Word Planet
Johns Hopkins University
Undergraduate Literary Magazine
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Facial Hair, an Ode, by Isaac Brooks
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Table for Three, by Ava Yap
To the smell of dried roses and smoky perfume
The candlelight flicker sways the dimly lit hall
Making tables for two dance in a masquerade ball
I pull up a seat, the floor groans with despair
I sit down to stilted talk and stiff wooden chairs
Your spine pulled taut like a tamed violin string
Your voice resonates in a shrill, high-pitched din
His body slouched over and his expression grave
His limp hand musters a small, perfunctory wave
I ventured a smile, a strange act of care
You laugh nervously, very aware
That he stays quiet, and so you stare
Hard between “Red Velvet Cake” and “Candied Pear”
At this point dessert is a distant affair
Butter knives dangling, words hang in the air
Sometimes I wish for your eyes to stop darting
To and fro like a frantic animal, panicking
So frightened of peering into the depths of his eyes
Afraid of what would happen if you loosen your strings
And be the bold, buoyant Belle I knew as a friend
Leap out of the wood, and the sticks, and the stares
Make the Hail Mary pass and laugh at the mess
So that I don’t have to be here
So that I could just disappear
But instead here we are; him, you, and me
On Valentine’s Day with a table for three
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Love Notes, by Thalia Patrinos
The rain hit the roof like tiny silver buttons, spilling into ripples all across the yard. We raised our heads and our eyes molded into the crater of a sky, the threads of water shooting straight into us as we tried to count the clouds. We were no longer in some paved backyard in small-town suburbia, we were no longer kids with school in the morning, we were no longer newspaper-reading, traffic-light-obeying, pulse-dropping mindless members of humanity; we were ghosts of ourselves, tied to the earth, dead flesh brought to life.
Sloth, by Thalia Patrinos
I’ll be waiting for when the night-time crowds diminish
Into glittering shadows, after the masqueraders carouse past three
Watch them dance their night and paychecks away
Pining for pandemonium, aching to ingest a riot
I’ll wait for them to be done with their beers and bar sluts
When they all crawl home, all the nighttime crowds
All the women who have done what counts as cheating now
The criminals, the career engineers, all the bipolar bad girls
Everyone between picture-perfect and neglected-nude
When they crawl home I’ll be waiting in their beds
Thursday, April 14, 2011
"The Chronicles of Dooley: The Beginning" by Daniel Samet
"Together Lie the Dead" by Anita Ram
At the market
Amidst the colors,
Yells of street vendors,
The aroma of spices
The hot, thick air
Lie the dead.