my life was a line. a straight and narrow path, all i had to do was take one step at a time and id reach paradise. paradise was the end goal. paradise has shattered, and i see the broken pieces glittering on the sidewalk of the straight and narrow, beauty hidden in seeming darkness. I chase after hope, one step at a time. closing doors behind me, i push forward. I change. I grow, and the world is a stained glass window

the first day, it flickered on the table.

i smiled. a thoughtful gesture, perhaps?

the second day, it glowed as we ate.

the candle shrank, and vanished, and was replaced

by yet another.

why?

it made them happy.

The library sounded like nothing. Sophie didn’t know what she expected, but as she snuck into the dusty, crowded old building, every footstep was deafening. Even the noise of her own chewing was startling her, so she regretfully put the carrot she was eating down. Hillyard Village really did have the best carrots. She tried to tear her mind off of the half-eaten, now dusty carrot and turn her attention to the exciting plans she was carrying out.

“Hey! Peter! It’s all clear!” She turned over her shoulder and whispered back into the darkness.

“I can’t see y-” Sophie heard a loud crash come from the dark. She winced at the noise and rolled her eyes, turning back around to help Peter up.

“I told you we should’ve grabbed a flashlight on the way over here!” Peter protested as he grabbed her hand. Once he was off the ground, they looked up and took in their surroundings. Cobwebs draped over the rafters and the large windows cast a warm light over the empty bookshelves. Chairs lay askew everywhere the pair looked. It was a dismal thing, but nothing they couldn’t handle. Peter looked at Sophie and smiled. “This is perfect. I’ll go grab the broom.” As he ran to grab the supplies, Sophie sighed, coughing a bit with the dust. She couldn’t help but imagine what this place could look like when they were done: Old couches all around, cozy blankets, old books, lanterns, and if they were lucky, Peter’s older brother’s ping pong table! This was bound to be the best hideout ever.

“Got it!” Peter said, handing her a broom. She stabbed it into the carpet of dust and began to sweep. By the looks of it, the floor hadn’t been swept for decades. The only thing disturbing it was their footprints and some leading to crude graffiti that covered one wall. Must have been some teenagers a few years ago. Sophie didn’t mind; after all, she and Peter were vandalizing in their own sense. At first, she chatted with Peter while they swept. They talked about school, Pete’s older brother going to college, and Sophie’s dog, but as they settled into a rhythm, the only noise that could be heard was the brooms against the floor and Pete’s faint humming. Suddenly, he stopped humming, and a small gasp escaped his mouth.

“What is it?” Sophie questioned.

“Looks like when they shut down the library, they forgot to donate one of the books. Come here, let’s take a look.” Peter leaned down and picked up the book off the ground. He opened it and grinned widely.

“You’ll never believe it,” He said, “But we just got lucky. This isn’t a library book, this is a journal!” Sophie grabbed it from him, peered at the page, and began to read in a grand voice, “Day one: As you can probably tell from the fact that this is the first page in a new journal, I have begun my next adventure. Tonight is my first night in the library. It has been abandoned for several years, and I doubt anyone will find me here. This is a perfect place to hide the...” Sophie stopped, confused. “I can’t read the next few words.” Peter looked spooked. “Oh no...I bet the next word is bodies. I bet there’s a murderer in here and he’s after us and we are all going to be murdered and no one will ever find-”

“Peter. that is IDIOTIC. Besides, the library has been abandoned since 1756, if he was still here, the only body we would find would be the murderers! There is something exciting going on here, though. I’m going to flip through the rest of this journal while you look for more clues.”

Sophie turned the page. It was a chart. The chart contained a calendar with measurements of some sort of liquid written onto each day. Sophie couldn’t gather any useful information, so she turned to the next page. “Day 30: They are coming along nicely. I think that I have perfected the water ratio, it’s time to figure out how to best use the books. I guess this is what I get for choosing to start in a Library...” Sophie continued to flip through pages. The pages were mostly the same. More charts about vague items, entries about the success of this strange item they were discussing, and the occasional personal entry. Suddenly, she realized something. These entries had been changing handwriting. She flipped back to the “Day one” entry. It was dated 1762. Then, she flipped to the most recent entry. It was from yesterday! “Peter...” Sophie whispered, “I think we are either dealing with vampires or dreaming. This journal has been consistently kept for 259 years!”

