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"Blurry Photographs" (Journaling)

By Asche Keegan

Some say love is invisible. It’s not.

It hides in the way two people look at one another, the way they talk and the lilting of their voice whether they stand in person or call across great divides. It shines in the teasing laughter and the caring acts that trace ways across the constellations of the unimaginable reaches of the human mind.

You can see love in the faces of those who have confided their heart and soul with one another—who have been left bleeding to death and stitched back together by the person who they love. The smiles are larger, the touches are gentler, and even in photos it seems like the edges of hardship and reality have been blurred just a little when they’re standing next to each other.

Some say love lasts forever. It doesn’t.

In fact, I used to think my parents never truly loved each other, but old pictures seem to tell a different story. In pictures, everyone is laughing, smiling, hugging and standing close to each other. The smiles are larger, the touches are gentler, everyone seems so loving and caring, and more than anything else the people feel like family.

The pictures show a family that hasn’t yet seen the trials of the world and splintered apart beneath them, unable to survive through sickness and in health. The world has twisted their features, and now even in the happiest of pictures you can see the forced attempts at a smile, the misery beneath every gaze, the heartache that evolved so quickly from the love that once flourished everywhere.

Acts of service and words of assurance have become a thing of the past, and the world that once stood aside before their love has kept on doing what it does best—dishing out hardships and strife before humanity has time to recover from the last challenge life threw at it.

Yet here in pictures preserved on digital profiles of twelve years ago, you can finally see why your parents have kept trying—hoping to salvage what is left of the love that existed so long ago. The message is hauntingly beautiful, but perhaps it is a warning of what is to come.

Is love worth it? I don’t know.

What should you do if nearly all love is doomed to fail? What can you do when no matter how strong you build your bonds, they will splinter apart and leave you with only a harmful shell of what was? How can you love when your own doubt holds you back?

These questions and a thousand others just like it plague my existence. I sit here sobbing, listening to the loud voices of beautiful children in digital videos, bemoaning the gradual deterioration of happiness and the establishment of hard lines into the faces of children and parents alike.

 Old pictures share hope and tragedy, and the comment sections echo of a patient, happy life that once was vibrantly lived. So be wary oh lover, for perhaps the world will gape in wonder at the beauty of your devotion, but more than likely it will shudder beneath the weight of your heartache and burdens, before moving on ambivalently.

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blue sky with stars during night time


"Catching Comets"

By Asche Keegan

Abigail Avalee breathed against her bedroom window, enthralled by the dancing snowflakes just beyond the glass.

“What is that?” she asked, fogging the glass even further.

“Those are snowflakes,” her mother said, entertaining her daughter a touch longer, for snow did not fall often in southern San Heights.

Abigail gaped, tracing their path through the night, watching as they fell out of sight to melt on the ground. Lifting her gaze back up to the sky, she saw a flash of golden light, left streaking across the outer edges of the atmosphere. “And what was that?” she asked in awe.

Taken by surprise, her mother took in the last glimmer of gold. Twenty years ago, her own mother had taken her stargazing, pointing out the sparkling lights that made up a meteor shower. But now Abigail was looking at her expectantly, and she had to give an answer. “That was a comet, and now it’s time for bed.”

“I want to touch the comet and the snow,” Abigail murmured, but she took her mother’s hand and went straight to her bed.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get to tomorrow.”

~ ~ ~

When Abigail woke up the next day, she ran to her window and saw that the world had changed color. Delighted, she ran outside immediately and touched the white ground with her finger. The frigid bite raced up and down her arm, and she yanked her finger away. Surveying the landscape before her, she saw that it was untouched—minus a series of small prints that led towards the dense woods behind her house.

“It’s the comet!” she exclaimed, suddenly connecting the two magics of the night before. In her mind, Abigail saw a river of stardust, with comets dancing and leaping in it like the fish at the neighbor’s pond.

Without going back for a coat or scarf, she followed the tracks hoping to find the comet. It didn’t take long for her to start to get cold, to shiver. But now the tracks were veering off into the bushes, and she wondered if the comet was inside.

Though the bushes hid most of her sight, she could still look through it and see a darling rabbit, sniffing his nose and staring back at her. At first she felt disappointed, but after seeing his velvety fur and thinking about how nice he would be to have as a pet, she slowly slid her hand out to him and through the bushes.

Perhaps the rabbit sensed that she was a good, curious soul, or that if he went with her his future days would be filled with plenty of good food and a good friend. Regardless, he sniffed her hand, gradually coming forward until he was cupped mostly in one hand, which Abigail gradually pulled back towards herself.

Now, the cold was starting to hit, and though she had a rabbit, she didn’t have a coat. Holding the rabbit close to her chest, she began to stumble backward, following the footsteps the two of them left.

“Are you a comet?” she asked the rabbit. He twitched his nose but didn’t reply, and Abigail frowned in confusion. “That’s not a good answer, you know. Are you magical?”

