STUCK IN TIME | Ayanna Bascom
All I can do is
s t a r e
The clock says its 12:14 (your birthday)
The calendar says its May
The scent from your my signature perfume lingers round the room
It’s vanilla, sugary, fruity smell always brung me comfort
But right now, its suffocating
I find myself in a staring contest
with a honey blonde, orange haired lion plush
It Sits on top of my bookshelf staring back at me
It’s there as a constant reminder
of the past I want to remember forget
As time goes on it kinda starts to look like you
With your honey blonde hair and your innocent stare.
I l o s t
I can’t escape you (not that I want to anyways)
The calendar hasn’t been changed since you left
(its not really May)
The perfume was yours and not mine
(I use it so much it might as well be)
And I wish everything of yours was thrown away
(but I keep them anyway)
I w i s h
And I wish
And I could wish all that I want for you to come back
But you would still be gone
And I would still be stuck in this room
searching for every little part of you
In everything I do
Ayanna Bascom is a Sophomore Psychology Major at UAlbany. This is her first time having one of her works published. She loves doing anything that allows her to be creative. Whether that is writing, dancing, or making content. She loves to put her heart and soul into everything she does.
My days are sharp | Zoey Bliss
My days are sharp.
Bloody.
The metallic taste of your eyes meeting mine follows me even into my dreams.
A warm pulse threatens to jump from the back of my throat when I realize
I haven’t slept without you in months.
I am bleeding.
Only I can see it. Only you can taste it.
You pull away from the sensation because you can’t see where it comes from.
I am so cold when you go away.
I am fighting a war with myself and the battlefield is too close to you for my liking.
I don’t want to be too much for you.
I will move away so that my blood doesn’t stain your clothes.
I want to keep you clean.
I dress my open wounds and cover the bruises that are the aftermath of my own thoughts,
and yet, I am afraid you can’t help but taste the blood all the same.
Zoey Bliss is a senior at UAlbany, and this is her first time submitting to ARCH! She has a published poetry collection titled “The Sun, The Moon, and Everything In Between” and the poems featured are excerpts from her next unpublished collection! She enjoys theatre, singing, and spending time with her beloved cat, Neo.
Premature | Zoey Bliss
The sun rose before the moon had set,
and her rays battled the reflection the moon was able to provide.
The Earth took shaky breaths, as though every degree she spun
cost her something.
A little flower pierces through soil, embracing the early rising,
but all too soon the sun was gone.
Clouds covered the sky and kept the sprout at bay, delaying her inevitable blossoming.
Fleeting sun rays nourished the bud as best as they could, but just as she was about to bloom,
she was cut.
Just a little too soon.
Tired, calloused, warm hands brought her where the sun couldn’t reach her anymore.
Placed in a small glass jar, and set by the window,
where she sat in the shadows for hours upon hours.
And then, the sun came up again.
Magnified through glass panes, even more so by the water she stood in.
And she felt it.
Her petals begin to unfurl, one by one.
Zoey Bliss is a senior at UAlbany, and this is her first time submitting to ARCH! She has a published poetry collection titled “The Sun, The Moon, and Everything In Between” and the poems featured are excerpts from her next unpublished collection! She enjoys theatre, singing, and spending time with her beloved cat, Neo.
The Worms Will Dream in Color | Fiona Glenn-Keough
One day, the world will fold me into itself:
the earth will open like a tired mouth
and I will enter without resistance,
soft, surrendered,
almost grateful.
And when I am six feet underground
with bugs eating my brain,
they will get visions of you.
They will smell what you smelled like;
they will hear you call my name.
They will experience unimaginable wonders
as they feast on the part of my brain that houses you.
Even in death,
you are a contagion of beauty–
a strange, radiant fungus
blooming in the most unlikely places.
The worms will dream in color.
Roots will curve toward the memory of your laughter
like instruments tuning themselves
to a frequency only I once heard.
They will not know what you were,
only that something divine
once made a home in the soft tissue
of a creature who loved you.
