By Nada Fayed

"Nada Fayed is a Cairo-based Writer, Visual Artist and Political Researcher, I explore the intersections of art, culture, and social justice. My work delves into themes of identity, belonging, grief, and the nuanced complexities of the human experience."

1. i've never been good with grief

on a Saturday in May 2012, 

you come home

you sit your bags on the floor, and i race to welcome you

all i’ve known of your life was back and forth trips of where you were 

and where i wished you could be, 

you remain the sole person who has made me feel seen, 

or maybe that’s what every child wants to believe

my mind replays the times we've stayed up 

in the absence of any light but the flickering TV glow

i wondered if it were enough to just witness life together

somewhere in between your distance and my desolation, 

in our silent coexistence, there was an understanding

I think you may have always known how this life works, 

and i still credit you, even when i feign ignorance

i knew the worst thing in the world was to watch you decay 

)and so i didn't. I looked away(

i choke back my words whenever i’m asked about it, uncertain what to say

yes i still mix up 'is' with 'was', 

past with present, you with presence, 

and I'm forced to move forward every time I stumble on it

i’m terribly aware of your reduction to a correction of my words, a grammatical stutter

a hesitation that feels like the only testament of love I have left to offer 

you’ve been gone for a while now and it still feels like betrayal

i don’t remember the last time i saw you 

)that feels like betrayal, too(

i keep on trying to grow around the grief 

but it keeps growing at the center of everything I do

it didn't declare itself in weeping screams and lamentations

but mere perplexity at the sky not collapsing

and the days' audacity to continue falling away 

compressed by the nights I've spent gazing 

at the space you would've occupied 

had the malignancy not ferociously consumed you

one day I will swallow this whole world 

impotently searching for you within it 

I'd spit it all out for another moment of shared silence with you

so much of my frailty, commences and returns to this;

i am not untouchable.

i am breathless with nothing to outrun 

you will never be at the finish line

i never got to admit you're gone and so this poem has no ending

when you're young and oblivious, getting stuck on denial 

is the only way you know how to cope

so you let the past bleed into the present,

stunted by a phantom limb, irreplaceable

a constant reminder of what's missing

i will never have a full picture of who you are 

and you’ll never have a clue about who i am becoming, 

in this poem, i am not someone so incapacitated by their fear of loss 

that they lock the doors every time love knocks

because in this poem, 

i never lose you

on a Saturday in May 2012

you come home

you sit your bags on the floor

2. Love Lives Within You, Still!

softness, your shield

a badge you wear with pride,

untouched by a world 

where hope has tried

to fade, a promise left to rust,

love wilting, souls shifting, 

what once was a homeland 

turns into distant dust

I've seen it too, 

the bitter sting of an unforeseen end

hearts hardening, a mournful thing

but you, soft child, with dreary eyes,

still hold fast to goodness and might

your hands, once small, now reach for more,

and your feet have learned to stray,

but this time freedom leads your way

to forget is a blessing, as wise men say

and you remember to believe them

what a wonderful woeful 

of a world we live in, a mortal weeps

for a life they could have lived

had they not traded 

their warmth for greed

love can’t be be found in every corner 

despite all fruitless attempts,

to unearth something seemingly greater

or so i’ve grimly learned

grief is a forthright language 

that ties and tears apart, 

yet helps you discern

we have nothing else to hold onto 

but each other,

radical veracity, raving faith,

all affably embraced

despite 

despite

despite

those half-witted hopes 

and risk-filled pipe dreams,

you must fear not 

for love lives within you, 

still, all yours for keeps

3. Oh, Femininity 

I feel for young girls everywhere. I feel for young girls everywhere currently being taught that femininity is a badge of shame. When i was younger, i didn't posses the critical ability that allows me to filter what i'm exposed to or digest what i consume. You would offer and i would devour. The world reflects its own imperfections onto me and i agree. I eat myself alive. 

When i was younger, dresses were silly, make up was slutty, pink was boring. I knew that women were created with fervour but tamed with built in shame. It was only when i got older that i'd figured this shame was artificially made. This shame was crucial. It was indispensable to a world that thrives on my discomfort.

This shame originates in the stomach. 

When i was younger i used to wake up in the middle of the night feeling this immense claustrophobia; suffocated by the knowledge of being stuck in a body meant to only grow in ways that provoke hunger, and so i starved it. 

If this body was going to suffer, then that suffering will have to be mine. 

Tell me how honor is a basic right that can be taken whenever you don't live up to some unspoken expectation. Yes, i'm a sight for sore eyes when my light doesn't outshine you.

The possibilities are endless where they don't threaten the upholding of your privilege. Otherwise you'd have to give up the power to give me back my birthright out of courtesy.

