Connections: Multidimensions, Spring 2025

CONNECTIONS

Dedicated to the first Connections team

YooRaSung,HyojooJulianaAn,HannahPark,Amanda

Lui,AllieSmith,Vi-yenBlackwood,EllieTangKleiman, JaniceHuang,ClaireHou,EricJiang,EllaRussell,Rachel

Wang,CarterYee

Wehopethisissuemakesyouproud.

Letter from the Editors

Dear Reader,

This year, Connections entered its fifth year, the first without the founders. As we worked on creating this issue, we kept in mind our roots while reflecting our present and looking into the future. Our theme, Multidimensions, reflects the multitude that exists and thrives within the BIPOC community, the opportunities and possibilities that define us, as well as the experiences and lessons.

We followed in the footsteps of previous years, holding a SIMS lab workshop for our team to familiarize ourselves with the InDesign program that we use to put the literary magazine together. Our workshop event in the fall accomplished a better turnout than previous years, allowing us to encourage more people to create and work on submissions with quiz-personalized prompts and art supplies. Our Social Media Chairs position expanded to three members, and we held many meetings to develop the direction of our internet presence. We also created our logo, establishing a new look and chapter for Connections.

This year, we also say goodbye to four seniors who have shaped the direction of Connections since its sophomore year. Amanda has dedicated three years tirelessly to the editorial and logistical processes of our magazine. Vincent has left his mark in the magazine both as a light-hearted voice of innovation and a thoughtful, talented writer. John has been a pillar of the magazine from a proactive editorial team member to a hardworking senior advisor. And Alicia, our Editor-inChief, cultivated Connections since her freshman days as Copy Editor, dedicating innumerable hours of work over her dinners and in the ICC classroom and SIMS Lab. Without these seniors, Connections would never have grown to where it is now. Our seniors will be dearly missed.

We thank you for picking up this edition of Connections, and we hope that you enjoy exploring the possibilities and multidimensions of the worlds we explore, the lives we live, and the communities we create throughout it all.

With much love,

Alicia and Gretchen

A Special Note from the Seniors . .

My sophomore spring was the first time I came to a Connections meeting. Sitting in the SIMS lab was a small group of people clustered around computers, reading and discussing the submissions. I had only come because I had a few hours of free time, and Vincent persuaded me that I would like it. What began as a weekend afterthought endured to be the first club I ever joined, where I remained for three years, was funneled into BAASA, and now have become senior advisor.

I’m now in my senior spring, about to graduate and embark onto other endeavors – distant from the cultural, personal works within the magazine – but I sometimes still look to the past. Even now when I sit in the ICC Classroom and longingly look at the faces who have joined us, I can close my eyes and remember that first meeting and the people who had welcomed me. I only hope I fostered the same sense of community, so our younger members can experience an equal sense of bittersweet nostalgia when they grow up as I did.

Connections has been a place where I could express myself, and enable others to express themselves too. In a time where uncertainty is prevalent and personal identity can feel scrutinized, I’m proud to have contributed to a space where people feel safe to share parts of their present, their dreams, their childhoods, and themselves. I’m so thankful for my fellow seniors, Alicia, Vincent, and Amanda, for being part of this journey with me, and equally thankful for the younger members of our club, who will continue to maintain this home of ours after we have long departed.

Love, John

I am forever glad that I chose to join Connections in my sophomore year because our tight-knit group has been so welcoming. It’s truly been a great source of comfort for me, and I got to meet so many wonderful, talented people through it.

I want to highlight my amazing roommate, Alicia. You are my ride or die, and we’ve been through thick and thin over these past four years. I love that we got to spend more time together through Connections, whether that be late night worries about our submissions or hanging out in the ICC before meetings. It’s been a privilege to see you flourish as Co-Editor-in-Chief, and I cannot imagine someone more fitting for the job than you. I love you to the moon and back and no words will do justice to how much you mean to me.

Thank you to the team and everyone who submits for working so hard to create a product that truly shines. Every issue, people without fail offer vast and nuanced interpretations of the theme. BIPOC artists have long been ignored, and I hope this magazine keeps growing and stands as a testament to the perseverance of marginalized voices.

Love,

Amanda

I only learned of Connections in my second semester on campus, where I attended the Legends launch party. Being an undecided Creative Writing major at that time, I decided to join the following semester, so I could engage with my culture and literary interests.

Now, five semesters have passed. Through Connections, I was able to contribute to creating a space for self-expression but also allowed me to engage with the BAASA community and my cultural identity on campus. On the cusp of departing Brandeis, there’s a lot I’ll miss from Connections: spending too much time folding sad paper cranes, or running back to the Brandeis shuttle, carrying our bags full of books as we sprinted down Mass Ave. I remember reading at the launch party of Rebirth, my first time sharing a piece with the Brandeis community, and then being kicked out to upper Usdan to celebrate the launch party.

Now, I’d like to apologize to my fellow senior members:

I’d like to apologize to Alicia for not getting to know you sooner. Even though we met at orientation and shared many of our classes, we only got to know each other through Connections. Thank you for dealing with my Squishmallow obsession.

I’d like to apologize to John, for dragging you all the way to Boston Kebab because my car decided to die and the shuttle wasn’t running, so we ended up on a very lovely thirty-minute walk into Waltham to collect material for the Boston Kebab collaboration for the BAASA Instagram that ended up being for naught.

I’d also like to apologize to Amanda, for being the only reason why I haven’t destroyed the Connections Instagram account, and dealing with my antics.

Thank you, the whole team, for the past three years, for creating this space that allows people like me to have a home, and in the tight space of the ICC classroom, create memories that hopefully future generations of Connections will have as well, and treasure.

Wish you all the best, Vincent

Connections has been such a core part of my time at this institution, as someone who has been part of the team since I was a freshman. I spent my underclassmen years working very closely in putting the literary magazine together, and I have been co-Editor-in-Chief for the past two years, which has been such a joy and honor. This literary magazine and team has provided a space for me to understand myself and identity better, a place to find community and friends.

I will never forget working on Connections in the SIMS lab during spring break freshman year, watching our launch parties come into being and grow over time, seeing the way this literary magazine has expanded, the ways we have evolved—even in five years time—and I will, of course, never forget the people who I have been surrounded by.

There are so many people to thank, and in the past year-and-a-half in particular, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about those who I’ve never met but whose actions have so influenced this school and my time here. I’m thinking of those who formed BAASA in response to the Vietnam War, those who created Eastern Tide, the alums who brought up that publication and encouraged BAASA members—some of whom graduated Brandeis the year I graduated high school— to create an, at the time, Asian American literary magazine. And I also thank the founders of Connections, all the past members who I’ve had the honor of working alongside, and, of course, the team listed on the following page. A special shoutout goes to Allie, my former co-EIC, and Gretchen, my current co-EIC. There is too much to say in this little letter, but thank you for all the work you have done for this lit mag, and thank you for being my friends. I fear I have to pause here, else I might take up another two spreads :’) (and this goes for everything in this letter, really). Thank you to everyone who has submitted, who has generously shared their creativity with us. And thank you to you, who have picked up this copy of Multidimensions (or are reading this on issuu); I hope you enjoy this issue as much as I have enjoyed working on it.

Love, Alicia

Multidimensions Introduction

Cover and Theme, written by

Jessica Lin ‘26

I’m happy that I could design the cover again this year – thank you to the co-editor in-chiefs for letting me have this honor again. This year’s theme was “Multidimensions,” looking at the multitudes of realities we could be experiencing –the different experiences we all go through.

I really had creative freedom here, but also had plenty of input and direction from our chiefs and other members of the team, which I’m thankful for. After showing a few preliminary sketches, Alicia and Gretchen both seemed to like a concept based on broken glass / a splintering of reality, showing different worlds. I did have other ideas that I think would be rendered well, and I hope to use them as building points for next year’s cover if possible. The preliminary concept for the cover was much darker and moody, and after a few rounds of feedback (and my own reservations about the tone), I decided to change the palette to vibrant, more saturated colors. Inclusion of more abstract concepts like different textures, lighting, and little snippets of organic beings like eyes or leaves, paired with the jagged and sharp lines of the “glass”, I hope creates a more intriguing contrast as compared to last year.

Over my time at Connections and at Brandeis, like many students, I’ve contemplated how my life might have been different if I was elsewhere, if the choices I made in the past were different. How would my life here play out if I hadn’t met my now, closest friends, or joined a magazine like Connections? All the steps I’ve taken so far have led me here, and I wouldn’t rather be on any other path. As time goes by, I’ve also learned about my power to shift my future, and the experiences of others. I hope that in reading this year’s issue, viewers will be able to experience the talent of BIPOC students at Brandeis and outside, and that this issue will prompt contemplation of the myriad of realities life has to offer.

