"Thalia" 2023-2024

thalia

2023-2024

Editors:

Head Editors: Abby Everett and Maura Kahuda

Poetry Editor: Zara Selod

Assistant Poetry Editor: Zoë Davis

Art Editors: Collin Snyder and Isabel Johnson

Assistant Art Editor: Kaylee Shaw

Fiction Editor: Vinny Worsley

Assistant Fiction Editor: Ruthie Mayfield

Creative Nonfiction Editor: Emerson Smith

Assistant Creative Nonfiction Editor: Ava Casto

Playwriting Editor: Vinny Worsley

Assistant Playwriting Editor: Grace Gibson

Social Media Coordinator: Berkeley Moore

Assistant Social Media Coordinator: Preston Brown

Staff:

Ayomide Agboola, Isabelle Bachim, Eleni Barlow, Angelina Bwimbo, Olivia Carey, Dalya Chandler, Nicholas Charette, Sarah Connally, Marcy Everett, Saaira Gatta, Arden Grant, Ashton Green, Nori Hamilton, Johanna Ivy, Lucy Johnston, Claire Kauffman, Gaby Kremer, Lanie Lorimer, Jessica Lucas, Angelyn Mitchell, Audrey Nolet, Sivani Subramanian, Niya Tilati, Sammye Unell, Peyton Vlasow, Anna Wilmann, Madeline Yorkston, Gillian Young

A Note from the Editors:

We want to thank everyone who submitted this year, because the quality and variety of pieces made it impossible to boil this year ’ s issue down to a single theme. We didn’t want to exclude anything because it didn’t meet the arbitrary criteria that we picked. We wanted to let each piece stand on its own. In our eyes, this year ’ s Thalia is reminiscent of a TVS student. It’s overcommitted and being pulled in a million different directions, but more importantly, it represents countless experiences, identities, and ideas. This year, we feel that the magazine is truly representative of the entire student body. It gives voice to the many different facets of our community. We’re so grateful students have trusted us with their cultures, childhoods, dreams, nightmares, and passions. You have made the magazine into what it is; you ’ ve made our job as editors easy this year. We are so proud of this year ’ s issue of Thalia and we can’t wait for you to read it. We couldn’t have done it without you.

John

Graves Award Judge: Ann Fisher-Wirth

Ann Fisher-Wirth’s seventh book of poems is Paradise Is Jagged (Terrapin Books, 2023). A senior fellow of the Black Earth Institute, she has had Fulbrights to Switzerland and Sweden, and residencies at Djerassi, Hedgebrook, The Mesa Refuge, Camac, and Storyknife. She is the recipient of several awards and prizes, including the 2023 Governor’s Award for Excellence in Literature and Poetry from the Mississippi Arts Commission. Dr. Fisher-Wirth retired in 2022 from the University of Mississippi, where she taught in the MFA program and directed the Environmental Studies program for many years.

John Graves Award Winner

More Than Shattered Glass

Kate Demchuk

I sometimes feel that the only way for me to sing would be if my mouth was gone,

But the sound of my mother’s hum hits faster than the thought ever could. She tells of sleep, an art we are both slowly losing, while she strokes my head.

Foreign sounds with words so familiar I can nearly taste just their essence on my tongue:

Пора спати (it’s time for bed).

I wish she could have taught me how to harness their sweet echo with ease. Now I lay with her hand on my head, like an olive branch to the end of war. The way she cuts her ‘д’s” and rounds her “о’s” reminds me of her mother. We are the throughline of generations running through the wheat fields of our homeland.

They know it better than I, they lived it first-hand, but I sometimes catch a syllable around my lips that makes me feel whole.

Like I was there to see the cobblestone streets on the way back to додому (home).

I swear I can still taste the earthiness of beet from dinner, a soup that makes me remember windy November nights. We made it together, an ode to the rough imperfections of our palms and fingertips.

John Graves Award Honorable Mention

Threads of the East Sami Bismar

In the heart of Syria, memories are vast landscapes, Culture illustrates every corner, every alley, and every place. Meals tell stories, history, moments frozen in time, With grandparents, time stands still, and memories we share. Values are more than words, they are the pathway beneath my feet, Culture is the compass by which I navigate life, it's like a guiding star. My grandfather stood firm, a testament to resilience and grace, My Father navigated through challenges, always seeking to transform.

Their legacies are not just tales, but foundations of my soul, Through them, I see the world, traditions, stories, and much more. Bound to family, tethered to a rich tapestry or identity, In the dance of history, I find purpose, continuity, and connection. In the embrace of family and culture, I find transparency, A sense of self, a connection to the past, and shared unity. Through their wisdom and tales, my roots grow deep, Anchoring me to a destiny I am destined to maintain.

John Graves Award Honorable Mention

A Shattered Portrait

Abby Everett

After Picasso’s “Portrait of Francoise”

Sweat hangs in fumes from the rafters, the sunlight drifting down in fuzzy little flakes. His brows furrow in the paper, fingerprints litter his complexion, the black of charcoal coming to life. Scritch, scritch, scritch.

He could look at me forever, it seems, in this hay-filled haze of horses and manure. My eyes strain, aching to hold my gaze for his frozen moment in time. Moisture creeps down in little rivers on my neck, my cheeks, my forehead.

The charcoal goes silent. His gaze finds mine through the thickness of sunlight, a tight-lipped smile my only acknowledgement. The footsteps grow softer and softer and I am alone in this dingy barn, in this hay-filled hell-hole of horses and manure. I am alone in his frozen moment in time.

Ode to My Grandmother’s Rosary

Angelyn Mitchell

Your rose infused heart Is a pure red essence I drown in. With each prayer, your sweet fragrant fumes, A silent cry for Lady Guadalupe in white. In your embrace, a soft sanctuary, You guide through the torn kin tie. My abuela’s timeless element, A comfort draped over my hands. Through a second voice bleeding familiar linguistic hues, You carry me across the bridge of pride.

Six-Word Memoir

Kaylee Shaw

A girl who feels too much.

A Night Around the Fire

Sammye

Unell

We waited all week for this one night. After returning from dinner, stomachs full of soda and quesadillas, fingers greasy from fried pickles, we changed our cute outfits into comfortable sweatpants and warm jackets. My friend led us to the kitchen. The lighting was cozy, a golden glow, like a giant candle filled the room. There were no sounds inside, no messes left behind, and not a single trace of anyone other than us. It seemed as if no one even lived in her house. We opened the amber cabinets and rummaged for the half-eaten bag of marshmallows, giant Hershey's chocolate bar, and slightly crumbled graham crackers. They sat together in the pantry, perfect complements, just like how we left them from last time. My other friend

grabbed the hazelnut spread to try as another topping for our s’mores. We carefully laid each of our ingredients on the platter in strategic lines and headed back upstairs with metal skewers in hand.

I liked how routine this was for us; almost as if we had been programmed to know exactly what to bring, grab, wear, and do. It was a simple night: the platter, skewers, speaker, and blankets were all we needed to bring with us. We put on our shoes that were sitting outside, so cold that they felt almost wet. The air felt crisp like the cool feeling of washing your face in the morning. The moonlight guided us along the rock path to the fire pit. We took out the folding chairs from the bin and set them up in a circle around it. We set our stuff down and started gathering wood planks. Outside the back of her house sat hundreds of them stacked in uneven rows; carefully we had to wedge them apart from each other so as to not be toppled over by falling planks. There were all different shapes and sizes. We collected some large, and some small, but all lightly colored and prickly to the touch.

To read the rest of the story…

Burlap and Shell

Sarah Connally

this love

Dalya Chandler

this love is so familiar and so sweet, but now i feel it for somebody new. it’s always been my family and my friends, so i never suspected it'd be you. you took my beating heart into your hands, and make it feel like everything was fine. you make my life so full of love and joy, i cherish every day that you are mine. and now with gentle words and arms of steel,

you hold me close and tell me how you feel. underneath the blankets, late afternoon, you tell me how you’re buying me the moon.

I am not a poet Eleni Barlow

My name isn’t Charles and I am no poet.

I am no fighter, no matter how my knuckles read. My love is boundless, with lover gone. Dreamers of the past are lost on me and the movers and the shakers same.

I am not immovable. I am resigning. My absent oaths spread over.

I am not fixable. I am girlish and boyish and impish and I look not of it at all.

I have no definition and no structure to my bones. My skin dissolved and nails bit up.

I am burned, burning, echoing. I am washed up and dirty clothes. My hair is soft, and my eyes see-through.

I am my soreness. My pain is my presence. I admire and I grieve.

I come and go–sailing unsure.

