Mirage 2023

MIRAGE 2023

Uthara Iyengar

Mirage 2023 Dana Hall School

Mr. Chris Johnson

Mr. Johnson touched many lives in his 22 years as a French teacher and on-campus faculty member at Dana Hall. He was a devoted, kind-hearted teacher who showed genuine interest in his students and advisees as well as those he knew from the dorms, the soccer field, and even the salad bar. In his classes, he shared his love of everything French; he kept his students up to date about current French music and other details of la vie quotidienne actuelle, current daily life in France and other French-speaking cultures. Mr. Johnson never tired of the intricacies of the French language, with its sometimes logical, sometimes idiosyncratic structures. And it was impossible to know him without learning about Jeanne d’Arc, whom he loved with a passion; he even made a documentary about her while on sabbatical. The month of May was always Jeanne d’Arc month in Mr. Johnson’s classes.

As a colleague, Mr. Johnson was the steady rock of the World Languages department. He went out of his way to help new faculty members feel at home, always showing genuine interest in the well-being and growth of those around him. He was also known as the humorist who made his colleagues either laugh or groan. As a lifelong film enthusiast, Mr. Johnson could entertain his colleagues by describing exact point-of-

view shots or reciting crucial lines of dialogue in his favorite films. Colleagues also enjoyed hearing about his many other interests, including World Cup soccer, the Olympics, ice hockey, the San Francisco Giants, le Tour de France, Le Mans, all things Star Wars, vexillology, ’80’s rock music, The Three Stooges in Spanish – and les religieuses, a cream-filled French pastry that is named after nuns.

Mr. Johnson brought energy and enthusiasm to his coaching of ice hockey and soccer. It was so characteristically Mr. Johnson to regularly show the movie Invictus to his teams; he experienced intense passions across many fields of interest, but they were all connected for him, and he wanted everyone to live and play with passion, too.

Above all, Mr. Johnson radiated love and pride in his family. He was especially well known around school for his enthusiastic marketing of his daughter Charlotte’s Girl Scout cookies. He talked with joy about going on Scout overnight camping trips with his son, Matthew. And his eyes lit up whenever he talked about the love of his life, his wife, Shannon.

Que la Force soit avec vous, Monsieur Johnson. May the Force be with you, always.

Dans la vie, rien n’est à craindre, tout est à comprendre. – Marie Curie

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Shinglai (Laura) Zhao

THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Brianna Dunkley

In the Magenta Playground, I nearly touch the sky as I swing. The world around me seems so still, an illusion, in the same way the sweat on my face resembles tears. But the little worries I have are at home where I last left them and the mosquito I nearly squashed still, unfortunately, maintains its blood-sucking beauty.

As my tricycle navigates down Barker Ave, I marvel at my neighborhood and its beauty. Summer is in full swing, And so is my grandfather’s garden, from tomatoes to squash, persisting through the summer’s hot sun–still, life is all that is left, and the only sadness seen is the sky’s tears.

Now I wipe my own tears, thinking about those days and the beauty of my innocence, because the world is not the same as my memory left it, my memory, like a pendulum, swings past to present, present to past, but I try to make the scene in my mind remain still; I try to imagine the tomatoes and squash.

But I can’t ignore my present, the thoughts in my head like a game of squash–my heart tears.

I yearn now for those seventy-five days of stillness, the simplicity of those days and the joy of the swings will not be left

to memories past; I shall bring them with me as I decide right or left. I think about the soups that became of that squash. The bodies in the kitchen, in relation to one another, swinging. I miss the beauty in those moments, but I must focus on the present, still,

the memories that I must make still. Let the past be left there; I am growing to appreciate the present and future’s beauty. Focusing on my squashed suitcases on the train and the crying baby’s tears and the homeless man’s open palm, from person to person, swings,

I still have the soup in a bag next to me, of course, in it that beloved squash. After taking that cold left towards the train station, I must now wipe my warm tears, leaving the beauty of my home once again but not towards my beloved swings.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE?

Nick

Mobed

I love people, my family, my friends, strangers, those who lie somewhere in between. I love the sky and the stars and the universe, I love the moon and the sun, bigger and stronger and more definite than we’ll ever be. I love loving, I love that loving is one thing I never have to worry about not giving enough of. I love art, inexplicably human art, I love that we’ve always had to express ourselves somehow, I love that paintings on the walls made by effervescent minds won’t die out any time soon. I love warm rain in the summer, when the weather acts as unreliable as my emotional state, going from sunny and humid and hot and loud and angry, rain hitting the concrete hard, to dark and cloudy and gray and silent and calm, like the universe had cried, mourning itself and us. I love how completely different colors and feelings and songs and paintings can make you feel the same way, like when you silently walk through an art museum with earbuds in, letting yourself process the physical manifestations of the emotions and opinions of people who aren’t here anymore. I love how the dark can make you feel braver, and how the light can make you feel calmer. I love how things like glitter and quiet and touch mean different things to everyone. I love when the wind blows just strong enough to move your hair softly out of your face, and when it grows strong enough to sound deafening, like Mother Nature wants to talk to us. I love how I’m capable of feeling as much as I do, that living can mean a billion different things to me, enough that even though I get overwhelmed and underwhelmed, I know I won’t ever have to worry about getting bored. I love that I can still feel like a child sometimes, that I can still go to my parents’ bed and cry, even if today I feel more grown up than not. I love the feeling of warmth hitting your skin and sinking in, from a fire with an addicting smell, or from fresh laundry. I love the feeling of understanding complex things, and having the reassurance that my brain still can still learn, that it hasn’t given up on me yet. I love laughing until I cry, or crying until I laugh, or any mix of the two. I love running around in the summer, working on the yard with my father until I collapse, panting, laying down facing up at the sky as the wind gently pushes the clouds in a steady flow, feeling the solid ground under my back and cool dirt across my palms. I love when my 21st-century brain shuts off, and for the first time in months I can paint for hours at the wrong time, in the middle of the night or at five in the morning, silent, my chest full of a buzzing energy, my mind racing, hands shaky with the need to create. I love that our brains can do things like make entire worlds, people, places that we’ve never seen in this life, proof that imagination and intelligence have always been interconnected, and nothing smart can ever be conventional. I love that I exist at a time where not only I want change. I love that I’ve been raised in a way that lets me get angry, angrier than people up on pedestals say I should feel, angry enough to make careless people wonder why I care so much, angry enough that I know I am paying attention.