Mission Statement

Connections aims to create a multicultural network of BIPOC artists and writers and illuminate their voices. We are committed to fostering a community where Brandeis students feel empowered and can claim their identities proudly. We hope to be a safe space for students of varying identities and experiences to share their stories, beccause we believe it is our connections that allow us to heal and move forward.

Connections Team

Co-Editors-in-Chief

Gretchen Wang ‘26

Alicia Wu ‘25

Creative Director

Jessica Lin ‘26

Senior Advisor

John Mauro ‘25

Assistant Copy Editor

Meghan Dodge ‘27

Social Media Chairs

Amanda Chen ‘25

Vincent Lian ‘25

Copy & Graphics Team

Rebecca Deng ‘26

Sophia Fan ‘25

Anusha Koshe ‘26

Grace Toscano ‘27

Table of Contents

fairy dust | Grace Danqing Yang

Another Home | Gretchen Wang

the death of youth | Alicia Wu

Education: The Golden Passport | Zahra Aljiboury

Maybelline | Vincent Lian

How to Love | Vincent Lian

a butterfly cannot stop what was written in the stars. i would say

i’m sorry, but you had to go. | Grace Danqing Yang

Fish Dish | Jasmine Evangeline Keller

[invention] | Anusha Koshe

Seeds not Sown but Swallowed | Meghan Dodge

Collection | Anonymous

Ibis Dance | Grace Toscano

The Science | Shelley Polanco

Tiffany Street | Shelley Polanco

Highlight | Vincent Lian

Mildly Obsessed | Shelley Polanco

Baltimore | Nerissa Lee

For us, later: | Shelley Polanco

Unintended Consequences | Amanda Chen

in: between | Anusha Koshe

the personal is political | Alicia Wu

Thank you!

Scan this QR code to view our Connections ‘24-’25 Spotify playlist!

fairy dust

Grace Danqing Yang ‘26

ten years ago, under the root of the tree in our backyard, my sister leapt through the door to Fairyland.

i was five; she was seven. that day, we were building a fairy house. we dug under that raised root, hoping root could become roof, sheltering little fairies from the rain. we collected sticks and laid them against the root as a wall to protect the fairies’ privacy. we collected berries and placed them inside, an offering for the fairies to eat. we collected stones and carefully placed them in a circle around the tree.

the circle lit up. the walls of the little house fell away, revealing something iridescent, pink and purple and blue and every color, glowing underneath that tree root. the little hole we dug widened until it was big enough for a child to crawl through, its entrance glowing iridescent. my sister stuck a hand in, then an arm. she knew what it was and so did i; she knew where it led and so did i.

“come follow me,” she said.

“i’m scared.”

“come on. it’ll be fun. i’ve always wanted to be a fairy.”

but try as she might, she couldn’t convince me. like most little girls, i had dreamed of a door like this, of a chance to explore a magical world and be a fairy. but faced with that light, fear dug its heels in the soil and planted me in place. i couldn’t. i couldn’t do it.

my sister kissed me goodbye crawled through. i don’t think either of us understood the meaning of goodbye until it was too late. she was seven; i was five.

i walked away. my parents asked me where she was and i told the truth and of course they didn’t believe me. there was a search; a funeral. in my elementary school, i became the girl whose sister disappeared. back then i didn’t understand what pity was, but i felt it in my teacher’s gaze, in my classmates’ whispers. my

kindergarten class learned how to say please and thank you and i’m sorry for your loss. pity followed me from the swings of our playground to the hallways of my high school, tinging the edges of my shadow.

but i don’t grieve for the living. when i look up at the sun filtering through the trees, or the ripples in the pond, i know my sister is alive and well. maybe Fairyland isn’t perfect. i once fell into the pond and saw a glimpse of her. she looked older and just as beautiful. she was attempting to fly and falling in the pond, tears of frustration in her eyes. in middle school i had a fight with a friend. when i blinked i saw my sister, now a teenager, screaming her lungs out at a fellow fairy.

i sleep happy. i sleep knowing she is out there somewhere, learning to navigate a world she wasn’t from. we are connected by something less corporeal than blood. as long as my heart beats, in another world hers does too.

i dream of seeing her again. i dream of that day when we were kids, i dream that i followed her to Fairyland, and we had each other as we learned how to fly and use magic and learned their culture. or i dream that she never left me, that she was still here to push me on the swings at school and walk home with me and of course make fairy houses after school. i wake up with tears on my pillow. i visit the site of the portal in my backyard and all i see is fairy dust.

Another Home

Gretchen Wang ‘26, digital camera (2304 x 1536 pixels)

the death of youth

Alicia Wu ‘25

It’s an unassuming Tuesday. I’m in my apartment, at my desk. It’s late. I should be working. But I’m finishing dinner and I’m watching youtube and I learn that a band I started listening to when i was sixteen has disbanded. i’m twenty-two. they formed in 2015, making the band ten-years-old. the band members are only four years older than me. i’ve listened to their music for six years. they are were arguably the first band i liked that much. they changed the way i listen to music, the way i understand it. i created characters made in their image, imagined an alternate universe where things were different, where fiction is stranger than reality—although it is more often the opposite—and i could never match the details of reality in my writing, could never conjure up the precision, the absurdity, that real life delivers; it never felt like enough or accurate—although that shouldn’t have been the priority in the first place.

it’s like i’m saying goodbye to an old friend, and i suppose that makes sense because 2018 was a year marred by much, and i did make and lose a friend all in one go, even though i tried to hold on until 2020, but i wish i didn’t. i wish i let us die faster because that would have been kinder, to me really, because i don’t think you cared enough, but i needed to have the last word, on my terms, and you probably never cared about that sort of thing.

i don’t regret much, but if asked, i would think of you, you know, although i doubt you think of me ever, and when i do now, it’s actually with apathy (this must be healing—i had yearned for this day—i forgive you, i guess, since i can’t forget you). i imagine in another universe, another life, i would have let go faster, would have learned my lessons in love and guarded my heart—not because anything ever happened but because nothing did—and friends-to-lovers may be my favorite trope but it hardly ever works out in real life (i’m lucky i got it in the end, but i still understand the tension and the stakes all too well).

and maybe in that universe, i kept writing and still loved it with all my heart, found passion and drive and ideas that sustained me and life, but instead the last time i wrote was last summer, and i’m not taking a single english class my last semester of uni and my eighteen-year-old self would be appalled. but i’m writing now, right? it must count for something there must be a world out there where i’m certain of my dreams and i still believe in them and i reach them but it might not be this one, not right now. i’m

twenty-two and i have no idea what i’m doing in the world, and i’ve never felt older or younger than i am at this moment. i’m going through changes, and i can feel it which is crazy (i wonder if that’s the brain [slowly] developing). because i still feel sixteen (sometimes), or at least i realized i’m still anxious as hell (self-diagnosed) and in some ways that probably never left me, but the act of realization unlocked something in me that let me just live and carry that information with me in my jacket’s inner pocket, tucked next to my phone. and i know that my sixteen-year-old self is still here in some ways—she lives in my bones, watches me write and try to capture the worlds in my mind. she too wanted to create in this way but almost gave up—she’d be disappointed at me now but i think some part of her would understand. she peers at me through my playlists, watching me slowly become distanced from artists she found and loves. and my eighteen-year-old self is next to her, pointing at a song i heard years past and still adore, adding it to my queue. they both smile when they learn that i am better—not completely, but something is better than nothing and progress is all they ever hoped for and they don’t understand so much about me but they are me so they must know me, right?

