This is part of s short story I wrote during my Creative Writing in Magical Realism independent study. It is about the feeling of losing a friend to a different path in life and being at crossroads of fate. I had the first sentence in my head for easily over 6 months and the rest of the story followed through from it.

The idea behind this work is tryin to tell a story only through describing objects. Most story’s are told through the characters actions and reactions to the world around them, but I tried to tell a story through the objects around the characters instead. This story is very important to me because they have been with me for a while as I attempted to tell their story, but though sometimes their relationship with each other would be different they would always find each other and it would always end with grief. Their’s has always been a bittersweet story of short lived happiness that I could never get quite right and in this continuous journey for perfection I have grown to know these characters far more than could be illustrated in this short story. It fits them I think, as just as I discovered who they were by guessing and filling in the blanks as their story slowly revealed itself, leaving these gaps in how they story portrays them leaves them open to interpretation by the reader. That’s who they are, they are a mystery even to me, filled in with experience, guesswork, dreams, and pieces of myself. And I hope through only the descriptions of their home you can find a bit of their personality.

a short spill told by an observant boy.

Currently, I have been working on my own book called Butterfly Morgue for a few months now. it's about this group of kids who have just graduated high school and decided not to go to college to pursue their dream of becoming a famous successful band. I've been wanting to write a book for a while but I haven't had the time nor the motivation to but now I have found the passion for it. This story is about music in a way and I love music so much which is why I am so excited to release this tiny part of my book.

Whenever there is something in my life that I want to talk about, I write a poem. This collection is called "Origins" because I describe my essential self. "To be a brown girl" talks about realizing how I've been "othered" in my adopted country. "an ode to the weeds growing in the sidewalk" is about memories of a sunny day in the dunes near my middle school, where I was one of 19 students in my class. I remember it as a simpler time, stepping into adolescence before I started high school at a significantly larger school.

When I write poems, I often find myself exploring topics that touch my heart. Through conversations with people around me, I've been fortunate to connect with a community of like-minded South Asian queer artists. They're making an impact on representation through their writing, music, and contributions to various media forms, and it has truly inspired me to create this piece. In my entry, "Brown Love: Currents of the Heart," my creative goal is to depict queer love. It's a love that beautifully intertwines with affection and demonstrates its ability to peacefully coexist with the complexities of our identities. My inspiration stems from the groundbreaking efforts of Black and Brown queer activists who have dedicated years to forging an identity that truly belongs to us. Their tireless work for equality, inclusivity, and justice has not only challenged norms but also paved the way for a new generation of creatives, like myself, to wholeheartedly embrace and celebrate our diverse identities. Their legacy acts as a guiding beacon, motivating me to craft the narrative of Brown Love with genuineness and heartfelt sincerity. My goal is to convey a message of unity and acceptance that goes beyond individual boundaries. By celebrating the beauty found in diversity, I also aim to shed light on the transformative power inherent in love itself. Through this exploration, I hope to contribute to the dialogue surrounding the intricate nature of love, identity, and our shared human journey.

My grandmother's cancer battle inspired this tribute poem, celebrating her magical touch that revived lifeless plants. Her passing deeply impacted me, sparking resilience and community involvement, like joining Boy Team Charity. This poem is cathartic, changing my view on death, infusing strength to face adversity. Like my grandmother, it embodies resilience and hope, embracing life and my growth. It fosters belief in overcoming obstacles, cherishing daily moments, nurturing hope in endless possibilities each day offers.

"The Ode to the Knee" is a praise piece to the knee, the part of our body that stabilizes and keeps together our entire leg. As an athlete, my knee is subject to lots of stress and pressure, so I wanted a means of thanking my knee, so I wrote an ode to it. With the use of end rhyme and imagery, the reader is entitled to the humor in this ode which is made to try and get some stress of the knee and let it laugh. Thank you, knee.

The story of an impoverished youth in a difficult world doing what he has to.

I wrote this poem in response to the heavy impacts of climate change that becoming increasingly apparent through severe natural disasters and other negative effects on the environment.

Try as I might, there really is no way to describe my artistic process. That's just the nature of my poetry. It is inconvenient, erratic, and falls onto my pages chunks at a time. It shows itself at precisely the moments I don't have a pencil, forcing me to grip it amongst other thoughts, until I can find a page to store it on. It's never there when I need it for a school assignment, or a love letter, but rears it's head when I'm sobbing, or trying to sleep at night. I've tried to keep aside notebooks specifically for my poems, to dedicate time just for poetry, but recently I've learned just to keep a notebook on me and hope for the best. These three poems, for example, are poems that were not easy to put on paper, since they all stemmed from trauma. "What I Never Told You," focuses on the guilt that can follow childhood innocence. It was such a specific feeling that the words didn't all come to me right away, and inevitably, parts of the poem ended up on gum wrappers and napkins. "Goldfish Memories," and "The Graduation Party," both about the loss of childhood innocence, were even harder to pen down, and the first draft consisted mainly of scratched out words. But despite the bumps, the sporadic ebb and flow of words in my head, I ended up with three poems I am proud of. Maybe that's just my poetry. It never comes easy.

Holding The Stars With Quiet Hands' is a collection of three poems that highlight my experiences with mental health struggles and the importance of finding creative outlets that helped me heal. 'Fluorescents' illuminates the often harsh reality of facilities meant to aid in mental health crises. 'Handful' details the essentiality of writing poetry and creating art in a way that helped me heal from destructive habits, using human hands as symbols for both destruction and creativity. ‘Shipwrecks’ outlines the importance of being here in times where it feels impossible, using the boundless abyss of the sea as a metaphor for how endless our emotions can often feel. My writing comes from raw emotion and experiences, thoughts threaded through stanzas in the hopes of better understanding myself. Through these poems, I seek not only to shed light on the realities of mental illness, but to spark hope for anyone else who’s ever struggled with similar issues.

This piece is inspired by an antique vase that sits in my grandmother's home. The vase originated in Okinawa and has once sat in my great-grandmother's home. It now sits in my grandmother's home. During visits to my grandmother's home, I often wonder what this vase has seen and witnessed.

This piece is from an ongoing portfolio I’m working on called love/body, to replicate the word somebody, its meaning, and the link between love and the human body, consisting of a collection of studies on love through fiction. Being a writer, I read, and through reading and simple observations of life, I’ve seen a lot of different takes on what love is and how its existence can either build something great or wreck havoc. I wanted to explore all perspectives and takes on it through this portfolio, and through the lens of the body, since I also love biology and all things the human condition. So that’s what this is about! Lots of metaphors and similes about the body, about love—but really, the main theme would have to be the consequences of love as devotion. For my process, I adore prewriting. I list what I want to accomplish, what I want to convey, and even some songs that I think fit the vibe. I write, I linger on it, I leave it alone, I come back to it. I’ve been writing this piece in particular for a few months now, and I think this is its best form.

Valentine Hillary and Tiago Moreira wrote the screenplay, Pumpkin Spice, as a fun collaborative script about a 22 year old man named Zach who orders a pumpkin spice latte for his girlfriend but accidentally drinks the whole thing on the way home before he can even give it to her. After drinking the latte, Zachary starts displaying stereotypically flamboyant behavior and tries to hide his shifting sexuality from his girlfriend. Eventually, he falls in love with the barista who supplied him with the latte. This script is a fun read because it's so ridiculous and takes a playful jab at fragile masculinity and gay stereotypes. It was made by gay people, for gay people.