Tears won’t part
The tears won’t part
As the dam restrains-
Flood.
Blinking, lids are
sandpaper grains.
Your words slice and
Pierce through vein,
Should stab you with shame.
Bloodshot, curtains of my eyes-
Fall.
Lisa Peña is a sophomore writing major from Fort Worth
Excerpt from ‘together’
Is my mind really all in my head?
A residence of logic and reason hardly seems a fitting place
for an imagination.
My fingers tingle with anticipation
as crunchy leaves are crushed under foot…
and the smell of sweet
decay seeps into my brain,
arousing my subconscious.
Inching on our icy stomachs and waiting
for the sun to thaw
frozen faces. You whisper,
Don’t move Bri, you’ll fall right through.
So I slowly creep along, laughing.
Does pain ever completely diminish?
Not knowing is worse than a diagnosis.
All the infinite infirmities looming in your head,
Why not ask for help? You know it’s the only way to heal.
But it seems it’s the diagnosis that kills us, that’s what means
It’s real.
Laugh, kookaburra, laugh.
City, you frightening stranger,
generous hostess.
Your hospitality has been much appreciated
and I believe I will stay a bit longer.
Are you smiling because you can hear my thoughts?
Brianna Stark is a freshman English major from Lee’s Summit, Missouri.
High School Hero. Hardly
For the next 90 minutes:
I
Am
God.
Or, at least, I can be.
There is a scar on my foot
And one on my knee.
Nothing dramatic about it,
But they remind me.
My fingers crookedly grow.
And we both know how this thing goes.
I did not leave you nor forsake you,
And you have not left me.
I believed
If you are indomitable,
You didn’t have to be invincible.
If you are insatiable,
You didn’t have to be irreplaceable.
Are these nights truly limitless?
They exceed stars.
Here’s the thing:
I wouldn’t burn this city down if I could.
But even though I arm the blazing center of the solar system,
My heat is contained by blood and bones and sinew.
My mom would always say,
When I was younger,
“Remember
Who you are and where you come from.”
I haven’t forgotten.
And sometimes it chokes me,
It makes my stomach bottom,
I swallow very, very hard
And think about The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
What’s he got that I don’t have? Was it his brown eyes?
It makes me unbearably sad.
Dalton Goodier is a junior English and history double
major from Lufkin.
It’s Beautiful
It’s beautiful, how you chastise me,
how you constantly tell me I’m not worthy.
You bring me down, tearing into my soul,
my tears fall like rain, but it’s beautiful.
It’s beautiful, just lovely,
you can’t seem to find any good in me.
Absolutely nothing seems right for you,
despite my inadequacy, somehow, it’s beautiful.
It’s beautiful how you look at me,
that look of disgust.
Then one day, I left.
I feel free and unchained, it’s beautiful.
It’s beautiful to watch you now,
in a relationship like ours.
Your soul is ravaged and broken,
And to me, it’s beautiful.
Sangre
There’s glass in the air I’m breathing
Slowly ripping me apart.
My lungs hang shredded,
tattered within my chest
Ripped and bloodied like old army fatigues.
I try to breath, clawing at my chest
attempting to free myself in vain.
I’m drowning in it,
that crimson liquid of life.
My blood clings to the air with each exhale,
like a hematic rain storm,
my lips the blood red clouds.
Diana Dunigan is a senior writing major from Fort Worth.