Longing for Tranquility
by Emily Jaramillo
Legacy High School
Emily Jaramillo is a 14-year-old freshman attending Southwest Legacy High School in San Antonio, Texas. She began to develop the love and passion to write stories, poems, and songs at the age of 5. After graduation, she plans to study dermatology in college and possibly do writing as a side job. Her writings focus on real events that happened in her life and she write about what others might have to go through as well.
Longing for Tranquility
There was a time when paper held no weight,
When ribbons curled with careless hands,
When mornings hummed with the rustle of prosperity,
and laughter did not count its cost.
But then the numbers pressed like winter ,
Thin and brittle,
Careful things -
Measured footsteps,
Quiet wishes,
Memories of what once was plenty.
She stacked her days like folded pages,
Bound in ink,
Bound in time chasing a dream too vast for hours,
Too costly for the hands that hold it.
He moved through weeks with hard working hands,
His pockets lined with empty space,
Trading time for smaller measures,
For rooms still warm,
For lights that stay.
And we, too young for ledgers;
Too small to shift the scales,
Learned the art of hesitation,
The weight of what is left behind.
Nights bent beneath whispered words,
Pleas stitched into the quiet air -
Traced them in salt on my pillow,
Folded them into the hands of the unseen.
Now, the numbers rest a little lighter,
No longer pressing quite so deep.
The cup boards hold their breath a little less,
The lights flicker,
But never fade.
Beneath the tree,
The branches still bare,
But still,
The lights remain–
A quieter kind of lesson learned,
The shape of having less,
Yet knowing more.
Chef-d'œu·vre
I press my pencil so hard against my notebook that the tip snaps.
Perfect. Another distraction.
With a sigh, I toss it aside and grab a new one. It’s nearly midnight, and the biology textbook in front of me blurs as my eyes struggle to stay open. The words on the page—something about cellular respiration—might as well be written in another language.
I groan, rubbing my temples. Come on, Ayla. Focus.
The only response is the quiet hum of my desk lamp.
I glance at the clock. If I go to sleep now, I can still get five hours. But then I won’t finish reviewing, and if I don’t review, I’ll probably bomb tomorrow’s test.
No. Not an option.
I shake my head, sit up straighter, and force myself to keep going.