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

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?

it starts with a star. 

good thing I know how to be alone
so many people don’t 

A house divided cannot stand; / I grew up in a house divided.

It is an odd grief, missing something bound to return 

What is legacy? / What someone leaves behind; / Difficult to vocalize / it is often unseen, / Unheard, / or even unknown.

I’m standing at the intersection of identity / Each piece of me yielding for another / But sometimes there’s a collision