The Lost Art 2016-2017 Literary Magazine

/lost art

the

/lost art

the

volume four

Artist Olivia Weber

Medium Acrylic

Date Spring 2016

2016 - 2017

McKinney High School 1400 Wilson Creek Parkway McKinney, TX 75069

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it’s not coming off / Yasmine Yash / 6 little one / Robert Cajas / 8 bed / Elyssa Eisenberg / 10 nightmare / Andrew Blissett / 12 the screechers / Leena Guesmia / 14-15

table of contents

what revolution is / Michael Colwell / 18 choose to feel / Alejandro Milla / 22

bluebird / Gavin Wieghat / 24

confession / Jack Brightman / 28

uninhabitable / Angelique Haigood / 31

you’re welcome mr. president / Johnny Millar / 33 reaper / Austyne Chetwood / 37 picasso / Brandon Erickson / 39

innocence / Sabrina Ponce / 40

dad / Kathleen Ruiz / 43

the day the stars turned off / Kate Settle / 44 birds / Michael Colwell / 46

phone call home / Ethan Montano / 48-49 empty room / Elizabeth Chan / 51

wind blown / Alejandro Milla / 56

backseat silence / Samantha Greyson / 59 she returns / Christian Mack / 61

the lucid jungle / Austyne Chetwood / 62 reflection / Briana Barnett / 65 breathless / Kate Settle / 66

a brief greeting from the future / Jenny Cao / 68-69

the art of conversation / Briana Barnett / 70 knowledge / Sabrina Ponce /72-73 sundering / Alexi Melton / 74

summer feet / Anika Newland / 77 silent / Taylor Balcom / 79

i don’t see in color / Wilmary Soldevila / 80-81 wonders / Alyssa Wilson / 83 how he shined / Valerie Landis / 84 despondent monument / Angelique Haigood / 86 golden-haired heartbreaker / Abby Stansbury / 89 murder / Jackson Douglas / 90 normality / William Gonzales / 95

ballad of mary lou / Jonas Palmer / 97 reread / Erin Cyrier / 101

legends of the fall / Jonas Palmer / 103 the unknown / Natalie Byrd / 104-105 sunshine / Alexander Moltz / 107

black and white / Cori Simpson / 109

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literature

to serve / Robert Cajas / 55

Mena Bahram Olivia Weber

/ front & back

/ inside front / inside back

Hallie Dickerson

4/112

photography Sophia Barcus

/ 75

Ethan Brausen

/ 82

Natalie Byrd

/ 47, 92

Sean Chen

artwork

/ 38, 41, 50, 102

Matheus DeSiqueira Hallie Dickerson

/ 6,9, 54,100

/ 30 / 19

Mena Bahram

/ 58, 85, 106

Noah Hernandez

Hunter Bauers

/ 98

Michelle Maldunado

John Edwards

/ 98

Sophie Manson

Idris Eljaouhari

/ 16-17, 52-53

Savana Mixon

Cynthia Flores

/ 13

Anna Najera

Christian Gomez Alex Macias

/ 98

/ 48, 87, 108

Matthew McDonough / Nicolas Messerli Brian Ricks /

/ 20-21

99

Keeley Seim /

99

Mary Katherine Shapiro Aleyam Velazquez Megan Ward

99

/ 26, 80

/ 45, 67

Rachel Yianitsas

/ 98

/ 98

/ 23, 32-35

/ 42, 94

Hannah Freeman Elaine Glatz

/ 99

Suzanne Adams

Erin Cyrier

/ 11, 76, 88

/ 25

/ 78

/ 28, 57, 64, 71, 96

/ 60

Jordynn Palmer Ashley White

/ 36, 63

/ 68

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cover art

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It’s not coming off.

Date Winter 2017

I scrub and scrub.

I keep scrubbing, faster now.

It’s not coming off.

Artist Hannah Freeman

Medium Photography

I can still feel it, the sickly warmth of crimson sticking to and soaking my palms.

A strangled sob claws its way up my throat, the embodiment of sheer agony.

I retreat into the darkness behind my eyelids.

A mistake.

it’s not coming off Yasmine Yash

His eyes stare at me from the shadows, unfocused and empty.

Gone.

Keep scrubbing, keep scrubbing, keep scrubbing!

Gone.

The word resonates through my skull, echoing like a requiem in an empty auditorium, enhancing the pain, the anguish.

Oxygen ceases to exist.

I am drowning in an invisible ocean, a suffocating entity crushing my chest.

It’s too late.

I am no longer here.

Like an asteroid out in space, my mind has been sucked into the abyss of Then.

Then, when the world turned mute, and ceased to function.

Then, when leaves fell from the trees around us, like rocks breaking off of cliffs and slamming into the waves of the ocean below.

Then, when a smile was given, but could never be returned.

Then, when liquid heat seeped from cradled flesh, like water through desperate fingers to form pools of crimson.

And lips shaped the dreaded outline of an unspoken valediction.

Goodbye.

Why? Why did it have to be you?

I was there too.

My eyes spring open, gasping for light.

My breath trembles.

My hands rise, shaking, into view.

It’s not coming off.

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The water burns my angry skin.

The abrasion giving color to the stream, a whirlpool spinning steadily down the sink.

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little

one Robert Cajas

Medium Photography

Next it could be your father or your mother.

You shall soon know the true meaning of fear.

The only monsters you will fear are people like me.

Go ahead and quiver.

Don’t try to shed a tear.

I know you can no longer, Little One.

Artist Hannah Freeman

Little One, he is gone.

Nothing can bring him back, not religion or science.

His soul falls into the void along with your Jewish god.

He is as lifeless as the fence that shall soon reap you of your freedom.

This is only the beginning.

Today it was your brother.

Date Winter 2017

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Elyssa Eisenberg

Under the covers, everyone’s safe haven but I am afraid because it is not just my sleeping place. It’s that place, where It joins me.

Crawls into my bed. Lays beside me. Plays with my heart.

Dangling my life in its hands.

It knows I’m lonely. So it whispers to me. Comforting me.

Forcing me to become attached.

I gravitate towards it. Pulling me closer to the shadows each night.

My heart blackening I beg for freedom, I truly do.

But I have no chance, so I give in. Give in to everyone’s worst nightmare.

But darkness turned away, betraying me.

Exposing me to silence

I can smell hunger on its breath, dying to corrupt my soul.

Constantly beating me. Taunting me with my mistakes. My losses.

--Darkness comes again.

Date Winter 2016

Leaving me broken. With only one state of mind.

Medium Photography

Leaving me alone with the monster known as My Thoughts.

Artist Natalie Byrd

I trust darkness now.

Andrew Blissett

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nightmare Click!

The rotten wood boards creaks below.

Fear struck by the footsteps slowly approaching tears with wide eyes mixed in terror darkness coats the hallway in midnight breathing a low rhythmic tune.

Click!

The heartstopping noise comes closer dread with anxiety fills the lungs.

When fear clutches your chest, it’s all you can feel.

As desperation takes hold all you can do is pray as your nightmare creeps into view.

Artist Cynthia Flores

Click!

Medium Pencil Sketch Date Spring 2017

It was late evening, and the sun was just hovering above the horizon. At a lake in northern Oregon, a boy stood alone throwing stones with all of his strength, yet not one of them skipped across the clear, blue water.

He was supposed to be home before sundown but he needed to do this. All his friends could skip stones, and he would be the odd one out if he didn’t get it down.

He’d been at the water all day, throwing until his arm grew sore and blisters formed on his fingers. Glancing at the setting sun, he took a step back, ready to take his last throw. He had to be home before sundown or else he would miss supper.

“Samuel, where have you been all day?” Sam jumped at the sound of his older sister’s voice, the soothing sounds of nature having been momentarily interrupted by her. He looked back at her. “One more throw Julie.

Just one more.”

