Daedalus 2014

Dӕdalus, the ancient Athenian, created the Minotaur's famed labyrinth and invented wings so that he and his son could escape from King Minos.

Dӕdalus reminds us that we are all creators and all inventors.

Editors-in-Chief Maggie Carangelo and Alicia Kiley Art Editors Olivia Alchek and Samantha Smith Assistant Editors Tasha Kim, Ally Sterling, Alexis Stroemer Assistant Junior Editors Laura Guo, Lulu Hedstrom, Jubilee Johnson, Hannah Karlan, Allie Primak Kippy Ball Isabel Banta Alexa Beeson Sarah Better* Phoebe Bloom Lucy Burnett Julia Conway Paloma Corrigan Olivia Coyle Jo DeWaal Katherine Du Caroline Dunn Jordan Fishcetti Emily Fiorentino Sarah Frauen*

Staff

Courtney Frauen Ellie Garland Sarah Gold Erinn Goldman Sophie Hadjipateras Olivia Hartwell Maddy Howe Nola Jenkins Erika Kraus Natalie Lee Maddie Lupone Aina Maki Emma Morrison Alyssa Mulé Francesca Narea

Christina Normile Renee Ong Lindsey Pitts Serena Profaci Olivia Quinton Claire Robins Sloane Ruffa* Clare Ryan* Sarah Sheer Jordan Smith Charlotte Stone* Jane Zachar* Caroline Zhao* *Junior Editorial Board

Five times a year, Dӕdalus sponsors a Writer-of-the-Month contest. All submissions are sent by email and read anonymously by the entire staff.

In March, editors narrow the selections and begin production, which continues through April with art, layout, and page design. Through May the editors collaborate with our printer through weekly stages until our final assembly, where we read from the issue, show slides of all art, and celebrate!

Faculty Advisor Jeffrey Schwartz

Visual Arts Advisor Sherry Tamalonis

Printer Advanced Printing Services, Inc., Bristol CT Section entitled "...but the air and the sky are free..." from Edith Hamilton's description of Icarus' escape in Mythology.

Colophon 750 copies of Dӕdalus have been printed on 80 pound Endurance Gloss stock with 120 pound Nantucket Gloss for the cover. The text is set in Palatino, a typeface designed by Herman Zapf and originally released in 1948.

CONTENTS Front Cover: Watercolor & Digital Design Lulu Hedstrom Inside Front Cover: Watercolor & Digital Design Lulu Hedstrom Olivia Alchek Section Pages: Drawing Wings Digital Photography August Has Changed Me More Important Than Words Drawing Digital Design Smile Photography How to Watch a Summer Thunderstorm aspirations Digital Media Watercolor Anchored in New Bedford Perfect Collage Pottery Birdbones Collage Kat Film

Angie Loynaz Alicia Kiley Nikki Kaufmann Olivia Quinton Laura Guo Maggie Carangelo Jane Zachar Lucy Burnett Caroline Dunn Alexis Stroemer Megan Yort Kate Sands Taylor McDonald Catherine Jones Lizzie Fitzpatrick Alyssa Mulé Kelsey Krantz Serena Profaci Haley McAtee & Sammy Yorke

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 16 18 19 20 21 22 23 25

Labyrinth The Saddest Boy of the Northern Hemisphere Digital Design As the Sky Turned Purple Drawing Photography and Drawing Do You Hear it Too? Watercolor Circus Dreams Tribute to Lost Parentheses Ink Drawing Thoughts from 52nd Street Paper Cut Digital Design Left is the New Right Drawing Collage For Granddad Do Your Job Drawing Painting Screaming Josephine

Allie Primak Sam May Hannah Hu Paloma Corrigan Elizabeth Jones Caroline Zhao Alex Morales Katherine Du Erinn Goldman Catherine Jones Ellie Garland Renee Ong Maddie Lupone Francesca Narea Alix West Conor Winston Jubilee Johnson Jordan Smith Ally Sterling Laura Guo Jo DeWaal

28 29 30 33 34 35 36 37 40 41 42 43 44 44 46 48 49 50 53 54 54

United, Flight 991 Digital Photography Digital Design Monarch Drawing Ingrid N. Kinsey Photography Laser Cut Drawing Carbon Copy Cat Photography Janie in 47A Digital Photography Zephyr Paper Cut TV girl Film Digital Design Spraypaint Solitude Mixed Media Drawing Teeth

Mortals and Immortals Tasha Kim Samantha Smith Isabella Fiorita Hannah Karlan Angie Loynaz Maggie Carangelo Reid Guerriero Reid Guerriero Phoebe Bloom Alexis Stroemer Olivia Hartwell Kayley Leonard Alicia Kiley Jessica Yacobucci Isabel Banta Emmet Coyle & Isabella Crawford Sarah Better Lulu Hedstrom Lulu Hedstrom Alex Morales Allie Primak

"...but the air and the sky are free..."

Origami Yuge Ji For What It's Worth Alexis Stroemer X: I Used to Love Him Jubilee Johnson Collage Sophie Hadjipateras Collage Sophie Hadjipateras Collage Sophie Hadjipateras Pen and Ink Lizzie Sands Stars Alyssa MulĂŠ Marbleized Paper Jo DeWaal Athena's Dilemma Rebecca Dolan Cold Hearted Clytemnesta Rebecca Dolan Drawings Kayley Leonard The Immaculate Us Jubilee Johnson Drawing Sasha Fritts How to Make Harissa Jo DeWaal Photography Samantha Smith Europeans Head to Australia in Search of Work Alexis Stroemer The Second Hand Ellie Garland Sculpture Rachel Windreich Digital Design Jocelyn Lehman Olive Trees and Octopus Sophie Hadjipateras

58 59 60 61 62 64 65 66 67 68 69 72 74 75 76 78 79 80 81 82 83

86 87 88 91 92 97 98 99 100 100 101 102 103 104 104 106 107 108 109 110 110

Wings

August Has Changed Me Alicia Kiley The night melted over us like sweet toffee and I was picking what you called weeds, but what I called flowers and I said, “August has changed me.”

Maybe it was the extra hours, the extra light – maybe it was that July had moved too slowly.

You threw a flower at me.

“August hasn’t changed you.”

I curled myself into your lap, into a place where wildflowers overpowered the concrete, where people changed by the month, and I remembered that in January I didn’t know what love was or how much I would cherish a well-earned sunburn or how to weave crowns from the strips of grass that you absentmindedly pluck.

And you were there picking grass, and I was there picking flowers, and I was August and you were September, standing up, brushing the dust off your pants, ready to move forward.

Angie Loynaz 6

Digital Photography

You reached a hand down to me, to help me stand up, but I scooped up the ground and blew its seeds in your face.

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More Important Than Words Nikki Kaufmann I hate that I don’t know myself well enough to tell you about me. And I hate that I don’t know who I am, or what it takes to find out who I am. If I told you about myself I would tell you that I eat ice cream way more than I should, I make horribly cheesy chemistry jokes and that I like to go on drives when I’m stressed. But I really don’t think those minutia add up to anything because, quite honestly, they’re trivial. These characteristics are just sitting on the surface, and from now on I’ll dig deeper. So here goes.

I like the feeling of being loved. I know older people say that teenage love is an illusion, somehow concocted by the enormous array of adolescent hormones. I know it’s not. I don’t think adults have a larger capacity to love, that their relationships are any more real just because they are more mature. I think teenagers love more honestly because we don’t know what there really is in the world. Frankly, we’re selfish. It’s easy as that. But this selfishness, this innate ability to zero in on one person and give them everything we have, is what makes us so incredibly susceptible to love.

I know the Eskimos have something around thirty-two words for love, and that Sue Monk Kidd said through her characters in The Secret Life of Bees that we should have more words for love in our language because loving someone is not the same as loving Coca Cola and peanuts, and I think that that is completely spot on.

Love is when your best friend picks you up from the train station after a day of work and takes you out for Greek food and pays for the appetizer of hummus and pita triangles because you don’t have enough money. Love is when your mom allows you to play your techno music on long car rides to colleges in the middle of nowhere even though the colliding noises give her headaches. Love is when the boy that you’re dating puts his arm around you during a movie and pulls you close to his chest and kisses your forehead.

But love isn’t always just tzatziki sauce or car rides or 8

movie theaters with greasy floors scattered with popcorn.

Love is that feeling you get when you know words are rendered insignificant. When the absence of words is so much more important than the presence. I think saying “I love you” is pointless. Its main purpose is to reassure, not to actually express love. Those three syllables trivialize love. It’s so easy to say, but so difficult to really mean.

Maybe you were expecting me to write a couple pages about how my mom and I look like identical twins or how my dad takes me out for Brown Bonnets at Carvel during the summer, but I don’t think you really know someone until you know how they feel about love.

Olivia Quinton

Drawing

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Smile Maggie Carangelo When I think of Sarah I think of the extra cup of sprinkles she likes with her ice cream and how she can run a mile faster than anyone I know and the flyers she made advertising her lost cat Paprika.

And when I think of tattoos I think of people who don’t own proper running shoes (or cats) and how needles etch-a-sketch into human flesh and half-lit neon signs advertise filthy tattoo parlors.

It said “SMILE” in loopy cursive, and the worst part is that it was pink.

She could have committed and chosen something edgier, like the inky calligraphy of an archaic language.

She showed it to me on a cold morning drive to school when the blades of grass were still weeping dew, and her skin was still crying from the incisions, and I cried because she never found Paprika.

Laura Guo

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Digital Design

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How to Watch a Summer Thunderstorm Lucy Burnett To those who are not afraid: Start outside, but under a roof.

Feel your heavy hair cling to your back, Along with your moistened summer t-shirt.

Stare at the ground.

Watch as the rain freckles it, Soon, evenly turning Into several shades darker.

It’s about to begin.

You are ready to go inside, Quietly.

Feel the shock as the artificially cooled air Meets your humidified skin, But don’t shiver.

This is not the War. Move a chair to the largest window.

Grab a blanket.

Make a warm beverage.

But don’t drink it.

It begins.

Now, the hardest part: Conduct it.

Like Mozart.

