2025 Barrett Winner
2nd Place Alana DeMaggio
Was walking barefoot to the corner store
Cherry popsicles melting
down our arms. Staining
our denim shorts and our mouths
Hot, sticky, and bright red.
Sharing a tube of cherry lip gloss and giggling
at the high school boys who honk at us from
their pickup trucks, hanging
out of the windows like dogs,
drooling and panting.
The burning
July sun. Long hair sticking
to our tanned skin.
It was the summer before
seventh grade.
Fresh and free
like a wild foal running
through a field.
Learning how to control growing
limbs and growing
bodies. The summer of
truth or dare and
gossip.
Rap music playing
from my headphones in the car,
poems scrawled in purple ink.
Red fingernails tying
bikini tops tight and
big sunglasses tangled in flat ironed hair.
Only putting
our feet in instead of swimming
like mermaids across the pool.
I stand on the diving board peering
over the edge of childhood
Heart hammering. Wishing
to grow up, I jump
and let the aquamarine wash over me.
I carry that summer inside my chest, cracking
it open. It tastes like Red Pop and
first kisses.
Was I a girl or a woman?
Maybe I was both. Maybe I still am.
Sometimes when I catch a glimpse of my reflection
I see
Girlhood.