Penchant 7.3: Reverie

T H E P E N C H A N T

BLUE ROSE

by vinna shen

“gone are the depths of imaginary echoes”

REVERIE

Irvington High School’s Creative Writing Club is a student-run, interest-based club dedicated to providing a welcoming environment for writers of all kinds to convene and share their ideas outside of an academic setting. Members get a taste of publication through submitting to The Penchant, our online literary magazine. Meanwhile, monthly prompts, in-club competitions, and major writing contests are provided to allow members to explore the implications of writing, improve on their own techniques, and receive feedback from their fellow peers. Overall, our collective mission is to enable the students of Irvington to write what they wish and have their voices heard.

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iii| Photo by Hoàng Khanh on Unsplash

iv| Photos by Jan Kopřiva (left) & Marina Reich (right) on Unsplash

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6| Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

7| Photo by Kreative Kwame on Unsplash

8| Photos by Clay Banks (left) on Unsplash, bird (right) on ArtDraw

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the penchant

Irvington Creative Writing Club

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Ojas Vatsyayan

CONTENT EDITORS

Francis Luo Arindam Datta

LAYOUT EDITORS

Khloe Fong Kritika Maheshwari

CONTENT

Nidhi Bellamkonda

Arindam Datta

Francis Luo

Sophia Luo

LAYOUT

Khloe Fong

Kritika Maheshwari

Eliana Yang

Yvonne Yun

REVERIE REVERIE REVERIE REVERIE REVERIE REVERIE REVERIE

poetry

7| Sonia Liang

8|

Visitor Hagie Mendoza

9| i by Sophia Luo

15| poetry collection by Francis Luo

19| Wong

20| Breeze

21| Mahi Kumar

23| ‘ Koo

may 2024

1| Reverie by Nidhi Bellamkonda

3| We Are Not Tied, But Held Together In This Fragile Life by Elena Yu

25| Cindy Ye

25| Anonymous

25|Jodi Wong

25| Khloe Fong

26| Elena Yu

26| Dani Gao

11| Blue Rose by vinna shen

REVERIE

by nidhi bellamkonda

She had sat there embracing the calming yet emotionally moving piece of Clair de Lune. She contemplated how unfair the world was, how unfair and cruel people were and could be and it hurt. It hurt so much, yet she couldn’t cry or more like she wouldn’t. Instead she thought about the positive things. She thought about what caused her happiness and with that notion she was lost in the imaginary world that was her mind.

And she thought about you.

Because no matter how hard she tried she just couldn’t stop. And it wasn’t that she didn’t want to think about you, no in fact it was quite the opposite, because she loved you but she would never tell you that.

She thought about your smile, your genuine smile. She thought about your unique voice and how comforting it was. She found solace in the thought of seeing your smile and hearing your voice. Simply the idea of it eased her tensions about the unjustness of the world.

She remembered when she first met you. How cheery, and bright you were, as you exuded positive energy. At the time she didn’t know it, but sooner than later you would become the one and only person she thought about. She thought about how much you meant to her, not just as the one she loved but also as a friend. She thought about your kindness, a positive, golden energy that traveled far and wide. She wished you could be here right now, with her cuddled warmly in your arms. She wanted to ruffle your fluffy hair and gently rest her head upon your shoulder. She wanted to be in your embrace and feel the soft touch of your lips. She was giddy upon thinking about that. She thought about all the small moments you both had and every meeting and how her eyes gleamed. Despite the shyness and embarrassment of her smile, she would always flash her teeth in a wide grin around you. You would make her laugh. A genuine, heartfelt laugh which came from the depths of her belly as she threw her head back.

She thought about how cute you looked, when you were flustered. How red you got which would only grow more as you got embarrassed from being embarrassed.

She thought about how you had such a nice way with words. The way you spoke was so engaging and your conversations were always so interesting. She wanted you to be in her life, perhaps forever. She thought about yours and her future: how you went to college and she was left behind but in her mind, you never forgot about her. You waited for her and coincidentally she ended up in the same college as you. You responded with, “You next year.” and she blushed. Now you had a job and it paid well. She was in her last year of college and you cheered her on. You let her know, you were there for her. Some days you would call and you would be dejected. You had a hard day at work and she’d be there for you, she’d comforted you, and let you know tomorrow was another day.

