Amidst the Lines, I Hide | Teen Ink

Amidst the Lines, I Hide

May 15, 2010
By ellerae BRONZE, Estes Park, Colorado
ellerae BRONZE, Estes Park, Colorado
1 article 0 photos 2 comments

Favorite Quote:
We will all laugh at gilded butterflies


Innocence clouds her face, making her almost unrecognizable.

She walks alone, among a world that is her own. She doesn’t understand the concept of pain, of suffering. She is a little girl, lost in a sea of her own imagination. Her innocence is palpable, evident in every move, every thought she has. Her face is untroubled, free from any worries that could harm. She saunters across her land, her kingdom. The world beams radiantly upon her. It waits on her beck and call. She admires her surroundings, gazing at everything with wide eyes. It’s all hers. A chair is manifested out of thin air. She kindly takes a seat and surveys…everything. She marvels at the wondrous possibilities. She isn’t dreaming.

I am seated comfortably in my throne, completely unaware. My parents tell me I’m special and I shamelessly believe them. Mommy, aren’t I special? Yes… my mother would reassure. I stand on a pedestal. No weight encumbers me. My naïveté is pure and supports my unhindered dreams. I am perfectly content in my fairytale, void of reality. No thought of failing has ever occurred to me. A significant pile of books is stacked neatly to my right side where they are at my disposal. I stroke their covers, wondering…Always wondering. Endless possibilities. A faint smile tugs at the corners of my lips. How to begin?

I close my eyes amongst the tranquility. The sun disappears and clouds arrive. I am warmed; it begins to rain, even better. I tilt my head back, exulting in the rain. It soaks my hair, chills my bones. The feeling is liberating, exhilarating. My eyes open through the pouring torrent. I am sitting outside in my backyard. My magical kingdom has evaporated. I am strangely puzzled. Where has it gone? How was I to know that it didn’t and never would exist? I am searching for some way to explain…to ponder…to vent everything that I’m feeling. The world looks upon me now in anticipation. It was not a dream. It was a fleeting glance at my very possible future. Motivation grabs hold of me roughly. Impulsive, childish, foolish.

