Perceptions Issue 2 2025-2026

VOLUME NO. 1, ISSUE NO. 2

PERCEPTIONS

2025-26 POEMS, SHORT STORIES, & EXCERPTS FROM OUR TALENTED STUDENT LIFE

MAY 2026

Front Cover Image Provided by Pinterest

A Message from our 2025-2026 President: Gabriella Maldonado Morales

It’s been three years since we began publishing this magazine again and it has been an honor and a joy for me to have seen it grow since our first edition in 2024. This will be the last year that I’ll be working with Perceptions, but I am overjoyed to have accomplished all we have with this publication. I think this volume is one of the longest ones we have published since our return and it’s amazing to scroll through the pages full of stories, poems, pictures, art, and -most importantly- people, because in every page there is the work and heart of a writer and that to me makes this publication even more beautiful. I thank all those that had the courage to put their work out there and to those who are reading it today. With that, I’ll leave you with the amazing work of our SJS students and our second 2025-2026 issue.

A big wave of gratitude to our judges for the 3rd annual creative writing contest: Laurie García, Laura Molina, Racheliz Medina, Isabella Philippi, & Paola Quirós.

Ms. Zoraima Figueroa also pushed her students in both 7th Grade & Literary Criticism to submit works for the contest & the magazine!

2

Front Cover Image Provided by Pinterest

I honestly can’t believe another year is already coming to a close. I think I speak for everyone when I say how proud we are of where the club is today. What once started as a group of only three people has grown into a community with many active members. I’m especially grateful to both Gaby and Ms. Jiang. Thanks to them, we’ve been able to enjoy this space to connect, write, and grow together. To whoever is reading this, I hope you enjoy looking through a trimester’s worth of ideas, creativity, and practice. I can’t wait to see everything we’ll accomplish next year.

IGNACIO J. GARCIA THON

Messages from our 2025-2026Vice Presidents: Gustavo Alonso & Ignacio García Thon

It's been a delight to conclude this year with such a strong publication. This year, for me in particular and for all of us, has been one of literary and personal development. I am grateful for all of our members, for our supervisor, Ms. Jiang, and our President, Gaby, for having led us throughout such a fruitful year. I cannot wait to see what the future holds for this wonderful magazine, which has become for most, a way to express their own voice in a world that often ignores it.

GUSTAVO ALONSO MONTALVO 3

7th-9th grade

10th-12th grade

WITH PARTICIPATION OF:

WITH PARTICIPATION OF:

Olivia Moreta Rosas Eva Nguyen Elsa Besser Arthur Oudin Julian Serralles Viso Cain Coscio Luis David Marrero Leith Yassin Cecilia Christiansen Miranda Muñoz Najar Micaela Arteaga Toro Carolina del Valle Keren Goldstein Naira Rivas (club member)

Gabriella Maldonado (club member & president) Gustavo Alonso (club member & vice president) Ignacio García Thon (club member & vice president) Giovannah Semper (club member) Fabiola García (club member) Cristine Tacher (club member) Alexandría Carlo (club member) Marc Buxeda (club member) Anayah Ignacio Uma Navarrete Cecilia Rodríguez Nara Villanueva Nalani Román Isabel Bringas Berríos Cyrus Wunker Benjamin Ravitch Mónina García Charlotte Shue Mardi Roques Aren Finelt Penelope Fuentes Rivera Emilia Velasco Jeremmy Velázquez Morgan Schuessler Ignacio “Nacho” Pedraza Arroyo 4

A brief message from Ms. Jiang, club advisor: As always, it's a pleasure to see such amazing & creative minds grow into themselves. My heart is always so full of gratitude to be able to work with these students & help them love writing, literature, & the arts as much as I do! As Shakespeare once wrote, “if music be the food of love, play on!” May we always find the song to accompany us & may it always bring us home. Thank you, readers, for being here & thank you, writers, for creating something long-lasting! ¡Que viva la poesía! ¡Que vivan las palabras, siempre!

Poems 7th-9th Grade

Grandma’s Hugs

by Carolina del Valle

Her hugs dig into my soul They dig deep until I get bold I take on the world just because of that You blossom with love like a flower on spring break Like your smell I would never let it fade away You would gain my heart with a touch of a flame When I feel your touch, it melts my heart away Your cookies are warm and special like your voice of so much wisdom Words filled with melody it should be a felony You hold on for dear life, to fold our hearts aside You are so special, loving, and kind

6

My Name is Keren Goldstein

by Keren Goldstein

Kind Endangered

My dad calls me Keren. My Mom

Ridiculous

calls me care bear. My friends call

Engaged in learning Nice

me Karen. My brother calls me annoying. My driver calls me Kern.

My teachers call me Kerren. My

Geneticist

My name is Keren Goldstein.

Optimistic

I like my heritage, unicorns, Puerto

Laugh

Rico, my family, and my name.

Daring Super Tiny Excellent Innovative Noble

7

Fiction 7th-9th Grade

A Story of Ice and Snow by Olivia Moreta Rosas Let me tell you a story. Nothing remarkable, just a short and hopefully memorable story.

You know Earth? The blue planet? It used to be so full of life and warmth and vegetation. Now... well, let’s just say it’s seen better days.

Picture this: a globe of ice and snow and nothing else, life barely hanging on by a thread. Colors have been reduced to white, blue, and black. The darkness spreads, Death grows hungry. There really isn’t much now, only blizzards and frost. There aren’t many of us left.

All apex predators have perished; their bones now sleep in the layers and layers of snow. Only mice and owls have truly adapted to the new lethal climate of what was known as our “home planet”.

Humans have been reduced to only a few hundred, including myself. Tucked inside of the cave that once belonged to long forgotten beasts, we slowly descended into first cold, then hunger, restlessness then insanity, and the sweet relief of death.

You may think it is hopeless. I do too. But there is one thing keeping us from succumbing to extinction: fire. Sweet, sweet fire. It dances with delight, brilliant and blazing. Its small presence holds the promise of life, but also destruction and chaos. This other side does only one thing: consume, leaving nothing but ash and dust.

We call this side The Red Flame.

I remember when our kind, our species, was dominant all over the world. We used to be able to hold a little fire on our fingers, a lighter. So special...

Enough of that. I’ve not told you how this all happened, have I? Well... let’s see.

It happened very long ago. Oh! I remember now. It started when the Sun went black. We had 8 last minutes of joy and light and sunshine before... Anyway, the Sun didn’t disappear, oddly enough. We were still in our little solar system, obliviously waiting for the worst. There is no day, only night. We struggled, many of us died. It’s no different from other animals; we were nothing special. Yet, we were some of the last intelligent lives on Earth. I can’t quite tell you how the Sun went black. I don’t really care now, as long as I get to see another sunset. Oh, right. There are no sunsets. I remember their golden glow, the pink light that burst over the horizon. So beautiful, it’s quite sad to see it go. I miss how things used to be, back when our problems seemed to matter.

9

Anyhow, the world has gone cold. I’ve already described how it is out here in this lonely desert of snow. I’ll tell you how I manage to live, at least at the time of writing this. I’m not sure how much longer I can last out here. I’ve given up on having a wife or a husband or any kids. My parents have passed on; sometimes I envy them. I live in a very small community, maybe around 4 or 5 people with the same struggles as anyone else, the same struggles as me. That isn’t surprising though. Surprises have died out along with every other thing. I eat what I can, particularly mice, though maybe owls if I manage to get incredibly lucky. Each person is solitary, but we still share our findings and food and whatever else we can provide to each other.

Now to the point. I write this so that anyone who somehow manages to live through this catastrophe can know. They can know of our struggles and sorrows and tell our stories for generations to come.

Maybe once they leave the planet in search of a new one in the far, far future, they can remember us.

I know I can’t be there to see it. I know it is futile to hope for such a thing. But still, if there’s any chance anyone sees this from anywhere in the world, know that we once lived and breathed and ate and slept just like you. Just like any living thing.

I should go. The blizzard is getting worse as I write this and I’m running out of paper. For anyone who reads this somehow, however unlikely it may be, please. Remember us.

10

Search and Rescue Naira Rivas The steel shells covering my toes up to my fingertips grind together and produce a smell of which I am thoroughly unable to appropriately describe. Perhaps, I think, one opposite of the intent to pleasantly overwhelm, but rather favoring the intent to choke the perceiver with its bitter nature upon a first or second encounter. This is not the first matter with which I stood absent mindedly and inhaled a chemical gas like this one with my helmet off. A cutting scent that somehow I taste, which I have found more familiar to me now than the faces of my familiars or the folds of my palm now clutched by my gloves, does not seem to surprise me in the slightest and now feigns itself my most loyal companion on the desolate moon.

For one hundred Earth-days now I’ve searched for you. My bow, undone, had gone missing on the 55th day.

Fatigue has far past wrapped its wretched hand around me and now crushes me to the absolute of its strength.

Haphazardly, I toss myself forward and out of base helmet-less. My knees buckle, pulling me to the rock floor and leaving me deliriously faint.

My promise to find you didn’t go as far as I’d hoped.

I don’t know how long I could have kept assuring myself that miracles were possible and that we would really meet again.

But I’ll cave in to tell myself you’ll be okay, just one more time, now, before I’m gone.

Before it’s all over, I’ll find you, okay?

[END OF LOG.] scent of steel, of poison; of death.

11

Nonfiction 7th-9th Grade

Where This Anxiety Bloomed [Title inspired by “Where This Flower Blooms” by Tyler, the Creator]

by Eva Nguyen In a world full of noise, from buzzing phones to the roaring laughs at parties, nothing compares to how loud the thoughts in my head can be. Before walking into any room, my mind races through every scenario possible. Each time I’d raise my hand, I had already convinced myself my answer was wrong.

Overthinking took hold of my mind for ages. At some point, I was fully convinced that these pointless thoughts that filled my head would never leave.

I knew anxiety was extremely common among my peers since the beginning of time. This realization made me notice how, in a world as fast and techy as ours, teenagers are always comparing themselves to others on social media. Nothing ever good comes from comparison, after all, like Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Social media simply led many to insecurity about their looks and demeanor. It’s as if the pressure were a disease that targeted teens. While being hyper-aware and cautious of anxiety, I never knew that someday I’d catch it too. For me, it took many forms, some clearer than others. Personally, the noise burned out of my chest to the point that it felt like heartburn. Paired with my blank mind before competitions and my desire to avoid talking, I could tell that I had somehow come up with a special case of anxiety.

Being self-aware of my issues with overthinking put me in a better situation. I’d immediately notice when floods of negative thoughts washed over me, and I’d try my best to get rid of them as soon as possible. I tried everything in the book, from breathing techniques to fully switching up my sleep schedule, but it never worked. That is, until my thoughts took a whole 180-degree turn. Just because my mind imagined something going wrong didn’t actually mean it would happen. Instead of solely thinking about outcomes, I started thinking of how I’d start. How I’d start the conversation, or the first steps I should take to solve a math problem. Slowly but surely, I started focusing on what I could control. I thought, “What I can’t control doesn’t deserve to consume my mind.” I found that when I put my energy into something I cared about, whether practicing in a field of my passions or achieving one of my long-term goals, the noise in my head felt quieter.

However, that doesn’t mean my anxiety vanished. Rather, a flame had ignited in my head, burning for the passion I had in my heart to do the best I could. No longer does anxiety control me. Instead, it’s something that I’ve learned to work with, one step at a time. In a world filled with constant noise, what holds me up isn’t the lack of my feelings; it’s the mindset I’ve built brick by brick and the passions I’ve developed that do. They remind me that my thoughts don’t control me. That, through all this noise, I just need to take things step by step and stop listening to it.

13

Baseball is the greatest sport in the world. Its format and strategy are unlike any other, with more quirks and special rules than all other major sports combined. No other athletic league in the world generously offers up 162 games per year while stressing its fans out about winning three of game 27.

No other sports league rewards its fans with iconic moments scattered throughout its history, from Babe Ruth calling his shot in the World Series to the Red Sox breaking the curse of the Bambino in 2004.

Consider baseball’s rich history. The sport was born in New York City in the mid 1800s. Alexander Cartwright helped to formalize the rules before the first organized game was played in 1846. The National League was founded in 1876 and was challenged by the foundation of the Western League (which later became the American League) in 1893, starting the “baseball war,” where the leagues vowed not to play ball. In 1903, the war ended when the teams agreed to face off in the first World Series. Both leagues, now joined together once a year for the World Series, continued to expand and prosper, leading to the golden age of baseball during the 1920s, when baseball games were broadcast on the radio and night games were introduced into the major leagues.

During World War II, players left the ballfield to serve their country. Ted Williams was one such player, though he’s best remembered today for holding the record for the highest batting average in a season.

Another history-making moment came in 1947, when Jackie Robinson, playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, broke the color barrier. Today, the sport reflects the global village, with 28% of Major League Baseball players born outside the United States.

14

The Beauty of Baseball

by Elsa Besser

Another unique trait of baseball is that it is truly a metaphor for life. There is no genetic makeup that makes a perfect baseball player, just like there is no genetic makeup that makes a perfect person.

Former New York Yankees pitcher Marcus Stroman, who stands 5’7”, throws heaters at the same speeds as San Francisco Giants Sean Hjelle, who stands 6’11. To win a baseball game, one must succeed at a combination of small things; a team can’t win on one good swing or pitch. In life, to do well, one must master a lot of areas, and yet the best wins seem to happen in a team environment. Baseball, like life, requires individual skills and collaboration.

History and metaphors aside, the reason fans love baseball is that baseball loves its fans. While hitting a round ball with a round bat is the hardest thing in all of sports, it's somehow relatable and makes every player feel like one of us. There’s no running out the clock, which leaves hope of a comeback for the fan, even down three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs. The pitcher has to continue to challenge the batter with a ball over home plate. For context, the largest comeback in NFL history required six scoring drives while limiting the opposing team to zero points. In the largest MLB comeback in history, the Athletics scored 12 to overcome the deficit they faced.

And then there are the ballparks. Every ballpark is unique with its own dimensions and quirks, making every fan feel a true connection with their team's stadium. In no other professional league do fans go with equipment from the sport with the hope of catching a ball launched into the stands and holding a piece of potential history. No other sports league does giveaways and fan experiences as often.

Baseball is the greatest sport in the world. It's a game of inches and strategy that will always remain true to its core, no matter the technical advancements and slight tweaks it faces. It’s clear to me that baseball is the Mona Lisa of the sports world because once again, as winter turns to spring, I and 500 million other fans are waiting, not in the Louvre Museum in Paris, but in front of our TVs and laptops, waiting for yet another mysterious season to begin.

15

New York by Arthur Oudin It’s a bustling place. Cars and people everywhere, all with their own little problems and friends. Awful smells, homeless people, and pollution on the streets. But through all of the awfulness, New York is a masterpiece- a machine of a city, all the people like gears. The buildings loom over like giants, their designs amiable. Bright signs and lights advertising food and fashion express the styles of the people.

Oh, the people. On the street, in buildings, in taxis, in trains. It doesn’t matter what they look like, or what they speak, or what they do- they’re still part of “The People”. And the nature! Trees growing roots through stone, gated-up flowers and plants, and the cherry blossoms of spring. There’s the West Village, big apartments and stores everywhere you look, Central Square, the Tokyo of New York, bright lights and mall complexes and arcades galore. Inclusivity is also major here, hence Chinatown- a mini China in New York. And finally, the faces of New York: The Empire State Building and Lady Liberty. But through everything, through all the buildings and people and cars, it’s peace- absolute bliss.

The Feeling of a Top-Bins Save by Juliano Serralles Viso The feeling of a top-bins save. Oh yes, oh yes. It feels like flying in the sky. Higher than you’ve ever gone before. The touch of your Gripmodes tipping the ball over the crossbar, the look on your coach’s face of pure respect and approval. Getting up for the rebound and realizing you tipped it over.

Oh yes, oh yes. But then, you look at your bench and see your teammates’ reaction. It's almost as if time slows. Their faces are pure with excitement and joy. Jumping off their seats. Leaping into the air.

Finally, the best part of all, looking at the stands and seeing a serious-looking man writing hysterically on a clipboard… oh yes, a scout.

Silent Wheels, Loud Streets by Cain Coscio I love hanging out with my friends. Even better, riding electric scooters and electric dirtbikes with them all around the trails and streets of our neighborhood. Riding under the sunset, riding on trails, doing wheelies, and getting chased by security for riding on a soccer field, jeez, so much fun!

This is my cherry on top for hanging out with my friends. After we go riding for the day, sometimes we help modify our friend's electric dirtbike to make it go faster, or maybe install new grips, or sometimes paint them. And maybe, just maybe, we are able to convince our parents to have a sleepover. The next day, we repeat the same cycle, to us its eat, sleep, ride, repeat. Ok, enough about the riding, let's talk about my friends. They are nice, adventurous, and daring. I mean, I really don't wanna brag but I might have the best friends ever. Sometimes things not so pleasant happen, like crashing into each other.

Hearing the CRASH! of our vehicles colliding into each other. But we are not like other friends, and get up and blame each other. Instead, we get up have a laugh about it and keep on riding.

16

Claudia by Luis David Marrero Everybody in my family loves her; she is ten but thinks she is sixteen. She tends to be nice, but sometimes she is a hurricane. Her hair, the color of almonds, is soft and silky, unless she does not comb it. She is very social and has many friends, as well as Nee-dohs. Her eyes are like coffee beans, dark and bitter. My love for her is like pi, sweet and never ending. Her room is like a tornado. She plays volleyball in her team, GVA. She used to play with me in PREVA but left last year. She plays with the colors of our school and with rose colored ribbons. Her face is covered in glitter which makes her face look like it has constellations when she plays. She loves school and participates in activities such as Math Counts. She is like a loving teddy bear and is truly kind and caring. She is a bundle of joy... at least most of the time.

