Epic Word 2014

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table of contents: Claire Halloran••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••1•••••••••••• Anya Delventhal••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••2•••••••••••••••••••••••••• Lydia Bailey••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••2••••••••••••••• Hope Kim••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••3,5,16 Faith Pease••••••••••••••••••••••••••••4••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Catherine Eatherton••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••5•••••••••••••••••••• Mark Sheehan•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••6,7••••••••• Claudia Udolf•••••••••••••••••••••••••••10••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Sam Wiseman•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••10•••••••••••••••••••• Mary Lessard••••••••••••••••••11•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Alison Klute•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••12••••• Vivian Goldstein••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••13••••••••••••••• Jeanna Willis••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••14,15•••••••••••••••••••••••••••

epic staff: Catherine Eatherton Claudia Udolf Naomi Letourneau Grace Jarmoc Emma Waldman Molly Papermaster Hope Kim Elana Colangelo Rachel Paley Allie Kyff Katherine Gianni Taylor Kennedy Mary Lessard

Max Bash Corinne Florian Sophia Harrison Meghan Kennedy Julia Bayer Molly Sullivan Emily Lowit Amanda Loughran Ava Tankala Benjamin Waldman

sanity Most times

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claire halloran

SANITY is PRESCRIBED by people who cannot COMPREHEND the fading sensation of COMFORT the DARKENED ABYSS can bring.

KNOWLEDGE is different than COMPREHENSION. Comprehension – UNDERSTANDING – is that deep gut feeling – that HEART-WRENCHING PULL on your SOUL. That TWIST – that in your conscience or unconscious being.

UNDERSTANDING cannot be LEARNED.

JAB

SANITY was CONSTRUCTED with the bricks and mortar of SOCIETY. SANITY is more of a CONCEPT than the state of NIRVANA it is portrayed to be.

SANITY is found in PILLS and RAZORS and WELL-TIED SLIP KNOTS. SANITY is not in the PAST or the PRESENT or the FUTURE. SANITY cannot be FOUND. SANITY cannot be PRESCRIBED. SANITY CANNOT BE. SANITY. SANITY.

Epic is a universal personality, able to melt itself into every being’s ever-lasting glow.

–Shiza Abbas

1

for no one heard them fall

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Anya DELVENTHAL & LYDIA BAILEY

There’s a snake in my boot Purple unicorn dinosaur puppies Flying, crying Meat is murder but murder is also murder Who is the Stage Door Slasher?

Barney The Dog died sadly and in a rainbow tutu It was the clown Clowns are secretly CIA agents The dog was a terrorist So was the cat They were partners Stars are bright until you die, then they are dark Like my soul My soul is fuchsia Your soul is dumb, mine is awesome Yeah well your soul doesn’t have any friends That was hurtful Scars never really heal and this one will stay forever That is the trial of life How much longer can it go on?

Until the end of time itself But the trees fell hard And disappeared into sparkles For no one heard them fall Because they were all dead Like every single one of us

There she was walking on the gross, the epic stride, everyone stared.

–Michael Loughran

2

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pine ridge #28

hope kim

Paint Me a Love Song child, i wish i could give you more i wish i could give you the world but, you are just out of the reach of innocence.

(And I had forsaken my adolescence long ago) child, paint me a love song. a song that will play from every radio every cassette tape every empty mouth and the infinity of empty eyes. wear your pain like a mask, reclaim your birthright. although fear is no stranger to us, he will falter in the face of perseverance.

(He’s never failed to do so) in my unbridled tongue, one of the last, “you are just out of the reach of innocence.” but, never forget You Are Loved.

A hug warms my body, f illing my ears with the epic drumbeat of love.

–Claudia Udolf

3

slowly suffocating

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faith pease

Hallways suffocate.

Rumors whisper, mocking.

Fake laughter pushes hallways closer together.

Smiles so forced they make you wince.

Self-loathing runs along the walls, And masks stalk in every shadow.

This air is toxic.

Hallways suffocate me.

Rumors pierce my ignorant ears.

My laughter fights against these caving hallways, And I force my teeth to simulate their empty smiles.

My chest gets a bit tighter.

These hallways suffocate.

They break you.

Smiles erode, Laughter becomes hollow, And ears bleed with the humility of others.

They want to break you.

Swallowing becomes strained.

