IMPULSE WINTER 2016
BY CAROLINE RICHARDSON
BY MIKAELA THOMAS
IMPULSE
THE AGNES IRWIN SCHOOL’S ARTS AND LITERARY MAGAZINE
1...................................................................CAROLINE RICHARDSON 2...................................................................MIKAELA THOMAS 5...................................................................SABINA SMITH 6...................................................................KATIE MCGOVERN 7...................................................................CAROL LI 8...................................................................SABINA SMITH 9...................................................................ANISHA MITTAL 10.................................................................ABBY RUBIN 10.................................................................ROSE LAWRENCE 11.................................................................SOPHIA LINDNER 12.................................................................NICHOLE HELLER 13.................................................................NAOMI PARADIS 14.................................................................NADIA SLOCUM 16.................................................................ANNA KRAMER 17.................................................................TRISHIE COSGRAVE 18.................................................................SARAH YOH 19.................................................................SYDNEY GRAY 20.................................................................SOPHIE GADDES 21.................................................................KATHRINA PAYTON 22.................................................................SYDNEY GRAY 23.................................................................CHASE ROBINSON 24.................................................................NAOMI PARADIS 25.................................................................INDIA DIXON 26.................................................................GRACE FAN 28.................................................................ELLIE DAMSTRA
BY SABINA SMITH
Uninvited by Katie McGovern
I read their little infinity And I saw a constellation of stars But I never asked for life to fall apart I’ve seen your cruel joke Play your hand their strings Pick and choose who to take Hammer for my heart to break My face is a small mold Melting when I get home You take everyone I seem to touch Because one wasn’t enough I prayed up above But you disconnected my prayers So you could reside In your pill-forsaken layers So get out of my house And get out of my family You were uninvited And it’s not time to take me
BY CAROL LI
BY SABINA SMITH
BY ANISHA MITTAL
College Essay by Abby Rubin
What is your favorite word, and why? During every conversation you have today, listen for the word like. As one of the few words in the English language that can be a preposition, conjunction, noun, adjective, adverb, or verb, it’s statistically bound to come up. In our generation, like has become a verbal stammer, a filler word synonymous with “um.” Like has a bad reputation. But I am here to defend like and restore it to its former glory. Imagine a day without like. Such a day would feel like living behind a muzzle. We would use metaphors like tic-tacs, sending similes into exile. Let’s say you watch the Presidential debate, and feeling strongly about a candidate, you call your friend, who shares like political sentiments, to discuss. The first rounds of debate may have been between like and like - Democrats and Republicans, respectively - but soon the competition narrows into a joust-like duel, politicians prepared to win at all costs. Maybe you like Hillary Clinton; maybe you like Donald Trump. Regardless, you would like for the next President to improve the economy, so that you can buy a shiny new car, post a picture on Facebook, and get hundreds of likes. We often take for granted those things which we use every day. Our lives are a series of little stories, made up of little words. Like the nights spent at the diner, laughing to the point of tears between bites. Like a friendly smile in the hallway from a friend. Like the days so ordinary, we don’t notice them until they’re nothing but distant memories, like petals lost in the wind.
BY ROSE LAWRENCE
BY SOPHIA LINDNER
BY NICHOLE HELLER
BY NAOMI PARADIS
BY NADIA SLOCUM
Fable
by Anna Kramer
The woodshed door’s ghost exists just enough to keep out those who do not belong amongst its logs and secrets. Under the layers of wood chips and sweat and dull axe blades hide cigarette butts and bottle caps. The rusted metal tops and faded nicotine remains are the only remnants of this structure’s secret-keeping. The man who used to cut the wood bought the cases of beer and packs of Marlboro’s each Sunday, when his wife and children went to church. The bottles and cigarette packs fit well into the cracks between the drying logs. Every summer night, this man could be found with the axe and the logs and a half-drunk Magnus, a cigarette dwarfed in his free hand. The single bare bulb overhead spluttered as it watched wood splinter into pieces and bottles into shards of colored glass. Every winter evening, that same bulb flickered welcome as the man ventured, bundled, into the shed’s inhospitable, unheated air. Not a day went by without some desire feeding its secret-keeping hunger. His oldest son soon followed him to the shed, copycatting the rise and fall of the axe to become, one day, the honorable man he knew his father to be. The man, in turn, never opened a beer bottle or lit a cigarette in front of his child. As the boy grew distracted by soccer practice and Marioworld, his father spent longer hours in the shed, lighting up and drinking long. Guttural voices began to pull the boy awake in the night, words bleeding into his ears. The fighting and drinking eventually faded. The smoking did not, but the father was caught with a cigarette only once. His hands were shaking. “Don’t tell your mother”, he said, and the boy nodded—a secret between father and son. That particular secret he, like the woodshed, never spilled. The secret grew to be a memory rather than a tangible thing. On New Year’s night, the now-teenage boy passed through the woodshed’s doorframe, its ghost welcoming a newly kindred spirit. With axe in one hand and can in the other, the boy fed the shed with beer tabs and pot smoke, new food for its ever-crumbling soul.
