Across the Tidal Basin

From marble dome where Jefferson stands,
I watch the White House from these lands
Its distant frame, so small, so still,
Yet heavy with the nation’s will.

Reflected soft in water’s face,
A house of power, poised with grace.
Between us lies a tranquil gleam,
And all the space for thought and dream.

Jefferson, in bronze repose,
Reads words he once to paper chose
“All men are equal,” carved and true,
Yet shadowed by what he once knew.

The cherry trees bow in the breeze,
Their petals drifting with such ease.
But history does not fall light
It lingers long, it questions right.

I gaze across and feel the span
Of hope, of struggle, wrought by man.
The White House glows in daylight’s hush,
A beacon, and a binding hush.

What freedom means, what justice weighs,
We measure still through modern days.
From monument to mansion’s light,
A nation stares into its fight.

Yet here, between the past and now,
I breathe, reflect, and make a vow:
To bridge this water not with stone,
But acts that prove we’ve truly grown.

The Heart Between the Columns

Between the pillars white and grand,
Where statues rise and dreamers stand,
The National Mall unfolds its grace—
A nation's soul, a sacred space.

It stretches wide from dome to stone,
Where freedom finds its echo grown.
The Capitol watches, proud and high,
While Lincoln gazes toward the sky.

The cherry blossoms softly sigh
As seasons pass, and people try
To grasp the weight of all they've seen—
The marches, tears, the might, the mean.

Here King once spoke beneath the sun,
A dream declared, a hope begun.
His voice still hums through every breeze,
A balm among the willow trees.

The granite names, the soldiers' walls,
Reflect the cost when duty calls.
Their silence thunders louder still
Than all the laws on Capitol Hill.

Tourists wander, children play,
On paths where history does not stray.
It lives in stone, in air, in ground—
A quiet pulse, forever found.

For in this stretch of open land,
Lie all the truths we misunderstand—
Not monuments, but what they mean:
The work, the loss, the yet unseen.

So walk it slow, with reverent feet—
Where past and present softly meet.
The Mall does more than merely sprawl;
It holds the heartbeat of us all.

Arlington Sleeps

Upon the hill where silence grows,
Where marble lines in stillness close,
A thousand names the earth has kept
Here, Arlington, the brave have slept.

Beneath the oaks, beneath the stone,
Lie those who faced the fight alone,
And those in ranks, in skies, in seas,
Now cradled by eternity’s breeze.

The bugle weeps at close of day,
A final hymn where heroes lay.
Each grave a story, cut too short,
Each flag a silent last report.

No anthem swells, no crowds remain,
Just whispers in the falling rain.
Yet here, the nation bows its head
To walk among the honored dead.

Not just for glory, medals, fame
But duty carried without name.
A nurse, a son, a friend once near,
Now part of sacred silence here.

And still, the rows reach toward the blue,
A solemn march forever true.
They ask no praise, no grand display
Just memory that does not stray.

So may we tread with humbled pace
Upon this ground, this hallowed place.
For freedom blooms where sorrow lies
And peace is bought where valor dies.

What These Chains Have Known

(From the perspective of slave)

They call it war—this clash of states,
But long before, I knew its weight.
Not blue or gray, but black and bound,
My body sold, my soul unfound.

No flag I raised, no drum I beat,
Just fields that burned beneath my feet.
They fought for land, for pride, for law—
I fought for breath, for worth, for awe.

The whip knew me by name each day,
And still I worked, with no repay.
I bore their sons, I bore their scorn,
I wept for children never born.

They spoke of rights, of liberty,
While tightening iron over me.
They built their wealth upon my skin,
Then asked what crime lay deep within.

I heard the cannons from the trees,
And dared to think they might mean me.
Could blood undo what greed had done?
Could war restore the stolen sun?

When soldiers came, they looked away,
As if my life could wait a day.
Freedom was inked in mighty halls,
But not within these cabin walls.

