Shock Therapy

LITMAG

SHOCK THERAPY

A LETTER FROM THE EDITORS Our goal in creating this Litmag was to fully showcase the talent and culture here at CCA. The theme this year is shock therapy, a procedure popularized in the ‘40s and ‘50s that was mainly used to treat what doctors diagnosed as depression and schizophrenia. Litmag shock therapy is an outlet for students to express their uncensored thoughts. You may notice this edition is a bit thicker than previous years’. This year, we have expanded Litmag to include more of your artwork, poetry and writing. We even added a music download card with students’ original compositions. You’ll also notice the expanded anonymous section towards the back pages. We wanted to give a voice to the many talented artists, writers, and musicians who for respectable reasons, wish to remain uncredited for their work. Apologies to those who didn’t make it into this year’s Litmag. We received more submissions than any previous year, and could only include a limited number of pieces. We’d like to thank everyone who continues to shock and amaze us with their work; this magazine would truely be nothing without you. Thanks to Lauren Barth for helping with the logo, Rosa Brotherton for publicity, Rachel Monk for your inspiration, Brad Rohloff for the cover and Mr. Gaughen for your guidance and support throughout this entire process.

Laury Monk Editor-in-Chief

Leila Benedyk Executive Editor

10:19 Clara Belitz

Get home. No lights. No cars. Nothing. Key under the mat. Expect no noise, but instead Sabre Dance by Aram Khachaturian loops from the radio. Breaks the silence. Drums. Staccato foot steps, smash my skull. You forgot. Forgot to turn off the noise. Forgot the noise at all. Until you leave. And you return. And it’s music again. And you’ve left. But it hasn’t. You’re back in your home, back with the music. It’s lonely. Lonely to arrive home. At 10:19 PM. With only the rhythm of a silent house to greet you.

Hippies on Haight St. Max Voce

Anita Lane and Nick Cave Marie Vachovsky

Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop Marie Vachovsky

Jokes Fionnuala Casey

You can read my skin like braille with your fingers “How is it possible to lose so much blood and not pick off all the scabs? That mix CD didn’t help too much with your arms around my neck. While you’re there you can add up the marks to figure out just how well the treatment is working. I told you I bruise easily. And to the scar tissue that holds my bones in place: thanks, but you can let go for now.” Well I think that your songs would sound pretty beautiful against my teeth But for now I’m waiting in my footie pajamas on the couch where you left me

Test Mister G

This is a test. This is only a test. Had this been a real LitMag submission, it would have followed with some teen angsty garbage about being dumped by my girlfriend and then listening to some self-proclaimed â&#x20AC;&#x153;indieâ&#x20AC;? song that always reminds me of her that is now stained even though I used to like that band. Bunch of sell-outs anyway. Now that I think about it I never really was that into her, I think it just is the idea that someone of her caliber (read: inferior) could dump ME. I would like to lie that I am better off without her, but now I am not so sure since she dumped me before I could dump her. I need to get my Beemer washed. Note to reader: the author was in high school in the 80â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. Sentiments may have changed in the high school landscape since then and the quality of teen poetry as well. This concludes this test.

Tribute to Oliver Gabby Rios

Fear Helen Hong

Recharge Helen Hong

Infidelity Sasha Balard

How can it be that one can fall So easily out of love? A curiosity that calls, It is one visible above All the nature from hells desire To bring two as one that shouldn’t, But loving purely from their fire Is clearly one that wouldn’t As sorrow slowly suffocates her He ties his noose of negligence. A soldier who didn’t see the aim, She is he who feels the pain.

Shack in Utah Alyssa Kucera

suitable bearings Laury Monk canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t keep listening to myself wine spilled on your table cloth I clean up what you tell me to but you watch as my sickness draws me in to myself again neck strain backed and boarding a grey train off to somewhere we both know of. but I am young and have much time to waste.