SITO (Grandma) by Leith Yassin She lives far away. I visited what seems like an eternity ago. It was unforgettable. The soccer pitch, store, and restaurants in walking reach. Now, we only call. My dad calls her everyday and says that we should too. They don't say, but I know my sisters think it's a pain. My mom thinks she is talkative. I want to see her again. Her and Sido(grandpa) used to live so close, and we would go every weekend; hugging, talking, and eating. Oh Sito’s food. How I long for it. From Arab delicacies, to Dominican chicken; in my mind, Sito was and still is the best chef. After eating we go rest with her. My mom tells us to stay with her for a while, and we do. Then, the goodbye, with hugs and kisses, and I regretfully leave, thinking I didn't make the most of this visit. When the day finally came, I was sad. We took them to the airport and watched them go through security. Little did we know, that was the last time we would see them(at least to this point). Sito always invites us, but my dad says it is too dangerous. If only I could see her again. Oh, oh, Sito.

Attention: Some words are in Arabic.

17

My Experience in Mamma Mia by Cecilia Christiansen Mamma Mia. Mamma Mia. What is Mamma Mia? I ask myself while I see the email of this year's musical. That night, I was so happy to see the musical. I turned on the TV and stayed connected with the TV because it was sooooooo good. I had watched the musical like five times before the auditions. I was nervous. Nervous. Really Nervous. Every one in the auditions were like seven heads taller than me.

I danced, I sang, I gave it my all. To my surprise, I got a call back for Little Sophie. Next thing I know, after the call back I got casted for Little Sophie. I was so happy like when someone wins the Olympics and I was jumping in joy. The first practice came and then the singing director, Michelle Brava, told me I was so good and that I was going to sing the last song.

For me, the last song is special because it shows how much Sophie grows throughout her life and all the things Sophie has ahead of her in her life. It shows the musical's meaning. I practiced, I practiced, and practiced. The big moment arrived. The show. I sang, I danced. I did it. It felt soooo good seeing the show go on with the performance being spectacular. I felt really well that everyone was cheering for me in the bows and I felt special.

Mamma Mia. Mamma Mia, those spectacular feelings and friends you gave me. Mamma Mia. Mamma Mia. Mamma Mia forever. Mamma Mia in my heart. When the musical ended, I was sad it was over and thought it was the end of the world, but then I realized those memories I will keep forever. The new friends I made, the show, and my experience being a big part of it.

Seeing how being part of the musical made me feel, makes me want to keep acting and letting myself shine. I would love to continue showing my skills to the world and would love to keep being part of other musicals. Mamma Mia. Mamma Mia. Wasn’t the last one. Mamma Mia was only the first..

Mamma Mia thank you for letting me show my talent and what I deserve.

My Grandpa who Saved People, anonymous William Alonso was his name. Tony was what people called him. Everyone loved him. Papi is what I called him. He was my grandpa. My grandpa who saved people. I loved him, so so much. He filled us up with joy, and could make me smile. And most important of all, he saved people’s lives. He was a doctor for the nose, throat, and ear. He saved people inside the army and out. Out of the 8 billion people in the world, he is my grandpa. I’m the luckiest person in the world. I remember how he got mad at my brother when he accidentally let the dog out when the mailman was here, but that was the only time he’d ever get mad. I wish he was still with us today, because he really was the greatest. He was perfect, like chocolate and caramel. Like if you had 100% in every class. Like if someone put a ring on your finger, and it fit perfectly. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. The flowers would all light up with joy and happiness once he’d walk by. He’ll always stay en mi corazón. He’ll always stay in my heart. Thank you for everything you have done for me. I love you more than the far away Milky Way Galaxy.

18

Untitled, anonymous When I first arrived in PR, I was very scared to start school. When I first arrived at SJS (Saint Johns School), I was scared and confused, this was obviously because I was new. After a while, I made some friends and became more comfortable. During the middle of the year, I adapted more but not enough to call myself a true SJS student. Further on into the present day, I’d say I am a true SJS student, standing strong and proud. Some things I like about this school are the amazing teachers (Best teacher is Zoraima), the wonderful classmates/friends, and the subjects I learn.

Friends to Friends by Miranda Muñoz Najar Liliana is a girl that can make everyone laugh. Mikaela N. is a girl with a lot of style and my first friend since PPK. Cecilia C. is a girl with great skill and ability to lead. Micaela is a girl that can turn your frown upside down. Mari can make you dance to the music and Marcela can fill you up with joy. Dani will be there to support you. Tati and Ceci V are the role models and Ale is someone you can go to sing and laugh. Caro is funny and cool. Isa is carefree and fun. Mika M is someone who will listen and comfort.

Zoe is gentle and Lorena is brave and intelligent. And Leena is Leena. Friends and friends and friends and friends. People that will have your back. People that will comfort, listen and have fun. My friends are special to me, every single one. Everyone with their own thing but things that make them shine. They make my day shine a little brighter. One after another one by one. Cherish all and always. They will be part of me forever, forever, forever, and forever. My friends are trustworthy. They support me through thick and thin. They keep me joyful and make me laugh. Friends, friends, friends. I love my friends because they make me smile. No matter how different we are our friendship will always blossom.

My aunt Titi Astrid, anonymous One time Titi and I went to the beach. My aunt and I are close so I'll tell her anything. At the beach, we played volleyball for quite a long time, about an hour. We were talking and laughing.Then I threw her a short ball in the sand and Titi dove right into the sand. We started laughing and began a new rally.

Another time, my mom and I were in an argument, so I texted my Titi. I told her what had happened and she told me some funny stories of mistakes she made when she was my age. Then she told me to make up with my mom, along with some advice. So I did and then my mom and I were talking about how sweet Titi really is. These stories could go far back. When I was littleI i used to beg my mom for me to sleepover at my Titi’s house. My mom always said yes. We would watch movies, get ice cream, go to the park, and play with her dog. Everytime I drove into that pretty house with the flowers that grew up to the roof and up to the doorway I would fill up with excitement. Her dog would always run out of that big garage and come give me kisses once I got out of my car. That house has been through everything. From sleepovers, to parties, to hanging out with cousins, or family meet ups.

19

Little Knowledge on the World by Micaela Arteaga Toro I went to Spain. I remember the people smoking and those asking for a dollar. I remember the people we had to turn down, I remember the ones wrapped in the shadows, thriving - no, not thriving, nobody survives while being choked on the fumes others exude. They don’t thrive, they slowly fade. Everyone’s fading. Fading, fading, fading from a world much too small for our race.

The human race I mean. Spain. Spain with the Michelin star restaurants and Spain with the books. So many kind souls unaware, yet fully attentive. Spain. Spain with those who need. I’m going back. Back to Spain, I mean. Spain. Spain, Spain, Spain, Spain. Spain. What else about Spain? Maybe Madrid in Spain. The clean streets and lively people. Madrid, Spain with the long walks and the cold, but calming breeze in your face. Palafrugell, up, up, up in the mountains and empty, dark streets at night. Palafrugell in Spain with the bell ringing at 2am, waking us up to a sunrise in Spain. Spain, Spain, Spain, Palafrugell, Madrid and Barcelona. Barcelona, with the libraries and maze-like streets. Spain. I loved my trip to Spain. With the now 8 billion people on Earth, more are probably fading, yet very few know. Such little knowledge on the world. But Spain?

Oh, Spain. Spain. Spain Spain. Still in my head.

Untitled, anonymous My brothers were both going to camp that year, so my dad found a neighboring all girl camp for me. I was scared to go for the first time. When we pulled in through the drive way we rolled our window down and all I saw was a driveway lined up and down with trees and a big sign that said “CAMP KIPPEWA FOR GIRLS”. It smelled like fallen pine cones and pine trees and it comforted me instantly.

All the people overwhelmed me, but I needed to try a new experience. I was only eight and this environment was completely new to me. I was assigned my bunk and walked over to the girls. There I saw a little girl with short brown hair and another one with long black hair. I sat down and talked to them, their names were Isabelle and Amelia. We sat on the lush, green grass talking waiting for more girls to arrive. Amelia had more of a bubbly personality and Isabelle was more introverted and quiet, but they were both the same to me and I knew we would be best friends. We were allowed to walk over to the cabin and at the top of the not so big triangle shaped cabin it said “PINE KNOLL” on a sign. I was thinking how many people are coming? How many will fit? We started unpacking and I chose to sleep in a bunk bed with Isabelle because someone else chose Amelia. We started to unpack and make our beds while getting to know each other and I wasn't even thinking about my mom and dad.

When we walked into the gigantic dining hall for dinner all I could smell was pizza and cookies and that's what we were having that day! After that, it was shower time and sleep time. The showers were very small and I was a little worried, but it was okay. We never really went to sleep. We stayed up talking about ourselves and I felt like I really belonged there. The next day we had our schedule and I had all the water activities. The waterfront was this beautiful blue color and was the perfect temperature. Going paddle boarding felt like I was dreaming! After that day, we had dinner again, then showers, then talking until late. Then, I knew I would go back to this beautiful place every year and I did. Now, I have gone there for five years straight; about to be six and it is my second home.

20

Poems 10-12th Grade

POR FIN

Busco un “por fin” como las raíces de mi ser.

El amor que se profesa entre apodos y aventuras Busco esa mirada entre un mar infinito de extranjeros, después de una vida de desamores y de noches bailando alrededor de mesas cubiertas de música y risas, con mis hermanas, con el amor todavía tan lejos.

Y si le echo tanto vino a la copa, ¿no podría volcarse?

Pero, hay que intentar.

Hay que mirar tus ojos entre la multitud como si mi corazón supiera el camino antes que mi mente.

Y aunque no seas mi “por fin”, aunque no seas la ultima, Aunque estoy conociendo mis primeras quiero reconocer tu mirada entre todas las demás y amarte como si fueras el “por fin” que ya conozco PERCEPTIONS MEMBER En las mesas revueltas, en mis hermanas, Pelos lacios y ondulados Las miradas que ya conozco.

Anonymous

22

Gustavo Alonso Montalvo

Cavidades En ocasiones es imposible pensar, Y los dedos presionan estos botones iluminados Con la penumbra de una mente ausente.

Se atiborran de agua salada las conchas, Cavidades, cráteres de un cerebro, Que a mi sanidad me cubren como un caparazón.

En una catedral barroca Retumban las frases más honestas, Cuando se cierran los ojos, Y se deja caer con el párpado El peso de la preocupación Que platicaba con los ojos.

Por aquello de que dicen que Dar demasiadas vueltas a las cosas Te come la cabeza, No me fijo en las ornamentaciones, Suprimo la belleza, la riqueza De la más irritante saturación.

El alboroto postizo de las sirenas, De vehículos que me llevan a un universo Ya descubierto y tan aburrido, Lo reemplaza las vibraciones de un Antiguo órgano en la catedral de mis interiores.

Dicen que la grandeza de la reflexión Solo cubre la órbita de mi existencia Con la sentencia de una esencia sin ciencia. ¿Pero qué pasaría si dejo

Sean estas vibraciones naturales, Viajando distancias obstaculizadas Por los coágulos de mis tonterías, O volando por el aire Desde un sutil violín Que entra por oídos,

Que los mares de un frente frío Irrumpan los senos vagos de mis narices, (Que todo olor deciden erradicar Con el blanqueamiento de lo artificioso) Para que salga la flema, Para que salga la impasibilidad (Que impide curar las cicatrices de nuestras raíces Y aplica solo el vendaje de la franqueza)?

Inefable una gaviota en la laguna que busca su presa, un alimento para su bienestar, un sabor para su placer, para su estómago que se revuelve en el vacío; una gaviota que cuándo se lanza hacia el agua con toda su fuerza, la enfrenta una superficie sólida, una que no se mueve ni en las más tormentosas desesperaciones;

que cuando arremete contra el mar frío cae al fondo, sin poder ni imaginarse atrapar a su pescado, porque le fue un choque la realización de la eternidad de su hambre, porque ya había perdido su conciencia, lo único que la sostenía.

23

Gustavo Alonso Montalvo

Amor, que tanto tiemblas ¿Que ocurre amor, Que tanto tiemblas?

Tiemblas con indecisión, Como un terremoto Profundo, Como las fallas que te clausuran.

Y te devora un duelo infalible, Una tiniebla de incertidumbres Que no has podido vencer Desde que te caíste por aquella grieta.

Qué es lo que te ocurre, ¿En un día tan prometedor? ¿En un día tan estéril?

Quién supo que una verdad de simples palabras En tu garganta consagra Un peso que tu saliva no logra arrancar De los huecos de tu alma.

Crea tanta catástrofe, Una plataforma suspendida Que se derrumba repentinamente.

Se te ha caído el corazón Muchísimas veces, Al fracasar en un camino paulatino, Al estropear tu única oportunidad de decir Quién eres de verdad.

He visto cómo usas allá bajo La poca luz de sol que recibes; Como la absorbe tu sangre, Como atraviesa por tus venas, Qué tanto pulsan de ansiedad Cuando se constriñen Las puertas de escape Que nunca verás.

Alabanza a una peste, Extraña y extranjera, Que vencerá, Como su ejército, El dulce e hirviente olor De un humor violento.

En el templo humano

Alabanza a la llama De los antepasados, Cuyo polvo continuará volando, Como la pólvora de sus corazones E igual de sus pistolas, En las venas de nuestras hojas.

El sentido, La cordura, No son siempre abundantes.

Los pensamientos ligeros, Serán presionados Por el peso de una incertidumbre liviana, Liviana e irrelevante.

Quemadura eterna, Que llamas al fulgor de mis ojos, (Nacidos, ideados, desilusionados): Cuando me pego a tu cuerpo pálido, Me sofoco en tu esperanza agria Y vuelvo a toser cuando llegas a mis pasajes.

El incienso es liviano de otra forma.

Ataca fuerte al ático de mis narices Como una milicia determinada E insaciable del aire de mis pulmones.

Haces así una pretenciosa limpieza De actitudes virulentas,

Su invasión parece picar.

Especie de cálida embriaguez, En una humedad sobria.

Y tras unos instantes, Entonces te huelo, Como tratas de reparar El abandonado templo humano.

24

Gustavo Alonso Montalvo

Do You Believe that Sir Francis Drake is still in the Bay of San Juan?

Alas yes,

Now we archive 10000 folders, records Of what we do in our private lives;

He remains, On a Royal Caribbean cruise ship.

Now, 1.3 million of us live In quasi shanty-towns;

Since ‘98, Anglosaxons roam my island.

Now we drive through dark streets 50 nights a year if you’re lucky, and 365 nights if you’re not.

Since ‘98 We boricuas are civilized And Porto Ricans;

And we think it was a thing of the past,

Since that inscription On a random rock in Guanica.

Yet it hasn’t changed: Don’t you see what language I write in?

Even our anthem looks for an exit In the pleasurable coos of those waves That invades our coasts with contaminated water, In the canopy formed by those clear skies That does but distract us from impending storms.

In the culture of the “ay, bendito,” That may never save us from the malediction of inaction.

Because those riches are not buried in our culture, nor in our climate, Rather, it is The wall of cement that covers 300 miles of coast In front of our beaches; Because we can’t feel the sand in our toes Every 400 meters.

Now we heal almost 300 countrymen in Ponce wounded by Police men with batons; Now we hear our government defend the murder Of two young men at an altitude of 1200 meters; Now we count 3000 pairs of shoes In front of our Capitol;

25

Gustavo Alonso Montalvo

¿Por qué estos poemas?

Escribo estos poemas para sobrevivir; para que esta tinta rellene mi estómago, que a veces se vuelve un vacío a punto de implosionar con la presión de su soledad; para que el papel que protege sus letras proteja igual a mi piel, y me cubra durante las tormentas de granizo que forman los pensamientos; para que la calentura de un libro recién impreso me provea, como cabaña de madera, un refugio, y me bañé con sus aguas templadas, durante la eterna tormenta de frialdad humana; para que su color blanco y negro sirva como el antibiótico contra los colores vertiginosos de una rutina deshumanizante; porque llegará el día en que la impresora de mi cerebro se quede sin tinta, en que mis manos no puedan elaborar más papel, en que la sangría entre mis palabras y mis acciones se siga alargando, siga corrompiendo estos textos con puntos negros esparcidos y letras incoherentes; porque ya llega ese día y no estoy preparado para enfrentarlo.

26

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. Caspar David Friedrich (1818)

“MELODÍAS DE UNA GUITARRA QUE TRASCIENDEN DE UNA ESCUELA EN LA PONCE DE LEÓN” por Gustavo Alonso Montalvo Para Adamarys, mi mentora desde los cuatro años Las 6 de la tarde los martes son: Presionar un timbre industrial que retumba con su plasticidad como los chirridos de un marcapaso.

Entrar a un vestíbulo blanco lleno de personas desiertas, que recuestan sus cuellos jorobados sobre pantallas.

Perder la habilidad de ver color: el apuñalamiento de bombillas de hospital contra un iris venoso.

Una migraña.

Palpitaciones que perpetúan preocupaciones, que persisten como la palidez del porvenir en un cadáver.

Photo courtesy of Edwin Quiles, 80grados

Allí hay un oasis, minúsculo y vasto; alcanzable, solo a pal de semitonos.

Estímulos que exigen una exfoliación del espíritu, que entorpecen al embalse de la emoción.

Acuérdate: sube los tres peldaños, y la primera puerta a la izquierda es el salón de “Adamarys”.

27

Todo depende de cuán liviana sea tu armadura, de cuántos respiros sostenidos por tus narices.

Pero los oasis sobreviven con agua, y parece que el agua del embalse solo fluye con el impulso del alma al dejarlo todo escapar, al escuchar el ritual semanal que se filtra de aquel salón de diez metros cuadrados: el “Mi chico, ¿cómo estuvo tu semana?”.

Cuando por fin se escapa de la presa el agua atascada, (como de venas coaguladas o de mentes nubladas) se genera la energía: la fricción de moléculas cargadas de estrés que absorben los detalles de las cuerdas de nylon.

