Let’s talk about milestones. Chance the Rapper’s first official album, The Big Day, came out just 48 hours ago and I’ve listened to it all the way through twice, once while following along with the lyrics on Genius.com. I don’t want to miss a word because he’s a brilliant writer. The wordplay and metaphor in his verses is so sharp and unexpected. Just like when you finish a book and your thoughts take on the author’s tone for the next couple of hours, I am magically able to come up with the wittiest pieces of prose after finishing a Chance…

As an English major who has spent the last summer at Make Muse working with a crew of brilliant young women-many of whom study the humanities- I know I’m not the first to experience the stigmas surrounding the humanities. The age-old judgment seems to be that the humanities are simply easier than STEM. There’s just less work. Not every question has one right answer, so any answer must work. After all, we just sit around and talk about books all day, right? At home, faced by my relatives who expected me to study math, I’ve faced this stigma. In my…

I have to be honest with you: you know that scene in movies when a kid asks their parents for a sibling? That wasn’t me. I wanted a dog, or a guinea pig, or maybe even a bunny. At 13, I had been content with my lonely, only-child life.

But that’s when you came along.

When You Weren’t Here

I had been an only child for 14 years, and being my parents’ center of attention was one of the few certainties I had in life.

We had moved from place to place since I was 3. I changed schools when I was 7, and…

Sophomore year. Yet another day of watching the sunrise and set from my bed. At least the view from my room is pretty, I think as I scroll through Instagram, focusing on how much better everyone else’s lives are than mine instead of the sun painting the reeds and lake outside my window. What am I even doing? How did I go from wanting to do every job under the sun and setting my sights on multidisciplinary fame to struggling to even go outside to eat? How did I go from shy but driven to having a hard time even…

I created my first Instagram account years ago in middle school, on the cusp of an adolescent existence that would be hallmarked by an anxiety I did not yet have the words for. The account was deleted soon after, the result of a particularly dramatic disagreement with my mother over my unfounded want to share aspects of my 13-year-old life online. But that was familiar to me. After all, I’d grown up on Tumblr, inhaling my dinner and racing to our family’s desktop computer to scroll through an endless, deep blue dashboard of carefully curated pieces of media. My blog’s…

Curtains drawn, it is dark in the room aside from your singular glow.

Your face is an ethereal guide across the carpet towards a comforting haven.

Laying my head down on the worn pillow, you rest on the corner.

My eyes burn, your face makes me cry.

Pondering this cliche, I run my fingers gently over your body. 26 buttons -

Each smooth surface and crevasse holds a million possibilities. What comfort in such excess!

Black and white bars rush my brain, you are so simple and so complicated.

I finally breathe, fogging up your face, devoid of color. …

Last month, I found out about the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. because a dear friend who knew I adored books sent me the Facebook event. I’m forever in her debt, because that day was one of the best days of my English-major, book-nerd life.

After looking over the itinerary, I nearly keeled over. Ruth Bader Ginsburg AND Rainbow Rowell were going to be there for a panel! (Not the same one, sadly). Rainbow Rowell is an author who’s written both young adult and adult fiction, including Eleanor and Park, Fangirl, Carry On, and most recently, Pumpkin Heads, a…

I am currently studying abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I have been here for a month and a half and will be staying put for another two and a half months. There were so many questions I had running through my head before I left, and, to be honest, I was dreading my departure from the States. I’m a super emotionally needy human, and the thought of being in a place where nobody knew me was far from appealing. …