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The 123rd Annual"

Published May 201.6,, Oak Parh t, Rfuer Forest High School a a

Some works in this book contain potentially triggering content; please be advised.

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Gabrielle Napolitano, Griffin McDermott Max yokoo pandif, . Ayush Grace Scully

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. Adam Kneebone, Owen Dispensa

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Rosie Albrecht Rosie Albrecht, Susana Cardenas-Soto

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Sydney Johnson, Blair Ripley Charles Donalson, Gabe Darley, Annabel Hubei . Evalina Sundbye, Veronica Thomas Emma Elminger, Grace Ciaciarelli . John Beck, Jenn Eisner . Mae Vitali, Nick Drain Julia Morrison, Naomi Liechty Ella Leitman Dixon, Triana Drozd Stefan de la Cotera, Sydney Smith Hank Roucka, Max yokoo . Emma Elminger, Henry Harper

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Ella Leitman Dixon, Rob Klock . Georgia Jensen, Julia Cuneen . . Olivia Sipiora

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Alex Muechleisen, Olivia Sipiora Triana Drozd, Logan Rey-Talley . Ella Leitman Dixon Ella Leitman Dixon, Katherine Sang

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. Rob Klock, paige Mosher Katie Stenstrom, Stefan de la Cotera Lucas Pagni, Nick Drain, Lourdes Contreras .

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Annilee Zeilmann Naomi Liechty, Elena Whitney Jane Leipold, Owen Dispensa . Rob Klock, Charlie Crain Beaghen, Guinevere Orenstein . Sebastian Liam Vos Williams Drain, Julia Cuneen, Nick . Leah Kindler, Flynn Osman

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. . Prachi Mehendale, Lura Honderich . Leah Kindler, Vann Harris

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Kara Jackson, Flynn Sheehan

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. Veronica Thomas Kinji RidleY Mahal Schroeder, .

Uhlir Grayson Fiona Casper-Strauss, .

Ellora Jaggi, Kelly Sandoval, Liam Loughran

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Megan Carraher, Benjamin Ross, Fiona Casper-Strauss

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::H,H:"IH+:H:}Iff} Catherine Cho, Ana Shack

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John Beck, Sade Coffrnan, Griffin Uhlir Evalina Sundbye, Veronica Thomas, Alec Rasmussen

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Clare Curran, Mae Vitali Katie Stenstrom Morrison, .Julia . Henry Harper, Bay Gugel-Dawson . Clare Curran, Ella Leitman Dixon Helen Traczyk, Gabe Tetrev, Tom Herner

Staff Editor-in chief: Sebastian Beaghen Senior Editors: Sade Coffman, Max Gugel-Dawson, Kelly Sandoval Editors: Lourdes Contreras, Charlie Crain, Katherine Sang,lsaac Schaider, Bay Gugel-Dawson 3

Letter from the E ditor Hey! I hope you are as excited to read this new edition of The for you to have it. This 80 page magazine contains what I think is a thrilling representation of the incredible talent that exists within our school. For this year's Crest, we selected a body of work that showcases the many sides of OPRF students'talents in the arts. we received more than one thousand submissions this year, a number that attests to the courage that so many students put forth in sharing the worlds they create in their work with everyone to enjoy. For the fiist time erer, we;ue also created an online multimedia component to the book which can be seen on YouTube; this addition allowed us to expand into another realm of talent. we'd like to thank those who submitted their music and film work for helping us pioneer a new role for crest to play in the school,s

crelt

as I am

arts community.

Access our chann el at: bit,ly/lSOMpna (Remember to capitalize!)

As you read this year's book and appreciate the beautiful art, touching poetry, funny stories, or whatever catches your eye, take a moment to reflect on the wonderful school tradition that Crest is. This is the one-hundred and twenty-third year that crest has been published; it has survived that long because our school has a commitment to excellence and recognizes how much of it there is among our students. Enjoy!

Much love,

Sebastian Beaghen Editor-in-chief, Crest 2016

A Yery Sp ecial" Thanln s To: Elizabeth Fox, Nancy McGinnis, Hel"en GalLagher, ReginaTopf , christian Fountain, Knstian Frumkin and MECK print, Tracy van Duinen, pennie Ebsen, Ltndy Nouotny, ALice Morris, Rachel. sang, sydney Jackson, Dominos Pizza, Ernest Hemingway's Ghost, vLnnL Matisse, o;nd" most of aLl. our wonderful" teacher sponsor Lauren Lee. Cooersby Sade Coffman andMax Gugel"-Dawson.

Edttor Portratts by Lourdes Contreras. set in Lora and. Berqamot ornaments.

4

Ode To The Women In MY Fami$ the women in my family bathe their bodies in basil soak their souls in salt and lather lack of love in lemon grandma has a niche for painting with pot handles letting oil spill stories that failed to foil like aluminum her blood tells tales of baked biscuits and honey dipped descent grandma wants me to loop my wrists around the sides of a skillet anyway learn the rhythm of a whisk and gather the grip of an apron I think grandma just wants the heat of a stove to burn deeper than any tragedy and hurt harder than anY heartache grandma wants my body to be the last draining licks of lemon -SydneY Johnson

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JennEisner 5

it

begins as a tic

it begins as a tic, a cluster of discrete muscle groups triggered to form a nonrhythmic, sudden,

^ LiLia Casillas

motor movement inconsolable and infuriating as a tick, the type you find in your bed, txodes ricinus, a chiefly European species these ticks lack eyes,

but still easily flnd their way beneath your skin.

You approach a group of girls before school, trying to burrow under cliques, the need for admission into golden veins of laughter and thirst for acceptance pounds in your ears, but before you even speak, you are denied by your tic as your hands shake and it startles them, the uneven twitching scares them off and those wjldly active muscle groups seem anything but discreet, especially when you know that your tick is the first and only thing they notice

Meanwhile the other kids laugh at you, muffling the giggles with flngers that don,t catch the gold spilling out of their mouths, it falls heavily on your toes.

You open your own mouth to scrape your rusty tongue across your teeth and wonder if you'll ever taste gold.

-Blair Ripl"ey

Grffin McDermott >

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She used up

perfection Like breath mints

She used up perfection like breath mints.

Empty tins where aspiration once sparked.

