Category: Poetry

Blueberry jelly,

I love January mornings.

Waking up to the true blue denim

of a sky, nothing more than stitched fabric, 

a run in a seam

Gingham wallpaper peels like oranges, 

and my sensitivity is fragile and

exposed raw skin under

makeup. By the pound

cake with molded crust

the stovetop screams

with life. The butter cascades over a hot pan. 

My morning coffee is just shy 

of a gunshot, the stimulus slithers,

Nerves cooled like white hot iron and steamed.

To the side door in the mudroom, 

to my dreams stacked up in the library,

to the tumble of dusted figurines

that are dressed in eclectic fabrics, 

sitting for a tea party and no place 

for the frivolity of anything important. 

Silence the whip’s crack, 

the flick of it broke 

the glass of the front door 

as I glided through. 

The chariot of my dreams

slid over slick oil 

disguised like freedom.

Victoria Wan, ’25

to what does your small, hot body attune itself?

in which direction do you find the wind?

or does the wind find you? inanimate, still

waiting to be graced with breath before movement

on which of the small birds does your eye fall

on this cool morning, which will blossom slowly

into a day on the brink of springtime proper

or do you regard the ever-preening, iridescent ducks

a staple of this landscape, but never a friend

turned as they always are towards their magnetic

home —a calling you surely cannot help but envy

you, who are so pulled by multiples, by fragments

do you stop, eyes closed, to look at the only thing

shut eyes can still grasp totally: the sun

home at last from her sabbatical southward

or wherever it is she goes when winter comes

and do you let her fill the cavern behind your eyes

with red-hot danger just a moment before continuing

down the path of your day or life wherever it may lead?

and when you regard the blank page do you also

regard the tree it once was, and the table

it rests on, a tree once too, which is dusted

by someone to whom a library is north, the way the ducks

have their warmth and the sun its sky, and you

your home, can you name it? and is it fixed?

or are you home amongst the objects you can grasp

with a thrumming need for momentary stasis

the notebook, table, library, the coffee cup

touched by hands before yours and after

even the woman who made it, though you do not

know her name, are these assurances of your existence

home enough, for now, in days that fly like ducks

but faster, and a mind as turgid as gray skies

and fickle as cajoling springtime winds, do these

the objects of your dutied, careful positioning

feel enough like home to orient your north

or do you reach with your blind body for something

like the sun, you cannot look at, only feel

like the child by the pond who disregards the ducks

to chase the wind

Claudia Maurino, ’24

It’s a Thursday evening in August and

I sit by the kitchen window, letting in

the final remnants of the summertime sun,

the table dimly lit by a handmade candle

bought from the market in the center of town, just last fall,

the wax, now, almost entirely gone.

I shuffle through the familiar collection of records –

carefully crafted through the years, changing with its owners.

At this time of night, while looking through the crate that holds

various options for background noise,

I expect the right selection to play, repeatedly, in my head

before it spins on the turntable;

tonight, I can’t find an album to match a feeling I can’t explain

as I cook dinner for one and pour too much rosé,

the flame on the stove and the light in the refrigerator

serving as reminders of an absence

only visible to one, undeniable every time

the sun disappears behind the distant mountains.

A book rests on the wooden table by the window, barely 

made visible by the flame of the candle, the words 

neglected by their reader. Meanwhile,

I flip past Amy Winehouse and Norah Jones

and Bonnie Raitt and I try to ignore the recurring thought

that all I want to listen to is the sound of your voice.

My indecisiveness leaves me in silence.

Grace Holland, ’26

We are a system, 

believing in different systems,

it makes for a complicated rhythm. 

My child lays their head on my breast and listens to my breath 

while a cub tussles with the others their mom brushes through the bushes 

a tree shouts “watch out!” as a beetle makes it way around 

we are a system with input and output 

where pressure is put on projections 

because in a few years those trees may have infections that impacts those cubs,

that constricts my lungs, my child cries. 

Simple systems thinking dismisses systems that are not simple. 

Our system is complex, it’s full of webs, 

connected at the seems to every living being, to everything that is not breathing.

Complexity is compassion, it is construction and conservation 

constructing conserving spaces during the challenges creation faces. 

When we speak of nations, include the cubs, the shrubs, baby faces and cold places, ask the river what it needs, consider what the mountains have seen, hear from every culture what it brings, the birds and bugs and bees, the tiniest seeds from a big breeze, deserts and alpine trees, generational families; what they sing to their offspring, the words and verbs, their way of acting. For when it comes to systems thinking, we must think of listening.

