
I wrote until I feared daybreak,
while still excitedly anticipating,
what the morning brings,
reading my classmates playwriting,
movie scripts, recipes, and unsung histories.

I’ve grown up inside of,
the sweetest dream with,
poetry so warm, and familiar,
comforting words enveloping,
novels so tightly packed,
wooden shelves heave and curve,
so much beauty,
bound in leather, written in verse.

The Tiger Lord
- Juniper Code (10) -

The earth is dying, dying more than it has ever been before that is. It never really matters how it dies, but it always does, humans fucking around and screwing everything up. They might have killed it by their nuclear waste or spreading of plague or maybe it was a bad case of male ego. Either way, in this universe, like every other universe, the earth is dying. 
The last of the humans, all 111 of them, are secluded in the arctic. It’s silly to specify it being an arctic when in fact what used to be the arctic is just a small portion of an ice covered world. 
They live in houses, big enough for a small family. Each home, home would not even be a fitting word because the bricks of lifelessness resemble nothing to the homes in the old world. Each house is sectors exact distances apart, close but far enough not to hear the screams. It’s funny because even in doomsday they still have a plan, tightly knit, just like the hope they still foolishly weave. 
Within each house lives a family, parents and a child, just like an old suburban fantasy. Though where neatly manicured lawns used to be, is now icy tundra. All barbecues, lawnmowers, swingsters and toy trucks are all buried 10 feet deep in a glacier. Slowly sinking deeper into the ice like a dangerous parasite that scientists will never find.
They live in solitude, in fear, and silence. They never know when they will be next, all they know is that a house a mile away from them is newly deserted.
The injections come daily at 11 o'clock every morning, for the child, always for the child. It's only a matter of time now. Only a matter of time before he comes. The tiger lord.
He watches, he's always watching. Waiting for the right moment, when the injections have made the child sick and the parents beat. That's when he comes, comes to kill. 
He circles around the child as the parents huddle in the corner, cowards. The child whimpers, weak. He growls, regal and dangerous. That's when he turns and slays the parents. Right in front of the child. Sometimes he'll make it quick, but most of the time he'll do it slowly as the child sits imobile, too ill to scream.
When I look down I see my hands are bloody and curled into claws. I look at the child, crying in the corner and clutching its little legs like a toy it doesn't have. It didn't work, this child is just as normal as the rest. It will not be the savior that brings humanity crawling back out of it’s ice hole. The injections were supposed to work, and the killing of the parents was supposed to be the catalyst to make it incredible, like they tried to make me. But just like that child, I'm a failure.
I realize now that it is me, I am the tiger lord. These stupid humans don't know what's good for them, they don't realize I'm trying to help them, it's for their own good, the greater good of the planet. Hopefully the next one will be different. Maybe the next one can become the genius that saves us all.
Picture
Image by Juniper Code

The Equilibrium
- Madison Kidd Fields (10) -

During the night, when you rest your head upright, and you're transported into a realm of possibility and imagination.
Reality turns inverted, as you gaze up into a world beyond normal.
Everything comes with challenges but when called to a different universe, problems seem mundane.
Aspirations? Is that the word? a strong desire to achieve something significant, suddenly seems simple. 
Mission achieved; happiness secured, the dream world has been conquered and preserved

Right? But what’s that over there, a small corner is consumed by darkness?
The darkness moves quickly and quietly, corrupting and converting dreams into moments of terror and trauma. The nightmares follow, dreams plagued by death, disease and desertion. 

Sleeping
- Reihanna Baalbaki (10) -

It’s always better when I’m sleeping,
My worries vanish and my dreams come out to play.
I dream of the wildest things,
Riding a kangaroo,
Jumping around in a candy land,
Running around in a jungle.
My dreams give me hope,
Give me happiness,
Give me laughter,
Makes me feel as if I'm a beam of light.
I’m fearful for what comes if I don’t dream.
The scary darkness that approaches my mind,
Taking it over with a deep and terrifying laugh.
That’s supposed to be my laughter,
But it’s gone,
And suddenly my voice has been taken away,
My voice is raw from screaming yet no sound comes out.
The dark forces finally fill my mind,
The funny, hopeful dreams I once had are..
Gone.
I’m being chased by a monster and the floors crumbling beneath me,
There’s an army of spiders on the ground and there staring to climb up the place I deemed safe,
My house collapsed and I left my love there.
Am I too old to climb in my mothers bed and tell her I had a nightmare?
Is it too late to talk to my friends about the “silly” nightmare I had?
Is it still ok to have nightmares?

