Category: This Makes up the Sky

When I first proposed This Makes up the Sky: A Year of Looking Upward, I couldn’t have anticipated how much I would need the sky myself. How much I would need to remember to look up. 

For me, this year brought losses that felt like gravity reversing. I lost two sisters within months of each other, everything felt unreliable. There were mornings when looking up felt impossible, when the sky seemed too fragile to hold what I was carrying, to hold what the world was carrying. On top of my own losses, communities around me lost so much. And the country continued to fight a war with itself. Of course, there were also many positives, growths, celebrations—so much joy intermingled between holding breaths. Through all of this, the themes we explored together through this blog series became unexpected companions through the grief and through the joy. Dreams reminded me that even in darkness, we carry possibility. Cheesy but truth. Birds was a reminder that migration is survival, that leaving one place for another is sometimes the bravest form of remaining. And here we are, some of us still needing that reminder. Weather taught me that storms pass, that precipitation nourishes even as it floods, that chaos and calm exist in the same system.

Lullaby by Linda Dove
We Are All Falling by Avery C. Castillo
Just Above the Surface by Diosa Xochiquetzalcóatl
Dreamscapes by Lucy Rodriguez-Hanley

Red Light at Bolsa Chica and Edinger by Mary Camarillo
The Nature of a Place by Martina Madani
Two in the Bush by Barbara Ruth Saunders 
Second Grade by Lori Anaya

Weather: Water Cycle, Solid States, Stability of, see Unstable, see Apply Force, see Apply Heat, See Be Hella L.A. By Cynthia Alessandra Briano
We Survive the Storm: Floods and the People of Assam by Sreejayaa Rajguru

Collectively, we felt the world crash down in ways both personal and political, intimate and global. We witnessed systems fail and certainties dissolve. And still, we kept writing. We kept looking up.

Over the course of this series, we received 233 submissions from writers across the world. Ketchikan to Bangalore, Brooklyn to Singapore, Alabama to Montreal, Mumbai to South Africa, Pennsylvania to Malaysia. Each submission was a testament to our shared sky, proof that no matter where we stand, we’re all witnessing the same endlessness above us, interpreting it through our own lived experiences, our own lenses, our own moments of _(fill in the blank)_.

What struck me most while curating this series was how each piece, regardless of theme, carried its own form of light. We see that when water becomes destroyer, there’s light in the witnessing, of documenting, of refusing to let suffering go unnamed. And we learn the ways in which light arrives “regardless,” that it “doesn’t ask for permission,” that even when we hide from it, it finds us. This fact will save us. The work in the series maps a year of collective resilience. 

NO COINCIDENCE by Elizabeth Iannaci
Moonscape: A Memory by Jennifer Germano
Light Finds Me Anyway by Melba Morel 
A reciprocity of rituals by Elisabeth Contreras-Moran

Clouds by Karineh Mahdessian
How clouds are made by Isabel Grey

L.A. in the Rain by Heather Romero-Kornblum
The Hour the Rain Changed the Room by Veronica Tucker

Golden Apples in the Snow by Linea Jantz
Murmuration at Jack’s Pizza by Alene Terzian-Zeitounian

This year transformed me in ways that I hadn’t known were possible, and I know I’m not the only one who can say this about 2025. Grief can literally rewrite definitions of permanence and belonging. But I hope that this series, in some ways, became a practice in being honest with the weight we carry. Practice in honesty is what we all do as writers anyway, right? The writing, the submitting work, the accepting of rejection and acceptance…sometimes simultaneously. The honesty is in the doing. I’m so grateful for Women Who Submit for always challenging us to continue doing the thing that is most honest. Writing and letting it go and writing and continuing. 

To every writer who submitted—whether your work was published or not—thank you for trusting us with your sky. Thank you for mapping your corner of the world. You remind us that we’re never looking up alone. And thank you to Ashton Cynthia Clarke for all of your remarkable work on the socials. And to Xotchil-Julisa Bermejo and the rest of the Women Who Submit team, thank you for being a catalyst .

