It's rather all encompassing of everything they do but when you take all the terrible things people do to each other and break it down to the cause of it, you'll find that the common cause is practicing hate.

Hate causes war.

Hate causes jealousy which causes war.

Hate causes violence.

Hate causes abuse.

Hate causes mental destruction.

Hate causes bullying.

Hate causes sabatoge.

Hate causes heartbreak.

It's the root of all the problems our world faces and deals with everyday. If people would just treat each other kindly and spread love instead of bigotry and hate, the world would be a better place.

I remember Mrs Hawkins saying my name next to his and me saying “no” loudly. I remember him looking at me, his eyes hurt but his expression emotionless. I shuffled to the seat and pulled the chair to the very end of the table and sat in the aisle. He sat there, watching me and I looked at my friends and mouthed, “help me.” I remember clearly, him leaning over towards me and whispering, “it’s not like I have germs. Can you sit by me?” And I scoffed and said, “yeah right. There’s no way.” But he didn’t really give up, he just kept looking at me with those hurt brown eyes and every so often asking if I’d just please sit by him. Then I moved over and he looked at me and whispered, “thank you.” I felt guilty and stupid, but he was a rebel and he was rude and idiotic so I mostly felt confused.

I went to Mrs Hawkins and told her that this isn’t going to work and I’m going to need a new seat. But she told me to give it a few days and if I still needed to move that I should tell her on Friday.

We did a lab and I attempted to do everything so he wouldn’t mess it up. And he begged me to let him use the dropper and put water on the penny and promised he’d be good. So I let him and he behaved until he just forgot about the drops and counting and overflowed the water. But it was fun and I remember doing notes with him and not minding doing the lab with him.

I didn’t tell her on Friday. That day was the new quarter, the second one. I had to sit next to him in every class, like teachers were scheming against me. He wore this goofy smirk every time.

We made a truce after time that I would befriend him and be kind to him if he actually behaved and tried in class. Obviously he didn’t really hold up his end of the truce but at that time after I made it up it didn’t really matter. I just loved talking to him after a while.

We were in social studies and we played a different version of hangman with superheroes. My teacher kept telling him to shut up because he was distracting me and then she would wink at me. Sometimes he would finish my notes for me when I was sad and asleep. He wrote on my fears page in my sketchbook one time. He crossed out my fear of being alone. He erased part of the dark cloud so it looked like a smiley face and then wrote “feel the sun.”

And he called me Thighs too.

And he would shake my chair and that’s when my pet peeve started. I would turn around ready to kill him and tell him I hated him and he’d laugh. Then when I said I hated him again he looked at me and said, “you know you love me.”

He would steal my hat too. I was obsessed with beanie hats and he’d steal it and run. I chased him at first but then it changed a little where I’d walk out of the classroom and look at him like, “I swear to god if u don’t bring that back now I’m going to beat the shit out of you.” And he’d steal my sunglasses. There was this one time he stole my white hat and went to get a drink at the drinking fountain and this kid who rides the bus with me came up and snatched it from him and tossed it to me. Short people are great. And then Caleb and I looked at each other and I felt proud and he was just confused. He stole it another time at the end of the day and threatened to shove it down his pants And I sprinted after him down the hall to save it. I got really close to actually saving but then he did it anyways and I died a little inside. My poor hat. It was dead now. Oh but I had to sprint after him twice and the second time, Mrs Hawkins caught him and asked us what was happening and I was like I need my hat.

We almost got in trouble the same way and we just rushed through the double doors and he ushered me out saying really quickly between laughs, “go, go, go, go.”

He loved all my drawings and would grade them all A+++++++++++.

OMG there was this one time when he was trying to shut my locker and I was almost stronger than him and then I let go and he just like ran and slipped on his gym clothes and just spiraled onto his stomach and was as red as a tomato.

He wanted to sit next to me in the computer lab but someone beat him to it and was kinda sad.

And he’d laugh and I loved his laugh and I loved his voice. He would ask me to sing to him too but I had quit choir because I was scared to sing in front of people and so I didn’t. But he pestered me about it and teased me about it. And I would hit him in the arm and smile.

He walked with me class to class too. We would partner together in Gym during dodgeball and so if he got out, I’d bring him back in. I did this epic move and got Parker, this annoying egotistical douchebag, when he tried to get me out and well I spun around on instinct and grabbed it mid air and made him just stare at me frozen with his jaw dropped. My crush stared at me like I was amazing and epic and Caleb just pranced around me repeating my move and saying I was as smooth as Michael Jackson.

