Wakesleeping

Awake with dread in a blue room wishing to 

Close my eyes knowing that with every passing 

Moment my mind, quenching tears creates time tombs.

Who knew that sorrow could cure happy living 

Water is healing when thinking how, or who

Gets to be, gets sleep, gets to keep succeeding. 

Loneliness feels best when striving for greatness

I wonder how I’ll sleep when there’s nothing less.

Make my bones like papier-mâché 

So that I may be whole while hollow

Create my mouth like calculator 

So that my speech may be accurate while calm

Humble my ears like honey 

So that I only see what is sweet

Capturing Campus: March

The Midnight Drive

your favorite is the midnight drive
that’s dark except the headlights and
traffic stops. green, yellow, red
glimmering in a stigmatism
seeking solace in the hug
farther up the road
a warmth atop a chill
that softly breathes
an exhale of relief
you didn’t know you needed
goosebumps on your arms
resting back on the headrest
eyes like swollen stars
you look out the glass
at your reflection in the night
knowing home will come
that you’ll sleep it away
but dream of the midnight drive

aSoSS 16 | Discipline

I proofread as I go, so it’s fine…but I wrote it at midnight so you tell me!

Pierpont Commons Lounge, 12:00PM, 11/14/2023

there is a perverse form of art in letting go of what you have created. eradication. the disconnect between writer and editor, a nurse ripping a sick baby away from a grieving mother. fatigue brings discontent and discontent accumulates like tar in the liver. my tongue forms a sentence and dies on my lips. my breath carries the corpses, hairs against needles, nails against plastic, floating through the air. is it poetry, or is it unspoken word?


Look, you went from not knowing anything, and you tried, and now you’re killing it!

Tech Shop, 11:00AM, 1/25/2024

goals should be driven by effort. using achievement to measure success is like orienting a telescope at the glare of a mirror. there will come a time where the sun sets and you are left with the shadows of the past. you will forget the sun rises the next morning, beautiful and breathtaking, as you struggle with an eternal night. the easiest way to believe something is permanent is to neglect the future. if you sit and stare at your feet during the train ride, you will think that you have never moved…


You studied, you put in the effort! There are going to be a lot of people in that room who know less than you…

Union Basement, 11:30AM, 2/19/2024

comparison is often the thief of joy, but sometimes we are dealing with a different type of thief. a reverse robin hood, stealing from the emotionally poor and feeding into the rich. what was once seen as a burden can be molded, reversed, shaped into an instrument. an instrument of what? intoxicated by our dreams. empty or not, our emotions still take up space, like a small glass jar wedged in the side of the temporal lobe. fill it up with sunshine and don’t look back.

Capturing Campus: February

Falling from Floating

have you ever had a dream
lasting only a second
waking in a cold sweat
wide-eyed panic
falling into something
letting go, just existing
in a moment
the feeling, so terrifying
you’re woken
by a mind, rigid
refusing to loosen
the comfortable grip
that keeps you grounded
not floating
and you can’t help but wonder

would you have fallen
if you weren’t afraid

Wolverine Stew: Making Plans

Tonight I saw

A cord wrapped round a bike

Without its wheels

I wonder whether the wheels or chord

Were there first

I wonder where it goes

The sky is clear except for

The wisps of orange built over the

Day, still the moon is always

Visible, always getting closer to full

I once saw a line of crows calling to

One another across the Diag, from

Downtown to the cemetery to the woods

Today, there were four

Are they here early or late?

I hope to see them all again

Filling budding branches with

Black-feather leaves

The snow melts away, comes back, melts

Away, and I’m not sure where the day went

I just know there’s still more of it

And somewhere in that time inside my room of

Half-lit string lights I’ll have to replace someday

And in those late-night walks, trying to find Orion each time

Remembering a stage formed from

Paper hyacinths and rubber chickens

And in those moments talking about

How falling forever was high school me’s heaven

And taking friends to see the sunset

I think I might be ok