Category: Junior Literary

In what ways do you think Thanksgiving will be different 50 years in the future? Think about all the aspects from traditionalism to commercialism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN9Tjp5bRfI

First and foremost, Thanksgiving is a lie! It’s built on the death of native americans, along with thievery of the Pilgrims.  It’s an over glorified holiday and shouldn’t even exist.

Now I say all of this to say, “I’m still gonna eat though.”

Thanksgiving is seen as a very intimate family event that brings loved ones close together. It provides bonding time for both distant and direct family members.

It is a time to celebrate family, closeness, good harvest, and the ever so evident: What we as people are most thankful for. Families come together around the world and enjoy each other’s company. What could possibly be better?

Coming from a personal point of view, in my household, Thanksgiving is a greatly celebrated. Not for other reasons (such as those pertaining to American beliefs that America is rightfully theirs), but to invest ourselves in family time and even better, the food!

You can usually find all the best foods in my kitchen. Collard greens, yams, corn, honey baked ham(because turkey is disgusting), dressing, and whatever else you can imagine. The cooking gives my granny and mom to bond, and me a chance to taste test all the food!

From what i’ve seen from the past five years though, is that families seem to spend less time together on this Holiday. Teenagers and young adults are now out and partying the whole break away and the secluding themselves because of judgmental family members. As well as parents who seem to have tried too hard, but then gave up. Families are falling apart because of the lack of spirits!

Not only that, but many households don’t even do their own cooking anymore! The world is simply too giving these days. It’s so easy for someone to pick up their phone and call whoever they need to cook anything for a reasonable price! I’ve even seen my own family members do it. I partially understand their reasoning( and i’m also happy that we’re keeping black owned businesses, IN BUSINESS) but I also feels as if the food lacks something without actually being made with love.

Also, families seem to focus too much on looking their very best. At a point is crosses from making sure you look presentable, to narcissism. This often creates competition within the family, also creating problems! If we can get rid of petty, materialistic ideas like this, we would be better off for it.

Traditions seem to be running thin as well, even at the dinner table. Instead of blessing the food as the day is most definitely has some law for that, people dig straight in! That’s completely unfair to the cook, the food, and whatever higher being you choose to believe in.

As the day is named “Thanksgiving“, let’s give thanks to our food!!!!!

Not only our food, but our loved ones and for the things we have, are given, and will receive in the future.

Within the next 50 years I can guarantee that Thanksgiving will have fallen, in fact it will probably be renamed. As family values decrease, so does the spirit, and the holiday diminishes.

Producers of goods also target people who both do and don’t celebrate the day. And with the increasing need to order more and more food every year, more money will be filling the pockets of cooks and mass producers everywhere. Inevitably, putting commercialism further on the rise and sucking tradition and fun out of a family event.

 

My hands are stained last night blues.  I held the sky in the palm of my hand; did you notice?

Did you notice the sky disappear?  Maybe your roommate choked a bit in their snoring or the light from the window disappeared.

But what was I supposed to do with the sky?  I let it soak into my skin, and it hurt, and it wasn’t at all dreamy.  The clouds burned, twisting and tying my tiny little knuckle hairs together just to be mean.

So I let it go.  But as it bounded out, eager and free, I stretched with it.  All of the sudden I was the sky, blue and wide, and I thought if my mother was looking out of her window now then she’d probably tell me to start eating better.

The moon was angry I blocked his light.  He came to rest into my belly button so he could be seen, making sure to jab an elbow at me.  He was burning hot, and my skin melted as tiny droplets of rain.

The sun felt left out.  I said, wait your turn.

Why?  She asked.  The moon is constantly showing during my time; why not I during his?

I think about telling her that this is the way of the world, perhaps making it about the patriarchy.  No, I decided.

You have to want it, I say.  Find your place, it will not be given to you.  Be strong, be loud.  Shoot your rays, burn my skin, and do not apologize.

I will hurt you, she said.

Do you think yourself better than the moon because you think of me? Because you care for my pain?  Because you have not dug between the lint in my belly button?  I ask.

