Friday, February 22, 2013

"The Puzzle Growing Up" by Robin Stinson


I remember being a kid in elementary school, the pure simplicity of it. I lived in my own perfect little world where my biggest problem was whether or not I could go out and play before dinner. Nothing was a big deal. If I had a bad day, I would go to bed and wake the next morning having completely forgotten the travesty. I didn’t care that I wore mismatched ensembles or that I had goofy chopped bangs. All I needed to have fun was my best friend and my cul-de-sac.
            I remember being in middle school, going through the usual transitions. My world had gotten bigger. I had some more homework, and there were a lot of new people I had to meet. I learned that some of them didn’t want to be my friend. I was first chair in the middle school orchestra, and proud of it. I didn’t have to work too hard for it, I did my daily 20 minute practises and that would be that. When I had problems I’d get pretty upset. I accused myself of being worthless and not good enough. I noticed that I looked different from all the other girls. They wore tight jeans and tops showing off their assets and had shiny hair and wore makeup. I wore baggy shirts, cargo pants, and pulled my hair into a ponytail on a daily basis. On special occasions I wore lip balm. This began to bother me. And my cul-de-sac seemed a lot smaller.
            I remember being a freshman in high school. My world was suddenly huge, and college was now looming over my head like a formidable raincloud. On the first day of high school, a cute boy sat across from me. He was nice to me. I decided I wanted him to like me. I started paying more attention to my clothes and my hair, even putting on makeup. I was still in orchestra, but I was first chair of the second violin section and the music had gotten harder. 20 minute practises were no longer sufficient. Between school, boys, and violin, I was busy. I no longer wanted to play in my cul-de-sac. I just wanted to do all the things that I didn’t have enough money to do. I had so many more problems. Freshman year was tough.
            In life, you start as a carefree child, ready to take on the world. As you grow up, your innocence slowly melts away and you see all the hardships in life. Sometimes your outlook grows bleak. I know that mine certainly did; I was in a downward spiral.
            I remember how sophomore year changed me. I’m not sure what happened, but somehow I made friends. Good friends. They gave me something else to focus on. Even though school made life miserable sometimes, I knew that I had fun times with friends ahead to look forward to.
            Now, I’m a junior. I know that that doesn’t mean I’ve seen everything and it certainly doesn’t mean I know everything. But I do understand something important. I understand that life can be rough, but it can be fun as well. You can’t dwell on the bad parts, or else they’ll seem even worse. Instead, you need to focus on the good parts. Thinking about the good parts will carry you through the bad with less pain. The quality of your life doesn’t depend on what happens to you, it depends on how you deal with it. When you’re given a challenge do you step up and face it, or do you cry because life isn’t fair? That choice can make your life either great or miserable.
            Instead of looking back at myself in middle school and being ashamed of who I was, I’m thankful for it. I’m where I’ve gotten because of the choices that person made. To tell you the truth, I’m happy with my life right now and I wouldn’t have wanted it to turn out any other way.

