30 Steps to Surviving an Alien Apocalypse Ashka Patel

She has the eyes of Hera, Deep, Dark, Glinting and soft like black mica, The face of Aphrodite, Not angular and severe but soft and innocent, The body of Artemis, Athletic and trim and everything I’m not, The heart of Hestia, Gentle, Humble, Full of a zest for life that never wanes like Hestia’s sacred hearth, The mind of Athena, One that is intelligent and infallible unlike mine, The hands of Demeter, Hands that are unsullied by labor but are the source of marvelous creation

I have the eyes of Medusa, Dull, Leaden, So vacuous and unbearable to look into, The face of the Minotaur, Bullish and crassly unfeminine, The body of Dionysus, Muscular but enveloped in grotesque pockets of fat made of impulses and gluttony, The heart of Persephone, Solitary, Tenebrous, Lost in an unfamiliar and hostile world, The mind of Eris, Spiteful and cynically scorning humanity as the screeches of the righteous Furies echo faintly, The hands of Hephaestus, Brutish and unbecomingly calloused in places.

The Demigoddess and Me

She thrives upon her gods-given Olympus, I languish in a Tartarus of my own creation. She surrounds herself with the Charites, I conspire with the Fates.

I want to love my life, My gifts, My passions.

It is hard, Watching the light from so far below, Wishing I were her, Wondering why I always turn out to be the mediocre to her superb.

One day, Our worlds may collide, Intersect, Converge.

But before that day comes, I will silently watch in vain from the shadows of my Tartarus, Looking up at the demigoddess in all her glory.

Sarah Weng

What Will Stay

Anika Kotapally

Here is your loss, they told you once, pointing at your heart. You looked down at it, pulsing and brilliant and beautiful, then back at them. And here are the ways you will stitch yourself together. Here is the needle, the thread, the solemnity of your fingers as they stitch them together. Needle of your bone, thread of your tendons. You building you. There is the laughter on the wind and the phantom on your couch. It sits, it laughs, no one hears it but you. You will never get rid of it. It comes and comes and comes. Yesterday, you walked past a glass with fingerprints still left on it. On the moon there are footprints that belong to men long gone from its surface. This is not the moon. No lunar ethereality here to preserve that which is forgotten. The names are gone, lost in a garden whose key is within it too. Rattle the gate, smell the flowers inside. You will never see them again. In your head they remain, hands in hands, blood on thorns. Maybe some things should be forgotten. You never remember what they wanted you to. Oh, but here is the imprint of them in your heart, your loss. No place for the love to go now. It is the one thing that will never enter the garden.

Nature’s Touch Katie Wang Painting