spirit - ISSUE 14

PORTRAIT

issue #14: spring 2025 spirit

cover design: Jill Wong | inner cover: Fallon Dern

Jillian

Krisha

Akshaya

Aijia

Neil

Caris

Sogna

Sogna

Mia LaBianca

Michelle

Mackie Koizumi-Hackey

Hadley Snell

Nandini Likki

Christian Wolke

Dear reader,

I cannot wait to introduce to you the stunning pages of Issue 14– the stellar, rich, and creative work of our contributors this semester. Paired with that excitement, I have so much gratitude for every single contributor for their time, effort, commitment, and passion. This is what keeps the Portrait world going ‘round. A humongous thank you to contributors for the magic of this Issue, and to you, for reading this special publication.

Issue 14 is a testament to the reason why Portrait has been, is, and will continue to be a home for so many of our members. This follows through the bittersweet fact that our members come and go every year, our community shifting and becoming new with every semester. This evolving nature intertwines with its constant and never-ending spirit, creating what we know as Portrait, always present and persevering throughout its different communities. This renders Portrait a home, and it will stick with me beyond graduation as my time with the magazine comes to a close with the publication of Issue 14.

With that being said, I’m proud to share that our theme for this issue is an exploration of the term spirit. Our Portrait family has creatively endeavored for the past few months by grappling with the term, engaging with the concepts and reflections of what it means for them. I’m so lucky to have seen this in action, and so grateful to be presenting you with the evolution of these conversations and their creative expressions.

So, it’s with great heart and honor that I present to you, Spirit. I hope the following pieces fill you with as much pride and joy as they do for me. As always, thank you once again to everyone who made this issue possible, and to you, for sharing in the Portrait experience with me.

With love,

Sohyoung Jeong, Editor-In-Chief

Family Portrait

jillian alyssa

editor-in-chief: Sohyoung Jeong

content editor: Ulysses Bergel

creative director: Jill Wong

design lead: Fallon Dern

lead producer: Christian Wolke

launch liaison: Katherine Wu

social media: Nicole Gao

treasurer: Anni Yu

writers/project leads

Ananya Agrawal

Celeste Agulay

Ulysses Bergel

Andrew Chu

Fallon Dern

Nicole Gao

Neil Kotru Gode

Alyssa Gu

Cody Hoang

Krisha Jeevarathnam

Sohyoung Jeong

Presha Kandel

Makie Koizumi-Hackey

Mia LaBianca

Nandini Likki

Jillian Lin

Caris Lee

Lena Lee

Sogna Louie

Apollo Marks

Michelle Mei

Sayan Naik

Tina Ni

Zoe North

Akshaya Raghavan

Arman Rasool

Hana Afiz

Isabel Rhee

Hadley Snell

Jadon-Sean Sobejana

Kris Stewart

Kelsey Wang

Christian Wolke

Katherine Wu

Joy Zhang

Aijia Zou

Ananya Agrawal

Celeste Agulay

Art Arden

Lucas Chiang

Nicole Gao

Neil Kotru Gode

Alyssa Gu

Sohyoung Jeong

Makie Koizumi-Hackey

Quinn Kou

Rylan Liu

Sogna Louie

katy

cody

nandini mackie quinn miranda joy b

fallon

christian

lena kris

ulysses

mia

akshaya kinsey

michelle

designers

Sayan Naik

Tina Ni

Zoe North

Lavanya Manickam

Michelle Mei

Alicia Salva

Kristine Sohn

Kinsey Wang

Katherine Wu

Nicolette Wu

Joy Bai

Ulysses Bergel

Fallon Dern

Nicole Gao

Sohyoung Jeong

Presha Kandel

Tori Kim

Mia LaBianca

Jillian Lin

Miranda Liu

Zoe North

Akshaya Raghavan

Kelsey Wang

Kinsey Wang

Jill Wong

Anni Yu

Joy Zhang

Aijia Zou

producers

Christian Wolke Hana Afiz

Nicole Gao

Krisha Jeevarathnam

Nandini Likki

Aijia Zou

cody neil

krisha anni joy z

sogna

hana

arman

izzy

andrew

jill

sj

kelsey

caris

kristine apollo

nicole hadley

by Katherine Wu

HAPPY SPIRIT

Written by: Alyssa Gu

Edited by: Rylan Liu

Designed by: Miranda Liu

Letter #1

Dear Em, As always, it’s raining on Venus. When our ancestors tilted their heads up to the night sky and named that bright bulb of light 太白星, they certainly did not consider that this planet is itself murky, humid, and generally unpleasant to be on.

Time is immaterial here. The sun sets in the east and rises in the west and each cloud makes way for the next. It’s hard to see anything through the windows, all the drops of water blurring any view. I spend my days in bed. I am trying to remember

Letter #2

Dear TodayEm, I watched a tree sink into the rain-saturated ground, a slow-motion demise. I could see it happening from my window. It made me think about the cherry blossom tree at home, its lilting spindly trunk, the branches long and vast. I wish I had a picture of it. When the flowers bloomed, they were the prettiest shade of pink. Is it spring yet on Earth? I have lost track of the seasons.

The leaves on the trees here don’t turn golden brown and fall in great crackly piles. All year, they stay the same. When I finally got out of bed today, I saw that a stray leaf had made its way from the collapsed tree to just outside my room. I opened my window and plucked the leaf off the ground. Up close, it was glossy and brittle. It contained every color in the rainbow. I’m keeping it in a jar by my bed.

Letter #3

HaveWritingDearEm,thisletterfrombed.satherethinkingofwhatelsetosay. Haveyoueverbeensotiredyoucouldn’teven

Letter #4

Dear Em, I apologize for the quality of the last letter. I’m not sure this one will be much better. The problem is the problem itself – I thought it would go away by now. I do not know how to describe “it,” to say my limbs are heavy, my brain is numb, and the world is gray would be to rely on cliches. I suppose I could describe it like this: every morning, the first thing I see is that bright little leaf in its clear glass jar, a wondrous gift from an angry planet. And every morning I feel so disappointed, that I should be awake to see this leaf once again.

DearLetter#5 Em, manyForallthetimesI’vebeenonVenus,andtherehavebeen timesbynow,Ihavelearnedtofindmywayback up,home.There’snoepiphany,nograndcure.Oneday,Iwake andIcangetoutofbed.Imakemyselfteaanddrink yard,itdowninonegulp.Ipicturethecherryblossomsinour thesunwarmonmyface.Ithinkabouthowtoget willbackthere.Everytime,Ican’tquiteremember.IguessI havetolearnagain.

DearEm,It’sinterestingthatinbothourlanguages,“the sunhascomeout/太阳出来了,”we’renot tellingthewholetruth.Thesundoesn’tactually comeout,rather,thecloudspartandrevealthe sun,whichhasbeenthereallalong.Itusedto feellikeataunt–thesunshinesonVenusand Icanneverseeit.Lately,though,I’vefounda kindofcomfortintheidea.Therainisstillfalling,myleafisstillinitsjar,butIknowthesun isthere,inafutureImaysomedayreach. I’llseeyousoon.

Letter #7

Dear Em, The cherry blossoms are blooming. Today you took a picture of me standing under the tree. In it, my mouth is wide open midlaugh. You asked me what was so funny. Nothing was, really. I guess I was just glad I had woken up that morning, so that I could stand under our tree and watch you squint in the sun.

Love, Elle

I always feel akin to wind

Windy city and stormy bays

Drifting clouds and rustling sky

I like to sing in the wind, letting the gust carry my voice away.

But the wind that night stirred my dream

The wind howled —fists pounding against windows and doors

A voice was calling me. Woke up with a racing heart “快点回来，奶奶要离开我们了”

Come back

Back to Her

Go back

The wind flips a few chapters back in the book of my life. Returning to Her chapter.

I always sneaked into her room when I couldn’t sleep

So used to the sound of her breath —her thundering snores my cradle song. I imagined her breathing like an elephant, a steady rhythm that calmed my restless heart.

I used to ride on her back, on her motorbike on the way back home

A gust swept through, billowing her coat like a sail. I clung tightly to her, as we cut through the wind, moving as one, and part of the air itself.

「Spirited Wind」

Written by Joy Zhang

Edited by Kristine Sohn

Designed by Fallon Dern

Now I am riding back, alone

The wind passes through the open window of the taxi, lifting the scarf she knitted for me— fuzzy, as if her rough hand still brushes against my chin.

Here I was beside her her hand in mine Damp, soft, yet ice-cold

Every word I spoke drew out her final breath 60, 20, — Letting go with her last sigh.

I watched her went through that iron gate and came back to us in a tiny wooden box

Then we carried her away to the mountains, to the place where silence lingers. Granny, where are you? Will you stay in the mountains forever? Or will you ride the wind back with wings outstretched? Granny, come back.

Mothernight falls

When Daughter shivered in the cold, shattered with tears, a breeze wandered through the garden door. The curtain fluttered gently, like an old memory and she drifted into sound sleep.

Last night I had Her in my dream. She was sitting in front of me on a motorbike like always. I clutched Her broad shoulder, reaching forward to see Her face. But the rushing gust from the front held me back —time itself pushing me away.

