Retrospect Volume 2 May 2015

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retrospect An Arts and liter ary Journal of thE Osborne Writing Center

Please join us for the Fourth Annual

October 29-31, 2015 Featuring

Alexandra Fuller, Sarah Kay, Naomi Shihab Nye, Jamaal May, David Giffels, and more.

Festival logo by Brady Furlich ’15

Osborne Writing Center

The William McKinley and Jessie M. Osborne Writing Center Fund, the endowment that supports Hathaway Brown’s Osborne Writing Center, was established in 2001 by Virginia Osborne Charman ’41 in memory of her parents. At its core, the endowment is intended to support an atmosphere at HB in which student writing can originate and evolve. The entire school community is indebted to Mrs. Charman and is grateful for the outstanding programming that has been launched as a result of her generous philanthropy, including the publication of this annual arts and literary journal.

In 2015, Retrospect was awarded a Superior ranking—the top prize in Ohio—by the National Council of Teachers of English, and many of the publication’s contributors and editors received regional awards and national medals in the Scholastic Art & Writing Competition.

For more information, visit www.hb.edu/write or contact Osborne Writing Center Director Scott Parsons at sparsons@hb.edu.

Dear Reader In the body of work that follows, you will find varying expressions of voice, of emotion, and of truth. Within these pages are voices that have not yet been heard by the Hathaway Brown community; we know they will be welcomed with open ears and minds. You’ll also discover emotions that are familiar to you, and ones that are new and exciting – feelings that are undiscovered and up to you to find. Lastly, there is truth in every word you will find here.

These truths are the most important part of Retrospect, as they allow every writer to express the knowledge that they know, and more importantly, the truths that they seek. We hope that you, in turn, will find your own truths, whether it’s from the remarkable art, photography, or writing within these covers.

Until next time, The Editorial Board

Back (l-r): Hannah Yahraus, Madeleine Schroedel, Brady Furlich, Emily Amjad Front (l-r): Li Stebner, Sunny Roy, Sam Keum, Bridget Babcox, Sue Roy, Lexi Anderson www. h b i n r e t r o s p ec t.co m

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table of contents 22

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06 Are you happy? I guess so.

by Kat Holleran ’16

ON THE COVER Fading

by MacKenzie Hridel

Identity Color #240: Honey Blonde

by Becca Lambright ’15 Sweater by Lauren Kahn ’15 Cyclical by Bessie Toohey ’15 Through a Window, Pain

by Owen Healey ’16 Halfbroken by Maaryah Malik ’16 Heritage by Christine Espinosa ’15 Romper by Diana Muha ’15 Land of the Free by Julia Armitage ’16 My America by Christine Bashour ’16 Mirror by Lizzie Crotty ’16 Graphic Self by Emily Imka ’15 Homage to Emily Dickinson

by Lauren Leizman ’15 My Mother’s Shoes by Kacey Gill ’16 Piper Brown by Maddie Brown ’17 Colored by Ronda Kyle ’15 Warrior Woman by Jamie Spain ’15 The Weight of Antagonism

by Francesca Ferri ’16 Disappointment by Sayble Bradley ’15 I Read by Zoë Solt ’17 Getting to the Core by Li Stebner ’15

Movement

18 When is life not a race?

by Sunny Roy ’15 Via Tornabuoni by Bridget Babcox ’15 Reflections by Madeleine Schroedel ’15 Phantom Limb by Emily Imka ’15 Knot Your Average Rope

by Evie Schumann ’16 The clock will tick on. Always.

by Katie Raguz ’16

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65 If You Knew by Carly Wellener ’17 Tambourine by Gracie Mowery ’15 Degas, Dégagé by Emily Amjad ’15 To Songs of Innocence (or Lack thereof)

by Maria Perilla ’17 To Me by Isabella Nilsson ’16 The Modern Age by Rebecca Weinberger ’15 Wick by Jordan Harris ’15 The Light in the Darkness

by Madeleine Kattan ’16 For Every Hour by Ronda Kyle ’15 Firework by Sue Roy ’15 East 55th by Julia Felderman ’16 Silencing the Spotlight of the Shooter

by Katie Raguz ’16 Haft Seen by Caroline Jobson ’16 Crab by Halle Clemens ’16 Washington Square Street Artist

by Marta Baker ’15 Flower by Nitya Thakore ’16

Community

30 My gone is someone else’s next.

by Jamie Spain ’15

Szeged by Lauren Kahn ’15 Saint Louis by Alex Marguiles ’16 The Fear of Growing Up by Sue Roy ’15 Urban by Julie Coticchia ’16 Cleveland by Caroline Zuchold ’15 Home by Kelsey Rich ’16 The Homo Sapien Exhibit by Sam Keum ’15 Silhouettes at Dusk by Regan Brady ’17 Contentment by Amanda Zeilinger ’15 The Price Tag of Happiness

by Evie Schumann ’16 We’re All in the Same Boat

by McKenna Ritter ’16 Amigos en los Andes by McKenna Ritter ’16

R e t r o s p ec t, a P u b l i cat i o n o f Hat h away B r ow n Sc h o o l

Umbrellas by Maddie Shade ’16 Popping the HB Bubble by Cartier Pitts ’16 Becoming America by Aarathi Sahadevan ’16 The Cultural Rhythm of Senegal

by Grace Rossi ’16 Thiès Threads by Sam Keum ’15 Storm by Lexi Anderson ’15 I See Elasanta by Kacey Gill ’16 Stain Glass by Diana Muha ’15 Today’s White Guilt by Kacey Gill’ 16

Sightlines

44 Your stars were gold, mine silver.

by Jamie Spain ’15 Caen, 1944 Poem by Olivia Leslie ’16 Painting by Rebecca Weinberger ’15 In Response to Surgical Inquiries Poem by Becca Lambright ’15 Painting by Emily Imka ’15 The Wanderer Poem by Chloe Schwartz ’17 Etching by Melody Buca ’17 I Hope You Call Poem by Maria Perilla ’17 Comic by Zoë Solt ’17 No Beauty Yet Poem by Olivia Leslie ’16 Drawing by Megan Dorogi ’16 Memory Poem by Hannah Yahraus ’15 Painting by Jordan Harris ’15

Voice

52 Notice the voice calling your name.

by Madeleine Schroedel ’15

The Room by Francesca Ferri ’16 Hiccup by Isabella Nilsson ’16 Integrity by Emily Amjad ’15 Parisian Street Artist by Anna Lietman ’16

Madeleine Howarth

Well, this ought to be good.

89 Je Suis Charlie by Lizzie Poulos ’15 Listen by Alley Keresztesy ’16 There is No Word to Describe

by Grace Homany ’17 My Son is Tamir Rice by Kacey Gill ’16 An Ode to My Idol by Anna Lietman ’16 My Life in Leather Binding

by Aarathi Sahadevan ’16 My Friend Jamaal by Cartier Pitts ’16 Found by MacKenzie Hridel ’15 Hands by Emily Imka ’15

Wild

64 The drought ends; I am alive.

by Maaryah Malik ’16

Urbanized Chaos by Annabel Meals ’17 Camel by Erica Kahn ’18 Frivolous Fears Festering in Photos

by Francesca Ferri ’16 Path in a Forest by Emily Imka ’15 If You Knew This Place

by Grace Homany ’17 Serenity at Yosemite by Regan Brady ’17 Not Beginnings by Emily Amjad ’15 Bumblebee by Regan Brady ’17 Dear Freshman Class by Maria Perilla ’17 Sunset by Lizzie Crotty ’16 Slice of Life by Isabella Nilsson ’16 When the Sky Escapes by Sam Keum ’15 Muzzy Lake, Rootstown, Ohio

by Bessie Toohey ’15 Innocence by Regan Brady ’17 West Olive, Michigan by Rosalie Phillips ’17 Crashing Waves by Diana Muha ’15 The Blacksmith and the Raven

by Jordan Harris ’15 Front Yard Winter by Katie Kaufman ’16 Stars by Morgan Sutton ’15

99 Love

76 You fell. I felt it all.

by Lizzie Crotty ’16

Brayden by Maddie Brown ’17 Answer by Lauren Battle ’15 Escapist by Olivia Leslie ’16 42. by Chloe Schwartz ’17 Paris by Amanda Zeilinger ’15 Peaches and Orchards

by Becca Lambright ’15 Painting Lady by Maria Perilla ’17 A Tulip’s Haiku by Kat Phifer ’15 Empty Seats. Full Plates.

by Lizzie Crotty ’16 God Has a Plan by Caitlin Coyne ’17 Shot Through the Heart by Li Stebner ’15 My heart knotted to his fist.

by Jamie Spain ’15 Code Crimson by Madeleine Schroedel ’15 Me, And by Brady Furlich ’15 How to Gradually Become a Cheese Lover

by Skylar Luke ’15 Acorn on the Table by Isabel Byrne ’16 Remembering by Caroline Jobson ’16 After All This Time by Amanda Zeilinger ’15 Loyalty by Amanda Zeilinger ’15 (You) x (Me) by Becca Lambright ’15 The End of the Rainbow by Jenna Hahn ’17

Dreams

92 Days bled and healed into night.

by Grace Homany ’17

Jonah, the Whale, and the Last Great Nightmare by Laura Mueller ’15 Nocnica by Laura Mueller ’15 Trees by Erica Kahn ’18 Piper Looking Up by Maddie Brown ’17 The Fault in Our Stars: My Search for Augustus Waters by Li Stebner ’15

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106 Honu by McKenna Ritter ’16 Clouds by Molly Sharpe ’16 The clock will tick on. Always.

by Katie Raguz ’16 Endless Beauty by Sue Roy ’15 Rooftop by Maria Perilla ’17 When Dreams Come True

by Hannah Yahraus ’15 Tomorrow by Isabel Byrne ’16 December by Madeleine Schroedel ’15

Adventure

100 We have to live in vulnerability.

by McKenna Ritter ’16

Grand Canyon by Lauren Kahn ’15 A Horse for the Journey

by McKenna Ritter ’16 Found by Amanda Zeilinger ’15 All adventures start from unfinished endings. by Sam Keum ’15 An Approximation of Incompressible Flow

by Brady Furlich ’15 Shattered Glass by Mackenzie Hridel ’15 Pink Rip by Hannah Yahraus ’15 Her Playground by Isabel Byrne ’16 Santa Monica by Jordan Doak ’15 My Token by Maaryah Malik ’16 Ode to the Mekong by Isabel Byrne ’16 Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada

by Izzy Catazaro ’16 Puffin with Grass by Victoria Race ’15 Hidden Paradise by Lexi Anderson ’15 An Unforgettable Experience to Cuba

by Roxana Moazami ’18 Reykjavik Harbor by Julie Coticchia ’16 This wind can take me home.

by Jamie Spain ’15 For Turkey, June by Brady Furlich ’15

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Are you happy?

I guess so.

Kat Holleran

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Identity Color #240:

Honey Blonde

01 Sweater by Lauren Kahn

Becca Lambright

01

When people ask how old I am, I hold up three fingers and cling to my mother’s skirt. I am the poster child for shy up-front and rowdy as an afterthought. I am blonde like my father. This is the first time my mother will save my hair when she cuts it, rubber banding it and placing it inside of a plastic bag labeled, “Becca: 1998.”

My school ID says that I am thirteen, and my body says that I am awkward and nervous. My sister is in her second year of college and still fights with my mother. I am sleeping in her dorm when my mother threatens to call the police if she does not return me. I ask to get my hair cut in a salon for the first time. My mother is upset and feels that my childhood is slipping away from her. I do not remember how I convinced her to take me. I am tempted to believe that I threatened to shave my head if she refused. When the hairdresser puts blade to strand, she unleashes a curl that had never been there before. Up until that point my hair had been teetering between straight and wavy. I leave with full-blown curls that would last until eighth grade. I do not ask to be taken to a salon ever again.

It is the end of my sophomore year and my sister reminds me that I have reached the age of consent, a remark that makes my parents stiffen and makes me laugh. I am in the car when my father asks if I have ever considered getting my hair permanently straightened. He says that he remembers what it used to look like, said that maybe I would be prettier. I am unsure of what he is trying to tell me; maybe he is saying that I worry him.

I am in third grade. My sister is in eleventh. She wears blue eye shadow and teaches me about sex while using Wikipedia as a source. Our parents are not home very often; they are both in the hospital. They have both been sick off and on like a seesaw in violent waves. She straightens my hair for the first time, despite the fact that it is straight anyways, and burns the skin behind my ear. She tells me not to cry, to be a big girl. This will be the beginning of equating silence with strength. I ask her to keep going and she is careful not to burn me again.

My passport says that I am eleven, old enough to travel by myself. I am on a plane to South Korea when the woman next to me asks where my mother is. I tell her that she’s meeting me there and I’m confused when she wants to know if we’re tourists. She asks me a question that I often get when I say that my mother is Korean, “Are you adopted?” The next question is almost always, “Is that your natural hair color?” I am dying to carry business cards that apologize for looking American. I will eventually learn to laugh it off and avoid the topic, speaking flippantly about my heritage to avoid critical questions.

It is the summer before I start high school and I can almost sit on my hair. I have not cut my hair in two years and it is sun-streaked and elaborate, a result of highly regenerative genes and hours in the sun, the only source of any compliment that I receive. I am restless and stirring from the summer heat and resentment towards my parents. I have not spoken to my mother in three days when I hand her a pair of scissors and ask her to cut my hair off in the kitchen sink. When she is done, it reaches my chin. The sun-bleached tips and highlighted curls are gone. In this absence, it looks dark and turns me pale. I am horrified with my decision.

I am fifteen and a half, old enough to get a driver’s temps. I do not smile in my picture because I have braces. My hair is growing and in bobby pins. I am alone when I decide to walk to the nearest beauty supply store and buy two bottles of pink dye with crumpled tens. When I emerge from the bathroom, my mother sighs and averts her eyes. My father looks at me and asks if it will wash out. I shrug. He shrugs back. My mother is still focusing on the carpet. I have never loved my hair more.

It is now 2015. I am eighteen years old. My sister now lives in Michigan.

My hair is now twenty-four inches long. My father is no longer blonde.

My mother still asks to cut my hair, but I choose to do it by myself in my bathroom shower once a month. Like clockwork, I take off an inch and never get it quite right.

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02 Through a Window, Pain by Owen Healey

Cyclical

Bessie Toohey

It’s one of those nights in early autumn when the leaves crunch beneath your sneakers, but it is still warm enough outside to wear what your mother calls spaghetti straps. One of those nights when the evening air is so soft, so sweet, that you consider running away, if only just for a second. The sun went down at 7:30 and your mother insists on bringing a flashlight, even though the moon is full and the sky is painted white with cirrus clouds. Somehow, there are still stars. You point your light at the sky, half-expecting to see its reflection.

It’s one of those nights in early autumn when a bonfire would be perfect but you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, so you trade the snap-crackle-pop of dancing flames for the rush of a creek and the itch of burnt grass under your thighs. The fireflies have died but the crickets have not and the trees are somewhere in between.

It’s one of those nights in early autumn when the air is sixty-seven degrees, you are eleven-years-old, and your mother tells you you are a Woman. She does not explain what this means. She says it to comfort you; you won’t really be one for years, decades maybe.

Your ears have not yet been pierced and your legs do not yet know the pain of a dull razor and you have yet to learn about heartbreak.

You are small still, a child, gazing in wonder at the brilliance of what you are told is God’s creation. I am His creation, you whisper to yourself. Perhaps if you say it enough times you will believe it.

You wonder how one man could build the whole world, and how the universe could have been an accident.

You notice that the Bible is cyclical and the seasons are cyclical and you are now cyclical. Soon it will be time for cranberry sauce and hot chocolate and peppermint candies. Soon it will be time for state fairs and inner tubes and for what your mother calls spaghetti straps. Soon it will be early autumn again.

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02

Halfbroken Maaryah Malik

I’m broken, not in the way that glass shards are after a plate has been pushed to the ground.

Not in the way that a house is after a tornado hits.

I am the imperfections, the hidden flaws.

I am broken like the way your new Maserati was after it got its first scratch.

I am broken like your old nail polish bottle, because the stuff comes out sticky.

I am broken like babies are, right when they’re born.

No harm done.

No harm received.

But they still come out crying.

I am broken like that part on your carpet that you were vacuuming, the part that you missed because you just couldn’t reach.

I am broken.

I am not broken.

Everyone is broken.

Nobody is broken.

I’m not broken, We are not broken.

I am not broken for the permanent marker stains on my legs that my mom always yells at me for.

I am not broken for the orange tips of my fingers, because I licked the Dorito seasoning off my fingers again.

I am not broken when I get a pimple; I’m a hormonal 16-year-old girl.

I am not broken when I’m lying on my bed at night feeling everything and wishing the world would stop turning, I am not broken.

I am the medicine you just picked up from CVS. I work perfectly fine, with a long list of side effects down the side.

Just in case.

