The Source

Hand over Heart

"So bite the heel that walked you home in the rain"

The Source Briony Arnott -

Copies

"I want them, long after I leave, to remain together."

Culture Yasmin Beed -

love letter

"a stamp can’t be used again, only kept or discarded."

Culture Keng Yu Lai -

The Longest Goodbye

Oxford became a home I hadn’t known I was missing – a place that understood me without asking.

The Source Helena Zhang -

The Ghosts She Felt Acutely

This year, with the inaugural Blackwell’s Short Story Prize, Cherwell aimed to reconnect with its roots as a literary magazine in the 1920s, when our undergraduate...

Letter from the Orient

This year, with the inaugural Blackwell’s Short Story Prize, Cherwell aimed to reconnect with its roots as a literary magazine in the 1920s, when our undergraduate...

A Short Sharp Shock to the Skull

This year, with the inaugural Blackwell’s Short Story Prize, Cherwell aimed to reconnect with its roots as a literary magazine in the 1920s, when our undergraduate...

Rhonda May

This year, with the inaugural Blackwell’s Short Story Prize, Cherwell aimed to reconnect with its roots as a literary magazine in the 1920s, when our undergraduate...

Any Blue Will Do

This year, with the inaugural Blackwell’s Short Story Prize, Cherwell aimed to reconnect with its roots as a literary magazine in the 1920s, when our undergraduate...

Splat!

This year, with the inaugural Blackwell’s Short Story Prize, Cherwell aimed to reconnect with its roots as a literary magazine in the 1920s, when...

Dindymene: A Dream

And on the seventh day, we found HER temple, feasted on HER sight. Enthroned. Flanked by mammoths on both sides. There, there! Berry-ringed fingers on berry-strung vines:...

In the Beginning

I was alone with the earth and the sun before youcame along: there was no life, no song, not even words.My hope had been...

To Julian – Ella O’Shea

you’re enwombed within stone, this anchorhold,wool on your skin, the draught on your feetink on your nose, barley in your teeth.to look at a...

Mitosis

A letterA single-cell, Stuttering, Reoccurring, Scrap on /The page /Fragmented/Born from pain …A zygote …Dividing… Turning inwards;Malformormed; Abortorted;Misbirthirthed-I would choose- An embryo that...

Advert for a Girl

Girl, 22. Average height, Average weight. Average-sized, father-figure shaped hole 2 inches left of lower sternum. Needily accommodating Selflessly self-deprecating Outsize ego easily compactable To fit all inferiority complex related needs. Available for...

Lessons From A Taiwanese Coaster

I woke up in a world Where everything was beautiful, And nothing hurt.

The com(m)e(n)t

Scrunching it into a ball, you toss it atmospheric, out of sight.

Candles

Dreams are made of candles, pinpricks of a deeper light.

‘warþ gasric grorn, þær he on greut giswom’ [Fish sad when washed to shore] – The Franks Casket

hronæsbansorrowful, weeping tears of salttaken, hunted, harpoonedfrom my blue lagooncrafted by you into this box. hronæsbancarve me, recalcitrant though I ammay my banhus tell both...

Palimpsest

This is a secular city, built on holy bones. We’re on the edge of another fissure. Nothing so grand as a revolution. But the grey...

A Eulogy for Tommy

Ea! It’s so cold! I cried from me bedwhen I pulled down the coovers an raised up me edto see bright rays of sunlightstream...

In The Beginning

I was alone with the earth and the sunbefore you came along: there was no life, notthen, not even song. My hope had been...

Loaded Words

Where now those sentences, those syllables,Loaded like cannon balls on the field of Austerlitz?Full of the weight and confidenceAnd destructive power of centuriesOf thought,...

We Walk Along

We walk along by the river, my hand in his, our arms of different lengths and his palms much bigger than mine. The sun...

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