A paper thin sheet of hope draped over the base Cold metal failure seeped into my grasping flngertips.

Half-dissolved ideas flashed on her fongue.

When she opened her mouth I could see them,

Bright white powder mixing with her spit until It became inseparable from the rest of her.

When she spoke, everyone around her felt the

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oaked in

auty, -?,1..1:mgtl:li ji:i:X?InT I tried to suck her air into my lungs, Perhaps then I'd be able to taste success.

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Of cinnamon on my lips.

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-Al"ex lvluechleisen

Making I absorb character like ladyflngers in espresso I flll and fatten until I resemble the last words I dunked into. I hear small voices speak of eyes like raisins and I race through myself like that, comparing roari to roaring static I read retorts on subtitles and scripts and make myself ai blunt as my wit is sharp.

I make myself a painter, a scientist, a cynic, a hoper, and progress to a mush of these should I break from caffeine intake.

-Olipia Sipiora

8

x you were always afraid of buming your eyelashes so I lit your cigarettes for you.

It was too easy for me.

2.lbeatyou in races although your legs were longer than mine.

Not because of your shoes' 3. I tried to flnd the best Halloween lights while driving so I could show you later.

Bigger houses have better ones.

4. We bleached a piece of your hair in my dimly lit bathroom' A little too blonde.

5. You shaved your head two weeks later.

Green driving hat.

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ItWent It went like this: umbrella, face, mattress, corgi. I had left the window open. It was warm but not too hot, like lemonade left out on a counter in the middle of the summer. I thought it would feel more like fire, burning alive. It was 3:25 p.M. It rained the day before, I couldn't flnd my rainboots. It never felt like flying. It felt like gravity was a concept with which God had only experimented, that now was the end of the trial and the beginning of a new rearity. It smelled like Christmas ornaments and tar.

Skye was a beautiful woman. Barely nineteen, still a woman. Age was a thing that liquefied when it hit her, rolling off her cheeks and slipping into the earth; yet, somehoq an air of maturity adorned her rike , pop"oi, garland on a small, rootless holiday tree. She had a slight tmpf rrer left leg had been bitten by a dog when she was young, but it was endearing.

She was lanky as a stem and had straight chopped hair just below jawline. her She was intimidating. Her height and severe eyes had the power to make anyone wilt under even a velvety expression. Skye was misunderstood. when police made reports, they say she was a sociopath. Ever since I read it on BBC, I have watched people's yawns- they say that if people don't catch a yawn, they might be a sociopath. But I remember itrat-st<ye always used to yawn. I know it's little, but it seems relevant. I knew Skye.

She was not a sociopath.

Her mom worked late and she lived next door in a house shrouded by overgrown bushes, so I was her unofficial companion for many years.

Some people thought it was odd that a girl and a boy spend so much time together, especially in the earry time, but it never bothered us. She had a soft stride, often difflcult to notice as she climbed the stairs up to the porch, but her knock was loud and solid. Her head flt squarely in the window on the front door, framed by the oaken grain of a guillotined tree.

She always smiled but I wasn't sure that I ever believed it.

I called her Paper when we were young. She used to draw on everything, but never had any use for white sheets of looseleaf. My dad worked at the crayon factory a few miles down the road, putting plastic sharpeners in the sixty-four packs, so we always had a surplus oirrt supplies. After gessoing the walls with her mind, she would pick up crayons with tips *oin down to the label and draw pictures. They *"."-orily shapes ana squiggles; occasionally a plant or person would show up in her work, but that was rare. Her main creative outlet was the dining room. My mom loved the drawings. She was the kind of dippy mom who wore bell bottoms in 10

the sixties before they were cool and told people about it for the next twenty years, wore h;r hair inflated into curls. She thought it was art; she called"the collection Coming of Age in Rome and thought it would be a hell of a lot easier to leave the pictures that Skye drew than try to get the wax residue off of the walls. My dad was not amused by any of this. Nevertheless, the drawing continued. The entire house quickly smelled like the plastic of a heavy coating of crayon, a smell that wafted without inhibition into the bathroom and out to the backyard until all that anyone in the house could ever think about was crayons' By the time I was thirteen, my mom had left and Skye could reach the ceiling with a folding chair. She kept coloring, worked every day for hours on the walls, shading and scratching off the sections she didnt like so she could color over them, tiny flecks of plastic tones sinking to the bottom of the room like boulders in the ocean. I watched from the new black leather couch my dad bought after my mom left. Empty boxes of crayons and unused bright colors punctuated the floor of the dining room and littered the table, haphazardly sorted by color. I sat on the couch with my dad while we watched her curse out the factory for making the shade of lime green darker than before, morose shades melting into the floor under the summer heat as the walls solidifled into a smooth layer of Skye's plastic art.

"Things are really going to change now, bud. Just you and mel' This is probably the most clich6 thing he could have said to the son that he didnt know very well, the thing that he had to say to cope with the loss of the woman I knew he still loved. I could tell that he missed her by his hands.

When he was with her, he massaged her joints in her fingers and rubbed circles into her palms to help with her arthritis. The motion would click in her joints like the rubbing of a crayon over drywall, the way it sounds when flnally removed from the page. He didnt have anything to rub anymore, so his thumb dug angry donuts into his hand' leaving dried white skin to hover over red, irritated flesh. I used to stare at him doing this, wondering if my mom's hands were hurting without his massaging, if she were sitting somewhere staring at her hands, waiting for the pain to be lifted by his soothing, calculated touch.

Kathenne So"ng,

11

Skye noticed the rubbing like I did.

when my mom was still with us, she would watch my dad entangle his hands with hers and pull out the ten-

sion and pain. She stared at my mother's face, at the way her physical sensations translated directly to her cheeks or flared nostrils. Every small piece of ecstasy was apparent among her eyelashes or chin, the quiver of her lower lip when he was abre to smooth out the deep pain. st<ye nnisrrea the dining room when I was flfteen. She was only twelve. It turned out to be blue and black mostly, which cast a darkness over the room, but it was her Sistine Chapel. she never really announced that it had been flnished. one day, she just came over and sat on the table. I stood in the door frame; she pressed her back into the table, crayons still scattered below her, observing the art as if it were some new entity she had just seen for the flrst time.

