BFS WordFlirt 2019

WORDFLIRT2019

[untitled] Anique E ’20 When I don’t speak it’s because I wrote what I was thinking. And when I didn’t write it I drew it.

I’ve been doing a lot of sitting quietly in bed lately. I could go on about my black girl magic, it keeps me sane. To have black girl magic is to thrive in pain like no one else can And blossom in rain, as if it were coming from the gentleness of a stream how Black girl magic is to sing songs of beauty that flow sweet like a river from our lips, our naturally plump lips, as we push out the words from our thoughts that come as a Sunday Spiritual for the black consciousness.

Keith H ’19

Wordflirt 2019 A Brooklyn Friends Upper School Publication Wordflirt Editorial Board Claire B ’21 Loane B ’21 Avery L ’21 Chelsea P ’21 Sarah Y ’21 Rachel Mazor, faculty Cover Mathilde F ’19 Production Joan Martin, , faculty-

Manifest Destiny Daniel A ’19 Scholastic Writing Awards Honorable Mention

Sail with me, brother. Old Worlds are born to discover By land or by sea. Stay with me.

Search far and wide with this charter.

Goodbye to our harbor, To lands of the known ocean blue.

We’re seeking a homeland that’s new.

Our color’s our map, our destiny’s manifest Sets our paths through the aged Seven Seas.

Stars guide my meddling mind, As mountains rise and rivers wind, Mapping it all for you and me.

Are we setting humanity free?

Sail with me brother. We’re born to discover By the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria.

Four years gone, what a pleasure.

We’ve sought many great treasures, In the world where the old fades away And each year seems a hell of a day.

Open your eyes to the sun that is setting In the Old World, that somehow is past regretting.

This new world is a promise This new world is a blessing.

Lands of the vast ocean blue, Together we’re founding a homeland in you.

Dania L ’19

Through the Seven Seas we journeyed.

With God, Gold, and Glory writing our story, Our legend eternally told.

But are they making us blind to what’s there?

Open your eyes to the sun that is setting!

Darkness descends but there’ll be no forgetting.

Red, white, and blue, your meaning is new, It’s red, white, brown and black that we say.

Our legend is dying, our story’s been fading, Can we join the new world in the making?

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To The Poetry Snap Minerva M ’19 Scholastic Writing Awards Gold Key

to the poetry snap— master cultivator of words culture; quiet enough to talk over yet voluminous enough that we don’t have to:

the narrow nod of the head; I’ve even snapped at my own thoughts! solitary, sliding across a network of concept while adrenaline draws you closer to me, frayed pencil in one hand, inspired ticking motion holding fast to the other; I’ve even

who else could spur the air to burst with the token of our commonalities without the repetitious interruption of voices? when conversation grows cumbersome, we elect you as our savior!

I am surrounded by words culture now and I can feel you kissing me around every corner:

snapped at movies lately! whenever several of your practitioners huddle together in the dark, this is always how it ends: poetic charisma has woven itself boldly into a thirsting plot, (I am surrounded by words culture now and I can feel you kissing me around every corner) the room explodes into thoughtful resonance, and there will be no emptiness left once you have overcome shallow communication— just the whisper-soft rapid-fire from between our fingertips.

the crack, the finger’s friction, the rhythmic rocking of the wrist and, accompanying,

Hannah S ’19

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Young Girl Betsy A ’20 Scholastic Writing Awards Gold Key

Young Girl, Someday I Promise Sing to me, Whisper away the pain and the sorrow The backbreaking echoes of society.

Tell me there is more, More in a smile, more in a laugh Than there is in his standards.

Scream that I am enough, Yell so loud that I might hear and one day believe it.

Follow me always, Show me I am worth fighting for In sickness and in health, in death and in life.

Choose me, Choose me unequivocally, Choose me freely and wholeheartedly.

Amina W ’19

word, not even a breath And his footsteps come softly Come with me he tells me, Your mother was wrong She can no longer hurt you.

And I go.