"Britty" by Patrick Oh Brien


The library is only a little bit out of the way from the apartment. Everything in Arizona is flat and packed close together, so even though it’s halfway across town it would have been a ten minute walk if Ben hadn’t had to keep stopping to cool down in the shade every time his head started to throb.
His brother, Michael, had left for work bussing tables early after Ben had assured him several times over that a little more cash never hurt anyone, he was planning on sleeping all day anyway, and no, he didn’t need someone to come watch him while Michael was working.
Michael had shuffled out the door slowly, probably waiting for Ben to change his mind and demand Michael stay in bed with him all day like he used to do when he was young and believed that if he was feeling something then Michael, as an extension of himself, must be feeling it too.
He’d waited ten whole minutes to get up and pull on some jeans after Michael shut the door behind a, “I’ll check up on you on my break,” in case Michael changed his mind and doubled back, punching a new hole in the leather of his belt to keep them up around his hips. The collar of his shirt hung low on his collarbones in a way he doesn’t remember it doing for Michael when it used to belong to him.
He slings his backpack over his shoulder and hauls out to the library.
Ben’s not stupid. He knows that there’s something not right about him or how he’s dropped enough weight in the past few months to make his blood pressure a joke.
He gets to the library, slips the plump elderly woman sitting behind the desk a smile before making a bee-line towards the row of clunky PCs lining the back wall.
He’s not actually sure what to search first, so just types in ‘dizziness blacking out vomiting’ and gets back articles about low blood pressure and arrhythmia.
Ben huffs a sigh and tries to narrow it down.
Dizziness, blacking out, vomiting, water.
Results include tips on not throwing up while exercising and Ben scoffs and rolls his eyes. Lower down on the page is an article about aneurisms that scares him petrified for three straight minutes until he figures that he’s not old enough, not alcoholic enough, and doesn’t smoke enough cigarettes for an aneurism to be at the top of his list.
Dizziness, blacking out, vomiting, excessive water, diet.
He hesitates over the word ‘diet’, not liking the shape of the word, but hits the blocky search button anyway.
He scrolls through pages unsatisfied for a quarter of an hour, mood growing darker with each page he sorts through until he stumbles across ‘water intoxication.’
Ben rips through the article and then the article’s online sources so quickly his head spins, which makes sense because he’s reading about electrolyte imbalances due to too much water and too little everything else.
The words ‘potentially fatal’ stick out and Ben sits back and laughs because what if he’s been poisoning himself with water? The laugh turns bitter and the woman at the front desk shoots him a concerned look.
Of course he would poison himself with water, why not? He over-hydrated. Who does that? What kind of idiot drinks too much water? So much water that they mess up their brain. He could have killed himself, without even knowing. He could have had a seizure, passed out and fallen, broken his neck. He could have done it in front of Michael.
He reaches for his water bottle for comfort but jerks himself away, careening closer to hysteria with every labored breath he pulls in, making himself dizzy. He needs… he needs something, he doesn’t know.
Ben stands up swiftly, only stumbling slightly, and staggers to the vending machine he passed on his way in. He sits back down with a package of Skittles that he doesn’t really want and the urge to reach for his water bottle that he heroically resists.
He tears open the package and Skittles go sprawling everywhere, clattering against the desk and bouncing against the ground and Ben picks them up and adds them back into the pile. Like he cares; he’s not going to eat them.
He sorts them out by color first and then by perfection of the printed ‘s’ in the center, by shape determined by denting caused by the machinery, where the dents are in relation to that ‘s’, and then lines them up in rainbow order down the desk. The idea that they’re there, under his hands and smearing dyes all over his fingers as he handles them is intoxicating. He could lick the flavor off, pop one in his mouth and crunch down on it to feel the tangy sweet explode across his tongue, but he doesn’t, and the fact that he resists makes him feel even better than eating one could have.
By the time he’s finished his hands have stopped shaking. He reminds himself that he’s not a doctor. He reminds himself that he’s overreacting.
Breathing for a moment, Ben turns back to the computer.
He gets to ‘eati’ before he deletes it all and has to start over, and then gets all the way to ‘eating dis’ before backspacing and re-arranging the Skittles in a line of alternating colors.
Eating disorders.
He closes his eyes and hits search.
The first site is too bright with too many advertisements crowding the sidebar and Ben backs up quickly, put off. The second is too bland, why would he want to read a bland article?
By the sixth website he deems unworthy he acknowledges that he’s procrastinating.