A spirit glows in the ripples of the lake, Whispers carried by the lakeside breeze. I find Her, I feel Her, in every motion of the air, in every breath of life.

notes to walls

written by Sohyoung Jeong

edited by Kinsey Wang

designed by Aijia Zou

second language

like yurisangja and the saxophone pleas to love i’ve only learned to love you in ballads, somewhere in between my mother tongue, my mother’s verses

please, please, from one heartbreak to the next, don’t forget this brown eyed girl–i am yoon gun’s lover now

but bleeding chests are incomplete without these ballads, i only have ballads

my grandmother is a poet, and i think it must be why my words will forever be for you

but it wasn’t my grandmother who taught me i miss you is easier than i love you kim bumsoo belted it to me,

until my vocal chords adjusted accordingly until my dreams drenched in seaside and kimdongryul until the ballads laid flat in my lungs

reason why i’ll slowly fall in love with the bay

there are two types of air– one that reminds you of your thoughts, and one that reminds you to breathe.

somehow, each world i live in and eventually leave behind teaches me the difference between the two. new york has filled my head. the older i get, the more callused my hands and feet become, and peace in the background becomes more and more rare. i am no longer sure about what i want and my hair gets shorter and shorter. i don’t feel heroic anymore.

but february in the bay

and car guitar acoustics hold hands like mine and ren’s glistening with whatever sun rays the trees allow, pretty and calm like our lack of words while the dip above my lips garners the wind whistling into my throat.

dancing together, the abstract

i really like when we all hit the bottom line all at once seeing through closed eyelids and thrumming and pointing, you feel while she feels while bounce strewn from hand to hand and everyone gets it.

homes for lost emotions

are pristine and crisp hubs of learning, brilliant shifting walls are words! are words, thudding technicolor paint puncture pop nodes and drizzle tears but everything is moving, so my arms bend past my legs dig below and twirl and my pen knows what to do and i grip the mic harder sweetly sweeping through and through, pinching and flicking notes undressing then dressing up birthing spaces for new chills and loves, season to season

and a special thank you to the hard-working contributors to these works

[Who are you?]

[who are you?]

누구니?

누구니?

누구니?

누구니?

it’s me.

you used to tower over me, standing at the door. that wheelchair doesn’t suit you, when did i become so tall?

we never talked much, maybe it was the language barrier? the distance? perhaps, the age gap? or

maybe it was the painful memories that lingered from your cigarette and silenced your voice when the memories came flooding back

i wish i could remind you by reading aloud all of the birthday cards i wrote for you.

He’s too weak, too old. Let him rest.

누구니?

누구니?

i wish i tried harder to tell you, how highly your daughter speaks of you

these days, i hear you enjoy playing bingo; it’s the same update I get when I visit every november.

can you hear me though?

once,

you called me so lovingly, “ 동림아 ...” that was the last time.

누구니… it’s ok, you can forget.

i will remember for the two of us.

Written by: Isabel Rhee | Edited by: Sohyoung Jeong | Designed by: Joy Zhang 17

DESTINY

Tadhana (n). A Tagalog word that describes something that will come to be, or a destiny beyond your control.

You have your mother’s heart & your father’s mind. Little did you know that creates the perfect tandem of life— which is your own. It is why you perceive others feelings, their needs, above yours. Sometimes, that can overwhelm you; it’s okay though. As long as they are happy, then you are happy. They say your brother acts much like your dad. Because he studies the patterns of this world, he has the worldly mindset. The kind that will allow itself to be enamored of the people’s thoughts. “Do you want to know what made Steve Jobs such a great individual?” You still love them the same. After all, you’re like that too (sort of). You study the world— you know, being a Biology major. This is your passion, your career! But, having your mother’s heart, it’s not enough that you just know about many things. You constantly find ways to turn what you know into something that can help others. Why? I don’t even know, why. Your mother & father are both in medical careers, but they’re not doctors. No, no. That’s your job. Can you say that it is because medicine & health were the only things you’ve ever known growing up as the reason? Maybe. What about the reason you want to help others so much is because you grew up in a place where the leader is someone who died for you? Sure. Then, it’s not because you have your mother’s heart & your father’s mind, is it? It’s not. Then, what is? Sometimes, when you know, you just know.

MOTIVE

Padayon (v). A Filipino term of Visayan origin meaning to carry on, move on, and keep going.

My Filipino-Chinese great grandfather was known, amongst his family, to be stern & disciplinary. No one was able to satisfy his standards— he had a heart of ice. In a dimly-lit dining room, I sat at the edge of a long table with Angkong right beside me & a dish in front of me that I can hardly even remember the name of. It was something he made, especially for me; it had been the first & last time I ever saw him. I scarfed the food in the porcelain bowl down to pristine white & left nothing but the royal blue markings of a flower engraved at the bottom. When I grew older, my mom expressed how Angkong was so proud of me, and that was the first time in his elderly years someone ever saw him smile. Apparently, a lot of his grandchildren grew up spoiled & rich, so Angkong was proud that someone was able to appreciate food in the way I did. The last words I remember him saying, after I finished his cooking, was “He’s going to be someone someday.”

How someone is able to believe in something before it even comes to fruition is so beyond me. This is what they call faith— confidence in what you hope for & the assurance of what you do not see. I always get nervous when my head pastors refer to me as their doctor, or when my mom and dad’s friends in the Philippines describe me as the intelligent son who is about to become a doctor. This is faith. The pressure does not originate from the people depending on me. My dad would always tell me that pressure makes diamonds. The pressure comes from my thinking that I will somehow, someday, lose the motivation for it all. My childhood best friend in the Philippines once told me about a word that is commonly used amongst college students. Padayon. Even in the absence of a clear motive, you need to keep moving, keep going.

PRAYER

Pagsamo (n). A Tagalog word which means a request made in an urgent & emotional manner.

My aunt & mother kneeled at the mercy of all of the hardship my grandmother, Mommy Daisy, endured while she was hospitalized.

If You, God, knew that she was eventually going to pass, then why would You make her go through all of the pain & suffering just to reach that point? This woman, our mother, never deserved this. All she ever tried to do was put a smile on Ading (younger sister) and I’s face. Anak ko, wala ba talaga? (My child, is there really nothing?) If there really is nothing more, then please. Ease suffering.

My Mommy Daisy, before she passed away, took one more voluntary breath. My aunt considered this very peculiar. Her brain was, to that point, non-functional, and required assisted breathing through an external ventilator on life support. This meant that the medulla oblongata, the brain’s primary respiratory control center, was impaired. If you’re ready to go, it’s okay. She took this final, voluntary breath shortly after the priest came to pray for her.

BELOVED

Sinta (n). A deep Tagalog word of endearment for a loved one.

The test of a first-rate physician is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and retain the ability to function … to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. You will wear this coat to sit at the bedside and hold both truth and light.

You do have your mother’s heart. Yes. And you do have your father’s mind. Yes. But, that’s not at all what your life is. Just like how even if you did not want to become a doctor in this life, you’d still be the same person. How would you be the same, though? In a different life, you’d have the heart of a mother whose heart is different from your mother right now. And you’d have the mind of a father whose mind is different from your father right now. Tell me then. How does your destiny to be someone someday not change? My father’s mind tells me that human biology considers the brain & heart to be some of the core components of what makes up a living person. My mother’s heart tells me that there’s one more: the spirit. The soul gives a human body life. The spirit, on the other hand, connects that person to God, and this spirit is the spirit of love. And this love has shown me my destiny & my motives. Because this spirit is eternal, I have no fear of ever losing it. And this has made me feel most alive, more than any mind or heart in any lifetime could make me. I see it now. You do have your mother’s heart. You do have your father’s mind. And you have a spirit that can never be broken.

Written by Jadon-Sean Sobejana

Edited by Sohyoung Jeong

Designed by Jill Wong

Heart of Gold

Written by Akshaya Raghavan | Edited by Art Arden |

Designed by Mia LaBianca

I am sometimes told that I don’t show my love. It’s the worst betrayal I’ve felt, but I know how it looks from the outside. It can be so hard for me to move my lips and blurt out those three heavy words.

But with you, I know I don’t need to say them. You understand— through the crinkles under my eyes, the eggs I make everyday for your dinner, and my gentle touch on your back.

I remember the first time you got hurt. A stray cat scratched you so close to your eye. I was questioning my belief in god at the time, But when I saw your blood dripping on our floors, I ran to our family altar to pray for you.

When you’re not feeling well, I sit next to you, and imagine a spiky blue current running from you into the earth, taking your pain with it.

At the same time, I picture a glowing golden beam, flowing in a loop that connects our souls. Because, in trying to heal you, I inevitably heal myself too.

It’s funny, because I was always a cat person. Even today, I have so many cat-themed things— earrings, stickers, notebooks—you name it. But you, Simba, are so deeply embedded in my heart, that just feeling love reminds me of you.

Beyond...

To a person who has long left me, but long lived. A fictional biography in a first narrative voice — a story I’ve known that touched me a lot.

Night falls. I dream.

There, the sky is forever blue with loved ones gathered — laughter carries through the breeze. At the end of the road, he’s waiting—arms outstretched, eyes warm and familiar. I run to grasp, but the road stretches on, endless, and I am borne back, ceaselessly, into the past.

I wake with a gasp.

Fifty years have passed since I left where he belonged, yet the questions remain, haunting me— why did I walk away? But it was already a no-man’s land, wasn’t it? A place that mistrusted him, and—I believe—a place he chose to abandon.

I met him when I was fifteen. He was tall, handsome, brilliant—the kind of person whose presence lit up a room. I was young and foolish, but lucky enough to glimpse a star before it burned out.

Then the whistle blew.

The Silent War began, and he entered, fearless as ever.

Hours before, he had kissed my cheek.

Written by Aijia Zou

But I survived.

And I hated myself for it.

The Silent War stole him first.

The Revenger’s War stole what was left of me.

Time did not heal me. nothing filled the void he left. Nothing fit, of course. Surely, I knew—no soul ever could.

And now, after half a century, there is nothing left to keep me here.  No war. No duty. No home.

Hours later, he lay lifeless—pale, eyes frozen wide, robbed of warmth, of laughter, of future.

I have learned, through pain, to let go. Never have I regretted loving him, not even for a moment.

That first glance, that first spark—it outweighed everything, and I am delighted to blend that deep sorrow into my soul.

I trained for years, consumed by grief, sharpening my magic in his name.

The Revenger’s War came, and I stood at the front, shielding others as he would have.

I fought, and in doing so, shattered the fragile lies I had clung to for years— he hadn’t chosen to leave; he had been chosen to die.

Now, I pack my things for the final time.

As I lie down, memories flicker before my eyes, soft and golden, pulling me back, back, back.

Until they stop. Until I see him again. Young. Smiling. Waiting for me at the end of the road.

And this time, I will reach him.