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Heritage

Christine Espinosa

I was different. I happened to be the only Asian student in middle school, so the kids called me the “weirdo.” White, Christian, middle class, my parents planted me in cookie-cutter America. Kids made it obvious that I did not fit in, so I endeavored to Americanize myself. I enlarged my eyes with eyeliner. I stocked up on t-shirts flaunting words such as “Hollister So-Cal.” My shorts progressively shrank past the line of modesty, at least according to my religious Filipino mother. Avoiding the studious Asian appearance, I swapped the glasses I had worn since age four for contacts. London Calling and Stadium Arcadium replaced the Chopin Collection on my desk (my apologies, Arthur Rubinstein). Despite my olive skin tone, I disregarded the realities of skin cancer, taking up the typical girl’s past time of dry roasting under the sun.

Although I ventured to become more American, the kids still knew me as the deviation from the norm.

After many trials of transformation, I convinced myself I changed for the better – that is, up until my seventh grade trip back to the Philippines. Even though it was my third visit, people saw me as the outsider. I was a stranger to the heat, dust, traffic, children begging for food outside the car, and most of all, the stares. Children, old men, mothers; no eyes failed to stare. Maybe it was my neon converses, my LBJ MVP jersey, or my so-called “paleness” due to my part Spanish blood that caught their attention. Though I attempted to speak Tagalog in public, it seemed as if I constantly wore a flashing sign that yelled, “Hey I am an American tourist!” I received the same what the heck is this rich American doing here vibe from my cousins. I was astounded that my own people refused to accept me as one of them. I used an electric toothbrush. I spoke English with an “accent.” I had light skin. I was Americanized.

On my overnight flight back home, it dawned on me that I tried too hard to change, so I made the active choice to be myself. In high school I encountered people of all walks of life: black, white, rich, poor, preppy, and grunge. The more relationships I formed with various people, the more I accepted myself. I joined the Asian club, Israeli club, and Black Cultural Awareness just to name a few. Through these clubs I learned about several traditions, foods, and ideas. What resonated with me was how people could come together and host after school events such as our Chinese New Year celebration or pitch in to bake food for the Jewish Holiday committee regardless of race and differences. These students inspired me to share my Filipino heritage with my friends and my American heritage with my family.

Whether it is forcing my friends to taste my homemade empanadas, kicking off a fundraiser for typhoon Haiyan victims, teaching my cousins slang words such as “swag” or introducing my cousins to my American friends, I discovered how to bridge my two backgrounds.

It amuses me that for the past 17 years, no one has been able to guess my ethnicity correctly on his or her first try. Chinese. African. Italian. Mexican.

I always say, “Good one, but I’m Filipino,” which is usually reciprocated with an, “Oh! That explains it,” and an occasional, “Uh, where the heck is that…?” followed by contemptuous looks. I find it disappointing that there will always be someone who cannot accept me, but frankly I am fine with this. My piano repertoire consists almost entirely of Chopin, and hey, the King (LeBron) is back, so I’ll keep the jersey. People can judge me if they want to, but they do not possess the power to change who I am. I created my own cultural identity.

I wear it with pride. I am different.

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R e t r o s p ec t, a P u b l i cat i o n o f Hat h away B r ow n Sc h o o l

Romper Diana Muha I forget that it exists, until Spring Break, when it debuts all over again.

Like the hibiscus flowers in the yard, the pink romper steals everyone’s attention.

But my mother’s tan figure brings it to life, Not the other way around.

They are both beautiful, bright and heads are turning.

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03 Land of the Free by Julia Armitage

My America

If I were a teenage girl living in Syria, my American Dream would be getting out of the warzone and being able to continue my education in a safe environment. If I came from a low income family on the other side of the globe, my American Dream would be coming to America and making the most money I can to be able to help support my family. However, as an American born Syrian teenage girl from a family with two hard-working, successful immigrant parents, my American Dream is being able to follow my own path and do what I choose to do with my life. For me, it is not about going to the most prestigious college to get the highest paying job to show those around me what I have done. Instead, it is being able to mold my own path, regardless of what others think of me, and dependent solely on the satisfaction and happiness it gives me. Also, it is the freedom and flexibility I can choose to have in my career, allowing me to be there for my children in ways my parents were not able to be there for me, as they were involved too heavily in fulfilling their own American Dreams.

My parents have always told me the most important thing in life is your education. Not happiness, not self-confidence, not even the value of the education itself, but really the ability to rattle off a list of prestigious schools that I have somehow associated myself to. My grandma, a retired Syrian professor, has continuously tried convincing all of her grandchildren to become doctors, simply because they make a significant amount of money and have an

Christine Bashour esteemed title. It didn’t matter to her whether the medical field interested us or not, as long as in the end she could say at least one of her grandchildren was a doctor. When I told my parents I wanted to start my own business, particularly something regarding fashion and retail, they told me I wouldn’t make it and to focus my thoughts on something else. Doing what I wanted with my life wasn’t part of their American Dream, as that something was not the most reputable career, in their minds at least.

My American Dream is to grow up and have children that I can go pick up from school, cook meals for, and support through anything and everything, which were the things I envied in other kids’ lives when I was younger. Unlike my parents, it is more about my happiness and being able to spread that to the people I love than it is about being able to show off my accomplishments to my peers. These differing ideals have previously created disputes and tension between my parents and me, often resulting in me surrendering to them, allowing them to believe I have altered my views to match theirs. Oftentimes, I find this to be the easiest way to be myself, as the less they know about how I really feel, the less they will try to change me, which makes my life much easier. From this, I have learned that when I am a mother with children of my own, I will allow them to chase any dreams they may have and pursue whatever career they choose, regardless of the reputation it brings them.

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04

Mirror Lizzie Crotty My mother walked in and called this a mirror She said it is used to see ourselves clearer And little ones like me sit and watch, are entranced At seeing themselves for the first time, a first glance Smiling, glowing, who is this I see?

Who is this staring at me?

The eyes, the hair, it all matches Right down to the old, worn shorts with the patches Tug, pull, I try to adjust This simple glass object puts me in such a fuss I look at myself and all I feel is upset Just a normal teen girl with far too much regret What’s on the inside is what counts, that’s what they all say But I still hate myself for what I ate yesterday Life would be better if appearance didn’t matter But who will take interest if the outside doesn’t flatter?

My face, my skin, my body, could I like them all?

Why do I need to make myself feel so small?

I wish I could be happier with what I see But I can’t help but wish the girl staring at me wasn’t me

Homage to Emily Dickinson Lauren Leizman 04 Graphic Self by Emily Imka 05 Piper Brown by Maddie Brown

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Eyes like butter—turn to melt gold— Every glance—make ruby cheeks—laughter rises like an unborn beast— Each too timid to speak—syllables choke down—

R e t r o s p ec t, a P u b l i cat i o n o f Hat h away B r ow n Sc h o o l

My Mother’s Shoes Kacey Gill

I’d never noticed her shoes before. They were black patent leather – or at least they used to be patent leather. After all the years of use, they had become dull and faded, losing their shine to sidewalks and streets all over the Cleveland. They were scuffed and battered. Tattered and torn around the edges. The heel was starting to fall off, bit by bit, disconnecting from the rest. They were falling apart, but kept together by some force coming from within the shoes themselves. I couldn’t stop looking at this one pair of shoes. They held so many memories, experiences, and emotions for this woman I call my mother. They were stained with her tears. They were wrinkled with her successes and peeling with her failures. They were her. They were her everything.

I looked away from those shoes – breaking my stare as my eyes began to swell. Tears spilling over, I looked back, focusing my eyes on the empty space next to her shoes. The empty space where my father’s shoes should have been. Where my sister’s could have been. Or where my brother’s would have been. When I closed my eyes I could see a pair of sneaker, maybe Nikes or maybe Jordans, sitting in that empty space. I bet they would be blue and white, with black stitching and black laces. I always thought my brother would have liked blue… I looked at the nothing and felt it laced with pain and loss and suffering. All my life, she wore her shoes on her feet. She wore her shoes as my mother. But also as my father, and sister, and brother, and anything and everything I ever needed. Those worn down, tattered black shoes were larger than I had ever imagined. They had to be. Those shoes had to be large enough to fill the empty space where their shoes should have been. My breathing was labored as I turned away, quickly grabbing my bags and my shoes as I left. Walking out of the door to my boyfriend’s car, I looked back at her shoes and the spot next to them. The spot where mine should have been. An empty spot. Another empty spot.

05

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06

Warrior Woman Jamie Spain

To recall the moment of sin is to cling to that slice of lamplight with outstretched palms.

It is slipping into a dress made of river water and I watch it cascade in silvery streams around the bumps of my rib bones.

This synapses between one and another connecting like shackles linking together.

It is a cage of air that twists itself around my throat I have too much breath.

So I will bow down, break my spine under this constant pressure, thread my arrow through bow, turn under my frozen exterior, find target, take aim.

This mark I try to miss, with eyes closed, fingers steady, a tongue I file away to a blunt rock that weighs down my throat.

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R e t r o s p ec t, a P u b l i cat i o n o f Hat h away B r ow n Sc h o o l

They say that’s the only target I will ever hit.

Yet this is one I wish my arrow would bypass, my eyes would slip over, my mind would forget.

I loosen the bow, Why not love your master when you are already in chains?

For this arrow that punctures my heart, a gift you sent to draw red from my bloodless skin, did you realize love is a wound?

You made it drip around the arrowhead, do you believe your lofty soul is not to blame?

You who drew hand from the heavens, who drops silver shafts into his outstretched palms, you who watched this archer thread his bow draw his arrow, who wounds me, yet stays untouched.

06 Colored by Ronda Kyle

The Weight of Antagonism Francesca Ferri

When I was five years old, my family moved to Florida. It was a rather tragic change for my young mind, not realizing that there were things outside of Madison, Wisconsin, and that I would be able to make new friends and meet new people in a different state. A lot of things changed in my life after that move: we got a dog, I learned how to change a diaper, my mother broke her back. And, though it may seem insignificant in comparison, it was really, really hot. My family used to joke that in Madison, winter lasted nine months out of the year, and the rest was just mild springtime. In Florida, there were twelve months of summer, each day seemingly hotter than the last. Naturally, the higher the heat, the fewer articles of clothing people tended to wear. Girls my age paraded around in short-shorts and tank tops, boys were known to be shirtless regardless of setting, and even the adults in my life were accepted wearing what, in most other places, would be considered just plain rude.

And then there was me.

Tall for my age and heavyset from any angle, this was where I learned just how much my body could influence my life as a whole.

I wasn’t allowed to wear shorts that went above my knees, and tank tops weren’t even mentioned. While all the girls I knew were wearing cute two-piece swimming suits, I couldn’t even ask about wearing one without being reprimanded. The reason? “You’ll look better in a onepiece, Francesca.” “These clothes just fit you better, Francesca.” “You just don’t look like those other girls, Francesca.”

I believe I was five years old when I first cried over a bowl of cereal.

I’ve always been the bigger girl. I wasn’t always the biggest, but I was always a bit bigger. On the higher end of the scale, farther up on the chart. Picked last for sports, called ‘thunder thighs.’ Years of difficulty and too many nights spent awake, pinching at fat where it wasn’t supposed to be. In eighth grade, a girl told me that I should stop eating in order to lose some weight. I didn’t quite understand. Eating was something wonderful, and in our family, food had always been a way to bring people together. My meals were the most exciting part of the day, not something to skip. But, everywhere I looked, there were images of thin women plastered on walls, in newspapers, on television.

According to my ‘friend,’ it would be better if I looked like them.

So, I started with counting calories. I got so lost in my thoughts surrounding food and the numbers I assigned to it that I couldn’t do any of the math I was supposed to be learning, but I could accurately decipher how many calories were in a medium apple with two tablespoons of peanut butter, and how long it would keep me feeling full. Notebooks were filled with numbers, calculations, thoughts. How many calories consumed versus how many calories burned would it take to lose so many pounds in so many days. Pages wasted, hours spent. Thinking back on it only a few years later, I can’t remember what those numbers were.

Then I met a girl who cried when she was given a cookie and tried to get rid of it, hiding it, offering it to other people, crumpling it up into small pieces, but to no avail. She had to eat it, or she couldn’t leave the room. And then when she finished that one, she had to finish the second one, too. No amount of stacking plates on top of the chocolate chip cookie, moving it across the table, or breaking it up, did what she needed to do on her own. Working on my own, I managed to look in the mirror without starting to cry. Food meant more than calories, fat, minutes of exercise. Sure, some old habits lingered: I still drank hot water with lemon slices in it, and numbers popped into my head whenever I looked at food. Now, however, those numbers didn’t rule me. They didn’t matter, not really. Not anymore.

I have come to accept myself for the way I am. Some days are harder than others, but I’ve learned to deal with it. I’m healthy, and that opinion is a lot more important to me than that of the people who see me in school, on the streets, etcetera, and judge me for what my body looks like and the clothes that I wear. I’m perfectly okay with who I am, but others are not so fortunate.

The treatment of females, in particular, and their bodies, fills me with disgust. We are told that we have to be thin, with narrow waists and big chests and thick behinds. Being blonde is better, and having naturally light skin which has been unnaturally tanned is usually the best.

Hairless bodies, closed mouths, and narrow minds. And bigger women? Lazy. Not good enough. Undeserving of love.

There is no excuse for how large women are viewed just because of what they look like. Our bodies do not change the abilities of each of us to think, to create, to love. Large women are not pathetic, or desperate. Fat women are not incapable. Big women do not need your workout suggestions, or to hear about what new fad diet is apparently working. There is more to a bulky woman than her ability to be made fun of, to be used for whatever ill purpose you peg on us because you’re not creative enough to defy stereotypes and give a real personality to a fat girl. We’re not our weight. We’re not your antagonists.

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x 15

Dis • ap • point • ment

Sayble Bradley

I Read ZoË Solt

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R e t r o s p ec t, a P u b l i cat i o n o f Hat h away B r ow n Sc h o o l

dis•ap•point•ment n. 1. The feeling of sadness or displeasure caused by the nonfulfillment of one’s hopes or expectations. 2. Someone or something that disappoints people, like a teen who momentarily abandons her morals.

3. The state or feeling of being disappointed such as the moment when that teenage girl realizes that her “true love” is not going to call like he promised. / This realization that morphs into sadness, / This sadness that becomes distrust, / This girl who will grow to hate men. / In these teenage years, / These awful “best” years. / That Friday night of little black dresses and 6-inch heels that never left home. / This Saturday morning of waking up early to find that you’re still alone in this bed where bodies meet but never feel whole / In this dimly lit, red painted room where disappointment exists / And parents pray it is only a phase / On that 21st birthday when her true love finally calls / When she’s moved on and happy but he wants her now. / When she doesn’t pick up the phone and he, her once true love, must leave his message at the tone.

Getting to the Core Li Stebner

I wish apples weren’t so self-conscious, though they own all the right to be. Eyes being drawn to the brightest and shiniest, their beauty drawing us in, yet when we get to their core, we find that the vivacious outer skin has disappeared and now there is nothing of significance to us, so we dispatch of it and move along. I bet the seeds feel neglected, but prove themselves by becoming more. Evolving into a life that will laugh at the irony that it will outlive the dictator of its fate.

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when is life not a race? sunny roy

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Via Tornabuoni Bridget Babcox It is three thirty on a Thursday morning. I am standing in my favorite place in the entire world—via Tornabuoni in Florence, Italy—as I push the thought of my early morning flight back to America out of my mind.

By day, via Tornabuoni is like any other popular Florence road bustling with activity, passers-by paying more attention to the shops it houses rather than the road itself. Yet by nighttime, it is majestic—a miraculous linkage of the past and the present. Over the course of my time spent in Florence (a year in 8th grade and a year in 11th grade), I have fallen in love with its magic.

From where I am standing, the road curves to the left, opening into a small piazza, and then narrowing to arc into the Santa Trinita bridge. Across the bridge is our old apartment, where my Florence journey first began when I moved there in 8th grade. To the right, it continues for a block or so before merging into the road eventually leading to the airport. To the left is my past, to the right is my future. Yet the middle of the road is timeless, unchanged for centuries. The buildings are bathed in a buttery yellow light, which spills across the smooth herringbone stone road to where I stand. The luxury shops lining the sidewalk—teeming with customers by day—are darkened, overpowered by the beauty of the renaissance buildings that house them. The street, normally brimming with throngs of tourists, is deserted, restored to its ancient beauty.

It is my refuge from the pressures of society, my personal metaphor for the natural precedent history and culture take over passing, materialistic fads and worries of the day.

In America, history is locked up in glass cases. To me, this is a cultural message—history is too far removed to be touched or truly felt, it can only be looked at. When I am on via Tornabuoni at nighttime, I can fearlessly touch and breathe history in a way I never have before. For a few moments, I can transport myself back in time. Without the distraction of cars or people, the street is as it has always been. Hundreds of years ago, someone my age may have been standing in the same spot, seeing many of the same sights, as their own life lay ahead of them.

