The Folio Literary/Art Magazine 2017 Edition

The Folio Conestoga High School

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THE FOLIO a literary magazine

Conestoga High School Berwyn, Pennsylvania 2016-2017 | Volume II Issue VI

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Footnote Jason Vassiliou

As you live alone, Through nature’s endless moan, You try and fail and try and fail, Unmoving as a stone.

Struggling on this path, Your brain begins to laugh; “Yesterday you said tomorrow,” Quoting a motivator’s wrath.

Soon life blasts a hole, Burrowing like a mole, Its success is fleeting, seldom meeting, Hope toying with your soul.

Slowly you erode away, For time restricts your stay, And parts of you live on or die— Footnotes of yesterday.

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Dear Reader, Thank you for picking up a copy of this year’s Folio. We have spent the year sifting through the best art and literature our school has to offer, and we are proud to share our findings with you. Early in the year, we were happy to discover a forgotten, old box of Conestoga literary magazines. It got us reminiscing about the literature, art, and creativity in our own community, and eventually led us to our theme for this issue: time, and its role in our lives as young adults entering the adult world.

Our nostalgia led us to copies of the Literary Magazine dating as far back as 1967. From cover design to writing to photographs, we realized that wwwwww teenagers hadn’t changed that much in the past 50 years: we all try to express ourselves, find our place in culture and society, and balance our independence in a world where we are still dependent on others.

We would like to extend our congratulations and appreciations to our staff this year. We editors would not be able to do our job without the hard work of the passionate, innovative, and imaginative minds of our Lit Mag staff. From Inkwell planning to publishing, every person in the room plays an immensely important role in the conception of our Lit Mag. We would especially like to thank our advisors, Mr. Smith and Mrs. Ebarvia, who have been with the seniors for four years. Your constant guidance, faith, and support have truly shaped us into the artists we are today, and your influence will travel with us wherever our creativity takes us.

Lastly, we would like to thank you, the reader, for continually supporting our publication throughout the years. The Folio would not be possible without the people who read it. We hope that in this issue you are able to recognize yourself--your abounding naiveté and sense of wonder, and your readiness to tackle the world with bare fists and a kind soul.

Thank you,

Literary Editors Rhian Lowndes and Liz Shilling Art Editors Melissa Cui, Ally Wynne, Danica Merrill, and Brooke Pellegrini Business Editors Chelsea Tang and Akanksha Kalasabail 5

Table of Contents

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4

Footnote / Jason Vassiliou

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Letter from the Editors

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KIDS

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Boxed In / Emma Jiang

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Flower / Emma Jiang

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The Lake / James Yeagley

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Untitled / Sammi Yocum

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Bird’s Eye View / Thomas Jensen

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To My Darling Snow Angel / Jessica Frantzen

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Sprinkles / Laila B. Norford

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The Philosphy of Time / Hui-Yi Kuo

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Lunch / Thomas Jensen

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Lunchtime / Laura Liu

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On Growing Up / Madeline Murphy

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Space Helmet / Kelley McMullin

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Vroom Vroom / Kelley McMullin

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Dog Tongues / Kelley McMullin

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Untitled / Dovile Drozdovaite

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Strawberry Princess / Jessica Frantzen

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The Reptile House / Rhian Lowndes

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King / Nik Delgado

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TEENS

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Drive / Liz Shilling

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Field of Flowers / Brooke Pellegrini

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In My Head / Sarah Oliver

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Untitled / Joy Zhu

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Overdue / Anonymous

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Clocks / Joyce Dong

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Celestial / Isabelle Burns

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Bowie / Ashleigh Lake

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Am / Jill Sharples

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Baby, Don’t Hurt Me / Akanksha Kalasabail

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Untitled / Anonymous

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Buddha / Lauren Cauley

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Self Portrait / Brooke Pellegrini

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On Me / Thomas Jensen

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Hidden Reflection / Laila B. Norford

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Warrior / Nik Delgado

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Caught / Vikas Chelur

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Jungle / Taylor Geus

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marmalade stains / Akanksha Kalasabail

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I imagine too many fantastic futures with you / Akanksha Kalasabail

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Torteau Fromage / Isabelle Burns

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Help / Liz Shilling

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pixestential crisis / Thomas Jensen

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Live Electric Dreams / Elissa Wilton

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midnight wake-up call / Alexandra Ross

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Alone / Jason Vassiliou

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Pierced Beauty / Elise Delgado

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Water Concentration / Leah Bernstein

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Galeophobia / Jack D’Emilio

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Hexaemeron / Alexandra Ross

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Reflection / Lauren Jiang

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The Fourth Month / Alexandra Ross

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The Scent of Young Love / Elissa Wilton

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Wayne Movie Theater / Gianna DiAddezio

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Handel’s / Gianna DiAddezio

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The Angry One / Danica Merrill

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Crimson Soul / Elise Delgado

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Rifts / Grace Lanouette

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6:25 AM / Kristen Kim

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So She’s an Artist Now? / Jessica Frantzen

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Follow Your Heart / Brooke Pellegrini

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On Having Curly Hair / Grace Lanouette

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Blueface / Pramita Mital

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30 feet of freedom / Sebastian Castro

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So Long / Nik Delgado 7

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The Jungle / Ian Hay

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For Gatsby / Thomas Jensen

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Dear Math / Thomas Jensen

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Still Life / Frank Wang

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On Cram School / Kristen Kim

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Hair Braiding / Presina Mottley

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Purple / Grace Lanouette

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Route 18 / Isabelle Burns

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Forest Fire Over The Grand Canyon / Ian Hay

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Not Very Funny / Sebastian Castro

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Got Milk? / Isabelle Burns

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Violet Chachki / Brooke Pellegrini

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My Least Favorite / Liz Shilling

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Monocrhomatic Car / Caroline Buck

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The Car / Liz Shilling

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Water Concentration / Leah Bertstein

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Who Am I?

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Me in Three / Nik Delagdo

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Afloat / Thomas Jensen

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ADULTS

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Untitled / Emily Fromhage

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A Farmer’s Market in Pennsylvania / Laura Liu

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Untitled / Brooke Pellegrini

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Remission / Brooke Pellegrini

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Wet Impressions / Thomas Jensen

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Untitled / Chloe Rountree

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XOXO / Danica Merrill

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Untitled / Kate Hudson

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Firenze / Laura Liu

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Embers of Regret / Jessica Frantzen

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The Quarter-Past-Three Song / Anna Donahue

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Untitled Script / Jack D’Emilio

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Skull / Anonymous

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Retrogression / Grace Cancelmo

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Refugee / Anna Kovarick

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Kate in a Dream / Hui-Yi Kuo

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insomnia / Sarah Oliver

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Watercolor / Frank Wang

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(Cross)words to Say I Love You / Akanksha Kalasabail

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Unrelated Harmony / Hui-Yi Kuo

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Verona Locks / Rachel Burger

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Athena / Hui-Yi Kuo

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Artemis / Hui-Yi Kuo

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SENIORS

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All Saints Day / Grace Lanouette

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Old Woman / Sarah Wood

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Hubert / Rhian Lowdes

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Bad Habits / Nina Bernick

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knuckles / Isabelle Burns

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Untitled / Jack D’Emilio

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Old Man / Madeline Alwine

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Kayoung / Danica Merrill

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Banana Watercolor / Kelley McMullin

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Generations / Nina Bernick

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Old Age / Kayoung Kim

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Grandfather / Kelley McMullin

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Danny Devito-v McMullin

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Yes I Can Fly / Hannah Athchinson

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The Lion Sleeps Tonight / Hannah Athchinson

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The Nature of Unity / Laura Liu

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Staff Pages Front Cover Design: Brooke Pellegrini Back Cover: Pallavi Aakarapu

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KIDS

The Folio (2014) and Illuminations (1985) 10

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Boxed In Emma Jiang

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Flower Emma Jiang

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The Lake James Yeagley Hidden in the mountains was a lake. And a dock floated off the pebbly shore, held in place by coarse yellow ropes that had turned a mottled green in the murky water. It was a wooden square, painted emerald years ago; but the color was almost gone, stripped away by years of thunder, rain, and ice. A white sheet of plastic was attached to the edge some time ago, bobbing in sync with the gentle lap of water, rough to provide traction for tiny feet, speckled green with algae. The wood was always slick and wet, no matter how hard the July sun beat on it.

And the ladder to climb on was always covered in scum, slimy with bacteria, the metal flecked with rust, the rungs turning a sickly yellow.

But kids would still grab on with fervor, climbing up in a syncopated rhythm, the water streaming down their legs in rivulets. Teenagers would not lift their head at the pitter-patter of droplets or the splash as some brave soul leapt off the diving board.

They remained prone on the damp ground, the sun kissing their bare skin, baking them slowly. In the winter the lake would freeze and the ice-fishers would walk past the dock, stuck in drifts of snow, gliding by like deities walking across water.

But the winter was no fun; the hazy days of heavy summer were better, when the air was thick and heat radiated off the dock, turning the water into a mercuric coin.

In the morning, before the tanners had staked their plot on the dock, they would swim out, the water crisp, the shore sprinkled with dew. Dad would offer help, and usually they clung to him like leeches as he paddled out to the bobbing piece of wood. He wouldn’t leave the water, but they never hesitated; up they climbed, and stood in line, one-by-one, ready to jump. One-byone they padded out onto the filmy board, their toes wriggling on the pebbly surface. One-byone they bent their knees, held their breath, and pushed off into blue sky and black water. They let the lake take them.

Once one jumped, there was no return.

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Untitled Samantha Yocum

The water embraced them, and down they sunk as bubbles fled upward toward light, as the child descended into darkness.

Through closed eyelids there was nothing to see— there was only a shifting kaleidoscope of color that could be viewed through a thin shield of skin. At first the world was golden, until gold turned to green, green to blue, blue to black in a quick succession, similar to paint being thrown against a wall, the colors melding into an indistinct mess. When blue turned to black, and the black water had sufficiently swallowed its victim, the child had arrived.

In the murky depths, there was a chill. This was a land that had not seen the light of day for centuries.

No one knew what darted in between the shadows, or had fallen to the silty ground, forsaken by the sun and the warmth. The children only graced this land in passing, and really it was only their feet that grazed the surface. The world went black, the water turned cold, and something tickled their toes.

It was algae, probably, or some sort of underwater plant— nothing sinister in any sense, their parents assured. But to the children, it was the spindly fingers of a submerged lake monster. It was the silty ground coming to life to grab at limbs and absorb them into the eternal twilight. It was an archaic fish that sought sustenance in young, human blood. Whatever it was, the tendril of lake life sent shivers up the children’s spines, and a surge of adrenaline that only precedes impending doom. They kicked. They clawed.

The kids shot back up to the surface and burst into the golden light: a survivor. They were greeted by a chorus of gleeful shouts. They released a breath, and felt their cheeks flush. Green and brown and blue water droplets flew into the air — cascading diamonds catching the light— as the children splashed. They felt the lingering touch of the lake floor and shivered once more. They swam to the ladder and waited in line, ready to jump again, ready to sink back down to the bottom.

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Bird’s Eye View Thomas Jenson

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To My Darling Snow Angel Jessica Frantzen To my darling snow angel, Do you remember the day you reigned supreme over the snowy kingdom of our backyard with an icy, mitten-bound fist?

Your frosted forts warmed the souls of your pebble-grin snowmen, standing guard against the slobbering, whining menace that refused to “stay,” or to “lay down,”.

Do you remember the way you pressed your miniature figure into the snow, your petite arms flailing, trying to understand the purity of flight?

Gazing up at the grey-marbled sky, your wonder gave a fragile, icy-glazed voice to the crystalline wandering souls drifting off in the dagger-pointed wind.

Even if you don’t, I’m certain I’ll remember your chilled, ruby-illuminated cheeks, your luminous earmuff-to-earmuff smile, and your gentle, sanguine soul.

Wherever such a spirit guides you, I shall anticipate your harmonious song once again echoing throughout our hushed home.

Sending insurmountable love and endless hopes, Your family 17

Sprinkles Laila B. Norford

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I was freezing, but I ordered ice cream anyway. The sprinkles were dotted on the top of the vanilla scoop, like the rice we put on papers in kindergarten and left out in the sun for weeks.

When we finally took off the rice, the blue paper had faded, but where the rice had been, lacy constellations of dark blue were traced.

Being an amateur stargazer, Orion and the Big Dipper were the only constellations I could identify,

and I was sure I could find them in the rice.

However, sitting in a hot tub in San Diego with my dad, staring at the sky without glasses on, I could not see anything.

My dad tried to test if I could even see the brightest star, whose name, being an amateur, I forget, but it was futile.

I climbed out of the warmth to retrieve my glasses, the chilly air causing me to shiver

and cross my legs as if I was eating ice cream in a parlor that blasted the air conditioning.

When I put on my glasses, the dark blue ceiling over the Earth became sprinkled with stars.

The Philosphy of Time Hui-Yi Kuo

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Lunch Thomas Jenson

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Lunchtime Laura Liu Wood’s ear mixed with yellow flower mixed with eggs, Flakes of dried red chili pepper curled around pork belly curled around tofu, Fingers sliding through chopsticks sliding through sticky white rice— “What is that?”

Lunchbox snaps shut, Chopsticks clatter onto blacktop— “My lunch.”

Freckled noses wrinkle, White hands reach and grab and break the grip of quivering fingers— “Ew! Come, look what she’s eating!”

