Taking it day by day

When that's not enough

Hour by hour

Minute by minute

It's beyond tough

Too many long days have become one nightmare

The more I tried to recall, the more it fades away

Time sticks together, too hard to individually bare

Distracting myself

Everything I loved has changed

Take down the pictures on the wall

My distractions are fading

With time I thought it ease

But the thought of being happy

Is nothing more than a tease

I am locked down, miss being free

But time has done nothing to help me

Hey, it's me. Remember when we were little and we used to catch salamanders in the woods? Remember when we would ride our bikes into all the mud puddles around Lucky Lake after it had rained, and getting yelled at by my dad for being covered in nothing but mud? Do you remember pushing me on the swing so high I hit the tree? Remember when we were around the campfire and a random dance party busted out? Do you remember when I tipped over your kayak and you got completely soaked, you just ended up swimming in your clothes? Do you remember the first time you held my hand? I just wanted to ask you, please never forget me, because I will never forget you.

Reaching for that box

That very box

It causes nothing but pain

Pricked by the point of every sharp edge

Every year

Over and over again

Until the memories are hung

My job is done when the box of bandaids run out

And every salvageable ornament is out of the box

Those broken christmas tree decorations

They get me

every

single

year

I was on vacation with family, it was sunny, warm, and the air felt so soft. The water was crystal clear, you could see the fish swimming through water. The cabin was amazing, it had an old style look to it. With a broken paddle boat chained to the ceiling. I unpacked my things and helped blow up the tubes for swimming. The water just felt so smooth to the touch, it was almost like swimming through nothing at all. I watched the waves collect seashells and push the floating logs onto the grass. There were long stairs leading to the water from the cabin. By the time you made it back up stairs, you were in desperate need of oxygen. The first day we spent shopping for food and unpacked, but waking up the next morning to have an entire fridge full was worth it.

That next morning I rolled out of bed with the warmth of the sun glistening on my skin. The blankets weighing down on my legs. I was immediately drawn to the water. I was just sitting there in my pjs watching the settling waves hit the pole holding the dock up. Sitting there listening to the birds chirp from tree to tree. Feeling that light breeze brush over my skin. That was one of the moments that you remember for the rest of your life, so calm, so beautiful. Later that day I spent in the boat, pulling the tubes into the crashing waves. The sky began to dim, so we docked the boat and walked up those stairs. We all were out of breath and had to sit down for a while. We sat at a table on the deck, staring over that dock.

We all listened to music, played some cards until it was time. We pulled the flares out from the boat. I was so confused until my dad handed me a flare and told me to go to the water. The entire lake started to glow. Every house had lite flares in their yard by the water. The whole lake shimmered, but that was nothing until the lake residents started launching off fireworks. The sound of the fireworks didn't even compare to the people yelling from the shores and boats that lined the lake. I had never seen anything like it. I ran to the deck with a blanket and just watched this unimaginable event roll over the next hour. I wish you were there. At the end of the day, sitting on the dock as people continued to light flares across the water, watching the reflection becomes brighter and brighter, hearing the delayed blast of colors invading the entire sky.

And that is what made me think of you.

Although my lips are moving, No sound is coming out,

I am mute

I stand there, believing that I am talking

No one notices me

No one comes to me in curiosity to hear what I have to say,

I stand there,

Unseen,

Unheard,

Unrecognized from everyone around me

I am someone who always sits in her seat, never taking a stand

I stay quiet to prevent the attention that would soon rule over me

I never raised my hand in class, I was too afraid

I had given up on so many battles because

I was mute,

I lost so many things

Belongings,

Friends,

Even family

The next time I won't be so weak

“Take a right at the next stop sign”, Rosaline implied, looking down at the crumbled up map. I looked to my right at an old dirt road, the only lighting is the gleam of the moon.

“Are you sure?”, I questioned as a deep feeling rolled over my shoulders. I look over at Rosaline giving me the look to just do it. I take a right at the red sign.

This camping trip is exactly what I need, a time to get away and be free from school and work. My friends taking the journey with me also required a break from their lives. Sammi has been going crazy from listening to twelve kids screaming through her household. And Rosaline has been going through what I would wish on no one, cancer. She had been diagnosed a month ago. This is her last trip before she starts her treatments.

“This road doesn't look right,” Sammi comments. The small person in the back of the car, sitting on the window. With her blonde hair taken by the wind. She gives me a concerned face as we continue on the unsettling road.

Rosaline, fluttering around with the map in the passenger seat, starts pointing out every small rock or branch on the road. She is the ‘worrying’ one of the three of us. Every time we go anywhere, she is the one making sure all the ends meet. She is the organized one of us.

As Sammi is trying to direct us to the safest way to get through the road, she points out the window, “A bridge.” I pull over to look at the map. The map is guiding us through this little wooden bridge, that covers a small cliff into water. As far as I could see it looked stable. The map leads us straight through the bridge, onto a small road, that will lead us back to the correct path.

After a while of discussing, we decided instead of turning around and driving back another hour to the original road, we would just go through the bridge. I started the small car and pulled forward, passing the entrance of the bridge. The bridge was holding up for a while. But after a couple feet into the middle of the bridge, we started to hear cracking. I slowed down the car, now we are going about five miles per hour. I soon realized that I had made a big mistake.

The car began to sink through the wooden boards. We were all starting to get very uneasy. Then the back wheel broke through the bridge the car jerked back. Sammi still sitting in the window, was jerked along with the car. The force pulled her right from the car, off the bridge. She fell into the water. The stream took her past where I could see.

“How do we get out without falling?”, Rosaline yelled, “ Katelyn what do we do?”.

I could only reply with “How the fudge would I know?” I started looking around trying to figure out our escape plan. I couldn’t move the car because the back wheel is stuck through the bridge. The bridge is too narrow to just get out of the car and walk out. So we climbed on the roof of the car.

At this point we are trying to slide from the top of the car to the front, to run off the bridge. But before we could, it starts to rain. We are sliding and slipping everywhere, almost falling from the roof into the water. I work my way down onto the bridge. I reach my hand out to Rosaline.

Rosaline slips, she falls in the same manner as Sammi did, too fast to help. I just stand there in shock, trying to imagine what to do. I reach my hand towards my phone. Of course no service. I start running for the next five minutes down the road with my phone raised in the air.

After some time I finnaly get service, I call the police and tell them where I am and they send an ambulance. They spent the next couple of hours searching the river. They found them huddling about a mile down the river. They were brought to the hospital. Just a couple of scrapes and bruises. But for the car, it had fallen completely through the bridge. There was no hope left for that poor car.

The police officer asked, “How did you end up there?”. We all answered with the same words, “We took a right!”.

The little boy started looking down

He began shouting that he would drown

It was too dark

He saw a shark

In the puddle on the playground