Cass, ’24

Hello.

I miss you.

I miss me without you.

          I miss the version of you I thought I knew,

The one I thought knew me.

The version of you that could make all my worries slip away,

and the one that made me feel beautiful.

I want to be beautiful.

I want to tell you all my problems so they can fade away,

I want you to want me.

To tell me all your problems.

To cry on my shoulder and truly trust me.

         Do you miss me?

I miss me with you.

I miss you.

Hello?

Cristiana Libby, ’25

Blurred vision 

collapses space into a single image 

like the sky, in front of me 

there are wandering terrestrial stars

Orbiting each other over 

Cosmic cicada song

They are wading through the air and 

the faux-glass plastic tables

with folding chairs, wet

with dead mosquitoes

Robbie Kite, ’26

(I’m hungry; I’m thirsty)

Outside of town; about 43 miles,

a man was found.

Evidently, he had walked here,

presumably unable to find his destination.

Leaning against a tree,

the man’s figure was unnatural;

uncomfortable to one’s regard.

His skin blends of grey and red,

his forehead peeling away.

The sun hadn’t been kind to the man,

her rays coloring this man more aged than before.

Even now, his shoulders positioned heavy,

pointing to the gravel in front of him.

It’s hard to say when the man last consumed anything; 

hunger and thirst

carved into his ankles. 

One could pick him up from under the ribcage, 

there being such a step between his chest and hips.

His lips were cracked and bloody;

thinned enough to suggest there was nothing there at all.

Yet despite this,

these lips crooked into a smile,

his dried eyelids twitching,

open and shut.

Tim Stilphen-Wildes, ’27

think of an ant hill

so many bodies with jobs

and no straight lines

think of new york city

viewed birdlike from above

infantescimile, opinionated, important

think of them not as the same

think of buds on backyard elms,

blink and there’s hundreds,

now millions, and you know

it is a myth that you cannot watch

grass grow in real time

real time is not real

we are experiencing all at once

(that’s why it feels so fast)

(that’s why it’s gone so soon)

like shark teeth or those sticky burrs:

always so many more

than you bargained for

think of a heart

web of independent

molecules and monologues

each fiber its own

incision, opinion, spark

like from the first firecracker

on the beach in summer

somewhere far away

and long ago (not really)

where the waves are a trick

mirror, a mirage, not waves

but wave, we named it wrong

one big blanket-creature

rolling and pulsing, magnetic

maybe (or magic?) in its unity

the biggest place there is

our lines and maps fail

to capture it, they sink right through

touch bottom, bury themselves

it’s no wonder there is where

I dream when I dream of death:

it is the only mass, the only one

I do not fear

the composite parts of

Claudia Maurino, ’24

there’s a roar

deep within graceful

windpipes. the hollow caress of

mindless touching, to be fickle 

and small is to be you,

cauterizing me with those hands.

please, pinch me,

bring me back like whiplash and

land in child’s pose.

pray for a connection. 

for revelations, i melt into you.

when My boundaries are

waved into a dream

with demons in the backseat,

madness itself pumps the pistons of this engine.                                                                                                                                                                   

alone with my skin

i’m unrecognizable. 

we sit together, me and it.

rotten fruit blooms in my gut

and my ligaments have ivied

nothing but beauty in nature.

Victoria Wan, ’25

I wonder 

what lives between the plains of turning clouds, what light between lightless balls of water lives, and what darkness descends 

as god 

closes her eyes, 

The spherical blanket which shields us, a bandage over unrepaired wounds, 

complacent feet trample 

flatten wavy grass 

who harvest grains which continue 

our wisdom. 

