Retrospect Magazine, 2020

M AY 2020 VO L . 7

RETROSPECT AN ARTS AND LITER ARY JOURNAL OF THE OSBORNE WRITING CENTER

PLEASE JOIN US FOR THE NINTH ANNUAL

MIDDLE SCHOOL: NOVEMBER 4, 2020 UPPER SCHOOL: NOVEMBER 5-7, 2020 2020-21 VISITING WRITERS

Susan Choi, Laura Resau, Hanif Abdurraqib, Alexandra Fuller, Sarah Kay, Shira Erlichman, David Giffels, Paula McLain, Carrie Fountain, Douglas Kearney Festival logo by Brady Furlich ’15

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R E T R O S P EC T P U B L I C AT I O N O F H AT H AWAY B R OW N S C H O O L

Dear Readers Twentieth-century American short story writer and novelist Eudora Welty once wrote, “a good snapshot stops a moment from running away.”

Each edition of the Osborne Writing Center’s literary magazine does just this: compiling art, poems, essays, and photography created by Hathaway Brown students throughout one school year. It is a snapshot of the year in retrospect.

Certainly, the 2019-2020 school year has much to look back on: a presidential impeachment, the Australian wildfires, the end of a decade.

Now, we are all experiencing firsthand a global pandemic that will be documented in history textbooks for decades into the future.

It is difficult in these times to remain unaware of our bodies and the space we each take up. Here we present Volume 7 of Retrospect: “A Journey Through the Body.” We invite you to examine the human body from the outside in, starting with the largest organ, skin, and ending with one of the brain’s smallest neurotransmitters, adrenaline.

We are endlessly grateful to Mr. Parsons and Ms. Armstrong for their constant support and guidance throughout this process. It has been our honor to read and appreciate the work of our writers and all those who submitted to the magazine this year.

Remember—every moment that passes us by is one that will never repeat. The past lives on in our memory. The future will come when it does.

Embrace your body and the present moment.

Happy reading!

The Retrospect Team, 2019-2020

Top row (left to right): Kate Hickey, Ryan Brady, Michelle Dong, Hannah Saltz, Sadie Hertz Row two (left to right): Marian Searby, Emme Semarjian, Kennedy Kostos, Anya Razmi, Zehra Ashruf Row three (left to right): Bailey Sparacia, Hannah Basali, Sejal Sangani, Cate Engles, Tejal Pendekanti Row four (left to right): Sinead Li, Amanda Sachs, Rose Gaudiani, Chloe Colligan, Jala Everett Bottom row (left to right): Claire Fallon, Anna Keresztesy W W W. H B I N R E T R O S P EC T.CO M

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 23

32 03 Editors’ Introduction

21 B ehind the Leaves

by Caroline Cannon

33 M achu Picchu, Peru

by Lauren Childs

SKIN

22 Th e Twisted Happiness in the Ending of Jane Eyre

by Claire Hofstra

34 To Return Home by Helen Sun

08 Base Makeup by Jala Everett

23 Locked Identity by Eleina Salgia

07 Veinrivers by Hayden Brooks 08 Skin Deep by Hayden Brooks 09 Th e Mirror & Self Image

by Evelyn Burdsall 10 Vessel by Alex Kabat 10 Splatter by Claire Radke 11 She Is by Rhea Mahajan 11 “ Variations on a Home Depot Paint Sample” Imitation Essay

by Jala Everett 12 L etter to Mike DeWine

by Elena Flauto

ON THE COVER Reynisfjara Beach, Iceland

by Hayden Brooks ’20

14 Journey by Michelle Dong 14 I t’s Too Quiet Tonight

by Alex Kabat 15 Baggage Claim by Elena Flauto 16 How to be a Door by Zuha Jaffar 16 Th rough the Leaves

by Shereen Ahmad 17 C rab in the Galapagos Islands

by Sarinna Vasavada 17 M essage from a Letter

by Allison Fritz 18 O de to a Mosquito Bite

by Violet Webster 18 Th ey Laughed to Cure the Pain

by Claire Adornato

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23 L ocked With Invisible Handcuffs of Society by Michelle Dong 24 A n Ode to Myself - Three Perspectives by Alex Kabat 24 Th e Vessel by Zoe Zappas

36 A Boat Ride on the Zambezi

by Kennedy Kostos 36 In stormy seas, she stays steady

by Divya Bhardwaj 37 Illumination by Sejal Sangani 37 Necklace of Ink by Carys Bowen 37 Bernini by Amy Howarth

IRIS

38 As I Realize How Time Goes

by Grace Zhang

26 Rocky Water by Eleina Salgia

PLASMA

25 E yes that Hypnotize

by Desi Neal 26 In the Moment by Emma Parks 27 February II by Carys Bowen 27 dirty laundry by Muna Agwa 27 Helsinki, Finland

by Shereen Ahmad 28 Azalea by Michelle Dong 29 Golden by Rachel Broihier 30 360 Tokyo by Kate Hickey 30 Chile by Michelle Dong 31 Lost by Zehra Ashruf 32 A Letter to Tim O’Brien

by Marian Searby 32 strings by Carys Bowen and Claire Hofstra

18 Nike by Perin Romano

33 Punchbuggy

by Vivienne Forstner

19 e verything was small.

by Layla Najeeullah

33 Th is all better be worth it…

by Muna Agwa

20 Eve, the Most Beautiful Maid

by Cate Engles

33 Y our Favorite Movie

by Sinead Li

R E T R O S P EC T P U B L I C AT I O N O F H AT H AWAY B R OW N S C H O O L

36 Sinking by Ryan Brady

39 Emily by Emily Jones

40 Duì Bù Qǐ—The Meaning of Sorry in Chinese by Louisa Wang 41 Th erefore I Am by Anya Razmi 41 Taming Shadows

by Nola Killpack 41 H er voice screams when she’s quiet

by Claire Adornato 42 H air Do’s and Don’ts: Beneatha’s Struggle for Identity in A Raisin in the Sun by Grace Mansour 43 París Ads by Hannah Ryan 43 Untitled by Shereen Ahmad 44 N Y by Anna Banyard 45 actibus consequatur

by Shruthi Ravichandran 45 Naivete Transformed

by Hannah Basali 46 Old Soul by Kate Hickey 46 Musicality by Anjali Dhanekula

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75 47 B eauty was the least of her. Her laugh far outshone her beauty.

by Rhea Mahajan 47 S ongs of Innocence and Experience by Carys Bowen 47 Granny’s Poem by Claire Fallon 48 Abstract Anatomy

by Kate Hickey 48 Predetermined by Simr Deo 49 Mr. Parsons by Susie Glickman 49 waves by Cayla Wilson 49 Pronunciation of Pakistan

by Olivia Boyer 50 falling constellations

by Kaila Morris 50 From Above by Audrianna Imka 50 Insecurities by Layla Najeeullah 51 Pint-Sized by Sarinna Vasavada 52 Belongings by Layla Najeeullah 52 I fell when the sun fell

by Liv Moore 52 We Will Never Forget

by Harleigh Markowitz 53 H eaven Lies Under the Feet of Your Mother by Zuha Jaffar 54 W hat To Do With Your God Antennae: Easier Said Than Done

by Shruthi Ravichandran 55 Becoming by Anya Razmi 56 Half Light by Sejal Sangani

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TEMPORALIS

70 the lost girl by Tess Hays

58 W here the Empathy Grows

by Muna Agwa

71 reverie by Sarah Goraya

57 Antelope Canyon by Ivy Wang

59 Look Upon The Rose Tree

by Percy Okoben 59 Memories of Hokkaido

by Allison Fritz 60 Wonder by Bridget Kennedy 60 Homeland by Anya Razmi 61 f aint wisps of halcyon childhood memories by Michelle Dong 62 Letter to My Future Self

by Emma McDonald 62 Mountains by Elle Wearsch 63 chlorinated silence

by Muna Agwa 63 time to be an american vandal

by Shereen Ahmad 63 Graffiti Gates by Eleina Salgia 64 Th e Tale of the Man Who Couldn’t Live Up to His Name

by Zoe Zappas

71 Lines by Diana Malkin 72 M ovement within Stillness: Richard Wilbur’s Tribute to His Daughter by Lina Zein 72 Scratchboard Butterfly

by Ava Keresztesy

STERNUM

73 Benevolence by Layla Najeeullah 74 h ow to fill a heart

by Layla Najeeullah 74 Flowers by Courtney Conrad

75 S aint-Malo in the Spring

by Hannah Ryan

69 Still Life by Sophy Gao 70 Pocketbook by Cate Engles

85 Exposed by Katey Fritz

86 Notes on Death by Michelle Dong 87 In The Shadow by Rhea Mahajan 87 blck grl tearz by Layla Najeeullah 87 the flowers rotted with her heart

by Michelle Dong 88 Th e Unpardonable Sin

by Anya Razmi

89 Erlebnisse by Shereen Ahmad

76 A Fairy’s Child by Sinead Li

89 Roosevelt Hotel by Kate Hickey

77 Sunny Day by Angela Yu

89 Visitation Hours – Results from a Blackout Poem by Alex Kabat

78 Th e Tale of the Element Goddess

by Ava Piliang

80 Writing by Percy Okoben

68 Dan Flowers: His LIfe and Career as a Food Banker and CEO by Elena Flauto

VISCERA

75 thrombus by Sejal Sangani

66 My Sister and Me

by Vedhasya Muvva

67 Construction

by Anna Keresztesy

84 Music Heals by Emme Semarjian

88 boy-cut, buzzcut

by Layla Najeeullah

78 Malibu Pier by Courtney Conrad

67 O rigins by Bridgette Fuentes

84 Grateful for what you have, enough by Hannah Basali

75 Heartbeats by Shereen Ahmad

65 zero feet away from home

by Caroline Jung

66 Stress by Anna Banyard

84 Th e Gap Between Us

by Desi Neal

79 Ship in a Bottle by Kathleen Guo 80 Bukowski Was Right by Anya Razmi 80 Tea Making by Elizabeth Fedro 81 M e, My Grandma, and Mexican Dominoes by Ella Van Niel 81 Ms. Armstrong by Lóa Schriefer 82 Unsent Letters: Randolph Ash to his Daughter by Vedha Muvva 83 Hayden by Susie Glickman 83 Dear Emily by Emily Jones

90 The Word Left Unsaid

by Zehra Ashruf 90 Obesity by Ellie Banbury 91 Tears by Ryan Brady 91 f orgotten dreams cry when she sleeps by Michelle Dong 91 My Pledge by Eleina Salgia 91 S kin and Cloth

by Hayden Brooks 92 Proven Guilty by Skin Color

by Sophia Beredo 93 Bathe by Layla Najeeullah 93 Time Starts Now

by Harleigh Markowitz

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104 rosy by Hiba Daud

116 Dragon by Angela Yu

94 Kyoto Lanterns by Kate Hickey

104 Sapa Landscape

by Hayden Brooks

116 L etter to NASA Headquarters

by Michelle Dong

94 Instant Radiance by Allison Fritz

104 Maze of Houses by Kaila Morris

94 tehran in summer

by Shereen Ahmad

105 L etter of Recommendation: Riding the School Bus

by Zuha Jaffar

117 A mar Ram Singh (My Grandfather, Apparently)

by Tejal Pendekanti 117 Blue by Emma Gaugler

106 The Touch of a Hand is the Touch of a Heart by Suzy Schwabl

118 B lue and Yellow Sky

by Vivienne Forstner

107 C hildhood Friends & The Trials of Friendship

by Audrianna Imka

118 A Letter to Hope by Zoe Nelson

94 Red blue reflects off broken bodies

by Aambar Agarwal

94 Shadows and Fog

by Hayden Brooks 95 self-portrait as my father’s dreams

by Sejal Sangani 96 Driving, Disasters, and Other Variables by Emma Gerber 97 Shades of Gray are Colors Too

by Suzy Schwabl 97 lines of disappointment permanently etched on your face, tattoo by Sejal Sangani 98 g ucci mane in 2006

by Carolyn Jiang 98 warm flooding light, pulls into darkness by Olivia Gidlow 98 If You Don’t Come Back This Time

by Harleigh Markowitz 98 R ain on the Bare Branches

by Rhea Mahajan 99 Me and the Win by Abby Poulos 100 Like Real People Do

by Ian Sobolewski 100 My Contact Sheet

by Diana Malkin

INTERSTITIUM

101 Amongst the Bubbles by Maddy Bryan

102 L et’s Talk About Kashmir by Shruthi Ravichandran 102 Red by Zuha Jaffar 103 W alnut Drive Gardens by Kate Hickey 103 Fine Food by Kate Hickey

107 Listen Up by Kate Hickey 107 Bittersweet by Zoe Nelson 108 Affirmative Action Isn’t the Problem. Racism Is by L. Yu 108 Flower Hmong Woman on Market Day by Hayden Brooks 109 Lantern Way by Angela Yu 110 Coexistence by Abby Poulos 110 Love locks by Angela Yu 110 y et we all feel so alone

by Muna Agwa 111 T imes Square Theater

by Kaisal Shah 111 Paris by Anna Banyard 112 B lack and White Book

by Amy Howarth 112 Th e 139-Year-Old Book

by Ava Alaeddini

NEURON

113 H ead in the Clouds

by Caroline Cannon 114 Perceptions by Eleina Salgia 114 Mysteries of Life by Allison Fritz 115 A Poetic Endeavor

by Hannah Basali 115 Emerging by Michelle Dong

Osborne Writing Center

118 Exodus by Anya Razmi 119 Midsummer Grasshopper

by Allison Fritz 119 A ppreciate the Little Moments

by Claire Fallon 120 Y ellow - A (un)Becoming

by Grace Zhang 121 Wounds by Harleigh Markowitz 122 I s Trump Really to Blame for the US’ Gun Violence Problem?

by Emma Gerber 124 I n Defense of Feminism

by Nola Killpack 124 A nnals of the Mind

by Hayden Brooks 125 Th e Long Road Down

by Tess Hays 125 I am my own shining star

by Claire Adornato 126 Q uiet but Badass

by Ella Van Niel 127 Lil C Scape by Ali Vucenovic 127 l ooking in awe beyond the glass cage by Michelle Dong 127 Iceland by Sophie Laye 128 ME.EXE by Layla Najeeullah 128 Halcyon Times by Hiba Daud

ADRENALINE

129 Movement by Bridget Kennedy 130 S treaks of color ignited across glass by Michelle Dong 130 golden gate by Aambar Agarwal 130 Dreams by Katrina Kresock 131 California Sunset

by Rory Kostos 132 Navajo Point by Ivy Wang 132 H ighway to Hana

by Anjali Dhanekula 132 Swiss Cows by Emma Gaugler 132 Waterlilies by Percy Oboken 133 R unning and Traveling

by Sadie Hertz 133 Startline by Amy Howarth 134 Eternal Dread

by Annie Gleydura 135 Miami Art

by Courtney Conrad 136 Some Vitamin C by Saija Shah 136 Th e Sky Itself is Also a Work of Art by Suzy Schwabl

136 L etter of Recommendation: Orange Juice with Pulp

by Emily Qian 137 m oon children transcended beyond celestial borders

by Michelle Dong 137 serenity by Hiba Daud 137 Th e Treasure of Writing

by Noel Ullom 138 L etting the Confetti Fall

by Caroline Cannon 138 N othing Left to Say

by Emma Gerber

128 T o The Last Person Who Took From Me: A Black Girl

by Jala Everett

The Osborne Writing Center and its programming is supported by The William McKinley and Jessie M. Osborne Writing Center Fund, The Horvitz/Rosenthal Family Fund for the Young Writers and Artists Festival, The Grace Wood Bregenzer 1927 Memorial Fund, The Peyrat Family Fund for the Young Writers and Artists Festival, and the Hathaway Brown School Colloquium Fund. These endowments support an atmosphere at HB in which student writing can originate and evolve. The entire school community is indebted to and grateful for the outstanding programming that has been launched as a result of this generous philanthropy, including the publication of this annual arts and literary journal.

For more information, visit www.hb.edu/write or contact Osborne Writing Center Director Scott Parsons at sparsons@hb.edu.

Since its launch in 2014, Retrospect has been recognized for excellence in the annual Program to Recognize Excellence in Student Literary Magazines, including being the only school in Ohio to receive the Highest Award in 2016. We are thankful to AGC for bringing our vision to life. In addition to numerous other national and regional awards in 2016-17, Hathaway Brown student writers also won 113 regional Scholastic Writing Awards in nine different categories, and three students received national medals for their work.

To learn more about our writing program, please visit www.hb.edu/write or contact Osborne Writing Center director Scott Parsons at sparsons@hb.edu.

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R E T R O S P EC T P U B L I C AT I O N O F H AT H AWAY B R OW N S C H O O L

Travel into your body; skin is your first destination.

Let skin protect you from the cruelty of your environment, but also expose you to human sensation.

Skin

01 Veinrivers by Hayden Brooks ’20

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BASE MAKEUP

02

JALA EVERETT ’20

After years of practice, flashback, and non-blended contour, I say without a doubt I am a certified master at doing my base makeup.

All of the perfumes in the set are for mature people, way more than the regular Bath & Body Works scents.

Every day since I can remember I have woken up to the smell of pancakes on Saturday morning.

Next, I take a pump of my “Chestnut” Born this Way foundation and make five dots on my face, then I blend it into my skin with my flat top foundation brush.

My makeup bag and my makeup drawers are overwhelmed with products made to complement my complexion.

As I would walk downstairs the smell of bacon would always become more prominent.

Another fact about my makeup bag to mention is that it contains well over two hundred dollars inside of it.

Once I reach the kitchen I am greeted by the smell of buttery pancakes and bacon and the smell of my father’s Black African soap fragrance.

As I get ready to start my makeup I take out all my brown complexion products and lay them out in order.

For Christmas, I was given a perfume sampler set.

To begin the process I take my Hydro Grip primer and rub it in from the inside of my eye bags to the perimeter of my face.

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I’m old enough to have a perfume scent now. I choose Pink Sugar. Its scent is light and bubbly but also takes up space with its potent smell. I chose Pink Sugar because it takes up space, so I don’t have to.

After I blend, I then add my hazelnut concealer under my eyes and on my chin, and finish with my T-zone.

As I lie in my parent’s bed with my mom, the smell of Orville Redenbacher’s popcorn engulfs the room. As I stretch, I move to my side of the bed and catch a whiff of my mother’s scent.

After I apply it I let it sit and dry for a little before I blend it out with my beauty blender.

My mom’s aroma is so indescribable that I refer to it as “happy black woman.” The smell is warm and welcoming and has hints of cocoa butter. The weird thing about this smell is that my grandma, my aunt, and other black women possess it but with a slight variation. I want to have the “happy black woman” perfume, body wash, lotion, scrub, everything.

R E T R O S P EC T P U B L I C AT I O N O F H AT H AWAY B R OW N S C H O O L

02 Skin Deep by Hayden Brooks ’20

To set my under eyes I take my banana powder and swipe it across to make sure I don’t get a single crease.

My sister’s body odor is one of the most horrific smells I have ever smelled in my life.

Next, I add my “rich” contour palette and apply streaks of deep brown to my cheekbones and blend it out.

After her soccer game, we ride home with the windows halfway down in the middle of winter, and the fresh winter breeze still manages to be weakened by her aroma of sweat and god knows what.

To conclude my process I take my bright red cream blush and plop it on my nose and cheekbones and add highlight to my inner corner and the top of my cheekbones.

We sit in the car as a combination of Pink Sugar, African black soap, Happy Black Woman and BO, and it makes me feel at home.

As I look into the mirror after I add my setting spray I remember I am a master at my base makeup.

Self Image EVELYN BURDSALL ’22

I dread every morning waking up and facing another day, Facing the hurtful truth.

My tired eyes stare back at me as I gaze at the mirror.

The girl staring back, begging me to care today, to make myself look pretty, I don’t have the energy.

My head feels like cotton has taken the place of my brain, My eyes are sandpaper rubbing against my eyelids.

The girl in the mirror understands.

I pull a shirt over my head.

The sleeve brushes my wrists, and I flinch only quick enough for the girl in the mirror to see.

I quickly adjust the sleeve up to cover my palm. To protect my heart.

The Mirror EVELYN BURDSALL ’22

I love waking up every morning to face the new day, Bright and cheery.

I walk in front of the mirror, eager to see what my clothes look like today.

The girl in the mirror smiles as she sees me.

Her eyes are starlight peeking through a world of black.

The girl in the mirror lifts her hands to help me with my hair.

With her assistance, I sweep my hair into a ponytail, It framing my face as if it were a perfect picture.

I smile, the pink paints across my cheeks.

I feel beautiful The girl in the mirror understands.

I feel like a princess From the light Taking out the darkness.

I can’t wait to see my friends today, and run through the playground As free as birds in the sky.

I love being nine.

I sweep my hair into a ponytail, wishing that it was longer; fuller.

Hair frames my face.

Hair the same color as my eyes. I hate the color.

My hair isn’t the only thing about my body that I would change.

I hate myself, and my body.

I am not pretty, but what I do won’t make a difference.

The girl in the mirror says it will But it won’t.

I wish I could be nine again Think that I was a princess Not a monster All I see when I look in the mirror is a girl with too many secrets, tired eyes, and a tired soul.

The girl in the mirror staring back understands.

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03

VESSEL ALEX KABAT ’20

in third grade I made a plaster mold of my hand blanched liquid in a large bowl wait fifteen minutes remove. nobody holds me anymore is that why I search for hearts in emptied bodies vessels that have run out of fuel cast a mold, make it last. my hand got stuck cool blade freed my flesh there’s a crack running deep through that white sculpture this mixture will never cure.

03 Splatter by Claire Radke ’21

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She Is RHEA MAHAJAN ’22

She’s got scars on her body And wounds no one can see.

She’s the most outspoken person in a room And the most self-conscious as well.

She’s the bravest girl you’ll ever know And takes risks, She really shouldn’t be taking.

And it’s all to hide Everything inside.

“Variations on a Home Depot Paint Sample” Imitation Essay JALA EVERETT ’20

UL110-7 Edgy Red

HDGCN65D Onyx Black Flat

S380-7 Global Green

330B-7 Sunflower

To mix UL110-7 Edgy Red, combine lemon-lime soda, maraschino cherries, and add grenadine syrup to taste. Add ice cubes and a handful of love. Next, drive across the hills covered with pavement, yellow paint, and vibrant green trees until you feel as though you are on top of the world. This drive should be contingent on the sunset that will commence close to seven at night.

Upon arrival at the limitless point of the hill, the sun reflects a cherry gloss off of your acrylic nails. This is the signal that looming words linger on the horizon, waiting to overflow the car with definition and significance. Open your mouth to divulge a thought to be consumed by the golden rays of the sun, and note how those around you will follow to bathe in their oncoming revelations. Now drive entirely consumed and isolated by the words that fill the black interior of the car with a hue that is weirdly familiar. Filled with angst, love, joy, and unapologetic energy, watch as the cherry gloss on your manicure fades while the sun lowers. Recreate this drive with every person you think you love and see if they understand the power it holds.

To mix HDGCN65D Onyx Black Flat, first acknowledge the power the Onyx possesses in its ability to channel negative energy into strength. Next, open a history book to uncoated paper and read aloud every name listed within the Civil Rights section of the book, then turn to your computer and type into the search box “list of first African-Americans in this country,” learn names not just like Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, but Katherine Johnson, Phillis Wheatley, Macon Allen, Charles L. Reason, Hiram Rhodes Revels, Ida Rollins, Harry Lew, Madam C.J. Walker, and so forth. Become enraged yet fascinated by the thought of how different this country would be if not built off of the blood, sweat, and tears of enslaved Africans, but instead, picture a mass number of melanin ridden people living on the land their ancestors had always intended for them to reside at. See an image of a young African girl braiding her sister’s hair, not carrying the weight of her ancestor’s pain and triumph, but carrying a sense of kinship on her back, that not even Ancestry. com can give me.

To mix S380-7 Global Green, travel to Zambia and eat nshima at Chalo Trust School while engaging in a conversation with people you know you will never see again. This is a conversation and dish you will never be able to consume while at home. Do not focus on the grainy texture you have begun to notice the more you have eaten over the past several days. But instead focus on who sits next to you, who fills and breathes the same space you’re in right now. Ask Faith about the moment she felt her life alter, about her family, and revel in the sermon she gives and cherish the holiness between her words. It will be one of the most platonically intimate moments you will have ever had. While you sit there, forget about the future and immerse yourself in the present, but regret not journaling the beauty of that day two years later.

To mix 330B-7 Sunflower, first plant a sunflower seed. You may find it helpful to observe your neighbor’s sunflowers, which grow across the fence adjacent to your backyard. As you observe them first examine them closely before looking at them in full retrospect. Note how matte yet refreshed the petals on the flower look while they bathe in the sunlight, notice how they absorb the rays and then transform them into beams that originate from within. In the summer, extract a handful of sunflower seeds from the core of the sunflower. See how complex the flower becomes as you look toward its center and do not glance over how in each black seed there is a touch of yellow. Be careful how much you request from the flower at once.

Do not sneer nor grin as you receive. Absorb, Look at me: I’m holding a sunflower.

Source: “Variations on a Home Depot Paint Sample.” Brevity, brevitymag.com/nonfiction/ variations-on-a-home-depotpaint-sample/.

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Letter to Mike DeWine

TO ’21 U A L F A ELEN

Dear Governor DeWine, I am writing to you about the unveiling of your “Strong Ohio” bill this past October. In your announcement of the bill, you explain that the inclusion of red-flag laws and universal background checks in your proposal would be ineffective given the stance of most Republican congressmen. I agree with your reasoning that this bill is much more likely to pass in the Ohio General Assembly than a bill that includes a “red-flag” gun seizure law; this strategic move is likely to appeal to many Republicans and does not largely take away from the effectiveness of the bill. Additionally, I agree with your assessment that the bill still has the potential to save lives without the integration of these clauses. Provisions such as increased penalties and punishments for crimes such as selling guns to minors, selling or providing guns to someone legally prohibited from possessing a gun, and illegally having a firearm in one’s possession are a step in the right direction.

Furthermore, the addition of “pink slip” laws that provide court-ordered treatment to those suffering from mental health disorders and drug and alcohol addictions before a mandatory probate court hearing allow the court to remove guns from the possession of those who are a danger to themselves or others. However, I believe that your decision to omit universal background checks in an attempt to make the bill more legislature-friendly has significantly undermined many of the bill’s preventative measures. While the “Strong Ohio” bill contains gun control advancements that would be an improvement from what currently exists in Ohio, the absence of universal background checks renders many of the bill’s proposals ineffective. I would like you to consider the possibility of implementing these preventative measures in your gun control policy.

Although the odds of a person dying due to a mass shooting in the U.S. are only one in 11,125 (which is still the 32nd most common cause of death), the probability that a person will die of assault by gun is one in 315, making gun violence a leading cause of death in America (Gould and Mosher). Though I have, fortunately, never been directly impacted by gun violence, my lack of experience does not influence my ability to understand the seriousness of the situation. Out of the 65 shooting related incidents at schools this year, 36 of them occurred at high schools (“Incidents by School”). As a high school student, the issue of gun violence and how it can be prevented is very important to me. Tragedies like the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida have shown that the U.S.’s laws can not protect school-aged children and teenagers. As we are affected by the lack of gun control and effective safety measures in America, we have no choice but to participate in gun reform discussions and debates to improve our own safety. In addition to school shootings, firearm

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R E T R O S P EC T P U B L I C AT I O N O F H AT H AWAY B R OW N S C H O O L

related suicide is another issue affecting teens. Over 1,000 children and teens’ lives are lost each year due to firearm suicide, a rate that has increased 82% over the past ten years (“Firearm Suicide”). In addition to problematically high suicide rates, gun-related homicide is another leading cause of death in teenagers: “Annually, nearly 2,900 children and teens (ages 0 to 19) are shot and killed, and nearly 15,600 are shot and injured—that’s an average of 51 American young people every day” (“Impact of Gun Violence”). However, the impact of gun violence on America’s younger generation goes beyond direct wounds. Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund estimates that “about 3 million children witness a shooting each year” (“Impact”). Oftentimes incidents like these occur without warning when they are least expected.

On August 4th in Dayton, Ohio, a gunman killed nine people, including his own sister, and injured 24 others in the 30 seconds it took for police to take him down (Martin). The massacre occurred in an open area called the Oregon District where many people go to enjoy dinner and live music. One of the victims, 25-year-old Nick Cumer, had been out celebrating his new job offer at the Maple Tree Cancer Alliance before he and his friends were brutally murdered (Allyn). As you and the Mayor of Dayton, Nan Whaley, attended a vigil following the shooting, crowds of people demanded that you do something about the lack of legislation protecting Ohioans from gun violence. In an interview with Cleveland.com, you referred to your own bill as better than the alternative of “doing nothing” (Darcy).

While this may be true, it is an unbelievably low standard to aim for.

When dealing with the possibility of more innocent people like Nick dying prematurely due to gun violence, a bill that is “better than nothing” is not good enough. Additionally, since the bill does not create a requirement for background checks on private gun sales, there is a large loophole that criminals can still use to acquire weapons. In fact, “Around 80% of all firearms acquired for criminal purposes are obtained through transfers from unlicensed sellers, and 96% of inmates convicted of gun offenses who were already prohibited from possessing a firearm at the time of the offense obtained their firearm from an unlicensed seller” (“Universal”). Due to this discrepancy, it is unlikely that the bill’s implementation of an optional “seller protection certificate,” which can be requested from sheriffs’ offices to prove to sellers that one has passed a background check, will be effective.

While the bill provides an incentive for sellers not to sell firearms to those who do not have seller protection certificates, there is no guarantee that transactions without them won’t happen. Instead of stopping the problem at the root with universal background checks, The “Strong Ohio” bill waits for the criminal to acquire the gun, possibly commit the crime, and then punishes the buyer and the seller with harsher sentences once they are caught.

Although the removal of “red-flag” laws from this bill was a logical decision, the additional elimination of a universal background check policy was unnecessary and ill-advised.

A recent Quinnipiac University poll shows that 90% of Ohioans support universal background checks for all gun buyers (“Ohio Voters”). This widespread support includes both gun owners and non-gun owners. Statistics have shown that, overall, even the most pro-gun citizens of the U.S. support background check laws: “Strong support for background check laws has also been measured among NRA members, with at least 69% supporting comprehensive background checks” (“Universal”). These perspectives were not adequately taken into consideration when determining whether his bill would be able to pass Ohio’s legislature. While it is clear that Republican House Speaker Larry Householder is going to be a challenge to persuade to support this bill, it appears that he and most other Republicans are mainly concerned about the possibility of “red-flag” laws being put into practice. Both lawmakers like Householder and officials such as Dean Rieck of the Buckeye Firearms Association were particularly concerned about the idea of gun seizure and are now pleased to see that the bill doesn’t have a “red-flag” law, if still harboring a few reservations about the proposals. According to Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted, a red-flag law would be “inadequate and unworkable” due to the extensive amount of time it would require, resulting in the endangerment of both the person in question and law enforcement (Kasler and Ingles). However, the same issue cannot be said for universal background checks; they have proved to be both efficient and effective: “In at least 90% of cases, firearm background checks processed through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) are resolved immediately” (“Universal”). Most importantly, the positive impact of implementing universal background checks outweighs all shortcomings and difficulties that it

would require to pass the law. It has been shown that states without background check laws are significantly more unsafe than those that utilize them: “States without universal background check laws export crime guns across state lines at a 30% higher rate than states that require background checks on all gun sales” (“Universal”). Eliminating the loophole in our gun control laws that most criminals exploit to obtain firearms is worth the extra time and effort it would take to convince the Ohio legislature of its importance.

While at first glance the “Strong Ohio” bill seems like a solid, if slightly subdued, approach to improving gun control in Ohio, its power is significantly diminished by the lack of a universal background check law. Your choice to exclude this safety measure from your gun control policy fails to extinguish the method by which the majority of criminals acquire weapons. Although the bill would put certain punishments in place to encourage private sellers not to sell firearms to those without background checks, this approach to the problem is backwards and doesn’t target the issue directly enough to prevent it from occurring in the future. The welfare of Ohioans is worth more than a bill that just barely improves our gun control laws in an attempt to please calls for reform in the wake of the latest mass shooting or other firearm-related tragedy. Nationwide and in Ohio, gun owners and non-gun owners alike support the use of universal background checks to assure the protection of innocent people from gun violence. While it is clear that passing a less conservative bill in the Ohio legislature will be difficult, we can do so with enough support. It is essential that Ohioans who want a safer future for their state voice their support for the implementation of universal background checks into Ohio’s gun control policy. However, it is also the job of the state government to listen to what the people are saying and act accordingly. For the sake of all Ohioans, I urge you to include universal background checks in your gun control policy.

WORKS CITED Aldridge, Kevin S., editor. “Editorial: Pass DeWine’s Strong Ohio Gun Bill, Do More Later.”

Cincinnati.com, 22 Oct. 2019, www.cincinnati. com/story/opinion/2019/10/22/editorial-passdewines-strong-ohio-gun-bill-do-morelater/4061772002/. Accessed 30 Oct. 2019.

Darcy, Jeff. “DeWine Gun Control Bill in Householder Control: Darcy Cartoon.”

Cleveland.com, 15 Oct. 2019, www.cleveland.com/ darcy/2019/10/dewine-gun-control-bill-inhouseholder-control-darcy-cartoon.html.

Accessed 30 Oct. 2019.

Dayton Victim Was an Intern Who Had Accepted a Full-Time Job Days before Being Killed. Hosted by Bobby Allyn, 5 Aug. 2019. Npr.org, www.npr. org/2019/08/09/749939969/dayton-victim-was-anintern-who-had-accepted-a-full-time-job-daysbefore-being-k. Accessed 30 Oct. 2019.

“Firearm Suicide in the United States.” Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, 30 Aug. 2019, everytownresearch.org/firearm-suicide/.

Accessed 30 Oct. 2019.

Franko, Kantele. “GOP Ohio Governor’s Gun Plan Doesn’t Include ‘Red-flag’ Law.” The Akron Legal News, 11 Oct. 2019, www.akronlegalnews. com/editorial/27418. Accessed 30 Oct. 2019.

Gould, Skye, and Dave Mosher. “The Odds That a Gun Will Kill the Average American May Surprise You.” Business Insider, Insider, 29 Oct. 2018, www.businessinsider.com/us-gun-death-murderrisk-statistics-2018-3. Accessed 30 Oct. 2019.

“The Impact of Gun Violence on Children and Teens.” Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, 29 May 2019, everytownresearch.org/impact-gunviolence-american-children-teens/.

Accessed 30 Oct. 2019.

“Incidents by School Type.” K-12 School Shooting Database, Center for Homeland Defense and Security, www.chds.us/ssdb/incidents-by-schooltype-2010-present/. Accessed 30 Oct. 2019. Chart.

Gov. DeWine Introduces ‘STRONG Ohio’ Bill to Reduce Gun Violence. Narrated by Karen Kasner and Jo Ingles, 89.7 NPR News, 7 Oct. 2019. WOSU Radio, WOSU Public Media, radio.wosu.org/post/ gov-dewine-introduces-strong-ohio-bill-reducegun-violence#stream/0. Accessed 30 Oct. 2019.

Montgomery County, Ohio, ‘Still Trying to Come to Grips With’ Mass Shooting. Hosted by Rachel Martin, 5 Sept. 2019. Npr.org, www.npr. org/2019/08/05/748185899/montgomery-countyohio-remembers-shooting-victims.

Accessed 30 Oct. 2019.

“Gov. DeWine Unveils STRONG Ohio Bill.” Mike DeWine: Governor of Ohio, InnovativeOhio Platform, 7 Oct. 2019, governor.ohio.gov/wps/ portal/gov/governor/media/news-and-media/ 100719. Accessed 30 Oct. 2019.

“Ohio Voters Oppose Fetal Heartbeat Abortion Ban, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; 90 Percent Support Universal Gun Background Checks.”

Quinnipiac University Poll, Quinnipiac University, 26 July 2019, poll.qu.edu/ohio/release-detail?

ReleaseID=3634. Accessed 30 Oct. 2019.

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x 13

It’s Too Quiet Tonight

(A Cento)

ALEX KABAT ’20

14 x

Sometimes I shudder in this heavy coat called mine I feel the old pain Which has returned and moved in To take your place I found myself standing at the bathroom sink Your skin baptized me I embrace your shadow Will anyone wake up today?

I’m just trying to catch up to my heart It is as if she died a long time ago, and she just now remembered it.

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Sources: Aimless Love - Billy Collins Don’t Forget to Fly - Paul Janeczko Over the Anvil We Stretch - Anis Mojgani Stay Awake - Dan Chaon

04

BAGGAGE CLAIM (Lyrics & Music) ELENA FLAUTO ’21 CHORUS My straight face starts to slip As my tears are mixing with the rain And you’re caught in traffic on your way to Pick me up from the baggage claim

POST-CHORUS Take all my troubles Stuff them in this duffel Put it on my back And pray it won’t break

POST-CHORUS Take all my troubles Stuff them in this duffel Put it on my back And pray it won’t break

(Hurry) I’m getting anxious Been talking with my conscience And her voice is kinda Making me crazy

(Hurry)

04 Journey by Michelle Dong ’20

I’m getting anxious Been talking with my conscience And her voice is kinda Making me crazy

BRIDGE And where have you been Why is it that whenever I need you Something gets in your way You’re too late

BRIDGE And where have you been Why is it that whenever I need you Something gets in your way You’re too late

CHORUS My straight face starts to slip And you could see it from a mile away And you’re caught in traffic on your way to Pick me up from the baggage claim

CHORUS My straight face starts to slip As my tears are mixing with the rain And you’re caught in traffic on your way to Pick me up from the baggage claim

You’re too late

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x 15

05

HOW TO BE A DOOR ZUHA JAFFAR ’21

Don’t let anyone hurt you.

But do let them Push Pull Spin You. “Help” them get to where they need to.

Remember that; it’s the most important thing.

You may not seem that important.

But you are incredibly.

Even when they Slam Kick Bang You. Don’t cry or creek or whimper Or they’ll get mad.

Stay silent Be useful Protect people from harm Or let them in Be useful And they won’t hurt you They’ll just Shove Tug on Push You.

05 Through the Leaves by Shereen Ahmad ’22 06 Crab in the Galapagos Islands by Sarinna Vasavada ’20

16 x

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06

Message from a Letter

ALLISON FRITZ ’22

To You: I don’t know when you will find me, but when you do, I hope you won’t just toss me away. I hope you will pick me up, dust the dirt off my papery skin, be careful not to tear my flesh, and keep me safe inside your shelter.

Although I do not have anything tangible to gift you, I hope that you will still get something out of finding me. I can only give you words of hope and comfort.

I don’t know exactly how long I’ve been here, but it’s been long. I’ve seen the sun fall and rise again every time, like every breath a human takes. I’ve heard the longing tones of an oak tree cello, the songbird of a flute, the crisp notes of a piano.

I’ve smelled the orange blossoms floating to the ground, the winter melon brewed into a delicious tea. I’ve felt the teardrops of the painted clouds, felt the cool embrace of the night sky, and I’ve tasted the bitter bit of metallic blood.

I used to wonder why the great tempests that knocked down great towers and angered the oceans couldn’t even disintegrate me to pieces. At first I felt something like triumph, but then, after I realized that whoever had dropped me here was not coming back, I started to wonder how long it would take for me to be one with the earth.

I knew I had somewhere to go, but I never got there. I was stuck on the root of a tree. And so I sat here, ever since that first day, but I was never able to shed tears. Once upon a time I had a mission, but now I am useless.

Soon after, I realized that I was not entirely in isolation. Every few days, I had things to observe. No one ever saw me, even in plain sight, because one who does not speak is never noticed.

It’s okay though, because I accepted that it was my life.

Do I wish I had not been left? Yes. Do I wish I had reached my destination? Obviously. But until someone finally sees me and has a spark pushing them to pay attention to me (not to be narcissistic), I am going nowhere. And if I sit here falling into the abyss of despair, I will never find my way out, and never be lifted off the ground. So every day, I keep observing. I want to notice things I haven’t noticed before, and maybe one day, I’ll notice you walking by. And maybe one day, you will notice me as well, and maybe one day, you will be interested in my story.

Maybe that day, you will be walking away from something, a stroll in the park or a responsibility, and maybe you’ll be feeling a little lost. And maybe that day, while I’m also feeling a little lost, we’ll find each other, and a light will flicker within the darkness.

And so, in advance, I’d like to thank you. Out of all the exciting things in this world you chose to find me. Thank you for finding me in this big, big world.

Love, The Letter

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x 17

07

Ode to a Mosquito Bite

VIOLET WEBSTER ’21 One summer

Finally!

A mosquito found my leg and said

No amount of acrid bug spray could delay the inevitable.

One Summer

(Which soon became every summer)

My legs were adorned with the welts that no amount of itch cream could soothe.

How to describe the feeling of an itch?

It’s attempting to identify the song that lives in the back of your head, It’s reciting the words to a long-forgotten monologue from English class, learned an eternity ago.

It’s—

It’s—

You scratch.

Once the fall arrives

I Always always scratch.

My legs turned into a road map.

The pink dots long since turned into a dull red Scars left over from a life of sun and trees that have yet to lose their green.

Here, the mosquito that got trapped in my sleeping bag.

Here, a particularly traumatic game of kickball.

Here, my first love.

They laughed to cure the pain.

CLAIRE ADORNATO ’21

18 x

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07 Nike by Perin Romano ’22

everything was small.