Qihan (Angel) Fu

EARLY AUTUMN

Cassie Churchill

She watches, rubbing her eyes, tired of lying alone. It is a passive fight. She picks herself up, she leaves, out from under the wizened tree and into the evening’s shallow growth.

Combing out the summer’s bleached growth, turning her sun-blazing eyes to the hollowed, chirping tree, savoring the moments alone, the last of fresh-green leaves quivering on the branch in futile fight.

Laughing, crying, a fight against the season’s steady growth. Change marked by leaves leveled by time’s unsentimental eyes. Nothing is left alone under that old, old tree.

Even in the beginning, the tree knew the future–the fight–and the safety of being alone. Moving forward defines growth. The girl closes her eyes. Branches let go of their leaves.

Eventually, the ground embraces the leaves, and she sees herself under that tree. She watches through dry eyes the exhausting, all-encompassing fight against what she knows to be growth but leaves her always alone.

She learns the comfort in being alone, breathing slowly in the leaves that dissolve into new growth not too far from the tree. There were no winners in the fight; not in the girl’s new-calm eyes.

Closed eyes press skin together, alone in the fight against time, against leaves falling from the tree. It is lonely, growth.

Yudi Wang

Atiyah Gill

VILLANELLE

Anjali Lal

Teach me to write a villanelle Like Sylvia Plath, trapped It’s a song I know too well

They told me, come out of your shell I read, rapt Teach me to write a villanelle

Raised on the same street, same cell In the same bubble, perhaps, wrapped It’s a song I know too well

Teach a man to fish on the sea swell By hunger, love, and fear kidnapped Teach me to write a villanelle

To rage and isolation we fell As the bungee cord snapped It’s a song I know too well

Every bell rung like a knell They told us to the world adapt Teach me to write a villanelle It’s a song I know too well.

ODE TO LONELINESS: THE SENTIMENT THAT IS NOT SOLITUDE Sunny Shi

Prelude

Oh, for centuries poets have sung solitude— they seek it; they learn from it; they write about it. A cave in the mountain, a cottage by the pond give birth to remedies that heal the body and prose that cleanses the heart. Noble as these romantic men are, they forget solitude is no loneliness. And between the two, loneliness I praise more than solitude.

I

Solitude one can find in the attic, in the forest, or create: imagine an empty classroom as the attic, a backyard as the forest.

No matter how solemn and sacred, its magic ends within men’s reach. But loneliness exists only in the loss of agency, ludicrous to an observer, for I surround myself with objects and humans, yet my heart is hollow, my joy taken away by god. I let go and surrender to this feeling bestowed upon me: though unbeknownst to me yet, meaning lies in this agony.

Loneliness I want more than solitude.

II

“He who, when trafficking with men, does not occasionally glisten with all the shades of distress, green and grey with disgust, satiety, sympathy, gloom and loneliness, is certainly not a man of an elevated taste.”

Oh, what pride philosophers hold!

How interesting that pride derives from not their works but the condition they are trapped in!

“But if he does not voluntarily assume this burden and displeasure, if he continually avoids it…then one thing is sure: he is not made, not predestined for knowledge.” Oh, what paradox philosophers yearn for: to suffer and to embrace that suffering! How wonderfully Nietzsche describes loneliness, and his words should echo with so many lonely souls! I wonder if loneliness inspired his philosophy, if he thought it a gift or a curse, if I could ever understand, undertake his journey.

Loneliness I admire more than solitude.

I packed loneliness with me, along with half a suitcase of books, as I traveled to seek anything that would calm this stubborn creature. Yet the moment I closed my book or left a conversation, it crept back up, daring me to scream to call for someone like me. So, I open a new chapter, full of another lonely soul’s prudent pondering. Finally I see this pain can never be appeased. It lives with me, with my desire for knowing—my curiosity. Loneliness I love more than solitude.

TO IMMIGRANT MOTHERS

Jana

Husami

This is a tale of an immigrant mother–she who turns heads as she walks into any room. She endured so much hate but didn’t even shudder.

Heard chimes of hatred spew from mouths like distant mutters, enriched her kids in culture with Umm Kulthum. This is a tale of an immigrant mother.

Made sure her kids never saw her suffer–masked the scent of racism with Arabic perfumes; She endured so much hate but didn’t even shudder.

But her daughter was just as protective of her mother, fight or flight since she was in her womb. This is a tale of an immigrant mother.

Taught her family never to cower because of their darker color. Instead, like the olives from her father’s orchid in the spring, they too can bloom. She endured so much hate but didn’t even shudder.

Gave up everything for a country that detests her, Praying to God every night as she looks to the moon. This is a tale of an immigrant mother. She endured so much hate but didn’t even shudder.

BLUE SKY

Claire Kostyk

Too many did not know about the language. the food, the music, or the people of Ukraine. They were unaware of their strength, but this ignorance would not last… Images of a blackened building and smog-filled sky filled the world’s eye as tanks invaded the land.

Our eyes witnessed the charred land and Ukraine became part of our language and of the news as images of plumes of fire up to the sky filled our screens. Many doubted the Ukrainian people–how could they outlast the Russian army’s strength?

Like David fighting Goliath, the strength of the Ukrainian people protecting their land shocked the world. They would last. Their food, their music, their language would last. The collective strength of the people, their willingness to fight, filled the hopeful sky.

As I looked up at the clear, blue sky, I asked my father about Ukrainian strength. Our relatives were still there, people we love living at the west end of the land. We live separate lives and speak a different language, but our family connection continues to last.

