2015
Bullseye Magazine
North East Independent School District 2923 MacArthur View San Antonio, Texas 78217 2103567600
Bullseye Magazine 2015
Douglas MacArthur High School Literary and Art Magazine Volume 30
table of contents ART
Binga A. Najah................3 Marcella Pastrano..........9, 47, 55 Christina Smith......12, 72 Mari Amos.....................16 Juan Plaza.....................18 Haley Prieto..................20 Jackeline Ruiz...............24 Nikole Pena...................28 Graciela Taylor.......32, 42 Mara Webster..........34, 68 Ashley Johnson.............38 Tristenne Ruelas...........43 Annika Arvidson.....50, 59 Jessica Snyder...............61 Haley Prieto..................64
WRITING
Audrey Hankins..............4 Simone Hutchinson........6 Zoe Garner......................7 Ashlynn McCreary........10 Josh Paveglio................11 Tabitha Brannon..........13, 44, 56 India Nikotich.........17, 25 Kayla Gunn, Zoe Williamson, Hallie Colbert........21 Courtney Demers..........23 Mia Self.........................36 Ashton Woods...............38 Billy Ray Rangley..........41
Justin Wood.......46 Ashley Hernandez, Anchit Patel, Cristian Garcia...........................48 Mary DeLeon................52 Vlad Chalenko..............54 Brandon Martinez, Erin Schroeder, Seth Arzolya-Boyson...................58 Izzy Pfifer.....................60 Tyler Wilborn...............62 Paige Solombrino..........63 Natasha Harper, Jessica Plasters, Lauren Corrola..........................66 Seth Guerrero...............69 Madeline Senter, Abigail Conrad, India Nikotich.......................72
PHOTOGRAPHY Hannah Fueuerbacher...5, 15, 24 Natalya Lugo...................8 India Nikotich...14, 30, 35 Erin Schroeder........22, 45 Jordan Fabilena...........40, 54, 58, 69 Ginny Houston.............51 Cassandra Chapa..........65
Adventure Binga A. Najah
Last Night
Audrey Hankins
Will there be a day, for, when, far off wedding bells are hung in the driveway. Will I walk into the sun on a chill summers noon, , and will my mother (who hid for so long, though every tree was bare with dry beds of rivers; sitting on my bike coasting home calling out to) come home. She has been gone for too many years now. We locked her off in a small white box, collecting dust on the shelf she told me she will be okay. to go out and have fun, don’t worry about me. she said, [(something) warm was in my room last night (something) ,takingthelastdragthecornerswereblurring, (something undid my covers, ripped the seams of the stitches of the (something) keeping me safe, he, keeping me down as i, ke pt tryyyearning for for what i kept trying to stay dormant but the sun was too strong and too bright and the spring air that i lived in as a kid was never the same after summer passed.
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Banana Hannah Fueuerbacher
Sometimes, as I trudge this path strewn out before me, I step back into the darkness that swallows my pride. Sometimes, in this desert of prickling cacti, I fall into their cruel arms. And all goes red. Sometimes, as I wish upon a shimmering star, I am greeted by unbeatable opponents, triggering pressure, triggering fear. So, in this world of woe, what is good? Who holds out their arms but the supportive cacti? Why must a choke out my pride and give it away? Where does the crimson hide when I’m okay? When will this fear subside into a pure white smile? Sometimes, though, as I hide behind the world, I let rivers of tears bubble and spit, but never will they bleed upon my cheeks. Sometimes, I look up, Through all the tears and tears. Sometimes, I look up. I look up.
Sometimes Simone Hutchinson
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A soul is like a root A root in no need of soil to bloom In a wide, flourishing field of flowers and weeds Growing, grunting, and growling to be free As America once did from the land overseas While the root clings to the land underneath Little choices making mighty changes To slay the obstacles and their fakeness Blindly floating, serving God at his will Filling the air, telling their tale Leaning towards sides, searching the sights Watching summer days drifting away Observing the cub growing his mane Little Evy finding her way Al fin quien debe ser A mighty standing oak under the sun’s powerless daze
Unclear
Zoe Garner
NZ Natalya Lugo
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The Transfiguration of Time Ashlynn McCreary Words on a page can not compare to the vocalization of our minds Gaze into my eyes as my heart tells a tale of betrayal, denial, and idiocy A story should never leave the lips of those who have not lived it Reality of one is fiction to another Time goes on as does life Stories passed down reconstructed and retold Society changes outlooks on the world yet it is still easier to tell of other’s experiences than our own.