I begin to write.
Awareness creeps across her wistful expression; she is unveiling.
The Prodigious Chronicles of Witchcraft, Volume 1: A New Fear Ah, quite a title isn’t it? I sign my page with a flourish, breathing a sigh of contentment and self-accomplishment. I am 11. I admire my work with a critical yet biased eye, tilting my head infinitesimally. The pages I skim, grimacing and rejoicing in the parts that I’ve read countless times before. I bound down the stairs, ecstatic, to present my latest inspiration spun out of control to my rather wary mother. She takes it reluctantly, wondering what new ideas have culminated to this ambitious story. I watch her face eagerly as she scans the pages, knowing that she isn’t really digesting the material. My eyes narrow as it sinks in that she’s looking at the pages to placate me, to patronize me with thoughts that I could succeed in my writing escapades. She shakes her head, just enough for me to notice. She does not believe anything will come out of this. She smiles, humoring me. My face falls, ever so slightly, as she sighs. I retain my excitement, however. It hasn’t quite sunk in that I’m not exceedingly special. My mind dances with fantasies and imaginings of my wildest dreams, not yet tainted with reality. I demand attention, expect admiration, without knowing that I have to earn it. Dreams and musings of my undiscovered talent lay, waiting to be rejected once I finally wake up. I am a suburbanite, spoiled and indulgent, expectant and ungrateful, underappreciated and rightly so. I live in Lemont, a cushioned town where my every belonging seems entitled to me. Well? Things have certainly changed. Where to, now?
And so…I begin my journey as the starved, repressed writer. The underestimated and underprivileged ‘artist’. A description I haughtily carried without ever considering that it was an undeserved title. That story, you ask? It, of course, never amounted to anything. I have moved on, I am way more mature now. I am 12. The next story I write? It focuses on a teenage girl named Amy. I’ve cleverly titled it Amy’s World. Less is more, no? I suppose I won’t bore you with mundane details on a failed novel, but it did involve the pressures of high school and how stressful being a privileged teen can be. It really can be! What if you went to school one day and discovered another girl had your exact same Prada bag?! Imagine the humiliation, the horror! Your friends wouldn’t make eye contact with you for a week, let alone accompany you on trips to Starbucks. Can you detect the sarcasm as well as I’d intended, reader? Okay, so fame won’t knock upon my door and greet me. I have to search for it, which won’t be too hard. Have you heard this material? No, being 12 is completely grown-up. Like, right?
Ah, rude awakening. 12? No. I’m much older now, and I can absolutely say that I’ve aged. That story? It’s nothing, if not a laughable reminder at my attempt to create a story. I’ve already a new motivation. I’m sure you’re dying to hear what my latest musings have led to. Well, it is a beautifully crafted novel centered on mythical creatures: elves, fairies, nymphs, and…true love, the love that can only be expressed in novels such as Wuthering Heights and Romeo & Juliet. I am 13. I have given up on witches and warlocks moving on to something that I deem much more established and eloquent. Love. Underestimate me not for I am well-educated when it comes to love, given the fact that I’ve read about it numerous times…and not actually experienced it. My hopes are more tamed, but still overwhelmingly impossible. I no longer believe that renown will drop into my expectant hands, but that with a little perseverance, it will fall where it belongs. Hard work never amounts to nothing, am I correct? Dreams don’t just fall flat on the ground? Hopes aren’t crushed before our very eyes, are they? I think I’ve grown up.
I am wrong. Again. Instead of fame pounding on my much aggrieved door, I receive unwelcome news. I move, during the summer before I am to start high school in a pitifully small town. I leave my comfortable and pampered life in Chicago to face a tourist town. During this introverted summer, I write. It is a story that is by far, the shortest. It consists of nothing. Its characters I never even developed. It’s an adventure story, if you will. A rather tricky transition, I might say. I am still 13. I haven’t grown much, have I? The summer ends too quickly and not fast enough. I prepare myself for the first day of high school in a brand new town. The student population drops from a healthy 1200 to a devastating 400. The amount of fellow classmates in my grade alone almost equals the total number of students in this school. I’m quite sure that you know what town this is. Estes Park, Colorado. Sound familiar? I arrive at high school with low expectations and a frightening knowledge that I won’t have any friends. My freshmen year is interesting. I change, I float, I muddle, I rebel; I pretend to be someone I’m clearly not. Who am I now?
Yes, audience. I’m aware that I’ve digressed; however, I’m 14, now. I’ve started a new stage in my life. I listen to bands that I would have covered my ears and cringed at before. I style my hair in a way that I used to mock. I wear shirts that are brightly colored and not exactly the most becoming for me. I have transformed. I am an individual. I have morphed into this whiny, angst-filled, misunderstood teenager. No one relates to me. I hate my parents. School sucks. I am an individual. And, sarcasm plays quite nicely here as well, yes? Be that as it may, I start writing again. After a tumultuous summer and an unexpected fall, I realize that I haven’t written again in a while. My goodness, pretending to be someone I’m not really intervenes with what I really want to do. Oh yes, 14 is definitely grown-up. This time? I begin writing about a girl who has, you guessed it, intuitive reader, moved to a new town and she hasn’t exactly had the proper start. She’s involved with drugs, guys, running amuck through the night. I explore this story; it’s longer than any I’ve ever written. Am I the only one who senses a coincidence? It plateaus, as they all do. My dreams, they’re dimming. They exist, surely, but they don’t glow. I step back and consider my outrageous fantasies and quietly accept that they no longer exist…but they could, the more reasonable ones at least. I’ll work harder, try harder. Follow your heart and all that childhood nonsense. Anything is possible, no? Being a grown-up is terribly disappointing.
The last and by far the story with most potential, sits on my laptop right now. I am 15. I have, without any doubt, matured. Yes, I’ve made this conclusion several times before; but each time I say I’m all grown up, the feeling of conviction grows stronger. I have settled in with this school, nearing an end to my sophomore year. I revel in the fact that high school is almost halfway completed. I type in odd intervals, only pausing to write when I feel motivated, when desire is kindled. This story? It involves my most intricate and controversial plot yet. I don’t even feel compelled to reveal what it is. I just know that I’ve never written anything before with this kind of depth. I examine my writing, critical as always, to find that it could have a future. I could take this story and run with it. I could accomplish what I’ve been trying to for the last five years. It reassures me and panics me in completely different ways. Is it not exhilarating? Yes, I find it so. These dreams, they come in glimmers, flickers that disappear as soon as I focus on them. They’ve withered, faded, only to revive at certain flashes of faith. Adulthood is strangely depressing, indeed.
I look back and smile fondly on the stories I’ve created so whimsically. They don’t have a real purpose, surely the reader would forget about them once the pages had stopped turning, but they were free, innocent, naïve, oblivious—exactly what I was and…quite possibly still am. Then I warm to the stories I created through my ‘darkest’ times in adolescence. I grin tentatively when I glance at the childish ideas that I expanded upon when I was only 11, 12, and 13. I reread the hidden sorrow within the lines of the stories that I wrote at ages 14 and 15. Realization hits me, fast, leaving me reeling. As I was recollecting these abandoned ideas, I quickly saw that as I grew up, my stories grew more morbid, more serious, more mature, and…more real. I no longer fill the pages with promises of magical lands and unparalleled power. I don’t lose myself in fairy tales of unconditional love and nonexistent beings. Instead, I now pour words that carry the truth, the reality, of what kind of world we live in. A world where tears and death exist and unicorns and nymphs do not. I reflect who I was and who I’m becoming into my writing, the one place I feel comfortable enough to share, subconsciously, my inner thoughts and beliefs. I express myself through writing; it is showing in the slow progression of my rather lame attempts at writing a novel. True to my assumptions, I’m growing up, slowly but surely. I can see the result of my dwindling innocence and fresh knowledge through the development of my stories. I can vividly recall the apparent change that I’m undergoing from ignorant child to awkward teenager. It’s still happening. Yes, I’m growing up.
A story without a name. Perhaps another coincidence? I’ve not named this current work in progress. I suppose you can interpret that because it’s still being improved upon. I sit, puzzled, at what direction I want to take this story. There is a plethora of options. Yes, there always will be, won’t there? I do not inform my mother of this story, not yet. I want to know that this story has an ending in sight before I reveal its existence. I try to disregard the recurring thought of walking away from this story. I can’t. My dreams are somewhat renewed, hesitant though, to make themselves known. I fall into the trap of believing. I am a little kid, again. I tell myself I’m an adult, again. I am stuck, again. A heavy sigh. Things haven’t changed. Where to, now?
Resignation settles within her eyes; she is no longer a stranger.