just a moment can carry me back in time, across space—i’m sixteen again, in california, watching a movie on a whim because the band has two songs in it. i’m eighteen, back in the state i was born in, splitting my life between two sides of the country, and the only book i brought with me is the one i credit as the first i ever read by and about an asian american individual (This Time Will Be Different by Misa Sugiura, you will always be special to me). i’m twenty-two in my apartment wearing a t-shirt i’ve had since i was eighteen, and a book i’ve adored since i was sixteen sits on my desk alongside all the other trinkets of my life (a snippet: a framed photo of 爸爸 and i, taken by 妈妈; a copy of Futures that’s signed by my beloved team; a shrine—as i jokingly call it—dedicated to characters from games i enjoy; a stack of cards from friends over these past four years). it’s almost 10 p.m., and i’m still eating dinner, and their newest youtube video titled “New Hope Club - The Best Of” has me running to instagram to find out that they’re breaking up. these objects bear witness to the death of youth, another nail in the coffin next to the nail about liking music i held a grudge against for reasons i only began to unpack after taking aapi studies courses in uni; the nail that knows that we’re a month into 2025 and i still haven’t read a single book yet; the nail that’s rusty from not being used, from sitting there in the rain and wind of time—i don’t know if i’ll achieve the dream i said i’ve had since the summer before eighth grade—i’m almost a decade older than her now, and i’m scared i’m disappointing her, you know, and now i don’t know what i’m doing or where i’m going to be in four months time, and

how could i be so sure at thirteen and so lost at twenty-two? and i can’t go back, not even if i close my eyes and really think—the past is locked behind me, and the key is thrown away, lost, and there’s only one way to go and that’s forward because the opposite is unthinkable and i know that somehow it’ll all turn out okay but i don’t, not really—there is no guarantee in life—but i have to believe it otherwise how can i go on? and so i believe it, and in that unknown i know that there are a million possibilities of who i can be but none of them will be youth. but you who are my future does not need such an ending—to live is to grow, and to be eternal is to stay stagnant even if there are infinite possibilities because the gods do not change, that is the gift of being human. and yes, nothinglastsforeverandnothingstaysthesame so you change, your music taste and the media you consume and the ways you create and the people you love and somehow the world still keeps turning because it didn’t end with ‘things change and friends leave. life doesn’t stop for anybody’ as a horrifically tragic finale. you were once thirteen and sixteen and eighteen and you are twenty-two and the world is before you (for better or for worse) and you will endure and survive all the things before you and after you. and all your past selves, they are watching, and they are thinking, ‘you are nothing like me, but i love you anyway.’ they are you too. and you are them as well.

Education: The Golden Passport

From Iraq to Boston: How One Student’s Passion for Learning is Opening Doors to Global Opportunities

Zahra Aljiboury ‘27

Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” For one Iraqi student, education has done more than change the world—it’s opened doors to new opportunities, connecting him to a world that would’ve otherwise been merely impossible to reach.

When his visual graphic got accepted for showcasing at the annual American Association of Neurological Surgeons in Boston, it wasn’t just a personal triumph, it was a testament to the far-reaching power of learning.

For 21-year old Murtaja Satea, the key to success has always been simple: “Education is the foundation that allows me to turn my passion into something bigger,” he says. As a student from Dhi Qar, a southern province in Iraq, Satea is all too familar with the challenges that come with being Iraqi in a world constantly pushing negative rhetoric.

“It’s like having a black passport,” he says. “You don’t get respect in front of foreigners and no one takes you seriously.” But for Satea, education has been his gateway to respect. “When people learn I’m pursuing a career in plastic surgery, especially in the U.S., they start to see me differently,” he adds.

His perseverance stands in stark contrast to the growing frustration among Iraqi youth, many of whom feel abandoned by a government that has failed to provide opportunities—even for those with degrees. The 2019 Tishreen (October) protests were a clear manifestation of this collective frustration, as young Iraqis took to the streets to demand jobs, good governance, and an end to corruption. For many, education has become a dead end rather than a gateway to success. But despite these challenges, Satea refuses to be discouraged. “I know the system is broken, but I also know what I want,” he says.

And while he hopes to become a plastic surgeon in the United States, Satea emphasized, “Even if America doesn’t accept me to practice, the important thing is that I succeed in helping people.” His feelings reflect a deeper value system he holds close, one rooted in the ethics of Iraq’s medical community. “Iraq takes pride in medical professionals who have humility, who work to serve the poor and who don’t over charge their patients,” he explains. For Satea and many other Iraqi medical professionals, medicine isn’t just a career—it’s a responsibility.

And while his Iraqi passport may limit where he can go, his passion for education has taken his work across borders. What was once a ‘black passport’ that drew skepticism and dismissal has been overshadowed by the respect he’s earned through his dedication to medicine. His graphic was not only accepted but showcased at a prestigious surgical conference in Boston—thousands of miles from home. In a world where opportunity depends on nationality, education has become his golden passport, opening doors that once seemed out of reach.

For other young people facing similar struggles, he has one message: don’t give up. “I know success is failures and successes,” he says. “But I want people to know that this shouldn’t stop the youth from pursuing an education.” Despite the challenges, he believes knowledge is the one thing that can never be taken away—and the one thing that can change a person’s future.

Maybelline

Vincent Lian ‘25

After the wilted repairman finally sent the grandma out with her new phone, he gestured me towards the counter. I barely heaved the desktop PC onto the counter when he recognized me: “We went to the same high school, right?”

His faint makeup and facial hair made it hard for me to remember. “Long time no see,” I replied, taking note of his older face.

“You as well,” he answered, matching my gaze. He dressed casually, in black jeans and a tank top that hid his strong figure poorly. “Been doing well?” he smiled slightly.

“Yes. You?”

“Yeah, pretty good,” turning his head down to the PC. He shifted it around, examining the case. “So, what’s the problem with this bugger?”

“It suddenly stopped working,” I said, “well, according to my brother.”

“Ha. How old is he again?”

“....Nine. My parents wanted a normal son, I guess. He mainly uses it for Roblox. Dress to impress I think.”

He chuckled, his eyes still on the PC. “He definitely plays because of you,” he said, hunching over with a tiny sigh to poke a flashlight into the PC. A few tattoos of his peeked out under his tight tanktop, more than I remembered. “Is he good at it?”

“Nope. Anything out of the ordinary?” I asked, looking back down at the PC.

“Seems like some kind of juice was spilled,” he got up, wiping his face and smudging the faint blush with the sweat. “You’re gonna have to replace some of the parts.”

He never wore makeup, only when I applied it on him. “Well, looks like he’ll have to mow more lawns this summer,” I joked. He did his usual chuckle again, returning the back lid onto the PC.

“Are you here just for the summer?” I asked him.

“Yeah, just earning some extra cash. You?”

“Spending time with my family, before classes,”

“Where you go to school again?” he asked.

“LA.”

“Fashion, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Right, nice.”

The door swung open again, with the grandma frantically jamming her finger onto the screen. “Put your thumb on the home button,” he said. After some clarifications, she left. He smushed his eyes against his face, now blending the mascara on his face and fingers. “That grandma’s been here too many times.”

“Your makeup’s smushed,” I pointed out.

He looked down at his blackened hand, smiling. “Would you like to fix my makeup?”

“Of course.”

How to Love

Vincent Lian ‘25

You thought you were normal. You declared you were ace, because you didn’t really have a crush on any of your middle school classmates. It was quite unfortunate that in seventh grade, a shirtless picture of Jason Momoa from Game of Thrones had you reconsider some things. In the playground, everyone played fuck, marry, kill even though they were all sixth graders. “I guess I’d marry Jason Momoa,” you answered. Everyone looks at you. The girls agree, saying he’s hot. A boy looked at you: “That’s gay,” he aptly stated. The boys laughed in agreement, the girls defended you, and everyone returned to fighting over the swing.

In eighth grade, one of your friends begins dating a ninth-grader. Everyone gossips, about how mature that friend was. You sit absentmindedly on the other end of the folding lunch table, thinking you are beyond attraction until a documentary of wrestlers in history class immediately bulldozed your fragile sense of pride. It was only a feeling that only incognito mode in Firefox could confirm for you, a feeling that the school’s poorly funded sex-ed curriculum could never do for you.

At the local Chuck E. Cheese, you drowned yourself in the ball pit, while your classmates screamed their heads off in laser tag. Your continued nightly rampage on Firefox left you too exhausted and confused at your grades’ graduation party, clicking on too many boxes verifying that you were eighteen, watching too much bad acting. Sculpted six-packs, hairy chests, and biceps bigger than apples and tits bigger than melons, you thought. Perhaps the last thing you needed right now was surrounded by plastic balls, probably only cleaned last year. The latest T-shirts and jeans from GAP and Forever 21 no longer had your attention. You were too aware of how your body looked, your skinny figure all too apparent beneath your T-shirts and jeans. In the checkout line, you help hold some of your sister’s stuff because you got nothing, and she got everything because she was going to college. In the car, your sister handed you an eyeliner, one she got free at Sephora. You didn’t remember which brand it was, maybe it was Maybelline. You tried to use the side view mirror to apply the eyeliner, but you only ended up drawing a rollercoaster on your face. Seeing the eyeliner on your face was when you realized you wanted to serve cunt, but not exactly cunt as cunt did not mean cunt back then.

You met him for the first time during ninth grade. Your parents moved from the West Coast to the East Coast, and your seats were next to each other in Mr. Layton’s English class. You saw his faded Hello Kitty sticker on his Chromebook, and you gushed about your favorite character Kuromi. The next time, you showed off your fake Cinnamonroll nails you got from Hot Topic, and he asked you if you two wanted to hangout, so he could introduce you to the town.

