Scroll 2011

Scroll2011

Volume LVII

The Holton-Arms School7303 River Road • Bethesda, Maryland 20817

Editors-in-Chief Priya Krishnan • Shazray Khan

Assistant Editors Katie Kirk • Hailey Cayne

Club PresidentAngélique Moseley

Advisor Ms. Melinda Salata

2

Authors

Katie Kirk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Lily Evans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Yiran Zhang. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Meagan Carr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Fiona Moran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Shazray Khan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Clare Mulligan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Shazray Khan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Justine Hayward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Megan Dunlevy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Beverly Sihsobhon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Melinda Salata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Lia Peiperl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Jessica Janov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Lia Peiperl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Keara Scallan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Priya Krishnan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Rachel O’Connell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Sandy Fox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Jenna Milstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Jennifer Guo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Beverly Sihsobhon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Priya Krishnan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Angélique Moseley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Saachi Nangia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Caroline Ewing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Nicolle Wainer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Sydney Poretsky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Chloe Jeng. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Alice Sprinkle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Saachi Nangia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Anne Corrigan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Chloe Jeng. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Bonnie Siler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Julia Andreasen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Liza Gurskis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Jenna Milstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57


Elizabeth Harris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Elizabeth Rosenbaum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

3

Artists

Kelsey Sloter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Priya Krishnan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Stephanie Rales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Olivia Voslow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Tatyana Williams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Ashley Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Caitlin Montgomery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Lise Courtney D’Amico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Millie Yu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Lauren King . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Jane Alexander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Candace Reeder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Chloe Jeng. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Kimberly Whitley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Maryann Akinboyewa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Mary Ann Robison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Gabriella Gunawan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Millie Yu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Chloe Jeng. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Sandy Fox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Ellen Carey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Lise-Courtney D’Amico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Priya Krishnan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Delancey Wu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37


Millie Yu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Jane Alexander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Jackie Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Lise-Courtney D’Amico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Gabi Mayers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Lucy Dicks-Mireaux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Danielle Barnard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Alexandra Michaels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Sandy Fox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Stephanie Rales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52


Karen Buitano. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Shazray Khan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57


Neha Prasad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Meg Hefferon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Sarah Ettinger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

David Scherbel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Christin Wade-Vuturo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

44

Aqueous Solutions

Thunderclaps BOOM and lightning bolts flash outside the window.

Thud. Thud. Thud.A monotonous drone concerning aqueous solutions,More dulling than the rain.Surface tension. Vaporization. Hydrogen bonds.Thud. Thud. Thud.Wishing I was outsideThud. Thud. Thud.Pencils scribble on paperWhile I dance in the rain.

Katie Kirk

Kelsey Sloter5

6

The Fudge Man Lily Evans

Ms. Frances’s camp was where I learned how to use a knife first because we made pizza. We had

to cut up the cheese, and she taught me how to use a knife. When I came home, there was a pound cake, and I cut some slices off because I knew how.

My mom made fudge, brown sugar fudge. She put it in the freezer, and when you opened the freezer, the light would come on and it looked a little blue. The fudge was light brown, though. It was wrapped in foil inside of a metal box on top of a board. There was a knife on the board next to the box the fudge was in.

I would sneak downstairs from the upstairs to the first floor and then from the first floor to the basement. The kitchen was in the basement. The stairs that led down to the basement were really dark underneath, and I went quick in case there were vam-pires under there. There was a hole in the wall at the bottom of the stairs that was dusty and plastery. My parents told me not to peel the paint off around it.

I started out cutting little pieces off the fudge be-cause I knew how to use the knife now. I cut a little

from the right, then the next day a little from the left, then the next day a little from the top, to make sure the shape of the fudge stayed the same and my parents couldn’t tell I’d been stealing it. They didn’t notice, so I cut bigger pieces off. Then they still didn’t notice.

I got tired of using the knife. It was too hard to be doing all the time. The fudge was small enough then that it was easy to pick it up, so I would. I would pick it up and take a bite, and then put it back in the

box and tuck the foil around it and close the freezer. I would bite all around it so that it would stay a square. If I bit too much from one side, like the right side, then it wouldn’t be a square anymore, it would be a rect-angle with the left side longer than the

right side. So I would take a bite on the right, then a bite right next to where I’d just bitten, all around the fudge. It stayed a square.

My parent didn’t notice for a long time because we didn’t have very much in the freezer. My dad made smoothies out of frozen berries and powder that he kept in a big container that was up too high

Priya Krishnan

7

for me to reach. But this was before that, so there was only ice in the freezer. I wanted a freezer with a but-ton that made ice on the outside. We didn’t get one, though.

My dad called me one day down to the kitchen, and I was scared because my dad was calling me because he’d found something that I’d tried to hide. That was the only reason they called me unless it was in the morning. In the morning when my dad un-locked the car, I would run away down the street, and they would yell my middle names at me and tell me to come back.

My dad had the fudge on the kitchen table and it was tiny and the edges were marked with teeth bites. It was like a stamp. It was little like a stamp, and it had marks around it like a stamp, but it was brown and made of sugar.

“What happened here?” he asked.I didn’t smile. I knew from school that when you

smiled that meant you were lying, so I didn’t smile. “Did you eat this?” he asked me.“No,” I said. I looked into his eyes because I knew

from school that when people are lying they don’t look at you.

“No?” he asked.“It was a man,” I said. “He was just here.”“A man ate this?”“Yes,” I said. I needed him to believe me, but why

would a man come here to eat our fudge? “No,” I said. “He didn’t eat it.”

My dad didn’t say anything.“He touched it, he touched it with his hands.” I

could see him in my head. He was wearing blue

gloves which were touching the fudge, and the fudge was shrinking. He was wearing a suit like Calvin’s dad in Calvin and Hobbes when he rode his bike in the winter. “He has a special power called tabs. When he touches things they leave a pattern like that.”

“So,” my dad said. “A man came here.” I nodded.“He touched the fudge. His tabs made the fudge

disappear. So now there’s barely any fudge, and it’s covered in bite marks.”

I nodded.“Where is this man now?”“When he heard you coming, he jumped into the

trash can and disappeared,” I said.We both looked at the trash can. I could see the

man in my head, jumping into the trash can and being sucked in and shrinking until he was gone.

Stephanie Rales

Olivia Voslow

8

9

Fireworks

In an instant, fireworks appear above the blockLike flowers bloom in a silky river.When the New Year is striking our clock,Shall we thank life, the generous giver?

The crowd is cheering, screaming, and drinking, While on soft velvet, the dazzling jewelsTurn into dusty smog. I am thinking Lives are ephemeral and we are fools!

We saw fireworks together, last-year Eve.This year, crowd, fireworks still, but you! How bleak!Death took away your sweetest breath, I grieve,And ruthless time decayed your rosy cheek.

O cunning Time, you make my daylights blind,But the soul’s memories dwell in my mind.

Yiran Zhang

Tatyana Williams

10

Follow the Script: A Grendel MeditationMeagan Carr

“Just follow the script,” he says. I protest, but noth-ing will stop him. “The wolf called in sick today,”

he says, not even bothering to look up from his desk. “We need a substitute wolf, and you’re the best we’ve got, Grendel.” His voice bothers me. I want to just kill him and get it over with, but I can’t. He’s the boss. I have to do what he says. Or at least that’s what they tell me. “Just follow the script,” he says again, handing me a book with the words “LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD” printed on the cover. Even the writing is cute. I look at him, then at the script, then back at him. I don’t see what makes him the boss. Does be-ing a fat bald man behind a big desk make him a boss? No, not to me. But I can’t risk it. I take the script, “uplift a defiant middle finger, and give an obscene little kick.” I leave him with that. I sigh. Today is not going to be a good day.

I get to the forest. The trees are too cheery. It’s not natural. I throw myself at one of them and rip off a limb, but its mood doesn’t darken; it stays the same annoying shade of bright green. Red and yellow birds twitter in the branches above me, making my head hurt with their irritating, tuneless songs. I sit down and look through my script. I’m supposed to wait for a little girl to come skipping up the path, and then I’m supposed to want to eat her but be afraid to do so in public. Yeah, right. I laugh to myself. The writers of this story would roll in their graves if they knew the damage I could do to a mead hall in just one night.

Afraid of eating someone in public! It’s preposterous. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. That’s what I hate so much about this story – any story! They all have a set plot, somewhere to go. The script dictates what happens, but it doesn’t mean anything. Look at what happens when one character can’t be there! The story can’t go on, so the boss calls in someone else so that the story can start again, and so the cycle contin-ues. It’s idiotic, really. The whole thing falls apart if one line is said wrong! Why can’t they just admit that their attempt at creating order is so fragile that the slightest thing could make it come crashing down? It almost makes me want to destroy the entire system. I smirk. It wouldn’t take much.

I’m suddenly aware of a disgustingly adorable presence. A little girl is skipping down the path a little ways away from me. She has huge round, shining eyes, chubby cheeks, and a vacant smile. Really? I think. How fake can they make this story? I hate that. I sigh and step out on to the path. She stops and looks at me.