Young Girl, You Are So Naive The sun seems so bright in the darkness of my room The rats scuttle across the bed that hasn’t seen wear The spiders crawl across the chest that has been rattled and destroyed The monsters come in the day to tell me tales of their misfortune And my mother comes at night to tell me to stand in resistance Guard against him she tells me, Befriend the rats so that one day you might use them Their teeth against flesh, tearing away at the enemy Speak to the spiders she tells me, Listen to the wisdom they weave and learn, Learn to create a web that will slowly strangle, making him pay Stick to the monsters she tells me, For they are my true protectors, Forever guarding me, Melding me into a wrought iron fence with barbed wire trim.

The sun seems so bright in the darkness of my room The rats are sent screaming into the shadows of the ruffled bedding The spiders disappear into the dresser, hiding between the wood and the clothes it holds The monsters stand frozen in the day uttering not a single

Young Girl, You Are Wild and Free You are the girl everyone sees but no one can know The girl with the sweetest smile and prettiest eyes, Eyes that are always clouded by tears, A smile that is forever wavering You are the girl who laughs with abandon Unaware of the looks that befall you Or maybe just uncaring of others’ perceptions You are the girl with the voice that shatters inhibitions Able to befriend but never able to keep You are the girl who goes out dancing Staying out all night as though you live for fun You are the girl who stays inside for weeks Unheard from, invisible and in darkness You are the girl who succumbs to the power of influence Always surrounded by the odor of cannabis Red tinged eyes and a too easy happiness You are the girl who I am afraid of the girl who I adore You are the girl who is wild and free the girl who is chained and bound You are the girl who died last spring

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Fight Night (Sorry Mom) Milly B ’20 Scholastic Writing Awards Honorable Mention

couldn’t see what was right in front of them. He was so stupid, why was he here with me, why wasn’t he with her?

That’s when I got the feeling, the itch deep inside. I felt an intense itch all the way from where my heart was to my left knuckles. And wowwww, I wanted to hit him.

Once I decided, my mind compressed. The big, complex muscle up there squeezed itself into a tiny rubber bouncing ball, hard and for one purpose alone. My feet arranged themselves, and my left arm drew itself back, and my right one grabbed the front of his stupid pink palm tree t-shirt.

His eyes opened wider in shock but he still couldn’t see what was about to happen, he trusted me, and that fact condemned him.

Charles C ’19

I punched that motherf****er right in the face. I punched him in the jaw and his head knocked back. I punched him in his eye and his eyes closed so fast. I kicked him and his knees collapsed. He stuck out his arm to defend himself, to hit me back, but I dodged and laughed so loud and so full. I was so full. He opened his eyes and grabbed a rock from the ground and threw it at my face. Pain lept from my head to my whole body and I felt like I was alive. I punched him again, and so so hard, and I felt his body relax as he passed out in my hands. I was holding him up by his t-shirt. It was so ugly. It was just so ugly. I ripped it off of him, and tore it to shreds, and kicked the pieces into a bush. Look at his body, naked, he was so skinny. I punched him in the chest and I kicked him in the ribs and I twisted his arm. I kept punching and punching and I felt my muscles all relax. My heartrate calmed and my brain swelled back up to normal size. It was over.

The minute I arrived I knew something was wrong. There were bodies on bodies on bodies, all of them touching, bashing against each other or swaying in unison. There was a man with a microphone who appeared to be rapping, but the movements of his lips didn’t nearly match the sound being blasted through the speakers. And people were just jumping, independent of the beat, as if jumping were a completely separate activity to dancing. I was feeling angry and almost clever, like whatever I was about to do was too intelligent for anyone else to understand. I work alone, spoken in a low and powerful voice, played on repeat in my head. Work on what?, I asked myself. I work alone, came the answer. I wasn’t drunk, in fact, I was dead sober. Just clinically insane, as my friends would say.

“I’m not crazy, I’m just clinically insane!” I yelled aloud, with little conviction, and absolutely nobody heard or cared. Then I just threw my body. I threw my body into the thrash of other bodies, and they mangled it and regurgitated it right back. Back in, back out, back in, back out.

“I’m so clearly not crazy!” I yelled again, and this time someone heard me, and she threw her head back and laughed at the ceiling, and it made me want to die.

So I was talking to this kid outside. He was telling me all his problems, why his life was so sad, etcetera. Then he opened his eyes so damn wide, and he was leaning back a little, so he was right under me, just looking up. Like he was my son or something. And the answer was just so clear, so obvious, it was right in front of his big old eyes.

