“Yes that’s my house, the pink one”, I explained to my friend, Jimmy. He was coming to my house for the first time ever. “It’s really pink, I mean really pink”, he replied. “Yep”, I replied back. It was always a chuckle to say… “The pink house on flamingo street”. I never really saw anything wrong with my house, besides the fact that everyone at my school, Tortino Junior High that is, gets a kick out of making fun of my house. I’ve become apathetic to it anyway. I just never saw the point of giving in to all that BS.


My sister, Jennifer is always in the bathroom “fixing herself”, at least that’s what she calls it. I really don’t see where the “fixing” comes in when you sniff that nasty looking white powder up your nostrils. She made me promise to never touch it, try it, or tell mom. But this time she was taking forever. “Jennifer, you’re taking too long! Get Out, I really have to pee!” No Answer. “Jennifer?” I bust the door open, only to find my sister curled up on the bathroom floor with blood dripping out of her nose. I nearly fainted after what I was looking at. “Mom!!”, I screamed. “Come up here!” “What, Frankie, what’s going on?” She replied. “Oh my god, what happened here?” I don’t know, I walked in and…”. Im crying at this point. “Call the ambulance!”, my mother shouted. I ran to the phone, dialed the number. “Hello?” I said. “Yes, Is there an emergency?” “Yes, uh…” My mother grabbed the phone and took over. “Yes, I think my daughter just had a cocaine overdose.” I didn’t know what the word meant, I suddenly knew that it was bad.


At the hospital, my mom and I were in the waiting area, waiting for any type of news. The nurse came towards us with a notepad. “Miss?”, she spoke. “Yes, is my daughter alright?” she replied. “Yes, she’ll be alright” I was so relieved and so was my mom. “We have come to the conclusion that she has suffered from a cocaine overdose, she needs to enroll into our rehabilitation program” “Ok, can we see her?” My mom replied. “Sure, room 1111” “Thank you”


When my sister walked into the room there was no yelling, no screaming, just tears. My mother ran to my sister, then my sister sank into my mothers arms. “I’m so sorry, mom”, Jennifer cried. “It’s okay baby you’ll get help, I promise” I knew everything was going to be alright.


We arrived at our pink house a week later, when we were bringing my sister home, she was making progress with beating her addiction. Everything was going great. My sister was off of cocaine, I still had my friend, after he had seen my house, and my house was still pink, I mean really pink.


--Ryan Dennis.

A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. ~Leopold Stokowski
~Winner of No Awards for '07~
I'm Girl's baaaaabyyyyyy.
"Death will have to take me sleeping, for if I'm awake there will be a fight."