Encounters Magazine- 2021

Acknowledgments

Encounters Magazine would like to express our appreciation to the following individuals for bringing Baruch students’ work alive each semester.

Dinetta Curtis Assistant Director of Leadership Development

Evelyn Almonte Office Manager

Crystal Tejada Interim Associate Director of Student Activities & Diversity Initiatives

Damali Smith Tolson Director of Student Life

Yianice Nieves Operations Assistant

Traci Espinet-Marquez Technology Specialist & Webmaster

Barbara Harman Executive Director of the Harman Family Foundation

Stew Stewart Harman Writer-in-Residence Spring 2021

Prof. Bridgett Davis Faculty Advisor & Founder

Ursula Hansberry Harman Program Assistant

To the English Department, the Journalism Department, the Fine & Performing Arts Department, to our staff for their unwavering support and, finally, to the dear reader of our magazine, we extend our deepest thanks. And of course, a big thank you to our hardworking staff at the publication:

Rose Vollaro Editor-in-Chief

Karina Aslanyan Managing Editor

Ariel Sklyarevskiy Creative Director

Alexandra Adelina Nita

Marketing & Graphics Director

Writers & Editors

Sofia Ghasemi

Malina Seenarine

Vibodha Gallage Dona

Alexandra Adelina Nita

Arianne Gonzalez

Emily Singh

Alyssa Leli

Creators

Janelle Anne Mendoza

Vibodha Gallage Dona

Joel Bautista

Emilie Sano

Maya Lugo

Ethan Saif

Marketing & Graphic Designers

Emily Singh Treasurer

Graduate Activities Advisor Director of Student Life Technology Specialist

Ignacia Figueroa Business Manager

Janelle Anne Mendoza

Letter from the Editor

Dear Reader,

Since its start Encounters has been a haven for all creative minds in a business-engrossed culture – a place for connection you might not find elsewhere. It’s been the collective expression of all the artists in Baruch. Your classmates, someone you’ve sat next to in the library, random people you’ve crammed into the elevator with have all helped create this magazine. Often, Baruch students don’t realize how many wonderful creative minds there are at our school until they see them on these pages And now more than ever, at a time when we have been isolated from each other – it’s been very easy to forget the connections we have. I hope that this magazine can help reconnect you to those around you and even to yourself and that it comes as a breath of fresh air after a long dive underwater

Sincerely,

Rose Vollaro Editor In Chief

Art

010 Ya Got Gum? Ariel Sklyarevskiy

012 Breathe Rose Vollaro

015 City Corners Cassandra Geco

016 Cult Analysis Joel Bautista

019 Motherhood Evan Gordon

020 Colors of My Skin Nichelle Murray

021 Domdapap Rose Vollaro

025 This Bathroom Has No Toilet Paper Joel Bautista

027 Skyline Ariel Sklyarevskiy

028 Oxytocin Chiani Figueroa

031 Cold Turkey Joel Bautista

040 Something Profound Joel Bautista

041 Mobilize Jose Benitez

042 Romeo Romeo Cassandra Greco

054 Bedwetter Joel Bautista

046 Spring Flower Nichelle Murray

049 Niagara Evan Gordon

051 Mind Matter Shelly Frish

054 1723 Tim Pulster

057 like lightning Rose Vollaro

059 summertime Sally Nozadze

061 295 Tim Pulster

062 2 Tim Pulster

064 Bisexual Woman Nichelle Murray

065 faith in strangers Joel Bautista

067 2116 Tim Pulster

071 Gemini Ariel Sklyarevskiy

072 electric eye Sally Nozadze

073 Speaker Spunk Joel Bautista

077 Solidarity Deana Yu

078 Rats! Joel Bautista

081 Chrome Extension Joel Bautista

083 Changing Seasons Cassandra Greco

084 close range relationships Shelly Frish

085 375 Tim Pulster

087 Lonely Autumn Cassandra Greco

092 Some Versions of a Night Kezia Velista

094 power in neons Rose Vollaro

097 Dinner Party Shelly Frish

098 towards Evan Gordon

099 imagination Evan Gordon

102 Portrait Violet Webster

103 My Dentist Can Yell At Me All He Wants Joel Bautista

104 11 Tim Pulster

Every semester, Encounters features students whose work demonstrates distinctive creativity and dedication to artistic growth. In spotlighting these artists, we hope to show Baruch students that their talents can be elevated and appreciated — and that artistry can be found around every corner, at any level of experience.

Ultimately, we decided to feature Brianna Levy, a poet, and Kezia Velista, a photographer, from a pool of hundreds of submissions. Throughout this issue, you’ll be able to learn about their respective approaches to art in a pair of feature spreads. In showcasing their artistic development and thoughts on the fundamental role creativity plays in their lives, we hope to better your understanding of how the arts can impact your journey.

As you flip through these pages we want you to feel inspired and confident in the essential nature of the arts, whether you’re a virtuoso, novice, or distant observer. You can find our profiles of Brianna on pages 32-39 and Kezia on pages 88-92.

anna Karina Aslanyan

i will write you sonnets and will love you dearly, you will send me lilies and my heart will burst.

i will play piano — hear you sing so sweetly, i will gift you colors, i will send you skies.

i will worship sunlight, chase the moon for hours i will trek up mountains and feel the sea breeze.

i will write you sonnets in the stars above us, You will send me lillies — I will send you stars.

city corners

Cassandra Geco

Cult Analysis

Joel Bautista

Ball of Fire

Emily Singh

Blood is thicker than water, But not thicker than liquor. Finding clarity in clear alcohol

I fall

Into fate as I overstate No truancy on my dependency Continue despite it pulling me down Rebound onto the next shot

Drinking to forget The void builds but doesn’t stand still Numb with Advil, I prevail to unveil Every unavailable emotion Chaotic for no reason Overstimulation, I digress Reset to become ready For every machete, That creates anxiety Is it a part of me? Take it apart And so I start

Mom, What is love?

Malina Seenarine

What does love sound like?

Shouting coming from the room next door

The banging of walls, the falling of chairs

So many pieces are missing from the puzzle

Sometimes you’re walking down the street and you find one

The door car slamming, the man shouting at himself, the child dragging her baby doll on the concrete.

Blurry spots become tangible memories, it’s supposed to feel like clarity but really it only validates the hole you feel somewhere in your body, the realization the carver left you unfinished.

What does love feel like?

Love is a stranger, love is breaking yourself for someone when the irony is that you’ve never been whole in the first place.

Love is pain, abuse, pain, abuse, pain

The cycle continues with whoever is next, playing parallel to the past. Your soul is screaming for you to see every welcome is not to be accepted

They were the ones who were supposed to protect you, instead they showed you love that stains the pages that haven’t been written yet

And at the same time the tears are unable to flow.

So much is determined before we get a chance to think

We feel everything that is given to us

Those early years become so imperative.

We let it become our expiration date?

What is love?

Could it not be like this? This is all I know.

Evan Gordon

Colors of My Skin

Nichelle Murray

Rose Vollaro

An Empty Palette Farah Javed

A brush twisting and turning with no purpose, No direction. Words left unsaid weigh down every move. No, I never knew you, I thought I did.

I never got the chance.

Paint dripping through my fingers, Transfixing the eyes but dripping through. Nothing but stains on my palms, A puddle on the floor.

I thought you were more.

I was desperate to put your story on canvas. To bring your spirit to life, Mark your imprint boldly for all to see. Oils, acrylics, all laid before me, My muse, seated candidly in my mind. But the colors were never right.

With the fan brush, Each bristle paints a tear. Washing across the medium, Dripping down the easel’s leg.

With my knife, I shape the path you could have walked. Each curvature a turn left untraveled.

With my sponge, I blot in burnt umber and cadmium yellow. Dabbing away the memories that could have been.

Here’s what they never tell you, The piece is never truly done The Louvre overflows with admirers, But the painter alone sees the flaws, Sees the risks never taken.

No camera, no pen, no brush Can ever gather the aura of a moment.

The polaroid shows a smiling old man, But shares nothing of his loneliness.

The pen is mightier than the sword, But the writer limited.

A brush can bring a scene to life, But it is demented, Twisted through the lens of the artist.

My shaking hands strive to paint the letters, A signature, a lie of completion.

Hours pass in deliberation. Leaving wrinkles from furrowed brows, Nails bitten down to the beds, as the last of the paint drops.

My decision is made.

The artist walks away, A painting left unnamed, unclaimed.

An unfinished painting, And the last of the memories to dry up.

faces of despair

Emanuela Gallo

at the end of the day, faces of despair trickle into the train eyes drooping and dragging under the weight people seem tired on the subway

headphones and earbuds cover their ears drowning out what they don’t want to hear podcasts, music, anything will do they need something to help them get through

their days and distract from the neverending mundane it’s the same damn ride every same damn day they can’t escape from the certainty of pain simply want a break from the ball and the chain

empty, listless faces of indifference slowly nodding and bouncing along with the rhythm eyes are vacant, staring off into distance people seem to question their vain existence

a chorus of babies crying the whole way standing too close to someone – they don’t smell great tight smiles when someone asks for change they ignore, do their best to look away

yellow lights and rocking cars got people wondering if their lives will go as far as the commute they have all the way home they’re all feeling weary from the long road so, they try their best to stay awake but some give up, their bodies give way faces of despair trickle out of the train people seem tired on the subway

The Worst Thing

Emanuela Gallo

The quick phone call ends with no answers, just the echoing of sobs and the ringing silence of a couple of words replaying over and over in your head. You drop to the floor and hold on to your brother’s arm.