Jane Zachar

Photography

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aspirations Caroline Dunn as of late, I have been wishing on eyelashes desperately, soft tawny curls floating away in the wind like dandelion wings kissing the breeze praying over smoking birthday candles pilfered from oozing cakes that celebrate the nameless, forgotten burning embers upon sooty wicks, tainting my eyes, their tears black as the nighttime snow the pennies, oxidized pale greens, no longer glint with opportunity as they soar beneath a disgruntled sky to slip between the mossy marble cracks of fountains to be pounded by the nymph’s proud jet the eyelashes and birthday candles seem of scant quantity now four-leaf clovers have withered along with the dandelions acorns cease their growth and ladybugs flee south and I have spent all my pennies even the stars begin to buckle flickering faintly they shatter, extinguish I can’t think of an electrician to replace them time paints ebony strokes of paint across the starry night

Alexis Stroemer

Digital Media

it only rains now and there are never any rainbows

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Anchored in New Bedford Kate Sands I was named after a whaleship. Or, more specifically, I was named after a great-great aunt whose father named a whaleship after her. Although the Kate Cory did not sail for long, as she was burned off the coast of Brazil only seven years after her construction, this brig is certainly symbolic of my ancestors’ involvement in the New England whaling industry. Despite the industry’s demise, whaling has significance for my family to this day.

Maybe my name was fate. I certainly like to think it was. But regardless of my name’s implications, I have loved American history for as long as I can remember. At age seven I could recite all of the American presidents, and at age eight I became a tour guide at the local historical society. In my fourth-grade yearbook I wrote that my dream profession was to work as an interpreter at Plimouth Plantation.

A large part of my early fascination with history focused on the history of my family. I spent hours drawing family trees, trying to determine exactly how people fit into the tangled web. I wanted to know whether my ancestors had come over on the Mayflower, had taken part in writing the Constitution, or had fought in the Civil War. My grandpa soon became my most valuable resource in satiating this desire to understand where I came from. As an expert on all matters involving family history, my grandpa spent hours telling me stories, discussing genealogy, and taking me to Plimouth every year at Thanksgiving.

My grandpa’s true passion was the New England whaling industry, and the role that my ancestors, residents of New Bedford and other Massachusetts seaport towns for generations, played in its evolution. Clearly finding a way to incorporate his passion for family history into the broader landscape of eighteenth and nineteenth-century America, my grandpa served as the Director of the New Bedford Whaling Museum for twenty-five years. He was an expert on subjects as diverse as the maritime painter William Bradford and the 16

migration pattern of humpback whales.

Despite its significance in my family history, whaling was not something I had thought much about until I got older – until my grandpa started losing his memory. His memory loss was barely noticeable at first, just the simple things like where he put his car keys or whether he fed the dog. It progressed insidiously, and eventually family members’ names became a problem and the local roads that he had driven all his life morphed into an unending maze. As my grandpa struggled to navigate everyday life, the immense knowledge that he had amassed over the years started to fade into a void. I was losing my greatest source of information and my kindred spirit.

This past summer I interned at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, the place to which my grandpa devoted the majority of his life. Working at the museum allowed me to immerse myself in a period and an industry that had a remarkable impact on American and global history, and to become more familiar with the legacy of New Bedford, and at a certain level, the legacy of my family. Yet the museum also gave me a link to my grandpa. Simply walking through the galleries and looking at the William Bradford paintings that he spent years collecting made me feel like I was a part of his legacy as well.

What I came to realize over the summer is that I love history for the connections it offers. Learning about the American whaling industry gave me a connection with my country’s history, a connection with a city, a connection with my ancestors. Ultimately it gave me a connection with my grandfather. Because even on the days when he can’t quite remember my name, he remembers that I worked at the museum.

Megan Yort

Watercolor 17

Perfect Taylor McDonald Go to school Monday through Friday and try your hardest; then on the weekend you can rest for a few minutes before you start working again; don’t get distracted from your work; don’t waste your time with boys; focus on college and your future; remember everything you do will affect you in life; don’t be the girl that everyone thinks is weird; but don’t be the girl everyone knows everything about; don’t be the girl who thinks she knows everything; but don’t be the dumb girl; don’t be the girl that is obsessed with her clothes; but don’t be the girl who looks ugly and disheveled; don’t be the girl who follows everyone else; but don’t be the girl who tries something new; don’t be the girl who needs a guy to be happy; but don’t be the girl who never has a boyfriend; don’t be the girl who eats too much; don’t be the girl who doesn’t eat at all; this is how you balance your time; this is how you shake hands with an adult; this is how you act around certain people; this is how you coordinate your outfits; this is how you avoid a fight with your friend; this is how you should apologize; this is how you should balance your meals; this is how you should look in a bathing suit; this is when you should post a picture; this is how long your hair should be; this is how many Mac products to own; this is how you play hard to get; this is how you screw up a relationship; this is how you look at a boy you like; this is how you look at a boy you hate; this is how you write for history; this is how you write for English; this is the type of shoe you wear; this is the brand of clothes you buy; always smile and say you are okay even if you aren’t; if this doesn’t work, don’t admit you have a problem – it shows weakness; don’t be too modest or no one will pay attention to you. Now how hard can this be? (after Jamaica Kincaid)

Catherine Jones 18

Collage

Sophie Hadjipateras Collage

Birdbones Alyssa MulĂŠ I tap my foot against the edge Between my chair and the floor And wonder why he prefers a girl Like a brittle-winged bird, All sharp beak and sleek slim feathers, Waiting for his push to soar.

I used to hate the unrelenting fall of rain, Forcing my thoughts away from him to the mundane.

I like the rain now, water that washes clean the world And leaves fragile birds heavy-feathered in their nests, Unable even to do what they do best: Float upon the wings of the wind, Content to fly upon the strength of others.

With my pen clenched tight in my hot fist And my foot tapping the sweetly sinister sound of rain, I want to be that rain.

I am the rain. I hiss and hiss through the night, While the sun watches, helpless, From the flat line of the distant horizon, Which glows dull red like a cigarette Left on gray asphalt.

Sometimes the rain, equal to the sun, Cleanses, and sometimes she destroys.

Sometimes she becomes so light and dapple-eyed That she soaks the penny-shining wings of small birds Until they finally realize, too late, That they are waterlogged, And that if they attempt to fly, They will fall from their nests and smash to dust, Mixing with the fertile soil made wet by the rain.

Lizzie Fitzpatrick

Pottery

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Kat Serena Profaci Chapter I

Kelsey Krantz

22

Collage

She talked like art.

I never really understood her, what she truly meant – and not for lack of trying, believe me – but she always made me feel something, like when you’re staring at a mish mosh of colors and textures on canvas and you can’t describe it but somehow they just look like the way a sunset makes you feel.

I remember the first day she came into town. No. I remember the first moment I saw her. I got a shiver, like the kind of shiver of pleasure you get after stepping onto the sunny side of the street because you were ‘chilly’ before. Does that even make sense? Either way, it happened, I’m not kidding.

But those kinds of shivers, the scary, ominous ones that you get when you’re swimming along in the ocean and out of nowhere the temperature plummets because you’re floating above one of the deepest trenches you never knew existed, and you swim the hell away from there because it’s not so pleasant anymore and who knows what kind of treacherous stuff could be down there, those happened later. I didn’t start getting those until she started telling me what I was constantly wondering about her, all those secrets that bound her wrists and pulled her strings like some kind of puppeteer.

But of course, I had to know her. What else am I supposed to do for fun around here? Anyways, she looked radiant, and I swear for a second I thought I was imagining her. I’ve lived here all my seventeen years and I could probably name everyone in this town, but what do you think, that I’ve got no life? For a moment I pictured a crown of daisies perched perfectly atop her messy blonde hair like it just belonged, and I wondered what the hell an angel was doing in a town like this. Was she lost?

Man, was she pretty. I swear that girl was destined for the big screen. She could have been anything she wanted, like some kind of Marilyn or even an astronaut for all I care, but 23

she had to move here, to a town so small you could throw a stick into the next county. In fact, this entire town could burn down and it wouldn’t even make the news.

It’s not all that bad though. My parents own the grocery store in town, and they work their asses off ever since that huge chain opened up a few miles down for God knows what reason. They want me to stay here and run the family business when they’re gone. I’ve never had the courage to tell them I’ve been saving up for college, but they’re good people, they don’t need to know that. Hell, all I have right now is enough for a bus ticket anyways.

And for what it’s worth, there is one thing that’s here.

The lake. And that reminds me. That’s where she comes back in – the girl I was telling you about before. I haven’t always been like this, no sir. Confident, charming, good looking as hell. And I hate myself for it. I hate her for it. I hate that she’s not here to see it. Kat gave me what I didn’t know was missing. No – what I knew I needed none of – knew I was better off without. Things were perfectly fine before she came along. Boring as hell, but fine in the sense anyone can find comfort in routine. And yet. Here I am, completely changed, and there she is – who knows where – not here.

Dammit, Kat, you can’t just come into my life and make me a completely different person and then leave.

It all started on a Friday night, the way any epic love story does these days. Maybe it was early Saturday morning, but anyways, this wasn’t instant love. In fact, waterlogged and pale as a ghost, she wasn’t even breathing at that moment when we found her by the lake.

Haley McAtee and Sammy Yorke Original music written and sung by Zoë Morris

Film

Chapter II

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Labyrinth

The Saddest Boy in the Northern Hemisphere Allie Primak “Damn those Africans!” he’d say, “they get all the sympathy. They’re the ones everyone’s sorry for.”

I never really knew him that well, but we sat together on the bus. He said his parents would sometimes pretend he wasn’t home. We didn’t have any classes together, so when we got to school I wouldn’t see him until the end of the day.

I liked school. Math was my favorite. On the way home I’d sit criss-crossed and balance my notebook in between the insides of my knees. He usually offered to hold my calculator.

I thought that was nice of him. Sometimes he’d even punch in the numbers for me.

The days when he didn’t punch, he’d have something to talk about. He was always getting himself into trouble. I think he went to great lengths to make himself sad. He had something to talk about concerning his dog, which he got from the pound but had only three legs and needed a lot of attention. He had something to talk about whenever some kids at school would steal his journal and give him crap. I didn’t really hear the names they called him because that was the day I learned about matrices.

In winter he’d never wear a coat. I brought him a hat one time we didn’t get a snow day, but he didn’t take it. I shrugged and kept it in my bag.

“In Africa,” he’d say, “they’re nutritionless and have rags on their chests. That’s why whenever I’m down, I get told to ‘think of the Africans.’” He outstretched his hands when he said that last part, and he bumped my elbow. The equals sign on my paper looked more like Pi now.

“Bullshit, right? I know plenty of guys who got to be sad without having to be a skinny black kid. Holden got to mope around the city. Remember Holden? Did you read that in your class yet? Those guys in the books don’t need Africanism as a reason. They have a bunch of other stuff that people get is valid. Scarlet Letter, ostracism. Romeo and Juliet, unrequited love. Why can’t those reasons count in the real 28

world? Bullshit, right?” I nodded and let him keep going.

On the first day of school, which is today, I have to sit on the bus alone. I don’t mind. I think he went away on foreign exchange. As I was tracing my finger along the graffiti scrawled across the seat in front of me, the one with “hellhole" written across it, someone behind me said that the kid with the circles under his eyes might have went somewhere south.