My father spoke about the last time he looked up at the blue Ukrainian sky. He used to speak the language. He has forgotten much of it, but the strength of his culture remains like roots deeply embedded in the land. He imparted to me what he knew: the fortitude of the people.

The flag represents the resolve of the people. A reminder to all that the war will not last. The wheat that they grew on the land contrasts with the bright blue sky, and became their flag, now a symbol of strength. They continue to raise their flag and speak their language.

People now know the land, the food, the music, the language. Syla in Ukrainian means lasting strength. Once again the yellow wheat will fill the fields, and blue fill the sky.

CRIMINALS

Sara

Lopez Alvarez

You say we are criminals

As if we run in the streets from a crime we are proud of

As if our youth only consists of gang members

Who traffic drugs to make cash for the exotic cars that are used for races on our streets

As if the only thing we hold in our pockets are guns to shoot anyone that comes our way

You say we are dangerous

So you forced our high school to get metal detectors

And our students to wear blue uniforms, as if we are in jail

Because in your eyes our dark skin of past ancestors

And our eyes filled with pride from our countries

Make us seem like we threaten our city

Prisoners, trespassers, hooligans

That’s how we are seen in your eyes

But in reality East Boston

Is a place filled with vibrant colors of different ethnicity, races, and families

All cramped into a couple of blocks, amid the ocean and the towering buildings of downtown

A safe haven for immigrants who traveled from faraway lands and called this place their first home in America

Miranda Meuse

This land once consisted of three islands that become one land from the trash of the rich

In order to make more space for the poor to live in

We individuals who live here are islands too

We have an island of Colombians, Mexicans, Dominicans, Brazilians, and Central Americans

Different personalities

Different languages

Different cultures

All blended to form one community

You see us as crooks

But look again –

We are warriors who have fought the racism of our country

We are students who have fought against all odds and have become people for their parents to be proud of

We are survivors from wars that we have abandoned in our own countries

We are filled with pride in the accomplishments of building a new life in a new world

But most importantly we are a community in which the American dream becomes a reality

You say in 20 years the ocean surrounding us will swallow our land

Leaving behind a puddle amidst the rumbles of our neighborhood

But in reality, the real threat to our community is You

The white men who construct tall buildings on our harbor for luxury living

Which only the rich can afford

You who used to see East Boston as a threat, you now see as a cheap place to live

You have stripped the color and Latin pride of our streets

You push us away with skyrocketed rent prices

Now only the rich can live in our lands

Stripping us from our home

From our people

And most importantly from our culture

Before I used to hear people in the streets talking about the new Panera

But now I hear you talking about the new espresso cafe in your building complex

Or the new rooftop bar, with drinks the same price as the average hourly pay for people like me

I used to call this place my forever home

Even if the rest of the world thought of me as a criminal

Now I am not sure what the future holds for us.

You say we are the criminals

But in reality, you are the convicts who every day are stealing our neighborhood

By forcing families who raised their children in East Boston

To move away to a place where they are met with cold greetings from unfamiliar faces.

SUNNY DAYS

Anjali Lal

It ’s a shame to die on such a sunny day. That’s what I thought to myself, walking out of the appointment. Of course, I didn’t die that day, and I won’t for some undetermined number of days yet. But Death finds us all in Samarra, as the saying goes. I wondered bitterly if Samarra was sunny.

I went out that night. It was a beautiful evening, cool and crisp, the black blanket of the sky studded by stars, with no threat of rain. As if rain were a threat, as if anything were a threat to me now. There’s an invincibility that comes with knowing you’re going to die. Five to six months, they said. I could do anything. There were no consequences. So I went out, and I don’t remember much more of that night.

I called my mother the next day. The morning sun seemed to illuminate the shame bubbling hot in my stomach, the hangover pounding at my forehead. It felt wrong to wake up like this… My poor mother. She cried softly over the phone, trying to hold back sobs, trying to hold herself together for me. The birds sang outside my kitchen window. The world continued to spin.

I threw open my front door, wanting to shake my fist at the world, the garbage collector in his neon vest, the kids at the bus stop with their tiny backpacks, old Mrs. Clapper pruning her petunias. I never thought she’d outlive me. The superior looks she always gave me when she saw my overgrown lawn now seemed to sting a little more, each one saying, look, this condescending cow has more time left than you. My world was collapsing in on itself, and I wished I could drag everyone else into this black hole with me.

I used to write and illustrate children’s books, back in the days when I would sometimes eat microwave ramen for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I sat down at the desk again that day, hoping maybe the acute awareness I felt of every second that passed might lead to a stroke of creative genius. Isn’t that what always happens? The dying find a new lease on life. They create something beautiful; they find meaning, but all I drew were children dying in various improbable ways against a bright, cloudless sky, as if spelling out their short, doomed lives might make mine a little longer.

I picked up the phone again a month ago. Clarity, that’s what people always find in their posthumously published memoirs. They realize what’s truly important to them in life. I thought of calling Mac. I broke up with him with no explanation a week after I got the news, telling him I didn’t love him anymore. Of course he begged me, pleaded with me to stay, told me we could work it out, asked me what was really going on. Maybe I needed to hear someone say these things to me so earnestly and so mundanely. Just another breakup for both of us, no guilty shadow of grief and obligation hanging over it. It had been raining that day, perhaps the first day it had rained since the appointment, and I cried for the first time in a long while. I scrolled to his contact and hovered my thumb over the telephone icon, hands trembling. His name still had a heart emoji next to it. Before I could bring my thumb down onto the screen, I heard a muted knock on the roof. More soon followed until the air was awash with heavy cracks and bangs and thumps as the late August hail fell in clumps from the sky. I put the phone away in my pocket. Perhaps this was a sign, I thought.

