By MADI SUH
It was on the corner of Wilder on the way to the 7-Eleven
that you first stopped me in my tracks, and I didn’t notice
the car that would have killed me zipping past until after
you grabbed my arm, my ankle rolled and I fell
for the first time, beginning an endless cycle
of falling and picking myself
back up again.
Who it is that spins
the gyre, riding the Zipper at the carnival fair,
splattering lights everywhere, your smile upside
down, your voice loud and then turning
around, saying that you loved me,
you loved me.
And when we came back
to Earth you bought a pint
of vanilla ice cream and I told you
to get another and we ate half of it outside
the chapel where I once thought we
might get married someday and you kissed me
and saved the other half for another day and forgot
about it and it melted away.
Was that the same night we trekked up Rocky Hill in the rain?
The night the stars went to hide and you
told me to close my eyes and to dream not of this place
but the other, the one where we said someday, we would have
our own dog too, perhaps a cat, heck, make it a whole zoo,
of animals we could never take care of.
You had a lifelong dream in which you held me in every
shirt that I ever owned, I had a drawer full of someday, someday
we would get the hell out of this paradise called
home, oh someday once meant that
I would wear these sweaters and you would wear
those jeans and I would forgive the things you swear you didn’t
mean but tell me, was that the night you cradled
my head and its dreams in your lap and asked me if
I could see the stars and I said yes,
yes I can —
But perhaps what I really mean to ask is do you remember
if it was my left ankle I rolled or the other, were the lights
black and white or in color, was it that night
or the other, the one where your smile was
crooked and your eyes wanted something
mine didn’t, the night you didn’t take me home
the way you said you would, where you twisted
my arm and watched me fall, you told me to close my eyes
and I
let it happen, and was it vanilla I tasted on my lips or
some flavor of fucked up
Help me —
I can’t remember
if it was raining or if
I cried, if there ever really were stars
in my eyes.
Tonight I will keep my eyes open
to delay the dream in which you love me
to see this place for what it is:
When I walk down Wilder and see the cars zip by
I dream not of this universe but
the other,
where the car hits and I fall and my neck snaps clean in two,
this death and another,
this life and each other,
god, what
separates, this place
and the other.
Writer | Madi Suh ’26 | msuh26@amherst.edu
Editor | Evelyn Chi ’25 | etchi25@amherst.edu
Artist | Tiia McKinney ’25 | tmckinney25@amherst.edu