The Kairos Times | June 2024 Issue: Pathways

Issue 3 - June 2024

Pathways The pathways of life are the various journeys we have taken and will continue to take. From narrow alleyways to wide highways, our adventures in life are vibrant and diverse.

The Kairos Times Literary Magazine

The Kairos Times Magazine is a youth-led literary magazine based in the North Shore Area of Vancouver dedicated to spreading awareness on global and cultural events through creativity. We believe stories and artwork can capture an intimacy unlike any media outlet.

In the interest of quality, the Kairos Times publishes annually. We look for creative pieces that share the perspective of a relevant event at your time of creation.

https://thekairostimes.carrd.co

Editor’s Note As we embark on this year's literary journey, I can't help but reflect on the many choices that led my life into this very moment. Each person's journey, with its twists and turns, helps define who they are and what they become. Our experiences, whether smooth or bumpy, carve out our stories, painting a rich tapestry of human existence.

This year, our theme is "Pathways." It speaks of exploring the diverse routes we all take in life and how they mold us into the individuals we are. Just like a river winding through different landscapes, our paths meander through challenges and triumphs, shaping our identities along the way.

Through "Pathways," we aim to delve into these unique life journeys. Through the power of storytelling, we'll shine a light on the various experiences that make each of us who we are. From moments of joy to times of struggle, every step along our paths contributes to the beauty of our shared humanity.

To our dedicated team who poured their hearts into this magazine, thank you for your hard work and dedication. Your commitment shines through your work, and it speaks tremendous volumes of your diligence. And to our contributors, your voices are the threads that weave together the fabric of our publication, these submissions are the bane of this issue’s existence.

To our readers, we hope this issue serves as a reminder of the richness and diversity of human experience, inspiring you to embrace your own unique pathway with courage and curiosity.

The Kairos Times holds a special place in my heart, and I wouldn’t do anything to change the years that I’ve spent with this group.

So let's journey together, exploring the myriad pathways that make up the story of our lives.

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Table of Contents Editor’s Note

1

Table of Contents

2

Team & Contributors

3

Pathways Playlist

4

Segment 1: The Everyday

5-11

Segment 2: Ignition

12-17

Segment 3: The Growth

18-27

Segment 4: The Low Tides

28-39

Thank You Notes

2

40

The Kairos Times Team: Editor-in-Chief

Emilie Lee

Creative Directors

Graphic Designers

Marketing & Social Media

Nasim Moussavi

Kaylie Fung

Jess Ma

Jocelyn Tjhin

Grace Park

Nerissa Wang

Emily Cui

Hestia Zarei

Michelle Zhou

Tanisha Chhabra

Finance

Erin An

Margaret So

Grace Wu

Queeny Gong

Leanne Chung

Editor

Claire Zhong

Outreach Coordinator

Mary Tian

2024 Contributors: Photography

Artwork

Writing

Michelle Barabanova

Jason Fu

Anncia Li

Nasim Moussavi

Jess Ma

Mary Tian

Cyrus Lau

Sen Netami

Karis Song

e

Emilie Le

w l

Tristan Brace el Kent Zhang

c

Ethan Keroua

g

Kaylie Fun

Jin Luojia

Emily Cui

Claire Zhong

Beck Chi

Ingrid Tang

Sen Netami

August Lam

Nasim Moussavi

3

m u s i c 1

p

a

t

h

w

2

See you Soon

5

K i s s

o f

L i f e

B e a b a d o o b e e

Happy Man J u n g l e

Amor de Siempre C u c o

Reflections T h e

N e i g h b o r h o o d

Letter to My 13 Year

6

7

8

4

me :

9

s

the Pathways Issue of The Kairos Times

1

4

y

A p l a y l i s t t o l i s t e n t o a s y o u fl i p t h r o u g h

Sugarcoat ((N ATTY Solo)))

3

scan

a

Old Self L a u f e y

seasons w a v e

t o

e a r t h

Scott Street P h o e b e

Prom S Z A

B r i d g e r s

W e l c o m e t o

Pathways

T h e K a i r o s T i m e s

Is s ue 3 – Ju ne 202 4

5

GENESIS

6

By Jason Fu

Please God

B

Please God,

y

P

Where is the strength

I need to destroy my eggshell world

A

Do I still deserve to be born?

n

L

If I am a coward

Whose fear undermines my will?