She crossed her arms and sighed. He’s been at this every day, she thought. When is he going to give it up?

Taking a deep breath, he threw the three stones in his hand with all his might, and two began skipping. Once.

Twice. Until they were out of sight. He shot his hands into the air and laughed in triumph. “Wait,” his sister interrupted, pointing into the distance. “What is that?”

They both squinted and looked out over the water as the third stone came skipping back at abnormal speed.

There was a moment of stunned silence as the rock landed at Samuel’s feet, and he reached down to pick it up. “No!” Julie shrieked, grabbing Sam’s hand. “You have no idea what might have touched that.” He shook his head and scoffed, “Don’t be stupid.” But before he could reach down again, Julie was pulling him along the brush until they reached the road. “Do not tell Mom or Dad about this.”

Sam looked at her questioningly.

“Just trust me on this one okay?” she explained.

“They won’t believe us…trust me, I’ve tried.”

Samuel blinked, and had to think for a moment before it set in. “This has happened to you before?”

She nodded, but held her finger up to her lips. “They might be listening out here.” He shut his mouth despite the questions swimming in his head, and they walked home in silence. Walking home, Sam couldn’t help but notice Julie’s trembling hands and restless eyes darting side to side, and how she seemed to jump at every little noise.

They entered the house to the comforting smell of dinner and the fireplace burning. “Thank goodness you’re back before sundown. Help set the table please,” Mrs. Stevens said, visibly relaxing as she glanced back at them and continued hurriedly stirring the cooking meal on the stove.

Mr. Stevens sat by the fire with the evening newspaper and smiled at the sight of his children. “Did you get the stones to skip today Samuel?” he asked. Sam was about to nod excitedly, but Julie frantically nudged him to remind him of what had happened. He shook his head as he looked down, trying to hide his elation.

“Ah, well, maybe next time,” Mr. Stevens said and returned to his paper. After a painfully long dinner of bland soup and small talk, Sam hurried to Julie’s room where she was already sitting at her desk expectantly.

“Close the door behind you, and don’t raise your voice.”

Wondering what could possibly be so private and important, Sam did as he was told and sat down on her bed. “What is going on?”

“I call them Screechers,” she began.

“What are they?” Sam asked excitedly.

“I was getting to that,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

“Anyway, I’ve never actually seen one up close, but they usually hang around on the other side of the lake, and sometimes in the lake. I’ve never heard them talk. They

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the screechers Leena Guesmia

just make this weird screeching sound, but they seem to be trying to speak.” Sam was taking in every word, and found this to be especially fascinating.

“How did they skip my stone back? And why?” he questioned.

“I…don’t know,” she answered hesitantly. “They always try to interact with us, and this was their first successful try with you. I tried to not tell anything to you about it, but it’s time, especially now they’ve gotten to you.”

“Why can’t we talk to them?” Sam said nonchalantly with a shrug. “Maybe we could be friends.”

Julie grabbed his shoulders, startling him. “You mustn’t.

You can’t. They’re not human, Sam. They’re dangerous.”

Sam pulled away from her. “Why?” She stepped closer to him again. “When I told Mom and Dad, they made them forget. And when I came home from school the next day, the house was ransacked.”

Sam paused for a moment.

“Mom said it was a burglary.”

Julie shook her head. “They made her say that. Sam, ask yourself this, why do you think we have to be home by sundown every day?”

Sam had to think for a moment. “I never thought about it,” he said as the realization of the Screechers’ presence struck down on him. Julie walked to the door and opened it, signaling that it was time for Sam to leave.

“Just be careful Sam. The more you think about them, the closer they can get to you,” she whispered as she shut the door.

As the days went by, Sam noticed a ghostly human-like shape in the distance from his bedroom window. He didn’t think much of it, assuming that the Screechers would keep their distance since they seemed to with Julie. She didn’t want to talk about it anymore, explaining that it was “better not to speak of them.”

However, as summer ended and Julie began going to school and his parents went to work, he was left alone in the small house every day when he got home from school. He spent his lonely hours by the window, watching as each day, the figure came a little bit closer. It was so subtle and quiet that Sam didn’t notice it at first. Then he eventually began to hear the screeching.

The noise that it emitted was only a bother at first, keeping Sam up at night, and annoying him during the day.

He asked Julie about it and was only answered with a curt, “You get used to it.” And eventually he did. He did anything he could to take his mind off of the Screecher, drawing pictures of the forest, watching television, listening to the radio. But he couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched every day. He was so young, but he felt his sanity slipping away every moment spent alone. When he thought about it, he remembered his sister’s odd behavior when they were younger and how she became moody and withdrawn in her room for a long period of time.

Day after day passed, and eventually, the figure was at his window. He couldn’t look at it directly out of fear, and learned to keep the curtains drawn and to stay away from it. His parents were as clueless as ever, and his sister became withdrawn again. He was alone, helpless, and vulnerable. Then one foggy Sunday morning, he began pacing furiously. The screeching had become a pounding migraine, and he couldn’t bear it anymore. He threw back the curtains and stared directly at it. “What do you want?” he exclaimed, exasperated and terrified. And, for the first time, he could comprehend the screeching noise.

It was saying, “You.”

Artist Idris Eljaouhari

Medium Digital Art

Date Fall 2016

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Revolution is a balcony on a burning building. Afraid to jump, but you have to do it, so you can live to put out the flames.

Michael Colwell

Revolution isn’t irrational. Although it may involve a great fury, it is a justified one, and one that has been stoked for a long time.

Do not give in to suggestion that your anger is blind. You want change for a reason.

Revolution isn’t destruction. It isn’t burning streets and buildings reduced to rocky rubble.

We don’t have to destroy and rebuild from the ground up to get what we want. We just have to march into the halls of the wicked and hand them an eviction notice.

Revolution isn’t lonely. You can’t be an agitator by yourself because anger is only strong when held by the many.

Revolution isn’t today. Nor is it tomorrow, or the next day, but we’re closer than ever before. We’re organizing, vocalizing, and making those who used to terrify us quake in their own boots. Keep the fight going, stay strong, and hopefully some day, I’ll see you all again, and that day we’ll be marching.

Revolution is organizing. Band together with friends, family, coworkers, or whoever will join you, and get to work. If no one will join you, join with a group that already exists, but find some way to unionize with others.

Date Winter 2017

Revolution isn’t sitting and waiting. Ballots can be cast and grievances voiced, but there’s no justice. So get out in the streets, make trouble, and get MAD! They have stolen your people and your lives when you asked no such thing of them.

Medium Photography

Revolution isn’t savagery. No matter how much they tell you to stay calm and to be “civil,” you are not a ruffian for demanding your rights. In fact, in standing tall against oppression, you fight against savagery.

Artist Noah Hernandez

Revolution is marching in the streets, and crying out for justice from angry mouths.

When they don’t listen, it becomes marching with guns in our hands and a chant on our lips, boots getting louder with every hit on the asphalt, so they’d better listen now or they WILL listen later.

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what revolution is

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21/112 Artist Nicolas Messerli

Medium Mix Media

Date Fall 2016

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Alejandro Milla

Date Winter 2017

Medium Photography

When we’re born we have both a heart a brain to feel with. to choose with.

It’s not a matter of which way is right or wrong.

It’s a matter of combination.

Humans are capable of being able to both

feel and choose.

Artist Matheus DeSiqueira

They told me love is a feeling. a choice.

They told me that you can’t choose feel love.

How does one love?

If all sides are testifying to their correctness and the wrongness of the other, who is true?

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choose to feel

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bluebird Gavin Wieghat

Inspired by Charles Bukowski

We clench the bluebirds with our pleasures,

they sing their melancholy tunes to the very depths of me;

poor little things they are,

the inward selves

but in the spreading their wings they cover us whole in their shade and oh it hurts as though a spade hatched upon the cosmic wave on float of what bears weight,

they seem as though they're intent on our run but in the midsts of the midnight hour whether we’re drunk on the floor or pacing our dear bluebirds come out to show themselves before the celestial

What melancholy empirical blue of their feathers do show,

but the union however bitter tells of sweetness too.

