Helm, Spring 2012

HELM Harker’s Eclectic Literary Magazine

Member of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association

HELM Harker’s Eclectic Literary Magazine

Volume 12 Spring 2012 Member of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association

Letter from the Editors This year, Helm has grown in a number of ways. We’ve put together a selection of what we think is the highest quality of student submissions that we’ve ever had, continued the tradition of an excellent faculty section, and expanded the magazine to eighty pages. The magazine continues to be entirely student run, with all the content selected and layout designed by Harker students.

In this year’s edition of Helm, we feature a myriad of writers, artists and photographers from our community. As a school, Harker students are of multivariate talents, and this diversity is reflected in the contributors to this year’s magazine: they include Intel Talent Search semifinalists, guitar players, journalists, fashionistas (or fashionistos, as it may be), and all sorts of writers and artists from our student body.

The ultimate goal of our magazine is to showcase the creative works of our school’s student body and faculty. Every work that we have published evokes a unique and original perspective from its artist. While people may have contrasting opinions on what constitutes an exceptional piece, we believe that each of the submissions that we have accepted conveys a distinct voice and has the potential to affect any audience. We are thrilled to publish the works that our magazine contains.

Our magazine also reflects some of the more serious events that we have experienced in our community this year. Jacqueline Wang’s death has had an enormous effect on all of us, and some of this year’s contributions to the magazine reflect that. The community has also recently dealt with the passing of beloved English teacher Ms. Mittelstet. It is to both of them that we dedicate this magazine.

They will be missed and remembered.

Justin Gerard (‘13) and Kaitlin Halloran (‘12) Editors-In-Chief

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Table of Contents

Writing

The Language of Snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 08

Marc Hufnagl

The Crows in Bern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 09 Marc Hufnagl

Inside the Construction: The Brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Alexandra Mattraw

Untitled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Anonymous

The Prince and His Bride . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Robert Maxton

Two Hermits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Nandita Krishna

The Salad Bowl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Shreya Indukuri

Los sueños de un chico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Nayeon Kim

Fashion is My Passion: I Can’t Stop It from Flashing . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Anonymous

Poison Oak! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Alex Najibi

Passing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Crystal Chen

recall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Antonia Ipser

Winter’s Whiteness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Katherine Woodruff

What It’s Like to Pass You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Justin Gerard

Let the Desert Be Desolate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Crystal Chen

04

Personal Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Sarah Howells

Margins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Robert Maxton

The Erinyes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Cindy Tay

A Confusing Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Kathir Sundarraj

And what are you expecting, exactly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Antonia Ipser

Past the Edges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Katie Gu

Guitar Boy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Joseph Wang

Traveler’s Tales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Rebecca Fang

Poe’s Folly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Robert Maxton

Ode to a Blackbody . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

David Grossman

Upon Waking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Kaitlin Halloran

Liberated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Aditi Ashok

Personal Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Govinda Dasu

+ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Cindy Tay

Colors on the Road to Sentience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Robert Maxton

Transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Aditi Ashok

Purple Days . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Joseph Wang

05

Photos & Art

Lace-ah School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

Isha Patnaik

Stilt-walking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Nina Sabharwal

Uncharted. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

Katie Gu

Venetian Beauty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Mercedes Chien

Windowsill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Jennie Xu

Peeking Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Rachelle Koch

Down by the Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Jennie Xu

The Lost Horizon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Mercedes Chien

--- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Sarah Howells

Grey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Samantha Hoffman

Street Vendors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Devin Nguyen

Playing with Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Mercedes Chien

For Noel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Asia Howard

Artisan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Eric Swenson

Despair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Kristi Sun

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--- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Megan Prakash

Gondola . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Devin Nguyen

Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Devin Nguyen

Canal Boats and Little Bridge in Venice, Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Nayeon Kim

Art Nouveau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Devin Nguyen

Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Nina Sabharwal

Patio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Cherry Xie

Venezia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Kristi Sun

Serenity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Allison Kiang

--- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Jennie Xu

Love Lockdown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Alisha Mayor

07

The Language of Snow Marc Hufnagl

a song for voice and guitar Written in the Swiss/Austrian Alps during a five day snowfall, winter 2011

Crystalline spider web Each fated flake; Blankets of eider down December’s estate.

The wind howling symphonies As chimney smoke trails.

Write icy calligraphies-Snow sonnets prevail.

CHORUS: Teach me the silent language of snow The icy vernacular that blankets below.

One tiny crystal shard mirrors the soul.

Release me.

Teach me the language of snow Iambic pure icicles Prismatically frosts; White canyons of sleepers-The snow blind and lost.

But, I felt more found, Unleashed in those drifts.

An alpine awareness, Despite all the risks.

CHORUS (repeat) Through snow swells and eddies, I swam that cold sea.

And through the dense ground fog, I finally found me.

08

Speaking a mother tongue More close to the bone That the Griessens spoke fluently To those who seek home.

CHORUS (repeat)

The Crows in Bern Marc Hufnagl

a song for voice and guitar

The crows in Bern Black-dot the trees.

Oily black feathers Flutter in the breeze.

The roost on high, Silent pirates in tow, Hovering in the sky to snatch up The booty down below, CHORUS: Dark caws, sharp claws; Dark flaws, dropped jaws, We too--are like these crows Waiting Watching Wanting What we know--we cannot have They cling like soot On snow laced bark, Waiting calmly for one false move Before they make their mark.

Raven or frost Cold shakes of fear; I knew their very thought, While I flicked away my tear.

Either hunt or prey Adrenaline runs free The crows in Bern that day Took the flight right out of me.

CHORUS (repeat)

09

Inside the Construction: The Brain Alexandra Mattraw

The retina focuses only on change. Winter dots in motion. I won’t see what you do : A lamppost of black birds flaps a feather ladder. One wing shrugs into sun-flinch. Survival in context as the reason for memory, I mistake your finger for mine. The fire hydrant for fire. Because periphery only believes in movement, city snow ticks us through signaled streets.

Power lines thicken tulle fog. Colors appear but we only see in black and white first : The perfidy of an oil blackened road. If I leave now, the eye-sized chink in our windshield. What upturns a juniper’s claw at the expense of a snowplow. Because the brain is always goal directed, my distance already charted in ice buried mustard flowers. A cirrus network of white scars. The sun jostles our small frames into pins of light that mesh inside the window. What would widen and split.

