TOFOUR OUNCESTHREE
THE HUMAN SOUL WEIGHS
US
Three to Four Ounces is Wake Forest’s student-run art and literary magazine, published twice a year. Founded in 1882 under the original name The Student , it holds the distinction of being the oldest student organization on campus.
Recent editions have each centered around a unifying theme that invites students to explore it through their own creative lens. Students are encouraged to submit work across a variety of mediums-including poetry, prose, art, photography, and digital work-and through a blind selection process, the editorial board curates a collection that reflects the creativity and perspectives of the Wake Forest community.
The magazine serves as a platform for student artists and writers to share their work and contribute to the campus’s creative community, celebrating the three to four ounces that make up the human soul.
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR.
To whoever’s listening,
In the fall of my freshman year, I stumbled upon Three to Four Ounces from a flyer posted in the third-floor hallway of Tribble. Having been part of my high school’s literary magazine, I was drawn to the chance to join my college one. I quickly submitted a slam poetry piece I had written and performed a few months earlier at my high school’s open mic night. When it was accepted, those spoken words became my first step into a magazine that, though I didn’t know it yet, would become my most meaningful involvement in college.
With a history dating back to 1882, the magazine has always been deeply rooted in visual work. But when my predecessor, Bella Santos, introduced digital submissions last spring, she opened a dimension we had yet to explore. Suddenly, we had a path to sound. “Soundscape” was born from a desire to carry that momentum forward. My own journey with Three to Four Ounces began, quite simply, with sound, and as I stepped into the role of Editor-in-Chief, I wasn’t willing to let that origin slip away.
The symphony, seen by many as the pinnacle of classical music, often emphasizes balance through the use of the four-movement structure, each movement with its own character and form. That idea guided us as we stitched this magazine together: to take work from the endlessly creative Wake Forest student body and weave a collection that rises and falls in harmony. Each section—or what we’ve come to call our own movements—aims to express something through its own soundscape. Together, these movements form a larger composition that invites you to listen as much as you read.
This issue would not exist without the care and dedication of our executive board, whose time, creativity, and thoughtful attention shaped every piece you encounter here. I’m grateful for their insight—and their many funny interjections—around the table as we worked through submissions together. To our contributors: thank you for trusting us with your voices and for allowing your work to resonate beyond the page. And to Bella Santos, thank you for your fervent leadership, which pushed me to grow into this role, and, of course, thank you for expanding what this magazine could hold by opening the door to sounds we had never heard here before.
And to you, the reader: listen closely as you move through this issue. Within these pages is a soundscape made of many voices. I hope you hear something that stays with you.
With gratitude, Aderinola Adepoju Editor-in-Chief
Megan Zanni Art Editor
Caroline Gottsman Art Editor
Lucas Betancourt Poetry Editor
Brooks Nuckols Social Media Lead
Julia Smith Poetry Editor
Thomas Raiford Photography Editor
Yan Luo Graphic Designer
Clara Davis Social Media Manager
Kal Wuor Social Media Manager
Not Pictured: Nina Clayton (Prose Editor), Wangwang Ma (Treasurer)
Carolyn Malman (Poetry Editor), Taylor Nisbet (Prose Editor)
Our Executive Board
Photo Taken by Mati Romagnoli
Caroline Gottsman Editor
Ella Jones Outreach Manager
Miriam Fabrycky Prose Editor
Caroline Bates Editor Senior
Nola Adepoju Editor-in-Chief
Bianca Reznic Managing Editor
Emily Meinert Managing Editor
Christopher DiLorenzo Photography Editor
TABLE OF CONTENTS
10 “Arema in Motion” by Evan Harris
11 “The Keys Await” by Clara Davis 12 “The Product of Your Marvelous Madness...” by Sincere Fielder 13 “Let Them Sing” by Skylar Mayer 14 “SLAP ” by Bella Santos 15 “Falling in Love with the Sound of Failure” by Ava Lebeau 16 Melodrama by Ragan Price 17 “Ribs by Lorde” by Hope Poole
18 “If These Walls Could Sing” by Bianca Reznic 19 “Looking Back” by Taylor Nisbet 20 “getaway car” by Taylor Riley 21 “Mumble” by Lucas Betancourt
22 “Sing a Song for Me, My Beloved” by Alexis Orlando Dean 23 “What the Silence Knows” by Rokaya Nemer 24 “Da capo al fine” by Yilin Tan
SECOND MOVEMENT
26 “Another temple” by Evan Harris
27 “Soundscape of a Single Night” by Nina Clayton 28 “Power Washing” by Christopher DiLorenzo
29 “Echo and Narcissus” by Carolyn Malman
30 “Everlasting Bloom” by Pia Drulard 31 “My son!” by Abigail Salalisi Taylor
32 “the sounds of nature on a winter’s night” by JM Stowers
33 “spring. the singing of birds” by Alexis Orlando Dean
34 “Island Daydreams” by Pia Drulard
35 “Focusing” by Ashlyn Collings
36 “summer, a decrescendo” by Hope Poole
37 “Saved Sounds” by Doan 38 “Grief” by Annika Watson
39 “Her Voice” by Rachel Doan
40 “The Lips” by Katie Pike-Werle
41 “The Author” by Kat Petty
42 “Ill Reading” by Evan Harris
43 “Dancing on the Ceiling, in the Dark” by Makenzie Lawson
44 “twisted thoughts” by Kal Wuor
45 “Sing your song, little lagoon” by Lucas Betancourt
46 “The Ear” by Katie Pike-Werle
THIRD MOVEMENT
48 “flow” by Charlie Norman
49 “Confessions of a backup singer” by Miriam Fabrycky
50 “we will never forget you” by Daria Prokhnitski
51 “birds chirping at 3:20am” by JM Stowers
52 “A ripple in the universe” by Christine E Dudley
53 “Brass Heat” by Clara Davis
54 “in service of the song” by Hope Poole
55 “Let’s Try This Again” by Quincy S. Williams
56 “Light Up My Soul” by Elena Gregory
57 “Jazz” by Blythe Kingston Green
58 “Relentless Drive” by Minxing (Mike) Liu
58 “Majestic” by Joseph Greenhaus
59 “A Love Song” by Annika Watson
59 “flame” by joy
60 “Cadenza” by Blythe Kingston Green
61 “Emotional Crutch” by Claire O’Brien
62 “the riff” by L. Hammond
63 “A Love Letter...” by Camille Wall
64 “Resonance” by Bianca Reznic
65 “The Noise” by Megan Zanni
66 “The Man in the Moon” by Emily Meinert
FINALE
68 “Triumph” by Christopher DiLorenzo
69 “Cosmic Composition” by Thomas Raiford
72 “From Memory/In Memory” by Ameera Moinuddin
73 “Facing West” by Selma Nuwara
74 “for Agona” by Nina Clayton
75 “silence” by noah
76 “The quest for MM” by Evan Harris
77 “Swimmer’s Ear” by Miriam C. R.