Edited by Makie Koizumi-Hachey

Designed by Aijia Zou

A City Between Heartbeats

Written by Neil Kotru Gode | Edited by Quinn Kou | Designed by Mia LaBianca

Amidst the morning haze arises the spirit of the city, luminated by the piercing sunrays. Dawn breaks on a new day in this beating heart we so proudly claim as ours, where the venous avenues bustle with sanguine traffic and the rhythmic pulses of the city harmonize with the clangor of its inhabitants. While the sun is shining, there is but a moment of rest and quiet on her streets amidst the cacophony of hustling automobiles, buses, motorcycles, and rickshaws. Here, every point of interest is just as much a destination, a place for respite, as it is a non-destination, another mere blur in the constant flows of people and information. Some of my earliest memories were of this very fleeting sensation of excitement and hurriedness, where my young eyes could only ever catch glimpses here and there before being robbed of the sights by trees and traffic alike.

Delhi is ever-evolving, never embodying one permutation for longer than a day owing to its vicious densities of tales to tell; nowhere else could you, say, turn a corner and come face to face with an arbitrary yet historic 13th century monument, practically dripping with tales of grandeur and conquest from times long forgotten. In the same breath you could then hop onto the modern metro and ride to Connaught Place, a British-built commercial hub with smatterings of old colonial-era restaurants mashed with modern trendy joints, all greeted by the hubbub of youth of all ages, lost tourists, and locals making ends meet. With its milieu of ancient urban artefacts and status as a crossroads in the heart of the Indian subcontinent, Delhi, to each and every one of its millions of residents, represents a different hope, a vision of their ideal home.

When the sun goes down on the city and it gets shrouded by the cover of darkness, Delhi finds sentience through other inhabitants. Owls and bats on peepal and neem trees soar in the twilight, and the massive urban forests with their deer and peacocks shimmer in the moonlight. The highways flow with overnight goods that keep the heart of the city pumping, and the supercharged roads, parks, and buildings of the city, in tandem with its flora, let out their heat and pollution into the cool of the night as if Delhi herself was letting out a gargantuan exhale. The aforementioned destinations and non-destinations now sit tacitly in the haze, in some cases shining brightly into the night while in other cases, shying away in the smog.

When Delhi sleeps, another Delhi awakes – one of mystery, one rife with spirits of forgotten times and lost stories of millions that pass by every day – and the cyclical circus continues into the next day.

Writing a love letter to Delhi is arduous for she is known equally for her beauty and her citizens’ arrogance, and though music and film can take the artistic liberties to paint the city in rosy tints for all to see, to experience the grit and glamour firsthand and write about it requires a deep introspection into the very spirit of this magnificent city. Someday I may leave Delhi for good, but I’ll be reminded of her every time I smell the rain on a cool cloudy night and every time my senses are swarmed by a teeming urban crowd; some hearts are destined to never stop beating.

rules of the scribble game:

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⁂ pick the next square. free scribble (now really, let the pen move you) for the next...

READY PLAY SCRIBBLE GAME

read it like soup look for the rhymes in its clear broth it’s just a line! there? do you see them? ey s that ’s reh wow quilt setuor

a nd

place of time a time i remembering now, you friends! here is time i’ll have

organizer: jillian lin

I haven’t slept through a full night in a month and a half or so.

Around four am, I’ll get up, put on my slippers, use the restroom, check my phone, swear I’ll turn it off, keep checking my phone, and wait until sleep comes over me. Sometimes, it does. Sometimes, it doesn’t. I’ve gone full days on four hours of rest and others with thirteen hours of deep, deep sleep under my belt. To be honest, it feels the same.

There’s a flyer in the bathroom that tells me everything I need to do to be anything but awake; it’s poorly stuck to the inside of a stall and I don’t really read it. Sometimes, I press it with my thumb in hopes that the tape will restick. It never does.

I think you’re coming back for me.

My meds quell my anxiety but enliven my dreams; it’s a weird tradeoff my psychiatrist, a very boring man named Jonathan, has yet to properly explain.

I see you while my eyes twitch in scenarios I know the pills enhance; we’re still in class, we’re back at camp, your hair is long and black and I know the sound of your voice, still.

I feel other things too: remnants of memories I almost had, sounds from school night concerts my mom said I couldn’t go to, movies I meant to see in theaters but instead watched on planes.

So I spend as much time as possible in this bed, in hopes that if I stare at my fairy lights long enough, they’ll trail off into somewhere our souls exist in the same medium, if that makes sense.

I think you’re coming back for me.

I’ve grown addicted to rest and addicted to talking about it; my dad insists that if I’m sleeping this long, there’s got to be a reason. Maybe I’m fighting something off, like a cold, or a cough, or a reality I’d rather alter through medicated method acting.

I let the spirits of the lives I should be living paint the inside of my eyelids with a feeling I can’t articulate in the morning. I keep them closed for as long as possible in hopes that I can find the words.

I never do.

I wonder how many people lived in this dorm before me. I walked by my old room–Harrison lives there now– and asked if I could look inside. My soul was still there, but God, he can’t decorate for shit.

I turned a house into a home, and he turned it right back into a cell.

It felt weird looking around. I appreciated his patience as I poked fun at the shelf of protein powders and the dumbbell on the floor.

My bed’s in the same place. There’s only so many ways to place a bed in a room that small.

And I looked at it. And I left it.

I wonder if the shadows of my memories pass through his dreams: all the calls with my mom, all my freshman friends, all the times I wondered if I belonged.

I think I do, now.

The boy who had my room before me also, unsurprisingly, didn’t hold his own interior design in high regard. I wouldn’t be surprised if his dreams are trapped between the wardrobe he placed that blocked the closet, or underneath the chair he shoved in the corner. He seemed kind, though. I could sense that.

I forget his name. Perhaps he’ll remind me.

I can’t wear clothes if you’ve worn them before. I lent too many things to too many friends of mine, and when they became memories, my clothes became haunted. And I can’t hear songs we’ve sung before.

I get it all from my dad. He was in high school when he and his friends decided any song by The Cars was possessed with the soul of the devil. He’s 60 now. And he’ll wait outside the restaurant in the freezing cold if “Good Times Roll” comes on.

Superstition has a spirit of its own. It’s two parts plague, one part blessing; but I believe that as a girl whose umbrellas are never opened indoors.

Memories function as some sort of spirit and they’re trapped between my lip gloss and the dry corners of my mouth. I wonder if it tastes nice, for you.

If the hair tie I left in your dorm room, or the ear cuff that slipped off when you pushed my hair behind it, if all of those pieces and the things I said linger as your eyes shut at night.

If you’ll come back for me when you’re moving out, and you’re kicking up the dust from tokens of my affection.

But it’s shameful to ask that, so I never do.

I dream in montages of memories we’ll never have.

I harbor your projected self in a place so close to my spirit I struggle to acknowledge its inauthenticity.

I let wind and dreams and medicated meditations speak where I fail and I hope my answers reveal themselves soon.

I’ll sleep on it.

Dreams

Written and Designed by Fallon Dern

Edited by Katy Wu

A Poem

Written by Celeste Agulay

Edited by Alyssa Gu

Designed by Kelsey Wang

They say he was funny But in a dry, sarcastic way He’d tell a whole story with a straight face And later you’d realize he was joking So you’d start laughing

I see traces of it now In my cousin I see it in his Sarcastic smirk and shrug In his humor that keeps him from getting in trouble

Her warmth still radiates I see it in their smiles

In all my aunts and uncles and my mom The same warmth I see her penchant for climbing In my sister when she was little Who we had to constantly carry down whenever she climbed too high

They say he was intelligent

Born to a family of geniuses

And well-respected in the province

He was wise but also very strict

He was hard on his kids but he was proud of them

I see it now

In the fierce determination and discipline

In my mom’s eyes

In my aunts’ work ethic

In their quest for knowledge

Her favorite color was yellow Everything she bought me Was yellow, my mom would say

Now our dining table is adorned with lemon-colored cloth

All the decorations with yellow

And when I sport a baby yellow

That’s a lovely color on you

Nabubuhay ang iyong espiritu

To Lolo Erning, Tito Nando, Lola Elena, and Lolo Cornelio

It’s not a constant feeling. It’s sporadic. And it ebbs and flows, sometimes more of a wisp or a mere whisper, sometimes a true, realized presence. Sometimes I go weeks without seeing you at all, and then there you are. Scrolling through Snapchat while you pretend to study in the library. Complaining about the colors of the soups at the Deece. Letting me know that my braids are either too loose or too tight—never once just right.

Half of my Instagram is slideshows of “what cat are you” based on your birth month or “what drink are you” based on your star sign. I still look for yours. It’s instinctual. April. Taurus. I hear your scoff every time they make you a frog, which is surprisingly common. “Taurus literally means bull, I just don’t get it. I don’t even like green. Matcha’s my least favorite drink.” I used to find it so funny, how you hated green but had an olive-colored Nissan. How after you totaled your first two cars, your parents refused to pay for a paint job. Of course, I see you in the window of every green car I see now, wearing sunglasses as if your windows aren’t already tinted. Luckily, there are barely any green cars in Poughkeepsie.

You’re there every time I order something from a coffee shop. I see you shake your head in disapproval as I order drinks with five pumps of different flavored syrups and inclusions and whipped cream. And I hear you complaining about all the needless work that goes into making specialty drinks when most people should just be satisfied with a black coffee, or maybe a mocha if it’s their birthday or something, the entire time I drink it. I only tip because I can hear you lamenting about your awful pay and the awful people that come in and can’t even be bothered to give you a dollar for making their idiotic drink. It’s almost laughable, the idea of you somehow making me a better person. So laughable that you find it funny too.

I hear you singing along every time someone plays “Rumors” by Fleetwood Mac. Not just some tracks—that would be bearable—but the entire album. I can’t listen to “Silver Springs” without seeing you, sitting on the chair next to me, pausing your smoking, vape temporarily out of your mouth to ask me if I said she was pretty or said that she loved me. I get funny looks, responding, “I don’t want to know” to empty air.