Before long, she graduated and you were there as her biggest supporter. You both celebrated at the graduation party. You told her, you spoke to your boss to recommend her. If she got the job, now you both would work at the same place. Once again, you would be close together.

She got the job and had been working for a few years. You both enjoyed your jobs and were making good money, but more importantly, you were both happy. She wanted to take it to the next step. Surely all of this wasn’t because you were just friends. One fine day, she got the courage.

During your lunch break, when you were chilling at a casual coffee shop, she confessed.

“Hey, I’ve liked you for a long time. I was wondering if you wanted to go out.”

Of course since this was her thought, you excitedly responded with yes, and now it was official.

Too much didn’t change but now you would hold hands in your spare time and go on little, cute dates. They were much like your regular hangouts but now they were just a little bit more special. This continued for a while and then she thought maybe we could have a live-in relationship. You would spend your lunch together and even your weekends. You would call for long hours, chatting casually and also helping each other with assignments. You

Then she skipped forward to your graduation. She saw you go up with a proud, beaming smile, and she was so proud of you. She cheered the loudest as you received your degree and she waited for when she would receive hers.

At the graduation party she ran up to you, threw her arms around your neck and exclaimed, “You did it!”.

She put this question to you and to her delight you agreed. Over the next months you both moved in. Traveling through furniture stores together, planning what to buy. They had a petite apartment but it was homely and perfect. After work, you would cook dinner together and the kitchen would be a mess. You would wrap her from behind, turn her around and hoist her onto the counter, and then you would kiss.

Before long, she was in a fancy shop with her girlfriends, looking for the perfect white dress, to match her engagement ring, while you looked for the perfect suit. The invitations were sent out. Both of your close friends, her family and your family would be there.

The day arrived and she walked up to the front with her father by her side. She had just arrived at the pedestal when she heard a door open. She looked up and found her mother staring back at her angrily.

“DID YOU DO YOUR HOMEWORK?”

Right. She had forgotten entirely about reality. The fact that she was still in high school and had a world history project due the next day. Her reverie was lost to the depths of her mind.

by elena yu

WE ARE NOT TIED, BUT HELD TOGETHER IN THIS FRAGILE LIFE

This is what he remembers: a cafe, some forgotten biology textbook, the clustered kitchen of her college dorm. Living outside of life. This is what he knows: the time spent with her in the clouds was a reverie. Everyone has their own truest, most vulnerable dreams, and he was fortunate enough to have known his by name.

No one could teach her; not when she doesn’t want to learn. She governs the world in this way: with sheer will and nothing else. He knew this since they were partnered for some intro STEM class; he saw it as an inevitable class, to her it was torture.

The textbook slams shut. All nine hundred pages of it echo in the library. He shuts his notebook too, the pages curl a little at the edges, to look at her.

“I’m guessing we’re finishing the bioethics paper later, then?”

She blinks, and he knows that it was the absolute last thing on her mind.

“Why wouldn’t we?” Her voice curves up into a question.

“Not like there’s anything else important to work on, right?” Lie. He has five other things to finish up. “What do you wanna do?”

“It’s not about doing. We can do this anytime, really. Theoretically, we could’ve just called to do this, right?” She asks, the answer already on the tip of her tongue.

His brain hasn’t moved on from science. “Theoretically.”

She plows ahead: “That theory—the one in the school article on astrology or shifting whatnot—where what you see stays in your brain and becomes dreams. If you think about it—and I’m being so serious right now—if you think about it: your dreams are a reminder of what’s

going on around you. The only thing you haven’t realized is that your dreams are alive. They’re the biggest reminder we can escape. Nothing tethers us to our lives, not really. We can turn it all off, just think about that.” Her hand traces scratches on the desk absently. “Who cares about this textbook? Why are we here? To do this?”

She’s lost in her words; so is he. Her hands dart back and forth—to the lamp, the scattered notes, the paperbacks—and his eyes race to keep up.

