Mayhem

Some kid with an oversized beanie and ironic t-shirt hands you this handy little pamphlet that says “Litmag” on it. So you’re thinking: why is everyone at my school such a flipping hipster? And also what is this Litmag business? Well I don’t know about the first question but maybe I should start by actually talking about Litmag. *gasp*

Litmag is Litmagnificient. Litmag is the soup and the nuts and an annoying Fight Club reference all in a day’s work. Litmag is what you should have eaten for breakfast. You know when something really incredible happens and you just have this feeling in your gut that you want to write it down and just make some freaking beautiful poetry that wins every award known to man? That’s not Litmag. Litmag is when you actually do it. Litmag is when you work up the cajones and send your metaphorical baby Moses into the reeds and hope your pen-strokes or paint-strokes find their proper place in the universe. Litmag is putting yourself out there and risking rejection. (Yes, we’re selective). Because of you, in Litmag, the words “student work” aren’t an asterisk. Because of you, every year this little bugger tiptoes toward Pulitzer Prize material. Because of you, Litmag is, according to the most senior experts on the subject, funketty fresh. It’s anything any student can write or capture or design that fits on a seven by ten piece of paper, given to you in a convenient and colorful paper taco. No teachers fingerprints. And free. So really, hipster jokes aside, the least you could do is Read it Keep it And Submit Your shit (Next time around) The theme of the ‘zine is Project Mayhem, if you hadn’t figured that out already. It’s a reference to the epically swank movie Fight Club, but really our goal was in creating a place to showcase the unconventional, the quirky, the deeply personal, and the reaction-evoking. By the way, if you haven’t seen the movie Fight Club you should probably go do that right now. I’ll just wait here until you’ve finished.... Back? Fantastic. Now you’ll get my sassy references. Moving forward, on behalf of Litmag, I’d like to welcome to you to Litmag.

Welcome to Project Mayhem. 2 Rachel Monk, Editor in Chief of Litmag

On a more serious note, this has been a labor of love, and I’d like to thank everyone who helped on this project. Thank you to our advisor Mr. Gaughen for advising so well. Thank you to all who helped with layout, specifically to my indentured servants, the photog kids. Thank you to every one who doodled hard to make the most memorable margins ever—conservatory children, the yearbook class, Maia Ferdman, etc. Thank you to all the Art and English teachers for your continual support. And lastly, thank you artists. You are amazing. Did I forget anyone? The academy! Ah yes. I’d like to thank the Academy—Canyon Crest Academy, that is. ;] SASSY4LYF

If you are interested in working on the Litmag next year, email us at litmag@ccayearbooks.com. If you are not interested, you should be.

Squeaky Clean

chicky chicky Pam Pam

Jason Al-Taan

Father’s Epiphany Aboard A Metropolitan Elevator Cold chills your thoughts as your head hits the bar; and the turnstile you passed through on the way to your car stole the sweet summer scent off your breast -- I know not the feeling. For I am still young: I’ve much dying to do. I still speak in loud voices ‘round campfires, and still do I spend hours amongst the golden pine i’ the night; And even so do I find myself in contemplation, of the essence of life and exuberance of youth, upon the warmth of the sunbaked sidewalk, stretched out on the curb. I’ve a mind to rip forth the nutrients from that fruit of knowledge -- scalp the resistant casing and savor the sweet nourishment it would provide, a security against life’s maladies. I’ve a mind to -But, if you’ll excuse me a moment, I must be off for a drink – So that I too may hang my head at the bar. Zack Brown

Love Song of Zack J. Brown I glance at my watch, Hoping there is alcohol enough in my Blood To propel me to her Doorstep. I am at her doorstep. But no, I cannot do this. I mustnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. Staring upside her bedroom window Hours, Seconds, Minutes pass. I glance at my watch. One hand chases thâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; other. I think, perhaps, she thinks Of me. I am certain she does Not.

Finally. Toss it. And if it be that which ensnares Lucifer And brings him down with us. So be it. So be it. So be it. But Please, fall down with me if only a moment before your Wings are born and You Must Leave Me. Stay. Stay and Kiss me. If only for a moment, Please. Stay and Kiss me.

Visions of over-sized bicycles and of tuneful humming and of canes top hats Monocles and Modernist life-assuring poetries plague my mind. I glance at my watch. Time. It has passed: spring, summer, autumn, and soon Winter. I spent it all. Spent it all thinking. Just thinking. This stone, in my hand All The While, I shall finally toss it. Toss it.

