VAULT
Fall/Winter 2022-2023
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Madi Melville
Waking Up
by anonymous
the darkness breaks
the doves will sing
the sunlight flakes
the morning stings
the doves will sing
the warmth will cease
the morning stings
through the blanket’s crease
the warmth will cease
the rushing shock
through the blankets crease
the ticking clock
the calming sky
the sunlight flakes
wind blowing by
the darkness breaks
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anonymous
Grown
by Bee Jacobs
I wanted to be your mirror
I wanted you to look down and see your
Brown eyes
Long hair
Humor
And smile
like clay I fit your mold
With no ones hand pushing me but my own
I see now that this isn't a good copy
It's not even a dance
I will advance beside you
But no longer as a reflecting pool of water
With shimmering glimpses of your tree
Stretching up
Rather as a bending tossing weeping willow
Following oak and horse chestnut
In their path up to the sky
Together we have strong trunks
Strong limbs and
We grow together
But I swish
And they bloom
And she rounds
And such is the beauty
Of a circle of trees
moving through the wind
Waving together
Apart
always reaching
5 a.m
by anonymous
A thumbprint sun bruises the horizon
Bleeding out sharp echoes of its brightness
I try to grasp onto it
Fingers stretched wide and hungry
But I’m bound to this dry soul
Tethered to this leather bound body
The day is arriving along with my shadow
And it traces the concrete behind me with its dirty darkness
I’m crying because the future is here
And I’m crying because the present never really existed
I’m only a memory as the rain falls through me*
*inspired by Eduardo C. Corral’s Acquired Immune Defiency Syndrome
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Surface Tension
Fiona Huang
You Are Forever
by anonymous
My family believes that people die three times
First when their body dies
Twice when their body is buried into the ground
And Third when nobody is left to remember them.
You died twice but you will never die a third time
Because I believe you are the world and everything in it
And generations and generations and generations
Forever love and will love the world and in turn love you.
You are the great trees that surround me, warmly hugging me
You are the leaves that fall from the trees
And the gust of wind that blows them into the air and onto me
You are the yarn I knit with
The blanket that keeps me warm
The moonlight that scatters across my room putting me to sleep
And the tears that roll down my cheek when I miss you.
You are the owl I hear at night
The blue birds that sing in the trees
The Koi fish in your pond
And the flamingo in the Pittsburgh Aviary that we named after you
You are alive in the world that surrounds me
And I believe that you will only die when the world does.
Ode to My Father
by Z Kelly-Montgomery
There's a land that I see where the children are free…
to be you and me.
You’ll never get to meet me
as I am,
slimy teeth, growing pains, bright lights
in my eyes.
I see you,
not as cracked rough hands,
rotting teeth, preventing you from sharing a smile.
But as the divot in your arm, where the muscle used to grow
It is faded, as you haven't picked yourself up in a while
You always wanted a land to a shining sea
Truth is,
I've always been afraid of the ocean
Every boy in this land grows to be his own man
In this land, every girl grows to be her own woman.
You'll never be your own man
or mine
and although I might once be a woman,
I will not be my own
nor yours
You said you saw a land bright and clear.
I only saw the times comin’ near,
and the dusty broken microwave
as I trip down the stairs
I want to listen when you say take my hand,
when you say take my hand
and we’ll run
But legs of dust can’t run
Neither can legs that have been broken
and haphazardly glued back together
perhaps with stucco
or with spit.
Tobacco tainted, forcing itself out of your mouth.
How long until you are nothing but picture frames and birthday cards?
I wonder if you may be happier, in a land where the children are free.
Do you have late night talks with them? At the diner at the end of the street?
Do you tell them stories you never once believed in?
Do you sell their books and take their tooth fairy money?
I bet you do.
Think of me when you see a shining sea
And remember how afraid I would be to jump in.
“Accepting the Evanescence of Life”
A note to Yamanoue no Okura
by Beatrice Stefan
As wrinkles embed
settling into skin
once pure as silk
One begins to reflect;
Does curiosity increase with time?
And does time shapeshift,
twisting itself into folds and shoving itself into crevices where it does not belong,
forcing itself into the deepest cracks of conscience?
Do not dwell;
allow your worries to flow downstream
following the steady, relentless current -
the one you speak so anxiously of.
Allow it to wash your worries away,
for we are the same.
Despicably,
time will not wait;
nor can we expect it to,
nor can we keep up.
Running alongside,
however,
are joy, sorrow, ecstasy, and despair -
the same we all come to know.
Unlike us,
they will forever keep up,
maintaining a thoughtful distance
until the very end.
Envoi
As time is fleeting,
embrace your incoming fate
the same as those before you.
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Fiona Huang
Eurydice
by anonymous
love, like a poplar tree, is ash-etched
bejeweled by a vitality teetering on the edge
and phantom when shrouded in early morning
it's in my arms like icarus
without half the self-assurance
and with all the flickering future memories of falling
you, in my arms like the sun
with many times more the weight
fawn to frozen melody, thawed and dying
perennial night now leaving me fleshed out and away
your hands no longer holding me down to earth
and I float too far off for my own comfort
love is the music, thawed and thriving
of a birdsong leaving beak leaving tree leaving sweet
until you leaving leaves me loveless
real phantom ash now floats from my fingertips
half my soul gone with a bitter bark and birdcall to below
and I chase the dust with desperation
I loved you when you were in my fellow fingertips
tracing a reflection of yourself into my collarbones
your touch, weight and daylight and yesterday
we danced to the bread and beer and chipping marriage bed
and I pack up that liveliness
and chase you down with desperation and a basket
to be without is to not be
so I’ll trick those who tricked me
into thinking our marriage bed would give out long before us
and I trick those who tricked me
into thinking I would only live to love you in health
with daylight song from a golden lyre with your name on it
and I will be again, with you again
fond and warm and eating day old bread under canopy
and I think of daylight to not look back
poets envy you following me
and I envy a spectator to our great tragedy
they would find it easy to not look back
think to daylight and fingerprints pressing into dirt
linens and cheeks to follow and take root
and trick myself into hearing your voice
to not look back