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Symposium and Semicolon are the official publications of the Arts and Humanities Students’ Council at Western University, published bi-annually. To view previous editions or for more information about our publications, please contact us at the AHSC Council Office in room 2135 at University College. Publications can also be viewed virtually at issuu.com/ahscpubs.
Semicolon is the academic journal for the AHSC. It accepts outstanding A-level submissions written in any Arts and Humanities undergraduate course.
Assistant VP: Kaylee Jade Dunn
Creative Managing Editor: Tanya Matviyiva
Academic Managing Editor: Karen Wen
Layout Editor: Zoe Port
Cover Designer: Emma Hardy
Copy Editors: Alyssa Abou Naoum, Nicole Hennigar, Asher Gris Alumni Relations Commissioner: Jenna Greenspoon
ISSUE ONE | FALL 2024
Copyrights remain with the artists and authors. The responsibility for the content in this publication remains with the artists and authors. The content does not reflect the opinions of the Arts and Humanities Students’ Council (AHSC) or the University Students‘ Council (USC).
LETTERFROMTHEVP
Thepastfewmonthsofthissemesterhavebeenmarkedbya flurryofactivityatPubs.Fromteammeetingstoediting submissions,reviewingcoversandlayouts,andcoordinating stickers,ithasbeenawhirlwindofeffortatAHSCPublications. Ourteamhasworkeddiligentlytobringyouthissemester’s editionsofSemicolonandSymposium.Wearethrilledtofinally presentthesecopiesforyourenjoyment!
ThetalentedstudentsoftheArts&Humanitiesfacultydedicate considerabletimeandefforttocraftingawiderangeofcreative andacademicworksthroughouttheyear.AtAHSCPubs,our missionistoprovidethesestudentswiththeopportunitytoshare theirexceptionalworkwithawideraudience.
Theeditionsyouholdinyourhandsrepresentourtwelfthissue— twelveissuesfilledwithpoetry,essays,artwork,andmuchmore. ThesepagesnotonlyshowcasetheworkofArts&Humanities studentsbutalsoreflectthecontributionsofthefaculty.Wecould notbemoreproudofeverythingwehaveaccomplishedasateam.
Lots of Love,
Thisissue’sthemeis“Unravelled.”Theworditselfholdsarangeof meanings,andinouroriginalprompttostudents,wedescribedit as“comeapart,resolve,beknown/understood,undo,anddestroy.”
Weinvitedstudentstoexplorewhat“unravelled”meanttothem— tounravelthemeaningbehindtheirwork,andtounraveltheir workinitsentirety.Thestudentsrosetothechallenge,andtheir submissionsdidnotdisappoint.Eachpiecewasvaluedforits uniquecontributiontotheedition.
Thecompilationofworksbeforeyouisatestamenttothe dedicationofthisyear’steam.Iwouldliketoextendmysincere thankstomyexceptionalteamfortheirtirelesseffortsinbringing thesepublicationstolife.AspecialthankyoutoKarenandTanya, ourmanagingeditors;toourcopyeditors,AlyssaAbouNaoum, NicoleHennigar,andAsherGris;toourtalentedcoverandlayout designers,EmmaHardyandZoePort;toJenna,ourAlumni RelationsCommissioner;and,ofcourse,toJade,ourassociatevice president,whosesupporthasbeeninvaluable.
Withgreatpride,wepresenttoyoutheFall2024/2025 editionsofSemicolonandSymposium
Chahat Ghuman
LONDON,ONTARIO,OR
GWEN CAUGHELL (SHE/HER)
My father, and both his parents, are fond of repeating that their grandfather/father/father-in-law quit working at the Labatt Brewery, formerly the primary employer in London, due to an internal stirring of Christian guilt. I never met the man, but I’m told he developed a moral opposition to being an enabler of drunkenness. My grandmother is always proud to say my greatgrandfather settled on a much lowerpaying job in London, doing something that’s never been clearly stated to me. I know it had something to do with trucking. It does not really matter much. For the longest time, I thought he must have been mad. It helps that this image of my great-grandfather adheres to how I would stereotype my father’s family history: a long line of sanctimonious English-Canadian Protestantism. I imagine he must have felt humiliated and deeply stupid to suffer willingly like that. But since my younger years, I have also learned to imagine that it probably felt quite righteous; a tiny act of self-martyrdom that I now feel I have no business to mock. Sure, it made bad financial sense, but it’s not like I, in my own modern ways, don’t self-sabotage in desperate bids to live up to my own morality. Unlike him, I drink and don’t believe in
God, but the Protestant eccentric lives in me, on its own terms. I think a lot more about my great-grandfather as I feel my own moral revulsions, best expressed in the company of friends as we wander the streets of London.