78 “Threatening Silence” by Sienna Chase Greenleaf
79 “Potential energy” by Evan Harris
80 “The Metronome” by Olivia Pinder
81 “Noble Distance” by Lisette Littuma
82 “The Smallest Vibration” by Clara Davis
83 “Notes Take Root” by Clara Davis
84 “pentru simona lăcrămioară” by Bianca Reznic
85 “Managua to Oglala” by Bella Santos
84 “Echoes Above” by Clara Davis
FIRST MOVEMENT
fast and dynamic themes in motion. ;
Arema in Motion
Evan Harris
The Product of Your Marvelous Madness: Soundscape Sincere
Fielder
You are.
The composer, the player, and the transcriber, of your mind mapping chronicles. The control of your life’s opening music beats at the whim of your emotions. The shallow water waves at you endlessly as you give yourself to the wind. Your inhales and exhales create sonnets of belonging and electrifying energy that the world needs to see.
So don’t hide your work, your world in the mind of madness, convincing yourself that they will not hear what you read. Maybe they are just hungry.
Hungry for your sound.
With these four eyes, I realized that we have been tasked to thrive in a life that directs us... To ruin. I refuse.
And you should too.
Your failures are always bound to send rumbles down Nations, cities, and towns. Is because the word needs an explanation Or proof of your humanity. For your very existence is the reason the world goes round.
There is a refusal for you to be interstellar.
And I challenge you to conquer the pandemonium of your emotions and release the pandora’s box that is your mind.
In fact, I urge you to–Introduce your mind to the world.
For the world is your Soundscape.
The Keys Await
Clara Davis
Let Them Sing Skylar Mayer
The least favorite part of the most special day
A string digs into my chin, holding a conical hat of celebration atop my head.
Candles hiss softly on the cake, illuminating my embarrassed, pink cheeks.
Voices surround me at the table, overlapping, impossible to hold in my ears all at once.
And they sing Happy Birthday to you Happy Birthday dear...
I am reminded of 356 days of joy, pain, and growth.
I’m glad this tradition this chorus of voices is now a favorite of mine.
A time for reflection. My grateful ears take in the unharmonious song, the shaky notes and heartfelt hums, the laughter punctuating the melody.
What a joy to make it to another year with people willing to celebrate me with their imperfect, human voices.
Humans are the only species that celebrate this personal holiday. Maybe we’re silly. Maybe we’re selfish. Or maybe we understand the beauty of life and give it the moment it deserves.
I urge you to let others sing on your birthday, to let your ears remember the weight and warmth of human voices celebrating you. of human voices celebrating you.
SLAP
Bella
Santos
My mother once yelled at me on a road trip. Not only had I unbuckled my way out of my car seat in the back row of our minivan, but I had crawled on my knees through the forbidden bucket seat aisle where my brothers sat, all the way until my palms were resting on the middle console, and I could peer at my mother’s face behind the steering wheel.
“I wanted to check on your cheek,” I remember telling her, after she had scolded me for abandoning the safety of my seatbelt. She explained to me the intensity with which I could fly through the windshield and land dead in the middle of the road, a statement my oldest brother followed up with a SPLAT sound effect.
Before she could usher me back into my hot pink cushioned seat and the pile of Goldfish waiting for me in my cupholder, I reached out and touched a finger to my mom’s face, expecting her cheek to be bright red, swollen, or even bloody.
On long road trips, especially those that took us through the night, my mother had a tendency of slapping herself to stay awake. While surely, she didn’t slap herself with much force, it must have been enough to keep her from drifting off, and it must have been enough to scare my seven-year-old self to tears.
Sometimes my mother would slap her palm across her face to the tune of the song on the radio, and while she typically slapped with her right hand, she would occasionally use her left, a sign that she was extremely tired and that we were hopefully nearing our destination.
Eventually, in the weeks after my display of empathy and panic on the highway, my mother found a new way of preventing microsleeps, a system to stay awake that wouldn’t drive fear into the hearts of her children. David Sunflower seeds, and a large Big Gulp cup from the nearest gas station, became my mom’s newest roadside companions. I wondered whether it was the act of breaking open the shell with her teeth that kept her awake, or the sound of the salivated shells striking the bottom of the paper cup that reminded her of being slapped across the face.
Years later, now that I go on road trips of my own, I, too, typically bring with me a bag of sunflower seeds. But sometimes, if “My House” by Flo Rida comes on the radio, my mother’s favorite song from the 2010s, I find myself hearing the lyrics “Open up the champagne, pop!” and wanting to drop my Big Gulp cup on the ground and strike my hand across my cheek.
Falling in Love with the Sound of Failure
Ava Lebeau
Every childhood summer of mine was characterized by a two-week long visit to my grand mother’s house in northeast Ohio. Living with her two sisters, they shared a deep history with music, performing together as a singing trio called “The Sexton Sisters” during their early adulthood. From a very young age they instilled in me the unique beauty and power of creating music. I like to believe that aptitude for music is in my blood and my continued dedication to the craft is one way I can keep their legacy alive.
Their one-story stucco house was so compact it could barely contain the amount of love that radiated from each picture frame on the wall and every drawing on the fridge. All five rooms in the house were distinctly different, not in design, but in the sense that each room embraced you with a different type of comfort and warmth. My favorite room was, of course, the music room. This small space was illuminated by a combination of natural light from the cobwebbed windows and the pale yellow glow of Christmas lights that stayed strung along the ceiling year-round. In the center of the room was an electric keyboard, bookended by stacks of dust-covered CDs from artists I’d never even heard of. Acoustic and electric guitars hung on the walls, neighboring an antiquated soundboard that sat idly on the table below.
In that room, all alone, endless possibilities laid at my fingertips. I had always enjoyed music, singing especially, but my hours spent in this room transformed my relationship with music from an appreciation to an infatuation. My view of music had always been from a spectator’s position; it never occurred to me that I too could create it. When I first sat down at the keyboard and hesitantly began to place my fingers on the keys to see which notes clashed and which blended, I focused less on the cacophony I produced and more on familiarizing myself with the instrument. The product was the least interesting part to me; the learning process was enthralling. Creating without the pressure of perfection was a gift unbeknownst to me until this moment. Nobody was there to hear my failures: the dissonant chords I played in an attempt to teach myself piano, the assemblage of fragmented notes I hit while singing quietly to myself. I had the refreshing freedom to fail. I didn’t know what I was doing or how to do it, but I knew that I loved it. I loved the way that music had a million definitions. I loved that every time I sat down at the piano I could redefine it.