With a crude line on his eyelid, you introduced Maybelline to him. A year later in the town’s playground at night, you two lay on the slide. You did his makeup above him, your silly famished goatee tickling his forehead. After binging too many of James Charles, you wanted to practice on someone else. You brought contour, mascara, and blush, because he finally said yes to your request to do makeup on him, and you could not miss the chance. Yes, he did have some muscles, but you thought makeup made him prettier.

In the backseat of his dad’s Honda Civic, you pressed your sweaty hand into his face as you practiced eyeliner on him again. You two were quiet, as if you two were secretly fucking each other. Being cramped in the car, you heard his breathing as he heard yours, your first proper introduction to intimacy that high school sex ed did poorly of. You asked him if you could kiss him, and he said yes.

All the above was massacred and rearranged methodically into our Common App application, with the ugly, rude, scandalous, and intimate omitted. We became a footnote in our personal statements, both of us trying to suck off the colleges we applied to. Personal statements became a cutting board for the perfect, gushing out how we changed each other, but not how we loved each other, the kind of love high schoolers could only imitate. You were like my Jason Momoa or my shirtless firefighters, and I think about you too much in my sleep, think about your patchy facial hair that you said I had better genes for. But these are the crude lines applications didn’t need. After Maybelline and kisses, we knew what came after, but we never did it. Our promises to attend the same college were hollow, but we loved futures that only belonged to the movies. Sitting together in my Honda Civic, the only thing we could talk about was our future, our tiny little cottagecore house we’d live in. Sitting in silence in the car at the airport departures, you made a joke about how you can’t do my eyeliner anymore, and I replied that’s okay, I can do it myself now. You hugged me before you left, and I saw your bare face for the first time.

Years later, you walked up to my kiosk in Best Buy as if nothing had happened,

asking me to repair your brother’s computer. We looked each other straight in the eye, looking at eyeliner I did not bother to take off from last night, looking at your faint red eyeshadow. We stare too long at our bodies, and we stare too long at our faces. We wondered if we became the person we promised we’d be in our applications, or if we became something else entirely. You smudged your makeup a bit, you say, and I laughed. I asked you if you wanted to fix my makeup, and you, thinking about all of the above, agreed.

a

butterfly

cannot stop what was written in the stars. i would say i’m sorry, but you had to go.

Grace Danqing Yang ‘26

a butterfly cannot stop what was written in the stars. i would say i’m sorry, but you had to go.

i would say i’m sorry, but you earned it. of your sins there is a point of no return; i would not follow you across the threshold, until our bodies stretch out like spaghetti, until our dna unravels, until time stops in eternal agony. i pledged to follow you to heaven; i said nothing about hell. i don’t regret it. i’m not sorry. i’m not sorry. i’m not

~~~

slash open my cheek; cry out in pain. let tears trickle down skin & mix with red; capture in a little vial. run me through a column; separate me in tiny tubes.

there is something dead inside my ribs. the what ifs are rotting me away. the moon is warping space and pulling at the corners of my eyes. crack my skull like an egg & watch the memories ooze out. we were young & so power-hungry. pick one; destroy it & reshape it anew; stretch out gooey like an axon. shape dendrites like a kindergartener bends pipe cleaners. press synapses with a kiss; fold channel proteins like origami.

~~

i perfected this blasphemy, a portal to my other lives. each little world where i did something differently. i step through the first world & i find us, a little back in time, the three of us laughing & hugging until our sides hurt. you were so obviously in love with me back then, anna said you couldn’t stop smiling & talking about how great i am, how you admire me, how i stand up for what’s right & tell it like it is & call out the bullshit. how i will stand up to anyone. in this moment you do not

realize this applies to you, too. we were young & so power-hungry. we built a castle on sand. it was glorious once. i watch the three of us promise to always love & support each other & i cry.

i watch time play out. the difference in this plotline is: one night you were soaked in the rain. in my life i yelled at you to come inside. in this one i brought you an umbrella, stood with you, held it over us, my flimsy shield against heaven’s cries. but it ends the same. i watch myself decide what it means to love across party lines & that loving you isn’t enough & i cannot reconcile my beliefs with yours & you have outlived your usefulness. they loved me. they had already hated you; they kept you around because i loved you. one morning i woke up & stopped loving you. when you said the last wrong thing, placed the last little straw, the mob was ready. when the mob came for you you reached for me. when the mob came for you you realized i wasn’t by your side & you looked around & looked at the mob & saw my face among them. even watching, from far in the future, i do not yet admit i am more than a bystander.

apparently nothing about this world is different so i open another portal & step through & watch it play out again. i watch us swear to protect each other. in this world i place a crown on your head, tiptoeing to reach you. i watch as you place a crown on mine, pinning glittering metal into hell-black hair.

back then you ruled the sky & i the sea; you & your glittering parties & high-up closed-door connections & power power power; me and the roaring crowd behind me, unstoppable like the ocean power power power. we were young & so powerhungry. i watch you & anna become enemies & then you & me & then me & anna. i watch them hang you. i watch myself, eyes of stone, spin around on my heel & stalk away. good riddance, i laughed to my friends. it was about time. how arrogant you are, to think you could ever rule the stars.

& like my values were not your values, my values were not my people’s values. i once threw you to the wolves & now my people threw me after you. i should have done it differently. i should have fought harder; i should have picked a different knife. & i found your finger bone (it had been cold for ages) & held it & as my soul faded i remembered what it was like to hold your hand.

[i claimed i was a bystander. i was not. i have to see it a few times to be sure. i was always the leader of the mob. i did just not watch you bleed; i held the knife. i did

not just watch you drown; i pushed you in. i claimed to be your puppet but you were never the moon.]

watching this i cried & then the butterfly & i opened another one & then another one but there was no butterfly effect here, i watched small ripples ebb against solid cliff. in chinese legend a man moved a mountain shovel by shovel, but in these lives the mountain was everlasting ever constant. my beliefs make up my bones & your beliefs pump thru your blood; you said it doesn’t matter that our values are not the same & I decided it does. & I let you bleed out. & when they turned on me, i did things differently. i fought harder. picked more loyal allies, a sharper knife. & still i lost. & as they crushed my skeleton to dust i dreamt of you bleeding, so slowly, blood dripping from your neck to the floor, slowly spreading puddle. did you suffer? did you curse me? cry? scream at me that no one will ever love me like you did? (for better or worse you were right.)

~~~ what a curse it must be: to have a woman who did not love you enough to spare you, but tore through dimensions to recreate your face.

~~~

the butterfly flaps her wings & sends the ripples across the tides & a little ripple becomes a roaring wave & it crashes, thunder versus mighty cliff. the heavenly tsunami is powerless against this mountain. there are some things that stay constant among infinite possibilities. i am governed by the same laws in every universe. what goes up comes down. energy cannot be created or destroyed. in every possible world i love you. in every possible world i stop loving you. in every possible world i leave you adrift, i leave you to bleed, i hold the knife.

the butterfly & i still remember you. i could never wash your bloodstains off my dress so i wore it with pride; they oohed & aahed over the deep brownish red. i still wear it. i wear it every time someone needs to be eliminated. some things have to be done & others are cowards, but this is what you built me for. i have yet to meet anyone who comes close to you. i stand over them, watch them writhe. they are pale imitations of you. when i cut into them they break so easily. when i cut into them i see afterimages of your face. it’s easy as breathing; killing you was the only thing i had ever done in my life. what’s a few clouds when i have conquered the sky? the

moon’s pull shaped me in your image. you are the only worthy opponent i’ve ever had. you are the only person who has ever loved me. others have fallen for the flowers & the sunshine & the angry thunder. you are the only person who stared at the roiling waves. watched whirlpool descend to vortex, hell at the bottom of the sea. watched ships capsize & monsters feed & said i want this & risked everything, far from shore, far from home. we were young & so power-hungry.

did you ever realize? the ocean can befriend you, serve you, she can even obey you. she can sacrifice for you & defend you & become your weapon to wield. she can take you across the world, she can be your conqueror, make them bow in your name. but at the end of the day you must sink. at the end of the day her waves must swallow you as you struggle & kick for air. she will not blink as you drown. as water enters your mouth & you hold your breath. you try & try & try but it’s like holding back the tide; eventually every aspect of your soul is screaming at you to breathe & you gasp but instead of air it’s water. she will watch as your lungs slowly realizes they will never take in air again. as the oxygen stops flowing to your body, & first your fingers & toes turn blue, then your limbs, then your chest then your brain. she will watch as your eyes take in light for the last time. as your neurons panic, quite literally flashing your life before your eyes, a last-ditch search for a way to live. as your eyes dim & it all fades & your heart forgets to beat. what can i say? you spent too much time in the sky. you & your starlight (your beautiful, beautiful starlight; a moth to the flame could not ever comprehend what it means to love you). you thought you had the sea but its only master is the moon.