Sometime around 90 AD, John of Patmos (most likely not the John who was a disciple, contrary to what my childhood church groups would tell you) wrote a letter to several churches outlining the end of the world; a day of judgement culminating in the birth of a New Jerusalem. I always found the story beautiful in some sense, the sheer playfulness in language as it describes all these incomprehensible figures of fantasy. It felt transgressive and sexual in a way that could only ever appeal to a lonely, sheltered evangelical, but I detested the science fiction additions preferred by the hapless youth group flock I found myself in; the Left Behind moral universe where Obama, or whoever was the Antichrist, bent on making us all get bar code tattoos and be gay or whatever the fuck. My father, the consummate believer, would argue with his men ’ s Bible study, which I overheard him planning for, that the Antichrist was probably going to be a homosexual man, because hey, look at the world around you. It made sense from a certain
ANEPISTLETONOBODY
perspective. It is moronic, but it’s an authentic expression of contempt for just about everyone alive, and its utter revulsion for gayness placed homosexuality at the centre of its cosmology, in a certain sense, so maybe I have that to be proud of. Oh, if my father knew what his child would turn out to be! A homosexual, but hopefully not the Antichrist (well, we’ll have to see). I heard a ton about how it was all going to go down, the rapture, which could happen at any second, and that it would take the truest believers up to heaven. The timeline was a mush of dates, times and soon-to-happen historical epochs, and I was on the ground floor of it all. The future was at my fingertips. If only I knew how to interpret it properly. And yet, despite thinking myself a believer, I developed a paranoia that God would leave me behind, like the hacky science fiction films with Kirk Cameron or Nicholas Cage. This fear has persisted after leaving Christianity. Frequently, when my friends and I have walked about London on a quiet evening, I’ve told them in the back of my head that the quiet (actually induced by living in a slowly decaying post-industrial city) feels only explicable because the rapture has happened. We, of course, are not going to heaven, for sins I would rather not fully divulge to you, dear reader.
I feel the same fury John of Patmos felt when walking through London. There’s this sprawling parking lot of fast-food chains and big-box stores that I have to walk through on my way home. Without a doubt, this walk is at its worst in the summer. It is a concrete Babylon probably far more terrifying than whatever John could imagine; slabs of grey, heat-inducing tar and no people, just cars. I mean I’m sure when they drive by me there are people in them, but I just don’t see them. Instead, I see them as tiny extensions of a great dragon. A congealed beast of blood, metal and commerce that has taken away whatever used to be here. And yet it is not like I can do much of anything about this shit. It is not like the old days when I at the very least had a grand sense of history’s arc. I used to be able to read the Book of Revelation and know what was going to go down, but now I’m forced to wallow, cooking myself slowly on the concrete street. I feel a morality, but no agency. In these moments, I am a righteous judge without righteousness, a believer without a God. I sense the seven trumpets, but no Four Horsemen. The world moves on as I indulge my little sadistic fantasies about it all going up in flames. Good God, what a wreck I am. What a mistake this whole city is. What a mistake this whole country is.
I can’t really ever talk about “Canada” in a sense that people will take seriously because my Canada is too connected to my America. A childhood in the caverns of Evangelicalism made me hate this godforsaken country. America was a city on a hill of religious liberty, so I was told. America was a land of opportunity and freedom in a way that we, poor, wretched socialists, would never get to grasp. M father rants about Trudeau turn Canada into a communist dictators He’s a spawn of Castro, you see, beca to him communism is as malignant a is genetic. I could tell him that Ju Trudeau hasn’t done anything to br apart state ownership of the means production, and I have tried in the p but it’s not like he listens much to Canada is, for me, always defined by other. It’s not a land of things but a l of things that it is not. It does not coh in my head as a place. A dee evangelical childhood, in some sen has put me on the outside. But no lon being Christian has put me on the outs of this outside. So what is there to what is there to believe in?