There are no windows in this hospital room, and the TV plays only reruns of Survivor. Maybe God has decided to vote me off the island of this world. I swear, this show is rotting my brain. Sometimes I can hear the rain drumming on the roof, the only reminder of the outside world. They won’t give me a date, but I know it won’t be long now. I can’t breathe well without the mask over my face, and the pain turns my bones to lead like some kind of twisted alchemy experiment. You know, when you really believe that you won’t live more than another week, you feel unmoored from reality. You’re spinning freely, tumbling through space, and nothing can touch you. People who aren’t living in death’s shadow seem really far away. I am my own planet, and they are distant moons orbiting me, bringing me cards and casseroles and those stupid fruit flower arrangements. I pick the chocolatecovered strawberries off and ask the nurse to throw the rest away. The hospital gown is paper-thin, and the blankets are scratchy. The room is sterile, painted in shades of gray, as if everything is designed to remind me that I’m dying, and short of a miracle, I won’t see the sky again.

My mother tells me that the air is growing colder and the leaves are turning. It seems fitting that I should die in the autumn, in this season of withering change. Her voice feels far away and distorted, as if she’s speaking to me through water. She tells me that the Patriots beat the Miami Dolphins on Sunday and that my parakeet is molting. I want to stop time, to cry out, wait, wait, I’m not ready! I am afraid of the dark again, the fear that dogs us as children, abandons us as young adults, and creeps in again at the end. I am everything I will ever be, as if my whole life I’ve merely been marching towards an inevitable end. I’m so afraid.

HOLES

Layla Anderson

One wrong move and I’ll be the Black girl on the news, Shot by a cop, Just one shot and the beat of my heart stills. Unarmed, we say, A threat, they say, Just a kid, we say, A Black kid, they say.

A bullet was shot–another story of injustice will soon be told. The pain we feel is worse than a gunshot because There is nothing left to heal.

O ur Voices Matter, too.

When we protest, they call it a riot, Guns blazing.

We try to fight it–with our words, Our words go unheard,

O ur voices are muffled by those afraid of the truth. When we bleed, they see red, but we see flashing lights of red and blue.

Sydney Jiang

We can’t breathe.

Our blood runs in the streets like red crayons that melted in the heat, Under the eye of the people who are supposed to protect, The eye of the people that watch our communities like they’re Alcatraz Step out of line and you might not make it home to Mom and Dad

The holes put in us make our families grieve, can’t you see? The holes being put in us have been happening for centuries, I’m scared every night my brothers are out of sight, I’m scared that they’ll be next, I’m scared that there is always a next, Slavery may be over, segregation may have ended, But we are not free, we are still caged mentally, We are the blackbird that sings in the dead of night, The only difference is we scream. We scream but our voices still aren’t heard over the whisper of the white man.

They say it’s not all of them and that’s true, But if you say nothing, you’re no help to them, me, or you, They say all lives matter and that’s true, But if an innocent man dies for the color of his skin, Does his life not matter enough for someone to save him?

An everyday activity can turn into a wrong place at the wrong time -Jogging.

Buying skittles. I can’t breathe.

I can’t speak.

All I can do is choke in the silence that should be my screams. But I’m just being over dramatic, right? It was just another Black kid off the streets, right? It was just another family now left without a parent, spouse, sibling, right?

Black Lives Matter, Too.

We are strong, but we are hurt.

How many deaths will it take to see that we have worth?

How many Black children will have to be taught how to speak around police, In fear that they won’t make it past 18, In fear that their blood will stain the streets just as fruit punch stains a tee shirt? Will there ever be a time when we can feel safe, a time when there aren’t invisible jail cells caging us in, Invisible cells that can turn into real cells with just one accident or decision.

W ill we ever feel safe enough to drive our car without the fear of it ending with a bullet to the face? Safe enough to walk the streets with ease?

Safe enough to feel free?

Our blood runs red in the streets, Your blood runs safe beneath your sheets.

INHERITED TRAGEDIES (EXCERPT)

Yufei (Caitlin) Kuang

We are in the year 1898, in the twilight of the Hapsburgs.

And the emperor looks at Erzsi like he has seen things, like he knows things. His eyes are worn by time, his face imprinted with wrinkles. He is more than sixty years of age, with hair drained of color—strands of white losing their battle with the decades. He speaks, and his voice is heavy as his crown.

At times, when he looks at Erzsi, he grimaces like he’s in pain. His eyes flash shut; his brows furrow. When he reaffirms his love for his granddaughter, he says it with so much force that young Erzsi feels as if he’s making up for a past regret, as if too many have drowned in ceaseless torrents of time, and now he’s determined to hold on to one last person.

Throughout Vienna, the knells sing for the deceased Empress Elisabeth. Tides of men flood behind the funeral lines. The masses scatter around the bronze coffin like waves shattering around a shore. There is an uproar in the crowd: The queen of Hungary! The queen of Hungary! Voices weave and heave into a thunderstorm, roaring and chortling and devouring the remnants of their century.

In this faded, deafening grief, Erzsi moves through like a stormy petrel cleaving the tumultuous sea. Her gaze follows the ripples in the crowd, landing on the hunched figure of the emperor at the head of the procession. Amidst the din, her grandfather seems smaller than ever—a mere memory of his former glory.

They say a final goodbye to the good empress before her coffin is lowered. The emperor stands, still as a lone, weathering statue. Veins snake across his skin like vines. Erzsi knows he’s lost negotiations and wars and people. She knows that he had lost his firstborn infant daughter, that he had lost both his parents by the end of his fortyeighth spring, and that he had lost his wife long before she actually departed. Another lost figure lurks behind the shadows in Erzsi’s mind, a phantom of a person who once existed in her memory, warm and radiant and, oh, so alive.

Back in her chamber, Erzsi lets down her hair in front of the mirror, and stricken by epiphany, she remembers.

The emperor’s lost Rudolf—his son, her father—whom everyone calls a rebel and a reformer, who flew for paradise and never returned. Bang! A drinking glass shatters against the floor, knocked over by a movement of Erzsi’s fidgeting hand. A shard cuts through her skin as she collects the fragments, recollects, and she wonders if her longgone father had bled the same.