A clamor of voices, bodies jostling in and out of reality, A crack of plastic on sun-baked ground, An overturned container, The splattering of tofu under sneakers, “You’re in America, not China!”— Feet pound against empty hallways, Thin wire glasses stare into an empty toilet bowl, Wood’s ear and mushrooms and rice and anything that is left shatter in the water.

A foot rises, kicks at the handle.

Ching chong, dog eater, no eyes, yellowface— “So, how was your first day?”

“I’ll buy my lunch tomorrow.”

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On Growing Up Madeline Murphy porcelain dolls, sprawled about, with wisps of tulle dresses curling like smoke. knotted locks and crimson colored cheeks, neglected and forgotten, and transfixed eyes waiting to be gazed upon once more.

Space Helmet Kelley McMullin 22

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Vroom Vroom Kelley McMullin

Dog Tongues Kelley McMullin

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Untitled Dovile Drozdovaite

Strawberry Princess Jessica Frantzen

Sure, the snack-sized girl standing in the kitchen doesn’t look scary.

Her twin-cherry cheeks glow as if they’d never spoil, Keen blueberry eyes glimmer with a fresh love of life, Sun-grown, seedy freckles rest on the bridge of her nose, And red-raspberry hair extends from its roots to her peach-pale stomach.

The red flag here would probably be her orange-slice smile And the slow-dripping, strawberry-tinted knife.

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King Nik Delgado

The Reptile House Rhian Lowndes An orange satin bow bounced through the crowd and Eddie followed it quickly, skirting past groups, diving through clusters, calling apologies over his shoulder.

An orange satin bow on a yellow hat shaped like a mountain disappeared through the doors of the reptile house and Eddie ran right into the dark and purple and red of heatlamps.

Every color looked different in the reptile house and every detail blurred in the shadows. Children tapped on glass and grownups whistled through the panes at lizards that did not respond except to scuttle behind a rock. It was very loud in the reptile house, much louder than you expect a walled in nighttime to be. It smelled of dust and feces and the bad breath of sweaty people who had visited the restaurant by the tiger enclosure. Then it smelled of air and water and the noise fell and around a corner sun swept the people in the reptile An orange satin bow on a yellow hat shaped like a mountain atop a silver cloud of curls left the reptile house for the seal pool and Eddie could see the world beneath the cloud and mountain and bow. It was a sun kissed land with fault lines and crevices breaking the powdered and painted cliffs. Yellow sandstone quaked on a piece of gum and tree roots gripped a cane that bore the weight of the whole universe. Swathed in rivers of blue and green cotton adorned with tributaries of flowers, the world carried on past the seal pool. Eddie tripped, he sbled, he wished to keep up, but the world moved forward.

An orange satin bow on a yellow hat shaped like a mountain atop a silver cloud of curls above above a whole wide world left Eddie behind and still he chased it.

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TEENS

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Illuminations (1979) and Illuminations (1983) 29

Drive Liz Shilling I liked the drives on sunday mornings as the sun was waking up, and the way that our tired bodies dragged themselves out of bed to stretch together and awaken with the sun.

Its bright face shone itself in pinks and purples, and an orange haze drenched your sleepy face.

It was the way that you traced your thumb in circles over the top of my hand as I drove us into oblivion on the finale of each week.

And maybe it was the way you stopped talking when I started singing and turned your yawning face to me and smiled.

It was the way I melted into you, like rain into snow.

I liked the way he ordered the same breakfast every time; Three cups of coffee French toast And one of those sticky buns with the raisins stuck to the top, but always to go.

You make everything so easy.

The way you make me feel like I am infinitely growing.

You are teaching me ways to be the best me.

You are teaching me to laugh, and to learn, and by loving me You are teaching me all the reasons I should love myself And I like it when we drive on Sunday mornings, and I melt into you like rain into snow.

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Field of Flowers Brooke Pellegrini

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In My Head Sarah Oliver

I

knew his mother didn’t like me, but I didn’t know why. She used to humor us at least, in the beginning. Back then, when we came in from the big field behind his house, she’d cook the both of us some lunch, and he would shriek excitedly that I was al-

lowed to stay over. His mother would never look at me though—only at him. I guess she didn’t want him to know she hated his only friend.

When we got older, her disdain grew more apparent. His dad left the both of them, which must’ve been hard on her, but she didn’t seem to mind filling the void with liquor. When she was drunk she’d ignore me, but on the occasional day she sobered up enough to talk, she would turn to stone at my mention. A fire would kindle behind her eyes, a white-hot pain I couldn’t dream of understanding. Sometimes, she would scream at him, beg him to stop, beg him to grow up. Usually, she would uncork the next bottle.

He tried to cope, but it was hard on him. Honestly, it was hard on me too. We didn’t even know she was gone for two days. The coroner reported his mother had died from extensive liver damage mixed with a lethal dose of painkillers. He said it didn’t matter.

I tried to help him through it, but I didn’t know how to. I never knew my parents. At some point I must’ve had some, but I don’t remember what happened to them. Everything before I turned five is lost to static fuzz. It’s hard to help someone when what they lost is something you never had.

He grew reclusive. We didn’t leave the house. He drank what his mother hadn’t, and I watched as the boy I loved became hollow. I begged him to get help, to talk to a professional, but for months he just wallowed.

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Untitled Joy Zhu

The night he nearly killed himself was the longest of my life. It wasn’t until death had had him in its grasp and released him that he agreed. I was so grateful, at first. The medications the doctor had him take brought back the little boy I used to know. He laughed again, and smiled, and we’d go out into the field and talk like we used to.

However, improvement prompted new treatments. The doctor believed depression wasn’t the only thing haunting my friend, that some demons had been shadowing him since birth.

Once that first pill passed his lips the change was instantaneous—For the first time in over a decade he left the house without me, didn’t even tell me where he was going. He stopped listening to me, stopped seeing me. He looked through me just as his mother had.

I believed he would come back to me for the longest time. I believed it was impossible for him to forget me, to not miss me, especially after all we’d been through together. I was wrong. We were still living together, still breathing the same air, but living in two different worlds. Had it all happened in my head?

No. It hadn’t happened in my head, it had happened in his.

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Late Notice

Why did you wait until now to finish this?

Jessica Frantzen

All your present desperation serves you is A tick-tocking, mocking, face staring back at you, Toying with every nerve cell in your body, Pushing your will to place empty words On a blank canvas ignorant to the struggle Of a mind stretched thin by six words:

Clocks Joyce Dong 34

“I’ve got to get this done.”

Humans claim that time waits for no one.

Seeing this realization creep across your face, Tears verging on eyes that see no positive outcome, I watch the inkblots of time slip through your fingertips.

In five, four, three, two, one, your lack of work will be...

Overdue.

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Celestial.

Isabelle Burns

i’m glad we got a chance to lay on our backs in that faded blue pickup truck you bought. i remember i was proud of you for that. you didn’t need anyone’s help. i could see the field we used to play in as kids. it was exactly as i remembered it. the path we used to walk was a little more overgrown than i expected but that was okay. i could hear the soft rustle of the grain on either side of the truck. you said you could see the stalks rustling. i said rustling was a sound. you can’t see sounds. i could feel the escaping threads of the quilt we had poking at my shoulder blades. they stuck to the back of my shirt. i found them on the floor of my house for days after we got back. i didn’t mind.

i remember when the sun went down. you were mesmerized by the deep blue of the oncoming night. the gold-tinted clouds chased a hazy stream of fading light as the sun fell behind the earth. you remarked on the colors. we had to wait for darkness, but once it came we could see the stars. away from the lights from people from cars from houses i could see anything. and everything. i spent more time watching the unguarded expression on your face than i spent looking at the infinite expanse of galaxy above my head. it was a good night.

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Bowie Ashleigh Lake 37

AM Jill Sharples

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Baby, Don’t Hurt Me Akanksha Kalasabail

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s it when Audrey Hepburn wakes up in Gregory Peck’s apartment in Rome?

Is it when Adam Sandler sings at 26,000 feet above the ground how he’ll love Drew Barry-

more, despite impending medical conditions and broken furnaces?

Is it after Billy Crystal’s “pecan pie” made Meg Ryan laugh so hard she forgot to add, “with

whipped cream on the side, but only if it’s real. If out of a can, then nothing”?

Needless to say, Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant have risen my hopes of what love really is.

But now I must say: no more, no more.

I’ll admit, my ears perk up when I hear the words ‘rom’ and ‘com’ together, and I’d rather be looking at Colin Firth’s beautiful, beautiful face than at Vin Diesel shooting two guns at once.

Sure, the list of romcom tropes is long-- the Ice-Hearted Working Woman Who Is Secretly Clumsy, the heterosexual main couple, people of color being the comic sidekicks, etc.-- and I can’t publicly acknowledge my love in case someone hears me and I lose my street rep, but at the end of the day, this genre has done something so horrendous, so horrible, that I cannot keep quiet any longer: It has made me hope. *gasps in horror* Romcoms, even when the hackneyed plot completely sucks and the dialogue seems realistic only in the fantasies of a lovelorn ten-year-old, appeal to a huge audience--man or woman, old or young, Team Peeta or Team Gale--because within two-and-a-half hours, we see two people believe in each other despite all odds. Whether the movie ends with the couple intact or one of them dead, at some point, viewers feel the connection, the dynamic between the characters that will be, at some other point, “love”.

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For me, romcoms have been a way to breathe. When I need a break from reality, the simple absurdity of Stardust or Ever After always make me feel better. If I’m ever in a mood for revenge, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days and The Proposal made me maniacally laugh in delight. If I ever feel lonely, Pretty Woman and 50 First Dates comfort me that there truly is goodness in the world.

I could name more rom-coms in thirty seconds than states. I just love (unrealistic) love.

But see, that’s the issue. I’ve been set up with expectations of “You’re my exception” and “As you wish” when I really should be ready for “Shit, it’s too early, isn’t it?” and “I guess it could’ve been worse”.

When the image of Katherine Heigl finally getting her own white wedding fades out, my laptop reflects my brown acne-covered face. For god’s sake, how often does Leo say, “Rose, I really wish I could keep telling you how beautiful you are, but I had one coffee too many and it’s an emergency greater than our imminent drowning”?

That’s my worst moment: finishing a great movie that makes me feel all the feels, and then looking into a mirror.

Because in that moment, I know that all the beautiful moments I had seen will never happen, at least to me, because life isn’t scripted; it isn’t wrapped up neatly.

Romcoms delude us.

It kinda sucks that I never see myself--or any other practical person-- in romcoms. I never see the awkward, probably-non-white, sexually-questioning person who has a believable meet cute with a slightly-less-awkward, maybe-non-white, sexually-questioning person. (In fact, I don’t see this in most of Hollywood, which is an issue.)

I just want to see one practical film. It’ll be boring as heck, but at least I, as well as all the other people who turn to romcoms for comfort and knowledge-- will have rational daydreams and expectations.

To paraphrase Mindy Kaling-- whose own TV show starts off with her replaying When Harry Met Sally--the romance genre is rather similar to the sci-fi genre: an often unrealistic, impractical wish for the future.

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Whether romcoms are impractical or hit the infatuated nail on the head, we must acknowledge that they are incredibly popular. My theory is that they, by riding the thin line between fantasy and legitimacy, give watchers the false belief that this could happen. That this world where we watch two (or more) people fall in love within two-and-a-half hours could be a reality.

Ultimately, the key word here: could.

Maybe you’ll literally bump into your significant other at the park (or a movie theatre or at work or at the bookstore) and get hitched a year later. Maybe you’ll divorce after a year for the guy or girl at work who leaves your favorite type of chocolate on your desk when you’re sad. Maybe that person won’t work out and you give up your job to travel around the world to “discover yourself”. Maybe you’ll fall in love with a person who doesn’t speak your language. Maybe you’ll fall in love with a dish you split with a kid on the street. Maybe you’ll fall in love with the world around you. Maybe you’ll fall in love with yourself. Maybe you’ll realize you’re asexual and you forced yourself to do things you really never wanted to do and your life kind of sucks.

But at the end of the day, we should realize that maybe we’ll find love--but it may not be the way we plan on it. Romcoms are brilliant if you remember to take a step back before The End fades away.

So what is love? Certainly don’t ask Nora Ephron.

Complacency Kelley McMullin

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Untitled Ayesha Syed I walked in crowded hallways with my shoulders bent in, Slowly Hesitant Even in the midst of rushing students Waiting Wondering If the insecurities in my chest will manifest on my skin and whether I will be swallowed Not by laughter and snickers Or sneers and whispering But by silence, By isolation.

If the corner I hide in will swallow me whole, Perhaps I will finally be free if not from “them� then me: My own insults And doubt And hate.

When I was in ninth grade I was walking through the halls, Lingering between the library and English wing. Like any ninth grader, I was still a little lost, not in the layout of the school but between the people around me. The kids left in the halls were unfamiliar territory and they congregated in a circle of friends, walking to class as well.

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But Six feet behind me, I hear a distinct voice from their chatter, a single shout, he says, “Allahuakbar!”

And then a chorus of laughter, the funniest quip they’ve made today! The last one liner before they need to leave for class—might as well make it worth it, right?

Allahuakbar--God is great.

God is great, God is great, God is great.

I keep it running in my head and let it bounce against the back walls of my brain until it turns into a question.

God is great, God is great, God is great...God is great?

I keep walking, forcing myself not to turn and watch their snickers fade, wondering how God can be great if He made people so cruel.

Words and actions hurt.

