With happiness there comes sadness. Each worthless without the other. Bittersweet, a mess of contradicting emotions, a confusing disarray of feelings. Bittersweet is a taste, a memory, a feeling and a thought. Why must sadness contaminate all that is good? Why must it sneak into all the memories, cursing them with bitterness? Stealing the moments you wish to forever hold on to, plaguing them with regrets. In the highest of highs there will always be pain and sorrow, sadness and sickness. True happiness doesn’t exist. It’s always contaminated. It’s always at least a little bitter. 

Lemon Candies, by Julia Presta (10)

I’m happy and I hate it. I don’t know how to enjoy it the way one should easily be able to. How to make it last when the inevitable truth is that it won’t. There’s that tinge in my gut, preventing me from just smiling and existing in this otherwise happy moment. I’m happy, I really am, but I hate it, because I don’t really know how to feel it. You know? Yeah, me neither. I think I should. Feel happy, I mean. The moment is sweet, and here to be savoured. But I feel like how you do when you get a piece of candy you can never find anywhere. You feel like you should save it for as long as you can, but you know you can’t forever. And it’s harder to enjoy it when that’s your sole focus. You know? Still no? Ok. Think about a lemon candy then. It’s candy, so it’s sweet, just not completely. Bittersweet. So, you like it, and it tastes sweet like candy, but there’s that bitter, tartness to it that makes you almost not like it, but you still do. You also sometimes don’t really know if you like it or not because the different flavours are so conflicting. That’s where I am right now, trying without avail to enjoy a “lemon candy”. The sweet taste is the feeling of all around contentment, everyone’s happy and having fun. But that bitter taste is the worry that I’m not happy enough. Because I know this moment can’t last forever. And I know sometime in the near future this will be over, and all I’ll want is this moment back. What if I’m taking this for granted. What if the next time I can be this happy isn’t for a long time. Then I’ll wish I enjoyed this more. I just don’t really know how, and I hate it. You know? Yeah, I thought so. 
​Photo by Julia Presta

I wanted to be a butterfly, by Marlee Wiest-Dove (10)

Photo by Elizabeth Wilkinson
i wanted to be a butterfly
but my eyes are not symmetrical
i wanted to be a swan
but swans posses tranquility
i tried to make myself a fox
but i lack wit to be clever
i dressed as a peacock 
but i couldn't feign confidence
i tried to scamper with the mice
but i still felt lonely
so in a last attempt
i tried to fly
i wanted to be a butterfly

Everyday, Forever, by Abella Vasquez (10)​

PicturePhoto by Abella Vasquez
          “We won’t grow old together will we?” I draw the question from my lips but I already know the answer. “No,” he shakes his head. There is no need for an elaborate response. The answer is simple and plain. Nodding, I bring a hand across the curls that make his fur, tangling my fingers between them. 
        When he was small enough to fit in my arms his fur was soft and straight but long enough to engulf the outline of your hand. It was a fiery red, none like any I’d seen before. Now it was faded and pale and waved in tight curls around his ears. 
His head raises as my hand runs along the bridge of his nose. “I fear your life was too short,” I mutter. His eyes look up to mine, blinking softly. “Perhaps for you, yes,” he pauses to yawn, then continues, “We may be on vastly different plains of time, but we will both live until we are old enough.” A breath of amusement circles the statement. 
        I know he’s right. But I can’t shake the guilt accompanying the truth of outliving him. He has always known me as young and I fear that is all he will ever know. I fear he feels lonely at his age – isolated. My thoughts return to my hand that brushes along his back and scratches behind his ears. His torso leans against my leg, eyes thinned in an intense focus and I now know as his wagging tail stirs a small wind that he is not lonely. Not now and not ever. 
​I lean down to his chest and bury my face in his light fur. Even though I do not speak, he listens. Then I know the reason I fear growing alone is that I have never loved anything more. He listens. I know he does. “If you remember me many years from now when you are also frail and tired,” he speaks. “Then we will have truly lived together."

