Disturbing the Speak

Disturbing the Speak

Disturbing the Speak

A Creative Magazine Serving the Walton Educational Campus
2780 Reservoir Avenue, Bronx, NY 10468

Established 2006

Published with funding from the NYS 21^st Century Community
Learning Centers in collaboration with the
Center for School / College Collaboratives at Lehman College,
Laura Tringali, Coordinator

Editorial office: room 242
Discovery High School

Advisor:
Mr. Yago Cura

Acquisitions Editors:
Kendale Butler
Shantel Moran

Editorial Staff:
Tatiana Moreno
Sabrina Font
Yanina Camilo
Sean Mejia
Valerie Grant-Davis

Production Editors:
Tatiana Moreno
Sean Mejia

How We Got Our Name

Adults may feel that their time of being young has passed and that they just aren’t capable of understanding teens. Or they may just see teens as empty vessels filling themselves with mistakes to learn from. To adults, some of the things we do and say must seem like a joke and how we are might seem like phases that we will grow out of. Does anybody understand us? Maybe it is because our favorite mode of communication is through the internet, but we don’t waste much time trying to get philosophical. We are direct and we mean what we say and say what we mean. Since language is organic, the language will follow us, the youth, the misunderstood.

We choose to disturb the speak because there are many things in life that are too hard to talk about. We disturb the speak as a way to keep it moving, to keep the flow. Language is on our side, even though adults are busy making all the rules.

Alone
by Edgar Allen Poe
(1809-1849)

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were – I have not seen
As others saw – I could not bring
My passions from a common spring –
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow – I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone –
And all I lov’d – I lov’d alone –
Then – in my childhood – in the dawn
Of a most stormy life – was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still –
From the torrent, or the fountain –
From the red cliff of the mountain –
From the sun that ‘round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold –
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by –
From the thunder and the storm –
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view –

American Flag

The American flag stands for many things like stars / which mean freedom / Freedom to do what we want to do and be who we want to be / The blue stands for depression / just holding all the pain inside our chests / White stands for peace / calm retreat with no beef and red stands for war / Shoot cats and lay blood all over the floor / Its dangerous / The American flag stands for it all.

Kenday McLeod, Discovery High School, 10^th grade

Destination / Destinación

Destination donde cuando / life is going to be with / this proclamación that / why I feel the sensation / to write his word like a proclamation.

Its time for the union el / respecto and the dialect / thats why the streets is / making me write esto / its tiempo to get together dont / matter the circumstances or what weather.

Its time for Asians, Africans, Americans, and Hispanics to get together / be friends stay forever /but lets face reality/ with this world like this going and fight / on the street there is going to be a lot of fatalities/ because the brutality is making us go to insanity.

Juan Carlos Ysabel, Discovery High School, 10^th grade

Unwritten Words

I stab the keys with my a, b, and c’s.
The words are in my mind but are losing their meaning
as I try to regain consciousness.
What a sick joke my mind is playing on me,
my head is spinning like a merry go round.
ords...slipping.... mind is...corrupted....
Awaken in the dark valley of life,
I see the gun fights,
the knife stabs,
the bleeding children,
their hearts are pouring with the silent secrets
that their parents have kept locked in their souls.
They’re staring at the world of destruction
in enmity, with what its vagabond has created with deceit.
The last day dawns in my eyes,
children are singing their lullabies.
The rebirth of the spirits are taking place,
where they soon will seek refuge,
with their given reason to be released from
confinement of a new mother’s womb.

Crystal Rivera
Discovery High School, 11^th grade

Yesterday I Cried

Yesterday I cried because my father yelled at me.
I cried because I could not have any company; I felt all alone.
Yesterday I cried because my man could not speak on the phone.
Yesterday I cried myself to sleep because I thought it was the way out but I knew deep down inside it
was not about just crying.
Yesterday I cried until my nose started to run; I cried but I still was not done.
Yesterday I cried because I was hurting deep down inside.
It was time to cry, cry because you do not know what will happen tomorrow
Yesterday I cried.

Shantel Moran
Discovery High School, 11^th grade

Just a poem

My mom is my best inspiration…she really means a lot to me.

To you this might be just a poem
To you these words probably mean nothing
But these words are like a memory carved in my heart
And played back in curved shapes with black ink in multiple lines
And believe me, I understand
If they make no sense to you at all
But then again
That’s because you never felt the way I feel
You never looked into her eyes
And suddenly felt that you could touch the sky
It’s because you haven’t been kissed on a rainy day
And feel that you can breathe under water, disappear and fly
It’s because you’ve never touched her hand
And suddenly feel that time has stopped
It’s because you haven’t kissed the person you love
And feel like the world got closer to the sun
And your heart and soul just burns
In a slow and pleasant flame
Of passion and love
If you don’t get chills
As you read this poem
It’s because you weren’t there
The first time I saw her
No matter from what angle
I stared
Like a diamond she looked flawless
You didn’t hear her voice
You didn’t notice that when she walks
There is no moon, no sun
Because nothing in this galaxy
Nothing in this world
Can shine more than her eyes
And if these words still mean nothing to you at all
I understand because if her kisses never touched your soul
Then to you this is just a poem

George Sanchez
Walton High School

Beat Up

He does not know he is
hurting you but you tell
him to stop and he
does not listen.