He raced me to gym class one time and almost made me fall but caught me. He’d sneak up on me too and jump and push down my shoulders or whatever and as much as I hated it, oh well. I turned around one time and caught him when he was about to do it and he laughed wickedly and asked, “why did u turn around?!”

I liked watching him play football at lunch too. It was kinda fun I guess. He wanted me to do everything with him. It’s the only sport I can do well.

And he and I kinda hung out in the upper gym when class went up there. He actually competed in the beach ball volleyball games and one time while me and Shannon were sitting in the room next to the upper gym and watching and drawing, Mrs. Hawkins asked me if he was causing me problems. I laughed and was like, “no, he’s alright”. And then she gave me a heart attack and said, “he likes you, ya know.” And she asked me if I liked him too and I kinda just was there like trying not to laugh and was silent and so she smirked and went to watch the game.

He scared the shit out of me too. And I nearly jumped out of my skin. He laughed like a maniac and asked me what was wrong and I said I was jumpy and then he made it dirty and repeated it over and over and over and OVER. I could’ve killed him.

He’d steal stuff, like the magnets in my locker, and run and then I would find it on the outside of my locker.

I got angry at him at one point because he lied to me and I yelled at my mother because it was something she would do too. And then he was really sad and stuff and I felt like crying and kicking him but he wrote me a note. He rolled it up and gave it to me and I read it and I smiled. He apologized and he had absolutely terrible grammar but it was cute. He wrote it in a Valentine’s Day activity sheet and he said that I should hate him and he only did what he did because he couldn’t think straight, he liked me so much. I kinda wanted to kiss him then too but I didn’t have the courage to.

On Valentine’s Day, he sent me an email. He told me that he imagined me with him, and I literally had a heart attack.

He asked me to hit him because he was so evil and then he continued to say that when ever I got frustrated with him. He kinda remixed it at one point and was laughing and I totally thought he was joking when he said, “kiss me!” I definitely would have if he was serious but I honestly had no clue. He was crazy. Shoulda just grabbed him.

God, I liked him a lot. So much. SO MUCH.

Did I mention that he had the locker next to mine?

We sat next to each other when we had a project outside ELA. In the hallway next to the heater. He was great. I loved his crooked smile and the way he could be so kind to me and how gentle he could be. I loved him. And I loved his eyes and his hands. His hair was all curly and soft. God, and his skin was a caramel color.

️

He’d poke me when I was working too. He would smirk and stuff and just try to distract me. He always did that during ELA. Mr Donnelly put him across the room at first and he would always look at me and mouth stuff and I’d roll my eyes and smile still. And then Donnelly just looked at him looking at me and figured it out I guess. The guy in front of me was his friend so in order to attempt not embarrassing me, he said, “Caleb, why are you always staring at Jaylen? Go sit next to Karlie,” and I swear my heart stopped. But when he was across the room, He would fall asleep and he looked so peaceful, omg. He would be dreaming too, his fingers twitching. He was really cute.

Somebody made him cry at one point. His life was really distressing to him, his father passed the last year and his mother had this “evil“ husband and so when he got bullied he usually ignored it but after a while he just couldn’t take it and so he left and disappeared. He skipped a class and then came to Mrs Hawkins class with red eyes and wet cheeks and I wanted to ask him how he was but he just looked like he wanted to be alone. Like if I noticed he was crying it would dent his dignity or something. So I said nothing. And then we had presentations and I looked down at my converse and glanced up at him every once and a while. And he would look at me thru the tears and grin with his crooked smile. Then I’d blush and he’d smile again. I wish I had held his hand that day, done something other than that to make him feel better or know someone loved him.

The day after a rather eventful night at home, I called my dad at school and ended up crying and hating the world and he was there for me.

I ate lunch with him at one point and I had been the one to ask. I may still have all the notes from class but they’re buried in my room.

He was really weird tho. And had quite the dirty mind. Called himself a dog and then he barked at me and told me to give him a treat which aha I did not. LMAO. Concerned.

There was this time, when he was obsessed with coming with me onto my bus and sitting with me to see how long he could stay until the driver noticed. Then my friends would scream at him and this one time he got up and he said, “I would love to stay but these people are why u haven’t had a boyfriend.” And I chewed my friends out cuz, hello, I loved him and they weren’t that supportive.

He said he could sing like Michael Jackson and decided to demonstrate when we were watching a movie in Social Studies. It was hilarious, we both were laughing so hard. He was really proud of himself for making me laugh and smile without covering my mouth cuz I was self conscious about it. But he was happy nonetheless.

He would steal my stuff from my pencil case and then he’d lose it, but this one time he left his coat behind and I searched the pockets and got my pencil and every other pencil he had and left him without anything to write with. Was proud of myself.

