Verse Magazine acknowledges the Kaurna, Boandik and Barngarla First Nations People as the traditional custodians of the unceded lands that are now home to the University of South Australia’s campuses in Adelaide, Mount Gambier and Whyalla.
Verse Magazine respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past, present and emerging. Verse Magazine also acknowledge the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia.
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Closing a Chapter
Singing the final Verse in Issue #65 with parting words from the 2025 Verse Team
HEAD EDITOR
Here we are! The final edition of Verse! It has been an incredible opportunity to be a part of this team and to deliver the last run of Verse for UniSA. As always this issue showcases a plethora of work from a student community brimming with talent and creativity.
My biggest piece of advice that I would give after my time with Verse is that if anyone out there is apprehensive or unsure whether to take a chance on something, I would tell them to just do it. There is no harm in trying and who knows it might lead you to unexpected places. Thank you once again to everyone that has worked with me, to all the contributors, and anyone who has ever picked up an issue of Verse. Stay fun, stay funky, and stay fresh.
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
As a graphic designer for the mag, I’ve really enjoyed getting to see the range of creative work our student body produces, from creative writing and visual art to deeply personal
COMMS EDITOR
As the Comms Editor, I’ve grown significantly in terms of skills and confidence. I’ve dived into everything from content planning to analytics, created fun reels, and even managed comments during tricky situations. It’s real hands-on experience in the world of digital media, and I’m loving every minute of it! One of my favourite parts is interviewing di erent contributors and sharing their ideas and inspirations with students. It feels great to provide a platform for them to showcase their
A Spotify Playlist
Ride My Bike
Maude Latour
Don’t Delete the Kisses
Wolf Alice
Keep Your Head Up
Djo
Supernova
Sunni Colón
The Climb
Flying Lotus + Thundercat
Breathe Deeper
Tame Impala
Freefall
KAYTRANADA + Durand Bernarr
Are You Feeling Sad?
Little Dragon + Kali Uchis
Fly - FKJ Remix
June Marieezy + FKJ
Rooting, elsewhere
Words by Sanusha S Sritharan
Back in the land of +65, where home wears familiar skins. Wading through the detritus of a childhood, revisiting memories curated in curios, discarding the outgrown, forgotten and once, but-no-longer, significant.
These fragments I have shored against my ruin.
- T.S. Eliot
Finally releasing the tenuous grasp on a me forged in shoulds and the lulling calm of collapse, entangled, ensnared, enmeshed, burdened with baublesgilded, gifted, guilted. Clearing the ground for new growth.
And a reclamation of an even older me, unearthed in delicately winged Snitch earrings, chunky metal necklaces, white-beaded bracelets, Iron Throne-esque ringsglimmering, demanding, luminous.
I see nowrose lenses cast asidethat all my becoming always happens somewhere else, for one cannot blossom in parched, cracked ground.
Elsewhere, unexpectedly, a heartbeat within the trunk of an anchor becomes a new soundscape for rest.
Dreaming into being third spaces across margins, stitched together by the first threads of kin. New literacies of want on my tongue once stilled by shame. Voice spilling across fading pages of this final sixty-fifth issue.
Rooting in new soil, integrating the bloom amidst the ruin. Every ending already a beginning.
Goodbye is not a farewell — it’s a promise to meet again in another verse.
Illustration by Moris Wong
Talking Through the Window
Words by Grover Noor
Making friends has always been hard for me, and by that I don't mean acquaintances. Oh I got plenty of that! By friends I mean people I can be real with, share my sadness with. A being to understand how deep I feel and fill this heart with joy, which craves for love and some kind words.
I have not learnt to live on the grey side. My world is black and white. I accept I'm an extremist. Either I'm all in or all out, an obsessive overprotective girl or the 'I don't care about your existence' person. But even with that, this heart longs for some care.
People appreciate me for who I am, but trust me, this personality got its own facade. I may not be as happy as I seem, and my self-esteem goes under the ground if I see someone of my batch so confident and vibrant in the room. Insecurities peak at times you see, I hope that's normal. Or maybe not.
Well, keeping friends is easy. Talk to them once in a while, open up your heart and the spark returns. But building friendships is hard you see! How do I let you in my heart when the walls are too big for even me to break? And how do I let you stay at the door, and exhaust both of us with the continuous effort of crossing the door when I'm not sure whether I want to push or pull? So I let all of you out, talking through the window, while I stay alone in this enclosed cavity which even I can't escape.
And so I say,
Had a breakdown today, over something quite small,
Yet its weight on my heart, made me feel so small.