Medium Photography

magnificence of our eyes and the soulful fire them loses its brightness.

Artist Michelle Maldunado

Date Winter 2017

Artist

Aleyam Velazquez

Medium Acrylic

Date Fall 2016

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28/112 Date Fall 2016 Artist Savana Mixon

Medium Photography

I have a confession to make.

I am no more than human, with the power of God and the Devil.

I can either take life, or give it.

It disgusts me, the way my reflection is blind to what I do.

Judging my own imperfections, then casting them upon you like a self-projection.

I stand on your shoulders only to keep my head above the water.

confession Jack Brightman

Allow me to properly introduce myself, I am what you see in the mirror, the only difference is you can't see the fresh blood on your hands.

Now I apologize ahead of time for what I am, what I'm capable of, what I have done, and what I will do.

I have a confession to make!

I am a serial killer.

My body count is known only by God and my victims’ testimonies are plagued by these self-inflicted wounds with knives, ropes, and flames covered in their own fingerprints.

I have a confession to make!

My heart beats the same blood as yours, my lungs fill with the same air you breathe, I watch you, everywhere you go.

I have a confession to make, my weapons of choice are no more than the power of my words leaving mental scars and broken spirits.

It's a coward’s game the way I play.

Passively killing my victims by forcing them to kill themselves, And I'm sorry it was never intentional.

I just got addicted to the taste of bitter words and the numbness of broken knuckles.

I have a confession to make, I am like you just like you are like me.

Blood on our hands from words we've spoken.

We are teenagers, we are serial killers, we are no more than human with the power of God and the Devil with these selfish ticks and broken reflections.

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These hands at my side might as well have left bruises on their bones, scars on their wrists, put their bodies in caskets, but my words buried their corpses while their families watched.

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Angelique Haigood

Artist Elaine Glatz

Medium Photography

Date Fall 2016

I find that I prefer the sprawling expanse of deep blue ocean, waves tall as towers reaching toward the sky, despite having no place to call home beneath the murky, endless depths that threaten to swallow me and never release me again.

I find that I prefer the ocean, despite being deathly afraid of what lurks in the deepest, darkest depths of its neverending blackness, devoid of light and devoid of hope.

I find that I prefer the ocean over the vast expanse of land I call home, where dust clings to my face and clothing and finds a home in my hair and where the cruelty of others threatens to choke out all life.

I find that I prefer the ocean, not because I no longer fear it, but because the things that dwell on the surface of the earth are far more worthy of my fear, bloodthirsty animals that would decimate me in seconds with some sort of chemically engineered weapon that they dreamed up in the hopes they would never be at its receiving end.

I find that I prefer the ocean, not because it is a safe haven, but because there is truly no life for anyone in a now barren land that has been stained with blood of the innocent and is only crumbling further into its untimely demise.

I find that there is no home for me in a land where my every action is watched and documented, where health and security are a privilege, and where I find myself unable to tune out or end the suffering of millions around me, my silence staining my hands with blood I did not shed.

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uninhabitable

Johnny Millar

mr. president

We have a repugnant President, a man whose outward heinousness has no modern precedent.

This authoritarian has a worldwide reputation that reeks like carrion, as it’s clear that this megalomaniac is no braniac, Date Winter 2017

but rather a self-proclaimed intellectual who’s rather logically ineffectual.

His desired wall may be on the order, but his divisive rhetoric has split the country with corder.

Maybe he wouldn’t be doing all this Muslim bannin’ if it weren’t for the devil on his shoulder Steve Bannon,

Artist Matheus DeSiqueira

Medium Photography

and maybe he wouldn’t villainize what the press has to say if it wasn’t for Kellyanne Conway.

But best-case scenario he sits idly by while they run the ropes, sitting in privilege as he’s achieved his hopes and gropes.

I want more than a predatory bystander from America’s commander.

Someone who doesn’t legislate a bathroom, or try to control someone else’s womb.

Someone who’s read the constitution and respects every religious institution.

Someone who doesn’t treat women as second-class or sees them as just a piece of… cake.

Someone who protects what’s right, not just what’s white.

I don’t wish him dead because his ideologies are red, or assume he has no clue just because he isn’t blue.

It’s the disregard of facts and the size of his ego, serving as a presidential placebo.

A man whose logical fallacies plague him like Maladies,

whose political negligence is intensified as he greets dissent with petulance.

He has to start listening to the wants of the people, instead of hiding away in a Trump Tower steeple.

Ignorance may be bliss, but he’s on his way to a nationwide diss.

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you’re welcome

Artist Matheus DeSiqueira

Medium Photography

Date Winter 2017

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Austyne Chetwood

Artist Jordynn Palmer

Medium Photography

Date Fall 2016

He wore a black coat with brown boots.

He walked down that ivory tiled hall till he encountered the door.

With all his might he tried to ignore.

This pain was killing him.

His first son gone with little ability to heal him.

He longed for the last touch.

His beige skin bruised and swollen dry blood beaten and caressed on the surface.

He was no more.

His first son became his first child to die.

He moved on with a physical body intact but his soul left before.

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reaper

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People saw me as different.

My face tells a thousand stories of my past battle scars of my depression.

My eyes hold the many memories I have of her but knowing that she is gone I must rely on my imagination to keep me sane.

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Artist Erin Cyrier

picasso picasso picasso picasso Brandon Erickson

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innocence

Sabrina Ponce

We stared at the night through a glossy pair of eyes and my tears fell as you realized you didn’t love me anymore the city lights did not shine that night and the stars hid.

Somehow they knew that if they lit up I wouldn’t believe it.

Artist Erin Cyrier Medium Photography Date Spring 2017

42/112 Artist Hallie Dickerson

Medium Photography

Date Fall 2016

You rather get high than take care of your only daughter.

You’d rather disappoint your mother and show your younger siblings that it’s okay to snort, smoke, and shoot up when things get hard instead of showing us right from wrong.

You’re a disappointment.

You’re my father yet I don’t claim you.

But you questioned my mom if she was faithful.

If I was yours.

I look like you in more ways than I want.

You will never be able to have the honorable title of “Best Dad in the World” I didn’t have a dad for years. And still don’t.

My mom was a child herself caring for and mothering a child.

And you couldn’t step up and be my dad?

You walked away from me!

You walked away from a better life.

You had a chance to get out.

To get clean!

dad Kathleen Ruiz

Was I not good enough for you?

Was I a mistake?

Tell me what I did wrong.

When you walked away from the delivery room, was I just not worthy of your love?

That’s pathetic.

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The temptation was stronger than your love for me.

You’d rather have drugs in your hands than your little girl.

You’d rather hold that needle to your arm and shoot up and get high than rock me to sleep.

You’d rather hit that line on the table with a straw and snort it up your nose than tell me that it’s okay and let me cry on your shoulder.

You’d rather hold the pipe to your mouth than watch me walk across the stage in my cap and gown.

You’d rather rot your life away with these drugs than walk me down the aisle on my wedding day.

You’d rather die from an overdose than wait in the waiting room when I have my first child.

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Kate Settle

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy,”

she proclaimed to the world. No one could question her either; you could see the

happiness in the way her hands glided

across the keyboard, making an angelic sound, the way her legs ached from

dancing around her room, but above all else, you could see it in her eyes. Her

eyes would gently burn themselves into

yours, and you would never come to anger towards this act, only gratitude. Her eyes

would send the sun and the stars away in shame because nothing could challenge her radiance.

