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      • Editor's Note (2025)
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      • Cafe Terrace at COVID Capacity
      • Behind the Falling Window
      • premature assurance
      • A Walk On the Tears (Of Mother Earth)
      • Infused Proverbs
      • To Dreams, To Dappled Light, and To a Stone
      • what's she waiting for
      • The Red String
      • The Blue Girl
      • Ink Forms
      • Sylas Yarad
      • Origamy
      • Abstraction
      • I Wish You Loved Me Like The Mountains
      • Bathroom Hash
      • Desperation
      • Impact
      • when colored bulbs turn to white lights
      • Red Lavenders bloom just the same
      • Rust Belt Blues
      • The Badass
      • The Reader's Reverie
      • Echos
      • The Dance Becomes Your Very Own
      • The Pink Elephant
      • Sunset in Kamakura
      • Sleepy Hollow
      • An American Sonnet to Dying Flowers
    • Our Metamorphic Stories (2024) >
      • Editors' Note (2024)
      • Fifty-two Minutes
      • The Day I Love Myself More Than You
      • Shadows
      • Bloodlust: The Metamorphosis
      • Canvas
      • picture this
      • rite of passage
      • Bathroom Floor
      • Cat
      • M
      • 삼년상 (Sam-Nyun-Sang)
      • Valley
      • I'm More Than
      • I'm Not a Toy
      • Rising Phoenix
      • Grow
      • red :3
      • Green Cousins
      • The Lighthouse
      • Sea of Plants/Planets
      • Kitty's Poem
      • Fin
      • tomie
      • Library Class
      • Our Lie
      • Weavers
      • An Old Tree
      • A World Without You
      • All Must Die
      • Flower
      • The Canoe
      • It's Scary Up Here
      • Beautiful Things
      • Ma Vie
      • The Final Wall
      • Hosts
      • Waqe Zhiga
      • two faced feelings
      • imposter syndrome
      • Feminism
      • Pretty Girls
      • It's Just Us
    • See You in Another World (2023) >
      • Editors' Note (2023)
      • Voices of the Summer Night
      • Lightning Glut
      • All The Little Things
      • From a Distance
      • Confined
      • The Night Hours
      • A Contrapuntal for the Girl in My Dreams
      • Go Back (before they do)
      • Snippet of Thought
      • The Darkness
      • Her Nature
      • I Listen
      • Stranger In The City
      • What Music Does
      • Fallen Stranger
      • The Black Dress
    • A Fire of Words (2022) >
      • Editors' Note (2022)
      • The Floor Wallows Lower
      • Cornflowers
      • Erudite
      • That One Morning
      • mom, im afraid
      • selenophilia
      • Roses and Rainbows
      • If a poisonous snake bites itself, will it die?
      • Rochester
      • Crown of Branches
      • Stairs to the Sea
      • A Poem Written Entirely From Advertisements
      • Pyromania
      • silhouette of a bird against winter stars
      • thunderstorm in the bedroom
      • A Night in Recovery
      • sleeping gypsie
      • paper dolls&goodbyes
      • We Are Women
      • Village Air
      • Sunshine's Laughter
      • the male gaze
      • The Forensic Entomologist
      • Lacking
      • Drowning
      • Adelie
    • Create the Wonders We Dream (2021) >
      • Editors' Note (2021)
      • Zove
      • I'm Sorry
      • Fake Smile
      • My Friend the Balloon
      • Eyes Intertwined
      • Perfect
      • Only a Moment
      • A Dangerous Word
      • My Dreams
      • The Last 100 Meters
      • The Green Void (Villanelle)
      • The Whimsical Galaxy (Sestina)
      • The Silent Kindness
      • Pressure
      • Table on the Hill
      • The Yukon
      • The Shore
      • Repentance
      • Her and I
      • Infections of the Soul
      • Threads
      • Dream of a High Schooler
      • Empty
      • little flame
      • scars
      • black and white
      • The Cat
      • Joy
      • Sweet Honey Bee Stings
      • If There Were One Day
      • Delete
      • Our Hearts to Central Vietnam
      • him or Him?