Perhaps, nothing. I can make peace w that.
The place I feel most at home is theref my walks back and forth, after leaving great dragon, where I see glimpses of
what used to be forests and trees. You move your eyes an inch to the left or right and you see either the newly constructed suburban developments or the Dragon of the Great Chain Commerce. So I stare with the delusion that an existence outside history is possible, a return to purity. The buzzing telephone wires get in my view, but in h h b f h
ICAN’TWRITEPOETRY ABOUTYOU
LINA DRUMMOND (SH
Unable to articulate my insatiable
A muse too mesmerizing to captu
I’m tempted to gouge my eyes up
To bleed an infatuation so strongl
Clamouring tongues battle with d
Their hollers reverberating throu
Uttering irrational optimisms and While cynical reality disfigures m
I fantasize about sinking my teeth
To taste your saltwater tears drow
Brittle bones wrapped with ribbon
Fragility cloaked in deceptive gra
You’re clamped onto my toxic liv
Sucking the marrow of my existen
An insidious serpent creeping thr
Poisoning my soul as you slither d
My tormented heart yearns for yo
Lust’s lacerations rip apart the cha
Revealing the pulsating arteries u My heart, maimed by devotion.
His kisses leave bruises, Reminiscent of the paradox of lus Man’s reckoning, the dreaded consequences. It feels good until it hurts, Harsh realities of a despairing world.
I’m bound to our grotesque distortion of love, And I can’t write poetry about you.
NOWHERE
ALEXIS GRACE AGAS (SHE/HER)
I’m wearing Christmas tree underwear, but my mind is ravaged by you, ripping my frail corpse in half. A stomach chasm lies a broken bridge away from where you put those chambers that once I had called a heart. The Guilt is close to consuming me. Why!? Its jaws, its teeth are snapping, and I cry. Mistook for grief, I sew my mouth up shut.
Your silence haunts my dreams and reveries. It seeps a dread like crows without their caws. You parted ways, no parting words. Not me, I scream and kick and hurt and beg you, “Please?”
One day I’ll walk away, your grip unclawed. For now, I sit in quiet; mad, but freed.
COME UNDONE
TAYLOR M. BRANCO (SHE/HER)
MYDEPRESSION MYCOCOON
FATIMA (SHE/HER)
flutters past by butterfly. s itself, ats before landing., its descent.
oh, woe to r scion, flows in. nd Miseria, Tenebrae.
ome inside. llowed skull, leeding ing sun. n, in my very d and welcom rage, guardia d these war cr fate and time r lying skies. re all I have., ion is not my companion. ompany, ckly army.
BLACK COFFE E
CYRUSBECHTOLD(HE/HI
“Are you fucking serious?!” A voice rang out, blasting through the warm, honeylike glow of the space, shattering the gentle hum of the coffee shop.
Startled, Tarah’s body shot into rehearsed action: her eyes searching frantically for his gaze, her fingers beginning to drum incessantly on her leg, purse, arm, anywhere they could find a surface. What she found, however, was just a man at the counter in front of her who had apparently decided that not being able to buy a slice of lemon loaf was impeding his ability to live properly.
“I’m sorry, sir. We can make more like I said, you’ll just have to wai ”
“No! No, I need it…” The man trailed off, glancing from the barista to his eerily silent surroundings. “It’s fine. Sorry. It’s fine. Shit.” The man turned, grumbling, and rushed towards the exit - right past Tarah.
“Already late, and now this shit. I swear ”
His grumblings disappeared. The world went silent as Tarah was overtaken by the stench of his cologne, his proximity, his aggression, his familiarity. Gone was the coffee shop, its gentle hum, the whir of a milk frother, the warmth of the sun. She was back, cowering over the sink as the streams of cool tears tried ineffectively to smooth out the fresh, red blemishes burning her face. Back, lying prone on the bed, as the hands on her skin were no longer her own. Her tapping fingers were replaced by his, whose voracious caresses sought nothing but to take, and take, until she was nothing.
