Footprints Ahead: A Community Feature with the Octavia Project
Words By Ashia Islam and Naomi Rae, Art By Tyler Champion
The Octavia Project Summer Institute is a free program that uses speculative fiction as a lens through which to envision new futures and greater possibilities for our world. Bringing together young women, and trans, gender non-conforming, or non-binary youth ages 14–18, teens explore how the world around them is a series of choices that can be remade or replaced. By blending creative writing, art, science, and technology, our programming increases confidence and skills in a myriad of subjects while fostering leadership and community. As our inspiration and namesake is Octavia E. Butler, who broke barriers in writing and science fiction, we hope to encourage young people to imagine the realities and futures they would like to see.
They speak to me
All those left behind
My Grandmother’s pearls
My Father’s purple heart
My Great Aunt’s camera
They whisper in my ears
The stories they hold
They tell me their words
Their value
Their secrets
In my mind they play a movie
They show me my origins
They show me their lives
Cause from their blood I came
I am their legacy
Stuck in the desert
Looking for a path to freedom
Was I wrong to take this path
In the search of the invisible sea?
The sea of my dreams.
What is a dream if not a futile mirage?
A mirage that follows me.
Even under the dazzling moon.
The cold sea dampens my feet,
Devouring me with the hope of eternity.
Yet the void of reality pulls me back
Shakes me up to the grim darkness.
From where the moon left soundlessly
The stars are nowhere to be seen
But the sound of my heart tells me to go
Though my feet are buried underneath the sand
Though my eyes see nothing but utter dark
Though the pain engulfs me—I go,
In search of the eternal sea.
The empty feeling in my chest deems the light
The light leads me to destiny
Where my chest weighs lighter than a thin feather that glides recklessly
My eyes sprinkle sparkling stars I have borrowed from the sky
My hands tremble softly just to reach out to the blue sky that lies above
The smell of nature invites me to stay in the world where I am—Happy
Yet I keep losing the light
Keep wandering around every corner just to find it
But my strained chest crumbles down whenever I move farther
My eyes let out the tears that swallow my pain
My hands feel numb without the sweet warmth of love
And an unfamiliar smell creeps in to remind me—I am alone.
Still, I wake up to greet the sun that shies away
Pretending not to see me
I gaze at it with weary eyes to search for what is lost
But the departed bliss never spares its light
So I continue to run through the arena of pain that darkens as I surge deeper
Endlessly rushing not knowing apparent destiny dwells elsewhere
Had I known before that living would be this hard?
I would’ve never fallen from the radiant sky that breathes along with the sun.
With these floating nightmares
Perishing my existence
I wake up again to greet the sun
I run again into the tunnel of darkness
I crawl again through the field of thorns
My trembling legs beg for comfort
Yet my scarred heart thrives to walk a little more
A little more until it catches the light that dwells so far away.