That will be enough:
for even the smallest things to feel joy
as they take me apart,
bit by bit,
and find you in every piece.
Fiona Glenn-Keough is an English major at UAlbany who loves writing poems that blend the strange and familiar. This is her first time being published in ARCH. In her free time she enjoys playing tennis, reading, and spending time with family.
From a place half empty | Jelisa Gonzalez
You don’t know whether
these moments of mania
carry more than what
they’re worth.
You don’t understand
whether you’re unearthing certain truths
or fabricating lies
to make the feelings
feel better.
You feel as though
The words come in a jumble
stumbling to the doorsteps of
your psyche,
waiting to be evaluated
one by one in their respective glory.
The more unveiled
the more the inclination to run away
becomes prominent,
as confronting the jumble at your doorstep
turns into a chore
rather than a calamity
Yet as you freeze and the calamities
Pile up at the “welcome” mat
you are plagued with a choice:
Find another way
Repeat the cycle
Pride in love | Jelisa Gonzalez
When I think of intimacy
I do not only think about
Birds and bees
A mechanical motion
Of what “love” is
Supposed to mean
I could look into your eyes
And love you
You could be screens away
As your ambience is held
Close to my heart
I do not owe you
“Physical”
As that is what I’ve grown to believe
I would want
Intimacy
Pride
Love
To own more depth
Transcend binaries
And teach us
That there is more than one way to
Love
Or be loved
Eating Maggots | Allahna Johnson
it’s a writhe
that’s the movement
that's the push for escape and progression
through space
it’s erratic and uncontrolled
its words chewing holes through my lips
it started with a fruit
a pinnacle of health and good-natured care
solid teeth through the center
no signs of a pit or a seed
or a soul of despair
three bites in
that’s when i realized
the sizzle sensation was separate from
the bitter taste
independent from the so-called flavor
and only related to the undrawn cause
see the movement was quiet
it took me three bites to get there!
i had held a fly before
let my fingertips lightly grace their wings
their fragility knew how to wriggle itself
to the forefront of my mind
but this one was different
it didn't have wings yet
it wasn't that reflective black-green-purple
its body was tan and lumpy
and reeked of newborn skim
instincts told me it was fragile
(and those i was never without)
i made a home in my mouth
dropped my tongue real flat
an extra few inches pulled from my jaw
giving the little one room to roam
at the base of my throat i felt a tickle
but i’d been known to weather a cold
if i could just get a few more inches, and
if you hadn't been so bold
i felt it slip and multiply
a moveable mass
hooked to the base of my larynx
i lose my grip and justify
a moveable mass
climbing up through my nose
hooked to each fold of my brain
that's the writhe!
that's the movement!
i'd known nothing of maggots before
but as lips become tongue and larynx,
nose cavity, and brain
it’s clearer in that haze
i cant really see like i used to
but it makes sense now
and while at this point it doesn't matter
(i can't help but be excited that)
i know how they got in!
it started with a fruit
the pinnacle of wealth and full-natured care
my solid teeth through the center
no pit or seed or end in despair
there-in lies life!
and i never got out of labor
it started in a garden
and ended in a favor
i wish i turned that part off
when instincts choose assimilation
the same hard bouts of histallegorical humiliation
y’all could have started in a garden
stayed outside with room for the little ones to roam
didn't have to drop my tongue
contort and fix
to make sense of what im told
there-in lies life!
that's the movement!
that's the writhe!
it started with a fruit
with a rot
concealed totally from the eye
i’d known nothing of maggots before
but as lips become tongue and larynx,
nose cavity and brain
become instinct and insult
sour, salt, and shame
i'd known nothing of the erratic nature
of maggots before
it ended in a crib-pit
tendons, cartilage, soles, and bones
sit still, hurt, holed, and desperate
no writhe, no movement
no time to untrust it
there-in lies relations
and several white single culprits
making 6-foot garden-graves of our dense great nations pulpits
mouths of waterfalls | Saraí Knox
from the threshold of the living room, she mumbles
she stands as if a wooden plank was nailed to her back,
arms wrapped tightly around herself as if she’s cold,
hands tucked inside her sweater as if it isn’t july
words tumble from her mouth,
but i can't hear much over the sound of them crashing together
i suppose i tuned out,
suppose my brain turned off after the "i love her" part
somewhere in there, i presume,
she mentioned who her is but
i can't recall
i don't remember starting to cry.
