The Woods

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. That was when the dogs began howling. I didn't think much of it at first, because they often get worked up about something as silly as a squirrel climbing a tree. It was when they abruptly stopped and started whimpering that I stopped what I was doing and walked over to them. Rascal the biggest and oldest of the bunch was unsuccessfully trying very hard not to be seen. The last time this happened he was a puppy and it wasn't a happy ending for either of us. I ran to the front door double-checking to make sure that it was locked. I then ran to the only window in the house and slid the bars down locking them in place. It was only then that I relaxed a little bit. One by one the dogs made their way into the room with me, slinking in with their heads down. It was almost as if they we're embarrassed that I had seen their fear. As I was sinking down into the chair the doorknob started rattling and then someone or something started pounding on the door with so much intensity the hinges squeaked their protest. I froze hoping the dogs would remember their training and remain silent. To my relief the only thing they did was allow the fur on their shoulders to bristle and they bared their teeth at the door. As quickly as it started the pounding on the door went silent and I turned off the lights. I crept slowly to the window, as I neared it Rascal gave a low warning growl and I paused. I then realized someone was at the window staring at the dogs. I inhaled sharply when they slowly turned to look at me. I knew if they made eye contact it would all be over, but I couldn’t bring myself to look away. They had clearly  been at the same institution as me, I remembered those restricting grey fatigues. I wondered what monstrosity their genes produced for the scientists to release them into these woods. I grabbed my jacket and stepped through the wall. The pure terror in their eyes made my heart hurt, I know what they saw wasn’t pretty. I didn’t even remotely resemble what I used to look like. It’s why I threw away all the mirrors and anything that could reflect my face. My crazy mismatched eyes scared even the scientists who caused them. Snapping out of it, I stepped towards them and they flinched causing me to hesitate. Just then I heard a twig snap and quickly grabbed their arm and pulled them back through the wall with me. I turned on one of the lights, and now realized  it was a boy. A little boy. “How can they experiment on children?”, I wonder aloud. His head whipped up and he stared at me with shock. I managed to stifle my gasp as I stared at his eyes. They were almost like mine except his we’re odd colors, one was purple with stripes of green and the other was pink with blue dots. He didn’t move when I let go of his arm instead he shifts his gaze back to the dogs. “What’s your name?, I ask softly so I don’t scare him anymore than I already have. “Malachi”, he responds. He refuses to take his eyes off the dogs. I smile and pointed to Rascal who was closest to him, “This is Rascal he’s very sweet, you can pet him if you want.”, I spoke slowly unsure how much he could understand. He slowly looked up at me, “Why are you so scared of me? What did I do? Are you going to hurt me too?”, he asked. He had spoken so quickly I barely caught all of his words. “No I’m not going to hurt you, and I’m not sure why I’m scared of you. Actually no I’m not scared of you I’m scared of what you might accidentally do. The last time I let someone like you in here I almost didn’t survive.” I answered. He nodded slowly as if he knew exactly what I was talking about. As an awkward silence stretched in between us it dawned on me that there was no way he knocked on the door. Something was still out there. That must’ve been what I heard right before I took him inside with me. He must have seen the fear on my face because he backed away from me and hid behind the couch. “No I’m sorry Malachi I’m not scared of you, you don’t need to hide. I just realized that it couldn’t have been you that knocked on my door. Do you know who did?” It was his turn to get lost in thought and have the fear spread across his face. He spoke softly but quickly, “It’s the retriever, he is very mean. He’s huge and can find me no matter where I hide.” He looked down at his feet, “He’s going to get you and it’s all my fault.” “No no it’s okay I can take care of him,” I smiled reassuringly at him. “I’ve got tricks of my own.” I said softly already planning on how to rid us of our problem. He looked up at me and smiled shyly, “I can do stuff too.” “ Oh really?” I asked him. He nodded and looked at the couch, the lines and dots in his eyes started moving as he concentrated. Then to my shock, the couch lifted off the floor up above our heads and then started to move back. One of the dogs jumped and hit Malachi making him lose his concentration as the couch plummeted towards us I lifted my arms caught it and set it back down. He hung his head, “Sorry I’m still practicing.” I smiled so am I, I thought to myself. “Want to see something cool?”, I asked him. He looked up excited and nodded. I sat down and patted the seat next to me and he walked over and sat down staring at me expectantly. I whispered, “Or rather hear I guess.” into his head. He jumped, “No way! I can do that too! Not as good as you did it but I’m working on it.”, He said excitedly. I was about to answer him when the someone started banging on the door again. I jumped up and started to walk towards the door when Malachi jumped in front of me. “No he wants me not you” he almost yelled at me. Softly he continued, “I knew he would follow me but I didn’t care, I thought everyone was mean so I didn’t care if anyone else got hurt. I see now that I was wrong and I will not allow you to get hurt because of me.” I smiled sadly at him, “It’s not your choice anymore you deserve a future and this is how you’ll get one. I then picked him up and sat him down on the couch, ordering the dogs to keep him there I walked through the wall. I stared at the “Retriever” he was indeed huge but he didn’t really look scary he looked like a bully. Taking care of bullies was my specialty. I smiled wickedly and drifted into his thought I went to his neural processor and dropped an image of Malachi in the so when he looked at me he would think Malachi was behind me. I pulled myself out of his head and then called to him, “Looking for something?” He spun around so fast he was a blur. He ran towards me and as he pulled back his fist I readied mine, caught his fist and yanked him down deep into the earth and then away from the cabin. As soon as I let go of his fist I traveled back up to air freedom. I walked back to the house and wrote, It is midnight. The rain is beating on the windows. It was not midnight. It was not raining.