Went through my contact list, just to see,
But the scenario remained, no one there for me.
It broke my heart, I felt so alone,
No words of comfort, no familiar tone.
To tell me the words I need to hear,
To lift me up, to bring me near.
To give me strength, Oh, I want some!
But the silence echoes, no answers come.
In this space, I’m left to roam, Longing for a place that feels like home.
Illustration by Melissa Tang
Illustration by Melissa Tang
Time, Tell Me
Words by Carli Stasinopoulos
Tell me again, about what the future will be like, of my life a few years from now?
Where hope lingers in my heart, there’s laughter in my lungs, and I got through it somehow.
Can I feel sunshine on my skin again? My jaw, is it sore from smiling?
Do goosebumps prick beneath my skin as I sing in the car while driving?
Do I still roar with thunder in my heart and lightning in the cracks of my bones?
Have I found peace within seclusion in the hunger of being alone?
Am I flushed red like the wine in my glass; like lipstick that hangs off a stranger?
Do I dance under masquerades of lights and once again flirt with danger?
Am I rested? Am I calm? Is my hair ash or maroon?
Does poetry still roll off the tip of my tongue every time I stare at the moon?
Please tell me, I beg, is there absence of pain, or is my soul still fighting a war?
For now, when I wish the universe goodnight, I’m content with seeing sunlight no more.
Evil things lie in the depths of my sorrow and weep through the cracks in the walls.
My bleeding heart takes no thought for the morrow, like the man who tore through these halls.
Tell me please of the visions you see, does hope once again stop by?
Are you old and healed and content with your life?
More so, does this mean I survive?
The Screaming In Your Head
Words by Mariam Qanitah
When I graduated and first stepped into adulthood, I realized that I didn’t know what was going on and neither did anyone else. Everyone was clueless and running around aimlessly, trying to look seamless. Oh, and that there was screaming. In your head. Screaming which didn’t have an off button and never stopped.
People think being an adult means all your current problems as a teenager get solved. I’m here to say that nope, they don’t. You have to deal with your teenage problems along with your new adult problems.
The day I first realized this was the day I noticed that I was screaming very loudly inside my head. I went to bed to sleep it off and expected to wake up the next day with it fone. I woke up and no, not only was the screaming still there but it had also been present throughout my dreams too.
I walked around and did what I usually do for the day, but the screaming didn’t stop. It was there that day, then the next, then the next, then the one after that, and the one after that too, and— it went on for so long that… I realised… This screaming is never going to go.
Days went by and the screaming stuck around. It was there when I ordered my boba, it was there when I pushed the trolley around Coles, it was there when I texted my friends, it was there when I was driving, it was there when I was lying in bed and it was there when I was sitting in the toilet. The screaming gave me a headache. Multiple headaches. It frustrated me so much and I just couldn’t make sense of it! I was frightened of what it meant and no amount of free counselling from the Uni helped me. It just went on and on until—
One day I just woke up and expected it. I went about with my day and just… paid it no mind. I got used to it.
But as you keep adjusting into adulthood, day after day, you’ll start to see that the screaming in your head… is not the same. It’s not as monotone and uniform as you thought. No, you’ll come to realise that some days, the screaming is quieter. It’s like a whispered yell that actors do when they’re on stage. Some days the screaming is at a miniscule, tiny volume.
And some days the screaming is at an ear-deafening volume. It consumes all your thoughts and leads to you clutching your ears and muttering swears under your breath.
You’ll come to realize that some days, the screaming isn’t out of anguish. It’s out of joy. The screams are cheery bursts of elation that play when you’re checking your grades and spotting a Distinction, when you’re shaking your head at the dad joke the tutor said in class, when you’re dancing with your friends, when you’re getting free food from the Uni stall, when you’re happy and laughter spills through your lips. Some days, the screaming is just your brain being happy.
Some days, the screaming is your brain being scared. When you’re anxious, frustrated, stressed and pressured, the screaming is painful. When you get your first parking fine, when you arrive late and sweaty to your job interview, when you see you’re low on money, when you realise you haven’t seen your best friend in two months, when you see how far up the ceiling your assignments is reaching, when you only have a few hours before a deadline, when you’re scared and wondering, “What is happening right now?”. This is the reality of adulthood. Don’t let anyone sugar-coat it for you, especially when that person is a politician, government official or billionaire telling you that you’re going to be happy in this economy.