I am flying away, tethered down. With my legs thrown away, along with my arms, my chest, thighs, my neck, my heavy head. Just my lungs, my heart, and soul.

I am being. Let me long to live.

The Bat and the Panther: A Fable

Vinny Worsley

Let me tell you a story. Gather here now, at my feet.

The Jungle isn’t the same place today that it was yesterday. The sky is there now and it wasn’t before, the eyes in the shadows are gone and the stars have lost their tongues. The insects no longer hum to the heartbeat of the forest, the pulse and palpitations of canopy storms. In those days, the old days, darkness leapt and grew from every corner of the Jungle. There was no open space hacked open by humans, water and sap bleeding into the now-dead grass.

No… In those days, the Jungle was full. It wasn’t a rainforest. It was the Jungle, and it was everywhere.

And deep in the heart of that tangled, gangrenous wound of trees, there lived a panther. He was an old cat, and his black-brown spots were sunken against his fur, fur that was once golden as fields that rippled vaguely through his mind as he lounged, yawning. He had no teeth.

Eventually, after many days of lounging, a bat landed on one of the skeleton branches above the Old Panther’s head. The Bat twisted his neck, looking down.

“O Panther,” he said, in his squeaking rodent voice, “Why do you lie here, out in the open, without any protection?”

He with his red, watery eyes looked up to the Bat, and curled his lip. “I am waiting,” the Panther said, and laid himself down on his dull-claw feet.

“For what?”

The Old Panther’s ears twitched, swiveling cups. He listened to the insect buzz, the sounds of footfalls and silence.

“For death,” he answered the bat, and licked across where his empty gums met the dripping black line of his lip.

The Bat was unsure what to make of this. A bat is not by nature compassionate, for they by nature spend their lives in the shadow of the moon, where no other creature dares to visit. But this bat had been chasing a mosquito— fat with blood and falling to earth— and had lost his way back up. Like I said before, the sky that we now have did not exist in that time,

and up and down were very different countries. The world was divided, and the clear blue of Up hardly ever mixed with the browning, rotted greens of Down, down, down.

Yet that is where the Bat had flown, down into the trees, where he could no longer see the stars chatter in their cubbyholes, and where snakes grew like fruit from branches. That is where he met the Old Panther.

To read the rest of the story…

The Potted Oak Ava Casto

A map of states that my father has lived in Is as covered with lines as a detective’s evidence board. His home has existed near skyscrapers a mile high, And alongside sparse populations of neighbors.

My mother’s home was circled in permanent marker, So dark that it refuses to fade or change. Her certainty of where she belongs is persistent, And her local loved ones are her unwavering support system.

My father has been uprooted and replanted, Managing to thrive in each new pot he plants himself in. My mother has established the roots of an ancient oak That continues to grow deeper and stronger as time continues.

My home has been stationary since birth, I long to uproot myself and settle somewhere new. The roots of my oak are only partially grown, They are not too deep to be replanted.

Dear Running,

At 13 years old I was too afraid to try out for the tennis team; instead, I went to track practice that day, that day when I first met you. I had always been anxious, shy, nervous, that was all in my nature. So, when we met, I was scared, for a long time. Every race filled me with fear and anxiety and I would often find myself dreading practice. But, I think I started to like you, because instead of continuing my four year volleyball career the next fall, I chose you. So I ran cross country. At first I wasn’t very good; in fact, I was actually really slow. But I didn't know that at the time. I just knew that there was something special about you that enchanted me, and captured my heart. Even though at times we would grow apart, I always came back, eventually. You knew this well, so you never gave up on me. And so, I fell in love.

That spring I went to my first club practice, at the track on Ranch to Market Road. That road I know so well, after driving there, time and time again, to be with you. The other kids were so fast, I had never seen anyone like them. I was intimidated, but I wasn’t alone. You were there, so I stayed.

Since then, we’ve traveled hundreds, if not thousands, of miles together, just you and I. And, after all we’ve been through, I cannot thank you enough. Over the past three years you have given me a purpose and drive, strength and determination, and a community of like minded athletes. But what I love about you most, is how you never cease to amaze me and break down my definition of what’s possible. You have shown me that there is nothing I can’t do once I set my mind to it. You constantly push me to be the best version of myself and when I’m with you, that’s when I feel most alive. There’s still work to be done but no matter how out of reach the dream may be, no matter how crazy we may seem, we will chase it down and cross the finish line, wearing our gold medal victoriously. Because just like you never gave up on me, I’ll never give up on you.

Love you forever, Anna

Willmann

Blur Motion

Anna Willmann

Six-Word Memoir

Ava Casto

Tiny hands, a pair of scissors.

Rabbit

Madeline Yorkston

After A. A. Milne

A rabbit once stood near me, down the hall I asked how he was, he said nothing at all I thought it quite rude and I told him: “Now see? Think how I feel when you don’t answer me!”

The rabbit took off down the hall, quick as lightning So I chased after him, though the scene was quite frightening I followed him out, through the doors past the gate While airily wondering if he thought he was late

“Is he headed for Wonderland?” I thought on a whim But he had not a pocket watch, so the chances seemed slim He scurried through thicket, over stream, and through wood And then finally he stopped, and in a meadow we stood

He gave me a small nod, then bounded away And I was quite out of breath, so in the meadow I stayed I plopped down into flowers, colored red, pink, and blue (Now how would you feel if this happened to you?)

You’d think I’d be lost or worried out of my mind

But I was surrounded by wonder, thinking not of the world left behind The aroma of wildflowers, with honey bees buzzing And nearby the trickle of a slow stream that was running

And the longer I sat there, the more beauty emerged! As slowly but surely, small animals converged

A small field mouse (I think) was the first to run by Then slowly the others came out, still quite shy

I wished not to disturb them, and sat quietly there While silently trying quite hard not to stare As slowly around me the forest came alive

Deer, beavers, birds, mice, all these animals thrive

In the warm little nooks that are hidden away

From construction, pollution, and human decay

So I sat there for hours enjoying it all

Till late (around sunset) my ears heard a call

The dinner bell had rung and mom was calling me home

Back to my house after a day left to roam

In that small, gorgeous glen, I bade my farewells Then turned and made my way back toward the bells

I ate supper that night, then went off to bed

While visions of meadows moved slow through my head

I never found the glen again, but I didn’t mind it one bit

Because really (I think) that’s the magic of it

A Cry for Help

Claire Kauffman

I am Driving Myself Away

Vinny Worsley

Sidewalks melt into wax puddles, dim glow under red-gold streetlights

The grass, encroaching shadows, Emaciated reeds, crawling up on the asphalt.

The light blurs green, miles ahead and the cars inchworm forward, Lurching, groaning like vertebrae before we are bathed in red once again.

All day I have been receding into myself

Hollow layers of skull and skin, strata, caves in caves in dripping underground wells

My eyes are sunken beyond the surface

Hands on the wheel, I spin and the world shivers on the dashboard Raindrops pattering down, unheard Radio fritzing against the windows

I pull into a neighborhood that is not mine and sit in the dark. Hands lifeless

Traffic dissolved into roaring streaks of light

Cars like faceless animals migrating in the rain

(Are you going the right way?)

(Do you know for sure?)

(Do you think you ’ re broken?)

(Are you there?)

I wonder if I could disappear (How)

Like the moon falling out of orbit

My substance lost to the night

I wonder if I could sit here forever

(do you know)

(if you ’ re already gone?)

A Satellite Chaser

Kate Demchuk

Wield my wrist like a gun against your calloused hands, fingers gripping tight. Our nails are chipped, sand lodged underneath. The sweat is gritty but familiar now that you’ve slid and are pressed against my side. Your eyes are focused through the glass. White mind-drones about a half mile out don’t have your aim, but they’re cutting just a bit too close to our faces. I take the sprint and duck behind a scrap of car, you behind a boulder. When we have seconds to spare, my head tilts up. The stars freckle the sky with constellations, patterns nearly recognizable from the back of your hands. Yours tilts down, in line with your fingers tapping out incessant rhythms on the cartridge.

From the side-view mirror, the light show stops. We’re out of time, it looks like. The leather of your glove catches my nose before you reach my shoulder, tapping twice.

We’ve got to move. The words hang in the air without you having to take a breath. We’ve got to move because you decided, so you lead the way and cover all the ground. Always the shield, never letting my foot disrupt your path. It’s a miracle that nothing comes ricocheting into our faces, exploding our dignity as final revenge for the masks we’ve buried.