Memorable Passage

“At a few minutes before four, Peeta turns to me again. "Your favorite colour . . . it's green?"

"That's right." Then I think of something to add. "And yours is orange."

"Orange?" He seems unconvinced.

"Not bright orange. But soft. Like the sunset," I say. "At least, that's what you told me once."

"Oh." He closes his eyes briefly, maybe trying to conjure up that sunset, then nods his head. "Thank you."

But more words tumble out. "You're a painter. You're a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double-knot your shoelaces."

Then I dive into my tent before I do something stupid like cry.”

― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

This really hit home with me, I did something like this when my uncle was on his death bed. He couldn’t remember me or anything about himself. So I spent my last 10 minutes with him telling him everything I could remember about him. I told him all of my favorite memories with him and everything he accomplished with his life.

Quote Post

-Anonymous 

"Writers as Readers"

When I read I can pretty much do it anywhere. The most preferable way to do it for me, is alone in a high place like a tree or on my house. No matter what i need music in my ears to help completely  block out the world. I absolutely can not read in silence. I enjoy eating while I read but I never fully get into it because I’m so worried I’m going to get food on it.

One of my best memories connected to reading is making one of my best friends with a book. I don’t remember which book it is now but we both wanted the same book and we would always get to the library at the same time and head to where the book should be and find out that it had just been checked out. So we conspired together to get the book before anyone else could, and that’s how we became best friends.

A book that I couldn’t stop reading was the 5th wave, I couldn’t stop because it was an exciting read the whole time you never knew what was going to happen next. Even when I had to put the book down I never stopped thinking about it, I would try and guess the possibilities of what was going to happen. Then I wouldn’t be able to focus because I needed to know what happened. The Daughters of the Moon series is a very hard couple books to get through because they’re essentially the same thing over and over.

I can’t remember which book I read first because I’ve always read more than one book at a time, so it’s between When You Take a Mouse To School, I’ve Got a Wocket in my Pocket, or Green Eggs and Ham. These books stand out to me because they’re the first books I read all by myself.

I think someone that reads a lot can be a very strong writer but then again I read all the time and I’m a terrible writer. I’m much better at editing someone else's writing, in fact I enjoy editing. I think this is because it’s essentially reading just with a separate goal in mind. I think if you pay enough attention to sentence structure and themes you might be able to directly or indirectly put it into your work but i feel that you really have to be paying attention to it.

If I ever wrote a book someday it would be a very short fictional story, it might take some of my past experiences and put a dark twist on them. On the “About the Author” I would want it to make me seem as mysterious as my book. So it would just have very basic facts that you could learn just by googling me. For example, Katelynn is from a tiny town near Arkansas, she isn’t married but does have a lot of animals. It would be very simple and I probably wouldn’t have a picture of myself either.