My mom never saw it completed. My dad claimed to still hate them, even when Skye was finished with her masterpiece, but I caught him on many occasions studying them with a soft brow, searching for meaning in the mural like ancient peoples did the constellations.

The closest thing he could have found was a set of hands. They were both the left, one larger and with more blue hair; the other, dainty with squared, grey French nails. It was one of the last additions to the piece.

He sat at the head of the table, staring at the hands just next to the bay window. Sometimes I saw him cry, but this was rare and he would yell at me if he caught me looking. skye pretended that nothing changed when my mother was gone, but I knew the absence was hard for her, too. They used to paint each other,s nails and play with cotton balls and talk about what school was like while they braided each other's hair into long plaits. My mom dropped out after the tenth grade, so she was insistent that we complete school and go to college. They talked about boys and how hard it was to be a girl and would tell me to keep out. They would do this until it got late and my dad got angry that no one would pick up their kid and Skye would pretend to be asleep, so I would yawn and she would yawn and not even open her eyes.

once, I took skye's hands between my small fingers. She looked up into my face, surprised by my touch. I knew I loved her by the way she moved but her surprise was not a positive kind.

I expected this rejection.

I didn't let go, instead rubbing circles into hands I imagined were riddled with the same pain as my mother's. I put circles on them and I didn't look 12

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Skye used to get dressed at my house on mornings when her mom left early for work. She always carried a bag so white that it was almost pink and never got dirty. From it, she would remove two choices for her lower half and three for the top. Then she would try on each one and show my father. He tried to look disinterested in this show, but he always wanted her to look her best and feel comfortable when we went off to school, so he participated and asked her questions about each item.

Somehow, I could never imagine her doing this with her own mother.

I used to watch her squeeze the bridge of her nose with her flngertips through the reflection of our bathroom mirror. She loved watching the dirt and puss from her pores worm out of her body, tried to deny puberty the satisfaction of having a real effect on her life. She said it took away the intense smell of old boxes of crayons. She would smile, even as little red crescents were engraved into her nose, even as blood would begin to rush from the little holes in her body. She called it the reverse human colander.

Almost exactly a year after Skye had finished the drawing, my dad came home from work with different colored puppet strings attached. He held only four boxes of crayons, only the twenty-four pack. I sat on the couch with Skye and he unfolded himself from the creases of his coat.

"l quit my job todayi'he said.

We just stared at him. Skye wasn't sure how to respond. I wasn't sure if she was angry or indifferent. "There's an end for it all, I guess]'she said.

He nodded. I nodded. She nodded. And I wasn't sure how any of us felt about the change.

13

Skye was fifteen when I went away. I had

to go to college, felt the obligation to my mother despite her leaving us. My dad went to New zealand for work. He had gotten a technical degree online and found new prospects. Skye lived with her mother for four more years after that. when I was twenty-one and she was freshly nineteen, she moved into the apartment building I lived in. It was called Burnham pointe, a nice property with excellent facilities in the South Loop. I had a corgi and a one-bedroom with a mattress I chose to leave on the floor for aesthetic purposes.

She had a studio twelve floors below mine and was struggling to pay rent.

I wasn't sure why she followed me to chicago. It seemed that she probably didn't know any other course of life than the one I had taken.

I could tell that she was sad because she carried her body like a garbage bag full of coffee grounds that had just split up the side. I knew she wasn't a sociopath because it was clear to me that she was severely depressed.

I had lived with her for ten years, seven hours every night. She no longer drew or smiled or pretended to be asleep. She was beautiful and still had the same baby soft skin she possessed when she was young.

I saw her often when I walked my corgi, smoking a cigarette and leaning against the tall windows of the community balcony and meeting space with modem wicker furniture. However, that day, she didn't smoke a cigarette. She sat with her silver zippo lighter, flicking the top off and then swooping her wrist down to close it, the flame beginning and flickering in tandem with her motions. Between her lips, a dark purple crayon with a melted tip and wax drips down the front of her light blue jeans and on the cement ground. I watched her do this from afar, studying the circular motion of her hands. She didn't see me, but she stopped. She let her head fall and her fingers curl naturally into her hand.

^ 1,4

Ursula Riess

to my apartment and opened the window, letting the mildewed air of the day rush in. That day, she set off the bomb.

There isn't much to tell about the bomb. I never saw it, I never knew anything about it. If I had to guess, I'd say it probably took her a few weeks to build it. And I don't think she meant to hurt anyone with it. She really just hadn't thought about the effect she had on others- both physically and I went back

mentally.

I was tossed from the building when it hit, spikes of heat emanating from the free-falling embers seared themselves into my skin. I saw the corgi, midair, before the smoke clogged my sight. I was thrown out horizontally, then downward, until I hit the plush couch on the balcony below. I lost the corgi that day.

-ELl"a

Rob

Leitman Dixon

15

Klock

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I if

in your home of yours

I if in your home of yours Washing black off a pan Watching black blister peel dry Peeling black flre from You if in your home of yours Washing mouth out with milk Caught a fly of black fire Drowning in the corner of your glass You shake the windows I flnish washing

-Georgia lensen

^ 16

Julia Cuneen

Looely I survey the plateaus and arches of my fingernails embedded in 'ttre ;aggea stones of my cuticl6s an? they are not lovely.

They are handviEut don't ask me to give exact grams of anything) " ahd their length and their width may qualify as cute, but they are not the hands of an artist or a sailor or any goddamn musical instrument player, but they-art marvelous and they are not lovely.

I pass through the deserts of my cheeks dotted

with

pink cacti looking out my car window in the middle of Phoenix's heatwave, ' we lelve behind the lovelv golf courses for a near-eternal drive (because I refuse to scrunch my bealties into the area of Manhattan), ' and at sunset I see the cliffs under my eyes and they are not lovely.

I hardly light upon the surface of my own torso for the mountaind th?t foim me are a formidatile foe to go toe to toe with.

I chuck boulders of stony punches and smotherevervo'",.,'""Hft

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will reach around my width and flick you fi'orir my mitlriff you unlovely.

My soul is enpinkened from tramping up switchbacks which I chose flit down.

I d"aresay my insores are armost,t

#Hi[??ffii$#1ffiY,fl#,,,ffitli:,il3: it means I'm not lovelY. 'cos

They say that your insides aren't quite like your They say that the one (and the other) are what it's all I wear my outs on my ins and

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Come, unlovely forest oh come, unlovely prairie oh come, unlovely- tundra oh come, unlovely taiga.