Sam May

Digital Design 29

As the Sky Turned Purple Hannah Hu I. The Beach You drove around in circles for thirty minutes, cursing intermittently throughout, before you found a parking spot. I grumbled; it was much too far. Dad yelled at me for being unappreciative because when he was my age his parents didn’t have the time or money to take him to the ocean. You told him to get off his high horse. As I stepped out of the car, the sun’s rays assailed my young, watering eyes. You witnessed this attack, and realized you forgot the sunglasses, and the bag that held them – the one that also held the sunscreen, bathing suits, and beach towels. You always were forgetful.

Dad raised his arms, exasperated, and declared that we might as well just go home. You scoffed. Nonsense, you’d just dash home to retrieve the bag and be back before we knew it.

Dad and I waited for you. We sat on a broiling metal bench in silence. I gazed longingly at our fellow beachgoers strolling across the parking lot; they would undoubtedly be splashing around in the cool, refreshing saltwater soon, while I was going to sit there. You were true to your word (you always were), and returned before the hour hand on dad’s watch got to its next interval. It was too late, though. By then the sand was overpopulated, and although we endeavored to locate an empty space to claim as ours, eventually we conceded defeat.

Exiting the beach parking lot, we were enveloped by somber air in the car. Enervated by the heat, I nodded off, dreaming about the day at the beach that never was.

I slept briefly, and when I awoke, you were just turning into our driveway. You opened the garage, but abruptly put on the brakes before entering. Look at the sky, you exclaimed softly, overcome by the magnificence of the occurring sunset.

Unimpressed, dad went inside the house. You and I though, we stayed. Hand in hand we stared, necks craned upwards, as the sky turned purple.

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II. The Dress You and Dad went to the department store to purchase Dad new dress shoes for work, dragging me along with you because the babysitter was unavailable. While you two bickered about what shade of brown was most appropriate, even though the difference between the two was indiscernible, I rolled my eyes and tried to count to one thousand. I had gotten to four hundred and eleven before you gently tapped my shoulder, signaling our departure. You had come out victorious, and we were about to leave the store with the shoes of your chosen color, when you saw it.

It was a bright red, knee-length gown that you would later say stole your heart from Dad. You reached out your hand and placed it on the dress’s soft fabric. You must have forgotten about everything else at that moment, for I had to call out to you three times before you responded, and even then you merely mumbled quietly in an unidentifiable tongue.

Dad took a glimpse at the price tag, and frowned. C’mon, let’s go, you have so much of that stuff already. Startled, you turned your attention back to us. Evidently embarrassed, with your face a hue of red not dissimilar to that of the dress, you nodded your head in agreement – the dress was unreasonably priced, and besides you’d never find a chance to wear it. You quickly walked away with your head down, refusing to lay your eyes on the satin beauty.

A week later, you returned to the store, but this time with just me in tow. You marched confidently through the Junior section and Athletic Wear, to where your treasure had been on display. Grabbing it, you headed to checkout, where the sales lady stated that you had made an excellent choice. Proudly, you nodded your head in agreement.

Dad doesn’t need to know about this purchase, you whispered, offering your pinky. I smiled, and linked mine with yours. You could trust me, as I always trusted you. Just like our pinkies, our faiths intertwined.

31

III. Hospitals You are getting weaker everyday now. They say we found it too late. It is at stage IV, or “metastatic,” and although I do not know what that means, I know better than to find out.

Sometimes I can take solace in the little I do not know.

It is not like they would tell me anyways. They always just stand there with Dad, their heads all leaned in towards each other, like schoolgirls sharing secrets – ones that my ears were not invited to hear. They talk in hushed tones, using terms that I can tell Dad does not understand, or cannot afford to understand. They are trying to keep me from overhearing, from knowing the worst of it. Like I do not already know that the woman in the sanitized hospital room with walls of stark white and artificial hydrangeas, although much bonier than the version in my fond memories, is you. Like I do not already know that you are dying. What could be worse than that?

For once in my brief existence, breasts are not funny.

stupid, never let you buy that dress you so ardently desired.

It was just a dress, he lamented. A goddamn dress. And now it was the dress that you would die not having because of him. I wanted to assuage his grief, to assure him you had gotten your dress. But I did not, because although a life may be fleeting, pinky promises are lasting. They are eternal.

Instead, I clasped his hand with mine. We remained still, not a word passing between us. I am not sure how long we sat there, but we were there when the sun began to set. I felt guilty – you had shown me the splendor of moments like these, and now I was about to witness one while you stared at white walls. However, my uneasiness vanished as the show in front of me continued. I feel confident in saying that as Dad and I looked on, the only thought in both of our minds was an image of you, happy and whole, in that sky of fading purple.

IV. Grief Dad took me for a drive yesterday. I asked him if we were going to visit you. He replied, no, we have no place to be, then put on the brakes and started to cry.

Months of unspoken grief poured out in his heartbreaking whimpers. As he cried, I observed his tears, the betrayers of supposed stoicism, as they followed the path from his eyes, curving inwards before finding his nose, where they would then dive off. It was beautiful.

When his weeping reduced to the infrequent sniffle, he began to speak. He spoke about how much he loved you, and how much he knew you loved him. He knew he did not deserve the love of someone so tender and so warm; it would keep him up at night. He regretted many things.

He never wrote you one of those mawkish love letters you swooned over, always commented on your flaws whenever 32

Paloma Corrigan

Drawing

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Do You Hear It Too? Caroline Zhao In the silence between us, my father began to hear the world crying.

It would never leave him – the perpetual sadness.

He tells me though that he reveres its presence “Son, that is when one can learn what it is to have a soul.”

Great men are difficult to understand.

For a long time I hated the silence between us.

Silence was ugly, it was black, it leered, it was cancerous, it was death.

What a price to pay for a soul.

Even so, I have begun to revere its presence too.

You have to want to listen to it, and then you hear it – a strange, beautiful texture.

Sometimes it cries, and you can hear the pain of the world in it.

It hurts to listen to it then – but you have to.

Elizabeth Jones

Photography and Drawing

Circus Dreams Katherine Du You stare.

Do not allow the shivering dust to creep into your eyes.

You will not blink this time around. His pearl-gray eyes, glittering with youth, were made for you to conquer.

“Look at me.”

The side of your mouth jerks upward, pulled by the string of his punching words.

“What do you think I’m doing?”

“Blinking.”

As if on cue, a shot of wind hungrily slices through the window of your railway carriage, biting straight into your unveiled eyes.

You blink.

You are back in your heartless uncle’s lair. The Ringmaster’s Car. It is three times the size of the eleven stable boys’ quarters – combined.

You saw his home once. It reminded you of a squashed sapling. There was a lone bed jammed against a crumbling, faintly maroon wall. You think that there might have been something else – slippers? A nightstand? A jewelry box? You are not sure. It was too long ago.

Your soul eats fire.

It feeds on it, a moth to a flame. You were born for the flame. You will die for it.

You are the phoenix.

You try to find him.

At dusk. After roaming through the city of cotton-candy vendors and intermission side displays, you finally spot him.

He is coaxing a Sabino to let a frail-looking little girl run her bony fingers through its mane.

You look over your shoulder. Besides the skeleton girl, no Alex Morales

Watercolor 37

one else is here, so you advance, gently tugging him behind a dressing room tent. He shifts away from you to see where the little girl is, but she has gone, so he steps back around to wrap his hardened arms around you so gently that you want to cry. You almost cannot feel his embrace.

The cold vanishes as soon as his warmth pools from within you like an oozing candle, burning vigorously in the dying firelight.

Together, your eyes comb the sky for her jewels.

“They’re pebbles of fate, you know.”

You nod, hair bristling under his whiskers. He silently smiles at you. You smile, too.

Because you remember now. It was the jewelry box.

Today, the Ringmaster discovers your greatest secret.

It is furiously pouring. You don’t know the Ringmaster is in the stable carriage assessing an Indian elephant, so you arrange to meet with the stable boy there.

He caresses a flyaway hair from your face. You devour his mouth with yours.

And the Ringmaster sees it all. Where is the fire now?

You have nothing anymore.

Sometimes you wonder if this is what the Ringmaster suffers through every day. It almost makes you empathize with him, except for the fact that empathy requires the presence of a heart.

Yours has been locked away into the jewelry box that disappeared along with the stable boy.

“Please, please give it back to me,” you beg him in your dreams, though somewhere inside, you know it’s useless.

Even if you ever got hold of that box again, there would no longer be a key to open it with.

Today, you will discover yourself.

The Ringmaster has decreed that you will breathe fire in tonight’s performance. It is by far the most unsound act 38

the circus has ever performed, but that doesn’t matter; thrill is what the white-hot flame of the Ringmaster’s soul feeds upon.

Tonight, you will flirt with death. But tonight, you are also a phoenix: From the fire’s ashes will you be reborn.

The fuel is in your mouth.

Your feet cling to the fire-lit baton. The ribbons ensnaring your wrists pirouette you higher. You are rising, rising, unstoppable, and you can vividly see the whites of all the audience members’ sickeningly fascinated eyes by your torchlight.

Your uncle is just another set of those blank eyes.

Now your life is in your hands. What you will do with it is your choice. Your alone.

You inhale.

You spray the fuel over the torch.

You breathe fire, flying.

Tribute to Lost Parentheses Erinn Goldman So many parentheses left undone hanging open Waiting like an inhaled breath Like that moment after lightning flashes And you’re waiting, counting numbers One-two-three-Mississippi And the thunder is about to clack Those remote parentheses sighing under heavy frontloads of words So here is a tribute to so many parentheses left undone ) closed Catherine Jones

Rene Ong 40

Ink Drawing

Paper Cut 41

Thoughts from 52nd Street Ellie Garland Sometimes I don’t recognize my own feet as they tread methodically on the city sidewalks, the soles of my shoes studded with cigarette butts and expired coupons.

My feet move differently here, more wind-up toy than human, plowing ahead in an unwavering line with a domain of zero to infinity, even though my thoughts are not functions and swerve like bumper cars.

Most people don’t fear a mug or a murder with each solitary step.

But most people on the streets are not sheltered suburban girls who only pretend to understand the grid system.

When I walk with my head down, I'm not really getting anywhere.

I should have taken the pamphlet from the man standing in the cold whose wizened fingers extend hopelessly with a flimsy sushi menu.

I should have put three quarters in the scuffed bowler hat of the violinist who only plays out of tune because his instrument was borrowed from a high school band room fifteen years ago.

Renee Ong

Paper Cut

I should have smiled back at the man selling hot pretzels because he has no teeth but still flaunts his good humor.

