Daystar Chapbook 2014

Featured artists: Natalie SchultzHenry (pages 4 and 12); Dani Gorton (page 11); Kai Keevil (page 10); and Fiona Drenttel (page 14).

co n t e n t s page 4

page 10

page 11

page 12

page 14

Griffin Shoglow-Rubenstein A Laptop Is My Only Carry-On page 1

Annie Hughes Somewhere Over the Rainbow page 2

Andres Gonzalez The Origin of Species page 5

Emily McDonald Three Trips Down the Stairs page 7

Garrett Ballard Poem page 15

Griffin Shoglow-Rubenstein A Laptop Is My Only Carry-On

I buy the Nook edition, not the print.

My macroeconomics text enjambs.

I book a flight to Rome, where you can squint Against that sun, this silence of the lambs.

Signore Lecter, have a thing to say About these country clothes, this new address?

The conto’s here. I calculate to pay, Disparage your new logo to the press.

What could you have lost—some grapes, some green?

Do memories come back from online pics?

I never liked my band; OK, I’m clean— I’m seeking Truth with Paradise’s kicks.

Can only dream of vines, of paper trees; I clear your room. I spray it with Febreze.

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Annie Hughes Somewhere Over the Rainbow

The dust touched everything. You could tell it was trying to help, trying to lend a warmth to a black and white photograph, but it didn’t realize that it was just covering up the color that was already there.

It settled into the cracks of humanity. It itched in glazed eyes and cracked lips, rested in the curls of unhearing ears, coated fingertips until all surfaces felt smooth under their touch. We had long since stopped trying to clean it out, instead opting for an annoyed rub every few minutes. We were no better than animals halfheartedly trying to swat away flies.

My parents talked in hushed tones over the worn table as I drew in the dirt. The dust filled up the creases in their faces until they had the skin of newborn babes. This smooth blankness made their faces impossible to read, but it couldn’t hide their defeated shoulders and desperate words.

There hadn’t been a storm in days.

During the last one, the house shook like it wanted to get up and leave.

Now the question was, do we wait? Do we leave first or wait for the winds to 2

decide our fate?

My Mama is beautiful. Born and raised in Oklahoma City, she met my Papa while waiting tables at some dive in town. He swept her away to his farm and in ‘28, I was born. Life was good back then, or so I’m told. There was money to be made off the land. I can dimly remember running through long grass, surrounded by green and blue with gold warming my head.

It’s still warm, but the gold has been covered by a film of brown, same as everything else.

I haven’t seen anyone outside the family in two weeks. We have cousins two miles up the road, but I’m not allowed to visit, because no one knows when the next dust storm will hit. Two weeks ago, Papa was coming back from the fields, trying to salvage any crops or equipment, when a storm hit. One minute there was a gentle breeze and the next, all the windows went dark, and the house groaned and shook. Mama and I huddled by the door, praying to god that my Papa would come back. He took shelter behind a half buried tractor and came

back no worse for wear, but since then I’m not allowed more than ten feet from the house.

The dust keeps piling up. It’s filling up the earth’s wrinkles, taking off years, smoothing skin. Soon the dust will bury us all and there will be nothing left but flat land, young and fresh and new.

My name is Dorothy, but everyone calls me Drip because my nose runs a lot. You’d think I’d mind having a nickname like that, but I don’t. At least I have a nickname.

The situation on the farm is getting pretty dire. Almost all of our animals are gone, dead from dehydration or killed for their meat. Storms buried our fields before we could harvest what meager crops we had planted, so all we have left are canned vegetables from past years. These could last us at least a few months, and then, I don’t know.

The drought might get to us before then. We had a well, a nice, deep, clean well, but lately the water’s been muddy, and I’m not sure how long even that will last. We haven’t had an honest storm in months. The air crackles with the thought of thunder, the atmosphere charged with energy, waiting, but so far, nothing.

Since I’m confined to the house, Mama’s been doing double duty on my lessons. I’m not old enough to walk the five miles to school yet, so Mama

teaches me at home about everything from reading to sewing to cooking.