LAYLA NAJEEULLAH ’20 hip bone craters, shadowed skin; ribs seen through body, hollowed out form. there were dreams when i was young where the body was undone and i held all of the loose parts and for once everything

was small. now only nightmares where my fat body is burning and everything is too much— spilled oil tears, dropped the match that i lit. easy for the flames to catch on curved chest / swollen stomach / thick thigh, there is no place without body & i am ugly & nothing is beautiful anymore [ december 8th, 2019 ]

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x 19

Eve, the Most

Beautiful Maid CATE ENGLES ’20

Long ago, in a small village, lived a couple with a newborn daughter. The girl was extraordinarily beautiful. Contrasted with her fair skin, her hair was as black as the darkest winter’s night. For this reason, her parents named her Eve. Soon after Eve was born, her mother died, and left were only Eve and her father. Despite her beauty, the village people did not think much of Eve. She and her father were quite poor, and the two of them had to work at the king’s palace to make ends meet. Her father was the king’s cook, and Eve worked as a maid.

Each day, they walked the cobblestone streets to the palace, hiding amongst the village people.

Eve, embarrassed of how her poverty affected her appearance, never looked up on her walk to work.

At the palace, she and the other maids belabored themselves to make the palace shine like the snow on top of a mountain. Eve had a beautiful singing voice, and to pass the time as she swept the floors, she hummed and sang, her delectable notes echoing in the palace halls. At any sight of the prince, Eve quickly fell quiet and continued with her work. She was bashful, for she thought the king’s son was the most handsome of all the village.

Little did Eve know that each morning the prince woke up happily to her songs. He followed this melodic alarm to find that it was his own maid with the voice of angels. Hiding behind large pillars of granite in the ballroom, he watched Eve, as she mopped the stone floor. As he sat vigil, he fell deeply in love with her.

Around this time, the prince was coming of age to find a wife; his parents had arranged for many princesses of neighboring villages to come and meet their son. All were of utmost beauty, but to the prince, no one compared to the maid whom he was so infatuated with.

Every day, Eve would watch the visiting princesses go by. Comparing herself, she felt embarrassed for taking interest in the prince. She would dwell on her jealousy of these women populating the halls of the palace each night.

20 x

Finally, her envy compelled her to visit the village’s witch for help, for she had no other to turn to.

Eve knew she was putting herself in great danger. Her father always warned her to never become entangled with this sorceress, yet she went anyway. On the outskirts of the village sat the witch’s house. Eve knocked on the wooden door. It opened slowly, revealing a dark and eerie room. She walked in to find tapestries covering all the walls of the entire sitting room; the only light came from the orb sitting on a central table.

Eve saw a shadow of a woman reading in a chair in the corner of the room. “What can I help you with my dear?,” asked the witch in a voice so raspy, her vocal cords must have been made of sandpaper.

“U-uh, I was hoping you could help me become more beautiful,” said Eve nervously.

Intrigued, the witch responded, “But darling, you are so beautiful, with your dark hair and fair skin, why would you ask such a question?”

“I am poor, Witch. The prince, whom I’m deeply in love with, will never love me back as a poor little maid!” exclaimed Eve. And the witch finally understood precisely why the pretty little girl had come to see her.

“You want the prince’s attention, I see,” grinned the witch. “I can help you, but you must work quickly to woo the prince. My help will only last so long. I will make you the most beautiful princess with plentiful riches. But, if the prince does not fall in love with you in seven days, you will die.” Without much thought, Eve agreed, eagerly wanting to impress the prince.

The next morning Eve awoke at a dawn to find herself dressed in the most luxurious golden dress. She was decked in pearls and diamonds and jewels galore! She walked so gracefully to the palace, her heels avoided each crack in the cobblestone. Upon her arrival, she was met with the sound of bugles, for the servants believed she

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was a true visiting princess. Dripping in gold, Eve introduced herself to the prince as a princess from a village that does not exist. She sang him a song, and he fell in love with her voice, for it sounded so similar to the maid he loved so dearly. Out of all the women who had visited the palace, he chose Eve to stay.

Eve woke up the next morning at the palace feeling sore in her abdomen. Her corset was tighter than the day before. She looked in the mirror to see herself adorned with even more jewelry, as well. Necklaces of rubies and bracelets of emeralds hung from her neck and wrists like icicles. She believed the prince would have to love her with her vast amount of new riches. All day, the two enjoyed each other’s company. She would sing for him, and he would listen happily and admire her glorious attire.

At night ,though, when Eve and the prince separated, the prince would walk the halls in search for the maid. He thought his princess was beautiful, but his heart belonged to the girl with hair as black as night. He wondered where she could have disappeared to, but he found no answers. So instead, he occupied himself with the beautiful princess.

Each day, Eve became more and more worried. Her corset squeezed her waist tighter than the day before, and the ornaments decorating her entire body were becoming heavier and heavier. She was beginning to be short of breath when she sang. Her insides were caving in, but she was still vying for the prince’s heart.

As the seventh day neared, Eve was overcome with great fatigue. She tried to sing for the prince but could only make out wisps of air.

Her body could no longer hold the riches that the witch cursed her with. Since the prince had not demonstrated his love for Eve, she slowly suffocated to death. Eve became a lonely pile of gems on the palace floor. Frightened, the prince began to search through the pile, throwing the excessive jewelry to the side. When he finally reached the bottom, he saw his fair little maid

curled up in a ball, dead. In agony, he screamed.

All the workers came running to see what had occurred, including Eve’s father. He gasped at the sight of his dead daughter. The prince held her head to his body as he wept, knowing that she had gone through all this trouble just so he would love her in return. As he cried, his tears poured onto her onyx hair, and soon, it was soaked.

Miraculously, while drowning in the love of the prince, Eve came back to life. The prince had never been so happy to know he had not lost his true love. Eve’s father watched, as she and the prince reunited. Pondering how this entire event came to be, he figured there was only one person who could have created this wretched of a curse.

Eve and the prince decided to get married as soon as they could. The entire village showed up for the wedding; everyone was curious to see what the bride looked like. They soon were astonished by Eve’s beauty, and they wondered how they could ever have missed such an exquisite girl. Eve’s father personally invited the witch to the wedding. She arrived bitterly, knowing her plan was a fluke.

The entire wedding looked as though it could have been held in Olympus. Eve’s long black hair looked ever so divine laying on top of her white wedding dress. She wore no jewelry and still was the fairest in the entire village. As everyone took their seats at the long banquet table, the prince and Eve were at the pinnacle of happiness. Eve sang to her guests to thank them,

and once again, her voice rang in a joyous melody throughout the palace halls.

All guests were served dinner and were given plentiful libations of wine. Eve’s father took it upon himself to give the witch a glass of wine, personally. The witch took it with resentment, yet drank every last drop. She soon fell to the floor unconscious, for Eve’s father had poisoned the witch’s glass. He then took her body and buried her in the ground, layering hundreds of pounds of jewels on top of her body.

The entire village rejoiced all throughout the night. When everyone returned home, there was not a light in the entire village, and Eve and her new husband went to sleep under a sky as dark as Eve’s locks.

08

08 Behind the Leaves by Caroline Cannon ’21 W W W. H B I N R E T R O S P EC T.CO M

x 21

The Twisted Happiness in the Ending of Jane Eyre CLAIRE HOFSTRA ’22

I

n the ending of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, the characters seem to finally arrive at a happy conclusion. Jane and Mr. Rochester end up together, St. John goes to India, Bertha is out of the way, and Helen Burns is resting. Therefore, the ending for all the characters at first glance seems to be a content one. However, the source for their happiness is dark and twisted. When taking a closer look, it becomes very apparent that the characters’ joy stems from death, either from the death of themselves or the death of someone else. This fact only highlights the gothic elements in the novel. Only through death were Jane and Mr. Rochester able to end up together, Helen’s suffering is stopped, and St. John’s hard work finally pays off.

The case of Helen Burns is a saddening one. She died at a young age and was Jane’s only friend at Lowood. Her illness caused her to cough frequently and violently. Helen had no family who cared about her, which is why she was at Lowood. She was constantly abused by the environment and not treated well. If she was able to escape Lowood she would have nowhere to go or anything to do; she says: “I leave no one to regret me much: I have only a father; and he is lately married, and will not miss me” (97; ch. 9). She knows that she will fade away; she knows there is nothing she can do.

Helen does not want to be alone forever and believes she will continue to be treated poorly. Death, for her, is an escape. She no longer has to deal with the problems life bears which she explains: “By dying young, I shall escape great sufferings. I had not qualities or talents to make my way very well in the world: I should have been continually at fault’” (97; ch. 9).

Because of her awareness, she accepted death with open arms. In addition, she will be with the only thing she believes loves her and cares for her besides Jane, which is God: “I believe God is good; I can resign my immortal part to Him without any misgiving. God is my father; God is my friend: I love Him; I believe He loves me” (97; ch. 9). She knows death is inevitable and even wants to die. “I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to Him, reveal Him to me” (97; ch. 9). Her faith is one thing she could always rely on and she continues to even on her deathbed. In death, she is finally content and at peace.

In a similar case to Helen, St. John is also extremely faithful. What he wanted out of life was to change the world through religion, but he could not do that from where he was. He fulfilled his desires by travelling to India: Jane narrates, “He entered on the path he had marked for himself; he pursues it still” (520; ch. 38). His ending is happy because he pursued his dreams and did what he always wanted to do, with or without Jane. How St. John’s life ended is ambiguous because it is described by Jane, who implies that he is dying or already dead.

However, Jane is not saddened by this news but happy that the hard work and effort he put into being a missionary will pay off. “The last letter I received from him drew from my eyes human tears, and yet filled my heart with divine joy: he anticipated his sure reward, his incorruptible crown” (521; ch. 38). She is implying that St. John is awaiting salvation through death. St. John, like Helen, can finally rest in death and is eager to meet God. Jane’s comments about his death indicate his readiness, “And why weep for this?

No fear of death will darken St. John’s last hour: his mind will be unclouded, his heart will be undaunted, his hope will be sure, his faith steadfast”(521; ch. 38). She adds what St. John said: “‘My Master... has forewarned me.

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Daily He announces more distinctly, “Surely I come quickly! and hourly I more eagerly respond, “Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus”’” (521; ch. 38). He sounds happy, almost excited, to die because he will be able to meet God. Like Helen, St. John has nothing else to do with his life, as it revolved around his faith. Jane refused to marry him and he will never see his family again. At this point in his life, he has nothing to lose so he follows his passion. He has done everything he wanted to do, including dying.

Therefore he is content, even if it is in death.

Jane explicitly states that “My Edward and I, then, are happy: and the more so, because those we most love are happy likewise” (520; ch. 38). This includes Helen and St. John. It is implied that Jane revisits Helen’s unmarked grave to put a stone with her name on it, she explains: “Her grave is in Brocklebridge Churchyard: for fifteen years after her death it was only covered by a grassy mound; but now a gray marble tablet marks the spot” (98; ch. 9). Jane’s return to Helen’s grave shows that even after many years she still cares about her and loves her. Her grave is a way for Jane to show that Helen will not just be forgotten but will “rise again” as her grave states, in heaven. Jane knows Helen is at peace and her gravestone allows Jane’s mind to be at ease and be happy.

St. John was also loved by Jane, even though he was controlling and manipulative of her. This is apparent because rather than having the conclusion be exclusively about her and Mr. Rochester, she dedicates the whole last page to St. John. St. John was one of the very few living family members that Jane had. Even though their relationship was obscure, she still loved him as a brother. Jane knows that St. John is content with his death and therefore she can be happy too, because he is one person she loves.

All of these instances have had someone being happy because of their own death. However, Jane and Mr. Rochester’s happy ending has to do with the death of someone else, Bertha. If Bertha had lived through the fire at Thornfield she would always have been an obstacle separating Jane and Mr. Rochester. Even if Jane would be his mistress, it would never be the same as being his wife. In order for the union of Jane and Mr. Rochester to be complete, Bertha had to die. Unlike the deaths of Helen and St. John, Bertha’s death was out of desperation and was by far the most gruesome.

Helen and St. John’s death were described as peaceful but Bertha’s was graphic and uncensored. The butler describes to Jane: “‘Dead! Ay, dead as the stones on which her brains and blood were scattered’” (494; ch. 36). The nature of Bertha’s death did not affect the happiness Jane felt by being with Mr. Rochester and was never mentioned by any of the characters for the rest of the novel. Bertha’s death was beneficial to everyone. She was no longer a danger to herself or to others, and most importantly, Jane and Mr. Rochester could finally be together without an issue.

The fact that the heavy presence of death is disguised as happiness makes the ending seem harmless. Everyone is happy and at peace, but after peeling off the top layer, the ending is ugly and disturbing because everyone’s happiness is twisted, and stems from death. Even if it may be troubling, Jane does not appear to let herself be haunted by the passing of those around her. Her life has been full of obstacles so she deserved to get the happy ending she sought, even if it was somewhat eerie and dark, which fits the gothic theme of the novel.

09 09 Locked Identity by Eleina Salgia ’21

locked with handcuffs of society MICHELLE DONG ’20

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x 23

An Ode To Myself - Three Perspectives ALEX KABAT ’20

I

We

Alex

I’m going to get it tattooed someday The tiny Saturn on my pointer finger

Lying on our backs, swallowed by the dark This is love

Alex, you were born into bruised arms and a broken cradle

I search for permanence in Sharpies and in hearts that won’t beat for me

We craft beginnings and ends and there is no middle There is only us and this car and the most beautiful melodies

You don’t have a choice in genetics and love is not an obligation.

And when the dark doesn’t swallow, but consumes and the backseat is filled with used tissues and candy wrappers and the silence

That everyone who shatters your heart must enter first, and burglars plot break-ins months in advance.

My mouth gets me into trouble I think it’s that I say what others won’t I know you think it too.

I have always had the most dependent independence I work two jobs but hate spending money on myself Or time with myself I speak fluent sarcasm Pick up on the little things,

We’ve always been searching for fingertips To pull us to salvation What if the night doesn’t terrify me anymore?

The Vessel

I admit no other heart is a home And that I can’t run from my own.

At least it is shared And we may be alone in these vessels of life Skin and bone and blood and

24 x

Alex, do you understand that gravity pulls you, but you do not have to follow?

You beg for bandages, but bleed only from your own bullet wounds.

But Alex, tattoo your soul with the love you have always wished permanent Trade the ammunition for ink and remember: Permanence is temporary.

ZOE ZAPPAS ’23 I am surrounded by a plethora of sounds It is so loud I can’t even hear myself think I disappear into the crowd of people, who all walk with different purposes They aren’t thinking about the part of me on display I try to assure myself that this vessel I present isn’t everything It is hard for me to ever really adjust my thoughts to not be so preoccupied With how my body looks, or how my weight is distributed It’s all I can remember doing Take me back Back to thinking about faraway places, about everything and nothing Why am I so self conscious and feel like all eyes are picking out my Flaws?

I just want to be three again, barely even aware of my body Only invested in the world around me What changed And how do I fix it?

R E T R O S P EC T P U B L I C AT I O N O F H AT H AWAY B R OW N S C H O O L

Let light in. The colors that await us are brilliant and worth knowing.

Eyes that Hypnotize

by Desi Neal ’22

Iris

01

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02

In the Moment EMMA PARKS ’21

Every memory fades to create a new scene that is only partially the truth of what the original memory might have been. Whether the memory consists of a stroll through the park, a plane ride to a new city, or the feeling of holding a loved one close, the many moments that make up this memory will always become mixed up and distorted. Each time a feeling is felt - the cold of the park bench, for example - that feeling will get confused and summarized with other feelings to create the memory that inhabits one’s mind. So as these next few moments are described, the truth that they are meant to be telling, without a doubt, will be distorted and not the exact reality that it may have originally been.

The first sight when walking down the steps leading toward the train was the peaceful blue river. It quietly lapped against the rock-scattered shore - if this could be considered a shore… possibly a river-edge? The air was stiff and nipped at the fingers wandering along the stairwell. Stepping onto the walkway, a soft creaking sound could be heard - possibly

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from a bird, but more likely the culprit was a flagpole influenced by the blowing wind. The paved path was scattered with leaves, fallen due to the cold dry weather. In the distance, a train blew its horn and rumbled slowly down the tracks. The destination was determined to be a bench, chilled by the air around it. Sitting down on the cold hard mix of metal and wood, the chill was instantly felt sharply through the warm cozy sweatpants and jacket. A quick glance around the park revealed many sights and opened ears brought another round of sensations - some children riding bikes down the pathway, the clip-clop of shoes from a woman entranced with her phone, and a small girl rolling her red ball back and forth with a kindly gentleman. Farther in the distance was the sound of cars driving down the street along with a bus letting out its exhaust. The cool air smelled fresh from the river and the scent both calmed and relaxed those who breathed it, despite the pollution which clouded it. The moment was energized yet serene, expected yet beautiful.

Perfection could not have been that far around the corner.

FEBRUARY II

CARYS BOWEN ’22

The sky is such a beautiful pearly gray absolutely no depth, nor texture At the time of day where the sun is on its way home but the streetlamps haven’t arrived for the night shift — It’s the kind of gray that dampens the world everything is dull and mute But it’s the kind of gray that makes everything stand in it with such linear clarity It’s the kind of day that reminds me I have eyes to see The kind of day where branches stop me in my path to demand I look at them The kind of day that reminds me of all the possibilities spread before me The kind of day that reminds me of where I am and where I can go.

03

everything changes when you realize that the monsters looming over you were just islands of dirty laundry casting shadows across your bedroom floor at night.

dirty laundry.

MUNA AGWA ’23

02 Rocky Water by Eleina Salgia ’21 03 Helsinki, Finland by Shereen Ahmad ’22

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Azalea Once upon a time, there was a husband and a wife who loved each other dearly. Desperate for a child, the couple ventured West of the Forest, across the River, to the base of the Volcano where the Prophet resided. They knocked on the door of the wooden cabin with all the strength they could muster after their long journey. The door creaked open exactly three moments after, and the pair ambled across the dimly lit hallway, marveling at the exotic treasures displayed on the walls. A ruby bracelet, sized perfectly for a child, glimmered alluringly in the darkness and attracted the eyes of the wife. Noticing the glint of temptation and greed in his wife’s eyes, the husband clutched her hand against her wishes and briskly walked to the end of the hallway, where the shadow of the Prophet gleamed behind the handleless glass door.

“O respected Prophet, we come after a day’s journey to seek your wisdom and blessing. There is nothing we wish more than to have a child, whom we will surely love dearly. O respected Prophet, will my wife bear a child soon?” the husband asked.

“Your wishes will be fulfilled and your child will be blessed, so long as you pay careful attention to the signs,” the Prophet said.

And with that, the husband and wife were content. Overwhelmed with joy, the husband skipped out the door, blind to the quick hands of the wife who pocketed the ruby bracelet. She thought to herself, ‘I have received the blessings of the Prophet. Surely this ruby bracelet could serve as a testament to this fateful day. My child shall wear this bracelet on their left wrist until they die.’

Unbeknownst to the couple, there was a wooden sign on the back of the door etched with, “Leave with a promise and nothing more. Knock twice, else leave with a terrible fate.”

The wife gave birth to a girl with the rosiest cheeks anyone had ever seen.

The new mother adorned the child with the bracelet and a name, and just three moments after, a pair of eyes opened for the first time, and the other closed forever. The husband cried with grief and happiness as he held his daughter, whose eyes opened so wide she almost could have seen for her dead mother.

The daughter was named Azalea, and seven years later, the husband fell in love with another woman. After getting married, the stepmother cooked up a feast. Azalea ate all that was on the plate and politely asked for seconds and even thirds. Little did Azalea know, the plates were laced with a deadly poison that would soon kill her father.

As though there was some greater force protecting her, the small child survived, and in fact became stronger despite the poison. This greatly frustrated the stepmother, now a widow, who wanted to get rid of the child as quickly and inconspicuously as possible. The stepmother cared deeply about what her neighbors thought, obsessively so, and devised a

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MICHELLE DONG ’20

plan. She spiked all that Azalea consumed with the deadliest poisons, hid the sharpest needles in her shoes, and stuck a knife through her bed, all to no avail.

The stepmother, desperate to kill the beautiful child, traveled West of the Forest, past the River, to the base of the Volcano where the Prophet resided. She knocked on the door, which creaked open exactly three moments after.

“O respected Prophet, I come after a day’s journey to seek your wisdom and blessing. I wish for nothing more than to kill the beautiful child that believes me to be her mother. O respected Prophet, will this child die soon?” the stepmother asked.

“Your wishes will be fulfilled, so long as you pay careful attention to the signs,” the Prophet said.

And with that, the stepmother departed and noticed the wooden sign on the back of the door etched with, “Leave with a promise and nothing more.

Knock twice, else leave with a terrible fate.” She knocked twice upon exiting, and three vials of a clear liquid appeared out of nowhere. The stepmother recognized the smell of nail polish, and suddenly began scheming. ‘If I paint her nails with a new layer of her blood every day, Azalea should soon die from shedding too much blood, or her hand will become so difficult to lift up that she should have no choice but to beg me to cut it off,’ the stepmother thought.

And so, the stepmother asked Azalea if she wanted to have her nails painted. As she had never once been indulged with such a luxury, Azalea nodded her small head with such force it almost fell off. “Red would be perfect to accent your rosy cheeks,” remarked the stepmother while she pricked the unassuming child’s delicate fingers to pigment the varnish.

The stepmother diligently applied herself to painting the nails of Azalea for three years. Azalea had come to enjoy the daily sessions, as it was the only time in which her stepmother acknowledged her existence. Each of her fingers was such a dark shade of red from the accumulation of her dried blood that from afar, they looked black.

One day, news spread from the base of the Volcano, across the River, to East of the Forest. The Prophet had announced the existence of a witch on the East who had the fairest fingers of all. The stepmother was quick to offer Azalea as the witch, and the seeds of suspicion seeped into the untrusting townspeople like a plague. Azalea ran as far and cried as much as she could, but as she had never once left the town, she became lost in the depths of the Forest. Unable to distinguish West and East, Azalea stumbled directionlessly, feet bloody, but she did not rest till the sun did.

Suddenly, a path was illuminated by the moon, and Azalea found a wooden cabin at the end. ‘I shall take a nap outside this door, for I am not so shameless as to rest on another’s bed,’ she thought. Swiftly the morning

04

04 Golden by Rachel Broihier ’21

came, and Azalea found herself lying on a cloud-like bed. A handsome boy, not much younger or older than her, had fallen asleep next to the bed with a white cloth in his hands. “Is this heaven?” she wondered aloud until the boy awoke. “Dear lady, this is not heaven, but my house. Do not distress, for out of the goodness of my heart and not a single impure reason, I found you, close to death, and saved you,” he said.

The boy, named Raymond, tended to her wounds, and soon the two loved each other dearly. A year passed, then two, and the boy, now a man, asked for her hand in marriage. Azalea cried with joy, but was all of the sudden reminded of the day she escaped from East of the Forest and her bloody feet. The color of her nails remained a deep red, sustained by the blood from her habit of pricking her own finger each day. Azalea wanted to be blessed by her dead parents, as well as her lover’s father, who she had met not a single time.

So, Azalea and Raymond set off across the River, to the base of the Volcano where his father resided. They knocked on the door of the wooden cabin, but the door did not creak open exactly three moments after. Instead, they were caught in a net. The townspeople from East of the Forest had learned from the Prophet that the witch was soon to return and thus set up traps all around the Volcano. They knocked on the wooden cabin, and the Prophet exited, only to faint from the shock of seeing his estranged son with the witch. He wept so much that he died and the townspeople held a funeral for the respected Prophet. Feelings of resentment toward the witch and her lover fostered so, and the townspeople pushed them into the steaming, bubbling Volcano, but not before cutting her left hand. The townspeople then held a funeral for the son of the respected Prophet, and lived until the Volcano erupted seven years later.

turned out to be magical and were inhabited by other alleged witches and their lovers, who coexisted peacefully until they died of old age. Azalea and Raymond laughed heartily, and they lived happily ever after.

After seven years in the Volcano, the accumulated joy radiated with such a force that the top of the Volcano exploded outwards into the Forest. The hot spring water, blessed, spread happiness and love to all that was living.

One day, Raymond went back to the wooden cabin where his father resided, to the end of the hallway, and pushed the glass door open. He found a message from the Prophet: “Dear son, If your eyes are currently reading this, I am sorry. I have failed you, but especially your wife, Azalea, who I have so wronged. I do not expect forgiveness or a restful death, for I do not deserve either, but I feel that I must tell the two of you this. It was I who tempted her dear mother with an irresistible ruby bracelet, and again I who planted the evil inside the woman who was her stepmother. I alerted the paranoid townspeople of a witch, knowing that Azalea would inevitably become the target. You will not understand my reasons, but I must give them. I simply did not believe that she was The Match for you, for she would bring nothing but death to you.

Yet, if you are reading these words, I admit defeat and shall bless you with eternal happiness.

Sincerely, Your father.”

And with that, Azalea’s hand was restituted and the couple lived, blessed.

Raymond intertwined his fingers with his lover’s remaining hand as they fell into the Volcano, bracing for death. And yet, when they opened their eyes, they found themselves in complete consternation, for they were not burned alive but rather completely surrounded by water. The hot springs

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05

06

05 360 Tokyo by Kate Hickey ’20 06 Chile by Michelle Dong ’20

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ZEHRA ASHRUF ’20

LOST

I was lost. In a boundless sea of foreigners.

A foreign country.

A foreign language.

A foreign people.

I was nine years old: easily contented, incredibly naïve, filled with curiosity.

Walking with my family for what seemed to be hours, I complained once more about my aching feet as my sandals pressed against the cobblestone. The smell of the spices in paella and deep fried churros only made my stomach growl louder. Troubled, tired, and on the verge of collapse, I tugged at my father’s hand.

I raised my head as my eyes scanned layers of shelves. Froot Loops, Lucky Charms, Cookie Crisp. With tiny feet and tinier hands, I climbed a hundred feet until a lonely, chocolate-colored box interrupted my journey: Cocoa Puffs. I grabbed, I looked, I jumped. My head rotated left, then right, then left again, as an empty grocery store aisle transformed into a busy street. I took off running, weaving myself between aisles, consumed by frantic search. By this time, my cheeks were swimming in tears. I sat next to a crate of soup cans, criss cross applesauce, jerking my head backwards to stare at the ceiling.

A soft voice approached me: “Are you lost, honey?”

The Plaza Mayor, one of the main squares situated in the heart of Madrid, Spain.

Seemingly huge. Stalls selling multi-colored shawls, beaded and Spanish hand fans with printed flowers dispersed across the square.

Tall residential buildings covered by hundreds of balconies, uniform in architecture, impossible to distinguish one from another.

In the middle stood a grand bronze statue. An armored man riding a horse and holding a sword in his right hand. His face, balancing sternness and strength, confident in his power to instill fear. A layer of pale green rust covered the statue. The inscription below the statue felt rough to my fingertips.

King Philip III.

Enough jokes about my height and laughter at my expense circulating and left lingering in the air. Mistaken for a toddler on too many occasions, I had been told to lie about my age for a free ticket. I stomped away, gripping a slowly melting, stolen chocolate bar in my left pocket.

I was one thousand feet in the air, close enough to touch the sky, skimming signs that exclaimed some variation of Welcome to the Empire State Building. I hadn’t reached far until I realized I wasn’t being chased, nor was the echo of my own name ringing in my ears.

I felt myself spin around, only to be disappointed. They had disappeared.

At six years old, I was a liar and a thief.

Now, also, I was alone.

I could hear high-pitched rhythmic music coming from afar. My ears, desperate to translate an unrecognizable tune, led me away from my family and into a crowd of people.

Within minutes, I found the source of the music – a Mariachi band. Small men in matching black and red suits enhanced by broad-brimmed felt sombreros. A small hat placed right in front of them, quickly filling with coins and bills. The sound of the powerful violins, blaring trumpets and vibrating guitars was upbeat and uplifting. I watched as the foreigners clapped and danced to the beat.

I inched away from the band, slowly discovering more crowds of Spaniards, each bigger and louder than the last. One. Two. Three. Four. Five boys only a handful of years older than me, performing a routine to the rhythm of a silver boombox, bouncing soccer balls on their heads, elbows, shoulders.

It wasn’t until a small, black suitcase had rolled into my field of vision that I realized where I had been taken: the airport.

Screaming.

Kicking.

Complaining.

All the way to security. As my family scrambled to remove laptops from bags and shoes from feet, I escaped. I bounced over babies and baggage until I reached the door. I was victorious. Victorious, but alone.

A wrinkled face. He wore a gray suit to match his silver-painted skin. He stood in the same position for hours, still as a statue. His empty can stood in shame and sadness. I found myself bending down to drop a few silver coins into his can.

The statue-man smiled.

A wave of relief swept over me. I felt my body fighting to calm itself, breathing in and out.

Maybe it was the amusing costume, or the kindness in his eyes, or the sincerity of his smile, or a combination of the three. My newfound relief slowly evolved into contentment.

It’s funny, really, how a stranger can make you feel less alone. How being lost doesn’t mean you’re alone.

I smiled back.

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A Letter to Tim O Brien 07

MARIAN SEARBY ’20

Dear Tim O’Brien, I hope this letter finds you at peace. I recently read your book The Things They Carried. To tell you the truth, and I know the truth is something you have thought a lot about, I did not choose to read your book. It was chosen for me by my English teachers. At first, your book seemed far away to me. A story about a war in a foreign country in a foreign time. How would I be able to connect to your book in any way?

I found points of personal connection within the text. When you ran away to Canada because of the draft, I understood that feeling completely. For me, I don’t necessarily want to run away to Canada. Obviously, my situation is much less drastic, as you were being drafted to a war and to fight with the possible end result of death. Nevertheless, some days I just want to quit. The pressure of my parents, coaches, teachers, and friends sits on both of my shoulders like a backpack filled with bricks. I want to show them I am good enough. I sometimes feel like I have to carry the weight of two people. For my disabled brother, I want to show my parents that I can be the perfect child they never had. Somedays it feels like I have a grenade inside me ready to explode. I also understand your struggle of your fate being decided by adults. Adults who only see my ability as an athlete or just my grades and my test scores. Adults like coaches, teachers, and college admissions. They only see me as a percentage. Just like those you were drafted by, only seeing you as another body to hold a gun. They do not see a whole person. A person who wanted other things in life than to fight in a war or a person who wants so badly to succeed.

A more universal connection is your take on storytelling. I believe stories are able to show us truths, relieve our pain, and remember the dead. These I found within your text. While reading your book, I came to a realization. This realization is one that I believe you were hoping the reader would come to at some point. This passage is what really made me think: “Without the grounding reality, it’s just a trite bit of puffery, pure Hollywood, untrue in the way all such stories are untrue. Yet even if it did happen – and maybe it did, anything’s possible – even then you know it can’t be true, because a true war story does not depend upon that kind of truth. Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than true.” (77, Ch. 7) What I found was just because something didn’t happen doesn’t mean it doesn’t convey a greater truth. I had finally realized why we read your book. As I previously explained, there were other smaller points I related to throughout your book, but I was still wondering why this book? If my teacher was trying to get us to connect to a book there are plenty about high school girls that we would probably have a lot more personal connections to. Why a book about the Vietnam War? I believe it was to understand the powers of storytelling. To understand that authors enhance the truth to make it much more universal or to get their point heard. It is like the “Roxy Paine Trees” in New York City. The enhancement of the size and shape of the tree mixed with the silver color. Somehow, there is much more appreciation of the tree’s beauty when looking at this art.

07 strings by Carys Bowen ’22 and Claire Hofstra ’22 08 Punchbuggy by Vivienne Forstner ’23 09 Machu Picchu, Peru by Lauren Childs ’20

I could have written to Mark Twain or Frederick Douglass, but Mr. O’Brien I chose to write to you because of my evolution to understanding your truths. At first, your ideas seemed so foreign and that I could not relate because I had never fought in a war. But, the essence of adding dramatic or made-up details to war stories was so I would understand. I also had a personal journey of trying to understand my own truths, and for that I thank you. I am now aware that in my own life, I may interpret the truth differently from someone else. Also, that what I believe to be true may actually be false, like other people are putting the pressure on me but in reality I am putting the pressure of shame on myself. So, I leave you with this quote by Mark Twain: “The truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.”

Sincerely, Marian Searby

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08

This all better be

worth it...

MUNA AGWA ’23

09

YOUR FAVORITE

M VIE. SINEAD LI ’20

Fisheye lens, a helicopter. The light refracts, sharpens; tightness coils around the white, and the ocean yearns for skull. The cold taunt, bends like

cello. From afar, it is barren. Closer: a young girl with no

eyes, face-down, mumbling. Nearby, a butter-yellow

truck sleeps. Her dress is thin, as are her

wrists. Red ears, red elbows, red mouth. Hyacinths and teeth,

mid-word.

Even closer, it is barren.

The director relaxes.

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家に帰る (ienikaeru):

backpack and Patagonia jacket lighting up the path for us through the large crowd. You can buy incense and candles at the stands in the park around the temple for good luck for 100 ¥ ($1). I light a candle that is supposed to wish luck for my family. It feels peaceful.

to return home HELEN SUN ’20

June 7, 1985 - Tokyo, Japan March 16, 2018 - Cleveland, OH I’m surrounded by people. Parents, kids, teachers all standing around the security check at the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. With twelve other students and friends, this day marks the start of the trip of our lives to Japan. The adrenaline in our veins rushes through us. Mr. Hatcher, our teacher chaperone for the trip, gathers us for our final picture in Cleveland for the ten days. All the parents gather around us holding the Global Citizenship Center flag representing our school. We smile to the dozens of cameras in front of us and soon we say goodbye. Our group is composed of one senior, eight juniors, and four sophomores unfamiliar with one another and what awaits us.

My father left for Japan before my mother. In Japan, my dad would buy a card and use it to call my mom from the public phones that decorated the midnight lights from the signs of stores that lined the street. Public phones didn’t exist in China at this time. Instead, my father would call the secretary at my mom’s dorm, who would summon her down from her room. The fee was incredibly expensive but to be able to talk with her, my father paid for it.

March 19, 2018 - Ena, Japan

April 23, 1982 - Binxian, China My father grew up in the countryside of northeast China. He was the first of his family to go to college. They barely had enough money to send him there. During this time in China, most people went to foreign countries to continue their education. Before they decided to leave for the foreign country, my father’s professor in college traveled to Japan and brought back Japanese culture. My parents had fallen in love with this new country. They took one year of the Japanese language, learning everything they could.

Some of their teachers had taught previously in this foreign country, so they stayed after school to learn as much about the culture as they could. After taking a foreign student language Japanese exam, my father was chosen and was given a scholarship to study abroad. My father moved to Japan with only $100. Arriving, the Narita Airport shocked him. It was huge, unlike the small farms and towns that my father was used to in his hometown back in China. Everything was different. Everything was about to change.

Marching off the train, we smell the air of Ena. The gold and white stones cover the ground and spread out in front of us. The Nakasendo. An old post trail from imperial Japan that has been maintained beautifully to allow travelers to walk along and experience the history of its scenic trails. This first step onto the golden/white stoned road marks the second part of our trip: hiking the Nakasendo. That day, as I went to sleep in our first ryokan after making my own futon that sits on the ground, everything sunk in. My roommate was next to me as we laid on the tatami mats remembering not to roll our suitcases over them, our electric heater blasting hot air onto our faces. We thought about the dinner we ate in our yukatas after showering, and the cute elderly lady having to fix our yukatas because we had tied them improperly. The 20 million different dishes in front of us. The rice in our bowl that we have to finish.

August 25, 1996 - Tokyo, Japan

March 17-18, 2018 - Kyoto, Japan Cherry blossom trees flow through the air, the flowers barely hanging on to their branches at Rokuon-ji, the Golden Pavilion. It’s an amazing structure, covered in gold leaf and constructed in the late 14th century. It has burned down and been rebuilt numerous times. Sporting Heian period architecture, it stands proud despite its disastrous history. Shaka Buddha sits on the first floor, although it’s hard to see him wishing the best for all of his visitors, even the ones who busily snap pictures. Miwa, our tour guide, leads us through the twisting paths that intertwine between the numerous smaller ponds and lucky statues surrounding the temple, her bright pink

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Growing up, my father was never very well off. Always thankful for whatever food was provided, the cafeteria at his school in Japan was a huge relief.

Without the burden of having to pay for his next meal, my father could focus more on the textbook sitting in front of him. Words scattered across the papers as if dancing along to a light tune of knowledge. He no longer had to worry about the large bass of his growling stomach interrupting the melody playing in his mind. He remembers Japan now as a beautiful nation because of the constant help and encouragement from the people there. The locals who fed him, who led him in the right direction, who taught him.

March 22, 2018 - Kiso-fukushima, Japan

November 26, 1997 - Tokyo, Japan

The feeling is hard to explain, walking into a gym of a Japanese middle school faced with a team of sumo wrestlers. Bewilderment came first as we were greeted by twenty-some young wrestlers dressed in their traditional attire. It’s awkward as we have front row seats to this demonstration of sumo wrestling. Diana, one of the bolder girls in our group, breaks the ice by running up to join the wrestlers as they stand in rows, showing off their stretches. The rest of us follow suit: attempting to lift our legs into the air, barely managing to hold them up until we fall over as we’re inexperienced, inflexible, and unbalanced. It’s crazy to think about even now that the next thing we know, their coach asks if any of us want to wrestle this at least 200 pound thirteen year old. We say yes. Smiles form on our faces, the faces of high school students from a private high school in a suburb of Cleveland, and also on their faces, the faces of middle school students from a junior high school in rural Japan. Even Miwa is laughing so much she bends over with her hands on her knees. Later that day, it’s a hard goodbye.

To make up for the cost of graduate school and living in Japan, my father worked at the convenience store on the same block as his apartment. He worked late nights after going to a full day of school. It was close to midnight when an old lady walked into the store to buy some food to eat.

She talked to my dad and asked him where he’s from. He was surprised that she could tell he’s from outside of Japan; his Japanese was the same as the next person on the street. He said he was from China. She started talking to him, describing the food she’s going to make with what she just bought.

He nodded along, trying hard to pay attention to her story though it was late at night and he was exhausted after learning all day. She then left and my dad went back to organizing the shelves by himself in the convenience store on the same block as his apartment. The sole light on in the neighborhood.

March 26, 2018 - Tokyo, Japan My mother joined my father in Japan after finishing up undergrad school in China. She worked half of the week at a company to raise enough money for her rent and the other half she was in school. Having to keep up with the rest of the class, she had to make up the work she missed. Most of her time was spent studying. While her classmates were out having fun at karaoke, she was in her room attempting to absorb all of the chemistry formulas and equilibrium constants for the upcoming test and learning about the topic she missed. Reminiscing about her home, she missed her parents, her brother, her friends. It was a hard goodbye.

We arrive at the airport. Miwa, our tour guide for the past week, finally has to leave us. We’ve spent a week with her experiencing things we’ve never experienced before. We go in for one last group hug. Tears fill the brim of our eyes. Hannah clutches the gloves that Miwa gave her on our treacherous hike in the snowy mountains of the Nakasendo. It’s time to leave. We wave bye to Miwa with her giant pink Patagonia hiking bag still hanging on her back, although we finished hiking ages ago. Her pink waterproof jacket. A beacon that served us well, making sure we are safe in this foreign country. Turning around, the security check of the Tokyo Haneda airport welcomes us. We take a step closer to returning home.

March 24, 2018 - Tokyo, Japan

March 18, 2000 - Tokyo, Japan

February 20, 1997 - Tokyo, Japan

Sliding doors open up and the world of the convenience store is revealed before me. We rush in to buy some quick snacks for the rest of our night.

There’s rows upon rows of chips, candy, drinks, and even some stationery hidden among this suburban treasure chest. I look for these cookies my mom wanted me to buy to bring back to her but sadly, they don’t sell them in Tokyo anymore. Instead, I’m surrounded by enormous amounts of food piled high up on shelves looking down on me like monsters. I quickly buy a drink and some chips as Miwa rushes us and stops us from admiring the gigantic supply of snacks resembling treasure in a treasure chest. Later, I share the chips with the rest of my group. We enjoy them together as we lie down in our hotel rooms later that night.

After eight years of rigorous work, my father got his Ph.D. and became recognized as a renowned scientist for his work in medicinal chemistry. My father received a salary ten times his scholarship working for the Japanese government. My father worked there for three years and was pretty content with the life he had built there. However, everyone there had the big dream of moving to the US to further expand their work. Therefore, my father applied to become an assistant professor at Emory University. He was accepted, given an H-1 visa, and moved to the new country. The new opportunities that awaited him there were countless. For once, my father felt as though he could start a family with my mother. This marked the start to a new life, a new home once again.

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SINKING

RYAN BRADY ’20

She was lying in a meadow of golden hay, sweet-smelling sunset honeysuckle sprinkled around her, mingling with citrine marigolds and blushing dog-rose. The rain was gentle and rhythmic—hypnotic, even—droplets pushed and pulled and bent light as they fell, dancing above her before landing on and gliding off her slicked cheeks. One might think her stillness meant she did not notice the insects flitting above her or weaving through her locks of golden hair, but she watched the iridescent dragonflies dip in and out of her vision as they dodged fat droplets, and she felt small tugs at her scalp as spindly-legged, hard-shelled beetles grasped for shelter. She noticed them and did not mind; she liked imagining that she was melting back into the landscape; she liked imagining her eventual return to dirt and nature.

Laying there, the universe cried for her. She was a tear that slipped down a giant’s weathered face, splashing to earth to feed the periwinkle boughs of forget-me-nots and the scarlet petals of pimpernel.

That’s what their love was—a cycle of falling and dissolving that enabled the growth of something delicate and beautiful. She lost herself in it because she only ever focused on the flowers, not the effort it took for them to grow.

In moments like these, she wished she was more like a flower and less like a bug. It is the nature of seedlings to always extend toward the sun, but she did not have that instinct—when turned around or set off course, she burrowed deeper instead of turning back to reevaluate her direction. She lost track of which way was up, and so she sank as she fought for air, choking, clawing away the dirt to form her descending path, stopping only when the soil turned to rock and her bleeding fingertips could not pull her any farther down.