~~~

you once knelt & promised to defend me. we swore to always support each other & be there for each other. & only now have i realized that you never broke your promise. i can’t say the same for myself. but once upon a time i knew you were by my side & once upon a time i felt safe. once upon a time i had you & we had a dream & we were going to rule the world; we were going to destroy it all to build it anew. i once wanted nothing more than the sky & you.

i’m not sorry. i’m not sorry. i’m not sorry. i’m sorry. i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry. i had to do it, do you understand? but i’m sorry i enjoyed it. i’m sorry that i relished it. i’m sorry that i gathered everyone to help me, then danced on your grave. god i miss you. you’ll never understand how much i miss you. me and the butterfly and the tides.

Fish Dish

Jasmine Evangeline Keller ‘28, digital (18.15” x 32.63”)

[invention]

Anusha Koshe ‘26

it starts with erasing. in harsh lines that scribble out idyllic promises, you rip away at the pages, at your skin. the foundation scratched raw, your world is reduced to a desolate landscape, a place where the flowery worlds you build cannot hide the crumbling walls beneath. so you tear it out of the notebook, and file it away, evidence of the murder you committed. and on the next blank page, innocent and smooth, your pen makes contact with the paper. you write until the blood runs in rivulets down your hand, the scrawl burned into the backs of your eyelids. and the next day, you are born anew.

it is in this way that you are prototypes in the making, failed experiments filed in shreds of writing, your blood and bones held together by the burning brand of words you have chosen to embrace. until you decide it’s no longer enough. until you decide your experiment has failed you once more. will you be doomed to repeat this cycle forever, or break it?

to wake in new mind, the old must be purged. memories, emotions, the tangled and messy and complicated. a ball of black yarn, compressed in the recesses of your ribcage. to slide a knife between them, through folds of tissue and crimson, until spills of ink pool from you in an intricate webbing. it’s all pointless. the coolness of the blade stings, you grip the threads in bloody fingers and shove them deep inside. and they curl into each other, a buildup of what you can never acknowledge, a void that festers and grows. it’s easy to ignore, at first. but with every discarded project, the bodies increase in number. your dreams end with a knife to the heart, your last heartbeats echo in a pile of corpses wearing your face.

do you hate what you’ve become? do you hate who i still am? in the face of my unchanging facing certain failure, you cower. in the wake of my imperfections and selfishness, you flee. to wake up is to remember, and to be alive is to be drowned in tidal waves of memories. i, riddled with weaknesses and scars and flaws and blemishes. i, inhaling cold air burning my lungs. i soak in the late autumn sun and laugh deep from my belly and cry myself to sleep and selfishly grip my failure in fingers cracked and bleeding. to let it go, let you go, is unfathomable. i am the one who cannot be erased or torn to pieces. i cannot be reduced to ink in the ruins of a

page.

and someday, when the world groans awake and the grass is glittering in morning dew, you’ll find a file, dusty to time. an anthology of every version of yourself you strangled. their screams echo in the suffocating night breeze, a heap of empty shells, disjointed limbs hanging limp and twisted. you survey them, eyes glazed in frost, calculating and precise. you have finally attained the perfection i was so desperate to seek. you have slaughtered your way to the top of the mountain, ruthless and cruel. it is only because i am not empty that i lie at the very bottom of a pile of bodies, the weight of their hollow souls digging into my skin. it is only because i am barely clinging to life that you spare me, a mockery of the person you once were. and it is only because i will always remember who i was before you reinvented me that my resounding screams echo in their bones, in your ears, in the fragments of a shattered soul.

Seeds not Sown but Swallowed

Meghan Dodge ‘27, digital

‘That vending machine doesn’t work,’ A voice behind him says, light and friendly. He turns, pocketing the last coin (a real coin, he’s one hundred percent sure). The man behind him wears a 00000000000 Oooooooooo jacket.

‘Thank you for telling me,’ he says, inclining his head politely.

19 pages single-spaced of non-linear, jumbled scenes. Three years and the most absurd, mundane content I could possibly think of. Library study days. Train station reunions. Club practices. Valentine’s Day stories, written in July. I spent my high school years obsessively writing scene after scene for these two characters (not my own), and the culmination is 19 pages on a Google doc and three separate notes app notes. Only about 1600 words have ever been read by another person.

Bythetimerealityhits, Thechimesoffreedomfelltobits,

These two characters each appear “onscreen” for forty minutes combined, with about 10 minutes being scenes where they appear together. They interact explicitly exactly six times. Several of these scenes are imprinted on the backs of my eyelids, and I could not tell anyone why I’m so obsessed. I once spoke about them to a friend who’d seen the media they were from, and she’d said, “Who?” Another friend made a bracelet for me with the name of one character on it while she made freebies for her favorite K-pop group’s concert. I’ve laid awake at night, mind swimming with ideas about their lives.

They meet in a hundred different ways—in front of a vending machine, at school, on the train. In some versions, oooo breaks the other’s nose by accident within the first few days of meeting. In others, they build a slow but steady friendship, then

romance. True to their characters, they bicker in every one. Sometimes I got bored of the steady “high-school sweethearts forever and ever” relationship and made them break up then reunite, or break up and never reunite, or never move to that stage in the first place. But I never enjoy the last one. I would rather drink bleach than date anyone. Romantic gestures in real life make me cringe enough to turn away. Someone asking for my number is enough to make me lightheaded with panic.

Thisstunningdocumentary

Thatnooneelse,unfortunatelysaw,

ooooooo takes out his homework, adjusting it neatly to the center of his desk, and his pencil case, next to the neat pile of workbooks. Then he throws himself onto his bed, smothering his face into a pillow, and screams, “FUCK!”

High school. College. Adulthood, working life, a future where same-sex marriage is no longer taboo. Confessions, coming out to family. Futures I’d extracted from other people and tailored to fit their stor y(ies). Before my grandmother’s surgery, I sat in the hospital with her and listened to the caretakers gossip about hot doctors.

That one social interaction makes it surprisingly easy to skip shifts. Usually med students taking leave is greatly frowned upon by the whole administration, but all it takes this time is a few words to oooooo about his partner (or girlfriend, they really preferred), and his entire Friday afternoon is free.

The first person I came out to told me, “oh no.” over text without thinking about it. Why didn’t I think about it?

What will happen to them if things don’t go well? What if they take that chance,

move to that city, quit that job? Failure is impermanent when it’s only recorded in that tiny frame of 2 paragraphs. Each scene is life viewed through a rosy lens. Illness is care. Pain is a moment for comfort. When I write, I crawl into a warm, dark space within my chest and hit “play” on the lives of two people whose actions are inconsequential and who are successful, happy, and fulfilled. My personal theater where I control what happens, and every sad moment has its happy resolution.

Suchbeautifulphotography, It’sworthitfortheopeningscene, I’vebeendrivingaround,listeningtothescore,

Tomorrow,whatwillyoubecome?

The landing was bare, save for a few stone benches lining the sides. They opted for standing at the railing, their sides pressed together, looking off to the sunrise. It had been an hour since they started hiking, and the darkness had receded quite a bit.

“We missed the sunrise,” ooooooo said.

“It’s okay. We can always come again.” oo laced their fingers together.

I write and I love. There’s always a better view waiting.

AnoteIwroteafterrereadingthesemultiverses: Huahsudukhsdjklsglk reading my high school writing now as a rising ooooo in college like holy hell i didn’t understand oooooooooo. Like wdym ooooooo didn’t oooooooooo was I tripping???????? ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooo i think. And dont get me started on the drinking fic oml I need to rewrite all of this i didn’t know shit about ANYTHING ahgagghjjfgjfgs v like okay I am cringe but I am free but then I have to deal with my cringe in the future uhgislkjfghghghgh

Ibis Dance

Grace Toscano ‘27

i always thought a bird like an ibis would be just as magical as it sounded. i didn’t expect the uneven proportions. the crooked legs. hunched beak. i thought you would be just as beautiful as the words you had said. you talked and talked. but you treated me like origami. folded me in quarters. paper cutting into your calloused skin. i break through your flesh. breathe oxygen through your veins. i map my way to your throat. you swallow your last sip. pulling your lips closed. i fall back down. questioning.analyzing.concluding.

i had said originally. i wanted truth. for myself. and that is why i am so desperately begging to be loved. touched. held. appreciated. wanted. chased. wanted. picked and pulled through the mud that is loneliness. the mud that is all my want. bubbling and seeping out of my pores.

i want it all. the rivers expanse. all the water in the world. i want you to give me your last drop even as your mouth chalks. i want you to fold your soul into hundreds of paper ibises to decorate the walls of my hollowed heart. to be wanted so bad i cannot think anymore. i once thought it was you. i once hoped it was you.

i do not want an ibis as a lover anymore. but still. i am waiting in the sediment. for someone to choose me. even if they swallow me whole once again.

