Symposium Spring 2023

WHAT WE’RE ABOUT

Symposium and Semicolon are the official publications of the Arts and Humanities Students’ Council at Western University, published bi-annually. To view previous editions or for more information about our publications, please contact the AHSC in Room 2135 at University College. Publications can also be viewed virtually at issuu.com/ahscpubs.

Symposium features creative work from Arts and Humanities undergraduate students. It accepts inventive creative writing and visual art.

Sharing one’s work can often be daunting, so the Publications Team would like to thank all students who submitted their creative pieces. Thank you for trusting us with your art.

Editor-in-Chief: Safaa Ali

Academic Managing Editor: Abbie Faseruk

Creative Managing Editor: Demitra Marsillo

Copy Editor: Samantha Ellis

Copy Editor: Julia Piquet

Layout Designer: Jadyn Smith

VP Communications and Cover Designer: Michelle Sadorsky

AN ARTS AND HUMANITIES STUDENTS’ COUNCIL PUBLICATION

VOLUME 10 ISSUE 2 SPRING 2023

Copyrights remain with the artists and authors. The responsibility for the content in this publication remains with the artists and authors. The content does not reflect the opinions of the Arts and Humanities Students’ Council (AHSC) or the University Students’ Council (USC).

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Have we truly reached the end of the semester? After a full year of meetings, reviewing pieces, and planning launch parties, it’s hard to fathom that everything is winding down.

Our theme for this semester was “The Quotidian,” which centred on the nuances of day-to-day existence. We were particularly inspired by the delicacy and elegance of the submissions; each poem, painting, and short story was a considered exercise in bringing the mundane to life.

This semester brought many fresh changes, from a record number of submissions, to a Fleetway launch party with pizza and bowling. There was also our successful proposal of a Publications portfolio on council, meaning after this year the Editor-in-Chief will hold Vice President status and will oversee a larger team. In other words, look forward to more student engagement, a dedicated social media presence, and even more opportunities to get involved — there has never been a better time to join Pubs!

Now, a couple of final thank yous from me:

Firstly, thank you to Michelle for helping me through all the flustered inquiries. Our publications would not have seen the light of day without you.

Secondly, thank you to every member of the Publications team for your patience and passion for all things Pubs. Past the inside jokes and icebreakers and ridiculous movies (thanks, Sam…), there are not enough kind words I can say about each of you. You all rock, and I think Keanu would agree.

Finally, an enormous thank you to you, the reader, for picking up this issue.

It has been my absolute pleasure to be your Editor-in-Chief this year, but I will now step aside and let you enter the world of “The Quotidian.”

All my best wishes.

Safaa Ali Editor-in-Chief

1 2 3 4 5 5 6 7 8 9 10

For My Person, For My Home

By Kiersten Fay

:) We Love to Fish :)

By Chloe Serenko

A New Makeshift Home

By Jules Lee

Cake Fellows By

Emily Kings

Getting mad online

By Claudia Kindrachuk

Baby Fever By

Katherine Barbour

September 19th

By Chloe Serenko

What Social Anxiety Does to a Fantasy-Loving Teen

By Hannah MacLeod Kerr

The Doors, Hamilton

By Marissa Slack

I think, therefore I am:

By Shayla Bramer

Hear, Understand

By Siddharth Maheshwari

oranges

By Caitlin Chu

Space Trip

By Cadence Desmarais

8:09 PM

By Timothy Wiebe

Uptown and Downtown By

Hollie Rosewood

A Modern Pygmalion By Destiny Hopkins

Kudzu

By Abigail Scott

Sketches of Domesticity By

Gray Brogden

It Runs Deep By

Emily Kings

Waves By Gareth Boyle

30 31 32 33 34

The Walking Man By

Jack Cocker

You’re Dying And I’m Blonde Now By

Ruth Francois

The Altar By

Emma Hardy

TAP By Kelly Luu

Foreseedable By

Cadence Desmarais

How it Feels to Fall Asleep

By Darija Silic

A Love Letter to My Ballet Shoes

By Tiffany Lin

Para Bellum

By Jessie Yang

Untitled (Red Trees)

By Jack Cocker

in my dreams i’m making you pasta and nothing bad has happened to us.

