Tales of Tenth Grade

It should have been home to none. The land had nothing to offer, nothing to give. It is here the days blend into weeks, blur into months, bleed into years until time ceases to have meaning, ceases to exist. Naught but the fever trees and marulas and aptly named whistling thorns may grow, albeit sparsely, their scrawny sun- darkened limbs hesitantly reaching to greet the eternal dawn. It is in this place the sand has long ago molded into a solid mass, and unforgiving and harsh it yields to none. Cracks run across its expanse, crumbling bits of sand into motes to be spun around by the fury of the wind.  Inhospitable. Here the days give rise to nothing but half-hearted winds and temperatures so sweltering they render the already harsh land all but uninhabitable. The nights offer little reprieve, the cloak of darkness masking all former signs of warmth a little too well, drawing the land into a frigid embrace. Water is even scarcer than the starved trees here, a ...

She opens her eyes every day and can't see the sunrise and sunset. Can't match her family and friends voices to their faces.  Can't read the words and numbers written on papers and signs. Can't  see all the beautiful things we take for granted.   He can't participate in gym class. Can't play on a sports team with his friends. Doesn't  walk up and down the stairs with the majority of others. Isn't able to stand up on his two feet to walk his dog or ride a bike.   She doesn't wake up in the morning and walk down stairs to a fridge full of food. She doesn't have a roof over her head. She can't sleep in a warm bed with the feeling of safety at night. He can't hear the music blasting in the car. Can't hear the people trying to talk to him and the announcements over the loud speaker. Isn't able to hear the crowd cheering for his team. Now go back and replace every bolded word with "gets to" an...

     I grew up listening to music all the time. It was never really my choice what music I listened to, instead it was my dad's. He was always playing the rock music he grew up listening to around me, so it became the music I listened to when I was a kid.      I think this is the case with a lot of kids, that they grew up listening to the music their parents like. It always seems, though, that as kids grow up, they drift away from their parent's music and start to like more current music. This was never the case for me, for the most part I still listen to the same music I grew up with.      I've never understood how everyone else so easily found conemporary music they liked. To understand why I struggle to do this, I looked back on the specific music that defined my taste in the first place. For me it is 70s progressive rock. When I was around ten-years-old, my dad used to play all the great bands of the genre like Yes , Genesis , and The M...

It was a rickety old house, nestled in a quiet neighborhood,  set back from the street.  The city was not far,  but far enough that the pedestrians walking the tree lined streets  were the same each day.  They made solemn exchanges,  nods of recognition as they passed.  A simple familiarity,  a sheltered bubble was the town,  and the house was not dissimilar from its surroundings.  The interior was relatively simple generic even, but not unpleasant.  The hallways wore a faded violet.  Foggy blue stripes lined the parlor,  a shadow of its previous owner.  At times I would sit on the stairs and stare at the stripes  until behind my eyes they faded  into the rolling hills of English moors,  where fog hung low  and the wind was brisk.  The paper covered walls did not feel like mine but the expanse of foggy planes did.  On the walls of my ...

A little girl woke up to the phone ringing downstairs. She jumped out of bed with loads of excitement because she knew what it meant- a snow day. Her hands worked to open the shades and immediately her eyes were filled with the most amazing sight. Snow covered everything outside- the ground, the roof, the trees, the road. It was the definition of a winter wonderland. She changed out of her backwards pajamas and took the spoon out from under her pillow. These superstitions for a snow day must be true!  she thought. Her little legs raced down stairs only to find no one else awake. No big deal, she would find something to do before they wake up. She pulled out a piece of paper to draw her name, Lydia, in cursive- a new thing she just learned how to do in school. She heard footsteps upstairs. Her sister, Julia, came down still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and yawning. She would make excuses to not have to go outside with Lydia- homework, sleep, chores. Lydia knew she was just too...

Doggy Diary (By Rocky the dog) November 28, 2019 (Thanksgiving) Today is the best day of the year!!!  My mom has a bunch of people visiting who like to give me food.  I'm stuffed! November 29, 2019 (Black Friday) 9:00 am : My family just woke up.  I'm excited to spend the day with them, they're usually not home on Fridays.  The only problem is today is what they call "Black Friday" so I need to wait for them to get home from the stores.  That won't take too long...then I'll have my people all weekend long!!...and I can smell snow coming so maybe Monday too! 10:30 am:  Everyone is putting things into bags.  Wait a minute...maybe they aren't shopping and we're going on a trip!  I can't wait to go somewhere - hopefully someplace warm!  This is the best Friday ever! 12:30 pm:  We're all heading out to the car, I'm so excited! 12:45 pm:  I tried to hop in the car with my family but when I jumped in they told me to get o...

Note: My aunt Ann gave me a giant box of her old poems and notebooks (most of which are intended for me to write in, as most are blank), and asked me to read her work for inspiration. She knows that I write music, and thought it might be cool to put a melody to her lyrics. Now, this box has been sitting in the corner of my room for quite some time, collecting dust, and I had the urge to read through some of her stuff, looking for inspiration for my blog post. Nothing of substance was coming to mind for my "creative writing" piece; I could write a dark poem about how I feel sometimes, or about that secret girlfriend that my parents are NOT ALLOWED to find out about, or maybe some magical, fantasy or sci-fi short story, but nothing really spoke to me. In the box, I was expecting to find little scribbles and possibly cringey material, but to my pleasant surprise, I found a short poem titled "For Michael". It captured the image of my father as a free-willed and hyper ch...

Warm orange flames danced amongst the treetops as darkness approached.  The setting sun was darkened by billowing black smoke that emerged from the forests of Northern California.  In complete silence, the distant crackling of brush burning could be heard coinciding with the sirens of the panic within the human population.  However, as many homes were evacuated by both people and animals, we started to converge on the fire with a gathering excitement. The excitement built with each increasing degree of heat. As we neared the fiery destruction, a wave of black emerged from the forest, chased by licking flames.  We swooped down and feasted on the crunchy insects as if it was Thanksgiving! Weighed down with delicious food, we returned to a safe nesting area in close proximity to this wonderful gift. After several days of waiting, nature finally dialed back the intensity of the flames.  With the flames extinguished, it was time to feast again, bu...

I really like listening to music. Up until this year I never really listened to music in my free time and my friends thought I was absolutely insane. I only started when I got a ride from an acquaintance and neither of us had music to play and it was SO AWKWARD. As someone who still makes their parents talk on the phone and order food for them, the forced social interaction was one of the most painful fifteen minutes I’ve had to sit through. So I made a playlist. It started with songs my friends enjoy, and then slowly turned into a lot of stuff I found. On my own. I know. And if you’re wondering what kind of music I listen to, I don’t think anyone could sum it up into one category. If only there was a way you’d be able to listen to a few of the songs I really like. That would be convenient. Oh well.

On this particular day the smell of food fills the house early in the morning. People scatter around the kitchen, shuffling around and bumping into each other. Occasional scraps of food are dropped on the ground, but nothing worth running for. All the food that is dropped is either uncooked or a vegetable, not very appetizing. Every thing starts to slow down eventually. The TV turns on and is a constant background noise as people scurry around spraying bottles and wiping the counters. And then out of the closet comes the machine. It has two white, blinding eyes and makes the most horrible sound you could ever imagine. I try to scare it and try to beat it in our barking competition but it seems to have a endurance that I can't mach. After 5 minutes of trying and scowls from all the people around me I retreat to my bed. The subtle smell of smoke begins to fill the house, inside the giant stone cage a fire rages. Something about it is calming and I lay in front of it feeling the warmt...