Category: Junior Literary

Coming to MSA has been one of the weirdest experiences of my life. It’s not just the classes or the people or even the decent food that makes it odd- it’s the fact that I, without a doubt, am one of the most claustrophobic people in the universe. Now, I don’t mean in the sense of I can’t be in enclosed spaces or crammed in a large crowd but in the way that I can only stay in Wesson for two days, max, before my blood feels like it’s boiling and my fingers itch to get behind the wheel and just go. 

Seeing the same thing day after day and being stuck in the same routine tends to wear on my nerves faster than I care to admit, so being here has been strange. I have only felt the slightest itch in my hands and my blood has only attempted to simmer on less than a few occasions. You might could add this strange occurrence to the reality that I’ve only dormed here for two weeks instead of the nearly six that everyone else has had to deal with, but still. Being in a place for more than a few hours tends to send my skin into jitters.

The only place that I can’t seem to spend enough time in is my own home. And, in no way, do I want to even attempt to send the idea that I feel as if MSA is my home. And writing that sounds sort of harsh but that’s a discussion for another post. I just find it odd that, though I seem to stir here, its not the same  as if I was stuck in Wesson. Not Wesson school, but Wesson as a town- a whole place. Even though I can drive from corner to corner and feel better, it’s not the same thing as heading out and down the highway towards Brookhaven or Jackson.

My point is: for me, this whole experience as an MSA student has been pretty odd. Maybe the fact that I have my best friend here helps, or that I have made plenty of friends in order to occupy my time so I don’t realize that I am utterly trapped here has had something to do with it. Either way, I’m glad that I don’t have to constantly feel the pull of some far-off adventure while I’m here. The only exception, of course, being Fridays.

the question looms over me like everything did when i was a little kid. little six year old me is staring up with her little blue eyes and little white teeth and little pink bow in her hair, and everything feels gigantic. and when you’re six years old, it feels like everything’s gonna stay like this forever. the chairs are always going to be to big you feel like they swallow you whole every time you sit down. the door handles are always going to require tippy-toes to reach. you’ll always have to jump on the counter to reach the top cabinet in the kitchen to find the paper plates that are shaped like animals.

but then you get older. you get taller and longer and stronger. the chairs become smaller and the door handles become lower and the cabinets become easier to reach (although if you’re my size you definitely still have to hop onto the counter to find the honey in the back of the cabinet).

nothing got smaller. you just got bigger.

you grew.

i grew.

and maybe one day i’ll grow even more, and the question that makes my heart speed up every time i look at it won’t tower over me anymore. maybe i’ll become even bigger and stronger, and asking what i want to be remembered for will be as trivial as my birthday or my favorite color.

but until then, i have to sit on the question like the big chairs and think about it. what do i want to be remembered for? do i want to be remembered for one of the many facets of my personality? do i want to be remembered for my wit or my sense of humor? or do i want to be remembered for the aesthetics? do i want people to remember my laugh or my sense of style? or do i want to be remembered for my accomplishments? do i want to be remembered for the impact the books i hope to write will have on the world or the way my poetry moved people?

i don’t know what i want to be remembered for quite yet, and i don’t know what version of me is going to be remembered when there’s no me to be memorable anymore. maybe 15-year-old me is the me remembered by friends i made at art camp. maybe 18-year-old me will be the me remembered by the msa class of 2020. maybe 30-something-year-old me will be remembered by the people who read my books.

who i want to be and who i am now are two sides of the same coin, but i’m learning to let the space between them inspire me, not terrify me.

 

My name is silence,

Lost in the words you cared not to remember,

It is not a bad thing to forget,

Just remember my words,

Let my words soothe your heart,

Let them boil blood and start riots,

Let my words bring tears to the eyes of the heartless,

Let them crash into the wall of the close minded like wrecking balls into building,

My words are to be heard like the battle-cries of victorious armies,

They are not to collect dust on bookshelves left untended and forgotten,

I care not if my name is written in the history books we give our children,

But let my words take hold in your mind,

Let them feed off your emotions,

Give them a meaning only you can understand,

For these words are no longer mine,

They are yours

Lost Dimensions of You

The doctor recommends at least an hour of sunlight a day.
They say that it may have prevented what happened to you.
But they’re just guessing.
You were outside from dawn to dusk all your life,
Soaking in the light.
Darkness still overtook.
A picked wildflower.
Falling petals, you are losing dimensions.
You used to glow and grow,
Until those clammy hands caressed your lovely stem,
Sending a vine up your spine,
Draining your light.
You began to struggle,
Reaching for help with thorns extended.