Mostly these lessons come in the form of housework, but sometimes we’ll sit at the table and I’ll read to her while she cooks, pausing occasionally to ask what words meant. We had worked our way through Wizard of Oz, Mama’s favourite book ever. She said I am like the Dorothy in the book, and that one day I will get out of this place and find a world filled with color.

Papa has nothing to do now. He spends his days tending to the few animals we have left and trying to salvage ruined farm equipment. He used to like to listen to me read at night by the fire, but there’s no firewood left, so Papa just sits and smokes his pipe, fingers steeped so as to channel ideas straight into his head.

They keep leaving me out of their conversations. Sometimes when they think I’m sleeping, I can hear them straining to keep their anxiety quiet over the little table, trying not to burden me with their worries. These talks are getting more frequent, and louder, but they’re just chasing the same circle round and round: stay or go?

The house went dark around noon.

The sun was obscured behind a thick black cloud, but curiously, the air was still. I placed a foot hesitantly outside and felt my hair lifting, responding to the charged energy that crackled 3

through the air.

The rumble of thunder. A bolt of lightning tore the world in two, and then, the rain. Sweet, sweet rain, coursing down in a great torrent. It washed the dirt from our skin and the doubt from our souls. Laughing, we grabbed 4

all the containers we had and set them outside to catch the rainwater. It was fresh and pure on the tongue after so many months of muddy groundwater.

Reaching my hands to the sky, I twirled round and round until the world was reduced to a blur of color.

AndrĂŠs Gonzalez The Origin of Species

I am suffocating in this air.

My gills have not evolved to take in this stale combination of nitrogen and oxygen.

I am on my back, paralyzed.

I thought perhaps, land could not be so much worse from the waters I was forced out of.

This hell of swift moving mouths tearing at each other, searching to fill an emptiness of soul with bloody flesh; nothing could be worse.

Could it?

But as I lay here on this falsified shoreline, this devil’s heaven, My reptilian brain has grasped that escape is the fallacy.

Former gripes seem made of public restroom toilet paper.

I am drowning in battery acid.

But I could wish for nothing better, in fact, I cry tears of thanks for this knowledge.

For I know that this is merely a reminder

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of how far I have come.

I had forgotten how it felt to hold my breath every hour every day.

How it felt to carry my disinterest like a bullet-proof vest, made of lead.

How that lead that protected me from a hail of gunfire poisoned me in the end, it is the walls that I put up that put me down.

I took the sea for granted; I admit that.

But now I force my eyes, which are not designed to look in the same direction, to consider the towering reality before me.

Evolution does not happen in instants. Leaps of faith tend to fall just short.

So I will continue shedding layers of damaged skin until I grow stronger legs, and until my shell hardens and nothing you say will leave a mark.

My goal stands high in the mountains, and this acrid terrain is all that stands between myself and that goal.

Someday I will stand up to the obstacles that stand before me.

Someday, my belly will not drag across the primal dirt.

I truly believe that someday, I will walk this earth on two legs

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Emily McDonald Three Trips Down The Stairs

julia Julia glanced around the room. Our room, she thought. She couldn’t place what had changed since her last visit, but a voice at the back of her mind whispered that it must have something to do with him—with Brandon. Her legs quivered at the very thought of him. Sinking down onto the couch—her couch. No. Brandon’s couch, their couch—Julia could feel herself relaxing. A few strands of hair tumbled down from their place in the once-tight bun at the top of her head.

Her eyelids fluttered.

Crack.

The door banged open, the lock impaling the wall. Julia, surprised, spun on her heel to face the unexpected disturbance. For some reason, she hadn’t thought anyone would show up. Her whole body tensed. Her hands shook, seemingly in time with the foundations of the house itself. Julia didn’t want to see who stood framed in the doorway—waiting for her. She wasn’t ready, not after what they had done, not after Martin had seen. martin

His arms hanging loosely by his side, Martin strode clumsily across the room.

None of the others were here. He didn’t know why, but Martin didn’t think they would be coming tonight; maybe they would never come back.

He kicked out his pudgy legs as he flopped into the cushy armchair and wriggled his little feet. The imitation velvet track suit he was wearing stretched snugly over his bulging stomach as he fitted himself more comfortably in between the pillows. Settled in his chair, Martin stared longingly at the door.

