• Being a girl is being afraid to like the color pink, because you don’t want people to think you’re a girly-girl. You're not. But as you get older you realize that pink is the color of sunsets, of love, of flowers and everything nice. It is realizing that it’s just a color, only a color.
• Being a girl is experiencing men telling you how to be. That one time you sat on the beach, with the sun in your eyes and your face scrunched up, and a passing man told you to not look so down. To look at the waves. Because of course you’d fix your face just for his wishes. It is the lingering resentment after.
• Being a girl is feeling like you’ll never fit in, during the ups and downs of school and tumultuous friendship. It is finding solace in yourself, learning to be your own best friend. It is learning that lonely and alone aren’t the same thing.

The future was bleak for Martin Abarough. He sat in his vile apartment, emptily staring at the raindrops streak down the dirty window, listening to what he could of an NPR broadcast from his broken radio. The walls of his apartment were visibly dirty, probably because the various tenants before Martin were addicts who couldn’t have been of the right mind to maintain the space. The scuttle of rats and other critters surrounded Martin, but they never intruded his room, as he had proven to them that he had no attachment to rat-life. Though immutably filthy, the space was neat and organized; the order of his apartment guaranteed a sort of sanctuary to Martin.

The shift he just finished at Shanghai Glory, a dingy little Chinese restaurant, had ended in disaster. He had washed dishes for ten hours straight, only taking a smoke break at the halfway point, and the pressure to clean dishes quickly enough to ensure a functioning restaurant, as well as the constant Chinese jabs thrown at him, just pushed him too far, and he screamed profanities directly in the face of his boss and the owner of Shanghai Glory, Arnold Zhang. Arnold took Martin’s verbal attacks sitting down on a crate in the alley behind the restaurant, and when they finished, he flicked his mostly unashed cigarette at Martin’s chest, stood up, gave Martin his check, and went into the restaurant to finish closing without another word. Martin stood for a few moments in the alley, wordlessly exasperated, and then took off to his apartment.

So he sat, not sad or angry, but completely emotionally absent. The episode with Arnold wasn’t a cause of any of his dejection, but evidence of it. He was properly called Dr. Martin Abarough, as he had completed a doctorate in Systematic Theology at Marquette, but his unimpressive thesis and an over saturation of PhDs caused him to be unable to find a research or teaching position anywhere in the country. So immediately following the completion of his thesis, he was unemployed, and lived out of his car for a while. He worked himself to the bone, and the Upper Peninsular winter hit hard, but in the Spring, he meandered southward into Wisconsin, found his current $500/mo. room just outside of Milwaukee, and had time to consider what he could do to get out of abject poverty. Thus far, he could think of nothing. 

Truthfully, he could not remember the last time he was essentially happy. His days were filled with hard, monotonous work that he accomplished for meager wages, and spent most of his time in his wretched apartment. He never spoke to anyone, save for Arnold, but he never noticed his isolation. His once exceptional brain was usually muddled as a result of a lack of sleep, and he went about the motions with a complete absence of mind. Furthermore, he had lost the intense supernaturalistic faith that he had while at Marquette, and had not the time to regain it. These are not the conditions of a happy person.

Martin’s condition had not deterred his love of reading and learning and philosophizing; deteriorated tomes were strewn about his desk. He took one up, The Confessions of St. Augustine, and read for a time. Most every evening was spent in this manner. He had no television in his apartment, and he had no room in his miniscule budget for a phone bill, so all he had to entertain himself with was his radio and his books. The eastern sky had long begun to darken, and the western’s brilliant palette of reds and oranges began to slip into shadow. He took a brief, frigid shower, and resigned to his sleeping corner which consisted of a mattress, a fitted sheet, a bare pillow, and a thin blanket. His stomach longed for some form of nutrition, but the times simply didn’t allow for food every day, so he ignored his nature, and fell into a fitful sleep. In all this, Martin felt no happiness or goodness, forced as he was into this destitute way of living.

