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our curated literature section. here are stories with plots, poems with structure, and essays with clear direction.

lost soulmates

2/15/2021

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​by hannah
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The Search For Blue Skies

2/11/2021

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I am going East
to escape the bank of clouds
that has settled over the valley.
there is no break for blue skies
there is no moon
there are no stars.
there is only a grey and dismal smog
sitting in the sky
and on my heart.
in the haze I cannot see
myself or my values or my goals.
it has sapped my energy
my joy
my ambition
and replaced it all with a grey gloom
that i can only stare at out my window.
so i am leaving
since i am all
but dead to this town
anyways. i am leaving
to a new place
where there are blue skies
but most importantly
where there is hope.
i need blue skies
and a proper sun
or else i will surely die
in this clouded valley.
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How to Run Away

1/30/2021

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How to Run Away
 
Requirements
  • Have a home to run from
This may seem obvious but it is worth mentioning. Running away from something is an inherent part in the process of running away. The term home however, is relative. The home can be a mansion, an apartment, a place in the suburbs, or perhaps a trailer whose back end mysteriously burned in a fire and you are still living in it because home is where the heart is and buying another house is too expensive.
  • Have a sibling, preferably one that is in some way better than you
While children without siblings can most definitely run away from home, their choice in leaving presents a more complicated and guilt-ridden moral dilemma. How could they leave their parents without any delightful childish soul to make the days pass easier? If you have a sibling that is more talented, charismatic, attractive, or gets along better with your parents it is much easier to leave. In part because having a sibling that is constantly one upping you can be the source for a fair amount of rage which could most definitely provoke someone to leave home in a dramatic way.
  • Have a motive
If you run away without a motive you may as well just be taking a very long walk, very far away.
Possible Motives
If you meet the above requirements it is time to discern your motives. All things in life tend to be extremely personal and unique, and the decision to dramatically leave home is no different. Feel free to develop your own personal motive for yourself, but if you are having trouble getting started here are some possible motives you can use.
Escape from the bourgeoise
Perhaps the home you are running from is a large and luxurious house. Or better yet, it is a full flung mansion with 5 bathrooms and a bowling alley downstairs. But to you it is a prison of expectations and fancy notions that your socialist/starving artist mind is repulsed by. Your parents, who are fancy, wealthy people themselves, want you to one day become fancy and wealthy as well. To make matters worse, your sibling is fully involved in the idea of one day becoming just like your parents, which only makes things bad for you as you are constantly labeled as the failure of the family. You do not want to be a doctor or a lawyer or a plumber like everyone else. You want to dream and live in the bowels of poverty, because that is truly where life happens. You’ve likely just finished reading Les Misérables or The Communist Manifesto and have a new and revived outlook on life. Or maybe for years you’ve been throwing paint at large canvasses in your luxurious garage and feel like a fraud because every other artist is starving and you most certainly are not doing that. At the end of the day you are fed up with expectations but even more fed up with money and you will do anything to escape the frivolous and fake world of the wealthy. So you decide to run away.
Advantages:
  • It is likely that you have access to money. This may seem counter intuitive because you are running away from wealth, but an important part of every runaways journey is to have some sort of funding so they can buy a bus ticket or a shabby studio apartment in a town faraway.
  • It is also likely that you have access to the nice things a person who is about the live on the streets would like to have. Namely, a nice coat and a good pair of shoes.
  • It is likely you may even have a car to steal. Running away with a car rather than hitchhiking along the side of the highway or riding on a smelly bus makes the journey less scary because it seems more like an exciting road trip than a vaguely illegal and dangerous undertaking.
Disadvantages:
  • Your parents seem like the type of people who will not hesitate to hire someone to come find you. So you will likely be found.
  • If you do steal things, like money and a car, the search for you will be even more dramatic. Not only are they looking for their lost child, they are also looking for their lost stuff. Also, cars are ridiculously easy to track down.
  • Despite escaping your wealthy place of being, a person can never truly outrun their past.
Yearning For Adventure
This motive is perfect for people who come from a small or midsize town in which their creative and innovative ideas are too big and grand for the feeble minds of people who drive trucks despite never actually needing to haul anything and wear unstylish clothes that were ugly 10 years ago and are still ugly now. Before you decided to run away you likely spent a lot of time roaming the streets of your small hometown, pining over the ways you both hate and love it and dreaming up the lives you could be living if only you were somewhere else. This notion only thickens if you live in a midsize town that is just big enough to give you a taste of adventure, but still small enough to make you feel trapped. Regardless, you want adventure in the great wide somewhere and are willing to do anything to get it. One day, perhaps after a disappointing football game or a depressing prom dance in a poorly decorated gym, you decide enough is enough, and even if you don’t get anywhere, the act of trying to go somewhere is better than staying here.
Advantages
  • Writing a note to your parents and promising to call when you can would most likely be enough to hold them off until you’ve crossed the state line
  • If you do have to turn back home because of lack of funds or lack of planning, at least you’ve satisfied your craving for adventure. Now you will be known as ‘The Kid Who Tried to Run Away and Failed’, which is better than nothing at all
  • Its likely that you’ve made a fair amount of internet friends in far off places who are more than willing to help you out either by sending money or offering up a place to stay if you manage to make it to them
Disadvantages
  • If your town is small enough you will not even make it to the bus station without being recognized and having your parents immediately called. Or better yet, whoever catches you running away will just take you straight back home
  • If you do fail and return life will possibly be even more torturous than before because your heathen classmates will mercilessly tease you for trying to run away
  • You could always just wait until after graduation
You Are Very Angry, or Very Dramatic and Trying to Prove a Point
This is where annoying, better-than-you siblings come into play. They’ve made your life hell. They’ve managed to take away every joy from your home and spirit by being nothing more than a nagging and vaguely malevolent presence. They have incited a rage so deep there is no solution other than dramatic escape. Or maybe the sibling is not the problem. Maybe you’ve had your first terrible heartbreak at the sophomore year homecoming. The love of your life dancing with someone else, and if you have to stay in this stupid town for one more stupid second you’re sure to explode. So you need to get out. Or maybe there’s no reason at all. Maybe you listen to too many of your Mom’s vinyl records, and spend too much time wishing you were born back then and getting angry that you were born right now, or you were unlucky enough to be born the middle child of a working class family and you’ve spent your whole life as an afterthought. Either way, you are very angry, or very dramatic, and trying to prove a point. You decide to run away to see who will chase you, or to see how far you can get before the guilt of overreacting inevitably pulls you back home.
Advantages
  • You will have a good playlist for the trip
  • You will probably tell a lot of people, so if you need help there are many people to help you
  • Rage can make people to crazy and unexplainable things, like biting an opponents ear off in the arena. If anyone is likely to succeed, it is you. But you are also the most likely to fail (see below)
Disadvantages
  • You have not thought anything through
  • You will probably tell a lot of people, which means one of them is likely to tell your parents or annoying older sibling who will inevitably stop you from leaving
  • It is far more likely that your true motivation is loneliness, so if you leave by yourself to go to a place by yourself you’ll just wind up feeling lonely and turn back home before anyone noticed you were gone, further adding to your crushing sense of loneliness
 