He missed Brandon—the real Brandon, the one with the warm, strong, steady hands and the wide, reassuring grin, the one that would drive four hours in the violent snow to help a friend, the one who—Martin stopped himself again. He hadn’t seen that Brandon in weeks.

After several minutes, Martin gave up searching for the cigar he was sure he had slipped into his front pocket and fell to staring at the door. He imagined Brandon’s slender body in the doorframe, head just grazing the top and legs ending in feet that seemed far too big for his body. Martin imagined all 7

the times he had beckoned Brandon warmly into the room. The recollections of Brandon trotting happily to sit on the arm of his chair brought happy tears to Martin’s eyes. Closing his lids, he willed with all his might that Brandon might walk through that door, just one more time, just for him.

Crack Martin woke with a start, looking around dazedly for the source of the noise. It took him a minute to take in the figure framed in the door, his vision swimming in and out of focus. There stood Brandon. But it wasn’t his Brandon. It was the Brandon that he had seen with her, with Julia. His eyebrows crinkling into an unhappy frown, Martin swore under his breath. You have to be so specific with wishes now a days. kate Kate slipped her shoes off and left them in the doorway of the large vacant room. A dark puddle near the large bay window caught her attention and she began to walk over, but thought better of it. It was probably just one of Martin’s accidents; he was always spilling his new drink concoctions on the floor and then refusing to clean up the mess. It always drove Julia crazy. Kate smiled in spite of herself.

The cold fireplace was filled with damp, half-burned logs. She sat down beside it, lighting match after match and 8

occasionally leaving the room, only to return with newspapers, which she threw over the wet kindling. After a quarter of an hour, she gave up trying to coax a fire out of the inadequate materials. It didn’t really matter—after all, she was the only one there.

Although the couch and the armchair were both empty, to Kate, it wouldn’t feel right to sit there. Those spots were reserved for Julia and Martin; she always just sat on the coffee table, or laid under it. Kate slipped underneath it now; it was comforting. Twirling her fingers over the once-soft carpeting, she thought of nothing in particular. Well, that’s not entirely true. Every thought, passing and unimportant or positively vital, was layered with at least a hint of Brandon.

He was like a song that she could never get out of her head. Brandon was just there. He was always there, even despite the way he’d been acting recently, as if he was avoiding them all.

She was staring up at the unfinished wooden underside of the table, when Crack.

Kate wriggled out from underneath the table and, clearing the top, looked up to identify the noise. Her face went red. Quickly covering her cheeks with her hands to hide the blush, a habit she had acquired over the course of the past year, she looked over at him sheepishly.

Brandon always laughed at her when she laid under the table; in fact, the only

reason she had continued to inhabit that space was because he had once said she looked cute peeking out from underneath it. Kate thrust a hand through her light hair and moved so that she was sitting on top of the table. She tried not to smile too much, but how could she not? Brandon was here, and it looked like they were actually alone for once. brandon The floorboards creaked slowly as Brandon advanced from one room to the next, each cry louder than the last.

His feet felt heavy in his wet shoes; each step was an ordeal. He stumbled, trying to regain his balance by grabbing the handle of a nearby door, but to no avail.

The door swung open heavily, slamming against the wall with a resounding Crack and revealing a huge room dominated by a wall of bay windows and inhabited only by three pieces of furniture.

standing there! Well, if that’s how it’s going to be… Julia looked away again, but couldn’t help looking back or hoping that he would come slip into his spot on the couch and pull her legs onto his lap like he always did. She couldn’t wait anymore. “Brandon?” brandon Brandon stood in the doorway, the sturdy entranceway finally stabilizing him. He ran a hand through his messy hair, but regretted it immediately and, disgusted, he wiped the sticky liquid from his hands onto his already filthy khakis. He began to take inventory of himself. His feet were soaking and uncomfortable, his socks having rolled up and mashed themselves into the toes of his shoes; his khakis were sticking to his legs by means of mud and some other dark substance he couldn’t quite identify and were riding up uncomfortably over his hips; his shirt was also saturated and had torn right down the middle, as if a wolf had raked its claws over his chest; his arms bore the same kinds of marks— thick scratches and cuts; his hair was sticking stubbornly to his face and the back of his neck. And, for the life of him, Brandon couldn’t remember how he had gotten like this.

