UNSCRIPTED
Pebblebrook High School Literary Magazine Fall 2013
This issue of Unscripted is dedicated to the theme of friendship. Some friendships are so strong, they can even transcend lifetimes. -Avatar: The Last Airbender Literary Magazine Staff Quran Alston
Linque Martin
Isatta Feika
Edward Odameh
Jordan Akers
Oriana Farrow
Bree Hernandez
Demorco Wilkerson Elida Lopez Sponsors
Lauren Forbes
Rhiannon Sims 2
Table of Contents 1—Cover Art
Kariely Marin
4– Wolf Pack
Dexter Scott
4– What is Friendship?
Dacia James
5—“Yo Soy Blanca.” “My name is Bree.”
Bree Hernandez
6—In My Moderate Hometown of Kansas City
Isatta Feika
7—Untitled
Logan Sudderth
8– Friendship
Oriana Farrow
9—Illegitimus Non Carborundum
Jordan Aker
10—For Dashawn
Myielle Kimbrough-Meyer
11—Youth is Blind
Isatta Feika
12—Grow Up & Shut Up
Rachiim Simmons
13—Just Be You
Demour Breen
14—The Black Woman I Want To Be
Jemilah Joseph
15– Why Are We Friends?
Leianah Jones
16—My Friend
Quran Alston
17—Little Story Time
Thania De La Rosa
*Titles in blue—original artwork *Title in red—winners from the first round of the poetry slam competition
3
Wolf Pack
by: Dexter Scott
What is friendship? Friendship is being in a relationship. A true friend is there for you every step of the way. To call someone a friend means you are committed to tell he or she everything. You have to share your deepest secrets. A friend supports, comforts, and brings you joy when the road gets bumpy. A friend cares about you and your future. To have a friend, you have to trust. Do you have a friend like that? - Dacia James 4
“Yo Soy Blanca.” “My name is Bree” By : Bree Hernandez
She didn’t speak much English and I could hardly remember all of the Spanish my grandparents taught me in the panic of the moment. For the life of me, I could not understand how they would put someone who could not communicate clearly in a class with nothing but six and seven years old. She was entirely shy, her hair long and black, and her dress the same color as her name—white.
“Blas ingles?” My nervousness mixed with the verbal un-clarity of my six year old mind would not let me speak as clearly as everything played out in my head. “Oh no! What if I said that wrong? She is going to know!”.
She smiled, appearing no less nervous that I. “Si. We just moved here. I live with my papa y mama.” They were wrong! She does speak English! I mean her accent is thicker than a bowl of gelatin under layers of raw maple syrup sap, but she speaks English! The more we spoke, the more we found out how much we had in common; we loved coloring pictures of our families, we thought our siblings were big bullies, we were used to moving a lot and we thought the kid who sat in the back might have been crazy (which later proved to be true).
The year was spent in first grade bliss; the snowball fights and the Valentine’s Day cards, the coloring and the seemingly encrypted words in our journals. It was an adventure worth something indescribable as I helped her to make her accent only as thick as syrup while she aided my anxiety in speaking Spanish. When the year ended and it came time to prepare for second grade, we learned I was moving and as was she, so ended our first grade bliss.
