Category Archives: Prose

Essay, Flash Fiction, Poetry, Prose

Sometimes – Anonymous

Sometimes your opinion really bothers me

 

Sometimes my desires feel like slavery

 

Sometimes half the things you say I don’t understand

 

Sometimes it would be easier to love a different man

 

 

Sometimes you make me wait far too long to see you

 

Sometimes I feel jealous green or melancholy blue

 

Sometimes you ask me to let you see too much

 

Sometimes I don’t savor your words or crave your touch

 

 

Sometimes you twist my words

 

Sometimes your helping hurts

 

Sometimes you tell the truth when I want a lie

 

Sometimes you leave me without saying goodbye

 

 

Sometimes I find you suffocatingly possessive

 

Sometimes what you tell me isn’t calming, but distressive

 

Sometimes what you call sexy I find oppressive

 

Sometimes I’m afraid that our affections are not crescive

 

 

Sometimes I don’t like you, but I have never ceased to love you.

 

Advertisement
Standard
Essay, Flash Fiction, Prose

A Simple Thought – Aksel Taylan

We spend a lot of time in our short lives thinking about the long term. What’s going to happen to me in ten years? Fifteen? Thirty, even? In severe cases, we let this presumptuous worries diversely affect our everyday actions and choices. This principle has a number of glaring flaws, but the main one to focus on is that the future hasn’t happened yet. You are writing your own novel; you are the only one with a pen. In other words, it is fully within your capabilities to control most of what happens in your life. However, we fail to understand that not all of it can be controlled. People get in car accidents. People get deathly ill. People are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Why, then, should you let these worries take hold of how you express yourself if we don’t have absolute control? Sometimes, doing something wrong allows a person to grow, to become stronger, possibly even teach others the right way. The right way, which everyone hungrily seeks, cannot be found without failure. Take a left when you think you’re supposed to take a right, eat raw cookie dough, or even, if you’re feeling really adventurous, stay out an hour later! Fight the norm with all you’ve got, because succumbing to the proper choice makes for a dull, uninspired life. Need I remind you, you only get one of those. I think it’s in your best interest to make it count.

Standard
Essay, Flash Fiction, Prose

Survival (Lesson One) – Caitlyn Beauchamp

I’m going to teach you a lesson. I’ll lay out each step, provide an outline, but you have to do the rest. You have to act. This is how to live life. This is how to survive.

First, I want you to wake up. Open your eyes and take a waking breath. Welcome this day. The past may flood back into your mind, but keep your focus on today.

Next, get out of bed. This is a bit harder. Moving takes motivation and determination, even though, it seems so simple on the outside. Sometimes it may feel like there is a weight on your chest, pinning you down, holding you back. You have to find the energy to fight back somehow.

If you made it to this step, feel proud. You kicked off your day when many others couldn’t even find the will to get out of bed. Now, go to your nearest mirror or somewhere you can see yourself. Once you’re there, look at your reflection and smile. Smile because you’re alive and that’s your most important job, your purest purpose, and you’ve done a great job so far.

So far, you’re moving and smiling. You’re doing great. You should eat something now or at least provide yourself with a beverage. Part of life involves taking care of yourself. It isn’t too hard, but I find some people fight themselves on the topic of it. They refuse to. They group it with bad acts. Remember, food keeps you alive. You’ve come so far already; why stop now?

Now, you have two options: rest or work. You get to choose, but keep that smile on your face. Whichever you do, make sure you do it right. With a smile. If you’re not going to put that effort into it then don’t do it at all.

Once the day comes to a close, I want you to sleep. Put everything aside and just lay down. Block everything else out. I know it can be tough shutting away your worries and thoughts, but you have to muffle them somehow. Your body and mind both need sleep, so try not to deprive them of it for petty things. I hope you’re still smiling. Now, repeat this tomorrow.

So, maybe this sounds like “faking it,” but I think this layout is efficient. You’re valuable, and you’re just constantly reminding yourself of that. Always keep moving. Always keep fighting. Never feel like today should be your last day. So, remember, do it right with a smile or don’t do it at all.

This concludes Lesson 1.

Standard
Essay, Flash Fiction, Prose

Dear Diary – Camryn Garrett

4/13/15

I think that my life revolves way too much around things that aren’t happening, and things that aren’t real. People who I made up, and who only exist in my head. Scenarios and stories. Which is all fine and dandy, but eventually I feel like I’m sucked in. Stuck in my head.
And I don’t like the feeling very much.

The only issue is that I don’t really know what else to do when I’m outside of my head. A club? An activity? Like, what?

But I also feel like this all the time, even when I’m relatively sane. I don’t know what it is. Maybe there’s something wrong with me. I just sit around. Observing. Watching other people live their lives while I sort of just..drift through it, you know? And I’m tired, so I don’t really want to force myself to do anything.

