NOVEMBER 2025 (STORY): Amelie Simard

"We had each other. Together through sweet Sundays, bad old music on the radio, and video games you loved, so I chose to love them too." ("Brother, Return")

This November is a busy month for Artists from Maryland! After finishing up our high school creative writing contest with Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, we have decided on three winners and one runner up! We are featuring the runner up, Amelie Simard! Below is her story, and you can read our interview with her here!

Amelie Simard is a fiction writer with a taste for poetic language who tends to lean into nostalgia and the human experience when writing.

Brother, Return

In another life we could’ve been good friends; in fact, I believe we would be if we were born to the same world. You are so far away from me now. What I might give to have been born a guardian angel to deliver you from darkness.

When I think of what has passed, I think of a tree. I looked up to your flourish, stared at the light shining through your leaves blissfully. We had each other. Together through sweet Sundays, bad old music on the radio, and video games you loved, so I chose to love them too. I loved them because I loved sharing them with you. It was young, it was free, but it has weathered away and hollowed out.

As I search for you, I climb the tree to get a better view from the world, ever expanding. I clutch each bare branch, cutting and scratching through my palms, and wish for the foliage that once was there.

Is our tree dead and gone?

Here in the present my place is no longer under the shade of that tree. I’ve taken a new path and walked into the sunlight. I’ve found new interests and made new friends. I dazzle in the sunlight and forget about the shade; but in the vast openness of the world I feel alone.

I feel alone and I hate you for it. Weren’t you growing beside me? The tree is so small in the distance, I forget how life with it feels. At what point did you wither, and I start to walk away? When your warmth and stability slipped away, leaving you dangerous.

There is so much I still haven’t told you. So much you’ll miss if you fall too far. I miss you.

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