in which war is always invading

die as something, maybe. like a dog. why won’t i have that?
because the stove doesn’t have wrinkles, and a thing like that
won’t get far. i’m not at home anymore but forget me for a
minute. all i remember is lash, burn, trench. unsightly, unseeing. 
eyes eyes eyes. i await your order. what’s up with me? it’s like i 
believe it’ll back off if i run, trim the talking eyelids. it burns.
i finish my circles and then return to the cycle. i exhale the
sunlight. tear it into tiny chunks and swallow. inhale the boiling 
trench. please god i’m sick and i don’t trust sorry. was that
it god? should it? i gotta make a life. i want light, i want
the day. god is a watchdog. i watch the dark. two sore breaths.
it walls me in. i hate the stove. the ticking and the burst
of fire, like it’s calling me. i wonder if god has a dog too.

amazon

the door dings. slipped beneath is a plastic
package. a thin layer of film stretches around fabric,
sealed at the edges as if pressed with an iron. 
you will press the cloth inside with an iron, 
heat hissing as it seeps inside stitches. the fabric 
sighs, wilts, and sucuumbs at last. it melds with 
your fingers, molting as if you are shedding flesh. 
the neck of the shirt swallows you, fabric rippling 
around your torso as you move. and you move, 
because you need the iron now. you need to iron 
your shirt-skin. you hold the iron in your hand,
smoke wheezing into your eyes, and you click-
click-click and wait, coughing, until you hear
the door ding again. and slipped beneath it is a
plastic package. a handprint seared into the iron.
alternatively, the iron imprinted into your hand.
you tear the plastic away like an animal might
to a carcass. the door dings and dings and dings.
you are starving.

train ride

Shut up, the woman says. her cheeks are berry flushed. i can imagine
her manicured fingers plucking out the seeds in her pores. Shut up shut up shut up.
the man cradles his head like it is a fragile thing, constantly slipping from his
slick grip. I, he tries. No, he begins. his nails curl around an armrest. then,
Shut up! he flushes berry red. i straighten my magazine page with a flap. the two
glance at me, anywhere but each other. mom takes the paper from me. I can’t
believe they’re being so loud on a train, she complains. quietly, at least. Mom, shut up,
i whisper. They’ll hear you. mom shrugs, rolls the magazine away and turns
to the couple. It’s a public space, mom says, not so quiet this time, and the woman 
blushes even darker, because she is always the picture of dignity and she has
never been heartbroken before. the man’s nails dig into his scalp, as if its on the verge
of breaking. he is terribly good at breaking things, perhaps. i avert my eyes. it’s like
watching a train wreck. metal sparking like fireworks and butterflies. mom doesn’t
look away. the man’s watch is slow, he hasn’t had time to replace it, probably.
he’s been sick with a cold for a week and he’s too tired of chicken soup to
keep it down. he needs tylenol and ice. the woman sighs. the train’s exhaust fumes
sigh. mom grabs my hand and leads me to the doors, slinging a backpack over
her shoulder. And don’t tell me to shut up, she says, the couple’s eyes
watching our backs as we slip outside.

Haeun (Regina) Kim is a student writer from Seoul, South Korea. An alumna of the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship, the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference, and the Sunhouse Summer Writing Mentorship, she has been recognized by Bennington College, the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, River of Words, and more. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, Stone Soup, and The Galway Review, among others. An editor at Polyphony Lit, she serves as the founder of MISO-JIEUM. When not writing, she can be found painting in an art studio or struggling through amateur ballet.

Middle of Somewhere

Vaguely behind every winter of ambition 
Their eyes warm, and cookies sleep deeply through problems 
Hard-boiled eggs and children stretching 
And the days try not to half 

Playing football in a science school
You try to fit in a cool shirt, overdressed, overqualified
Youth cooled down while you put your tie—around your neck—red 
Spring cheats with a smile where passion left

Spotted beard pretends to know
Wake up to midlife 
Crisis baked and served
Problems with morning cereal

Laundry worn too many times 
White lies
Small sigh of relief or reminisce

Errant Minutes

This morning lasted four seconds—
long enough for light to change its mind, 
for the pot to think of boiling, 
and forget. 

Steam from the mug hadn’t even reached its curve
before light slipped from the table 
and onto the wall,
then off again. 