The Science

Shelley Polanco ‘24

The lips part.

The words stumble at the cusp

The tongue is self-conscious, it needs to smoothen its bumps

The gurgle deep within launches

The veins brace themselves for A liquid thrust, flying resembling a dart.

The lashes intertwine, fluttering quickly to protect Beautiful chocolate drops, exploding and captured in your irises.

The words falter

As your hand meshes with mine

The lips come to a halt And the words dissolve.

Tiffany Street

Shelley Polanco ‘24

I’ve never attempted to make Your love poetry

Because your soft hands burn my skin as salt settles

Eyes so warm

Heart so pure

Weird obsession with defecation

Deepest apologies we were not so patient

Living retroactively and seeing you

In absence grows a love that I long

To smile while you scrubbed

To laugh when you kissed and hugged

To stand to knife and men

To cherish you and Throw you the party you

Said you’d love

Ironic your love caused a thud

That tormets our lineage

Because if there is a God

Is that the because

To snap your golden line to Earth

And leave dust and bums?

Watching the men deteriorate

Once they’ve used up the dishrag

Shatters my heart and squeezes it sad

From beginning to end

It was a drama

Mama, you deserved better than that!

Humbling seeing

Dirt and no scraps

Meanwhile

When you were alive I didn’t know that That your life would be taken

When you fixed your hand to help

Wolves had already caused you to yelp

Tears flowing

Just knowing

You fell

And cried

And no one heard the cry

Such a spirit that moved mountains

Just to be groped like a fountain

Only trapped on an island

Looking out no one buying

Beautiful lying

Why is no one crying

Highlight

Vincent Lian ‘25

Eachquestionincludesoneormorepassages.Readeachpassageand questioncarefully,andthenchoosethebestanswertothequestionbasedonthe passage(s).Allquestionsinthissectionaremultiple-choicewithfouranswer choices.Eachquestionhasasinglebestanswer.

“In the reading section, there are a few strategies I recommend you use. Before you begin reading the passage, take a look at the questions first and underline any passages the questions reference first. Pay attention to those segments, as this will save you time during the exam so you won’t have to flip back and forth when answering the questions, got it?”

The students nodded, most of them diligently taking notes. None dozed off today, but I had an overworked dripping air conditioner to thank for that.

“Let’s first use this passage as an example.” I handed out a truncated passage of Lincoln’s speech, ripped from a previous exam. “When you encounter a word or a phrase you don’t know, try to infer its meaning from the sentence. Your homework will be reading the passage and bring any questions you have for class tomorrow, okay? Cathy, is there a word you see right now that you don’t know?”

She looked up from her desk, tugged away from a daydream. Her name is Xiaoyu, but she decided on Cathy as her English name. A few weeks ago, it was Amanda. “Score?” she replied groggily.

“Well, score in this case represents twenty years. So ‘four scores and seven years ago’ means eighty-seven years ago, got it?”

She nodded lazily.

“Okay, good work class, enjoy the rest of your evening. Zaijian!”

They carelessly shoved the worksheet into their bags before heading out the door. Being only afternoon, my students were keen to forget all they had learned and ran out into Chinatown.

The test prep center paid well despite the occasional leaking air conditioners that necessitated a bucket underneath. It was decently furnished, with white plastic tables filling up the room with a squeaky rollable whiteboard. It was on a second floor above a bubble tea cafe, the entrance squeezed between the cafe and a nail salon next door. Sometimes, you could smell the sweet flavoring from below during

classes, and I tended to lure students with the promise of boba tea if they performed well on mock exams.

My mother saw her sister’s hiring notice on WeChat, how she needed a tutor for her place. Being the generous sister she was, my mom proposed that I help, as a family favor. It was a minimum wage for proctor work, but triple that for college essay tutoring. Mother insisted my aunt did not have to pay me, but my aunt insisted that she needed to. After a long argument, mostly out of courtesy, over a restaurant table, my aunt graciously conceded, but she ended up paying me anyway. “Just keep it hush-hush,” she sent in WeChat along with a virtual red packet. “Think of it as an early red packet,” wink emoji.

The pay was decent enough for me to save some in my bank, but also gave me a few extra coins to indulge in the delicacies of Chinatown after work. After teaching justifiably demotivated high schoolers how to pass the English section on the SAT, I would grab a cup of boba tea, and if I was feeling ambitious, a few extra egg tarts for home.

My consolation was that I could study for my GRE during their exam, as long as I was in the room and kept an eye on the students. They probably felt the same as me - who wanted to be stuck indoors studying for an exam? I heard murmurs over breaks from the students about how all of their other friends got to go to fun summer camps, or extravagant vacations on a cruise or a nice trip to Europe. At least I was getting paid to stay here. Money was always nice, albeit I splurge most on the food here. Better than college dining.

I bumped into him for the first time at the butcher. My aunt was hosting a Fourth of July party and wanted to make a Peking duck dish, but was busy, and had me pick up some food for her. Her address landed me at a butcher in the heart of Chinatown, on the edge of a busy street.

It was unremarkable. The tiny entrance was flanked by a display of roasted ducks, and above the door was a sign in large bright yellow Chinese characters I couldn’t quite figure out. The lights hummed along with the fan, pathetically keeping the early July heat out of the store. The inside of the store was clean, with white tiles lined up all over the shop. Behind the counter, he slammed a cleaver through a pig when he noticed me walking in and wiped the sweat off his face with his forearm.

“Can I have one of that?” I pointed futilely, forgetting the proper Chinese word. There was a bit of subtle eyeshadow and mascara on his eyes, seemingly hastily wiped off. He had a little stubble growing, more facial hair than I had. Perhaps sensing my eyes lingered on him too long, he looked back down at his task

at hand.

“Of course,” he curtly said. He took a second and handed me a wrapped duck. His stained grey apron covered up most of his uniform, with his black curly hair smoothed back with a headband.

“Thank you.”

“Thanks. Have a good day.”

“Something on my face?” I asked him the next time I was at the shop.

“Only old people come to the shop,” he said. He did a small courtesy smile, continuing his work.

“You in college?” he continued.

“Yeah. You?”

“Just graduated.”

“Nice. Where?”

“Middlebury.” He slammed another knife into the pig and collapsed onto a tall stool behind him, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

“I did theater and philosophy,” he shrugged. “You live around here?” he asked as he continued his work.

“Newton.”

“College?”

“California.”

“Huh. Surprised you’d want to spend summer here,” he chuckled.

“Well, I’m here to help out at my aunt’s tutoring center.”

“The one at the corner?”

“Yeah, that one,” I replied.

“I took some classes there I think.” he mused.

“Could be another one.”

“Yeah. There are plenty of them around the area.”

“Tomorrow’s the fourth of July, so class will be canceled,” I said. I collected all the mock exams and placed them into my bag. “Enjoy the day off, hao ma?”

They ran out the door of the test prep center, not a single heed to my words. Besides trying to get into a top-tier college, I guess they had no other worries for the summer. Now I was the one stuck with the exams, having to grade theirs. Perhaps I should had taken some GRE prep classes.

I popped into my aunt’s office, her eyes glued to her computer screen as she organized next week’s lesson plan for me. “Gugu, I’m going to head out now. Need anything?”

“Can you get another of those ducks?”

“Okay.”

“I’ll send you the money on WeChat.”

There was a line at the butcher. He was at the counter again, handling the animals with a precision that almost seemed unbecoming of him, but I was almost used to it. I watched him work for a few minutes, the sweat on his body seeping through his tanktop again.

“Busy day?” I asked him when I reached the counter.

“Yep. How many?”

“Just two this time.”

“That would be great, thank you.” I answered.

“Have a good day.”

“You too.”

“I hope everyone had a restful break. I know school’s starting soon, so we still have some time but I expect focus,” I reminded my students as I handed out the new mock exam to them, one that my aunt acquired from a dubious website. While they scribbled away at their papers, I tried to scribble into my GRE mock exam. I was a bit tired and was quite hungry.

