Still Waters, Spring 2023

Still Waters A BROOKS SCHOOL LITERARY MAGAZINE

VOL V, ISSUE I

Still Waters A BROOKS SCHOOL LITERARY MAGAZINE VOL V, ISSUE I

EDITORS

Dean Charpentier, English Department Chair Ximing Gong '23

DESIGNER

Jasmine Shi '24

PUBLICATIONS

Jennifer O'Neill, Director of Digital Communications

COVER IMAGE Quinn Mullaney '23

Inner Page Images Quinn Mullaney '23 Jiyu Park '25 Jasmine Shi '24

Still Waters is committed to publishing original, exciting material from a diverse collection of Brooks student writers.

While we actively pursue short fiction, poetry, and memoir, we will consider any form of writing submitted.

There are no restrictions on word count, and authors may submit multiple submissions at a time.

I often recall these words when I am writing, and I think to myself, It’s true.

There aren’t any new words.

Our job is to give new meanings and special overtones to absolutely ordinary words.

——Haruki Murakami

CONTENTS 1 PROLOGUE

SPRING WINDS TOUCH CALM SHORES 3

The Blue | Park Clamor and Clang | Callahan Close Silence | Callahan Guiding Light | Callahan Spring Sprung | Chung First words | Chung Lake | Sjostrom

MAY THE HEART SOAR HIGH 23

Wounded | Park Sunset | Park LoVE | Salhanick If I were to step out | Joyce What it means to love | Joyce Tangled | Dobbins If I | Duckworth Feeling Small | Marks The Girls | Osafo Grant Wilted | Nicholson Fountain Pen | Chung Contrition | Navsaria

On Writing | Navsaria

10 AND BREATHES INTO THE NIGHT

12:27 | Duckworth Insomnia | Park Two Whole Thoughts | Salhanick Sleep | Nicholson Idiot | McCarthy Do | McCarthy Parent Poem | McCarthy Sometimes a Woman Is an Island | Duckworth Honey Do List | Duckworth Eternity | Otieno

33 AND CATCH US IN THE RYE

Wonders | Park Hidden | Dobbins Oranges | Dobbins Humans | Fitzgerald Alone | Hiltz The Jacket | Herlihy Perspective | McCarthy Faceless | Eggleston The Elephant in a Pink Tutu | Shi

PROLOGUE

SHALINI NAVSARIA

ON WRITING One of the many things Brooks has given me is writing. Not writing in the way you think of it— for assignments, or a journal entry, or writing down notes. I'm talking about writing without a prompt, for the sake of it, and often for the sake of myself. Yes, I willingly take History Capstone, and yes, I've always found essays to be my strong suit, but my real connection with writing came through a less structured form.

It all really started with the book On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong. It's been my favorite since I read it sophomore year, and I think I've recommended it to pretty much everyone I know. It’s well known now, rightfully so, but a couple of years ago the only way I'd have heard of it was through the all school read committee. Those on the committee were meant to read a book from the list to give their opinion on whether it should be the all community read. I chose On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. The rest is history.

The story is written in the form of a letter from the main character, Little Dog, to his mother. It touches on many topics near and dear to my heart, like the immigrant experience, familial trauma, racism, death, navigating relationships as a young person, and most painfully, watching people you love struggle with addiction. All of this was written in a style of writing I'll call pseudo-poetry. As Vuong is a poet turned writer, it was not quite poetry, but not quite prose. His words moved me. Nearly every page of my beat up copy is dogeared. I found a home in his meticulous yet almost effortless lines, and his heart-wrenching yet beautiful words. I’d read a lot as a kid, but this book introduced me to what it meant to see yourself on a page. It was a new kind of familiarity. The book wasn’t chosen for the all community read, which is probably for the better.

But I do encourage any of you, even those who might not relate to any of the experiences I mentioned (especially if you don’t relate) to give it a try. The language itself is a triumph.

My initial love for the book didn’t immediately turn into inspiration. I didn't sit down that night and start to write pages and pages of poetry like I was born to do it. I remember finishing the book at the beach at the beginning of the summer before my junior year. That summer was the best of my life, but junior fall was tough. It was a new kind of struggle. They were probably my worst months at Brooks, for so many reasons that I largely had no control over. I've always had big feelings, and whether they are great ones like empathy, or at my best love or at my worst desperation, they’ve always seemed to have me in a chokehold. That fall I felt like I was walking around with someone’s hands around my neck. It wasn’t until I sat down with myself one night, I don't remember exactly when, and wrote, did that grip loosen.

Brooks School 1

I wrote incoherently at first until phrases started coming together and then lines. I tried to do what I had seen in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. I tried to make my own relief with my pen, something that might be similar to what I found in Vuong’s lines. Somewhere in between a lot of sleepless nights it started looking like poetry. Somewhere in between dozens of filled pages I started actually calling it poetry. It was a new kind of comfort. My writing didn’t heal me, but it gave me the rest and calm I desperately needed to allow time, distance, and strength to get me through.

To this day, I’m only able to write when I'm feeling absolutely terrible, and I'm working on that, I promise. But I've been told it brings a raw quality to my work. Maybe that’s why I felt so vulnerable putting some of it up on a wall in the Bowers room last spring in a poetry exhibit my friend Franklin and I put together. But I did it. I got to read so many great pieces from other fellow Brooksians pieces I could see myself in. I connected with these writers in a way I hadn’t before. It was a new kind of community.

Somewhere between all that, the end of junior year, senior fall, senior fall midterm, getting into college, and everything else in between, writing has gifted me a headspace that I am grateful for. It's a place where I can think things that might seem simple and obvious to some, but are hard to dig out of the overthinking, overly emotional, overly anxious, overall mess of a place my mind can be most of the time. Writing reminded me to take a breath, that I could get through whatever I was ruminating about. I found that being outside could ground me and bring me peace. I could gain new perspectives on my past, and learn new lessons from it. Also, I learned that maybe I didn’t need to take seven steps before the next crack in the road.