After ninth grade, I became the “quiet” child.

Paranoid.

I sat in classes at the edge of discussions, hesitant to share my views because I was scared.

Just the thought of someone saying something like that again sent me hiding into a corner, determined to ‘wallflower” my way through high school.

Walking in crowds exhausted my brain as I conjured up all the potential people who could do the same.

Every time I passed a group of people I assumed they were giggling about me, Every time someone as much as glanced two seconds too long in my direction, I made judgments conjure up in my own brain for them, for me.

I was upset, And frustrated And angry.

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Because with that one small remark, they did throw a bomb.

Straight into my head, and it ticks mercilessly with never ending self-doubt that manifests itself through silence.

2 years of silence.

Of isolation, Of rampant, unwanted thoughts.

Even now, my beliefs make me feel targeted, sometimes the tail end of other’s one-liners.

Words and actions hurt. Without help they become unnecessary barriers and hindrances.

But even then, Every day I put it on With 3 pins and a whole lot of patience I fold pride over my shoulder Pinning it to humility Wrapping modesty under my chin And letting all of its meaning drop onto my chest This is my hijab.

My religion.

And the ones who feel worthless enough to take pride from me What they don’t understand Is although their actions and words hurt, God has a plan, And I have faith in the thousands of good people for every one ignorant them Because Allahuakbar—God is great.

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Buddha Lauren Cauley

45

Self Portrait Brooke Pellegrini

46 46

on Me Thomas Jensen I used to have two dimples, but then one fell off.

I used to have beachy blonde hair, but then I grew up.

I’m like wind, an unstoppable force of nature that forces my nature to stop, pause, and think about who I am: whether I’ll let fears blow me to ash or allow dreams to sweep me off my feet into destiny.

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Warrior Nik Delgado

Hidden Reflection Laila B. Norford I want to see you when you remember me.

I want to see you when you can do what you want when you want, without having to please anybody.

I want to see you when you can recall the days before someone decided that ten hours of homework a night was necessary for good education.

I want to see you when you are not having to run from obligation to obligation, only managing to squeeze a complaint in between.

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I want to see you when you can smile easily and readily, and the muscles of your cheeks have learned that this, not a frown, is a relaxed position.

I want to see you when the worry worms inside your head have silenced themselves for good.

I want to see you when the bags under your eyes have disappeared, and your eyes do not have to force themselves to stay open at seven in the morning because they are closed in blissful sleep.

Caught Vikas Chelur

I want to see you when you can laugh so hard it feels like your lungs are going to implode, but you can’t stop because nothing is holding you back.

I want to see you when you no longer have to memorize that what you are staring into is a piece of aluminum-coated silicon dioxide.

I want to see you when you are free.

I know you’re in there.

Come out. Come home.

Please.

Don’t leave me again.

49 49

Taylor Geus Jungle

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marmalade stains Akanksha Kalasabail i have dreams of you and me sitting by the pine trees with our legs swinging. i’d like to think that you sing because you know i scribble down your words in a leather-bound journal with the charcoal remains of our dinner. we eat marmalade in clear mason jars and nibble on cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches, and as you close your eyes, i wish to be the wind tangled through your hair.

but twenty feet in the sky, i’m afraid of falling. you laugh and tell me we’re not too high off the ground but i can’t help looking down. i feel the light imprints of your lips against the corners of my closed eyes. we toast from the tree’s branches, marmalade sloshing onto the earth, your chatters weaving through my ears as my fingers do through yours, and as your head rests on my shoulder, i’m glad you splattered marmalade on our interlocking fingers, connecting our venae amoris.

i have dreams of you fitting your arms through linen and lace, of you walking on morning glories and petunias, of two crescent moons and my heart on your finger. we’d toast, marmalade raining onto the earth, your laughter weaving through my ears as my fingers do through your long hair, and as my head rests on your shoulder, i’d be glad i showed you the charcoal scribbles of today.

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I imagine too many fantastic futures with you.

Akanksha Kalasabail The dark circles under your sleepy eyes make me dream of 2 AM on the rooftop with a shared blanket and the stars, of you twirling me around barefoot as you transpose your silly love songs to me between unhurried kisses in the chilly moonlight.

The scar covering your right elbow makes me want to run my fingers over the bumpy skin, following the rhythms of your monotone storytelling as you stare at the cracked ceiling, eloquently drunk on the drowsy look in my eyes.

The tapping of your dancing veined fingers make me imagine The expression on your face as you lift the patterned bedsheets over our heads with the excuse of building an impenetrable fort to defend us from ghosts; Wrestling contests under the covers, your hair curling against the cotton pillow covers, Your mumbled lullabies softening as your scarred fingers weave through my cold ones.

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Torteau Fromage Isabelle Burns 53

Help Liz Shilling I am tired of creating emotional electric fences.

Pixestential Crisis Thomas Jenson

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Live Electric Dreams Elissa Wilton

midnight wake-up call Alexandra Ross silent suburbia interrupted by a single car, rushing down the street, headlights blazing, music blaring. those damn teenagers.

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Alone Jason Vassiliou

Waiting at a stoplight And, rolling up next to you, is a Volkswagen Beetle.

You turn to the seat next to you— hand raised in a tight fist— only to find an unoccupied space.

That is the moment you finally feel the burden; the weight of truly being alone.

Pierced Beauty Elise Delgado 56

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Water Concentration Leah Bernstein 58

Galeophobia Jack D’Emilio I am afraid, as in, scared, but the only problem is, other than me being scared of course, I don’t know what I’m afraid of because there is really nothing to be scared of in the first place when you think about it although I suppose you could be afraid of a shark, but the chances of anyone running into a shark are considerably small but then again, sharks are indeed terrifying just imagine it, you are one with nature as you lazily drift down to the ocean floor when there is a flash of silver and a school of fish swim by, almost close enough for you to graze your fingers on the wall of scales when suddenly, you see why they swam so close, so fast as the gaping maw of the shark envelops you like your incessant fear of oblivion and then there is nothing above, next to, or under you because there is only darkness and as you come to terms with your fate, to simply exist in this hellish landscape for the rest of time, you close your eyes and bring your knees up to your chin because you are alone and yet, you are not alone because the shark that has taken you in is just outside, as are the people you left behind and they’re searching for you, but they don’t know where to look and neither do you at this point.

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Hexaemeron Alexandra Ross the mysteries of the open ocean never terrified me so much as your hand in my own.

i didn’t wake up in a sweat from dreams of our boat crashing and sinking into the middle of the sea, but rather from dreams of your mouth crashing against mine and our bodies sinking into the mattress of your unmade bed.

my oasis was not on the beach of an island at low latitudes, nor was it the pool deck of a sixteen-story cruiseliner, but alone in the confines of our stateroom as your voice mixed with the crashing waves and lulled me to sleep.

Reflection Lauren Jiang

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The Fourth Month Alexandra Ross I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory.

The lyric filters through to my ears and hits like a punch to the gut, leaving me winded.

The truth of it is oppressive— a burden I didn’t ask to bear, bringing me back to dull periwinkle clouds and bicycle wheels as they speed across pavement; the ghosts of rain still haunting April air.

Perhaps it is these ghosts forming a weighted pit in my stomach, pushing my chest to collapse in on itself.

Perhaps it is them screaming, “YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE.” If I have a memory of death, it is here.

It is April.

It is bicycle wheels turning in circle after circle around the same dreary streets, and heavy lungs breathing in the ghosts of rain.

Repetition needs to be decreased

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Wayne Movie Theater Gianna DiAddezio

The Scent of Young Love Elissa Wilton One day my sister bought a wall scent diffuser that smelled like a boy Not like a boy himself, but what a boy would think he should want to smell like: Earthy yet professional scents like mahogany desks and coniferous scented shaving cream and freshly sawn oak trees Kind of a mix between the forest and the beach On the days my sister wore perfume the airy floral aromas would intertwine 62

Handel’s Gianna DiAddezio

with the earthen wooded scents and dance into one’s nostrils You could see the perfume and cologne sitting on a candlelit rooftop date, independent of the bodies they are fleetingly attached to Not yet in love, but courting, the perfume still wore heels that gave her blisters because she knew they made her legs look good And the cologne still fretted over the possible return of that 5 o’clock shadow Overtime the scents will get caught up in the whirlwind of their romance and then it will diffuse just like from that wall appliance But isn’t love beautiful when it’s young?

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The Angry One Danica Merrill

I’ll break my teeth on words for you and let your soft hands lay bruises on my cheeks but I know that when your number is up, you won’t leave the corner.

Bells mean nothing to someone who refuses to keep time keep away from me, baby, because in this gasoline world of mine, I’m holding a match and I don’t give a shit what happens anymore.

You think I don’t care about you?

Damn right.

I’ve got my own messes to worry about and another single weight on Atlas’s burden will snap his tree-trunk legs.

You think I’m a bitch?

I am. I know it.

And I’m sorry that you’re the one who was somehow unlucky enough to get stuck with me, I know you don’t deserve it, but I’m not willing to change and you’re not willing to leave so shack up or shut down because I don’t make choices for you.

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Crimson Soul Elise Delgado

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Rifts Grace Lanouette

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6:25 AM Kristen Kim You walk briskly down an icy roadYour heels slip in the frost and your heart lurchesIt feels as if your ribs are elastic bands in the outskirts of the elevated stage of a wrestling matchYour heart is an audience member who just got sucker punched by irrational fear, flying back against the edge of the ring, Pulling the bones of your ribcage tautAnd for a split second, your vision flies backwards andEverything.

Slows.

Down.

You open your eyes wide.

You are suspended in the sky by the tendrils of fog and warm air forced out of your lungs.

Your pupils dilate as you take in the scene above you.

The brightly lit lanterns gleam against black ink and the clipped crescent silver sliver fingernail of God begins to blur, The edges smudged and bleeding into the background like a spool of thread slowly sinking in honeyThen everything speeds up, someone hits fast forward and your head is a bowling ball dropped onto the pavement your body is 100 pounds heavier and the blacktop rushes to your head at 100 miles per hour you make impact with the ground like a boulder.

You hope no one saw you fall on your ass.

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So She’s an Artist Now? Jessica Frantzen Sorry I’m lateI was busy spraying toxic fixatives on a pastel sunset-over-the-ocean study.

Follow Your Heart Brooke Pellegrini

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On Having Curly Hair Grace Lanouette

I

was bald until I was two.

Well, not bald, technically. I had some hair – some very fine, hardly noticeable, almost

blonde hair that barely showed up in pictures. I was (nearly) bald for so long that my grandmother once asked my mom, “Is that child ever going to grow any hair?”

This question has become famous in my family.

By my third birthday I had grown a full head of thick, tightly curled hair, which refused to be tamed without forceful combing and a generous helping of hair product. And every time from then on that my mom struggled through detangling said hair before I went to bed she cursed my grandmother under her breath.

As a young child I never paid much attention to my hair. In fact, I was generally unconcerned with my appearance for the better part of twelve years, interested instead in playing in the mud, or climbing trees, or participating in other activities that required comfortable, boyish clothing and hair that I didn’t have to worry about messing up. My mom, if not annoyed then at least dissatisfied with my fashion choices, bickered with me constantly about clothing and hairstyles. She usually caved in, blow drying my hair so I could quickly pull it back and looking the other way when I preferred shorts and t-shirts to skirts and blouses (unless it was a special occasion or church, then she was a stone wall). Until the start of seventh grade I was perfectly content with perpetually messy hair and comfortable clothing, minimally concerned with the fact that some girls were already starting to wear makeup and dresses to school, to the fact that my classmates were starting to connect social status with appearance. Until seventh grade my hair wasn’t an issue – I wore it straight or curly, up or down, it made no difference

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to me. But there comes a point for most girls when appearance starts to matter. There comes a point when looking just like everyone else becomes an essential form of camouflage, necessary for survival in the jungle that is middle school. Now, this is not to make a generalization about all girls everywhere. I assume, or would like to assume, at least, that there are some girls out there who spend their entire lives perfectly happy with being themselves. Believing they exist comforts me.

I wouldn’t consider myself particularly bad looking. And looking back at old pictures of myself, I wouldn’t consider middle school me especially unattractive either. But the fact of the matter is that I look different. I was born in Oakland, California, but I went to school and spent most of my time in Berkeley until my family moved across the country right after my tenth birthday. I grew up in an area that is around 50 to 55 percent Caucasian. The area I live in now, a wealthy Philadelphia suburb, is 85 to 90 percent Caucasian. As a point of reference, the United States as a whole is 63 percent Caucasian.

As is likely apparent by now, I am not Caucasian. Not entirely, at least. My mom is African American and my dad is Caucasian, meaning that I am “kind of white”.

In other words, to white people I look mostly black and to black people I look pretty white.

My half-blackness is enough to make me look much darker than many of the kids I attend school with. It is also enough to give me hair that might as well have come from another planet.

When I was finally admitted into the world of teenage insecurities in the seventh grade the first thing I noticed was that my hair was wrong. It was too short. It was too frizzy. It was too curly. By that point my mom had already started blow drying my hair, but as anyone who has thick curly hair knows, blow drying and flat ironing are two very different things. Blow drying involves (obviously) a blow dryer and takes about twenty five to thirty minutes. Blow dried hair is frizzy. Flat ironing involves (of course) a flat iron and can take upwards of two and a half hours.