“You’re not the usual wolf,” she says in a voice that is the sound equivalent of cotton candy and vanilla ice cream. Topped with maple syrup. I think I might vomit if things keep up like this. But the look in her eyes has changed. I can tell that she’s afraid of me, really afraid.

“He called in sick today,” I say, smiling wickedly. “So instead you have the pleasure of dealing with

10

11

me.” Her face changes; she’s backing away now. I think I might enjoy this after all. I step closer to her and whis-per, “So if you want to live through this pathetic excuse of a story, I suggest you don’t do anything that would make me want to… dampen your cheery disposition.” I tap one of her cheeks with my claw. She flinches. I stay there for a moment, enjoying the alarm in her eyes.

“Y….y…you wouldn’t…,” she stammers with a quiver in her voice. The sugary sweetness is gone now.

I shrug, “Breaks up the boredom.” I don’t mean that to justify hurting people, just to get her thinking. “This script doesn’t seem quite right,” I say to her. It takes her by surprise. She looks at me with wide eyes, even more scared than when I threatened her.

“But the script is always right!” she says with shock and fear. I grin; this is a new concept to her.

“It’s only right because they say it’s right,” my

voice has grown soft and maliciously gleeful. “But why is it up to them to decide what’s right and wrong?” She is frozen on the spot. She doesn’t want to think about this. Thinking too much could make her real-ize that the system isn’t real, and she knows she couldn’t handle that.

“Stop talking, you… you monster!” she splut-ters. She doesn’t look cheery or even cute any-more. No, she is terri-fied. The forest isn’t jolly anymore; the trees have grown dark, and menac-ing, and the birds have stopped their singing. “Stop it! Stop it!” she says as she backs up, her voice growing higher with each word. I take a step closer. “This isn’t supposed to happen!” Her voice quivers with panic. I reach out a long arm. “You’re not follow-

ing the script! This isn’t in the script!!” she shrieks.“Oops,” I whisper. “Too bad.”

Gabriella Gunawan

11

12

It’s small and green,so don’t be mean,and have a lookfor this notebook. It boasts “Core I,”and everyonewill see my name [Fiona Moran]and whence it came. [Staples] I spent an ageon every ageand need it soonere face my doom.

~ Fiona Moran

Lost, Green, Core I Notebook

Ashl

ey B

row

n

13

Golden Pinpricks stippling the charcoal canvas,Teasingly evade outstretched Fingersstraining to reach those illusory Glimmers.Almost those desperate Hands grasp…yetAlas! A trick those luminescent Fiends playAs they dance deftly away.Clumsy legs follow chase after the golden impsThat vow to lead hands to KismetYet suddenly they blind Eyes, that tear up in protest.Legs falter and in a lastFutile attempt NailsSwipe but fail as Legs tumble to the earth.I lie defeated, staring at them as theyTauntingly flee,Leaving me to curse in the dark.But those glowing orbsAre ignorant of the ember of hope;Diminutive yet strongThat I have of one dayconquering Those clandestine Stars.

Shazray Khan

Caitlin Montgomery

Starchaser

Lise Courtney D’Amico

14

15

Y ou walk down the crowded street. Attempts have been made to gentrify it, but it’s still the same. You see the costume superstore that’s now a pet store. You see the strange hut

that functions as a sort of firework and alcohol emporium. You pass them.Now you’re on a quieter road. You pass a concrete monolith. Its signs promise used cars

for sale, but you never see any cars going in or out. You see the Austin Powers: Goldmember poster that’s been pasted on the walls for as long as you can remember.

You have now entered the residential part of the neighborhood. Your feet take you down a street exploding with green, past the loudest church you’ve ever heard, to 1331 Michigan Avenue. A concrete pineapple on a pillar welcomes you.

With a wave to the aged lesbians in the next house, you push open the door, still smelling the tomatoes from the garden in the front. You swivel in the tiny wooden front hall, looking up the dark cherry stairs and then at the kitchen and the living room. You rest a hand on the mantle where your father’s ashes sat.

You walk aimlessly through the living room, letting your hand drift behind you as if it will catch itself on the soft foamy frame of the yellow couch with peacocks on it. The couch is no longer there. You step reverently over the worn floorboards where you had a tea party with your plastic dinosaurs.

Your path takes you through the dining room, where you never ate, and the TV room, where you watched and hated Monty Python and the Holy Grail. You feel the grain of the green cabinet where your mother kept her teapots, and you cool your cheek on the marble counter where she almost set her chocolate-dipped strawberries on fire.

You pass the stairs leading to the basement, which has evolved from a dirty storage space to a party room. You whisper upstairs, mentally placing each framed Bible verse on the walls. You see both of your old bedrooms, and remember how hard it was to leave them. You do not go into the master bedroom.

You ignore the attic, because it always scared you, and you descend the stairs again. You close the door behind you, and you go home.

1331Clare Mulligan

16

Millie Yu

Alone

The sole inhabitant on this island,my eyes’ vision blursAs I enviously spy on the inhabitantsOf the Other Island.Their island’s verdure and sunshine scornsMy isolated, bleak realm.I watch the Other Islanders work harmoniously

as I struggle to find food and set up shelter.There used to be Other Islanders living with me,But they parted quickly, eager to join the Other community.My mind reminds me I can join them anytime I want,Yet my prideful soul refuses my body leave

of this desolate island: My wretched home. So I sit silently on the gray, grainy sand, Adding salty tears to the ocean.

Shazray Khan

16

17

Lauren King

Why?

Why?Why did you say that?If you didn’t mean itYou told me those three words every girl wants to hearBut you broke your promise That shattered to piecesLike all of my tears.

Why would you do that?I guess it was just a jokeI shouldn’t have been meBecause I always spokeMy mind.I just wasn’t the girl you wanted me to be.

What will I do?You might ask (I also ask myself )Even though with you I came in dead last.

I’ll just stay here And one day with no cluesI’ll just take off; your heart I will sear And you’ll be the stuck one with the blues.One more questionJust for youHow does it feel to be in my shoes?

Justine Hayward

18

My mom sat at the kitchen table with a cup of steaming Ovaltine, her eyes still red and puffy

from a night of crying. The first rays of dawn spread across her home in the tranquil Florida suburban neighborhood on that first morning of 1980. The new decade wasn’t supposed to start like this. She had so been looking forward to her New Year’s date the night before and had meticulously planned out every detail in preparation: her hair, her dress, the best route to take to the restaurant, and the questions she would ask over dinner. The only circumstance that did not fit her expectations was her date’s poor grasp of time. When Thorpe still had not arrived, or even called, by 10:30 for their 9 o’clock reservation, Mom sadly realized that she would not be ringing in 1980 quite the way she had hoped.

She glared at the newspaper headlines and photos referencing fun, exuberant New Year’s celebrations. The smug faces with their party hats and noisemakers seemed to mock her situation with their smiles. Mind-lessly pushing her eggs around her plate, Mom replayed the way she actually spent the New Year.

“You look too pretty not to show off tonight. Let me take you out, honey,” Papa Tony had urged in an effort to soothe the sting of being stood-up. Through a flurry of tears, Mom had barely managed to gasp out that she just wanted to curl up in a blanket and her disappointment while watching the eternally youthful Dick Clark.

The doorbell rang and snapped her out of her thoughts. Pulling her robe tighter around her and carrying her mug, she opened the door to see Thorpe. He sheepishly offered up a wilting bouquet of roses and an equally limp excuse. He removed his Ray Ban aviators and explained that the previous night he had gone out with some college buddies and ended up “over-served,” as they say in the South. Somewhere between his seventh beer and third round of pool, Thorpe had become too drunk to even stand up straight, much less pick my mom up for their date. Mom, uninterested in his explanation, asked him to leave. Thorpe, however, insisted upon defending his actions.

In the middle of Thorpe’s weak apology, Papa Tony came to the door. “Cathy, go ahead and go inside. Let me take care of this,” he said. His broad frame, still toned from years as a boxer and an officer in the Navy, blocked the doorway and dared Thorpe to try to follow my mom.

“Good morning, son,” Papa Tony said in his thick New York Italian accent, which was like that of the young Don Corleone. “Did you have a nice evening?” he asked in a tone akin to that of a growl and a whis-per. He was calm, composed, and quiet, yet managed to intimidate and inspire more fear than if he had been bellowing.

The Godfather Megan Dunlevy

19

“Well, I was just coming to talk to Cathy,” Thorpe began.

“No. I think you’ve had your opportunity to talk. I love my daughter more than anything in this world, and when she is unhappy, I am unhappy.”

“I understand, Mr. Brescia. But, if you would let me ex-plain…” Thorpe meekly pleaded.

“Now you listen to me, Thorpe, and you listen good because I only give one warning,” Papa Tony asserted, cutting the young man off. “I know guys who, for 10 dollars, would break your arm; for 25 bucks, they would break both of your legs; for 50, they would happily break every bone in your body. Now, if you ever so much as upset Cathy Ann again, I will pay 100.”

