Carolina Blue: 2026 K-12 Poetry Contest Honorable Mention

Author: Marilan Maceda Rentera

Carolina blue arrives before the sun fully wakes,

resting itself over rooftops and telephone wires,

over the slow hush of buses breathing at red lights,

over students carrying entire worlds

inside their backpacks.

It is the color of almost

almost grown,

almost fearless,

almost the person

You have spent years trying to become one.

I see it everywhere.

In the classroom window blurred with rain,

In the ink staining the side of my hand,

in the silence after my name is mispronounced

and the strange loneliness

of letting it happen.

Carolina blue is not loud enough

to call itself brave.

Still, it stays.

It waits in the chest

like a second heartbeat,

steady through the noise of lockers slamming,

through headlines and hallways and voices

telling us who we should be

before we have the chance to decide for ourselves.

And some days,

when the world feels unbearably small,

I look upward

past the power lines,

past the unfinished buildings,

past every fear I have inherited

and the sky opens

so endlessly blue

It feels like forgiveness.

Not because life is easy.

Not because pain disappears.

But because Carolina blue reminds me

that softness can still survive here.

That tenderness is not a weakness.

That becoming takes time.

So I carry it with me:

in my mouth when I speak,

in my hands when I write,

in the quiet, growing parts of myself

still learning how to take up space.

Carolina blue

The color of staying open

In a world that tries to close you.