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to act tough. She had to act strong when she really<br />
wanted to cry a thousand tears into her hospital<br />
pillow every single day of her life. She felt many<br />
times that giving up would be so much easier on her<br />
mental state. Couldn’t she just be selfish? One time,<br />
was all she asked herself a lot when she lay awake<br />
at night. She wouldn’t give up, though, because it<br />
wasn’t her. It wasn’t her personality to just throw up<br />
the white flag. She would fight the disease that was<br />
running through her veins--she just had to hold on a<br />
bit longer.<br />
That Ava was indeed headstrong was without a<br />
doubt. She was willful to the point of not wanting to<br />
admit that she was holding hope in her cold hands.<br />
She was walking on the chilling path with the sheer<br />
need to survive. That was all she knew. Wasn't that<br />
all anyone needed to know? To step forward? To<br />
keep moving forward and fight?<br />
After all, life is a battleground and we are the<br />
warriors.<br />
I'm a Pencil<br />
Somer Sweitzer '23<br />
“Yay,” I think as the little person takes me out of<br />
my box, “it finally happened. I got picked.” I keep<br />
chanting this in my head. As I'm being taken out of<br />
the box I wonder what I'm going to be writing<br />
today. I'm pulled out of my thoughts when I feel<br />
excruciating pain going through my body.<br />
“Ahhhhh!” I scream as I look down to see my<br />
bottom half being chewed away by the evil metal<br />
teeth of my nightmares. After what has felt like a<br />
decade, the pain goes away and I feel the little<br />
person start to write something with my now<br />
sharpened bottom. While I dance across the paper I<br />
am stopped suddenly and flipped over. I feel my<br />
hair rubbing against where I was previously<br />
dancing. While my hair is being rubbed it feels as<br />
though it was being pulled out piece by piece.<br />
Finally, when it stopped, the person holding me<br />
seems annoyed and starts to push on my back. After<br />
the excruciating pain caused by the pushing, he<br />
stops, only to start again, but this time he breaks my<br />
back. “Ahh!” I scream as pain courses through my<br />
body. I look down only to see the top of my body. I<br />
look over to see the person who was holding me<br />
now holding a mechanical pencil. “Ugh,” I thought<br />
as I looked over at the evil pencil, then everything<br />
goes black.<br />
Victor Florance '21<br />
Dear Covid-19<br />
Mia Smith '22<br />
Dear Covid-19, If I were to look at the pandemic<br />
from your point of view, then I would have to say<br />
that the mission was a success. You are most likely<br />
proud to be the cause of disease, death, and<br />
desperation that is currently being seen around the<br />
world. However, you must be able to look at this<br />
situation from the perspective of the average human<br />
teenager.<br />
I personally do not know anyone that has been<br />
affected by you, Covid-19, and I am lucky to be<br />
able to say that. There are plenty of people who<br />
have lost their lives, or the lives of family and<br />
friends.<br />
Metaphorically speaking, however, I do feel like<br />
I have lost my life. I mean that in the sense of how<br />
my life was before the pandemic; my life has<br />
changed so much since that March that it feels like<br />
I’ve taken on a whole new one.<br />
I have had to adapt to an entirely new learning<br />
environment, that being in my bedroom on a laptop.<br />
Personally, I find it more difficult to focus on<br />
academics when there is no way to divide my<br />
personal home life from my more professional<br />
school life.<br />
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