Nothing but a puzzle completed by another, reshaped by years of force and prodding to look how he wanted.
“What can I get you, Ma’am?”
The question had to be repeated twice more before, forcing herself back into the physical world, Tarah stumbled up to the counter, her finger grasping it and drumming wildly to convince themselves they were once again the ones in control
“Sorry. Sorry. Uhh. Just just a black coffee please.” She forced out a smile, an act thatwhich, by this point, she thought she must have damn near perfected. The barista returned it with a sly grin of her own.
“Mhm. You know, I’m not meant to say anything about what a customer orders -have to support the business and all that. ‘If you stop business, we stop your pay, ’ as the boss says. But fuck that.” Sshe leaned in, close enough for Tarah to smell the rich, flowery scent she wore Close enough for Tarah to see the hints of unexplained journeys on her face: a broken nose that never quite healed properly, a gash through her left eyebrow, scarred and never to regrow.
“Just a black coffee? I can’t stand that! It’s so bitter, it tastes like my Grandpa’s ass!”
Taken aback, Tarah just stared at her., Tand the baristashe hurriedly filled in, “Not -not that I know that from experience or anything, obviously Just a guess Y’know, him being old and all.” She blushed slightly and leaned back. “Yeah, I think I’m just going to stop talking forever now. ”
To her surprise, Tarah found herself trying and failing to hold back a laugh, and she quickly covered her mouth “Sorry, sorry That was rude It’s just, well, I don’t think I’ve ever heard something so vulgar about my order.”
The barista only smiled,: warm, inviting. “So… did I convince you to change it then?”
“No, no I shouldn’t I can’t He wouldn’t want” Tarah trailed off as she noticed the barista’s eyes traveling down to her hand, still on the counter, wherewith which she was unconsciously thumbing her wedding ring.
“Fuck ’‘ em, ” the barista whispered softly, and the venomous intent behind it surprised Tarah. It ; surprised her to hear the feelings she tried so desperately to keep locked away flow so freely from another’s mouth. The young woman picked up a cup and scribbled in the order, but before Tarah could leave, she saw the barista’s hand move toward hers, still restless on the countertop.
She couldn’t move, couldn’t draw her hand back. Her mind raced, trying to piece together how this barista, this woman who immediately Tarah had immediately assumed she could trust, was about to repeat to her whatthat which she most hated Again, the fingers of another would touch Tarah’s skin, take it for themselves Already, she was being transported back to that world of hellish physicality.
But when the touch came, it was with warmth.
And then it was gone.
The barista withdrew and called the next customer
But at that moment, in that millisecond brush of fingers, they had created a spark. A spark that would, by anyone else, go unnoticed, but in Tarah’s world of cold felt like the heat of a thousand embers
Once her name was called, Tarah found an empty table, slid into the chair and raised the warm cup gently to her lips with shaking hands, trying her best not to spill The liquid cascaded into her mouth, and her tongue prepared for the bitter taste of black coffee was stunned at the fountain of creamy, sweet heaven that came instead. It felt so wrong for Tarah to be drinking it; she knew he cared about what she ate, drank, and looked at, but she didn’t stop She sat for what felt like years, immersed in sensations she had gone so long without
Finally, when the last drop was gone, Tarah hesitantly put the cup back down. Only then did she see what was scribbled in the messy hand of the barista a simple message: “Live your own life ”
Overwhelmed by everything in the last moments the brush of fingers, the barista changing her order, continuing to drink the coffee, the message, the minute audacity of it all Tarah’s eyes sought desperately for the barista’s, for a grounding in reality When the barista finally turned from her current customer, all that was offered was a wink and a small smile. And then she was gone, back to the next in line. Back to her own life, as if she had not just shattered Tarah’s entire world.
Gone was the puzzle crafted by others, broken now into a million little pieces In its place, Tarah was now able to piece together a puzzle herself, rearranging some of the old with room for some of the new. She had no idea what to expect when it was finished. But she was, at least, able to place the first piece.
A memory of a sunny afternoon, a sweet drink and the brush of something new
OBSESSING ONLY FOR CONTROL TODISAPPEAR
CHLOE BAIRD (SHE/HER)
Only once did I do it, I Came back to you.