My 15th Birthday, by Logan Henriksen (10)   

My fifteenth birthday has brought a lot of lessons
You don’t know what others are going through

Forgive yourself
It’s not your job to prove you’re enough
Find the joy in the little things
The right people will dance with you in a restaurant
Each mistake, MISTAKE, misTAKE you make helps you grow
Eat cake. So much cake.
Never compare yourself to others
To be known is usually to be loved
Hug your mom

Be yourself
If you see something beautiful in someone, let them know
Risk your ego for the chance at something awesome
Trust needs proof
Hope is there so long as you choose to find it
Does it make you happy? Do that.
Always overuse “i love you”
Your birthday will forever be bittersweet
Photo by Logan Henriksen

As the seasons change, by Grace McIntosh (10)

Change in itself is a bittersweet thing
Comparable to the seasons.
After all, each season has its good. 
The summer brings longer days,
The spring brings new life, 
The fall brings warm colours,
And the winter brings cozy sweaters.
But the seasons also have their ugly.
The summer has blistering burns,
The spring has muddy streets,
The fall is filled with decay,
And the winter is isolating and cold.
I fear the shift in seasons. 
I tell myself that change is natural, that trees are supposed to lose their leaves
But I grow skeptic as the months turn cold.
I fear that come winter, I too will lose my leaves and be left alone.
I would chain the seasons back if it meant things would never change.
Art by Grace McIntosh

Navy Blue Lace Floral Dress, by Ella Morin (9)

That you bought for your mother’s Christmas party but are using far too soon. The dress that you will never touch again but will stay in your closet remaining pristine, a constant reminder of the night. It’s only May and you are getting dressed trying to hold back silent tears as your mother shouts at your wailing brother in the room next door. He doesn’t want to put on his clothes. You get it, you understand completely. If you could just get into your soft and fuzzy pinky pie pyjamas and crawl into bed with your mom giving you cuddles and consoling you, you would. If you could just fall asleep and escape reality you would, but instead you are here. Trying to zip up your uncomfortably loose dress. Preparing to go to one of the most uncomfortable places on earth, to sit in a room and watch your grieving relatives hold back tears of their own. Your mom walks in. “Do you need help honey?” You shake your head trying not to let her know how you feel. “Okay then” she says softly as she turns around to grab your brother. 
​
Five minutes later she shouts your name from the bottom of the stairs alerting you that it is time to leave. You make your way down the stairs, the dress is already itchy, you see your brother with a tear stained face reaching for his collar to loosen the clip on tie that he had been fighting so hard not to wear, your mother and who’s stress wrinkles crease her face like a broken in boot, and your father whose eyes are bloodshot and damp for the first time in your life. You gulp back the lump in your throat that just seems to keep resurfacing. Once you finish putting on your shoes, you get in the car where an eerie silence disrupts the natural flow of conversation that usually occurs. No jokes. No questions. Nothing. Just a silence so painful that the air feels heavy, unbreathable. Although you want the ride to feel like forever, it feels like a blink. And now you have to face him. Face the fact that this is the last time that you see him. And you have to see him, his horribly still as stone face. 

Ashen Mirages, by Daisy Benson (9)

Something akin to regret tickles my skin alongside the remaining sunlight,
the crimson skies with those cotton candy clouds you never missed a chance to bring up torching the horizon,
breathtaking to most,
knocking the air clean from my lungs,
mirages of you clouding my vision,
your raspy voice speaking all the thoughts I never could,
walking out the door no more than 10 yards behind me now on a night not unlike this,
humid air with the acrid sweat of the sweltering city suffocating the sense of freedom cities akin to ours offer in abundance,
the same sort of evening your existence found its way into mine,
the kind I used to thrive in,
before you forced your way in and destroyed my inner workings,
leaving me unable to appreciate even the most beautiful of natural sights
Art by Tobias Dorsemane

Underpass, by Alexander Lam-Gaudet (11)

I walk,
under, of course,
to curtain the smell of gas and shit,
shadowed,
to adrift below
next to the puddle,
the oil– rainbow,
half-used cigarettes.

A buzz in my ears,
not from my headphones,
cars, hopefully.

The cold breaks at my chest,
I walk with dignity, still,
I look down to face away from the wind,

and in the cracks of the pavement
a lavender submerges,
singing blissfully

“How wonderful?”
I think,
“To love in the dark.”

so when I walk out
from under the underpass

I’ll leave the shadow line
and you’ll embrace me with a sunrise.