Daily tasks became too much.
So you sank into the couch like a void,
Hating me more every time I left.
I know you live in agony,
But I shouldn’t have had to hold your hand
Just so you wouldn’t end your life.
I shouldn’t have had to be called names,
Shoved against the wall,
Spit on my face from your screeching.
Just for not finishing my Zucchini.
And I can remember the seven times I ran away from home–
No. The house.
And you told me to go to Hell the eighth time.
So I obeyed and I stayed.
And my feet still ache
From the egg shells I stepped on trying to please you,
The eggs you shattered.

You were supposed to be taking care of me.
I held you,
A flower wilting in my arms.
You always seemed to vie for my tears,
Hungrily guzzling them down,
But they never could hydrate you into the flower you once were.
And you pulled me close,
Melting me against your chest with the fire of your toxicity.
Tears to steam,
Rosy skin to scales,
Kind heart morphing,
Mixing and swirling together in brutal ways.
And for years, we were one in the same.

But who are you? I don’t feel like I know you.
They tell me you were great before it happened.
A wildflower, swaying in the wind,
Moving and grooving to your very own song.
But the vine fed on your brain,
And you slipped and slid from this dimension.
I could see you still, but you were not you.
As a young child, I remember you were two dimensional.
You were like a painting,
Though I don’t think a painting stings like that did,
An abrasive slap across the face.
And you have since become even less.

And anyone else would think you are just fine at first glance,
But I can see you glowing at the edges,
The outline of your body shaking,
As if your atoms are unbounded–
A bomb.
You always erupted cataclysmically so,
And your atoms swung like knives.
But you never did quite get all of them back.
Part of a person,
You have been seen again,
But never known.

And Mom–
Mom, I think I miss you.
I think I miss someone I never really met,
Someone I would have been proud to know.
And Mom–
I love you.
I love you when I see your mother in the reflection of your glassy eyes,
A woman who was so overtaken with the vine herself,
That she could not hold a conversation.
I love you even when you explode with fury,
And especially when you’re happy, almost a whole person,
Wonderful and bright!
When you’re funny, creative, ambitious, and you really like puns.

And I’m sorry I said all those mean things about you earlier,
You’re so strong,
The least I can do is dodge a plate and not complain.
At least you made zuchinni.
Please let me hold your head as you cry.
I’m sorry I left home.
I’ll come back.
I’ll be just like you again if that will make you happy.
I’m sorry
I’m so sorry.
Please forgive me.
Smash my head against the door
If it makes you feel better.

And I’m smothered in the shadow of the vine millions fed,
As it looms over me.
For multiple sclerosis
Is a genetic disease.

I have found that when I look at my past self. We don’t have much in common.

People who saw her saw only a toy.  Something to be played with.  Unsolicited, sexist, and vulgar comments they’d spit.  The cringiest things.

People who associated themselves with her called her ghetto, as if ghetto were an adjective.

The few people who thought they knew her, thought she was so strong, so tough.  They thought nothing ever truly got to her.  Never was she shook; or, so they thought.

But they never really knew the true me.  She had a sense of self.  She knew her emotions, and they were strong.  She had confidence, pride, and passion. She was headstrong but open-minded.  She knew where she belonged and where she could make herself a place to be.  She could make anyplace her home.

That girl was intimidating. She would step right up to the tallest boy in school and knock out his two front teeth despite the fact she’d have to find some sort of way to reach his mouth.

That was the old me; brave, sure, always standing tall.  Or perhaps I had myself fooled, because now, I’ve been put in a new situation; a harmless environment where I feel safe for the most part.  And now I am unsure.  I am not brave.  I’m quite scared, because I don’t know where I’m headed or who I am.  My head is not on my shoulders because my shoulders are already heavily burdened.  So I tend to lose it from time to time.  But that’s okay.  I will grow into myself; filling that mysterious gap in my personality.

My head will instead floats above the clouds and I will find myself never where I need to be, but I will not care.  I will be perplexed.  I will be ignorant to all my problems until I trip, slicing my knees on the concrete.  I will not feel it.  No, I will not numb in a angsty art-kid way.  No, I will be  numb because I choose to wipe off the blood and push the pain off into the grass.

Now I will never be sure.  I shall go with the flow.  I’ll roll with it.  I’ll try not to overthink things much.  I will strive to become impulsive.  I’ll have never been so ecstatic to make mistakes.  Of course, there are consequences.  However,  I shall continue this way because I am exploring.  I am finding myself.

 

I wrote this after going to a department store with my friend.  I imagined if each finger had a personality, and then based the character off of someone that is like someone I used to know.

Multicolored fingernails.

Lori walks into a department store.

She picks the colors that fit her liking.

She leaves.

Free of charge,

Free of consequences.

Left hand.  Dominant.

The sparkly yellow thumb.

She politely asks wild lovebug if he wants a ride.

He accepts, wildly exploring,

Finding comfort in the faded cigarette burn.

Soon fades into the wind.

The orange pointer finger.

