10 Minutes Before the Deadline- By Hannah Angione
​“You should’ve known better than to wait until the night before!” Ella scolded herself as she typed frantically. “You can’t just be organized, can you?”
She took a gulp of the murky, cardboard flavoured drink. At least it was caffeinated. Typing the last words of her conclusion, she pressed down on the key she thought was save. Looking down, she realized she hadn’t hit save. She’d pressed Delete All.
“No!” her shrieks carried through the whole house. Her fingers tapped out the words she remembered typing. She listened to the stomps that grew closer.
“What the hell are you doing?” her father groaned, squinting at the computer. She was about to dismiss him, then she remembered; her Dad worked in IT.
“Dad!” she practically flung her sleep deprive body at her father “I need you to fix this! I accidently deleted my assignment!”
He took a pair of glasses out of the pocket of his bathrobe. “Let’s see.” he began scrolling through the scarce page. “Can’t we do this tomorrow? It’s almost midnight.”
“No! It needs to be done by midnight! Just please fix it!” she said. He sighed, turning back to the computer. She sat on her bed, resting her eyes. Just as she began to surrender to slumber, a thud knocked her off her bed.
“I’m done.” Her Dad said as he closed the laptop. “Now go to sleep.”
Sighing she opened her phone and made a call. “Guess what? I finished! I’m going to be able to hand it in on time!”
“Who is this?” Her friend groaned, sleep evident in her tone.
“It’s Ella! I finished the assignment that’s due in-,” she looked down at her watch “two minutes.”
“You mean the essay?” Her friend asked.
“Yes, it’s due in two minutes!” Ella said
“It’s due tomorrow, my friend.”

Chaos (lambic Tetrameter)- by Gene Case
​There is a gleam in thunder’s eye,
And so too, gold in lightning’s cry;
The draw of risk--of chaos--wakes
A newfound hope, which bends and breaks.

The clearest sky may scorch a smile;
Stagnation burns, after a while.
But turmoil of a storm may ease
By razing all the hurt it sees.

For cutting ties or broken dreams
Makes way for healing, so it seems;
Then what’s the harm in breaking hearts--
Extinguishing for fresher starts?

Destruction is no altruist:
A void devours, storms persist
Beyond the fall of status quos;
Their havoc just wreaks further woes.
​
No shift, tumultuous or small,
Can sit apart; each raindrop fall
Makes ripples, quaking, trembling near,
And causing chaos, change, or fear.

Andrew Hollinger- Chaotic Snapchat

---

Calamity- Moira Geraghty
Silver stains a paper face,
Pretty screens have been torn down,
The ink won’t settle, nor erase
Silver stains a paper face
Ash consumes an empty space,
Static thoughts, dark water drowns.
Silver stains a paper face,
Pretty screens have been torn down.

TextBök Euphony- by Brennan Massey
Red holiday envious,
enveloping in cheeks
equalizing cheery spirit;
evil with evolving envy
in vulva under uvula.
Invasive viridian vivisection.
Luscious liposuctioneers,
seductive sea cucumbers.
Overencumbered umber blood
blundering conundrum.
Bumbling hydraulic pump,
plundering undergarments.
Mellow amalgam, fell hegemon,
hemorrhaging decapitated head.
Dead medic, threading feeded mead.
Dastardly deed. Dethrone thee thumb.
Plumber under ember, burning beds.
Bread is to dead.

Chaos Incarnate- Chloe Wilson
​From the swirling soul of a divine being
brought into this world to oppose the light
Only to be defeated at the end of time

Across the shifting Nile side sands
the betrayer of brothers
ushers in a swift desert storm

Bringer of apples
and sower of strife, laying
seeds of distrust deep in your life

A primordial being of salt and sea,
a creator, a monster, crashing
waves choking the cosmic abyss

The Serpent from the Nile
Upheaving the forces of order
in swaying scales of sand-stained gold

Ghost- Zoe Veitch
I hoped that if I had been set free,
In my world you wouldn’t be.
But here you are,
Ripping open the nasty scar,
That you left because you thought it was for the best.
The chaos of your soul rips through me.
And I’m lonely.