The seventh website has everything.
Ben reads through with a sense of detachment, leaning his full weight against the back of the chair and absorbing the definitions and conditions like he’s doing research for an essay.
He’s not concerned with his body weight that much, he doesn’t restrict his eating. He’s just not hungry. He doesn’t revolve around his body image.
“Christ, this is stupid,” he mutters under his breath and clicks to the next page just to really assure himself that this isn’t his problem so that he can go home and crawl in bed with the lights off and wait for Michael to come home to see if he can coerce his brother into making him soup that’s mostly broth.
Only there’s a picture on the next page and Ben’s heart stops dead in his chest.
She’s thin.
Of course she’s thin; she’s being used as an example of a body affected by anorexia.
But she’s so thin.
Her stomach is concave, dipping up underneath her ribs. A flimsy white bra hangs loosely over her chest. Her collar bones stand out like they’re being pushed through her skin. The other side of the figure is her from the back and her backbone looks like someone could play the xylophone on it.
Ben’s eyes track all over her body so quickly he feels dizzy again, like there’s not enough air in his body because this picture’s taking up so much room inside of him.
He sees himself in that picture.
He knocks over the chair, scattering Skittles all over the floor when he sprints out of the library.
-
The burger glistens with juices that seep down into the thin bun and make it soggy. The pickles are peeking over the side to say hi, ridges coated in smears and swirls of ketchup and mustard that’s smudged all over the inside of the wrapper. The onions flop over the edge or the meat, either too large or too slippery to stay smashed between the bread and the patty. The French fries smell like salt and hot oil still. The outside of the cup is sticky from where Ben’s trembling hands had fumbled the soda when he first ordered ‘to go.’
The entire meal is laid out in front of him like sacrifice on the kitchen table and the smell alone makes him want to go take a shower and wash himself clean.
Afternoon sunlight slants right through the venetian blinds and Ben peels the bun off the burger and nudges the onions back into place, puts the pickles in formation again and resets it. He dumps the fries out onto the wrapper and figures since they’re already out he could lay them flat so he could see them all, maybe arrange them in order of height. The condensation on the outside of the paper cup clings to his fingers when he sets the cup at the diagonal corner of the wrapper and smoothes out the outer edges of the wrapper so that it lays flat.
He puts his hands in his lap and stares.
The McDonalds had been on his way back from the library, golden arches rising high above the other buildings on the street like a gateway and he’d slunk in, determined.
He does not have an eating disorder.
And he’s going to prove it.
He grabs the burger and warm ketchup and slick burger grease seep between his fingers. Ben’s eyes burn so he forces them shut tight. He takes a deep breath but all he can smell is grease and salt, thick and viscous like he’s swimming through it.
It feels like he’s wrenching his jaw open but it doesn’t matter because he’s going to eat it because he doesn’t have a problem.
The first tears slip down his cheeks when he gets the burger on his tongue and can taste savory meat like he hasn’t in months and his stomach clenches. He clamps his teeth, traps the food behind his lips and he tries, he tries so hard, not to spit it out again.
Chewing is like tearing out his fingernails. He salivates too much and works his jaws too hard, breathing heavily through his nose in hitching breaths.
The flavor sours on his tongue as he lets it sit in his mouth.
Swallow, he thinks actively as tears drip down his chin. Just swallow and everything can be over.
He shakes his head like he’s telling himself no even as he forces his throat to work. The food slides down his esophagus, mucking up his throat along the way, and hits his stomach like a lead brick and he already feels like his blood’s thick with everything he just put inside of himself, heavy sludge coursing through his veins and he wants water, he needs to scrub his insides clean. It’s in his skin like he’s sweating oil.
“Damn it!” he screams, swiping the entire assortment off the table. The cup bounces off the floor, lid popping and sticky sweet soda spilling a flood across the cracked yellow linoleum, the burger splats, the fries scatter, and Ben fists his hands in his hair and retches out sobs because he’s so weak.
He’s still there, hysterical, when Michael unlocks the front door and steps in.
“Ben?” Michael calls and Ben tries to suck down enough air to calm himself but he’s too far gone to save any face by the time Michael rushes into the kitchen.
“Sorry,” Ben stammers preemptively, knowing he should be apologizing for something. “Sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“What the hell did—you went to McDonalds?” Michael demands, staring around the mess of the kitchen and looking overwhelmed. “You told me you were staying in bed all day, Ben!”
“I know,” Ben hiccups. “I’m sorry, I was just so hungry.” 