Del Mar Beach Sarah Kwan

Teacher Zaid Crawford Music is math Alpha brain wave The lights dance Convex to concave Brilliant minds open Reducing valve turns Let go of time As the drug burns As your thought churns The humans will strive Purple, green, circle, ellipse Shape and color come alive As a bee leaves the hive As the sun released from eclipse I know the universal algorithm The interwoven web Mathematics down to rhythm Until the egos dead Is it all in my head Yet I can strum you an octave Of the whole color pallet And you remain unresponsive To her holy dancers ballad But as the sun rises up Through the sky above the sea This jungle cup Shows you the fractal intricacy

BIG TIMES INSIDE P.2 Jack Conway

The Glory of Charlemagne Jack Conway

O-Shen: A Series Part II Joelle Leib

no title Leila Benedyk

Sometimes things are sad by way of fathers who never loved, and sometimes things are sad by way of villages torn down, and sometimes things are sad by the mist on the lake or the broken dish in the cupboard or the green gone from your eyes. We learn to adapt and we learn to react, but there are too many methods of tragedy to understand them all. The way he says the word like a prayer, like a curse; it could never compare to the scream she let out the night she saw her family burn. To suffer one, you become noble. To understand neither, well, that is life.

Tina Marie Vachovski

The Incessant Succubus Rosa Brotherton

It betrays, bites, and disrespects. I’m told it’s beautifully influential on the people we become. But it’s dark. This woman indeed gave me life but she expects the world in return. Expects the world even after she shattered mine. She sits, mixed drink in hand, and tells me that I’ve destroyed this family. As she slurs all I can imagine are the many moments she spends away from home, in the arms of a man who is not my father. I beg her to apologize just once for her indecencies, selfishness, adultery, addiction, and mostly abandonment of her daughters. She denies everything. She makes excuses. She sits there. She stares.

I beg her to tell me she loves me.

She stares.

How much indecency must one body contain in order to ignore the essence of love for the life it has created, a life that yearns for its respect and affection? In what universe does the transfer of life not produce sympathy, love, appreciation- or any emotion at all- for the product of that greater being? In a world where wolves adopt stray dogs and elephants love orphans unconditionally as their own, my mother waits fifteen minutes to utter three words that I’ve waited my entire life to hear. Fifteen minutes. And in their wake, they expose not a drop of heartfelt emotion.

My heart sinks. My chest opens to the frigid, this house. This house that embraces affectionless heavily, relentlessly. Suffocation. Emptiness. My oppression until it consumed her. I understand why back.

silent air that envelops turmoil. With air that sits sister choked on this she ran and never looked

Unjustifiably evil in its nature, it sits on my chest heavy with the weight of darkness. A succubus that I can never escape. In my attempt to evade this essential evil, it pulls me in closer. It begs for my attention, only to rip away my hopes with the flick of a switch. I now know it is empty, a word that has a pleasant definition only in my dreams. I understand its complexity and undying want to destroy me. But only after 17 years. I have relentlessly waited for the day it holds an element of meaning that brings joy. But it never will. It will forever have a deathly grip on the heart of my personality. I suppose it has its influence over the people we become; however, it is the antithesis of beautiful. It springs from the depths of an underworld I do not know the name of. She has shattered my self esteem, taught me to shy away from the support of others, taught me that love holds not truth, but only an idea we wish we could grasp. My mother has not shown me happiness or beauty, or any of the things society expects of her. Instead there lies anguish. In her wrath, I have questioned entering the realm of motherhood myself for I fear the demonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heredity.

Cottontail

Rosa Brotherton

Oedhin Andrew Huang

life is [not] Googleâ&#x201E;˘ Autocomplete

The Dog Days of Summer Leila Benedyk

I. /Eye Andrew Huang

I beseech thou gaze ‘pon these pigweed an’ thorn’d grasses ‘Round orifice to shafts in blue mountain deep Afore home to mine Elysian days. With closed eyes ‘gainst th’ glittering black An’ warm damp press’d ‘pon the neck, I wouldst I’ unbending pen confess to wreath’d grace Aching heart mir’d in aching earnest. Oh, how couldst I have known mine earth’n splendor Was founded ‘pon traitorous sands? No sooner enamour’d heart bared, Conferred no less with verse shrewdly pluck’d, Reciev’d by gentle scythe! Such harrowing deceit e’er shall I know Whence jeering void in lieu of love’s sweet rose ta’en. Th’ veins o’ mine haven convuls’d with bitterness divine As stones wantonly shak’n from unfaithful post entomb Mine acrid pallor i’ cradle of night. Thus, prithee fair an’ beauteous, Hold thy tongue shouldst reserve ‘ppear i’ mine trystefull visage, For I am afeared darest I return thither, For ever shalt I tarry in th’ Depth.

