I think that I have the perfect analogy from my childhood that describes my mind exactly.

When I was younger I had this friend. She had the same first name me so I will call her by her name, Cadence. I never wanted to clean my room. One day I wanted to hang out with my friend Cadence, but my mother wanted me to clean my room. We begged her to let my friend come over. She agreed on one condition. That my friend and I clean my room while we hang out. Of course, we agreed to the terms, and my friend Cadence came over.

When I say that my room was a mess, I mean my room was a MESS. Cadence and I both knew that it would take hours to clean, and we just wanted to play. My friend devised a plan that was simply genius.

She started to stuff everything under my bed. Clothes, toys, trash, it all went under. I picked up odd things and made sure nothing was showing. Once we decided that it look alright I went to fetch my mother. She came in and praised us for what a wonderful job we did. From the outside, my room looked perfect, but I knew that it was really a horrific mess.

This scenario perfectly describes my mind. On the outside, I look put together, calm, kind. But only I know that on the inside, my life is a mess. I struggle every day. It is exhausting to get up and function like any normal human being. My mind is just the mess that gets pushed under a young child's bed.

Before I start this piece of writing, I must admit that I am one of the many people obsessed with love. That being out the way, I can give the reasons specific to me and how I personally feel. I am very inexperienced when it comes to love. That being said, the whole concept seems almost magical to me. It seems so perfect. Having someone who cares for you, and who actually wants to spend time with you and protect you at any cost. I just wish that I had someone to be around who didn't feel like it was an obligation to spent time with me.

I've been doing quite a bit of procrastinating lately, so naturally, I've been sat thinking about my life in the big picture. That is not the best thing for me to be doing. It is a distraction. I think about how insignificant my little boring life is and forget that my real world is moving along without me with every passing second.

I spend more time than I would like to admit thinking about how my life is on loop. Wake up, go to school, do homework, go to mock trial, clean, do more homework, go to sleep, repeat. What would happen if I were to do something that throws off the cycle? Nothing. Nothing would happen. The next day I would just fall back into my little practice. Living my life half-awake like some kind of zombie.

Normally when people ask how I am I say some variation of "I'm fine." Recently, I've been saying more of the truth like "I've been better" or "not great" and sometimes I even tell the full truth, saying a simple "not gonna lie, I really want to be dead right now." However, people think that is a joke. It isn't.

Essentially what this whole post is trying to say is no, I am not okay like I might have said. My honest answer to the common small talk question "how are you" is as following: I am not okay, and haven't been in a while. I have been thinking about how small and boring my life is especially compared to others around me. This whole situation is quite a weird thing to think about, and yet I can't seem to get it out of my mind. And quite honestly, it is making me feel quite depressed.

tw mentions of suicide

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was with me, not even a mouse;

My stocking was hung from the chimney with care,

But I know that not even St. Nicholas will be there;

There weren't any children nestled all snug in their beds,

And visions of ending it all danced through my head.

The creator of this prompt has asked writers on this site what love is. I decided to try and explain it, but to be completely honest, I'm not exactly sure what love is either.

Is love what my mother says she feels for me after yelling at me to shut up and do whatever meaningless task she wants me to perform? Or what my friends claim to have for me before ghosting me for 4 months? Is love what I feel for the people who show me an ounce of kindness before their true personality comes out in all its horrid glory?

Or is love beautiful? The kind of feeling that makes you want to get out of bed in the morning no matter how sucky the day before was. The feeling that you are floating through the clouds and not walking on the boring grey pavement like the rest of us. Is love a sense of never ending happiness, so long as you are with the person you hold so close to your heart? Is love even real?

I'm not sure what love is. But with all the suffering I've gone through looking for it, it better be pretty freaking great.

What is a good writer? Is it someone who never makes grammatical errors? Someone with the best ideas? Someone who does thorough research, and uses facts to back up their points? Or, is a good writer simply someone who has heart? A person who shows deep emotion in their work. Putting their soul into all they do.

Technically speaking, the correct answer would be all of the above. All of these qualities together probably wouldn’t make a perfect writer, but most likely a pretty great one. Personally, I believe that only one or two of the listed qualities would make someone a good writer, but what do I really know, I’m only a struggling high school student.

I’m not what you would classify as qualified to say if someone is a good writer or not. I’m not a good writer myself, and English is currently my worst class, but I can give a list of what I think would make a talented writer.