lovE
& Sex Issue 4
Letter from the Editor
I can count on one hand - actually, one finger- how many times I’ve been in love. Yet, if someone were to ask me how many times I’ve loved, I wouldn’t have an answer.
The most beautiful part of the human experience is that we share it. Love, at its root, is passion for the fact we are not alone. After all, even self-love stems from feeling connected to yourself. It is this passion that produces humanity’s greatest achievements; love for our interests, love for our lives, love for each other. Its many forms shape us in ways we didn’t know were possible, and I, for one, am so grateful.
MUSE’s Love and Sex Zine
evolved from our online annual “Love Sex, and Relationships” week, which allowed our team to express their deepest vulnerabilities and intimacies. Our zine continues to grow each year, with this edition being the fourth released. Why? Because this initiative is built on the premise that everyone can resonate in some capacity. Whether you’re seeking it, holding onto it, or getting over it, love remains ever present in our lives, demands recognition, and needs to be fed. So, we’re feeding it.
In this edition of our zine, we acknowledge love, not just in its many forms, but as something sensory, observable, and therefore undeniable. Our editorial shoots, featuring real couples, are inspired by the true stories of how they found each other and stayed connected. Whether that be through music, love letters, or photography, we share their experiences in the hopes that they inspire us to find our people. On the other hand, our articles prove that love can be seen; written on the page, our emotions become visible and real. In every piece, there is a vulnerability that shines through and brings our readers into our hearts.
We also acknowledge the chaos, the mess. This defining aspect of our condition is not without difficulty, but if Shakespeare, Fleetwood Mac, or the content of this zine are any indication, the mayhem makes for incredible art.
With love, and all that it brings,
Sydney Toby Editor in Chief,
2025-2026
LOVE & SEX HOROSCOPES
Aries
March 21 to April 19
Taurus
April 20 to May 20
Gemini
May 21 to June 20
You tend to fall in and out of love quickly, but when you know what you want, you go for it. This year, keep an eye out for that special someone who sweeps you off your feet and makes you want to stay in love. You’ll know when it’s working.
June 21 to July 22
It’s tough to let go. You’re stubborn and are determined to make them stay, even when it’s not meant to be. It’s time to move on and find a relationship that doesn’t turn your knuckles white as you hold on for dear life. But you already know that, don’t you?
July 23 to Aug. 22
Don’t get seduced by the excitement. You enter relationships with the goal of having fun, but that leads to some real messes. It’s time for some self-examination; figure out what you actually want. Toys aren’t fun to play with once you break them, and the same applies to people.
It’s time for a rebrand. You tend to avoid change, but in order to grow you’ll have to throw caution to the wind. This year is all about going after what you want. That dream job, dream relationship, dream trip, they won’t happen if you don’t start taking some chances. Embrace your boldness.
You march to the beat of your own drum and fall for partners who are equally as independent. This year is all about you; date who you want, go where you please, say whatever comes to mind. Use that famous Leo strength to find your fulfillment. Romantic love will result from the journey to love yourself.
Virgo
Aug. 23 to Sept. 22
Libra
Sept. 23 to Oct. 22
Scorpio
Oct. 23 to Nov. 21
Sagittarius
Nov. 22 to Dec. 21
Capricorn
Dec. 22 to Jan. 19
You tend to fall in and out of love quickly, but when you kno Confidence. Poise. Style. That new look you were thinking of trying out? Go for it. Needing a creative outlet? Test out that new hobby you have been dying to try. This year is all about embracing your passions and pursuing the things that make your inner self shine.
Open yourself up to new opportunities. That loneliness you have been feeling will soon come to an end. Go on the date, grab coffee with the girl in your class, and chat with your new coworker. New friendships, relationships, and connections are coming your way this year, make sure you don’t shy away from them.
It’s time for a lifestyle change. No more mindless scrolling, draining relationships, or skipping out on your sleep. This year is for putting yourself first, developing a routine that works for you, and learning how to express your creativity. Discipline is key, even when it’s not fun.
