Prose

By Ella Hilderbrand We all have them. A pair. Ten fingers, two palms. Knuckles that can bruise and calluses that can form. Veins that supply blood to the flow of our souls. Hands express, create, hurt, and scar. They’re a reminder of half of what you are. Hands can conflict, or heal. They can pray, or shake a fist out at the nearest thing. Hands. They’ve scared me since I was a kid. I look at my own not recognising what to do with them. You never know what they will do next.

By Vanshika Gupta I keep reading articles about how to say goodbye, but none of them are right. People talk about it like it’s simple—a final word, a door closing, a life folding into silence. But endings are never clean. They unravel in whispers, slipping between hours long before you realise they’ve already begun. I can feel it through you—in the soft pauses between your words, in the careful way you say my name, as if it might slip if you’re not gentle. I see it in those e

By Varenya Shekhar A lot has changed over the course of three years. Some for the better, and some we regret. Bittersweet memories are all that is left of the moments we shared but are also the ones we will be holding onto for a lifetime. The few memories that grow with us, aging like fine wine, are cherished in different ways; some are filled with love, others with regret and guilt, and also the ones that leave us yearning to travel back and change a few things. Looking back

By Varenya Shekhar The fact that our society has allowed being a woman to morph from a blessing to a boon is a deplorable, reprehensible fact that is now our dejected reality. Little girls are now taught self-defense in school to protect them from dangers’ who are just a handful of misogynistic, conceited people. The root cause of this appalling problem is the dangers they are being taught to shield themselves from. They are the outcomes of a society that will be trampling ou

By Varenya Shekhar A fact that a lot of us refuse to understand is that we need to make space for the new to come. For another life, death is imperative. A new seed can only sprout with the nutrition it finds through the pleasing agony of the remains of the dead. Knowing that we can’t change the past, we choose to hold on to it and let it pile up as clutter. We fail to understand that we need to let a bird out of its cage to fly beyond the sky freely, but we tightly grip it i

By Varenya Shekhar I wish to meet the mastermind who devised the idea of this confined space where a cluster of curious souls are randomly allotted some box with two windows they call a classroom. It is allegedly meant to nurture each individual child, yet I fail to understand how that is possible when they’re all being treated the same. They are assigned roll numbers by which they are called, and restricted to a monotonous schedule designed by a group of authoritarians decid

By Varenya Shekhar Why does the colour of the skin which runs throughout me, and many more make a difference? Why are some people so stuck up with their primitive thoughts who have randomly assigned differences to base discrimination? We walk the same land, and are creations of one species, so why must we face different consequences? Why must we be categorised by our race? Why does race have to be a basis for categorization, and why does anyone have to be categorised in the f

By Arunya Sakthi Walking in crowds never seemed easy. The feet fumble, the sandals slip. The stairs go round and round, a sense of vertigo. You stumble and you fall. The feet hurt, and the elixir has a price after all. You take a wrong turn, and then figure out the correct platform. By then, the train has left. You see glances, you never see smiles. You see dread, you see sleep. You see hunger, you also see disconnect. You see the overhead voices guiding your life fleetingly,

By Brianna G Shullai I fear what it is, appalled by what it is to be. It arms itself, the latter by latter, sallow in a paralytic’s rage. Prickles as countenance, conniving by evening. “Flee away, depart!” I say and it laughs inevitable in its ebbing. Perhaps it is of me to wonder, in pity – in pity of its creator, in pity of hue. In deep ponder of whom the piteous, a plague upon my feet! Frangible yet meek, and although barbed yet urging it is the tempt of the bleak! I drive

By Brianna G Shullai Let what I write be of you, and what I reveal and consume demand you.  For love regardless of a warm hand, expels my unbelief. A grip too soft for a memory’s pride forgets, to need the want, to thirst, then love.  His love most loyal to heaven, betrays my enmity. Its sure thoughts seem frail, where decisiveness meet reticence – a hesitant god. What lasts is coarsely said to an ear, disfigured of simplicity. An hour fearing a thief, knows to rebel light, a