Some nights, my grandma and I would spend hours creating music together. It was perfectly imperfect. We sang “You Are My Sunshine” over and over until I had developed the skill of harmony and overcame the struggle of listening to someone sing an entirely different melody than me whilst focusing on my own. I was entranced by the way a nursery rhyme from my childhood was completely transformed through the power of harmony. The combination of our two different voices in tune with each other elevated it from a simple song to a multi-faceted masterpiece. When learning from her, my mistakes were not only embraced but also encouraged. It didn’t matter that I got the harmony wrong the first fifteen times; all that mattered was that I was enjoying it. Whenever I became frustrated with my inability to get the harmony right, she insisted that even the greatest musicians started from somewhere and imperfections were a vital part of the learning process. She told me that imperfections were proof of effort and my desire to mend them was proof of passion. For the first time in my life, I felt as if my mistakes enhanced my success. In that room, the dissonant chords and uneven harmonies were never something to silence. They were something to listen to, learn from, and find beauty in.
andYoungBlue
Wild and Fluorescent
Ragan Price Red and Chrome
“These35mmfilmimagessymbolizehowmyfavoritealbum, Melodrama byLorde, makesmefeel.Eachimageaimstoreflecttheemotionsinvokedwhenlisteningto certainsongsfromthealbum.Ifeltinspiredtocapturetheseemotionsduringmy seniorfallbreakwhereItraveledtoChicagotoseeLordelive.”
Ribs by Lorde Hope Poole
Tonight, I lie awake. My stare rests on the ceiling as I count the little cracks in it, the lullaby of November gusts not enough to settle my mind.
My earbuds, my little plastic portals to another world, rest in my ears. I lazily press “play” on my phone, my eyes close, and the first note fills the quiet in my chest.
Almost instantly, the song’s hum warps into summer winds; cicadas, sneakers on pavement, laughter echoing from 14-year-olds.
The vocals curl around my heart, whispering the fear of growing up before unraveling into the sounds of giggles, half-forgotten jokes, promises, words we were never meant to forget.
Then autumn tiptoes in, a time marked by hallways walked together and the click of secret handshakes. Our roaring laughter overpowers the hum of the heaters as we silently wish that we could stretch the minutes.
The song begins to exhale its last breath; the voices and laughter stretch, growing ever so thin until the air is just quiet.
There’s an ache in nineteen, my knuckles growing white from grasping onto time’s ghosts; my eyes blink open and I hover my finger over the replay button on my phone.
To this childhood of mine, this idyllic, sacred oasis, please grab hold of my hand.
And never let go.
If These Walls Could Sing
Bianca Reznic
getaway car
Taylor Riley
The door shuts with a thud and locks with a click. The engine starts with a gentle grumble, yawning awake. Its steady breath is a soothing rhythm, my heart calms and beats in tune. I shift into reverse and back out of the driveway, the tires squeal against the linoleum garage floor. I head to the highway with no final destination in mind. My only mission is to get away.
My house alternates between being too crowded and too lonely, too overwhelming and too boring, too loud and too quiet. My car is never too anything. In the driver’s seat, I pick the company, the music, the volume. Some days I sit in silence, listening to the engine and my thoughts. Some days I turn the radio up up up until I can’t hear or feel anything else. Some days I clench the wheel with white knuckles and yell things that I wish I would have said in arguments that I lost hours or years ago. I relive, rescript, and revise the endings so I win. In my car, the reality I create is the only one that matters.
One day, I was loudly singing (shouting) along to a song as I parked, and the driver of the car next to mine shot me a judgemental look. I remember wondering how she could hear me. You can’t hear me. You can’t hear me because youdon’texist.MycarisitsownworldandIamtheonlypersoninit.Andit’s onlyinmycar,wherenoonecanhearme,thatItrulyfeelheard.
Mumble Lucas Betancourt
Mumble softly dear.
Or better yet, laugh; Laugh with the fervor of winter winds, Laugh with the heart of youth and friendship that whirls back ’round all the love it sends.
Yelling would do too; In fact shriek like a crow cawing from barren trees and frozen roods.
Best yet, sing; Sing into my eyes And let our pupils harmonize.
But, if you can help it, do not let fall this silence soft as the fresh powdered snow upon the air between our lips; Endow your breath with the radiance of voice to make of quivering quietness a summer’s spring.
For I wish our love not be condemned to walk Hell’s mute embered steps towards that dense coffin of rest, to melt shyly into a sleepy endlessness, into a heavy, tense, and empty stillness.
Sing a Song for Me, My Beloved Alexis Orlando Dean
Sing a song for me, my beloved, Make its melody syrupy and beautiful. When you run out of words, When the notes have run their course, Sing a little longer, so I may Know your voice forever.
When Time takes your voice, That sweet, warm warble I loved, Your notes will turn sour; Your timbre bitter, astringent, And I will love it all the better.
The high notes fall on my deaf ears, The sweetness rots at my teeth, The beauty turns dull with years, But the bitterness, that broken song, Will wake me from my long slumber.
Then will I sing in return, my beloved, And my voice will have no sweetness, My words no kindness, My melody no consonance. You will know it is mine, Dissonant and unflinching then. Screeching against silence, You will know I love you.
Before I learned language, I knew sound.
The soft hum of my mother’s voice moving through the air like warmth you cannot see but always feel.
What the Silence Knows Rokaya Nemer
The world introduced itself to me in echoes doors closing, distant laughter, the steady rhythm of footsteps walking somewhere I wasn’t yet brave enough to go.
Morning sounds different than night. Morning stretches coffee pouring, keys clinking, engines waking up.
Night folds inward. It breathes slower. It lets the refrigerator whisper and the walls settle into themselves.
There is a certain loneliness in the sound of a phone that doesn’t ring. A certain hope in the vibration before you answer.
Some songs don’t just play they return you.
To a car ride with the windows down. To a prayer whispered too quietly. To a version of yourself you almost forgot existed.
Turn down the volume, they say.
But sometimes, the bravest thing we can do is listen.
da capo al fine
Yilin Tan
You are the conductor of life and death
The hands that meet in tempo
The staccato of a chest, rising, falling
The bed alarm shrieking, on and on,
A carpet of unease
Metal against metal
Voices rise, a chorus
You are the master of sight and sound
The hands that orchestrate this line of music,
The tick-tock , tick-tock , of the metronome
The drone you aim to match, the rhythmic ebb and flow of sound as you fall short
You blow with all your might but a flute’s not meant to be forced; you love it into producing music
It’s not about your breath, but its willingness to speak
Yet your hands cannot still and your heart yearns for something
That woman’s cries of agony, listen to them rend the air
In each breath: the crescendo to the finale, the desperate accelerando to the final downbeat
Safe’s not a word you would think of, for this piece of metal in your hands
But safe is how you feel when you have something to grip onto under stadium lights, in the din of a recital hall, meeting the gaze of an audience
You’ve been on this stage before, in this operating theatre
Clinical precision in your fingers on cold metal
And then you give her up–the music, the sound
You hear its sparkling clatter,
Limbs akimbo,
It fractures under the weight of their stares
The last cry, the moment of charged silence
The ringing hush after a chapel bell is tolled
Absence of sound has a cost
Algor mortis, world gone frigid
Watching others bring to life what you used to;
In the silence, you still hear goodbye.
You long to put your hand to the metal, to make music out of inhospitable cold
SECOND MOVEMENT
slow and lyrical; ref ; lective in tone
Another Temple
Evan Harris
Soundscape of a Single Night
Nina Clayton
My therapist tells me to center myself in the moment, to count down (five-fourthree-two-one), and this ritual has become my home. By counting and keeping track of everything within my line of sight, everything pressing in on me, I can keep it together and keep the memory. In this moment, I list the green things: your eyes, the first living strands of grass, the throw blanket, the spine of my journal, and the mug of tea (also green) on the nightstand.