II. /Aye Aye / (The Fever?...) Andrew Huang

Ne’er buttressed with His sovern blessing Yet son’s passion vaulted as cope of Hell, Youthful fantasies i’ the earth’n clockwork, Amid allies of tried flesh an’ heart, Th’ son taketh sword in one gauntlet, An’ Fear’s wretcht reins in t’other, O’ Valient footfall in grislie Warr ‘gainst Khronos. Lo’, who darest test the sinews of our power? With just earnest, the son wisht semblance o’ solemn countenance, Wisht naught but a Father’s deference. Nay! Howest warrant naked scorn in Thy coffer bosom.

IV. /Reservations Andrew Huang

London Mithra Krishnan

Untitled Sarah Kwan

Non sequiter Stephanie Guo

I inflamed my tongue This morning. It â&#x20AC;&#x201C; not I â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Sputtered nonsense. A dragon puttered Peanut butter and jam Across my toast. I found myself Stuck in a bottle neck. Ants tucked themselves In the creaks of car tires. You tire quickly, Breathe in semicolons, Breathe out carbon dioxide. You kill the Earth With every exhalation. Ah, such exhortations. Did I disappoint you?

Sunny Tina Vachovsky

San Francisco Waits Tina Vachovsky

I See You Risa Benedyk

Pigeon Mithra Krishnan

110,001 Julia Koerber

110,000 corpses away from the Suburb Momâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s famous Sunday dinner Blaring laugh tracks on TV 110,000 festering, corroding, decaying, heaps of friends

(some of Them were mine. some of Them were mine.)

Eardrums burst like a flame on the 4th Barbequed flesh; shattered, stringy ribs The rocketâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s red glare Shanking shriek of a child (that could have been mine. could have been-)

110,000. One hundred and ten thousand cries of anguishpainheartbreaktorment that no one heard from one hundred and ten thousand carcasses away.

What could any fiery inferno offer me now?

It was(is) my reality It was(is) the reality of every “survivor” (what does that mean? I thought I once knew.) My body? Statue, memorial, commemoration. Slightly used government property. I’m in the Suburbs now but Debatably alive (110,001).

Stripped Stephanie Tan

Back Pains Stephanie Tan

A Package for You FADE-IN:

Alexander Powell

INT. BEDROOM - DAY A Title appears on screen reading “THURSDAY”. We focus on a clock on a desk nearby the bed. The clock reads “5:00”. YOUNG MAN (O.S.) No, I don’t plan on leaving early in the mornings, I can sign for your business packages. We see the YOUNG MAN enter the frame, from the chest down, and pick up a soda on the desk as he is holding a phone to his ear. After taking a drink, he puts the soda can down. YOUNG MAN Alright, I’ll see you next week. Bye, Mom. He takes the phone away from his ear and presses the “end call” button. CUT TO: INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT Still from the same vantage point, we see the young man’s back as he sits in front of a laptop at the desk. The clock reads “11:00”. The screen reveals multiple tabs of YouTube videos. We see his face, almost expressionless, as he stares at the screen. He laughs, causing his shoulder to shift slightly. INT. BEDROOM - LATER The clock now reads “1:30”.

The young man falls on top of his bed wearing a pair of workout shorts and a ratty looking tshirt. There is an assortment of random junk surrounding him as he lays face down and falls fast asleep, breathing slowly and heavily. EXT. HOUSE - DAY A Title appears on screen reading “FRIDAY”. A DELIVERY MAN holding a package and a clipboard walks up to the front door of the house. He rings the doorbell. INT. BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS The young man lifts his head from the pillow. There is a look of panic on his face. YOUNG MAN Shit! He grabs a pair of jeans and runs out of the room. EXT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS The young man opens the front door, hair frizzled and panting. The delivery man stares for a moment. DELIVERY MAN Package for Joanna Felix? YOUNG MAN That’s my mom, I can sign for that. The delivery man hands the young man the clipboard and he signs for the package. They then exchange the package and the clipboard. YOUNG MAN Thanks.