Energía que libera cánticos árabes tan especiales; provienen desde un minarete abandonado, cuyo oro acaricia a los rayos del sol en el ocaso, como una llama que baila danzas de vientre en el desierto de la libre soledad, y se extingue en noches de luna nueva, sumisa al paso inmutable del tiempo.

No presiones tampoco muy fuerte, porque se volverá a coagular tu sangre; se volverá a herir tu piel con exigencias, las cicatrices de notas fortissimas; todo concluirá con un rotundo silencio, sin calderón en el pentagrama para exigir dulzura y melodía perenne.

28

Por eso, deja que los dedos abran con la clave de sus uñas el portal flamenco al sonido, a una cámara sensorial, imaginaria, aliviadora.

Y disfruta cada toque del metrónomo en esos treinta minutos; el placer de escuchar el agua fluir y a su fauna florecer libre por sus olas.

Porque no regresarás a charlar con las criaturas de esas dimensiones hasta la próxima semana, y las flores de la paz con las que se alimentan se marchitarán, una vez más.

29

A Song

by Ignacio J. Garcia From a nest of down and quilts, The weight of a hand that presses but doesn't touch is placed on your chest As tremors of lossless and sonic choke you alive As air learns how to feel The mental image of oneself made digital and then vibrant Time melts to the heat of its waves A mirror that reflects for the second instead of the first Words not your own that connect like the pieces of a puzzle Narratives are made as art, and stories become your own From a few lakes fill, and from others seeds begin to come to life Great games of chess are but a simple addition compared to the choice of the next Strength to bring about joy and excitement trapped in strings of 1 and 0

The Smell of the Beach by ignacio J. Garcia The smell of the beach cannot be mistaken for that of any other A mix of sand, sun, and stone is what begins to smother You are in this place like no other Where the sky and the sea are its birth mother A second here might cause everlasting change Or a nice lil tan to show off the next day Deadly rays might be filling the airways Or the nice little laughter of kids at play As you lie down, you feel as if you're in the hands of something infinitely older than you The sea has repeated this moment an infinite number of times, and it continues with or without you Just lie down and relax, your friends are arriving God, I love the smell of the sea, don't you?

30

To be carried into the wind

By Sansan Wu Faraway on the Earth’s surface, There are white flowy balls of gases floating around in the atmosphere.

At times, they flow fast, sometimes they linger.

Just as how we move fast, and slow down in our lives A person’s lifespan is short; The same cloud in the sky can only last up to fifteen minutes at most.

Some things are just meant to pass, Light, ephemeral, and ungraspable.

The white ball observes us, Just as we clouds watch.

“So small”, the clouds say, “So fluffy!”, the tiny humans say.

Between the sky and the ground, They dissolve into blue, We fade into a memory The remains of us left alone, —Drifting

31

Cookies from Hea(o)ven

By Sansan Wu

Fresh, and baked, round and brown, Crunchy and soft, warm and sweet, It can melt in your mouth, or scrap the roof.

However, both satisfies my hunger for food.

Round, and brown, chocolatey and homey, Crunchy and soft, warm and sweet, Chunks appear in irregular arrangements, Chocolate, almonds, raisins, or even M&Ms! Round, and brown, round and brown, Crunchy and soft, warm and sweet, You are so yummy!

Melting in my mouth, going straight into my tummy.

Munch, munch, And crunch, crunch Alive’s cookies makes me ascend to heaven, It comes, freshly out of the oven.

32

FADE AWAY

BY GIOVANNAH L. SEMPER CABEZUDO

Hold my precious flame The one I hope shines brighter everyday Please hold my special flame This which sustains the strongest winds with no change Hold it, hold my special flame Please dont let my special flame die out , Please hold my special flame all throughout How could you let our special flame die out?

33

THIS LITTLE FLAME

BY GIOVANNAH L. SEMPER CABEZUFO We all carry a flame injected deep in our roots, running through our veins.

This special flame holds our truths, our fruits, our good.

This mighty little flame gets to decide its path Even when water tries to drown it, it searches for gasoline just to burn brighter.

Take care of your flame.

You never know when it might fade.

Protect it but never let it die for an unnatural cause.

BETWEEN HUES

BY GIOVANNAH L. SEMPER CABEZUDO I’m green olive as in bland, emerald as in rich, sage and natural.

Pristine and graceful, I am the greatest jade of all.

But this hue was never what you wanted.

You preferred pink with its romantic rose glow, its luxurious salmon tint, ethereal blush and lively fuchsia charm and you left me stranded.

You saw me as slimy, repulsive, unsightly.

I never chose to be this color and even if I am the perfect shade of chartreuse, I’ll never be the one you long to see

TINTED EYES BY GIOVANNAH L. SEMPER CABEZUDO

Green as in slime?

Or green as in trees?

I was never a fan of this color but if you were, I’d cover every part of my world in it.

I’d buy everything I own again, just to have it twice, just to have it in that shade just so you’d notice.

Just so you’d see me.

So you’d have no choice but to look my way 34

TO BE BY GIOVANNAH L, SEMPER CABEZUDO

To hold To breathe To grasp To understand To let go To withstand Be special Be unique Be outstanding Be understanding Be courageous Be silent Our flame Our time Our likes Our rise Our fall My life.

35

Just Like Rice by Giovannah L. Semper Cabezudo Why don’t you try to be more nice, Always so tough and full of strife, Come with me, I’ll show you paradise, Make it better with just a minute of your time.

I knew you weren’t so hard to crack, You’re just like rice needing water to come back, Dry and distant, but not by choice, Just waiting for something to give you a voice.

You soften slow, you take your space, Not everyone can handle your pace, yet I stayed long enough to see The side you don’t show easily.

I want to think I changed your mind, Like I was the reason you grew kind, But the truth is, you were always this way, You just needed time to find your way.

Now you’re warmer, not so cold, Not something distant I can’t hold, And maybe I just helped you see The softness you kept hiding from me.

36

Candlelight by Charlotte Shue She had learned to always keep her candle close, cupping hands around a trembling flame, as if the world was made of wind.

They warned her storms would come.

And they did, insecurities like sudden drafts expectations like an open window, standards like icy water, and loneliness that seemed to engulf her.

Still, she held it.

Through nights that felt so heavy, through days that tried to tip her over, through the pounding fear of almost going dark, she learned to fold into herself.

Bending around the light until she could feel the warmth from the small blaze.

There was something comforting about the struggle.

She thought the harder it was to protect, the more it meant it mattered.

Sometimes the flame flickered so faint she wondered if it was salvageable at all.

But it stayed.

It stayed when the winds grew louder, it stayed when the pressure in the air took her breath, it stayed even when she doubted what she was guarding.

37

Slowly but surely, the chaos dwindled.

And one day, she heard utter silence.

She loosened her grip, her hands covered with burns and wax, and lifted her chin.

Gazing down, she saw the flame did not vanish.

It stood, steady and certain.

In that quiet, she understood.

The flame was never meant to be protected.

It had always been hers.

38

An Ode to Dried Mangos

By Aren Finelt A must purchase from my father's weekly Costco trip, the sweet, the dry, tangy flavor, Brihtness even on the darkest day, Whether studying or watching TV, A bowl of dried mangos is there, A constant after the longest of days or the best of times, Just like mangos fill the streets of Puerto Rico, Mangos fill my family in the same fashion.

Finally, mangos are a constant reminder of my dad.

39

Letter to my Mother by Emilia Velasco Mama, I remember running miles to reach the ocean shores Maybe, because I was so little Un lagartijito But the sand seemed to have space for the Entire island to lounge To play The beach had a right to space PR had a right to breathe But as the buildings creep up on her They push her boundaries, they thin her margins Im several feet taller now And Mama, It can’t be that I’m bigger now That my eyes see everything as smaller But there is no more sand The ocean violently erodes el muro Protecting the foreigners who have come to live In their eternal paradise Mama, you tell me they benefit the economy But when the buildings engulf her And the oceans engulf us What will be left to pay for?

Im sure these americans will find another Place to vacation But Mama, is it that selfish to cherish My nature more than my home?

40

A POEM BY JEREMMY VELÁZQUEZ Every morning, when thousands of Puerto Ricans wake up to blackouts, faced with the sad reality that many of us go to sleep as we were, rough, conscious and are woken up to the rooster “kikiriki,” we come to…

The lights go out again and again like it's normal, like we should accept it and wait and wait not knowing when it comes back we deserve light that doesn’t leave that doesn’t care many wake up to a drenched bed and a suffocating heat that can make their pets sick later on as the day goes on, we are faced with the food in our fridge going bad and this begs the question, when will this cycle stop when will we have light that doesn’t leave when will we stop allowing this to happen when will it be time to act?

41

“Untitled” by Anonymous In 1898, when thunder posed a significant risk, and the sea carried ships like restless thoughts, the Spanish-American War arrived at the shores of Puerto Rico, not as a whisper, but as a chapter, written by hands that did not ask permission.

The island did not choose the storm, yet it learned to hold its ground, to hold memory like a fragile cup, that could spill or strengthen.

And in the quiet between cannon echoes, a small flame began.

Not loud, not visible to those who came with flags, but steady, special, and rooted deep in heritage.

They said a new chapter had begun, But for those who lived between la Cordillera y la costa, chapters were not so easily separated, the past did not close.

It lingered, like salt on skin after the tide retreats.

Language held its place, el Español carried lullabies, prayers, resistance, while otra lengua arrived, insistent, official.

Still, the people learned to hold both, to stretch identity like a bridge, between what was imposed and what endured.

The flame did not flicker out.

It changed shape.

Sometimes a torch in protest, sometimes just a quiet glow in kitchens, where stories passed from abuela to niña.

Time moved, as it always does, through hurricanes and migrations, through laws written far away, and debates carried across oceans.

42

Citizenship came with special conditions, like a gift wrapped in questions.

What does it mean to belong to a place that holds you at a distance?

The island answered not with a single voice, but with a chorus, music rising from barrios and cities, from bomba drums and reggaetón beats.

Each note carried the flame forward, each word made it special again.

Diaspora spread like gandules seeds, New York, Orlando, Chicago, yet even there, far from coquí songs at night, People held the island within them.

Storms returned, María, a name that still echoes, the island was once again tested.

Darkness came, literal and metaphorical.

Power gone, systems fragile, yet in the absence of light, the flame became visible again.

Neighbors held each other through nights without end, sharing food, sharing grief, sharing strength.

In that darkness, something undeniable burned: a special resilience that could not be blown away.

From 1898 to today, the story is not a straight line, but a spiral, circling questions of status, of voice, of future.

Statehood, independence, commonwealth, words debated in halls and homes, each carrying weight, history, possibility.

But beneath these debates, there is something quieter and more enduring: the act of holding identity.

43

To hold the flame is not to freeze it.

It is to let it breathe, to let it grow, to accept that its shape will change, as generations reinterpret what it means to be from this island, of this island, beyond this island.

The adjective special is not decoration.

It is recognition, someone who refuses to be reduced to a footnote, in someone else’s history.

So the poem continues, written not just on a laptop, but in footsteps, voices, choices.

A young student in Ponce questions the future.

A musician in the Bronx remixes the past.

A grandmother in Aguadilla tells stories that hold more truth than any textbook.

Each one carries the flame, each one makes it special again.

And somewhere, always, the island watches the horizon, not waiting, but witnessing, knowing that history did not end in 1898, that identity is not a finished sentence, but a living, breathing act of holding...

Hold the language, the rhythm.

Hold the flame, not as something fragile to protect from the world, but as something powerful enough to light it.

Because what was once imposed, has become transformed, and what was once uncertain, has learned to stand, to speak, to endure.

A special flame, still burning.

44

Aquí en el aeropuerto, anónimo Aquí en el aeropuerto Un niño dice I want chick fil a La mama dice bueno no se….

El padre…nulo…

Ni una mosca entraba a su boca Se fue…

Y el niño se quedó queriendo el chick fil a Jugando como _____ cuando era chiquito y con un hermano grande Idéntico a _____ Jugaban como niños hacen cuando son chiquitos Mientras yo con mamá comiendo mi chick fil a Luego llega el padre con una bolsa de chick fil a Al niño chiquito le alumbran los ojos como los faroles en el paseo de la princesa: felíz No se me sobrepasa pensar Lo que daría yo por tener un padre así.

45

“The Kitchen” Anonymous A grandmother, a mother, a daughter An assembly line of three generations A well-oiled female machine “You’re old enough to learn to cook dinner” Yet, it’s not a matter of age A grandfather, a father, a son The blue glow of phones on their faces Three generations waiting Waiting for a very old train A train built on ages of tradition A train covered in posters Posters fighting for equality Advocating for a break in tradition Yet, the train keeps moving A granddaughter, her son, a recipe “Come help me with dinner” The engine sputters Somewhere , in the distance The track comes to an end.

46

“Letters To My Parents” by Penelope Fuentes On that day, my world will come to a halt While for everyone else, time will continue to flow It may possibly be a regular Tuesday afternoon Or it could very well be a rushed morning Or perhaps even a Friday night that feels like any other I could be walking through the streets of New York City, Rushing so I don’t miss the subway, Or I could be in my favorite cafe in London Eating the apple pie I was talking to you about On that day, the world will keep moving, Leaders will debate laws I’ll never hear of Artists will continue to make their art And children will continue to play like a bird in flight Unaware of the grief I carry with me everywhere I go I hope, more than anything, that on that day I am next to you Holding your head just as I did when I was twelve, Refusing to let go.

Until that day, you and I will forever be intertwined As every piece of my soul is and forever will be yours.

47

Building character Ignacio “Nacho” Salvador Pedraza-Arroyo Cayey, Puerto Rico Diecinueve de agosto del dos mil ocho Born at 2:58 am on the dot, awaiting a world full of beautiful people Everyone—ecstatic to meet baby Nacho The love and affection people give you build character My brother whispered to me in the womb: ¡Nachito, te estoy esperando para jugar soccer, voleibol, baloncesto, todos los deportes!

Or my mother whispering to me the second she grabbed me in her arms: Este mundo no se podía quedar sin ti or her saying los bebes siempre tienen que estar con sus mamás Or my dad’s obnoxiousness in the delivery room as he announced each contraction ¡Mira, mamá, por ahí viene una!

He still doesn’t realize his impertinence, yet I love him as is As I grew, I emerged new, and that family love Builds character Named by Abu and nicknamed by Leyla Who knew my family would involve four half sisters, all excited for me El Benjamín de la familia Who knew he would grow up to Play volleyball like Leyla Be as creative and artistic as your twin, Alex Be as determined as twin Gaby Or as determined as Paola My sisters have all forged me It’s the dance choreos with the twins Learning how to bump, set, and spike with Leyla Or seeing Paola become the valedictorian of her high school class, onward to residency My sisters have helped me build character

48

Character or not, the person who sticks by me even when he knows I’m wrong The J stands for Jimmy John, the nickname only I get to call him The A stands for analytical, like my literature professors The I stands for intelligent beyond imagination, or maybe for being a bit idle The M stands for the most magnificent brother anyone could ever ask for The E stands for extremely congenial My brother, somos como uña y mugre Jaime Salvador Pedraza Arroyo has aided me in building my character from 0 Enduring the terrors of 155 María taught me something more than character— Community It’s what most think they practice, yet it's the few that ardently promote it The hurricane brought us together No school?

No power?

Remedy with the old school ways? No problem for me I learned the names of the people whom I already forgot The people with whom I rode a bicycle downhill, busting our elbows, knees, and hands Playing basketball or guillotina for as long as our bodies let us Or playing infected in our neighborhood’s cantina No fue fácil, pero se hizo Now that a horrific hurricane has built character It was never easy, nevertheless No one’s life is as easy as pie, or easy peasy lemon squeezy, like everybody says In my case, moving back and fro Lexington and Columbia Bayamon and the tiny temporary apartment in Condado Robinson School, Pleasant Hill Elementary School, and Saint John’s School— yet All roads lead back to my home La ciudad del Chicharrón, el cero cero nueve seis uno— back to being un vaquero The demenages all build character

49

Last but not least, I can’t be myself without…

Without my baby Milan’s temblequeo, her instilling and hyperactive soul And my not-so-baby Maia’s gentle nobleness and protectiveness They were my supporting system in building character, teaching me what unconditional love truly is You tell me to tell you where I’m from, but what I tell you is that I am from everywhere My cultivation and development have come from South Carolina, Condado, Lajas/Cabo Rojo, Bayamon— the common denominator being Puerto Rico My character comes from my friend’s love, the shaking of my dog's tails, the pride my family feels for me, all of my siblings' affection & laughter, and my haters' envy & edits I am the master of my life The world is my oyster, with the sea full of fish The bridges others helped me build led to the construction of my character, finally learning that perfection is imperfection.

50

Where I’m headed

by Ignacio Pedraza Arroyo

I’m headed to State College, Pennsylvania I’m headed to the 814 I’m heading to the place I never conceived of ending at I’m heading to Pennsylvania State University I’m heading towards Atherton or Simmons Hall I’m heading to Schreyer The next step of my life is upcoming It’s scary leaving all I’ve known and the constant routine Parting ways with my volleyball lifestyle Parting ways with my best friends Parting ways with my mother, who taught me how to dance through life As I write here and reflect upon my lived experiences Forged memories, learned life lessons, and molded habits that will catapult me To new classrooms To the new weather To a new nature To new courts Towards rec hall Towards new horizons afar The light at the end of the tunnel always seemed so far But in the passing of time, I’ve discerned, That same light I thought blinded me has become my north star Where I’m headed is too broad to verbalize

51

All I know is that: I would not be who I am without my history Those memories forged will not turn into distant images I trouble observing The volleyball I know how to play will not be erased from my memory And the connections who have served as footnotes in the narration of my life will not be overlooked And to the daunting future I’m headed, I will always bring the chip on my shoulder, the interminable tears of incomprehension, the tears of accomplishment, the laughter of my best friends, the anger of my perfection, the late-night philosophical conversations with my mother Never forgetting to carry my own weather Striving to be the weather of the room and the climate of the era Sobre todo Despedirme del calentón puertorriqueño y de la tierra rica que me enseñó a vivir.

