Moss

Curls around roots

And covers raw bark

What I once named unsightly

Now it softens

Under the tree where it grows

an old manuscript, buried

What I once covered with cloth

Now nature hides

She does it better-

sealing old texts,

encasing them like treasure

A letter torn open

hidden under branches

What if I unearthed it?

What if I reread?

if it’s too awful

I can let it hide again

I won’t know

Until I brush off the dirt

And uncover

the moss

Reader...

Reader, I have a confession –

one 649 days old.

I fractured –

and through the cracks

fell the old words.

Reader, I met the five –

the ones we meet in grief

Each one

whispered their line

My blood

was ink that day.

And every minute since

I’ve stayed alive

speaking

to you.

I must confess –

my writing stains

and often smears

But

still, I flood with ink

So can I write to you?

Writer's Block

Fingers tremble

vibrating through my bones

I lose my grip

and my pen slips

The eye

hidden in my mind,

tosses me to wolves,

lets everything blur

And my ears

Swear I just heard the vowels

but now

they must’ve lost their sound

This tongue

just yesterday tasted a sugared promise

today only

the salt of tears

Today

my pen ran away

and the words

They abandoned their page

The Need

Bleeding black ink

through your veins

Filling that well

To the brim,

ever dripping

So far from a luxury

You’d die before

You put the pen down

So necessary

to strip the cobwebs

from your mind

The need’s so deep

Heavier than hunger

Worse than thirst

This need

would have you buried

Covered in moss

And endlessly splintered

Without it

Do You Understand?

Pen crossing parchment

Ink staining skin

Always leave

A little white

for the spaces to scream

Etched in the fingerprints

Never scraped to the side

Must show what’s behind

so even the blind

Can hear the rhyme

An empty page or blank canvas

Call it a lump of clay

Shapeless, maybe deformed

Until my fingers and stylus

Claim it mine

I’d speak if I could

Even brave disturbing shouts

But some words are buried

That’s why every time

I ask

“Do you understand me?”

“Do you know I love you too?”

M.J. Cornstubble

M.J. Cornstubble, a first-year student studying English and Philosophy, started her five poetry pieces in early 2026. As she collected her work, a theme began to take shape: orbiting the need to use a blank page to set things down. She titled the collection Etched in Ink, Buried in Moss to symbolize the feeling of recording memory, if only so that it finally has a place to rest and be covered. Now that they’ve reached their final form, M.J. is grateful that these pieces now have a home. A fun fact about her is that when she is not reading or writing, she can often be found back home with one of her five horses.