PALM 2016-2017

P A L

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PALM Staff 2017 Staff Sponsor: Brandon Newton Editors-in-Chief: Abby Jakus ‘17 Isaac Gershberg ‘18

Simone Wallk ‘17 Stella Binion ‘17

Staff: Reid Anrod Lily Blender Lilly Hastings

Rose Jacobs Mia Tran Olive Welsh

Kalina Gac Noa Goldman Christina Hijiya Sarah Jester

Olivia Klien Hope Rogers McClaran Shirley

Veronica Gibson Hanna Goldberg

Olivia Gotsch Mendy Kong

Cover Art: Mendy Kong

A: Olive Welsh

Fruit is to Plant as Ovary is to Woman I The life-givers of the world are mango pits and papaya guts that sit like torn-out tongues in my kitchen sink. Hands strain to grasp the two moons of swampy stickiness that make up the fruit, an inward bloom of seeds and flower. With the greedy indignity of children, mother and daughter slurp the slimy bloodred pulp, sucking and pulling until chin and hands run pink with its juice, like pitted fists after a street fight.

II We never self-identify as “fruit of the womb” but, inherently, the sticky-sweetness of womanhood itself is like an overripe fruit, the heavy swell of a melon or a low-hanging orange straining on its branch—intimately present and painful and pleasant, laden with the the pregnancy of time and tender with its cycles. We are not simply the fruit of the womb; we are the wombs of the fruit, too. Longing for the paradise lost of Eden and rooted in the roundness of time, we bear and are born.

III Driven by the all-consuming need to sustain, we partake in seeds and pierce thick skins, tearing into flesh with face and destroying the embryos of the ovary of the fruit. The womb of the plant, pregnant with placenta oozing plant-seed, meets grooved teeth that tug and pull, as lifegiver is consumed by lifegiver. Tenuous in the interim space that is womanhood’s silent blossom, we are sustained in strength by the trees of knowledge and life, and in weakness by eternal guilt for the hypocrisy that is women eating fruit, ever forbidden. Our bloom is sacred and profane at once.

A: Kalina Gac L: Simone Wallk

repairs our natural instinct is always to obey the second law of thermodynamics: the total disorder in the world always increases, so we push against the rim of the glass until it shatters under the pressure. we become a pile of fragments. our limbs sprawl at random angles, sometimes colliding with our siblings or friends, but most of the time we reach out and cling to empty air. we let disorder pick us up in a riptide, uproot our legs from the shore, carry us across waves of nausea, headaches, broken promises, long days that end in four hours of heavy sleep, unbearable noise crashing against our ears, then silence that slowly drowns us. we sweep the glass shards into a dustpan, wipe up the dust that fell between the cracks – we begin to mend. it’s time to make repairs. the only way to keep going is to break the second law of thermodynamics.

A: Olive Welsh L: Hope Rogers

A: Veronica Gibson

combinations slumbered while light danced in the branches, and reflected itself in miniscule rainbows, flecks of color carefully mingling with the cherry red that lingered. kaleidoscope eyes. she spoke words like honey was dripping from her lips and her stomach was filled with the bees. her cherry eyes stuck searching. fresh steps found themselves sculpted in the balls of her feet, wrapped in slippers -canvas, never leather -- but. maybe, only cherry eyes search.

her neck had tied itself into knots only scouts could fathom untangling. her shoulders were bound to her ears in inescapable uncertainty and the heel of her foot was scarred by the bee sting and the sharpness of the opal that cut flesh and a trip in half. but her knees were like sonnets and sunny, intricate maps etched deep in patella. though when bruises painted themselves onto her joints, they found themselves tossed away -like the apples her sister disposes of, because bruises are unappetizing and she gave up on composting.

her mind found itself cloudy with miscellaneous thoughts. gray was her anthem and she only slept on sundays.