Convertirme en el Nacho que soñé ser desde mi niñez.

Hacia dónde voy es indefinible, pero lo que sí puedo definir es mi narrativa y cómo decido pavimentar mi camino.

52

Where I’m Headed

by Uma Navarrete

I’m leaving behind Sundays at my grandparents' house where holidays lived in the air all year long Leaving behind the smell of my dad's barbecue And mom’s food wrapping the house in warmth Leaving behind the empty room, my brother once walked through Leaving my parents with one room that feels too still now.

Leaving behind my dog, who has learned every version of me I’m leaving behind my second home Leaving behind the gym in which I learned how to shoot, Or where I got the first taste of what leadership was like Leaving behind the teachers who nurtured my growth And built me like hands on a melody I didn't know I was learning Leaving behind the math department that made me stress, laugh, and mope Leaving behind the cafeteria, echoing with jokes I’m leaving behind my other halves Leaving behind my best friends facetime calls Leaving behind sleepovers, Chick-fil-A drives, New Taste, and the ocean Leaving the streets we once filled with noise, laughter, and chatter As if we were rewriting the world just by walking through it Leaving behind the sweet embrace that doesn’t feel like touch But like home and belonging Leaving behind my two little sisters, One whose journey soon ends, And one that's just beginning

53

But like home and belonging Leaving behind my two little sisters, One whose journey soon ends, And one that's just beginning I’m headed to the unknown Headed toward faces I don’t recognize yet Headed toward stories that haven’t happened Headed towards names I haven’t said yet New memories waiting to decide who I become I’m headed to my future Headed to learn things I cannot yet imagine Headed to be humbled by everything I thought I knew Headed to grow even when it hurts Headed to a version of me I have not met yet I’m headed to my new home New lingering smells of food from unfamiliar kitchens New rooms that will learn my messy habits New teachers who will help me grow, but always mope New jokes that haven’t been told yet New stories that will someday feel like they were always mine But even as I step into all of this newness, I am not arriving empty-handed I am not leaving anything behind I am carrying it all Every Sunday morning, warmth in Ponce, Every laugh that echoes in rooms, Every dance and music party with my mom, Every time my dad tried to teach me something new, Every silly game played with my brother, Every FaceTime call,

54

Every sleepover, Every tear, Every sweat, Every late-night drive, Every road trip, Every lesson, Every place, Every mistake, They will not fade.

They will travel with me in ways no suitcase can hold Because home was never a place I stood in.

It became something I learned how to keep inside me.

So this is not a goodbye, it's a moving of everything I love Into the only place it can never be lost My heart.

55

“DEAR BONG” BY MAC SCHUESSLER Dear Bong, I never thought I would have known you for this long. My third parent, My friend's favorite schuessler.

Any words or actions still couldn't describe my appreciation for you. You're the reason my life is what it is today. Although no one sees you're the MVP in my life when others haven't shown up you always have.

I haven’t ever shown you the absolute love that I should but I will now. Truly one of the most amazing people I know – Sacrifice, Love and dedication you have it all.

The thing I admire most is your faith. Thousands of miles away from home, from your wife, from your son and what you've turned to is God. Now it's your time. Your family is here, you're officially a citizen. I couldn't be more happy for you.

The man, the myth the legend B (BENEVOLENT) O (OPTIMISTIC) N (NICE) G (GREAT)

56

My bed is comfy Warm, welcoming My bed is as soft as a cloud

“ODE TO MY BED” BY ANONYMOUS

The first thing I do when I go to my house And jump into my bed I sit in my bed changing Into my pajamas first, Then going under my nice warm blanket My bed is where I Sleep, Relax, and Watch TikTok My bed is my happy place.

57

About Confession By: Gabriella Maldonado Morales BREATHE, exhale.

A door creeks Your eyes are staring down, Left Right As long as they avoid me.

When seconds feel like an eternity, Tick Tick Tick Anxiety rushing through me.

What if you say yes?

What if you say no?

A thousand emotions passing in a moment.

Oh how a second can feel like a million years Awaiting your response I am Tick Tick Tick BREATHE, exhale.

It’s not the end of the world.

And yet.

And yet..

And yet…

And yet I can’t help notice the smallest change dawn upon your face.

It’s fickle.

It could mean nothing.

Nothing at all.

But, it felt as if a smile had brushed your face, Ruining your well built masquerade, And finally your expression truly changed.

Hope blooming inside of me Could it be Would you bestow your answer upon me Then a smile rose as you spoke the words: “Actually, I like you too.”

58

Frankenstein By: Gabriella Maldonado Morales Graves once covered Now undone.

Digging for his treasure Found in lives lost.

War left these bodies for him to find, Lives that were left behind.

Now a pool of blood surrounds him.

Those fallen, broken into pieces.

Pieces he would use to build something new.

The scientist acting like God, Would make life from ghosts of soldiers past.

It wasn’t until the culmination of the act breathed, A sign of the damage he’d done, That he realized how far he had gone.

59

By: Gabriella Maldonado Morales

Daydream I am awake only in theory, Eyes open staring at a distance.

Beep honks the car, It brings me back.

Daydreams…stuck in a trance I was in a trance.

A daydream like a vacuum Sucked me in.

Daydream a dance I am lost in But now, I am truly awake.

Only in My Dreams Your eyes shined like stars in the darkest sky, And now I can no longer fly.

Stuck in a cage.

Staring at a blank page.

Memories play in my mind, But I’m stuck in a bind.

For every minute I long to sleep, Since you only exist in my dreams.

60

Eyes Behind the Night By: Gabriella Maldonado Morales Shall I compare an eye to a night sky?

Eyes like the night can be ever so dark, Yet they can be so bright like stars that fly.

And when eyes stare they leave a lasting mark.

Eyes can be ever so foggy, a cloud, They can blind us and make us lose our sense.

In some instance, it can save from the loud, Showing the clear night sky through the incense.

I say eyes are the windows to the soul, Even in those pitch black, a starless night.

In their gaze the truth will swallow us whole, Truth in them bringing us pain though we fight.

So long eyes stare, the truth in them resides, Though we try to hide in the night, besides.

61

Flowers Under the Snow

By: Gabriella Maldonado Morales

She was green, Green like the forest, Ever so bright her light. The one everyone Feared.

To be happy is fine.

But, it had been long decided: Unprompted genuinity Was not to be rewarded.

Saying it was difficult to be a rabbit In a world of wolves.

Yet, she would try, Grow.

Grow like flowers, Once frozen cold.

But, no matter how Long, Winter lasts, Spring will always Return.

No matter how long, Hatred permeates Kindness will always Bloom.

When Possibility Knocks...

Possibility is thought to be in the clouds That was what was told to me, But it knocked every night It didn’t seem like a fright to me The possibility of all we could be.

So, I let her in walking along She sang her joyful song Possibility my friend, My heart a home she reclined in.

When I stopped listening to the hateful whispers, Suddenly, like magic it felt like I could hear the sea Crash the waves went, And it was peaceful indeed.

Possibility joining me I was childlike, lighter, franker, more natural, and ever so free.

62

Fiction 10-12th Grade

“Button Eyes” by Anayah Ignacio

“I’m fine,” he would say, as if the world itself were a shield. He said to his coworkers when they asked how he was holding up. He even said to the empty kitchen where Margaret used to hum while washing dishes.

The apartment echoed now.

Margaret had taken the children and the blue ceramic mixing bowl and the good winter blankets. What she left behind were the walls, the couch, and Daniel’s half of the closet. She left behind silence, thick as wool stuffed in the ears.

Daniel filled the silence with knitting.

He bought noodles on a Wednesday after work. The cashier, a teenage girl with nail polish, blinked at him when he placed grey yarn on the counter.

“New hobby?” she asked.

“Something like that,” Daniel replied.

He did not tell her the evenings were unbearable. That the quiet pressed against him like a thumb against a bruise. That the television glow made him feel smaller, less alone.

“You’re answering. That’s not the same thing.”

He stabbed the needle too hard through the yarn, splitting the fibers.

Now, weeks later, Daniel sat under the lamplight, knitting something new. Not a scarf this time.

Something shaped, deliberate. A long torso, limbs, a head. He did not remember deciding to make it. The apartment air felt charged that night, metallic on his tongue. The lamp cast a yellow pool of light over the small table, leaving the rest of the room in shadow.

At first, he knitted clumsy rectangles. Scarves with new edges, he told himself it was practical. “It keeps my hands busy,” he muttered one night, the needles clicking like nervous teeth. The rhythm steadied him. In, loop, pull. The yarn did not talk back to him. It did not argue. It did not pack suitcases. It did not say “I can’t do this anymore, Daniel.”

Margaret's voice still lived in the corners of the apartment.

“You don’t talk to me,” she had said, standing near the doorway months ago.

“I’m talking now,” he answered.

64

“You unravel,” the voice continued. “That’s different.” The needles slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor. The figure's button eyes gleamed in the lamplight.

“I am not depressed,” Daniel said sharply. Then in a chorus barely louder than a breath. “You are alone.”

The figures advanced, not walking but shifting as if being pulled by an invisible string. The room seemed to tilt the walls bent inward.

“You can’t ignore this” the chorus breathed. “Stop”. He roared, lifting a chair above his head. The lamp crashed fully to the ground. The knitted figures loomed at his feet, button eyes reflecting back a fractured version of himself.

He saw it then. Not monsters, not creations. Fragments of himself. Each one was a version of him. The silent husband.

The distant father. The man who answered instead of spoke.

The man who said I’m fine while his marriage dissolved stitch by stitch.

“I miss them, it's my fault.” The confession split something open. The figures stilled. The room seemed to exhale. One by one, the figures sagged.

Outside, wind pressed against the windows like it wanted to.

“You’re being dramatic,” Daniel said out loud, though he wasn’t sure to whom.

The figure took form slowly. Its stitches were tight and precise. The eyes were two dark buttons Margaret once used on the children’s coats. He stitched them on carefully.

Their tight stitches loosened. Button eyes closed. Limbs collapsed into heartless bundles of yarn. Daniel sat amid the unraveling. Sunlight seeped through the blinds. He reached for his phone. His hand hovered before dialing.

“I don’t know how to fix this,” he said aloud. “But I’m not fine.”

For once, the words did not taste sour, they were honest.

“There,” he whispered. “Perfect.” The word tasted sour.

He set the knitted figure on the couch and went to bed. That was the first night he heard breathing. It was first, a soft drag of air across the room. Daniel laid frozen, staring at the ceiling. The sound came from the living room. A whispering inhale.

A careful exhale.

He pressed the call. The line rang once. Twice. “Daniel?”

Margaret’s voice whispered.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

He squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m fine,” he murmured. In the morning, the figure sat upright. Daniel stopped in the doorway. He was certain he had left it shaped over, head tilted. Now it sat straight. Button eyes fixed forward.

“No,” Daniel said. His voice wavered but it did not break. “It's not and I think I need help.”

For once, he did not use the shield.

“You fell,” he said, heart knocking against his ribs. “That’s all.”

But that evening, when he returned from work, the lamp was on. He was sure he had turned it off. The figure stood beneath it. The room felt smaller. The walls leaned inward, listening. “You forgot,” Daniel said. His voice trembled. “You’re tired.”

The figure did not blink. It did not need to. Over the next few nights Daniel made more. A small one with shorter limbs. Another with thick yearn hair. A third whose stitches were uneven.

They lined the couch like silent guests.

The smallest figure’s head tilted. “You’re lying” , it said. The voice was soft, threaded with something familiar. Not exactly Margaret but something similar.

“I don’t lie,” Daniel replied, eyes fixed on the yarn.

65

“FIND IT ALL” BY ANONYMOUS

It was a dark and stormy night when sweet 10-year-old Thomas Marx was about to go to bed in Room 101. Room 101 was not the place to be; the oldest dorm in the whole orphanage held not just years of history, but copious amounts of animals and debris. However, Thomas, being the newest member of Parkland Orphanage, had to accept what he was given. As he lay in bed, he remembered to go pray with his cancer-ridden dove, James, one of his best friends.

However, as Thomas got up, he realized his dove was gone. In shock, he woke Indigo and John, his bunkmates, who had slowly become his best friends.

“Have you guys taken James? Do you guys know where he is? He’s not in his cage.” exclaimed Thomas. “I didn’t touch him. It must have been John.” said Indigo. “It was NOT me. I swear I had not been around James all of today.” said John. While Indigo and John bickered back and forth about who had last seen James, Thomas peeked over to the windowsill and realized that, although it had once been sealed shut, it was now open and aligned perfectly with the gap in the cage.

Therefore, there was only one possibility: James had flown out the window. In the blink of an eye, Thomas jumped out of the window, landing in the bushes below. Despite knowing the idiocy of jumping, he knew he had to save James; it was the last thing his parents had ever given him.

Now, the question remained: where did the dove go? Thomas could think of only one place: a distant location that would require a journey filled with pain and loss. It was where he had first met the dove and where his parents had died. A place he hadn’t visited in a year. A place known for its dangerous water currents. However, this dove was the most valuable thing he had; it had kept his heart beating even in moments of unbearable grief.

Thomas began pacing back and forth, debating whether John and Indigo would make this journey with him. Suddenly, John hugged Thomas from behind and said, “Don’t worry, Thomas. I will go anywhere with you.”

“John, you don’t have to do this for me. It’s a long journey,” said Thomas.

“Thomas, even cold-hearted Indigo would follow. Right?” questioned John.

“Yeah, he has a point. Let's go. We don’t have time to spare.” responded Indigo.

66

From one moment to the next, all three boys stole an old boat from the orphanage and set out on their journey. With only a few protein bars and bottles of water, they began their passage, which continuously seemed to lead nowhere. Thomas held onto hope that they would find the dove before reaching the waterfall so he wouldn’t have to confront the pain tied to that location.

However, James never appeared. Despite their setback, none of them lost their ambition or determination. They pushed forward into the unknown to find James. After a five-hour journey, they finally made it.

It was truly a beautiful place: the sun shone between the leaves, rainbows reflected across the water, and the sound of the rippling current echoed.

The smell of the roses permeated their senses. For a second, they thought they had reached heaven. Even Thomas was surprised; he felt confident, strong, and ready, until he saw the harp. The harp his parents once played and the neighboring tree where he first saw James. To him, it was a magical place scarred with painful memories.

Flashbacks overwhelmed him. The water was crashing onto his parents, throwing them against the harp, pulling them down the waterfall. For a moment, that was all Thomas could see. It was all he could remember, even though it had happened so long ago. He remembered rushing to call for help, helicopters carrying his parents away, and never seeing them again.

Nevertheless, Thomas could not let these horrible memories stop him from finding James. It was the last thing his parents had ever given him; it was the last piece he had left.

Suddenly, Thomas saw James resting on the same branch where he had perched on the day of his parents’ passing. A sudden rush of joy surged through his body, leading him to climb the tree and hold James tightly. Thomas thought to himself: “Finally, I’m back home. I’m never leaving James alone again.”

Even though it was a long journey, they made it. They found James. But most importantly, Thomas faced the pain of returning to where he had lost everything. But now this place was where he found his new everything.

As the boys made their way back to the orphanage, they realized that friendship is the most important thing in their lives. Through their unity, they were able to confront the impossible and overcome such a difficult mental and physical obstacle. Although they got into trouble upon returning, the caregivers recognized that the boys had truly stuck together and had acted out of loyalty and love. Therefore, they were not penalized for escaping. Instead, they were congratulated and awarded an upgraded room for being strong and brave. Even though it was mainly Thomas' own personal fight, the power of friendship made it their fight together.

67

Vanishing Point

by Cecilia Rodriguez Glassy-eyed stares formed a crowded line past the library, a disciplined line of faces that never tilted. As they passed, I scanned every face for a flicker of hope in this one’s empty expression, or this one, but just like the one before, I knew it was no use. By then, the visits had thinned. Still, I was never alone.

“Up here,” a wiry older woman would yell from the stacks. “Before it starts.”

Mrs. Sienna had been at the library longer than anyone could recall. I remembered her from childhood, climbing to the top floor and descending with an armful of ten or fifteen volumes without a misstep.

“You can’t rush it,” she said once, handing me a pile. “If you skip shelves, they’ll go first.”

She led me to a wall of hard-bound books, each with glassy covers and bold lettering. Ancient Mesopotamia, revolutions, elections, resignations.

“These are the first they abandon. First, the events.

Then the names attached to them.

One day, you won’t remember your own.”

“I can’t hold all of it,” I replied.

“You don’t have to,” she said. “Just don’t let it disappear.”

At the time, I believed her. Back then, she walked as if the shelves themselves made room.

We sat side by side, writing lush summaries that filled notebooks.

That summer, the first stacks froze over. We heard the first violent vines tear from within the bindings of the books’ pages, covering every corner of the science fiction section until the pages turned to dust.

I waited for her voice to call from above—Up here—but no one answered.

I tell myself I don’t have time to remember, but the memory of another summer comes unbidden. A woman—Sienna, of course—had read to me there before. In the far right corner of the library, there lay a short bench covered in plush red cushions. Around her climbed the stacks: columns upon columns of shelves that vanished to a point. I would sit there while she rummaged around the children’s section, pulling fantastical tales of wizards, children who disappeared into trees, friendly giants, and my favorite, a book that smelled faintly of sugar and ink, filled with golden tickets and rivers thick as syrup.

Under a large square window, Samantha—no, Sienna—would read aloud for hours. Children and their families filled the rooms, stopping to listen in for a second or sit at her feet. And I, with an awed expression, marvelled at her thousandth rendition of Charlie’s adventures. I cannot remember the sound of it anymore.