Still, I have hope—a stubborn seed—
That truth will rise from every need.
That those who walked with backs bent low
Might stand, might speak, might one day know—

That we were never less than man,
Not beast, not tool, not lesser than.
And though the war may end with peace,
Only justice brings release.

A Dream That Marched

He walked with thunder in his tread,
A preacher’s voice, a dreamer’s thread.
In every step, a nation's plea—
To break the chains, to set hearts free.

Born not to silence, but to say
That love must light the darker way,
He stood where hatred drew its line
And answered rage with faith divine.

A dream he held—not gold, nor fame,
But that each soul be called by name.
Not colored first, but human whole,
A justice rooted in the soul.

In Selma’s dust, in Birmingham’s cell,
He bore the weight, he knew it well.
He met the night with steady flame
And never once forgot the name—

The name of peace, the name of grace,
The power of truth in a broken place.
He taught us still how courage sings
With empty hands, yet mighty wings.

Though bullets sought to end his climb,
They could not kill what stands through time.
His dream still walks in every street
Where voices rise and brave hearts meet.

So let us walk, and let us be
The dream he saw, the world made free.
Not just in speech, but in our stride—
With justice marching by our side.

Where Rivers Meet

In the shadow of domes and marble pride,
Where flags rise high and truths collide,
Lies Anacostia—forgotten name,
Carved in struggle, born of flame.

East of the river, hearts beat slow,
Through streets where history dares not go.
A whisper of chains, a marching drum,
A silence where no justice comes.

Children walk where ghosts still speak
Of boarded homes and futures bleak.
Cracked sidewalks tell what textbooks hide—
A city split, a wounded side.

D.C. wears power like a crown,
But drops its gaze when looking down
On neighborhoods where color marks
The price of dreams, the depth of scars.

Race is not a war we win—
It bleeds in courtrooms, seeps through skin.
Each protest, chant, and tearful plea
Fights shadows draped in liberty.

Yet still, from pain, the poets rise,
With rhythm fierce and rebel cries.
Anacostia sings: we are not done.
The struggle shapes the rising sun.

So let the river speak at last,
Of futures forged, not chained to past.
May justice flow, not merely stall—
A D.C. truly free for all.

The Application Cycle

I’ve measured my life in personal statements,
in characters left and dreams translated.
Shadowed the surgeons, charted the hours,
Googled “what to say in interviews” for hours.

I’ve held the pulse of plastic mannequins,
wrote essays about failure with a hopeful grin.
Called my mom from the library stairs,
mid-organic breakdown, gasping prayers.

I’ve learned that "holistic" still feels like a gamble,
that AMCAS is chaos in digital flannel.
But somewhere beneath the GPA stress,
I remembered that healing is more than a test.

It’s the way I listened when grandpa forgot
what year it was—but I didn’t get caught
rolling my eyes or correcting again.
I just asked him stories and held his hand.

It’s not that I think I’m some hero in waiting—
there are smarter, faster, better at grading.
But I’m the kind who will stay past the bell,
to sit with the silence when words don’t help.

So if I’m lucky, if one school says “yes,”
I’ll trade this suit for scrubs and a little less rest.
Not for prestige, or a white coat’s gleam—
but to wake up inside the work of a dream.

White Coats in the Distance

In quiet hours, beneath the stars,
I trace the path to where you are—
A dream born in a whispered vow,
A child who stitched with thread and now
Learns hearts by ink and sleepless fire,
Each page a step, each step, desire.

The nights are long. The mind, a storm
Of questions formed in textbook form.
The spine of Atlas bent with weight—
Of purpose, passion, fear, and fate.
And yet I rise, despite the ache,
To chase the change I long to make.

A thousand hands I hope to heal,
To listen deep, to truly feel.
Not just the wound, but what is near—
The stories wrapped in every tear.
A healer’s touch, both firm and kind,
Begins not in the hand, but mind.

The gates seem distant, high, and closed,
Each letter sent, each hope exposed.
But still I walk this winding trail,
Through every setback, every fail.
Not for prestige, nor for acclaim—
But for the oath, not just the name.

