01 - Seventeen Years Old

The song of the cicada sounds much sweeter today. On what would normally be a walk I would take alone, today I am joined by the best company one could ask for. Her smile is more breathtaking than the sun rising over the horizon.We have discussed our lives into old age, and I find myself more excited for the future than I have ever been. I never cared much for romance as I found it to be an unnecessary distraction. That all changed when she entered my life. When I look back on today, even in my old age I will remember fondly the sound of the cicada. Nothing will ever be as sweet as the sound of their song as I look upon the face of my love.

sweet sight
I look into your eyes
and see forever

Austin Medina

My favorite was 02 – Seventeen Years Old because it was just happy. I am also a sucker for romance. I love the detail of how the guy feels about the girl. Every person wants their significant other to feel that way about them. This response also gave me Nicholas Sparks vibes because of the way it is like a flashback. Maddie Schroeder, May 2021

02 - Friday Night Plans?

A girl sits in history class thinking of something she wishes would happen. She zones out while her teacher is talking about something boring. She sees her crush walk into the room and sit right next to her and whispers to her the whole class asking about what she likes to do and then asks for her number and asks her out. She has liked this boy for as long as she could remember but he was a popular jock, and she was a quiet nerdy girl who would never have something like him look twice at her. He asks what she is doing Friday night and she says nothing, so he asks her to go to dinner with him that evening. Then the bell rings and the girl lifts her head up with drool running down her chin. She then thinks, “was that real? Was it a dream? Or did I imagine it?” she then sees her crush sitting across the room laughing with his friends and walking out the door.

just ask him out
why didn’t I?
such a coward

Caitlyn Kesler

03 - Coming Out of the Dark

It's a summer night and the darkness has dimmed just enough to where the fireflies start to come alive. I can smell the breeze and hear the crickets chirp. I see a young couple who are having a small picnic. They are enjoying their sandwiches and their tea. They decide to sit and enjoy the evening in each other’s company. They talk about the summer and what they have planned and bring up the parties/cookouts. The couple decides to lay out and gaze at the stars pointing out what each constellation looked like. They fall asleep on their picnic blanket and wake up to darkness. The darkness blinds their vision, and they cannot see anything. The dewy smell of the summer morning and the wet grass seem almost calming. They lie and wait for the sun to come up. They hear birds start to chirp and they watch the fireflies start to disappear. The sunrise is just over the horizon. The brightness of the morning sun is starting to peak out from the earth. They admire the beautiful pink, yellow, and orange colors of the sunrise. The warmth on their face and the rays of sunshine over their picnic area. They start to pack up the blanket and food when they grab each other hands. They lean in and kiss, which is exactly what each of them had been waiting for.

darkness
waiting
for you to join me

Jacey Centola

04 - Winter Lips

The winter air is so cold and dry. Simply walking outside, even as close as to the car, makes my lips all chapped up. I hate it so much. so I always make sure that I have some Chapstick on me. I see a person watching the snowfall out of a window, with a fire lit in the background. All they can hear is the wood crackling in the background, as each flake hits the ground. Their lips are chapped from the cold, possibly just getting in from somewhere. So, as they are enjoying the view outside, they apply Chapstick to their lips, to help smooth over the dryness.

blizzard
shadow in the distance
grandma is here

Jake Pietryk

like this one because sometimes I see a shadow in the distance, and it looks like my deceased grandma looking over me. When I graduated high school, I saw her, and my two grandpas and my uncle in the bleachers watching me and I couldn’t help but smile back at them. I know they are really physically there, but they are in my heart. This haiku makes me remember that my grandparents are watching over me. Caitlyn Kesler, May 2021

05 - Guard Down

She has been in previous relationships, each one hurting more than the last. Because it was hard for her to learn from them, to understand that each person sent to you, is meant to teach you a lesson. The lessons were hard, and they knocked her down, but she still couldn’t learn. She continued giving her all for the ones who claimed to love her, letting them take everything to get nothing in return.