Untitled- by Emma Wilson
Chaos.
That which messes with a person’s mind,
Wreaks havoc on a person’s body,
Crushes a person’s spirit,
Brings pain to a person’s entire being,
Attempts to mangle whatever mental capacity a person has left,
Tries to sink a person’s entire life.
Chaos,
If a person cannot learn to overcome it,
It will always win.

​

Wrestle- by Holly Bennett
There is no sound, no wind, only
two creatures meeting in a blood red sunset.
They are both poised to pounce.
Clack! They lunge, their claws rapping against
the ground. One beast growls.
The other bares her fangs and blackened gums
in warning, as if to demand,
“Do you really believe you can win this battle?”
They barrel into each other,
the lack of hesitation giving a clear answer.
The savage duel commences:
teeth make contact with fur, yet never draw blood.
Limbs flail and claws connect,
inflicting no damage to either wolfish opponent.
Both ram into their surroundings with no regard,
yet they remain unharmed.
The creatures grow tired, they slow, then collapse.
Their animosity vanishes,
and the two puppies lay side by side contently.

​

Tyler Champion- Chaos at the Playground

Chaos- by Cullen Armstrong
Chaos is a dark and shifting ocean,
Eating away at the foundations of time.

Chaos is a storm of fire and fury,
Leaving nothing but the smell of
Brimstone in its wake.

Chaos is a metropolis,
Swinging from high rises to
Dirty slums as rusted statues
Watch over forgotten dreams.

Chaos is a broken home,
Where children are naught but
Playthings whose hearts are
Tugged in two until they snap.

Chaos is a butterfly who is
Trapped by her wings and wishes
She were a caterpillar again.

Chaos is inside us all,
But so is the strength to tame it.

Big World, Little Girl- by Sophia Chu 
I left my overthinking and my occupations behind,
boarding a grimy yellow school bus
with only one bag to carry me through,
sitting on a sticky vinyl seat
surrounded by friendly acquaintances,
and the hoots and hollers of anticipated adventure.

then learning maneuvers both strange and necessary,
going back to kindergarten terms with new meanings,
reviewing strokes of Cs and Js,
learning how to draw in the lines
rather than pry on other’s nerves,
and ‘lunchboxing’ from shore to shore.

grappling through nature’s currents,
both literal and figurative,
playing limbo with a fallen tree, and a canoe overhead,
hopscotch with boulders and lakes of rain water,
hide and seek with the washed away gravel trail,
and skipping (maybe tripping?) over a throw rope.

hiking along the shore to a waterfall,
talking about the crashes and splashes of relationships,
feeling the openness of the open air.
tents have always been better than locker-rooms,
with a sense of camaraderie and secrecy,
playing cards on wet sleeping bags,
and divulging the slip-ups and quips of the day.

leaving comfort and cleanliness in the past
for a total lack of privacy,
sleeping pressed against another person
and close enough to hear another tent’s snores.
sitting on ‘the throne’ in unobstructed view,
with no pride left to cling to,
exchanging thumbs up on the path to the shitter,
forced to acknowledge a common denominator.

our dirt dusted hands will embrace anything like food,
trading uncooked white bread with butter and kraft,
that claims to be a grilled cheese,
for a soggy whole wheat bagel pb & j,
and a muffin squished into a pancake,
crumbling cheesy pringles over chili is better than ‘grate’,
chucking chocolate canoe to canoe,
tossing popcorn and catching it in our mouths,
and eating more carbs then we could ever burn.


huddled around a fire, mallows and weens in hand,
inhaling the smell of burnt pine needles on flaring embers,
is the time to speculate the unimaginable,
are we big or are we small in the universe?
do we define ourselves by other’s perspectives?
and what happens when it all ceases to exist?

