Mental illness mentions. Art will be posted in the layout. Pieces with unlisted authors are anonymous.
Pity, Pinball, and the Perception of ADHD
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, a relatively common neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by symptoms of difficulty focusing, lack of self-restraint, and general restlessness and fidgeting. (This is a vast oversimplification, but you get the point).
I’ve been dealing with severe ADHD for my entire life. I’ve gone to therapy, been put on medication, had conferences with teachers about accommodations: all the usual steps. I’ve learned how to pretend to be normal, and I’ve had time to come to terms with the fact that having ADHD makes you feel like your brain is a pinball machine at all hours of the day, whirring and ringing loudly, with bright lights and flashing colors coming from every nook and cranny of the board. You bounce and slide about, moving erratically and unpredictably as you watch the world around you fly by in an indecipherable blur; a kaleidoscopic mess of sights and sounds and information that you won’t retain anyway. Doing certain things will increase the abstract number that represents your score, but you’re more interested in seeing the ball go around the main loop another time than the concrete effect it will have on your overall goal, which you just remembered was the reason you came here in the first place, 3 hours ago. You briefly consider that you should get back to working towards the high score, but on the way, you knock into a bumper and are sent careening off in some other direction, and you forget about the score again. The cycle repeats indefinitely.
This explanation, to many people, paints an extremely dreary picture of life with ADHD, which might actually be one of the major reasons it isn’t perfect. What makes ADHD complex is that it manifests itself in a lot of different ways–ways that aren’t always negative. My ADHD makes me impulsive, but it also makes me quick-witted. My ADHD is so much more than the challenges that arise from it; it’s a part of my personality, my skills, my interests. It’s a part of what makes me who I am. The fact that I have ADHD doesn’t mean that my life is objectively worse or more difficult than anyone else’s; It just means that my life is objectively different. And I think that’s completely normal. – Brendan Wiles ’25
freedom
finally awakening from the fog-
finally letting the sunlight hit my face
and letting my feet hit the floor
after an eternity of living in the darkness-
i’m free
but broken.
the chains that are no longer on me
still left these, kinda, imprints on my arms,
these scars that will only go away with healing
and time.
if you’ve been split in two yet put back together,
do you still count as “broken”?
maybe it’s not that i’m “broken”-
maybe it’s that i’m free, but i’m tired.
free but needing rest
and no longer chained, but dragging my feet
on the way to freedom
being blinded by the sun
because of years spent in a tomb buried alive
with nothing lifting or holding me up but myself
and the remnants of my soul
and whatever was left of my mind.
being in the sun is different now
it’s freeing but my eyes are strained now.
when you’re in the dark for so long
the sun is foreign, an old latin word in the dictionary
i don’t and can’t understand.
and when your heart is broken
you have to create a new world outside of the shrapnel,
creating yourself again, being born again.
i’m mourning my past self, my past life.
i’m visiting my own tombstone
while i stand above it
hyperventilating, dry-heaving,
and living.
but i also see the bright light at the end
at the end of this long tunnel
as though i’m being born into the world again
as though i’m, once again,
coming out of my mother’s womb
vulnerable, naked, and blind,
terrified of what this means for me.
but i’m also ready-
ready to be in the world,
ready to be here
knowing that i can handle it,
even whenever i’m sad.
i’m ready to not be sad anymore.
doing the right thing is difficult.
the things that make you feel good
and the things that validate you
are still things that keep you under
that burial shroud of darkness-
and like birth,
coming to the light can be traumatic
for everyone involved.
the sun burns
and it’s hot outside in august
and it’s deathly humid
but the sun is also healing.
the sun is birth,
the sun is revival,
the sun is renewal,
the sun is a reawakening.
and although my chest is heavy
and although tears are running down my face
i speak this healing incantation into the ether
and i’m basking in it.
i may be broken, i may not be,
i don’t know.
but i do know that i’m hurting.
but i also know that i’m free.
- m.a.m.
Give
How are you doing?
I am told I am not an amalgamation of my mistakes
I am told I am not my flaws
I am told I am under appreciative of myself and more than deserving of goodness
But you don’t think you are?
I think I am ugly
A freak
Moody and impulsive
I think I’m always wrong, especially about my own feelings
So what can we do?
Apart from decay from the inside out like the bones of our ancestors
Digging
Searching
Begging
For freedom
I am dramatic and stupid and depressed and anxious and so so sad.
Just sad
Do you need anything?
A hug. I need a hug.
Give that person a hug. A call. A cup of warmth and love and goodness. Give it to yourself if you need it. Just give.
- Malachi Mungoshi ’24
Myself
It feels like a thousand maggots crawling under my skin
Stuck in a loop, forever,
Oh wherever I go, I end up in the same place
Is there an end? There is an end
It feels like the nights are isolating and everlasting
In broad daylight, it seems apocalyptic
Oh did we know when we were born? That life would be so cryptic
Is there an end? There is an end
Tell me mother and father, why didn’t you tell us? Didn’t you know? Of the unspoken devil
Who grasps us, eats us every day, piece by piece
Not letting us live in peace
Is there an end? There is an end
What is the end? I don’t know, my friend
But I wish to find it someday
But will death come find me before that? I don’t know
I hope I never see it, that day.
- Aaron Huq ’24
funeral flights
Trigger Warning: Mentions of su*cide
Flights smell of my child self. Phantoms of a me at ten, deplaning in Florida,
filled with the anticipation of the ocean, finding shells along the shoreline
At 19, the scent of recirculated air only reminds me of the times I’ve done this before.
a pit
No– an abyss
sits in my gut
Opening wider and wider
with the plane’s ascension
At twenty, this is my second funeral flight
To say goodbye to yet another friend even younger than me.
A life reduced to
Hundreds of photos in a slideshow
Clothes left in the closet
As I leave, I hear
the sound of grief personified as a sister
Reverberating
Even as my ears close
Under the cabin pressure
- Aspen Rush
