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“What happened at car riders?,” Sydney asked at our party that I had strictly set to “invite only.” We played Minecraft every day after school, so we picked up where we left off on Llama Land 2. She still had a tuxedo skin on and was working on her signature spruce and snow house.

I considered the five-pound bag of frozen peas to be an investment, as I stood, double-masked, in a Costco aisle. And I still do. Buying frozen foods and nonperishables in bulk has saved me both time and money, but there are more reasons that I find myself braving the big-box warehouse during a pandemic.

Editor's Note: Iris stands in solidarity with the APIDA communities at U.Va. and beyond. We are heartbroken by the act of hatred in Atlanta that took eight lives on Tuesday, March 16th, 2021, and send our deepest condolences to the loved ones of the victims.

A soft recovery is vulnerable. Fragile bones in gaunt skin, delicate like egg shells, stress the word wan. Weak.

“Why do you think you still have to stay there, after everything that’s happened?” my best friend whispers, her concern ringing out in this childhood bedroom. Nestling my head into the crook of my arm, I struggle to open my eyes, puffy and bloodshot from the evening.

The Road Not Taken

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both”

- Robert Frost

Two sides of the same coin

Stuck on the edge

Between the grooves

Waiting to fall

Now I’ll go

2:36 AM: “Well, you figured out how to start your fireplace while I was sitting there, and one month prior I was wondering when I would ever see you again. And now, here I am, three months of being hidden later, thrown away and cut off after promises of ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m always here’ were burnt to ash.

I tear the crinkly green wrapper open as I’m stepping out of the CVS. Hands searching the smooth, plastic exterior for the tiny ribbed circle wheel in the upper right corner. The black and lime disposable camera is so light in my hands, I wonder how it can capture anything at all.

Does anyone else get how absurd it is? 

To hope, you have no choice but to do so wholeheartedly; it is faith and grace and courage, the heaviest and hardest, yet packaged as airy and leavened; it’s “the thing with feathers”, of course. 

            The weatherman said we were going to get a good seven or eight inches of snow, but as I sit here and write, all we have is rain. I guess rain can set the pace better than snow, though, as it taps on the window, in beat with my fingers tapping on the keyboard, my pads connecting with the clear silicon cover I put on last August.

As the Pinterest app opens on my phone, I appreciate the ease with which I can search and browse a seemingly infinite supply of thumbprint cookie recipes. 

i think back to when i was little

the freedom to do as i please

now that i’m here what shall i do

reminisce on the past

or stay in the present

why does the present bring such ...

is it my sense of clarity

the memories fading until 

now i must create new ones