Those thoughts then turned into better self understanding, not letting past experiences define me, knowing that I have a lot to offer to myself and those I love. All in all, I've learned that I know beautiful things because of the heaviness I've carried, even though it still lives inside me. I think I can actually give and love so much more because of what I carry. The only other thing that ground me like writing is being outdoors, or on the water. Somehow this winter being at the top of Mount Cardigan, the wind threatening to blow me off the mountain, I felt more like myself than I usually do in the hallways I’ve walked for four years. It was a new kind of peace.

Before I found those things, I’d spent so many years hiding my struggles in a well bound book I never dared to read. I spent so much time not having the capacity to open that book, not being able to really understand where I come from and who I’ve been in the many versions of myself. Now that I write, I can externalize all those experiences and make sense of myself on paper. I understand why I love the things I love, why I do the things and do, and most importantly, why and how I think and process things. It was a new kind of understanding.

Since then, I’ve become a well-read, dogeared version of myself that I’ll never grow tired of reading.

The good news is that I’ll get to build on this version of myself beyond Brooks. Because I’ve made it a priority, I trust that I’ll be able to explore writing, being outdoors, and whatever else I discover that grounds me.

Looking at the month of milestones stretching out ahead of me, I’m sure there'll be a lot of big feelings and probably some tears shed. It’ll be a new kind of sadness. A ready to move on but leaving familiar people and places behind kind of complicated I’ll no doubt spend a few nights writing about. But there’s a lot to look forward to, and I bet I’ll get a few good poems from the experience.

2

Still Waters

The Blue

By Daniel Park sunlight falls to the sea then escapes drenched in blue fleeing from the depths it paints the sky with brushstrokes clean and wide I revel in the blue I let it flood my heart the sunlight dyes that too and the ocean stolen by the sunlight carried to my heart washes me out

Clamor and Clang

by Casey Callahan Amidst the city's clamor and clang, A humble streetlamp's gangly frame, Its metal limbs stretched up so high, Against the canvas of the sky.

But within its glowing orb so bright, A magic that transcends the night, Illuminating paths once dim and drear, Guiding the lost, the brave, the dear.

And though it's just a fixture on the street, Its light brings hope to all it meets, Transforming the mundane to the sublime, An everyday object, elevated in time.

Still Waters

4

Close Silence

by Casey Callahan The music flowed through both ears Meeting itself at the center of my brain.

The grass around me cushioned my feet, a field of pillows.

I was close.

The wild, delicate body of mother nature blossomed.

I waited patiently, For my arrival.

The wind blew across my body, Traveled through my mind, And along my soul.

Soft blankets surrounded my entirety.

I was close.

Alone, the bounds that keep me to this earth loosened.

Patiently, I awaited A grand welcome for my arrival.

I sat beneath the willow tree, The shade protecting me from the cool sun.

I basked in it, The thermometer of life changed just for me.

I was close.

I was aware of the thoughts leaving me, I welcomed the silence.

Brooks School 5

Guiding Light

by Casey Callahan On one side, the soul wanders Through fields of lavender and thyme, Where the sun kisses the earth tenderly And the breeze whispers a gentle rhyme.

The heart follows, light as a feather, In this world of beauty and grace, Where worries fade, and joy is forever And time is but a fleeting trace.

Yet the other side, a different path—where The soul may tread in darkness and strife, Where shadows loom and fears amass, And hope seems but a distant life.

But know, dear soul, wherever you roam, There is a light that shines within, A guiding star that leads you home Through joy or sorrow, thick or thin.

6 Still Waters

Spring Sprung

By Noella Chung As the earth turns towards the sun soundless, soundless cracks in the dry bark open and nothing but color a green so vivid it seems imaginary pricks the air I think while walking to class something blossoms inside me also soundless but colorful and I do something completely useless like sing a song that I don’t know the words to and feel happy

Brooks School 7

First Words

by Noella Chung There is no black and white.

Writing a poem for the first time is like finding your voice after the love of your life walks by and leaves you with your heart freaking out like a tiny bird caught in your hands.

There is no right or wrong.

Writing a poem for the first time is like the bird struggling free of your hands and taking off into the wind and you watch for a while wishing it would come back but it soars high above and refuses to ever settle.

8 Still Waters

The Lake

by Kerr Sjostrom The smell of the lake invites me as I first see the water that was hidden behind the wall of pine trees, protecting me from the cold wind.

Now content, I sit and watch the world.

The waves roll slow onto the shore.

In the distance, yelling from crew, mixed with the soft groan of the tenders.

First chaotic and stressful, then relaxing, a part of the lake.

The wind blows brisk, its cool air finds its way through the trees.

It's impossible to hide, like its tracking me— there is only my coat.

Above, the pines sway, one with the wind.

The rustling of the branches calms me until the wind grows too strong.

A branch snaps and falls swift to the ground.

Brooks School 9

The sun creeps closer to the horizon, changing his color the lower he gets, changing everything else, too.

The clouds begin to change, then the trees.

And before you know it, he is gone, leaving to let someone else call the sky their own.

Someone very different, a different look, their white light soon lighting the trees, shimmering back from the lake to my face, ending the day but only just starting the night.

“Ya know, you could have just left us alone,

12:27

by Abbie Duckworth Flick Flick Fwoosh I lifted the dimly lit lighter to the cigarette clenched in my teeth. The end burned red in the reflection of the dark windows as I inhaled. I extinguished my lighter. I didn’t want to do it, but I had to. I had to, to keep everything I had built. The TV illuminated my face as I took another long drag from my cigarette. Old reruns of Friends were playing. I chuckled at the episode, “The One Where Everyone Finds Out”. That's what it’ll be like when she wakes up and walks down those stairs.