Voice folded into the air,
before the phone could ring its tune.
It waited there—
certain, I would need it later. 

As light finally held still, 
and my reflection—
breathing where I’d left it.

The air stiffened
and across that pause, 
something small and weightless unfolded in my hands—
not sound,
but just the quiet after it.

Press to Play 

Light spills across my face, 
portraits of other lives glowing brighter than mine. 
Smiles freeze in rectangles, 
perfect mornings that never end. 
I scroll until faces blur into one long pulse of brightness,
casting a shadow behind me of everything I’m not.

An afterimage hums behind my eyes,
light submerges into darkness 
until I only see sounds.
Footsteps cross the ceiling like timpani,
each one tracking the same path
as the neighbours pace through my dream. 

The alarm rings.
I press the same button, 
promise the same five more minutes. 
Light seeps through the curtain seam, 
thin as a paper cut. 
I move between bells, 
each hallway reflecting the last.

I return to the room that remembers my shape—
the sunset dyes the linen orange. 
Light seeps through to print a shadow
of everything I am.

The same blur of blue waiting, 
soft, faithful as breath.

Sally Lee is a student at an international school in Seoul, South Korea. Immersed in a multicultural environment, she draws inspiration from the diverse cultures and experiences around her. She is currently working on her writing portfolio.

You can find more of Sally’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Not To Dream

Drink a cup or two of heavy caffeine
          I suppress my own urge to spit the bitterness out
Lean uncomfortably on your stiff back
          I feel the cold wooden chair pressing on my spine
Keep the hands busy, although it may be pointless
          I crack my fingers to break the silence
Make sure the eyes are wide open
          I bear the weighty lashes, constantly blinking
Do not lose the tension on the shoulders
          I keep my elbows away from the armrest of the chair
Avoid the pleasure of the warmth
          I enjoy the shiver as much as I wish
Desire not to dream
          I keep myself out of the swift absurdity leading to obnoxiousness
Keep the space bright and artificial
          The unceasing LED lights blur my exhausted vision
Plead with the sun not to rise
          The closed shades should protect me from the new day

As I Lay

The flashing light brightens the room
In strobes of color
A plant’s shadow projected on the white wall
The blurred outlines, a tint of purple
In the darkness, the air still shimmers
The remanence of objects flickering 
As if it is still there

The ladybug crashing to the ceiling light
Irritates the atmosphere
Failing to resist the temptation of the bright warmth
The wings flap and twitch
The legs are fragile and pendulous
It moves and vibrates simultaneously
until it is abruptly compressed by a tissue box
marking a two-dimensional print on the wall

The wind blows the light into the room
Filling it with the lustrous gleam
soon cancelled out by the winter breeze
Each blow pushes against the shade
The wooden handle tapping the windowsill
Bouncing back into the room,
Its movement is ceased by gravity
The window is locked
And air pressure is now behind firm glass

I Almost Said It 

The cracks in the paint 
on the ceiling
was partially scraped off
Revealing the bare grey concrete

I almost asked for help

My finger dialed a familiar number
That has been lingering in my head
Since the day you disappeared
I hovered above the green button

The room was empty
the disgusting solitary
Reminded the warmth
Once pressed upon the shoulder 
by the weight of your head  

The walls seemed too white
once shaded
with two orange shadows
at sunset

The water in the glass
remained still and untouched
Subtly reflecting my face
Too colourless to be shown

Lauren Kim is a high school student with a fervent love for both poetry and visual art. Her work delves into the intricacies of identity, the nuances of nature, and the emotional currents of teenage life. Through her poems and mixed media artwork, Lauren seeks to capture and convey the beauty in moments of introspection and everyday experiences. When she’s not writing or creating art, she enjoys exploring the outdoors, reading contemporary poetry, and experimenting with new artistic techniques. Lauren’s work has been influenced by her diverse cultural background and her deep connection to the natural world. She aspires to continue growing as an artist and a writer, sharing her unique perspective with others.

You can find more of Lauren’s work here on Ink Pantry.

The Navy Man 

The time he wore navy, what looked like a towel 
When we stood to meet, we felt another wrinkle and smiled
And to think that the hair in each lid of our eyes lives?
I’ve seen it flicker for him.  