But our feet cry from their injuries, 

same steps as feet before them, 

Sharp pain revolves, as cold planets 

around our saddened earth, 

returns to its birthplace 

and breaths anew 

Until our feet, 

which have journeyed long 

step somewhere else

Medha Mankekar, ’25

thank you for constancy and commitment
thank you for hard work and the tight elastic red of sore thighs
thank you for dedication, for tiny pellets of good work
skipped like stones over the glassy hours of a day
thank you for the gurgle of laughter rising
from the wettest parts of my mossy forest heart
thank you for obliqueness, chess moves initiated
by the huge hand of time I do not trust
but cannot help but pray to
thank you for scissors, a needle and thread
with which I sew constellation sentences
into the universe I call my home
thank you for hearth and comfort —blankets, my mother
these indelible heavy weights that place me in the world
thank you for attention, my eyes, thank you for turning my head
at the moment a flock alights and speckles the sky
in glorious, instinctual patterns
thank you for strangers who I love like myself:
because they exist, because they are loud and strange and buoyant
thank you for the lesbian professor in a gaudy suit who shrieks
and with both hands pulls the past and future of my people
dazzling and bright into a single moment
thank you for the walk to the cafe we relish in more than the coffee
and for the coffe too, hot and indispensible
thank you for curiosity: that crooked finger, that spiraling fractal
beckoning me ever closer and ever further from
the drumbeatheartbeat point of it all
and thank you for my body, who does not have words
to name the dance but nonetheless, invisibly and deftly
finds the rhythm

Claudia Maurino, ’24

When you unlock me I am frightened,
Made of glass that I fear will shatter on my tongue when we are
close,
But you are my beginning
My big-bang,
The theory that created a million church-window colors,
Depicting scenes of forgiving saints and tragic lovers,
Draped in robes of garnet red, soft brown and fern green,
Hopeful that I can unlock once more,
To you, who sings hymns of adulation.
To you, who waits with a key.

You make me pray.

Like Cleopatra and Caesar,
Cursed paramours falling,
Shattering glass, tearing murals,
Their shards and threads sparkling in my curls,

Amica mea,
We are golden and bright when I unlock,
And I feel,
You are the vivacious theory that created everything.

Lauren Mueller, ’27

They said to her,

“Patience,

For you will blossom and bloom

Ever more beautiful than

Every bulb before you.”

And they showered her with water and words

And they did not see her drown.

And so from that soil a new flower bloomed

And they said to her, 

“We will not wait for you.

For the rest of the garden has blossomed

And you grow where beauty once grew. 

And you will learn to be beautiful too.”

And the flower did as she was told

And grew divine as she was delicate,

Fine as she was frail. 

And they cut her at the stem. 

And so from that soil a new flower bloomed. 

“Patience,”

They said to her. 

“Patience.”

Ben Sherwood, ’26

Every so often, I feel like there are centipedes in my gut.

Creeping and crawling, wriggling and squirming.

And every so often, but

probably more so than that,

they’re ripping and tearing and worming about

And there are roaches in my skin

telling me to wash it all away,

as I curl up to silence the din

of ever present reminders.

A pat on the back, a familiar face seen today.

On my feet there are bees.

Bees telling me to go and run and flee.

To run and run away until my knees

fall apart and turn to dust.

But from this, I will never be free.

Upon my brain there sits a leech,

devouring every word that could be said.

Every one to help, and each

could have saved me

from what now keeps me trapped here in my bed

Wishing we had never first spoken.

Wishing I hadn’t been left,

been left tired and broken

like a bug crushed underfoot.

Elizabeth Florez, ’27

He began to write our story before I ever understood the rules of sound

My father always sailed carefully
along the coasts of language
the outlines of our
motherland

Righteous sound
Built-in partitions
Of a parallel life

American born
Chinese

Proximal to both
Inhabiting the land of none

He taught himself geography
He learned to place stones
In a beautiful sequence

Each syllable
Etched and carved
Deep into the
Waves of sound
Rising and falling
Against the tide

He paved my path smooth
Before i was tall enough for
The Eyes of Others
He taught me the Rules of the
written language
Gifted me Grammar books for fun
Told me to speak with
Assertiveness. Confidence.

then i began to create
And sculpt
Myself to be seen
Then heard

My sound remained half
fractured for
only a fraction of my time

i don’t tell many that
English was never my
first language.

i spent my early years
at home where my mother
trained my mouth
and mind
to inhale
then exhale
Duality

Language of each end of my hyphenated identity

taiwanese
–
american
Split across
Piercing dash
through my parallel entirety
do two halves
truly Create
A whole?

I cross the ocean now with fluency
Sometimes I think about being a pilot.

or perhaps
A captain

Soaring across the lands like they are my own.

Each time
Laying down my stones
Against chronology
This is my story.
Today I find solace at sea
Where the stones tend to sink
And my body surrenders to float
To travel not by pathways but
Compliance
to the motions of the water
uncharted
and undefined
neither
Or.