But no matter how wide he opened them he couldn’t see.

And that was the problem with this kid, that was the problem with everyone, was that they were so stupid they just

Jacob H ’19

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Left Foot, Right Foot Jack D ’21 Scholastic Writing Awards Honorable Mention

It’s sunny. Blazing-hot. Absolutely unbearable. Nobody leaves their houses when it gets this hot. It’s Utah, so everyone is always adequately prepared during the summer for the extreme heat. Not everybody has air conditioning out here, but everyone has large containers of drinkable water stacked up in their kitchens. And fans. Everyone has those little fans that you can buy at ShopRite on sale for two dollars—hand fans, ceiling fans, red fans, blue fans, purple fans.

I take one look back at our old wooden house, covered in bright red dirt from the surrounding desert. I’m on my way to New York for the first time. I’ve been dreaming of the city’s excitement, with its bright lights and tall buildings, since I was a little kid. I’ve been to other cities before here out west— Denver, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, even Phoenix—all of which have tall buildings and are exciting enough. But none of these past trips feels like this one.

New York energy is plain different from Vegas energy.

Vegas crushes people’s dreams. New York is where people go to find their dreams before getting them crushed. Vegas streets are worn, dirty, and tired. New York streets are worn, tired, and just plain different.

My suitcase is packed in our family van, and I won’t see it again until I pick up my four-door Toyota Corolla rental car at JFK Airport. I’ve already been instructed by my mother on the dangers of New York, a place she was able to “escape” from with my father so many years ago. Her brother still lives in the city, and her father and sister’s family have houses in upstate New York. That’s why I need the car. To visit Aunt Rhonda.

I crawl into the passenger seat and glance over at my mother, who is apprehensively wiping off the sweat from her forehead. She hates that I’m doing this. Absolutely hates it. I can tell from the disapproving stare she’s been flashing at me lately whenever I talk about New York City. If it weren’t for my mild-mannered, set-in-his-ways father, I don’t think that she’d ever even let me talk about the place. We know it’s only bad memories for her. But we never talk about that.

As we drive, I try to relax and not listen to my mother’s rant about driving in the city and getting hit by crazy taxi drivers. That’s when the feeling starts. It’s a sink-in-yourstomach, awful sickly feeling. I’m nervous. Perhaps it’s everything my mother said that is now starting to make me second guess my decision. But it is also something more—apprehension. I’ve never gone to a city bigger than Denver. I can see my future embarrassment in the images flashing through my head. I gently close my eyes and try to think about nothing.

I wake up, startled to find my mother banging on the car window. I glance at my watch. It’s already 3:15. Less than an hour from now and I’ll be in the air. I hear honking cars and

Shikira F ’19

loud noises. As I step into Terminal 3 of the Las Vegas Airport, I glance back at my mother. It’s as if her tough love has made me uniquely prepared for this moment. She is back in the van, honking loudly and desperately trying to pull out of the blocked airport departures bay. I take a moment to consider her gruff personality, perfectly juxtaposed with the laidback feeling of the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay Casino hotel visible in the distance behind her.

Delta Airlines Flight 545 is uneventful, for the most part.

We land safely, so that’s all that matters. For a few moments, I try and fail to peer over my seatmates to look out the window, and so I spend the moments until we park at the gate staring at the seatbelt sign above my head. Part of me wants to stay on that Boeing 737 and keep on eating pretzels out of a little bag. Getting up from that seat will be one of the hardest, scariest moments in my life.

Stepping outside for the first time since getting on the plane, I take a breath of fresh air. I listen to the click of the automatic doors behind me, accompanied by a host of other sounds. The combination of babies crying, cars honking, and people shouting beckons me further. This is my place. I start walking towards the car rental, watching my feet closely. My boots, still covered in the bright red desert dirt from my hometown, are visibly different to those of my fellow travelers. New York had become part of me at first sight, but my home will always be my home. I know that my mother felt different about this place, but this moment doesn’t get to be about her. I walk not feeling proud, but feeling satisfied—I am unique. I watch as one foot comes after another—left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot…

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American Ruin Cameron W ’20 Scholastic Writing Awards Honorable Mention

There was one night her father took her to the end of the mountain. They took off together after supper, chasing down the spring light through an old route, weaving in practiced swift motions between branches. The sun came down so fast she couldn’t see a damn thing, not her hand in front of her, not her old man, but she scurried along behind the shuffle of his gait, lurching through the trail with her heart beating fast.