i didn't feel it until the droplets fell into my lap
and soaked through my leggings,
the dampness cool against my thighs
my eyes, the mouths of waterfalls, created ponds at my feet.
i've heard enough, i think
but really, i heard nothing
i absorbed nothing at all
she kept going,
her voice a deep, quiet lull in the back of my mind
despite her mouth continuing to move,
i pushed up from the couch and walked to the bedroom,
careful to avoid my puddle
so as to not slip to my knees
and drown in my sorrows.
it's hard for me to breathe.
Saraí Knox is an English major from Kingston, NY in their senior year at UAlbany. They love to write poetry, prose and fiction, with the goal of publishing a novel. Along with writing, they also enjoy reading, listening to music, and playing soccer.
Pale blue dot | Pratiksha Malayil
We are staring at a pale blue dot with its location in the middle of the sea,
in the middle of a tunnel. We are sitting on chairs that speed past metal
and are made of metal holding metal and glass that never dent. We are
laughing in the name of a “beloved pain”, written in Japanese,
from someone who is eating an edible and filming it and
definitely does not know Japanese.
This was the whole of what we knew, huddled
around a piano after the worst hours of our lives:
dreaming at twelve about sixteen, about an internship.
Nothing ever worked out how we planned it but we ended
up in the same place, with different parallels, and we came from
the universe either way, but here we are as pale blue as
the sea foam, iridescent, and we have not driven all the way down to the sand
while the beach was closed but we still walked and came
to water, projected – an island across the street.
The wind always blows you in every direction and
the scope seems like it is constantly missing and we don’t
realize what people mean or what they say and we cannot
zoom out like before, at twelve – to see what else we cannot
outside on a field in the daytime, the flares of the sun
where we swore we could feel it all on our skin
that there was more from somewhere beyond
that would touch us the same, leaving messages.
We do not know Japanese either, or much of anything
but we sit on a pale blue chair in the pale blue sea
and the conductor asks for our tickets to the same exact place –
the car parked fifteen minutes in the trees.
Pratiksha Malayil is a senior majoring in Public Health at the University at Albany, from Long Island, New York. Her work explores systems and liminality, tracing lived experience between the physical and the abstract as it emerges through the tenderness of the everyday, the responsibility of attention. You can find more of her work on Instagram @pratikshamalayil.
Ruderal | Pratiksha Malayil
Everything is sharp and ready and it keeps living
in the before. It was a way of letting people know
I had not become a product
of the houses turned to shops on the corners
across from the chains and train stations
When I lived there, I wanted less hair and words
that twisted my tongue the same; eyes and skin
that would blister when the sun hit
The pizza place we wanted to stop by had goats
in the space beside it
a few years back and we would gaze through
the screen dreaming of waves of sound and wind and teeth
crunching through the grass while our eyes met
The drive back home was stopped
in an empty field where the goats were too much
over the years and taken by different homes
where we held a garlic knot with two hands and prayed over it.
We stayed for a life where we didn’t have to
hope
My grandparents are home and I look to both
shoulders and away. I am
blonde, but old and gray, and disgraceful –
my mother tailors all my sentences as I say them.
Everything shifts around again, not like when
I was reading verse in a different language, with conviction –
hanging onto dying praise, remembrance and now
within these walls – decaying, enough to
hope the artificial in my voice was
reminiscent of a natural lexicon somewhere but it is
the sound of the cars mixed with the mountains
with the goats in-between silent so soft so
everything is missing and
I can try to stand in a dialectal with a pit
in my stomach
defending myself, defending
sounds I do not believe in.