“To do this is so—” Her eyes are a hearth. He’s a moth caught in flames. “We have the sky, the sea, and we have the view outside the window. That’s what our life should be made up of, we’re alive and we can explore anything, that’s why we have our dreams.”

That was not the last time they met; she finds a cafe two streets away from the public

Her eyes are a hearth. He’s a moth caught in flames.

library and he tags along. It’s good to get outside sometimes, is what he tells himself. In the buds of January, they walk there together. His jacket clings to freckles of snow, and her lashes are crystalized. Wall to wall glass displays rows of flaky pastries, petals of cream and bouquets of glazed fruit, to entice passersby. Surprisingly, they didn’t stop talking after the semester long bioethics course ended.

“We can choose when we get in,” he grouses with a wool scarf pulled up over his nose. The eastern winters have a bite, and it worms up his arms to chill his breath. He glances over at her, still wide-eyed at the golden display, and pulls her toward the line inside. No point in freezing outside. She doesn’t spare him a glance. The door jingles open and whispers shut.

“Shut up, I’m thinking.”

He sighs, “About what?”

She takes her phone out, scrolling through reviews. “I’m imagining how the rest of my day will go depending on which cake I choose. You don’t know, this could be life changing stuff.”

“I don’t think like that.”

“I know, and that’s why I’m deciding for you.”

“You can just get more to go.”

“You’re right, we cou–” An idea sparks in her wide eyes, and she pulls them into line. “We’ll just split!”

Unsurprisingly, the only thing left for her to take home is the uneven half of a matcha and chocolate cake.

The apartment is a spaceship, he feels like he’s watching Earth orbit every time he’s here. He doesn’t know why

he’s here. He woke up to her knocking and his name shouted through the wall on a spring Sunday; now he’s here, transported to an alien world outside of his dorm. She lives by a park, not on the moon or some faraway Neverland. She drinks coffee, not sunshine. She’s like him; he sits with the thought rolling in his throat. Watching her flutter around the entrance reminds him of leaves in the wind.

“Yeah, just move that aside–” She pushes a stack of boxes against a peeling wall. “Okay, just leave your stuff there.”

Eyeing the square of space, he angles his bookbag between the layers of dust and piled sketchbooks.

“You really don’t have to sigh that loud, dude,” she kicks aside the valley of clothes. “Make yourself at home.”

“So you’re ignoring it? Or was yesterday in my dreams only?” His voice rises as the words cut his throat on the way out. It feels like he’s choking on salt.

“Maybe I don’t have anything to say about it anymore.” Off in the distance, a car peels down black asphalt. “I applied on a whim, honestly, and it doesn’t seem like a bad choice.”

He replies through a mouthful of copper, “You’re right, you shouldn’t not go. Plus, you already have family there. Don’t say it’s rash.” Everything aligns too well; coincidence is a word used for situations far smaller than this.

Her face scrunches in thought, “At least we can call right? It’ll be the same, we can

make it work.”

“No, what we’re gonna be is a thousand miles apart.”

“Why are you saying it like that? Like it’s your fault.” Her words are coming out too fast, too honest. And then she says his name, syllables flowing like a stream through a bed of rock and moss, in a way that snatches his voice away. “It’s not. You can’t fly three thousand miles on your salary.”

“But you won’t be here. I could go.” He could be there, is what he means.

“I don’t have to be. It’s still your birthday.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry I’m missing your birthday.”

He repeats numbly, “I know.”

Nothing is real. He opens the blinds, and watches as the crooked slats hang perpendicular to the pines outside. He’s lived alone before. He’ll be fine. He will.

A hand reaches over and fixes the beam of sun away from his eye. Her eyes catch his, a fish hook dancing silver and shiny in murky dark.

“That doesn’t change, though. And neither will you. You’re allowed to have the same dreams you had when you were

twelve, and you’re allowed to find new things at twenty-one. Either way, all of that is still you.”

“But what if I don’t want that to be me? I just—I don’t need all of that,” he says.