That window remains; the cushions do not.

Now dust thickens on window ledges, and I’m rarely visited. The ink in my earlier notes has begun to fade. My writing, once sprawling, now fits into narrow margins. The notebooks are mine alone now. I fear I’ll leave out the important details. Of course, I’m not sure how important any of them are anymore.

Every day, I climb. I descend. I catalog. I rewrite. And I forget. First the events, then the names. I try not to think about what comes after. I look out the window and see that the line has grown longer. What started as a mere few has grown into a swarm of people marching forward, all wearing expressions, seemingly going nowhere.

Sometimes, I think it might be easier to join them. The years of squinting have made the lines around my face grow deeper, the dust has overtaken my lungs, and there’s little less but a whistling draft and brittle pages to keep me company.

The fiction section vanished next. Then the magazines. Then the maps. More and more frequently, vines climb over wooden shelves, suffocating the pages until there is nothing left.

68

I try to remember what “before” was like. I wasn’t always alone. There was someone else here before. The name is right on my tongue, it started with an “S,” I think. She must have imparted to me a great sense of responsibility. I try to stay focused on the war of succession I’m revising, but I hear a small crackle in my right ear.

I know nature is coming to reclaim its own. I cannot tell where it begins: a never-ending stack surrounding a faded red chair. I can feel, rather than see, the vines climbing over the wooden shelves, hear the rustle of dry leaves brushing against each other. A moment comes to me. Yes—her name was Sienna. I am almost certain.

I push aside my latest catalogue, racing to the top, knocking aside piles until I reach the “D” surnames, so I might preserve that last moment under her warm voice. I think I’ve got it, only one more step—.

I wake suddenly in the corner of a library, nestled against a large square window, grasping the leafy remains of what appears to be a children’s book. The title is barely visible, overtaken by the very roots that were cut to bind these pages to their spines. I gaze down at the stems holding it together and have the vague memory of someone sitting in this very position. An older woman, but maybe I’m just imagining it.

I gaze out the window, and my eyes focus on a glassy-eyed woman staring back at me, her taut skin arranged in a placated expression.

For a second, I think there may be something there. Then a line moves. Dozens of people shuffling forward. I think—how nice it would be to join them, how sure they look, as they walk in a neat line, to a place far from here.

69

“Boy Wonder” by anonymous Archie Smith was a regular boy with a curiosity that could go on for days. His family called him Boy Wonder due to his endless questions, his habits of taking apart clocks just to see how they worked, and his tendency to wander into places he wasn't supposed to be. While other kids his age collected trading cards or obsessed over video games, Archie collected mysteries. He wrote them down in a blue notebook he kept under his pillow, convinced that one day they would all connect into something bigger.

The house on Maple Street had always been at the top of his list.

It was a tall, narrow house with a steep roof and too many windows for such a small street. At night, one of the windows on the third floor glowed long after the rest of the neighborhood went dark. No one Archie knew lived there anymore.

People said the family had moved out suddenly years ago, leaving most of their furniture behind. Others whispered that strange noises still came from inside, though no one could ever say exactly what they’d heard.

Archie noticed the light on the third floor for the first time during one of his evening walks. He stood across the street, hands stuffed into his jacket pockets. Staring up at the window. A thin mist clung to the sidewalk, curling around his sneakers like smoke.

“Someone’s in there,” he whispered to himself That night, Archie dreamed of a bedroom with patterned wallpaper covered in birds. A curtain fluttered in an open window, and a soft glow spilled across the floor. When he woke up, his heart was pounding, and his blue notebook was open beside him, a single sentence written in his own handwriting: The third-floor bedroom is waiting.

Archie didn’t tell anyone about the dream.

The next evening, before midnight, he slipped out of his house and crossed Maple Street. The house loomed taller up close, its pale walls glowing faintly in the street light. A mailbox stood crooked at the curb, dusted with leaves. The front door wasn’t locked.

Inside, the air smelled old and dry, like paper that hadn’t been touched in years. His footsteps echoed softly as he climbed the stairs, each creak sounding louder than it should have. When he reached the third floor, he found a door at the end of the hall, slightly open.

He pushed it harder.

The room looked exactly like the one in his dream.

70

Bird-patterned wallpaper climbed the walls, faded but still cheerful. A small dresser sat beneath the window, its top bare except for a thin layer of dust. A sheer curtain fluttered inward on a breeze glowing pale in the moonlight. Beneath the window, a metal radiator ticked quietly, as if it were counting time.

Archie stepped inside, his breath shallow. On the far side of the room was a bed.

Someone was lying in it.

The boy looked about Archie’s age, curled on his side under a heavy blanket. His hair was dark, his face peaceful as if he were only napping. A soft lamp glowed above him, casting long shadows across the room.

“Hello?” Archie whispered The boy didn’t move. Archie crept closer, heart hammering. The sleeping boy looked familiar in a strange way, like someone Archie had known a long time ago but couldn’t quite place.

“Hey,” he said a little louder this time. Nothing.

Archie noticed something then, his own reflection in the glass window. He turned his head slowly. The sleeping boy had his face. Same nose, same cowlick in his hair, same small scar on his eyebrow from when he tripped over his bike at 6 years old. He stumbled backward, his heel hitting the bedpost.

“No… that’s not possible,” he whispered to himself in disbelief.

The boy in the bed stirred. His eyes opened. They were Archie’s eyes, too.

“You finally came,” the other Archie said softly.

“I’m you… Or I was. Before you started asking the important questions,” he said.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Archie said. “I never stopped being curious.”

“You did, you just didn’t notice. You started ignoring the weird things. The dreams. The feeling that something didn’t fit. So I stayed here,” the other Archie said.

“Here, where?” Archie responded “The place where your curiosity goes when you abandon it.”

Archie looked towards the door. “This is a dream,” he said, “I’m dreaming.”

“Maybe,” the other Archie said. “Or maybe this is a warning.”

The curtain blew wider now, though there was no wind outside.

The ancient wallpaper seemed to ripple, the birds stretching and twisting.

“What happens if I stay?” Archie asked.

71

“You’ll end up like me, stuck in a mystery you were too scared to solve.”

The floor trembled beneath Archie’s feet. He turned and ran. He burst out of the house and into the cold night air. The Mist had thickened, swallowing the street in pale fog. He sprinted home, not daring to look back.

The next morning, Maple Street looked normal. The house stood quiet and dark. No glowing window. No fluttering curtain.

Archie opened his blue notebook. A new sentence was written across the page: Never stop wondering

He closed the notebook and took a deep breath. From that day on, Archie Smith paid closer attention to the strange corners of the world. Asked more questions, followed his instincts, and sometimes late at night, he swore he could still see a faint light glowing from the 3rd floor bedroom, waiting to see if Boy Wonder himself would ever forget again.

72

“Floating in Silence” by Nalani Román One night, the Rodriguez family went on a trip. Usually, they tried to take a family vacation every month, even if it was just a short trip somewhere nearby. This time was different. Instead of going somewhere in the United States, they decided to travel by boat to Croatia. None of them had ever been there before, and the idea of crossing the sea to reach a completely new place or country filled them with excitement. To them, it felt like they were finally going to another place, far away from everything they knew.

The boat ride began calmly. The ocean was quiet, and the moon reflected off the water like a glass. Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez stood near the railing, while their children, Matiand and Sofia, leaned over the side, enjoying watching the waves roll beneath them. The travel felt peaceful, almost too peaceful, as if time itself had slowed down.

As the night got darker, a thick fog began to surround the boat. The lights were disappearing, and the lights on the deck flickered; the sound of the water changed, becoming more and more silent. The captain stayed quiet, and he just checked the navigation system, but it no longer made sense.

The compass spun in circles, and the map showed nothing but blank space and water.

Without any warning, the boat was in a tunnel between tall stone walls. The family had never seen anything like that tunnel. The air inside felt heavy, and echoes were around them as they passed through the tunnel. It felt as if they were no longer moving forward. When the boat finally got out of the tunnel, the fog disappeared.

They were no longer near Croatia.

73

The water was calmer, the canals were smaller, and old buildings leaned closely over the edges. The aisle rested quietly along the sides, the city felt frozen, and also abandoned. They knew they were not in Croatia They were in Venice.

“This doesn't make sense”, Mrs. Rodriguez whispered. “We shouldn’t be here.”

As they went deeper and deeper into the canals, Sofia noticed a building leaning sharply to one side, more than any other around it. Something about felt important, like it was calling them. They knew it was not the Tower of Pisa because it was square and not round. “I think we are supposed to stop here”, she said.

No one knew why, but they listened to her and stopped. They tied the boat and stepped on the walkway. That’s when they saw it.

Inside the building, there was a single wooden chair floating. On the chair sat a girl. She looked about Sofia’s age, and her eyes were open. The chair did not move at all, nor did she.

“Who is she?” Matias whispered.

Before anyone could answer, Mrs. Rodriguez stepped closer. The girl slowly stopped floating and turned her head to see Mrs. Rodriguez's face. Mrs. Rodriguez panicked. There wasn’t a single word; it was just silence.

“Mom”. Sofia was about to cry.

Then, Mrs. Rodriguez turned to hug Sofia and tell her everything's going to be okay, and when she turned back to see the girl, the girl on the chair was gone, and the chair fell hard onto the floor. Mrs. Rodriguez decided to sit in the chair. Mrs. Rodriguez sat, and her eyes stared to freeze, and she went completely blank, like she’s inside her own mind, just like the girl on the chair was. Slowly, the walls began to crack, making a phrase, every time making it clear – “Missing in Venice”.

Then they realized it was a trap. The bad guys wanted to replace the girl with a new person because they needed new memories and new experiences, and also so that she wouldn’t say what happened in that building, and they kept the city’s secret hidden inside the leaning building, where there was a chair floating.

Sofia stepped forward, she tried to reach toward her mother, ignoring her father’s shout. The moment that her fingers touch the chair the building began to crack more and more. Sofia was crying when they stared running beck to the boat. Sofia hesitated and stayed trying to save her mother until the chair started cracking withe the building and she starts falling. Mr. Rodriguez was able to catch her before she fell.

74

They started to run before the building fell, rushed back to the boat, and went to the tunnel one more time. Eventually, they were on the calm sea and reached Croatia. But Sofia never forgot that girl on the chair, sometimes she closed her eyes and she still sees the leaning building in Venice wondering how many people have gone missing there, trapped in another place, another time, maybe that was all a dream and not just an adventure with the Rodriguez family but sadly it wasn’t.

THE END

“Chlorophyll” by Isabel Bringas Berríos It always starts with the sniffling.

Only a little at first, right after the initial rejection. And why wouldn’t you cry? It hurts, knowing the love you felt was all for nothing. You’re so wrapped up in the emotion that you don’t see the signs.

You forget that there’s nothing more dangerous than a broken heart.

Soon your nose will feel itchy, and within a week you find yourself sneezing more often. You figure it’s just your allergies acting up. Everyone assumes the pollen must be in the air, not inside your lungs. Why would it be?

Image provided by Pinterest

At around six weeks, there’s a dull ache in your chest. Not enough to cause problems yet, but just enough that you can feel it. Constantly. It’s not exactly doing anything, just… sitting. Waiting. Growing and spreading, one inch at a time.

Then the coughing starts. You know the kind—the really gross ones. Rough, heavy ones that drag up your throat and rock your whole body. Bending you over in agony. You feel like you’re choking every time you breathe too hard. Everything feels dry on the inside, and you get that nagging sensation that it’ll all feel better once you get it out. It has to.

Only it's not phlegm you hack up into the sink that night. What spills out of your mouth instead are soft, velvety flower petals. They’re crinkled and slightly brown at the edges, but you can still make out the vibrant yellow of a daffodil.

“This isn’t real. Nope. I’m dreaming.” That’s what you tell yourself as you flush the petals down the drain. It has to be a dream. A hallucination caused by exhaustion or dehydration. You’re sick. You can’t trust your eyes right now. Some sleep will do you good. You climb into bed and try to forget about it. “We’ll figure something out tomorrow.”

It isn’t much help. There are petals in your coffee mug at work. You excuse yourself and hide in the bathroom. Your coworkers knock on the door and ask if you’re okay. All they get in response is more coughing. The next day, you call in sick. You can’t bear to have anyone see you like this.

Image provided by Pinterest

75

The coughing gets worse. So do your other symptoms. Worst of all, your “hallucinations” haven’t stopped—quite the opposite. By now it’s been two months since first contact. Your body betrays you in every sense, and you can’t fathom why.

You panic. Obviously you panic—this isn’t normal. The petals keep coming, forcing their way out of your mouth in clusters. You grow thinner and paler from the struggle to eat. Water stays down fine, but food? Right back up within the hour, accompanied by those lovely yellow petals.

Image provided by Pinterest

Finally, you decide enough is enough. With what little strength you have left, you trip and stumble your way to the phone. As your body shudders with cough after cough, you manage to call the hospital. Surely they have an answer to this, you tell yourself. Surely they can fix me.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

After 30 agonizing minutes on hold, the doctor finally picks up. You tell him what’s going on in frantic whispers. You can barely get the words out between coughs. The other line is silent for a long time. Then, the doctor speaks. What he tells you makes your heart sink.

Your condition is rare, only found in the frailest of hearts. The first case on record was documented in Japan in 2009. It’s gone by many names over the years—hanahaki, flower plague, Ophelia syndrome—but each case looks roughly the same. The illness originates in the respiratory system, usually in the form of spores that take root in the victim’s chest. Once triggered, the resulting flowers spread through your lungs and up your windpipe. Symptoms include coughing, asthma, nasal blockage, and at their most severe, asphyxiation. 99% of cases worldwide are fatal.

There is no known cure.

“I’m sorry, miss. I’ll have the hospital send an ambulance to your location. Other than that, there’s nothing I can do.”

You hang up abruptly. The phone slips from your hands. By now the coughing is so bad you’ve lost all ability to speak.

Whole flowers fall out of your mouth, and not just daffodils now; anemones and chrysanthemums join the growing pile at your feet. Their petals are spattered with blood.

No one is there when the coughing finally stops. At least your body will be pretty when the ambulance arrives.

76

ASTÉRIA BY ALEXANDRÍA CARLO

I have never known quiet. I am the youngest of four girls. Amaya became a lawyer, Sofia is in residency, and Amelia is a teacher. I like to reminisce about early mornings when we were in primary school, racing to the car while our dad, burning coffee in hand, nagged us for sleeping in. Later that night our mother would brush our soft hair as we giggled about insignificant nothingness that, in that moment, was everything. We would drift gently to sleep, her warm hands steadying us before the morning’s hurry returned. Someone was always talking. Someone was always laughing. Someone was always late.

I have never known quiet.

So, I am an astronaut.

I chose to live in the quietest place in the universe. After years of training, years of sacrifices and doubts, of rising through the ranks to earn a place on a mission with people I grew to call family. To leave my own family. To leave everything I have ever known. For silence.

As millions of people watched and celebrated while Artemis II lifted off, flames bursting, engines roaring, with me inside it, I watched the Earth shrink slowly beneath us, swallowing my anxiety whole.

It's gotten easier for me to meditate on Artemis. It's strange that the absence of ordinary air in my lungs has somehow made breathing easier. But, then again, things have always found their way to me indirectly, like waves– redirected, flawlessly delayed, arriving in ways I won't recognize until later, until things just click. Space creates a feeling of sonder in me, the strange awareness that everyone I have ever loved or spoken to, is living a life completely different from their neighbor on the train, their friendly co–worker, their childhood best friend who would race them around the pool on a sunny spring day. A special life continuing without me in it. Time isn't forgiving. Every day that passes, my sisters talk over each other at crowded dinners, their children grow an inch, their giggles echoing across the halls just like ours did when we were their age, halls I can no longer enter. I am not there to laugh with them, to mark their initials with chalk on the wall, crowded with small initials drawn in pencil, to argue about things that felt enormous then, weightless now.

Sometimes I catch myself wondering what my mom is doing right now. Probably sitting in the living room, my dog curled up at her feet. In that same living room hang family portraits, pictures of getaways, memories of laughter. I miss her. Space creates a vast loneliness, and out here you have no choice but to lean on the things holding you together, keeping you alive. Your ship, and your crew. As the radio delays for the hundredth time this week, I sit and look out at the view. It is a good one, after all. Still, the impermanence of the stars scares me. This vast void of fiery nothingness stretches in every direction, and for the first time in my life, quiet isn't peace, it's doubt. I brought every instrument I needed to survive except certainty. I used to believe space was progress. Proof that humanity was moving forward. But, I don't even know what forward means anymore. In the midst of famine and wars, our brightest idea was to launch people away instead of holding them together.

77

What are we trying to prove by coming here? Is it a means of capability, bravery? Commander Wiseman is certainly more than capable. I've never seen someone stabilize a hull breach as if it was a 1972 Volky at the shop. But bravery and comradery feel different when you are looking back at a planet full of people, still learning how to live with one another.

Being here isn't just courage, it's a stoic indication that every choice we make echoes down on Earth. I thought space would make me feel farther from everything. Instead, the more time I spend staring into the vastness of our existence, the more it makes me feel responsible for the fragile world waiting for me below.

There are moments when Artemis is so still I can hear someone shift in their suit. Someone clears their throat. Someone taps a checklist into place. Jeremy’s headphones blare a blend of David Bowie’s Space Oddity, Heroes, and Elton John’s Rocket Man on loop. I am hearing the sounds of people, organisms, in a place that was never meant for us. As I was clearing the storage panel in our cabins, something drifted past my shoulder. It was a photograph. It was dated 1997 and showed a little boy dressed as a pilot, standing proudly beside a small cardboard aircraft. In the corner of the picture sat his mother, eyes tired yet strikingly blue, blonde hair down to her waist, her hands still streaked with blue and yellow paint, probably from the careful work she had done the night before, rushing to finish the costume in time. I carefully turned the photograph over and found, written in blue ink: I love you, to the stars you will one day venture, and back. I wondered how many years he had carried this with him before he got on Artemis. I continued to rummage through the storage. A crumbled paper smelling of earthy vanilla containing vows swearing to a lifetime of still mornings and tears of joy and sorrow.