Take the person you’re talking to a little more seriously. I know you like to make jokes, maybe even saying, “this isn’t real,” but the connection you’re looking for might be the same connection you’re writing off. Use that open mind to take a chance on the person you weren’t sure about.
We’re not saying lower your standards, but maybe try to give others the benefit of the doubt. Your stubbornness may be getting in the way of something lasting. You don’t have to shorten down the long list of needs in your future partner, but don’t let your thinking stop you from doing things you always told yourself you couldn’t. Compromise even though you may hate it.
Jan. 20 to Feb. 18
Pisces
Feb. 19 to March 20
Since small talk was never your thing, putting yourself out there to find your person seems intimidating. This year is the time to explore and find the connection you’ve desired. Let your often overlooked sensitive side shine through, opening up possibilities you would’ve never thought to seek.
Pisces seem to be known for your strong and fast romantic connections, but I promise that person you just met at the bar last weekend is probably not your future fiancé. Try directing your intense love onto the friendships in your life. This year may not be the one of finding Mr. Right but it could be the one to make those friendships around you that much more meaningful.
YThe Night I’d
Call
Isabella Persad
I’m holding out for some perfect night where I swallow my pride to call you again. A moment in what is sure to be alcohol induced and with a lack of caution for my own well being. One where I pick up the phone and dial the number I was always too chicken to delete.
You’d answer, the syllables of your words barely squeaking through the speaker, confused, but present. Your low voice would sound and I’d be launched right back to square one. Scratched and deep, murmurs vibrating. I’d press the phone deep against my cheek to let the sound waves breathe into my skin - it’s the closest contact I’ve had with you in a while. My skin would be red, partly from the drinks but partly because I wouldn’t be able to conceal my embarrassment. The dawning of regret would fall in an instant but it would be too late - I’m too far in now.
O UI’d say “hi”. You’d say nothing or maybe, if I’m lucky, give me a sharp, “hey”, and let me revel in my delusion.
I don’t know what I expect to happen when I call you. I’m nineteen years old and I know how the world works. I’m sure when I’m thirty I’ll laugh at myself for even
thinking that but, for now, I know that when a boy doesn’t call again, it means he doesn’t like you. My friends would tell me the same thing, that he had never reached out to me before. But when I dialed his number, I did so in secret. When I dialed his number, I already knew that he wouldn’t say the words my heart hoped he would. I can’t have others also find out about how hopeless I am. I can’t bear to reveal that I cared much more than the man who doesn’t think about me.
I’d gush and echo a hundred different ways to say “I miss you”. A hundred different ways of disgracing myself. A hundred different ways of disappointing everyone who knows me. Still now, I can imagine you saying you miss me too, that you regret ending things the way you did, and how all of it was a mistake. How you thought I’d do better without you and how you’d bite your tongue, day after day, stopping yourself from reaching out. My fantasy can picture your mouth, your lips, swallowing these
words but I hear them - I’ll hear them forever. The phone would fall silent but it would be the type of silence I’ve been craving all this time. The one that meant there was nothing left to decide, where we could finally turn to the same page, where I knew I had you back. I’d tell you to come over, you’d race out the door and I’m already waiting. Unlocked door, anxious arms, desperate thighs. You know the waiting far too well; you’ve waited just as long as I have.
When you’d come through the door, you’d notice that every artifact you left remains untouched. The rings of dust surround the objects that once had the privilege of your touch, though they no longer know that intimacy anymore. I refuse to hold them the way you once did. Now they rot in their abyss, awaiting the hand that once caressed them. They would rejoice once they see your silhouette return to my home, their hope restored in the form of the handsome man who stands before me. But I am happier
than them. I don’t think I’d wait a second before my lips found yours, and my hands, which became foreign to your body, would rush to reunite with their old friend. The arch of my back, where you used to hold me, has been devoid of feeling for weeks, but when your finger tips drag along my spine, my blood grows warm once more.
In my heart, we take another path. In reality, you’d say you no longer feel for me the way I hopelessly cling to you. I know you’d say we shouldn’t talk, I’m drunk, I’m not thinking straight. The alcohol funneling through my system is all just plausible deniability.
