The Ring of Fire

Puzzle pieces scattered all around the room
My torment plastered on the walls.
I'm seeing red, can't seem to erase these things seared inside my head.
People running in circles,
Ashes, ashes, we all fall dead.
They turn and taunt teasing me in the vicious circle.
I'm gagged. I don't know where to go.
Nobody stops to check my pulse.
No one stops to staunch the blood.
They run ahead, leaving me to follow, but never to catch up.
They're an optical allusion, changing themselves every time I turn my head.
Myself I morphed in vain, laughing more, watching less.
I wiped my eyes, pulled down my sleeves to disguise the blood,
But somehow their games always alluded me.
Their words of fury, hatred, and disgust,
layed a kerosine trail, blazing across my skin.
My own personal tatoo of shame, branded to my name.
I'd hit a dead end, no one to turn to, no where to go.
I was at an all time low.
So I stood up.
I covered my ears and walked away.
The rain poured down, but I left with my head held high.
The rain carressed the bloody torrents racing down my arms.
The lightning flashed lighting up the way.
The thunder roared in the distance, inviting me forward.
And I marched.
Step by step, I was moving on, leaving the games behind me.
So let them run in their circles.
Let them play with wicked tounges fire.
For admist this storm, I found my beat.
Now forward I march,
To the beat of my own drum.

Smoking

When the word smoking is called what do you recall?
Do you think cigarettes, pipes or cigars, vile repulsive all in all. But there is more to the story with absolutely no glory; so many side effects play such a large role from parents, to children, to innocent bystanders. The pain and the suffering is brought closer day by day, cigarette by cigarette, 5-20 minutes of live reduced by each puff. Not only are humans bearing the pain but also the trees that fall down like rain. For those two-pack-a-day addicts cause numerous trees to fall 54 in all each year. And what do the addicted gain with the shame, lung cancer, emphysema, carbon monoxide, but still no fame. "Quit", people tell them, but nicotine is no game, raised blood pressure, heart attacks, and asthma too, carbon monoxide that sticks to hemoglobin like glue. Suffocating the smoker gagging with the guilt for the innocent lives sentenced to pay the price of the ever constant battle. And even babies so young that they have not yet seen the world are the price of this horrid addiction portrayed, with children arriving at less than four pounds on their very own birthday. Later in life SIDS may take care of the children silencing their wheezing lungs, and the steady beat of their precious heart. Every year nearly 420,000 people fall prey to this infamous curse. In denial or in the dark they become silenced just the same. The animals so sweet, playful, and loyal fall from their feet with nothing but defeat. You could ask how to beat this addiction so strong, that even the most powerful man falls to his knees never to rise again. Well, to you we call, hear our plea, help us prevent with royal decree, public smoking the cause of all those deceased. Stop this disaster before we ourselves fall just like the rest, our voices muted forever in a place where we will never again speak.
Written by: Jessica Larned

The choice

The Choice
With joy's and sorrows stacked up in a pile i watched as my life flashed by.
Flicker by flicker, scean by scean as it all played out.
But oh i was not alont to ponder this for something greater than creation was standing before me
And then with his voice like aditorium speakers he said,"should you enter the golden gates,
or go down the dark pit?"
I dont know the answer so i start to run,
faster and faster until suddenly I see him, not the overpowering existance of before,
and yet still him.
And he said, " why do you turn and run away from me just to fall of the edge into dispare,
follow me and be reunited with all kin.
Written B: Jessica Larned, 12 years old

Isolation

Isolation

Alone I sat drowning in dispare.
While a glorious man walkes hand in hand
leading the faithful to wonderland.
Over and over I racked my brain.
To find the reason that on earth I restrained,
from the outstreached arms and voices calling my name.
The answer I search for is not hard to define.
For though I did not know it i was longing to call mine
the lover thoses voices offered which is often hard to find.
There I sat wishing to walk hand in hand
together with that glorius man.
With a pang of anguish I recalled
how on earth I shunned him rebirth and all.
Time after time did he callbut on deaf ears did the summoning fall
for i was misguided and blinded but thought i saw.
So isolated I sit now on judgement day
until the decision is made and I am sent away,
into the midnight furnase where darkness heavely lays.
Written By: Jessica Larned, 12 years old