THE FIRST Dear Ms. L, I love being in your class! In the mornings, I am so ready to get in your class! I don’t know what it is but I feel more comfortable or something in here! <3 THE SECOND (an excerpt) Hi… I’ve been going through a lot of things the last 2…

Sitting in a Starbucks. I’ve been here for 5 hours and got up once, to get a second cup of coffee. It’s been hard to write lately. My life has subtly made a dramatic change in the last six months. While I worked at Institute 2012, I had a fire for TFA and an easy…

Conversation C: I don’t know what to do. D: Do what you want to do. C: I don’t know what I want to do! D: Then do what you think you want to do. After accidentally taking a week off, I ran my fastest 5k in months through the dark on dirt roads in damp…

Last year, when the girls got me to do the talent show, it was entirely because of their persistence. Continuously, every day, for months, they would come up to me at recess, before school, after school; they would write me page-long letters of plans and ideas; they would send me Facebook messages and texts asking…

Yesterday I came home from school never wanting to go back. Last week I drove 15 hours to Durham, NC, to see exactly half of my Old Dumas Family. The anticipation wasn’t huge because I was so overwhelmed with school and life. The trip was calm and quiet, full of food and carrides from Durham…

Leadership team meeting today: “What are we accomplishing? Why are we here? Why do we meet?” asks Vice Principal. “Putting out fires,” says one. The other six stay silent. I am shaking right now. Shaking. I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t been eating as much, or because I’ve been eating more sugar, or…

I’ve been sitting in a Little Rock Starbucks for over an hour, with nothing accomplished. Instead I’m chatting with a high school best friend, ran into an old Dumas employee, and ate a pumpkin scone. All I’ve eaten today is a piece of pumpkin cake, and a pumpkin scone. I spent over $300 at TJMaxx…

In ten minutes I will leave for Sunday Family Dinner with the Doom Crew. It’s November. How this happened, we’re not really sure. This afternoon Erin, JL and I walked to Subway for lunch. For the first time in three days, my appetite came alive at the thought of a Subway pizza (?) We ate…

A haiku for fall: I am oft speechless. (Home reeks of campfire remnants.) Hello, tea season.  

How can one articulate the feeling of normalcy after alienation? I notice it most right before sleep, cradled by pillows and under the weight of three blankets, the feeling that seems to puncture into my marrow, that sits in the muscles under my shoulder blades, that is locked in the crook of my pillow-clutching arm.…