She hesitates.  I know her answer.

That is more selfish than any moon on any planet, I tell her.

What if I speak and no one hears me?  She asks.  What if I dig into your belly button and you swallow me whole?

Silly, I think.  I’m so tiny, just a human.  But right now I am the sky, and the sun is afraid of me.  She quakes for no reason because she fears everything bigger than she.

What if the world has no glow?  I counter.

She cautiously steps forward, and I make a spot for her in the circle of my lips.  She is so frighteningly cold..  The fog of my breath turns into clouds, lined with my spit that has become icicles.

I return to Earth.  The only evidence of the event is my blue hair, chapped lips, and a really weird belly button.

Today, at 5 o’clock in the morning, I got up and used the bathroom.  Shortly after, I noticed I was bleeding.  No, not a cut on my leg, or a scratch on my arm.  No, I was bleeding elsewhere, the start of a painful (period) of dropping to the floor and curling into a tight ball.

Can I just stress on how much I hate my period?  Or, should I lie to everybody, including myself, and say that this is a blissful time of shedding of old and creating of new.  That everything is green and bright.  No.  Everything is red, from the round splotchy red on your face to the oozing thick burgundy in your underwear.  Take that anyway you wish.  I choose to take it as a token by war.  You collect many as a woman.  All the past uterus widowing you to menopause.  Oh, when the men pause, because you’re no longer a youthful widow.  You are now too old.  But, at least after a couple years of hating everyone and everything, you can relish in your wisdom and forgive all those past widowers.

But for me, I’m still gathering tokens.  Boy, do they weigh a ton.  Maybe that’s the reason for the pain in my back.  Or.  Is .  It.  Just.  My.  Period?

 

Often I realize that the people here with me now, will not be with me forever. The people who I will grow to be friends with. The ones I will create inside jokes with. I will spend countless hours working on Coffee Houses and creating poems with these people only for the memory of our friendships to dissipate.

We will probably have movie nights together and go on Literary Trips. We may spend late nights together studying for science tests or choral reading our writing texts books. But are we truly friends? Can we truly be friends if we can so quickly forget each other?

Maybe we will keep in touch after our graduation. Maybe we will all go out to each at Golden China and go thrifting like we did for our first of many Literary Trips. Maybe we all will tell stories and relive our high school years together.

Or maybe we will forget the two years we spent together. Maybe we will forget to tell our children the stories from our years together. Maybe we won’t return for our Reunions.

Who can really tell where things will end for us?

city with no children // arcade fire

there were never very many kids in my neighborhood.

there was the girl who lived down the street. the first friend i made in a new town and the first one i lost in a new town before they moved out of the neighborhood. we used to listen to the beatles on the bus together and ride our bikes around the neighborhood. in fifth grade, we’d even tried to write a book together about what it would be like to be in middle school. her way of telling me we weren’t friends anymore was to write about it and let me read it in our book. i threw every single handcrafted page in the trash.

there was the family next door who had a three year old little girl. i used to watch her learn how to ride a bike while her dad trailed behind her on the sidewalk and in the car-crowded street. one day, her mom’s car wasn’t in the driveway anymore and she was gone, too. the next day, her dad’s car wasn’t in the driveway anymore either.

there was the five year old girl across the street with a baby brother i taught how to fist-bump. i watched them as their parents finally got married and the baby brother learned to walk and she was starting elementary school. i remember watching their dad pull out of the driveway one night, and his tires never touched it again. the mom used to sit outside the garage and smoke at night, and i watched as the garage became emptier and emptier until there wasn’t even a car parked out front.

there was family who moved in a little later was a daughter that was closer to my age and her two younger brothers, one five and another just one. i used go over to their house across the street all the time, watching as the four year old collected rocks and bugs and as the baby learned to walk and talk, and we found out their cousins did theatre with me and my brother.  we never saw each other very much before the whole family moved to georgia for their dad’s work.

