It’s better now that it’s rained. Wave petrichor to the fire season
Early January and the snow capped mountains i’ve been waiting for
all year. Leave it up to the firefighters, leave it up to Fate.
Nothing left to ruin, nothing left to burn.
Old calculus tests and annotated textbooks litter my desk in the outline of
The San Gabriels out my window because that’s the way I like it
I tell my mother. I’m a writer, I live off discord
teetering over hills so high up in the sky so
I can feel myself fall in my sleep. I’m a writer, I make the wrong choices right
So believe in me, believe in me please That’s what I tell my mother.
I didn’t win the award I wanted on Wednesday, and I thought
I was a writer. Disappointment is the brightest thing about me.
That’s not much to shine for, but it’s better than no shine at all.
Everyone likes mourning. Or to see others mourn—to not be alone in
Crookedness, asymmetry, to be symmetrically disappointed
in waxing moons, lost awards, and broken radios that sing static songs. At least I think that’s so.
In calculus we learn how sine graphs oscillate to infinity
on a path that ebbs and flows. I’m a writer, not a mathematician
But today I saw the beauty in that. Tomorrow,
I’ll still have my mountainview.

Sophia Ma is a high school student based in Southern California. An alum of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, their work is published or forthcoming in Différance Magazine and more. Read more from them in their debut novella One Star in a Jar. When not writing, Sophia can be found on their secret Better Call Saul fanart account or scouting out surrealist films.