(Blanca, if you are reading this (and I have no earthly idea how you would find this), thank you for making first grade such an exploration, and I hope life has treated you beautifully this ten years apart. 5
In My Moderate Hometown of Kansas City By: Isatta Feika In my moderate hometown of Kansas City, only Izetta is remembered. A name that was picked from the lips of those that had difficulty pronouncing I-suh-tuh, but instead of asking, Izetta seemed to stay. When the name continued, I held it anyway; I felt comfort in hearing my name damaged and having the ability to easily mend it; except, I saw the arrangement as a sign of affection. Surrounded by the appearances of Ashley's and Elizabeth's, individuals boosted for their silken strands and bright complexions that matched every aspect of a soon to be gracious young women. The grant of such a name gave me optimism, as if uncovering the steps to be one of them. With the pronunciation and spelling of my name already rewritten, all that was left was to cleanse myself by ethnic baptism. Dark skin became the opposition; already the minority, I wanted light skin to be my outfit; silent sneaky movements were employed to conquer squeaky noises of banned drawers that held my "magic ingredients" toward lighter skin. Deep erosive exfoliation, thorough lather of protection, I made sure that my journey toward acceptance was cemented; now here came the test of patience; waiting by mirrors to gawk at my gradual lightness, but I couldn't wait when my nappy hair was also a nuisance. I recorded snippets of hair commercials that showed agile hair flowing in the wind. I bought the herbal shampoos, deep conditioners, and rooted perms, but when I swayed my head to do the same action, I saw no movement. As foreshadowed, I waited again, but found another aspect to alter, my heritage. My name sounds foreign? Well it does have Egyptian and Portuguese origin! No one searched to see if my truth was actually the truth, and if one actually took the time, they would see it was Sierra Leonean; but to be aligned with a country that was known for its "short sleeve, long sleeve" tactics over blood diamonds, already sounded horrid. My wants that I called "goals" continued to grow to where my family didn't know me and I didn't know also; in hopes of finding Isatta, a subject that was unknown, when Atlanta became my new home, I finally unlocked the diary to write the story of myself. My name is not Esata or Izetta, its Isatta! No matter how many times it took to correct it, I began to admire hearing my true name than to follow the fixed. I have grown to cherish my bronze complexion and tight diverse curls that express various of lineages; but, my main ties leading to the small west African country that I call "Sweet Salone," I hold myself as a diamond out of my country's rough. Nevertheless, my character has grown to resemble a continuous painting of diversity, by my writing resembling Arabic, accent near the Caribbean, and creative mind as the European. I know hold my trials and tribulations as my puzzle pieces with creases in them signifying my gained humbleness and when in the space to put them together, I hope to create a picture of confidence. 6
7
Friendship By: Oriana Farrow
Friendship means to care and to always be there, we laugh and cry, but never say goodbye We have our ups and downs and no, we do not leave each other with a frownWe try our best to stay on trackNo matter what we go through, we still have each other’s backWe pick each other up when one has fell down and we never kick one another to the groundFriendships may get rough and you think you had enough, but when you focus on the good things about friendship you will see that it’s not even toughOne of the most beautiful qualities of friendship is to be caring and kind to one anotherEveryone wants a friend that can be there wheneverIt would be nice to have a friendship that can last forever.
8
Illegitimus Non Carborundum By: Jordan Aker
Brain dead, Amygdala overloaded, Heart closed, And eyes cringe, At the thought of tears, First knot, Two kegs in one week, Aggression just exploded, No soul I suppose, Sorrow upheld till the next food binge, And cheers smear a mind full of fears, Second knot, Lack of trust leads to being anti-social, There’s a modicum of happiness, No reason to sympathize or empathize, In the end the darkness will win, Third knot, The first isn’t inconsequential, They end all of the crappiness, And then you realize, This is the beauty of a friend, Noose broken.
9
For Dashown By: Myielle Kimbrough-Meyer
It seems they scream; “I feel weak!” as the ‘wind” or “the man” drags them down, I watch the leaves sway, then I watch the leaves fall and drift away towards the north side of town, Now isn’t that peculiar as I sit down in school here writing as I’m watching the show, For seconds before I so could've sworn it was sunny; but now falls the snow, The sky, it gets darker (like a real light blue marker), And the sun it plays peek-a-boo, The wind starts back blowin’, That snow just keeps snowin’, And the leaves bid their last well adieu, I whisper good-bye, And try not to cry; I try to wake up out of this spell, But still my eyes flurry, I can’t help but to worry, Through the seasons I’ve known these leaves so well, And ain’t that a shame? The seasons must change? And there is simply nothing we can do, It looked like the end Mom said, “You’ll make plenty of new friends”, I’ll be damned if that fact wasn’t true.
10
Youth is blind By: Isatta Feika
In my memories, I see the disregarded leaves covering the wearied streets Each leaf moving as quickly as our youth that always managed to land on the wasted streets of adulthood We thought each footstep taken was one that kept us away from what others told us not to follow Yet, each footstep taken was one that put us closer to what was to come of tomorrow All the hidden treasures that we kept when the unknown came to mind Soon the childhood treasures were stolen by unveiled factors of life Now we seek to become ignorant of our actions and what is about to be committee Yet we are not only split from each other but who we wanted to be It’s funny how our relationships are interrupted by reality.