“What do you mean?” you say because it can’t be true, you don’t believe it. No, no, you say, but your heart comes to realize it faster than your brain. The tears begin to fall.

The memories start rolling in. When was the last time you saw him? You can barely remember. It was the Saturday before Christmas. You can’t visualize saying goodbye to him while stepping out the door. It was a little more than a month ago. “It’s better that you didn’t see him in the state he was,” you’re told, but you still hate yourself for not having a clear, final memory of him.

The world has changed, the world has shifted, the world has rocked. The world now appears through a new lens. You look at the paper you were writing two seconds before finding out the news — how oblivious you were, how ungrateful you were, how blissfully unaware and ignorant you were, how fortunate you were to have been living in that moment without the unbearable burden of reality. How lucky you were to live in yesterday’s time, in last week’s time, in last month’s time, in last year’s time.

The phone calls start rolling in and out; people who have heard the news and people who have yet to hear it. They offer their condolences but no one’s voice matches with the voice you truly want to hear. You had been looking forward to the leftovers from last night’s dinner — last night, filled with smiles and laughter and good food. You recall squeezing your sister’s hand in excitement. Now you squeeze it in anguish. Now yesterday’s leftovers can’t be enjoyed; they are tarnished by today’s misery. You eat mechanically, vision blurred, uncaring of the teardrops that fall into your plate.

The headache has been around for a while but it’s just now getting worse. The house turns silent. The world turns dreary. You look at old pictures and cry. You look down at the floor and cry. You write your paper and cry. You cry, all day long, you cry. It’s on the mind, all the time.

Now, you have to start rummaging through your drawers in search of something black to wear. If you don’t find anything acceptable, you’ll have to go to the store later. You try on a pair of denim and a blouse and analyze it in the mirror as if you care how you’ll look. Your eyes drift from the black of your clothes to the reflection of your face where your eyes are red and swollen.

Now, the other phone calls start, the ones to cancel and reschedule appointments for the next two days. You don’t know whether you should think about it or distract yourself. It feels wrong and borderline impossible to not think about it. But it’s not like when your world crumbles, the rest of the world does too. But every thought leads to yet another scrunched up, wet tissue added to the growing pile next to you.

Secret

Emanuela Gallo

I’ve got a secret and it might slip out yes, I’ve got a secret and it might slip out I try my best to bury it deep but my paranoia could get the best of me I’ve got a secret and it might slip out a split-second decision didn’t think too much if I explained my position they’d think I made it up they’d just hate me and paint me as a villain they could judge when I’m something much closer to a misunderstood victim

how could I have guessed the consequence I’d face? It felt right at the time never thought of a cost can’t blame my judgment if it was blind

yet I know they won’t see it that way I keep my head low, stay in my lane hear their whispers as they discuss who could be the culprit “who could it be?”

“who could betray us?”

“I have no clue,” I say, sipping on my drink look into their eyes and wonder if they think that I’m the key to their puzzle the one who occupies their minds wonder if they see the hidden secrets in my eyes

they’re so confident what I did was wicked but a part of me still thinks I’m right all they whisper about is me but through death, I begin a new life

Glass table

Emily Singh

One bruise two bruise three bruise Stolen at age four

Chair blocking the front door

Alone again as an only child

Trying to make every day worthwhile. Building forts to make a home.

He tried to kill her with a shard of a mirror. Words became daggers

He saw his reflection and paused, Always on guard.

He spewed and disputed as she became more muted. The shard bookmarks her life story.

Cold Turkey

Joel Bautista

Brianna Levy

While rejection and vulnerability can be hard for most people, writer Brianna Levy tackles these subjects head-on in her poems.

In high school Levy would always be direct about her feelings with her crushes and although these feelings weren’t always reciprocated, she never developed a fear of rejection.

“I don’t know where I got the confidence from, but I would ask people out so often, like that’s not common for a woman,” she said, “I want to do it just to be different. Then I would be vulnerable with people all the time.”

In her poem “Brittle Borosilicate,” she explores this vulnerability by comparing herself to borosilicate glass, the clear hard plastic material that electric kettles are made of, saying “there is no hiding in the clear body of a kettle.” She contributes her sense of humor, easygoing nature, and willingness as powerful aspects of her personality which allow her to be vulnerable with other people.

Levy’s writing also tackles issues of sexism: in her poem “To Those of Us Who Deny,” she compares women who don’t critically think about the patriarchy to hens. She was inspired to write this piece after having a conversation with her mom and sister where she was complaining about a man objectifying her. She expected them to be empathetic to her experience but, instead, they told her that she thinks about society too much and it isn’t a real problem.

“We live in society! What are you not getting at?” She said.

In another one of her poems called, “Solo woman versus the Thief,” she writes, “it’s not about wanting her to be free. It’s about recognizing that the problem in society isn’t women wanting to soar: it’s thieves not understanding their humanity.” Levy finds women that do activities like traveling, hiking, and running without the help of anyone else admirable. While sharing this excitement with her parents they cut her off and told her it was stupid for a woman to be doing these potentially dangerous things alone.

She recalls asking her parents if she could bike through Central Park and them saying no, fearing for her safety.

“Yeah but, I’m the bad guy if I say I wish I wasn’t a woman, like come on,” she said.

The Bronx native became serious about writing at the beginning of 2021. She was on the phone with a close friend who has a fondness for writing and he suggested that they write something. Although Levy wasn’t particularly proud of what she wrote, she woke up the next morning and started writing the poem “Platonic Admirer,” about a friend she had feelings for in the past. She was proud of this work.

“I was like, ‘holy crap, I can write.’ So I have been writing nonstop since.”

For Levy writing starts with a metaphor or an idea in her head where the wordplay sounds satisfying to her. Her poem “Platonic Admirer” started with the phrase, “baronet drowned with the responsibility.” She never knows what will become before or after the phrase, but she ends up flushing it out.

Levy hopes to one day mentor people in their creativity. She hopes her poems resonate with people who don’t see their perspective in literary art and society at large.

Berries

Brianna Levy

In all of my years thinking that I was practicing for love I never knew that something unrequited could be so delectable. I almost hate myself for it, For being a boisterous child shoving wild berries down her throat Even though she knows she is allergic. Even though she knows this will end, not in sharp pains Or admirable anaphylactic shock, But in a slow, lethargic stalemate, One where she can no longer eat her beloved wild berries Even though they are her favorite. She will only be able to lie on the rugged forest ground, Throat scratchy from the journey down, Tongue swollen while uttering sweet nothings about the sweetest of nothings, And face taut in a smile, both regret and satisfaction braided into her teeth.

These round berries resemble that of a Venn diagram, One where self-loathing and self-pleasure lie starkly in one spot, inseparable from these cursed Ericaceae. These round, dark blue spheres, The object of my appetite, my affection, Favor the grandiose entrance of a station connected to expansive tracks. One where trains come every hour, on the hour, with the ability to carry passengers to farther forests, Where they say there are better berries, But I hesitate to step forward and board one. For I have tried other berries before, but none of them have been as painfully pleasurable as the ones I eat now.

None of them have left me wanting to endure harm for their flavor. None of them have been this addicting and exciting, eliciting such volatile responses from me, high and low.

Despite being allergic, Despite these berries not wanting me to eat them, And despite my desire for the fruit being unrequited, my body and mind rejecting it the more and more I eat,

I’m afraid I don’t know how to stop eating them. And I’m afraid I don’t know how to stop wanting to eat them, either. I know I will stop eventually, but I’m not sure if that’ll be a decision of my own doing.

One day, this slow, lethargic stalemate will just be too much to bear. The flavor will no longer resemble that of our earlier endeavors, And then I will probably still force a couple more down my throat before boarding a train,

Moving on to farther forests, where they say there are better berries, Ones that are mostly pleasure and little pain, And healthy, instead of addicting, with extraordinary taste. And do I believe I deserve these berries? More or less, But, truth be told, I don’t know if they exist.

Brittle Borosilicate

Brianna Levy

I wish I was a human

Instead of a clear kettle

Sturdy, synthetic, see-through material

Replace human features

And everyone can see when I am brewing

Everyone can place their bags in me

And watch while it steeps and colors me whole

Everyone can see what brews-es me

And how loud I yell in return

There is no hiding in a clear kettle of a body

Everyone can see the debris that bubbles

And the fire I attempt to ignore

Everyone can see that I am a clear kettle

Instead of a human being

Self-defeating Desire

Brianna Levy

I imagine your victories And envision you content I wouldn’t dare to dream of these things Because I intend to adore you with intent

For I would never be as lazy As to let my hidden mind handle you You may have a seat at the table of my thoughts If you are okay with letting me pursue

I adore the way your name feels in my mouth How its rosey tinge colors the air when I speak I envy the reality where we are together right now How in another dimension you know your presence makes me weak

But I accept where we are

And I love our relationship as it is platonic Because my care comes from wanting you happy regardless of me That is what makes my desire so ironic

So I will continue to imagine your victories And envision you entirely content I wouldn’t dare to disturb these visions if they do not involve me Because true care for you is my intent

Solo woman versus the Thief

Brianna Levy

When I hear about solo women travelers, And solo women hikers, And bikers, and racers, and bakers, and doers, I am filled with immeasurable glee. And I want them to do what they do even more And document it for a current me. One who intends on rectifying her recent descent into fear And wishes to return to when she did not see her gender as a mere Condition in need of rectifying.

And it’s not about me wanting her to be stupid, As my parents seem to think. For what is stupid about wanting to curate a culture of safety rather than one of strife, stifled, and stratified?