10

Untitled

Anonymous there is no sound except us in the stale squalid darkness. the friction shreds our skin raw ugly stinging aubergine and who knew a whisper could be so loud and so harsh? you were here and so was i but neither of us are here anymore. in the viscous soup of our memories we know we made music once. the whisper of skin on skin bone on bone

muscle on muscle soul on soul i was the violin, you the bow. how the years have aged us. your horsehair has moldered over time and mites have eaten through the thin steel and gut core of my strings. we are the stuff of junk shop display windows now. the lines of your body sprawl, maplike and once-crisp the ink is blurred from coffee stains and a toddler has taken the map and folded it into a paper boat-hat and maybe creased and ripped it a couple times along the way so what were planes are now ripples and the topography of your flesh is no longer the sharp angles of the himalayas but the rolling insignificance of grassy hillocks. the world isn’t changed, because you’re not ivory and gold you’re just polymer clay and pyrite. i could buy that for twenty-five at the kitschy wildlife souvenir shop in muir woods national park fifteen ninety-nine, if it’s on sale. just add three and a half moles oxygen gas and one mole water and you are worth even less nothing but iron and sulfate and hydrogen. welcome home, honey. we’re all out of love. could you pick up a six-ounce carton at the grocery?

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Lace-ah School

Isha Patnaik

12

The Prince and His Bride Robert Maxton

O

nce upon a time (as this does not occur outside of normal continuity, this must be a true statement) there was a princess.

Naturally, she was beautiful, because otherwise there would be no story about this princess, given the depth of character of the average reader of fairy tales.

One day, she was feeding her fish when she realized something: she was not happy. “After all, though I have a magnificent palace and food to eat and water to drink and parents who love me and friends who care about me” (for, like all good princesses designed to appeal to a modern audience, she was friendly with the palace servants) “I lack a husband, and thus I cannot be happy.”

Her fish leaped out of its tank, pedaling hard on its miniature bicycle, and she absentmindedly slapped it back in.

“Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do... I know! I shall tell mother. She will fix everything!”

And so she did. She found her mother, sitting in her palace’s opulent gardens, and asked, “Mother, mother, would you be so kind, As to put this worry out of my mind, I have found, you see, that I seek a groom, A man handsome, indeed, but heart soft as a … no, wait, I got this... the moon? Flowers in bloom? A shroom? Yes, a shroom! … but heart soft as a shroom.”

13

14

And her mother (noting down first more poetry lessons for her daughter) replied, “Certainly,” and told the newscriers everywhere that her princess sought marriage. And the moment she did so, she died of a random heart attack, because kind and caring mothers tend not to make for interesting stories.

Naturally, the father who had chose so well for his first wife chose equally poorly for his second, and the stepmother of the princess was a shrew in mind and heart. At first she seemed just as kind, and caring, and supported the search for her step-daughter husband; but she was only hiding her true nature.

For, she thought, I am young, younger than the king, and barren: so the king will have no male heir. Clearly, a woman cannot possibly rule alone (the fish, which had not yet died, and indeed had been provided a new bicycle, here leaped its tank again and neatly bounced off the queen’s head) but perhaps the people might be inclined, if the king were dead and the only choices the queen or the princess... yes. Yes. YES. MUA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! The king, hearing his wife’s maniacal laughter from across the palace, assumed that she had taken ill in the head, and recommended her to a physician, but the damage was done.

She could not now possibly allow the princess to marry, and so insisted on

testing every candidate herself.

She read many books, and heard many tales of ancient legends, and when she had three task that she thought were at once the most likely to be true (for to assign a false quest obviously might turn the populace against her) and the most likely to be fatal, she gave them to the candidates.

There were obviously hundreds of candidates for the hand of a princess of a country, but as this story is meant to fit within the ten to fifteen minutes allotted to a child’s bedtime story we will focus on the one who would eventually succeed. The prince (for of course, it must be a prince who would succeed in a land obsessed with nobility) first sought out the egg of the legendary roc. He packed his bags for a journey of many years, and, leaving the castle, immediately found the sun blotted out by a giant bird larger than the clouds. Believing the roc to be similar to a small chicken, he ignored the sight, and left to seek the home of the local wise man, or shaman.

The shaman told him, “In the land east of the sun, and west of the moon, you will find the egg of the wondrous roc... oon.”

“But I’m not looking for a raccoon,” the prince replied.

“Nachurally, prince.... it’s right there, all glowing gold. Wheeee.” chanted the wise man, pointing at empty space, before the hallucinogenic fumes permeating his house finally overcame his (resistance) and he toppled over unconscious. The prince left the house, leaving the door open as he left in pity for the shaman. Again the giant shadow passed directly overhead, annoying the prince slightly before he again ignored it in search of further information.

This time, he asked a random villager for their stories about the roc, and when they told him of a giant bird that blotted out the sun, he slapped his head against the pommel of his sword (nearly knocking himself out) and chased after the great shadow.

He came, at last, to its nest: a great spire that extended up into the distance.

The spire clearly unclimbable, he considered using his own brains, but instead decided to pray to God. God responded by striking the roc with a bolt of lightning, but changed his mind at the last moment to strike at the prince himself; the bolt struck the spire itself, sending it toppling down upon the prince.

Luckily the prince had the best armor in the land. It was known as

“plot armor,” and it would protect a man (the fish, having learned to ride its bike through time and relative dimensions in space, here rammed the author on the head, causing him to pause writing for several minutes) a person from any ill. Wearing this armor, the prince easily survived the rock fall, and somehow managed to dig his way out from several tons of solid rock.

Luckily for him, the egg had fallen with the spire, and, being itself harder than rock, did not break when it hit his head.

Returning to the palace with the great egg, the queen set him out on another mission: to fetch the jeweled branch of Hourai. Unfortunately, as the prince by this point had an idea of the difficulty of further tasks (and as the author approaches the four-hoursof-sleep mark), upon leaving the castle he took the much simpler expedient of kidnapping the princess out of her room and getting married before the queen could catch on. The queen had an apoplexy in anger and died of an aneurysm.

The prince and princess – now king and queen – returned to the palace and (along with the fish, who by this point had found a companion and had many more adventures not detailed here) lived happily ever after.

15

Stilt-walking

Nina Sabharwal

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Two Hermits Nandita Krishna

We’re barring doors now, painting windows up (from bed we stretch our withering thin arms) The doorbell’s pleas grow urgent, and then stop— we’ve broken bread and duties to alarms Our clockwork-shortened slang saves breath, yet we’re regurgitating talk spewed out last week Our porch petitioners, once friends, have cleared: they smelled the stale brown kisses on our cheeks We’re freckled by dull-radiating halls, dismembered by our casual saw teeth.

We’re too inert to cast down cardboard walls, too lazy to exhume what’s underneath.

If we still can, we must unstitch our skin, separate, and let trespassers in.

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Uncharted, pencil and watercolor

Katie Gu

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The Salad Bowl Shreya Indukuri Poetry is tangible Give it a shape; a bowl Pour the lyrics into it Watch as the prose slides around the glass The patterns the words form are different each time Like clouds in a sky One day, a narwhal The next, a Venus fly-trap The ingredients are in front of you Amalgamate with your imagination

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Los sueños de un chico Nayeon Kim

¿Qué quieres ser cuando crezcas, chiquito?

