“No Turning Back” by Gracie Hou

Photo by A&L Journal Advisor Mitali Khanna Sharma.

Our mother stood on that foggy day,

Hair jagged like the mountains,

Blue eyes blackened like an oily sea.

Those eyes mourned,

As smog billowed up smokestacks,

Her chest labored,

As blackness swirled into her lungs.

Staggering back,

Watery eyes fell to mine,

Begging,

Pleading,

Each tear dripping

faster with desperation.

Her weary face,

turned to the blue,

Having been broken with time,

Whispered what only we could hear.

The fog was soon a

whisper in the air,

And finally,

I reluctantly reached out.

Rocks clattered below,

My fingers straining,

But grasping thin air.

She was gone,

The howl of the wind,

Screaming treason,

Announcing our sentence,

For the world to see.

Gracie Hou is a first-year undergraduate student in the College of Engineering. In her free time, she enjoys writing, music, and water polo.