Onto Others

Jimmy Cao

The Impossibility of Eve in a Logical Setting

Runtao Yang

Hari Kari, Amen. Sunset dreams take me by the hand And fly me to a place where the mustangs run. Where cranberry chap stick paints lips blue with heat And humidifiers on cold nights rain rooms dark red. Pill bottles line up like prisoners to the gallows And cat ears twitch with bodies melting like candies in the sun. A red debutant dress swirls around the dance floor While stage productions mimic lives gone by. What is this place, where dolphins play? Where USB cords connect humming purple hearts? Alarm clocks scream crude lullabies in my ear, And like so many thoughtless days, I use scissors to cut out paper dolls for friends. So here I am, trembling, While track-ball mice run races through my muscles. Like a puzzle piece never finding a place to call home These burgundy daisies call memories sanctuary, Having headbands hold thoughts in while split ends are cut away. This is where I dance, where black-light rays hold in silent repose. Shall inhalers huff breath into dying lungs, In vain, while salt-flecked breezes clutter them up? What a place, where keyboards spell playing cards... Where I plunge over glacier-melt falls into my coffin of CD songs. Nail polish shall clean off memories of cologne scented days, With hairpin sutures in my heart and mint candies burning down my throat. But here I find that this is where I belongâ&#x20AC;Ś Hari Kari, Amen. Erin Osterland

Gas

Still Life

Christine Mi

Hem You hem the dress quickly now, Hands strutting a storm billowing sheets forgetting accord, not the Honda but a distant dis cord ribboning up, dis onance closing in (You thin the thread quickly now, Rush spill black across the floor Currant joy is blistered fruit) Then hem the dress at fever pitch now, Hold the lace taffeta-full beneath half-dollar cuticles And remember why the sun refuses to set In a time like this, you may hem the dress and take the World at full value, full momentum, full friction, full Gravity splattering to The ground at exactly four hundred, one-four point zero Four decameters a millisecond. Because in the end you are the cloud and I am Lonely, so we hold the organza lacing end-for-end and (to) explain why nothing glued together (â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;cept calico the plain the cotton) lasts a half a time a life or the reason to hold onto the wax when Life lights the candle (and you are only burning) It is just a matter of hemming the dress in May wearing The dress and springing around, hem of calicorganzavelvetaffeta In a fit of May Hem.

This Is [Not] Laziness You are in perpetual motion because Leonardo da Vinci forbade it. See: legs, flaying over the flip-flap of scattered books; white cords, trailing from your ears. Hear: it on all night, tomorrow’s worries splayed all over the bed, your fingers numb as you peek at imaginary tic-tac-toe boards. Your toes tickle the ends of your bed, dangle just above the floorboards dangerously. See: the rim-rammed yellow of yesterday’s responsibilities. Around the spine are shavings; flapping about nervously, as if afraid this something won’t be perpetual. On your side stand is a half full, half empty glass of orange juice. You clutch at its neck - tip the cup against your lips – and let a single drop slam against your tonsils. The cup lurches from your grip. There is no why, not even a “just because”, only the shattered remnants of silent orange looking up at you from the carpeting. You think: Perhaps you should sweep up the crystalline mess - and soon, before Mother slams in, shrilling for you to cleanitup, her every syllable amphibious, sidling into the next. For a few moments, you are a sitting sophist. The cycle of perpetual motion – but never perpetual notions – is broken, except perhaps in the tips of your toes. Something has been decided. With lips conceived of butter, you proclaim to yourself, “This is not laziness.” This is Saturday morning. For now, run-of-the-mill mayhem will have to suffice. Stephanie Guo

Aftermath

Panchito Lopez

Chaos Theory

Matt Allen

02/24/10 [Possible title: Graphing Calculator] desiring romances in math class scheming ideals in my head love is where it touches. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m on an axis of happy anxiety To use my words, and stroke fingernails backs across skin. Clamp a pen in my lips â&#x20AC;&#x201C; melancholy Chomp a pencil in my teeth Joy! Laughter is only a pair of us away ordered or not Laughter, comfortable and reliable, And measured in memories Real and irrational A sense of answers pictures and values Laughter Click it in, Fingernails on paper or Tapping on keys Solutions: none, or rational, or not, or imaginary

05/30/09 5/12/10 6/12/10 Two Souls and Seinfeld I want to wake up in the middle of the morning, like 3 a.m. darker than it was when I fell asleep alone, and see myself silently glowing from the flickering television screen. Only, I will know the soft light comes from having you beside me. I want the fuzzy white noise from the muted set to be the radiance of your smile, waiting for me to blink open (without the use of any loud noises). You will be warmer than the blanket that we’ll cuddle under anyway discovering a mutual delight in the shock of frigid toes against each other’s ankles. Temperatures will slide to equilibrium as we broadcast a togetherness so warm defying the freezing loneliness of an empty house. Our couch in the TV room is an island in time. Without a word we bear witness. We are alive in an hour of the past and the dead. Here is our favorite channel and we’ve never watched it. Here is the meaning of life in a cycle of reruns. You will un-mute the set. Both we and the silence become deeper. We will breathe steadily and will never sleep. Not while these angels sing and we shine golden in the black-and-white dark. Sarah Scherk