This shame is indispensable. 

The first time i noticed how big my breasts were growing, i panicked. I had hoped no one would notice the embarrassment all over my face. I remember wondering if this is how young girls grow up everywhere?

In a world that attaches energies to externalities, you're robbed of your inherent femininity before you get to embody it. I wanted to be a boy because i was scared. to. be. a. woman. 

I still, until now, am learning how to ask for more without the urge to compensate for it, learning that my body's capacity to endure pain does not mean that it must.

I am unlearning the shame but i sometimes miss the softness i possessed before it turned into anger

By M.S.  Blues

M.S. Blues is one of the most decorated figures in the literary magazine community. She currently serves on 20 staff boards (14 as an editor and 6 as an executive) and has over 180 publications. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Infinite Blues Review. In addition to her literary endeavors, she’s an advocate for human rights, a proud retail worker, a tired college student, and the founder/owner of her company, Melancholic Ignition, a platform that focuses on healing through spirituality. She resides in her humble barrio located in San Jose, CA. You can find her on Instagram @m.s.blues_ 

brief word on bad love

el vato could’ve been my skoden, but instead he wanted to be my go-wan-den!

bridges collapsed

stairs had missing steps

i walked on pillars of eggshells and dead grass –

it was a cycle of the most pathetic redundancy,

until i finally

saw the little strip of light

through the black curtains in my mind.

i realized,

in that closed gap of time –

that i do deserve better.

i deserve a good vida,

a damn good one.

and i can’t have one with bad love,

which is why i tossed it over my shoulder,

and took it to the trash,

where it belongs.

i recommend you do the same,

hermana.

By Yuvika

Yuvika is an undergraduate student at Miranda House, University of Delhi. She enjoys writing poetry as a hobby and uses it to explore deeper meanings and emotions. Writing allows her to reflect on various themes and express her thoughts in a thoughtful and creative way.

"Blind Eyes" delves into the tension between dreams and reality, contrasting the serenity of an inner dreamscape with the turmoil of the real world. It reflects a struggle between confronting harsh truths and seeking refuge in peaceful illusions, choosing blindness to preserve a sense of inner calm amidst chaos."

Blind Eyes

Sunlight seeps through a blurred windowpane,

Carefree sparrows are singing in melody.

It’s time to leave the bed,

But I want to rest more, more beneath the quilt.

Let me lay in my dreams more,

‘Cause they are better than reality?

I watch myself flowing like a stream into a tiny puddle,

To drift in peace alongside a turtle’s slow dance,

And I land into a forest of love,

Where I am my own self, strong and beautiful.

There I lay on cool grass under the sunshine,

And cold wind takes me away from my own reality,

It is peaceful and serene, it is my abode of dreams.

The reality drags me into a storm, 

There, I am on a voyage where fiery waves rock my boat, 

To sink me into nothingness.

There, I am on a war between right and wrong,

Do I need to sit down with the real people?

My eyes are open, they can see the deepest secrets,

But still choose to be mum.

In this unjust world, my eyes must stay blind,

Or they will strip away my sight, breath by breath.

By Sophia Parmele

Sophia is a teen writer from Minnesota, USA. She loves the writing community and has a passion for creative writing. She’s currently founder and editor-in-chief for The Pre-Med Gazette, an editor for DICED literary magazine and the Alexandrian Review, and a blog writer for Darpan literary magazine. When she’s not writing, she loves reading, listening to music, and playing violin.

Perfection, delicately woven by the eyes of the beholder

Placed upon a golden pedestal 

With the wings of a gorgeous angel

Until

Misdeed after misdeed

The once white wings slowly metamorphosed into blacked threads

But the beholder disregards any difference

To their perfect statue

The beholder’s eyes soon dim

Body deteriorating, the fallen angel perceives a chance

Singing sweet, hypnotic melodies 

It slowly extracts the beholder’s soul

Until

Nothing remains but

A pile of ash

By Hannah Markley

Hannah is a junior at College. She participates in collegiate speech and debate and oftentimes reads more than she realizes. Her pieces are a reflection of her character and life events, while also trying to relate to the universal narrative. 

The Rise and Fall of Celeste

By Hannah Brandi

I think 

forgiveness

is the most powerful word in the English language. 

DAWN.

When the summer sun rays greeted me a few months ago I could not bring myself to appreciate it. This crippling ache in my heart hurt me so. I remember wondering if I was worth it–if everything I’d done and given to that point meant anything. It’s a debilitating feeling, patronizing as you wonder if years of your life were spent trying to maintain something that ultimately hurt you more than you had loved. 

–and I had loved hard. 

I loved everything I did, I gave more manpower than humankind could mortally give, but ultimately I fell under the weight of sunbeams. 