He gave me a notebook for my birthday cuz he knew I loved writing and he said that he wanted to give me something. He gave me a yellow one too since that was my favorite color. I wrote him letters too. Then he stole it and tried to read what was in it and I had to steal it back from him.

I remember sitting down and next to him in the computer lab. He kinda didn’t say anything and then I looked at my email and I found one from him that said three words that changed my life forever. “I love you.” And then one person saw it and then another and I exited out and we both kinda sat there like why? Why the hell cant these people leave us the hell alone?

That same day he told me he was leaving for Brighton at the end of the year.

The next week he lied to me again and I wrote this long email that ruined everything. I was so pissed at him for what he made me do and say and then I regretted it and told him I didn’t mean it and that I loved him too. Here’s the great part. He said maybe in high-school. He told me FIRST and then he shoots me down for telling him and we both knew we weren’t seeing each other in high-school.

Then he or someone else spread rumors that we were dating and thus evil chick came up to me and random people came up to me and I just kinda was there like, “when was this established?”

When I left, the day of, he stuck by me a lot. And he told Mr Donnelly I was “mean” and smiled at me. Then he kinda walked with me and we were really close for a minute and then he disappeared and I never seen him again. No goodbye. No nothing. I seen him get on the bus and only then did I realize that he played me, even with my absolute caution that I used, he still managed to play me. And then I started crying and I watched him go and did nothing when I should have confronted him, flipped him off or cussed him out in front of his buddies cause that is just cruel to do to a person.

After

But I left anyways, and I kinda stood by the car for a moment in the parking lot and tried to get myself together and start breathing again. But the second I got in the car my mother started playing Daughtry and I started to cry again because everything reminded me of him, it didn’t matter what the fuck it was, it could be random and I’d just remember him, hear his voice, and see him and just break down. When I got home, I went upstairs and curled up in bed with my blue Care-bear that my dad gave me when he was still married to my mom and just let everything go. My eyes burned, the only other time I felt so shattered was when my great grandfather died a few years back, followed by my dog and my great grandma Rosetti. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t do anything but just let myself crumble to pieces there. I didn’t want anyone to talk to me, I just wanted to be left alone but my mom kept knocking on my door, coming in with just about everything I could have wanted to comfort me but they all stayed untouched. My step father, the one who barely showed his love, came in after a little time. He wrapped his arms around me and he told me, with tears in his own eyes, “I’m sorry your heart hurts.” And for the first time in a long time I confided in him with nothing said, just my fingers that gripped his shirt. We stayed like that for what seemed like forever and it was the first of many hugs like that.

The next day, after I slept from absolute exhaustion, I woke up and put on the uniform. I felt sick to my stomach from crying and my eyes looked like I had been sick for weeks. That’s when I started to get sick, not physically, but mentally. At least that’s when it showed. April has always been the worst month of my life every year after that. I don’t remember eating before my mom drove me to the new school. It was hideous and small, but they met me at the door, shook hands with me and I could see in their eyes behind the pity, was disappointment. I sat down in the principal’s office, his right hand person next to him. I tried to keep the tears at bay as long as I could until he wanted to ask me, more like quiz me, about why I was even there. Then I wasn’t. I was still at Clague, I was still close to him and I was ok. I just got snapped back into reality when he told me I was being rude by not looking at him and crying. But like I could help it, it was a disease. After that, I cried on and off and definitely made a “stellar” first impression. I wasn’t really sociable for the next couple of weeks. I made a friend. Just one and I kept it that way for another month. I tried to limit the people who could hurt me. I was scared.

I went downhill. My mind was blank except for being ruthlessly haunted by the one who put my heart through a shredder. I was delusional. I’d hear his laugh and his voice and when I closed my eyes, he’d just be there. I dropped into failing grades, but they let me pass anyways into eighth grade, which was the second most emotional year of my life. I reminded my mom of how much she hurt me everyday. I just gave up. I spiraled down. Just when I thought I was at rock bottom, I’d get hit by another wave and the earth would swallow me in a living, mental hell. I didn’t eat. I stopped being with my family, I just isolated myself. I had these dark thoughts that never fully manifested and became dangerous until a year or so later. But I wasn’t me. The person I was before died with my life at Clague. I didn’t know who I was at that time, but I remembered who I had been before. I got stuck in the past.

It was so stupid tho. Cuz I still loved him and I emailed him calling him an asshole and he agreed that he was but he had to get his coat and he misses me and then I was done. He never responded again. He knew what he did and he knew that I knew what he did so he was silent. After that, I kinda thought maybe he’d email me from my personal account, since he had it, but when he didn’t I just felt numb. I would look up his full name and nothing. I was left with nothing. So, to try and cope, I confided in friends like Tammy, Althea, Carrington. They were all I had and they just kinda listened to me tell these wild stories.