But don’t let anyone take away the good expectations from you either. Don’t let anyone tell you that all adulthood is about is paralytic fear. Don’t let anyone take away that feeling when you realise that you don’t have a uniform to wear every day anymore, when you realise that you can choose what time to go to class, when you first purchase your own car, when you see something at a shop and suddenly realise that you can buy it without anyone saying no to you, when you pull out a tub of ice cream and spicy noodles at 1am, when you plug in your airpods in public and no one thinks much because you’re not wearing a school uniform and people don’t think you’re a rude teenager, when you skip class to drive around the beach because you get to choose your own mental health days without a parent writing you a slip, when you find a new library near your home or Uni and you take a random nap there and make it your favorite study spot, when you see the triple and quadruple digits on your paycheck, when you do the things you want to do because you want to do them.
Adulthood isn’t all handy-dandy, but it isn’t all suffering and silence either.
For those who are yet to discover this, I can’t wait for the day when you realise that the screaming was blocking a secret. The secret that there is a world outside your head. A world that exists and is so much bigger than what’s in your head right now.
A world which holds people that are waiting to meet you. People who you have been destined to meet, to team up, to become friends with, to start a new business with, to form relationships with, to form families with, to kickstart a new idea with, to change the world with.
A world outside your head, a world that holds objects you haven’t touched yet. Objects that are waiting for you to interact with them, for you to write your first business idea on them, to form connections with, to help you through your fears with, to make you laugh, to make you smile, to wipe your tears, to inspire you, to help your cause and ideas, to give you strength, to build your body, to make you healthier, to work with you to make the world a better place.
A world outside your head, a world that contains places that are counting down the days till you visit them, places where you form your first big idea, where you experience your life-changing event, where you eat the best noodles you’ve ever tasted, where you drink the best coffee, where you have the best nap, the kind where you’ve never had anywhere before. Places where you make a core memory, where you dump your worries during a breakdown and move on, where you meet your lifelong partner, where you meet your lifelong friend. Places where you find yourself. Your real self.
And when you fulfill that destiny. When you meet those fated people, objects, places and experiences, those vines of fate grow and entangle themselves around you and them. And if you take a moment… and breathe out, and look around you, and spot all the details, even the tiny ones, you’ll be able to actually feel those vines of fate. You’ll be able to feel the importance of this moment which you’re taking part in, and you’ll smile knowing that this? This is what life really is.
People will give you all kinds of advice on how to be a proper adult. I’m not saying they’re wrong… But I’ll give you this: go out there, live, and the advice which you learn from your own experiences as an adult, is the exact and only real advice you need.
That screaming on your head isn’t gonna go, unfortunately. But considering the destiny that lies in wait, rolling its eyes at the nonsense you’re doing instead of what it has planned for you, that screaming in your head is worth it. Because the times when your head is screaming with you in laughter, joy, relief and comfort, overpowers the times when your head is screaming in fear and stress.
The world is out there, my friends. And it’s waiting. The birthday that turns you 18 or the graduation night that kicks you out of school might go by quickly, but the life after sure doesn’t.
And this goes the same for the staff and alumni too. Your life isn’t over yet just because you have a job or just because you don’t have any other education to complete. You’re still here.
And it’s waiting.
Your destiny’s waiting for you.
Illustration by Oak Buckley
Daisy Crafts
Artworks by Avneet Hunjan
Pottery by Madison Haynes
Photograph by Chirag Bakshi
City of Churches
Words by Anonymous
City of churches,
Drink in my faith
In you I only believe
In the certainty of my fate
Nurturing garden, grow me
As your thankless task
And usher me through the gate
Every return sweet for a moment
Before the taste dissipates, Left with the bitterness of inevitable change
Bade me well
Not bitter of tongue
Or harsh of breath –
Allow me to take my first steps
Timeless tether, hold me close
There is air in my bones
Elsewhere, I am weightless
Soaring through skies ablaze
Yet I still crave your cooling embrace
Where all was lost
Before anything was begotten
It’s steeped in the bricks and in the stones
Yet I pray it’s where they lay my bones
You are at the root
Of what grows out of me
Fruits, bearing poison and pride
Flowers, blooming in red and white
Rebuilding the Altar Illustration by Maria Sofia Consuelo
Rundle Mall
Words by Isabelle Le Souef
As soon as you sit down on the ground in the mall
You’re not a citizen no more
Do you not have a home? Or just avoiding home What did you do to end up all alone
I don’t trust the people on the streets
The way passerbys don’t trust me
When I wear sudden movements with my ripped jeans
A hunger in my eyes that you just can’t feed
“Nah, no way” they say, my place in this game is not so fragile That to sit down on the street marks my end and my defeat It is.
