I Was Reading a Scientific Article

They have photographed the brain
and here is the picture, it is full of
branches as I always suspected,

each time you arrive the electricity
of seeing you is a huge
tree lumbering through my skull, the roots waving.

It is an earth, its fibres wrap
things buried, your forgotten words
are graved in my head, an intricate

red blue and pink prehensile chemistry
veined like a leaf
network, or is it a seascape
with corals and shining tentacles.

I touch you, I am created in you
somewhere as a complex
filament of light

You rest on me and my shoulder holds

your heavy unbelievable
skull, crowded with radiant
suns, a new planet, the people
submerged in you, a lost civilization
I can never excavate:

my hands trace the contours of a total
universe, its different
colors, flowers, its undiscovered
animals, violent or serene

its other air
its claws

its paradise rivers

-Maragret Atwood

Of Cabbages and Kings

Cabbages & Kings Literary and Visual Arts Magazine

Ending this last semester was a bigger weight off my shoulders than I could have ever imagined. By the last couple weeks, when people asked me what my plans for the summer were, I would tell them "I'm just going to fall over...and I'm not going to get back up." 

True story, as it turns out.

I'm lying here having discovered a couple things about myself in the last month. Mostly weaknesses that I knew existed somewhere in there, but I had yet to be confronted with their actual depth. I've never had to stop and accept that I was in a state of honest dysthymia like I was as this last month came to an end. I managed to lose a lot of academic ground in the withered mindset I got myself stuck in. Not to mention my fading ability to trust the voice coming out of my own mouth, or continuing to ignore the inevitable misfuckery I constantly try to keep on the (distant?) horizon. Plus I managed to misplaced 15 lbs due to stress/poor diet/etc somewhere back there. 

But hey, it's over.

I'm doing alright now. 

Moving on.

Jay and Silent Bob My co-editor and I on a 2am city romp
through the glorious subways of NYC.
I might be singing something.

The one good thing I can say about this last semester is that my magazine team and I really put out an excellent publication over at Cabbages & Kings, and had quite an adventure making it. 

Nearly the entire staff was relatively new to the magazine, all of us serving our first terms in office. Including myself at the head of production as the Editor-in-Chief. But we still managed to craft a solid magazine that's been well received by every department that's seen it so far, traveled to NYC for hands-on training as current and future publication editors, and even fostered a small community of artists by hosting open mic poetry nights on campus and developing writer's workshops for students in the coming semester. 

I just got back from a dinner meeting tonight with my officers to plan and schedule for the next school year, and it's safe to say that the goals we've been fomenting for this next effort use this last issue as a catalyst to reach excellence C&K may never have achieved before. It's something I can get excited about; a refreshing feeling considering where I've been lately.

I've come to the conclusion that I am not an excellent student. It's okay. Not everyone is cut out for this. But at least I know that I'm a damn good editor, if nothing else. And I've been given an opportunity to bring out the best in the people I work with, through managing the publication itself, as well as building a grassroots effort on my campus to connect and cultivate aretè in the artists of my community.

It's something to look forward to.