I sluggishly pushed myself off the couch and meandered to the kitchen. The analog clock above the oven read 12:27. I let my cigarette hang loosely from my lips as I rummaged through the pantry. What was I even looking for? I pulled out a half-empty box of Cheez-Its and grabbed a handful. Carrying the box, I slowly walked back to the living room.

“God, why’d you have to make this soooo fuckin’ difficult?” I squatted down next to her.

and you could’ve gone off in your life.”

I extinguished my dying cigarette on the glass coffee table and flopped back down onto the couch. I shoved a handful of Cheez-Its into my mouth. Joey sat in his red sweater frantically pointing between Monica and Chandler, eyes wide. I looked away and lit another cigarette.

I sat there a while looking up at the dark plaster ceiling, TV droning in the background, not sure what to do next. How do I hide everything I’ve done? Do I really want her to come down those stairs and stare wide-eyed between me and what I have done? No, I don’t want that. She would hate me, they had gotten too close.

I set the box on the coffee table and I pushed myself off the couch for the final time. I climbed the stairs to the upper level, where she was. I walked into our room. She was always a heavy sleeper, just more than usual now. She’d been coming home late.

“Damn.”

I set my still-burning cigarette in an ashtray on the dresser. I removed my dirty, stained clothes and tossed them into the corner of the bedroom. When had I gotten so messy?

Brooks School 11

I pulled on sweatpants and a tank top. I left my cigarette on the ashtray to burn out on its own. I took a long inhale of the room, letting the bitter smoke fill my nose.

“You’ll understand, soon enough.”

I grabbed my earbuds, the ones with wires, it made her so mad I never wanted to waste my money on AirPods. I put on “Can’t Take My Eyes off You” by Morten Harket. I walked down the stairs, stepping over broken lamps and seemingly sleeping eyes, right out the door.

Under the streetlight in front of our house, I stopped. The sharp concrete under my bare feet stung. I looked up at the blinding white bulb, letting Harket croon in my ear about the love of his life. I turned and began walking down our little suburban street. I lit the last cigarette in my pack.

12 Still Waters

Insomnia

by Daniel Park Looking away from the screen at 2 AM, Back bent, shrimp-like, eyes red, strained, yearning.

A moment of solace as I look upon a cityscape.

Cars, gleaming under light like beetles with beaming eyes, untethered by traffic, carrying businessmen, taxi drivers, late-shift workers back to cold rice, a lonely table, everyone else asleep.

Giant smiling faces look down upon the city from their LED cages, down into the emptiness, useless and powerless in the silence.

Buildings like giants in the gloom, sitting motionless and soulless, their windows a thousand dead, unfocused pupils staring out of stainless steel faces.

The moon creeps over all of this, duller in comparison to the streetlights, the billboards, the car’s beams, the useless shining windows, and sulking from its replacement or our betrayal, it hides behind a cloud.

Brooks School 13

Two Whole Thoughts

by Evan Salhanick Sometimes life is like listening to the electric buzz of the microwave. You look through the little window and see something rotating ‘round and ‘round on that little glass plate. As you wait for life to heat up. To me, it always feels like it's never in the same place after each rotation of that little glass plate. There's always that little bit of a slide.

Maruchan Instant Chicken ramen takes two minutes to cook in the bombed-out old microwave shells we still abuse. It feels like forever though, at 2:00 AM some Wednesday night in April.

Fortunately, there are always two whole thoughts you can have at that time of night:

I sit, buzzing, beside the bombed-out humming microwave. It’s 2 AM again and my head lists to one side. and/or

Sometimes people look like the land they come from. Arizona is a charismatic vietnam vet with a holy (or Hole-ey) liver and a great gray beard and a diminutive stature.

14

Still Waters

Sleep

by Liz Nicholson Do you ever have a night where you can’t seem to fall asleep? I stopped going to the doctor about it two years ago, after no pills or prescriptions remained for me to try. The fact that I have been on prescription medications for this should eliminate the thought in your head that maybe you should

try melatonin.

I lay in bed until midnight, which is usually the point where I get lonely. This is where the night begins. I walk to my fridge and look for a snack, and usually, seeing nothing I want, I close it. I open my cabinets and I find nothing that doesn’t require boiling for ten minutes, which was not something I was willing to do. I tell myself to go to the store, or that I will go to the store, but I can never remember where it is. I can’t remember where my wallet is. I can’t remember where I parked my car or even where I left my keys.

You wonder when you can’t remember things if they even existed in the first place.

At 1:23 AM I started screaming. The time when I scream varies. My mouth opens and my body clenches, hot tears darting down my face. The rest of the room remains quiet. No one can hear me, but I hope something, someone, can feel me trying to tell them I’m trapped.

I look out the window at the dark, empty street below me at 2:54 AM. Sometimes I look for people passing by, business men stumbling home from the bars, groups of friends talking and laughing, flaunting their connections they know I once had but lost.

4:18 AM is the point where I start to feel tired, like if I closed my eyes I would drift to sleep right then. It gets more and more difficult to keep my bloodshot, heavy eyes open. This is when I start rifling through my cabinets for whichever orange bottle is screaming at me the loudest. I crush the white capsules of freedom with the back of my spoon, scoop them up, and let them melt into a syrup, so easy to capture with my needle. I draw the end of the syringe back, catching as much as I can with my shaking hand.

Brooks School 15

It’s funny how easily they’ll give stuff to you. Someone who doesn’t sleep is obviously in pain, right?

Someone who can’t fall asleep needs to be put to sleep—they get me.