Come lands barren, fertile, all.

Come savannah, come rainforests, come scrublands.

Come, unlovely forest oh come, unlovely prairie oh come, unlovely tundra oh come, unlovely taiga.

Come lands barren, fertile, all.

Come savannah, come rainforests, come scrublands.

-Olitsia Sipiora

17

ExistentiaLism Judaism doesn't discuss the afterlife.

Catholicism cradles the afterlife as its pink-faced newborn. Hinduism says the ants peppered around the apple core on your granite counter: that's the afterlife. My mother tells me to stop being such an existentialist. It's 2 AM on a Saturday morning and my sister is comatose in the bed next to mine. The sky is tattooed purple with that hint of clementine thal my grandma says is inevitable in a Chicago night. And all I can think about is dying.

Option

1:

Id be swallowed into a balsa box that would eventually be swallowed into cemetery dirt that would eventually be swallowed into worms. I think it'd be nice to be worm food.

Nourishing pink bodies until plump, I call it helping the ecosystem.

Option 2: The inner parts of me, buoyed beneath layers of skin and muscle and bone would rise. past the rooftops my friends and I camped out on one night in2O14, past the tip of the Sears Tower, past the jet streams relishing the bits of airplane steam behind them. I'd flnd a chalice top-heavy with heaven and bathe in it. Wash away the mundane in all holy-water glory. Stew until my flngers wrinkle into prunes-andbeyond that.

Option 3: Becoming. Becoming the elm tree that skulks in the corner of a yard or the first lightning bug a little girl ever traps in ajar, her faCe brimming with amazement that something so small could be so blinding. Becoming your sister, or his mother or that girl's new dog. Be conjured into this cyde of existence that I didn't know was,

but is.

1B

Clare Ctffran

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It is now 3 AM on the same Saturday morning and my sister is still comatose but the sky looks a little less purple and a little more clementine.

Someone's raising the dimmer on the earth and all I think is that maybe tomorrow I won't be able to see it.

I'll be rigid, or pruney, or a fly.

-Ha"rmah Green

Jose Paz

y Bolitsar, Btrcnos Aires, Argentann,2ooT

Stoplight, she's 10,

Her flnger taps on the window of my car, like an eroded wire in a storm, speaks smokey words, receives rusted coins through cracked windows, She carries an empty bag of chips and a fallen tooth.

She's

12

the eclipsed glow of the street light, she is sleeping, head back, neck frail, shoulders seeping, a box of tic tacs spilling at her side.

She's 14,

he's 25, he grabs her wrist, pinches her side, spits into a sidewalk crack.

She's 16, black pepper eyes, cigarette smoke brewed between the crevice of her fingers, she is pregnant.

Stoplight, she is gone and she never knew I was there.

-EmLLy Wunsch 19

My bratn is gone My brain is gone It was replaced by my heart I'm trying to solve logic problems with love Math equations with compassion And my persuasive essays are poems My nerves send impulses to my lips To kiss the wrong person They tell me to give my all to someone Who can't give me anything back All the pain goes straight to my head Where my heart pumps it throughout Paralyzing my body with how I feel I look at everything through rose-colored eyes I can't take them off.

-Gabrielle Napolitano

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21

In third grade I first Learned I was an alien In third grade I flrst learned I was an alien.

Upside down pineapple body wrapped in wilted red cotton shirts, unripe kiwi skin in a class of bleached coconut meat. when Ms. clementine passed out the Times for Kids, Immigration Edition the kid next to me asked, 'Ayush, hey, you're an alien, right?"

"Wow, that's cool. I'm like Superman!"

Except a Superman whose kryptonite kindles deportation, whosedadcouldntflybecausehe seemedtooArabictoletthroughwithoutapatdown, whose uncle was ma$ed an ilegal extraterrestrial after bein{brought to'America; *-h"r" they let his visa bruise because he wasn't worth the ink to t""p it ripe. who's either Muslim or.Mexican depending on which side of the coin bigots flip Despite what those Discovery Channel shows told him about finding aliens, America has already found them, and they don't want us in their country.

-Ayushpandif

It is the year of the snake It is the year of the snake, and thin red paper placemats at the Chinese restaurant will tell you May is not your lucky month.

01 the third day 'happy birthday' echoes in the background as you blow out candles, wishingyou_could gather every second in the palm of your hand like confetti, pour it in a big cardboard box labeled'return to sender,, careful to brush every last speck off your hands. on the thirteenth you will drag a pair of safety scissors across your skin, flnding yourself corroding fif<e1ne rust color you leak, using bandages like wrapping paper.

Your friend will tell you she never had the courage to do it, as if there's bravery in scar tissue.

You will sink slow like deflating balloons when you tell her exactly how cowardly you feel, regret dripping down candles like wax.

-Grace Sculty

22

Existential Angst 10

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Calculus Rap Your rhymes are repetitive like deriving e^" This year's Calc is better We dont even gotta flex.

Our rhymes will mess you up so bad You'll have to go to I'HoPital We'll Mathematically break your ankles and then make you fall.

You are stuck atzero like Mclaurin.

We integrate so well and we are soaring Beating you is Fundamental like the theorem, Hear all our fans because they are cheering.

We go circles around you like a disk.

Try and make a comeback, take that risk.

2016>2015 that is a fact.

Last years math is so out of whack.

- Charlie CoLe, Mondragon's Calculus, P. 4

23

2223

MartyPimentel.

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SaLt lvlines I'm so salty I corild be shredded up and sprinkled over green eggs and ham I,M saltier than a meal consisting only of tortilla chips, pretzehlnd french foies I,M unusually salty when God formed an extended metaphor comparingpeople to salt in the bible, he was talkingabout me.-lf you hunt forthe textbook aeflnition of alkali, youll

come upon a mugshot of me, appearingsaliferous. I'm saltierthan the time I trolloped home to tell my dad we should ingest Boss Burrito, only to flnd out he had inquired if I would like to joumey there a month prior to my iequest, before I associated with the restaurant, and I said no. Im so extremely ritty, i have a permanent residence in Strataca, a.k.a the Kansas Underground saf Museum I'm saltier.thanmy step-mom when she buziedthe police on my dad for no reason I'm saltier than that excursion where I ditched glrm.