She smiles, only it is a smile like mischief and nothing like mourning.“Tell me tomorrow doesn’t exist, I’ll believe you,” and the echo of her words whistle through the room. This is what she means: we alone can write the world, for it is the magic of mankind that gives us dreams and sends us off into the sunlight to chase them.

Something rasps out of him, oiling the rusty hinges of his jaw, as he laughs. (She watches the flush of his face: Aidoneus caught somewhere between joy and relief.)

Between breaths he says, “We can’t stop time, no one can. All I know is we have every day and forever, so what’s the harm of tomorrow. We sleep to put off the tomorrow from happening too soon, and we live in our dreams to prepare for the next day. Except it’s not a war we’re facing, we’re just preparing for a new world to face. And—and don’t worry, we’ll face it together.”

(This is what she remembers: he smiles like the sun and mourns like an executioner. This is not what she dreams about. At this point, it isn’t a dream, not when she’s had it a thousand times over.

It’s some false reality: a comfort and a hoax.

She stands in a room painted sepia like a photograph in a twin locket, crowded around a tiered cake and waltzing streamers. Only, the candles of the cake are blinding—like a thousand disks of light—and all she sees are blurs. Someone’s clapping. She’s singing. Someone knocks their hip into hers; she’s too fixed on the shadow standing next to her to care. He’s laughing. It’s his birthday, she realizes. He’s a refraction of light, some gilded form fixed in the image of the daytime. And her eyes are still dry from the flight she took across sprawling oceans to be here, but it was all worth it. She can’t see his face, and somehow she’s not worried at all. All she does is look and look and look, basking in the warmth of the room, tethered to the earth by a single point: her hand in his.)

A state of piece hidden from the naked eye

Covered by one’s complacent sigh

A state of peace hidden from the naked eye

Covered by one’s complacent sigh

A kind reminder of one’s desire

Which consumes as though by fire

It seems as if days go by Without one knowing why While thoughts engulf the conscious mind

And the brain and body began to bind

All until a fiery snap

Brings tranquility to a wrap

All until a fiery snap Brings tranquility to a wrap

”

TO YOU, CHERISHED VISITOR

by christin hagie mendoza

It isn’t subtle, the way the trees sway

I know you send the breeze to brush against my skin

My hair flutters as you gently comb through it

Your touch is warm even in the brisk wind

A sweet chime fills my flushed ears

As you sing to me through the birds

I dare not move until they finish their song

Fearing to forget your soft-spoken words

What great ardor, to humble the proud sun

He knows all the times you’ve embraced me

Your arms wrapped firmly around my being

They’d engulfed me in a glow, much brighter than he

The emulous moon fails to retrieve you

Her knowing glare is an inescapable piercing white

Still, it’s numbing, your similitude

She can only echo what I saw in your eyes at night

I don’t ask why you send the waves for me

Their melancholy only brings me tears

But in my reflection, I feel less lonely

I still know you, after all these years

She can only echo what I saw in your eyes at night ” “

by sophia luo

cw: implied self harm

threading through my veins is the thin

red yarn spooling in my heart spilling through my ribcages an internal bleeding, bleeding of my feelings

seeking treatment of a disease, hopeful in our own tangled ways but you need to flee before the breeze blows away the pile of sand that we were standing on

can you feel me?

i'm thinking of you, forever and always. i can’t escape your brown eyes always on mine waiting for me to notice but i look away

the first time i saw you i was jealous of the way your fingers moved swiftly across the page, writing like they felt no pain

but i know you feel pain digging your fingernails into your scars hoping to feel something again if that doesn’t make your heart ache

i’d like to know what does.

BLUE ROSE

by vinna shen

it’s all so loving, a grin so loud it blinds, and i can’t help but reach back and be consumed. “ ”

I meet You first on the bus, a pretty girl of frills and ribbons. Checkered, pink cardigan over a lacy, white shirt tucked into a pleated skirt and pale leg warmers adorn your frame of ash brown skin. And I think I love you.