Ode To A Bagel- by Jacob Arnold-Martindale
Shall I compare thee to a brick in the wall?
Thine eyes seem like eyes: normalish
And there possibly is a nose on thy face
So really thou art a rock
Lying motionless, really lazy I guess,
And your face is grey sometimes, I think
How can I say this?
Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the prettiest in the room?
Not thou, thou art as if a worm
Digging in the dirt, mayhaps a garden,
Utilizing gardeneries for thine aid
But, mayhaps thou art a hairless cat.
Yes, I believe thou art a hairless cat.
Thine face seems quite scary, and overall un-hairy
I cannot compare thee to a water bottle,
Since thine face hath nary a cap
To stop thine flow of words
Thine constantly spew
Words cannot describe the amount
Of pepperoni slices I could make a
Tower out of on your head
To be, or not to be a waffle,
Said the pancakes
Dost thou thinkest mine words hast no meaning?
Probably.
Mine words do fail me whilst I eat
Mini-Wheats on a Saturday
Joyous, happiness,
And possibly a hint of poison.
In the present…
Speaking of presents, a bow looks nice,
Like a bow and arrow,
The deepness of mine thoughts dost make
Deep seem un-deep, ergo making mine thoughts more deep
Thou canst never decipher mine meaning,
Not even on Sparknotes,
Google hath nary a page on mine soul,
That soul, mine poetry, hath gone to the devil,
Shoulds’t I end mine poem now?
Dost anything ever end?
Quoth the Cornstalk, “Nope.”
These are the words of the wisest corn in the field,
Yet is he the wisest if he is the only?
Such is the nature of deepness.
Deepness cans’t never be deep.
I am deep, not unlike a puddle, or a sea
Wisest words for you:
Never drink orange juice, and brush thine teeth.
Thou shalt nary taste a more foul taste on thine buds of tasting
I shall keep comparing thou:
Thine laugh is quite beautiful,
Like a seagull mixed with a bull,
That mayhaps be dying
Shall I return to how deep I am?
No, I shall be calling a man named Sam I Am,
To discuss food poisoning and green eggs,
Sayeth the Holy Iliad Ballad of Sir Knight Major Colonel Burgundy
the President Jr. the 13, 263rd
If a Cheeto doth smile, is it feeding?
You might want to giveth it a large pizza.
And let him eat.
All of it.
If thine puts a dilly in a pickle, will it taste odd?
Most surely.
The ending shall be nearing, and I shall be very sad-ish
I bid thee good night.

Eczema- by Lily Inskip-Shesnicky 
In the night I lie awake with
sheets cocooned around my legs;
heavy pillars sinking into the mattress.
But my hands agitate,
flutter like injured birds.
From the crux of my elbow
to the tips of splotchy fingers,
wasps crawl beneath my skin.
An itching that never stops,
but inflames in the dark,
like fire in the silence.
A desert cracked and bleeding,
ground which splits and flakes away.
No amount of applying cream
to the affected area, twice daily,
will purge this from beneath the surface.

If there were hope of relief,
I would claw at my own flesh
until blood caked my fingernails
like wet clay.

Children- by Brenna Hynes
Chaos, synonym; a kindergarten play yard. Children, running amok- throwing sand, picking noses, eating anything they can get their hands on (ants, glue, someone else’s hand, etc.). Screams pierce the air, battle cries and shouts of terror as a group of three brutish-looking five year olds attack the ‘ornate’ sandcastle that a couple of girls have created. The squeaks of bare skin screech in the air like voices of their own as the young children take to the plastic slide. The two adults in charge of watching the children stare on in terror as the sea of children in the yard wreak havoc, sand flies through the air, a chunk of hair too. More children scream, there is sand in hair, in eyes, in mouths, there is hair on the ground, in some girl’s mouth and in the air.
Chaos, synonym; children.

The Chaos of Spring- By Eman Elawad
​Children laughing and yelling,
Hard as the icecream truck came.
A herd of tiny bodies, smiling.
Orange ice pop coated lips, as they play games.
Spring is in full swing.