My favorite building on the road, Palazzo Strozzi, was constructed 525 years ago. As I gaze up at the roughly rectangular stones, I wrestle with the fact that this building has witnessed over 25 generations of society, and still stands, as I hope it will 25 generations from now. Its timelessness shocks me out of whatever I am going through, or thinking about, and reminds me of what is greater than myself—the inevitable continuity of society, the cycle of birth and death. I reach a sense of unparalleled inner serenity, safe in the knowledge that I am both completely irrelevant and extraordinarily powerful.

Via Tornabuoni is the purest, sharpest reminder of my mortality that I have ever felt. I have always dreamed of making a difference in the world, but when I am there, I realize the shortness of my time to make such a difference. It is inevitable that I will be a blip on the radar of history, just like the generations that have traversed this road before me, but I realize that the one beautiful power I do hold over time, over this inevitable oblivion, is to shape my own life.

With the knowledge that control over my own temporary existence is truly my only power, the ability to live—see the world, acquire knowledge, know others—becomes not a given, but rather an adventurous gift, and one that I am determined not to waste. I see the difference between merely existing and truly living, and I choose the latter.

Reflections Madeleine Schroedel Sometimes The world looks more beautiful when Everything is blurry Blinding red becomes dull-edged The bright white one continuous river Some fish starry white Some tinted yellow All miniature ferris wheels That don’t seem to turn Until you’re close enough for them to disappear Green reflects off the dashboard Enough to shed light in the shadows of the back seat 12:06 AM and everything is awake with the silence of movement Muffled voices seep through the barrier As seconds turn to minutes in the wait to return I wish I could understand, I thought But the lines moved too far past blurry this time Serenity makes calm when all I feel Is trapped between glass panes But calm switches tides when I think harder Than my heart wants to Convince me that I am wrong Tell me the encryption surrounding Was deciphered incorrectly I wish you could talk, I thought But I will make do with the reflections in your eyes

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01

Phantom Limb Emily Imka

1. too many poems call upon the moon maybe because dreams have a tendency to pool in small pale spaces like the crook of my elbow and a tablespoon of sugar and that moon but the Sea of Tranquility has been dust all along and if the ones who confirmed it were Aldrin and Conrad and Lovell, ones farther from home than we’ll ever be, then where am supposed to go when I fall asleep at night 2. when it’s time to slide from cherry-blossom bathwater I think that It’s no wonder babies cry when they leave the womb 3. dead silence, noon on the lord’s day the only sound was that of missionary skin on white bedsheets and mom, downstairs, filling the dishwasher stuffing it full of dirty dishes, jamming it again and again to make the uncleanness disappear, disappear inside and out of sight you are the space in the guest bed that doesn’t cast a shadow on the wall anymore you are the phantom limb to my vacancy 4. mom says the reason I’m always in bed is because I’ve made it so inviting But mom, baby blue prison walls are better than stone-cold gray and milky string lights are softer than flickering fluorescents and it’s so hard to move I chew the cracks of my bottom lip like dry leather, a last meal on death row 5. loss calls me from his burrow in my diaphragm, says “listen to me if you stop eating there will be less of yourself to forgive there’s too much to reconcile so disappear, waste away until the only parts left are the parts never touched, the parts so hard that nothing penetrates-shh, ask no questions, we all pay our dues someday; now let me love you the lonely way.”

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If You Knew Carly Wellener

If you knew this place as I do The gurgling stream The sunlight glistening Off of smooth, river rocks The exposed clay The color of overcast skies Would be a novel experience Instead you’d see into the past Fuzzy polaroids Of a fallen oak tree Covered in slippery moss That a chubby-faced toddler teetered across Careful as her clumsy limbs could be Caught midway through an attempt To reach the mystical Other side of the brook

Katie Raguz

The clock will tick on.

Always.

01 Knot Your Average Rope by Evie Schumann

If you could peer Through my eyes and into my memories You would find the perfect summer clichĂŠ Of gangly, adventurous fifth graders Wild eyed, reckless Leaping lackadaisically from a log Just as slippery, just as moss covered As the oak of eight summers past, Into a deep, still water Scampering with greater skill, That former toddler emerges from the water To ascend onto the tree to bound once again Into the calm, clear, shimmering depths Of that halcyon summer Cool and beckoning If you knew this place as I do The trees, the creek, the rocks Would be entirely new Changed by storms, winds and floods Ready to explore again Still, the past would be there As it will always be In that river bed A staircase of memory, layers of history Like layers of dirt and clay Marking different colors A mural of the erosion of time and stone So familiar, yet foreign But always mine.

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02

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Degas, DÉgagÉ

Emily Amjad 02 Tambourine by Gracie Mowery

That was what I wanted to be. Hair glued to my head, with bent black wires spearing the runaway wisps in place. I wanted to dance. Stage lights were meant to outline my white toile. I wanted to balance on a wooden box, five toes strong in a perfect pirouette, stealing the show with my enticing pointes and impressive extensions. I wanted to degage like Degas’s Four Dancers.

To Songs of Innocence (or Lack thereof)

to songs of innocence or lack thereof:

Maria Perilla

the lights are turned way down low, so we drop it accordingly like dance baby dance cause we have never looked this good because I bought this dress for this moment and it was worth every penny cause most of this make up is my mother’s but it feels like it was meant for me and I pull at your tie like its taffy, see my lips taste like candy, my eyes look like chocolate, and you twirl me around like caramel, so I feel just as golden tonight life is sweet like dance baby dance cause right now your feet aren’t hurting like dance baby dance cause a beat won’t ever feel this good like dance baby dance tonight I am all brown sugar, legs, and liquor in desserts

so dance baby, they can’t take their eyes off of us, dance like no one is watching because god knows everybody is

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x 23

03

To Me Isabella Nilsson

open forward like backwards flowers, falling lie in a room with no doors (but) full of light tulips skate across skin singing two lips, sightful and ringing with wet hope there is nothing more precious than the singing of your silences because your body is the room and your words are the shaft of light and the space between words is the space in the air and the space between your lips (two) the infinity between fingers pinning me down sightless and singing in the room the flowers are everlasting time does not pass it cannot pass the threshold you hold me like a flower shaking with thirst and I am a flower and you are trying to drink me and hold me together. the room is bare and I am laid bare to you I am more than myself and you are mine perennially and my heart is a dove shouted out through the window and rests without weight on our hearts and rubs and coos against the flowers and as long as I can stare at you will never go.

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04

For Every Hour

Ronda Kyle

1:07am

4:23pm

Today, My friend spoke of imperfection Of unidentified beauty And a budding dejection I tell her to love herself At every hour

Dad brought Mom roses, today I sense an everlasting love One unbothered by divorce, Unbroken by unhappiness Undamaged, but Reborn by flowers

2:09pm

5:19am

I understand now that tears will dry That, when I do cry The pain is not perpetual The discomfort is only conceptual My feelings are extremely special

I relate to the living winds A flurry of sounds Beyond our gated grounds My home creeks The world sleeps I continue to breathe As if I should be living during this hour

3:16pm You held my hand I blush, awkwardly Teaching me how to properly, Love

05

6:12am I am thankful for being educated I am not chained Bound to the adversities of my community Instead, I am free 7:15am Drives lengthened by the fall of snow Beyond the windshield, I’ve aimlessly roamed Each building, forming the town I’ve known But I’ll drive faster just to get to home

03 The Modern Age by Rebecca Weinberger 04 Wick by Jordan Harris 05 The Light in the Darkness by Madeleine Kattan

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07

06

06 Firework by Sue Roy 07 East 55th by Julia Felderman

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Si l encing the Spot l ight of the Shooter

Katie Raguz

When we hear the words “school shooting,” I’m sure most of us think of a fairly recent experience within the last few years of turning on a TV or opening a newspaper to find heavy news coverage of the fatal and horrific event. Unfortunately, Cristina Lafferty Hassinger experienced a school shooting first hand when hearing the tragic news that her mother, principal of Sandy Hook Elementary School, had been murdered along with 25 other adults and children.

Now two years later, in her Washington Post opinion piece “Breaking the cycle of school shootings,” Hassinger reflects on that day and emphasizes that providing safer gun laws to eliminate gun violence is the only way we can prevent these shootings from recurring. Although restricting gun laws is a good start to preventing these terrifying events, it is also important to realize the media’s role in exposing every aspect of the shooter while barely celebrating the lives of the victims. By focusing on gun control, Hassinger overlooks the deeper problem of fulfilling the attention-grabbing killer’s goal of being placed in the spotlight. The affect of strict gun laws is certainly a crucial point that should be discussed, but the main priority in preventing these mass murders should be to first turn the media’s focus from the life of the killer to the safety precautions and loving memories of those affected.

It is extremely saddening to see that more and more people with mental illnesses resort to the violence of school shootings to cope with their illness, often killing themselves along with innocent men, women, and children. It is also important to realize, however, that by killing other people, these murderers are looking for attention and we are feeding it right to them.

There are so many other ways we can allow them to express their pain and help them to deal with their mental state, but instead the media fuels it by constantly reporting about the shooters and their struggles. The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting is a perfect example of this. Adam Lanza, the shooter, was constantly in the news for what he had done.

Where he grew up, how he was raised, and the activities he participated in were the main focuses of the media for days. As Hassinger mentions, “There have been at least 39 school shootings since the massacre in Newtown, Conn., on Dec.14, 2012” (Hassinger, “Breaking the cycle of school shootings”).

This accentuates the fact that others have most likely seen the attention Lanza received after he killed several innocent people, and decided to do the same out of the selfish belief that they will be noticed. The media gives into the shooter’s wish the minute they dig deeper into the life of the shooter than

necessary, when they should really be focusing on how we can move forward from these tragic events. Some may argue that the media is just giving its audience what they want. The fact of the matter is, however, that human beings are being killed for no reason, and the media should not beat around the bush noting the hobbies of the shooter. Instead, reporters should provide awareness on initiatives taken to help prevent these situations in the future, dedicate time to those lost in these massacres, and move on.

Along with getting the attention of the public eye comes creating the actual massacre. If a person has their mind set on taking part in this horrible act of violence, then they will probably make sure that nothing gets in their way when doing so. This includes finding a gun or other killing device to carry out their motives. If a shooter is determined to get a gun, they will get it whether it’s legal or not. Keep in mind that they are already planning on doing something that is extremely illegal, so what will stop them from purchasing an illegal gun versus a legal one? Although it is one step that could certainly help, I am not sure that the restriction of gun laws is the best way to prevent school shootings, especially if the gunman has his or her mind set on pursuing gun violence.

I would argue that, although it is a good idea to look into gun laws, Hassinger neglects the notion that we must take a step back, strip the spotlight of the shooter in the media, and focus on how the community as a whole is healing from this experience. If there is a decline in the focus of the life of the shooter, there may be a possibility that other people who are thinking of committing this crime will look for other solutions to their pain. I honestly believe that unless he was in danger of committing another mass murder or I personally know him or one of his victims, I should not be able to remember the name Adam Lanza two years after his massacre. The media drilled his entire life story into my brain so that I do. I am sad to say that I don’t remember the name of Cristina Lafferty Hassinger’s mother.

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x 27

Haft Seen A

mirror for purity. Vinegar for patience. Hyacinths for sincerity. Sweet pudding for affluence. Sprouts for rebirth. Apples for beauty. And garlic for good health.

All come together to weave the story of my family’s Norouz celebration.

Tracing my hands along the table, I inhale deeply, taking in the spices, colors, and sounds of this traditional Persian dinner. My grandmother’s table is filled with a myriad of Zoroastrian symbols, each one markedly different but at the same time part of one cohesive story celebrating the new year. A soft, welcoming light flickers across the table teeming with treats as goldfish dance in their dish. A heap of eggs emit a ghostly white glow as apples lie neatly on the table. A mountain of sumac threatens to run off with the wind as family members shuffle through the house eagerly, preparing for the feast that is about to ensue.

The seven dishes that fill the table are symbols of my Persian heritage: each one representing an aspect of life and rebirth. Across the room, my grandmother beckons me: “Azizam1, come,” she says. In her hands lies a worn and weathered book, the book of khayam 2 ”. Handing me this sacred book of poems, my grandmother motions for me to stand in front of the mirror. Setting this book down, I prepare for my family’s annual tradition. Each year, my grandmother leads my family in lighting candles and making wishes in honor of the start of Spring, the time when Persians celebrate the new year, or Norouz. As the mirror reflects the glow of the candles, each family member opens the khayam to a random page, hoping the answer to their wishes lies within its words.

Grasping this precious book, I maneuver myself in front of my own reflection, only to see a slightly ethnic looking American girl staring back at me. My Persian identity has always been a part of me, yet not always something others can easily discern or define at first glance.

Of my family, I am the most Persian looking aside from my mother.

While I am most definitely ethnic looking, others cannot always place my unique appearance. As a result, I am accustomed to questions regarding my ethnicity and origins. Although I almost always answer that my mother is Persian, my father is English and Irish, and that I am American, these distinctions do not so easily communicate every aspect of who I am.

To my knowledge, it seems that in order to understand the whole, one must first appreciate the nuances, for in every minuscule detail there lies a wealth of complexity. My dark hair, olive skin, and brown eyes simply do not say it all. As I look in the mirror, I see the myriad of

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R e t r o s p ec t, a P u b l i cat i o n o f Hat h away B r ow n Sc h o o l

Caroline Jobson

nuances that lurk beneath the surface. My eyes, while at first glance seem to be Mother’s, housed within them hues reminiscent of my father’s English blue as well as flecks of honey and gold much lighter than my mother’s. I would like to think my eyes, while almost identical to my mother’s in their shape and size, are layered to reflect the mix that occurred to create me and the unique way in which I see the world. Primed with a layer of blue from my father and coated in the deep, rich mocha from my mother, these intricacies of my being have come together to form the unique lens through which I think, learn, and grow.

In appreciating these nuances, I choose to define myself through the multitude of micro details that comprise my being. No one word, ethnicity, or citizenship can perfectly sort or categorize me, or anyone else for that matter, as a person. In a world in which there exists such boundless differences, it is impossible to limit one’s self to a singular generalization. As such, I strive to open myself up to the collection of details, memories, and practices of different types of peoples.

It is with this new outlook that I have realized that nothing worth understanding is simple or easily defined. Just as I draw my perception of self from multiple areas of the globe and multiple ways of being, the world is a collection of unique stories that speak to each individual’s identity. These ways of being are complex and worth taking the time to understand. The multitude of subtleties that lies within each characteristic of cultures around the globe sparks my desire to uncover new places, people, and ways of thinking. My curiosity urges me to celebrate these differences and appreciate the richness and variation of the world.

As such, I choose to define myself through the customs and traditions my family holds to be important to us as individuals instead of limiting my identity to broad terms seeking to homogenize an entire culture of people and practices. In this way, I have come to realize that every individual should be examined through an open and appreciative lens.

It is through the symbols of the haft seen, purity, patience, sincerity, and tolerance, that one can best understand and appreciate the differences present within themselves and others around them. I am forever grateful for this lens through which I have been given to examine society and hope to bring this openness and understanding with me throughout my life.

1 An affectionate name

2 Book of poems by the renowned Persian poet Khayam

09

08

08 Crab by Halle Clemens 09 Washington Square Street Artist by Marta Baker 10 Flower by Nitya Thakore

10

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x 29

My gone is someone else’s next Jamie Spain

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01

02

01 Szeged by Lauren Kahn 02 Saint Louis by Alex Marguiles

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x 31

Sue Roy

The Fear of

Growing Up

As a current senior, I look back on my high school years and it’s hard not to see how much has changed. I remember my freshman year and my fear of finding friends, fitting in, struggling with classes, etc. Now that I’m about to go to college this year, I realize that all these fears are coming back, but that’s not the point. The point is that this fear is mostly about the fear of growing up.

As soon as I turned eighteen earlier this year, I had to find another doctor, go to an appointment by myself, set up my own bank account, and got a letter to register to vote. No longer would people question me for entering some contest. I could go buy a lottery ticket if I really wanted to, and suddenly I was signing my consent to give my emergency and health information away. I think the point that this all hit me at was when my dad handed me my checkbook. I saw my name on the top and I think I actually threw it right back at him and told him to keep it. It all seemed to be going so fast, and I was scrambling to find the pause button.

I soon realized that I was not alone - many of my classmates felt the same and it was reflected in our behavior. Everything was suddenly the last first day, the last thanksgiving, the last IDEO, the last winter break, etc. At times, I wondered why we were all crying because in my mind I said that I would be back

during break so technically, it wasn’t my last break. I started referring to this feeling as “the disease,” as if some crippling illness was making us all feel like we would never experience something like this again. One person I told this to referred to it as us feeling as if we are dying, but I thought that was just a bit too extreme.