These hallways suffocate me.

My breath slows, and I squint my eyes.

Maybe it’s an attempt to understand them: Why they get a thrill when others fail, Why they seek out each others flaws, Why they feel so insecure.

Shallow breathes struggle to hold on.

I’ll fight back, I’m stronger.

But these hallways are eating away, As they move in closer I lose myself, My breath slows and the pain makes me squint my eyes As these hallways slowly suffocate me.

I ran towards the shimmering light and thus ended my epic adventure of life. –Nicki Roth

4

turtlenecks

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catherine eatherton

I’m not writing this because I think what I say has any merit—it probably doesn’t. But I do think what I say is the product of caffeine and seeing the light of a lamp more than the light of day.

When I was in elementary school, I’d look out the window during class, hoping to God there was blue sky at least for the 30 minutes I’d be outside. As kids, you know, we would always pretend to be adults. That’s what the dollhouses and cars you pedal with your feet were for. And as adults, we try to be kids again too. Mostly by eating ice cream and watching old Disney movies. But the difference is, as an adult, a cloudy day through a window pane from the seat at a desk might be as good as a sunny one.

Because adults don’t get recess. We get coffee.

malice

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hope kim

I was scarcely the height of my sister’s perfect knees when she decided to leave this world. At the time, my parents had fabricated some ridiculous tale about her whereabouts, so as to not to upset their youngest. Something about chasing a white rabbit and finding a better place…even now, I remember. On sleepless nights, I can still see the glistening red half-moons on her wrists, seeping into the cracks on the floor. I still find myself looking at the doll she bought me for my fourth birthday and its impossibly wide Cheshire grin.

I’ve always hated that doll.

Taylor gazes out the window; love, she thinks, would be an epic christmas gift. –Caitlin Hettrick and Abbie Mancinelli

5

speech for the Latrodectus Hesperus Bachelor’s Society

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mark sheehan

Hello, gentlemen of the Latrodectus Hesperus Bachelor’s society. Some of you may know me as a former member of this organization, although I recently left the society so I could marry a woman I care deeply about, the beautiful Esmeralda. As a newly and happily married male of our fine species, I would like to explain to you the many reasons why you too should marry.

Before I go into these points, I would like to address a nasty rumor about our species of spiders, which I have no doubt you all have heard: There are those who refer to us as “Black Widows,” because apparently the female kills and cannibalizes the male after mating. I would like to very clearly state that this is complete and utter nonsense. I have been married for several weeks now, and while I’m not as young as I used to be and maybe could have dressed a bit better, do I look like I’ve been brutally murdered and eaten? No need to answer that. I suppose I should acknowledge that the average female Latrodectus Hesperus is twice as large as and substantially more venomous than the average male, and the females can jump long distances and pin down fleeing meals, so if they wanted to kill and eat us, they probably could. But they won’t. Those rumors make no sense and are just spread by the annoying males who don’t stand a chance in the dating world—you all know the ones I’m talking about. Now that I’ve addressed this little absurdity, I’ll go into the reasons why you should marry.

I know you all think the bachelor life can continue forever, that you’ll spend your whole life hanging out with your college friends and passing out in bar webs after getting drunk on hard mosquito blood, but that isn’t how your life will go. You’ll have to settle down, commit yourself to a career, and start paying the mortgage off on a nice web. Your college friends will be busy starting their own lives, and this isn’t something you want to do on your own. That’s where your wife comes in. The two of you can f i n d a w e b t o g e t h e r , settle down, have children.

Those children will be a lot of work: Hundreds of them can come out of the egg sacs all at once, and you’ll need all eight eyes to even begin to keep track of them, and the vast majority of them will die. You might question why you even try, but eventually you’ll get to watch those important milestones in the lives of those few spiderlings who reach puberty, watch them molt their cuticles because those can’t stretch ou t a s t h e y g e t b i g g e r , s e e them go to prom, move into their own webs, get married to spouses who they will neither eat nor get eaten by; it’s all wonderful, and your children will love having you there for them. I only wish my father had been there to watch me grow up.

Writing an epic story using only fourteen words can be very difficult for some.

–Nicole Demers

6

I remember how upset I was when I asked my mother about him and she explained that he wasn’t willing to commit to a lifelong relationship. I still sometimes wonder why she smacked her lips while she explained this, but I digress.

