Rethink // Kira Ortoleva

I’ve been in places before where I wasn’t quite sure if I would make it out in one piece, or if I would make it out with the people I came in with. 

Regrettably, none of them came out the other side and to put it simply I was depressingly alone for a while.

 I don’t necessarily like to focus on despair, or dysphoria, and I try my best to look past it with what I have to deal with at the same time.

 It’s like I’m in a glass box sometimes, watching the people around me laugh and yell in happiness - except I’m silently suffering. 

I’d rather focus on the things that make me feel at the top of the world; like the rush exploring an abandoned building gives me. 

 

It was a sunny day, warm with a breeze, but even with all the holes and drafts, the sun couldn’t light up the entire factory. 

Everything seemed to be falling apart and rusty, and this eerie vibe smacked you in the face as you entered it. 

The walls were absolutely covered in graffiti, shouting their profanities. 

Other walls were looked like a dead, famous painter had travelled forward into time to take part in modern civilization. 

It was slightly pungent... a mix of pee, rust, mold, cologne.

 There was a strong breeze that blew everything together and rattled any loose metal.

 Everything was quiet except the occasional rattle, the cars outside and the train tracks right behind the factory. 

The entire place was somewhat unforgettable, and terrifying. I loved it.

 The texture of the floor was smooth and dusty, walls were sharp and rough - appearing as rocks.

 It was like running your hand along a rock, and then moving straight onto a tree.

 The walls were different textures in different places. 

Everything was covered in rust, because it was just so old. I didn’t want to touch anything - for fear of cutting myself and contracting some crazy disease.

 But a tendency of mine is to look for the beauty in everything, I'll strain my eyes to find it.

 So I felt this abandoned factory was possibly one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen.

 Every small piece of writing or drawing, no matter how crude, had a memory attached to it, a feeling, and a person or a group. 

It felt like home there, but then again...

 anywhere with the right people can feel like that. 

Shedding Skin // Khaled Hussein

Yesterday, my mind was covered in layers of soot, slowly seeping into the depths of my inner being. 

My soul could only have been described as taken the form of a rose with jagged thorns, absent of petals. 

I was not cognizant of the dangers staying idle would bring. 

On a daily basis, I made no progress of any kind besides retrogression.

 A paradox that was consuming my life as fast as insanity had consumed Captain Ahab. 

With no guidance, I was lost--alone.

For I surrounded myself in a culture of ignorance and groups influenced me like a malignant disease. 

A dualistic dilemma about right and wrong was a constant battle,

fought on battlefield of my own mind.

Earth spins on its axis at about 1,040 miles per hour, yet I chose idleness. 

Yet now, I travel at a greater speed, in an effort to catch up with the world. 

To shine brighter than the sun.

To burn hotter than gold particles in a hadron collider. 

I've shifted myself from being a man of abstraction to a man of action. 

An obsessive autodidact is what I've become. 

Nothing can steer me away from the pursuit of knowledge and the fulfillment of my potential. 

My heart rages with passion, allowing me to look into the universal abyss known as death.

I'm driven by a motivation to live so meaningfully that The Grim Reaper himself would hesitate to procure my final breath. 

Flaws can considered an ubiquitous attribute to whom all of our species possess. 

This is what makes us human. 

In today's modern world,

 the arduous endeavor in creating oneself needs to become more orthodox than outré.

Snakes shed their skin to allow for further growth and remove parasites attached to their old skin.

Just like a snake, I've removed the layer of skin that was made up of blindly followed beliefs, old traditions, and benightedness in order to allow for further growth. 

By removing old parasites from shed skin, I began to reconstruct myself. 

I'm currently confined in a 6 x 8 foot cell; one small window is my only source of light. 

I keep on thinking to myself: Who am I? Why am I here?

I write this to unravel these questions in hopes of finding a lucid answer. 

The latter of the two would be the easier one to start with.