The way her eyes glowed fiercely when

she laughed made you want to tell every always been addicting. Once you had it,

it was next to impossible to give up. If her eyes were a casino, you would wake up

you meant to, but frankly you wouldn’t mind

because who complains about staying in the Then it happened. It was like someone

flipped a switch in your eyes. Now, I look into your eyes and I fear that they have become

black holes—a place where brilliancy goes to die—because pupils have taken over

you plug yourself into someone else, when you devote your every waking moment to someone else.

Your eyes used to orbit the earth, like

satellites blinking in the night. But in a fiery rage, they have fallen to the surface. Your eyes have become dull and lifeless. Your

eyes no longer shine for years on end. But I guess all stars have to die at some point.

Your eyes lost the qualities that separated

them from a monochrome sea; they became just another lackluster pair, a set that gets

overlooked. Your eyes have become a com-

moner, and they no longer scream of royalty as they once did—but your eyes will always belong in a palace.

Your eyes used to prove to me that there

is something else in this world—something

worth fighting for. But since then your eyes have gone out like an old light bulb. I will

never forget it was your eyes that showed

me there could be meaning in everything.

I was saved simply because you loved me,

you shined your light on me and healed me.

I’m sorry I couldn’t do the same.

Date Spring 2017

most radiant place in the world?

the largest spark I can see in them is when

Medium Acrylic

years later realizing that you never left when

eyes held an otherworldly shine, and now

Artist Megan Ward

joke known to man because her light has

the spot where the stars once lived. Your

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the day the stars turned off

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birds Michael Colwell

Two birds flew away

in the winter, in the cold but in the springtime they flew back separately for the warmth of two was gone.

Artist Sean Chen Medium Photography Date Spring 2016

Date Spring 2017

I never knew the meaning Of love until seeing The cutest smile I’d ever laid Eyes on

Artist Alex Macias

Medium Charcoal

She helped me change my ways A love that could make me stay I’d never thought it end But one day I lost a friend

As a baby all I knew (C#M7) Is my parents loved me too (E) They’d catch me when I’d fall (A) And I was never blue (E) As a kid I would play (C#M7) Outside in the rain (E) Smiling at the sky (A) Raindrops on my face (E) {4-bar inter-strum/pick… Progression B, A, E, E} And ohhh (C#M7) I was never shy and (E) I would never lie (A) On the grass when I could fly (E) And ohhh (C#M7) Life was moving fast (E) Oh let’s make this last (A) Forever (E)

The world won’t wait on me But I will wait for you And everything we’ve been through Gets better And the world will make me see The things I’ve laid behind me It’ll dig it up like stones To weigh me down before I get home But there’s something in the way Your eyes wanna make me stay They say I’m not alone That I was always home Ohhh (C#M7) Call me on the phone (E) Ohhh (A) Take me back home (E) {4-bar strum/pick- progression- B,A,E,E}

The world won’t wait on me But I will wait for you And everything we’ve been through Gets better And the world will make me see My past and it will blind me It will hit me with the stones To weigh me down before I get home You told me I should stay I never should’ve gone away I left you all alone Please bring me back home Ohhh Call me on the phone Ohhh I am all alone Now we’re both grown We’re moving on our own I see you everyday But there’s no more room for me My mom calls everyday To see if I’m okay I love her through the end Same as you

We went Faster than I’d Want to But I know You had to go Away

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As a teen I lost my way Nothing could make me stay Addicted to my phone And in love with all my wrongs

The world didn’t wait for me I made it because of you And everything we’ve been through I remember And the world did make me see The past I’d laid behind me It hit me with a stone But I made it back home When you told me I should stay I never should’ve gone away Now we’re moving on our own Please bring me back home Ohhh You are not alone Ohhh You come on home I’d love for one more dance But I’ll never get my chance We grew up way too fast And some things can’t last Forever

phone call home

Ethan Montano

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Elizabeth Chan

Grief is the nursery that was fully decorated but remained empty.

The feeling when you look through the box marked “Annie.”

The pictures of your mom holding a baby in her arms, and thinking how much it must have hurt her.

Knowing you won’t see her for a lifetime.

It’s the smell of a newly born baby.

Artist Erin Cyrier

Medium Photography

Date Spring 2017

Grief is knowing your sister cannot be with you.

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room

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53/112 Artist Idris Eljaouhari

Medium Digital Art

Date Fall 2016

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Robert Cajas

“Our Father who art in heaven; Hallowed be Thy Name”

Artist Hannah Freeman

Medium Photography

Date Winter 2017

As soon as the words left my breath, and I bathed in your eternal glory, I felt your everlasting acceptance.

All I was required to give in return was my loyalty.

“Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” I would kneel and treat you like royalty.

I followed your every word.

Obeyed your every demand.

You wanted something done, I made sure it was done precisely

as you wanted it.

No matter the price, I did the deed you wished to be complete.

“Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our trepasses as we forgive Those who trespass against us” So many times, so many crimes.

So much pain I brought to others to make sure you were satisfied.

“And lead us not into temptation”

“But deliver us from evil” I am told by you that I am righteous.

That some deserve pain.

“For Thine is the kingdom” That if I wasn’t out there doing your bidding, demons would run amok.

Forcing your people to enter eternal damnation.

Others see me as a monster.

“And the power” I am told that the demons I conquer are innocent compared to me.

They say I have no humanity.

“And the glory” They say I have no soul.

They say I have no will.

That I am simply a slave.

“Forever and ever” It makes me question my morality.

Am I a disciple of God or a slave to the Devil?

“Amen”

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to serve

Their screams stain my waking and sleeping moments.

Their pleas repeating louder and louder by the second.

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wind blown Alejandro Milla

The wind blew around the small purple umbrella.

Left at the mercy of an indifferent force who cared not for the weary.

Artist Savana Mixon Medium Photography Date Fall 2016

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backseat silence Samantha Greyson

She can no longer breathe,

yet he tells her to gulp the poison into her frail body.

Her lips quiver as he rattles off the reasons why her words are a lie.

Date Spring 2017

But he doesn’t realize that his golf balls will never be as white as the bleach she pours on her body to cleanse her sins.

He wears his title with a respect that he doesn’t deserve

because he forces a choice between sanity and antiquity.

But as she lays on a bed with a bottle of pills

Artist Mena Bahram

Medium Acrylic & Vinyl

and the fantasy of his forgiveness she chooses sanity.

Christian Mack

60/112 Artist Anna Najera

Medium Photography

Date Fall 2016

Freedom, it comes slowly and cautiously to those of us that have become acquainted with our collars and shackles.

Sometimes months or years go by before I can taste it.

Its metallic flavor heavy upon my subconscious.

But it never lasts too long before my emotions and heart are enraptured again with a familiar ache.

She does this with a venomous glee. Then when she’s caught me, she crucifies me on my own longings, leaving me to solitude’s embrace.

Only returning to mutter sweet nothings in short syllables.

Holding me hostage, it brings her satisfaction to know, that she can leave, and return at random, yet still pull my heartstrings.

If perhaps they were to break, I could go peacefully free in the end, but at last she’s too vindictive to let go of what is hers even though she no longer wants it.

It’s her way of killing.

Letting her victim burn bright with feelings then starve those very emotions like one does a cigarette, of oxygen.

She breathes life into a form, then lets it fade slowly, shriveling from every drag till there’s only dying embers, ash, and then she smothers me with cold hard truth of my lack of value.

Leaving me cold, broken, like the little bits of plastic, left behind like when one used an ashtray.

Sooner than the dead could believe, she strikes up again, and takes another drag...

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she returns

I am nothing more than what you think I am.

My burlap bag is nowhere to be found, because I am poor.

My sea is an empty space of syringes to shoot up what counts as the majority's opinions.

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the lucid jungle Austyne Chetwood

I am nothing more than what you think I am.

I get dressed for school in clothes labelled “thief.�

I look behind me everywhere I go because it seems like the clothes I wear on my back carry knives.

My big innocent eyes read drug dealer, and my pearly white smile reads guilty.

