Elijah Kleinman (16)
Jade
Whenever we wandered the world, the world was wandering with us.
Wherever the world went, we would whet our worries with work.
Whatever the world was, our wishes were still willfully wild:
Forever fabricating forms, fables, and failures for fear of fading;
Whiling away the weeks while the world just wanted to be—
Never knowing, never inverting, yet shifting evermore.
And, in the distant now, it still is simply shifting evermore.
And, in the gloom that’s bound, its crazed, catatonic cacophony still filters down to us.
And, in the throes of decay, we struggle to recall what the meaning of those scraps of sound used to be.
And, awash in the Sun’s rays, they sift throughout what was once ours to make their own lives work,
Just as we stole the storied stashes and sacred secrets of those who were then fading
And who are now fading with us as our wills shift like the world and we forever abandon the wild.
Yes, there once was a time when our wills were wily and wild.
But now, although this woefully wondrous world will wage its wars evermore…
Somehow, our years of youthful yearning are, after all our hours of aging, finally fading.
At last our lives have lost their luster, and our old longings have died within us.
Lessons learned, senses burned, world spurned, we won’t work!
Not when we’re free from it all as can be.
But they won’t let us be.
Still submerged in the thrill of the wild,
They ask us why we have abandoned our worn-down work,
Why this dull darkness has become our lair evermore,
Why what was our world now means nothing to us,
Why we have embraced it—why we so long ago forsook our old, solemn fear of fortunes fading.
We don’t respond—can’t they see we’re fading?
They know we’re all as good as gone—don’t they know what’s meant to be?
We don’t care if they used to know us!
Now they’re split from us, still stranded in the wild.
Now we know freedom evermore,
And now they have the nerve to demand our return to work.
We were once with them, the same as them, and their work
Will finish in stillness, the same as ours, fading
Forever, falling from finality to forgotten evermore
For this world never notices the clever endeavors of those trying to be.
It never even notices its very own wild.
Although they don’t know, it’s never noticed them, and it never once noticed us.
You see, whenever whatever work the world’s wild willed wanted us
To wish to wage war evermore and forge glory or fathom fearlessly facing feats, failures and fates wherever the wild
Was, it was never the world. Although everything else is forever fading, the world always is, so
don’t blame me—rather, blame what we used to be
Elijah Jethro Van Burik Kleinman is a 16-year-old proud nerd in his junior year of high school. He enjoys playing with words, work, and board games, and takes an active interest in foreign policy. When he fully matures, he hopes to find a job that the robots haven’t taken over, but we’ll see if that happens. Elijah has been writing poetry for most of his life, but is a relative novice to competitive publication.
Jade
Whenever we wandered the world, the world was wandering with us.
Wherever the world went, we would whet our worries with work.
Whatever the world was, our wishes were still willfully wild:
Forever fabricating forms, fables, and failures for fear of fading;
Whiling away the weeks while the world just wanted to be—
Never knowing, never inverting, yet shifting evermore.
And, in the distant now, it still is simply shifting evermore.
And, in the gloom that’s bound, its crazed, catatonic cacophony still filters down to us.
And, in the throes of decay, we struggle to recall what the meaning of those scraps of sound used to be.
And, awash in the Sun’s rays, they sift throughout what was once ours to make their own lives work,
Just as we stole the storied stashes and sacred secrets of those who were then fading
And who are now fading with us as our wills shift like the world and we forever abandon the wild.
Yes, there once was a time when our wills were wily and wild.
But now, although this woefully wondrous world will wage its wars evermore…
Somehow, our years of youthful yearning are, after all our hours of aging, finally fading.
At last our lives have lost their luster, and our old longings have died within us.
Lessons learned, senses burned, world spurned, we won’t work!
Not when we’re free from it all as can be.
But they won’t let us be.
Still submerged in the thrill of the wild,
They ask us why we have abandoned our worn-down work,
Why this dull darkness has become our lair evermore,
Why what was our world now means nothing to us,
Why we have embraced it—why we so long ago forsook our old, solemn fear of fortunes fading.
We don’t respond—can’t they see we’re fading?
They know we’re all as good as gone—don’t they know what’s meant to be?
We don’t care if they used to know us!
Now they’re split from us, still stranded in the wild.
Now we know freedom evermore,
And now they have the nerve to demand our return to work.
We were once with them, the same as them, and their work
Will finish in stillness, the same as ours, fading
Forever, falling from finality to forgotten evermore
For this world never notices the clever endeavors of those trying to be.
It never even notices its very own wild.
Although they don’t know, it’s never noticed them, and it never once noticed us.
You see, whenever whatever work the world’s wild willed wanted us
To wish to wage war evermore and forge glory or fathom fearlessly facing feats, failures and fates wherever the wild
Was, it was never the world. Although everything else is forever fading, the world always is, so
don’t blame me—rather, blame what we used to be
Elijah Jethro Van Burik Kleinman is a 16-year-old proud nerd in his junior year of high school. He enjoys playing with words, work, and board games, and takes an active interest in foreign policy. When he fully matures, he hopes to find a job that the robots haven’t taken over, but we’ll see if that happens. Elijah has been writing poetry for most of his life, but is a relative novice to competitive publication.