our curated literature section. here are stories with plots, poems with structure, and essays with clear direction.
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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. How to Run Away
Requirements
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:
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
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
If you’ve found motivation, the time is now! Steps for the Night You Plan to Leave
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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