My veins run cold, so cold I become numb. I try to force my eyes open but they remain shut. I sway around and soon enough the grip from my hands slips from the sides of the sink and I crash to the tile floor and it feels like a trampoline as my body bounces off the floor and floats.

Now I’m sleeping.

16 Still Waters

Idiot

Do

by Jackson Conners-McCarthy

by Jackson Conners-McCarthy

I am just another idiot

I despise the sound

in a world filled to the brim with idiots

of my annoying old voice

i could never hope

yet I have to speak—

to find answers to my questions i could never hope

Otherwise, I’d be

to understand these answers

so alone and trapped upstairs;

if they ever came

a waste of breath. I—

their complete nature i know nothing is certain

cut off all my hair—

i know nothing for certain

The weight of the brown mess was

i sit in a plastic chair

suffocating me.

staring at a laptop full of my stupid words

It got in the way

that anyone can speak

of this sturdy tree’s growth, I—

that everyone can think

was seeking sunlight.

under fluorescent lighting artificial and fragile

Just so tired of rain,

words words and more words

of the stiffness in my spine,

reinforcing what is known

I need to do.

i’m so angry i’m angry at the roof

Tired of being tired—

of my disquiet mind

I no longer just exist,

this feeling chases me

I really do.

around these long hallways littered with rooms more space to be an idiot

Brooks School 17

Parent Poem

by Jackson Conners-McCarthy Before my child-like eyesight declined, I could clearly see the man you had maybe seen in the mirror, the hero in your brittle mind’s fictional story.

I was certain that man existed— but now I question existence itself, in its confusing entirety.

When my older eyes couldn't fixate on the man in the mirror any longer, they strayed to the man staring forward, stuck in a vacuum, a delusion, a conceptualized life.

Not too far from what was, was what could be, and it was less painful for the man locked in his trance.

You attempted a murder in retaliation, you tried to kill a man I was fond of when I stumbled upon your true nature.

This dimension was far too harsh for your fragility, I envied those with the power to forgive, but I’ll shamefully admit I was far too weak.

You’re homicidal, and for that I had wished you forever gone.

I find myself finally and peacefully accepting your disappearance.

They can even ask when their heart desires it, and I’ll reluctantly but truthfully respond, I’m fine.

At last the questions your absence raised are fossilized,

18 Still Waters

maybe recovered later—truthfully I’ll excavate.

I’ll search through computer simulations, perhaps they’ll construct my answer.

But the technology never ceases to advance, and these machines become outdated every second.

Truthfully, I might need these elusive answers one day so I can tuck you away in my memories finally.

But until that day I believe I am fine until I am no longer capable.

Until that day when I receive my last reminder I’m finite.

Brooks School 19

Sometimes a Woman Is An Island

by Abbie Duckworth It was a small house. It was modest and perfect—a small kitchen with a small sink and small cabinets. A small living room with one cabriole sofa with a small coffee table, covered in rings of stains.

Pans hung from a pot rack over the old stove. It always smelled like something had been freshly baked in the kitchen. A kettle sat on a burner, ready to boil at any moment.

The house stood alone. The wind blowing by made trees shake, mountains whistle, and the windows rattle. The air carried a sharp zing of ozone that stung the nose and made the eyes water.

She sat on her own, gently rocking in her rocking chair, looking at the ocean from her porch. The clouds made a daunting shadow over the calm waters. She didn’t mind. It was the end anyway.

She held her knitting in her lap, giving a moment to let her old hands rest. The grass waved slowly in the oncoming breeze. She tucked her blanket a little closer.

The world crackled around her as it crept closer and closer, but it would never reach her. She sat and enjoyed the sun glimmering against those dark clouds.

Slipping under was the easiest part, but the unknowing of where you were going overtook her mind. Would there be the white light or a pull beneath you? She didn’t know, so she sat.

But it would never reach her. He would never reach her. He would have to cross that sweet stretch of ocean to get to her. She came here to escape and so she did, she escaped everything.

He would have to meet her here.

20 Still Waters

Honey Do List

by Abbie Duckworth

Brooks School 21

Eternity

by Mollet Otieno I like to look ahead not behind.

I don’t like to look back at the same person who writes these songs of sober melodies songs like the birds whistling as they start their day just like they did yesterday and the day before yesterday, just as they will tomorrow and perhaps what feels like the rest of eternity.

22 Still Waters

Wounded

Sunset

by Daniel Park

by Daniel Park

The butterfly with

Sometimes, every once in a while,

one remaining vivid wing

I look to the sky and realize that

stumbles through the dirt.

it’s dark outside, the sun sunk below the trees and the stars squinting now,

Before, it perched

peeking out of daylight’s cover.

atop a rose above the filth

The trees are shadows, the hills shadows that are darker still.

flaunting its wings

The last vestiges of a sinking sun

beautiful blue and black.

paint the belly of the sky an orange hue.

Only one remains.

If I had looked away sooner, Antennae trembling,

I would have seen

legs skittering,

the still-sinking, not sunk sun,

it scurries

the deep pink, orange, yellow, and the hills and trees, not yet shadowed

until it meets some ants,

but with shadows stretching to cover the

unfriendly,

slopes that reflect the orange with

beady eyes.

snow, a brilliant shine.

I know that I can see the next, but I feel as if I’ve missed something far more significant.

It’s as if the sky is reborn every evening, celebrated by the sinking sun, the squinting stars, and the stretching shadows.

24 Still Waters

LoVE

by Evan Salhanick Halo version Hell over Jello Venison Cello Velvet We dance a halo version of Life.

Orbiting each other as Bent-toe rotating ballerinas.

Cast stones in the sea And you float back to me, Foaming surf as your legs beat rhythmically Salt-stung scars sear me, even shore-bound, And I must cast you away, once more.