Keep looking up.

Jessica Ceballos y Campbell
jessica@alternativefield.com

Murmuration at Jack’s Pizza

by Alene Terzian-Zeitounian

They descend like a pandemonium
of parrots, fluffed and squawking:
Leo dumped his girlfriend at Taco Bell,
left her standing with a bean burrito
and mascara running.
Cockatoo says, Who does that?
They all nod, Yeah, who does that?

Cockatoo, in green crop top
and last month’s Yeezy’s, is all plumage
and puff. Says, Oh my god!
I would hate to be dumped at Taco Bell!
So low-rent. No one deserves that.
They agree, No one deserves that.

They huddle around cockatoo’s phone
like survivors trying to keep warm,
Can you believe how hot Jason is?
He’s like Charlie Puth but hotter.
Macaw preens, No way! No one is hotter
than Charlie. Lovebird molts, Charlie, fuck,
he’s the hottest. Of. Them. All.
It’s a fact.

At 4 o’clock, they rise, shake off
pizza crumbs, and walk out, foragers
let loose and circling. Cockatoo says,
Text me the answers to the math homework.
Macaw and Lovebird admire her floral tights,
bare belly, the tiny blonde hairs
on her arms, Yes, they say. See ya!
and break formation.

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You can read the entire This Makes up the Sky series by visiting: https://womenwhosubmitlit.org/category/the-sky/

Golden Apples in the Snow

by Linea Jantz

the herons return home to dead trees
clouds boiling flocks of blackbirds

screeching at the forgotten orchard drooping
rotting apples a Midas feast

in sudden snow a hundred geese
take to the skies, electrify the clouds

with their frantic gossip but all I hear
is the hum of road slush under tired tires

it’s getting dark
colder

sky in a macabre dance with naked branches
street lamps leer from the highway

a steady stream of white lights, red to the right
sheet ice hushed in the snow

two curved bone lines
lead into the night

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You can read the entire This Makes up the Sky series by visiting: https://womenwhosubmitlit.org/category/the-sky/

The Hour the Rain Changed the Room

by Veronica Tucker

The rain started as a rumor in the maple tops, a soft friction that made the leaves look like they were whispering behind a cupped hand. From the ambulance bay we could smell it before we felt it, the first wet breath pushing under the rolling door. Someone said petrichor and someone else said geosmin and for a moment the room traded fear for science, which is one of our gentler forms of hope.

There is a difference between drizzle and downpour that the skin knows faster than the ear. Drizzle writes its name in small letters across your forearms. Downpour arrives already plural, a choir, a decision. Drizzle lets you pretend the day might continue as planned. Downpour says plans are objects that float for a while, then sink.

We were holding three hallway stretchers, two with coughing and one with a quiet man who stared at the ceiling as if he had been asked to memorize it. The storm readings crawled across a muted news screen. Somewhere to our south, lightning counted whole seconds off the power grid. Someone joked about the generator. Someone else checked the oxygen tank that had been left at a slant like a question. The floor shined in the way floors do when the world outside is dirty and insisting.

When the rain crossed the parking lot it changed color. The blacktop drank it and gave back a richer dark, the way a body drinks saline and pinks at the edge. I remembered the word pluvial and said it out loud, more to test if my mouth still had room for softness. No one answered. The triage phone rang with the clipped cadence that says a vehicle is coming with speed. The doors opened and the storm rearranged our air.

There is a physics to the way rain meets a building. If wind angles up, the drops tilt and tap the underlip of the awning like a xylophone. If wind angles down, the rain rides the pitch of the roof and leaves the entry dry, a kindness too small to celebrate. This storm wanted the threshold. The rubber mats darkened and the edges curled slightly, as if the building itself lifted its feet.

