Poetry

I burned grilled cheese twice but I thought I was a good cook and I can’t figure out how to submit an assignment and I misread the time that another assignment was due and I was late to work and I’m

BREATHE

The rain pattering on the roof
smells even better when it falls
on the warm concrete.

worried that I let everyone down turn an assignment late and I figure that I missed another due date and my outfit is trash and I can’t find time to clean and the computers

BREAtHE

Lightning flashing and thunder clapping
In the distance and the birds chirping
trying to find shelter

that I oversee don’t work and I don’t remember if I’m supposed to know how to fix them and I think I’ll fail this class and

bREaTHe

I leaned against the strong trunk
of the tree that was trimmed to be as tall
as a one story house built in the 70’s,

then I’ll fail other classes but that’s never happened before so I go to bed

brEaTHe

my hands pressed
into the black and white well-fertilized soil
dirt creeping beneath my fingertips

too late and wake up too early and I don’t have time to

brEaThe

In the leaves above me
I see tiny veins
that mimic the ones in my hands.

eat good food and I don’t have money to

breaThe

The sky is dark, but not quite
Overcast and there is a faint
rainbow near the mountain

eat out you’ve struggled making friends and

breathe

It’s going to be okay.

 

Lydia Neeley is a lifelong reading and writing enthusiast, who is attending college just for the creative writing classes. She has published a few pieces in small magazines and journals, and plans on publishing her own book someday.

I want to swallow every story
like it’s my last meal: devouring
crisp pages until metaphor drips
down my chin and I pick the letters
from my teeth with a plotline—
all so I can hold those words inside
my greedy, endless stomach and say,
This is one is mine.

 

 Jenna Mather is a graduate of the University of Iowa, where she studied English and creative writing. With her poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction, she tries to untangle the complexities of love, womanhood, and the writing life. On any given day, you can find her in a coffee shop—or online at @_jennamather and jennamather.com.

I miss home and no one knows.
I miss the place I’m truly from,
From the fields that flowed on forever,
The swaying grasses always
Whispering, sighing in my ear,
To the youthful blue skies
And their billowing, heavy clouds.

I miss your voice.
I miss your laughter even more.
I miss the August wind in your hair
And the warm smell of autumn.
I miss the afternoons we napped,
Blanketed beneath the sun,

Buried in nature’s cotton.
I miss wearing wet bathing suits
And wiping watermelon juice
Away with our palms.
I miss your accent
And your worn-in boots,

Your tattered jeans
And your baby blues.
I miss your mortal spirit
And your gardens of rue.
I miss home because I always
Think of you.

 

Lily is a student and writer based in Miami, Florida. She enjoys writing poetry, short fiction, and plays. Her work has been published previously in Aries Magazine, Silent Spark Press, and produced on her high school stage. When she is not writing, she is lending a hand at the theatre.

My mind is wandering away from me, drifting;
I am detached, mindless and numb.
I am not thinking, speaking, or studying, only staring.

Staring out the window, where the neighbors are swimming.
Parents with towels and kids covered in cake crumbs.
My mind is wandering away from me, drifting.

That’s when the bird comes singing,
Landing on a roof far from wherever he came from.
I am not thinking, speaking, or studying, only staring.

The bird flies from the sun, always shining,
To the point it often becomes bothersome.
My mind was wandering away from me, drifting.

But I focus on the bird, still hopping, singing, and observing.
He’s red and brown, hungry for plump grapes and juicy plums.
I am not thinking, speaking, or studying, only staring.

For a moment, only on him am I focusing.
A bird on a roof in the sun, a sight that makes me dumb.
My mind was wandering away from me, drifting.
And I am not thinking, speaking, or studying, only staring.

 

Raphaelle Therrien is a high school student passionate about reading, writing, and traveling, experimenting with different forms of writing and storytelling.

(after Franny Choi)

It is a
rainy day, like a fever.
Never ending, the sun is dead
& I’m avoiding meat
for now. It’s strange how butchered
things taste good. I’m the kind of girl
Who writes poems chopped
& fragmented, then puts them together. Now we’re grown up
& I wish I had a balcony to watch the sunset &
see the city, watch it cradled
in lights. What if I slept in,
nestled like styrofoam
in boxes. Would you
throw me away? I am candid
in job interviews. You are a cannibal.
How else can you
sustain yourself? I want
to graduate but I don’t want to leave, what’s there for me?
Take a bite
of this heart-sized
thing we call life. There is no
alternative, open your eyes
to the oil clogging
the pores on your
face, to the words stopped in your throat.

 

Olivia Hom was born and raised in New York City. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Mount Holyoke College in May 2024 with a degree in English. Olivia was selected to be on the committee for the Glascock Intercollegiate Poetry Contest, the longest running undergraduate poetry contest in the nation. She enjoys creative writing, especially poetry. Olivia also enjoys taking walks, photography, and watching plays, musicals, and films. She is currently an intern with W.W. Norton & Company.

(Inspired by Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong)

Sosi, run. Adulthood is chasing you
later. Don’t eulogize your
fish before its belly points to the future.
Stand skinned, tall and limp. You’ve
earned the loss of ‘i’ in your name. Now
it just reads “S.O.S.”

Maybe if we burned through the
treadmill, we could live in the space between
‘i’ and “S.O.S.” before the ‘i’ dissipates and
it all sneaks its way back onto your body.

Sosi, come
Here. Be Here. You’re tomorrow—you just need
to know today is a shadow of your forgetting. Years
will bead your necklace. Today, the charm.

 

Sosena Audain is a writer from Washington, D.C. She is an alumna of the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop and the Sewanee Young Writers Conference. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, Fleeting Daze, and Disjointed Magazine. She has a novella entitled The G.I.V.I.D and is working on a novel entitled Address. When she’s not matchmaking words like people, she is listening to music and she is probably singing along. She likes cats, philosophy, and life itself.