For this challenge I couldn’t settle on just one song, because two different ones moved me in different ways. I chose “Stay” by The People’s Thieves because it carries a feeling of quiet devotion — someone reaching out through fear and darkness to ask another person not to disappear. Instead of echoing the song’s message, I wrote a short response to that voice, imagining what it might feel like to hear those words while standing at the edge of your own uncertain path. "If I Remain" "You say stay when the night grows teeth. But what if the dark is a doorway and leaving is how I breathe? You promise a path back home. I wonder quietly— what if I am meant to wander?" I also chose “Euclid” by Sleep Token, which creates a very different feeling for me — something reflective and transformative. The song feels like standing in a hall of memories and realizing the shape of your life is shifting. My poem explores that moment when the pattern of who you’ve been suddenly breaks open and something new begins. "Shiftpoint" "Memory arranges in mirrors until I am everywhere at once. A prism of timeless selves Refracting through my core. Then the pattern shatters— Angles open in the fitted frame. I pass beyond the labyrinth of glass, and in the space, rewrite my name." Written by Meaghan Vaughan, aka Ophryon.