julia Upon seeing him, Julia immediately averted her gaze. If he wanted to talk about what had happened, he could bring it up. Brandon didn’t react, didn’t even acknowledge her. She knew he had been upset after what Martin had seen, but wasn’t ignoring her completely—pretending she didn’t even exist—taking things a bit far? Licking her lips, Julia martin glanced quickly at his face, taking him Although Martin was upset with him in. He was standing in the doorway, just (I mean, her?), he had not expected that

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Classic and staggering up the stairs of this strange house… He leaned against the doorframe. What was going on?

What had happened? And why was he here, of all places? What was here? kate Finally, they could be alone without the other two around. The heat on her face was becoming extreme and sweat he and Brandon would not speak to each other. What he had anticipated was was beading heavily on her forehead, but some sarcastic banter, He would make she didn’t care, because Brandon was there and he always made everything a stupid joke and I would shake my better. “Brandon?” He didn’t even look finger at him and he would know that it wasn’t over, but that for now we were at her though; it was as if he didn’t even okay. And we would laugh and he would know she was there. Kate just waited; he has to see me eventually. She smiled; sit on the arm of my chair and put his warm hands—his hands were always so Brandon was here. warm—on my shoulders... But that wasn’t what happened. Brandon just stood in brandon the doorway, as if he didn’t really under- At this point, he finally took in his surroundings. The fireplace was cold stand where he was. “Brandon?” and dark, but from the looks of it, that wasn’t for lack of trying. Newspapers and brandon matches were littered over the damp logs He remembered leaving his apartas if someone had tried to start a flame, ment building through the backdoor so as to avoid suspicion. Why he would but done it so incorrectly that they had eventually given up hope. There was an have been trying to avoid suspicion, immense blue chair situated just in front he had no recollection. Brandon even remembered sneaking through the alley of the bay windows, padded and round.

It watched him hungrily, as if beckoning that ran between his building and the next so he could… Do what exactly? He him to be consumed. Brandon looked wasn’t sure. He had gotten in his car and away, uneasy. Something about the chair then… His mind went blank. He couldn’t made him uncomfortable, as if it knew remember what had happened between something it shouldn’t, as if it wanted something from him. Scanning the room, sitting down in his rusted 1961 Ford 10

desperately searching for something else with which to divert his attention, Brandon’s eyes fell upon a stiff brown couch. Stately and harsh, the couch stood firm, a neighbor to the chair in vicinity, but certainly not in demeanor.

It called him too, but differently, without the desperation of the chair. Brandon wanted to go to the couch, but resisted.

He looked around again. This time, his eyes landed on the coffee table.

Least imposing of the furniture and yet, intriguing all the same, the table had turned away, dust covered its surface, but a warmth, the glimmer of polish, shone through the grime. Brandon stood amongst these objects, each one vying for his attention and, brushing off a strange feeling of nostalgia for this place he did not recognize, turned away.

Or tried to, anyway. Something called him back, a whisper that he didn’t really hear, more of a chant than a song. His name, that’s what he heard. Over and over, in different voices, different pitches, but each time, questioning. Brandon?

Brandon? Brandon? He spun on his heel, uncertain whether he was imagining it. And then he saw the puddle in the corner and his mind began to reel.

He staggered backward, through the door and out of the strange room that was suddenly so familiar. Brandon’s back rammed against the stairs’ wooden banister as memories came swimming to the surface of his consciousness.

Kate laying her dainty hand lightly on his arm and blushing heavily when she thought he couldn’t see. Julia scooting ever closer to him on the surface of the couch, pretending she wasn’t doing it. Martin waggling his finger and his tongue simultaneously and calling Brandon over to sit on the arm of his chair.

Kate tucking a thin paper note into his back pocket, her fingers lingering a second too long. Julia curling up beside him in bed, imperiously pulling his arm around her in just the right way. Martin entering just as Julia whipped her shirt back over her head. Kate crying in the other room. Brandon pushing them all away, avoiding the house and the big room with the bay windows and the vacant fireplace because he couldn’t 11

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decide. He just couldn’t decide. Brandon sitting in his bedroom with three pictures in front of him. Their names circling round and round in his head.

