Volition - Fall 2025

Volume 39

CONTENTS POETRY & PROSE Mikyah Young

Don’t forget me | 5

Liam Tikoyan

Visiting Hours | 8 - 9 Tilting Our Heads To Their Heaven | 38

Jenny Whitehead

Beaulahland | 11

Layla Hasanzadah

Prayers to God on a Bumpy Flight | 12 Life, Elsewhere | 16 Memento | 19 Even Still | 35

Keyan

Julia Mack

I’m Well, How Are You | 24 - 25 “The UN condemned the senseless slaughter of over 150 Palestinians as...” | 30 god is an american | 28 - 29

MISSION STATEMENT Volition serves to elevate the creative capacity of the Mason community by fostering freedom of expression across diverse mediums.

VOLUME 39 FALL 2025

ART & PHOTOGRAPHY Amy Boteler

Unbuttoned | Cover

Valerie Acosta

Art in Unconventional Places | 3 Alone with myself | 4

Emi Lundblad

Contacts | 6 Jump! | 7 Drowned in Gold | 31

Jenny Whitehead

Master Marigold | 10

Maria Alejandra Carrillo

dykes | 13 Abu, June | 17 Greyson | 18

Savannah M. Sok

Look at Me! | 14 Corvus Corax | 34

Susan Melissa Paz

Neveah | 15 Perceptive Severance | 22

Regan Malone

Divine Dawn | 20 - 21

Claire Willard and Hannah Tallant Asharee Davis

Sovereign | 23 Beyond the Lights | 26 Who am I | 32 Serene | 33 Beyond Joy | 39

Nafia Syeed

Happy Pill 4 | 27

Iyah Al-Ani

Majlis and Cards | 36 Bloom of Spring | 37

Letter from the Editor Volition’s mission has always been to create a platform for George Mason Students to express themselves, to promote their creativity, and use their voice in an artistic way. We strive to give GMU students a safe place to connect with each other, and to tell their stories using prose and art. When our staff sits to put together our volume every semester, we are touched. We see ourselves, and our stories in yours. What makes Volition so special and so intimate is that we are run by students, for students. College is a time in a person’s life that is so difficult to explain. Everything is constantly changing, including us. Life becomes so incredibly unpredictable and suddenly anything is possible. Your path is never truly clear and never truly certain. This can make this time in our lives so beautiful, so colorful and incandescent. It can also be terrifying, and soul shaking.

In this volume of Volition, we truly felt that was what you all were trying to express. We saw ourselves in your fear, in your uncertainty, in your desire to cling to what was, and to the solid ground that was childhood. We felt your angst, your passion and your restlessness.

We saw ourselves, our stories, and what we sometimes cannot say, reflected in your art and your prose. It is a unique gift to give someone, to be able to put into something tangible what they cannot.

For this and for making up our volume, we thank our contributors. A few of you have submitted and been published in several of our volumes, and you’ve been a part of the Volition family for years. It’s an honor to grow with you, and put your art into our volume.

Without your bravery to create and submit, we wouldn’t be able to put together the volumes we do. Thank you for seeing me, I promise we see you right back.

I want to personally thank our entire Volition team. Our editors, our graphic designers, our peer reviewers, absolutely nothing is possible without them. They are the glue and staples that hold all of this art together. I also want to thank our advisor from Student Media, Jason Hartsel, for always believing in us, pushing when we need to be pushed, and always having our back.

I hope you love Volume 39 as much as we loved making it. I hope you see yourself in it. I hope it speaks to you the way it spoke to us. I hope it is a safe place for everything you feel inside to be felt as bravely and as strongly as possible. I can't wait to put together the next one. Until then, bask in this one, and soak in its familiarity. All my love, Natalia Romero Executive Editor 2 Spring 2025 4

12/18/25 1:01 PM

Art in Unconventional Places | Valerie Acosta | Photography 3

Alone with myself | Valerie Acosta | Photography 4

Don’t Forget Me The capricious weather blossomed my skin, unfolding reminiscent memories of what I once cherished as a child.

As the weather shivered through my spine, the cold breeze touched my cheek, which had awakened the morning kisses that I had awaited before school.