The first comes easy, then. come here, darling, you say, arms outstretched and beaming from ear to ear, a breathless smile on your lips

giddy and bright and loving, with every one of your stained teeth on display and your face is flushed in blotches of red

a patchwork quilt of uneven color and your arms are trembling, fingertips unsure, waiting for my embrace: the bony, sharp thing of me to fill all your soft edges and rounded cheeks and earlobes studded with stars it’s all so loving, a grin so loud it blinds, and i can’t help but reach back and be consumed.

The lines shape into your figure and I want more. Words flow like an undulating river, dam broken into a fierce snake, piercing through lungs of toxic sludge. mish mash of words on a punctured notebook.

an addiction. come crawl in my bones, dear i’ve scooped out the marrow, stripped to pure, eggshell white for you i’ll place you there tenderly, softly and lovely, with all the care you must be afforded i don’t need blood for this kind of love you can sing godly ichor sweeping through my veins, instead fueled purely by you, your voice, you i will take every scream and caress and twinge until everything becomes you and you are home.

But this isn’t right, not for You.

Not for your dark brown bob, bows in your hair and round, rose glasses. For all that warm chocolate and delicate cherry blossom, i pluck you from the stem, nevertheless, an undying love. A natural impossibility.

There is You as you are, and there are dreams of you, my sweet, of you, dying in my arms and visions of my hands, and your throat sweetheart, breathe. and let me tuck your hair back, delicate let it wash upon you, long and lush lap at your ankles and swallow you whole it’s painted behind my eyelids young, and war torn from grievances quiet unfairness and stubborn sentiment unaware, and so, so naive, pitying and selfish

the world explodes at your last inhale and gone are the depths of imaginary echoes my love, I can bring you to life but never more for a second

I kiss you at your end.

The abnormality is delicious and wholly unwelcome. An ouroboros of identity I can’t discern. You, above it all, and you, at its center. I wish you’d fade, letters flowing to an ebb, then a drizzle, trickle, and stop before the earth could digest corpses. and leave me wanting

But still, sometimes I wonder if you know the eons between our fights the quiet silence between, a blanket that and shifts and pulses despite how I loathe the flowers wait with me holding our breath, together.

“

i will take every scream and caress and twinge until everything becomes you and you are home. ”

My Head Was Already in the Clouds so I ate the sk . I thought it blue berr tart on m tongue, so much that it stuck on m bod and in-between m teeth even at four AM. Clouds set root like taf . Birds as cherries on top. I tugged at a corner of the sk ; it ripped in little pieces, like wallpaper unpapering, dissolving in m tea like sugar. When I drank, it bloomed in m mouth again like the memor of whom. Now I am too blue to talk to ou. A little bird faps burning in m stomach. I shot down the sun for the ninth time; now I am loved and m love is lost. She gazes uncannil from the moon and I vomit sk .

Ballads for Two

The trumpet on these tracks: impure like a light blue brine in which I lie suspended.

Tonight:

it is a memory, and it sings like a bird breathing its last breaths. Have ou seen this bird? I know he visits ou too, waiting in the swirl of thermals for ou to step outside. That's how found ou:

the crackling freplace; the crackling vin ls; ou were l ing languid on the divan with e es wandering out into the wall of the snowcovered window. The were somewhere on the other side, like two lost toddlers waiting for their parents.

for/at us and I onl want to become him, afer the fanfare, sitting with ou in the pristine ennui. Tonight:

POETRY COLLECTION

by francis luo

O R T W O

Disembarking

It is not the "Land ho" ou e pected, but instead a stead , unnoticeable seep of green accentuating the thin line between the eerie twin blues of sea and sk .

The ship docks. A cold crisp crack reverberates as it bumps against the metal pier.

The once-familiar color of the town has changed to a new hue alien to ou. Some part of ou is stuck in the jar -ring space between the serene sea and the aural phantasmagoria of cars' deadl whooms or, in another time, the din of horses' hooves and wheels clacking over cobbled streets.

The Ongoing Slumber

Man dancing in slumber with the strings all tied up around their hands. Pirouette

like a hurricane.