A thousand people in the mall will all be deaf to a scream.
Photograph by Shreya Wankhede
day and night
Words by Jasmyn McGowan
Mia’s favourite colour was black.
This was a bit unusual. Most people expected it to be white, like light, or yellow, like her golden pigtails, or some other sunny colour. But it wasn’t. It was black.
Her younger brother, Lous, liked to make fun of her for it.
“You should have been awake at night!” he’d crow, green eyes glittering. “Only people who wake up at night like dark, moody colours like that! Black’s for death, don’t you know?”
Mia did know. Everyone did. When the world started dying, some thirty years ago (which might as well have been three-hundred years for Mia), there was black everywhere, so Mum says. Black funeral cars drove black coffins filled with black flowers and the black-dressed dead down streets filled with black rubbish.
That was only if you could afford it, of course, which very, very few people could. Most people, Mum says, simply died there on the street. The ground was too full of the dead to bury anyone else, so they started digging up the old bones to make room for the new ones. But they couldn’t keep up. There were too many people.
People, Mum says, were everywhere. The streets overflowed with them. Houses fell down under the weight. And what was once called the ‘countryside’ didn’t exist anymore. There were only cities. Cities and people and houses and rubbish and even more people.
There were trillions of them, Mum says. Too many of them.
“Come and catch me!” Lous shouted, bounding through the street. Streets were all that existed anymore. “You’re such a slowpoke!”
“We have to get back before dusk!” Mia called back worriedly, following him anyway. People were starting to go indoors now; shops were closing, doors were locking and windows were sliding shut.
A very large man with a very large moustache drew the curtains over his window.
Lous pulled a face at her.
“We still have time,” he said cheekily. “Besides, the Switched won’t be mad. They like being out on the streets.”
“You’ve never met them,” Mia pointed out.
“I still know that they like the streets at night.”
“You’ve never seen the night.”
“Neither have you!”
And neither had any of Mia’s classmates or friends. Nor anyone younger than twenty years old. Mia had heard stories about the night, though.
“What’s the night like?” she liked to ask her parents.
“The night is dark,” says her mother. “Like the shadows in the corner of a room, except that it’s everywhere.”
“The night is light,” says her father. “All the lights come on, and you can see them through every window.”
Her parents had seen the night. So had her grandparents and great-grandparents. But nobody Mia knew saw the night anymore.
Dusk was coming. Red and orange light bled through the thick smog above them, turning the shadows long and cold. The normally grey stone of the buildings around them became darker and greyer still. Mia knew they had to get back soon.
Then the Bells started chiming, warning everyone to get inside.
“Lous, we have to go!” she called anxiously.
Lous was too far away to hear her, but it didn’t matter. At the sound of the Bells, he stopped dead. For the first time, a look of fear crossed his face. Mia beckoned to him and they ran back the way they’d come, hand-in-hand. The shadows grew darker and even the red glow from the smog started fading. The childrens’ own shadows ran alongside them, elongated limbs stretching and reaching with every stride.
They almost made it.
That night, a girl with two golden ponytails woke up lying in the street. She rubbed her eyes and yawned before looking around her. She’d expected to be her bed, not out here. The street lamps were shining above her, their yellow-white light harsh and almost sterile. No moonlight shone through tonight; the smog above them was like a heavy, dark cloud, blocking out any silver glow.
There was a soft groan as her little brother stirred beside her. He blinked up at her owlishly. His eyes were green.
“Why are we out here?” asked the boy. “Aim, why aren’t we in our beds?”
“Maybe the others got lost,” said the girl. She stood up and offered her brother a hand. “Come on, Soul. Let’s go home before Mum and Dad wake up.”
As the siblings made their way home, the streets started to wake up. Shops that had been closed for the past three hours opened their doors once more. Windows that had been shut (but never locked as there was no reason to be during dusk) flickered on their lights as the people inside started getting ready for the night.
A very large man with a very large moustache opened the curtains in his window.
As the two children skipped together back to their home, Soul pointed to the sky.
“I wonder what it looks like, during the day,” he said.
“Dad says it’s dark,” said Aim.
“Mum says it’s light.”
“I think I’d like the light.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s white,” replied Aim with a smile. “My favourite colour’s white.”
Bed Rotting Smiski
Illustration by Juan Paulo Valdrez
Dull
Words by Alexandra Goodwin
Noon paints the world in ash-grey.
Ash-grey stairs where I ascend to the library. Ash-grey doors that bend and wail on grey hinges.
