Each morning I hid the girl I saw in the mirror — the girl that no one else saw but me. She was me in the natural state, with ratted hair, smelling breath, and a bare face. I covered her up with makeup to make her beautiful. I layered on a facial primer, foundation, and eyeshadow. I contoured my face…
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It’s All in Your Head by Madeline
I used to be a dancer. I spent twelve years of life dedicating my time to the beautiful art. My nights would be spent in the studio dancing my heart out — doing what I loved best. Dance was my identity, and I embraced that for as long as I could. When I was thirteen years old, dance could no…
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Who I Am by Olivia Liu
“Do not collapse before your minute is over. Understood?” The tester glared down at us as I nodded. I was the one that stood out, with my pale skin and scrawny figure. However, regardless of my dislike, or disability rather, for any physical activity, I still had to take the Physical Fitness Assessment. “Hello? Olivia?” Someone waved her hand in…
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Lark Street Endings by Nancy Koziol
“She kisses a man over coffee.” The black metal square usually contained a mishmash of the little magnetic words. But Julie had arranged these at the top, flush left, and pushed the rest into a brick wall at the bottom. She was so proud of her six words. She liked to visit me at the writing center. She would come…
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Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear by Valerie Wu
My myopia, or what is commonly referred to as nearsightedness, progressed at an almost alarming rate. It started in second grade, when just a few objects in the far distance were hard to distinguish. Slowly, I didn’t know distance at all. When I first tried contacts, the contacts wouldn’t go in because my eyes couldn’t open wide enough. “Open your…
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Saving a Life: Anorexia and the Blogging Community by Maria Sledmere
You know that way that Facebook uses some complex algorithm to determine what news appears in your feed? Recently, it just so happened to be the death of an old friend. Wow, all those RIPs flooding my timeline and suddenly I realised something real had happened. This girl, barely a couple years older than myself, had passed away from complications…
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All the Ineffable Things by Srishti Das
“She liked the word ineffable because it meant a feeling so big or vast that it could not be expressed in words. And yet, because it could not be expressed in words, people had invented a word to express it, and that made her feel hopeful, somehow.” –Lauren Oliver Sighing, I closed the book. I had found it. The one perfect quote…
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Brooklyn Weekends by Nicole Vetrano
I spent my weekends in Brooklyn with Dad, where he had an apartment near a Hasidic neighborhood. It was a couple of blocks away from a stretch of benched sidewalks where men would gather in their black garbs and tall hats, long beards prickling down as far as their length would allow. It was nice driving by them on a…
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Snow-Kissed Lips by Vegas Stocker
Our lips may have been pressed together, but what he really touched was my heart. I had given up on being happy and finding someone who understood me, someone I really connected with. All of that changed when I met him. If I would have gone through with my plan, I never would have met the love of my life,…
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Remembrances by Hope Jones
Oyfn pripetshik brent a fayeri, Un in shtub iz heys; Un der rebbe lernt kleyne kinderlech dem alefbeyz; Un der rebbe lernt kleyne kinderlech dem alef-beyz. Zet zhe, kinderlech, gedenkt zhe tayere, vos ir lernt do; Zogt zhe noch a mol un take noch a mol: Komets alef o. I hear music playing, a song I have heard too many…