His camera was muted when we hiked
His pedals creak when we bike 
Looking distant and smiles fade, but when seen close, 
His blue eyes do first.

How I still imagine when our eyes glistened in pictures
His thoughts are deep, never back are we never 
How his eyes were in every pose 
His eyes were covered by a headband I sold 
We’ve tied each other up, knowing he was I 
But those like him continued

The Portrait on My Pillow 

Each corner unravels in sleep,
Breathless in years, 
the pillow lies flat, airless. 

At a corner of the pillow sheet,
a black mouth opens at the seam–  
where ink bled through paper,
where dreams learned to weep.

I fell some nights,
as rain, as wheels on ruined roads
Till I awoke, with beads of sweat
that sank and shaded the pillow 

Every scream sewn inwards,
some days I cried till my face melted into
wobbly linings of my eyes and nostrils– 
A jocular portrait, I still laugh to 

And below the faded sheets,
It still faintly paints 
the colors of my fears and dreams 
when I lay my head down.

Staring Out into the Ocean 

There was a huge painting 
hung on an endless white wall.
The back of a woman and a man, clutching their hands
staring out into a vast blue ocean.

“What are they looking at?” I asked
“There’s nothing interesting about the ocean.” 
My mother shook her head, then said,
“What makes you think it’s an ocean?”

“The thin white waves, look.” 
I pointed at the wobbly acrylic lines
“What makes them wave patterns?” 
She asked, with a faint smile. 

Then I saw her still figure, staring into the painting 
Into the ocean, as her fingers
traced the wrinkles near her mouth,
her eyes distant, hollowed by the empty silence.

The woman and the man were small, 
dwarfed by the ocean ahead.
Two lonely shadows,
Staring out into the blue.

Ah-Young Dana Park is a high school student in Boston, Massachusetts. Her poetry often explores memory, interiority, and fleeting moments. Beyond her writing pursuits, Dana enjoys singing, painting, and exploring other artistic fields.

You can find more of Dana’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Small Thing

Life fears me with mortality,
making me urge for more ends,
until the last moment of urge I will make
–when I compromise,
      it should be illusory, yet I’m not trying to debunk the impermanence of life.
      With my closed views of the world,
      I isolate myself from the beauty of life I have dreaded to live in.
The terror haunts me.
View yourself; such a temporary thing you are
with an unknown void that would soon disappear
it whispers life’s weight, reminding how I would forget everything I cherished;
Nothing remains; everything is wiped away by time, by sand, by ocean.
The echoes of life the waters ushered blends into the horizon with mine
       And where do I find that end to the horizon!
The tighter I hold, try to control, the faster time slips away,
toward the echo of a voice I once knew,
instantly thinning into light
The ocean mocked me with its eternal rhythm and soon
plunged me in its currents
The last breath—it was fragile,
but the world resumed
So I gasped out of the blue and screamed into the wind!
      Yet my voice thinned,
      dissolving into amorphous matter

What life must take

I circle around,
yet to face the same quiet stage.

Odour of the mats spring with an odd echo
–it anchors me down with an anvil;
it drowns me;
it pounds me;
only a blur of light above.

The light reflects against the fragmented mirror,
then splits their way across the room,
adding much gravitas in its dense atmosphere. 
The drops of sweat–dark and heavy–
engrave on my body.

The blur sharpens; air thickens; and
I grasp them with my calloused hands, 
only to see them draining through the gaps while 
ink bleeds from my arid hands–
where’s the fresh green?

The carving gets deeper;
fond shades of the ink soak the ground I stand;
I cannot teach what life must give.

Glimpse

Chimes of distant bells echo my heart
–ethereal they were, with the plumose exhale hushed in my ears.
Lavender petals settle down on the brim of my delicate helix,
pollinating the resonants of exquisite fields of life:
Yes, I remember, the tranquil soothings of water–
they slowly enveloped my eyes that braced for their last glimpse of beauty
of silver, celestial ripples 
floating immensely across the auroral midnight, and
how I then was too late… too late to grasp it,
with my eyes already liquefied with those wrinkles.
I wondered then,
whether the beauty was ever mine to keep—or was it just too much for an ordinary life,
and maybe I am destined to enjoy the dim world, the duty of dull, repetitive cycles.