He then shut the screen door. Thorpe was left on the stoop with his mouth agape and body paralyzed with shock and sheer terror.

As my grandfather entered the kitchen, he was greeted by my mom’s insistent and slightly strained questions. “Is he gone? What did you say to him,

Daddy?”Papa

Tony sat at the table, took a long gulp of his black cof-fee, and matter-of-factly replied, “I don’t think this Thorpe is going to be giving

you any more trouble.”After that day, Mom never talked to Thorpe again,

and two weeks later, he picked up and moved to California.

Jane Alexander

20

Apples

Bounce

Catastrophically

Down

Even

Footsteps

Grapes

Hop

Inside

Jumpers

Kiwis

Laugh

Madly

Next

Oranges

Patter

Quietly

Round

Staircases

Tangerines

Upstairs

Veer

West

Xylophone-patterned-watermelons

Yap

Zealously

Beverly Sihsobhon

Candace Reeder

20

Abecedaria I

21

A is for Aerial

Feathers and flight

B is for Backalley

Frightening at night.

C for Conventional

Boring and Bland

D for the Dangers

We don’t understand.

Every letter

That trips off our tongues

Feels like a conjure

Magic from the lungs

Great things are made

From those sounds ringing higher

How is it that they

Hold the power to inspire?

Integral parts

Of our language of lives

Jokers and geniuses

From them derive

Keepsakes and questions

Of how living seems

In our language of dreams.

Lia Peiperl

U, the mysterious U, a letter covert in use. It dates Q but only casually, only occasionally standing in a queue, questing, until something urgent calls it away. Uncoupled, Q stands alone, mildly questioning the ugly truth, only Qatar and Iraq left for its imaginings, while U mumbles and murmurs its way across a unified theory of the universe.Both urgent and undulating,

Unique and ubiquitous,Ululating and unspoken,Upholding and unraveling,It urges us towards unity But unties our every unsuccessfulEffort to get at the Urtext.

Melinda Salata

21

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“Margot, pass the black icing, please.”“It’s actually midnight icing, thank you very

much,” she replied as she handed me the bowl of icing. The only time you would ever have icing that color is when you were baking with Margot.

“I told you that color would look disgusting,” Cath-erine joked. Her kitchen was full of cupcakes, and the numerous bowls of multicolored icing looked like an indoor rainbow. We began to compare our masterpieces, which we had spent all afternoon making, and we joked about the absurd amount of midnight icing on one of Margot’s cupcakes. The phone rang. “I got it,” Catherine said as she reached for the phone with her icing-covered hand. “Hey, Mom. What? OK, yeah, we will.” She hung up the phone. “My mom says that there is a severe tornado watch in the area and that we should go to the basement and sit in the laundry room immediately.” Margot and I watched Catherine as she calmly licked icing off her fingers.

“Tornado watch!” Margot screamed after a short pause. She frantically began grabbing food, and Cath-erine and I joined in the mayhem. I looked outside and realized it had suddenly become extremely windy. We had just been too focused on decorating our cup-

cakes to notice the approaching storm.

“I got the ic-ing.”

“I have the cupcakes.”

“I’ll grab water.”

We hurried down the stairs leading to Cath-erine’s basement with our arms full of food. The painters that were

working on her house laughed at the sight of us as we rushed past them. We leaped into the windowless, slightly-below-ground-level laundry room just as the storm picked up outside.

“This is awesome!” Margot exclaimed. Typical Margot. “Let’s play poker!” She pulled out a deck of cards from her pocket. Catherine and I looked at each other, both thinking the same thing.

Cupcakes and TornadoesJessica Janov

Chloe Jeng

23

“Margot, where did you get those?” I asked. “I always like to keep a pack with me for emer-

gencies,” she replied. “Good idea, I should do the same,”

Catherine said sarcastically with a smile. We began to play poker although I’m pretty sure it was just Margot’s modi-fied version of Go Fish.

“I need sustenance!” Margot exclaimed after the fourth round of cards. We all agreed that it was time to indulge in our creations. Margot, of course, chose her midnight cupcake first, Catherine picked her pink and green work of art, and I selected my simple blue cupcake. After a few bites, Margot reached for the Nalgene bottle that she brought down from the kitchen. It had been conve-niently sitting on the counter when we were alerted to the imminent threat on our lives. She unscrewed the lid and took a big swig. “Oh my gosh!” Margot screamed as she spit the liquid out all over the laundry room.

“What is that!?!?” Catherine and I sniffed the bottle and couldn’t help but laugh.

“Did you grab that from the kitchen?” I asked in between my laughter and gasps for breath.

“Yeah, it was just sitting there!” Margot exclaimed.

“Uhh, I know what happened,” Cathe-rine suddenly began. “Well, sometimes Anna, our housekeeper, cleans out my sister’s and my rooms. She’ll take empty water bottles or glasses from our desks, and she’ll also try to organize our closets. I’m guessing she was in my sister’s room and found that bottle in her closet, and figuring it was an old water bottle left from soccer season, she brought it down to the kitchen.”

“Well,” I laughed, “at least now we know that cupcakes and vodka don’t taste good together.”

Kimberly Whitley

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G reen eyes and a face flushed with roses peeked out from the teal curtains.

“Ellie?”The girl disappeared, and the shaft of daytime light

went with it.“Ellie!”A high-pitched giggle ruffled the fabric, silverfish

prints wavering along with the curtains.I sighed, sincerely wishing the clock would tick

faster. The high chair in front of me looked as if a bomb of Honey Nut Cheerios had exploded.

Keara Scallan

It beganAt the beginningAs these things always doWith a caterwaul of thoughtAnd a drop of adieu

I’m yoursSincerelyWhen the roses wash the wallsThe caped stranger fleesAnd the dread daytime falls

If you climbFrom your high chairWe’ll remember those daysAnd sculpt out a futureFrom the bricks that time lays

But I’m alreadyIn my caravanWith my silverfish songsAnd the teal sky grows grainySo I bid you so long.

Lia Peiperl

Maryann Akinboyewa

Caravan Caterwaul Silverfish High Chair

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where the roses twine sincerely over daytime brick, where whitewashed stucco walls crumble

like shattered pieces of the moonwhere a lone koel’s incessant caterwaul clings

like honey to the perfumed air,the villagers come.

caravans of light, handsewn souls, sculpted clay bodies, arms bathed in the clink of bangles, shoeless, a crescendo of color.

like silverfish they throng, caped in mirrors of painfully splintering light.the drums spiral out of nowhere.people’s bodies wind and turn amidst the curling

whisper of the flute. then one by one the teal sparks chime out; they leave the air musky in their adieu, grainier, with some fragment of lullaby, some memory of song. the people wind home, scarves riding over their mirrored eyes.

the music is just beginning.

Priya Krishnan

Mary Ann Robison

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A nna and I burst out of the front door, abandon-ing our Cabbage Patch kids on the braided rug

behind us. Sunlight ricocheted off of the low, white fence and onto the squat blades of grass. The rays bounced back off of the ground and shot out in a million directions, illuminat-ing the magical castles that lined Anna’s street. Once my eyes adjusted to the blinding daylight, I could sense the promise of adventure. Our light-up Skechers propelled us across small, manicured lawns that seemed like end-less valleys. We weaved our way between azalea bushes like capricious fairies flitting about a forest, conversing in the strange language every child speaks fluently in kin-dergarten yet forgets by the time she reaches first grade. I muttered some sort of gibberish and laughed until I fell onto the verdant earth. I could feel the ground’s heat pulsating beneath my ruddy cheek.

Rising once more, I rejoined Anna to roam our territory, but I halted when she gasped gleefully. I

turned around. To my horror and her excitement, a beast had invaded our forest. Anna’s neighbor ap-proached, accompanied by a dog straining at its leash

to greet the two frolicking fairies. Before, I had been too absorbed in my play to notice Anna’s mother standing off to the side, but I now bounded over to her and bunched her gray, linen slacks in my sweaty fists. “I’m scared,” I plead-ed, “I’m scared,” but she just ignorantly replied, “It’s okay, Rachel.” The dog halted ten feet from me. He smiled evilly, revealing sharp spikes that could rip the flesh away from my soft arms in a flash.

While Anna’s mom tranquilly chatted with her neighbor, I rooted myself as rigidly as an oak. Brave

Anna, on the other hand, dashed over to the beast. She petted the gross thing and urged me to join her. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she reassured me, “it’s just a friendly dog.” Still skeptical, I edged closer, always keeping my eyes on the creature’s flanks.

The Invasion of the Fairy KingdomRachel O’Connell

Gabriella Gunawan

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Brown splotches polluted his otherwise murkily white fur. Although I still refused to pet him, I tolerated standing within three feet of the monster.