I should have, but I am no native.

42

43

Left: The New Right Francesca Narea The Honorable Jim Himes,D-Conn.

119 Cannon House Office Building, United States House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 Dear Congressman Himes, I am writing to you in the interest of an estimated 30 million marginalized Americans, a whopping 10 percent of our population, who have long struggled in the shadows. They represent an under-recognized minority not currently protected under anti-discrimination laws. They are victims of a world that refuses to accommodate their defining attribute, a genetic trait inherent to them by birth – left-handedness.

Tell me, Congressman, have you ever been asked to cut a piece of paper and failed to do so because the sheet crumples between the edges of a scissor? Have you experienced graphite-stained hands after hand-writing essays, awkward handshakes, or bumping elbows while eating? Have you ever endured discomfort and pain from a normal writing desk, rather than a “lefty desk,” because of the lack of an armrest? Have you ever drawn blood by simply performing the mundane kitchen task of opening a can, which might as well be a lefty-specific torture?

Your Wikipedia page says you’re a righty, so if I had to hazard a guess as to how you would respond to the questions posed above – no, no, no, and that’s right, no. You may be a Democrat, but you don’t know the left like I do.

You and other lawmakers have ignored our plight. Equally, the mainstream media cares more about the ups and downs of Lindsay Lohan than the complex existence of our law-abid-

ing left-handed minority. I think I can speak for all lefties as someone born with this handicap – it is a worldwide issue.

For centuries, lefties have been discriminated for their use of a different hand. Long ago it was well-established that lefties do not have the mark of Satan but, still, the world is not suitable for us. In fact, it is dangerous. In response, I have carefully formulated the enclosed bill, calling for left-handism equality.

113th Congress 1st Session In the House of Representatives January 1, 2014 A BILL To ensure equal rights and security for lefties who live in danger due to everyday items and activities designed for the right-handed dominance.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled: SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as “Ending Discrimination of Lefties and Amputation of Right Dominant Hands.”

SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS. In this act: LEFT-DOMINANT PERSONS – those who use their left hand for more than one daily activity.

RIGHT-DOMINANT PERSONS – those who use their right hand for more than one daily activity.

2015 INTERNATIONAL LEFT-HANDERS’ DAY – August 13th, 2015.

SEC. 3. SECURITY. DESIGN PLANS – Any design plan (including building Maddie Lupone

44

Digital Design 45

blueprints, cellular phone models, can openers, etc.) must be tailored for Left-Dominant Persons so they will not bring harm upon this minority. If not, see the subsequent number in this Sec. 3.

WARNING SIGNS – If the previous requirement is not achieved, manufacturers must use labels to warn of any potential dangers that Left-Dominant Persons may encounter in using products designed for Right-Dominant Persons (e.g. diagrams of the choking, electrocution or decapitation of Left-Dominant Persons).

ACCIDENTAL EQUALITY – According to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Left-Dominant Persons are more likely to get into car crashes and other accidents, since automobiles have been designed by Right-Dominant Persons for Right-Dominant Persons. Left-Dominant Persons will be given leeway in accidents that have occurred due to Left-Dominant Persons vs. Right-Dominant Persons issues.

As well, in health care coverage, Left-Dominant Persons must never be denied coverage due to their hand dominance, even if individuals may believe this is a disability or pre-existing condition.

SEC. 4. ESTABLISHING EMPATHY. All Right-Dominant Persons over the age of 18 must have their right hand amputated so they may experience the struggle of a lefty in a world that those of the other hand created.

This is an efficient way to establish empathy for left-dominant invalids in right-handed society. Local hospitals must prepare for the influx of amputation procedures. The amputation will be done free of cost to those who have signed up for the recently-enacted “Affordable Care Act.” SEC. 5. IMPLEMENTATION All amputation procedures must be completed by the 2015 International Left-Handers’ Day. All design plans after the 2015 International Left-Handers’ Day, must have safety precautions for Left-Dominant Persons.

NOTIFICATION – A website will be designed for Right-Dominant Persons to sign up for their amputation procedure. This website will also notify citizens of the closest hospital and earliest date for amputation.

FEES If an individual has not completed the amputation procedure by the 2015 International Left-Handers’ Day, a fee of $500 per month will be imposed. After the 2015 International LeftHanders’ Day, if design plans are not safe for Left-Dominant Persons, a fee will be imposed based on percentages of any future revenue for those designs.

Congressman, I implore you to muster bipartisan support for this proposal, a matter of humanitarian importance, in spite of our divided House. While the proposal is modest in comparison to the dangers that left-handers face daily, I think that the implementation of these requirements will work towards a world of equality, where the lefty minority can feel safe to conduct their daily lives.

My proposal is not simply for the current generation of lefties. It is for our country’s unborn children, who will one day draw their first picture with a crayon in their left hand and soon discover that they will be relegated to a life strewn with daily dangers and discrimination.

It’s time to make amends. This all starts with you and me.

Amputate your right hand today and let’s make the world right, by making it left.

Sincerely, A Committed Lefty

Alix West 46

Drawing 47

For Granddad Jubilee Johnson In a borough called the Bronx inside of a building on Walton Avenue where there’s an apartment labeled 5pn a man lived whose skin was brown like coffee beans and he’d stand in front of the stove above a skillet of conk fritters (they were frying in hot oil) and he’d eat, and afterwards place himself in quest of a coin to be used as a suitable tool for the removal of that promising silver film that covered the winning numbers of New York’s scratch offs.

And suppose all he had was a dollar and a dream and then suppose he didn’t become that mega-millionaire.

There were always the Yankees to watch in front of the television whose broadcast was coming from the stadium located on 161st Street.

And think about that man, who never got rid of his accent because he came from Belize to a borough called the Bronx and think about him in his guayabera shirt in that back room with records no one could turn off remembering Frank Sinatra and the Yankees.

What did we ever do for this man?

Conor Winston 48

Collage 49

Do Your Job Jordan Smith June 10, 2009 Written Testimony for State of Wisconsin vs. Parr They went in at 1:00 am. I remember because Chank was a control freak and wanted to know exactly how long the whole thing took so he could tell everyone about it later. I remember the black ski mask was itchy. And it was definitely too small.

The mouth hole was more of a nose hole and the frayed hem rested just above my lips creating a perpetual itch. I didn’t want to be there. But I had a job to do that night. That’s why I was there. I had to do it.

I kept snapping my fingers. It was the only other sound that night, save for the constant drone of the cicadas. Looking back, they were always my closest companions at night.

I remember as a kid, lying in bed after Mom had turned out the lights. The cicadas were like a band, a bug band. And they were all playing the same instrument. I glanced at the clock again, it read 1:02. The two little red dots between the 1 and the 0 pulsed and I tried to match my heartbeat to it.

My finger started to ache from the constant snapping but I had to keep it up. It’s a nervous habit, really. That’s the way I always deal with the frights. Joshua and Ben used beer to calm themselves down earlier that night. Chank didn’t have any nerves to settle and I can’t remember what Freddie and Karl did anymore.

1:03 now. I can’t decide if time had passed slowly or quickly. Not much had happened in those first couple of minutes. I remember the little things, mostly. A car drove by. The light from the 7-11 shined, the lone beacon on the parkway. The hula girl key chain swayed (my cousin gave it to me for my birthday a year ago). The beer that spurred the whole crazy mess churned in my stomach. I didn’t want to be there. Not at all. It wasn’t what I had had in mind for my senior spring. But we all voted to do it. And I didn’t want to be the one singled out as a coward, so I agreed to do it.

50

So they gave me the job of the driver. Keep the car running, your foot on the gas, and be ready to drive when we come out. That’s what Chank had said, like he’d done it before. He probably had. No one knows what he did before he transferred; he never talked about it. I distinctly remember it being 1:04 when the trouble really happened, to me at least. It finally sank in that this wasn’t some dumb thing we decided to do for kicks after a drink too many, but that this was real.

And it wouldn’t go away.

I recall hearing a gunshot. Then a pause. Then two more.

One right after the other. I can’t tell you who shot at what. I was sitting in the car the whole time, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles. That was my only job. Sit in the car. Be ready. And wait.

Joshua was the first to run out. He had a sandwich bag filled with money. It looked like mostly coins, and they weighed him down as he ran. Then Ben and Karl came out.

Ben was covering the back of his head with his hands. Karl kept looking behind him, back into the store. Their masks covered their faces so I couldn’t tell you what they were thinking. Then came Chank. He had taken his mask off. He didn’t run out, he strutted out, like some demented peacock.

And he kept shooting into the store. Once, twice, I lost count.

I remember the car door being pulled open.

Drive, they screamed. Drive drive drive.

I had one job after all, so drive. But Freddie hadn’t come out. I looked at them all in the back seat. By now an alarm had sounded, it hurt my ears. I never liked loud noises.

Where’s Freddie?

Drive.

Where’s Freddie?

Drive!

Freddie and I had met in kindergarten. Our moms were in the same church group and our dads rode the train to work together. Freddie came over to my house a lot and I to his. Out of everyone, I was always closest to him. I couldn’t just leave him behind. But when Chank suddenly switches his target from the store’s doors to your head, you do what 51

you’re told. I’m sorry Freddie, but I had to go, I really did.

I hit the pedal to the metal, I only had one job at that point.

It was 1:06. Another person came out of the store. I stopped hoping it was Freddie. Drive! But it wasn’t Freddie. It was the cashier. He looked about twenty or something. Just a couple years older than me. I remember he was wearing a red apron and had bad acne and a mop of dark brown hair.

Drive, drive, whattyawaitingfor drive!

He ran in front of the car and yelled something. I don’t remember what. He was trying to play the hero, trying to stop us. He looked scared though. The fear in his eyes was obvious. Was he brave or stupid? Probably both. It’s a tricky combination, being brave and stupid. Kind of like Chank. I couldn’t drive, not with him in front of me. I couldn’t do my job.

Drive! Chank was sitting behind me. He reached forward and shoved my leg down, hard. The car accelerated.

I remember driving forward and then a terrific bump, and we were all suspended in the air. Free falling. And then Chank. I don’t remember the rest. I swear, I just don’t remember. The fourth officer I met told me Freddie was grazed by a stray bullet (most likely Chank’s). He also said I hit the cashier with my car. That he was dead. I was the one who hit him. I was responsible. Yes, Chank hit my leg. I can’t deny the truth. But it was still my fault. Because I was the driver.

I didn’t want it to turn out this way, not at all. I just wish it was a dream. That I had never met Chank, never drank his beer, never allowed any of this to happen. Just know that I’m sorry. I had one job. And I did it.

