NEHS is proud to begin its Pride Month festivities early by recognizing the inaugural winners of the Lambda Ampersand Award for LGBTQIA+ Writing, an annual award honoring the creative voices of NEHS’ LGBTQIA+ student members and allies. This award is the result of a meaningful partnership with Lambda Literary, the leading nonprofit dedicated to championing LGBTQIA+ literature and authors.
Focused on both visibility and inclusion, the Lambda Ampersand Award acknowledges that many LGBTQIA+ voices have long been underrepresented—especially in high school settings. Through this award, NEHS is able to celebrate student writers whose work uplifts, explores, and honors LGBTQIA+ identities through the written word.
We are thrilled to introduce this year’s winning texts—works that demonstrate courage, creativity, and the power of authentic expression. NEHS’ LGBTQIA+ student members and their allies are not only shaping literature; they are helping form a more inclusive world.
How to Walk
Riley DoRosario, Massachusetts
Walking is putting one foot in front of the other without fully leaving the ground.
We walk in and out of each other’s lives every day. Some people stay to walk alongside us while others walk away. Everyone walks in different ways, even though we all evolved from the homosapiens who first walked 6 million years ago. Some people, I have noticed, are afraid of people who walk differently to themselves. I know this is not true for everyone; however, these people have the tendency to walk into my mind and make me feel like I am always walking the plank.
I walked the plank when coming out to my parents. I am able to walk, which I know makes me fortunate. I was able to come out to my parents after two years, which I know makes me fortunate. My parents love me, which makes me fortunate.
The walk to my dad’s car was much further than across the driveway: the real walk of sharing this part of myself with my dad started freshman year when I first questioned how I was meant to walk. It continued into sophomore year as I found out that I liked girls, or maybe at least realized that I liked girls too; I am still trying to figure that part out. The walk of joining GSA Club is more than just walking to a classroom down the hall. Walking through a majority conservative student body and past all my friends to join a group of new people, in support of a whole community of unfamiliar people, was the true walk.
These two situations have ultimately resulted positively for me. My family accepts me for who I am as I try to find out, and I am not alone in that process. I think any walk of self-discovery is not unfamiliar to anyone at their core: no matter if someone is walking toward finding their sexuality, gender, career, or hobbies, everyone is walking and evolving.
Regardless of how people react to my walk, I believe those who do not make a connection between themselves and the people around them while walking are losing out. Walking in the city during Pride in June, with my palms sweating, was more than a walk down the street.
No one’s walk is flawless and no one’s walk is the same. This walk allowed me to eventually share that I have a girlfriend with the world. This was gradual, and the walk itself was, at times, an obstacle, but I am stronger for it. The walk of writing down these experiences is a walk within itself.
I am a runner, and I admittedly do not favor walks, but I know the walks I do take are necessary to allow me to race. I have to be able to walk on my own to be able to run. I have to be able to be confident in myself to be able to share that with others. Although sometimes I walk alone, I know it’s worth it in the long run.
And You, Blue
Daniela Navarro, Mexico
They said blue was cold.
That it clung to silence,
that it stained the mouths of those who dared speak too loud,
too real.
But you—
you were never cold.
You were fire wrapped in water,
a storm hiding in the calm.
I saw you first in the mirror,
in the crooked reflection of a body I tried to abandon,
in the shadows of my voice
when I called myself by names that didn’t fit.
You whispered beneath my ribs,
a color blooming where they told me nothing should grow.
I feared you.
I buried you beneath shirts too tight,
smiles too polite,
prayers that begged me to be different.
But still, you stayed.
You were the undercurrent in my silence,
the ache behind my eyes when I said, “I’m fine.”
You were the breath I held for years,
the truth pressed into corners,
folded like letters I never sent.
They tried to bleach you out of me—
with rules, with slurs, with shame dressed up as love.
But you were already in my bloodstream.
And one day,
I let you speak.
I said my name.
Not the one they gave me,
but the one you grew inside me like a seed cracking pavement.
And I was still afraid—
but I was also whole.
Now I wear you on my chest,
not as armor,
but as skin.
You are not cold.
You are not wrong.
You are not a sin to silence.
You are the reason I stayed.
You are my becoming.
And I will never unname you again.
Failure
E.G, Florida
My brain is a constant spiral,
There is no beginning and no end,
Yet there is always that hope that one day it will cease to exist.