The point is, this year has been a lot of growing up. I can still barely wrap my head over the fact that next year I’m going to college, I’m not going to be living with my parents for most of the year, and I have to figure out how to really fend for food by myself. That’s why I think I get emotional. I’m going to miss HB and I know many of my classmates feel the same.

Sometimes during class, I look at the people sitting next to me and think to myself that there are only a few more days that I’ll have the honor of sitting next to them. It’s why I suddenly want to hug someone, or why I have days where I want to tell everyone they’re amazing (because they are).

So my advice to all the other classes is that a lot will happen senior year and a lot of things will change: people will change, circumstances will change, and a lot of stuff will change, but it’s going to be okay because there will always be people who are supporting you and helping you realize that it’s weird but okay to grow up.

03

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04

03 Urban by Julie Coticchia 04 Cleveland by Caroline Zuchold

H o m e

Kelsey Rich

Birds signify both the act of building a home and the need for constant travel, a release from that home driven by larger forces.

Many build complex nests of rocks or twigs. Weaver finches build large teardrop or spherical shaped nests of leaf fibers, attracting females with their homes. There are also species of birds that migrate long distances annually, such as the arctic tern which flies an average of 44,100-56,000 miles round-trip from the northern breeding grounds to the coast of Antarctica. Even in their traveling, what arctic terns seek is a home—somewhere comfortable for life.

My relatively limited travel experience has allowed me to realize that there are beautiful places, and then there is home. I have white water rafted on the Snake River, hiked near lakes and mountains in Yellowstone, ziplined in the Panamanian jungle, but Shaker Heights holds a flawed beauty. I have seen it in every season. I have endured the winters when the sun sets at 4:00 pm, every piece of snow has melted and refrozen twice, and the snow banks are grey with slush. And still I acknowledge that Shaker is home. I see the tree-lined streets; they shade our family walks as my sister and I zoom about on our silver Razor scooters. Slowly decomposing into several inches thick of debris, leaves collect at the bottom of long, stretched out puddles at the edges of the streets. I splash through with black and white polka-dotted rainboots. I have dragged a large folding chair into the sunlit front lawn to breathe in the drone of faraway lawnmowers and the screams of children jumping in and out of sprinklers.

Shaker Heights holds two homes: one house of the past and our current family home. My definition of home changed as the location of my family changed. No longer was home the six bedroom grey stone-fronted rental where my sister and I picked sprigs of mint that grew unchecked in the mini garden area. No longer was home the basement where my father and I spent hours growing sixty-some bean plants as a science project,

dutifully measuring the growth with a ruler and tying the plants with twist ties to poles in the hope that they would just grow upward. Please. Now home is a daybed in the basement where my friends and I edit footage of us and set it to the song Tongue Tied by Grouplove; it is where my father creamed my sister, my mother, and I in Bananagrams around the dinner table. Home is a red tiled roof and three updated bathrooms.

Home is still a state I have not visited since sixth grade. North Carolina. I moved from Durham to Cleveland, but what it most interesting is that even after seven years, even after I no longer bother to keep in contact with my fourth grade friends, I still write about it. It speaks to a certain connection to the place separate of the people I knew there. I write of the butterfly house where I learned to take two fingers and slowly inch them under the body of the insect until its delicate black legs rested solely upon my hand. I think of the big tree in our backyard, the largest in our development. So old and powerful. Years after we left, my parents told me that it had been dying while we lived there. I don’t remember. All I recall is it being the go-to hiding place for hide and seek—it didn’t take half of its width to conceal my slim figure from Leia. There is the moss growing near its roots as they poke through the ground, my Disney princess shoes lighting up as my clumsy toes catch onto the surface as crampons and ice picks do into the side of a glacier.

If it is not for the people who helped formulate those memories of home that I yearn, why do I covet my past at the glass atrium butterfly house? Perhaps my attraction to places as “home” stems from the fact that other than my memories, the only concrete evidence of my past exists in the location. I can’t smell a photograph or feel the humid air by listening to someone talk about a place. Home is where fond memories meet the physical world.

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The Homo Sapien Exhibit Sam Keum

“And this is the human exhibit. Those right there, honey, are what we call Homo sapiens!”

Fellow museum visitors respond to the father’s comment with chuckles and grins as we peer outside of the black caging enclosing us, forced smiles plastered on our faces, each of us squatting along the bottom of the pond, armed with a pair of dingy blue latex gloves and a soiled scrub-brush. The man and his family flash their toothy grins and saunter over to the neighboring Snow Shoe Hare exhibit.

Unamused with another failed weekly “Human Exhibit” joke, we collectively sigh, look at each other, and return to our work. For the next hour, our afternoon project is scrubbing down the hardy pine needle green walls of the Bobcat enclosure’s man-made pond.

Stenches from the mildew, algae, and other unidentifiable substances invade our noses as spurts of milky green spray out from our scrub-brushes, grinding against the sides of the drained pond, and onto our powder blue Perkins Wildlife Center Staff shirts. With the sounds of thickly bristled brushes swishing in the background, I see something move near the edge of my peripheral vision. I quickly peer up from the wall of algae I had been fixated on for the past ten minutes and lock eyes with Bitty, the female bobcat.

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I can feel the blood surging through my heart as we stare at each other. Bitty blinks, shifts her head, and proceeds to cat-nap upon her elevated platform. It’s in that moment I am reminded why I am here and why I have fallen in love with working with animals in the first place.

At home, I’ve never been allowed to do a load of laundry or run the dishwasher because of one reason: I’ll mess it up. This museum has become the only place where trust has been granted to me without a question.

For the past few years, I’ve been the youngest volunteer, given a personal set of keys and walkie-talkie to carry as I venture through animal exhibits, ready to complete my designated tasks for the day, just like everyone else. What touches me most is feeling this incredible faith both the Cleveland Museum of Natural History employees, and animal residents, have in each other; I get to experience trust, a trust that is strong enough to surpass species. Here, I can scrub a pond alongside professional animal specialists in an enclosure with two fully grown bobcats who simply choose to believe that the three humans squatting in their giant water bowl mean no harm to them. In my mind, this is much more dangerous than adding a half cup of that clear fragrant liquid to a tiny plastic tray in a washing machine.

Finally, I hear a staff member call out, “How does it look, guys?” We reply with a collective, “Looks good,” crawl out of the pond, and watch the rewarding sight of the green liquid melting off the walls as one of us sprays down the freshly scrubbed areas. I find myself grinning as I fixate my eyes on the spot that I had cleaned, usually the back left corner, as the darker pinewood-green shade morphs into a lighter chartreuse. Sure, it may not have been perfectly clean after a straight hour of scrubbing, but I know I made a difference. The pond glows with a pale green, the majority of dark spots vanquished.

As we walk over to the enclosure’s door, I hear some padded thuds and see Bitty wandering down the slick cement walls, examining what the humans did to her pond. I turn around and follow the others back downstairs, feeling accomplished.

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05 Silhouettes at Dusk by Regan Brady

Contentment Amanda Zeilinger

All of the leaves have turned a translucent gold, seeming as magical as something right out of Moonrise Kingdom. We had hiked to the top of Pine Top, a mountain close to the Mountain School, with the sun high and clouds speckled across the otherwise unobstructed blue. Pine trees spilled onto the hills that lay ahead, dark green up close, but from a distance taking on the color of a soft bruise. We sat around an old fire pit discussing tactics for setting up tents in the rain and debating the importance of long underwear in preparation for our upcoming camping trip. At this time, we were still learning everyone’s names. One night in the winter, we went back to the same spot, calling out each other’s nicknames as unobstructed blue turned to deep orange and then faded to black.

During the new moon in Vershire, Vermont, The Milky Way is clearly visible up ahead, making you wonder about only the deepest questions in life: how do you unstick an abundance of hay from leggings tucked into wool socks, or does the grain given to the sheep taste like dried pasta? After we fed the sheep while singing our own renditions of Christmas carols, Maggie and I trudged up the icy main road to the lodge for dinner. Stars from the Milky Way hung in a stripe across the sky and looked tangible. Maggie and I spent hours over the course of the semester just being in awe of the expansiveness of the sky. But there was food to be eaten and conversations to be had, and the stars would be there afterwards, always constant and worth seeing even if it meant lying outside in sub-zero temperatures. This was a place defined by authenticity.

Vershire provided each of us forty-five students at the Mountain School with space and time to be our true selves, which sometimes meant writing haikus, inviting friends to tea breaks, reenacting the entirety of the Lord of the Rings series, and writing out the questions to our existential crises on blackboards in the humanities room. I like to believe that this genuineness was due in part to being in such a beautiful place. Emotion is like a gas in that it has no physical boundaries; the happiness we experienced by learning about each other, taking care of each other, listening to everyone’s individual stories, and finally being able to recognize each other’s silhouettes in the dark seemed to roll off over the mountains. We knew the trails well enough to navigate back to our dorms in pitch darkness with ease. We know that our minds lie connected under the constellations of this uninterrupted world we called home.

We felt that place by opening ourselves up there together, by not being rejected for anything, by sipping tea under the firmament of memories and looking back only to make sure we hadn’t left anyone behind along the way.

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Happiness

The Price Tag of

Evie Schumann

Writing about wealth and trying to distance yourself from it is like trying to engage in an objective conversation about sexism or racism: it’s impossible. One is born with a gender and race, as well as a socio-economic designation. No open-mindedness or changed perspective can change that, nor can it circumvent the fact that I am writing this essay in my own personal bedroom on my Apple computer for an assignment at my private preparatory school.

Wealth, therefore, is around us everywhere. To me, however, it is not the amount of money one has or doesn’t have, but the way in which one lives with or without it that matters.

It is often said that “money can’t buy happiness.” Studies corroborate this, showing that the richest countries don’t usually have proportionate levels of happiness. But before I fully buy into this idea, I’m still hesitant. As much as I aspire to be unattached to material things and money, I admit this will probably never be true. Our reliance on wealth, regardless of how much wealth that is, is often engrained into our traditions, values, and way of living.

Distance from this is unwarranted for most, and unfathomable for almost all. So while I would like to believe money can’t buy happiness, I’m torn thinking that my happiest moments were born indirectly out of money. The experiences that have shaped me – my time at camp, a trip to Senegal, family vacations – were not free.

If I were to pick the place where I am happiest, it would be summer camp. But the irony surrounding money there is not subtle.

Camp tuition and the numerous fees add up. But, at the same time, camp is the one place where, growing up, I knew nothing about my best friends’ economic status. Our clothes were too dirt-stained to compare brand names and labels and the most we ever bought was an ice cream cone on a special outing. So while our happiness may have been so completely unconcerned with money, it is undeniable that our opportunities there had been bought.

Similarly, my experiences in Senegal were among my best, but it is hard to distinguish if money or my own attitude generated this success. Seeing our own HB lives contrasted to the lives of those who have never held an iPhone was not only humbling, but eye-opening as well. The material possessions and happiness levels between the two countries were incomparable. The items on my own personal wish list and the almost universal trends among HB students comprised of words and things neither in the vocabularies nor the imaginations of our Senegalese hosts. Yet, they lived in ignorance to these parts of our lives, oblivious to the latest technology or next-season’s styles. Their lack of electricity and modern plumbing did not even warrant any apprehension. Conversely, walking through

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the village of Niodior I saw no bratty youngsters, angsty preteens, or stressed high schoolers. The community was a family, helping and taking in anyone and everyone who needed it. Of course, I am minimizing the unhappiness and envy that were bound to have existed to some extent, but the differences in mindset and emotion among my homestay sisters and my classmates back home was evident. It was clear to me that their ability to enjoy the life they were living was much higher than that of my peers. Once again, I am grateful to have had this experience, but can’t help seeing the hypocrisy in it, for without paying trip costs and HB tuition I would have never been granted such an opportunity.

Within Hathaway Brown, money is a touchy subject. We so often avoid it because we don’t know how to go about it. The stereotypical HB girl can be seen as many things, among them smart, white, and rich. But it is this assumption of bottomless familial old money that leads to the uncomfortable juxtapositions within our own community. For some this holds true; for the majority, however, it is far from a reality. Nonetheless, knowing that we have a diverse student body with varying economic status, we are still yet to have conversations about the wealth disparities in our own community.

It is so much easier to look outside, at the greater Cleveland area or the world, and to point fingers, make broad generalizations, and demand change. We disregard that the same things are so often happening here, too. No one ever outright says I can’t go/buy/do something because I can’t afford it. We make excuses when we don’t have the money. And we make excuses when we do, claiming “it was a gift” or “I don’t remember where I got this.” We are ashamed to have and ashamed to have not. As HB students, we have one thing in common, the limitless opportunities awarded to us through an enriching education. Despite how we attained such an opportunity, it is something we share, as well as the culture and community that come with it. Yet this privilege only leads us to have higher goals and aspirations, where we struggle to find happiness along the way. The things that I aspire to achieve happiness from – pride of accomplishments, opportunities, relationships – so often stem from money, and I am disillusioned by this contradiction.

I want to change my outlook and attitude, be grateful for what I have and less demanding of the things I don’t. I want to make money insignificant to my journey of happiness. But how does one go about changing a society so revolved around stuff that we no longer know what true, experiential happiness is?”

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06 We’re All in the Same Boat by McKenna Ritter 07 Amigos en los Andes by McKenna Ritter

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08 Umbrellas by Maddie Shade

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p o

h e t H B g Bu n i p

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We all have our various reasons for occasionally disliking school. It may be the overbearing amount of homework, or it could possibly be the “strict” dress code that does not allow us to wear tight leggings, which I do not necessarily hate that much. I think everyone might gag if they saw pink and white stripes through black leggings while walking up the stairs, but I digress. Despite these issues, we are very lucky to go to a school like Hathaway Brown. Every day, we come to this place where we are given the best education that is taught by teachers that do nothing but nurture our fecund, budding minds so that they may one day produce valuable changes in the world. They teach us that anything a boy could do, a girl could do better. We have a legacy of alumnae whose venerable achievements inspire us to build a work ethic that will carry us across the finish line. There is no reason why any girl that goes to HB should leave without knowing she is a beautiful, smart woman that will become “wildly successful,” and will be respected by every person she chooses to grace with her presence.

This is all hypothetically speaking, of course. During my time as a student at HB, I have heard many success stories of women who graduated top of their high school class, went to an Ivy, graduated Summa Cum Laude there, and then went on to become a female pioneer in her field of work. But no one ever talks about what happens if something goes awry in that plan. So what happens if your freshman and sophomore years of high school derail your chance of getting into your “dream school?” What happens if you need a couple of extra years to finish a Bachelor’s Degree or you aren’t not hired right after college ends? It seems like the students that do not fit the mold are told to sit at the children’s table or even hidden in the coat closet when the guests come to dinner. It was not until this year that I realized that there are a couple of flaws with our stellar institution: the inadequate amount of appreciation and acceptance of the imperfect and the absence of instruction on being able to rebound from a fall.

Every day, I see many of my peers belittle their intelligence for something (that in the long run is ultimately frivolous), such as not being in an AP math class.

Another instance where I have seen this happen is when a girl gets a 95% on a test and says she has “failed” or “bombed.” Honey, the last time I checked, a 60% or below is considered failing and a 90% is considered stellar! The amount of insecurities we have about our intelligence and our unique quirks due to our competitive culture is ultimately detrimental to our well-being. Getting a “C” on one history test in the middle of your Sophomore year will not be the lone reason you do not get into a particular university, so there is no reason to cry and obsess over it forever. Many teens that are under such pressure often turn to cutting, pulling hair, suffocation and intentionally taking harmful doses of medication to find relief. According to a 2011 ABC Report, the cause of the high self harm rate in teens, one in twelve to be exact, is the mixture of raging hormones and unfamiliar hormones. A study from Murdoch Children’s Research Institute found that at every stage of puberty, girls are more likely to commit self-harm than boys. Unfortunately, those who self-harm are also more likely to commit suicide. I do not believe that having a 3.0 GPA is a plausible reason for harming yourself.

I would hate to see any of my peers leave this life prematurely over “bad grades.” What most kids at HB fail to realize is that “B+” here would look more like an “A-” at other high schools and to some college admissions officers. If anything, HB students should be more rational about the way things look on paper, but I also feel that the school should start lending a hand in putting an end to this trend. We should have more discussions about dealing with blunders and how they are not the end of the world. Girls need to learn that life is not the type of race that looks as flawless as the ones Usain Bolt has ran. It really looks more like one that a clumsy asthmatic would run: she may fall and need to take some breathers, but she will cross the finish line at the right time. I would also like to see more alumnae that have struggled their way to success tell their stories to our current students around the campus. We need to break this misconception that there is only one path to be successful in a place that has a slogan stating, “There are 1,000 Ways to be Wildly Successful.” So my charge to you, HB girl, is to take sometime to have perspective and remember that it isn’t all about the grade; it’s about the experience.

