Red and Blue
In fifth grade science we learned that
Blood is red when filled with oxygen
That turns blue after losing the O2
Only gaining its normal hue
After returning to their beating home
So as red lines the streets of dead dreams
Where life flows down the gutter drain
I can’t help but wonder
Blue suits should stop taking breaths away
And just return home
To get back their souls
Michelle Chavez senior editor for Cedar Crest College’s Pitch: A Journal of Literature and Art, an online-exclusive journal that accepts works from Cedar Crest undergraduate students ranging from the traditional written and visual form, to nontraditional writing and visual, and time-based and digital formats.
On Being Closeted
I want to write about being gay
on being nonbinary
I don’t
​
I tell myself it’s because
the professor is homophobic
because he had a revelation
on a classmate’s gay character—
​
“Oh, he’s a gay!”
exclaimed loudly after
five minutes of pondering
​
the class laughed,
and I joined in
because what else could we do
​
but why was it funny,
tell me because
​
I don’t understand
​
the same professor tells us
write about your passion
write about yourself
put yourself into your writing
​
then, in the next sentence he speaks,
a they becomes an it
I become an it
​
I want to tell my professor
“you see, I would,
but you’d laugh”
another gay joke—
my existence in a nutshell
​
please, look at the classroom gay
​
they’re not laughing
Shay Carroll is a senior student at Bowling Green State University, where they currently study creative writing and linguistics. They are a fiction and creative non-fiction editor for BGSU’s undergraduate literary journal Prairie Margins, and they will be graduating in May 2018. Interests include writing, discussions of starting a revolution, and the correct use of there/their/they’re.
You can reach them at carrolm@bgsu.edu
Contradictory Workshop
"Write about yourself," they say
"The best writing is personal," they say
It's the cry of every professor, every writer---
the best writing comes from the heart
is about your struggles
is about your passion
is about you
​
But then come next week
please tell me how to workshop
a poem about my classmate's rape
a story about your parent's abuse
an introduction about identity
about failings and feelings
and everything personal
​
And when I finally speak
because participation is always mandatory
what do I say besides
"Put a comma here," or
"Don't double space after periods"
because yes your experience is revolutionary
but objectively your writing sucks
Shay Carroll is a senior student at Bowling Green State University, where they currently study creative writing and linguistics. They are a fiction and creative non-fiction editor for BGSU’s undergraduate literary journal Prairie Margins, and they will be graduating in May 2018. Interests include writing, discussions of starting a revolution, and the correct use of there/their/they’re.
You can reach them at carrolm@bgsu.edu