Pratiksha Malayil is a senior majoring in Public Health at the University at Albany, from Long Island, New York. Her work explores systems and liminality, tracing lived experience between the physical and the abstract as it emerges through the tenderness of the everyday, the responsibility of attention. You can find more of her work on Instagram @pratikshamalayil.
The American Pastoral | Pratiksha Malayil
(Hold onto this blue almanac splattered
with maize and soon sickly-syrup
on the e-brake, the horn)
God is in the backyard under a freckled sky
Under a grandfather kayak passed down with
the fish and all the poisoning-seasonings
down by the lake I thought of
in the middle of Nebraska.
She crinkled like the magazine in her hands,
along with extra large bandaids, a lone pack
of rubber bands, the smallest bag of dish detergent you could buy.
She drops the can of peaches for another headline
on the shelf and lets them dent
for mistake justification, to allow for garbage, and
those types of natural cycles for
me to disrupt with purpose as the only
savior I could be, to bring it home and raise it.
I had brought the cheap poles out
to trek to the middle of whatever had scared me
with the tune of a bear bell to a lighthouse
to a satellite green light I’d like to believe
was a breathing star, or a plane – like Saturn,
with rings or moons
or something to give, like me
on that lake in Nebraska bringing peaches.
But I was always bowing under myself –
to how I raised you, to my saving act –
though you will fold into something
new when I break you
Saving purpose, showing everything is how it is to be
to complete the end at my hands
Everything was consumption:
all the actions were endings of something.
I threw the can like a rock and expected it to skip.
It came back
sinking as a ripple, over –
letting me smile, forgiving the lack of loss for death in another form, one without
something to live for
(There is no salvation in a waste
of golden stagnant syrup baptized
and starving in the water chasing –)
– me, coming back
to hit my feet: it was reprehensible,
becoming a word sweeter than the waiting.
Pratiksha Malayil is a senior majoring in Public Health at the University at Albany, from Long Island, New York. Her work explores systems and liminality, tracing lived experience between the physical and the abstract as it emerges through the tenderness of the everyday, the responsibility of attention. You can find more of her work on Instagram @pratikshamalayil.
Trees Can’t Hurt Me | George McFarland
As I sit outside of my dorm
The grass under my feet and pants damp from the rain
I look at the trees surrounding me and realize
they can’t hurt me.
Bark can be sharp
Branches can leave a mark
Both can harm me physically
But people hurt me more critically
Thoughts that strike the heart
Words that tear relationships apart
Those come from humans
Trees don’t offer solutions
But they make me calmer
I look around again
Thinking of the times I’ve argued with friends
Resorting to nature to calm myself
Thinking of things I could've yelled.
But when I’m surrounded by trees
And the cold winter’s freeze
I see everything in a different light
And suddenly I'm not so uptight.
I get up from the damp ground
And listen for nature’s sounds
The branches swaying in the wind
The squirrels and chipmunks running around campus
This grassy field feels like mother nature’s canvas.
I look at the concrete and stone surrounding me
Grateful we even have a tree
One that doesn’t sneer or judge
Talk behind my back or hold a grudge.
Life will go on
I’ll forget which tree helped me remain calm
But what I won’t forget is how nature calms me
And the times I’ve spent under a tree
Just letting my feelings free.
Trees can’t hurt me
George McFarland is a sophomore at UAlbany majoring in Communications and minoring in Creative Writing. He has always loved writing as an outlet to express how he feels either about a situation or a specific topic and is excited to have his piece published in this semester's issue since it's his first time being published!
If Narcissus Was a Woman | Charley Mintz
If Narcissus was a woman
they wouldn’t let her lie
They’d steal her from the shoreline
before they’d let her die
If Narcissus was a woman
who enthralled all who saw
They’d call her “Witch” and throw her
to her knees before the law
If Narcissus was a woman
Mother’d point and shake her head
Don’t be like her, she’d say
a whore, she’ll soon be dead
If Narcissus was a woman
the men would all oppose
How dare she be a tease, they’d say
a queen to be deposed
If Narcissus was a woman
would we still have an Echo?