Children’s drawings. Photographs of grandparents in worn wooden armchairs. Suddenly, I heard fireflies and frogs croaking on a silent night. A sunset. I had forgotten what the warm sand felt like on my feet. The squeals of children and squawking seagulls. I had trained with these people for years. I didn’t know who they were carrying with them. For a long time, none of us said anything. The radio kept silent, the machines kept humming, the silence of utter abyss was deafening, but I realized we didn't leave Earth when we came here. We brought it with us. Their families are here. Their silly mannerisms and love and traditions. Mine are too. Suddenly, a memory I had buried deep inside came rushing back to me, my heart raced and a rosy color emerged in my cheeks. Doubt.

Cold, salty tears running down my face as I remembered the nights I thought I would never make it.

“They told me I wouldn't make the cut. I can’t apply for the program without this”, I said, my voice breaking as if my words were knotted in my throat.

“And yet,” my mother’s voice reassured me. “Look how far you've come, how far we've come together. You didn’t come this far by accident.”

We brought our mistakes with us. Our doubt. Our empathy. Our humanity. Not to escape Earth, but to understand it, to grow.

Surrounded by silence, I no longer see distance, I see change, perspective. Everyday we spend here is a promise to return better. For my crew. For my sisters. For their children. So they can wake to rainy mornings and race to the car with breakfast in hand, and laugh over the small things that somehow mean everything.

I have never known quiet.

And I never wanted silence at all. I wanted something worth coming back to.

78

UNKNOWN ARTIST

BIRTHDAY WISHES

An old man walks into his local convenience store. The handicapped sign isn’t the only marker of his age. Skin once ivory is now freckled with time, a map of a life well lived. Like clockwork—quarterly, every year—he visits the same store and browses the same cheap rack of birthday cards, his strong hands gently glossing over the bad jokes and glittery smiles.

He’s had this same routine since 2003, since the day he learned someone would share his shimmering ocean eyes. Then another did. And then two more. His hearing softened, his hair turned silver, but his strength remained rooted like an old oak you pass on a stroll. The girls grew taller, louder. But the cards stayed silly and warm. Little paper vows that no matter how hurried life became, there would always be these moments with their Capitan. Once the signatures read, Mucho Amor: Mamita y Capi. Then just Capi. And the moments with their hero grew fewer, harder to catch, like butterflies amidst the soft spring.

Still, the girls never cared about the parties or candles, or Franklin—as the old man would announce proudly over dinner. What they saw was a kind gesture from a kind man, folded neatly into an envelope, later piled on top of her drawers alongside messages from friends and lovers.

“What would you like for your birthday?” a friend asked the youngest girl.

“For those letters to never end.”

BY ALEXANDRÍA CARLO PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRANCOIS MERCER

79

“SOMEWHERE SPECIAL” BY CYRUS WUNKER I first heard about Neverland on a Thursday, when the sky was colored like wet cement and the men in the coats were walking faster than usual.

Greta said that her cousins had gone there. She said it like a secret, like a birthday surprise you weren’t supposed to ruin. They went to Neverland, she whispered, smiling in a way that didn’t quite reach her eyes, a hint of something almost gleeful lurking behind her eyes. “Everyone’s going.”

I know that place. Neverland. Father had told me about it once, before he stopped telling stories. A place where children never grow up. A place across the sea. A place where the echoes of laughter are as endless as summer.

After that, I noticed more of my classmates went. Their desks slowly emptied, one by one. Our teacher would always press her lips together and say they had been chosen. Chosen for something important.

Chosen for something special.

Franc and I would sit in the back, swinging our legs that didn’t quite reach the floor, in silence, trying to see who could whisper the loudest without being heard. Franc said he didn’t think it sounded too nice. He said his mother cried when his cousin was chosen.

But mothers always cry about everything.

“My father says Neverland is necessary,” I told him proudly. “He says the men in coats are making the world clean and bright.” Father seemed to like the men in coats. Well of course he did. He had just gotten his a few weeks ago.

I remember that day. The sky wasn’t the color of wet cement and mother couldn’t stop smiling.

But the men in coats were everywhere now. They stood by the doors, by the baker’s shop with the cinnamon twists, out by the river even when the sun wasn’t shining.

They spoke to Father often. He always stood a little straighter in front of them, spoke a little sterner.

Mother would stand a little behind him, clutching his arm and giving a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

The boy in the attic came later. Franc told me about it one afternoon when the bells were ringing too long.

80

“There’s a boy hiding in our attic,” he whispered to me in a whisper quieter than normal. I was always better at the quiet whispering than Franc was.

“Papa says he’s just visiting.”

“Why would he hide if he’s visiting?”

Franc shrugged stiffly. “Papa says some boys are special. That they have to be secret.”

That’s not fair. I want to be secret. I want to be special.

A week later the men in coats came to Franc’s house. I was right down the street, at the bakery with the cinnamon twists, looking out the window.

The street was packed with people I knew. Ms. Shirley from the library. Father’s friend, Hans Landa, Mr. Furt from the park who always feeds the pigeons.

But they were all pretending not to watch.

I saw them though. A short glance, their lips pressed together like my teachers, their eyes darting quickly, as if they only had a second to burn the image into their minds.

I saw Franc’s father, eyes gaunt, face hollow with a queasy sickness, cheeks wet as he clutched his wife and watched as the men in coats dragged out a boy from inside Franc’s house.

They walked away, forming an impenetrable mass of black and red that swallowed up Franc’s family, something of an angular cloud of misery.

That night I lay awake imagining Neverland. Trains and confetti and shining cities where children laughed forever. I imagined Father and me stepping off together, important and smiling.

So I told.

I told a man in a coat that Father had a secret boy too. One that we kept in the attic. I told him how Mother would bring the boy food, how he and I would play together late at night so no one could hear it.

The men in coats came at dawn.

Father did not look at me as they searched the house.

Mother hid in a corner, quietly sobbing.

81

They did not look at me as these men in coats said words I couldn’t understand. Their eyes never left the floor. I think they thought if they stared hard and long enough their gaze would burn a hole through the floorboards, leaving a way out.

After the men left, Father locked himself in his study.

Bang.

The sound came like a door that slammed and never reopened.

The men in coats went with me later that day. They told me I’d been chosen. That I was doing the world a great justice. It all sounded very important.

Now I’m on the train. It’s nothing like I imagined. There is no confetti and the air tastes like metal and sweat.

A woman sits next to me, knees pressed to her chest, rocking back and forth to the methodical hum of the train engine.

“We’re going to Neverland,” I whisper gleefully. “Are you excited?”

She looks up at me, her face pale against red rimmed eyes. She doesn’t answer.

An old man beside me gives me a glare of utter disgust.

The world flashes white as his hand collides with my face.

“This isn’t Neverland you naive foolish boy,” he says, his voice breaking halfway through.

“This is Auschwitz.”

In a way I was still right.

The children won’t ever grow up.

82

THE REMAINING BY GIOVANNAH L. SEMPER CABEZUDO I woke up frantically Something metallic hovered inches from my face, a robotic hand, its parts faded until i adjusted my focus, scanning me like I was both fragile and late. Red light pulsed across its surface. Not as a warning. A countdown.

“Vitals stabilized,” a voice said. Not human but Monotone My lungs burned as if they had forgotten air and were relearning it the hard way. I tried to sit up, but the world was different all i could see was how trapped i felt,a bunch of cables just like veins on our skin, a ceiling too close and too alive with flickering data , i think i was becoming claustrophobic ,Everything was moving. Or maybe it was me?, lagging behind?

“Mission in progress,” the voice continued. “Crew member reactivated at T-minus 04:12.”

Crew member.

Me? I looked down. My hands trembled not from fear, but from numbness . My skin felt borrowed. There were marks along my arms, faint seams like something had been opened and closed with careful intention.

“Wait,” I shout. My voice sounded like it had traveled a long distance to reach me. “What mission?”

The robotic hand paused. For a second, I thought it hesitated like it knew something I didn’t.but yet again that isn’t possible robots cant feel.

“Course correction required,” it said instead. “Failure to act will result in mission loss.”

Outside a small, oval window, stars stretched into thin white lines. We weren’t drifting away. We were falling through the universe.

A memory flickered training simulations, voices shouting coordinates, the feeling of responsibility pressing into my chest like gravity. Then another memory pushed in, uninvited: laughter, warm sunlight, a place with oceans and smiles .

Earth.

“Why am I alone?” I asked.

Silence. Then: “You are not alone. You are the remaining.”

The words settled into me.

The countdown bled into my vision now, numbers ghosted across everything I saw. 27. 26. 25…

The robotic hand extended toward me again, this time holding something a small, pulsing device.

“Action required,” it said.

I stared at it. At the hand. At the shrinking time.

I didn’t remember volunteering. I didn’t remember leaving. But something inside me something deeper than memory , felt like i knew this moment had been coming long before I woke up.

My fingers closed around the device.

And just before everything connected before the ship, the mission, the truth flooded back ,I had one clear, human thought: I hope I chose this.

83

I LOST GWEN, SHE WAS MY MJ BY GIOVANNAH L. SEMPER CABEZUDO

Fear, fear is all I saw in your eyes The same fear that transmitted chills to my body as i tried to save you I hate how you didn't scream, you tried not to hurt me, yet your silence killed me more.

As I watched you fall i thought I could at least save you; however, this time it wasn't actually you. I tried to hug you one last time, yet her curly hair and black skin type couldn't compare to your gold locs and snow white skin. I don't regret saving her, I just wish it was you that I saved too.

P.S. Based on my favorite film

84

“In Between Sets,” anonymous This is how I learned what love was.

I was 13 under, and I was yet to know I was bisexual; all I knew at that point in my life was how to bump a ball well and flick my wrist to make sure the ball went down. I was great at volleyball, but I hadn’t even conceived the thought of liking a boy, especially at that age. I realized after the bullying happened, after I was forced to reflect upon the veracity of my biology. I finally accepted the truth of what I believe: God deliberately created everyone, and biologically, we are occasionally and alternatively driven to love someone of the same sex. I remember my realization came to be after I broke up with my ex-girlfriend in 8th grade. I had a great time with her, but her possessiveness and control over me were claustrophobic to the point where I couldn’t hang out with my friends without having her helicopter over me 24/7. After that breakup, I pondered over my true reality and arrived at that conclusion. My sexuality definitely wasn’t solely straight.

But to move the story forward, it was 14 under, and my cyberbullying had happened, and during everything, he stood there. He commented here and there to add on to the dumb jokes the group was saying, but he always teased me with a camouflaged smile; bullying in Puerto Rico is commonly known as a love language, but I knew it became a problem when everybody was cyberbullying, disseminating the screen-recorded video, not only my close friends. But his smile was a smile that spoke poetry to me, a place where I could find refuge. A smile so gentle and genteel. A smile that crosses mountains for someone. A smile so subtle and quotidian for others… but for me? No. No one else was in my position. No one else was locking eyes with him like I was, like I always do. It happens each time I see him, each time I say hello.

His parting clubs in 15 under hurt me; in a sense that I finally realized a deep-rooted feeling that’s been dormant. I missed seeing one of the people I most cherished. I missed the conversations in practice and his presence. This was when I found out I loved him. It hurt me being away from him. Midway through the year, I sent him a message confessing my unwavering love. He responded with 3 voice messages, silence, words, silence.

“Ay Nacho ***eta” “Ay contra Nacho” “Emmmmmm” ____________ It was blank space. And then another “... la verdad es que no sé qué decirte.”

He never said no.

He never said ew.

He never said, " What in the actual hell are you doing?”

He never stayed away from me.

After everything, he was just there; our relationship didn’t change, and his pride in me on the court was still the same. He always said I was the best, no matter what. He was always there waiting for me when I arrived for social gatherings, each time with the same attitude and smile.

85

Then he had a girlfriend, something inevitable being a boy in an elite school and in Puerto Rico, testosterone is everywhere! My heart was devastated, aching for an imaginary possibility once again. A few months passed by, and my confidence in what I thought his sexuality was, indeed, was confused. His relationship with her was short, deficient, and lacking. Between us, he never truly demonstrated any interest. He asked me for advice, and I helped him because he is my best friend, but the other side of my brain was very interested because I was never too sure of him to be able to read him fully; I didn’t know his intentions, and I still don’t, that is what unsettles me. I would say the relationship lasted about 3 months, and it ended because he didn’t pay her much attention. Looking back, when I was with them, he didn’t even pay any attention to her. Nevertheless, my speculation about him was theoretical and philosophical, not meant to be taken as truth.

For my 16th birthday, I hosted a pool party at my house after school. All of my friends were there, and I remember a conversation in the pool. I will never forget that we were laughing and recounting anecdotes when he pulled me towards him.

He grabs me by my waist.

I thought… What the actual goofballs are you doing?

You know you’re in love with someone when you asphyxiate at the thought of being with him, or cross your wires when he’s in front of you. And that’s exactly how I felt. I literally look at him, and he looks at me, and the biggest conundrum occurs: everything stops, but everyone continues.

A year passes, and it’s my senior year; he’s more beautiful than ever, and my crush is still as big as it ever was. My confidence was through the roof, and I knew I could conquer anything. I worked on my nutrition, I was playing some godly volleyball, and by the end of the first trimester, I had won a buzzerbeater. And after I had an epiphany during winter break, I wrote this poem. I was breaking inside, screaming, dreaming, and manifesting my love for him. I dreamed I ended up with him and could not forget the memory imprinted from the dream: His Poem: How do I tell him I want him without scaring him How do I detach myself from impending harm I’m not sure if he will follow the current or resist the truth of his humanity Maybe I’m deluding myself into believing thoughts that aren’t true, But how to cover a love so true when it’s felt so deep For a long time, I’ve known.

Not only of myself but of who I crush on, and it indefinitely returns to you, so….how do I forget about you?

86

A love so deep is one that binds me to him like this invisible tether that inhibits me from moving on. But is it love, or is it just a mere coincidence of interests Does he like me back, or am I creating images in my mind?

God, I ask you, if he really does like me…put me in his way before it’s too late Put me in his way before my time for prom comes to a close, and the window seals its gate in front of my visage

God, do I ask you to tell me if —------- —------ really does like me? I hope he does, because I crush on him back.

Three months later, I get a text. A “hey” pings in my notification’s control center, and I see his name.

“Wyd,” he replied. I responded, “Nothing, just chilling.” The conversation ended with us meeting at the beach. There we had many conversations, and the last one ended in a conundrum. One that isn’t explained easily.

We talked about all the plethora of possibilities in our future, college, what or who we want to become, and whether we are going to keep playing volleyball. But the conundrum was messing with my head, just be honest, my angel told me, and there and then I pinched myself and risked my dignity and honor. I told him.

“Algo me ha estado chavando la cabeza y no sé qué o cómo decirte, pero te lo tengo que decir” I was replaying “Weeknd <3” from legallyrxx in my mind, bar-for-bar translating the song into voice what I felt for him —rocks in my throat and trapped air trying to escape—and what happened then crashed my paradigm and altered my reality completely—a kiss.

After that day, I knew my love for him would flourish like the flowers at Versailles, despite the strain and turmoil from others, indeed, but relishing the moment and who we wanted to be.

Photo from Dreamstime.com

87

“Untitled” by Ben Ravitch Our resident engineers, Bob Johansen and Dan Smith, are drunk from one of those crappy work parties that happens when the boss is stringent with the budget. There’s a festival going on for the public, to celebrate the anniversary of the reactor, that’s eaten up all of the celebratory funds, Bob and Dan figure.

Eating their thin slices of pizza, they get back to their jobs when the terminal beeps with a sensor alert.

Alarms say, sensor glitched. Check it out. Sensor fixed. Sensor shows a concerning thing: reactor malfunctioning. Check procedure for fixing. Needs spare part and reactor shutdown to fix. Can’t shut down reactor because it powers the continent and needs company and government approval for shutdown.

“We should probably tell corporate about this,” Bob says.

Dan shrugs. “I guess. There’s no way this thing is right, that we have to shut down the entire reactor.”

After a brief call, their manager tells Bob not to worry about it. “See?” Dan says.

The two resident engineers decide to try and find the actual issue themselves, because they don't think the sensors could possibly be right. They get to work and, to their surprise, the sensors are right.

They call corporate again to raise the priority level and get rebuffed again. They decide to take things into their own hands. They set up a third guy on watch duty and head over to the offices next door.

“We need to talk to the COO immediately. It’s about the reactor,” Bob says.

“Everything is,” the manager says.

“No, we’re serious, it’s important,” Dan insists.

“Everything is.”

“It’s actually important this time,” Bob repeats. The manager looks at them with raised eyes — because everything is, right?

“Okay, look,” Dan sighs, “what do we need to do to talk to someone in upper management?”

The manager goes into the back and brings out a 50-page form designed to look intimidating.

“Oh, shit.”

88

The manager grins from behind the desk, letting the form drop in front of Bob and Dan. “Holy fucking shit!” exclaims Dan. “Welcome to my world!” cackles the manager, who has clearly seen it all.

“Dude,” Bob whispers to Dan. “How the fuck are we going to do this?”

“With elbow grease and determination,” replies Dan, clicking his pen.

3 hours later...

“Well, somehow everything is in order. I will call and set up a meeting.” He makes a phone call.

“Okay, it turns out he has a slot for you available in two hours, that sound good?”

Knowing they are not getting anything better, Bob and Dan accept and wait two hours.

Bob and Dan walk into the meeting room with the boss.