By Izzy Siebert

listen to my echo

By Tiffany Lin

Bookmarked WikiHow pages for the philophobic

By

Gray Brogden

Requite

By Marissa Slack

A Love Letter to the Colour White

By Kathy Zhang

I hope my watch is broken

By Katherine Walker

FOR MY PERSON, FOR MY HOME

By Kiersten Fay

I want to love, to learn how to love you (whoever you are), to learn how to be loved (whoever I am), and build a home for what I long for.

It is you-

my person and all the gentle things in life: the gracious glow as the day rises, painting the glistening glass panels in yellow light. Life is serene as your hums echo through the house, landing on the soothing, hardwood floors, with each row perfectly in line, warming my bare feet.

I remember when I first came over and I sat serenely with you for hours as if my dreams had painted the walls of my reality, yet the ground under my feet never felt so firm, never so euphoric.

I finally find a home in your arms, laughing at the unexpected intimacy, becoming distracted by sun-kissed comfort you give me while all we do is talk. It shakes the very foundation I stand on and I lean on you for support. (Can we support each other?)

I see us building a space of our own, decorated with pictures of infinite memories next to the shelves overflowing with paperbacks of our adventures and we can take more photographs as the house ages and our bodies leave their impressions in the corduroy upholstery.

I want to learn to become the kind of love I want myself; to pull back the curtains as the sky is enveloped in thunder and envelop myself in the warmth of crisp white linen sheets, entangling myself as I am lulled into dreams with sweet-scented candles, reflecting on the handle of the door

which I keep locked.

I hope you (whoever you will be) can love me and I (whoever I will be) can love you, and we can be a home.

I will try to leave the key under the mat.

:) WE LOVE TO FISH :)

By Chloe Serenko

A NEW MAKESHIFT HOME

By Jules Lee

At the age of eleven, I became acquainted with the cracks of pale blue paint running on my bedroom walls — I would stare at them for hours, until the sun changed their shapes to ink splotches and father’s shouts simmered to mother’s sighs. I turned the wall with the window into a grainy film and my sister’s beer-stained breath into a tasteless apple juice — I hoped for warmer weeks, for a believable beacon.

To dream of laughter seeping from under my door with an aroma so gentle I could not help but drool.

At the age of mere nineteen, I became familiar with the glitter glued down tight to the tiles on my cold bathroom floor — they’d look right through me, until my roommates took the bananas in the freezer and turned them to bread, and the skunk outside crawled back into her hole. I played the scratching sounds coming from my walls on a speaker and placed the snickering coming from down the stairs into a photo album.

To remember last September, the time we shook the coffee table with pure joy, nothing but candy wrappers at our feet. When we signed the papers with ballpoint pens, I thought we agreed this was our dwelling, but uncertainty grew mold in the vents. After all of the dancing and burnt throats, the slow mornings spent with open windows and obnoxious sirens passing through, this house morphed into a motel. We stood and watched it happen — we studied things like this in class and kept our time in the living room short, walking past each door on tippy toes with teeth in our palms. Polite laughter in the kitchen, a black eye, its bruises living on the rough edges of my shins, and chewing like mice in plastic cages. These four walls and this slanted ceiling would no longer be ours, but we were to find sequins on the bottom of our socks far into the Summer — reminding us of the watercolor portraits we packed in freezing boxes. They slouched on the front porch and tried to converse with us, but we shut them out by searching for a new makeshift home.

CAKE FELLOWS

By Emily Kings

GETTING MAD ONLINE

By Claudia Kindrachuk

You don’t know how this saved me from drowning After my ship capsized, made me buoyant With hope. But I can see you now, frowning Like a matron at my sick enjoyment.

It’s words on a screen, imagined figures, Pain and pleasure just theoretical. You lunge for bait, a too-quick translator, Say I’m a monstrous parenthetical, Beating wives, beheading cats, conjuring A twisted world with your glinting teeth bared. But under all that gilded posturing, I smell blood-red fear. And you should be scared, ’Cause the next time you poke my stitched-up heart, I’m going to fucking tear you apart.