Didn’t forget how it felt, being Obedient to you.
Contentment is subjective, you taught me this. Deceiving was mistaken for temporary bliss.
Once, twice, three times, four Can’t stop it now, or I’ll be Down in front of you.
Only this will set me free, just Clear my worries, watch them Drift away.
Overwhelmed I feel, I Can’t ever stop.
Do you like what I’m doing?
Oh, or not.
Can I just take a break? That’s okay. Don’t worry, I won’t!
Only you matter.
Couldn’t stop if I tried
Disobeying you, would mean that I die.
GUILTY CONSCIENCE
JOSE ERNESTO GONZALEZ SARDINA (HE/HIM)
Why do you hide in a darkness That cannot see your beauty?
What good is your own company When it is only a reminder of their absence?
Of the long-gone winds of summer that still call you home,
Oblivious to the cold breath that plagues your corpse. It was your choice you followed here, Or perhaps it was a wish, One that crawled up in here to die, And veiled in desperation you grabbed onto its tail.
In your eyes, its light grew dim And it carried the warmth of a mellow tear, The ardent fire of a forgotten sin, You chose Time then to be your companion In this hollow bed where you lay dormant.
You’ve embalmed yourself on that sacred tear, And it has dressed you in a stunning glare.
You’re getting ready for the pyre, yet You know it’s too cold in here to light a fire
Perhaps it isn’t freedom you seek, To have your ashes be carried away by light memories In hope that they would bring you closer to a warmer fire, Igniting once again the Life gone cold inside of you.
No, you wish to be crystallized and left behind by your ghosts,
Paraded like a statue for all to see The marks of cold steel shackles that adorn your wrists,
Hoping that Justice mourns your death And those you love forget your name.
But your name is not the title of your story, It is merely a plea of mercy on deaf ears,
A windless whisper
Devoid of direction, awaiting a heart to give life to
Oh love, if only you could let go. You’re frozen with fear before nothing Because it was nothing you followed here. It was your own thoughts that led you.
You’ve denied the god you praised Entrance to the temple you died while crafting
You’ve dug your own grave in cement, Denying your body the warm hug of its mother. And for what? With what purpose? They won’t kneel at the door and beg, They won’t cry hoping their tears will soften your heart, Or that their pleas may seduce your goodwill.
If you weren’t so afraid to open your eyes, Perhaps you would see the stunning beauty painted on you.
And the darkness of night
Would not hide the answers you seek In the shadow of your starlight glimmer.
Your cold touch never bothered me
But if it bothers you so much, grab onto my hand Let your tears flow freely to the blue sea, Where your thoughts can no longer weigh down on your body
It was your choice you followed here And there won’t be a light on the way out, So choose your steps carefully. From now on the darkness you see Will stare back.
MUSINGSFROMA JANUARYWALK
GEORGIA
GIANNARAPIS
(SHE/HER)
LONELY,UNREQUITED
“We cling to music, to poems, to quotes, to writing, to art because we desperately do not want to be alone We want to know we aren’t going crazy and someone else out there knows exactly how you ’ re feeling We want someone to explain the things we can’t ” - Unknown
I was once a chunk of worthless stone, not a piece of art. The next thing I knew, someone decided I was worthy of creation. There was a long time where all I felt was pain, incomparable to anything I had ever felt before. Soon after, the tireless chiselling of my marble stopped, and life was instantly breathed into me. I barely saw the rugged mountains or smelled the salty shores of the Gulf of Corinth before I found out I would be shipped away. I obviously had no say in the matter, but I would miss home, and the only face I knew: the artist who created me. That is how I came to this spot by the windows.
The days are long but the nights are even longer when the building’s bright luminescence fades at the flick of a switch. At night, the sun doesn’t shine through the large window panes in my building. This place has many visitors walking in and out of its doors, and I guess I don’t mind the ogling eyes; it’s nice to think someone appreciates the simplicity of your nature enough to want to keep the memory alive through photos. I was very used to getting my picture taken by tourists, so I wasn’t fazed when I noticed someone I had never seen before come to visit my exhibit this morning.