What I say isn't true because truth is something only honesty can afford, and with honesty comes respect, and with respect comes a successful lineage of the white man's burden.

Analyzing that one simple question because for us, for me, it's hard.

Because I am nothing more than what you think I am.

Date Winter 2016

But a good way to break that silence is the broken branches over a broken body.

A good way to be heard is to forge impunity into bullets that may pierce each ligament that we use to live.

A good way to be heard is to remember that we aren't animals.

What we are consists of the daily commodity of contrast.

We simply color in the world like an adult coloring book simply for the aesthetic.

Medium Photography

We are together: We've managed to pass each literacy test to get our right to vote; We mopped the floors at Denny's so we can say that we have done our part; We bleed tears because it is the silence that kills us, not the drought we call white supremacy.

Artist Jordynn Palmer

I am so much more than what you think I am.

I am a tribe filled of indigenous Negroes that have fought for every single hair follicle we own, because that was what we owned; that's what was free for us.

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Artist Savana Mixon

Briana Barnett

Be real,

Be real,

a girl once told me.

she told me again.

Where you are now

The word love has been poisoned,

and who you are now

not by others,

is what makes all the difference.

but by ourselves.

Every day,

We used to have self-love,

you suffocate beneath

and we used to embrace one another’s flaws.

the piercing stares of your peers

So when

no longer breathing

and how

and no longer smiling.

did that change so fast?

Expectations have turned

Every day,

into heavy weights of exhaustion,

you have the choice

and theatrical plays have transformed

to be authentic.

into real life.

To be genuine.

But as you try to become a somebody,

And to be unapologetically you.

in this self-obsessed world we live in,

So be real,

you seem to forget

I told myself a third time.

that you already are

And this time?

a somebody.

I listened.

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breathless Kate Settle

Your blue eyes lure me in like the ocean.

A kiss from you saves my life

Touching the ocean floor

Artist Megan Ward

as we dive in deeper, deeper in love.

I no longer need oxygen for Medium Colored Pencil

you take my breath away.

Date Winter 2016

a brief greeting from the

68/112 Date Winter 2017 Medium Photography Artist Ashley White

i

won’t know who got this message, nor how to receive back, but all that matters for now, is that it’ll be in the past, before I was ruined and twisted this way, before this world crumbled on the weight of your mistakes.

But know that I wasn’t born this way, but rather made to be a machine, in the name of advancement and the everlasting quest for immortality.

I believe in your myths, buried in the artifacts called “books.”

You’ve already given a name to people like me, not quite machine nor human being.

What you call “cyborg” is all I am and unfortunately will ever be.

However, a show of new discovery isn’t why I speak to you today.

It is for the cause of our generation that I speak to you today, It is for the cause of our generation that I speak to you today.

For it is your mistakes that have been passed down to us, and it’s much too late for us to make up for them.

It started with differences that brought us all down a slippery slope, as we fell into violence and constant conflict with no end.

For in your attempts to number what cannot be counted, you drowned in what divides us instead of trying to unite us.

Us, the human race, built upon cooperation and proper communication.

So focused were you on competing and destroying the “other side,” you didn’t even notice through the centuries as everything fell apart.

You were all brilliant and revolutionary inventors, yes, bringing about technology of constantly rising complexity.

However, with that rise came our inevitable downfall, as one human race that we, this last generation must face— Oh. It appears my time is running out, they have found me, The ones that follow your path still, intent on bringing the world to its knees.

I must get going now before they catch me. So I’ll leave you with this, Hear the cries of us, your many-greats grandchildren, as we struggle to stay afloat, and know that with this message comes great power, to change the tides of time.

Make it so that I would not exist as I am, with a face of glass, and cold, metal hands that haven’t felt anything in years.

For despite all our differences, we are all united as one human race.

Our pain, our mistakes are also yours. Your mistakes and its consequences are also ours.

Take heed of our warning before it’s too late— and take note of who I am. Don’t let me be forgotten.

Farewell from the future, my name is—

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Jenny Cao

Hello ancestors of the distant past, any great grandparents of mine.

I’m speaking to you today as the ambassador of my generation, who have reached new heights of wonder as we have sent this message through time, who are possibly the last generation of all time, slowly dying as I speak.

For you can see me now and I know that I look strange, with my half metal body and face sculpted of glass, that reveal the wires that run through me, the wires that have replaced my veins.

Briana Barnett

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the of conversation Everywhere you look there is art.

However, have you ever stopped to notice

the art that is hidden within our conversations?

It’s sad

The amount of words that get lost in daily exchanges swept away like paint strokes across a blank canvas mixing in with all of the other colors until

you can’t distinguish one color from the next.

Too often we underestimate

the power a listener can have upon one’s conversation.

A listening ear has the power to change the world,

just like an artist’s painting has the power to change one’s world view.

Have you ever just listened to someone you love speak?

It’s one of the most beautiful art pieces around.

Words of kindness, anger,

and joy

just flowing out of one’s mouth into a crescendoing symphony of meaning.

Open your ears

Medium Photography

sadness,

Artist Savana Mixon

Genuinely listened?

and listen to the power that words have on you and those around you. just like a critic is always pleased when they find new things to critique within an artist’s painting.

Date Winter 2017

You’d be surprised by how different you’ll hear things

Knowledge: awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.

Gained by experience… Gained by Experience…

Knowledge in my words: Dangerous.

Allow me to explain.

We are all born innocents, with nothing, but maybe our mother’s voice in our brains.

We are born without Knowledge.

We grow to learn: how To walk our names how to read our birthday how to count ourselves.

And when a child has a problem developing knowledge they are put into a room with lettered building blocks and forced to repeat... repeat.... repeat their names spelling it out in all different color counting from 1 to 10 one too many times.

The same thing every day.

Knowledge develops into Wisdom the more you know the more you can teach that’s where the experience comes in.

Having knowledge is a blessing and a curse you see once you know there’s no way to not know once it’s been said it’s set in stone in your mind.

And at that point this knowledge can either help you or completely destroy you.

I repeat completely destroy you.

The voice the one that tells you to do what’s good always the one you’ve tried to silence over a million times but it screams louder Ii the moments you need it quiet the most.

That voice comes from knowledge it comes from what you’ve learned to be right or wrong it comes from what you have been taught to be from what you have become.

I am in pain trying to please the world by always having a smile on my face but tears in my heart by saying what they want to hear but thinking what if…

It’s hard to believe what they have to say when the rest say something completely else, and the rest are happy.

It’s hard to think when it’s never quiet.

I want to be the person they want me to be but I can’t do this anymore.

I can’t keep living with my head somewhere else holding hands with my heart guiding it.

I can’t keep going I’m tired of fighting I’m tired of living the life I don’t want to live for now and if I stay now and keep fighting what guarantees I won’t die in battle closer to the end of it.

Wouldn’t it be better for me to pause?

Take a break Get stronger Not weaker?

And the worst part of all is that I’ll never be free because I know.

And once you know if it is the truth then you’ll be living a lie.

And this lie will destroy you.

I. Will. Never. Be Free.

Knowledge.

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Sabrina Ponce

Alexi Melton

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sundering The sundering of the sounds, vibrations rolling off cool air, flowing through bone carried in the wind.

It takes minutes hours years to create a sound a familiar vibration known across the world for each person, the representation of such love.

Calm sense.

Perhaps a freedom felt by the callused,

Artist Sophia Barcus

A dance among the clouds.

Lonely Hands vibrations.

Sounds

Medium Photography

that fabricate delicate

that break the barriers An unforgettable sound.

Date Fall 2016

to our hearts.

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Anika Newland

I’m from calloused feet, stubbed toes, and burnt cement.

I’m from sticky sweat clinging to my hair as I run to the manhole.

I come from skin so tan you would think I lived outside, I did.

I’m from cleaning fold out tables that are covered with dried lemonade.

