It is getting colder here in Pennsylvania. The trees, which were ablaze with red and yellow, are now slowly

undressing. The day retires itself before I can get a good look at it. For current students such as me, an entire year starts anew. All of this is to say that it is autumn; the roads are buried with pathetic attempts at touch and feeling; the wind whistles all day; chapped lips and dry hands govern every waking moment; children; sunsets; fall fairs; and more and more. I find myself tracing the tendrils of my mind, wondering why and how, and leaning into every gasp of excitement and exasperation—the entire human experience of it.

The poet, BEE LB, wrote in “afterimage,” “the way to describe something indescribable is to say it.” I

have been naming things as they arrive, anticipating their arrival, mapping their route. Such brashness is often disassociated from the soft connotations of humanity, but I beg to differ. Lately, I have been so bold as to bare my chest to feel every flutter and prick of my relationships. Who is to say that is not human? Who is to say that is not real and necessary? As a result of this indescribable season, I am now nothing if not a bloodied, pulsing heart, and like me, the pieces in this issue are wholly alive and capable of damage. Grennan’s “The Boyfriend,” Payne’s “Real Issues,” and Enterline’s “New York Punch” dissect the world around us until it is a blur, a veil behind which lies both the privilege of feeling and the ugliness of it. Aileen Zhao says it best in "burial." “I wonder if we are all made for love or if it is just those of us with feathers and flock…” It is now November and this issue reminds me to stay vulnerable, afraid, and yet still blooming in this season of wreckage and memory. “will it always hurt,” Emma C. Fellows asks in “how to write a bird girl poem.” I do not know, and I never will. But I hope that years from now, some part of me is still capable of getting bruised.

My last breaths of summer were spent gathering the remnants of Hominum, settling into my role as

editor-in-chief, and recruiting editors to aid me in pumping life back into this magazine. The fourth issue is now here, and I have no one else to thank but my wondrous editorial staff and the effervescent Hominum supporters. The absolute joy this magazine has brought me is incomparable. Here is to many more issues, many more truths, and many more moments worth a letter like this. Hominum Journal is back, and I hope you enjoy this issue. 

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Sincerely,

Evan Wang

Editor-in-Chief