BABY FEVER

By Katherine Barbour

it’s two a.m. & i have a half-eaten burger warming the crook of my clavicle i tell Toni that it feels like a baby lettuce like tufts of tawny hair she laughs from above me

it’s a sharp, thorned sound the sound of wine

when it smacks the back of your throat

she is sitting on the stairs

the ones painted in black lacquer & cries every second step sometimes i take them two at a time when i can’t bear the howl

Toni’s feet bracket my face from where i am laying on the floor

I pinch the smooth skin above her ankle

it’s prickly, a sandpaper pinch a grating between thumb & forefinger she lifts up one foot

a pink sock with a hole at the heel & pretends to stomp down i cry out, clutch my baby to my cradle at some point we stop laughing at some point we finish the grease

thumb digging into a molar at some point she drags me off floor like a girl plucking a dandelion abandoning all the roots

SEPTEMBER 19TH

By Chloe Serenko

WHAT SOCIAL ANXIETY DOES TO A FANTASY-LOVING TEEN

By Hannah MacLeod Kerr

We fall.

But not down a rabbit hole, or through a looking glass. We fall deep within ourselves, Looking for the magic that we have been told is there. ‘Dig deeper, it’s there.’ So we fall longer. And we fall harder. We start looking for things that aren’t there, Parts of ourselves that we have kept hidden, Saved, For the day the monsters come.

Patient.

Listening.

Waiting.

For the day our fear will leave.

THE DOORS, HAMILTON

By Marissa Slack

I THINK, THEREFORE I AM:

By Shayla Bramer

I think I’m non-binary. To be honest, I don’t really know. I say “I think” to soften the blow Of rendering myself stagnant.

I know that I am not a woman. Though I wish I could still be your daughter; Being raised as your girl Taught me great strength. Perhaps it is why I mourn her loss.

I know I am not a man. I armour myself in masculinity To ensure my comfort and protection. I have no desire to bare the title “he” Yet many seem reluctant to accept A princess in knight’s armour.

I do not fit within the binary; I’m a living multiplicity destined for change, But I’m bound by the stubbornness Of those clinging to classification.

I am non-binary, For it is a title I feel best suited for. “They” allows me to be a multiplicity Whilst allowing me to be identified By a world with a death grip on singularity.

HEAR, UNDERSTAND

By Siddharth Maheshwari

(zubaan) — the Hindi word for tongue Also to speak, to have voice, express and Create

I wield this tool

It’s a weapon, a flame

Like the one given to Prometheus To create and sustain

The provides the (jaan) — life That is drawn out of darkness

The fire which is catalyzed by your force But one that also produces it

If you let it flow

It can be therapy, even ecstasy

I can’t promise you serenity The piece of mind That comes without peace

Ctrl C+V leading to a 404 Error

Dropping square pegs Into round holes

Expecting epiphanies, communicating with vacuum

Holistic retrofits

Navigating new territory Made of old and old Structures can unbind, The monopolization of meaning.

ORANGES

By Caitlin Chu

this summer, I picked oranges off the chalky vines growing through her legs.

the underbelly of the beach could only hold one person beneath its ever-longing lips.

the sunshine birthed a happiness of cold melon, and sandy toes.

the waves felt only warm on that lonely summer’s day.

our breath crumbled into autumn leaves, crisp fingers locked into side steps.

a crescent snack to share, in between chittering train tracks.

teeth pressed against the caramel glass sways an old waltz, to a jukebox of our future.

in winter’s warm bosom she looks so stunning, splayed across the moonlight.

an iridescent widow of the Holy dragon, i confess matrimony to the webbing of her feet.

she kisses hot iron heat down my throat. i swallow a whale of shameful property.

i am left barren, bound to grow the poisoned fruit that tickles trickery and sweet honey through its supple skin.

SPACE TRIP

By Cadence Desmarais

By Timothy Wiebe

HOW IT FEELS TO FALL ASLEEP

By Darija Silic

midnight sea urchins with a jolted pulse puncture my ceiling-brains.

your komorebi magenta freckles dazzle my skin like television static dropping in my cavern-stomach, like the dizzy kaleidoscope that clinks, chinks, W A R P S your violets, emeralds, and golds, (lest the urchins ooooooze from the abyss in my closet to CRUSH my rib cage and w h i s p e r dripping

bloody red

terror from rolled-back eyes and gaping-void mouth),

so on our tippy-dippiest toes, we abscond beyond the limits of my prose, and you d i p me like a lover that knows the secrets of the ___________ in the centre, rhizome embryo

and in this place, for a very short while, i am unlaced, untactile, unself, unknown.