I dwell in the realm of the physical: in my poems, I can preserve the sensations shooting through my nervous system and the tiny details of the objects that surround me. I often write about the dishes we share at the kitchen table, describing the scent that lingers in the warm air and the tastes that roll over my tongue.
My margins are filled with imagined details. I list paint chip names for our future nursery’s walls and the textures of the fabric we will weave together. My poems dwell on the sting of sea salt, the warmth of the stage lights, the weight of your hands lingering on my waist, and the slow rumble of your chest as you laugh – and yet I do not write about your laugh itself.
Sound eludes me. I don’t know why, but when I write, I avoid onomatopoeia like a loaded gun and plan to “circle back” to the dialogue. It may be the tinnitus or the hypochondriacal hearing loss, but I find the sense entirely beyond my grasp.
I wanted to write a poem for you about this moment. Really, I did. I wanted to find a meter or a rhyme that could hold your warmth against my shoulder and the carpet fibers running between my fingers.
Instead, I list the green things, and I list the sounds: the hitch of your breath as a laugh begins to bubble up, the gentle motorized purr of the cats at our feet, the distant howl of the wolfish wind, the rushed dance of leaves passing our window, and the unspoken goodbye of our last night together.
Chris DiLorenzo Power Washing
Echo and Narcissus
Carolyn
Malman
Unheard...love clings to the girl. Belief in this feeling breaks her down... Until only her voice is left scribbling in her journal. Only her voice. She lives on as a sound. As words. An echo to his narcissism.
I’ll show you my cards. Royal flush down down down I spiral
For I don’t even know where you are Where you stand But maybe you don’t stand You kneel. You beg.
Silently hoping that I’ll choose you above myself completely without fail.
He doesn’t understand that that cool oblivion is what I crave. Allow your darkest parts to wrap me completely So my own will mix and converge with yours. Accepting every single part of me.
I’myours , I say in the darkness, but there’s always that part of me that is mine. My little secret with myself. No matter how hard you try, I’ll never falter.
I’ll wrap myself in darkness. A tornado of swirling purple starlight. An echochamber. So try.
Everlasting Bloom
Pia Drulard
spring. the singing of birds
Alexis Orlando Dean
laying in the remaining leaves feeling myself rot into the ground i hear the birds sing once more the warble of a lark the harsh caw of a crow they all sing back and forth and i know what they say look, one sings to another it rained last night and the worms are out another sings for her love she asks where he’s gone if he’ll return soon a bluejay laments his early arrival he complains of the dead trees the lack of fruit or nuts a crow comes to tell him off cawing loudly she commands him leave to go back south and bother the others
the sun is bright this morning the last of the snow has finally melted i hear a rustle in the leaves a four legged creature all dressed in orange he comes up to me and greets me mrrrraaoow he says licking and biting at my flesh mkgnao! i say in return inviting him to take of me what he needs he pulls my liver from my stomach curls up by my head and eats it it is still fresh with blood he purrs as he eats of my flesh happy with his belly full he sleeps now quiet on my chest
i used to know the hum of cars and the talk of people i heard songs and cries and writings the heartbeat of one i loved some time so long ago when the sun sets i hear no more and then i am happy
Island Daydreams
Pia Drulard
Focusing Ashlyn Collings
Hissing winds that burn the sniffle of noses; Winter crunch of stale grass. The unforgiving crack of pressed sheets, Tucking the crinkle of starch into the sides. The zip of a hello.
Silence is a virtue
The rolling wails of whitecapped waves; Sand softly sighing against chafing feet, Guffawing island birds in tree top rustling thrones. The hush of a blissful exhale.
Silence is a virtue
Purring wiring in a closed room; The chime of keys clanking and rearranging in a muffled hand. The click of a metal door handle.
Silence is a virtue
summer, a decrescendo
Hope Poole
bottle caps hitting the pavement at 11:42 p.m. turning into “text me when you get home” turning into engines fading down the block
laughter echoing off of garage walls turning into “I promise we’ll always...” turning into gravel crunching underneath tires
group chat notifications past midnight turning into disappearing typing bubbles turning into nothing but the crickets outside
the end comes quietly. we were too loud to notice.
Saved Sounds Doan
Until recently, I hadn’t known it was possible to feel gratitude for pain. If asked about it, I wouldn’t have even been able to come up with what such an experience would look or feel like.
The ache of knowing that you have been abundantly blessed, even for just a short while, is something for which I will always be grateful. I just wish I didn’t have to learn such a feeling in this way.
Have you ever been brought to the height of emotion from someone’s voice alone? I have. I was brought up with American Sign Language as my first mode of communication. I think that is why sound is so special to me. More than music itself, there has always been something most take for granted: the voice. The power of the voice has led nations to destruction, crowds to tears, and loved ones to laughter.
I met one of my greatest friends in a speech and debate club. This young girl competed for years at the national level, and she spoke with care and intention, proving time and again through trophies and awards, that our voices might just be our greatest assets.
How ironic that now, after years of jokes, stories shared, and late-night phone calls, I simply cannot bear to hear her voice anymore.
She became very ill last spring, but throughout all of her hospital stays, she never lost that voice of hers. Not in any way that mattered, at least. It would take months of treatment from the top hospitals in the world for doctors to realize she had developed an increasingly aggressive form of blood cancer.
When we couldn’t see each other during her chemo treatments, we would call for hours and hours. And when one of us was busy, we would send voice memos. Simple things: catching each other up about daily activities or rehashing the same drama we loved to discuss. Back then, I didn’t have trouble playing her voice through the speaker of my phone.
But now, I cannot bring myself to listen to any of those videos. There is something too intimately painful about hearing her voice. It’s strange to think that I wasn’t cherishing it then, the voice of someone so dear.
It kills me, but all I can be is grateful to have known her, the pain is just the overflowing of love that now has nowhere to go. This sweet girl taught me to love the little things in life and have gratitude endlessly. I hope that one day, I can listen to all those saved messages and feel lucky for just the beautiful memories of the past, instead of this pain.
Until then, the pain will continue to be a blessing.
Grief
Annika Watson
Grief is not a storm.
It does not come thundering through the skies, howling over the trees.
It is not like the ocean, crashing, churning, surging over shores, drumming patterns as it pounds the sand. It is not a wound, sharp, shrieking pain on your flesh, screaming to be stitched up and forgotten.
It is not like a rollercoaster, clanky wheels on rust and steel, piercing cries fading in and out.
Rather, grief is a silent night after a long drive. It is late, and the darkness murmurs, whispering through your windowsill.
Your black dress falls to the floor, dropping with the weight of the world, echoless in its thud.
The house is a type of quiet you have never known, that you are just now learning exists as it stifles your ears in its grip.
In this silence, you will search for the old sounds— the pitter-patter of dancing feet, the harmony of happy laughs— but they will be hollow when you find them again.
