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 […]

By Kayli Harley, TIWP Student Think and pray all that you want, but your inaction amounts to nothing. Thoughts and prayers are worthless staring down the barrel of a gun. They are useless to the children who do not yet understand the politics of their lives yet face the repercussions for this country’s apathy anyway. […]

By Sarah Hawkins, TIWP Student A grade. Your outfit. A wrong answer. Your acne. None of it matters.Not to blow your bubble, but no one will care, no one will remember.You say the wrong thing, you make a mistake.So what?Who you are at this moment does not define who you will be for the rest of […]

By Aly Kirke, TIWP Student Dear Aly Three Years Ago, Believe it or not, we’re graduating in less than a month. In the fall, we’ll be at film school. Last night, we had prom with our amazing friends and lived the many movies we’ve seen. I wish I could tell you this but even if […]

By Emma Stokes, TIWP Student She tries. She does. I promise she does. Maybe she tries too hard. Maybe she compares herself to the portraits of those beautiful women in France. She compares her brain to those of the great scientists, writers, and observers of history. She could live up to those expectations. One day […]

By Reagan Kaelle, TIWP Student Sometimes I feel like I’m trapped in the story of Goldilocks. All teenage girls are. We are “too hard” or “too soft.” “Too hot” or “too cold.” Never just right. Our walk through life is a winding one. Girls balance on the blade of a knife or the column of […]

By Katerina Bonderud, TIWP Student When I was young, I used to write on my walls. Just out of sight from anyone who would stumble in or out of my room. It was a secret I kept behind the door of my life—along with many other secrets that I hide in random places in the […]

By Kayli Harley, TIWP Student It’s not being in charge of my life that scares me. What scares me is that being the keeper of my fate means I am the keeper of my joy, too.  Pain is easy to hold. It’s not easy to carry, but it fits in my hands just so, like […]