They wheeled in an older woman whose shirt clung to her in deliberate places. She had slipped on her back steps and could name exactly where the pain nested. She smelled of wet wool and lilacs that had gone green. Her daughter followed with a towel that had already failed at its job and would try again, because towels believe in second chances. When we moved the woman to our bed her breath hitched like a truck shifting down on a hill. We offered words, then silence, then the kind of words that are a map. Here is where we are. Here is what happens next. Here is the small place inside the storm where your body tells us the truth.

Outside the rain changed from round to needle. You can hear this if you listen for the difference between water and water plus velocity, which is a little like the difference between fear and fear plus time. The bay door rattled and we all looked up as if it were the voice of a person we knew. A tech wiped a trail of footprints that kept reappearing as if the building had made a decision to learn to walk. A nurse peeled off a glove carefully so it would not snap and startle the man in the hallway who had begun to think he was made of glass.

Years ago I learned that the first sharp scent on dry pavement is actinobacteria releasing geosmin when the rain wakes them. The body translates that chemistry into memory before it translates it into air. Children hear it as a bell. Adults hear it as a chance. Even in the emergency department, where bells mean something different, I could feel the room loosen as if we all shared a story about summers that ended in wet hair and towels on porches and the one book we were allowed to ruin.

The storm moved closer and the thunder stopped pretending to be distant. Our monitors flickered low then bright, a reminder that the line between protection and failure is sometimes a strand of copper thinner than a vein. I checked another set of vitals and watched the numbers settle into a rhythm that would not demand us. The woman with the lilac smell relaxed her jaw after the morphine. Her daughter leaned against the wall and closed her eyes in the way that is not sleep but is close enough to count.

There is a sociology to shared rain. Bus stops become small democracies. Strangers crowd under a church eave and invent a new congregation that lasts ten minutes. Parking lots ask us to choose between sprint and surrender. In towns like ours the grocery store becomes a study in permission. You can arrive soaked and no one will look away because everyone can see the sky that did it to you. Even inside the hospital, with its climate promises and sealed seams, the storm writes us together. We speak more softly. We hand each other towels in the tone reserved for birth and grief and the day after.

Between thunder and thunder there was a pause long enough to hear the soft percussion of gutters finally finding their purpose. The speed of sound turned the storm into a counting exercise. We tried to remember the grade school rule about seconds and miles. A paramedic said the rule was wrong and an engineer friend had proved it at a barbecue with a napkin and a pen. We believed both versions because the sky often allows two truths at once.

In the next bay a man argued with his own luck. He had driven straight through the worst of it with wipers that worked only on high and brakes that shuddered whenever the road asked them to trust. He had arrived whole. He did not want to be here since he had earned the right not to be. Rain gives us these strange victories. You arrive at the door soaked but upright and you want that to count more than it does. We let it count in our voices, which is sometimes the only currency the room accepts.

There is also the mathematics of bird flight when storms gather. Starlings fold and turn with an elegance that would make a surgeon jealous. In certain winds the gulls from the lake find their bravest selves and ride the gusts above the helipad. If I climb the stairs and stand at the window that faces north I can watch them hold a line that is not really a line but a conversation. Today there was no time to climb. Instead I watched the rain itself draft and lift, and tried to name the small relief that came from knowing everything falls, nourishes, and returns.

By late afternoon the edge of the storm showed its blue. The parking lot steamed lightly like a low fever breaking. The rubber mats released their grip and lay flat. The daughter with the towel laughed at a story her mother told about a childhood storm that ruined nothing and made everything better. We adjusted a sling and documented a plan and placed discharge papers on a clipboard that shined with a few clean drops, the last of the rain finding a way to name itself.

When they wheeled her out, the air in the bay felt new. The room exhaled the way rooms do when the worst has decided to be a neighbor instead of a guest. We stood for a minute and watched the sky return to a color we could misname as ordinary. I thought of how storms erase and write in the same hand. I thought of my children pressing their faces to a window at home, counting between flash and sound, learning a private arithmetic that will follow them for years. I thought of the first drop of any rain that turns the mind toward possibility, and the last drop that says something like, now, begin again.