The beads around your arm indent my wrist right above your unrelenting grip. I’ve tried to solve their symbols like a code that’ll tell me what made your skin so rough. A feather, a letter made of a few lines, and some other shapes I can’t recognize, all burned into the wood and polished by time. It gets easy to blur out those details through all the sand and slaughter, but your guiding palm keeps me tethered. It forces me to stay down, have questions, have answers, have a pulse. I guess that’s why I’ve tried to gather the rest of you from the weeks we’ve spent in tandem. Your practiced eye, sharp ears, and split lip piece together a portrait which strikes near similar to mine, or at least close to the fragments I’ve seen on helmet visors and busted windows.

Your steady hands, though, spell a different story. Those are desert-born. Mine a symptom of the city. They jolt like a faulty battery. That, along with your thundercloud of hair, are the only things

differentiating us. I find it hard to believe that you were the only thing keeping me from sinking into the sand when we were first getting to know each other’s blind spots.

I wish I could bring myself to change, to take my foot off the tire-scraped path and do something new, but we’ve grown so used to it all that it would cause a chasm to break. The sun pierces every morning with the same indignance, pushing us onto our feet and into the rhythm—our rhythm—of an endless tunnel of dodging, running, chasing. I just wish my feet could stop to rest. In the desert, though, that’ll only end with a bolt lodged between the eyes.

I let silent prayer to the ocean, to bodies of water that I’ve never felt. It’s become routine. Often, when a remnant of grass or a weed sticks through the cracks in the pavement, I like to picture the water it lacks running between my fingers.

To read the rest of the story…

Battleship

Michael Kustov

when all is still - a sestina

Maura Kahuda

my legs are weighted to the mattress, and my hands, as the Dark grows thick with time, mollifying Its every urge, fulfilling Its hunger and feasting on fear. Its smile is veiled along the wall by headlights breathing with false relief. it’s not my head. It’s not a dream.

when i wander on dark-smothered streets, It can’t be a dream. i wade through the fuzz of black on the backs of Its hands. that chilling music croons, nighttime breathing in my ear and whispering to me, calling every time to me: “darling, won’t you give me a smile? won’t you come closer?” but i will not soothe Its hunger.

It never seems to starve, to die of Its hunger. It controls me, and i’m helpless to the dream It swaddles me in. i sense It smile like It’s my friend. but Its cold and merciless hands have tricked me too often to earn my trust. time could never make me love Its greedy breathing.

It suffocates me, batters my breathing like a plaything when my hunger for sleep drags me into the house’s black mouth; time has left it barren. everyone snuggled in their dream, me fleeing the ugly face It hides behind Its hands, those shadow-spun curtains. i have never seen Its smile.

who knows what that smile takes the shape of? a body abandoned by breathing, that flighty lover. cobwebs of inky hands

that reach for me, leaving handprints like keepsakes of their hunger, building the shadows from scratch, a slurred dream of danger. It threatens me with these unknowns at the time

when all is still. and at that time when all stays still, i know It will smile. It will envelop me in my eternal dream. It will hold me too tight and my breathing will struggle and succumb. the hunger will win, someday. but i’m not ready to take Its hands.

when the Dark is drowning me in its dream. when It is breathing down the smile of my back. when it is begging like hunger, will i know it is time? will i take in mine Its hands?

Laden Mountain Jessica Lucas

Wind muffles sound roaring by. The bright snow reflects a tired world, slated.

An opening through the brambles offers passage, To a new time and place.

Inimical is the alluring powder which shrouds the bed of a tree. Prior injury does not invoke fear.

The larger population remains caught on the exterior. Wooden walls littered with needles and icy daggers are soft to the touch,

Tranquil and solemn.

The blanketed earth is undisturbed, I pass as a ghost.

Crags

Collin Snyder

A Kenyan Song and Dance

Ben Ngishu

An African party, one like no other, Everyone dancing like there is no tomorrow. With music so loud, it seemed the roof followed the beat. Big bass and a jivey melody, It was hard not to move your feet, As the smell of spices fills the air. Diverse cultural food from corner to corner, Like a lion to prey, I devour it all. Who knew life could get this good? With all your worries of another world gone. Like an old grandpa, I sit and think, How fun life can be and how grateful I am, To be able to experience it to the fullest.

Love is a Paintbrush

Olivia Carey

The illustrious brush paints a canvas in vibrant and joyful colors as love paints colorful emotions in one’s life. When the kiss of thick bristles turn even the typical to treasure And how poets paint the color of love in their stories that touch their readers. Then through that makes one’s life more vivid as a painting filled with dazzling and sunny colors. So I will keep space on my walls for love’s masterpiece.

Where I Wish to Be

Emma Khan

I Had a Dream

Val Milic

I had a dream

So real, I felt my fingertips

Graze his soft hand

Even when my eyelids lifted again. I wish I could remember

The expression on his face

The look he gave me

It’s my only opportunity. A golden gaze

Only living in a memory

My mind made up

To melt a fantasy into reality. And then it was over, I opened my eyes, Hoping you would too,

To see, not just acknowledge me, And let me feel your hand in mine, This time, not interrupted By the sharp cut to reality.

Until then I had a dream.

Canadian Rockies

Thomas Young

The Girl Who Met Sleep

Kate Demchuk

Falling asleep may seem natural to most, just as the sun rises and sets over each day. It may seem natural to you as you fall into warm, plush covers at the end of a winter’s day. I will tell you that to some others, though, it is not.

On a night not so different from tonight, a little girl with two little red bows laid in her bed, waiting for the night to rock her worries away, but the shadows of the room only grew the more she tossed and turned. They stretched over the table, crawling along the floorboards until they were brushing the legs of her bed. She squeezed her eyes shut, stuffing her face further into her goose-feather pillow. If I cannot see them, they cannot see me, she thought.

Peeking through one eye and her fingers, brought up to guard against the fingers of the dark, nothing had changed. It was still the same old bed in the same old room of the same old house she had always known. The rocking horse with peeling paint and stuffed circus animals lay trapped in the quiet of the night, looking at her with tired eyes. Still, the shadows stood over the rickety bed frame, ready to pounce. The minutes dragged on and on and on like the molasses mother used to make cookies, and the little girl was sure that she would soon see the light of the sun peaking over the hill. What use would it be to close her eyes now?

Just as the thought crossed her mind, something shot across the sky outside her window. A chill shot through her spine, even more potent than the one of the winter wind. How I wish I could escape, she said to herself as the window creaked open and flakes fluttered in the frosty breeze. Fading past the wall that separated them, a figure approached with shadowish grace. They were tall, head wilted to fit inside the ceiling. A black cloak fell around their shoulders all the way to the floor like the waterfall in the forest just a few miles out. The girl wished to be there, listening to the roar of the river that would drown out her shaky breaths.

As the figure moved close, she began to see two beady eyes. To her surprise, they looked expectant, as if they knew she would act this way. They looked sweet, if such a monster could possibly feel such things. A last

measure to protect herself was the hands she drew back up to her eyes, but a gentle gust of air blew onto her face. The monster was trying to get her! Even if the sound they made sounded almost like a sigh, she would not be fooled. Peeking through her fingers, she saw a hand of long, lanky, spiderish fingers stretch out from the mass in front of her. Mother was fast asleep already, she would not hear her cries. Oh, what was she to do now?

No final moments arrived. Instead, when she dared to peek through her fingers, she was met with the hand. It was outstretched, like her mothers when she accidentally took a tumble on their trek back to the house that same afternoon. She knew she mustn’t, but the eyes of the thing made her decide against her instinct. As her hand touched the monsters, her braids and their bows lifted from the pillow. Next, the rest of her was floating up and up and up out of the bed! She could not help but giggle. She had always wanted to know what the room looked like from up high. The monster joined in with a fluttery laugh.

“What are you?” the little girl asked.

“I’m Sleep. Let us go, we don’t have much time,” they replied. With that, they flew.

From above the treetops, she could see all the chimneys and the smoke rising out into the night. Somehow, the air rushing past her face was only a wolf’s breath instead of the snap she was expecting. Everything was so beautiful from above, but she missed being able to pick at the bark of every passing trunk.

“Will we get to feel the trees, or the river, or the mushrooms?” she asked. Sleep just laughed.

The moon was much brighter now, and the girl was sure she would be able to touch it if she wasn’t… wait a minute, how was she so high anyway? In the midst of all the adventure she had not stopped to look at what was taking her and her companion so high up in the sky. She could feel something silky beneath her fingers, sturdy but soft. Looking down, she was met with a bed of feathers.

“This is Emberbird. Her cousin, the Firebird, roams during the morning hours, but I think she gives more honest answers,” said Sleep. She could hear an haughty squawk come from the front, and she caught the bird’s glance back at her for a moment. With eyes bright as the stars and

wings big enough to hug the earth, she wondered what kind of eggs birds so giant came from. The feathers beneath her fingers shimmered in the moonlight, reflecting rainbows of color on their ebony black surface. She would love to see the two together, mythical birds racing each other to see who would get to carry her along.