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The former half of the day has an air of awesome, essential goodness. The light of the morning falls without harshness or brutality on the Earth, but with grace and welcome. In the months in which the day is substantially warmer than the evening, morning light is further diluted by fog, though this fog is not mysterious or foreboding, but makes the morning’s atmosphere fuzzy and comfortable.

Such was the morning after Martin’s argument with Arnold. The soft orange light of the sunrise fell on his face, and gently lifted him up and out of his shallow somnolence. Martin wasn’t drowsy or disoriented upon his awakening, but filled with that which ought to be the necessary consequence of rest, though oft is not. He arose from his sleeping corner and dressed in his everyday jeans, and threw on one of the few shirts he cycled through. He gazed out of the window while the kettle boiled a cup of tea, brewed from stale leaves. The view of the Milwaukee slums in which he resided was uncharacteristically wonderful. The sun was low on the painted eastern sky, and the full brilliance of its light was impeded by clouds and the fog. The buildings were enveloped by the fog, and couldn’t distract from the majesty of the sunrise. He sipped his tea, and watched his sunrise, and noticed that the non-being that he had experienced since his completion of graduate school had become filled with a reverent appreciation for the Transcendent that sat before him.

He switched on his broken radio, and out came the supernatural compositions of John Fahey. The simple instrumentals that poured out of that radio spoke to the deepest crevices of Martin’s spirit, the Ground of his soul, in a way that only the most lauded poetry could ever hope to. Just as Fahey plucked the strings of his steel-string guitar, Martin felt his essence plucked at. The opuscules, though melancholy and indeed minute, conveyed their meaning with a sense that couldn’t be replicated in plain prose. The music, the sunrise, and the emergence of Martin’s self after months and months of hiddenness moved him to tears. He wept out of an appreciation for beauty and goodness that enveloped his entire being, and held on to the intense presentness of that appreciation for as long as he could.

When his eyes dried, and he came back into temporal subjectivity, Martin was made anew. His dejection that characterized his existence up until that morning was gone for good, and was replaced with an entrenched gladness at the goodness of being that showed itself at even the most minute things. The glow of the streetlamps, the warmth of the water that he washed dishes in, the whistle of wind as it came through his unsealed window; all of these things brought him unbridled joy.

The future remained bleak for Martin Abarough, but with the beauty of everything around him, he is supremely content in the present.

I walk home wearing twin braids with bows

and a big smile because I'm wishing for snow.

Snow like a blanket, thick and white,

I want it to fall all through the night -

to cover the roads and the trees and the hills,

sparkling with winter's original thrill.

To settle over the houses breathing wisps of smoke

like a painter covering canvases in just one stroke,

to whisper a greeting to birches all gray

and tumble down onto the children at play.

Three inches at least I must hope for,

enough to come up and knock on my door

with a wish for a perfect snow-covered ground

and for the mighty old snowplow to not come around.

And when the sun emerges from her curtain of dawn

our superintendent will let out a yawn

and when she sees all the white gathered out on the sill

she'll call it a snow day, or at least I hope she will.

One of the biggest debates in today's world is whether phones have a positive or negative impact on everyday life. As technology keeps advancing, so does the world's concern, but also excitement. Focusing on smartphones, many people have begun to learn they can be a very powerful tool while also having increased negative properties. The real answer is unclear; most educators believe smartphones are a distraction and only that. Though others believe they are a true source of great information, opportunities, and ideas. 

On the positive side, smartphones give students the immediate ability to research and access information. Though they have been said to create substantial distraction, it still helps students grow independent learning. Phones keep people organized through reminders, note-taking, and planning. They have become a big part in everyday life. The human brain is not perfect, though with a phone students can increase memory through calendars and scheduling. According to Cross River Therapy, humans forget about 50% of the information recently learned in the span of an hour. With smartphones, this percentage decreases. Most phones come with a built-in calendar which makes remembering dates and schedules much easier, especially on top of the increased stress in schools. Outside of academics, phones are a quick and reliable way for kids to reach parents during emergencies. Thus, phones ensure the safety of students by also giving them access to emergency services by simply dialing three numbers. 
 