He couldn’t choose; he loved them all.

But that wasn’t fair. He couldn’t do that to Kate, or to Martin, or to Julia. But he had to do something, didn’t he? Brandon sneaking away from his apartment building, driving by mile marker after mile marker, tears streaming down his face. Kate feebly scrabbling against his arms, but eventually laying down, telling him that he knew best, that she trusted him. Martin coughing and spluttering, his tracksuit tearing, grabbing at Brandon’s hands. Julia ripping fiercely into his shirt, sinking her nails into the skin of his chest. The puddle in the big room with the bay windows and the vacant fireplace. Brandon taking three trips down the stairs, digging in the mud of the backyard. Brandon fighting his way back up the stairs in his wet, heavy shoes. Forgetting.

The mud. The puddle. The big room with the bay windows and the vacant fireplace.

Remembering.

He forced himself to reenter the room, averting his eyes from the dark puddle in the corner. An enormous man sat folded tightly into the blue chair. He was all soft curves from the toes of his little loafers to his broad, toothy smile. His eyes were inviting

and threatening and could only be described as enchanting. Martin.

A woman lay catlike, covering the expanse of the couch with her long slim body. Lean and muscled, she was all sharp angles. Her gaze did not meet Brandon’s, but the slight curl of her upper lip revealed that she knew he was watching. She licked her lips and her eyes flicked to his face for a fraction of a second, but it was enough; she too was beckoning him. Julia.

Another woman, more a girl really, sat on the coffee table, her back hunched and her legs crossed at the ankles. Her hair fell across her young face and she pushed it back, but halfheartedly, in a way that suggested that she meant for it to hide her eyes. She looked up at Brandon through her gold lashes, batted them twice and looked away, a blush creeping steadily up the back of her neck. Kate.

Brandon saw this all in an instant.

And then they were gone. They were gone and it was his fault. He was gone too; after all, they were all he really was.

With both body and mind torn and blood soaked, Brandon dragged himself down the stairs and into the yard.

He lay with his friends beneath the stars and, after pulling Julia’s legs into his lap, tucking Kate’s soft hair behind her ear, and clasping Martin’s shoulder with his warm palm, he encased them all in mud.

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Garrett Ballard Poem

There are only so many poems I could write that would impress you.

There are only so many tears you could shed and smiles you could crack for my verses before reading a few that lost your attention.

But you’d learn a lot about me by reading my poetry.

You’d learn about the trips I’ve taken, the women I’ve loved, my hobbies and my fears.

And you’d know a lot about my daily life, the thoughts I have when I sit down for lunch, the songs I sing in the shower, the types of art on my walls.

You’d come to learn what makes me tick, and what ticks me off, the things I dream and the reasons I walk.

And that’s all quite fascinating, isn’t it?

There are only so many poems you could relate to, that could seem like they were written for you and nobody else.

Like that poem I wrote about teenagers, and their quivery hopes, or the one about that girl I used to date, whose probably miserable now, and those perfect eyes of hers.

Maybe you enjoyed that poem about the rosewood chair in my living room, the way I beat it silly with adjectives and adverbs, making you think it might have been a metaphor for something before harshly showing the world what it really was, just a pile of scraps and nails.

But hold on not, not so fast.

Maybe there’s a plot twisting coming at the end of that poem I wrote about housewives, or a hidden meaning in my sonnet about nature.

Maybe there really is more to poetry than the ever brief breath of awe.

Or maybe there’s not.

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daystar, the literary and arts magazine of Hopkins School, publishes poems, short fiction and nonfiction, and visual art from the Hopkins student body and hosts meetings to discuss this work. daystar publishes biannually—this short chapbook in the spring and a full-length magazine at the end of the academic year.

editor-in-chief Alec Gewirtz literary editors Griffin Shoglow-Rubenstein and Andres Gonzalez assistant literary editors Lauren Kranzlin and Garrett Ballard art editor Kayla Paraiso publisher Malcolm Drenttel faculty advisor Ms. Chris Jacox cover art Fiona Drenttel Daystar thanks Jessica Helfand for her help in the production of this chapbook.