there was the kid who lived behind us who was in my brother’s grade. before we had a fence that divided our two yards, my brother used to walk through the backyards and spent the nigh. and sometimes the three of us would walk around the neighborhood and look for cool rocks until he stopped talking to my brother. i don’t know if he still lives behind us or not, and neither i nor my brother have tried to find out.

everyone around me could recall suburban nights when they were kids, stories of riding bikes around their big spaceous neighborhoods or hanging out at each other’s houses when they were younger. even as we all got older, they could reminisce about being little kids in suburbia and get that little kid glint in their eye with that little kid smirk.

i never had the big spaceous neighborhoods. i never had the little kid glint or the little kid smirk or the little kid friends that never moved away and took my blooming blossoms of suburbia with them.

 

Sometimes I think about my future.  I know that I will try to be a writer, but I also know that what I write is not what has been traditionally popular.  I’m afraid that I’ll try to be a writer but will never be successful because of what I write about.  My favorite band is probably the Beach Boys, and my favorite album of theirs is Pet Sounds.  Pet Sounds is a near masterpiece, and I love every song on it.  Critics have said from its release that the album was incredible.  Despite being called nearly perfect, it sold far less than Brian Wilson had hoped.  One reason for this is that the music was entirely different from anything that had come before it; it was even vastly different from the other music the Beach Boys had previously made.  I feel like that might be what happens with me, but I won’t even be called great by few and retrospectively called a genius.  I feel like I’ll just be buried.  I know for a fact that I cannot change who I am as an artist.  I know that I will never sacrifice my artistic integrity for money.  My art is what is most important to me.  If I had money, I’d use it to fund my art.  I would not make art that does not represent myself to just to get money that I’d spend to continuously make things that I don’t care about.  I know that this is not the kind of philosophy that someone that wants to be a successful writer in this time should have, but I cannot change that about myself because it is so much of who I am as a person.  Maybe I’m lying to myself.  Maybe I’m making art that I know won’t be popular on purpose.  Maybe I’m building a wall.  Maybe I just want to be able to say, “Oh, that was never supposed to be popular,” so that when my art never becomes popular, I can have something to blame it on, so I won’t have to take responsibility or say that I failed to make something good.  I’ve been depressed lately, and I don’t really know why.  I’ve just gotten to a point where if I were somebody else and I met myself, I don’t think I’d like me.  I don’t know how to change this person that I am or if I should or if I just don’t want to.

Here’s a list of some of my favorite animes!!

Rosario + Vampire is literally one of my favorites! It’s probably one of the best out of all that i’ve watched.

The description is as follows:  . The story revolves around Tsukune Aono, a boy who inadvertently enrolls in a boarding school for monsters. He quickly befriends Moka Akashiya, a vampire who soon develops an obsession with his blood, and later meets other monster girls who soon take a romantic liking to him.

• Moka Akashiya is the vampire title character. She is highly regarded by her schoolmates for her beauty and academic ability. She enjoys biting and drinking blood from Tsukune’s neck. When her rosario is removed from her necklace, she undergoes a personality change (along with a physical transformation sequence in the anime) to a ruthless, arrogant and skilled martial artist who easily beats opponents with powerful kicks.
• Kurumu Kurono is a busty succubus student who originally plans to enslave all the boys at school with her kiss. Overshadowed by Moka’s popularity, she targets Moka’s object of affection, Tsukune, by using her charm ability but fails. After Moka defeats her, she falls in love with Tsukune because he shows her kindness, and pursues him exclusively as her Mate of Fate. Over the course of the series, she learns to value her friendship with Moka and the other girls when they help her out in situations.
• Yukari Sendou is introduced as an 11-year-old genius witch, complete with witch hat and heart-shaped magic wand, with a “little sister” personality. She scores at the top of her class, but is ridiculed by her classmates for being between monster and human. She idolizes Moka, and initially hates Tsukune for garnering Moka’s attention. However, after both Tsukune and Moka save her, she falls for Tsukune and dreams of a three-way relationship with them.
• Mizore Shirayuki  snow fairy who joins Tsukune’s class in the second term. She is typically seen with a lollipop in her mouth, which is actually a special coolant. In her first school term, she confesses her love to gym teacher Okuto Kotsubo, but when he takes advantage of her, she freezes him and gets suspended for the term. She obsesses over Tsukune because of his news articles, and stalks him regularly, eventually joining the Newspaper Club in her second year.