Devon Chang, ’27

Stygian asphalt water

Reflects the flickering sky

Elapse the tender root

No matter how you try

We’re so much older now

Yet on a wet December night

Our souls grow to allow

Alleviate and invite

Grief like silver mercury

Debt gone long unpaid

Hope for health and company

In the new life we have made

Deeper now we wander

Into the shadow of the woods

Hesitate, stand, temporize

To ponder if we should

Deviate from the path

A voice will ask your name

Ignore its wretched query

Unless you seek to play its game

So far inside the thicket

The air around us black

Now there’s no escape.

Now there’s no way back.

The voice screams for my name

Poignant and wrought with fear

I run into the dead of night

To no wisdom I adhere

Rambling through the snow

Desperate for your voice

Now I remember the beach.

Now I remember your choice.

The darkness falls around me

The light on the asphalt flares

So suddenly I’m woken wiser

Then, to all the night’s affairs.

Sean King, ’24

On Monday we pinch pennies,

For good luck at the store.

Wishes rest, pebbles piled

up in the cemetery,

On top of tombstones.

Tuesday and Wednesday

come like a midnight freight train.

Cacophony belts on, the tracks

shake the roof,

splintering the bones of our home.

I rest in the cradle of arms.

Only for this Thursday, 

I tangle with wisteria. She

gloriously punishes every-

one with waking sleep.

Now,

water flows in red and orange

supermoons of a synthetic design.

Come time Friday, clocks of day

run amok, like monsters.

The porch light sings,

it’s time to go home.

Don’t forget to 

kiss our children good

mourning and at night

spider mums wither in a vase

at the foot of the bed

in the fields of their lullaby.

Did you know you can buy guns in supermarkets?

They did too.

Victoria Wan, ’25

Do you think Hephaestus
Ever thought
To make Aphrodite
Flowers
From glass and steel?

Meticulous work
To bend wire to will
To make it something it’s not

To clamp and bend and hold
Hoping for steady hands
Wrapping wire
Round wire
Again
And again.

Made by hand
And just as fragile is the real thing
I give you these
Glass flowers

I spend my hours
With pliers in hand
Wrapping silver wire around itself
Precisely
For without some reinforcement
The wire is prone to snapping.

Twisting wire into loop after loop
Trying to perfect
My process
To make them stronger than stems
Sturdy as I can.

Some petals spin
Some petals won’t
All different color combos
Reds and pinks
Picked in particular

To make pretty combinations
Last time I tried
To give you flowers
You told me you couldn’t
For hiding flowers is a difficult task
And they damage quick and easily
And though glass and bead
Can break with ease
Theses flowers should be easier
To hide.

They will never grow in length
Nor will they die
But they will catch the light
With hand painted petals
Dipped and sealed
Myself
So they may adorn your dresser or shelves
Built to last
Much like us
Made with care
With time.

And though they’ll never grow in length
In number
I’d delight
In crafting a garden for you
My dearest
One that’ll last for life.

Paden Horton, ’25

night, painted thin onto the air
no clouds, no stars, just oceanic blue and
clocks that do not tick, we climb up slippery
ladder rungs, across rickety beams still in our
party clothes, still in awe of our youth, our
hands, one another’s warm bodies, sharp
bones, secrets spilled like wine on the carpet,
we run away, fast past noise complaints, those
who can’t catch on, we hitch a ride, our skirts
up, climb high into the dangerous, wanton
night that paints itself an endless blue
symphony we throw ourselves at the canvas
of nighttime see what sticks, what hurts, what
reminds us of fire and being eleven, when I
learned how to ride my bike with no hands I
had no idea I would be chasing
this feeling, headlong, forever

Claudia Maurino, ’24

Last year it snowed on Halloween,
and my body was so lonely
I cried while my family watched The Shining,
and went to bed early.
Now I can’t remember anything but bodies
and more crying.
I went outside for a cigarette,
trailed by ten people.
Everyone called me by the correct name,
but no one had a lighter.
I try kissing underneath flashing lights,
I try silent nights
I try special effects makeup.
Oh God,
I got flayed-off pieces of myself everywhere,
all over the tile floor,
all over the driveway.
Oh God,
the lungs will be the next to go.
We are all just pairs of lips, bloodstained nonetheless,
the comforts we seek in one another
superficial wounds on a much more bloated corpse.
Made of fossil fuels,
cheap and destructive and easy to burn out
The lights stay on after the parking lot empties.
I always get the feeling that
I’m not supposed to be here,
forgive those who trespass
they’ve got nowhere else to go.
All the firewood got wet last night,
and no one’s got a lighter.
Don’t tell your parents what I was doing in the spare room,
and how I felt like a fake prophet
and how I knew no one loved me
as much as I loved them in that moment,
and how I drove home with the windows down,
hoping the air would cleanse me
and how it didn’t,
and I knew it didn’t,
but there’s no one to apologize to,
that wouldn’t shoot me on the spot,
and how I don’t know how to pray,
so instead I just look at the lights reflecting
from inside warm houses onto wet pavement,
imagining what it might feel like to be inside them.

