April 16 Newsletter

Composed entirely of ANCHOR students work! See what your peers are creating!

Alyssa Kulesza, Freshman Natalie Pacholke, Freshman

Emily Krutsch, Junior

Emily Krutsch, Junior

Natalie Pacholke, Freshman

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This is you. This is me.

Adam Terwilliger You tell me I'm a dreamer. I say go. You tell me to believe. I say no. You say stop. I say woah. You say follow. I dive and throw. Throw it all away. You speak of passion. I can only sit and smile. Before I can find even the hope to follow or create footsteps, I find myself trapped in my indecisiveness. A loss for words. A monster in myself. The monsters that have haunted me for so many years have finally come to rest. Unfortunately for those who have come to know me and are affected by my actions on a day to day basis, I have awoken. That monster. Under the bed. In the tops of trees. Deep within the cave. That monster that always comes b ack to you when nightmares strike. That monster which you can never truly get over. I have become that monster. I'm not a fraid to admit. I have an addiction. A p roblem. A fear. An addiction to beauty. A problem of devaluing human beings. An ever reigning fear that dictates each and every word I speak, each and every step I take. A fear that embodies everything I live as and everything I continue to live for. A fear, not of making mistakes or being rejected, but of being b roken. Read my words. Hear my voice. Im addicted to the beauty that an individual can bring to me. However, I cannot come to the utter realization to treat human beings as they should be treated. I see you. I see me. I see us. I see the Emily Krutsch, Junior in between. I see each and every one. In my game of chess, I'm just trying to absolutely and utterly wreck the opposing king. I dont even have a queen. I'm playing solo. Before the game even started, I said I'm going down shorthanded. This is how life truly is. Now I need to work. I need to think. Live through the pieces. Don't take it too harshly if you deem yourself to be a pawn in my game. It's all a game in the end. Life. Just know I've got my rooks, and knights, and bishops, ready to strike. They're h ere somewhere. Sure, manipulation is utterly necessary. And to bring h appiness to myself and the end result of catastrophic demise to all of those who doubt me, I must lean on someone somewhere. NOW THIS IS WHERE THE FEAR COMES. Can you imagine what a literal heart would look like if every time an individual like me had his heart broken, a literal bullet pierced his chest? I have come to accept that my image, my personality, my mind was not going to be accepted by most individuals of beauty. A gun that when the trigger is pulled, pierces the forever, slower-beating heart of mine. Why do I have to be an overly emotional d ude? Somebody take this composition of mucus, oil, and sodium ridden water coming from my eyes and do something better with it. Two letters are ever so familiar to me. Piercing again like I'd never heard them before. Like the shot to the chest is ever so new. A nuclear fusion reaction on the smallest of microscales takes place deep inside my heart. Boom. No. Boom. No. Boom. No. So then we must ask, does one become so comfortable with rejection? Can I find comfort in this break and shattering that has ever so affected my being? ROAR! Hear that! It's coming for you. A heart break machine. Like an assembly line. Take heart out of chest. Place on b elt. Smash heart in many ways. Emily Krutsch, Junior Remove pieces. Put back in chest. At least I'm a smart monster who can make analogies. Is Bowser afraid of stopping on Mario? Not quite. But what if he was? In the end, I like most just want to live happily in my castle with the most beautiful of princesses. Yet, Im revolting to most. We see no beauty in me. We see no admirable qualities behind the curtain of shame that comes with being a monster. A hero is only coming to d efeat me and take back the princess on the last page of the book. Can we just have it once, where the princess is happy staying with the monster that kidnaps her? Let's make it real. Let's make it unique. I find h ope in one brilliant, brilliant, brilliant individual that will take a second more than every other being and see the potential in Bowser. Find the admirable qualities in him. Find happiness in sharing time with him. Find him to be truly attractive despite popular opinion. I do see h ope. However, I have trouble coming to terms and accepting this as a possibility each day I wake up. I reverberate back to the hundreds of occasions that have shaped the being I am today. I, being a statistician at heart, have a difficult time grasping a similar, literal one in a thousand grabbing air to open the clenched fist only to have a fairy restore eight hearts. I'm a walking skeptic. I'm an awful hypocrite. I'm a hopeless romantic. I'm a monster. Take a second and breathe. Let's ponder together. Aren't we all monsters? Some lack that in their appearance, others lack that in their personality, and many derivations of the sort. We all must overcome something in our lives. We've all had struggles, made mistakes, been let down, broken down, smiled only to fall into a frown, and been somewhat or completely broken in many a way. My philosophy is that once we are attacked enough by a monster, we become the monster. Think Alyssa Kulesza, Freshman about it. If you understand even a couple words of the words I have said, you'll be able to comprehend me telling you that I have been broken, and that this has shaped me to be the person I am today.

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Invisible Anxiety
Emily Neier I tip the white cap b ack, pouring 10 mL of mouthwash diluted in water into my mouth. The alcohol stings my chapped lips, but I hold the solution in and swish. The inside of my lips begin to burn as the mouthwash brushes over the tiny sores covering them. Do they notice? I ask myself. Do they see me pluck the skin from my lips like feathers off a chicken? I reach for my toothbrush, swishing the mouthwash religiously while I uncap the toothpaste and squeeze the tiniest amount onto the brush. Is it obvious? Or do I just look like a nail-biter? I spit the mouthwash into the sink and turn the faucet on to wash it away. I begin to brush my teeth, scrubbing at my gum line like I havent brushed in weeks. Its only been twelve hours. I am a nail-biter though. A nail-biter. An eyelash-puller. An obsessive zit-picker. A lip- chewer. Does it count as self-harm, what I do? I lean over the sink again to spit out the frothy toothpaste. Theres drops of blood, sometimes, and a little bit of pain. My eyes water when I snag a p articularly tough lash. But I dont cry. I dont bleed. I dont hide it from anyone. Do they ever notice though? I rinse my foam-covered hand and toothbrush under the cool water before resuming brushing in hopes of scraping off a few more specs of plaque. Another spit, another rinse. I dry my toothbrush and chin on the hand towel before dropping the brush back into its cup. They must not notice; no one says anything to me, anyway. I pull a length of floss from the plastic box and wrap the waxy ends around my pointer fingers. Hug each tooth, I think as I press the floss between my teeth. Up and down, up and down. Am I really that stressed? What do I worry about so much? I dont feel overwhelmed. I twirl my fingers to release them from the cutting grip of the floss and drop the used piece into the trashcan. It would be nice though if someone other than the dental hygienist noticed that I floss daily. That I use mouthwash morning and night. That I chew the inside of my mouth whenever I start to worry.

Emily Krutsch, Junior

Emily Krutsch, Junior

Natalie Pacholke, Freshman

Emily Krutsch, Junior

Emily Krutsch, Junior

Editor- Sarah Hillenbrand

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