Please help me God,

to molt; I fear my new skin

Is a farce that will not hold.

n c i a

Tell me God,

Did the caterpillar ever feel fear?

L

Gingerly emerging from its chrysalis,

i

Gone

E

A

S

Without a trace left of itself

Oh God,

Why do I still clutch my dead skin?

E

It smells like mother. It is warm.

It is rotting. It is suffocating,

And am I a stillborn pupa?

Please God, can you rebaptize me?

Let me born again, entirely.

Let my sins, filth, blood, and birth,

G

Be as if they were another’s

Vestiges of a past life achieved.

Please God!

O

Help my mother forget

The sound of my name

And help me forget

D

Her bittersweet embrace

Let me be reborn a shadow

Who comes from nowhere

Who slips gracefully across this earth.

Please God! How much longer must I be...?

7

A

NORMAL D

A

Y

A dismal wailing of eldritch voices screeched their agony across the bronze expanse of plains. The cacophony was somewhat akin to the air raid sirens raging within our once fair city. Fire licked hungrily at the remnants of the dry scrubgrass and there were embers as far as the Dainsgard range, abutting its foothills to the edge of vision. The sparse cinereous trees dotting the hills smoldered. With equal fury, doomed silhouettes in the distance raised their miniature guns, swords, crossbows and axes into the air, unleashing a defiant cry. Echoing for a tantalizing second, the voices were in unison, then were swallowed by thunder. Deafening cannons blasted, their dissonance bequeathing a familiar ringing in the exhausted eardrums of the vast cityscape.

Swift, azure hovercrafts now cast ominous avian-like shadows as they went flitting across the steppe, gliding through the barrier of smoke at the edge of battle. An icy chill shuddered down the spine of the city as the craft neared the battle lines, parading the infamous crimson cypress logo adorning their sides. The tree in the logo sprawled her cruel, talon-like ebony branches outward, wrapping, strangling the breath from those who opposed her. These were government vessels.

Every aspect of the landscape of Sempre screamed war. But war was temporary, a phase of conflict. Eight hundred years of conflict was no longer war.

It was a normal day.

Despite the ghostly plumes of gray smoke billowing on the periphery, and the replacement of Earth’s blue roof by a violent canvas of crimson and ash, no one batted an eye. When the first phase of Mortem’s Revolution had been carried out, non-compliant animals were not all that went extinct. What we called the human heart had ceased to exist, people’s rose-tinted glasses shielding their eyes from “acceptable third party effects''.

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What we called the human heart had ceased to exist, people’s rosetinted glasses shielding their eyes from “acceptable third party effects''. As the day continued, a stream of countless stretchers flooded the major thoroughfares, those burdened with casualties diverting toward makeshift infirmiraries. Trails of helpless family members raced on their heels, their eyes wide in palpitating anxiety over the likely prognosis issued by the physician on duty: cryogenic preservation.

It was a normal day.

“Do you think they’ll come?” I whispered, my voice taut with nervousness and panic. I grasped the velour material of the couch beneath my tremorous legs, desperately attempting to steady my heartbeat. Roger avoided my gaze, but I caught hints of fluster flickering in his ashy eyes.

“They have to,” Roger clenched his jaw rigidly. “They’re our only chance.”

Five minutes until noon. I recited a verbal precis of our plans to distract myself from my frenzy of trembling agitation. The smell of sulfuric powder coated my nostrils as the afternoon cannons sounded in the distance. Roger and I, as if simulacra, both turned instinctively and glanced at the revolving glass doors of the concourse. At first, nothing happened. Then, the glass shook as a small, moving projectile crashed into the doors with a small thud, and the creature, fluttering its wings, regained its balance. But what happened next was the outlier. Two pairs of heavy, metallic boots thundered to the bird, but no shots were heard.

Moments later, the animal flapped its amalgam of unbloodied honey and chestnut plumes and rose back into the air, alive and unharmed.

The world fell silent.

It was no longer a normal day.

By Mary Tian 9

Life’s Odyssey

By Karis Song

There are many pathways, but which one is right? Which do you take? What choice do you make? So many directions to choose, so many to confuse. Yet to get to the end, you must start in a maze. Choose a way, whether smooth like silk or rugged like stone.

It’s life's journey, an odyssey to be known. There is no absolute right, no unerring decree, fear not the wonder in wonderlusts call.

So tread with courage, amid the unknown. In the maze of life, your path is sewn. Every step, a tale unfolds. In this endless journey, fate molds.