You’re there every time I walk into a Hot Topic, which is stupid because you hated Hot Topic. With every graphic t-shirt I pick up with a faded picture of Dallon Weekes and Ryan Ross or, even worse, a character from a Netflix top ten trending show, I hear you tell me it looks stupid, always following up with that familiar laugh, always a pitch just a little lower than what everyone expects from you. It’s still hard to tell—whether you’re making fun of the shirt or making fun of me. When I see high school girls steal the two dollar pins from the buckets by the cash register, I see a glimpse of you with them, dropping a few into your bag when you think no one is looking. You give me a wink every time I catch you, holding up one finger to your lips. As if, for once, we’re in on the same joke.

You were there the first time I kissed a boy. Your hands guided mine to his hair. I felt the light tickle of your breath on my ear. You whispered to me how to move my lips. It was like a threesome, a threesome that only I knew about. It was weird, I could almost smell you, the distinct scent of mango and coconut lingering in the air around him. I almost asked what cologne he wore, or if he happened to be a fan of Glossier mango balm dotcom lipgloss.

It was you who told me not to, joking that I’d ruin my own first kiss if you weren’t there to stop me.

Whenever I’m talking and someone makes pointed eye contact, punctuated with a slight, likely imagined, eyeroll, I see you as the person they’re making eye contact with. You’re the person they’re holding back laughter with, it’s you who’s always in on some private joke I’m not privy to. Every time I get a curt response, I see you, whispering in her ear, rolling your eyes. “Okay.” It makes me feel insane, how when such a neutral word is said to me I always feel that it’s laced with dismissal, a verbal stab thinly veiling layers of annoyance. Of judgment. Of indifference.

And every time someone forgets to invite me to something, profusely apologizing and telling me to come if I still happen to be free, of course you’re there too, laughing as you say, all too casually, that you must have just forgotten to invite me to the lake house, to your movie nights, to your birthday, promising the invitation that I will never receive. You’re there when it goes the other way too. When everyone shows up late—which is pretty much a given for college students—you’re there in the dread-filled minutes I spend pacing my room, music already on and makeup already done. You stay as people show up fifteen, thirty minutes late, rushed apologies coming from lips, apologies that I can never fully believe are sincere. I think the ability has been conditioned out of me. It’s like you’ve scripted their awkward excuses, drafted the perfect lines meant to placate me, but only just enough, constantly keeping me guessing. They’re actors in a scene you’ve already perfected. It’s probably bad that I can no longer interpret a late arrival or a forgotten invite as just carelessness, but instead always feel it as some quiet form of rejection. That my instinctual reaction to anything besides overt positivity and perfect punctuality is to think that someone secretly hates me. It’s ironic, since your hatred was barely a secret. It was barbed and sharp, concealed just enough to deny and to keep me hoping that I was overreacting, being paranoid. But underneath, always there, constant. Unmistakable.

Of course the only time I really see you is on Instagram. You just posted your one-year anniversary pictures with your new, or now I guess fairly old, boyfriend. It’s strange, knowing that there was a time when we were planning what New York City apartments we would live in together, how we would split the rent while I went to law school, who would be responsible for walking and feeding the dog. And now I haven’t talked to you in over a year. Sometimes I wonder if you see me too, when you browse the aisles of Barnes and Nobles, when you hear Carly Simon on the radio, every time you eat cookies and cream ice cream or smell a campfire. I like to think you do, that there’s four of us, two of me and two of you, wandering around Santa Cruz and Poughkeepsie. I hope your me sings along with you to CDs on long car rides. I hope she laughs at your jokes even when no one else does. I hope she knows what to say more than I did. I hope your you is kinder than my you. I really like to think that she is.

Written by: Kris Stewart

Edited by: Katherine Wu Desgined by: Kinsey Wang

Double-Time

Written by: Andrew Chu | Edited by: Nicole Gao | Designed by: Joy Zhang

Anti-Time

Now isn’t that a hoot? It’s so dark outside that the stars are glistening.

Yet, you remember the sun rays seeping through only moments ago.

Funny how that works, huh? Better continue typing, friend.

What’s that? Friends? Events? Food? Never needed that last one myself.

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. So many obligations. So many needs.

There are only so many spoons one could put in the chili bowl, friend.

I gotta say, this piece you’re writing is so interesting.

Filled with so much thought, passion, and drive!

Now imagine…POOF…gone! Or at least, made invalid… by me.

When you think about it, that must grind your gears the most!

All of that work, the same amount as others, or even more so, and getting zip, nada, zilch. You might as well have done nothing at all.

Don’t fret, friend. Time is what you make of it. You have all of those AMs that go unused, don’t you? You use those for sleep? Well, make those two things I never needed.

Hold the phone! Now look over yonder! Isn’t that swell? You love our chats so much that the cracking of dawn snuck up.

I adore that you worry for me, but you better start rushing, my friend.

But, at the end of the day, I’m all in your head.

Pro-Time

Well, take a look out there! Dusk! Dusk! Dusk! And look at how much was done since the morning light! Quite productive, huh? Better take a break, friend.

Did I hear right? Friends? Events? Food? Never had that last one before.

I never even considered that! So many plans! So many needs!

You must have an infinite amount of spoons to put in some infinite chili.

I gotta say, it’s crazy how much you just achieved in a day. Projects, assignments, and arts. There are so many!

Now imagine…POOF…gone! Or at least, less to worry about tomorrow.

When you think about it, there’s never really an end goal to anything.

All of that work, the same amount as others, or even more so, all finished.

There will always be more to do the next day.

Enjoy the now, friend. Time is what you make of it. You have all of those PMs to do whatever you want. You want to use those to do tomorrow’s stuff? Well, it’s your call, I guess.

What?! It’s already over?! Time sure does fly when you’re having fun!

Never got that phrase myself. I mean, I am still here, right?

You love our chats so much that hours felt like mere seconds. That’s a crazy thought.

But, at the end of the day, I’m all in your head.

Art by: Kelsey Wang

A Box of Smoke

Written by: Ulysses Bergel | Edited by: Rylan Liu | Designed by: Akshaya Raghavan

There are maybe only one hundred souls scattered here, as the snow tumbles down from the sky and onto the barren campus of Montcombe College. I stare out the tiny, lead-lined window and watch as the world around me is slowly being buried under the early afternoon sun. Cataloguing the library’s collection of artifacts and documents wasn’t exactly how I was hoping to spend my winter break, but I’ve convinced myself that “Collections Intern” would look appealing on a resume. Somehow, sitting in a near-lightless room with dusty boxes is better than going home.

Skimming the collection listings on the sheet of paper beside me, I tick off a box to show that I’ve catalogued the guestbook of some founder’s wife. I turn in my chair to pull the next box over to me. The lid is lying next to it, so I must have opened it earlier. I reach into the box and pull out the artifact with my gloved hands.

It catches the light as I set it down. I can finally see what it is: Some kind of box stares back at me, with polished wood and copper in intricate patterns across its surface. I lean left, then right, getting a better look at it in the weak light of my nook. The whorls and spots on the box call to mind hands and faces pressed against glass, somehow staring back at me, reaching for me.

I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding and shake my head. I turn the box over in my hands, trying to focus on my responsibilities again. I reach over for its storage container and read over the collections tag. It’s a smudged mess, nothing is clear aside from the collections number.

I pull the listings back towards me and begin to make my notes. No year of acquisition, no donor. Wooden box, carvings filled in with copper. It’s unsatisfying.

Leaning back in my chair, I snatch the box back up and look at it even more carefully. Gloved fingers poke and prod at the carvings, turning it this way and that. Then… I hear a gentle snap and my blood runs cold. Did I just break it?

The box is twisted in half along a fine seam. I take each half in a hand and begin to turn it slowly. In the weak, fluorescent lights of my tiny nook, something reflects their clinical glow. Jade, maybe?

There has to be more. My curiosity drives me to turn and twist the pieces of the box, to no avail. The jade — I’ve decided it’s jade — seems to taunt me from deep inside. I take a deep breath, feeling my blood rise at the lack of an answer. “Damn it. Just open.”

My fingers slip into one of the grooves of the box and pull. The panel of the box moves with it, sliding and revealing something deeper inside. I lift it up to my eye to get a better look, but a sharp knock rings out in the room.

I tilt back in my chair, instinct driving me to put the box on my lap. As curious as I am about the box, losing my job is worse. The hallway through my open door is lit by fluorescent wall sconces, enough for me to write a paper in perfect ambience. Now, though, it seems like they were shut off.

“Hello?” I call into the dark. Frozen in my desk chair, the shifting box in my lap, I can feel a dull thumping in my chest. The thumping grows louder, as I try to open my mouth to call out again, but I can’t. Finally, blessedly, it stabilizes into a steady, soft rhythm. The tapping of that beat is like delicate footsteps on the stone floor.

Closer and closer. I hear the rhythm echo down the hall in time with my heartbeat, as the distance between me and whatever is in the hall begins to close. A breath finally rattles from my chest, and I force myself to stand. “Hello? Who is it?”

Silence is my only answer, as the footsteps stop.

I stand there silently, staring into the darkness beyond my door. Maybe it’s some kind of joke being played by any of the other people still on campus. Maybe it’s the Archives Librarian checking on me before changing his mind. Maybe it’s — All of my speculation stops when the lights of my tiny room begin to flicker.

Heart creeping into my throat, I rip off my gloves and reach for my phone. With one hand, I turn on the flashlight. The other hand moves on instinct, picking up the now twisted and opened box. In the throbbing light of the room, the opened panel of the box seems to stare at me with a baleful eye.

Finally, the fluorescents die and free me from the box’s gaze. I steel myself with a deep breath and begin to walk towards the door. The glow of my flashlight pushes into the dark, but its harsh light ends only a few steps in front of me. A faint draft passes down the hall, carrying a sepulchral chill. With it comes an out of place smell - sandalwood? No one burns candles here. They shouldn’t be, at least.

I’ve come to know the library basement well enough to walk through the dark and towards the stairs with whatever confidence I still have. My quick pace drives me down the hall, passing wall sconces that should be lit but have somehow guttered out. The light of my phone finally reaches the door to the stairwell, and I freeze at the sight.