Even shorebound, your salt-stung scars sear me I smile wistfully, your salt-stung scars seem so clear.

Brooks School 25

If I Were to Step Out

What it Means to Love

by Kyle Joyce

by Kyle Joyce

Alone leads to loneliness

If you don’t love

like a darkened highway,

then what may come?

like darkness bowing over prison lights

If you do not stumble and crash

on the rippled rich soil that sprouts grass

then how can you love?

below barbed wire, and delicate souls

To understand the

unbound by regret, and

invisible and tangible you must go through—

blessed with another drop

If you do not wish

to gladly gaze above the willows—

to provide room

And not only see blue life,

you become encapsulated.

but

You must wish

inspire green yellow black white orange,

to fill in

to hold tight over my heart

the in-filled.

with full arms locked around the perimeter and to walk and stomp over the blue.

Welcome all!

With all colors on my forehead no breeze can wipe away; while wet, head to toe, in that same body that would fall, clash, and shatter if I were to step out.

26 Still Waters

Tangled

by Chapin Dobbins This is not real and you don’t exist The hands that traveled miles to come see me were never here You have never left your home and i have never left mine We are tangled in ways that are and never will be Real The facade of what could have been dissolves around me I have never been yours and you will never be mine I sit back and let the water crash over me

Brooks School 27

If I

by Abbie Duckworth We argued about every single thing, my sister and I. It didn’t matter what it was. The car, the dog, and the ticking noise from the clock even; they were all just topics that caused tension, sometimes for no reason at all. The only times we would lie down together on each other's beds, look up at the ceiling, fiddling with the pillows without the other person getting mad, was when we talked about death. What would I do if you died? I don’t know…you would figure it out eventually. Probably not, I would simply just kill myself to be with you. Haha, well please don't do that, but seriously if I died I would leave everything to you…I can't trust Mom and Dad with my stuff. Same for me.

I couldn’t imagine what I would actually do if she died.

We had just gone prom dress shopping for her. She had gotten a long red dress, covered in glittering sequins that cut into her skin. It was what she wanted, and I couldn’t believe it. It was the most hideous thing I’d ever seen, but she liked it, so Mom bought it. It was expensive. Dad hated how expensive it was.

He really hated how expensive it was.

28 Still Waters

On the ride home I watched the sky, picking out whales and trees in the ever-shifting canvas of clouds. My sister thought it was the stupidest fucking thing, watching the clouds.

She told me so, but she had said it so many times already that I didn’t care. I thought her need to have a boyfriend 24/7 was the stupidest fucking thing and I let her know that.

The night it happened I sat in our great big empty house, a stale room right across the hall from me. My bed was no longer warm and safe, it was cold and the sheets felt too scratchy. It felt like a death sentence. That corner was just too dark. Everything just felt so wrong.

I dreamed about a great big cloud that was shaped like a cheesy cliché ghost flying up behind someone, just about to scare them. It was only blue sky, there wasn’t a single other cloud, just that one. It was gray. I was sitting on the school bus that was driving my class to prom, wearing the long red gown. The sparkles cut into my armpits. My mom said to just ignore it and enjoy my night, but it was all I could think about. That and the ghost cloud seemed to follow the bus no matter where we went. Suddenly the bus stopped in the middle of the road. Everyone turned and

looked at me. Their eyes bore into me. It felt like burning welts on my skin. I felt myself rise and walk down the aisle of the bus and out of the whooshing doors. The bus pulled away from me leaving me standing there staring up at the ghost cloud.

Feeling Small

by Sylvia Marks Whipping winds and raging waters.

I stand alone gawking at the sky.

I wish nothing more than to be by your side.

No words, I just need to know you're there.

Me and you, you and I, strangers, only a few degrees of separation.

Sleepless nights, but the moon still shines.

So please know that even when the cool side of the pillow doesn't work its charm, the same moon connects us.

Whipping winds and raging waters and for You, I hold my ground.

I know you’re there.

Over the rivers so wide and mountains so high.

So please, just shine.

Brooks School 29

The Girls

by Shelley Osafo Grant Who’s going to kiss the girls with brown skin?

With cracked lips and ash on her elbows?

The girls whose hair smells of oils and creams?

The girls who are sometimes praised for being different but want nothing more than to fit in?

Who’s going to say “I love you” to the girls who cry over their bodies every night, Their big lips and wide hips That dip, who pray to fill them in?

The girls who will never have freckles or green eyes but eyes as dark as the night sky?

To the girls who glance your way, warm like a hug?

Who’s going to marry the strong black women, Too strong to cry but not strong enough to watch their mouths?

The angry ones, the emotional ones, The ones who all they ever wanted was to be wanted?

30 Still Waters

Wilted

by Liz Nicholson The crisp morning air hit me in the face as soon as I stepped out the door. I pulled my scarf up over my face as the wind tried to whip me from side to side. The sidewalks were bare, as if no one dared to brave the wind, or maybe they just didn’t have to.

I had made ten oat milk lattes, fourteen iced mochas, and about twenty hot chocolates within the first hour of opening. I glanced at the vase of flowers at the end of the counter.

Wilted, shriveled, the water murky. I had forgotten to change them. More than that, I didn’t really want to go and buy flowers. I hadn’t received flowers since last

The coffee shop was a few blocks down,

year—frankly, I liked that the flowers sitting

which felt like an eternity as the wind tried to

at the end of the counter looked like what I

push me back the way I had come. Only three

imagine I would look like if I were a flower.

more blocks. My steps quickened as the breeze whipped at me, trying to get me to quit and go home. It took a lot to break me these days.

