Student’s Writings

The students were presented with two poetic lines about angels & demons and asked to consider those competing concepts.

 ETHAN…channels his father’s struggles with these concepts from his Tanzanian roots to his American reality.

Angels & Demons

As a father of four, I have faced many Angels and Demons. My Angels include moments of beauty, love, inspiration, and spiritual discoveries. On the other hand, my Demons include moments of insanity, depression, and mental breakdowns.

My life has been a roller coaster of experiences. If you don’t mind, I would like to take a little time to explain parts of my journey. I was born in Tanzania; more specifically, Arusha. I was the firstborn in my family, followed by my three little sisters: Dorbibi, Mahabibi, and Mya. Dorbibi was a “demon”; she was the terror of the house. She would always snitch and be mama’s pet peeve. Mahabibi, on the other hand, was cool; she was the chill one of the family. Mya and I never really had much of a relationship; I was 11 when she was born, and during that time, I was sent to boarding school in Kenya by my father’s choice.

My father and I were very close; he was a loving family man. However, he would get angry when I did not focus on my studies or when I skipped school to play sports, so he decided to send me to Kenya to focus on my education. Being in Kenya was a different experience: no family, no good food…just me, myself, and soccer. During my second year of boarding school, I was called back home urgently. I thought my family was calling me back for vacation, but when I arrived, there was no vacation. There was only a crushed car in the driveway. I had been called back for my father’s funeral.

Two years after his funeral, I dropped out of boarding school to return to Arusha and work to provide for my mother and siblings. I worked on the streets selling food and washing cars, but I knew that wasn’t enough. I decided to make the hardest choice of my life: to leave Tanzania and go to America for a better opportunity. I told my sisters, my mother, and my aunts and uncles; they all tried to hold me back, but I could not watch my family suffer any longer.

When I arrived in America, it was different. I wasn’t used to being this alone. Instead of home being a country away, it was tens of thousands of miles away. I had many jobs when I first arrived, but in one of those places, I met an outstanding woman. Let’s call her “Baby.” She says she got her nickname from her mother, who thought she was done having children, so they called her Baby.

Baby and I had a son. I wanted to call him Omonde because he was born on a early Monday morning, but we just called him Ethan. Seventeen years have now passed, and life is still coming to haunt me. I have tried to make life easier for my kids so they don’t have to go through what I have endured, but some things in life you cannot stop. In a few months, I could be kicked out of the country, and my oldest will have to step up and be a man.

You may be wondering who I am? I am Mohamedi Sengumvia Jemadari.

Ethan Jobita Jemadari

February 6, 2026

The students were presented with two poetic lines about angels & demons and asked to consider those competing concepts.

JASON…speaks of the challenge to keep the demons of the past from shading the possibilities of the present.

Two Sides

There are different sides of your own mind: the angel, the demon, and something in between. No matter who you are or what you believe, there is no helping yourself from falling into one of these sides. It is not emotion but a collection, subsides of memories that come back when you don’t want them to. Most of the time, you’re somewhere in between, not thinking about anything substantial while going to work, school, the store, or nowhere at all. My point being that you don’t need to be anywhere or doing anything for things to come up to bite you.

I was walking to my house on a cold day while snowflakes were slowly falling, disappearing under my breath. I couldn’t think of much because I was hearing a beat, it was like listening to someone’s heartbeat who had no heart, or listening to someone talk who isn’t there. The feeling was so confusing I couldn’t really think of anything else. That’s why I walk; I try to reach something that isn’t there, trying to fill that feeling of longing. When you don’t have anyone to talk to or make new memories, that leads you to a door. Behind the door are all the memories you don’t want to remember… so you don’t open it and keep looking for something else. No matter how much you attempt to close this door, it keeps creeping open… at home, sitting down, tossing a ball up and down, imagining all the more productive things I could be using my time for at that moment. Recently, I was thinking about many different, uninteresting things, switching between sides of my brain like a game of hopscotch until I tripped on the crack of the sidewalk and found myself on the wrong side of where I want to be. Like being hit by truck-kun, the door was open, the demon I didn’t want to face stood right in front of me, looming down. I felt the pressure before I knew it was there. The door I saw before held more of my trauma than I could have imagined. Madness was consuming me and I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want to lose myself. The things I was remembering gave me motivation to hold back from giving in and the people that helped me would hate to see where I am now. I persevered and was saved by someone else, again. 

