As you lay in bed, looking out the window, you spot warm colored leaves drifting off the trees. With fall in season, you realize it’s the time of year to snuggle in your bed with a fuzzy blanket and...

The room was blurry. My mind was spinning. The projector board was a series of indecipherable tasks  to accomplish. My eighth grade self sat awkwardly at my desk, palms sweating, legs shaking.The counselors...

Growing up, my family and I would take evening trips to the playground and  duck pond behind Timber Creek Elementary. Over the years, these places have lost their allure, but now I get to watch my brother...

Change: a six-letter word I despised.  My whole life, I’ve hated change. The smallest amount of change would send me into a panic. I could never accept it, rather I would whine and complain until normalcy...

Be advised that the content in this story contains self-harm and suicide, and may be triggering to some readers.    My mom cried when she saw the scars littering my arms and stomach for the...

Hundreds of people cram into the small, humid Granada Theater in central Dallas after standing outside in the blazing Texas heat for hours on end. I’m next to all the other teenage girls packed together...

“If you don’t convert to God, you’ll be sent to hell after you die.” Religion had never played a big role in my life until I was told this at age 11. From my knowledge of horror movies and those...

One of my favorite memories of my childhood was when my mom and I used to go every other weekend to a small frozen yogurt shop. Just the two of us would drive to the shop when it first opened to beat the...

  Eraser crumbs covered the desk. I stared down at my tear soaked paper and the empty spaces I couldn’t fill. Everyone in my second grade class had finished their work and gone to lunch, but...

Editor's note: This story won first place for personal column in the 2023 ILPC contest. It also won a 2023 Tops in Texas.  Resting at the bottom of a box buried below an old preppy school uniform and...