Friday, February 15, 2013

"Memoir Chicken" by Katniss



At the age of four most kids feel as if they can do anything and everything. Living on a farm, comes with a load of work, for the adults. I wanted to do the chores they did, but whenever I attempted to, someone would stop me and tell me that I was too young and incapable. It was early in the morning; the sun had not come out. I snuck out of my bedroom and crept toward the chicken coop. The darkness was my cloak and the moonlight was my enemy. It followed me everywhere trying to expose me to the world. The walk seemed endless and I expected at any moment for someone to catch me and some part of me wanted to get caught.
The sun began to peak out of the horizon. I could no longer hide, the light was surrounding me. But it didn’t matter anymore. I had reached my destination. I was thinking that my parents would be so proud of me, because I could do the same chores they did. As I opened the door, I had second thoughts. Peering into the coop I noticed the chickens were all asleep. Thinking it was going to be easy, I took the bag of seeds and filled their bowls. Turning around, I slipped, spilling their food all over the place and landing on top of a pile of eggs. Suddenly one by one they woke up, all of them staring right at me. I got up slowly, backing away. I knew it was too late; it seemed as they knew what I had done. Adrenaline took over my body and I started to sprint toward the door. When I pushed the door open, the sunlight blinded me. I acted like a deer caught in headlights, nowhere to run and not knowing what to do. In a moment of panic, I got the idea of running onto the roof. At that time it was a good plan, believing that chickens were scared of heights; because they were chickens. I reached the staircase. Stumbling, tripping and falling on my way up, finally I was at the top. But they were determined. And my fear of the chickens turned into stupidity. I looked over the edge of the roof, it was not that high up, (for a grownup) but for me it was a nightmare come true. Being more afraid of the chickens than the heights, I closed my eyes and jumped. I remember the breeze that I felt; it relieved me of my sweaty forehead. I blanked out but not before a heard a crack. When I woke up, familiar faces were surrounding me. They were close enough to me that I could smell their breath when they spoke. I began to hear so many questions directed at me but I could not answer; my head was throbbing. I knew nothing at all at that moment; I was never told how long I was out.
I later found out from my family that they returned the chicken back to the coop and cleaned up the mess I made. I was not in trouble for my actions because I had already suffered the consequences. At first I had no idea what my punishment was, until my doctor told me that I broke my head. He predicted that for a month my sensory processing would be off.  Meaning that whatever I tasted or saw would be different from everyone else’s and their perception of something would be right. But he explained it as a bruised brain. I was also informed that I was lucky to not have fractured any more bones.  Being four years old, I thought that meant I had super powers. I was sent home a week later with medicine that tasted like chocolate. 
Everyone had told me that I would never be the same again, but I didn’t care one bit. I was now the only one in my family with a metal plate.  I don’t remember why, but I felt pride for what I accomplished. Maybe, it was because I had done something no one else in their right in would do, or maybe it was because from that moment on I was known to be fearless. In the end I never told my family why I was running from the chickens in the first place and I kept it that way. But never again did I step into the chicken coop, ever.

