Epitome Magazine 2024

Breaking Through

I have always found comfort in winter. Winter is the world’s last goodbye. When the cold, frigid breeze carries your misty breath quickly away from your tepid, chapped lips. The cold creeps up your coat, bringing a shocking chill throughout your body like claws scraping away at your warmth. Snowflakes float effortlessly through the icy air, on their journey towards the burdened earth, life frozen in time as if the minute and hour hand had shattered. The snow covers the world in a fluffy picturesque blanket, wrapping the trees in a frigid embrace. 

Winter brings me peace, but it also signifies the end of life’s passage. Death, suffering. The desolate branches lie empty, awaiting a time when their spring leaves will happily grasp with desperate hands for the sun’s sweet light. Creatures shelter deep under the snow, burrowing themselves deeply in layers of warm, soft leaves until a time comes where they may playfully dash in the sun’s comforting rays. The days can be so empty, so dark, that you wonder if the day has even begun at all, holding your spirit captive in a thorny cage of ice as your mind spirals down onto the pillows under your head.. 

But through the sorrow, through the torment, a soul is born. Soaking rain splashes down onto the moist soil, bringing nutrients to new roots. Bright, budding flowers pierce through the snow, reaching for the warm spring sunlight for the opportunity to blossom into something elegant and bigger than themselves. Swallows dive and soar between the trees, their lovely musical birdsong echoing throughout the new spring forests. The end of winter signifies something wonderful: a new beginning.

*as appearing in Portsmouth High Epitome Literary Magazine 2024

Creative Writing

Sorrow

Sorrow sat in her window frame with a cup of coffee gone cold. She looked on as life went on while she sat still. For years she went through life alone. It was difficult to be around her. Her empty photo frames thrown in the trash. She dissected what it meant to be happy, and had never found the proper parts of herself to build it back up. Not only happiness but joy and relief too. 

Sorrow was broken and overworked. She’d been bedridden for weeks with tiredness. Not physically tired but mentally. There wasn’t any point of trying to convince her otherwise. For she wouldn’t listen. If you tried forcing her, she would only fall deeper into herself. She didn’t eat for days. 

Tick, tock, tick, tock…

The alarm clock in the corner vibrates 

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock

I’m sitting on the brown knotted floor in my room

In the dark, by myself, in the night

After everybody is already asleep

With tears falling

Tick tock, my thoughts betray me

I can’t tell the difference between what is real 

And what is fake in my mind 

Tick tock, I’m suffocating, I can’t breathe

My eardrums are filled with the beat

Of my heart which feels like it’s in my throat

I’m stuck, tick tock

My eyes watch my movements as if it’s a movie

And I’m a passenger in my own body

Tick tock, my hands find the matches in the bathroom drawer

I light one, watching the flame burn down to my fingertips

And press the burnt husk into my skin

Tick tock, I’m laying on the tile floor 

Paralyzed, feeling cold and numb

I’m tired, my eyes blink closed 

Tick tock, I hear my drum beat

Off my heart, a timer counting down

Thump, Thump, Thump

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock

Until I fall asleep

Loss

The feeling of loss haunts me

And guides my mind to more painful thoughts

I wish I could have another try at life

To relive the most notable memories again

That I’ve begun to forget

There are places in my heart that hurt too much 

Since you’ve left me

I miss you 

But people say that grief comes in waves

Oscillating back and forth like a tide

And then it passes like a storm

I can’t see past the dark clouds

Since my storm is still brewing

Ode to my Converse

my noble aqua converse 

their worn soles guarding mine

as if their canvas sides were armor

and their cracked rubber soles were iron

fighting against the stones on the ground

my tired aqua converse

their faded color still shining

while idling comfortably on my feet

with laces hurriedly tied up in a bow

as I got ready in the morning

my faithful aqua converse

sitting still on my wooden shelf at night

their laces lying in an open jagged smile 

content after their days work on my feet

in their lasting adventure with me 

through life

Drawings

“Transformation”

I chose to create this creative writing piece that responds to the theme of transformation. I wanted to create a new piece of writing for this portfolio that shows my more updated writing style. This “poem” is about how man-made creations always fall back down into the earth, where they stay forever. I wanted to give the reader a backstory for what this building used to be.


The abandoned house stands crooked amongst the oak trees
with floorboards creaking and groaning under my footsteps
as the crumbled walls shift with every gust of wind
Shattered plates sit in the sink, left unclean
as if someone walked away from them mid wash
A small stuffed animal sits in the corner, sitting at a tiny wooden table
missing her little girl’s laughter as they played

The great oak’s branches have torn holes through the tattered roof
littering the muddy ground in a layer of brown-green fronds
Snarling ivy and lichen crawl up the rotting walls drawing them back
down deep, deep, deep into the earth 
down where the earthworms crawl
and beetles scurry
where they will be buried
forever covered in dirt and mud
next to bones