Poetry

Away from home with imposter syndrome
Fading far from the plight of perfectionism
Taunted by the unexplored, not on any exec boards
Sometimes struggling to just get out of bed

My roommate wakes up and runs ten miles
While I have clothes heaped in piles
And a hundred unorganized files on my desktop
Too anxious to answer an email

In constant comparison and competition
I’m not motivated by grades or majors
Student governance or unpaid labor
But paranoid I need to fit in

a soft knock on the door: a question

remember your daydreams of losing control?

do you see that bird? the songbird. the one perched on top of that willow oak. right there.

I think about how quickly the weather changes.

I dream of the stars as I stare at the sun,

As much a poem about the arrival of spring as it is about budding hope in the face of despair, Mary Oliver’s “Spring” captures the quiet beauty of holding on in spite of the cold.

she’s ripe, holding her / pieces together / by tearable strings & / bruisable skin

On an unusually busy Friday afternoon, I sat down to talk with fellow Iris writer Faith Leslie. 

What do you call it when you learn silence before you learn yourself?