I can’t think of anything sillier than how we’ve always viewed these things. Of how a woman who chooses to live, everywhere and at any time, is stupid when her wish is stolen

When the person who stole goes untouched by such labels. As if stealing is more acceptable than being stolen from.

It’s not about wanting her to be stupid, It’s about wanting her to be free.

It’s about recognizing that the problem in society isn’t women wanting to soar: It’s thieves trying to steal their agency.

It’s thieves not understanding their humanity. It’s the way they view us as clay, insidiously. The way that encouraged competition slices us like wire cutters, And carving tools, chip, scrape, and prod until we are deemed “perfect:” unrecognizable, shaped, and quiet.

It’s how fiery shame burns skin like a kiln And we’re taught to accept this through my religion, media, film. I wish for the same rights as the hand that carves my fate. I feign acceptance of the present, as if it is not what I hate, And hope that the change continues to accumulate To the point where the solo woman no longer knows the name of the thief.

To Those of Us Who Deny

Brianna Levy

Before 2020 I hadn’t been acutely aware

Of the significance behind a man’s stare. The mental plucking and pecking at my breasts and thighs

Like I am a hen who had just opened her eyes

To where her fellow hens are constantly led.

“There’s a reason they kept us so well fed.”

I long for someone to listen,

But these words do not take hold, my eyes glisten, And I wonder what they would think in another coop.

I wonder if they would quarrel with and swoop

Around his hand that seeks to harm with patency. I decide they must exercise their agency

In other coops more than they do here.

But one downside to this revelation is that I often live in fear.

Some hens say they can’t relate—

They’re completely okay with letting a hand dominate. Because there’s no reason to fear a hand you don’t examine, Especially when that hand has historically kept us from famine. This hand gave us food, water, and built our entire world

So are we indebted to a hand that also pillages our kind, undeterred?

Some hens seem to think so.

Some women forgo our chances to grow.

I can’t fathom why some women deny how this hand treats them

And then wonder where their sons inherit vicious traits from.

I don’t understand how the hand doesn’t see what he’s doing

When the instances we interact often leave us in ruins.

Who can’t see in this universe we call a farm

That the dynamic between this hand and the hens causes everyone harm?

I don’t know when I will graze freely on this land

Without being forced back inside by my fear of the hand. Do we deserve a punishment for existing?

I’m tired of some hens being so unresisting.

And most importantly,

I don’t know where some of my fellow hens are. We actually don’t know where millions of our hens are. That doesn’t scare you?

The fact that they covet the breasts and thighs from people like me and you?

Are you not scared of how easily you could become their food, too?

Jose Benitez

Romeo Romeo

Cassandra Greco

First Snowflake two ways

Evan Gordon

1.

First snowflake, light and soft From white skies above you waft Bound for grasses, streams, and peaks Nosey tips and rosey cheeks

When you’re dancing in the air, Riding breezes cool but fair Do you ever think or care of how you came to be up there?

First snowflake, I do wonder why you’re you, not rain with thunder How you drift with silent grace, How you kiss a child’s face Tell me of the altitude, From the heights, the world you viewed Surely, what a thrill; you flew! Does your mother cloud miss you? See, we’ve waited patiently and receive you happily First snowflake, come by day so that kids and dogs might play

2.

Snowflake, snowflake, glinting bright in the blue and lonely light

Which flat cloud of smoke gray cold loosed you from its frigid hold? Have you come to beat us down? Cloak the lamp and choke the town? Slash and stab ‘til all are blind, Won’t you cease ‘til we’ve resigned? Will you have the world like fireclosing in with hard desire, clamping down on blooded veins and making stone of olden rains? Slow the spider, still the snake every little life, you take.

Winter’s dog, your ice teeth gnash sniff out embers, snuff to ash

Each thing you consume in silence, waning mercy, moonless violence

Tonight you sate your hunger here To dawn, you leave a bitter clear. Snowflake, snowflake, glinting bright in the blue and lonely light Which vengeful god did bestow

Rose

Evan Gordon

rose in my hand, skinny the very last one. carried close to my chest, bouncing in step i never bought a rose for anyone rose on my pillow, crimson moved left, nudged up an anxious little flame, symbol and wish, the same oh, that it may flicker on rose in your hand, skinny the very first one these petals, your cheeks, this stem, your waist you are my flower still waiting to bloom rose in a mug, sideways on the window sill some neglect of care, or chilly night air browned its glory red dull rose in the trash, suffocating. the only one those leaves, your tight arms those thorns, your silence you are my flower dying, not dead you are my flower dying not dead

Bedwetter

Joel Bautista

Spring Flower

Nichelle Murray

Love Unwilling

Evan Gordon

It does not rush like a wild river with mossy rocks and fish of many colors, but is damned early and many times after, home to few creatures. Nor does it flow like blood from a steady heart, but spurts palpitating and dims to cold, freezes and shatters like icicles clinging to the roof overhang. It is not the petals of summer lilies or even the burnt glory of autumn leaves. It is the brittle twig of the naked wintering tree, its remotest reach upon which even the smallest of sparrows dare not perch. It was but faintly curious in its youth and already narrowed and ashamed. It never sent off flares in the warm night to scamper and twirl in trials of innocence.

Wallet

Evan Gordon

The wallet is rich earth-brown. Its surface is weathered, scuffed, softened -leather caressed by sunshine, slathered in grease, groped by pockets, crushed under groceries, stabbed with icy cold, slapped by asphalt, soaked in muddy puddles, corroded from time, flung, forgotten, and found. On the wallet are impressed lines and patterns -the language of its own history, a character description. And yes, it begins to reveal wisdom and patience, with its innards wrinkled, black but greying with little lines running like a foreign midnight riverland with its brown thread tight, holding years, with its single zipper graceful, never catching. The wallet, full or empty, is worth more than it could ever contain.

Evan Gordon

Ode to Daddy

M’Niyah Lynn

I know of the past and the pain you’ve brought The trauma you’ve caused and the unhappiness you taught, You would always make threats and curse up a storm, The beer you drank and lies you made something like a norm,

So now it’s been 3 years and I still don’t understand, How I’ve still learned to love you and miss the touch of your hand,

Sometimes I ache to hear your melodic voice, To go back to when seeing you was even a choice,

But our future was taken in the blink of an eye, And 3 years later I still suppress the tears in my eyes

Because you’ll always be my dad that I love infinitely, Even though you were unexpectedly taken on March 14th

Mind Matter

Shelly Frish

The War Farah Javed

Horses bare their teeth, The clatter of their barding—unmistakable, Yes — a knell for the innocent. The King’s men sent to war, To settle his bidding then, pawns blindly moved into unknown spaces, Left indiscernible from the land they pillaged.

Brothers against brothers, Women nothing more than collateral. Skin colors, names, genders, race, Erased from the charred remains. Such a noble war indeed.

The knight clad in metal ready to fight, Sacrificing his body, even more his senses. Senses, the strength and the weakness of man.

Sense of caution, sense of pride. Sense of sight, the same one that can blind. For that soldier killing the enemy is a hero, For the dying enemy, the story’s true villain prevails.

Time and time again,

The sword and the shield pinned against each other. One meant to fight and one to defend, until they don’t.

No matter of lances, swords or guns

A fatal blow from each does come.

No matter the comfort of a shield, Men lay barren, stripped of pride; Defenseless bodies in a blood soaked field.

The sword and the shield, Clashes of metal forging sparks of hate. For the soldier hidden in camouflage, His shield is his arm, protecting from shrapnel, Sense of sight shrinking from a dome of debris.

His sword is not a weapon, no it’s flight. No weapon could save him, Unless he has the sense of when to act.

These hunger-stricken soldiers aware of silence, That silence sweeping villages, cities, countries, Replacing screams of delight with shrieks of terror.

The battlefield isn’t just before them.

A losing fight wages from within.

‘When should I run?’

‘Why am I doing this?’

‘When is the fighting done?’

‘Why am I doing this?’

The sword and the shield, The dynamic duo outlasting every war. The knight dies, an emblem of swords on his heart. The soldier dies, once delivered on his shield, Now a Purple Heart, the shield delivering their legacy.

Does war mean nothing more than two losing sides? Differing opinions and anger turning to violence, Fought by those who never sat at the table, Never argued.

Fleeing leads to capture and piles grow, The richest king and the poorest peasant, Both reduced to skeletons littering the earth. Only one true victor in every war.

1723

Tim Pulster

I can’t lie to you, for the tongue divides

Arianne Gonzalez

And wounds mortal souls of their sincerity. Purest intents muddle and overcast Doubt forever enshrouds and makes turncoats Of us all, with gnarled teeth and broken claws. Miseries profit over fortunes so cunning, We would happily drink the cup of thieves And we will dance with fools, lest we be not so already. Yet here I sit, vowing the impossible Till rosebuds shall never bloom in the darling June That words will never purr so easily, And honey shall never drip from my lips, The fairiest poems shall always bring truth And our prose will ever be with our youth.

