Volition - Spring 2026

Volume 40

CONTENTS POETRY & PROSE Jay Patterson

Keyan

Balancing Ceremony | 4 Inside - Burning Haibun | 17 Waxing Poetic Never Got Me Anywhere | 28 We are Animals | 9

Isabella Pearlstein

Santa Claus Isn’t Real | 13

Alexandra Henriques

Hands | 14 ( whole when i hold you) | 27 echo | 36

Nawaal Nackerdien

Limits | 18 Soil, worms, stems, leaves | 32

Liam VunCannon-Sullivan Marissa Odea

Letters to a Crane Wife | 22 - 25 Objects in Mirror are Closer than They Appear | 39

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

Claire Willard and Hannah Talla

ART & PHOTOGRAPHY Regan Malone

Mel Nguyen

Savannah M. Sok

Hugo.tif

Anticipation | Cover Star Power | 6 Her Gaze | 11

Asharee Dav

Rural Taiwan | 3 Overgrown | 26 Des Voeux Road, Hong Kong | 38 Taeniopygia guttata | 5 An Imaginary Moment | 37 Cable | 7 Guitar 1 | 10 Fish Market | 34 DaLat | 35

Emi Lundblad

Guardian Lioness | 8 Happy Birthday | 12 Justice? | 19 Rosy Cheeks | 30 Kevin | 31

Anonymous

Wistful Woman | 15

Nafia Syee Joseph Fisher

Fresh Wounds | 16 Six Feet Underground | 29 Hunting Season | 33

Amy Boteler

Burgess Falls | 20 - 21

VOLUME 40 SPRING 2026

Letter from the Editor Volition has a mission and dedication to be a platform for students to create and tell their stories. We’ve created a place for students to come together through words and art, to familiarize ourselves with one another, and to better sit with ourselves.

When I first came on staff my freshman year as a Peer Reviewer, I was looking for community and something else to fill my time. By the time I became Executive Editor my sophomore year, I had grown to feel very protective of Volition. It has been an honor to be your Editor for the last three years. I feel an immense gratitude to be trusted with Volition.

Becoming Editor has taken me to places I didn’t think I would ever go. It has taught me invaluable lessons about myself, my passions, the large sum of work that goes into putting together something as darling and special as Volition. It has been easily one of the most rewarding parts of my college career. As I step back from Volition after this semester, I can only hope I have made those before me proud, set those after me up for success, and most of all, I hope my contribution to art has reached you all.

We need art always, and we will forever. This life is a vicious one, and the beauty of the human condition is that we make art from it anyways. We are somehow able to find beauty, romance, passion and love from the darkest of depths. For this, and because sharing your art is a beautifully intimate thing, I thank our contributors.

I’d like to thank all our staff, without whom I would not be able to create any of the volumes we have put together. I’d like to thank our faculty advisor, Jason, whose weekly meetings I will miss. I’d like to thank our graphic designer, Anna, who works brilliantly to put together every vision I have for the volume into something tangible. I’d lastly like to thank our audience of readers, some of whom have stuck around for years. I hope we have been as much a part of your college career as you have been in ours.

Growing up and getting older is a scary thing, and also a great privilege. Our education, our uncensored voices, and our ability to grow our minds and become students of the world, are all great privileges. I am excited to see what we all do with all we’ve learned and created.

I hope you all enjoy and love Volume 40 of Volition as much as we do. This was an extra special one. For some of us, this is the last volume we worked on. It is filled with sweetness and whimsy, some angst and uneasiness. As the curtain closes on us this time around, I thank you for being our audience.

With absolutely all of my love, Natalia Romero Executive Editor 2

Rural Taiwan | Mel Nguyen | Photography 3

Balancing Ceremony I am a false bird of hollow bones and rotten flesh

my heart beats out of sync with the flapping of my feathers I cannot fly without my feathers nor without my heart

weigh them on the scales and watch how they fluctuate rise and fall like wings like a chest beating

Do you let me in?

| Jay Patterson 4

Taeniopygia guttata | Savannah M. Sok | Watercolor 5

Star Power | Regan Malone | Photography 6

Cable | Hugo.tif | Photography 7

Guardian Lioness | Emi Lundblad | Soft Pastel 8

We are Animals Glucose swims in my blood and wraps around my heart, trying to stop it.

The sweet tea can’t stop me The door to the bathroom opens automatically for me I see the guy turn and walk out without washing his hands The faucet is automatic, for your convenience, too.

