Teaser NAR Spring 2025 Wandering Through Dreams Issuu

Neon Anteater Renaissance Spring 2025

NEON ANTEATER RENAISSANCE Neon Anteater Renaissance (NAR) is UC Irvine’s Campuswide Honors Collegium’s creative works journal, featuring visual and written works from our talented CHC community. Thank you to everyone who has submitted to our issue! We also encourage you to contribute to future NAR issues by submitting your work to uci.nar.chc@gmail.com or https://sites.uci.edu/narchp/.

Editor-in-Chief:

Maria Rama-McCain

Event Coordinator: Frank Granda

Marketing Director: Erin Jun

Representatives: Chiana Fujiwara Hannah Reagan Taryn Jay Lam Zoe Frederick

Advisor: Darren Warner

Contest Winners “Limen” by Luke Kang “Night Dream Album” by Geneses Navarro Cover Photo: The Cafe of My Dreams by Michelle Cheng Instagram: nar_chc Website: https://sites.uci.edu/narchp/ Special thanks to Zoe Frederick for helping with editing!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS if this is a dream, i hope it will never end...........................................3 dear spring by UmbraCHALKEYsuperfan..........................................5 In a Thousand Ways: I love you by Anonymous.............................11 Memories That Made Those Days Sublime by Nathaniel Frederick................................................................................................................13 Where Everything Matters by Sofia.....................................................15 Limen by Luke Kang.......................................................................................18 Gas Station by Frank Granda.................................................................20 Breaking the Box by Anonymous.........................................................23 a nascent dream with clipped wings by Adhiti Chandramohan................................................................................................27 headspace by Zoe Frederick....................................................................29 The Funeral Guests by Hannah Regan...............................................31 children of the light by Lauren Finkel................................................37 Cosmic Tidepool by Lauren Finkel.......................................................39 Night Dream Album by Geneses Navarro.......................................42 for what could be by UmbraCHALKEYsuperfan.........................44 kaguraa - to you (me), finally [Cover] Feng Yi SynthV by UmbraCHALKEYsuperfan.........................................................................49 Flame Diva, and The Melodious Choir by Yamil Vasquez.......51 Festival of Fate-Sealing Lights, Rondò Culminante by Yamil Vasquez.................................................................................................................53 stringbean by Maria Rama-McCain....................................................57 My Own Way by Brianna Chang...........................................................59 Umbrabyte - My Stained Enclosure (Cover) Feng Yi SynthV by UmbraCHALKEYsuperfan.............................................64 A World in Color by UmbraCHALKEYsuperfan.............................66 The Cafe of My Dreams by Michelle Cheng...................................72 I hope to remember this dream by Christopher Tan...............74 goodnight, sweet dream by Maria Rama-McCain....................76

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if this is a dream, i hope it will never end by anonymous

if this is a dream, i hope it will never end

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Artist Statement

I was with my friend, just talking and sitting outside on a bench. I felt that moment was so much like a dream, so I began to hum to the emotions I was feeling. As I was humming, my friend recorded my voice without me knowing. Listening to it after this moment made me feel a little tingly inside, and I wanted to share it with everyone as well!

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dear spring

by UmbraCHALKEYsuperfan that summer was my first. awoken from a misty dream, into a night of rustling leaves, into a world of color. that was when i fell in love. i have never forgotten it, you know. the glint of your tiara in the silver moonlight, your voice spinning tales of angels and crowns. i remember your half smile as you lay watching the dancing stars. you wore the same smile even on that hazy night. the somber hum of our favorite oak filled the pauses between your words. it chased me through the years. it knew i could have been better. i did too. but the past can’t be changed. you know that better than anyone, don’t you? and yet, you smiled. that was my reason why. it was the glow i clasped in my palms, a wonder that was mine alone. tiny and bright, it was everything. the metal above your ears, gently placed upon the verdant grass. a moment’s breath passed by. for only a second, the petals i placed on your hair fluttered in the breeze. the moment passed. i let go, and they blurred, whisking me away.

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then came autumn, a whirl of snapping twigs and pine needles on the unworn dirt path. i called out to you, but it was too late. you had already tripped over that root, falling backwards, down. i caught you, just barely. that was the second time. the clearing approached us slower than i’d hoped, but it wasn’t too late. i heard your breath catch as you took in the sunkissed pond, clear as the diamond resting on your neck. drinking from its water was a doe, hazel and pure. your breath caught a second time when it looked up, for its eyes were a mirror of yours. it was the reason i led you there. it was the reason you stood there, hand clasped in mine, lost in time. that was when you fell in love, long ago. you hadn’t realized it yet, of course. you wouldn’t realize it for weeks. you told me all about it afterward. it was a simpler time, a time when things made sense. it was a time when we could be together. but that was long ago.

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before i even realized, winter arrived. oh, how you loved the snow, how it blanketed the world in a comforting silence that made our crackling fire all the cozier. we’d sit outside until you started shivering, even though you tried to hide it. and each time i noticed, you’d protest with chattering teeth, eventually giving in. i loved the snow because it made you smile. i loved that you wore simple dress so i wouldn’t feel out of place, even if the cardigan i lent you wasn’t enough to protect against the biting cold. i loved how you shone in the light, as if you wore radiant armor forged by the Sun Maiden herself. i loved that you cared, enough to laugh, enough to cry. but, duty calls, or so they say. we each had our roles. the frost thawed. you had to play the part of the crown, and i, the loyal. but i… what was i left with? near-broken oaths and a sword i hold every waking moment, it seems. yet no matter how hard i swing, how many hours i spend wearing myself down, the chasm carved by your absence never closes. i remain replaying fragments that piece together into a convoluted canvas of nothing, nothing at all. before i left, you asked me a question. i couldn’t give my answer. i didn’t have one. if i saw you again, i do not know if i could give you one. i don’t know if i could be anyone’s hero.

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your final words for me echo still, never quieting. i spoke them back to you, but it wasn’t enough. the way you said that phrase, looking into my eyes with a moonlight veil, seared into my core. ringing loudly was the gale that drowned out the thought we both shared, of a future that could never be. you squeezed my hand and silently said, what if we left it all behind? i did too. but the truth weighs heavy, and i, as ever, was not strong enough. even with the whispered secrets of our oak’s leaves, known to all, known to me. i knew them better than anyone. i thought i would become more, too. i once could hear something on the high breeze. but the rain slipped through my fingers and seeped into the earth. with it went our final months, then those i spent alone. these seconds of life run by, ignoring the cracks inside me. tomorrow looms impenetrable, too much to breathe. the billion feathers on my shoulders weave that which was, what is now forever an empty tangle of paper chains. the letters i held dear dance just out of my reach. it’s all too much. i thought i’d grow up better. i couldn’t tell you what you wished for me to tell you. i couldn’t say those words you wanted to hear. if only i could turn backwards and do what i could not. but we know the truth. the past can’t be changed.

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the frost has begun to thaw again. perhaps this time will be different. won’t i believe? you know, listening to the wind whistle through the trees, i realized something. you, i could never hollow. not ever. and so, you remain, part of my distant whole. the stars glow warm tonight. their dance fills the same night sky. could they find the strength to forgive me? could i? i wish you would have stared at me with those doe eyes for just a breath longer, princess. perhaps we’d have known differently. perhaps we’d have known better. you once told me to spread my wings and welcome the day. i laughed, not knowing what you meant. you were serious, you said, though you were smiling too. i never found out what you were trying to tell me. perhaps it isn’t too late to start searching. i hear something new on the high breeze. it twirls with the rustling leaves, calling for a reintroduction of all that is to be, calling out to me. i guess i’ll try to find it

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