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a space for youth writing on mental health & identity
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 The skittish bird flits through empty forests
and finds herself dipping and flipping until she is a bluejay.  This is how the story begins: in third grade, you decide to slit your eyelids someday. You had
never wanted something so badly. *  Trigger warnings: death, cancer, mention of alcohol
he is dying in the next room, lungs choking on life feeble body turning to ashes around the disease inside of him  Grime between your teeth, dirt under nails, oil on skin spread thick; you peel a chubby finger
from hallowed cheek to flickered cheek under eye, across nose, stomach unfurling down groin to calf to feet.  Dimming street,
Incandescent glows of youthful memories, Who sauntered through the darkened night? Who sought for peace and tranquillity?  TW: This piece briefly mentions an instance of grooming and anorexia.
What’s left of the sun peeks out in golden slivers of decaying daylight through the barnacled legs of Route 60. It’s my first time wearing a bikini, and it’s made of a flimsy purple nylon, already sun-bleached and fading.  & you should not be here pressing palms to alabaster
you are to me, the scavenged shreds of my homeland  Are not you what you see in the mirror
Are not you a shining star, full of awe, that knows its place  TW: reference to suicidal thoughts
apples ripe or raw roll down the hill where we used to stargaze at night.  Time does not heal all wounds,
it buries them under Band-aids and pats on the arm and mothers’ kisses.  TW: non-graphic sexual assault
nightmare in eighth grade, first week of april the first time i cried in the last bathroom stall white cotton leggings, and no place to hide with each wave of pain, i prayed for relief my mama said i became a woman when my body bled red.  this world is the color blue
I am many shades I move myself in the rhythm of time ceaseless, existing until I am but myself, and my blood, which I’m told contains memories  The modern-day teen is a pariah that cannot be described. The only way to understand is to
experience, but we have all been one as we have all been considered modern at one point in our lives. Feeling the need to conform to the status quo, we enslave ourselves to societal pressures and in turn, we lose ourselves. |
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