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By Michelle Barabanova

YOUTH

By Jin Luojia

Sometimes, I feel a little too young again, a little too much like myself.

Like nothing has really changed, when my teeth are still bared and my words are sharp, and my shoulders still cave from the pressure of who I cannot be. I wonder if there’s any fault in that. Perhaps I only feel uneasy around the concept of my youth because I’ve spent my teenage years trying to grow out of it, to distance myself from who I used to be. Often, I reminisce on who I was before, and I wonder if anything has ever really changed at the heart of who I am. My eyebrows still furrow when I’m confused, I still like mango, and I still love like it’s the only thing I’ll ever have. I see the contrast and the rift of growth close between old habits, and I see the way I have always looked at love reflect back at me from the echoes of my past.

Perhaps nothing has really changed, or everything has come full circle. I find the scatters of love throughout my life when I fumble through my drawers and find unsent letters, quiet declarations of love and affection shoved away and buried. Sometimes, I stumble upon my old writing and feel heard now, many years later. My writing was horrendous then, all clumsy words and earnest love shown poorly in terrible phrasing and unclear metaphoric comparisons. But it was love, affection and truth layered in a tone of genuinity, and I feel a little proud of who I used to be when I read those letters. Perhaps my morals have always been hard-stuck since I was young, or perhaps I have never really needed to outgrow myself.

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Maternal Campfire Emily Cui

on the ashy floor

of a bed-less bedroom

i strike my next match as if in a monotonous routine

snowfall charcoal dancing like whips of flame

licking my skin / keeping me warm

like she once did.

mother, mother, where did you go?

t

en sp en be s ha dle kin the of t las the d an ing dy is fire our camp t bu t ke jac old my of es ev sle the it fed d an ir ha my of ds i’ve chopped off the split en it keeps demanding for more

and i have no more of me left to give,

mother, mother,

perhaps you just got lost on the road home

s

lip ur yo to n oo sp c sti pla a lift ll sti n ca i t bu ol co to g the watery soup is startin to ht nig the for g itin wa er eth tog up rl cu n ca we en wh fire ing dy and who needs a pass,

ce

on rm wa s wa , too ht nig the e us ca be ss pa nt me mo letting the and surely it’ll warm again,

mother, mother!

the wolves are howling and i can’t help but cry aloud

ly

rep in es ho ec ly on t tha ce tan dis ff -o far a m fro e ns po i, too, am waiting for a res in reply, maybe i will deny what’s inside, maybe i will subside

maybe i’ll let it die.

let it die,

let you

die.

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oh, mother.

how tired i am of living

in a monotonous routine

wisps of smoke clinging to my bare arms as if apologizing

empty promises / like the ones she made

as i stand to go

the clean silhouette i had left

becomes ashy once more.

hiss,

hiss…

pop!

“mother?”

WOLF In She ep’s C lothing

By Jess Ma 13

BY CLAIRE ZHONG

t o r r Ca 14

Like the power to imagine hunger

I pull on the leafy stem; I hope

To see the orange wrinkles, and to

Gnaw at its flesh, to a solid core.

I don’t know how much lies

Underground but it calls me

To my knees in the dirt;

Soiled skirts no match for temptation.

The ground is soft underfoot, the stem

Dances like a girl in her room when

No one is watching; and she

Gives it her all and a little more.

From the Southern mountains of the Middle Kingdom,

I tug these roots, my roots, like

Undoing loose threads, pulling apart bloodlines and history

That led to me and everything else.

The body of the carrot will not leave

The dirt without ample time and digging;

This one is a deep root and it reaches

Down, deeper still.

And what to do if I do manage to haul it out

In all its golden glory? Make soup? No;

Perhaps I could carve it into something

Legible, unravel tangled root filaments;

What would it spell? Not terracotta warriors or long, long, walls,

Or forbidden cities or chipped porcelain; rather,

Pickled cabbage, and dissected uteruses, and rocket scientists,

And book ashes, and cupped hands holding stolen rice.

I’d brush the brown out from crusty wrinkles and

Display the naked root to the world

Like an honest review by a theater critic

After a long, long show.

