Henrico High School - Literary Magazine - 2011-12
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Henrico High School
2011-2012
The Literary Magazine
Contributors:
Jamie Corker
Janey Creeden
Danielle Crews
Ashley Meggie
Carrisma Nelson
Abdul Wahid
Rashid White
and others (anonymous)
Editor:
Alice Anne Ellis
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The Father of Medicine Ashley Meggie
As my heart gives in to giving out
And the beats turn into taps
My vision blurs slowly
But I can still see those bandages as they peel
The old wounds have infected my mind
Only the lord and his heavenly hospital
Can cure this medical mystery
But I have once lost that will to
See Doctor God so
I became a patient to many loving interns
One by one they stretched those mental lacerations
Some used salt
Some used alcohol
Some used fire to fight my burning soul
Dare I ask what shall you use doctor
The twins of those lines I’ve crossed
Were born that day upon my arm
Only you know what’s wrong
But do you pray for a cure
Or do you wish to write a referral to
The holy father of medicine
Simultaneously and secretly
You instruct a guardian nurse to
Tell me to self-medicate
Sharply double crossing those lines
As blood runs quick like time
Your loving voice tells me …
Doctor God shall be with you shortly
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Jamie Corker
In my dreams Abdul Wahid
Who was the one who appeared in my dreams?
Oh God! Her beauty! She took my breath away in my dreams
Plunging into my arms, she was heartbroken
She was in agony, agony of the heart, in my dreams
She wants to tell me something, yet she says nothing
Frightened and alone she was, in my dreams
She had tears dancing in her eyes
Why did those tears stain her lovely cheeks?
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Relaxation Danielle Crews
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Our Song Anonymous
Soft acoustic guitar fades in. Rose lies back on her bed and closes her eyes,
letting the gentle familiar melody surround her in its own world. She sets her iPod on
the bed beside her as the voice comes in, a bit high for a man but so clear, so smooth,
so sweet that no one notices…
“I’m listening to music,” he said. She smiled. “Do you want to listen with
me?”
One email later, she was enveloped in the world of his music. It was never in
English, always in his language, but she knew tomorrow he would translate for her.
It was a game he liked to play whenever they talked online. They both loved music,
but he was a poet and she was a pianist. The lyrics-driven writer was fascinated,
almost obsessed, with figuring out how she could possibly enjoy a song without
understanding the beauty of the words. She was like a science experiment and it
made her laugh. What do the lyrics matter, she thought, with melodies like this?
Although the song was foreign, it’s more than familiar now. The voice of
this unknown man, this singer a million miles away, is like an old friend. When her
world spins out of control Rose lays on her bed and relaxes until her breathing
matches the peaceful rhythm of the song…
“Aren’t you ever going to translate it for me?” she asked him in science class.
“Sorry, I’ve been busy. I’ll get around to it.”
Scatterbrain. Her scatterbrain…She pushed the thought to the back of her
mind. His parents wouldn’t like a white girl, and her parents would only accept a
Christian. It didn’t matter what he thought and she didn’t even want to know now.
Friends was fine. Regardless, nothing made her happier than the boyish grin that lit
up a room, nothing moved her more than his more pensive moments, his attempts to
make sense of his new country’s culture.
The music fades away, but Rose doesn’t move. This peaceful calming effect
doesn’t end with the music, and she keeps her eyes closed until the moment has
faded completely. Then her eyes flutter open. She doesn’t usually, but this time Rose
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decides to indulge. Her hand finds the iPod beside her and in no time the soft
acoustic guitar is fading in again…
…He’d been gone for a month. This was the first time Rose had touched the
iPod since he’d moved, afraid of opening her wounds again with his melodies that
overflowed with every word she never said. Instead, she found that they were
comforting, especially the beautiful acoustic song, the only one he’d never had time
to translate. She didn’t speak the language but she knew every word.
…She was ready. For a year now, Rose had worked hard to learn his
language. Every translation of his, she’d been able to confirm, marking her progress.
He would be proud. Now she prepared to tackle the one he never got around to. By
now Rose realized he’d had plenty of time, there was a different reason he never told
her what it meant. She had an idea, and she was afraid to hear it but she was ready
to know.
As she listened, tears streamed down her cheeks. It was so clear. So sweet,
understated, beautifully bittersweet. So him.
You are my every heartbeat, every dream.
My words are useless with your beautiful melody,
What have I done to myself?
And at the end of the song:
I cannot live without you, but I cannot stay.
What have I done to us?
It was for me, she thought when words finally came back to her. She smiled a
little. So like him, the writer, the poet, and ever the dreaming romantic, to leave her
the message like this.
Once again, her melody fades. Rose takes another moment to remember her
darling scatterbrained poet, the beautiful dark eyes and the smile with all the warmth
of spring. Then, sighing a little, she puts away her iPod and goes back to the present,
like always, hoping their paths will cross again.
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Title Rashid White
They say I got a boom box where my soul use to be
Always rhythmic; never losing a step
In sync with the life stream just as magma coursing under the borough
Sublimation fueled hotter than a gas station
I got plenty more rounds to go
Keep it going like click, click, click, click, click, blah!