As they sailed across the sky, she could see the shapes in the stars up close now. An archer with a bow waved as she drifted past. Then, a bear with its little cub gave her a roar in greeting. She waved back, letting out a growl of her own. Next were the lion and the tiger, too distracted with pawing at each other to say hello. The rocking horse, though, made time to give her a bray before skipping down the arc of a rainbow. The flowers, too, let her take a bouquet from their leafy hand, twinkling and magnificent. Sleep had been silent, but they rested a hand on her back. When she looked up again, the moon took full view.

Yellow and bright, she saw how the crescent was merely a shadow. They landed softly, and Sleep once again held out their hand. The girl was quick, though, and did not need the help. She jumped, landing gracefully with her nightgown and jacket pillowing softly behind her. What a night, she thought. What could possibly beat dancing on the moon? She could hardly think of anything more exciting. Bouncing and jumping, flipping and tumbling, all the moondust spotted her fingers and clothes like glitter. Her school friends would be so envious, but they would probably have their own adventures to speak of. All the woodland creatures, on the other hand, would all want to guide her to the best field of tulips, she was sure.

After jumping for so long, the girl felt a yawn bubble up in her throat. Then, she could feel the tiredness of her legs. Eyelids drawing close, she wished she had her warm bed next to her. Again, the soft chuckle of Sleep rang in her ear.

“It’s time now, but I believe you know that.”

She would have said yes, but when she opened her mouth, a big yawn escaped. So, she grabbed their hand and stepped back onto the Emberbird. Sleek and silk feathers began to feel more and more like the biggest pillow in the entire world, but she made sure to thank the moon for hosting their spectacular night. Curled up safe and sound, they were off.

The next time she opened her eyes, she was again met with the sight of her same old room. This time, though, all the shadows reminded her of the one standing behind and their adventure. Still a bit scary, but she knew they couldn’t help it. She remembered the breathy laugh, the outstretched hand, the constellations. I quite like this now, she thought. With bleary eyes, she petted the Emberbird goodbye and gave it some sunflower seeds for gratitude. To Sleep, she gave a gentle hug, careful not to disturb the waterfall coat of black smoke. They hugged back, light as a breeze. Her blankets felt warm as a fireplace as she crawled back in. On her dresser, Sleep placed a single tulip. It was red, her favorite. She shut her eyes, this time unafraid.

“Спат, соловейчка,” the shadow said. Sleep, nightingale. By then, she was already snoring.

The tulip was what caught her sight as the sun rose the next morning, fiery and bright.

License to Live

Gage Aasletten

The first stall

The first successful shift

The first fender bender

The first "Near-death experience" with my mom in the passenger seat

The first windows down, music up, sunset cruise

The smells of the old engine burn through my nose

The rattling of anything loose

The grumbling of the exhaust

That is when I found my freedom.

Zara Selod

Dear Silence,

We’ve known each other for a while now. Days, months, years – it all passes in a blur when you're here. I can’t quite remember when, where, or even how we met; I fail to recall when I started to notice you existed. Maybe it was when I walked to school in the early morning, contemplating in your comforting embrace, or perhaps we knew each other much sooner than that. I remember walking down the halls, people talking but I couldn't hear a thing, all thanks to you. I feel eternally grateful for all that you have done for me, for all the hurtful words that you have hidden from my ears.

I haven’t been able to be with you as often these days. Life seems to have taken a turn, becoming a mess of noise that never quiets, that never leaves me a chance to reminisce about the times we used to share. The clamor and chaos around me keeps me away from the solace you once provided. Keeps me from the comfort of your arms. The more time away from you I spend, the more I remember of the times we shared together. I find myself longing to go back to the times when we sat together at the dinner table, or when we would go for walks in the park. You were able to speak volumes without saying a word. In those moments of quiet companionship, we spoke a language that needed no words. You were my most valued ally, keeping me out of trouble and away from danger.

You were like a lighthouse cutting through a storm. You guided me through uncertainty and picked me back up when I fell down. You were a friend I would call upon when I was about to break down. You were my friend, my anchor, and my sanctuary.

With longing and gratitude, Alana Parker

Alone in the Darkness

Caden George

Riding my faithful bike into a world of loneliness in the quiet of a COVID-19 night, with the moonlight softly illuminating deserted streets, was what I experienced. Lockdown stillness had created a picture of tranquility in the once-bustling neighborhood, turning it into a peaceful haven. The chilly air hinted at the faint perfume of budding flowers and the aroma of dew on the grass. I listened to the sound of my bike tires humming softly on the tarmac, and the far-off crickets buzzing created a nighttime symphony as I cruised through the empty streets. With each pedal revolution, I experienced a fleeting sense of freedom from the limitations of everyday existence as the world decelerated. As the chilly breeze caressed my face and tousled my hair, it murmured the mysteries of the night. It brought the sounds of a community momentarily frozen in time, a moment of peace amidst the mayhem.

Stars twinkled like far-off fireflies beneath the velvety cover of the night sky, creating constellations that appeared to convey tales of resiliency and hope. The streets were mostly dimly lit, but the gentle glow of street lamps generated pockets of warmth that helped me find my way. The moonlight played tricks with the shadows as I rode around the well-known bends and twists, creating entrancing patterns that danced on the sidewalk. It was a quiet celebration of being out of the four walls that had served as both a haven and a prison during the pandemic. The feeling of total independence lingered like the last notes of a tune as I pulled back into my driveway. I had been given a reprieve by the night, a brief reprieve from the anxieties that resounded in the daylight. I had found a deep sense of freedom in the simplicity of a midnight bike ride, a release that went beyond physical limitations and linked me to the silent beauty that lives in the darkness.

Self-Reflection

Claire Kauffman

Delusioned Hope

Lanie Lorimer

A fleeting yet recurring thought that I must push down Way down

All the way to the bottom of my spine Every time my heart becomes hopeful

Delusioned

Surrounded by all the “what if’s” of the universe

I am reminded that it is not mine

Never mine

Not for my eyes to enjoy

Every step I take is closer to my own demise

Ignorantly fast

To the grave that my mind wilfully looks over My own soul slipping into it Slowly

Trapping itself into the quicksand of wants I need to be pulled out

Saved

But the only hand there for me is yours Which is who the grave belongs

Let go I wish to be buried in your grave

Resting in peace with my ignorant fantasy

Target Run

Maura Kahuda

INTERIOR TARGET, NIGHT

It’s about 8:00 PM in the Feminine Products aisle. JARED and RUTH, both in their late 20’s, enter. They are both well-dressed, like they haven’t changed from their work clothes. RUTH pushes a cart full of several bags of chips hastily, with JARED dragging his feet behind her.

RUTH

Honestly, Jared, I don’t understand why you couldn’t do this yourself.

JARED

Why couldn’t you do it yourself? It’s your…stuff.

RUTH

Tampons. Tampons. I asked you to grab tampons for me because I want to get home-

JARED

Ruth, we have enough time for you to grab…tampons.

RUTH

No. We don’t! We have been here for an hour because you can't decide what type of chips you want. (gestures at the chips in the cart) I’m tired. I haven’t been home all day. And we need to get back to feed the dog.

JARED

Then you could’ve gotten your tampons instead of yelling at me to get them for 10 minutes.

RUTH

I was trying to save time! Listen, it doesn’t matter anymore. Let’s just grab a box and check out, please.

JARED

Fine. Go ahead, then. (he gestures to the rows of tampons)

RUTH (smirking)

You know what? I think you should grab them.

JARED

Me? Why? You’re right here!

RUTH

Go on. Be a big, macho man. I’ll wait. (HE does nothing) We’re not leaving until you do.

To read the rest of the play…

El Rubio

Val Milic

Cuando vueltas a mirarme y me das esa sonrisa

Todo lo que veo son tus ojos

Y la luz del sol entrapada en ellos.

Iluminas el cuarto solamente riendo.

Y la luz de la superficie se refleja en el interior

¿Alguna vez he visto un alma más linda?

A veces no puedo creer cuanto amor siento

Por un rubio que conocí al comienzo del mes.

Y esperé a que esa emoción pasara

Pero no me lo pones nada fácil

Con tu sonrisa como el sol y las risas que compartimos

Cada vez que nuestros ojos se encuentran.

Tal vez lo sabes cómo me siento cuando estás cerca

Pero no puedes saber qué tan grande es el espacio

Que ocupaste en mi corazón

Y como aumenta con cada mirada.

Ya lo sé que no es lo mismo para ti

Y no espero nada, ¿cómo podría, con todo que ya has hecho para mí?

