Seven Years Later

A Brief Note: 
I've updated the 'About' section to read the same as this post, since I don't anticipate any more posts, but I will be keeping this blog up for as long as the internet allows it to be, as I feel it's an important way for me to connect with how I've changed and grown since I started this project in 2011. Thank you, if you were every someone who read my blog or supported me. You made a world of difference.

7 Years Later:
Apparently I haven't touched my blog Storyboard since about 2013. I hope this hasn't permanently damaged your opinion of me, as a lot has changed since I began this project.

It all started the same way so many things do... as an assignment for a high school creative writing class. Unlike most assignments, however, this was something that truly spoke to me; you see, at that time, my heart was set on becoming a writer. This blog offered my the chance to hone my craft, receive feedback, and practice creativity on a (semi)regular basis. Nothing I wrote was perfect, and, with much-needed hindsight, I hesitate to say my writing was even good. Nevertheless, I relished every chance I got to pour more of mind onto the page, and I'll always treasure my teenage efforts to write something worth reading.

I've gone a very different direction than a younger me would have dreamed, pursuing the biological sciences rather than the written word, but I am still an avid reader, dipping my toes in as many genres as I can pull together. Please feel free to read what a younger me thought would be the building blocks of my future. In a way, she was right. Even though I decided writing was not for me, I am ever-thankful for the teachers and professors who taught me how put my thoughts to paper and rearrange what I wrote until the words were the same as the images in my mind.

—Morgan

Part 2: Missing Beats

Today she’s going to school. She couldn’t go last week because I had a stomach bug, but I seem to have gotten better over the weekend. I can’t help but feel guilty for making her miss her ballet lessons all last week; she’s dreamed of being a ballerina since we were four. I have to make sure we don’t miss too many classes on account of me, or she might not be welcome back. But I can’t help it if she doesn’t get her calcium everyday or get all her vitamins. It was easier when we were four; her mother always made sure she got every essential mineral. It was like that for a while, and when mom forgot, we remembered.

We used to be so good at that; she was the perfect child and student: never missing homework, A’s on every test, keeping the cleanest room in the house, practicing our splits right before bed. She never missed a beat. But I’m just skin, blood, and bones, I couldn’t really do anything when she needed me most. Needed me to stop, to pull away, to let go, when she couldn’t.

Ninth grade, her first year in high school, and she was on top of everything. While her peers could barely snatch a B in Freshman English, she was the star pupil, and passed her first quarter with a 97. It would’ve been a 98 too, if it hadn’t been for that group project. That was the project, wasn’t it? It was while they were reading To Kill a Mockingbird. The teacher assigned them random partners, and they had to act out a scene from the book. Oh, if it had been any other project. But there's no going back now, no changing the past. She went over to his house, so that they could work on the project together. It started out that way, at least. But even after the project was turned in, we still walked to his house every day. We started going out later and later and later, even staying till morning some nights. Mom had trusted us so much, she’d never set a curfew, but even she was able to see what was going on. Mom wouldn't stand for it any longer. And she was grounded. Just like that. “You should’ve known better.” That’s what Mom would say. It became her motto over the next few years, but it didn’t even take that long for the star pupil, the perfect daughter, God’s favorite angel, to fall from grace, though. Here’s how it went…

Part 1: Skin, Blood, and Bones

I am her. I am what she lives inside. I am her skin, blood, and bones. When she wants to go, I am what moves her. When she needs to cry, I let tears stream down her skin, puddling on the ground beneath her so that she can see the reflection of her sorrow in the pools I’ve made, and she realizes it’s time for her to be happy again. Time for her to smile again, time for us to smile again. I miss her smile. I can only see it when she looks in the mirror, when she tells me to look in the mirror. I’ve managed to live without the mirror. I don’t really need it anyway. Who needs a mirror when you can feel the smile? When you can feel the warm corners of her lips curling upwards? When you can feel its comforting halo surrounding you? Bereft of the smile, I don’t know how I’d survive.

This time, though, she looked up, looked straight into the endless reflection of the mirror which hangs on her wall. She saw her luminescent smile, and it grew. It grew into the most beautiful smile, full of compassion and love. So beautiful that I feared it couldn’t be true, any moment it’d turn into a songbird and fly away, singing a song for someone else.