      • Ocean
      • Es Llaner Beach
      • Sewn Together
      • Rain
      • Yes, I Like
      • The Legacy of the Moon
      • The Wind Whimpers
      • From Here I See
      • To Feel Clean
      • Red
      • Survival
      • Substance
      • Golden Lies
      • Midnight Tango
      • Ode to a Spleen
      • Modern Siren
      • The Night's Diamond Tears
      • Beats In Double Time
      • A Day in the Flight
      • Carved By Venus
      • Lifeline
      • Everest
      • Education
      • How Much of Reality Can Be Observed
      • What is a Spork
      • What is the difference between love and in love
      • What would you have wanted? me to say
      • Planet Caravan
      • The Journey of a Minute
      • The Circus of Scars
      • Mosaic
      • Color
      • Love and Acceptance
    • Colors I Never Knew Existed (2020) >
      • Editors' Note (2020)
      • Two Weeks' Notice
      • A Curious Man
      • An Eternity Swathed in Cobwebs
      • Hidden Memories: A Villanelle
      • A Better Place
      • Conscription
      • Just Breathe
      • Akko
      • The Hungry Dark
      • And Then Something Shuffled
      • Deodorants are a Girl's Best Friend
      • The Old House
      • Willow
      • Perfection
      • She Will Be Queen
      • Nothing But Space
      • a wicked thing
      • Anthony
      • Cheesecake
      • Za
      • Coco
      • Coexist
      • der böse Mann
      • Feeding
      • Catharsis
      • I HAD TO RENAME THIS POEM DUE TO COPYRIGHT ISSUES
      • For All The Kids Who Were Told They'd Never Make It... and Believed This
      • i Will Always Love You
      • Our 4
      • Rainy Day
      • Space
      • The Ocean Cares Nothing of Man
      • Sickly Sweet Love
      • I call the eating disorder hotline
      • Bright and Sunny Day
      • Grandma in the Moon
      • Interminable Education in Seventeen Syllables
      • Macrocosmic Creation
      • Middle Class Psyche
      • My Sister
      • From a Park Bench
      • Rain
      • A Recollection of Our Memories
      • Sadie Got Me in My Feelings
      • Uranium Rose
      • When I Grow Up - Paige Rhoads
      • Who am I?
      • 49-53
    • Words Become Reality (2019) >
      • Editors' Note (2019)
      • Bear Down: A Sestina
      • Kidnapped & Killed
      • Lemonade
      • Rise
      • Someone Who always Pays
      • A Simple Story
      • The King's Battle
      • Aftermath
      • Aging Population
      • Can we still be friends?
      • Carpe Diem
      • Coffee
      • Day to Day
      • Do Not Hold me Closer, Let me Go
      • Gift of Time
      • Love Everlasting
      • A Message to the Youth
      • Peach
      • Waiting for the Bell
      • Randy
      • The River & The Earth
      • The Show Goes On
      • Summer Love
      • Sundae
      • West Coast Wishing
    • Watch Every Second (2018) >
      • Editors' Note (2018)
      • White
      • eleven eleven
      • Growing Up
      • Claustrophobia
      • The Cage
      • The Soldier's Return
      • Spacing Out
      • Depression
      • Mona Lisa
      • Childhood Cancer
      • Puberty
      • Languish
      • A Magical Ending
      • Life
      • Barter
      • Descent into Space
      • Red Water
      • The Short Film
      • Starting Line
      • And I Am From?
