By Radhika Shah, Staff Writer
Dear Reader,
Welcome to Liminal! Our student magazine is a space for high school students to share their experiences through art, capturing the beauty of this chaotic, messy, momentous stage of life. To me, art has always been both an intensely personal reflection as well as a meaningful way to bond with others. As George Saunders said,
“There are many versions of you, in you. To which one am I speaking, when I write? The best one. The one most like my best one. Those two best versions of us, in a moment of reading, exit our usual selves and, at a location created by mutual respect, become one.”
To all the artists, writers, dreamers, and lovers of art out there, we invite you to join us! Submit your work, share your ideas, or simply take inspiration from what you find here, this is your space, too. Together, let’s take a walk and get a little lost in these pages. You’re not alone in the in-between, we’re all figuring it out as we go. don’t forget to submit your work to liminalstudentmagazine@gmail.com if you’d like to be a part of the Liminal community! All our past issues can be found here.
Here’s a teaser for the art in our upcoming winter volume:
Bittersweet, by Saliah Bettencourt
…and here’s a sample of former work from our Spring 2025 Issue:
Where the love went, by Myles-Alexys Jones
I grew up in a house
where love was a theory
more than a feeling,
something we all knew
but no one ever said out loud.
The silence sat heavier than the words
I never got to hear
I love you.
I’m proud of you.
You’re enough.
Instead, there were walls
that never whispered back.
My dad…
I never knew if he saw me
as I was, or the idea of who he wanted me to be.
There was warmth,
but it was never consistent,
never the kind that felt like home.
It wasn’t his fault
maybe he didn’t know how
to love in the way I needed.
Maybe he didn’t know how to love me.
And then he left.
Not in the way of death,
but in a way that made me realize
he had already checked out long before.
And I was left
in the silence
of what could’ve been
and what wasn’t.
But then there were the others.
The ones who saw me in ways
my father couldn’t
the ones who held me,
not because it was their job,
but because they could feel it,
the parts of me
I couldn’t hide anymore.
And maybe they didn’t have to understand
all the things I carried,
but they still showed up.
They showed up in ways
that burned,
in ways that were tender and loud.
I didn’t need them to know my secrets.
I didn’t need them to understand
the way I felt when I looked at a girl
and the world felt like it was too much.
But they saw me
really saw me.
And in that,
in that moment of being seen,
I knew something I had never known before
I was worth the love
I’d been chasing in silence.
Not because of who I was supposed to be,
but because of who I already was.
And when he left, when my father went,
I learned that love isn’t something you inherit
by blood or by duty.
It’s something you build,
piece by piece,
with the people who choose you
not for your perfection,
but for the mess you bring.
The hurt.
The struggle.
The truth.
I never found that love at home.
But I found it everywhere else.
In the arms of the people who never turned away,
in the words that didn’t need to be said
to be felt.
And now,
now I know that love is not something
that has to be given.
It’s something you claim
for yourself.
And I’ve learned to claim it.
Thank you for reading! We hope you find awe, comfort, inspiration, & connection among these pages. Let us know what most resonated with you!
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