Mutation Marcella Pastrano
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Dear Failure Josh Paveglio You will overtake most Allow them to give up But nothing in this world can take the place of persistence I know I’ll have to feel failure before I taste success Failure You will never overtake me Life isn’t about never failing It’s about rising up every time we fall If my determination to succeed is strong enough Failure We are shaped as people By learning from our own failures Don’t fear failure And success will be brought to you Failure It will be the fire lite within me To rise when I have fallen Failure
Faery Christina Smith
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Tabitha Brannon
Hun Impartial beast, my gums set apart By misguided fury and you’re the cause Of each soft thud crouching behind fluid teeth Trapped inside our timid ventricle like dark Basements made of tissue and quite screams. I’ll wait for the planets to collide And maybe the harmonious fallacies Within our netting will Dissolve because my eyes are Filled with salty crystals of last Night’s episode and you are away With a fantastic glow. Denied at blood, a policy of birth While open pages lay blank Cracking along welded edges. But our pores seem sick And I cannot silent these tender aches creeping up my dented skin Like a hunter drunk of soiled ale But maybe the cheap wine swimming Within shall relish in acrid tundra For winter is present in my veins As summer roasts equal floors And your eyes, faintly yellowed, Leaves a salty wound upon my tongue So, sometimes, I’ll watch black flies Misplace their eggs and see moths die I find tainted wings across midnight’s dare As a fragile memory grows wickedly shrewd Your tired glare stings and last night’s Episode becomes a frequent waltz.
Just Do It India Nikotich
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007 Hannah Fueuerbacher
Midnight Snack Mari Amos
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Shot 32
India Nikotich
There was a smog in the air, a heavy heat that smelt like suffocating and felt like loneliness. Her chest, which was weighed down by a heavy necklace made of one hundred shiny coins, rose and fell violently. He heard her before he saw her - that sumptuous jingling of silver, a series of rapid steps in pointed shoes, sobs that sounded like sneezes. His own classicism came from the gloomy tobacco torch in between his fingers, but little else about him stood out besides the pile of ashes he made near the bench’s three-pronged foot. It was a substantial pile, made up of the remnants of two entire cigars and the amount of thoughts he could drag on. For three hours he’d been thinking of one face, and half-heartedly searching those that passed for a sort-of subject to capture on his Minolta. But his mike, along with the shimmery heat of the darkening park, erected a wall between passerby and his mind. None could compare to that face. The strangers were too mundane, the air too quiet, then the slopes of the path too similar to the curves of her swollen abdomen. He had taken only one photo before the girl walked by - two feral cats tumbling in such a way he could only get two paces close before they lashed out - so that he had 35 frames left, 35 turns of film. His eyes moved like a camera to settle on that silver necklace. There was no immediate attraction, but rather a vague, lingering interest, like noticing the sheen of a new book on a shelf of precariously preserved classics. He looked at her, not having anything else to do. The way her flaxen hair framed a slim pink face or the unraveling black skirt hem were details he would later study in wonder, but in this moment he marveled only at her bowling ball tears - crystal clear miracles borne from an enigmatic sadness. He couldn’t capture the pain swirling in her throat beneath the coins, or snap an image of the place she’d walked from in her kitten heels, but he determined himself to immortalize those gobs of wet hot emotion. Just as he dropped his cigar and reached for the neatly packed away camera, she reeled as if in shock, ten yards from him, and eased into a bench across the way. He paused for a few moments, torn by the brevity of his desire to capture human suffering. Does that make me a part of it, he often wondered; in some way, do I make it harder to bear, by offering a remembrance, or is it just a selfish kind of pleasure on the photographer’s part? Able to experience the brokenness, enlarge its context into something of grander import, while relinquishing the natural instinct for compassion - that’s the bias haunting portraiture the way he liked it. So engrossed she was in the soft, blustery wails of her own mouth that she remained oblivious as he grinder forward to shot 34. Shot 33 covertly caught her, hands unfurled and chin skyward, from his new perch on the bench directly in front of her. But number 32 has her eyes locked into the lens, suddenly, furiously aware. Those eyes, he recalls, printed coldly on matte 14 pt paper, held a considerate curiosity in the moment.