Me da consuelo saber, pero,

Que soy al menos una parte pequeña de ti.

Deseo con todo mi corazón

Que no piensas que esa es la razón por la que busco tu vecindad.

Lo que siento para ti es segundario

Tu compañía calma la borrasca dentro de mí.

Me asusta lo cerca que ya me siento de ti

Es como una tormenta que no puedo dejar de mirar

Ojalá se detenga, pero a la vez quiero que se quede Porque el silencio después me haría sentir vacía.

In the Park

Collin Snyder

Letter Written in a Starbucks at Closing Time

Angelyn Mitchell

The hum of the working oven, Or of faded promises. The calling of my name, Or of yours.

A city's heartbeat slowing down. In shadows, I feel your absence, the words we shared. The echoes of our laughter now in the past. For you are a bittering chestnut, But in this cafe's fading glow, I type with closed doors.

To hope that meditation will grant me peace, To weather storms, finding my way. As baristas sweep the crumpled napkins, And chairs are stacked as if to sleep, In the silence, in the stillness, I force away your presence, in the gentle embrace of the roasting coffee beans.

Postcard

Maura Kahuda

The world is unfurling its tendrils. Fern-leaves of sunshine stretch their spines And caress the house as it wakes and yawns. Our grandparents are already up, Making preparations. Today is the reunion. I’m not sure if you remember.

I’m not sure if you remember, but it’s been seven months. The night before you left, I slept in your room.

I told you not to go, that I needed you More than he did. And you, my sister, stroked my hair softer Than that stretching sun, and said you needed him.

Grandma is filling the wheelbarrow with apples, tomatoesShe finally got that garden to grow. Grandpa is gathering sunflowersTheir yellow has finally awoken, Shoved its way into bloom. The sun is stronger now; It melts the last morsels of snow. One hour till the reunion.

One hour till you’re back in this house.

This house seems to love everyone it holds Like they love it. But not me.

There is nothing it can reciprocate. My love for home withered when you left. Early morning, the stars winking in the sky, You never said goodbye, assuming it’d be easier. But I watched from my window as you fled. This place, this house was never your home; You could never make yourself small enough to fit.

Since that morning, the sky has gathered more dust. The fruit is gone; the flowers have wilted. The reunion is over, with no sight of you. Not even those sunny tendrils could draw you back. Not even these feisty stars

Piercing the dusk could tempt you. Not even the promise of your sister, Dolled up in that sage dress you bought me, And a white, satin ribbon, like you used to wear. Not even I could be enough for you to need.

Washed Away

Laura Callen

Power Line

Crue Cox

As they hang from the power line, In remembrance of someone.

Tied together forever, much like the one They represent.

The passing of time from now and then, It must have been ages ago. They sit there on the line, Frozen in time. Much like the one they represent.

The soles of remembrance, And the laces of time, Show the steps of passing, And are now hanging on the power line.

Laila Zara Selod

I see her every night, right as my head hits the pillow

She comes to me in my dreams, in her blood-stained Mickey Mouse dress and shoes that are too small for her ever-growing feet

She is all but eight years old

She likes playing with Barbie dolls while eating Mansaf And dreams of meeting her father in Jannah

A few months ago she was picking heart-shaped grape leaves with her grandfather to make Warak, a dish filled with the tangy tastes of Vitis and fresh meat

Now she is displaced in a cramped refugee camp, A place filled with the smells of filth, sweat, and terror

Yesterday she showed me a photograph of her home, The only thing she was able to take before her family had to flee

In the picture, she points to her olive tree, a symbol of peace, wisdom, and prosperity

While we hear the bloodcurdling screams of women and babies

She says her name over and over again “Laila, ﻰﻠﯿﻟ, Laila,

, Laila, ﻰﻠﯿﻟ”

Her mother picks up a thick, black, Sharpie, writing her name on her frail arm like the mothers did with their own children from Abu Shusha, “just in case they need to identify you” she gently tells her daughter in her native tongue

Children are not spared from the bloodshed

The next night I ask her if she is scared.

She laughs, her pocket-sized fingers grasping mine. “Yes” she replies, her youthful smile wavering. “But I am also brave just like my ummah”.

Tonight when my eyes drift off to darkness, I can sense something is different, something very wrong I finally realize what it is, I can’t find Laila anywhere

I search the camp, Abu Shusha, and the last running hospital

I go to her house, now left in shambles, and run to the olive tree

She is nowhere to be found

Suddenly, as I am leaving the village, the sound of a large blast ripples in and out of my ears

It's then when I hear her voice, and it is jarring

She is screaming

The air fills with chills and horror as I make my way towards her cries for help

Then out of the corner of my eye, I see a glimpse of chocolate colored hair

Afraid to take a step closer as the worst thoughts pervade my mind, my heart drops

Her body is crushed under the rubble

I run, but my feet seem unable to move

As I finally reach her I grasp her hand, my tears pouring over her adolescent face

Her eyes flutter open, and she whispers in Arabic

”, Please don't forget me.

I wake up, my body shivering and palms sweating

I remind myself, “it was only a dream, it was only a dream”

That afternoon as I open my phone to Instagram, my entire body freezes There is an image of a little girl's lifeless body flattened underneath the ruins and debris

Underneath the photo, the caption states: Laila, 8 years old, martyred

I have lost faith in humanity.

Mission San Jose

Michael Kustov

A Castle

Edy Cline

The heavy fog of exhaustion has already set in, clouding my vision, impairing the clarity and sharpness upon which I depend to separate reality from imagination.

This is the best time to read fiction.

The golden, fleeting, moment in which all emotions are amplified tenfold.

And so I grab the book and tentatively open it, savoring the precious moment, letting the dense weight of the volume sit in one hand as the other runs down the length of the pages.

The book opens itself to where I last left off, the cream-colored pages soaking up the light from the lamp.

And as I get lost in the story, the lamp disappears.

The walls that confine my imagination fall away as a castle crumbles and the stones hit the ground with satisfying reverberations and clouds of dust. In the aftermath of the quake, the only things left are traces of an ancient world.

As lifetimes pass, the decaying, moss-covered bricks sink into the soft ground leaving one to wonder if the old castle had ever existed at all. In time, it will be rebuilt by a new generation, but it will never be the same.

So too, when my heavy-lidded eyes have passed over the last line of the book and I have finished the story, I stand to shelve it among those books that will never be finished with me. I sink back into my chair and stare at the ceiling, struggling to remember who I was before.

Zara Selod

Spires Built off Dreams

Bea Lee

The girl stood at the top of the steps. The wood walls were groaning. The light of the moon reached its hands towards the Earth, dripping along the midnight sky. Its eyes those that will never, can never, be seen. The girl squints only to see… "You look beautiful darling," her mother says too loud, wrinkles folding at the edges of her eyes. The wind exhales, breathing, moving, floating, settling along the edge of the floor. The air dances, ebbs, in and out of her pink skirt – "You look like a princess," her mom had told her that morning as she tightened the laces of her corset – the flowing fabric brushes her leg and it is too soft, too hard, too much. It's always too much. "Let us go, Mother," the girl says, a film creeping over her eyes. It was always like this, here, but never here.

Barakah

The girl laughs, as a lady should, and dines, as a lady should, and dances, as a lady should, but she never thought quite like a lady should. For no one saw the blood splattered on the rim of her sleeves, so pretty and pink, and no one heard her mutter beneath her breath, words so quiet and sure, and no one saw the girl trapped in the maws of her mind, perfect and yet hidden from the rest of the world.

"Wow, look at you, so pretty tonight," "Darling you - - - too skinny," "Her brown - - - eyes," "Look - - - hair," "Her ." The sound of heels faded into the distance. The sound of her own two heels.

The smoke curled around the girl's feet, shadows dancing across her face. The dark lady turned. The lady was so elegant, yes, eyes glowing from across the way. She held the key, golden, bright, shining. It was right in front of her. Three words of a melody the girl heard so long ago, yearned for so long ago, and here now. The words caressed her ear, a whisper too quiet to tell her the secrets she longed to know, but she did want to know; she did so very much want to know; she would give anything to know. But, it always crept out of her reach, she would never be free.

But the lady was there again singing that sweet melody as the girl tried to fall asleep. And she sat eyes wide, terrified, fingers clutching her mind together as she screamed, "She's insane, insane, insane. I'm not insane insane insane." Fingers clawing the walls of her room, creeping, reaching towards her. Creatures opening their bloody maws, glowing eyes dancing across the walls. A man of shadows clutching a knife. Her disembodied screams echoed only in her head, and she tried, and tried, and tried to keep it inside.