Flat ironed hair is smooth and straight. It is almost long enough and almost straight enough and almost looks like everybody else’s. I was willing to settle for almost. `I wore my hair straight to school almost every day of the seventh grade. I secretly wished my mom would let me get it relaxed, a chemical process rendering hair semi-permanently straight which would allow me to shower and swim without the unwel come curls returning. But she always dashed my silent hopes, talking about how beautiful my curls were, and how someday 71

I’d be glad for them. I would smile and agree with her while mentally counting down the days until I could get a relaxer on my own.

In eighth grade I got busier. With every day seemingly shorter than the last flat ironing my hair fell to the wayside, becoming more of an afterthought than a first priority. I allowed my hair to stay curly more and more as my self confidence grew, almost managing to forget my anxieties from the year before.

Almost.

Almost as in up until the day the boy I liked at the time said to me “I like your hair better straight. You should wear it like that more often.”

It felt like I slammed full speed into a brick wall. Just like that, my fragile self confidence was crushed.

Once again, I exaggerate for effect.

Of course, my self esteem was not entirely dismantled in that moment. However, a large part of it crumbled and I wouldn’t be able to entirely rebuild it again for almost a year.

As I write this essay, my hair is curly. Today, I wore it to school curly. Tomorrow, I will wear it to school curly. I will wear it curly until I decide to straighten it, for whatever reasons I will have at the time.

I have come to realize that there is importance in my hair far greater than anything I could have imagined as a young child. There are women standing behind me who have struggled, fought, and lost their lives to give me an opportunity to love my curly hair. There are women who continue to fight to this day to ensure that I never have to give up that opportunity. My hair is bigger than my self image - it is a representation of my heritage. It is a representation of centuries of suffering and pain and hard work and growth. It is a constant reminder of everything I can become.

There will always be a part of me that believes I am better when my hair is straight. I can’t banish the little girl in me who wants to look like everybody else – she is here to stay.

There are days I love my hair and days I don’t, in the same way there are days I’m in a good mood and days I’m definitely not. But I can happily admit that my mom’s prediction has come true: I am glad I never got rid of my curls for good.

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When I look at myself now I hardly ever see all the girls I’m not. Instead I see the girl I am. I see a girl who has learned to love the things that make her different. I see a girl who doesn’t need to change herself anymore.

Most of all, I see a girl who feels free.

And I know she is sitting up somewhere right next to the little girl who is begging me to do everything I can to fit in. I know she too is here to stay.

Blueface Pramita Mital

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30 feet in the air, Your hands are still stinging from the climb, As you lean against the trunk, With a branch bending underneath.

You dangle your fishing rod over

30 feet of freedom Sebastian Castro

A sea of leaves, With waves lulling you Into a state of serenity.

You count clouds to pass the time.

Except that time doesn’t exist anymore, And neither do you.

As playful air becomes empty space, And falling leaves become shooting stars, Your only tether

So Long Nik Delgado

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Is the tingling in your stomach.

Because not only are you somewhere else,

For Gatsby Thomas Jenson

The Jungle Ian Hay

It’s a dreary life to lead, Yet one said to have no need Because one said, “to have no need…” in his greed; And so, it is greed which succeeds.

Such wonders to possess in reaping capitalism’s excess.

Bodies twitch for the sweet caress: Alcoholic secrets and their gaudy mess.

Faces contorted in financial distress now glitter, pretentiously repressed.

Searching in fashionable emptiness, we slave, rot, for the same address, so that our gorgeous nothingness, which stresses decadent tresses of floral dresses, can revel in its callous successes: the tangle of our inextricable messes.

A flowery print stained my clothes, fatal splendor we enjoyed.

And her own: faded to tatters— yet on persists our void…

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Dear Math, I’m not a detective. Find x yourself.

I’m not a carpenter. Make your own xy table.

I’m not a lawyer. Learn all the rules (and the million exceptions) yourself.

I’m not a missionary. Convert your own fractions.

I’m not a dog. Stare patiently for an hour at your own homework page.

I’m not a criminal meeting the polygraph. Fail your own tests.

I’m not the boy who cried wolf. Do your own learning.

I’m not an army lieutenant. Take your own orders.

I’m not Nick Carraway. Sink into your own bitter disgust.

I’m not some explosively angsty teen. Yell at your own mom for no reason at the dinnertable.

I’m not Holden Caulfield. Plunge into your own depression with cigarettes and isolation and the bitter December nights.

I’m not a mathematician.

Pleadingly— I’m Thomas Jensen.

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Still Life Frank Wang 77

On Cram School Kristen Kim

N

ormally, I am against stereotypes. I’m an Asian who is pretty bad at math, sleeps in class, and whose future does not spell out lawyer or doctor. However, when it comes to certain subjects, I can’t deny the glaring truth that most Asians (east, southeast, and south Asians all included) are

birds of a feather. Certain subjects like the subject tests that juniors are expected to take. Subject tests that, in my mom’s opinion, will secure your future as fast as your hand will cramp up while you write your optional essay in 50 minutes.

In my opinion, the SATs are not that important. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t waste an entire summer practicing for some test that will be over in 4 hours. Unfortunately, as long as I am under the roof of a home that my parents pay rent for, I have no say in how I spend my summer. Thus commenced a three-month torture in a place that can only be described in three words: a Sisyphean educational hellhole.

The official word for this program is “cram school.” This particular cram school focused on increasing SAT scores in a record time of three months. It was three days a week, and it taught students many enlightening subjects and also helped develop a colorful variety of skills. Personally, I learned subjects such as: •

Talking Back 101

•

Introduction to Distracting the Class

•

Crying in Frustration in a Cramped Bathroom for Dummies, and

•

Language Composition

As for the variety of skills, they included (but were not limited to): •

Sleeping in a certain way that made it look like I was contemplating between two answers (insp. from The Thinker, by Auguste Rodin)

•

Sleeping with my eyes open

•

Rapidly and randomly filling out bubbles on scantrons (my average rate was 10 bps, or bubbles per second), and

•

Identifying the many forms of verbs My cram school was located in the outskirts of Upper Darby. Located on the second floor of a building,

it had a bright blue sign outside of it, promising brighter futures and higher scores. In order to get inside, one 78

had to climb a staircase that led directly to the lobby. This should have tipped me off from the very beginning. Narrow and steep, it was clearly a fire hazard- if 20 or so students tried to push through, half would fall to their doom. If I put my arms out on either side, I could touch the wall with no problem at all, and the stairs were about a foot tall each.

The problems didn’t end there.

Once I walked upstairs, I found that the blue sign was not actually a sign at all- it was a row of windows, tinted from the inside, obscuring the outside. As I walked through the pencil-thin hallways, I failed to find a fire alarm anywhere, and although some of the classrooms were actually storage closets with a table and ten chairs, every single one had a camera monitoring our every move. The walls were painted white, and other than the faux sign there were no other windows present in the entire building. An occasional framed picture adorned the wall. (My favorite was the one with two disembodied hands holding an open book with nothing written inside.) Some flimsy, damp A4 sheets of paper filled in the rest of the space. One said the words “No pain, no gain.” The other was a list of students who got into Ivy Leagues.

This place was not normal. The signs were all there. But like a chump, I signed my entire summer away to this Satanic prison in hopes of getting a 100 point score increase in the SATs. ...

For three months, I went to this place three times a week for eight hours each day. We sat in the same classroom all day long doing practice SAT problems, and were not allowed to go out except when we had lunch- a 30 minute period of freedom. At the beginning of each day, a man stood outside the entrance holding a cardboard box, and as you went inside you dropped your phone into it with the promise of its return eight hours later.

Throughout the weeks, we toiled, never resting, like mindless machines created to screw and unscrew one nail on a circuit board for all eternity. We filled in bubbles until the pupils of our eyes began to lose their shape and we began to question what it really meant to be alive. Hour after hour, we tracked the clock as if the minutes ticking by could offer some sort of salvation from our cold prison. One by one we fell, our morals bleeding out graphite onto SAT workbooks like wounded soldiers desperately forcing out their last breaths on a losing battlefield. Our skin began to pale and shrivel like reclusive old men chipping away at the walls of a secluded cave, never seeing the light of day- we all forgot the smell of the beach that summer.

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In the midst of this madness, there was no way for me to stay awake. It was impossible.

Additionally, because they wanted maximum suffering, the lady in charge of the program (her name was Allison,) always had the building temperature to 65 degrees. This encouraged many students to find creative ways to battle pneumonia: some wore bathrobes, some brought blankets, and as for me, I dug out thick sweaters and wore them happily throughout the entire summer. The sweater plan backfired, however, when I found that the warmth they provided combined with the droning of the teacher’s voice would lull me to a deep sleep. Like a fool, I slept almost every day, unaware of the most dangerous part of the cram school: The video cameras.

After three weeks of watching me sleep, Allison finally called me down to her office. An intern was sent to fetch me. He had to shake me awake.

“Someone wants to speak to you.” he said gravely.

“Aklsdjfh?” I replied, wiping the drool away.

I was carted out of the classroom like a shameful farm animal being led to the slaughterhouse.

When I walked into her cramped office, Allison was sitting in her chair, hands folded neatly above an enormous binder on her desk.

“Sit.” she said, with a heavy Korean accent.

I sat.

“Are you sleepy?” she suddenly asked, giving me a sweet smile.

I fell for the trap. Embarrassed but relieved, I began to reply, “Uh, yeah, actual-” “Then why don’t you sleep at home?” her smile disappeared, along with mine. “Why don’t you sleep when you’re supposed to sleep? Do you do this in school as well?”

I kept silent, and she took this as an encouragement.

Jabbing her finger into her computer screen, she barked, “I am always watching you!”

Violently, she twisted the screen towards me, watching as my face contorted in to horror at the black and white live feed of every single classroom in the cram school. Allison did not give me a chance to recover from my shock.

“Do you want to see your scores?” Her face was blank, but vaguely pleasant.

I did not want to see my scores. I had perfected filling in all the bubbles on our scantrons randomly within 3 minutes and had not done any of the online homework. I knew what my score was.

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Before I could say no, Allison opened the binder. Hands scuttling like vicious crabs, she whipped through the pages like a tornado, eyes rolling around as she skimmed through all the names to find mine. Finally, her finger triumphantly slammed down on my name.

Here.” she said smoothly. “Your score… 49%.”

I resisted the urge to laugh hysterically and cry. “Yes.” I agreed, as if we were sealing a sales deal.

“And your highest test score is a 1240. You can’t even get into Temple with this! Bye bye, Harvard!” she snapped.

I took the abuse silently. Allison was an old friend of my mom’s, so I took these lashings like I took my spicy fried chicken: mildly. Surprisingly, I felt less fear than amusement, and that day, I left the cram school half asleep and regretting my life choices. ...

I took the SATs in October. I will refrain from saying what my score was, but Allison did text me as soon as the scores came out to ask me how I did. We’re on good terms now; I visit the cram school once in a while, preparing for another SAT and an ACT in the near future. I would like to make it clear that I have nothing against Allison – if anything, I consider her to be an SAT guru of sorts. That being said, I can’t say that my life was changed due to cram school. In fact, all I will remember from that program are some of the more memorable teachers (I hated one in particular with a deep passion) and one very nice bathroom. Many people did benefit from the courses, but for me, the only lasting piece of information from that building is one that Allison told me affectionately many months ago.

“Your score… 49%.”

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Hair Braiding Presina Mottley 82

Purple Grace Lanouette I used to wish I was purple.

Red and blue seemed a prettier mix than white and black.

More patriotic I could be built out of the nation’s flag rather than a compilation of its shame, rather than split down the middle: one side resentful, one side proud.

“Is your daddy white, or are you just light skinned?”

I wish I was purple.

Black and white are not as forgiving as blue and red.

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Route 18 (Modernization of Shakespeare’s Sonnet-18) Isabelle Burns

Should I compare you to a twilight drive?

You are more certainty and more peace.

Responsibilities can only be abandoned for so long, And every road does come to an end.

Sometimes the moon falls behind, And often his protective journey is paused; And illumination fails to reach our uncertain path, By physics, or cosmic interference, unaffected; But your light never dims, Or loses sight of the possibilities in front, Or decays in the presence of an unsure direction, When drawing ever closer to a destination.

So long as responsibilities rest far, And the road continues onward.

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Forest Fire Over the Grand Canyon Ian Hay

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Not Very Funny Sebastian Castro

A burning pain shoots up your arm, Like a bullet train in your veins.

Your forearm hangs limp, Dead for 14 seconds.

“Funny bone?”

The initial shock rattles you, And you can only screech in response.

Got Milk?

Isabelle Burns maybe if you had more calcium in your diet, you wouldn’t have snapped so easily.

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Violet Chachki Brooke Pellegrini 87

My Least Favorite Liz Shilling

M

y least favorite part about any week is Thursday.

Thursday is the day that I have to peel my sweaty layers off of my throbbing body, take each meticulously placed pin out of my bun, and drag myself out of the studio and into the

grocery store instead of going home. On most days, I eat my meals at the studio because it’s already paid for and Laurie tells me exactly what to do. I have my daily weigh in before my meal, and although I always feel too heavy no matter how many pounds grace me, if I weigh my usual 119 lbs at 5’9”, Laurie tells me I’m doing a great job. She proceeds to tell me the right amount of food to eat and what kinds of nutrients and vitamins will be good for me that day. Unfortunately, I need food in my apartment to continue living, so I have to go get my groceries on Thursdays.