Being caged 

You can be caged by many things, mentally and physically. Mentally you can let bad experiences or other upsetting conflicts trap you. They never let you move on. For example, I was just confronted or rather accused last night of things I didn't do. It's my mental cage because it's very hard for me to just forget it and move on. When you're caged you do whatever is necessary to escape, I'm the same way. I do whatever I can to get rid of this problem. I calmly talked to the accuser and worked everything out. I have now escaped my mental cage. I only wish all my mental cages were so easy to escape. 

Writers Dreaming

3.)    Talking about bad dreams or bad news or other bad things does give them too much power. Just thinking about them gives them power, they can haunt you or hang over you all day everyday if you allow them to. That is the only way the have power over anyone. When you have a nightmare it generally will fade away and be forgotten if you just stop thinking about it, but if you decide to tell someone about it, it usually sticks with you for a while after that.

5.)     I personally feel I could live without talking for several years, I don’t talk much now as it is. I’m not shy or anything I just don’t talk too much unless I’m required to. If I talked less and listened more not much would change. I might notice more changes in other people, I might notice of someone else is more quiet than me.

6.)    I’m comfortable using both English and Spanish. I would love to be fluent in Chinese or Japanese. I have family that lives both in China and Japan and I know it’s cheesy but I think it sounds cool. I do not agree that speaking English is enough because we live in America, why should everyone else have to learn our language because we’re too lazy or lack the effort to try and learn ours.

7.)    I’m the kind of person that can remember the exact conversation i had with you 2 years ago, but not remember what I ate this morning. I can also recognize your face but if I have to put a name to your face I’m going to fail miserably. I think it is a good thing for me not to remember much of anything, because there's a lot that I’d rather not remember. The fuzziest times of my life are when I’m young and there a couple of months from about 2 years ago that I can’t entirely remember, all I recall when I try to remember was that it was not a good time in my life. The clearest times are all my good memories, I put a lot of focus into remembering my good days and try to forget my bad days.

9.)    When I need to occupy my small mind I climb a tree or I climb the house. I focus a lot better when I’m higher up, or looking down on the view below. My biggest distractions are my phone or my book.

11.)    I think the older the get it does get harder to learn new things but not because of the age, I think it’s harder because you don’t have as much time to focus on what you want to learn. You might be more focused and not distracted but it’s still hard if you don’t have the time. It is true that younger people or even kids learn a little bit faster. I tutor and autistic 5 year old and he has learned more spanish in the 2 months that I’ve been teaching him than I did when I took a class for a year.



Dream Threads 

The faint sound of people busting inside the strange house, reached her from down in the basement. She silently crept up the stairs and watched the FBI swarming into the house taking everyone older than 18. She softly stepped back and cringed when the step creaked underneath her. She froze when the agent took a step towards her. She held her breath and quickly worked her way back down the stairs with no other unwanted noises. She tried to calm kids as a sound like thunder made its ways to their ears. “Ssh they’re leaving now it’ll be okay.” Giant eyes met hers as they heard the step creak. She closed her eyes and stepped to the door, she spun quickly and ushered them back into the secret room she closed the door tightly and quietly picked up the book shelf and placed it in front of the door. She then returned to her post by the door. It opened so slowly she shifted impatiently, they finally took a slow step through the door and then one more. One more step and the agent would be in the perfect position there, as she jumped she realized there was another agent coming down the stairs too late. She knocked the first agent out as the second tried to grab her, she spun around prepared to fight him too but he brought his rifle up and smacked her with it. The taste of iron assaulted her tongue before she blacked out.

Gray Gray and more Gray

He stared down at the worn pillow, it was so clear where he rested his head no matter how much he fluffed the pillow as soon as he laid it back down on the bed the indent reappeared. Flopping down onto the pillow he shifted till he was comfortable. He stared at wall for a while then shifted his gaze to the cell door. His lawyer promised him it wouldn’t be too much longer before he was free, it had only been a year, he knew he was lucky. Some men in here stayed wrongfully imprisoned for decades. He gave a long sigh, he knew he wouldn’t get any sleep tonight. It was so hard to sleep in such a dreary place, the brightest thing was his prisoner's garb, gray and white. Everything else was a darker grey or black. He listened to the quiet grumbling of the prisoner in the cell next to him, he liked him. He was here because he punched a guy too hard and accidentally killed him. If you ask me the guy he killed deserved it, he abused his girlfriends and raped them. He was doing everything he could to get him out. He already promised as soon as he was out that getting him out would take his first priority. He glanced up to the tiny square otherwise known as a “window” the sun was already rising he groaned and stood up ready to get this day over, one day down not too many more to go. He would get through this.