I search for beauty like it’s my sole right

Arianne Gonzalez

he waits for me on the horizon line he gives me glinting promises of a life so sweet and divine I’ve driven off into more sunsets and chased sunrises than I could count

she winks at me from the water’s edge she beckons me towards the surf so pristine and so gentle and into cliff-side pools I rush into, I do not dare refuse this welcome refuge they lock eyes under star-lit skies they say that love is beautiful in compromise so pure and so refined and into a life of romance I create, I seize days as they come

I search for beauty like it’s my sole right and I ache until I capture it in verse yet words still fail to catch joy, love, truth the way I’ve offered my hands to the moon and in search of something real the glittered gold did seem quite a thrill pyrite fantasies all too quickly starve so I dove straight into the edge, my soul will belong with what is worth.

like lightning

Rose Vollaro

Traveler

Alexandra Adelina Nita

we curl around ourselves in the valley of the bodies of giants (my back against a vast— hand? foot? eye? devoid of form, edges blurry, golden patina unmistakeable)

the arch of you your wide eyes, mouth collapsed into a half-snarl, shakes

and I would say “come closer” I would say take— my bones my gender the way sunlight falls on my face in the morning

but you retreat, your face turned away

for the benefit of distant cliffs and the birds that fly from them

is it the softness that your hands so inevitably find mirrored in mine that is unbearable?

you have never asked me why I am here if I can leave

I never tell you how when we touch I unwind pieces of myself and weave them in your hair, over and around you there are shards of another person, place, self buried crystalline behind your eyes and if—when—you leave you will take me too forgive me this transgression it is so small it is the only cruel thing I have ever done to you

Brood X

Alexandra Adelina Nita

Did Lazarus stumble

Out of dreamless sleep?

Unglazed eyes watering

Under the burn of a foreign sun

That grew strange hands

Twisting around to unpeel his shroud

Layer by layer till

Only questions remained.

So different from the nymphs

Whose pale jellied legs

Scrabbled at the soft earth

To dive under, relentlessly eager

They knew that bio-snarled gnarls would drip-feed

Their root users sugared proteins

For six thousand days

Before warmth compelled them

To burst out of grave dirt

And into new skin.

The rattling song of trillions

Shakes the night

They rise to die again

Every breath—victory.

295

Tim Pulster

2 Tim Pulster

The mirror test

Alexandra Adelina Nita

there’s nothing like the tenderness of nudging the warm bundle on your lap, whose sleekness settled into the roundness of a divine repose the certainty of the sun’s claimant to show him his own image, so carefully taken and so impossible for him to understand, now innocently wide-eyed, now with predatory gleam, slipping forever through the depths and shallows of a different make-of-mind. how do you always know to stay close enough to love?

if there is a Something I hope we’re that to them

faith in strangers

Joel Bautista

Immortalized Karina Aslanyan

feelings wander, thoughts they prey on, they are lonely, broken shells.

feelings prematurely born to mothers whose abortions failed.

feelings run away from, after or towards the sky, the sun.

feelings look to left, to right then, feelings jump in front of cars.

they are infants that shall die soon, they are babies that won’t live, they are hated by their mothers,

they will soon be turned to myth.

feelings pass, they are forgotten, but the art, it stays behind,

your infanticide corpse rotten on a canvas, i will find.

2116 Tim Pulster

Why did it have to be you?

Emanuela Gallo

with your soft hair and melodic smile, a sweet tone bringing my name to your lips a sunset’s reflection in your indigo eyes, a look of love and home—

you, sitting there by the water with the gentle way you squeezed my hand, beloved by those who love me and friends who winked at me whispering with a smirk, he’s a keeper.

I think back to those earlier times— three hours to get ready, shaving cream and eyeshadow gently spreading moisturizer across my skin until I’m bouncing out of the house, putting my tan legs into the passenger seat your eyes do a quick look over me I know the power I have I feel the rush — so new, so freeing — of being in a boy’s car, something I’d waited for, but never had

but there you were in my arms, in my heart a love that’s good, it’s right, it’s pure

I think back to the harder times— grey storms of emotions keeping us up until 2:30 am, thunder not letting us sleep, winds making my hair fall out of place

and furrowed brows lock in framing hardened faces, our lips betraying our worst selves, instead of kissing goodnight

our hands slamming doors when they should’ve intertwined picking up swords, instead of laying armor down the rubber band stretched too far, i thought its elasticity was stronger than it really was

did it have to be you?

of all the boys who could break my heart of guys with tattoos and snide remarks or boys who painted over my blue skies the ones who never would have paid or given me a reason to wear a little black dress

the kind of boys with wandering, wild eyes with secrets and staying out all night or boys who would use their words like knives casually cruel guys with fire in their eyes and unbridled strength wrapping around my body like barbed wire draining me dry until I had nothing left to give men whom I could look back on with regret a twinge of satisfaction a sense of freedom, fueled by my friends’ assurances that I suffered no loss I never liked him anyway, they could have said, my broken heart forgotten under the swell the pride, the newfound independence

so why did it have to be you?

you, who gives me that same overwhelming regret not at having you but at losing you it had to be you?

you, who left me a sobbing mess in my bed — so numb, so devastated, so disoriented ripping down the blue walls in anguish and inviting in the dark grey I never felt such envy for lovely brides basking in a golden glow cause their ‘good one’ stayed — that could have been you did it have to be you?

you, who denied me the grace bestowed on women who disentangle themselves from a bad man too good to be true

why did it have to be you?

Stupid Questions

Kenneth

Fremer

If only I found myself on the right clearing in hot metal: flaming, copper bridges like sabers. Foregrounded over chilled, pearled-white ocean and rip currents, its pedestrians winded.

I shine golden, too, in the sun, burning too easily, brilliant and too pretty to trot over.

But I still walk myself under: painting in broad, gruesome strokes, like a murder, blunt wet pigment whipping, reluctantly clinging to taut leather skin, too willing to tear.

I can depend on so much: Where the colors land, and what you might make of them. In gossamer nightlights, bloodlines, and streaking citrine yellow skyline.

And the cracks of our past that bled lives, rapt in their anger, and bred into every word that was lectured. Too easy to be patterned into texture.

But I realize I have been everywhere, where every view could be perfect, at least once.

Not wiped out in skylines or over windswept, open prairie. But in every pedestrian’s step, plotted painfully, and purposefully, primal in the peace of their intention.

I try to tell myself that, actually, there are stupid questions. I ask myself about them every day.

Speaker Spunk

Joel Bautista

flowers pile up in the worst way

Emanuela Gallo

i always knew what these words meant, but i didn’t know what they meant until i saw it: red and white roses that had once lined the walls of the room now laid on the sidewalk; the curb in front of the black car, its petals torn from their brothers and sisters, limp stems scattered in disarray, stripped of the dignity they once had.

i thought about what these roses went through to get here: to begin as a sapling, to fight for water and sun to grow against all odds until its leaves blossomed on a summer’s day, cheek-to-cheek with the sun, and its petals curling around each other— growing together in a warm embrace, perfectly fitting like puzzles in place, bringing a sweet scent to all that had the fortune to put their nose near and beauty to all whose eyes were blessed to see them.

i thought about all of the joy the roses brought to the world just to be snipped by a sharp blade that reflects the sun but does not absorb it unlike a rose during its cycle of life— the cycle it was ripped away from, just to be handed off from person to person and delivered to the dreaded room.

roses that could have been destined for moments of bliss, given by one lover to another, with happy tears in their eyes instead were given by a son to his mother with different kinds of tears.

instead, the roses were destined for a moment of pain, yet arranged so beautifully: stuck into styrofoam and laced with ribbons, stapled with touching words— roses made for tragedy and anguish, made to travel in the black car.

some roses ended up in the hands of loved ones who clutched them with tears in their eyes, sisters with arms linked together and wives clinging to husbands.

roses meant to be placed on the black box slipped from shaky fingers onto the cool metal acting as a last goodbye.

but the roses that didn’t make it here stayed outside, piled up in the worst way, as the sun overcame the wind and the rain shining through the clouds in all her glory

and now, we know — the roses are at peace.

Did you miss me?

Emanuela Gallo

It may have been a whole year but I stepped back into my routine like slipping into sleep after a long day as easy as closing eyelids heavy with the weight of exhaustion yet at the moment I stepped off the bus my eyes were wide open looking up at the towering buildings almost spinning around in circles with glee soaking in the sights and sounds like a kid in a candy store basking in the glory of it all, the privilege to be there in the flesh in-person, in the real world one can grasp so tangibly not only by my fingers but my eyes and ears too and so I walk slower than I used to, taking my time yet with purpose I commit to every step while not aimless I feel ostracized from the crowd, out of touch with the locals who step almost in sync with each other a rhythm of a clock ticking, reminding them of the places they need to be but not me

I have nowhere to be today it’s just me and the city I’ve missed you, did you miss me?

Rats!

Joel Bautista

Hourglass of youth Samantha

Rigor

I can almost remember the taste of bittersweet youth, I’m salivating for raw tenderness of the nostalgia I keep longing for, a time too far back never to return.

I remember how the sun rises as I begin to fall onto my knees from a defeat, wrestling through borrowed time.

I remember whenever the weather starts to mimic my limbs. My body is a tree with falling leaves, I step on my past and let the crisp and vulnerable memories crumble.

Maybe I’m on the precipice of change just like the seasons.

But I remember the taste of bottled death that made me feel alive, and the shimmering lights that mimics the heat inside me, burning with promiscuity.

But I will never forget all the lives I’ve neglected, all the lies I’ve kissed, that taste a little bit like strawberry chapstick.

All the never ending chaos I’ve created, destroying everything around me— I’ve become the eye of a tornado.

In the end, I realize that everything is never beginning or ending; memories stay alive within me forever.

Four times I felt absolute happiness

Samantha Rigor

I miss the sound of the shore that the sea breaks against. A moment of calm before crashing waves of chaos. That’s what loving you felt like, the ocean that inhales in somber exhales in helter-skelter.

I can feel myself flying when I stick my body through the car’s sun-roof. My body filled with adrenaline, from drinking the poison of youth, submerged in a world within myself, drowning in freedom

My arms are spread open. The crowd carries me away, I’m lifted from my uncertainty.