The tile of the bathroom floor is geometric.

It's appealing.

I sigh.

We went from doing this in the woods bodies naked in the bushes bushes free and full to febreze filtered marble My belt buckle clicks as I adjust the stream.

I sigh.

All of this supposed benefit our society gained.

What about what I’ve lost?

| Keyan 9

Guitar 1 | Hugo.tif | Photography 10

Her Gaze | Regan Malone | Photography 11

Happy Birthday | Emi Lundblad | Digital Art 12

Santa Claus Isn’t Real It’s a little cruel isn’t it? To say “Santa Claus isn’t real” to a kid.

Well, I just shouted it, in a mall full of kids all dressed up ready to sit (and possibly cry from fear and discomfort) on Santa’s (mall Santa’s) lap. Kids turn to their parents with pleading eyes.

Some begin to cry. I can feel the scorn of the parents around me. My mom looks at me with such condemnation in her eyes how could you possibly say something like that. It’s so cruel.

As I see it, it was bound to happen one day. More like one Christmas day when the grand illusion of Santa Claus is shattered. You look from the present in your hands, to your parents, and back to the present.

The label reads “Para Isabella, De Santa.” Santa has never written in Spanish before. His handwriting is also different. I recognize it. I look at my grandfather sitting on the couch, back to the label, and back to my grandfather. That is my grandfather’s handwriting, his unique script style. My grandfather only speaks Spanish. Santa didn’t come. Santa didn’t get me what I asked for. My grandfather did. (No silly, your parents got the presents. I wouldn’t learn that till later.)

The illusion is shattered for me, but I do I shatter it for my parents? Do I want my parents to face the fact that I’m growing up? (I can’t possibly be thinking this. It’s more like if I tell my parents that Santa isn’t real I won’t get as many presents. Yup that’s what kids think. In fact, my dad was enlightened to this idea, but that’s a story for another time.) One more year of believing in Santa then. Not for me, but for my parents. Only ( half true. I still want to get all of my presents.)

The next year, when I put up my front of believing, I look at the label. English this time as it has always been before last year. “To Isabella, From Santa.” I examine the label closely. This certainly isn’t any of my parents handwriting, so whose is it? There at the back of my mind; it’s my grandmother’s. I recognize the elegant cursive style. Time to tell my parents: “Santa Claus isn’t real.”

I look at my brother, three years younger than me. He still believes. I look at my parents and decide I’ll tell them later. (Maybe three hours from now or something.) I’ll let my brother keep Santa Claus all to himself.

I look at the kids around me all dressed up and ready to sit on mall Santa’s Santa’s) ( lap. Kids turn to their parents with joy in their eyes. Some turn to their parents and smile. My mom looks at me, “What do you want for Christmas?”

| Isabella Pearlstein 13

Hands reach out to me with your hands,

your heart. let me learn how to hurt again, let me learn how to burn. cover your body with my body, selfless while i am selfish. it’s my most mortal fear that i am unable to be loved, unable to understand the capacities of it, unable to express the extent. i let love sit in my heart, glowing red, until it becomes part of the ocean. i let you hold me while the seasons shift, and the ocean recedes, and then it’s you and me and a fire. we throw sticks

and paper and matches and it grows. i want this fire to keep burning and both of us keep feeding it. sometimes, i dream that a tsunami comes and tears apart my childhood home. it takes everything that i love and leaves nothing but the now-damp firewood that sat on the back patio. sometimes, i don’t know how to

reach out to you with my hands,

but my heart is instinct. i keep reaching

and the only thing that stops me is the

boundary that i created. i don’t know how to love myself, and i’m scared that means you can’t love me either. | Alexandra Henriques 14

Wistful Woman | Anonymous | Acrylic Paint 15

Fresh Wounds | Joseph Fisher | Digital Art 16

Inside - Burning Haibun I am not convinced that I am real. I fear the plurality that may exist inside my skull, my ribcage, my psyche. What if I am wrong–am I a living lie, or merely a misguided belief?

Does anyone know the truth? I worry that when I speak to you, you will not recognise me. Or worse, maybe you will. An image through a broken lens, reflection in a shattered mirror, spores dispersing in an attempt to survive.

I am not convinced that I am real. I fear the plurality that may exist inside my skull, my ribcage, my psyche. What if I am wrong–am I a living lie, or merely a misguided belief?

Does anyone know the truth? I worry that when I speak to you, you will not recognise me. Or worse, maybe you will. An image through a broken lens, reflection in a shattered mirror, spores dispersing in an attempt to survive.

