Poetry

 

i am living the wrought iron fence american dream.

when i stroll through the neighborhood, i wave to everyone i see,

even the dog-walkers who sneak in from the main road.

i have acquiesced to the habit of asking questions

without really caring about the answer, and

i used to pick worms off the sidewalk the morning after rain

hoping to feel something, but i didn’t, so i stopped, and

the greatest bone-crushing blow to my prospects

is that i was not enthralled by a talent as exacting as mathematics,

or science; what is the formula for creating beautiful art—i don’t know—

and what has creation ever done for me?

my yard ends precisely where yours begins.

i used to pick dandelions and bring them to my mother

and when i went back outside, she threw them away;

i always thought that it was devastating, but it turns out that

it happens to everyone. it’s a hardship we all share:

the privileged tragedy of our day.

i type a careful combination of thirty-six words about myself;

it’s a foolish dance, and i am ashamed.

it all seems like a pseudointellectual lie, but

twelve years plus one of schooling has taught me

the importance of clinging to Martian formulas.

in the Well-Developed Youth Program, we read a story

about an alien race that came to earth to tell us

our numerical system was all wrong. since then,

i’ve privately held the belief that it’s true.

 

my grief counselor told me about a girl who used to dance

in front of her window at night, and i couldn’t stop thinking

about the supermarket, with the live lobsters in the glass tank.

i used to pick my favorites and want to take them all home

but now i spare them a wistful glance, careful not to tap the glass.

 

 

Anastasia Nicholas is an eighteen-year-old journalism student. She has been published in Assonance, Canvas, Glass Kite Anthology, and Inkwell, and her poetry has received statewide awards. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is her celebrity crush.

 

 

One month from now I’ll
be rushing towards the lake at 5am and riding
in cars with windows rolled down and falling in love
(and consequentially waking up alone.) After the sun
crawls behind the mountaintops like an old woman reaching for death, I’ll be sitting in the parking lot across from the alpenglow and mourning the past the same way that
butterflies secretly mourn for their cocoons.

Two months from now you’ll
be sitting at your desk and studying the Punic Wars;
the detailed battle plans distract you from the fact that your cellphone doesn’t light up with my name anymore. After
you’ve picked a side, (Carthage or Rome,) you’ll lie on your back and convince yourself that
knowledge is more meaningful than love.

Can you picture me when you close your eyes?
Or do my features blur with those belonging to every girl you’ve ever kissed goodnight?

Three months from now I’ll
be working at my first job and sneaking into
cheap concerts on weeknights and worrying
that I’ll never live up to my parents’ expectations. After my mother falls asleep on the couch, I’ll sit with a notebook in my lap—thanking you for the heartbreak—
because I wasn’t able to write about our relationship
until you crushed it under the toe of your
yellow Doc Martins.

Four months from now you’ll
be living out your dreams and
chasing after girls with azul irises and spitting the meaning of life out on the bathroom floor like the seeds of a bitter fruit.

I have dark eyes, dark hair, and freckles scattered across the bridge of my nose.

Five months from now I’ll
be searching for you on the pages of novels
assigned in English class and wondering what it would
feel like to be the most powerful wave on the electromagnetic spectrum. After realizing that life is not a mathematical equation, I’ll understand why
I allowed you to watch me undress in the mid-morning glow,
but pulled your hands back violently
as they reached for my poems.

 

Georgia Eugenides is an eighteen-year-old poet who grew up in Berlin, Germany; Chicago, IL and Princeton, NJ. Her first poem was published when she was nine years old. After spending the previous summer interning at The Paris Review, she decided to submit some of her own work to various publications.

On sleepless nights, I take to envying

the Cambridge girl: the embodiment,

with her short, metropolitan hair,

striped blazers and scuffed shoes,

of all things literary

which I am not.

She has already made her peace

with the language that soothes me

but cannot sate me, buried

her shameful roots in Austen and

Keats while mine rear lustily

through each letter I write,

for I cannot twist my words

until my will has nothing more to say.

She and her studies flaunt

their joy like a ring,

she as happy in her books

as they are to have discovered

a new mistress, a rising talent

come to lift them from obscurity;

but I do not trust so openly

what I read or what I leave

in my wake, its power too great

to reckon with or claim as my own.

 

 

Alex Walsh studies Math and Literary Arts at Brown University. Her work has previously appeared in Coldnoon, Eunoia Review, Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, and Catalyst, among others.

I became the shore, jagged,

tired scraps of soil spun into

heaps of sand, crumbling

forms, cracked and aching,

waiting for the next wave

of the ocean’s suffocating

embrace – dry land trembles

for the taste of liquid salvation,

every sigh enveloped in

forgetting, every minute spent

naked in the sun’s sordid

heat, spent drowning the sting

of the salty sea in the tide

of welcome ecstasy: I became

the helpless seaside, glaring

open, an endless tapestry of

hollow spaces, barren, waiting

to be filled with the sputtering

waves that seek to swallow me,

all wrapped up in words, lonely

syllables that would have

plainly spelled your crooked

name, if only I’d had eyes

with which to see

 

 

Umang Kalra is an eighteen-year-old museum enthusiast, obsessive reader, procrastinator, airport lover, art nerd, and travel addict. She is currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in History from Trinity College, Dublin.