Ally Sterling 52

Drawing 53

Screaming Josephine Jo DeWaal Twisting, strangling the trellis with a woody stem as thin as cotton thread.

Wrapping, choking a garrote on the rose bush sprouting thorns.

Buds like hands closed in prayer aim upward to heaven for warmth – or so she says.

Six-pointed stars in velvet purple, more blue than crimson, rush to become saucers suspended in air.

Can you hear her?

Laura Guo Painting

Mortals and Immortals

United Flight 991 Tasha Kim I have an irrational desire to kiss you right here, now.

You are a complete stranger and yet this proximity lends a feeling of familiarity that is hard to find these days, I think.

And when you move to turn the page of your book, your right elbow grazes mine, sleeves brush and something connects in the space between you and me.

You have faded jeans on and I can’t quite decide exactly where you might have come from.

Spain I think, but no, it might as easily be Brazil.

But we are both up here – 32,000 feet above the snow-dusted cornfields below and I wonder what exactly led you to this flight, why today, together, here.

You have fallen asleep now and your head leans precariously in my direction, hair swept into the soft creases where ear meets the tanned side of your cheek.

And I look at your thick, dark eyelashes, the fading daylight flickering across your brow and I have an irrational desire to kiss you.

Samantha Smith 58

Digital Photography 59

Monarch Hannah Karlan

Isabella Fiorita

Digital Design

I felt the familiar numbing sensation of an oncoming headache.

The day was relaxing into that beautiful hour when the sun is just about to set. The sun poured in through the window and cut across the room in a single blade of light. In the path of the beam of light was a map of the United States, the kind that you use a penny to scratch out the places you’ve visited, hanging crookedly on the wall of my bedroom. The Northeast sparkled in the afternoon sunlight, each glittering speck a reminder of the constricting walls around me.

Random splotches of color, indicating a scratched-out state, spattered the map like an artist’s palette. I lay sprawled out on the white-painted wooden floor next to my bed listening to Bob Dylan’s “Tambourine Man” play softly in the background on the stereo.

I shut my eyes tightly, trying to squeeze out the pounding rhythm of my skull and make it disappear forever.

Isla didn’t believe in medicine, so we never had any aspirin around the house, and by then I’d just grown used to letting my body figure out its ailments. Junior, my little brother, tiptoed into the room – he knew not to bother me on one of my Bad Days. He wore faded blue jeans, a red Hanes T-shirt, and two socks with holes where the heels should go… they were all we could afford. His innocent face, sprinkled with freckles, held a peculiar expression of worry. Worry for me, for Isla, for himself. But always for himself last.

“Winnie,” he whispered with a slight southern twang. “I need to talk to you.”

“What is it?” I asked him, my words biting the air.

“Isla sent us something.” There was the headache. I sat up suddenly, then instantly brought my cool palm to my forehead when I realized that the room wasn’t actually spinning.

Isla. How can I even begin to describe her? You could tell her face was beautiful back in the day, but now was creased 61

with sun damage and leathery wrinkles. She had that same worried expression that Junior has all the time, but hers was a little different. I think she hardly worried about us kids at all. She worried about how she’d turn out with a house like ours, a family like ours, a yard like ours. I think she had bigger plans, once. One of Isla’s old boyfriends used to describe her as “too big for the britches she’s been given.” I think that sums her up quite nicely.

“What is it?” I inquired tentatively, my voice slightly softer now.

“I haven’t opened it yet… I was waiting for you.” I now could see the envelope in his grubby hand.

“Hand it over.”

Junior extended his hand toward me, surrendering the envelope. It was slightly yellow and frayed, but did not include a return address. Our names, Winnie and Junior, were scrawled on the front in pencil in classic fashion. Isla never signed anything in ink, unless absolutely necessary, because she claimed it’s “too permanent.”

The stamp, slightly peeling, depicted a monarch butterfly in mid-flight. I picked at the jagged edges, wishing that I too could sprout wings and escape. I hoped I was just still in my caterpillar phase. I looked up to see Junior staring eagerly at the mysterious object in my hands, waiting for me to rip it open. Instead, I delicately separated the seal of the envelope and shook it to unveil what was held inside. A photo. I picked it up from the floor, acutely aware of Junior’s hot breath on my neck.

There was Isla. She stood with her new boyfriend, Joe, in front of the Hollywood sign. She wore blue jeans, a T-shirt that I recognized as my own, a cowboy hat, and a beaming smile. Joe, wearing a stoic expression and dark sunglasses that hid his eyes, had his hand placed behind Isla’s back. I turned it over to see Isla’s messy handwriting and a note that read, simply, “Check us out! See you in a few. Isla.” The smooth graphite writing jutted out in some places and looped in hasty, exaggerated swirls in others.

I chucked the photo into the trash, freeing my fingers from 62

its cumbersome weight. The hanging configuration of the United States glimmered in the corner of my eye, beckoning me to finish what I’d started so long ago. My eyes scanned over each individual state, until they finally settled on the distinct, jagged contour of what I was looking for. I used my thumbnail to scratch at the metallic gold substance until each particle slowly fell to the floor to reveal “CALIFORNIA” in bold orange letters. See you in a few, Mom.

Angie Loynaz Drawing 63

Ingrid N. Kinsey Maggie Carangelo Ingrid once read that people with initials that spell out words are more likely to be happy in life.

Then why does everything taste so bittersweet to her?

If Ingrid were destined to be happy, then why had she spent two years pretending pink was her favorite color?

(Her favorite was always yellow).

She can't alphabetize, draw perfect circles, remember her lefts and rights, or frost cakes without getting crumbs caught in the icing.

She hates being called mademoiselle because, to her, it sounds like marshmallow.

She has to square numbers in her head (1 x 1 = 1, 2 x 2 = 4, 3 x 3 = 9) to keep herself from daydreaming, to stay focused.

She stocks her fridge with perfume because someone unreliable told her the cold maintains its scent.

And she makes constellations on her bedroom ceiling using plastic glow-in-the-dark stickers, just so at night she can look up and play hopscotch along the stars.

Reid Guerriero 64

Photography

Carbon Copy Cat Phoebe Bloom The instant she walks in, all Flamboyant Freckles and Vibrant Vermilion Locks – she describes them as autumn, no, not auburn – people start smiling and even laughing.

It’s not that laughter is required.

They just really want to laugh.

It’s laughter in a sparkling-eyes way, not a slight-sliver-of-a-crescent-moon-for-a-mouth way.

They weren’t laughing before Vibrant Vermilion arrived.

The song in the room is blasting loud, we’re blasting louder – we have to if we want our own made-up words to be heard above the music.

They didn’t even seem like made-up words the first time I heard her sing them.

It’s our song, both of ours.

We always sing it together.

We always laugh about it, but it has to be the right time.

She has to laugh first.

Today Vermilion is braided into pigtails, even though I declared pigtails inappropriate for any age beyond sixth grade.

But I was wrong, obviously.

I will probably wear pigtails tomorrow.

Reid Guerriero

Laser Cut Drawing 67

Janie in 47A Olivia Hartwell

Alexis Stroemer

68

Photography

My name is Calvin J. Fisher. The “J” stands for Jason. I live at 47B Voltea Road in Elmhurst, Illinois. The “B” means that I live on the second floor of the house. Janie Allen, who’s in my sixth-grade class, lives at 47A. She’s a nice girl, or at least that’s how my mother always puts it. We aren’t really great friends, because she doesn’t talk very much. But that’s sort of good for someone who lives right below your bedroom.

Janie’s mother and my mother used to spend a lot of time together. Then Janie’s parents started to fight and for a while living above 47A wasn’t the quietest place to be. Sometimes at school, I would notice that Janie’s eyes were red and a lot of times she didn’t have her homework or couldn’t take a spelling quiz. But I didn’t say anything, to her or anyone.

Something about Janie makes me freeze when she’s sad. I think it’s the way she sort of seems an inch or two shorter whenever there’s something wrong. Whatever it is, it really does make me uncomfortable. And like I said, we aren’t that great friends so it’s not really my job to do something.

But when things got bad down in 47A with the Allens, I couldn’t help but get just a little more interested in Janie.

Sometimes, if my mother was out shopping and not there to watch me, I’d go down the stairs to their floor and knock on the door. I’d hold my breath and wait, wondering which of them I might see in the small crack between the frame and the door before they undid the chain. I never told anyone, but if Mr. Allen opened the door I felt like the bottom part of my stomach had disappeared and I had to squeeze really hard to hold in my lunch. There was a heavy crease straight down the middle between his eyebrows and a scar on the left side right above his upper lip that always made him look like he thought I smelled bad. I think he must have just been smelling himself, because I had to remind myself not to hold my nose (which my mother says is not polite) when he got close to me.

“Hello, Mr. Allen,” I’d say, trying to speak quickly so that 69

I didn’t have to breathe in too much. “Is Janie home? I have a math question to ask her.”

“Sure, kid. Go on in. You know which one’s her room.”

Then I’d walk down the yellow hallway and slowly push open Janie’s door, ask her the question I’d made up, feel uncomfortable, say thank you, and leave with just as much purpose as I had come in with.

Although I was always afraid of Mr. Allen, I never disliked him until things got loud so often down in 47A that my interest in the Allens turned into more of a sick feeling.

My mother and I’d sit down at the green plastic table in our kitchen to eat dinner and right as we were saying “Amen” after grace, there’d be the sound of something smashing into a thousand little pieces or Mrs. Allen crying or the door slamming, the chain clattering around for a few seconds after.

So I slowly started to not like Mr. Allen very much. Then I started to hate him. And soon, I hated him so much that when I noticed he hadn’t been around very much lately and asked my mother about it and she said he’d left and probably wouldn’t be coming back, I felt happier than when I got that red bicycle I’d always wanted for Christmas. But I also didn’t really know what to do with myself after that. I had a lot of extra time now that I didn’t have to spend so much of it hating Mr. Allen and wishing he were gone. So I started something new.

I started to plan what I would do if Mr. Allen ever came back. My mother assured me that this was never going to happen, but I wanted to be prepared just in case. I planned for months, lying on my back on top of army camouflage sheets picturing what I’d say and how I’d make him feel as small as I thought he deserved. By October I knew word for word what would happen. I could see it all clearly, including how I’d be so brave that not even his forehead crease or his scar could make me stutter, not even once.

On Thanksgiving, my mother cooked a turkey all by herself for the first time since my dad died. She spent all day in the kitchen, wearing the apron I’d made for her in first grade that said “#1 Mom” except the one was backwards.