Carrot Carrot Carrot

By Nasim Moussavi

Carrot Carrot Carrot 15

16

Cyrus Lau

Cement Sea

Beck Chi

They said to take the road less traveled, but it hasn’t made a difference

The night is a blanket of blue and I can’t feel my feet, much less see my hands The street lights have gone fuzzy and the cars whoosh past,

moving so fast that not even the streak of their tail lights can mark my path

The watch on my wrist blinks 4 am on the dot

and the wind dissolves into salt in my throat

Every step feels like walking in water,

but at least it’s one step farther from anywhere you can find me.

You told me running away would be like sailing,

and I’d fallen for the image of sun-cooked canvas and white-winged birds, the cerulean spray in my hair and the horizon coming up fast

But you never told me what happened on the sea

when there was no breeze left to carry you forward

It’s been days on days of humid motels and limescaled showers, and the drip of my sweat on the graying linoleum floor

The pizza at the gas stations slicked my stomach with grease and I’d sucked the soda from each empty can until they creaked

So what if the scratchy creases on my knees from the seats of your pickup and the gnat bites on both my shoulders are something I can't forgive you for?

You should’ve told me you couldn’t make us a sail out of the clothes on your back And you should’ve told me that the ocean was never blue tides, just black cement, or that seagulls never flew in a sky they couldn’t drop from

I told you once that love wasn’t something we could live off of And you asked me if I’d rather we both die instead

I said no and we’d walked on

but my shoes have been digging graves in the road ever since,

and the birds would never recognize a shipwreck above water.

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Line s of the Apoc alyp s e Anonymous I ambled along the sea-bank,

Lone at the edge of time;

Amidst a world eroded, sank

In swells of salt and brine.

Preserved is the fluttering wind

Dancing through the dead land;

As moss-tombed corpses lie behind

Across the boundless sand.

Whose dreadful hand could raze and fell

Thy stakes of rooted steel?

And tear from ivory citadels

Forests of copper teal.

I stand immortal but forlorn,

A husk of rotting skin;

As feasting vultures smirk in scorn

At our eternal sin.

Yet the sky glints a painful blue,

The sun blind brightly looms;

Flaxen grass kissed green by dew

Embrace the blossoms’ bloom.

And from the heavens I did see

Man’s final fire iced;

A burnéd world, from us set free

To bathe in candlelight.

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Walking Fine Lines

Emilie Lee

19

in the food market

Jess Ma

20

voyager voyager voyager

Dear voyager,

this town becomes home

when you pass by your favourite children park, marvel

at how time has shrunk forgotten objects in your absence,

at how light glistens and shines all the same in these bustling streets.

every corner you turn has a ghost; dusty memories

haunting the space until your return -

for the past is a mere mortal body,

able to be revived by a stroll in your hometown,

yet there will always be a body that stays six feet under.

you were once innocent and only saw the beauty in things,

now I choose the sharpest, shiniest of them all to use as a weapon;

you once loved the shine of the spotlight on you

now I dread loud, familial noises, watching people laugh,

joking about my brother and his non-existent girlfriend,

knowing it could never be me and mine.

chloroformed by air freshener spray

that masked decades of cigarette smoke,

I find myself at the airport once again, where chapters begin and end.

I wonder if home can be two places simultaneously,

because when returning home I feel homesick for another,

knowing that sentence is nonsensical in itself.

but I have left pieces of you in our hometown,

in places you were born to love, places I grew to love;

but I have left our true self with people who knows what makes us us

at the beach where we wrote our names in the sand;

it all goes back to salt in the end, for the soul knows

where it came from and who it belongs to.

Ingrid Tang

21

T r i sta n B r ac e w e l l

22

Path of Life

Cross-legged on a moonlit beach, a soul whistles and hums to the tune coming off the waves, one not sure to even grace ears.

It's a moment that just began and will soon end; A moment where every fiber of being seems to line up softly and procedurally against one another like battered dusty puzzle pieces being fondly obsessed over.

Where and when the universe's song begins, if only for a fluttering moment, to be sung from random lips.

Some may come across the indescribable melody often; Some may never; Some may die trying. A song is no rite of passage, no knowledgeable scroll, nor flower to be placed in one's grave but yet a human soul might cry and wail and ask into the silent unyielding sky: Might I hear it just once, I beg?

It is all too easy for someone to lose themselves in the surface of reality and it is painful, even for the blissfully ignorant.

We live our lives believing the same mantra and chanting it to our children; life is cruel & life is unfair, but it is to be lived nonetheless, and we forget to sing.