Brooklyn Fare on 6th street is packed, but it’s 5:23 p.m. in Manhattan so there’s no reason I should be surprised. If I really stopped to think about it, I’m not surprised at all, but what I am instead is tired, and there are far too many people in this store for my liking right now.

It’s December, so I’m wearing my parka, and my earmuffs, and my scarf, to shield my small frame from the piercing cold of the wind tunnel created by the number of colossal buildings that crowd the city.

Upon entering the store, I’m hit with a waft of warm air that’s sickening; I have never regretted such heavy layers as much as I do now. Somehow the store seems quieter than the outside bustle, but I know that can’t be true. After a few moments, my ears adjust, and a headache ensues.

I grab a basket, and proceed.

If I grabbed a cart instead, I would probably buy things that I can’t have and Laurie would kick my ass. I have to eat just around 1400 calories a day or else, she always warns me. But she really doesn’t have to. I know what ‘else’ means. ‘Else’ means no dancing, no partnering; ‘Else’ means I get yelled at.

‘Else’ means I get fired, because if ‘else’ happens, I wasn’t beautiful enough.

Who ever heard of a fat ballerina?

In my basket, there is a case of electrolyte water (the tropical fruit kind), one tomato (no more than one, because of the acid), one half gallon of milk (skim, of course), three bananas (potassium), and six Gala apples. I don’t like Gala apples, but most fruits have too much sugar in them and aren’t very filling, so this is my safest bet. I also have seven peanut butter protein bars that usually constitute my lunch, and six bags of rice.

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Suddenly, I remember the red dress I wore as a child, with white polka dots.

Sometimes I look at food and I don’t care that I can’t have it, but sometimes I care a lot. Tonight, it is the Pop Tarts.

It is usually the Pop Tarts.

Usually, I wore something simple like a jumper or some shirt pant combination much too fancy for a playsuit That day was picture day, and I had on my little red dress with white polka dots. When Mom came into the kitchen, fastening pearls into her ears with the click, click, click of her boots on the ground, she let out an exasperated sigh. It had chocolate stains on it from my Hot Fudge Sundae Pop Tarts that I had eaten for breakfast. Dad thought it was so funny, but Mom didn’t. He would laugh til tears came to his eyes, and then he would pick up his briefcase and leave out the door of our apartment while Mom yelled something about Nordstrom’s and how it was his money you know, not hers, going down the drain!

And then of course, there were the days after school in junior high when I would eat them as an afternoon snack before my ballet classes started at 4 p.m. I was wearing beat up converse and jeans that hung loosely on my thinning waist. My shirt was two sizes too big, and at this point I resembled a human coat hanger more than a teenage girl. Mom would walk in from watching some soap opera in her room and remind me, ever so disdainfully, that I shouldn’t be eating those, or else, because I’ll be fat you know, and dance is the only thing I have going for me so I had better be careful.

But my Pop Tarts were so delicious, and I was so young. That had to be 10 years ago by now. My parents were young too. I wonder if they remember the Pop Tarts.

When I come back to reality, a heavyset child is jumping adjacent to me, desperately trying to reach for the S’mores flavor that is just out of his reach. I realize I’ve probably been staring at 75 boxes of Pop Tarts for at least three minutes now. I reach my spindly arm up just above my chest, and hand him the box he’s been jumping for. He beams. He doesn’t say thank you, he doesn’t say anything, actually, he just runs back to his full cart and plops the box right in.

It is now 5:38 p.m. on a Thursday in the middle of Brooklyn Fare in the middle of Manhattan. In my basket, there is electrolyte water, one tomato, one half gallon of milk, three bananas, six Gala apples, seven peanut butter protein bars, six bags of rice, and one box of Hot Fudge Sundae Pop Tarts.

I don’t like Gala apples, but I do like Pop Tarts.

Sorry, Laurie.

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Monochromatic Car Caroline Buck

The Car Liz Shilling The car is red. It sits outside my apartment on 18th Street covered in fallen damp leaves of sunburst and sepia and it sits alone, parked between the Aspen tree and the crack in the sidewalk.

At precisely 6:03 every morning, while the sun is still stretching its fingers over the tallest buildings of the city, I hear its engine rumble as I brush my teeth. When I walk downstairs and look through my keyhole, it is gone. When I return from work at 8 pm every evening, it is always there covered in fallen damp leaves of sunburst and sepia and it sits alone. I have never seen the owner.

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In the winter, when the sun sleeps in and I am curled too tightly in the warmth of my comforter to get out of bed on time, I can hear ice being scraped off the windshield at exactly 5:57 am. At 6:03, its engine gurgles and starts, and I hear it roll away from its spot between the now naked Aspen and the ice filled crack in the sidewalk.

One day, when it was sleeting sideways and barely anyone ventured out of their homes, I heard the car being towed away at 6:00 am. I left for work with the car gone--An empty hole in my world where the car used to be. When I returned home from work, the car was there again. I have never seen the owner.

It is during the spring that things begin to change. The car is red. It sits outside my apartment on 18th Street covered in pollen and flower petals pink as shepherd’s delight and it sits alone, parked between the Aspen tree and the growing crack in the sidewalk. In the springtime the car jolts to a start at 5:37 am. I don’t hear it return until I’m brushing my teeth for bed, always at 8:00 pm.

Tonight is special. It is springtime and I have decided to be adventurous. The thought of viewing the owner of the car never really crossed my mind until tonight, which is odd, but tonight feels different. I know the exact time of its departure and return, yet, I’ve never stopped to view the driver.

Tonight it is 6:58 pm and I am standing by my window staring down onto 18th Street waiting for the headlights of the red car to signify that it is time, toothbrush in hand. Toothpaste is falling from the corners of my mouth, but I stand straight and focused, watching.

At 7:00 the car pulls into the spot between the Aspen tree and the crack in the sidewalk. The driver’s door opens; I take a breath. No one comes out, but the driver’s door shuts immediately, and the headlights go out.

The the tail lights flash, as if someone locked the car.

The car is red. It sits outside my apartment on 18th street covered in pollen and flower petals pink as shepherd’s delight and it sits alone, parked between the Aspen tree and the crack in the sidewalk. I have never seen the owner.

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92

Water Concentration Leah Bernstein

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Who Am I?

I

have no idea where to start with writing this except to say that I am really scared to put it on paper.

I’m scared that somebody might find this, scared that somebody who doesn’t know me well, or who does, might read this, scared that what I’m writing about will define who I am. The thing I’m most

scared of is the labeling, especially with a label that generally has such a negative connotation. It’s not that I hate labels, a lot of labels are good. And most labels aren’t definitions; they aren’t necessarily the first things you think of when you look at a person. But this one label is different. This one label often defines who you are before any others. This one label is often the first thing a person thinks of when they think of you. When I think of this label, I think of how much I must change in my life. I think of the things I miss out on, childhood fantasies I can’t have, and most of all, I think about who I am now, now that I have consciously given myself this label.

I am gay.

I don’t know how long I’ve known. It has probably been a subconscious thought for years, that I’ve always liked guys deep down, but ignored those thoughts because I was supposed to. When I think about it, I can think of guys I had crushes on as far back as fifth grade. Of course, I couldn’t identify them as crushes. I didn’t even know what gay meant. All I knew was it wasn’t a good thing. Growing up in middle school, I would hear “that’s so gay” and “stop acting gay” almost daily. I heard it when I hugged a friend. I heard someone say it to describe a turtle. I even heard it from my friend when I said “hi” to a teacher in the hall between classes. I saw the word gay written all over bathroom stalls and in YouTube comments, and every time I saw the word, I knew that the author wrote it to insult and hurt. It only took a few weeks for me to figure out that gay is something that you don’t want to be, that you shouldn’t be.

But I am. I am gay.

The first time I truly recognized that I was gay was when I realized I had a crush on a guy in ninth grade. He sat next to me in French class, and I just remember thinking he was really cute. I couldn’t get past that in my mind. Every day, sitting next to him, I would try to figure out why I liked him, why I didn’t like the girl sitting in front of me, or the girl sitting across the room, or any girl for that matter. This wasn’t who I was supposed to be. I wasn’t supposed to like him like this. I wasn’t supposed to stare into his eyes, or admire his hair, or love his smile. I wasn’t supposed to compliment his French accent, or think about how to tell him that his dimples were cute in the least creepy way possible. He kept me up at night.

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Me in 3 Nik Delgado

He should have been a girl. But he was a boy. And for some reason, I liked him, and only him. Two months later, the thought occurred to me. The thought that I’m different from all of my friends. That I don’t like girls. That I like boys. That I might actually be gay.

That I am gay.

I am gay. The moments leading up to the first time I muttered those three words were the scariest moments of my life. The moments following were the most relieving. And I wasn’t even planning on saying those three words that night. I never imagined that the first time I came out to another person would be outside of a port-a-potty at a camping ground next to the United States Military Academy at 11 at night. But the moment was right.

It was in the spring of my sophomore year, just a few days after my 16th birthday. We were on a Boy Scout camping trip in West Point, New York where we would tour the military academy. There were 95

easy. We arrive, set up our tents, hang out and at some point, we go to sleep. If you were to walk around, you’d typically find the youngest scouts fighting over something stupid- for example who got the leftover Oreos that night- and the older scouts playing card games, or trying hopelessly to hide their cell phones.

I was in the card playing group that night, approaching that last round of BS where everyone just yells BS as a joke. We were tired of the card game, but we had a lot of time to kill, so we just kept playing. At some point, one of my friends asked me if I wanted to go on a walk with him.

I assumed he just needed to go to the bathroom, and that he needed a buddy to travel the 2 football fields away to where there was a line of 20 portable toilets. We walked and talked for a while. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about - probably school, or scouts - but there was an audible shake in his voice. I didn’t think much of it at first, but it got worse as we talked. Finally, as we approached the port-a-potties, he quickly interrupted me.

“I have something to tell you.”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“You know what I said in the tent earlier?”

“I don’t remember. What’s up?” …

“It’s true.”

“What?” …

“I am gay.” …

“I guess I should tell you that I’m gay too.” …

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

The shake was now audible in my voice, and visible in my entire body. Without thinking about it that much, I had just shared my deepest secret for the first time. I had just revealed the person that I was – that I am – for the first time. I had just uttered the scariest words anyone can utter. He went to the bathroom, and while he was in there, I started crying. I frantically wiped the tears from my eyes, thinking that if he came back and saw me crying, he might think I regretted the decision to tell him.

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The next morning, I did regret the decision. As we were getting ready to go, he came to me and said that what he told me the previous night wasn’t true. When I heard that, I was furious. In fact, furious would be an understatement. He had manipulated me into telling him the most private detail of my life, my biggest insecurity. I told him that what he did was awful, I called it a dick move, called him a dick.

I hated him. I hated what he did to me. I remember wanting to push him in front of a bus, or into the blades of one of the USMA Apache Helicopters that constantly flew overhead. I wanted to know why – Why did he lie to me? Why would he pretend to be gay and come out so seriously? – In the months that followed, I tried asking him. I tried calling him, texting him, messaging him, but there was never a response.

I just wanted an answer.

I got my answer almost two months later, at summer camp.

“Do you remember what I told you at West Point?”

“Yeah.”

“It was true.”

“Oh, Ok.” I still don’t know why he tried to take it back, why he tried to go back in the closet after he came out to me. I haven’t asked him about it, nor has he brought it up. I learned to eventually forgive him for trying to retract what he said. Maybe he was as shocked as I was that night, and was scared of what would happen after coming out. Maybe the adrenaline died later and the fear set in. Maybe after he faced the reality, he wanted to go back to not having to face it. Once the words are said, it’s hard to take them back. There’s no way to go back to hiding who you are. But you can try. And he did. But in talking with him since then, I have confirmed that the three words apply to him. He is gay. And so am I. I am gay.

I’ve probably only said it about fifteen times. Each time I say it, it becomes a little easier. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to say. It’s just three words, three syllables, six letters, but the hardest six letters to put together in sequence and say. I’ve said it in person, on the phone, on snapchat, and now in an essay.

Each time, I listen to “Same Love” by Macklemore. Each time, I have second thoughts as I am about to say it. Each time, I try to think of a different way to say it. Each time it comes out the same way. I am gay.

Every time I even think about saying these three words, it brings up endless possibilities of potential outcomes. What if they want to abandon our friendship? Or if they decide to “out” me to others? The hardest decisions in my life so far haven’t been where 97

to apply to college, or how to do something for school, or scouts, but rather deciding who I trust with knowing this detail about me. And right now, I don’t think I can even trust my own family.

The thing that scares me most when I think about the possibility of coming out to my family is the fact that I already know their opinions on it now. I know what they say about LGBT rights, about out public figures, and about friends that I tell them are gay. They think of it as more of a choice than a state of being. It’s painful to know that the people that I love most would think of me with the same standards as drug dealers and alcoholics if they knew the true me.

What I wish I could tell them is that I didn’t choose to be gay. While I accept who I am, if I were given the choice, I don’t think I would have chosen to be gay. I wouldn’t have chosen to be different, or to put a label on myself that many would rather die than have, that sometimes I would rather die than have. But this label is part of who I am. It’s agonizing keeping this secret from my family, and I know it can’t last forever. And as scared as I am of the day I come out to my family, it’s the day that I look forward to most. It’s the day that I can finally be who I am.

My friends have asked me what it’s like to be in the closet, what it feels like to get ready to come out to somebody, what it’s like to hide your true self from the rest of the world. The truth is, the analogy of a closet is perfect. It’s like living in a closet, shielding yourself from what is on the other side of the closet door. But at the same time, you have no idea what is on the other side. You can sometimes get an idea from your other senses, but you’ll never be able to see it. Until you open that closet door, you have no idea how you’ll be received.