Anna called the freak all sorts of unbefitting names: cute, soft, fun. She worshipped any fur-covered crit-ter. At least twice a week, she would prance about in a faded, cotton T-shirt with a bunny printed on the belly. During our play dates, while I would opt for Barbie dolls, Anna would delve her hands into my basket of Beanie Babies and fish out all manner of creatures: mice, cats, anything fuzzy. This dog was just her big, breathing, stuffed animal.

Luckily, Anna’s mind bounced from one interest to the next like a bunny bounding from hill to hill. She soon deserted the slathering brute like one of her toys and jumped on the bright, grassy mounds of earth with me. I eyed the dog suspiciously while it stared at us dumbly, but I forgot about the freak of nature al-most as quickly as Anna had. My flapping arms shooed away my fears.

Suddenly, a sustained stinging roared across the backs of my legs. I paused in confusion and my eyes watered. My whimper quickly escalated into a wail. Twisting my body and running in circles, I desperately searched for the source of the pain. I heard the whir of thin wire searing the tender fat on the backs of my knees before I saw the dog’s red leash wrapped around

my legs. My tears blurred the devil’s disgusting fur into a furious cyclone. He circled about me until the leash wrapped tautly around my frantic legs. The dog forced me to stand at attention, hollering and sobbing, until he untangled himself. The beast had fled, but the stinging remained.

I bolted to Anna’s mom. I had felt too petrified to seek her out during my ordeal. I could only focus on that leash, hot and red as an iron, and the tornado raging around me.

“Why didn’t you help me?” I hollered, hot tears pouring down my puffy face.

“I thought you were screaming because you were afraid of the dog,” she replied sympathetically, crouch-ing down to look at my scarred legs. “I’m sorry.” I wrapped my stout arms around her slacks and moaned. “Ooh,” she cooed regrettably. “You got a little rope burn.”

For once in my life, a kiss and a Bandaid could not take away the pain. I had to apply Eucerin to the bends of my legs every night. The scabs stretched so tightly across my skin that I feared the cuts would open each time I took a step. Now that I could no longer frolic in my worry-free way, I felt like I had lost a little of my magic. I begrudged Anna’s mom and that dog until long after my scars had faded.

Mill

ie Yu

28

On ApplesSandy Fox

My favorite is medium-sized, crunchy, and reddish-green-ish-yellow. They’re delicious (not Golden Delicious—

those are good, but not those). I want to love freshly-harvested orchard apples that come in October (I don’t really know when apple-harvesting season is) and pop up on breezy autumnal family outings to that happy orchard-farm everyone knows about. But I don’t love those apples. They’re too brittle and sharp, and sometimes grainy. I eat them, sure, but they’re not my favorites.

You can’t have too mushy, either. That’s the worst. Or too bitter. The school cafeteria often stocks Red Delicious (a misnomer when it comes to the school’s apples) that still have chemical-water stains on them. But on good days, the cafeteria surprises us with some fruit that I would classify as better than decent.

Taste, crunch, color, what else? I hear that apple-experts talk about smell, how an apple smells. I can see that. But for me, the apple-amateur, I adore the color (that is, when I’m not eating an apple. Those Red Delicious are gorgeous but I wouldn’t eat one anytime soon). Apples are like little spheres of autumn, in all its subtle-yet-vibrant finery .

Chlo

e Je

ng

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S ilverfish leaping aboveWater caped below

I caterwauled for true loveThe river mellow.How can it trickle peaceful,Can just life proceed?When my true love’s daytime, soulHas had night decreed.That high chair, false, cruel culprit!!He feigned love sincere.Or maybe I, naive, interpretSojourning stars hold us dear.

Jenna Milstein

Sand

y Fo

x


31

We were shopping for a high chair for my new baby sister when we saw it. “It” was a giant

silverfish, almost as wide and thick as a caravan, lying flat in the middle of the store. The worst part was that it was still twitching, with bulging, wet eyes and an indescribable sheen that could be best described as gooey. Shop clerks were circling the carcass like sharks, trying to figure out what to do amid the whispers of the shoppers. Suddenly, the fish stopped moving, and the store became deathly quiet. I was suddenly aware of the string of roses surrounding the large animal, and the lines of darkly dressed men and women moving into the building. A man dressed in teal robes stepped forward and raised a brick into the air.

Jennifer Guo

Ellen Carey

I n early morning it peeks around the brick walls. Daytime and light is where it dwells in

complete sight and secrecy. Through the cracks of the rosebushes outlining the teal-shaded pond. Reaching and stretching as one might do to sculpt a lump of clay. Everywhere and nowhere does it appear around the high chair and under the unsuspecting caravan. Dark and deep like an endless pool it puddles around all. Sometimes short, sometimes tall. It reaches everywhere till the light waves. And at paler shades at a time, it fades, receding back to its origin. Now it is night, the bane of its existence. Nowhere can it reach, no speck of light to jump into. As soft as any adieu, it disappears and vanishes. Powerless it is as it hides within the folds of night. Waiting. Waiting for day or for the sign of light to emerge once again into the world. The shadow, everywhere and nowhere, it lurks within all waiting.

Beverly Sihsobhon

32

In “Amreeka,” where my parents came to study, where they raked the yellow-orange leaves outside the temple on the afternoon before their own wedding, I am not Indian enough. I cannot speak Hindi, Telugu, or Tamil. And in India, every unrolled r that belly-flops off my tongue only makes people cock their heads and stare even more intently than they already are, x-raying me with their eyes, observing me with a mixture of humor, pity, and disgust. So where does that leave me? On standardized tests, I check ‘Other’ for ethnicity. I flounder between the two countries like a bird without a landing place, struggling to keep afloat in some uncharted area of the Atlantic Ocean.

And here I am, back after five years, in a place where I want to belong fully but where I don’t. After an auto rickshaw ride that fills my mouth with dust, we are there. The air smells of sweat, spice, and sugar. I see my cousin Siri first, her slender figure draped in a red salwaar kameez. She looks just as she did five years ago, the first time I met her. Then, other bodies emerge from the house, their faces slowly resolving into familiarity.

“Remember me?” she smiles. “Of course,” I say, in clumsy English. “Ah, it is so good to have you all here,” she shakes

her head the Indian way, nodding no but meaning yes. She drapes an arm around me. It is a holiday, Ganesh Chaturthi, and we are wearing our most auspicious

AmreekaPriya Krishnan

Lise-Courtney D’Amico

3333

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to see us. But she still lives in the same city. She has no right to cry.”

Siri? My obedient, gentle cousin with the perfectly well-oiled plait? She is so skinny that I am afraid she will break at the slightest touch. Her bangles are always about to slip off her bony wrists. I have never even heard her speak above a whisper. And she eloped?

I peer into my still full cup of tea, searching for some muddied semblance of my reflection. She came home just to see us. She had not seen her brother in five years, though. What could that mean?

Now Siri brings more tea. Her hands shake and the burning drops slip over the edges of the cups and spatter the grey floor. My great-aunt nudges Siri toward the door with unwavering hawk eyes. “Why don’t you all go outside?” translates my mom for me.

“Come,” says Siri, “We will visit Ganeshji.” A slight, shivery drizzle of cloth-like water mars the powdered roads as my feet stir up little puffs of dust, muffling the tinkling bells on my anklets. Siri pulls her dupatta up onto her head and drapes one end loosely over her shoulder. The long scarf rests there gently, like a prayer. By the side of the road, a white buffalo lows contentedly, the rounded copper ring in its nose swinging reassuringly back and forth. We pass the houses that have roofs of corrugated tin and half beds with soiled, patterned quilts. My cousin smiles. She is not afraid. An old Hindi hit, “Ruk Jaana Na-hin,” by Kishore Kumar, blares from a roadside radio. The music is just beginning. So this is belonging.

We reach one of the giant roadside shrines just as the sun begins its warm dip below the horizon. As

outfits – richly embroidered churidar in bright colors, decorative bindis, gold jewelry, and colored bangles. My great-aunt, her two sons and their wives, and four grandchildren live in this three floor house. Most of the rooms are grey and bare except for beds and books. We crowd into one room, fan whirring un-steadily above, and the others make small talk.

Siri and her mother bring us tea and snacks on a tray: orange, oily jalebi, sweet yellow laddoos that melt in the mouth, sugary barfi with a thin layer of real silver on top, spongy gulab jamun soaked in syrupy rosewater. Some of the men even chew paan, the rolled-up leaf with spices in it that vendors prepare on the streets, which turns your teeth black and is not meant to be eaten, only chewed.

“Siri,” calls my other, younger cousin in a shrill voice, “Rajiv’s here!”

So this must be the other other cousin, the premed one. He is tall and wears glasses.

With a light in her eyes, Siri rushes to the door in a heartbeat and hugs her younger brother. When she pulls away, she is hurriedly wiping tears from her eyes. They keep falling, and she skids sideways into the kitchen, past Rajiv, who is still standing in the doorway.

Silence. The elders sit like rocks in the plastic chairs. Their

mouths settle into sharp, straight lines. The tang of the paan disappears from the air like a stinging slap.