“So how can I help you today!” the guy says with a big fake plastic smile.

“Yes, we need to report that the reactor needs some major maintenance and should be shut down for a few hours to fix it.”

“Okay, and when does it need to happen?”

“Right now.”

“Okay! I can't do that,” he says while maintaining his smile.

“What about later?”

“Not then either.”

“I didn't even tell you a timeframe!”

“Still can’t do it.”

“If you don’t, the reactor could explode!”

“Don’t you know that this week is the festival? I can't cut power on the festival without a massive fall in public confidence,” the boss says.

Bob and Dan leave disappointed.

The walk back from the offices was silent as they both reflected on the absolute stupidity they had just heard. Coming back to the building they see their coworker Mary Sue from IT, sitting at her desk while sipping a cold coffee. She looked up as they walked in.

“Where have you guys been?” Mary Sue asked.

89

“At corporate,” Bob responded. “We have to fix the sealant soon, otherwise the reactor might blow.”

“OMG!” she exclaimed. Mary Sue had a habit of saying internet slang out loud. “That's really important! You need to shut down the reactor for that. You told corporate about that, right?”

“Yes, that's why we went there. They don't care though and we don't know how to convince them,” Bob said.

“Apparently their precious festival and public relations is more important than the fate of the continent,” Dan added with a sigh.

“OMG! That's really bad!” Mary exclaimed. “You should contact the government while I book a plane ticket out of here!”

“The government? Why them?” Bob asked, confused.

“So you can get them to force Weyland to give up the keys to shut it down, obviously!”

“That's actually a good idea. You should make more of those,” Dan proclaimed like fact.

Mary Sue gave him a vicious death glare before slinking away.

They grab their laptop and open the government webpage before attempting to find the phone number for support, eventually finding it after an hour and then call the number. They then go on a fun filled family phone menu navigating session.

“You have called the government emergency hotline. If you wish to go back at any time, press pound.

For contacting a representative, press 1. For sending a report to an official, press 2. For lodging a complaint, press 3. To contact someone for an emergency, press 4. For any questions you may have, press 5.

4 Beeep Are you a local or a foreign government official? For local, press 1. Fo1 Beeep What is the nature of your emergency? For bureaucratic press 1. For medical press 2. For PR, press 3. For nuclear, press 4. Fo4 Beeep Are you a foreign national who has launched nukes at this country? - Actually the right path go down no. then follow from there...

Pound Beeep What is the nature of your emergency? For bureaucratic press 1. For medical press 2. For PR, press 3.

For nuclear, press 4. For maintenance, press 5.

90

5 Beeep What government location needs maintenance? For congress, press 1. For the blue house, press 2. For the supreme court, press 3. For the federal reserve, press 4.

Eventually, after many infuriating hours navigating the government’s auto-connect phone system, they realized that they had to say no to the question about launching nukes before they got to reactor maintenance and its associated departments.

Their conversation with the energy department ended with a number of transfers to different departments before eventually landing them an appointment at the nearest government building in four hours to talk about it. Hooray for inefficient bureaucracy and stupidly inefficient automated phone systems, they thought.

Their appointment was easy to get to, surprisingly. However, unsurprisingly, they were forced to do more paperwork. After hours and hours of grueling work, they finally submitted it. Just as they were about to turn around and head back home in triumph, they heard the clerk say, “Thank you. You will have your response in 3-4 business days.” What.

“But it's important!”

“Everything is,” the clerk said in an eerie mirror of the clerk at Weyland Yukatani’s offices.

“No, actually!”

“Mhm.” “It's about the reactor! We need to do maintenance on it immediately!”

“Sure.”

“Dude, just leave it,” said Dan. “They are not going to do anything.”

“But Dan, the thing’s going to explode. We can’t just sit back and do nothing! Millions of lives are at stake, including our families’!”

Bob’s outburst had gotten the attention of a man they hadn’t seen before, standing in the hallway. He had slicked back hair and carried a notepad and pen.

“Hey, I'm Bolo Cornelius with Bear News. I couldn’t help but hear that something important was going on with the reactor? Mind giving me any details on that?”

“You're with Bear News? That's great! We have something that we need you to report.”

The three men walk to a nearby cafe on the other side of the street, since they’d been hurried out of the government building by a security guard. They order coffee and some pastries and sit down.

“So, what's the story about the reactor?” Bolo asked, holding his pen to the paper.

“It needs a critical maintenance cycle, because it is missing sealant. However, due to the fact that the festival is about to happen, the corporation will not let us shut it down to fix it, and when we went to the government they said they would help in 3-4 business days, when it needs to be fixed now.”

“Really? That’s interesting. And concerning. So tell me more about that…”

3 hours of journalism later...

Bolo Cornelius finally put down his pen. “All right. I will get this story published in the afternoon papers and on our website.”

“Thanks so much,” Dan said.

“Finally someone is doing something. I thought nobody would do anything until it was too late,” Bob added. “You guys look tired. You should catch some sleep. I will call and update you.”

The engineers go back to the employee dorms and sleep. They have been up for approximately 18 hours at this point. They get a phone call that wakes them up in the evening. “Sorry guys, but your story flopped. Nobody clicked on it because it looked like clickbait. Nothing I can do.”

Out of morbid curiosity, the engineers want to see what prevailed where their story failed. What they see is an article about what the top 5 girl croosh items were. The second article was an advertisement for a men's deodorant.

“There's no way right? We can still do something! We need to do something!”

“Like what?” Bolo asked, sounding defeated.

“I don't know! Anything!”

The two engineers just sit in quiet contemplation.

“I’ve done everything I can to get Bear News to push the story, but the festival is the only story about the reactor that’s getting clicks. I’m sorry, guys.” The phone went dead.

Dan looked up at Bob. “We’re all fucked.”

The two engineers just sit in quiet contemplation.

“So,” one of them says after an hour of silence. “What do we do now?”

“I don't think we can do anything. Everything we tried has failed. There’s not enough time to get far enough away. The reactor’s blowing in an hour according to my calculations.” There’s a heavy minute, maybe more, of silence. Then: “Want to go for a drink?” “Why not.”

Our two resident engineers go to their local bar and order a pint of beer each. “Cheers,” they say while clinking their mugs together.

Right at that moment, the world goes white, then black.

92

I don’t know what hurt more, being thrown out the window, or the truth they told.

Thirteen floors above the street, I still thought I could explain myself, negotiate their surrender.

Sometimes, to keep yourself safe, you compromise.

The truth I found opened a wound in the city.

The truth they carried made mine look childish.

Window Cleaner

by Marc Buxeda

Eight times I published my findings, eight times it vanished.

I protested, of course. Anywhere that would listen. The public played their role well. They laughed. Ignored me. Called me unstable.

A few people believed me though. People without names. People with too much to lose if I was right.

As I fall through the night, I keep revisiting the moments that could’ve changed everything.

Six years ago, what if I never found my mole?

Four months ago, my last warning. What if I stayed quiet?

Two days ago, what if I ignored the invitation without a signature?

What if I compromised, right now?

As the sounds of the city got closer, as the stars got further away, I realized only one thing hurts now.

How close I came to compromising.

93

What Lies Inside By: Gabriella Maldonado Morales Dove had lived in Miami for the better part of the last fifteen years of her life. Heat and humidity was the weather that made up her formative years. Miami was her home. But, as she passed the wheat covered fields, that idyllic image began to fade. She was now being separated from her friends, family, and home all in the blink of an eye.

A few weeks prior to this unprompted move Dove had heard her parents arguing.

“Is it really the only option James?”

“We’re about to lose the house Liz. The move will be hard on all of us but we have no other choice.”

“Can’t you wait a little longer and see if there are job offers anywhere else. Ottawa is so far and we don’t know anyone. It’ll be especially hard for Dove to adjust.” Dove’s mother’s eyes searched her husband’s to see if there was a glimmer of hope, a chance they could retain their normalcy.

“They gave me two weeks to give a response. If I don’t get any offers before then I’m afraid we’ll have to go.”

Dove’s mother got her answer, and she knew then that the hope she yearned for didn’t exist. The couple remained in their room comforted by each other’s embrace, but across the hall Dove stood hopelessly alone. All she saw were her parent’s shadows painted on the walls. All she heard was that she would be forced to leave her home, and there was no one she could blame. Suddenly her only company was the bright colored walls that made up her room etched with all her childhood memories, and soon those walls would transform into bleak walls with no memories to cling on.

These bleak walls would be those that lined her new room at her new house for she refused to consider it a home. The walls were completely white with no emotion, eerie like the rest of the edifice which felt taken out of a horror movie. The house was made of stone, cold like the weather that surrounded it. Dove was miserable but her parents couldn’t know that. They were all heartbroken, she couldn’t make it worse, but there’s something about hiding one's true feelings that always catches up to you. Like a monster eating you up from the inside. She had had enough.

Dove wasn’t too good with words, they never seemed enough to her, but she loved painting, so she decided to give the blank canvas that was her walls some color. Behind her bed she painted everything she felt: the anger, the anguish, and pain all intertwined to create a hideous monster. Fortunately this monster was drawn somewhere no one could see. As she stared at her creation she was perplexed. She should’ve been horrified for this creature only represented the darkness of her heart, and yet that intrigued her more. The creature was her, familiar. Still it wasn’t beautiful to look at, and to her it felt like something that should be hidden not seen. So, she decided to hide it away. Dove could only wear her mask with a smile. Never letting her true feelings show.

94

She walked down the creaking wooden staircase to the dining room to meet her parents. They were going to eat lasagna, a family favorite.

Dove’s mother began, “Are you excited to begin at your new school?”

“Well excited isn’t the word I’d use exactly, but I guess,” Dove responded.

Suddenly an uncomfortable silence filled the air, thick, almost unbreakable. Almost unbreakable, that is until the doorbell rang. Dove rushed to open the door irking for a distraction, that is until she saw who laid behind it, “Oh, hi Amelia,” Dove said bitterly.

Amelia was the landlord’s daughter, who lived next door. She was the embodiment of positivity with her vibrant dressing and perky demeanor.

Dove didn’t dislike her per se but she was everything she was not and this irked her to the point of sickness. But, any distraction was a good one.

Dove welcomed Amelia in.

“To what do we owe this pleasure,” Dove asked, trying to cover her sarcasm.

“Oh I wanted to offer you some brownies since I just finished a batch,” Amelia responded with her melodic tone.

“Then where are the brownies?”

“Oh it seems I forgot them.”

“Of course,” Dove murmured under her breath.

“What was that?”

“Oh nothing.”

Amelia brought the missing treats and sat down with the Morgan’s.

They first spoke about superficial topics like the weather, what the town was like, how beautiful the city was a few miles south. Dove’s foot began to jitter. She didn’t care for the conversation, she just wanted to sleep. That’s when Amelia said something she shouldn’t have.

“Isn’t this place so much better than Miami?”

Dove’s mother’s eyes begged Amelia to stop while she was ahead but she continued to list everything that made Ottawa better than Dove’s home. Amelia didn’t do this with any ill intent. She merely wanted to help Dove adjust like Dove’s mother had asked her to. Unfortunately though Dove wasn’t a mind reader and Amelia’s words sounded more like pretentious insults than words of comfort.

“Can you shut up!”

95

The young girl’s speech stopped right in its tracks.

“You don’t get to come here and insult my home, while eating our food, at our house. If you don’t have anything nice to say, get out!”

Amelia wanted to retort. She wasn’t being rude, but one look from Dove told her it was better to go.

The dove that always tried to keep the peace had finally lost her temper. She quickly ran up to her room before her parents could stop her. She moved her bed like she had before and was faced with the monster she had created, the one that depicted the parts of herself she wanted to deny, who was everything she then felt. Realizing this a tear rolled down her face, but she refused to accept her feelings. It was easier for her to feign happiness. Thinking this she grabbed a tube of paint and started painting over the gory creature until nothing remained. Just like that she curled up in the bed hoping to forget the day’s events. As she closed her eyes the world disappeared, and she felt peace in the bitter darkness and deafening silence.

Dove woke up to great commotion. When she lifted herself out of bed she heard glass shattering, feet stomping, and what sounded like a growl. When she made it downstairs the six-foot creature she had covered the night before was staring down at her.

“What is that?”, asked Dove though perfectly aware what the creature was.

“I don’t know honey! I thought the abominable snowman wasn’t real but here we are!”, yelled her mother as she ran through the room. Dove’s father was busy grabbing a baseball bat from the garage, having no time to contemplate what the monster could be.

Suddenly, Amelia stormed into the house, the words “oh no” spilling out of her mouth.

“Do you know how this happened?”, Dove yelled at Amelia.

“Oh I have a pretty good idea”, Amelia answered, “Did you draw on the walls?”

Dove’s face paled, unable to comprehend how Amelia had known of her drawings unless…

“You knew this could happen. Is this house haunted or something?”

“I believe the correct term is enchanted and -” “How could your family even consider putting a haunted house up for rent?”

“Well the house being enchanted isn’t an issue if you don’t draw on the damn walls!” Amelia exclaimed.

“Ok fine, I drew on the walls. Now tell me what this creature is and how we can get rid of it.”

Amelia explained that the house had the ability to bring any sketch made on the walls to live so long as there was an emotional connection strong enough to give it life. In this case Dove had created a dark creature that represented the very worst of her. The only way to put an end to the mess she created was to do the very thing she had vehemently tried to avoid: confront her feelings.

96

It can be difficult to reflect on oneself, especially if all that lies beyond that reflection is bitter darkness, yet Dove found the courage to face the monster that was herself.

The monster’s fur was a mix of black and brown, prickly for its coat could not be soft, that would allow it to be approachable. Dove couldn’t have that. She stared up at the monster’s blood red eyes and in them she saw her own reflection. Suddenly the eyes turned from red to a greyish blue and tears began to roll down Dove’s face. For the first time in a long while she was vulnerable. Her honest true self stared at everything she had felt was wrong, but realised it was fine. It was her humanity, her emotion, her vulnerability, her faults, her accomplishments, and it was beautiful a merge of all of the horrible things she felt and all the amazing ones too.

The creature once so large began to shrink as the intensity of her emotions did until the monster had disappeared completely.

“Feel better now?”Amelia asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” Dove jokingly admitted.

“Well my work here is done. You have to clean up this mess by the way,” Amelia teased as she left for the door.

“Just when I was starting to like you, you become irritable again,” Dove remarked.

“Don’t worry my charms will win you over soon enough.

See you in school D.” “See you,” Dove mumbled under her breath. But, now she could finally believe they might become friends, that everything would be fine as long as she took things one day at a time. Just as long as she went easy on herself, maybe going to school didn’t have to be so daunting, maybe she would learn to like her new home, and she didn’t have to deny her past while doing it. The dove was finally at peace, and after the whole fiasco she found solace in her parents embrace. She would survive, she would flourish, and the walls that surrounded her would no longer seem so suffocating.

97

Nonfiction 10-12th Grade

“THE BAG”

BY MÓNICA GARCÍA

Every week, I pack my life into a bag. It used to happen like clockwork. Sunday nights, always the same. The quiet tension in the house, the way time felt faster after dinner, the way I would stand in my room staring at everything I couldn’t take with me. I learned early that not everything fits.

So I chose carefully. A few shirts. The jeans I wore the most. My charger, because forgetting that once was enough to learn. I would zip the bag halfway, sit on it, push everything down, and try again: like maybe if I pressed hard enough, my life would fold into something smaller.

Something easier to carry.

It never did.

There were always things left behind. Not just clothes, but versions of me. The me that laughed louder in one house. The me that stayed quieter in the other. I stopped unpacking fully after a while. It didn’t make sense to.

Why take everything out if I’d just have to put it back in a few days?

The bag stayed half open like it knew.

And somehow, it followed me through everything.

It was there after rehearsals, stuffed with dance leggings and half-eaten snacks, glitter still stuck to the bottom from some show I hadn’t fully come down from. It was there in dressing rooms, shoved under chairs, holding versions of me that existed just before stepping on stage. It came with me to sleepovers and parties, to weekends that blurred into memories I can’t fully place anymore.

It sat quietly through the happy things.

And the not so happy ones too.

After breakups, I packed it slower. Folded things more carefully, like if I did it right, I could put myself back together too. After losses, it felt heavier, even when it wasn’t full. I started to realize the weight had nothing to do with what I was carrying, and everything to do with what I couldn’t.

99

You can’t fold grief.

You can’t zip up confusion.

You can’t pack a single version of yourself when you’ve learned to be so many.

For a long time, the bag decided everything for me. When to leave. When to arrive. When to start over again.

But now, things are different.

Now, I get to decide when I pack the bag.

No more fixed nights. No more waiting for the clock to tell me it’s time to go. I have a say in it now: when I leave, how long I stay, what I bring. I thought that would make it easier.

I thought having control would make the bag lighter.

It doesn’t.

If anything it’s harder.

Because now, every time I pack, it’s a choice. A quiet, constant negotiation between all the lives I’ve lived, and the ones I’m about to.

Soon, I won’t be packing to go back and forth between two homes.

Soon, I’ll be packing to leave.

For college. For something that’s supposed to be permanent; for four years at least. A room that’s mine. A place where everything I own could, theoretically, stay in one place. I used to think that’s what I wanted.

But now, I’m not so sure.

Because what does it mean to stop packing when packing is all you’ve ever known? What does it mean to have one home when you’ve learned how to belong to many, and fully to none?

I think about the bag sometimes, sitting at the foot of a dorm bed, empty for the first time. No rush to fill it. No schedule telling me when to leave.

I wonder if that will feel like freedom. Or if it will feel like something’s missing.

The bag is worn out now. The zipper doesn’t glide as easily. There are marks on it I don’t remember getting, but somehow recognize anyway. It has carried every version of me: the loud ones, the quiet ones, the broken ones, the ones that felt whole for a moment.

100

And now, it’s coming with me again.

Just not in the same way.

