The 2025 LIT Fest winners have been announced for the three categories: poetry, story and essay.
Essay winner – senior Henry Sun – “The World’s Worst Teenager”
Story winner – senior Aidan Moran – “Cirque”
Poetry winner – senior Samuel Posten – “Sunblock Chronicles”
Essay – “The World’s Worst Teenager” – senior Henry Sun
I remember being a cocky eighth grader. I did way more embarrassing things than make mocking gestures at the seventh-grade volleyball team. Something I’ve realized is that at every age, without fail, I seemed to look down on guys who were younger than I was when it involved sports. I have a little brother, and I often go to his sports games. I remember attending his pee- wee soccer matches and itching to go on the field. I always found a spare ball to play with on the sidelines, as if to show off my skills. At one point I even purposefully kicked the ball onto the pitch so that I could get everyone’s attention while I displayed my excellent ball handling. But this was a long time ago, and I remember more recent examples of myself falling victim to an ego boost from being around younger people in a sports setting. I played JV volleyball my freshman year. I never started a single game. Our practices started every day at 4:30, but the eighth-grade team also practiced on our court, and their practice ended at the same time. Many time our team would be warming up off to the side while the eighth graders were still practicing. I remember feeling like the coolest guy on campus warming up next to those middle schoolers. Despite being only a year older, my skills (to me at least) were years ahead of theirs. But after they left the gym and we took the court, the varsity team also took the court next to us. Any boost to my ego from playing next to the eighth graders vanished. However much better I thought I was than the eighth graders, the gap between me and the varsity players was ten times bigger.
Story – “Cirque” – senior Aidan Moran
I sprang back from the Ringleader’s body, curled up on itself on my floor, and shook, and shook. I sobbed, a guttural cry coming from the depths of my thoracic cavity, realizing what I had become—what I always had been. I had never been a part of the Family; they’d lied to me, forcing me to promenade about with purple prose and colorful costumes. The fingernails I had worked so hard to paint with starry skies and golden swirls were but mangled claws, the slots within them ready for the flow of blood. The two little rowboats to Antoinette’s ship, swaying in my sea of silky hair, were jagged ears, tracking the slightest of noises, hardwiring my psyche to pounce upon the most innocent of souls, hidden beneath their little blanket of snow.
Poetry – “Sunblock Chronicles” – senior Samuel Posten
Hissing sounds penetrate my eardrums
like punk-rock cicadas at dusk.
Seated in an operating room,
bleached lights and metal operating tools
lying ominously on surgical drapes,
I ignore decrepit magazines.
I am today visiting my father,
privileged to watch him work.
Beneath a pink hospital gown,
a patient rests with exposed cancerous
flesh, the color of cerulean seas.
A nurse massages, cleans, prepares the lesion.
Yesterday, before a walk outside, I
lathered sunscreen across my face. In faint
echoes, my father’s voice punctured my thoughts:
“Apply extra to the ears and nose.”
Shackled under a North Face pullover,
sweatpants, a hat, and sunglasses in the
middle of a Texas heatwave was painful enough
for summer pickleball. But dad insisted
an application every thirty minutes.
In my reverie, a Chicago
breeze taunted this Texas blaze like
an oasis in the desert.
My father, in scrubs, cracks a joke,
the drowsy patient laughing lightly.
They talk about kids, wives, work, life.
Dad quips, “My son is funny. When
Samuel was in third grade, he wanted
to be a philosopher,” and,
Dad recalls, “…my daughter dances ballet.
If you saw her, you would create an
agency to sign her on the spot.”
He adds, “…my wife is great. She’s a
Master Naturalist and watches
birds with me.” My father administers
more anesthesia, freezing lively
conversation, saving another life.
I hear only the clinking of
tools, buzzing of white lights: whispers
from ancestral ghosts, protective charms.
