Campus Canvas: Oct. 22

Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News

“Something Sweet”

How long will you remain?

One more moment and I will sink into your arms,

Build a home around you brick by brick

Where you will paint the walls with watercolors,

Steal photos of my true smile on film

Left to bleach in the sun.

The sapling of a cherry tree will reach

Her roots into the soil, until she grows

Tall and abundant, fruit dark and sweet.

I cannot leave her or you behind

Until I have tasted the fruits of our labor,

Let the juice trickle down my chin,

Awaiting the deft brush of your fingertip,

What should be the final touch,

Though I cannot resist running my hands

Down your sides, allowing my palms

To linger just a moment longer,

Just another moment, one final touch

Until I can pry myself away.

Though I forget the cherry pit

Tucked into my pocket, bits of the sweet flesh

Clung to its ridges, unreachable.

If it tumbles into the grass,

Showers in the rainwater and basks in the sun,

Will a sapling take root once again

Or will even our first cherry tree

Wither and collapse with the next gust of wind?

“The Bittersweet Taste of the Night”

They drink red wine from goblets

Sculpted from translucent glass

Wrapped in delicate chains of gold.

Her teeth are sticky, blood-red

As she licks her lips, 

Tastes the bitter dew at the

Very tip of her tongue.

They stand at the edge of the balcony,

The moon spilling pale gold

Into their arms. She blinks as

It floods her eyes, studying the

Silhouettes in the dark beside her.

The misty air shocks her every pore,

Awakens her lungs. They ask,

“Where do we go after death?”

And she tilts back her head and

Waits for the last drop to trickle

Down her throat, opens her eyes

And says “right here.” She can see

Little more than the gleaming

Of their eyes, though she smiles

Through her shivers, waits for the

Cold in her limbs to permeate 

The glowing warmth in her chest.

“What Has Become of Today”

It’s scary to think the moment has come

That we’ve begun to get older

And leave behind these effortless days.

We’re Rue and Jules, gazing at each other

In the deep plum light while the camera

Circles over our heads, under the bed

We have stars plastered under our eyes

When we lie next to each other in

The middle of the night and somehow

The air is pearlescent even after

All the light has drained from the sky.

Some nights we lie back to back

With inches of space between us

That we want to close, scrub with

Sandpaper until we forget it was ever there.

The essence of our youth lies in

The simple feeling of your skin on mine

When it’s cold even in the summertime

And we have nowhere to go but

Into each other’s grasp;

The ocean’s bathwater on bare skin,

The gleaming of your eyes under the moon,

Waxing and waning as we drain 

The long, amber days of their honey

Until the air is as cold as your palms.

The sound of waves crashing into the shore

At sunrise swells into a crescendo.

The divine melodies play as I

Race the sun to sleep that evening.

I’ve since forgotten those sounds.

I’d drink your perfume to remember

The last summer before we grew up;

The memory of your silhouette tangled

In the sheets beside me, your soft breaths

Into my ear, the slanted beams of sunlight

Turning your skin to shimmering gold.

There’s nothing left of you in these

Brick buildings, these ghastly monuments,

Wrought iron gates and stone walkways.

New England’s full of ghosts, but 

Yours is nowhere to be found.

I’ve begun to wash my home away in

Plastic cups of white wine,

Downed in two sips under the streetlights,

But nothing from a bottle gives me

The euphoria of lying next to you.

— Maya Page ’24

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