The delivery man nods and walks off chuckling softly to himself. The young man sighs and walks inside with the package. INT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS The young man closes the front door and sets the package down. He looks at the mirror on the adjacent wall from the door, noticing his disheveled appearance. He grimaces. INT. BEDROOM - DAY A Title appears on screen reading “SATURDAY”. The young man is laying on his bed, fast asleep. The clock on the desk strikes 9 a.m. The doorbell sounds moments after. The young man sits up quickly and leaps out of bed. He runs out of the room. EXT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS The young man opens the front door from inside and pants as he looks at the ground. The delivery man stands there patiently. The young man looks up and smiles uncomfortably. INT. HOUSE - DAY A Title appears on screen reading “MONDAY”. The young man, entering the frame from the waist up, runs up to the front door and opens it. The delivery man standing outside turns away quickly, grimacing. DELIVERY MAN For fuck’s sake, man, put some pants on! The young man shuts the door and runs out of frame.

YOUNG MAN Aw, fucking hell! INT. HOUSE - DAY A Title appears on screen reading “TUESDAY”. We see the staircase in the house. The doorbell sounds and the young man is running down the stairs. As he exits frame, we hear him slip and crash into the wall. In a heap at the bottom of the stairs, the young man sighs. YOUNG MAN There must be a better way... INT. BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The young man walks in and sets the package down on his bed and walks over to the clock on his desk. He starts to mess with the buttons. YOUNG MAN 8 a.m. should be good. He sets down the clock on his desk, revealing the 8 a.m. alarm setting before the clock’s display returns to the actual time. EXT. HOUSE - DAY A Title appears on screen reading “WEDNESDAY”. The delivery man walks up to the door and takes a deep breath as he rings the doorbell. The young man opens the door, having brushed his hair and put clean clothes on. Stunned, the delivery man’s mouth hangs a bit. He hands the young man the clipboard. The young man begins to sign his name, looking down at the clipboard.

DELIVERY MAN You’re...dressed. YOUNG MAN (as he signs for the package) I thought getting up earlier would be good for a change, you knowThe young man looks up and notices the delivery man is gone, leaving only the package by his feet. He glances around, confused. He sets the clipboard down, picks up the package, and walks inside. INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT A Title appears on screen reading “THURSDAY”. The young man is asleep in bed. We focus in on the clock as it strikes 4 a.m. There is loud heavy knocking at front door downstairs. CUT TO: EXT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS A DARK FIGURE’s hand knocks again on the door, its arm covered in a dark cloak. INT. BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS The young man sits up rubbing his eyes. He grabs a pair of jeans on the floor and walks out of the room. YOUNG MAN (disoriented) Shitty alarm clock... EXT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS Over the shoulder of a dark figure, we see the young man open the front door. He stares at the figure in front of him.

The dark figure is a tall man wearing a black, hooded cloak. The wind blows around the CLOAKED MAN and flashes of light flicker on him. He extends his arm in front of the young man holding a clipboard with a pen on top of a package. CLOAKED MAN (in a dark, rumbling voice) Package for you. Stunned and confused, the young man takes the package and clipboard and proceeds to sign for it. He hands the clipboard back to the cloaked man. His eyes are wide as he stares at the cloaked man. The door shuts instantly as the cloaked man grabs the clipboard. The young man is taken aback. INT. BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS The young man enters the room and looks at the package in his hands, flipping it over from the top to the bottom. He stops, noticing that “THIS WAY SKYWARDS” has been written on the bottom of the box over the tape seal. He looks at the box, confused, then glances over to the clock. His eyes widen when he sees “4:07” displayed on the clock. He sets the box down on his desk as he sits down and then cuts the bottom open with a pair of scissors. He begins pull out a few handfuls of shredded paper, a torn piece of paper, and a couple of thick manila envelopes addressed to Joanna Felix. He sets the envelopes aside and picks up the torn paper. In various sizes and displacements, the text on the paper reads: “The lamb who approaches the lion is the one asking for torment...Do NoT forGET our Reasons for Patterns-” The page is torn mid-sentence. The young man stares at the enigmatic paper. He puts it down and gets up from his desk, continuing to stare at the note with great confusion. INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT A Title appears on screen reading “FRIDAY”. The young man is sleeping in a chair in front of the television, still running. The phone, sitting next to the young man on the arm of the chair rings. He is startled and answers the phone.