DOWNTOWN AND UPTOWN

By Hollie Rosewood

“The only difference between downtown and uptown is therapy and valium.” -Lady Gaga

1: Bird’s-Eye View

One side is a river full of feathers and trout; The other eats foie gras just to throw cash about. One side is for blue, for youth, and for truth; The other’s for red, for greed veiled behind suits. One side makes musicians and theatres and murals; The other, politicians, tailored sneakers, intramurals.

One side is of rainbows: trout, oil, and crosswalks; The other is of monochrome: black-and-white, they talk of.

The troublesome south stains the picture-perfect north Where lawns with limousines reveal one’s worth Descendants of four-leaf clovers, have mercy — Your people know not what they have.

A whole world of wonder reserved for the “betters”

The twinkle won’t trickle from their sparkly letters Descendants of four-leaf clovers, have mercy — Our names won’t be set in rhinestones.

One side is the salmon who fought for their pay; The other must flail to not drown in the bay. One side is for fire, the monuments, the poppies; The other’s for ashes, no honouring of bodies. One side makes the money to fund all the marts; The other, “welfare pets” — will they ever have a part? One side is of monochromes: reds, shades, and greens; The other is of rainbows: “art” and oil spills to clean.

The picture-perfect north hides the troublesome south Where a former dentist idles, foam coming out his mouth Descendants of ravens and crows, have mercy — He knows well what he has lost.

But! There’s a whole world of wonder reserved for the “lessers” Tight flocks; free concerts; iridescent feathers

Descendants of ravens and crows, take pity — We clovers know not what we lack.

- The Flock by the Downtown Dock

2. The Grass is Greener

- The Clover Field Uptown

3. Request to Build a Bridge

Dear neighbours,

The clovers aren’t perfect, despite their pots of gold

The crows aren’t defects if they stray from the mould In soul, each is worth it, more alike than two poles — We need bridges to remember these laws of old.

This business of “other” kills one’s will to appreciate Another. Birds and trefoils who so seldom migrate Or even try to coexist without strife between states — Build bridges and turn over a fresh, blank slate.

A MODERN PYGMALION

By Destiny Hopkins

I long to be caved in. Sunken.

Desolate.

Rotting from the inside out.

I want to look broken and fragile

And delicate and small.

I want you to think I’m more than a living person, That each breath knocks against my ribs

Like an unwelcome hello, and crawls from Between my parched lips

Like an unsavoured goodbye.

I want to see desire in your eyes when you see me.

Not in the ways you want to touch

And pose and see my body,

But in how you could picture the Curl of my smile or the quick lick of my teeth

When you speak to me. I want you to be afraid to speak to me.

To not know what to say because you can’t

Begin to imagine what I’d like to hear.

You crave knowing me.

You desire the moments you’d have with me.

Moments of easy, lazy love without words.

I don’t need you to confess a thousand sins to hold me.

The presence of your longing is enough.

Love me with your soul and want me

Like no one you’ve wanted before.

I want to be special.

I want to be your muse, Your vision, your idol, your broken paper doll.

I am for you and only you.

Give me my existence and

I will give you the image of me.

- Rainbow Bridge Inc. “Constructing Bridges From Rainbows Free of Cost Since the Merging of Rain Inc. and Sun Inc. a Super Long Time Ago.”

KUDZU

By Abigail Scott

The wave looms: dark and colossal, ancient and titanic.

Creeping ever closer, inexorable as the turning of the earth. With nowhere to run, no high ground to flee to, what else is there to do but stand and watch? To wait peacefully for the inevitable? Nothing, I whisper, eyes full of ocean. Nothing.

Delicate tendrils brush my ankle bones, twine ‘round my calves. Leaves obscure my feet. Roots burrow down into the earth below me.

It’s the smell of a storm before the first drop of rain ever falls. It’s the ache of a healed bone when the wind blows cold and the clouds crowd the blue from the sky. It’s the clatter of the die being cast, the first hint of smoke on the breeze, the first faint shiver of the bedrock, the first rumble in the heart of the mountain.

I’m tangling my hands in greenery now, tearing at the leaves as they reach up past my hips. The vines coiled around my legs are thick as snakes, just as relentless; this python of a plant, squeezing, choking, constricting.