And, oh,
your smile. 

We didn't start the fire, by Zachary Atchison (9)

The clink of at least twenty glasses meeting in the middle is instantly overpowered by the music blaring out of the bar’s three-foot-tall speakers, which are each stationed to one side of the improvised stage: a haphazard arrangement of several tables pushed together. To be fair, I'm impressed nobody’s fallen off and cracked their skull open yet, especially with the way some people have been jumping up and down on it.
    I nearly chip my teeth on the rim of my glass when I down its contents, watching the small group of people disperse back into the controlled chaos of before. The liquor clings to my tongue, sweet-tasting for a half a second before the vile bitterness underneath introduces itself. I force back a gag and gaze out into the crowd; some people are dancing, others are writhing around in a crude imitation of dancing, and a few are trying to talk to each other in spite of the cacophony around them. Every glass in the room is empty, though, and none of us are too keen on pouring ourselves another.
    A woman in a cropped band tee hops up onto the stage, her bright green hair glowing under the blacklight. Her voice is hoarse when she speaks into the microphone, every word accented Greek. “Hey, I’ve got something to say. So listen up.”​
Art by Zachary Atchison

Bittersweet Obsession, by Naomi Carter (10)

(Cecilia is professing her love for Bianca, her longtime frenemy. Bianca returns her love but not in the same bitter way.)
Bianca: If you hate me so much, then why are you still here? Just, for once, give me a normal answer. 
Cecilia: Because… I hate you but I also… love you. I love you. 
Bianca: Why would you tell me that?
Cecilia: Because… I need you to know. I need you to know that I could never just hate you.
Bianca: How is that any better? You think that makes it easier? You think that’s sweet?
Cecilia: I wish it was. I wish everything could be easier. I just… want you to understand. I love you.
Bianca: (she laughs bitterly) Yeah, sure. And you hate me. 
Cecilia: I’m sorry. I wish I could stop. I wish I didn’t blame you for making me like this.
Bianca: For making you like this? You don’t control these things, Cece.
Cecilia: I know. But I just-
Bianca: I love you, too. Does that change anything? Tell me it changes something.
​Cecilia: You love me, but you don’t…?
Bianca: I could never hate you. 
 Cecilia: Oh.
 Bianca: I’m gonna leave.
Cecilia: Yeah, that’s probably… 
Bianca: Yeah. It’s for the best, right?
Cecilia: It has to be. Hey, maybe one day… things won’t be so bittersweet.
(short, charged silence)
Bianca: No. I’m not waiting for you, Cecilia. There’s today and there’s never. You have to choose. Love or hate
Cecilia: I… I can’t. I don’t think I could love you without hating you for it. (Pause) Hating myself for it. 
(long pause)
Bianca: Then leave.
(Cecilia walks away, leaving behind what could’ve been the love of her life. She never turns back around.)

The Stolen Contract, by Rory Taylor (10)

Holding you how you once held me
As this bewilderment tightens its merciless grip on you
This sense of powerlessness is now inked on both of our souls
As I know there is nothing I can do to save you
Watching you lose everything,
Not understanding why
I read your torment through your delusive kindred mask  
I know the weight on your shoulders 
The desperation to clutch onto the concept of knowing
When memories become foreign
An expectation too high for you to handle
Constantly trapped, 
Floating through the blank canvas of your subconscious 
I won’t stop trying to repaint it with the vibrant colours of your life
The gentle glow of your light 
In my eyes,
It has not dimmed in the slightest
I know who you are, even when you do not
I will preserve you and all that you are
This plague cannot rob the world of that
You have lived
You have loved
Your legacy will not disappear when you no longer know of it
The contract isn't up

Remember When? by Amira Omer (10)

