High School Writers

Hanging Loose 102 features 4 writers that are of the high school age: Alexa Derman, Mika Kligler, Camille Petersen, and Mia Rosenberg. This is a regular section of the magazine. Here’s a sampling of Petersen’s work, “Birds on Fire”:

Written out it would sound like
A Latin church song
Wind climbing a staircase

It would be the yell of the man
Who says he has nothing to say
But writes letters to himself on the train
Secretly prays someone will ask him
What he is doing and why he is so alone
And why his eyes look like lacquered pumice
Trying to disintegrate

The boy of the atheists who walks himself
To church has a talent for eyes
He doesn’t ask questions
He just stares . . .