She clashes with yellow.

Lori kind of likes it that way.

Visible vein runs through,

Tromping through her wildflowers of flesh.

Vein knows it’s a dead end,

It just enjoys the journey.

The glittered pink middle finger.

Tainted with the blood of rage.

He dances in the limelight often,

Solos of passion.

He doesn’t care if no one claps.

He performs for himself.

Uncolored ring finger

Stop defining him with an accessory,

Don’t try to suffocate him with a ring.

He’s a rebel,

Wearing no color,

For Lori could not find a fitting one she liked.

He glides through the fresh spray paint on the train.

The mess is nice.

Black pinkie finger.

She’s subtly backed by ever color,

Glimmering in the light.

She’s just a tad bit crooked.

She digs into Mom’s Thanksgiving mashed potatoes,

Bold and mocking.

Taken out of the mouth with a loud pop.

Right hand.  Lesser dominant, but still.

Iridescent thumb,

Swirled with greens, blues, purples in a galaxy.

He strokes the knob of the telescope

As Lori tries to look for something bigger than this,

Trying to delve past her own layers.

But she looks at the stars

With differently colored fingernails,

So that must mean she’s deep.

Slimy green pointer finger,

What a devil she is,

For she caresses Anya,

Dragging from the blush on her cheeks

To her sensitive thigh, riddled with goosebumps.

All the while, apathetic.

She knows Lori has a date with another in an hour.

Nevertheless, she rakes and pillages Anya’s love.

Purple middle finger,

They don’t want to be gendered.

Please use the correct pronouns.

They’re quite sweet,

But quite wild,

Stroking the volume to the radio

With a startling intensity.

Sparkly orange ring finger,

She’s soft and lonely,

Tired of being forgotten,

Misnamed after her twin.

She traces the words to the bible

As Lori’s tears fall softly upon it,

Remembering the home which she rebelled from.

Pale blue pinkie.

He’s a little funny,

A little mess of polish on the top.

A scar adorns his side

From the snap of trying to tune a piano string,

The memory of eight years of le—

chop.

Lori is interrupted from admiring her fingers.

She regrets not paying the candy man on time

But the cocaine just paired so well with breakfast,

Right before a bite of toast

With a little jam.

The song goes like this:
I thought I saw the devil/This morning/Looking in the mirror, drop of rum on my tongue/With the warning/To help me see myself clearer
I never meant to start a fire/I never meant to make you bleed/I’ll be a better man today/I’ll be good, I’ll be good/And I’ll love the world, like I should/Yeah, I’ll be good, I’ll be good/For all of the time/That I never could/My past has tasted bitter/For years now/So I wield an iron fist/Grace is just weakness/Or so I’ve/been told/I’ve been cold, I’ve been merciless/But the blood on my hands/scares me to death/Maybe I’m waking up today/I’ll be good, I’ll be good
And I’ll love the world, like I should/I’ll be good, I’ll be good/I’ll be good, I’ll be good/For all of the light that I shut out/For all of the innocent things that/doubt/For all of the bruises I’ve caused and the tears/For all of the things/that I’ve done all these years/And all/Yeah, for all of the sparks that I stomped out/For all of the perfect things that I doubt/I’ll be good, I’ll be good
And I’ll love the world, like I should/Yeah, I’ll be good, I’ll be good
For all of the times/I never could, oh, oh-oh/Oh, oh
Oh, oh-oh/For all of the times I never could
All of the times I never could

Yes, these are simple lyrics, created for the purpose of being put to music and sung; however, I like the lyrics in poem format. My take on the song is simple and cuts deep into how I feel about certain ideologies and life in general. Someone sees themselves, they know themselves, and they hate what stands before them in the mirror each and every day. They want to change for the better, they want to be more for themselves and the people they love. They think to be strong you must avoid vulnerability, you have to hide your feelings and give the world a fictitious view of life. They shut out people they cared for, hurt them, hurt themselves, and they need more of the good things in life.
They need change, at least to make up for the hurt they’ve caused. This really connects with me; I would give anything to heal the people I’ve broken and reconnect with my better self, but that’s not always how things go. We just have to hope our future will be carved in light, so that we may go down a path that gives instead of receives.

