Milky Days

I was hypnotized by the ripple on the water, hypnotized by the cold fire. Images pretending to be windows in my cramped room, the sweet cream I lick off my birthday cake, dead birds on the sidewalk I see so often it could be part of my body. They’re just stones on the ring on my finger. They’re just stumbling blocks on my pilgrimage in circles.

Milky Days unfold like a fogged pane, where the past clings to the present, softening its edges and distorting its clarity. Memories seep into the now, not as sharp truths but as silhouettes that are half-seen, half-felt, drifting behind a milk-glass screen. Milky days are the weight of nostalgia. The sustenance of past days can obscure the immediacy of the moment. Time passes, but its traces linger, spilling into the now like light refracted through a cloudy lens. Here, the past is not gone but it hovers, interrupts, and softens.

Julia Szczerbowska
Ivan Penčev
Rui Cao
Oliwia Kałwa
Astrid Didion
Jee Hyun-Elizabeth Son