Well, we have reached the last of what I wrote for my creative writing class. It definitely took a lot longer to reach this point than I had planned, but at least we made it here!

I’ve also decided on what I would like to add onto here next. Lately I’ve had the fantastic opportunity to be a part of multiple DnD campaigns, which resulted in a LOT of new characters. I am in love with the characters I play, and I have put so much into their back stories that I’m wanting to write major points in their lives. In fact, I’m almost finished with one of them! So I would like to share them here.

Until then, please enjoy Alone and It’s My Turn. Alone is another poem that I wrote in a spur of the moment, while It’s My Turn was something I had wanted to attempt to write for a while. Both turned out really well with my class, and I would love to hear any feedback from these as well at the pieces I’ve already shared. Enjoy!

---

Alone

I walk this lonely road

with tear stained cheeks,

ruffled clothes,

and mud stained feet.

 

The rain pours on my head

masking my tears,

my sorrow,

most of my pain.

 

No one is here with me,

I’m all alone

with my hurt,

with my heartache.

 

I shiver from the cold,

or maybe more.

From something,

a bit unknown.

 

But then I remember

your bright white smile,

your sweet laugh,

your kind nature

 

And suddenly,

I’m not so alone anymore.

---

It’s My Turn

I opened my eyes and saw nothing at first. There was no obvious light source, but there had to be something because I could see a little bit of my surroundings. And by that I meant that there was a white fog covering the ground, obscuring my view of anything below my mid calf, and the walls were completely void of anything. There was no furniture, no windows, not even a door.

The memory of how I got here was fuzzy at best. I remembered getting ready for school, tripping over cats as I put on clothes and shoes, and trying to figure out where my keys ran off to this time, but after that there was nothing. Just this place.

“What are you doing here?”

The voice behind me had me nearly jump out of my skin. I whipped around and saw that a familiar looking little girl stood behind me, her bright green eyes wide in surprise. “Oh! Uh, hi!” I glanced around to see where the heck she came from. “I seem to have gotten a little bit lost. Do you know the way out of here?”

The little girl shook her head, her brown ponytails bouncing, “I haven’t left in a long time, so I don’t remember.”

I looked at her with confusion, “…I see. Where’s your mom?”

She shrugged, “Not here. It’s always been just me, ‘cause no one else comes here. ‘cept you.”

Her face and the way she spoke were so familiar to me, but I just could not place them at all. “Just you, huh? Sounds lonely. What’s your name?”

The little girl stared at me without batting an eye. “Jasmine, but most people call me Jazz.”

I froze. It was as though the floodgates opened and the images of old photos flooded my mind. I was looking at me! Younger me! From the looks of it she seemed to be 10 or 11, maybe younger. Definitely before I chopped off all of my hair for the first time. She didn’t have that awkward semi-Afro bob, but beautifully wavy hair that reached her waist, even in the ponytails. In shock I looked around again, but I still didn’t recognize where ever it was we were. “Where are we?”

If she notice my shock she didn’t mention it. “We’re in the Control Room. This is where-” A loud blaring noise interrupted her and red lights began to flash. I jumped at the sound of the walls moving, revealing massive computer screens with warnings blinking on them.

Younger Me immediately took a step back and a large console rose up from the ground, swiftly separating us. The little girl began to push various buttons until the screens changed to show what looked like one of my classrooms. The desks were rearranged into groups, and the camera was facing a group of three people, two girls and a guy.

“Wait is that-?” I peered closer at the screen and recognized one of the students. This was my Psychology class! The girl was someone who always sat next to me, but we never spoke to each other.

The alarms were still blaring, which was beginning to give me a headache. Younger Me pressed more buttons and the alarms were silenced, but the lights still flashed, which gave the room an ominous feel to it.

“Situation?” Younger Me asked, and a stream of words filtered onto the screen:

Group Assignment: Plan out project

Status: No input given

Current analysis of group: Male is uncaring/cold

Female 1 has tight schedule – Might not be able to rely on her

Female 2 seems nice

Now that the alarms were off I could hear what was happening on screen. The group was throwing out ideas for the project, the two ladies talking with the young man just sat there staring at his desk looking extremely bored.

I looked at Younger Me and saw that she was frowning and- were her hands shaking? She hesitated before pushing a button on the console. My voice rang out from behind the camera, “What about emotions?”

One of the ladies was writing things down and added that to the list, but did that guy just roll his eyes?

Younger Me must have thought so because I heard her moan in dismay. The alarms came back on in full force and words flashed across the screen in bold letters: ABORT INTERACTION! HATRED SENSED!

Wait, hatred? I saw annoyance from a trouble group mate, but not hatred. I looked back at Younger Me, who was frantically pushing buttons. The camera seemed to slouch back and look slightly downward, and a bar in the lower right corner labeled ANXIETY began to rapidly rise.

“Activate Masking!” Younger Me called out, sounding very scared and on the verge of tears. The screen flashed and a nineties style computer animation played over the scene, a pixilated mask covering the camera. The Anxiety levels seemed to stop increasing and I heard my voice again, “I’m okay with whatever you guys wanna do.”

Before anyone could answer, the screens went dark and slid back into the walls, hiding from view once again. The lights stopped flashing, the alarms were silenced, and the console sank back into the floor.

Younger Me sighed with relief and sank to the floor, tears shining in her eyes. My protectiveness nature kicked in and I immediately went over to her and sat down on the floor, one arm on her shoulder and she swallowed back her emotions. “What was that all about?” I asked gently.

Younger Me fought back her tears before answering in a watery voice, “I protected myself. I was gonna get hurt. That’s what I do here, keep me from getting hurt.”

“Hurt from what?”

She looked up at me, “From being left again. I don’t want to be left again by my friends again.”

I stopped and bit my lower lip. I knew exactly what she was talking about and I had to keep myself from crying too. I remember all too vividly of my so called ‘friends’ abandoning me, saying that they didn’t want to be friends but not telling me why to my face. Mom was the one who had to tell me, because she lost their mom as a friend too. They said it was my fault, that I was the one who ruined the friendship, but never an explanation as to why. They never spoke to us again, and I was left wondering for years as to why.

It was that thought that made me realize what was going on. I rubbed Younger Me’s back and said quietly, “You don’t know why Emily and Katie left you, so you’re trying to make sure it never happens again, huh?”

She nodded miserably, the tears she had been fighting so hard finally streaming down her face. “I don’t like being alone. So I make sure that everyone likes me, no matter what. I do whatever I have to to make them happy and not leave me.”

I sighed softly, trying to figure out what to say. A thought came to me, a conversation I had had with someone I trusted, and I knew what I was doing there. I moved so that I was kneeling in front of Younger Me, my hands on her shoulders. “Jasmine, thank you for what you’ve done for me. You’ve kept me safe for a long time, and I know it wasn’t easy, but it’s my turn now.”

Younger me looked up in surprise. “What?”

“It’s my turn now. You can let go and rest, you deserve it. Let me take over from here.”

She looked over to where the console disappeared. “But what if I get hurt again?”

I shook my head, “Let me worry about that. I will make sure that we’re okay.”

She stared at me for what seemed like an eternity before smiling a soft smile. She wrapped her arms around me and hugged tightly, and in the blink of an eye, she was gone.

I stood up and sighed, surveying my new workplace. I had a lot of rewiring and reprogramming to do, which was going to take some time, but in the end it would be worth it. It was time for Adult Me to take over.