In the beginning was failure And the failure was with me And a failure was me As an idiot I couldn’t read the word As a loser I couldn’t spell the word From the lashes and mental crashes To verbal bashes in my mind Telling me about challenges Telling me about tasks And how I didn’t have the knowledge to ask For no one can help me but me Because my problems are mine My issues are mine You can’t read between the lines of the book of my life The story that tells about the oldest kid that’s two years older Than the kids of his class The story of isolation in silence The story of a caged mind Caged to keep in all the secrets Keep in who I am and who I was to society To keep the thoughts at bay From telling me no one really wants to talk to you No one wants to know who you are No one cares to open the doors of your life The doors to the cage that made you less than you really are Screaming in my mind about who I really am And who am I to be The constant reminders about the struggle How one cannot simply have his way Especially if one could not pass Could not overcome And could not reach the expectations The expectations of society The expectations of my people The expectations I didn’t have for myself Forgive me for being careless And for messing up my advantage But I can’t seem to handle myself above all else Cause to me I looked good just not good enough I was a good person just not the one to call up Cause I was less in my mind Less in my heart Less in my soul But more in my spirit Cause that was me a long time ago Now I am more
FACE by Kamari Wilks
Niel (pronounced Ny-El) was your average worker; he did his job, paid his bills, etc. Unfortunately for Niel, the company he worked for, Dual Cell, was going through financial hardships. Dual Cell was forced to lay off half its employees, including Niel. Luckily for Niel, he was gifted with extraordinary analytical skills, making him capable of perfectly describing an object in complete detail, after only seeing it once. For income, he begins to do a lot of freelance work. Niel begins to help the police find missing persons, kidnappings, finding suspects, etc. He has gotten so good doing this, the police have given him the knickname “Seer.” One day, Niel gets called in by the White Walker Police Department. Niel is asked to help investigate a serial killer whose reputation has spread like wildfire. The killer is known to wear all black attire and a faceless mask. The public calls him “Face.” Niel sees this task as a great challenge: Face leaves little to no clues identifiable by the police at crime scenes. Niel himself states, “This guy is too cautious, his motive is unclear and the clues have led to nothing… yet.” For Niel and Face, this begins their long game of cat and mouse.
Like a Parasite by Shane Lowe
Like A parasite, always filling me with strife. People causing me pain, all for some personal gain. They’ll laugh because you’re small or maybe because you’re too tall. All the same, I’m not to blame: I’m as I was made, and I won’t ever fade. You ask for conformity, well that’s just not me; you cry for normality, there’s no such thing. So glare all you like, spew all your venom, I’ll never be like them, I’ll forever be strange, and when I look in the mirror, I’ll say I am me. You won’t get your high from seeing me cry. I won’t watch my back in fear of attack. You pack up to feel strong, never realizing that’s wrong. Hate me all you like, kick me if you want, I won’t take the bait. I smile in your wake, I will not shiver or quake. I have to wonder if you hear the person inside you, shedding all their tears. No I guess you can’t because you do nothing but scream with your team of villains. But it’s fine, I’ll deal with all of it in time. And maybe one day you’ll see you were really wishing you were me.
The Nameless Girl By Jacquelyn Newkirk
She caught my eye immediately. I had never been so interested in looking at someone who was the same sex as my own. She was beautiful. Most people might say otherwise due to the incredibly dark circles around her eyes – there’s no make-up allowed here, so the circles were naturally hers. I’d later find the reason for her sleep deprivation was more scarring than insomnia. But the real reason she caught my eye – her arms, what were exposed of her legs which seemed like the leftover skin that her basketball shorts couldn’t reach – they were covered in scarred over cuts. Self-inflicted. Horizontal red marks lined every centimeter of exposed skin. The very first thing I thought about her? She belongs here. Isn’t that just awful? Maybe I belonged there too. That same night – when I returned to my room – I pondered on what that meant to me. What kind of person was I to say something so definite about someone I didn’t even know yet? Mental hospitals can really drive people crazy. Especially teenagers like us. The day after she was admitted, the staff transferred her to my room. Two of the three original girls I shared the room with had been let out. She took the bed closest to mine. Well, technically she took the wooden excuse for a box spring that once held the foam mattress that was closest to mine. I watched her when she came into the room. She took off all the sheets and then lifted the mattress and leaned it against the wall. A nurse stood in the doorway asking her if she really liked sleeping on the wood like that. The girl said she did, the mattresses brought back bad memories for her. She spread out her sheets on the wood and took a seat on her new so-called bed. She and our roommate Ana got along very well. We weren’t allowed to make friends in the hospital. At least we weren’t allowed to trade numbers or contact information. I never did – breaking