Portrait of 1986
Ally Olson
It is 1986 and the regrets prevail. You walk into the hall and gather yourself before meeting your family for breakfast downstairs. You’re going to miss how french toast would sit on the maple table with scratches on top from school projects and plates and the forks that fell off them. You’re tense and clutch anything given to you tightly, waiting for someone to take your confidence away. Your eyes look up to the clock and grasp for the wisdom that the clock was born with. The two-sided mirror shatters in a few years.
Ally Olson is a member of the class of 2024. Although she has not come to a decision for her major yet, she hopes to minor in Creative Writing. She was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and has been writing poetry since her junior year of high school.
Ally produced this piece in Joanna Fuhrman’s Creative Writing Poetry class in the Spring Semester of 2021. Fuhrman selected it for inclusion in WHR.