Cymbals 2017

cymbals

2 0 17

2 0 17

cymbals

cymbals princeton day school 2 017

1

cymbals

“Prey, Pain, Pleasure” by Ella Baseman, XI: mixed media

2

2 0 17

cymbals

2 0 17

cymbals Each year, cymbals receives a myriad of literary and visual art submissions. The editorial team reads, contemplates, and discusses each submitted piece based on artistic vision, individual voice, and polished craftsmanship. While reviewing this year’s submissions, we noticed that accepted work explored either inside or outside worlds; eventually, this observation became the organizing agent for this year’s magazine. cymbals is very proud to announce that due to a generous gift from the Löfdahl-Fruchter family, faculty advisors of cymbals will now award yearly cash prizes of $100 each to one literary and one visual art submission, based on their connection to a theme. This year’s visual arts award recipient is senior Shana Levine for “Rower of Carnegie Lake.” This year’s writing award recipient is senior Alex Neumann for “ChromaLove.”

The theme for the 2018 edition of cymbals is “Pleasure and Pain.”

We are also proud to announce that, again due to the generosity of the Löfdahl-Fruchter family, beginning with the 2018 issue, cymbals will include the work of a professional writer exploring the craft of writing.

The cover title of cymbals is set in 27 point Avant Garde Book, the text is set in 10 pt. Times New Roman, and captions are set in 8.5 pt. Helvetica. cymbals seeks to reduce its impact on the environment as much as possible. While we considered using 100% post-consumer recycled paper, we felt that the artwork would not be showcased properly. Therefore, the cover is printed on Futura 100# Gloss Cover with a UV coating. Futura supports responsible forest management. This product line carries three chain-ofcustody certifications: it is FSC certified, a member of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, and a member of PEFC, promoting sustainable Forest Management (it is also 10% post-consumer fiber). The inside pages are printed on 30% post-consumer fiber Roland Opaque 80 lb., which is FSC certified, and manufactured using renewable biogas energy. The cost of each magazine is financed entirely by cymbals’ annual budget. 350 copies were printed by Minuteman Press, Somerville, NJ. cymbals is the literary and visual art magazine of Princeton Day School in Princeton, New Jersey. The submission period lasts from November through February each year, and students may submit works at cymbals.submittable.com. Each submission is reviewed by the editorial team without knowing the identity of its author or artist.

Princeton Day School, 650 Great Road, Princeton, NJ 08540 • (609) 924-6700 • www.pds.org Cover artwork: “still here” by Ella Baseman, XI: mixed media

3

cymbals

2 0 17

Table Of Contents “still here” by Ella Baseman, XI: mixed media, inside.............................................................. cover “Prey, Pain, Pleasure” by Ella Baseman, XI: mixed media, inside................................................... 2 Introduction & colophon.................................................................................................................... 3 “Zipper” by Shana Levine, XII: photography, inside........................................................................ 7 “ChromaLove” by Alex Neumann, XII: short story, inside............................................................... 8 “Grandfather” by Maggie Laughlin, X: photography, inside.......................................................... 10 “Landscape of a Portrait” by Diego Garcia, XI: architecture, inside............................................... 11 “To Bite a Kissing Lip” by Nate Jones, XI: poetry, inside.............................................................. 12 “No Flash Photography” by Kiely French, XII: pen, inside............................................................ 12 “’night” by Will Brossman, XII: flash fiction, inside....................................................................... 13 “What Happens After (January 20th, 2017)” by Erica Walsh, XII: poetry, inside.......................... 14 “Fake Married” by Kiely French, XII: mixed media, inside........................................................... 15 “There Must be Something Wrong (With Me)” by Sofia Bae, XI: short story, inside..................... 16 “Graveyard Shift” by Russell Kirczow, XII: flash fiction, inside.................................................... 18 “My Numb Vacation” by Nate Jones, XI: poetry, inside................................................................. 19 “18 (Self Portrait)” by Will Brossman, XII: flash fiction, inside..................................................... 20 “Within the Light Tent” by Shana Levine, XII: photography, inside.............................................. 21 “She Doesn’t Care” by Leo Nye, XII: poetry, inside....................................................................... 22 “Ripped” by Abby Ling, XII: mixed media, inside......................................................................... 23 “Tyler and Son” by Sara Chopra, XI: short story, inside................................................................. 24 “Dead on Arrival” by Zach Izzard, XII: flash fiction, inside........................................................... 26 “The Porcelain Teeth of the Devil” by Catie Higgins, XII: poetry, inside...................................... 27 “Toxic” by Lara Strassberg, XII: mixed media, inside.................................................................... 29 “Leaking Helium” by Nate Jones, XI: poetry, inside....................................................................... 30 “Road Kill” by Alex Neumann, XII: flash fiction, inside................................................................ 31 “modern art” by Will Brossman, XII: flash fiction, inside............................................................... 32 “Frozen in Time” by Michelle Leung, XI: watercolor and ink, inside............................................ 32 “The Photograph” by Emma Dries, XI: poetry, inside.................................................................... 33 “Green Means Goodbye” by Katie Simons, XII: poetry, inside...................................................... 34

4

cymbals

2 0 17

“Weigh Me Down” by Sofia Bae, XI: flash fiction, inside.............................................................. 35 “The Napalm is Still Burning (Vietnam)” by Leo Nye, XII: flash fiction, inside............................ 36 “Lucy Piece” by Lucy Bailey, X: acrylic on canvas, inside....................................................... 37 “Wondering with a Lake” by Alex Neumann, XII: poetry, inside................................................... 38 “Suds and Stuff” by Anisa Lateef, XI: flash fiction, inside............................................................. 39 “Don’t Belong” by Maria Vasquez-Maldonado, X: ceramics, inside.............................................. 40 “i want that kind of mirror” by Anisa Lateef, XI: poetry, inside..................................................... 41 “Sunday Mornings Turned Sunday Nights” by Zoe Lett, XII: flash fiction, inside......................... 42 “The -ist Conundrum” by Sofia Bae, XII: flash fiction, inside........................................................ 43 “What it Looks Like” by Nate Jones, XI: flash fiction, inside......................................................... 44 “Puzzle” by Atticus Rego, XII: architecture, inside........................................................................ 45 “Hands Up” by Michelle Leung, XI: watercolor and ink, inside.................................................... 46 “Me, Myself, and We” by Brain Radvany, X: photography, inside................................................. 47 “Construction of a Drawing 1” by Zachary Dudeck, XII: architecture, between............................ 48 “Construction of a Drawing 2” by Zachary Dudeck, XII: architecture, between............................ 49 “Jellyfish” by Mary Schafer, XI: ceramic, outside.......................................................................... 50 “Vision of a World Beyond” by Michelle Leung, XI: acrylic, outside............................................ 51 “Church on the Water” by Christian Tian, XII: architecture, outside.............................................. 52 “Beach at Night” by Ella Baseman, XI: photography, outside........................................................ 53 “Forget It” by Ella Baseman, XI: mixed media, outside................................................................. 54 “Lips” by Shana Levine, XII: photography, outside........................................................................ 55 “Ella” by Erica Walsh, XII: photography, outside........................................................................... 56 “Bitter Candy” by Ella Baseman, XI, outside.................................................................................. 57 “Range of Motion” (early study) by Samantha Dwyer, XI: ceramic, outside................................. 58 “Celestial Memories” by Michelle Leung, XI: acrylic, outside....................................................... 59 “Spooning Bowls” by Allison Klei, XII: ceramic, outside.............................................................. 60 “Monday Tears” by Lara Strassberg, XII: mixed media, outside.................................................... 61 “Marble Bowl” by Allison Klei, XII: ceramic, outside................................................................... 62 “Nude with Patterns” by Michelle Leung, XI: colored pencil, outside........................................... 63 “Division of Labor” by Kiely French, XII: mixed media, outside.................................................. 64 “Biz Büyüdük Ve Kirlendi Dünya” by Dilan West, XI: mixed media, outside............................... 65

5

cymbals

2 0 17

“Clara’s Song” by Arya Jha, XI: short story, outside....................................................................... 66 “beluga” by Will Brossman, XII: flash fiction, outside................................................................... 70 “Just Keep Swimming” by Amanda Ostendorf, XII: photography, outside.................................... 71 “Nothing” by Erica Walsh, XII: poetry, outside.............................................................................. 72 “Get Your Dad” by Logan Kramsky, XII: flash fiction, outside...................................................... 73 “Forest Dancer” by Elisa Kardhashi, XI: photography, outside...................................................... 74 “Ophelia” by Nate Jones, XI: poetry, outside.................................................................................. 74 “High School Daze” by Anisa Lateef, XI: flash fiction, outside...................................................... 75 “Lonely Chai” by Alex Neumann, XII: short story, outside............................................................ 76 “Over the Woods and Through the River” by George Cole, XII: flash fiction, outside................... 78 “Twin Dragons” by Rohan Narayanan, XI: pencil, outside............................................................. 79 “Seeds” by Leo Nye, XII: flash fiction, outside............................................................................... 80 “Temporary Peace” by Atticus Rego, XII: flash fiction, outside..................................................... 81 “Bison Trudging Through the Snow” by Alec Berger, X: photography, outside............................. 82 “When I Was Born” by Sanjana Dugar, XI: flash fiction, outside................................................... 83 “Taps” by George Cole, XII: flash fiction, outside.......................................................................... 84 “Krant Koord Bench” by Noah Liao, XII: furniture design, outside............................................... 85 “How to Love Like Lenny” by Nate Jones, XI: poetry, outside...................................................... 86 “Shallow” by Maggie Laughlin, X: photography, outside............................................................... 87 Spencer Knerr, IX: architecture, outside.......................................................................................... 88 “Self Service” by Oliver McIntosh, XII: poetry, outside................................................................. 89 “2003 and Not Much Else” by Zoe Lett, XII: flash fiction, outside................................................ 90 “you (you have done nothing)” by Erica Walsh, XII: poetry, outside............................................. 90 “Rower of Carnegie Lake” by Shana Levine, XII: photography, outside....................................... 91 “Memory” by Grace Nicholas, XII: poetry, outside........................................................................ 91 “Occupied” by Anisa Lateef, XI: poetry, outside............................................................................ 92 “Adam and Eve” by Kiely French, XII: pencil, outside.................................................................. 94 “Prey” by Leo Nye, XII: flash fiction, outside................................................................................. 95 Index of Contributors....................................................................................................................... 96 cymbals staff.................................................................................................................................... 96 “Ghost Trees” by Alex Berger, X: photography, outside....................................................back cover

6

cymbals

2 0 17

“Zipper” by Shana Levine XII: photography

7

cymbals

2 0 17

ChromaLove You stand at the edge of the workshop, not wanting to enter the paint area and risk your $80 jeans. Waiting, leaned up against the doorway and chuckling to yourself, you think it’s funny the way I obsess over every drop of orange, panicking when my large mixing bucket goes from amber to serape. It’s cute, you say; it’s cute the way I pin my color swatches up against the stained walls, saving each hue for another day. You watch me test my arm up a sleeve shades of kilkenny, each a minute difference drip of blue. I hold my wrists out of the way of my head to make sure the light isn’t obstructed, bowing before the color. You laugh, but I furrow my brow. I don’t understand. I don’t understand why you don’t see the color that surrounds me, the colors that make up my world. I want you to see.