It was finally quiet for a few minutes before the bell on the door rang. I normally wouldn’t look up, but the feeling I had that I should swelled up inside of me like a rush of

I jammed the old key in the lock and pushed

adrenaline. The red wool sweater draped over

the door open with the help of one last gust. I

his lanky build made my heart sink as I

finally got it to shut as the wind yearned to

realized how difficult it was, after all this time,

torture me for a bit longer. The lights flickered

to see him. I remembered wearing that

on as I walked behind the counter to turn on

sweater when the heat in our

the machines. I poured old water into the

apartment—rather, now, my

sinks and replaced it, took trays of pastries

apartment—would break.

out of the kitchen to display to people who would think they were much fresher than they were. The mundanity of my life mocked me, knowing I would be back tomorrow to take the same steps and go through the same motions.

Without ever really living them.

He walked over to the counter and loomed over me as I quickly turned my back to pretend I was doing something, anything, besides helping him.

“Black coffee,” he said. He put a five dollar bill down on the table, and an extra bill in my tip jar.

Brooks School 31

Fountain Pen

by Noella Chung My fountain pen sits at the back of my desk a gift from my father for my 13th birthday.

There is a little logo on it and the pen is sleek and heavy.

The most valuable gift I ever received is the pen of a CEO and I think the ink is blue.

I haven’t used the pen even once.

I’ll think to myself,

this was a gift.

I will always put it back, in the farthest reaches of my desk

Contrition

and completely forget about it.

by Shalini Navsaria

This was a gift.

redress your regret plead for your penance the trumpet sounds the final kiss bleeding tears into the light, His eyes war-torn fields His lips salty and red His knees cut and worn

32 Still Waters

Wonders

by Daniel Park From the same rolling fog where dragons stretch their wings, from the same soaring peak where giants rest their feet, from the same moaning sea where kraken hunt their prey, I come, breathing them into existence, wonder begetting wonders— wonders rising, fluctuating like wildfire from mouth to mouth, from one terror to another, growing, rising into their place, forever entrenched in nightmares.

I am wandering thought, I am the form conjured when the lights go out and the blood runs cold.

34 Still Waters

Hidden

by Chapin Dobbins i am not followed by those who search for life. i am haunted by their souls wandering my expansive desert, who yearn for eyes i have and the heart they cannot touch. their ears prick up as i let out a sound of joy that they wish to capture. my essence fills the air yet they can never find me.

Oranges

by Chapin Dobbins the memory of your hands is fresh as i carefully select an orange from the bowl on the windowsill the orange is bright as the memory, waiting to be peeled and sucked dry— i toss the peel into the hazy afternoon and lay on the grass the wind blows my hair and my fingers smell like oranges as i think of you

Brooks School 35

Human

by Gabe Fitzgerald First period class— I was sleeping not so long ago.

The teacher was sleeping not so long ago.

Same room, different roles.

We are both human.

An unspoken, mutual understanding— they are not fully ready to teach, we are not fully ready to learn, yet we proceed.

We are both human.

I am the student.

I close my eyes and my head begins to nod;

I’m sorry I had a late night and none of my homework is done.

The teacher, unable to let their eyes close or head nod sips coffee

I’m sorry class I had a late night, a child in bed still sick.

They must teach.

I must listen.

I close my eyes.

I’m sorry 36 Still Waters

I had a late night.

They continue to teach.

They continue to sip their coffee.

They cannot let their eyes close or head nod.

They must provide for a sick child.

My eyes are closed and my head is down.

Their eyes are open and their head is up.

We are both human.

Alone

by Ryan Hiltz Across from me the TV was black, and the rain pattered on the roof masking the sound of the world outside the house. I sank further into my couch, gray leather riddled with stains from years of unmonitored abuse. My swimming thoughts were stilled, the wind now stripped from their sails. They stood still, unsure of their next task, no directions, no map to follow.

My mouth filled with sand and its depth was heightened, my tongue swam up in an attempt to reach the roof a million miles away.

I sank deeper.

An anchor attached to the back of my head gently tugged it further into the cushion. I closed my eyes and was met with a sense of vertigo. I dropped ten feet, twenty, thirty, gaining speed as I fell further into the darkness.

My eyes snapped open and the small light

The dim light on the counter to my left flickered eerily like morse code, like in that movie Parasite. My heart ticked faster, its beats steadily increasing like a metronome until there was a constant sound of pumping blood, increasing with each second that passed. Across from the light was the fridge, its white boxy structure sticking out amongst the wood cabinets and drawers. It hummed its usual hum, a low buzzing sound that gently shook the tile floor beneath it.

My stomach moaned. With great effort I lifted myself from the comfort of the couch and began my mission. Whispers kissed my ears, jumbles of incoherent phrases fed my confused brain. I was alone and yet there was a sense that I was not.

Instinctively I rubbed my temples. When I reached the three or four stairs that led to the kitchen I began to sway like a man trying to balance forty plates on his head. My big toe smashed against the second step sending the rest of my body crashing to the hard tile floor. I lay there, still, my cheek pressed against the cool tile, its buzz like a massage chair.

stung my glazed eyes which had become unusually apparent and spherical.

Why had I gotten up from the couch in the first place? I couldn’t quite remember.

Brooks School 37

The Jacket

by Connor Herlihy The man pounds at the keyboard, belting out anger to the service worker on the other side.

He writes paragraphs until his fingers bend, deformed from rage, about his jacket, and the slightest difference of color: Supposed to be gray, is silver.

The worker, a kind lady, responds

I’m sorry sir, we can send another for she knows nothing good comes from this much negativity, this meaningless matter.

Perspective

By Jackson Conners-McCarthy (They are feeling their way out into the night) compelled by the horror of an existence spent complacent, perpetually forward toward a brand new horizon, they ought to find high ground to watch the sunrise— they surely won’t recognize its iridescent beauty from the thicket.

