A single flame flickers through the air. One becomes two, three, four as they multiply, their subtle cast against our near-identical faces. Wax melts over the edges, its atoms released from their restrictions just as ours have barely begun. We gasp for air, our lips twitching in formation. A final shallow inhale of anticipation. Release. From the moment I was born, I have lead a life of twos. Everything my twin and I owned had a fraternal counterpart just as...

Upon addressing the Naked Donut Run, the upperclassman shrugs: “..just another manifestation of the naked culture at Brown,” In Literature, nudity represents birth; the foundation to an evolution. Classes like “Crime, Mafias, and Prison” alongside the Petey Greene Program offer me a similar metamorphosis. By allowing me the unique opportunity to both analyze the justice system and relate to those hidden beneath it, I will transform from a relatively sheltered to a socially-conscious student, and gain the foundation necessary to...

To the thinker, the parent-pleaser, the girl-that-is-afraid-to-mess-up, the 8th grader, You think you’re worried about completing your first self-portrait, but you’re really just worried about yourself. When Dad asks you for the thirtieth time whether you’re sure you don’t want to be a doctor, and your heart sinks into your stomach when you’re asked about your future major, you find yourself confronted with a dilemma. You’ve seen the headlines, the documentaries, the cruelty of...

When you walk past my bedroom door, you will hear voices. Low. Shrill. Robotic. Feminine. Fervent. Lighthearted. Emotional. From their vibrant stories to their shaky confessions and humorous retellings of their most embarrassing moments, they teach me everything from the practical (“How to Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul”), to the philosophical (“What is Our Relation to Reality?”). The outrageous (“How To Successfully Stalk Your Crush”) to the dangerous (“The Best and Worst Psychedelic Drugs”). Podcasts have become an intimate...

I did it because I had no choice but to prove to myself that I could. Because the words “really, really smart” kept ringing through my ears, and this was the only way to make it stop. Ambition? Defiance? Envy? It became difficult to see what fueled the fire, but their combination set me ablaze. Two summers of quality time with Geometry and Pre-Calculus textbooks eventually made me one of two sophomores taking AP BC Calculus, a class usually taken...

It has been over two hundred years since our founding fathers inked the famous phrase into the Constitution: “All Men are created equal” They are the words that spurred a hundred revolutions and will fuel one hundred more. It is the phrase that whistles in the wind as bullets penetrate bodies of the innocent. They echo against stark prison walls as an inmate toils away at his labor like a slave, and he remembers them as he is released into...