Author Archives: theatala

*This poem is a villanelle, a French verse form written in nineteen lines and following a specific pattern of two rhymes and an alternating refrain. My mind won’t stop, it’s like a runaway train.I hear the clock keep ticking, yet I’m wide awake.These midnight thoughts drive me insane.Overthinking everything that I can’t explain.My regrets areContinue reading “Runaway Thoughts”

Brianna Chin is finishing up her junior year at Pembroke Pines Charter High School. She is passionate about creative writing and art, and she loves to share her work with others. Sunshine on Water was created using oil pastels.

An ekphrastic poem is inspired by a work of art. Danika Rivera’s “The Ocean, The Sky, and The Wind” is inspired by Edvard Munch’s 1892 painting, Despair. Orange and yellow engulf The SkyIt haunts my every dreamAs I watch the grass sway byThe Ocean calls out to me, its waves disturbedThe boats honk against myContinue reading “The Ocean, The Sky, and The Wind”

Camila Vaca is finishing up her junior year at Pembroke Pines Charter High School. She has been invested in art for most of her life, occasionally experimenting with different subjects and mediums. Her inspiration for this piece came through in her AP Lit class, where she learned about Kafka and his take on the absurditiesContinue reading “One Push Away”

Warm butter sizzles in the pan near the window popping and sparking as the sun streams in coating the kitchen in a warm, honey glow. I feel hot and sticky, like a stranger in my own skin, stretching and picking at it as if to make more room. I look out at the newborn calves,Continue reading “The Hottest Day of the Summer”

I must keep my thoughts at bay. By now she should be right around the block. I wait for her to come today. 3 hours pass and then a day. I sit criss-crossed by the clock. I must keep my thoughts at bay. The calendar tells me it is Wednesday. Back and forth, I rock.Continue reading “Come, Someday”

The high beams illuminated the dark gray asphalt road that stretched on for miles. The moon shimmered against the black of the night sky. It played a repetitive game of hide and seek with me. We never took turns playing each role. I was the seeker, and it only hid – coveting itself behind theContinue reading “Hiding Under the Light of the Moon”

Kyle Merchant is a graduating senior at Pembroke Pines Charter High School. He has always been comfortable with traditional art, but has recently been experimenting with digital art! His pieces focus on the use of colors and shapes that guide a viewer’s eyes to specific areas. “Helix” won the this year’s atala cover art contest.

This My Outline I am not your straight line,anymore.That, has spanned far enough you and I can see from end to end narrow and cutthroat, so distinct from being traced over again,not scribbled, mindless, messy swirls and waves thatdance around themselves. Coiling and colorfullike the ink that gets imprinted on my right handfrom drawing. YourContinue reading “(This) My Outline”

I was born to fly.  At least, that’s what they told me.  I grew up falling asleep every night hearing stories of the great migration of our species, a perilous but glorious coming-of-age journey halfway across the globe, from the very top of North America to the western jungles of Brazil. From the moment IContinue reading “Flight”