The thoughts running through my head:
“Why can’t you be normal?”
“Why do you have to think such things?”
“What would your parents think of you if they found out?”
It’s a second person,
A devil on my shoulder always guiding me to the easy way out.
Why does it have to be the easy way out?
There shouldn’t be a reason why I have to be ashamed of myself,
There shouldn’t be thoughts of my parents, wondering if they will still love me,
Yet why do I feel like such a failure?
Why do I have to exist in this constant state of peril, wondering if I will ever be accepted,
Wondering if the ones that truly love me will still love me when they find out who I really am,
Why, why, why, why, why?
It is only ever questioning, and with that knowledge, I still continue to question why,
Why am I the way I am.
I’ve always been the model student, the older sister with ambitions that few ever begin to think of,
And yet, I feel like I am a failure.
It’s almost as if it’s a stain on the perfect white canvas that I call my life, and the more I clean it, the stain spreads.
“It’s fine if it’s someone else, but it could never be my children.”
A phrase stated too often than not.
Why can others live free of prejudice from you, but your own child lives in fear of your thoughts?
It’s a constant battle of back and forth; do I rip the bandage off and get it over with,
Or do I bottle it up with all the other emotions that would only end in judgment?
I know it’s unhealthy, but it’s what will maintain peace in a house of cracked glass.
I’m mentally not okay, and I haven’t been for a really long time.
I thought that one day it would get better, but that was years ago.
These terrible thoughts of wishing to be normal only worsen,
I’m just so tired.
I’m tired of feeling lost, worthless, and numb.
The loneliness I feel never goes away,
Maybe I was just never made to be happy.
I feel as if I have to stop lying to myself and accept that nothing is ever going to change,
Life will continue to move on, while I stand back as I watch everyone.
This wasn’t the life that I thought I would have all those years ago,
Yet here I stand questioning my existence.
If my parents aren’t proud of me, then what is the point of life anyway?
Grades are the only things that matter: why try and strive for anything else?
Love has always been in the back of my mind, but it’s chained, and the key was lost a long time ago.
It’s crazy to imagine that loving someone could upset someone else so much.
Imagine getting so worked up over someone’s happiness because you’re jealous of what they have.
The sad thing is that it doesn’t have to be imagined, it’s a sad truth.
Who knows, maybe one day people will be able to love who they want to love,
Maybe “Coming Out” will be a thing of the past,
Maybe parents will be inviting their child’s partner over for dinner without any questions,
But those are just fairytales, and happiness is a foreign ideology.
Unless that fateful day comes where the world can finally be at peace,
I will have to remain silent and move with caution,
One wrong word and I’m an outcast, destined for failure in the eyes of my family.
To them I would be a failure, and I can’t bring myself to hurt them.
Beneath the Garden
Sullivan Givens, Maryland
**This poem requires two people to read or a single person in two voices. The conversation in front of you is between a father and his son. They live in a time of great peril, and the two find themselves hidden from those who want them dead. The father is resourceful, taking his son down into the deeper levels of the city and, after finding a large underground garden full of carrots and herbs, they tuck themselves into a small bunker. It is here where the story begins, the son on the left and the father on the right:
Right here?
Yes, here.
How long?
Not long.
Will they come?
Who?
Them.
Them? Maybe.
And if they do?
We run.
Run?
Yes, run.
Run where?
I don’t know.
Why are they chasing us?
Because we are different.
What makes us different?
We are not them.
How is that different?
Because we are not them.
. . .
I hear them, still.
Stomping around?
Big boots, big boots.
Clackity clack.
I hear their guns.
Fire away.
I feel the screams.
Of the innocent dying.
We need to help.
Help how? Help them?
Yes, before the boots get them.
Clackity clack.
Stomping on the skulls.
Clackity clack.
Trekking through the mud.
Clackity clack.
Where is the justice?
Clackity clack.
. . .
Is it true?
Is what true?
That they took away our rights?
And who told you that?
No one. It is only what I see.
Then yes, it’s true.
But why? We are human.
Not to them.
How could this happen?
They didn’t want change.
And they killed us for it?
And they killed us for it.
But we are peaceful.
Not to them.
And we are good.
Not to them.
So how do we fix this?
We fight.
And if we fail?
Then we will fight harder.
People like us . . .
While small, are strong . . .
And above we cannot . . .