B

A

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Cartier Pitts

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Aarathi Sahadevan

Becoming America

My mother searches through the bulging lens of her camera’s viewfinder for a moment that is worth a fifty-cent filmstrip. As her eager gaze settles on our bored expressions set on listless bodies, I can almost hear the hiss as her zeal is extinguished. She persists, finding different angles, different positions, but every second, I feel as if the stiff cotton of my dress clawing at my Cleveland-weathered skin is just pulling me closer and closer to the cool relief of our white tile floor. Her eyes are almost begging now, but I know her words will never betray her pride. “This is for you!” she says to me in exasperation, “sit up straight, look interested.” I feign concentration on the subject at hand for the sake of being reasonable; I know what she is saying is true. In those few seconds, I hear the shutter snap and my fingers clench around the delicate flower that I am pretending to place on an already finished pookalam (flower arrangement). I know this picture is for me, but it isn’t mine.

I was in fifth grade when this picture was taken, prompted by an assignment to share our family traditions and their significance. I still remember my friends buzzing excitedly about stories of baking cookies with their grandmothers on Christmas Eve, or summer trips to their cottages in Cape Cod. I giggled and squealed along with them, racking my brains for my own ideal story: something that I could attach myself too, something that was different. As one of only two Indians in my class, I turned to my culture to save me from our family’s lack of established custom. I trusted that my Hindu affiliation and ethnic attachment that was predetermined by my secondgeneration status would provide me with some fodder, but there was nothing.

In the end, I was left to research and fabricate my own tradition, eventually choosing the South Indian holiday of Onam, which celebrates the sacrifice of King Mahabali and his annual return to his subjects from the underworld.

We had never celebrated it up until that point, and my mother explained to me that the defining symbol of the festival was the flower arrangement or pookalam, which was made in the morning and swiftly swept away by evening to make room for the next day, symbolizing the fleeting return of the king.

Alone, each flower was pleasant, but together they were powerful and moving in their ability to organize into such an unparalleled piece of natural art. I saw the power my culture possessed in conveying the abstractions, of faith, loyalty, community and love, and the role each individual played in contributing to the communal effort. At that moment, I felt proud to carry the label of “Indian,” but ashamed that I had failed to own up to it.

It was the winter at that time, nearly 4 months after the actual festival had taken place, and I was forced to fake a picture to include in my report. In order to bring at least a semblance of authenticity to the process, I showered, prayed, and changed into my traditional dress, but there was no escaping the feeling that I had cheated. My family set to quickly arranging the flowers in a convincing way so that my brother and I could look as if we were putting the finishing touches on our pookalam. We posed disinterestedly, finally capturing a few worthy shots to slap onto my report. It was then that I glimpsed the life that I had let slip away from me.

America is known for being a “melting pot” of cultures, ethnicities, and histories, but what many people don’t realize is that the pungent vitality of life and tradition that immigrants bring to this country is often lost to the overwhelming lack thereof that exists in the U.S. today. When asked what is something that is uniquely American, one thinks of cheeseburgers, freedom and reality television, but the truth is that we have nothing that ties us together in the way that religion and culture do in other parts of the world.

Culture is the security of having established traditions and community to go to when you are not sure of who you are as an individual. It is something that

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is constant and reliable, something bigger than you or your life. Culture is not something you conform to, as is the perception in American society, but rather, something that you absorb and immerse into your own individual personality.

Today, I feel as if I have stayed on the wrong side of the fence. Of course, being American is easier; I don’t have to think about what to think, I don’t have to think about what to wear, I don’t have to think about who to be. All I must do is follow. But eventually, the crowd moves on, and we no longer have the option to be followers. We must choose who we are, and heritage gives us the basis to build this character. I watch every day as my peers try and associate themselves with any movement within reach, from community service to human rights to sustainability efforts. They are courageously forging their own “culture” of activism, so to speak, that defines our modern age, choosing early to walk away from a life of conforming. They try to educate, understand and experience the world around them more than any other generation has done before. But while those around me work tirelessly to create a community for them selves, I have wasted the one I was given at birth.

I now wish my mother had scolded me that night in her native Malayalam. I wish that I had learnt the delicate classical dance style known as Bharatnatyam, or knew the songs from my father’s favorite Bollywood films.

I wish that I could tell my friends about fantastic Indian weddings, or show them my elegant churidars and ghagra cholis. I wish I could speak, act and be seen without showing that I am utterly detached from the person I was born to be, and that this culture that I was entrusted to preserve has fallen to the wayside of the bland, homogenized lifestyle I have assumed as a privileged American teenager.

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09 The Cultural Rhythm of Senegal by Grace Rossi 10 Thiès Threads by Sam Keum

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11 Storm by Lexi Anderson

I See Elasanta Kacey Gill

Somewhere at sometime, someone paused, and looked around at life.

They turned, looking at the people standing next to them, in front of them, and behind them. They examined their faces, their hands. They touched their skin, their hair. They saw the years that they carried on their faces and in their hearts; ranging from 12 to 86. They stared into their eyes, and felt the pain, the love, the loss, the guilt, the gratitude, the regret, and the joy that had filled their lives. And in that pause, they saw what living meant for them – truly being and living and experiencing.

spinning in circles, searching and searching. I spun until I found eyes once again. Brown eyes this time. These eyes held the feeling of gravel digging into her knees as she screamed at whatever god might dwell in the sky. They held the feeling of wet earth squishing between her toes as she walked alone towards a house that wasn’t a home. They held the feeling of holding his weathered hands for the first, and the last time, and then the feeling of nothing, just empty air in her hands.

Those brown eyes were young, but they were filled. Those brown eyes had seen. Those brown eyes had lived.

I pause. I look around and I watch. I see the way her mother looks at her dyed tips. I see way he rubs the scar on his left wrist. I see the way the corner of his lips raise slightly at the mention of her name. I see them and when I look into their eyes I feel them. I feel the shame that radiates through her body at her mother’s disapproving eyes. I feel the pride that rises up in his chest at knowing he survived. I feel the flutter of his heart and the rush of nerves when he hears her name. I feel them when they’re being, when they’re living, when they’re experiencing.

I move. I take a step forward. I stop looking. My brown eyes have seen. My brown eyes have lived. No one else’s eyes will teach me the lessons I have to learn. No one else’s eyes will show me how it will feel to hold my first child, or lose my best friend. No one else’s hands will tell me how it feels to hold a gun to my temple, and not pull the trigger. No one’s wrinkled skin will tell me how it feels to look in the mirror and finally be happy with who you are. I stop looking at their eyes, and their faces. I stop searching for what they know about love, fear, loss, and bravery. Instead, I open my eyes wider and reach out my hands, so that I can see and I can touch. So that I can experience my whole life. I live my life for myself. I make my own decisions. I trust who I am and who I will become. I focus on being happy.

Somewhere at sometime, I paused, and looked around at my life. I turned, searching the faces of the people next to me, in front of me, behind me. I searched the eyes of the janitor I pass everyday in the halls and never say hello to. I searched her eyes for some meaning or some truth. They held the tales of struggle, year after year of $8.50 an hour, wrapped around endless shame and guilt for the empty plates and empty stomachs of her three children. I examined the hands of the cashier at the CVS on the corner of Cedar and Lee, hoping to glean an ounce of wisdom from their wrinkles. They whispered the truth behind his fake smile – the truth of the arthritic knuckles and the pills he kept in his pocket, pills he used to keep away the pain.

Day after day, smile after smile, pill after pill after pill. I turned,

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Somewhere, at sometime, someone will pause. Someone will pause, and look around at life. They will turn, looking at the people standing next to them, in front of them, and behind them. They will examine their faces, their hands. They will touch their skin, their hair. And they will see me. They will see the years I carry on my face and on my heart. They will stare into my eyes, and feel the pain, the love, the loss, the guilt, the gratitude, the regret, and the joy that is my life.

They will see me in their pause. They will see me being me, me living for me, me experiencing for me.

Stain Glass

Diana Muha It is always so hot in here I hope I will sit next to Bobby Wait Wait Switch with Ana Don’t let him see Yes Yes I am sitting next to him We are like little sardines packed into the pews side by side This is my favorite church song I love the way our voices sound as they mix together singing, praising who will carry up the cross today I remember my turn How heavy the wood felt in my hands rocking back and forth at the top as if it would tumble down and take me with it The baptismal pool is bathed in sunlight The water looks imaginary not like water like an illusion It is sitting without a ripple unbothered by the procession The sun floods the stain glass window illuminating the colors painting them on the walls They are alive Isn’t it funny how stain glass looks ugly from the outside The ceiling is so high reaching taller and taller to help our prayers reach Heaven Who should I pray for I will know the word of God I will speak the word of God I will love the word of God

Kacey Gill

Today’s White Guilt Race. It’s the untouchable topic that every white American dreads bringing up. With that one word, comes years upon years of abuse, cruelty, and suffering. Pictures of a man on his knees, thick scars spanning the length of his back, rise to the surface of our minds. Scenes of children ripped from their mothers’ arms, tears streaming down their round cheeks, appear behind our eyes. And with these unrelenting images come the inexplicable white guilt that we know all too well. It’s the twinge in the pit of your stomach when you watch 12 Years a Slave. It’s the automatic defensive mindset you slip into when the discussion of the past actions of “whites” arise. It’s the turning of your head when the teacher points to the picture of a broken family, a broken person – broken and beaten lives. It exists inside of you, and is waiting to eat you up.

But I believe that this white guilt is more than a punishment. I believe it is more than a negative shadow of the past imprinted on your soul. I choose to see it as strength. It provides an acute awareness that would not otherwise be there. It causes you to see more. It allows you to feel more, to understand and empathize with the pain. You are no longer just an outsider looking in, but are able to take your heart and submerge it in the turmoil of those times. These abilities are rare and profound. White guilt is not something to be angry about. There’s no need to be frustrated. There’s no need to resent it. The fact that you can feel guilt in your soul for an action that you did not commit is a strength – a very powerful strength. With this said, I think that the guilt being felt in our country needs to be redirected and reevaluated. We are drowning in 150 year old guilt; 150 year old guilt over the actions of the white slave owner and the mistreatment of the black slave.

Slavery of African Americans has long since seen its demise. As a country we’ve dug the graves of the Fugitive Slave Act and the Three-Fifths Compromise and buried them under years of retribution. I’m not saying that we can forget those times. We can never forget what went down on the southern plantation. We can never forget the faces, the people, the pain. But it’s time we take that guilt and reshape it.

It is time that we apply our guilt to today. To the present-day issue of race that we see living and breathing in our streets, in our homes, and in our schools. Race today–it’s like a grim-reaper, claiming bodies left and right. Claiming Mike Brown, claiming Trayvon Martin, claiming Jordan Davis. It’s covered in a cloak of misconceptions that we have moved past the issue. It’s hidden by our ignorance and our blinded eyes. It keeps growing, and it keeps killing. The murder of these kids, these black kids, to me is an atrocity unforgivable and unforgettable. Observing these deaths, these slaughters, these cold-blooded executions of children in the middle of the street, I can only think that it is here where we need to apply our white guilt. We need to use it. Use it to empathize with the trials of the mother, of Michael Brown’s mother crying on a podium in Ferguson begging for justice, but also begging for peace. Use it to envision what it would be like if you had to worry about your brother, your father, your boyfriend, even your own self, getting shot down in the middle of the road. Care about today’s issue of race. Care about the continual murder. Care about the injustice. Care. Care and make a change. Educate yourself; speak out against what is wrong.

Make a difference in our lifetimes.

Now, when reflecting on my own life, it is my hope (a hope I deem unrealistic, but still a hope), that one day the idea of white guilt won’t exist. That it will fade to a shade of gray so indistinguishable that it is nothing but human guilt. When it comes down to it, we are all the same–human. Just humans, trying to survive and trying to be happy.

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the intersection of artists and writers

your stars were gold, mine silver Jamie Spain

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01

Caen, 1944

POEM BY Olivia Leslie INSPIRED BY painting BY Rebecca Weinberger

All’s fair in love and war so they send us to where bombs fall like raindrops, and gunpowder replaces the smell of wet earth.

This is how we end the Second Great War. We are perched on fragile legs quaking like piping plovers on the detritus of broken buildings.

This is how we shoulder our burdens our machine guns and help France fight its way back to being France.

01 Caen, 1944

by Rebecca Weinberger

We kiss our sweethearts goodbye on red lipsticked mouths, good for the morale of the nation.

They say.

This is how everything is black and white.

There is only good and evil— well that’s what they think too.

But they’re wrong and we are right.

There is only wrong and right.

This is how people become rusting detritus under broken buildings.

We roam desolate streets like coyotes while lone stone statues preside like monarchs over empty anthill cities.

This is how we die, this is how we may come home someday.

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In Response to Surgical Inquires PAINTING BY Emily Imka INSPIRED BY poem BY Becca Lambright

02

I am sitting under hospital lights when my sister says, “We will all return to the sleeping body, I promise.”

She is trying to sing me to sleep with surgical lullabies And I begin to count the number of things I can say With that kind of faith.

One. Brain tumors will kill approximately 14,000 Americans this year.

I do not know how many of them will die knowing what killed them.

Two. A hospital’s church is filled with people who are pretending To pray to someone besides their surgeon.

Three. Most doctors will describe the size of a tumor using fruits.

Lemon, grape, orange.

Four. My father’s doctor said that his was the size of a softball.

Five. I would have preferred that he say grapefruit.

We still cannot grasp the art of universal surgery, How the human body can survive the trauma of a person’s hands Taking communion inside of their chest.

We are years from understanding the long-term effects, Yet we still prescribe to it Because the definition of a patient Is claiming that there is an afterlife, But still fearing that we will not live forever.

“Sometimes the anesthesia does not take, And patients will arise to the sound of their own organs.”

The omniscient surgeon says, as he wheels my father away.

And I remember being told that the trick Is killing them enough To keep them alive.

02 In Response to Surgical Inquiries by Emily Imka 03 The Wanderer by Melody Buca

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The Wanderer She found the star on cold dark dirt Twinkling in fading light Twirling round and round her skirt Then dancing out of sight She followed it along the hill Across the ever green Under the moat’s murky spill Across the ice capped stream It dipped and burst ahead of her Exploding into brighter shards Lifting her up, up, away Among the brighter stars She brushed cobwebs from the clouds As they swooped and swayed The ground shrugged off its misty shroud The sun waved and sank away She saw a girl on a golden spire Shouting out to down below As the sky that seemed all lit on fire Through the wind streaked with snow

poem BY Chloe Schwartz INSPIRED BY ETCHING BY Melody Buca

And they poured out into the streets Shining flashlights towards the sky Beams swung along with tramping feet They watched the girl pass by The world alight with chatter As they watched they were the same But the lights began to scatter The mist fell in like flames And the girl flew away upon the star Into the ink dripped night She felt the silence stick like tar The spire faded from sight And as she flew on through the sky Past Jupiter and Mars She thought, “How lonely it must be Without buses, trains, or cars

And so she wanders higher And so we all sit here With our flashlights and our spires Our loneliness and fear And in the back of her old notebook With stardust and a pen She sketched out blocks and angles Curving streets and alley ends And slowly all the world Came together on a page Curtains dipped and furled People danced upon her stage And as they swung around a sun Toward some ice and round a bend She smiled at her world “Someday, we’ll meet again.”

But lonelier still are the flashlight beams Quiet in their homes Wielders content with candle’s gleams Never inclined to roam They are empty with their people I am empty in this space Perhaps if we were each other Each would find our place” www. h b i n r e t r o s p ec t.co m

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I Hope You Call

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comic by ZoË Solt Inspired by poem by Maria Perilla

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No Beauty Yet drawing By Megan Dorogi Inspired by poem by Olivia Leslie There is no beauty in the world blanketed by thick smoggy sadness.

No beauty in the lonely dark figure stranded on cracking pavement.

No beauty in the scarlet beating heart pumping blood despite desperate wishes that it would lie still.

There is not beauty in startling sparkles of snow and doily laced valentines when every thought is a wound slashed on the inside.

There is no beauty when I match every gaping torn wound they feel.

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There is no beauty in the way the small black letters march a c r o s s t miserably saying nothing, censored for fragmented morbidity.

h

e

There is no beauty yet.

There is no beauty when eyes have been opened like dewy, fledgling herons.

But pain, riveting like beauty, is shimmering.

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Memory poem BY Hannah Yahraus INSPIRED BY painting BY Jordan Harris

A memory of Your arms held out like the branches of a tree, Your smile the rustle of the leaves, My feet the roots, That could not make you stay, That I blamed for dancing, For kicking up the carpet wet with yesterday’s rain.

My eyes the clouds, My mind became a sky For wind and wishes unsure whether to fly To kiss the moon, To hug a sunset good night, To remind the sun to not be gone too long, Too afraid to ask it not to say good-bye.

04 No Beauty Yet by Megan Dorogi 05 Memory by Jordan Harris

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notice the voice calling your name Madeleine Schroedel

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ThE Room Francesca Ferri 02.02.98 Through the first nine years of my life, I moved across not only the country but through various places in the world seven times. I never really minded the fact that I had to change location so many times, despite lost friends and new places to try and get to know. After a certain point I just became used to packing up all of my things into a few boxes and shifting my life around completely; it was part of who I was, and I was okay with that.