Ash-grey chair where I perch myself at a grey table. It spews and spreads; a pervasive presence even Vesuvius, from her pedestal, would envy.
A downward glance, and what stares back is crow-black. Crow-black pen poised in an idle hand.
Crow-black laptop clammed shut in a black case. Crow-black phone screen veiling a reflection in shadow. It taunts and tempts; a conniving attempt to seduce my nomadic attention.
With daisy-white, I defy the dark absence of colour. Daisy-white page filled with black-ink words. Daisy-white lights holding my weary eyes open. Daisy-white coat savouring my body’s equilibrium. But the ink is too black, and the room is too grey, and the crow-black phone screen squawks its crooked song.
Willpower compromised, I let it beguile me. Burrowing in darkness only uncovers more darkness, and the ever-present ash-grey smog fancies itself a cloak over my psyche. Thoughts emerge, but promptly entomb themselves where all words go to be silenced.
The doom scroll, so they call it— a cavern crafted for a listless subject to lose herself. My pen lays abandoned in a blot of pooled ink; a black grief wept for the loss of its purpose. It signifies the dullness I had sought to escape; but what is escapism if this, too, is dull?
2:00pm strides in on a cream-maned horse. 3:00pm combs wind through basil-green canopies. 4:00pm brings rain in berry-blue freckles. 5:00pm sweeps the sky with honey-yellow sunshine. A rainbow arcs over a kaleidoscope sunset. I do not see it.
致阿尔忒弥斯的十四行诗
To Artemis
Words by Jiacheng Zou
哦主啊请完全全地占有我吧，
O Lord, possess me wholly, I beseech thee, 这样就能让我不要看到她的幻想，
That I may not behold her phantom’s face, 正如你曾赐予我生死考验的那股，
As thou hast given me trials of life and death, 我不想被她所占据我心灵房。
Let not her image hold my spirit’s place.
给我半天远离情热的安宁时光，
Grant me but half a day from passion’s fire, 你的眼神比二十柄敌人的刀剑锋利，
Thy gaze more keen than twenty foemen’s blade, 倘若百合换了个名字你然分芳，
Though lily by another name smell sweet, 我也并没有完满的自身形体。
I am not whole, my very self doth fade.
那么我将会狩猎阿尔忒弥斯，
Then shall I hunt Artemis the fair, 在她嬉笑的凝视中寻找平静憩，
In her sweet laughing gaze find peaceful rest, 不要用月亮起誓因为她善变无常，
Swear not by moon, for she is inconstant, 让银白的火焰燃烧我的躯体骨血。
Let silver flames consume my flesh and breast.
在月光下棕戈舞蹈的水面镜华，
‘Neath moonlight’s tango on the water’s glass, 吟唱着我归宿的诗篇的律。
Sing verses of my home’s eternal pass.
Photograph by Shreya Wankhede
The late 90s vibe
Illustration by Jadie Bu
Celestial
Illustration by Emilie Nguyen
Hunting for Knowledge
Illustration by Tushar K Patel
Student Board
Student Voice
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Volunteer Community
Food Pantry
Shops USASA Op Shop Verse Magazine
Crossword
Down
1. Opposite arrivals at airport
2. Group of flamingos
3. SA is the “what” state?
4. Past, present & ...
Across
1. Someone seeing the glass half full
2. Where sky and land meet
3. Possible diagnosis for high temperature
4. Opposite minor key
5. A higher up role
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Illustration by Alex Gray
10 Years of Rainbow Club
Words by UniSA Rainbow Club
Picture this: it is a quiet Monday afternoon in late 2015, uni exams are done and dusted with grades released. Finally, in the end of year break there is time to dedicate to a much-needed social cause that is conspicuously absent at the University of South Australia, but not at the University of Adelaide or Flinders University. A group of 15 students have gathered in a room within the Jeffrey Smart Building for a long-overdue meeting. There are more students than chairs available, and the room is far too small for the big thing that is about to happen. In that room are students from across the political spectrum, many who know each other, while others are simply here due to a social media post. Regardless of whether they are left or right, standing or sitting, everyone is here for the same reason today – that UniSA will have a club for queer students.
Adelaide had a Pride Club, while Flinders had a Queer Society. UniSA meanwhile, had no club for our students to express queer pride. In a pre-marriage equality Australia, this gap needed to be filled, as there was much advocacy to be done on campus. A Pride Club had briefly existed at UniSA during the early 2010s, but as is the case for many clubs without a succession plan, the Club became inactive. The founding of the UniSA Rainbow Club was a bi-partisan effort, with our inaugural members holding a variety of political views, and being from a broad range of socioeconomic backgrounds. This is of particular importance in an increasingly polarised world where our Club serves as a reminder that we are all stronger when we are united rather than divided.