Mikey Roy, ’26

The first poem was written by my late father and rediscovered a decade later amongst his things. I didn’t know he was a poet before finding his old work, and I decided to write companion pieces for much of his work to bring it to life even after he is no longer with us. The second piece was my companion piece, to reinterpret his idea into the context of my own life and writing.

Man Without Fire

I am a man without fire.
Damp, smoldering smoke, 
Clinging to cracked ice,
In desolate winter.
I wait for rescue from
Black water encroaching
From etched lines of ruin.
I am full of doubt and rain.
Isolate and still,
My frozen figure,
Crawling to your shore.
You are my refuge,
For I am cold and without light.
I seek warmth and forgiveness,
A shivering stranger,
Seeking your shelter
From nights cold and windless,
Under icy stars burning,
Without heat or tenderness.
A lonely pilgrim,
My hand seeks your heart.
Upon your breast,
I feel your life and warmth,
Your flame fills me,
From hand to heart,
And I am joined to you.
You are my fire,
My sun, my life and my light.
I am warm.

Creature Without Fire

I am a creature without fire,
Confiscated by the gods,
I tremble in
the cold moonlight.
Swimming in black water,
A desolate December night.
Tortured by
my own naivety,
A mind of cold marble and
Thoughts of broken glass
I shiver against
the unforgiving waves,
Clawing desperately
at salvation.
Your figure draws closer,
A halo against
the blackened sky.
My personal Prometheus, Torch
of stolen blessings in hand. You
scoop me
from the rapids,
teasing my clumsy manner
with your gentle tongue.
I climb into your arms,
Cradle of divine creation.
Comfort seeps
into my bones.
Your hot breath
warms my soul,
Yet your mystery
envelops me.
Seductive and serene,
Like the silver moon,
Watching over us both.

Kay Denmead, ’24

You have trapped a young princess,
Held high in her high tower,
Of male irons and masculine marble,
A monument to never being allowed to cry. The princess
has no mirror,
No sense of who she is because no one notices, Hiding behind
brown eyes and long lashes, Witnessing the outer shell burn.
She will look out her window,
Waiting for the knight to cross the moat
And turn around in an instance
At the sight of her army hair.
She tried on a Queen's dress and shoe
In the kingdom she once resided.
Now that home is no longer her palace,
But a prison inside a prison.
Bars on top of bars,
Brick on top of brick,
This sweet soul who loves to dance and sing Will never push
down hard enough
On the walls that she put up
Before she knew there was hope.
So now I stand as a knight,
Hesitant to cross the moat
To the tower of abandoned desire,
Where my inner princess cries our tears.

Alejandro Barton-Negreiros, ’23

I feel like I could conquer the world
set down my sword I never wished to wield
heavy in my weary, calloused hands
and invite my demons to afternoon tea
to talk out our differences like true diplomats over cucumber
and dill cream cheese sandwich squares cut into little shapes
and delicate desserts and the loose leaf tea my mom keeps in the
back of the cabinet reserved to drink only on special occasions
I will ask them if they'd like cream or sugar and we
will wear silly hats and flowery dresses I will forget
my sorrows and soak in the sunshine bleeding through the
windows and into my pores bleeding through my
insecurities and worries bleeding through my floral
armor
onto the pristine, white tablecloth
but the pain will dissipate
we will hold hands
and I will forgive.

Kay Denmead, ’24

I don’t know what you were or what you are,
But I don't like being followed.
Don’t tell me what to do, I’m real you’re not,
People can see you but they don’t really see you.
They see me stretched out on the concrete,
I see you, mocking me everywhere I go.
When we are alone, you step out from under me,
Climbing the walls and the ceiling.
Maybe I’ve misunderstood you,
Maybe all you want is to be free,
Well, get in line, me too.