As I was saying, the married life is wonderful, watching your few surviving children grow, retiring to the tropical webs of Hawaii with your wife, not getting eaten—a happy noncannibalistic marriage is the best thing life has to offer. I know I’ve talked about the importance of your wife and children, but I should make it clear that your wife and kids won’t be the only ones you’ll spend time with: You can still stay in touch with your old friends from college. For example, I still email and have drinks with Theodore and Herman, although I haven’t heard from Sylvester or Guido for a while. I wanted to go see their children, but as soon as the egg sacs hatched they stopped replying to my emails. I guess we never were that close. I will say, though, I am still confused about that time I saw a package from Sylvester’s wife Drusilla to my Esmeralda that smelled a lot like Sylvester and had a message on it saying “a taste of things to come,” but there could have been anything in that package and I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Maybe Sylvester made some perfume for Drusilla and was planning on sending Esmeralda some.

There’s no reason to believe Drusilla ate Sylvester and sent my wife the leftovers. The very suggestion is ludicrous.

Another bonus for marriage is insurance: I work at the local insurance web, so I know what I’m talking about when I say that the family packages are great. The savings on accidental death and dismemberment plans are huge if you get coverage for both husband and wife. Strangely enough, though, I mostly just get female clients asking for plans for just their husbands. When I tell them about our savings if they get a plan for both their husbands and themselves, they just give me strange looks.

With a happy domestic life, great insurance plans, and no danger of getting cannibalized, there really is no reason why you shouldn’t get out there and find a wife. Hop on the web, the world wide one, that is, and check out one of those online dating sites or hit the local bar and look for a female secreting single and sexually mature pheromones, because if you don’t get married, you’re only holding yourself back like a bug desperately trying to get out of a web before a spider descends to suck your blood. Some of you might say that guys who do get married are more like those flies, but those people clearly haven’t been listening. If you get married, I assure you, you won’t regret it. I, for one, know I am looking forward to a long and happy marriage to Esmeralda. I’d love to talk more, but I’ve got to run now. My wife is expecting our egg sacs to hatch tonight, and she wants me to get home early and help her prepare a celebratory dinner. She wouldn’t say what the dinner was, though. She wants it to be a surprise. All she would tell me is that it will be a “feast to die for.” I’m hoping for lasagna.

The boy grieved for his epic life and found nothing but dead ends.

–David Lessard

7

song lyric poem

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ko upper school students

the appetite of a four year old

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claudia udolf

I still don’t know why I did it.

I didn’t like to play house at recess with the Playground Girls whose bows were too perfect. Besides, I preferred to play in the soil.

Maybe Mr. Ronald, with his Grizzly Adams beard, brought out the wilderness in me.

Recess was my private time to discover magnificent worlds under ordinary rocks. It was always the element of surprise that held me captive.

Maybe it was a dare, maybe it wasn’t—I don’t remember.

Cupping the salamander, I tilted my head back, opened my mouth, and let the creature crawl down my throat.

love & me

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sam wiseman

...love me? love me! love, me.

It was crazy, running through the pouring rain alone. But it was also epic.

–Natalie Goldstein

10

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SECOND GRADE

mary lessard

In art class we were learning about Origami. Most kids wrote off the practice as impossible and ended up crumpling the paper into spitballs or paper airplanes. I however understood it. It amazed me how a single piece of paper could become something as magnificent and intricate as a crane or hopping frog.

The teacher, relieved and ecstatic that one student possessed the ability to follow simple folding instructions asked me to stay in during recess and do more Origami with him.

He smelled like a mix of hopelessness,desperation, and crayons

Even though I was specially selected, it felt like a punishment. Instead of running around outside with all of my friends, I sat in a dark, dirty elementary school art classroom folding paper with a fifty year old man whose sole pleasure in life was finding one kid who followed instructions.

He smelled like a mix of hopelessness, desperation, and crayons.

My creative prowess cannot be called upon with such epically short, unexpected notice. –Publius

11

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perfect you

alison klute

The golden fall leaves tremble and fall Flowing and spinning Twisting and turning

Until they land softly on the ground

The squirrel finds its perfect acorn Perfectly round

Easy to open tasting the warm sweet nut

The sun shines on those in need

The clouds pass little cotton candy swirls

The water, so crystal, so blue.

And there you are. 