Dear me, 
Hey, how’s it been? I guess for you life seems so fun. You get to have it easy. Though I want you to know that’s going to change soon, very soon. Remember that old movie theatre we used to go to? Remember when we’d push each other around to try and be the first one in line to get ice cream or when we’d laugh together loudly like there weren’t other people around. Or when after the film ended we tried to play soccer but we didn’t have a ball  so we’d stuff some cloth with paper and make a makeshift soccer ball. Yeah, that didn’t last long. I wish to say it was still there, but that movie theater is gone now. Destroyed. Obliterated. Along with the rest of the country. Torn apart into a million pieces. Y’Know, I was gonna buy a house there, raise a family, and take my children there to that same movie theater I was so fond of, but I never got to do that. It was gone before I knew it, everything crumbled under the rubble. It’s okay though. It’s not like I forgot all of my memories. They aren’t gone along with the rubble. You see, I get to tell all sorts of stories to my kids and I’m still in contact with my childhood friend. It’s too late for me now in the future, but hey, the movie theater is still there. Have fun and don’t worry. Everything will work out. It always seems to.
Video by Hashim Qahtan

The Last Time I'm Going Back to January (after Danez Smith), by Caitlyn O'Reilly

by now you must be bored with the winter, say you're
standing in the middle of the street, the 
narrowed street, fields of ice before you, the only 
feeling wind burning your eyes. it hasn't been warm
for several years now, maybe never, but the other thing
is that you'll miss this once you're gone. even if for
now you count the well-travelled minutes, the miles
and do not wander home. the sweet summer air calling and
everything is all sort of sharp behind your vision. the
winter digs into your bones in the way only 
cold air can, bitter, but again, that's the one thing
you don't want to forget, not yet, that soundlessness of snow. it's that
feeling standing in the street and shattered glass all around, you can't
help but think: the last day, and now, now it all decides to shine.

I want to call it bittersweet, by Gwendolynn Macewen (10)

I want to call it bittersweet;
The way you loved me

I want to call it beautiful;
The scars you left on my face

I want to find something good
In every shattered piece of my body
Every piece you ruined

I was sweet
I was a beautiful child
There was innocence behind my eyes
I could have been saved
I could have been protected
I could have survived you
But there was no flavour in the icecream you bought me by the bridge
Only a bitter taste on my tongue
Bitter because the way you loved me
Hurt more than hatred
You bought me ice cream to keep the tears in my eyes from spilling onto your brand name shoes


You treated me like another doll
Like a plastic barbie you could mold
My hips are bruised 
My ribs are broken
My legs are scarred
And my arms are weak
Your hands poked and prodded
At everything I was
Until I grew up to be
Someone I would never recognize
I don’t know who I am anymore but 
You did it out of love

I call it bittersweet
How I let you scratch away at my skin
Until my entire body was red
You said you liked me in red so I
Let you make me bleed
I loved you more than you did me
But I never deserved it

Knowing I had your love
Kept me warm inside
You were sweet
In my dreams
You were all I had and it was sweet
Until you turned me into
Someone I don’t know

It’s bittersweet
You are bittersweet
And I,
Am broken
Because of you
Art by Gwendolynn MacEwen

Passing of a shooting star, by Sadie Johnstone (12)

Photo by Sadie Johnstone
if I have ever loved you 
there is a trace of you here
scattered like stardust
on a well-kept shelf

there are traces of you
in the way I make my tea
sprinkled like sugar
steeped for a little longer

people comment on the funny words that I say
like a songbird I mimicked your speech
little habits that spilled into my vocabulary

for a fleeting moment in space
the streak of a meteoroid’s light touched me
and millions of particles collided
changing my course for eternity

I pray that wherever you are
you don’t think I’ve dusted
that sparkling powder from my shelf

and cleared away the traces that remain

those timeless trinkets that I have kept
memories of the laughter we shared
stand tall among other treasures

although I accept that you have left my circuit
and we chart separate courses in the sky
if our paths cross again in this galaxy one day 
know that I’ll smile, and give you a wave.

Coffee Bean, by Samara Cabrita (12)

I'm far too harsh 
in this sugar spun world,
so instead I hide
concealed by frothy swirls.

I mingle with milk
to be considered edible,
must combine with caramel
to be deemed incredible.

But alone, I’m an awful,
distasteful atrocity.
A bitter, vulgar 
morning monstrosity.

Elaborate mugs are a mere
distraction from my taste. 
I’m often grabbed on the go,
consumed with great haste.