The calm before is worse than the storm, in some ways. When the cataclysm finally hits, it comes down to simple action and reaction, a split-second choice in the chaos. To move or to stand your ground; to reach out or to stumble away. It’s the waiting that opens the door to doubt and fear, smuggles them in through the secret entrance and shows them where to dig their fingers in to weather away at your foundations, weaken the walls of your city.

Every time I breathe in, the vines following the curve of my ribs coil tighter. My arms are swathed in green, and it shouldn’t be a comfort. The too-close press of this living thing shouldn’t feel like coming home. And yet…

Everything dies. There’s a kind of peace in that. Ash to ash, dust to dust. Even the tallest mountain can be ground down to powder. Even the strongest man

will dissolve into the soil. Nothing lasts forever. All things shall pass.

Tender yellow-green shoots caress the soft skin of my throat, creeping up over my cheeks, winding into my hair. It won’t be long now until all I see are intricate networks of veins.

‘Till all I hear is the rustle of green things growing.

‘Till all I taste is the sweet tang of chlorophyll. The waiting is almost over.

Silence.

It is done.

The jagged, the barbed, the wretched— all of it gone, swallowed by a carpet of green. Angles softened to curves, eroded into gentleness.

I’m still here, though. I haven’t crumbled, haven’t shattered, haven’t collapsed like a house of cards.

I’m still standing. And I’ll stay that way.

SKETCHES OF DOMESTICITY

By Gray Brogden

You make me want an everyday kind of love— the kind of love I thought I had sworn off. A love where we’d sit on the couch with coffee in hand, next to a roaring fire to keep us warm. Where we’d cook dinner and drink red wine, and I’d ask you about your day— you’d ask me about mine.

I’m not sure how to feel about this new kind of crush. But when you look into my eyes, I know it’d be enough.

IT RUNS DEEP

By Emily Kings

WAVES

By Gareth Boyle

After four months of being with each other every day, the signs of departure were closing in. Eleven of us were on the beach of Portoscuso, where we played keep-up with a volleyball and dove into the Mediterranean waves. Behind us were restaurants — closed for another two months. In June, these restaurants were open for tourists, and this beach welcomed people from all over Sardegna and mainland Italy.

`Dividing the beach and the town were onshore rocks next to a cliffside. They were black, with arteries like small rivers dividing each individual stone. My friend Julian, the twelfth of the group, stood far away on these rocks, looking out at the large island a few miles away. I rose from my spot on the beach, the sand trickling off my turquoise trunks, and tip-toed toward him. I maneuvered around the sharp edges, leaping from flat surface to flat surface like there were seagull wings on my back. With hopes of sneaking up behind him, I clung to the cliff edge to remain out of his sight.

“Ah, G!” he yelled above the sounds of choppy waves. I looked up from my feet and he smiled at me, remaining that way until I got closer.

I put my arm around him. “This is the life, huh, Juli?”

“It sure is.”

His eyes were fixed on the island across the ocean.

“It’s getting close,” I said. “The end.”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking about.”

Waves are not forever. The friction of the wind disturbs the surface of the water and pushes it until it reaches a shore where it crashes and recedes back into the ocean. Some of this water may be pulled into new waves, while some is pulled deep by the current, never to be a wave again. The rocks we stood on broke the waves into a mist that rested on our lower lips, chapping them. We washed it away with local limoncello and water from the well at the center of town.

For four months, the twelve of us had been our own wave. Our molecules collided at the University of Leeds and flowed to the coast of Sardegna. As Juli and I looked out at the island ahead, its shore seemed closer than before, as if the tectonic plates were pushing us to collide and turn into mist. Maybe one day the coasts that separate us will bring us back together again. Maybe we will return to our shores and spray onto the rocks, remaining there until we evaporate.

A LOVE LETTER TO MY BALLET SHOES

By Tiffany Lin

Their rosy sheen reflected in her widened hazel eyes. She was in love, long before her fouryear-old heart could even comprehend such a sentiment. And like anyone in love, she was foolish. Who could blame her?

She had an all-consuming fascination with the blush-pink ballet shoes her mother bought her for Christmas. They shone the same shade as her cheeks when she held them up to the light. Slipping them onto her feet, she felt pure delight which, just like being in love, was foreign to her beating heart. The soft pleather cradled her tiny toes, cushioning the tender bones that were meant for grand pas-de-chats one day.