Alejandro Barton-Negreiros, ’23

the day breaks
a grin like porcelain
hot, with a wind
like laughter blowing

through your long hair
apple blossoms, recklessly
strewn, little poems
little prayers, I whisper

in the morning, afraid to
disturb the glassy waters
of a new day, to step like a
stone, to skip

class, play, wanton
like a child, to braid
dandelion sentences
into a story shaped

like a crown, light
as a kiss on your head
thrown back, perpetual
awe to still be spinning

days like seed pods
falling, gay pollinators
a thousand little stories
tripping up your heels

digging in the soft earth
finding more and more—
hope, days, light,
every creature of love
again uncovered

Claudia Maurino, ’24

Your hair was dark,
eyes a rich brown under sun,
and the breeze sent a chill down my spine.

You held me close to keep me warm,
voice deep, caressing my ears,
as I laid on your shoulder.

Proclaiming nonchalant intentions
that would melt through your mind,
sharp mind, and gentle heart.

A tentatively explored suspicious bud, our beginning of blossoms,
that would eventually flower. 

In the field, by the pond,
skipping the butterflies filling my stomach across the water’s surface.

As I peered into the water cautiously,
I saw my reflection alone,
glowing pink and hot.

The longer I gazed, the deeper the bottom became, tropical fish swam out to greet me,
born from my pink demeanor.

Flooded with a neon embrace,
my cheeks turned warm
and sore from my smiles.

I turned to you, 
eager to share in the pinkness,
but you could not hear me.

Kay Denmead, ’24

Bound to this Earth. I’m looking for salvation. 

Death sits in the passenger seat,
The wheel is in my hands as I turn on your lane
I can never forget the home we built.
Its key forever in my pocket and I’ve tucked
Old receipts into leather wallets.
The shadow of a ring imprinted on my finger,

It took a bit to get it off. You forced it on. 

Death stops the car—
He turns. Peering into my face. Eyeing my black adornment.
Chains lay on my legs, link by link,
They clank as I move quietly
I don’t want to anger you, with so much noise. 

I open the door and walk the path, as you stand over my bed
There are roses in your hand. Taken from the vase,
I placed them days ago. A few petals have fallen. Colors faded. 

You grab my hand
As we begin our eternal damnation
A dance that never ends.
You always cue for another song even though
My shoes are worn and sweat trickles
down my neck. I stand there as
Your hot tongue licks it up

And death never stops once.

Death sits in my car. He doesn’t fade away.
The ignition is off, a hum continues
Its melody long forgotten,
Yet always remembered

The car door opens
And Death makes his exit—

Danielle Marrocco, ’25

I’m listening to you, to all
The things we left unsaid.
To the crackling of the static
And the creaking of your bed.
I’m measuring the distance
Between us. Between now and
 Back then, but the numbers
Come back null, and
 Schrödinger’s Cat is
{Half}-[Dead.]

God does not play dice.
A beam of light splits.
Photons everywhere at once,
Nothing exists.

Tangible until we touch
Sweet until I taste.
Beautiful on paper,
In lieu of time and place.
But when we come together,
Our bodies lose their shape.
Everything reduced to
Electron haze.

Is there something beneath us,
Anything at all?
Some fundamental framework
To catch us if we fall?
If we had closed our eyes,
Together, last Summer,
Would time itself have stalled?

{God does not exist}                   [But God does not play dice.]
{And nothing’s set in stone.}               [A blood vessel bursts.]
{Our atoms are entangled, love,}         [The pressure is too much,]
{I’ll see you back at home.}            [And out everything spurts.]

Zachary Joseph, ’26

Our fights will never be fair ones,
my darling. I am but a swift white
bird, a tongueless bird, who still,
against the rest of it, sings for you.

If you love me, you must also love
the war within. And the blood around
my mouth. Can you hear the church
bells beneath the graveyard dirt?

Die sideways. Die halfway. Tell me,
again, that I will not ruin this.

Tell me, again, that these metaphors
are tired. It is time to rest my wings.
Sacrifice me to the sky. Please, baby,
please, just let me have one more song.

Mia Vittimberga, ’26

Against myself, I dream. The lonely moon gazes down.
Mary in the elevator, Simon on the roof,
            and who knows where Jesus has gone —
                        probably starting fires in an empty alleyway,
                                    the beautiful lunatic…
Every day, my friends find new profanities to worship.
            Through mouthfuls of twilights
                        we tell each other we can’t keep breathing.
            Still, I lock our windows. The lights stay on.
                                    Most swords are double-edged, anyway,
                        you say, jaw cutting through the neon air
                                    like a battle cry, an untuned guitar, a ladder to heaven, a hymnal
            Across the hall, Judas is jerking off
                        I think I’m getting sicker
                                    as my teeth strangle another lump of smoke-soaked air
                       I ask the untilled earth for a secret, any secret.
— When I am gone, who will water the roses above my grave?