Suddenly, the woods opened and drooled them out into a stiff dirt drop, and he stuck his arm out in front of her and hunkered his chin down over her shoulder, which he never did.

“Lookit, right there.”

She peered long and quietly. It was too dark to see everything at first. Then it came, all at once like a crack of lightning, and for a seizing, shuddering moment she could see the endless horizon, lush and dark and deep, sprawled out and winding towards the west, until the last light’s cinders blinked it all away.

Cameron G ’19

“What I goddam tell you, the sun’s already gone. Who taught you, walkin so slow?”

She muttered an apology, and papa tisked and took her arm, pulling her back into the trail and towards home.

She was 17 and she was two-hundred ten pounds, five feet four inches when she had her babies, their daddy appearing to her only as a foggy memory, not too handsome, but burly, and with a voice that dropped misty and low. It was boy twins, but not identical, just regular, but with the same blue eyes. It was 1995 and she figured she’d get a house out near Georgia, take her sons and find a job and wait for the century to be over.

She got a job tidying up a warehouse electronics store, where all they sold was nonsense, and she made decent money there, and made a friend out of Bo, who would walk by and give her some cheap advice on how to work a broom, ‘you want your hands together’, and she’d laugh with him because he wasn’t easily embarrassed, and everything worked out.

Her mama called her up on the phone around ‘98, called her some venomous word, laid into her with that tiny antebellum voice.

“Ten years, I been prayin for you every night, look at the good it done you. You don’t have no sense.”

She would pause and wait, and then go in at her again harder, swiping at a different vein.

“Wouldn’t fit in no white dress anyhow. I said you a hog with no sense. You use up everythin and throw it away,” she hissed, “as if I weren’t ever your mama, as if I ever give you reason to be this way.”

She hung up, and when it rang again she took it out of the wall, and she pictured her father in her head, and lay on her side before Stevie sidled up to her and tried to coax her onto her feet.

“Don’t ever leave me, you understand?”

Stevie giggled and pressed his palm to his mother’s face.

She pushed it away and asked again more urgently.

“You understand me?”

His smile dropped off as he tried to comprehend his mistake. His mother relented, swathed herself around him, wanting to make a good memory, squeezing her face tight and etching down the way his little blonde hairs fell and the look of the room. But his brother made a noise from the front yard and then his feet were kicking again, and he buckled under and out of mama’s arms and scampered out to the grass.

She wouldn’t have believed it if it weren’t on two-hundred screens not five feet from her face, New York knelt and then blew away with the fall gale, and there was something, and there wasn’t. She almost heard crying, looked around expectantly, but it was the same lazy bustle, and the television held

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attention 10 seconds at a time as they stopped and watched, got their fill and carried on. It had been a card trick.

She had the first vision that very same week. It was so clear it nearly had her yell out, and when she came to she was already on her feet and shaking and sweating, and she knew it would come to pass.

She only ever told one soul, the checkout girl, an animated image with long hair and a swinging Louisiana accent, who asked her why she had to get “all them stuff.”

“You a Christian?”

“Yes mam, and so was my daddy and mama too. And so is my husband.”

“You needa get the hell outta here. I ain’t jokin you.”

The checkout girl looked at her in an unfazed way and then leaned back and looked over her shoulder at the window.

“What’s the matter?”

“Devil’s comin to Carolina and he gonna be here. Donno when but I know how, with fire.”

Two sluggish blue vested workers carried it all into her trunk alongside her, and she made them vow to deliver the rest to her door within the week, and they said “yes mam” to get her on her way.

Metal sheets, a nail gun, two shovels, and she got to work, and after every shift at the store she worked at the ground, gnawing at the bones of the old tomato garden out back. The blisters on her hand popped and healed over, and in a few months she was the soil’s apostle, and got a good six inches down with every day.