Even now the prospect of packing up and leaving seemingly overnight doesn’t bother me, even with all the relationships I now have with both people and places in Cleveland.

Before stopping in Cleveland, I had a childhood of traveling and moving. Through all of that, there was one thing which always came with me, and that was my desire for fantastical stories and adventurous opportunities to present themselves to me. Even as a young child, though I still wanted to be a princess, I wanted to be an adventurer who would go out in the world and discover magic and wisdom beyond the natural. I wanted to discover new things that people hadn’t ever seen before, or at least hadn’t seen in a very long time. I had a deep desire to find animals straight from mythical legends, necklaces with powers past the normal tucked into their glittering gems, or even a room hidden away in a house, empty and waiting to be found, or full of someone’s treasured possessions, away from the world. The prospect of these secret rooms always filled me with awe, even when I was too young to really understand how complicated they could become, or what problems they could potentially pose.

One thing that was necessary for me as a little, wide-eyed girl, was to go through every inch of these houses which I would reside in from a few months to a few years—and it was practically a tradition for me to do this as soon as we moved in, even before the boxes were unloaded.

And then something happened which I never thought would; my life turned into a modern day fairy tale. Move five or six brought us to an A-Frame house in central Ohio, a house which gave us our second dog, a few friends, as well as quite a few nights trying to fix the flooding washing machine and trying to get rid of stray spiders. The house was big, though not too much so, with a few rooms and a bathroom which had to be shared by all, and a large, unfinished basement. Though as a child basements always managed to fill me with some level of fear, I had to get to know the place as I always did and thus spend a sizeable amount of time walking through the spider-infested, mildew-scented rooms of the basement. Every door was opened, every corner turned, none of it out of the ordinary, until I came to a seemingly normal closet door. At first glance, even with the door open, it seemed like the type of place one would store winter coats in the summer, and summer shoes in the winter. Step inside and turn to the left, however, and it turned into something magical: a couple of light strings had to be pulled, but then the little closet gave way to a long hallway that wrapped around the perimeter of the basement.

It wasn’t full of glittering jewels or priceless art or the journal entries of powerful women who lived centuries ago, but it was more than enough for me.

The cold cement beneath my feet felt like stepping onto cool rocks inside of the bubbling mountain creek on a distant planet which I had discovered. The splintering wooden walls looked like trees older than time itself, lining a path through a forest of childish wonder into a place of happiness and self-discovery. Going through the creepy basement to get to this long hallway was the same as battling my way through decrepit lands reigned by evil witches. The soldiers?

Spiders but rather big as horses. Even so, I could defeat them, and I always got to my castle.

For me, it was the best thing I could possibly have in my life.

When something went wrong, I would disappear into that little hallway and suddenly be in a different place, a place where the problems of a fourth grader did not matter. It was the perfect place for hide and seek, too, and really, what could be better? It was a place that brought childhood dreams to life. I no longer had to hope and dream of being given the opportunity to search out wonder. Instead, it found me. Goldfish crackers turned into immortalizing ambrosia, apple juice into sweet nectar, and even the dust which lightly blanketed the hallway’s floor had a quality to it of something straight from the pages of a book, as though a fairy had painted it there during the night. My life suddenly became one most people could only dream of.

And then after nine months we moved. My younger mind was so consumed by the thoughts of leaving friends and long car rides that I didn’t think about that hidden room until I started writing this essay. Just as quickly as my magical land had been put in front of me, it was taken away. Thinking back on it, however, I didn’t leave that room behind, not really. The summer after I moved from that A-frame house in central Ohio, I wrote my first creative story. It was called Lost Field’s Paradise, and was about two children who, upon walking through a field, find themselves in a different dimension where they must work to survive and, eventually, find their way back home. For someone my age, it seemed as though I had discovered the next Harry Potter.

I was going to be famous. My characters were going to be up on the big screen, loved by all. But really, that isn’t what mattered; what mattered was that I could finish my studies for the day, could sit down, and could disappear once more. I could go back to my little room miles away, somewhere that people couldn’t find me. I could go to the mountain with laughing streams and cold rocks beneath my feet, could go back to that forest where even simple leaves told a story of the sun and the stars and how they moved through the sky. Where women born of the earth fell to their knees at the memories of creation, of how the world formed, advanced, and came to be. Where the sky had yet to limit me and the things I planned on achieving, and sweet whispered nothings turned to poetry the moment the words hit the damp air. I could go back to being where I wanted to be.

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Hiccup

Isabella Nilsson

“So, uh *hiccup*, little lady, what would you like to be when you grow up?”

It is only recently that I decided I wanted to be a writer. I have always loved words, always been enchanted by the simplicity and beauty and, above all other things, control, available in language. In a childhood that has never felt particularly stable, among peers whom I have sometimes struggled to understand, writing felt like nothing so much as a gift, a space inside my mind where I could see inside the head of every protagonist, erase every emotional confusion, paint the backdrop of a world with my own fire, my own metaphor, my own song. However, it’s always also seemed such an uncertain thing to make one’s living upon; the process of good writing is sort of inherently inexplicable. Each day you sit down hoping that the ability you had yesterday to write a good sentence has not deserted you, and there are very few hard and fast rules or guidelines onto which one can cling in order to start. Most of them were obliterated by the modernists and postmodernism has claimed and satirized the rest. For example, there used to be a certain convention that one would end the average sentence with a period. But: icanactuallywritelike this ! with r andom spacing & no proper Nouns caaaaapitalizedat all and e e cummings calls it! perfect-ly valid!

(If, of course, it is merited—if there is a reason with genuine artistic validity behind the motivation to write in such a way.)

However, I’ve realized lately that I not only want to be a writer, but need to write. To me writing is a paring down of life, an act of simplicity and faith in one’s own ability, a filter through which only the plain and beautiful and necessary rather than the complex exasperations of the everyday can pass. Behind the word processor, homework and laundry and teenage heartbreak hibernate somehow. I need to write because life is too loud and writing about it leaves it quiet enough to bear.

Although I know I want to write, I have no idea what form such a career would take—if I would want to work as an editor or lawyer or professor or reporter, or if I would only be happy writing in the traditional way, writing books. Although I am confident in my own ability, I am not arrogant or delusional; I know that the vast majority of manuscripts are never sold to publishers. Could I raise a family as a broke writer chasing some impossible dream of pure literary aesthetics with a clear conscience, knowing that I could have gone to law school? At what point do you sacrifice

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your aspirations for the everyday moral responsibilities of the good citizen, good child, good wife? I think about this when some well-meaning distant relative with a half-filled mojito sidles up to me and swills and asks what I’m going to major in, what I’m going to be when I grow up, which is coming up soon, as you must know—clock’s ticking—I usually mutter something about enjoying to write and change the subject. It is considered socially acceptable to enjoy writing. But to want to be a writer? Well, surely you must be vain, to take such pleasure in your own thinking. And teenage girls are expected to be modest. They are not expected to bowl over the general public with their metaphors.

And it’s taken me some years to arrive at this whole writing idea. The first thing I can ever remember wanting to be, at four or five, was a trapeze artist, because it seemed the closest to flying I could get. I remember adults asking me what I would like to be, remember pronouncing it excitedly (“Trapeze artist! In the circus!”), remember their laughing. Because dreams get smaller as you get larger. I was four and I wanted to fly. They were forty and wanted to make their car payment. I’m sixteen now—I can laugh at the little girl who wanted to join the carnival, but I am still young enough to admire her, admire my uncomplicated desire for what could have been—the hands on the ropes, the swing, the brief unimpeachable arc at the top of the circus tent and the bottom of the sky.

After I wanted to be a trapeze artist, I wanted to be an archeologist. A field archeologist. This phase lasted all the way through elementary and up into middle school—I was small and wiry and enjoyed scrambling around in the dirt pretending to be important, so several summers of doing just that and a helpfully vague conception of what archeologists actually do, along with a serious thing for all three original Indiana Jones movies, probably contributed to such a long infatuation with the profession. When I thought about my future career in archeology, I thought it would involve lots of days when a mysterious bush pilot would fly me down to South America and I would discover by the light of the full moon the crown jewels of some forgotten civilization on top of a ziggurat or something. In actuality, archeology seems to involve a lot of dust brushes and sunburn. While still quite exhilarating, comparing the cracks on a Ming spoon from the 4th century to a Ming spoon from the 5th century does not seem to have quite the same glamorous, devil-may-care undertones that Indiana, fedora daringly askew, so effortlessly projected.

Integrity Emily Amjad

As I waded into the hormonally stormy waters of puberty, I tossed aside archeology, and decided that I wanted to be an FBI agent instead. This may seem an improbable or even laughable career path for a chubby, acne-covered, mullet-wearing, headgear-owning, almost ludicrously unathletic girl in the seventh grade, but I was very serious as well as vocal about my new goal to become a Special Agent. My mother and stepfather actually got me, for Christmas in eighth grade, a book literally titled “How To Become An FBI Agent,” amazingly not breaking into hysterical laughter while giving it to me. There was something about the adventure, and, as with writing (although in a very different way) control, of the job that appealed to me. As a member of a powerful government agency, carrying a gun, I would be in nothing but a position of authority. The world would not be frightening or confusing; I would command dangerous situations and ask difficult questions that would always be answered. And I would be helping people; I would wake up every day to go take actions that were simply, measurably, good. My life would be safely subdivided into categories of black and white—I would be safe from that writerly part of myself, the messiness of questioning, the emotional vulnerability of admitting that existence is parceled up in shades of gray. This seemed enormously appealing at the time.

The fact that I hated doing pushups and could trip over my own left foot didn’t seem particularly relevant—the FBI was, for me, a mostly mental love affair.

But while I was dreaming of trapezes and dinosaur digs and crime scenes I was also writing, and somehow as I grew older my writing began to improve. I attracted the attention of two incredible writers, Alexandra Fuller and Paula McClain, who both told me that my writing was good enough to be worth pursuing. I had the luck of a very talented tenth grade English teacher who took the time to support me in every failed effort and experiment I undertook. I am a very lucky person. And somewhere along the way I got the idea that, as a career, I might like to write. I have no idea what college I will attend, although I can hazard a guess that I’ll major in something involving a lot of books. And I have very little idea what I will do once I graduate, although I have a feeling that it will probably not involve archaeology, police investigatory work, or the circus. But I do know that I will write. That is a certainty. And for now, at sixteen, when nothing is ever definite? Knowing is enough.

Every night before I drifted off to dreamland with my sister on the bunk below me, my dad would stride in and create an elaborate bedtime story about us girls and Rat-Mouse. We never really knew what Rat-Mouse was, but it never mattered.

Rat-Mouse was as real to Maggie and me, as the moon was outside. My favorite Rat-Mouse story involved Rat-Mouse lying to his loyal eBay customers by selling vases and towels ‘indisputably’ used by Jesus. My dad is a smart man. Those stories were chock full of life lessons, disguised as hysterical, unbelievable situations. We laughed when Rat-Mouse’s customers actually believed that they could have “Jesus towels” in their bathrooms, but under the surface Maggie and I knew that Rat-Mouse wasn’t the picture of a man (or rodent) or integrity.

He lied. He cheated people and he stole throughout our tales. We laughed because Rat-Mouse was entertaining and a little reckless. But he was always caught and punished for the immoral actions. He got what he deserved. In the real world, that doesn’t always happen. We can steal money, hit-and-run and gossip, and, if we’re careful, get off with no punishment, no consequences, no repercussions. That is all integrity isn’t.

As a six year old, I knew that doing the wrong thing would lead to negative outcomes, whether a night in a dark cellar for Rat-Mouse or 15 minutes on the stairs for me. My parents raised me to be a person of integrity. They raised me to pick the harder path when it was the right way to go, even if everyone else chose the path of least resistance. It isn’t about the end result; integrity is about the journey. It’s choosing an action and taking full responsibility for any and all outcomes. It’s apologizing when you make mistakes and owning up to your failures. Real integrity is courageous and admirable.

Real integrity is always growing and expanding from new experiences. Like our daily lives, it’s a learning experience based on strong morals and self-awareness. My personal integrity is strong, but it’s a work in progress. Every time I choose to do the right thing, not just the easiest thing, and even when I don’t pick the best option, my integrity is strengthened from the experience or from the regret.

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01 Parisian Street Artist by Anna Lietman

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Je Suis Charlie Lizzie Poulos

Muslim were entirely ignoring Islam’s emphasis on love and nonviolence. Islam is not a religion that encourages violence, for it has become another victim of extremists corrupting and twisting portions of holy thought as a justification for the unjust.

There are numerous quotes from the Quran (Islam’s holy book) that affirm Islam is a nonviolent religion:

As many of those reading this article know, on January 7th at 11:30 in the offices of Charlie Hebdo, Paris, two gunmen affiliated with Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni branch opened fire killing 11 staff members and one French National Police officer. The reason for the attack? It was in response to a cartoon published by the magazine displaying an image of the prophet Muhammad, which is considered blasphemous by the majority of the Islamic world. The cartoon was criticizing the fact that groups such as ISIS or Al-Qaeda are very quick to forget the peaceful teachings of Muhammad in pursuit of their own interpretation of the Quran’s words. One of the more famous examples of these cartoons displays Muhammad being decapitated by a member of ISIS for voicing his protest of their actions.

Although this cartoon and the others that portray Muhammad are obviously offensive to many Muslims in France and around the world, the French government continues to support the right of Charlie Hebdo to publish whatever they wish, and their right to the freedom of speech. One week later, the magazine released a new issue that displayed an image of the prophet on the cover holding a sign that reads “Je suis Charie” (the slogan for those who support Charlie Hebdo’s right to freedom of speech) and shedding a tear for those lost and saying “Tout est pardonné,” all is forgiven.

Although at its base this tragedy began with the loss of 12 innocent French citizens, it became much more than that, reigniting the debate about freedom of speech vs. respect of religion. There are several important things to remember when considering this complex situation. First, France continues to hold its strict principle of “laïcité” or the separation of church and state. Under this term, people are free to express religion privately, but not in the public sphere. In addition, under this principle, the French support the freedom of speech above all, no matter how blasphemous or offensive something might be. Charlie Hebdo is known for its “no topic is off limits” mentality, as everyone from American politicians to the pope

“ Fight in the way of God against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! God loveth not aggressors.” (2:190) Clearly, this quote for the Quran states that God neither supports nor loves “aggressors” such as these gunmen who took 12 lives on that morning in January.

In fact, the Prophet Muhammad explicitly stated that above all Muslims should forgive those who they believe to do wrong against them:

Photo from The Washington Post

Translation: “All is forgiven” The sign reads “I am Charlie” have been subjects of their satire in the past. It is my opinion that although it is important to consider the impact of what we say, or rather what we publish, as members of the free world it is imperative that we protect the freedom of speech at all costs.

One of the things I heard repeatedly from friends, family, or my peers the day of the attack was “they (Charlie Hebdo) were kind of asking for it.” In my opinion, it is thinking like this that plagues our culture today. We push violence off as being somehow justified because the victims were being provocative, and expressing their right to the freedom of speech. Violence of this kind is never justified, even if those perpetrating it claim to be defending religion. It is important to make the distinction that these men who claim to be

“ Do not be people without minds of your own, saying that if others treat you well you will treat them well, and that if they do wrong to them. Instead, accustom yourselves to do good if people do good and not to do wrong even if they do evil.” (Al-Tirmidhi) Claiming that Charlie Hebdo was “asking for it” not only discredits the right to the freedom of speech, but also legitimizes Al-Qaeda’s extremist and incorrect interpretation of Islam as a religion that encourages violence. Instead, we must defend our right to the freedom of speech, and not forget that extremist acts of violence are never justified.

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02

There is no word to describe how quiet it is after the door slams. There is no adjective cold enough for the linoleum or salty enough for the tears that fall from your eyes. There isn’t a word, but there is a feeling, maybe too many feelings. Like gasping for air with broken goggles, everything you end up with is soggy. Conscious drowning in every emotion you didn’t know you had. Its exhilarating, and terrifying; a tidal rush. You’re on Mount Everest. You are Mount Everest. But, there is no air, and you’re back in that pool, floundering without floaty-wings, coughing and sputtering, while waves of fiery water that don’t taste or feel like water at all, keep pounding and pounding.

They tried to teach you how to tread water, to stay afloat in a rough sea, but there is no word, for just how scary it is, when you realize: you can’t.

02 Listen by Alley Keresztesy

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There is

No Word to Describe Grace Homany

My Son is Tamir Rice Kacey Gill

I

’m sitting here, staring at my laptop trying to motivate myself to write an article about the American male and the rape culture that surrounds us in this day and age. I know this is a topic that needs to be discussed, that needs to be addressed, but today, sitting here, I can’t bring myself to write that article. Today, sitting here, staring at this blank word document, I find another topic weighing on my mind. It’s so heavy, that I can’t ignore it.