I don’t speak as I pull you through the chapel door and into the Sherwin Williams paint store, it’s walls lined with hundreds of unique swatches. Organized by family, the palettes nestle together with their slips waiting to be pulled, various shades of sienna a different level of burnt.

“You never told me why we came here,” you say.

“I just need to pick something up,” I lie to you, “I’ll be quick.” I lie again. “I promise.”

I run my right hand across the soft yellows, my skin dry and flakey from rinsing and washing, fingernails clipped to their stubs to make sure there is no room for paint to wiggle its way under. I make my way past the

8

white and gray tones, alabaster and acier, office walls.

My body finds the purples, driving me to rub my eyes across the shades. I gently pick up a piece of gentian, trying to soak the saturation.

“What do you see when you look at this?” I ask you.

“I see…” You flex your eyes to read the name at the bottom of the card, “Gentian. That’s what I see.” Your face is smug.

“No, that’s not what I mean and you know it. What do you see?” I press you more.

“That’s not fair,” you laugh, “I don’t even know what you are looking for! You tell me. Tell me what you see.”

You playfully take the card from my hand and hold in front of my eyes, dangling it like bait. You wait for me to grab it back, but I don’t.

I stare and let the color sink in. I let my mind wrap itself in the blue and red and my foot dips into the pool of purple and I sink, letting wave after wave of the beautiful, beautiful violet drench me in its effervescence.

I don’t respond and you take the cue.

“I guess I see my mom’s hydrangeas.”

“That’s what you see?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” you chuckle, “all those purples look the same to me.” you pause, waiting for me to make a joke or a comment or some type of acknowledgement, but I don’t. “My mom’s hydrangeas, it was a clever response, don’t you think? Is that what you wanted?”

“I guess so.”

cymbals

You try to pull me into your shirt, but I push away and you pause in front of the wall of swatches, a look of confusion spreading across your face. The more I look at you, the more I see each tone. I can find your body in the hues, your features in the shading. The panels blend into your face and the color is around you and in you and I want you to be the color I see. The little wisps of kismet lace your lips and the cerise swirls into the little blooms of blush on your cheeks and my vision fills with the amaryllis and cheery and tanager and whoever the hell knows else because the names don’t matter if you don’t even know they exist.

You don’t even care that you don’t see them and I stand here in the paint store dumbfounded. As you look at me with that cocky smile, I realize I am the one who can’t see. You didn’t laugh because you thought it was cute, you laughed because it’s a joke. It’s a f---ing joke. I’m your idiot, your crazy, manic idiot losing his mind over shades of lavender.

But I see you in the lavender. I see you in the gentian. I see you in the amber, the cerise, the tanager, the amaryllis. I see in you in every color, every corner, every shade hides another piece of you. My swatches hang on the wall, I pin them and study each tone to try to match the vibrancy I worship in you. A vibrancy that swallows me in its wonder.

A vibrancy you will never see in me.

“Can I help you?” the clerk at the counter finally asks.

2 0 17

“I am here to pick up four gallons of sable.” I spit back. “Four gallons of some crappy shade of brown, but you can just give me anything, give me Java because there isn’t a goddamn difference.” I’m yelling, but who cares? “How much will it be for my crappy brown paint?

How much will it be for my bucket of mud?”

“I’m sorry, we made that earlier today. I will get it from storage.” The cashier rushes away.

“I don’t understand, I really don’t. But I know you do. It’s one of the many things I like about you. It really is! Please don’t be mad, please don’t be mad.” The cashier comes back with a box of cans of paint and the electronic numbers pop up on the screen for my total. I don’t respond. “I don’t get why you think this is such a big deal. C’mon, cheer up. Cheer up! I’m sorry if I was mean.

I answered your question, didn’t I?” I slam a $50 bill on the counter and pick up the carton.

I look at you, my eyes searching for saturation, searching for something, but you aren’t even there. You have no hue. You have no shades. You are colorless.

I sprint from the store, arms full of sable and my eyes starting to tear up, striding past the wall of swatches and out the door into a world that has turned achromatic.

— Alex Neumann, XII

9

cymbals

“Grandfather” by Maggie Laughlin, X: photography

10

2 0 17

cymbals

2 0 17

“Landscape of a Portrait” by Diego Garcia, XI: architecture

11

cymbals

2 0 17

To Bite a Kissing Lip I climb buildings just so you can push me off, when I feel your hands clutching a beer.

Your cough, second-hand smoke in my lungs, chapped fingers strangling a cigarette.

Maybe I could have fixed your broken puzzle: Frayed edges that feel calm against my slashed skin.

Like condensing you into a needle and injecting you in my veins, you prick. ­

— Nate Jones, XI

“No Flash Photography” by Kiely French, XII: pen

12

cymbals

2 0 17

‘night.

I can feel my heart beat against the inside of my chest. I sync my breath to the throb and it calms me.

Only for a second.

I think about the intervals of time between me getting out of bed in the morning and me getting back in at night.

I think about all that I can’t remember and all that I can’t forget and the thoughts ramble and fumble in my head like drunks trying to waltz.

I think about what I didn’t understand in physics and what I couldn’t bring myself to write about in English and what I didn’t take notes on in econ.

I think about how everything I do comes back to you and how you’re gone and it aches like mad.

I think about how everything and nothing in my life right now seems to matter.

My eyes get heavy and the beating against the inside of my chest downshifts and I start to dream.

I dream you’re here next to me and it feels so real I melt in to my pillow and for a second I think I might be okay.

Only for a second.

— Will Brossman, XII

13

cymbals

2 0 17

What Happens After (January 20th, 2017) In 2800 my bones

looking for artifacts

will be dust and Earth

they bring home to

will be an upload

mommy and daddy in

and my great

bags made of something

great great grands

like plastic saying

will live on Earth 2

“look look look

and my kids’ kids’ kids

I found great great great

visit in space-suits

Aunty D’s tooth!”

and moon shoes, and

and it will

gawk at pixelated

be normal

fast-food chains, bump-its, and

and one off offspring

bulky centimeter TVs

asks what happened to

and cemeteries will

Earth the first, but

be playgrounds of ash,

there is never a

where kids wash away

good answer. ­

14

— Erica Walsh, XII

cymbals

2 0 17

“Fake Married” by Kiely French, XII: mixed media

15

cymbals

2 0 17

There Must Be Something Wrong (With Me) I was new here at Bear Tavern school and I didn’t like it, because it wasn’t Robert Hunter school and Kent and Xavier and Annalee and Lauren and Julia weren’t here, and Richie wasn’t here and Luke wasn’t here, and I’m all alone on a soccer field playing goalie at recess while strange boys kick the ball around.

No one talked to me, but that was okay because it was the first day of school and everybody has trouble fitting in sometimes. And I was a good goalie, and for weeks no ball went past me and the boys said I was good at soccer and I said no, just good at blocking.

So good that I blocked the ball with my eye one day and pretended it didn’t hurt but it did. I never saw any of the boys cry when they got hit, so I wouldn’t either. And the boys must have accepted that because they let me be goalie for the rest of the game, even though I missed for the first time right after that.

But boys are boys and a month of soccer is a long time, so I gave up on making any good friends because the boys got all quiet when I talked to them or yanked on their hair or played tag. And I missed roughhousing with Kent in the playground and pushing Lauren down the slides. Lauren had the coolest last name ever.

She was Lauren Blazer. Like a blaster and a laser combined. I would push her down the slide and then run for my life because she would try to grab my ponytails and wrestle me back up the playground, so she could push me down too.

And I didn’t always wrestle. Sometimes with Annalee we just sat down and we read books and we laughed and played house and she really liked playing with my hair and I liked letting her. And sometimes Julia would play with us too and we’d pretend to be fairies or princesses and we’d dress up in costumes and wait for our princes, but Luke and Richie were bad princes so Annallee and Julia and I would save ourselves and run away from the boys when they tried to ‘help’ us.

I tried to do that here but nobody wanted to. Or they did, but they just didn’t want to do that with me.

16

cymbals

2 0 17

So I wandered around and I was a good kid and I smiled when I thought I had to smile and I stayed after class to help clean up, not because I didn’t want to go to recess or sit down at lunch, no, I was just a good kid and one day I met Alana and Nicole and they were cool, and Nicole was really cool because she had her earspierced and Alana and I trailed after her like lost puppies.

But maybe Nicole was too cool, because we made up a game on the playground that everyone else wanted to play too but the teachers said it was dangerous so we stopped. Then Nicole got mad because she thought it was fine, but the teachers said that sliding down slides with people at the bottom was dangerous and I maybe agreed a little because I had foot shaped bruises on my stomach but I never told Nicole. And because I was a good kid I was still friends with Nicole but not friend-friends, because good friends don’t get each other in trouble so I was alone again. I went walking around and I saw a group of girls playing tag or house or duck-duck-goose, and I asked to play because I was lonely and they were not and they said no.

Oh. So I wandered around the playground every day at school, and soon the ache for my old friends was replaced with the longing to just have friends, and I looked at the group of girls playing tag or house or duck-duck-goose and I realized that girls were mean. So I went back to soccer where there were only boys, and the goalie nodded his head and let me take his place and he went out into the field and I blocked another ball with my other eye but it was ok, because I wasn’t completely alone.

But I looked back at the group of girls and I almost cried but my eye stung too much to cry and I wished they’d let me play with them and I wondered why they wouldn’t.

There must be something wrong with me, and I didn’t block a goal for the second time that year.

— Sofia Bae, XI

17

cymbals

2 0 17

Graveyard Shift I walked into 7/11. I needed a slurpie. My throat could feel the desert camels walking across it. My phone said it was 1:00 am; I was skeptical. I swore it was 12:45 an hour ago. I zombied around the store until I came across the ICEE machine; blue raspberry and cherry had the red light of death. “Out of order.”

So I went with Coke. I slurped vigorously, my eyes rolled back in my cranium, my medulla could feel the Eskimos building igloos, one block at a time. I walked over to the counter, placed my drink down and asked for two swishers: Island Madness and Summer Twist. The clerk asked “Are you nineteen?” I replied “No.” He shrugged and placed them in an opaque plastic bag. “Your total is $3.87.” I handed him a 5 dollar bill. I faced Lincoln towards the ground to avoid confrontation. I thought to myself, “Thank God.” The clerk responded “No problem.” His thin silver hair appeared greasy in the store’s bright lights. He wasn’t even wearing a 7/11 employee outfit; he had a white v-neck t-shirt and worn jeans. Something was odd about him, like he knew. I left the store and hopped in my car. The clerk followed. I turned the key, locked the doors, and watched. The only light around was emanating through the windows of 7/11; all the street lights had disappeared. He strolled away from the store, through the intersection and into the darkness. Leaving the bright 7/11 empty. I left my car and walked after him. But pretty soon the darkness had swallowed his slender figure: he was gone. The traffic lights flickered and the street lights lit up one after the other: dominos. The lights screamed, “Follow us.” After walking for an hour, I came across a dead streetlight. 1:15. The deceased light stood in front of a silent house. I knew the house — it was where I had spent the first eighteen years of my life. I took the key from under the vibrant purple mum and unlocked my backyard gate. I climbed atop the Rubbermaid shed and jumped up to my roof. I began snow angeling in a sea of shingles; the sky was as close as my hands, so many stars. My goosebumps were still full blown from meeting God.

