Lightning branches across skies as blood does within veins
Flowers bloom under sun as eyes in-love dilate

Water beads on cool glass like sweat does on hot skin
While a tree trunk’s rings spiral like fingertips

And these similar patterns prove parallel birth
Between nature and you, creature of earth.

Hana S. Elysia is a graduate student at San Diego State University. Her short fiction has appeared in pacificREVIEW’s Atlantis and Other Lost Places, The Horror Tree’s Trembling With Fear, and on Fifty Word Stories. She aspires to write a fantastical series someday that she can pair alongside her artwork and create an immersive space where readers can find a second home.