Who loved so deeply and completely
without will, lust, or ego?
If Narcissus was a woman
would we still have the word?
Or would the language change
a different name be heard?
But if Narcissus was a woman
we wouldn’t give a fuck
Myths aren’t about the women
so she’d be out of luck
Charley Mintz is a political science major at UAlbany, which tends to seep into their writing. They enjoy reading, spending time with their cats, and shaking trees so snow lands on their sister.
American Gods | Charley Mintz
One nation, under God...
Which one?
There are men upon men
to choose your prayers from
Do you refer to Gatsby?
That great American God
a manifestation of the nouveau riche
the common men applaud
“Pull yourself up by your bootstraps”
Listen to them crow
as they count their family dollars
as we stare from down below
Or perhaps your faith is found
in that Titan from the Midwest
Paul Bunyan, pillar of strength
from him, our trust is wrest
“Give us your labor” companies demand
As the people work night and day
working for pennies and for dimes
as hundreds of dollars they pay
Perhaps you pray to Jesus
though we don’t remember who
He was from Texas, right?
or Oklahoma, Georgia, too
“Love thy neighbor” some say he said
We can’t believe their claims
Jesus loved the white and wealthy
so say churches and their aims
Perhaps you speak of Columbia
from that painting still shown in schools
Manifest Destiny, pushing the bounds
of limits, structures, rules
Pushing their way into the land
others made their home
Then claiming it as theirs, they said
for only them to roam
Or pray to Lady Liberty
though not as she’s known now
Pray to the concept, or to the thought
of freedom, life, renown
Pray to the statue who heralded change
a new beginning to be found
Ignore the treatment they were given
when they stepped upon the ground
So which God fills your thoughts
when to the flag you pray?
Which of these ideals do you
hold steadfast and obey?
Ignoring our hypocrisy
in the paradigms we wrought
For one nation, under God...
is the phrase we all were taught
Charley Mintz is a political science major at UAlbany, which tends to seep into their writing. They enjoy reading, spending time with their cats, and shaking trees so snow lands on their sister.
“Liberation” | Katie Anne O’Gallagher
Kundalini, the personified goddess of latent energy.
The latent energy is in the spinal column.
Strenuous yoga awakens her, and she represents liberation.1
Liberated by being still
Cetiya, the funeral mound or monument for the Buddha.
A religious sanctity.
Death liberates one from the chains of life.2
Dead lying still
Ksetrapala, a non-liberated male guardian.
Guardian of the Place.
Protector of temple precincts.3
He watches guard but remains still
How could an all-powerful deity be non-liberated?
Did he choose to be latent or do deities lack choice as well?
Does he wish to join the others in the temple?
The worshippers pay him no mind; he watches them leave
My friend’s family kept their dog in a cage almost her whole life.
When we unlocked the cage door, she did not leave.
Why leave the only home you know?
Maybe the chains bring comfort, the cage is too warm to leave
We buried her earlier this year.
Did little old kind Roxy finally find liberation in death?
Death is the only final act.
Her small paw touched the cold tiles, she finally did leave
When I leave, where will I go?
Would the star of the sea4 pick me to join her?
I turn on the news and wonder if I have already left.
The newscaster’s interpretations of events are always too loose
All my screens ever show me is fire.
Trees on fire, children on fire.
But those in power ensure that my eyes are deceiving me.
“Wherefore with thee came not all hell broke loose?”5
Semiotics is the systematic study of signs and symbols.6
Structuralism maps systematic interrelationships between cultural texts and practices.7
The systematic, a system of words, signs, texts, and practices, we are confined to.
Despite my best efforts, I cannot break my chains loose
Would studying the technology of the cage liberate us?
Can we use the master’s tools to destroy the house?
Are we free when the house is gone but we stand on its foundation?8
“a book of myths in which our names do not appear.”9
Liberation?
I thought I knew her but a sly comment from a male friend reminds me that I never met her.
I tried convincing my friend to leave her virulent boyfriend, but she insists that the cage is warm.