Jian Yeo is a poet based in Massachusetts, where the changing seasons and scenic landscapes serve as a constant source of inspiration for her work. She is currently a student, balancing her academic pursuits with her passion for writing. 

In Retrospect
A man with no past is a tottering tower with no foundation.

I constantly revisit my past,
whose resurrected associations
are at times excruciating,
but at others quite exhilarating.

I dwell in the past
in an array of haunting songs,
of unfulfilled dreams
and ever-delayed gratification.

I dwell in the past
in the day before you came,
when my temple was un-trampled upon
by your dissonant feet,
and every consecrated altar
was beyond your reach.

In my childhood

In my childhood
I had witnessed the witch hunt for butterflies,
though not convicted of witchcraft,
but for preservation,
which happens to be an art,
the crucifixion type.

I had seen troops of ants
crushed by people’s feet
with glee,
and the bagworm that glued itself to our garden wall
to shelter its soul
have its bag ripped to pieces.

They’ve all become intricately interwoven
with all that is obscene
in this digital age that has bred Epsteins.

Thomas Hardy

In Westminster Abbey he was laid to rest,
but his cut-out heart had chosen Dorset,
where Bathsheba rode her horse astride
and Tess of the D’Urbervilles had fought with strife.

He tirelessly roamed the streets of London,
the ‘monster with four million heads
and eight million eyes’,
shunning its much-hated crowds.

Reckoning

I hold you accountable
for every frozen deer and duck,
for erupting waters that instantly gulp
cities and hamlets with suffocating mud.

I hold you responsible
for turning a blind eye
to the laceration of every sky,
to the white deaths of adult and child.

Dr Susie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with a PhD on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Green Hills Literary Lantern, A New Ulster, Crossways, The Curlew, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Ink Pantry, Mad Swirl, Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine, and Down in the Dirt.

Susie’s first book (adapted for film), Classic Adaptations, includes Charlotte Bronte’s Villette, Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

You can find more of Susie’s work here on Ink Pantry.

What the Rain Didn’t Wash Away

It rained for days.
not a storm,
just steady enough
to fill the cracks in the driveway
and make the air smell
like endings.

The ink on your note
bled through the paper,
letters slipping into one another
until you’re sorry.’
wasn’t even legible anymore.

I thought the sky might help,
that it would take the sharpness
of that night
and smooth it into something
I could walk barefoot across.

But the rain stopped,
and the mark your hand left
on the windowsill–
a faint half-circle of dust–
stayed there.

The house feels clean,
but the air still holds
the word you didn’t say.

While We Wait

Tomorrow, when I wake,
or think I do,
I’ll wonder what I did today.
Just waited, I guess;
for something,
or someone,
that never came.

The sun went up,
the sun went down,
and we stayed here,
talking about nothing,
laughing at small things
just to fill the quiet.

Sometimes I think waiting
is what life really is:
hoping for a change,
a sign,
a reason.

Maybe what matters
isn’t what we wait for,
but that we keep waiting–
together.

Chipped Cup

The rim is uneven,
a bite taken out of porcelain.
I drink carefully,
lips finding a safe place.

It feels like a shortcut,
pretending nothing’s broken
because I can still use it.

But it’s also shorthand:
the chip tells me that
the cup has been dropped,
and someone still decided
it was worth keeping anyway.

White glaze, rough edge,
a little scar I touch every morning,
as if to remind myself:
fragile things don’t stop holding.

Olivia Koo is a high school student and emerging poet. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading, movies, and music. She is currently putting together her writing portfolio. 

My Companion 

I fold and shove the tag back into my sweater
Press it flat against the seam
It still scratches
rough against the back of my neck

I shift my shoulders
Pull at the collars
Try to ignore 
forget that it’s there

I laugh with her
Sit together for all meals
Feel a twist within me
An uncertainty I cannot name
But she remains my companion 
And there is nothing to be done

The air is too cold 
To take off my sweater
So the itch stays, rubbing deeper 
into the hours.

The Cathedral Tapestry

The cathedral tapestry in the twilight labyrinth
Breathes dust when I brush my hand against the wall
A lanternfly vessel on driftwood at the tide
Drums its wings like thin paper, struggling not to drown
The compass is a mosaic
  of the prism and the aurora
It’s needle trembling, pointing toward a colder wind
Mercury eclipse and sapphire mirage veil the citadel
Its windows are flashing on and off
The orchard blossom is a fossil of velvet and rust
I feel its pulse within me
As if something hidden, waiting to open from the inside.