Sen netami

23

bus ride

By Claire Zhong

When I got on the bus, it was empty, hollowed-out, a senseless cavern and I let it swallow me whole. The floor is drenched from the wet footprints of those who once filled this steady vehicle that brought them safely home. But no one is here now; I alone am faced with the task of filling the space. I cannot; I don’t. Instead I choose a seat in the very back, next to a droplet-laden window, where I retreat like the membrane of a plasmolyzed plant cell. I rest my tote bag on my knees just before the bus growls, and rumbles forward.

The city is colder, grayer, everything-more-negative-er than it was this morning, and I bounce the bag in my lap as the bus goes over a speed

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bump.

The bus stops to let on a gaggle of giddy teenagers, laughing through their drenched hair from under gaudy raincoats that keep them warm and mostly dry. I lost my coat at a bus stop last week, a blue one with white polka dots and sunflowers, bright and yellow and pretty… it wasn’t there anymore when I went back for it a few days later. That’s how it is with things you leave behind. I avoid the teens’ eyes and gaze out the window as the doors slide shut; the bus heaves a heavy sigh and moves on. Droplets stream across the glass, streaking my vision the same way mascara streaks my cheeks, wet from tears or rain, I can’t tell anymore. Half a tuna sandwich sits dead in my stomach; I usually love tuna sandwiches, but I couldn’t swallow much today, not after his yelling, not after my crying. I wipe the black from my face and it leaves a dark smudge on my white sweater. What’s the difference between losing someone to time, and losing someone to death? I’m not sure there is one; either way, someone has to lose. I guess it’s my turn this time.

The driver stops again to let the teenagers off. I watch them enter an ice cream shop not three meters away from the bus stop. Ice cream on a rainy day? I shake my head, although I know I’d done the same thing once. The bus begins to move again and the pink white and brown from a picture of ice cream on the shop’s awning blend together like the colors from Crayola marker drawings I used to run under the sink as a kid.

A few stops later I pull the yellow cord to ask the driver to let me off. It isn’t my usual stop, but the bus had begun to feel too vacant for too long and I am numb. It’s raining harder now, with all the cats and dogs; my sneakers squeak as I make for the door. I step out into a saturated gray; as the empty bus leave me, I melt, leaving only a mascara-streaked white stain on the pavement.

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SNOW BLINDNESS

26

Chasing after

the tails of progress bars

Salivating at the

sound of red and green lights

Lunging for the

glow of a phoenix's feather

This war drains my coffers,

And my people suffer.

I'm tempted by the glint of

The concubine's blade,

To dress the bride in red.

The lonely mountains,

White like the trains of wedding dresses,

Call me to surrender myself

To its cold embrace.

I climb on all fours up her treacherous path

Fingers slipping on red blood and black ice,

Wind howling through my bones,

My country is but a village from above.

Voices call and beckon,

One dog pulled by a thousand leashes,

The sun blinding me with the snow on my lashes,

Till a shadow came over me—

Fingertip to steel toe,

I gazed upon armour,

Darkened with blood and rust,

That face, weathered by scars,

That boy, jet eyes of the devil,

That man, steely gaze of a saint.

"This war drains your coffers,

And your people suffer.

Yet behold—there is no enemy

But death inside you.

You expound on its teeth and thorns and tendrils,

Giving it license to destroy you.

Clawing your way along,

Deeper into the world of words, ash and bone,

Or rise from your bloodmire dream,

And behold! There are flowers growing,

Right beneath your nose."

anncia li

by kent zhang

snow

“Skiing is an activity that has helped me overcome many obstacles in my life. It has shaped the pathways and the journeys I’ve travelled and is an essential part of me.”

27

by emily cui

i am a storm

the accumulation of a thousand bits of rain

of a thousand fragmented glass shards

the off-water off-spring of you so please

please don’t treat me as a storm

when i am made of your disposed tears and your disposed wine bottles

washed out into sea / swept onto sandy shores

stabbing into the bare feet of tiny children

asking

“can’t you see you are hurting? why still run to the ocean where only salt shall sting your wounds?