38 Still Waters

Faceless

by May Eggleston

I met a stranger in the clearing there, and The eyes were empty, but full of light, and As we spoke, I could not endure The thought of leaving the nameless figure.

Then the sun sunk in the sky, and I knew I could not stay, Though it seemed our time was done, I felt the warmth within me.

And in the moment, I could visualize the Beauty of the world surrounding me, and So I left, my heart full of tears.

Brooks School 39

The Elephant in a Pink Tutu

by Jasmine Shi

It was a normal night. Not the type of normal that reoccurs every day of every week of every year; those were the nights he spent sunken in the sofa in the apartment he rented, playing some old movie softly in the corner, drifting off to sleep. This was the normal night for some heritage he only half heartedly tried to embrace ever since he left home. It was a loud night scattered between steaming dishes and noisy children and distant relatives with a long list of prodding questions he didn’t want to answer. His mother and father were amongst them, tightly packed into a ring of adjoining chairs in the middle of the room. There was no open spot next to them. * My soon-to-be wife and I found seats not too deep into the corner but far enough from the center of the room. I felt the wooly fabric of her maroon sleeve brush against my own as she looped her arm around mine. I smiled at my parents and they beamed happily at my fiancée.

One of the uncles raised a glass to me. “Finally back, eh, Xiao Zhang! Oh, look how tall you’ve grown. And how mature now!” His lips gleamed with oil from the food. Dinner had started sometime before our arrival. “And this must be your… wife?” His surprise lingered prominently in the air.

“Fiancée. Yu Tong.” She smiled and introduced herself, extending her hand to my family.

Somehow, his smile stretched even wider. “Ah, congratulations! How did you manage to keep such a pretty girl a secret? We didn’t even hear a peep!” I was just about to answer when some lady with curly black hair butted her way into the conversation. Her hair was curled in such a way that you could tell she visited the same salon in the same Shanghai alleyway every other month. “Such short hair!” she remarked in true aunt-like fashion. “What happened to it? It looks all… choppy.” “You don’t get it,” the uncle jumped back in, “This is what kids call fashion these days. What they get from those hairdressers in big malls with the glass windows and fancy Japanese shampoo.” “Right, right,” and their laughter concluded that conversation with the clinking of their glasses.

It was then I noticed the elephant sitting in the seat next to the uncle. Its two front legs barely reached the table top, and its gray body looked stuck between the wooden armrests. Its ears flopped on either side of its head, brushing the shoulders of the uncles it sat between. The most

40 Still Waters

noticeable feature of the elephant was its trunk, which spilled onto the table. It was wrinkly, thick, long, and plated perfectly on the porcelain dish that sat in front of it. The pair of accompanying chopsticks were presumably buried somewhere beneath. For a moment, I thought our eyes met.

“Xiao Zhang grew a lot, didn’t he?” My permed-hair aunt patted my arm. “Oh yeah, the last time I saw him, he was as skinny as a monkey.” “It’s been so long. He used to be—and don’t be mad at me for saying this—” she looked at my mother “—but he was kind of girly when he used to come around. He even wore his hair long, right?” She frowned as if trying to recall some unpleasant memory. “To his chin. And didn’t he used to wear—” “Yes. He’s certainly grown a lot these past years,” Mother interrupted. This quadrant of the table seemed to lapse into silence for a split second. But then the surrounding banter overtook the stagnant air and the conversation shifted back to my fiancée.

The elephant was sitting right in front of a steaming dish of fish. It was quite a large fish, almost the length of my arm. Its white eyes gazed up at the ceiling unwaveringly. There was a hole in its belly and several spots along its back. It had probably been steamed alive after having its scales scraped off. And after all that, it had to sit through this dinner before it got to float off to heaven. Death by a thousand cuts would have been an easier way to go. Or perhaps it was a bad fish, and this evening was its penance. Would it eventually drift to the underworld and drink Meng Po tea, forgetting about everything in this life? I recalled how thousands of years ago, men who committed horrendous crimes were tied to a stack and skinned little by little, until all that was left was just white bone and a lingering spirit. Perhaps in those last moments they might’ve wished to be a fish that swam freely in a stream, tucked away peacefully in the folds of the mountains. Then, at least they’d forget everything seven seconds after it happened.

It took a while for my thoughts to return to the elephant. A middle-aged man and another aunt reached over its trunk for the fish. They stabbed and prodded at it, ripping off some white flesh.

Eating fish on New Year’s Eve signified that there would be enough for the family to spare in the coming year; extra money, extra luck.

Was the elephant part of some extra superstition I didn’t know about? I tried to catch the gaze that I had met before. And I did, but it was a fleeting interaction that spoke nothing. Out of the corner of my eye I saw mother and father exchange a glance that held multitudes, steeped in deep Chinese parenting experience.

Brooks School 41

I excused myself from the room.

An air of foreign calm isolated the balcony. I held a cigarette between my fingers and leaned over the railing. I had no lighter with me. The unkickable habit sat on the soft spot between the knuckles and first joints of my index and middle finger. It was thin and white. Not like the ones whose thick smoke would overshadow the presence of the smoker; it was one of the thin ones that would produce a single column of smoke, barely lingering on the enjoyer’s fingertips. Bitter flakes of snow landed on that little lifeline. If I had had a lighter on me, this particular one would probably have tasted something akin to loneliness. Through the walls I could practically see my fiancée spinning graciously between mother and father, aunts and uncles. Silently I thanked her.

I did not hear the door open. The elephant joined me in my little space, also leaning against the railing. For a brief moment I pondered the load-bearing qualities of the balcony railing. I had somehow missed it in the brightly lit dining room, but with the elephant standing so close to me here in the dark, it was clear to see that it was wearing a pink tutu. And it was a few sizes too small.

