The Frank Toner Creative Writing Award

Frank Toner taught English and French here at Sacred Heart for many years.

Sadly, he passed away in 1993.

In recognition of his love of literature The Frank Toner Award for Creative Writing is presented annually to a Fourth Year student.

This year’s winner:2022

Joint Winners are :

Lucy O Flynn and to Lucy Collins

**Lucy O Flynn receiving her Award from Ms Martina O Brien, Guest Speaker at Transition Year Graduation Ceremony, and All Ireland Ladies Football Winner.**

Lucy O’Flynn 4.

Summer in the light

Outside, the afternoon is light and damp. Water droplets drip down the spine of a leaf, gathering at the curled edge and falling downwards through the air like the grains of sand in an hourglass. The road is filled with puddles but the rain has stopped, replaced now by a hushed quietness which lingers in the air and stretches onwards through the close of the day.

Fumbling for her keys she unlocks the door and steps into a disparate kind of stillness. The clock ticks lazily on the wall, time itself seeming a gelatinous mass, moving like the torpid snail leaving silvery tracks on the doorstep outside. But the radio is on, and in silence after the rain it seems overly loud. Without the clamorous rush of the morning to push against it, and her own thoughts to chase each other across the space of her mind, there is something disturbing about its sound.

She moves to change the station - the eager voice reminding you to text in your answer to win - uneary against its backdrop of languid calmness. Fiddling with the knob the voice descends into white noise, different sounds emerging clear from within static hiss before being drowned out once more.

From the middle of the dial a faint hum emerges. Not silence exactly but something like the space between notes in a song. There is a pureness about the sound and she is reminded of that feeling of when you turn left where you have always turned right. You will see the same view but in just a slightly different way that you seem to notice how the light reflects from the dew on the grass and casts the earth in a golden hue in a way you haven’t before. You can almost imagine that around the corner you will find a fairy perched on the mossy stile. With wings like a dragonfly’s, transparent and glimmering, the pockets in its dark skirts would be full of ferns and seashells. Be still, it would say. For a moment the whole world comes to. Wakes up. And you feel afraid of nothing, not even the darkening clouds of a brewing storm. The next day you won’t try to find it again because although you know it will be there, it won’t feel the same. The sun will be hidden behind a cloud, the weak light, cold and drab, and the road will appear as mundane as it does to someone who walks down it everyday.

Within the radio the notes leap into the air, bright and silver sweet. They float like moths, light as the breeze. Sometimes she likes to imagine a little man living inside the speaker, ready to spring into action and produce song after song at her command. She feels as if he is there now, gathering his thoughts into a melody as easily as a willow bending with the wind. A violin leads the melody, oboes and flutes flutter in and out, colouring the sound with the warm light of midsummer. Silky and light and surreal. Now, the little man is conducting, bringing his instruments alive with a wave of the hand and filling in any holes in the rich tapestry of sound that is being created. It fills the whole room, washing over the kitchen cabinets, pouring over the counters and flooding onto the floor. The music baptises it in rivers of sunlight, pushing the dull afternoon away, where it retreats to the farthest nooks and crannies of the house. Bright flowers grow in the cracks between floorboards and burst to the surface dripping pollen green. It is a song found underneath the rhubarb bush, moulded together with the splinters of blue sky between the branches of an oak tree, when the whole world is tinted honeycomb yellow. A bowl of fresh berries, the itch of tall grass against your bare legs. The little man is getting tired now, putting everything he has into the song.

You stand there until the last note has melted into the twilight and the light retreats into nothingness.

The darkness of an early spring evening descends upon the room. Dusk falling to dark, its greyness dampens the air and pools on the varnished floorboards where a moment ago there was softness and light and the smell of fresh, white sheets blowing in the wind.

You have just come from the orchards, the golden warmth of June.

Somewhere, there is an undisturbed forest, where the trees are unfurling their roots, leaves reaching up to be kissed by the aureate mouth of the sun. -

Fictional Friends Lucy Collins

Your house is white

While mine is all yellow

I get off the bus

And throw my bag inside

And I get on my bike

Cause I’ll meet you at three

At the old brick house

Where our two roads meets

And you say it’s haunted

And I think it’s a lie

Still we won’t risk it

We don’t go inside

But we puc ball on the pavement

Till we hear your dad’s car

I’ll see you tomorrow

Goodnight

I want to stay 16 for good

It’s now that I feel like an actual teenager

And god I no longer have to hear

“You have to wait till you 16” anymore

And it feels really good

And it also feels really depressing

Because why aren’t I as smart and pretty as

Sixteen Year old Rory Gilmore yet ?