My little brother turns to me as if I could en-lighten him. I look at my mom.

“She eloped,” my mom explains in my ear, “They haven’t seen each other for years. She came home just

35

Maryann Akinboyewa

great-aunt, and the adamant curves of her cheeks.“See, cousin,” she swings me around and points

with outstretched arm, our backs to the glittering statue of the god. A cloud of white materializes in front of me. When the disorientation fades, I see a huddle of pigeons, all pure-white. They bob their heads absurdly as they strut about on the ground, clumsy and uncoordinated.

“Pij-yons,” she says, “so beautiful, na?” I nod. A bell sends them scattering, and they fly

upward and on. In this new medium, they take on an immediate grace, hampered by those uneasy legs no longer, with only wings to carry them through the ether. Wings so bright they light up the sky.

“See how fastly they fly,” she whispers.As they whirl above the city lights like dervishes,

her arm points steadily, her finger guessing their destination until the pigeons have shrunk to the size of stars.

In her eyes, there is the flutter of wings. In her eyes, there is the hint of birdsong.

if on cue, the jasmine blossoms cease their nervous daytime twining and open; the fragrance of a thou-sand flowers suffuses the sweet vespertine air. Colored lights shimmer on, clinging fiercely to the air around them. I hear the buzz of electricity as they come alive. Incense curls into every pocket of the atmosphere. The glow goes on and on and on, fire in all hues melding with the undulating bronze figures on their golden pedestals on the side of the shrine. I cup the slanting, spangled light in my hand. The patterns shift with the slightest movement.

Temple bells clang steadily as we pass through the archway to a small silver shrine within the larger one. A lamp flickers there, feebly illuminating the bowl of tirtham, or sacred water, perched on the last step before the altar. I press my palms together and let the crackling prayers that are being chanted wash through me. We prostrate to the looming idol of Ganesha before us.

When I stand up, I look at her. I notice for the first time her clear eyes, so similar to those of my

B lades of daytime sculpt out the room as my vision

focuses in on the grainy world of morning. The caterwauls of nervous traffic buzz – muffled – in my ear. I am trying to remember what it was I should be remembering. A few shards of silence brick me into isolation as awareness rises and pools in my stomach: I am caped in warmth. My gaze swims through the room

to try and source it, even knowing that it’s smothered in my bed. I almost turn when a silver-fish of refracted light bursts in through the window off some mirror or receding cloud. I switch senses, and fumble for you instead. Your inky curls; your freckles…anything – maybe there’s a stray toe I could startle. But the sheets cling to me like the walls of a maze, beseeching me to suspend your slumber. Still, I cannot resist you – I have to peel myself away. I tangle my limbs in a nearby high chair: the perfect place to watch you from, just next to the bed. You look so like a child, and the thought is not too far off the truth. Soft, demanding, and unable to be wished away. I sincerely hope there are no adieu’s for us: you have always been a part of me, even when I couldn’t see it.

Now, your digits sprawl, soaking up my lingering warmth. Your blue eyes flicker, and the concentration of sleep brings out a flash of teal. A caravan wretches in the street below this heaven, and my world crackles with your first brimming smile.

Angélique Moseley


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Priya Krishnan

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Dear Mr. Peabody –

I hope this letter finds you healthy and well. I am writing this from my seat perched on top of the Empire State Building. This letter contains a matter of GREAT importance, and I require that you read it immediately and discard it:

This afternoon, as I was sitting in my chair, or ‘High Chair,’ as I fondly call it, I noticed a peculiar sight: a man wearing teal-colored converse who appeared to be running into a brick wall. Repeatedly. Naturally, I was disturbed by this show and sent my caped fairy, Hermes, to further investigate. As he bid me adieu, flut-tering his wings in that annoying way of his, I saw the Man in Teal sprint from the brick wall and into a pub. Hmmm…something fishy is defi-nitely occurring, but what?

Mr. Peabody, I write to you ask-ing for you to come out of retire-ment for just this joy and to join my investigative team. I offer you the best fairies and other such agents. It has been a while since such fishy behavior has happened around here, and we need our best agents on the crime scene, for as you know, Hermes has a brain only slightly grainier than a piece of rice!

Saachi NangiaDelancey Wu

38

Gabriella Gunawan

To be polite, I will thank you for choosing this voice from the shelf that it had previously rested upon.

It was terribly cold on that shelf and extraordinarily lonely.

However, do take good care of me.

I’m fragile.

My pages are made from light whispers, and I am bound by black sights.

I’m fragile.

Before we press on, together,

A yield sign must escape from my pen.

The words you shall read are knives, and my tone flickers from black to light as if it were a dying bulb.

This all happens beautifully, of course.

This tale will not be much of a roller coaster for you.

This is simply text.

It is as worthless as the drivel that assaults your diary.

I will never apologize for recording the truth.

Although, in truth, there have been times when I should have.

So, you’d better lawyer up, as there’s no need for a soul in the oncoming dream.

No need at all.

Caroline Ewing

To Be Polite

40

We trekked the final stretch of the stony path. The usually chattery chorus was silent because

the walk to the secluded mourning place had already lasted ten minutes and because we all knew what was waiting for us at the end of the walkway. We had no idea what to expect on this day. Sadness? Apprecia-tion? Each person would feel something different. Earlier that day, at Terezin, we had sung two songs. We were about to sing two more: “Ani Ma’amin” and “Shalom Chavarim.” As we approached the end of the wide walkway we saw the giant, stone menorah. Since we had received the brochure at the beginning of the year, I had been associating Terezin with this monumental symbol. There were over 500 grave stones evenly spaced out on the vividly green, perfectly cut grass. The sky was a gorgeous blue, not a cloud in sight. Mrs. Pagenstecher arranged us in our rows in the back of the cemetery under a weeping willow. Anna Leah Bernstein Simpson’s mom translated the Hebrew in-scription on a stone, and Rhea warmed up her violin. Somehow its grace spun through the air even when its sound echoed the emotional intensity we were all feeling. I felt the rhythm of the song in my heart,

which started beating with the meter. I hearc the birds chirping while I watchdc Pags for our entrance. We began to sing, but I do not remember what it sounded like. I thought about the meaning of the words flying out of our mouths. “Ani ma’amin” means “I believe.” I was not thinking about what those words had to do with our singing, but I knew that it was important. Our tear ducts submerged our faces with salty water. Three speakers would explain that the Jews sang “Ani

ma’amin” as they entered the gas chambers. When Natasha said, “The sound would de-crescendo as the gas choked the singers” my heart turned to stone and sank down into my abdomen. My throat and eyes closed. The feeling left my body. It was time for us to keep singing, but it was as if we had forgotten how. We knew that it was our job to finish the song for those

victims who could not. Hardly any sound was coming out of my throat, which emitted only croaking noises. We linked our hands, and we pushed to the end of the song. The birds kept chirping after we finished sing-ing. We had to get ready to sing another song, but we only wanted to sit and cry in silence. Nevertheless, we formed a circle and began once more.

TerezinNicolle Wainer

Millie Yu

Jane Alexander 41

42

I hear the soft, distressed sound every night, Coming from where the loom lays.

It is her silent weeping,Her mourning for the lost one, Her broken heart pounding for her husband.As I sense her hope beginning to fade, it only causes mine to grow stronger. He will soon arrive home to Ithaka.

There are signs, but the commoners cease to believe,Including those who will journey to the underworld upon the contender’s return,

The uninvited suitors. Although they do not believe, I have hope,

He will prevail.My son, though not by blood, will come home.

From the day of his birth I have cared for him,Bathed him, clothed him, and tucked him into bed.

And soon, I will be bathing him once again.A welcoming bath, a bath of elongated return,

A bath full of accomplishments and stories,Which he will soon tell,For all of our fascinated ears to hear.Like the wanderer at sea longs for home, Home and the city of Ithaka long for him.

Sometimes her weeping lingers for days,Other times for merely a minute.

Although inside we all sob, we know deep withinThe crevices of our heart that

His arrival is soon to come.Odysseus will arrive home,

I will become lively once again.Engaged by the stories he will tell, And set at ease that he is finally at home, safe. Soon the room where the loom stands will be silenced forever.Odysseus will return.

Sydney Poretsky

Jackie Force

Eurykleia’s Hope Within:An Odyssey Poem

43

E very Wednesday at 12:30, we sold pizza by the slice off the semi-circular arrangement of desks in

the back of the classroom. Mr. Lake sprung a deal with the Jerry’s around the corner, which sold us dozens of large pizzas for four dollars each. We stuffed the profits into manila envelopes and stashed them behind Mr. Lake’s desk in the wooden drawers where he kept the beeswax, crayons, colored pencils, blackboard chalk, Frisbees, soccer balls, basketballs, blank new Main-lesson books, meter sticks, maps, matches, candles, ropes, and birthday gifts. In April Mr. Lake announced the destination of our pizza-profits-funded class trip – Camden, Maine, where we would go backpacking, use the woods as our toilet for twelve days, and hopefully spot a moose. The boys expressed their excitement at the prospect of not showering for a span of nearly two weeks, but we girls approached Mr. Lake to voice our outrage. What if we got our periods in the woods?