And on some days my cage is warm too until I go to leave and the key in my hand disappears
I am sealed off trying to find the key again in my study of symbols and texts.
I look for clues in the literature, and I raise my sign high at the protests.
Yet my screens show a never-ending fire, and when I touch my cage bars my bare hands sizzle.
Those less fortunate than I will keep fighting with the determination to make liberation appear
“Give me liberty or give me death!”10
What kind of life is that of an animal in a cage?
Liberation or death? Were there ever really other options?
Liberation and death, the most profound transformations
I buried my cousin seven years ago.
A healthy twenty-eight-year-old man’s heart just stopped in the middle of the night.
I see Daniel’s eyes in sunbeams and Roxy running across the craters of the Moon.
“Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change.”11
I have never been known for remaining still.
So, with the eyes of spirits from the past upon me, I will continue to study the symbols.
Either the liberation key will unlock the door, or my corpse will rot in the fire consumed cage.
Living or dead, I will conduct my own metamorphosis
1 “Kundalini”, A Dictionary of Hinduism, edited by Margaret & James Stutley, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1977,
156.
2 “Cetiya”, Encyclopaedia of Buddhism, edited by Jotiya Dhirasekera, Vol. IV, The Government of Sri Lanka, 1979, 104.
3 “Ksetrapala”, Historical Dictionary of Jainism, edited by Kristi L. Wiley, The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2004, 124.
4 “Our Lady, Star of the Sea”, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 October 2025, Our Lady, Star of the Sea - Wikipedia
5 Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Project Gutenberg, 1992, Paradise Lost | Project Gutenberg
6 “semiotics”, Oxford Dictionary of Film Studies, edited by Annette Kuhn & Guy Westwell, ed.1, Oxford University Press, 2012, 366.
7 “structuralism”, Oxford Dictionary of Film Studies, edited by Annette Kuhn & Guy Westwell, ed.1, Oxford University Press, 2012, 406.
8 Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherrie Moraga & Gloria Anzaldua, Kitchen Table Press, 1983, pp.94-101. Lorde_Audre_1983_2003_The_Masters_Tools_Will_Never_Dismantle_the_Masters_House.pdf
9 Rich, Adrienne. “Dive into the Wreck.” Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-197. W.W. Norton & Company, 1973. 53-55
10 Henry, Patrick. “Give me liberty or give me death!”, Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, edited by William Wirt, published by James Webster, 1817.
11 Shakespeare, William. “Ariel’s Song”, The Tempest, from The Folger Shakespeare. Ed. Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles. Folger Shakespeare Library, 30 November 2025, The Tempest - Entire Play | Folger Shakespeare Library
Katie Anne Frances O’Gallagher is a Junior English and History student with minors in Film and Gender studies at the UAlbany. They are from Queens, New York, and this is their first time being published formally. They enjoy reading either gothic, sci-fi, or historical novels and playing board games with friends.
Why interstellar has the most accurate black hole | David Oyekanmi
Hey…
They say interstellar has the most accurate black hole
your favorite movie
But I see one right here,
in my cup
The drink spinning like stars,
The spoon sinking into the swirl
If black hole could give instead of take
maybe it would give you back.
So we could sit here again.
warriors respite | Jeivon Parchment
he struck his brother once,
not to wound
but to remind him that rage still lived
where love once did.
they stood among ghosts
of what they built together
a home turned to ash—
a silence too sharp to share
in grudges,
in the dark corners of minds,
where forgiveness
feared to tread.
and yet,
when one reached out,
he spoke not of miracles—
not the kind that arrive softly
but of memories—
a hand trembling upon the other’s shoulder,
and the world slowing to pause
in the hum of something still living.
for a moment,
he remembered
we've always bent the world
to our will.
bound not by blood,
but by the knowing
of each other,
they had buried one another a thousand times—
this is what it meant
to be two parts
of the same
haunting ache.
Jeivon Parchment is an English Major at UAlbany. This is his first time being published formally. In his freetime, he enjoys rewatching his favorite TV shows and reading.