Your golden hair

Flowing and blowing in the wind

Landing softly on your forehead Quickly shaken away

By your perfectly round face

Easy to move around tasting your warm sweet lips

The sun shines on us

But all we need is each other

The cotton candy swirls pass by

As we lose track of time

Getting lost in your crystal blue eyes.

Time is running out

The moon is coming out As I kiss You. Perfect you.

It would be fantastically epic if I could get into any college sometime soon. –Mary Colliton

12

loyalty

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vivian goldstein

At night, I think. It’s the only time to think. I think and I realize things, things that I normally wouldn’t. Just like our late talks on sleepy nights at Morris’s I think and suddenly, something big happens. The sea I’ve been drowning in clears.

The meaning of life isn’t singular. There’s no one word. It isn’t chocolate. It isn’t love.

It isn’t a secret kept by mermaids and guarded from humans. I don’t know what the meaning of life is, but I know one word of it.

Every time she sees me, she finds me

Loyalty. Staying loyal to a friend. Staying loyal to a job. Staying loyal to a spouse. Staying loyal to a sport. Staying loyal. Be loyal and search for loyalty from others. They’re the ones you keep around because they are the ones who bring meaning to your life.

Whenever you see me around, Hutton, you always come talk to me. But when you see Fang, you leave and talk to her. The words play in my head again, but differently this time. Every time she sees me, she finds me. She rescues me from loneliness. By my side for three years. Be loyal and search for loyalty from others.

Buttered popcorn in hand, I find Chris Hemsworth taking off his shirt epically hot.

–Rachel Yirigian

13

the downward spiral:an excerpt

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jeanna willis

I had been thinking about this for a while, and I had been back and forth many times on whether I should or shouldn’t go. I finally decided it would be best since Chad Hollis had been my best friend since were both 5 years old and started elementary school together. As I walk through the prison doors I begin to shake from nervousness; I had never been in a prison. I sign my name with the guard and begin to think over my relationship with Chad in the last two years.

Two weeks before our senior year basketball season started, the letters from UConn came. “Let’s open them together,” he suggested.

We both ripped open the envelopes and read our letters as quickly as possible.

After that day, Chad and I took a few trips up to the campus to get familiar with it and to talk with Kevin Ollie. On the last trip, Coach Ollie said that it looked like Chad and I would both have starting spots on the team. After that visit Chad changed. He became much cockier and didn’t work as hard. I began to wonder if he knew that the spots were not guaranteed. He started talking to the coaches from Louisville, Florida State, Baylor, Notre Dame, and UCLA. When basketball season started, Chad told everyone on the team how so many colleges were recruiting him and telling him that he was a superstar. He convinced Coach that he didn’t have to do any work besides scrimmaging during practice because he was already guaranteed to play basketball in college. And he took every scrimmage as seriously as he would a game and would even talk trash.

Chad didn’t just change on the basketball court, but also how he worked in school and who he hung out with. Since Chad had all of his classes with me, I saw his decline.

He stopped paying attention in school; he was always tweeting and posting pictures on Instagram during class. Whenever the teachers called on him he would just makes a joke or say something cocky, and once Mr. Murphy sent Chad to the principal’s office for sleeping in class, but even that didn’t bother him.

He also began to hang out with all the kids who partied all the time. Chad also began to have parties at his house. I was never invited. I heard many stories about what happens at these parties, most of which seemed to involve something crazy that Chad did. It had become known around school that Chad frequently drank, smoked marijuana, and did various other drugs.

The Saturday before our senior game, I was home alone, lounging on bed that had six books on it from all of my classes. I began to think about the math problem I had just

I walk through my college campus, books in hand, but only in my epic dreams.

–Abhilash Panthagani

14

read. I was confused, so I skimmed through my big math notebook to search for notes I on similar problems. I found exactly what I was looking for: “quadratic formula.”

As I began to look at my notes and understand the problem I was distracted by a party across the street; my favorite song had just begun to play. It was “Heads Will Roll” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, which in my opinion was by far the best party song ever made. I put down all my homework and had my own dance party with my dog. It was interrupted by police sirens that sounded close. I stood in at my window, confused and wondering what could be going on. I quickly put on my Nike slides and ran down the stairs towards my front door, passing a picture of Chad and me at my 7th birthday party. Before opening the door I tried to look through the glass on my front door, but the flower pattern on it made the glass nearly opaque. I flung the door open and the light chill from outside immediately gave me goose bumps. A police cruiser sped down the street and slowed to a stop in front the house, and I began to contemplate whether or not I should go back inside. I heard the kids screaming “Cops!” repeatedly. By the time I finally decided whether to go back inside or not, I saw two police officers escorting a boy in handcuffs to their cruiser.