Food Chain title 1

Michael Nash

Unfortunate Ascension

Palate Wind, Quaint Gluttony A Collaborative Word by Word Drama Once there wasn’t anything in. But then Neverland exploded and everyone imploded. Then I happened to explode. Dude, it wasn’t fair. Yo. Years ago, in Afghanistan, there wasn’t a queen in Afghanistan. At the mausoleum, things got out and in. Suddenly, interest displayed my cunning to Afghanistan as I built staircases that exploded. Period wait for me baby. On my last pedestal. Infinite time became decimation on a crab with lasers. Sadly, love won’t be enough to damn it to hell. We believed fairyland portrayed no exuberance by making quarters flat and inscrutable. When narcotics stimulated our only epidermis layer in the lair zone, torment disturbed disturbance. Magically sweet architecture incepted subtely. Retribution roared violently over the rainbow. Therefore, four forwarded doors implored hasty implosions on foundations. Magnetism lined how rules should curve magically, millions mourned mornings because moorings, more than you, must market meerkats...Ruptured change with intervention and narcotics until ways turned ugly traditions into trees with no knees. Why is your stupid hard playing harpy player’s plays joyfully? Look! A drumroll is inevitable today because everything wants crustaceans gone. Troubles plunges Gyrados into the paint of things. She held shrunkens made of bones, whoa. Dude. Yo. Where da heck happened??! Tired gaskets’ pudding tasted immeasurably monotonous, like dinner in Bagdad. With Naples gone, happiness came again but your death is dead. Mindy Kral,Brian DeLuca, Michael Kinney, Leonardo Jappelli

Insomnia/Narcolepsy Your shadow flails before mine Like ten hundred vinaigrettes Your twisted, bold vignette Tore my eyes to smithereens, but phew. I swore I knew, but you decieved me. And I couldn’t close my eyes For fear of waking up after the Dance, dance, revolution. My planetarium has tripped me too many too many times but I’m not bitter at the astrologists, you see, plutocratic silhouettes boogying in my mind My narcolepsy got the better of me. Ode to The Shins’ lyrics Some slightly nonsensical, Whimsical, song Seemed witty Enough to label As a wildly serendipitous Musical psychoanalysis of my subconscious. I wished it were But my wants were shushed As I realized it Was just a maze of Radio-active, Hyperbolic, Pseudo-symbolic Madlibs And my mind, half oxymoron.

“The editor wrote this... and with a clearly unbiased mind, she published herself.” --The Great Rachel Monk 23

title 1

Sin

Ashley Butler

Carneval

Kat Anear

25 23

“Dear Incandescent Unity, We’re HOME” Eternal Cosmic Sea

I believe that God is every Consciousness combined, and I believe these “Devils” are Lies conceived by free-thinking Minds in the small Cells of night due to no more – and no less – than our Eyes... but first: an aside. Because what’s Felt is what’s Feared and what’s Feared is then Hated, Often in the name of an “all Loving” Creator Who we: kill for, wage wars for, but worst of all Speak for, as if the Maker of so many Mouths had only one Voice with which to give gospel. So try, if just once, to Trust this Truth instead. This feeling of Love and Peace of information. Because the Science we’ve made also Speaks, and it tells us that Darkness – on this Planet – does not even Exist and rather that it is just a State of Perception, just another Human imperfection, just our Eyes, too Blind to See that electromagnetically, Everything is what It is... Energy. Vibrating. Shaking. Closed-Eyed but Consciously. Smiling. Blissfully. [Remind You of Anything?] “Oh please,” if just once, just relax – get to know each other – because we are much more than mere brothers, sisters, lovers, and friends; yes, we are Connected, Together not only from our awkward, messy Entrances till our respective (and often disrespected) Ends – but afterwards too – in the Vastness Expanding, the “Cosmos” or “Chaos” or whichever you Choose,because Words are just Words and We are just Bodies of Light Existing within a Multiverse Brighter than we could ever Imagine... So is this Separation, this Vessel, this Flesh, is it Reason enough to reject and detest, to oppress and regress back to Monsters we made in our Minds? It’s insane. We’re obsessed – with the Thoughts of our Selves. Apart from the Rest. “Special.” “The Best.” Well, the Best at Deception – at least of said Selves – and in standing Apart, We construct our own Hells. Because these Eyes that we prize and gaze into with Love, which display all our woes, cannot See all the Light that’s Above and Below, so in the Darkest of nights we feel oh, so Alone, when in Truth... There is no such thing. Now envision the Dance of two Stars through Deep Space. Elliott Wobler

I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have no gator trap on hand, but this here is the best I could do on such short notice.

