HAIBUN COMPETITION

1 st PLACE

A Train Ride Over The Country | Rishi Chen ’27

As the train accelerates and the hours turn to seconds the world is transported with me. From the breakneck asylum that I cherish and love to the carefully-planned secret that laid above. In the sound asleep hollow a tree blooms, a rare commemoration of the time that once was. Leaning against the plush blue, prying eyes spy only the purest, muddiest of lives. But the foreign eyed stranger lying in the empty plain soon makes my acquaintance and tells me of an era that fought to survive against the people that sustained it. Of livelihoods spent alone yet together in spirit, unbroken and undeveloped. Of green. Of blurs. Of a world untouched by the sword-ridden skylines, portable and affordable. Where only the patient survive to understand the glory underneath the tilled soil, as neat as the corrugated-metal that lays beneath our home. I can see the feelings obscured by dirt and the sound of bees, the chemical byproducts dozing off behind the nonexistent weeds, the radio silence and the plastic, chipped souls. In the sky that chose to float rather than hang, clouds pull back their effervescent advance. I’m breathing now, adding weight to the anvil hanging precariously over the edge. But the stranger soon leaves, and the gray friend returns. The track returns to the wheels and the words return to my mouth. But I almost forget to look down to see the green in my shoes.

And it never leaves

RUNNER-UP

The Journey From Her to Me | Prisha Mohapatra ’25

Her smile, a cloudy glass stained in the color red. She often looked within, unsure of the phony facade she projected. She was not me. Everyone could see her truths except her. Her elegant petals soon blossomed and her silent gaze reflected off the sun and back into her own dark brown eyes. She woke up from the trance that held her back. She embarked on the trek to find herself. Gasping for air in the ocean full of tribulations. She was unable to keep up. She is not me.

my smile, it lies not although hiding what’s inside, shows the journey’s plot