It obviously sounds interesting, if not a little odd. My favorite characters would be Mizore and Moka, they’re complete opposites of each other and they keep the show rolling. I really don’t want to spoil it for you, so please just watch. 8/10 https://www.funimation.com/shows/rosario-vampire/

 

My name is not mine to claim.

It is a thing given to me – forced upon me.

It is something I have absolutely loathed my entire life and wished that I could change since I was eight.

It is a thing of strain, of distress and discomfort.

My name is a broken record that somehow still manages to play through my parents’, my other family and people I know’s mouths,

despite its cracks, tears, the missing pieces and the fact that it was lost many years ago.

It is a thing that is supposed to be a part of me,

and yet, I cannot help but feel that no one around really cares to listen

and notice how I close my eyes, grit my teeth and flinch when they say that name –

how every time I am forced to say that name, my tongue feels grimy, my teeth clamp down on it and my stomach twists with nausea.

It pierces my insides and forces me to hear my parents saying it, when it knows I crave it to be gone and that we could all just forget about it;

I wish it could be seen that I am sick inside, the name having gotten into my system so many years ago,

infecting me with its contents that would make any human being feel unwell.

Brewing inside of me for so long that my body has become its permanent home,

the cancerous cells inside of my mind and my soul –

the very bane of my existence –

have been tormented for so long that I know no else besides this pain I feel from the abyss of hurt and suffocation.

It is a demanding, horrendous nuisance that will forever remain in its home that it has buried and settled itself into.

It will be there until I drop –

until my heart stops, my mouth no longer inhales or exhales, and my pulse is moving as steadily as the staircase I walk down every day.

My name is something that will forever stay with me, no matter where I go, who I meet or what I do.

It will always be there, lingering, screaming yet whispering itself to me:

Taylor.

Waiting:

Is this a joke,

being played to me, by me?

There’s no crack or split, no lighting

No skin shredding winds

No stillness, there is still moment

No disaster warning

because there is no disaster

Just life being life

And people doing things people do

There is nothing, there isn’t anything

but still something

sticky

dropping down with a purpose

Down my body,  and into my chest

It sits there for maybe a week

Maybe, but not at all

it can’t burst

it doesn’t rupture

just bubbles up

And goes back down

Throughout out the day

but it feels necessary

in a familiar type of way

It keeps my insides intact,

Even though it weighs me down

It might just be my head

gaining its feelings back

By giving me a numbness

That burns behind my eyes

I wrote this poem because I was hella depressed, and felt really bad about life and everything. I truly just wanted to crawl up in a ball and never wake up again. I know this isn’t something new ever teenager gets likes this but honestly, it was pretty bad this time around. I try my best no to make poetry when I’m sad because it seems like I’m trying to get something out of it. When in actuality no one ever sees my secret poetry collection of sad things. No, that it actually exists or anything. Haha…, Anyway this one is very recent I wrote it in a tent out behind “JI” because I really didn’t know what else I could have done. If it seems confusing it’s because it is. My emotions were everywhere at that point and trying to talk to people about it seemed like too much of a bother. I just let myself think and let it flow out.  Which I suppose that could be the best way to write poetry, by letting yourself word vomit. I mean, I don’t know if any of you guys actually do that or not, but I just find it interesting how I can only do that when I’m in some type of mood extreme. Whether it be happy or severely depressed. Just one of those random out of nowhere traits you figure out, like juggling while you left pinky toe rests in a vat of hot cheese. I’m not saying I can do that or anything, but I know one of might be able to if you give it a try. Like honestly if any of you can actually do that I will pay to see it, that seems pretty cool.  Anyways’s if you finished this blog post look up “BTS” they are a really cool K-pop band that helps me a lot when I’m feeling sad. Peace