2410, 2022

The Taxi Driver in a Netflix Show

Chiara Bruzzi/ October 24, 2022/ Guest Writers, Relationships/ 1 comments

By: Anonymous Bodies. Breathing. Diverse. Sun touched. Tanned and stretched, marked yet bare. Born from the earth, flowing from the womb. Burning with the warmth of a lingering touch. A kiss. Entangled in unison, the feeling of want. A want to navigate your lonesome vastness, a desire so deeply seeded within you but slowly festering every open wound of your body, edging its way to your heart. A heart that pumps for him, a mind that yearns for her. I was never conscious of my looks. I grew up in a homogenous nation, a land rich in dark skin and

1010, 2022

What is the Best Advice?

Chiara Bruzzi/ October 10, 2022/ Relationships/ 1 comments

By: Chiara Bruzzi Your friend approaches you with an impossible situation: what do you do? Sometimes my friends approach me with what I like to call an impossible situation. The type of situation that no matter the advice I give, they will find a way to make an issue out of the newly found solution. My roommate and I often talk about the frustration that comes from such conversations, especially when it’s about a friend’s “significant other”. In most cases, the answer to the problem is that the friend’s partner is either toxic or manipulative. The friend should leave this

1403, 2021

La Vida es un Sueño

Chiara Bruzzi/ March 14, 2021/ Guest Writers, Relationships/ 0 comments

By: Sofia Fuentes
Many nights I spent awake, many nights I wasn’t sure whether I was asleep or not. Women from different eras crossed my room: dresses, corsets, feathers, hoop skirts. I seemed to go unnoticed. They entered my open door and left out the window. Outside my window a twenty-four-floor building. Late-night parties put me to sleep. Every day it was someone’s birthday. I listened each night to the name of the person they celebrated. Felicidades Anita. Felicidades Carmen. Felicidades Antonio. Awake, a celebration of life. Asleep, a boy stands on the roof of the twenty-fourth floor. Staring into the distance, he contemplates ending it. From my window, I look at him, naively, wondering where his bed is and why he is not in it. My gut builds up tension. Voiceless, I scream at him. The silence fills my room, his mind, and the air between us both. Like the women passing through my room, he is oblivious. Before I can move, his body drops twenty-four floors down, and I awaken, drowning in a pillow full of tears, and I recover my breath uneasily.

2901, 2021

The Little One

Chiara Bruzzi/ January 29, 2021/ Guest Writers, Relationships/ 1 comments

By: Camila Serrano
You ask me what it’s like being the youngest child? Listen to me. Here I am, rarely called by the right name, being coddled by my parents, and with a layer of thick skin from all the “you were a mistake” jokes. I will tell you. Listen to me. Put yourself in my hand-me-down clothes and hear me. The little one. My name is Camila, but ever since the day I was born my dad refers to me as “the little one” – a logical nickname, as I was not only the smallest baby in weight and height out of the three children, but the youngest in age as well. As I got older, I did not grow out of this nickname like I hoped. Instead, it was now being used by my mom, my sisters, my friends, and even my boyfriend. Do I like it? No, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. It has become a part of my identity, it’s who I am.

0101, 2021

How Abuse and Depression Changed my Ability to Love

Chiara Bruzzi/ January 1, 2021/ Guest Writers, Relationships/ 1 comments

By: Miranda Marquez
Numbing it out, it’s all something you see in tv shows where the characters are looking for someone to pick them up when they can’t do it themselves. It seems dramatic, but that is what we look for most of the time: someone to do what we can’t do ourselves. It is easy to feel nothing, not to be hurt, or to at least pretend to don’t feel it. But you stop loving; you stop caring; you kill all those happy feelings, those things that can make your day. As a 14-year-old, I was the most joyful child, filled with friends, but, at some point along the way, I followed the wrong path. I got into a relationship where I was taught that abuse was love. It turns out that that’s not true. Once that moment in your life is over, you are worse off than before. You’re left with those bruises that won’t wash off, and what can a 14-year-old kid do with that? How can a teenager deal with emotions bigger than herself?

0612, 2020

The Intangible Weight

Chiara Bruzzi/ December 6, 2020/ Guest Writers, Relationships/ 2 comments

By: Will Perez
As my final year in high school began, I left Alaska, where I stayed during the summer, to return to Miami. When I arrived in Miami, it hit me: I was under the impression that staying 4000 miles away from home with my brother would detract from all the mental trammels that had built up and festered during the extended quarantine. Those long months of solitude during quarantine had built up this impotent anger and feeling of helplessness towards the world. I wanted to seclude myself more than anything and succumb to the situation that fell upon the world without even giving it a try. That summer changed my mindset after I got back, but not for long. As much as I didn’t want to leave, I knew it was time for school in person because once again, I felt this obligation to return in person and make the most of what everyone described as “normality.” It seemed that all the progress I made was laid to waste as I relapsed into what some may describe as anxiety-induced depression. Every day seemed more bland than the one before, and I felt myself becoming crushed under the weight of everything. I was diligent in getting things done but I was soon overwhelmed, if it wasn’t one thing… it was another. I wanted nothing more than to sleep and isolate myself amidst the weight of everything.

0412, 2020

How Bullying Made me Successful

Chiara Bruzzi/ December 4, 2020/ Guest Writers, Relationships/ 1 comments

By: Matthew Gaynor
Those who have the biggest smiles are the ones who have shed the most tears; those who are the most caring have been broken the most; and finally, those who are the nicest have been tormented the most. All of these characteristics have one thing in common: They describe my past. I am a victim of bullying, and I do not think most people will understand, but I hope this post and my story will give you a new outlook on life and a story you will not forget.
For years, I have tried to understand why I was bullied. I use to want to piece everything about my history and knowledge into one. Now, I have finally accomplished that goal; here we go… how bullying made me successful.

1109, 2020

A Broken-hearted Girl’s Thoughts on Grief

Chiara Bruzzi/ September 11, 2020/ Guest Writers, Relationships/ 0 comments

By: Isabella Farina
I learned that the engulfing pain and sadness can come out of nowhere when someone on the street laughs like he did when our song comes on when a girl and her two brothers walk past me. I can’t help but feel a sort of resentment for those who still have two brothers, an older and a younger one like I did. This makes me feel guilty, but it’s the truth. I know that time heals, but as the initial shock of this tragedy lessens, a new type of pain has settled in, and it’s overwhelming me. The settling of the idea that I will never see him again, that I have to accept the millions of conversations that will never occur, and the events that he will not attend, it’s a lot. Grief humbles you.

0908, 2020

Community in Isolation

Chiara Bruzzi/ August 9, 2020/ Guest Writers, Relationships/ 1 comments

By: Daniel Fruman
I was always amused by the idea of an Ancient Greek philosopher. An old man sitting in a garden surrounded by ornate columns, drinking expensive wine, and contemplating everything from free will to the meaning of life. Yet I had never thought that I’d ever find myself in a similar position and to be honest, I still can’t fathom how these thoughts started, but there I was contemplating away, and the more I contemplated, the more empty I felt. Now, I’m certainly not going to go on and on about how this pandemic altered my world, simply because this was an issue that I had as far back as last year. And as more responsibilities piled up on my shoulders, I found myself in that state of melancholic contemplation more and more. Fortunately, I was kept busy. I’m the type of guy who likes to have things to do, never be finished with something, to have a constant stream of challenges thrown at me from all directions, so that I may succeed and move on. So when all those challenges got taken away, and my life became a monotonous stream of tedious online classes and aimless wanderings around the house, singing long Wagnerian arias, I felt those melancholy thoughts rush back into my life, like Achaeans bursting through the gates of Troy.