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.

Bravely Failing

At first, a whisper deep within the chest,
A shadow stretched across the mind's bright room.
Each step unsure, each heartbeat tight and pressed,
The world a maze of silence, doubt, and gloom.

But fear, though sharp, is not a chain of steel
It trembles when the will begins to rise.
A single breath, a truth we choose to feel,
Can burn away the haze that veils our eyes.

For bravery is not the lack of dread,
But walking on despite the storm ahead.
It’s finding light when every flame seems dead,
And standing tall where once we crouched in thread.

What once we feared becomes the path we take
And in that stride, a sleeping soul will wake.

Ode to MCAT: Premed Slain

Behold the test where futures rise or fall,
A gate of thought, of science, will, and nerve.
Its questions echo like a distant call
To heal, to learn, to lead, to serve, deserve.

The passage dense, the data swift and deep,
With logic twined through every winding phrase.
While sleepless minds their weary vigils keep,
And mark the hours by Kaplan’s measured days.

Yet in this crucible, the soul is tried—
Not just in facts, but in the strength to strive.
A purpose forged where intellect and pride
Unite to keep ambition’s flame alive.

O MCAT, daunting beast both cruel and wise,
You test the heart as much as mind and eyes.

Genetics' Genealogy

Within the cell, a code both old and wise,
Inscribed in strands too small for naked sight,
The blueprint of all life in silence lies,
A thread that weaves through darkness into light.

From adenine to thymine’s faithful pair,
Each base a note in nature’s vast refrain.
Through coiled helix spun with tender care,
The traits of kin through ages still remain.

Yet not by fate alone is life designed—
Mutation stirs, and time selects its own.
In labs and lore, we seek, we map, we find
The keys that turn disease to flesh and bone.

O genetics, deep fountain of our truth,
You speak of ancient futures, old as youth.

Science Sonnet

O seeker crowned in reason’s steady flame,
You pierce the veil where mysteries reside.
Through test and trial, you call the stars by name,
And chart the pulse where living truths abide.

No throne you crave, no altar do you raise,
Yet through your lens, the cosmos bends and yields.
You measure time, give chaos shape and phrase,
And sow discovery in stubborn fields.

Though some may doubt or shun your patient art,
You walk undaunted through the dark unknown,
With questions burning fiercely in your heart,
And knowledge growing seed by seed, full-grown.

O science, torch against the endless night,
You turn our wonder into human right.

Ode to Albuquerque

Where mesas guard the wide and endless blue,
And Sandia blushes with the evening’s fire,
Albuquerque wakes, both old and new—
A city shaped by sun, by wind, by choir.

The Rio Grande flows steady through her breast,
A thread of life through desert, dust, and dream.
The cottonwoods in golden silence rest,
While chile scents the air with smoky steam.

Adobe walls hold stories in their clay,
Of pueblos, prayers, and voices in the land.
Balloon-filled skies at dawn begin to say
That wonder here walks gently, hand in hand.

O city born of earth and open sky,
Your soul is flame that does not fade or die.