And I waltzed around the school foyers, 14"1 a Tan who appeared to be a teacher demanded to know where I was going I blurbed out a random room number, Ittumed outthe roomwas in front of us I'm so salty, mybrain is a saltmine

-Mrya Chiang

24

Horu.l

ExcitedWas I?

How excited was I! I turn on the TV and I find him on it.

Guy Fieri's DLnersDrtuelns u"nd Dtues My heart rate accelerates faster than a guinea pig runs to lettuce.

How excited was I? To see Guy Fieri's signature flaming shirt his upside down and backwards sunglasses resting sublimely on the back of his glorious head How excited was I? To see Guy lunge into the food, shovel the exotic spices and herbs into his experienced and sophisticated mouth How excited was I? To see the frosted tips cascading across the brilliant head of this lavish man.

How excited was I? Pretty dang excited

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25

Wednesdays 1

trouble telling the day from the night and tell Yl:ll*+.young ing. both of those from all the squiggly bits in between, one wEdnesdav -I woke up and suddenly had the din[t-e"greatest day of my life. - ------*r Every day since then has beln a Wednesdhy. and

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"For the sake of organization, Ive added identifiers to the different yeqlesday, post Wednesday, post post Wednesaay, nxtra Y"Ol.":9rys: Post Wedngs9ry, Wednesday prep, Wednesday prep 2, Wednesa;y-E;;; and then Wednesday againJ'I slnned my cola through the straw . 'And that's the whole of itl, "wow," said Sara , who was wearing a sexy flreflghter costume and r c drinking a Redbull. "That's really weird.', "Not as weird as a flrefighter in a bralette and a miniskirtl' "Touche ."

Jake, who was wearing a gorilla suit, said, "what happened on your special day?" What happened- on-mv special dav? "l reached for the stars'and grabbei at the fablic ofthe sky. I cracked the world in two and drank tlhe sweet oceans inside. I stopped to smeil the roses and found they were made of silk, and they had'been soaked in vanilla syrup.

Jake said, "Poetic."

Sara said, "You're off the effing charts. ,, Naeed, who was wearing_a Gh6stbusters jumpsuit , said, *There,s someone I want you to meet. " , 3

"Nice costume."

I said , "Thanks. You too I' "Wednesday Addams?"

"Yes. Same as every year. She's a favorite of minel, -sdid.

"That's funny," she "Why?" I said.

"Nothing. No reason." llWllt.r your_costume? Marilyn Monroe?"

"No," she said. "Same as every year. I,m Tuesday Weld l, And I said, "Oh."

oh.

Four months later and I've got Gabrifila,s week down: Tuesday, Tuesday 2, Tuesday 3, Tuesday 4, Tuesday 5, T Minus 1, then Tuesday again.

And slowly, she has learned mine. "wednesday.P.rep comes after Extra post wednesday, right, Chanel?,, "Yes, that's rightJ' Weeks seem to take longer when I spend them with you.

26

5

She waited for me in the cafe. Waited for my shift to end. It did, and we

went off together.

"Gabs, do y6u ever think about how many days th^ere are in a year?"

"Yeah, Chinel, there's 365 of them. Except every four years, when we get that'Buy 365, Get One Free'deall' "That's 365 Wednesdays, Gabs. 365 Wednesdays per yearl' "Or 365 Tuesdays, dependingl' We reached the ivateCi edge. The hke was dull blue, sparkling gently. I leaned up against the railing to watch the seagulls fl12' "f sta"rted my EternalWednesday because I thought that maybe i.f evelry day was a Wednesday, every day could have a shot at being.like that Gre.at Day. If every day was a We<ine^sda_y, then maybe my life could get betterJ' "But you were wrong?" Gabs finished for me.

"No,l was rightl' "How so?" "l met you on a WednesdayJ' She pairsed for a moment, then smiled. 'And I you, on a Tuesdayl' "You know what I never told you, Chanel?"

"Why you hate macchiatos?" "whi hll of my days are Tuesdaysl' "That's okayJ' "Don't you want to know?" "l don't need to. I know you. That's enoughl' She laughed.

'Anyway, they're not all Tuesdays anymorel' I blinkeit at her. "What? What do you mean?"

She took my hand. "Some days]'she said. "Some days are worth havingJ' Tuesday, Wednesday, Tuesday S, fr.Trary 4,Jyepday.S, T Minus 1, Tuesday We"dnesday, Podt Wednedday, Post Post WednTdayl Extra Post W6dnesday, Wbdnesday Prep, Wednesday Prep 2, Tuesday, Wednesday again.

-Rosie Albrecht

Susana Cardenas-Soto >

27

Mr. Snotohiteman Mr. Snowhiteman, You saw her stemmed to her caramel glazedheels.

Her fair white meat was young but noi mealy.

She was wrapped in a cloth of crisp ironed r-ed silt skin that glazed her bust and rounded her bosom.

You _couldn't help but notice the cinnamon that spiced her cheeks.

Mr. Snowhiteman, You introduced her to the enchantment of your poisoned washed walls, while your fingers became peelers and sliced hei silk skin down to her bare meat.

You couldn't help but take a bite.

Crisp.

Sweet.

Ripened.

Mr. Snowhiteman, You were so hungry you left her fair meat turned mealy.

Her skin was peeled and bruised in a heap on the floor, And her innocence harvested.

-Maddie Henssl.er

There u)as a ttme that I wanted to pLay piano There was a time that I wanted to play piano.

Lips flaked like old paint on tar colored k-eys as fingers splintered with veneer from pounding wood too hard.

I spent hours pinching raw notes into aluminum molds, e

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-KeaLoha Ogunseitan

28

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1985 1985, Civil times, still has zero vision in his left eye, whites were so dedicated they made sure he couldn't see his images blur when he cries.

The symbols on their faces didn't flinch when the clench of their two by fours dissipated the jaws of the pure innocent Inches from the layer covering his retina, he swung so hard you could hear the fear but he didn't miss him. wrenched the vision lights from his left dome faster than they could project "n-----" from their pink tracheas quicker than they could belt "go home!"

Reveal the hazard sign, that was hiding behind curtain.

"No walking, No talking, No breathingJ'under umber skin.