Soon, she found herself crowned with the halo of a perfectly woven bun, gripping the balmy fingers of other little girls like her and sinking into her first-ever plié. She toppled, like the other girls, in her first pirouette. She stumbled over herself, not unlike the other girls, in her first chaîné turns. But her shoes—her pink pleather ballet shoes—steadied and guided her across the vinyl floor

It wasn’t long before her clumsy legs stopped getting in the way of one another and her feet found their rightful positions in the air.

People told her she was talented. Lucky, even, to float so effortlessly across the studio floors. She would always thank her ballet shoes for keeping her grounded while the number of girls in her classes dwindled.

She was going to be Giselle someday.

The longer she rehearsed, the more she understood her shoes and the more they understood her. They were a friend who proved their dedication religiously as she leapt higher into the air with every step.

Who knew how easy it would be to fly?

So she soared without knowing that the higher the sauté, the harder she would land. And it was all the more exquisite.

Her first heartbreak came when her soft soles were traded for pointe.

Her tired feet were introduced to a completely new shoe faster than she was willing to say goodbye to her old ones. They weren’t gone forever. But they were gone frequently enough for her to need to break into her pointe shoes.

It wasn’t all that different, really. She was familiar enough with her technique that her body continued to swim through the air, even with a foreign box digging into her toes. Even though they weren’t as forgiving.

Still, she found new things to love. There were many if she searched for them. They made her feel like a true ballerina, as if they were the fundamental piece missing from her life. They glistened every time she balancé-ed and brisé-ed into another perfect routine.

The pointe shoes always had to come off eventually. What no one truly saw, as she glided seamlessly across the studio floors, was the crimson-stained interior of her precious, perfect pointe shoes. And no one could ever know.

Her pointe shoes also caused her second heartbreak. It should have occurred to her that a poorly landed tour jeté, under-rosined soles and a slippery stage floor at dress rehearsal would equate to a fractured ankle the night before her first show. She was Giselle.

Until she wasn’t. Instead, she watched from the pews as another girl in pointe shoes performed the dance that was choreographed for herself. She was but another phantom in the audience. No one would see her dance.

Her shoes were a broken promise. A saviour that failed her when it mattered. But as she haunted the cushioned seats in the dark, she couldn’t muster the energy to resent them.

She was back onstage under the sweltering spotlights sooner than anyone expected: the rightful Giselle in her pleated polished shoes. Still, she couldn’t out-dance the exhaustion that was like a plague, snaking through her muscles, poisoning her blood, and enveloping her brain. It was almost

stronger than the allure of her shoes, beckoning her to return whenever she tearfully threatened to shelve them away forever. How could she say no? They’d been so good to her all these years.

Though her smile fooled her audience, she could not fool herself. No amount of tears or sweat, no number of bandages, could really assuage the bruises or heal the gnawing ache in her bones.

Her pointe shoes became bricks tied to her ankles with shiny pink satin. Her sleek black leotard suffocated her lungs. The perfect bun, still fastened at the top of her head, began to come undone.

It was all a delicate pas-de-deux with her sanity in front of an audience she never could see. Their blank faces tilted toward her, following as her pretty shoes listlessly guided her across the floor. She remembered to douse her soles in rosin this time.

Oh, how everyone loved her when she wore those shoes.

She hated that they couldn’t understand her tailored leotard and tulle skirts were a distraction from what blossomed underneath.

The variations of graceful renversés, attitudes, and hyper-extended arabesques were merely a practiced performance, meant for others to pick apart with their glazed-over eyes. For them to go home and remark to their families, “That was beautiful,” but never, “I wonder if it hurts.”

It did.

Perfect satin ballet shoes over battered feet, broken toes, and blistering skin—they were nothing compared to the way her last grand jeté shattered the remaining fraction of her soul.

The truth was that ballet shoes never truly fit her feet, no matter how much she wished it were so. No matter how much she wished she were Giselle, she was merely another ghost, robbed of love, and ultimately, of this world.

The dance was never for herself.

The music was finally ending. Roses prickled her hands. A fragmented soul still had all its beautiful parts. And the thing about perfect pink pointe shoes is that they could always be taken off, after all.

Hair falling around her shoulders like a halo, she took a bow.

PARA BELLUM

By Jessie Yang

I, barely a woman, Call myself Sylvia, Virginia— With my mother’s maiden name.

