THE MUSE is a student-run literary arts publication at Northview High School. Each year, our publication releases our annual literary magazine issue in addition to monthly website updates which explore the impact of the arts on our society. Both the magazine and website spotlight student writing and art in order to encourage the Northview student body to explore creative outlets and artistic expression. Each magazine aims to explore a thoroughly discussed and developed theme that aims to answer or draw attention to an issue pertinent to our communities. Our goal as a publication is to highlight the voices of our majority-minority student population through varying forms of the arts and sustainability as a safe space for all. This year, our staff consists of eleven members, and soon to be more. Through the course of the second semester, each staff member creates and gathers several works of art and writing, designs two to three magazine layouts, and publishes webpages. This edition is issued on our website, ensuring that all can access our work.
Editor’s Note
In creating Limerence, we wanted to create a magazine that reflected the insatiable feelings of love, loss, and obsession, of limerence. To make this magazine, is to capture the passionate, yet raw and aching pain that burns in our head; the visceral pleasure that drives us mad; the gnawing memories that eat away at our thoughts and cloud them with sour and envious judgement and heartache. As you read through the magazine, we encourage you to reflect on your own emotional experiences and see if there are flames you too, have burning deep in your heart.
Northview High School
10625 Parsons Road Johns Creek, GA 30097
(470)-254-3828
THE MUSE STAFF 24-25
EDITORS-IN-CHIEF
Olivia Chang
Sophie Chang
Ella Jeon
Serena Wong
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Isabel Sang
Caroline Sung
Vivian Tran
ADVISOR
Jesse Hancock
STAFF MEMBERS
Olivia Chang
Ava Chapagain
Ella Jeon
Jenica Lei
Smriti Sudhakar
Caroline Sung
Vivian Tran
Rebecca Wells
PHILOSOPHY
Oh my dear, will you please let me love you?
I am so sorry that I have wept over you, but the crater that you have left in my soul is crushing me. Because of your absence, I feel that my emotions have overtaken my whole being and left me with an awful disease that only your love can cure. Please forgive that I have painted and written you into every timeline, and detailed accounts of our love in verses of poetry and song. But I cannot stop feeding this hunger that you have brought upon me. This insatiable desire, for you.
I cannot help that when I see you there, sitting so far… away from me, that the empty cavern in my heart blossoms with an exhilarating rush. Everything feels so hot, it’s burning; it almost feels: painful. Allow me to imagine you in my arms, only you and me in the darkness of my heart, no one else has to exist but us. Just spare me this pain and extinguish the flames by being mine. Please just let me be the only one for you. I am right for you. Our stars together would align so perfectly. So why wont you just look my way? Why must you insist on letting me have you only in my dreams?
39 Rebecca Wells | PeaceWiththeAfraid, Short Story
41 Lenica Lei | TooLittle,TooLate, Letter
45 Rebecca Wells | Time, List Poetry
47 Jenica Lei | EighteenBirthdays, Extended Sonnet
49 Serena Wong | Highrise, Short Story
Flames of Paris
In the realm of dance, she remains the most inspiring dancer I met face-to-face. Granted, her arabesque doesn’t scrape the sky. Nor do her leg extensions reach the same caliber as those more gifted than her. When the familiar music signaling practice for fifth turns or fouettés fades, she is far from the last girl standing.
And yet…
She’s always one of the leading candidates for front row positions. A sign of dominance within the skill hierarchy of our class. She never misses the choreography. While the moves learned last week slip through a lot of minds, she Sometimes, I catch a glimpse of her pale green notebook. Its pages cluttered with steps and other dance terminology terms I couldn’t bring myself to remember. She could from a just off the top of her head all from a single snippet of music. Envy and admiration swirl within my chest. In the end, however, the admiration always wins over the envy when it came to her.
Short Story | Olivia Chang, layoutdesign
EllaJeon|PurpleShoes, Acrylic
Jenica Lei
As she graces the floor, I stare in awe as her feet effortlessly navigate the choreography. Flames of Paris never looked as good as it did until the steps were translated onto her. While seemingly dainty and delicate, her ankles never once falter in balance or precision. Not even through the piqué step sequence. Not even with her entire weight bearing down on a singular standing leg relegated to the tips of her big toe and second toe. As I recall her early days as a newcomer when she could hardly relevé on beat, I am all the more mystified by her progress.
As the music fades, she concludes the routine as gracefully as she began. Not a hint of the strenuous ordeal visible on her face.
i wish you lovE
Ava Chapagain
Beautiful lady, wherever you are. I feel you. I yearn for what we once were My restless nights, plagued with sorrow that our meeting was cursed to be short lived. must continue on. I loved summer because I loved you. I loved the or purple because I loved you. I loved the seventh day because I loved you. You were my everything – my God, my universe, my savior this vain society. You were the very thing that kept me sane, but you are no more. Though you are gone, no one would ever be able overwrite the place in which you inhabited my heart.
Days pass on and I am unable to speak my true thoughts for fear judgement. Days pass on and I feel the remittance of your judgement.
# Letters | Olivia Chang, layout design
consciousness drifting further away. I wish you could understand the tears that I shed or the ache in my bones. I wish you could understand that you are what I think blowing out the chipped wax candles my birthday cake. I wish you could could understand that you are what I think when I come in contact with a sweet loving animal. I wish you nothing but the best, my one and only love. May thrive in the darkest of times. May you feel prideful in your mind, for it is the spirit that gave me hope during my darkest of days. of
I wish you love, my dear.
but May you you the
Don’t Look Back —
Smirti Sudhakar
—he said, and I knew in that moment I’d failed. Or rather, I would fail, I know I’d look back. If not because of my lack of faith, Then perhaps it would just be raw desire—
I will find you again, my dear. And we will surely overcome this cycle, While finding beauty in the minute once lived. I the col-loved from here able to fear of could the think of candles atop think of
Desire to see you once more.
This self-fulfilling prophecy of ours— Bound by love yet obfuscated from one another’s view. It’s ever-cruel intent of keeping us apart, Apparent in every restrained movement And every stolen glance. Every fickle touch. And even every hushed word.
Be it so, but, love persists.
That momentary glance I got of you Was worth more than any millennia of gold.
Be it so, but, love persists.
The second our gazes met each other, I knew you had been longing for me to turn around.
Be it so, but, love persists.
DESIGNERS
Olivia Chang | 23, 35, 49
Ava Chapagain | 29, 31, 33
Ella Jeon | 17, 21
Jenica Lei | 25, 45, 47
Smriti Sudhakar | 27, 37
Caroline Sung | 5, 7, 41, 43
Vivian Tran | 9, 19, 39
Rebecca Wells | 11, 13, 15
THANK YOU
THE MUSE would like to thank the Northview faculty and staff for their endless support of our literary arts magazine. Most of all, we extend our deepest gratitude to our advisor, Mr. Hancock. His guidance, encouragement, and unwavering support have given us the ability and courage to grow as writers, artists, and designers.
We extend further thanks to the NHS School Governance Council whose support and collaboration make sharing our work possible.
Additionally, we are grateful to the talented students of Northview High School. It is an honor to showcase the depth and emotions from their poetry, prose, and art–each piece holds the intense emotional and human connections that we have for others.
Finally, we’d like to thank you–the readers. Thank you for supporting THE MUSE, and thank you for allowing us to share the feelings of romance, love-loss, and obsession, turned physical in art and writing.
Is it thy will thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send’st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me, The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?
