Value the truth,

until it contradicts your beliefs.

Encourage differences,

until they're different from you.

Celebrate achievements,

until you're bitter.

Make everyone valued,

unless they are few.

Keep moving forwards,

until you're a quitter.

Trigger Warning

Her promises have never meant anything. She broke half of the ones she made.

Once, she promised me that she would never cheat at board games. Another time, she promised she would never fall in love. She also promised we would be friends forever.

Well, I never really minded her breaking the last two promises. I have always loved her, and to see her love me back was the most jubilating feeling in the world.

No, the broken promise that hurt me the most was when she promised everything would be okay. She knew nothing would never be fine again. The screams and gunshots from outside of the storage room proved that. Still, she promised me, and she smiled. Her smile was full of more anguish than any I had ever seen, yet she did not cry.

Even when the bangs grew loader, and something scarlet started running down her face, her smile never wavered. Tears never flowed, at least not from her eyes. They still dripped endlessly down my face.

The only thing I could do was stroke her golden hair until her dark eyes went blank.

every good book ever written goes unread,

fixtures on shelves, painted faces upheld

holding words they know no eyes will see.

we can’t all exist for the ages; the scrolls have no space. some of us were built for the here and now: for firework shows and the baby that has never seen so many sparks in their life, for brushes of touch that last a second or less, for phone calls and pictures never taken. some of us have the luxury of a judgement-free life. we get messy and it’s ours to deal with, no one else.

i retrace my old path,

larger footsteps impress on yielding ground

and i think i saw a glimpse of who i used to be.

I test my ceramic mug with my hand to see if my tea has cooled down enough for me to drink. Nope, too hot. I decided on ginger tea tonight. Maybe the spices will awaken something in me, help bring my motivation out of its apathetic slumber. Having tea requires planning, though, and sometimes it’s more planning than I care to deal with. You have to wait for the water to boil, wait for the teabag to brew, wait for the tea to cool down enough to drink, but maybe there’s a lesson there. Maybe it’s meant to slow me down, to teach me patience before enjoyment. I may be wrong, but I think the ancient art of brewing tea is supposed to be a peaceful practice of reverance. Perhaps I've been doing it wrong all these years! I read the teabag and it says, “The mind is energy: regulate it.” I chuckle and think, "if only I could." I haven't felt much energy in my mind lately, or rather, anywhere in my body. I have recently moved back to my hometown where I experienced a lot of hurt and trauma. It feels like my brain is trying to protect itself from old memories by going into a power-saving mode. Lately, I've been incapable of producing meaningful thoughts or anything of substance because I feel too numb. So yeah, thanks teabag, but I don’t feel like it’s that simple for me right now.

The sky is nothing more than a stormy gray.

Pale gray clouds cover every inch of visible sky, high above the crooked and broken trees reaching up towards it.

The barest purple tint can be noticed by the observing eye, but no one looks up for more than a second. No one notices anything more than a storm gray.

White flakes gleefully drift downwards, a fluffy dust on shovelled sidewalks, and a blanket on the coated ground. All coming from the unnoticed sky, doing so much to gather attention.

No one ever looks up anymore, for but the barest second. No one notices the purple glow or the flawless sheet.

No one notices that the sky is more than a stormy gray. Not even I.

I need you more than I care to admit,

but it is a love/hate relationship.

When I'm lazy and famished, you're always there

to bring me out of my hangry despair.

You were from Walmart, small and cheap,

and you make the cutest "beep beep beeps."

I'm getting to know you better day by day

Like those pre-set buttons? No, stay away.

You don't heat evenly and things come out cold

but when you warm up my coffee, that is pure gold.

You are my little food companion cube

and microwave, that it is why I love you.

Disclaimer: This is something I wrote in fourth grade for a school assignment, (the assignment was to write from the perspective of a turkey trying to convince people not to eat them for Thanksgiving.) I stumbled on it and thought it was perfect and rather funny for this challenge. I decided not to edit it or anything, so excuse all the rhetorical questions and exlcamation points.

Dear humans,

I am only a turkey, but hear me out before you eat me, and I daresay you’ll change your mind! I’m not as good as other meat, I can assure you. Why not try beef or chicken? Maybe pork? They are delicious, not me! I promise you, I don’t lie! Are you going to argue? Well fine. But keep in mind that in 2012, chicken, beef, and pork were all chosen over turkey. I would change your Thanksgiving menu if I were you. Plus, I swear that I will make you tired, so don’t even bother denying it. My secret weapon is tryptophan, a hormone in my body that makes people sleepy. You’re probably thinking, so what? I don’t care if I’m tired, but listen to this: do you really want to miss out on your Thanksgiving feast, (which I think would taste great without turkey, y'know), games with your family, and catching up with friends, all because you’re exhausted? I didn’t think so! Anyway, how would you feel if some random person ate you? My guess is not so good. Wait, did I say I’m guessing you wouldn’t feel so happy? I know you wouldn’t feel happy. How do I know that? Because I am that turkey! It’s terrible to be eaten and know you’re going to be eaten. My cousin Herb was eaten and it was not pleasant, I tell you. And turkeys don’t even get to live that long! Wait, just a minute, you think they do get to live long? Wrong! Five to six months, our typical farm raised lifespan, and you are calling it long?! My, my, my. So, do you still want to eat me? Well, I’ll give you another fun fact to argue with! About 45 million turkeys are killed every year for Thanksgiving and I might be one of them. Do you seriously want us turkeys to go extinct because you rude humans kill us off for food when there is so much other meat, but you simply must have us poor, poor turkeys? I sincerely hope that you consider what I have written and make sure you don’t eat us. But please don’t worry though, I’ll always be ready to accept your apology!

From,

Your desperate friend the turkey