“is the roaring of the waves a kinder song than the screaming in your head?”

not all that glitters is gold

sometimes it's your grief melting into the depths

your unspent love the currency of tears / trading salty emptiness for regretful amnesia

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the conches here just as hollow

voices washed away by the wind

swept into the screaming of thunder pouring rain

can you hear it?

my bellows and wails

sinking ships surging fury

drowning dying burning

if you run won’t i just chase you harder?

tales of longing spun in washed-up bottles and wooden crates

forgotten pleas trapped in glass

delivered by aquamarine waves / sun kissed shells that dull in comparison / is the answer only ever on the other side of the sea?

what about the water tempts its sacrilegious confessions / one strike one scream for every unspoken damnation and every damned soul

you feed poison and expect ambrosia?

come a bit closer

let me show you

a storm.

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TIME IS A RIVER Sen Netami

There is not enough of much in reality.

Wake up and go to school and come

back unsatisfied, hungry, curious,

needing more of something and

yet tired. Tired from not enough

sleep, not enough energy, not

enough silence in your head?

Yet there is never enough

time it seems either. No time

to rest, no time to sleep, no

time to eat, to study, to laugh,

to cry, to sit and watch the world

pass over you from the open grave

you are kept and yet still time is

something you are always losing, never

gaining.Ticking away despite the broken

watches smashed at your feet. Only the paths you

choose to take come in abundance, and yet you are paralyzed. Frozen in the present, a petrified log

tumbling and drowning in a raging river That is time itself. You WILL be pushed forward and the

water WILL run, but will you swim? Will you face the wind head first? Will you even keep your head

above water? You must move or die, and there will never be enough time. Death is the end of the

river; the ocean life feeds into and it is coming no matter what you do, but how do you want to

arrive? Waterlogged? Submerged, suffocated and rotten? Or will you be treading water? Will you be

pushing your arms and legs with the current, feeling the wind above it in effortful weightlessness?

As the rains rise up from the sea again so will you find yourself at the beginning of the river once

more, hammering down into the rivulet; alive again. And this time. Ask yourself if you can swim

better than before or if you will sink to a smooth stone on the bottom, waiting to disintegrate.

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HARLEQUIN

ON THE PISTE

By ANNCIA LI

The trickster of blades

Has come to play,

On his feet, shoes of each colour,

Mismatched, are his jacket and breeches,

But don't be fooled by his clownish attire,

For he's got many a card up his sleeve,

And perhaps a bit of fool's gold.

I laughed at his jokes, and fell for his tricks,

Fell for his smirk and his backhand flicks,

The touch on my hand, like a gentleman's kiss.

What I wouldn't give to hear him say it again,

"Let's dance, pretty boy!" Again! Again!

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I’ll See You Soon Beck Chi

Dear Birdy,

I have gone away for a little while. How I decided upon my time for departure was not a deliberate or

explainable one, but I do think that it is for the best.

Last night I was lying in bed and pretending to smoke in the cold. You know when the windows are

frozen over and the bedsheets feel like lead on your skin? I blew out puffs of air into the darkening blue, like a chimney, and thought of Brooklyn. Us on that rooftop. Smoking the cold, smoking nothing at all. Plumes of white fanning into your hands and mine. Air into clouds–that’s all it takes.

An exhalation of breath.

I have taken with me everything that’s ever mattered. That is to say that if you were to go to my

apartment now, you would find everything in order and nothing to be missing. It is a sad thing, to live a whole life in one place and then leave with nothing to show for it. But I suppose this makes it easier. To start anew, with nothing to weigh me down.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about pathways. As I write this, a shuttle bus is taking me to the airport. I am thinking about where I will go.

I have been dreaming of the Mediterranean, with its foamy cobalt sea and sandy brine that will cling to the hems of my clothing. Buildings of cream and ivory at every corner, endless cliffs to dive from, and freshly skinned fish at every meal. Or perhaps I will venture somewhere colder, with rolling hills and waterfalls that tumble from mossy mountains, big enough to be showers for the giants of old. Everywhere I look, there will be sheep sorrel sprouting from the muddy skin of the earth. Do you think I’d like it there? Would you?

I’d like you to know that this isn’t me trying to find somewhere I belong. You showed me a long time ago that it was with you, but time has turned all my memories into nostalgia and every time I reach for it I come away with cuts on my palms. I don’t think that I will remain in any place for too long. I know that all the places I see on my journey will be beautiful, but beauty has never been enough for me to stay.

I think it’s best that you forget me. Spend your days thumbing through the pages of a second hand novel or painting those wrens that pass by your window every morning. Let the sun hit your face often. Swim in the lakes until the soles of your feet go soft with water. If you ever find yourself missing me, wait for winter. Climb to your apartment rooftop, that place where the lights of the city could never quite touch. Breathe in the cold and let it out. Clouds that are loose and hazy are

known as cirrostratus clouds, but down here they are just called steam. That’s all it will take to bring me back.

