Creative Writing Class of 2022

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Read the work samples from the Creative Writing Class of 2022.

John Cleaver ’22 (Creative Writing)

From "None the Same"

a minimal, black and grey toned landscape. A hill appears in the distance with a grey sky above. The title None the Same is in the center and the authors name John Cleaver appears in the bottom right. Both are in white text.

 

"He begged me not to shoot him. Yeah, he begged, he did. He yelled that I was a good man and that I didn’t have to do it. That I was ‘blessed’. He yelled to his god. He yelled all he could. Wasn’t yelling so much after I put a round in his side, though. And as he was lying there bleeding, choking, hardly able to breathe, he said, ‘God forgives you, sir. You are a peacemaker. Blessed are the peacemakers’. Yeah, that was it. All the ways that old prick could’ve damned me out, told his lord to send me to that deep, dark place after my time is done, and instead he lies there and says, ‘blessed are the peacemakers’. Yeah. Blessed are the goddamned peacemakers.”

Diamante Figueroa ’22 (Creative Writing)

From "Loading..."

a black background with the alternating numerals for 0 and 1 in bright green text. In the center in larger green text reads the title Loading. Underneath the text displays the authors name with the words By Diamante Figueroa.

 

In every game, Sonic never ran away,
he ran towards conflict. So I took his title
“Fastest Thing Alive”, embraced my problems,
running with confidence.

Isolation became my choice, not my prison.
Misunderstandings became my second wind, not my first fall.
Being too smart became my speed, not my spike traps.
Running faster than ever before.

Sarena Harmon ’22 (Creative Writing)

From "The Intangibles"

an obscured interior scene showing that suggests a view from below of a cieling and window with light flooding through. The title The Intangibles appears in white text in the center. Below in the left corner is the author's name, Sarena Harmon

 

I watched the angels’ relationships evolve with the humans. Even with the veil that separates their existences, they get through in clever ways. Lifetime after lifetime, they still have a love for each human in their care. I wanted to watch them thrive.

... Human lives were growing increasingly complex and so were their problems both externally and internally. Perhaps their brains can only expand inward so much before they get scrambled. Scrambled brains don’t give good energy, which can harm angels. Angels weren’t able to help and struggled to handle their human’s growing problems. I reached a record high of angels abandoning their humans. Some would radio in and ask to be re-assigned. Some would stay but suffer as a result. I found myself wondering what happened to them, wanting to ask what went wrong. Did they not understand their human? Did their human struggle to hear them through the veil? If an angel had characteristics that paired well with their human, would that have helped? Was there anything I could have done to make it different? This was a new sensation in my being. I believe it’s called “worry”.

Sam Medina ’22 (Creative Writing)

From "The Country Mile"

A bleeding heart with a flame and cross above it sits within an alternating ring of thorns and rabbits. This sits against a red background with multicolored streaks of light in red and blue tones.

 

I’m hateful 
of the side profile you love, scrunch up my nose 
like you’ve never seen it before, like I can try to hide, 
like it’s the first time but we meet here in religion, 
as if it’s sacred--this is the realm pacific. 
We make the usual rounds: the taco joint, liquor store, 
the ritual of Goodwill and the Morrissey tape
we play into submission singing
all the notes, matching up just right, 
like we’ve done this before, like it’s our hymn,
--ironically of course.

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