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Lost Puppy
Reflections
Untitled I
Untitled II
UFO
My Love
Time
Rules for
Mind Games
1. This page is for original work by students in grades nine through 12. If you didn't write it yourself, don't send it.
2. Include your name, school, home address and home phone number.
3. Each submission is published with the author's name and school. No exceptions, no pseudonyms and no initials are permitted.
4. Please, send only ONE item. The amount of space for Mind Games is limited, and we want to feature as many authors as possible.
5. Remember, variety is good. Be creative in your choice of topic.
6. Dedications to significant others are NOT printed.
7. Send all submissions to flipside@wvgazette.com.
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 LOST PUPPY
Her eyes roam the room.
She looks to a friendly face
To bring her out of her gloom.
She feels helpless and all alone.
All she needs is a home to call her own.
"Pick me! Pick me!" she silently screams
As people go by.
Then they stop and look, she fixes her hair
And they watch.
"She's it. She's the one," they say.
Finally, I have a home and a name too.
They are going to call me
Not Fido or Blue,
But they will call me Lady
And treat me like one too.
Kati McDaniel
Capital High School
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REFLECTIONS
Do you look in a mirror to see yourself
Or to see your prediction of health and wealth?
You look hard, but you can't see what I see
When I look at you or you look at me.
To open your eyes and take it all in
Is something that comes from only a friend.
I see through your eyes to you inside.
When you look through mine, you see I have nothing to hide.
I wish I could see what people see in me
Because if they could see me as I see,
They would know I am not he.
You look at me looking at you,
And for all that time
We are the only two.
We are alone in our place,
With our fate to erase.
And to rewrite as we'd like
In our own line of sight.
You and me for all time
Is what I can see.
You are all mine
And I belong to we.
The things that I see
Are the way they should be.
The things that I see
Are always you and me.
Can you see what I see
When I'm looking at you and me?
Alex Carroll
Poca High School
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UNTITLED I
In the beginning
We were individuals
Learning about each other
Constantly.
We grew together
And became friends.
Talking about our joys
And our problems,
A feeling began to evolve,
And friendship turned into something
More.
It turned into love,
And that's the greatest gift of all.
Rikki McCormick
Poca High School
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UNTITLED II
Walk in my shoes,
Experience my nightmares,
Feel my pain,
Deal with my confusion,
Live my life,
Indulge the bleeding of my heart,
Conceive my dark soul,
Hold back the tears,
Look at me in the mirror,
Face the reality,
Live in my dreams,
Explode in my fantasies,
Search for my inner existence,
Then, tell me you know how I feel.
Seth Burford
Poca High School
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UFO -- TALE OF A MOUNTAIN PAPA
There are two things in my life that I find
Unidentified:
my Father and the great Outdoors.
He and I must each walk our separate halves before arriving --
Stumbling upon ourselves in moments unforeseen and undocumented.
Things alien, things unspeakable and unseen lie between us,
writhing in the expanse of the unknown.
More than often I am silent here,
afraid to disrupt his rare bouts of euphoria.
I am guaranteed to trip over something exotic,
so I listen, watch, and follow.
His boots have kissed the tops of mountains
and stroked bike pedals into perfect circles.
An old Nikon in hand, he photographed Queer Branch,
Roanoke, and the Cranberry River --
always the same trees, always the same rocks.
But he was addicted to their sporadic formations,
obsessed with finding patterns in the ways they fell.
In watching the swale of his thick shoulders,
I too have yearned to possess each fallen timber --
his legs, which in leaps and bounds ford entire rivers --
his freedom, his ticket to wander.
His favorite foods went rampant upon my taste buds,
screaming ecstatically,
blazing spontaneous trails upon my tongue.
Avocados, ramps and Waldorf salad;
in exploration I have found them shocking, yet familiar.
Sometimes I would watch him on the porch,
cracking a bucket of black walnuts on a cinderblock.
I would smell the strange things with my mouth --
pockets of velvet in the wool of a taper, the fur of a sloth.
First he'd snub the tip with a hammer,
smearing it with the blood of crumbled oils,
and then the bits of shell would hit the cement like
plastic chips upon tile.
In these shattered hulls were shimmers of bronzed
skin, copper hair, and golden suns.
My olive beaches! My Italy!
When it got cold he'd come down south to see me, he said,
His beard the points of winter trees charged with
static energy, pricking the sky.
Amsterdam would be his city,
where he could enjoy the prostitutes, marijuana, and beer at his leisure.
In retirement he would prick this northern high town to bits,
until it became a pool of liquid within his palm.
These same thumbs were once rough as bark,
sweeping against my hazelnut hair.
In the still of the back yard evening we were bagging
fall leaves and listening to the birds.
I slapped the bags against the air,
shattering the quiet with the sound of snapping bone.
He told me that he used to take a ring of balsam wood,
drill holes in it for candles,
and then tack such a bag over the ring.
"It's how you make UFOs, " he said, wet leaves
clinging to his hands.
"It's also a good way to start a forest fire."
I imagined taking crude footage of my UFO,
a fuzzy home video of strange lights and bizarre flights.
But my father already lived in an X-File -- his life
would be enough.
Though loose and tangled I kept a bridge between us --
a means of crossing our unknown expanse.
At each time of arriving we would stumble upon new
modes of communication,
like conch shells driven into the dirt.
And with these objects we would recall similar memories,
silent, but screaming.
Sometimes I would begin to cross without him.
I would try to arrive, to wander, to find patterns --
as he had done.
I would spend my whole life trying to identify the
Unidentified:
my Father and the great Outdoors.
Alysha Wood
George Washington High School
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MY LOVE
Look into my eyes my love,
Tell me what you see.
Do you see one who longs to cry,
You were meant for me.
Let me take your hand my love,
I'll follow you anywhere.
Time with you is magical,
Can't you see I care?
Listen to my words my love,
The silent ones I pray.
Please don't ever let me go,
I love you more each day.
Someday I will be brave my love,
I'll say these words to you.
Although it will be hard for me,
They're from my heart and true.
Sara Edie
Sherman High School
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TIME
What is time?
Is it the alarm that awakens me in the morn?
Or the prison sentence meant for scorn?
Does it halt within a kiss?
Or go on forever in endless bliss?
Does it have a beginning or end?
I have learned to fend
my thoughts from this
because I can't comprehend
So I looked around and began to ask
for anyone who could accomplish this task
To answer this question burning under my skin
deep within
my earthly body,
the shell I'm in
So I inquired of the air:
What is Time?
Is it God's eternal paradise,
or Satan's eternal demise?
I asked this time to remove its disguise.
And it, the keeper of time revealed Its voice
and I really had no choice
but to listen,
as I walked precariously upon this treacherous way
It said, time is what you throw away
as you go throughout the day
On petty matters
meant to flatter
the ones who speak the useless chatter
The moments spent worrying too much
of the things that make life so tough
So you think your life is rough
Many have it rougher
Like the small ones who have to suffer,
the pain and tears no normal man can cover.
So I asked this time what does it mean,
to live one's life and fulfill every dream.
Then this time replied to me:
That knowing God was not one small chat,
and advised me not to play the world's games of copycat.
It ends in death so don't do that.
I asked this time what to do
To fulfill God's promises through
my life, my dreams, my aspirations.
It then replied to me to let it go,
my sin and selfishness,
and let the mercy flow.
He said to confess these to a man he sent
two thousand years ago, a great event.
Then God will say time well spent
I should know, I am he, so repent.
Jesse Smith III
St. Albans High School
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