Until the day it dawned on her, and she understood, this is not the way of love. She beat her own self down for allowing the people around her to treat her the way they did. Then she made a promise that she would never allow herself to be treated that way. She put up her guard and said no one will be able to penetrate it again.

She does not close herself to love though. She just promises she will leave at the first sight of a red flag. But, then she starts searching for red flags, just knowing they are bound to be there. She knows they will be. So, before he can betray her, she betrays him. Not realizing that he was guilty of nothing. And her past relationships left more of an impression than she realized.

I am open
and receptive, but you
will not fit

06 - Broken Eggs

A boy and girl are dating. Both have had past relationships that were rocky and due to that, they have trust issues. Throughout their relationship, they are extremely insecure about messing up or making each other mad because they don’t want things to end badly. They ignore problems that should be talked about, and it is a blowup waiting to happen. Both wonder who will mess up and betray one the other one first. Finally, one day the girl has an awful temper and all of her emotions just spill out and break out. The boy and girl argue and fight until it is finally just done.

tripping
on her temper
he awakes

Maddie Schroeder

This is one of the ones I liked because it depicted a relationship dynamic that I do not really think about, especially in these times. The end of the relationship honestly seems due to a lack of proper communication, which is a very valid reason to end a relationship, which is not normally what I think of. It may just be the dating scene currently, but it seems like everything comes to its ending due to some form of ‘toxicity’, or malintent. A little reminder that people can find that they do not work for each other without going through this toxic bout with just the realization they were not meant to be together. Leana Temple, May 2021

I really love this haiku because I have a bad temper around certain people and certain topics. I do not ever get mad at my boyfriend but when I do I go silent. He always knows because I refuse to talk to him just so nothing bad gets said or someone gets hurt. I imagine a couple both have had long days at work. They get home and they both are quiet. She just wants peace and quiet for a little while. When he decides to play video games very loud. She gets mad at him, her temper built up after a long day. She yells at him and tell him she is tired of the video games. The boyfriend wondering what he truly did to set her off decides to argue back. The arguing continues all night, and they start there days over, but always ending the same way.

07 - No More Beers

After thinking about whether or not to betray whom she thought was the man of her dreams and choosing not to go through and instead stay faithful, she starts to realize how much of a mistake it was to marry this man. In the next couple weeks, he treats her as nothing more than a mere servant, using her to do chores and tasks for him around the house. Cooking. Cleaning. Laundry. Her life was just an endless cycle of boredom, and without anyone to reciprocate the appreciation and love that she gives on a daily basis. One day as she is serving him his nightly beers as he sits in front of the television, she slips a sleeping pill into his next beer, cutting open and pouring the contents of the pill into the beer, making sure that the pill fully dissolves. As she hands the beer to him, he takes it without any regard for her and continues watching and laughing at the television by himself. It takes but half an hour for the pill to work her magic, as the woman quickly goes through with her plan. She packs up all of herself, anything that may leave any resemblance of her and leaves the house of the person she will never love, knowing well that she will never return. She hops on the flight that she has planned out and heads to the opposite end of the country in hopes to start a new life. A life where she isn’t tied down by the restraints of the person she is supposed to love.

endless cycle
of my life
hamster wheel

Nick Laramee

This haiku is so well written. The endless cycle of my life, I think we may all of something that is an infinite cycle for you if you don’t have an endless cycle in your life, good for you. Mine of recent has been losing weight and gaining it back. The hamster wheel is going around and around and not getting anywhere. Tanya Vaughn, May 2021

08 - Water Strider

I always said I would never be jealous of my husband and that still remains true, but I never meant it negatively. I just find it best for me to focus on what I have and what’s in front of me because at the end of the day, I am who it all comes down to. I control where I am at in life and where I want to be. I control how happy I am and how much I let something affect me. I take pride in that and will never compare myself to another as that will do nothing but stress me out as I try to match them, as I may question why I’m not where they’re at. I am beautiful and I am strong. I am independent and I have free-will. Nobody can take that from me . . .

head held high
the feather
floats

Tanesha Williams