I’m swimming through an ocean of bodies. The music electrocutes me.

I’m crowd surfing through my pain, floating endlessly through life. Paradise is a room full of strangers dancing around without sufficient attention.

I close my eyes and I envision pure imagination. A world seized without care. Four walls caving in, I am in the center of this universe.

Chrome Extension

Joel Bautista

Women of Secrets Samantha

Rigor

I met a girl whose name was Knives, because she couldn’t tell the difference between the dead meat on the chopping board from the surface of her skin. Every time her mother would cut fruits it reminded her of how she would cut her own body as if cutting off limbs could remove her trauma.

I met a girl whose name was Stone. because that’s what she was made of. Having feelings wasn’t a function in her body. every boy she met would say how she was hard to break but changed easily. When she died, her tombstone read, “all come from dust, and all return to dust” from a bible she never opened, so, she never went to heaven.

I met a girl whose name was Rain, she would look at the storm outside her window wondered why her mother couldn’t name her the sun. The sadness in her heart could never represent light so, she memorized the water cycle because her tears were the same, evaporation, condensation, then the rain.

Changing Seasons

Cassandra Greco

close range relationships

Shelly Frish

375 Tim Pulster

Hard Truth

Johnny Inthachack

A city full of Amy Coopers, so-called allies to our eyes, but we are just other in their minds.

I took my White nephew and my Black Nephew to Washington Square Park

The White lady selling “Resist” buttons offered my nine-year-old White nephew a free button

But nothing to my thirteen-year-old Black nephew

At Trader Joe’s, the White cashier offered my White nephew a bunch of stickers.

But nothing to my Black nephew

My Black nephew was not sad but disappointed

I thought New York was supposed to be different he said Last week, In Park Slope, I volunteered to petition a Laotian candidate to get on the city council ballot.

I asked everyone that passed, but only a handful stopped, and less signed the petition

The White volunteer across the street played on his phone as dozens passed

But when he looked up to ask, people stopped and signed his petition without hesitation

I was scheduled for four hours, but after two I left In the span of living in New York for only two years, after leaving The South, where they are blatantly racist, I see that New York is slick racist.

Lonely Autumn

Cassandra Greco

Kezia Velista

“I can’t be in Flushing for too long,” writes featured photographer and writer Kezia Velista, “Jewelry stores with misaligned Chinese characters with the hanyu pinyin letters below them remind me of you. The night of your death, I found bars of gold hidden in the pockets of your black leather jacket. I can’t be in Flushing for too long.”

Velista’s exceptional “Fever Dreams of the F Word” explores grief, coping, and life after loss. After moving to New York from Atlanta in 2015, Flushing reminded her most of her hometown in Jakarta, Indonesia, despite the language barrier that made her feel like an outsider. Velista’s father, the main subject of the piece, passed away from Stage 4 cancer right before the pandemic struck New York. Flushing, Queens is where they spent their last months together. “Every single time I went to Flushing, I just felt that urgency to write about him,” she said, “but then every single time I felt the urgency to write about him, I was like, ‘Am I representing my family correctly?’ There were all these worries about how I’d be representing my family, or how I’d be representing my dad especially, who’s no longer here. But then, I finally went to Flushing this one time, and I just started writing on the train from Flushing to Queensborough, so that’s quite a long time for me to process my thoughts.”

“Fever Dreams of the F Word” and “The One After the One” were Velista’s first attempts at taking creative writing seriously. “I hesitated on speaking on the topics I’ve written about,” she said, “because I guess I just wasn’t sure how it would be received by people, especially people who know me personally.”

“The One After the One,” a much shorter piece, gets its title from a play on the commonly spoken “They’re the one!” expression. “It’s a bit of a nudge or jab at monogamy,” Velista said, “and the fact that oftentimes when we commit ourselves to ‘the one,’ there is possibility of another one after that, and the piece highlights the complications of monogamy culture.” With a laugh, Velista noted that her intentions were never to “trash” monogamy culture. “It’s just this strange push and pull of giving ourselves entirely to somebody and them not being able to give themselves in return and the momentary lapse of thoughts even when you’re with them.”

“Every single time it’s brought him to an indescribable— To give power, is to also take power. Every single time it’s rendered both of them utterly— To restrict him is to set him free.”

Velista’s visual work, which she considers herself more familiar with, depicts both private moments of intimacy and the vast unknown of a New York City skyline.

“If I were to put my visual work into words,” she said, “I like exploring themes of vulnerability, intimacy, sensuality. It’s not so much sexual energy, but it’s the level of intimacy where that might not be advertised as much: tenderness, intimacy between friends, familial intimacy because I think oftentimes the most knowing forming of intimacy in movies or in TV shows is like this romantic sexual intimacy and I’d like to be able to show different sides of intimacy that exist.”

Her piece “You’ve Been Here Before” is both a written and a visual piece. Originally, the piece was meant to be just a photograph of her two friends, their faces blocked out with intention of keeping them anonymous. “If it was just the image or if it was just the text, the energy wouldn’t have translated fully, so I wanted to pinpoint exactly the intensity of the moment,” she said.

Contrasting to the vulnerability of “You’ve Been Here Before,” her two pieces “Some Versions of Night” and “Some Versions of a Night 2” blur the lines between what is private and public — the New York City skyline from a bedroom window. Velista emphasized the complicated relationship with New York that she’s had. After the initial move to the city, she was not planning to stay after finishing school, with a plan to move back to Atlanta or somewhere completely new, but her plans seem to have changed. “I feel a strange stickiness to the city,” she said, “I’m sure a lot of other people who moved here or have been here their whole lives feel this inexplicable stickiness to the city that’s comforting and uncomforting at the same time.”

Fever Dreams of the F Word Kezia

Velista

I can’t be in Flushing for too long. In the unreality of the morning sun, I smell the faint cigarette smoke from the elderly man standing next to me at the bus stop. He hangs onto his right wrist behind his back with his left hand, a stance all too familiar with me.

I can’t be in Flushing for too long.

I see a woman and her daughter switching shoes with one another to alleviate the pain her daughter experiences from wearing a mature pair of black leather Mary Janes. I observe this small act of menial kindness and am pricked by our mutual lack of it.

I can’t be in Flushing for too long.

I enter the noodle house on Prince Street and see the same man who never looks at me. He makes

shrimp and watercress wontons with his bare hands while the woman at the counter speaks to me in broken English. “12 piece fry shrimp wonton?” “yes,” “with noodle?” yes.” “With noodle or no with noodle?” “With noodle.” Each time, I point to the same number on the menu, number 9 and number 22. Each time, she points back to make sure that’s what I want. And each time, the man who never looks at me says the only thing he likely knows to say in English when I drop two quarters and two dollar bills into their tip jar.

I can’t be in for Flushing too long.

Pork floss buns rolled with scallion and egg reminds me of you. Long, twisted, buttered rolls with pruney raisins remind me of you. Overly sugared, burnt buttered colored coffee served in styrofoam cups remind me of you. Baseball caps and beanies with unexpected phrases sold on the side streets remind me of you.

I can’t be in Flushing for too long.

Samples from the perfume department at the Macy’s on Roosevelt Avenue remind me of you, how you used to spray them at me not as a means of purchasing any, but just because they were free.

I can’t be in Flushing for too long.

The strawberry scented sanitizing spray used at the entrance of the hospital reminds me of you. At the same time, that reminds me of strawberry Frappuccinos from Starbucks and that reminds me of you, how you used to buy them for me even though you weren’t supposed to. I buy strawberries for 99 cents at the market and the smell of the hospital sanitizing spray clings to every fibre of my being.

I can’t be in Flushing for too long.

Jewelry stores with misaligned Chinese characters with the hanyu pinyin letters below them remind me of you. The night of your death, I found bars of gold hidden in the pockets of your black leather jacket.

I can’t be in Flushing for too long.

I can’t be in Flushing for too long

Flushing Father Flutter Farther

The One After the One

Kezia Velista

They’d been talking about fucking each other in more ways than one. Something that he’s only experienced four times in his life. Every single time it’s brought him to an indescribable— To give power, is to also take power. Every single time it’s rendered both of them utterly— To restrict him is to set him free. Our whole lives, We’re told this body part Is a place of exits. For him to do the very opposite Pierces an organic norm. Allow it to happen. Don’t allow it to happen. His wife won’t know either way. He’ll always be the one, after the one.

Some Versions of a Night

Kezia Velista

TO BE PEACEFUL Rose Vollaro

to be peaceful must mean you are also capable of great violence not just physical violence (although that included) not just violence towards others (although that included)

but violence of the soul tsunamis of turmoil the hurricanes wreaking havoc on your perception of the world

the dark, swallowing violence that isolates you the depths of violence where you no longer can sense love the violence of unstoppable waves of desperation

the violence that floods every corner of your mind until you’re not sure whether you’re meant to breathe or just drown

but to be violent must mean you’re also capable of great peace calm seas and smooth sailing floating and observing, deciding which way you travel it means you’re capable of inflicting incredible pain, yet you chose restraint without violence, there would be nowhere to choose peace the greater the violence, the greater the peace

TO BE VIOLENT MUST MEAN YOU’RE ALSO CAPABLE OF GREAT PEACE

power in neons

Rose Vollaro

The Longest Day of the Year Malina Seenarine

The headlights hit the front of my house I’m alone again as the car drives off Tomorrow I’ll be back at work and it’ll be normal

No one will expect anything was out of sorts

How could they? My brain is numb and I have no words

Most times the emotions creep in from every direction

And slowly steep into my pores

I could be getting on the train or drinking a cup of tea at a cafe

I don’t feel it as it is

It is the weight on my shoulders, the pain on the balls of my feet

The feeling of being three seconds behind all the damn time

Checking out and trying so hard to check back in but reality wouldn’t let you

Feeling like the darkness my organs experienced all their lives is a reflection of how I feel on the outside

I can come up with generalities on why I feel this way but when someone asks me what is wrong the words do not connect in my brain.