Maybe I won’t need it like I used to.

Maybe it won’t sit half packed on my bed anymore.

Maybe I’ll finally unpack everything.

Or maybe I won’t.

And maybe, wherever I go next, I’ll still be learning what it means to put it down.

But for the first time, I think I understand; The bag was never meant to hold my life.

It was meant to carry me into it.

“I WAS TOLD THE EARTH WAS MOTHER BUT NEVER TAUGHT HOW TO INHERIT HER”

by Cristine Arianne Tacher I think I have always felt it before I understood it.

In the way I watch the sky without trying to name it. In the way I trust tides more than instructions.

In the way something in me shifts quietly, like phases no one announces but always arrive.

They call the moon a woman. They call the earth a mother. They call nature feminine like it is something soft, something poetic, something to admire from a distance.

But I don’t think they mean power when they say it.

Because if they did, they would talk about how the moon pulls entire oceans without asking permission. How the earth holds everything, grows everything, breaks and rebuilds itself over and over again without ever needing to explain why. They would talk about how nature doesn’t shrink to be understood.

And I think about how different things must have been before.

Before everything was renamed and reordered.

Before power had to look like control instead of creation. There were societies where women were not an exception but a center. Not louder, not above, but woven into everything. Leadership wasn’t something you claimed by force, it was something that moved through community, through trust, through knowing how to sustain rather than dominate.

101

I don’t imagine it as perfect. I imagine it as balanced. Like roots underground, unseen but holding everything in place. Like rivers that don’t fight the land but shape it slowly, inevitably. Somewhere along the way, that kind of power stopped being recognized as power at all. And I think I learned that too.

I learned to question my instincts. To explain my feelings until they sounded logical enough to be accepted. To make myself smaller, clearer, easier to define. I learned to treat my own nature like something unreliable instead of something ancient.

But when I stop trying so hard to fit into something rigid, I can feel it again. Something older than expectations. In the way I change and don’t break. In the way I can hold softness and strength at the same time without them canceling each other out. In the way I don’t stay the same, not because I am inconsistent, but because I am alive. I think about the stories that were lost. The ones where women were not reduced to roles but existed as forces. As creators, as leaders, as something steady and shifting all at once. And I wonder if that is what I am remembering, not learning. That I was never meant to be something fixed. That I am allowed to move like the moon, to create like the earth, to take up space like something natural instead of something that needs permission. Because nature has never asked to be justified. And neither should I.

“the last fig i almost didn’t taste at 5:17 pm”

by Cristine Arianne Tacher I used to believe time would wait for me. Not in a dramatic way, just quietly, like it would stretch itself around my hesitation, give me space to become who I was supposed to be before anything truly mattered. I thought there would always be a later. Later to try, later to risk, later to feel things fully without holding back.

But lately, I’ve started to notice how everything changes without asking.

There are moments that feel like they’re meant to last, like laughter that echoes a little too long, or the exact way light falls across a room at a certain hour, and yet they slip past me anyway. I tell myself I’ll remember them, that I’ll come back to them, but memory is softer than I expect. It fades at the edges. It reshapes itself. And suddenly something that once felt infinite becomes something I can’t quite hold onto.

I think about how often I wait. I wait until I feel ready, until I feel certain, until I feel like the version of myself I imagine I should be. But that version of me is always just ahead, always just out of reach. And while I’m waiting to become her, everything else keeps moving. People change. Feelings shift.

Opportunities close quietly, without announcement.

It scares me, in a way I don’t always admit, how temporary everything is. How even the happiest moments don’t stay. How even the strongest feelings can soften over time. But there’s something else underneath that fear, something almost beautiful. Because if nothing lasted forever, then maybe the point was never to hold onto things, but to actually live them while they exist.

I’m starting to realize that I’ve been treating my life like a rehearsal. Like one day I’ll step into the real version of it and finally do everything right, finally say what I mean, finally take the chances I keep postponing. But there isn’t a separate moment where everything begins. This is it. This is the part that matters. And I don’t want to keep watching it pass me by.

103

I don’t want to keep choosing safety over feeling, or silence over honesty, or waiting over living.

Because the truth is, the worst thing that can happen isn’t that I fail or that I feel too much. It’s that I let everything slip past me because I was too afraid to step into it.

So maybe I don’t have as much time as I think I do. Maybe none of us do.

But maybe that’s exactly why it matters, why every small, fleeting moment feels so full, so alive, so worth it.

Because it won’t last.

And that’s the whole point.

104

“Letter” by Fabiola García (originally published in the first volume of Perceptions 2025-2026) Hello, younger self. It’s me!

And you’re probably in a rough spot right now. Well guess what, it only gets worse!

School keeps stressing me out, we’re about to graduate, you’re still as much of a little, nuerodivergent mess as it gets; and everything seems hopeless!

On the bright side, I guess you’ll be out of here soon enough, in time. Maybe. We and our parents seem to doubt it for all that they hope.

Hope is a fickle thing. It both carries us forward and blinds our paths. It is a cruel mistress. Better than hope will always be the knowledge of what you are capable of. Be realistic, and above all, true to yourself, now matter how foul you become and how much pain you wish to inflict. Spite is a powerful thing. To disregard it and your hatred as cruel, miserable vices would be a dreadful mistake. With hate comes true desire to act. Be it hate towards the injustice that plagues us all, or a petty feud with another.

To me, there are four principles of choice. Motivation, necessity, hate, and love. We lack motivation, are selective with our love at best, and are so privileged we feel no sense of necessity towards much of anything. All we feel, truly, undeniably, no ifs, ands, or buts, is hate. But it is not a bad thing. May your hate turn into strength, and one day, into love that you may give to those such as yourselves, those depressed few who need it most.

Remember, above all: Motivation is power.

Necessity shall justify.

Hate shall become fuel.

Love conquers none.

-Your future self.

105

Voyage #5 Orlando, FL | Voyage #6 Juan Dolio, DR (July 2025)

by Ignacio Pedraza Arroyo This might be the last tournament I play with this team. Six eyes of growth. Six years of creating lifelong bonds.

Six years of unconditional love. That’s what I thought as the gate agent announced, “Group A now boarding.” What I was feeling was strange, bizarre, even. On one hand, I was about to complete a trip in which I would complete one of my lifelong dreams. The child inside me had yearned so long for this moment. As I placed my luggage in the overhead compartment above seat 9C, always aisle, always more legroom, always more convenience, I couldn’t shake the feeling of exhaustion. We had woken up at the crack of dawn, which explained everyone’s weary faces.

Even Zoraya, still half-asleep, had come in her sleeping mask and bonnet.

When we arrived at MCO, something felt different. Unlike previous occasions, I was anxious, even scared. The preconception of never-ending uncertainty consumed me. Deep down, I was unsettled. In the middle of this hurricane, the calm eye was my mom. She always brought the idea of peace, more than Greta Thunberg or even Gandhi could achieve. I carried too many remnants of distrust, but the fog was beginning to clear up. I started to see my coach for what he really was, breaking away from the “grandiose coach” paradigm I had built in my head.

There was one catalyst for this shift. At McCormick Place in Chicago, during a qualifying tournament for Open Nationals, my coach pulled me aside after our first match. He manipulated me, feeding my ego, praising my versatility as a player, and saying he could capitalize on my abilities. He asked if I could switch my libero jersey.

The request lingered, but what followed was worse… Despite his promises, I was never capitalized on. Instead, I was used merely as a defensive specialist, even though I had always been the clutch-time libero. It was never written, never stated, but I knew: I was libero number one.

Yet the other libero, my best friend, my brother for life, remained just as important. This team had been built on the foundation of three players: Andy, Luis, and me. Over time, others came and went, bonds were renewed and filtered, but the original chemistry remained. Special parents joined along the way, too, creating a family that extended beyond the court. Leaving this dream felt like the hardest decision I had ever made. Since 2019, this has been my life.

AAU, Day 1. Phoenix Jennings 16 vs Torrimar 16. We won our first match, but in the game that followed, things unraveled. I can’t remember the exact details, whether it was a bad pass or being positioned incorrectly, but I do remember what came after. My coach scolded me harshly. I slightly snapped back and retorted something useless, not because I was disrespectful though, but because I was the captain, the leader, a role model. Still, the weight of his words crushed me. When I rotated out, an anxiety attack struck, and I subtly sat on the bench. I cried quietly, gasped for respiration, and seated myself beside our physical therapist to be comforted and to cover myself. Then came the words I will never forget. My coach leaned in, whispered aggressively, like a beast: “Deja el puto show y ponte a jugar”.

Was this normal? Why would he say that? Did I not do enough? Have I not done enough for this team? Doubt crept in, poisoning my thoughts. Even in the first games, when both liberos were supposed to alternate serve, I was left sidelined watching my best friend serve both sets. The cracks widened. And in those cracks, the worst thoughts took root.

106

Day three was the breaking point. Emotional manipulation. Toxic masculinity. The weight of it all still astonishes me. I realized then that I could no longer be part of this team. Yet somehow, despite the storm, I still played well.

Ignacio means “full of fire,” and I embodied that. With drive, resilience, and determination, I finished the tournament beautifully. Hard work never goes unrewarded. Princeton’s coach saw me play that day.

Then came something even bigger. My first NORCECA tournament in the Dominican Republic, a milestone on my dream list, representing Puerto Rico in beach volleyball. Competing in the U21 men’s category, I played against incredible athletes and experienced firsthand the level of international sand volleyball. The preparation for this was absolute chaos. I was originally supposed to play with Lucas, my favorite partner, whose defensive dominance at the net blended seamlessly with my scrappy defense. But just a day after confirming, he pulled out. I had no clue who my partner would be. Time was running out. Lucas was in Ibiza for his senior trip, and his mom had coerced and blackmailed him to go on another vacation after his senior celebration had terminated.

Eventually, we found a replacement: Reyko. Though shorter and less dominant than Lucas, our chemistry made up for the lack of height. However, height is everything in beach volleyball, and against taller teams, especially ones with blockers as skyscrapers, we struggled. Nonetheless, we still fought hard. The first day was rough. We lost a winnable match against St. Kitts and Nevis The sting of that loss lingered in our next game against USA, which we also lost. But lessons were learned. The next day, we came back stronger, defeating Trinidad and Tobago before falling short of the quarter finals. We ended up placing 11th overall after beating Guatemala, just shy of upsetting SKN, who finished 6th. Despite the result, we played exceptionally, improving with each match. I began to disseminate my name interntionally. At the end of the tripom I was exhausted but fulfilled. Many feathers had been accomplished, and new dreams had begun. Most importantly, I received new from Princeton: if admitted, I would have a spot on the roster. A dream I still carry weith me and still work on.

Now I find myself caught in the midst of applications. Pushing toward November, 1 feels like a summit push on Mt. Everest, no breaks, constant climbing. I am tired, even fatally tired at times, but I see the light at the end on the tunnel, and no matter what… I will never give up.

107

Crecer, fortalecerse y florecer Ignacio Pedraza-Arroyo Introducción: ¿Me doy por vencido? ¿Me rindo? ¿Claudico?(pregunta retórica) Frecuentemente, yo tengo ese pensamiento, ya que mi vida de atleta no ha sido fácil. Pero es lo que me empuja y me da el acicate para seguir adelante. Son las emociones que me dan cuando pierdo o gano, la gasolina que me motiva. Desde chiquito he tenido dos metas extremadamente importantes para mi, llegar a unas olimpiadas, y poder jugar el nivel más alto de voleibol universitario, división 1, todos los días trabajo para poder realizar esos sueños y hacerlos cada día más viables. Y sí, aunque todos pasamos por malas rachas y por momentos difíciles, tenemos que mirar todo en una retrospectiva positiva, que sí podemos, y que sí vamos a perseverar. He pasado por varias experiencias díficiles en mi vida, que en su momento, quizás no comprendía completamente su significado, pero ahora las veo como lecciones valiosas que necesitaba aprender para crecer, fortalecerme y florecer.

108

Desarrollo: Vamos a hacer un viajecito y compilar mis memorias que salvaguardo de lo que me ha endurecido gracias al voleibol, ya que no es todo miel sobre hojuelas. En el voleibol, nunca he estado en un equipo “montado” o extremadamente bueno, siempre he estado en equipos buenos pero no el tipo de equipo que siempre gana. Pero durante ese tramo o camino me he encontrado con mucha gente rozagante, que se creen el mejor jugador del mundo. Solamente uno en el deporte sabe lo que ha sacrificado, las lagrimas que has llorado y los trastornos emocionales que has tenido, el dinero que has gastado para llegar a donde estás, las noches sin dormir que te has quedado estudiando porque tenías práctica, pero el fruto va a llegar. Todo el trabajo que uno pasa se va a notar cuando te ganes el mundo, cuando triunfes; uno no puede cubrir el sol con la mano. Como dijo Jean Jacques Rousseau, “La paciencia es amarga, pero su fruto es dulce”(cita de autoridad), la paciencia y la frustración que uno pasa son dolorosas, pero cuando prevalecen, el frenesí de emociones que rebosaré será increíble.

109

Debido a las experiencias difíciles, he enfrentado problemas psicológicos. Llegué a ser un niño receloso al fracaso y ser un niño perfeccionista, y todavía lo soy, pero de forma templada ; todo tenía que ser perfecto según mi visión. Montesquieiu dijo que “Nohay tontería mayor o más común que la de amargarse por las tonterías del mundo”(cita deautoridad)

yo tuve que aprender eso en el deporte. No

podía enojarme o tirarme una perreta por cualquier error que cometía, yo tenía que ser más docto y culto, pero poco a poco, cantazo a cantazo, con el tiempo, fui aprendiendo que no era asi, es lo opuesto, para poder lidiar y perseverar hay que aprender a soltar las riendas y perder el control para poder sobresalir. Mi pasión y determinación por el deporte me ayudaron a controlar mis emociones, tanto en la cancha como fuera de ella. Muchos entrenadores que he tenido saben mi talento, la pericia que tengo de dominar el balón y lo mucho que trabajo, pero siempre me decían que tenía que controlar mis emociones. Paso a paso, me dediqué a mejorar en este aspecto y ahora siento que he logrado manejar mis emociones de manera efectiva. Recientemente, tuve una conversación relativa a esto con uno de mis antiguos entrenadores, quien recordó cómo solía frustrarme durante los juegos. Sin embargo, él notó un cambio en mí; en lugar de ver al mismo 'Nacho' de siempre, percibió a alguien mentalmente más fuerte, capaz de superar cualquier obstáculo y constantemente mejorar mi desempeño en el juego.

110

Pero, recientemente no me siento como ese ‘Nacho’ que está mejorando y siempre impávido; en el ámbito que me encuentro es uno con mucha presión y perfección, por las metas que yo me autopongo. En estas pasadas semanas, he pasado por momentos de frustración, enojo y tristeza. Aprendí que no siempre van a escoger a los mejores, aprendí que no puedo dimitir , aprendí que las adversidades fortalecen a uno.

Las pasadas semanas he estado entrenando con la pre-selección nacional de Puerto Rico; yo no me quiero hacer ver como si fuera el mejor del mundo, pero mi opinión y la opinión de muchos otros era y sigue siendo que yo era el mejor o unos de los mejores liberos (una posición de defensa) ahi, pero cuando los entrenadores hicieron el corte y lo anunciaron, emocionalmente me amainé. Yo me quería dar por vencido, quitarme, estaba cansado de ir contra murallas que siento que no podía tumbar, ya que me pasó lo mismo en noviembre del año pasado (ejemplificación anecdótica).

El nepotismo en el

111

deporte existe, aun que yo no pensaba que iba a existir en una selección nacional se vio presente. Las palabras no describen el dolor que sentí, pero el apoyo que tengo de mis entrenadores, amigos, compañeros de equipo y familia es incondicional. Ellos me dicen que sí puedo y que voy a vencer. Mis entrenadores me cuentan anécdotas y cuentos de atletas muy reconocidos, de como les han pasado las mismas cosa como a mi. Pero ellos siguieron luchando; me afectó cuando mi entrenador actual me dijo que el libero de la selección superior masculina de voleibol, Abner Cabrer, fue dado de codo muchas veces en selecciones menores, pero siguió abatiendo contra ellos, y como dije antes, uno no puede tapar el sol con la mano, así que no le dio de otra a selección que sino escogerlo a él (ejemplificación anecdótica).

Desenlace: En fin, yo he aprendido muchas cosas, hábitos, el valor neoclásico de autodominio y he desarrollado muchos rasgos de mis experiencias , por ejemplo ser taimado y aprender a no quitarme. La beldad del deporte es que cuando llegamos a punto específico o una edad específica se distingue el fuerte con el débil; ámbos físicamente y mentalmente. Aprendemos de nuestras pérdidas y siempre nos harán más fuerte.

112

The Power of Change by Giovannah L. Semper Cabezudo

Superpowers , what does it really mean to have one? Is it something extraordinary like flying, x-ray vision, or invisibility? I think superpowers are more than we traditionally imagine.

Superpowers are, believe it or not, real, and it doesn’t take a person spitting fire to prove it.

There are humans who are extraordinary without having extraterrestrial abilities. Those who have the courage to stand up before a crowd, fight for what they believe in, and inspire real change have a superpower. I’ve always admired people who transform the world and challenge systems that seem unchangeable.

I love the exemplary figure Malala, yet because she is admired by so many, I used to avoid writing about her,I felt like everyone had already said everything there is to say. But maybe there’s a reason she is so universally recognized. Malala embodies the bravery, perseverance, and conviction that I aspire to. I want to be courageous enough to stand for what I believe in, and I think that’s the greatest superpower of all: the power to change the world,just as Malala did, and continues to do.

113

Perceptions is published thanks to the support of the Saint John’s School Secondary English Department.

This work may not be reproduced without written permission of the Saint John’s School administration and the writers and artists showcased in this magazine.

Created in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in May 2026.