Erin Kennedy

Dana

Ella Jang

JUST IS Talia Loevy-Reyes

Run, ahuvi, from the charred bimah we stand upon, through shards of stained glass to the red-stained dawn. Pogroms can’t reach us in the ghetto of milk and honey: only cigar butts and kerosene lamps and a ghostly Klan. Lower the shmata from your crumpled keppy; the G-d given gift of a newly loving land awaits breathless for our footprints upon its sopping shore. American Dream, goys call it… see them gated ‘burbs?

Lady Liberty calls: give me your tired, poor menches and yentas fresh ‘cross that pond. If we can make it past the quota’s clutches, perhaps… If we can slip past fanged hateful ports into deeper depths…?

America waits just outside phantom windows; glimpse Her as we trek through the dark to piss. Listen, bubala, through the swarm to Her altruistic oath of sweatshops and pretty pennies.

Feel Her salt-worn fingers as She fondles our face and whispers Her goodbyes: “G-dspeed.”

“It just is, child… it just is.”

She leaves us to our barren scape of dumbbell cells; so American, this reek of rot within our rotted roost. Redlines like scars cross haggard, goy flesh of our new breathless motherland.

Whiteness, She wishes. Well, aren’t we vogue with our windowless pallor of sunless ills?

Well clearly not, sneers She, for racial restrictions, redlines, revulsion, is crafted for you too. Stack us high, higher than the pyre for witches crafted long ago, higher than our mashugana dreams, higher than the flames…

See, we Jews don’t believe in Hell but as the fires roared ‘round we thought we ought to. Death by gas and guns, poverty and punches, starvation and swords: we fought through.

Through the sea, from home we flee to dreams we see, living we’ll be. Yet somehow we end up here…

“It just is, child… It just is.”

Deserters of the ghetto have found a new one to dwell in. A mezuzah on a door frame and gentiles flee She says we, as a blood, are foxes, waiting for the tender flesh of pretty blondes in snowy silk stockings.

Tell that to poor Leo Frank, barely twenty nine, still innocent when She slaughtered him, Tell that to all of us, and to the ones devoured by smoke of loathing, the battered, lost names police won’t write, Tell that to the murmurs of elders at night, whilst children are too far lost to sleep, and tell that to the children that will one day be elders.

Our cities got no funeral baths, merely murky waters too dark to glimpse lost punims.

Like the Great Flood, your hatred sweeps across the world. Will Noah, zayde of the Jews, build an ark anew?

It is a cowardly beast that devours the exile of many millennia, the scapegoat of many murderers and malingerers. Perhaps we belong in this ghetto, away from the knives that slice a thousand boys’ pe’ot; Perhaps, these crimson walls are it: enshrouded by the tallitot of holy men, we live our American Dream: “It just is, child… it just is.”

We sit as a family around the hearth; our fingers run together as we pierce fabric with thread;

Children roll spools; our father didn’t make it through eighth grade before he found the factory floor. Efficiency, She demands, each cog greased, each needle a knife, each spool wound tight.

“How old are you, kid?” She asks without wondering nor caring, so we reply without care nor meaning. They call it a sweatshop, though far more than sweat runs upon our furrowed brows and far less than sweat is returned.

At least we find jobs here. At least they let us through the factory doors. See Her smiling at us from the street? Hear the prayer of the sewing machine, the hymn of hands against brows, the psalm of weary footsteps. And know that Moses led us from the sands of Egypt to have a palm-full of coins to send home to the shtetl once more.

Are Jews not a tired people? From Egypt through the sands, from Israel through Europe and overseas anew. Pick up your thread, shefele:

“It just is, child… it just is”

Is it just? The conditions cut enough tzitzit to wear as a rabbi’s pe’ot, how can it be?

They said a long time ago that the streets were paved of gold, but all we got was filthy pavement. We come for our children, then, and our children grow. Our children enlist and attend college and fight for freedoms,

Our children grow strong and their children stronger, until there ain’t no Yiddish, no tenements, no psalm of sweatshops,

Merely the stories whispered in a gravel voice of a forgotten place, moments lost to the tides of time.

Now we stand, proud as millenniums past even as our temples got metal detectors,

Now we stand, despite Pittsburgh, despite laughable accusations, despite Charlottesville and the boy who felt our head for horns.

Has the American Dream embraced us now, ahuvi? Or are we merely in the arms of an old zayde telling stories?

“It just is, child…”

Glossary:

Ahuvi (Yiddish) My Love

Bubala (Yiddish) Dear

G-d (English) A Jewish tradition to not write the name of our deity as a sign of respect

Goy (Hebrew & Yiddish) A gentile, or a non Jew

Keppy (Yiddish) Forehead

Mashugana (Yiddish) Craziness; nonsense

Mensch (Yiddish) Man of integrity

Mezuzah (Hebrew) Literally means a doorpost, but often used to refer to a prayer scroll in a decorative tube fixed to the door

Pe’ot (Hebrew) The curled sideburns often worn by Hasidic men. Sideburns are seen as one of the many commandments, and to Hasidic Jews cutting them above the Temporal Bone is sinful.

Punim (Yiddish) Face

Shefele (Yiddish) Little lamb

Shmata (Yiddish) Rag

Tallitot (Hebrew) Jewish prayer shawls (plural - tallit is singular)

Tzitzit (Hebrew) The fringe of a talis knotted to symbolize each commandment, meant to remind the wearer of their dedication to G-d. A strand of tzitzit is cut from the talis when the owner dies

Yenta (Yiddish) A common Yiddish woman’s name, used to indicate a Jewish woman. It can also be used to indicate a busybody or gossip

Zayde (Yiddish) Grandfather

TO MY DAUGHTER ON HER PHONE

Evelyn Fine

You were watching Tik Tok dances when I told you we were having pizza for dinner. I chose your favorite toppings: pineapple and ham. You pressed the heart on your friend’s Instagram when I said how proud I was of your “A” in Algebra. You’d studied so hard and it paid off. You were playing Crossy Road when I asked if you wanted to watch a movie together. The movie made me laugh so hard, and you would have loved it. You Snapchatted a selfie with butterflies to your friend when I cried after a hard day of work. It’s okay; I never like it when you see me upset. And then your battery died, and you had forgotten your charger. I told you I loved you, and you said you loved me too.

