PALM 2017-2018

PALM 17-18

PALM Staff Editors-in-Chief Isaac Gershberg Christina Hijiya Sarah Jester Hope Rogers

Staff Members Seniors

Juniors

Noa Goldman Olivia Klein Isabel Roney McClaran Shirley

Veronica Gibson Hanna Goldberg Olivia Gotsch Mendy Kong

Sophomores Aylin Arredondo Eva Gelman Grace Giles-Carter Lucia Nash

Cover art: Annie Chan

Lola Roney Magda Saliba Evan Sandoval Sara Zhang

A: Daniel Nino

Untitled I see in you the light that I once had behind my eyes I see it fade from your eyes the way it did from mine

A: Nadia Czekajewski L: Aylin Arredondo

a rose a rose by any other name would smell as sweet its fleeting scent came and went as i sent this letter signing it with mine, my name the name framed by lines never lies in it lies the sound that your mouth makes when it calls me yevah a ball of thoughts that were caught in a net and met a form made of flesh and bones flesh and bones a rose still has thorns thrown stones don’t hurt nearly as much as words words a world of words letters tied together by chords escaping my sore throat like a boat and diving into the air the problem that remains is my name i wrote about it so much that it became lame all the same here i go again a line from a poem written so long ago but it is here ready? here it is now my name is yevah and i stand by it

L: Eva Gelman

wrists. pores filled with fragments of last night’s quiet reverberations, teeth bared in solace and sodium dripped from lids onto tongues. fingernails clamped dry skin speckled with the railroads, clasping for harmony. tents indigo and murky were pitched around figures of freckles. flies dozed on windowsills, while scaphoids clung to banisters and words clung to sisters. slippers lingered on last steps with the pencils meant for right hands and yesterday’s shoes.

A: Sara Zhang L: Hanna Goldberg

A: Laura Pickert

di-stance her family can tell she’s gone when her home toothbrush becomes her travel one instead. it is nice to know that she has somewhere, even if it is somewhere else she knows she’s not in the city anymore when suburban streets put pedestrians in cars where they belong when rain falls on the car window, it’s easier to focus on waterflecked glass than whatever’s outside

here, she could drive five miles in any direction and reach a cornfield – or at least some soybeans. at this rate, they’re almost interchangeable it was only a three-hour ride, but the crops that stretched over the horizon made it feel much longer she noticed it took wikipedia three days to revise his bio from “is” to “was” does that mean he will be resurrected?

A: Isaac Gershberg L: Hope Rogers

A: Grace Hague

//a hymnal in four parts i. dark sweet strains of plum red draining and dripping staining my skin like church windows swallowing saccharine glass because i sang seraphic songs under your name in hopes that it would bring me closer to your divine ii. ashes to ashes, dust to dust i didn’t know that meant you’d ash your cigarette in my hand burning holes into my palms as your hot tongue seared your own psalm into my neck making sure your mouth made the same sacred scars iii. honeyed hymns with sticky pages mellifluous melody snared in mouth like venus fly trap sheet after sheet of pathetic paean ink smeared and soaked with time passed since you said you loved me without slurred tongue at dirty daybreak iv. my words now like withered heartbeat waning faith once webbed within the sour sanctity of your frame but this song will deliver me to the end of my devotional and when my ecclesiastical shouting stops echoing through the halls maybe you will be able to hear the emptiness you created

L: Micaela Foreman

A: Mendy Kong

1. Bike Avi’s on the softball team. He comes home late on Thursdays and hangs his cap on the same rusty hook and shuffles out of his cleats and jams his keys into his pocket. He tracks dirt into the house and eats our mashed potatoes out of the bowl. He has the same brown eyes as me but his face is longer and sharp at the end, and his hair isn’t as curly as mine. Mom says her brother and his wife both had nice straight hair while she got stuck with the bedhead, so me and her have to just deal ‘cause Avi’s got the lucky genes.

Avi borrowed my bike last week and he hasn’t give it back yet. I got that bike last year for my birthday, right around when he moved in and my mom cleaned out the attic so he could have somewhere to sleep. She took me to Target and made me pick out some blankets ‘cause she said she “doesn’t know what kids are into these days.” I told her that I didn’t know either, and that he could sleep on the floor for all I cared.

Mom got really upset right there in the store and I thought she was going to yell. But she just looked at me with this sour face on until we got home. Then she made me apologize to him even though he wasn’t there and didn’t even know what I was sorry for.

2. Christie Avi has a girlfriend named Christie. She and Avi went to grade school together in Rhode Island and she misses him a lot. They used to hang out by the jungle gym on the playground and pass each other notes and her dad really likes him too but Avi’s parents didn’t know about her. I know ‘cause I picked up the phone once while she and Avi were talking. They were laughing a lot and he sounded a little bit homesick, even though he always says he’s glad he lives here with us. It was like hearing someone else’s thoughts.

She told him she was in love with him. He paused for a minute and I held my breath to hear what he would say, but then the phone was yanked out of my hand and back into the receiver.

Avi told me that he’d kill me if I told Mom anything about it. Then he marched back up to his room and slammed the door so hard he left a crack in it.

3. Parents I once told Avi I wished his parents would come back and take him away so he wouldn’t have to live with us anymore. He called me a jackass but I was the only one who got in trouble. Mom always takes his side when we fight. She told me I have to be polite, even if he’s mean to me. I said it wasn’t fair. I liked it better when it was just Mom and me but she won’t tell me how long it is until he leaves.