SUNDOWN.

I had a lot of confusion. Maybe it was the fading glare from the brightest star seeming to mock me, or maybe it was my own volition. Whatever it be, I was lost in my own trance, a dance of trying to self-maintain and simultanously self-progress. I was crushed beneeth my stoned rock heart and the hardest place known to man,

the thought of moving on.

I was confused, unable in more sense than one. I was a drowned specticle bowed upon the sunshine that reminded me of pain. I was a wondering heart, bleeding as I was unsure of how to stitch it up.

DUSK.

Or did I even want to stitch it up? Soon I started to get frustrated. Not angry, because I could not bare to be angry with myself, for I am a damaged artery, a glitsening glow turned to a speck of dusk not of my own doing. I turned unnerved. I could do it, I was okay, just frustrated. I told myself that I was strong minded, mature beyond my years, and that I knew the recepie for how to move on and stitch back my heart which almost bled out. 

I was moved, washed, and whisked away to a new mindset.

Frustration was my driving force for perseverance. Yes I admit, my suncast castle was built upon a foundation of struggles, anger, and even spite.

Lord, I was so spiteful.

NIGHTFALL.

Before I knew it I held out my hands to anything and everything. I was no longer a light bearer, just a moondancer–a jester that had so much with me. I hunted for the good and only good, and I tried to keep myself occupied. I did just so. I had many good things around me, I was blessed with glits and glimour, and yet I was still nerved. I was dancing between spotlights, but I held back my performance. 

Who was I kidding?

I still ached. I now had this new stage and yet I still mourned the old one. 

How stupid. 

Stupid of me.

However as I look back at the crowed I saw their faces. Who was I to ask them to stay? Was I a bad person? For expecting them to still watch me, stay with me, and cheer me on when I couldn’t even decide what I wanted to perform.

TWILIGHT.

I think back to that day. Where I bawled and wept. Where I had been beyond burnt out, from loving so hard. It does indeed hurt the most when you interjected the very fabric of your being into somthing. When you loved harder than you could forgive. 

…Forgive? Wait.

I had not heard that word in so long. Had I forgotten it? No, I just simply decided to tune it out of my mind.

DAYBREAK.

I looked down at the crowed, my blessing that I had been given. 

I didn’t want them to leave. 

I didnt want to give them up–and it’s okay.

I can forgive myself for that.

I decided that day, that I would not let go. I decided to not cloud my vision, to never let frustration be the foundation of my being, and to juggle and choose.

That time I chose to forgive myself. I chose to forgive the heartache, however diabling it may have been. That is because it showed me how alive I was. I was indeed broken and battered and yet that is the truth that I tried so hard to ignore. I chose to forgive myself for the dismemberment of my sense of self. Confusion is a natural process, and instead of fighting agaisnt the fog, I should have let it steer me. I had no autonomy for as long as I was held in a chokehold. That is what frustrated me. I needed to be frustrated, and that is more than enough to forgive. I could not continue to self punish and loathe, yet build houses with bricks that originated from said ache. 

A crumbling palace is no better than a fallen one.

I forgave myself for being misguided, for my judgement seething instead of simmering down.

–and then I stood there. A crowed in front of me, willing to see it through. I would have been beyond fucking stupid to let that go. 

I did not want to let it go. I stared back at it, the spotlight…the sun.

Yes, I chose this crowed in front of me, because I forgave myself enough to know that I deserved this. That this crowed would make sure that nothing I did was in vain. 

Goodnight.

By Nicole Fernando

Nicole is a vibrant and outgoing individual with a passion for storytelling. With a keen imagination and a knack for weaving words together, she spends her days crafting captivating narratives that reflect her unique perspective on the world. She is constantly exploring new ideas and experiences, drawing inspiration from her adventures and the people she meets.

To start the Halloween season and arouse fashionistas everywhere, Coperni held their

Spring/Summer 2025 collection at the home of all our childhood fantasies: Disneyland Paris! In a delightful debut, the extraordinary theme park hosted its first-ever fashion show, enchanting fashion editors who greeted the iconic duo Chip ‘n’ Dale with childlike enthusiasm. "It’s a childhood dream!" exclaimed Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant, the visionary founders of Coperni, who launched the fashion house in 2013. 

While the show unfolded flawlessly, an impressive amount of backstage coordination was crucial to its success. After two years of negotiations, Coperni finally secured approval from Disneyland to use the park as its ethereal venue. For Meyer and Vaillant, this collaboration held special significance. "We both come from the south of France, and when we first arrived in Paris, Disneyland was where our parents took us—long before we visited the Eiffel Tower!" they shared, highlighting the personal connection that made the event even more meaningful. 