Sometimes, you realize that there was never anything to worry about. The house is safe, everyone is there for you, ready for you, and your life is easy. The house seems like it’s pretty much the same as the closet, but less claustrophobic, you come out, breathe a sigh of relief and continue with your life. Other times, you come out to a burning house being burglarized by armed robbers during an earthquake, and your best bet is to get out of the house and see if there’s a fireman or someone who can help you, if you can even make it that far. It’s never the same house again, and you lose a lot in the carnage. So far, each time I’ve opened that closet door, I’ve come out to an ordinary house, but each time, I expect a burning building.

For me, I fear that burning building. I fear that being gay will define who I am. That after I come out, people won’t see me for who I am, but for who I like. I am so much more than a three-letter label, but too often, people look at that three-letter label as the biggest label, and overlook the other ones. I fear the prejudice, the stereotypes, the expectations and norms. While I have learned to accept who I am, I also know that there are a lot of people who can’t accept me. Maybe one day 98

everyone will be able to accept me. Maybe I won’t have to live in hiding. Maybe one day, instead of just mumbling the three words, I will be able to shout it from a rooftop as loud as I can. Maybe one day I won’t even have to say the three words at all. I don’t want to keep hiding myself. I don’t want the fear, or the hurt. I just want to be who I am.

I am gay.

Afloat Thomas Jensen 99

ADULTS

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Illuminations (1984) and Illuminations (1992) 101

A Farmer’s Market in Pennsylvania Lara Liu For Allen Ginsberg For the oldest farmer’s market in America, there aren’t too many people in the parking lot.

But when we enter (a blind and deaf man wouldn’t have known the difference – heat still drips down on us all), a wave of coarse consumerism crashes into our conch-shell cochleas.

Plastic-ed cookies, breads, scones, donuts, are all lined up for purchase. And if they aren’t bought by closing time? It’s into the landfills for you, my sweets. Oh, the charm of my America – what about yours, Walt Whitman? Would those CUCUMBERS – PEPPERS – TOMATOES interest you? Look at the stacks of neon fruit jams or the juice bottles propped on ice, or the vase of peacock feathers next to the sunflowers.

My America is where an entire world of nature fits into a one-story building with no air conditioning.

Dear Walt Whitman, if only you could see this!

Whole families shopping in the morning!

And you, strolling through the crowd like this store was your plot of land – Did you see that hut of penumbras with the dangling stars?

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Or that woman, propping her pixie cut on a tattooed arm, selling soy candles? If you were here, Walt Whitman, you would go for the baby plants first.

What price petunias? Who killed the kale? Angels would be out of the question here (or anywhere, now). We would go up to that little balcony overhang and watch the sheep move to their slaughter in the labyrinth of stalls.

And down below, where the whoopee pies are (white and brown and pink and green fillings), we would see two little sisters rubbing noses, Eskimoes at ease under the dripping heat.

Untitled Emily Fromhage

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Untitled Brooke Pellegrini Moth Dude

Remission Brooke Pellegrini My grandmom tried to convince us that my dad got cancer because he had an electric blanket.

We told her we were pretty sure that it was because he used to work in a nuclear power plant.

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Wet Impressions Thomas Jenson

Did they like me, did they not?

No help from their “promising” winks.

My uncertainty flushed into panic, rusting till rupture an armor’s chink.

Salt stained my cheeks even after my escape from that vile rink; home: far from their arena that required the failure to impress through which I blinked.

Yet, hands gently removed from the grimy kitchen sink wrapped themselves round me and promised, still wet, I love you—no matter what they think.

Then the sun lulled in yellow, humid haze died softly, clean in pink.

Untitled

Yes, we rest in paradise— or at least somewhere on the brink.

Chloe Rountree

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XOXO Danica Merrill Doctor’s orders, sweetheart. Better keep your thoughts inside your dainty little head before someone gets hurt.

It won’t be me.

Better count stitches amongst stars to ease your anesthesia dreams; you’ll need your rest to win the race against that morphine IV roar.

Don’t forget to brush your teeth before you go to bed. And make sure to keep on flossing— If it makes you feel better.

I’ve heard you’ve got a sweet tooth, so you should watch your back. I think that tooth rot’s not the color for your gorgeous pearly grin.

It was nice to see you, but I had best be off. Take care to take your pills.

Let’s hope they’re sugar more than spice.

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Untitled Kate Hudson

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Firenze Laura Liu

Embers of Regret Jessica Frantzen Come one, come all, to witness the downfall of the seemingly-insurmountable honeymooner!

Watch in amazement as he scrambles to scorch sneaker-raised feet on fresh Hawaiian embers!

Feel the suspense when he ignores the calls to reason resonating from every direction!

Trust me, folks, you won’t be able to look away when his steel will crumbles to ashes, His pearl-tooth grin turns sour and reveals a blistering lava flow of choice vocabulary, And the once-plush cushions of his toes mingle with the embers of his brethren’s regret!

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The Quarter-Past-Three Song Anna Donahue Ring no bells of joy Instead those of betrayal!

Ring those that shout! Ring those that scream!

Their tones lament and weep.

Ring out at the sacred places, Ring out in city streets!

Their many mouths cry out for us, With steely fury vouch for us!

Ring no bells of celebration Or bells of raucous laughter.

Shut them away, the tainted things, And ring the bells of rage!

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Untitled Script Jack D’Emilio

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FADE IN:

EXT. ???

In the middle of a desert in an unknown location, a sinkhole stretches into the ground and, inexplicably, toward oblivion.

INT. HELL Our valiant hero, HERO, has just stumbled upon LUCIFER himself in the heart of hell, LUCIFER’S most secret hideaway. HERO’S journey has lead him here, where he now plans to do battle with LUCIFER. HERO arrives in Hell, where he discovers LUCIFER in a bathrobe.

HERO Prepare thee, beast! I have journeyed across mountainous ranges, the seven seas, and every valley from here to the horizon in search of your despicable visage! The power of the Holy Spirit rages on within me, and it calls for your blood! I will vanquish you, even if I must do it during my final breath!

(beat)

LUCIFER Ah shit, dude, that was...that was like, a LOT, man.

HERO Do not attempt your feeble mind games on me, scoundrel!

LUCIFER Yeah no, man, I like really JUST woke up so it’s alright.

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HERO (lunging with sword) PREPARE THEE, MONSTER!

LUCIFER (taking it directly in the shoulder) AH JESUS CHRIST

HERO (bounding back and forth after his minor victory) Had enough yet, thou foul monstrosity?

LUCIFER (after being immediately healed) Yeah, oh man, you got me. I guess I gotta let you go then. I mean, uh (LUCIFER releases a violent screech that could chill the bones of the Lord Himself) I am slain, fair hero. Bid thee well while I lick my wounds like the, uh, fated dog I am. Thou hast slain me so good, I am so very beaten. By thee.

O. (LUCIFER coughs) See ya, bud. (beat)

HERO What?

LUCIFER What?

HERO 112

Is that it?

LUCIFER Yep that’s just...that’s just all the fight I got in me, man, for real. You, uh...you did it.

HERO I really don’t feel like I did a lot.

LUCIFER Yeah no you definitely did! For sure! Yeah! You really showed me. I mean just look at what you di-oh man!

(LUCIFER removes his own arm to give the illusion that HERO did some semblance of damage)

HERO Wait but--you--you just took it--I--dude.

LUCIFER (releasing another deafening screech) Next time, man--uh--mortal! I shall have thouest scalp! To eat it! After (LUCIFER smashes his hands together, unable to articulate just what it is he means) aaaagh!

HERO So really, I’m just gonna go? That’s all? I, like, definitely remember where this cave is too, I can reveal the big secret and like--I don’t know I just feel like there should be more to this.

LUCIFER Can you just...

(LUCIFER massages his temples, right under their twisted horns) I really don’t wanna still be having this conversation right now.

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HERO Hey, man, I’m just trying to understand over here. Like, it’s not crazy that I feel this right? I feel like this is justified on my end.

LUCIFER (Tenderly) Listen, I know you probably blew this all up in your head. I

get it. But I

just think that there’s some demon out there who you could make really happy. I mean, really happy. Just look at you. You’re like a demigod, I mean, Jesus, man! (tense beat as HERO considers this shift in tone)

Aw no come on...

LUCIFER I mean it!

(Silence as the two share glances at each other, sheepily, giggling slightly)

HERO So--

LUCIFER I could call you an Uber?

HERO What?

LUCIFER Lyft may be more prominent in this area actually.

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HERO Wait but I thought(The two hold a lingering stare, wistful, and in a way, loving)

LUCIFER It’s not you, it’s me.

HERO Wow.

LUCIFER I just really need to work on myself right now.

HERO Wow.

LUCIFER Listen, I--

HERO This is just really not how I saw my day going.

LUCIFER You’re right...you deserve someone better than me.

(HERO closes his eyes and slowly looks down at the ground, releasing a quiet breath)

LUCIFER I just...I just don’t feel that spark. We’re on two different paths right now.

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(HERO bites his lip and looks back up at LUCIFER)

HERO So this is it, then?

(A notification pops up on LUCIFER’S iPhone, playing “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” as it comes through)

LUCIFER That’s your Lyft.

(EXIT HERO. Almost immediately after HERO’S exit, in the same location. Our second valiant hero, HERO #2, bursts into LUCIFER’S lair.)

HERO #2 Prepare thee, beas-

LUCIFER Son of a bitch.

(END SCENE)

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Skull 117

Retrogression Grace Cancelmo

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Refugee Anna Kovarick “Sir,would you have any bread to spare?”

An imploring hand tugs on my avacado salwar kameez. I whirl around to face the detestable beggar but meet the facade of a young refugee. Acircular face with almondshaped eyes inquires me silently. A curtain of murky, strawlike hair jets out from underneath a trodden Milky Way embedded in her olive hijab. The sparkling scarf trails towards the ground where ten greedy toes scrape at the earthen floor. A cobalt dress engulfed in little flowers hangs off her shrunken frame, limp and unappealing.

Four square gems encrust her neckline, threads working loose from a mother’s careful stitching. The diffident girl’s russet eyes catch my own again as I remember her question and how it dripped with melancholy and hope.

I yank my now soiled salwar kameez from between her grimy, diminutive fingers. Her almond eyes drown in pools of tears.

“Pay for it yourself,” I spat, turning my back on the filth behind me. I walked away, leaving a poor creature to stand alone and hungry in the streets of Islamabad.

Author’s note: This short story is based on the actual treatment of refugees in Pakistan who are often harassed and exploited daily. Most refugees live in slums and are generally not accepted into society.

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Kate in a Dream Hui-Yi Kuo

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insomnia Sara Oliver I don’t know why I thought I’d be able to sleep In the city that never does.

Watercolor Frank Wang 121

(Cross)words to Say I Love You

C

Akanksha Kalasabail

austic, stinging, or bitter in nature, speech, behavior, etc. 11 letters Acrimonious. Used to be Debby’s favorite word. Debby, the damn hypocrite. The only

thing more bitter than her tongue was the food she made. Yet, he often found himself loi-

tering by the telephone, almost as if he could hear still her amused rumblings through the receiver— He scribbled the letters in quickly, the soft lead crumbling onto the gray paper. He swiped them away grumbling. Enough of that woman. He wouldn’t think of her now, especially now that he didn’t have to.

The inability to feel pleasure from activities usually found enjoyable. 9 letters.

Anhedonia. What he felt around women, especially Debby.

He chuckled.

The traditional dress of Han Chinese people before the Qing dynasty. 5 letters.

He tapped his chin. He remembered that Debby had worn one once. It draped over her shoulders like milk and honey running down marble. He couldn’t stop gliding his fingers over it, and she wouldn’t stop him. It was their honeymoon, and she most definitely taught him something about Chinese heritage.

He blushed and hastily scrawled Hanfu.

Greatly saddened at being deprived by death of a loved one. 8 letters.

He stared at the letters. The ink started to blur with the surrounding white space. All that empty space. All that lonely space. How did it feel sitting next to spaces coated with ink, spaces that would be filled for as long as it would be alone? He told himself he was fine with the space, “a bachelor pad, I guess”. He didn’t want a cramped apartment.

Just her. He just wanted her.eeded to get a grip. He scribbled Bereaved, making the letters as large as possible.

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He needed to get a grip. He scribbled Bereaved, making the letters as large as possible.

He stood up, stretching his foot. He’d better take a break. Scratching his neck, he started to amble to the kitchen. Realizing too late that he had forgotten his dark wooden cane, he felt himself falling.

The last time he saw Debby, she was dying. The hospital bed made her look so weak. He squeezed her hand so tightly, just as hard as she smiled at him.

Maybe, she said, this is the end.

He told her not to be so logical in discussing opinions, 11 letters.

She chuckled. Dialectical.

He was falling slowly.

Unrelated Harmony Hui-Yi Kuo

123

Verona Locks Rachel Burger

124

The watercolor and pen and ink piece is from my 12-piece concentration, titled, Cinematic Moments. These moments are based on real events in my life that felt dreamy, perfectly sound, and romantic in nature. I based my drawing off of the picture attached, of locks that I found in a cardboard box sitting below the balcony of Romeo and Juliet in Verona, Italy. The picture was taken in July 2015, and the watercolor was done this year, 2017.

