Autumn Jefferson
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Autumn is a rising third-year majoring in Architecture on a pre-professional track. Her interests as a designer are driven by an appreciation for systematic and organic creation, a love of art, as well as an enthusiasm for hands-on production.
More Articles Featuring this Artist
The longer you stare at something the scarier it gets. And sadly, that’s your most used sense. Your sight. Your eyes.
Burnham gets our generational conundrum—do we curb our empathy because we fear it being turned into a mocking form of entertainment?
I stitch my dress back together with the same floss the doctor used to fasten the skin
Teach me to look in your eyes:
close or wide set. Cold sweat.
A duet. Now do it: all I feel
is tension: the peripheral view:
gravity: veiled exhales: my abdominal
cavity. I used to: avert my eyes
when someone noticed me. Now
it’s long skirts: printed shirts: watch me
A trembling that I couldn’t identify. A glance around the room—Kira across from me, Emma to my left, my professor of two years to my right. A reading I had done at least three times before. A comment that I knew made sense. And yet, I’m trembling. It may have started while my hand was raised. Look at her shoes, and hers and hers.
When I left in June, the last item I tucked away in the car was a tomato seedling--one of the near hundred that had sprung out of the earth unprompted during the weeks before. We hadn’t sown new seeds, yet they sprouted, ready to try again after last year’s failed harvest.
Everything takes time. whether it be a short amount or the entirety of your existence. and now we enter a space where no matter how much practice we give ourselves we still feel unprepared.
I am quite fond of living on a stage. Curating my thoughts for consumption, I love seeing myself in the reactions of others.
But now the awkward interaction with a barista, the stress of an upcoming exam, the slow-motion neon lights in a crowded bar are mine alone, no longer processed and packaged stories to liven someone else’s day.
Four years ago, almost to the (very rainy) day, I walked down the Lawn with my mom. I remember peeking through every open door, turning away before I could make awkward eye contact with any of the occupants.