Delicacy Juan Plaza
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Hello Haley Prieto
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Apathy
Kayla Gunn, Zoe Williamson, Hallie Colbert As a child, I’d watch the flowers bloom. From Autumn to Summer everything became anew; Skies were blue and the grass was green But inside I was empty Smiling, laughing, happy faces would stare all around As feet danced to and fro in rhythm, One lonely child went searching for the sound. To understand and to feel, To be let in, that was the mission. Though no one would let them, Not without permission. Stoic, the melancholy features of a stone statue Cold, empty, the silence of an impassionate heart Viewing the colorful youth, warmth and desire spiral out of their beings like sunrise But I stand at arm’s length, stoic cold and empty. Watching through jaded eyes of an unfeeling entry. Life around is suffocating, grey seeping through; dripping from the brick walls surrounding. The darkness is whole and swallowing, shooting up veins, coursing in blood. Eyes graze over weightless words, stacks of paper turn to ask between coarse thumbs. Priority teases, dragging a claw over skin leaving pink marks in trace. Apathy feeling nothingness, a curse burdened in an overactive mind Projects from a sad soul and fills in every inch. Rays of light beaming in broken fragments, pass by the leaves and into the window Beckoning, promising. Its warmth fosters the tinge of passion harbored in a hollowed heart. Yearning, desire filled in glazed-over eyes, Semblance, desire, hope. It’s a need as vital as the air burning lungs with every inhale and running over skin to cleanse. My chin rises, body twisting towards the light, Goosebumps left in the wake of a promise. Marrow clutching rose petals, every fiber is glimmering stardust. I turn to the light, craving passion that leaks from the outside world.
Caged Love Erin Schroeder
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A human’s appearance, is just a shadow. You’re in a daze, lost in admiration. Surrounded by four walls of lies, but the biggest is in the center. The biggest lie of all, is located within a small space; The heart. The heart does not only fall, but it fails as well. It lacks truth, honor, and respect. But the person controlling the heart, is one consumed in a fake world. When reality hits, the walls are wiped away, And appears the truth. But our minds refuse to accept this key factor, That every man needs. So we start over, and repeat the mistakes. All is lost in a dark shadow.
Only an Appearamce Courtney Demers
Amparo’s Hands Hannah Fuererbacher
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Curious Jackeline Ruiz
Well-Lit India Nikotich I am sitting in a small cafe, reeking of coffee. Fixed orbitally around me are spheres of life that will not intersect, but rather collide quietly. North of me sits two women, mid sixties, who have said perhaps one word since I sat down. A gaggle of polished, rugose ladies rise and linger with their goodbyes before languidly exiting, a bell tolling as they finish their wrinkled journey. An attractively-built busboy invades the area, wiping away cornbread crumbs from the counter. Behind me, a man sits down, his hat proclaiming rank and title of the Thirty Third Division. In the dim shadows of a corner, the bridge of his nose illuminated by a single bulb, a man meets my eyes, blinks twice, and returns to his coffee. I suck on a piece of ice, pay my bill, and leave alone.
