Cracked Mud is Ugly
Riley Atienza ’29
4 Feburary 2026
My hands look like cracked mud
Because when mud dries it doesn’t sit nicely,
It breaks ugly
If you listen to the overbearing clouds
And you don’t use your hands to play in the mud
You say that mud still dries in an ugly way after the rain
But I know the truth
Mud dries rhythmically
Or maybe beautifully?
Ugly.
God, I hate cracked mud
I know that it’s intentional
Each crack is drawn out
Each complements the next
In its own ugly way
Yesterday I looked close enough
At the dried mud
And how it was cracked
I used my palm to trace the ugly lines
To smear them
Resembling the cracks on my hands
The dorsum of the hand
Not even the rough.
When my hands uncovered the cracks,
They were smeared
Slightly and briefly
Perspiring palms attempting to bind the lines shut
To make them smooth and whole
It didn’t work though
You could still see the lines
The ugly lines
So I left,
And the sun set,
Letting the clouds rain.
I came back the next day
My dry hands were covered
Layers and layers of lotion that my mom demanded
I wanted to be there to see the ugly cracks disappear
And for the mud to dry smoothly
But when the sunlight took over the clouds again
The clouds gave up on the rain
I looked at the mud
Hoping for signs to tell me my efforts
Of lathering and layering have not gone to waste
The mud that the sun traced
The mud that the clouds took control of
The mud that sat through the layers and layers of
Rain.
So when tears trailed from my eyes
And I wiped off the lotion,
The damn mud looked the same as yesterday
With its ugly and perfect cracks.