You’d hang up and it would be over. But I’ve always been so bad at moving on.
Angel an Ending
Sydney Toby
it with
withI have the best guilt-trip face, ask my ex-boyfriend. The trick is to look mad but draw your eyebrows together for a millisecond, like you ‘re trying to hide how distraught you are. It sounds sociopathic, but don’t worry, my ex gave it right back to me in his own, wonderful way.
That break up was hard – so hard it lasted three years and was psychological warfare every step of the way. But the upside to dating pieces of crap is that every single person (including them) knows that they’re in the wrong. For those three years, I was a saint. I was at a party once and bumped into his friend, who said “You’re so forgiving, Toby. Like Jesus.” I’ll take it. Thanks.
During one of the many times my ex and I were hooking up “casually”, I made the mistake of getting involved with a good friend; the kind of guy who drives his sister around whenever she wants, who’s in med school, and who doesn’t pathologically lie or get habitually drunk. It was terrible timing. I often think about those two August hours parked in a car in front of my house, with that boy looking at me like a person he doesn’t recognize. He’s not trying to manipulate me, performatively crumpling his face or punching his steering wheel like I was used to. He’s calm, and his eyes earnestly search mine, wondering why I didn’t care about him enough to treat him with respect. I hated every second of it, because I wished so badly that I had. I just couldn’t escape the toxicity long enough to be someone that deserved him.
You would think that the loser I spent three years begging to love me would be the hardest to move on from, but no. It’s easier to get over guys when you can find things to hate. With a genuinely good person, what can you do? My mom recently called him her dream son-in-law, for fucks sake. It’s an endless questioning of what ifs. What if we’d waited until my head was screwed back on and I wasn’t, oh I don’t know, being left alone in a parking lot on my birthday, for example?
To me, being in the wrong feels worse than being wronged. I mean, would you rather lose an angel, or the evilest man alive? The hardest pill to swallow is that you’re no better than the person who hurt you, and here you are, doing it to someone else and losing them in the process.
It’s funny that I write about love with such authority, because clearly, I know very little. However, on the off chance you were looking for some advice, here it is: when you’re dealing with a good guy, lock in, because you deserve that kind of love. Don’t tell yourself any different, because your actions will begin to reflect that. Then you’re really screwed.
Couple: Alice Chang & Nathan Zhe
Creative Director: Zahara Wong Groenewald
Photographer: Maya Vlasis
Videographer: Hadleigh Green
MUA: Isabella Li
Illustrator: Meghan Zhang
THROUGH YOUR eyes
YOUR eyes
My Groupchats Are My Bible
I used to think wanting closeness made me needy.
I felt it in my chest, the fear of not being chosen, of being left. When friendships ended, I told myself it was because I was too much. Too emotional. Too available.
When we’re young, friendship feels accidental. You don’t have to ask for it - it just happens. Someone sits next to you long enough and suddenly you’re telling them everything.
Adulthood removes structure; friendship becomes a risk. I avoided it by overcommitting.
It took me a long time to admit the truth I didn’t want to face: I didn’t know how to be alone. I overcommitted to people to fill the silence, mistaking intensity for intimacy and convincing myself that closeness meant security. I gave too much, asked for too little, and explained away disappointment as misunderstanding. When someone pulled away, it didn’t just hurt—it confirmed every fear I already had about being unlovable, because I had made a connection with my proof that I was whole.
Loneliness, I learned, isn’t always about lacking people. Sometimes it’s about lacking boundaries.
Learning that hurt. Letting go hurt more. I had to unlearn the version of friendship where closeness was something I earned by being endlessly available, to stop mistaking potential for reality, and to accept that wanting someone doesn’t mean they’re meant to stay.
Not every connection is meant to last. Not every person deserves full access to you. That realization didn’t make me colder. It made me clearer.
I started paying attention to actions instead of promises. I learned the difference between someone who likes you and someone who shows up for you. I learned that consistency is quieter than chemistry, but infinitely more sustaining.
