By Mina Talebi, TIWP Student I am peacefully on my knees for youHands and feet are gentler stillButterflies fill my lungs and beat until I look up at youEyes sad like a little boysJoints hard like your father’s My choice to pray to you was no choice at allI burn altars and frown at crosses […]

By Neko Ikels, TIWP Student I’ve bitten my tongue,More times than I can count,Held it,Restraining myself from saying something,The wrong thing. I bite my tongue when I have nothing nice to say,When my words feel like leaves that fall and blow away,When I am in a room full of people who talk so much of […]

Inspired by the poem, “what can a poem do?” by Darius V. DaughtryBy Lina Norris-Raman, TIWP Student A poem cannot stop time,but it can still a recurring thought.It can quiet the chaos,slow the churn of overthinking. It cuts through walls of anxietylike a flood through San Francisco—rushing, breaking,dismantling intention and purposeuntil the mind lies in […]

By Zara Quiter, TIWP Student As I listen to the creekin the corner of my streetsI hear the whispers of stories,songs from the grave,hushed memories long forgottencreeping through my window They filter through my mind,and return to the worldunder cracks of doorsinto the ears of few,They are changed, revised,reborn into something new,So that they may […]

By Lina Norris-Raman, TIWP Student Each glance in the mirror shows someone new,  every version battling, not a nice enough view.  Her nose too big, her waist too wide—  never pausing to think of what’s inside.     The guilt that pangs when she takes a bite, she keeps it hidden, locked in tight. With trembling breaths, she steps on the […]

By Aya Riseman, TIWP Student To feel deeply is a burden many hope to never have. Because you feel it ALL.You feel the sorrow in a stranger’s phone call. Or the hurt in a friend’s cry.Or the loneliness in giving up. I have cried for people I never knew, for stories that aren’t mine today but might be […]

By Lila Weis, TIWP Student Signals,They’re the kind of thing that tell you whether to go or stopWhether to fly or fallWhether to do it or not But the signals I get are like driving up to a stop light and realizing it’s purpleDo I go or notDo I shoot my shot We laugh, we […]

By Leighton Tanaka, TIWP Student blood pours from the bullet, roses bleedon the ground. standunder the ire of the sun, slowly drifting away; eternalrhythms of erasure. listless and lamenting tea-stained wallscompressed between weeping, rising towers. suffocateto replenish the weary, holding the ardor in between shaking,fragile fingers. wind yanksthe dandelion loose. travel far to reach the […]

By Lena Matthews, TIWP Students I rememberThe smell of wood dust in your shopI rememberThe glue and grime that always coated your handsI rememberThe cutting boardsThe signsThe little gifts you always used to makeI rememberThe football you used to loveI rememberYour stories of the Navy, the sea and the kitchenI rememberThe Christmases you used to […]

A contrupuntle by Zara Quiter, TIWP Student