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Athena 126

Artemis

Hui-Yi Kuo

127

SENIORS

Ninsun (1972) and Ninsun (1970) 128

129

All Saints Day

by Grace Lanouette

When she started dying the sky sobbed And the everything got wet.

It was the first cold day in weeks Below freezing that morning.

The frost crept up my legs Through the veins in my feet Up my torso and through my ribs, Into my heart and lungs.

I froze from the inside out.

The world was silent for days.

Even the cardinals could grasp what was happening: An angel was packing her bags.

She was going home.

The heavens would soon open wide, Ready for her long awaited homecoming.

Down here it will never be so bright again.

It was selfish of me to think she could stay.

I should have known that something so good Doesn’t belong around things so bad.

She was more than we deserved She gave too much and expected too little.

Of course one day she would have to leave.

I visited her one last time before she left.

She was asleep, A machine was breathing for her.

I watched the lines on the monitor paint a picture I didn’t understand To keep my eyes off the tubes feeding life into her.

She was frail enough to break in a light breeze.

I crumpled and joined the sky.

I was numb all the way home, My fingers didn’t respond When I squeezed them to stop myself from separating.

Lakes grew on the sleeves of my sweatshirt Full enough to flood the world.

I tried to drown myself in them, But it isn’t that easy.

She stayed a few days in her hospital bed, Call it nostalgia.

Her soul sat and stared out the window.

She watched the world pass.

She had trouble saying goodbye She had a million things left to do The world’s most dedicated servant.

When she died a light went out.

I promptly lost the switch.

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Old Woman Sarah Woods

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Hubert

Rhian Lowndes

H

ubert had spent too much time at funerals.

He was currently observing that of his aunt Ariel. She had been a kind woman and the sun

only shone as bright as the smile on her face. That’s what Hubert’s father had always said.

There was merit to the idea—the day Uncle Archibald didn’t make it home from the precinct was thick gray and the river flooded the Old Bridge—and Hubert often carried an umbrella when he knew aunt Ariel was feeling down. He wasn’t sure if he should bring one to the funeral.

He’d been to a memorial just two weeks beforehand for his old college girlfriend, Celeste Vasser, with whom he’d kept in touch after she married his parent’s pool boy. Her eyes had met Dustin’s across the inflatable lounge chair, and right then and there Hubert knew he would be out done by a sun kissed six-pack and a bumper sticker that read “My Basset Hound is a Rescue Dog”. He didn’t mind; she used to steal his pens anyway. He dropped a red one in her coffin as he looked on the chlorine damaged hair draped elegantly around her head.

A few neighbours, a little boy’s goldfish, his doctor: these had all filled the gap between his most recent personal losses and the ones that now felt stale. He remembered each and every one of them though.

Eli Derby had passed away shortly after sticking a note on the fridge reminding him to “tell Hubert about SS call”. For days Hubert had hoped SS stood for Susanne Sanchez, the girl he’d had a crush on all through high school, but when Social Security sent him a FINAL NOTICE he gave up hope.

Eli had introduced himself with a note, and post-its were a constant presence from second grade to the second year of graduate school. Hubert penned a short but meaningful poem on a note the day of Eli’s funeral, one that he would read aloud to the friends and family, but when he spotted Susanne across the crematorium he scrawled a thank you across it and dropped it in Eli’s urn.

Five years prior he’d attended Uncle Archibald’s funeral. Hubert’s father had lost all his produce in the flood, and Ariel told him it served him right for opening a grocery store next to the Old Bridge.

That was the only time Hubert ever heard her say anything mean. Uncle Archibald used to visit that store and buy Fig Newtons twenty-six times a year (twice a month and an extra two times around Christmas). He was laid to rest in his police uniform with a locket belonging to his mother.

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Hubert tore open a packet of Fig Newtons his father had found on a high shelf and passed it around the cortège. When Hubert was a senior in high school his science teacher died while on vacation in Maui. It was a Catholic school, and they held a service just for students and faculty to attend.

Mr. Ives taught Hubert’s least favorite class, but was by far the funniest, merriest man he had ever met. He began the school year with an experiment testing how long his colleagues would put up with having broken bits of chalk pelted at them from the classroom window before reporting Ives to the school chair (Hubert followed suit when he began teaching years later, but found his workplace less forgiving of such behavior). All the school joined in on a chalk-fight after the mass until every piece of Mr Ives’s used chalk had been smashed or lost among the bushes.

Throughout his childhood, Hubert had mourned the deaths of many relations that he never really knew. The elderly seemed to fall as a product of logging, line after line of great, old trees hitting the forest floor, and yet the first funeral among so many still felt shocking.

Marjorie Huxtable passed away in her sleep between the hours of three and ten in the morning.

Hubert knew that Nanny Huxtable never slept past seven and he could have sworn he’d heard her walking toward the bathroom at five, so he had to conclude that Nanny Huxtable died around six. There was no tea with breakfast that day, and when Hubert tried to make some he burned his little hands, and his father was late to work because he had to bandage them. Nanny Huxtable still hadn’t come downstairs when Hubert’s father left. Hubert had to tie his shoelaces in big thick knots because he didn’t know how to do the bunny-ear method, and Nanny Huxtable was usually there to help him before school. His shoes flopped off his heels as he made his way up the carpeted staircase to her room. He knocked and carefully peeked around the door, to see a big, long lump under the covers, and thin greying hairs across the pillows. The curtains were closed and the room was warm, cosy. He said her name, said it louder, and jumped on the bed because she always wrapped him in a tight, mothball-scented hug when he woke her up because he was her little bear because he was just as small and cute as a cub because he was so sweet and so little. Her mouth was slack and there was a little stain of drool on her pillow and she did not wake up. The funeral was two days later and there was no family in attendance, just Hubert and his father and good old aunt Ariel.

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Bad Habits Nina Bernick

knuckles Isabelle Burns

sore bones pushing against the confinements of tightly stretched skin forming nearly symmetrical bumps visible to the outside as tops diluted red with the spattering of blood gathering under the surface waiting to be relieved by the splitting of skin braced on either side by ridges capped with rings of white resembling the spiked tips of a foaming sea after a particularly nasty storm hovering messily above divots pulsating with the sort of sickly warmth found only after contact between skin and an utterly unmoving object

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why’d you punch a wall, bud?

Untitled Jack D’Emilio Grandpop is big.

His hands are bound as tight as leather, just as strong, and his smile, while removable, is as blinding as a pickup truck’s headlights.

His hair is colored like the stars and full, swept but not slicked, and he speaks a kind of Italian dialect you can’t learn from any textbook.

His eyes sparkle, like all of the best eyes do.

Everything about Grandpop is big.

When he died, Grandpop was small.

Grandpop had never been small before.

Hands still firm.

Smile less frequent but still glowing.

Old Man Madeline Alwine

Dialect still living on.

Hair still full and colored like diamonds.

Eyes still sparkling like they always had.

But Grandpop was small.

Hands letting go.

Smile burning out.

Dialect turning to a whisper.

Hair growing loose.

Eyes sparkling.

His eyes would never stop sparkling.

Grandpop is big.

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Kayoung Danica Merrill It is a blue and yellow afternoon, and the blob of colors in the sky melts down to molten malachite, mixing to form stoic trees lining a quiet grove. Thick carpeting of slender grass spreads out across the forest floor, seeming to inch upwards second by second in the buttery dappled light.

In the middle, a pink girl lays on her back.

Everything about her is peachy. From her bubblegum hair to rose-tinted face to the pale white-blush of her dress. Her eyelids are petals folded down, yet radiance escapes from her. She seems to glimmer, appears to glint, as if her very core emits a soft wash of particles—the foamy swell of dawn.

At the edge of the clearing, a slim tawny doe nudges her way into view. She and she, two breathing beings, hold presence in one small pocket of space—outside the clutter of time. Their auras meet.

There is: a peaceful sigh, a tiny puff of air as a door gently swings shut, the subtle tailwind of a love note fluttering to the floor. Nothing more.

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Banana Watercolor Kelley McMullin

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Old Age Kayoung Kim

C

Generations Nina Bernick

hristmas in Canada was less festive and exciting than what I expected it to be. There was no fancy dinner, no singing by the fireplace— just reruns of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and a radio playing music quietly in the background. My family stayed in my

aunt’s house for one day, planning to drive back the day afterwards. We really only went for the awkward family dinners, talking to people we hadn’t seen in a year and eating ham silently. This year’s dinner was particularly empty, as a couple of family members couldn’t make it. Three of my cousins and their respective families joined my aunt and uncle, a gathering of 15 or so people milling around with a glass of wine in each of their hands. My 97 year old grandpa joined the party as well, sitting silently on the couch while watching TV. As my mom and aunt prepared dinner, I sat around, talking to a couple of people but never holding a particularly long conversation. Some conversations, like the one with my cousin (who was 30 years older than me and had a wife and a kid), were just uncomfortable and sad. He approached me with a bottle of beer in his hand, sitting down

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in a rickety chair. I braced myself for the awkwardness that was to come.

Pretending to watch Kevin McCallister beat up unruly criminals, he said casually, “So… you looking at any colleges?”

I also directed my eyes to the TV. A man with frizzy hair was being electrocuted in a bathroom.

“Yeah.” I sipped at my water, perched on the arm of a loveseat that no one was sitting on.

My cousin looked at me expectantly, and I suddenly remembered how to hold a proper conversation. Clearing my throat, I continued, “Yeah, I’m thinking Rochester?”

“Oh, cool. Cold place.” My cousin nodded. I nodded back, sensing the conversation wilt like moist cabbage.

Brief silence followed. I coughed, then asked with feigned curiosity, “Where did you go to college?”

My cousin sipped his beer. “I didn’t go to college.”

“Oh.” More silence followed. I debated death briefly.

“Well,” my cousin began, getting up from the chair he was sitting on. He didn’t finish his sentence. Walking over to the trash can, he tossed his empty beer bottle out and casually wandered away from possibly the worst conversation we would ever have in both our lives.

Desperate for a distraction, I peered over at my cousin’s son, Hercules, waddling around the living room. (My cousin never gave any explanation as to why they would name their child after the most powerful man in Greek mythology with one of the most tragic deaths, but everyone assumed they had their reasons). My grandpa watched over him with a childlike delight, stretching his hands out towards the baby. Hercules looked at my grandpa, then turned around with disinterest, finding something more worthy of his attention to play with. Disheartened, my grandpa sat back and looked on quietly again. I left my solitary perch on the loveseat and walked over to him.

“Hi, grandpa,” I said in Korean, sitting down on the sofa.

“Oh,” he looked slightly surprised, and I could tell he didn’t know who I was.

Sensing the slight awkwardness, my uncle came over and said loudly, “She’s your grandchild!

Your grandchild!”

My grandpa looked up at him, then turned to look at me. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Kayoung.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m 17. I’m a junior in high school,” I told him, smiling. Returning my smile, my he shook my hand slightly, then held onto it.

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“I’m 97,” he replied proudly, “I’m 97, but I cook my own meals.”

I let out an impressed sound, and he nodded, continuing to say, “I cook my own meals and I exercise. Do you exercise?”

I laughed. “No, not really.”

“You should exercise,” he told me gravely. “It’s good for you.”

I nodded and said I would. My grandpa looked at me with sad eyes. “When you’re young you can do anything. And you’re not lonely, like me.”

I felt a funny lurch in my chest. My hand tensed slightly, but he gave no indication that he noticed.

He continued, eyes vaguely directed at the TV. “I’m 97 years old, but what good does that do? I live alone, my wife passed away, I have no one to talk to. I’m a burden to myself and those around me. It would be better for both me and my family if I’d died a couple of years ago.” His voice wavered slightly, and I gripped his hand tighter, feeling slightly unqualified to reassure him of his worth.

“You’re not a burden,” I finally protested. He didn’t seem convinced.

For a while we sat quietly, watching the TV. Someone had changed the channel to a Korean game show where celebrities dressed in hideous masks and sang famous songs while the audience simultaneously tried to guess who they were and cheer them on at the same time. This particular episode seemed to be Christmas themed, as one actor came out with a mask that was essentially just a Christmas tree with bulging eyes. As the disturbing tree man danced around the stage and sang a Korean rock song, my grandpa suddenly turned to me and said, “How old are you?”

I answered, “I’m in 11th grade, so I’m 17.”

He nodded, then continued to watch the TV, brows slightly furrowed. I continued to hold his hand.

A few moments passed, and he asked, “Who’s your father?”

“He’s over there, his name is Tae Seok,” I pointed to my dad, who was sitting on a couch with my cousins and laughing. “He’s your son.”

“He’s my son?” my grandpa asked strangely.

“Yeah, that’s your son, Tae Seok. He’s your youngest.” I reminded him. He nodded, but looked slightly confused. After a little moment he asked, “What’s your name?”

“Kayoung. My dad is Tae Seok, and my name is Kayoung.” I shook his hand slightly.

“That’s a good name,” my grandpa suddenly said, nodding. “That’s a very good name. Not very common.” He looked at my dad. “Is that my son?”

“Yeah, that’s your son, Tae Seok. He’s your youngest.”

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My grandpa nodded. As an afterthought, he added, “He looks kind.”

I looked over to where my dad was sitting. His eyes were suited with crow’s feet and his laugh adorned with crooked teeth, and although his face was all skin and bones the compassion in his smile shaded in the hollows of his cheeks. Turning to my grandpa I saw him struggling to recognize his son, sifting through mental photo albums only to come up with a blank. His eyes glazed over slightly, as if trying to age the little boy in his memories to the 50 year old man before him today. He turned to me.