Pesto Parmesan Pasta | David Pastuszka
I know how to cook one thing:
Spaghetti with pesto and parmesan.
And this one thing I can cook,
I will cook for you.
You haven't eaten all day
And your eyes are red from crying.
I hug you in the way I know
And boil some water.
I wish I knew more.
I wish I'd do more.
I wish I could cook you
A soup, a steak, a stew.
I would dice up some
Carrots, onions;
Throw in some salt,
Paprika and parsley
All while sharing
The nutritional value
Of each individual item.
You'd be so healthy!
I wish I could
Go to your classes for you
Wash your dishes
Do your missing homework
Do your dirty laundry
Fold your clean laundry
Email that one professor
Pick up your meds
Get you on the right meds
Fix your home life
Adjust your mindset
Give you hope
Promise you a future
Save you
But for now,
I set down a bowl
Of pesto parmesan pasta.
It's the one thing I know.
David Pastuszka is a Junior linguistics and theatre student at UAlbany. This is his second time being published in ARCH, having also had his work appear in the Spring 2025 edition. Though both times have been poems, he's found he enjoys writing for the theatre the most.
unwritten letter I | Caileigh Sawyer
This may find you displeased.
Perhaps my name still echoes raw in the hollow of your voice,
or else dissolves entirely,
a word unfastened from meaning.
I got a dog—
a tri-color corgi,
all teeth and stubborn eyes,
a little tyrant
you can’t help but love.
I took up photography,
not the kind you abandon in a week.
The lens still hangs heavy in my hands,
even if I click it less.
Do you remember those photoshoots?
Us posing in tall grass,
light slanting through—
awkward, reckless,
but proof we were there.
I’m still in school,
clinging to notes and screens.
One day, I’ll stand at the front of the room,
not wander the world writing novels
like I once swore I would.
I want a porch light,
neighbors who wave,
the kind of belonging
you first placed in my palms.
Sometimes at night,
I see us again,
roaming streets at midnight,
your phone glowing like a lantern
as we hunted Pokémon
I didn’t even know the names of.
Later, behind the wheel,
we screamed Lemonade Mouth
down Hill Road,
the wind swallowing us whole,
our voices brighter than sirens,
louder than any ticket could be.
Do you remember when the world shut down?
Our parents locked the doors,
but you baked cookies anyway—
left them steaming on my porch,
stood outside the glass
like a ghost with a smile.
That was love,
the kind that survives
in crumbs and fogged windows.
I don’t regret him,
not the way you hope.
My life folds itself around him,
the way it once curled
like a vine around you.
I’m sorry for the wreckage
my teenage self scattered.
But grudges rust.
We outgrow the sharp edges.
What cut deepest
wasn’t your silence,
but the hollow sound
of leaving behind
the only world I knew
Caileigh Sawyer is a senior English student at UAlbany. This is her first time being published. She enjoys reading, photography and playing with her corgi.
The Taste of Memory | Caileigh Sawyer
I remember:
the crust of bread, thick and warm,
breaking under my fingers,
the smell curling into the corners of the kitchen,
my mom laughing as butter melted into it.
Pasta swimming in sauce,
red and thick,
my grandmother’s hands twirling it onto my fork,
her eyes smiling across the table at mine.
Cake at birthdays,
candles flickering,
blowing them out with a wish
and feeling the sweetness before it touched my tongue.
Food was never just fuel.
It was whispered stories in the kitchen,
late-night conversations over shared plates,
hands brushing, forks clinking,
love passing from one to another
with every bite.
Then my body began to turn on me,
slowly, silently —
bread felt heavy, pasta was harsh, and cake was bitter,
and the table grew larger, emptier, colder.
I mourn the meals I can no longer hold,
the laughter I can no longer taste.
Yet in memory, they remain:
warm, noisy, sticky with sauce,
rich with love,
as if no bite was ever lost.
Caileigh Sawyer is a senior English student at UAlbany. This is her first time being published. She enjoys reading, photography and playing with her corgi.