I was always someone who needed help. I could never do anything for myself which is the important stuff I needed to realize. I didn’t need to come to terms with myself but I could learn to do things on my own so that I wouldn’t need to be saved by anyone. If I couldn’t suppress it anymore, I could at least help myself when I need to. It doesn’t matter what happened to you yesterday, you just need to learn how to love yourself for who you are today.

Jason Barnett

February 6, 2026

The students were presented with two poetic lines about angels & demons and asked to consider those competing concepts.

 KARLA…takes a poetic approach of her own, while bookending her piece with the two proffered lines.

Wings

I have felt the wind of the wing of madness 

Nothing more than a body full of sadness 

Anger flowing through my veins 

All I feel is pain 

My lungs deprived of air 

Voice is gone and not a thing seems fair 

I question why me, why me, why me 

My brain keeps telling me to flee 

But my body won’t move  

Frozen in place because I have everything to lose 

Or maybe I already lost myself 

In a pool full of madness 

Where all I can do is drown 

And the only place I am going is down 

But… 

There is something pulling me up 

The end of the depression race seems close up 

I want to feel this surreal sense of happiness

That flows in excess 

Making my body explode into a new being 

Going from fleeing to freeing 

How do I escape this anticipation? 

Taking me apart piece by piece 

Where I can never be at peace

What if I end this suffering before? 

Let my body and feelings pour 

I can feel my guardian angel close by

Maybe it’s just in my head but I do want to try 

I want to be with my angel now more than ever 

But, if it won’t come for me then I’ll meet it 

Just wait a bit 

I’ll grow my own wings 

I’ll fly so high that no one will mistake me for a bird 

Just the thought of it seems absurd 

I can’t wait any longer 

I want to become stronger 

Sore through the air without a care 

I will be free 

I won’t be as small as a pea 

But as big as a tree 

I will become the angel no one was for me 

I won’t have to plea or do painful things

I will become the breathless beat of angels’ wings 

Karla Rivas

February 6, 2026 

The students were presented with two poetic lines about angels & demons and asked to consider those competing concepts.

 KHORI…reminds us that striking a balance between these two inevitable concepts is what defines our individual humanity.

                                                           Balance

In real life, angels and demons aren’t actual beings. They’re the voices in your head that influence the choices you decide to make in your life. The angel is the part of you that always wants to do the right thing. It constantly tells you to follow the rules, and not to disappoint anyone. Sometimes this voice can help; other times it can create pressure, and guilt. 

The demon part is the part that feels everything. Anger and temptation specifically. It questions rules, and pushes back when certain things may seem unfair. People always see this voice as bad, but ignoring it doesn’t always make it go away; in fact,l it can cause inner conflict. Everyone lives with both. 

When one takes over completely, things may start to feel off. Balance comes from recognizing the two voices, and deciding carefully which one to listen to. Angels and demons aren’t about good and evil. They represent the internal struggle that shapes all of us as human beings. 

                                                                                                                             Khori Mtchell 

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The students were tasked to craft a story about a coin toss—the simple gamble of Heads or Tails.

MOHAMED…takes us inside the thoughts of someone who uses the coin toss to make a decision he could not, or could he?

Luck

In a coin toss, there are two possible outcomes: heads or tails. And based on that, there is a fifty percent chance you could get either outcome. But life doesn’t flip that clean. 

I stood on the cracked sidewalk outside the gas station, the air smelling like gasoline and burned pizza, rolling a quarter across my knuckles. The sun was setting and my heart was beating faster than it should’ve been for something this simple. 

Heads, I’d do it. 

Tails, I’d walk away.

That was the deal I made with myself. No overthinking. No last-minute excuses. Just luck deciding for me, because honestly, luck felt more reliable than my own brain lately.

I flicked the coin into the air.

It spun fast, catching the light, flashing silver like it was showing off. For a second, everything slowed down. The cars passing by. The wind brushing my hoodie. Even my thoughts shut up for once. All I could focus on was that coin flipping over and over.

Clink.

It hit the ground and bounced once before settling.

Heads.