You are different. Yours are the pair of eyes that were the first and only to ever look into my own. The brown of your irises contrasted with the bright yellow of your jacket and the old map you were holding. You tipped your hat at the other creations in this exhibit. The friendly gesture made me come to a quick realization: you were someone with a friendly soul.
Now, I knew I was beautiful, but I never knew there could be a creation more beautiful than you. Is it even possible? You aren’t made of any kind of bronze or brass, and for a creation made so differently than myself, the light seemed to bounce off your flesh so effortlessly. How is this so? My natural stone became so easily stained with your memory, and you didn’t even say a word yet. You were just the first person to stare into my eyes, grab my sculpted hand in yours, and say hello.
You didn’t mind that our paint was flaking, or our metals rusted from living in the same position our entire lives. I suddenly noticed you sitting down beside me, curiously poking through your bag. Grabbing your camera, I prepared for you to photograph me. Instead, you pressed a button and held
the device to my face, going through photos of grey skies and sunny days, immersing me in these moments. I was shocked, as was the rest of my usual audience, I would imagine. Why would a tourist such as yourself show a picture to a statue instead of taking a picture of it? You didn’t make me feel like I was being used as mindless entertainment. Instead, you made me feel seen.
I knew I recognized you when I saw you through my window the day after we met. You wore the same yellow coat and held the same old map. You don’t know how badly I wanted to rip myself off this stand and run to you, say hello. You visited me later in the day when I noticed that the sun was beginning to set. You tipped your hat in greeting at the others and once again sat beside me. I was curious to see if you would show me something new. If I could have leaned over and perhaps put an arm around your shoulder, keeping you close for as long as possible, I would have without hesitation. If I could’ve done that, I wouldn’t ever have to worry about whether or not I would see you the next day.
I noticed out my window that it was raining the next day. I was sure that you wouldn’t travel all this way just to come back to me again, but I was wrong. I recognized the yellow jacket now accompanied by a yellow umbrella. Although I couldn’t be sure it was you, I was proven wrong by the same yellow jacket I saw entering the exhibit. You shook the water courteously off your umbrella at the door, so as to not damage the art, and tipped your cotton hat in greeting
once again. Taking your usual seat beside me today, you stuffed your soggy map into your bag and pulled out what I could only imagine was a jam-filled pastry. You held the flaky dessert up and offered some to me, then chuckled to yourself. Were you someone lonely enough to think that stone kept good company? I liked to believe so.
The last day I saw you, you entered the exhibit for a fleeting moment. Right before the lights closed for the night, I felt a hand clasp tightly to my cheek. You looked into my eyes, just like the day we met, but I wasn’t too sure why you were doing this. You have visited for the past few days, so surely you will come again. The warmth of your hand spread through my marble as you walked out the door.
I kept waiting for you to come back, but you never showed. I stared out the window, watching the lonely days melt into weeks, months and even years. Was I naive to think that someone like you would come back? If I could have opened my mouth to speak to you, if I could open my eyes and see your bright yellow again, it would be my only wish. I knew of the right words to say, but I would never be able to say them to you again. I know many days slipped through our fingers, but each day I would wait for you, look for you out my window. When I realized you were truly gone, nothing could compare to the sinking feeling in my chest. If I had a pumping heart, it surely would have been broken.
Slowly, our adventure would come to a permanent close. I had noticed that over
time, not many people came to visit anymore. The flashes of cameras stopped, and while it was finally quiet for the first time in years, it made me feel dull. I overheard that our building was to be demolished. you ’ re just one of those lonely tourists surrounding yourself with art to feel less alone in an unknown place.
If I could tell you how I feel at this moment, I would tell you that right now, I am frightened. I don’t know what will happen to me after this. Will I be reduced to pieces? What will be done with my art? What I would give if I could gaze upon you one last time, stare down at you sitting beside me, because I’m sure you would tell me everything would be alright. You would tell me to think of the adventures I could go on now that I would be free. I wish you could be here to hold my hand, even only for a moment. But I will tell you this, I am grateful for the tiny piece of adventure you gave me. You let me live the life of experience I never got to do on my own. What I would give to be in these photographs with you In Paris, on the balcony of your hotel room; lying in the green fields of Ireland, looking at the sky. We never left the confines of the exhibit, yet you showed me places I would only overhear from other people’s conversations.
