University of San Francisco's Student-Run Literary Magazine
by L.A. Clark We could have had some fun together, you and I. I can admit that to myself now. At least when you were little, I think it would have been good times. I have a way with babies and toddlers. I love them, and they love me in return. Mostly what it takes… Continue reading You and I
by Alexis Vaughen-Barnes “I hope you die soon.” The man in my parent’s room doesn't react to my thoughts. He continues to stare at the wall with a dull, unfocused gaze. On first glance, you’d assume it was a corpse, not a living man; there is no life or joy in his sunken eyes, no… Continue reading I’m Not a Bad Person
by Stephanie Michele-Hempel At the hospital — & now, I still love your dislocated knee. I miss the way it bent before the wreck. It holds you up so differently now. I think of your blood clot often, nestled there on the back of your leg, a living egg of pain puncturing reality, soft, bloody… Continue reading At the Hospital
by Kayla Jessop She stole Barney. Before the thievery, the deep purple and bright green dinosaur sat upright, perched against the large, bulky TV stand in our small living room. His once soft fabric was now ruffled and torn, scratchy with the amounts of matted lint trapped in the fur from my sister’s constant, brutal… Continue reading On The Run
by Joan Gaustad Part 1: AN INKLING “Does it get any easier after three months?” my neighbor asks as I watch him shove hollyhock seeds, South of France-style, between the alley cobblestones next to his narrow townhouse. We’ve rarely spoken in decades of close proximity, and it takes me a moment to understand what he… Continue reading Why We Stay
by Alejandra Pena February 23, 2021 at 9:36 A.M. I stop living and I start again in a matter of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, but not years. Never years. Death is fleeting. Death has to make its mark and return to haunt. It enclouds and it overwhelms. Death hovers over with the promise that… Continue reading Self Portrait in Colors
by Caelan Beard Dear Rie, Today I found the album you brought over with you from Holland. There are photos of you laughing along country fields with your friends, and tangled together in a pile on the beach. You look like you had fun. Your gang of five litters much of the album, which I’d… Continue reading Dear Rie
by Aria Han My grandparents live on the 27th floor of an apartment building in Paju, Seoul, South Korea. There are stairs, although no one would ever take those stairs all the way up to the 27th floor. Mostly, they take the elevator, a musty little thing that’s neither breaking down nor gleaming. Everything has… Continue reading A Broken Elevator
by Hannah Zeman When I was young, I saw a lot of things break at my aunt’s apartment. The old swamp cooler that hung out of the window on the second floor. The old sink with its pink tile. My uncle laying half in the cabinet, his feet on the old linoleum as he did… Continue reading Joanna
by Lily Andrews “Siento que también yo podría borrarme con facilidad” - Elena Poniatowska, Querido Diego, te abraza, Quiela November 29th When I re-entered, the room was hot. Steamy. Four hours had passed but the walls still held our heat inside. I escaped to the bathroom to open the window, nearly slipping on the floors.… Continue reading Lights
Ignatian Literary Magazine 