Cracked. The glass. The memories of the love that had existed, but now lay broken. Destroyed. The heart in which you’d held your love. The china which had been given to you by your mother. Fragile. The relationship which you had thought would last forever. The bones of your grandfather's hand.

The official definition states that fragility is the quality of being delicate or vulnerable, and in this anthology, you will see all things fragile, because fragility, vulnerability, while terrifying, is all around us, and deserves to be recognized and seen.
Cherrywood Drive
By: Katelyn Topshee
Cherrywood Drive stretched across the river near downtown. Every house was painted the same shade of white and almost every window faced the water. The grass out front was always perfect, and the flowerbeds were so red they looked fake. It’s along this road where an old truck pulled up next to Mary-Anne, who was walking along the curb.

“Your mom said you needed a ride.” Walter leaned over to open the passenger door. “What are you doing in Cherrywood?”

“I can get home on my own.” She continued to move past his truck. He called out her name a few times but she didn’t stop. Eventually he left the car to catch up with her.

“Anne, don't be ridiculous. I’m here now, just get in the car.” He stood in front to block her path. “What are you doing in Cherrywood?”

Her stomach lurched as he kept talking. She thought through her reaction, refusing to look up at him. Her hands twitched. “It’s really not a long walk. Go home Walt.”

“Christ, I haven’t been here in ages.” He didn’t move out of her way. “I think the last time I was here was Mike’s party. Were you there for Mike’s party? You must have been.”

“Yeah, of course I was.”

“Is that why you’re here? A party? I used to love the rich kid parties, the cops never show up at the rich kid parties.”

“There wasn’t a party.”
The Sword of Damocles
By: Lizzie Hentschel
Did you take your medication today?

Look up
Up
Above your head
Do you see an iron blade?

Is it hanging by a thread
poised to pierce your royal skull
to spill your velvet blood across the marble floors?

Does it loom over you
like a violent
sparking storm cloud
just visible on the horizon

A single horsehair
A bow’s string
Is that all that stands between you and Heaven?
Or perhaps Hell
Do you think yourself a good man?

Do your hands shake?
Does your heart race?
Are you searching for a way off of this throne?

Can you hear the silent ticking of a grandfather clock
in your chest
in your heart
the tick
tock
tick
tock
tick, tick, tick

Or did you take your medication today?
Saturday
By: Ella Pagan

I am waking up early and my arms are stretched up above, above, above my head. My shoulders and neck hurt and I haven’t yet made my chiropractor's appointment like I told my mom I would do two weeks ago. My clothes are in piles on the floor, I need to dust, my deodorant is running low. I brush my teeth for three minutes, to compensate for the fact that I did not brush them last night. My bag is full of garbage from the week. Bobby pins, an Advil bottle, empty containers from lunches I never unpacked. I know I should. But winter is so long. Can’t we wait until the snow melts?

I put on my coat and my gloves. I’m brittle in the cold. I’m in a thunderstorm, I’m under an avalanche, I’m on the verge of falling, and I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long time. It’s a delicate balance, being ill enough to be taken seriously and well enough to continue to function. I walk to work on Saturday morning, and I breathe. It’s enough.
Untitled
By: Ivy Janes

There is a girl with a bright smile that softens her eyes.
A smile you always try to keep as long as you can, making a fool of yourself everyday just to keep her beaming face turned towards you.
This girl with her smile that opens her face wide and bright like clouds parting from around the sun 
You treasure her and her grin because you know how fragile it really is. How quick it can turn into a frown, and the twinkle in her eyes to tears.

It startles you how fragile your heart is while in love. How delicate your happiness is when it depends on the rare joy in the crinkled eyes of a melancholy girl.
Cracked Stone
By: Rowan Davies-Ostrom
As the rain poured, droplets sinking into cracked stone, you screamed. The pain as they seeped deeper and deeper, eroding more and more, was bearable, but the emptiness of your mind was not. 

You grasped the few remaining memories; when times had been better, when your worshipers had loved you, taken care of you, not left you to weather the elements, to lose pieces of yourself as your statue crumbled. 

You had once been beautiful, you knew that. You remembered the day they had raised your statue into the air, the marble painted with gold shining in the sun, the day you had been brought into existence to watch from above. And they had loved you, confided in you, thought you to be the sign of better times to come. 

You didn’t remember why they had abandoned you. Perhaps you had clung to those memories less than the good ones, perhaps you had wanted to forget.

The rain came down harder, digging even deeper. Tears streamed down your face as another crack opened wider, and another piece of stone fell to the ground, another memory gone.
Wavering Realities
By: Mia Christensen
My eyes sting under the bright light as I sit up from the couch. I stumble towards the light switch in hopes of dimming it, flinching as my feet ache along the floor. I reach for the switch and run my hand over the smooth plate, I don’t have a dimmer. Fine. I flick on the dull light for the kitchen instead.

