w w w w MggEditoriChie,5xy~rakxx the ~PhtEdtrSamWolson Ceerprddsign Agela Chih Cover ilustation:Laura Garavgia v WO w w w Weneda, arh , 009 -TeMcia*al Letter from the editor Every year around Hopwood Awards season, students rush a small room in Angell Hall in a mad dash to enter their painstakingly edited and neatly foldered creative writing portfolios into the contest before the 12 p.m. deadline. Every semester, even more stu- dents endure the anxiety, frustra- tion and bared emotions of fiction and poetry workshops across cam- pus, scribbling criticism in margins and hoping that their peers won't be as harsh. Sometimes, these students actually go on to publish - Arthur Miller, Adam Herz ("American Pie") and Jeff Marx ("Avenue Q"), for example. More often, they do not. But they do realize the opportunity to express themselves through a time-honored craft - to delve into depths of their creativ- ity and, often times, their psyches that they would never otherwise explore. Student prose and poetry can be rough. It can be off-putting. Non- sensical. Gratingly ungrammati- cal. Just way too much information about a random classmate in your 3 p.m. lecture. But it also holds an essence of humanity, an inti- mation of the reason why people continue to read the literary giants and then venture to pick up the pen themselves. Occasionally, a novice work will display real talent and the promise of great things to come. For the annual literature issue of The Statement, I've compiled a selection of that last variety - prose and poetry from students whose propensity for writing could very well take them far beyond their undergraduate creative expres- sion requirement. Here you'll find the desperate longing of a young would-be mother for her miscar- ried child, a meditation on the fate of old maids, a poetic send-off to former Michigan football coach Lloyd Carr and much more. Enjoy. -JESSICA VOSGERCHIAN, MAGAZINE EDITOR i . 4 ee, b NOMINATE SOMEONE FOR THE STUDENTS OF THE YEAR ISSUE The Statement is soliciting nominations for a special issue profiling students whose personal achievements or contributions to campus communities deserve recognition. Send a brief description of your nominee to vosgerchian@michigandaily.com. I HAVE READ WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO DROWN, and I try not to think of it as my feet edge to the beginning of the sea, to the beginning of a uni- verse that offers free will to the most fanatic of men, connecting me to those I would not know in any other circumstance. I am prudent; I care too much. The sea is cold and unwavering, and I dare not look into its bounds, for it warns against the selfish acts of men, it forgives only after duty, it finishes what it starts. Now, Ithink of whether the mistakes I have made, the women I have kissed and abandoned, and the illusory restraint that confines my action would justify my descent into the water. I am not unlike the sea, and as my knees feel the frozen breaths of fish beside me, I call to it, bless- ing its waves as a priest would bless bread. The night forsakes most, taking the shells of light bit- terly to their break, giving me the chance to fault and turn around. I am wet, now. I am cold, now. I am alive, now. Each step is unstable as the wet sand faults under my soles, the soles of expensive shoes and the souls of the accidental dead. I wish to know them, to know melancholy as if Hades was my home; to replace indifference with the reverence of death, for life has forgotten my eyes and lips. I want to believe in God. Perhaps the night pushed me to this. I prefer to antagonize over the abstract, for it feels safer. That my lover had broken my heart or that I could not sleep did not seem like reasons important enough to end this existence, and I think of what the Romans had said, that it is better to be a slave on earth than to rule in the underworld. Is it not enough tobe a man, to feel my strong body work- ing? I cannot overcome the idea of death, andI crave it each time the dawn approaches. Living is tiring, and now all I dream of is sleep. The water sits at my breast. Slowly, as with things of importance, I bend my head into the oncoming wave. It is light, and I pretend I can breathe underwater, as our ancestors did so many years past. It must feel welcoming, to belong, and as all the men sat in circles, dying for causes not yet realized, they must have thought themselves brave. But I am not brave, no. I know sadness. The water is not still, but the waves are not ripe. They break on my body in cou- plets, and the current pulls me forth, breaking for seconds at a time, then returning to its cadence, rhyme, mission. I was taught to survive these situ- ations. I have no want of that. The sun's weight is on my brow, pushing, pushing me deeper into my grave. Or maybe it was not the sun, but her words, her dismissals, her departures. It is almost dark. Though my purpose is death, my body is paralyzed with the fear of sharks, and I hesitate in my steps, because I do not want to die in a violent manner, but in one of nature's simplest designs (perhaps warm and asleep in bed). My pleas of both death and survival become louder, cupped in the hiccups of the night. I cannot decide whether I want to live or die. Soon each wave hits my mouth, and I swallow the water when no more can fit. The salt burns, and I taste regret. I see the unattainable repen- tance before me, and I imagine my family above the waves, smiling as if I had never existed. I feel, but lack power. My back is covered with the bodies of men lost at sea; I lean back, into the waves that have passed, and my hair flows out from me, grasp- ing for the land I left behind. Breathing becomes difficult, I am so cold, and my chest has the weight of the entire ocean on its bow. My parents never warned of the harshness of death, and how it takes all of you before returning you to an origin, the place where your body grew, plunged, stretched. Such conception always comes too late. My eyes are covered and closed by the water. I pray as Neptune pulls me out to sea. I want to live. STORY BY MEGAN BERKOBIEN, LSA SENIOR