My Heart

My heart 
Hammering, thumping, melancholic
Beating like a drum in my chest 
“Write something from my heart?” I ask
“Yes,” they laughed
I didn’t like that they laughed
“Write something passionate and kind,” they said
My heart was never passionate or kind
For it only lived to make life worse, making life feel like standing on the edge of a cliff
My heart was always racing 
For it was chased by the thoughts of my brain
But my brain couldn’t stop chasing it
My heart
For it was trying to outrun the fog
The only thing my heart was passionate about was clanging around in my chest
Rushing, pounding, seemingly never-ending 
As my brain overthought and the fog inevitably encapsulated it
Screaming to me, but whispering only to me
Telling me to run, claw my way out, and hide, but from what I could not tell
I couldn’t and wouldn’t be able to write from the heart
My heart
They way they could, for my heart wasn’t the same 
My heart felt as and was shallow and could never be filled
They continued on about the same silly little things
Chatting, jammering, hammering, on and on and on
I sat there, still and silent, while what seemed to be a war happening inside me
With no logical way to silence it, 
Except the thought that crept its way into my mind
In death there is silence
Then suddenly they weren’t rambling on anymore

Author’s Note

I created “My Heart” for the 2025 Georgia Governors Honors Program Communicative Arts application during my Sophomore year in high school. This poem and animated short film got me to the semifinal interview round!

I read “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe in the 7th grade. It immediately grabbed my attention. This short story introduced me to many works I would’ve never been interested in and sparked my interest in horror-related genres. It seemed like the obvious work to explore with my piece. My creative piece shows my love for horror and themes of mental health.

The purpose of this piece is to show how depression and anxiety can affect a person and even bring them to the point of insanity, as represented by my main character. This piece aimed to make audiences feel uneasy and slightly disquieted throughout the poem and video. I intended the audience to feel and understand the growing insanity and unstable anger of the main character. I wanted the audience to understand how these factors and the character’s feelings of inadequacy can create someone dangerous that can lead to nightmarish actions.

My ideas originated when I read “The Tell-Tale Heart” again and I got most of them from the emotions and feelings of the first half. Because of this, I decided to respond with a poem. I felt that was the only way I could convey the emotions of anxiety, anger, and insanity often seen in Poe’s works. Originally, I planned to only write a poem for my piece, but eventually I decided to create more. My decision to accompany it with an animated video was to show how visuals could add more meaning and understanding to a piece. Because of the animation, viewers can see the character’s depression and anxiety taking over him as the poem goes on. I wrote the entire poem in one sitting after getting inspiration for the beginning of it while reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

For the animation, I did use the poem itself as a plan. I wrote down which scenes I wanted to show for each line recited. Once I had it planned, I began drawing and animating the main frame for each line. Afterward, I drew out the in-between frames, introduction, and end animations. I then decided to add a heartbeat in the audio to increase the disquietude throughout the video.

Themes of mental health, the story “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Edgar Allen Poe’s works, and Frankenstein heavily influenced my piece. Frankenstein’s creature and my poem’s main character are somewhat similar, as both are made to feel inadequate and commit horrific actions because of their creator. The creature commits several murders to get revenge on his creator, Frankenstein, whereas my main character feels inadequate because their heart isn’t the same and commits their actions because of their growing insanity and anger born out of their struggle with mental health.

My piece expresses how the world doesn’t take mental health seriously and doesn’t do much to prevent or help the people being affected by it. This piece shows an extreme situation if mental health problems go unnoticed or untreated.