Recovering Mind

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Last night I spent an hour and a half obsessively trying to put a bracelet on my wrist. The one my aunt gave me. It was angering me that I couldn’t get it on. The difficulty of the task was frustrating, but I never quit. I continued instead of doing the normal thing and stopping, trying again in the morning, or asking my girlfriend for help. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t fall asleep without putting it on. When I finally managed the tension went away and I relaxed, but the guilt of my insanity plagued me until I fell asleep. It’s always in the back of my mind that I behave this way over random things. I use to think I’d grow out of it.

 

By Dan Boone

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My Ambition Up and Left Me

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My ambition up and left me, and now I’m really in a sweat.
The computer’s on, coffee’s hot, a CD’s playing, I’m all set
to write a story, poem or book until I start to write and then
my wandering mind goes quickly off to hither and then yon. When,
I wonder, will it come back to compose some poetry or prose?
Unfazed by caffeine and dark chocolate, my ennui just grows and grows,
transforming all my good intentions to pavement on that Hell-bound road.
I should be frustrated; I should be angry. I should pen an ode,
or rambling essay, or some fiction, or fictional non-fiction
praising my valiant deeds, stunning looks, and perfect diction.
Instead, I check my e-mail, look at Facebook and play solitaire
when I should be scribbling novels or love poems to a damsel fair.
But me? I keep on staring at the computer’s large, empty screen,
confident at this pace I’ll have a paragraph by Halloween.

 

By Tom Harris

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Out of Place

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Everything I use to know has disappeared. I am living with a woman who I use to know so well, who raised me and molded me, but now that woman wants me to change. That woman has become a stranger. She now lives her life in a way she told me not. She was always there to listen, but nowadays I need an appointment just to say hi. I don’t belong in her life. I will never belong. I am tired of fighting and crying for a woman who use to be my role model. Every day she pushes me more and more. One day she is going to push me over the ledge. Before that happens I am going to give up and move on with my life. I don’t fit in the life she wants to live. I am an out of place puzzle piece to her new masterpiece of a life.

 

By Maddy Cakes

Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/WoodWorksJewelry?ref=profile_shopicon

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A Good Mother

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You were what a mother should be. I miss the nights when you read me bedtime stories before I went to sleep. I remember one night you came in my room worried. You swore you heard me crying, but nothing was wrong. Later that night I did cry in pain and you ran in, again, this time to take care of me. I don’t remember why, but it seemed like magic. You knew before anything was actually wrong. Maybe you still remember that strange night. I need to ask you about it. The mother I lived with is no mother to me or anyone else it seems.

 

By Carter Moore

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Stuck

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I am wearing a uniform now pretending to be someone I’m not. I’m doing my best to act as though I care. I do what I’m told. I try my best to pay attention but sometimes thoughts seem more entertaining. I don’t want to be noticed. I don’t want to be talked to.  I just need a distraction. I need to escape this uniform, the pattern that I’m stuck in. maybe I just need something new. But new things get old pretty quickly.

 

By Cristina WilCraft

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