I think of rotting pretty, Of eating dates and air and tongues So my corpse smells sweet.

Death Rests in a white dress, her fingers Praying, her smile Girlish, theatrical.

I choose a place. The toys in my bedroom An unwanted audience;

The carpet in the living room Too tedious to clean. The cat has claimed the sun patch

On the kitchen floor; The bathtub overflows With another shipwreck.

I lay in the garden, My serpent ring loose on my index. Would I bloom next spring? Would you cut me once again?

UNTITLED (RED TREES)

By Jack Cocker

IN MY DREAMS I’M MAKING YOU PASTA AND NOTHING BAD HAS HAPPENED TO US.

Title Credits: @vick_jpg

By Izzy Siebert

i’ve been writing gentle poems lately. i never used to but these days i’ve been craving sunlight and turning my cheek west when i walk home, breathing sunbeams like they’re oxygen.

when golden light floods my lungs, i become a study in life support painted in january blues.

the sun sets early. water boils on the burner. drops speckle the stovetop when i leave it too long. my palm drifts through the column of steam and it doesn’t hurt me this time.

my pen used to love words like burn, scorch, scald, ache, empty, hollow— but lately i am hungry for happy endings. i want to taste words like home and safe and full.

it’s dark outside. thousands of flakes drift down. the shadows are deep, almost blue.

when you meet me in the kitchen light, the snow has already melted from your lashes. comfort food, you call it. i’ve never craved anything more.

in my hands, the bowl is as gold and as warm as sunlight.

LISTEN TO MY ECHO

By Tiffany Lin

I think I loved you once.

I did love you once Your laughter was always like Thinly-sliced nectarines, Sprinkled with sugar and golden sun rays.

It made me realize I had a sweet tooth And I craved relentlessly Your words slowly became Music to my ears that I tried to grasp Between stained-glass fingers.

I never quite understood your genre But I still listened Clouds parted like oceans for you And I was your sunflower, Fated to thirst and hunger. For you.

I never liked sunflowers like you did. Knowing that you loved me In the only ways that you knew how Hurts me more than Knowing it was okay Just hating you.

Am I still supposed to apologize?

BOOKMARKED WIKIHOW PAGES FOR THE PHILOPHOBIC

By Gray Brogden

How to know if he likes you / How to date / How to accept a compliment / How to ghost someone / How to be a better girlfriend / How to trust him / How to know if he’s cheating / How to say you’re sorry / How to be lazy on a Sunday morning / How to unlock his phone / How to stop asking the internet for answers / How to say “I love you” / How to stay instead of run / How to stop saying you’re sorry / How to get over your insecurities / How to fall asleep with someone in your bed / How to accept him paying for dinner sometimes / How to disappear without a trace / How to say “I love you” without having a panic attack / How to walk through the farmer’s market, buying bell peppers and carrots, without dropping his hand

REQUITE

By Marissa Slack

A LOVE LETTER TO THE COLOUR WHITE

By Kathy Zhang

Dear White, your ever-changing form bewilders me, from the stars in the night sky to the grains of hunger-filling rice, your every incarnation overwhelms my senses with bliss.

My beautiful White, you are the silk and satin worn on my body, caressing my skin with a delicate yet lustrous touch. Like the water of a serene spring, you envelop my figure, gliding across my flesh, gently flowing across the nape of my neck, through the small of my back, over the crease of my hips. I want to hold you, to revel in your touch.

My seraphic White, you are the angel of the skies, with a porcelain complexion that puts fine china to shame. You are the marble pillar erecting the roof of God’s palace, holding its brilliance above the clouds. Your divinity is brighter than the August sun, enough to illuminate the darkest crevices of a stone cave. I am unworthy of gazing at your ethereal halo.

My precious White, you are the salt that melts on my tongue, the mineral that resonates with all cuisine. You harmonize with all dishes. Your sharpness is the soprano of a choir. Your saline taste brings out the best in each ingredient, never overbearing, but ever-present.

My sweet White, you are the bouquet of daisies in my picnic basket. Your aroma is a sweetness like cotton candy, a lushness of eucalyptus, an intoxication more than any drug. You are nature’s perfume blanketing me.

My lovely White, you are the noise that accompanies me to sleep. You are the product of perfection and all the world has to offer, the combination of all frequencies together at equal intensity. A gentle breeze whispering in my ear. You are omnipresent, making up the walls of my mind.