After class navigating through the crowd, I saw him sitting outside the butcher shop alone, smoking on a bench.

“We closed early today. I’m waiting for a shipment. You free?” he tapped the spot beside him with his cigarette. He gave me a wrapped lollipop that looked crimson under the sunset. “It’s cherry. Try it out.”

“You sure?”

He shrugged. “I don’t bite.”

We sat outside the storefront, my juvenile lollipop against his cigarette. His hands were rugged, and this was the first time I saw anything of him without the plain white butcher’s apron below his waist. His tight white tank top argued against his loose grey sweatpants, making his figure too apparent. He gave me the gist of his college life, hanging the cigarette on his lips.

“You got a full ride? You must be good,” I continued after a lick of my lollipop.

“I guess.”

“Why’d you stop? You could’ve signed an agent after graduation,” I asked. “Tired. Wanted to take a slow after the slop in college.”

Bugs coalesced under the streetlights, scattered by the occasional passing cars. We swatted the ones that flew close to us, trying to finish the things in our

mouths in time.

“You could do plenty with a theater degree,” I mused, gripping the lollipop like it were chopsticks in my hand. “Instead of being, you know, Chinatown.”

He took a whiff of his cigarette. “I’m still figuring things out. Want one?” he offered me, shaking his flattened cigarette box.

“I’m good,” I decided.

He shoved the box back into his pocket. “Where do you wanna work for? Amazon? Facebook? Microsoft?”

“Anywhere that takes me.”

“Really? You don’t have a favorite company you want to work at?”

“Just there for the money, honestly. Money’s nice,” I stated back, repeating what my mom would say. “Well, maybe making video games would be nice. I love Pokemon. Too bad I’m not Japanese.”

He murmured a guttural hmm, and turned back to his cigarette. “You don’t like being Chinese?”

I laughed. “I mean, we have food. Imagine not knowing how good tofu can be, like some of my white friends.”

He laughed too, and placed his cigarette back in his mouth again. The smoke lazily drifted into the yellow haze from the street light, forming an easy bug deterrent around us. It was evening, but Chinatown was still busy, people of all ages all walking urgently somewhere.

“Don’t you have a train to catch?” he asked me.

“The last train runs around one.”

“Huh. Good to know. But you never know when red line might catch on fire again.”

“Then I’ll walk.”

He laughed.

“What?”

“If you miss your train that is.”

“Yeah.”

He tossed the cigarette onto the ground and poorly snubbed it with his left foot. “So you going for a cushy job at Google or something?”

“Well, I’m supposed to be interning right now,” I replied. “I don’t think lecturing kids about the SAT looks that good on Linkedin.”

“It does show you work well with kids. You can say, ‘good at interpersonal communication soft skills’ on your resume.”

“I suppose.”

The shipment never came, but I was slightly happy that it didn’t.

“So, you have Instagram?”

whatareyoudoingrn proctoringexam.�� will be done in the afternoon comeovertomyplacetonight? when whendoyougetofwork ermm4pm theresaballthingivebeenmeaningtogo,wannacomewith Ball? likedragnstuff.youknowrupaul? �� oksg

A sole upsidedown gold Chinese character, fu, was plastered on his door. The silver door handle lazily reflected the crimson sunset, casting a hazy oval blur across the floor. I knocked on the wooden door and waited.

“Hey, it’s-.”

A ruffling noise came within. “One second.” The door opened, and he was dressed in a black tanktop, one that made me too aware of the shape of his body. It was somehow different than seeing him in the butcher, one that made me (4) ________. A belt followed by baggy jeans, with a few chains dangling, perhaps I should had worn more than a hoodie. In his left hand was an bright blue Ikea bag, a dress and a wig barely shoved in.

“You’re all dressed up,” I noted, his purple eyeshadow leading into his black smooth eyeliner. His face had a slight glossy blush, some glitter sparkling on his cheeks.

“Don’t worry, you’re not the one going on stage,” he smiled. “Let’s get going then.”

I woke up from a text from my mom asking where I was, and a simple “at friend’s place” satisfied her.

“You slept well?” he rolled over to my side.

“Yeah. You?”

“Mmhm. Same. You liked it?” he asked me.

“Like what?”

“Last night I mean. The first time you-”

“The ball?”

“Let’s go with that, the ball.” (5)

I thought for a moment. “Yeah, it was fun. Never did one before.”

On the couch, I filled in his dragon tattoo with a highlight marker, the marks barely hanging on his skin. We lazily sunk into the coach, side by side, while his Roku played SavingFace. My aunt said it was a “heartwarming classic that everyone should watch. Especially your mom,” she emphasized at the end. We threw some popcorn bags in the microwave and dumped them into a large plastic bowl, him sprinkling some melted butter and salt over the bowl.

“I wanted to do ballet as a kid,” he said in the middle of the movie.

“Did you do it?”

“No. My parents thought it was stupid.”

“There’s plenty of male ballet dancers out there.”

“Well, I mean it’s also a hard field to get into..”

On the screen, a woman reveals that she was accepted into a prestigious ballet school to her date.

“Would you study ballet in Paris if you could?” I asked him.

“Like her? Sure.”

“What’s stopping you now?”

“It’s too hard” he laughed.. He turned his face back to the TV. “You saw me on stage. Drag is more fun.”

“You were cool on stage. Slay on the stage. Am I using that right?”

“Yep.”

“In that wig and stuff. And fake tits. Are they fake?”

“Not like I can suddenly grow them.”

“Wish I could do that.”

“You can.”

“So would you study that in Paris?” I asked again.

“Tempting.”

The end of the movie was sad. The lovers couldn’t kiss each other at the airport and parted ways, one going to Paris and the other remaining in New York.

“If you could leave Chinatown, would you do it?” I asked him. I continued to run the highlighter down his arm, imprinting an imperfect line.

“Where would I go though?”

“You could find a cabaret in Paris.”

He scoffed. “Je ne parle pas Francais?”

“There’s also West End in London.”

“Too hard.”

“So you’d rather be a butcher?”

“The butcher paid me well enough, I guess.”

“Well, if you ever get bored of your job, my SAT job paid well.”

“They’d take me?”

“They’d take anyone who speaks fluent English and good enough Chinese. The reading section is what most kids’ have problems with.”

He turned toward me, shifting closer to me on the couch. “What if I left Chinatown with you,” he proposed. “I’ll just crash your dorm. Work at your cafeteria. I’m good with food.”

“And what’s stopping you?”

He laughed. “It’ll be quite rude, don’t you think?”

At the dance party, the women on screen reaches for her date, and gives a kiss, while the partygoers react in their own ways. They danced together, and the movie ended, the blank screen reflecting our mushed bodies on the couch.

“Not your preferred kind of party, right,” I said.

“Well, if my family loved me like in the movie.”

“Do you really need your family’s love?”

He turned to look at me. “Too bad you’re leaving soon.”

“Well, I’ll be back,” I replied.

“And maybe I’ll be gone,” he answered. “Just the present is enough for us.”

“It is.”

He smiled. “Can I?”

I nodded, and he leaned in. (7)

When I came back to Chinatown the following year, the butcher had someone new behind the counter. We hadn’t texted in a while, so I knew he was gone.

“The family that was here moved out I think,” the new boy at the counter said. “Just one?” he pointed at the duck.

“Yeah, just one.”

“One is good,” he agreed. (10)

1) What is the best way to spend summer break?

a) Travel

b) Internship

c) Clubbing

d) Tutoring

2) What was the primary reason why the narrator detested proctoring mock exams?

a) The hum of the air conditioner

b) The egg tarts will sell out after prep class

c) He wanted to see him

d) All of the above

3) What was implied as his initial reason for leaving Chinatown?

a) He is tired of being a butcher

b) He wants to try something new

c) He is interested in the narrator

d) He wants to pursue an acting career

4) Fill in the blank.

a) Intrigued.

b) Delighted

c) Aroused.

d) Pleased

e) Confused

f) Entranced

g) Obsessed

5) What best describes the narrator’s internal thoughts here?

a) The narrator does not understand the question

b) The narrator is nervous

c) The narrator is playing dumb

d) The narrator doesn’t understand what happened last night

6) What is his true reason for wanting to leave Chinatown?

a) He is tired of being a butcher

b) He wants to try something new

c) He is interested in the narrator

d) He wants to pursue an acting career

7) What happened here?

a) A platonic hug

b) A platonic kiss

c) A romantic kiss

d) A kiss, but he didn’t mean it that way

8) What happened after the drag ball?

a) Fun movie time

b) Just hanging out

c) Sleepover pillow fight

d) 000

9) Which choice best summarizes the passage?

a) The narrator reflects on a friendship he had over the summer

b) A college student reflects on his interest in his future career path

c) Summary of a connection that the narrator had

d) The narrator sees someone else living a life he wishes he could have

10) What is the narrator feeling at this moment?

a) Expected

b) Despair

c) Calmness

d) Melancholy

e) Regret

f) Happiness

Mildly Obsessed

Shelley Polanco ‘24

I want to leap in fields of sun

To tell you and then run Ooooooooh weeeeeee

I haven’t written in so long

But this tale must be sung

I apologize, the poetry was a short run

The ideas speeding through Me and I can’t even grab my Brush Camera

Pen Tongue

But they tell me I must be one You should see their faces

When I identify

No fear in my eyes

Only pride

I am a multi-hyphenate.