Papá, quiere ser superhombre.

Soy el más fuerte del primer grado. ¡Voy a vencer a todos los enemigos malignos, y salvar el mundo de la destrucción! ¿Qué quieres ser cuando crezcas, niño?

Papá, quiero ser bombero.

Hoy mi profesor del sexto grado nos habló sobre los bomberos. ¡Voy a correr dentro de las casas que están ardiendo en fuego, y rescatar a los muchachos en peligro! ¿Qué quieres ser cuando crezcas, chico?

Papá, quiero ser doctor.

En la clase de biología aprendí de muchas enfermedades. ¡Voy a encontrar una cura para el cáncer, v ayudar a mis pacientes que están sufriendo! ¿Qué quieres ser cuando crezcas, joven?

Padre … no sé.

La verdad es que no soy bueno en nada.

No soy atlético como los jugadores de fútbol, ni inteligente como los estudiantes de latín en la escuela.

Hijo, ¿adónde fue el chico que creía que podría hacer todo?

Desde aquél entonces hasta ahora, yo siempre he confiado en ti.

Recuerda, tus sueños pueden hacerse realidad si lo quieres tanto.

Lo más importante es que tú creas en ti mismo.

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Translation: The dreams of a boy Nayeon Kim What do you want to be when you grow up, little one?

Daddy, I wanna be Superman.

I’m the strongest boy in first grade.

I’m gonna beat all the bad guys and save the world from destruction!

What do you want to be when you grow up, buddy?

Dad, I want to be a firefighter.

My teacher told us about firefighters today.

I’m going to run inside burning houses and rescue all the kids in danger!

What do you want to be when you grow up, boy?

Dad, I want to be a doctor.

I learned about diseases in biology class today.

I’m going to find a cure for cancer and help all my patients from suffering!

What do you want to be when you grow up, young man?

Father … I don’t know.

The truth is I’m not good at anything.

I’m not athletic like those football players nor intelligent like the Latin students in school.

Son, where did the boy who believed he could do everything go?

Since then until now, I have always believed in you.

Remember, your dreams can come true if you really want them to.

The most important thing is that you trust in yourself.

21

Fashion is My Passion: I Can’t Stop It from Flashing Anonymous

22

What do I notice when I go to school? The bright, shining face of an overachiever ready to take over the world? The rolling backpack he wheels dangerously across campus? No, I notice the peculiar shark pattern etched into the delicate fabric of his crème-scented shorts. And this gives me hope – that underneath his bookish charm and pedantic knowledge, he too is a fashionista.

My inspiration for fashion came when I was fresh out the womb, when the doctor dressed me in hideous drab. How was I supposed to stand out in the incubation room? What if my parents took home the wrong baby? I decided to deck myself in an elaborate, sequined diaper that glittered under the dreary hospital light. My bottom sparkled like the light emanating from the Green Lantern’s ring. An eerie, mesmerizing glow encompassed the area. Soon after I was born, so was my fashion sense.

“Imitation is suicide.” Though not commonly known, Emerson’s pointed argument on the basis of individuality was directed toward the importance of personal fashion sense. As his narrative dictates, he dressed himself in decadent tiaras while swaths of his attendants applied dainty rouge to his rosy cheeks. He stuffed his shirts with toy mice to give his breasts a more playful appeal. His pants only had one leg so he could experience warm and cold simultaneously.

Such ingenuity has profoundly influenced me to take a radical, individualized approach to my own clothing. The manner in which people perceive my apparel is an extension of my personal expression. In life, I am the light, and I am the music. My personal choice of vibrant colors that contrast with my nightshade skin delineates me as one of the shadows in the iTunes commercials. Nevertheless, I hope to keep the music bumping to the soundtrack of my life.

Poison Oak! Alex Najibi

One cannot know the pain and agony of this pernicious plant, this vile vegetation, until it has been experienced.

Nature’s cruel and ironic juxtaposition: the beauty of a calming forest hike contrasted with weeks of suffering.

Many have given up hiking to escape the terror, but not me. I have always been exceedingly allergic to the plant, a problem when faced with my explorative nature, wanting to investigate outside of the lines (and off the trail). For three weeks this past summer, my entire face, hands, and one leg were completely swollen with the rash, rendering me unable to eat normal-sized foods for four days, immobile for a week, and embarrassed and tormented for almost a month. Was it really necessary to walk into the brush to capture that special picture of a snake curled up by the stream? Most of my days consisted of researching the plant and ways to heal the rash. I even found a few tricks of my own that might have quickened the healing process, applying the juice of rhubarb and baking soda on the atrocity. But what I obtained from the ordeal was not anger with nature or a resignation to forgo hiking; rather, I gained a newfound respect for poison oak. Such a seemingly inconsequential plant, able to cause such horrific consequences. Could it be eradicated? What is its purpose of existence? Could its power be harnessed? I still go hiking almost every week in a variety of places, and I nearly always see my arch-nemesis wherever I go. But I won’t stop. Au revoir for now, toxicodendron diversilobum, until we meet again.

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Venetian Beauty

24

Mercedes Chien

Passing

Crystal Chen I read reading read of life of god of me of hell.

I gaze gazing gazed above at blue and crimson black.

I trace tracing traced the paths the shadows of the years.

And yet I live living lived with eyes just as without.

25

recall Antonia Ipser You parcel apart, turning like thin bile soup.

She says: you forget yourself.

As if you are a nest of mice, or a cracked sagging ceiling, or a severed toe.

Still you vanish dutifully into an album of unfamiliar self-portraits, still you are not yourself.

Her voice is all Kurtz now, indomitable, unsubtle but persuasive; she has you troubling to pick the nits off of yourself.

But you are all nit, and you clatter, moving, with all your loose metal parts. at the dinner table you seize her voice for yourself, for your admission She says: you forget yourself.

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Windowsill

Jennie Xu

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Winter’s Whiteness Katherine Woodruff

Sing to me of the place where the air is fresh, The wild man dances, And the massive beast prances, Over the valley’s vast expanses Of icy tundra and glorious mountain hue.

Sing to me of the time when the land was new, The sun shone bright, No green in sight, In the land where snow of white Pressed flat against the once verdant earth.

Show me the land of noble birth, Where twisting, turning waters cold Flow down towering mountains old, To the valley of ancient tales told By the race of haughty men.

Show me the place where the secluded glen Is showered by rain as cold as snow And shrouds the passionate wise man’s woe From angry monsters, friend or foeA protecting presence of ages past.

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Take me to that mountain vast, Of icy winters, for years on end, And drive away that frigid wind, That fiery hope, away does send.