It was dull work, and once in a while she would slow down and stop for a few weeks, and she’d bashfully put the shovel and the steel under a tarp out back and get some sleep in the afternoons. But then the red waste would take another great lunge towards her again and sober her up, and she’d snap dutifully back into her senses.

It was almost indescribable, a cussing shaft of foul color and hatred, sprinting singularly and in one direction only, crimson and wide. It overtook the bush and the rivers and the hills and dales and left nothing behind it. She didn’t tell her children about it, she never could; it already scared her half to death herself. But the devil would reach the west coast before it would her family.

When Stevie was 12 years old he made a run for it. A note, in his illegible lowercase, was left neatly on his bedside and he was disappeared.

Local law, a team of 3 thin-haired men, tired and paunched, spent a listless week with their “hands down their pants,” she reckoned, and they couldn’t find a trace of him.

The state police knocked on her door loud and with authority, and she let them in, and they asked if she minded if they saw his note.

The foremost trooper looked it over as long as he could.

“Jesus,” he said. “He know how to goddamn read an write?” he spat, turning it over a few final times before he jutted it back at her and she folded it up. She knew it started “momma” and ended “stevie” but everything in the middle

Shikira F ’19

had been driveled out in a hurry and was meaningless.

Hayden sat by them and batted at his tears with his hands, stammering suggestions to a younger man with tired eyes and a thousand mile stare.

“I don’t know where he could’ve gone off to,” she said, a cigarette filling in every wordless breath. “We don’t got no family outside here.”

The officer still had his sunglasses on, bit his lip and ushered her into the other room.

He sat her down and did the same. “I want you to think about what I’m gonna ask you. I want you to give it a lot of thought and then I want you to answer me.”

She nodded.

“Why’d your kid run off?”

She paused a long time, like he asked, searched for the answer but nothing came up. She sniveled hard and said as much.

He loosed a massive sigh and dragged his chair closer.

“Kids that age don’t run off for nothin. It just don’t happen, some kid wanna be Tarzan, goes up into the trees. It don’t happen. So what you do, make him go?”

She shook, and felt her stomach swimming and turning. It only felt like a minute but evidently not, as the trooper got to his feet and slipped on a coat.

“Tell you what, we’ll ask him when we find him,” he said, marching out and off, driving away and out of sight.

She retreated back into herself, sharp and reflexively, and

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for a week or so she mourned in her own, tearless way. She picked out a little shirt and held it soft and gentle.

Stevie’d took a few toys and walked out one morning, maybe as a bluff, maybe because of some hot headed anger, maybe something more innate, but he never came back, and they found no trace. A conciliatory trooper showed up a few more times, the school printed out fliers and the news came around and talked to the women in town with apartments, but after a short spell everybody was willing to let it be a tragedy and keep moving. Everything turned away from her, all at once. Her pleas for answers became an impoliteness, and nods of pity became glares of decisive judgment. Apparently there was nothing to be done. He’d snuck away somehow into the summer like an apparition, and nothing would ever be found of him, and to ask for him back was to be weak and hysterical.

What was left would be there and would remain. Crayons, some knocked over, some untouched in the box, others with no paper casing, worn down to soot, pillow half out of the case, soiled shorts protruding shamefully out from under the mattress, would be there until the fire took the house.

“You ever touch his bed,” she once said to Hayden, “I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you.”

So Hayden moved out of the room they’d shared and slept on the couch, and had a crick in his neck for a while.

She filled in the screech of the visions and the silence of the house with her shovel, out back, still hitting the ground. She still saw it all, and in her dreams she would still die from the heat, the crack and the swerve of it, but now it was so bright it didn’t have a color, and it moved faster somehow, in galloping strides. She didn’t know how to cut up the metal right, and when she fired the nail gun into the dirt it always stuck for a minute and crumbled out, but she kept digging, because she knew if she put enough backbone into it, it’d be enough.

She got a letter from the principal saying Hayden hadn’t been to school in months. He’d have to repeat the grade and he’d have to come in over the summer. She’d been suspecting as such for a while, but having the proof incensed a hateful excitement in her, and she sat herself down in the living room and waited for him.

Hayden crept in at a noontime hour, not unusual, slithering through the door and onto the couch, saying “hi ma,” remote already in his hand and the TV flitting through pictures.