Addy Marshall- Untitled

Chaos- by Elizabeth Pelletier
​I smile in a crisis when I find somebody to blame
Nobody can judge me, we all think the same
I created the chaos, I never wait for it to find me
After all, the storm was once a calm and quiet sea

​Untitled- by Jason Domingo
​The sky gives way to cracks of light,
With it, the rainclouds scream.
But only after disaster,
Will you see, the sun’s gleam.

Chaotic Crowds- by Elizabeth Tackabury
​I knew standing room at the concert would be crazy chaotic, but that hadn’t stopped me from buying the ticket. Afterwards, I sort of wished it had.
           When the doors opened I—as well as many other screaming girls—burst into the concert. Everyone wanted to be right at the stage—and so had I—not stopping to think about it for a second. I should have.
           Instantly, I felt an elbow stab my arm in attempt to knock me out of the way. Someone on my other side shoved me with two hands, making me stagger sideways into a different girl. I would’ve apologized hadn’t it been for the fact that someone then screamed directly into my ear, temporarily deafening me. I realized I didn’t want to be close to the stage that badly, but if I just stopped moving I knew I would be trampled.
           I let the wave of people carry me and accepted a few more blows before the mob finally settled enough that I wasn’t packed shoulder to shoulder with people anymore. I finally had room to breathe.

Chaos at the Zoo- Isabelle Walma
​There’s antelope and aardvark, but have you heard of an aardwolf? I love spelling bees.
Bees, bison, boars, unpleasant creatures make me crabby.
Crabs, cats, capybara, the largest rodent. Knead words into paragraph dough.
Doe, dogs, dingo, don’t think about the easy ones, let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room.
Elephants are the only ‘e’ animals I can think of. That’s a little fishy.
Fish, frogs, water creatures’ noises sound like gibberish.
Gibbon, gecko, giraffe, tall creatures hog the attention.
Hogs, hamsters, hedgehogs, little pig like creatures. Icky.
Iguana, ibis, I had to look that up. People named Jack all exist.
Jackal, jaguar, jungle everything, in the jungle they’re king.
Kingfisher, kangaroo, kiwi, animals with arms have femurs.
Lemurs, ligers, everyone liked that movie except me, mainly.
Maine coon, macaw, largest species of parrot says google. Neat!
Newt, nightingale, noodlefish. My spirit animal, awesome.
Opossum, ocelot, octopus, jewish people don't eat pork.
Porcupine, piranha, fish that murder each other to be queened.
Queen snake, Quetzal, Quail, q animals are more numerous than you'd assume, rabid.
Rabbit, raccoon, rat, rodents I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, much less slug.
Slug, sloth, snake, soon I will terminate this poem.
Termite, tiger, tawny owl, tapir is an animal I don't think you know.
Unau, uakari, urial, trying to find u animals is vexing.
Vixen, vulture, vicuna, that's a whale of a word.
Whale, wallaby, warthog, wombats love Wednesday, I eat lemons.
Xenons, xeruses, I won't pretend I didn’t Google that, that knowledge I lack,
Yak, yellow-bellied everything, bluebirds can't see blue.
Zebu, zebra, that's the alphabet, go to the zoo.

All Hail Alice, Queen of Hearts- by Alexandra Quinn
All hail Alice, Queen of Hearts
The one whom you cannot outsmart.
Sitting atop of her throne of bones,
ruling over the unknowns.
Her purity gone
Her innocence never hers to begin with.
Don't dare sin
Or bend her rules
For this is Alice’s World
Alice’s Art
All hail Alice, Queen of Hearts

Jesse Dudding-Untitled

Chaotic Abecedarian- Francis Cho
Arrangements of angsty antagonizing aliens
Billions of biologically brilliant Brazilians
Candy corn chaos contary to the contract
Destiny has it dang dinosaurs dab on dat
Elephants entering, elemental elogies
Fabulous finnish folks finishing felonies
Ghastly, giddy gluttonous ghouls gobble gnats
Honestly haughty historians don their high hat
Indigenous Indians, incredibly inking
Jealous Juggernauts juggling jinkies
King Kong kickin’ kids
Long lads lickin’ lips
Mad moms makin’ mitts
Naive neighbours...neurotic
Orangutans ostracize onomatopoeia
Picky purple penguins praisin’ Pikachu say “Pika”
Quasimodo quackin’ quasi-quizzes
Rocket ranch relievin’ the religious
Salty slitherin’ slackers seek
The tall tan tailor’s tic tac teeth
Unbearable. Unidentified
Umbrellas. Unified
Verified veterans vote for vaccinations
When will Willy Wonka whack workstations?
Xenophobic xylophones
Yodel-yearning yellowstone
Zap!

