Non-Fiction

I am five.

My mom and grandma rush to get me to my first day of preschool. We are about to go out the door when my mom shouts, “Wait! Ali your hair!”
“Do we have to brush it out?” I complain. I hate brushing my hair because I twist it into intricate little knots that are later impossible to brush out. I know that it will hurt.
“Yes,” says my mom, mimicking my whiny tone. “Let’s go.”
“Fine!”  I say. We walk to the bathroom, and I hop on the counter. She holds the black handle of the brush and starts to untangle the knots. One by one, she unties each of them ever so carefully, trying to be gentle.
“Ouch!” I yelp.
“Sorry,” mom says unconvincingly. “Beauty is pain, darling, get used to it.” I ponder this statement as she braids my dark brown hair down my back.
“Ready to go?” she asks me.
“Yeah” I say.
I get to school just in time before everyone goes down to the preschool room.
“I love you, sweetheart,” mom says.
“I love you too”, I say back. She stands there staring at me lovingly,
but all I say is, “You can go now, you know.”
“Oh, sorry. Ok bye.” she says with a smile. I watch her leave, turning quickly just before her tears spill over her eyes. She waves me goodbye again, blows a kiss and gets in the car with my grandma.

I am six.

I hop in the car with my younger sister and my mom, excited that she is picking us up for once.
“Look what I got!” mom says in a singsong tone.
“What?” I ask.
“A stepping stone we can paint ourselves!” she answers. I stare at the bright yellow and blue box and the picture of the contents. I love to do crafts with my mom. I am so excited to get home and paint.
“Yay!” I say cheerfully.
We pull into the driveway and I jump out of the car. I race my sister to the door, swing it open, and fling my backpack on the couch. We walk to my little bedroom, sit on the bed, and open the box. Inside are the instructions, paint, and a plain white stone begging to have color. The stone has a butterfly, a flower, and a ladybug carved in it.
“Can I paint the ladybug? Please—,”I beg.
“Okay, I’ll paint the butterfly,” my mom says.
“I’ll paint the flower!” my sister says, trying to be part of the project. I paint the ladybug very carefully, making sure I don’t mess up. I decide on a red body with purple spots. My mom’s butterfly looks amazing, as always and, well, I can’t say the same about my sister’s flower. But, it is our creation, and it is perfect to us. When we finish painting, we let it dry, flip it over, and sign our names.
“This looks great girls. Let’s go put it outside” Mom suggests.
“Okay,” my sister and I say together. We walk outside in the dark and place our little creation gently beside the sidewalk in the grass.
“Good job, girls, it’s beautiful,” my mom says.

I am seven.

I walk outside in the damp grass. It is 9:00 A.M., way too early for me. I crawl into the car and buckle up. The leather of the seat is freezing, and I am trying my best not to make contact with it, which is failing miserably. I finally give up and slump down in my seat.
“I’m cold and tired!” I complain.
“I know. You can go back to sleep when we get back from the store,” mom says.
“Ugh!” I moan. We sit in silence for about five minutes until my mom asks me to put a disc in the slot. I do and it starts to play. She sings along with the words of the music perfectly. I sit there staring at her. I start to hum the tune and then I’m singing with her. When the song ends, we laugh and play the disc again and again until we make it to the store.

I am eight.

My sister, grandma, and I stand in the doorway of the living room waiting for my mom to say goodbye to us before school. She comes in and we hug.  “Have a great day girls. I love you two,” she says.
“Love you too,” we say. “Goodbye”
“See you tonight” she says, but we don’t see her that night or ever again. That is our last goodbye. My mother dies that afternoon. She is only twenty-eight years old.

I am thirteen now.

Our perfect little creation lays outside, weathered and in shambles, a mirror of my heart. A few weeks ago, my dad tells me to go clean up the mess in the yard. I walk outside under the night sky, thinking of the words my grandma said to me five years ago, “God wanted another star to be put in the sky to make the night more beautiful. God chose your mom to be that star.” I look up at you, shining brightly and I can only think of three words: I miss you.

 

Alizaya Doyle is thriteen years old and in 7th grade. She goes to St. Patrick School in Rolla, Mo. She wants to dedicate this memoir to her wonderful teacher who taught her how to write a great memoir.

“Zombie” – The Cranberries

I’m eleven and dressed in a Nightmare Before Christmas costume, and I sit, tugging at my gloves, surrounded by other eleven-year-olds in costumes. I’m not like them. They all laugh and talk and enjoy each other’s company, and I’d rather die than stay here for one more minute, except I don’t get what I want. I’m very much alive and my mom’s not getting me ‘til nine-thirty. It’s seven now and everyone is playing Truth or Dare. I pray nobody calls on me, but God makes sure that one girl named Kassandra does. I pick “dare” so people might think I’m cool. She tells me to kiss one of my best friends, and everybody “ooh’s” until I give him a nervous peck. I’m lying when I say this isn’t my first kiss. He wipes the red lipstick off his mouth and I run to the bathroom to cry because I wasted your first kiss on someone I don’t like, in a desperate effort to impress people I like even less.