Instead it said welcome to Berwyn.

-Tassi Barnes 29

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Boiled blood bubbles grandpa's pigmentation Says he cant stay in the sun too long or bullets will burn smoldered skin I don't think grandpa trusts daylight protection squad he's seen shaded skin split too many times felt black bones break too many lines Grandpa's lost lineage still lingers He stays at home now, doesn't leave the comfort of couch cushions the only razor rays his skin seal in flood from solitude curtains sunshade coco complexion Grandpa handcuffs himself to dusk, spends twilight tracing the darkness of silhouette shadows

staining ink in concrete night -Sydney lohnson

We are both fiue years ol"d and giggling We are both flve years old and giggling, I shake my fuzzy brown head and she claps my face between two flattened palms, my best friend says "girls should smile without showing teethl' and squishes my cheeks to a pucker she'd poured these words like tea brewed from her mother's influence, sweetened with the aspiration of physical perfection, and thick cream meant to sculpt body instead of character, but I drive my thumbs into her swollen cheeks, and her lips furl to reveal teeth ready to jump, I let go, thankful for the understanding that shows in the small gap forming between her lips, and slowly, I can see her mother's words begin to boil off, in ringlets of rising steam

-BLair Ripley 31,

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I'm from where they don't deal. pot

I'm from where they don't deal pot, they just pop pills and kill kids, ." ' for standing on the wrong street, where the savages hunt for red meat, ^ Gabe Darl.ey mama told me that she saved me, her mom couldn't do it for her so she did it for me, she'd rather have me drowning in books than swimming in streets, living in deep water saving grace saving hate or wait to drown, Throw us in a pool of hope, they know that we ain't swimming up, cfrlorine is killingus, no moneyforfilters aa,a17the funds gomgtowards flllingup, coffins with black bodies, look at what they did to us, sinking and now the holy water is hid from us, "but you aint got one worry because the white man saved youl' yea I'm from the same pond "but that clear water changed you" Made me loveable from limb to limb, Even then when I was 14, I got to my freshman blue class and still couldn't swim -Charles Donalson

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Peco;n Pie There are so many cows Once I named my uncle's cow Bessy Real original right?

My stomach drops so far I feel my cereal sloshing in my toes As I watch the "Welcome to Missouri" sign fade as quickly as it greeted me The Lull of the car and the whisper of the rain on the windows has almost pushed the avrful cause of this road trip out of my head Twenty minutes My eyes close and open to an empty parked car As I stumble inside no one says a word Or maybe they do I am deaf to everything but the deceiving echo of your laughter bouncing down the hall Gazingup the staircase my lungs flood with memories Every breath feels like a flight of stairs The wooden stairs I am desperately trying to escape turn to quicksand Yet every step is still so loud I reach the top I don't Look back to see the mountain I have just climbed I open the door -covered in newspapers and drawings from when I still thought the world was fair I curl my toes Feeling the familiar shag carpet snuggle between them The permanent smell thatfloats around the room is almostmaskedby the scent of pecan pie The fragrance of the lit candle crawls up my nose Memories of road trips and secrets seep into my thoughts Damn you really loved those candles I crumple into your sheets Almost expecting you to waltz in and put Hercules in the VCR Smiling that smile that crinkled your eyes Leaving imprints of crows feet on your barely adult face When I flnd myself back in the car I am holding an unlit pecan pie There are so many cows -Annilee Zeilmann

49

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n Rob Kl"och

Walking daydream "Walking daydream."

Illusionary.

Blasphemous.

The girl was ice cold eyes dead of winter packed like the first snowball of the year Tectonic

ever-shifting trick of the light?

The girl was fool's gold.

Turned your skin colors.

Green chameleon/chameleon green. a

Green.

Eyes.

Jungle forest floor.

Teeming with life and lives and four-legged secrets and tie-dyed with artiflcial blood.

-Charlie Crain 52

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The speckl"ed ceramic beckons The speckled ceramics beckons a syrupy stream of agave, melting cocoa powder into the pigment of southern clay.

The dross of the clay is how pull you towards me.

I invite you to get fluent on high noon alongside the blooming reach of the sea star inscribed in callow tide pool.

-Guinetsere Orenstein

53

I hauen't been in a church

in six years

I haven't been in a church in six years My disbelief in the phrase "protect and serve" is the only religion I'm still sure I believe in.

Mark 12:31 says love thy neighbor but a cop has never bothered to learn my name and he lives two doors down if I'm gunned down host my funeral in the police station.

There, artists craft stained glass masterpieces of blood red and black eye blue on black cheeks so masterfully you'd think Jesus Christ himself reached for a weapon.

A new perspective found sitting on cement pews the height of curbs looking up at preachers reading from the book of lvliranda, instinct and compliance only separated by a colon If I'm gunned down, don't let me die in church.

-Nich Drain < JuLia Cuneen

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Bathtltb The old house was a bathtub draining each time a creased box seeped down the block. Thankfully just down the block.

Not to the ink-colored house on Ridgeland, where I might have sprinted across that stretch of porch, fingers reaching and mouth spread, trying to catch and swallow all that empty.

Not even to the bungalows one block over, where two summers ago I was stuccoed to porches as the girl I was babysitting swayed out of sight.

Instead my Polly Pockets only puddled two houses away: the corner house that in middle school I would tell friends'moms, "The mustard yellow one, the second stop signl'lnstead the moving truck circled the drain, til it chose to slip down this crevice, with a final metallic clink of key into door, family into condiment-colored home, me into all of this.

-LeahKndler

Eremettc Company Desire is the warmth that glosses your lips right before drinking something hot.

I wanted to fold myself into his doughy skin, so I casted off the enveloping sheets and creased myself into the corner at the other side of the room.

The stalking hand of obsession.

He pumped blood, I pumped fruitcake.

I licked his sugary snores.

The room is knitwith shadows besides the silkylight of the honey candle inthe bathroom.

Slender sheets, timber floor, fleshy glass on the bedside table, dark corner.

Quivering lights hover from the ceiling, humidifier pufflng clouds, spawning a sky above our heads, dark corner.

Desiccant air, dark corner.

Dark corner.

I curl into a pill, toes convolving, splinters slicing each piggy.

Candied hell bathing iced feathers into seeds.

