Kye DeAngelis is a first-year Studio Art major with a minor in Creative Writing and Expressive Arts Therapies at Endicott College. She is from Mansfield, Massachusetts, and has been writing since she was young, with one short story winning an honorable mention in the Scholastic Writing competition in 2024.

Kye DeAngelis

“Late Bloomer”

Her mother always threw around that word
She thought it was pretty
The blooming of a flower
With all its serene petals
She didn’t realize what it meant to be one

Opening her phone
She saw her friends pictures
Skinner, popular, better
As her chubby fingers hovered over the like button
Her friends skinny ones held up a peace sign
Where were her petals?

She grabbed her own flower
Opened it
Forced the petals to bloom early
Not ready
Not developed
Not ready to bloom

Skipped meals
New wardrobe
Plastic personality
She contorted herself to fit their mold
To be like them
Skinnier, popular, better

As she forced open her flower
The petals began to fall
One by one, until there were none
Immature buds
Not ready to be plucked

But a sea of flowers won’t accept the pistil
Reduced to just the ovaries
No style to distinguish her
Just the stigma of being late
Too late.

What good is a flower
If it doesn’t have its petals?

— Kye DeAngelis

To have your work considered for the Lyrical send it to:
Doug Holder, 25 School St.; Somerville, MA 02143
dougholder@post.harvard.edu