The sharp clang of metal against metal rings out from behind me, and I stand at the bottom of the stairwell that will bring me to the first floor. To freedom on the outside, even if it is in the blizzard devouring Montcombe College.

I look down at my phone, checking the battery and cringing slightly. Twenty percent. Enough to leave and charge it in my room when I make it out of the library. My eyes slide over to the box, and they widen slightly. Something has changed with the box. Another panel has slid upwards.

Instinct drives me to twitch and flex my wrist and fingers, trying to fiddle with the box along that central axis, but I still myself and let out a sigh, smelling the rich scent of sandalwood again.

I set my foot on the first step, then the next, trudging upwards and towards the ground level, where I’ll find my way outside. I stop at the first landing, drawing my arms around myself for warmth. Leaning against the wall, I take a deep breath and call out again. “What are you doing here? What do you want?”

A knot forms in my throat, as I wait for something, anything really, to happen. My only answer is the whistling of the cold air through the stacks of books, promising everything and nothing with a high-pitched wail.

“What do you want?” I’m shouting. Shouting in the library and into the dark, vaulted chambers of the rooms above me. I hear dull thudding, rhythmic and below me that I quickly realize is my footsteps driving me up the stairs and finally, blessedly, onto the first floor.

The smell of sandalwood is even stronger up here. When it reaches me, I cough and choke on the smell, casting my light randomly and creating monstrous shadows in the corners. The first floor is devoured by the shadows in the same way as the basement, leaving me with eight percent on my phone’s battery but a clear way out.

I start my trek down the arched hallways of the library. With every step, the sound of my snowshoes on the lacquered wood echoes off of the paneled walls. There are no other echoes, no other noises in the library. I am truly alone with the intensifying smell and the crushing darkness around me.

Sweeping my flashlight left and right as I walk, I try to illuminate the stacks and see if anything, even whatever I saw on the stairs, might be down those narrow corridors. Nothing is there for rows on end until the weak glow touches on a pale hand. It traces the delicate paneling of the wall ahead of me, and I catch the edge of a tattered, blue sleeve.

“Who-” I choke out the word, sweeping the light over to try and catch the rest of the arm. Instead, I only see more of the hallway stretching before me with neither the arm nor the hand. The draft in the library harshens, for a moment, pushing down the corridor and delivering a gentle shushing sound.

The hallway spins around me, as the heady scent of the library and shock overwhelm me. I almost fall, but I steady myself on the wall, staring down the corridor with my dying phone. Finally, though, I see a light. There’s a flickering, warm glow down the hall - right at the circular entrance to the library, below the old bell tower.

I pocket my phone and stride towards the light. Sunlight through the enormous windows, candles lit by the rest of the library staff when the power went out. Anything.

Anything but this.

A circle of candles burns in the foyer of the library. Perfectly spaced and glowing with a sinister light. A pyre. A banishment. A trap. In its center sits a small, ceramic pot that glows from within. Smoke billows from it, filling the room with the rich aroma of sandalwood.

I stare at the circle, glancing towards the entrance to the library, somehow cast in shadow.

I step into the circle.

Everything stops when I cross the candlelit boundary. I stare up into the high belltower of the library, as though expecting something. Then, from the corner of my eye, I see it. A figure, just where the candlelight ends. A fine, blue shroud wraps around a woman with hazy features.

“Who are you?” My head snaps to bring her into view, but she’s gone as quickly as she appeared.

I look down to the box, so tantalizing with how much it’s changed. I look to the darkened doors of the library, those slim chances of freedom. I have to act. I have to do something.

The bell high above me begins to toll for the first time in years, as I begin to push the panels of the box together. They slide along the engraved grooves and tracks of the box’s surface and slot together with a fine click. The box begins to open, slowly and dreadfully, along the hinge made by the two panels.

A perfect sphere of jade falls from the box, and I lunge to catch it. The time between each tolling of the bell grows shorter and shorter, as the stone falls and slips through my fingers. It cracks and shatters on the floor, spilling a dark tangle of what looks like cloth and hair on the floor.

The candles gutter and die, leaving me alone with the twisted remains of the box and that dull rhythm again. Quiet footsteps. Approaching me in the dark.

The smell of sandalwood overwhelms me, as a soft voice speaks from all around me,

“I have such wonders to show you.”

“I’m so hu laughed hyst

Moment s later , We watche d ju place in the de water w Appeara restaurant, allowi back and settle d we pretend blizz ardi pavement out s

“How much does rice with daal cost?” “Ho His question Simultaneously rummagi for the prices of the mo menu. The similarly sk without annoyanc embarrassment and p

“Oh, poor guy. He barely

Our lavish platters arrive d: ‘Chicken and soft ‘Naan ’ A steaming plate of

The man’s face lit up, smile widening, eyes sparkling. He attacke d that small f latbread, barely even pausing to catch his breath.

When we almost finishe d our foo d, the man receive d the bill He place the chapati and tippe d the waiter four dollars in quarters.

Rummaging through the coins he had, to calculate the tip, he bought a simple meal, to help the waiter out with the little that he had.

That day, the man and my family were in a simila place: bellies filled that man may have been poor in wealth, but he became rich in heart by lifting another’s spirit.

The Man With a Fraye d Jacket

Written by: Krisha Jeevarathnam

Edited by: Tina Ni

Designed by: Nicole Gao

The spirit moves. The soul, the heart, the emotions. The spirit makes.

When I was 8, I moved to the next town over: Burnsville, Minnesota.

I missed the f irst day of school, and at the time, I thought that I had missed my chance presenting myself as the “ new kid.” But perhaps it was a cover for me to realiz e that I had learn how to start over without realizing that I was starting over.

I remember feeling nervous about it after we had moved Of course, I was excited to see u in a new house, and I was excited for that newness The type of newness that cleanses the making you excited to see what it could be

My spirit heightened, and the spirit that lived inside of the green townhouse that was f ille delightful and distasteful memories. The same house with the creaking floors. The thin wa the shade of blue I got to choose. The large window that faced the large mossy tree.

It was home, and it is a piece of my spirit that still lingers around without me realizing i

What is the spirit?

Is it the soul, the heart, and the emotions? Does the spirit move, or does it stay?

After we settled, I started to cry more I cried a lot about my old school It was the o ever really knew, and I didn’t want to let go of it. I thought about the little school s the stairs. The playground slides f illed with pollen. The friends who never got a prop

My youthful spirit loved it. I didn’t realiz e that I would have to leave behind a spirit At the same time, I felt that my spirit was lost in this new space. Taking my spirit t place felt tense, as if my spirit was not happy to leave.

It was strange, and it was something that made me feel uncomfortable for a w

Does the spirit feel satisfied? Is the spirit at peace?

What does the spirit become?

With time, things got better. Eventually, my spirit grew from its uncomfortable state. My spirit got used to what was once new It created an indescribable feeling associated with feeling at ease It felt as if my spirit was content

As I got older, my spirit grew beyond what it was. My spirit associates itself with the most special things around me. My spirit left itself in different places that I grew fond of. It was in the car that drove me around what felt like the world, the little coffee shop off of 25th, the circles surrounded by my friends at three in the morning.

My spirit was also frustrated by these other places. It was frustrated at the high school I spent hours in, the messy desk f illed with opened books, the dining room overtaken by the questions of what is next for you? or why don’t you want to stay here?

It was time, and I was ready to run off onto the next adventure

Where does the spirit go?

Does the spirit stay? Does the spirit change?

10 years later, I moved away. It felt like it was time to move onto the next adventure It was the f irst time I had a choice to f igure out wha be on my own

My spirit was excited. It felt every possibl be its own little free bird and experience you ’ v

Then, it didn’t feel like what I wanted it to be I felt lost I felt confused I felt overwhelmed I wondered, what did I get myself into? Is this what I wanted? Is this the right choice? I spent nights sitting in my small dor m room wondering what would’ve been instead. Yearning for the past–as if my spirit was supposed to be somewhere else instead of here.

It was lonely, and I was lost.

///

What does the spirit want?

What is the spirit desiring more of ? Now, what is the spirit?

///

I found the peace needed. I found my sense of self here. I found what I wanted. I am content with myself and the obstacles that came through my way. I slowly eased myself to being my true self. When I think about it again, I get reminded of the 8 year old who was scared. The same little kid who didn’t know what would happen; and yet, it f inds ways to work out in the end

While I sit here and wonder what is next, my spirit continues to mark its place. It continues to venture out and discover what could be next. It makes room for the fear of the unknown, but it excites itself to see what the unknown has in store. My spirit is discovering, and my spirit still feels young.

It is f inding more, and it is seeing more

///

The spirit moves.

The soul, the heart, the emotions

The spirit makes

Writer: Cody Hoang Editor and Designer: Sohyoung Jeong

phantom limb pain

write about your moments of pain. (it’s for research)

is the passage of time painful? no, you’re overanalyzing it. the pain of endings? no, that’s not what I mean by pain. perhaps you should reconsider.

To whom should we have allegiance— the version of ourself making the choices, or the version of ourself affected by those choices?

I don’t understand the question, but I guess the first one. why? seems easier.

Phantom limb pain: something you miss, but if offered, you don’t actually want back We often forget to close the blinds at night. Some tend to tolerate more pain because they put up with more in the world.

is there something on your mind? no, something on your mind? no.

is there a question there? it was just an observation.

Self-sabotage: the art of creating pain or identifying pain without reason

are you self-sabotaging yourself? that’s redundant. you didn’t answer the question, and you knew what I meant.

Is abandonment a pain? What of disappointment? To knock on the door and find no one there…

I see your light on, I hear your footsteps echo. what’s worse: not that you’re gone but that you’re still here.

If minutes can reverse, and the mornings hold their breath and the evenings stretch their last tendrils of light, how should I await the painful passage of time?

(even if it’s just your wandering spirit, I will leave the door open.)