There’s too many memories.

I almost thought I was going to be okay and be able to move on earlier last year. But then November came and I remembered all of this. Every last piece. And I searched his name on the internet and I searched my old school and called all of my old friends trying to find some piece of the puzzle. Then Will had it. A day later his mom emailed me back and told me she told him. Two seconds later a burst of emails came through from him telling me he was getting all this nostalga. Maybe twenty minutes later we were talking about seventh grade and he told me he still loved me. I practically died when I read it because my hopes and dreams were coming true.

He wants to marry me once we graduate now.

True love exists guys and you'll find it in the most unpredictable places. Don't stop looking.

There once was a man who lived a simple life. He had a family and he had a good job. He lived in Michigan in the wealthy part of the state. He was a happy man.

One day he returned from work to a darkened house. There wasn’t a light on in the house. His put his key in the lock and twisted but it was jammed. He began to take it out of the door but it wouldn’t come out. He shook it, trying to free the key. Nothing.

He turned around and looked at his car, parked in the garage. The garage door was closed. He couldn’t remember closing it.

The garage was dark and shadows loomed from every corner. He felt cold. There was a crack in the foundation by the door and the breeze was slipping in. He rubbed his arms and flicked the light on.

Red light blinded him and shadows jumped out at him from the shelves and behind boxes. They screamed at him and reached out to claw his face. They had red eyes and glowing red bodies that dripped red liquid. Their nails were long and they had no legs; just arms.

He turned the light off and ran to his car. He jumped in and closed the door. He was breathing hard. The screaming figures scared him.

He turned the ceiling light on and screamed. They furiously hit the glass on his car and shrieked for him. He searched his pockets and pulled out his keys. He shoved them into the ignition but the car wouldn’t start. He cried and hit the wheel. He pushed the button to turn off the light and take him back into the dark.

It switched to green. Then the light switched to blue. Then it switched to an eerie red.

A wrinkled finger reached over from beside him and hit the light again. It turned yellow again.

The man turned shakily to look at the passenger seat. A man in a white mask sat there next to him. The mask was cracked and faded; stained yellow with age. His eyes were bright orbs in black pits. They fascinated the man. The masked man stared at him with his hands resting on his legs.

“Hello James,” he said. His voice was low and husky. “Don’t you remember me?”

James stared at him, looking in his eyes. They were a beautiful green. Images flashed in his mind. He shook his head and closed his eyes, turning his head away. No. It can’t be. Not him. It wasn’t his fault. It was his boss’s fault. He wouldn’t kill a man.

“Are you ready to join me, James?” the masked man asked.

“No,” James whispered. He looked up at the man, desperate.

The man tilted his head and the mask tilted with him, always shocked and concerned. “Why do you want to stay, James. You have nothing keeping you here.”

“I have my family,” James said, but it sounded more like a question.

The masked man gestured with his palm open to the back seat. James slowly turned his head and saw his little daughter, little son, and wife bloody and gagged with the seatbelts hanging them.

James screamed. “No! What have you done!?”

The masked man narrowed his eyes and tilted his head the opposite way.

“Come now, James. It isn’t that bad anyways. She didn’t love you; does that help?”

“I’m not going with you,” James murmured, staring at his family. He could barely keep his stomach down. He thought he was going to throw up from their black pits for eyes mouths stuffed with bloody rags.

“Don’t do this to yourself, James,” the masked man said. He unlocked the car doors. “Don’t run away from us again.” The red, screaming creatures from outside the car seeped in and strangled James, holding him down on the seat. James eyes bulged out of his head and he choked.

“See you soon.” And the mask miled.

Yeah you, you're past-self.

I hope you got married. I hope you have kids. I hope you have no regrets. I hope your family is happy. I hope you adopted an orange cat named Richard. I hope your kids are everything you dreamed they'd be.

But really, I just hope you're happy,

Your past-self

They all fall down.

Your head still spins.

Your fingers are numb.

You think you’re dumb.

Your fingers feel numb.

They all don’t speak.

Your lips are glued.

Your eyes are tired.

Your brain is on fire.

Your eyes are tired.

They all hit the ground.

Your body is cold.

Your soul is sold.

Your heart is gone.

Your soul is sold.

They all get lost.

You have no map.

You move too slow.

Your eyes are closed.

You move to slow.

They all are alone.

You’re in a crowd.

You don’t reach out.

You are surrounded.

You don’t reach out.

fall down.

don’t speak.

hit the ground.

get lost.

You are alone.