Greater Harrisburg's Community Magazine

Student Scribes: “Breakthrough”

Torn sneakers with frayed laces grip onto unstable rocks.

Stepping on crumbling stone pushed aside by thin gaunt blades of grass.

The summit of a mountain like an empty theater, yet you still wait for applause.

The peak of vast nothingness, a success or another disappoint dripping with rage?

Still standing hunched, listening closely, as the wind whispers of different dimensions

 

Mosquitos give blood instead of taking it.

You are no longer a warm beverage, you’re a patient to this delicate gray nurse.

 

Oh, see the panting wolf! Fleshy pink jowls, snout in a snarl!

Simply a sheep in wolf skin, deadly and dangerous, risible, truly a walking sweater.

 

Guns lead not into the temptation of massacre,

Each dull and heavy bullet is transformed into a penetrating cure for cancer.

 

The ritual of showering, changed into a transforming tantalizing revelation;

Warm purified tears of god splashing against deceased skin, may they live again.

 

The desire for such fanfare is a commentary on you however,

Life is dismal and dreary when you have no passion.

The all-consuming radioactive explosion that propels you forward, or,

Is it the momentary pause of molecules, the breath of nature caressing your face?

Create a stew of fervor, bubbling up with a splat. It’s time to-

Release your soul, a white spirit, a mist hardily discernable, or,

A mashup of memories so thick and lively, surging with a sting of energy.

 

Conquer the mountain inside,

let erosion smooth your jagged edges. The mountain underfoot is a dream.

Drool dribbles out of your cracked mouth.

Light flickers across your toad like skin, images of adventures, reflect off your oily face.

Rise up from your faded blue couch, step away from the crusty stains, and be present in society.

Take your unscrupulous life by the neck and strangle out every inhibition

When it is blue, veins panicking, mind thundering, black starry eyes bulging,

Plant your embryo of metamorphosis.

 

Elizabeth Bell is a first-year environmental science major at Penn State Harrisburg.

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