      • Such a Foreign Concept
      • You Say
      • My Creator
      • The Most Common Illness
      • Reflection in Time
      • Ode to My Mirror
      • Time
      • See Me
      • Consequences
      • Where I'm From
      • Unstoppable
    • Her Voice Remains (2017) >
      • Editors' Note (2017)
      • Alone in the Halls
      • Ideal Love
      • Cliff at Dusk
      • I Will Never Forget You
      • Lost
      • OCD
      • Cannibal Animal
      • A Poem for Grandpa 2
      • Solvent
      • Risky
      • Shannen and Graces’ Long Road
      • Dear Bubbles
      • A Tree in the Air
      • Losing Myself
      • ABC's Poem
      • My Glorious Flight
      • Birth Giver
      • Flat Line
      • Eternal Beauty
  • Submit
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  • Home
  • About
    • Staff 2024-25
    • Staff 2023-24
    • Staff 2022-23
    • Staff 2021 -22 >
      • Staff 2020
      • Staff 2019 >
        • Staff 2018
        • Staff 2017
  • Issues
    • Margins of the Mind >
      • Editor's Note (2025)
      • The Eternal
      • Mask Gleaners
      • The COVID Nightmare
      • Cafe Terrace at COVID Capacity
      • Behind the Falling Window
      • premature assurance
      • A Walk On the Tears (Of Mother Earth)
      • Infused Proverbs
      • To Dreams, To Dappled Light, and To a Stone
      • what's she waiting for
      • The Red String
      • The Blue Girl
      • Ink Forms
      • Sylas Yarad
      • Origamy
      • Abstraction
      • I Wish You Loved Me Like The Mountains
      • Bathroom Hash
      • Desperation
      • Impact
      • when colored bulbs turn to white lights
      • Red Lavenders bloom just the same
      • Rust Belt Blues
      • The Badass
      • The Reader's Reverie
      • Echos
      • The Dance Becomes Your Very Own
      • The Pink Elephant
      • Sunset in Kamakura
      • Sleepy Hollow
      • An American Sonnet to Dying Flowers
    • Our Metamorphic Stories (2024) >
      • Editors' Note (2024)
      • Fifty-two Minutes
      • The Day I Love Myself More Than You
      • Shadows
      • Bloodlust: The Metamorphosis
      • Canvas
      • picture this
      • rite of passage
      • Bathroom Floor
      • Cat
      • M
      • 삼년상 (Sam-Nyun-Sang)
      • Valley
      • I'm More Than
      • I'm Not a Toy
      • Rising Phoenix
      • Grow
      • red :3
      • Green Cousins
      • The Lighthouse
      • Sea of Plants/Planets
      • Kitty's Poem
      • Fin
      • tomie
      • Library Class
      • Our Lie
      • Weavers
      • An Old Tree
      • A World Without You
      • All Must Die
      • Flower
      • The Canoe
      • It's Scary Up Here
      • Beautiful Things
      • Ma Vie
      • The Final Wall
      • Hosts
      • Waqe Zhiga
      • two faced feelings
      • imposter syndrome
      • Feminism
      • Pretty Girls
      • It's Just Us
    • See You in Another World (2023) >
      • Editors' Note (2023)
      • Voices of the Summer Night
      • Lightning Glut
      • All The Little Things
      • From a Distance
      • Confined
      • The Night Hours
      • A Contrapuntal for the Girl in My Dreams
      • Go Back (before they do)
      • Snippet of Thought
      • The Darkness
      • Her Nature
      • I Listen
      • Stranger In The City
      • What Music Does
      • Fallen Stranger
      • The Black Dress
    • A Fire of Words (2022) >
      • Editors' Note (2022)
      • The Floor Wallows Lower
      • Cornflowers
      • Erudite
      • That One Morning
      • mom, im afraid
      • selenophilia
      • Roses and Rainbows
      • If a poisonous snake bites itself, will it die?
