Poetry: Dear Comrade, by Samar Jain

 Dear Comrade, I always wanted to understand you more, 

Alas! I wish I could know what life had in store,  

I wish you could know; you were the one, whom I most adored, 

I wish I needn’t say, but those times will never be anymore, 

I wish it could just be a nightmare of sore... 

Dear Comrade, you lifted me up when I felt down, 

Brought a smile on my face, when what I wore was a pity frown, 

You were there as a ray of light, 

Always tried to make me cheerful and bright as the fifteenth night, 

You helped me fight the bitterness of life, and perhaps made it more of a delight, 

Dear Comrade, as years pass by, 

When there is desolation that envelops me like the charcoal darkness of night, 

I wish you could stand strong by my side… 

Dear Comrade, when melancholy is what I only feel, 

I know a Midas touch of yours would make all my scars heal… 

Dear comrade, I wish you didn’t have that malignant mass, 

For it led me to helplessly look onto your carcass, 

Which left me shattered as a glass, 

Dear Comrade, we used to disagree, 

But at the end of the day, it was all but glee,  

I miss those good old days, days that never will be…

Oil Paintings: Endangered and Breakthrough, by Jane Forrest

 

Poetry: Rivet, by Sarah Chaudhry

 a golden crown perched upon a sea of colored hair

that thrives upon the regality of drunken power

as it lives on a head that is no stranger to the uses and abuses of power

the power it symbolizes is a mere comparison to the power that comes from 

what such a crown could permit -

life and death at the hands many see as too feminine to unsheathe a sword and run wild

but such hands drive blades deeper than most, 

knowing when and where to extract blood that most wouldn’t dare to dream of 

Photography: Bananas and Cream by Adrielle Lanae