If I were in charge of the world
I'd cancel canned tuna, long school days, flip flops, all PE classes, homework
and also the presidential candidates of 2016.


If I were in charge of the world
there'd be free public transportation,
more homeless shelters and
legal drinking age would be 18.

If I were in charge of the world
You wouldn't have tidy.
You wouldn't have chores.
You wouldn't have responsibilities.
Or "Before you go to bed, clean dishes."
You wouldn't even have dishes.

If I were in charge of the world
a bag of skittles would be a vegetable.
All Fridays require Netflix binges.
And a person who sometimes forgot to make their bed
and sometimes forgot to do their chores
would still be allowed to be
in charge of the world.

Party

Surprises are great, surprise parties are even better. Planning parties are simple especially when you know their favorite color. Green everywhere, green sofas, M&Ms, silly string. We even have temp green hair dye. Lime punch, Key lime pie, Green salsa and chips. Birthday presents wrapped in green. Green streamers, green balloons. Here we go, she opens the door and we jump out, have a great party. When it's over she walks up and asks, "why so much green? I expected you to do purple, since you tend to do peoples favorite color". Oops guess I should have made sure I had the write color.

Faded

After that terrible day of the crash everything was gray. It had started off so well too, it was why we had left the house in the first place. It was a cool day with a bright blue sky, the clouds were huge and fluffy. It was my fault really I was the one who insisted we go out and enjoy the day. We had enjoyed the day we drove to each park and ran around discovered new places to explore.

I finally come out of my room just to grab necessities, a bag of chips, a couple of cans of dew, and I’ve gotta be sorta healthy so I grab the jug of apple juice. As I’m retreating back to my room I hear the voices, as weird as it is after the crash I hear color more than I see it, my friends arguing with my grandparents make me think red. “Of course we can visit her!” they yell. Another flash of red, a little brighter this time. My grandmother's teal colored calming voice is the last thing i hear as I softly close my door.  What they don’t realize is my grandparents aren’t keeping them away, I am. I haven’t been able to look at anyone or anything the same. It’s so hard talking to my own family, they think I can handle the looks of pity my friends always give me when I see them? Everything around me as my already dark mood worsens. Not happening. I’m supposed to go back to school next week, I can’t bare the thought of finishing school without them.

I shudder as I recall the nightmare from last night, my mom's scream of terror, the agony of hearing my siblings cry but not being able to help them. The man in the yellow mask pulling me out of the burning car, the flames reach so high. The numerous colors of the flames red, orange, yellow. Some parts were almost a neon green where it mixed with the fumes and oil. That was a fireman I recall now. He wasn’t able to help them anymore than I was, they were already gone. Why did I have to be the only that survived? The vivid colors in my mind faded back to the gray I’m used to now, as I pushed away the dream.

The rest of the week passed so quickly, it was time for school. I walked to my car and just sat there for a while, it’s probably blue to most people but not to me, along with everything else it faded to a gray. The pure terror pulsing with my heartbeat I felt merely sitting there were like bright flashes of white hot lightning. Slowly I shifted into drive and released the brake. I realized as I pulled up to the stop sign that I actually kinda missed driving. After a further thought I mentally told myself to let them go let them be free, as I did I turned and kept driving I looked around in shock the colors were slowly returning to the world. For the first time in months I allowed myself a small smile, I was going to be fine.

5 Interesting games
7 Racing rain outside
5 Trade wind cloudy skies                   

5 Nurture green forest
7 Community garden
5 Mod mint patch deep down 

S: Sour darkness

E: Endlessly deepening 

A: Always swirling 

L: Lastly settling for 


G: Gray

R: Rooms and furniture

A: Arguably unsettling

Y: Yay for darkness

Tender seedlings struggling 
to survive in this world
Calming cohesive greens
calming the struggles
Daring Jades causing
seedlings to be bold
Seedling transferred to 
Caitlin's Kelley, wanted for
emotional disturbances.

The men after completing training made their way to the armory. A speech was made as the impatient men continued to fidget. One would be singled out for the honor of being held responsible for the Indigo Batik, would it be the tall one? The strong one maybe? To their shock it was actually the smallest and most quiet one. For reasons unknown to them he was chosen and after that night he nor the Indigo Batik were ever seen again.