The Mountainside

By Madelyn Graves

Pain.

Red, hot to the touch

Ripples down my body, echoing my hours of screams

That are now lost in the void of the mountainside.

My white hands

Once soft to the touch

Are now coarse, caked with layers of blood and grime.

Blackened, defiled.

I study them

And I keep walking up.

But then I feel it.

The terrain evens itself beneath my feet

Giving my broken limbs their first signs of relief.

The scarce oxygen flows through my veins

Igniting me with life.

I breathe it in with such exuberance

Energy

And down I go.

The mountain breeze

Its fingers, white and soft to the touch

Gently stroke my face.

And the first hint of a smile creeps onto my cracked lips.

Such a foreign feeling.

Suddenly I see red once again.

Such a familiar crimson

Embedded, carved into my mind.

The red of her eyes.

The red of her blood.

The red of her pain.

My pain.

Such a deep red

Contrasting against the white of the mountainside

But she keeps walking up.

And down I go.

Madelyn Graves is sixteen years old, living in a happy family of four in Louisiana. She has attended a Catholic school for twelve years, and her Christian faith has always been very important to her. She is always looking for new ways to spread God’s Word. Along with writing, Madelyn loves to bake and hang out with her friends from school. Family and friends are a very important aspect in her personal life, and she enjoys spending her free time in their company. She hopes to one day be a published author and an English teacher at her old Catholic middle school, where she continues to do what she loves and spread God’s message.