She went off like a gun, firing everything she could think of at him, and he took it, looking into the TV screen. She looked at him close and prodded at his nerves.

“Don’t holler at me,” he breathed.

“You oughta talk louder boy, I can’t hear your stinkin ass.”

“Don’t holler at me!” He yelled it, and he shot up to his feet, and for the first time his mama saw the man in him, and saw how he was taller, and maybe some scruff around his chin. He was a bull, right in her face, huffing and skinny and louder than she was.

“What in the hell you say, Hayden?”

He hit her nose hard, and she stumbled and fell back without a word. Footsteps rose up into the ceiling and were punctuated by the bedroom door. She was turned to stone, and

with her trembling hands she felt the click in her right wrist.

The skitters of broken things shook above her for hours, and she got on with fixing dinner in tantrums of bursting manic activity and slow sedated valleys. They spoke effortlessly that night around the table, like any other two would, and ate their Hamburger Helper and went to bed on the early side, and she had sad and stinging dreams about her two babies, lost and gone.

“Bo, I been here lord knows how long.”

“I understand the situation. I’m real sorry. It’s just how it is.

Like I say, we gonna drop you a line we need more work done here. Nobody’s sayin you didn’t do no good work.”

It all finally undid her, and her voice broke to pieces as she dropped her eyes to the floor and sniveled. It was the only job she’d ever had, taken from her by her only friend, slipped out of reach and lost. It always happened that way, percussively, again and again until her foolishness would finally kill her.

“I dunno what anything is,” she croaked, kneading away at her cheeks.

Bo’s breathing picked up its pace and his face furrowed into itself.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

Now she wailed in peals of thunder. Bo hesitated for a few beats before he reached across the desk and gave a doggish pat to her shoulder, and she swatted him away and spun out the door for good.

That night she saw her mother, one more time, drove all the way up to Raleigh in a nighttime fit of wrath to let her know what was what, and she got there and nearly put a fist through the door in the early morning. A carcass towed the door open, her cheeks sagging and her eyes pushed inside her skull. And when she opened her mouth she was softer, and sadder.

Slinking back into her car, she boiled in all that would be left unspoken, rage that would hang and sway in the air, forever useless and unjustified.

The rain filled the hole with dirt and the moss grew over the scar on the earth like a wartime trench, and the shovel, worn down to a spade, was cast in a deep grave. Hayden struck out and got a job and rang every so often. Things went on and stayed that way.

She sat by the window and looked out towards the road, watching, her hands idle and in her lap, calloused and smooth, fingerprints worn down and lost. She didn’t know if it’d even meant anything at all in the first place. But she refused to fight for anybody, to work in it, all of it, utterly and absolutely, and resolved to wait for God or the devil to curl themselves over and come down on her.

Nearly all her life a tide of grief would every so often snatch her by the throat, clenching and staggering, heaving and rasping, and if it was bad enough it would roll her to the ground, red faced and blind and strangled to silence. But every so often she heard a little boy’s voice echo down from some distant summit, shaking out over the plains; she would pull the light off and shut her eyes to the occasional sweet dream, and she kept herself alive.

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My Mess Sean W ’19 Dear Reader, It is likely that you are looking at my poem and have no idea how to read it, so I have come to help! The first part is the original poem, written in the most simple commands of the programming language “C”. The second part is what the computer would print if the program were to run and is what I envision the poem to be. Please try to read the first part first and then read the second part if you need help understanding. To read the first part of the poem, read “str title = “my,,, mess”;”, which states that the title of the poem is “my,,, mess”. Then, read everything after “me,,,\n In\n visible” treating each “\n” as moving the poem down to the next line. __________________________ #include <stdio.h> str title = “my,,, mess”; int main() { printf(“%s \n \n \n me,,,\n In\n visible \n sileNt \n \n \n onEs \n and \n zEros \n Destroy eacH othEr \n \n \n me,,, \n Lying \n traPPed \n between \n \n \n oNEs \n cry out \n zEroes \n shout about \n \n \n constant \n warfare \n never-enDing \n battlefield \n \n \n thought \n we could \n come \n together \n \n \n i,,, \n was \n clearly \n wrong \n \n \n attendance! \n listening? \n gone \n understanding? \n not present today \n peace? \n absent as always \n community? \n late; will come fourth period if lucky \n healing? \n out sick for the next few months \n love? \n syntax_error \n string: “love” is undefined \n humanity? \n Please, tell me that humanity came to school today. I really want to see them.”, title); return 0;