The smell of rain reminded me of my little shoe prints that had once made their mark in water puddles as I bounced and splashed around, leaving behind the cold feeling of innocence that was soon departing from me, as adolescence awaited me. So, I guess life does have its own rules.

Whispers from the wind comforted me with assuring words that everything will be ok.

That the sun won’t drift away as I grow.

Don’t stop shining on me, don’t disappear when I need you, don’t forget to bless me with your golden light that warms in cold times. I need to remember that there's still light in the world where souls age.

| Mikyah Young 5

Contacts | Emi Lundblad | Gouache 6

Jump! | Emi Lundblad | Soft Pastel 7

Visiting Hours It feels awkward everytime I rush outside to the street late at night, peripherally conscious of the tired 20-somethings walking by and flicking glances towards our reunion like quiet judgments.

It’s dark, and cold, and I jump from foot to foot while ignoring how much my teeth chatter. I lean into the window of your car and try to forget how out of place we seem—cars pass by, of course, but they park or idle for a moment before dropping something off and driving back up the hill, into the darkness of the wider world.

Your car, in contrast, tends to stand for at least an hour, and I keep hopping from foot to foot outside of it, pouring words into the crisp evening silence as I regale you with everything I have kept swirling within my mind.

There is a bubbling mass of information inside of me and you are all too willing to absorb it. You just smile as you drink the flurry of my wilding speeches.

I know how much you treasure these moments, and not only because you tell me so. Please understand that, despite the lengths of time between my texts or calls, I miss seeing you too. There is some societal pressure tittering in my ear that tells me to be a good 20-something year old and draw a line between my independence and your unyielding support.

And despite letting these distances lay between us, despite my negligence to return what you have given me for years, I am all too aware of how much I miss you.

Always, your impermanence is at the forefront of my mind, and sometimes I can’t help but keep listening to the songs that mourn what is not lost yet. Once, you professed that the men | Liam Tikoyan 8

that struck the middle of my chest was a car crash collision, and I could see your body being crushed between the air bag and the driver's seat, and I could see your head lolling limply, vividly, eyes unseeing, and I could feel the absence of you more cloyingly than the taste of copper on my tongue.

Eventually, you clamber out of your seat to really see me, instead of letting me separate us through the wall of the car door. You hand me a bag of chips because our family has always been sweeth-tooths.

I lightly groan about you spoiling me, and take it. I talk and talk and talk until I realize the time, and berate myself for neglecting my schoolwork, and you tell me to get going but I somehow keep come circling back to more and more things to share with you. You smile.

You want me to sit next to you for a while and stay there.

Truly, you want me to press into your side and mold myself around the rolls of your body, head leaning into your chest, smaller than I am now, where you can see the lamp light reflected in my eyes and imagine they are the stars I once yearned to discover.

Yet always, at the forefront of your mind, you dwell on how I am surely much too busy, reading the long double-columned slogs of academia, listening dutifully to the drone of a tenured professor, churning out half-hearted essays on topics no one really cares about, and laughing with friends who you hope are corralling me to step outside my room and see the sun sometimes.

I have always shied away from your touch, and I know that you know that I am tip-toeing away from making contact; forgive the shame-addled boy inside me, please. I can only offer you my rants and complaints and all the passion-imbued volleys you allow me, for I am all too mindful of the role

9

Master Marigold | Jenny Whitehead | Digital Photography 10

Beaulahland I see her Sometimes, in the mirror, In my mother's face.

When the hummingbirds twist, And kiss the feeder.

Her paper soft cheek.

Anamnesis; Greeting lemon mint, Bewitching colossal sunflower, Stump hollow Hens n' Chicks. Floating across patios, Faint Vanilla Fields.

Her call whispers at the edges. Echoing, superimposed In my dreaming.

A hopeful slumberland; I will see her. | Jenny Whitehead 11

Prayers to God on a Bumpy Flight A droplet kissed my lips as I prayed to Him. I think that it’s a sign.

Neck rolling side to side.

I keep my elbows touching theirs So God knows we are just cans strung on a wire.

