By: Caden H.

I hope readers feel the sense of salvation after they finish reading.

Honorable Mention · High School Writing (2023)

As I run through the tangled undergrowth that we call the human mind, I wonder, what is the point. What is the point of continuing to wander through the undergrowth and trying to find an exit? It would be so much easier to just lie down and let the endless forest of my mind take me. I revel in how simple it would be to just stop and give up. To let go and throw myself into the mouth of the beast chasing me, the beast made of my own horrors.

For a moment I even did. I layed down and for the first time, really took in the look of the forest of my heart and mind. I began to see the warping in the trunks of the trees of my thoughts. The tangling webs of parasitic lies twisting their way through the roots of my heart and the steam of my mind. I listened to the disturbed calls of the birds of paranoia and fear trying to call me deeper into the shattered landscape of my mind.

Then I heard it.

The bubbling trickle of the stream.

The sound of my savior.

I began to look around to locate the source of the sound and saw a path I’d never seen before. As I walked down the path, the disturbed sounds of my mind tried calling to me, louder and louder, telling me to come back, I’d never find a way out, that it was pointless. But I was done listening to those sounds and decided to do something that I should have done long ago. Through the therapy of controlled burns and the cleansing of talking and taking control, The forest of my mind is finally healthy again. I finally have peace once more. All is well.