Essentially, the runway show was divided into 3 sections to emphasize on the vision of an imagination. The first section evoked the purity of youth and childhood innocence: little organza blouses with ruffles, short white dresses with puffed sleeves and shoes with Mickey Mouse ears. Reminding everyone that creativity has been coursing through us since forever. Then came the fan-favourites – The Villains. Black leather soaked most of the dresses and printed t-shirts of different villains took the spotlight. Lastly and most certainly the most awaited were the outfits inspired by every little girl’s role model – The princesses. Tulle and flowers adorned the runway and ended with Kylie Jenner in a strapless black gown.

Is a day at Disneyland ever complete without fireworks? Coperni ended their spectacular display with an even brighter spark as fireworks lit up the sky and everyone's hearts. The

night ended with 800+ visitors rushing back into Disneyland Paris to continue enjoying the crazy rollercoasters and reminisce the beautiful event that had graced that very

ground.

By Chaitra Shidhalingannavar

Chaitra is a high schooler from India who loves computer science and literature. She is an expert at procrastination and is fueled by books, music and the occasional productivity.

"Through this poem, I tried to capture the feeling of being lost and longing for clarity and connection. I kept it as unstructured as possible to mirror the natural flow of thoughts."

the sky is a bruise

a slow unfolding

of blue and grey

and the sun a puncture

wound that won't heal

in the garden of my chest

a flower blooms

its petals a whispered

promise of nothing

the trees stand like skeletal

fingers grasping

for a truth that's lost

in the haze of my mind

and i am a ghost

haunting the edges

of my own existence

searching for a way in.

By Iqra khan Turk 

Iqrakhanturk is a 20-year-old poet from Pakistan, born on December 25, 2003. Her writing explores themes of introspection, and emotional pain, weaving symbolic language into poignant verse. Behind her creative expression lies a complex, guarded individual, struggling to navigate personal demons and find solace in words.

Devoid of Truth 

I wonder over her fate,

Over concept of love and hate,

Over blazing tears down her eyes.

Devoid of truth; mere lies.

Tainted is every morsel of her flesh,

Eye to some pitious is hellish. 

Vanity in her veins; dissolved .

Enslaved to it, she can't be marred.

Indifferent to the world ,

Like smoke to the stove.

No reality in her art,

So corrupted is her heart.

© Iqrakhanturk 

By Leo Leetham 

Leo is a writer from York studying at Lancaster University. Though mainly a poet, they also branch out into prose, story and script. Their passion lies in creating real characters people can connect with, as well as embodying the beautiful simplicity of being young, which takes a new form for them in Zeus & Ganymede.

"Zeus & Ganymede is a modern day, coming-of-age adaptation in the form of a short story of a lesser known myth about the Greek god Zeus and the mortal boy he had a crush on."

ZEUS COULDN’T DIE OF EMBARRASSMENT for two reasons: one, he wasn’t sure it was considered scientifically possible, and two, he was immortal, so that sort of poo-pooed the situation from the start. 

Still, the universe had been trying to find its way around both of those obstructions ever since his older brothers turned eighteen, and their joint chaperone, Amaltheia, became a sixteen-year-old-god-sitter. Sure, when in action, her stubborn-as-a-goat attitude was helpful, for instance, when it came to returning a sandwich after Zeus had explicitly requested no mustard, but when it was dormant, her disdainful scowl and the aggressive clacking of knitting needles were totally killing his street cred. Her predilection for carrying around balls of yarn, goat-skin leather gloves and wearing her glasses perched on the end of her nose yet her hair in pigtails was not entirely selling that she was a twenty-something year old woman, rather than an immortal nymph. 

The shores of Crete were bustling this time of summer, confining Zeus to his beach towel and his book, which he would be more than content with if it wasn’t for Amaltheia’s relentless curiosity about his novel or Hades’s amusement in kicking the football towards his crossed legs or Poseidon’s insistence to ruffle the curtains of his hair in that annoying, older brother way as he came to collect it. 

There were certain rules encompassing one's life as an immortal deity with a father who doesn’t like adhering to restraining orders, no matter how many your mother issues, or paying child support, no matter how many lawyers were smited in the name of justice. It was a quiet life, with things such as social media and sneaking out of Psychro Caves being entirely off limits until they were eighteen, but Zeus knew for a fact that Hades was out partying with the nymphs long before he was of legal drinking age, and Amaltheia had once discovering the following Poseidon had amassed on tiktok claiming he was the god of the sea, and he had skirted around punishment in true middle-child fashion. 