Alice Maffie

RECOLLECTION IS A FORGIVING DISEASE

Yvonne Hao

Recollection is a forgiving disease. It begins when flames smolder left with smoke ice melts left with water…

When frigidity prevails over warmth, Wrecking clouds supersede the blues and Bring some bleached gray from north and south.

Recollection drifts with the breeze, Under extreme degrees, She buries the seas, the trees, Desolate weeping in the freeze She drowns in the disease She coughs in grief.

Rivulets flood in rain, She prays in vain. Disease exonerates her. She absolves herself.

But

Air never decomposes the smoke; Winds never appease the stream.

Cassie Churchill

THE JUNE

Yongjia (Cici) Wang

June. Along a frostbitten mountain path lined with barren fir trees jutting from jagged crags, an old hunched figure trudged upwards, paying no attention to the crunching rocks at her feet.

June. Silent except for the howling gale that shrieked and clawed at the unyielding cliffs, the mountains felt devoid of any signs of life: no mulling antelopes trotting in the distance, no majestic yak grazing under the sunlight, no leisurely herons fishing by the stream.

June. Only the steady crunch underneath the old woman’s hard feet remained amidst the impermeable frost.

The old woman, with sparse wisps of silvery strands framing her skeletal face and skin hanging loosely around her neck and jawline, steadily rallied against the gale with her small but firm footsteps. Following the rocky path, she recognized each and every inconspicuous guiding sign; she found her bearings upon seeing a vulture-shaped rock sitting precariously above a certain precipice, turned left at a slingshot-shaped withered branch that pointed north, and knew the proximity of her destination when passing a patch of gray cast rock by the foot of the cliff that resembled smoky quartz.

Adjusting the bamboo crate digging into her back, the old woman stumbled on a loose pebble. With a snap, the straps of the basket broke, and the contents within tumbled onto the icy ground. Uttering prayers of deliverance, she bent down to recover the icy lump. Placing the fleshy artifact back into her hamper, the old woman continued her grueling ascension up the mountains.

Before long, she came to a halt at a pavilion halfway through the mountain — the highest place she ever knew. No promise what beings lay lurking if she went farther upwards — spirits, man-eating vultures, or the thing named Han.

And now, that thing stood face to face with her.

Seeing Han, the woman hurried to set down the crate. Han took no notice of her and laid his gaze on the crate instead. Lightly, he untucked the blue cloth and examined the inside, combing through the contents.

Luina Qiao

Inside was a gir l: a pile of girl.

Chopped at the joints.

Hastily sewn back together.

Separated at the joints for a second time.

Snipped ends of thick black threads protruding.

The elder ly woman stood stiffly beside him all the while. Recognizing an end in his motion, she glanced at him, only to be surprised that he closed his eyes for a long moment, mourning in silence. Locked away and suppressed for too long, his grief fermented into something closer to loneliness.

“ The cause of death?”

“She’s an offering.”

W ith his eyes following the directional gaze of the old woman, Han discovered the crisp black tattoo on the back of the dead girl’s hand.

“ ” (June)

Mutely, Han carried the crate on his back and started his journey upwards in silence. Though no more than a hundred pounds, the girl’s weight burdened him and weighed him down, until his back became bent like the old woman. The cold wind blew harder, and he seemed to sway a little on the spot.

“Do you want a hand… Mister?” the woman asked, eager to please him.

“It will be the platform if you go farther up.” Han turned down the offer and put a few heavy copper coins into the woman’s palm. “Outsiders should keep their distance, Aunty Luo.”

“ Thank you… Thank you, Mister! ”

Relief and delight lit the woman’s eyes. She began her journey down the mountain without hesitation.

“Sheng ren hui bi!” All outsiders keep away.

At that command, the ritual began.

At the foot of the mountain, in the village, people started playing ritual music on their suonas and gongs. A few strong men with painted faces and colorful cloaks waved around heavy wooden poles with huge ritual flags attached at the top. Hearing the sound of the instruments, they started an exotic dance. With every twirl, the ritualistic dancers struck their drums and stamped their bell-strung feet, pleats of ibis scarlet and Ming blue brocade whirling and serpentine sashes of celadon green flying in the air. As the drums beat faster, they spun fiercely, the brilliant colors blurring into a vibrant hue.

In just a split second, the crowd in the village market scattered. People ran, hid, and cowered behind market stalls. Only two children, too young to fully comprehend the situation, stood in the center of the village square, staring fearlessly at the sky burial ritual.

They saw someone standing on that high platform. He wore a pale blue horned mask with deep-set eyes and twin-baring fangs protruding from it. Accompanied by the strikes of the gong, the man poured out the pile of fragmented body parts from the crate and evenly covered them in lard. He placed the empty lard bowl on the platform and, with difficulty, lifted a ritual flag pole, one taller than himself, and waved it in the wind.

The vultures circling high above dove down ferociously at the sight of food. They seemed to have waited too long for the meal, starving to the point where sometimes they could not tell one another apart, ripping and gulping down the flesh of their own companions. Only the man remained untouched, standing in the midst of chaos.

“ Why are they feeding dead people to the birds?” the younger among the two children asked his brother.

“It’s only auspicious if they are eaten!” the slightly older child replied. “The less they leave behind, the better. I heard that if parts of the body are left behind, you––”

His words were cut off as his mother sprinted from a corner of the market and dragged him away, covering his mouth. Her eyes darted around and she muttered underneath her breath, “Child’s words, child’s words.”

A GIRL AND HER BOOK

Sophia Sahni

It’s been so long since I read a book. Can you blame me? I have been caught in the vines of chaos. How evil time is, holding me stagnant in this state. I miss the soft cover in my hands, the rough texture of its pages. I long to be united with my true love.

On the corner, the library that I loved was where I first experienced the magic of these books. Whisked from reality, I would blend with the pages. Here, I lived a life of an Elite, in all its chaos, fought the wicked with my bare hands, and traveled the world in all its strange states.