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10 DIVYA BHARDWAJ ’21

In stormy seas, she stays steady.

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10 A Boat Ride on the Zambezi by Kennedy Kostos ’20 11 Illumination by Sejal Sangani ’20 12 Bernini by Amy Howarth ’20

If I were

a ma

gpie •

wo r

ts and jewels • e a c racele h lett be b er a link ,

your eye • leave it catch alon • t g fo ligh e ra h t se tch

’s mine.

uld wo ds

nd co

• it long o to

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NECKLACE OF INK CARYS BOWEN ’22

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• em ag

stening in the sun • fac es gli ets cu curv t t oc a

As I

REALIZE

How Time Goes

I was in 4th grade when I discovered that I have less than perfect vision. It came as quite a shock even though all my relatives wore glasses and despite the fact that I hadn’t been able to read road signs while in the car for quite a while.

Immediately after the appointment, my mother and I went to order my new glasses. I’m still reeling; the prescription has sealed my fate. I’ll never have perfect vision again. Since I was young, the concept of infinity has always scared me, and a future without ever having 20/20 vision seemed to stretch infinitely into the distance. It was hard to look ahead. I started to slip into denial, convincing myself that no one can see the white board in the classroom and that double vision is a staple of the average American life.

The world is meant to be blurry. Who needs to see anyway?

Since I had needed glasses for quite a while now I was used to how blurry the world was when I didn’t wear them. The fuzz was comforting and natural. Sometimes I woke up and didn’t even notice that I couldn’t see certain things. I had long forgotten what it was like to have perfect vision, so when I put on my new glasses, instead of feeling relief or excitement, I was overwhelmed. The clarity of the world was almost terrifying. It almost felt like if I looked hard enough forward, I could see anything, including the future. I immediately took them off.

People often tell me that I’m scary when they first meet me, but in reality I’m the one who’s afraid. Insects, heights, horror movies, men with beards, you name it, I’m probably at least mildly afraid of it. But the strangest fear I have has to be of swinging objects; sometimes I wonder if Newton’s cradles were designed to torture me. When I was really young, there were these large chimes in my house that swung when anyone rang the doorbell. Just knowing that they existed kept me up at night as I imagined them oscillating back and forth, their motion seemingly unstoppable. Even now, I still can’t sit on swings for too long or watch boats because they rock. The reason continues to evade me, but I think it has something to do with infinity. When an object swings, it feels as if it’ll go on forever. Any attempt to stop it fails. The object manages to swing on, even if just a little bit. I can only watch what appears to be an endless future that I am powerless to control, only able to hope and dream as I face the infinite uncertainties and possibilities that lie ahead of me. Only when the object ceases to move anymore, am I able to control the unknown.

I didn’t wear my glasses after I got them. I decided I’d rather go blind.

Surprisingly, this proved to be a problem only in math class. While my teachers primarily used handouts to teach us, my math teacher used

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GRACE ZHANG ’21

PowerPoints every day without fail. I could never see the words clearly enough to read them. At first I squinted my eyes and tried my best to decipher the words on the board. I soon learned that it wasn’t worth the effort; the clarity of vision only improved minimally. Plus, even if I did manage to understand the words on the board, no amount of time spent staring at the math problems on my paper could make them make sense.

Whether I could see or not, it didn’t matter. The numbers still would fail to embody any sort of tangible meaning for me. The answers remained out of reach.

I approached the world with a similar attitude. I thought the problem was with me. My eyes were most definitely broken. I wasn’t like other people; I couldn’t make proper sense of the world. No matter how hard I tried to piece together visual clues my eyes gave me, everything remained uncertain regardless. Soon, I stopped trying. It wasn’t worth it. I wouldn’t ever really know.

I rarely watch movies or TV shows. If I do, it’s probably something like Criminal Minds, where the endings are predictable and guaranteed. The criminal always gets caught and the story usually ends by the end of the episode, there’s very little to be surprised by. After all, I hate not knowing what’s going to happen. I can’t even sit through an entire movie without being tempted to, and probably giving in to, reading the rest of the plot on Wikipedia. It’s quick and it’s painless. There’s no anxiety or desperation in watching the plot inch forward, as I wait for the desired ending to materialize. With Wikipedia everything is laid out in front of you, there’s no need to worry or think.

I wish there was a Wikipedia for life, a website that would tell you everything that was going to happen. I hate only being to see the present and the past, able only to reflect on past mistakes and hoping I’m not making any more, but I’m scared to look that far ahead and find out I’m hurtling in a direction that I can’t control.

I always tell myself, “you’ll never be disappointed if you never had expectations in the first place.”

Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one who’s hurtling, and everyone else is keeping their eyes on the road. After all, everyone seems to know that green lights mean go while I merely stare at them, desperately afraid of getting the traffic rules all wrong.

Much like how plasma suspends the cells in your blood, your identity suspends you in the world.

There is nothing more essential than looking within.

Plasma

01 Emily by Emily Jones ’20

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Duì Bù Qǐ—

LOUISA WANG ’21

The Meaning of Sorry in Chinese

At a holiday party with my father’s graduate students

At an Asian supermarket

Conversations buzz. People laugh. Drinks clink. Strangers flood the bright dining room as I stand awkwardly to the side of my kitchen, unsure of what to do as a hostess. I listen to a nearby exchange with my mom and a Chinese student, hoping to join the discussion until I realize that they were speaking in Mandarin. It is too late; I’m standing too close. The student turns to me and cheerily asks me a question, but I can’t form a complete sentence. I direct my eyes toward the floor, trying to force words out from my mouth in a muttered response. The student has a confused expression on her face, and my mother quickly explains to her that I’m not a fluent speaker. I simply nod and smile apologetically, while the student returns my gaze with a tinge of pity in her eyes. I decide not to attempt entering another conversation the rest of the evening.

I am patting a melon as one does to check its water content and determine whether it was ripe, when, unbeknownst to me, a young Chinese man approaches. He begins speaking rapidly in Mandarin, calmly asking directions to what I think is the frozen section. As I try to remember which words meant left or right, I do my best to verbally direct him with broken sentences until I give up and lead him to the frozen aisle. He offers a perplexed look, and with my mom’s timely intervention, I learn that he was actually asking where the cash registers are.

My mom attempted to teach me Mandarin early on by sending me to Sunday Chinese school every week in second grade. For two hours, a few other children and I learned the fundamentals of the language—where the accent of a syllable is placed changes its meaning, and the characters are written in a particular order of strokes. The teacher gave us new vocabulary each week, and as the weeks turned into years, I couldn’t keep up with the workload in addition to the homework that I had from regular school. One day, my mom suggested that I drop out of Chinese school, and I didn’t make an effort to retain the information. If only I had continued to practice my pronunciation, my reading, my writing, maybe I could carry a full conversation in Mandarin today. That would certainly be useful.

During a school day in the 2nd grade Somehow, my entire class has gotten on the subject of asking each other for our middle names. When someone asks me, I reply confidently, “Rú yùn, it’s like my Chinese name.” “Oh yeah? What does it mean?” they respond. My mouth freezes as I realize I don’t have an answer. My entire life, I knew what my middle name sounded like, but I never understood what it meant.

Later, as my mom drives me home, I ask, “What does Rú yùn mean?”

She looks at me with surprise, “Have I never told you?” She informs me that my Chinese name is a simile meaning like a melody. The car engine hums a low, muted rumble as I learn the meaning of my own name for the first time.

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In a busy cafeteria “Hey, how do you say iridescent in Chinese?” my friend asks.

I respond with the phrase, “Wǒ bù zhīdào,” which means I don’t know. My group of friends believes that those words actually mean iridescent until I drop the joke and admit to not knowing.

“But I thought you knew how to speak Chinese,” my friend says, disappointed. I shrug, making an excuse for myself by saying that I’ve never needed to use that word in a conversation before, and change the subject.

Throughout my life, I’ve noticed that people just assume by my appearance that I can fluently speak Mandarin. What do I do to tell them that I can’t? I’ve resorted to memorizing the phrase: “Sorry, I can’t speak Chinese very well,” and shaking my head shamefully as I say it. What excuse do I have for not knowing the language of my culture, my family’s culture? There was nothing else that I could do but apologize, but how could I find forgiveness from them, or even from myself? Can I identify as Chinese if I can’t communicate with someone of the same culture? These questions are still present in my mind and may never truly be answered.

In a quiet apartment room in China Displayed on the counter across from where I’m sitting, I notice a collection of dust-coated frames containing all of my school pictures since 4th grade. A comforting faint redolence of medicinal herbs and incense drifts through the air. A kind, thin, elderly man sits beside me. He smiles at me fondly, and begins talking to me in Mandarin.

As it has done so countless times before, my pitifully inadequate comprehension fails me as I try to grasp onto his words. An immovable blockade of language stands between us, separating us from fully understanding each other. One thing we do understand is that we love each other. But as my grandfather continues trying to communicate with me, most likely with words of affection and wisdom, all I can do is nod and smile.

02

NOLA KILLPACK ’21 sometimes I forget how old I am and I’m left with sand sifting through the cracks of fingers and fisted palms my name goes next the syllables fall broken to the ground I crouch down to fit them together like puzzle pieces but their edges turn round at my touch and no matter how I string them together they hover in the air and refuse to become part of me again I lean over the bathroom sink so close to the mirror my breath fogs the glass until my nose evaporates into pink condensation and it’s only then with a gaping hole running from eyebrows to transparent lips that I can separate myself from the blurred thing staring back at me because my four letters would fit just right curled up in the cavity where my windpipe should be sometimes I come back to myself all at once walking across an icy sidewalk I slip with the weight of the words finally deciding that their desire to explore the world free from this body stubbornly melding itself to frozen earth trapped in a jail cell of flannel sheets is not worth braving winter rain 02 Therefore I Am by Anya Razmi ’20

Her voice

SCREAMS when she’s quiet.

CLAIRE ADORNATO ’21

sometimes the words remain floating just out of reach and no matter how hard I stare into a fogged up mirror or how much of my flesh dissipates I do not recognize me and I cannot get the words to fit into their customized places between cheekbones under eyes I am something separate from myself I cannot tame the shadow that sits tangible, a soupy halo around me filling up the cavity from eyebrows to transparent lips becoming my windpipe a shadow speaking through my own mouth W W W. H B I N R E T R O S P EC T.CO M

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Hair Do’s and Don’ts:

Beneatha’s Struggle for Identity in A Raisin in the Sun GRACE MANSOUR ’22

Whether tamed and perfectly styled or left to its natural beauty, Beneatha’s hair and hairstyle are significant in A Raisin in the Sun because they are an outward representation of the inward conflict she is having living between two worlds. She has the option to have her hair provide a sense of real confidence as she tries to fit into life in Chicago. Not knowing exactly how her hair looks, the descriptions lead the reader to understand it is treated to look differently than is custom in Africa. However, her confidence in fitting in is challenged by the judgments of others in the play who question why she is overworking her hair and changing it from the natural way it should be. Her hair becomes a real topic of conversation in a few instances, which provides dialogue that shows Beneatha’s struggle to find her footing. She doesn’t want to be seen as an assimilationist by Asagai because she loves him and sees her future with him, but she also cannot deny the way George, or American men in general, treats his ethnic roots and lives life in America. By the end of A Raisin in the Sun, Beneatha’s hair signifies her decision to change the course of her life, and as Asagai would say, live the day looking the same as she did when she was first born, by accepting her ethnicity in a deeper way.

Beneatha and Asagai argue over hair and what is the “right” way is to style hair. Asagai has his hair all natural with no treatment. This is what looks best to him, but for Beneatha, she likes hair when it is styled because that is how people in Chicago have their hair. We first learn of their differences when Asagai says in response to what Beneatha is wearing, “You wear it well… very well… mutilated hair and all” (Hansberry 61). Saying that her hair is mutilated is quite the insult for Beneatha, as she would never want to be told that she has “ugly” hair. They get into a debate over her hair:

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( Shrugging) Were you born with it like that?

(Reaching up to touch it) / No… of course not. (She looks back to the mirror disturbed) / (Smiling) How then? / You know perfectly well how… as crinkly as yours… that’s how. / And it is ugly to you that way? / (Quickly) Oh, no—not ugly… / (More slowly, apologetically) But it’s so hard to manage when it’s, well—raw. / And so to accommodate that—you mutilate it every week? It’s not mutilation! (Hansberry 62).

It does not go well, and she ends up insulting him in a way. She doesn’t mean to make fun or offend him, but she is just trying to defend herself. In doing so, she ends up making a remark that sounds like she is saying his hair is ugly. The conversation is very hard for Beneatha, so when he starts to talk about her hair it makes her angry. There is a cultural aspect to this disagreement over hairstyling since Beneatha’s hair is the “American” way and Asagai has his hair in the “African” or “Nigerian” way.

Asagai is the only native African in the play, so he sees her hair as not showing her true roots to their shared culture. He views the way she wears her hair as a sign that she is assimilating, which irritates her. For Beneatha, having her hair styled just like the other women in Chicago is not what she thinks of as assimilation but just “fitting in.” Asagai starts this conversation in a teasing manner, but she gets so worked up about his accusations because Beneatha does not find his opinion funny, especially being called an assimilationist, which is a very big deal to her because she is really trying to resist white superiority. Asagai should know this about Beneatha, considering she told him the first time they met, saying she wants to talk to him about Africa because she is trying to find her identity. This entire discussion made Beneatha, and also Asagai, think about their hair and how it plays a role in their individual cultures.

Asagai is not the only man in her life who provides Beneatha feedback regarding her hair.

George, her wealthy suitor, wishes to have a larger part in Beneatha’s life than Beneatha

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wants. George and Beneatha have an encounter in which he makes her change her clothing and during this encounter, as to almost show him her clothing does not actually matter, she “looks at him slowly, ceremoniously, lifts her hands and pulls off the headdress. Her hair is close-cropped and unstraightened” (Hansberry 80). She uses her hair to try and make the statement that there is more to her than her clothes that potentially make it so she does not “fit in.” George quickly asks, “What have you done to your head – I mean your hair!” (Hansberry 80). Beneatha’s response immediately brings their culture into the conversation. She feels she has nothing to be ashamed of and relates his disdain for the way she looks to her not wanting to assimilate.

Beneatha’s hair is an outward response to her fight against giving up her African roots; she even proclaims that to assimilate is to “submerge himself completely in the dominant, and in this case oppressive culture!” (Hansberry 81). This is a really sensitive topic for Beneatha because she is choosing to wear her hair in a more natural way to show she is an anti-assimilationist. Even her mother tells her hair looks bad and that she does not like that they are both telling her how she should appear to the world.

Beneatha is struggling with her hair now only because she is getting little approval from her family or friends. Right before she and George leave for the theater she comes down, changed, and this is the first time Walter, her brother, has seen her hair: ell—hey— [. . .] You look great! / (Seeing W his sister’s hair for the first time) What’s the matter with your head? / (Tired of the jokes now) I cut it off, Brother. / (Coming close to inspect it and walking around her) Well, I’ll be damned. So that’s what they mean by the African bush…” (Hansberry 85).

Her family is still commenting on her choice of hair style. Beneatha is so tired of all of it that she decides to let it go and not worry about what they think because she likes her decision and that’s all that really matters to her.

George then opens up to the idea and says “(Looking at her) You know something? I like it.

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03 París Ads by Hannah Ryan ’21 04 Untitled by Shereen Ahmad ’22

It’s sharp. I mean it really is. (Helps her into her wrap) Yes—I think so, too.” (Hansberry 86). The fact that she went out of her way to change what she was wearing, and had already changed her hair, and is finally receiving positive feedback is a catalyst for Beneatha to gain confidence.

George’s approval signifies the approval of others who are American. Beneatha just wants to stand out and find her own identity in this world she lives in. She doesn’t want to be just like everyone else. She wants to branch out and try something new by changing her hair and her wardrobe. For Asagai, it is easy to be himself because he has grown up that way and it is the “right” way to him. He has not really been exposed to other cultures with other hairstyles and dress. But for Beneatha, the change is a lot more difficult because she has always been dressed in a certain way and has never really let her hair be natural.

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Beneatha’s final decision is to leave Chicago with Asagai and go to Africa. Along the way, her hair was a tangible way for the reader to understand why she would want to follow Asagai to Africa and leave all that she has ever known with her family in Chicago. She will never identify as Asagai does to being African, mainly because she was born in America, but she transforms her thinking about the meaning of her ethnicity in her life. She resolves her inner conflict by gaining confidence in her own voice and not the voice of others. Her appearance and how she presents herself to the world are only one facet to her story, but one that is so clearly relatable.

Works Cited Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. Vintage Books, 1988.

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05 NY by Anna Banyard ’22 06 actibus consequatur by Shruthi Ravichandran ’21

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Naïveté Transformed HANNAH BASALI ’20

We were waiting outside of a cramped room that they dragged my father into. Five minutes earlier, we were in line to enter the 9/11 memorial; my father was on the phone with his brother who lives in Egypt. My father, a well-tempered and respected man, was becoming agitated in this particular conversation. As they argued in Arabic over what carpets to put in the new Mediterranean beach house, the security guards became increasingly uncomfortable. As minutes ticked on, one security guard interrupted, “Sir, please put your phone away,” looking around for reassurance that his anxiety was shared. My dad dismissed him with a faint smile gesturing that he’d be done in a minute, but to the security guard this meant nothing.

Now yelling, the security guard alarmed the whole building in an effort to get my dad off the phone. As he called my dad in for extra security, my eight-year-old self was alarmed but could not help but laugh.

My naïveté prevented me from comprehending the security guard’s ignorance. In this moment, my love and admiration for my background disappeared. Instead of the little girl who bragged that she was King Tut’s great-great-great-great granddaughter, I felt embarrassed of my ancestry and wanted to hide behind my Americanized self. The girl who eagerly tried to read signs on Cairo’s highways now conformed to a societal fear of her native tongue. Looking back, I take this attack on my heritage very personally.

As the only member of our family born in the US, I felt the need to take control of the situation. My American education and assimilation forced me into the role of “American daughter.” This meant I was, at eight years old, in charge of explaining what my parents had said to the waiter who could not understand their accent. This meant that I was obligated to take the phone from my frustrated mother and repeat her words verbatim to the customer service representative on the other end. In this particular moment this meant that I explained to the guards in the most articulate English I

could muster that my father had been talking about carpets and intended no threat to this sacred memorial. It seemed absurd that my father, Mr. Ayman “I’m more American than you” Basali, could have his allegiance to the country questioned.

I reflect on this moment quite often. I used to think it was quite comical that the security guard could mistake a conversation about carpets as a “security threat,” but the humor has faded over the years. As I become increasingly aware of my role as an Egyptian-American woman, I have come to learn that moments like this are currently inevitable despite how absurd they may be. Arabic scares those who have never learned to appreciate the beauty and culture behind it. This fear of the unknown diminishes language to merely a means of communication as opposed to a deeper form of expression that is tied to history and culture. Even though they are both fluent in the language, it would be strange to hear my dad speak to my uncle in English. They speak through what they feel, and they should not be punished for that. My experience caused me to question the picture-perfect American society that I was taught in elementary school--it seemed that prejudice had not disappeared but merely manifests itself in new strategies. This, however, doesn’t define what my America will be.

I have grown to learn that the difference lies in personal growth and defining yourself and your presence in a public space. Reflecting on this moment in particular shifted my naïveté and youthful ignorance to acute awareness of my influence in society. My own actions changed the course of action. My words calmed the storm rising over fear of my father’s innocent actions and brought a sense of unity to the building. I now know from this experience the immense power that I hold as an Egyptian-American woman. The power to unite across barriers and use my unique heritage and experience for society’s benefit.

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Old Soul

When I visit with my paternal grandparents, we eat dinner at a firm 3:00 P.M, a stark contrast to the typical 7 or 8 o’clock reservation. My grandmother fires up the outdated kitchen radio as she moves in contrived rhythm to Little Eva’s “The Locomotion.” We then move to the coffee table where enduring photo albums are open and explained in intricate detail while General Hospital’s renewing drama unfolds on the grainy television.

My grandparents love to tell stories in great depth; I find their attention to detail and practice of story-telling endearing and much lost in today’s world.

Smooth jazz, print newspaper, and an affinity for early Sunday mornings—no, I’m not describing my seventy-two-year-old grandfather, I’m describing seventeen-year-old teenage girl Kate Hickey. It doesn’t take people very long to label me an “old soul.” I’m not sure if it’s the sarcasm, my detestation of chaos, or my fondness of fountain pens, but I radiate “old soul.” I’ve been fortunate enough to grow up with all four grandparents and the consequential values of family and tradition.

I have sought to emulate my grandparents’ seemingly insignificant mannerisms, whether it is handwriting letters and cards, taking the time to stop and admire a work of craftsmanship, or conversing with others in an attempt to learn something or find common ground. I find great comfort and familiarity in the dependability of tradition, which ultimately makes me the old soul I have come to be.

KATE HICKEY ’20

I picked up a golf club for the first time when I was six years old and immediately found comfort in the unwavering tradition and etiquette of the game. I learned the game from a group of elderly women in argyle sweaters and saddle golf shoes. Their love for the game, coupled with attention and respect to detail, instilled in me the appreciation and fascination with the game. Both of my grandfathers played, making golf a Sunday staple in my family. Today, when I arrive at a course, parting the sea of cigar smoke, bellied laughter, and blanket golf tips, a handful of elderly men and women stare in utter disbelief that a young person would take up the game. The range buzzes with chitchat concerning grandchildren’s mediocre accomplishments and Indians baseball. I feel right at home in the midst of mismatched golf attire and stale small talk.

When we vacation in North Carolina with my maternal grandparents, we take an annual trip to a quaint seaside town about forty-five minutes away.

If the sky is grey and the promise of a dreary day is ahead, my cousin and sister groan, as they know a day trip to Manteo is certain. My parents, aunts, and uncles are slow to awake, as they too dread the inevitable trip to the timeless town. I, however, rise earlier than usual, and join my equally as eager grandparents in the kitchen, where we discuss the colonial charm of the island. Most of the family finds an excuse to stay at the house while I pile into the car with my enthused grandparents and the not-so-enthused family members guilt-tripped into making the drive. The town is comprised of small boutiques, archaic movie theaters, art galleries, book stores promoting local authors, and colonial-resembling wooden ships strewn between colorful street signs and perfectly manicured stone roads. The town, in essence, is delightful—to people over sixty-five. My grandparents and I visit each venue with steadfast enthusiasm as the remaining family members take solace in the only thing modern on the island—their smartphones. My grandparents take the time to converse with each small business proprietor as I listen in sheer awe. I love to learn the history of the town and the value of community.

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Beauty was the least of her.

Her laugh far outshone her beauty.

RHEA MAHAJAN ’22

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Songs of Innocence and Experience CARYS BOWEN ’22 Teacher’s Truth Impenetrable wall, unseen Precious pearl buried deep in softest flesh of healthy heart in sleep Truth is beauty Living core on which all things are built We rise up as tender as sweet candor’s silk

You say it in no better than Keats ‘Beauty is truth; and truth, beauty.’ but breath(e) My stories are the truth.

Noble calling Truth is always found, repeats My friend, our bones are made of verity.

The pen is the brightest sword and I shall take it and cleave away all this horrid velvet drapery.

Student’s Truth

Look! See! this dank, and dark, and treacherous ravine Verity in all its deep, sharp mystery.

GRANNY’S POEM

What an ugly, broken thing Black and charred, nonbreathing Beat for lies that held Burnt for heresy believed Kicked, and drowned, and buried deep under lies of gloss and sheen

07 Musicality by Anjali Dhanekula ’22

It’s never going to heave free unless I tell it like it is so leave me be

(“Teacher’s Truth” and “Student’s Truth” are a reference and homage to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

by Betty Smith)

CLAIRE FALLON ’20 Her betrothed line of descendants Calling upon her ever need Imagining the ease of a life in solitude Enthroned on a wheelchair fit for an emperor The tidings of age and opportunities passed by Creating every wrinkle and weary sigh Spiteful glances transparent as time Outspoken strands of hair turned grey Pale hands grasping for the past Yet gripping to weariness A woman soon to become a dream imagined Laying upon a bed of oyster pearls and creased European silk

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Predetermined.

08

I drive everywhere with my windows rolled down and music blaring. I wear my sunglasses when it’s not even sunny. I can loudly and proudly say that I am that obnoxious teenager. As a 16-year-old there is nothing more thrilling than screaming the lyrics to vulgar rap songs in the car while driving a little above the speed limit. I tell myself that these are the times I will remember when I’m all grown up — this is my reckless youth. But, that is only my life outside the constraints of my Indian household. I have grown up in a setting where my entire future seems entirely predetermined.

Both of my parents grew up in North India. My grandfather was a colonel in the army, so my dad spent his entire childhood moving all across the country. I’ve grown up hearing the challenging stories about living near the Pakistani border.

Only a few years had passed since India won the war and Pakistan lost a lot of its territory. The tension between the countries lingered, so living conditions weren’t always safe. I am reminded of the privilege I have by merely living in the United States almost every day. My dad was easily distracted by outside influences and academics weren’t his priority. In 10th grade, both of his sisters had graduated and were on a path for successful careers. His motivation for success derived from his sisters’. My mom’s father was an economics professor at a university near their house. So, my mom grew up in one steady household and spent the majority of her youth studying and striving to succeed.

My mom went to college and graduate school in the United States, but my dad completed his medical degree in India. Because I am a first-generation Indian living in America, I have held the mental weight to create a legacy my entire life. Growing up, the stories of struggles that they had to overcome to get us here became ingrained in my brain. Their life stories were recited rather than those from Aesop’s Fables. These tales became my bedtime stories but also morphed into my nightmares. In order to create this legacy, I have to become successful in life. And to ensure that, I’m advised to pick a safe career like medicine or business that will guarantee my success and future.

Dancers, artists, and singers are all out of the question. I don’t see a future for myself in the liberal arts, but the mere idea of an unstructured path of my life is not a viable option. As an Indian-American, I was brought here for one thing and one thing only, which was a guaranteed future.

A career in the liberal arts doesn’t provide that. My parents created a legacy on their own, but now it’s my turn to carry a legacy as strong as my parents.

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SIMR DEO ’21

Every August, I visit the same office with the name “Kids in the Sun” plastered above the reception desk. Dr. Michelle Levy has been my pediatrician since I was six years old. I enter the sterile, fluorescently lit room and sit on the chair with the waxy paper while waiting for Dr. Levy. I have my routine physical exam; I have good reflexes, healthy bones, and overall great health.

During my check-ups, we’d always had a little small talk in the past, but now that I am older, there are more questions.

“Do you have any special interest in any colleges?

Are you thinking about any careers?” Dr. Levy asks.

“No specific colleges, but I’m thinking maybe medicine.”

“Wow, my daughter is at Johns Hopkins for pre-med and she’s loving it there!”

“I bet,” I say.

She nodded tenderly at me and typed some more information into my chart. When she looked up again, I said, “If not a doctor, maybe a lawyer.”

“A lawyer?”

“Why not?”

I’ve felt privileged my entire life and have been grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given.

However, there comes a point where a teenager wants to be a teenager. For me, that time is now.

With school in full swing, and classes harder than ever, all I want is some freedom. As a first-generation American, everything I do slowly becomes about my parents and their sacrifices. My journey is their journey, and I’m forever grateful.

But I want to know, why do I have to sacrifice parts of myself to make them proud of me? They’re trying to make me happy and provide me with all the tools for success. But, I can’t lose the feeling that I am doing it for them.

I want to do everything for them, but I allowed this guilt to cloud many of my life-long decisions.

Such feelings are difficult to put into words; it almost feels selfish to speak them, but I want time to be in my car, with my friends, driving a little over the speed limit down Shaker roads. To have the music blaring and some time to hear the Aesop’s fables. Instead, I am ingraining useless physics equations in my brain and have the college process looming. However, I am and always will be needed to strive for greatness. For that I’m grateful, but also burdened.

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CAYLA WILSON ’20 Remember that living doesn’t always mean breathing and breathing doesn’t always mean living Because I’ve experienced life and I didn’t take one single breath I never thought that I could live like this, in waves. waves of the ocean consume my nostrils but I’m not gasping for air I am content with consumption I am ok with drowning if it means I can escape for just a moment that’s all I ask for

08 Abstract Anatomy by Kate Hickey ’20 09 Mr. Parsons by Susie Glickman ’20

PRO N U N CIATIO N O F

pä-ki-stän

OLIVIA BOYER ’22

Pakistan: this single word has infinite significance to me, but to countless others it means little. I personally have lost my country, I was not raised in a community to support that side of myself and my culture, so this specific pronunciation may mean more in depth to me than another person. It’s all that remains with me of a culture that I may claim as mine, but it doesn’t specifically claim me. People take time to learn how to pronounce many words, especially proper nouns like countries and people, but for some reason my country seems to be left out, along with many others like it. The mouths of people familiar pronounce it Pakistan, with all long a’s, as if you’ve just had a sip of something refreshing. Learning something new is refreshing, but it also shows you the priorities of the majority. I myself am only half, but recognize the words with full importance. Many countries either have less complex or more well-known names, but when you say Pakistan (correctly or incorrectly) it seems to be perpetually misspoken, not only by normal people, but by world leaders as well. I myself can’t speak for a people, but I can speak for myself, and it saddens me to absorb the little care for where my blood is from, and along with that, the little consequence that goes with continual mispronunciation.

Many peers and teachers consider themselves scholars of the world, and while that may be so, we as people need to give reverence to the places that don’t receive it because of their reputation or just lack of being as well-known. This is not meant to be a guilt trip, simply an alarm to how we as humans treat each other. Our relationships are always riddled with unintended consequences, and my people, nor yours, deserve to feel looked over. Borders the Pakistanis didn’t pick, a name not chosen by the Pakistanis themselves, yet the imperialistic thought perpetuated by denying the simplicity of a proper pronunciation.

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falling constellations.

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KAILA MORRIS ’22 Today, I realized that childhood dreams burn out like the dying stars.

All beauty contracts: the red ring of truth expands, then dwarfs to nothing.

Almost an eon before infinity ends.

Then the stars explode.

Constellation dust, crumbles of past existence, too small to capture.

My dreams fragmented like stars. I hadn’t foreseen their disappearance.

I only realized the absence of my starlight when the dark left too.

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10 From Above by Audrianna Imka ’22 11 Insecurities by Layla Najeeullah ’20

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Pint-Sized SARINNA VASAVADA ’20

“You’re not short; you’re fun-sized.” I heard over and over again from my peers as they attempted to spare my feelings. People think that just because I stand a few inches closer to the ground, I’m less of a person, less powerful, or less intelligent. Throughout my childhood, I held the perception that people thought that because I was small, I was weak. I would often find myself getting chosen last for every group activity in gym because other girls who were bigger than I was would tell me I wasn’t strong enough. Even though I have proven to be very athletic, my small size seemed to imply otherwise. I did not get to choose my height; there was no growing fairy who granted my five-year-old self ’s wish to be tall.

Being short is not a liability, however, it has taken the last sixteen years to realize that.

My battle with accepting and embracing my shortness started from a very young age. It was the first day of first grade. I was eager to start a new school and excited to embark on an adventure 45 minutes away from my house, my parents, and my siblings. The only girl I knew was Emily; she had black hair, brown eyes, and the biggest laugh I had ever heard. On top of my already enhanced first-day jitters, I was even more nervous about being the shortest one in the class. My teacher, whom I had just met, placed us in a line for a class picture. The first thing she said was “Sarinna, you’re obviously the shortest, so step to the front.” My stomach dropped like a heavy rock falling from Mt. Everest. Starting a new school was supposed to be a new beginning; I could strengthen my personality and get new defining factors. However, I continued to be defined as the “short girl.” My teacher, my new classmates, and everyone else all characterized me by my height. The tallest girl in the class used to come up behind me and lift me up as high as she could; I would continuously ask her to stop, but she would just look down on me and say “If you can reach the top of my head, I will stop.” Just because I was a bit smaller than her, I was being bullied and talked down to. I knew that she and most of my class perceived me as weak because of my petiteness; however I was determined to prove them wrong by showing my strength and athleticism through numerous sports.

At the end of first grade I was still in the stage of doing ten different sports at the same time: I was a tennis player, soccer superstar, ballerina, ice skater, gymnast, and swimmer. I finally found my true passion for ice skating after realizing that my small body actually helped vault me into the air rather than hold me closer to the ground like I’d always thought. My size was something I could be proud of and use to my benefit. Nevertheless, I knew skating was my calling and deserved my full, undivided attention. I threw in the towel and retired from the other five sports in order to focus all my energy on skating. After seven years of being told that I was too short or too weak to do things, I finally felt accepted and valued. My Olympic gold medalist coach, Carol Heiss-Jenkins, even pulled me off a Learn to Skate session to tell me that I had the perfect physique for this sport and was granted a

gift. Every lesson I had she would constantly remind me to “use my size to my advantage.” Hearing her say this over and over again finally gave me some confidence with my body image. My height was something I could be proud of; it was something I had that the other girls didn’t. Although I didn’t physically do anything, accepting my height felt like somewhat of an accomplishment to my six-year-old self. Those words have stuck with me for the last ten years and I know I can always remember them when someone underestimates my abilities solely because of my size.

Fast forward a few years to my fifteenth birthday. My family and I went out to a fancy, high class steakhouse to celebrate. I was already on a high from spending precious time with friends and family. However, that all came to an end once we got to the restaurant. The hostess asked my parents if I needed a kid’s menu. I immediately said “NO.” Although I was very firm, she continued. “Sorry, I just assumed that you needed one because you are so short.”

I was appalled by her audacity, but I was willing to forget about it in order to enjoy a nice birthday dinner. However, shortly after we ordered, the waitress came back. She politely came over, tapped my mom on the back, holding a tray of steak knives. She then went on, looking directly at me, asking to my mom, “is your daughter allowed to use a steak knife?” Before they could even answer I blurted out “of course I can have a steak knife, I’m not five, I’m fifteen.”

Although my parents were slightly annoyed with me, they were happy to see me using my voice. My small size has provoked my shyness, however over the years as I have grown mentally and physically, I have learned to stand up for myself. My height has held me back in certain instances, such as when trying to get onto roller coasters, but it has also helped me come out of my shell.

I will struggle with being comfortable with my height for the rest of my life. However, as I have matured, I have learned that there are many more advantages to being short than I originally thought.

I can be easily spotted in the front row of every group picture or even in a large crowd because my small size has enabled me to maneuver to the front. Small airplane seats are not a problem since I am able to stretch my legs all the way out. I may never have a career in the NBA, but give me a pair of ice skates or ballet slippers and I can spin or jump higher than the girl who probably does not shop in the petite department. Although people’s perceptions of my height have essentially shaped my life, they have also made me a stronger, bigger person. My voice, my actions, and my strength only develop every time someone looks down on me. I am now confidently able to fill up a sizable room with my small body and loud voice, and I have learned to adapt my five foot, one-inch self in order to stand even taller every day.

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I FELL WHEN THE SUN F EL L. LIV MOORE ’22

12 Belongings by Layla Najeeullah ’20

‫חכשנ אל םלועל‬

HARLEIGH MARKOWITZ ’20

We Will NEVER Forget

My name is ‫ ןדר‘ הרבא‬and I am the product of a small miracle. I am the product of barbed wire scars, tattooed stars and a defective gas chamber, four bodies hidden beneath the deck of a cargo ship that miraculously stayed afloat. In the eyes of history, I am an anomaly; I should be anything but alive right now. Fortunately, I am the product of history gone wrong.

I am a Holocaust survivor. Yes, I may be a seventeen-year-old Jewish American woman, but I am a survivor nonetheless. I had to fight long before I was even a possibility. If it were up to Hitler, my ashes would be used to kindle the flame of antisemitism, my memory nothing more than a speck of dust lost in the wind. ‫הכרבל ונורכיז‬. May her memory be a blessing.

World War II may have ended in 1945, yet the Holocaust is still ablaze. But instead of gas chambers, they use assault rifles, and instead of dragging us to concentration camps, they shoot us at shul. I wear my heart on my sleeve, my star tucked safely beneath my shirt. You are told enough times that you should have never been alive and soon you start to believe it.

Every year we have a candle brought to our house. It is the same candle.

Hand-delivered from the synagogue around the corner, it is carefully placed beneath the Mezuzah of our front door. It comes in a small yellow bag with the words Yom HaShoah written across the top. Yom Hazikaron laShoah velaG’vurah: Holocaust Remembrance Day. On the twenty-seventh day of the month of Nisan we take the candle out of its carefully wrapped packaging and set it on the kitchen table, the same spot where we light our menorah. The family gathers around the table in silence.

It is a somber day. My dad tries to avoid eye contact as he rummages through the kitchen cabinets searching for a box of matches. He knows

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where we keep the matches. With tears in her eyes, my mom delivers the same spiel she gives us every year. “History repeats itself if we do not remember it,” she says, “and it is up to you to remember it.” As darkness falls we watch the flame of the candle flicker in the moonlight. I look up at the night sky and see six million stars overhead, one for every mother, daughter, father, son. I recite the mourner’s kaddish. The words are all too familiar by now. Yitbarach v’yishtabach v’yitpaar v’yitromam v’yitnasei, v’yit’ hadar v’yitaleh v’yit’ halal sh’mei d’Kud’sha B’rich Hu, l’eila min kol birchata v’shirata, tushb’chata v’nechemata, daamiran b’alma. V’imru: Amen.

Y’ hei sh’lama raba min sh’maya, v’chayim aleinu v’al kol Yisrael. V’imru: Amen.

Oseh shalom bimromav, Hu yaaseh shalom aleinu, v’al kol Yisrael. V’imru: Amen. I promise Mom, I will never forget.

My great grandparents were separated at a train station. Without the chance to say goodbye, Irene and Andrew were hauled off into separate carts, each with their own terrifying, unknown destination. For years they were separated by barbed wire, unsure if the other was alive. When the war ended and the camps were liberated, Irene returned home to their small town in Czechoslovakia. She walked to the train station every single day for years. She waited. Years had gone by and there was hardly any possibility that Andrew was alive, but she continued to wait, and one day it was Andrew in the sea of starving men who walked off the arrival train.

There are some days I look in the mirror and ask myself how I could have possibly survived. How was I one of the few among millions who came out alive? I am an anomaly. I am the product of a defective gas chamber, of being in the right place at the right time. I am a survivor of the Holocaust, and I am so incredibly blessed to be alive.

Heaven Lies Under the Feet of Your Mother Music blasts from the dusty speaker as we drive through a sea of pine trees on the edge of a mountain. It’s an endless ocean of green, and though the roads are incredibly bumpy, I seem to never notice.

Instead, I focus on the emerald waves surrounding me and the Bollywood music making everything seem like I’m in a movie. The sun creates intense pillars of light, emerging from the clouds, like they have broken free for the first time. The higher we drive, snow reveals itself lying on the tips of surrounding mountains, the light bouncing off it. Soon enough, the narrow roads become lined with shepherds, vendors, and worn-out horses meant for riding, making barely any room to drive.

“This is my home,” my mother whispers in my ear. My entire life, I had no idea what my mother was talking about when she said she wanted to move back to Kashmir. What was wrong with America?

To me, Kashmir smelled strongly of gasoline and was cluttered with guards, barbed wire, and pollution. How could she possibly miss that? Why did she even move if she missed it so much? But this was what she was talking about. She missed what her home was like before guards who held giant rifles stood in front of every store, where the sun shone brightly on the encircling Himalayas, where she would go out with her friends at any time and explore her gorgeous scenery, because curfew wasn’t instilled yet. I finally understood what she meant. I’d want to move back here too, if it meant I could roam freely. I smiled at my mother and continued to look out the window. I didn’t want to miss a single second more. I wanted to remember it for as long as I could.

“Zuha, come here, listen to what he has to say,” my mother’s voice cracks. I’ve never seen her cry like this. I don’t know what to do, except just look at this man. He smiles and takes my hand, not to read my palms, but just as a source of comfort and says one thing, “don’t argue with your mother, Muhammad says that heaven lies under her feet.” Quickly glancing at my mom, I feel my cheeks heat up. How does he know that I fight with her?

I’m in a maze of dimly lit hallways, in a house that isn’t even that large, but somehow my mother seamlessly makes her way through them, walking way too fast. The floors haven’t been cleaned in years,

ZUHA JAFFAR ’21

despite the amount of people living here. My mom slows down the second she notices someone. Both my mother and the strange person make their way toward each other, tears sticking to their faces, and hug each other tightly. I stand still, unsure of how to act. I shouldn’t be here. I am not a part of my mother’s relationship with her mother. The lady guides my mother and us through the complex hallways, until we reach a room overcrowded with people. I immediately recognize my grandmother, dark circles formed under her eyes like they’d been there her whole life. My mom lets go of my hand, and stares at her mother for the first time in nine years.

“When I turned sixteen, Kashmir was put under curfew. That was the last year I used to go out all the time with my friends. It’s when I decided I had to move to America. It’s been thirty years, and you just turned sixteen, and nothing has changed,” my mother’s voice chokes over the phone. She is at Hajj, and I am at home, speaking to her for the first time in four days. I’m at a loss for words. How do you tell someone that everything will be okay when their home has been taken under siege? I eventually mumble something about how I’ll pray for everyone we know in Kashmir, since that seems to be the only thing left to do. I think about every time I’ve been to Kashmir, how my mother sent me there soon after I was born for two years while she finished dental school, my aunt taking us to the Himalayas until sunset, playing in my grandfather’s backyard with my little cousins who I realize won’t get to play outside nearly as much, and going across Dal Lake in a shikara, or a long boat. Will I ever keep making these memories?