“I didn’t hear what you said,” Said Peter, “But this place sure has a lot of leaves scattered around, and some of them look fresh!”

“Maybe we are dealing with an immortal tree monster?”

“I don’t know, but the footprints leading to the graffiti on the wall lead somewhere else too! Let’s go!”

The two followed the footprints into the library’s dark hallway. At the end of the hallway, there was a set of stairs. Peter and Sophie tiptoed down the stairs. Looking at each other in anticipation, Sophie leaned in to crack open the door. Suddenly, the door burst open! “Hey, Billy! Why’d ya leave the gosh darn journal out where any old folk could find it? These here strangers have it in their hands!” A huge man with a straw hat was glaring down at them. “Well, it was only a matter of time before someone found us out. Since y’all are here already, might as well show y’all around.”

The man gestured for them to follow him into the room. The room was brightly lit with sterile white lights. A boy, probably Billy, sulked off into another room. On the floor of the room, there were rows and rows and rows of...were those carrots? “Here’s where we grow Hillyard Village’s prize winnin’ carrots. Who woulda known books were the best fertilizer? My Great-Great-Grandpappy found this here library and started that there journal y’all be holdin’. We’ve been tryin’ to keep secret so them Smith’s don’t find us. That dang Smith family, always tryin’ to steal our farmin’ ideas.”

Sophie, in a state of shock, just stared. Peter opened his mouth and said, “Well, that’s a relief, we thought you were vampires. Anyway, Sophie and I have been trying to find a place to make a hideout. Would you, uh, mind if we clean up the old library and turn it into a hideout spot? We’ll protect you guys from the Smiths!”

“An enemy to the Smiths is a friend to us! Y’all look like strong youngun’s, just keep the Smith’s out and y’all are welcome to our library.”

From that day on, Sophie and Peter not only had the best hideout in the land, but they also had an endless supply of the best Carrots in the land.

The End.

The hero's head was pounding

the world spinning

muted crowds of thousands chanted his name

and the villain lay at his feet.

he would've enjoyed it

he would've cheered with the newly freed masses

his tears might've been with joy instead of sadness

but he could not tear his eyes from the girl.

The girl in the front row

five, maybe six years, he thought.

her wrist was tightly enclosed by the hands of another

a gruff man who did not smile.

they weaved through the shifting crowd

and when the girl tried to pull away,

the hero could hear the fist hit her small face, even through the clapping.

The hero bolted to save the girl

but she was gone, a nameless face in the crowd.

it seemed the hero had saved the city,

but he could never save a single one

time for a brain dump because this might actually be a good exercise. I am going to try to explain some thoughts i have about feelings: the way it feels to exist as me, if that makes sense.

i.

I am slightly tired right now. I can tell because the weight of my thoughts is pressing down on the back of my head, thin and smooth. it's not the worst feeling in the world. The worst is when I'm walking through the hallways at the school building, too fast for my brain to process. My thoughts sway back and forth, the weight sloshing from the front of my skull to the back, and it makes me dizzy and nauseous. When the thoughts are heavy, it strains. my teeth are told to clench and the tension is released in violent movement. my mind was once again too small to contain it.

ii.

As previously stated, I am tired. the thoughts are more abstract, unlike the Times New Roman billboard thoughts of daytime. Now the words take effort. That isn't to say that the billboard is easy...sometimes the billboard words are passed too quickly, and I didn't have time to read the words or process them. They occasionally get mixed up somewhere on the way to reality. My mind stumbles a lot. Anyway, back to tiredness. As you can see, I'm rather rambly. my thoughts are a spiderweb of abstract, like a swirling sky in which I'm trying to pick out certain shapes before they shift to something else. I'm thinking, of course, but I'm not seeing. Once again, no billboards.

iii.

Have you ever noticed that everything is less blurry if you choose not to look at it? I'm not explaining myself well. Sometimes, when I think about something that is too much to think about, I get overwhelmed. Small things become too much. The thoughts start to slosh and lose form. Thinking too hard about the texture of my breaded, school lunch chicken, and all of the places it's been. The fact that once, that was a living, breathing chicken with possible years of life experience, confined to a cage. It lived its whole life for this moment, undesirably and unknowingly, and I end it just like that. But there were people who made the bread that breaded my chicken, and they have stories too. I am part of all of these stories, and none of us know it. I have been sidetracked again. Anyway, then the breading and the strings of once-living chicken becomes too much, and I'm not hungry anymore. Everything becomes sharp and blurry and loud and muffled at the same time. If I choose not to think about the chicken, everything is less blurry. But does that make me a liar to ignore the truth?

iv.