Her Voice
Rachel Doan
When I woke yesterday, I remembered you wouldn’t I knew the world would keep turning, but felt like it shouldn’t I came to understand Silence’s forever And it struck me again, louder than ever
I’ll think of you again tonight The voicemails will make me cry I’ll think I could never move on from this And that quiet won’t leave my nights
I’ll think about your dreams and how you never got to live them I’ll think about the future you were prematurely kept from I’ll think about your heart and all the love you shared A million times again, I’ll think this isn’t fair
My thumb hovers over play, but I can’t bear to press Each saved memo holds a pain I can’t express I want to be grateful for the timbre, tone, and weight Of every precious frequency I lost along the way So now when the sun rises, maybe I’ll try again And this time, I promise, I won’t waste it on lament
The Lips
Katie Pike Werle -
The Author Kat Petty
She was scabbed-up skin and rancid pork, over-trodden snow and underripe fruit. She emanated the bitter half-desperate melancholy of everything that should have been beautiful but, because of some extenuating circumstance, was not. She was citrus-tongued and fish-boned. Inscrutable; irrational, vituperous creature. A manufactured tragedy.
She had the peculiar ability to make words bleed however she wanted them to; her thoughts sutured with psalms. If she were to be filleted, she thought her flank-steak would come riddled, no, marbled with ink— you are what you eat, what you consume. Consume her, advised the world / the capable / the undisturbed She scares us.
She was used to solitude: scrabbling wisps of characters hissing in her mind always more real than friends— Thus she sat suspended in sunlight, rolling sonnets like cigarettes, negotiating reality with figments chattering and needy as new doves. She was first up for addict: Creativity came with a sharper high than coke. In one somnolent afternoon, he tried to define her.
She was a likely arsonist, he declared at the beginning. She hid a smile that pressed against her teeth. New feelings stung like a fresh wound But she let him lap at her seams. An agitator, he called her in the middle, plucking lit embers from her hair and murmuring nothings in her ears that ended up in her dreams, her poetry. A politician, he called her in the end.
You cannot reason with she who prefers the susserations of her own mind To the cacophony of breathing people.
When it ended, her eyes were pale and sharklike as mirrors. You cannot tame what refuses definition. He grabbed her hand bit into her slender fish-bone wrist and tasted ink.
Ill Reading
Evan Harris
Dancing on the Ceiling, in the Dark
Makenzie Lawson
twisted thoughts Kal Wuor
i thought of a thought and i think i thought that my thoughts were my thoughts
when i think my thoughts are just my thoughts then i blame myself for my thoughts
i thought my thoughts were my own fault and so i tied a knot
when i thought that knot was perfectly taut i hung myself from the knot
but i think my thoughts were not my fault and that knot was not taut
to the ground i fell head rung like a bell thought “isn’t this swell” rhyming like a seashell
i should hire a sniper or venom from a viper poisoned apple that is riper i can buy from peter piper
i’m the worst big sister i wish i was a mister so i started to whisper my own tongue twister
i thought of a thought and i think i thought that my thoughts were my thoughts
Sing your song, little lagoon Lucas Betancourt
Sing your song, little lagoon, sing your song. Hum your melody, busy boats, hum it strong.
Bring peace to my ears bring warmth into my soul for the wind is cold, for my love has frozen dull, and I’m longing for light to set my heart ablaze, to revive me back to might.
So let your music ring out let your waters bring me brightness, nestle rhythm under my collarbone, bleach out the cruelty festering in my blood and smooth me back to a gentleness rivaling that of an orchid bud.
O! I hear your cradling waves cooing; I’ll smoke your song of foam-blown breath and feel my lungs awaken, sense my spirit returning to sever the fate-bonding tether of death.
THIRD MOVEMENT
playful and rhythmic; light in character. ;
Flow
Charlie Norman
Confessions of a backup singer Miriam Fabrycky
Sometimes – well, often – I sing. I sing while washing dishes. I sing on nighttime strolls across campus. I sing in my car, hitting the high notes as I exit in great peril from U.S. 52.
I am a below-average singer of lifelong passion. I’ve loaned my unremarkable voice to three warbly church choirs, seven school ensembles with cheesy names, and the unlucky ears of my family.
Sometimes, with great labor, I read sheet music. Sometimes I even keep to a tempo.
I repeated my Beginner Violin class. I practiced piano only when coerced, and it’s not hard to tell. After hours of screeching, I did achieve a “Black Belt” award, roughly equivalent to the rank of four-star general, in third-grade Recorder. I tied that scrap of craft string to my plastic instrument with shy pride.
My contributions to most songs are akin to those of the base coat of a manicure, an extra pair of socks, or a bay leaf. A nice thing to have. Definitely a nice thing to have.
I find a spiritual levity in loving an endeavor at which I’m profoundly mediocre. Music, to me, is a hobby in the purest sense of the word.
If the group is loud enough, there is something about singing with others that makes me swell with emotion. Whether in austere churches or dingy basements, the experience of singing until breathless, but being unable to pick out my individual voice, sends chills down my spine.
I believe I was blessed beyond measure to be born into the era of volume controls and streaming platforms. Music, loud and on demand! A life of unbelievable luxury, to have songs flow into my ears as freely and richly as blood through my veins. When my earbud batteries inevitably run down by evening time, I clutch my phone to my ear like I’m calling a long-lost lover.
I do not want a solo. What I want is the opposite: to drown myself in sound.
We Will Never Forget You
Daria Prokhnitski
birds chirping at 3:20am
JM Stowers
The birds were chirping at 3 in the morning
When I realized how lucky I am
To exist in a timeline parallel yours
And simply call you my friend.
A part of me wishes I could love you forever
And write your name with my last,
A part of me wishes we could snuggle together,
Go back and rewrite the past.
But most of me laughs at all of your jokes
And appreciates your friendship.
All of me loves you, that won’t ever change,
And neither will my lips.
Between platonic and romantic love, what’s the difference anyways?
I can’t tell what’s mates and what’s romance.
And I can’t tell the night from the day.
So I am, then, just like the birds,
Ignoring the night and its warnings,
I sit on my perch and watch you shine,
And chirp at 3 in the morning.
A Ripple in the Universe
Christine E. Dudley
Gentle periwinkle dawn.
Dew magnifies green.
Golden gravity. Keeps us down. Nervous sweat. Lean in for a…buzz.
Bee dances near.
Peach drips.
Azaleas in bloom.
Lips touch, swelling, welling.
Cheeks flush. It spreads to the chest.
Lavender wraps the Earth. Moon peeks out.
Taste the blueberry sky. Crickets chirp.
Spider weaves a web, even though its destruction is imminent. A ripple in the universe.
in service of the song Hope Poole
louder , demands the trumpet, already embarking on its own crescendo— brass vocals reach for the ceiling, sharp, slicing the room in half.
ilaythegroundwork , murmurs the bass, uninvited to the spotlight— able to be felt, but too low to praise. no one stoops down to listen.
the drums keep the rhythm, hands steady, pulse unfaltering— counting everyone in, and still getting called aggressive.
a cymbal cries out. someone near the front flinches.
the piano, she only laughs, low and soft, a spill of keys— for she knows who is actually holding the performance together.
and when the audience rises in applause, the trumpet sinks into it, basks in it, gathers it and keeps it, wears it like a crown.
for they only applaud performance. not labor.
