Stomping Grounds - Emily Collazo-Schiavo (UHS Runner - Up)

I often found myself bound with scarlett and lace

When my parents had dinner parties

I often found myself tilting my head towards the people

When the warm ache in my head shifted them into strange shapes.

I often found myself tucked away,

Rapidly blinking to capture these shapes for those

Who could not see the extraordinary

While gone to the kitchen

Pouring the unavoidable muck mud puddle down the drain

I raced back with my chalice

Drops on my hair blocked my eyes, between the rain

I found a plague.

Only this time however it was in the form of a boy.

My eyes fixed as he drew his own heart.

He was real and no amount of head tilting

could ever fix that about him.

I moved around him, fearful if I got too close,

I might scare him.

But that’s when I saw it.

The muddy water from his own cup.

A thousand Sunday mornings never once made a believer out of me.

Not like one moment did.

I watched as he dared to take his brush and place it back in the water.

With a few turns the brown turned to a deep blue.

The color of the sky when it fell asleep.

The very color kings wore on their backs

to address kingdoms full of people.

He was the king and the kitchen,

was full of people.

So what was I?

It left me empty and uncomfortable.

I held my own cup of clear water close to my chest.

As my eyes looked to the bottom of the cup,

the truth seemed to splash up at me.

I was absolutely anything and somehow nothing,

all at the same time.

I set my cup down,

the boy had won.

But one dawn I knew,

I would stand beside him.