Showing posts with label freedom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freedom. Show all posts

Monday, December 31, 2018

In the Spirit of Freedom By: Mikayla Flanz


To say what you believe. To do what you want. Be who you want, learn what you want, love who you want. To live as you choose.

In the short stories by playwright, Sophocles, Oedipus the King and Antigone the concepts in the overarching theme of individual freedom was stripped from the underlying characters, where every time they acted on something or made a decision they faced devastating consequences. While in the real world this stands true, the idea of individual freedom can also open up a world of  positive possibilities that do NOT end with your entire family dead, forcing yourself blind, or discovering you had children with your wife/ mother. 

Related image

Although defined as a natural born right in certain regions of the world, the term freedom is an umbrella topic. Of which, depending on who, what, or where the situation is taking place it dramatically varies. Despite the will of movements designed to break down the wall that divides those of freedom and imprisonment, whether that be institutional or personal, it exists as clear as day. 
I am only a teenager. So for me and most, if not all of my classmates individual freedom can be seen as a foreign term to us. Between parental restrictions and spending over eight hours in school each day there is little that we can control for the next two years until we turn eighteen. Once that anticipated day comes we can travel where we want without hesitation, see who we want without the judging eyes of guardians, pretty much do as we please (within legal boundaries). Yet until that day of glorious freedom, I, along with any other typical sixteen year old will speak when spoken to, complete my homework, and return home at curfew because those are my boundaries to my individual freedom.



Thursday, November 29, 2018

Quite Abstract by Liv Przydzial

Quite Abstract 
by Liv Przydzial 

At first, panic. 

At first, stupid. 

At first, freedom. 

At first, dangerous


And now? 
Merely abstract. 


-----------------------------------------------------

Oh, friendly darkness. 
Suffocate me. 
Swallow me. 
Dissolve me. 

Hide me from myself, 
from this world. 
From reality. 

Let me flow with the wind, 
a million particles racing, 
racing, 
racing, 
racing, 
to their ends and onward, 
back to their beginnings. 

Let me discover myself amongst the silence. 
Oh, heavy, wonderful, endless s t i l l n e s s, 
Heavier than the fog we could only taste. 
Thicker than the newborn, impenetrable army 
of saplings that brush by us. 

We. Us. 
We? Us? 

'Twas anything but still. 
Shadows in every corner, 
Watching, lurking, waiting, 
Waiting. 
Waiting. 
Waiting. 
Waiting, but for what? 

For me to let down my guard. 
I am less than alone, 
but far from it at the same time. 

Fear. 
Fear what? 
Fearing the shadows was like fearing oneself. 
Fear who? 
I'm alone; myself? 
The only thing to fear, 
was fear itself. 

Not a leaf swished. 
Not a branch snapped. 
Not a drop dripped. 

Dead stop. 

This was far enough. 
Was it ever far enough, though? 
A leaf swishes. 
A branch,
snaps
A drop - 

Wait. 
Hush, mind. 
Who's there? 
What's there? 
Why? 

And it all comes back in a blur: 

Cover your left eye with your hand, and stare at the flame. Stare at it for a while. Hush, hush. Now blow it out, and uncover your eye. Look across from you. Can you see them? 

Yes, we can see them. 

Now, before it wears off, stare at their heads. Command your focus. Control it. What happened? 

Their heads, di- disappeared? 

Yes. It's easy to hide, but hard to be found. Quite abstract. 


I have a match. 
But I don't want to be found, 
more than I want to know what I'll find. 

I know what I fear. 
I know how to lie to myself, too. 
But here, 
but now, 
alone, 
what I know doesn't matter. 

'I' is a liar. 
A thief. 
'I' thinks 'I' am smart enough to believe 'my' own lies. 
Well, 'I' was wrong. 

Right here, 
right now, 
the fear lies in remembering, 
in losing myself, 
in my 'dreams', 
in my flaws, 
in too much, or too little, or just right, 
in being reckless, in being perfect, 

in myself. 

I was fine. That's just what the darkness does to you. Quite abstract. 

My Earliest Memory by Emma Cerra

When thinking back to my earliest memory, I wonder why I remembered it. It’s a really odd memory, hazy to the point where I feel like it cou...