70

I sat on the sofa in the room with the TV, which connected so that I could smell cranberries and stuffing, watching the Oilers and the Lions play. I was going for the Lions, mostly because oilers don’t seem very exciting, not like lions. Every few minutes my mother would poke her head in and say something about how Erik Kramer must be the best looking quarterback she’s ever seen, and they should really play him more instead of Rodney Peete.

The doorbell rang, but I wanted to see the end of the Lions’ drive because they had it on the seven-yard line on third and inches. It rang again, and my mother called from the kitchen for me to unglue myself and answer it already.

I got up slowly, not taking my eyes off the TV until I had to turn the corner into the front hall. But before I could get there and undo the three locks my mother had installed after one of our neighbors down the street was robbed, the door started to shake. Whoever was outside was pounding on it hard and I stepped back, nervous. But my mother called again to hurry up and not be so rude to leave someone standing out there, so I twisted the doorknob slowly. It was a mistake.

Before I knew what was happening Mr. Allen was in our front hall, his hair matted and oily and smelling like the man at the gas station who helps you when your engine overheats. His face was red and his squinted eyes darted around our hallway until they landed on me with distaste. I swallowed hard, trying to ignore the stomach-dropping-out sensation I’d told myself I wouldn’t let happen if I ever saw Mr. Allen again. I opened my mouth, ready to say everything I had practiced, every word I’d planned while fuming in my bedroom right above Janie’s. Janie. I thought about Janie. I thought about Janie’s red eyes and her spelling quizzes, about how small she looked when she was sad.

But none of it came out. I just stood there, my mouth wide but absolutely silent, feeling about a foot shorter than I was.

And then he exploded.

I don’t remember exactly what he said because I think my whole body including my ears had frozen and gone dead in that moment when I couldn’t get any words to come out.

71

But I know he yelled and stormed into the kitchen and threw things and my mother screamed and ran to her bedroom and locked the door. I stood glued to the same spot in the front hall, my right foot about two inches to the left of a faded brown stain from when I dropped the plum sauce the last time we ordered Chinese. It’s weird how I remember that but none of what Mr. Allen said.

Then all of a sudden the insides of my ears got unstuck and I came back to life and heard footsteps running up the stairs outside the front door, which was still open. Two policemen rushed in and pushed me aside, headed for Mr. Allen. They grabbed him and told him he’d have to come with them, and not to worry because he wasn’t going to be in any big trouble unless he gave them any big trouble. But he didn’t want to go, he wanted to yell and keep throwing things so eventually they had to force him down the hall to get to the door, passing right by me and over the plum sauce stain.

They were struggling to get Mr. Allen down the stairs when I came to the doorway just in time to see 47A open a crack and Janie’s face peek out from just below the chain.

Her eyes were wide. She looked small.

She was just about to close the door again when Mr. Allen saw her and yelled out, “Janie Louise Allen, get inside this minute and tell your mother she’d better get out here fast if she knows what’s good for her. You hear me? I said now, Janie!”

The two policemen pushed him out and he disappeared, headed for the red flashing lights of the waiting car with one wheel up on the sun-baked curb. The door to 47A closed quietly.

I realized later that afternoon, after the game had ended and the Lions had lost, that I’d never known Janie’s middle name. Louise. Janie Louise Allen.

Janie L. Allen is one of my friends. The “L” is for Louise.

She lives at 47A Voltea Road in Elmhurst, Illinois. The “A” means that she lives on the first floor, right below me. We’re really good friends, even though she doesn’t talk very much.

Kayley Leonard 72

Digital Photography 73

Zephyr Alicia Kiley She lived in the town for only 6 months, yet she left a dusting of light perfume and recipes on sticky notes in her wake.

She moved on, but people still felt her in their hair and in their laundry, people she had never even met.

People who felt ever so slightly emptier without knowing why.

She had met a boy with a handshake and left him with a letter he wouldn’t find for a year, until the breeze had blown through the town again.

She had traced out six square miles in six months, leaving bits and pieces of herself as Easter eggs for people to find.

She hoped to return to a town that was still hers one day.

Jessica Yacobucci 74 Reid Guerriero

Paper Cut 75 Photography

TV Girl Isabel Banta “Get off the counter, Kim!” Khloe shouts as she smacks her sister on the arm. “You're so fat that I wouldn’t be surprised if you broke the whole thing!”

“Khloe! Stop, Khloe!” Kim’s face turns into an unmistakable Kardashian pout; the full lips turning downwards like slugs. I tear my eyes away from the screen with reluctance.

The clock on the wall has the small hand pointed at the eleven and the sky outside is as black as I have ever seen it. Time passes quickly when you’re having fun.

The room is silent except for the hum of the TV. When I turn off the television, the remote feels heavy in my hands.

It's like I am saying goodbye to old friends. My finger clicks the red power button and they are gone. It's such a part of my life that after I throw it on the couch, I have to check to make sure the remote is still there.

The house is lonely. This is when I miss Kim and Khloe and their stupidity. I don’t know why.

———— “Pass the peas, Amy,” my father says with a pleasant mien, his hands reaching across the table to grab the plate from me.

I have recounted my day for my parents: a monotonous lifestyle of “What grade did you get on that homework assignment?” or “Do you think Ms. Beverly is pregnant or just fat?” The typical, obligatory school recap.

Every day I seem to wander among my peers as if in the dullest of grey, never contributing inspired ideas or thinking of clever things to say. I listen to my friends talk at the lunch table and watch them chew with their mouths full of braces, all the while dreaming of something better for myself. I have long decided that the problem with my school is the people.

The girls talk about their older sisters’ boyfriends or their next tests which will probably be disastrously difficult, while 76

the boys mumble under their breaths about sports scores and dumb youtube videos.

Reality shows are not created with boring people as subjects. The Kardashians spend their days going to high-profile events in Los Angeles, while the real housewives of Atlanta have volatile arguments that become major arcs over several episodes. Their lives are filmed; they are paid to be themselves. The simplicity often astounds me. If a camera crew were to film me sitting at my dinner table, they would see a skinny girl with braces and stringy black hair. My father would be shown asking me to pass the peas, and I would be gazing intently at the melancholy wallpaper. People everywhere would watch me on their televisions, perhaps even in the mornings while they munch on their Lucky Charms.

What would they think of me? Would they think I was pretty or judge the way my mother shoves food into her mouth similarly to a python devouring a rabbit? Or would they idolize me and wish they had my life? Reality stars fill the gaps in our own dull lives by leading lives beyond what we can even imagine for ourselves. Who would want to watch someone as ordinary as them?

If I was on a reality show, I am not sure I would cast my family. I would have to hire parents who doted on me and didn't leave a pile of coupons on the kitchen counter or abandon leftovers in the sink. Plus, the walls would have to be painted something virbant- something that would reflect well off the cameras and look expensive. I would have to dye my hair too... probably blonde.

“What are you thinking about?” my mom asks (as she always does when there is nothing else to talk about) with an inquisitive gaze.

“Nothing.” I shove the last morsels of my dinner hastily into my mouth, scrambling to get out of my chair. The chair scrapes the floor as I push it back towards the table, though I cannot look at my family. They make me feel as if I should have something more worthy to talk about. I just don’t have anything to say.

The table is silent as I make my way to the basement.

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Against the clanging of utensils, I hear my mother ask my brother, “Colin, how was your day?� The stairs to the basement seem miles long, the television a light at the end of a tunnel.

When I reach the couch I feel more at home than when I am sitting with my family at the dinner table and conversing about pointless things. The blackness of the television screen makes me feel so empty before I dive for the remote. I press the red button and feel the rush of pure joy.

Emmet Coyle & Isabella Crawford

Film

Sarah Better

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Spray Paint Solitude Lulu Hedstrom I waited for you under the mangrove tree.

I think it was for three hours or so but I can’t be sure because it was the summertime and I never wear my watch when I’m not in school.

The branches split the sunlight into triangles and diamonds and nameless shapes that kissed my sunburned shoulders with porous shadows.

The dry weeds tickled my pinky toes as the wind tugged at my eyelashes and I lay back because I liked the nonchalant rhythm of things.

And still you left me waiting.

It was June. The days were longer and the Poinciana blossoms would soon show their vivid hue.

As the sun went down and the evening chill set in, the kiskadee’s calls of mockery transformed into an orchestra of treefrogs and the whistling of that Rastafarian man who spraypaints tree stumps and sells two-week old newspapers for a dollar.

He walked to the beat of an imaginary steal drum and scuffed against the dead grass with the soles of his barefeet.

You told me to wait here. And I didn’t think that you were the kind to go back on promises, but maybe that’s where I was wrong.

It was nighttime. The lights went out.

I realized how naïve I was to think you’d ever return.

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Lulu Hedstrom Mixed Media

Teeth Allie Primak I hid your postcard under my pillow like teeth.

I folded it in half, and cut out the part where you’d written “I adore you” like a disease, a mangled limb.

Because I was scared someone would find it and now I expect the Grand Canyon to have a big chunk missing from it in case I ever visit.

It works out well because if I ever need it, which I rarely do it is cool to the touch when I hold it and think about you.

It was a shame you were such a masochist and how every time I’d tell you how I felt, you’d think it was a hollow compliment.

You loved to be victim.

Sometimes in history when we talk about wars I think of you.

But only when it gets especially brutal.

Now that I think about it you’re my Napoleon.

Alex Morales

Drawing

I think I’ll find you one day on the side of Arizona with your face all bloody and palms all scratched up.

I think if I saw you there, a sweltering pessimist with an icepack heart I’d tell you I adored you too and ask you how you mailed it without a stamp.

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...but the air and the sky are free...

TH

For What It’s Worth Alexis Stroemer Her eyes fell downward on the assortment of coins cradled in her palms. This – this – is what she is worth. She lifted her gaze, surveying the street under hesitant pink of sunrise.

It had all looked different but a few hours ago; street lights creating pools of light every few feet and the windows of the cream terrace houses all black.

It was Monday, now, although it had been when she had gone home with him. Now early summer daybreak came and the garbage trucks boisterously made their way through the residential boroughs and men in suits all bleary eyed – plagued with the end of the weekend – silently made their way to the closest station. It was too early for communication.

Maybe that’s why she hadn’t said a word when he rummaged through his jeans, which were strewn next to the wrapper on the floor. He didn’t stand up to wish her off, just rolled over and reached backward and dropped spare change next to her.

“To get home.”

No make-up, no thrill. That dress that clung to her and made her feel proud and like a woman, suddenly felt cheap.

Those shoes that matched that dress dug into fresh blisters that burned even as she leaned against the bus stop. Her dress strap fell, and it reminded her of the way his boxers peaked from his pants. She had thought that it was cute.

As her hand opened, the change slid through her fingers, coins clattering toward a storm drain. Her feet left the sound behind her as they carried her home.

