Author: seaprepignite

Klara Willis ’28

I am the endpiece. 

I hold everything together, 

But I am never picked. 

A hungry hand reaches out. 

But yet again, they grab me, 

Only to move me, and grab the 

Perfect soft middle piece that everyone wants. 

I am in the way.

Kate Smith ’28

Happiness is a deer—  

soft-eyed, alert with fear,  

listening close for the sound  

of wanting drawing near.  

We learn early how to chase,  

to track it down through time and space  

Through milestones and places  

When this happens.  

When I’m more.  

When I finally arrive.  

We run so hard toward someday  

we forget how to be alive.  

We mistake speed for certainty,  

desire for direction  

believing if we reach it fast  

that joy will stay this time.  

But happiness is not a prize,  

not built for being caught.  

It flinches at insistence,  

at every hungry thought.  

It bolts at expectation,  

bleeds under too much weight—  

the more you need it to remain,  

the quicker it escapes.  

So it waits at the edges,  

where you’re quiet, not prepared,  

in moments you don’t try to keep,  

don’t measure, don’t compare.  

It drinks from stillness,  

stands where laughter fades away,  

in the breath before the urge  

to look ahead or look away.  

Happiness comes when you stop looking,  

when the chase is finally done—  

not meant to be discovered,  

It meets you where you already are. 

The emptiness you feel from running  

isn’t proof that joy is gone,  

just the ache of exhaustion  

From running in the wrong direction, 

 when all you were meant to do was pause. 

We’re taught happiness is somewhere else,  

a finish line, a place—  

but it’s a side effect of presence,  

of enough, of a gentle grace.  

And sometimes, if you’re still enough,  

if the forest grows quite near,  

you’ll feel it pass right through your life—  

close and alive  

like a deer.

Kate Smith ’28

Before I am gone, tell them that 
I was never simple.
That I lived in contradictions
and learned to breathe there.  
 
Tell them I noticed things early—
how light leaves before it disappears,
how people love in fragments,
how joy and grief can share the same sentence.  
 
Tell them I learned suffering is not what shapes you,
but what you choose to do with it.
That I believed growth was an act of defiance,
and softness was never weakness.  
 
Tell them I carried childhood like a relic—
golden, cracked, still holy.
That I understood how the roots of your hair change color,
how becoming costs you something  
you didn’t agree to give up.  
 
Tell them I was drawn to paradox:
happiness that runs,
silence that speaks,
darkness that teaches you where the stars are. 
That I asked questions most people avoid  
because the answers rearrange you.  
 
Tell them I wrote because it was the only place
I could be fully honest.
That every word was a fingerprint,
every metaphor a confession,
every poem a way of saying
this is who I am when no one is watching.  
 
Tell them there are parts of me
no one will ever fully understand—
not because I hid them,
but because they can only be found
by those willing to look inward themselves.  
 
And before I am gone, tell them this:
I wanted to be known, 
not admired, not simplified,
but seen—
in all my depth, my doubt, my becoming.  
 
Tell them I was here
thinking deeply, feeling fiercely,
turning life over and over in my hands
until it meant something.  
 
And if they don’t understand me,
tell them it wasn’t because I was unreadable— 
it was because I was written  
in a language few ever learn.  

Shakira Seneviratne ’26

Like shadows into my cave,

their mirth slick with hunger.

sheep-thieves, wine-suckers,

men who called me a beast for protecting what’s mine.

I offered them shelter in stone and fire,

but they muttered thanks into echoes,

drank my milk, broke my bread

and named it heroism.

Their leader spoke with a serpent’s tongue,

his words sweet as rot.

He told stories of gods,

yet hid his name like a thief hides light.

When sleep softened my lids,

his hands brought night eternal.

Now the world is only sound

the hiss of their escape,

the utter of my sheep,

the sea’s cruel laughter mocking me.

But I was the monster, they said.

But what monster weeps

for the laws of guests betrayed?

What hero stabs blind a host

and sails away bragging his name to the wind?

The gods may call him clever.

I call him small.

And even in darkness,

I see him clearly.