18

— Russell Kirczow, XII

cymbals

2 0 17

My Numb Vacation now I look in the bathtub turn on cold water and wriggle my big toe inside the pipe

I want to stick my fingers through sidewalk cracks and pull myself up

I grip the radiator and let it burn my hand while my feet slowly freeze

barely blowing 90 candles

little bumps that hold hair and pale skin like jelly donuts full of blue blood

wrinkles like unclaimed bags

moisture of my breath clouds bubbles of cologne that miss my wrist Chapstick outlines of crusting lips I trace the bones: bumpy little pockets I love to evict long lasting scars broken pipe running the brown outline of rotting tile flaking house into my lungs

then

the mirror slices off the curve of my hair

of forgotten people and little, late-night worms circling an airport carousel now I lie on my Tempur-Pedic and my body melts into the drying concrete of a bed in the morning, light will poke my eyes like needles on rewind detaching arms from stuffed dolls

— Nate Jones, XI

19

cymbals

2 0 17

18 (Self Portrait) This summer we took turns being the saddest people we knew so the earth stood still and I felt nothing but ice pouring out of the vents.

Then one night you showered and we had a reservation for 8:30 and you couldn’t look me in the eye and I couldn’t help but think you were too young to feel this acidic. So you tiptoed over to the record player while you wrung out your hair and you played that vinyl song we both liked from that movie we didn’t really watch. Then you dropped your towel and started to dance and you grabbed my hand and put it on your porcelain waist and the walls crumbled time which stood still and my frown unfurled in to laughter and you said we could make this work. I say okay.

I used to hear stories of my grandfather’s night terrors. He would wake up in cold sweats screaming and crying like a newborn. He was part of a team during World War II that liberated the Jews from concentration camps all over Germany. I used to hear stories of the burning in the back of his throat when he smelled pure evil — the kind of smell you try your hardest not to let in but it opens your body like barbed wire.

I can’t tell you why I did what I did but if I could then you could forgive me and we could try again.

Time zipped corners and dove cliffs and I chased it until I blinked. Now I’m 18.

“I’m losing hope. I have some. But I keep losing it.”

“Hope for what?”

“Anything… Happiness. Anything. Tell me something that’s good.”

“It gets better — it will get better.”

“Do you know that for sure?”

“No.” I stayed all night because the room was spinning too fast and when I tripped outside I was the only one alive except for the birds that swam and dipped through cotton candy dreams. I swear they were doing it just for me because you’re gone so you couldn’t tell me they weren’t.

20

— Will Brossman, XII

cymbals

2 0 17

“Within the Light Tent” by Shana Levine, XII: photography

21

cymbals

2 0 17

She Doesn’t Care Sand is kinda weird. Scratchy and gold, kinda brown too. Kinda soft.

Full of shells, boots and forgotten toys left to bake.

Warm, inviting, little rocks to press on. Nice, little little things.

Little things break us up.

Touches started to scratch.

Sand breaks, crumbles, becomes dust.

Shake it off, blow it away, whatever.

Maybe because when you really get to know her, she’s not so funny.

Bland, boring sand.

But she has these sweet eyes.

Sweet little stones.

Sand is hard, people are soft.

Soft, squishy pink nosed things with plump fingers and warm hearts.

We ended up like sandpaper, with long nails and sharp faces.

You can still feel her edges.

Like stained steel, she cuts.

You cracked first.

22

— Leo Nye, XII

cymbals

2 0 17

“Ripped” by Abby Ling, XII: mixed media 23

cymbals

2 0 17

Tyler and Son You drop the glass onto the counter and wince when the sound rings out, heavy like the starting bell of a bar fight. The bartender doesn’t turn around, but you offer a sorry to the empty counter anyway. The round lights hang low and red above its patched-up enamel like dying embers in the bed of a cooling hearth.

The door squeals open and a trench coat walks in, head down. As it approaches the bar, gray hair emerges from its collar, strands gelled into crunchy strings. The man slowly pulls off his jacket and struggles as he tugs the sleeves from his arms. “On the rocks,” he says, coat still hanging from his shoulders, and the bartender pours him a glass without a word. When he reaches for his drink, you’re reminded— as you’re often reminded— of the day you graduated law school. The dull sting of alcohol singes your throat and you swallow, turning your glass between your hands.

That bar was like this one. Not as dim, but you can still see the thickly glossed wood, the polished bottles, your father squinting at the amber Hennessy on the top shelf.

“That, yes, that one,” he says. “Two glasses. One for me and one for Henry Tyler, J.D!” You smile meekly into your lap as the bartender clinks two snifters in front of you and pours a spiral of honeyglinting liquid. Your father claps his hand heavily on your back as he reaches for his glass. “After this, we’re going to the firm. I want you to meet Andrew and Stuart. We’ve been waiting for this day since you were just a kid, Henry,”

24

he tells you, eyes bright, and raises his drink. “C’mon.”

You clink his glass and lift yours to your lips, going cross-eyed as you watch the shallow layer of liquid dance back and forth, around and around the circle of the cup.

He nudges you again. With a queasy smile, your teeth click on the lip of the glass. The smell of turpentine and cinnamon inflames your tongue and throat and then your nose, harsh and flavorful like wasabi. The crystal snifter lands on the counter and sloshes amber onto the bar.

Your father glances at the glass, then looks at you expectantly as you blink, eyes fiery behind your lids.

“You know I don’t like drinking,” you respond to his narrowed eyes. Father gives a short laugh and drains his glass, his hand landing sharply on your shoulder.

“Henry, now that you’re getting your first job, working at the firm with me, it’s time you learned how to drink with clients. Relaxed, professional. Casual.” You know casual. You know the sleeves-rolled-up, half-slouched, swirling-your-glass, that kind of casual. There’s a lot of those sitting next to you at the counter. Father is one of them. That’s the kind of bar it is— a club for bankers, lawyers, businessmen, their sons. You feel out of place.

Father clinks your glass again and downs his drink, then slides it back toward the bartender for another round.

“Did I say how proud I am? Finally, after all these years— ‘Tyler and Son.’” He grasps your shoulder and you smile back, frozen. The bar is filling up with suits, and his words drown into the stark, glassy ring of a toast.

cymbals

“Sir. Sir, another?”

You find yourself nodding at the bartender, a younger man with newly creased laugh lines. He reaches for your glass, hands deft, and empties an open bottle of whiskey.

You study his face while he pours, his hand turning as it reaches for the last drops of the bottle and slides the glass across the bar. You mumble gratitude, first inaudibly, then again. When the words leave your lips the second time, you realize that the bartender has already abandoned you to the chunked, lacquered counter and the fatigued man three stools away. The man doesn’t look up as you sigh onto the lip of your glass and study its cold, chiseled, carvings, trying to keep your gaze private. But your eyes flicker back to the gray face next to you, with its fat pores and dark divots, marks that stretch grotesquely as its cracked lips meet smooth Hennessy, and you think of Father again, think of the way he used to pour a glass and drain it in that same disillusioned way.

The man turns and you catch the moody, silent gray of his eyes glinting darkly as he pushes away his empty glass. He locks your gaze, the spaces beneath his brows hollowing under the soft glow of the red bar lights. His lips tighten and you’re sitting stiff in your parents’ living room and the phone rings, a number you don’t remember.

The gravel in Father’s voice creaks over the line as he tells you to bring the cash from the armoire and you ask why and he tells you to bring the damn briefcase, God damn it, Henry, and you do. You drive to the station and

2 0 17

bring the fifteen thousand and they show you to his door and there he is, still in his black suit, the one with the velvet lapel, lips tight, legs crossed, smiling up at you.

The door whistles and a curl of cold air creeps underneath your collar as you look up and the man is gone. His empty glass remains on the counter three seats to your left, frosted with fading breath, and as the door begins to groan shut, Father walks in and sets himself down three stools away, the seat still warm. He reaches for the glass and holds it high in a toast as you watch, unable to pick yourself up, unsure of whether to move closer or further, when Father’s glass resounds on the counter and he ducks toward the door. You try to pull yourself from your seat, detach yourself from the bar, but he turns away and pulls his coat across his gray chest, hacking a hard cough, and you feel it scrape your throat and chest raw. Struggling against the darkness of the room, the emptiness of the shadows, you turn back to the counter, shaking away the cold creeping onto your shoulder as you hold out your glass for another.

— Sara Chopra, XI

25

cymbals

2 0 17

Dead on Arrival The ringing of the machine gun sings through the cool November air, as bullets shatter the glass of the driver’s side window. Bailey has just turned seventeen.

Caucasian. 5’3”. Brown hair. Blue eyes. 14th and Washington.

Red Honda Sedan. Shot seven times. Wounds through the chest, lower abdomen, and right leg. Eleven weeks pregnant.

The radio is blaring Michael Jackson’s “Dirty Diana.” The clock reads 2:34 and she is driving home from her Mom’s house.

The way the glass broke reminded her of her mom. Their little fights always turned big. They didn’t just fight about the lack of vegetables she ate for dinner, but instead what she wore to school or the boys that she would sneak back to her Dad’s place. Yesterday, her mom smashed the yellow ceramic bowl she made in second grade because she forgot to make her bed. The damage spread like a spider web, growing bigger by the minute. It was a stupid metaphor, she thought.

And then she didn’t.

26

— Zach Izzard, XII

cymbals

2 0 17

The Porcelain Teeth of the Devil A permanent ghoul remains in the darkness of my trailing shadow Filling his lungs with each breath I take and still I am left gasping for air While his chest swells greater than skin plucked by a bee sting Some nights I lie awake in the discomfort of my room Perspiring palms pressed together Praying that I will not ache through another sleepless slumber Toes wrenching the edge of my bed frame and the chattering of teeth Echo in the halls of the Heights.

Why can I not free myself from this feeling of endless and uninterrupted surveillance?

He hunts for prey to feast on Yet I am lost as to why he has not ripped the meat from my bones leaving me a heap of pulsating flesh.

When I close my eyes, He remains with me Tangling himself between my sheets, Cackling as he attempts to slither his way inside My throat

Choking and barely able to keep my strength, I continuously resist his persistence But in fact, It was not quite as innocent as the latter But rather Intrusive, Forceful, Violating.

Has the devil ever made love to your insides?