Sander Dufour

Rotten Eggs

Sean Hnedak

Cycles The horizon line There is no end The setting sun into oblivion The earth holds no bounds In a melt of cloudy pastel No corners Is a farse: You can’t count stars Transitions and divisions Or freckles Are merely part Or ants Of the turning wheel And you can’t kill them all Change is continuous either The sun is rising Such is the universe And setting constantly in When you walk you push the A place that isn’t here— atmosphere forward But is here somewhere And move it back to fill your place The rain, the pitter and Air is recycled The patter And so is your blood The drain sucking it down in It always was Bubbly muddy gurgles And will be Is connected to the waves by Rivers, forever crashing Maia Ferdman One receding Simultaneously with another Returning to shore. The mother will give birth And suddenly She is eternal And she always was The family tree Roots intertwine The bees pollinate Not creating but continuing into A neverending book Its pages turning into forever Limits don’t exist Graphs and their points are ambiguous Measures of infinity Peripheral vision can’t be captured On camera and neither can the air Nor can love You cut your hair More waits patiently to grow

February 16, 2011 Milestones… pass. Small moments… pass. Blank hours… pass. Coming-of-age comes. No more lure, No more pure, ecstatic anticipation, No more charisma, Or passionate search for information. Only consistency, dull beat, Droning hum, minor conundrum, Poignant grace and spirit and charm. Crystal Long Untitled You’ve locked yourself inside this room, clawing and etching. Four walls a reminder of something never changing. And with your fingernails and teeth you toil to carve the story of a broken man and the blood and tears you collect are only yours to reflect upon in this isolated room. Reaching out, retreating back in fear we’ll douse and burn you, in lies and broken promises, then simply sit and watch you. So instead you curl up in defense, with only memories to haunt you. While clinging lies you can’t recognize the walls you’ve built cannot protect you. Brittney Meredith

Venus

Jack Kahn 32

Nim By Fearghal Casey

Wither rubbed his eyelids with his gloved hands, darkened with grime from substances he did not know. His fingers trailed down his cheeks, and as they peeled away, the frigid blue streaming from the monitors in front of him flooded across his face. He returned to his labor, twisting knobs, adjusting numbers on the screens by touching them, sometimes softly, sometimes firmly. Occasionally he shifted his body on the metal platform which held up his rubber-shrouded mass. Hours roiled past him, and his body grew stiff, and his mind went numb, but he did not complain. The computers leaked onto his hands, and from time to time broke outright, but his gloves weathered the blows, his fists reoriented parts within the machinery. The very largest screen before him portrayed an ovular area, full up with dozens of white, round objects, which distended into a tube and a glowing line at the other end of the screen. One of the objects jerked away from the cluster and moved toward the tube. It stopped before its edge and displayed numbers for Wither.

Twenty of One Hundred Forty, Batch 5.

He tapped the object twice in acknowledgement, and it continued down the tube.

The white thing first understood itself as a function of that bladder, and then as Wai-eet. Crimson fluids and spongy tubes pulled White along the passageway. Pressure mired its vision, and the fluid tore its sense of hearing apart and filled its head with a rush and a flow. It felt oppressed something it did not know…more tubes, perhaps…more of them within the bladder it had just passed through on its way toward the tube’s blank end, its pure end, blank like White’s skin. Symbols adorned the exit, a straight line with two right-pointed curves, followed by a circle, followed by a slanted line with another slanted line jabbing out at the circle. A surge pulsated along White’s skin as it passed through the exit and the rushing and the squishy pulling disappeared. Light seared through White’s eyes and it turned to writhe back up into the exit but would not be admitted. For the first(?)time, White noticed that there was a hulking mass attached to it. It did not fully understand this, this moving lump with tubes—limbs—shuddering out at both ends. As White thought, the limbs reacted and twisted and jerked, and, at their smacking against the surface beneath White, the feelings tingled along the limbs, and White understood that these things, these limbs, belonged to it.

34 32

White turned what it had thought to be itself, but now recognized as part of itself, down toward the surface. Two black orbs pasted on a pale background stared back at White. The image, too, shared White’s hair, sleek and black, its limbs, its torso, and in very basic terms, White came to a realization. This body was It. This form, this reflection, represented White. It reached a tentative

limb-end, a hand, toward the image, and it responded. White twisted its torso upwards, and part of the image disappeared. Now only its legs and hips appeared on the surface. It looked around, above, below itself. The walls and ceiling all shared the same material as the surface White now sat on, and these encompassed all of the surrounding except for the exit. Or exits, rather. A strange sinking grew in White’s gut as it realized the number of sequential exits, all equally as blank as the one that birthed itself. The room had a definite end, and White registered this, but it was distant, far down the line of exits. The ceiling too gaped before White’s feasting, black eyes. White turned his gaze downward: Bodies lined the back wall in a cluster, many of them bizarre, cold colors, but some of them coated in the same pasty skin as White’s own. It twisted its mouth and scrunched its eyes, and it let out a low hiss. Some of the bodies registered this, and gazed at him, pawed at his body with their beady eyes.

