NEW PROFILES
NEW WORK ON BARE/ Summer + Autumn 2023
Bee Talarzyk / 10
Yarn
Each life is like a spool of yarn,
different lengths,
different colors,
different sizes
And the yarn gets tangled
Gets wrapped up and mangled
When you meet someone
and the knots get all tied
So sometimes it’s easier,
to pretend we were never friends,
to untie all those secrets from me
Easier than trying to hold them together
But it also hurts,
to let go
Because you forget
You forget that you attached yourself
to me
To remove all those knots between us
Is painstaking
Because I’m forced
to untangle each bit of you
from me
Watching the yarn slip through my fingers
Because if I don’t,
I risk you ripping my soul out
when you take yours back
from me
Bee Talarzyk / 10
structure
If people were buildings,
I would be rubble
Because you were my structure
Without you I stumble.
Nora Will / Alum
Boardwalk
Tala Ojjeh / 12
The Cycle of War
A vicious cycle of wars
and it has menacingly befallen you
from a daunting game that never ends
and you are one of the pawns used too.
An overbearing power descended
their tanks rolling onto your soil
and you prayed for hope, for eager help
yet you knew the world watched the turmoil.
In a moment’s thought, you knew you were alone
and the humanness you had once enjoyed
slowly oozed away like the blood
that was staining the earth with its life destroyed.
A burning war, yet you still struggle
grappling with fate in a shaky persistence.
A sky, smoky gray, from the rain of the shelling
as you sense the weight from the wearing resistance.
A gas of fear poisons your air
suffocating and sickening within its core
but sadly, through time, it become a norm
as you scramble for safety from the chaos of war.
And you resist, in the ruthless heat of war
you doubt but hope for the world to awaken.
Again, the world, entangled in games,
is silent, witnessing your cities be shaken.
Anonymous
trying to find the right face to show you in return
i stood at the edge
suspended and i
waited and i
felt a weight off my back
until a nervous apprehension crawled right back on
and i peered into the mirror and found my face blushed a deep vermilion
Read.
a million years go by
silence
a million more
radio silence
i finally breathe out when i see that three-dotted bubble
pulsing, pulsating, beating like a heart
(but whose?)
and then the cricket calls
it takes me a while to understand
and i spend a long time trying to find the right face to show you in return
but i think that's ok
because for the first time i am at ease.
Elise Love / 10
Pink Sundays
It used to bore me.
The minutes dragged on
and I’d wonder when I could leave.
We’d talk about the little things.
Thoughts of sharing strawberry shortcakes
at a place I’d never been.
Pictures of the cotton candy skies
from inside your patio screen.
Messages of my latest art
that you’d always keep.
Roses and azaleas that grew in your yard.
Peonies and cherry blossoms
that are still growing in mine.
Soft sands of beaches I’d felt
even though you’d never get to see.
Jewelry with butterflies that
I’d never have the heart to wear again.
Ice cream and frosted treats
eaten days before.
I’d slowly sip on
bitter herbal teas.
You’d have berry pancakes every Sunday.
Then show me pictures of
a young me in ballet tutus
that I had already seen.
The last look I gave before
I turned and left your street.
The blush still hadn’t left your cheeks.
Now all I have left is memories.
I feel so selfish for
ever having
wished away the time.
If only I knew back then
what I know now.
Without you in it, the world
is a little less
Pink.
Nora Will / Alum
Hackberry
Jane Doe
luck
Lucky rabbit’s foot
Little Women
The Witch and the Broomstick
The shouting and hitting
Too many mouths
Tiny, little toes
Eating too much cereal
‘Till the bellies are full
Wood Saws and cutters
Dirt and mean fists
Singing with the sisters
We run 'till we can’t
The knife is sharp
Sister, I love
Hate the dark nights
All we need is luck
Butchering cows
And rabbits, in the woods
It got caught in a trap
So we took it back
The rough wooden table
Neck snapped, blood-red
We cut off its foot
And hung it ‘round our skinny necks
Jane Doe
Under the Poplars
Falling to nothing
Find there is something
Under the Poplars
She sleeps the days
I lie awake
Don’t touch the bread
I don’t mean what I said
My mouth burns
Jaw shut
My fingers bleed
I curl them in
Invisible friends
They hold me too tight
Please, let me go
I lie awake in the night
Under the Poplars
I play dolls in the sun
Dark shades, holidays
Candy books, hidden shelves
Where do they go?
Why have they gone?
Fires of smoke
Too loud, too quiet
Whispers I wait for
In the dark, I pray
But not to Gods
To stars, to suns
Tired, always
I wait till morning comes
Under the Poplars
I laugh with her as one
But where do they go?
Why have they gone?
Nora Will / Alum
Skunk Cabbages
Ashley He / 11
second-grade social
it is peculiar, to be in your body,
but not quite, existent,
feeling thick finger pads picking away the
undone, frayed edges of the old church dress my mom made me wear
and knowing that they are my hands, the ones that play music and write
and destroy clothes like a stranger;
To feel so aggressively, every thump of the speaker through
scuffed gym floors, standing stock-still as the
air, it is buzzing;
but I, me! I am a stubborn dandelion, rooted
in the cracks of the floor,
watching through my not-eyes,
the people I know zoom past,
and I believe I am still,
though perhaps I am the moving car,
and they are the sloping telephone lines,
and I have always just been orbiting in place.
Here, the people move too quickly,
the music is too loud, and the people
lack faces, and I wonder if they are as much
as intruders in their own bodies
As I am.
Lillian Wagner / 9
with only the moon’s fleeting company
The carcass lies on the sidewalk.
Eyes like olives that never grew,
looking back at me through a tinted window.
A tongue hanging out of its mouth.
It will never taste again. Never again
feel the wind against its body, pushing.
As if to warn it of what’s to come
Preparing its fleshy tan body of a never ending darkness.
Its soul running, dancing with the wind —
But
Never
Feeling.
Its face laying on the cold sidewalk
with only the moon's fleeting company, its dim light
can't reach it.
Everything it saw with those olive eyes
green trees
yellow flowers
luscious berries.
Never Again.