And in the quiet aftermath of all that loss, something unexpected happened: the friendships that remained grew louder.
There is a particular relief in being seen by people who understand your context without explanation. Friends who have watched you spiral and rebuild and spiral again but still stay. Friends who sit next to you on the couch while you cry about the same thing for the third time and never tell you to “just move on.”
Kate Basset
They hold your history gently. They hold your present honestly. They trust that you’ll find your future on your own timeline.
These friendships didn’t fix my loneliness. They reframed it. They taught me that intimacy doesn’t have to hurt to be real. That closeness can feel calm. That love, platonic or otherwise, doesn’t need to be begged for.
Now,I don’t need to be everyone’s favorite person anymore. I don’t want to chase people who make me feel uncertain. I let relationships unfold at the pace they’re meant to, even when that pace scares me.
Some friendships have faded, and I still grieve them. Others are new and fragile and full of hope. Most exist somewhere in between—imperfect, evolving, unfinished.
But for the first time, they feel honest.
Now, I look around at all of us;each dressed in our own version of the best outfit, a blur of ballet flats, combat boots, and kitten heels stomping across a sticky dance floor, uninterested in anything but each other’s company, and I think: this is the memory I’ll revisit.
These are the same people from the group chats with stupid names that only we understand. The ones who know me in fragments, mid-thought, mid-spiral, mid-joke. The ones who have read my worst takes, and my softest fears.
My group chats are my bible.
They are where I confess in lowercase. Where they type at once to pull me back from the edge. Where someone says “No, you’re not crazy” before I’ve even finished explaining. They remember who I am when I forget. They hold me steady.
Years from now, when my smile lines settle deep into my skin, when my hair turns silver and my photos grow soft at the edges, I’ll open an old journal and remember how we danced in silly ways just to make each other laugh. How we queued for the bathroom like ladies-in-wait, never letting one of us fall behind. I’ll remember how much I laughed then, big, belly laughs.
Romantic love is beautiful, yes.
But lately, these friendships have been more fulfilling than any relationship I’ve experienced.
And honestly? I wouldn’t have it any other way.
FRIENDS TO ?
Although I am a self-described expert on situationships, my most recent one appears to be an anomaly. My heart barely made it out in one piece, but I survived it against all odds. Turns out, fulfilling the friends to lovers trope is a grueling challenge haunted by situationship purgatory. It’s the in-between stage to atone for emotional unavailability and serve penance for miscommunication. I first encountered this phenomenon when I was sixteen. Unbeknownst to me, my situation would last several years.
As many lesbians do, I fell in love with my best friend. If you need a visual, we worked together at Hot Topic. I thought their tongue piercing was the coolest thing ever. I hope they felt the same about my grown-out purple hair. Somewhere in my baby gay heart, I knew my crush wasn’t one-sided. However, they were painfully oblivious to any hints I threw at them. Despite cuddling, teasing each other,
and even saying, “I love you,” they insisted we were just friends. Eventually, my mom asked if we were dating. I shrugged and said, “Not really?”
When I moved to Kingston, I was homesick for them. I longed to be together again, whether it was as lovers, friends, or awkward hometown acquaintances. My feelings simmered for months as the distance between us shrank with each midnight phone call. Eventually, my crush flooded my entire being. My boiling point was winter break. The night before I left, we spent hours on my bed getting lost in each other’s eyes. We knew what had to be done without uttering a word.
?
The classic “what are we” conversation hit me like a bag of bricks. I didn’t care to define us, but maybe I should have? Whatever we were, labels couldn’t classify it. “Girlfriends” felt too real. “Best friends” felt homophobic. Confessing my feelings would change this situation into an us, and the possibility of an us terrified me. Years later, I’m relieved to say everything has changed.
I don’t have to conduct a statistical analysis to know that
most situationships don’t end like mine. For the past few years, my girlfriend and I have been laughing at how stupid we were. When we reminisce about our missed moments, we remember there was a greater chance of us becoming strangers than lovers; a thought even more terrifying than the word, “situationship.”