If I hold them now, As our stomachs drop below sea level, You can hear my metallic desperation Echo out under grooved surfaces And greyed faces.

I clutch a red Slick Book sleeve With a hand on it — Hoping she’d hold mine back Or pinch me.

I rub their arms every hour, Meeting the quota That allows my chest to expand And the wire to remain tethered.

It frayed last night.

With the sound of A lamp falling in slow motion To the vinyl flooring And a smile dropping Faster than it spread.

| Layla Hasanzadah 12

But I imagine the feeling Of skin I’ve never touched.

Drinking drinks I have drunk.

Scuffed shoes I see in aisles beyond me. Flickers of lives that can’t be mine.

And I just hope You’ll let them Go on, Even if we only speak This very once.

dykes | Maria Alejandra Carrillo | 35mm Film 13

Look at Me! | Savannah M. Sok | Photography 14

Neveah | Susan Melissa Paz | Oil Paint on Canvas 15

Life, Elsewhere Mouth forcefully submerged under willowy green Gasping for breaths of blue and barrels Dry saplings stretch shrugging shoulders with little bravado Heavy heads bounce gently On patterned play and tall rests Older woman sits alone with hands crossed — Knees, too

Weary neck crooked to one side I wish she knew to ask me What I thought of her Just now

| Layla Hasanzadah 16

Abu, June | Maria Alejandra Carrillo | 35mm Film 17

Greyson | Maria Alejandra Carrillo | 35mm Film 18

Memento Stark yellow removed from his wrist You clutch it in your hands As though it were his sleeve aloft Swinging merrily with the Walking of a man alive With the swell of directioned Languid Lurching He waits for you Somewhere you’ve never been And often you have to squeeze your lids Shut them tight To imagine his shy smile From so far away And I miss him for you

And I miss you for him | Layla Hasanzadah 19

20

Divine Dawn | Regan Malone | Photography 21

Perceptive Severance | Susan Melissa Paz | Ink on Paper 22

Sovereign | Claire Willard and Hannah Tallant | Photography 23

I’m Well, How Are You It’s only clear in the silent chambers The crusty cracked pillars Past my collection of snares Further down the dusty dim light doorway In the light, I am happy. All is well.

Society has created an ideal for me to strive for. And when the taxi driver asks me if I’m striving for it I say: “You bet I am!”

When the professor finishes her lecture I stop by and ask additional questions And she compliments me and pats me on the back for Following the grain.

When I used to eat dinner with a family After days of cheating in school and fighting till blood and shoeshine stained the tile floor They’d ask me if I was following orders I’d salute them and eagerly and say” “You bet I am!”

It’s only now during dinner that I think Alone Of some sort of escape

| Keyan 24

Maybe the taxi driver can take me someplace far away Or the professor instill truth that cures me Or my family give me love But as the hours pass And the solitude feels more like loneliness now than Freedom The dawn breaks and it begins to dawn on me that I’ve got to engineer my way out of this situation that I Never came into willingly.

25

Beyond the Lights | Asharee Davis | Photography 26

Happy Pill 4 | Nafia Syeed | Mixed Media Collage 27

god is an american and the opening act is gone but they know their place in the world they made a banner to wave around the stage with “abortion rights now” in black impact font a bold choice, but in the next decade, will they be here to stay? the person that chose the intermission music seems to be a really big fan of David Bowie the songs drone on and on but even in the time between then and now, “God is an American”, wasn’t that true? my mother loves to entertain me she will do anything to be at my side even beside me, she can’t pronounce the name of the band right although she tries, she rounds out the “ch” sound too much, probably because she took french when she was my age I am waiting for Molchat Doma on a snowy February night in 2025 the roads are closed we took the subway in I can’t go home even if I wanted to but I don’t want to God is an American but I don’t feel like I have anything in common with God I don’t think I could come up with any conversation topics nothing better than “did you hear the news?”

| Julia Mack 28

it’s plastic soul and a plastic heaven for all with the eyes to see I wish I didn’t see it and I am waiting for Molchat Doma on a snowy February night on the second floor of seats looking down upon them all I don’t believe in God but I almost believe in myself complicity and complacency collide but there is nothing worse than guilt without reason

will I be enlightened by you, my wonderland, or will you shoot me down as I peer over the edge of the railing? either way, it’s only right.