CLOAKED MAN (V.O.) (in a dark, rumbling voice) You might want to check your doors, it wasn’t locked the last time I checked it... A dark chuckle is heard from the Cloaked Man Over the phone. The young man picks up an iPod on the arm of the chair and turns it on. The time on it reads “3:00”. He sets the phone and iPod down. INT. HOUSE - MINUTES LATER The young man slowly walks through the house holding a broom. As he passes the kitchen window, we see the cloaked man standing outside the window, unseen by the young man. The young man walks down a hallway, as quietly as he can. He approaches a door. He inches toward it and reaches for the door knob and opens it. The cloaked man is standing in the room. The young man screams. CLOAKED MAN (in a dark, rumbling voice) PACKAGE. FOR. YOU. He holds the box and the clipboard up to the young man, who is still panting. CUT TO BLACK FADE-IN: INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT The lights are on. The clock on the desk reads “11:59” for a few moments before changing to “12:00”, when a Title appears on screen reading “SATURDAY”. The young man is sitting in the middle of his bed, fully dressed and looking incredibly tense. The box on his desk still sits there as well as new box that is sitting next to him on the bed. In his hand he is holding two torn pieces of paper. A closer look at the new box shows that it has been opened from the bottom, the same phrase “THIS WAY SKYWARD” written across the tape seal. The young man glances down at the torn papers. The two pieces fit. Continuing from the last paper to the next, it reads: “Do NoT forGET our Reasons for Patterns, do not think you EXist outSIDE of one (1)...The boxes are yours, the time is MINE.”

He looks around the room. Nothing is out of the ordinary. The lights suddenly turn off. YOUNG MAN (shaking a bit) I will be ready for your delivery. There is a knock from another room. The young man gets up and leaves his room. INT. BATHROOM - CONTINUOUS The young man opens the door to bathroom, finding no one there. There is a single light on from the room with toilet. A knock from another window sounds. He runs out. INT. BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS The young man runs into his room towards his window. He looks out into the backyard, seeing the cloaked man run off down the side of the house with a package. He runs out of the room. EXT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS The young man runs out the front door towards the side of the house. He looks down the side of the house, but no one is there. He frantically looks around. INT. HOUSE - MINUTES LATER The young man sits at the dining room table, head in hands. He waits. The phone rings in the kitchen, so he runs over to answer it. Before reaching the phone, there is a knocking at the kitchen window. He stops, then approaches the window to see the hand knocking. Knocking then begins from the dining room window. The young man whips around, looking towards all the different sources of noise. His face shows visible distress. He walks back into the center of the house when suddenly even more knocking and banging is heard from all around the house.

The doorbell rings. And rings. And it keeps ringing. All while NONE OF THE NOISES STOP. The young man falls to his knees, covering his ears from the noise. He looks towards the front door, which is visibly moving from the knocking. The young man starts to crawl towards the front door slowly. The noises only get louder. He then falls to the ground, collapsing from exhaustion and giving up. CUT TO: INT. HOUSE - DAY The young man hits the floor by the front door. He is asleep and back in his ratty sleeping clothes. He lays there for a moment before the doorbell rings. He wakes up, startled, and looks around. EXT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS The young man opens the door slowly and exhales when he sees the usual delivery man outside. The delivery man is visibly confused by his behavior. DELIVERY MAN Package for you? The delivery man lifts up the clipboard and hands it to the young man, who signs it quickly and hands it back. The delivery man hands him the package. DELIVERY MAN Have a nice day. The delivery man walks off in his usual fashion, making remarks under his breath about the young manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s appearance as he walks away. INT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS The young man closes the door and turns the package over to look at the bottom. A single sticky note with a thumbs up drawn on it is posted to the bottom of the box. The young man looks at himself in the mirror by the front door and shrugs. FADE-OUT.