So, to those stuck in situationship purgatory, never abandon hope. Whether you escape it as strangers, friends, or lovers, embrace the change it brings. One awkward conversation is better than years of aimless yearning. Who knows, maybe that awkward conversation will lead to an actual relationship. Either way, for your sanity, I hope that your heart makes it out in one piece.
❤ TO LOVERS
Chloe Nunes
Love behind the Curtain
Baran Forootan
Your THR
Couple: Aaronsaul Negre & Pierre Ducharme Gauthier
Creative Director: Lois Aguda
Photographer: Sheana Tchebotaryov
Videographer: Emily Fuhrman
Illustrators: Christina Wang & Iman Jafrani
Song UGH
what is love... ...if not two voices... ...singing the same song?
Found you under an April sky,
EvErything I’vE EvEr
FElt, nothIng I could KEEp, and also
(Sorry not Sorry) My Ex
Katie Saunders
Most people speak of romantic love as something radiant— soft and easy, a kind of bliss demanding very little of you. But nobody ever talks about the kind of love I’ve known. My love was never gentle. It was work. It was passion. It was scrutiny. It was selflessness. It was the relentless, beautiful act of learning another human being until we dissolved into each other completely.
This kind of love both made and unmade me. My soul fastened itself to his the same way stained glass fuses— individual pieces finding true meaning only when pressed together by heat. Once bound, there is no undoing it without breaking everything all over again. In that way, loving him took on the shape and weight of faith: reverent, the kind of devotion that begs for surrender rather than reward. The willingness to keep kneeling even in the absence of resolution, loving him like a force that never intervenes. If my memory were erased, he would know my mind exactly as I do. That thought is both powerful and terrifying— how lucky am I to have him come to mind, and how awful is it that he may never know?
That is what love is to me. Sometimes intangible, but still utterly and painfully felt.
Love has brought me the deepest grief I have ever carried, and the most profound bond I have ever been rewarded. My love for him eventually outweighed my love for us, choosing his presence over our permanence. Our bodies believed in each other without ever needing to be claimed. I recognize him ubiquitously— not because I am waiting, but because true admiration rearranges you. There is beauty in knowing that some loves live independently of outcome—that they exist without needing to be realized.
I feel both blessed and damned to have known a love that makes me feel so violently human. While saying goodbye, he explained to me that I am a separate category— there is everyone else, and then there is me. To him, I am incomparable. I never got the chance to tell him he has never been something that could be sorted or separated. He is every category. He is everything. He is someone I likely will never have, and yet I find fragments of him everywhere— in my instincts, in my fears, in the way I love the world. Something of us continues to live inside both him and I, unfinished, unexplainable and aching still.
He is my blessing. He is my sickness.
He is found in everything I believe in— an unbreakable duality of love that is mine to carry.
I became a person in the absence of a relationship. Not in a cinematic way. Not through heartbreak or healing montages, but in the negative space. A “we” never showed up to organize my life.
For a long time, I thought becoming someone would make certain desires disappear. That once I was coherent enough—self-knowing enough—the sentence I want a boyfriend would feel childish. Instead, becoming a person only made the wanting harder to ignore.
And yet still I want a boyfriend. Not in a cute, ironic way. Not as a punchline
I want a boyfriend the way you want something you’ve already pictured a hundred times in your head. The way you imagine small domestic scenes—someone’s arm over your shoulder, a shared look in a crowded room, the quiet certainty of being someone’s person—and then feel embarrassed for imagining them so vividly. As if desiring intimacy means I haven’t grown enough yet.
I have never had a boyfriend, and somehow that feels like a confession. Like there’s a timeline everyone else was handed that I misplaced. People say that love isn’t linear, that there’s no schedule—but the absence still plagues me. It shows up when ex or anniversary is used in the universal language I don’t speak. It shows up in the way I romanticize strangers and emotionally unavailable men, because wanting something impossible feels safer than wanting something real.
I am good at wanting from a distance and I am excellent at almosts. Almost dating. Almost chosen. Almost loved. I hoard near-misses because they prove I was close enough to consider.
But not having a boyfriend is where I learned myself most clearly.
