Hold this Close to Feel My Love

the author's grandpa and grandma who are featured in the story shown sitting on a couch

January is a snowy month with numerous power outages sweeping across the city of Colfax.  The month also signifies the beginning of the Spring semester at Sierra College and my entire being overflowing with excitement and a hint of dread.  It’s been months since I’ve gone to school, having taken a break due to the ongoing pandemic, and want to reunite with the person I fell in love with.

Even before class started, my mind raced with ideas I wanted to write about: romance, video games. I even had a working title, Digital Love.

Continue Reading

Beyond Meals: The Sierra College Food Pantry

The financial weight of groceries can cause stress for students and their families. The Sierra College Food Pantry was started as a labor of love by the late Student Life Campus Coordinator, Tim Haenny (1957-2017). Today students and staff carry on the legacy to make sure no student goes hungry. 

Continue Reading

Building an Honor’s Society at Sierra College

Students making chalk art

“Congrats! You qualify to join the Honor Society.” This is the email students receive when they have completed 12 units and earned a 3.5 or higher-grade point average at the end of a semester. It’s an email with the potential to set students up for scholarship opportunities, help students develop leadership skills, gain lifelong friends and so much more.

Continue Reading

Femicide

It’s the start of a new relationship,
I get ready for my date, hair in soft spirals,
lips stained red while the color upon my eyes are smoked,
body adorned by a sleek bodycon.

Love took over my mind, the insides of my body filled with floating butterflies,
He’s sophisticated, smart, and charming,
A man that wants to take care of me, wanting what is best for us,
It’s too good to be true.

Cracks start forming, another man emerges,
It’s my fault, I can’t do anything right,
Apologies aren’t enough, thoughts spinning in my head, telling me I’m crazy,
Suddenly, my skin is blemished with bruises, my face stained with tears.

I need to get out, but no one will help me,
After filing several complaints, police won’t help me,
I can’t get out and soon it will be too late for me,
As I will be strangled by the cracked image of a man I thought I loved.

I would be alive today if I was listened to,
Now I am just another number among the women killed before me,
For I have died by femicide, murder committed by my partner,
But there is an outcry for us, activists rallying for a change.

Posters littered amongst the walls under tunnels,
An image of me, the woman I once was,
Displaying the reality of domestic violence,
With the intent of making women before me, victims of femicide, visible.

Written by Taylor Hamilton | Photo by Jean-Luc Mounier