She is dreaming. Her hair is splayed on her pillow. She lies, supine, captured in the hold of this dream. She has a sense that she is awake, but also that she is unconscious. Visions fill her mind unremarkably. She sits, cross-legged, watching these sites with a curious expression. All goes blank. A frown touches her eyebrows, what happened? Nothingness consumes her in its unbreakable grasp. She stands up shakily. Her head whips back and forth, trying to discern some kind of motion. There is nothing. Blackness envelops her. She walks around in endless circles. She is empty. Before she is about to scream, a quick image flashes across her eyes. She is titling her first story: The Prodigious Chronicles of Witchcraft. A land of enchantment awaits her. It beckons to her with a crooked smile. A young child stares at her with unfathomable eyes. Where have you been? The vision crumples as fast as it comes. She continues walking, confused, what is she looking for? She is trapped in a world of black. The delayed scream finally fills her ears. She is dreaming, only dreaming.

I bolt upright, my breath coming in frantic, shallow intakes. It was only a dream… I lie back down and sternly glare at the ceiling. My teeth cut into my lip. Was it all a waste? My hopes and ambitions, are they just cruel imaginings that haunt me now that I know they’re unattainable? No, unattainable is too strong of a word. Shall I say instead ‘unreasonable’? I’ve woken up. Truly matured? Ah, that is an excellent question.

My head hits the pillow, all too willing. I close my eyes, gingerly awaiting the nightmare. I reopen them to find myself sitting in the middle of nothing. This time it isn’t blackness that greets me, but light, blinding whiteness. I blink rapidly. There are no words. I stand cautiously yet I’m not afraid. I roam the blankness, finding solace rather than panic. My eye finally catches a hint of grey among the dazzling light. Burnt papers litter the ground. I stoop to pick them up; the tattered page reads, The Prodigious Chronicles of Witchcraft. I avert my eyes from sight of it to exclaim at my surroundings. It’s a land of myth, utterly destroyed. It’s in ruins. Everything is burnt, broken, devastated. A little girl runs up to me. Her face is prematurely aged, seeming out of place in comparison to the rest of her body. Her eyes are accusing. Look what you’ve done. I am staring in the face of my reflection. The long anticipated scream escapes again. I am not dreaming; I am awake.

Ignorance. Is. Bliss. Has it permanently disappeared? Am I never to sigh in longing, yearning for something, anything to relieve me of this imagined oblivion? Perhaps I’m being overdramatic. Yet, is it so crazy to wonder if dreams still exist? Am I the only one who looks forlornly at my past works and grudgingly concedes that they have no future? This quarter-life crisis, in a sense, is quite disturbing. No, I’m young…right? I’m alive, I still breathe, I still believe. Don’t I? I am not dead. I’m aging…I’m adapting…I’m readjusting…I am dreaming. I continue to write. Word by boring word.


The author's comments:
I want to deliver a sense of innocence that is lost at some point in our lives.