BY TRISHIE COSGRAVE
BY SARAH YOH
BY SYDNEY GRAY
College Essay by Sophie Gaddes
Explain the following “mystery”: Gray You’ve got to feel a little bit bad for Gray. First off, it probably has some serious identity issues. As someone who has considered getting the words ‘It’s Sophie, not Sophia’ tattooed onto her forehead, I can relate all too well with Gray’s a-versus-e conundrum, although at least I actually know which version is correct. Not to mention that its reputation has been forever sullied by E.L. James and her fifty shades. But the toughest problem Gray has to deal with has got to be its unpopularity. Harsh reality check: People just don’t like Gray very much these days. They don’t even like to admit that it’s there. Whenever Gray tries to explore its darker side, maybe write some angsty poems, blast Fall Out Boy from behind a closed door, people label it black. And when it swings in the other direction, tries to keep the mood light, keep the champagne flowing, people say it’s gone white. So what do you do if you’re Gray? Do you listen? Do you duck your head and nod? Yes, yes, I don’t exist. I don’t make sense to you, and therefore, I cannot be. Forgive me. That must have been uncomfortable for a second. Or do you call up your friend Sophie and say, “Look, Sophie, these people are telling me that I, well, that I just don’t compute. Can you please make a case for my existence?” And because she loves you, your friend Sophie says yes. With only minimal grumbling. Except there’s one thing she hasn’t told you: She actually has a hard time seeing you, too. It’s not her fault. If you’re not around, Gray, the world becomes much, much simpler. It becomes easier to argue, for one, because people are either right or they’re wrong, and there’s no fuzzy in-between state. It becomes easier to squish groups into boxes, too, because they either live in those boxes, or they don’t live at all. You’re not a mystery, though, Gray. You’re just a head-scratching hodgepodge of all our blacks and whites. But you’re probably the truest color we’ve got. People are complex. There are conservatives who support gay marriage; there are liberals who are pro-life. There are quarterbacks in BC Calculus, and there are dropouts founding Spotify. We make life-changing decisions, and we make decisions that we only think are life-changing. We love, we hate, and we feel a whole host of
things in between. You exist, Gray, because the world is trickier than we’d like it to be. When we debate - or when Mr. President and our GOP do - it’s easy to think you’re fading to black. Or white. In our arguments about economic policies, about boots on the ground, about which is the best Kanye West album, it’s so, so tempting to roll our eyes and reject every point that doesn’t echo our own. But we can’t close ourselves off like that. As much as we don’t want to admit it, there are strong, persuasive arguments for both sides. We may set up camp in one end of the court, but that doesn’t invalidate the other team’s beliefs. And the answer, truth be told, is probably more likely to be found somewhere in between. (Except in the Kanye West example. It’s definitely Graduation.) We may not like you very much, Gray, but that we can still try to bat away our instinct to reach for the easy colors. If we guard ourselves against dismissing you, we can start using your shades to get somewhere unabashedly vibrant, rather than stay paralyzed with a dull, unused paint brush in midair. The only way you’re going to outright disappear, Gray, is if we let ourselves believe that you’re not there.
BY KATHRINA PAYTON
BY SYDNEY GRAY
BY CHASE ROBINSON
BY NAOMI PARADIS
Sexualities for Sale by India Dixon
“Sexualities for Sale!” reads the sign. As my arms fly to the door knob, my feet drag across the threshold. Organized hangers neatly lined up amongst clothes no one color the same. The aisles twist and turn, divide and dead end. Eyes first fall on jeans and sweater matching straightness. Skinny jeans whisper, “Look, we fit.” They hug me, reassuring. Sweater cut low, fabric easy swallowing. Still, it itches places hidden under oversized sleeves. Try the store’s other end; find my homosexuality in a gown Feeling gorgeous just like being straight did not. Still, the one-size-fits-all skirt will lead to trips not strides. Straps are falling off my shoulders pinning arms down. So I change into heteroflexible blouse and soft skirt. And the grip of the blouse is so gentle; it’s never too tight and it’s never too loose. And the skirt still has space left for moving my legs without prancing. But I do one more twirl for the mirror; it’s plastered to my legs. So I switch out the skirt to size homoflexible. And the skirt seems to dance as it twirls for the mirror like I do. But the rainbow of colors so tangled that people might just be confused. And so doubt will sneak out of back pockets I never had realized it had. Instead, return to bisexuality’s classic sundress. Cannot confuse with nothing fancy but never plain. The colors gentle; fabric smooth. But even though it’s saying nothing wrong, it isn’t saying much at all. Seeing my time that is now running out as I reach for just queer on the hanger in back. Sweatshirt and sweatpants are gentle and kind on my fabric-burned skin. Only I look in the mirror and wonder when comfort feels beautiful. Now that I’ve run out of time, I will place good old queer on the counter; I always have returned it later.
BY BYGRACE GRACE FAN FAN
CO-EDITORS: JADE PALANDECH SOPHIE GADDES FACULTY ADVISOR:
MRS. WEST
STAFF: ALEXIS CAPERS AUDREY BELL GRACE FAN KATE LIU KATIE MCGOVERN WREN FRANCIS SPECIAL THANK YOU TO ALL THOSE WHO SUBMITTED!
BY ELLIE DAMSTRA