I am not convinced that I am real. I fear the plurality that may exist inside my skull, my ribcage, my psyche. What if I am wrong–am I a living lie, or merely a misguided belief?

Does anyone know the truth? I worry that when I speak to you, you will not recognise me. Or worse, maybe you will. An image through a broken lens, reflection in a shattered mirror, spores dispersing in an attempt to survive.

| Jay Patterson 17

Limits Ever shrinking and increasing, breathing, enshrined within a concept, I collapse into parts so far they cannot touch Mixed between time and distance and the dark sandwiched between self and non-self Nature is becoming overwrought by itself, evolved to withstand its own oppression The boundary between planets atoms and microbes, I am measured beneath their breaths they split and split, constant disengagement I bind myself to me Relapsing on white hot dust there is distance between here and the edge of now bite the words; communication is made of fragments Collapse, collapse Collapse;

| Nawaal Nackerdien 18

Justice? | Emi Lundblad | Gouache 19

20

Burgess Falls | Amy Boteler | Watercolor 21

Letters to a Crane Wife Dearest Crane Wife,

Letter I.

When I think back to our wedding, I remember the marks on your arms that I neglected. What a fool I was for not leaving you at that altar.

The weeks that followed our marriage were wretched and few. It’s been a month since you left, yet it still feels as fresh as this morning. Even your absence lingers longer than our matrimony. Isn’t it odd, how you’ve disoriented my sense of time? How you’ve wasted my time? How you still do? Why did you waste it? Why do I let you waste it?

The second I slipped that ring over your finger, you grew pallid. The first night of our honeymoon, your eyes strained. The next morning, and each thereafter, burst blood vessels pocked your sclera—a reflection of your ill-fated attempts at sleep. You told me it was insomnia; temporary; an unfortunate inheritance from your mother, like the crow’s feet that creased at the corners of your eyes when you smiled. You cursed those creases to hell and back.

Could you imagine my fear at the blood and feathers trailing toward our bathroom door, and the terror that shook my bones when I heard your muffled sobs? Could you imagine my horror when I heard the scratching of flesh? Did you even consider what I’d feel when I opened the door to find you, red and cowering on the cold tile, ripping a row of feathers from your arms?

I pleaded with you to tell me what was happening. When you answered my pleas with silence, I begged that you tell me how long you’d been doing whatever that was.

Silence. When I demanded any explanation—why you did it, why you’d hidden it—you whimpered that it was so I wouldn’t leave. Funny how that turned out.

You left the next morning, through the bedroom window. You left while the grass was still wet and the sky was still dark. You left behind only those feathers. A fresh pair of wings sprouted from your arms, and, taking flight, you left me.

I should weep as I write, but my sorrow has given over to a suffocating betrayal. I roil with it, writing with this damnable quill, taunted by a truth I never once felt bare upon your skin.

I bore myself to you in my entirety. Every painful truth, naked. With you, I was vulnerable and honest. Why could you not afford me the same?

—Roger | Liam VunCannon-Sullivan 22

Dearest Crane Wife,

Letter II.

It’s been half a year since you left, and I forgive you. I forgive your dishonesty, and I forgive your silence. That is not to say that you deserve it. I simply forgive you, and I understand.

Perhaps you learned to lie and pick yourself clean when you were young, and simply never learned how not to. Perhaps you feared what’d happen if you didn’t. Perhaps it was some mistake of mine that incentivized you to be dishonest (because everything was always my fault, after all). Perhaps deceit simply came as naturally to you as breathing.

Regardless, I know, now, there was more at hand than a simple desire to lie—and, even without an apology, that deserves forgiveness.

I remember the first time I spotted those feathers in our house. You shrugged and feigned ignorance when I asked about them, and I trusted you. I reasoned that they’d fallen from our pillowcases. You shrugged a second time. That was the end of the matter.

At any moment, then or after, you could have told me the truth—and you didn’t.

Still, I’ve moved on. Water under the bridge. If you want, we can catch up over coffee.

Best, Roger

23

Dearest Crane Wife,

Letter III.

Today marks a year since you left. I hope that you’ve forgotten my last message—but if not, I hope for your forgiveness.

It’d be a lie to say I’ve moved on. It’d be a lie to say I don’t ponder what it would’ve been like to love you un-plucked.