Night, night, night, and night after night, the lady came back and would sing her to sleep, freeing her of her mind only to lock her back in by the daytime.

But one day, the man of shadows decided to leave the night and venture into the daylight. Air growing, pushing, filling his lungs as he breathed in. Sun rays revealing what was left of his identity. He had seen the girl and heard the song. The girl he had thought was so pretty, so perfect, was in reality, broken. He wanted to free her, hoped he could.

And so as he held the girl ever so gently, he sang the melody and whispered the secrets she longed to hear. And the girl cried and shook, and laughed, and cried some more, for she was free, free from the maws of her mind. And the tears washed away the film on her eyes until she could finally see again, and the air filled her lungs until she could finally breathe again, and notes of the melody pierced her ears until she could finally hear again.

And so, the girl was freed.

Lighthouse Collin Snyder

Summer’s End

Benton Cantey

Lake Worth's dock, summer's end, Sunset dreams with her I spend. Rod and Reel, a hopeful grin, In shadows cast, I hear a spin. The bait has been taken, the trap is set. I sink the hook, and ready the net. As I can feel the weight, I strengthen my spine. I continue to reel, bringing in my line. Focused and ready, I lose the world around, until I hear her make a sound. Seeing my excitement she asks to try, Young am I, and madly in love.

So we land our catch, with the setting sun above. Now thinking back I am misty-eyed, Knowing that the love I felt has left me behind.

An Expression of Life

Jessica Lucas

A heart pounds dully, the rhythm murmuring throughout aching bones. Streaks of tears—for what cause? Had the power of the Lord touched my soul in that moment of worship? An emanate belief in salvation, A false belief.

A different passion tore at my soul like a hedonistic cult, Ruling with divine immanence.

Surrounded by my father’s music, A dulcet Friday night, when we would venture out, My mother and I, to gaze silently at his performance. Lyrics ever growing and changing,

Melodies which pierce the heart.

Rhythms which invoke words, Expressionless.

The dimly-lit experience reoccurs, In a luminous display—sound is life, death, rebirth—music transgresses.

Dear Art,

You watched as my shaky hands picked up the pencil and didn’t judge as they clumsily drew shapes on the paper. You didn’t question what I was doing or what I was making. Did you know that it felt natural? Did you smile when I did? Did you feel my joy when I made something I enjoyed? I thank you, though. You were there when I began to progress. I began to branch out with my hands and mind. I began to explore.

Younger me had more fun with you than I do now. You were always so playful with me. So bright and happy. As I grew it seemed that you did as well. Did you feel everything I felt? Were we growing together? You sat idly by while I gnawed at the iron bars of middle school. You rubbed my back when I cried. You held my hand when I couldn’t reach for any other. Did you need me the way I needed you? Even when I was flooded with meaningless work, you still managed to slip in to help me. You still held onto me like a warm embrace.

You were there when I got into my first relationship. Did you feel anxious, too? And you were there when it ended. Did you cry, too? We moved together into the new house. Did you like the room? The house? The school? You liked my new friends. My new friends liked you too. You frowned at my uniform. You said it felt like a cage. You told me it made you feel claustrophobic.

You were there when my world turned dark. The world turned dark and you were the first to notice. You noticed before I did. You held my hand and put bandaids on my wounds. Why weren’t you disgusted? Why didn’t you look away? You were there when light began to grow. You were there when I began to grow. We grew together. We are still growing

together. I thank you for being the hand I could always hold, especially when I couldn’t reach for any other.

The hand you hold, Emily Buhman

Cloth and Bird Still Life

Jessica Lucas

The Glass Box

Preston Brown

The glass box can be as big as a penthouse, or As small as a spandrel. The glass box can be warm And welcoming, or cold and hostile. The glass

Box is where I lived, and where I still live. The glass box is a dungeon, and I’m chained To it. The glass box traps me when I’m with My family or strangers. They can’t see the glass

Box, only I can. This is when being in the glass Box is the hardest. I want to escape so badly, to Able to be free around them, but I never can. Sometimes I’ll forget about the glass box and

Think I’m free, but the glass box is like a wormhole, Constantly dragging me back in. No matter how hard I try to hold on to this outside world, I can’t Escape. Sometimes, the glass box will suddenly

Disappear. This only happens when I am feeling Lost comfortable and safe, whether I’m with my Friends or doing things I enjoy. When I’m on stage, the Glass box lets me free. When I’m at the movies, the Glass box lets me free. When I’m reading, the glass box Lets me free. When I’m alone, the glass box lets me free. But until those moments of peace, I’m in the glass box, Waiting for someone else to see it, for someone to realize I’m Trapped, and for them to get me out.

Now I Wonder

Ruthie Mayfield

They didn’t wish me happy birthday. It still hurts in my chest when I think about it. In my head when I wonder What could have been long ago, What could have changed, What the past few years of contact meant to them, And what it meant to me.

One solace: There’s not really anyone on mom’s side to hurt me, to hurt us, like that.

That side is made of agitated, deliberate, criss crossing vibratos Sweet and low with memory, but crumbly and soggy as a glass of milk now. But they still wish me a happy birthday.

I mean 17. That’s a big deal. What changed?

Did they take up their parents’ sentiment? Was it my parents’ sentiment as well?

Did they join in on the fight I thought we silently agreed to stay out of? Maybe it was never there.

The only real thing is memories turned sour, like they were stamped with an inevitable expiration date and I just now took the time to check the carton. Only fleeting bites of lemonade cupcakes on a birthday, seemingly so long ago.

With clever straws stuck into them to look like a glass of the cool beverage. Taken from our shared heritage’s recipe, before it was a cookbook. Then, it was perfectly fit for a pool party.

But our shared heritage bonded by two sisters is all but split now. Their Faces shining remain on the cover, but now only talking once a month

So now I’m as sad as I was happy when we rushed off to Spontaneously celebrate that birthday with our cousins.

And I wonder again, Was it really unplanned? No matter, They made it more fun.

I am as disillusioned as we were hopeful when asking our parents to spend the night together, after occasions that we still celebrated were almost over Thanksgiving Days were spent eating, playing, laughing, and sporadically fighting, but those negative moments get clouded out in my memory. I always know we came back for dessert.

When we talk of those days, and when we talk of the other side, my mom knows every name, every situation, as it was 6, 10, 25, years ago.

I wonder, “How can one be so close to another’s family?”

Then I think, “Why do they all separate? Why do we not know them now?” There must be an answer.

But now there’s only miles between my uncle’s banana bread, the batter disappointing to the taste,

But the perfectly not too sweet reward remains uneaten together. At least for a while.

And now they don't wish me a happy birthday

Delusion

Angelyn Mitchell

I quickly walk past the crowd of people, stop at the back of the line, and pull out my phone, I scroll through the weather app, making sure to intently force an expression of urgency as if scrolling through important texts. Oh wow, UV index of 7. Crazy. As I scan the room I make eye contact with a girl. She raises her eyebrow and her face then rests on an expression of condescension. Who does this b**** think she is? I push my shoulders back and look away making sure she sees how insignificant that interaction was to me. Shoot, I’m next. I need to think of an order quick. I

can’t get something basic, like Pink Drink over there, that’d be embarrassing. I probably shouldn’t get matcha this time even though it looks so cool. I had to drink the whole thing last time it was so bad. Hm…Grande iced chai latte with…sweet cream cold and… 3 pumps of vanilla…ya that sounds good. “Next in line, please”.

Ok how about I don’t stutter this time I can’t- last time was embarrassing. “Grande matcha latte, please”. No way I just said that…at least I didn’t stutter. My face starts to warm up and I swiftly comb through my hair. “Is that all for you, today?”

She’s for sure feeling secondhand embarrassment. Why did I say that? “Ya, that’s all” “Ok, that’ll be $5.25”

I hate this part. 15% tip? For what?

I can feel her gaze on my face as I think about what to press…no tip? I can’t. I press the 15% tip button, nervously giggle, and quickly insert my card.

Let's get this over with already.

To read the rest of the story…

Six-Word Memoir

Hailey Murrin

I am still learning to be.