 

“Backseat Serenade” – All Time Low

            I’m thirteen and at a concert for a band I used to like. I’ve been abandoned by all of my friends, and I’m hitting it off with a girl I met in line. I’m different from her. She’s tall, has long, pink hair, and is way out of my league. I’m nervous, five-foot-three, and my hands are sweaty. Even though I know little more than her name and her music taste, that’s enough for me. She’s into me, and that’s more than I can say for a lot of people. It feels better than being alone, so I stand on my tiptoes to kiss her. I’m lying when I tell my friends that I’m the type of person to make out with a near stranger at a concert. I lose my best friend Siarra that night because I’m turning into someone I’m not. She’s telling the truth when she says this. I don’t learn my lesson.

“Stay” – Rihanna ft. Mikky Ekko

            I’m fifteen and I can’t tell for sure if that’s what’s playing over the chatter of high-school dance attendees swarming around me. I’m with another girl, also tall and out of my league, and my nerves are getting the best of me. She holds my hand and looks at me with sad, helpless eyes, and I look away guiltily, apologizing for ruining the night. She’s lying when she says I’m not ruining anything. I know how much she loves to dance, and I’m stuck here wallowing in self-doubt. She’s quiet for a moment, and then she breaks the silence by asking if she can kiss me. I’m lying when I tell her I’m okay with it, and when I convince myself that the last time I kiss her a year later really will be the last. I know this isn’t going to work.

 

“Just for Now” – Imogen Heap

            I’m sixteen and it’s just after Christmas break. I arrive at school and find her waiting for me, box in hand. She hands it to me and we don’t talk about what’s happening. We both knew this was coming anyway. She apologizes and I reach for the door. I hesitate, turning to look back at her. I’m lying when I tell myself I don’t want to kiss her goodbye. I punish myself for ruining our relationship by not doing it.

 

“Arabella” – Arctic Monkeys

            I’m sixteen and a narcissist. I’m alone in my room, applying makeup even though it’s the middle of the night and I’m not sneaking out to go anywhere. I’m lying to myself by pretending to admire my reflection; instead, I scrutinize every detail of my appearance endlessly. I cry, and the makeup smears. I kiss the mirror and slam my fist into the glass. I’m lying when I say “Pain is beauty” as I pluck the lipstick-coated shards from my hand.

“Ivy” – Frank Ocean

            I’m seventeen and the loneliest I’ve ever been. Siarra isn’t the only one who’s left me; all of my friends tell me that I’ve changed, that I’m not the person they used to know. I sit in a stairwell by myself and scroll mindlessly through the photos on my phone. I come across something a friend sent me a few months back: a photo from Halloween in 2012. I’m dressed in a Nightmare Before Christmas costume and surrounded by people who genuinely liked me for me, not just for the person I convinced them I was. I’d never been kissed.

“It’s quite alright to hate me now,” Frank Ocean sings.

I’m telling the truth when I say that I hate me now. But it’s quite alright. I finally learn my lesson from all of this. I go home that evening and remove the makeup, the clothes, and the facade I’d put up for years. I delete the phone numbers of those old flames, and I come across Siarra’s number. When I call, she doesn’t pick up. I leave a voicemail, telling her that I’m sorry for everything that happened that night at the concert. I never hear from her again, but I do see her the next day when she comes through the drive-through at work. She knows who I am; I can see our history in her eyes when she looks at me. But she says nothing. She grabs her frappuccino and drives away. Somehow, I am okay with this. I don’t spend my break crying over the fact that I’ve been ignored. I don’t dwell on the years of time spent together, or the way it all fell apart. I hand her her drink and that’s that, and I am okay.

“We will never be those kids again.”

 

Bec Kashuba is a writer and coffee-hating barista from Pittsburgh, PA. Her interests include dogs, calligraphy, and drag. Her least favorite song is “Margaritaville.”

