Like confused—
I turned instead,
Feeling old.

Let Chaos meet Ugly.
We’ve stood.
My heart missed a beat
As the tunnel sealed,
Finding its way into the open.

By: Mary Lopez-Furlong & Isaac Lewis

He walked until he reached the stone.
Gold shook his head,
Swimming with beautiful.
Shot and response—
Like a shadow.

By: Sophia Stone

He was born
Under the shadow of death—
Anubis.

Where Walt lay,
I saw a different person,
Like a superimposed image…

A young man,
Lying weak and pale,
In a gold neck-band
And black Egyptian kilt,
With familiar brown eyes
And a sad smile.

Deeper still,
I saw the glowing gray radiance
Of a god—
The jackal-headed form
Of Anubis.

In the Duat,
Anubis spoke in unison:
“Still me.”

By: Dublin Adams & Yasmine Sakr

They began to tread
The steps of the dance together.

Then she sang,
To the tune of the dance—
“Step and turn,
Walk and stay,
Dance macabray.”

The music—
They knew the steps.

He danced
Lines of dancers,
Lines that parted as they came through.

Bod saw Abanazer Bolger
Dancing with Miss Borrows,
His old former teacher,
Walking and kicking.

“Where does the music come from?”
“Who’s making all this happen?”
“It always happens,” they said.
“The living may not remember,
But we always do.”

By: Sean Weaver

Free as air, cold as frost,
Dangerous as the creatures.
I don’t want to be one of you—
Of course you want to!

There’s a soul in the universe.
Can you imagine how it feels
To be more important than kings,
Than queens or heroes—
In the same way that people are more important.

What are you?
Ghouls.
Bless me—
We are ghouls,
Little creatures bouncing and running,
Heading for the path
Before a pair of bony hands
In a series of jumps to meet others of their kind.

By: Alexa Marroquin

From what they once were,
Those who remain
Live in hiding—
A soft, regretful voice.

In the world,
We were regarded as shamans,
As mystics,
Consulted in times of need.

But the larger world
Turned against us long ago.

“So why didn’t you just—
I don’t know—
Make your own country somewhere?”

“If only it had been that simple,”
She said.

By: Presley Palczynski

Mrs. Owens said,
“There’s nothing you can do, Bod.”

“There is. I can learn —
I can learn everything I need to know.
I learned to Dreamwalk,
taught myself to watch the stars,
taught myself silence.

I can Haunt.
I can Fade.
I know every inch of this graveyard.”

Mrs. Owens was no longer angry.
She feared for her son.
She said only,
“I wish I knew, my darling boy —
I wish I knew.”

By: Anna Hemleben