He beats you up
until he gets what
he wants; you scream,
scream
but no one
hears you.

So he beats you up
and beats you again
all over.

The hallways are dark
so no one hears you scream
and you notice no
one is coming to save you.

Maria Morales
Discovery High School, 10^th grade

The way I see the world

I was born full of wonder
Nothing ceased to amaze me
But as I get older
I’m getting shocked
by what I see
How can a mother watch her baby
Get beaten to death?
And why when we want something, do we always
Make a threat?

I used to see the world so kind and green
But what do I know? I was a child and naïve
I thought it was the paradise I use to see on TV
But now I see everything polluted and unappealing
I perceived everyone as sensitive, smiling and kind
But that was before I realized it was really
A cover up for their treachery and guile
I learned a life lesson from looking at the world changing in my eyes

That when one may be smiling he really cries
The world still never ceases to amaze me
The only thing that’s changed is
Now I see beyond the appearance into
The reality

Shelley Persaud
Walton High School

Letting the Sun Set

The sun is going down,
Very nice right now.
Here I’m wondering why
Can’t it be you and me?
Why can’t it be?
One heart together?
Why mi Amor?
Knowing that the sun goes down,
Know that every day,
I have dreams about you.
Why can’t it be us?

Angel Garcia
Walton High School, 11^th grade

My Heart

My heart has made its mind up
And I’m afraid it’s you.
Whatever you’ve got lined up.
My heart has made its mind up
And if you can’t be signed up this year,
Next year will do.
My heart has made it’s mind up
And I want to be with you.

Angel Garcia
Walton High School, 11^th grade

Married Love

You and I have so much love that it burns like fire
in which we broke a lump of clay, molded it into
a figure of you and a figure of me.
Then we take both of them and break them into
pieces and mix the pieces with water.
And mold again a figure of you and a figure of me.
I’m in your clay and you are in my clay.
In life we share a single quilt.
In death we’ll share a single coffin.

Angel Garcia
Walton High School, 11^th grade

Parrot in the Oven

Mi vida,
a chance but one.
A brother with envy.
In spite, just pressure,
just looking for so many.
He tries, but he fails.
And his dad lost it all.
So the pain is on the way,
Yet he still faces the fall.
The family, they try,
because the color defines them.
With struggle they fit in.
Their race still reminds them.
Spanish in slurs.
Anger reads the face.
Only a nightmare of hurt
and a plea out of torture.
The work, the food, the air
Filled completely; the work for us,
different still ain’t easy.

Anonymous, Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music, 9^th grade

Whispers in the Hall

They think they know me but
they see someone else.
But by words from someone
there is a different mental image
of me that they see.
It hurts inside because
they see a second person that is not me.
You can only be on one side
of the fence and I chose to be me.
Some people find it a problem to
be me because I’m not extra.
I can hear their whispers
through the hall but I don’t
know where they’re coming from.

Joey Tenney
Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music, 10^th grade

Hold the Hate...

For all of the haters....

Kill me now or
kill me later.
Hold the hate you got for me.
Keep me close but push me away
but do not knock on my door.
Shed a drop of tear but at the
same time shed a drop of blood.
Hate me all you want but guess
what I am still around and living good.
You could hate me and shake me and break me
but you could not change me.
So take me for who I am because baby
I am still around and nothing is going to change me.
So, hate me, break me, and shake me
but do not take me.
Do not touch me, just look at what you see.
Do not try to kiss me,
I am pushing you away and most of all do not call me baby
or do not hold my hand.
Just accept me but at the same time
hate me. I am pushing you to the curb like you just got served,
like you’re a piece of dirt that I walked all over.
You could kill me now or kill me later
and you could hate me all you want,
but I am still around.
So hate me, break me and shake me,
but do not take me.
Shed a drop of tear but not a drop of blood.

Marie Galarza
Discovery High School, 10^th grade

In the Mirror

You stare,
you see in those eyes
the pain and agony that person has been through.
You breathe,
you smell the dust of ashes,
that person has lost
a loved one.
You gaze
into those eyes that stare back at you, and you notice
the rage and fury they hold
inside.
You touch
and as if that hand was touching you back
you feel that cold but warm heart
so pure and so open,
to pain,
to new experiences,
to love,
to accept everything.
Just to find that once upon a time,
happily ever after.
You blink
and the eyes you saw,
the hand you touched,
the smell you inhaled,
you notice...yourself
in the mirror.

