What it Means to Dance

He passed by his ex’s house. Just the visage reminded him of how she was like a summer’s day. Overbearing, oppressive, and bothersome when working around the house. He left her in the coldest day of ’64, for every time he was with her he wore a mask, (like the many others he wore in life) but this one was the least comfortable at all. He loved writing that poem as well.

When he arrived at The Publisher’s house, he found the old curmudgeon in solitude, An Island all by himself. He’d soon like to write about him too. He handed over the poem in a folder. The Publisher opened the folder and wept. Then he laughed. Then he went around his office smashing things. The poet had predicted such rage would occur. “What a strong center this has. For generation’s on end they will speak of its layers. It will take more than ten thousand scribes to deduce all its meanings.” The Poet grinned, shared a drink with The Publisher, and departed.

The Poet returned to his house, sat in his chair, The Ship anchored safe and sound. But as he began to write more, the phone rang. The poet community was thrilled, although the people believe there is no such thing. One after the other they congratulated him on his Magnum Opus. The Poet slept better that night than he had in years, for the life of a poet is hard. The novelist battles against the page. He battles against the amount of detail, the flow, the grammar. The poet battles against the human condition itself. He learned that from a poem.

The Poet knew the next day his poem was published. His friend was always fast like that. When he turned on the news, he saw a wonderful sight. people cheering in the streets! All for one poem! But they weren’t cheering, they were jeering cursing screaming. They were tearing down statues and burning up poems. One woman stood on a ledge above the crowd. “The trees can be gold or green but they will never be seen. They can be alive or dead

but they will never be read They can be light and dark, but they will no longer be art. For they will be nothing more than trees. Nothing more!” The People cheered her on, but the poet looked on in wonder. He never saw a poet as incredible as her.

And so The People, so tired of nonsense, burned all the poet’s poems and many poems of the past. The fire consumed “fire” until the word was no more. But the last poem did not need much fire for burning. Despite all its deeper meaning, despite everything it had to say, the last line the poet was so proud of wasn’t much of a line at all. For the page was blank.

Strangers to Ourselves - Sara Ledyard

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” -Kurt Vonnegut I find that in this current era, people, especially the large population of angsty teenagers, are afraid to be who they are; to show their true colors. We are who we pretend to be. Somewhere deep down, we desire to be individuals, but the norms that society inflicts upon us keeps us from embracing who we truly are. I once saw a commercial for depression medication. In the commercial, a woman had a smiley face on a piece of paper attached to a popsicle stick. When she had to hide her sadness, she held up her popsicle stick and pretended to be happy. I find that a lot of people do the exact same thing. Not necessarily because they are trying to hide their emotions, but instead, hide their uniqueness. Why? Because people are so afraid of being shunned by society and becoming outcasts that they ignore any part of themselves that might be different or special out of fear that it might not be accepted. The major issue with holding up our own popsicle sticks is losing sight of who we are. Imitation will become reality, but that small voice in your mind that knows something is against your own morals or beliefs will never go away. It’s similar to that feeling when you know you forgot something but cannot for the life of you remember what it was. We become strangers to ourselves, wondering where we got lost along the way. It’s easy to follow the crowd and get lost in pleasing others, subsequently making it easy to forget who we are. On the bright side, we are not contained behind the bounds of our popsicle sticks, for it is a choice. We can pull them off our faces whenever we please, but many feel they aren’t brave enough, so they leave their popsicle sticks and remain unhappy. It may seem impossible to show your true colors after hiding behind your popsicle stick for so long, but all it takes is a little self-confidence and a lot of bravery to embrace your uniqueness and become friends with yourselves.

A Brief Satire About Bad Grammar – Erin Sullenberger

My grandmother used to walk around, or sit around, really, and simply, correct the grammar of my family and me. She used to say: “Of whom are you talking: her or she?” if I briefly would mention that “Me and her went to the store.” But I think that she was utterly annoying and ill-informed when she said these things. Because really, grammar doesn’t matter, and nor does punctuation or spelling, for that matter. If you speak the English language which everyone, does, one should no eggzactly what I mean. Moreover, when people correct other’s mistakes, they, are indicating that they are stuck-up and better than others: I don’t; want to live in a world with stuck-up and snobby people. And on the reverse, people who