By Kriti Arora It is 10 pm and I am thinking about God again, which is to say I am thinking about how they have abandoned me. Maybe this is a futile attempt to avoid the ever-looming terror of tomorrow’s incoming storm. Or maybe this is a desperate cry for help to anyone who will listen. An older, wiser being that will guide me.  But I feel too stained and unpure to ask for help. Beyond saving, beyond repair. The guilt and horror of existence, of being human consumes me compl

By Kriti Arora Your world is crumbling. You’re crying and your new piercing hurts when you pull on it to blow your nose and yet, somehow, all you can think of is the floral pattern on one of dining table chairs. You never quite noticed how ugly it was. It was only when your world crumbled that through tears and a nose full of mucous could you see it. It’s funny how the miniscule details about ordinary objects become apparent to us only through the haze of sadness.  Although,

By Kriti Arora The clouds bleed tears of ecstasy. Or perhaps it’s tears of longing. How would I, a shell of a human being, know? Droplets of a divine liquid kiss the earth as they fall. Parting is such sweet sorrow.  I dance with the entity in the mirror. I twirl them around my hallway of anguish and desire. The chandelier that hangs from the ceiling holds all my patience. Soon enough, it will shatter.  Shards and shards of glass and crystal will line the very hallway down wh

By Agrima Singh CILLIAN   Oh dear lord can one genuinely be this beautiful…..  My gaze follows her movements as she cradles our little girl in her arms. Her  eyes –God , help me- I don’t want to die of ecstasy right here. She turns back to  look at me. Our eyes met for a moment before I quickly look back in the novel.  She chuckles, shaking her head.   Oh hell –yes,I will die- her dimples….  I set the unread novel down , walking to her as she sets catherine in the crib.  I wr

By Kenisha Kapur Now my mind is a tangled mass of thread, waiting to be picked up and gently untwined by someone. These days, I’ve focused far too much energy in arranging my mugs, because at least those can be organized. First by color, then by size, then by their sentimental value. They hold memories I don’t wish to dwell upon. So, I throw them out - each one. Only when the last one hits the trash, does the realization hit me, that I still drink strong, bitter coffee to rem

By Kenisha Kapur October was the month of gold, of coffee, of healing, and the gentle dance of the wind. Autumn was the season of letters and orange leaves falling into the abyss. Typewriters clicked and ink swirled on pages. Freshly baked apple pies, seasoned with almonds, filled the aroma of a small cottage home with old carpets and velvet curtains. The windowsill had been left unattended for a while, and the tea cups had left a lasting stain - a mark of the spirit of autum

By Manha Usman Everyone thinks that once a puzzle is complete, the picture remains the same. Although that might be true for most, but not for every puzzle. It starts off colorful, bright and exciting. Young hands bind together pieces of the people they love and adore. Ignorance blinds them of the ugly truth underlying the puzzle.  As the years pass, some pieces start appearing as though they’re too sharp, and don’t fit in to the puzzle. The colors start dulling. The picture

By Aashna Sethi Love  – carved over centuries preserved in strokes  , made timeless in ink , passed from soul to soul yet never truly known . You assess it under a microscope wanting to know the science behind it but magic only works when the magician doesn’t reveal the  trick. Perhaps it’s supposed to be an ordinary thing present everywhere, perhaps we are too wrapped in our fantasies to notice it lying scattered like pollen in spring, present in everything. The way you smil

By Hope Kostedt I get an ache in my chest sometimes. Have it currently. It’s not constant but it is there. I lost something. I didn’t know you could lose something that was never really yours to begin with, but I did.  When people say you can fall in love with someone without ever having to meet them, they are right. I used to think they’re crazy, but I see what they are saying. I did. I miss him. I can’t even be sure that it was a him but somehow I just know.  I miss him. Ev

By Hope Kostedt At age 5 my biggest worry was not breaking my favorite purple crayon, because the other purple crayons are either a little too dark or much too light.  I’m happy. My parents love each other and love us. I have started to make friends I am sure will last a lifetime and role models I am certain will never let me down. Nothing is confusing because it’s all black and white… and the perfect shade of purple. I am so innocent; I don’t even know the definition of the