It’s clean.

Why is it clean?

I didn’t clean it. I pick up the pace and run towards the cleared-off countertops, trying to ignore the throbbing as my foot hits the ground. Someone must’ve been here.

No, no, no. Who was here?

Sweat forms on my forehead as I rummage through the drawers to check its contents. It’s all organized. My fist clenches, piercing my palm at the thought of someone having been here.

No.
Horse Poem
By: Abigail McGhie
the lights come up on the stage,
and you are inside a horse.
you are not the only one inside the horse.

it is dark inside the horse,
the air thick with uncertainty
and unwashed greek soldiers.

you have been inside the horse for hours,
every wooden creak adding another letter
to the spelling of your downfall.

will this plan even work?
you have spent ten years fighting this war,
you do not want to die in a horse.

the horse is woven from words,
some bold against their white paper,
but most half-faded into the creaking wicker.

if only you could read them,
but they shift and twist under your gaze,
and you wonder whether you ever saw them at all.

the horse creaks again.
then again.
the horse wheels are turning.

and then you are inside those impenetrable gates,
and you are inside a horse, and that horse is inside troy.
it is still dark inside the horse,
yet you can breathe a little easier,
though it still smells like unwashed greeks.

the hard part is not over.
still, you are through the gates,
so hold on a little while longer, and remember,

at the end of the day, it works.
troy falls.

you take a deep breath and take your words into the light. 
"and all he could say was...."
By: Li Awad
Today, Gray felt pain everywhere after such a long day of work. He made sure that he took his melatonin so he got a real good night’s rest. He spent hours rolling around in bed trying to fall asleep; the melatonin should have started working immediately! Instead, it left him groggy and weak like a hangover. It didn’t make him nauseous, of course, but the moment that thought slipped into his mind, his stomach began to feel like it was burning.

He began thinking back to that awful day; the fateful day that began his spiral of stress, restless nights and when his insomnia settled in. That day when he was about to get a promotion he had been working towards for years and just as his boss was about to tell him about the benefits and ask him to sign the contract, he got a call from his weeping father about his mother passing away in her sleep. She ended up having a heart attack in her sleep and shaking in their bed and by the time his dad woke up, she was gone. Just like that. In one of the most important moments of his career, the feeling of pride was instead displaced by a nightmare that settled right in.

Thinking of it again and how awful the workplace has been was abruptly disturbed by the churning his stomach began. Gray felt seethingly in pain so he began a slow and zombie-like descent to the medicine cabinet for some Pepto Bismol and scrammed to get it into him. Anything to help ease this godforsaken pain that has been annoying him all day. The stress is too much and his ex-fiance’s words flash into his mind; “You can’t keep living in denial, Gray. You have to mourn sometime. You need to accept that she’s gone and move on.”
Want
By: Hinata Derouin

It happened while neither of them was looking. The strings dangling from the edge of their clothes had tangled together. The fine ends looped into a pretty bow. They had made quickly to untangle the mess. But when the two of their hands touched on the arches of the bow, one of them decided to twist a knot. 

It became a game. One of them would tie a knot in the delicate strings and the other would rush to untie it before another appeared.
​
They stood in place, pushing and pulling on the line, creating knot after knot and untying twist and turn till there were tangles that neither of them remembered making and loose ends that hadn’t existed before. 

Before they knew it, the threads had become a rope and they were playing tug of war. It creaked and groaned when the two of them pulled and their hands were sore and red, grasping desperately at the cord to be the last one standing.

Over the course of years, the two pulled and scratched and threw the strings in every which way, until it was a jumbled amalgamation of frayed ends and loose ties.

It would make sense to use scissors and snap the line before it was too late, but they were too scared to see how easily the blade would cut through the knots and leave them on their way.

​
Beneath Reality
By: Heidi Elder
She kept her gaze level. She didn’t need to meet his eyes, couldn’t meet his eyes; it was taking all she had not to collapse to the floor screaming. In her peripherals, she saw him glance at her face before a small smile took root in the corners of his mouth. 

He crouched down without letting his eyes stray, without letting the spotless knees of his jeans touch the ground. In her mind, it wouldn't have made any difference at all if he had, his socks were already sopping with it, leaving crimson streaks on the plastic-wrapped floor. The cuffs off his jeans had also somehow remained untainted. With his lips quirked up like that, he looked almost handsome—well, he'd always looked handsome… the point being, if you didn’t look down, you could almost forget what sort of scene this was.