Keys of Black and White

Walking with the crowd,
between hurried strangers
Keys of black and white,
a large piano for the crowd

Gum fossils and oil stains listening below
A stitch work sewn from street to street

“I wear thin under the shuffle
of those who never look down,”
      it says
In memory, leaping from stripe to stripe,
through a big playground

Irene Kim is a high school student who loves visual art and writing. Her work has been recognized in local exhibitions and school publications. When she’s not drawing or writing, she enjoys reading poetry, walking in the rain, and experimenting with collage. Irene hopes to continue creating work that captures both the quiet and the extraordinary.

Early Morning Love Song

Despite the moon, nearly full, gliding
six inches above the western horizon
where that faint line of a Great Lake lies,
my couple of cardinals
amidst the etched grey of sunrise
say it’s morning,
and all the little birds believe them.

Despite me, nearing fifty, holding
two inches before hitting the midway
in a life as long as it ought to be,
my tired, allergic eyes
below a grey sketch of wild hair
see it’s morning,
and all the giddy cells believe them.

Despite this near-miss at late love, that the
last quarter-inch could not have slid down
like a pane shattering for joy,
my old sorrows roll over
in their fetching grey failure,
sigh, “It’s morning,”
and all the silly feelings believe them.

Vast

Just out of Minneapolis-St. Paul we seemed
briefly to stall as if to shadow
all those wispies drifting below.

The mazes of cul-de-sacs had given way
to assorted squares of barren fields,
their whiskered homesteads glued

to odd corners like stamps, wide ribbon
slipping backward and away, silent terrain
under a lazy canoe. Now the sun

has cast a grey ghost of our plane
down and to my right, framed it within
the awkward porthole, its sliding shade,

an unaccountable halo of rainbow—
and this ridiculous filigree of angels,
filmy leagues camouflaged in ether,

special recruits that mingle and network
like secret agents: the FBI of the sky.
But when we soon tilt and ascend

to the high status toward Denver, I know
all this silliness will vanish, angels fading,
becoming the thin air, and these fields will retreat

to compose vast sheets of stamps, re-impose
perspective, that inevitable severance
from everything that’s then re-imaginable.

Now

Once upon a then not long ago
enough the nows became
delicious, and every other then
took on its flat feel of “My,
how I have wasted…” Yes,

yes, you are who you are
because of blah, blah, blah—
all that dullness, too, that
boredom. But now you can
love the nows, love those

who show you, look forward
to a better later, even risk missing
this now or the next. Today’s
faint sun struggles to cast
yesterday’s delicate warmth—

but because it is now
here’s its half-fazing glow
through filtering clouds
and its more mottled effect
on water and the water’s still

steady sound and this alighting
bird who fans the translucent
arc of her tail feathers
through which you can see
the occasion you call now.

Butterfly Solipsism

A butterfly’s flapping over Costa Rica,
it’s sometimes considered, could initiate
the chain that leads to tornados in Toledo,
hopping and ripping the heart
from every-other quotidian home.

Or maybe its deft stretch-and-glide
could instigate the violent Mississippi’s
surprising rise beyond its subtle, stolid realm—
the dainty queen behind that vast rebellion.

So I suppose I could blame this monarch
that reigns today’s thermals—that just
licked six purple puffs in beach grass
then juked my breezy mind—
for the nicknamed waves of catastrophe
soon to sweep a sleeping Gulf,
the nightly news even proving it
via weather patterns green-screened
before the stocks and sports.

But instead I’m turning my grateful face
toward the nor’easter just breaching
the stony coast of my brain: when it
rattles shutter to sash to rafter,
I’ll unlatch the deadbolts, throw open
the windows, and ready my heart’s
musty guest bedroom in welcome.

If Hearts Know Best

Not wanting to disparage your heart (after all,
from its involuntary seclusion it pounds out
three trillion beats by the time it dies), but at best
it boasts only a sixty-percent ejection
of fresh blood from its left ventricle, out
its aorta, and into that vast vascular
network invented to re-oxygenate you.