my,,, mess

me,,, In visible sileNt

onEs and zEros Destroy eacH othEr

Jacob H ’19

clEarly wrong

me,,, Lying traPPed between

ones cry out zeroes shout about

constant warfare never-ending battLEfield

thought we could come together

i,,, wAS

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attendance! listening? gone understanding? not present today peace? absent as always community? late; will come fourth period if lucky healing? out sick for the next few months love? syntax_error string_“love”_is_undefined humanity? please, tell me that humanity came to school today. i really want to see them.

The Perfect Summertime Yesterday Otto M ’20 Scholastic Writing Awards Honorable Mention

Suppose?

That’s what it was, A wasted summer’s day, Half-full in its taunting, So loving in its play, That struck me In my work so weary, Took me by And tucked me dear, A willow in the rough, Massed and yet so clear.

Keith H ’19

Untitled Chelsea P ’21 Laying on the warm green grass Thinking Just thinking Reading my book under the sun Plugged into my headphones with the music that goes A thump distracts and I look up There’s one, two, three, five Kids Staring Smiling Two of them have a football Three of them run around me And they stare At me I say hello and they smile and run Young children, about the age of four and five Loving and care free Screaming and playing on the grass A moving image of adolescence Wishing nothing more than for the sun to keep shining As bright as their love and youth Sitting on the warm green grass I stare and smile and a tear falls.

My aspirations hung at noon, A vivid red or blue, Buried like a blossom, Waiting for a cue To pierce the evening like a sharp C after a C, And bring to me the dissonance, Which helps take me to sleep.

I waited there a wild Willow in the field, Living through my hopes like dandelion yield, Puffing from the smoke, Way up in the high, Tickled pink as if My fate would pass me by.

The goings of the come-and-go Went a while more, Till twilight busted down the roof, (I entered through the door), To watch my vivid reds or blues, As I had once lived before.

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Books and Daughters Claire B ’21 I see beauty in my daughter every day. I see her in the mornings with those drooping eyelids, frizzy hair, and pajama pants slightly turned to the right. I greet her with a simple phrase, and she returns the act, but usually with a moan and a grunt. I love her smile and the way she sings the song of laughter when hearing a joke.

Her swirled hair glistens red in the sun, but dark brown under the light of the dining room.

teach her the gifts from reading, which led me over the summer to give her a book I thought she would love.

She asked why it was long and why I thought she’d want to read five hundred pages. I explained that books, no matter the length, are worth reading. More paper and ink does not mean the author’s story is any less important. She mumbled something, took the book, and said she would read it when she had the chance. But over the weeks, I became impatient and nudged her to read it. She procrastinated and comforted me with her words by telling me she had not finished the books on her personal summer reading list.

When I walk far ahead, her cheeks fly to her eyes and her arms swing to the sun as she skips towards me. Her lips are full and plump but she often hides them with her teeth and hands. Her face scrunches like an elastic band when she is frustrated, and my inability to stop smiling and chuckling only annoys her more.

The warm weather was whisked away and the school year began, but the book remained on the desk. I checked the book’s location whenever I was in her room gathering laundry or borrowing a pen and noticed it had been inching around the furniture in random directions. I sensed my daughter’s lack of desire for the book and believed she would never open to it to the first page. But I chose to not discuss the presence of the unwanted book with her as the beauty in these small movements and efforts to place it in the original position fascinated me.

I saw something in her I had never witnessed before.

The dark and malicious Scylla-like creature that inhabited her soul and mind crept out of its hiding. Its shadow filled her eyes, face, and hands as she strained every muscle in her body. Her pupils shrank to a dot, her arms flung around her body carelessly, and her hair seemed to flatten like a balloon.

I have always been fond of reading and appreciated literature, but my daughter hasn’t. She used to pout and complain when I forced her to read. But I wanted to

My daughter told me she had begun reading the book I have longed for her to begin a few days ago. It did not

Hannah S ’19

11

continue to stay on the desk but attached to her hands, eyes, and mind. She flipped through the first one hundred pages in a week but did not forget to complain about the four hundred pages that remained.

