By Petra F. Bagnardi

They burned my books, they closed my school. Still, they could not take my thoughts from me; I glanced at the almost blank sky, I borrowed a ray of sun and a cloud to write, a phrase, a sentence, an essay.

They burned my canvas, they broke my brush, they even stole my watercolors, and yet, they could not take away my imagination; I made my way to the edge of a lake, I used gusts of wind to fold the murky waters, into soft green hills and silvery ambitious mountains.

They burned down my school. I was a fledgling soul when they destroyed my future. So I composed a simple sonata, crashing and banging, drumming and humming; pots against doors, spoon against floors, tears against walls.

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Petra F. Bagnardi is a screenwriter and a poet. She was short-listed in the Enfield Poets’ Twentieth Anniversary Poetry Competition, and her work was featured in numerous literary journals including Masque & Spectacle Literary Journal, Punk Noir Magazine, Poetica Review, Drawn to the Light Press, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Redrosethorns Journal, Quail Bell Magazine, Ginosko Literary Journal, and The Sunlight Press.