Give our freedom away . . .
There will be tests . . .
And sometimes tragedy . . .
But we can never give in . . .
To what they say . . .
So be the difference . . .
Be the light people find . . .
Hold it in your hands . . .
And hold it up high . . .
They can never take away . . .
What makes us different . . .
So long as you protect . . .
What’s inside.
Shedding Skin
Finnegan Saylor, Tennessee
My feet follow each other slowly and methodically, lazily driving me forward through mottled patches of sunlight and shadow. I am walking on the path in my neighborhood that only appears in my dreams, and everything is silent. Winding behind my house and out toward all the other places where I wander in my mind, the path is framed with willow trees that droop over the trail, their long twisting branches bearing ripe plums whose scents waft through the air and find their way to my nose by some unseen breeze. I can’t taste them, but I know that they taste like summer and youth.
Beside me a girl walks, and I don’t look at her but I know she looks a little like me. Her hair is longer, though.
“It’s nice out,” she says.
“Yes,” I respond. “I think it’s beautiful here.”
“I think so too,” the girl sighs. She laughs sweetly. Her eyes light up and I know she smiles at me even though I am still staring at my feet.
There’s a moment of silence.
“Where are we going?” I finally ask. I don’t know the answer, even though I’ve been walking here for a long time.
“Nowhere.”
“That can’t be,” I say.
“It can,” says she.
“Alright.”
More silence follows. The shade grows thicker as we move forward.
I look at her finally. She shares my long lashes and my dark hair, but her face is maybe just a little bit rounder, and her nose is maybe just a little bit smaller. She’s pretty.
“You’re pretty,” I say to her.
She beams.
“I think I want to be pretty like you.”
She looks away. We continue forward into deeper shadow.
“I want to look like you,” I repeat to her.
She glances at me for a moment, and I think I see something moving behind her eyes. “You’re so ugly though!” she says with a soft chuckle. She looks at me now fully. Her gaze is piercing, and she no longer smiles.
” . . . What?”
“Stupid, too. You’re stupid.”
I look at her in dull surprise. She frowns, and stops moving forward. I do the same.
“You should leave,” she says.
“Why?”
“Go.”
We stand there for a moment, and I wait for her to say something else. She doesn’t.
“Where?” I ask. I look around for a moment and see nothing but more weeping willows and dark twisting underbrush.
“Down,” she mutters solemnly. A hole opens between us, and in it I can see myself. “Go.”
I do.
. . .
I’m sitting on the floor of the bathroom again, curled up into a little ball and staring at nothing. I am frozen with fear. It occurs to me that when prey animals get scared, they freeze so they won’t be seen. I feel like prey, sitting there motionless, petrified by terror and disgust. I am waiting to be devoured, delaying the inevitable with stagnation. I too am the predator. I know I stand there, behind the shower curtain, behind the closed bathroom door, waiting to pounce at myself as soon as I so much as twitch.
My eyes are open, my eyelids pried apart from one another by terror so that they may not kiss and leave me in darkness. I hear myself breathing from in the bathtub, from under the door. I think I see my shadow shifting. My eyes are watering. They hurt. If I could see them, I would see that they are red, straining from the effort of keeping them wide. I hear my own laugh creeping out from behind the door. I know I wait there for myself until the moment when I blink, and I can be seen again, and I can be unceremoniously turned from prey to mincemeat.
I blink. Nothing. No hands reach out for me at my movement.
I listen. There is silence now.
Still, I don’t stand up, because I know that all there is above me is mirrors. And I know that there’s nothing in mirrors but monsters. So, I unfurl myself until I’m laying perfectly flush with the cool tile floor, and my arms are spread wide, and I breathe.
The ceiling is bright. I don’t like bright lights. Illuminated by such piercing white I can see myself so clearly. In such bright light I am acutely aware that coarse hair lines my legs. It scratches me when I rub my legs together. I shaved last night, I know, but fresh hair springs so willingly from my skin while I sleep. Laying in bed I feel it coiling around my legs until I am tethered to myself.
There are bright lights in makeup stores too. Walking through the endless aisles at Ulta I feel the imaginary gaze of every other individual in the store. The room is plastered with mirrors, and in everyone I see my imperfections jumping out at me, illuminated with perfect clarity. They do it on purpose, I think. They hold in their hands the remedy for imperfections, and they offer them to you at your worst. At the Sephora at Times Square in New York City there is an escalator that leads down into the store. It’s so poignant as to be almost ironic. Standing on that escalator I know that I am being carried into glorious, radiant, fluorescent hell. I am descending into pointless vanity, and I am miserable.