Has he made you scream beyond your bedroom walls?

He plods his way back to me in the recesses of my drunken visions of Torture and ecstasy I train myself to forget the past night for it can only bring good fortune to the future I lock my doors, Shut my windows, Chain my thoughts to the film behind my eyelids Yet I find myself awakened to the squeaking of springs

Continued on next page 27

cymbals

A wide-toothed grin cast upon my walls floral wallpaper dripping from the corners of the ceiling, They puddle on the floor by the morning.

It is wet, and once again I am left barren and shaking.

I know that his intentions are sour and I can’t help but squirm at his aching gaze.

His veined and clawed hand rests along my raw and convulsing inner thighs.

He presses his fingers to a black and foul mouth and hushes me until I am swallowed whole.

Asleep I am once more and take comfort in his cradled arms He rocks me back and forth like a babe, A child in his arms, I began to fall for his brooding and omnipotent essence He loves me and I love him sometimes, Sometimes When he sneaks into my chamber and fingers through my books, He’ll read to me and whisper lavender scented lullabies like the ones I used to hear seated on father’s knee.

He combs my hair and lulls me to bed and I cease to forget what he is capable of.

I have chosen to remember the nights when he’d coddled me.

28

2 0 17

The nights when he told me that a creature like him survives off of nectar like mine I remind him that cruel and devilish beasts don’t get dessert without supper and I am tired of him skipping meal after meal I am an oasis run dry and here I lie again in my barren and arid sheets Waiting for Heathcliff to bring rainfall to my desert once more And still I long for him to come back to me, Empty and as hollow of an owl’s first nest when he is not near.

He loves me, and I’ll love him always, For when I lie in my grave I will know he’s awake with me in the shadows beneath the earth.

— Catie Higgins, XII

cymbals

2 0 17

“Toxic” by Lara Strassberg, XII: mixed media

29

cymbals

2 0 17

Leaking Helium 1 I go for the music I tell them my friends I tell them but I go to pluck at my sa ni t y with broken glass bottle edges 2 tasting the sweat the salt the lime pressing my bladder

3 air in a tired balloon I walk to my bedroom like a drunken ship of pirates dancing inside a fallen ornament rocking side to side under the tree 4 so I creep across moaning floorboards peeping my head in at still sleeping parents as they lie parallel like two chopsticks packed in disposable containers

30

— Nate Jones, XI

cymbals

2 0 17

Road Kill There was a dead raccoon on the side of the road when I came back from the doctor. His body was gray and white and black with blotches of a deep red.

I stared at him and the car swerved because my eyes scampered to see the damaged bandit. Raccoons are my favorite animal, that’s why my grandma gave me a white extra-large shirt with three of them nestled together in the middle. I f---ing loved that shirt. I wrapped myself in it almost every night because it would stretch past my waist and become one large sleeping outfit. I wore it one weekend to the Chesapeake with my family, and, at dinner, I got my whole body covered in crab and seasoning. I ran to the water, pulling my shirt off and throwing it onto the dock, springing from the weathered wood and splashing into the brackish bath till my hands and face were clean. When I got out of the salt and went to put my shirt back on, the dock was empty. I guess when I threw it, I was too excited to see that my raccoons were drowning in the bay. No gray and white and black or red, just a calm bluish brown. I still remember my grandma’s floral sheets, her still body colorlessly cocooned by the pink buds.

— Alex Neumann, XII

31

cymbals

2 0 17

modern art ast night my face melted like a Dali painting. The walls softened to droopy pools of craters, clocks, crowns. Time ran L away. It zipped around corners and dove over cliffs and I chased it until I saw your smile. It grew until it twisted and distorted into an evil sob. I was so glad to see you!

— Will Brossman, XII

“Frozen in Time” by Michelle Leung, XI: watercolor and ink

32

cymbals

2 0 17

The Photograph

I found a picture of you Tucked in a book Frayed and worn and wrinkled.

My fingers traced The delicate contours of your steeled face, Frozen in place.

You gifted me with your sharp, pointed nose Hollowed cheekbones, Strong chin, Mocha skin, And viciously arced eyes.

All markers Of a civilization Tortured and maimed For having inhabited a land The white man wanted to mine.

You married this “Wasicu,” Bore his name, But you could not look at your daughter’s face Without feeling disgraced, So when you smoked the Wasicu’s tobacco, You mutilated her innocent body With cigarette burns That mangled her mind and legs.

— Emma Dries, XI

33

cymbals

2 0 17

green means goodbye the world stopped breathing when you kissed me on the corner of 53rd street that first time and we held each other on the sidewalk like we weren’t in a city of 8 million people loving better than we could i wanted to be held longer but you were chasing a train that wouldn’t stop for just two teenagers you looked at me for a moment turning me over like a shell you were deciding whether to keep for a necklace or throw back in the sand where it belonged i’m glad you caught your train but it’d be nice if you maybe smiled from the window and waved a little as you pulled off but i understand if you don’t because you’re probably thinking about the next stop and part of me is still waiting on that bench in the station her hands folded neatly across her lap as she watches trains unpack themselves and sometimes she catches pieces of you like the fiery hair or the dimply smile and if she closes her eyes long enough she can stitch them all up until you’re beside her and she’s forgotten about the waiting but as she reaches to touch you you wash away and her fingers sting your butterfly skin

34

— Katie Simons, XII

cymbals

2 0 17

Weigh Me Down Today is November 30th, which means tomorrow is December 1st, which is an absolutely wonderful thing because that means soon soon soon I can go home and stay home and get more than 6 hours of sleep, because soon soon soon it will be winter break and I can stay in and sleep in and relax and just–breathe–without worrying that something is due, or that I’m forgetting something, without anxiety and stress and nervousness.

It’s been a long time since I could just breathe.

One day I’ll wake up and my eyes will open but my arms won’t move and my legs won’t work and my voice will be gone, and on that day I’ll just stay in bed listening to birds sing and people bustle and hear the sweet sound sun makes when it filters past window glass. It sounds like pretty pretty chimes in the breeze. On that day I’ll miss my math lecture and my physics demo, my latin translation and my history lesson, and on that day I’ll miss my English class talk about Schoology and miss Zoe telling Russ not to eat a cheese stick at 8 am. On that day, I’ll miss life, and life might miss me too.

And will anyone even realize I’m gone? Maybe. They’ll see a corner that looks different somehow, emptier, and then they’ll blink and forget.

They’ll see an unused desk and wonder, didn’t we use all the chairs? and look around and see everyone they expect to see and shrug it off. Maybe, maybe they’ll look around at a laughing classroom and wonder why it feels so much brighter that day, so much happier. Maybe they’ll see the pieces that spell out: I’m gone.

But until that day comes, the day I don’t show up the day I’m done, until that day I will stand in lonely corners and sit in extra chairs. I will talk to people who will notice small differences and not understand why they’re different. I will walk into rooms and make them darker, make them gloomy.

And I will try, I will try try try, to pull my weight and even out my gloom.

Or maybe I’ll just mitigate it, and simply say nothing at all.

— Sofia Bae, XI

35

cymbals

2 0 17

the napalm is still burning (Vietnam) I’m here for me and mommy always told me to do my part but I never learned because I wasn’t listening.

Paychecks because mommy never taught them to be polite and we forgive Justin Bieber.

I wasn’t listening because I’m a problem child who’s going nowhere and no one can stop me.

Justin is forgiven and all is forgotten but Leonardo DiCaprio is wrinkling up and getting old like Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock but still he’s hunted by the paparazzi.

No one can stop me because I want to be famous and make it into the lights.

I want to make it into the lights but not like the celebrities who get more famous by living their lives and doing things that normal people do all the time.

Doing things that normal people do like buying yachts for their adopted kids from Venezuela who only know their nanny Consuela who speaks Spanish to them but it’s all for nothing.

It’s all for nothing because those kids are only going to Europe for spring break swinging on a chariot of coattails for the rest of their lives because everything they do is important to us.

36

Hunted by paparazzi like he always has and we all know our place but we want change.

We want change, we want a new riff in the song, a paradigm shift like those sociologists mention but their work is nonsense because nothing kisses nothing and nothing changes.

Nothing kisses nothing and nothing changes because people are stubborn dogs who only learned one trick to follow the rules.

We are stubborn dogs who stay in our lanes and register for our vote after we turn 18 only if master taught us well.

Everything they do is important to us because doing nothing is picking out tomorrow’s evening wear and posting a new bracelet with the jaded stones set in while doctors only matter if their name is House.

And if master taught us well then we sure as hell are going to process the paperwork and do everything in the old traditional American fashion just so they can draft me to lob the napalm at the next Vietnam.

Our doctors only matter if their name is House or if their research is about removing fat from those of us sitting in our office cubicles and screaming paychecks. paychecks. paychecks.

— Leo Nye, XII

cymbals

2 0 17

Lucy Bailey, X: acrylic on canvas

37

cymbals

2 0 17

Wondering with a Lake I wonder.

I wonder what it’s like for the ice to crack.

The sound to snap and crackle and web a jetting shock in an instant through it’s thick body, splintering like a dropped lightbulb and sprinting across the frozen lake in the brief moment it takes to recognize the fragile mistake I’ve made.

I wonder.

I wonder what it’s like for the solid ice beneath my feet to shatter, to give way, and open it’s hardened skin to the cold blood below.

The pond where my fingers could feel the fishes swim.

The pond once so filled with life the algae licked my legs with their gooey green vitality.

38

I wonder.

I wonder what it’s like suspended in the water.

Would it be just like summer and the water still greet me?

Or would I instead find a different companion.

A friend no longer my friend but rather a stranger whose emptiness is unloving, cold touch an unwanted caress.

I wonder.

I wonder whether this lake is still my own.

When the coldness spreads across it and its voice threatens my every footstep, I cant help but feel as if this lake is just waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting, to crack.

— Alex Neumann, XII

cymbals

2 0 17

Suds and Stuff twist. dot- dot- dotdropdrop- drop- dropdripdrip- drip- drip- drip- dripWhoosh- whoosh- whoosh- whoosh- whooshshhhhhhhhhhhhhshhhhhhhhhhhhh-shhhhhhhhhhhhh-shhhhhhhhhhhhhThe soap has no scent. It’s white, like cloudy wax, I wish it had a scent. I wish it smelled like roses, like the roses planted outside the library. Cotton candy pink and sweet and sugary. I want to rub a rose garden on my body, like lathering silky bubblegum suds across my shoulders. Maybe then Jared will notice my rosey smell through the bio lab fumes and cafeteria lunches. Maybe then the scent will trigger something in his 17-year-old brain and he’ll finally bundle his feelings and ask me to prom with a bouquet of roses and a poem he typed saying, “These flowers remind me of you.” He’ll rub my fuschia nails on the bus ride to the country club, and lasso my waist between his tuxedoed hands on the ride back. We’ll make out in heels and oxfords until my face blushes the same tone as my rosey corsage. My palm will rub the skin that’s still soft between his forest of facial hairs. And suddenly, he’ll open his eyes and move his face away from mine. Then I’ll think I’ve ruined it, spilled lighter fluid on it, bulldozed it: my first “he,” my first “mine.” But then he’ll smile, and his lips will stretch like they do when he smirks, and he’ll tell me about the mole on my lip, “It’s so small. You have to be up close to admire it.” No one’s noticed it before. The panic will drain out of my makeup-ed face and I’ll stop being confused. I’ll laugh, and he’ll copy. We’ll laugh and roll until the air is sucked out from under his suit and my Macy’s dress. And then I’ll lay my hairsprayed, bobby-pinned head on the pants of his navy suit, navy, like the sea to bring out the green in his pupils. He’ll hold me. Then he’ll lift the gold tulle of my dress up my right leg, and see the scars on my knee, an array of classic childhood scars — two from bike falling and one from fence climbing — and rub and rub them, like a bar of soap. And then eventually he’ll break my heart for Lily, and I’ll hibernate in the attic, busy writing poetry with cobwebs in my hair. Wow. My fingers are pruning. How much water has spiraled down the drain already?