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You can read the entire This Makes up the Sky series by visiting: https://womenwhosubmitlit.org/category/the-sky/

L.A. in the Rain

by Heather Romero-Kornblum

I never wanted my family to end

I remember how
hopeful
we moved the contents of my son’s life
I anticipated sharing with him again

I imagined him sleeping peacefully
in the sun-drenched room
looking out to hills

Instead, it rained into the apartment
The building hallways lined with buckets and cigarette butts

one of the cats did her business on his bed
as I was left alone

broken spine

too open

with holes that couldn’t be patched

I thought LA was a desert
where I could leave everything outside

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You can read the entire This Makes up the Sky series by visiting: https://womenwhosubmitlit.org/category/the-sky/

How clouds are made

by Isabel Grey

For Byron F. Aspaas

In a time where Berndnaut Smilde can make clouds 
inside, ephemeral art in cathedrals and coal mines, 
 
like the heavens reclined     I’m reminded of how clouds are made 
sky-high. Clouds are made with the sighs of birds, 
 
their response to sunrise and sunsets and the power to forget 
the land below them, even if only for a little while. 
 
Clouds are made when nearby plateaus are leveled 
by the wind blown from another time, not yesterday 
 
or tomorrow. Clouds are made 
by the braiding of tears shed by a forgotten bride 
 
and the first laughter she makes at her new lover’s smile. 
Clouds are made during the silence that comes after 

we’ve passed into the eye of depression’s storm. 
Clouds are made when we drive too fast 
 
over dirt roads in our excitement to return home. 
Clouds are made in that tome online 
 
full of old photographs and notes to self. 

Clouds are made from the fist-fulls of ash 
 
we scatter in our late loved one’s honor. 
Clouds are made by grey matter, 
 
forming nimbuses of rumination 
that shade our heads like awnings. 
 
Clouds are made when fog yawns 
and retreats back up to bed. 

Clouds are made as the moon 
waves away stars like horse flies. 
 
Clouds are sent, special-made 
by the sun for our protection. 
 
Clouds repent for their lightning spent
with a performance of iridescence 
 
the color like soap bubbles washing away 
thunder’s echoing refrain. 
 
Clouds are shaped by the cookie cutters 
of angels, baked at temperatures of repeating numbers. 
 
Clouds are made to mislead each other: 
it’s just a few miles up ahead, trust me!

Clouds are made to house the castles

we’ll retreat to after this.

Clouds are made as stepping-stones 
for the gods and goddesses. 
 
Clouds are made by Mother Nature to use as pillows
and for the Nephologist’s bliss.

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You can read the entire This Makes up the Sky series by visiting: https://womenwhosubmitlit.org/category/the-sky/

Clouds

by Karineh Mahdessian

I am asked to write about clouds
and all I can do is think of the bombs that missed our home
that by the grace of prayers we survived the plane rides through continents 
that we arrived here safely
where now I see students who are scared of masked strangers tearing families apart.

But in this place 
they are protected or at least that’s what we tell them 
here, we have cloud wall papers that post job opportunities so these students can help already over-worked and under-slept parents 
these students who are expected to be guardians of siblings and translator for uncles and aunts, are just children, caught up in high school gossip and sweetheart dances. 

I am asked to write about clouds
and all I can do is think of Katie who earned her wings too soon,
sitting on the fluffiest cloud, with mis-matched socks, reading a book 
while I am here among students letting them know their rights—that their body means their choice, that No is a complete sentence. 
That one day we will all be free.  

