Off the Malecón
Kayla Diaz-Janes | Young Writers Issue | Poetry, Winter 2025
Young boys dive,
Into the warm salty spray
Of muddied water, polluted
By the drained Havana sewers.
Discarded flip-flops lie in rows
Like soldiers marching to freedom.
The forgotten soles, thrown
Over the wall, to clean the streets.
High waves batter
The confining walls of hardened cement,
As people live sheltered from tropical floods
and rising churlish water.
The deep hides
Sharpened rocks, dressed in flesh-mangled barnacles.
There lie the broken hulls
of hand-wrought boats, pierced by bullet holes.
Off the Malecón, young boys die.
________________________________________________________________________
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“To me a fossil is a lasting remnant of what once was, and this piece represents what I want to have stored and remembered about my writing. My Cuban heritage is a link that gives me understanding and I am in a fortunate position where I can reflect on the issues about the country I love so dearly. The country I would never be able to survive in for longer than the weeks I visit.”
Kayla Diaz-Janes (age 15) is a sophomore creative writer at the Charleston School of the Arts. Growing up traveling abroad, Diaz-Janes saw and understood some of the injustices of the world early into childhood, and holds a fascination to share stories with others who might not get the chance to experience them firsthand.
Off the Malecón
Kayla Diaz-Janes Young Writers Issue | Poetry, Winter 2025
Young boys dive,
Into the warm salty spray
Of muddied water, polluted
By the drained Havana sewers.
Discarded flip-flops lie in rows
Like soldiers marching to freedom.
The forgotten soles, thrown
Over the wall, to clean the streets.
High waves batter
The confining walls of hardened cement,
As people live sheltered from tropical floods
and rising churlish water.
The deep hides
Sharpened rocks, dressed in flesh-mangled barnacles.
There lie the broken hulls
of hand-wrought boats, pierced by bullet holes.
Off the Malecón, young boys die.
______________________________________
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“To me a fossil is a lasting remnant of what once was, and this piece represents what I want to have stored and remembered about my writing. My Cuban heritage is a link that gives me understanding and I am in a fortunate position where I can reflect on the issues about the country I love so dearly. The country I would never be able to survive in for longer than the weeks I visit.”
Kayla Diaz-Janes (age 15) is a sophomore creative writer at the Charleston School of the Arts. Growing up traveling abroad, Diaz-Janes saw and understood some of the injustices of the world early into childhood, and holds a fascination to share stories with others who might not get the chance to experience them firsthand.
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