Ch’Kalaa Montgomery

Poole

Intro to Creative Writing

11 March 2021

● Painful beginnings, a push, a scream, a tear, a cry, a smile, a sigh of relief, a

flopping back onto the hospital pillow in exhaustion, and a baby who was eight

pounds and three ounces and twenty inches long-1999

● First steps and first words, giggling and drooling, and eating, and falling, and

sleeping, and diaper changing and gitchee goos, and baby talks, and baby bottle

pops, and pacis and dollies and teething and biting, and crying and fighting off

strangers who poke me with bad things, evil things...my mother must not have

ever loved me-2000

● I’m 2 and now I can sing, I sing with big dreams, dreams of being like Avril

Lavigne or Beyoncé- I would have taken either way-2001

● My sisters are someone I don’t remember at this point, and I wonder if they ever

existed in the first place or if in the first place they never existed- I was only

3-2002

● I had started school early and I realized other people existed other than my mom

and I remember a random guy named Tom-was he my neighbor, or our

mechanic? And I was the youngest in class and the only one who didn't know

what ICUP spelt-2003

● I stopped singing and gave up dreaming and dolls were a thing of the past, and I

picked up a DS and took pictures with filters and drew on my face and played
 games with friends where we’d race and I always won first place-huh, so that’s

why I would lose so many friends-2004

● I grew super fond of playing video games, but those games were always just

Mario, because I would always win, but I wasn’t competitive, but I would win,

because I was good-2005

● My sister had a baby and I remember none of it but us in a drop top car and

going down Dauphin street and her pregnant with a baby and even then I don’t

remember what she looked like except that her baby had no hair and was very

light and was named Caniyla Lakayla Ranzy- after me might I add-2006

● I got a Wii and I would play with my second sister who I couldn’t remember and

we would always have fun playing and laughing and one upping and teasing and

competing-2007

● It was my last year of elementary and the year of my second niece from my

second sister who I remember perfectly now because she stayed with us on and

off and on and off again and her name was Catelyn and she was cute and pretty

quiet from what I could remember-2008

● I started middle school and I got a DSI, an upgraded variant to the DS and so my

DS became old news and my Wii, that I was now a pro in, was boring and my

interest in Nintendo games began soaring and then Just Dance was introduced

and the DSI became old news and my interest in a Wii made me determined that

I would never lose-ah, and I joined band and played with a music sheet on my

stand and a silver flute in my hand-2009

different instrument players and another Just Dance came and the DS was still

lame and the DSI started to become lame but I still loved games, one thing that

never changed, and that I hoped would stay the same; the start of a rap career,

perhaps?-2010

● Anime was introduced, and I suddenly forgot all about the world. I was interested

in TV again instead of my friends and I had something to talk about in band-ah,

this was my last year in middle school and the birth of my third niece and she

was called Carslyn and I also got a 3DS and I had so many fun things in my life

like Mario and Just Dance and two kids who followed my every command-2011

● This year was horrifying. The world was to end so everyone was going crazy and

others were calmly waiting and I was sitting in the back of Science class ready to

go home to play my games or watch a bunch of ninjas run or soul reapers of

Karakura Town or to even let this year be done-RIP to the last year where the

date shall repeat 12/12/12-2012

● The world didn’t end, so everyone was relieved, but some were certain that it

was a delay and that we should wait, because “One day, it'll be the final day”, and

I started high school alone, with no friends because they branched out to other

schools and I stopped doing band then I suddenly made new friends and joined

theater and suddenly met a guy and we were great friends and then another guy

who is now my best friend and made a group of four of my best girl friends-2013

● This year is just remembered as a year of clubs, the African American History

Club, and the Theater Club and the Anime Club and then Key Club-my goodness
 all the shirts and emails I got and I was realizing what kind of person I was and I

was having fun with the friends I had made and then there were the games I had

played and the DSs' that sat in my drawer and the Wii that was rarely played

anymore-time was put into the assignments and classes and clubs so I could

keep up my honor roll persona-2014

● I’m a junior, and I joined band again, but I never did it again because it was not a

trend so it had to end because I didn’t have my friends and I couldn’t be bothered

to learn G flats and D minors because I was busy learning Pythagorean

Theorems and the ways of the ocean-then my nephew was born, the first boy in

our family and he was cute and had a large head but he was cute and the only

boy and had a head full of hair-2015

● Senior project was stressful, but it wasn’t but in the moment it was stressful and I

did my project on the ocean because I love the ocean but I was terrified of the

ocean but even the scariest animals made up the most beautiful place on Earth

so I went to volunteer at Dauphin Island and I helped a marine biologist and I

decided to become a marine biologist and I decided what I wanted thanks to a

stressful project-2016

● The beginning of this year, my plans completely changed. I graduated but I didn’t

go to college. My sister had her fourth child and she was my baby and her name

was Carmen and she was the cutest thing and she was the spitting image of her

father and Tre, who my mother spoiled and Carmen is the one who I spoiled and

I took a leap and did something risky because I was an “adult” and no one

believed that quiet little girl who loved dolls and made honor roll every year would
 join something like this, so I left behind the cute Carmen and took a step to prove

a point, but came back, because I wasn’t happy-2017

● This is my first year of community college. It was a really tough year. I stopped

talking to that guy, my life suddenly felt like it was passing me by, and like a bad

joke, my cousin died. She fought with cancer, and was suddenly well, then

unexpectedly closed her eyes, which was something that our family didn’t expect.

Thank god I came back when I did, because my grandma who is really my aunt

but I called her my grandmother because she was old, was heartbroken, so we

moved in with her and stayed with her and comforted her and tried to stick

together doing this hard time-2018

● Another baby in the midst, making it my sister’s fifth, and she was named Chloé,

a thing to keep the C’s in our name, something in the family we’re trying to keep

the same; I became a peer tutor at my college and then the vice president of our

honor society, thanks to my knowledge, and we had so many fun trips and a lot

of classes were skipped, and I was introduced to this group that made my heart

flutter and life suddenly became brighter-2019

● That dreadful COVID ruined my plans, and I forever gave up Just Dance. Animes

were a thing of the past. I finally turned 21 and suddenly everything I feared

became real, I took out a loan and was suddenly in debt and stress suddenly

built up, something I was good at being immune to, but I had my group, and then

this new group, and then my first love, but then my first love turned into my first

heartbreak, and I had to suffer alone, because I didn’t want anyone to worry, so I

graduated with a smile, instead of bawling like a child, and I got my degree so
 people could see that I'm stronger and better than the emotions that were bound

to me-2020

● Now I’m in uni and I feel like I know what I’m doing and life is looking up, at least

for this COVID stuff, and my interests have changed, I don’t play those games

and the animes are all still the same, and I still have my friends, and they‘ll be my

forever until the end and my lover who is my heartbreaker is someone who I still

love because he made my situation better and my year worthwhile and he gives

me genuine smiles, and that’s the most important thing, and the more important

thing is I'm focusing on me, and my favorite group released their new album, BE,

which sings about this stupid disease, and how life goes on during this tragedy of

quarantine of COVID-19-2021