We All Wear Masks
By: Kirk Thomas

We all wear masks in some shape or form
Some of us have different masks
For different occasions
I am not sure if I know who you are
Your mask hides a reality
I may never know
Is it protection?
Is it fear?
It must be self preservation
If I do not use my mask
I am vulnerable
Exposed for the world to see
Some say they don't wear masks
How would we truly know?
For the most part
There are very few people we deal with
twenty-four seven
Even then do we truly know?
Our masks may be off while we sleep
But then sleep could be a mask!
So much hidden, kept safe
From being judged and shunned
What mask are you wearing right now?

Hate...
By: Pali Girl S

I hate,
hate those who lie

I hate,
hate to be disrespectful

I hate,
hate the one's who I can't hate

I hate,
hate my LIFE

I hate,
hate to live in fear

I hate,
hate the dark

I hate,
hate to be alone

I hate,
hate all my motions

I hate,
hate being hated

I hate,
hate there’s so much to hate

The Road Not Taken
By: Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Love
By: True Pain

Love is not a color
love is not a game
love is just a feeling
love is really lame

Love will make you smile
love will make you cry
love will confuse you
love will make you ask why

Love can be a good thing
love can really suck
love depends on your man
love depends on luck

Love is really stupid
love makes me want to die
love might come to an end
love will then make you cry

Love has no point
love is just him pretending
love is what I hate
love has no freaking ending

Touched by an Angel
By: Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

Dreams
By: Edgar Allan Poe

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awakening, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.
Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
'Twere better than the cold reality
Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,
And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,
A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.
But should it be- that dream eternally
Continuing- as dreams have been to me
In my young boyhood- should it thus be given,
'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.
For I have revell'd, when the sun was bright
I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light
And loveliness,- have left my very heart
In climes of my imagining, apart
From mine own home, with beings that have been
Of mine own thought- what more could I have seen?
'Twas once- and only once- and the wild hour
From my remembrance shall not pass- some power
Or spell had bound me- 'twas the chilly wind
Came o'er me in the night, and left behind
Its image on my spirit- or the moon
Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon
Too coldly- or the stars- howe'er it was
That dream was as that night-wind- let it pass.

I have been happy, tho' in a dream.
I have been happy- and I love the theme:
Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life,
As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
Of semblance with reality, which brings
To the delirious eye, more lovely things
Of Paradise and Love- and all our own!
Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.

..To A Friend..
By: Marria Attar

A friend that is unique
A friend that is one of a kind
A friend that is perfect
A type of friend who is hard to find
A friend that is sweet
A friend that is perpetually fair
A friend that you know
Will always be there
A friend with an amazing spirit
A friend with a striking heart
A friend that is trustworthy
A friend that is smart
A friend that assuages your pain

A friend that can dry your tears
A friend with unrestricted love
A friend that can alleviate your fears
A friend with an exquisite smile
That could never be ignored
A friend that’s never been hurtful
A friend that is easily adored
A friend that is respectful
A friend who is loved by all
A friend that is relied upon
A friend to never let fall
A friend you can talk to
Her compassion is known by a glistening glow
Just by sparking her remarkable light
The whole world will know
What a great and amazing person she is
A friend I shall never forget
She is the greatest ever been known
Best of all the friends I’ve ever met…

I hate you and you hate me
By: Kevin Straw

I hate you and you hate me
we love too close to be hate-free
like two within a cell for one
love cannot be but bring hate on

banged-up in this confine of lives
the mind recoils and seeks for knives
and then come sudden hateful storms
that leave us limp exhausted worms

but oh the fresh and transient dawns
like earth’s first paradisal morns
when we the Adam before Eve
cannot more closely cling and cleave!

then love can never be too much
then we cannot get close enough

Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
By: William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.