The faces of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Eric Garner are dancing behind my eyes. The protests in Ferguson, New York, and Cleveland are tugging at my heart. I know I am not the only one who is plagued by the thoughts and images of the events of our country. I know we’ve all seen it on our television screens and our laptops. I know we’ve all heard it on the radio and in our classrooms. I also know that not everyone is going to share my contempt for murderous cops or my sympathy for dead black men and boys. I know this, and I know that I am undeniably and irrevocably biased in these cases. I am biased because of who I am. I am biased because of my experiences. I am biased because I have seen one too many black bodies lying dead in the street. Today, right now, I’m not going to lecture you about race.

I’m not going to try to persuade you. I’m not going to criticize you if you believe the cop in the Tamir Rice case was justified. Today, right now, all I want is to share an experience that you may not see. I want to share my experience with you, as a black woman, living in this country. I want you to see this, to see me, and to understand a little more.

When I see Eric Garner lying dead on a New York sidewalk because he was selling bootleg cigarettes, I think of my father. I can see his body crumpled on the ground unmoving, no longer breathing. When I see Michael Brown, six bullets in his back, I see my future husband, the man I love more than anything else in the world. When I see Tamir Rice, I see my future children, who will inevitable carry a pigment in their skin that will characterize them as black from the day they’re born. When I see these people, these black men, they are no longer strangers but the people I hold nearest and dearest to my heart.

There’s an irrefutable pattern of murder of black males—of brothers, uncles, fathers, sons, grandfathers, husbands, cousins, and friends. It doesn’t matter how light or how dark he is. It doesn’t matter how old or how young he is. It doesn’t matter how rich or how poor he is. The proof of how easy it is to murder a black man and get away with it is in the long lists of obituaries.

This fact, the fact that this behavior has become no less than a trend nationally, is something that causes me indescribable pain. Sitting in my history class, looking at images of Eric Garner’s wife, I couldn’t help but feel the dread that one day I would be her. That one day, I would have to bury my murdered husband, and then try to explain to my kids why their father’s murderer was walking free. I worry even now, at my young age of sixteen, that my life will end up resembling that of Esaw Garner’s. Every time my boyfriend steps out of his house I am struck with fear. He’s a nineteen-year-old black male—he’s no different than any one of the already lost. I turn over their names in my head—Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant, Jordan Davis. And then... and then I can’t help but add his name to the end

of the list. Just another name, on a list much too long.

I think about what it will be like when I have sons, when I have little brown boys running around my house. I think about the conversations that I’ll have to have with them. I’ll tell them to not walk around with a large group of black boys—that people always think that’s trouble. I’ll tell them not to loiter around in stores, because people will think that they’re stealing something. I’ll tell them to always keep their hands on the steering wheel when they get pulled over, because I’ve seen too many cases of black people getting shot for moving their hands and seemingly “going for a weapon”. I’ll tell them to never resist a cop, to do exactly what they say, the first time they say it. I’ll look my sons in the eyes, and tell them that even if they do that, even if the keep their hands raised and get on their knees, it may not save them; it didn’t save the unarmed Orlando Barlow, who was surrendering on his knees in front of four Las Vegas cops, only to get shot and killed. I’ll hold my children close and pray because I know no matter what I tell them, it’s not a guarantee that they won’t end up as another homicide case.

My everyday reality is watching the most important people crumble because of what they are seeing happen. I held one of my closest friends while she cried and cried and cried and kept asking, “Why is it okay? Why do people think it’s okay?” I didn’t have an answer for her, all I could do was hold her, and let her cry. I sat with one of my greatest mentors and looked her in the eyes as she broke down and admitted that the world wasn’t safe for us black youth, and that no matter how hard she tried, she doubted it ever would be. I listened to my own mother say how lucky she was to have had a girl and not a boy—because having a black son in 2014 is one of the scariest things she could possibly imagine.

As a society, we’ve made these cases a battle between two sides. We’ve divided ourselves by race, by class, by past experiences and memories. It’s become one great debate about whether or not these deaths, or murders, were justified. Whether it was cops who pulled the trigger, or self-empowered individual like George Zimmerman or Michael Dunn (murderer of Jordan Davis), the debate is the same.

There are always going to be debates, but it doesn’t change one simple fact – in the end there was a dead black boy, or a dead black man. No one’s opinion, right or wrong, no court ruling, right or wrong, will change this fact. This fact is my reality. This fact has become my expectation. This fact has become the bane of my existence. It’s my worst nightmare just lurking around the corner. This fact has become part of who I am. This fact will change who I will become. I wish and wish and wish that it wouldn’t. But it will. This is my life. This is me.

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An Ode to My Idol Anna Lietman

T

hough not blessed with perfect teeth or eyesight, I was born with a passion for reading. As my twin brother—the one with 20/20 vision and no need for cruel correctional mouth hardware—battled dyslexia, I read books fluently and avidly and was recognized by my early teachers for such proficiency.

In kindergarten, it was Mrs. Owen. My dad recounts the time he paid a visit to my class and unexpectedly discovered the other children prancing around as I read aloud to them. At least this is how he explains the scenario.

My peers jauntily danced in a circle, retirement-ready Mrs. Owen tended to the piano, and I buried my nose in a book.

In first grade, it was Mrs. Malley. She similarly differentiated me from my fellow first-grade classmates by providing me with a special shoebox labeled “Anna Lietman,” stocked with books meant solely for my consumption.

In second grade, it was Mr. Howell, who recommended my all-time favorite set of books: Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events. I dove headfirst into the enthralling picture this author painted, hooked by the foreign and sophisticated vocabulary. Drawn to the action-riddled plot. Pulled into a fantasy world that maintained just enough aspects of reality to intrigue me.

Though I can’t recall many details of the novels, I nostalgically reminisce upon the palpable suspense I felt, the powerful words that embedded emotion deep into every part of me, words that could not be confined to mere pages. I desperately yet vainly willed the survival of the protagonists in their close encounters with the sinister Count Olaf.

His name had much the same affect on me as the utterance of Lord Voldemort—it served to instill fear. From what I can remember, this shady villain character was continuously foiled, though just barely, in his attempts to capture three orphan siblings. This may not sound captivating, but who can resist alliterated titles like ‘The Ersatz Elevator,’ ‘The Carnivorous Carnival,’ and, for the twelfth in the thirteen-book series, ‘The Penultimate Peril.’ These headings give limited insight into the wonderfully crafted writing and dramatic content of Lemony Snicket’s works. Upon recently dredging up these relics of my past, I discovered a note—presumably meant for my dad, who, at the time, made a point of reading the very same books I read (whether out of an innocent fatherly interest or for the purpose of ensuring my reading choices to be at the appropriate level of difficulty, I cannot say). This note proudly declared, in my sloppy second-grade scrawl, “I’m Done!” It bore a certain sense of pride and accomplishment masked behind the depths of these simple words. Yet the completion of my all-time favorite books was bittersweet. As I write this, I long to rediscover the depths of these masterpieces that I have long since forgotten. And I might do just that, for these are volumes I could reread tirelessly, for that is the power of Lemony Snicket.

This essay might have unintentionally turned into a veneration of Lemony Snicket, but I can assure you it is not entirely off topic. He is, after all, my literary hero. He has shaped my reading, and therefore my writing. He taught me writing can be different but still good, and sometimes this uniqueness is the sole reason it is good. I took away the moral that it’s okay to stray from the guidelines dictated by society. It’s okay to be the only kindergartener allowed to choose her own outfit for picture day who, as a result, shows up wearing her beloved soccer jersey while her friends don immaculate dresses. It’s okay to be a nerd. It’s okay to be the only one of your friends without cable television.

The only one without a boyfriend. It’s okay. For Lemony Snicket, it was okay to begin a book by dissuading readers from continuing to the next chapter.

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R e t r o s p ec t, a P u b l i cat i o n o f Hat h away B r ow n Sc h o o l

My Life in Leather Binding Aarathi Sahadevan

I

was first introduced to the written word with Roberts’ The History of the World, a 1300 pager that my two-year old self couldn’t seem to put down, let alone pick up. As I sat with my toes barely hanging over the edge of the seat, I would imitate the studious mannerisms of my mom and dad, then cardiology residents, as they scrutinized that meaningless jumble of shapes with intense gazes. With a furrowed brow, I would stuff my face into that glorified paperweight, allowing that scented paradox of synthetic and organic to mingle with my own breaths, trying to feel the small rise and fall of the text on my skin. Today, I watch this and other moments of my past flitter beneath my eyelids, each memory its own page flying in a whirlwind of confusion while still strung together by the binding of my singular life.

One year later, I entered the hallowed halls of my preschool: a bastion of knowledge where I was eager to continue on my literary journey, now equipped with a hungry sense of curiosity and my newfound literacy. By this time, the aesthetic quality of books that had initially caught my attention was no longer enough to hold my interest; I desperately needed to know what was between those covers. I began steadily plowing through the shelves of our classroom, reading any stray books within my reach, and listening to the stories of my parents, teachers and friends. It was in that first year that all my classmates and I were given a notebook to just write. There was no assigned task or guiding subject because we didn’t need it; our un-inhibited and whimsical minds paved a path for us to explore our own thoughts and gave us the tools to coax along that seed of the English language that was slowly germinating on our tongues. This vigorous eagerness to explore stemmed from my own perception of life as a string of stories just waiting to be written, spoken and heard. Since I can remember, books have fed the word bank for the expression of my thoughts into these stories, and I continuously allow phrases, ideas and literary devices borrowed from my reading experiences to leech into the way I describe and make sense of my own existence.

By thinking of life events as parts of a novel, or bigger story, I see them through the lenses of my past and future. Each new book provides the opportunity to watch the author grapple with unknown terrain, and to store these observations away until the lives of the reader and the writer become intertwined in their common pursuit to conquer those omnipotent emotions. Each memory of my life is a new line in the memoir, the legacy, of my

existence and it is by compartmentalizing my experiences that I remember them in their full capacity, allowing the “static” of day-to-day life to fall away in its inconsequence to raw, unadulterated emotion.

On March 7th of this year, I was once again forced to confront a new and uncertain reality: Grief. Up until this point, death’s attempts to touch me with its crooked fingers had been futile, only succeeding in making ephemeral contact in the safety of leather bound covers and dark theaters. That emotion of loss was so removed from my own experiences, that even when my grandfather was on the very edge of life, I couldn’t recognize that death was awaiting his fall. No amount of artificial exposure could have prepared for that obvious next step that was shrouded behind the smoke screens of my own naivety. That violent sorrow slowly ripped me apart, snaking like a potent chemical through my veins, while, at the same time uniting my every cell in a chorus of desperation until my body trembled to release a single cry. I had never experienced an emotion so devastating, leaving hearts and minds broken in its wake. I watched as tears emptied our once vigorous souls into the damp threads covering the shoulders of those who shared our affliction, leaving our minds void of anything but that harsh truth of feeling. I sought my mother’s delicate hands cupping my glistening cheeks and gently untangling the knots in my curly hair, and my father’s strong smile and surety to keep me firmly upright when all I wanted to do was fall. Yet, as I desperately searched for security, I found my parents to be doing the same, suddenly just as weak and defeated as their child. It was at this moment that I turned inward, once again picking up the book that held my life in its vulnerable yet enduring pages, finally ready to draw on my past, learn from the present and turn to a new chapter.

Before my grandfather’s death, I had just read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, and remembered the words of Hazel Grace, “Augustus Waters died eight days after his pre-funeral.” It had stuck out to me because despite her obvious grief, her words had been unable to move me because I was removed from her emotion, having never experienced it myself. Those words had no distinct vocabulary, nor any underlying metaphor; their eloquence and expressiveness lied in their directness, and how she put such an ominous event in the perspective of normal life. After the overwhelming tsunami of grief finally drew back out into the sea of everyday life, destined to return, I sat down, finally calm and added another line to the novel of my life. “My grandfather died eight days before my 16th birthday.”

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Found

My Friend Jamaal

Cartier Pitts

Many freshmen may remember seeing this twenty-something, tall, black man walking the halls of Hathaway Brown this past fall during the Young Writers and Artists Festival. I am certain that some of the sophomores may remember his name being Jamaal May. But I definitely know the upperclassmen remember when he first came early during the 2013-2014 school year for a funny and thought provoking assembly. He shared poems that were in his recently published collection, titled Hum and his favorite lyrics from Kanye West and Lil Wayne songs. I sat there in awe, thinking how much I wanted to meet him and learn how he made his work so special.

Fast-forward a year after that assembly and my wish became a reality. I sat in Mr. Parsons’ room and had lunch with him and a few of my peers. We were talking about everything from the true meaning of a Bachelor’s degree in society to the return of Lebron James, as if we were old friends. His answers to our questions came from a place of thought, one of experience and reality. Through this conversation, I could see why Jamaal was such an accomplished writer (an American Library Association and Beatrice Hawley awarding winning one, to be specific). But his success cannot be measured by trophies.

A few days later, I had the opportunity to write and work with Jamaal May. According to the weathered blue notebook in which I wrote notes in, we learned a lot that day. I do not have the patience or time to describe all of the lessons here, but there are two that have especially stuck with me. Jamaal shared this theory that our conscience really is not truly our own; it is made up of everyone’s thoughts and conversations. At first this was a little difficult for me to grapple, but then the lightbulb was turned on. Have you ever wondered how the confident thoughts in your head sound a lot like your friends and your parents cheering you on while the negative thoughts sound like the people who have troubled you? That’s why. Humans are influenced by our culture more than we would like to ever know or admit. The other theory is more of a truth in my opinion; art argues that we are all connected. This idea instantly made sense to me. It is why a college freshman, a soccer mom, and a congressperson can all pick up the same book or watch the same movie and most likely have similar emotional responses to it. If we were not connected, this outcome could not ever happen.

These two lessons, more than anything else I have learned from Jamaal, have changed my outlook on life—and writing especially. Many times I have been afraid to put my heart on a page, whether it was a paper or a poem, because I was nervous of the commentary that was to come with it. But now I know I have no reason to fear because what I am writing is what you have thought, are thinking, or will one day think. Though the spectrum of life experiences is wider than a person can picture, there are many common events we share, such as falling in love, and failure, and success. And despite there being a multitude of cultures and languages, only art can transcend these barriers in order to share this revelation. Art is our way of telling one another that “this life you are living, I am living it too. The feelings you are feeling, I am feeling them too.” I would not have come to this conclusion if it were not for my friend named Jamaal.

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R e t r o s p ec t, a P u b l i cat i o n o f Hat h away B r ow n Sc h o o l

MacKenzie Hridel Parched potato-drills Fain pray for rain.

They sit, waiting, Dreams of glutting curtailed by pain.

No longer will we dine, My poor, usurp’d king, At great tables of ebon With spoons of sterling.

The din of rebellion Is growing tempestuously; But one day the rain will fall And parched we will not be.

Oh, how I long for a tempest To wash this plague away And relieve us of the tippet That strangles us halfway.

A countenance marred by scars, The writ of a new age.

They took what once was ours To cultivate tares of rage And betroth’d me to this char, Which has become my cage.

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03 Hands by Emily Imka www. h b i n r e t r o s p ec t.co m

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The drought ends; I am alive.

Maaryah Malik

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R e t r o s p ec t, a P u b l i cat i o n o f Hat h away B r ow n Sc h o o l

01

02

01 Urbanized Chaos by Annabel Meals 02 Camel by Erica Kahn

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x 65

Frivolous Fears

Festering in Photos

I

’ve always had some stupid worry in the back of my head that my mother had a child in her first marriage and never told me about them. That somewhere there is a half-sibling of mine wandering around this world, that we are completely unaware of each other. I’m scared that someday, I’m going to pass some Italian on the street and think that they smell absolutely horrible—because of that whole genetics thing that tries to keep incest from being a thing that happens—but will think that they look oddly familiar. I’m anxious that maybe we’ll lock eyes, something will click, but then we’ll keep walking, likely to forget about each other within the next few moments.

When I first learned about black holes, I would dream, and daydream, that the roof of my house would be pulled off and into one, and that I would be the first to follow. I can even picture now, so many years later, the exact image of a black hole above a suburb in Florida, the long leaves of palm trees stretching up into the sky. I start hyperventilating when I watch videos set in or written about space, and sometimes I wonder if that’s some weird result of having been so afraid of black holes, what with their being part of space and all.

For years now, it’s been impossible for me to walk around outside without thinking about the fact that I have a very large chance of being pulled into a dark alley corner and being sexually assaulted by someone. I have to pull my face into a stony mask before heading out the door because if not, I may accidentally show just how disgusted I am every single time someone honks their horn, or yells out something obscene.

“Give me some of that ass!”

Then, my friend responds, “We’re minors.”

What if they already knew that? What if that was the appeal? Those thoughts haunt me.