Golden Sap

Once upon a time, there was a town on the edge of the woods. This town was accustomed to all the drudgery of life, relished in the toil of a long day’s work. The people greeted each other with congenial nods and pursed lips, traipsed down the roads with barely a second glance. The sun shined bright on them most days, though other days nothing could be seen for the shadow of the woods.

At the center of town there was a barn. It stood tall and strong, painted in a soft baby pink, lacquered to a perfect shine. It had a little windowsill right above the large double doors and white accents added by a careful hand. In the sunlight, gold seemed to ooze like sap off the roof’s edge. No one really knew when the barn had been made or by whom. Some had tried to claim it as the work of their bloodline, but then such a fuss was made that no one had stepped in the barn for decades or even centuries. But still, the pink glistened, and still, the white glowed, and still, the golden sap gleamed. And still, the town wondered whose it was.

One day, a little boy, not yet with coarse hands or tight lips, was heading down the roads. He held the hand of a little dolly clenched in his fist, a girl that swung to and fro as he hopped and skipped and twirled. This little boy had always told his mother and father and anyone that would listen that his little dolly is the one who actually owned the barn because she had matching pink cheeks and a matching white shirt and a little golden heart right on the center of her chest. He slowed as he got closer to the center of town and tiptoed as the barn came into view. It was an especially bright day today, and he could swear the golden sap was a little darker than normal. He held his dolly up in front of the barn and could only think of how perfectly she seemed to

The little boy started to get nervous as he got closer, as the height of the barn hid the sun and he felt a little chill. He squeezed his little dolly tight to his chest, made sure she could see her home, and tugged on one of the doors. The hinges creaked as it slid open just a crack, and he glanced down to realise a clump of dirt was stopping the door from opening further. He pulled and pulled and pulled until the mud had been squished against the white edge of the door and he could just get himself through. manic scream and empty hands, golden sap running down his shoulthe town, shrieking all the way until not a soul could ignore him, and then he ran and ran into the woods, disappearing from sight.

People came and watched and recoiled in shock when the little boy disappeared in to shadows. They yelled and brayed and argued. What happened? Who did this? How could this be? Until finally, one of them found a little golden heart on a nearby road, and

Though the battle of two opposing forces was not familiar to these people, the battle of labor was, and so they pulled out axes and hammers and scythes and shovels. Their comotion turned from a dull rumble to a frenzied roar as the barn was surrounded on all sides by the furious townspeople. They created a membrane and stared at each other, almost daring someone to pass

Finally, someone stepped forward. She had one of the loudest voices, with thick arms and thicker legs. She held an axe, and as she stepped forward, she sweeped it around in front of the doors. They were still soft baby pink and the accents were still pristinely white. She gave a jeering grin to the crowd before grabbing one of the doors and ripping it open. Yet she found the door stuck on some earth, and she couldn’t squeeze through the small opening until she

pried it apart, so with mud sticking to the bottom of the door, she made her way inside.

She did not scream so much as bellow as she came barreling out, the door swinging shut with a squeak and clatter. Her wife caught her empty hands as the woman tried to run, though everyone around them recoiled back as they saw the dark sap splayed dripping from her form. She babbled as the people yelled and brayed and argued.

Slowly, another person stepped forward. His steps were light, and the black of his clothes stood out against the bright sun. The only thing in his small hands was a kitchen knife that he tossed up and caught over and over, light glinting off the blade. It was only a minute motion of his head that made everyone quiet and allowed the faint tink of the buckles on his boots to float in the air. The doors were still soft baby pink and the accents were still pristinely white as he pulled on the barn’s door handle and let himself in through the barest crack.

He was halfway down the road by the time they even realized he was gone. There was no scream, only a face spread wide in terror and empty hands stretched above his head as the man’s soaked boots plodded along the road, leaving a dark, gleaming trail. Someone chased after as the people yelled and brayed and

There was a clang as a final person stepped forward. person; no, they had seen true war, had found the village after the woods. Their time had hardened them, and they could not be frightened. Their strength was unmatched by anyone else. They brandished their sword to all the people around them, light flashing off a ruby in the pommel. Antic ipation was palpable as they approached the barn. The doors were still soft baby pink and the accents were still pristinely white, and they opened a door with little fanfare. It was not the hero of the town that emerged back through first but their sword. It looked slick with blood, and all the townspeople cheered, for here was the one who could defeat any threat. From past the sword emerged a hand, and then an arm, and then a torso and a body, and then a face that, even behind gleaming, dripping blood, conveyed only one emotion: fear.

The townspeople braced themselves to block the hero, to stop them from running, but the hero didn’t seem at all inclined to leave. No, instead, they held their sword out and fell. Sud denly, all the town knew that the hero’s strength was indeed unmatched, for their own hand was all that clawed into their chest, and their heart matched the color of the dark sap soak ing their body.

They did not yell and bray and argue. They whispered and mur mured and muttered, a cacophony growing until everyone was shouting and wailing. Eventually, a voice prevailed in the din:

“IT CAN’T STAY!”

Then the people were off to their homes, to the torches and fuel kept there. This was a different type of battle, now, a battle not to win but a battle to destroy. They prepared the barn and in the bright daylight, set it ablaze.

It burned and burned and burned, through the day and into the night and through the next day again. The delightful pink seemed to melt away, pristine white flaking off, the golden sap dripping. Fi nally, there was nothing where the barn had been in the center of this town, except for a little dolly soaked through with blood.

Written by Ananya Agrawal

Edited by Sogna Louie

Designed by Fallon Dern

The You I Were

Edited by Sayan Naik

Designed by Kelsey Wang

Written by Lena Lee

live through constant snowfall a blanket inconspicuous to the touch patches of grass needling through discarded orange peels emitting color despite loss of flesh and purpose against the endless WHITE imploding all across the di until even the insides torn apart in blinding flashes

I am pink and blue merging in cotton candy skies violet, where I either live or hide

ran eight miles to empty clarity drowned myself to drown me out still slept at seven soundless

in worlds where i didn’t give it my all i could be normal (around you, about you)

it rings in my ear while pacing round and round 4 am (see? Everything’s a pattern)

wish i could wish we never were

i am purple and white bruised wisteria pressed between pages of a book you forgot about long ago

can’t deny so here’s a vanishing trick can you find me?

finally free

startling out of the vision of you the mirror hung on a solitary door stance

I am cherry and pistachio the complex mixture of scents in mountains beyond elusive and tenacious freed and too intense (you) (might have lost it)

i am frayed brushstrokes an indecisive hand meeting canvas, trailing off too much or nothing at all afterwards, when the process cleanses

(the impurities of the soul) the body tries to flood the sudden removal (like a suction) how can an intangible thing be physical?

(maybe if i keep saying it the sensation will follow) in a miracle i shatter the frost distorting my vision suddenly coming to senses shock in from feeling yet the heart always a beat behind just crumples further in on itself

on this endless blank i keep discovering anew only to find reiterations of a root rotting cause is anything i think not all the same thing? even when it’s Everything Else there absence regardless a broken record telling this warped story (envisioned to keep me sane)

i still pour such viscous vicious energy into You i gazed out at the open world plains valleys peaks and mountain tops unending terrain the jagged texture of a city skyline

The You I Were (cont.)

it could not matter- any of it once wrote that i live in circles how i where always

know i’ll end ripped away rest in the eternal night is temporal

(can’t anything) imprint sears

what is there outside oneself… ?

fear closing eyes they open and are thrown into the washer by time stuck in that cold machine called Now in something without access

a suspension lingers in the periphery

i looked inward at the open mind past the clutter of representation of the tangible, the visceral, the faint and outlining the obscure edges

the very center cable truth indeed devoid start?

the sun shone with blinding brightness a black cat sitting on the porch of a house, painted yellow, faded with age and stillness. the shutters thumped open on this windless day when suddenly, the cat leapt, hissing at the air which carried rumors often spread of the old spinster who occupied the decrepit dwelling whose threshold neighbors dared not cross. they knew she wasn’t born this way, her story near its end, denouement began long ago

she was a little girl with wishes and dreams who frolicked through fields, over hills that daffodil covered with sunshiny hues until the clouds came with rain, blocking out the light, casting shadows. she grew older now

left behind by the only ones who cared. she frolicked no more. let vines grow unchecked. flowers died. the whole house sighed. it chipped and cracked crumbling, disintegrating into dust as spirits rose from the ashes of the mind

they say the spinster lost decades ago, but no one knows when her end began. her ears still ring with her parents’ screams their ghosts sucking life from hallowed ground their daughter lives there still in that house, paint faded, weighed down with memory the sole sign of life, a black cat yawns, arching its back on the property where she grew up. the yellow brighter then.

This piece is two parts of me coming together. I speak in the two languages used in my household, English, and Nepali English.

My skin is beneath me, the loofah cannot reach it. It chases, my brother. That home now lies in Texas, New York, Nepal, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and everywhere else. It escapes each time I reach for it. My outwardness withers in the faces of empty eyes and drawn mouths.

I’m in the backseat of a glider, the pilot not. The laughter, the passion, the love, her ability. I’m seeing her and I’m not supposed to. She’s apart from me, I long for her.

My breath escapes me. I’m stunned that I stopped breathing in the faces of empty eyes and drawn mouths. Startled that I became her.

Pink hides. The color misses me, I long for it. She sprinkles around like a cupcake.

Colors I never want to see. They slip like glass from my mamu’s hand, shatter and startle. Meri mamu. My sister’s ice, it shows with her.

I write na sochi kina. Maile ke garam ke garam. Meri maan. Maile garam ke.

The paper slips out from the shredder. She loves gold. It calms her soul.

She hides, unknown. Green protects her. Capacity to hope escapes.

I’m losing pauses and thinking, everything is brought to the surface. No one loves me. Empty eyes scare me.

She needs him. She always had the need to protect herself, the love isn’t seen. Always, “nani lai bana ke garnalai.”

She loves the push and pull but now she needs the silence. She needs it.

Sighs, pauses, intense. The calendar is clean. Walls are art. Everything is color.

I don’t know how much I can bear, or bear.

In winter time is as frozen as the frost covered lakes. When the trees are bare, the grass is encased in ice, and the flowers and birds hide away, days and weeks fly by, evaporating into used time, not memory.