Is Kashmir going to be the same, or will it change for me just like it did for my mother? Kashmir was not only my mother’s home, but it had become mine. I had grown to love it in my own way and I never knew what it felt like to have your home littered with soldiers and taken away. A piece of my heart sinks, just as the Kashmir I had known did. I’m experiencing a feeling my mother had described to me countless times.

She would always tell me about how beautiful Kashmir used to be, and how throughout all the fighting, the people who lost were the people who called it home. I feel what my mom has felt so strongly for years, and I want nothing more but to hug her, and have her tell me that nothing will change, that I’ll keep getting to ride horses up incredibly bumpy mountains, see psychics, and my grandmother. Kashmir is not only my home, it connected my mother and me in a way nothing else ever had. It was a bond I never wanted to lose.

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WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR GOD ANTENNAE: Easier Said Than Done SHRUTHI RAVICHANDRAN ’21

மய ிர ்: hair/lash சன ி: Saturday

தலை ம ுடி: head hair

வரலாற ு: history

தம ிழ்: Tamil (language/group of people from Tamil Nadu [state in India])

சன ி: Saturdays

சன ி: Ignorance is Not Bliss

Saturday mornings are for sleeping in after a busy week. Saturday mornings are for brunch and then watching Psych. Saturday mornings are sometimes for debate tournaments.

“Her hair is always oily and greasy. It’s so gross!”

But the boy didn’t stop there - unaware his cruel words will create lasting damage. “And it smells so weird. It’s cuz she puts that weird oil stuff in her hair before she does those weird braids!

Eww...”

வரலாற ு: A Tale of Centuries This is not my story to tell, but history has wrapped her cold, cruel web around it and thus it must be told. When slaves were brought over from Africa, they were often shaved, and their braids were cut off. Colonizers used this cruel tactic - a direct way to dehumanize them - to rob slaves of any sort of identity their hair bore and strip them of their culture. தலை ம ுடி: “God Antennae” “Remove the kinks from your mind, not your hair.” – Marcus Garvey வரலாற ு: 3500 BCE, Namibia The Himba women of Namibia are the first known to braid their hair. This trend spreads across Africa. Braided hairstyles become a unique way to distinguish tribes from each other.

Braid styles and patterns also indicate age, marital status, wealth, power, and religion.

Braids have power – a social art. சன ி: Tradition?

Saturday mornings used to be for washing our hair with Meera Shikakai Powder and long afternoon naps. In the evenings, my mom would fully oil my hair with coconut oil to condition it and tightly braid it out of my face. This was a tradition. I thought it smelled incredible – a mix of all the natural herbs, Hibiscus, Fenugreek, Tulsi—all of the things my family had been using for ages. வரலாற ு: 3100 BCE Egypt popularizes afro box braids. Braided styles not only help them keep cool in unadulterated heat in many African climates, but also symbolize status in society.

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Ravichandran

I couldn’t hear what everyone else was saying, but everything seemed to blur around me as I heard a couple other kids laugh and saw others recoiling. வரலாற ு: 4 CE Native Americans wear pigtail braids. They keep the sweat off their necks and head. Braids are efficient and useful. சன ி: The Truth Hurts I felt my face flush as it became hard to swallow.

Tears welled up in my eyes, but I wouldn’t let them stream down my face. “N-none of y-your b-business,” I finally choked out. The boy and his friends snickered to themselves and continued on with their work as if nothing had happened. But I knew it had. I couldn’t focus the rest of the day, feeling like something had just hit me in the face. Something had – the crude reality and the cold hard truth. *

Beauty: Long, thick, braided black hair is considered one of the most attractive traits of Indian women, specifically South Indian women.

It’s a sign of health and of beauty. Unkept or loose hair is treated as a bad omen - worn only by widows or those too sick to grow out their hair. சன ி: Flood Gates As soon as I came home, the flood gates opened, and tears streamed down my face. When my concerned mom asked what happened, I posed her the question, “Does my hair smell bad?”

“Of course not!” she exclaimed, kissing my forehead and comforting me in a hug. “It’s so pretty and long. What happened?”

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வரலாற ு: 1970s Indigenous people of the Caribbean popularize modern cornrows. It’s an effort to reclaim the culture that was stripped from their ancestors.

They don’t yet know that it will again be appropriated and torn away from their own purposes. History continues to spin her cruel web. சன ி: Every Action Has A Reaction Maybe intentionally, maybe unintentionally, that was a turning point. I slowly started doing my own hair, using Pantene shampoo instead of the “Meera Shikakai Powder” that we had always used. Just like that – something we’d always done, something so deeply steeped in our culture, disappeared. I stopped braiding my hair and instead opted for a high ponytail. I stopped parting my hair in the center (a staple for the classic braid) and instead began parting it on the more “stylish” and “modern” side. Who knew simple words could have such a profound impact on someone’s life? வரலாற ு: 2005-present Internet commercializes braids. *

“Hey guys! It’s ya girl Abby from Twist Me Pretty! Welcome back to my channel. Today we’re going to be doing two crown braids. The first way is super-duper easy – anyone can do it.

The second way is a little bit fancier – still easy – just a little bit, you know, elevated.” ~YouTube, Twist Me Pretty *

How come when a seven-year-old girl’s mom carefully braids and oils her hair every day, just as their ancestors have been doing for centuries, it’s “gross,” but in today’s society, it’s “hip” and “trendy” to use coconut oil, as if it’s some kind of cool new product? How is that fair? So now because big beauty icons are using it, it’s okay to use, but when we’ve been using it for generations, it’s “gross?”

13 13 Becoming by Anya Razmi ’20

தலை ம ுடி: Power, Strength, Community Frida Kahlo’s famous braids coiled around her head, resting as the base for the crown of flowers she would place atop it.

Janet Jackson’s box braids made the cover of not only her breakout movie, Poetic Justice, but of countless magazines and newspapers after that.

Beyoncé dropped not only her hit single, “Formation,” but also her long box braids as she topped charts, swinging her luscious locks up and down the Super Bowl stage. பாட்டி, my grandmother, the most well-read, compassionate, and incredible person I know, tightly braids her hair every morning and again every evening, before she lights the lamp before prayers. She adorns her locks with fragrant strands of freshly picked jasmine flowers.

சன ி: Acceptance of the Past, Owning the Present, Confidence for the Future Every Saturday morning my alarm rings at various ungodly* hours, depending on how far that week’s debate tournament is. I wake up, brush my teeth, and hop into the shower. I reach for the shampoo bottle sitting on the ledge: Meera Shikakai Shampoo for HairCare. Apparently even Meera’s** marketing team knew they needed to cater to the audience of today’s youth.

Saturday nights I oil my hair, but I haven’t gotten much better. Sunday mornings I wash it again. I see this as a healthy balance, for now. I get the health benefit, but not the smell and I can still wear my hair down. Growth is a process. It’s easier said than done.

*In Indian scriptures and philosophy, early hours of the morning are actually the most holy (called “Bramha muhurta” [time of Brahma (Hindu god of creation)]) and are considered the best and most productive times to do work. So, in fact, it’s the exact opposite of ungodly. ** Brands

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SEJAL SANGANI ’20

I You are a whiny four-year-old toddler on the Chembur station street corner. The door of the hole-in-the-wall Chinese takeout restaurant slams somewhere to your right, and the constant vibration of Mumbai traffic hums in your ears.

You are sitting with your head in your knees, tiny fists clenching. You swear that you’ll die of hunger if your mom takes one more minute in the convenience store. She comes out with a halfsquashed loaf of Wibs, and you throw a fit because you wanted chakli. She tries to calm you down through quiet coaxing. You rip it from her hands and throw it on the ground; it lands face-down on the gravel. She drags you away from the street corner; you resist. She is stern.

You follow glumly, head hanging, feet in tow.

You notice the chakli in every storefront through blurred tears on the way home.

You do not notice the four boys who race across the street in your dust, their mud-caked hands excitedly splitting the one piece of dirt-covered bread that wasn’t good enough for you.

II The first time anyone will attack me for my identity is when we are in second grade, and Aditya and I fight to the death over the times tables: The Great Second Grade Math Race. It’s like reality television, a cutthroat competition to complete each week’s exam the fastest. We forget we are eight years old. He wins the nine times table and promptly informs me, without hesitation, that I won’t beat him, I can’t beat him, because I’m a girl, and girls are supposed to stay home and make him sandwiches.

I You and your best friend spend summers on the swing at the end of the driveway, your accented voices lilting with the sticky monsoon winds. You run through the gardener’s hose until your clothes plaster to your bodies and wet strands of hair frame your faces. You do not notice that his ribs protrude severely, like boomerangs attached to his skeleton. Your aunt brings you both kulfi. You eat, and you laugh,

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and you clap your grubby hands in glee until they are sugar-stuck together. You chase baby Natasha in the street and smile your toothless smiles back at the pav wala who sneaks you free lychees.

Your tiny feet scale the side of the garage, and you play pretend: two British Expatriates who can afford tea parties with china cups and triangularly-sliced sandwiches. You are not playing pretend. You can afford tea parties with china cups and triangularly-sliced sandwiches.

When the sun falls behind the clouds, you go inside to your bistar, whine about how the AC oscillating above is not enough to combat the humidity. He will sleep on the fading white swing while the rain falls overhead, lips taut, complaintless.

You will forget about the fading white swing and the gardener and baby Natasha and the pav wala while you go to school in American classrooms with American walls and American teachers. You will not return to the fading white swing and the gardener and baby Natasha and the pav wala until you are thirteen years old. He died a year after you walked away. You walked away to American classrooms with American walls and American teachers while he took his last breaths on the fading white swing. He had nothing. You complained about crappy school lunches that you never ate and always wasted. He starved to the end.

II In elementary school, people make fun of me for not liking any boys. My friends do not seem to understand that boys are gross. It’s impossible that I don’t like any boys. I wonder often what is wrong with me.

At lunch: “There’s not a single boy you like?”

“No. I told you already.” Broken-record.

“You don’t think any of these boys are cute?”

“No. I told you already.” Broken-record.

“No one makes you feel rainbows in your toes and all tingly inside?”

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“No. I—” Pause. No one?

Quietly: “I always feel happy when I’m around Catherine.”

The snickers are suddenly not-so-quiet and eyes are uncomfortably shifting, and then everyone is leaving and I am alone, wondering what I said wrong. I will not understand until many years later. There are never any more questions.

I Almost daily, you are approached by beggars, shifting their purposely maimed children from one hip to the other. A boy who can’t be more than eight years old weaves through heavy traffic and risks his life to ask you for money. You say nothing, brush past.

Desensitized. You see a beggar steal your aunt’s purse at the Nathdwara temple; she smacks him, breaks his nose. Her purse holds nothing of value. He will not be able to afford medical treatment. You do not act. Desensitized. You are complicit in their suffering; you have never thought twice about a family of five who lives on a tattered blanket, and you immediately forget the desperation in their voices when they ask you for just one rupee. Desensitized.

III Until a few weeks ago, I had always lived a life in the half-light, choosing to focus on my struggles, the low-privilege aspects of my identity, self-pity. For sixteen years, I forgot about the immense economic privilege that I’ve taken for granted. When I asked about my identity, I always highlight its tribulations, never remaining humble or speaking to how financially fortunate I have been. I never mention how, in the lottery of birth, I did pretty damn well.

There was a one in four-hundred trillion chance I was born. Three billion of Earth’s seven billion populous live on less than $2.50 a day.

Over one billion live in extreme poverty. There was a one in four-hundred trillion in three in seven chance that I would have been born under the poverty line, but the omniscient lottery machines drew in my favor.

As you develop, the temporalis muscle forms on both sides of the skull. It is only with time that you will become who you are meant to be.

Temporalis

01 Antelope Canyon by Ivy Wang ’21

W W W. H B I N R E T R O S P EC T.CO M

x 57

Where the Empathy

Grows MUNA AGWA ’23

In a place quite far from here, during a time centuries from now, lived a girl named Xola.

Xola was the first daughter of famous Wakandan diplomats, Dr. Nasima Adegoke and Dr. Abiola Adegoke. Because of this, Xola only went to the finest schools, and studied all sorts of arts and sciences under the guidance of her private tutors and instructors. She spent her days feeding her mind, in hopes to one day successfully take up her parents’ legacy. In addition to being ambitious, she was incredibly beautiful, for she was projected to become one of Wakanda’s most eligible bachelorettes in a few years. Her skin was dark as honey, dripping in youth, and her eyes like rich pools of melting chocolate. She had an immense, curly dome of dark hair, and flecks of gold would appear in it under the harsh midday sun.

Xola seemed like a dream to the public, but behind closed doors, she was unbelievably vain.

She could spend hours talking about herself without thinking. No one had corrected this behavior of hers because it seemed like a small flaw in the sea of Xola’s many accomplishments, and therefore no one really noticed it. All except Xola’s closest companion, Jameelah Nwadike.

Jameelah had been friends with Xola before either of them could read. Jameelah was quite shy, and would usually sit and listen to Xola talk about herself, not usually interjecting.

Xola continued this pattern of selfishness up until one unforgettable school holiday. Her parents had invited over their long term family friends, the Nwadikes. Xola and Jameelah did their usual catching up, which mainly involved Xola boasting about herself and obsessing over her beauty in the mirror while Jameelah patiently

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sat in silence. Jameelah, as anyone else would, was getting fed up with her one-sided friendship, so she privately began scheming on how to teach her friend a lesson. Xola had always spoken for the two of them, not allowing Jameelah to voice her opinions. They were always doing that Xola wanted to do, and Jameelah would quietly follow the leader.

Later that day, Jameelah proposed going to the enchanted farmers market, to pick up some magical produce to make a Wakandan holiday dish. Xola was not one to turn down an opportunity to make a spectacle of herself, and she quickly agreed.

The two girls arrived at the farmers market, Xola in a head-to-toe designer outfit and Jameelah in comfortable linens. As the two were perusing through the magical herb stalls, they were approached by a poor bargainer. The bargainer began to beg and plead for a few extra coins in order to buy a healing papaya for his wife, who was extremely ill. He cried, “Ladies, ladies, have mercy on me! My wife is ill, and the price of healing papayas has gone up since the last time I checked. I see your designer fabrics and presume you come from wealth. I do not have enough change on hand, for I am only a poor bargainer, but I can surely repay you in due time. I will just need five extra coins.”

Jameelah remained silent, turning to see what Xola would do. Xola, on the other hand, was enraged to be in the presence of such a poor beggar and quickly retorted, “Five extra coins?

What a shame, you have clearly asked the wrong person. Move along!” Xola dramatically pulled her purse closer to her body and strutted off toward the stalls of the enchanted botanicals.

The plants on the shelves quietly talked amongst each other as they awaited the moment they would be bought.

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In one of the stalls, there was a little old lady angrily negotiating with a farmer over the price of a scrawny sapling. The leaves of the seedling were dry and its stem was exceptionally thin. It looked like more of a dying houseplant than a little tree. The lady droned on, “Sir, this sapling was clearly not shown enough care on your farm, and I simply refuse to pay the same price for it as the other ones! I am also just ten coins short-” Xola, a mere onlooker to the whole situation, interrupted, “I’ll buy the sapling! And I’ll pay full price, even extra, like a proper consumer.”

She shot a smug glance in the direction of the old lady. She put her hands on her hips and a heroic look spread across her face as she faced the relieved farmer.

“Finally!” the farmer exclaimed, “A proper customer, who isn’t trying to bargain with me nonstop. Here,” he gestured toward Xola, “take the sapling.”

The sapling only had three leaves, but Xola paid the full price for this malnourished sapling, and even the little extra that she promised, and she prepared to head home with Jameelah from the market that day.

When the two girls got home, the sapling was nearly dead, so Xola’s first solution was to throw it out immediately. At this point Jameelah could hardly contain herself around Xola’s carelessness, “Xola, you’re being arrogant! You act as if you are better than everyone, and this kind of pride is incredibly annoying.” Xola, shocked by Jameelah’s sudden boldness, dramatically paused for a moment. “Give me the sapling! I will take care of it, and nurse it back to good health. And know this: if you continue in your selfish ways, this sapling will die, and so will this friendship!”

Jameelah whisked the sapling away in her arms and stomped off to the guest bedroom to inspect the sapling.

The sapling shivered and whimpered in its pot, for it was an enchanted sapling, and when it felt great pain it couldn’t help but weep. It wept for the two friends who were fighting, and it wept for its fragility, and it wept for being around such toxic behavior. “There, there,” Jameelah whispered to the plant with dying leaves of

leather, “we have a lot of work to do to get you back to good health.” The sapling fluttered its brittle leaves, eager to be nurtured.

In a cheerful tone, the sapling explained, “when I am around selfishness and pride, I begin writing.

But Jameelah, when I am the presence of your kindness and empathy, I am restored back to good health.” In that instant, the sapling burst into blinding hues of blue and green. The walls of the guest room were bathed in aquamarine tones.

Its stem glowed a harsh gold. Jameelah had to squint from the light radiating off of the plant.

Soon, her eyes began to readjust as the sapling’s vibrant colors cooled, and the lighting in the room returned to normal.

Jameelah, who was still in shock, knew what she had to do, “Enchanted sapling, we must grow you into a tree! But that means we have convinced Xola to change her ways.”

The sapling nodded. “Indeed, that Xola girl must change!” Jameelah groaned at the idea of another fight with Xola, her supposed best friend. But she realized, in the end, there was no one else close to Xola who was going to correct her behavior. For this, Jameelah felt great pity for Xola and devised a way she might be able to fix things.

In thirty minutes’ time, with the help of a few landscapers, Jameelah had strategically planted the sapling right outside of Xola’s bedroom window. Jameelah and the sapling danced and played. The sapling began to make friends with the surrounding flowerbeds. Xola, who had seen the whole event unfold, sulked from her window.

She had been quite a rotten person to be around, and she was just realizing it.

empathy. Xola still couldn’t believe that simply being good-hearted would help grow a sapling to a tree, but she would later learn the difference empathy could make.

Just as Jameelah was about to grab her bags and leave, she reassured her best friend, “The smallest acts of grace will create the biggest differences.

Watch as your empathy grows!”

Xola, wanting to get the last word, left Jameelah with a parting promise, “I will do my absolute best.”

Weeks went by, and the girls returned to school, and they both got busy. But Xola, keeping her promise, accomplished a random act of kindness every day, each act becoming more genuine.

After a month had passed, Jameelah stopped by for a weekend visit. After the two greeted each other they took a stroll out to Xola’s backyard.

To Jameelah’s surprise, the sapling was no longer a helpless little sapling, it had grown into a massive tree. A tree that had sprung to be two stories high. Its plump trunk was too wide for the girls to wrap their arms around it. And the no-longer-sapling had swollen, textured bark, and its leaves were a lively shade of green.

Jameelah could hardly contain her excitement, “You’ve done it, Xola! A tree!”

The tree, brimming with joy, chuckled as the girls danced around its wide trunk.

Look Upon The Rose Tree PERCY OKOBEN ’22 Look upon the rose tree See how full it blooms With little pinkish petals Bursting from their green wombs.

See the little boy Resting underneath the tree The little dancing petals And blue sky are all he sees.

He naps beneath the petals Nothing lost and nothing gone And hark! the little sparrows Who sing their merry song.

02

Xola ventured out to her backyard, with hope to make peace with Jameelah. Jameelah, who cared greatly about her friend, was quick to forgive.

The two girls embraced each other tightly, this would cement their friendship for years to come.

In a week’s time, it was time for Jameelah to head home, since school was reopening in a few days. The sapling had grown more leaves and was thriving. It was up to Xola to take good care of the sapling while Jameelah was gone. She knew that the sapling was no ordinary plant, it didn’t need to be watered and it didn’t need sunlight, all it needed was to be shown kindness and

02 Memories of Hokkaido by Allison Fritz ’22 W W W. H B I N R E T R O S P EC T.CO M

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03

03 Wonder by Bridget Kennedy ’21

HOMELAND I. I wake to the call of the azhan.

The screech of the crows follows. It is 5’o clock: the beginning of Karachi heat. When I shift on the mattress, my back is sticky with sweat. It has been a month since I arrived in Pakistan, but my body has still not adjusted to the sharpness of the sunlight.

I rise and make my way to the window. Light has already begun to bathe the dusty tile floor. In the backyard, coconut trees twist tall and stark; beyond them, the gate, the wall, and, far from my line of view, the streets. I imagine all the men and all the women huddling to their rugs, kneeling before their god. Here, the world halts for prayer.

“Last day.” I turn. It is my sister’s voice; she, too, has left the mattress, hair afloat with static.

“I know,” I reply. We swallow our malaria pills dry and watch the rising sun.

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II. I think it was the danger at first. We were there when Bhutto was assassinated—miles away, of course, in Karachi, but I remember the violence in the streets, my cousins’ eyes glued to the TV screen. I was too young to understand the way history was being carved beneath the soles of my feet. How quickly everything was shifting. Later, when a bomb struck on our way to the airport; later, when there were twice as many men, all with long, pointed rifles, patrolling the halls, I began to piece together my father’s frown, my mother’s pinched forehead.

Still, I saw very little blood. It did not occur to me we were dancing with death. It did not occur to me, once I was safe in my American bed with my American sheets and my American ceiling, that there was still a whole country filled with my people, a whole marble house filled with Maliha, with Faizan, with Narissa, with Feryal, with my aunts, my uncles, my grandparents, all still burying their fingers into the dust and digging up skulls.

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ANYA RAZMI ’20

The next winter, I did not go to Pakistan. My parents took separate trips back home, alone: my mother in May, my father in September. My sister and I spent that winter break buried in blankets instead of taking pills for malaria and folding dough for samosas.

The year after, we returned to Karachi. For two more years, I savored how easily I fit in that marble house. And then, suddenly, we stopped.

Like I said, it was the danger at first. It was as good an excuse as any not to take my sister and me to Karachi. Then it was the lack of time (how could we possibly miss a whole week of school?). Then…well, there was no need for excuses after that. Staying in America for the winter had become normalcy. I never returned to Pakistan again.

I. There are so many to love: my grandparents, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins. Maliha, Feryal,

Narissa, Faizan, the other Feryal on my father’s side, Simrah, Ayaan, Naseem Aunty, Nani Maa, Nana Pe. At the breakfast table, I fit between the rhythm of Urdu and the clatter of the maids in the kitchen. Everyone looks like me. My grandmother carries the same braid down her back, the same proud tilt of her shoulders.

I lick the malai and honey from my fingers.

It is a treat, so much sweetness so early. And later, when I shower two minutes too long, it is a treat then, too: my mother does not chide me for wasting water. Last day. The world is kind for lasts.

I dress in American clothes, ready for the airport. While my mother scrambles to pack, my sister and I set up a game of Clue on the tile floor.

She is always Ms. Scarlet. I am always Colonel Mustard. For twelve years of my life, we follow these rules.

It was the rifle, by the way. Mrs. White, in the living room, with the rifle. Bang, bang, and she is dead.

II. I can’t forget. I am not selfish enough to wish I could. But my memory is fraying. I only want for something I can touch.

Late at night, my sister and I exchange our stories. Do you remember the cat, Puddles? Nana Pe’s winter hat, no matter the weather? Do you remember the way Maliha and Faizan danced in the rain until they were dripping and alive? The rosewater? The samosas? The tremble of the azhan? Do you remember— do you remember— do you—?

(Do you love them? Did you? I think I love them. I think I loved them, once.)

Here in America, the world is cut and clean.

The sugar is bland. I love the loudness here. I love the bigness and the brightness; I love the pride; I love the vicious fight for more and for better. I love how easy it is to strip the wallpaper and wooden boards and start anew: no marble here.

But America is flat. My family is small.

When it rains, the people don’t dance.

I.

II.

The men are here. We watch from the roof as they climb up the stalks, gathering coconuts from right under the highest leaves. They sway dangerously.

My grandfather died when I was nine and my aunt when I was sixteen. Maliha and Faizan got married. Feryal got married, lost her husband, and loves her son. I will not say they fade from my memory. Only that they are frozen there, behind my eyelids, as the people they no longer are.

My mother cracks a coconut open with a hammer. It falls open, the meat soft and sweet.

My sister and I each grab a piece of its shell and sink our teeth into its white lining; we fill glasses and glasses with its water and gulp them down until our lips are sticky and wet. It is easy to be greedy: it will be another year until we will taste such sweetness again.

II. Five years later, and my Urdu is brittle, its grammar stilted. Some immigrant families say I am lucky. I can speak English perfectly. I have no accent. Assimilation should be easy.

But I miss. I miss. Urdu flows and chatters.

My desi friends can exchange quips in the language, make puns, watch clichéd Bollywood films. They can read the walls of their mosques.

And I—I understand. I understand enough.

Anything further—speaking, reading, writing—anything further and I am painfully American. ABCD: American-Born Confused Desi.

I should feel lucky. There are other friends of mine who have never even visited their origins or tasted their roots. But one touch isn’t enough. I am split in two: indulge in one world, deny the other. I speak in English. I think in English, understand in English, live in English alone.

I. The day dies gorgeously. My grandparents pray with their backs alight with the sunset.

Allah, watch over their voyage. Allah, give them a safe route home. Allah, may they come back soon.

Most people think it odd, the way I mourn people I barely knew, but most people don’t understand it’s a different, addictive sort of sadness, mourning the people I could have loved.

Pakistan has become the dancing fantasy at the edge of my consciousness, its vibrant, dying tune coming to me only in the late hours of my American bed.

(It happened, didn’t it? I was there. I was there, wasn’t I? There still lies a bag of snail shells in my dresser. It must have been. And the taste of coconuts—the heat—the crows—my grandmother’s braid—the azhan—the dust—the marble house—I am sure I am not clever enough to have made them all up.)

I. We pile into the car: three suitcases, four carry-ons, two children, two parents. My grandparents wave.

“Until next time,” Faizan says, just before we pull away.

Though my eyes are droopy with exhaustion, the hazy heat sticky down my spine, I manage to perk up, plastering my palms to the window.

“Next year,” I tell him, grinning.

And then we are driving away, and I have faded into sleep, and by the time I wake we have swerved past the bend in the road and the marble house is gone.

We check and double check. Did you get the toothbrushes? Is Nani Ma’s sugar-free candy still in the fridge? Count the malaria pills. Count the socks. Count the earrings. What time is it? Does the driver know the way to the airport? Does the driver know we’re leaving early?

faint wisps of halcyon childhood memories MICHELLE DONG ’20

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04

Letter to My Future Self EMMA MCDONALD ’21 Letter of Recommendation: Listen to the song “A Letter to My Younger Self ” by Ambar Lucid A child sits with her mom. A lagoon lies ahead of them as they share sandwiches in the sun. The grass is crisp and green below their feet and the sky blue above their heads. Setting down her sandwich, the mother cups the daughter’s cheeks in her hands. The daughter wildly throws her arms around her mother, the way small children do to anyone they love. They sit hugging each other, bathed in the afternoon glow as they look out on the water. To their right a large marble building with large colorful banners, to their left, the future and endless possibilities. Suddenly they notice angry geese coming toward them squawking and pecking. Snatching the sandwiches right out of their hands. Gobbling it bitterly and waddling away. Crying, the young girl faces her mother. The sky seems to have greyed and the grass withered. They no longer looked out onto the water but instead the geese, who took their sandwiches and with it, seemingly, the happy moment.

one whose hug takes aways any sadness and whose disappointment hits harder than a lead bullet. She hasn’t seen her mom in what feels like days. Quietly, she walks back downstairs to a cold empty kitchen and opens the fridge. The cool and hollow light reaches into the black.

Sitting alone at the table she eats it. Herself in one room. Her mother in another.

When I was young, I was happy. When I was young, I was well-adjusted. I went to the park with my mom. Sat and had picnic lunches with her. We went for coffee and vanilla milk. We got a cat. We walked to get ice cream. She drove me to school every morning and when she picked me up we would talk about our days. We would give the step by step of our lives. She was who I saw most. She was who I trusted most. She was my best friend.

I am not a child anymore. I’m a teenager, which yes by many standards is a child. But for myself, it’s old. Old enough to feel lonely. Old enough to miss someone who’s 5 feet away from you. Old enough to crave a child’s relationship with their mother. My mother and I are close like any mother and daughter would be. Laughing at the same jokes and fighting over the same small things. “With age comes maturity,” they say.

And this maturity leads to a relationship different than that which a young girl has with her mother. You no longer talk about the difference between a frog and a toad as they hop across the pond, you talk about the difference between metaphysical relationships and that of emotional. You no longer argue over eating your fruits and vegetables at dinner, you argue over politics. You no longer hear the words “my little girl,” you hear the phrase “I’m so proud of the woman you’re becoming.” Sometimes, though, I don’t want to become this woman. For with womanhood comes independence. With womanhood comes driving yourself, comes drinking coffee by yourself instead of vanilla milk together, comes a sense of loneliness that can only be solved with a hug from your mom.

“I’ve just seen a ghost The memories I hate the most Reflections I feel Were something I forgot were real”

“Mama I apologize I’m not what you thought in your mind But I promise I’ll be Worth all the love that you gave me”1

A girl pulls into her driveway. It’s dark and cold.

The sun has set a while ago. There are two cars already in the driveway indicating her family arrived home earlier than herself, and from the time of the clock, it’s obvious they’ve been home much longer. Tiredly, she walks to the door alone. Silence greets her and she climbs the stairs to a closed door with the light off inside. She’s sleeping. The one the girl most wants to see. The

A woman sits in a chair. People rush around the emergency room around her. Doctors, calling codes, patients crying. She squeezes her eyes shut, feeling tears run down her face as she clutches her stomach. Every now and then flinching in pain as she passes another contraction, and another one until that’s all she feels. Hair hangs in front of her face and her body is sunken in. Alone, she waits for somebody

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to come get her, somebody to help her. Suddenly, she feels someone grab her hand and lace their fingers through hers. Looking up, she sees a familiar face with kind eyes. Eyes that she used to look into when their hands would cup her face softly. She rests her head on the woman’s shoulders. Shoulders she would excitedly swing from when she was a child. Softly, she closes her eyes and the rushing around her begins to fade.

A happy feeling returned, thought to have disappeared long before.

Someday, my mother will help me like this. Let that be in marriage, law school, getting a puppy.

Helping me through decisions, guiding me, supporting me. Maybe she’ll teach me to be a good mother too. Maybe I’ll drive her to work one day. Maybe I’ll buy her a coffee. I’ll ask about her day. I won’t have to miss her even if I’m 5,000 feet away. I hope that I’ll become the woman that she’ll be proud of, yet still, be with her like I’m five years old and we’re looking out on a lagoon.

1

Fragments of Verses from “A Letter to my Younger Self ”

by Ambar Lucid.

chlorinated silence.

MUNA AGWA ’23 From start to end, my days are enveloped in sound.

My ears, clogged by my airpods, are stuck in the monotony of pop music.

Or whatever genre of music I decide to cut my ears off with that day.

My ears are only put to rest when I submerge them into the pool’s tranquil waters.

I will admit, tranquil might be a stretch.

The pool.

Its silence can be deafening.

04 Mountains by Elle Wearsch ’23 05 Graffiti Gates by Eleina Salgia ’21

05

time to be an

american vandal SHEREEN AHMAD ’22

W W W. H B I N R E T R O S P EC T.CO M

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The Tale of the Man Who Couldn’t Live Up to His Name ZOE ZAPPAS ’23

“My future son, it is the eve of your wedding day. I see why my daughter chose you. You are handsome, polite, intelligent, and respectful. I think you two will make a lovely pair if you just stay true to what I tell you. Listen up, I will tell you the tale of a man who couldn’t live up to his name. A man who didn’t realize what he had.

A man who couldn’t realize the true worth of his wife, who tested him and he failed,” the wise sultan said to his future son-in-law.

It is said, Future Son, that there once lived a successful, wealthy merchant by the name of Amin who was married to a stunning yet beguiling sorceress by the name of Esme. They lived a good life in a cozy house they constructed themselves in the middle of a hidden yet strikingly beautiful forest. Amin’s work as a merchant took him to distant lands, however, and Esme worried that he would fall in love with another. Her days were spent in loneliness and worry, and she began to believe his heart no longer belonged to her. Why else would he leave their cozy life they had built together, if not for another woman?

One day, Amin set out on yet another trade trip telling Esme he was to be visiting a kingdom he had never visited before. Esme, though, was growing suspicious. His absences were growing longer and happening more frequently.

Amin set out at dawn, bidding Esme goodbye with a farewell kiss. Oh, how Esme dreaded his departures, and this one was particularly painful. Her heart belonged to him, and his constant absences chipped away at her soul slowly. Amin, on the other hand, was happy to be setting off to a new land, happy to be free of Esme, whose sadness was growing tiresome.

Growing ever more curious and suspicious, Esme decided to summon her fortune-telling friend Idris, who just happened to be a frog. Upon her friend’s arrival, Esme decided she wanted to hear her own fortune.

Her friend happily took out her charmed summoning cauldron, excited to see what it had in store. The two gathered around the fireplace of the home’s living room and set the ball on the hearth. Swirls of dark black clouds emerged around them, painting a scenery of two shadows giggling and holding hands. “Ah! M’lady you’re not going to like this,” Idris murmured.

“What is it?” Esme whispered, suddenly worried. Her intuition was telling her something was not right. Was her husband in trouble? Had she used her magic wrongfully? Millions of thoughts flooded her head as fast as one could conjure a demon.

“Someone in your life has been keeping something from you.

Something big. Earth-shattering,” Idris said in a monotone voice as his dappled bronze skin turned a lighter, sicklier shade of olive.

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“Is everything all right? Is Amin keeping something from me? Is Amin ok? I should check in on him…this is making me uneasy…”

Esme fretted, bending down to cup Idris’s face with her hands. “Idris, please tell me. I am very worried,” she continued, but Idris hopped away from her and turned to face the back door leading to the northern part of the forest.

“I’m sorry, Esme, but that information cannot be disclosed. It is for you to discover,” he explained, letting out a final weak croak. “Now get some rest. Do not worry about Amin. Things will all come to a resolution, but you must always keep an open mind. I have to go on my way, Love.” With that said, Idris turned to face Esme one last time, staring into the deep, infinite depths of her crystal blue eyes until he could no longer bear to look any longer.

As Idris exited her home briskly, a million questions filled Esme’s head.

What was the life changing secret she didn’t know? Was Amin safe?

Feeling uneasy, Esme decided she would try sleeping to see if anything would come to her in her slumber, as she often had magical visions in times of distress. Heading up to her chamber, Esme lit her favorite candle and watched as the flame danced in the dark. Taking in a deep breath, she blew out the flame and set her head slowly down onto her bed until she found herself lowering her head onto a bank of sand.

She sat up gradually as her eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight surrounding her. Why had her mind brought her here? Esme noticed she was on the shoreline of what appeared to be a never ending sea that looked as if it stretched far and beyond the horizon. Looking up at what first appeared to be a clear blue sky, Esme sensed something was wrong.

Suddenly, a loud clap of thunder sounded as the sky turned grey, casting an ominous shadow over the shoreline. Dead ahead, Esme watched as what appeared to be Amin’s ship struggled to stay above the vicious waves. As these waves thrust violently forward in mere seconds, the ship was swallowed whole. Time stopped. Everything turned black except for a light shining ahead, casting a spotlight over what appeared to be a man.

Cautiously stepping forward, Esme realized it was not just anybody. It was Amin, cold and lifeless, soaked and covered in seaweed. “No!” she screamed, reaching down to touch his cheek. As her hand caressed his face, his skin began to fade away bit by bit, disintegrating until nothing remained except his ring, which represented their loyalty to each other promised upon their marriage. Amin had been killed on his trading trip. A shipwreck.

Breathing heavily, Esme rose up from her bed stiffly. Her vision had revealed to her her worst fear: losing her soulmate. What was she to do?

Was it a prophecy or had it already happened? There was only one way to find out. She would have to take the journey herself and find out if Amin had truly departed. Within her soul, she could not bear to believe he was dead. It just did not feel right.

Little did Esme know, Amin was alive and well. He was in the Kingdom of Clouds, home to the most daring and adventuresome of them all: Queen Farah. Amin lusted after Queen Farah, admiring her power and wishing to make her his own. How unlike Esme she seemed.

Queen Farah was not at home weeping because he was off to sea.

Instead, she was ruling the Kingdom of Clouds, beautifully and majestically sitting on top of her misty throne. She was unconquerable, and that made her even more attractive to Amin. Each time he tried to woo the queen with his treasures from distant lands, he had visions of Esme, waiting back at home, pining for his return. These visions of Esme were causing him so much pain because they kept interfering with his chances to win Queen Farah’s heart.

What Esme did not know was that Amin had set out to deceive her with his cunning wit, as he wanted her to feel true pain (in the form of his own feigned death) and wanted to be free of her constant moping and sadness. What he did not expect was Esme’s skepticism and failure to accept the vision he sent to her. You see, Future Son, while Esme truly loved Amin and knew in her heart that he could not be dead, her wildest worries were true. Being the sorceress that she was, she knew exactly what the vision meant. His heart belonged to someone else, and he was now truly dead to her.

You see, Future Son, it was this vision that brought her to him. She now revealed herself to Amin in the Kingdom of Clouds. While he thought he was bowing down to Queen Farah and wooing her with his latest haul of diamonds, he was in fact bowing down to Esme.

Turning into her true form, she said to him, “It is amazing what women in love will do. How could you be so selfish as to think I would move on from you after seeing a vision of your death? Something must be terribly wrong if I would accept that and take no further action. I love you, and your constant absences are making me miss you even more.

You are always away, and that is when I long for you most. You fell for this superficial non-existent Queen, you fool! How could you not know it was me?”

And with that, Esme chanted a transformation spell and turned Amin into the form he deserved to be: a donkey, symbolic of the fool he was.

Esme left him there in the Kingdom of the Clouds and returned to her cozy cottage, where she greeted Idris with an embrace, thanking her dutiful frog for his wisdom and friendship.

O, Future Son, please remember this story of the silly, treasure-seeking Amin: be faithful to my daughter and tend to the fires at home. Do not be like Amin, busy searching other lands when really the treasure was right in front of him. I know you will listen to my words, Future Son. I bless your marriage tomorrow.” With that blessing, the wise sultan retired to his chamber.

zero feet away from home CAROLINE JUNG ’21

while i rake leaves i am reminded of the voice of leaves’ veins giving way under my soft rubber boots over Ben Rector’s voice in “30,000 feet” over the flow of the electrical pulses traveling to my cochlea. i am reminded of the gusts of wind that clutched my face forcing translucent gasps of heat to be dislodged from the walls of the same mouth that promised to be home. i am reminded of the last nine years: snoozing every day at seven, hearing bird calls since five watching the same three kids climb aboard bus number one. i am reminded of smelling 만두, a Korean comfort food of mine, from here, in the cafeteria, 30,000 feet away to there, in the kitchen, at home. i am reminded that this is why I run from bus one across the same cement path my bike leaped, skidded, and rolled over to tasting warmth and comfort dropped in my mouth. but as raking continues, i venture farther away from home. and by some subconscious, i turn on “30,000 feet” reminding myself what it means to be zero feet away from home.

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My Sister

&

Me VEDHASYA MUVVA ’20

My sister remembers meeting me for the first time. She remembers my mom being in the hospital for days and watching the people visit her. She remembers getting blankets with my dad to spend the night on the floor by my mom and me. She remembers being a little girl of three and a half standing on her tiptoes and peering into the crib that held her new sister. And most importantly, she remembers being the first person I saw when I opened my eyes.

My sister loves telling me this story. I think it’s because this moment signified the biggest change in her life. All of a sudden, there was someone who would steal all the attention, but also would love her unconditionally and depend on her for the rest of her life. To her, I’m still the baby of the family, a little girl following her around.

I remember a retreat that my sister and I went on when I was still in primary school.

It was a kids-only trip, but I was among the youngest and therefore was given special privileges. As one of the oldest, my sister was the leader and I was allowed to be in her group.

I remember my sister checking on me the first night and finding out I was still awake, crying in bed because I was feeling homesick. My sister, still a child, folding our sleeping bags together, distracting me from my tears, and making me laugh about some silly game. My sister, heating up water and honey after I lost my voice the next day, and letting me follow her around like I used to, even though I was a little baby and she wanted to hang out with her friends.

Having a sister who has always been there and done things first is much more helpful and comforting than most people realize.

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My parents moved to America months after my sister was born and did not know anyone in America to help in their transition. It was my sister who had to explain the different concepts to my parents, anything and everything ranging from sleepovers to camps to field trips to driving laws to the college process.

By the time it was my turn, I already had my sister’s footprints to follow. It made everything so much less scary and that much more exciting. The Greenfield trip that the entire 5th grade class at Twinsburg went to? Sure! No problem! My parents knew what I’d be doing before I even learned. Going on a month-long trip to Minnesota with just my sister and me?

Sure, why not? My sister and I will take care of each other. We’re responsible and my sister knows what to do. She had already taken that trip with my dad before.

Being allowed to go on long drives a month after I got my license? Sure, I’ll be fine! My sister would always be next to me, making sure I’m driving safe.

The summer heading into freshman year of high school was the worst. I didn’t know anyone when I first came to Hathaway Brown. I didn’t have anyone to ask about the teachers or about the strange dress code or even find out the hidden gems of the school. My sister, who was now in college, lived four hours away, and I couldn’t rely on her anymore. All of a sudden, I didn’t have the option to follow my sister’s actions. I had to be brave to step out of her shadow and be me.

I had gotten used to accompanying my sister during family parties every month because our friends didn’t attend them often. I used to watch her socialize with all the parents while I tried to locate the food.

Once she left, I was forced to make

conversation on my own, and have been strengthening my relationships with people I’ve known since I was a young girl but had been too scared to talk to.

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I had gotten used to letting my sister make the food when we’re home alone. My parents worked in their store, so we were left at home for three hours after school every day. We had set up a system that we followed since third grade: I choose the TV show for the day, help cut the vegetables, and then keep an eye out for our parents, while my sister makes the food. Once she left, I needed to learn how to do that for myself so I could be responsible and healthy when I was home alone.