“Hey,” I said. “You cold?”

It shook its head, ears flapping “Didn’t like it in there?”

It nodded.

“Yeah,” I breathed white mist over the railing. “Me too.”

My fiancée joined us on the balcony. She smelled like I imagined a bird would, trampled by the aunts’ rose scented perfumes and the uncles’ swirling spirits. She leaned against the railing too and looked down. Neither of us spoke. Nor did the elephant. Though I doubted whether it could at all. Or would. It scratched the spot where the pink tutu clasped the tightest around its waist and wriggled in the little skirt.

“You got a lighter?”

“Yeah. You smokin’?”

“Thinking about it.”

42 Still Waters

She pulled out the lighter, slick silver between her fingers. “Give me one too.” For a while, we just appreciated how the smoke tasted far better than any of the dishes inside.

“They were asking me when we’re going to get married, you know.” She puffed a stream of smoke as she updated me on the precarious situation unfolding inside.

“I just told them ‘soon’. We should set a date, though. We can have a small wedding, just for our parents.” I responded that this had always been the plan. “What are your parents saying? Do they suspect anything yet?”

“Told them ‘soon’ too. They were suspicious at first, since, you know, they did catch me once.”

She clasped her hands. “Then dad had a stroke, and I just… Now, they’re happy. I’m the only child they have.”

After that, we just sipped on smoke and wind in silence.

Eventually it was time to go back inside. “You ready?” She stubbed out her cigarette. I gave the notion an earnest ponder. “Honestly, not really,” I sighed.

“I’ll go in first. You take your time.” She gave the elephant a firm pat on the back and headed for the sliding glass door.

“Hey,” I called out behind her. “Thanks. For everything.”

She raised her hand. “Don’t forget that we’re doing this again at my house.”

Finally, a feeling of mutual agreement, a settlement on this New Year’s Eve. The door shut with a click.

I thought about why I was doing this. Yu Tong was doing it for her parents, but what about me?

A minute later I heard the sliding of the door again. It was my mother. From the dark I noticed how the wrinkles had crept up her forehead; the years I’d spent abroad shone clear as day on her face. It was almost surreal to see her standing in the cold across from me. Her hair was still black at first glance, but if you looked closely enough you could see faint roots of gray beginning to emerge.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked, barely inside the threshold herself.

Brooks School 43

“Just getting some fresh air. Didn’t want to smoke in front of all the relatives.” I showed her the cigarette. She squinted at the thing between my fingers. “Well, don’t be out there too long,” she finally said. “It’s cold out.”

As I watched her scurry back to the family I recalled a point in my early childhood. It was before I had any concept of boys and girls. It was simply that I did not understand the difference between a boy and a girl and a cat and a monkey. Fish and birds, now those were clearly different; one could fly and one could swim. But those of us that walked here on earth—how was one expected to tell us apart? When I was a little older, I had thought that perhaps my mother, who was twenty-five at the time, did not know the difference either. She had started sending me to ballet classes after school. And out of nowhere, she’d dug out a bunch of little dresses and rainbow hair clips. I didn’t cut my hair much back then, so when it got long she would braid it up nicely with the hair clips, stuff me into one of the cute little outfits she had painstakingly put together, then send me to ballet class. Even with my vague understanding of gender I recognized that I was the only boy in the class, but the girls treated me like one of their own and I had a great time at those lessons. I don’t remember when exactly I stopped doing ballet, but I seem to recall it being around the same time my mother brought me to the hairdresser and asked the barber to shave my head. “But mom, I don’t want to cut my hair!” I had wined, but she placed a firm hand on my shoulder and shook her head. The more I revisited this memory, the more certain I felt that she had said something along the lines of it being her

fault.

Only years later did I learn that I had had a sister who would have been two years older than me.

As my cigarette reached its natural end I decided it was time to head back in. I hadn’t noticed, but the elephant had silently slipped back inside. Through the glass door, I could see it was back in its seat at the table, the pink tutu wedged firmly between its big gray body and the seat. I pulled the door handle to the side, but realized I couldn’t open it. It was stuck. I pulled harder, leaning my entire body weight onto my fingers, but it just wouldn’t budge.

I did not want to bang on the door to get everyone’s attention.

But the balcony was getting colder as the night proceeded in its course, and I was feeling increasingly anxious as I spent more involuntary time on the balcony by myself. My hand burned against the cold glass panel. Finally, Yu Tong looked up. And so did the rest of the family. I took

44 Still Waters

my hand off the glass, shoving the cigarette in my pocket. I smiled sheepishly and waved at the table.

It was my fiancée who came to my rescue. I slipped through the crack she opened up. She shut the door behind me and we walked back to the table together.

“What took you so long?” It was the permed aunt again. “We were missing you already!” I tried to smile but I couldn’t feel my lips. “It was getting a little stuffy in here, you know,” I gestured at my red fleece sweater. She responded by piling more food onto my plate. “You’re still a little skinny, here, have some more. Look at your cousin—” she pointed to a portly man I hardly recognized, a man around thirty, wearing a pressed shirt and tie, looking like he was ready to jump back into work. His belly was starting the slow jog towards being a successful middle aged entrepreneur and he was talking to my father. “—such a sturdy boy. But you— you’re eating too little!”

I nodded and smiled at my plate and the mountain of food.

The elephant sat in silence, looking hungry. I felt bad for it. But its trunk was still sitting on its plate and I didn’t want to disturb it. By the end of dinner, it hadn’t moved at all. I got up with my fiancée and considered saying goodbye to the elephant. I thought about how I would bid it farewell. I thought about hugging it. Or just waving. In the end I settled for a knowing glance that I wasn’t even sure it noticed.

The elephant in the pink tutu looked sad as I walked into the night.

Brooks School 45