11
Grow Up & Shut Up By: Rachiim K. Simmons
Growing up in the economy, Wondering how life would be, Without love, success or any MON-O-NEY, Dreaming about what your dreams could be, If you made them a reality, That’s something I wish personally that I could stop doing, Because it doesn’t do anything but ruin the ruins of the, City that one day I dream of ruling, And it is sad to say that the thought is incomplete, Just like the care in my heart of some of these females, That is still buffering, So I wake up, Sit up, Put on my necklace, Kiss my mom and dap my dad, Then I head in the kitchen for some breakfast, Just enough till my day is through, Cause what I feel in a day, could probably kill most of you, But its just high school, Senior year too! Man I need to grow up and shut up, And I keep powering my engine with unlimited fuel, Persistently heal from the BS that demands me to kneel, Never will I back away from a fight and that’s real, That real, that real talk is the way I walk, Barely saying a “damn” thing, Like a boss, By being the better man and a greater son, He-he… You’ll be surprised at what you can learn when you’re a Pebblebrook Falcon.
12
Just Be You By: Demour Breen Everyone tells you to just be you, Until your views go stepping on their shoes, They can’t accept you for who you are, Until they beat you down into a work of art, Their creation they call you another Frankenstein, A monster of conforming to every strong opinions eye, They beat and beat until you’re tattered and scared imprinted with their words of hate, So that you never forget what a disgrace you are, You walk with your head down filled with nothing but shame, Because your thoughts inside don't match the shell that’s taken its shape, You go day by day hoping and praying everything is okay, But then the shell begins to break, You panic and become flushed, You can’t escape your fate, You will never be good enough, So just walk away, Walk away from the conforming and tunnel visioned views, Walk away from everything that says you’re un-cool, Walk away from the hatred and lies they all spew, And never forget you’re more than good enough by just being you, In a world where original means familiar, In a world where mainstream is so overrated, But hipsters are praised on tumblr daily, Being a hipster is mainstream and mainstream Is bad, But hipster means different so that must mean…, This world is confusing me because the world must be mad, Filled with mindless Frankenstein’s walking around, Yet you won’t be good enough for them, So just close your eyes and count to ten, Because I am good enough for me, And I pity all who can not see, The beauty that’s inside of me, But at least for those ten seconds I can feel free, Because the only person I need to be good enough for is me. 13
The Black Woman I Want To Be By: Jemilah Joseph The peach state is where I grew up. When I lived with my daddy’s family beans and rice was all I ate. My mama was not only mama, but she was papa too. No real male figure was in my life to show me what love was really like. Looking into the crowds searching for daddy, just so I can feel like I was achieving in life. Crying to my mama asking her what I did wrong, and am I the reason that my daddy is gone. But I realized that I was his lost. And when I grow up and be successful he is going to see that he was the in the wrong. I remember my mama scrapping up change so we can have a decent meal, her talking to us and keeping it real. I almost failed the fifth grade, because my mom was very ill. My sister and I moving house to house, praying to lord that my mama will make it and get out that hospital bed. My mom could not walk or talk and I was so young, but baby girl had to grow up and learn to be strong. Light skin, long hair is what I thought beauty is all about, until I saw Gabrielle Union and realized that black is beautiful, no doubt. Working hard in school so I can be the first person out my immediate family to receive a high school diploma, is one thing anyone can tell you that’s what I am truly passionate about. Because where I am from my race is expected to be seen in a jail cell or either burn in hell. Being judged due to my color is normal to me because this is how society stereotyped and categorized me. Man I miss my boyfriend everyday sometime I wish he can just break away because without my best friend here with me, I do not see how I make it through each day. Respecting myself is valuable to me , because girls my age is just letting them self be free, just one more child in this world with hopeless dreams. But through all my pain a smile always appears upon my face, because what I been through does not define me. I am from HOPE, FAITH, DETERMINATION and SUPPORT, and every day I pray that one day I will be the black woman I want to be.
14
Why Are We Friends? By: Leianah Jones
Why we are friends Why we are friends you ask well there are many reasons. It’s not because you make me laugh or when you cheer me up when I am mad. It’s not because you know me better than I know myself. It’s not because you have patience for me when I have my crazy mood swings. It’s not because you love me and except me for every single one of my flaws. It’s not because you laugh at my jokes even when they are not funny. We are friends because I know you will always be there even when you are gone We are friends because when our favorite song comes on I can still hear you sing along We are friends because I know you are true to me and I am true to you. We are friends for many reasons but to top it off we are friends because I know I will always have you.
15
My Friend By: Quran Alston Instantly we, Settle upon differences so we can be, Accurate but never, Tedious till the point I am completely, Tired of the, Adolescences of today’s world and never have I been, Iffy to something so, Substantial, Merely the bright young man in my, Youth today I met someone with a, Ferocious intelligence, Rambling through my success as if she was, Irritating, but she’s not, Everlasting talent from her untied knots, Never offended by the undying plot, Determined she is until the world comes to a stop. 16
17
18