Back to Brooklyn, over cerulean seas and grass hills and waterfalls so large no one could stand the weight of them. Back to you. An exhalation of breath, of water, and of air.

32

B LU R R Y D AY S Emilie Lee

33

artist:

Ethan Kerouac

CLAWS

“Displaying the intensity of emotional distress amidst societal and internal pressures.”

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SHATTERED SHROUD “A sense of both struggle and release, the act of pushing through, embodying the struggle to break free from the constraints of emotional repression.”

“Further reflecting on the challenges of expressing and managing deep emotions while maintaining a composed exterior to the world.”

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Story of Our Life August Lam

One day, we were born, on what we call land with a vast endless blue sky and white clouds. As children, we walked the path of story and birth, from stories, to legends, to myths, to history. They are tales told by Grandfather who said gods are the supreme being of the world who created us, but we have many Grandpas, so we have many gods.

Through our mother, art, we grew in comfort of being able to voice our discomforts and love. Sometimes they nag us, sometimes they trap us, sometimes they hurt us, sometimes they lie, but at the end of the day, because she raised us and taught us what it is to be us, we love art.

With our father, Science, worlds opened up to our unending thirst for knowledge. He took us hand in hand to see everything in a new light. We experienced exploration in an omnipotent view. Even if he was too direct or strict sometimes, we knew he told the truth for us.

When we grew up, we made power out of gold and silver, children from men and women, art with ink and paper, colors from dyes- from plants and animals.

For centuries, we moved through earth by walking and enslavement of the horse kind. By eventually floating on water through the creation of boats, moving across the water. Tired of the seas and land and swamps and forests and mountains and plateau. We decided to grow wings on titanium, steel, aluminum to travel the skies. We become a lone traveler in our world, towering.

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Their uncle, Technology, showed up at our doorstep, seeking approval. Despite his old age, he constantly changed, and acted often like a teenager. Only in his latest modifications, we came to accept him.

Grandma sort of hates him, so we guessed he probably had some mommy issues the way he acts so immature sometimes. He comes up with the weirdest things to say, but we love him.

Glorified by promised future, we continued to travel outwards, into even the darkest skies, Away from photosynthesis born oxygen, away from our beloved gravity. It seems to be time to start exploring the world for ourselves, as we are now older. Some of us are trying to ground us, reminding us to care for Grandma nature on her deathbed. Some of us are trying to leave, to a new home out with aunt Mars, or with cousin Moon. We are all greedy and eager for something to be more and more and more, some for better, some for worse.

Skyline - Kaylie Fung

But that’s what makes us us, and this is the story of our life, till today.

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ct rl. “ a n o d e to my f avou r i te a l b u m a n d t h e n e w c h ap te r t h at l i e s a h e a d ”

P O S T C A R D

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no stalgia

(n.) a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

now what? every ounce of sand whispered into my ear

The comfort of the mattress that protected every fall was pulled away from under me, like a pair of training wheels screwed off mid-pedal. The tides pushed me deeper and deeper until every gasp of air that I took wore me out more and more than the slow and silent suffocation beyond me.

They always tell you that beyond the apparent depths of the ocean, there’s another world, another beaming light. Yet, before I surrendered to the empty whirlpool below, I woke up yet again to the sand whispering beneath me.

you’ll be alright. It’s okay to not have it all together, you’ll find your way back to the sand even when it seems as if you’re helplessly drowning. Just remember to press ctrl and reboot.

POSTCARD

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A Thank ou Y

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been a pleasure!

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like minded students fi ghting for

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the contributors; this wouldn't have

to see the magazine grow!!

been possible without your endless

It was so awesome being able to work with our amazing team . I’m looking forward for the this issue of the magazine!

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everyone on the team! W hat

and kind . H ope Kairos will

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guys ..

happen! It’s been a great time yet

each year!

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Editor

Thank you to our awesomely talented contributors for fi lling this magazine with their work , and thank you to the amazing Kairos team for making this publication

The Kairo ros Times Literary

Magazine The Kairos Times is a youth-led magazine based in Vancouver dedicated to spreading awareness on global and cultural events through creativity. We believe stories and artwork can capture an intimacy unlike any media outlet.