“Batch Five’s new member doesn’t seem to be adjusting,” Wither muttered as he stared at the camera feed from the growth room. It showed a single person, pasty white, black-haired, just sitting on the floor. His partner, towering above and behind his grey hair, nodded her blonde head. “Some of them will do that. It’s the danger of the system, you run the risk of mutations you didn’t expect,” she stated. Her rubberized hands clamped a round, blue shell around her head, twisted and latched it into place on her outfit. The top sloped downwards into an edge and a number of lenses popped forward with a lurch. Wither nodded, without looking at her. “That part of the official line now, Mags?” His partner – Mags – tilted her helmet side-to-side. “Nobody cares. We sell the result, not the bodies.” “They’re supposed to be social creatures, though,” he tapped the screen. “Can’t that be sign of bad stock?” “Only in large numbers,” she picked up a long tool from her desk and headed outward, “I’m headin’ into Batch Four’s room for a twoseventeen.”

Wither gave a limp wave and she disappeared through the door

White curled its legs inward and humanoid shapes curled back

hissed again. Some of the this time with

their wide black eyes fully trained toward it. White matched their stares, and unknowingly bared its teeth. When they drew back further, it buried its head into its knees. A figure, matte purple, slid forward with jerky steps. It knelt next to White and crossed its arms over its knees, then groped outward with a single finger. White’s legs jerked in reaction and it fell over. The stranger opened its mouth wide and laughed; White’s eyes widened further as its heart began to race. The mauve newcomer reached for a second time toward White, who judged the extended hand with all the reason and sound nature deserved of a frightened animal. Mauve gestured again with its hand. White smacked it with its own hand, and Mauve giggled again. It placed its hand cautiously into White’s curled palm, and the two hands’ fingers wove themselves together. Mauve gave a slight tug, pulled White up onto its trembling legs. It then patted White on each shoulder, ran a hand through its hair and inhaled sharply. Wither leaned close to the screen and watched as Mauve and White interacted. His brows furrowed, mouth clenched as he thought over what he now witnessed. Steadily, he raised one gloved hand and counted off various ideas on each fingertip, curling the digit in if he thought something ridiculous.

A notice appeared on the adjacent monitor.

Batch 5, 2-17.

The old man groaned, double-tapped the notice, opened a program with another two taps. A keyboard and entry bar popped up, and he typed in, ‘randInt (1,20).’ The machine processed for five seconds, then read out the result.

Number one.

The door behind him slid open. Out trundled Mags with an enormous bag slung over her shoulder, black rubberized coat smeared with something dark. “Back,” she cried, apparently happy with her deed, although he couldn’t tell with that helmet wrapped around her head. Wither waved her over, and she resumed the position she left a half hour earlier, directly behind him.

“How do they dictate seniority, Mags?”

“Seniority?” She shifted the bag’s weight around, “it’s incredibly variable. Most do it on strength. Some do it on age. Others, who knows? I’ve seen batches that determined it based on skin color. Why?”

“This purple one,” Wither jabbed at the figure on the screen.

“Batch Five, number one?”

“Sure. It’s the only one taking the initiative about the new guy.” He wriggled in discomfort. “You said they were social creatures--”

“YOU said they were social creatures. But yes, I did tell you that.”

“-- So why is the purple one the only one of them greeting the newcomer?”

Mags stared at the screen for a good thirty seconds, then muttered, “I

sort of doubt that’s their leader. Number one just has more experience sorting the environment out than the other ones, so it takes care of the matter.” She gave his shoulder a pat, “Anyways, I’m hauling this thing to the freezer.” Wither gave another weak wave as she trundled off toward the door on the other side of the wall. Something leaked out of the bag and sloshed across the floor. Mags paid this no heed, but Wither’s head jerked toward the noise. A pool of black liquid laid on the floor. He looked away at breakneck speed. His body shook and his mind reeled. “I’ll focus on the screens,” he told himself. “I’ll focus on the screens.” Mauve locked its eyes with White’s and exhaled, breath carrying a light cry as it whisked across White’s face. It shrunk back from the breeze and held its breath. Mauve stared at it. Those eyes exerted a pressure on White’s mind, a desire, a want, a need, to imitate the other creature’s actions. It did so. White gasped and emitted a terse cry that sounded across the room. The figures in the distance shrunk back from it, but Mauve stood firm, its mouth curved upwards, eyes gleaming. It let out an equally-loud cry. White pulled away again, but this time Mauve pulled back and placed their foreheads together. Warm sensations flushed up through White’s body into its face at the contact, its brain filled with a buzzing sensation and a great resolve not to flee. Mauve began to hum, lightly, softly, and rocked both itself and White from side to side. Behind them, in the distance, the other figures imitated the motion, slowly at first before matching the tempo and the cadence. The hums resonated throughout the chamber and vibrated White’s head, and soon it joined the melody as well, straining its newborn vocal cords to match the tone. The group held the noise, and Mauve pulled the synchronized White toward the mob of like-faced, like-bodied figures. Its legs wobbled at first, soon found themselves, eagerly followed as Mauve dragged on its arm. Hands jutted outward from the mob and bumped and felt along its skin, firing new sensations up its spine at every impact and stroke. The pair flung themselves further and further inward, hands still entwined, and the mob grew louder, and the sensations increased, and hands felt all across every single individual. White stretched its free hand out and it met dozens more through the feel, and the writhing, and the lashing of bodies, only not lashing, but hugging, and fervent joy at each others’ presence. Each new feeling resounded like an explosive pressure wave throughout the entire group, and the joy of knowing wrapped and twined and wove throughout each single figure. And just as quickly as they began, all the sensations stopped. White and Mauve sat at the middle of the mob, hands yet interlaced.