The rule that sucked most for Zeus, however, now that he was sixteen and had learnt to tame his wispy blonde hair into curtains and had developed a dress sense that wasn’t monitored by Amaltheaia into being two millennia out of style, was that Hades and Poseidon were now free to date, and he was not. It wasn’t so much that dating for gods began once puberty had ended (though it was probably safer; godly mood swings didn’t tend to wave green flags). It was more so that after eighteen, Hades and Posiedon were free to do their own thing, free from the grazing eyes of Amaltheia. It was hard to date when chaperoned by a lurking, yarn obsessed nymph who had already clocked you and passed her judgement before you noticed the teenage boy standing awkwardly to one side.

Twenty or so metres away, his dark hair shining in the summer sun, Hades had abandoned the half-hearted game of football on the sand to try his luck with a tree nymph who had floated down from the hills. Poseidon, miserable over being abandoned, slunk back to the beach towels and the slanted shade of the umbrella that Amaltheia had fought to prop up with little help from Zeus. 

He scoffed bitterly, watching the way she twirled her hair around her fingers, doting over that large, confident smile that Zeus silently wished he shared the genetics for, kicking at the sand so that it caught within the creases of Zeus’s book.

“Do you mind?”

Poseidon stopped muttering to himself and glanced over at the younger boy, his dark eyes glowing in the sun in a way Zeus wished his own would.

“Not at all,” Poseidon answered nonchalantly. “Do you want to play football?”

“Not at all,” Zeus mimicked. Their eyes moved back to Hades, who leant back on his hands and widened his big, dark eyes and batted his long, dark eyelashes in a way that made Poseidon wretch melodramatically. 

“If he’s going to ditch me to flirt, he better at least do it right.”

Hopping to his feet and dusting off his board shorts, the older boy ambled back towards the turquoise of the waterfront, taking an elegant seat beside a nymph whose skin shimmered silver, refracting the surface of the water as though the moon was shining through it. 

He wore that annoying look on his face– the one that usually meant Zeus was about to eat dirt if the three of them were out running through the forest– as he flicked water up at her, splashing like starlight off her arm. How that look was something she would ever find endearing was beyond Zeus, yet she laughed, using her hands to cup the water and unceremoniously dumping it on his head, giggling awefully as it rolled off the coils of his hair and he remained perfectly dry– his number one party trick.

Sighing, Zeus lounged backwards on his towel, resting his hand behind his head and going to bring his book up to his face to shield himself from the sun– Amaltheia’s wonky umbrella wasn’t doing much good– but instead finding himself face to face with a boy.

Eyes wide, his short honey curls scattered droplets across the thin pages of Zeus’s book, creating circular stains around the dark font. Mortal, Zeus could tell, despite how deific he may have appeared from where he was looking up at him- a totally normal observation.

“What are-”

“Great Expectations?”

Zeus flipped up the cover of the book he was reading despite knowing full well what it was.

The boy, who was already sitting abnormally close to the head of a stranger at the beach, crossed his sandy feet under his knees, rocking backwards onto the palms of his hands. 

“I’ve read Great Expectations, and I don’t recall reading Pip claiming ‘smirky mouths make you want to kiss them, to smooth them out and kiss the smirkiness away’.”

“Okay, shut up-” Zeus caught his tongue upon remembering he was talking to a total stranger, which made his cheeks flush red with shame and also fury at the audacity of this random boy with tan copper skin and a sharp nose. “How long have you been sat reading over my shoulder?”

“Long enough.” His eyebrows raised. “Do you regularly have young adult romance novels tucked inside your classics, or is it a special edition just used when you’re at the beach?”

Zeus wasn’t exactly sure how to feel. He’d only just escaped the intrusive and relentless curiosity of Amaltheia, who had taken to knitting what Zeus prayed wasn’t another one of his Christmas presents; and the absentminded pestering from his brothers had died down now they were distracted, meaning he was finally entitled to sit with his own company and his shitty young adult romance novel if he so desired. 

On the other hand, it was almost amusing, having a random stranger, a somewhat irritating and overly inquisitive boy, occupying his company without any prompting. Despite his initial frustration, Zeus muffled a laugh with the shake of his head.

“It’s what I do when my brothers are around.” He nodded towards the two older boys. “I’m not sure either of them have the capabilities to read a novel, but they sure don’t consider The Summer I Turned Pretty to be respectable literature.”

“Who are illiterates to comment on respectable literature?” the boy commended, cocking his head to one side and sticking out his hand. “Ganymede.”

Now sitting up, Zeus squinted into the sun to look at the boy properly, folding his book closed into his lap and accepting the handshake quaintly.

“Zeus.”

Seemingly bored of their football game and their flirting, Poseidon and Hades were attempting to stir up excitement for some casual volleyball on the larger stretch of sand between the hills and the sea. Zeus felt the thud of the ball against his side before he could think to stop it, his eyes staying closed for a moment longer as he heard Ganymede utter a slight laugh.

