Amalie, 10th - Wichita, KS
I take a deep breath, breathing in the smell of the great outdoors. Well, as outdoors as you can be in one’s backyard. I’m facing the rippling blue-green pond directly in front of me. I love this smell. The smell of the earth and pond mingling with the smell of my acrylic paints, permeating the air around me. Intoxicating it. I pick up my brush, look down at my pallet, look up again at my blank canvas. I have so much power. The power to create entire worlds. The power to bring the unimaginable to fruition. On a canvas, at least. I can create lakes of glass, castles of paper, magenta-colored sunsets. I take one step closer to the canvas, and the rest of the world falls away. The bugs chirping in the trees go silent, the water stills, the birds quit playing their melodious tune, the sounds of my siblings playing tag behind me fade, and the world goes silent. As I raise my brush, doused in color, I know what I’m going to paint. I will paint my wildest dreams, things that have only existed in my mind.  That’s the power of what I can do. What you can do. You can create anything. All it takes is an imagination.

B. Loza, 10th - Livermore, CA
Into the night I went and feared that I would never return. I fled into the arms of a motherly figure as a sense I had never known before overtook me. During the long night, I lay awake and could not clear my conscience. To have known the joy beyond the experimental pain caused by the wretched anxiety that ate away at me. Conform I could not, so in my darkest hour, I took the sword which trapped me against the wall and fought for a grasp of air. No matter what guise I used, I could not hide from the overhanging shadow of the one that calls himself my ‘master.’ A life my pride would under no circumstances let me lead.

Under turbulent wind, the strands of my hair refused to keep shape, and instead embodied the beautiful chaos that thrived in me. Perhaps if my upbringing or morals were different I would have no objection to becoming a mindless doll who had no purpose but to serve. The simple truth is I was never cut out to ‘fetch’ someone else’s slippers; I was made to receive slippers. As an adult and lady, it is time for me to make my own decisions. I shall be with a person who is willing to compliment my life instead of becoming the center of it. Because of these reasons, my good friend, my stay is no longer justifiable. May you find peace and maturity in your crucial moments, and linger on the idea of treating others with respect.