Cycle

Grace Noonan, M3, Class of 2024

December 2017

            It’s Christmas morning. Her eyes flash open, a result of adrenaline from what’s downstairs. Not the presents or the smell of pine and peppermint, but the screaming. She hears Annie yelling and instantly knows what’s happening. She listens for a while, processing. She knows the cycle is starting again. Being the most observant of the family, she expected this was coming soon. She saw his pupils, the way his hunch was worsening, and even the rattle of the pill bottle in his pocket that she knew he stuffed with toilet paper or cotton balls.

Coming of Spring

Colette Worcester, G1-P3

Middle Grounded

Simon Longhi, M2, Class of 2025

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve just been wishfully thinking my entire life.

“… so that’s why I want to work in the foreign service… because… well, the world is cool!” Scrawny, bright-eyed 18-year-old me actually spoke these words out loud, introducing myself to my Honors Ancient Civilizations class, a freshman international relations major. It became a playful, mocking mantra often recited by my friend group –in startlingly accurate high-pitched tone– every time I expressed a sincere affinity for some sort of unique culture or geographical quirk. I mean, in truth, I kind of liked it; I took it well and it suited me.  As a youth, if I ever met someone from another country, they had some sort of accent, some wild backstory – whatever that ‘foreignness’ was, this new person scored mega points in my naïve head, they were automatically ‘cooler’, and I default-admired them.

Twin Violets

Vinamaratha Rao, PhD Candidate (G1-P3)

Beyond this door lies a forest

deep in the quiet riot of autumn.

The silence disrupted by the crunching of leaves

underfoot a team of interlopers, of which I trail behind.

In a clearing beyond the shadows of the thicket,

we approach two trees towering as one.

Two trunks bowed like backs to wrap their branches in an embrace.

 I blink

 In their place, Two women appear.