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Prompts Instead of Bread
By Ethan Le [First place] -- The century teaches us to rely on robotics, playing friendly with an artificial being. We celebrate machines that string words together, while children in Gaza string empty water bottles across scorched courtyards, praying for a drop of rain in the barren wasteland. Knowledge once asked us to sweat, to wrestle with silence, to carve meaning by hand. Now we drift, weightless, our thoughts prefabricated, our days dissolving into the hum of servers.
Apr 271 min read
Between the Tables
By Yutzil Virgen [Second place] -- A horn blares somewhere behind me. Metal against metal. Voices shouting across the street. The sound pulls me back into my body. The light has turned green, yet I remain still, hands resting on the steering wheel, staring down a street filled with places I once called love. Three restaurants sit on the same block. From where I’m parked, I can see each of them if I lean forward just enough. It’s strange how every time I pass this street, my
Apr 253 min read
Before The After
By John Grey [Third place] -- Can my heart be a guide to old kisses, a trip-tik through time, first names and nights, a stash of intimacy so potent, it takes a memory to hold it in? Why keep a moment in mothballs, a sigh in a suitcase, a moan in a decades-old moon? Must it single out this dawn or that one? Can only the survivor claim it all? I've been with you forever it seems but everlasting has a starting point. And before then? To you, the abyss. To me, moments of ext
Feb 11 min read
My Rock, My Life - A
By Davonna Rodriguez -- I feel I always need to be doing a million things Or else I'm falling behind Or not doing enough My rock, my beach, my bean Comes and grounds me. Your curly hair Dark brown eyes Rough yet soft hands Hold me, secure me. The world can be so cruel Not understanding of where I belong But I always know I belong with you, You and orange, brown, and blue. Author Bio: Davonna Rodriguez is an English major, working to achieve her Bachelors Degree and hopes to w
May 131 min read
Renegades
By Kyle Ethan Valla -- Drip… Drip… Drip… The rain. It had made its way down to the fourth floor, near our homeroom. What was left was the natural element breaching our artificial world in the form of a waterfall flowing down a flight of stairs, with its perpetrator being the doors to the rooftop, opened slightly enough to allow the rainstorm outside to make its entrance. Looking down, observing my now soaked sneakers, the realization of what caused this slight flooding sl
May 1312 min read
How
By Sophia Leat -- Written with the intensity of the Russian dialect, interact with the uncertainty of a calf's first steps. What suit to follow remains unbeknownst to me, so I lean into the desire of feeling. I blink and blink and blink, though I cannot seem to rid my eyes of the remnants of my emergence — it has managed to remain unwavering ambiguity. My presence as uncomfortable and unavoidable as gastrointestinal issues — as a concave mirror my focal point remains undis
May 131 min read
POETRY
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