I had gotten used to allowing my sister to get people’s attention in order to either take charge or ask for help. At any meeting we were both attending or even just asking a store clerk for help finding a certain item, I would let my sister take over and start the conversation. Once she left, I had to learn to take care of myself.

I’ve still been holding onto my sister as a comfort blanket to ward off change, but I can tell that I’ve been doing better. I thought that it would be hard, but following my sister around for all these years has actually helped. At first, I was resistant to change – I didn’t want to have to be independent – but now I think I’ve become more social and confident in myself. I’ve had someone to watch and learn from and now that I’ve been on my own, I’ve finally begun developing as an individual. Just yesterday, I went grocery shopping and was able to buy everything on the list without calling my parents to check prices.

It’s also taken me sixteen years, but I’ve also finally realized something. I’m not the baby of the family like I’ve always seen myself. My relationship with my sister might’ve begun with my dependency on her as a role model, but now that it has changed, I’ve come to rely on her for support and love. I’m not the baby anymore. I’m so much more than the shadow that I thought I was. I’ve finally started to realize my own leadership and academic skills. After years of trying to be my sister, I’ve finally started to figure out what makes me unique.

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06 Stress by Anna Banyard ’22 07 Origins by Bridgette Fuentes ’21 08 Construction by Anna Keresztesy ’20

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Dan Flowers:

His Life and Career as a Food Banker and CEO ELENA FLAUTO ’21 “I’ve lived my whole life just working all the time. That’s what being a CEO is. You don’t coach your kids’ teams. If you’re home for dinner two or three nights a week, then that’s good,” explained Dan Flowers, president and CEO of the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank.

Sitting at the head of a conference table, Dan stood out from the austerity of the food bank’s boardroom in his flannel and jeans.

From where we were sitting, I could see his treasured guitar hanging on the wall in his office. Despite being the CEO of the Foodbank, Dan’s welcoming smile and humble nature made him approachable. His thoughtful disposition came through when he spoke, detailing his philosophy on the importance of maintaining good relationships with his employees and making sure they feel valued. Although Dan acknowledged the stressors that come with his job, he assured me that the opportunity his position gives him to help people is extremely rewarding and far outweighs any drawbacks.

However, if you would have asked Dan about his aspirations after he graduated from the University of Michigan and began teaching at the Flint School of Performing Arts, he would have described a very different future: “I wasn’t going to be a school teacher; I knew that wasn’t gonna be it. I wanted to perform. I wanted to make it big.”

Despite his musical dreams, destiny led him in another direction. While working at the school’s head start program, he gained experience writing grants which led him to applying for and accepting a job as a grant writer at the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan. It seemed that Dan had found his calling; he

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immediately “fell in love with the work.” Soon after, he moved to Ohio, taking up his current position as CEO of the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank. While not working in the entertainment industry, Dan still actively uses the skills he gained as a musician and performer: “These CEO jobs are one part performance. That’s part of being a leader,” he revealed.

The Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank serves eight counties in Northeast Ohio, providing food to over 260,000 food insecure people annually. Food insecurity is defined as the state of being “unable to consistently access or afford adequate food” (Merriam-Webster. com). In Summit County alone, the food insecurity rate is nearly fifteen percent of the population, amounting to 80,830 people, with 22,570 of these individuals being children. Last year, almost twelve million pounds of food were distributed to families in need by the Foodbank. These statistics demonstrate the significant need for meals and other essential items in the community. Ohio’s food insecurity rate sits above the national average (12.3 percent) at 14.5 percent. Feeding America estimates that an additional 797 million dollars is needed annually to cover the costs of the needs of 1.6 million food insecure individuals in the state of Ohio. Ohio’s annual food budget shortfall is the sixth highest in the country, under those of New York, California, Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania.

As CEO of the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank, Dan has come into contact with many individuals struggling to make ends meet.

Recalling a particularly memorable

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interaction, Dan described a woman he met at a food giveaway at Open M Neighborhood Center earlier in his career. The event took place on a cold November morning and the temperature was around thirty degrees. When Dan saw a woman without a coat waiting in line for food with her son, he asked her why she wasn’t wearing a coat.

The woman responded, “I don’t have one.” Her desperation to get food for herself and her son forced her to wait in the cold for hours, regardless of the frigid weather.

In another instance, Dan knew a widowed woman who was dealing with raising many kids on her own as well as being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis: “I have never seen someone’s life fall apart week by week. She would come in every Thursday to the pantry, and the escalating calamity of her life was a real demonstration of how complicated poverty is.”

Unfortunately, having to choose between paying for necessities such as medical treatment or buying food for his or her family is the reality for many individuals in Northeast Ohio.

Margarette Purvis, CEO of the Food Bank For New York City, shares one of the many misconceptions held by Americans about food pantries: “There’s still this idea that food banks and soup kitchens are only for the homeless, and that simply is not the case” (Caminiti). Dan’s account of the people his food bank serves corroborates the idea that many of the individuals using these resources are working people who have jobs and families. He explained that, while half of the people getting food from the food bank are over age sixty-five or

under seventeen and have either aged out of the workforce or have not yet entered it, the other half are able-bodied working adults.

Additionally, eighty percent of those who are served by the food bank have either a high school diploma or even higher education.

Regardless, there still seems to be a false belief that those who are food insecure are uneducated and incapable adults, causing individuals who need the food bank’s services to feel ashamed, sometimes preventing them from reaching out to get the help they need. In a recent study on food aid, twenty-seven percent of those surveyed responded that they “would not use public welfare under any circumstance due to reasons related to stigma” (David 14). When asked about this issue, Dan shared his philosophy on how to best reduce stigma and hate in general by helping people find truth in their own lives. This message of self improvement and positivity is something he has sought to extend to those around him throughout his career.

In addition to the destructive stigma surrounding food insecurity, there is also a notable lack of awareness.

Many Americans underestimate the impact that hunger has on their community. A survey conducted on behalf of Tyson Foods and the Food Research and Action Center shows that, while forty-five percent of adults agree that hunger is a problem in the U.S., only thirty-one percent agree it is a problem in their own state, with even fewer people– a mere twenty-four percent– perceiving it as a problem in their own community. The survey also found a correlation with yearly income, showing that forty-eight

09 09 Still Life by Sophy Gao ’23

percent of adults who earned under $40,000 per year saw hunger as a serious issue, compared to only thirty-six percent of adults who made over $75,000 annually.

Despite these varying perceptions, the reality is that hunger is present in every community in America.

Dan offered an explanation for the disparity in different Americans’ understanding of the hunger crisis: “People tend to pretty much live within their own experience. I think that people generally want to be helpful, but the people that haven’t had those first hand experiences aren’t motivated in the same way.”

However, there are many people who both recognize food insecurity in their community and actively work to help their local food bank end hunger. As CEO, Dan Flowers has witnessed some overwhelming acts of generosity in the form of staggering money donations and tireless volunteer hours. While having financing backing is crucial, Dan recalled that some of the most memorable acts of kindness he has seen in his time at the food bank have been little things that everyday people can afford to contribute: “Kids will have birthday parties and they’ll ask their friends to bring food instead of presents and they’ll bring it in. I’ve had so many cute little folks come in here. I’ve seen people bring in food from their gardens. I mean, I see a lot of good.”

Dan urged those looking to help their local food bank to “serve in a way that’s meaningful to you.”

Whether that means writing a check, volunteering time, helping the foodbank get trucks to transport food, or making use of any other skills, he insisted that everyone can do something to pitch in and help their community.

When asked about his future plans, Dan paused and thought back to the chance series of events that led him to food banking. He compared trying to predict where your life will take you to still hunting, a form of hunting involving stopping for long periods of time to scan and listen for game: “Stand in the woods and look all around. And then take one step, but it’s a whole new woods. All the angles changed. Then take another step, and it’s a whole new woods. And that’s life.” Regarding his career, Dan shared that he had been thinking about trying something new for a few years, but resolved that “it wouldn’t complete the third chapter.” The food bank has been a constant throughout his life, ever since his days as a grant writer at the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan. Nearing “the beginning of the end” of his career, Dan has been the CEO of the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank for nearly 20 years. He emphasized to me the importance of his story being a complete work, explaining: “My career has had a beginning, it’s had a middle, and now I’m at the end. I want to finish it right.”

WORKS CITED Caminiti, Susan. “America’s Dirty Little Secret: 42 Million People Are Suffering from Hunger.” CNBC.com, 13 Dec. 2016, www.cnbc.com/ 2016/12/13/americas-dirty-little-secret-42-million-are-suffering-fromhunger.html. Accessed 9 Feb. 2020.

David, Elena. “Food Insecurity in America: Putting Dignity and Respect at the Forefront of Food Aid.” SocialConnectedness.org, Oct. 2017, pp. 14-15, www.socialconnectedness.org/wp-content/ uploads/2019/10/Food-Insecurity-in-America-Putting-Dignity-andRespect-at-the-Forefront-of-Food-Aid.pdf. Accessed 9 Feb. 2020.

“11 Facts about Hunger in the U.S.” DoSomething.org, www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-hunger-us.

Accessed 8 Feb. 2020. “food insecure.” Merriam-Webster.com, 2020, www.merriam-webster. com/dictionary/food%20insecurity. Accessed 9 Feb. 2020.

“Food Insecurity in The United States.” Feeding America, map.feedingamerica.org/. Accessed 8 Feb. 2020.

“41 Million People in the United States Face Hunger.” Feeding America, 16 Sept. 2017, www.feedingamerica.org/about-us/press-room/new-data.

Accessed 8 Feb. 2020.

“Get the Facts.” Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank, www.akroncantonfoodbank.org/get-facts. Accessed 8 Feb. 2020.

Hart Research Associates and Chesapeake Beach Consulting. Americans’ Views on Hunger. Oct. 2014, frac.org/wp-content/uploads/frac_tyson_ oct_2014_public_view_hunger_poll.pdf. Accessed 9 Feb. 2020.

“Hunger in Our Community.” Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank, www.akroncantonfoodbank.org/hunger-our-community.

Accessed 8 Feb. 2020.

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POCKET BOOK CATE ENGLES ’20

I was always drawn to the bottomless handbag my babysitter carried when she took care of my brother and me. She had so much stuff that you would think she’d need two bags to hold it all. But no, her giant tote must have extended into another dimension the more she added to it. Often, I would play with her purse, act like it was mine. I liked to sift through the contents. She had an entire textbook for nursing school which she constantly studied from.

There was also her keys and wallet, some lip gloss, flashcards, and other equipment I can’t remember now. What I do recall was my attraction to the purse and the fact that holding it made me feel older. I had only known the adult women in my life to carry purses.

And I began to believe that the ticket to adulthood was a handbag.

Dropping hints like pocket change, I begged my mom for one of those purses from an archetypal little girl’s store. She was reluctant to buy me one; she didn’t understand my obsession and thought they were too “old” for me, a seven or eight-year-old girl at the time.

I was convinced that a woman with a purse was one with a mission--so busy that she had to take her work on-the-go. And as I was developing into a girl with big goals, I found the only way to accomplish them was to get busy. The day I got my hands on that faux leather bag with its requisite obnoxious pink bow, I believed I would absorb the maturity I thought it held.

I shoved so much useless crap into that bag just so it would rival my babysitter’s in sheer tonnage. My mother probably thought that I was planning for the apocalypse when she saw the bunker I was constructing in that purse. Sometimes, I would pretend I was all

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grown up, as though I had a job and everything. Sitting in a parked car in the garage, my feet dangled from the driver’s seat as I “drove” to my make-believe occupation with my accessorial companion.

Not even close to hitting puberty, I imaginarily aged just by having the purse on my shoulder.

The magnetism I had to purses really was rooted in my eagerness to grow up rather than any keen interest in fashion. Whether it was with a canvas tote or my first chunky purse, I wanted to portray myself as completely occupied and independent. I envisioned myself as the CEO, the boss. Wanting to make my own money, and make my own decisions, I was impatient to leave childhood behind. Sure, purses can be seen as at the forefront of girly-girl paraphernalia or as a superfluous accessory. But as I see it, a handbag maintains its femininity, while being practical for everyday use, especially if the person holding it is running from meeting to meeting, duty to duty.

Of course, today, textbooks and running shoes don’t fit into my old purse, instead, my backpack does the job. Perhaps I’ve shed the purse in recent years because I no longer feel the need to grow up so quickly or appear older. A battered backpack is enough to be content with in the meantime, as I now wish for time to move a bit slower some days. It should be noted that, despite my current pocketbook complacency, I am looking forward to purchasing a handbag in my adulthood to carry to and from whatever I may be doing. Hopefully, by then, I’ll find one that is much more à la mode than my first, one that is practical for a busy woman.

in the dark of her room, she waits peter pan’s shadow will arrive soon she will be a lost girl, she will be wendy darling soaring high on pixie dust in the light of the moon

the red of her clock shines against her face an empty look in her eyes there’s a hopeless feel in the room like childhood dreams gone by

the next night she waits again for the fairy queen to come hunting and the land under the hill will drink and dance and celebrate her homecoming

her waiting turns to daydreams things that will never come true of lives she never got to live stolen kisses and “i love you”s

she waits and waits and her parents wonder “should we let her keep doing this?” but the answer comes fast: “yes, of course we should,” “not many can feel magic’s kiss”

and she thinks to herself: “you got your wish” “a lost girl is what you shall be” but that kiss of magic had finally worn off all she sees now are vanished memories

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10 10 Lines by Diana Malkin ’20

reverie SARAH GORAYA ’21

you know when you finish painting and your hands are blurred with the remains so you go to wash them but for that one second you rub and everything becomes smeared and the water turns murky and your hands become black and you think, I’ve made a grave mistake but the water continues to pour and finally your hands are clear you were my water i just could have used a little more of you

i could have used a little more comfort, a little more holding up, a little more unconditional i used to be unconditional i used to come to you looking for my reflection and you would help me draw it i used to come to you looking for a footpath and you would cut down mountains to build me one i used to tell you that you were wrong and you would chuckle and move on now you want to hear that you are right isn’t that why the discordance of your speech always resolves itself with a “right?” because it can’t be left unsaid, right? because you have to make sure I know how correct you are, right?

because I need to know that the light that brightened my footpath back then came from your eyes, right? well then, how did I end up blind? because I had known where I was but you convinced me you knew where I wanted to be because I came to you again looking for my reflection and you told me you were it so I tried to vanish, but the air turned solid so I tried to throw myself away, but even with the used tissue I was you managed to find a new spot and blow so I tried to scrub, harder and harder, until my blood ran with the paint, but I couldn’t get my hands clean without you so I tried to rest, for a second, against a piano I haven’t touched in months because I don’t know what to play to get you to come and listen maybe I just needed to take a breath like they do in every poem and realize how you are chipped nail polish you have the glory but I will watch it fade away i still come to you looking for my reflection and you tell me you are it but now I know that your faucet has run out now I know that I will always be smeared now I know how to endure a breath now I stand in front of the mirror and I know that it’s me and I know that I’m “right” i know it is my voice because I didn’t have to say a word.

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Movement

within Stillness:

Richard Wilbur’s Tribute to his Daughter LINA ZEIN ’20

Richard Wilbur’s poem “The Writer” is most clearly a heartfelt tribute to his daughter, in which he reminisces about moments that show his daughter’s independent and thoughtful character. As a message to his daughter, the author highlights the importance of perseverance in life by exploring a polarity between movement and motionlessness, in which he creates vivid images of his daughter moving through life on a cargo ship and flying into the world like a starling to prosper in her future.

The poem begins in admiration of the daughter, expressed through metaphorical comparison to a ship. The father almost immediately connects their house, and more importantly his daughter’s room, to a cargo ship: “In her room at the prow of the house, My daughter is writing a story.”

Notably, the assignment of his daughter’s bedroom to the bow of the ship reflects how he visualizes her as steering her own life–she is at

the front of the ship, not her father, nor anyone else in the house. He continues this metaphor further, describing her story-writing process “like a chain hauled over a gunwale” and her life as having “a great cargo, and some of it heavy.”

These images are immediately striking as their heavy, immobile tone contrasts with the airy descriptions just prior: “windows tossed with linden.” The polarity between immobility and motion holds even from a zoomed-out lens–the image of a cargo ship on the water is juxtaposing to itself, as individuals clearly know that the ship is moving, but, because of its massiveness, it often appears practically still on the sea’s horizon. Even literally, the daughter invokes a “stillness” on the entire house as she pauses to ponder what she is writing–we can almost hear the sudden silence as the “commotion of typewriter keys” temporarily ceases, and the moments they pick back up again, telling her father that she is once again moving forward

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with her written story, and on a larger scale, the story of her life. The image of a cargo ship could not be more fitting to convey the message at the heart of this tribute to the author’s daughter: that she is at the reins of her life, moving forward thoughtfully, with moments of stillness in which she overcomes her challenges.

The memory of a bird being trapped inside his daughter’s room further deepens this contrast between movement and motionlessness. A bird, which is a creature meant to fly–an immediate metaphor for his daughter’s future–is at first qualified as “helpless” and in the “dark.” Notably, the father describes the bird as having “dropped onto the desktop,” a symbol that has come to represent the daughter and her typewriter, indicating that this bird truly is meant to reflect his own daughter. Fittingly, just as a cargo ship continues to slice steadily through ocean waves, the bird eventually “lifted off ” and “[cleared] the sill of the world.” The author here uses the image of a windowsill to more broadly represent his daughter entering and prospering in the world around her. The sharp contrast between being trapped inside four walls and flying freely into the world further emphasizes this father’s description of his daughter’s journey through life.

As this father wishes his daughter “a lucky passage,” it is clear that he knows his daughter has the capability to triumph over any challenges that the world may put in her way–moments for which she might have to “pause,” but she will nonetheless continue forward. It is only later that he realizes the urgency of encouraging his daughter not to give up, not to “drop like a glove to the hard floor” like the starling and not manage to get back up. He calls it a matter “of life or death,” not literally, but rather in the sense one should not have only stillness without movement, or else one will truly remain trapped and fail to prosper in life. Like a cargo ship, like a bird, like a story-teller, pausing is okay, but one must always continue to move forward while carrying the cargo of life.

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Your sternum—the breastbone—protects your heart. Be vulnerable with one another but also kind to yourselves.

Sternum

01 Benevolence by Layla Najeeullah ’20

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how to fill a heart LAYLA NAJEEULLAH ’20 1 paint all the insides of the chambers

yellow, and roll it on lightly. make it feel warm, don’t pick a washed out hue. pantone yellow 012, like the gold that falls on your face and in your eyes when there’s daylight day. let your heart explode with the sunlight in every corner, so that even when it feels empty, it is still bright. yellow is filling, darkness suffocating, so you have to make everything light. and you never want to feel alone here.

2 hang all your favorite memories like

vintage camera film on the walls. fill the right atria first, leave the left ventricle for last. when you can’t remember everything and some frames are blurry, write how you felt in those moments on the pictures with one word – happy, full, weightless, lovely. these are more than memories now, they are what you will walk past every time you enter your heart. they are as much a part of you as the blood that flows through here. maybe even more so.

3 bring all of the people you love together,

put rugs and comfy chairs down for them to sit in the right ventricle. bring blankets too so you can fall asleep together, and tangle your limbs just like the blankets, so that you won’t have nightmares. feel how warm it is to be next to others, and remind yourself that this is what completes you. that you are not whole without them, and

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that even if the room feels small, you all fit. keep your breath calm and slow by keeping it in tandem with theirs, and fall asleep slowly, the way they do.

4 write all the lyrics of your favorite songs

on the valves in cursive, put line breaks to distinguish between the songs, even though eventually it’ll start to sound like a cento poem. it’s okay if some of them are sad. that’s okay too. just only put down the lyrics that matter to you, the ones that you think sound like poetry and the ones that make you want to sing in your room when no one is listening. write down the love song lyrics that make you hope for the future and the ones that sound like your inner thoughts, told through another voice. write them all down, and when you run out of room write them on the endocardium.

5 fill the left atrium with plants. hang air

plants from the ceiling and line flowers and succulents on the floor. water them all once a week and don’t forget to let sunlight leak through the pulmonary veins for them. give them all names, ones after greek gods or legends. name the irises icarus and the sunburst demeter. paint their pots with pastel colors, pinks and blues and oranges and yellows. cover one of the pots with hearts, and another with smiles.

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6 let all the breaks and cracks and bruises

heal on their own, but when they do cover them with gold-leaf. don’t hide the imperfections, let them show where you have been. and let yourself heal without trying to hide everything. remember you are strong, no matter how many times you have been hurt, and that this does not define you. you are so more than who you are at your weakest moments. and your heart is beautiful because of everything it has gone through, not in spite of it.

03

02 Flowers by Courtney Conrad ’20 03 Saint-Malo in the Spring by Hannah Ryan ’21

thrombus SEJAL SANGANI ’20

Heartbeats SHEREEN AHMAD ’22 if these were my last minutes, if the world was imploding, if the oceans were all consuming, i’d like to spend them with you your arms around me, your heart resting against mine so lie with me, and feel my heartbeat

remember when you tugged on my heartstrings so roughly they snapped

forgot that our invisible string was twice-looped and knotted tightly around my heart

remember when you used only the moonlight to slip out of the question mark we were folded into

forgot that distance would weigh you down and leave me light (heartless)

remember when you said i would be just fine

forgot that you promised me i would be just fine because i would still bleed all the colors of your love.

and i was just fine because you

i hope you know, i didn’t bleed at all.

W W W. H B I N R E T R O S P EC T.CO M

x 75

A Fairy’s Child Love letters sprawled across Maia’s bedsheets. Her fiancé called her princess, which delighted her, and dear friend, which delighted her even more. Although Maia was not an avid reader, she made an exception for him, which was a reccurring theme in their relationship—she did not want to get married either, until he swept into her life, with a horse fast as wind. She initially thought that marriage was far too girlish for her, antithetical to the black earth on her knees and the white sun in her lungs; she had dreamt of horses and horses only, running free across pastures of wildflowers.

She was surprised by the fervor that later overtook her. While planning her wedding, Maia displayed a new meticulous spirit—another exception, she supposed, that her man brought out of her. She wanted a quiet wedding, an intimate wedding. She wanted buttery moonlight and sea shanties, dancing into the night with her new husband, warmed by the love of her family.

To fulfill this fantasy, Maia had to change a few things… Mother had written the invitations, but she made a mistake…

Maia left her bedroom and headed toward the drawing-room, where Mother usually sat, alone, embroidering dresses by the hearth. In the drawing-room, however, Mother was already talking to another woman—Aunt Christabel, Maia recognized, from the wispiness in her hair, floating over the planes of her cheeks like spring fog. The two appeared strikingly different against the cream-colored wallpaper: Aunt Christabel, a furrowed little thing, curved tightly into her body, as if caught in the midst of folding herself into a ball of flesh and bone; meanwhile, Mother was taut like the string of a nocked crossbow, spine parallel to the ornate golden chair, cheeks flushed healthily under the amber glow of the chandelier. At times, Maia thought, it was difficult to believe that they were sisters.

Overcome with curiosity, Maia peeked around the corner, carefully positioning herself so the floral chaise lounge hid her from their line of sight. She was not one to eavesdrop, but the room buzzed with palpable tension, which piqued her interest—and it was her home, was it not? Maia deserved to know the gossip being exchanged in her own home.

“A bit too on the nose, do you not think?”

Aunt Christabel asked, tilting her face in the direction of a painting, situated at the very middle of the far wall. The painting depicted a woman with waxen hair and a face like a lily in

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bloom, lying in a fountain—she was brushing her hair, white arms obscuring her soft breasts.

All body below the hips was submerged in the water, sapphire and indigo brushstrokes fluttering around a white waist, kissing up the curve of her stomach. The woman was alone.

“You are a part of this household,” Mother said, simply.

“Verweile dock, du hist so schôn,” Aunt Christabel responded. Maia was taken off guard for an instant; she did not know that Aunt Christabel could speak German and, given the stricken expression that crossed Mother’s face, Mother could speak German as well. “Maybe I should have ended it, back at the waterfall.”

“Ended…” Mother started, paling.

“Yes,” Aunt Christabel nodded. “That.” She paused, briefly. “I could have joined Blanche. It must get lonely, beyond the veil.”

“Christabel,” Mother said, shaking slightly.

“She likes you.” Maia’s eyes widened—Mother must have been referring to her, to Maia, daughter of Sophie Bailey and niece of Christabel LaMotte, for who else?

“You tremble when you lie,” Aunt Christabel observed, very matter-of-a-fact. “As you are now.

Like Proteus, primordial god of the tempestuous seas.”

Mother did not respond to the accusation but she smiled, a pained purse of the lips, and that was enough of an omission. Almost subconsciously, Aunt Christabel mirrored the expression and then, both slowly turned to the painting of the nude woman in the fountain, who was still alone…

Other times, Maia thought, it was clear that these were sisters. She felt like a stranger in her own home, intruding on this moment of—of what? Of pain, perhaps, or rather, the acceptance of suffering, akin to the red hen last week: a wolf tore through the enclosure and started on the birds, but Father intercepted and swung at the beast with an ax, an arc of sinewy muscle and burnt iron. Still, the wolf managed to nick a hen, the reddest one of all, with a claw, seconds before Father cut the wolf down. Maia, from ten, twenty feet away, watched the red hen shake and become even more red, fluids gushing from the gash in its throat. The redder hen shook and shook and shook until it didn’t; it must have realized the futility of the endeavor, the

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SINEAD LI ’20

impossibility of survival; it just laid there, bleeding and barely alive and… patient, understanding, omniscient. Beak tilted upward as if delivering one final sermon.

Rattled by the exchange, Maia padded away, back down the hallway and toward the comfortable familiarity of her own room. She was to corner Mother at a later time, it seemed.

Maia prided herself in her even temperament—that, despite her affinity for the outdoors, for sprinting across the meadow, clematis leaves caught on the hem of her dress and smelling vaguely of cow manure, Maia was a girl who thought kindly of others. She was her mother’s daughter, after all, and Mother, even when arriving at the house, exhausted, without the spring in her step… Mother still smiled like a maiden and sang like a bluebird, and Maia strived to do the same.

However, there was something off about Aunt Christabel. She was witch-like, that could be it, but Maia imagined that it was a far more… fundamental quality, a feeling about Christabel that grew from deep roots, that extended beyond the moon-silver of her hair and the dark dip in her brow and the deep-throated crackle of her voice—it was the sad want in her eyes, maybe, that shuttered over Christabel’s face whenever she looked upon Maia; perhaps, it was this sad want that discomfited Maia… Sad want like how her floppy-eared basset hound peered out at the white snow fluttering about the pasture, where the beginnings of winter began to settle on the Queen Anne’s lace and yellow snapdragons, snuffing out the memories of a carefree summer.

Sad want like the yearning for a joyous time that has long passed.

Aunt Christabel left later that day.

Maia made sure to never leave her bedroom when Aunt Christabel was still present, fearful of confrontation for the first time in her life. Maia did not know what to say to her if they were to speak, so she opted to avoid such interaction.

At last, when Maia heard hooves on stone, she ran downstairs and, sure enough, from the window in the dining room, Maia saw the carriage carry Aunt Christabel away. She watched the carriage until it disappeared over the horizon, and then stood there for a moment more.

04 Sunny Day by Angela Yu ’21

04

Maia felt conflicted about her request for Mother, about her feelings toward Aunt Christabel, but the wind chimes rang out from the front porch, the wind playing a haunting melody, like a sea shanty—and Maia imagined her wedding once more.

With the love of her family…

Maia went to find Mother. She peeked into the drawing-room, but Mother was not there, so Maia put on her boots and went outside. She walked around the house, and then across the meadow behind her house. The grass whistled around her wrists, soft and indulgent against the tops of her knees. She did not think much at all, focusing on the cherry trees in the distance.

These blossoms were not out today, and would not be until months later but, in May, it was certainly a sight to behold, the full flush of pink and smelling of sweet sap, a vision of petal-light and verdant-waltz.

Maia, nearing the trees, saw Mother, a lone figure with flaxen hair, sitting by the fountain.

Her white legs were tucked to the side; she sat like a serpent would. The fountain was dried-up, as it had been for the past two years, but Father promised to fix it in the summer, so she and her bassett hound and her new husband could frolic in the water then. The moss and fungus ate away at the walls, so the fountain seemed more like a creature than a creation; the stone walls gaped in the shape of a maw, a parched beast.

Mother watched her approach, setting down her journal. Mother wrote songs when she was sad—the year her favorite horse died she gifted Maia with the sweetest of melodies, honey-suckle voice floating through the halls of their house.

“What is the matter, daughter?” she greeted when Maia took a seat next to her, taking care to fold her dress around her legs. Maia had always thought it odd that Mother would address her as daughter; it felt awfully formal, compared to the likes of dear.

“The wedding,” Maia began, then stopped.

Mother waited patiently as Maia remembered the buttery moonlight… “Have you sent out the invitations yet?”

“No,” Mother responded, confused. “Why? Is there someone else that you would like to invite?”

“It is rather that… there is someone that I do not wish to invite.”

“Who is it? One of your school friends?”

“No, that is not it.”

“You do not need to love her to invite her to your wedding,” Mother said, with a note of pleading. “Daughter, she wants to be there.”

“Is it someone on your fiancé’s side? I am afraid that I cannot do anything about that, daughter.”

“It is my wedding,” Maia said, simply. “Is it selfish to want to be surrounded by the people I love?”

“Mother,” Maia said, feeling fierce all of the sudden. “Do not play the part of the oblivious fool. I know you better than that.” Caught, Mother smiled the same pained smile as she did before…

“Maia…” Maia, at last, looked up from the stone fountain; there was a glossy quality to Mother’s eyes, like the flesh of yellow peach, when Mother murmured her name—a shimmer that begged Maia to be honest.

“I wanted to be surprised,” Mother revealed.

“I wanted to be surprised that you did not want to invite your Aunt Christabel.”

“I do not like the way Aunt Christabel looks at me,” Maia sighed. “Like she expects something, and is disappointed that I cannot give it. I do not know what that something is.”

She laughed, more of a bitter bark than anything else. “Does anyone?”

“She does not feel like family.”

“Yet, she is your—she is your aunt.”

“I know what love is,” Maia said. “I have been searching for the answer for my whole life and I have found it, again and again, with you and Father, with the horses, and with my soon-to-be husband.” She paused and stared at the fountain, all dried-up. “I have not found it with her.”

“I do not,” Mother said, and then trembled.

That night, Maia dreamed of a man who called her a fairy’s child.

W W W. H B I N R E T R O S P EC T.CO M

x 77

THE TALE OF THE

ELEMENT GODDESS AVA PILIANG ’23

Some time ago, the Element King Amir could shoot fire out of his hands, control water and wind and could move the earth. His family was among one the most powerful beings in the universe. The firstborn child, who was always male up until the year 1111 BCE, would get the power of the elements as well as the Element controlling staff. King Amir got his powers from his father, who got his powers from his father.

This had gone on since the beginning of time.

After trying to have a baby for years, King Amir’s wife finally became pregnant. The king was overjoyed because he knew that it would be a boy who would get his powers and become the next king. Within a month his wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. When the king saw the baby he was overjoyed, but that happiness was short-lived when King Amir realized that this baby had the power of all of the elements, would eventually have to become a king so she could keep the balance of the elements, except she was female, and there had never been a female leader of the elements. The king denied this fact. For almost sixteen years he hid out in his room succumbing to his work to distract himself from the fact that his daughter would become the goddess of the elements. Meanwhile, his daughter, known as Princess Layla, had been practicing her powers. One day she decided that she would dress up as a guard and protect the room that her father was in so that she could watch her father in secret control the elements by allowing her to learn by example. This worked for over a year until one day, two months before Layla’s sixteenth birthday King Amir went around to all of the guards in the room one by one and asked every guard politely to remove his hat and tell him his name. Layla had 4 men before her in line and as the minutes went by her heart rate increased tremendously; she was terrified. When she got to the front, King Amir looked at her very closely, shock overtaking his face. Suddenly his face turned bright red as he screamed “LAYLA! How dare you dishonor this family by witnessing what goes on in this sacred room and watching me control the elements.”

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“Because while you may not let yourself accept that I can control the elements and that it is my right as your firstborn child to become the next Goddess of the elements, that is going to happen in two months’ time whether you will learn to accept it or not,” Layla replied calmly.

After her father finally calmed down somewhat, Layla politely asked the rest of the guards who were standing there awkwardly to give her a few minutes alone with her father.

“Let me tell you a story, Father,” Layla said, motioning for him to sit on the couch next to his window that overlooked a barley field. After her father sat down Layla said, “Have you ever heard of the tale of the Stallion and the Mare?”

After thinking for a few seconds he replied, “I don’t believe so.”

“Well,” Layla said, “There was a royal family of the kingdom called Eyedono. In their kingdom lived a nice young man who bred stallions in order to sell them to the king. This young man was just about to bring six of his strongest stallions to the castle in hopes that he would get a few dinars in return for his kind gesture. When he got to the palace he slowly led all of the stallions to the courtyard because the king often enjoyed taking each of the stallions for a ride before he decided if it met all of his standards and if he would accept it. As the king rode the horses, he pointed out the stallion with a coat as black as night and a mane braided in eight thick braids. The king decided that the black stallion would be his and that the rest of the horses would be his guards. They rode for a few days, and he grew to love the stallion. On the eighth day, the king’s beautiful stallion got a splinter in his back right hoof and could barely walk, so he took the stallion to a vet in the neighboring town. The vet announced that what the king thought was a stallion was actually a mare. The king wanted to get rid of the mare at once. He ordered his servants to kill the mare immediately so that he could have a fresh horse for dinner but as the servants violently swung a

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rope over the now frightened mare the king realized that his favorite horse, the mare, could excel at the job that the stallions were made for.

During her three years as the premier horse, the mare outworked the stallions in every way. Her foal was even stronger, faster, and more beautiful than their mother proving females could do just as much as males, if not even better.” After Layla was done her father let out a long breath and asked, “How long have been watching me work the magic of the elements?”

“About a year and a few months” Layla answered.

“Are you willing to allow me to tutor you on how to control the elements?” King Amir asked.

“Yes, I know it may be a lot of hard work but I am willing to put in the work. I think you should be able to learn all you need to know by your birthday.” But, the king added, “I have one other condition.”

05

Ship in a Bottle KATHLEEN GUO ’22

My heart is a ship at sea.

The treacherous waves, Banging into my heart.

The words, Urging to get the best of me.

The bottle of champagne, Broken against the ship’s bow, Was not meant to celebrate, But to shame.

I fear the water.

05 Malibu Pier by Courtney Conrad ’20

“Anything, father,” Layla said, excitement bubbling inside her.

“There is a prince in a nearby kingdom who asked me recently for your hand in marriage and I will allow you to be the new goddess if you agree to take his hand in marriage.” When her father said this, Layla was infuriated.

“But father,” Layla said, “I am an independent woman who has powers unlike any other being in the world.”

“That is my decision and it is final,” her father said angrily.

“Fine,” Layla said. “Can I at least meet this man before I say I will be his for the rest of my life?”

“Of course,” the king told Layla.

“Call Khalil into my office, please,” King Amir said to one of the servants.

My head starts to wander.

And my eyes start to water, But I don’t cry, I don’t cry.

When Khalil saw princess Layla his breath got caught in his throat; she was as beautiful as the sun setting below the ocean, but what came out of her mouth first was not what he had assumed.

I begin to feel weightless, Small, worthless, A phytoplankton, In the great sea.

“So you’re the guy that my father wants me to marry,” Layla said, sounding very annoyed.

Silence.

“You only have to marry me if you feel love for me,” Khalil replied. “I will make a deal with you, princess, every other day you will go on a date with me for two months’ time. On your sixteenth birthday I will ask you to marry me, if you can confidently say that you feel no love for me then I will leave you alone.”

“It is a deal!” Layla said.

The End

The waves start again, They poke and prod at my heart.

No matter how many times they strike, My emotions will be bottled up inside.

My heart, Is the ship inside the bottle.

But you, You, Figured out how to take it out.

W W W. H B I N R E T R O S P EC T.CO M

x 79

06

Writing There is no act so personal As writing; For when one writes, They put down a little piece Of their soul.

PERCY OKOBEN ’22

06 Bukowski Was Right by Anya Razmi ’20 07 Ms. Armstrong by Lóa Schriefer

Tea Making ELIZABETH FEDRO ’20

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My mind is a cup of tea. My head, heavy with content, falls into my hands, spilling my remaining thoughts onto the English paper that sits defeated in front of me. The teabag that once dictated waves of easy, sporadic writing lay dried-up in my brain. I pour every remaining droplet of creativity onto the half-blank page of my computer before surrendering to my remedy: tea.

Grabbing my favorite mug, I launched the process that I have perfected over years of practice. The boiling bubbles that escape the water’s surface resemble the stress congested inside me. As the kettle whistles, my brain yells for my eyes to stay awake. After pouring the warm water into the mug, I bounce the teabag rapidly, and swirling mellow colors emerge. As the last droplet of honey cascades in the water, I take my first sip—waiting for that surge of ingenuity.

I am the girl who hugs mugs of tea to her heart. I am the student whose tea-stained homework boasts brown, crumpled edges. I am the daughter who crafts a cup of Earl Grey for her mother in the kitchen’s warm morning light. I am told by my friends that I have a gift, but I see tea as one of life’s pleasures. A cup of tea is filled with more than steaming water and herbal zests; instead, it holds particles of motivation, serenity, and creativity. With each sip, the steam tickles my nose, and I embody its components—finding focus and peace.

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ME, MY GRANDMA, AND MEXICAN DOMINOES The objective of Mexican Train Dominoes is to be the first player to use up your dominoes by connecting them all in a “train.” Each player’s domino train has to start with the same number—the first round starts with the number twelve, then the next round starts with eleven, going down every round until you reach zero.

Players go around the table adding to their train, one domino at a time, until someone gets rid of all their tiles. If you lose, you give the winner a dime for each domino that you haven’t been able to use in your train.

Mexican Train Dominoes is my grandma’s favorite game. She likes it better than Mensch Agere Dich Nicht, the German board game she grew up playing, and now she even loves it more than Rummikub, her old favorite. But that doesn’t mean she’s any good at it. I would not say that playing Mexican Train Dominoes is my favorite pastime, but I still end up winning every single game I play with her. I beat her at dominoes so often that I sometimes think she just has to be going easy on me. My grandma and I play for dimes, and I always end up leaving her house with a fistful of coins.

My grandma first taught me how to play Mexican Train Dominoes when I was ten or eleven. Although we’ve played it a lot over the years since, my proudest Mexican Train Dominoes moment occurred when I was twelve, visiting my grandparents at the condo development in Florida where they used to spend their winters. We went to the pool, watched movies, ate ice cream, and of course, we played Mexican Train Dominoes. One night, my grandma decided to take me with her when she went to play dominoes with all the old ladies in the development. I was honestly a little scared—they had been playing together every Tuesday for years, and I was still pretty new to the game. I was convinced that I was going to embarrass myself.

them by some twelve-year-old from Ohio who hardly even knew what she was doing.

My grandma—or Oma, in German—actually first learned to play Mexican Train Dominoes from those very same old ladies in Florida.

Although she now leads a charmed life in her luxurious little old-people suburb of Southern Florida, her life hasn’t always been so easy. She often tells me that, growing up a refugee in Austria after World War II, she doubted whether her family would ever own their own house.

Having another place for when it gets cold in the winter was definitely not a possibility for her back then. In fact, she didn’t even know where Florida was.

My grandma often tells me stories of her childhood in Europe. When we bake Christmas cookies together (honigwaffeln are my favorite), she tells me how she and her sister used to look forward to getting oranges for Christmas because they were the only gifts her parents could afford.

And when we play dominoes, she describes resetting the knocked-over bowling pins at her first job when she was only eleven. These stories of hers, although full of hardship that I could never imagine, have made me fall in love with my heritage. When I was little I hated wearing

07

ELLA VAN NIEL ’21

my dirndl, a traditional German dress with an apron and puffy sleeves. But now, I’d do anything to know what life was like in my grandma’s idyllic little mountain village before it was destroyed in the war. Being close with my grandma brings me closer to the history that I feel within myself, closer to the history that I felt when my mom and I visited Austria last year and I got to stay in the city where my grandma lived when she was my age.

What amazes me about my grandma is that even with all that she’s been through, even with all the poverty and suffering, she has never stopped appreciating the simple joys of living. She is so incredibly grateful for her life—she marvels at every pretty sunset; she loves planting flowers.

And she howls with laughter whenever people fall over on America’s Funniest Home Videos.

So, I play Mexican Train Dominoes not just for the inevitable glory of winning, but also because I know that I have so much to learn from my Oma. Her unending love of life, her humility, and her sense of humor astound me. Her appreciation of her German roots has led me to become more in touch with my own. Through teaching me how to play Mexican Train Dominoes, my grandma has taught me so much about my heritage, about family, and about gratitude.

Somehow, though, I found myself winning game after game after game against them. At first, everyone (including myself) assumed that I was just lucky. But as we kept playing, I made more and more money. All in all, I ended up making $5 in dimes that night. I don’t know how it happened. I didn’t think I was any good—I mean, I was up against some dominoes veterans.

Sure, they might not all have their wits about them anymore, but who was I to think that I could beat them?

But I kept winning. In fact, my grandma told me just the other day that those old ladies talked about me for years after that night. They just couldn’t believe that they got it handed it to

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x 81

Randolph Ash to his Daughter VEDHA MUVVA ’20

Dear Sweet Maia,

Dear son, I love you dearly and always shall. Your mother, with her passion and wit, called me a murderer, as if I, the one who loved and lost, who lost before having loved at all, who would have loved you with all my heart, who would’ve have cared for you, and who would have waited – I – who never got the chance to see you, would have caused your death. I thought I had known your mother, my phoenix and my muse. I thought I knew her mind and that we agreed about wanting to disappear from the world, but not like this.