“How old are you?”

“17,” I replied patiently. “My name is Kayoung, and my dad is Tae Seok.”

“You look like you’re very smart,” my grandpa said suddenly. “You should study hard in school.”

“Yeah, I’ll work hard.” “

And get a good job.”

“Yeah, I’ll get a good job.”

“Make a lot of money.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that too,” I patted his hand reassuringly, smiling and laughing. He laughed along

with me- a hearty sound that resonated with my dad’s. As he smiled, my uncle walked over again.

“She’s your grandchild!” he said loudly, “Your grandchild!”My grandpa looked up at him. “My grandchild?” He looked at me, and I nodded. “How old are you?”

“I’m 17. My name is Kayoung.” I replied.

“You look like you’re very smart.” my grandpa said, “Study hard in school. Get married.”

I told him I would. My uncle said, “Don’t you have any money to give to her?”

I looked at my feet, uncomfortable. Although Korean relatives were known for giving money out to their relatives, I didn’t see the need to take cash from a 97 year old who could barely remember my name, no matter how long we talked for. My grandpa looked at my uncle blankly, then reached into his pocket. Struggling to get his wallet out, he mumbled, “I don’t have money.”

“That’s fine, grandpa,” I reassured, “I don’t need money.”

With wrinkled hands, he pulled out a Canadian 10 and handed it to me.

“I don’t have any money,” he said to me quietly.

“That’s okay,” I replied, patting his hand. “That’s fine.”

“You should give her more that that!” my uncle said loudly, laughing. “Come on, I see those twenties!”

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“That’s okay,” I repeated, laughing.

“I don’t have any money,” my grandpa said, a little louder, and more defensive.

I squeezed his hand and said once more, “That’s fine, grandpa. That’s okay.”

Shaking his head, my uncle walked away. I sat awkwardly, with the money in one hand and my grandpa’s hand in the other. My grandpa continued watching the TV. “Can you read Korean?” my grandpa asked. “Can you read those letters on the TV?” “I can, I’m fluent,” I confirmed.

“Read the letters on the TV,” he told me.

I looked at the fluorescent screen. A different man, this time dressed as a combination of Rudolph and Santa, pranced around the stage and sang ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ in Korean. Dramatic captions sprung up occasionally.

“Look at him go,” I read, trying to keep an upbeat tone, “The audience is chuffed.”

Delighted, my grandpa laughed and said, “Don’t forget your first language.” I patted his hand and promised that I wouldn’t.

“You look smart. How old are you?” he asked.

“I’m 17. My dad’s name is Tae Seok,” I pointed at my dad, who was looking over at us. “And my name is Kayoung.”

My dad walked over. “Hi, dad.” he said uncertainly.

“You have a good daughter,” said my grandpa. “She seems smart.”

Laughing, my dad nodded. “Yeah, I guess she is.”

I looked closely at my dad to see if I could fish out his emotions from the expression on his face.

His voice shook slightly as he said, “Dad, it’s me, Tae Seok. She’s your grandchild.”

My grandpa nodded and waved his hand around, as if tons of men named Tae Seok went up to him and told him the exact same thing every day. My dad smiled in a funny lopsided way that made my heart rattle inside my ribcage as if trying to snap open my bones. As he began to walk away from the sofa I remembered stories about my grandpa getting drunk and singing songs about his children, sometimes only mentioning his favorites out of the seven siblings. I never got to hear if my dad was ever mentioned.

What memories would people substitute in place of the ones that my dad would lose in the future?

Breaking out of my thoughts, I looked over as my grandpa suddenly began to pull his wallet out of his pocket again. He let go of my hand for a brief moment, pulling out a five dollar bill from the old folded leather. “I don’t have money.” he said, handing it to me.

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“That’s okay, grandpa,” I patted his hand again. He put the five dollars on my lap, then continued to watch TV. “Let’s eat dinner!” my aunt called loudly.

Standing, I pocketed my 15 dollars and led my grandpa to his seat. Taking a seat next to my mom, I handed her the 15 dollars.

“Can you hold on to that for me?”

She looked at the bills, confused. “Where did you get this?”

“Grandpa,” I said, passing the plates around.

The Christmas dinner was mostly uneventful but lively. Although one of my cousins left early because of their baby, the rest of the family stayed through dessert and present opening. My grandpa was also ushered into the ‘gift receiving chair,’ a sagging burgundy couch dragged out to the middle of the living room. Throughout the meal, he had grown tired, his memory holding out for shorter periods of time. Now he just looked confused, like a man who was surrounded by strangers giving him chocolates and socks. At one point in the night I went up to him and helped him put his jacket on. He thanked me and wandered around, eventually going to the bathroom.

When it came time to leave, I went and hugged him. He put his arms around me as he would to a stranger, and my heart sank- the previous conversation I had with him had already disappeared from his memories.

Brightly I said, “Bye, grandpa!” and he responded with a murmur of confirmation, accepting my farewell.

Drawing back from the hug, he suddenly looked up and said, “My hat,” and my dad and my aunt scrambled around, searching the living room. After a couple of minutes, my dad said gently, “My sister will bring it to you tomorrow. You can have your hat back tomorrow, okay dad?”

The old man looked at my dad blankly, and my dad began to lead him away to the door.

With a quiet, bleak voice he said, “My hat,” and I watched as his small frail body walked down the steep steps of my aunt’s porch. Occasionally he let out a sad sound of discomfort, and my dad reassured him with a hand on his back, guiding him to the car. I felt as if my heart was stretched out like a rubber band, a sort of melancholy helplessness that made my rib cage small and brittle, so that if I were to breathe too deeply it would snap open with a loud crack. The moment of clarity I had seen only hours before was a rare one, and strangely I felt my eyes prickle when I remembered reading Korean subtitles to him as he laughed and held my hand. When I saw him in the car, I said loudly, “Bye grandpa!” as if I could get him to look at me with recognition in his eyes if the volume of my voice were loud enough.

The windows of the car blocked my sound and the car moved away, taking my grandpa with it.

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“I am interested in how people’s personalities can be reflected in their physical appearance. I find beings doing odd actions and in weird positions and draw them. As the old saying goes, a little says a lot!”

Grandfather Kelley McMullin

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Danny Devito Kelley McMullin

“I find beings in odd situations and draw them how I perceive them. I try to express a lot about a being while saying very little. I think line quality, for example, can leave an enormous effect on the viewer while being minimal. Throughout my concentration I explore the idea of line quality, simple coloring/shading, while trying to tell a lot about each individual.�

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Yes I Can Fly Hannah Athchinson

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The Lion Sleeps Tonight Hannah Athchinson

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The Nature of Untity Laura Liu There’s nothing like placing your hand on your heart And pledging allegiance to the flag of a country Your parents scorn under their breaths.

There’s nothing like looking at the skin around you And wishing yours was just a little lighter, Or the light at least more flattering.

There’s nothing like hearing the people around you roar, “AMERICA!” With blood striped across their faces And stars shielding them from the darkness.

There’s nothing like seeing someone approach you with fire in their eyes And hearing the words “Go back to where you belong,” And feeling a ball of spit smear down your cheek.

There’s nothing like feeling the hatred rise inside of you, Just one insult, just one punch, just one, please, But shoving it down instead.

Standing alone at the corner of 10th and Washington In the first capital of our blessed country, Don’t you feel the patriotism, too?

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Staff Liz Shilling, Co-Literary Editor, is a senior who loves wearing 6 different shades of black in the same outfit and posting 847 photos to VSCO per day. She enjoys walks with her very large puppy, Max, and is the president of the largest John Mayer Fan Club™ in the greater Philadelphia area.

Rhian Lowndes, Co-Literary Editor, is a senior who enjoys writing prose in the margins of her math notes. As a child she was told that sitting too close to the tv would turn her pupils into squares. She firmly believed this and is the only person in her family with 20/20 vision.

Chelsea Tang, Co-Business Editor, is a senior who loves to spend her free time painting and crafting. She has her own Etsy shop where she sells handmade jewelry. As a lover of nature, you can find her enjoying flower exhibitions or at your local park.

Akanksha Kalasabail, Co-Business Editor, is a senior in high school and a senior in spirit. She could probably never love a person as much as she loves food. Sometimes she wishes she was cool, and then goes to laugh at Pride and Prejudice memes on Pinterest.

Melissa Cui, Co-Art Editor, is a senior at Conestoag High School who enjoys playing piano, singing, and tennis. Often times, she likes to doodle sketches iun her notebook. She can usually be found enjoying sushi and spicy Cheetos in her free time.

Sara Oliver is a senior who looks like she’s 12. She struggles with a serious caffeine addiction and has sought treatment on multiple occasions, but has continuously slept through the appointments.

Nik Delgado

is a senior who enjoys photosynthesizing in the sun when not dancing in the rain.

They are known for their love of photography and impossibly curly hair (yes, it is natural).

Jason Vassiliou is a 18 year-old senior. Besides writing poems, he also likes drawing horsehair across a wooden box with strings in addition to writing cherry-looking people on staff lines. His violin playing and compositions have been seen but not heard in the concert hall.

Jack D’Emilio is an antisocial extrovert who was very excited to discover music that wasn’t showtunes for the very first time this year. In his spare time, he enjoys repeated viewings of the 1982 Tony performance of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” sung by Jennifer Holliday of the Original Broadway Cast of Dreamgirls.

Breanne Canedo is an ironic egg enthusiast, as she dislikes the consumption of eggs. She is mainly an artist, but occasionally writes pieces of varying themes.

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Staff Vikas Chelur is a 12th grader who like Harry Potter and fire, in that order. He enojys reading and writing on his bed or amidst a large group, but not in front of a small group. He likes staring out of windows in his free time.

Danica Merrill, Co-Art Editor, is a junior. She writes her essays in Georgia before changing them to Times New Roman, wishes she had gone to charm school, and loves the word lilac.

Brooke Pellegrini, Co-Art Editor, is a junior who wants two things in a career: being busy and being in charge.

Ally Wynne, Co-Art Editor, is a junior who very much wishes to be back in fourth grade.

She enjoys spending hours organizing her closet and her bookcase while listening to the Latina Pop Top 50 playlist on Spotify. Ally is itching for the day when she can finally leave for college and live out her dreams as an actually productive person.

Grace Lanouette is a junior who is pretty good at a sport nobody cares about. She hasn’t played mini golf in four years because she’s a sore loser, but in her college essays she’s definitely going to write that she “sees the value in competition.” She is prepared to run over slow walkers without hesitation.

Elissa Wilton

is a junior who loves books, words, cats, and pianos. She is also an amateur cal-

ligrapher and hand letterer. She happily has more books than shelf space.

Thomas Jenson is a junior who rocks at Wii Boxing. While driving, he enjoys shouting anagrams of his name at other cars, satirizing road rage while simultaneously establishing himself as king of the streets. Currently, his voice is sore from screaming “she not ma jons!” He has never been arrested for this practice.

Anna Kovarik is a junior who knows wherever she goes, there she is. Her first name is a palindrome, but she prefers you say it backwards.

Laila Norford is a sophomore who has the unfortunate problem of being inspired to write poems right before going to sleep. She likes to curl up under blankets in corners while petting her adorable tuxedo cat Benny and reading depressing nonfiction. She can likely be found there now, snacking on dark chocolate and peanut butter. #ratpack

Staff Madeline Murphy is a sophomore who consumes avocados on a frighteningly consistent schedule. Raw. With a spoon. From the shell. When not writing after midnight she can be seen getting creative inspiration from her cats. #ratpack

Laura Liu is a sophomore who enjoys reading clichĂŠ teen trash at the crack of dawn and watching penguins fall over. When not absorbed in her latest obsession with K-Pop, League of Legends, or soccer, she can be found furiously typing her latest poem or short story. Her favorite word is pareidolia. #ratpack

Isabelle Burns is a sophomore who, contrary to popular belief, did graduate middle school. She enjoys rereading All for the Game, trashing people who eat avocados, and naming her favorite computer viruses. Inquire for details. #ratpack

Ryan Casciato is a sophomore with an Italian last name that no one pronounces right. He enjoys reading (mainly Harry Potter, which he has read 38 times), writing stories, drawing, and watching TV shows. He also has a habit of talking to himself and questioning his existence late at night when unable to sleep. Neither of which help him sleep. His resting expression leaves him looking bored and tired, the latter of which is always true. He also does not know when to end a story. God help him. Or Satan, he has no preference on which entity helps him.

Ally Ross is a sophomore at Conestoga. After the shocking failure of her puppeteering world tour, she retreated to Idaho for a few months of this year. While there, she dabbled in juggling and rediscovered her love for spectator sports. The days since her return have been filled with extreme stress, which she attempts to manage with poetry and painting. #ratpack

Sebastian Castro is a freshman that is willing to sacrifice sleep for a good book. Likes to pretend his forgetfulness is a lovable and quirky personality trait instead of the self-destructive behavior it really is. Will trade in many years of life for chocolate, regardless of the quality.

Jessica Frantzen is a freshman who, when she’s not re-playing her favorite childhood video games for the 15th time, enjoys using an ancient deadly weapon to accidentally shoot arrows into the grass. She is a master of procrastination, and she has come up with most of her poetry and prose whilst panicking about other (unrelated) unfinished projects. A typical math class for her consists of drawing cartoons in the margins of her notes while simultaneously spacing out.

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