“Throw it back, would you?” Poseidon called, and Zeus felt his flush spread down to his collarbone at the snickers coming from those who had gathered around his brother, equally as sun-bathed and jacked and absolutely obnoxiously annoying. 

“Come and get it, dickhead!” He called back with enough bite to startle Amaltheia, who pointed one of her long knitting needles and began a chastise about foul language that only taught Zeus that he had got to keep less embarrassing company. 

Ganymede, however, sat there in infuriatingly silent amusement, even as Hades jogged over to retrieve the ball, acknowledging that Zeus was not alone in his company and making an extra effort to pinch the baby fat of his cheeks that was yet to dissipate and ensure that his hair was considerably tousled. 

“Either of you feel like a game of volleyball?” Hades asked, knotting his long hair behind his head with a shit-eating grin– that one, Zeus unfortunately knew, he did carry the genetics for. 

“Go fuck yourself,” he answered in polite terms. 

“I greatly appreciate the offer, but I’m not particularly one for sports,” Ganymede responded, Zeus’s eyes following the amused twitch in his lips. 

Hades dismissed himself alongside the ball, and Zeus took to praying that if embarrassment wouldn’t strike him dead, the sky miraculously would. He swallowed upon realising that was probably a terrible prayer to command as the god of the sky.

Ganymede’s mouth was still stretching into the start of a smile: “You have a foul mouth, you know?”

“What is it to you?”

The copper skinned boy mused, unfazed, before asking more questions.

“I gather those are your brothers. Who's the babysitter?”

“She’s not my-” Zeus stopped himself for lack of a better word. “Her name is… Amy. She has control issues.” He felt the glare of her eyes pierce the side of his face, but if he were to blush again he swore blind he would condemn himself to the fate of being chained to a rock, whilst eagles feasted forever on his immortal liver; or something less dramatic. 

“Are said control issues why you visit the beach to sit on a towel and read all day rather than spending time with your clearly delightful brothers and basking in the fact that you are at the beach on a delightful summer's day?”

“You have nothing but questions, do you?” Despite everything, Zeus laughed.

Running a hand through his curls that were drying out under the sun, Ganymede cracked what Zeus figured was his first smile absent of sarcasm and wit. 

“What can I say? I’m a curious person.”

“Curious is not the first word I’d used to describe you. Intrusive, perhaps.”

The boy didn’t react to the insult, which left Zeus tapping the tips of his fingers against the cover of his book and rushing to say something else.

“What’s got you so curious about me, anyway?”

Unfolding his legs, Ganymede dug his feet into the sand by the edge of Zeus’s towel, eyeing him up and down slowly with the gentle curl of his lip. His voice was low, washed over by the sound of Poseidon and Hades and their volleyball game to anyone on the beach but Zeus.

“Well, it’s not all that often you find a god on the shores of Crete.”

“I don’t know what on Earth you’re talking about.” Zeus’s immediate adamancy was overruled by the red flush working its way up his chest, and he knew it, but he also knew protocol. “Gods aren’t real. What are you, crazy?”

“Nope,” Ganymede popped the ‘p’, and any of his intolerability that had faded away came rushing back as he leant back on his hands again, palms sinking into the grains. “Well, maybe, but it has nothing to do with my grasp on what’s real and what isn’t. And you, are very much real.”

“Sure, I am, but gods aren’t.” Zeus’s face was hot, and the blonde of his curtains decided now was as good a time as any to fall into his face, in front of his eyes that were trying so hard to bore into Ganymede with little avail. 

“Well,” he leant forwards, eyes widening sarcastically. “I could always go ask your brothers. Or your babysitter.” Raising an angular, sun-baked hand, he gestured to the crowd of teenagers that had gathered and begun to dig out sloshing glass bottles from within the sand or mummified within towels now the sun was starting to dip.

“It’s Poseidon, right? And Hades, hm? Poseidon! Hades!”

Zeus looked at him incredulously. Amaltheia gave him a telling look out of the corner of her eye, as though any of this was his fault.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

It was too late; the boy had attracted Hades’s attention, and was on his feet, parading across the sand to meet him. 

“Hades, isn’t it?” Ganymede called, not at all intimidated by the young god’s demeanour. Zeus may have known more about his brother’s capabilities than the presumptuous copper skinned boy did, however, with the knot of his curls drawing back his face, his narrow eyes proud and prosecuting, that alone should have been enough to warn someone to tread carefully– particularly Ganymede, who claimed to know more. 

He nodded, brow twitching carefully, and Zeus raced on ungainly limbs in pursuit, though Ganymede made sure he could hear what was being said. 