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JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 168 comments.


on Feb. 2 2023 at 7:37 pm
anisarimy05 BRONZE, Johnson City, New York
3 articles 4 photos 2 comments
Wow! Throughout your writing, I also see the maturity and how much I can relate. I am amazed! Beautiful writing style, wonderful job!

on Feb. 16 2013 at 9:05 am
YasminaTabbal GOLD, Beirut, Other
10 articles 0 photos 2 comments

Favorite Quote:
Everything under the Sun is in tune, but the Sun is eclipsed by the moon - Pink Floyd

this is by faaaaar the most incredible piece of writing I have ever read by an unknown author... i cant even begin to explain the awe im in. You're definitley going to make it.

on Dec. 15 2012 at 10:28 pm
Stella_Val_Illicia GOLD, Salt Lake City, Utah
13 articles 0 photos 247 comments

Favorite Quote:
"In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people angry and been widely regarded as a bad idea."
--Douglas Adams

I can't tell you how easily I see myself in this story as the little kid with the notebook. I started writing when I was ten, but abandoned my story, and started eighteen more over the past four years. Thank you for reassuring me that there is someone else in my shoes. Good luck with your writing; you're an incredible author!

DanteXIII said...
on Sep. 7 2012 at 12:04 pm
mirror mirror on the wall who has the greatest mirrored reflection of all? OK so that was a bad attempt but you are the same as me with your writing and I'd just like you to know your story is very inspirational.;)

Tellerin said...
on Apr. 30 2012 at 1:16 am
Gr8. Do not stop, please!

KatsK DIAMOND said...
on Feb. 2 2012 at 6:34 pm
KatsK DIAMOND, Saint Paul, Minnesota
57 articles 0 photos 301 comments

Favorite Quote:
Being inexhaustible, life and nature are a constant stimulus for a creative mind.
~Hans Hofmann
You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.
~Ray Bradbury

Great job! I feel this way too- just stuck, hoping, but also knowing. My childish fantasies have gone away, but my writing still doesn't progress. Nobody else who I know seems to have the same yearning, so they don't understand. Yes, you're a really good writer.

Rabbit said...
on Jan. 25 2012 at 9:30 pm
Excuse me, but you are me. This is EXACTLY what I have been trying to say for the longest time. Of course, you have my sympathies, but on the other hand it's almost perversely comforting to know I'm not the only one like this out there, you know? This is just...beautifully written. It's beautiful. There's really nothing else I can say.

on Jan. 23 2012 at 6:47 pm
EPluribusUnum DIAMOND, Woodbine, Maryland
59 articles 24 photos 280 comments

Favorite Quote:
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head)."
-Sylvia Plath

Wow! I hope you know that this is an incredible piece of writing. It was probably my favorit of all the things I've read on TI. You have a real talent. Please, please, please, never give up on writing.

Morning SILVER said...
on Dec. 17 2011 at 4:50 pm
Morning SILVER, Greensboro, North Carolina
9 articles 0 photos 13 comments

Favorite Quote:
"There is no perfect time to write, there is only now." ~Barbara Kingsolver

Wow. This is some amazing writing. One of the marks of a great work is that you come to care for a character. In the end I wanted to talk to the girl and tell her to keep writing. I care about the main character.

Good Job, no, Great Job!


on Dec. 15 2011 at 3:00 pm
readlovewrite SILVER, Greensboro, North Carolina
7 articles 1 photo 58 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Be quick to listen, and slow to speak, and even slower to judge."

You have written so well that none of the words were boring.  Good job!

 


Righter2276 said...
on Sep. 30 2011 at 12:22 am
I hope that you take the time to publish additional stories in the near future. I believe that you have some talent to share with us.

Rar1145 said...
on Sep. 18 2011 at 2:24 pm
Great job !

shel1138h said...
on Sep. 5 2011 at 2:41 am
I enjoyed it. Please tell me that you will put out another. I'll be waiting. Thanks!

cookiegirl said...
on Aug. 21 2011 at 5:19 am
Your description is amazing, you have talent for writing. :) Keep it up.   

on Jul. 26 2011 at 12:27 pm
ThatOneGirl13, Bokeelia, Florida
0 articles 9 photos 1 comment

Favorite Quote:
There's to many to put here in this dinky little box. Smh.

I am completely blown away, your writing is absolutely beautiful. Very eloquent. I love it!<3

Great job, keep up the good work.


Tw123 said...
on Jul. 3 2011 at 10:47 am
Great job!

Mt6776 said...
on Jun. 27 2011 at 1:01 am
Great job!

CiaraR said...
on Jun. 11 2011 at 2:03 am
Wow, great job!  Looking forward to hear more.  You have some real talent, Ellerae. 

sctr1984 said...
on Jun. 11 2011 at 2:02 am
Fantastic piece.  Keep producing & I will keep reading your works.  Thanks........

on Jun. 8 2011 at 3:22 pm
Untouchable-Summer SILVER, Cranford, New Jersey
6 articles 0 photos 86 comments

Favorite Quote:
Even the best fall down sometimes

Wow.. are you me? Haha... great work.