However, the disadvantages and problems concerning smartphones cannot be neglected. As commonly expressed, smartphones are a huge distraction to education. From the pinging of notifications to the continuous texting, students tend to ignore their surroundings and struggle to focus back on learning after once being interrupted by these phones. Social media platforms such as TikTok and Snapchat create false visuals and expectations of physical appearance. This is a widely known problem in mental health today. Students have constant access to modified images and built stereotypes that are causing kids to feel self-conscious. This triggers anxiety and also opens cyberbullying into the mix. The Cyberbullying Research Center states, "Approximately 58% of the students in our 2025 sample reported that they experienced cyberbullying." This also creates even more pressure for students to look a certain way. People become harsher online because they're hiding behind a screen and the bully cannot see the person's reaction; they tend to underestimate the intensity of the situation and ignore how deep words can cut. Therefore, phones can both create a distraction and increase mental health issues.

So, what does this mean? Well, there is no right or wrong answer, and also no true solution. The debate about banning smartphones is widely opinion-based and ongoing. Schools may report better with phones being removed during school hours, or others may need different policies. What remains clear is that smartphones can become distractions and social pressure, while also being quite beneficial to academics and organization. Thus, the views and truth in this big debate are extremely complex, and finding a balance may become a very important key to shaping the future.

Tears slipped quietly 

Down her face, hair 

Messily tied back into 

The lowest of low ponytails, and 

Perfectly manicured nails just begun 

To be chewed upon clutched 

A sparkling phone case; 

The glittery stars seemed 

Too bright in her tired eyes fading 

Like real stars, non- 

Artificial, would as 

The day brightened;

Perhaps her eyes were

Just the same

As those stars;

She looked so tired, so sad, but

It was all I could do to think

She looks so pretty

Like that, like

Any moment she’ll fall from

The plastic case she’s

Painted around herself;

Perhaps me seeing that was

What was so scary for her, why

The walls falling away felt like

They were caving in, but

Maybe there was also a part of her that

Needed it, to

Have the survivor of herself be seen with

Each quiet flare of a tear, and

To have someone know there was

Someone still there, someone

Who would succeed the her she

Tried so hard to be;

I rested my hand atop

The crumbling yet

Neatly skin-cared back of hers and

Gave her a little smile.

You look so pretty, and

Can I sit with you?

I would like to thank OverTheRainbow because while they had nothing really to do with this poem, I feel like they inspired me to write it in the voice and style I did.  Your writing is so incredible, and I'm so grateful I get to read it!

1.

There was this game about a skate park. I think there was also one about a BMX course, but the one that I haunt is the skate park.

The game was called Touchgrind Skate 2. You might remember it; it was kind of popular fourteen years ago, but I played it in the afterglow when I was nine or ten. You'd pilot a little skateboard around a skate park. I haven't looked at the game in about eight years. But I can picture the park perfectly.

There was a bowl covered in moss and dirt, with a bent and rusted beam leading down into it. A couple of wispy pixel trees stood in sad patches of grass, surrounded by dirty concrete. Near them, wooden skate ramps stood creaky and disheveled.

At the far end of the park, there was a parking garage lit by dim, warm lights. You could skate over the cars if you wanted; they were already broken and dented from years of the same treatment.

You had a Polaroid camera so that you could easily take pictures of no one.

2. 

I played Touchgrind Skate 2 on my dad's iPhone. If I got bored at a restaurant, I'd ask to play Skate and then hide away in the dusty light of that perpetual digital afternoon. I'd lie in the middle of the bowl and soak the sunlight into my skin. Then the food would come, and I'd put the phone away.

Being totally empty save for the player, the skate park couldn't be fun forever. When I'd rolled over every car and photographed every nook and cranny of the park, I drifted away. My skateboard sat upturned in the bowl, waiting for me in the ones and zeros like a good mechanical dog.

