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Along the Way

Along the way,

you’ll come across a man who needs your help.

There he sits, unkempt, unclean, and unnoticed. He is thin. So thin, that his ribs can be seen through his tattered shirt, and the skin around his bony fingers wilts like a flower in the cold. He will reach those fingers out to you.

Along the way,

you’ll come across a man, slumped against a tree in the dead of winter, no coat around his shoulders and his bare feet buried in the snow for warmth. The tree’s icy bark peels and digs into his back. You may wonder about his family and his friends and his children and where they all could’ve gone. Was this man, now barely clinging to life, once along the way as you are now?

Along the way,

you’ll wonder many things about this man, but even as you wonder, you won’t stop walking. You won’t take the decrepit hand he reaches out to you. You’ll keep going, your boots crunching in the snow. For you’re along the way, and you don’t have time to stop. You’ll trudge right past, barely looking him in the eye.

Along the way,

you might find yourself to tired to walk any further, your boots are long gone, your coat has been lost, and your clothes have been reduced to rags. You’ll slump against a tree in the dead of winter, wondering about your family and your friends and your children and where they all went, and why this person walking by you won’t stop for a second, just a second, to even look you in the eye.

But then, someone else,

Along the way,

may pause for a second, just a second. You’ll reach your hand out to her, the skin around your fingers wilting like a flower in the cold. You reach your hand out to her in need,

and she might take it, because she knows,

you were along the way once, too.

-Joey Schuman

 

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Senescence

Someone please kill me
before I explode
into over 7 billion pieces of glass
and scatter over all the places anyone has ever deemed a landmark,
for someone to discover me
or mindlessly stumble over me
as they stare up at some soulless, unforgiving structure
that seems sturdy and eternal
but will one day return to the dust
that all things return to when faced
with the ever-reaching claws of time
If they stumble,
their feet will snag on my edges
and bleed over the ruins,
or perhaps someone will pick me up,
shrug,
and cast me away again
on the assumption that I am simply a piece of something
broken and long-forgotten,
or maybe the sunlight will bounce off of me
at just the right angle
and I will gleam in a child’s eye
and their unconscious attraction to ordinary things
with no place in the world
will draw them to me
and they will pocket me to add to their collection
of things they found to have uncategorizable beauty
in a world constantly flooring the gas pedal of the fastest car
to meet the loving embrace of death
while declaring victory or success
or some other kind of fulfillment
and I will gather dust in a drawer
alongside rocks and pebbles
and small shells
and pieces of lost pottery with chipping paint
until everything rots

 

-Jeremiah Zaeske

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Writing from Life

Pins. Small, inconsequential objects, right? Wrong. Pins may be small objects, but they hold so many memories. Collecting pins bring back, for me, vivid times spent with either family or friends. Maybe eating lunch under the Leaning tower of Pisa, maybe taking a lift to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Maybe even going to Bethany beach, Delaware is something you want to remember. Is it not amazing how something so small could hold so many memories.

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In the Kitchen

By: Isabella Briggs

In the kitchen, there is a secret door. It leads to an unused pantry. Mom has always kept the key with her. She will not let me through the door.

One day, I decide. I will go down there. She can not keep me from the pantry forever. I steal the key. I run and unlock the door before she can stop me. I enter the room. Just then, I stop. Everything stops. Suddenly, they are there. Memories I did not know I had. Things I did not know had happened. I feel the sorrow and pain of the past. I run from the room. I slam the door shut, locking it tight. I search the house for mom, but I can no longer find her. I know why. She has fled. She always knew  what was there. She had only been trying to protect me. To save me from the pain. Now she is gone because she knew i saw everything. She knew I saw everything. She knew i went against her only wish. So i wait. I wait. I wait until I can wait no longer. Why did I wait? In the beginning, I had hoped she would return. That she would except my apology. She never did either.

In the kitchen, there is a light. It went out long ago. Without mom there to change out the bulb, it will never turn back on.

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My Two Worlds

By: Elisabeth Paulk

I jump into the car with my mom
Start going on and on about my day
Till I hit something that twists my heart
Something that doesn’t fade away
She understands what I am going through
So she tells me everything will be okay

I enter the car with my dad
I don’t talk about things that made us feel down
We might talk about things that make us mad
But that’s it
Usually we talk about history
Or maybe politics
We talk about things that interest us
These things might seem boring to you
But to me these conversations are worth the fuss

These are the two worlds I live in
They both frighten and excite me
And that’s okay
Because both of these people help me see
The world differently

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Soulmates

By: Angel E. Young

What is a soulmate?

 It’s that one person that you’ll always care about no matter what people say. You don’t have to be around them to feel the connection, and just a glance can make you feel like you’ve been to the moon and back. When you find your soulmate, you have the strange urge to commit to them even if the relationship isn’t “confirmed”. The love you have for them is unconditional. And you find yourself consistently praying for their safety and happiness. That my friend is a soulmate.

Meeting my soulmate will always be the greatest memory gifted to me. With soft curly hair, a quiet smile, warm brown eyes and an artistic hand I couldn’t help but feel instantly drawn to him. Walking by myself through the hallways I would always find myself meeting his warm gaze, even in the most uncanny situations. After a while, I began to feel a slight pull on my heart strings every time our gazes met. I called it the “soul-bond pull”. The reason for this was also due to the fact that even though I wasn’t near him half of the time, I could still feel the warmth of his presence coursing through my veins. Being as nervous and shy as I was, it was a surprise when I finally mustered up the courage to speak to him. (This took many long weeks- months even) With fumbling words and rushed phrases I introduced myself to him before quickly hurrying away. For the rest of the year we’d share seemingly longing glances with each other. The burning inferno of unsaid words rising within the spaces between us. But we never said anything, the fear of what the other might say, holding us back. Sitting here today I continue to wait, keeping myself pure and loyal until the day fate decides to bring us back together again.

 

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A Mind’s Eye

Stevenson University Creative writing camp is a 1-2 week session that allows you to delve into your imagination/memory and put it on paper. Every day we learn new material and get to dig deep into our creative senses. Each morning starts a full day that includes writing, activities, games, and snacks. We help each other develop our writing through encouragement and workshops. This camp allows us to explore and open our minds to the many themes of fictional writing.

We have explored many types of writing in our classes, such as fiction, poetry, and memoirs. We were under the instruction of Nate Brown, Krystle Carter, Dare Turner, Anthony Moll, Sarah Shellow, Lady Brion, and Amanda Licastro. The course “Monsters are People, Too” taught us about a variety of creatures seen in folklore around the world and helped us incorporate it into our writing.  In “Writing Mysteries” we have learned how to construct mysteries through character-driven stories.  “Writing from Life” starts each class with a yoga session, followed by writing exercises, readings from non-fiction, and practicing writing techniques.  We are instructed on how to compose drafts for different genres of writing in our multimedia class, and we took part in workshops on ekphrasis in “Responding to Art with Poetry.”

We are given motive, means, and opportunity to write and experiment different styles by attending these classes. In just a week or two, we have taken inspiring workshops and explored our creativity. We observed the world around us and immortalized our perceptions and sensations through the stories we crafted.