 

I’ve always been a very straightforward person and sure of my actions and thoughts. There have been only a few, extremely rare occasions, where I was not sure of myself. Since 8th grade I knew that I wanted to attend Mississippi School of the Arts, and I kept this mindset up until a few months before I had to turn in my application. I was so very unsure of myself, I had this feeling that I wouldn’t succeed or meet my full potential here. The stress was eating me up, all the while I was encouraging my friends Telvin and Camden to complete their own applications. Can you believe that? I could push others to do what I couldn’t fathom myself. I’d already completed all the segments of the application process I needed done, I just couldn’t submit my work. I aim to win/succeed and I don’t handle rejection with grace. It’s either passive aggression or a new level in just how nonchalant I can be. I truly feared not being accepted to the school I was once so sure that I’d be attending. I had talks with many of my friends and they told me to follow my heart and pray over it, to look for a sign. I thought about it for several days and even considered the cons over the pros in the situation. I knew I wouldn’t be living near my greatest three friends and my boy friend anymore, but they all encouraged me to do what I felt what was best and to be great in life. I wanted someone to tell me not to pursue my dreams, to stay where I was and not go off to a new environment and challenge myself. I needed one, just one sign, to discourage me. I wanted so badly to stay in my comfort zone and not leave behind all my favorite people. In the end, I stopped my procrastinating and put my worries away, and that is the story of how I ended up at MSA, a junior literary.

I held a peanut in my hand.  I cracked it in half.  The fibers in the shell split from the checkerboard pattern leaving frayed edges.  I slid one half into two halves once again and I felt something break between my finger and thumb.  I removed the no longer held together shell from the meat that was within.  As I did so, it became clear that I had crushed that half of the peanut.  I poured it from one half shell into the palm of my hand where it sat in a little pile like a pile of gravel.  I put it in my mouth, lightly chewed, and swallowed.  I then used both hands to pry open the other half of the shell.  When I did so, the nut within was not damaged at all.  I held the perfect nut between my finger and thumb.  Not even the two halves of itself were separated.  I put it in my mouth and made it more like the first.  It tasted the same.  It was still nutty and slightly oily.  It tasted just like you’d expect a peanut to taste like, but so had the damaged peanut.  Why then, would I bother attempting to preserve shape of all things?  What effect has that on the overall experience or at least on the part that one partakes in the experience for?  Why do I bother questioning peanuts?  What do I think I’ll find?  What am I looking for?  Is there something I’m missing?  Is there something that someone isn’t telling me?  Is there something that I just don’t understand, but nobody realizes because it’s just such an obvious thing that everyone assumes that everyone else already knows it?  Do they see me and know that I don’t know?  Do they laugh at me?  Should I care?  Why?  Why not?  Why am I asking a peanut?  This is absurd.  I’d laugh at myself if I wasn’t myself.  I know I would because then I’d know that at least that person has one more person laughing at them behind their back than I do.  I’d be just a little bit more removed from the critical, burning eye of others that I never see but can feel glaring down on me like a white, spotlight.  Do I only pretend to not care so that I won’t feel, or is it because I think they won’t judge me if they think I don’t care?  All I know is that it is not because I do not truly care because I know that I do.  I care so undeniably much regardless of what I tell myself.  I can hate myself for it, but that doesn’t change just how much I care about how others see me.  I take a breath.  I eat another peanut.  Am I just a peanut?  Is life me?  Did life uncaringly rip me from my shell and into the world turning me into a pile of peanut gravel?  Did life carefully remove my shell leaving me whole to enter the world?  Both wound up the same way at the end of the day.  Would he?  Was there any meaning in the peanut at all, or was I wasting my time looking?

Excuses are often paid where expectations are due, and we all know there are always expectations.  Not have I been in a situation where there were none from either myself of another being.  However, we all should also acknowledge that we don’t always measure up to those set expectations.  So, from time to time we make up excuses hoping some weight will be lifted off of our shoulders.  Not to say this doesn’t happen, but our excuses are not always accepted.

With my luck, excuses rarely work, even if they are true.  You didn’t know for sure if you were supposed to do that?  The teacher didn’t clarify?  You should’ve asked.  You have a mouth and a mind.  You could’ve asked.  And still, sometimes you have legitimate excuses.  They don’t work, but this is just how it is sometimes.  So, try as hard as you can as much as you can to reach the expectations you wish to meet.

I remember, in 7th grade, I had a rather grouchy English teacher. When I say grouchy, I mean grouchier than the Grouch off of Sesame Street. So one day, she had assigned homework, but by the time I got home, I had forgotten which pages she’d assigned. So, I did all of them. There were six pages to do if I wanted to ensure that I did not get a zero for my homework grade. Outside, I could hear joyous screams and continuous laughter radiating from my sisters, but I knew deep down that I cared more about that grade, and so did my mom.

I ended up completing all my homework by the time my sisters came in, which I thought was great timing considering how hard the work was. When I walked in class the next day, Mrs. Grouch asked for all six papers. My jaw went slack. I had done all of them just in case, and all of them were complete.  I was proud of myself.  I had finally got that much deserved 100.

This can come as a lesson to others. If your not sure, do everything you can think of to make sure. I know you may hear this all the time, but it’s better be safe than sorry. Do not make up excuses because they will not be valid even true–especially if you are reporting to someone like Mrs. Grouch or even your own self.