Prose
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“They fail to vivify my prison. Ah, not prison. After busy work days and long hours of restless labor, I find myself somehow excited to return to this hell I call home.”
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Pradhyumn Pradeep
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“On the day a man with a sad face dressed as a patient lumberjack carved a hole into our kitchen and dragged our oven outside into his Goliath truck, my sister told me she wanted to learn how to bake.”
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Anshi Purohit
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“Buoyant violin started to thrum, bringing life to the floor as lords and ladies were swept to dance in a sunrise of silk. Amongst the lively chords that floated through the air, a young woman stood propped against the glass balcony doors.”
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Rosalyn Gardner
Poetry
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“let me say it / like i mean it—in the water / your left foot lies lame / and there is something like blood / all over my hands.”
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Julia Glazebnik
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“that’s what summer is meant to be / lonely freedom, melancholy deception / thinking to yourself, this autonomy has been fooling me”
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Eva Lam
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Unrequited Love in the Night Sky
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“It is simple: humanity is in love with this star, / and believes it shines brighter every day / just for them.”
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Eva Lam
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“sweeten my phlegm / sticky chords of honey envelop my thorax”
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Katherine Zhao
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Subject: If you wrote Feel Free for my/our midnight mind(s)
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“Unlike you, I still can’t write anything, for I still can’t / write a sentence that is too beautiful to be condemned / as interminable”
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Keyi Wang
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“Girls in the hallway try to forget / Each other’s opal tears, / And that salty way they taste.”
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Violet Hetherington
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“I think / being strong / is a curse”
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Amruta Dhuke
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You Will Never Stop Murdering Me
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“When I find the girl who murdered me / I am going to dig my sharpened nails into her cheek / I am going to make her bleed”
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Arianna Williams
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“i’ve been exhausted for years / not finding remedy in sleep or sweet”
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Lily Wilson
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“It’s the absence of sound, so deafening, profound, / Lost in the labyrinth of tangled thoughts and fears”
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Ellie Yang