First Year

LILY WEBER

My ego is bruised like a bird

with a broken wing. 

It started to scream

where it once used to sing,

a fault line threatening

to consume everything.

Some days I feel like I’m coming undone,

tying my shoelaces,

fixing to run.

But there’s nowhere to go

that pressure doesn’t follow,

there’s mistakes to be made

pride to be swallowed.

I grit my teeth and bear it each day,

but even the toughest enamel can shatter like clay—

fired in the kiln,

wet with tears turned to steam.

No shrapnel is sharper

then that of a broken dream.

Now that it’s nearly done,

I’d like to say that I accomplished something,

that I’ve won.

It might be more precise to say

I’ve outlasted something

And I don’t know whether to cry

or to pray. 

I’m immortal now—

a cell line,

immune to decay.

For now,

I’ll just turn my face towards the sun,

Because after that

It’s onto the next one.

Lily Weber is a second year medical student at UMass originally from Nyack, NY. She studied Biology and English at Northeastern University, makingThe Interstitium an ideal home for her to keep up her love of writing and its inherent intersections with medicine. In college she wrote and edited for Spectrum Literary Arts Magazine as well as NU Sci, a student-run science magazine. She has been writing narrative essays and poetry for most of her life and has found writing to be more valuable than ever as she navigates medical school.