I’m crying, I think. It feels good. I take another breath, and my lungs fill with the stale air that permeates the room. I should go outside. (I don’t.) I just lay there for another moment, until the floor folds under me like paper, and I’m falling again.
. . .
I’m in a hotel now. The walls are beige and orange, and instead of hallways and rooms there is a mess of escalators and glass walkways intertwining, forming loose grids in the silent space. All of the escalators only lead up. I’m standing on the highest floor, leaning over a banister so that I can see the lobby below. It’s empty. The girl is behind me, leaning over my shoulder so that she can whisper in my ear.
“I was dreaming,” I say to her.
“Were you?” She asks with interest.
“Yes, I think.”
“You think?”
“I know.”
“Hm.” She pauses. “What did you dream of?”
“Myself,” I respond.
“You are selfish.”
“Maybe.”
“You only care for yourself.”
I pause. “No, that’s not right.” I turn and look at her. Her face is expressionless, but her eyes swim with vague shadows. They cast no reflections.
“Was it a good dream?” She asks,
“I don’t know,” I lie. I look away.
She is silent.
“You should stay,” she says after a moment.
“Earlier you said I should leave.”
“Earlier?”
“Earlier?”
“There is only now.”
She’s right, I think. I don’t much care. I look down at the ground floor, where the lobby is no longer empty. One figure stands there staring up at me. It is myself.
“I need to go,” I whisper. I watch myself reach an arm up toward me.
“If you insist.” A hole opens between the girl and me. I don’t look at it.
“No. Not there.” My eyes stay fixed on the form below.
“Then where? You are trapped, you know.”
“I can leave.”
“You can’t. There is no way down except through me.”
“There is.” I lean further over the banister.
“Stay. It’s easier here. Look at me. Aren’t I pretty?”
I stay silent.
“You’ll die,” she says.
I climb atop the banister and stand there, looking down. “No, I won’t.”
I jump. I fall slowly, drifting gently downward. I watch myself below, arms stretched wide to catch me. I’m wearing a dress, I realize. Dandelion frills flap behind me as I fall, tracing graceful patterns in the air. My reflection below wears white. I look good in a dress, I think. And then myself and I are joining hands, and I am in my arms, and I fall no longer.
. . .
When I stand up, I leave my skin behind like a dragonfly emerging from a nymphic shell. Slowly, creakingly, painfully, I come to my feet, my eyes still fixed on the bathroom floor. My skin sits there, dropped around my ankles like fabric. It’s so light I can almost see through it. I am surprised. It felt so heavy when it lay over my shoulders. I feel different, even though I know I am the same.
When I turn my eyes to look into the mirror, nothing has changed, but I don’t feel quite so monstrous. All my imperfections are still there, I know, but I look around them. I stare at myself for a moment, reaching up to touch my face. It is smooth and soft.
Everything is silent.
I smile, I think.
National English Honor Society
The National English Honor Society (NEHS), founded and sponsored by Sigma Tau Delta, is the only international organization exclusively for secondary students and faculty who, in the field of English, merit special note for past and current accomplishments. Individual secondary schools are invited to petition for a local chapter, through which individuals may be inducted into Society membership. Immediate benefits of affiliation include academic recognition, scholarship and award eligibility, and opportunities for networking with others who share enthusiasm for, and accomplishment in, the language arts.
America’s first honor society was founded in 1776, but high school students didn’t have access to such organizations for another 150 years. Since then, high school honor societies have been developed in leadership, drama, journalism, French, Spanish, mathematics, the sciences, and in various other fields, but not in English. In 2005, National English Honor Society launched and has been growing steadily since, becoming one of the largest academic societies for secondary schools.
As Joyce Carol Oates writes, “This is the time for which we have been waiting.” Or perhaps it was Shakespeare: “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer . . .” we celebrate English studies through NEHS.
National English Honor Society accepts submissions to our blog, NEHS Museletter, from all membership categories (students, Advisors, and alumni). If you are interested in submitting a blog, please read the Suggested Guidelines on our website. Email any questions and all submissions to: submit@nehsmuseletter.us.