Let’s Try This Again
Quincy S. Williams .
“Thispiecewascreatedasacomedicinterpretationofpeople'srelationshipwiththeirability tocreateart.Themaincharacter,Chris,representssomeonewithanaturalinnateabilityfor theircreationofmusic,butlacksconfidenceintheirworkbecauseofhoweasyitcomesto them.Somewhatinversely,Kay-Bexistsasanartistwho'sbecomeoverconfidentintheirability tocreate,becauseoftheconsistentpositivereceptionandpopularitythattheyhavegained throughouttheircareer,causinghisskillstodiminish.Theircontrastandmisunderstandingof oneanotherdemonstratethecomplexhumanrelationshipwithmusicandpopculture.” Watch here.
Light Up My Soul Elena Gregory
Jazz Blythe
Kingston Green
“Ya like jazz?” He asked with a twinkle in his eye. I was offended. “Shoo bah dah doo dat,” My only reply.
We never talked again.
Relentless Drive
Majestic
Joseph Greenhaus
Minxing (Mike Liu ( )
A Love Song
Annika Watson
Love is the song on the radio strumming a face in its opening chord.
It is the words spoken in your favorite film never quite reaching your ears until now.
It is the voice in the song of the morningbirds, the pair of footsteps in the pounding rain, the hum in the whirring of the ceiling fan.
It is the laugh that makes you drop everything you have and let it crash to pieces just so you can hear it again.
Emotional Crutch
Claire O’Brien
After a lot of time spent looking inwards, I have come to the conclusion that I have an addiction. Not to the typical vices: alcohol, sugar, vaping, etc. Rather, I have an addiction to noise.
I walk through the world every day, utterly incapable of taking one step without some sort of sound playing in my ear. Every day that I wake up, the first thing I do is turn to Spotify, clicking play as fast as my fingers can. The sound of music playing is the only thing that propels me out of bed, convincing me to leave my comforting sheets for the cold world outside. Without it, I’ll waste away horizontally for hours, unable to motivate myself to swing my legs over the edge. This obsession has even begun to follow me back to sleep, filtering its way into my dreams. In the dead of night, I now require the constant drum and reverberations of white noise. Put me in a dead silent room, and I wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink.
In daily life, my AirPods serve as my enabler. When I leave a class, I rush to find earbuds, desperately shoving them in place the second I lift from my desk. An immense sense of relief sets in the moment a song starts playing, as if a weight has been lifted off my chest. Without the stream of music in my day-to-day, I feel an incredible sense of boredom—as if I require a soundtrack to my life in order to motivate myself to go about my day. And how incredibly self-centered is that?
When I’m facing the worst-case-scenario-stranded, soundless, with my earbuds and headphones left at home—it’s as if I’m stepping back in time to an earlier era, when people weren’t constantly wired to an inanimate object. Those days, I find myself thinking: could I be missing something by constantly tuning out the world? Some sliver of life from the outside, some experience that I could be having?
Luckily, these irksome thoughts dissipate the moment I’m reconnected with my AirPods. The addiction prevails, and I turn back to the temptation of the noise-cancelling setting.
L.. Hammond .
A Love Letter and Analysis of “The River”
by Bruce Springsteen
Camille Wall
“The River,” the namesake of Springsteen’s 1980 album, never became widely popular. It’s easy to understand why, as the song consists of somber vocals singing somber lyrics backed by a somber tune. The song is depressing but provides me comfort from my youth. The lyrics describe the story of the protagonist and the girl he loves, Mary. While they were teenagers, the protagonist gets Mary pregnant. Consequently, all his dreams of leading a substantial life away from his small, trivial town wash away. The lovers are forced into a shotgun wedding, and over time, their love subsides to indifference and melancholy. To each other, they remain only distant memories of happier times and a constant reminder of what could have been. Near the climax of the song, Bruce sings “Now all them things that seemed so important, well, mister, they vanished right into the air. Now I just act like I don’t remember. Mary acts like she don’t care.”
Throughout the song, the river is described as a refuge for the protagonist and Mary. It acted as a place to isolate themselves from their undesirable town, revel in their love for each other and their excitement for the future. The river is a metaphor for the innocence of childhood and the dreams that come with it. At the end of the song, the river is described as being “dry,” confirming their love and dreams had completely withered after years of regret living in their trivial town. A common theme in his songs, Bruce offers a perspective into an unidealistic aspect of low-income American life, mourning the sacrifice of dreams and inescapable responsibilities for survival. After hundreds of listens, I am left in the type of pain only something supremely beautiful can inflict. The protagonist and Mary’s loss of love is made tangible by Bruce’s raw, unflinching vocals, and his sorrowful instrumentals make their heartbreak more potent. Bruce’s lyrics seem straight out of a poem, seemingly synonymous with a tragedy. Instead of the death of a person, the protagonist and Mary experience the death of passion and wonder. My favorite line reminds me to cherish my dreams, singing, “And those memories come back to haunt me. Yeah, they haunt me like a curse. Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true? Or is it something worse?” No matter your financial class or circumstances, most people can relate to Bruce’s message on broken dreams, the harshness of accepting them, and the often unforgiving world. Bruce Springsteen’s “The River” leads me to question the longevity of love and the fragility of our dreams, demanding me to cherish both my childhood and innocence. Very few people can make me feel and think so deeply in a matter of five minutes, placing both a warning and a charge on the fulfillment of our dreams.
I wake to the noise.
A machine coughs a dull roar outside, And the roar drills through my window, Filling my ears even before thoughts fill my mind.
I hear the cacophony before I see the light. The noise is all a little maddening.
I listen as she speaks
But I also listen as they speak, Discussing the weather or the world or whatever else
Before they walk out of earshot.
A bird calls from a branch, then two, then three.
I hear so much yet nothing of what she says.
The noise is all a little maddening.
I try to focus
But the room is bursting with sound.
The tapping of typing on my right, The creak of a chair on my left,
The Noise Megan Zanni
Even my own breathing seems impossibly loud.
I crave quiet; I need quiet.
The noise is all a little maddening.
I go through the motions of sleep
But words pass through my walls, Too quiet to be understood but too loud to be ignored.
A train sounds in the distance, announcing its presence at midnight.
The world can never fully close its eyes
Because it can never fully close its mouth.
The noise is all a little maddening.
The noise keeps me awake.
One hundred minutes later and I’m still there,
Lying in the darkness, exhausted but unable to rest.
Too tired to dream, only able to hear.
Silence, like perfection, is merely a concept And one impossible for humanity to achieve.
The noise is maddening.
The Man in the Moon
Emily Meinert
In dreams, the moonlight silvers his memory.
