Pandora Magazine Spring 2022

WELCOME! WE’RE GLAD YOU’RE HERE.

The staff of andora Magazine is proud to present the Spring 2022 edition of Centenary College’s literary and visual arts magazine, featuring the creative work of current students. We’re thrilled to be a voice for the arts on campus and in our community.

As always, we would like to thank our contributors for their tremendous work and vulnerability, as well as our supporters at Centenary and in Shreveport. Without you, we would not have this platform to express ourselves and tell our stories. We hope you enjoy!

LOVE, PANDORA MAG

Editor-in-Chief Anna Jane Storms IG: @snowwhitestorms

HI! I’m a junior Arts Managment major, and a French/Museum Management minor. When I’m not dreaming about how great Timothee Chalamet and I would look as a couple, you’ll find me thifting at Fab Finds, discovering obscure artsy Instagram accounts or lounging in bed drinking tea.

Senior Literary Editor Phoebe Cragon IG: @pcragon

Hi!!! I’m an English/French major, and I have a hand in most of the wordy projects on campus, which means my brain in something like 75% alphabet soup. The other 25% of my energy is generally devoted to sitting quietly and doing old lady activities.

Senior Design Editor Greta Simolke IG: @gsimolke1

Heyyy I’m a Comm major with a focus in Film, Television, and Video and a Business Administration minor. When I’m not girlbossing, I enjoy making more LinkedIn connections. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk about the movie Boogie Nights.

Junior Editor Reece Maguire IG: @rm.maguire

I’m an English major with focus on creative writing with a French minor. When I’m not camping out in the third floor of Jackson, ou’ll find me lisening to the same three songs on repeat or editing my 100s of Pinterest boards.

Literary Intern Jordan Fong IG:@ jordanofong

I’m a sophomore English major and Communication minor. Most of my free time is divided between obsessing over my Spotify Wrapped (yes, even if it’s the middle of the year), rereading my favorite books, and thinking about the latest TV show I’m binging.

Design Intern A.R. Rossamando IG: @ar.artistry

Heyo! I’m a sophomore Theatre major. I wear many hats, which include (an are not limited to): Actor, Scenic Designer, Artist, and a Certified ippie. And in my free time I take 7 hour comas where I dream of having free time.

Table of Contents

La Belle Époque (The Age of Beauty) for Renoir’s “Bal du moulin de la Galette”

How lovely it must be to live within the space of brushstrokes: Drops of forest treetops’ shade, white cloud wisps that temper the caught impression of a cherubic face, pink with pleasure for those halcyon days

at the Moulin de la Galette.

Ageless laughter, painted cerulean, surely imprinted in the stones of Montmartre; echoes of the ephemeral happiness of the dancers

at the Moulin de la Galette. To have the privilege to wile away the hours in the embrace of their joviality; spinning amongst flwer-petal silk, to the adagio march of time at the Moulin de la Galette Their riotous array of passion and innocence, gauzy on the edges with silver immortality and shadowed black clinging to the heels of mindless joy.

How I long to join those at the Moulin de la Galette as they unwittingly chase the death of beauty. the death of beaut y.

Callie Fedd Class of 2022

January 20 -

Aquarius

February 18

Pisces

February19-March20

Sagittarius

November 22December 21

Virgo

August 23 - September 22

Zodiac + Ice Cream

Caitlyn Tran

Digital Art Class of 2025

Noodle the Boa

Ethan Davis

Digital Art

Class of 2025

Water Off a uck’s Back Wrest the body upward through the quarrel of murky water and stagnant sunlit guidance. It is merely a pond. Cleave the slumbering surface amid the viscous cling of pressure and appease the rigid lung. It is merely a will. Drift the collapsing dribble upon the sun-bent dome of droplets and slip the feathery contour. It is merely a fowl.

Jerney Harms Class of 2023

Scotch Tape

You kiss the corners of my memories As I hang each photo up Drenching the wall in nostalgia

The air conditioner whispers

Tempting you to unfurl

Will you be able to resist?