​

A Reign’s End- by Rebecca Kempe
The Euro’s value had crashed a month earlier. Europe had panicked, investors transferring all their assets to the United States, people withdrawing more money than banks had on hand, and prosperous governments suddenly going bankrupt. Access to credit had ended, banks had closed their doors, and the economy had stopped. People had been forced to sell everything they owned in order to obtain the rapidly devaluing money. Groups had rioted on the streets, fighting over coins and available food supply. There was no longer any electricity, for no one could pay for it. People were reduced to scrounging for food and drinking the dirty water found in holes and sewers.
Instead of helping, Americans had placidly watched, hoping that by staying away from the crisis at hand, they could avoid one of their own. Unfortunately, it was widely known that the US dollar was losing value as well, and one day, it too, crashed.
The government blamed the event on paper currency, refusing to admit their part in the issue, and attempted to introduce a new electronic currency. It failed. Banks and credit lenders had closed due to low money resources, and the money people did have was worth nothing. The Asian countries, the only remaining economic powers, had adopted the Chinese yuan as an international currency, pressuring others to do the same. The US, however, continued to resist the suggestion, as employers began sending more and more workers out onto the streets; they could not afford to pay them. Violence increased, grocery store owners being held at gunpoint, as food supplies dwindled and people fought to survive. The police was sent out to deal with the problem, but as the officers were no longer being paid, they, too, rebelled against the government.
The black market flourished, more and more people looking for a fix to forget all their problems. It did not matter whether or not the substances were dangerous, the people thought, as they would soon die anyway. People carried all matter of bribes with them on a daily basis; to survive was to squash coveting of materials. By giving something up, more could be kept, and temporary safety purchased. Those with many possessions fled, fearing for their lives, leaving behind valuable stocks, which would later be pillaged by the filthy residents.
Five generations later, when a new power emerged, once again, people forgot what happened to those who climbed too high.

The Word 'Rad'- by Caitlyn Scharf
Yelling on the street corner of Canterbury and Plesser.
Our goofy antics, crazier than usual.
Underneath the stress of exams, shockingly, we are enjoying ourselves.
Ravished by each other’s laughter and the things escaping our delirious mouths.
Eventually, things got rather sappy,

Prior to my friend giving the most lighthearted compliment you could give.
Rad? Really? Why’d you have to go there?
Egregiously, to my friend’s and I’s entertainment,
Trickling—no, cascading down our other friend’s face are tears.
Total silence fills the air, but only for a split second.
Yowling, tears filling our eyes as we try to contain our laughter.

Remembering that moment
At the corner, waiting for our bus in the dark,
Deprived of our emotional stability.

​"Untitled"- Ali Lynch
I have some feelings that I’ve kept somewhere in my interior
Like how hard it is to live within a world full of superiors
everyone is talented, now what to do with me,
I can't seem to find what my talent's meant to be
I try so hard to think, but all I do is sob
About how hard it’s gonna be to keep a steady job
and that If life is just a puzzle and this is really it
I hope that over all, my puzzle piece will fit
It doesn’t help that in the morning when I try to leave my bed
I feel a sudden weight upon me, a pounding in my head
I think I used to be a star, at least marks were glowing
But that pull of sinking stones, stopped my mind from going
I’ve been unproductive for awhile and there’s a few things that i’ve learned
Like how trust is not a thing you take, it’s almost always earned.
And if you really want to find a way to thrive,
You’ll have to live through the chaos just to stay alive.