Mr. Lake consulted a female camping expert and in-formed us that a brown paper bag inside a plastic zip lock bag would securely store used materials for later disposal, making it feasible to brave the wilderness while in possession of a uterus. We didn’t see a moose, but we didn’t get our periods either.

Mr. Lake taught us about Cosimo de Medici, add-ing and subtracting complex fractions, optical illusions, and Greek myths. He taught me my times tables and how to deal with unwanted attention from Warren. He had wavy brown hair, a comfortably large stomach despite his college soccer-playing years, and reassur-ing green eyes. After his daughter died, he gave away her old soccer cleats and her turquoise bikini, but he wore her strands of tiny white Brazilian beads around his wrist every day. He collected yogurt container tops so we could play Frisbee indoors without breaking the windows. He only allowed us to whisper while

Mr. LakeChloe Jeng

Lise-Courtney D’Amico

44

we painted, and we hated the way the soaking wet bumpy watercolor paper slopped over the Plexiglass painting boards, making the pigment blossom uncontrollably at the first touch of brush to paper. The yellow wilted into muddy brown when it encountered other colors. The crimson smelled like sulfur and the cobalt reeked of the C&O Canal, but Mr. Lake showed us how to corral the running paints into an amaryllis, a dragon, or the golden ship of a Norse god’s funeral pyre. He gave us off-white masking tape to tack a dry piece of watercolor paper to a board and layer thin, translucent washes of color that gradually became a sunset of overlapping hues, the individual veils blending together or standing apart, their edges straight as a ruler or curved like a fern, jetting from one edge of the painting to another or tapering gently in the middle.

Mr. Lake always had two pairs of shoes with him in case of dire emer-gencies, such as a soccer game on the blacktop. He wore his brown leather dress shoes to teach and his beat-up raggedy Adidas Sambas for recess. Whichever team Mr. Lake joined always won when we ran down the hill to play Ultimate Frisbee on the strictly-out-of-bounds Lower Field. He gave us extra recess when our soccer games required overtime and taught us how to play Four Square and Kick the Can. We played Kick the Can for hours, lurking behind sun-dappled sycamore trees and commando-crawling across the muddy woodchips and scrubby dried grass, finding wild tomatillos as we inched closer to the stick we stuck in the ground because we could never find a can. The It would come snooping for us, peering stealthily around chalk-dust-covered corners of brick walls and “Aha!”-ing when he spotted us. It was usually whiny Zachary. He looked like a sallow-skinned, starved gorilla, and I always wanted to punch him in his bulbous nose. We would race screaming back to the stick, flying across the blacktop, Sambas pounding and arms pumping, all out of breath with skinned knees and all the adrenaline in the world. Mr. Lake would sprint diagonally from the shadowy edge of the playground to the stick by the dark green picnic benches, his shoelaces coming undone and his tie fluttering wildly over his shoulder.

Gabi

May

ers

45

Justatfirst

First it’s nothingJust normal thoughtsI think “Hey,It’s worth a shot”I try to picture you In my mindYour hair is blondYour smile is fineYour eyes are hazel, Flickering brightYour voice is calmAs it floats across nightYour skin is softAnd ever smoothAs my cold selfYou try to sootheAnd then you appearIn a snowy sceneIt’s white and brightAnd so serene The snow is fallingSilent nightAs we prance aroundSpirits brightWe’re holding handsOur noses rubIn a world of whiteFrom tree to shrubWe skip and pranceThrough powder fluff

Through valleys deepAnd mountains toughAt last I seeA flicker in your eyesThat warns me of A cold, wet surpriseThe first snowball hitsCold with iceThe second is playfulIt actually felt niceI prepare my rebellionAnd gather up snowAs our play fight continuesWith each painless blowYou get closer and closerIn this cold, snowy raceAnd right from the startA mischievous look on your faceIn a flash my whole bodyHits new-fallen snowYou are on topAnd me belowThe laughter is pausedFor a moment, I say,Because one look in your eyesWe laugh anywayWe giggle and howlOur way off the groundWe are back hand and handBoth safe and sound

We walk through the forestSo white and sereneIt seemed though it allWas taken from a dreamBut all of a suddenYou vanish from sightMy darling, my love,Your horrible plight!So I close my eyes For a moment to wonderWhat had just occurred?What has caused such a blunder?I open my eyesExpecting more whiteBut I look all aroundThere is none in sight!It’s my normal old lifeAway from my dream Of snow and loveAnd forest sereneSo from now on whenever I close my eyes to dreamThe only thing I’ll ever seeIs our romantic snowy sceneSo darling when you dream

tonightI hope you see it tooOur fantasy winter wonderlandJust for me and you.

Alice Sprinkle

46

47

Lucy Dicks-Mireaux

BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP.The shocking sounds shakeMake me quakeNever heard anything quite like it A moan then a groan and I swatBeginning to plot The enemy ignores my menacing staresAnd just blaresBLEEP BLEEP BLEEP. Ha! I evaluate the situationFully recognizing the implication Of my victory, Sleep.

Saachi Nangia

Battle

48

I n Italy, a man was on a tripFor work and pleasure, enjoying his tip.

This man walks into a tavern one dayTo find a pilgrimage right on its wayTo Notre Dame, they say, to pay respectsAnd read the yarn the cathedral depicts.On this pilgrimage there was to be foundA minstrel, who was famous for his sound,A messenger, who’s never unawares;A merchant, seeking cloths from the French fairs, Last of the crew and the only femaleWas a midwife who, I know, wasn’t frail.The Midwife, who delivered good babies,Was now treated as if she had rabiesBecause of accusations that were said

The Diplomat: A Canterbury TaleAnne Corrigan

Dani

elle

Bar

nard

About the spells going on in her head. For this reason she had to stop her workAnd avoid prosecution that might lurk.Thus, she journeyed with her former client,The Merchant, because he seemed compliant.The Merchant, though, was a man of his own.He was beardless with a welcoming bone.Though disloyal to his wife and new son,At least in wealth he couldn’t be outdone.A quite successful merchant, no question,He stayed in friends’ homes for “his profession.” The Merchant liked living life on the edgeAs seen when, despite his wealth, he would pledgePoverty just to obtain some spare change.This practice was one I found quite deranged

49

Another pilgrim, the Messenger hadGapped-teeth, a small satchel, and he was cladIn strong riding boots but pathetic clothes; He had the look of a man that knowsWhat he must do and how to reach successThrough manipulation and

cleverness.Last, the Minstrel, the kind

one of the bunch,Had long blond hair and a face

that would scrunchWith emotion when he heard

something mean.You’d never hear him say

something obscene. But his songs were enchanting,

it is true;They would capture, play with,

and surround you.Now back in the tavern, the

man sat downAt a table with these pilgrims

around,Swapping stories, jokes, and

making new friends;And the Minstrel told of the

latest trends.The Midwife said she was in

desperate need;With that, the man offered use

of his steed.The Merchant confided that he was in debt,And the suffering made his family fret.So this generous man, wanting to aid,Offered money to be later repaid.

The Messenger, always anxious to leave, Bored of this man, who he knew was naïve.With new friends made and charity brought,Before they left, the man went to the pot.Upon return he swore he wasn’t blind,

But all the table held was a note signed,“Thanks for everything, you should be a saint”With that, the man started feeling quite faint.His “new friends” had taken all of his stuff---Horse, bag, and cloak; now the man had it rough.This was the first time the man saw such evil;It turned his morals into upheaval.All he had wanted was to help and share,But pilgrims, of all people!, didn’t care.From this point, the man made a decisionTo live his life void of all derisionAnd malice—to set an example for all,In hopes that the world will one day stand tall;

Where everyone will treat neighbors fairlyAnd man’s good-will won’t be seen so rarely.The man now travels to use his respectTo influence friends to be more correct.

Alexandra Michaels

49

50

The Waste Land (With apologies to T.S. Eliot)

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEADApril is the cruelest month, breedingAssignments out of the dead students, mixingMemory and desire, stirringDull brain cells with term papers.Winter kept us warm, coveringThe Slounge in forgetful snow, feedingA little life with chicken teriyaki.Summer surprised us, coming over the Barracuda

filtersWith a shower of wheat thins; we stopped in Mrs.

Craig’s office,And went on in sunlight, into the Starbucks,And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.Bin gar keine Landon, stamm’ aus Holton, echt

feministisch.And when we were middle schoolers, staying at the

Upper School Directors’,My cousin’s, he took me out on a school bus,And I was frightened. He said, Marie,Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.In the weight room, there you feel free.I read, much of lunch, and go to the bathroom in

seventh period.What are the teachers that clutch, what branches

growOut of this six-day cycle? Daughter of woman,You cannot say, or guess, for you know onlyA heap of broken images, where the sun beats,And the free period gives no shelter, the advisor no

relief,

And the linoleum tiles no sound of water. OnlyThere is shadow under this staircase,(Come in under the shadow of this staircase),And I will show you something different from eitherYour shadow at morning striding behind youOr your shadow at evening rising to meet you;I will show you fear in a handful of homework.