4. Birthday Avi’s birthday is in 4 months and 19 days.

I know ‘cause he never shuts up about it. 4 months, 19 days. Mom likes to ask him what he wants for his birthday and Avi likes to shrug his shoulders and secretly circle pictures of cars in magazines. I caught him once with a red marker and a pair of scissors upstairs and asked him why he didn’t just ask Mom to let him use her car again. He got his keys taken away at the beginning of the year but I think she’ll be nice. Mom likes being nice. Avi always says he wants his own car.

He says he wants to drive to California when he graduates. He says he’s seen pictures of LA before and the beaches look warm.

A: McClaran Shirley L: Anna Harrison

A: Deja Dye L: Noa Goldman

Light Throughout the day sunshine comes in through the blinds, leaving cell like shadows on the floor, a wholly blankets of light.

At night we eat in the dark, a few candles as a centerpiece.

My mother only likes natural light, no need for the bright white of Ikea lamps.

Candlelight is romantic she tells me; our dinner guests find it festive.

Sometimes I pretend I will leave the candles lit all night, punish her with a burning building and ruined candles.

But as I lie in bed I dream of the cat’s tail slowly tripping grandma’s silver candle holders.

I guiltily tiptoe back to the dining room, And smolder each flame between my finger and thumb.

Finally, I blow out all my air on an unlit wick.

I can’t help myself.

I walk back to my bedroom, my breath and fingertips heavy with the weight of salvation.

“Can you open this for me?”

I have never let my fingernails grow past my fingertips.

Or even close.

They snuggle near the nail bed, like children, who bury themselves under blankets to stay safe from the monster, hidden, behind twitching lips.

My life consists of: Painful pop-can openings.

Asking for help with undoing my double knotted shoelaces, or the clasp of a necklace, and avoiding manicures with mom.

My life consists of: hangnails, cuticles, calluses, scars, and scoldings from mom.

A: Evan Sandoval L: Grace Hauser

There have been times of determination, resilience, and dark gray nail polish.

Times of giddily modeling the millimeters of progress to family members familiar with my habit.

There have been habit-breaking weeks; times filled with bright red nail polish, school dances, finger tapping, and manicured and moisturized hands. But these times always end.

These times always begin with a promise to only trim and End in a homecoming of nubby pink flesh.

End in a parade of blood with nail clipping confetti.

My mother has told me it’s because I’m anxious.

Can fingernails be worried sick?

Can you see me eating myself, raw?

Ohio outside the rain-streaked window the sky is coated in navy velvet you would have guessed it to be black if it weren’t for the shadows of the towering trees midnight opaque and silhouetted against the night’s dome in the garden, a lamppost arches up towards the drooping leaves and slopes back down again, casting a soft glow upon the wet ground reminiscent of my umbrella’s handle hanging from a nail about three quarters of the way up the post is a dull wicker basket, filled to the brim with ruby-colored flowers within the confines of the wicker the gems are gift-wrapped in resplendent greenery the golden hue of the light bulb illuminates the raindrops plopping onto crimson petals indoors, peals of laughter are further brightened by candlelight thunder crashes but it sounds more like my brother stomping around upstairs A: Isaac Gershberg L: Sarah Jester

A: Grace Johnson

A: Alana Chandler

sea treasures seashells do not hold the ocean’s laughter in their spirals. that sound is your blood, beating in your ears, crashing against your temple it is the silent echo of mother mollusks, grandmother clams, and great-grandmother snails now washed away their whisper is the soul of your world, reverberating in a small cave that roar is our voice, our laughter ringing through their galaxy. sea stones are not made to form inconsequential ripples, to skip across still ponds their calm exteriors were fashioned from waters raging, sands grating, and rocks smashing against them in our palms, they are smooth and cool, resilient and sure there is an unwavering trust in their weight that every sea weathers the storm. sea glass does not reflect the sun, or the sky, or our eyes peering in nor is it transparent, rather it has taken on its own figure, reclaimed its body. born from liquid sand, made a human object, and then fractured into polluting waste it has spent years at sea - swallowing waves, riding tides, playing with currents and now returns to sand as something coveted, ethereal in its translucence, beautiful. despite winds that have swallowed pieces, carrying them away in its belly soles that have trampled them beneath grains of sand all that has once and may still contest their value, we wander up and down the seashore because all this in our hands is treasure.

A: Isabel Roney L: Isabel Diersen

Stole an apple today The sweet taste of free produce a snake told me to A: Daniel Nino L: Noa Goldman

A: Catherine Johnson

ritual we take blades too close to skin, to veins for comfort shedding winter’s growth down shower drains carving paths north from ankle to knee to hip through tall grass uncharted since our last hookups, now leftovers i never cut corners on streets as sharp as chicago’s but i have cut curves soft on corners sharp on razors clearing the next forest in path of blade next, the amazon

A: Brianna Sirdich L: Christina Hijiya

How to Clean the Dishes Unlock your phone and watch a video on max volume It doesn’t matter what video it is Anything to cover the noise of mom cooking She might ask you about school or college Distract yourself It’s the best thing you can do Don’t complain Mom works hard, too hard Dad doesn’t though You’ll know when to be quiet When mom goes on her rants let her If she asks you anything It’s a trap Don’t mention how many dishes there are Keep your head down Clean Check the dishwasher Full load means empty Half load means dishes later Empty load means everything now Scrub, for goodness sake scrub If you don’t you’ll regret it Don’t forget the soap Soap for dishwashing Is like Cooking with fire Essential The dishes have to be perfect If not a monster Rage, Fury, Screaming, Fear Fear, Anger, Sadness, Doubt Doubt, Quiet, Silence, Tears All you have to do is clean Help mom don’t hurt Clean, please clean Clean A: Eva Gelman Clean L: Alvin Ruan Clean Back cover: Christina Hijiya