Thank you, mangoes: thank you for long summers spent with remnants of yellow stuck like plaster all around my mouth, like rusted ring-lines around a bathtub. Thanks for coating my fingers with the same sweet, sticky chrome tint that I promised my grandmother I would wash straight away, but I never obeyed because the bathroom was oh so far. Thanks for being the first streak of paint on Nani’s immaculate, white canvas of a carpet that had been laid down only two months ago. But it’s no big deal because they replaced all the carpet floors with wood three years later. Thanks for cooling me down in the sweltering summers when the box fan’s breeze was not frigid enough, so my tongue playfully immersed itself in the refreshing wake of your juicy liquid that oozed between my teeth and coated the insides of my throat. At eight year’s old, my cousin and I would be content with sitting idly in front of the box fan, transfixed by the monotonous rotation of the blades as we ingested every inch of your surface right down to the peel. Unscrupulously, we cast the bowls off to the side as we proceeded to amuse ourselves by talking into the fan to make our voices sound all echo-ey. But Nani always selflessly cleaned up our messes for us; well, I guess except for the time I stained the carpet because some messes just can’t be undone. Thank you, mangoes, for teaching me alongside Nani that what’s on the inside matters more because the first time I ever met you I defiantly shook my head in disgust. To me, you looked like what the awkward result would be if a potato and an apple had a baby. You were a weird shape; you were not quite circular or ovular, and your color was if a second grader hadn’t yet finished blending their paint stripes together. Despite my protests, Nani bribed me to try you in exchange for a lollipop, and by the time I had polished you off, I didn’t even want that lollipop. Thank you, mangoes, for becoming my comfort food and my go-to midnight snack. I’d choose you over a pizza any day. I love to bask in your sweetness, and I love your psychedelic yellows that hide beneath your obscure, outward appearance. Thank you, mangoes for providing a distraction when my cousins and I had to wait in the hospital lobby on Christmas Eve as Mom and Dad left us. “It’ll be fine,” they said. That was a lie. Thank you, mangoes for helping me reminisce the good times, the bad times, all the other times in between. But most of all, thank you, mangoes, for reminding me of her.

 

 

Sofia Bajwa is a high school student, and her work has appeared in a small amount of anthologies by students. She is an emerging writer who also claims to be a DIY guru, chocolate enthusiast, and professional Netflix binge watcher!

 

Often I wish that I could just  lie down. But not on my bed. The zebra-striped blanket or the pillowcase that should’ve been replaced years ago or the mattress that feels only slightly softer than concrete will not satisfy my needs.

Maybe the couch will work, perhaps for just a day, or an evening, or an hour. Maybe just three minutes of my back against the sharpie-stained fabric that’s been torn apart by years of curious cats and my pretending to be a Jedi, will fix me up. No. It won’t work. It can’t. The couch is too cold and I know that dad would never let me have the blanket. You’d think he’d buy another one. I saw them on sale at Ikea the other day.

I think maybe the floor will have to do. The carpet is better than the hard wood. The cat barf doesn’t smell too bad, right? Maybe if I turn and  lie on my stomach,and shut my eyes and pretend I’m tanning somewhere in Hawaii. Or maybe Fiji. But then it’s dark and I’m in a car again and the stars are bright and I’m coming around a turn a bit too fast and two faces are lit up in the darkness,like they’re under a spotlight. Because they are, I think. But was it the moonlight or the headlights? The floor won’t do.

The grass is nice. But I’ve tried that one before and as fun as it is to watch the ladybugs dance on my fingertips and feel a breeze rush over me, I know I’m allergic. And I know that hives are no fun. And I know that the grass isn’t really where I want to lie.

I want to lie down on the page. I want to fold myself up like origami and tuck myself into the middle of some notebook or maybe a novel and feel how I felt when my mother tucked me in; like there was nothing to be afraid of. And even if there was something to be afraid of it was far away and non-threatening and not a bright red 2013 Ford C-max with the license plate 5HAR619 that was sliding around like I did the first time I went skating.

The page is all too inviting. But I’ve tried this before; I know its tricks. I know that I’m no more easily digestible when I come in the form of 12 point Times New Roman. I know that the second you try and leave a little bit of you behind, maybe just a small seeping or a little leak or maybe even just a colon or semicolon or some other bit of punctuation that the paper rejects you. Not your writing or your plot development: You. The way that Goodyear tires reject traction when they’re spun around too quickly. The way that the night sky rejects screaming by letting it fade into the black between the stars, destined to eternal hiding behind constellations.

But maybe if I just tap the page. Not lie on it. Just tap it. Like a boy seeing if the pool is too cold by lightly dropping his toes into the water. But not even that. I wouldn’t even break the surface. Just a tap.

But damn it, I don’t want to tap. I want to dive in, headfirst, like an Olympian. Forget not breaking the surface. I want to rip through, like a knife shoved into a balloon. The way being told to get over your fear of darkness,— like every time you shut your eyes you don’t see bodies and hydroplaning and screaming and crying and a police officer telling you you’re safe and that everything is okay even though the skid marks on the road and the shaking legs and crying faces say otherwise,— cuts through you.

