Katrina+Mena%2C+a+senior+and+AP+Art+student%2C+calls+this+drawing+Dream+of+Hope.

Artwork by Katrin Mena

Katrina Mena, a senior and AP Art student, calls this drawing “Dream of Hope.”

3rd Place Winners of GFHS Literary Arts Festival

February 17, 2021

For the first time, 3rd place winners will also compete at the Santa Ana Unified School District’s 3rd Annual Literary Conference or “Lit Con” is Thursday, February 25, 2021, 6-7:30 p.m. See @sausdarts on Instagram for sign up link.

3rd Place Prose: Seven Years

Tick, tock.

A single droplet falls from the white window still. One single dry branch falls off a tree; eggs in a nest crash upon landing on the white snow, red goo painting it. The grey clouds were lifeless. Oliver invites the crisp air into his silent apartment. He holds his hands out the window, catching snowflakes before they melt away. A gust of wind sweeps in, Oliver’s white shirt and grey sweatpants flutter with bare feet turning red. 

But, Oliver feels numb. 

His purple hair was slowly losing its color, matching the empty hole punctured in his stomach. Shivers run all over his frail body. But, he refuses to move from the window. 

Oliver stares at the buzzing traffic below and hears the dainty bell chimes from his neighbor’s door. He yearns for his to ring. 

Tick, tock.

The apartment is dim, a pile of bills and mail stacked up beside him as a taunting reminder. Not like he cares. His heart thumps with despair while his head throbs in pain.  

He stumbles up, wrapping plastic bags containing his overflowing amount of garbage. After, Oliver throws it into the large garbage containers just outside his apartment. Oliver returns to criss-crossing on his wooden floor, examining the bland streets by the window.  

A knock presents itself at the front door, but he does not open it. The knock was too harsh, it was only one knock instead of a consecutive three. It was not his fiance’s knock.

Tick, tock. 

It has been seven years. Seven years without kisses. Seven years without hugs. Seven years without having sweet-nothings into his ears. 

Tick, tock.

“‘It will get better.’ What a bunch of lies!” Oliver thinks.

Not when his fiance has been missing for seven years. Not when the police have named it a cold case. Not when he could be lying in a ditch, decaying from an endless stream of bugs.

Tick, tock. 

Oliver shuts his eyes, attempting to recall his image. His timid smile. Tidy midnight hair. A worn trench coat. Amber eyes that sparkle like stars.   

Maybe Scott is out there… Oliver has waited for years, and he would wait for an eternity. Oliver will foolishly grip onto the weak red string of hope.  

“Heh. Where are you, Scott Sanchez? My beloved fiance.” Oliver sighs. 

He spies a red bird approaching the crushed eggs, most likely the mother. She pecks at her deceased children before ‘protecting’ them from the cold; nothing more than a false fantasy. How amusing. How tragic. How cold. 

Oh well, Oliver was used to cold.

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3rd Place Poetry: Appropriately Titled Hope

Hope is a fathers kiss after a long goodbye 

The taste of vanilla ice cream highlighting a summer’s day (or winter if you eat it in the winter)

It’s smell is the salty ocean as its wave crashes on the shore (because where else do waves crash)

It’s sound belongs to yourself when you laugh for doing something stupid (or because your brother fell)

Hope looks like a teen placing 

His 

Poem

Line

After

Line

As 

It

Capitalizes

Itself

Hope is everything a teenager does, from wanting to pass a class, trying to find love, try to stay friends. To an adult it could be just living and teenagers know this and are afraid. 

The self-centered ones might write a poem and halfway realizes it’s a pose and still turn it in for fun.

Hope is believing that whatever happens, it’s going to be ok. I hope everything is going to be ok. 

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