Tangled
By Annie.
I’m seventeen years old today but I don’t know how sixteen is different from seventeen. And then seventeen turns into eighteen and nineteen and twenty, but I don’t like thinking that far ahead. “What is an age but a number?” My mother says to me. She is combing my waist length hair. Sometimes I feel like my hair is weighing me down when I walk. But today it comforts me; I like the smoothness of it and I can smell the lingering scent of green apple shampoo in my hair. I am old enough to be combing my own hair, but I let my mother do this ritual. It comforts her when she’s holding the comb and smoothing out the tangles.
When she tugs gently at my hair, I look at my reflection in the mirror. I see the scratch on my cheek, a zit blooming on my forehead, the roundness of my face and the shadows under my eyes. I see a mess of imperfections. Today is my birthday and I am seventeen. My mother doesn’t believe in birthdays, only that I am still her baby, her only child that was inside her. She has a hard time letting me go out. I hate it when she grumbles about weekend nights with my best friends. I want to go to the movies and not have that nagging worry in the back of my mind. I always worry about her, because she holds her loneliness too close inside. Ever since my father left two years ago, she’s told me that all we have is each other. That you shouldn’t trust buys, that the outside world is dangerous. She likes me here with her, but I feel like I am crumbling. My father didn’t take much with him, just a suitcase, a few books and his watch. I haven’t talked to him since. More >
L’Autobus
Note: First Draft of L’Autobus, will look forward feedback! Thanks.
Sergio gets on the bus after soccer practices at school and he immediately feels the warm heater that makes his hands feel like they are burning. He hates practicing during the winter because his legs and hands get so cold that they hurt at times. But, he still loves playing soccer and he has since he was five years old back in Mexico. Resting his head against the cold bus’ window makes him remember when in he was ten years old and he used to cool off his head with a bottle of a cold Coca-Cola after a long day of playing soccer with his friends. Now he wishes he had a bottle of Coca-Cola even if it was freezing outside it always reminds him of the good times he had with his friends and lately he has been missing Mexico a lot. More >