Anna Jane Storms

Class of 2023

I Long for the Sea

I long for the sea

To return to sweet embrace of the depths

For the sweet rocking of the waves

I long to sing the siren songs of my kin

To lure wayward men to fates worse than death

I long to bask in the distorted rays of the sun

And dance among the kelp

I long for the blessed peace and stillness of the ocean

I long for my promised rest amid the depths

Devin Bureau Class of 2022

Beauty Emma Foster

Digital Collage

Class of 2025

Momentary Masters

We were for a moment Free as the wind that carries the free bird

The momentary masters of a world untamed Blazing and brazen On fie and higher we reached Like the stacks of black smoke That kiss the sky And leave their marks of brilliance Even if the token Is momentary

We were alive and burning And burned because we could

William Ross Class of 2024

Acrylic Class of 2025

Riptide Raven

Ethan Davis

St. Jude the Apostle Dotes on Me

i can sit here and overthink my actions and write self-loathing poetry and make playlists about relating to Hamlet and Tom Wingfield like doing so makes m better in any way. i can pluck out the darkest crusts of my soul and display them on the concrete before me, desperately pointing and saying, “see! i was evil all along,” like an insecure teen examining the gunk they drew out of their clogged pores. (and i can do that, too, if i have the time).

i can sit here and worship the most pitiful of martyrs, revering what they sacrified instead of what they gave. i can put on the façade of Catholic guilt despite being raised Protestant, because, really, i didn’t need religious leaders to tell me what i’ve thought about myself since childhood. no matter what i do, though, i cannot deny the truth: telling people i’m a bad person does not make me good, or even bad. it just makes everyone look down.

Emma Greer

Class of 2025

Paden

Scratchboard

Class

The Fourth Horseman

Sisterhen

of 2023

A SONNET FOR SAINTHOOD

We are a divine rebellion, you and I.

Or, so says the filiree cross chained around your throat, bearing the weight of our transgressions: a baptism of our bodies defying the Law.

Someday, I’d like you to pray to me instead, so I can nail your tongue between your teeth. Together, we could create our own sacraments.

You still have faith; I can hear it in your unveiling revelation that sounds suspiciously like a plea for penance and the meaning of “I love you.”

A perditious confession: I relish in the memory of staining saintly gold.

Callie Fedd

Class of 2022

she is the first wildflowers of spring

Natalie Taylor-Watkins

Photography

Class of 2023

Ode to a Vivisection

Beating Heart beneath the skin, Did you know what was to come? Gills on fie, water’s liar, Oh God, I hope you’re numb.

Beating Heart on full display, Did you know you’d see the light? I apologize for curious eyes, I know this isn’t right.

Beating Heart whom I deluge, Can you feel the biting cold? Slowing down, wholly drowned, My sins shall go untold.

Beating Heart now snipped in two, Did you know how you’d expire? Severed head, now fully dead, No harmony from the choir.

Josephine Hodges Class of 2025

2023

Light Beam

James Harris

Photography

Class of 2023

The Long Goodbye

Strapped into the seat, I am ready for lift off o the sky above. Soaring higher and higher, the ground farther and farther from my sight, my touch. Looking on over the grassy hills with a light picnic strewn about is my family, waving me goodbye. A final goodye, unbeknownst to either them or I. Before I have time to dwell the ship climbs, claws, grasps towards the edge of the atmosphere trying to break free. The darkness above becomes ever closer to the glass between itself and I. The engine continues to howl for a time, and then nothing, silence all around me.

…

I look from side to side, I hear Houston calling out, “All clear, ready for phase two.” The command center’s voice gets quieter and quieter as I fade in and out of what’s going on. I suppose it is time to sleep, to dream, for the long haul ahead. As I get up from my seat and lie down in the pod all I can think is oh God , it’s time, time for the past to blacken and the future to flicer forth.

Closing my eyes and shutting this casket-like tube, I feel the engine roar once more, the metaphorical green light, the signal for leaving my giant blue and green light behind. Forever.

Colin Dixon Class of 2022

There is Still Hope for Us

We rose from the ashes of your nightmares

Carved out a life for ourselves

Amidst toxic gasses and polluted waters

Sacrified upon your superficial altar

We choked on all your expectations

While you worked to stop the interventions

Now that our strength has grown

You fear that you’ll reap what you’ve sown

Too late. Your control has shattered Your forces have all been scattered

You cannot hope to defeat the shunned

We were the ones born from your blood

Jessica Cordova Class of 2023

Butterfly Eect

Bryn Jenkins

Photography

Class of 2024

SWORDS, III-VI III

The shock, more than anything. The abrupt intimacy. There’s something clever about the way the blade slots between my ribs, true as a smile, something adjacent to tenderness: a perverse kind of proof that you know me after all.

How easily you find our way to my heart!

I’d be impressed, if it weren’t for the distraction of the pain—

IV

There comes a point, during the murder, where I am tempted to aid in the disassembly if only to get it over with more quickly.