On the 30th of November this year, our once little, now big Club turns 10. Much has happened in the past decade, both worldwide and here at UniSA. It is an incredibly proud feeling that we have accomplished the very lofty goals we set out to achieve all those years ago. These successes were not achieved alone, as without our allies and supporters we would not have been able to undertake the great challenge of advocacy. In 2017, as part of a national campaign, we helped students enrol to vote for the Marriage Law Postal Survey, which resulted in a successful outcome of marriage equality across Australia. Together with University staff we changed policies to provide safety and clarity for our queer community of students and staff, including the Rainbow Pride Grant to help struggling queer students cover the costs of their studies, while Facilities Management kindly gave us a space to safely be ourselves on campus. Our student association USASA consistently supported us from our earliest days, giving us the opportunity to have a seat at various committees, collaborating with us to hold fabulous events such as Pride Fair where queerness is proudly celebrated on campus, to bestowing upon us numerous awards including Club and Executive of the Year. Of course, Verse Magazine, this very bastion of student journalism, kindly provided our Club executives and members with a voice, publishing our many articles about being queer at university. In 2020, where many clubs withered, our club thrived and grew in membership to numbers and engagement levels we could have only ever imagined just a few years earlier.
2025 is a significant year for us, not only because it is our last, but also because it has been 50 years since the decriminalisation of homosexuality in South Australia. While we are proud of our achievements here at UniSA,
we are cognisant that queer rights were fought for long before us, and will continue to be fought for long after us. Without the death of Adelaide law lecturer Dr George Duncan in 1972 creating the catalyst for social change, for much longer queer people in South Australia would have remained perilously on the edge of society without the legal protections that we enjoy today. Queer students have not always safely had a voice, or a seat at the decision-making table, let alone policies that protect us and events to celebrate us. Whatever the future holds for all of us, there will be queer students around seeking to dismantle discrimination and end injustices.
We deeply thank the more than 1500 members who were part of our Club over the past decade. Hopefully, you enjoyed being a part of our club as much as we enjoyed being here for you. And to the dedicated readers of Verse Magazine, we hope you enjoyed reading about our queer experiences, and learnt something new from our stories. Our story does not end here, instead our next chapter together will be at a new university as a new Club under another name, but with the same unwavering dedication to equity for the queer community. Here’s to the next decade of queer pride and rainbows at Adelaide. We will see you there in our next form.
With much pride,
The 2025 UniSA Rainbow Club Executive Committee ��
Scarf
Words by Nirvika
I am peeling a pomegranate and a seed bleeds under my touch. It paints my nails. The ceramic is now a canvas too.
She passes me the paper to mop the mess, not knowing that the paper cuts me.
I reach for the clouds instead, and the floors creak beneath me. This is the second winter of the year.
Outside, the fog hugs the trees. As I wonder if her embrace is as warm as the fog, the trees sway in solidarity.
Photograph by Jessie Showell
Sought Self Comic by Benzin Bullock, Tryphena Hewett, and Mia Todd
Comic by Comics, Creators and Company Cub
Feeling Far From Home
Words and painting by
Mischka
sometimes in the dead of night, I hear my puppy bark. a sound that would irritate me, it we weren't so far apart.
sometimes when i'm drowsed and yearning, i recall colours beaming through curtains bright. i creeped down the hallway seeking my mother, giggling uncontrollably after i gave her a fright.
sometimes in evening glow, the pool engine echoes and jitters. i get flashes of drowning slow, and memories of all the critters.
sometimes in distortion of distant voices, i catch my mother laugh so mellow. the beauty of familiarity rejoices, until i realise it was only an echo.
sometimes when i scrub my teeth, i hear my dad awaking early.
the toothpaste smell strikes memories, he was always in a scurry.
sometimes when i see the colours flashing, blue and red and blue and red. i remember the spitting of fire through teeth, black and blue and bled.
what i'm saying is, though far and distant. my home calls, through wind and whistle. often lost, the universe is persistent. i learn i do not belong, as i'm raised in thistle.
Untitled
Words by Jasraj Sandhur
I love her the way the moon loves the tide from a distance. Pulling close what it can never hold.
Some love isn't meant to stay. Yet it carves itself deep like breath in a cold window. Fading, but proof it was there.