Never Having
Agniva Boyfriend
O n
Without a relationship to structure my life, I had to face myself without mediation. There was no shared narrative, no we to blur my decisions. If I felt lonely, I couldn’t immediately project that feeling on to another person. I had to sit with it long enough to figure out what kind of loneliness it was. I had time to flesh myself out—not in a glow-up way, but slowly, through habits that stuck even when no one was watching. On Never H A Boyfriend
I learned what steadies me, what exhausts me, what I reach for when nothing is resolved.
And still, I wanted a boyfriend.
Not having a boyfriend meant I couldn’t confuse attention with intimacy. But it also meant intimacy stayed abstract.
I learned my boundaries in theory. I became complete without being challenged. Sometimes that clarity felt like containment—like I was fully known only because no one else was around to interrupt the story I was telling myself.
But being formed isn’t the same as being seen.
Sometimes I tell myself I don’t want a boyfriend—I want connection, depth, meaning. But that’s just me intellectualizing desire until it sounds respectable. The truth is more embarrassing and more honest: I want someone to choose me on purpose, not to decode mixed signals like riddles I can solve if I’m patient enough.
I don’t want to be someone’s almost-relationship or emotional placeholder or character development arc. I don’t want potential. I want someone who stays. Someone who doesn’t make me feel like I’m asking for too much by asking to be chosen.
There is shame wrapped around this wanting. Shame that I can articulate my independence, but still feel an ache when I see couples holding hands. I joke that I’m a femcel, as if naming the wound will make it hurt less.
But there is nothing radical about pretending you don’t want to be loved. I don’t think not having a boyfriend made me superior or more evolved. I think it made me more exact. I know now what kind of closeness I want and what kind drains me. I know what I won’t tolerate and what I’m willing to work through. I know I don’t want to be someone’s almost.
Wanting that doesn’t undo the person I became alone.
And I want a boyfriend. I’m tired of apologizing for that.
Kate Basset
Love, Archived
Jillian Morris
This past summer, my twenty-first birthday rolled around in a swirl of sunny days and chocolate chip pancakes. Though there is nothing I love more than celebrating those around me, I have never really cared all that much about my birthday. Not in a bad way, but simply in the sense that I have always enjoyed decorating the house, putting together the perfect gift, and writing out birthday cards for others far more than celebrating myself. Reading that back, it honestly sounds a little sad and self-deprecating, but I don’t see it that way. It’s simply a part of who I am.
While many of my friends were either back home or away on their own adventures, I was okay with the idea of having a quiet birthday where I spent my time with the kids at camp, got in an evening walk to watch the sunset, and ate my traditional chocolate chip pancakes slathered with whipped cream.
Though I cannot deny my love for the odd materialistic thing - I have far too many books, clothes, knick knacks, and cameras to declare otherwise - my heart has always preferred something thoughtful. I will take a handwritten letter over a new bag, a customized bookmark over a necklace, and an item that tells a story over a gift card any day of the week. This isn’t by any means an attack on all things materialistic, just more so an appreciation for the time and consideration it takes to truly
remember the little things about someone, the little things about me.
I honestly was not expecting much this year, thinking my birthday would pass by as just another day surrounded by family. My mom, however, planned differently.
In keeping with childhood traditions, I did in fact wake up to the best birthday breakfast in the world (you can fight with the wall if you disagree). I ate my fill, listened to some of my favourite music, and chatted with my parents as the early morning sun cast our kitchen in soft rays of light. What I was not expecting was to receive the most thoughtful gift I have ever been given. Since the day I was born, my mom has been journaling, archiving, and collecting photos to put together a small album detailing the first two years of my life. Full of her personal anecdotes, favourite pictures, and artistic flare, it is now one of my most cherished items, especially after losing many of my childhood photos in a computer crash years ago. To this day, it sits on my desk alongside the Winnie the Pooh stuffy she gifted it with, a forever reminder that my nostalgic, sentimental side and Pooh bear loving self does not go unnoticed.
As they say, to be loved is to be known. I am grateful everyday to be so well known, and so well loved, by the woman who gave me her life’s blood.
