This will be my last semester as President of BrainScramble Magazine. Even as a writer, I come up empty, time and time again, attempting to translate this feeling into words. I remember my sweat-slicked hands as I hit “publish” for the first time, sixteen and scared, but the eager beat of my heart rich with possibility. I can still feel the pressing weight of the world on my shoulders with every issue we launch, our ambition shaking my breath, the wish to be great stronger than the urge to be shattered. Even when it is hard, even when we are tired, I am sure of one thing. BrainScramble has been more than my first crush: it has been my first love. I hope it has been one of yours, too.
Category Archive: Issue #4
He jokes she’s lucky she doesn’t have to call a carpenter,
She can no longer walk on her own, she tells him he could
have been a doctor.
I thought about that night on his living room floor, crouched around the chessboard. His eyes flicked from the board to mine, his chain dangling over the marble. “Think about that one again,” he said, motioning to my latest move. It was our third game, after I had begged him to play me again. I smiled under my breath, moving the piece back into safety. “Stop helping me. I’m your opponent.” I teased.
This love? This is what we were made for. Love is, undoubtedly and infinitely, the best thing that we as humans are capable of. It is everywhere; it is in our friends and the sun and art and food and the leaves and the world. And if you put that love out there – if you allow yourself to feel it in all you do – you will be fulfilled. I do not need people speaking my name in an eon for that. I have it now.
The ordeal was a rude shock to the system; a reminder that life is more than JSTOR articles and fanciful mental lists. And yet, it was emblematic of something I couldn’t ideate or catalog. That experiences can’t be gamified, that life doesn’t fit neatly into checklists. That sometimes, your niche academic interests turn into half-haunting, half-hilarious realities. And that the cost of living freely is enduring the tough surprises; surprises that hide in frat basements and behind charming, toothy smiles.
Kneeling on the wooden deck of the boat, legs sticky with seawater and fruit juice, she looks up and watches as the sky above her seems to quiver once, twice, and then begins to slowly peel away. Beyond the flaking sun, she can make out the fuzzy shadow of her ceiling fan, the faint glow of her bedside lamp. A grape in retrograde. A dream, closing in on itself.
Bea, I’m coming home.
Ding ding ding!
The “brother” is a fascinating animal. Despite common assumptions, he does not always find his herd by being […]
The tanks left tracks in the snow. They rolled down the street with no destination, their only goal was to announce their authority.
He retrieved the ball and kicked it across the field lacklusterally. rather than return to his rest beneath the sycamore tree, he rushed towards the boys. a thick sole of memory foam compressed itself against the can. and just like that, there went my crush.
And, as we prepared a meal together every night, garlic was solely crushed one way in my childhood household: a hyper-specific kitchen item, sold for one use and one use only: crushing garlic cloves.
And boy, did we use it.
10:36. Damn it.
Once again, I have overstayed the welcome of my car, forgetting the impermanence of my 15 minute break.
was no longer just myself. My skin was full of openings, and the day poured through them freely.
Thank you, dummy, see you soon
so much that i could almost repenetrate
the surface of Hudson river and breathe
again!
“Is this your first time using?”
I thrash like a fish caught on a hook
long after the pain is gone.