Alumni Work: Sam Wright and Alida Reed

These alumni works were published in the Spring 2021 issue of the New England College Magazine.

IMAGE: “Cardboard Planter + Plants”
Artist: Alida Reed | Home State: New Hampshire
BFA in Illustration ’21

POEM: Flowerhead People
Writer: Sam Wright | Home State: New Hampshire
MFA in Creative Writing ’23, BFA in Creative Writing ’20, BA in Integrated Studies in Philosophy and Literature ’20

A reality
screaming to be real
and seen
and loved,
we are merely
cones,
telling lies about when
the summer
dies.

Perhaps we are
children,
spoiled in the sun,
rotted in the rain,
plucking away questions
and answers—
Please love me
love me
love me.
One day there will be
no petals left.

Maybe we’d only like
to make the nighttime last
longer,
make the day fold into
something.
But these are only the stories
behind our eyes,
running like old film
in the twilight.
They are
as unreal as
us.

We are speckled wishes,
flaws of the unheard.
Our faces are
seed plates and
golden ratios.
We leer at the sun and stare until it
disappears.
And with this eternal grudge
we continue
to stare,
brown and black eyes
framed by color.

One day that color
will disappear
too,
and we will be forced to
let go
with these hands
that have only learned
hate.

But for now
we will hate still,
and we will stare as the sun
falls beneath
the earth,
clutching graffiti stains and
old t-shirts.

We have given up our mouths for
silence,
and our eyes for
contentment,
and our minds for
life.

Now,
we have nothing left
to give
but our petals,
and as we stare
and seethe
and question
who loves us,
we will give those
too.
One day
we will be nothing but
cones
attached to lifeless bodies.
And still,
we will turn to see
the sun.

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Faculty Work: Poetry by Jennifer Militello
Faculty Work: Photography by Gary Samson
Alumni Work: Emma Larson and Shilo Niziolek