My voice has been silenced because I never found my time to talk

The meek are supposed to be blessed but I scream into obscurity

The longer I stay quiet the easier it is to forget to speak

Unforgettable Siddrah

Alhindi

You’re like an old song

A familiar melody that is stored deep in my memory

I thought I forgot the sound of you

I haven’t heard your tune in so long

Yet sometimes during the chilling silence of the night

I could hear you flowing through my head

I remember every rhythm and pause

I hum the parts of you I once memorized by heart

I sing the words you serenaded me with

I thought that I wouldn’t be able to recollect your composition

Yet I realized that your chorus was permanently etched into my mind

A track on repeat that I couldn’t remove from the playlist of my thoughts

From the moment you whispered your music into me

I sensed that your harmony was going to be unforgettable

towards Evan Gordon

Evan Gordon

Me and a Basket of Fries

Erica Kletkin

I’m digging through a basket of Belgian fries, my stomach already half full from having a bowl of soup just before. It’s a good meal. The walls of the restaurant are all transparent glass, so every time I look up from my lunch I get to watch a new sea of people pass by with their shopping bags and coffees. It seems you can’t go anywhere without a coffee these days. It’s a sophisticated inconvenience — sort of like wearing heels, I guess. I’m not trying to pass judgement or anything. God knows I can’t go anywhere without a cup of coffee either. It’s just an observation. It’s good to notice these things. Someone needs to pay attention to this kind of stuff. Most people aren’t really looking into it, but I am. I get to sit back and watch. The whole world is one ongoing tv program that never shuts off. No commercial breaks or hiatuses. Makes you thankful for those tv shows that only release one episode a week. You get too much at once and you stop seeing the pretty things. You stop getting impressed by the way the seasons make the world change colors and you don’t feel small next to tall buildings anymore. All you notice are the coffees. Matter of fact, I’m going to order a coffee myself. You have to be one of many sometimes. Besides, coffee tastes good.

I run over to the counter and order some variation of coffee that costs me seven dollars. Seven dollars is quite a lot of money for eight ounces of liquid laxative. I keep looking back and forth from the cashier to the table where all of my stuff is at. It’s one of my least favorite things about dining alone. You always have to keep an eye on your stuff. God forbid you have to use the bathroom. You end up having to ask someone sitting nearby to watch your things, just so you can go without losing your table. Everyone always seems happy to do it, but the minute you start walking away, they turn back to their laptops and cellphones. One day, I want to ask someone to watch my things, just for them to say, “You know what? I don’t want to look after your things for you — and also, fuck you.” You see, that would be exhilarating to hear. I might cry a bit in response, since you know, it’s a pretty harsh reply, but man what honesty.

The cashier, a woman of ambiguous age with a rockabilly hairdo, slides me my coffee and I return to my table. I take a good, long sip and realize that half of the cup is just ice. What a ripoff. I continue to pick at my fries as I look around the room. I notice the door open as a short, stout man runs in to grab a pickup order from the counter. He leaves in a flash, then mounts his bicycle and rides off into the busy street. I always get the slightest twinge of anxiety whenever I see those delivery guys riding around New York City. Honestly, I think those guys should join the military. Have you seen how fast they are? Teach them how to diffuse a bomb and they’ll have it done in no time. They’re pretty dauntless too, you know. Imagine riding a bike through the streets of Manhattan. Heavy backpack full of food. Buses and cars zooming past you at all times. One wrong turn and you’re just relics of a car accident. We gotta give it up for the delivery guys of New York City.

In front of me, two tables away, are two guys sitting across from one another. They’re scarfing down burgers and laughing about something. I don’t know what they’re laughing about, but it sure seems funny. They seem like the best of pals. Man, do they seem like the very, very best of pals. I want to know what they’re laughing about, just for kicks, but there’s music playing from the speakers above me and too much chatter going around that it’s nearly impossible. I think I heard the one in the sweater mention something about a movie. He’s got a really nice sweater on. It’s Manhattan, so you don’t see many people in bullshit sweaters here. If I had to place a bet on it, I’d say it’s merino wool. Mr. Merino Wool guy definitely said the word “movie,” but that’s all I could make out.

The door swings open again. This time, it’s a middle-aged man and a girl who looks about twenty. There’s this weird air to them, like they’re still somewhere else despite having entered the restaurant. This place is one of those fast-casual joints — meaning you have to seat yourself — so, the two of them take up the booth that’s diagonally to my right. The man is facing me, but the girl is facing the opposite way. I want her to turn around, so I can get a better look at her face, but all I see is her profile. I see short

brown hair with messy, loose curls and pale, slender fingers. I look over at the man, who’s salt and peppered, but with some life left in him. He has a grey stubble and a big coat on. They haven’t made eye contact with each other once since entering, which I find intriguing. Both of them are looking at the menu that’s hanging behind the cashier.

After a minute, their silence breaks.

The man asks, “What are you ordering?”

The girl goes, “I’ll have half of whatever you’re having.”

“What if I want the whole thing?”

“Well, I don’t know if I have enough room for an entire meal right now.”

“You said you were starving.”

“Yes. I did say I was starving.”

“What? Did you swallow so much air on our way here that you’re full now?”

“I’m allowed to change my mind.”

The man replies with, “What does that have to do with your stomach?”

“It’s a woman thing. You wouldn’t understand.” she bites back.

He groans and rubs at his temples. “Everything with you is a woman thing.”

She turns to face him and they make eye contact for the first time. They just stare at each other for what seems like a very short while or a very long moment. He’s not rubbing his temples anymore. He has his arms planted in front of him, on the table, crossed over one another. Her hands are in her lap. She fidgets with the fringe of her scarf. It’s a mossy green.

“Maybe we should go.” she says.

“You always do this. Why can’t you just be happy?”

“Why do I have to be happy?”

“Because, you should be. You’re always moping. It’s exhausting. If I knew you’d be like this” he says, trailing off. He looks back over at the menu.

“What? Finish what you were about to say.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because, this fucking girl is staring at us.” he says, averting his gaze from the menu to me. The girl sitting in front of him doesn’t turn around. Instead, she just lowers her head. His eyes pierce through me like knives. “Fucking weirdo.” he continues, his voice bitter and angry.

I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say, but I can feel my cheeks turning red. I shoot up from my seat, grab my things, and flee from my table. At the door, I bump into one of the burger guys. Not the one with the sweater. The other one. He apologizes, which is obscene, because it was totally my fault. I want to say something in response, but I just scurry past him into the snow.

I turn around, now standing outside the restaurant. I peer back in through the window, just to check on my table in case I left anything behind. The table has nothing on it besides a half empty basket of fries, a tray, and the coffee. Either on accident or by habit, I look over at the girl, but she’s apparently already been staring at me this whole time. Her eyes are wet and I notice the tears moving down her cheeks. I can tell that the guy, whose back is faced towards me now, is saying something, but I obviously can’t hear what it is.

The girl just keeps staring at me. It’s a helpless stare. It’s the stare of a wounded animal that knows its about to die. I feel like she’s holding onto me as she stares at me, so I try to hold onto her. I don’t look away. I don’t look away until the man starts to turn around. Then, I abandon her, feeling dirty.

Portrait

Violet Webster

Tim Pulster

Letter to the Staff

Dear All,

Welcome back. I am so amazed by the work you’ve displayed this past year. It’s been a rough one, and I dearly apologize to you for all the obstacles we’ve had to face. I’m forever thankful to those of you who chose to stick around – and am missing dearly those of you who didn’t.

At last, you’re holding this magazine in your hands – a pledge to your hard work and creativity. To our hard work and creativity. I hope you love it as much as I do, and I hope you’re just as excited to hold something so intrinsically our own as I am.

This magazine is yours, it is mine, it is ours, as is everything that we create. Art belongs as much to its creator as it does to its consumer. After all, consuming art is a creation in its own right, is it not? Creation of thought, of empathy, of community.

I hope that this magazine, this past year with us, and Encounters overall have been a safe space for you. And I hope it stays that way for the eons to come.

Kindly,

Karina Aslanyan Managing Editor

Encounters Staff

Encounters Staff

Rose Vollaro |

Editor-in-Chief

Don’t know what I’m doing but I’m enjoying doing it!

Editing

Karina Aslanyan | they/he/she | Managing Editor

I like long walks on the beach and Marxism.

Vibodha Gallage Dona | she/they

My spirit animal is a cat who takes a nap 23/7 and the other hour is to wreak havoc.

Sofia Ghasemi | she/her

I’m currently a senior at Baruch I love to read, write, bake, and not get covid!

Malina Seenarine | she/they

I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific

Alyssa Leli | she/her

I’m indecisive

Graphics | Marketing

Alexandra Adelina Nita | Marketing & Graphics Director

I love art that embraces the beauty and horror of the weird, and I can't stop thinking about how around 25% of all animals are beetles!

Janelle Anne Mendoza | she/her

I am getting more into astrology lately

Creative

Ariel Sklyarevskiy | she/her | Creative Director

Find me reorganizing and cataloging the entire office twice a month.

Joel Bautista | he/him

The creative powerhouse of the cell

Maya Lugo | she/her

Although I am a psychology major, I love the arts and am an artist myself!

