By: Taylor B.

My writing is inspired only by the swirling thoughts that flow so effortlessly in my mind. I chose to write about a topic deeper beyond my mind and what is within me, yet never spoken about. My voice is unheard so I enter this contest in order for people to read just a chapter, just a small piece in what more I am capable of. My mental health is what shaped me into the artist, and writer I have become, so my mental health means a lot more to me, than just a mental illness. The things I have gone through at too young of an age, is to be shared, not for attention, but for those who go through the same, and belittle their own voice out of fear from the unknown.

Honorable Mention · High School Writing (2022)

The capacity to adapt time and allow it to affect you
Depression collapses time
Feelings and emotions
All I ever wanted was the why
In why do i feel this way
Was it the boy who silenced my unspoken
Voice
It started with a hand
Did i like hold cold and frail they were
Or how his hand could hold not just
Another, but a soul too
And oh how destructive a hand can be
This boy thought i was made with fire
To just burn out
Yet he fueld me
Threw me down to tell me to stand
Pursued me like a story
And indulged himself into my skin oh so
Helplessly
Because it wasn’t a man
I’ve never met one of those
The idea that I am so capable of love
But drown in toxicity
I could presume a thousand reasons on the why
But why waste my time on my
Mental health
When it doesn’t define me anymore
My mental health means absolutely
Nothing to me anymore
Although it once did
But it suffocated me
And it left scars, and a fragmented,
Shattered
Destructive heart
Although it shaped me into the person
I’ve always been…
Not the one he tried
Creating
Because i am me, not plastic
I am more than a mental health problem
And i’m certainly more than my
Anxiety
My anxiety could sing me to sleep
And warn me my problems in
Advance, yet
It doesn’t deserve my fame
But it sure knows my name