I was in my friend’s room dragging myself through last-minute homework at her desk as she took a nap beside me. Outside the world was draped in a frigid white. Iced over snow coated the ground and the sky matched the dreary, tired gray that hangs off people’s shoulders heavy, like a cloak.

Suddenly, soft bell-like music began to float in the air, curling and flirting with the winter cold like a cat in sunlight. The notes cast a spell on me, entwined with jasmine and sunbeams.

I remember looking up and becoming completely still, trying as hard as I could to hear every second of the faint song. I wanted to capture it in my mind before it ended. I remained still, like the spell would break if I so much as blinked with too force I remember, without closing my eyes, seeing a vast expanse of blue sky and emerald grass expanding before me.

The air felt clear, and brushed against my face and kissed my cheeks. There wasn’t an end to the valley I found myself in.

Just never-ending vibrant, a flurry of flower petals and soft long grass swaying against my legs.

Written and Designed by Sogna Louie

“Will My White Friends Ever Truly Understand Me?” by Thomas Nagel

Professor Thomas Nagel straightens his tie in the mirror. He has a big talk today, but he is all out of sorts. He examines his face: monolid eyes, tan skin, faint age lines at his mouth.

It is unfortunate that he shares a name with that other philosopher— and moreso that their different paths have led them to the same place: phenomenology.

Professor Thomas Nagel should have been Professor Namgoong Sun-Woo but his mother changed their family name to something more American. Little did she know that the name was Irish, German, Jewish; and Sun-Woo is only his name at home.

The talk is about his paper which has made headlines for being funny.

“Thomas Nagel builds on Thomas Nagel in new paper about Asian people.” Ha ha.

His mother couldn’t have known this would happen, but he still blames her a little bit.

In the lecture hall, Professor Thomas Nagel stands with sweaty palms. The crowd of students goes silent when he clears his throat, nervously, and clicks to his first slide.

In 1974

Thomas Nagel published his paper with a striking question: What Is It Like To Be A Bat?

Philosophy, he says, will never tell us. Nor anyone. Bats and their minds are lost to us forever, too disparate, they from us— and the physicalist project a failure. But what does that mean for people? Next slide. It shows a bat, pinned to a board like a butterfly. Delicate and cruel dead on the wall. Nagel discusses Deafness, a condition he does not have, a life he will never understand. It begs the question if the range of human ability is inaccessible, then well, then

He looks out at the crowd of faces. Many of them are Asian.

what else is?

The crowd is silent. He clears his throat. It’s race, of course.

He knows that they already know how this song ends. He sees in them some reflection of his own face— Asian undergrads looking for something. Something he could never find. The experience of Asian people is too disparate from the experience of White people (here he disproves the model minority myth) so that it is phenomenologically impossible for White people to understand me.

He stumbles. I— that is— Asians. Like me. And, of course, fortheAsianexperience to be likened to Whiteness. thank you. In the applause, which is surely only polite, but sounds deafening to Nagel, (Namgoong) he sweats hard. His face is on fire. He feels ill and wipes a handkerchief over his face.

Questions?

Yes, says one girl, standing, so you take at face value Nagel’s assertion that physicalism fails? If we can’t understand (bats) completely, we can’t understand them at all?

Nagel wipes his forehead. Not in any meaningful way.

Meaningful?

Another question. A boy, raising his hand. Do you consider yourself a solipsist?

No, says Nagel, shocked. Not at all.

Professor Nagel, says another girl. I am Chinese and my friend is Cambodian, we are both Asian. Are our experiences too distinct? Can we understand each other?

Hold on, says Nagel. In the mirror, he sees himself, monolidded. tan.

aging and alone.

Can anyone understand each other? says someone. The faces begint o bl ur tog ether

What barriers can be leapt over?

I would give anything

Who knows who I am, if no one knows who I am?

Could you define a meaningful understanding, please?

What if the world is just gaps in knowledge?

Nagel gasps, not to be a solipsist.

Are we truly alone? Is that what you’re saying?

Professor Nagel!

What is your name?

There is someone in front of his face. I’m sorry, says Nagel, hunched over the lectern. I’m not feeling very well. The student’s face comes into view. It’s a girl.

She is Asian— she has wide brown eyes, and a round, pale face. Young enough to be his daughter, if he had one. She studies him and says, I shall never know the world through the eyes of a bat. That is, I shall never know the world through sonar. But would sonar not create a similar picture to what I see now?

No?

says Nagel.

Listen, do we not live in the same world? breathe the same air? Do I not understand what the bat understands in my own language? I will never know sonar. But don’t I know the world?

Are we not neighbors? Am I not friends with the bat?

Nagel stares at the girl. Look at the crowd, Professor. He looks and sees faces— strangers. He swallows. I am both completely unknown and related by all. Is that enough?

There is a shift suddenly up in the rafters. Heads turn to look at the vermin in the ceiling a bat. It blinks slowly.

I think it is.

Bobbing

Atop the sunlit waves

Was where I found you.

The tide carried you In patchwork folds, And I squinted when you glinted From that dimpled pore, A break in your complexion

Casting strings of light to shore.

Grasping the bottle, I stand. My shoulders redden, my toes curl into the sand.

The seafoam wraps around my ankles.

I grab the cork: pull, twist, pull, pop.

the voices spill and spill and spill and never stop:

This is how you hold a golf club, see here? Line the arrow up with your thumb, then place the other hand on top, plant your feet firm, keep your posture tall, heart lifted, have you noticed how much you cross your arms while running? Back and forth, back and forth, don’t lean forward too much, lean forward a little more, it’ll help you get more momentum off the blocks, but the last time i did that i nearly fell face first into the pool, well, it takes practice, it takes time, time makes a difference, you know?

I am ten.

The grocery store aisles are too narrow

And the cart collides into a red wine display.

I kneel down and pick up the shards.

Lifting a stained finger to my tongue, I cannot tell if it is bitter more than sweet;

My puckered face cannot escape

The rushing blush beneath my cheeks

As spilling bottles pool in mirrors around my feet, Broken, but unbreakable in my small hands:

would you go out and check the strawberries? We have finally grown enough to make a pie, pick the reddest ones, they’re the sweetest. Leave the green ones to hold onto the vine, they will be too sour. do you remember your hands, cupped together, as the juice stained your palms? I miss those days with you.

I am twelve,

Riding in a car

I’ve never liked

Because the seats are too low to the ground and the handles on the inside are sticky with old Mountain Dew and the bumps from the country road

Are rattling the windows against the blustery chill, My hair is wet and melting. You sit in the driver’s seat

And turn the radio up

So we can hear the basketball game.

Can we stop at the gas station on the way home from swim practice? I brought money, three dollars, enough for the Icebreakers, raspberry on one side and mint on the other. It will be quick, we won’t be late for dinner, I promise. We can share them if you want. don’t you like the way the tartness tickles your tongue?

I am seventeen.

It is dark and I am alone, In a car I’ve always liked.

I turn up the volume of Conan Gray, My hair is sweaty and knotted. Headlights flash towards me

And then I am stranded in the middle of the road, Plastic pieces on the pavement.

We drive home in the car I’ve never liked, My hands are shaking.

You had the green light. It’s not your fault. But what if it was? You have to trust yourself. The important thing is that you’re okay. I’m glad you are okay.

I am eighteen.

My hands are not as small anymore, But they still wrap around your thumb, Even as your blood is pumped Through plastic and machine, I swallow the fear that you cannot,

As your throat fills with multiplying cells And color leaves your cheeks: Broken, but unbreakable in my hands.

How do you know

How many bottles it takes to Recapture the feeling

Of floating amongst the waves, To piece back together

What is left -

This is you, arrow on your heart, lean, but last time, i fell face first. well, it takes time. By the time I have grown enough, the sweetest will sour. i miss home, but the important thing is that you’re okay. I’m glad you are okay.

Dusk settles in thick lavender mist

Hovering over the horizon,

The tide has fallen.

The cold sand falls away from the edges of my feet,

My fingers close around the patchwork bottle.

When I hold it up in the fading light,

The jigsaw refracts a million times:

The strawberries, The intersection, The yellowed tubes, The country roads, The golf club, The grocery store, We were once Unbroken, somewhere on that golden sunlit shore,

Yet, still, within the cracks between fragments of the past, The aftertaste lingers From liquid memories left to pour.

written

Hadley

by:

Snell edited by: Celeste Agulay designed by: Tori Kim

Writer: Nandini Likki Editor: Kinsey Wang Designer: Miranda Liu

In between practices, Savoy tells me that I lack it. “It’s nothing against you, of course,” she says, sweetly, while her eyes are fluttering somewhere else. “I just need to keep the best interests of the whole team in mind. And you just don’t have the experience that everyone else has.” I look down at my Reeboks, old and beaten-down, clashing with my navy and yellow uniform. We’re the Sycamore Stingers. Our cheer team was founded in 1996 by Jackie Bowman, a disgruntled soccer player who didn’t make varsity. We were built on a foundation of spite. But spite can motivate you when enthusiasm fails. That’s the thing they don’t tell you about cheerleading.

When I’m at my boyfriend’s house, he tells me not to worry about it. “What you really need to focus on is college,” Anand talks in between bites of a granola bar. He doesn’t get it and he never will. He’s always been a nerd, so disinterested in anything involving sports. His main priority is making sure we both get into WashU together. He doesn’t understand that as a senior, I should have some authority over the other girls, who sometimes treat me as if I don’t exist. That I didn’t go to cheer camp as a kid but I’ve been dancing for ten years, that I’m flexible as fuck, that I mean something to the team. I want to mean something to them. I want to be good.

“Are you okay?” Anand has noticed that I’ve been staring off into space, instead of working on this physics problem with him. It’s easier than I expected it to be. It’s all just action and reaction, figuring out which equation to use. Every motion is basically the same.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

I go home, and my mother doesn’t say anything. She never does. Her head is buried in work and she never comes up for air. Sometimes I think she wouldn’t even notice if I disappeared.