    His fingers curled around the face of the man lying dead on the ground, tightening his grip until it revealed a puckered expression. He laughed, angling it upwards for her to see. She didn’t look down. She pretended as though he wasn’t even there. His eyebrows lowered into a look nearing discontent. She felt her stomach twinge, just a little; she didn’t let it show on her face. 

    In this world beneath reality, where the moods of one man were akin to the will of God, it was disconcerting to see one she couldn't quite discern. That fragile balance was as important to her survival as was her own heart pounding within her chest. He dropped the head to the ground and rose to his full height.

    She felt her eyebrow twitch, sweat appearing at her hairline as his eyes stared down at hers. Don’t look up, she ordered herself, Don’t look down. Stare straight ahead and pretend everything’s fine

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The Little Blue Bird
By: Ella MacDonald
I remember the day I first saw it. It was a Wednesday morning in the spring, early May. I was on the porch, sipping a cup of coffee, enjoying the warm weather. I was looking out at the garden when I spotted it. Sitting on top of a fence post, a small little thing. Its tiny blue wings, fluttering slightly and feathers being ruffled by the warm morning breeze, it stood proudly, its chest puffed out and its small head held high. I studied it for a moment, it was beautiful. I became captivated. The next day, I went out again, to see if it was there, and it was, sitting on the fence post. 
Every morning, the bird was there to greet me. I knew it was the same one, because of the little yellow spot on its chest. Everyday, I stepped a little closer. Not wanting to scare it away, I kept quiet. Tip-toeing closer, I would watch. Sometimes it would stand on the post and not move; perhaps watching me. Other times it would chirp or sing its bird song. It would ruffle its feathers and flutter in the air.  

I began to feel a connection to this little blue bird, like it was a friend of mine. It was almost too good to be true, it was unlike anything else I had experienced. I didn’t know what I would do if I never saw it again. Why did it come back every day? Was it just me who felt this connection? As time went on, I could stand and watch it on the grass just a few feet away from where it was. Sometimes, I felt the urge to reach out and touch it, just stroke its wings. But I didn’t. I couldn’t ruin what we had. I couldn’t hurt it. Couldn’t let it leave forever. I was so interested in this bird, it had become a morning ritual to go out and greet it. I went out every day, and every day it was there. I never saw any other birds with it, and had no idea where its nest was. Did it have a family? Or was I the only being that it saw every day? I didn’t tell anyone about our encounters. It was something special, something between just me and the bird, something to make me smile every morning.  

    As it started to get cold, I still went out every morning, and it was always there. One December morning, the grass was covered in snow. It was crunchy under my slippered feet. There was the little blue bird, perched on the fence post, I was watching it, and it was watching me. We continued this for a few moments when suddenly, it took flight. It flew past me towards my house. I turned just to see it fly right into the front window. With a slight thud, its lifeless body fell and hit the ground, not to get up again. 

​
Forget Me Not
By: Yasmin N.
I have read many stories about grief. In each one, they described it slightly differently: a tidal wave overwhelming you, a black hole in your chest, something huge, something destructive, something painful beyond belief. When I first met grief, it was much softer than I had expected. Grief came down from my father’s office, knocking twice on my door before entering. Grief came in the form of my mother with a face full of tears and quivering hands. She pulled me from my blankets into a hug and said, “We lost your grandfather.”

    I understood the words but I pushed them aside. I had only seen my mother cry a few times and I didn’t know what to do, so I just smiled, trying to quietly reassure her. I thought of my father, who I had never seen cry, how I could comfort him. My mother stood, wiping tears and pulling herself together, urging me to follow her upstairs. I tried to gather my thoughts. My mother had lost both her parents already, but after they passed I didn't see her for weeks. This time it was different. Not more than 30 minutes could have passed between when my parents heard the news and when they told me. I didn’t know what I would find at the top of the stairs.

    When I entered my dad’s office, it was normal. Dad was on the phone, talking to my grandmother, going through a checklist of “How are you?” and “Did you eat yet?”. From what I could hear, she sounded no different than when we last spoke. My grandmother sometimes has trouble understanding what’s going on around her and was probably still shocked. These were explanations I thought of after the fact. At the moment, I didn't find it strange. Then my aunt took over. Our phone didn't have good sound quality but even then you could hear how hard she was trying not to cry. That reaction, with all the tears, that's probably normal, right? Should I be crying?
Untitled
By: Mia Hebb
I am a fragile little girl. When they scream, I scream. When they cry, their voices shatter my porcelain ears and crumble my glass heart. When they call me an impossible child, shards of my little glass heart spout from my lips like a vicious waterfall, lashing out and slicing the skin of those around me, even the ones who’s kind words stick to my cracking skin like glue to try and heal me, and so they run. The shards build up in my lungs, choking me while I crack. 

I am too fragile for their world.

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