"My First Memory" by Bartholomew Stewart


My first memory was when I was living in Morristown, New Jersey, when I was about three years of age. It was in my day care center. I barely remember anything about Morristown; all I do remember is that those were the good times. I don’t remember ever having any problems when I lived there, because everything was just so happy and splendid, although that’s probably because I was a toddler. My Grandparents lived down the street, so they took care of my brother and I whenever my mother and father were at work. I think that the reason why New Jersey was so great was because I was always surrounded by loved ones. I had my first actual memory at day care. At day care, I had other toddler friends, and we played with these big, yellow, toy dump trucks. My friends and I would crash them together, and load them up with whatever we could find. We used to only play with those three dump trucks, and we had so much fun with them. I think that what also made the image of day care so significant was the fact that my grandmother would pick me up, and we would go to her house, and hang out there until my parents would pick me up. My grandmother and I used to walk down this one street to go to her house. I remember holding her hand while walking and I can remember how safe, and content I felt. When my family moved down to Virginia, my grandparents stayed in New Jersey. Because they lived in Morristown, which is a hike from northern Virginia, I was only able see my grandparents once or twice a year. Naturally, I began to miss them, and I realized how lucky I was as a kid to miss them, and I realized how lucky I was as a kid to be surrounded by a loving family. In the seventh grade, my grandparents moved into a Quaker retirement home in Sandy Spring, Maryland. Now I get to see them much more often, which is really nice. Every time I go up to Sandy Spring to see them, I remember all the great times I had in Morristown with them. I really love my grandparents, because of how close I was and still am to them. My grandfather in particular is a funny and truly jolly man. He is almost 90 years old, but he still tells jokes, sings nursery rhymes, and songs he learned in the navy. Everything about the man screams survivor. He’s smoked cigarettes probably since he was 18 years old, yet still he is happy, and healthy. Whenever I think about my grandparents, I think about how much this world needs the wisdom of elderly people. The time I spent and still spend with my grandparents will forever be part of my thoughts and prayers, even when they aren’t around.

Friday, February 8, 2013

"What Do I Remember?" by Back Reed Gimp


What do I remember?

            Geez, what a heavy question to throw at someone. I can hardly remember what I had today for breakfast, let alone attempt to grasp at wisps of memories from years prior. But even as I’m typing this paper, I’m contradicting myself, as the memories, both good and bad, come flooding right back in, almost as if I had just experienced them yesterday. It’s quite funny how memories work; they can be triggered and activated in ways you would never expect. All it takes is one look at my pencil, and I immediately begin to delve into my mind, back to my days in elementary school, when I didn’t have a care in the world…

            All of a sudden, I’m back in Buzz Aldrin Elementary, stuck in my awkward, ham-fisted, and quite porky first-grader body. I’m playing Cowboys and Indians with my equally awkward friend Tristan, his lanky arms and misshapen head swinging wildly as he attempts to belch out his best war cry. I, being the cowboy, grab my worn-out Paper-Mate pencil and hold it as a gun, pretending to take pot shots at the dastardly and savage Indian I now saw in place of Tristan. At this point, I was no longer a pathetic and weak first-grader, but a brave and stoic hero ready to lay down frontier justice on anyone audacious enough to dare cross my cattle or me. For a few fleeting seconds, I felt like a real badass a la the Man with no Name (Clint Eastwood, just how do you manage to embody so much manliness and testosterone?). Unfortunately, my lofty daydreams came crashing down when Ms. M.—lovingly called “The Witch” by our class—came to ruin our fun. She came in, furious; snatching the pencil from my hand and giving the meanest stink-eye I had ever seen. She began to then give me her most long-winded speech on “responsibility” and “proper attitude”, but at this point, my puny first-grader brain was no longer paying attention. Instead, my attention was focused elsewhere, on the almost routinely daily fight occurring at the dusty and unkempt kickball field over who gets first pick. At this point, a white light blinds my vision.
           
CRASH! As I regain my sight and get a bearing of my surroundings, this is the first sound I hear. I’m no longer an elementary student, but instead a 7th grader, wiser and smarter, but not by much. I am welcomed by a sensuous visual of flying books and thrown pillows, the books lying dead and limp on their spines after being tossed and the pillows scattering feathers and month-old dust into the air after being thrown.
“Go to hell!” my sister angrily screams.
“If I do, I’m going to drag you with me!” my mother retorts. At this point, this kind of sight is quite the norm, whether it was due to my sister’s added stress of being a junior, my mom’s frustration over her incompetent and arguably nepotistic boss, or a combination of both. Either way, at this point, the fight about to reach its climax that I was going to witness, whether I wanted to or not.
“Back Reed!” my mother screams. Here we go, when my mom starts to get me involved, you know things are about to get ugly.
“Yes mother?” I reply, trying to mask my indifference.
“Is what Jenny’s done right or wrong?”
“Wrong,” I reply almost immediately. When my mother gets into this kind of mood, she wants and expects only one answer from me. Just guess which one.
“Exactly! She is wrong! So why don’t you go to her and tell her that, because I can’t seem to knock any sense into her.”
“Stop bringing him into this!” my sister shouts. “You always do this every single time!”
“I only do this because you seem incapable of actually listening to me!” my mother shouts louder.
While all of this is going on, I’m meekly staring at the carpet, feeling just as useless and weak as my first-grader self. Nothing I do seems to please my sister or my mother, because when I try to appease both sides, it only gets them angrier. Ambivalence, you will be the downfall of me yet. I thumb around the iPod in my pocket, wishing to be transported back to better times, before all this senseless fighting started and when peace and quiet was actually achievable. The scene fades to black.