I’m from crushed ice and syrup.

From watermelon and pomegranate.

I’m from lavender leaves that never made mud pies taste any better.

I’m from sunshine so bright my eyes squint away any plague.

I’m from Saint Augustine and fluffy towels.

From clouds of hot air soaking into my dark denim shorts.

Date Summer 2016

I come from an imaginary swimming pool so cold that it could melt the heat off your rough skin.

I’m from summer ‘14 The best summer of my life, the last summer in my childhood home,

Artist Natalie Byrd

Medium Photography

the last summer with the only sisters I will ever know.

I change with the leaves, I grow old with the seasons, and I leave the burnt cement that will always stay on the palm of my feet.

Changing for the better.

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summer feet

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Medium Photography

Date Fall 2016

silent Taylor Balcom

Maybe it’s just me, but when you laugh, my heart doesn’t make a sound. Then I look at you. Everything goes silent. And I don’t mean the car radio or the rain on the window, I mean myself. When you smile, all my thoughts finally rest. When you say my name, it’s like

Artist Sophie Manson

I’ve never heard anyone say it before. I don’t think you feel it yet (I was cursed with feeling everything very deeply) but all I know is, I would rather watch you drive home than ever listen to my favorite song again.

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Wilmary Soldevila

Artist Aleyam Velazquez

Medium Acrylic

Date Fall 2016

But Little did I know Your paintbrush was not clean Black paint Hardened bristles Damaging your Could’ve been masterpiece Ruining the paint Darkened to Not a pink Purple Orange Not a vibrant red Crimson red Nor a fire burning behind frosted glass But instead You paint with ashes Ashes of those who you Discriminate Ridicule Taint the image of

Color A hue, a tint, a shade Everything you see is in color In pigments and values and stains You Fascinated at how the sky could be blue but how it could also be pink Purple Orange You talk about the way my cheeks flush Vibrant red Crimson red

Red the same color as a blazing fire Hiding behind frosted glass I listen You vividly paint a picture in my mind My own personal Courbet That is what you are With your lips Your words as your paintbrush My mind Body Soul Your blank canvas

It is not your job To paint me A dirty picture of what you see It is not your job To scribble hate in my heart Superiority in my mind Paint how you think the world should be However It is your job To see the best in people The beauty in life Equality That Is your job

Now the resistance that I place Your paint will not dry It will peel Smear Ruin your Art You You are no permanent marker No oil paint staining my clothes You You are watercolor Capable of washing away Fading into nothing Graphite on my skin Able to erase And leaving only the indention of your inequity Again I Am a blank canvas But Not yours to use I am not your Courbet I will not paint what you think the world should be I am now my own Kandinsky With my abstract thoughts Painting over and around The faded lines you had inscribed onto me Previously drawn And never really gone I am thankful Nonetheless Without your ideas I would have been exactly like You And the difference between you and me I don’t see in color.

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color

i don’t see in

The problem is No one can No one will Put you in your place Because Everyone I know Sees in color

Little wonders in this life always baffled me

sending me in directions to understand the hidden meaning.

Life feels as though I have no feet beneath me.

I am a hieroglyphic wall composed of another’s story hidden in an elliptic frozen timeframe without a notion of direction.

Everything ceased to exist as I stood on this lonely platform waiting for a something that won’t become reality watching for life to arrive.

Gazing through dense fog eyes themselves attempt to focus on objects surrounding me.

Artist Ethan Brausen

Medium Photography

Date Fall 2016

Stereotyped robots with hollowed eye sockets eyes wanting myself to alter for their amusement this life is composed of building your own scripture.

I tell you write your story in color venture into this madhouse of an atmosphere and find the good amongst the bad.

The only thing that set you apart from us is your creative thinking.

Do not fall under a subcategory in life titled Useless Copies.

Little wonders are always unexplained we say to ourselves.

Building our uncovering story along the way.

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wonders Alyssa Wilson

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how he Valerie Landis

Autumn anxiously arrives, pushing the comfort of summer out the door and leaving the air filled with possibility. The once brightly colored trees begin to shed their leaves, painting the ground an array of red and orange, hiding the cracks on the concrete.

As I drive through the small town that once seemed to put my worries to sleep, the stoplight slowly approaching warns me to stop, causing me to push on the brakes as the lights of the car in front of me gleam red.

Bring Me Your Love, a beautiful album, plays in the background, its comforting appearance appreciated despite its low volume.

My warm breath fogs up the car window, battling the frigid autumn weather surrounding the car. I trace the last words he ever spoke to me on the remains of my breath. “My love, you must shine among them like stars in the sky.”

Date Spring 2017

He loved the stars far too much to be fearful of the night.

Medium Mixed Medium

As my mind begins to run in a million different directions, I fidget with the golden ring stuck on my middle finger. In my eyes, no gift could compare to the elegant golden band he had given to me. But now, I understand how he gave me presents with his presence alone.

I remember his last week so vividly it almost seems as if he hadn’t left. I remember his eyes heavy, his skin the pale and lifeless color of the hospital bed sheets, how paper-thin the chemo had left him, and the room I’d spent every night in for the last six months vacant and bare.

I understood that one day my father would no longer have enough strength to fight a battle he knew he would lose. I just never could have anticipated his passing this soon.

Artist Mena Bahram

With the car stopped, I look around the intersection, my eyes landing on the hospital I had come to spend too much time in. Suddenly, the world begins to scream at me, pleading that I remember all the happy memories it had given to me. But as the light turns green and I drive past the hospital, I can only see everything it had taken away from me.

Through everything, the golden band had stayed by my side, refusing to allow me to forget his liveliness. Through countless of his doctor’s appointments, through sleepless nights where anxiety filled the air, through months of never-ending chemo, and through days with no hope left, the token of his love still remained, a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling.

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despondent monument.

Angelique Haigood

Trembling hands pressed gently to worn photographs, paper tinted with agony and deep regret, a partial shrine.

Artist Alex Macias Medium Charcoal Date Winter 2017

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Abby Stansbury

You filthy liar, the golden-haired heartbreaker whom I love.

I meant it when I said those three words, but you treated them like paper, folding them up and throwing them as if you were a child. Begging me to take you back but leaving me within 2 weeks.

Please, just make up your mind already!

4 times I called you mine, 4 times you let me go.

And oh god the curls of your hair just spring me into a pit of my own mind and I can’t get out.

You left me here to rot without hopes of escaping. You know you hurt me, you know that I am stuck

Date Winter 2017

without a hand or a ladder to guide me home, so why would you leave me to my own thoughts when you know how I felt about you?

I am not a toy you can pick up when you want and throw down when you’re bored. Do not text me at midnight saying you still have feelings for me. Do not treat me like I’m supposed to be a dog and wait for you.

Medium Photography

Golden-haired heartbreaker, my god, you haven’t changed.

The arms I once begged to hold me are now knives, but I can’t avoid from wanting the pain. The lips I once claimed are filled with plump lies, but I love the sense of dishonesty. Golden-haired heartbreaker, you are my vice. I know you’re bad for me, but I can’t resist this charm you’ve put over me.

Artist Natalie Byrd

You’ve got me, you beautiful wretced soul. But I’m letting you go.

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golden-haired

Darren and I finally stopped running at the intersection of an alleyway, a crossroads for junkies and city folk alike. The familiar sights of homelessness abounded. Scattered plastic bags and graffiti littered the outsides of narrow walkways and obscured us even more from the sight of the public. We hunched over and threw our breath towards the pavement in exasperated gusts.

“Oh my god,” Darren threw out the words lifelessly, as if he wasn’t aware he was talking.

His fingers itched nervously at his right pocket.

He repeated the words over and over again. I switched from hunchback position to straight up, with my hands behind my head. When I was young, Coach would never let you forget about opening up your airways. The athletics classroom was filled with knowledge as well as perversion, my first steps into the world of sexual deviancy and lunacy in the name of fun.