Take me to the showering snows, That mark the start of winter’s close.

Peeking Life

Rachelle Koch

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What It’s Like to Pass You Justin Gerard

Since your clearshot eyes, your shower-wet hair point to the sidewalk as you pass me to your latest classroom, I scrape the motion off your shoe soles with my eyeballs, design virtual blue lines within classway chatter.

To drink your stolen laughter supersedes every depression until you leave, and then I paint hasty nuances of you deeply onto every face or flower I meet, each jolt or turn which spurns both feet further forward against pathetic posture, bone-dry eyeflesh, and saliva-chocked esophagus.

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Down by the Water

Jennie Xu

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The Lost Horizon

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Mercedes Chien

Let the Desert Be Desolate Crystal Chen

Let the desert be desolate, colder still.

Then there be no word empty enough to fill my mind: Trap now, bound now, see now, judge now, This drum that beats of nothing, endless In all its reality.

Of light, Salvation, brighter still.

Of dawn, a star to lead me blind.

Through eyes now dark, Of hope I have read.

Through eyes now dark, Of false I have lived.

To whose cruel play Light be truth, yet regret Upon darkness, to awaken in deep sleep. And Stir in silence, but Let the desert be

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Personal Statement Sarah Howells I accelerated swiftly across the stage, conscious of the faces analyzing my every move. My knees bent in preparation to jump, and I momentarily succumbed to the force of gravity before I quickly unfurled my limbs and began to glide through the air. For a split second, I savored my fleeting ability to fly and the sensation of energy in my muscles as the tulle of my tutu floated around me like a puff of white smoke. My feet, encased in hard satin pointe shoes, absorbed the shock of the floor and my knees bent again as I landed without a sound. The energy of the orchestra’s allegro tempo filled me, as if the musical notes had accumulated in my stomach and propelled my body across the floor and into the air. Reunited with the smooth rubber surface, I could not help grinning as I swirled around in anticipation of the next movement. Fellow dancers surrounding me shared a knowing glance, understanding the ephemeral satisfaction that came with my triumphant “grand jeté.”

The precision and power of my leap required every ounce of ballet technique I had learned. Each day, I spent hours toiling at the Ballet San Jose studio, following a specific and formulaic routine. Stretch. Barre. Turns. Jumps. Pointe. Years of practice sculpted my muscles and sharpened my agility, allowing my body to spring off the ground with strength. My fellow dancers and I also recognized that my successful “grand jeté” was not simply the reward of constant effort and practice.

With the movement also came the sensation that my body transcended human limitations and adapted the ethereal ability to move with both rapid momentum and light grace.

Over the years I have learned that the most thrilling leaps only happen when I permit my legs to propel my body as high as possible. Each jump manifests the duality of ballet: a dancer must be a precise technician, but at the same time she must fearlessly devote her body to the movement. Every time my knees prepare to push off the floor, I have no idea how the next instant will turn out. I may perform a flawless jump, or I may embarrass myself in front of hundreds of spectators.

Regardless, the carefree delight that comes with a successful “grand jeté” constantly draws me in, like an addiction. In order to feel the split-second power and joy of the movement, I have to dare to fail.

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The years ahead of me will not be choreographed. I do not know where I am going, who I will be. But I have learned from the “grand jeté” that if I can unite my actions and my emotions, feeling the magical energy and passion I experience in ballet, I will always surpass my own expectations.

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Margins

Robert Maxton So many things lie in the margins Have you ever heard someone say that they were “marginalized”?

Or seen a note, written in the margins of a textbook, some student’s reminder?

Once a margin was too narrow to contain a certain marvelous proof, and the world mourned and struggled and searched for three hundred and sixty eight years for the narrowness of that one margin.

So many things lie in the margins, Have you ever read Lovecraft, or House of Leaves?

The strange things that lurk in the margins of the universe between this moment and the next, in the space between raindrops in-of-doors, out-of-shadow, through and through.

So many things lie in the margins.

In the margins of the world lie billions of starving people.

In the margins of the world lie millions of undiscovered things.

In the margins of the world lie thousands of obscure masterpieces.

In the margins of the world lies the world.

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Grey

Samantha Hoffman

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The Erinyes Cindy Tay

Poker-faced Chinese girl, 5’5.5”, standing, no, slumping dejectedly against a traffic pole at the northeast corner of Saratoga and I-280 N ramp junction, at 6:02 pm on May 27th, 2011: Also known as me.

How long I stood there waiting for the little walking man made of white dots of light to appear: About three minutes.

What I was thinking most of the time: Why bother playing flute if I’m going to crack under the minutest iota of pressure?

What I was thinking about part of the time: What I planned to order at Starbucks.

What I planned to order at Starbucks: A short white chocolate mocha sans whipped cream.

Which direction I walked when the walking man came: Forward.

Which direction I wish I could have walked: Down. Into the cement. Beyond the reach of anyone’s eyes. And ears, thank God. The piece I played for the master class two and a half hours earlier: The first movement of Carl Reinecke’s Undine sonata, op. 167.

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The piece playing in my head now: Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D minor, KV 626.

For whom the mass plays: The shreds of my dignity, the shards of my confidence, and the rotting remains of Reinecke as he turns in his grave.

Dies irae! Dies illa solvet saeclum in favilla!

“Day of wrath, that day will dissolve the world in ashes.” But lo! The day is already upon me.

3:30 pm, Nichols auditorium stage: I’m on.

What parts of my body are shaking: Lips, fingers, arms, knees. Not a pretty sight. Nor sound, for that matter.

6:07 pm. What part of my body is shaking now: My head. The faces behind the steering wheels on Moorpark Avenue have seen too many homeless panhandlers to think my behavior unusual.

Perhaps they suppose I’m just a newcomer.

You’d suppose a lot of things. Like me being good at flute. At least my principal did when he asked me: “So what’re you playing tomorrow?”

It was the afternoon of the 26th, on the floor against Jesse’s locker sharing cookie crumbs. I’d just taken a huge bite of homemade double chocolate chip and couldn’t answer. I resurfaced after about twenty seconds and mumbled, “Reinecke. Sonata.”

What he thought of that: “Good stuff. Isn’t one of the movements supposed to sound like water moving?”

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8:30 am. How my freshman friend was more articulate about his supposition that I was good: He walked up while I was practicing outside, bounced up and down, and squealed, “OMG, you sound really, really good!”

Were they both sincere?

Yes. Although the freshman would have won Best Actor.

3:34 pm, after getting cut off: Where are you now, my friends?

It’s not difficult to locate them: Both in the front row to my left. Figuratively putting their heads in their hands and their fingers in their ears, wondering how they could have supposed such a monstrosity.

6:10 pm, wandering along Moorpark looking for a place where traffic is thin enough to jaywalk: Right outside a funeral services home. Morbidly germane. Maybe later, buddy.