In my dreams, my father tells me it’s alright. I tell him that I wish I could’ve been there, that I wanted to make things better for him. “But what did you know?” he replies. “It was way before your time. You couldn’t have done anything.” Still–it makes me weep. I imagine him sleeping on the floor of his new boarding school, because the dorms weren’t built yet. I imagine him staring up at the ceiling, watching lizards scurry across the walls, cursing out Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga, who was maybe just trying his best, for a constituency that wanted him dead. These are old stories, but I’m addicted to old stories. If I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, unable to stop thinking about that day in the hospital, then I go on my phone and I find the VHS camcorder videos from when I was a baby. I watch my father chase after me, pick me up, and put me down again, as my one year-old lips tentatively try to find new words. “Doddy-la,” “dudd,” until finally settling on: “daddy.”

Daddy

When I arrive at school the next day, nobody on the team even looks in my direction. I guess Savoy has already spread the news of excommunication. If you think about it, I didn’t even do anything wrong. Obviously kicking me off had nothing to do with my actual skill. Last week, Lina had a sleepover for the whole team. And it was around 2 in the morning, and Lina and I ended up being the only two girls who were still awake. She was lying on her back, and I was on my stomach. And she reached over and tucked strands of hair behind my ear, as she leaned in and whispered, “Do you get it now?” I don’t know if I got it then, or even now, but something pushed me to lean in closer, lean in even closer… I think Thy was awake during the whole situation, and she ended up telling Savoy, who ‘wanted to see me after practice.’ The thing is Savoy and Lina have the kind of suffocatingly close friendship you can only have if you’ve known someone since kindergarten. And although Savoy would never admit it, because she’s as straight as uncooked spaghetti, I think what happened at the sleepover enraged her, beyond jealousy.

This is what runs through my mind as Lina, at the back of the group, suddenly looks me straight in the eyes in the hallway. She is the only cheerleader to do so. I do nothing.

“Oh, well, that’s a bummer!” Mrs. Medina, my college counselor, cheerfully exclaims when I tell her what happened. “Maybe you can just write it off as ‘wanting to focus more on your applications.’ I know how time-consuming athletics can be. Nothing that a few admissions officers wouldn’t understand or even sympathize with. Anyway, I think the rest of your extracurriculars are impressive enough that you have a good enough chance. Have you taken a look at Scoir since the last time we met? They’ve added some new features that I think you’ll find really interesting. Like there’s this new graph that shows you how other students with the same test scores and GPAs did in their admissions. Green circle means they were accepted, yellow circle means waitlisted, and red triangle means rejected. Here, why don’t I just show you…”

“I can’t believe you missed that problem. We literally went over that one.” Anand wanted to call to go over AP Calc, but I’m half-listening as I scroll through Scoir. I know that Savoy’s top choice is Barnard, which I don’t know much about. Their whole deal with Columbia confuses me.

“But 92% is not bad. You should review before we start the next unit though, because calc just builds on previous material.” Barnard’s logo is blue. I know Jhumpa Lahiri went to Barnard. I always liked her work. But not a lot of Sycamore students are applying there. I guess we’re not really into women’s colleges. Savoy probably Early Decisioned, like several other students have. Anand urged me to ED to WashU, but I missed the deadline.

“Anyway. The winter ball is coming up soon…” I scroll over to the graph section out of curiosity. There’s only one dot on the entire graph and it’s green. However, the scores are appalling. A 3.6 GPA and a 29 on the ACT. Not exactly Barnard material, which I know has an acceptance rate of 9%. I didn’t know Savoy was so stupid. Who does she think she is?

“Babe.”

“Yes?”

“Have you been listening to anything I’m saying? We should figure out what we’re doing for the dance.”

“I don’t think we should go. Not together, at least.”

“What? Why not?”

“I kissed Lina at her sleepover. Goodbye.” I cut the call.

“You forgot to leave the chicken out,” my mom says to me when I come downstairs for dinner, which is aloo fry instead. It is the first sentence she’s said to me in three days.

Photos by: Christian Wolke Designed by: Fallon Dern

Did you hear about Savoy?” I tell people at school the next day. Maya says no, and I tell her about Savoy’s test scores. Imani says, “Yeah, she got into Barnard!” and I tell her about Savoy’s test scores. But I am very selective with who I tell. It can’t be traced back to me. There is a group of three junior girls on the team; I know as soon as the rumor reaches them, the whole school will know. So I stick with Maya and Imani for now and watch it unfold. I wonder if people would’ve found out anyway, though. I see more and more students using Scoir, but in secret, as if it gives you too much access to other people’s lives.

I see Anand in the main hallway and my stomach drops. The expression on his face is inscrutable. Then he starts walking, and I realize he’s walking towards me. Oh god, he wants to talk. Because despite all of the things that irritate me about him (his pretentiousness, his overconfidence, his taste in music), Anand is actually a nice guy. The kind of guy who would say something like, “Hey, it’s okay. I completely understand. I think it’s great and you should take this time to figure out your sexuality.”

I don’t want to deal with him right now. So I walk away.

In my dreams that night, I see my father again. This time I cut the bullshit: “Please tell me what to do. I feel so lost without you.” I picture him standing in the corner of my bedroom, calves against stacks of textbooks and novels I’ll forget. His apparition is somehow sopping and fuzzy at the same time. His voice is static when he answers back: “Chitti, do you get it now?” He comes out of the shadows and stands before me. He has changed into something grotesque: his limbs are gangrene and barely holding onto the rest of his decrepit body, his lungs have escaped his chest cavity and dried out completely, and the skin on his face is rotting and falling off onto the floor. I scream and scream until my mother bursts into my bedroom and buries my face into her chest, hand on my stupid heart.

At lunch, Lina tells me she wants to talk to me. We find an empty classroom and sit down at two of the desks, before Lina suddenly blurts out that I’m back on the team.

“What?”

“Yeah. We couldn’t find anyone to replace you.”

“Huh. Well, thanks.” She looks at the ground and bites her lip, as if she’s preparing herself to say what’s next.

“I’m really sorry for everything that happened. I feel like it’s my fault.”

“Lina–”

“Savoy just…she hasn’t been in the right headspace recently.” I try to stifle a giggle. Lina loves using the word ‘headspace.’ I miss how it sounded from her voice.

“I get it. People can be nasty.”

“I heard from Thy that Barnard might be reconsidering her application. Maybe someone complained or something.”

“Oh my god.”

“Yeah. Crazy. Anyway…” She looks at me again with that piercing gaze, and I feel like I’m going to melt.

“Yes?”

“We can both agree that what happened was a mistake, right?”

“Oh.”

“I mean, things are going so well between you and Anand. And I don’t know if I’m in the headspace to be in a relationship right now.”

“I see.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re right. It was a mistake.”

At three in the morning, I wake up in a cold sweat after dreaming about unstable but beautiful pyramids of falling cheerleaders, tumbling into the void. I grab my phone from my nightstand and look through for the videos of my dad. They should be in my personal Google Drive…but they aren’t there. I check my backup YouTube channel. Nothing. I look through my gallery for something, anything. I close my eyes hard, until I feel like they’ll fall out of my face. I remember his deep, bellowing laugh. I remember his glasses, covered in dust after he left. I remember Savoy whispering to me on the playground when we were seven. I remember that she told me wanted to be a lawyer like her mom. I remember the history textbook Lina lent me when I forgot mine at home. I remember the only thing she marked in the entire text, an underline beneath the words, “Settlers, their eyes like knives, see the world cracked.”

Black wisps of fire streak across the sky.

Some panic; the sudden end of the world as we know it, an unknown terror. some have already known it, have felt its heat as it draws nearer.

Some see it as nothing, a blackened fingernail grown too long. some are enraptured by it, finding an evil, piercing white eye at the root of the flame. some try to deny it existence, letting it fly out of control until it becomes unavoidable. encroaching, impeding, adapting. before, it would only stare, a gentle tug towards the edge of the line, and soon the heat of the edge became a home.

it was not long before we both knew of each other. that was when it took form and spoke. its inky wisps of flame would twist and meld and flicker, into whomever i least wanted to see: an ex-lover, a friend, a parent; anything i had once desired was its weapon, trained around my neck, ready to wring.

it spoke in flatterous tones, of envy and of alacrity

it asked why i wanted to seek it out so badly, a question i had no answer for.

it bemoaned about all my freedom freedom, somehow lacking from the flame soaring around the globe. it looked so free.

i wanted to join it

its piercing eye never locked with mine as it spoke, it simply focused on my chest on its rise and fall, the roar of its flame linked to my heart.

Written by: Arman Rasool | Edited by: Ananya Agrawal | Designed by: Ulysses Bergel

and then it departed, continuing on its blazing path, countless wispy figures shedding from the streak of its flame, falling upside down.

falling as i stood still. suddenly, the fire vanished

A miracle!

The end times had passed, And now it was time to move on.

yet try as i might, our time was not over, my penance never paid. a life was lived, and the gentle tug existed even in its absence.

i wanted to seek it out.

i gazed upon the horizon, and a duller section of the sky began to shift: revealing that all-familiar eye at the core of the world.

this time it made no attempts at flattery it was eager, and its onyx blaze reflected me

the reflection was always there, but now turned outwards, forcing me to see myself, understand the hearth which held this flame.

i stared into my chest and simply asked:

"did you love?"

and how i did. every small act slipped through the cracks, and my love outgrew the cramped heart it inhabited, my love desperately attached itself to every person and place it saw:

infusing itself into every hand taken, every shoulder rested on, every laugh expelled, every embrace held

infusing itself into the air, infusing itself into my breath.

my reflection simply gazed ahead, smirking.

the silence was deafening, and i felt red.

was i embarrassed, speaking so earnestly with nothing more than a campfire?

perhaps that’s a good thing.

my reflection warped to face me, staring at my shaky chest, and laughed.

“good! you and i both know it’s silly to pretend we’re not all faking it.”

my reflection finally locks eyes with my self, hands wrapped in mine, without a care about how my chest rises.

how beautiful i am. how alive i feel.

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