Indistinct, I weigh the idea: my mind on all the better ways my time could be spent but my brain wasted on the pavement. Ultimately, it’s easier to settle in to the reassuring press of steel on tendon.

There’s a certain relief in being laid out: the world becomes very light when you realize you have nothing left to carry.

V

This is not the irritation of an oyster incubating its pearl or any other precious injury borne for love. This is a rage that has been punctured into me:

I am not a coat rack or a key bowl or a catch-all. I am not a knife block.

You will not crowd the soul out of me to carve a space for whatever bitterness you’ve let outgrow your hands,

not without my own curling back to tear the same out of you.

VI

You can’t reason with ivy as it smothers the flwers. The universe is finie and there is not enough sunlight for everyone–It is outgrow or be outgrown. I know this. I have learned. I am wilting now, overindulged, and I see clearly with my head downturned.

If I have been chokeweed, I am sorry. If you are the scythe, don’t be.

Phoebe Cragon Class of 2023

The Open Road

A tiredly overplayed 2000s song crackled through the long-blown-out speakers of the car I’d paid for entirely with cash off of raigslist.

The tips of my fingers ere still stained with remnants of the hair dye I’d raked through my curls not even an hour beforehand. Mousy and brown: common. More importantly, forgettable. I’d have to bleach the steering wheel before I ditched the car.

I daydreamed about change, careful to keep up with the traffic without speedingoo much. Any attention was bad attention. I had to project myself as an ordinary Jane without coming across as a cardboard cut-out. She would be a nameless face, yes, but who would she be?

Should she smoke? It’d be a good excuse to people watch, and I’d always wanted to pick up a bad habit, but I was too afraid of losing my image. Ironic how in the end it was me, not the audience, who killed her. Then again, smoking had a smell, and smells had memory, and memory meant sticking out. Maybe I’d start drinking again. No one remembers the lonely girl at the back of the bar.

How would I take my coffee, now? I paused. No, how would she take her coffee? I no longer existed. I installed myself inside of her, therefore she was real. I was a fading idea.

I smiled for the first time in moths., I’d decided to keep my smile, the one reminder of what I’d left behind and what would soon cease to exist.

A fresh start.

Reece Maguire Class of 2024

Florida Diner

Alaina Owens

Photography

Class of 2023

Lost

Thick fog obscures perception and blankets the street as mothers, during that frigid night, tightly swaddle their children. Nebulous black stems rise from the endless sea of gray, caging light, in an attempt to imitate the free floting nebulas one might see in a world with more clarity. Pale orange balls glow like Will-o’-the-wisps, and one can hear the click clack of work shoes as they keep a lone man, as gray as the sea he drudges through, aflot. He takes a long drag from his nearly burnt-out cigarette, the acrid flvor giving him a taste of something beyond the bleak gloom, however fleetin. There is an illuminating moment where the embers of the cigarette cast light upon the man’s face, revealing bright eyes and old scars imperceptible in the dark fog. The worn leather briefcase handle contrasts against the man’s soft, smooth hand. He feels its weight pull on him, an enlightening thought, he mumbled to himself on that icy night. The tempo of his click clacks becomes syncopated, due to a dull ache in his sole. The cigarette now merely a smoldering stump, giving none of its former warmth, merely swaths of smoke dissipating into and strengthening the fog, the man casts it into the nothingness, engulfed. He breathes—the cold gray invades his lungs— he drowns.

Zane Harper Class of 2024

Burrow Hole James Harris Class of 2023

Reaching

for the Sky

Cassie Halford Photography

Class of 2023

the bird creature something sits upon the silver bridge

i gave them the future, like they asked. the expecting parents came at morning praying a bundle of joy’d come at last, but cried to find i’d still be mourning. the preacher asked me with a laugh to send a good word to the man in the blue sky. i spoke on his behalf, but only to him downstairs, whose grin could melt even a pure heart of gold. the fie on the hill was then ample, the fools deemed that i alone controlled all malice that reigned and did trample their every waking moment. they threw me out, stabbed me with pitchforks, rakes and knives, and on bloody wings i fle to a pleasant point. Father said the “takes” would always be greater than what i gave the weak flesh h’d tempted in paradise an easy task, since all their minds crave is to be like us. that is their simple vice,

coveting what their father did not bestow upon them: godhood, the power to stray from death. so my gift i brought, hopeful they would no longer cower at the thought of catastrophic doom. but i could not see them a good beyond, nor could i promise sadness and gloom would disappear, ever, for man’s bond to sin is strong. then i understood with a flash: the habinger of evil would be me. to them, i am no good. so fin, then. i’ll bring them upheaval. with my red eyes, i will prophesize oncoming ruin near, far, and wide. no, i will never apologize. i hold no pity, still— i’m dry-eyed. no remorse will fill y heaving chest for i must now take fligt once more: there are people needing to be blest, and tragedy waiting to happen galore.

