Period

Grace Ragi

Dare you
to pierce
these pages, feeble and fresh,
pointed
tip?

There is more—
to say no, to begin,
a mouth poised in your likeness
and one dark circle to punctuate a face.

Dare you
to wedge
that immutable blot between
all that was and will be?
Between the folded halves of me?

No, no more.
You are but a pinprick,
mere matter, though dense to infinity—
the universe explodes,
and your matter envelops me.

Still, it is you,
deigning
to force my story closed—
blank pages thereafter,
or so you suppose.

Blank sheets become white flags,
submit their silent deference
to each ineffable act.

But dare you
to portend
a muted end?

To loom, mistakenly,
like a new moon,
promising in your darkness
to efface the pages stained,
that new leaves might turn,
to herald my fervent script?

You bore into me, O sharpest of tips!
But if the sword is a pen,
well, God help you then.
There is no sword like mine...

Bio
Grace Ragi is a sophomore at Penn. She has served as the Editor-in-Chief of PennScience: Journal of Undergraduate Research and as Chair of Penntal Health literary magazine, a project started in conjunction with Active Minds Penn.