T YOUR HROUGH EEPSAKES K
Couple: Evelyn Attard & Olivia Sit
Creative Director: Gemma Falasconi
Photographer: Nathan Zhe
Videographer: Sofia Merulla
MUA: Natassia Lee
Illustrator: Meghan Zhang
YOUR HROUGH EEPSAKES
HROUGH OUR OUCH
HROUGH OUR OUCH
Venus
Safowan Mostaque
Iman Jafrani
o M S I A C
I have this vision... I imagine us eighty years old, opening our dusted jars of memories, the fireflies swarm all around us aglow, as we read old poetry of love.
I recognize grief's mosaic. I’ve memorized the lines of her face, the sad swallow of her throat. I cradle her reflection before me as if she were an old friend. She has awoken in me after a long night's sleep of serenity. Her heart blooms with truth, her voice whispers, Let go.
There is the love body who soared between our lips. I feel the need to honour her, to paint her, to remember her, to place flowers where she left the earth and kiss her toes. I hold her so tenderly in my palms, breathing in her treasured beauty.
Mosaic
Alexa
Dorval
I see the patterns that cover your soul, the crevices born from burden, the notches left from bullet wounds. I never meant for you to see all that. Those marks were meant to stay under layers I’ve spent years trying to rebuild. I see you fragile, so very small. Small, yes. But only because I have never learned how to stand without shaking. Yet somehow, every step I took toward you, you only seemed to grow. Like a mountain, you towered over me, looking down on me like I was an ant.
I wasn’t looking down at you. I was bracing myself, trying to keep you from standing too close to all the parts of me that crumble.
Still, every inch of you I dared to find, to explore until I had nothing left to give. I trudged through you, your life, your thoughts. Everything you felt, I made my own notches. I scarred my own soul just to understand you a little more, just to feel a little closer.
And I felt every one of those steps. You carved yourself into me in places I didn’t know existed. But I never knew how to tell you that watching you bleed for me hurt more than my own wounds ever did.
But when I finally lay myself bare when you see me why do you always look away?
I guess you just don’t care enough.
Because when you strip down your soul like that, I see everything you give… and everything I cannot. I look away because I don’t know how to meet you with the same weight, the same depth, the same bravery. I do care. But caring has never been the same as knowing how to stay.
So you reached for someone who couldn’t reach back, and I hid from someone who only ever wanted to stay. Two hands touching but never holding, two hearts open but never at the same time.
Touching}
{Barely
MUSE is proud to feature the writing, photography, and creativity of students. We intend to create a platform for students’ voicesand we need your help to do so. Shoot us an email at eic.muse@gmail.com
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MUSE Magazine
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Sydney Toby
CREATIVEDIRECTOR
Zahara Wong Groenewald
HEADOFLAYOUT
Jennifer Zhou
LAYOUTDESIGNERS
Will Bishop
Tatiana Lassos
Chloe Nunes
Christina Wang
EDITORS
Mannat Mehra
Jillian Morris
Isabella Persad
Tia Olesen
Abigail Rossman
AUTHORS
Kate Basset
Alexa Dorval
Jillian Morris
Safowan Mostaque
Chloe Nunes
Isabella Persad
Katie Saunders
ILLUSTRATORS
Baran Forootan
Iman Jafrani
Christina Wang
Meghan Zhang
THROUGHYOUREYES
Creative Director
Zahara Wong Groenewald
Photographer
Maya Vlasis
Videographer
Hadleigh Green
Makeup and Hair
Isabella Li
Models
Alice Chang & Nathan Zhe
THROUGHYOURSONG
Creative Director
Lois Aguda
Photographer
Sheana Tchebotaryov
Videographer
Emily Fuhrman
Models
Aaronsaul Negre & Pierre Ducharme
Gauthier
THROUGHYOURKEEPSAKES
Creative Director
Gemma Falasconi
Photographer
Nathan Zhe
Videographer
Sofia Merulla
Makeup and Hair
Natassia Lee
Models
Evelyn Attard & Olivia Sit