Mary Caruthers Class of 2024

Nuance

Turning on his heels, as infrequent as this was, he began to walk away. But she insisted.

Her rushing footsteps, thudding across the splintering plywood flors, echoed within the vacant space beneath the belly wrap. She says,

He pivots around, tarnished copper eyes in their fied menace, and rears his hand back, quick to jolt it forward— she does not flinch

The sneaking glint of the disappears hastily. Metastasizing, the dull red gleam of defeat overwhelms his stained white cotton shirt. His hand sinks slowly, lightly reading the wound.

Caught in the inaudible rhythm of deafening silence and sprightly pulses, we stand in stone fitures afraid to move.

Some sound escapes his crooked, pursed lips and my sister tiptoes through the carnage to retrieve a white t-shirt.

She shakily slips surrender into his carmine fingetips and he retreats colorlessly into the night.

Jerney Harms Class of 2023

Nazi

No, I never stained the nape of my neck with SS bolts in black ink. And I never broke into a home and stomped the little gray and white cat into a flt, red-collared pelt.

I never let a man die— I don’t care what she says. We were never on a ride home, rain pummeling the pavement in ivory droves when we saw the vehicle overturned, lights panicking, peeking from the ditch. We didn’t pull over and tug and tug and tug at the seat belt. Certainly, I did not leave that man, voice calling and cracking and gurgling. I didn’t dial the police and anonymously mention a drowning man, Mildale Road, Pride.

I did not get away with secondhand murder or cheating in a shotgun marriage or leaving a child starving with my namesake. Never did I pick at my skin or pinch the septum of my nose nearly raw.

No, I never. But my friends call me Nazi.

Jerney Harms Class of 2023

Aquarium

Emma Foster

Color Pencil

Class of 2025

Yellow H. Davidson Tarif Islam

Photography Class of 2025

How To Ride A Bike, Again: A Guide For Returning Adults

Step One: Stand bike up.

Step twO: Sit on bike.

Step three: Balance yourself.

Step FOur: Wobble forward, very timidly.

Step Five: Remind yourself you can do this, you’ve done it before, you can do it again.

Step Six: Wobble some more, but get a few pedals in.

Step Six-pOint-Five: TELL yourself you CAN do this!

Step Seven: Realize you are doing this! You knew you could do it!

Step eight: Stop, there’s a tree!

Step eight AGAIN STOP STOP TREE LOOK OUT—

Step nine: Ouch

Step ten: Get band-aids.

Step eleven: Make a note to buy knee pads.

Step eleven-pOint-Five: Spend an hour down a rabbit hole looking at knee pads— aw look at the kids ones! And the kids bikes! They’re so tiny and cute, aww look at themmmm

Step eleven-pOint-Six: Do I want kids?

Step twelve: Realize that you need money and a partner for a child— you don’t have either.

Step thirteen: Un-add baby clothes from your online Target order.

Step thirteen-pOint-Five: Download Tinder, and regret it almost immediately.

Step thirteen-pOint-Six: Refuse to uninstall Tinder on the offchance there might be a good person on there. Hey, it could happen! It happened to your second cousin’s ex best friend!

(Step thirteen-pOint-Seven: Uninstall it later that night after you receive an unsolicited picture that will leave you scarred for life. On what planet is that okay??!)

Step FOurteen: Oh, right! Remember you were trying to learn how to ride a bike again.

Step FiFteen: Stare at the bike for fiteen minutes.

Step Sixteen: Take a deep breath, and remind yourself you can do this.

Step Seventeen: It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.

Step eighteen: Get on the bike again.

Mary Caruthers Class of 2024

Coffee Grounds

There were grounds in my coffee this morning. Specks of black riddled the top of my roasted hazelnut, gravel and sand in my otherwise crisp brew.

I shouldn’t have said anything. My hands weren’t broken; I could use them to scoop out the impurities. But that wasn’t the point.

My favorite part of the day was enjoying a steamy cappuccino.