And not meaning to disparage your sense of
what’s acceptable, but this sixty percent
is excellent, a D-minus that commends you!
Any greater rating and that concavity
would collapse, just like a kiddy pool sluiced
of too much water, or like when the sails deflate
and maroon the little schooner that is you.

What if such barely passing productivity
typified a few of our other endeavours,
a submediocrity chosen to achieve more
than the bleed-out of high achievement?
Imagine our ruminations running at only
sixty-percent efficiency. Or what about
sixty-percent modification to all our
manipulations? Over-identifications?

What if our self-doubt and over-reactions
were reduced to a measly sixty percent?
Or perhaps a forty-percent reduction of our
ambition to be liked? (We might become
likable!) Likewise, losing forty percent
of our judgment of judging, preaching
against preaching, desiring the return
of our adolescent desire, thinking
we know what we think we know?

And what if our love-sickened hearts sort of
met each other a little over half-way,
almost always gave each other a mere
sixty-forty benefit of the doubt, supplied
the minor nudge that’d tip our teeter toward
the other’s totter to strike the delicate
imbalance that’d barely make the difference?

Tracing Your Two Lines

There’s the one that goes round and round
with each revolving day, sunset to sunset.
For that, your eyes, looking west, would
streak the long exposure like faint tail lights
arcing away over recurring hills. The other

is different. It doesn’t depend on
where you stand, which way you face.
No matter, it releases from the daily spin and
wanders, a twirling girl’s sparkler in the dark.

Try pointing to any spot on a globe. Make it
the capital of any troubled country, and
after that miniature world turns your finger
in perfect circles, watch your fingertip trace
the course it takes as you continue your trail

from here to eternity. You’ll see it zigzags
a singular presence over the earth’s assorted
surfaces, drawing its own conclusions—

like you in this world, scratching out
a meandering, your own universe, your own
one-line sketch of this far-fetched existence.

D. R. James, retired from nearly 40 years of teaching college writing, literature, and peace studies, lives with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His latest of ten collections is Mobius Trip (Dos Madres Press).

You can find more of D.R.James’ work here on Ink Pantry.

Irony

In liminal space,
Epiphany blooms
Then fades in eclipse,
In ennui.
The serendipity feels like a chimera.
Leviathan in Metropolis,
This totem of confusion
Transforms into mosaic rhapsody,
A labyrinth of alchemy.
Epitaph carved on the monolith.
The mind becomes a quagmire,
A parallax of what is real,
What is true.

Harbinger

The red mirage from the hearth,
looming, cascading, 
echoing an ember glow from the solstice,
under the celestial canopy.

A turpentine mucking haven,
with silts and shards
chiseling the pinnacle—
a verdant glade of hollow,
where meadowlarks chirp.

In the thicket,
in the tundra,
beneath the dune,
through mire and glade,
the tempest orbits.

First Place

I saw a smooth surface beneath my soft palms 
that once awkwardly held a pencil.
Glossy green-blue or cotton candy pink,
sometimes scarred with little scribbles.
A rectangle whose sharp edges 
were softened for small hands.
I trace the thin grey lines,
feel the rubber lining,
soothing me from inside.

The ceiling saw blocks of rectangles forming
a blueprint for a square.
Gaps in between some,
some crooked,
some deviating from others.
But always together.

The carpet saw the underneath, where no one pays attention.
Ancient gums that hardened into fossils,
boogers pressed into corners.
Drawings of stick figures,
words carved with defiance–
“Stupid,” “Dog poop”–
rebellion in permanent markers.

The windows saw blurs of identical shapes.
A line of possibility.
Where the soft brains were hardened.
Where the soft hands learned how to find themselves.

“I like my life,” it whispers,
through scratch surfaces and wobbly legs.
“I know I’m loved. I know I’m needed.”
“They come and go, but I stay here,
ready to be a second home.”

Once so big,
not intimidating but
embracing.
My place in the world,
solid and certain.
Thought it would never change.
Now it fades in memory
when I sit—if I could sit—
it would barely hold me.
Reminding me of the distance between who I was and who I’ve become
The time between it and me.

Alexis Lee is a high school student and emerging poet who finds inspiration in fleeting moments, music, and the quiet details of daily life. Her work explores themes of memory, transformation, and human connection. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading contemporary poetry, listening to indie music, and exploring local bookstores.