The screen undulated with bodies. Wither watched, fidgeted, wiped his brow, crossed his eyes. He again counted off possibilities, but as he arrived at his last finger he still could not figure out what on earth had just happened before his eyes. Mags returned, glorious, victorious, removed her helmet, and with a brick-

like thud, dropped herself and her helmet into her desk. “Well,” she said, sighing as she kicked her booted feet onto the table, “I’ve earned my wages today. Guy was a fighter, almost took a chunk outta my arm.” Wither nodded without looking and kept his eyes on the screen. The mob had ceased its humming; now the white, new one, and the purple, original one, stood at the circle-mob’s center. The notice from before re-emerged onto his second screen. Batch Five, twoseventeen. It now also vividly displayed the number he had selected. Wither stared again at the camera feed and focused on the purple figure.

Number one.

“Hey, Mags? You feel up to harvest another?”

She snorted, “Hell no. You gotta earn your own pay today, man. I’m done. Batch Four had a real thrasher.”

Wither paused. “Can I at least borrow your helmet?”

“Where’s yours?”

“Left it at home,” he lied.

She snorted. “Sure. Whatever, take it,” she tossed it to him and he grabbed it out of the air. “Make it quick, is my advice. Ain’t you done two-seventeens before?” Wither paid her no mind as he carried himself, and his instrument, out the door.

White and Mauve hummed. They hummed and hummed and the other bodies in the crowd simply closed their big black eyes and listened. White had no notion of why they hummed. White had no notion why it felt so magnificent within the mob or to hold Mauve’s hand. It had no sense for the cameras watching them, nor a name or idea for those cameras, nor a name for anything that happened to it or would happen. But it knew the sensation. The sensation which now permeated its whole being and thought. It enjoyed the sensation.

A hole, a door that none of the creatures had seen—how could they have known what to look for?—split open on the rear wall. Wither slogged out, with his head bowed low under the helmet, and his instrument clutched in his sweaty, but gloved, hand. He took a step toward the crowd. Immediately the two in the middle stopped humming and stared.

Another step. Now the whole crowd faced him. He reached a hand out and pushed one of the bodies

aside, and the mass parted. He turned toward Mauve. A third step. White moved his other arm around Mauve and inhaled. Mauve made no movement. A fourth step. Mauve disentwined its hand from White’s clutched fist and took a step toward Wither. They then stood within arm’s length of one another. Wither stared at the bulge-eyed, purple face a foot below his own, steadied his breath, cautiously raised his instrument. He swiped it across the creature’s face. It jerked to the left violently as the crack sounded out and deep crimson spattered across the mob of bodies. It tilted its face back up toward Wither, its face now adorned with a red flesh pocket on its forehead, eyes watered with questions it could not voice. Wither brought the instrument back across its face. It fell to the floor with a wet smack as the red liquid flew out again.

The crowd stared on, confused, disconcerted, perhaps even for the first time experiencing dread as they stared at the two who remained standing: White, draped in Mauve’s blood, Wither, drenched in his own sweat under rubber layers.

Wither stooped onto one knee, slung Mauve’s body over his shoulder with his free arm. He turned and tread back the way he arrived. The helmet sat too tight against his eyes and his vision fogged.

“It’s just a problem with the helmet,” he told himself. The door shut behind him.

The mob moved back in around White. Their eyes, too, bubbled with questions, nameless queries. White did not acknowledge them. It glared at the door, glaring. It glared until its eyes grew dry, then turned back toward the mob.

White took a walk around the group. It met each pair of eyes with its own, and as they followed its reddened form, touched each shoulder of each human. It returned to the center of the group, sat on its

haunches, and cried.

The End.