Sabrina Font
Discovery High School, 11^th grade

Just

Just an attraction in my amusement park.
Just a thought I had in my dreams.
Just another cloud in the sky.
Just another face passing by,
always laughing and wondering why,
telling myself all the reasons why.
Why it was me who said, "I’ll never leave,"
but I left myself somewhere on the way there.
And now I’m here trying again
hoping this is the journey that will never end.

Tatiana Moreno
Discovery High School, 11^th grade

TWILIGHT

Twilight at night.
You provoke the madness inside me
bring it out in the light of the moon.
Shining and gleaming like a never-ending star,
twilight is my redemption.
My own tourniquet, bleeding into my mind,
leaving me stripped of defiance and dignity.

Twilight wakes me up to save me
from something I’ll surely become.
Twilight awakens me from the deepest
chamber of my soul, empty and meaningless,
to bring to life my only dream.
"Twilight" I whisper with my last breath,
twilight thy name is evil.

Veronica Pazmino
Discovery High School, 11^th grade

Dream

Open your eyes,
Dream but don’t guess
Your biggest surprise
Comes after a yes.

Evil

Looks like what drives me crazy,
Doesn’t have an effect on you
But I’m going to keep on it,
Till it drives you crazy, too.

From Love

You ask me what I thought about love
Before we were lovers.
The answer is easy,
Before I met you
I didn’t have anything to think about.

Angel Garcia
Walton High School, 12^th grade

What I Want and What I Don’t Want

Everybody that I want,
don’t want me.
Everybody that wants me,
I don’t want them.
I want men, I get boys.
Then, they all still play
with toys.
Life is not given to me
the way I want it.
So I go for what I want
and don’t back down.
Everybody I don’t want
I get rid of.
Everybody I want
I take, never realizing in the end
I take only myself.

Anonymous
Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music, 9^th grade

Pain

If life was pain I would hurt all the time.
I’m the lone wolf out of all my friends.
I’m single and 15, I may seem ok, but I’m not.
Pain is a major part of my life and
I’ve been trying so hard
To overcome it but I know now
The more you try the more you have
To go through.
I want someone to hold,
Someone to kiss,
Someone who understands me
To know why I do everything for a reason.
Not to call me dumbass or stupid
And she should know that I love her
And that pain and sorrow for me is nothing
As long as I have her.

Jonathan Brown
Discovery High School, 10^th grade

Breathe Easy

I been through a lot and people want me dead /so life isn’t easy / I wander the street not breathing easy / I’m too damn hungry for this cheese / boys coming around the block and I got to breath easy / the boys are the cops and they banging me against the wall and they not being easy / I say it’s hard for a black man to make it through life and when I go through other blocks I carries the knife / it’s not easy / got these fake OGs be / want to see you dumped in the sea and it’s just not easy / I got to breathe easy / I got a hard life and I want to get away from it all / right now I’m brushing that dirt off my shoulder / so I’m shaking it all / so I got to breathe easy

Kenday McLeod, Discovery High School, 10^th grade

Love You Mama

Ma, me and you have been through a lot / we always on a struggle and people are

always trying to bust our bubble / but like it or not, none of this is going to make us stop, even though life is hard / we are going to make it far / with tears and scars / all that will show is that we have been through it all / Ma, I thank you for everything that you have done/ when I’m down on myself / you make me feel like I’m number one / even though you’re on my back 24/7 / you are teaching me lessons and that is a blessing / Ma, I’m grateful that I have you / please don’t think that I’m not / Ma, when I’m down you give me hope and I thank you for that, Ma

Kenday McLeod, Discovery High School, 10^th grade

Being with Somebody

Loving somebody is something special to me / because everybody needs somebody to love / even gangsters and thugs / I am a thug even I need love / everybody needs somebody to talk to / hold hands to walk with and talk with / and just that touch of that kiss / just rubbing them lips / grabbing and touching them hips / moving them side to side with them thick thighs / just looking in her beautiful eyes / just wondering is this the person I can really be with / but your feelings are taking control / you do not care / you just want that person right there / because that person takes away all of your fears / all your tears and everything just seems clear and when that person leaves you / you never want them to leave / you think about them right before you go to sleep / waiting for that next day / for you and that person to meet and it might lead into other things / maybe under the sheets / slowly making love / a romancing scene / slowly kissing and licking each other like ice cream and that slowly leads into other things if you know what I mean / you did not mean for it to happen but it just did / let me tell you what just did / you just went with the flow / now let it go and like I said everybody needs somebody to love

Kenday McLeod, Discovery High School, 10^th grade

Baby-Teeth Love

I once loved you, I cared
for you and I was proud
to say you were my girl.
We slowly broke apart like
baby teeth; our relationship
got weaker and weaker.
The stuff I was told and the way
you lied will mark my heart forever.
I changed for the better.
I was once told love is the easiest
word to say, but to show that you
love someone is the hardest.
We hardly speak when I hug you.
I think of all our happy days
I loved you.