White, you are the blood cells that make me, the milk that nourishes the young, the candles that enable the flame, and the many more of you not said. I love you in all your forms. I love all of you.

I HOPE MY WATCH IS BROKEN

By Katherine Walker

I have never been more aware of time

Than when I have to call my parents from a different city

Instead of a different room

Than when I have to ask them when they’re going to pick me up for break

Instead of from practice

Than when I have to make dinner for one

Instead of four

Than when I have to text my favourite people goodnight

Instead of kissing it into their cheeks

Than when I have to pack a bag to stay in my hometown

Instead of packing one to leave it

I have never been more aware of time

And it weighs on me daily

Hourly

My neighbour used to be my brother’s room next to mine

My housemates used to be my family

The streets I drove on were my own

Now I live in a town that hosts people on a rotation

No one stays here

No one rests

This is a steppingstone

I don’t want to leave

And all I want to do is go

I have never been more aware of time

And it never listens to me

It races against my heartbeat

And it crawls towards my childhood home

I have never been more aware of time

So, I’ve started to waste it.

THE WALKING MAN

By Jack Cocker

YOU’RE DYING AND I’M BLONDE NOW

By Ruth Francois

you’re dying and i’m blonde now. please don’t ask. that’s not fair.

it’s been more than a few months; it’s been more than years so i changed everything about me and i keep my nails painted and i wear gold, not silver, and i’m blonde now.

it’s pretty obvious that things have changed. have you?

if i came across you now, how would things be different? would i be picking curtains and paint colours and picking you up after a shift? would i live at home with delusions of a fantasy house in the near future, and dreams of children we would share?

anyways, we are who we are now.

i cut off all the parts of me that reminded me of you, from my hair to every spot of my skin you ever touched. now you are lying in a hospital bed, begging me to come visit. i have; i probably will, one last time. i keep visiting and i keep regretting.

i visit with our old friends, i visit on my own, i visit in the middle of the night and i leave with tears running down my face.

why do tears run, anyway? you wouldn’t give me a satisfactory answer. you’re dying.

i’d like to think if i was dying, somehow you’d know. someone would slip up and tell you, and because i think you are obsessed with me you would make a dashing path through a hospital only to be denied entrance to my bedside. if i was dying, i could tell you everything i think of you, but you are dying and i’m not allowing you the same courtesy. instead the narrative is all me: you look small in your hospital bed. you look weak. one day, you will beg me to visit for the last time and i will say no. i’ll be so strong then, i’ll be fabulously blonde and i’ll have lost the weight of everything you laid upon my shoulders. you are dead, and my hair has turned to brass.

THE ALTAR

By Emma Hardy

“The Altar” acrylic paint on stretched canvas, 12”x12”. For this painting, I used a collection of everyday objects which reside on my bedside table and which carry personal significance relating to the people I care about. There is the mug of tea which I drink every morning, a pair of purple sunglasses I bought when I went thrifting with my friends, a heart-shaped rose quartz my little sister gave to me before I left for university, two turtle figurines that I keep for good luck and to remind me of home, and the succulent plant my dad bought for me when he moved me into my dorm. On the plant pot also hangs a pair of hummingbird earrings which I wear for good luck, and a jade pendant necklace which all the women in my family have a tradition of wearing. All the items hold some importance to me, and so this painting is something of an altar to my daily life.

TAP

By Kelly Luu

Tris-Acetate-Phosphate:

If you were like water, if you were like air, whether I wanted you or not, I’d be standing, and you’d still be there. Being medium to live out my function. Unaware of cycle time. And in your absence, I die, or die slowly.

Cold: slows. Heat: stuns. We’ve been taught to forget the atmosphere. They assumed if I drunk you up, I’d thrive. Forgetting my other basic needs.

You aren’t. You are not.

And when you decay, your body will emit CO2. You fertilize the earth. The new plants slurp you up. In a thousand years, some creature treads over you, wonders what you are.

Maybe you are dust to them. Like me who stands here, laughing, inhaling, exhuming specs of dignitaries cycling through the air. Death does do us part?

We roll over, nod to your dirt friends, slumbering on bagazillionfinity particles. Maybe the worms will have evolved, and by then, they’ll sup on something else.

FORESEEDABLE

By Cadence Desmarais