      • Rochester
      • Crown of Branches
      • Stairs to the Sea
      • A Poem Written Entirely From Advertisements
      • Pyromania
      • silhouette of a bird against winter stars
      • thunderstorm in the bedroom
      • A Night in Recovery
      • sleeping gypsie
      • paper dolls&goodbyes
      • We Are Women
      • Village Air
      • Sunshine's Laughter
      • the male gaze
      • The Forensic Entomologist
      • Lacking
      • Drowning
      • Adelie
    • Create the Wonders We Dream (2021) >
      • Editors' Note (2021)
      • Zove
      • I'm Sorry
      • Fake Smile
      • My Friend the Balloon
      • Eyes Intertwined
      • Perfect
      • Only a Moment
      • A Dangerous Word
      • My Dreams
      • The Last 100 Meters
      • The Green Void (Villanelle)
      • The Whimsical Galaxy (Sestina)
      • The Silent Kindness
      • Pressure
      • Table on the Hill
      • The Yukon
      • The Shore
      • Repentance
      • Her and I
      • Infections of the Soul
      • Threads
      • Dream of a High Schooler
      • Empty
      • little flame
      • scars
      • black and white
      • The Cat
      • Joy
      • Sweet Honey Bee Stings
      • If There Were One Day
      • Delete
      • Our Hearts to Central Vietnam
      • him or Him?
      • Ocean
      • Es Llaner Beach
      • Sewn Together
      • Rain
      • Yes, I Like
      • The Legacy of the Moon
      • The Wind Whimpers
      • From Here I See
      • To Feel Clean
      • Red
      • Survival
      • Substance
      • Golden Lies
      • Midnight Tango
      • Ode to a Spleen
      • Modern Siren
      • The Night's Diamond Tears
      • Beats In Double Time
      • A Day in the Flight
      • Carved By Venus
      • Lifeline
      • Everest
      • Education
      • How Much of Reality Can Be Observed
      • What is a Spork
      • What is the difference between love and in love
      • What would you have wanted? me to say
      • Planet Caravan
      • The Journey of a Minute
      • The Circus of Scars
      • Mosaic
      • Color
      • Love and Acceptance
    • Colors I Never Knew Existed (2020) >
      • Editors' Note (2020)
      • Two Weeks' Notice
      • A Curious Man
      • An Eternity Swathed in Cobwebs
      • Hidden Memories: A Villanelle
      • A Better Place
      • Conscription
      • Just Breathe
      • Akko
      • The Hungry Dark
      • And Then Something Shuffled
      • Deodorants are a Girl's Best Friend
      • The Old House
      • Willow
      • Perfection
      • She Will Be Queen
      • Nothing But Space
      • a wicked thing
      • Anthony
      • Cheesecake
      • Za
      • Coco
      • Coexist
      • der böse Mann
      • Feeding
      • Catharsis
      • I HAD TO RENAME THIS POEM DUE TO COPYRIGHT ISSUES
      • For All The Kids Who Were Told They'd Never Make It... and Believed This
      • i Will Always Love You
      • Our 4
      • Rainy Day
      • Space
      • The Ocean Cares Nothing of Man
      • Sickly Sweet Love
      • I call the eating disorder hotline
      • Bright and Sunny Day
      • Grandma in the Moon
      • Interminable Education in Seventeen Syllables
      • Macrocosmic Creation
      • Middle Class Psyche
      • My Sister
      • From a Park Bench
      • Rain
      • A Recollection of Our Memories
      • Sadie Got Me in My Feelings
      • Uranium Rose
      • When I Grow Up - Paige Rhoads
      • Who am I?
      • 49-53
    • Words Become Reality (2019) >
      • Editors' Note (2019)
      • Bear Down: A Sestina
      • Kidnapped & Killed
      • Lemonade
      • Rise
      • Someone Who always Pays
      • A Simple Story
      • The King's Battle
      • Aftermath
      • Aging Population
      • Can we still be friends?
      • Carpe Diem
      • Coffee
      • Day to Day
      • Do Not Hold me Closer, Let me Go
      • Gift of Time
      • Love Everlasting
      • A Message to the Youth
      • Peach
      • Waiting for the Bell
      • Randy
      • The River & The Earth
      • The Show Goes On
      • Summer Love
      • Sundae
      • West Coast Wishing
    • Watch Every Second (2018) >
      • Editors' Note (2018)
      • White
      • eleven eleven
      • Growing Up
      • Claustrophobia
      • The Cage
      • The Soldier's Return
      • Spacing Out
      • Depression
      • Mona Lisa
      • Childhood Cancer
      • Puberty
      • Languish
      • A Magical Ending
      • Life
      • Barter
      • Descent into Space
      • Red Water
      • The Short Film
      • Starting Line
      • And I Am From?