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Dark-Haired Beauty Nikole Pena
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Rosemary Cookies India Nikotich
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Character Study Graciela Taylor
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Sprawl Mara Webster
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Sara Sue Goes Exploring India Nikotich
The Perfect Love Story Mia Self
I wonder who the lightning calls out to When the sky is dark And the clouds roll always. Does she call out To nobody in particular In Morse code Does she hope That someone out there May just see her light Does she try to hold onto Something perfect To only have it turn into a storm Does she give it all she has Then when nobody comes Fades away into the darkness Does she feel hopeless For her one and only true love She can never touch
I wonder who the thunder calls out to When the sky is dark And the clouds roll away Does he constantly search The night sky In hopes he would find her Does he scream in the middle of the night Trying, reaching For something he knows he can not have Does he hope that someone Might just look up And actually hear him Does he cry into the dark and silent night Feeling desperate and empty
Does he feel hopeless For his one and only true love He can never touch Do they feel hopeless For their one and only true love They can never touch
When you look into the abyss That is the dark night sky And hear and see their pleas
Do you feel their sorrow When the rain Cries for their two love stories Do you wish that you Could have their love story‌ Not the type in fairy tales But the true kind, The kind that can not be Severed by distance The king that can Survive the storm The kind that never loses Their passion due to time The kind that never loses hope Even though their one and only true love They can never touch.
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The Place Ashley Johnson
Ashton Woods
Beautiful Sunrise A new picture perfect painting each morning From God’s glorious paintbrush It’s there when we wake up It lets us know we have to start another day The sun’s rays light it up If only we could pause time Sit and enjoy it a moment longer But instead we can only catch a glimpse Because of the fast paced world we’re living in If only we could slow down, take a break And appreciate the gifts God gives each day Starting from each beautiful sunrise
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Through Jordan Fabilenia
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Those that are world weary aged before their time Disconnected from the jolly adolescents who believe life will be easy For they have not seen the “struggle” As a newborn does not know the sinful world it’s being born into For those who have not felt betrayal as deep as Judas to Jesus But some of us don’t forgive as easy, those of us who are world weary Who lived their 20s at ten not knowing a true childhood Not those of us who “think” they’re grown but those who feel it Forced to grow up, to learn things some stay ignorant to till death Not those who are “starving” because they chose not to eat what mom cooked But those who are hungry because of the barren wastes called the fridge I feel you not because of empathy but for I am world weary
Grown Up Graciela Taylor
The World Weary Billy Ray Langley
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My love M y l o v e I can’t change even if I submerged myself under electric acid. The pools of hazel will drip upon rusted gears of neurotic turmoil. My love M y lo v e Four leaves gal l ing like quiet mice hidden between young iron And we, two crowded rooms, realign the fabric of cosmic rejoice But my love My Lo ve of healed spines Privately broken into four pieces Almost a box of pizza Only cold; Only frozen; Only a Friday night’s indulgence.
Dog Tristenne Ruelas
My Love Tabitha Brannon
Tugged lips and bitten necks, a sample of lust but a blurry sandpit of curious sex filled with noiseless vibrato and lethargic mystery. No longer an enigma raw my love l y m y lo u el y Splendor made of troubled wine: A flask of mahogany, a fallen branch, two palms reaching for the same water glass. We, a mixed pattern, lost in two. We, tarnished lungs, unkempt and glued. My love, we, a graveled floor no longer touching.
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Drip Erin Schroeder
You are on your way home from work and you see that all the lights in your house are on. When you pull into the driveway, all the lights go off. One by one they go out leaving your bedroom light on. As you walk into your house, a sulfuric smell punches you in the face with enough power to knock someone out. Struggling to see because of the burning sensation in your eyes, you trip and fall at the bottom of your stairs. When you get up and make your way to the top step, your bedroom light goes out, you open your bedroom door, step in, and seeing nothing out of the usual, you decide to just sleep it off. The next day at the office, someone walks past your cubicle and drops a letter on your desk. The letter is in a blank envelope and it has no writing on it. Opening the letter you smell the same sulfuric smell that still encases your home. The letter only has one sentence on it, “Look at your watch.” You look down and the big hand is on the one and the little hand it on the three. Confused you look back at the letter to search for any other message and on the back it says “Look again.” You look once more, and now your watch is digital.