Not a thing worth being 
enjoyed at daybreak, 
just a convenient tool
to keep the working awake.​

Captured on Film, by Julia Janes (10)

Photo by Christa Janes

I watched a video of us
We were only kids 
We were wearing the biggest grins
And the most mismatched of things 

No care in the world
Nothing to shackle our creativity 
Screaming and laughing 
Only crying when blood spurted from our knees

We were free and happy
Joyful and curious 
We wished never to go to bed
Begged to stay up just five more minutes 

We were just kids 
No clue about the real world
Not trapped by validation 
Or what anyone would think of us

I watch those videos 
Wondering why I can’t remember it 
Such pure memories 
Only preserved in film 

Why couldn’t I hold on to them?
Why did they slip away?
What made them less important? 
Inferior to another common day?

I wish I could remember 
All the goofy games
The stupid dances
And off key karaoke

But we will never know 
Only frozen by film  
Just another story forgotten
Another one lost to time 

I wish to remember
I wish to run around chasing my sister 
To make up  dances with my brother
To belt out our favourite songs while standing on our living room furniture 
​
I wish I could remember
I wish we could go back to those days
To return to when the world was colourful 
When life was free 

Bittersweet Back and Forth, by Rachel Kilgour (9)

Woody has always been my favorite.
    Elegant as she dances, twirling, spiraling, scrawling. Adorned in beautiful greens, yellows, purples. Red stains on dusted finger tips, bleeding and dripping and gone. I’d find her out in the garden, climbing the fence, or scaling the walls. And she would wave as the wind flitted about, blowing around leaves and dust. We went on like that for a while. Back, and forth. Back, and forth. Back, and forth.
    It’s cold, tonight. The wind no longer flits about but instead howls, shaking the windows. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Woody. She faded into the background, and we went our separate ways. I finished school, got a job. I didn’t have time for her anymore.
    Didn’t have time for dangerous late nights and sparkling early mornings; purple and red blending into my skin, laid limp in the grass as we stared at the stars. My chair creaks as I rock it back, and forth. Back, and forth. Back, and forth. 
It’s cold, tonight. The wind no longer flits about but instead howls, shaking the windows. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Woody. She faded into the background, and we went our separate ways. I finished school, got a job. I didn’t have time for her anymore.
    Didn’t have time for dangerous late nights and sparkling early mornings; purple and red blending into my skin, laid limp in the grass as we stared at the stars. ​

Grapevine, by Liam Sullivan (10)

Photo by Liam Sullivan
Crawling through the wooden posts of life,
Weaving between the boards,
Spreading over the seemingly endless,
Until there are those you cut you down.
​
No matter how strong you grow back,
The sweetness of the fruit you bear,
The visuals you affix,
Yet the clippers still come,

The cycle repeats itself,
Running in circles to avoid the inevitable,
Growing as far as you can,
Yet all it takes is one bad apple.

One can only take so much,
Your grapes become rotten as you waste energy on them,
The sweetness you provide dwindles,
As your grapes become bitter.

Your leaves begin to shrivel,
Shying away from the fence,
The relentless clippers won't stop for you,
As you start slipping away.

Your ends falling away.
They don’t grow back this time.
No fruit left to bear.
The only thing left of you is despair.

The Girl From The Sea, by Ivy Janes (12)

there was a girl who spent her life drowning
the ocean flooding her eyes, head, and heart
with its salty sting as she fought to gasp for air
stroke by weary stroke.

until one day there came a sailor
with his quaint thing of a boat
who told her of all the wonders on the shore
of all that could be hers, basking in the sun.

as she sat in the sailor’s boat, she swayed 
the ocean’s fury almost calm beneath her.
she grazed her fingers along the waves
never before had she felt so far from home’s suffocating caress.

on land at last, she came alight 
flitting about to see and touch every beautiful thing 
lest this freedom be as quick to slip away
as any breath of the surface she’d known before.

last of all, her weathered hands fell upon her sailor
the most lovely thing she’d yet to find. 
he whispered softly - you’ve a glimmer in your eyes
like sunshine over calming waters.

then the sailor had reached out to hold her
but she turned her head away.
no, he could not have seen beauty in her eyes
not through the salty waters that churned therein.

his arms were the caress of a breeze
something she’d long known was far too sweet to last long
and the girl from the sea, she looked out at the horizon
to where she knew she’d always belong.