The past two years of my life have been spent in pursuit Vying for one who abused and refused She left me confused to keep her amused And it stayed just like that To offer my love I wrote her a song She conquered my mind It comprised her a poem I reached out my hand She left me alone And I stayed just like that When the ending came close I beckoned to her Said something about all the time we had shared And the little that’s left The thinning of air Opened my heart to the spear of despair And it came As the last winter drew near the feelings appeared Came out of the shell and into the clear How joyous it felt to hold one so dear And I wished it to stay just like that But moments are fleeting and time has its way She chokes on the passion Gags, blocks out my face Runs outward so blindly leaving no steps nor trace The woman I love, she treats me like waste And she fancies that To ease attached thoughts I wrestled the mind Sought to rid it of longings etched dark over time Fought battles angst-ridden Muffled urges so loud Became one with the ocean Found life in the clouds Reconciled with a lover A chance one must take I’m made out as a fool She makes out with mistake I will not berate her, though suffocate her I may Fall from the oneness in this month of May But I’ll still strive for retention

For all of us humans aren’t trapped in this place Merely halted by blocks put up in our mind So act on the feelings no matter the case For in you is the truth, the sweetest of tastes The love is eternal, infectious and strange Widespread all knowing, we’re all the same So no matter the outcome it’s better to say Convey love to the beloved, don’t lead them astray The woman I love she wants nothing of me She’s weighed down by anchors as she drowns in the sea But I’m still here waiting, arms outstretched to her Expecting no more than the wind in return You can offer your heart You can be oh so kind But you can’t make one love you Until it is time Dylan Richards

2012 --An Excerpt Well I hate to admit it But for a little bit it I thought 2012 was the last time we would live it But I’ve come to terms with the truth And I am figuring that we’ll hold up. We can’t just all go poof. Who would reproduce? Who would speak their minds Who would be the youth, Would write the news about the things we have to lose? Who would we find the time To enjoy their lives And not divorce their wives If we were all wiped out? We all are slowly blind To the fact that we are being lied to lying Not you not me but that other guy Can’t you see that other guy hidden up behind the booth? He is pulling strings like a dentist pulling a tooth. So don’t listen to the other guy Find your own opinions. By now all the Mayans have died. Jason Segal

Ode to Romanticism We walked down 12th Street, Del Mar as the salty air turned our sweaters gritty and our brown hair heavy. We reached a dead end at a cliff, a misty sprinkler over grass, and a fistbumping bro Who we laughed off, assuming he was intoxicated, too (just in a different way) And she turned to me and said: “I think we’re romantics.” And I smiled, convinced, initiating my inner eargasm: Oh Whimsy! Oh Felicity! How e. e. cummings makes me… Come to terms with My Romanticism. Here, Her anthem: My Romanticism is not drenched in roses, Bedded in cheap silk and singing in tune to Toni Braxton’s greatest hits. Nor is she an odd ode (I only ever wanted to call Keats Kates for consistency’s sake). No—My Romanticism’s implication is a denotation, Conceptualized in bare bones, Leaving something wanting Wanting, In The Most Degrading Sense Of The Word. Crystal Long

MOUTH Jamie Franks

Art Anonymous.

In these next few pages, we have collected the work of those who inspire invisibly. Each piece of art--save a few--is by a differentâ&#x20AC;&#x153;Anonymous.â&#x20AC;? We salute them, for they are projecting true Mayhem.

The Boogie Woogie Bourgeoisie

Kid Eulogy ‘Elliot Raines was a troubled young man...’ A simple sentence, a blind consensus When deconstructed and left defenseless Is nothing but a useful euphemism: “Kid was fucked in the head.” ******************************************** I snapped shut my brown, leather journal and stared, fixated on the rustic surface. I had never actually noticed how worn it was. It must have been over a year since its liberation from my local Barnes & Noble. At first I felt the notion that I don’t write as much as I should, however it was quickly overcome by a whim of companionship and sentimentality toward my seasoned friend. I frowned. The familiar feeling of isolation and angst-driven cynicism (as recently expressed in my mediocre poetry), crept back down my spine and into the pit of my stomach. My best friend is a book? So be it. I lit up a cigarette, got up off the asphalt, and continued my careless course through a cloudy day in suburbia.

Just 65, rolling by the see, we sea, the sun, bright, peaking from under a low cloud canal, the sky a cliche clementine. suddenly a trail of trees obstructs our view. not knowing why, we speed to catch up with the setting day. a break in the foliage. the sea, we see, has swallowed the sunset. damn. we missed it.

Over-eager I saw a little candle in a deep glass cup, A little candle with a little hypnotizing flame, And when I reached to touch it, Hoping to singe the tips of my fingers off, It went out.

A Poem About You I saw you around today. The sky turned from gray to a nice sunny day. And And And Was And And

then I fell down the stairs, tore a gash in the tar, as I drove home, there a truck, its two doors cut ajar, its entrails spilled out, I wanted to shout:

â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is how a poem about you sounds now!â&#x20AC;?