I can hear his natural musk roll around in my ears.

I crawl to the dresser, peeling creaks off of the floor, I woke up the dog.

His marbled eyes swirled with greens, blues and black chases my every movemenL

I ask him to play fetch.

His head gently falls to the left and a low growl balloons in his throat.

-Flynn Osman 55

Jal"apefi"o Peppers She said that she didn't believe people should say they were "in lovel' She said that it sounded temporary. Something you could be in and out of

like driving through a tunnel. But for me it was like that. It was like driving through a tunnel where the lights are at the perfect wattage to make ii all look like an untouched memory. one where the car is going at just the right speed for the long light tubes on either side to fuse into long streaks, that make you just the right amount of dizzy. one where you make waves with your hand out the window, the air molecules rushing at your fingers as you catch the beat of the song playing with the flick of your wrist. with her it was that absolute experience of musing through a tunnel.

We were there for four full days and four full nights of poetry. From Emily Dickinson's end-of-this-line-not-really-dashes to pablo Neruda's hundreds of odes to life's simplicities. we met in the vibrant blue classroom with one hidden window. I remember how she thoughtfully stared at the texture of the plastic red chairs. She stated that they looked like goose bumps or the seeds in a strawberry. I was the one with the goose bumps, every time she dropped her pencil at my feet or nudged me to show me a noteworthy line of a poem or even sneezed. I was one girl struck by Sappho's arrow right in the center of the chest.

Every day she wore a new combination of striped shirt, jeans and red shoes. I told her she looked like a mime, she laughed. we made each other sandwiches in the cafeteria: she always put too much onion in mine but I ate it anyway, telling her it was "d6licieux." we shared an ear bud, listened to French rap and took turns blurting out our made up translations, keeping the French accent of course. She said that the best way to calm someone down is to lightly stroke a line from their forehead down their nose using your index flnger. As her flnger neared my face, the nerve receptors brzzed and my knee fluttered as if I was undergoing a chemical reaction. She threw me paper airplanes with little windows and escape doors drawn on them. we had flery dance offs battling for the last jalapeflo pepper in the pizzabox. She always won.

She called me up on the last night and asked me if I believed in God, I said I didn't know. She asked me if I was gay, I said I didn't know. she I asked me if I had ever been in love, I said I didn't know. She asked me to meet her at the stairwell of the dorm building in six minutes and hung up before I could answer. she sat on the fifth step, I sat on the sixth. she iead her poems and I read mine. The stairwell echoed every bleeding word she said, the sharp sound of her tapping her pencil, her muffled breiths. It was 2 AM. The light was dusty on the chipping walls. I held her hand, the black holes of the galaxy in the gaps between our flngers. That moment was absolute. Motionless. A photograph.

56

She left the next morning without saying goodbye, her train left before I got up. That's when I realized it was only a tunnel. Ephemeral.

The synchronicity of its electric gloom was going to be replaced by plain light. I was going to go back to being a cloned mannequin of my old self.

Mindless. Mechanic. I was going to think of her often, then sometimes, then never. She was going blur into the mindlessness of my daily routine.

All the vibrance of our short ecstatic tunnel faded into a dim light. One that only turned on during a late, lonely night between turns and pillow repositionings. Our tunnel time together was going to become one more vignette of a memory in the mysterious black hole of my mind.

The day I got home, while I was unpacking, I found a jalapeflo pepper between the pages of my poetry notebook. I ate it, it was still crisp.

-Eml$ Wunsch

nDelilahDunn 57

The l.amp posts stand The lamp posts stand like lighters waiting to kindle a black tobacco night.

My friend and I amble to the ice cream store.

Headlights are flashing through our bodies like we're property up for sale.

The car stops beside the curb, our faces twist in a daze.

They whistle.

Windows drop and teeth grin, "Get in the car, we'll go for a ridel' Our jaws drop like scoops off a cone, The brainfreeze clenches our teeth.

I know them.

Blushing with strawberry shame, they are flustered from being sighted.

Now they are mute.

-PrachiMehendal"e

LuraHondertch

58

My friend is gnauing memories onto her Lip My friend is gnawing memories onto her lip: calculations and data, folding herself into the right body.

The other girl's words clothesline across the lunch table from her mouth to our ears.

Joke dripping with substance even though she wrung it out best she could. "l hope you aren't anorexic]' three years ago splashing into our faces.

Words tiptoe from my friend's mouth but I speak first.

As the girl walks away my best friend swallows her words and our conversation and her lunch.

The clothesline sinking towards the table with every tug of breath.

-LeahKndl.er

I'm the only brownkid in a sea. of bl"ank skin I'm the only brown kid in a sea of blank skin, studying Hester Prynne and her red sin.

There's only one other girl who wears the same weight on her back, but I've heard her talk, so I know she ain't'black'black.

She's got white friends and she ain't lived on no block, but I don't wanna be no snow field's dirt spot.

This class leaves me scalped, feeling muted, conflicted and stupid.

And part of me feels like Chicago wouldnt want me to do this.

I used to be an outcast with blacks kids, and now the neighborhood I live in is classist.

I know this AP teacher thinks nappy is classless, And I'm not really helping cuz I'm barely passing.

Cuz I'm faking freak-outs so I can go to class less.

A black girl overstuffed with white education.

I isnt got no privilege, so when I get it I take it.

-VannHarris 59

My mother is darker than dnedbl"ood on concrete My mother is darker than dried blood on concrete.

As fists punctured her charcoal skin she was nighttime kissing sunrise;

turning mauve with every punch, children digging their sneakers into my mother's limbs, because she matched the pavement. a black sky

In third grade I sit and listen to my friends paint my life on their doodle pads black scribbles with crooked teeth the darkest crayon they could flnd.

"You will never be ivory tea cups at playtime]'they tell me.

I was black kettle smoke.

Now I watch the football team lift peach girls like season trophies, they dodge me like a running back with a ball stitched to his chest Facebook vendettas against dark skin-every time I see blue thumbs on pixel screens, I see my mother's blood.

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Iawjacker The Jawjacker jaw-jacks to a frivolous tone.

The Jawjacker is extroverted, a blaring megaphone That is ringing to the ears of the peers.

The Jawjacker offers extensive conversation as Wide and endless as the horizons, Yet, is the delta to a river of anxiousness For those who would rather stay mute.

