We want your poems

The Journal-World can’t promise you fame, fortune or true happiness if you send in your poems, but our readers enjoy them. Send yours to teens@ljworld.com and include your name, grade and school.

Faces Passing

By Alyssa Guinn

Faces pass from a forgotten long ago as usual without hellos
There is no running, no longing for the past; the past is dead, buried only to be unearthed on lonely nights.
Those nights come to often for me; memories of lost embraces haunt my dreams
Lost in a recurring day, everything is the same life’s lessons never changing from past life to present.
Dare to try and understand me? Don’t waste your time; only I know myself
I lock myself away in my own private world; few people dare to bother me here.
Peace never comes not even in my sleepless nights … nor my thoughtless days.
The itch of loneliness crawls underneath my skin
Tearing me to pieces as if I were paper
I try to tape myself together again, but it does not always work
Faces pass from a forgotten long ago as usual without hellos
But wait, hands raise in small waves
So I’m not forgotten, just simply stored away.

— Alyssa Guinn is an eighth-grader at West Junior High School.

For Tiller

By Sarah Kelly

Today is a cold, gray one
the way most of them are
now that you have better things to do.

Sometimes
there is a glint of hope
when the colors seem richer;
the sun feels warmer;
and fairy tale myths such as happiness
become tangible,
almost close enough to touch.
It is all dashed away in an instant, and here I am once again
a slave to your memory
which haunts me in my sleep
and consumes me always.

Awkward silences are no rarity with me,
as everyone is waiting for the flood
though I bring them only drought
while it all turns to dust.
I wanted to write you my tell-all book,
carefully laying out words
like a new dress the night before a funeral,
but it is in your departure, my dear boy,
that I realize
there is nothing left to say.

— Sarah Kelly is a ninth-grader at South Junior High School.

What’s new: Entertain yourself

New on television this week: On “American Idol” (7 tonight, Fox, Sunflower Broadband Channel 4), the finalists have been increased back to 12; see “True Life: I’m a Gamer” at 9 p.m. Thursday on MTV, Sunflower Broadband Channel 57; new titles at the Lawrence Public Library include “The Gauntlet” by Louise Simonson, “Fallout” by Daniel Parker and “Never After” by Rebecca Lickiss.

Music: Lawrence teens perform with Topeka symphonies

By Beth Ruhl

Each year, the Topeka Symphony offers Youth Talent Auditions to award young musicians with scholarships and opportunities to perform with the Topeka Symphony and the Topeka Symphony Youth Orchestra. Two Lawrence students were selected this year.

Brian Fletcher, a sophomore at Lawrence High School, took first place with the marimba. He was selected to play the first and third movements of Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra by Ney Rosauro on Feb. 22 with the Topeka Symphony. He won a $500 scholarship.

Katy Kline, a sophomore at Free State High School, took second place with piano and received a $250 scholarship. She played Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concert No. 2. She performed Sunday with the Topeka Symphony Youth Orchestra.

— Beth Ruhl is a sophomore at Bishop Seabury Academy and a member of the Journal-World Teen Advisory Board.