But I know that a page is only as comforting as it is full. I know the pain of staring at blankness. The suffering and torment of knowing that any stories you may have, any poems or metaphors or characters that dance through your mind like ballerinas, will never make it to the page without a few scratches. That whatever ideas may be in your head will be trapped there forever. Like prisoners. Like a son, a mom, and three cousins trapped in a skidding middle class hybrid vehicle on a Monday night the day after Christmas— forever destined to imperfection. Like circles drawn with pencils or pens. Like humans.

 

Max Paik is a junior at Half Moon Bay High School in California. He enjoys sunsets, avocados, and traveling when he gets the chance. He also enjoys math but he likes to keep that relatively private.

 

There is always a stage in a human’s life where they question their existence. Whether you are at work, school, or however else you may be going about your day, you stop for a moment. You look over what you are doing, or repeat what you said and trail off, or maybe you say nothing at all. And you begin to stare as your mind wonders to that reoccurring question, asked throughout human history: What is the point of life? I mean, what really is the point in all this? You begin with the common solutions. Religion? Evolution? And you ponder on the thought that all this means nothing from a wider perspective. And that your life will have no impact on the universe, and at this point you become ever so quiet. Your head starts to spin, and your heart races slightly. But I want to make a change in the world, you say. Or, I do not really care, you say. Or, it is all in God’s plan, you say. And you turn your palms up, and examine every dash and curve. With those same hands you put their backs on your forehead to check for a temperature. And then you place your hands on your chest to check that your heart is still beating.

Your eyes scan the crowd of blank faces, of people you have seen, but will never know. And then you see a familiar face in the crowd, but still it is not someone you know. Just the same person that you pass every day, on your way to and from work, or in your lunch break. They decide to light a quick one a distance from their work building. You are sitting in a nearby café from your own workplace, as you watch them from the window. It is clear that they are having a stressful day. They deeply inhale, and exhale a plume of smoke. You admire their skills, as you have never smoked a day in your life. You know that smoking is not your taste, but something about it in the movies, and in the way this person is standing, makes it look somewhat cool. You check your watch and hurriedly finish the croissant and coffee that you have been enjoying. As you make your way back to your workplace, you pass the person smoking a cigarette. They turn their head to avoid catching your face, and you smile politely as you pass, acknowledging their consideration. You walk a few minutes more until you reach your destination. What you do not know is that the person smoking as you passed, caught the end of your smile, and let their gaze linger upon the back of your head a little more than necessary. You have always been told that you have a great smile, but you have never quite believed it. Once the cigarette has been put out, they quickly brush off any remaining residue, and straighten out their clothes.

 

A few towns away, a dispute can be heard. One is accusing the other of cheating, while the accused furiously denies such suggestions. Hands flail around. Their rings move in and out of the light, catch it and flash like sirens. The regret is clear on the face of the accused, and after trying to convince their partner, they sigh and blame it on the bottle. A neighbour smirks after peering through a bedroom window. They begin adjusting the buttons on their shirt, and fixing their rumpled hair. Their pulse is still racing.

In the world somewhere else, a group of children take the miles-long route to school, travelling through forests in order to learn. Their hands are a little rougher, their hearing a little sharper, and their vision is just a little clearer than their across the sea counterparts. Who knows what is waiting in the forest? Across the river, two people stand at the water’s edge, trying to catch some fish. The rumbling of their stomachs is muffled, but the hunger is clear in the longing of their eyes, and the salivating of their mouths. When one starts to become impatient, the other taps their shoulder a few times, and mutters, ‘patience’. Their bucket remains empty until the next morning.

Somewhere else people are travelling to other countries. Think of those first time flyers, the honeymooners, the experienced travellers, the escapists, the adventurists, and those people on business trips. Or they are being trafficked by the same people that promised them a job and a new life. This new life, turns into a lie. One that could cost them their life, or limbs. On a ship there is a container full of livers, kidneys, and hearts. For a second you stop and question how they could possibly be human, but before you get any deeper in, your mind changes subjects.

Moving along, someone dines in the finest of eating establishments, where they eat until their heart’s content. It has taken them years of saving in order to afford this. Course after course is served in the daintiest of portions, cooked to perfection some might say. Each mouthful leaves them longing for more, and as they ponder on the taste of the previous dish, a new one arrives. When they have finished dessert, their stomach reaches full capacity, and they fall into a kind of food coma ecstasy. Food is what they live for after all.

And as a baby is born, another life leaves this realm, and enters one unknown. And you finally realise that you have been thinking and people watching for far too long. You continue to go on your way. The answer is still unknown to your question, as you go a few more years before it crosses your mind again.

 

Lexus Ndiwe is currently a student at university, and when she is not studying or writing in class, writes outside of academia as a sort of therapy. She is fascinated by the sound and influence of words, and uses them as a bridge to try and connect with people.