They say the saddest stories are the onest that never found their ending. But I think they're the most honest love untouched by time, unspoiled by reality.
I'm still here, waiting in places we once filled. Laughing with ghosts of the girl who was never mind but always felt like home.
There's a space in me shaped like her name, not empty just sacred.
And though I breathe knowing one day I'll stop, I still breathe. Just like I loved her, knowing she'd never be mine but loving, still.
I see her daily, in passing moments and shared glances. Yet each time feels like the first a silent awe that never fades.
We talk for hours, Words dancing Between laughter and Soft pauses. But even then, it’s Never enough. A thousand Conversations. And still, I crave just One more minute.
I hold her hand, Feel the warmth of Her fingers, But something slips Through A nearness wrapped In distance.
Like holding a dream Before it vanishes.
So I sleep. Not to rest, But to find her again In quiet dreams where Time bends, And love speaks Without needing to be Heard.
Illustration by Jazmin Colombini
Lost to The Living (a poem to)
Words by Katie Leyden
Humanity’s foundation is moulded by fear,
“The world’s end” invariably near,
The root cause seemingly changed,
The grounds to hate is rearranged,
How one is born wielding a sinful heart is unclear.
“Is there an end to it?” they wail,
As though serving their time in jail,
While a cruel, wicked face rises to power,
The destruction left that of a wilted flower,
“Can we fight back though it's safer to hail?”
Wearing his Devilish grin,
He revels in the sin,
Admires and indulges in their innermost struggles, Offering them peace in exchange for their spirit within, In a silent, conniving deal, it’s their souls he smuggles.
The people yearn for a place to belong,
One where they aren’t asked to stay so strong, Where they no longer face the noise alone,
Where hearts are tissue rather than stone, Where defiance can form from the fear they’ve always known.
Bird Chest
Words by Monique Caston
I hope one day I can look back And comfort my teen angst. Write a novel on how to love yourself And write a thesis on my ‘poor tortured soul’ at 19
I want to be able to look back and show myself love I don’t think im ready yet Its all too soon
I can show love but it wont be genuine, It wont be wise And all knowing. It will be flawed,
Performative
Because I know that the rage still exists
Like a rat in a cage
Where the delicate bird should be In my chest
Eaten and gruesome a scene of gore
I can see a new horizon Brimming with love and light and possibility Possibility for changed me
Im so obsessed with change, truly I am urged to write I am pushed and punished and needed Yearning, voracious and hungry to write
Maybe this will fix me!!! An innate and truer understanding of my emotions will allow me to heal? What does it mean to heal. Or will I always be inoperative?
Maybe,
I need to lock myself away and write Does true mastery come from the absence and removal of life?
Am I pretentious?
Depression
Words by Grace Nardi
Born as we
Are – decay.
Smoke enriched lungs.
Cigarette remnants lingering like candied poison-
Sanity crawls, my Addiction sprints.
Mindless spirals
Craving perfumes of rotting roots
The grave – my new home?
Like moulded porcelain Greek gods (Fractured).
Reassembling is terror. Impossible?
Sour humanity appears, Nostalgia creeps on me
Time
A Sympathy of violins
The rhythm, my soul -
A bow gliding
Strings colliding
Tachycardia euphoric
Love and cigarette
Illustration by Jadie Bu
Ghosts that haunt me
Words by Billy Poulopoulos
One day it started and then never ended
The haunting that would follow me everywhere, every day, anytime and any place
The first ghost told me my mind was gone, and all that had been, would be no more
The ghost had sentenced me to die, then left without telling me my time
One day summer came, it brought its heat; It brought its ghosts
The second ghost told me of summer days, and hot nights spent in a romantic daze
The third ghost told me of school fairs and teachers telling us not to lean on chairs
The fourth ghost cried and would only say "things weren't meant to go this way"
In the morning once the ghosts had gone, the birds greeted me with their familiar song
The afternoon dragged and the walls began to melt. I screamed for help and there they were, standing beside me in a homogeneous blur
Speaking in riddles with no rhyme, my mind was loud but not a sound I understood
Night settled in, the stars lit my room. I step out of bed and onto the moon
I roamed the unknown and painted in space, leaving masterpieces hanging perfectly in place
By morning light, the cold took my hand and led me back to a foreign land. My eyes awoke to a ghostly figure who put me to bed and said "you must rest"
What is a dream and what is real, I have no love for my mind and no love for how I feel. I hear memories and see time but cannot grab it, so it passes me by
My body is cold, and life seems still. I can think but not act; I dream but I am awake. There is an ache in my heart, a pounding in my head. The eyes I see through are those which are dead.