I’m on another level
How about several… stop and let a minute go by to reflect… resume
Keep it going with that flare and you’ll explode and hopefully ascend to the sky
Pause… you float on clouds and catch a glimpse of me chilling with Allah
You looked down to ponder upon it and forgot you weren’t supposed to
Now descending from my garden
I butchered you without touching you
Somebody call O.J. Simpson and tell him how because the glove needed to fit
You just need to change the subject
So I ask… can happy thoughts save you now?
Rashid White
Henrico High School - Literary Magazine - 2011-12
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Walk
Janey Creeden
My family hadn’t been out in ages. There was a time when every weekend
we blasted classic rock and cleaned the house together, or went out somewhere fun,
but now we only left the house together to visit my grandparents 20 minutes away.
Today, a cool sunny Sunday in February, I knew it wouldn’t be any different. My
homework was finished, I was bored out of my mind and sad for a reason I couldn’t
quite put my finger on, and my family was in front of the TV looking exhausted from
their own separate weeks’ work.
“I’m going out,” I said, grabbing my old denim jacket and my iPod. Maybe I
couldn’t drive, but 16 was old enough to walk alone. In my lazy Southern
neighborhood, what used to be a rural small town, there was no danger.
The sun was shining. Birds were singing. It was beautiful outside, but at 3 in
the afternoon the entire street was completely still. Nobody was outside, at the
church across the street the pastor wasn’t even there preparing for the evening
service yet. What a shame, I thought. I remembered when all the kids in the
neighborhood used to play basketball in the street, ride their bikes up and down and
play hide-and-seek where every public property in a 6-block radius was fair game.
The kids don’t do that anymore, I don’t know where they go but the streets are
usually dead. Everyone my age hadn’t spoken to me in years, since I didn’t go to
school with them anymore.
Putting my headphones in, I walked aimlessly. Eventually I noticed I had
crossed Route 60. Route 60 takes everything that is technically my town and splits it
right down the middle, there is one elementary school on each side and the sides only
interact for things like the kids’ baseball league. I liked it over here. The streets were
not quite as well paved, there were no sidewalks, but it seemed sunnier. Warmer.
Once I’d decided not to go home, I took it all in. The little tiny houses, built during
WWI just to house workers for a munitions factory, weren’t meant to hold more than
2 people but families had squeezed in over the years, adding on where they could,
planting flowers and keeping them pretty to make them look more like homes. On
my side there were a lot of these, but also several blocks of two-story houses from
the 30s when the town became popular for middle-class folk.
Smiling a little, feeling less burdened, I turned another corner. The
neighborhood was hardly buzzing with activity, because Southerners are never really
buzzing unless it’s an emergency, but the streets had come alive. Fathers and their
teenage sons were tinkering with old pickup trucks in their driveways. Kids ran
through streets and front yards, playing basketball and jump rope and huge group
games of freeze tag. Older kids had skateboards. Adults smiled, talking in pairs as
they walked their dogs or pushed baby strollers. Neighbors sat on each other’s front
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porches enjoying the sun. On every block, there was some example of a happy
community. It was everything I remembered from my own side of Route 60, the
idyllic lazy southern small town. I hardly believed I was actually walking in it, it felt
more like I was a silent privileged viewer just hovering on the outside. After all, I
didn’t belong here even if it was a strange parallel of my own side.
I walked until I didn’t recognize even the street names anymore, smiling and
waving at the other people on the street and once or twice even tossing back
wayward basketballs. Finally, I looked up at a familiar street name. Huntsman Road.
I’d never been here, but I’d heard it. My old best friend had grown up here. When I
met her in middle school, both of us stuck in a school with strange people from an
exotic place called “Short Pump”, she’d just moved out of the town, and she’d
actually moved again just last year, out of the state for good. But she’d always told
me, she was raised at 29 Huntsman Road. It was right in front of me. Standing there
staring, I saw a little wood-paneled rectangle about the size of a small apartment. It
was painted pale primrose yellow with neat white windowpanes, proof that someone
made an effort to thrive despite the cramped space. The trees’ shadows somehow
missed that yard entirely, so that on days like this when it was sunny the entire space
filled with warm light. The grass was worn from the feet of kids running through it,
and closer to the house was the row of bright flowers she told me her mother had
planted every year. She must have been happy here, I knew. She must have been
happy. Nearing tears but in a good way, I began to wander home.
“Did you have a nice walk?” my mom asked at the door. I smiled.
“It’s nice outside,” I told her. “It’s really nice.”
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My dream is an imagination Arika Bland
I imagine a world without conflict….
Without turmoil… with tranquility…with love
Without gossip or hurt…no reasons to cry
Only cries of joy…
No hard times… only hard times trying to figure out which times were the best
times…
Without being judged…
I imagine a will with numerous ways…
My imagination will never come true… That’s why I said imagine and not hope…
Carrisma Nelson
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Fire of Love
Ashley Meggie
Like a moth to a flame
Instinctively attracted to
Your dangerous mind
As I
Burn my freedom wings to
Forever be the fuel to
Your flickering desires
I am lost without your lust
For our love is a guiding light
While we travel to a place where
Neither death nor fear will find us
All the while I have forgotten
That love kills
And yet so many would kill to have it
As I fall victim to that
Loving but suicidal mind
With my heart entwined
Love isn’t a pastime …
Nor a favorite game of mind
But when those protective lines are drawn
Like second nature I dive towards
That desire to dance with FIRE
Photo: Rashid White