For in the chase, I’ve come to see
The one I’m meant and made to be.
So if I fall, I’ll rise once more—
White coats still gleaming at the door.

Blowin’ Through the Code

(in the voice of Bob Dylan)

Well I walked past the wires and the whirrin’ machines,
Where the doctors dream dreams in fluorescent routines,
And the code in the cell, it was hummin’ real low,
Like a freight train of fate in the undertow.

I asked the white coats, “Where’s it all goin’?”
They said, “The map’s in your blood and the wind keeps blowin’,”
But the wind don’t care and the strands don’t lie,
They just twist in the dark ‘neath the technocrat sky.

There’s a man in a tie with a genome plan,
Sayin’ who you are’s who you already am,
But the child in the alley with a spark in his eye
Ain’t buyin’ the script, and he’s learnin’ to fly.

Oh, mother of mercy, oh, father of sparks,
They’re countin’ the stars while they’re missin’ the marks—
‘Cause the code may bind and the clocks may spin,
But the soul plays jazz on a violin.

So I’ll ride that train through the silicon veil,
With a notebook heart and a thumb in the rail,
And I’ll sing of the code and the ones left behind,
And the truth that’s still hidin’ in the folds of the mind.

The Shadow Genome

 An epic poem in the style of William Ernest Henley and Edgar Allan Poe

I
In dusk where thought and terror meet,
Where knowledge coils at reason’s feet,
There hums a song in silent strain—
A whisper sown in nerve and brain.
Not sung by man, nor writ in scroll,
It etches fate in every soul—
A code unseen, yet vast and deep,
That wakes the heart and shapes our sleep.

O mortal mind, so proud, so frail,
You chase the truth through storm and gale;
Yet know not what within you lies,
Beneath the flesh, behind the eyes.

II
There came a time, a haunted age,
When minds unchained from dogma's cage
Looked inward through the lens of glass,
To mark what stirs in cell and mass.
No angels spoke, no stars aligned,
Just helixed strands the gods designed—
Or chance, or fire, or something more
That hummed before the oceans’ roar.

Adenine kissed thymine tight,
Like lovers locked in endless night.
Cytosine with guanine held
The poems DNA had spelled.
And in this dance, this sacred pact,
The ghost of futures made its act.

III
O Poe, you’d see in every gene
A raven’s claw, a cryptic sheen;
Each twist a telltale sign of doom,
Each cell a candle in a tomb.
And Henley, fierce beneath the sky,
Would stand unbowed though fate drew nigh—
For though the strands may curse or bless,
The soul defies the helplessness.

IV
Through microscopes and midnight thought,
The curious and damned have sought—
What makes a man, what breaks a soul,
What theft or touch makes half a whole.
From Mendel’s peas to Watson’s jest,
To CRISPR’s scalpel in the chest,
The question echoes in our bones:
Are we but flesh, or fate, or thrones?

V
Yet let the stars grow dim with doubt,
Let faith retreat, let time burn out—
This thread, this thread, we weave and wind,
Is not the jailer of the mind.
For though the past within us sleeps,
And in our blood old secrets keep,
The will, uncharted, fierce, unbound,
Still turns the grave into the ground.

So sing, O genome, dark and wide,
Of all that stirs the world inside—
But know the soul, in rage or grace,
Still writes its truth upon your face.

Drosophila Melanogaster's Might

Small sovereign of the vial and the glass,
Your wings beat secrets time cannot disguise.
Through you, the threads of heredity pass,
Revealed beneath a hundred compound eyes.

In crowded labs your lineage is traced,
Each mutant fly a tale of genes laid bare.
With humble form, yet none of it is waste—
You map the codes all species learn to share.

A model made for vast discovery,
You taught us how a single cell divides,
How hearts can form, how minds might come to be,
And where the root of human failing hides.

O tiny fly, with legacy immense,
You are the poet of our genome’s sense.