Jonathan Brown
Discovery High School, 10^th grade

Corrupt Heart

My heart has been poisoned with
your lies and deceit.
I have wandered into a no man’s
land.
The way I felt that day I
was told that 3 is better than 1.
I was betrayed, stabbed by
the one I loved.
What I have cannot be cured.
I have a corrupt heart;
there is a void, a hole, a stab
wound.
I’ll never be the same.
I’m now part of the losers
who have been used.
I now know you guys
are mean to girls
and call them bitches
because there was 1
girl that gave them
the corrupt heart.

Jonathan Brown
Discovery High School, 10^th grade

Lone

Brick, cold walls
Stoney shaking cement
No love in the air
Too much to think
Feeling growing cold
Growing numb
Like a drink
Eyes staring at you
From above
Light hitting you like a stove
breath trying so hard to
breathe
Only if it saw me
Shut like a cell’s cave

Set like a #2 page
Run down the hall of
Shadows
Were voices set to follow
Look now, I have to go
Please heal me before
I let go….
Out there wandering
In your dreams
I know you see
Me.

Tatiana Moreno
Discovery High School, 11^th grade

Untitled

It’s silent.
All I hear is this pen write, while I write.
Then I hear cars, the lights twitching, Spanish music playing.
Then the Spanish music stops playing.
All I hear is my mind,
it keeps going on and on asking questions I can’t answer.
It has ideas I wish I had.
Pain like never, it has everything without it.
I would be lost in a jungle where monkeys thought they were tigers,
and flowers wished they were thorns;
but sometimes I wish I could just leave this world.
It’s too complicated to deal with.
It’s so beautiful to live in.
I just give up for now, let everything take its place.
Well, life is a puzzle that never ends
so start at the beginning or you’ll never get to the end.

Tatiana Moreno
Discovery High School, 11^th grade

Trickling Heart

You’ve brought me back.
Brought me back to that pain and insufferable place of heart,
Scenery that no eyes should be allowed to see,
The box that consumed my every expectation.
I’ve been trying to get rid of since the age of God knows when.
I feel in my chest it has started again,
I look and scratch the pain off my face.
Can you see what you have done to me?
My ability to create has been distraught.
You have poisoned me.
This heart is not beating
but trickling with point ends of your words.
Don’t try to fix it,
it’s not broken
but can you rob me?
Can you take every ounce of angst you’ve put upon me and drive me to the end?
I’m not awake
but you can still see my dream.
See my warm smile but only in vain.
Remember me when I leave.
When I’m gone and you have no one to care for you
because you will be a lonely soul.
Stuck inside my trickling heart,
you can’t tourniquet what you have stolen.

Crystal Rivera, Discovery High School, 11^th grade

Best Friend

You were my best friend but what had I done that made our relationship end?
Was it because of my worries?
Was it because of the stories that we told one another?
You were my best friend and I asked you if our friendship was going to end.
You told me no.
Why did you have to lie, you turned out to be so nice.
My best friend is what I called you. Now what do you want?
We had shared our secrets.
We had planned our future; best friend it took forever to find you.
I sure do not want to lose you.
Best friend, you knew exactly what I was going through.
Best friend, I want to be there for you!

Shantel Moran, Discovery High School, 11^th grade

Pride of the Lion

Yes she once was a great lioness
She was a brave, fierce beast
She protected me and gave me everything I ever needed
Now that she is weak
It’s my turn to be as fierce as I can be

Yes, my once fierce warrior
You helped me to get through things
You gave me guidance and strength
When I couldn’t face life
Because of you my lioness
Because of you, I’m a lion
Who walks with his head high
Because of the way you are
I’m the kind of lion who roars your name with pride
To you my lioness
I owe every heartbeat, every moment in my life
And that’s why my fierce beast
Any day for you, I would die

There is one thing all lions have to know
My lion queen is the most beautiful of all
So if one dares to harm my lion queen
I would roar and protect her
Even if my flesh and blood is the cost
So before you approach
Such a majestic beast, acknowledge that to her

My life I owe
And there is nothing I wouldn’t do to make sure
That my precious lioness is safe and secure

George Sanchez
Walton High School

Let Go

Walk with grace
in one straight place
in a weird, old place
where you can be free.
Don’t hold back
just let go and travel
through an adventure
where no one can imagine.
Put on a smile and let it
sit for a while,
imagine all those foreign places
and let your mind wander.
Out of this world with no problems
and no fears, a place you been
looking to for years.

Sabrina Font
Discovery High School, 11^th grade

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Last Updated June 22, 2006 by Roz Krakowsky
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