The Jawjacker does not mind their silence, But the acuity that he is rude, he is less, Corrodes confldence as acid does to metal

Why shall loquaciousness be of detriment to him?

It is the communal eye-rolling or sigh of despair When he, once again, participates in class.

It is the silent glares that are knives to skin, A cut at him and his verboseness.

Presumptions of his character are falsifled to Paint a canvas of discourteous and unempathetic colors.

He does not cause fracas, but in ironic manner he remains taciturn.

For if he counters the murmurs of the halls He only manifests himself as the Jawjacker.

He persists in desolation and contempt.

-Ryan Jensen

61,

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"lf you think about there are thousands of you running around on this planetl' My friend said in a tone that was just loud enough to fill the room.

I laughed internally because I couldn't picture a world with more than one of me NOT going up in flames.

I didn't laugh externally because she was very serious.

She continued, "lt's kind of like everypersonyou knowhas a differentversion of you intheirmindl' Her words flltered through the normal chemical processes of my brain and safely made it to the tissue resembling an overstuffed suitcase -making a sharp turn left, another left, and then a right -where I keep all my other tidbits of wisdom that I scavenger for.

Allow me to introduce a few of me: 1 . Who my dentist knows has no discipline, flosses teeth every millennium, always says thanks to the receptionist, doesn't dress for the weather, peanut butter breath 2. Who my brother knows sucks at video games, needs to get her priorities straight, hypocritical in a way 3. Who my neighbors know clearly sings away her pain, eats all the guac at the block party, happy 4. Who the stranger on the CTA knows takes the window seat, taps feet, observant, dark hair I hope I never meet myself.

-YeronicaThomas

63

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^ Hel.en Tro"czyk

Gabe Tetreu

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Editor Btos Sebastian Beashen is a lost prince of the Roval British blood line. A huse fah of Barrv Whitd. and an even bigger fan of RYrraymond. S6b resembles a lanky-crannv birdlhat has perched himself in everv crook in the Crest classroom. Since it is his last and vear at OPRF he is finalizing his plan to steal all of the inid-centurv modern furniture ih the school. Loves soendins tirhe at Goodwill with his minions or his sisfis. H"e is the onlv human bean in the OPRF nation wHo"considers Eu16 to be easy.

Sebastian is attending Penn in August, to design "a monument to Crest foF his first arclitectural pFoject. Live long the meme king of OPRF. Sade Coffman's daily routine of some sorts: 1. Wake uo. Bins bons. 2. Go to school. Bins bons. 3. Come hbme. Bins b"ons. 4. Go to sleeo. Bins bohs. His classic attire i3 unwEshed black oahts. aSvou ?nav have seen. He is married to his ca'r. which i( a durrio. and consumes so manv eggs. He has a distinctive hioma. known to alwavs dmell'of brownies in the oven. He hooes to someilav oDen a bakerv. He will be studvins illu'stration at thdKa'nsas Citv Ait Institute, whic6 is" in Missouri. He will finally flrid his Ovstertown in the bayous of Missouri. Bingbong, bing bong. Bing bong. .-

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Max Gugel-Dawson (Katchawan AKA not Bay) is out of contr-ol. First of all. he is a Gemini. Secondlv. he is vice-president of the OPVT. He is as classiias the Parthenon, as unconventional as the house in New ue

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Lourdes Contreras has been trying to live a Sarah Dessen novel since the age of 13. She nbw"passes her days browsing the internet lbr "concepts" incl'uditrg lavender lal t es and picnics in Italy. She has 20,000 followers on tumblr and is verv messv. She resents her own backoack. and she wants to replace it when she travels to Florence lor a weekend with her beau, Gianluca. She seeks romance in

the wheel-throwing room while listening to Stevie Wonder's My Cherie Ambur. her theme song.-Her artistic vision has brought richness and lovely editor portraits to our book. It feels like we're Falling in Lovt in Room 307A. She hopes to.study political sciente and live an aesthetically pleasing lile in women's business attire.

Katherine Sang. most studious Crestie. sDends her davs plavin{ hEr violin sensationallv. Whbn she isn't lightlV reading Nielzsche, she is editing photos to match her Ins-tasram color oalette. Kaih'erine eniovs minimal [ashion]and grev heathered sweaters. Katherine plavs a kev roleln fourdes' Sarah Dessen life as thebest frierid who stops her from olaving herself. Generally hates geneiic complimdnt(, bilt still remains the rhost huffible Crest ebitor. Everv time she wears ieans she reminds us of The Sisteihood o[ Traveling Pants, because her pants flt her as well as she fits i"n Crest.

Charlie Crain mav be mistaken for a babv chick from the N4useum of Sbience and Industrv. Hd's alwavs spending time with N4argaret, our fdvorite lunch ladv. r Addition"allv, he's alwavsTetchins us our gourmet cookies and such. and'often flasYrins his 6old and highlv defined iawline. His Snapchalstories could ea-silV be nominated for Sundahce award for best short film. His eccentric taste in music alwavs enlightens us. Charlie spends hour upon hour ioaming O?RF's hallways, often seen camDihg out during the" night. Ch.arlieis thq realest Crestie dut there, a"nd coistantly just "telling it how it is'l Isaac Schaider, River Forest babv. loves to swim with the dolphins that live in his oooL He onlv eats the tops of'muffins. His idea of a oerfect dat'e is a trio to thb Ernest Hemingway museim. He dabbles intd farawav cultures bv eYatiris hummus dailv at lunch. He love"s to dangle his feet"off the top of buildinss and put it on hislnstagram. Althoush'he oarticio5tes in inany school activjties, he makEs tim'e lor Gest and enlivens things with original ideas and wonderful ambition. Didwe mentiSn he lives in River Forest?

Bay Cugel-Dawson is the cutest, most ethereal being yolr willever meet. She graces the halls with her an-" pelic presence, continuiig the Cugel-Dawson dvnasIy within Crest. We are trVins hard to sav anvthins bad about her. but she is iheJeast drassdbleberso"n in Crest, despite her constantlv chansiHs crushes.

She is taller fhan all the other 6ditorslev"en thoush she is a freshman. We are so oroud of our babv a"nd we are cultivating her to be the most powerlul editor in Crest historv- " BO

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