Little girls' brains are sticky as flytraps. When you're young, every facial expression you see, every word you read, and the smallest fragments of information all collect in the back of your brain. These details combine to form a kaleidoscope of beliefs that color everything around you, distorting ...
Pieces of praise. Type of poem. Flattering lines. Homage in verse. Ode!
I fumble with my keys as I try to juggle my umbrella, lanyard, and packages without dropping everything. I finally get a grasp on my green-nail-polish-spattered key, and sigh with relief as I slide it into the keyhole. I turn it to the right. The door doesn’t budge. I try again; the door remains shut. ...
In August, it rained for two weeks straight. I had only packed one sweater for a two-month internship, and the threads were thinning out at the cuffs. It was 1:30 a.m.—the latest I had stayed up all summer—and I sat in the corner of my host family’s guest bedroom. I held the fading knit fabric ...
Ask anyone about the summer of 2023 and they will tell you it was the summer of Barbenheimer. What they won’t tell you, however, is that it was just as much the summer of country music.
Five days after I drove off the Universal Studios lot in 100-degree heat for the last time this summer, I flew to Europe for my semester abroad. My internship at Amblin Entertainment felt like a distant memory by the time my Spanish immersion program began two weeks later in Barcelona. After my first ...
In the months before I first left for college, I started recording my friends. Not video, just their voices: the stories we exchanged in the car on the way to the movie theater, the way we said goodbye to each other after a day at the beach, the jokes we told at sleepovers—which we only found funny ...
Monday, 4:33 p.m.: I am sitting at the McDonalds in the Barcelona airport and the world feels off-kilter.
The first chord of Chopin’s Nocturne No. 13 is a low, resounding C that beckons you—slow, crashing waves meet your feet as the moon gazes at your form. Hands alternate between soft bass notes that sink into your core and a high-pitched melody that yearns. This dance drives you through the scene, ...
I’m on the car ride home with my best friends. We’re piled in, with five in the middle seat and two curled up in the trunk. Don’t tell my mom! The sun roof is open, the windows are down, and the velvety summer air is funneling through our hair, blonde and brown and black waves weaving into each ...
![romanticization and its consequences [A&C].jpg](https://snworksceo.imgix.net/bdh/d41e1e46-9474-4ac0-92b6-4bac96c6c9a0.sized-1000x1000.jpg?w=1500&ar=4%3A3&fit=crop&crop=faces&facepad=3&auto=format)
I sat in my dorm’s communal kitchen painting my friend’s nails. It was mid-first semester and the heat hadn’t turned on yet, so it was uncomfortable to wear anything less than a sweatshirt. Every time I finished a nail, my friend would lift his hand close to his eyes to examine the quality of ...
“Liu Bei’s men were getting closer. You could hear them beating their drums, waving their torches, shouting their war songs into the frigid air as they sailed closer and closer.
As we shuffled through the halls of the Vatican Museums, we were packed like sardines, herded like cattle, moving like a flock of sheep. Not much thinking was required of us, except maybe to keep on walking—do not stop in the immediate path of another person and hinder the current of this sea of people. ...
Tears, laughter, and joy spill across the strings of Taylor Swift’s guitar. This is the Taylor I know and love. She is the one who always listens, the one who got me through middle school, the one who makes me jump and shout with glee—all with a mere click on Spotify. This Taylor disappeared with ...
Editor's note: This article was written by an author who is in the midst of exploring their gender identity. In order to maintain a sense of privacy, they requested this piece be published anonymously. In addition, they do not intend to take away space meant for non-binary or trans people, or minimize ...
The cyberpunk city is nocturnal—buildings that skewer the layer of clouds in the sky with their billboards. Neon Chinese characters decorate dark alleyways with splotches of artificial color. Hovercrafts and other extreme feats of technology layer over a dilapidated urban landscape. And the main character ...
할머니 paints, but her paintings never really leave the apartment. There must be over 40 canvases scattered around, propped up on the floor in sets of three or four so you can sort through them like vinyl in a record shop. I discover six older ones I’ve never seen before when I follow her to her ...
I used to tell people I hated country music. Growing up in the conservative suburbs of the Deep South, hating country music was a quiet rebellion against a culture that intrinsically did not align with my values. Throughout high school, I walked a wide berth around the Morgan Wallen tours that passed ...
He took to the road before dawn, the moon still visible through the early March mist. The night before, he had patched his torn trousers and fixed a new strap to his hat. He was approaching fifty, gray hairs frosting his head, and applied mugwort to his legs to strengthen them for the journey.
Solutions by The State News