Social media was a new and exciting fad back then; Facebook accounts were intriguing, mystical things that big kids and parents had. Twitter and YouTube were skate parks in their own right, except they were crawling with other people to skate with. People would teach you new tricks, or people would laugh at you when you fell. I wasn't quite sure how it worked.

Last summer, long after I had abandoned the skate park, my cell phone was rendered useless after I went swimming with it in my pocket. I thought it would be no big deal.

But that night, as I lay in bed with nothing to distract me, I realized that for the first time in about half a decade, I was alone. I found myself drifting off to that skate park and settling in with the weeds.

3.

I actually lied to you before. I can't picture the skate park perfectly. When I googled pictures of the game to double-check, I was surprised to find images of a bright, sterile bowl with a glimmering beam leaning into it. The wooden ramps and parking garage (with perfectly intact cars) were both totally separate maps. The trees were picture-perfect. It was just my mind decaying it.

The skate park was never real enough to age. I never actually lay in it or pressed the button on the Polaroid camera. That was only neurons firing in my brain, fighting against the fact that it wasn't real and never could be real.

What will other spaces look like when nobody uses them? Will trees sprout out of piles of deleted Snapchat messages? Will animals burrow in the little plus-sign post buttons after nobody uses them?

Or will they just stay the same?

i still search for you in the places i go

hoping to see you; a familiar face once again.

today i walked through the halls expecting to meet you, where you forever stood— but the man i saw wasn’t you;

instead a past image of the person i once knew.

and if i could i would walk to the end of the earth to find you again.

and we will sit like past versions of us once did, under the sky— watching as the morning breaks ahead.

nothing in my mind except for you,

shining times so long ago.

i truly miss you old friend.

Today it snowed for the first time this winter. We had classes but you woke up early, so of course I did too. 

"Let's skip today," you said. "This day is too special to waste on classes." 

I protested. I had no work that was more important than normal, but I did not want to make it up later. I did not want to be caught skipping. I did not consider classes a waste of time. But then I saw you bobbing by the window, eyes sparkling, jaw agape, watching the flakes as if you had never seen snow before. 

I canceled my classes, called in sick. I put on my jacket and warm hat and followed you into the snow. 

You insisted on putting the first footprint in the snow. Then you ran about, dragging me to a field where the lovely white blanket was laid out before me. "Dance," you told me. "That field needs footprints." 

It almost broke my heart to touch the snow. You nudged me, with your body, or your laughing eyes, I do not remember. At first skeptically, I moved, but then faster, and faster, and you dancing beside me.

Snow is so soft, yet it is made of rock. Every time I remember snowflakes are small crystals of ice, water in its solid state, I am knocked over again by this ridiculous world. In a way it is like sand. I tell you this as you flop back to make a snow angel. You smile as if I have given you the sun. 

The snow is so white. Light reflects over and over though the imperfect edges of the ice. I think about purity, how often our ideas of it cause shame. Of impurity meaning filthy. Of the impurity of the ice crystals that allow the snow to almost glow, even after sunset, collecting the rays of a disappearing star and illuminating your laughing face. Of the field of snow, not broken, but alive with our footfalls and laughter. Of you.

There are so many people who would call you impure. Who would wish you to be ashamed. You swear like a sailor, take great joy in sex, take up so much space, indeed all the space of my world, without even seeming to know it. You have never followed anything you could not see the evidence for. Yet, as you dance through the falling rocks, trying to catch them on your tongue, the wonder in your eyes has an intensity so pure I would fall at your feet in worship, of it, of you, of the world's light you are reflecting back into my eyes. 

     I am having a dream about the senior class graduating.

     It is a beautiful day

     And I am watching from a hill

     Sobbing as the hats fly off

     Now the graduates get up and cartwheel across the field,

     Away from me,

    Away,

  Away,

Away.