Then she looked into our eyes. She has the most beautiful eyes. I’ve heard people talk about eyes before. They say things like: beauty is in the eye of the beholder, an eye for an eye and the whole world’s blind, love sees not with the eyes but with the heart, eyes are the windows of the soul. I don’t know if that one’s true or not. But what if it is? And if it is, who do people see in her eyes? And will they ever see me?

Soldiers

I see soldiers

I see soldiers and they’re coming for me

I see soldiers led by a leader, a commander, a despot.

She fights as the commander

She fights with every weapon in her arsenal

She fights using guilt as a grenade

Her second in command

Seconds from her side

Succumbs to her sour manipulation

Who will win?

Who will lose?

Who should?

There they are:

The understudy

The tyrant

The soldiers

And the soldiers are coming

Learning to Breathe

The thrill of existing as words on paper, of being able to breathe by exhaling words, thrills me. It rivets me. It owns me. I am addicted to the thrill, the uncontrollable high of writing and rewriting myself. If you seek answers, look no farther than a blank page; it will show you all you really need to know. More than answers, it will give you a home, a purpose. My voice, unlike most of those around me, isn’t a noise, isn’t some pitch or tone I can recognize in a crowd; it is a completely unique pattern of letters on paper that I can’t explain without changing it. I read the world around me like a book, and I write what I see. Every breath I take is a new word leaving a fantastic new tang on my lips, and the only way to express it is by documenting it on paper with the voice I can’t hear. When the only way to exist is by the stream of words inside of me, every word becomes a piece of me, and I'm confronted with the fact that through my barely legible scribbles, I am learning to breathe.

Hell Hath No Fury like a... Lovesick Werewolf?

Beginning right where "Werewolves in their Youth" left off:

“Dammit, Josh, don’t do that anymore. You’re gonna break my neck one of these days,” Clancy managed, while stealthily trying to wriggle out of his friend’s muscular hold. Joshua Chen, Clancy’s massive friend, finally pulled his arm away, releasing Clancy.

            Clancy, free at last, looked up to find his three friends’ attention directed away from Clancy’s virtual victory to something or someone behind him. Clancy turned in his seat to barely catch a glimpse of Rochelle Williams as she slid past Clancy into the lap of the boy on Clancy’s right.

            “Owen,” she cooed, drawing out the last syllable excruciatingly, “tell me you’ve got something planned for tomorrow?” Owen’s charcoal eyes simmered with discomfort, and Clancy realized just how much Rochelle had caught Owen off guard.

            “Baby, you know I would have planned something if I’d been able to, but tomorrow’s… well, you know what happens on the full moon, baby.” Judging by the look on Rochelle’s face, Clancy would have bet a hundred dollars that she hadn’t remembered that tomorrow night was a full moon, but refusing to admit defeat, Rochelle carried on, “I know, Owen, I just hoped we could do something before you, well, you know…”

            “Sorry, baby, but I’m gonna be working in the morning tomorrow, then preparing all afternoon.” Rochelle’s eyes had somehow morphed into the perfect pouting puppy dog eyes, and so Owen took his last chance to save himself, “Tell you what, babe, how about we have our own Valentine’s Day, just the two of us, next Saturday. It will be the most romantic day of your life, and you won’t have to share it with the millions of other people celebrating Valentine’s Day tomorrow.” Rochelle’s face was glowing: Owen always knew just what to say to her.  

Valentines Day is the stupidest holiday ever. I mean, whose idea was it to force moronic candy hearts down all your friends' and family's throats, spend an entire day catering to some ditzy girl's needs, and waste a hundred dollars on dinner reservations for her? Clancy mentally complained, I'm glad that Elise broke up with me, because now I don't have to worry about idiotic shows of affection or inane "holidays" like this one.

Update

Guess what everyone?!
That's totally right! I did change my blog design; you'll notice the purple/black color scheme has been abolished and replaced by a turquoise/gray color scheme! I love it, so I hope you do too. If not, then, umm, well, don't rain on my parade.
Sincerely,
Me.