A: Annie Chan L: Hanna Goldberg

Grave Diggers We took the ropes from the field hand’s shed and played cowboy, latching nooses and bb gun bullets onto our dad’s empty beer cans. A song of collision. Sandstorms, the dust grains grinding against one another like flies on rot. Blue flower fields and melancholic erosion come home to rest. A lesson in how to turn to face the East in the morning where the plagued sun lifts itself, where mama says God’s body lies in a hospital bed. Take ten-year old boy and burn his hands on the matchsticks he keeps hidden in his locker. Ten year old boy became nowhere to work because this place doesn’t even have a McDonald’s within its radius. Started digging because there was nothing left to grow. My aunt was a tombstone engraver. All he did was join the family business.

Labor beside ghosts moaning like dry leaves. Pick out the teeth lying in the ground like sycamore pods and add them to the mason jar locked away with the lighters. Nobody wants to marry a man who knows the dead better than the living. The other rope boys don’t fare much better — farming dry fields is just another way to be surrounded by dead. The drought has reached Wyoming. The famine was always knotted in these same small towns with the lassos. The straw land. The no cactuses no trees land, just horse caracasses and glass bottles hiding behind the same shed that housed our sickness. All flowers wilt when forced to be reliant on an imperfect sun.

A: Noa Goldman L: Rose Jacobs

The girl with wings was born with fledgling feathers That hardly lifted her off the ground And though now they catch the gold in the blinding light Beneath they are disfigured Deformed by the silent bouts of tears Mangled by the pressure of the future Scarred by the strangled cries that come out less than a whisper Because she never learned to ask for help And though they watch her with careful eyes Calculating her missteps with piercing precision They don’t notice her injured wings They cannot see her for who she is

The Girl with Wings She flies on broken battered wings More hindered by the weight of her writhing soul than by Her bleeding blistered toes They watch her and call out encouragement in whispers That her captive ears cannot comprehend The other one waits in the dark Eyes narrowed and teeth clenched Jealous spite incarnate in her hate for the girl with wings Who takes her grace for granted

A marionette held up by spider’s silk Or fishing lines, the barbed hooks digging through her skin Reminding her Head up shoulders back stretch your knee point your foot don’t twist your collarbone Smile Like a wooden soldier dangled by the head Painted blocks of straight-edged wood pieced together By bits of fraying twine seconds from snapping But she drills her feet into the ground Points her toes and stretches her knees Cranks up her leg and floats across the stage Smiles so big they’ll never tell And lifts her wings to fly A: Olivia Klien L: Olivia Gotsch

Our Hands Pale knees were bent above the water pale feet pushed against the porcelain tub and pale fingers swirled shampoo through dark hair. calmly gray eyes stormed and her lip quivered.

Then the tub began to grow, or rather, her legs became shorter, thinner, smoother. worn brown fingers covered her smaller ones. her head bobbed and weaved as the fingers scrubbed soap in mother hummed, I’m going to wash that man right out of your head, and send him on his way and as suddenly as they had appeared, worn brown fingers tangled through dark wet locks tugging and pulling - gently at first till, sharp yanks left fissures along her skull crippling pain behind her eyes left cracks in her resolve. her grimy nails dug into worn brown hands, her pale hands cowered. and then, brown arms fell, aligning with pale till their arms dissolved into each other. memories spun circles in the water and her mother’s years made her heart heavy she murmured, I love you, but I can’t be you.

A: McClaran Shirley L: Isabel Diersen

Her pale knees broke above the water, pale feet flush against the porcelain tub, and pale fingers swirled cloudy memories. fiercely bright eyes stormed lightning, then thunder.

currency i snatch scrappy syllables and sentences from your purse, rolling saccharine silver dollar diction around on my tongue until it feels less foreign speakers of stolen syntax are metal-mouthed

A: Ben Mintz L: Sarah Jester

Whole Milk They never tell you that whole milk is four percent I always assumed it was like one hundred percent But it’s not, it is four percent Which is bullshit Whole Milk II Whole milk is actually three point two five percent Whole Milk III What the FUCK

A: Veronica Gibson L: Reid Anrod

Sleepy Boi tales of a daily union: head hits pillow. he lifts up up up and out of the dark sky a single puzzle piece of a poster child for somnambulation pieced together during that night’s flight during the daytime, school finds the boy sitting outside if he can sticking head outside of window if he cannot eagerly awaiting a solitary breeze to whip by the window and bless his cheeks with the anticipation of tonight’s flight

L: Sarah Jester A: Mia Tran