Emilie Sano | she/her

I’m a sophomore at Baruch who probably got a little too much praise for finger-painting as a kid, and now art is my entire personality

Ethan Saif | he/him

I like gaming and reading, writing and listening And breaking grammar rules

Business

Emily Singh | she/her | Treasurer

The friend to go to when you want an adventure.

Sidney Harman

Writer-in-Residence Program

Harman Contest Winners

Fall 2021: Non-Fiction Narrative

Judge: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, author of The Undocumented Americans

First Place: Amy Marie Bueno

Second Place: Nikala Daguiar

Third Place: Emanuela Gallo

The Program features public readings, lectures, and contests where students can compete to show off their best work.

Since 1998, Baruch has been honored to host these writers:

Edward Albee

Agha Shahid Ali

Hilton Als

Yehuda Amichai

Paul Auster

Elf Batuman

Gabrielle Bell

April Bernard

Susan Choi

Jennifer Clement

Anita Desai

William Finnegan

Mary Gaitskill

Amitav Ghosh

Francisco Goldman

Philip Gourevitch

Xiaolu Guo

Eduardo Halfon

Major Jackson

Branden Jacobs:Jenkins

Gish Jen

Ben Katchor

Jane Kramer

Mark Kurlansky

Tony Kushner

Jhumpa Lahiri

Marilyn Nelson

Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

Beth Macy

Colum McCann

Lorrie Moore

Carol Muske-Dukes

Sigrid Nunez

Joseph O'Connor

George Packer

Rowan Ricardo Phillips

Richard Price

Francine Prose

Brenda Shaughnessy

Laurie Sheck

Russell Shorto

Charles Simic

Stew Stewart

Monique Truong

Katherine Vaz

John Edgar Wideman

Baruch College expresses its gratitude to the Harman Family Foundation. For more information, contact:

Prof. Esther Allen, Director of the Harman Program

Email: Esther.Allen@baruch.cuny.edu

Website: weissman.baruch.cuny.edu/wsas/harman

Facebook: www.facebook.com/HarmanProgramAtBaruch

Office: (646) 312-3966

Encounters Magazine

Email: encountersbaruch@gmail.com

Website: encountersmagazine.org

Facebook: www.facebook.com/EncountersBaruch/

I was hospitali]ed for the first time 2 months before I turned 14 It was a voluntary admission. A voluntary admission means that you went to the psychiatric hospital on your own accord. The reason why I emphasize this so much is because to this day I believe it was the most courageous thing I have ever done in my entire life, and you may ask why. The reason why at 13 years old I made the decision to be admitted to the hospital is because my mental health was not in a good place, and I began to fear myself and my capabilities. When your mind becomes a never-ending pit of darkness the intrusive thoughts that occur are terrifying I knew I wasn’t going to be able to put away those horrid thoughts as my sanity slowly slipped as I hurt myself over and over and quickly became the sole thing that ran circles in my mind. I am Dominican, you may think what that has to do with this, but the reality is that it has everything to do with how it was the bravest thing I have ever done. Growing up Latina sadly I was around a lot of mental health stigma and heard things such as, “You have to get better, so you don’t go to a crazy house.” To think that psychiatric hospitals are only for the insane and crazy is incredibly far from the truth and even though I didn’t know that, and I knew my mother would feel as if I were going to a place for crazy people, I was so incredibly terrified of myself and the risk of attempting suicide that I knew I needed help.

I wasn’t aware of how brave I was to ask for help but I thank God every day that I did. Many expect a story about depression and panic disorder to end after that one hospitali]ation, but the reality is that healing is not linear, and I fell so many times before I could walk the way I can now I was hospitali]ed 6 times from the ages 13 to 17 To be honest with you my heart broke every time and every time I burst into flames and became a different version of myself like a phoenix resurrecting from its ashes.

Depression and Anxiety took away my childhood. My high school experience is me mainly jumping around 4 schools not being able to pass any of my classes because my panic disorder was so debilitating it kept me from going to school and the days, I did go resulted in my mother picking me up all the way in Downtown Manhattan from the Bronx. My teachers would be so disappointed as I would pass my tests, but my attendance was so awful they couldn’t pass me. I was so disappointed in myself as I felt the pressure of the world wanting me to be this normal teenage girl, but I just couldn't stop the panic, it was too much.

The truth is that when you turn 18 if you need to be hospitali]ed you no longer will go to the adolescent unit (for kids 13 - 17 of both genders), you will now face the harsh reality of the women's unit in which your roommate could be double or triple your age with a completely different illness from you. Safe to say that when I was 17 a few months before my 18th birthday I was a patient and completely ready to lose my mind around the fact that if I came back, it would no longer be to the adolescent unit that I have been used to Sadly, depression had made me lose my faith in God but in that moment, I was so desperate that I prayed harder than I have ever in my life, I was sobbing and begging God to help me and I swear to you I felt my heart feel light for the first time since I self-harmed a few weeks before I turned 13.

When I left the hospital, I ended up enrolling in a GED program and graduated 3 months after. Shortly after my GED, I began Community College which was the best experience for me as it gave me the space I needed to grow as an individual and see life from a different lens for the first time in years. My mental health is now always my priority as I reali]ed that with good mental health, everything else follows I got my associates degrees in May 2021; I was crying by myself the day my grades were officially submitted giving me the last credits I needed for graduation. I stared at my scars and cried even harder as nobody but me understood what it took for me to get to this point

I am now 20 years old. I still have moments where I have breakdowns and feel completely broken or intrusive thoughts I still have panic attacks just not as frequently I still get triggered and I still have so much healing to do. However, that does not discredit all the healing I have done to this point and how far I have come. I swore that healing was not real when I was at my lowest, but recovery is real for everyone, and I am so eternally grateful that I say it now and believe it I wish I could give my 13-year-old self a hug and tell her how strong she is even though she felt so weak and to let her know it's going to be okay even when the world feels like it's falling apart.

If you are reading this and are going through any anxiety or depression or negative feelings, I want to remind you and myself at this moment. You are strong. You are brave. You are beautiful/handsome You are anyone you want to be I will believe in you until you learn to believe in yourself. Thank you for reading a bit about my life. I hope you get the strength from it that I do.

Keeping Up With The Family Secrets

by Nikala Daguiar

It was a Sunday at the beginning of September when I told my uncle.It was the last day of my summer break and my last day to stay with my mother before going back home with my guardians, my aunt and uncle, who I called mom and dad. I was to resume living with my guardians and school the next day

It was a perfect day, the sun was not too hot We were at church I was wearing a knee high, black and white polka dot dress. Church was over and everyone in attendance were mingling with each other, catching up with the current gossip. Those who weren't chatting were cleaning, and my uncle was just putting the mop back in the closet. I was sitting in a small room at the back of the church called the baby room (the room in the church where mothers go when their children no longer want to sit in the main hall, or they’re crying). I smelled Fabuloso floor cleaner.

I saw him and I thought, I have to tell because I don't want to go back home; I can’t! It is so hard because I was going to tell this person, who is my father figure, who raised me, whose sons raped me. I asked myself, How do you tell someone who has raised you all your life, that his son ’ s, who he raised as your brothers, raped the girl who he cherished and loved as his own daughter? Will he believe me? I mean these are his sons that I’m talking about? Will he blame me, the way I blame myself? The way that great grandma blamed me and called me a whore? I mean, I did tell her that one of her favorite grandsons raped me. So I guess she had a right to be angry. As he walked back to the main hall, I called him:``Dad, can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Yes,” he said. “Just now, let me just finish in the hall, okay?”

And I anxiously responded, “ Okay ”

I watched him, in his teal button down long sleeve shirt with black pants and tie, arrange the chairs in the main hall. He looked tired but in a very good mood. In less than five minutes, he was done. He came and sat next to me. “What is it?”

I said, “What I’m about to tell you, I don’t want you to be mad at me. This doesn’t mean that I don’t love or that I hate you, okay Dad?”

He looked confused, but he said, “Okay, tell me. Don’t beat around the bush.”

There was a calmness in his voice. He was always the easiest of my guardians to talk to, and I found myself telling him what happened

When I finished, he was in shock He looked at me, opened his mouth to speak, but didn't We sat in silence. Then he leaned forward, let out a deep breath, and looked around the room. He lowered his head to his palms and shook his head in disbelief. At that moment, when I looked at him shaking his head, I thought, He’s not going to believe me, and I’ll have to go back home and live with them. Then he looked at me. Tears were in his eyes. In a trembling voice, he asked, “Are you okay now?”

I looked at him and he was crying. I moved my head up and down, nodding with tears in my eyes. Yes, I thought. I am okay now. A part of me was relieved that he believed me, but I also knew what question was going to come next. Still in tears, he asked, “Why now? Why are you telling me only now? Didn’t you think that I would have believed you before?”

I thought about it. I knew it was your sons and I didn’t think you would believe it. But I didn’t have to say it because he already knew why I didn’t tell him early So he stood up and came over to where I was seated. He stooped in front of my seat and looked at me. He reassured, “ You are worth more to me than all my sons. I would choose you all the time. You’re my daughter. I love you. Okay?” It was strangely comforting to hear him say that But telling him was only the start

Next,I had to tell his wife, she always treated me terribly As a child, she thought he favored me too much over his own children. Nevertheless, I thought, for me to be free mentally, I have to tell her. After we finished the conversation, I walked out of the room and went to the front of the church. She stood beside Betsy, my uncle's Pickup truck.Her hair was in a low bun, her everyday hairstyle. She wore a light blue blouse with a navy blue skirt. She stood there observing and saying goodbye to the friends who were leaving. I walked to her and said, quietly, “Mommy, I need to talk to you.”