Regardless, I truly thank you for showing me the bit of life I never got to experience on my own. The beauty of the life outside these window panes. If you ever came back to me, I would ask you to show me more photographs. I want to see more of your documented adventures. I wonder if you would agree if I asked you to bring me along one day. Maybe you would shrug and realize
Out there, I assured myself that you would hear the news of my building breaking down. Would you have come to say a proper goodbye?
Do you regret never taking a picture of me? To make our time together another one of your memories? A new piece of art? I noticed that you never did end up taking my picture.
The day has come to tear down the exhibit. As they reduce me and my window to rubble, I realize I miss your yellow coat, your soggy map, the warmth of your hands on my marbled skin and your cotton hat. I realize I will miss every single part of you I got to know in our short time together, even though you will never know.
DREAMER BY EMMA HARDY
The taste hits first— metallic, sharp, like biting into a rusted nail, tongue glued to the roof of my mouth, dry, yet drowning in a sourness that won’t go away. The air thickens. There’s something foul in it, something sour or burning—
I can’t tell if it’s real or just inside me.
Breathing becomes a fight, each breath catching like trying to suck air through a straw that’s too narrow, too long.
Everything touches me at once.
The seams of my clothes dig into my skin, each thread burning, my arms tingle, and my fingertips lose feeling like they’re not mine anymore.
OUTOF FOCUS
Sound blares, too much at once, voices bending and twisting, the hum of lights, the scratch of shoes on tile— it’s all louder, faster— and then just my heart. Thudding like it's trying to break through my ribs, too fast, too strong, too loud.
The walls move, the lights buzz overhead, and everything stretches out, too far, too bright.
Faces blur, like smears of paint on glass, and I can’t focus— can’t see, can’t
KIERSTEN FAY (SHE/HER)
“Breathe,”
they say, but I’ve forgotten how
’ M S T I L L B L E E D I N G
)
Hills turn into valleys as they wash down into the crevices created by age and weather
Skin pulls over bone and muscle as fingers curl and nails press against skin Hills grow and grow and grow from the tension created, small cuts slicing the hills in half, red and raw
The wound pulls away from itself, widening as skin stretches over bone, pulling and pulling and pulling until it stings and stings and stings.
Red drips down fingers, inching over skin and bone and nails. Its warmth spreads, sticky and tacky when skin presses against skin, making small fingerprints everywhere the red has spread.
I want to dig my fingers into the open wound until I reach white, so I can spread apart muscle and skin to watch my bones and ligaments and tendons move
Maybe I’ll be able to watch as they deteriorate with the rest of my joints, as my knuckles stiffen in threat of arthritis, and they get stuck in place when I hold something for too long
Maybe I’ll be able to watch as they deal far more powerful blows than people expect from me, even as my fingers lock and break
Maybe I’ll watch as they type and type and type until the ideas stop coming and my fingers stop tap tap tapping.
Hills melt back into flat land as bone and skin relax Blood still drips down my skin, leaving a trail of warmth across my fingers and dripping onto the mats beneath me
I run fingers across my flattened knuckles, feeling every dip and groove that is hidden underneath the rough paleness of my skin.
On my unmarred hand, I catalogue the pale lines across my fingers from my rings and too much sun. I study the tan lines, noting the width difference across each finger, each ring specially curated to present masculinity where I’m afraid no one can see any. I can see how my knuckles turn red from exertion, and how the red, irritated skin around my nails pulls every time I move my fingers.
I hold both hands side by side, one still leaking blood from my knuckles, spreading and clinging to my skin, turning my hand into a dark red mess as it pools in every crevice on my hand, and the other clean, only marred by tan lines and heat and anxious skin picking.
THESE ARE MY HANDS? THESE ARE MY HANDS? THESE MY HANDS?
These are my hands These are my hands
Maybe they’ll start hurting so at least there’s a reason I’m still bleeding.
Maybe I’ll finally be able to peel them open to see what’s so wrong with them, to dig out all the bad to cut it all out, sloughing off the threat of aches and pains and fingers stuck in claws.