3:35 pm: Begin the Inquisition.

My tormentors’ consensus: 1. Bad posture.

2. Unacceptable pre-playing compulsive tonguing habit.

3. Poor air support system.

Corrective measures taken and their respective implementers: 1. Stand me with my legs about two feet apart, right foot way out behind, as instructed by Kassey. Are we doing lunges or something?

2. Wrench my shoulders back to maximize my tidal volume. At least, that was Kassey’s theory.

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3. Push my left shoulder such that I must push back or topple over, courtesy of Amelia. Apparently this would also bolster my core.

4. Poke my stomach at intervals to make sure I was using my abdominal muscles. Thanks, Jill.

5. Instruct me to resume playing while all this was going on. No big deal, you know. Just a regular practice run-through.

Unwonted pop culture connection that sprang into my mind when Amelia smiled menacingly at me, said, “I’m the pusher,” and proceeded to prove herself: Cady’s math teacher in Mean Girls: I’m a pusher, Cady, and I’m going to push you.

Cady to friends later: She probably pushes drugs!

Speed with which the ghost of a smile disappears from my face when I realize I am sounding like a warbling manatee and Jill is poking my stomach: Faster than light travels. What would that look like?

3:40 pm. How I have failed Lady Gaga: Well, I’m wearing anything but a poker face. It’s hard to when there’s fluid running all over my complexion: tears from my eyes, snot from my nose, saliva from my lips, and sweat from my forehead. Kassey pulling my ponytail is not helping, either. What do you expect to achieve by assuring me early hair loss, woman?

6:15 pm. The state of my eyes: Moist. But not brimming.

Something I’m thankful for: The streets between Blackford and Williams Avenues are devoid of humans. You might say they’re soulless, like mermaids. Apparently, Reinecke was inspired by the legend of Undine, a story very similar to “The Little Mermaid,” but with more mature content.

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Something I’m not thankful for: The auditorium is far from soulless. Everyone’s watching me wither, my fellow flutists, teachers, friends’ parents, various non-flutist friends of my colleagues, all the theater kids that just want to get credit for attending a workshop. But I know what they really want. They just want to watch me…

3:45 pm … get a tissue from the box, stage left. Maybe someone anticipated the need.

Kassey, I think, is concerned. Or at least embarrassed. But Jill or Amelia reassures her that I’m just blowing my nose. They won’t have long to wait.

The tears they are a-coming.

Interesting sight I pass along Saratoga Avenue: A psychic’s home business.

A question to pose to the psychic: Where in the world will I be—tomorrow?

How far am I able to see?

My vision is 20/20, but through the tears it’s about 20/70.

The psychic’s answer: Lying on your bed listening to Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”

Why the psychic would be wrong: I deleted that song from my library months ago.

3:46 pm One tissue is not enough. Jill moves the tissue box to rest at my feet. I’m still not forgiving you for the poking.

3:47 pm

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Resume torture.

6:20 pm Meet the Erinyes, the three Furies of real life. On the bright side, I should be able to skip purgatory now. Been there, done that.

3:59 pm End trials and tribulations. I jump off the stage and pass my seat, not bothering to gather my possessions.

How I make my great escape: I storm out the door, drop my flute and music, and sprint across the atrium to fulfill my dream of becoming a screamo vocalist in the bathroom, which I am not sure is soundproof.

6:27 pm Arrive Starbucks. Coffee is bad for singers, it seems. Clogs up the throat and makes you need to use the facilities in the middle of a set.

Vague attempt at self-consolation: Well, whether you’re singing or fluting, a short white chocolate mocha sans whipped cream couldn’t make you sound worse than you did, can it?

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Street Vendors

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Devin Nguyen

Playing with Water

Mercedes Chien

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A Confusing Love Kathir Sundarraj

Grandmothers are not only the people who knit you the nice, fuzzy, warm sweaters. They offer you something more, something indefinable—yet incorrigible. That thing’s love.

I’ve been blessed to have both of my grandmas with me today. Most people don’t have that opportunity, so in that sense, I’d consider myself lucky. But at the same time, I feel that I haven’t done justice to develop truly memorable relationships.

I have quite a strong relationship with one of my grandmas. Considering that I can barely speak my native language of Tamil, it’s a blessing that she is quite fluent in English. The fond memories go back such a long time… trips in Hawai’i, two humorously small and thick knitted jackets, and homemade chocolates are still things I remember. If you ask me for one memory, I could give you ten.

Unfortunately, I can’t say the same

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for my other grandma. We have always had a significant language barrier. To some extent, it was like planting seeds of relationship in worn and waterless soil. It just missed the essential catalyst of water. Our relationship always had the potential to be fruitful, but my lack of initiative destroyed any and all possibilities.

Then she was diagnosed with stage four lung and liver cancer. Honestly, I didn’t know what to think, what to feel, what to do. Naturally, I then thought about the memories. Deep as they were, they were there. I fondly remembered the crab, which she prepared without spices and tenderly de-shelled for me to eat and the pictures of my 8th grade graduation that she gingerly printed and taped to her dresser.

She had tried to keep up with her part, and I hadn’t. When we visited India, presumably to see her for the last time. I tried my best to spend time with her. Yet, even then, I didn’t know

what to do. I was at a loss of words for the entire trip. Yet even at the end, when we said our final goodbyes, I felt an indescribable feeling of affection, of love.

We always try our best to surmount barriers to see what’s on the other side.

Sometimes it takes longer to do so, as they come in all shapes and sizes.

But ultimately there is a subconscious connection between both people on each side of that barrier. When that

connection is directly made, that’s the making of a true relationship.

I’m glad I had the opportunity to capitalize and to build a long awaited relationship with my grandma.

Ultimately, I’ll be filled with regrets, as everyone would.

I hope however that she continues to love me wherever she is, because, even though she might not have seen it, I definitely love her back.

For Noel

Asia Howard

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And what are you expecting, exactly Antonia Ipser

In fact I do not think I would kill you I am nearly sure I wouldn’t: you are indispensible as morning toast and carry the smell of turpentine. The brush weeds go into solution the burrs precipitate and collect on the ankles of your jeans and you lose reality with a brief wedge of poleax between your eyes.

(I do not own a poleax, I tell you this although my imagining of axes inflicted upsets you.)

You could easily kill me yourself, your smile is the stinging aftercare of brushes soaking in tin cans, your morning-breath vapors dangerous to my lungs.

Still there are no bars on your phone and you are alternating looks at your phone and at me, as though I could possibly act on my fantasies but my caustic friend my lovely solvent, you do not bleed. do not think that I would hurt you when I still require the unfastening of murderous spaces, the assimilation of things which wish me congealed. We are in wheat-hills smelling acidic of wild onions and your conversation, with its corrosive intelligence, would let me fall and dissolve into the grass.