Chameleon Emma Khan

what really happened on the wall

Emerson Johnson

He had fallen. That's all that was reported. “A national tragedy,” they said, “to lose such a great man in such a foolish way.” I don't buy it. ALL the King's horses, ALL the King's men, and you’re telling me they were powerless to help him? No, I won't accept it. He was a skilled worker, was working on that wall for years, he wouldn't just fall like that, not without someone intervening. I think he found something or learned something, something he wasn't supposed to, made the king upset. That was his first mistake. He was a good man, he wouldn't crack, even under the pressure of the King’s interrogation. So the king had to do something, couldn't leave someone who knew what Humpty knew alive and threatening to upset the peace. The King, he lets him go, tells him he can keep working, see his family. Then one day… Well, let's just say someone had a great fall. Such a shame. “We must move on, it's what he would have wanted.” That's the story they're selling us, but I won't buy it. It's all part of the King’s plans to subvert the freedom of all of us. Think back, when we got into the war, why did we do it? It was because london bridge fell down, right? They knocked it down, right? Everyone knows the King wanted to go to war, he’d been increasing military spending year after year, he just didn't have an excuse. So what does he do? He knocks it down, blames them, goes to war, just like he always wanted to. He’s power hungry, that King, never knew when to stop. Now one by one all the people who tried to reign him in are disappearing. The Muffin Man? Missing. Even his advisors, those three blind mice, were not safe, He cut off their tails, the sick bastard. He blamed it on the farmer’s wife, of course, anyone but him. Now all the poor farmer has is his dog, Bingo, it's sick. It's been happening right under our noses and we've been blind, blinder than those poor mice. It's time to open your eyes, we have to stop him before it's too late. I'm going to be sending a copy of this letter to every major news outlet. His men work fast, but not fast enough to stop them all. You are the people’s last hope, you have to publish this letter, let the people know what’s been happening. I leave it entirely in your hands, Urgently, A. Wolf

The Night the Vowels Attacked

Eleni Barlow

And stabbing through the ear, they marched in, trumpet puff’t. They shook their stuffings up the nose and beat me down, rough. They kicked and screamed and suck’r punched, and rolled till I ran raw. They filed into cavities and bled through broken jaw. Then crawled back up my biting cheeks and drew from teeth, life stained. They feasted on upper lip cuisine and filled too full for brain.

So they crook-ed spun to shake some weight, or gain more room to pack. With all their might their weapons flung, and sent with bareforce back.

The chosen few stepped up to bat: a leap most long and narrow. They flew up to my frantic eyes in search for blood and marrow. Their hunt fell short, but not in vain as they slurped on eyeball goo They ate me all and left me dead: A, E, I, O, and U.

Squirrels and Other Dead Things

Madeline Yorkston

OTTO: Mark, would you mind if I borrowed your lawn mower again? I still haven’t gotten around to fixing ours up yet.

MARK (carefully): It’s…out of commission right now. Sorry.

OTTO: Out of commission? What, did you break yours on the sprinkler too?

MARK: (Grimaces.) Er. Not…quite.

GLADYS: If it’s broken, I know a good mechanic you could call.

MARK: No, it’s-. It’s still working it just-. Well I-. It just needs a little bit of a clean up right now.

OTTO: Well jeez, Mark. What’d you do? You’re being awfully dodgy.

MARK: No, no! It’s nothing really! I just…killed a…squirrel? (carefully looking to see if they believe him.) Accidentally?

GLADYS: Dear lord! The poor thing! (She places her hand over her heart.)

OTTO: (laughing) A squirrel? Man! The craziest things always seem to happen to you!

MARK: (an obviously fake laugh) Well, you know me! (trying to change the subject) But, um, about those reports we’re supposed to give-- (MARK is cut off by OTTO).

OTTO: I mean, wow! A squirrel! I would think a lawn mower would really do some damage to a squirrel!

MARK: (faking another laugh through gritted teeth) You have no idea! And what it did to his face…(shudders).

OTTO (genuinely curious): Say, how’d you know it was a male squirrel?

MARK: What?

OTTO: You said ‘his face’, how’d you know it was a male anyway?

(OTTO crosses to the stage right desk with his coffee, sits down and begins typing, only half paying attention to the conversation.)

MARK: I- er-

GLADYS: Oh, he probably just got a little emotionally attached! Folks all handle grief in different ways. Back when I was working at the laundry shop on Third, I knew a woman who felt so guilty about running over a dog, she pretended to be able to communicate with its spirit for 5 years!

(OTTO and GLADYS laugh, but MARK is still on guard and joins in with a fake laugh a second too late for it to seem natural.)

OTTO: I forgot you worked at a laundry shop, Gladys!

GLADYS: Oh, it was a while ago. I much prefer working here now!

OTTO: Must have been interesting to meet all sorts of people though. Only bad part of this job is your cooped up in an office all day! (gestures).

GLADYS: Well you know-

MARK: Gladys, you worked with landry, would you by any chance know how to get blood out of pyjamas? (Pause, he realizes how odd that sounds). Relating to my run in with the squirrel, of course!

OTTO: (Turning his chair away from his computer to face MARK). You mowed the lawn…in your pyjamas?

MARK: Well. Um. (Sweating now, getting more nervous and grasping at straws). You know how it is! Sometimes you just get that midnight urge to mow the lawn!

OTTO: (starting to get suspicious) And I would think there wouldn’t be that much blood from just a little squirrel…

MARK: (An audible gulp) It was more a family…of squirrels. Lots of blood. And with the lawn mower, well it kind of…sprays? With those squirrels! Squirrels that were killed!

GLADYS: Oh the poor things! I’ll have to pray for them tonight! Don’t worry, Mark. I’m sure they’ll end up in heaven!

OTTO: Gladys, I’m not sure squirrel heaven exists, you might want to rethink your prayer plans.

GLADYS: Well excuse me for trying to lessen a grieving man’s pain!

OTTO: I find it hard to believe he’s grieving over the death of a couple of squirrels. They’re just overgrown rats. And honestly, so what if he’s a ‘Squirrel Murderer’ at large, it’s not like he killed a man!

(MARK remains silent for several beats. OTTO and GLADYS turn to look at him and he looks away guiltily, slowly taking a long drink of coffee.)

OTTO (hesitantly, almost scared to know the answer): Mark, did you…did you kill…a man?

To read the rest of the play…

Dear Procrastination,

Why do you plague me so? I can’t be liberated from your unrelenting grasp. I sit down ready to conquer my tasks, yet I feel you near, ever waiting. You entertain me for hours, both of us lying on my bed with our feet against the wall. But you can’t keep that feeling away. That every minute I spend with you, is a minute wasted. You try to hold my attention, you come up with new ideas and ways to keep me captive. Then the stress hits, overwhelming me to my core. It was always looming in the back of my mind, but I suppressed it until I couldn’t anymore. Nothing you do or say can comfort me now. I refuse to speak with you, becoming aware of our toxic relationship. You try to apologize, asking me to forgive you. Sometimes I do, and we act as if we have always been friends, but without fail we fall back into our vicious cycle.

I feel foolish always letting you back into my life. I see the effects you make every time I do. I am constantly tired from late nights and pressured by due dates. Yet It hasn’t been long since we’ve last spoken. If only you came to visit at a time different from when I certainly must be working. But no, you come when I am weak, my defenses down, and tell me you’ll help me forget all of my troubles. I try to resist the temptation, but the stress becomes too great. I feel myself let go. Then it’s like a lucid dream, enjoying your company and putting behind all that ails me. But I know the truth of your ways. I know the ending to this tale, and it is not a dream, but a nightmare. Procrastination, you great waster of time, I take my leave of you. Well wishes,

Sarah Connally

P.S: I’ll see you soon.

too hot to live

Nori Hamilton

It is too hot. Too hot to live.

It is too hot to live because this summer, my parents haven’t told me to go outside even one time.

It is too hot to live because even if two of my siblings are spread across the country, none of us seem to be able to get away from this scourge.

It is too hot to live because our backyard chickens keep laying down in the shade, three feet away from their four gallon water, and never getting back up.

It is too hot to live because there are no people on the street. Nobody outside. No person could take their five year old to the park anymore, because the slide would burn the child’s skin.

It is too hot to live because by six the temperature is a number longer than most people make it.

It is too hot to live because by seven or eight a.m, my mother dismisses her morning run due to the fragile balance of breathable air or hell on earth tipping in scummy favor.

It is too hot to live because when the sun finally decides to tear its scorching eye from our lives it is past nine.

It is too hot to live because of us.

It’s us. And it’s hard to hear, especially because- I, personally, have not made any decisions to make it that way. I have just barely started to make any decisions at all.

So then I’m stuck with the decisions I can make.

Should I really wash out the milk jug before putting it in the recycling? Does it make any difference?

Do people who work at recycling plants see milk in the jug and instantly seek me out to enact their eternal vengeance?

These questions go unanswered, because it was like ten, and I accidentally threw it in the trash anyways.