​Sage Kirchmann- Bumpy Road

Joan Cedar-by Pascale Malenfant
A few years ago, at my family cottage in the Adirondacks, my cousin Connor and I decided to take his motorboat (sans motor) up Cedar River and portage it few miles to the nearest Stewart’s. With me being a skinny, unfit ten-year-old girl and Connor being a lanky, quasi-moronic fifteen-year-old boy, our “adventure” did not go as planned. After about one hour of rowing against the current, we manually dragged our boat to the side of the leech-infested river and realized that carrying this boat along a dirt road for three miles probably wasn’t the best of ideas. We decided to instead cut through the town’s cemetery. While walking between the lines of graves, I began to lose feeling in my arms from fatigue and dropped the boat. Connor, not anticipating the sudden weight, dropped it beside him onto one of the tombstones, cracking it in half. We hastily tried to put it back together, and upon reading the name engraved on the piece of polished stone, ‘Joan Cedar’, we realized that we had broken the tombstone of one of the family members whom Cedar River was named after. Needless to say, our appetite for Stewart’s chocolate ice cream had disintegrated, and we promptly turned around and hurried back to our cottage. To this day, whenever anything doesn’t go my way, instead of blaming my bad judgement and impulsiveness, I blame my chaotic vandalization of a historical monument and Joan Cedar’s ghost for my misfortunes.

​Untitled- Braelyn Cheer
Ashen with pain
Broken by time
Cast aside by the
Darkened shapes of
Endless, seething shadows--
Fight! her vision fills with inky black and she fights,
Gaining distance from the
Hovering shapes of clawed monsters and
Insidious adversaries,
Jumping from thought to thought,
Kicking at the hands which reach to restrain her, grasping at the blurring
Lines and slippery concepts that
Make up reality's ever changing form, able to see this thing called sanity, called peace of mind, but
Never quite capable
Of securing her hold, of shaking off the oppressive weight on her shoulders which demands her daily
Performance be perfect should she wish to uphold the world.
"Quitting is not an option," they say—they, the Voices, the ones speaking in her head, the endless whispers,
Resonating in her skull and echoing in her
Soul. Her soul, the endless expanse of emptiness,
The timeless ache of never ending loneliness, and
Utter despair. The lack of light illuminating the path before her leaves her helpless, and she hates it, hates the feeling of being a passenger to her own life—thinking her thoughts but not really controlling them, speaking aloud, but not really meaning to, her voice controlled by a
Ventriloquist, her actions by a puppeteer. And all the while she
Wonders, wishes, wants. Why? Why is she trapped forever in herself, yet outside her body? How is it possible to be everywhere, everything, and yet nowhere and nothing at the same time? Even the most
Xenial of people cannot bring themselves to be friendly to her, because to them she is "weird", she is a misfit and an outcast. But she
Yearns for a loving embrace and an accepting family, so much so that the feeling devours her, a flaming ball of desire overhead, scorching like the sun when it's reached its
Zenith. And she can't hide who she is any longer, so she inhales the feelings of nothing, the feelings of everything, and makes them a part of herself

Fiction- by Gabby Calugay-Casuga
These words, pushed together, are turbid.
Separated from reality, they stand tall,
they sway with the rotation of the earth.

These words make up the body of an animal with dark blue scales.
It makes a home in the pink walls of your imagination,
settling in as a thought you’ll only remember every few years.

These words fell from a purple galaxy and onto a field in England.
Now they are centered around rocks that attracts curious tourists
like a thimblerig attracts gamblers.


These words are constantly in flux,
waiting for the next set of eyes and fingers to mold them
into what is believed to be more beautiful.

These words are malleable, they will take the form you create.
They spend their livelong existence
doing nothing but that: existing.

These words suffer the hex of impermanence
but for a moment they witness beauty:
confused, scattered, abstract.

These words create worlds you can swim in.
Ignore reality that stings your temple like a shard of broken mirror,
a katzenjammer shooting through your brain.

Because looking past the chaos is a well oiled machine,
bursting stars of matter
held together by an ether:
a highly elastic substance
which will bring them back together no matter how far they roam.