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Artisan

Eric Swenson

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Despair

Kristi Sun

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Past the Edges Katie Gu I’m staring at life past the edges.

Twiddling it around my thumb, smoothing it out with my palms. Scattered the fine granules into the blue horizon, feeling the rough edges scrape like sandpaper at my fingertips. Lost it while looking for reason, held it close underneath the twilight.

Silky smooth at one end, perfidy at another.

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Megan Prakash

Guitar Boy Joseph Wang

“No. No. No! You don’t know how fast you must play ‘zis piece!?” yelled Lena, my fifty year old widowed Russian piano teacher. When I was seven years old, I was coerced by my demanding “tiger mother” to practice piano in Lena’s musical dungeon for two hours a week. While the she-devil muttered to herself, “almost six o’clock. . . just five minutes left. . .” and my mother reclined comfortably on Lena’s white leather couch reading the daily World Journal, I was stuck listening to a monotonous metronome moan its never-ending drone of boredom.

Ding ding ding plhhtb. Ding ding ding ding plhhhhhhtb. The discordant shrill of my little hands plane-crashing onto the piano’s wooden keys resonated throughout Lena’s prison, piercing

her ears and fueling her fiery pit of aggravation. Eventually, her sighs of exasperation kindled my own flame of frustration. Ding ding ding ding ding ding. . . plhhhhhhtb.

Ugh! Why can’t I get this note right?!

“Your piano playing. . . iz’ like mushy little cookie. No one like mushy little cookie. Everyone love big and crisp cookie! Where iz’ ze passion? ze spark?” expressed Lena.

Mmmmm...cookies. Unfortunately, my thoughts of floating euphorically in a heaven of chocolate-chip bliss were harshly interrupted by the musty smell of Lena’s Chanel No. 5 and the urinereeking stench of her unbathed felines.

I wearily peered around my prison cell hoping to find the slightest bit of consolation, only to be met by Lena’s

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irked raisin-like face and an ice-cold stare that would make even Medusa shudder.

Lena, noticing that I had lost focus, yelped, “Why are you just sitting there?

Play!”

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The hour hand of her clock ticked toward the bottom, along with my resolve to remain obedient to the cat lady. What she did not notice (or perhaps care about) was that I had lost not only my focus but also any trace of interest in playing the piano. All the endless hours I spent pounding my frail fingers against Lena’s piano and listening to her quibbles of discontent boiled down to my parents’ vain hopes of someday being known as the proud parents of a Carnegie Hall pianist. Even the hours leading up to my weekly lesson made me quiver in protest.

“Joseph! Get ready for piano class!” screamed my mother down the hall.

Why me. . . why. . . me. . .

As a seven year old Asian-American boy subjected to my parents’ every demand, I felt scared and voiceless– unable to speak even when spoken to.

Then, on that fateful autumn afternoon, I sought to end my suffering once and for all by verbally defying my protesters.

At the time, it was an impossible task; yet, I still managed to summon as much grit as there was in my elementary

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school body to convert my tortured feelings into a language of rebellion.

After a few more keyboard plane crashes, she rebuked me once again. “DID YOU FORGET HOW TO PLAY THIS PIECE? WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR SCALES?!

DO WE NEED TO REVIEW THEM AGAIN, MISTER WANG?” “I can’t take it anymore!” I snapped.

I stood up and gave Lena a hostile glare, who, being her satanic self, had already beaten me to the threshold.

“I hate this stupid piano class! I hate you, your stupid cats, and your stupid piano! Why can’t you just shut up?!

Gosh!!”

Not knowing what to do next, I stormed out of my jail cell, pushed open the door to Lena’s underworld, and arrived at my long-awaited pianofree promised land. Ahhhhh. A brisk October breeze grazed my crimson cheeks, allowing me to regain my calm and recover my senses from the hardwon battle.

A few minutes later, my mother– alive– thrusted open the door I used to escape Lena’s lair. She walked over to me and assumed her “I’m going to go Amy Chua on you” position.

Oh dear. . . God, please forgive me for the pai– “Joseph! I am so embarrassed with the way you behaved in front of Lena

today! She is a very nice piano teacher, and after all the hard work she put into. . .”

Surprisingly, my mother was not furious enough to run me over with her minivan. Realizing that my life was no longer at risk, I zoned off into the suburban wilderness of Lena’s neighborhood, trying to tune out my mother’s stale reprimands and empty threats.

Is she ever going to stop yapping? “. . .fine. I can’t force you to play the piano, but you will know forever how much you have disgraced me, my family, and yourself!”

Gasp. My mother’s scolding suddenly made me ask myself: Did I just lose, or rather, throw away an opportunity that millions of other willing and talented Chinese children would die for in order to appease their overbearing parents?

I, being the disgrace, could not bear to sacrifice even a few measly hours of my life practicing the piano. Am I really that selfish? My rebellion, although successful, left me with a bitter pang of guilt; I did not know which foggy path to follow from the outskirts of what seemingly only I recognized as piano penitentiary.

Months passed after my last encounter with Lena. During my school’s spring vacation, my parents and I travelled to the Taiwanese countryside

to visit my beloved Uncle George.

I always found a little bit of myself in Uncle George; he was a youthful, western-loving man whose shameless gray hairs always differentiated himself from the rest of my traditional relatives.

Pulling myself out of a yellow taxicab, I immediately recognized a familiar sound: the rustic twang of Uncle George’s acoustic Martin guitar. As I walked closer to his wooden lodge, the twang grew louder and the sun seemed to shine evermore brightly on the weeds that dotted the cracked landscape with a vivacious green. I started to recall each and every nostalgic moment of my childhood sojourns to his home.

The friendly creaks of the timber logs trembling under my weight and the childish giggles of my playful cousins all reminded me of the heavenly rapture of youth I once took for granted.

“Hey! It’s my man, Joseph! How is my favorite nephew doing?” asked Uncle George.

“Good, Uncle George. It’s nice to see you again.” I beamed.

When the sun finally faded, Uncle George took me out of the house to take part in one of his most timehonored traditions: sleeping under the stars. Luckily, the night was warm, and he had already set up several sleeping bags for my cousins and me. Nestling myself into my shut-eye sanctuary, I

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gazed up at the heavens and inhaled the awe of the night’s star-studded blackness. The sound of the crisp spring breeze grazing against my ear felt refreshingly free from Lena’s soulshuddering cackle. Here, wrapped in the comfort of the hour of darkness, I knew I was safe.

When the sun rose, I awoke to the same mellifluous twang of Uncle George’s guitar I so knew and loved.

The warmth of the early morning sunshine beckoned me to come closer and absorb the zest of Uncle George’s American music. After listening to him for a couple of minutes, I felt compelled to ask him more about his musical endeavors.

