Teen Writing

Hollowness fills. Absence exudes a prominent presence. How is it possible to feel so alone when you are told you are loved? The ear listens, but the heart does not feel. The body stands, but the mind rather be elsewhere. Expectations are a crime; a system of ties collapsing on each other. Standards are a given; they exist subconsciously. They are not the same. Love can exist without nourishment like happiness without success. Suddenly the grass seems grey. A simple fact of ex

Hi, Buddha. Recently, I’ve been trying to be a good person, and I have taken almost every step to make my life a fulfilling one: I have attempted to approach life with compassion to abet the lives of others in hopes of finding benefits for myself. Today, I ask you to provide me with a meal of prosperity to help me with the upcoming challenges I am to face. I will take the next few minutes to reflect. … Today, I did not want to eat the fried chicken Dad brought home. Dad loo

The house is still and the streetlamp flickers outside the window. Eli turns his body left and right, kicking the blanket up and down trying to ease himself. It’s the middle of fall and the leaves are turning color. He tightly shuts his eyes with his mind loud with thoughts flying by. He glances over at the calendar, circles two words in a big red pen. Tryouts tomorrow . He takes a deep breath and pulls on the lamp string, illuminating the whole room. He stands and walks ove

Seeing the dimpled thighs, where flesh seems to become a woman. Fifteen years old but I still suck in my breath to watch the crease of Levi's shimmy its way up my hips. A belt as uncertain as its owner. It seems to tighten around me, constricting me. Somewhere in the world or history, my mother says, somebody would find me beautiful. The cruel irony is that everything that I want is not here in the room right now. What I love is the absence. The space in photos where supermod

Sure, questless again. My umbrella on the shelf where I never put it. I can find it, unsure, but I will, I will. My desk lamp isn’t working anymore, there’s too much oil in the thing but the drainage is screwed more. I’d say I am terrified of every beginning I have, each restless run up that hill and the collapsing down again. I’d say take it off of me, this easiness, my pledge into the sour ridge. My word. Words. I think it’s meaningless, these signs of life rifling throu

In order to make an origami star you cut a strip of paper and tie a “knot” to start. After that you bend and crease the strip of paper, entwining and interweaving the slip. Finally, you tuck the end of the paper into a previous layer and pinch the sides to form your star. In origami it is important to be precise, a quick fold of the paper is irreversible with no way to unfold the indent and smooth out the mark. The paper will never be new again, never as whole as it was when

Waiting for fruit to ripen is like waiting for a limited time reward. I placed a mango near the window where the sunlight hit it all day, hoping that it would ripen just right. I checked it daily, trusting that this time I’d finally get the timing right. But just five days later, it had gotten beyond ripened. The flesh caved in at the slightest touch, a sour and fermented scent escaping through the skin into the kitchen. It was unsalvageable–no longer fruit, just rot. The wor

I stare down the lists of engraved names, hollow letters etched out across the array of countless tall pillars. My eyes flow past each one without a second thought, endlessly scanning stories that will never be told. Entire generations of boys forgotten in the storm. I reach out and caress the cold hard metal. Strangely, I feel empty, as if time has stopped. My mind fails to feel, fails to grasp what I am reading, what I am breathing, what I am touching, what I am . Funny. I