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Freshmen

by Nimaya Grace Lemal


They came here sculpted for it,

They came undone,

They came here in two parts:

They spoke. They wrote. They held their tongues.

They came here retching—to every taste siphonic

Clung to “possibly” like pretense—call them lonely, call them

symbiotic—

They came wound for the springing—bodies taut but still unstrung—

They came to persist in a clamor—a well-oiled and unspoiled din

—singing! almost—

And still asking—stacked each floor

Their whispering of something softer than sifts itself in words

They fit,

perfect.

They fit and fit

and failed against themselves

They sat here, in a noble likeness,

and fell flat in overthinking

They knew, and they knew that they knew nothing.

They touched hands

On the edge of their own coming,

Figurines in a small globe, shaking

And beat the skin of the year like the bells that cried war on campus—

Like the wringing might harmonize into something like love.

They came here sculpted for it

They came undone

They came here in two parts:

They spoke. They wrote. They held their tongues.

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