Why am I overly concerned about the way people think? I want to see the way things are filed in their heads. I can't even see how things are filed in my own head, which is why I'm writing this. It's easier to think when it's visualized. it's also easier to think when it's written down. My mind is a mess of contradictions. My thoughts don't exist until on paper...not in words at least. its feelings. happy and sad but they contradict.

How do we feel so many feelings? I classify feelings with words, but how do we know what the words are? I don't know what it feels like to have a crush on someone. I think I know what it feels like, but is that really what it feels like? Does love feel the same way to everyone? Do I REALLY love anyone? The concept of the fact that we are all using words that describe feelings when no one else can feel what they feel. Like if I say I feel Happy, how do you know what happy feels like? Have you felt happy before? Well, is your way of feeling happy my way of feeling happy?

I'm trying to validate my emotions this way. I feel sad sometimes, but it is not as sad as others feel. It's MY sad though, and I'm the only one who's ever going to feel that specific sad. Of course, it's likely everyone feels emotions the same way, but I'm the only one who is going to feel my emotions, and they are real. I am real.

v.

I have trained myself. Small me has taught bigger me how to deal with emotions. That's kind of scary to me. Small me is very different from bigger me, and I feel small me didn't know what she was doing. and yet, small me has a huge amount of control over what bigger me does. Humans are not one thing. Humans can change, but they can't take away from what they were. and yet still, every new decision makes them a new person. I can be a new person. At this point I'm only thinking aloud, thoughts I've thought before, but not internalized. How many times does it take to think something before it's internalized?

vi.

The thoughts are even hazier, and I can see that I have not successfully visualized my own mind. Even so, the words I write help me see myself clearer. Will I ever see who I truly am? I hope so.

I fell for you slowly

your love for misty

mornings and splattered paint you paint

the world in metaphors and shout it quietly into the gray

and you exist in between

love and hate and happy and sad and sky and sea and whole and broken and you

you are human.

absolutely perfectly imperfectly human you teach me how

to cross bridges to move on to love to learn to grow

and i grew.

I grew in life as i fell in love

with the sound of cellos in your soul,

the clouds of rain in your head

and the life in your heart.

letters on computer screens waterfall showers cold noses and people and

every day i find more to love.

I love

I love

I love

and somehow

you love too.

we hold each other up, abandoned umbrellas we face the coming sun together

the sun will come.

For you and for me

your future is bright

stars shining through your navy heart it bursts

at the seams and you will do great things.

shake off the ashes and you will only grow

fall asleep only to wake up again

become more and more whole

and i'll be here every step of the way.

you shaped me just by being

your lessons woven

imprinted on my heart

and there is no going back.

I am who I am

and you are a part of that.

we will grow old and

gray like the sky you love and

your words will still remain.

no words from me but

thank you

im here

I love

and im proud

to have a friend like you.

I am the hero of my own story.

I write my tales in muddy footprints and fingerpaintings and blacks and blues of bloodied bruises and I am a story worth reading.

I am the villain of my own story.

fighting fire with a different kind my twisted mind and eyes blind and dark i do not see the world for what it is. i hurt and make them hurt too.

i am the victor and the victim.

i have my battles and fight them too i

narrate unphased through broken spectacles i cant see

my life as others see it the good is bad and bad is

good but what is good or bad when all is haze through the fog of my brain?

dont listen to a word i say dont watch what i do im just a girl in a world in which connection isnt beyond simple things and disconnection is preferred

we dont want to know the darkness in the minds of the people in the cars

speeding past disoriented blinded by sun the wind hits your face and none

are thinking of the place they are in

a place where one wrong move could end a

life

life

no

they are thinking about life

life

life

life

seven billion thoughts

seven billion people to understand and i understand not a

single

one

i am an unreliable narrator

i am not to be trusted to tell my story

i am not a hero

i am not a villain

i am not

i am not

i---