The dawn still young; twiggy creatures just beginning to belt morning melodies

The aura peaceful, the day yet to commence.

My husband and I would flot to our sunroom each morning

To enjoy our coffee; beaming rays would warm my sleepy soul

As the heat from my cracked cup slowly subsided.

He never could remember it wasn’t dishwasher safe.

Dark roasted would slip down my throat and awakened My senses; light roast sloshed inside his thermos. His taste buds never matured after years of frappés.

I would read while drowning out the buzz of the news program he insisted on watching

I savored this time and clutched the serenity to my heart

The peace grounds me through the growing anxiety My therapist labeled as unprocessed trauma.

My husband demeaned it to female hysteria.

The crunchy soil tainted my liquid gold. I’d have to forgo my literature and hold my tongue as “liberals are corrupting the youth” stabbed my sensitive tympanums.

Brewing my coffee is the only thing I ask of him After washing away the remnants of the day I shovel the grounds and place the cup before I go to bed to ensure perfect piquancy.

He can never get the intensity just right

“Just push the button and froth the milk, dear.” “Alright, but you’ll have to show me how.”

With a strained but ever-present smile, I did

I’m a fairly patient and understanding woman, but even I have my limits. One thing. Just this one thing.

I turn to him, my voice feathery and mellow. “Darling, there are grounds in my coffee.”

“What? Oh, here, take my spoon and get them out.”

He could only bother to half avert his eyes from the screen.

A smile. “I could, but there are likely More at the bottom. And it’ll take off y foam.” A sigh. “Well, what do you want me to do about it?”

“Nothing, dear. Wouldn’t want you To miss your show.” Silence. I closed my book, resisting the urge to throw it at the wall.

The peace had passed, the froth now soup in the cup of mud. My craving for coffee was gone; I opted for vodka instead The warm drip now a scorching burn.

There were grounds in my coffee this morning But the bitter taste left behind wasn’t from the joe.

Reece Maguire Class of 2024

Class of 2025

If you’ve been waiting for a special sign then this is it.

Belle Marie Digital Collage

The Lounging Hour

Anna Jane Storms

Digital Art Class of 2023

Buzz

Phoebe Cragon

Scratchboard & ink

Class of 2023

Pomegranite

Class of 2023

Greta Simolke Photography

The Act of Being

To pursue the act of being is a foolish pursuit

If one must try to be, then one is not being Be as the trees with their tender fruit

Be as moonlight on water, clear seeing Be as you are Be

And forget the constructs Break from the rhythm

Flow with the rhythm

Those who look within Will never be without

William Ross Class of 2024

Caught a Vibe

Jackson Lacour

Acrylic

Class of 2025

My Body

Remi Miller

Acrylic

Class of 2023

Lily A.R. Rossomando

Digital Art Class of 2024

Hellooo, redbud

Natalie Taylor-Watkins

Photography

Class of 2023

Ode to Soft Lightning

Oh, you heavenly glow

My small, luminous luxury

Belonging not to the fairies

Just to my dorm room

Transforming the dingy white Into the cocktail-colored sunsets Of relief and procrastination

Casting my worries and deadlines Into shadow

Anna Jane Storms Class of 2023

3.14.2021

Tomorrow is fie and brimstone, or ice and biting wind, or maybe just a gray nothing that will somehow slip us into a deeper daze than we’ve lived in for a calendar year.

Tomorrow is 46 minutes away when I look at my wrist and tomorrow will never touch this moldering classroom with its broken clock where we snuck away to try to convince ourselves that the world is not ending and did not end 365 days ago.

In best dresses pulled from the back of the closet and makeup dusty from disuse we pass hours eating lemon pie with our finger, retracing a couple years worth of dizzy steps, and digging in ourselves for the dregs of a sense of wonder. What little we manage to findrings out in laughter as the roaches chase us home through the middling dark and a thread tears at the bottom of my black dress, leaves me hemorrhaging a trail of sequins that may just manage to hansel-and-gretel us back to somewhere I wouldn’t mind being. The moon hangs above us, flt and wide as a pie pan, and drifts lazily across the sky like it knows nothing of curfews or doomsday clocks reaching midnight. We crane our heads to watch it until I trip into the girl beside me, sticky fingersgrabbing at her gauzy sleeve for purchase. She laughs as she rights me and says, like it follows, Forget tomorrow. I just want to have today again one more time.

Rebalanced, I feel the earth still around me, and allow myself to believe for just a moment that that would be any better.

Phoebe Cragon Class of 2023