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh-shhhhhhhhhhhhh-shhhhhhhhhhhhh-shhhhhhhhhhhhhWhoosh- whoosh- whoosh- whoosh- whooshdripdrip- drip- drip- drip- dripdropdrop- drop- dropdotdot- dot twist.

— Anisa Lateef, XI 39

cymbals

“Don’t Belong” by Maria Vasquez-Maldonado, X: ceramics

40

2 0 17

cymbals

2 0 17

I want that kind of mirror.

My reflection in the picture frames dangling down the hall makes me look fat.

The mirror in the school bathroom makes me look sad.

The pond outside makes me look lost, like my pupils are fish swimming in circles.

Tearing cedar eyes stare at the photos of starfish and white beaches only to scan the reflection staring back at me through the gritty pixels and shades of sand.

Pacing down the salt-and-peppered halls my neck swivels past the bathroom mirror like a dog following her instinct.

I want a mirror to show me beautiful one to fill in the gaps in my eyebrows with coal dust to complement the naivety in my tearing cedar eyes.

One to vacuum the insecurities of my chipmunk cheeks and replace them with today’s tattoo contour.

One to squeeze my waist deeper into denim and erase a layer of identity so my skin matches the trendy pale pinks and runway reds.

— Anisa Lateef, XI

41

cymbals

2 0 17

Sunday Mornings Turned Nights Heads and necks combined weigh 11 pounds. The pillow is two lumps around my sphere of knowledge and it really hurts. I have to sit up and my back leans against my grey wall. I put a pillow behind that but after another hour it aches too. My laptop is burning a hole in my thighs and my sister told me that your laptop on your lap gives you ovarian cancer. My sister believes my body is an extension of hers and wakes me up in the morning by brushing my own teeth for me. I don’t like when she grabs all of the cake from the fridge because she’s ruining our bodies. And I need cake too. She doesn’t like when I lie in bed all day and make all of our body parts hurt. I think she wants to lie in bed with me; it doesn’t hurt for the first hours.

42

— Zoe Lett, XII

cymbals

2 0 17

The –ist Conundrum There was a glass half-empty sitting on the table.

The optimist laughed at the pessimist and called him “sulky,” called him “funny.”

There was a glass half-full sitting on the table.

The pessimist called the optimist “stupid” and “ignorant,” “foolish” and “dull-witted” The optimist twitched.

The realist said it was just a glass half-filled with water, not half-empty or half-full, or maybe it was both, and the pessimist and optimist glared.

The capitalist said if nobody wanted the water, then it was free, and that she wanted it, But the people yelled “No!” and the capitalist sat back down.

The communist poked the capitalist, went over to the glass with paper cups and wanted to split the water mostly equally, and the capitalist scoffed and they began to argue, forgetting about the glass completely.

The escapist thought the water was cursed and that whoever drank it would be doomed to forever have two left feet or three eyes, or a high-pitched voice or no teeth, and nodded off to thoughts of misshapen mortals running amok with fire on their breath and spikes on their hands.

The conspiracist thought the water wasn’t really water, but maybe a new form of poison or alien saliva, or that it was filled with secret government nanites programmed to build clones for an army for the inevitable space war.

She muttered about aliens and poison and the illuminati, and everyone ignored the conspiracist.

Now, everyone was arguing over the glass but not really looking.

The opportunist walked away from the crowd, cleaning his lips with his shirt and said, “That was one damn good glass of water.”

— Sofia Bae, XII

The idealist agreed with the communist, but the realist rolled his eyes and muttered, “idiot” under his breath, and the idealist went over to talk some manners into the realist.

43

cymbals

2 0 17

What It Looks Like They were there when we bought the house. A pair of little craters in my bedroom window.

The glass isn’t fully destroyed, no opening to the outside, just two small circles like a madman mistook the panes and stuck his pushpins in too deep. Or table saw blades frozen in time.

At the center peeps a stream of air. Sometimes still. Sometimes as a blowing wind nipping uncovered cheeks while ice skating in Chicago. City of business trips. City of lies.

Little spider webs of cracks birth in the center and crawl out to the perimeter of the circles.

Both of them have one or two cracks that slithered too far. They broke the rules. And for that, they should be hanged.

Imperfections give the window personality, so one day when the bartender calls him a “lifeless reporter,” he’ll spit out his drink and tell the story of each tattoo.

Two indents in the panes of my window, like someone making it dropped his contact lenses in before the glass dried. But he was crying. His eyes were spitting them out.

She misses a spot, forgets to wipe it clean. She can never fix him until his time is up.

Like backwards binoculars, or looking through a washing machine.

Just two little spots here when we bought the house from the widow.

My room was his office before he died. Littered with ant hills of paper preparing for his next report.

Their story of origin is unclear. Like someone shot a bullet at the window. But they are indented outwards, like he was the one shooting from within.

Trying to get out. And then he did.

44

— Nate Jones, XI

cymbals

2 0 17

“Puzzle” by Atticus Rego, XII: architecture

45

cymbals

“Hands Up� by: Michelle Leung, XI: watercolor and ink

46

2 0 17

cymbals

2 0 17

“Me, Myself, and We” by Brain Radvany, X: photography

47

cymbals

“Construction of a Drawing 1” by Zachary Dudeck, XII: architecture

48

2 0 17

cymbals

2 0 17

“Construction of a Drawing 2” by Zachary Dudeck, XII: architecture

49

cymbals

“Jellyfish” by Mary Schafer, XI: ceramic

50

2 0 17

cymbals

2 0 17

“Vision of a World Beyond” by Michelle Leung, XI: acrylic

51

cymbals

“Church on the Water” by Christian Tian, XII: architecture

52

2 0 17

cymbals

2 0 17

“Beach at Night” by Ella Baseman, XI: photography

53

cymbals

“Forget It” by Ella Baseman, XI: mixed media

54

2 0 17

cymbals

2 0 17

“Lips” by Shana Levine, XII: photography

55

cymbals

“Ella” by Erica Walsh, XII: photography

56

2 0 17

cymbals

2 0 17

“Bitter Candy” by Ella Baseman, XI

57

cymbals

“Range of Motion” by Samantha Dwyer, XI: ceramic

58

2 0 17

cymbals

2 0 17

“Celestial Memories” by Michelle Leung, XI: acrylic

59

cymbals

“Spooning Bowls” by Allison Klei, XII: ceramic

60

2 0 17

cymbals

2 0 17

“Monday Tears” by Lara Strassberg, XII: mixed media

61

cymbals

“Marble Bowl” by Allison Klei, XII: ceramic

62

2 0 17

cymbals

2 0 17

“Nude with Patterns� by Michelle Leung, XI: colored pencil

63

cymbals

“Division of Labor” by Kiely French, XII: mixed media

64

2 0 17

cymbals

2 0 17

“Biz Büyüdük Ve Kirlendi Dünya” by Dilan West, XI: mixed media

65

cymbals

2 0 17

Clara’s Song Santiago, Chile. May 1, 2005. She paused on the cobblestone street, a single suitcase at her feet. A Louis Vuitton duffel bag. A shabby chic contradiction, but she was no stranger to paradox. She cried under her cat-eye sunglasses. That dreadful morning, she had packed a few overnight items, old pictures and fading letters. She had procrastinated her packing until almost the last minute, an hour before he was set to return for lunch. She had no idea what she was doing or where she was going, but she knew that staying any longer would be a mistake.

She instinctively walked in the direction of Barrio Lastarria, the place of her singlehood over a decade ago, near the Universidad de Santiago. On one side of el Parque Forestal, she could see a man playing his guitar softly, gliding his fingers through the metallic strings, with his guitar case open for anyone willing to help him out.

Setting off in the opposite direction, she entered the park and walked the hexagonal stones along Rio Mapocho.

Approaching the bridge, her feet hurt and she kicked off her Bandolino pumps and ventured onto the grass.

Taking off her sunglasses and staring into the midday sun, she allowed herself the luxury of a suicidal ideation…going to the bridge and jumping into the dark, contaminated water, throwing the suitcase in first and watching it split hastily, exposing the insides of her unmemorable life, her clothes floating up in soggy puddles surrounded by the filth of the pollution… the soft pressure of water around her face nauseating. The image of the gleaming toilet bowl flashed in her mind. She could still feel his cold hand on the back of her neck and the

66

force of his shove, sending her into the water, slamming her forehead against the porcelain. He held her down just long enough, after she let out her last eruption of bubbled breath, for her to know. He has done this before, to others.

He did this in his work for CNI, the National Information Center. How could I not have known? I just didn’t want to know. I didn’t dare ask.

When she slipped her sunglasses back on, her constricted pupils made the world appear doubly dark. Under the hammer of the sun, she picked up her bag and shoes and walked carefully in her tender feet. Hardly able to see where she was going, she bumped into someone.

“Clara?” she heard. She turned around and blinked at the tall gentleman and then recognized him. Juan Guzmán, her lover while in university, a son of Allende socialists who had suffered in the 1973 coup. She had not seen him since the day of their graduation. His hair now cropped short, his sideburns tinged with grey, he actually wore an expensive suit.

He lightly embraced her and they exchanged kisses on the cheek. “Let’s grab a cup of coffee and catch up with each other,” he suggested awkwardly.

“Yes, of course, Juan.” Only a moment ago she had been thinking of disappearing. Yet here was a man who had seen her. Really seen her those years ago.

He took her dusty duffel. They walked to a café on the street bordering the park.

cymbals

2 0 17

When they sat down at a table, she took off her glasses.

“Did you talk to him about it?”

“You don’t look good,” he said.

She shook her head. “How could I ask questions of a CNI interrogator?”

Juan had always been too honest.

Her voice shook when she told him. “I’m leaving Gustavo.”

“Gustavo?” His eyebrows pursed. “You married him? But he…” His voice trailed off.