I found this bunny in my neighbor â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s pool on Easter. It had drowned.

White Trash, part 2

White Trash, part 1

CCA Flash Mob 2010

Oasis --I love her aesthetically, eternally- Your eyes are bright blue green Like two small oceans I am tired, thirsty, dry; I want to swim in their eternity Eternally. An oasis: so close but so far away You- it-they are almost a hallucination less than a dream My mind is a desert until you But I fear the discovery of just another Mirage Rejection is like salt water to a parched tongue. An Ode to Nights Awake Begone the joys of day! And its garish laser rays! That shriek: “come out and play!” So shamelessly, no taste, no mystery, No intrigue behind faux-seductive pleas. No, night is right where I’m at home. Just make me a coffee and throw me a bone. The sun rises and sets in the same sixby-sixty sets. Nothing to look forward to, not a thing to expect. At 4 am, I begin to see shades of blue, And I’m still awake, But my memory isn’t slurred, And my head doesn’t ache. I’m content, I’m complete, With no drastic feats. I’m simply happy to make It through the whole night awake.

Hung Up On A Dream (Confession of a Dreamless Sleeper) I think of you, but only when my eyes are open And then again, half closed, in those three hours in bed before I can sleep. (You elevate my insomnia. I lose count of the sheep.) How do I know you’re buried deep in my subconscious, spelunking my id? I just do. (Or is it because you’re my De Ja Vu?) And I know it’s not very romantic but I dream of you when my eyes are open, If you can call it dreaming. (You are an opaque ghost and you haunt me wonderful, unknowingly.) Martin Luther King never said I have a daydream And no one ever told me to follow my trance And Disney never brainwashed me into thinking that a hallucination is a wish your heart makes But I’m okay with that. Partially because I can’t love unanswered, And partially because you are blind and we are two black sheep in the dark (Or better: two perfectly parallel lines that can never cross.) (Or better: two people singing the same song, But not to each other.)

Pride

54 $3>< on Fire (4D)

A Day in the Life of a Mouse

Milk 55

Table of Contents 2......Squeaky Clean ................................................... Jason Al-Taan 3......chicky chicky Pam Pam......................................................... 4......Father’s Epiphany Aboard A Metropolitan Elevator................... Zack Brown 5......Love Song of Zack J. Brown.................................................... 6......Onto Others.......................................................... Jimmy Cao 7......The Impossibility of Eve in a Logical Setting...................... Runtao Yang 8-9....Hari Kari, Amen................................................. Erin Osterland 10.....Gas............................................................... Christine Mi 11.....Still Life.................................................................... 12.....Hem.............................................................. Stephanie Guo 13.....This is [Not] Laziness........................................................ 14.....Aftermath....................................................... Panchito Lopez 15.....Chaos Theory........................................................ Matt Allen 16.....[Possible title: Graphing Calculator]............................. Sarah Scherk 17.....Two Souls and Seinfeld........................................................ 18.....Food Chain........................................................ Michael Nash 19.....Unfortunate Ascension......................................................... 20.....Palate Wind, Quaint Gluttony..........................Mindy Kral,Brian DeLuca, Michael Kinney, Leonardo Jappell..................................................... 21.....Insomnia/Narcolepsy................................................ Rachel Monk .......(Ode to The Shins’ lyrics)................................................... 22.....Sin.............................................................. Ashley Butler 23.....Carneval............................................................. Kat Anear 24-25..Dear Incandescent Unity, We’re HOME............................ Elliott Wobler 26..... I didn’t have no gator trap on hand, but this here is the best I could do on such short notice....................................................... Sander Dufour 27.....Rotten Eggs........................................................ Sean Hnedak 28.....Cycles............................................................ Maia Ferdman 29.....February 16, 2011................................................. Crystal Long .......Untitled..................................................... Brittney Meredith 30-31..Venus................................................................ Jack Kahn 32-37..Nim............................................................. Fearghal Casey 38-39..Untitled........................................................ Dylan Richards 40.....2012............................................................... Jason Segal 41.....Ode to Romanticism................................................ Crystal Long 42.....Mouth............................................................. Jamie Franks 43.....Art Anonymous................................................................ . 44-45................................................... The Boogie Woogie Bourgeoisie 46................................................................................ Kid 47............................................................................... Just .......................................................................... .Over-eager .................................................................... .A Poem About You 48.............. .I found this bunny in my neighbor’s pool on Easter. It had drowned. .................................................................. .White Trash Part 2 49................................................................ .White Trash Part 1 .................................................................. .CCA Flash Mob 2010 50............................................................................. .Oasis .............................................................. .An Ode to Nights Awake 51............................. Hung Up On A Dream (Confession of a Dreamless Sleeper) 52............................................................................. .Pride ................................................................... .$3>< on Fire (4D) 53...................................................... .A Day in the Life of a Mouse ................................................................................. Milk 56