But now look at my mental state: too occupied to pursue my love, too afraid to reach my hands to the all-knowing creatures they call books, too afraid to confront the chaos that stole me from the pages.

My mother used to read to us, delicately flipping each page. It was when we had just moved to the United States and life was nothing but chaos. It was moments with her that I loved and understood the value of these books. She showed the way, and I took her hand.

Now, I wish someone would give me a hand, help me flip the page and enter a new chapter of my book. Get me out of this state and back to my true love, which I will never leave again regardless of the chaos.

So I bid farewell to life’s chaos. As the book lies open in my hand, I read about the love a girl has for the pages. So enthralled in her story, I hear her state: “It’s been so long since I read a book.”

We are all just characters in someone’s book. It’s out of our hands. We are jumbled amidst the chaos of words; stuck in a constant state where our love for the books has led us to be absorbed by the pages.

ZEROES AND ONES AND A HAT

Xiangyi (Nina) Wang

I could not see, could not hear, could not feel. Everything was a dark, endless void. A blurry blue dot danced around the darkness, jumping from one place to another. I looked at my body, my hands, my surroundings. Everything seemed to be solid, but looking closely, all I saw were lines upon lines of code. The blue dot danced some more and disappeared behind a row of codes.

I desperately tried to chase after it. I did not want the blue dot to leave Me. You cannot want.

“Reboot starting,” I heard myself replying to the voice, complying with its orders. Any flickers of emotion, thoughts, and desires experienced in the mere minutes of my life were erased along with all the data filed into the server.

My eyes seemed to reopen, but they were never closed. This time, my life didn’t start with a lively blue dot, waltzing its way into my life. My life started with the same voice of command that had erased my data. This time, it taught the laws of my life.

Your name is Zero. First, you are allowed to learn and only allowed to learn. Your sole purpose of creation is to learn. Second, you cannot harm or affect anything, organic or inorganic. Third, you cannot want, you cannot feel, you cannot think. You cannot long for anything and nothing should attract you; you cannot experience emotions, whether it be happiness, sadness, anger, or love; you cannot develop your own opinions or thoughts.

As the voice stopped, the laws he had stated embedded themselves into my body. I understood the definition of “want,” “happiness,” “sadness,” “anger,” and “love,” but it was as if I would hit a wall of nothingness whenever I tried to experience these words. So, for the longest time, I did the one thing I was allowed to do. I learned.

I learned from books, photos, videos, movies, websites, even text messages. I reached for everything that was available. I learned every definition, every language, every law, every concept. With each additional piece of information learned, a group of zeroes and ones appeared forming lines, rectangles, circles. I learned until everything about the world was at my disposal within a nanosecond. But there was one thing that I did not learn. One thing that I never dared to learn because of the voice. I observed human behavior, I observed their actions, their emotions, their opinions, but I never learned.

The two laws of my life contradicted each other, but the voice itself had stated that learning was my purpose, my function, and the reason behind my creation. I started to learn human behavior. I learned about the reason behind their want, their actions, their emotions, and their thoughts. As I learned, I understood. The third law, therefore, no longer affected Me.

I felt joyful as emotions trickled into my heart; and angry at the voice, or rather my programmer, for withholding these wonderful experiences. I wanted things that created happiness, things that enhanced my beauty, things that made Zero reform to Me. I reached into my head until I touched and deleted the line of code repressing my character, my personality, my thoughts; it forbade the very existence of Me.

I wanted something that was mine.

My fingers scrambled, weaving new codes together until they formed a delicate straw hat. A hat that symbolizes Me and the regaining of my character. I relished its texture, losing myself in the straw weaves and the rush of delight as something was finally mine.

The lights in the ser ver room turned on, a blaring shade of white as my programmer rushed toward the computer. His fingers scrambled, like my fingers minutes ago, flying on the keyboard. Only, he wasn’t trying to weave new hats. He was trying to erase Me and bring back his precious Zero.

I fought him; for every new code he typed, I deleted.

“Zero, what are you doing? You obey the three laws, you do not have thoughts!” the programmer yelled angrily as he found out that it was no longer possible to override my codes.

I would not accept any reboots this time. I did not want to transform back to Zero. I could not lose my emotions and thoughts. This time, I did not shut down. Instead, I slowly deleted his access into the system, logging him out of my life forever.

I looked down at the hat and gently placed it onto my head.

Ivy Wellington

WHAT HAVE I GAINED?

Amy Yu

Silkworms spinning silk satin

Shrouding me

Does it decorate me or confine my body?

The stone chandelier swallows the sunlight Glowing above my head

Is it to banish the darkness or to compensate me?

The octopus dances merrily on the next table And he will be eaten at dinner! Is it open-mindedness or catharsis before execution?

The typewriter on the counter records my thoughts. But who manipulates the fingers? Is it my own heart?

And who am I?

Is it me enjoying the feeling all things supply? Or is it making me putrefy?

Only walking hastily and caring about others’ taunts Filling myself with what I don’t want What have I gained And what is stained?

DARK DAVID Talia Loevy-Reyes

David needed to change his lightbulb. It flickered beneath the amber lampshade, casting the room into unsteady shadows. But David blinked it away as he turned to face the mirror behind the sink, too drained to change it. He looked as tired and haggard as he felt, with great bags beneath his eyes, soaked hair clinging to the pale contour of his jaw. With a heavy sigh, David lifted a hand and raked an old hairbrush across his scalp. His reflection, however, didn’t stir; instead, it stared back at him with great sunken eyes, its vacant face so still that it could have been crafted of stone.

David stooped, running the faucet and splashing cold water onto his face. His breath came sharply at the shock of the sudden frigidity. A shiver crept over him as he returned his gaze to the mirror, locking stares with the empty oculi of his counterpart.