He lives in the wash of secondhand sun,
Wandering among quiet craters,
Descending into the deep,
Arising on unseen springs,
Weightless on the shining surface,
Afloat amidst a smattering of stars –
In the expanse of the night, I saw him see.
Each new morning on that pale argent pearl
He slips into stillness, a silent slumber,
And wakes in the wonder of wisdom,
Above the bright blue beneath.
From the sphere below I speak,
The speed of sound slower than light.
Across the space my words gently go –
In the sunrise, resounding beyond the dark.
FINALE
bold and energetic; a conclusive end ;
Triumph
Christopher DiLorenzo
Cosmic Composition
Thomas Raiford
The SS Demodocus drifts through inky blackness.
“But it’s not quite blackness, is it?” asks astronaut 13415. “I think we call it ‘black’ as some sort of comfort, don’t you, a simplification of what it really is. It’s nothing. It is the absence of everything, stretching on for endless eternities, briefly interrupted by tiny self-important grains of sand.”
13415’s existential poetics echo unanswered in the pressurized tin can, eventually dissipating in the steady hum of the ventilation system. The singular window, thick and marked with crowded tickmarks, shows only the void that so bothers 13415.
She sighs before clicking a tape recorder, “E-Day 7,842: nothing to report. We are still approximately 14.7 billion miles from Earth. All readings are nominal.” 13415 then assumes a news anchor’s voice, something she’s only heard in archival recordings. “We’re looking at a forecast of nothing with a slight chance of nothing. And over here there’s, well, nothing! Shocking, I know.”
When 13415 pauses, it’s silent, suffocatingly so. The ventilation has paused its steady hum as it follows its pre-programmed orchestration. 13415 is left a soloist in the expanse, the ultimate soloist. Her breathing creates the birdsong, the wind, and the idle chatter she longs for. Out here, she is existence. And that continues to break her. This performance repeats, again and again, until day E-Day 8,572, when the first transmission comes through.
It starts faint at first. 13415 half believes she’s hallucinating. Her body stills, taking it in and her breath slows. But the sound doesn’t stop. A green light on her communication box glows for the first time in her journey.
After a moment, the message repeats. 13415 scrambles in zero gravity around her small ship, all but throwing herself at a drawer labeled C-302. She quickly grabs a pen and paper and frantically records the message.
“S...O...N...” she mutters. “Song?”
“Long, short, short...” she mutters. “D!” Warmth fills 13415. The feeling excites and thrills her, and her eyes scan the tin can. Strapped to the wall in front of her is her most prized possession, an acoustic guitar. At this point, its dark wood is scratched, its head is dented, and its strings, changed many times over the years, curl out beyond its head, giving it a frizzy hairdo of nylon strings.
She strums a chord that whines, clearly out of tune. A giddy laughter escapes her, and she begins the ritualistic practice of tuning. After some time, she’s forgotten about the void, and the ventilation, and the silence. The chords she plays give shape to her surroundings, and her body relaxes, releasing a tension she’s grown used to. Her guitar has been her main companion for a while now, but on E-Day 8,572, it was different. Somebody, somewhere was speaking to her, and that gave the chords meaning.
Eventually, 13415 began adding chords, humming along, and even singing half coherent lyrics. She rocked out to her gibberish in the SS Demodocus and it nearly made her weep. Before she knew it, she was sending back ideas of her own.
By E-Day 8,575, astronaut 13415 had conversed twenty-five times with her co-composer. The transmissions, by her estimate, took roughly 22 hours to be sent, which often meant that by the time she received a message, another one was already on the way and vice versa. 13415 chuckled to herself, imagining the transmissions rebounding and overlapping, as if creating their own song in the void she once thought so empty.
In 5 days, they had 5 chords. It was painstakingly slow, but for 13415, it was a high she had never felt. The progression was relatively simple. In all her time, she had probably played it herself a hundred times over, but this was shared.
The weak signal meant she could never send a recording in her lifetime, yet the idea gnawed at her. Despite the nothingness outside her lonely window, she imagined another human hearing her, hearing their work. So as the months passed, and 13415 exchanged short messages, she tweaked, practiced, and hummed the song non-stop. And so on E-Day 8,673, she hit record on her tape recorder and performed in the vast expanse of nothing for herself and her conspirator.
The transmission box glowed green until she died and then some. Her most important performance traveled slowly across the void she once feared. It crawled slowly across the emptiness, occasionally encountering the so-called “grains of sand.” It passed stars. It flew through dust. It drifted through that inky darkness. It traveled in spite of it all. She traveled in spite of it all back to the blue dot, followed by the message:
To listen to this piece’s accompanying song, scan the QR code.
From Memory / In Memory
Ameera Moinuddin
Some sounds are etched into memory. Woven into the two braids I wore to school some days. Soaked in the 4:00 p.m. sunlight through the peepal trees on canal road. ‘Meeru’ in so many voices I have loved.
I listen to ‘hona tha pyar’ and I am six again, in the back of my mother’s silver Nissan Sunny. I don’t remember much else from that age; memory is unfaithful in that sense.
“You look like Maa [his mother],” says my father. How odd it is to leave out letters that exist in Urdu. How odd it is to contort a language to fit into another. How difficult it is to forget some voices.
I remember some things so viscerally I feel almost ashamed to say I only knew her for ten years. “Do you remember her?” What a foolish thing to ask. Would you ask one to remember oneself? Anyways, I am certain of this sound.
I am ten, then I am fifteen, then eighteen. It is Ramzan. There is a clatter of dishes in the kitchen, the melodic clink of a spoon as the Roohafza is being made. It is Ramzan. The muezzins’ voices chase each other, come to prayer, come to success. Now I am twenty. It is Ramzan soon. The muezzins are silent. This time I whisper my dua, my prayer upon opening the fast, alone, I do not need my fathers reminder. Is it still Ramzan?
I want to hear the azaan. I want to see the sun melt into the sky. I want to see it reflected through the mesh curtains. I want my mothers hand to always be within
Facing West
Selma Nuwara
for Agona Nina Clayton
It is another beautiful night on the Carolina Coast: the sun dips below the horizon and, as the waves finally still, the stage lights flare and the opening hymn swells. Backstage, the Indian Woman stretches, rubs the sleep from her eyes, and wonders (not for the first time) why these white men won’t just let her die.
The Indian Woman is told she is an important part of the legend. She was there to greet the arriving colonists. She offered them food and shelter, shared her knowledge with them, and, through a game of crude charades, met her love as she led him to the river for buckets of fresh water, her gift to the first birth to matter on this land.
In the few hour-weeks they have known each other, she has served her purpose, enabling him to develop a sense of responsibility. In return, he gets to enjoy her tireless help and the depths of her loyalty. He finds no need for words, no need for her name. He doesn’t even wonder how such a beautiful creature could yet be nameless, nor how he has never heard her speak.
In the second act, by the dying embers of the last joyful fire, he will listen to her quiet hum, the tune she must be channeling from the whispering wind and the history of the sand, and name her for the melancholy melody. He will hear her true voice only once, as they make their final trek into the woods and she joins his faithful hymn.
