Straight-Laced Statues by Daphne Bunker (17, Washington)

There are monuments built
In the name of our youths
For the chapters that fit
Neatly within a straight-edged frame

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Bronze tears of commiseration
Commemorate our formative years
And verdigris encrusted embraces
Loom over soft skulls

They’re stagnant things
With well intentioned eyes
That avert their tried and toilsome understanding
When we leave the flowerbeds behind

And you leave the margins
Of the picturesque gallery
You feel those furtive eyes
Trace your ghost and the path ahead

The glances speak of sympathy
For those miserable years they didn’t see
For the ignorance that coalesced
Through years of fractured knighthood
All the while the wills of bandits
Grew cast iron to survive

And survive they do
As their calloused feet
Carry them beyond the garden
That couldn’t hold their metal hearts
And the statues that tried
But were too tentative to take

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Daphne Bunker is a seventeen-year-old writer from Seattle, Washington. She loves creative writing in all its forms and enjoys scouring thesauruses for just-right words. She has previously written poetry and prose for local theater programs, TeenTix, and her D&D group.