Maybe they’ll start to do something good so when they inevitably stop working, at least I’ll have something to show for it.
I can feel my blood pouring
Through the darkness of my pencil
Being purified by its absence of meaning
Filling the void of my Nature
As it fills the blank paper
I’m empty and absolute
My heart incessantly beating
But my hand stays resolute
Feeling the weight of the world resting atop it
Following a stream of thoughts that never ends
Tracing a map of the path that my Life’s walked
In search of a North Star
There is no light in the words I write
But there is a red string that ties them together
Flowing without direction
Without hesitation blazing a trail
Away from my heart
Through a dead forest
Crowded with nothing but hollow carcasses
My tears can’t bring life to them
They are tombs for my sorrows
The resting place where soundless screams
Go to find their quiet peace
The silence that my thoughts have sought
In the pursuit of a sound
That strings them together
To perform the beautiful sound
Of a soul being spread out
Over the white of heaven’s clouds.
There is no reflection of the blue sea here
Only the endless darkness
That my words seek to find
And a setting red Sun
That calls home the blood
Spilling out of my open wounds.
I’m a journeyman without path
Desperately chasing my thoughts
While carving a trail on paper
Of stories they want told.
My pencil dances on paper
And the markings it leaves
Are consequences of a yellow fire
A mellow feeling that’s been dormant too long
Trapped in the night sky chasing after a New Moon
BLOODLUSTWORDS
JOSE ERNESTO GONZALEZ SARDINA (HE/HIM)
I’m chasing a comet
Always at the end of my pencil
Always guiding that endless string
Of blood that finds its own way
Through the carvings I make
On this empty paper
Desperately chasing
The need to be alive
The need to build a Life
Made of more than words and promises
But of a Truth that challenges time
A legacy that stands
When the pillars of creation have been toppled
I chase a Self I can’t reach yet. He does not live in these pale words
But in the heart that bleeds them
Like the sound that sings a song
And the color that draws a painting.
So I will let my heart bleed forever more
And make its blood give Life
There where impossibility grows.
APOLOGY TO THE AFTERWORLD
HOLLIE ROSEWOOD (SHE/HER)
If I stayed right here, In this spinning office chair, The axis of my world,
A CN Tower panorama —
Would I gain points of view?
Would I blend in with the blue?
Second’s true. If I don’t move, My mind and limbs will become formless.
If I stayed here in my bubble, Taller than trouble, I’d be a Hamster spinning in a ball, Watching cities start to fall.
Would I turn without a care?
Sit in my chair, hope to be spared?
If walls around me started to shrink, Fear would grease my gears, I think. What has made me so inert?
Obsessed with the sky, misusing the dirt? My colleagues freeze when the AC works, Yet when we melt, we still revert
TO STEPPING ON EACH OTHER JUST TO SIT IN AN OFFICE CHAIR LIKE THIS.
Clock, wake me up at dawn. A hundred flights have come and gone. Jets fly like rockets to the sun Like bees around a single flower. They seek nectar they won’t get, But no, they will not give up yet. They buzz, and sting, and kill themselves. Pollen plumes puff as they plummet.
Do we think only of gains? When did our morals get so stained? There’s nothing left to be attained, When this growth cannot be sustained. Why do we chase such highs and bliss, Pay no mind to what’s amiss, Dismiss the knock from the abyss That warns of near apocalypse—
But it’s here. When the clock, at last, strikes twelve, And we ’ ve shut away that shelf Of books that foretold this for years Had we only paused to hear
HOW WE ABUSED THIS PRECIOUS SPHERE THAT WE WERE GIFTED TO REVERE.
If only I’d looked down, Had my feet upon the ground, Tracked my footprints on the earth, And seen worth in all I’d found. If only I had stood, On this chair where I once would sit Watching the pretty rockets go, Blowing the planet into bits.
I admit all I didn’t do. Afterworld, here’s my pledge to you. I have shoes for a reason, And better into them I grew. So when the tower crumbles down, And the planes fade into blue, I vow: I will stand, new world, with you, And I will stand for you.
Sharing one ’ s work can be daunting, so the Publications Team would like to thank all students who submitted their pieces. Thank you for trusting us with your work.
THANK YOU