Mia Vittimberga, ’26

Many ask how things like art and love can blossom in such a hardened, pain riddled, bloodied world.

The artists and lovers in the world can count the ways to cause either flower to blossom in response to the critics going through life like hard shells coloring everything to be black, white, and dull.

One for the money, paid in exchange for pain and metallic flavored blood. Often as the result of the loss of one’s Innocence but stimulated by stubborn rooted spite.

Two for the honey flavored love, still pouring out of vacant hearts still broken years after the end of the rendezvous seasoned affair but revived to run on naive colored hope and the stubborn belief that true love is the light of life.

Three for the emboldened award of fame you get, often given after you’ve worked yourself bloody to the bone hurling yourself towards the finish line after running on hardening stubborn spite and stimulating hope.

Four for the painful price you pay, the pricetag being your sanity and peace of mind, often the two being the most vital tools when sacrificing sleep, spending hours in the early A.M curating the perfect piece of art or crying over a broken heart that was hit by Cupid’s arrow.

Five is for the hours spent perfecting one’s craft of artistic talent, spending forever looking for the smallest cracked imperfection in their piece of art.

Six is for art in love as so many lovers look for the smallest imperfections in fear of the impending hurt and pain that would come as the result of being blindsided from any crack of wrong flung at any two people blinded by love.

Such in life so in art and love. The two shall forever be intertwined as no art is made without love and the story of love itself is seen as a work of art.

Hope Jacobs

Because I put my feet down on asphalt
when I want to brake. The downhill behind our Marshfield home
a portal to a daymare of mine
where my Achilles heel is sliced
by a rusty chain and paternal
disappointment.

Because my sister is a natural,
a real Eddy Merckx with a puff ponytail.
No tan hands on the bars, confidence abundant
to pedal up to the lone cloud
nauseatingly high in the Huntington Beach summer sky.
My Scooby Doo push pop—I get that every time—
is pooling around the hairbands that live on my wrist, just in case,
I hide under a beach umbrella because I have learned to fear
sunburn since I was five.

Because the streets of Fisherman’s Wharf
are a daredevil’s red carpet.
Evil does not live inside drivers with eyes on the top of their heads;
I do.
Who am I when I lay on the sizzling pavement, staring
at Coit Tower and switching with frequency from spotted black to burning white?
Who am I when my hands cage my wail as my eyes have returned
to a spot above my nose to look upon a half-woman, half-aquamarine metal
tangle of a person for the very first time?
To avoid becoming both, I decide to be neither.
Until I am 31, late to every doctor’s appointment, no groceries in my refrigerator
because my father is gone, my mother still works, and my sister is postpartum
and advised not to drive until next Wednesday.

Because my gut controls my brain,
who commands my lungs, who become the twin overlords
of my legs and delicate inner workings of my ears.
Then, I must think of my right-sided Eustachian tube
who has ruptured countlessly before with the wheeze of a sad balloon.
I must think of how I rearrange anatomy to explain my chronically bad balance.

My gut, dear obstacle, mixing your modern acid
anxiety with my primordial instinct to stay rooted to the ground,
to never try and fly because flounder is a monster worse than any
Saber-toothed tiger.
Because, you see, if humanity depended on me
to crawl out of the water with a curiosity so incurable
not even death by the laser Sun or claws of some flying reptile scared me away,
we would still be fish.

Tori Ingram, ’24

it’s quieter here, lost at sea.
light reflecting into our bodies, not off of them,
violets pooling into collarbones
dripping onto unbeaten paths, shattered ceramics.

hail a mary between
shots of venom,
red leaves in wayward zephyrs,
floating islands, long-dead melodies,
the other side of the ancient story.

there’s an orgasm in our apathy
if i shut my eyes
while you swaddle me
in an electric fence’s chain-link quilt,
i can pretend we are the same coin again.

my lovely little sinner,
spit on my feet, wonder what went wrong,
anything you want — just don’t look back.
haven’t you heard?
we don’t have to play dead anymore.

Mia Vittimberga, ’26