Nyctophobia

Kaylee Shaw

I used to be afraid of the dark

Of the things that lived in absence of the light

Afraid to be left alone with the monsters in my closet

With waiting claws to snatch me from my bed

Of the shifting shadows casted on the walls

Too terrified to turn off the light

To be abandoned to the will of the darkness

Then I grew up

And it didn’t see so scary anymore I could turn off the lamp

And not see the twisting and turning of shapes on the ceilings and walls

I could sleep peacefully in my bed after the sun goes down

No monsters could get me now

But I’m even older now and I can feel my phobia returning

For different yet similar reasons

To choose my outfits carefully

To smile and nod and be nice in fear of a volatile reaction

A fear that inspires me to stick close to the street lamps

To clench my keys between my fingers as I briskly walk to the car

To always assume the worst I can’t afford the luxury to think otherwise

Now a different kind of monster stalks the night

A different kind of silhouette falls across the pavement

Haunting my every move I used to be afraid of the dark

Of devils and monsters that lurk in the shadows

But now that fear takes on a whole new meaning

The devils and monsters are different

They have been grown and nurtured by our communities

I fear the looming shadows of our biased and cruel society will torment me for eternity

War Tejas Sukesh

Blood, everywhere. You scream for your parents, but silence claws at your cries. You scream for your children with desperation etched in your voice, but only the echoes of emptiness respond. You scream for your spouse but the quiet only grows, wrapping around you like a suffocating shroud. Hidden beneath the ruins, each slowing heartbeat reverberates with the sound of the crumbling world.

Battered and bruised, you crawl out into the nightmare. Your once-familiar world is now a grotesque image of destruction. A cry of anguish escapes your lips, swallowed by the void as the wind steals away your agony. Suddenly, from the shadows, a distant, guttural shout pierces through the haunted quiet.

Running toward the sound you see an outstretched arm fidgeting underneath the debris. It is a girl. You free her from the clutches of war's brutality, though her scent of life begins to dissipate into the forlorn air. As you run for help, you see her potential, once boundless, now dwindling away like fading embers. Future offspring, friendships, and ideas, all begin to vanish into the abyss of unrealized dreams. You finally arrive. The hospital, once a beacon of healing, now stands as a shattered relic, extinguishing the flicker of hope. The girl, now in your arms, gasps her final breath, a fragile chord in the symphony of despair.

Family, friends, dreams – all lost to the malevolent forces that still lurk in the aftermath. Revenge murmurs in the recesses of your mind, a chilling chorus to the destruction that surrounds you. The darkness seeps into your soul, and the terror becomes the ordinary that refuses to release its grip.

Eight Hours on a Blood Moon

Val Milic

It was such a perfect night.

All the street lamps on Hazel Creek Drive were broken, tinting the whole street black like ink. The blood moon shone bright in the sky, like a glowing, baseball-sized and perfectly round fireball. Its light looked so intense, yet it didn’t seem to reach the dark gray asphalt, as if it was scared of the darkness.

Actually, it had something to do with the light coming from earth's atmosphere or something. Leslie didn’t know. She had never paid attention in astronomy.

With a yawn like a bear that just woke up from hibernating, she rolled over in her bed until she faced the window and pulled her blanket tighter around herself, like a cocoon. Her room was colder than she liked it, something was wrong with the vent. Maybe she should check it. But not right now - right now, all Leslie wanted to do was get her eight hours of sleep.

She glanced over at the digital alarm clock on her desk. 11:54. The bright green numbers shone against the pitch-black background like a night lamp and Leslie turned away again.

She had to get up at eight-thirty the next morning, if she wanted to get to work on time. If she really concentrated, she would probably be able to finally get her good night’s rest.

A small relaxed smile crept onto Leslie’s face and she closed her eyes as she let the warmth of her blanket coddle her, ready to pass out. Her thoughts started feeling fuzzier and fuzzier, as if her mind was being wrapped in cotton, she slowly started drifting away …

Suddenly, a piercing red light drilled its way through her closed eyelids. Leslie opened one eye sleepily, confused as to where the hell she had a red light bulb this bright in her room. She sat up in her bed, groaning and holding up one arm in front of her head to somewhat block out the light and looked around to find the source of this annoyance - only to find out the light was shining through the window right over her bed.

Her first thought was, ‘wow, I really haven’t been paying attention in astronomy’.

Then, as she scooted closer to the window and glanced outside, she realized that the light was, in fact, not coming from the moon in some sort of apocalyptic event. She widened her eyes in disbelief at the sight that awaited her.

To read the rest of the story…

Sinister Shadows - a sestina

Abby Everett

The light lingers in the corners of overwhelming silence. It blankets my head, suffocating the empty space. I’ve been here too long, too aware of the clenched Muscles lining my eyebrows, too focused on the aching In my jaw, trying too hard to correct and smooth The twists and turns floating through the vacant black.

The shadows crawl and creep through the black Worming their way into my vision making silence turn sinister. The rhythm beating in my chest no longer seems smooth, In fact it becomes faster and faster, filling the space That once held my head, my heart, my aching heart. My fingers knead and worry, clenching over my knuckles, tormented with the idea that maybe we are stuck in this clenched moment in time. It’s all too still, and the blackness, it feels permanent, a noose on my heart, my ever-aching heart that begs and screams for someone to fill the silence,

to find something real and true in a world too full of empty space. Once, maybe it was loved, maybe there was beauty in this smooth

tranquil world. once, maybe stardust came down on a cloud to smooth that spiked up darkness and soothe my clenching jaw. Perhaps an angel soared through the Milky Way, through space to calm that beating heart and ease the pressure of the moonlit black. Angels and stardust have long since departed, leaving fragments of silence to listen to my heart, my beating, aching heart.

The silence is too great, the blackness too vast and aching. It feels like solitude itself. Not the smooth kind of solitude, but the kind where one feels trapped in raw silence, trapped in a closet of clenched nightmares with creeping shadows and that vicious darkness. It seems that no one will ever know the empty space

is suffocating me. I wish that stardust would float back down from space, I wish that wishing did any good for my heart, my aching, beating heart. I wish that angels could see through the black void of undulating starlight, I wish they could smooth my scrunched up eyebrows, clenching against the vast loneliness of it all, the fragile, raw silence.

Maybe one day I won’t need stardust to smooth my worried muscles. I won't need an angel to unclench the teeth of dark, of space, of ever-aching silence.

Threads of My Chinese Cloth

Carson Ng

In my veins, ancestral echoes whisper like silk threads, Weaving through the loom of my identity

A woven cloth of Chinese culture and history

Each thread distinct, yet together they form a singular stitch.

Family, the cornerstone, the root of my existence, Not mere blood but stories, lessons, resilience, Our bonds akin to ancient porcelain, delicate yet enduring, Shaping me like a master craftsman's jade sculpture.

History's canvas is vast, painted with tales of dynasties, Ink-black calligraphy, secrets etched in pottery, A river of time, relentless as the Great Sun Wukong, Yet my identity, like bamboo, bends but never breaks alone.

I am the lotus in a pond of murky uncertainty, Blossoming from muddy waters, symbol of purity, My Chinese cloth unfurls, a vibrant mosaic, A cultural symphony, where past and present coalesce.

So, I embrace this legacy, a heirloom of generations, For in its intricate beauty, I find my true foundation, Like an ancient scroll, with stories untold, My Chinese customs, traditions, culture, a treasure to behold.

Breath of Life

Claire Kauffman

eternity

Maura Kahuda

forever has led us here— to smiles that seep through when they’re not supposed to. to hellos and goodbyes and to everything else ephemeral. to all of us sprawled out across the ground, laughing at the sky. the grass scratches at the backs of my knees and clings to my clothes, and my eyes meet a dozen other pairs, glinting in the duskor maybe they’re stars. i don’t know which way is up. the dirt presses against my back, and i can’t help remembering one day it will give way.

one day i will lie like i am lying now, only deeper. one day i will be dust.

i am beginning to think i always have been.

i am small enough to dwell in the corners of a map, to slip between the pages of a textbook, to escape eternity with the rest of humankind.

we think we will reign forever, with our bulldozers and big plans, but one day we’ll fall to our beds of dirt, grateful to be getting some rest.

we are a brief footnote in the earth’s history, the fleeting product of four billion years of water and clay and ash.

human life is not eternal. i’m fragile, and fleeting, but i hope that when i die the earth holds me anyway. do you think she’ll cradle me in her cool, crumbling arms?

do you think the sky will shed a tear when it remembers how i loved the rain? will the grass remember how it held my shape until the wind flooded through and scrubbed it away?

eyes flitting, faces burning, we are all afraid to speak of forever, to be presumptuous, to get our hopes up. but maybe if i’m lucky years from now, our dust will mingle, as tangled together as our chatter and laughter is now, as we lie on grassy graves.

do you think the stars will smile when they think of tonight? i will. eternally.