Watch the Watch Justin Wood
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Headless Marcella Pastrano
Till Death Do Us Part Ashley Hernandez, Anchit Patel, Cristian Garcia Empty Soul, empty home Only a cold heart that hovers and roams In bed, with me, no longer lay a lover Only I alone under the crimson splattered covers Her gravestone slumps, crumbling and frail Aged bloodstains timelessly remain on the stairway rail No feelings of guilt, no feelings of pity Just remembering that night I felt a bit witty Desire to slide that blade across her neck Craving to make love and cause a wreck I desire that exhilarating purpose But in the end what I did made her worthless
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Childhood Annika Arvidson
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Sepia Sisters Ginny Houston
Little Brother Mary Deleon Words fly out of my mouth; I want to sing, to dance, to shout from the rooftops. Crying from happiness, my mouth, open catch the salty liquid on my tongue. Most kids dread the thought of a baby in the house. But not I, I was excited. I didn’t know how annoying he was going to be.
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Gray Gazebo Jordan Fabilenia
k c i
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or it e it nat r lim olv mi ato o e o l k th to s en lcu n e e d a al riv eem the y c te h e d s m a C o ot o in ck in d t a n er he rm d Vl rie ould a z o c ete t t nd I c as As just e w ided t’s i I her dec ut i T I so So rn Tu
m i L
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Emote Marcella Pastrano
Sickle Cell Intimacy Tabitha Brannon My teeth leukemia spreading across your veins Hanging dry; an arid raid Two stomachs, a kaleidoscope, with wired atrocity Mountainous groom, a bride of fury and locked glances A wispy cure, no bruised hands. Nasty lips peeled apart Like crusted aprons made of velcro and velvet sky Coy feet of itchy erosion to dwindle a stone Five mouths disordered atop silicone rubber Patched beneath recoiled skin encasing wrinkled galore Milky seaweed across breasted lamps Two shelves collide A pulsar of fleshy walls Pulsing in place with clawed out moan Attacking like blitzkrieg German scalpel Clammy skin sticky to grope Pounded hymens Popped pupils, a vertigo to change Salty licorice upon raw throats Scratching spines plastered a scar Hand prints translucent; a mess of abstract Paintings foiling a disgrace.
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Sources Jordan Fabilenia
A Ship With No Harbor I used to feel necessary A point source of her vitality Now when crossing paths, we are adversaries My harbor is left empty
I used to feel love She stole sentiment, still saved strain She was sweet and gentle like my little dove She sank me down with no lifeline But now I dress this starved skeleton of humanity And live day to day, sinking with this dilapidated ship whose holes were once patched with yesterday’s aspirations, But now my lungs fill with water and I drown in my apathy, and yet no matter how I try breath seeps into my lungs as a kind of mortal punishment Now I am alive without living
Brandon Martinez, Erin Schroeder, Seth Arzolya-Boyson
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In Blood Annika Arvidson
Where is Love? Izzy Pfeifer Leah aged fifteen when her parents expired Alone in her room of worries and fears Slowly inched to school in fear reacquired Her brain twisted at her snickering peers Solemnly sat, staring straight in surprise Pondering if she may feel loved once more Her bones slowly breaking every sunrise Depression reflected from her glossed floor Awkwardly, a gentle boy kneeled by, Their eyes met, massive pupils multiplied He spoke sweetly to her soul and night sky But as time traced towards, love amplified Love removes fragile pieces of lives But it is struck by the sharp blades of knives
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Neighbor Jessica Snyder
Broiled Future Tyler Willborn My ribs can’ take any more hits These walls have remained ruins The bags under my eyes have become darker From the nights when All I can think of is him Not even the lump in my throat Can express the boiled up pain I’ve saved over the years My nights are consumed by every growing Darkness that I’ve conjured up for myself I can’t see the moon; not even the stars Shine bright enough to get my home when The only thing I do is try and drink my sorrows away Please by the one Let me know the universe threw down The right person for me Who pierces through my Blinded eyes with their blazing radiance And loving touch, that fans the flames Of the spark of life I’ve notably lost I’ve seen the signs Everything’s getting cluttered; piling up While I just waste away at my own despair There’s not sufficient lighting for me To see even my own worth anymore
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He’s Beautifully Misunderstood
Paige Solombrino
He was the flower no one really understood. Contained with a past of thorns, no one was willing to select him; Pain and all. Until the day came where he grew into my sight. I plucked him and all his mystery out of the meadows. As each thorn punctured me, I stay for he does not mean to harm. Believing in the sun to slowly remove his pricks and imperfections and remove him from the earthly soil to continue his life past the clouds and the stars. His petals scripted front and back of indescribable detail and indifference. He was beautiful. And although he was the flower nobody understood, he was a flower I wanted; Thorns and all. He is beautifully misunderstood.