I just wanted a piece of you to hold on to. But I was not allowed even that.

His small voice has been heard in broken sounds He makes, he says, perpetual daisy-chains In wondrous meadows—but she weeps and weeps, And will not be consoled, and takes with her Where’er she goes, a lock of his bright hair Cut from his marble brow as he lay cold.

More than all else she longs to touch his hand, To kiss his little cheek, to know he is And was not claimed by Chaos and the Dark. *

I wanted to talk to you. To you, my sweet dear child who never got to experience the world. Never got to see the flames dance on top of the waters, or the fascinating sea anemones. Never got to hear the enthralling myths of Icarus and Melusina. I wanted to hear you create your first poem, learning to link seemingly unlinkable nouns and learn about the world through your own words.

I wanted to watch you fall in love, with words and with others, and learn that the world was full of pain and hope, two beautiful and terrifying things. I wanted to help you find a path in this big scary world and love you, as I know I will without having ever seen you.

I just wish you were still alive.

Love, Your Father

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*From Mummy Possest in Possession

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I met you today. Oh! You were beautiful with your fair golden locks, so reminiscent of your mother, and bright eyes just waiting for an adventure. You told me you did not like poetry, but that is okay, I will always be proud of you; I will always love you.

I traveled to Kernemet, trying to find what happened to you. I talked to Sabine and learned about your mother’s pregnancy, about her disappearance and subsequent reappearance without a baby. With all my letters to your mother getting rejected, I reached out to her sister Sophie and I heard about you. Just a little babe, but you had already stolen everyone’s heart. People talk, and I found out that Sophie had not been pregnant before this little babe appeared, and the manor gossiped about whose child you were, and that’s when I realized you were mine.

My darling, sweet, Maia, I love you enough to let you go, though I have already lost any chance of your love.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

I would rather build you thousands of flower crowns, show you the beauty of the spiders, and read the fairytales spun into stories by your mother, but you have the love of four parents, and a supportive family, and that is all that I could have wished for you.

It took me years to find you, my dear Proserpine, but I could never take you from your family. I could never hurt you, like I hurt your mother.

I forgive your mother; I did know her. I knew her as my phoenix, burning bright and rising again and again, but living eternally can be difficult, watching those we love and those who love us get burned by our flames.

Love, Your Father

08 08 Hayden by Susie Glickman ’20 09 Dear Emily by Emily Jones ’20

Dear Sweet Maia, Another letter, unsent, one of the many I send every year. This is to be the last letter I write to you, my dear sweet Maia. I missed all the milestones, the birthdays, the weddings, the birth of your child, but I have been watching you from a distance, feeling joy when you smile and breaking my heart with your tears. Your son, my grandson, Walter, he is strong. He continues our line with his passion and his words and he will make you proud and happy and love you.

I am unwell, my dear Proserpine, I will not last long, but I just need to tell you that I love you. I wish I could see your beautiful, long, gold tresses curl down your back so similar to your mother, and the brightness of your smile as you chased your cousins around the field, but I cannot, and I treasure the piece of you that I keep with me. At least you will not have the pain of watching me die, will not have to let me go. At least I have the satisfaction that you are going to be okay.

09

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun My last thread, I shall perish on the shore; But swear by thy self, that at my death thy son Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore; And, having done that, thou hast done, I fear no more.

A Hymn to God the Father by John Donne

I am not afraid to die. I am only afraid of dying without the people I love knowing that I love them. I only wish your mother could – Alas, it is too late for wishes. Maybe she is happy; maybe she is not. But I know your mother, and at least she is doing right by herself. Her Fairy Melusina thriving in a way I always hoped it would be.

Love, Your Father

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x 83

10

Grateful for what you have, enough HANNAH BASALI ’20 10 The Gap Between Us by Desi Neal ’22

M U S I C

On July 23th, 2013, I packed up my Barbies and decided I would never play with dolls again. I was done with childhood, although I still had many years left. That day, I learned that my mom had breast cancer, and the fantasy world that most girls spend their childhood in, could no longer protect me. The castles were built of fool’s gold, the jewels were made of plastic, and the knights were only empty armour. Without the outlet of my dolls or my imagination, I needed a safe haven to escape to when life got hard.

H E A L S

Surprisingly, I found that escape in music, in the spaces between bass and treble clef. While other girls played make believe in their fantasy world, I wrote music to distract myself from the sadness that took up residence in my own house.

Whether dealing with problems at school or my mom’s radiation treatment, music became my way through anything, my iron shield. Sitting down at the piano and writing music transported me to another world, a world I made, and distracted me from the uncertainty and confusion I had yet to understand.

EMME SEMARJIAN ’20

84 x

As my experience grew, my voice began to break through on each page of the lyrics that I wrote.

The fragments of songs scribbled in the corners of notebooks said the words that I didn’t know

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how to say, making it easier to one day say these words out loud, and find my voice. And I’m not talking about the sound of my voice, although the grueling hours of voice lessons certainly did help me find the right pitch, but what I want to say in this world and what I want the music to mean. What started off as a way to escape and distract myself from my mom’s illness, turned into my passion and a healing mechanism — something I could never imagine living without.

The older I got, the harder I worked, and the more my songs meant to me. From the music classes at school, to sharing my songs with the world, my love of music has grown and adapted, just as I have. Music can heal—and this isn’t a new breakthrough. The indigenous Bön people felt it thousands of years ago as they played Tibetan sound bowls over the abdomens of sick people. The Beatles felt it decades ago as they used their music to unite a broken country during the Vietnam War. Their music did what the government could not—bring peace, safety, and love, even if just for a three-minute song.

And while I am still working my way to Beatle status, my music provided an escape, and healed me, and hopefully one day others, in ways I could never imagine.

Viscera—the internal organs in the main cavities of the body. Follow your body’s emotional instincts.

Viscera

01 Exposed by Katey Fritz ’21

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Notes on Death It was supposed to be just another Sunday of sitting behind the counter of my parents’ Chinese restaurant and suffering from the obligations of taking phone orders.

But that Sunday was in winter, the busiest season of the year. This year, there was also a lack of employees. Many had quit due to their inability to keep up with the quick paced environment. This left my parents scrambling to find replacements, which usually ended up being my brother and me. Like any third and second grader, we wanted to do anything other than “Number One Express, how can I help you?

Okay, is this for pickup or delivery?”

That Sunday, the freezing temperatures triggered the deadly combination of my dad’s intolerance for slacking off and my brother’s resentment for picking up the phone.

That Sunday, the target of my dad’s screaming was my brother. Except, this shouting match was different. I don’t remember why they fought, but I do remember the escalating intensity of their yelling; the deafening echo from the collision of my dad’s calloused hands on my brother’s chubby cheeks; “I hate you;” the dissonant metal wind chimes from the front door; and numbing silence.

He ran away.

I am off to Chile with the school orchestra for spring break.

It is my first time traveling without my family. It is also the first time I have been on a plane to a place that wasn’t China. I wonder if we’ll arrive safely, if Chile is safe, if my grandmother will be okay when I return, if she’ll stop coughing up blood.

“You can retake your driver’s test in one week. I would recommend working on your distance judgment skills and doing more maneuverability practice before retesting. Have a good day.”

86 x

I turn the engine off and sit still for a couple of minutes, the summer morning breeze blowing across my steady stream of tears.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see my dad, eagerly waiting at the entrance of the BMV where I would have driven after completing the road test. He doesn’t know, at least not yet, that I failed before exiting the parking lot.

I muster up my courage and break the news to him.

“You did what?? You mean, the parking lot sign is bent because you drove into it?”

We were on our way to Niagara Falls after spending the Saturday of Labor Day weekend in Toronto. I hadn’t been to Niagara Falls since I was three or four years old. Of course, I had seen pictures of the crystalline currents in their stunning emerald green and cloud-white hues, but nothing would compare to being there in person and hearing the sound of water descending from more than a hundred feet above the ground.

My thoughts about the turbulent cascades were interrupted as my grandpa repeated for the umpteenth time, “When will we get to a restroom?”

“You literally just went to the restroom ten minutes ago!” my dad exclaimed.

Just as the “Welcome to Niagara Falls!” sign passed us, my grandpa started groaning and looked like he was about to pass out. At that moment, my dad made a U-turn and decided that what my grandpa needed was not the restroom, but a hospital.

In the ER, I was told that my grandpa had a severe urinary tract infection.

My mom tells me that my cousin from New York was diagnosed with clinical depression. I don’t understand – what do you mean when you say that she cut herself? Why are you crying so much? Why are you telling me this?

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MICHELLE DONG ’20

Bryan came into my room to tell me how his first day of seventh grade went. I nodded, not really paying attention, but noticed the mosaic of aurora borealis-colored nebulas that covered his legs.

“What happened to you? Did you bump into something?”

“I don’t think so?”

I quickly searched up causes of bruising easily. The results included blood-clotting problems, medication, leukemia. Leukemia.

My parents had taken me to the hospital when I was two years old because they noticed an abnormal amount of purple bruises that weren’t going away. I’d had leukemia.

It is October 31st, 2017. My dad shows me a news report. It describes a truck that ran over eight people and injured eleven others in Manhattan.

Wait.

My mom is in New York City visiting my grandmother. I called her yesterday to ask when she was coming back, to which she responded the next day. She couldn’t have – Right?

I’ve never really realized how many animals get hit by cars every day until I started driving.

In driving school, we learn about what to do if you run over large animals like deer. Nothing is ever mentioned about the furry little creatures that we are much more likely to run over. What do I do when I see the rotting flesh of those squirrels, raccoons, and skunks laying there to decompose in the middle of the road?

What do I do to make the sickening feeling of driving over their corpses go away?

02

blck grl tearz LAYLA NAJEEULLAH ’20 if i cry over the black bodies; black boy who met bullet black girl, still missing — white people will ask me, “isn’t it better now?” “all lives matter.” “not all police officers are like that.” i could cry into a bathtub, surrounded by chipped tile walls, splash the water out, give it back to the everlasting sky, and it still wouldn’t be enough. we could fill a whole planet with black boy blood & black girl body and the sun would kiss our skin just the same as she always does. but we ain’t supposed to make trouble, we ain’t supposed to be upset; we should be happy, we made it this far. ain’t that right? we ain’t strange fruit no more — no, no we are walking revolution, waking storm, wanting more than this world has given us. & i won’t apologize for my tears because they aren’t meant for you. and neither is this poem.

02 In The Shadow by Rhea Mahajan ’22

the flowers ROTTED with her heart

this is for every black body who was told that this world wasn’t for them. i will undo this place for you, you who isn’t crime scene, you who isn’t runaway, you who are children of the sun. i am still crying for you. and these are not just black girl tears.

MICHELLE DONG ’20 W W W. H B I N R E T R O S P EC T.CO M

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03

boy-cut, buzzcut

1.

the woman is standing above you, she has scissors in her hands and she’s cutting off your hair and you’re watching it fall into your lap and your head feels heavier than it used to – electric razor pinned against scalp, buzz buzz buzz reverberating against your brain and your hair is back buzzcut / front boy-cut. the glass shows you boy-girl instead of femininity. you sit in the purple room and you know that you have curly eyelashes / pudgy lips / soft features but they still see boy.

LAYLA NAJEEULLAH ’20 2.

3.

03 The Unpardonable Sin by Anya Razmi ’20 04 Roosevelt Hotel by Kate Hickey ’20

88 x

you are in traverse city and the blonde waiter with the black pants asks you what you want and you feel nothing because he calls you sir, you’re sixteen and you aren’t girl enough for him not like your sister whose hair is straight and shoulder-length, she puts highlight on her cheekbones and mascara on her eyelashes, she’s pretty in a girl way. you only ask for a salad, a water, & you don’t even correct him.

you can put on a red sleeveless dress with a low cut and sparkling earrings and shave your legs and put on sandals to make your body more girl but real girls don’t have to dress up to play the part, you know this, femininity isn’t supposed to be a costume. you just don’t want to burn your hair straight anymore you’re tired of it, and you like the way the curls look on you but you still ask the woman in the purple room to make you look like a girl, so she puts six braids in your hair just above your left ear & no one calls you boy ever again

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Erlebnisse (n.)

SHEREEN AHMAD ’22 Being left behind. Going to sleep with the radio on to drown out the yelling. Being held like you’re something precious. Hearing “I’m so proud of you.” Being told that you need a nose job to be pretty. Sacrificing what you want so that someone else can be happy. Realizing that people will truly hate you for something that you cannot control. Looking under the bathroom sink for the bottle of bleach. The validation of feelings and of self. The ache of grief. The taste of a chocolate cake you haven’t had in years. That feeling when you make her laugh. Watching the world pass you by. Living through a haze realizing that you did not deserve what you endured. Being told to speak english ‘cause this is america. Realizing that you’re slowly forgetting your mother tongue. Laughing until your sides hurt, until tears spill from your eyes. The first spring rain. The salty pull of an ocean tide. Singing in the car at the top of your lungs with someone you love. Moving on. Hugging a beloved novel to your chest.

Being aware that you only accept the love you think you deserve. Reading the orange by wendy cope for the first time, savoring the line: “I love you. I’m glad I exist.”

- The experiences, positive or negative, that we feel most deeply

04

VISITATION HOURS – Results From A Blackout Poem ALEX KABAT ’20

if he is to be believed i do not feel that in any way I am too instinctive or intuitive in my trust pay attention to the universal punishment of sin and mysteriously joyful Death that would be differently threatening. he tells me I should not he tells me i should be grateful rather than alone in the house. june 6th it is not a good time to receive any visit.

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x 89

The Word Left It’s remarkable, really, how the sound of a simple word can flood our ears, then send an unpleasant, cold shiver down a weak spine, the feelings of guilt and shame and fear surely to follow. A word that, with or without intention, translates to a bullet, a weapon, an innate source of destruction. So easily. So effortlessly.

One that dares us not to shut our eyes, plug our ears, and lock our doors.

A truly ugly word.

-- I learned the word much earlier than you did. You first saw it, I’m sure, wasting perfectly good headline space plastered across your TV screen as some clueless journalist gestured to graphic photos and shared conspiracy theories.

My first encounter with the word was a photo of a small, newly built mosque about two hours south of my house. The paint still fresh. But even fresher was that word, complicit in an act of vandalism.

--I still listen to people like that. The ones who isolate us and victimize us. Who cover our mouths and turn our homes into battlefields.

Who have this incredible talent of making us feel like monsters by becoming monsters themselves. And in their eyes, it’s not hypocritical; it’s expected. I wish I was strong enough to challenge that. But it’s hard to challenge something I’ve started to believe.

---

Two months later, that word fell from the mouths of two white men sitting in a parked car as my mother and I crossed a familiar yet unsettling street mid-afternoon. It scared me, how they were far more comfortable saying it than I was hearing it. At the time, I couldn’t quite understand whether the word was meant to express hatred and disgust, or to assert some level of unjustified dominance, or simply to point a finger and laugh at a spectacle.

--I didn’t want to be Muslim anymore. God, I hate myself for saying that. I bought into the fallacies spread by the clueless headlines and the amateur graffiti and the dirty-mouthed white men. I can’t quite seem to come up with a decent enough excuse or a valid justification for feeling that way, other than I was scared.

No, it’s far more than that. I was cowardly. And I chose to be that way. They were the monsters, and I was the coward.

--There’s a reason I hate airports. I could blame the bleak interior, or the chilled atmosphere, or some distant, not-so-forgotten, childish fear of cruising at 30,000 feet in a foreign air. No, it was the disturbed looks shot at me and my family during airport security, not only by our fellow passengers, but by the TSA agents themselves. They stared at us, expecting the targets that they had tattooed on our backs to wash away. At first, I felt angry. I stared back until they looked away, emerging victorious.

05

90 x

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Then, I felt guilty. I lowered my gaze, avoided eye contact, never intending to cause any harm or discomfort. For them, at least. Soon enough, it became my normal. I convinced myself that they were just doing their job, their job to keep us safe.

--I did everything to distance myself from that.

And if that meant, becoming a different person, then so be it. My religion presented itself as an opportunity to transform, a new reason to feel scared, an excuse to be a coward.

I don’t wear my hijab until I’m inside the mosque. I refuse to pray in public. I sense hesitation in my own voice before saying Assalamu-Alaikum, a greeting that translates to “peace be upon you.”

--I wish I could give you the ending I deserve. I wish I could tell you that I’m stronger now, that my lost courage had been temporarily misplaced. All I can tell you, though, is that I’m still searching for it. You can call me weak and pathetic and spineless, but at the moment, that’s all I feel like I can be until that word has been erased from our language and from the minds of any person who ever considered using it as a weapon. I’m not delusional. I understand that will never happen. But I will never write that word. I will never give it that power.

ZEHRA ASHRUF ’20

06

forgotten dreams cry when she sleeps MICHELLE DONG ’20

07

MY PLEDGE ELEINA SALGIA ’21 To Myself I pledge allegiance to the flag, Not one of any particular country, But to the pride flag hanging on the wall of my best friend Torn at the edges and hung just slightly crooked, yet remaining intact I pledge allegiance to the sunken hill a ways from my house, The one consumed with crushed soda cans and shattered beer bottles Where if you listen just closely enough, You can almost hear the echoes of laughter bounce off each can I pledge allegiance to the boy who told me he loves me With a scar on his knuckles and his head held in his hands, His hazel eyes shimmer as they entangle with the stars above I pledge allegiance to the necklace that rests on my chest, With a single heart dangling from the rusted chain The same chain that’s worn away and tangled in knots Each knot as a year she moved away I pledge allegiance to myself To the stretch marks painted across my hips And to the scar coloring my right knee And even to the birthmark resting in the center of my nose Here and now, I pledge allegiance To put apologies over slammed doors Laughter over broken promises And forgiveness over silent tears Here and now, I pledge allegiance

05 Obesity by Ellie Banbury ’21 06 Tears by Ryan Brady ’20 07 Skin and Cloth by Hayden Brooks ’20 W W W. H B I N R E T R O S P EC T.CO M

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Guilty

Proven

The Central Park Jogger Case is a criminal case surrounding the brutal beating and rape of a white woman and the wrongfully accused black and Latino boys, also known as the Central Park Five. This case headlined every news and media outlet with everyone weighing in their opinion on the rape investigation. Central to the outcry to the conviction of the Central Park Five was the prosecution’s reliance upon fake evidence.

This fake evidence became a central part of the biased court system when the case relied on forced confessions and misrepresented physical evidence. This intentional targeting of the five boys done by the court system played into the stereotype that people of color are dangerous and suspicious. The court uses this information to generate fear and increase their power and influence over the marginalized and powerless.

The victims are wrongfully convicted based on unreliable evidence and targeted relying on certain stereotypes surrounding their race or social class. This further proves how the court systems made swift and strong verdicts to prove the people of their “guilt” when they truly wanted to prove their dominance over the people. The courts failed to fulfill their duty of protecting the rights of the innocent, more specifically, the marginalized and those considered “racially inferior,” in order to maintain their power structure that benefits only themselves.

It is evident that in the Central Park Jogger Case the five boys were specifically targeted based on their race. Although much of the physical evidence pointed away from the five boys, the prosecuting team still pursued the investigation by forcing the boys to lie in order to support their false narrative. Yusef Salaam, one of the boys who was wrongfully accused of the rape said, “nobody asked who we were. As black and brown people, it’s as if we were born guilty.” (Lee) This demonstrates how the prosecutors used the stereotype “people of color are dangerous” to prove their story as true. They used threats, jumping to conclusions, and pulling past family criminal history to scare the kids into admitting to something they didn’t do. Not only did it frighten the children, but also convinced the boys that the stereotype of them being dangerous

92 x

by Skin Color

was true, which is extremely toxic and proves the biased opinions of the courts. This also demonstrates the corrupt and racist nature of the justice system and how this white power was used to generate suspicion and hate of the black and Latino boys.

In this case, the people who held the power refused to believe anything other than their own view. This exposed both the toxic power structure of the justice system and the closed-mindedness of the elite. For example, Donald Trump, who called for the Central Park Five to be executed because he believes they raped the woman, still is unable to admit he was wrong even after the DNA evidence proved their innocence. When asked about his stance after the evidence was published, Trump stated, “They admitted their guilt. If you look at Linda Fairstein [lead prosecutor] and if you look at some of the prosecutors, they think the city should have never settled that case. So, we’ll leave it at that.” (Rupar) This proves how those who are considered elite are so afraid that admitting their fault will lead to people questioning their credibility. Looking specifically at the language that Trump uses in this statement proves his opinion didn’t come from ignorance, but came from a hatred of those who threatened his power and those who were from a lower class, which in this case was the Exonerated Five. From this quote, it is obvious Trump sides with the prosecuting team and refuses to look at the true evidence because he believes his higher status proves him correct.

When Trump says “they admitted their guilt,” he proves that he is unable to correct his mistakes, which could possibly make Trump lose power, and put aside his biased views to observe the DNA evidence. He was too full of pride to admit his fault when it became apparent when the witch trials were out of hand. Trump called for these innocent boys to be murdered and stood by this even when the true evidence was released because he was afraid of losing power.

The Central Park Five case explores the story of a miscarriage of equity that surrounded the powerless of Salem and Harlem. The prosecution of the Central Park Case not only ignores the

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SOPHIA BEREDO ’21

evidence presented to them but manipulates the evidence in a way that blames the young men of color. This manipulation of evidence played into the already existing false stereotype that people of color are suspicious. This created a dangerous environment for these black and Latino boys who already faced enough discrimination and stereotypes people placed upon them that they became more restricted now than ever. The New York courts played into the narrative that people who were lower class or not white were more likely to participate in criminal activities. The Central Park Case proves that these lessons are still relevant in today’s society in that people of color and low social status are judged and punished by the legal system. This case proves that the people in power will do what it takes to maintain that power and sustain their power structure, even if that means putting innocent people in jail.

WORKS CITED Haas, Saumya Arya. “What Is Voodoo?

Understanding A Misunderstood Religion.”

Huff Post, Huff Post, 25 May 2011, www. huffpost.com/entry/what-is-vodou_b_827947.

Rupar, Aaron. “Trump Still Refuses to Admit He Was Wrong about the Central Park 5.” Vox, Vox, 18 June 2019, www.vox.com/ policy-and-politics/2019/6/18/18684217/ trump-central-park-5-netflix.

Lee, Trymaine. “‘It’s as If We Were Born Guilty’: the Central Park Five.” MSNBC, NBCUniversal News Group, 2 Oct. 2013, http://www.msnbc.com/politicsnation/ its-if-we-were-born-guilty-the-central.

“After The Central Park Five.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, https://www.pbs.org/ kenburns/the-central-park-five/ after-the-central-park-five.

08 XX

08 Bathe by Layla Najeeullah ’20

Time Starts Now “Grab them by the pussy.” These infamous words, spoken by Donald Trump, of course, reverberated through the nation.

From social media platforms to dominating news headlines, “grab them by the pussy” appeared to be Trump’s newest catchphrase. These words, as repulsive as they may be, perfectly illustrate the pervasiveness of rape culture in modern society.

Rape culture is defined as “a concept that links rape and sexual violence to the culture of a society in which prevalent attitudes and practices normalize, excuse, tolerate, and even condone rape.” Rape culture is everywhere. From lingerie advertisement campaigns to Netflix series to our hip hop and rap playlists on Spotify, rape and sexual assault are becoming normalized across the globe. The founder of women’s advocacy foundation UltraViolet, Nita Chaudry, argues that “[platforms] like these are an embodiment of a culture that normalizes sexual harassment and violence against women.” As a result of these skewed ideas, the number of incidents of sexual assault is soaring at an unprecedented rate. According to a study done by the University of New Hampshire, one in every five women is a victim of rape.

Additionally, the stigma surrounding the fabrication of rape and falsely reporting sexual assault have made life even more difficult for survivors. The recent #MeToo and Time’s Up movements have started to shed some light on this issue, but our work is far from over.

Short skirt, tight shirt, little black dress, no underwear – the truth is, it doesn’t matter. No touching, hands off. For some women, the very act of picking out an outfit in the morning is an everyday strife. There is always the fear of being taken advantage of, of being assaulted, raped, worse. There is the fear of going out

HARLEIGH MARKOWITZ ’20

for the night and coming back with your virginity no longer intact. Society loves to assign blame, but clothing is not consent.

During the summer of 2018, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford made headlines when she accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were in high school. On September 27, Dr. Ford courageously testified in front of the Senate and in front of the nation. This was one of the few times America has ever seen rape culture play out right on the Senate floor, and it sparked a controversy that split America in half. Despite her testimony, Brett Kavanaugh was appointed to the United States Supreme Court on October 6, 2018. After the testimony, Representative Kevin Kramer R-ND, referred to the accusations against Kavanaugh as “utterly absurd,” and stated that Dr. Ford’s charges solely amounted to “an attempt of something that never went anywhere.” In other words, Representative Kramer believes that if there was no penetration, there was no crime. Let me be frank. Rape is sexual assault.

Attempted rape is sexual assault. Period. Whether the aggressor succeeded in his intentions is irrelevant. If there was intent, there was an assault, and anyone who believes otherwise is merely perpetuating this epidemic of injustice. We have normalized rape culture and the conduct that accompanies it. We have made excuses for this behavior time and time again. It’s time for a change, and time starts now.

Works Cited Collins, Gail. “What It All Meant.” New York Times. 5 October 2018. Web. “Rape Culture.” University of New Hampshire. 5 December 2018. Web.

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09

RED BLUE REFLECTS OFF BROKEN BODIES. AAMBAR AGARWAL ’21

10

tehran in summer SHEREEN AHMAD ’22

they are fighting in the other room you can hear them, the two sisters with their father motionless between them and you, dear child curl into yourself on the floor eyes glued to the television watching a movie you are too young to understand waiting for it to end longing for the days years ago when there was no yelling, no threats when your mother didn’t cry when the family was happy when you would play ‫ فیثک تفه‬with your cousins until two in the morning eating sweets and drinking tea but that was long ago and you haven’t been back ever since.

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11

self-portrait as my father’s dreams SEJAL SANGANI ’20 child, product of your father’s mouth, doors are only closed because he closed them. empty threats no longer faze you. glass bottles were made to die, anyway. child, lines of disappointment permanently etched on your grandmother’s face, tattoo. you were born with blinders on. he reached one strapping arm into your mother’s vagina and closed your dilating eyes before they ever opened, womb-invader. child, intruders in your flesh prison, you are used to playing house in a body that is not yours. child, astigmatism of painted horizon, you reach for its burning stars and clashing voices barge into defenseless eardrums, you are not going to survive for there is a world above your sky.

09 Kyoto Lanterns by Kate Hickey ’20 10 Instant Radiance by Allison Fritz ’22 11 Shadows and Fog by Hayden Brooks ‘20

it is a shame they have chained your arms to cinder blocks.

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x 95

DRIVING,

EMMA GERBER ’21

DISASTERS, AND OTHER VARIABLES

Before I can remember, I pushed a brightly colored plastic car down the icy sidewalk outside of my house. The car was the kind a toddler like me was supposed to sit in, but I preferred to push it down the sidewalk myself. My grandparents trailed behind, not used to the cold or a toddler who wouldn’t listen. ทำ�ไมเธอไม ่ต ้ องการเข ้ าไป ในรถ, they said. “Why doesn’t she want to get into the car?”

I am in a cemetery, behind the wheel for the first time. My dad, who is sitting in the passenger seat, takes a picture of me. I make a face, and he makes a face back.

I am on the bunny hill at Boston Mills Ski Resort, where I go for middle school ski club.

When I look out from atop a hill, nothing is visible beyond the edge of the resort. No light.

No trees. Nothing. For a minute, I imagine that this is the only place in the entire world that exists—this paradise of endless Katy Perry songs and hot chocolate in Styrofoam cups. A place where frostbitten teenagers go to feel the weight of gravity lifted, to feel the sensation of flying, if only for a moment before they hit the icy ground.

The leather on the wheel feels strangely foreign, and when I put my hands on it, the car seems to breathe. I feel the engine vibrate beneath my feet, the swirl of cold air around my face from the vents, a mechanical ticking echoing from deep within the dashboard. Suddenly, we are rolling forward.

As a cautious middle schooler, I find Boston Mills very frightening: the hills are too big, the people too fast, and the skies a little too dark. I have never skied before in my life, and I’m just not very good at it. “You look like a giraffe on roller skates!” one of my instructors laughs. I just smile.

My ineptitude is magnified by the fact that all of my new private school friends have been skiing their whole lives, off in Vermont or the Alps.

They come in for dinner and tell me about failed flips through the air, catastrophic falls, and getting up again like it’s nothing. I am in awe. It feels like every time I turn, a snowboarder is barreling down the slope with no regard for the red-nosed 11-year-old carefully sliding around.

“The hill is a dangerous place,” I tell my friends.

They all laugh.

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He laughs from the passenger seat. “You can’t kill ‘em if they’re already dead, right?”. I can’t help but laugh too. “It’s true.” I think. Low stakes. At worst, I’ll end up haunted by some ghost from the early 19th century who won’t even know what a car is.

I am seven and lying in the shaded backyard of my best friend Maxine’s house. The grass is aggressively green, enclosed by a little brick wall so that it looks like a swimming pool. To us, it is a pool, and we’re floating on top. Maxine clears her throat, and I know she has something to say.

“Have you heard about natural disasters? I’ve been reading a book from the library about tornadoes. They’re scary,” she says, looking at me seriously through her thick glasses and bushy hair.

“What are those?” I ask curiously, and she looks even more serious.

We go inside, and flip through her book. I tell myself I’m not scared, but for years, every time my mom and I go on vacation, I ask her to do a natural disaster check. Texas: heat waves, droughts. Ecuador: earthquakes, tsunamis. I get my own book about how to prepare for natural disasters. I like to be prepared.

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I am in the car with my dad. It’s dark outside, and the gentle buzz of the car’s engine lulls me to sleep. Light from street lamps pools on the dashboard and the radio plays softly in the background. I think that maybe my dad’s car is the only place I truly feel at home.

I am taking a math test and I can’t focus. I can’t shake the feeling that something is off: my chest doesn’t feel right and my feet are numb. On the page, the numbers are swirling around. I can’t read. My heart beats even faster. I can’t read. My heart beats even faster. I can’t read. My heart beats even faster and I am watching myself from outside of myself. I think I’m going to throw up.

The math test is over, and the world lurches forward as I get out of my seat. I feel like I am no longer controlling my actions; I watch myself walk down the hallway, surrounded by the blurs of shouting people. It’s all too much.

I am on my way to Chicago, and I am using my time in the car to finish online driving school.

It’s nice to do driving school in a car. You can actually see it all in front of you: a real-life application.

I’ve reached my favorite chapter: Chapter 8, “How to Deal with Situations Where Things Go Wrong.” I learn about what to do if your brakes stop working, if you get stuck on the railroad tracks, if your car catches on fire. I memorize the details. I write down the steps. Instantly, I am transported back in time to that day of talking about natural disasters with Maxine. I look back at my computer screen.

I like to be prepared.

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lines of disappointment permanently etched on your face, tattoo.

SEJAL SANGANI ’20

12 S hades of Gray are Colors Too

by Suzy Schwabl ’22

I am driving through a neighborhood right next to my own, where the streets are long and there aren’t many cars. To my dad’s dismay, it is about the only place I am willing to drive anymore.

We round the corner and I see a long street, with cars parked back to back on the left side. I’m halfway down the street when a car whips around the corner at the end of the road. It should pull over, but it enters my lane. Suddenly, we’re face to face. No one can get past; there’s not enough space. All I can feel is the rolling of the car beneath me. My legs feel too short to reach the pedals, and it’s all too much. I’ve entered into a modern-day metallic jousting match and all I can think is that I want to go home.

My dad says something about trying to make room, but I’m panicking. I feel the bump of the wheel going up onto the curb, and somehow the car manages to get past.

I try not to show it on the outside, but I feel like I have just survived some sort of tragedy. It’s melodramatic, but I don’t care. I feel like a tornado just came through and somehow, I am alive.

I am alive, and I don’t want that to change.

I’m on a slope with Maxine, who’s taken a day off of flipping around the double-black-diamond hills to help me ski. It’s dinner time and everyone

is inside. Max watches me carefully make my C-turns down the hill, stopping after each one.

The snow hits my face softly, and for the first time I understand why people like skiing. It’s almost peaceful. Maxine swoops gracefully down beside me, laughing.

I laugh too, for no reason. I turn back into another C-turn. Out of nowhere, a skier races down the hill. He doesn’t turn. He gains speed every second. We’re going to crash, and I don’t know how to stop.

In my head it’s a math problem—I’m a parabola.

He’s a line. If I go x mph and he goes 3x mph, at what seconds(t), will we collide? I can only watch, terrified, waiting. Maxine yells, but I can’t hear. At the last second, I dive into the snow-packed hill, sliding across the ground. I stop just before he rushes by.

Maxine glides over to help me up, and she waits for me while I walk down the hill.

“You can’t control what people do,” she says, like it’s a fact of life. Somehow, she’s not afraid.

I am in the driver’s seat of my dad’s car. It is the same neighborhood I have walked through for fourteen years, the same car I have sat in every day on the long drives to my dad’s house. The radio plays softly in the background, but I’m not listening. I’m hearing the engine vibrate beneath

my feet, the swirl of cold air around my face from the vents, a mechanical ticking echoing from somewhere deep within the dashboard.

Suddenly, it’s all too loud. There are too many cars. The roads are too short. It’s a game, and I have to be perfect. Always. After fifteen minutes, it’s too much. I pull over and throw up into the grass.

I am in physics class, and we are doing a problem. “If I am going x mph and he is going 3x mph, at what seconds(t), will we collide?” I like Physics. It’s predictable.

“At what seconds(t), will they collide?”

“Will they collide?”

They will collide, I think. They must.

At the front of the classroom, my teacher is trying to waste time.

“How many of you can drive?” Nearly everyone raises their hand. I do not. All eyes turn to me.

I gulp and look around at the other girls in my class. They know I’m old enough. Their glares feel accusatory, but I have no answer. I look down, silently, and finish doing the problem.

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warm flooding light, pulls into darkness OLIVIA GIDLOW ’21

If You Don’t Come Back This Time

14

HARLEIGH MARKOWITZ ’20

If I don’t come back this time …

It’s because I slipped through the trap doors of my mind.

Welcome to hell, where we worship death and fear life.

I’m so sorry for your loss.

You were my lighthouse, my livelihood.

I was a wanderer, prisoner to the things I could not change.

I was a hustler, I ran too far too fast, but you were the light that always brought me home.

A particle in motion, I was a binary soul.

You were my good.

You bridged living with being alive.

I’m so sorry for your loss.

I love you.

Goodbye.

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ABBY POULOS ’20

Wind

Me and the ~~~ 1 ~~~ Wind blowing through my hair, unforgiving wind with one purpose, to tangle my clothes, my eyes, my life, my breath. Stinging, screaming reckless air, a phenomenon. The perceptible natural movement of the air, especially in the form of a current of air blowing from a particular direction. Natural. I live with the wind stinging my eyes and cracking my skin. My throat is closed by the wind. My voice is hushed by the screams.

