Tag: nonfiction

My Little Demon

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by Rowan Moskowitz

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I have a little demon on my shoulder. Not the type who whispers in my ear encouraging me to do bad things to others like in a stereotypical cartoon setting, but more so one that whispers insults and lies to me. It’s my own personal bully, following me wherever I go and reminding me of all the things that could go wrong. Then? It tells me how I deserve it, claiming that I ruin everything and just bother people with my presence. It makes me feel as if I’m back in middle school sometimes, memories of childish insults being thrown my way all coming back in one quick swift like a gust of wind that’s never ending.

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Are You A Virgo, or Are You Traumatized?

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by Audrey T. Carroll

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[Author’s note/content warning: As the title suggests, this piece does mention several kinds of trauma, including PTSD, childhood sexual abuse, medical trauma, etc. Nothing is graphic here, and these content warnings ended up becoming part of the piece itself.]

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1. You pick up a glass baking dish fresh out of the oven with your bare hands. Your brain tells you it is too hot and should be released. You

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Ten Years (and why I still talk about Nico di Angelo all the time)

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by Daisy Solace

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It’s 2013. I’m 11, living in Saudi Arabia, and anticipating House of Hades’s release with bated breath, counting down the days. It’s all I talk about, my best friend is getting sick of me. I’m insufferable, and I like it. I haven’t been into Percy Jackson for very long — just about a month by this point, but it’s found its space in my head and settled there.

As a kid who had always felt ALONEALONEALONEalonealonealone, it’s nice to read about a boy who’d changed schools so much that he has no friends, except for the one whose job it is to protect him. It’s nice to read about a boy who knows the truth: that the best people have the rottenest luck. It’s nice to read about a boy who, despite this, fights. After rows upon rows of pleasant protagonists, there’s a certain level of solace (pun intended) in Percy Jackson. He’s not easy. He’s not agreeable. He’s angry, rowdy, and, as Percy would come to say in the musical, impertinent. As a fellow impertinent child, I’m delighted.

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LA Live

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by Ebony Haywood

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After sunset— after parking meters doze to sleep, after attorneys in starched suits snap their suitcases shut, after happy hour at City Tavern and rush hour traffic on Broadway, after tired fathers in high-rise condos feed, bathe, and tuck their children into bed— there is energy: emerging from the warm concrete to electrify the air across Figueroa, Wilshire, and Olympic, the heart of Downtown Los Angeles. I feel this energy pulsing through the lights of The Staples Center, swarming with Kings Hockey fans donning oversized black and white jerseys. Outside the Regal Movie Theater, men in their blue jeans and women in their high heels, looking awkward, await their dates. I see their eyes brighten and then avert with acute embarrassment from the gazes of passersby who don’t wave and smile back.

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New Year’s Eve

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by Emma Bowen

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On January 13th, 2022, I typed two sentences in a note on my MacBook.

“One year from now, my life is going to be completely different than what I’ve always known. I don’t know if that’s comforting or the contrary.”

Sitting at the same laptop a year and a half later, I can confidently say this prophecy is entirely true and entirely false at the same time.

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Piece by Piece

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by Ivona Bozik

What is it about that bubble we create when we get to an unknown place? The combination of the distance from the familiar and the newness of circumstances, conditions that make grow different aspects of ourselves. For some we knew they existed silently, some we ignored. During every trip, longer than a single weekend, something in me moves towards a certain direction, builds up another foundation in me, brick by brick, an understanding enriches its effects. Yet, I find it hard to pinpoint what exactly that means.

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