Katydid Scudderia Audrey Gascho

Safari Josh Masters

Dichotomy Josh Masters

How Was Your Day Josh Masters

I don’t have the willpower to boil down six hours of my day into a few sentences. The best I can do is tell you how I’m feeling now: Tired, determined, inspired, depressed. Depressed because every day I’m forced to do things based on someone else’s agenda when I know that what I want is something different. Every time I sit down in class, I die. Despite seventeen years of life, I’m told that I’m not responsible enough to choose what I want to learn. It’s the teacher’s job to decide what’s best for me. But to them I’m just one thirtieth of a class. No teacher that I’ve had has enough time to assert what I need on an individual basis. Yet it’s still their decision what I should do for six hours each day. I’m not the lucky few whose desires to learn are in alignment with the teachers’ desire to teach, and for that reason, school is more of a nuisance than a joy.

Lumos Max Moore

Lucifer Max Voce

Woman in Zen Mackenzie Lighterink

Physical Pain Gabby Rios

Scars Alanna DePinto

I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t pity the scars. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t will them away or wish they had never happened. Scars make us who we are and each one is a memory, a reminder of what Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve lost and gained. The mark that runs along my anklebone, the indent on my knee, the line that dances over my elbow: each one tells a story I am not willing to forget. Future scars will bloom and fade on now unblemished skin. The unmarked skin also holds memories, ones that are yet to be made. It is a constant reminder to risk new scars: to somersault down hills and outrun reality, to sit on rooftops and escape from the world, to drive with no intention of stopping and board the train at midnight. Every scar marks a time worth remembering, an opportunity seized, a time I took a risk and failed, and a time I stood up again.

ANONYMOUS

Self Portrait There are more single mothers than ever in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s society. Considering I am inevitably your future babyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s daddy, I have provided this helpful self portrait to be turned over to law enforcement when you are seeking child support. Yo welcome.

Nude Descending a Dental Case In the grand, immaculate scheme of life, we are all but slugs lamenting the loss of innocent love and coming to terms with the ultimate reality of the postmodern sunset. That is definitely exactly what this reflects.

How to Be Led On step one make female friends step two that’s it Untitled roses are red violets are blue I’ve got 99 problems and theyre all about you

whoops It’s fucking cold and I want you to take off your shirt. Let me run my fingers through your hair. Let me feel the back of your neck. Tell me about your wife. Dissapointment

Dream Dilation

And sometimes, life just gives you those few seconds of absolute emptiness that transform into a solitary melody that spans years in its own temporal space. And it is not the melody that is lilting and slow and containing a beauty beyond description, but the time itself that holds it. Sometimes you take yourself seriously, and you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t laugh on the inside, since there is no inside, the glass shatters to let the spaces merge across the divide, the dissolution of which results in the state that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m in, one of vacancy and peace. The cynic sometime thinks that it has had enough, and decides to part with you and leave you defenseless against your own vertiginous urges towards the concrete slab of morality. You feel as if nothing more solemn could have affected you thus, and that nothing could hold more and give less. Less of everything - pain, happiness, thirst, lust, and every other fetish humanity has described or subscribed to. But when you wake up, years have indeed passed, and the dream has been real, and you are actually the hollow man.

ANONYMOUS CONFESSIONS I’M WORRIED I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO LOVE A HUMAN MORE THAN I LOVE BURRITOS.

SOMETIMES WHEN MY MOTHER DOESN’T COME HOME, I IMAGINE HER DEATH AND I’M AT PEACE WITH IT. I REALLY HATE THE SOUND OF MY LAUGH.

THE SUMMER AFTER EIGHTH GRADE I CAUGHT A FLY IN MY WINDOW SCREEN AND KEPT HIM THERE FOR TWO WEEKS. I NAMED HIM ANDY. ONE DAY HE JUST DISAPPEARED. I MISS HIM EVERY DAY.

MY FRIENDS KEYED MY MOM’S CAR AND I ENCOURAGED THEM. I DROPPED A PIECE OF PIZZA FACE DOWN ON THE GROUND AND CRIED. I CAN’T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME SOMEONE TOLD ME THEY LOVED ME. I THINK THERE’S A REASON FOR IT. ONE TIME I SAID I WAS 6’1 WHEN REALLY I’M ONLY 6 FEET TALL...