Familiar Fading Face, by Grace McIntosh (10)

I still see you.
I see your smile in my mirror.
I hear your laugh,
Disguised as my own.
I see your quirks and mannerisms, which morphed into mine.
Sometimes it hurts to remember
How close we once were.
Even though it’s been so long,
I fan a flicker of hope by keeping you in my phone
For if I never close the door, you will never fully leave.
I’m afraid that if you left, our memories would follow. 
The memories of growing up with you 
Spending countless hours at the park, 
Hours wondering who we would grow up to be. 
You wanted to be an actor.
I wanted to stay a kid.
I suppose you got what you wanted.
In a way you are an actor, 
How you’re pretending to be someone you’re not.
It broke me to see the person I once knew turn into someone like you.
Someone who forgets my birthday.
Someone who killed the truest parts of himself just to fit in.
I still see the person you were,
I can catch a glimpse now and then.
And it’s bittersweet,
Seeing you the way I remember 
But knowing that the person I see no longer exists.
At least not to anyone except me.
Photo by Grace MacIntosh

The Death of Bittersweet, by Mylo Pouliot (9)

​It’s night now, but it won’t be night for long. Some of us hide, some of us pray. Most of us know it’s inevitable. Most of us are at peace. The Sunday baking sacrifices are just part of life. Our village is hidden away at the back of the shelf, normally at peace. Our economy is stable; sometimes we scavenge for sprinkles, which we sell overpriced to our neighbours. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work, and these days, that’s about all you can ask for. So we rest, knowing that in a few long hours, the sacrifices will begin anew. As a species, we hang in the middle; too sweet to be dark, yet too bitter to be milk.
The sound of footsteps approaches slowly. The younger ones start crying. It’s never been this early. They usually wait for daybreak. I peek out of the bag. Through the crack in the cupboards, I can see the numbers. It’s only 617. The sound of a large object being dragged across the floor echoes loudly, drawing nearer, until it comes to a stop outside the cupboard. I am happy. Is this freedom? Is this escape? Then a cherubic round face barges in. Even the elders are frantic now. This is a new phenomenon. I rush back to the village. The elders are now herding everyone into the folds, out of sight. About half of us are hidden when the cupboard slowly creaks open even more. I can’t see what is happening, but I feel a force slowly pick up the bag. All of a sudden, I feel a tilting force. An elder tumbles on to me, and I try to help her up, but I am pulled out of the bag. For a second I can't see anything, surrounded by fellow chips, and then it all fades to black. When I come to, I see myself sitting alone in a bed of pink flesh. There are bloodstains of my friends all around me. To ginormous fingers descend from the sky and hold me up to a red abyss with rows of teeth. At least I go like this. Is it better to die than to live in fear? The feeling is odd. Melancholy. Bittersweet. The last words I hear before plummeting to my doom are “James, what did I say about no chocolate in the morning!”

A Faded Love, by Naomi Carter (10)

I used to walk to the flower fields every day
The flowers were bright and pretty and smelt like honey
I laid down in the fields and tried to absorb their pollen
Tinted my cheeks with cherry blossom and painted my lips with sweet strawberry juice 
Nourished my body with the fresh air and my mind with bird songs
Every day, I would walk to the flower fields
I had picked petals off of daisies, “He loves me, he loves me not.”
Twirling grass around my finger and admiring its dead vibrance
I walked to the flower fields and cried
Wished I were a flower
Beautiful and bright and timeless
I don’t go to the flower field anymore
What was once beautiful is now a mockery
The thing I loved so dearly took from me the one thing I’ve always wanted
Photo by Naomi Carter

Pixel Life, by Millie Farley (11)

I spend late hours 
scrolling 
through nature archives.
Life would be so much easier
if I were just fungi.
I dream of beetles and algae.
What else is there to me?
I'll sit in this forest,
waiting to die.
I’ll go on my phone,
online till my doom,
What else is there to do?