I don’t know. I wish that I could be normal.

4/24/15
I feel like I haven’t been normal in a long time.

4/26/15

I want to die.

At this point, I think that I might always want to die. Maybe people learn how to live with it? But I don’t know. All I know is that I want to die, but I’m never going to do it myself because I can’t let go of what I hope might be.

I just wish that it weren’t so fucking difficult.

And no one ever knows what I’m talking about???

No one really seems to know what to do. So maybe there’s something wrong with me that can’t be fixed. Like, my fate was predetermined? So maybe I’m a cautionary tale. Maybe I could’ve done great things and people will point at me when trying to convince kids not to get sad.

5/3/2015

Sometimes I wish that I could be part of something. That I could feel important. I really don’t know how to describe it.

Ugh. I’m such an angsty teen. But the whole angsty teen idea is really stupid, because I feel like it takes away someone’s right to actually have feelings. Like, when a female has feelings, she’s sort of denied that right. As are teens.

5/7/2015

I don’t know why I feel so anxious. I just know that I do. I just feel like nothing I ever write will be good enough, even if I write it and love it with all of my heart.

I just wonder if it’s even worth it. But I

Standard
Flash Fiction, Poetry, Prose, Prosetry

Isn’t It Funny? – Poppy Lam

Isn’t it funny how fire destroys everything that allows it’s soaring embers thrive?
The things that keep it alive?
kinda like us.
You suck the life out of me so you can glow even brighter,
 leaving me to cough up the ashes,
 Your crippling flames leave my fingertips blistered and burnt from the mere thought of you,
 but soon I will no longer be a source of fuel,
I was just a Serendipity as you were racing through the silhouettes of land.
Standard
Essay, Flash Fiction, Prose

On Self Fulfillment – Alex Esterline

Think of how the universe works and how fantastic it is that it all works. Regardless of who or what is responsible for its existence, how fantastic is it that it all happened? That you were put into this strange casing of skin and bones and blood that work perfectly, that your lungs are what deliver that vital substance, known as air, that we all need. That we are on the planet perfect for sustaining our needs, that we have no idea how we ended up here. Yet, for centuries, people have been focused on how we got here. And we’ll likely never know. We have no idea how we got here, and that’s not important. The why is. You need to think about what it is you want to do with your time here, not how you got here. Because at the end of the earth, there are no guarantees.

Standard
Flash Fiction, Prose, Prosetry

Classical Challenge – Karlee Sanders

when’s the last time you listened to classical music?

the last time you appreciated the instrumental expression of emotion composed and compiled of notes on a page?
can you remember?
so many of us have become accustomed to the droning sounds of pop/rap music that we’ve declared classical music “boring” and “stupid”.
the mind numbing sounds of songs proclaiming the greatness of sex and drugs and living for yourself because no one else matters.
how long has it been since you’ve let the sound of a piano or violin take you to somewhere inspirational and calm?
it’s amazing the power that music itself carries, and I challenge you all to take a second, turn on some Beethoven or whoever you prefer, and let the music whisk you away.
ks
Standard
Flash Fiction, Prose

i took a ride on the subway – Iman Messado

Pull your thoughts together
as if they were stray strings
dangling off the hem of your silk camisole
spend a lot of money on
transportation
because you have two legs
and lungs and motor skills
but you’re sitting on a tattered bus seat anyway
paranoia is a clinical illness
not the fluttering urge to
shut your journal when strangers
pile in through closing subway doors
whimsy means platinum
and milk and stars and sky
it means trees and kindness and strawberries
it means wit and welcoming
and probably feminism
always get on the metro at the first stop
so that then you can watch
pockmarked faces and pockmarked thighs
and toothless faces and gaping mouths
also,
you’ll have a seat.
maybe.
Standard
Prose, Prosetry

beliefs – Karlee Sanders

lovely,

unblemished,
immaculate,
perfection of the finest sorts.
never-ending purity and compassion,
ever flowing—yes—overflowing
with mercy and grace.
set apart,
holy, bold, and strong.
the King of all Kings.
Savior and honorary Lord of all.
miracle worker,
omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient.
Jesus.
this—this is what I believe in.
ks
Standard
Poetry, Prose

Smoker – Karlee Sanders

CIGARETTE IN HAND YOU TOLD ME YOU WOULD SWIM ACROSS OCEANS FOR ME

SMOKE POURING OUT OF YOUR NOSTRILS YOU SMILED AND IT MADE MY HEART LEAP
WITH YOUR LIGHTER FLICKERING YOU PROMISED I WOULDN’T GET HURT
BUT WHAT I DIDNT KNOW WAS THAT I WAS YOUR CIGARETTE
BURNING FOR YOU
TO MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD
AND EVENTUALLY YOU WOULD DISCARD ME
AND ID BE NOTHING BUT ASHES
BLOWING AWAY IN THE WIND
Standard