Blowing, blowing, pushing, throwing, screaming, the wind surrounds me. I’m swept away.

~~~ 2 ~~~

Eighteen years ago I was born to cool calm air.

Soft breath and baby hiccups, the air was my source of life and my beautiful comfort.

A year ago the air turned rough and unforgiving.

My once steady feet rocked, rocked, and rocked, and rocked until I could stand no longer. I succumbed to the wind. I cried as the fast air cut my eyes.

Irises turned black and unforgiving. Any hope to lift myself up dissolved. Wind blew over my face, pushing, and pushing, and pushing, and screaming. I stared blankly as it threw my body across the concrete.

I succumbed to the wind. ~~~ 3 ~~~ The hallways were filled with wind.

The stairs, the bathrooms, the closets, the tables dissolved to wind.

I performed on stages of wind.

Glasses filled halfway with wind, forks picking up burnt pieces of wind.

Girls talking tongues, wind screeching from their mouths.

The wind is hell.

Hell is the wind.

I am the wind, I am hell. ~~~ 4 ~~~ My room is calm this morning. I awake to the wind in a chair across from my bed, staring at me. I smile. I wave to the wind and close my eyes as it pushes me through the day.

It’s less destructive now.

I know its flight path.

I know where to breathe. I know where to hold my breath.

I am not the wind. I am not hell.

I hold hands with both on either side, and smile at each.

I have seen, and have seen, and have seen, and have seen I can heal and I can change. My chest can breathe again, used to being strangled.

Happiness grows from pain. Fear flows as irresistible as gravity, as rain, as love, but today I see only flowers and calm air. ~~~ 5 ~~~

Then my feet. And ankles.

The wind must howl. Children must laugh.

Forget tomorrow, forget yesterday, forget space and time, and forget the ways you have felt.

Every look is not a rumor. Everything is everything and everyone is everyone, how can they be blamed for existing?

My chest was worst of all, raging wind, hurricanes perched against my heart.

I am the wind. I am hell. I am everything at once.

I want to go home. I cried over the screams of air.

Like a falling leaf, I have become comfortable with reckless spinning. The blur of space and time is poetic, it becomes harder to see their faces. And I like that.

I wrote in old windy books poetic cries of wind.

My fingers turned to wind.

This is not home. This is hell. Was hushed by the sound.

I look out my window to trees falling over and cars flung across the street.

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15

Like Real People Do IAN SOBOLEWSKI ’20

15 My Contact Sheet by Diana Malkin ’20

Deep within the midlands of Ireland, there are places untouched by time but touched instead by legend. Sometimes the mud swallows you.

inspired something deep within them. It’s not as if Ailill could remember their life, but they do say that music transcends memory.

Ailill sat on the wooden porch swing, their left knee occasionally scratching against the raw grain of the armrest as the wind blew and the swing rocked. They rested their chin on their other knee which was upright, hugging their torso. It may have looked like they were trying to protect their body from the cold, but to those who knew Ailill, it was clearly a position chosen to comfort their thoughts.

Ailill’s thoughts steadied with the sound of the muted guitar. Ailill knew nothing of who they were before, but after, the only thing they knew was Enda. Enda was the one that dug them up.

He dug Ailill up over a hundred years after they were buried. Being unburied gives you life.

Ailill reached their hand out to look at it. They turned it over so it was palm up. Ailill’s yellow eyes pierced through the sinews of their sub-human flesh. They put their hand down and stared forward, almost devoid of emotion.

It had rained last night. The ground was still wet.

The leaves retained tiny puddles which were inclined to blow off in the wind. Sometimes these puddles blew at Ailill, who was surprisingly unflinching.

As the weather picked up, the wind itself seemed to sing. Ailill breathed in deeply yet shallow and slow and just listened.

From behind the splintered walls of the cabin, the tune of a plucked guitar sounded. Ailill allowed themself to feel comfort from the soft melody. Enda often played those old folk tunes Ailill liked so much only because he knew they

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Ailill’s mind unintentionally drifted back to that night—their first memory—the look on Enda’s face. It looked sad, fearful, hopeless. Not horrified, not disgusted. Only lost and beyond saving. Sometimes Ailill saw this look when Enda thought they weren’t looking. Sometimes Ailill caught a glimpse of this look in the mirror.

This time, something else entirely troubled Ailill. For the first time, Ailill asked.

“I had a thought dear, however scary, about that night— the bugs and the dirt, Why were you digging? What did you bury, before those hands pulled me from the earth?”

The thought of an answer chilled Ailill more than the wind ever could.

“I will not ask you where you came from. I will not ask and neither should you.”

It scared Ailill because they were both so young still— both barely 19. Who buried Ailill all

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those years ago? What was their beloved Enda doing in the bog with that look on his face?

Enda made Ailill feel alive. He made them feel human. Not like a product of decades spent buried in the bogs. When Enda wasn’t there, Ailill hated themself. There was a truth there that they didn’t want to see. There were no signs of struggle on young Ailill’s body. Sometimes the mud’s victims are simply victims of themselves.

“I knew that look dear—eyes always seeking. ‘Was there in someone that dug long ago. So I will not ask you why you were creeping. In some sad way, I already know.”

More scary to Ailill than the thought that they were a sub-human product of the works of the bog was the thought of what might’ve happened to Enda had they not been there. What if Enda would’ve stopped just meters before Ailill did all those years ago?

At that moment, the wind caught Ailill’s attention for the second time that hour. The wind blew away all the troubles and all the memories as it sang a beautiful harmony to accompany Enda’s. Ailill let out a long breath, settling their tense body.

These questions were those which should not be asked, and they will not be—at least not while the wind still sings in the midlands of Ireland.

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Amongst the Bubbles by Maddy Bryan ’23

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The interstitium encompasses the contiguous spaces between the barriers of your body.

Each one of you occupies a valuable space on this planet, together filling the once hollow areas of our community.

Interstitium

KASHMIR

Let’s Talk About

1947 marked the end of British rule in India and the splitting of the previously joined subcontinent into a majority Muslim Pakistan and a majority Hindu, but secular, India. Following tribal attacks from Pakistan on the small kingdom of Kashmir, the Maharaja (king) signed a treaty of accession with India for security. War immediately broke out between India and Pakistan over the region. Over 70 years later, with the meantime interspersed with conflicts with China, Pakistan, and Kashmiri leaders over this region, in the early morning hours of August 5, 2019, the Indian government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially revoked Article 370 from the Indian Constitution, the statute which had previously granted Kashmir autonomy.

With this change in legislation coming amid sudden Indian aggression in the region, the Guardian released an editorial late Sunday afternoon, just under a week later, entitled, “The Observer’s View on India’s aggression

02

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SHRUTHI RAVICHANDRAN ’21 over Kashmir.” The authors discuss how India’s recent actions toward Kashmir make peace seem something of an impossible prospect. While I agree with the conjecture that Modi’s actions are sudden and don’t seem to be “peace-positive,” I take issue with the presentation of the Indian government’s actions and the fact that it doesn’t seem to be treated as the incredibly complex issue that it is. This article shows the underlying western double-standard of their evaluations of non-western governments and the prolonging remnants of imperialism’s ugly past.

I agree with the editorial’s presentation of the current situation. It is clear that Modi has taken drastic action that does not seem to move toward peace. More specifically, he has “[subverted] the constitution, [ignored] India’s Simla obligation to ensure that the ‘principles and purposes’ of the UN charter govern relations with Pakistan, and [removed] Kashmiris’ right to self-governance.” The authors also note that by continuing his hardline policies, he only creates more issues for himself and for those around him. Brash control of Kashmir is not going to make Pakistan back down in any way and will not create the sense of “one-ness” Modi is supposedly trying to create in his “New India.” As the writers explain, “more likely, it will lead to political resistance across the board, escalating confrontation and the exploitation of tensions by violent extremists on both sides.”

Politics does not happen in a vacuum and political actions cannot be holistically evaluated without taking in the social and historical context. This is where I take issue with the Guardian’s editorial. Let this be clear: I’m not justifying Modi’s actions in any way. His moves are undeniably radical and the sudden crackdown on Kashmir doesn’t seem to be moving toward peace anytime soon. But, it’s important to note that the conflict over Kashmir does not begin with Modi or with Imran Khan, the prime minister of Pakistan. It is just a small part of the ugly remnants left behind by the British post-colonialism.

India-Pakistan tensions stem from even farther back to 1526, marking the beginning of the Mughal

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02 Red by Zuha Jaffar ’21 03 Walnut Drive Gardens by Kate Hickey ’20 04 Fine Food by Kate Hickey ’20

Empire’s rule in India with Babar. India has not forgotten the cruel usurpation of their native lands by the Mughals, nor is it likely to anytime soon. So, when a politician who seems to prioritize “Hindu values” comes to power, compared to his secular and much more “white-washed” (in the public eye) predecessors, the support is understandable.

04

We’ve seen Modi take a strong position on what he calls the creation of “New India.” This past year is littered with examples of an observed attempt to revert India to its Hindu past: for example, the changing of Allahabad’s name back to Prayag, as it was pre-Mughal times, over 435 years ago.

What Modi (or any other right-wing leader for that matter) doesn’t seem to take into account is that it is physically impossible to revert to the India of before. While I understand that it’s an effort to reclaim something they feel was stripped from them centuries ago (maybe even justifiably), this is no way to go about it. Peace relies on acceptance of the past and forgiveness.

The editorial doesn’t touch on any of this and this lack of discussion around the past creates even more of a divisive environment. It furthers the sentiment of people not actually listening to others or their backgrounds, but instead making decisions based on face-value. The board writes, “If this [Modi’s policies] sounds familiar, it should. This is the dog-eat-dog world created by Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and copycat ultra-nationalist ‘strongman’ leaders.” While this is true, this evaluation fails to take into account decades of strife and conflict between India and Pakistan and between Hindus and Muslims in the region.

Modi’s ideas are eerily similar to those of Trump. But, where Trump is a billionaire with pockets full of empty rhetoric, Modi’s grassroots beginning appeals to many rural Hindus who feel they’ve been deprived of something by previous politicians who were much more secular. None of this is accounted for in the article, and I feel this is a flawed approach to evaluating the current situation.

Moving forward, India and Modi need to realize that we cannot live in a world trying to revert back to an earlier time. History progresses forward, and so should we. Military action and aggressive policies toward Kashmir are not productive and won’t offer any long-term solution. But when evaluating the situation, it’s critical that the history and the sensitivity of the subject are taken into account. Nothing ever happens in a vacuum and I personally believe that such conflicts and tensions would be eased if everyone took a moment to understand where each other were coming from.

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05 rosy by Hiba Daud ’21 06 Sapa Landscape by Hayden Brooks ’20 07 Maze of Houses by Kaila Morris ’22

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LE TT ER OF RE COM M EN DAT ION:

R IDING THE SCHOOL BUS ZUHA JAFFAR ’21

It’s much too early in the morning to be awake. Light floods the sky, shining onto my face, but I continue to squint just to marvel at the bottoms of clouds burnished with golden paint. Cold air surrounds me, but I barely notice. I’m busy listening to whatever music is play ing too loud in my headphones, thinking abou t ever y possible thing I can, and letting it fill up the early silence. The sound of the heater is in the back grou nd as I feel hot air tight ly hugg ing my body. I lay my head on my backpack and keep gazing at the sky.

School is final ly over. The sound of laughter echoes, a sound drastical ly different compare d to the morning’s tranquility. It’s impossible to listen to music, as someone is always talking to the other. The atmo sphere is overcrowded with fathomless conversat ions, but they seem to disappear, as I talk to my frien ds. It’s on this bus that I grow closer with them, where friendships are strengthened despite the incredibly bumpy ride.

I travel from the west to the east side of the city, a ride that lasts about an hour and a half.

Sometimes, when life proves to be too much, I shut out the noises with my own contemplations of the world. I’m alon e and as my head pounds (most likely from my deafenin g music) and all my overbearing thoughts are bouncing around in my brain, the veiled charm of my city helps me forget ever ything else. The bus takes a unique route in which I’ve encountered sights I wou ld never see if I drove, the hidden beauties of my city.

I’ve passed by mysterious graffiti pain ted on withered build ings and spent months trying to decipher what they say, who made the amazing art, and why it’s there. We drive by dow ntow n ever y morning, the build ings look more like mere shadows amongst the sky drenched with orange and purple dyes, a silhouette of my home. Past dow ntow n, dark trees poke the sky, the veins of nature.

We pass by the same smal l gas stati ons, Shaker Squa re, 24-hour diners, dwa rfish furniture shops and spas ever y day. The only thing that changes are the faces of the people who are walk ing to school or play ing with their dog or simply smok ing their problems away. And even though my head may be pounding, I love this solit ude more than anything. It is on this bus that I am not only able to unea rth this city’s concealed gems, but also observe humanity.

Besides the heal ing moments of lettin g myself comprehend the world and this life, most of all, I owe my most tight-knit friendships to the bus.

I have come to be closer with these people than any of my other friends.

Instead of dreading the long ride hom e, I look forward to

being with my friends for an hour, talki ng about ever ything on our minds.

A few years ago, the day before wint er brea k, I sat on the bus with a dozen other people. Our voices were saturated with excitement, a sort of warmth that comes with the release of stress from school and the buzz of the holidays.

Soft Christmas music flowed from the radio, which is barely ever on. What we talked abou t escapes my mind, all I know is that we were incapable of stopping. We were glow ing amongst the drea ry winter, a light that wou ld never dim. Countless simi lar experienc es wou ld continue.

These friendships are what I’ll miss the most from high school, the ones that will last the long est.

The school bus strengthens friendshi ps and shows off my gorgeous city, but most importantly, it holds memories that we may forget with each passing year. It knows its people more than we know ourselves . It has seen ever yone at their lowest and their high est, moments we don’t even remember. It contains a histo ry like no other, one of ever y person who has used it to reach home or school. It absorbs ever y important poin t in our lives, like the feelings of anxiety and despair on the first day of school to the electrified joy on the last day. The bus soak s up all the gossip spilled out of our mou ths, the drama from school that we think will neve r end. It watches us grow into the people we become. Seei ng a school bus doesn’t just remind us of school, but the feelings and emotions we felt grow ing up, and how we all changed. It is the most powerfu l symbol of our youth, one that reminds us of ever y piece of our lives that was once important to us. The nostalgia of our adolescence is deeply embedded into its dark , leath er seats, and no other objects carry these sentiments.

The school bus isn’t high-class. It is actually quite hideous. It’s giant, loud, and its gros s mustard color is sickeningly conspicuous among the sea of grey and black cars it drives through. It makes a ridic ulous number of stops, forcing ever yone to wake up earlier than needed to get to school. When you drive your self to school, you have to focus on the road. You don’ t have time to let yourself get lost in your thoughts. You can’t sleep. The friendships that can be strengthened on a bus can’t happen when you’re driving alone and busy, only paying attention to the road. But whether I am alone or chat tering away with friends, in an ocean of chaos when the world expels cold air and fear, lies the embrace of the warm golden light dripping from unde r the clouds. I know that in the endless mess of our conf using child hoods, the school bus is a have n, reminding us of our innocent, untroubled youth.

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08 The Touch of a Hand is the Touch of a Heart by Suzy Schwabl ’22 09 Listen Up by Kate Hickey ’21

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09

AUDRIANNA IMKA ’22

&

Childhood Friends The Trials of Friendship The following poems are inspired by William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience

Childhood Friends

The Trials of Friendship

You met on the swingset On a crisp autumn day One of you asked the other If they’d like to play This simple request Was never denied As all children of this age Are innocent and kind

The older we get The less love we give No longer are we Allowed to just live We have responsibilities A long list of tasks We are too afraid to admit we need help Let alone ask Our facades become colder As the days go by Scrapes and bruises Aren’t the only reasons we cry That friendship that you had In elementary school Has now unraveled Faster than thread on a spool Lies have been told And rumors have been spread But neither of you Can get the other out of your head You have made new friends And sure, you have fun Being wild teenagers On the run But there is anger and hatred Drama and harsh words As through each school year You keep pushing onwards But every once in a while You remember the girl With the freckles on her cheeks And the twisted brown curls Although no friendship will ever equate You are grateful for your unforgettable playmate

You laughed and played On the monkey bars and swings Enjoying all That a true friendship brings Never tried and never tested You played with each other every day Never a doubt in either mind That the other would stay Any quarrel you may have had Lasted no more than a moment It was impossible to be The other’s opponent Your childish mind Would never understand How valuable it was To have this sort of friend

Bittersweet ZOE NELSON ’23

A dark whisper Plum-stained saliva Drips from malicious lips A secret Gift-wrapped in a shiny threat Don’t tell Those delicious syllables Spill into the innocent ear Rape the strawberries into plums.

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RACISM IS. Af f i r m a t i ve Ac t i o n I s n’ t t h e P ro b le m .

My parents tell me not to fill in the “race” bubble. This is not because they want me to be ashamed of my heritage, but because they worry that my being Asian will hold me back during college admissions. Their concerns are certainly legitimate: a Princeton study found that during admissions to top colleges, being Asian was equivalent to a loss of 50 SAT points.

Shocking statistics like this have many blaming affirmative action policies at top colleges for the “Asian disadvantage,” including an organization called Students For Fair Admissions (SFFA), which filed a lawsuit in 2014 against Harvard accusing the school of discriminatory admissions practices and is advocating for an end to race-based affirmative action. The case is currently being heard by the Supreme Court. Edward Blum, the leader of SFFA, wrote an article for The Washington Post last year explaining his stance on the issue. While he rightly asserts that current affirmative action policies are problematic, his proposed solution fails to address the real issue: racism.

Blum is absolutely right that there are problems with Harvard’s admissions system. In his article, he cites the context in which “holistic” admissions practices were adopted at Harvard in the 1920s, which was to find a way to artificially limit the number of Jewish students admitted, as evidence of this, and argues that a similar rhetoric is being used against Asian Americans in Harvard’s affirmative action policies now. As the court case unfolds, it’s become apparent that this is true. As The Washington Post reported on June 15th 2018, years of admissions data showed that Harvard consistently ranked Asians worse than their peers on personality traits such as “likeability,” “kindness,” having a “positive personality,” and being “widely respected.” At the same time, many were described as “busy and bright,” but “similar” to other applicants.

The prevalence of the “model minority” Asian stereotype is insultingly obvious in these personality ratings, and I find it incredibly hard to believe that this worker-bee personality was a true trend among all Asian applicants to Harvard. Coupled with court documents that show that Asians were consistently admitted at rates less than their white peers and were outperformed as a group only on the personality rating, all the evidence points to the same racist rhetoric and artificial racial quotas that Blum noted in the case of Jewish students in nearly a century ago.

Blum is also right that this issue isn’t unique to present-day Harvard. As the Asian American Law Journal noted, the model minority stereotype has a history dating back to the 1970s, when policymakers used the stereotype to argue that Asian Americans should not benefit from affirmative action policies, even though in reality Asian Americans were underrepresented in many fields. These racist conversations clearly affected college admissions policies. Blum noted that the percentage of Asian students at Harvard remained stable from 1992 to 2013, even as the number of Asian applicants increased disproportionately. The problem isn’t unique to Harvard, either; according to Blum, similar trends can be seen at other Ivy League schools. The issue has grown so much that some people have begun hiding their Asian identities on their

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L. YU ’20

applications; in 2015, the Boston Globe reported that college counselors advised Asian students to improve their chances of admission to top colleges by “appearing less Asian” (i.e. avoiding mentioning their heritage in admissions essays, pursuing non-stereotypical extracurriculars, and expressing interest in a non-STEM major).

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11 10 Flower Hmong Woman on Market Day

by Hayden Brooks ’20 11 Lantern Way by Angela Yu ’21

Worse still, this advice actually seemed to work. This further proves that the Asian disadvantage has grown to the point where individuals have already started taking extreme measures to mitigate it. In fact, I’ve even heard students from my school saying that they would write “white” as their race instead of “Asian,” just to get a better chance at attending their dream school. This is simply outrageous. That a student who has worked their hardest to get into our country’s most prestigious school should hide their identity in fear of racial discrimination is an insult to the very idea of modern democracy in the United States.

Knowing that this is a big problem, the next step is to ask: what can be done to solve it? Blum’s answer is that the very idea of race-based affirmative action is the cause of the problem, and to solve this, colleges should adopt color-blind policies and use need-based affirmative action instead. While this sounds good in theory, Blum’s plan falls short in reality.

It is impossible for race to not be a factor in college admissions. A student’s race has affected their life, and is likely an important part of their identity.

It seems harsh to force students to hide such an important aspect of who they are, especially when their race could be guessed or assumed based on their name or on the content of their essay. Also, Blum’s argument for need-based affirmative action uses the same rhetoric as pro-affirmative action arguments. Both are based on the fact that certain groups have fewer opportunities and that we should help reduce this inequality. Lack of money affects a student’s ability to attend a well-funded school, get tutoring, and participate in certain extracurriculars. Racial bias affects a student’s ability to live in a good school district, be assigned to an effective teacher, and get accepted into gifted programs (Darling-Hammond). If both income and race affect a student’s opportunities, shouldn’t both be accounted for in a fair admissions process?

Most importantly, Blum’s perspective fails to take into account the societal implications of the issue. The idea of affirmative action was originally created to promote racial equality. I have no problem with this idea. In fact, I applaud this idea. My real problem with affirmative action is the fact that policies claim to help racial minorities, but in reality have always excluded Asian Americans. My problem with affirmative action is that it’s a lie. If affirmative action was really trying to help alleviate oppression, why would it hurt me? Is “Asian” not a minority? Am I not underrepresented in Congress (Lyons)? Am I not underrepresented in film (Bahr)? Am I not the least likely to be promoted to management (Gee, Peck)? Was there never a Chinese Exclusion Act? Were there never Japanese internment camps? Were Filipinos never arbitrarily stripped of their citizenship? The list can go on forever, but one thing is definite: Asian Americans are in no way the “model minority” we have been portrayed as. If our society really wants to undo the effects of years of discrimination and oppressive legislation, efforts for equality have to

actually embody this goal, not just give lip service. Organizations need to be held accountable for promoting real diversity, where the definition of diversity includes Asian Americans. Only then can we even begin to work toward real racial equality.

WORKS CITED Bahr, Lindsey. “People Want To See More Diversity In Movies, But It’s Not Happening Fast Enough”. Business Insider, 2018.

Blum, Edward. “Harvard’s Discrimination against Asian Americans Must End.” The Washington Post, 8 Aug. 2017.

Darling-Hammond, Linda. “Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education.”

Brookings Review, 22 Mar. 1998.

Espenshade, Thomas J. et al. “Admission Preferences For Minority Students, Athletes, And Legacies At Elite Universities*”.

Social Science Quarterly, vol 85, no. 5, 2004, pp. 1422-1446. Wiley, doi:10.1111/j.0038-4941.2004.00284.x.

Gee, Buck, and Denise Peck. “Asian Americans Are The Least Likely Group In The U.S. To Be Promoted To Management”. Harvard Business Review, 2018.

Guillermo, Emil. “When History Repeats: What Leaders Can Learn From Anti-Asian Laws In U.S. History”. NBC News, 2018.

Hartocollis, Anemona. “Harvard Rated Asian-American Applicants Lower on Personality Traits, Suit Says.” The New York Times, 15 June 2018.

Lee, Sharon S. “The De-Minoritization of Asian Americans: A Historical Examination of the Representations of Asian Americans in Affirmative Action Admissions Policies at the University of California.” Asian American Law Journal at Berkeley Law, Jan. 2008.

Little, Becky. “Why the DOJ Is Suing Colleges on Behalf of White Students.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, www.history.com/ news/the-landmark-supreme-court-case-that-upheld-affirmative-action Lyons, Joseph. “A Staggering Percentage Of Staffers Who Work For House Lawmakers Are White”. Bustle, 2018.

“To Get Into Elite Colleges, Some Advised to ‘Appear Less Asian.’”

Boston Globe, 31 May 2015.

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12

CO EXIST ENCE

ABBY POULOS ’20

I didn’t realize how much I value the combination of coexistence, individuality, and respect until both my siblings went to college, and my once prevalent independence was lessened with my parents’ new focus on me. I pretty much flew under the radar as a child, being the youngest to two very loving but somewhat overpowering siblings. With divorce, death, and high demanding jobs on my parents’ plates, I grew up an individual. I mastered the art of dealing with things myself, and I found I live content in moments of perfect silence and understanding. It’s not that I feel or have felt neglected or don’t value connection, I am the exact opposite, actually.

My family is the most important thing in my life, and their love and acceptance means more to me than anything in the world, and the individual connections I have with each member are all beautiful in their own unique way. I feel strong with a sense of community surrounding me, and I understand that the connection I feel to one isn’t compromised with my individuality, it’s deepened. I think that connection comes through respect, and respect comes through acknowledging and valuing someone’s unique individual life experience.

Coexistence, individuality, and respect; these three things conjoined are my core. They tie into my relationship with my family, my friends, the earth, and the people around me. I’ve learned that no one human is the same, everyone was dealt a different set of cards at birth and faces myriad obstacles trying to navigate through life, so I try to be accepting and understanding of everyone. When it gets hard to keep this in mind, I remember advice my school’s diversity chair gave me on how to have conversations with people who completely disrespect you. “Just breathe,” she would tell me, just breathe and remember they are human too. She taught me a lot when it came to life, but especially in my work with social justice. Everyone is human, so just breathe. I have found that this philosophy of coexistence easily gets lost along the way for some.

Social justice should stem out of positivity, and we should make each other better with our understanding of each other. We all deserve to lay content in coexistence until we violate it ourselves. I learned as a child how important it is to see someone as an individual, but as I’ve grown I’ve learned to see an individual as one who is connected to and affected by the roots of our society. Everyone is different, everyone is complicated, and everyone deserves respect until they show you otherwise. We all breathe and think and are connected within our humanity, but we all lay within contrasting contexts and differing circumstances. I believe that coexistence is the most important aspect of living, and the key to making our world better within our understanding.

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Yet we all feel so

ALONE. MUNA AGWA ’23

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12 Love Locks by Angela Yu ’21 13 Times Square Theater

by Kaisal Shah ’21 14 Paris by Anna Banyard ’22

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15

My favorite smell in the entire world has to be the smell of antique books. The worn-out pages, mixed with dust and age, give off a scent most often found in vintage shops and stands. I first discovered my love for old books through my father, who kept a library of them down in our basement. I had dismissed the idea of collecting vintage novels as a silly thought, thinking that one had to spend thousands of dollars to collect old books. In fact, it was the complete opposite. Libraries, local book shops, and websites sold these old books for often as low as a couple of dollars. I bought my very first vintage book for only $5, a children’s book from 1881. I looked inside the cover and found an inscription on the first page. It read, “Ethel M. Van Dorn, November, 25th, 1903” in perfect Edwardian cursive. This made me realize that I not only loved the old book smell and the idea of the book itself being old, but I also loved the stories behind them.

I went all around Cleveland, browsing through old books at various shops, and taking home the ones with inscriptions in them. The history behind these people intrigued me to an extent where I took up the hobby of exploring the lives of these people. I would look through the public US censuses, national archives, and birth and death certificates. Some of these people were traceable; others were lost to oblivion and history. I wanted to know about the past lives that these

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15 Black and White Book by Amy Howarth ’20

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books had lived, and how it differed from today’s society.

When I research an antique book, I first examine the inscription (if there is one). Then I make sure to check what year the book was published, and if it is a first or second edition. Then I do some research on the author. For example, I was so fascinated when I found Ethel’s name inside the cover that I immediately started looking through the national archives, US censuses and family genealogy. I spent hours going through information from around the time of 1903. Finally, I found a clue in the 1910 census.

Ethel was born in November of 1895, lived in the suburb of Cleveland Heights, married twice (in 1914 and 1920) and had one son in 1916. I predicted that since she got the book in 1903 and the book was published in 1881, that maybe it had been her mother’s passed down to her. I was just thrilled that I could finally put a name to the face.

How can we take the lessons of history and implement it to the modern world? How can we take the benefits of the past and apply them to help and love everyone? It’s strange to think that Ethel’s novel had seen the horrors of both World Wars, the Russian Revolution, the Great Depression and everyday life from 1881. But it gives us a glance into the past. The answers to many of our questions don’t exist yet, but I want to help my generation come closer to finding that answer.

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Head in the Clouds by Caroline Cannon ’21

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Your brain is held together by the neural network that fires information back and forth.

Seek clarity in the junctions that bind us together, synapse.

Neuron

Mysteries of Life Not just the ocean holds the mystery of life Not just the land Not just the sky How does a songbird sing the perfect pitch?

Why does the melody end when the song is done?

These things should not be pondered, but There is one thing to ponder.

If everyone around me are noble lions, Never hungry from hunting at daybreak, Then I am the quiet mouse.

No, not even the quiet mouse, For I do not feel like a mouse.

When I have been released from the chains of society When I have deleted the filter that covers my face When I have ripped off the mask When I have stopped carrying my image Dropping the massive weight When I have raised my self-esteem up like Atlas carries the world, I think I am an owl.

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ALLISON FRITZ ’22

Typically seen as wise.

However, not all owls are wise.

And I am never always wise.

When I think of this my heart falls into the abyss of sorrows And I bite my lip, trying to think of what I can do.

It’s not much.

Even though everyone says no one is perfect, I do not see it that way.

Everyone has the most admirable qualities, everyone is strange and wonderful at the same time.

Except me.

And then there are other times.

I am able to think back to all the times I have shed a smile, and think of what I’ve done.

And I think that there is a way, even amid the mysteries of life.

It’s almost like looking through a tunnel.

I just wish I could hurry out of the tunnel already.

After all, I am certainly not a rabbit or a mole.

02

A Poetic Endeavor

HANNAH BASALI ’20

I never considered myself a writer or poet. I was well aware of my strengths as an academic writer in historic and scientific terms, but I refused to allow myself to explore creative writing. Quite honestly I felt that, as a competitive dancer, I already had a creative means in which to “express myself.” I considered it unnecessary to explore another sect of self expression, especially one in which I did not consider myself particularly talented. However, this entire method of thought disappeared after I attended the Young Writers and Artists Festival at my school.

I understood that this poetry workshop was truly unique to a high school experience, but this did not stop me from dreading “opening up my mind” for two full days instead of getting a day off of school and having my weekend free. Truly, I walked into my poetry workshop with an emotional barrier built that I was certain the leader would not be able to crack, and I was strangely proud of my headstrong nature. I would continue to write academically and rig the system by manipulating my work to sound poetic in nature without revealing anything deeply personal.

At the time, my non-writer self was still completing a writing center designation. Though this commitment seemed strange in hindsight, I was involved in the school newspaper and had already learned to embrace journalistic writing, so it seemed natural to make this commitment official. I viewed the poetry and creative writing aspects of the designation as the unnecessary additions, and I had to complete a writing community course as well as attend the Young Writers and Artists Festival: a workshop that world-renowned poets led for my school’s students and others in the Cleveland area.

I could not have been more incorrect. In just two days my writing grew an unfathomable amount, and I finally understood the power of poetry and creative writing on one’s psyche. The poetry workshop leader pushed me far beyond my limits as a writer and a thinker. I learned to write from the inside and invoke my previous writing skills in an incredibly different setting. I wrote poetry about an array of subjects including my competitive dance team, a coffee stain in a Venetian cafe, my trip to Japan, my relationship with my father, and my status as the youngest sibling. Each of these poems expanded the breadth of my poetic writing and helped me discover the power of my own written word.

03

Since my first Young Writers and Artists Festival, I have worked immensely on my poetry as both a creative writing tool and a means of self-expression and understanding. I am incredibly grateful that I learned the power I hold as a poet: a title I never thought I would hold. Through poetry and creative writing, I learned that I am capable of far more than I ever expected. I broke down barriers that I unwittingly imposed on myself. I discovered my power as a poet, creative writer, and simply as a human being. Poetry has allowed me to reach far beyond traditional communication and form a deeper connection with myself and the world around me.

Through my workshops with Sarah Kay, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Alexandra Fuller, I have learned the power of words and their connection with both the inner self and the world around me. Each of my mentors and role models has a unique connection with writing that I have used as inspiration for my own reflection and growth. My connection with poetry is the strongest I could possibly have, for in truth it was a connection formed with a previously unknown piece of myself. I now know the power I hold both as a writer and a member of the greater society, for I discovered an essential connection between my poetry, myself, my memories, and the world beyond my own mind.

02 Perceptions by Eleina Salgia ’21 03 Emerging by Michelle Dong ’20

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04 04 Dragon by Angela Yu ’21 05 Blue by Emma Gaugler ’20

Letter to

NASA

Headquarters MICHELLE DONG ’20 Dear NASA, Please stop launching more spacecrafts into the galaxy. I would appreciate if you stopped trying to find a new planet to live on and instead tried to fix this planet instead. The problems we’ve created on this Earth won’t disappear even if you did discover that there were microbes that lived on Mars ten thousand years ago. Sure, it’s fascinating to find that set of planets with similar conditions to our solar system, but what are the chances that humans can actually live there? We also can’t just plop 7.2 billion people onto a spacecraft and start fresh on a new planet. It doesn’t work like that. So please, temporarily stop your space exploration programs and work on reversing climate change instead. It would mean the world to me.

Gavin Schmidt, the director of your Goddard Institute for Space Studies, recently published an opinion article in The New York Times that responded to the striking Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. He explained how “Without human activities the planet would not have warmed over the past century… Our best assessment is therefore that humans, at least the ones responsible for the bulk of carbon dioxide emissions, have been responsible for all of the recent trends in global temperatures.” Well, yes. Obviously. You don’t need to be a director at NASA to be able to figure that out – even my twelve-year-old brother can do that. Please remind me again why he felt the need to publish this article? Right, because there are some people that don’t believe in science anymore. As a concerned citizen of the United States, I was wondering how NASA as an organization felt about this trend of rejecting facts. How do you feel when people say that climate change isn’t real? For me, I think this is really dangerous since if decades of scientific research are refuted with ignorant, baseless tweets, what can we believe in?

While I know that innovation is essential for human progress, how much emphasis really needs to be placed on space technology? So much more money is put into space exploration compared to other programs1, which reveals a lot about the escapist mentality of Americans. I mean, think about it. Nothing screams escapism more than launching a rocket into the galaxy’s dark abyss hundreds of light years away. Maybe you could try to work on creating a machine that extracts carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, or maybe work on finding an alternative source of energy together. Better yet, use all the scientists and engineers you have and innovate something out of this world! Ha! Seriously though, I don’t mean to discredit the work that NASA does. Your organization serves a vital role in stimulating the curiosity of the public about the vast universe. Innovation is driven by this curiosity, and perhaps it’s the reason why new technologies keep getting invented each day. If we feel confined to this Earth, we’ll never think of the bigger picture. So thank you NASA, for your satellites, your environmental monitoring systems, and maybe even your space missions. But it’s time to focus more on fixing the issues of this environment before finding another planet to inhabit.

Sincerely, Miffed Michelle

1

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/budget-fy2019.pdf

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Amar Ram Singh

TEJAL PENDEKANTI ’20

(My Grandfather, Apparently)

I do not know who my maternal grandfather is.

My mother is not an orphan, but I have few memories of him. Rather, the image that I have of him—simultaneously divine and disgusting— has been created by piecing together the memories of others. It is unfair to him that I have such a sloppy understanding—it is my duty, as his granddaughter, to find my own truth of him.

However, he is dead and has left almost nothing behind to relay any sort of personality or inner thought. His vintage watches and Ray-Bans still sit in the armoire of my grandmother’s house, but his journal, which he diligently used, has been lost. I would travel anywhere to find it because even just a single sentence of his would mean moving closer to him.

I cannot remember my grandfather—the only thing my mind has retained in the past thirteen years is a single vague memory. I am in India, asleep on the plastic-covered couch—mosquitoes and red ants are swarming me, sucking my fluids. I am tired because the two-day long journey to see my family is cheap and uncomfortable. Somehow, I feel a divine pull. I slowly awake and see him sitting in front of me on his rocking chair, perhaps watching the news.

I don’t remember. The sun is bright, however. I cannot feel its warmth because I am too far away, but it spills onto my grandfather. He is illuminated, his bald head reflecting the sunlight toward me. Quite honestly, I am not sure if this memory is true. The single certain thing is that I slept on that itchy couch. Perhaps, I constructed his figure in my mind because I am grasping—I am grasping for memories and thoughts of him.

Thus, I have resorted to constructing him through fragments of stories. Apparently, he was obsessed with neatness. In what way I do not know, because the death is still too raw for them to continue.

He loved his grandchildren very much, despite his stoic nature. He slept on a wooden bed (no mattress, no pillow, always one blanket). I know because it still lays there in my grandmother’s bedroom—my family cannot let go.

I do not know him the way that I should. When I first learned he passed away, I felt nothing—no sadness. He was is a stranger to me. I have never cried when talking about his death. I hate myself for that. Although I do not bear his last name or any of his features, I should be able to feel his breath in mine because we are family—he, just as much as my mother and father, has given birth to me. However, he constitutes a small proportion of my DNA. And how much does DNA truly define a person? After all, Francis Galton popularized the idea that the environment impacts a persona equally as much as genetics.

This is all I understand, but he is revered by my family. I suppose this is to be expected. The living tend to immortalize the dead in halos. For a long time, I accepted this version of him. I never idolized him like my family; it’s impossible to blindly define my truth as theirs. Still, I never tried to form a judgment of him myself. (That in itself is sad—I do not feel the connection between my grandfather enough to form my own relationship with him. Laziness outweighs my sense of familial obligation to him).

He was never in my “environment.” I don’t even properly remember meeting him during the trip to India.

05

One night, my grandmother opened up about him. I don’t know how it started, but she said that she always wanted to attend college.

However, her family forced her to get married, and my grandfather’s family was against higher education. Accordingly, she was reduced to Housewife for the duration of her life.

(My mother always credits her father for encouraging her higher education. I am not so sure that is true anymore.)

My grandmother also got pregnant, before she had my uncle and mother. She was quite young and had little influence in her personal life because of Indian marital culture. She got an abortion, per my grandfather’s family’s wishes.

She doesn’t know why they wanted one; all discussions were kept to the husband (who didn’t confide in her) and the family (who felt no reason to explain their decision). I asked her that day if she supports abortions. She is pro-life.

I don’t know what to do with this information.

Understand these revelations are approximately half the knowledge I hold of him. I want to know who he was and how I can reconcile these terrible truths with his sainthood. I have to know because I want to love him; I really do. But I cannot, not when I have vague, blanket happy memories and concrete uncomfortable realities. Thus, I would travel all over the world to his journal. I want to see him for myself, just once.

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06

A Letter to Hope ZOE NELSON ’23

Dear Hope,

06 Blue and Yellow Sky by Vivienne Forstner ’23 07 Midsummer Grasshopper by Allison Fritz ’22

Why do you let people build up your image so much, like you’re some supreme god? People say, “All we need is hope to get us through.” You let them believe that the four-letter word can roll off their lips and everything will turn out okay, but you know as you stand by and watch them that they’re simply daydreaming. You’re no shooting star, no magical wand, no wizard or fairy that comes along and solves problems. That’s not what you are, even if you think so.

You’re a soul-crushing, heart-breaking, hurricane storm inside my guts. You constantly lurk around trying to latch on to people, just so you can leave at the minute they need you most. Your tactics make me sick. People say dishonesty, or disappointment, or heartbreak are the worst feelings of all, but you are the worst of all, because you are all of those things. When you leave a person, you almost never come back. You don’t even bother to do a double-take when you see how you rip people apart, crushing their dreams. When we are drowning in the ocean, you lift us up above the surface for a little bit, only to throw us back down into the depths of the current again. Each tear that drips off of our faces when we see what you’ve done, when we finally realize what a treacherous monster you are, only fills us with more hope. Things will get better; they have to, we say. You laugh because you know that we’re just hallucinating. You’re a dangerous game to play, more dangerous than loving someone. When we finally grow up, we realize that you are a game that we can never win.

You shall have no other gods before Me. God is God is God is Allah is God is Vishnu is Vishnu is God is God is Brahma is God is God is God is God is.

You shall not make idols. Do I not bow? Do I not get to my knees? I am sorry. I was only ever taught to worship words and flesh. I was only ever taught to want for something I can touch. I love her like I am godless, or like she is the sun. Am I a sinner? Am I a sinner? Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. I do not rest. I pin my eyes awake until they are dry and blind. Ink runs down my wrists like drowning birds in blood; she and I, we gurgle together. Honor your father and your mother. But what do I do, now that I have wrapped the Koran in my own skin? I do not eat pigs for you. Do you ever think: 24:26? Good women are for good men? And which am I? Mama, Papa, am I good? You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. But it is she who has stolen the life from me, Papa, I promise you. Mama. Mama. I am disloyal. This ink has watered me down; that, or I am dry (she is the sun. she is the sun). You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Liars burn; I speak in tongues. I love her not/I love her not/I love her not. You shall not covet. I am godless, I tell myself. I am full. You shall not covet. I kneel on prayer rugs until my knees bleed: I am the holy, I tell myself. God is God is God. You shall not covet. When I dream, I dream of burning.

EXODUS ANYA RAZMI ’20

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07

APPRECIATE THE LITTLE MOMENTS CLAIRE FALLON ’20

Sitting underneath the kitchen table, cross-legged and wide-eyed, I watch as my mother gives herself an injection in her lower stomach. Her hands shake, her eyes shutting in response to the pain shooting through her body as the medicine spreads a stinging warmth. She presses a cotton ball to her stomach and sighs loudly. I hug my knees and shoot a wary glance at my little brother, who is just as shocked as I am, then sift through my toy med kit for a bandage. As a child, I was absolutely terrified of shots.

The fact that my mom was able to give them to herself on a daily basis astounded me.

It is often the case, though, that the astounding can become quite ordinary.

I have always seen my mom as normal. My mother was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in April 2003. MS is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system eats away at the protective covering of nerves. It is a disease that affects the brain tissue, spinal cord, and coordination. It is a relentlessly progressive disease where cruel new symptoms appear over time. It is a disease that makes celebration relative. All I knew as a kid was that my mother was sick, and I did not know that the disease was incurable.

I thought the period of time in which she was in a wheelchair was super fun, as I would be able to ride in her lap as my dad pushed us. I just thought that she didn’t get enough rest when she would fall asleep doing math problems with me. I didn’t see the surgeries, the multiple medications, the yearly MRI scans, or even the chronic migraines she would have whenever it would rain. I saw her as normal, as how my mom should be. As time passed and her illness progressed, I grew up.

Like many diseases for which a cure has not been found, MS is a disease that reduces the world but at the same time magnifies the importance of every moment. My mother’s illness has taught me to appreciate the little things in life. Instead of getting upset over small inconveniences, I have developed the mindset of looking at the big picture. I usually say to myself, “will this really matter a year from now?” This style of thinking has helped me jump over many setbacks that have suddenly confronted me on a daily basis. I remind myself not to freak out over that B I got on my Spanish test, it doesn’t define my true intellectual ability. The fact that I did not make the time cut to swim in districts isn’t the end of the world, it gives me a chance to cheer on my teammates as they beat our biggest competitor and win that last relay race. I try to accept myself for who I am, and to understand that the quality of my life is decided by how I choose to emphasize the importance of every day and every little difference I can make in the lives of those around me.

During stressful times in my life, it is incredibly difficult for me to enjoy the moment I am in. I find myself looking forward toward future events rather than truly appreciating where I currently am. My mom constantly reminds me to live every single day to the fullest and to find happiness in the most mundane situations. It doesn’t matter whether I got the highest score on an exam or received the most likes on my social media post, what matters is what I learned and how it will help me develop a healthy mindset. My mother’s resolution to elevate her spirits and keep up her fight against the illness strengthens my will to find the good in my own life.

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Yellow: A (un)Becoming GRACE ZHANG ’21

I’ve just summoned the courage to check my PSAT scores. After what seems like an eternity of staring and breathing and thinking, the page finally loads. This is it. A lifetime of insecurity and expectation amounts to this number and even though my 10th grade PSAT score matters to absolutely no one, I am somehow convinced this number will define my worth. I don’t remember very much afterward, but I do remember a 96%, my mother’s disappointed face, and the words: “I believe that people can grow”

most children are, I was very attached to my mother. I wanted desperately to be like her. I watched in awe as she added spoonful upon spoonful of 老干妈 (A notoriously spicy Chinese sauce) to her food. My tolerance to spicy food is nothing to be scoffed at, but it’s nowhere near that of my mother’s. I was secretly ashamed of this self-diagnosed weakness. I felt inadequate.

My ‘weakness’ made me feel like I was an insult to my heritage, like I wasn’t Chinese enough.

Though I didn’t know it then, I had already accepted my heritage as a fundamental part of my identity.

But in this moment, I don’t know if I will

I was not always aware of my status and expectations as a Chinese-American. I grew up in New Jersey in a predominantly immigrant community. I was used to hearing Chinglish at home, celebrating Diwali at school, and seeing white people on TV. Differences in skin color, language, and culture failed to faze me. In retrospect, I simply failed to notice. I failed to notice my mother’s back stiffening when a black man filled up the gas in our car. I failed to notice when my father came home from another performance review, promotionless once again, with his coworkers quickly climbing up the ranks beside him. I failed to notice that I was different.