Study in Grey Light
- Miranda Bell (10) -

Gaia cries in the morning,
and the cup sits on the windowsill, filled
with grey light. I want to drink it
as though I am a flower, reaching up--

The world is a painting;
the sky, grey watercolours.
I look at my hand and the paint
bleeds into the background.

When I squint at the world too long, 
I am reminded of Russian nesting dolls.
Intricate worlds within worlds
with little handmade flourishes.

My path ahead is blocked
with bodiless water, white 
and drifting in a daze. 
I have gone looking for the answers
and found only questions.

I dip my hands into 
               bluehearted water
and wonder:

If the cells know they are part of something bigger,
                                       something living,
                                                      that together we make one.
           I wonder when we will realize we are part of something bigger,
                        something living,
                                      that together we make one. 

An Ode to Red Pants
- Jeannie Campbell (10) -

If only I had red pants
I’d wear them with yellows, and tassels
And braid flowers in my hair
Like a hippy
Summer of love

If only I had red pants
I’d eat that strawberry sorbet
And let it melt, and spill
All over myself
And only the bees would know

If only I had red pants
I’d wear them with white
Early in July
And feel all patriotic
And probably over heat, too

If only I had red pants
I’d wear them for a week straight
Once every month
Living without fear
But not discomfort

If only I had red pants
They could distract your eyes
From the rest of me
Until I’ve walked away
Out of reach

If only I had red pants
They’d cover up my bruised knees
And the stretch marks
My unshaven legs
You wouldn’t have to know

But most of all

If I had red pants
They’d cover up the bleeding scars
Those branded into me by your eyes
Your words, your thoughts
White denim now stained red

If only I had red pants​
Picture
Image by Jeannie Campbell

Pretty Priviledge
- Gabriella Morin (10) -

I’ve never been pretty,
Not conventionally at least,
Not in my grey eyes,
Nor my dirty blonde hair,
Not my crooked nose,
Nor my raw jagged lips,
Not my full cheeks,
Nor in my clumsy limbs,
Not in my skinny arms,
Nor the scars that line my legs,
Telling a story of cursed fates and survival.
Ugly.
I have always been just that.
Some people tried to hide it,
You're so tall,
So skinny,
So sweet,
Their words fitting around what I am,
Ugly.

To Old Too Be Scared
- Charlotte Whelan (10) - 

I'm sitting in a scratchy hospital chair. The cushion moulds around as I sink into it. The longer I sit in the waiting room, the more the discomfort grows in my stomach, starting to hurt. I'm here alone for the first time. My parents have deemed me too old to be scared of hospitals, and so I need to go by myself. I'm sitting alone which is adding to my nerves because aren't hospitals supposed to be packed? 
“Layla Brown?” The receptionist calls. 
Slightly confused because I don't remember her standing there, I stand up, legs slightly shaking while I push off the chair. I walk over to the window. “Yes, that's me,” I say barely audibly. 
“ Dr Williams will see you now, it's just the third door on your left,” She says. I nod. 
I walk down the hallway, while the dread thickens and spreads. I reach the door, turn the handle and walk inside. Dr Williams is already waiting for me. 
I sip on a paper cup of water he offers me at the beginning to calm myself and it surprisingly works. My nerves start to calm while the appointment goes on. He asks questions and I answer, this I can do. 
“Okay so based on what you've been telling me I think we need to do some bloodwork and a few shots” He asks. Fear shoots through me. 
“What?!” I exclaim. 
“Yes, in order to get an idea of what could be bothering you I need to take bloodwork now. 
“Right now! Doesn't that take a while to get approved or something?” 
“Oh, you're not scared of needles are you? Such a silly fear I find in so many children. I thought you might be.” 
He stands and walks over to where I'm sitting and positions me lying down. I would protest but I'm frozen in fear and can't move. I try to move my legs but I can’t feel them, their numb. 
“Why can't I feel anything?” 
“Don't worry about that sweetheart, It's all going to be okay”. 
He walks away and comes back with the sharpest needle I've ever seen, longer than my arm.
“ Hold still, it will hurt less that way.” The needle pierces skin. 
I awake with a scream torn from my throat. Tears stream down my face, my body involuntarily shaking hard. I can barely breathe through the sobs. It’s okay, I tell myself, you’re okay, it was just a dream.I hear footsteps walk down the hallway.
“Honey, you need to get up, you have that doctors appointment today.” 