“I was a fool,” she said. “You always told me to keep away from them. That he would turn out a Fascist just like his father. I was stupid not to listen. Gustavo was everything you said — and more.”

“People change,” he said.

She wondered if he spoke of Gustavo or of himself.

“And some people never do.” She spoke of herself. She had always stood in the middle, never making a choice, even when she had left Juan and taken up with Gustavo.

“Is there a third party involved, someone else?” he asked, looking away.

She folded and unfolded her sunglasses. “I always thought he had other women, but his secrets were something else.” She looked around the café to check who might be watching. The CNI’s eyes are still everywhere, even though it was shut down.

The café con leche arrived. He stirred his cup. “I’m so sorry for you, Clara. I didn’t know what he would become.”

“I’m sorry too,” she said. “We both didn’t know.”

Juan lifted his coffee cup. “Salud,” he volunteered.

“Salud.” She lifted hers and clinked it against his. After her sip, she dared to say, “You could have been my husband.”

He smiled sadly. “No, you were right to leave me. I was too wild and always in trouble.”

She laughed. “I thought you would never spend a day sober.”

“Always ready for a Pisco brandy.” He smirked. “But not more ready than you were to sing! Oh, how I have forgotten your endless karaoke nights and bathroom renditions of some of our favorite songs!” he paused.

“You know, I haven’t had a snifter since I went on a bender when you left me for good.”

“Gustavo offered me a secure life. You know how much his family loved Pinochet.” She reached out and touched

67

cymbals

his ear, trying to convince herself Juan was real. “Look at you. What is your life like now?”

He grasped her hand, kissed it lightly and let it go.

His hand was warmer than she was used to. It felt the same as it had a decade ago. But his other hand wore a wedding band.

“I have a wonderful wife, Alessandra. We married seven years ago.”

She took a look outside the window and watched a group of young students walking by, laughing and flirting with one another. She wondered if her life would be any different if Juan had been related to someone else. If only his uncle hadn’t been among the “disappeared”.

68

2 0 17

“No, Juan. You couldn’t have known.” She shook her head. “Even when I sensed it, I couldn’t believe it.

I looked the other way, until Gustavo pushed my head into the toilet.”

Juan grimaced.

“He knew what he was doing,” she continued, “and stopped just short…of drowning me.”

Juan opened his mouth to say something, but only warm air came out. Finally, he said, “I can’t imagine what your life has been like for these past years.”

Their hands intertwined at the center of the table. When they looked into each other’s eyes, everything felt normal for a split second.

“We have two kids, one boy, one girl. Sandra teaches dance in Providencia. Her students are having a recital next week.”

Juan pulled his hand away. “I’m afraid I have to go back to work,” he apologized, glancing at his watch. “If I could stay, I would, but my boss...”

Clara’s eyes swelled with tears. She had never conceived a child with Gustavo. She had always thought her infertility a curse, but today it was a blessing. Would I have been able to have children with Juan?

She nodded in understanding, and stood up. She slid her sunglasses on.

“How can I help, mi amor?” Juan took her hand. “You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve any of this. If I could do anything, I would go back and change myself. I would slap some sense into my immature self and tell him never to let you go. I messed up, and you paid the price.”

They embraced for a luxurious minute.

Juan followed her lead and rose.

“If you need anything, Clara, tell me. You weren’t made to be someone’s housewife. Out of all the women I know, you’re the one who’s got that special drive in you. You

cymbals

could start a business, or become a world-renowned journalist, or an environmental activist. I have always seen that in you. Don’t let that ambition die.” He looked directly in her eyes. “If you need to, call me.” He pulled out his wallet and handed her his white business card.

She held up the card and it flashed reflected sunlight. “I don’t know what it is I need right now, but I’ll keep this safe.”

Juan smiled and walked out of the café.

Clara’s eyes followed him until he was out of sight, around the corner of the park.

She picked up her duffel from under the table, and took a long breath before going outside. This is it. This is you.

Outdoors, even with her sunglasses on, the light of the sun was almost blinding. Everything seemed five shades brighter. And the sun felt warm on her skin, like the comforting heat of a distant fireplace.

Throwing the strap of the light duffel on her shoulder, she walked down Calle Villavicencio.

In all the hustle and animation, she noticed a sign — “Se Necesita Ayuda (Help Wanted)” — in the storefront of a jewelry store. Behind it lay dozens of dazzling diamonds and silvers nestled in blue velvet. She stood still and stared at the sign. It had been years since she’d even noticed such signs. She had been fresh out of la Universidad.

2 0 17

Walking over to one edge of the park, she turned around to face the multi-colored buildings. With laughter, she realized that she had made a full circle around the area.

Suddenly, she heard the strum of a guitar in the distance.

Following the music, she approached the man she had seen playing in the street before. He had gathered a few people since she last saw him. He was strumming the chords to her favorite karaoke song, “Eres Tú,” by el Mocedades.

A smile of pure joy crept on her face. She put down her bag, took off her sunglasses and shoes, and lay them in the tall grass. She walked up to the guitar man.

He smiled back and gestured to her.

In her bare feet, Clara stepped over his guitar case and took her place beside him. Without a second thought, she joined him in singing, belted out the lyrics in Spanish, “You are like my hope, you are, you are. Like a fresh rain in my hands, like a strong breeze, you are, you are. That’s how, that’s how, you are.” She sang for the growing crowd. “Like my poem, you are, you are. Like a guitar in the night, you are all my horizon, you are. That’s how, that’s how, you are to me.” She sang for herself.

— Arya Jha, XI

69

cymbals

2 0 17

beluga She lives down the street from me She smells like skittles taste and she runs faster than the other girls, faster than me She plays power rangers with me and it works because I can be the red ranger and she can be pink She grabs my hand like it’s urgent and it makes me nervous the kind of nervous that you miss when it leaves you She kisses me on my cheek and my heart tap tap tap dances At the park we run so fast we zoom until our legs fall off and she chases me so I chase her then we chase the big birds on the playground and when my mom shouts my name we know it’s time for us to leave so we hide away under the slide and she holds her breath until she can’t and sweat beads down my neck and I count to ten in my head tennineeightsevensixfivefourthreetwoone and I kiss her quick before my mom can see I like when we hold hands I like it when our feet dance and when she tells me things that I know are just for me and I keep them locked away She has a great big pool that’s magic blue During the summertime we swim like beluga whales and her dad watches us from the porch so we don’t drown and he smokes cigarettes one after the other the way I eat potato chips I ask her why and she says its because he wants to die and I am not sure what to say or how to make my face look so I dive under and I hold my breath

70

— Will Brossman, XII

cymbals

2 0 17

“Just Keep Swimming” by Amanda Ostendorf, XII: photography

71

cymbals

2 0 17

Nothing Thick grasses in my nose as I run down hills that point to the sky.

Winds blow, carrying clouds while Grandma watches from the back porch, smoking cigarettes and petting her German Shepherd, Max. I roll to my side, and watch one ant carry the shell of a beetle through the grass. Blades flicker in the breeze and sounds of chimes play lullabies.

Heat presses on my heavy eyelids, and dandelions lie next to me, stretching their necks as petals glide down from Grandpa’s blossom tree.

I drown in the blue grass, looking up at the sky, wondering where stars will appear tonight, and if there is a God hiding behind everything.

Mommy says grandpa isn’t dead, he’s in heaven.

But I’m not sure.

— Erica Walsh, XII

72

cymbals

2 0 17

Get your Dad Crap. I knew open bar at a bat mitzvah was a bad idea. I clench my jaw hard like I’m testing which tooth will crack first and pull the heavy black outlined door open. Stomp outside. Nothing. Dad is ordering food from the truck ten feet in front of me. The heel of a tuxedo shoe slides across the pavement and the sound pinches my ear. I turn my head left. My eyes follow, afraid of what it would be. It looks like me. Not right now but maybe in four or five years. He has no control of his arms or legs or neck. Aunt Abbey and Marshall are surrounding him holding him up. His head is tilted back as if he was relaxed and letting me know everything was okay. He doesn’t mean it because I can’t see his pupils.

They’re hiding behind his eyelids, looking at his brain. They’re the only ones who can.

“Get your Dad.”

I head back to dad. He’s still ordering.

“Dad.” He turns and looks at me. My hands stay in my pockets. I spread my eyes open and four wrinkles form above my eyebrows. I point my head to my left. Dad looks over. He stops ordering and runs toward them to clean it up before Mom sees.

She’d be mortified. Dad’s feet slam the pavement with each step he takes. I’m surprised he still runs. I figured he’d get tired after this many times. I’m tired of watching. Like I’ve been sitting in front of a movie screen way too bright, that makes your head start to hurt after staring for way too long. I don’t look. Instead, I look everywhere else to make sure Mom is still inside.

— Logan Kramsky, XII

73

cymbals

2 0 17

Ophelia In your dress made of stones you look up and smell stars while fish kiss your back.

So you float and dangle with bubbles waiting for the freeze waves curling in your lungs melting hours: this moment, forever.

— Nate Jones, XI

“Forest Dancer” by Elisa Kardhashi, XI: photography

74

cymbals

2 0 17

High School Daze She stares outside the foggy window pane jolting with every rolling bump.

Staining white dresses cherry with firecracker Popsicles. Sparkly Cinderella dresses spotted with tomato sauce from Lillian’s costume party at Chuck E. Cheese.

Crammed with electric kindergarten wonder over how the 7am windows absorb body heat as fingers skate across the screens.

Now, she leans her weight against her lavender backpack, blasting the same Halsey song through tattooed earbuds.

Her fingertips scratch a spot of cereal milk sitting on her sweatshirt like a lottery ticket.

The back of the bus smells like ramen noodles and burnt brains.

The kind Uncle Nate would buy along with a box of Nerds whenever he came to visit in summer.

Playing during naptime and sleeping when it wasn’t.

All about living like everyday was June.

— Anisa Lateef, XI

75

cymbals

2 0 17

Lonely Chai I patiently sit in the plush booths of Fedora Cafe. I could have taken a small corner table meant for four in the empty restaurant, but I find myself situated on the lumpy, carnival-colored cushions that press themselves up against the right wall. I tap my fingers against the black wooden counter and my nails click and clack and click against the shiny, rough veneer. As my fingers dance, my eyes are drawn to the metal bug sculptures that hang from the ceiling, statically buzzing around the room.

In mid-flight they are skewered by suspending poles that keep them tethered in place. Their various chromic shapes and sizes seem to have crawled out of a second grader’s nightmare: a hellish, robotic picnic scene.

There must have been a crowd before me because as I flip through the specials menu, the bus boy flutters out to pick up the half eaten plates and ice-only cups that litter three tables. My head searches for something and I faintly remember him. I remember recognizing him.

Summer, and I, with a little more courage than usual, introduced myself. We sat outside on a trampoline, talking in the muggy summer air and going back inside because we started to stick to the bouncy mesh. But like most late night memories, it is just a shard of a moment, shimmering in the haze. I pull at my head for more, for more of this moment. The trampoline? The house?