I spend late hours 
scrolling 
through nature archives.
If I weren’t stuck in the city,
I’d sit in a forest,
looking at the slimy pink fungi 
and the thin gills of white mushrooms.
Find the salamanders 
under their logs
and hold soft-bellied toads 
in the cup of my hands.

I spend late hours 
scrolling 
through nature archives.
Diatom algae looks like 
the x-ray of your carry-on
at airport security.
And sea sponge insides
look like honeycomb.

I spend hours scrolling 
through nature archives.
Looking at images is just 
as good as immersing.
At least I’m learning,
having passion,
But oh how I’m rotting 
this life away 
on pixels.
Photo by Millie Farley

Fleeting Moments, by Julia Presta (10) 

Feeling like you’re becoming who you want to be
Is rarely a long lasting belief  
Too often replaced
By the feeling that it’s all slipping away 
Because just one moment
Of imperfection
When everything you’ve been working towards is perfection 
Can feel like the end of it all
Like everything is crashing around you 
Never to be built back up 
It’s a life with moments of contentment and satisfaction 
When everything feels on track 
Until there’s a single misstep 
And everything flips 
One mental lapse
And the whole train of thought derails 
Leaving you with the dread that it’ll never reach its destination 
That you’ll forever be stuck on the side of the tracks
You’re left to face the reality that anything and everything 
That’s seemingly perfect 
Is capable of crashing and burning as you blink
Even when most of the bad days are just days 
Ending when the sun goes down
Life as you know resuming when it rises again
Those days feel sometimes like the new constant
Windows to the near future
Showing the impermance of life 
And the inevitable end that comes to everything 
All that is good 
And all that isn’t 
Giving the thought of everything you want being almost in reach
Such an uncomfortably bittersweet feeling
Accompanied by the realization of just how quickly everything can crumble

Sea Salt, by Liam Sullivan (10)

Remembering the sweet humid air,
And everything that seemed so fair,
The air that felt like a home,
The smell of fresh peaches and salty seas,
It felt as if I could taste the breeze,
The waves crashing against the beach
Back when I could see it and reach.

The memories that make me feel,
The memories that are all too real.

Remembering the sand that would be soaked to the core,
Tasting the coconut found on the floor
Seeing the boats off in the distance,
This feeling, I wished to prolong,
The sound of the morning birds song,
But that feeling didn’t last too long.

The memories becoming all too gone,
The memories wishing for a new dawn.

Laying still on my cold bed now,
Thinking of the past and being down,
Hearing the blaring of my alarm,
Wading through the bitter cold drear,
Wishing the feeling to be clearer,
And that soon it would be nearer.

The memories fading slowly, 
The memories leaving, obviously.

A Pyrrhic Victory, by Anton Cukeric (10)

As I walked through the streets of what once was a city, looking around at the utter destruction that I, and many others had caused, I felt a wave of emotions wash over me. Even though I was probably inhaling a lethal amount of smoke at that point, I didn’t care. Had we even won? Looking around I could make out more of us lying on the ground, either writhing in pain or deathly still. The sheer amount of dead was staggering, and for a moment I wondered if we could even continue this. Oh, the media would be on scene soon, reporters coming to commentate on our glorious victory, filled with courage, honor, and noble sacrifice. Watching from the outside, people may think that this is what victory is, and maybe it was victory by definition. The enemy fled, the area was secured, and some of us had survived. Winning was sweet. In a strange, guilty sort of way, I felt a kind of pleasure in this triumph. The battle was hell on earth, but it was over. For better or for worse, it was over. Seeing the corpses being piled up into two separate piles, one for our side, one for the enemy, I could see that we had a pile at least twice the size of the enemy’s. I remembered a saying, a long time ago, a saying that I would never forget again. “If we are to win one more battle, we shall be utterly ruined” -Pyrrhus, King of Epirus.