Next September
- Millie Farley (12) -

As I step out of Canterbury
I dream of next September,
soon I’ll be brought west,
I romantically picture 
a place I’ve barely been to,
a sleepy city 
heat-dried
their leaves crisp and 
the ground hard 
from a hot Ontarian summer,
arriving under a 
heavy, wet sky 
with rolling clouds 
and rolling heat,
lake water waves, 
green islands 
blue with the distance, 
a faraway shoreline 
with gleaming wind mills,
I dream of entering
limestone buildings
these educational empires,
entering a life 
where I walk through 
echoing smooth-floored halls 
stairways lit dimly 
from dusty porthole windows
through heritage academia houses,
thunderous oak trees, leaves turning
the smell of Lake Ontario 
in the air, bike paths misty 
with spray from the waves and the wind, 
café drinks
matcha, iced lattes
croissants 
docs and tote bags,
warm humid nights, 
lab reports half written,
I hang onto 
my notebooks
short blunt pencils 
a permanent pocket accessory,
I dream of writing 
under a gray sky with stars, 
before traveling 
up a yellow lighted elevator 
facing blurry metal mirrors
hair wispy with humidity,
I dream of 
falling into crisp white sheets, 
new walls 
slowly collecting their posters, 
stacks of fresh notes on the vanished desk,
the light is off
moonlight brightening 
the floorboards, 
Canterbury was my first dream, 
I step into the next. 
Picture
Image by Millie Farley

​Dream
- Nina Jones (10) -

freckles 
like stars speckled 
across a newborn night sky

eyes
lit like fireflies
sparkling and wide

hair
dancing in spring air
careless and free

dreams
spoken like sunbeams
just as bright and hopeful, just as you be.

i dream of your warm freckles, wide eyes, wild hair and dreams -
so i do wonder 
why might you ever dream of me?

Dreams
- Madison Kidd Fields (10) -

Dreams…from a goal to an inspiration, we’ve all had dreams, it’s what makes us human. As young kids' dreams tend to be unattainable, from underwater astronauts to Barbie, dreams tend to be our happy place, our imagination, free to run wild. 

As we grow older, the dreams become more intense, but more controlled, from our dream job, to where we want to live or even where we want to go to school. 

There seems to be no limits, to our endless joy. Then come along the downers, the type of people who have only had nightmares, these people are the balance, the ones that say “no” or “not possible”. 

The ones that enjoy flipping off truck drivers, or dropping kids ice creams on the ground. They may seem evil but we need them, without them the world would be rose tinted gold, and no one would see the grey shades underneath, how much things cost, how hard you need to work to even achieve them, the lengths people go to make the money that pays for things from houses to cars. 

We all have dreams, and even if they don’t have dreams. They have nightmares, dark and evil and scary enough to make them project their thoughts and evil aloud for the world to feed off of. We need this equilibrium to survive, so we may feel like we have enemies but the enemy of my enemy isn’t my friend. 

Untitled
- Reihanna Baalbaki (10) -

Alarms ringing constantly in my head,
Old mascara crusting my tear soaked face,
All I want to do is stay in my bed,
Always getting told to stay in my place, 
Why must I continuously fight war,
When I can not even keep my eyes wide open,
Who or why am I even doing this for,
This war keeps me chained and broken, 
Fires exploding throughout these green dirty fields,
Blood gushing out of me while Im asleep, 
Dreaming of a gun I’ll never get to wield,
Thinking of my friends who’ll never ever weep,
This patch of grass is where I’ll lay forever,
They say I’ll go home but I think I’ll never.

Little Daydreamer
- Amelie Pellerin (10) -

I’ve always been a dreamer,
Born a far-away child
Paralyzed in demeanor,
Lying where the weeds grow wild.

Dreaming of the life after,
Searching for a snowy coast.
Long days full of laughter,
Hazy nights spent with a ghost.

Imagery changed as I grew,
Now onto girls with magic,
Enchantresses overthrew,
Dragon worlds, so dramatic. 

But all too soon, life got real,
I saw only when dew drops 
Had no secrets to reveal,
And are simply pokey crops.

When I stare to the ceiling,
I still search for that feeling.
Picture
Image by Elynn Zeng

airy/ary
- Jeannie Campbell (10) -

[Feeling lost, and sorry for myself, I visited the elementary school in my neighbourhood. I asked the advanced students of Mrs.Eleanore’s second grade class what they want to be when they grow up, and I got some varied answers, to say the least. The following is a transcript of my conversations with them]

TRANSCRIPT BEGINS

WOMAN
Tell me, Alissa, what do you want to be when you grow up?

ALISSA
I want to be a fairy!

WOMAN
And why’s that? Why do you want to be a fairy when you grow up?

ALISSA
I want to have wings
And dance through the flowers
Be friends with the lady bugs
And fly for endless hours
(pause)
What do you want to be when you grow up?