I am on the vestiges. The pour of heat from the north. The rain isn't supposed to drif up from the south, but that's how it works toda . Just a few drops, more than usual. The sea is calm. Magellan named it the "peaceful sea." I am learning the ropes, to unfurl the sails, to catch the wind and let the moment move me forward. Right now

garbage of which I am collector. In the crow's nest, snores, the vestige of a pillow peeking out over the wood.

There are no icebergs here, onl the sea and we dance clockwork. I measure the moments, and in that time I have lost them all.

WHAT IF? byjodiwong

The teacher is rambling

But I don’t understand a word.

The clock is ticking

Yet time stands still.

The static noises creep into my ears

Like I’m looking into the abyss. Why am I here?

Why do I need to listen to this nonsense?

The ringing grows. I go numb.

What if I was a piece of dust in the corner of the room?

Light as a feather, tables as tall as skyscrapers. The ringing grows.

What if I was a leaf gliding in the wind?

Flipping and flying, following where the wind takes me. The ringing grows.

What if I was one of the trillions of stars shining brightly in the sky?

People looking up at me, I’ll hide as the sun rises. The ringing grows.

What is my purpose?

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

The ringing echoes throughout the room. Class is over.

Oh to be a leaf in the breeze

It’s so nice to be as free as wind but leaves can never settle never connecting long enough before leaving once more

Longing to be grounded

Like its siblings on branches who don’t have to fly away when the wind calls

Airborne it’s hard not to dream hear the wind whispers sing the shifting of sands in the sea and the soft rustling of leaves

So welcoming, nature’s song like invisible fingers holding on tight to the Earth below

No voice

No choice

No chance until the wind settles

Just a leaf in the breeze

So it dreams and dreams and dreams. drifting in the blue

by eliana yang

A world where it’s possible to stop and smell the flowers Enjoy the sun without the wind's cold embrace

To watch the clouds drift until a storm brews and stay long enough for stars to shine through

To join the songs and understand how it feels to belong Then the wind settles

Could it be desperation? When the rain comes Leaves sink to the floor

Accepting their fate

At last the final days return to Earthy dust raise the next generation that might fly too close to the sun.

LEAF IN THE BREEZE

by mahi kumar

Life without seems unimaginable; unreal

Like a night sky stripped of its guiding stars

Like a lighthouse devoid of its beam

Like a heart hollowed of love

Yet, with it, the key turned, fit just right

Unlocked the door to my heart,

Beating and pumping, my heart flourished

Life with is the only life there is

Without it, my life lost; lacking light and love

I closed my eyes and tried to believe

But every time I laid to dream

Gray clouds spread over the starless night

The wind laughed at my profound loneliness

Tombstones circumscribed the internal void

Hope that it's not startled me alive

An adrenaline rush pushed me to her house

Heart pounding, I raced through the dark, destination miles away

Faster than I ever could, dashed to her door

Afraid, slowly turned the key to see

My life, my heart, my mom safe in front of me

`SERPENS by grace koo

so a constant affliction, so a distorted depiction so they say you're a viper, is that so?

Serpens, the vacant white lines that make up your body are the only ones in the night sky cut in half; yet through your death you're a million years alive accompanied by the man who had killed you a lifetime ago

so bare your jagged teeth and let the anguish slip past your dreams

may Ophiuchus with his resentful eyes let your prayers shoot across the sky

a viper, born take lives before they begin yet pinned to the cold sky for another man's sins tonight, tell Ophiuchus to sing you asleep, perhaps you'd wake up and find yourself failing to breathe

Serpens, your sleeping body stretched along Ophiuchus' glory, the loneliest grave for a misconstrued story, Serpens, your kin will awake you with a mouth full of hope as the halves of your body fall from a lifetime ago.

The castle rose into view above the horizon and the sky was painted in pastel blue clouds and the still water glared up in jealousy.

ANONYMOUS. “ALMOST THERE”

FONG, KHLOE. WONG, JODI.

YE,

girl stuck in traffic and is deeply drowned in her thoughts about marine lives

GO, DANI. “LOST IN THE DAY”

YU, ELENA.

YU, ELENA.

YU, ELENA.

YE, CINDY.