YWP is an independent nonprofit based in Burlington that engages middle and high school students from anywhere in the world to write, to express themselves with confidence and clarity and to connect with authentic audiences through publication of local writing every week in this newspaper; through YWP’s website, youngwritersproject.org, and monthly digital magazine, The Voice; before live audiences; and with other media partners, including vtdigger.org and vpr.net. YWP is supported by this newspaper and foundations, businesses and individuals who recognize the power and value of writing.
This week’s prompt: Photo 1— Wake
The Alarm
The alarm goes off
and I jump to my senses,
much to my chagrin and dismay.
It’s okay. Today will be different;
today will be better.
Only I know it won’t be.
My bed has never held me harder.
How much time has passed?
One minute, an hour?
I don’t care.
Let the world end.
I am too tired.
“Get up,” I hear from all around me.
Should I?
The painful fact that I have to wake up early
and go to school for a gruelingly long day –
is it worth it for my education?
Yes, it is.
I drag myself out of bed telling myself today will be different,
today will be better.
Only it won’t be.
Wake
*Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep* The alarm clock buzzed next to me as I began to flicker my eyes open. The windows were wide open and the light flooded into my room, or at least I think it did. Either that or someone was blinding me with a giant flashlight, because, to be honest, that wouldn’t be too far from reality in the life I live. (If you’re wondering about my messed-up life, well that’s a whole ‘nother story.) But this morning it still seemed different. Maybe it was because it felt like I was completely blinded from the light and the alarm clock was annoying me half to death, or maybe it was just rainy and no birds were out chirping on my windowsill. But either way, I had to find that alarm clock, and maybe go back to sleep until someone would come in to wake me up for school.
*Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep* The alarm clock buzzed violently somewhere in front of me. It was probably on that old rotting dresser that my parents bought me — for decoration like I asked for. (Maybe I should have specified no old $5 dressers from a yard sale down the street.) But it felt like it should be almost within reach because I remembered being able to touch it from my bed, but it wasn’t there. My vision was clearing up and I could see a black blob (which was my dresser) and I smacked it as hard as I could. Unfortunately, I wasn’t like a kung-fu master and crushed my hand on contact, and of course, I should add, that this extremely painful chop didn’t even hit the alarm clock.
“I hate you clock…” I muttered under my breath.
Though this time I was thinking a bit more straight and, for that matter, seeing more straight. I gently put my hand down on the alarm clock and did what any normal and sane person who just experienced what I did would do. I raised my fist and nailed it full force. *Crack!* The sound echoed through my room as the top of the digital clock spewed out little wires that stood up in big tangles. The beeping slowly drained in a kind of sad-robot-dying way, slowly getting softer and softer until it died. To be honest, I know a simple angry chop shouldn’t drain me, but it did. Don’t call me weak, but mornings are just rough.
I flopped back down into a sleeping position, ready to pass out again. I was just dead tired. But of course, none of this would have happened if I had just been prepared and thinking straight and had not decided to do my big writing project when I got home at 7 p.m. and stayed up until 1 a.m. writing. But forgetting that, my eyes felt like sandbags slowly closing.
“Just get u—” I whispered to myself as I blacked out.
13 Hours Later
My mind slowly regained consciousness as I woke up from my deep sleep. The soft beeps echoed around me, but not any alarm clock beeps; instead, there were the beeps of a machine.
“He’s going to be okay ma’am. We don’t understand what is going on with his body but we have our best people working on it,” a voice told someone. The voices were faint but I could make out the conversations.
“What is happening to him?” a woman who sounded quite familiar asked.
“Happening to who?” I asked myself over and over as I lay there unable to move or open my eyes. …
Read the complete story at youngwritersproject.org/node/17135.