Samantha Majewski
Samantha studied at the University of Limerick as an international student from the USA. She has now returned to her hometown of Gurnee, Illinois and is almost finished her degree in English Writing at North Central College. Her time spent studying in Ireland was brief, however she thoroughly enjoyed her stay here. Her interests include reading, writing and travelling. Amongst her favourite authors are Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen and W.B Yeats.
Morning
She woke up, her hair matted under the twinned mosquito net. Malaria. She woke up on some coast of Africa; waves
placidly plead with her eyelids to open after that night. Lice. The careening chaos of beholding such natural beauty and such foreign terror, pain she could never know, nor understand. Maggots. The fear of something eating one alive, flaccid eyes, rib cage like the edge of a prism; yellow, yellow, yellow and red. The breath of youth taken from skin as thick as melted rubber and as dark. Starvation. They are eaten alive and eat nothing themselves. She feeds them, she tends to them. She would give her whole self to them if she could, until she dusts the dead skin off of her own boney body to become the grain of the coasts. Fever. She was hot and frantic. The fat she fed them could never manage to cling to their fingers. Bones. Dust. Death. A vital place with voracious men and sore, aching women. Their tears and sweat in her hands. Fever. They were in her hands. She began to shake in sporadic strides, the momentum of her memory charged towards the first death: a girl curled in her arms. Fever. The girl looked up at her silently smiling in an unfathomable suffering and went. She remembered she had always wanted this, wanted fragile life in her shaking hands. They used to be stable, audacious, even angelic. She rubbed her eyes and looked down at her hands. They were still red.
She woke up, her hair matted under the twinned mosquito net. Malaria. She woke up on some coast of Africa; waves
placidly plead with her eyelids to open after that night. Lice. The careening chaos of beholding such natural beauty and such foreign terror, pain she could never know, nor understand. Maggots. The fear of something eating one alive, flaccid eyes, rib cage like the edge of a prism; yellow, yellow, yellow and red. The breath of youth taken from skin as thick as melted rubber and as dark. Starvation. They are eaten alive and eat nothing themselves. She feeds them, she tends to them. She would give her whole self to them if she could, until she dusts the dead skin off of her own boney body to become the grain of the coasts. Fever. She was hot and frantic. The fat she fed them could never manage to cling to their fingers. Bones. Dust. Death. A vital place with voracious men and sore, aching women. Their tears and sweat in her hands. Fever. They were in her hands. She began to shake in sporadic strides, the momentum of her memory charged towards the first death: a girl curled in her arms. Fever. The girl looked up at her silently smiling in an unfathomable suffering and went. She remembered she had always wanted this, wanted fragile life in her shaking hands. They used to be stable, audacious, even angelic. She rubbed her eyes and looked down at her hands. They were still red.