I stared at it, feeling something weird twist in my chest. Not excitement. Not fear. Something in between. Like when you’re standing at the top of a roller coaster and realize there’s no getting off now.

So that was it. Luck had spoken. I picked up the coin and slipped it into my pocket, my fingers shaking just a little. People say luck is random, but in that moment it felt personal. Like it looked at me and said, “Yeah. You. Let’s see what you do with this.” 

I took a breath and pushed open the door. Inside, everything felt louder. The bell dinged. The fridge making noise. Some guy in the corner was laughing way too hard at his phone. I walked forward, each step feeling heavier than the last, like gravity was trying to hold me back. My reflection stared at me from the glass doors, unbrushed hair, tired eyes, someone pretending to be confident.

I wasn’t fearless. I was just done waiting. Luck doesn’t make you brave. It just removes the excuse.

So I finally did it… said the thing, made the move, took the risk. It wasn’t perfect. My voice cracked. My hands were sweaty. The moment didn’t play out like some Instagram reel. But it was real.

A few minutes later, I was back outside, the sky darker now, stars starting to peek through like they were curious how things turned out. I leaned against the wall, exhaled, and laughed under my breath. Not because everything went right, but because I survived the choice. I pulled the coin back out and flipped it again, just for fun. This time, tails. I smiled. Not because tails meant anything, but because I finally understood something nobody tells you. The coin never decides your life. It just gives you a push. A tiny excuse to move when you’re scared of standing still. Luck isn’t about chance. It’s about what you do the second the coin hits the ground.

Mohamed Cisse

January 30, 2026

The students were tasked to craft a story about a coin toss—the simple gamble of Heads or Tails.

 MINGO…deploys a fictitious walk to school to dispel the belief that a coin toss is a 50/50 proposition.

Not Quite 50/50

There I was, at the crossroad between me, my brother, and five dollars. And the fate of the money was all up to a coin toss.  Allow me to start from the beginning. 

It was a relatively gloomy school morning. I must have been in eighth grade, my brother in sixth grade. Along with my dad who always walked us to school, we were making haste toward the school. When the time came to cross the street, the pedestrian signal (the walking man) illuminated a bright white in the gray day, and I grabbed my dad’s hand and began to cross the street. That was a rule of his. Whenever crossing the street, you first check if the walking man is up, then, look both ways, stay inside the crosswalk, and hold his hand. This never irked me. My dad, as an auto-accident lawyer, had seen a lot of things in his work, and he knew best. My brother, on the other hand, was more of a rebel, and despite my dad’s plead, he did not hold his hand. Instead, my brother decided to stay as far away from my dad as possible. Now that I am reminiscing about the circumstance, I believe they had gotten into a fight the previous day. So my brother opted to be a free bird crossing the street, while I was confined to my dad’s side. 

Of course, my brother being free meant that he could go as fast or slow as he wanted. That ability became his strength when we both saw it. Green paper lay on the ground. From my distance I couldn’t make out what the bill read, but I knew it was money. It could be a dollar, it could be a hundred. I saw my best friend, my own brother, eye that money, and look back at me. We maintained eye contact for a second, and then he broke it, bolting forward. I tried to do the same but my dad (who hadn’t realized what was at stake) held me back. I was trapped, and I had to watch as my brother grabbed up the money. Five dollars.
My dad, the one technically, responsible for my loss of five dollars, made a proposal. A coin toss. The winner keeps the money. To this day, I have no idea why my brother would agree to such a gamble. It was already his money. He was the first to get to it. Dad pulled out a quarter from his pocket. I observed that the starting face of the coin was tails. He threw it up high into the air, and I watched it bend into the color of the sky, and then fall, flipping all the way down. Dad looked at me first.

“Call it.” He said.

“Tails,” I confidently exclaimed. My brother shifted in his spot.

After he revealed the coin, I was claimed the winner. My brother, the loser, pouted. I had information that he didn’t after all. 

A coin toss isn’t 50/50. 

The chance of a coin landing on the side it started on is 50.8 percent more likely. You are probably under the assumption that my success in the toss got me five dollars; that is unfortunately incorrect. Just as the odds of a coin toss are nearly 51/49, the embellishments-to-truth ratio in this story is the same. There was no coin toss, nor did I get the money. 

Mingo Cord

January 30,2026