“So, I had this idea, right? And your brother denies it, but I think that’s only because he’s embarrassed-”

“Hades, wait!” Hades caught sight of his brother, straggling through the sand, for the first time realising this must have been the boy who had been sat beside him, as Zeus, for the first time, realised how much taller than him Ganymede must be, and swallowed down a wave of envy like a mouthful of sand. 

He arrived just in time to appreciate the full glory of the grin Ganymede bore as he spat out the end of his sentence.

“So I just wanted to know, is it true you never let Zeus drink with you because he can’t handle his liquor?”

The momentum he was still carrying chose that moment to trip Zeus over Ganymede’s feet, leaving the boy to catch him with a hand to his chest and a laugh. Hades’s dark eyes flitted between the two in a moment of judgement before he bared his large teeth in a smile. The panic on Zeus’s face seemed to allude to no more of the story that Hades cared to ascertain. 

“So, Zeus, my charming little brother.” Hades ruffled his hair, pulling him under one arm and causing the anger coursing through his veins to spark hotly. 

“No one fucking talks like that.”

“Stop grumbling and whining. Why is it we’re hearing from your friend here that you want to party with us tonight, huh?”

To one side, Ganymede’s eyes glinted in the fading sunlight. He held a plastic cup that was being topped up by Posiedon, and Zeus had never wanted more to punch someone he hardly even knew. 

“Please let him.” His smug little smirk contrasted the pleading tone in his voice. “I promise I’ll take care of him.”

Instead of responding, Zeus just accepted the cup that was placed into his hand and didn’t flinch too hard at the jostling he was subjected now both of his brothers were in on the teasing, all thanks to the impudent, nosy little bastard who just couldn’t let him sit and read his novel in peace. 

But then, there had to be something different, or incessantly observant, about Ganymede for him to have realised who Zeus was. Or maybe he’d just followed Poseidon’s tiktok page before it had been forcibly taken down by Amaltheia. Either way, the young god was stuck in the crowds with his cup of battery acid, because one thing he was not foolish enough to do, despite what everyone may have thought, was trust Ganymede to keep his mouth shut. 

The boy sure could talk a lot, but Zeus already knew that. He trailed him around like a desperate dog, as he bounced from group to group, always saying something but never quite saying what Zeus was waiting for. The sun had long since set in its entirety, the embers fizzling out across the water, by the time he realised.

“You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”

His lips curled around the rim of the cup in a way that Zeus would have given anything to stop paying mind to. 

“So you admit it?”

“You never were going to say anything, were you? You just wanted to piss me off.”

“I just wanted to get you out of your shell,” Ganymede proposed, looking him up and down. “You’re always so closed off, so tense, whilst your brother’s are out here having fun. Why aren’t you anything like them?”

Zeus’s ears became hot, and the hairs on his arms stood upright as his skin crackled.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“Yeah, well,” Ganymede shrugged. “I’m making it my business.”

Picking up a bottle from in the sand and examining the label, he unscrewed the top and refilled the cup in Zeus’s hand whilst maintaining a dangerous eye contact. 

“Try that. It’ll taste a damn sight nicer than what your brother poured you.”

Whatever it was that relented within Zeus, he swore in that moment would never surface again as long as he lived, which was, well, forever. He took a sip, eyes boring into Ganymede, before he dropped his gaze after a long moment. The boy laughed righteously. 

Zeus finished the cup quickly, and Ganymede obediently poured him another. 

“Maybe if I’m being forced to keep you around, I could make you useful and have you pouring drinks all night.” His comment was intended to be cruel, but the animosity seemed to have dissipated into the liquor. 

“Maybe learn to enjoy my company first, before you make long term arrangements?” He offered, his perfectly shaped eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, we’ll see.”

Strike him down if you will (not you, Kronos), but Zeus found he did quite enjoy Ganymede’s company when the boy wasn’t barking up his ass like an over-friendly terrier. Maybe that was the alcohol talking, though, because whatever he had found on the beachfront was going down like nectar. 

He soon found himself joining in with the conversations the ever-popular Ganymede worked himself into, not even paying mind to Amaltheia, who was now silently sat as the only adult on the beach, pulling at her yarn blindly whilst trying to keep eyes on all three of the godly teenagers. Whether she clocked onto Zeus drinking or not was a problem for the morning; the loud of the party made her nagging voice tinny and irrelevant in his ears. 

The more he drank, the easier the words came to him, telling garbled stories– particularly to Ganymede– of days growing up in Psychro Caves with only Amy and his brothers; tales of running through the forests, his brothers teaching him to hunt and craft and to use an electric hob and a tumble drier and everything he knew of the world. For all his talking, Ganymede was a good listener.