She would not be a tip jar. She would not carry his weight.

Yuge Ji

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Origami

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X: I Used To Love Him Jubilee Johnson The night looks like purple-black ink; a template so taut and stringent, right over the evening’s horizon. The smell of imminent rain penetrated the architecture of the building, and I wished that with the odor, the night would also offer me clairvoyance. Where was Xavier now? He never told me where he was going. And he’d never know what it felt like to worry like I do.

But in the beginning I never used to worry. I met Xavier at a party of a friend I no longer stay in touch with. I saw him from across the room, and he must have noticed me too because the next thing I know he was at my side. He kept me laughing all night with his remarks on the strange behavior on all the other guests – “And look at that woman over there, she – doesn’t even know why she’s here.” I liked his mischievous grin and kind of flagrant disposition. But now all that seems like someone else’s memories.

The first problem with Xavier was sharing my apartment with him. I kept telling him not to move in, not yet. Xavier was just so adamant about living with me. He wanted it to happen as soon as possible. He’d climb the fire escape to meet me, stand on the precariously-placed air conditioning box, and knock on the glass windowpane waiting for me to let him inside. I’d come out of the shower and see a pair of white sneakers drop land on the air conditioning box. The third time Xavier did this, I refused to unlock the window.

But when I didn’t let him inside, he swung one leg backwards and kicked in the window. Glass was everywhere.

“Did you see that? That’s what I call a fashionable arrival.”

“You can’t just break into my house! Xavier, you can’t just break in and enter!”

“I’ll pay for the damage, I’ll pay for it.” He approached me hoping for a hug, but I dodged his embrace, pretending to search for my phone. “If you gave me a fucking key to your apartment, this wouldn’t have happened in the first place!”

His dog, Malcolm, who Xavier had now let in through my 88

door, barked in agreement.

“Oh no! Don’t blame this situation on me! You’re a goddamn criminal, why would I want to live with you?”

“You wouldn’t let me inside, what was I supposed to do?” Xavier was coming at me, trying to corner me. And when he finally succeeded in backing me against a wall, I shouted. It was our first official argument and it soon escalated into something physical. I pounded, and punched, hoping to lay a blow in target parts of his anatomy. Xavier, though, didn’t try to attack or reciprocate, and I guess that was chivalrous of him.

“I said I’m sorry,” he repeated. I was becoming exhausted, my hits slowing down. In the next minute, I slumped against his chest, and he supported my weight with the strength in his arms.

“I don’t forgive you,” I mumbled into his chest.

“Can I move in though?”

“No.” I said, my voice muffled by the fabric of his shirt.

The next day Xavier came with a duffel bag and Malcolm.

I never wanted Xavier to move in. I liked him a lot, but I didn’t think it was a good idea. He was interesting, but there was a perilous energy that revolved around him.

But it wouldn’t be fair – to say that living with Xavier had been all bad. It was fun, in the beginning. Once, on a rainy Saturday afternoon, all we did was listen to music. We combined our collections, his being the more eclectic one.

We just sat on the wooden floor of the studio apartment, reminiscing about which songs reminded us of stealing our parents’ cars as teenagers. He made me laugh with the stories of his adolescent antics, and later danced with me as the shadow of railroad tracks from the subway outside passed over our bodies.

But pretty soon the party was over. And in came the drugs. I noticed them first when I opened a cookbook, thinking I would surprise Xavier with an extravagant dinner, and rumpled bills fell to the ground. The money hit the top of my sneaker, and I crouched, collecting the wrinkled cash while alternating between expressions of “Oh, Xavier” 89

and “Oh my God.” When he came home, I met him at the door.

“Explain this,” I commanded. Between my thumb and forefinger was the money. Coming into the apartment, he just glanced my way looking completely disheveled.

“So what?” He pushed me aside to get through.

“I’m not finished talking to you,” I yelled, following his retreating figure. “I want know why I found multiples of these all around my place. I want to know why you keep this from me.”

“Just leave it alone.” He stood in the doorway of our bedroom, frustrated and clearly not in the mood to fight.

“I’m not going to ignore this, so you better tell me right now.” I waited. He fidgeted.

“It’s just loose change. Some stuff I didn’t have time to… it’s nothing. Just don’t worry about it,” with that he entered the bedroom and closed the door. The only thing I could think to do was throw the rubber band bound wad against the wall.

He was a liar, and I wanted him out. Again, he tried using his charm, hoping that a grin and a tawdry piece of jewelry (bought off the street) would assuage my suspicion and resolve my vexation. But it didn’t leave. And neither did Xavier.

As much as Xavier enjoyed living at my place, he also liked to disappear. Sometimes he’d vanish for days, and I would assume he’d moved out. He became this figure that ate all of the food, and only occupied the apartment to sleep.

When I changed the locks, he entered through the window again. I’d recognize his arrival because Malcolm would bark enthusiastically, his loyalty unwavering.

I pitied that dog.

One particular time he came through the window and fell and brought down one of the curtains in the process. He managed to get up before I could help, but afterwards all I did was shake my head.

“Xavier, you need to stop coming around. Either that, or get your act together. Because it’s embarrassing. I’m embar90

Sophie Hadjipateras

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rassed for you.” Still he came back, but at some point we reached a mutual understanding that he no longer lived with me. The day he left, we stood in the doorway of the apartment. “I’ll get better. Next time you see me, you might not even recognize me. That’s how good I’ll get.” He pinched my chin, trying to cheer me up. He didn’t want me stressing over him. Though even after he left, it was some time before I lifted my forehead up from door. Xavier had been true to his word. In fact, he moved everything out. Except his dog. I suppose Malcolm was now my responsibility.

Sophie Hadjipateras Collage 92

Months later, I thought I was single again, my reputation unmarred by Xavier’s ephemeral presence in my life. I even had a boyfriend, Bryce. He was trustworthy. On a warm evening when we were together, I finally let Bryce come over. We were sitting in the living room talking, when all of sudden a familiar pair of white sneakers landed on the unstable contraption of the air conditioning box.

“Christ,” I muttered under my breath after hearing the rattling of the machine.

“What was that?” my boyfriend asked, startled.

“Jesus Christ.” I walked over to the window. Xavier was there, motioning for me to open it up. "Go away," I mouthed. Xavier pantomimed begging, over-exaggerating his desperation to get in.

“Who’s that?” Bryce asked. He was walking behind me.

“Nobody.”

“Open up!” Xavier said. I had to do it. I was afraid Xavier would invert another window. In one big jump, he landed inside the apartment.

“Who is this?” Xavier said, sizing up my date with obvious disapproval. He was always trying to be tough.

“Xavier, get out!”

“I thought you were all about fidelity,” Xavier said.

“You don’t live here anymore, and we aren’t dating.

Xavier, get out!”

“Xavier, she obviously wants you to go. Why don’t you just respect her wishes?” Bryce tried to be diplomatic. But 93

even though he was physically taller than Xavier, nothing compared to the larger-than-life presence Xavier brought to the room.

“I do live here! This is my house!” On cue, Malcolm came trotting toward Xavier, as if to say that Xavier was, in fact, the master of the house.

“Bryce, I’m sorry, but I need a moment with Xavier. I had a really great time tonight, but I think it’s best if you don’t get involved in this, just for now.” He nodded, asked if I was okay, then let himself out.

“Bryce?” Xavier repeated the name, raised both eyebrows, and smirked.

“Xavier! Please! Stop bothering me! You can’t keep showing up and ruining things! You don’t even live here.”

“But I’m all better now. I promise you I’m clean. Look at me. No glasses this time.” Xavier took a step forward.

“Please leave me alone.” Tears were in my eyes.

“I swear to God it’s over.” He reached out to touch me, but I jerked away.

“Just – don’t.”

“Believe me. I’m finished. Not any more. This time I’m telling the truth.”

Xavier kept saying things to alleviate my fury, and eventually sunk to his knees crying into my stomach.

Now I pitied Xavier more than I did Malcolm.

I shouldn’t have given in too quickly, because from there on out Xavier’s condition only exacerbated. His mood swings fluctuated rapidly. The evidence of his selfdestruction in his bloodshot eyes scared me. He wore me out. Sometimes he’d call and beg me to pick him up. To come get him. Against my better judgment I’d track him down, and upon arrival not find him in the spot he promised he’d be.

The last time I did him that favor, I recall the night being dark and the ground cold. In my car, I cruised the city, unsure if the Xavier I found would be dead or alive. Every alley, every abandoned street, and all I thought about was him.

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“Damn it, Xavier, where are you?” I hit the top of the steering wheel with the bottom of my palm, distraught, confused, and most of all, terrified.

The city was lonely at this hour. There may have been people outside, but I felt the harrowing sensation of being alone. I felt it right before seeing Xavier.

Two amorphous figures were on the sidewalk, and the minute I pulled up I knew that the taller one was Xavier. I got out of the car. For a brief moment, I didn’t think Xavier recognized me. But in an instant, a wave of familiarity washed over his face and he began to laugh.

“Get in the car.” I demanded.

“What’s the matter?”

“Just get in the car.”

“I love you.” His voice was hollow. That wasn’t really him talking.

“You always love me when you’re high.” I opened the passenger door.

“But I’m always high.”

Xavier started laughing again as he stumbled inside.

“That isn’t funny.” And I closed the door.

Going home we didn’t speak. I was convinced I hated him. Or maybe I hated the fact that I still loved him. Either way, the last thing I said to him before morning, though I knew he wouldn’t remember it upon waking up, was this: “You can’t stay here.”

I did this for Xavier too many times than I’m proud of.

Afterwards, I made a pact that I wouldn’t do this to myself again. It was degrading, having to bring him home and spend the night with him. Since when did Xavier’s safety become my obligation? Where does it say I signed on to be at his beck and call?

As Xavier continued, I reached the extent of my tolerance. I would wait for him to come home, and tell him once and for all that he either needed to visit a rehabilitation center or I'd slap him with a restraining order. It was so hard cutting Xavier off from my affection. Before, no 95

matter how bad it got, I had always reserved a small token of sympathy for him even after his most ruthless acts. I had somehow still loved him even after he stole from me and took the money to spend on his habit. Yeah, I had still loved him then. Stupidly, but truthfully.

I was at the kitchen table, polishing off the last of the black coffee when the intercom system buzzed. I pressed the listening button.

“It’s me.” A voice cracked.

“Xavier, you need help.”

“I know. I’ll do whatever you want. I will…” Xavier went on a tangent, a sort of apologetic diatribe where he ranted, almost unconsciously, about making up for the pain he had inflicted on me. “I didn’t mean it…I never meant to hurt you…I promise this time…” Then, he said he loved me. That was my opportunity to return the affection, but I was silent.