Baltimore

This is an abstract self portrait that incorporates shapes to portray the first impression of America to me.

Nerissa Lee ‘28, gouache (18” x 24”)

For us, later:

Shelley Polanco ‘24

Oh, it’s been a little while since I’ve etched on your surface With a tide of passion and eyes set on gold I can’t seem to stray away again

A prodigy destined And pressured to keep the tempo

Epically embarrassed and Too afraid of drawing crowds

Again But you, You have found a way in To the garden that is my mind and planted yourself like a baby peppermint leaf who’s scent attaches to every other beautiful but growing thing that lives there

You, who’s face I can imagine softened with a smile the rays hitting your curls just right your cologne of choice clinging to my hair and creating a bubble around us

On a perfect April Sunday We park in the middle of Still waters

And with shy eyes you’ll ask me

Everything that’s missing For us to merge into us too

Unintended Consequences

Amanda Chen ‘25

Once again

Loss pools in the chest

No room for air, tears welling in the eyes

The quietness of the forest amplifies the blood rushing in his ears his arm rustling against stray plants and branches distantly reminding him of his ability to feel The cacophony of sensations building up around him repeating You’realive,she’snot.You’realive,she’snot.

He shakes his head

The deafening silence shrinks to a tolerable one

He lugs the stone marker bearing her name feet sinking into soft earth fingers calloused from clutching stone he places it in the center of the field

A square of baby grass crushed by the weight of the stone

The fallen sprouts’ brethren plead with The Immovable they curve towards it, bending stretching, burrowing and pushing out of the dirt, an immense effort to un-suffocate their siblings

He stood before the marker. His ankles only feeling the caress of the grass.

They are now demanding him to move the marker,

Wedon’tdeservetobeyourcasualty

He heard nothing but the wind.

His loss permanently marks the ground a packed earth, a crushed chest caving inwards into darkness

In every world he lost her, eternal commemoration In every world a patch of dead sprouts

in: between Anusha Koshe ‘26

the line remains unclear when we sleep do we seem-

to be lead in the night tugged further downstream soundless steps echo, still i dare to dream, eyes empty and void fall closed in sleep as i love you silently in a whispered ease anchored to earth to keep you near, i’d hunt the world down find lock to your key and follow your lead my mind in unease to live for you (die for you) is that all i seek? one vessel, one purpose to sink in the greed my selfish, my heartless so ruthless, so meek to love you like fire (to burn all i see) a world cold and cruel where you’re all i need expel you like water the cold air i breathe yearn for you hurt for you break piece by piece ‘til i crack ‘til i bleed i wish you would scream the world below is empty

it’s just you and me left in crumbling debris i long to be freed

–motionless, i lie pulsing in my dreams.

the personal is political

Alicia Wu ‘25

I’m the first in my family for many things. I’m the first and only girl in my family from my generation onward (thus far!). I’m the first to be born and/or raised outside of China. I’m the first and only to be born and/or raised in the U.S. I was the first to be raised multilingual with the expectation that I would hold both languages as equals, existing as I do in a country where I am not that assumed ethnicity. And so I’m the first and only to have Mandarin and English within my grasp from youth where my proficiency with both has changed over time, so much so that I no longer consider myself fluent in the former and I study the latter academically.

I was the first in my family to visit Europe; it was last summer, I was twenty, and I did it without family. And I’m the first in my family to visit the U.K.

Last summer, I spoke to my (white) boyfriend on being my ancestors’ greatest dreams, on going to Europe, studying abroad in Italy and then visiting Turkey. And I didn’t mean any specific dream to go to Europe—just the sheer, incredible nature of it when so much of my family resides in China and has never left.

This summer, I’m in England. It’s June. Two-and-a-half years ago, my mom’s mom, my gramma, passed away. She was a high school English teacher in China. She had always wanted to visit England. She never got the chance.

But I’m in England.

Grief is a strange thing when it is family who has passed, family who you don’t feel as though you were close to, and how terrible and horrible to not be distraught and upset but I do grieve—I grieve the guilt of being a failure of a family member, a failure of a granddaughter.

I yearned to close the distance between us, the one filled with an ocean (and land, and more land—depending on the way you go), the one filled with translation and everything that is lost in it (R. F. Kuang wrote that an act of translation is always an act of betrayal, but what do you do when that is your existence). And none of it matters anymore if the distance between us is now also filled with ashes (ashes? You never wanted ashes. You might still be in limbo, but I’ll never see you whole again).

And yes, she taught English, but I don’t remembering conversing with her in that language in the almost-nineteen-years I knew her—but I also hardly remember

conversing with her at all because I can’t even remember the last time I spoke to her—it must have been during the summer before I left for my first year at uni—but the last time I spoke to her inperson is going on eight years ago and she died twoand-a-half years ago and I have a really terrible memory so really all of this is fake in a way because who’s to say that I have true memories?

English supposedly connects us, bridges that gap, but it seems to be lost in the void that formed across distance and space and time.

So, you see, it has to mean something that I’m in England.

In a funny twist of fate, I do study English. I don’t think my gramma could have figured that one out, but it happened. And to be honest, I didn’t expect that either. I went into college certain that I was to be a ‘Creative Writing major with a minor in Classical Studies,’ nothing more, nothing less. I sought schools that had a Creative Writing major specifically—just English wasn’t good enough. But by the end of my first year, I had changed my mind and knew I was going to be a ‘Creative Writing and English double major with minors in Classical Studies and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Studies.’

Then I went on to be another first, this one new. In October of my junior year, I began humoring the idea of changing my AAPI Studies minor into a major. The problem was that my school didn’t have an AAPI major. No Ivies do either. But Brandeis has a program called the Independent Interdisciplinary Major (IIM) program where students can create their own major. Through this avenue, I became the first AAPI Studies major at Brandeis. Now, I’m a ‘Creative Writing, English, and AAPI Studies triple major with a minor in Classical Studies.’

I didn’t see that one coming either. But from there, I have turned (slightly) away from my first love after a rejection for working on a Creative Writing thesis my senior year and completing all requirements for my CW/ENG double major by the end of my time as a junior. Instead, I’m going to be writing an AAPI/ English paper as my AAPI Studies one-semester independent study in the spring. Everything I am has returned to the roots.

I may be in England, but one of the courses I’m taking has strong ties to what I have learned through AAPI courses, classes like ‘American Immigrant Narratives’ and ‘Performing Asian/American Women on Screen and Scene’ and ‘Asian American Literature.’ The studying of my identity would not be possible without movement and time. This label would not exist without violence and resistance and persistence and triumph.

When I think about being the first, it comes with many feelings. Some firsts that I have aren’t up to my control. I can’t control who I was born to, or my family, or where I was born, or who I am surrounded by from youth. But I am the first AAPI Studies major at Brandeis, and when I was petitioning for that, I thought a lot about my community: those who came before me, my predecessors at Brandeis who petitioned for an AAPI Studies program and minor only five years prior; fellow AAPI students, both those who are and those who study it; future scholars who will have the chance to study AAPI as a given. And I also thought about the students who spoke up against the Vietnam War, the hundreds across the nation that created co litions of color at colleges all over the U.S. Brandeis students were among them, creating the Brandeis Asian American Student Association (BAASA) which I am a part of. Our identities and goals over all this time have bound us together.

Submission

Writers & Artists

Thankyoutoallofourwonderfulwritersandartistswhosubmittedtheir workforpublicationinthisissueofConnections!

Zahra Aljiboury ‘27

Amanda Chen ‘25

Meghan Dodge ‘27

Jasmine Evangeline Keller ‘28 (University of Calgary)

Anusha Koshe ‘26

Nerissa Lee ‘28 (Maryland Institute College of Art)

Vincent Lian ‘25

Shelley Polanco ‘24

Grace Toscano ‘27

Gretchen Wang ‘26

Alicia Wu ‘25

Grace Danqing Yang ‘26

Thank you for reading!