Today Haley Prieto
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July Cassandra Chapa
Perhaps One Did Not Want to Be Loved Natasha Harper, Jessica Plasters, Lauren Corrola
Perhaps one did not want to be loves so much as to be understood Humans can supply an abundance of kisses but the meaning and emotion comes from an understanding Lavished in tender embraces held together with black lace Genuine Connections beyond the heart and into the soul Humans can supply an abundance of kisses but the meaning and emotion comes from an understanding Ropes tied around the human race dragging down The misunderstanding becomes greater than any received love The true unknown aroma of love Bitter compared to the familiar scent of animosity Love has an undefined meaning that we strive to find. Reaching For that step to understand each other is effortlessly impossible To see To feel To believe In others pain Is infinite Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood Every ounce of light has been consumed by the taunting darkness Staring down the edge of the cliff, the end is inevitable Goodbye. I’m sorry.
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Wet Mara Webster
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Twisted Knots A Halloween Poem Seth Guerrero
lone ght a i n g 1 Step the shinin atoned real e Spend ins must b are all too heal s e r Many ears to fac e will neve f k These rs you ma a c The s t t ches a d n de 2 Step toe an l test m o r f a Start g in the re et it in l n Carvi e pain but begin th r to Bear finge r u o Lift y ie e to d p o h and 3 Step heart our eye r u o ine y y Cross needle in fuse the tw a e d Stick e rope an h was min th eat Bind this d g n o All al ime this t m n a o e i let scr Comp ll short a ast in line l fa gh I just d up being uefully si . r n ed And e does now unsatisfi er e‌ A kill . You leav e c Silen
Oatmeal Jordan Fabilena
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Some Tri-Eyed Thing Christina Smith
Getting Out Madeline Senter, Abigail Conrad, India Nikotich Apathy is a bottomless chasm a pit, dark, deep, degenerate no matches, fall in, and you’re caught Better to be lost at sea at the mercy of great, crashing waves in the eye of the storm better to face the fear to really feel to really know to really care To be consumed with a love A love to teach, learn, explore My heart aches, empty, hollow I blindly reach into the dark abyss Hoping to grasp Remembrance Folly Fear Rue Perhaps a little bit of love, too
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Bullseye has been an integral part of
bringing student art to a professional platform since 1984. Submissions for publication in the magazine are open to the entire student body. Copy and art printed here are chosen by a three-round judging process by the Bullseye staff and advisor, and is under the discretion of the production editor. Copyright 2014-2015 by Bullseye, a publication of Douglas MacArthur High School. After publication all rights revert to author/artist. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the staff or the high school. Colophon This issue of Bullseye was published electronically on Issuu, for free. The body text is in the font Averia Serif, and the display font is Lakestreet. All layouts, typesetting, and art design were completed on an iMac computer using Adobe Photoshop CS6 and Adobe InDesign CS6.
Front Cover Art: Christina Smith Additional Art: Annika Arvidson, Bonny Chu, Graciela Taylor
Production and Layout Editor: India Nikotich
Editorial Board/Open Mic Night Crew: Matthew Torgerson, Pablo Mazariegos, Audrey Hankins, Ethan Galvan, Nathan Veltri, Kayla Gunn, Tabitha Brannon Special thanks to Principal Peter Martinez, Mr. Whitus, Ms. Barajas, Mrs. White, MacArthur English Department, Mrs. Cardoza, and everyone who performed at our Open Mic nights. You are appreciated.