“Please let me upstairs. Buzz me in.” I cuffed my fingers under my chin, concentrating on whether or not I really wanted him to show up. For some reason I did it. I buzzed him in.

I waited for Xavier’s entrance, waited a few minutes, figuring he’d have to walk the five flights of stairs because the elevator was out of order. I was patient, waiting, not realizing that it couldn’t have taken Xavier, even in his intoxicated state, more than ten minutes to ascend some stairs. I worried, put on my sneakers, and flew out the door.

I hurried anxiously, skipping stairs until I reached the dark lobby that was lit up by fluorescent lighting.

Xavier was gone.

In his place, weighed down by a key attached to a string, was a metallic balloon branded with the celebratory stencil of Happy Birthday. I looked at my watch. It was one in the morning, and Xavier had, despite everything else, remembered my birthday. I put a hand over my mouth. I took the key, detached it from its string, and went outside. The helium within the balloon let it rise into the purple-black sky.

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Stars Alyssa Mulé During my childhood, my mother used to whisper: “I will love you ‘til all the stars burn out.”

But then what?

For everything fades, even fire.

Grinning so toothsomely, convinced of its eternity While I huddle to myself inside, Chafing my arms to keep warm.

If life had not predetermined my path, I would wind it against the side of the sky Into the belly of a star.

Female scientists with their long lab coats and rumpled ponytails Rub their work-dulled eyes As they debate about This celestial home I have chosen: A bright burning ball of fire, its definition littered With carelessly placed italicized Latin words And cautionary predictions.

I once imagined that a star’s innards Would be plenty heated, But the opposite has proven true In this unique case – My star expends so much light exuding outward That it forgets to warm the inside, leaving me Cold.

But not for eternity, no, Eternity: when eventually my star will gulp in the bleakness And pinch within, Preserving what little light we have left, Until we explode.

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Athena’s Dilemma

Cold-Hearted Clytemnestra Rebecca Dolan

Athena peered down from Olympus at her favorite Greek.

What started as mild preference had quickly escalated to an all-consuming attachment.

She had done everything for him – Pleaded his case in heaven Averted his death on the rocks of Scheria Fashioned his beggar disguise.

This divine intervention on his behalf had become habitual instinctive irrepressible.

But what had he ever done for her?

Finally face-to-face on his return to Ithaka, he granted her little more than weary hesitation.

But still, here she was.

Under the spell of a mortal.

And she would do anything for him.

Everything short of bringing him to the arms of his loving wife.

Rebecca Dolan I live in infamy.

My husband brings home a concubine, Yet I am the spouse branded with infidelity?

I loved no more men than my sister – Yet Helen bathes in the world’s adoration.

I waited – does that count for nothing?

For ten years I pined for Agamemnon.

Even Penelope most dutiful of wives contemplated the hands of her suitors.

But I finally accepted the inevitable truth.

How could I endure marriage to a ghost?

Orestes, why must you side with Agamemnon, that hypocritical hero?

Can the woman who gave you life So easily be expunged?

108 suitors would have been nothing to the goddess of warfare.

Had not their deaths bred the end of her hopeless devotion.

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Marbleized Paper 101

The Immaculate Us Jubilee Johnson You are not us and you couldn’t possibly understand what it means to exist in our skin. Your blood isn’t enriched with vitamins that command strength. Your blood doesn’t crusade from your aortic valve to nourish the skin it runs beneath. Your entire body cannot know what it means to beat like the rhythm of the djembe drum. Yes, we are all stardust. But did the particles that align your anatomy grant you a pigmentation darker than coffee beans from Colombia?

Is your melanin tough like leather, able to withstand any climate? You don’t know. You. Don’t. Know. The texture of our character is unlike any other. Nowhere else will you find an empire of people like us. Your stamina cannot outlast the capacity we have in our lungs. Even without legs, we will outdistance you. Without hands, we will reach farther. Give me a heart, and it will pump harder than any percussion.

Infuse my body with a mixture as complex as jazz. Taste the marrow in my bones, and you are tasting history. Travel the length of my arms, and count my agony and remedy. But do not equate your fascination for knowledge. Because even if I invite you home for dinner, you’ll still have to sit there and swallow a truth bigger than the grapefruit you had for breakfast. Even if I tell you to relax, I don’t mean for you to stay forever. Because you just don’t know. I’m sorry, but you are not us.

Kayley Leonard

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Drawings

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How to Make Harissa Jo DeWaal You first stumbled upon harissa a decade ago while working as a cocktail waitress in Miami. Of the savory bar snacks the lounge Club Blue on Collins Avenue offered, the biggest crowd pleaser was a basket of fries slathered with harissa ketchup. You left the job after six months because your purse was empty and your curly hair smelled like stale tobacco. Yet you never left the harissa.

Unlike you, your mother only likes sweet things. She is reluctant to eat spicy foods claiming indigestion and upset bowels. But her predilection for sweet food is linked to her belief sweet equates with pleasant and harmonious circumstances. Her simplistic attitude extends to her perception about the way you are running your life. Call it old-fashioned linear thinking, but your mother has always preferred her sweet plan rather than your spicy choices.

“The Miller boy is delightful,” she once said.

“That dolt?” you answered.

“Good breeding.”

“I don’t want to date a pedigree lap dog. A Springer Spaniel rescue is more my taste.”

The dialogue has gone on like that for years, your constant bickering weighted by its undertow of sweet versus spicy.

Of her versus you. Of you versus her.

The fancy tube of harissa had set you back ten bucks.

And ten bucks was a lot on an unemployed waitress’s salary. It was a lot for a very hot condiment. Imagine what your mother would say if she knew you were spending money on that. Imagine if she knew you did not eat healthy sweet bananas or creamy blueberry oatmeal as she did. Imagine if she knew you were shopping in a seedy neighborhood just to buy a condiment. Just imagine.

Boasting a gourmand’s palette, you relish the harissa's piquancy. You squeeze it onto buttery scrambled eggs. You add a dot to saltine crackers for a snack. One time you even swiped your finger over the end of the tube and sucked the 104

spicy paste from under your fingernail for an entire Matt Damon movie.

You are now at a crossroads. As a thirty-something, you have moved back with your mother in your childhood home in a small Midwestern town. You are forced to make harissa from scratch. The northeastern Illinois stores haven’t even heard of your spicy sauce. You tried eBay, but you didn’t want to shell out fifteen bucks for a small package of the paste.

How to make harissa appears straightforward on the recipe card. To create its spicy taste you need a dark green ancho chili, a red New Mexican pepper, and two fiery guajillo chilis.

Yet the only peppers you could find at the local Dominick’s Grocery chain are small sweet yellow chilies. You realize it is a sweet substitute for very hot peppers. But you have no choice. You toss the yellow ones in your cart anyway. The second ingredient you need is a clove of garlic. There are no fresh ropes of the plump, white, papery-skinned varieties you prefer. There is only a jar of a processed mixture on the shelf. It is a less than perfect substitute, so you place it in your shopping cart begrudgingly.

The next three ingredients of coriander, caraway, and cumin are not the freshly ground spices that tickle your nose and make you sneeze when cooking. They are the small glass bottles packaged months ago in a processing plant located somewhere on the West Coast. All the tangy wallop of the North African seasoning has been sucked dry from the fragrant seeds sealed in these bottles. Accepting defeat, you place the miniature spice bottles one by one into the cart.

Driving home, you glance at yourself in the rear-view mirror. You see a reflection of someone you used to know morphed with someone new. Your sky-blue eyes framed by kinky hair are the same, but the gaze peering out from them is clearer. The person who was once spicy and adamant has become focused and reliable. The person who took too many risks now channels that energy into volunteering at the animal shelter. The person who shopped in a remote Miami bodega to get harissa now makes the paste herself.

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Europeans Head to Australia in Search of Work Alexis Stroemer My ma didn’t want me to go.

She said I didn’t have to travel halfway ‘round the world.

But this Emerald city of sprawling, too-green pastures holds No future for this underpaid Dorothy.

I found my way over sea and land upon Not a yellow brick road but a Gold Coast to find The same job but with the novelty, not of place but Of my name because the Bruces & Sheilas can’t nail the Gaelic.

I left my family to work in a knock-off of any pub on my street, But here the Guinness is bitterer when There are no old men to warm their corner with the history of their very spot.

Tonight, When I walk that yellow brick road Not through poppies but sapphire Pacific under watercolor skies, I will have had too much of the sun, Aching for short, damp days that make my knees creak, Tired of drought and dirt and warmth.

Tonight, I click my heels and wish for home.

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Photography 107

The Second Hand Ellie Garland There aren’t any clocks at an Old County Fair, but there aren’t any fairs either, not in suburbia, not in metropolis.

No fairs, but plenty of clocks.

Too many, that tick and tick and tock and tock until all people talk about is the tock of the clock and quadruple check that it still is 7:32.

Timekeepers or time addicts, we’re controlled by the seconds, the ticks, the tocks turned into automatons, golems, robots because we care too much about the nefarious neon numbers, the ugly square six that looks just like the boxy eight and the second hand that always moves too slowly or too quickly to satisfy our liking.

People used to care less about the second hand.

At the old clock-free county fairs, cotton candy touched lucky penny lips, dirty fingers dug into buttered popcorn, red lipstick stained salt and pepper stubble, children screamed at the top of a Ferris wheel and released balloons – that floated up and up and up, infinitely up.

Their heartbeats synchronized with the music and magic of the fair instead of beating tick tick tock tock like the clock.

And nobody missed the second hand.

Rachel Windreich

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Sculpture

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Olive Trees and Octopus Sophie Hadjipateras I come from a place where olives trees grow in dry dusty dirt Old men stand in the sea by the port and beat octopuses against the rocks, their pants rolled up and their beards speckled with salt Old ladies dressed in black sit outside white clay houses in rickety wooden chairs which don’t quite balance on the uneven cobblestone street And at the end of a cobblestone street is a white house with a white gate and a sign reading

ȆȇȅȈȅȋǾ ȈȀȊȁȅȈ The first time I opened that gate, I needed to stretch up on my tiptoes and slide my slim wrist through the bars to unlock it Greeted by a German Shepherd pushing his weight into me, tail wagging and his dry pink tongue licking the salt off my little arms In the garden sitting on top of the beige dirt was a lime green swing set My grandmother used to sit there with me before her brain became dry and her eyes dusty Her legs didn’t reach the ground just like mine Her plump body hunched over and the gaze from her brown eyes shifted between staring at the dirt and looking me in the eye I told her I loved her as we slowly rocked back and forth staring at the dirt below us “Why?” she replied And the conversation ended Jocelyn Lehman 110

Digital Design

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