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You can read the entire This Makes up the Sky series by visiting: https://womenwhosubmitlit.org/category/the-sky/

A reciprocity of rituals

By Elisabeth Contreras-Moran

Early morning sun yellows a grey mist that lifts up to the window ledge, sending shafts of weak sunlight into their kitchen as he stands at the deep sink and fills the kettle.  The kettle is moved to its base, its lever gently pushed, as he walks to the cupboard.  Out of the cupboard comes her most colorful jarrito, which he warms under running water, adding two teaspoons of sugar to the bottom; she prefers sweetness to bitterness. Setting a well-used single serve coffee filter on top of the mug’s mouth, he meticulously measures a level scoop of her cinnamon café de olla.  When the kettle softly sings its readiness to add to the reverence of this ritual, he pours the water over the scented grounds and waits patiently for the water to trickle down and for cinnamon and sweet coffee aromas to fill the air.  The light in the room silently shifts upwards while he bides seconds.  Opening the refrigerator to get the glass cream bottle their milkman delivered that morning, he hums quietly.  When the water from the coffee filter has emptied, he removes it and adds just enough cream to make a beautiful shade of brown, stirring so softly.  He pads into another room on socked feet to place this lovingly prepared liquid in front of her.  She is sitting at her desk, writing, as is her morning ritual.  Wordlessly, she sips, closes her eyes, smiles wistfully as he pads away to start his day. When the light in the kitchen has shifted again, to full sunlight or rain, when the mists have disappeared or reappeared, when the sun has lowered on the other side of the house, she will take her great grandmother’s cast iron pan, hold it carefully in two hands, warm it over moderate heat, and lovingly lift from the kitchen stores a meal to nourish.  The meal is served at their old oak table, set with plates and utensils, glasses and wine.  He will close his eyes, breathe in the scent of cumin, garlic, chillies and family history and then smile at her as she sits across from him, with her own plate too.  The sun will set, the shadows will lengthen and consume, but they will not notice.

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You can read the entire This Makes up the Sky series by visiting: https://womenwhosubmitlit.org/category/the-sky/

Light Finds Me Anyway

By Melba Morel 

I have hidden
in houses with thick curtains,
slept through sunrises
on purpose,
and called it survival.

I have dimmed myself
to match the shadows
in someone else’s room,
forgetting that I was born
a soft blaze.

But still—
light finds me.

It slips through the cracks
of my resistance,
paints my eyelids golden
before I even wake,
reminding me
I’m still here.

Light doesn’t ask
for permission.
It arrives,
regardless.
It shows me
what I didn’t want to see—
and what I’d forgotten
to celebrate.

Even the body glows
from the inside.
Even grief
throws a reflection.

And maybe
that’s the lesson:

Some part of us
always remembers
how to shine
back.

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You can read the entire This Makes up the Sky series by visiting: https://womenwhosubmitlit.org/category/the-sky/

Moonscape: A Memory

by Jennifer Germano

I walk to the end of the butte just as Grandmother Moon begins to rise over the mountains. She is a glorious orb cresting the horizon. As she rises, the barren desert landscape comes alive around me, like another realm illuminated by her phosphorescence. Long eared jackrabbits scatter wildly amongst the glowing sagebrush, searching for shadows in which to hide. Raising my arms skyward, I draw her down, rejoicing in her tenderness and grace. In a short time she will fade into eclipse, but for now she fills the sky with the ripeness of her belly and covers the landscape in ethereal light.

Two owls scream with haunting cries which deflect and echo off the looming cliffs, their enormous wings bearing them from one hunt to the next. They too feel the power of the moon. A third plummets upon its prey with a screech that pierces the night. There is no longer a cover of darkness under which to shield the little ones. A pack of coyotes cry and yip and sing, a mournful chorus in the otherworldly light. And as Moon rises higher in the sky, the mountains and cliffs beneath her seem to rise as well. There is great magic in her fullness; it is the magic of light.

I lower myself onto the asphalt, my back resting against my front tire, wrapped tightly in a woolen shawl. The eclipse has begun and I fall into the dreamy space of in-between, surrendering to a feeling of timelessness as the moon begins to disappear. Her shadowing mirrors my own repetitive journey into the darkness and then once again into the light.

This night is mine and I sit within the inky blackness by myself, watching, waiting, winter lying upon my shoulders, cold and crisp, until Grandmother reappears in the sky. I leave her with a prayer and a bow, holding the vision of her journey so closely in my heart.

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You can read the entire This Makes up the Sky series by visiting: https://womenwhosubmitlit.org/category/the-sky/