The Voice
August 2025
Cover art: "Sunshine" by sharkcuddles
Sparkler
there is peace in the darkness, an alluring sense of acceptance in failure closed eyes & open eyes both see the same but please stick out your hand & light a sparkler with me. for a moment let...
A Sort of Ode to Joy
I got home from work at nine o’clock and decided that I would go down, through the gate, across the creek–socks mushy all of a sudden in my Adidas sneakers–and into the meadow for a walk without stopp...
It's Time
Honestly, it’s hard to believe that as I’m writing this, lounging here in a big bus (treat from Iteam), I’m completing four weeks in Guatemala. I had no idea I would be able to do this trip. My brain ...
Anthophile - MK
I was once a girl in love with a flower, delicate and soft. So I picked this flower and brought it home, deciding it was better off with me. If only I knew calamity would follow if the flower was no l...
Living in the Moment
To live in the moment is to really see to really feel the world around you to live in the moment is to capture the glow of a camper's hair in the sunlight to feel connected with the people around you ...
We Are All Made From Each Other
I am out at night because I can’t stand myself. People are milling on the street. Nobody looks at me. They all look at each other as they pass, and the lights decorate their faces to be tall and lumin...
A Screenager’s Wake-Up Call
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been deeply immersed in the digital world. My life has been a constant stream of online consumption, whether for academic purposes or purely for personal enjoyment....
Summer
the air tastes like honey and promise sticky with the scent of blooming jasmine and freshly cut grass that crunches beneath bare feet the sky drips blue stretching wider every afternoon like it’s tryi...
Dear Mother
Dear Mother, I have missed you these past few months. Where did you go? I see you standing there, torch held high, yet you do not answer my calls. Have the chains that were broken tethered you once ag...
Green
When I think of the color green, I think of the trees behind my school. In kindergarten, when kids were cruel and words hurt more than sticks or stones, the trees were there. I sat there every day unt...
A Hug of People
We didn't know the guy in the truck who's that guy? my sister asked, and I wondered if city people expected to know everyone they saw around town. I just saw a woman in the locker room, she's known ...
Last Dream About Camp
i dreamed of the windmills again - four big gentle giants towering over the blue-green mountains, whirling round the clock like out-of-sync ballerinas, clumsy & dressed in bruised white tulle. eve...
Bittersweetness in the Air
at the beginning of the end you went to shake my hand i followed it with an embrace for i could not face what i knew would come at the end of the night i turned you away i met your warm embrace with a...
Love, Like Light, Like a Rose
Love Is like light Is like a rose Growing from the darkened depths Of a blackened bramble Climbing through the soil With shadowed claws, Defeated by Our love: Beautiful because Of its strength, Risin...
Different at Night
Things sound different at midnight, the dark is so much lighter, the noises so much louder. Every creak causes a jump. Every movement causes a flinch. Opening and closing doors is like dropping a hea...
Morning in Paris
It’s morning in Paris, and the city still sleeps, though the sun has long risen and the cat has long been stretched in the light that washes over the quiet courtyard. It’s summer in Paris, and the cit...
twelve months of dreaming
I have this dream where the sky is dark, moon illuminating, faded stars surrounding it, that I gaze at from the top of my roof. I have this dream where I run around in a field with my best friend and ...
The Power of "Thank You"
On my first day of sixth grade, someone told me, “You’re the only person that has said that to me today.” I didn’t realize the weight of those words at the time, but looking back, I understand how muc...