Written Works
Fiction
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“You’re not broken,” Dad says. “You’re just… more whole than other people.”
The words cause sobs to swell through my body, clawing at my throat and burning my skin. But bit by bit, my parents put me back together. They’re the only ones who ever have, and I worry they’re the only ones who ever will.
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“I fell in love with Everett James when I was twelve years old.”
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Fire ants march down the curb. I watch them and wonder what they’re doing, where they’re going, what life must be like for a fire ant. They must be like little troops, I think, journeying to find food and treasures for their Mama. I avoid the stream of rust-colored bodies as they scamper toward me, scared of their piercing bite. At my seventh birthday party in April, I got bit by one, and it hurt like hell! I imagine there’s no worse pain than a swat from a belt or a bite from a fire ant. It’s better to watch the ants from afar, I decide, so I step onto the lawn. The dying grass crunches beneath my toes.
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And I stood there, staring at my warped reflection in the mirror that wasn’t really a mirror, just a sheet of once-polished metal nailed to the cinder block wall. My reflection was grey and dull, the tarnished metal mottling my face with dark splotches. A thin white scratch paved its way down my reflection, splitting my eye in half, like I was sculpted out of stone and left outside for the elements to ravage.
“Mirror Mirror” by Nakayla McConnaughey
“I stared at him, investigating his face in the light of the lifeguard stand. His eyes seemed more hazel now, and I noticed the tiny freckles dotting his cheekbones. He smelled less like cheap booze and more like peppermint lip balm. I could have kissed him.”
— “Waiting by the Water” by Nakayla McConnaughey
Creative Non-Fiction
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“Twenty minutes ago, my father dragged me outside to look for sheds, the antlers deer have dropped in recent months. Sometimes, he finds a matching pair from the same buck, with identical forks, points, and ivory hues. He has a keen eye from his many years of hunting. Now he prefers to find antlers naturally instead of killing big, beautiful bucks, spilling their warm blood across the soil. He cried last year when he had to shoot a doe on the side of the road; it was a hit-and-run. It still haunts him, though it was an act of mercy, which is ironic since we had a pair of mounted antlers in the garage for years, collected using a rifle instead of gentle hands.”
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“She was dying the whole time.”
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A shudder goes through me along with the rum, warmth following soon after. My friends whoop as I slam the shot glass down, my third of the night. We are doing our usual pregame in my best friend’s apartment. Well, best friend at school. I know I am not her best friend. But later tonight, when my body is numb instead of buzzing, I will tell her she is my best friend, and she will say the same, and I will tell her I love her, and she will say it back. We will do this in the bar's bathroom stall. It will make me feel better until I wake up and remember what I said. Or maybe I won’t remember everything I said, which is even worse.
I take another shot before we leave.
“Misery loves alcohol” by Nakayla McConnaughey
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Here’s a blog post about Nakayla’s experience with social media.
“He’d become food for the mushrooms that he excitedly points out on our hikes, a pile of bones to confuse future hikers who come across the land behind our house. The thoughts douse me in kerosene, the match ready to be lit by the news that my father was ensnared in the maws of an animal or the harsh terrain, mutilated beyond repair or lost in the mesa forever.”
— “Shed” by Nakayla McConnaughey
Academic & Technical
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This article was written for a class assignment.
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This essay was written for my class on interpersonal communications.
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This essay was written about romance and true love within two Shakespeare plays: Romeo and Juliet and The Tempest—two of Nakayla’s favorites.
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Basically, evil is sexy. This essay analyzes the eroticism of evil in John Milton’s Paradise Lost.