“Uncle George. . . when did you first learn how to play the guitar?” I asked.

“Well. . . I first played the guitar when I was about thirty or thirty-five years old. The year was 1994, and I went with my friends to see Forrest Gump. Did you see it when it came out?”

“I was born the year after, Uncle George.”

“Oh. Well anyway, I really liked the theme song. It was called Feathers, and my friend, who sold guitars for a living, taught me how to play with his old guitar. I’ve been playing the same one ever since.”

“Uncle George? Can you teach me

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to play the guitar?”

“Wow! This is a little unexpected. . . but, I’d be delighted!” he exclaimed.

For the next few days, I joyfully practiced the guitar by his side at his wooden lodge for hours on end while my parents were out running errands.

One afternoon, my mother came back home and found Uncle George and me practicing on the front porch. I looked up and saw her staring right at me.

“What are you doing, guitar boy?”

As much as I was inclined to retort, I resolved to retain my nonchalance.

“Uncle George is teaching me how to play the guitar,” I replied.

“Sigh. Daddy and I will be cooking dinner in the kitchen. It’ll be ready in about an hour.”

Days passed, and, before I knew it, it was almost time to return to the States. However, I had a different agenda– one that did not consist of packing my luggage as my parents had told me to do so. I vowed not to return home without showing my relatives the product of my week’s hard work.

I asked Uncle George to round up the rest of my family and stand by my side while I performed.

When my parents, cousins, aunts, and uncles were seated, I proceeded to pick up the guitar and sit in Uncle George’s designated “guitar chair”.

Looking around, my heart sunk among

a sea of sagging saliva droplets. The only sight I could see for miles were drooping eyelids; the only sounds I could hear were “ugh”s, “ahem”s, and crickets chirping their never-ending song of awkwardness. Although all of my relatives had heard Uncle George play before, no one knew what I was about to do with the guitar. To them, it was sacrilege for a child to be playing an instrument other than the piano or the violin. To me, the guitar represented the realization of a true passion that I discovered and chose to pursue. Unlike the piano, the guitar had me falling head over heels in melodic yearning. It was like walking into a fragrant candy shop, tearing open a Wonka bar wrapper, and clutching a divine golden ticket which all the other chocolate-deprived children lusted after. I felt the burning need to tell everyone that I unearthed the golden ticket to my happiness– that I finally found “ze passion” and “ze spark.”

The sun darkened, the audience hushed, and the spotlight of the music gods shone on me. There was nothing left for me to do but manifest my newfound love for the guitar and prove to my relatives that I was no longer a cowardly “piano boy.”

“Without further ado, I would like to play a few chords of Sweet Home Alabama,” I announced.

As I played in front of my folks, I realized that I had inherited Uncle George’s signature twang. The more I played, the more silvery and smooth my notes became. Yes. Yes. YES! When I finished playing my rendition of Sweet Home Alabama, I looked up at the crowd, whose once furrowed eyebrows now arched upward in delight. Their hands, which held up their fatigued heads before my recital, were now clapping with admiration.

My mother and father, whose spines at first slouched in their rocking chairs, jolted straight with satisfaction. My performance had become a beacon of hope even to my parents, that perhaps I may one day realize my musical talent to the fullest playing an instrument that I sincerely cherished.

Being yourself is about being unafraid of adversity, no matter what shape, size, or musical form.

To discover the true me through the musical wonders of the guitar, I had to first break from my parents’ aspirations and then invest in an opportunity that initially cast me out as “unAsian”. After all the bottle popping and encores, I finally realized that my individual path through the world should be paved by my own hopes and ambitions, no matter how many of Lena’s lectures I may encounter throughout life.

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Traveler’s Tales Rebecca Fang

Take me where the lands are cold, The grasses dead, the skies ablaze Where predators from tales untold On bitter tundra blindly graze.

I’ll feel the winds caress my face With seething pricks of winter cold; Sensations that I’ve yet to taste Will find it there an empty home.

Show me plains of barren land Where sunlight drinks from crackling skin; I’ll tread the naked molten sands Until my naked feet wear thin, And dance with Pygmies evening long While studying their savagery; I’ll sing the festive Pygmy songs In foreign tongues of lesser beasts.

Lead me through the raging tides That built our coasts of amber hue Dive with me through depths of ice And float upon the sacred blue; The angry currents’ heavy breaths Will sweep me toward the humming reefs I’ll find in coral cradles, rest That heaven’s clouds could not release.

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And when back home my journey leads I’ll execute my final goals: I’ll drill the Arctic miles deep To drain its heart of blackened gold, Then cage the savage Pygmy race To labor to insanity; I’ll mask the ocean’s youthful face With swirling plumes of factories.

We are only human And our needs are paper-thin, But our greed’s a hungry monster that shall rise to feast again.

Gondola

Devin Nguyen

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Poe’s Folly Robert Maxton

Once, there was a midnight dreary.

That’s impossible. You couldn’t be dreary, not with a thousand shining stars, so nicely revealed by the invisible full moon.

“A galaxy rise,” as Sagan put it--how could that ever be dreary?

No, make it cloudy, place yourself in a city, send the stars panicking in fear from eight wings an hour--then maybe you could be dreary.

Marketplace

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Devin Nguyen

Ode to a Blackbody David Grossman

I weep for fear whene’er I see, Dark, black, a box? A square?

Like looming phantom, black body Second dimension, texture bare A jolt through psyche how can I care The screaming swirls, streaks Am I assurèd they are even there?

I see through sandstorm future bleak A thousand scarabs swarming past Revealing canvases ‘pon which to wreak The multitudes of epitaphs With which constraints of old to break Not void of hopelessness, nor wrath But strive bereft of fear ahead ‘till at long last with gleaming eyes he hath Exposed it all or clueless left us dead O glorious hidden blackbody, past which in front of me I cannot see O how I long to gaze through thee And simply claim you’re but a denser me.

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Canal Boats and Little Bridge in Venice, Italy

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Nayeon Kim

Upon Waking Kaitlin Halloran

solidify vein-walls (a sudden glancing frozen) I’m alone. movement (towardsing) what did you love? plan circumstance with precision of a thread-split. unguarding peeled exoskeleton: land needle, spire in the dirt. my filmy, fine motor control slides off. stumbling? why do the lights bleed, why do they protect me? that membrane, congealed and sliding, my wrists that shake their undecided declaratives: the breathing mass of night pressed against my back, the looping sky-gauze changes.

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Liberated circa 1922 Aditi Ashok

Short sequined skirts porcelain legs exposed.

Sultry stares at men so debonair as darkness unfolds.

