By Katerina Bonderud, TIWP Student Dear World,  First, to this Earth, thank you. Thank you for being so nurturing and forgiving. You have handed out an olive branch through all our learning and growth as a species. You recycle yourself so you can endlessly give your care. You are beautiful with every mountain and valley […]

By Adia Lee, TIWP Student I often think back to the night my friend and I spent planning her birthday dinner and finally set the plan in motion on April 24th, the day of her 13th birthday. I think back to the moment it was instantly ruined, when we finally got our food, and the […]

By Katerina Bonderud, TIWP Student My love is writing in a valley of flowers. The kindness of California poppies delicately caressing my fingers. As I sit, I am immersed in a whole other world where trees bloom and bees are dogs. They float back and forth, carrying pollen to and from their hive. They support […]

By Genet Dutto, TIWP Student Why does it seem we only find happiness in the biggest hurrahs? The joys of having financial stability, a healthy body, a healthy family, and a growing mind and heart is an accomplishment to me. Why is it we put so much effort and energy to move up the ladder […]

By Adia Lee, TIWP Student A little girl was brought into this world by two people who are supposed to love her, who are supposed to shield her from the bad and show her the good. That they no longer love each other should have meant a surplus of love to show her. Instead, she […]

By Zara Quiter, TIWP Student When is the end, really? Now that I think about it, when was the start? What marked it, the first person to catch it? When the government ordered lockdown? To be completely honest, I thought we were through the worst of it. I thought that COVID would wind down, people […]

By Caroline Hesby, TIWP Student yesterday I had a conversation with a friend who’s trying to get birth control. I stood next to her in line at a counter-service restaurant, exchanging the side-effect horror stories that have passed by our ears, deciding between haunting hormonal changes or unwanted pregnancies, bearing the weight of choosing a […]

By Kayli Harley, TIWP Student My heart has hands – hands I have to keep from reaching for things. Wherever I go, they extend welcomes to strangers, places, feelings. Anything that could be love. Anything that could mean something. I can’t stop their curious, child-like fingers from yearning to clutch onto anything that offers the […]

By Kayli Harley, TIWP Student Log One: I have discovered a wall. It stretches to my left and my right like reflections in a mirror. Like ebbing, black adamant, it draws light into an unknown embrace. I advance toward it, and just as I am about to reach for it, to graze my fingertips along […]

By Abby Raphael, TIWP Student Do not change who you are for other people. Be the best you and no one else. School will get harder and friends change, but stay true to yourself because the people who really matter are those who love you for who you are; not a social-media-modified version, not a […]