If you’ve found motivation, the time is now!
Steps for the Night You Plan to Leave
  • Gather supplies
    • Cash
    • Coat
    • Shoes
    • Phone (there is the option to completely go off the grid and leave the phone at home)
    • Notebook (for creative and dramatic musings)
    • Headphones (for the journey ahead)
  • Map the journey (yes on a paper map with an actual pen)
  • Make a playlist
  • Reconsider
  • Leave
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as the months go on

1/6/2021

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on march 8th, we broke up.

on march 9th, we said goodbye for the last time.

on march 18th, i went home and i remembered how strange it felt to be sleeping in my bed without you.

on march 28th, i missed you so much that i couldn’t breathe.

on april 9th, i hoped that you weren’t as broken as i was.

on april 15th, i listened to our playlist and every song brought back a memory of when things were simpler and we had each other.

on may 17th, i wondered how i could have lost feelings for the only thing that has ever made me feel alive.

on may 21st, i left. i couldn’t keep waiting for you.

on may 27th, i kissed someone else and missed the way you used to kiss me and how your hands would hold me.

on june 6th, i kept drinking and thinking about you. i need to stop doing that, it’s not healthy.

on june 13th, i forgot what kissing you felt like.

on august 19th, i felt broken without you. you weren’t coming back but i couldn't stop wishing you would. i needed to let go of you.

on september 13th, i wondered if you had wanted to text me.

on october 21st, i wanted to text you happy birthday and tell you how much i missed you.

on december 9, i no longer could hear your laugh and i don’t think i ever will hear it again.

on december 15th, i came home again and my first thought wasn’t you. it think it's time to finally let you go and move on.

-hannah
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    grace and hannah

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