Frisch weht der Wind Der Slounge zu. Mein Holton Kind, Wo weilest du?

‘You gave me Lorna Doones first a year ago;‘They called me the shortbread cookie girl.’—Yet when we came back, late, from soccer practice,Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neitherLiving nor dead, and I knew nothing,Looking into the heart of Cum Laude, the silence.Od’ und leer das Halle.Madame Pierce, famous clairvoyante,Had to conduct AV testing, neverthelessIs known to be the wisest woman in Holton,With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,Is your card, the drowned HAA Member,(Those are pearls that were her eyes. Look!)Here is Mrs. Keener, the Lady of the Seniors,The lady of situations.Here is the man with three class sections, and here

the Dry-Erase Marker,And here is the one-eyed student, and this card,Which is blank, is something she carries in her

backpack,

51

Which I am forbidden to see. I do not findThe Rescinded Student. Fear death by senioritis.I see crowds of people, walking round in the dining

room.Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Siburt,Tell her I bring the med kit myself:One must be so careful these days.Unreal Campus,Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,A crowd flowed into the Lewis Theater, so many,I had not thought death had undone so many.Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,And each girl fixed her eyes before her Uggs.Flowed through the theater lobby and past Mr.

Lynch,To where Saint Lisa Pence kept the hoursWith a dead sound on the final stroke of 8:10.There I saw one I knew, and stopped her, crying,

‘Priya!‘You were with me in the rehearsals in the orchestra

room!‘That corpse you planted last year in your violin case,‘Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this semester?‘Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?‘Oh keep the Teacher far hence, that’s friend to men,‘Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!‘You! hypocrite lecteur! —mon semblable, —ma

soeur!’

Chloe Jeng

Sand

y Fox

52

S itting Indian style in the front seat of Austin’s rusted white ford, my heart changes tempos

every minute. It relaxes for a minute, settling into the scratchy woven, cloth-like fabric of the seats as Austin adjusts the radio. He catches me staring at him, and we both break out in smiles. I can’t help it, being with him makes me smile; we have been friends since I was twelve. We pass the dog food factory and the sign that warns against picking up hitchhikers near the jail. The warmth of the sun through the lightly dusted wind-shield presses me into the comfort of my sweatpants and the car.

The car approaches the split in the loom-ing mountains. My heart beats faster as we enter the ravine with the layers of red and white rocks resembling lightning bolts eternally frozen on either side; I know we are almost there. Red Rocks is on our right, and Austin is on my left. We turn right when we see the two Native American faces carved into the rock with Indian Hills Colorado marked below it. A few more turns, and a long horizontal sign with an arrow points us in the direction of our destination. Austin slows down the car as we pass under the wooden gate. The car stops mov-

ing, and the dust screen settles. I can breathe again. I am home.

The sun releases the smell of the pine needles covering the ground in patches by Merlin’s Spring. That first scent hits my nose the same way it has for the past twelve summers. Every deep, lung-filling breath takes me back in time. Then I exhale and im-mediately fly back to the present. I walk up the baked wooden steps of the lodge and into the big, wood-paneled room filled with people, childhood idols I

was joining for the first time. Manco, the Harvard, rugby-playing grad who enchanted everyone with stom-ach-hurting laughter, was sitting in the corner with a group of my other camp heroes. The long, folding tables were scattered around the room, and the bigger-than-life per-sonalities were greeting

each other with overwhelming hugs to make up for the time between summers. There was always enough hugging and cuddling during those nine weeks to last all through the winters when we weren’t together.

I unpack some of my giant L.L. Bean duffle bag, but knowing I will be moving into the crew girls

Dishies T2K10Bonnie Siler

Stephanie Rales

53

cabin on the other side of girls’ hill after this week of orientation, I limit what I unpack. I look around the cabin at the girls I will be staying with this week. A mix of crew girls and CITS and some of the idols. They still seem so big. They were my counselors when I was eight, and now I am next to them, sitting at the same table, going through the same meetings, and learning the same techniques. The week of orienta-tion, my first week ever of being on the Geneva Glen camp staff passes in a blur of long, boring liability meetings and discussions about homesickness, poop-ing, and any other challenge a child could throw at you. Sometime during the first two days, we finally enter our work space: the commercial-sized kitchen run by eight, mean-spirited, big-faced, flabby-rolled, old women.

The cooks ignore us as Davis and his Mohawk show us around the stainless steel, red-floored kitchen. The long metal counter across from the window is for stacking dirty plates after meals. Around the corner are the pilot sink and the copilot sink filled with the chemicals Blueglo and Saniti-t 10. Around the next stainless-steel bend, the sanitizer, a monstrous machine, drips boiling water that floods out onto your shoes if you open it before the red light in the lower corner goes neutral. Connected to it on the other side is the put-away station. Jake Gulliver always puts away; it’s the easiest job. He is really good at doing a million things and yet accomplishing nothing useful.

We use way too much Comet cleaning up the first week and leave white streaks everywhere. We are shocked when 300 blue plates come to the window after breakfast, 300 blue bowls, 36 clear pitchers, 300

spoons, 18 bacon serving plates, 18 tongs, 36 silver serving bowls, and 300 short-ridged blue cups that have been here since I was eight. After lunch 300 blue plates come to the window with 300 forks, 300 knives, 300 short-ridged blue cups, 18 silver serving bowls, 18 serving spatulas, 18 blue fruit serving plates. After dinner we stack up 300 blue plates, 300 short-ridged cups, 300 forks, 18 silver serving bowls, 18 green plas-tic serving trays, 18 tongs. The meals vary by dishes, the days vary by length spent in the kitchen, and the weeks vary by nights and days off.

Stacks of blue plates, stacks of blue bowls, columns of short-ridged blue cups, tubs of forks, tubs of knives, tubs of spoons, tubs of serving utensils, stacks of silver serving bowl, stacks of green plastic serving trays. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sat-urday, Sunday. Sunday is deep clean. We pass the first week with little time between stacks of dishes. Sunday comes, and we have all heard the horror stories of the deep clean. Last year, the dish crew was awakened from their beds after a deep clean to redo the entire kitchen after a small kitchen fire had covered every inch and crevice of the silver hell in soot. We are not so unlucky. Davis and the Mohawk bring us into the kitchen at 8:30 Sunday night.

First thing when we enter the kitchen is to pick some music from the old walkman mounted on the wall. We will later discover the fire-stoking cooks won’t let us listen to smooth jazz, only oldies from the glory days long passed many pounds ago. If Jake bumbles us all out of the way with his diagonal teeth and mole-ish hair, then we have to listen to some random, clanging stuff I don’t recognize; if six-foot-

54

three Brian or incoherent mumbling Erol tower over Jake at the buttons, then it is raging techno all night long; if Tawny, Emma T, or I sneak under them all, we get country and twanging ballads from Taylor Swift and the Dixie Chicks. Emma J isn’t one to push, shove, or, in fact, do anything that requires exerting her body and neither does Samro, so we rarely listen to their acoustic, what I would call alternative, music.

We clear everything out of the kitchen and bleach the shelves. The racks and all moveable surfaces out-side are whipped and scrubbed. The night Emma finds out her grandfather died she does the outside whip-ping. Brian scribbles profanity in the stainless steel cleaner. We attach scrubbles to brooms and our shoes and a rake all in attempts to scrub the floor without being on our knees for an hour. “Fifteen” or “The Way I Loved You” blasts from the corners, and the ladies of the kitchen sprint to the middle of the suds and bubbles to belt out the parts we know and mumble the parts we don’t, covering them up with spins and acting. By the fourth deep clean we have brainwashed Samro and even Jake to join us in the middle of the red sudsy dance floor.

Erol is everywhere the first deep clean. He does the sink, the trashcans, the floor. None of us can keep our shamwows going as fast as his. By the third deep clean he gets better at telling us what to do rather than doing it himself.

Davis and the Mohawk hover over the counters as the cabinets are bleached, sinks scrubbed, ovens cleaned. Before I dive into the bottom oven with a can of Mr. Muscle, Davis show me the proper apparel for oven cleaning. Sleeves rolled up, doctor’s mask on,

yellow gloves all the way up, and goggles. I like to wear my bedazzled yellow crocs and muffin vest apron as well.

Our time in the kitchen shortens as we learn the tricks of the dishes. The time also passes faster on tropical Tuesdays when Hawaiian shirts are required and lots of Beach Boys blasts from the walkman. Disney days are good, and days Jake dances, throwing his body around unbalanced on one leg, then the other, his blue Swatch too tight on his wrist, are great days.

Bad days are dirt and worm days. Cleaning pudding out of ridged blue cups is quite a task, as is cleaning blue plates covered in ketchup, mustard, and every other con-diment spelling out CLEAN ME!—at least they added some pretty designs. Some days we even get ketchup-covered plates dedicated to us individually to clean.