I remember how you trembled when I asked you about those your feathers. I thought nothing of it then, but you were terrified. I remember what I did afterwards: I unceremoniously crammed them into our pillows, and I cobbled the excess into spare quills. When our pillowcases bristled and our quills outnumbered our parchment, I cast what remained into our hearth. Before long, our house reeked of ash, and I wrote their recurrence off as one of life’s many mysteries. What a fool I was.

I remember all the little, raised follicles on your skin: those crimson bumps that mottled your throat down to your ankles. You, still wearing a smile, never acknowledged them, so I— preoccupied with my own vanity, and afraid of drawing attention to another of your mother’s cursed features—chose not to mention them.

At any moment, I could have asked you about your feathers, your flesh, your fear. I could have shown at any moment before you left, that I noticed—and I didn’t. For this, I only hope you can forgive me.

Sincerely, Roger

| Liam VunCannon-Sullivan 24

Dearest Crane Wife,

Letter IV.

It’s been two years since you left, and a year since my last letter. It’s taken me too long to say this, but I’m sorry.

I wish that, when we strolled through the woods, I’d not remarked at the beauty of cardinals and hummingbirds as I neglected to remind you of your own. I wish that I’d told you that the crow’s feet you hated were the feature that I loved most. I wish that when we’d made love, you’d not cloaked yourself in your nightgown or beneath our blanket in the dark. I wish that at any moment, I’d have asked what was wrong, or to see all of you, rather than indulge my heedless desires.

Perhaps you’d have felt safer that night, had I taken the feathers you’d ripped from your arms and planted them into mine. Perhaps they’d have taken root, and from them I’d have grown a plumage to match your own. I wonder if, perhaps, now that we’re honest strangers, we should try again and be wholly un-plucked together.

I know that I must move on, for both of our sakes. I’ve loved others by this point, I suppose, but I cannot stop myself from hoping every distant flutter of wings might be yours. I cannot lay my head to rest without feeling you a thousandfold, teeming within my pillowcase. Sometimes, I wonder if others have done the same as you: picking themselves clean that they may find themselves deserving of an ill-gotten love. I glimpse their skin whenever I’ve the chance, searching for the plucked marks I once neglected.

The closest I’ve gleaned is a blemish.

Yours, Roger Dearest Crane Wife,

Letter V.

I’ve forgotten how many years it’s been since you left, and would that I could, I’d forget you—but in an odd sense, you’re still here. Every chirp on the wind, you’re here. Every flutter past my window in the morning, you’re here. Every trek between the bathroom and our bed, and every search of the floor for something I’ve somehow missed, you’re here. In my heart, there remains a nest of every feather you’ve ever plucked. So long as you still have wings, it’ll be there.

What a fool I was for not saying it sooner: I’m here, and I love you.

Your fool husband, Roger

25

Overgrown | Mel Nguyen | Photography 26

( (whole when i hold you ( whole is the feeling of loving to mend my own heart but what do you do when bricks cast rubble and swollen eyes tell the tales of something subtle only in my head may a loving feeling exist inability to express merely results in untimely death so i let myself feel whole in the night while i keep you at arm's length to make everything right still, i hold you close in my heart(and in my dream i hold you and i hold you and i hold you)

| Alexandra Pearlstein 27

Waxing Poetic Never Got Me Anywhere I stretch my molten feathers wide against the sky’s expanse the churning waves beneath my flesh send icy water droplets to my skin, an extreme against the beating rays of Helios that target my spine. stiff remiges propel my blessed body through resistant winds, flapping tempos of caution. I wish to taste the sun. my father’s warnings ring out like his artisanal hammer to this carefully crafted frame of mine;

my son, do not

soar too high, for the

heat of the sun will melt

the feathers from your wings the salt of the ocean tastes like prudence and clings to each rectrice. it is beyond my control when the burden of vigilance pulls my feet my legs

my wings into the sea my father hears my final drowning cry that I could’ve been happy. | Jay Patterson 28

Six Feet Underground | Joseph Fisher | Charcoal on Paper 29

Rosy Cheeks | Emi Lundblad | Ceramic 30

Kevin | Emi Lundblad | Ceramic 31

soil, worms, stems, leaves Common white felt. A rough feeling underneath the fingers. There is no air in this place.

12,000 days. I have measured my breaths. I have felt my lungs expand indefinitely. This is where they melted beneath our teeth, the people, the trees, the ash. I can no longer taste them on my tongue. I have held them in my hands and let them go free. They are made from clay and seed and soil; they are made from me.

