Brainwashed

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Kathleen Schnell

 

In a world filled with social barriers that take creative minds from the skull, stab them and put them back, don’t give in. There was a boy who jumped from a tree so that he could fly. No shirt-No shoes-just bright blue shorts-that spread wider than an eagle’s wings. They flew for miles next to an American Goldfish until the shorts lost hope and pulled the boy back down to earth. Only the shorts survived, draped over the boy’s young, lifeless body.

I adopted an American Goldfish after I heard that it laid atop the boy until help came. Every morning we walk into the ocean together. It never flies away. I think it knows that it’s playing an artistic god and I am its creative creature. A canvas that walks into the ocean every day to wash away every word people have embedded in me.

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Kathleen Schnell is a senior majoring in English and minoring in Creative Writing. She writes, “I am from South Amboy, NJ, along with my cute, old dog. We are both eager for my graduation in January 2022.”