      • Such a Foreign Concept
      • You Say
      • My Creator
      • The Most Common Illness
      • Reflection in Time
      • Ode to My Mirror
      • Time
      • See Me
      • Consequences
      • Where I'm From
      • Unstoppable
    • Her Voice Remains (2017) >
      • Editors' Note (2017)
      • Alone in the Halls
      • Ideal Love
      • Cliff at Dusk
      • I Will Never Forget You
      • Lost
      • OCD
      • Cannibal Animal
      • A Poem for Grandpa 2
      • Solvent
      • Risky
      • Shannen and Graces’ Long Road
      • Dear Bubbles
      • A Tree in the Air
      • Losing Myself
      • ABC's Poem
      • My Glorious Flight
      • Birth Giver
      • Flat Line
      • Eternal Beauty
  • Submit
  • Contact

The Night’s Diamond Tears
​By Ariel Clark

Picture
            Raging rivers of void sloshed through the skies, threatening to consume the planet whole.  The only thing preventing the darkness from swallowing everything was a large, whitened eye glaring down upon those daring to venture into the world at such a dangerous time.  People disappeared, after all.  The eternal darkness spared none who tested their limits of mortality while so close to the embrace of death itself.  Of erasure.
​
            It had been this way for a long time.  Since the beginning of existence itself there had been two deities to help hoist the sky and protect each planet from an untimely demise.  The first was a burning ball of heat, expelling away all darkness from its centralized location.  In exchange, it lost the ability to move and was forced to watch as the planets it protected risked destruction on the sides not covered by the flame’s protective grasp.  Then, another deity formed.  This one was full of ice which stole the heat of the sun in order to project it onto the areas of each planet that were spun away from the safe embrace of fire.  This deity was shattered into several pieces, each granted the ability to move around individual planets with the cost of being not nearly as strong as the eternal flame.

            It was not long before their combined effort fostered into something more than just orbs floating in the expanse of Nothing.  Soon, a planet gave birth to populace.  Being the prime distance from both deities it was able to siphon the fire of what they called the Sun and harness the icy grasp of what was deemed the Moon.  Species filtered in and out of its existence, constantly changing as time waned further onwards.  Though try as they might, the deities were unable to cultivate the same environment in the other planets that orbited around their small system.  No matter how many chunks of Moon they had, or how many flares of solar power they stole in order to grow, they simply couldn’t recreate the conditions maintained by the special planet. 

            When the first specie of their small planet went extinct, the sky wept.  The Sun flared out and the Moon gushed forth watery spurts.  These flares and streams weaved together in the sky.  Until, finally, a droplet formed.  These droplets began to speckle the voice, chasing away the danger of Nothingness and brightening up the endless expanse.  The Sun and the Moon looked out with awe at their creation before relishing in pride as they watched these speckles form into small deities based off of themselves.  It wasn’t long before word of the special planet had gotten around and the other solar systems began to experiment and try to create another planet of interest.

            The skies watched as new specie inhabited the planet and cried more tears of joy once realizing that all was not lost.  They watched in fascination at all the different forms and ideals of each individual creature.  One of great interest had called themselves Humans.  They harbored, akin to other beings, many variants in their specie.  Unlike other beings, however, they populated virtually the entire planet.  The ones on one continent thought different thoughts than the ones on another.  Yet still, the deities loved them.  Even as they waged war and plotted against one-another.  Even as they forgave and forgot.  They were a creation, and creation was beautiful.


Writer's Statement: I am obsessed with celestial bodies and other poetic wordings/ideas. There wasn't really anything that prompted this outside of "oh, stars are the tears of the night." I hope everyone can appreciate the poetic tone I decided to go with.
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