And so her story goes. For these two and a half hours, she will wear her leather bikini and keep her mouth shut as he falls in love with her and as they fall in love with her, over and over and over again. She will stand at the back, in shadow with her unnamed friends, and wait for him to arrive. They plaster her face on billboards and flyers, use her strong gaze and stronger body to sell tickets to watch the spectacle she has become.
Agona:thenameoftheprincipalroleintheoriginalscriptfor The Lost Colony. A Native womanwhodidnotspeakandwasreferredtoas“theIndianwoman”untilnamedAgonabyaromanticpartner,fromtheagonythatbroughtthemtogether.Herrolehasbeen greatlyeditedinthecurrentproductionscript.
silence noah
silence is the most sincere and delicate outpouring of the universe’s emotions it permeates the ends of our sentences
.. . the beginnings of our connections
. .. the midst of conversations too long to forget but too short to value . ... .. i revel in silence
. .... . i find a comfort in knowing the energy of the wind, trees, and ground have something to say to me something silent some thing silent .
The Quest for MM
Evan Harris
Swimmer’s Ear
Miriam
C. R. . .
The head is an ocean of consciousness, always swelling.
Thoughts ebb, imprints on the synaptic sand.
A crash of bubbles; a tarried wind-swept wave; there is a future I must float to.
Buoyancy is not noiseless.
Struggling means a shouting, a straining subconscious.
Monologuing is a makeshift raft, a savior from the muddish twilight depths.
Can I talk myself out of despair?
Unsteady inhale, my breath shakes more than the refracting sky, blue in the sea.
Anxiety are the glittering fish, a jeweled fusillade that catch and net me.
I’m the whirling, flailing foaming beast
When all these thoughts pool.
The mind is a stream of gull squawks that call, call, call.
The lighthouse-voice of a friend is the settling exhale of wringing ends.
Threatening Silence
Sienna Chase Greenleaf
“IspendalotofmyfreetimeinnaturebecauseIenjoythenoisysilencethatcomeswithit.Moving toSouthCarolinaputmeinthemiddleofasymphonyofsoundwhenIfoundmyselfsittinginmy backyard.Theonecreaturethatneverseemedtojoininontheharmonyofthesurroundingworld wasthemostdangerousone.Ihaveagreatappreciationforalligatorsandtheirsilence,fortheir silencemeanstheyareundisturbedandatpeacewiththeirsurroundings.Theyonlyemitnoise whenthreatenedorduringmatingseason,sotheyspendmostoftheirtimeinaquietstate.I’ve foundpeacesittingnearthecreatures,inaweofthedangertheyrepresent,whilealsoimpressed bythecontrasttheycreateinthesongoftheworldaroundthem.”
Potential energy
Evan Harris
The Metronome
Olivia Pinder
As I watch my life Tick away slowly I reflect, I catalog, The time I’ve wasted: On friends who left me,
scared to face the facts with dark circles, i sigh out Eternity. on family who avoids me. for the seconds I let slip? without progression? brows carved by worry. my chest folds in,
Without feeling guilty
I hoped I wasn’t alone in this waiting room of on men who used me, to spend a minute on me
And I think to myself, When will I finally be able
Punishing the minutes I’m not productive,
But what is production
The clock giggles and points, to someone I don’t recognize
A weary gaze,
Looking closer I realize, She’s me,
My shoulders sink, Because for once,
The notes tremble as they cross space and time, tangibly vibrating under my skin with each pluck of a chord. My instrument directs the melody to my virtuous muse.
Palpable and intimate are the groans of my heart. I play what was given to me and faithfully bring it to life, but under the surface is a stinging shake to my sound.
What my voice ought not expose, the thick air is just a whisper away from revealing, forcibly modulating before it reaches my beloved in any decipherable way.
I fret my lute as the warmth of the orange sun comes to bow before us.
It knowingly glows an amen, as it will never so precisely strike the same chord again.
I let my song resonate into something that can reach you, prolonged and elongated before it fades.
I tantalizingly want what I cannot have, and the wooden body, hollow against my chest, reminds me there is wisdom in nature.
So before I take my leave, I steal a final glance before it happens all over again on the morrow.
Noble Distance
Lisette Littuma
The resplendence of your smile is like a prelude before I lift up my heart to the heavens in all things.
Like a delicate rose under the dewfall, my downcast spirit will be nurtured in full.
Let me take every stride in confidence.
For now, look at my hands as they produce fruits with a rhythm my steps cannot yet follow.
Listen— but not too attentively, so that you may not be left awaiting what I cannot deliver.
The Smallest Vibration
Clara Davis
Notes Take Root
Clara Davis
) ) )
pentru simona lacramioara
Bianca Reznic
the music of your language was my favorite song.
my heart beat to its rhythmic ups and downs as you told me stories and taught me how to dance.
then you split the ocean in half, joined a world where even your name sounded strange.
the cadence of your mother tongue clashed against the harsh, dissonant, demanding score.
scaling a wall of grammar, idioms, suburban sprawl.
with sentences half broken–the music didn’t resolve as well as it once had.
but eventually we learned to sew the notes together; piece by piece, a new melody formed.
it’s new, it’s beautiful.
but the music of your language is still my favorite song.
Managua to Oglala Bella Santos
Og- la- la
Og- la- la
Oglala
Oglala
Og- la- la
To scatter one’s own, Like dandelions in the wind, Like corn husks tearing through a forgotten field, We find new places to co-exist, But first, like soil, we yield.
The rich men are hoarding ice cream in Miami, Frozen treats in sun-touched lands.
I’m welcomed by the warmth beneath my feet. Reminiscent of the stingrays and blackened sands.
Trading folklore for children’s books, And growing gardens in hidden crooks, We find our little corners of the world.
A taxi cab in New York City, I spy a land of suppressed pity, Weeding out the desperate boys and girls. .
My Tia plants a seed out in The Valley, My Mother calls it “Little Mexico.”
She says we will spend our lives climbing up, But my Father keeps an eye out down below.
A stalk has sprouted across the continental, “United States,” a place we all know now.
I hang a starry quilt above my dresser.
And hear a bedtime story from an old powwow
I’m taught about a friend called Fire Deer , Who wandered west for wild buffalo skies, My Mother sings a song about resilience, And I wonder if my Father ever cries.
The scent of Rosquillas floats in from the kitchen. Gallo pinto lingers on my ciphered tongue. One word burrows roots inside my mind, I ask them why, but they tell me I’m “too young.”
Og-la-la
Og-la-la
Like ashes, we scatter our own.
Forever taking over these new places. But like soil, we don’t forget our home.
“Theword“Oglala”means‘toscatterone’sown’inLakota.Itisalsothenameofthe Oglalapeople,adivisionofthelargerLakotaSiouxnation.‘BuffaloSkies’isanold LakotalegendfeaturingamannamedFireDeerwhotraveledtosearchforthelong lostbuffaloherds.Hediscoveredthatthebuffalodisappearedintotheskytofleethe destruction of colonization.”
*
Echoes Above
Clara Davis