Do they delight in the measured ways they take breath? Must they quietly shutter themselves away from my perception? Do they wish to see me, take in my presence, or run? I am lost, my children; lost in the ways you delight in my destruction. I am lost. I am hurt.

Sparkling silver wine. It melts between my fingertips and then dashes across my eyes. I am blinded. My hands are taken before me and tied together at the wrists. Crystal skies.

That blue. That mirror of this place. A mysterious hold surrounds my throat, closes its hands around my ears, silence, silence, and hear them cry.

But I can no longer hear them speak. The deer are dying. They flutter beneath the oceans, moving like butterflies. Why must I surrender myself to see them free? Is their word for world destruction? There is no air in this place.

Cold now. I am cold. The heat is sapped away from me, suffocating in carbon dioxide tides, the waves are lapping at our feet. We are drowning. We are the deer. I am the deer.

I have lost my way, I have made a mistake. Swallow now, the medicine. The medicine made of oil. Swallow and grow dull, tired.

Quiet, quiet. There is something about how we treat our children—They are quiet now.

They are hearing what we do not. They see what we do not see.

Maybe they can hear me.

| Nawaal Nackerdien 32

Hunting Season | Joseph Fisher | Digital Art 33

Fish Market | Hugo.tif | Photography 34

DaLat | Hugo.tif | Photography 35

echo November sings a song of madness, a steady drum of recurring trepidations interwoven with the beauty of a bitter cold night; lights from windows illuminating a sidewalk, a clear black sky with a bright moon, distant laughter and dancing shadows.

Last winter, I sat in the corner at a party and wondered why I had to try so hard, always chasing the unattainable, stuck believing that was all I was worth.

Now, I wear your sweater and envelop myself in words of affirmation you vowed to me, soothing against the reality that winter is settling in - cold bones, cold hands and cold sheets that miss your body cradled in them, a touch that meant summertime, reassurance, serenity.

I know winter doesn’t last forever, it just lasts a little too long, and I miss you already.

In your absence, echoes of your voice carve their home within my ribs.

| Alexandra Pearlstein 36

An Imaginary Moment | Savannah M. Sok | Acrylic, Chalk Pastel, Charcoal, and Digital 37

Des Voeux Road, Hong Kong | Mel Nguyen | Photography 38

Objects in Mirror are Closer than They Appear I pull off the turnpike through the Easy Pass Dairy Queen showed up on the left where Lane. The peace I leave behind sits somewhere I was fed every Friday night before them between the white and yellow dotted line. football lights. Back then the drive-through filled with cousins, neighbors, and friends Goin’, goin’, goin’ in the rearview mirror of a friend. Air drenched with guitar riffs where the warning reads objects are closer through busted speakers and exhaust than they appear and the blur of what was pipes from the truck in front or the rusted starts getting clear. straight-piped Civic behind.

That pit in my stomach swallows every word And somehow, I still remember your on the billboard and everything this town brother’s order. stitches into me.

Past the walls that first taught me what First Street comes up first. people can really do to each other— and The place where my brother learned what a what it meant to be the other. scrape plate was on that jerry-rigged sports car of his, music blarin’ too loud for a oneLeft at that corner where I used to go way street that small. straight. Rollin’ by the ambulance station where Mom was Girl Scout leader for a Past the shotgun house my grandmother used troop of friends I barely know anymore. The to show off to everyone she towed ’round. metal siding lookin’ older every year, still A place she’d stop by when she needed standin’ longer than my longing to grow into to remember happiness or when she was something more. looking for meaning she hadn’t yet found.

Then the police station— the one I missed And so, I keep goin’, goin’, goin’. touring in elementary school when we took Past the coffee shop where I worked my first that vacation south. A trip I can’t remember job. I still got the shirts, at this point they are but somehow miss more than the place I was just ghosts beggin’ to leave. thrown to.

I turn at the intersection and drive slowly.

I turn left down our street and see the house As I pass every car that almost looks like but not my home. yours, I flinch and my knuckles go white watchin’ the blood leave my hands.

So, I keep goin’, goin’, goin’ till I’m gone. | Marissa Odea 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 Prose & Poetry Editor Lance Dorsey

Adrianna Campos Cole Pryzby Emily N Baca Cruz

Art & Photography Art & Photography Editor Gabrielle Hoover

Adrianna Campos Cole Pryzby Emily N Baca Cruz

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A Student Media Publication studentmedia.gmu.edu 41

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