It warped my perception.

My brain caught back up with reality. I gathered my breath before taking a step towards Darren. He unwillingly sputtered away from my intimidating advance. I attempted a smile to show him I had no dishonest intentions but it didn’t last long on my tired face. It was beating hot out.

“Where is the gun?”

He clawed for the opening in his right pocket and awkwardly fidgeted with the entrance before finally breaking the seal with an audible

snap. I jumped slightly at the sudden sound.

He brought out the bulky revolver and held it with a nervous disposition. His hand went limp and avoided the trigger. The safety was off. I noticed but didn’t say a thing about it.

“We get rid of it, right? If my parents find it then I’m dead.”

I shook my head in disagreement. “If anyone finds it, we’re done for.” He seemed not to find any solace in those words. I couldn’t imagine what he was feeling right now, but I could almost sense it from his general appearance.

His face was bright red and filled with both innocence and fear. He shook as if the air was bitingly cold. His eyes had gained a certain distance to them.

“Don’t get the thousand yard stare on me,” I said jokingly. He was barely listening, looking off to the brick buildings that hung over us.

They reminded me of how trees used to overreach my whole house as a kid. My father told me that the trees were simply forest spirits, who watched over us from above to protect us from the brutality of this world. I felt secure.

Now those trees had been replaced by a concrete jungle.

Darren used his shirt to wipe the gun, and looked off to the right. The storm drain next to us seemed an adequate spot for the weapon, so he clicked the safety on and chucked it into the muck that runs under the city, hidden from sight.

We looked on in disgust, either at ourselves or

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which everyone was now familiar with. What I didn’t recognize was the pile of fire ants that had made their home no more than two feet away from me. Darren remembered seeing me panic and flail as I flicked my hands at the hordes of angry red ants encompassing my lower half. I countered that event with the time he engaged in “seven minutes of heaven” with Sarah Millar; he refused to talk about it, regardless of how persistent I was.

We recounted all the years we had known each other, going in depth to reveal the beautiful memories that were lost within our internal vault. Embarrassments and failures contrasted by rare successes and new purchases to try out the next day. Ignorance of sex, drugs, money, and violence. A constant stream of happiness and great opportunity disguised as teenage angst and peer pressure. We reflected on the future years as well; how they seemed to evade our gaze, how it was so hard to control, how everything seemed to unravel and unwind into a twisting mess involving more corruption and deterioration. I could tell it was taking a toll on Darren, and I knew it was taking a toll on me as well. No matter how much you tried to correct your path, a new option would form before your eyes more tempting and more stupid than the last.

When we looked forward, it was difficult...no, impossible...to envision happier times than those we had already experienced. The realization saddened us both. Our bodies slumped with the weight of the earth. Sirens and lights flashed from far away. “How warm and beautiful it seems,” I said, “now that it has passed.”

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murder Jackson Douglas

at the stench that emitted from the green and brown pathways. I looked down at Darren’s white shirt, now drenched in sweat, and the deeply saturated red that developed at its base.

“You got blood on you,” I posed. He looked down with curiosity and came back up with shock. He seemed to blank at first, then realized the implications and started throwing a temper tantrum, as a young child would. I watched with a stone face. He danced in fits of rage, but mostly shook from the self-imposed angst gained from our previous actions.

“It’s not even my fault, man!” Darren fell from the security of his legs to the weakness of his knees. He clutched his face with a deeply rooted ferocity. “He bum rushed me! I had no choice.” I went down to console him, simply kneeling and patting him on the back, as a teacher would to a kindergarten student. He cried softly.

After a minute of silence, Darren had gathered himself and sat on the railing overlooking the sewer, where I joined him under the guise of friendship. I could tell he couldn’t get the images out of his eyes, and neither could I; the blood pooled towards us, and the two shots continued to ring in my ears even then. The screeching had become so high pitched it was reminiscent of the post-concert ear buzzing, where a night of fun meant irreparable hearing damage. Darren and I used to go to concerts like that all the time, mostly in the summer before high school began due to the vast array of electronic artists that came like a wave to our area. One particular festival was memorable, although not electronic: the first time Daren or I had ever snuck a kiss from a woman.

We laughed at our collective memory, warped by the blinding lens flare of nostalgia.

I remembered laying down in the grass to enjoy Tame Impala’s set, before they switched their style to the retro-70’s synth-rock hybrid

Artist Sean Chen

Medium Photography

Date Winter 2016

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I am not “normal.”

You are “weird.”

I will not become an effigy, sacrificing myself

You can be frozen water: the same,

I am “weird.”

on the altar called the establishment.

I will become a sturdy rock.

I will not be swayed by this current.

I will find a lone island and look for more survivors.

Date Winter 2017

You can become a soldier in this revolution.

You can remain just as you are.

You can switch the words weird and normal in this spoken word.

Normal and weird are yin and yang: opposites,

We need to continue being bricks in a wall,

Isn’t it funny that there are more words for

unified and strong.

We need to turn away from average.

We need to abandon this system.

We need to support each other and fight this benchmark.

Medium Photography

yet empowered.

We must flip the status quo.

We must not be controlled.

They are “normal.”

They are not “weird.”

They shouldn’t dye our mettle with their words.

They shouldn’t control our lives.

Artist Hallie Dickerson

You are not “normal.”

They shouldn’t stab at our insecurities.

They shouldn’t judge the things that we like.

but also interchangeable. weird than normal?

Let’s change that.

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normalit y William Gonzales

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Jonas Palmer

mary lou

The sound of her soul makes her unique. Mary Lou, how do you do the things that you do? You have the ability to move people, to take people to places they never thought they’d be able to go. Magic is your speciality, and as we venture down the path of no return, I find myself falling more in love with you daily.

Give me more of what you got; how can you create such a beautiful sensation? You’re perfect in every way. Your sleek build is simply intriguing, your smooth skin is soft to the touch like silk, and your curves are as beautiful as the Swiss Alps. Your voice is the sweetest sound known to man like the sweet seduction of a siren, something that entrances my mind and grips my very thoughts. It would be an understatement to say that you’re a pleaser

Date Spring 2017

because there is something different in the way you bring joy to everyone.

You must have the most beautiful mind. How introspective can you get?

I never knew something could be made with absolutely no imperfections, what a flawless being. There isn’t a day that goes by that you’re not racing through my mind; everything about you is intoxicating. Your aroma, that

Medium Photography

sweet smell of an evergreen remind me of how your heart will forever be.

The one thing in your life that you ever wanted to do was to spread love, and already you’ve accomplished more than that.

This mind of mine constantly wanders to places where it shouldn’t go, a

Artist Savana Mixon

place where my heart begins to flat line. But when I hold you in my arms, you resuscitate my soul and bring me back to life, to a place where I belong, a place that will always and forever be my home. This is your ballad, Mary Lou, and I’ll always belong in your beautiful heart.

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ballad of

Kaaba c. 630 C.E. Mecca, Saudia Arabia

Artist Brian Ricks

Medium Mixed Media

Date Winter 2016

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Basilica of San Vitale c. 526-547 C.E. Ravenna, Italy

Artist John Edward Hunter Bauers Christian Gomez

Medium Mixed Media

Date Winter 2016

Parthenon c. 432 B.C.E. Athens,Greece

Artist Rachel Yianitsas Mary Katherine Shapiro

Saint Basil’s Cathedral c. 1561 C.E. Moscow, Russia

Medium Mixed Media

Date Winter 2016

Artist Keeley Seim

Medium Mixed Media

Date Winter 2016

Artist Suzanne Adams Mathew McDonough

Dome of the Rock c.691-692 C.E. Jerusalem

Medium Mixed Media

Date Winter 2016

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Erin Cyrier 101/112

She struggles to see that she’s beautiful when the world Tells her she can’t be anything Other than Perfect

Don’t tell her to look harder if the

Only thing that shows all of her reflections is

Useless, cracked mirrors cutting her into pieces like a puzzle, But the pieces don’t go

Date Winter 2017

Together, she

Is afraid to express what she feels because she does Not want to see how people treat her Gentle heart

Medium Photography

You know the only cure for her pain is Outside of a first aid kit, how is she

Unable to the see the only cure she needs is Reaching out to her

Sewing her heart back together with the materials that

Artist Hannah Freeman

Embody her masterpiece

Look at what you can make, you tell her

Feel the person you are making yourself to be Who you are

will be the signature on your canvas The “X” on your map

The final pieces to the puzzle that will go together Now only read the first letter of every line.