But it’s fine because 16 makes me

Feel like i’m everyone’s dream girl

For some odd reason

And now i’m 16

I don't feel guilty for

Wanting a relationship

Because even though i’m still

Relatively young … i’m sixteen

And younger me so desperately wanted

All the boyfriends in the world for 16 year old me

I don't think i ever want to be 17

I don't care to be the dancing queen

Because then i'd have to start thinking about 18

And i don't really wanna think about the rest for now

I just wanna be only this forever

Sixteen with no pressure

I hate that i’m a teenage girl

And you're a teenage boy

And we can’t be more than that

I don't want to talk at a party

Or go for spins in your car

Or shift nervous glances on the school bus every morning

I want to pour my soul out in ink

Explain my love with simple words

Seal each letter with a kiss

It sounds archaic, unnecessary, naive,

But still

I just want to write you letters

He’s not the same anymore

The boy I fell in love with

In early September

He’s gone

This year I was so content to fix everything we had

But I guess he had other plans

He left the light on before walking out into the darkness

Every soft glance

Every heart dropping stare

Every butterfly that swallowed my stomach

It’s all gone

He’s gone

He's not the same boy from last August

I don’t like him anymore

But he’s still there

In the back of my head

I don’t think about him as often as I used to

But time to time

I remember him

When someone says something he used to say

I’m reminded of how he made me feel

I’m reminded of his presence

His pretty blue eyes

And August

I’ll always feel something for him in August

It doesn't bother me

That you don’t want me

What bothers me

Is that you act like you do

Sometimes

You always leave

But ever so often

You come back

Just to keep me hanging on

I’m hanging on to the hope

That one day

You won’t leave

It’s impossible for me to move

Because you won't let me

I stare at her hard

Filled with anger and disgust

Her hair is oily

Her face is covered with acne

Her thighs are too big

Her waist is too wide

Her teeth are stained

She's just ugly

How could he like her ?

It doesn't make sense

I wanna punch her

But if i did

The mirror would shatter

She lays by her phone

Waiting

for it to light up her room with his name

Her favourite song was playing but the screams of her own thoughts drowned it out

Every night she would wait

And wait

How could she be so naive and think anything would be different

She knew she was destroying herself

She altered herself, for him

And all those things said in vain

She was willing to put up with it just to hear those beautiful things again one more time

Until she finally understood

No matter how much she needed him

He would never need her

When he says that he’s

Scared of hurting you

It's not empathy, It’s a warning

No it’s okay I didn’t study anyway

I said

That was a lie

I did study

For hours

For nights

My eyes started to water

As I looked at the test my teacher just handed to me

62

62%

A red six and a red two written in the corner of my test

I heard my friend screaming

She got a 98

« Can you believe that ?? I didn’t expect that at all »

She said

« good job »

I tried to fake a smile

I want to be happy for her

I really do

But why am I never good enough

Talking to you used to be the highlight of my day

the excitement I would feel when I picked up my phone and saw you name

I don't see your name on my phone anymore

And I understood why

It’s not your fault, we were never meant to be

I’m glad you put an end to things because I would have kept hurting myself for you

Over and over and over again until there was nothing left of me

Thank you for letting me go before I destroyed the only person I’ve ever loved

Me

When I was 15 I wrote poetry about how people are the sun and moon

About how kisses

Tasted like cigarettes smoke

People were drugs

And love makes you drunk

About how bruises blossomed

Skin was pale and delicate

Decorated with the colours of the sunset

I romanticised photos of skinny girls

With dark circles around their eyes

And scraped knees

I thought being in pain would make someone

Want to fix me

To love me

But sadness Isn’t beautiful

Sadness is dark and ugly

Knowing and loving yourself

Despite your faults is what’s beautiful

I was just riding my bike

The wind breezing onto my skin

Just silence

But then the chains broke off

And I couldn’t keep going

When I hopped off the bike I

Realised my legs were numb

That the whole time I had been moving them

Without the intention of going anywhere

So instead I just walked in the silence

Until I finally broke

Right there on the side of the main road

No one there

Just me

Wasted youth

Oh what a shame it is

To throw away my teenage years

For a friday night in my room

Alone, amidst the darkness

It’s not that i want it to be this way

I would never willfully repeat this endless cycle

Of me being alone on the weekend once more

In the comfort of my bed

Accompanied by nothing but silence

And my own thoughts

Truly, it is not my choice

It’s just how it goes

And so you’re out there

Running through the streets

Getting tipsy

Sneaking out

Doing everything you’re not supposed to do

I lie here

In the comfort of a quiet home

Wondering what it would be like

To live the life of a true teenager

And when nobody wakes

you up in the morning, and

when nobody waits for you

at night, and when you can

Do whatever you want

What do you call it ?

Freedom or loneliness

Everyone says love hurts

But that’s not true

Loneliness hurts

Rejection hurts

Losing someone hurts

Envy hurts

Everyone gets these things confused with love

But in reality

Love is the only thing in this world

That covers up all pain

And makes someone feel wonderful again

Love is the only thing in this world that does not hurt

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The Frank Toner Creative Writing Award