Illustration by Rawan Hayat
A past, a path, a past path that I had been on has now diverged into the stream of now on which
I float on my back and watch the city at my feet decimate itself. The strings that tied this web
together have grown heavy under the drops of dew and the sun is beginning to rise the clouds
are pregnant with coming light and it is time to build again. I have woven a web but I have never
caught other spiders this way life feels very partially alone. At home there was the largest spider
I had ever seen. I stared at it under vulnerable light before I set it free. There too was a firefly. It
was contained in this space and it lit and grew an orb alone. It awoke me from my sleep and I
thought I heard it calling my name. Above my bed the spiders crawled and dropped. A jolt
before I slip away: a miraculous ariel feat. A creature with one thousand legs twirls above my
head and sounds like chipping glass. Twirling slowly and dancing. On my face. Awake. And
gone.
Tristen (she/her/hers) is a member of the Barnard class of 2022 and she is majoring in English. Tristen is from the Philadelphia area. You can find her on Instagram and Facebook.