This is only a piece, ripped out of context. I stare at his boyish face and search for a connection to spark the rest of the picture, and maybe sensing my gaze, he turns and looks back. Our eyes interconnect and a flicker shoots through his eyes, and for a second, I can feel the mutual questioning of whether or not we say hello.

76

Instead, we let our unease speak for ourselves and I turn my face back down to the specials menu and the clang of dirty plates being placed in the collecting bucket ricochet off the colored walls. He walks back with the silverware and dishes crashing about with each step till they are muted by the closing of the large kitchen door.

I pull my thoughts off of the busboy and try to make sense of the order of the room. The mixture of circular and rectangular tables are arranged haphazardly to maximize the sitting space, but in weird slants and diagonals and blocky puzzle pieces that result in the room looking like it was designed by a toddler.

Mid-thought, the waiter begins to walk over and I haven’t decided what I want. I start to panic. His shirt says in neon yellow writing, “We don’t come to your house and make a mess.”

“What can I get you?”

I panic. My eyes dart to the menu and pick the first thing that pops.

“Can I have a chai milkshake?” I ask. “Please.”

“It’ll be out in a couple minutes.” he responds.

As I wait for my concoction, a gaggle of professional looking people come in to pick up pre-placed orders of sandwiches and fish sticks and burgers to bring home to their families. Their suits stick out against the subtle hipster vibe, but their faces betray a longing to be here. They bask for a few seconds till their dinner is gathered in a bag and handed across the sticker-covered checkout counter. Then, as quickly as they speed walked in, leave to return to their families and jobs, anxious not to be caught cheating on their professional lives and spouses with an artist cafe.

cymbals

Through the large window that looks into the kitchen, I see the busboy scrub the plates, one by one and place them onto the drying rack. He works mechanically, pulling the grime into the soapy bath and resurrecting a clean dish. His body bobs up and down and up and down and my mind races. The moment rushes back. His body moved like that, as we bounced. We had stumbled out through the open sliding glass door and climbed up onto the trampoline. The music pulsed from the house and spilt across the yard as we half bounced and laughed that laugh you can only make when the world is no longer in focus. We laughed and hopped until we fell onto the black surface and our laughs only grew with our faces pressed down, slightly drooling.

“Here is your Chai Milkshake. Tell me when you are ready for the check.”

As the waiter leaves, I grab at the wisps of the escaped memory, but only echoes of the music and laughter collide in my head and the rest slips into the air and I beg them to come back so I can say hi to the busboy and tell him how hard it was for me to remember but I remember now and we can laugh about that moment again.

I look down at the chai milkshake and move the straw from the far side of the rim and lightly push it in to my lips and feel the plastic playfully bite me.

I take a tentative sip and am immediately filled with the chai flavor but in a milky, cold, soggy form. I take another hit. This time with my mouth slightly chilled, the shock of the temperature is gone and all I taste is creamy chai. I hunch my back and begin to sit with my arms on the table so that my mouth is hooked up to the straw and

2 0 17

I can allow myself the minimal amount of movement needed to drink my milkshake.

As I sip sip, an old couple leaves, their chairs scraping against the floor as they get out. And with them, the busboy follows suit. He rushes over, almost in a hurry.

I look at him. I look at his every move. His springy walk. His dirty blond hair. His forest green short-sleeve shirt. His back muscles flex as he puts the bin down and prepares to start cleaning. He picks up their two dinner plates and one shared cheese tray. He follows it with the cups. His box filled, he wipes the table off with his damp towel and clears of the crumbs. Job finished. He turns around and returns to kitchen, not even casting a sidelong glance at the booth I sit at. His eyes dead straight ahead.

My cup has gone empty. I rise from my booth and make my way across the nearly empty restaurant to the cash register to get the check. The cashier politely smiles, nods to the total on the screen, takes my money, and turns his back, letting me know it’s time for me to leave. I put a dollar into the tip jar and turn to catch a last glimpse. The sink is empty and the constant flurry of motion that is the busboy seems to have disappeared.

Gone. I go out onto Main Street, wrapping my coat tighter, ready to walk back home with only the aftertaste of chai to keep me company.

— Alex Neumann, XII

77

cymbals

2 0 17

Over the Woods and Through the River Zinzer is that hard candy your grandma keeps in a floral tin canister of rusted safety pins in the freezer. It’s flavored with actual fennel to taste like licorice. You hate fennel. It’s her old favorite from the fifties. You eat it and smile politely, but it lines your throat. You tell her that it’s great and that you want to check on Google because you’d never heard of it. You learn that the candy hasn’t been made since ’71 and your throat still feels lined with fennel. She asks what people say about it. You decide to ignore the articles that place it in the top ten worst things about the fifties list. You tell her people say it’s and old classic and that they should make more of them.

She smiles with eyes that look like the glass marbles she keeps in a box under your mom’s old bed. The ones you used to play with when you got bored during dinner at her house. You quickly look down. The wrapper looks like water stained canvas, but is so brittle that it actually breaks in half when you try to nervously rustle it. The Zinzer doesn’t even feel like it’s getting smaller in your mouth. You open your mouth to bite down on it, to try to finish it right away. Grandma tells you not to chew it, because it will be gone too quickly and then you can’t enjoy it. She calls you by your cousin’s name. This is your first visit to Grandma’s in five years. The taste is overwhelming. The mustard colored candy hasn’t gotten

any smaller at all. You start sucking desperately to try and finish it. The candy is just sitting there in its own thick syrup in your mouth. Your grandma tells you to slow down and that there’s plenty more of you need them. You want to leave. Your grandma is saying how handsome you’ve gotten. She cups your face. You need to leave. You don’t want to interrupt. Licorice is all you feel now. You imagine that the candy is actually black in your mouth at this point. Grandma is talking about how no one ever visits. You put the candy where you always keep your dipping tobacco. You tell her that you have to go. You’ve been there for fifteen minutes. Grandma is crestfallen. Your mom told you that you were supposed to stay the night. You quickly hug her and thank her for the candy. You don’t know if you can speak properly because of how numb your tongue feels. You think she understands. She runs over and gives you a handful more of the candies and a few safety pins for the road. She says she knows how bad I-95 can get. Licorice is taking over.

You get out the door. You’re afraid she’s watching you so you don’t spit out the candy. You don’t throw the extra ones out either. You get in the car and pull out of the halfmile long driveway. Once you’re out of sight you attempt to spit the Zinzer out. You realize the candy is gone. Your whole car smells like fennel.

78

— George Cole, XII

cymbals

2 0 17

“Twin Dragons” by Rohan Narayanan, XI: pencil

79

cymbals

2 0 17

Seeds My brain is an old man sitting on a bench on the Long Beach Boardwalk.

So I watch the people pass, and feel the breeze. I sit. I’m alive. Not much gets done.

Two hours later I’m the Wolf on Wall Street. I like it fast and I’m sniffing like Trump. I have the heartbeat of an Olympian. I’m restless to the tips of my fingers, hands productive from pinky to pinky. Crowned king of my calculus class, I’ve got numbers on the boards like Pusha T. Try to stop me.

It’s 11:50. The smell of the barely edible school lunch drifts through the school, all the way to my history class and I’m an ugly middle-aged idiot, working at the DMV. Grease covers my face, and I’m starting to pick at little imperfections on my skin. I hate everyone and everyone hates me. So I complain. Lots. The room fades green. I might be seeing double.

After lunch, I’m the old man rollerskating down Venice Beach with a beard. My Walkman is playing the good old days out loud to me. If you make eye contact, I grin back. It’s almost 2, and nothing new can be learned. I already know everything I need anyway.

Finally, the theoretical bell rings. Then comes that intersection where I sit watching the red 20 cars back for most of my drive home. Foreshadow my inability to start my homework. Foreshadow my dinner of Ready Rice with salt cooked in 90 seconds. I’ve played my part, and now I’m nothing but a wispy dandelion full of seeds. Find pillow, drift into space. Just blow me to tomorrow…

Morning glory I’m asleep.

80

— Leo Nye, XII

cymbals

2 0 17

Temporary Peace ’Cause he just comes home mad. Like really mad, and she’ll ask him how was work today or whatever and he just tears. But it’s not all his fault because the way she asks is like she’s being antagonizing, but then if she gets questioned about it she pretends to be an angel, and I could see how that would piss him off.

But I think she just sits and waits and seethes so he’ll snap, have an excuse to first tell me, and then escape for a smoke in my car.

I don’t like the feeling of being used, like it makes me uncomfortable, like I’m always in a war or something, constantly checking over my shoulders, thinking, “What’s she going to say if I do this or what’ll he say if I do that?”

Lately it’s rare if they’re quiet. Like if there is a streak of two days where they aren’t fighting. But I’d say that only happens 20% of the time. Actually 10.

I’m sure she goes crying to her book club meetings pouring sob stories on them about domestic abuse.

Then they both come to me “in confidence” to talk about how bad the other is, like they’re trying to get me on their side for the big split.

And I don’t want to pick a side I don’t want to be like them, I just, it’s just, sometimes I want to scream.

— Atticus Rego, XII

81

cymbals

2 0 17

“Bison Trudging Through the Snow” by Alec Berger, X: photography

82

cymbals

2 0 17

When I Was Born Mama says I was born as thunder clouds danced around the reserve, swallowing the dry earth and bellowing at the pompous sun. She says that the storm that night was worse than any others we had seen, but that’s exactly what we had needed. It had come after many months of sun scorching our farms and beating our animals. The thunder brought with it oceans of rain, and the rain brought with it new life and water to quench our thirst. Mama says that’s why she calls me her Queen. I saved the reservation.

Papa says I was born as the winds howled and brought the sun on its golden chariot. He says the sun had been gone for a very long time, hiding behind the rain clouds and fighting the moon so he wouldn’t have to show his face. The wind that night was so strong that it carried the sun into the sky on its back, just so he could bless us with his light.

That’s why Papa calls me his Sunshine.

Grandpa says I was born as the first buffalo gave birth to her baby. It was the beginning of a new season of life and prosperity and happiness and hope, after a winter that had taken from us many family members and animals. With my birth, he says, the Earth believed it was time to give us back our way of living: of being one with the trees, not one with the ice. This is why Grandpa calls me his tantanka–his little buffalo.

Grandma says I was born just the way I am. She says that on the day I was born, she was sure the world would never be the same again.

She says that I am sure to do something great, something to make the reservation proud, that I will be good when I grow up and that I will end all the bad things that happen in the world. Then she kisses me on my head and tells me to always look forward and never turn my head back. “Where you came from is important,” she says, “but where you go is what really matters.”