The weeks go by, and June turns to July, and the dishes keep coming, interrupted by theme days, baths in blueglo-bubbled sinks, afternoons on the roof with bowls of cereal, nights at the rifle range on an old mat-tress under the expansive blackness, lots of diet coke, and lots of Taylor Swift.

The last deep clean takes the longest, our scrubbing interrupted too many times with conversations and former dishies coming in and sliding on the floor. Bowls of gummies and chocolate-covered pretzels brought to us by the fairy godmother from the office, Christa, pull us from the bleach to sit on the counters. With the last bowl put back on the shelf and the sanitizer turned off, we switch off the lights and exit the kitchen to our own applause and bows and curtseys. Down the meadow and up the road, we talk too loudly for the whisper-demanding darkness. Into the crew cabin, we drop to the cushions of the couch infamous for crew hook-ups, exhausted and satisfied.

55

Where Were You?An Odyssey Poem

When you left it caused us painYou went to kill among the slainThose Trojan fools they’re so unwiseBut with that horse you did surpriseFor many years you were goneSo we waited every dawn

I was a very dreamy boyI never thought of suitors’ joyThey tortured xenia and my poor mumI realized what they found as funI rose to take charge, to make them payBut all they did was laugh away

I threatened them with you in mindTo show them that I was not blindAnd even when the old man saidThe sign of eagles they should dreadThose stupid suitors got annoyedBlamed their actions on the shroud destroyed

I told them that it’s not her faultThat you would come back and then revoltThat they should tremble when I’m nearFor I am one that they will fearAgain they laughed and again they saidYour father is gone, he is dead

If only they knew what was to comeThey’d stop eating and drinking the rumBecause when you finally came and arrivedThey were astonished that you were aliveI helped you in battle, I was not a childFor the casualties we did were hardly mild

Where were you I ask, when I was a so smallWhere were you I ask, when the suitors stood tallWhere were you I ask, when mum stayed so pure

Where were you I ask, when she was not luredWhere you were, I do not knowBut I wish you could have seen me grow

Julia Andreasen

Gabriella Gunawan

56

O. A magical letter. It’s a letter, a face of surprise, a sprinkle doughnut. An infinite circle, always just going on

and on. Like traffic circles. I hate traffic circles. It’s so hard to get out of them. Clocks. They count the hours-

minutes-seconds of the day, a finite definition and set of numbers attempting to catalogue an infinite amount of

events that are forever ongoing. Simple things steal the shape of an O as well. Cheerios, a good part of a well-

balanced breakfast, a food either gobbled up in a flash or left to become stale and soft in a cabinet after about a

month. Tires. They take us everywhere, based on something invented thousands of years ago. But these rubber

rings that we depend on so much fail us, especially when the car is fully packed, or it is a record low temperature

for the country. O is also spoken aloud – an exclamation of surprise, wonder, shock. What other letter is glorious

enough to be exclaimed when something unexpected happens? Letter, object, exclamation, a symbol of all things

infinite and a reminder that even the seemingly never-ending can surprise you and end so suddenly, the only

thing you can manage to utter is, “Oh.”

Liza Gurskis

Abecedaria II

Kare

n Bu

itano

57

C is to see, clarify, conclude. It catapults

you to celebrate such cutting softness.

Curvy and clean, susceptible and capital,

C seamlessly commands language. Cursive

occurrences cling to people, too: hunched

backs, seamless shapes in faces, smiling

craned necks, clam-closed fingers. See and

conclude C beyond clicked words. Clamor-

ing clouds seek attention, sad sealing moon

dwindles, crusty, bitten toast, even vacant

arms for embracing. If consequence is con-

ceived by occurrence, C’s acerbility and as-

cending, arcing, soft complacence consumes

countenances beyond language’s control.

Jenna Milstein

Shaz

ray

Khan

58

Y ou could pick a pocket, eyes yet stinging from laughing and scarf-

ing down chili Danishes. Who ever thought to make a chili Danish? No one else. What can I do without you?

My skin thins and slacks under the rolling pin of Time, while you stay vibrant and untainted, rosy cheeked and omniscient. You pack pearls out of stars and milk memories from chalk. Given again the chance to eat that gloppy mud pie, you would; I have no doubt.

It’s me that’s slipping – and not by choice. If I could just fold back Time…. Oh, to be twins again in the hot, woolen air. I’d prop mischief across a mono-hue day, and you’d romp in roses, and guzzle my fears. Lend me your soul, Childhood. It’s such a paltry ask.

Grant Me Swaddling

Angélique Moseley

Angélique Moseley

59

There are books that layOn the shelves of quiet storesWith their bindings turned out to entice you,To try and make you notice their titlesInstead of the hundreds that surround them.But your gaze glides over Their worn-away covers and dulled-out letterings,Sending the same messageTo those weathered yet unbroken bindings Which waves send to stones on the shoreWith every wave’s break washing onto the sand:The silence that screams at them,Screams that those books are unworthy.They are not good enough.Time or some other cruel forceHas cracked the bindings.The weight of “superior” booksPressing upon them from both sidesFor all those weeks and months and yearsHas bent the covers out of shape,No longer allowing those covers to fitInto the mold that so harshly declaresWhat a good book must and must not be.

So you move past them,Onto the books that conform to your standards.The books that were printedWithin the last five years,Detailed designs on their coversAnd positive feedback from critics Printed beneath their plotlines.But even as your actions speak volumes,My eyes are taking in the volumes of faded ink printedUpon thick and yellowed pages,And my hands are caressing the cracksUpon the simple coversLike lovers tracing the lines in each other’s hands,Every break and mark and callous and wrinkle a secretJust waiting for someone to understand.Just as every book that you ignoreIs a best-seller waiting to be recognized,A best friend to those who need one,And maybe the best book you’ve ever found.Don’t judge a book by its cover;For you may never know how much it has to say,Or how much what it says could mean to you.

Elizabeth Harris

The Books That Have Never Been Read

Jenn

a M

ilste

in

6060

Neha Prasad

61

Deception

I await for the ever-so-innocent approach of nighttimeWhere I can become one of them; quit the faking and escape into the caravan,

Which comes promptly at midnightAway to my cold, brick tower in the depths of the forest

Where I, caped in my black cloak, proceed to the entrance entwined with decayed rosesWhere I await Master Silverfish, whom I sincerely trust,

To open the door to my other life of a darker colorI marvel in the touch of my hands and feet,

As I crawl about on the grainier floorBut I must bid this world adieu

Back to the highchair and to my innocenceBack to reality where my sin is forever hidden

And into daytime where the teal sky shimmers as though it knows my secret

I caterwaul endlessly throughout the day But no one knows why

Only I, Only I

Hailey Cayne

61

62

Meg Hefferon

Animal Dreams

From inside people’s eyes,animals leap out at me.

It can be ratherdisconcerting, you know:walking down halls and

suddenly seeing the lioness

in the dark eyes of the girlstanding next to my sister

or the gazelle in the fine-boned face of her friend.It’s hard to love someone when

you can’t help but notice the rat,its beady eye sharing space with theirs.

Others are less distinct. Tawny fur flickering past,

the flash of a feathered wing,or merely a hint of gleaming eyes, hidden

beneath an ocean of blueor a jungle of green and brown.

And what of myself? I lookinto the face of my mirrored self,

searching but not seeing.Things change, you see,

when they are reversedreflected back.

Trapped in the glass, I will not know

until I can see from a different vantage point.

And so I watch the faces of those around me waiting until I can see my own.

Emily Lucas

63

Dres

s des

ign,

Sar

ah E

tting

er •

Phot

ogra

ph, D

avid

Sch

erbe

l

64

Maybe I will never be great,and maybe my work stinks of all I have read,but my greatness will not depend,will never dependon you.

I click and clack on keys with polished bluish nails,got a pop tune rife with delicious clichés on my puckered lips.My youth wears me like a string bikini, a popped collarlike a covert Converse between Chanel heels.

And that is ok, ok? Is that ok with you?Must you authorize my crazed meter,so I fit your anorexic, dyslexic mold of maturity?Must you preach and re-teachto rescue your prose from obscurity?

Maybe I will never be great.I may flail in an ocean of broken things.But don’t add your two cents to that fortune of failure,your condescension has no place in this sea.

Keep your belief that we must age like pinot noirbefore sniffing delicately a subtle, nutty success,because our Tecate’s young fire is just as realas crow’s feet.You would know.

But you don’t know if you’ve just written someone’s epitaph,some iridescent young thing whose verse would have sparked a storm,who will now throw down that steel, abandon that flint ’cause her skin’s too soft for your brand of reality.

And now for the big reveal, the final scene:It’s my turn, even though maybe I’ll never be great.Because I am no unripe, sweet nothing—oh, no.I’m a beautiful disaster.

Elizabeth Rosenbaum

Maybe I Will Never Be Great

Chris

tin W

ade-

Vutu

ro

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