Zeus could tell night was well upon them by the way the moon shone in the honey of the mortal boy’s eyes. His voice competed with the roaring in his ears that must have been from the waves of the perfectly still sea, launching into another story before Ganymede’s fingers on his lips sent him cross-eyed in a blemish that should never have crossed the face of a deity. He burned under the contact as Ganymede chuckled. 

“You’re speaking a little too loudly to be telling me about your immortal daddy issues,” he pointed out, withdrawing the warmth of his fingertips in a way that made Zeus almost chase. “Follow me.” 

Ganymede led him off the sand and up a narrow cliff path that Zeus was probably a little too tipsy to be conquering, but what did that matter? The fall wouldn’t kill him.

Peering into the open air in a way that would’ve infested anyone but the god of the sky with overwhelming nausea, he noticed Amaltheia’s beady eyes as she clacked away. In the low light, her knitting needles seemed almost sharper; a warning, for Zeus not to stray too far.

“Here.” The boy paused at the summit, sitting on a plain a metre or so away from the edge and stretching his long legs out into the grass. 

Zeus sat, his legs underneath him, with a thud, and immediately began braiding the long strands that sprouted from the earth as he watched the party continue below. From up high, he could see Hades, the curls of his hair woven with reeds and water daisies and other flowers you could find where sea met sand met soil. The pink of the armeria maritima a girl had plucked from one dark bed and placed into another shone with silver hues under the stars, and Hades smiled. 

Poseidon was harder to spot, amongst a doting crowd of humans and nymphs as he skipped deserted clam shells along the water, erupting a gentle salty spray that the breeze carried. Neither of them seemed to notice that their brother was missing. 

“Your brothers are very obviously gods.” Ganymede’s voice came from beside him. “They have this aura about them; can’t you see it? You were more difficult to spot.” 

“Because I’m not like them,” Zeus muttered in response, pulling his eyes to the spot where the sky met the sea. “I’m very aware of that.”

“Yes,” the boy mused, pursing his full lips. “But not in the way you think.”

“I could make you immortal, you know.” For a second, Zeus relished the first moment he had managed to catch the boy off guard.

“I don’t think you’re meant to offer that,” Ganymede responded, his hands meeting in his lap as he turned to face Zeus.

“I don’t care.”

Ganymede had this way of making Zeus feel watched– seen– and though he tried to bask in it, he found his tail tucking itself between his legs under the gaze of the honey curled boy and the copper of his skin and the hazel of his eyes that kept the moon reflecting silver. 

“You’d bore of me quickly if I were immortal.”

“I don’t think I could ever be bored of you,” Zeus answered with the honesty of a lifetime. Ganymede shrugged, casting his eyes out to the water.

“You could, trust me. You don’t know anything about me.”

A laugh bubbled from the god’s mouth, catching in the wind.

“I know that you’re annoying, and intrusive, and impudent-”

“Those aren’t desirable features,” he smiled.

“They are to me.”

The words hung in the air a metre away, over the cliff edge. A shout from the beach caught Ganymede’s attention, and they fell. 

“Your brothers are looking for you.”

Zeus could hear it too, now. Two echoing voices, beginning to trail up the cliff path the two had followed prior. He tossed his head back over his shoulders and laughed a quiet laugh.

“I’ll never hear the end of it if they catch me up here.” 

“Go.” Ganymede’s eyes didn’t leave the waves.

“Will I see you again?’ Zeus asked.

“I’m sure you will someday, since you’re going to be here forever.”

Taking that as a yes, Zeus raised his hand to his mouth as he stood, pressing a finger to his lips as he slipped back down the path as silently as he could muster, with the liquor tumbling through the ichor in his veins, his drunk mind pulling words from a page in a loop.

Smirky mouths make you want to kiss them, to smooth them out and kiss the smirkiness away.

By Mariya Siddiqui 

A girl who is passionate about literature though is a science student! Who wants to be renowned by her words. Spreading the positivity and inspiration across, she dreams to be a great author for her love of writing to be fulfilled at its best.

Also, really enthusiastic in creating a sustainable environment for every organism present on the Earth. Love to explore nature and rest under the shade of its beauty.

From birds to flowers to micro organisms that's invisible but around, I love to be a part of finding the soul of them.

Realising today that smile of every soul matters,

Shine of every star is the necessity,

For a sky to come alive,

For a heart to calmly reside!

There's this hope's helipad for you,

Someone's shoulder is that boon for you!

Greying of hair without a harsh glare,

Oh! What more are you asking your life to share?

Absorb the moon's strength,

And light the ways of a lost path!

Why to remain the darkness beneath the spark?

When your eyes shine beyond the sun's startling light!?