— Sanjana Dugar, XI

83

cymbals

2 0 17

Taps I thump my boots on the worn brass under my swivel stool. Some Yunker in a booth tells me to stop thumpin’ my f---in’ boots so he can watch the damn TV. There’s a broad is on a Yuengling commercial. The whole bar goes nuts. Boris says he could look at only her for the rest of his life, and he’d die a happy man. I think that’s a load of crap. If I gotta see one person for the rest of my life, they have to be hideous. The type of person I’m so nervous about looking at. Takes me a year or two to even look them in the eye. And then it will take me even more years to finally stop looking at that one tooth that’s shaped more like an animal cracker than a tooth, and colored liked that too. Then after a half decade of that, I can move up to their nose, which looks like a drunk French comic book character’s, and is consistently spewing mucous onto their animal cracker tooth. No eyelashes either, plus, he’s got to have a weird unibrow and by weird I mean just a thin line of hair that connects the top of one eyebrow to the bottom of the other. He also has to have that greasy mullet. That broad would get boring before my next oil change. That’s what I think. No one will hear it even if I said it. The whole bar settles down after the TV cuts to a Pepto commercial. So I look up at Boris behind the bar and I say “Get me a Yuengling”

84

— George Cole, XII

cymbals

2 0 17

“Krant Koord Bench” by Noah Liao, XII: furniture design

85

cymbals

2 0 17

How to Love Like Lenny Your skirt is ripped leather of a forgotten diner booth occupied by a cold heart and warm hands inhaling the open bar so tomorrow you’ll stumble through the halls with coconut Malibu growing palm trees in your

gums that push around breath covered in artificial mint gums that forget my name skirt that forgets my touch.

86

— Nate Jones, XI

cymbals

2 0 17

“Shallow” by Maggie Laughlin, X: photography

87

cymbals

Spencer Knerr, IX: architecture

88

2 0 17

cymbals

2 0 17

Self-Service It’s different now, He tells himself.

It’s not because of the memories, Nothing to do with the feelings And trepidation he gets when he remembers his mother.

Nothing like the flashbacks Leave the slow motion images of unhappiness To the movies.

He lives in the real world now, now it’s his job To do what his father did And not what his mother didn’t.

Now he’s only what he thinks of himself Not Erv’s middle boy, or the kid at the gas station He only serves himself now.

But like so much else In this world He is caught in things he can’t recognize.

A cycle of expectations and reality takes no stock in the diagnoses of poems and thinkers, But rather in the tangible of now and yesterday And that which he can find in a case of beer.

And when his aging relatives see him, they remark how much he looks Like his mother And to escape it he moves to the city, far away from the tanning racks and Pickup trucks of the South. And all is well When he meets another Southerner driven from the heavy Hate and heat of Louisiana.

For the time.

And time goes on and he thinks less and less about the works of angry art he made In the studio of a state school And more about a normal life. A wife, three kids, and three cars and a constant and manual renewal of trust.

Bills and birthdays are his norm, and he likes it best that way.

There is no story without a flaw.

It comes back, a clear image that unsettles even him.

The yellow cans at the curb showing his attempts at comfort.

And he hears over a telephone how his father took The wrong pills and didn’t recognize his wife and like the piercing whine of an air-raid siren (recognized from a childhood of playing ball on military bases) It stops.

The leases and mortgages wait in the inbox.

It’s finally time for his self service.

— Oliver McIntosh, XII

89

cymbals

2 0 17

You

(you have done nothing).

2003 and Not Much Else I only remember the massiveness, and little else.

There were hard metal domes on top of hard metal domes and woodchips buried in your light-up, blue sneakers. Giant tree trunks scattered like twigs, even laying down, they tower above you. Foot holes were pushed into the trunks and the view looking out below became your kingdom. Mud pie weddings meant you had to wear your best flower pants. And the day before you helped crust mud into paper plates to harden and serve at the reception. Being the chef for the wedding was the importantest thing you’ve ever done, and you felt like your mommy. Everything seemed so big and for the only time ever in your life, you did not feel afraid and you loved all the things you didn’t understand. They sent you away before you learned anything about them so you will always love them. There was a teacher who painted his toenails. You saw how he showed you things that you care about and how being a girl was a blessing because you could do pull ups and could cover your stubby toes with pink power polish.

— Zoe Lett, XII

they all think you’re something. because you pretend you are. but all you think about is the green light, leading you across the fine so fine sheltering bay. your eyes like a snake, creeping behind window panes. like the eyes in the valley: gray and dull.

— Erica Walsh, XII

90

cymbals

2 0 17

Memory

“Rower of Carnegie Lake” by Shana Levine, XII: photography

I will rustle, like the leaves that shiver lightly on moonlit trees, while you, surround me, gently like the breeze, flowing breath of the forest.

I will whisper, like the leaves that whistle indecisively swirling through trees, while you, stay there, firmly like the trunks, rooting down into the under. but suddenly you slip out of my grasp and you are a gypsy, always moving, and I am the stillness, that sighs longingly at the memory of your touch never to return.

— Grace Nicholas, XII 91

cymbals

2 0 17

Occupied All he did was sit in B-12, a single seat behind the whimpering baby, opposite the newlyweds.

The flight was long – 16 hours from NYC to Hong Kong – overbooked with sunglassed tourists and briefcased men making deals.

His head parachuted into the sea of sweet pink clouds outside the sunsetting window like strands of cotton candy the girl napping in G-4 stripped through her sugar-stained fingers on a trip to a county fair until, the honey blonde air hostess waltzed up the aisle like it was a fashion show runway batting her mascara-d lashes to the beat of turbulence rubbing packaged peanuts between French-tipped nails.

All he did was not say no or yes or I have a wife waiting at home.

She gave him a packet and another watching him snack giggling in between cups of French coffee He crunched over the ringtone serenading his right pant pocket: Bring! Bring! Bring!

Bring! Bring! Bring!

92

cymbals

2 0 17

Vacant.

Two hours in, his navy slacks, crisp swayed in the airplane restroom as tall as a standing coffin engulfed in pissful odors and hours of travel.

Wrinkled neck ties tumbled over topography.

His hands in her honey hair: Occupied.

Bring! Bring! Bring!

Bring! Bring! Bring!

Hey. I guess you’re still on the plane. Jake and I miss you. When you get home, maybe the three of us can go out for ice cream if it’s not too late. Let’s go to Coldstone on 5th.

They have the Rocky Road you like... Alright. We can’t wait to see you. Call me when you land. We’ll pick you up. You’re coming in to Gate 2, right? Okay. Bye. He sunk in B-12 surrounded by cellophane and chipped nails.

His finger stroked the salt-and-peppery beard hiding his cheeks full of peanut shells with no one to bring him more He died quietly. soft, like the clouds as the sky blues morphed into scarlet reds .. .

— Anisa Lateef, XI

93

cymbals

“Adam and Eve” by Kiely French, XII: pencil

94

2 0 17

cymbals

2 0 17

Prey I showed off by taking my pill without drinking any water. Meanwhile, she needed a beverage, specifically apple juice. She promised me that if she didn’t take her pill with a sip of apple juice and a munch of a pretzel stick, she’d puke up a lung. She’d do it too, she appeared cool and sharp, like a lioness, but really, she’s all over the place.

She lived in Cherry Hill. It’s not super poor, but it’s a sad, vapid town. No history, no culture. She lived in a strip mall covered suburban-hell type place. I drove down her street. Each lawn, each square house, each straight block looked the same, but I remembered hers, and I knew where to park.

She led me to her maroon couch to watch Nat Geo: Animal Armory, a lion’s episode. She had a soft spot for cats. The neighborhood felines always came to her porch and scratched her sliding door. Those cats were fat. They were supposed to be wild, but the wild cats were all fluffy. She liked the fluffy ones, but she loves lions. She likes their teeth, and she giggled and made me open my mouth to admire my sharp canines. I guess some people like to be scared.

We sat close, eating potatoes for dinner and ice cream for dessert. My potatoes were hot on top and cold on the bottom, but I’ve never been that picky. We snarked at the corny narration and ooed as a lion brought down a stumbling zebra. I muttered a little; she outright yelled.

Like Beavis and Butthead but I was the funny one; like Simon and Garfunkel but she was the only talented one.

Everyone loves when they get along with someone.

After we cleaned up all the dishes and crumbs, she grabbed her guitar, and I found the remote back on the couch and lowered the volume on the TV. The lions were still on, still tearing up the zebra. Brothers gorged together, ignoring the alpha and his mate. Then she plopped down next to me. She taught herself how to play and how to sing. Her eyes, amber like a lioness’s.

I liked being friends, but once she started playing, I couldn’t resist. My eyes rose from her hands on the guitar to her mouth.

— Leo Nye, XII

95

cymbals

2 0 17

cymbals Staff

Index of Contributors Sofia Bae, XI, 16, 35, 43

Zoe Lett, XII, 42, 90

Big Brother:

Lucy Bailey, X, 37

Michelle Leung, XI, 32, 46, 51, 59, 63

Sara Chopra XI

Ella Baseman, XI, cover, 2, 53, 54, 57

Shana Levine, XII, 7, 21, 55, 91

Alec Berger, X, 82, back cover

Noah Liao, XII, 85

Will Brossman, XII, 13, 20, 32, 70

Abby Ling, XII, 23

Sara Chopra, XI, 24

Oliver McIntosh, XII, 89

Members of the Inner Party:

George Cole, XII, 78, 84

Rohan Narayanan, XI, 79

Zach Izzard XII

Emma Dries, XI, 33

Alex Neumann, XII, 8, 31,38, 76

Ella Baseman XI

Zachary Dudeck, XII, 48, 49

Grace Nicholas, XII, 91

Jaclyn Gary XI

Sanjana Dugar, XI, 83

Leo Nye, XII, 22, 36, 80, 95

Erica Walsh XII

Samantha Dwyer, XI, 58

Amanda Ostendorf, XII, 71

Kiely French, XII, 12, 15, 64, 94

Brain Radvany, X, 47

Diego Garcia, XI, 11

Atticus Rego, XII, 45, 81

Catie Higgins XII

Catie Higgins, XII, 27

Mary Schafer, XI, 47, 50

Sofia Bae XI

Zach Izzard, XII, 26

Katie Simons, XII, 34

Sanjana Dugar XI

Arya Jha, XI, 66

Lara Strassberg, XII, 29, 61

Nate Jones, XI, 12, 19, 30, 44, 74, 86

Christian Tian, XII, 52

Elisa Kardhashi, XI, 74

Maria Vasquez-Maldonado, X, 40

Russell Kirczow, XII, 18

Erica Walsh, XII, 14, 56, 72, 90

Allison Klei, XII, 60, 62

Dilan West, XI, 65

O’Brien: Leo Nye XII

Charrington, Ampleforth, and Syme:

Julia, Winston, and Parsons: Morgan Mills XII Alec Berger X Amon DeVane X

Spencer Knerr, IX, 88

Comma Committee:

Logan Kramsky, XII, 73

Mr. McCulloch

Anisa Lateef, XI, 39, 41, 75, 92

Mr. Q.

Maggie Laughlin, X, 10, 87 cymbals is printed on 10% and 30% post-consumer recycled paper

96

cymbals

2 0 17

“Ghost Trees” by Alec Berger, X: photography

cymbals 2017 Published by Princeton Day School 97