Smoke oozes slowly from plump crimson lips Brass melody, syncopated beats Dingy glasses raised to sip Feet fly across the floor Rubber limbs lock in frantic embrace Coarse hands run through silky strands then disappear without a trace.

Cue a final glorious crescendo while peach streaks the shadowy sky Passionate lust turns to dust As we slur feeble goodbyes.

To hell with tradition Our hearts beat for tonight.

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Art Nouveau

Devin Nguyen

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Personal Statement Govinda Dasu

“This summer I discovered Planet X” was how I intended this essay to begin. However, I can’t claim that opener. The truth is that I didn’t find any mysterious orb at the edges of our Solar System, become world famous for the greatest astronomical discovery in a century, or even fulfill the requirements of the UCSC astrophysics summer internship I signed up for, titled “Finding Planet X”. The story is less glorious and more complicated.

When I first entered Professor Gregory Laughlin’s office in June, I came in with the naive notion that I knew what research is. My professor wasn’t sure what to do with me, an overenthusiastic adolescent with zero work experience. He said to start looking for Planet X by algorithmically sifting through WISE telescope source catalogs. Simple enough, I thought!

Yet, that seemingly simple task took me every minute of all summer. I would go into his office daily to extract some advice, follow hyperlink after hyperlink of astro-jargon, and even ask graduate students, but nobody could help me figure out whether the candidates that I found were Planet X. For the first time in my life, I experienced eagerness coupled with frustration. I was eager to find out whether one of the ten candidates I isolated was Planet X, my direct path to world fame. I was equally frustrated contemplating the prospects of a competing researcher finding my holy grail. However, when I’d go in excitedly to ask Greg about my ten babies, he’d smile and tell me I probably found X, and then define “probably” as a 1% probability. He’d tell me to go find out the problems with my beloved candidates, because he was sure none were Planet X. I’d think to myself: this professor doesn’t help me find the candidates, and he doesn’t even help me reject them!

One late August day, I went into Greg’s office and vented my dissatisfaction. He laughed and lifting his head from his Macbook, said that in research, you should be frustrated, confused, and outright unhappy 99% of the time. That’s what makes the 1% of the time you actually succeed so phenomenal. He went on to reveal to me that afternoon the fact that I wouldn’t know whether my candidates are real until the second release of data, which comes out March of next year. I retorted stupidly with concerns about my Intel paper due this November, for which he told me to write about my learning experience and my candidates.

He then emphasized that I cannot want those candidates to be Planet X because that is attachment, not science.

This summer, I learned that science is a truthful report of how Mother Nature behaves, and research is the struggle to find a significant truth. Paradoxically, that struggle doesn’t have to be successful in order for the research to be. This summer I did not discover Planet X; I discovered research.

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Portal

Nina Sabharwal

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Patio

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Cherry Xie

Venezia

Kristi Sun

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+

Cindy Tay + there will come a time when there is no Son in the sky when there is no sky at all only a yawning plain, a starless stain behind your sandpapered eyelids + where You will cry out where Your words will strangle themselves before they reach Your own ears where Your thoughts, mere forlorn wisps of smoke will waft away on an airless breeze as You surrender Your breath in a last scream whose echoes leach into colorless silence, and You

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+ burn on, faintly like Your circlet of sputtering candles but the wax trailing bloody rivulets down Your smooth forehead leaves no tortured tracks because now, even “being” is debatable existence is staggering, stumbling flopping and dropping and plopping down a flight of stairs that aren’t there.

Serenity

Allison Kiang

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Colors on the Road to Sentience Robert Maxton

Black.

Black, black, black, black, black.

Black, bla- light!

Light.

Light, light, light, light, light, light Light d light a light r light k light Light da light ar light rk light Light dark light dark light dark light li dark ght dark li dark ght dark l dark i dark g dark h dark t --------Yellow light.

Yellow, brown, brown, brown, brown.

Yellow, brown, brown Yellow, brown

Yellow, red, red, red, red, yellow, yellow, blue, blue red, red,

red,

red, red,

red

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yellow, yellow

yellow

Red. Red, brown, red, vermillion, red, red, red Red.

Red, brown, brown, brown, brown, grey Grey, brown, grey, brown, blue.

Blue. white, white, Sapphire, azure, blue. green, green, Blue, green, blue.

Green.

Silver.

Silver, argent, yellow, black, red Silver, translucent, green, white Green, green, gre en. Gre en. Cro-oak.

Green, green, brown, grey Grey, red, gold, green Golden light.

Light. Light, light, lighCrimson. Crimson. Crim son. Flash of silver. Glint of gold. Crimson.

Dull white, ink-black, rainbow shine.

Crimson.

Darkness.

Darkness, light. Darkness, light.

Darkness, darkness, light.

Darkness.

Light.

Light, light, li--

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Transform Aditi Ashok

The mutable nature of life signals change Withered leaves escape trees, buds morph to succulent flowers The aging process is an acrid, unfair exchange Yet the blind hands crawl forward, hour by hour In almost forgotten times, though not so long ago My limbs and mind were perpetually in flight I sliced cleanly through the air, a streamlined arrow As instinct as breathing, not a shred of fright Like a thin film of ashes, blissful years are masked by truth Simplicity and sincerity are solely sweet dreams to me A hollow prisoner, a faded silhouette of youth What I would give to once again be free It is an inevitable truth that everything must change But my puerile soul wishes we remained the same.

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Jennie Xu

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This year, the Harker community suffered a terrible tragedy. Jackie Wang’s death affected all of us greatly. This poem is one student’s reaction to this event.

In memory of Jacqueline Wang (1995-2011)

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Purple Days Joseph Wang Hey, Jackie.

Remember back in the purple days There in that drafty red hallway We stretched our eyes and teared.

High school was upon us–– Nothing could ever stop us.

Remember back in the purple days There on those chuckling white stairs I drooped, waiting for Sam to okay me Sucking anxiously on my pacifier, I cried.

You smiled.

I drooled.

Remember back in the purple days I arrived at Homecoming, Huffing and puffing, late and ticket-less “It’s okay!”

We gave each other our purple flowers I proudly wore yours, you proudly wore mine My boutonnière says it’s thirsty.

Some beats were fast, some beats were slow But girl, you dripped purple Exuding the bubbly and brains we all loved Dancing, laughing, and showing us the world.

It pains me to know I never said it out loud–– I love you, Jackie.

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Love Lockdown

Alisha Mayor

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The HELM Staff Kaitlin Halloran Editor-In-Chief Justin Gerard Editor-In-Chief Elizabeth Wylezcuk-Stern Public Relations Manager Laura Yau Design Editor Emily Chu Designer Rebecca Fang Katie Gu Anika Gupta Antonia Ipser Shrreya Jain Nandita Krishna Connie Li Maya Madhavan Nitya Mani Anika Radiya-Dixit Brandon Yang

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