One day winter came, it brought its cold, it brought its ghosts
The fifth ghost told me to hold my breath, and feel the hand upon my chest
The sixth ghost told me of winter nights, and how their heart would warm at just my sight
The seventh ghost told me of hats in the air and walking out to a thunderous cheer
The eighth ghost smiled and would only say "I know I'll see you again someday"
Everything is vivid, everything is clear but when I go to speak all I produce are tears
Am I dead? I do not know. Why am I only surrounded by ghosts?
Photograph by Jessie Showell
When Love Finds Me
Words by Aastha Kotak
I’ve never been in love but if I ever am,
I imagine it to feel like colours slipping off the horizon— Soft as whispered lilac skies, a fire that glows, just like hope does at golden hour. The kind that warms your skin like sunlight folded into memory. “छू
That’s how I think it would begin, something softer, quieter. In glances that linger longer than they’re supposed to, a laugh that doesn’t just fade, but slips into the spaces we didn’t know were empty.
I want it to feel like a song playing on vinyl— Grainy, timeless, where silence holds hands with the melody, and everything else feels like it’s been waiting for this one verse.
“लग
Because maybe love is just one evening that knows how to stay.
A moment that feels infinite, like twilight refusing to fade, like a cinema scene paused before the goodbye. If love ever comes for me, let it be gentle, like the dusk. Not a loud crash of thunder, but a slow unravelling of light.
I hope it feels like poetry that doesn’t need to rhyme, a hand brushing mine in the middle of a crowded world, a scene they almost cut from the film, a soft rain falling so slowly,
blurring out the world, rewriting everything until all that remains are two people who didn’t expect to fall. A moment between two lines that somehow says it all.
And I want it to be that simple— that steady, where even silence carries a promise. That tender, where ordinary moments begin to hum like a love song.
I want someone to love like evenings love rivers— fully, without reason or rush. Let it be the reds that burn with longing, the peaches that melt into trust, and the purples that linger long after the sun has set.
I’ve never been in lovebut if I ever am, let it arrive like some kind of evening that doesn’t end until the stars remember how to speak my name.
I want someone to love me and not just like me. You like because, and you love despite. You like someone for the way they shine, but love is the quiet art of holding the shadows— the places where light dims, where whispers live in the cracks, and imperfect edges catch the dawn. Love doesn’t chase perfection, it dances with the shadows, turns flaws into constellations, and finds a universe in the in-between.
Photograph by Jessie Showell
Illustration by Jasmyn McGowan
Who knows!
Words by Gia Marisa Gijo
Reality can neither be created nor destroyed
True to its original course
Just as energy can neither be created nor destroyed
So reality is just energy?
It could also mean the whole reality is constant despite internal changes
So what if the phrase ‘you are in control of your life’ is just a phrase, a lie even
What if it is all just the life’s way of manipulating you
Making you THINK you are in charge
What if reality is not even reality?
What if everything is just a DREAM
Maybe life doesn't even exist
What if the big bang is YET to happen?
The questions that may never have an answer
Who knows!
Hey Everyone,
I’m Oliver, your Student President for 2025.
After many years as a voice for UniSA students, this will be the final edition of Verse Magazine.
Verse has been more than just a publication, it has been a platform for student creativity, expression, critique, and community. It has championed bold ideas, amplified diverse voices, and provided a space where students could tell their stories in their own words. In doing so, it has not only enriched life at UniSA but contributed to the wider media and cultural fabric of South Australia. Many former contributors and editors have gone on to successful careers in journalism, publishing, advocacy, and the arts.
As we farewell Verse, we also acknowledge the long legacy of student-led media at this university. These platforms were sustained by the dedication of passionate students, writers, editors, photographers, designers. Who believed in the power of storytelling and the importance of student voice.
The winding up of Verse comes as part of the broader transition to Adelaide University, a change that brings both uncertainty and possibility. While this is the final chapter for Verse in its current form, it is not the end for student media.
President's Letter
USASA remains firmly committed to ensuring student media remains a strong, independent, and student-led force in the new institution.
We are working closely with YouX and others to shape a future model of student media that continues to amplify student voices, spark critical thought, and foster community across Adelaide University. This is a new beginning, and we are hopeful it will reflect the same values that made Verse so special.
To our readers, contributors, and everyone who has supported Verse over the years: thank you for being part of this journey.
This final edition is for you, a celebration of the stories we’ve told, the voices we’ve uplifted, and the community we’ve built together.