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During those long fall nights, sometimes I’d sit and stare into the vast emptiness of

Date Fall 2016

the sky. Everywhere I look, I see your face, imagining all of the things we could be.

Many times I just lay there and wonder, why you’re with someone you don’t need, and I

Medium Photography

just think to myself, how you could do better.

As fall continues, and the leaves change from a lush green to a beautiful autumn orange, we begin to fall in love. Our desire begins to to flourish, and we turn from

Artist Erin Cyrier

friends to pioneers of passion, and a true lesson of love. And when the leaves begin to fall off the trees, we begin to descend as legends of fall.

legends of the fall

Jonas Palmer

because it means that each and every member of the human race is exceptionally different

unknown

the

Natalie Byrd

—There was once a time in which positively nothing existed.

And when I say nothing,

I can’t help but yearn to know what exactly it is that you imagine,

because our falsely-filled fast forward brains could never be able to comprehend such a thing Oblivion, black holes, light sucking voids in which nothing can escape from,

the vast never-ending size of the universe, interloping and intertwining itself continuously— trying to imagine these things is like trying to describe to somone what salt tastes like There are no words for it,

no actual, solid thoughts crossing our minds aside from a smaller and less mind-boggling image, because none of us want to believe anything that we don’t understand,

(that isn’t written in a book by someone believed to be somehow higher than us.)

We don’t like fear, or the unknown,

so we make things up and try desperately hard to convince ourselves that we are undeniably correct There has never been and never will be one singular thing that every human has believed in.

Despite the fact that we all share the same basic needs and learn the same basic societal rules,

no one truly knows the depths of our own brother and sister’s imagination, or can understand something exactly the same way another does.

This can create a feeling of isolation,

but instead of crumbling under the idea that no one will ever truly understand us, perhaps we should revel in it.

Celebrate it, even,

for no one in our entire species ever has or ever will have the exact same mind that you do, and that is not something to diminish . . .

All I have ever wanted was to be different

All I have ever been is completely and utterly lost I’m sure through the beginning of reading this,

you sat in your uncomfortable chair and tried to soak in every ounce of what I was saying about the universe and our own individual minds,

and I wrote it in such a way that it sounded like I knew exactly what I was talking about. Or at least, I hope I did.

However, the embarrassing truth is that I have no clue what the hell I am doing. Ever. I just know how to make it appear that I do.

And I think that is what most of us trick ourselves into doing and believing every single day I am here to tell you, once and for all, that no one,

not your parents,

not your teachers, not your priest,

not the president,

not even the world’s most accomplished and intelligent human beings have everything figured out We are all a little bit disoriented, a little bit scared,

a little bit unprepared and a little bit apprehensive – and that is completely okay. That is why we have each other.

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This in itself is actually quite remarkable,

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sunshine Alexander Moltz

Sunshine, daylight daisies and fresh sheets. Grass fields with pockets of flowers. Running, running free with no

Medium Photography

Date Winter 2017

restrictions no commitments Anarchy in its most ideal and angelic form. The free man the unhindered soul bound by no dogma or conglomerate.

True bliss.

Nothing to think, nothing to do, just in our perfect moment of being alive and at peace. The Stanley Parable.

Without narration, making our own stories no matter how

Artist Mena Bahram

daft or perceivably insignificant. Still running, running away from the real heartache of responsibility. No deadline no one to report to...All I want is nothing to do, so that I may do it all.

Cori Simpson

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A phrase that is simple yet complicated.

Your family determines where you’re dedicated.

Water fountains and bathrooms were segregated, and that is how we were educated.

Because we come from different geography, we are impacted by several inequalities.

They wanted us to keep quiet,

Artist Alex Macias

Medium Crayon & Oil Pastels

Date Fall 2016

but we could no longer deny it.

We held boycotts and protests, walked 54 miles; no justice.

Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin, victims of the shooting, The list goes on and on... No ending.

A color causes so much intimidation.

Black and white is a sad discrimination, leaving many in tears of humiliation.

Blinding people of the real creation.

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and

black

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As we grow, the division between us becomes more

apparent, more vast. We are divided by everything that

makes us different: race, religion, gender, personality. As a

staff, we decided on the theme of divided because we

recognize these differences in the world and believe that they

make humans as a species unique. Our student body at

McKinney High School is a very diverse population with various

perspectives of themselves, each other, and the world, so we

asked what divided them. The Lost Art is their answer. In this time of

chaos the world struggles to join together, and while the gap will never

close, we will strive to see the beauty in diversity. This volume of The Lost

Art is dedicated to all of our readers, regardless of race; creed; or any way a

person can define themselves, to all types of people whether you are

acknowledged or not.

colophon

The Lost Art was produced using Adobe InDesign CC, Adobe Photoshop CC and Adobe Illustrator CC. We chose Avenir Next for our body font (10 pt.), folios (12 pt.), as well as the names of the authors, poets, and artists (12 pt.). An 8 pt. font was used for the authors in our table of contents. For our titles, we used Bodoni 72 Bold (various sizes).

We printed with Walsworth Yearbooks.

acknowledgements The co-editors would like to thank everyone who contributed to this year’s volume of The Lost Art including McKinney High School’s writers, photographers, and artists.

To the writers who, in fashionable taste, shared their words. To the photographers who recorded each thought that could ever be imagined. To the artists who

captured each stroke of their brush with ethereal acrylic mastery. Thank you to the staff who dedicated their time and talents to make this possible, especially to those who stuck with it to the end. Thank you, Mrs. Boehringer, because without you, we would not be able to publish this magazine. And a special thanks to our advisers, Ms. Rutledge and Ms. Allen, who generously invested their time into helping represent the lost and talented artists

that have found their rightful place in this publication.

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dedication

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sponsorships

On behalf of the staff and those whose work is

published within these pages, we would like to thank all

sponsors who so graciously donated money to help us

publish the absolute best literary magazine possible. This year’s

volume is the first to include sponsors, which allowed us to go above

and beyond with the publication, playing with a new size and shape,

as well as featuring more writers and artists than ever before. The Lost Art

grows each and every year, and we could not have made this year’s volume

without the support from each of you. Once again, we thank you from the

bottom of our hearts!

platinum tier Donald and Amy Smith

The Law Offices of Jim Parsons

silver tier

Date Winter 2016

The Book Gallery

Medium Photography

gold tier

Artist Hallie Dickerson

Comfort Keepers Denton/Southlake

Co-Editors-in-Chief Austyne Chetwood Lauren Tyson

Graphic Design Editor Kaley Polk

Co-Writing-Editors Samantha Greyson Alexander Moltz

Co-Art-Editors Mena Bahram

Cynthia Flores

Co-Photo-Editors Natalie Byrd

Hannah Freeman

Submission Editor Brett Johnson

Managing Editor Jourdan Williams

Copy Editor

Brandon Lisonbee

Business Manager Matt Sunthimer

Writing Staff

Michael Colwell Leena Guesmia

Dawson Pieczynski Sabrina Ponce

Design Staff

Idris Eljaouhari

Social Media Director Caden Adam

Advisers Kaitlin Allen

Katye Rutledge