You sit as the lights go down.

I stand so that I may cheer.

It’s only right, (катится, катится колесом) and my place is here with everyone else.

everything I consider a part of “myself” is borrowed from ideas that are long-lost now, never mine, I fear I have found too much anger in introspection and I fear I will be a pale, dull, lonely girl from pale, dull, lonely suburbia forever living in pristine and empty rooms If I never grow up enough to drive I cannot crash I shall not crash The terror of living is enough as is, but I can’t just waste it, so, slaviboo, it’s up to you. welcome to Washington DC, the heart of the beast the roads are unsafe under beautiful hazy gray skies all the demons and wonders are here this is my world this is our world and I will see this through

29

“The UN condemned the senseless slaughter of over 150 Palestinians as...”

Wireless headphones and The capacity to destroy the planet 700 times over Stock market charts pulse up and down The veteran takes his last breath His heart machine isn’t influenced by investment.

The proven and worn out too rigid for compromise.

The young ride their moral superiority straight into a sunset of delusion.

The Olive Tree stands strong and does not shed a tear as the child who planted it many summers ago, many UN rebukes ago, is split into so many pieces her family can only infer she is no longer flesh and bone but shrapnel, too.

| Keyan 30

The innocent burn in hell while the warmongers play golf with cigars worth more than the lives that made them.

A branch is all that remains the bulldozers consumed the rest.

A few olives in the dirt now.

A branch with no tree A tree with no future A future with no Olive Trees.

That branch is worth more than all the missiles in the galaxy.

Drowned in Gold | Emi Lundblad | Gouache 31

Who am I | Asharee Davis | Photography 32

Serene | Asharee Davis | Photography 33

Corvus Corax | Savannah M. Sok | Micron Pens 34

Even Still Frogs screaming with the weight of night What a joy to eat up the darkness And spit it out at your lover Toes buried in the mud Lids bathed in moonlight I only hope You can hear me Over the ruckus

| Layla Hasanzadah 35

Majlis and Cards | Iyah Al-Ani | Photography 36

Bloom of Spring | Iyah Al-Ani | Photography 37

Tilting Our Heads To Their Heaven Yellow vinyl dresses, yellow vinyl fingers, splayed like feathers.

In swarms, they are reaching into the ethereal garden, spines arched and arms outstretched, looking up, and up, and up— further still.

(Cover your eyes.

You are leaving footprints in the starlight.)

Today I journey to the pit inside your stomach, inside the earth.

Every single one of those eden-craving sunbursts, in their bellies, a perfect | Liam Tikoyan 38

Please, wait by the grassfields for me. I see you past the graveled road.

Before I cross to your forever afterlife, I am clipping each one of their nails, leaving yellow vinyl dresses on the floor, fingers and feathers among the footprints.

Beyond Joy | Asharee Davis | Photography 39

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ARE YOU INTERESTED IN PEER REVIEW, EDITING, GRAPHIC DESIGN, PUBLIC RELATIONS AND/OR SOCIAL MEDIA OUTREACH? VOLITION MIGHT JUST BE THE RIGHT PLACE FOR YOU There are four major teams that make up Volition: Art & Photography, Poetry & Prose, Graphic Design, and PR & Social Media. If you would like to gain experience in any of these areas, Volition is a great place to start. We offer positions for volunteer staff, peer reviewers, and student leadership in each section.

For more information on how to apply, visit volition.gmu.edu 40

STAFF Executive Editor Natalia Romero

Faculty Advisor Jason Hartsel

Prose & Poetry Kate Berry Adrianna Campos Jae Abu Cole Pryzby

Art & Photography Art & Photography Editor Gabrielle Hoover

Adrianna Campos Jae Abu Kat Benson Cole Pryzby

Graphic Design Graphic Design Chair Anna Simakova

Student Media Professional Staff Kathryn Mangus, Director David S. Carroll, Associate Director

A Student Media Publication studentmedia.gmu.edu 41

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