November 2022 Featured Pieces
an ode, before we go by Vivian Dong
The air leaves our fingers sticky and sweet and blades of thin grass cut our legs like a million little knives, leaving green bloodstains on the backs of our thighs. The sky is candy melting over our heads, dripping pink and orange syrup like glazed sugar over the dying sun. Somewhere in the distance, a car starts, and a voice calls your name, but we ignore it because over the years we’ve mastered the art of avoidance. Instead, we sit in silence and listen to the sound of our heartbeats against the stillness, timing the inhale and exhale of our breath until it all whistles out as one. It's probably my most favorite thing about you, you know, that we can sit like this, in this silence. When I'm with you, I don't need to talk. You always know, and I never have to say a word. We grew up together, you and I. You know me like only a twin would know her sister, like a body staring at a mirror. I don’t have to tell you I’m scared, scared of that car that is starting and the voice that is calling your name. Scared of the plane I’ll catch tomorrow and the person I’ll be if I return. We never say anything. we always know. But in case this is it, in case you don’t, here it is, before we go: when we are nothing but sagging skin and fragile bone, when the world collapses and we are all taking our last breath, you will still be the first person I call. If today is our last day together, or if we see each other again and again and again, you need to know you’ll always have me. In a thousand years, when time has turned us into collections of crinkled memories, when I forget my keys, my glasses, myself, I’ll remember you. One day, when I look back on these years, I’ll remember them with a smile. I have you to thank for that. So here it is, my ode to you, before we go. "Rebirth", Eden Liu
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"Ichor", Eden Liu
Calculating Feelings by Siena Nguyen
They say there are an infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 1. As far as decimals go, they will never reach 1. It’s comforting to know that there are endless possibilities. It’s even more agonizing to know I’ll never be close to reaching you. I feel sympathy for pi. Never ending. Commonly known but never truly known. So many have tried to figure it out. No one has. 3.14 barely scratches the surface. Labeled irrational. Just because no one is capable of deciphering who you are. 0 holds the secrets of the universe. An invisible password. A silent key. By itself it’s nothing. Absolutely no value. But with anything else, any insignificant number, It’ll be the one to take you to the stars. You never truly see placeholders. Until they combine with something else and make it disappear. |