Let’s End on a Positive Note Let me tell you how I’ve felt these past four years. Like a dumb piece of crap. Like the girl who didn’t have above a 4.0. Like the girl who took only 4 AP classes all of high school. Like the girl who didn’t pass the AP Lang exam. Like the girl who never revealed her ACT score. I felt the like the idiot who applied to only 6 colleges And ones that are not prestigious At all. Ones that other people judged and Criticized. After all my efforts these past four years I still felt dumb. No matter how hard I tried You people make me feel like I didn’t try hard enough. After this whole stupid college process, Let me tell you how I feel now. I feel like saying Fuck each and every one of you Who judge people On grades On colleges On scores Congratulations on your efforts But guess what I put in all my effort too And sadly, it went unnoticed. So my senior year has come to a close And it feels freaking great to tell you all How you made me feel. Have a great life at your school, Cause I sure as hell will have a great time at mine.

Bible Bejeweled

Self-Esteem she whispers doyouhaveatampon but the sound leaks from her lips and spatters across the bathroom. i pull one out quickly from my bag. she grabs, hiding ugly pale plastic in her palm. she blushes and turns. clenched in her hand her evidence and her conviction. the juryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes read our sentence; woman.

LAZY

the saddest january scrape the polish offâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;f my nails bitter pieces soak in spit tongue presses dark puddles. i swallow. something again makes its way out of my lip you listen carefully ear n eye. cuz you know how much i hate my mouth would you press it for me i want to feel you lip and teeth donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t you see?

How I Dress Does Not Mean Yes

In Between the End

in between the end perhaps the end is just the beginning of the middle it’s a frame of mind she said as she counted the free fleece on her deathbed the end of the middle is where you see the light where lost socks reunite on a hotairballoonride to nowhere that’s where i’ll meet you

Table of Contents 10:19 Hippies on Haight St. Anita Lane and Nick Cave Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop Jokes Test Tribute to Oliver Fear Recharge Infidelity Shack in Utah suitable bearings Del Mar Beach Teacher BIG TIMES INSIDE P.2 The Glory of Charlemagne O-Shen: A Series Part II no title Tina The Incessant Succubus Cottontail Oedhin life is [not] The Dog Days of Summer I. /Eye II. /Aye Aye / (The Fever?...) IV. /Reservations London Untitled Non sequiter Sunny San Francisco Waits I See You Pigeon 110,001 Stripped Back Pains A Package for You Safari Dichotomy How Was Your Day Lumos Lucifer Woman in Zen Physical Pain Scars

Clara Belitz Max Voce Marie Vachovsky Marie Vachovsky Fionnuala Casey Mister G Gabby Rios Helen Hong Helen Hong Sasha Balard Alyssa Kucera Laury Monk Sarah Kwan Zaid Crawford Jack Conway Jack Conway Joelle Leib Leila Benedyk Marie Vachovski Rosa Brotherton Rosa Brotherton Andrew Huang Google™ Autocomplete Leila Benedyk Andrew Huang Andrew Huang Andrew Huang Mithra Krishnan Sarah Kwan Stephanie Guo Tina Vachovsky Tina Vachovsky Risa Benedyk Mithra Krishnan Julia Koerber Stephanie Tan Stephanie Tan Alexander Powell Josh Masters Josh Masters Josh Masters Max Moore Max Voce Mackenzie Lighterink Gabby Rios Alana DePinto

Anonymous Self Portrait Nude Descending a Dental Case Dissapointment How to Be Led On Whoops Dream Dilation Bible Bejewled Self-Esteem the saddest january How I Dress Does Not Mean Yes In Between the End

Music Walkin’ to the Market (‘Cause the Valley is a Floodin’) -Matthew Fildey Munar Eclipse -Proud Moon One Night (Ft. Lauren Torres) -Xebra Matchbook -Emily Laoleotis Really Chill Samurai -Anonymous Twenty Percent -Ozan Berlinguette

All writing, art, and music has been submitted as original content and used with permission from the creators.