the rules didn’t seem worth it to me. I didn’t want to give them a reason to keep me for any longer. But that didn’t stop Ana from giving her number to the beautiful girl. At first they wrote it in toothpaste on the windowsill. But that night it rained buckets, and of course the run down hospital’s windows leaked, washing the number away. The next day, I watched her closely as she carved the phone number into her thigh with sharp, broken plastic. We weren’t allowed to do that here, but she found a way to fuel her addiction – biting and tearing the small plastic cups with her teeth. They had been given to us in the day room for water and the awful grape juice, both residing in neighboring water coolers. She used the mutilated cups to cut and scratch at her skin until it gave way. I watched. It was such a shame. Her beautiful skin, wasted. Once Ana left, the girl and I got much closer. During the down time we had to spend in our rooms everyday, we held hands and I sung to her. She would say my voice was amazing. That the song I sang was beautiful. But I wasn’t like her. I wasn’t a ward of the state. I could sleep on the mattress. I could play the nurses like a triangle. And soon enough, the day came when I left the hospital. She stood in the hallway with me, waiting for the nurse to escort me to the lower floors and then out. I gave the girl a speech I prepared. I told her that she was beautiful and that she could get better. That she could get real help there. That I wanted her to do everything she could to trust people there. That she could get out and be happy. Finally, the nurse came, and I poked my head in the day room and said goodbye to everyone else I had met there. Then I turned and gave the girl a huge hug and told her to remember what I said. She looked hurt. Thinking about her made me cry. Until I forgot her name. And now – now I can’t remember it for the life of me. In my memory, I guess she will forever be the beautiful and nameless girl.
The Unseen by Kadeidre Joseph
Angela sat there petrified she had just woken up from another gut wrenching dream. It’d been the same dream for two weeks, but each night there’s a different ending. This particular night, the dream started a little differently. Angie stood in a dark room with walls all around; she was in Daedalus’ Labyrinth. Her first thought was to keep moving straight until she could egress from the maze. This would be impossible; what Angie didn’t know was the maze worked against your brain. There were sensors all through the maze that picked up on your thoughts, so if you were planning to turn right, a big boulder or wall would block your way, forcing you to go the opposite way. As Angela ventured deeper and deeper into the labyrinth, she started to panic. She tried to turn right, then, Bam! Another wall appeared out of nowhere. She tried left, and look, there was another boulder. She was trapped, surrounded. Angie began to scream; she couldn’t take it. She felt claustrophobic and began to hyperventilate. The more she panicked, the closer the walls came together. They began to encase her. Angie’s heart palpitated. She knew she had to calm down. If not, the walls, moving closer and closer, would close in on her. She did her best to steady her breathing. Inhale – exhale – repeat. As she did this, the walls separated and continued to spread apart until all the walls in the labyrinth were gone except for the four walls forming the perimeter. Those walls looked strangely familiar. They were the walls to her bedroom, she thought. Angela looked frantically around; she was back in her bed, staring at the same unicorn wallpaper that she had for fifteen years. Frantically, Angela sat up in a cold sweat. Her eyes darted to the clock. Dang! It was 7:00 a.m., and she had overslept and missed the bus. She didn’t have time to shower if there was any hope of getting to school on time. Not the best way to start the first day of high school. As she threw on her clothes, Angie felt a strange presence around her. She couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was following her. Even as she walked to school, she felt the presence. So mid-step, Angela stopped, and just as she guessed, someone ran into her. She turned abruptly to see who it was. To Angie’s astonishment, there was nothing but empty space. “There’s no way! I felt someone bump into me.” Angie thought to herself. Even though she hadn’t seen anyone following her, she felt that eerie presence around all throughout the day. * The first week of school went by as normal as any other week would. There was one exception – that first day. Since that first day, Angie carried that eerie feeling with her. Here dreams suddenly stopped – after that first day. When she walked to school and back, there was always a cold breeze behind her, and the hairs on the back of her neck would rise. Angie grew frightened more and more each day to the point that she couldn’t eat or sleep. She prayed for the dreams to come back to occupy her mind. She didn’t want to think about the Unseens. That’s what she called them. Angie was not dumb: She knew there was someone or something following her. They must have been invisible, she reasoned, because she could never catch them. But, she sensed them. She could hear them. And, she could feel them. So, she named them the Unseens because they were always watching but never seen. The one night Angela managed to fall asleep, the same maze dream replayed in her head. This time, however, steadying her breathing didn’t stop the walls. They began to close in. As the walls began to enclose her, a breath of cool air grazed her face. A sinister voice whispered, “The Unseens have won, and now we’ve got your soul.”