She had a sense that it wasn’t going to be a good conversation She asked harshly, “ What do you have to say?” I realized it wasn't going to be a private conversation. So I said, “I need to talk to you about what happened while I was living with you guys. You know, how them boys troubled me?” It’s taboo to speak of rape, especially in the family in Guyana. Most of the time, it’s covered up

She dismissively said, “ I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I told her, in detail, how her three eldest sons raped me multiple times over the thirteen years that I’d lived with her family.

She angrily said, “You’re lying! After all I did for you, raising you when your mother left you, this is the nonsense you’re spreading! I should have left you to starve!”

I stood there in shame, but I protested: “ I’m not lying. It’s true.” I was in tears and feeling like what happened to me was all my fault.

She said, “If it were true, why you only telling me this now? Why you didn’t tell me when it happened to you?”

I thought to myself, I didn’t tell you because of this exact reaction that you ’ re having. I didn’t tell her that, as I was very fearful of her Instead, in a very shaky voice, I said, “I was scared.”

She looked at me and said, “If it happened to you, you looked for it! You whore!” The women in my family seem to use this word a lot. I knew she wouldn’t believe me, I thought, but she’s a woman, she has a daughter How could she not believe me?

She said,” We’ll talk more when we get home ” I knew that meant she would hit me when my uncle is not home and threaten to hurt me if I tell anyone else.

I told her, “I’m not going back home I'll live with my mother now ” I knew that going back home wasn’t a good idea because I was also having flashbacks. Vivid ones--it was like reliving every second of the act. I could hear myself screaming, “Stop it! You’re hurting me, I’ll tell daddy! You’re my cousin!” I didn’t know how to deal with them. I even asked myself, Why didn't you say something earlier? But I knew exactly why In all honesty, when I was being raped, over and over again, I wanted to tell someone, anyone who could help me. But the men, my aunt and uncle children, my cousins, my blood, the ones who raped me threatened to cut off my tongue and my brother ’s tongue and rape me

again.

It’s been five years since that day. The family all act as if nothing happened. I mean, we like to have family barbecues and everyone comes together and eats and breaks bread with those rapists. Those men are all married or having kids, while I have to deal with the trauma of what they did to me. I can’t even stand in a bank lobby alone, because I’m scared that I would get raped again.

I have worked on my pain.

In 2019, I shared my experience for the first time with a group of advocates.There was no judgment, they just listened One of the members in the group was a guy, and after I shared, he approached me: “Thank you for sharing.” He too was a survivor, but he was ashamed to tell anyone when it happened because he didn’t want to be looked down on. Since then, he and I, along with two other women, have launched a platform for sexual survivors to write and share their stories anonymously.

Looking back now, I think as a young woman,I thought that another woman would have believed me. I thought that, as a woman, she would have my best interest. But that was not true in my case: men hurt me, but a man believed He didn’t question my motives, instead he reassured me that I was loved. It’s because of my experience telling my uncle that, today, I’m an advocate for survivors of sexual harassment and sexual assault. I do not want another young person to confide in someone who doesn’t believe them. I want them to know that what happened to them is not their fault. I want them to know that I’m here to listen without judgment.

The Figure On The Balcony

by Emanuela Gallo

I kept waving even after she couldn’t see me anymore.

I was in the backseat of the car, squished between my sister on one side and my mother on the other, my baby brother on her lap. My body was twisted, causing my face to be practically smushed against the glass window at the back of the car.

The car was pulling away against my will and there was nothing I could do but wave at the figure on the balcony. I waved even when I couldn’t tell if her frail fingers with nails I had painted red were still waving. I waved even when I couldn’t make out the individual flowers on her apron. I waved even when I couldn’t see the curls shaped by the hours spent with hair rollers.

I waved until the defined outline of a woman I had come to memorize the past month became fuzzy. I waved until her vibrant colors became a mixed blob in the same way that my vision became blurry after removing my caramel-colored glasses. But my glasses were on, but there was nothing I could do about the distance that grew between us. A distance that grew with every mile that car covered and every hour on the 10-hour flight back to the United States. A distance that was the same thickness as a landline phone with a twirly cord.

At that moment, I had a sinking feeling that it might be the last time I would go down that street. I was right.

Two years later, my mom went back to that street. My grandmother was sick in the hospital, so my mom bought a ticket to go see her. My father co-owns a small business that demands him to work a minimum of twelve hours a day, six days a week. Thus, my sister and I picked up the slack

We had once been squished in that backseat, but now there was almost too much empty room and space in our house, without my mom there.

It was October, so I had just started my junior year of high school arguably its hardest year and was in the middle of all the projects, quizzes, exams, and essays that came along with it.

But school wasn’t my only worry anymore I woke up thinking about helping my sister prepare my nine-year-old brother ’s lunch. I texted his classmate’s mom about whether or not she would be able to bring him home from school. I thought about whether he had to wear his regular or gym uniform and if he had violin practice that day I thought about my lousy bus ride home and laundry and dishes and dinner. I was in no way a stranger to chores, as I had grown up being assigned duties around the house. But dividing my mother ’s essential responsibilities in our household was time-consuming.

But I was happy to keep my mind busy during the day. At night, when I finally closed my books and my head hit the pillow, I stared up at the darkness in my room. My body craved sleep, begging for the rest it knew was necessary to get through the next day But my mind wandered into the past, digging up memories from past summers.

I thought about the vendors who would set up shop in the streets outside my grandmother ’s apartment on Tuesdays Only my mother and I would go, as we were the only ones willing to wake up early enough. We would walk around the block, eyeing the myriad of products and taking in the liveliness of the scene. I clutched my coin purse heavy with thick Euros and kept my mouth shut

“Don’t let people hear you speak English,” she’d say to me before we left. “If they think you’re American, they’ll think you’re rich.”

The fruit sellers would pressure my mom into buying things she didn’t ask for, and I would look at the pretty stuff the next vendor was selling. I still have a few things that I bought there: my first strapless bra, three crystal red, white and green bracelets, a wheel of “fruit” nail decals, a pajama set and a mini-backpack keychain with the first initial of my name fastened on by the seller.

I remembered the vendors that sold children’s tees with nonsensical English phrases slapped onto them. They confused native speakers like me but were “cool” to my foreign cousins. I thought about the 14th birthday present my uncle’s family gave me: a baby blue tank top that read “Miss Moment For You” with metal buckles on the straps.

I remembered me working on my summer math packets in the “basement”: a single room that my aunt and uncle slept in. It had the only other table besides the one in the kitchen, which often had no room for my pencils and erasers

I remembered reading “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” by Betty Smith (and hating it) in the backyard. I remembered playing Monopoly with my cousin, who often succeeded in defeating my sister and me. I remembered running around in circles, trying to get rid of built-up energy; it may have been sweltering and the mosquitoes were feasting on my skin, but anything was better than bouncing off the walls in that tiny apartment.

That backyard also housed a white cat with a large black spot. She was technically a stray, but practically lived in the backyard since my grandmother gave her food and affection.

I thought about the kittens that were born the day we arrived at the beginning of July. I remembered their closed eyes and soft meows as they scratched the floor in attempts to walk. I loved running my fingers against their soft fur, with their mother ’s watchful eye from afar But they were sick, and one by one they died

One of them even died the day we left.

Eventually, I’d look over at my night table and look at the gray figurine of the Lady of Lourdes with the grotto behind her. It was my grandmother ’s; I had been eyeing it all summer. On the day we left, I asked her if I could have it. She said yes and wrapped it in a paper towel for safekeeping My prayers went from “Please God, don’t let her die” to “Please God, can you wait until after next summer so I can kiss her one last time?”

I never was able to On Oct 25, 2017, my online chemistry assignment deleted the 80 answers I had already put in. My aunt then came over to drop off a dinner she made for us. “I’m sorry,” she said to me while handing over the tray. Her eyes dripped with the kind of helpless pity nobody wants to receive.

I spent the next few hours crying and talking to my mother on the phone, in part angry that she had not told me, but not coming up with the emotional bandwidth for it. Then, I re-did those 80 chemistry questions and studied for an algebra test.

I went to school the next day, and the next, because what was there at home for me? Nothing. There was no wake, no funeral. There was no mother. There was no point in sitting at home, miserable and alone when at school, I could pretend algebra tests and history notes were my biggest concern Nothing had changed, and yet everything had Nobody knew except for some of my friends and my homeroom teacher. Everyone else treated me normally like my entire world hadn’t just been ripped to pieces.

Nobody understood the way I had been robbed of my time with her. She had been my only living grandparent. And yet, there was an ocean and a language barrier between us my whole life. A month every two years was not the amount of time we deserved. She died and I hadn’t seen her for two years I didn’t even get to say goodbye

I would trade the calzones from the pizzeria next door, the ocean water warmer than New Yorkers could ever imagine, the mozzarella di bufala that oozes when you cut it and melts in your mouth to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with my grandmother. Everyone tells me I’m lucky to have gone to Italy multiple times, but I wish they knew how lucky they are to have their grandparents live a couple of blocks away.

Thank You.

Alexandra Adelina Nita

Arianne Gonzalez

Ariel Sklyarevskiy Brianna Levy

Geco

Figueroa Deana Yu Emanuela Gallo

Emily Singh

Erica Kletkin

Evan Gordon

Farah Javed

Joel Bautista

Johnny Inthachack

Jose Benitez

Karina Aslanyan

Kenneth Fremer

Kezia Valista

M’Niyah Lynn

Malina Seenarine

Nichelle Murray

Rose Vollaro