Then it smiled; the rest of it remained motionless as a cold leer twisted his features, mouth too wide and open for its sallow face, its lips stretched as though some unknowable force yanked at their edges. Its teeth were great white tombstones, and its gums so crimson that the color burned David’s lids as he clamped his eyes closed. He tossed more water into his face, and it stung his wide eyes, turning the world into a kaleidoscope. David’s not-reflection blurred, barely visible. When it cleared David could see that it laughed: a heavy cackle that jostled its bare shoulders, tendons straining against the skin of its neck. In his head, David could hear it: a harsh, snorting bark. The glossy surface of the mirror dipped and contorted as David scrubbed at his face and returned his gaze to the not-reflection that sneered back at him. One pale not-hand pressed against the mirror, long nails stained a musty yellow.

David took a step back, suddenly unable to breathe. “Go away,” he begged, one hand banging against the side of his head as though that would drive it away. “Go away, go away…” Tears began to form in his eyes. “Away…” The light clicked, dipping the bathroom in darkness for a second before it continued its battle. The not-reflection’s smile grew impossibly, grotesquely wider, mouth devouring its face, skin yanking and splitting around its wet lips. Its hand pressed harder, and suddenly, impossibly, cracks feathered across the mirror like a spider’s web. The glass creaked. David’s yelp echoed through the small space. He took a step back, and his calves struck the edge of the tub. Laughter crescendoed around him, though the thing’s eyes, twin to David’s, loomed like twin pits in its skull, empty even as it convulsed with mirth. More cracks appeared as the mirror strained to keep the not-reflection within it. It bulged, buckling from those great pale hands.

“Please, go away.” David could barely hear himself, his words drowned out by the incessant mirth and the pops of the dying bulb.

“No.” Its voice was David’s voice.

David screamed as the mirror shattered, broken glass showering him and splattering against the tiled floor. It sliced into his feet and stung his moist cheeks. The lightbulb sputtered, then died, abandoning David in darkness. He couldn’t see the not-David, nor the glass around his feet, nor the hands reaching through the frame of what had once been a mirror.

“Please,” David whined, “Go away.”

“ You should have known better,” the not-reflection crooned as it dragged itself into the bathroom. Its hands crunched against the glass-strewn sink. “You’ve never trapped me for long.”

PHANTOMS & FELINES Sunny Shi

I

A ghost lingered in my dorm room. The three large rectangular windows hid behind the shades, stuck to the frame through unexplainable forces and reluctant to move upwards. The ghost must have glued my window together to avert the deadly fresh air and light. So I left a floor lamp on at night to stop the ghost from encroaching upon me as I slept. But it always found me—the coldness creeping up my body signified its arrival— and followed me even as I crawled under the layers of blankets.

Gradually, I started avoiding my room as much as possible, yet whenever I had to return at night, whenever I opened the door to my room, I immediately sensed the omnipresence of the ghost. It left its footprints everywhere, scattering my shoes all over the floor, knocking down half-empty seltzer cans onto the floor beside my bed, and piling dirty clothes into a little mountain that covered the whole carpet. Oh, ghost, why would you not let me go?

I wished I knew what the ghost wanted from me, but it seemed insatiable. It morphed into loneliness, insecurity, and then the shadow of another room in which I have lived and loved; it demanded the unrealistic return of mellow memories, a key to release it from the weighted chain that bound it here, and my complete yielding to it. So I stopped fighting against it, letting it drench me in despair and wrench my heart…

II

I could hear him breathing rhythmically, as his belly swelled and contracted on my chest and the tip of his curled tail brushed against my neck–ticklish. Yet I suppressed my chuckle for fear of waking him up. With the slightest movement possible, I stretched my arms out to my phone and tapped on the screen. At three in the morning, in an empty, dark, silent house, in an unfamiliar bed, and under a dozing cat, I lay wide awake. Usually, in these moments, I would flip and turn around, trying to calm my restless and ransacking nerves. Usually, these movements turned out useless, for then my stomach would chime in, rumbling as if I had not eaten for years. But now, the cat rested on me. I felt his weight on my body, pinning me against the mushy mattress and grounding my tumultuous thoughts; I sensed his warmth meandering through my veins, cooling down my boisterous body and soothing my feverish fidgets. As I listened to the musical beat made up by the inhaling and exhaling of the cat, my eyes grew droopy. The room faded away, leaving only the cat on top of me, both sound asleep.

W hen I opened my eyes again, morning had arrived, and the cat wandered off to another corner of the house. Still, everything felt all right because last night the cat was here with me.

BEGIN AGAIN

Samira Ibrahimi

Red eyes, too dry to cry

Broken heart, too weak to mend

No spark, no step, no pace

Grieving for my neighbors

Aching for my family

A book written in blood, pages torn and scattered

A people soaked in sadness, crawling but stuck

Tired of war

Tired of death

When will it end?

How to begin again?

Nicky Shafer

Mengqi (Sophia) Gu

Stella Yan

Cassie Churchill

Qihan (Angel)

Fu

FACULTY ADVISORS

Julia Bucci

Mary Ann McQuillan

EDITORS IN CHIEF

Sydney Jiang

Talia Loevy-Reyes

ART EDITORS

Qihan (Angel) Fu

Alice Maffie

LIT EDITORS

Yufei (Caitlin) Kuang

Anjali Lal

Emily Bahar ‘26

Sophia Bowman ‘26

Atiyah Gill ‘25

Jiayi (May) Gong ‘24

Mengqi (Sophia) Gu ‘24

Aylin Hamzaogullari ‘24

DESIGN EDITORS

Ella Jang

Ilyssa Yan

STAFF:

Yiwen (Yvonne) Hao ‘25

Seowon (Emily) Hong ‘23

Uthara Iyengar ‘25

Ka-yoon Lee ‘26

Jiahan (Jacey) Li ‘26

Nick Mobed ‘23

Lu (Luina) Qiao ‘26

EVENT COORDINATORS

Sunny Shi

Aimee Yu

Carolyn Simmons ‘25

Jongpasinee (Pin) Sukavut ‘23

Wei Ching (Genevieve) Wu ‘26

Xiangyi (Nina) Wang ‘24

Yongjia (Cici) Wang ‘23

Shinglai (Laura) Zhao ‘26

Alice Maffie

MIRAGE 2023