Emily Castro-Eugenio

Emily Castro-Eugenio (she/her) is an English major. She is a transfer student from Middlesex College and is in the second semester of her junior year at Rider University. She is also a first generation student who loves art, literature, music, and sports. She can be found drawing or cooking when she isn’t writing or reading.

It’s cold and painful,
the feeling you get when you are no longer you.
You’ll be okay, you chanted over and over

and over again.

You closed your eyes, ready
to go, why must you
go.

Now you stand in the middle of a field
of dead dreams, tattered hearts, and broken-down bones.
With tender flesh, black and blue
and bloodied thoughts of those who came before you
and those who will come after.
The same sad eyes and the creeping feeling,
there’s no turning back.
A warm embrace is all that is needed.
It would fix many of your broken thoughts.
So here you stand, cold and empty staring at the field.
The grass has grown taller, and the sky has stopped weeping.
You are the key.

With your rich legacy passed down you stand
tall with glasslike tears leaving your eyes.
Your bloodied eyes and bruised hands
hold your ancestry.
There is no gift other than
the gift of burden.

Do not fear it,
the past, the present, and the future.
Live another day of regret
and live a life of despair, for you are the one who will
make it out alive.