hika.

Marcotullio, a spring 2026 graduate in psychology, wrote a piece titled “The Dog Days,” which was featured in our 2025-2026 edition of HIKA!

What inspired you to write this poem?

Oh, that’s a good question. I feel like a lot of my creative writing inspirations tend to come from little experiences that I have. I think I tend to shy away from the grand things. And maybe that’s just because the big things fuel sort of narratively weighty in their own sense. But I really like to focus on little moments and little details. So in my writing, what inspires me is noticing the little things about a random moment or a given scenario or whatever that may be. And so inspiration for that really came out of trying to add little details to moments and things that I remember.

How did you come up with the idea of describing the narrator’s struggles like a scene from a courtroom?

We were asked to choose a moment or a memory of ourselves, or like our own moment or memory, that is far back enough that we know the gist of it, but not so much that we know all the details. And so the point of the exercise was to do something called creative nonfiction in that we were supposed to take a real thing that had happened, but embellish the details and expand it in a way that was true to history and what happened to us, but read more narratively, and existed in a more full sphere than we might have in our own minds. So the courtroom sort-of scenario really was born out of me trying to imagine, or maybe not even imagine, but reclaim from my memory, those nights of like internal struggle. And that conflict inside that I really felt when I was younger, I had these 2 voices, sort of like a devil and an angel on the shoulder thing where. There’ll be these moments of bravery and of excitement and of desire to sort of see what the world has to offer. And then a deep anxiety that was really. Intense about staying reserved and staying safe. And the fact that it was really personified in my own history is like these two voices. For me, that really leaned into the idea of two people arguing. Or two characters sort of having a conflict, and then as I was writing it out, it felt really natural to make a frame of that in like a courtroom sort of setting. Okay. Whereas like. I am laying here, I being you know this is my own memory and everything. I am laying here, sort of seeing these two arguments external to myself, but about me. And in a way that just felt personified as like these two sort of courtroom lawyers, I guess. Arguing about the case. Trial sort of the person on trial, I should say, and then these two people are trying to decide. What direction does that trial go? I sort of slotted in that way.

Can you describe your writing process and how long it took you to write this piece in particular?

Totally. I think the writing process generally for me deviates a little bit from the writing process of originally writing this piece. And that’s because it was written originally for a class. And so the requirements of sitting down and just like pushing out a piece of writing is a very different scenario than the one I prefer to write in. I’d say my typical sort of path of writing is really focused on. Trying to evoke a feeling in a moment, like sitting down and letting myself just write as much as I can when I can keep that feeling of the piece I’m trying to write or keep that idea. And then leaving it alone for a little bit and letting it sort of festers not like a happy word, but yeah, like faster in the background and developing and mature, I guess. And then coming back to it later, so a lot of my writing is in my notebook. Where I’ll jot down maybe a page or even half a page of an idea. Where I’m really capturing. The energy in that moment, and whether that is something representing like what’s happening around me or I have this really cool idea or I’m just feeling a certain emotion trying to keep that. Really pure in that original writing and then having it there so I can come back to it in a place where I can expand that or. Let it mature into a full idea that can then become a story. And then for this one in particular because it was a creative piece like class piece. I think it was much more. In the avenue of I’ve chosen this memory. I need to narrate it. And make it into an actual story and progression and like exploring this feeling. Um, so I think it was a lot more intentional, but on a shorter time frame than I prefer. I like the natural cycle of letting an idea become something in of itself a change in the background rather than this active (thing). Let me just write it and then do like line-editing and then send it in if that makes sense.

Was this piece based on a true story?

This is absolutely based on a true story. For this assignment, we were tasked with pulling a memory, like I said, so the broad strokes of I was a young kid who was trying to figure out if I should go to summer camp. And the anxieties about that are very real and did actually happen to me. The moment where I came out at night and told my mom that I wouldn’t go to summer camp did happen. And the way that she sat me down has watched videos and sort of becoming familiar with what camp would be. But the specifics of it are very fictional. I can’t remember specifically what I was thinking that night or whether or not it was late or early or whether or not I said the things that I said in that way. Um, and I think in the nature of retelling a memory, I’ve had to give a lot of concreteness to something that’s very fuzzy. And so all of those details about it and the descriptors and the language is very filled in on really what it is like. A couple of patches more so drops of color rather than scenes. ‘Cause it’s a memory and it’s kind of old like that. My mom really likes to bring up this story. Which is probably why it’s something that I can bring to the forefront as something to form a memory to use for a creative writing class. But she really likes to focus on how I was so determined to not go. That made it almost easier for my parents to make me go if that makes sense and then what I mean by that is my parents: my mom has mentioned like you were like “I’m not going. I don’t wanna be there.” That it was really easy for them to be like “Okay. That’s fine. Let’s see how you feel in a couple of days.” and it was like the fact that I was so firm about it. In like those moments where I came to them meant that they were just like sure. But they didn’t un-sign me up for camp if that makes sense; they sort of didn’t listen to me. And in that way, like they were like “okay, you can have your opinion over there. Go sit in on that thought.” I was very firm like “I’m not gonna go,” or “I’m only gonna go for a portion of the time.” To the point that (they’re like “sounds good;” we’re not gonna debate with you on this. You’re very firm in this opinion.” Generally speaking, of course, cause there were moments where they’re like let’s just like look at it. Let’s look at the pictures and all that sort of stuff. I just think it’s funny that my mom was like “Yeah, you were like locked in on that and you were really determined.” “But we kind of knew that you were.” Yeah, they were like we know that this is such a firm opinion. We know because it’s such a firm opinion that it’s gonna flip. Because it’s so intense that it can’t be sourced from like an actual thing. It’s (from) fear, it’s the anxiety.