Author Archives: theatala

A sestina is a non-rhyming poem consisting of six six-line stanzas and a final three-line stanza. The last word of each stanza is used in the first line of the subsequent stanza in a predetermined order. Aching bones stretching high.Old faces blur with new.The moon alters faces.Green leaves fall,as red to the ground.Yet here IContinue reading “Change”

Please click on thumbnails below to view the full content of each work: The Spring 2026 version of the atala was curated, created, and published by Editor-in-Chief Adia Smith and NEHS Advisor Sarah Phelps.

The morning sun paints gold upon the floor,A welcome mat sits silent by the doorThe “Land of the Free” stitched in stars and blueWhile coffee steams for one instead of two.The breakfast table holds a lonely plate,A victim of a knock, a hand of fateThe picket fence stands straight in painted white:a hollow shield againstContinue reading “The Stitched Promise”

Brianna Chin is currently in her senior year at Pembroke Pines Charter High School. She is passionate about creative writing and art, and she loves to share her work with others. “Birthday” was created using oil pastels.

Evan Omana is a graduating senior at Pembroke Pines Charter High School who is also the Digital Editor-in-Chief of the CHAT Newspaper. He focuses on photography as a medium and has won multiple All-Floridas from the Florida Scholastic Press Association (FSPA).

Meghan Chin is a graduating senior who loves to make art as a hobby. From paintings to drawings, she enjoys creating works to share or to gift to others. She hopes to continue her hobby beyond high school.

* This poem is a sestina, a french form consisting of six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy. The final words of each line repeat in a different but predetermined sequence in each stanza. when we rise like the sun, we begin crawling and we use our limbs to begin our reaching. the incessant spinContinue reading “to reach, to rise, to fall”

Days used to feel so soft and gentle, like a sweet caress that would send me into fits of laughter as it tickled my skin. But now things have changed: the days don’t feel as if they have been suspended in time anymore, they no longer create a space especially for us just to exist,Continue reading “Stuck in Time”

The mirror on the wall shows someone.A person? A human being? A beast?Something.Maybe, it’s something.Unrecognizable, the visage is a blurWavering each blink of the eye,Constantly shifting and moving around with each breath taken,Shuffling with blood flowing through the interiorBeneath the skinThe organsThe ugly organs that work overtime,Working until the heart no longer feels it hasContinue reading “Something”

Every single day, every single day, at ten in the morning sharp, Sharma ji would get ready, crisp white shirt and iron-pressed blue blazer. He worked a government job, alongside prestigious people lathered in prestigious perfumes, gold crowns placed upon their heads, embedded with jewels, red jewels, green jewels, blue jewels, supposedly brought from theContinue reading “Unanswered Echoes”