            When I come to, I’m no longer a 7th grader, but now a 10th grader. I’ve got on my generic Apple-brand headphones on, listening to the calmest and most soothing music I can find. I scroll down to my personal favorite, Modest Mouse, listening to the off-kilter yowls of Isaac Brock and the lo-fi goodness of the unconventionally tuned guitars. I’m currently listening to the purposefully slow and drawn-out song “Dramamine”, whose title and music theme really seems to fit my current state of mind, spaced out and barely conscious. It might be due to the fear and constant fidgeting that disturbed my already anguished sleep, but I think its because I’m trying to keep myself from realizing that I’m actually going to take the AP World exam in about five minutes. As the clock runs down and my fellow grim-faced sophomores enter the examination room, my self-denial no longer works, as I enter into the aux gym with them. Although feeling quite small and insignificant, I think to myself, “What the hell, think about this way, Back Reed” rationalizing to myself, “at least this is the first step towards college. Maybe this isn’t going to be so bad after all. In fact, this is definitely going to go well. This is going to be the first good step towards a long and eventual journey.” I close my eyes, hoping my self-delusions will somehow instill me with confidence.

            When I open my eyes, I’m now back to the laptop, once again typing away late into the night (almost 2 A.M.? Gosh, what am I, nocturnal?). As I look back to everything I’ve typed so far, it seems almost unbelievable just how much I could recall from just a few random stimuli both out of and in the memories. I quietly tell myself, “I guess this question wasn’t so hard to answer after all!” Hopefully, it’ll stay that way. 

"Mental Warfare" by James Archer


Mental Warfare

Are you free
Or are you trapped
Am I talking to you
Or are you talking back
To the voices in your head
That sews the needle of doubt
Through the quilt of shame and
Dead memories
That you look back on every once in a while
And every once in a while is yesterday
And the day before that.

You’ve put your soft heart into a kiln
Hardening it, so that it won’t break easily
And yet you’re waiting for it to fall and crack and break
Through the abyss of love and hatred
And maybe you think love is hatred
Because each time you’ve loved
You have hated
Yourself
And your head, and your thoughts
And the people all around you who are
Happier than you, think less than you,
Have fewer “tendencies” than you do.

You ache for the pain to subside
Of course for it to have subsided means
For your grave to be filled
as You are choke on the air
You once breathed with happiness
And optimism but now
Your tears are as sour as your soul
And as cold as your heart.

Every time your eyes are closed
You invite the darkness that’s already in your soul
Because you believe that the light is gone
Just like the life you knew way back when you
Never thought about it because you never had a
Reason to break down and
Sink into the floor where you’d become
One with the world and one with the
Blood that your desperately trying to
Stop from giving your life and feelings
Something of better days.

Most of all you write this down for another time
With the scratching of the pen matching the scratching in your
Mind, but you don’t itch it,
Not now, not yet, you’re hoping not yet,
you’re hoping to never scratch the eternal itch
because that’s just war between you and your soul
Your heart and your mind.
That’s just common war among
Rare people with rare self-conviction

"Ivy League School" by Monica Cody

When I was a young child, I knew that I wanted to go to Harvard. To study what, I don’t know. I barely knew what Harvard was, other than th...