I vividly remember telling my mother that I was half Chinese and half American, as if American was a race.

I remember her laughing.

My mother rarely laughs.

It took a while before I realized how big a role my ethnicity played in my identity. I knew that my parents were not from here, but ‘China’ was an abstract concept. I knew that I spoke two languages, but ‘Chinese’ felt like English. I knew that I looked different from other kids, but the other kids looked different from me. My differences failed to define me.

My mother is from Hunan, a province located in the Southern half of China. There they have a saying: “中国人不怕辣，湖南人怕不辣” (The Chinese aren’t afraid of spicy food, but the Hunanese are afraid the food isn’t spicy). As

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It was the summer before 5th grade when my parents decided to move to Cleveland. I have never seen so many white people before and Ohio proves to be a land of firsts. I’m asked if I eat dog for the first time. I see kids pull back the corners of the eyes for the first time. I hear people say ‘herro’ to me for the first time.

Middle school is a dark time, even darker since I’m new. It’s a time when the social ladder is established and when cliques form. Everyone has a place. Except I’m new and nobody knows me.

There is no precedent behavior to draw upon, any previous events that can be used to cement my ‘place’ in the social hierarchy. But they do notice that I’m Asian and that I’m a product of my culture: therefore, I’m a nerd.

Suddenly, nothing about me seems so right.

I try to seem dumb for the first time. I wonder what my hair would look like if it was blonde for the first time. I try to be fashionable for the first time.

I try to be white for the first time.

I’m 12 and I have recently quit swimming. My dad wants me to play a team sport. I’d really rather not.

I start playing one anyway. I dreaded practice, often thought about quitting, and felt relieved when I was injured. My dad and I fought long and hard about it. Sometimes, we refused to even speak, our relationship strained to almost unrepair. A sort of angry chaos had infiltrated our peaceful home life and its name was Lacrosse.

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It was hard for me to understand why my participation was so important to him, why I couldn’t just go home after school or join a club like my peers. I couldn’t understand why he’d make me do something that would make me so unhappy. I almost hated him for it.

It took many years and developments in my emotional maturity to realize that me playing lacrosse made my dad feel a certain way. He wanted to be a ‘soccer mom,’ to be out there on the field cheering in the hot sun. He wanted to go to team dinners, talk sports with parents, and drive long hours in our hot car, drowsy from the heat, but happy because it finally made him feel like he belonged. It made him feel like less of an outsider in a way that American citizenship and the media couldn’t. For him it was like the American dream except now you only needed a SUV, a child on a sports team, and a really loud voice to forget that people still stared when we walked into a restaurant for lunch.

The letter arrived about two weeks before school.

I was in all advanced classes for my 7th grade school year. For the first time since moving here I’m surrounded by mostly Asians again. It’s a comforting feeling that almost returns me to my childhood. It didn’t take long for me to realize that it wasn’t the same. In this classroom, there are certain expectations. We were here because we were ‘smart,’ because we were ‘special,’ because we had ‘potential.’ It doesn’t take long before I start associating my ethnicity with ‘achievement.’ I’m proud of my heritage again, but this time in a different way. Now being Asian meant getting good grades, taking all honors classes, and going to a prestigious university.

Academic failure was merely a failure of the self and I was not a failure. Asians didn’t fail. I was convinced my life from this point on could be nothing short of academic perfection.

That soon proved to be quite a problem.

My parents realized way before me that I was not suited to public school, that I had ‘needs’ that were better met under smaller class sizes, more attention, and therefore more help. According to them, I needed more attention and freedom to explore what I was interested in. Really, I needed to accept my imperfections and to learn that I needed help. In a blink of an eye, I had my

08

08 Wounds by Harleigh Markowitz ’20

application all filled out, my acceptance letter in my mailbox, and my backpack packed for the first day of school at HB. The school year was going well. My classes were easy, I was getting good grades. It seemed like nothing had really changed. I continued to pretend that I was a math and science person, that I was destined for medical school and spending the rest of my life surrounded by four very clean, white, walls.

I didn’t believe in destiny for long.

It took a 69 on my math test before I realized I was not a math and science person, that I was not destined for medical school and that I really freaking hated hospitals.

Conversely, I had learned to accept my identity in a completely different way. Ever since middle school I had dabbled in Asian pop culture and media, but sophomore year I drowned in it. In America, until recently, beauty standards were always depressingly out of reach and the media almost exclusively white. One couldn’t help but feel a little out of place. No matter how hard I try to pretend it didn’t, watching K-pop for the first time saved me. Looking at people who looked like me, but were considered beautiful, made me feel a way that I hadn’t in a long, long time.

I loved my heritage, not for the stereotypes it carried, but rather the fruit of its effort. I was proud of what it had created, what it was doing, and what it hoped to do. I realized that even though we looked different, spoke different, grew up different, we had the potential to create things equally as amazing as our western counterparts. I realized that the gift for beauty and language and creativity wasn’t confined to the western world, that it wasn’t really a gift at all, it was inside all of us, regardless of race, identity, or origin.

I learned to love what I was on the outside, even if I couldn’t do the same for everything else.

I’m at a dinner table. We are discussing the 96%.

I am better than 96% of Americans at the PSAT. However, my friends are better than 99%. They are better than me.

In America, I’m merely a number.

This time I can’t help but notice.

Now that I’m a junior, I spend a lot of my time thinking about college. I remember all the horror stories I hear. How my father’s coworker’s son failed to be admitted to any of the schools he applied to, besides his safety, despite getting near

perfect grades, scoring ridiculously high on his standardized tests, and being captain of numerous clubs. How my friend’s sister was rejected by Harvard until she managed to add a prestigious award to her already long and impressive resume.

I can’t help but feel scared because just like them I’m Asian. Just like them my success is too expected, too typical. Just like them my hard work is boring and redundant.

Just like them, I can’t help but feel like I’ll never be enough.

A lot of time has passed but my identity remains in a constant state of confusion. The tension between the two worlds I live in often proves to be too much and often I wake up to discover that I’m really part of none. I’m always caught between a state of belonging and not.

Some days, I cheer for Americans, other days for the Chinese. Sometimes I feel like a loyal soldier for my culture, fighting for its needs and its future, sometimes I feel like I’ve failed it. I can’t bring myself to decide. But there’s one thing I know for sure.

I think that people can grow.

I hope I will too.

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Is Trump Really to Blame for the US’s

EMMA GERBER ’21

Gun Violence Problem?

Gun violence has recently been a heated topic of debate in the United States, especially since the election of President Donald Trump two and a half years ago. With the seemingly constant political tension, all sides of the political spectrum seem to want answers on this issue.

What is happening? How can we fix it? Most importantly, who is to blame? It is no shock that in this very partisan time, both democrats and republicans seem to be pointing the blame for gun violence issues at each other. Notably, many are pointing out that there are an alarming number of manifestos published by gunmen before large mass shootings that have cited President Trump’s rhetoric and policies as inspiration for their violence. Through this analysis, many people are implying that Trump is partially responsible for the gun violence problem in the United States. However, there are also a vast array of people who oppose this idea of a correlation between Trump and gun violence. Instead, they claim that factors like mental health and the over-regulation of guns are the driving forces for the gun violence problem. Regardless, it is clear that the debate over gun violence in the United States is particularly divisive, with a large amount of conflict over what is the right solution and who is responsible.

In an opinion article titled “Immigration Restriction is Not Hate,” published by the historically left-leaning Politico magazine on August 7, 2019, Rich Lowry claims that there is no correlation between President Donald Trump’s policy on immigration and increased incidences of gun violence in the United States (“AllSides Media Bias Ratings”). Specifically, Lowry narrows in on the claim that Trump’s rhetoric is fueling the gun violence cycle. While Lowry acknowledges that the president’s remarks can often be “crude,” if not offensive, he believes that the words of the president can not be reasonably blamed for the gun violence crisis. In his own words, Lowry claims “nothing [Trump’s] ever said could possibly justify indiscriminately shooting people. Trump is not a terrorist, a

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supporter of terrorism or an enabler or terrorism.” In this assertion, Lowry fleshes out his central claim: saying gun violence in the United States is somehow caused by President Trump’s rhetoric is ridiculous.

In one sense, I think that Rich Lowry is correct; to explain issues of gun violence with only Trump’s remarks is ludicrous. Using Trump’s immigration remarks as an example for this claim, Lowry asserts that “the impulse to gun down these supposed invaders in cold blood while they are shopping at Walmart and the impulse to exclude them from entry into the country, or quickly and safely return them home once here, don’t exist in the same moral universe.” In other words, how is it that Trump’s calls for stricter immigration policies could cause this mass violence all on their own? The answer is that logically, they can’t. In that respect, Rich Lowry is extremely right.

However, I believe that Rich Lowry completely fails to acknowledge the hostile political and cultural climate caused by President Trump’s rhetoric. One does not need to look further than President Trump’s infamous twitter account to see his divisive remarks. His account, which is the 11th most viewed account on twitter, is filled with examples of rhetoric intended to provoke a strong response from people (Floating Head Studios 2019). On June 5, 2013, President Trump tweeted “Sadly, the overwhelming amount of violent crime in our major cities is committed by blacks and hispanics-a tough subject-must be discussed (Twitter 2013).” In this tweet claiming that more violence is committed by people of color, Trump uses the United States’ penchant toward dividing itself into racial groups to divide people by race even more. By saying that most crime is committed by African Americans and Hispanics, Trump is perpetuating the cycle of people of color, especially immigrants of color, being made into a common enemy that white people are afraid of.

But what really makes this statement interesting is that it is blatantly false. In proportion to their

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population, white Americans and Americans of color actually commit a nearly equal amount of violent crime. According to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), white people make up 59 percent of all “violent crime” arrests in the United States, and they account for 60.4 percent of the population. Similarly, 41.8 percent of the United States’ population is made up of people of color, and they account for 41 percent of violent crime arrests (U.S. Census Bureau 2018)(FBI). In studying these numbers, it is easy to see that the percentage of crime committed by each group is approximately equivalent to the percentage of the population that they make up. Therefore, when Trump says that most crime is committed by people of color he is wrong; the ratios of crime rates to population are virtually the same for both groups.

It is important to note that these statistics over inflate the real crime rates for African Americans, who have historically been over-represented in crime statistics. Most people attribute these inflated statistics to the enduring racial prejudices in the United States, which cause police officers to arrest and prosecute people of color more often than white Americans (Lopez & Zarracina 2017). This prejudice still exists; just recently, in 2017, Vox reported on a study for the National Registry of Exonerations that showed that Black Americans were 7 times more likely to be wrongly convicted of murder, 12 times more likely to be wrongly convicted of drug crimes, and 3.5 times more likely to be wrongly convicted of assault (Lopez & Zarracina 2017). However, even without accounting for the overrepresentation of people of color in crime statistics, the data clearly shows that President Trump’s tweet was incorrect.

With all credibility disavowed, it is easy to see that President Trump’s tweet was simply a grab at capturing white America with fear tactics, making them riled up about the perceived danger of “blacks and hispanics.” And in this campaign of fear and hatred, Trump is not slowing down.

Earlier this year, Donald Trump released an

onslaught of tweets asking xenophobic questions about four young female representatives of color such as “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came” (Yglesias 2019). These tweets are misleading, as most of these representatives didn’t “come from” anywhere but the United States. Trump’s comment is therefore a continuation of his strategy of targeting people of color with inflammatory language and accusations. His tweet plays on the American perception that a darker skin color implies foreignness, basically attacking those representatives with the color of their own skin.

In asking “why don’t they go back,” Trump is implying that they don’t belong in the United States. Overall, these comments are primary examples of how President Trump’s remarks and policy have created an atmosphere of increased tension and hatred in the United States.

Ultimately, it is unreasonable to say that the fraught atmosphere perpetrated by President Trump in the US has not had some effect on American gun violence. From a more ideological point of view, any change in the political sphere is going to cause a ripple effect. Trump’s tweets are not falling on deaf ears; America hears him and his rhetoric. Claims as strong as his are bound to create adverse reactions from the public.

In a more concrete sense, since Trump’s election, the United States has seen a dramatic rise in gun

violence: 12 percent higher since 2016 (Ingraham 2019). Trump’s political rhetoric is not unrelated: a startling amount of mass shooters in the past years have attributed their inspiration for their shootings to Trump, such as the El Paso shooter and the California shooter at the Gilroy Garlic Festival (Follman, 2019). The El Paso shooter even quoted some of Trump’s rhetoric in his manifesto, when he said “This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas” (Politi 2019).

The word invasion is an obvious nod to President Trump, who, in regard to the surge of immigration in 2018, tweeted on October 29th, 2018: “This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!” (Twitter 2018). The use of the word invasion wasn’t an isolated choice for Trump; according to Vox Media, Trump has used the word “invasion” over 19 times since 2017 to talk about immigrants (Campbell 2019). While 19 times may not seem like a lot, the word is so emotionally charged that any usage of it is significant. It implies a maliciousness and a violence in immigrants, when often their choice to come to America is purely guided by the pursuit of a better life. Trump’s repetitive use of this charged word sends a message to immigrants and Americans, displaying that Trump sees immigrants as dangerous enemies and not necessarily human beings. By echoing Trump in this wording, the El Paso shooter displayed that he had received this message. Furthermore, it impacted him enough that he decided to place it in his own manifesto: perhaps the last words he

would put out into this world. Looking at the statistics and these specific cases, it is clear that President Trump has had an impact on these shooters through his rhetoric.

While Rich Lowry’s assertion that Trump’s words cannot fully explain all of the mass violence in the US is tenable, Lowry misses the big picture by not considering all of the cultural tension that President Trump has generated. This tension has created an atmosphere conducive to extremist thought in the United States, which in turn motivates mass shootings. Trump’s words hold divisive messages that strongly impact the public, in this case for worse. As much as people like Lowry can say that Trump’s remarks are just words, many mass shooting manifestos show that Trump’s rhetoric has had a real impact on a culture of extremism in America. Trump is not innocent; his words are carefully crafted to play on the divisions that have been present for generations in the US. We cannot let him escape responsibility for his complicity in the 146 mass shooting deaths that have happened in America since his election. Only by acknowledging his role in this awful crisis and by truly recognizing the power of words to motivate the actions of our society can we really start to make strides toward a culture of less violence in America. Ultimately, our current failure to do so not only degrades our culture, but is an injustice to those whose lives have been lost in the United States’ struggle with gun violence.

WORKS CITED “AllSides Media Bias Ratings.” AllSides, https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/ media-bias-ratings.

Campbell, Alexia. “Trump Described an Imaginary ‘Invasion’ at the Border 2 Dozen Times in the Past Year.” Vox, 7 Aug. 2019, https://www.vox.com/ identities/2019/8/7/20756775/el-paso-shooting-trump-hispanic-invasion.

“Twitter: Most Followers.” Friend or Follow, Floating Head Studios, 2019, https://friendorfollow.com/twitter/most-followers/.

Follman, Mark, et al. “US Mass Shootings, 1982-2019: Data from Mother Jones’ Investigation.” Mother Jones, the Foundation for National Progress, 31 Aug. 2019, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/ mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/.

Fritze, John. “Trump Used Words like ‘Invasion’ and ‘Killer’ to Discuss Immigrants at Rallies 500 Times.” USA Today, 21 Aug. 2019, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/08/08/ trump-immigrants-rhetoric-criticized-el-paso-dayton-shootings/1936742001/.

Ingraham, Christopher. “Trump Promised to End the ‘American Carnage.”

Gun Deaths Are up 12 Percent.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 29 Apr. 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/27/ trump-promised-to-end-the-american-carnage-gun-deaths-are-up-12-percent/.

Perriman, Lance. “California Mass Shooter Was a Trump Fan, Cited White Supremacist Manifesto Before Rampage.” Political Dig, 29 July 2019, https://politicaldig.com/california-mass-shooter-was-a-trump-fan-citedwhite-supremacist-manifesto-before-rampage/.

Politi, Daniel. “El Paso Suspect Reportedly a Trump Supporter Who Wrote Racist, Anti-Immigrant Manifesto.” Slate Magazine, 4 Aug. 2019, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/el-paso-suspect-shooter-trumpracist-manifesto.html.

“Table 21.” FBI, 18 Sept. 2017, https://ucr.f bi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crimein-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21.

Trump, Donald (@realDonaldTrump).“Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border. Please go back, you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process. This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!” October 29 2018, 7:41 am. Tweet.

Trump, Donald (@realDonaldTrump).“Sadly, the overwhelming amount of violent crime in our major cities is committed by blacks and hispanics-a tough subject-must be discussed” June 5 2013, 1:05 am. Tweet.

“U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: United States.” Census Bureau, 2018, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045218.

Lopez, Javier Zarracina. “Study: Black People Are 7 Times More Likely than White People to Be Wrongly Convicted of Murder.” Vox, 7 Mar. 2017, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/7/14834454/ exoneration-innocence-prison-racism.

Yglesias, Matthew. “Trump’s Racist Tirades against ‘the Squad,’ Explained.”

Vox, 18 July 2019, https://www.vox.com/2019/7/15/20694616/ donald-trump-racist-tweets-omar-aoc-tlaib-pressley.

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In DEFENSE of

Feminism NOLA KILLPACK ’21

Dear Bernadine Barber, In your article “How Modern Day Feminism Fails To Be Pro-Women” published in Evie Magazine, you argue against today’s version of feminism by asserting that it demonizes men, attacks what are seen as traditional feminine values, and has become so radical that it has lost a clear purpose.

Although some of your points are certainly based in truth and what I assume to be your own experiences, most of your points do not sit well with me and I hope you will allow me the chance to explain why I think that modern feminism is more pro-women than it has ever been. I am not attacking your views or attempting to get you to switch over to my more radical side, I simply hope that, at the least, you will consider the validity of both the opinions and the experiences of women who do not identify so wholly with what you see as traditional feminine roles or values.

I wholeheartedly agree with your first point that both men and women have faults. In no way do modern feminists believe that women are perfect or that men are inherently evil. However, you go on to state that, “neither gender is immune to ‘missing the mark’—hence neither gender should be targeted as the ‘central moral oppressor’” (Barber). In theory, I would agree, but this argument is void. Feminists do not target men. We do not label all men as oppressors. We believe that the oppressor is the patriarchal system that we live in— the product of millenniums of close-minded assumptions and rigid values. You expand on this point with your assertion that, “the future cannot be female; it must be - as it has always been - male and female” (Barber). A future which is both equally male and female is a lovely goal to have, but the truth is that the world has never (or at least in the past few millennia) presented itself as one in which men and women are equally welcome and given the same opportunities. For example, in the early nineteenth century, society was dominated by the “cult of domesticity” which taught that women’s “sphere” was in the home and men’s was in the public world. By wishing for a future that is female, we are not asking for the oppression of men or their removal from powerful positions. However, as the past and the present are so overwhelmingly male, it seems only fair that the world should give ordinary women a chance to hold the power they have waited millennia to be given the option of holding.

Secondly, you claim that, “modern feminism also fails to be pro-women in that virtues such as piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness are scorned, snubbed and degraded” (Barber). I think you misunderstand our point. It is not that feminists scorn these “feminine virtues,” it is simply that we reject their close association with women. Piety, purity, and domesticity are all lovely characteristics to have and anyone should be able to express them no matter their gender. Our argument is that no one should be forced into these characteristics if they do not identify with them. Not all women aspire to be pious or pure. Not all find peace in domesticity or submissiveness. If these characteristics resonate with you then that is wonderful. However, it is important to keep in mind that the presence or absence of these virtues does not affect one’s value as a woman. Feminists acknowledge that women have commendable characteristics, including, but not limited to, the more traditional ones.

Next you claim that modern feminism is illegitimate because it believes “gender roles and gender itself are to be erased not embraced; eradicated not defined” (Barber). You are correct in that feminism does seek to

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eradicate established gender roles that can be harmful to those who do not identify with them. Although I can see why you might feel threatened by this, I would like to help you understand why this is not such a bad thing. You fear that the eradication of gender roles is the equivalent to “rejecting headship, leadership, and hierarchy” because “trying to erase reality, truth, and order creates chaos, confusion, and degeneration” (Barber). I agree that rejecting leadership would create both governmental and societal chaos. However, feminists do not reject fair leadership or hierarchies that allow for equal opportunities to get to the top. We reject the societal structures that have kept women and minority groups on the bottom for so long. Furthermore, the rejection of these close-minded hierarchies will lead to the opposite of degeneration as it will allow

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10 09 Annals of the Mind by Hayden Brooks ’20 10 The Long Road Down by Tess Hays ’22

I AM MY OWN SHINING STAR. CLAIRE ADORNATO ’21

previously looked-over people with brilliant ideas to come to the forefront of society. Moreover, by seeking to erase gender roles we are not erasing reality. In fact, there is no solid scientific evidence that suggests that different sexes are better suited for specific tasks. We are erasing the long-held assumptions of what women and men can or cannot do that have kept society away from the real truth for so long: that all types of people are worthy for all avenues they might wish to pursue.

Your next complaint is that feminism has “no defining goal and no defining audience – it’s a free for all for the cause of anything and everything” (Barber). I ask you to reconsider this, because in the past few years there have been many examples of feminist movements that have had clear goals and have succeeded in making their desired changes. For example, the #metoo movement has managed to bring sexual predators to justice and give their victims a voice. Furthermore, the fact that feminism is now so much more expansive and accepting than it was 50 years ago does not hinder our ability to accomplish things. In fact, it does quite the opposite.

Modern feminism reaches people of all different identities and intersectionalities and its vastness allows movements that only affect a small group of people to have a network of support. Modern feminism is still fighting for the rights of all women through examples like the campaign for equal pay while also being able to cater to, among others, the needs of women in the LGBTQ+ community, women of color, and women in targeted religions like Islam and Judaism. Different women experience oppression and sexism in different ways, and modern feminism allows us to fight for the rights of us all.

Your article ends with your belief that “progressive third-wave feminism fails to be pro-women because it rejects the nature of true womanhood” (Barber). I have one response to this: every woman has a different definition

of womanhood and each one is valid. Feminism rejects “true womanhood” because many women, including me, feel attacked and trapped by this definition. Just as you would hate a society that unconditionally expects you to put career over family or dismiss purity and piety, many women feel trapped by the expectations of domesticity and submissiveness that we are told are our “natural role.” Modern science has no way to prove if women are best suited for one path in life, so society should not pretend we have only one “true” role.

I hope I have helped you to see my side and the side of the many other people who find hope, solidarity, and confidence in modern feminism.

Many of your points are certainly valid, and, as at the core of feminism is the fight for the right to live as oneself, I believe you are entitled to feel respected for your opinions. However, you must also make sure that you accept others for theirs. In reality, the reason many feminists feel wary of conservative women is because they historically have a habit of judging those who do not follow the status quo. For example, throughout history many women have been condemned for wishing to spend a life that consisted of more than childbearing and childrearing. This is an assumption, of course, and you have a right to challenge it just as I have a right to challenge your assumptions. However, you must remember that no one, no matter their beliefs, has a right to judge others for their identities.

Sincerely, Nola Killpack Works Cited Barber, Bernadine. “How Modern Day Feminism Fails To Be Pro-Women.” Evie. 27 April. 2019. Web. 12 October. 2019.

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Quiet but Badass Every day in second grade my classmates and I sit outside on a bench after school, waiting to get picked up. Every day I watch as, one by one, the other kids leave. Every day I hope that this time, my mom won’t be the last to come.

This particular afternoon is no exception. It’s Valentine’s Day, and all I want is to get in the car so my mom can take me to my best friend’s house. She goes to another school but we still play together almost every day. Sitting here, waiting to get picked up, I’m not thinking about the after-school plans of my classmates; like all kids, I am only thinking about myself (and the really good snacks I’ll be having later with my friend). But that all changes when I happen to hear the conversation of the little girls next to me.

“At my Valentine’s Day party,” one girl is saying, “we’re going to decorate cookies, and watch A Charlie Brown Valentine, and my mom said we can …”

She goes on, listing the festivities she has planned for her friends, but her voice slips farther and farther into the background until all I can hear is the pounding of my heart in my chest.

My cheeks turn red and my stomach starts churning as I realize that I haven’t been invited to her Valentine’s Day party. My brain swims as I imagine all the little girls giving each other heart-shaped cookies that they have frosted themselves. I imagine them laughing and cuddling up together under a blanket and watching a movie. I imagine them doing all of this without me.

Sitting by myself on the bench, it no longer matters that I hadn’t even wanted to go to a Valentine’s Day party today. All thoughts of playing and having snacks with my friend have vanished from my mind. The image of the girls piling into a minivan together distorts and blurs as my eyes cloud with tears. I wonder why they didn’t invite me.

For the first time in my little life, I wish I wasn’t alone.

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It’s freshman year. The school day is finally over.

I have watched the seconds on the clock tick down at a pace dizzyingly fast for a day that seems to have passed so slowly. I have smiled at people when I haven’t felt like smiling. I smile to feel like I’m part of something because I’m scared that otherwise I won’t feel whole.

I decide to take the long way home today. It already takes me thirty-five minutes to walk home the fast way, but now that school is over I don’t care how many seconds I waste.

The trees that in the summer had seemed so resilient have by now given up the fight, and their fallen leaves crunch under my feet. I turn onto the path to the lagoon; I walk right up to the edge of the water. The orange of the trees is reflected in the black lagoon water, but the reflection appears dull and flattened and gray.

The cold autumn wind blows through my hair and chills me to the bone. I stare at the water, unblinking, my chest heavy and my eyes dead. I want to cry; I want to drop on the ground and give up. I am so tired, and so sad, and I can’t feel anything. I peer blankly at the trees and the gray, gray sky, wanting to feel something, wanting to have some type of reaction. But the water is placid, and my heart is still, and I go home.

The narrow metal staircase is hardly visible from the grassy little neighborhood park. It’s rusty and overgrown, and you wouldn’t think that at the bottom of it lies a rocky beach. The last few steps of the staircase are slippery from the spray off the lake.

We throw broken fragments of brick and watch as they vanish into the waves. The water is cold and gray, and the waves crash unceremoniously against the rocks. I don’t understand how the waves can be so casual, as if they don’t know the magnitude of their own existence. Their frank repetitiveness makes my soul stir.

The beach is made up of big slabs of rock and little pebbles and jagged pieces of cement. The view of the rest of the shore is blocked by the scraggly branches of trees that somehow manage

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ELLA VAN NIEL ’21

to grow among the stone. It is such a peaceful lonely place, and my heart soars when I look at it.

I find myself wanting to be alone. He is the one who brought me to this beach, but I wish he wasn’t here. I don’t want him to have access to this memory of me and the lake; I want to keep it for myself, a secret.

The lake fills me up and it makes me whole—but I imagine that, buried inside the pebble that he slips into his pocket, is a little piece of me that I’ll never get back.

Today is a simple day. A pale sunlight streams through the leaves of the trees above me. It feels good to have the sun on my arms as I read; it feels good to be alone. I look out at the flowers and the bees and the grass, and I know that I’m content. I think, “I want to feel this way forever.”

I close my book and let my eyes drift up to the sky. It’s a muted color, almost periwinkle, interrupted by the falling leaves that drift in and out of my vision. My thoughts start to wander and I think about school, about friends, about my mom, but I force myself to stop. Instead I focus on the breeze against my skin. I focus on the whooshing of the cars in the distance. I focus on the feeling of the solid earth rising up to support me from beneath the blanket I lie on.

I think about what one of my coworkers said about me yesterday—“quiet but badass”—because I had calmly told a customer to never call me “babe” or ask me to “give him some of my love” ever again. Although I am proud of this—I will never let a man talk down to me, no matter how scary he is—I wouldn’t call it badass. To me, being badass isn’t about having the bravery to stand up to powerful people; in fact, it doesn’t have anything to do with other people at all.

Instead, I am badass because I love myself no matter what—I love myself whether I’m alone or in a crowd, I love myself whether I am loud or I am quiet, I love myself not because of my relationship with the world but in spite of it.

I take a deep breath and go back to my book.

11 11 Lil C Scape by Ali Vucenovic ’20 12 Iceland by Sophie Laye ’21

looking in awe beyond the glass cage MICHELLE DONG ’20

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14

To The Last Person Who Took From Me:

A Black Girl

BY JALA EVERETT ’20

Don’t touch my crown.

Sink my pains and complains.

Who could see the things I’ve seen and still wait with me?

Anytime you feel danger or fear, Will you remember me?

I can sense your needs, Let the river take them, river drown them.

They say the vision I’ve found, will teach you how to love me.

I never thought that we’d be dreaming on our own They say the truth is my sound.

13 ME.EXE by Layla Najeeullah ’20 14 Halcyon Times by Hiba Daud ’21

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Sources Whitney Houston “I’m Every Woman” Ibeyi, “River” UMI, “Remember Me” Solange, “Don’t Touch My Hair ” Esthero “Black Mermaid”

You have reached the final destination. Feel the adrenaline course through your veins, the beating heart in your chest.

Approach this life with renewed vigor—come what may.

Adrenaline

01 Movement by Bridget Kennedy ’21

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02

STREAKS OF COLOR ignited across glass MICHELLE DONG ’20

One

Dreams

You step through the door and turn around, facing nothing but a bare wall. As you look up, the gray patterned wallpaper starts to tear, peeling off and falling to the ground, turning through the air. Below the paper is just dark.

Empty. What? I slowly turn you around to face the front once more. Can you feel that strange feeling in your stomach? You walk forward, softly stepping along the empty floor below you, walking into nothing. I pull the ground away and you fall.

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Two

You’re in a hotel room now. I have caught you and laid you onto a stale smelling bed. An old chandelier is placed above you, crystals hanging down from a silver centerpiece. Getting up, you look around the room, taking in the red walls covered in black and white photographs. Where am I? Is that sinking feeling still there? You stumble backwards, hitting the bathroom door and falling through into the room. You grab onto the counter, trying to steady yourself as I gently shake the room around you. This isn’t real. As you grasp for a surface, you knock a brown painted bowl off and it shatters on the tile. Why are you breaking my things? It’s not real. You close your eyes but I’m not done.

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KATRINA KRESOCK ’20

Th ree

When you open your eyes again, you find yourself standing on thin glass. It cracks below you as you shift your weight, but you are quick on your feet. You immediately drop to your knees, trying to distribute yourself across the fragile material below you. Clever. You crawl across the surface, unsure of where you are going or why you are going anywhere at all. I can hear your heart pounding. I break the ground below you. You fall. Isn’t this fun?

03

02 golden gate by Aambar Agarwal ’21 03 California Sunset by Rory Kostos ’23

Four

It’s dark again, and you are in some sort of forest.

But the trees are strange, deformed. This isn’t right. As you reach out to touch a branch near you, investigating the strange place, the bark loosens and falls off, fading to a gray color. What the…? I bend the black and white trees toward you, testing your reactions, experimenting. I need to get out of here. You run through the opening, pushing through branches, bark falling off as you touch it. You carelessly leave a path behind of gray dust, littering the floor of my beautiful forest. There! Wait. Where are you going?

Five

You burst into a clearing with blinding bright light, but as your eyes refocus you see that it’s not really an opening. I’ve placed you into another room. Not again. Stop running. I am protecting you. Stop this! A thick orange liquid begins to drip down the sides of the room as you pound against the walls. Stop. It falls onto you and onto my clean, white carpet. You’re ruining my creation. It’s filling up the room. Stop. You keep beating the walls. And what if I hold my breath?

No. Don’t!

................

I sit up. My room is dark, and the alarm clock reads 5 A.M. I push myself out of my bed and flick the lights on, heading downstairs to get some water, trying to shake off this weird feeling that’s rooted deep inside my chest.

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Waterlilies PERCY OBOKEN ’22 Sitting on a bench, I feel as though I could Swim in the midnight waters, Could touch the faint pink flowers, Caress the weeping willow and Let the green reeds run between my fingers.

And yet, I sit so far away from this world I can never know.

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04 05 06 07

Navajo Point by Ivy Wang ’21 Highway to Hana by Anjali Dhanekula ’22 Swiss Cows by Emma Gaugler ’20 Startline by Amy Howarth ’20

Running and Traveling

As a runner I am no stranger to foreign terrain, I bounce between the track, trails, and weight room, breaking down my muscles to build them back stronger than before. I am physically stronger than I ever have been because I push my body every day to do things it has never done. However, I did not know what my mind was capable of; I wanted to pursue a learning experience that could help me understand things that go beyond the classroom. My coach reiterates the phrase, “become comfortable being uncomfortable” constantly during practice, and as I boarded the plane alone, I began to realize what he meant.

When I step onto the track I know what I am getting myself into. No matter where I am, I can count on the uniformity of the sport. The same goes for the airplane, and when I sat down I did not feel like I was in unfamiliar territory. I felt like any other passenger. I did not stick out. It wasn’t until I landed that I felt like all eyes were on me, just as I feel when the gun goes off signifying the beginning of a race and I shoot to the front of the pack. I was a woman, alone, under eighteen, in a foreign airport. Unlike track, I did not know where I was going, and I was not leading the pack, I was lost inside of it.

SADIE HERTZ ’20

this trip by myself and for myself, and I needed to remain confident before I realized that I always have been. I acquired a strength greater than the one I gain in the weight room. I was not to be another number in a statistic, and I became strong to prove to myself that I am the tenacious, independent woman I aspire to be.

My true character came out while on the streets in Europe, as I realized I had more within me, and was pushed to dig a little deeper to find it. I found how powerful it was to be a young woman traveling abroad solo because I had no one else to depend on besides myself. My confidence grew to become unshakable. When I stepped up to the track after returning, I knew I was capable of carrying my team and myself in stronger ways than I ever dreamed of before.

07

Trail running counters track in its uniqueness, as no trail is a replica of another. I have learned to adapt my racing between seasons, which translated to me learning to adapt to my surroundings. I was uncomfortable with my lack of confidence when I stepped off the plane, as that had never been my persona. I was always the one to step up to challenges, the one determined to work harder after negative results, the one who worked to make a cohesive team in my years of running. Yet, when I was standing alone without my support system, I realized I had to put myself first, something I had never done. Before designing this solo endeavor, I had always thrived off my team, having the support system to catch me when I failed or to put my focus on when I did not perform well. I had been afraid to act for myself.

I made my way through Europe, but I had the negativities of the media crashing around me; all of the headlines had suppressed my confidence, as it had made me aware of the dangers that women hold solely due to their gender. I was on

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ETERNAL DREAD ANNIE GLEYDURA ’20

She’s enchanting; she could charm anyone she came in contact with. She’s almost too good at it. The question is, do I take a chance on her; am I desperate enough? We stand awkwardly in the elevator together, it is startling how unfazed she is by me. Most people who meet a ghost in an elevator on their way home aren’t so nonchalant about it. It’s almost like she’s done this before, a seasoned pro at apparition relations. I laugh to myself, but regret it in the fear that she might detect my awkwardness.

Maybe I should try again with someone new, this seems risky. Either way, I have to take what I can get. Being on an eternal elevator ride, the very place where you were murdered 30 years back, isn’t exactly optimal. So when someone comes along who seems willing to help, it’s refreshing to say the least. Her appearance is unsettling, however. She has long red hair that is matted and unkempt like snakes that curled up and died on her scalp. It shades her pale face and darkens the purple and blue bags that drop below her eyes. Making her look like she hasn’t slept in years. She is wearing a shirt with four dark horses printed across the front that has a large stain from a substance that I can’t quite determine. She is sweet and mysterious, her smile curls up at the ends like she is holding something back.

“Will you do me a favor?” I said uneasily, I can’t be too careful with someone I have just met. She looks back at me, sees through me.

“What is it, of course I will” her voice is deep and rolls out of her mouth like the sound of rattling metal. So willing, so accommodating. I take a deep breath before speaking again, gathering my thoughts.

“I am trying to go somewhere... to see my widow. I miss her... and I-I haven’t seen her in, well... in a long time.” I lied. I am selfish; I want out. I never had a wife; I remember the few encounters I had with women when I was living, none of them I would describe as particularly good. I was always too easily manipulated; they saw me as a charity case, not ever a guy to take seriously. I hope she doesn’t read through this, but I’m pathetic, how could she not.

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“How can I help? I am so sorry... can you tell me what happened to you?” She believes me. She cares.

I am in the clear, I take a step toward her.

“I would tell you, but I don’t want you to use it against me” I peer up at her; does she judge me for this? I secretly hope she doesn’t. I don’t want to disappoint her. It’s funny how connected you can feel to someone you have just met, after being alone for so long.

“That’s fine, take your time; I am here for you.” I want to reach out my hand to her, but I know the dangers of getting too close. I trust too quickly, and always end up back here. It’s a sad reality for a man who has always been so afraid of social interaction, to be trapped in an elevator for the rest of eternity.

But the world is twisted like that, it finds its ways to torture you any way it can; to make a fool out of you.

“I need to get out of this elevator first, before I can get to her.”

“That’s no problem. We can go back to my room on floor six to make a plan and find her” she shifts her weight and presses the button for the 6th floor.

“Easy for you to say, I have been riding this elevator for over 30 years now.” Somehow she isn’t shocked by this.

“Was that when… well, when… you… ya know” she puts her hand to her neck motioning choking. I nod, and try to loosen my tie, It won’t budge. I get a flashback from that day, my feet are dangling right above the elevator floor as my tie is caught between the two doors. The elevator keeps traveling upwards as I thrash about fighting my impending doom. I gasp for air that will never come, and I turned around to look at the man who did this to me. But, my eyes are blurred and I get flashes of red, the memory is being distorted. The man is replaced by someone much smaller in stature, and whom I can’t quite make out, but can only see how small and dark their pupils are. They burn into me, it stings more than the suffocation. A voice slices through static.

“Are you okay?” She smiles at me again, and I snap back into reality.

08

“This damn button won’t work” She leans over again and presses the 6 even harder this time.

“I’m sorry... I am just nervous, because I haven’t seen my wife in so long” I said, voice trembling, still haunted by those disturbing eyes.

“Don’t be afraid... there is nothing to worry about...

I bet she misses you so much. I bet so many people miss you so much.” She doesn’t know better, but she couldn’t be farther from the truth. The way she said this though, almost like she was mocking, with a grin that shows her gums. Don’t be silly, I thought, she couldn’t possibly know what my life was like. I spent my days plagued by a deep rooted loneliness, and a fear of embarrassment. Fumbling for my beta blockers every time I felt slight uncomfortability by others. Only for it all to end by the hands of someone else, a fear I have been haunted by since childhood. It’s funny how cyclical it all is, how in childhood, adulthood, and even purgatory our fears don’t disappear. I look back at her and something changes in the room. Her face darkens. She faintly sings; “Fearful when the sky was full of thunder And tearful at the falling of a star” My stomach drops and chills build on my spine. I am haunted by the familiarity of the song. My breath is caught on something, and my jaw aches.

ringing in my head is deafening, only to be cut through by her shrieking.

“What are you afraid of, Tom?” the walls of the elevator begin to pulsate, they run with deep blood that drips onto her hair and shirt, leaving a sickening brown stain.

“What is this?” Tears fill my eyes as I choke on the words. She lowers her head and presses 6 another time. The room is cold and eerie. I want to jump out of my ghastly skin.

“We can’t return we can only look behind

“And the seasons they go round and round

In the circle game”

And the painted ponies go up and down

Her eyes begin to drip with a thick black liquid and she scratches at them and smiles. Her hands are drenched in the black soot as it bleeds down her arms. She mocks me, gasping with her hand fixed to her throat, she cackles. My tie tightens and the asphyxiation becomes more intense, but I am maintaining consciousness somehow.

We’re captive on the carousel of time” She puts her hand to her neck again, and tightens until her face turns white. Eyes lower and pupils shrink. I am transported to my memory once again, but as I tilt my head her face becomes so clear. Her eyes tear into me and red fills the small room. The

08 Miami Art by Courtney Conrad ’20

From where we came And go round and round and round

“It’s eternal”

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09 Some Vitamin C by Saija Shah ’23 10 The Sky Itself is Also a Work of Art by Suzy Schwabl ’22 11 serenity by Hiba Daud ’21

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LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION:

Orange Juice with Pulp In the realm of flavored beverages, each member of my family rules their separate kingdom. My father, a known coffee addict, begins each morning making his specialized brew, perfected through years of experience. His routine is muscle memory: coffee beans, grinder, Cuisinart machine, half-and-half, sugar, done. On the other hand, my mother turns to tea: ginger, citrus, goji berries, dandelions, dates – anything and everything is boiled down to a delicious concoction. No matter the season, nothing stops her from enjoying a mug piping hot.

As for myself, while I typically enjoy the refreshing cool of plain water, when I feel the need for something more, there’s only one drink I reach for: orange juice with pulp. It appears sprinkled in my memories, occurring only on occasion but nonetheless well established as a source of comfort.

Sometimes as a cold revitalizing fluid after a summer afternoon run in the blazing sun. Sometimes as a late-night snack to keep me company in the quiet of my house. Sometimes as a hastily thrown together breakfast in the frantic rush of a weekday morning.

Strangely enough, I’m not particularly fond of orange juice in itself. Maybe it’s the overpowering tang or the sour aftertaste left encapsulating my mouth within its citrusy shackles. I find the flavor too aggressive in its uniformity – every gulp screaming the same variation of “orange.” Yet, when paired with pulp, this harshness disappears. It’s not merely that the flavor is muted, but that it’s simultaneously enhanced; the pulp has the ability to suppress what I had found unpleasant and bring out existing and new tastes.

Perhaps pulp doesn’t hold this same magical transformation for everyone.

From my upbringing, I learned to appreciate the power of pairing the

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EMILY QIAN ’21

strong and the bland. Growing up in a Chinese household, each meal, each dish, each bite, was accompanied by a mouthful of plain rice. Yet with each scoop, it never tasted the same: rice brought out the savory with meat, the umami with fish, the sweet with vegetables. Whatever I may be eating it with, rice, though plain itself, morphed to bring out what was good. In drinking juice, I carry the same tongue: pulp does for juice what rice does for food.

With pulp’s gift of flavor comes that of texture, adding delightful variation in each sip. It brings back the root of the juice itself, offering a return of a portion of its natural state. Certainly, there’s no shortage of juice drinkers who claim that pulp only serves to pollute the juice with soggy, chunky bits and pieces of unnecessary stuff; that it distracts from the otherwise smooth, silky texture of the juice. They say they like it simple.

But the orange is anything but simple. The orange is magnificent in its thousands of juicy vesicles, each the size of a grain of rice and formed over months of earnest development. The orange originated in Southeast Asia, but over hundreds of years has found a way to thrive tens of thousands of miles across the sea in places as far as Brazil, California, and Florida. The orange is rich in its history, biology, and taste. It should not be pressed, crushed, squeezed through a filter, refined down to only its barest bones. So often we feel the need to simplify and categorize, and in doing so we strip away much of what matters. With pulp, orange juice regains part of its personality; it breaks out of the restraints of being forced into a pulverized version of itself.

So, I don’t drink plain orange juice. Instead, I drink orange juice with pulp.

moon children transcended beyond celestial borders MICHELLE DONG ’20

The TREASURE of Writing

NOEL ULLOM ’23

Writing is one of life’s most precious gifts.

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It is the golden key to any heart, especially broken ones, Opening their many compartments to release every bit that’s inside.

Writing is the paintbrush that lets you color a gray sky with every color imaginable; The train that takes you to touch every inch of the world.

It lets you cry a river of tears, Or challenge the moon with your sunlight.

It unlocks the hidden secrets and gems of the world, Yet sparks the creation of even more.

The cork stuck on the bottomless bottle of emotion now has a long-awaited solution, As the bottle is on the verge of breaking to pieces.

As the cork finally pops off the lid and the bottle’s content flows, Others race to the shore of the ocean it has created, To swim, splash, explore, and wonder.

We break free from lives of straight lines and black-and-white, And dive into a world of unending marvel and no direction.

When we were once walking down a direct path, trapped within life’s restrictive walls, We now break down its barriers and veer off course.

This new path, carved by our own direction, Is one that is unknown yet deeply cherished.

‘Tis the one where imagination finally becomes reality.

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Nothing Left to Say EMMA GERBER ’21 I think the truth is that I’m afraid to write. Or deeper, I’m afraid that I can’t write anymore. Ever Since school and life and everything most of the time I’m stuck writing essays that are so structured they Aren’t mine anymore. Paragraphs turn into jail cells that my brain rots away in, flickering between insanity and A painful awareness that I am losing myself to paper and time and the US education system Even now I have let this page sit empty for too long, shooting down every phrase I can think of, painfully aware of phrases like painfully aware and shooting down Because everything has become so cliché that cliché has come to be its own meaning.

My adductor pollicis throbs and my hand shakes and all I can say Is that I think I’m really terrified of filling this page because It already feels like the words are getting away from me somehow It’s hide and seek but no one’s hiding: I spy With closed eyes. There’s no grasping in the dark Because there is nothing there except the fear That when the lights turn on and The games are all over in My head I might finally Have to accept that I have nothing Left to Say. 12 Letting the Confetti Fall by Caroline Cannon ’21

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