The book and my daughter’s soul were lifeless and forgotten, and nothing more.

The book is not harmful. It contains no slurs, discrimination, or violence. It is a book about a beautiful girl and her life. The character lives happily and enjoys reliving her story again whenever someone is ready to listen. But when my daughter tortured the book, the girl was crushed between the curling pages and forced to stop telling her story. It has not moved from the floor, and the girl patiently waits and hopes my daughter will soon pick it up, straighten the pages, and finish reading the book. But for now, the girl waits on the floor stuck in time between her beginning and her first obstacle.

When working in the basement, I heard something from the room directly above me. The noises were not thumps or thuds, but mumbles and long, staggered tones. Maybe my daughter is talking to herself. No matter what I thought the noises were, I concluded she was safe. But as the sounds became louder, yet still unclear, I heard a sudden change from a low to a high tone.

There was a long period of silence before an unexpected scream startled me, and I began to briskly move up the stairs telling myself she was not hurt. The shouting continued as I followed the sounds and walked to my daughter’s bedroom. I opened the door and saw her hands quickly push the book close to her face. It pressed into the tip of her nose and the book began to shake in her hands. Her dark, wet eyes stared at it. Her trembling face cried as she yelled and tightened her clasp on the book. She stood from her chair as the book was released from her dripping face, and the book was thrown against the wall with a strength I had never seen before.

✪ ✪ ✪ I noticed when getting my daughter’s laundry that the book had moved back to the desk, but was now in a corner. I flipped to the marked page, which had not changed since the last time I picked it up. As I gently pressed my fingers against the creases, questions and thoughts crowded my head. Could I have saved her from the creature? I should have stopped the wicked thing before it took over her soul, that beautiful, radiant soul. I didn’t protect her, the one person I was meant to care for.

The five-hundred pages smashed onto the concrete and slid to the floor. I watched the pages curl underneath each other and fold in half. My daughter stopped yelling and heavily gasped for air. She turned her head towards me and showed me her grey eyes, clamped fists, and structured face. That is not my beautiful daughter. I stepped away from the door frame and walked away so as not to face the monster. I heard no movement from her room for the remainder of the night. She stood staring at the tortured book as her beautiful colors dimmed into a black-and-white figure.

All the energy and life in her spirit was pushed out.

How can I bring her back? My mind only wanted silence, but it could not forbid the nasty thoughts from forming. I wanted my daughter to return. I wanted the book gone, so I picked it up and walked downstairs to the fireplace. But I stopped on the last step. Admiring the delicately written name of the owner on the cover, my body turned in the opposite direction of the fireplace and guided me to the desk. I opened the bottom drawer and hid the book under envelopes and bills. I left it in the wooden drawer to rest forever, hoping it would stay there as I waited for a resurrection to ensue.

Meg B ’19

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Ode to a Doge Jacob B ’19

my naem is dog hav special trik i sniff buzz boyes tell if dey sicc my hoom make me protectiv soot so angrey flies cant sting my snoot i love my hoom he so grate but wen i zoom he make me wait and when i sniff i wont get stung i walk my way and hang my tongue my naem is dog i have cool soot it keep me safe am sniff recruit

Wordflirt 2019 The Editorial Board thanks each of the students whose writing and art appears in this publication and is grateful to the English and Visual Arts faculty for their many contributions to this endeavor: Paul Beekmeyer Mark Buenzle Brian Chu Elizabeth Deull Elizabeth Heck Ellen Kahan Jean Kim Sarah Levy Gregg Martin Rachel Mazor Caleb Miller Nurit Newman

Janine S ’19

Guided by the Quaker belief that there is a Divine Light in everyone, Brooklyn Friends School cultivates an intellectually ambitious and diverse community that celebrates each individual’s gifts. We challenge our students to value and embrace difference as they develop critical thinking skills and apply their knowledge and intelligence both in and out of the classroom. In this rich learning environment, we inspire all members of our community to voice their convictions, to discover and pursue their passions, and to seek truth. Our graduates are compassionate, curious, and confident global citizens who let their lives speak in the spirit of leadership and service.

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