The boy was so drunk that he was having trouble walking without collapsing. His luscious golden-bronze hair looked familiar but, his head was tilted down so I couldn’t quite make out his face. Right before they put him in the back of the cop car, the boy looked up at me on my front porch. Holy crap! That’s Chad! I could not believe that Chad was being arrested right in front of my house; he had been such a good kid.

Sitting in the hard plastic chair and looking at the black phone on the wall, A few guards lead Chad over to a chair on the other side of the glass separating us. He looks haggard; he’s probably withdrawn and too sober for his own liking. As he looks at me for the first time in weeks, his facial expression twists into one of honest confusion. It has been so long since we last spoke to each other and even now we’re only speaking through phones with some glass separating us. We simultaneously pull the phone out of its holder with a small click. Chad puts the phone to his ear and his eyes bore into me while I hold the phone away from my face, contemplating what I should say. Staring into his eyes, I barely recognize him as Chad; he is a stranger.

Right at that moment, I decide it is time to say goodbye to Chad. Picking up the phone and placing it next to my ear, I say: “I thought you were better than this.”

I had been hoping this entire time that Chad would finally realize how wrong he’s been and that his life is now messed up because he made the wrong decisions. From the look on Chad’s face now I can tell that he has no regrets.

“It doesn’t make a difference now.”

I never saw Chad again.

An epic event awaits an open window of opportunity in order to be found.

–Blair Elliott

15

face: a failed lesson in platonism

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hope kim

A wise so-and-so once said that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

Ah, an answer worthy of the Miss Universe pagent.

How lovely!

Cynicism aside, this prophet couldn’t have been more ahead of her time.

We generally consider swans to be beautiful creatures, Yet I doubt any of us have witnessed A dozen swans, elegant and white, Tear tame geese wide open and eat their hearts.* Being the flawed beings we are we are, How is it rational for us to trust our own judgment?

The intangible pursuit, A desire for perfection is always just outside our grasp.

Here is my philosophy: (Feel free to mock it all you like, but it contains a truth) Everything in this world is gifted with beauty, And an inconvenient companion named “Savagery.”

Being objective about the object We all yearn won’t help your cause.

Savagery never lies.

He can’t help it. He’s here to stay.

I know I promised to put cynicism aside in the beginning of this poem, but a point needs to be made.

If you don’t want to end up like the geese, in all sincerity, find the one who values your beauty and doesn’t mind Savagery’s incessant prattling.

(Plato proceeds to turn in his grave.) *Lines derived from the Sherman Alexie poem, “The Fight or Flight Response”

Two worlds. Two lives. Epic struggle for life. Alone in the cold, dark night.

—Adam Kim

16

top ten people we’d like to have a class with: 1. Jimmy Tatro 2. Jimmy Kimmel 3. Sophie Kruger 4. Ian Somerhalder 5. Kevin Hart 6. Tim Riggins 7. Miley Cyrus 8. Ernest Hemingway 9. Raven Symone 10. Elijah Langston -Melissa Lord

1. Shakespeare 2. Ernest Hemingway 3. Charles Darwin 4. Watson and Crick 5. John F. Kennedy 6. George Clooney 7. John Mcphee 8. Stephen Greenblatt 9. Alexander Lindsay 10. Dylan Thomas -Mrs. Kasprak

top ten people we wish were less famous: 1. Emma Roberts 1. Kristen Stewart

2. The Kardashians 3. Monica Lewinsky 4. Entire cast of Jersey Shore 5. Flavor Flav 6. Rebecca Black 7. P!nk 8. Russell Brand 9. Christopher Columbus 10. Brett Micheals -Mr. Kraus’ Class

2. The Real Housewives 3. Justin Bieber 4. Ginnifer Goodwin 5. 16 & Pregnant Girls 6. Bristol Palin 7. Suri Cruise 8. Kat Von D 9. Jon Gosselin 10. Paris Hilton -Epic Staff

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