CLAW MACHINE, by Logan Henriksen (10)

Dear Claw Machine, 
        This is a final goodbye. I’m done playing you. Every day I spoon fed orange coupons into your mouth, but you never gave me anything in return. 
        I knew it was time to walk away when I ravaged through my jean shorts, turning the denim pockets inside out but coming back with empty palms. I have no change left to spare. 
        Sometimes I sip my lemonade and watch your metallic fingers rip open stuffed animals in search of a heart just to see what’s changed with you. There’s nothing new. As always, when you get close to a toy, you retract your claws and shrivel into your thoughts. 
        I hate who I am with you. Desperate and possessive. I no longer glare at kids begging to play with you or plead for pennies on the play structures. I like the new me. Content and carefree. 
        Since moving on to bigger games, I realise you never deserved my time. My mom says my dimples show now that I’ve started Skee Ball and Dance Dance Revolution. 
        And yet…I always find myself lingering as I walk by the glowing corner where you bruise youthful hope. But that’s only because we have history. There is no us anymore. We are only a mosaic of memories and rusted quarters. 
        It’s bittersweet because I really did love you. I remember when I first met you at the arcade and I pressed my wilting fingers against your polished glass. I vowed I would never leave you. My body was addicted to the thought of winning. I pictured you giving me a stuffed elephant that I would place in the center of my bed. But I never won. Maybe nobody ever will. 
        I forgive you. I know I’ll forget you (even if you always remember me). Maybe one day you will get close to a toy and not drop it. Until then, I am done playing your game. 

- Anonymous Player
Photo by Gwendolynn MacEwen

The Final Period, by Julia Janes (10)

“The end” scrawled across the last paper
The final period marked
Ink crying down the page
Leaking it’s regrets 
Wishing to start another chapter
One that will never come

Now archived in memories
A dusty old bookcase 
Claiming another story
The end was imminent 
Inching towards the last line
Threatening to arrive 

Then it ended
Something of the past
Free to move on
Free from the hurt
Saying goodbye to all you want to hold 
Leaving behind what you wish to forget

Only memories reminisce
Dwelling with no promise of return
Because that was goodbye
Another chapter in your story
Another painful end 
Another grateful exit

Fluctuating between good and bad
Neither existing alone
Like hero, like villain
Often twisted and misunderstood
Not truly bad
Never completely good
A cursed spiral

A beautifully tragic finale
A single point deeming the close
Now forced to move on
And forced to let go
For better or for worse
That we’ll never know

End of an age, by Anton Cukeric (10)

I got bigger. People have told me this before. Friends, teachers, my mom too many times to count. I got older. I know it sounds stupid, but until recently I felt very little difference with each passing year. In every memory I envision myself exactly as I am now, which makes no sense. When did everyone get so short? This was a weird feeling, probably the first time I had noticed that I was growing and aging. Seeing people I once looked up to had to look up to look at my face. 

It was sad, exiting childhood. I loved the lack of worry, the way that I could just sit through school, put little to no effort into anything and do well. Now there is homework and actually difficult assignments. Call me lazy, but the amount of effort I need to put into things nowadays is exhausting. Things will be different. Everyone else is changing, as they always do, and I will need to conform to their changes. No longer will there be playdates or trips to the park. No more usage of the slides and monkey bars, as now most of us can stand and hold them with little to no stretching. 

Being older has advantages. A credit card, going places on my own, all these new things to explore, it's intriguing. This feeling of transitioning into adulthood makes me somewhat sad, but also curious and hopeful. What will the future bring?

Music, by Gwendolynn Macewen (10)

To associate music with a loved one
Is to accept the throbbing of an empty chest
Empty and soon to be filled with a torturous tune 
A lyric you listened to nonstop
Endlessly singing your song 
But once your song has become 
Their song
It is no longer only a piece of you
But a piece of them, too
A constant reminder of someone you once loved
Once had
Once lost
And you will think the music has stopped
You will foolishly believe the song has disappeared 
But it will return 
In that moment when you're smiling too innocently 
That second you forget
Music is punishment 
When you lose someone you love
Thank you for reading our edition of Spotlight! Our team would like to thank everyone who submitted a piece, made art, took photos, or took time to read this month's edition of Spotlight, this wouldn't have been possible without you! We would also like to say thank you to our teachers Mr Blauer & Mr Serroul! 
Sincerely, the Bittersweet Spotlight team​ (Julia Janes, Gwendolynn MacEwen, Logan Henriksen, Grace McIntosh, Julia Presta, Naomi Carter, Liam Sullivan, Anton Cukeric)