She was starting to stumble now, the cold driving her to the ground, and she thought she’d take a moment to rest and wait for a little bit before continuing on through the snow.

She shivered and clutched the rabbit close to her chest, and found to her confusion that stopping only made her colder.

But thankfully in the distance, she heard a loud shout, and she spied her mother racing towards them.

“Thank goodness you’re okay; I thought you were lost!” her mother scooped Abigail up into her arms, and she held onto her rabbit.

“Why did you run out like that?” her mom asked. “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to leave by yourself?”

“But I was catching Comet,” Abigail replied, holding up the rabbit.

Her mom seemed at a loss for words at first, but finally replied, “I suppose there’s more than one way to stargaze. Come on, let’s get you warmed up.”

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woman holding hair facing body of water during daytime 

An Analysis of the Intrapersonal Persona

By Asche Keegan

“Tell me, I beg of you. Is it too late to find myself?”

I turn to the specter, solidifying before me even as we speak. Her red hair falls limply behind her shoulders, and I wonder how long it has been since she bathed. Deigning the sight not worth my time, I turn my back and stride away.

“Please!” she cries. “I want to discover who I am. I want to fix all the things that are wrong with me and build a world that is better for everyone that comes across it. I want to change the world, but I can’t like this. I’ve got so many things wrong with me…” Her voice cracks.

I pause and steal another look, and I find her on her knees behind me, hands clasped. Her head almost touches the ground, and her shoulders shake with silent sobs.

“You have too many things wrong with you for that,” I tell the girl. “You think you’ll be something great one day? Right now, you are nothing, just a spineless piece of filth who desperately needs a shower. You think you’re smart? You haven’t met smart people. You think you’re pretty? I don’t even have to show you why you're wrong with that.”

She continues to sob, but not an ounce of compassion stirs my soul. “I came to you for help,” she says. “Will you truly deny it to me?”

“Yes.”

“You are a wicked person.”

“Playground insults mean nothing to me.”

She shakes her head and pulls herself to her feet. “You can not feel. You’re a narcissist incapable of recognizing that someone else might be at the center of attention. You’re a rotting ball of greed and anger and cold pathological logic. You are emotionless, and you don’t even deserve to be called human. The forces that drive you are envy and the judgement of others. How you can be so foolish is beyond me.”

The words hit a nerve, I must admit, but I refuse to allow her the victory of seeing me hurt. “And your point is?”

She chokes back another sob of hate and sorrow then rushes at me, hands grasped to tackle me to the ground.

Easily, I swat her attack aside and seize her neck, lifting her up to my eye level. She writhes and croaks, the pathetic thing, and I contemplate how easy it would be to kill this small voice that does nothing but beg for things and condemn me. Yet, an unwelcome part of me protests the act of violence and I toss her aside instead.

“How dare you attack me,” I say.

“I—hate you,” she says, the vehemence in her voice fiercer than any I’ve ever heard.

“It looks like you have a bit of spine in you after all,” I say. Turning back, I stride away—to where I do not know. I only peer behind me once more to ensure that she has evaporated just as she came. 

Summoning a rock to support my weight, I sit exhausted against it. In this moment of rest, the insults come flooding back, the attacks, the cruelty of what was said.

The last time I had been called a narcissist I was weak, and she had been the one to take control. As the memories replayed again and again, I shoved them away, refusing to acknowledge that once she had been strong, and I had been the vagrant pushed to the side. Once more she dredged up the insults that hurt the most, for only she could have known the pain her words could cause.

Pathological, I can understand, and though what heart is left in me yearns to unfurl itself within my chest, I refuse to allow it. Emotions make me weak, and empathy is a tool for pawns. I wonder what the others would think if they saw me here, and I almost choke as her condescending words come back to me. "The forces that drive you are envy and the judgement of others."

I can not focus on these thoughts now or they will be the death of me, I realize.

Limp red hair falls around me as I lean back on the stone, and I contemplate how foolish one must be to destroy themselves from the inside out.

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Author's Note: I diverged away from my usual style a bit, but I tried writing this story five other ways, and this is how it came out! XD I know it's a bit random, but please let me know what you think. Star stories are my favorites. :)



"New Year's Night"

By Asche Keegan

There’s in the night a lonely child
Staring at a midnight sky. And with
Hands outstretched he catches Jupiter.
He’s just a solitary soul making the light 
Last forever in the palm of his hand, 
But it shines through all the dreams he holds.
On a shooting star, he makes a wish,
For a friend to spend next New Year with. 

He closes his eyes and breathes in deep,
Opens his hands, lets Jupiter escape.
When he looks up, there it shines again
Almost a star in the blackness of night
A lonely light in all that dark,
But a light nonetheless.
Because now he’s held a planet, 
Next will come the moon
But not to use up all his wishes, 
He will wait until the morrow’s eve.

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