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The only person I’ve ever lost in my life was my great grandmother. Lost is a complicated word though. You can’t lose something without having it to begin with. She was the first and only family member of mine to have passed away in my lifetime, but that’s all she was to me, someone IContinue reading “Could’ve, Should’ve, Didn’t”

I wake up to the sound of bees, or the feeling rather, of their fluttering wings and stabbing tails tearing my stomach and jostling my insides. I’ve never needed an alarm; I’ve always trusted the inner workings of my body to wake me before sunrise. It’s the outer parts that make it hard to getContinue reading “Manifest”

Click here to view cover art by Andria Subhit Please click on thumbnails below to view full content of each work Our Spring 2023 issue of the atala was designed, curated, and edited by Editor in Chief Emma Schenker, Editor Natalia Montgomery, and NEHS Advisor Ms. Sarah Phelps.

In her poem “There came a Wind like a Bugle — ,”Emily Dickinson explores how nature, at the hand of God, maintains the power to test or subdue humanity at any given moment and how humanity is incapable of comprehending or quantifying such power but through abstract language.  Dickinson utilizes synesthesia and symbolism to emphasizeContinue reading “The Beckoning of Judgement Day in “There came a Wind like a Bugle —””

I haven’t been fine since that day in nineteen sixty nine the day that cursed lotto ripped me from my momma “You’re fighting commies,” the white man says. “That’s God’s plan!” But what harm have the commies ever caused this black man? Not pain. Not humiliation. Not trauma. Not segregation, degradation, nor sorrow. Unlike theContinue reading “Monologues Overheard Inside the V.A.’s Office”

In “The Legend,” Garrett Hongo intertwines the story of the death of Jay Kashiwamura with the perspective of an onlooker to highlight the overarching message of the importance of compassion and empathy. By incorporating allegory, allusions, suggestive diction, and sharp contrasts in tone and imagery into the poem, Hongo conveys a theme of alienation andContinue reading ““The Legend”: Dehumanization and Indifference”

Lady Zuriel Ayebah is a creative writing student who is finishing up her junior year at Pembroke Pines Charter High School. “Sweet Dreams to my Nightmares” won first place in the Poem for Two Voices category of the 2022-23 Broward County Literary Fair.

Natalia Montgomery, one of our editors of this year’s issue of the atala, is a graduating senior and Creative Writing 4 student who writes fiction and poetry. “Mercury Upon Anxious Wings” earned first place in the Ekphrastic Poem category at the 2023 Broward County Literary Fair, as did her sestina, “The Huntsman,” also featured inContinue reading “Mercury Upon Anxious Wings”

Unzip your skin and let me in Surely you must be tired  always wrapped in its weight I want to see every crack and scratch and gap within your flesh and bones and blood I already know where to find far more of them than you’d think So unzip your skin to someone who’s actuallyContinue reading “Bare”

An epistolary work is a story told through letters or other documents. Ahana Thakur is a second year creative writing student and graduating senior at Pembroke Pines Charter High School. N-INFO was created digitally, a continuation of her short story written about a girl who ran away from home and who struggles with her feelings.