I’m terrified by the thought of God. When I was young I would pray because I thought it would make my grandma love me more. When I realized that my grandma would love me no matter what, I stopped, because I didn’t believe in anything being up there anyway. Besides, there were more important things in life, like dogs and coconut ice cream in a bowl with lime sorbet, the absolute perfect combination. I had followed this path of non-existence until I read pages from a religious text and felt something I had never thought was possible to feel, as though I had been wrong all this time, and just hadn’t been trying to worship the right god. When I tried talking to my mother about it, she said that she didn’t “have time for this religious stuff right now; I’m already dealing with so much at work.” I haven’t thought about it too much ever since, because I don’t want to risk my mother not wanting to know me because of a god that may or may not be real (is real. Is real? Is—).

I love writing because it makes me feel how an eagle must feel with its wings spread as a perfect upwards draft of air takes it higher and higher without it having to put forth any more effort than to soak up the sun and fly. I hate

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R e t r o s p ec t, a P u b l i cat i o n o f Hat h away B r ow n Sc h o o l

Francesca Ferri

writing because I’m not good enough. I can write an essay about myself and get an A but I can’t write words that move people to tears, or make people feel things. Maybe I can, but it sure doesn’t feel that way. In writing class when people are reading their poems and others are shaking their heads in amazement, the only person shaking their head at my writing is myself while I read, voice trying not to shake and nails often digging into skin because it can’t be fair that something I love so much can hurt me even more.

The future is uncertain, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. On one hand if I knew my future I might not want to live through it, however similarly, I feel like if I had some sort of glimpse towards how my life might play out, it might be easier to get through the days of disappointing no one more substantially than myself. I want to have children as soon as I’m ready, but what if they grow up to hate me? Even now I can hardly deal with the thought. I can’t imagine what I would do if it actually came true.

I try to stand up for things that are important to me. Marriage equality.

Racial equality. Gender equality. Equality, equality, equality. We need it, and I am so, so petrified that, not only will none of my actions make any sort of difference, but also they won’t even help pave the way for others. I don’t need recognition, I just need to make some people happier with who they are, but I don’t think I can even accomplish that.

I’m not particularly good at anything. And whenever I try talking about this people automatically shush me and that’s it, but hear me out—I don’t really do anything. I used to swim and that was a passion of mine, but then I started having panic attacks starting upwards of four hours before the practices would start, so I had to make excuses not to go. I don’t do that anymore. I write, but it’s not something I’m stellar at. Yeah, I enjoy it, but I can’t imagine ever being recognized for the words I pen onto paper, and there isn’t any other way, apparently, to know whether or not you’re good at something. I really like cooking, and eating I like even more, but I still managed to burn a pot of water with sugar in it while I tried to make a simple syrup. I’m doing the dance concert, but I’m always out of sync. I auditioned for the Playwriting Festival, but I got cut from the auditions. I’m not good at sports. I can make people laugh, but I’m not funny enough for it to be my ‘thing’. I don’t have a ‘thing.’

I’m nervous that this essay will be horrible, because it’s not really following the prompt and it’s more some sort of nervous journal entry written too late at night instead of an English essay I’ll be turning in for my teacher to read and judge. This isn’t even about a particular picture. Instead, it was inspired by many. Little bits and pieces of my life which have been held together by little books with holes in the paper so that the photos can be seen.

Photos in an album can represent all different parts of someone’s life. When I was a sick baby in Italy, unaware of what was going on around me. When I was a bubbly toddler in Wisconsin, playing with kids from all around the complex whose parents were from all around the world. When I was a fat little kid in Florida who was the only one who wasn’t allowed to wear a two-piece swimming suit, not because it was inappropriate, but because it just wasn’t for my body type. When I was a fourth grader in central Ohio,

03

03 Path in a Forest by Emily Imka

the year I went to school outside of HB, and a group of girls told me to wait for them “right here” while they went to the other side of the playground to do something quickly. When I was a sobbing fourth grader because they didn’t come back. I can picture myself trying to jump off of the top of the swirly slide, just to get off of that playground without having to look them in the eyes again first. When I was a home-schooler in Cleveland who didn’t have any friends, who told the only one that she was the best one—best and worst, considering there was just the singular ‘friend’—and she responded with an awkward cough and the name of her best friend. When I blushed because the name wasn’t “Francesca.”

Inside of a photo album, all of these moments happen at the same time. They exist together, on the same plane, in the same little book. So, all at once, I am an Italian baby playing in a sandbox in Wisconsin with a fat, tanned version of myself who is crying because a group of girls don’t want to play with me, because their best friends aren’t named Francesca.

be that person, and I’m so afraid that it might happen, just because it’s hard to let go of what has been.

I’m worried.

My name is Francesca Marie Ferri. I am sixteen-years-old. I do not have a half-sibling wandering the world somewhere. I will never be killed by a black hole, or else I would already be dead. If I try, I can stay safe. If there is a God, they will help me figure that out. I may be the worst writer to ever grace the planet, but that doesn’t mean I will ever stop doing it, because it still gives me joy. I will understand the future as it happens. I can make a difference, if I try. I am good at something, even if that something is remembering to floss my teeth every day. I’m not going to fail this essay.

I’m scared, because I could write an entire book about my past without thinking about it too much, and I don’t want to be one of those people who is completely stuck in their past. I’m not going to be the old woman who’s bitter because she’s no longer young and free and able-bodied. I don’t want to

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04

If You Knew This Place Grace Homany There are things you learn from mountain air.

Like how to pluck constellations from the clouded riverbed of the sky, or how elk differ from deer differ from moose.

That’s what things do out here.

Differ.

The water differs it’s still blue, but it’s so blue, and so clean and so cold.

Everything is clearer.

There’s a sticky sap that drips like tears out of the stoic pines.

It stains my fingers, gluing me to the fallen needles.

The sky here is big.

Not just big, but open and broad, inviting like a skylight to the universe.

The lack of oxygen leaves room for adventure.

Urge leaks from the cracked granite rocks and whistles in the dry wind.

I go, I should go, I would go.

I will go.

The flowers here explode from the mountainsides.

Bright sticks of dynamite, reds and yellows and blues.

Each more intense than the first.

This is what purple mountain’s majesty looks like.

This is what adventure feels like.

This is what clarity sounds like This is my mountain air.

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R e t r o s p ec t, a P u b l i cat i o n o f Hat h away B r ow n Sc h o o l

Not Beginnings Emily Amjad

It’s love, that fierce, screaming, pumping blood dripping red through the vessels like the sun filtered through her sealed eyelids, that makes you act. Your lined knuckles wanted to scissor our words out of our white-frosted winter lips, cracking bones as the snowflakes fell from the sky, and pick her back up again toes grounded, her four corners set still, stable on the edge of the red carpet that felt like fertilizer beads crunching under our feet when ice melted into swimming pool blue robin’s eggs. You didn’t realize that when the soft eyelids flashed open, and the rough carpet faded to a rosy pink by the billion year old light bulb, we loved her too. It was love that made us act.

Dear Freshman Class Maria Perilla

1. It doesn’t always have to be the love song or the funeral march.

You are not obligated to nest yourself in extremes.

Believe me, they will tell you how classrooms feel like caskets, but you are by no means decomposing.

2. You are but children in a linoleum jungle, young wild things at play. You are fresh fruit, ripe but not yet forbidden. Do not rush to grow into your bones just yet. We all want that kind of wiggle room back.

3. The seniors will leave, your boyfriend will dump you, your friends will change, but the sky will still be the sky, the sun will still be the sun, and the world will not end. With any good day comes skinned knees, bruises and dirt.

4. Maybe you’ll try out loving with an open wound, come out bitter with your teeth knocked out, come out damaged or guilty.

Fifteen is an awfully inconvenient time to love someone. I’m not telling you to be afraid. You already are. All I’m saying is learn to let go as fast as you learned to hold on, accept defeat, and know that people can only ruin you if you let them.

5. It will feel like getting beat down sometimes, but you too will find good use for your knuckles, for your hands, your lips, your tongue. It will feel like getting beat down sometimes, but you too will find people to patch you up, people to find comfort in, and people that stay.

05

04 Serenity at Yosemite by Regan Brady 05 Bumblebee by Regan Brady

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06

Slice of Life Isabella Nilsson

I see a therapist. I have seen her, every week, for over a year, driving out every Friday afternoon to some nondescript office park in the Beachwood area demarcated by a massive sign saying “Todd’s Real Estate”, the tip of it butting out angrily into the road. I start out every weekend with a discussion of my own psychoses and neuroses. (I have never liked weekends, or weekdays, weekdays because they entail work and weekends because they leave me lonely.) My mother is a psychoanalyst and so she had to work hard to find someone she did not know or would not bump into through the same Cleveland psychoanalytic social circles and Dr. Greenberg was the result, middle-aged, maybe, asking penetrating questions about the most personal of things with a lilting Israeli accent, prone to letting long silences stretch.

As many members of the Freudian school do she rebuffs all my questions about her own life and so to me she is a cipher, not so much a doctor as one to confess the darkest parts of me to and watch as she sits, a fixture of her lego-filled office, non-judgemental and chilly as a mirror that bounces back the burn of my own self-loathing, staring back at me, spending the minutes I have paid for waiting for me to speak again. Despite her laconic qualities and my inability to articulate or even decide what I really want out of life we have eventually come to some sort of agreement on the tenor of my issues. Firstly, that I am wasting my life. Secondly, that I am aware that I am wasting my life, and that it hurts me, but that I am doing nothing to prevent it. Thirdly, that I am wasting my life because I am unmotivated and I am afraid, afraid because I am unmotivated and unmotivated because I spend all the life I am wasting waiting and hoping for something better, something else. I come home and stare at the ceiling and think of all the things I am not doing that could one day make me happy and stare and think and hurt and hope I won’t be asked to move until I can go to sleep and for another night at least I don’t have to think any longer.

There have been three perfect moments in my life. Dr. Greenberg knows about them all and made empathetic noises as I told her about them, as I searched in her eyes for approval or understanding and found them, as always, unreadable. The first two were very similar, although the memories themselves are several years apart.

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R e t r o s p ec t, a P u b l i cat i o n o f Hat h away B r ow n Sc h o o l

I was on a lake, in Michigan, the one year in our perfect rented summer house in the woods and the one hiatus in the seven year dissolution of my mother’s marriage. There was no internet or cell phone reception and it led to a sudden flowering of creativity, poems full of dictums and formalities that I creatively, enthusiastically botched. I had been without real friends for several years and because I had none the lack of them was freeing; for a short time I learned how to depend upon and actually like myself. I didn’t have to worry if someone was going to text me because no one ever did. So I spent my days reading book after book on the beach and writing poem after bad poem on the wifi-free computer and exploring the woods and punching my stepbrother and swimming and lying in the sun until the feel of it on my body was like climbing a staircase to god, hotter each flight, light-full, delightful. But this moment was perfect because I experienced it at three in the morning and it was therefore mine alone, to glorify and misremember as I saw fit. It was the last night of our vacation and on the first night we had found beneath the porch a gigantic inner tube you could blow up and roll down through the sand and float upon. So I woke up at three and felt the sudden strong desire to see the water for the last time and see it alone, unhurried, drag the blackness of it through my toes and draw my own conclusions. So I got out of bed and put on my bathing suit and rolled out the inner tube and walked down to the beach which was cold and quiet like the unopened inside of a big refrigerator and pushed the tube into the water and opened my mouth like the fish I was trying to find when I felt the water swarm my ankles and I embarked on the tube, clambered on, wet, prepubescent, huffing from the strain from trying to keep it from tipping, flipping, so cold I could feel my skin shrinking but reluctant, unwilling to accept the relinquishing of that original idea---to float alone on the lake and stare at the stars. And suddenly I was there, on my back, skin sticking to the plastic of the tube and feet submerged, drifting, two ripples breaking the surface of the lake where they lay, short-lived tan gone in the moonlight, shockingly white beneath the water. And they were there, the stars. And I had the thought that they would always be there even when I would not be, and that, by being the sole witness to their state in this one specific moment,

When the Sky Escapes Sam Keum

Thickly coating the inner panes of the window with the dried tears of rainfall, the crisp autumn sky tries to take a break from life on earth. The sky is constantly gazed at by billions of people every moment of the day, being admired or criticized for what it decides to present the world with that day. I sit down upon my stool to get my front row seat, curious to view the setup for today.

Instead, I sympathize the sky.

Today the sky looks uncomfortable, perhaps still recovering from the criticism of last night’s weather report. Mother Nature tries to shield the sky from my common eyes, blowing the leaves of young trees into position to guard it like warriors protecting their fortresses. I feel the exhausted efforts of the wind, causing the windows to cry out in surrender as it pushes back the intrigued gazes of its viewers, the old wooden framing painfully creaking. Seeping through the forbidden openings, the wind finds my fingertips, chilling them numb.

The smell of fertilizer lying on the ground attempts to lure my eyes downwards in hopes of distracting my attention long enough for the sun to show up with its final reinforcements. The sun emits light that burns too bright for my eyes to comprehend. It overflows around the rims of the granite-smeared clouds being dragged around covering the sky, singeing my inner eyelids with one last picture for it to see, warning that this was my last view for the day.

The clouds and sky continue to whisper secret messages to each other as I look down at my water-stained watch, out of time.

Taking one last glance up at sky, I notice that the sky is now completely hidden behind its smudged entourage of clouds, without a single patch of its true colors exposed to the world, gone from my sight. Today, I guess I could say that the sky escaped from me.

06 Sunset by Lizzie Crotty

this tiny snapshot of their static winking on and off, infinitely, I had laid claim to a small slice of eternity. And they were beautiful. And so I closed my eyes and drifted and opened my eyes and drifted and found somehow some kind of calm, some new refuge from the storm always in my head, and I was at peace. And that was my first perfect moment.

My second was the same and it was different. Again we were without internet. I had to beg for cell reception. In a different place this time, a different lake; coldly gorgeous Northern Manitoba with my mother’s new boyfriend and his, new to me, son. We slept under blankets in August. I begged for cell reception because I was infatuated with someone and who I knew was infatuated with me; we texted all summer at a feverish, unsustainable, but thrilling in-the-moment pace. I’d never felt so thrilled or alive or happy, like there was a metronome of joy setting the seconds to my day. In hindsight it was probably a mistake to become so dependent, so attached on a situation which would inevitably burn itself out, but even if I had considered this I doubt I would have cared. I felt wonderful. It was the same kind of setup as in Michigan, with a sauna before attached; I heated up, I swam, I floated, I was overwhelmed, I thought. I stared. I imagined the northern lights were there, waiting shyly to reveal themselves, like the curtain of existence rising for an audience of every living thing and at the same time me alone, like some universal celebration of being something instead of nothing at all. But the feelings were different. There wasn’t peace but rather a roiling excitement deep in my stomach; to experience the moment and think deep thoughts about it and heave myself wet and freezing onto the pier and immediately find my phone to share, where, surely, a text was waiting for me. The feeling of peace and happiness and oneness for the universe was not the point, really, but rather a pleasant side benefit, a vehicle for greater connection with my other, greater priority, surely waiting for me only a screen away. And he was there and the stars were there and the fir trees circled the dock like silent witnesses to the happiness which cut through me like the best kind of knife and in that moment I felt totally alive and satisfied and, for the first time, wanted, and that was my second perfect moment.

The third was my first kiss and I can’t explain that except to say that sometimes when I was younger I would talk into my pillow before I slept and ask God if he was there and in that moment it was like God answered me. I can’t explain it except to say it felt like I was high and I wasn’t, can’t explain but to say it was like the secret of the kiss and what it promised slipped from lips to my lips and down my throat and to coat my heart like gold armor, enshrining, preserving forever, and I felt as I turned away, shaking, buzzing, reeling, shocked, I felt that I was invincible.

Of course things never turn out as you want them to. Which is why perfect moments are not lasting. They are not, after all, perfect lives. How else could we live but to delude ourselves, degrade ourselves for that one shining moment, force ourselves not to realize that what can make us the most happy can also bring the most pain. Dr. Greenberg is very insistent about telling me that happiness is ephemeral, which I understand. The concept I have issues with is the ephemerality itself, the change.

There, she thinks, lies the issue; that I am growing up but do not like to think I am growing up. That I am still too much of a child to understand that things must be planned and made time for and seen out and tended to if they are to do me real, lasting good. That just because something does not make me happy in the moment doesn’t mean I can curl back under the covers and wait for something that will, especially when happiness comes to me so rarely, and in such camouflaged packages. You cannot wait for a perfect moment; you work and live and try to laugh and love if you know love won’t be the cause of more pain than you can handle and somehow in the midst of all this nose-to-the-grindstone improvement the perfect moment comes along and taps you on the back and suddenly you are staring at the stars and you are there and you are happy and perhaps if you’re lucky you can save some of that happiness and keep it in your pocket for when you must do your homework and beat some sense into your life goals and sit in your therapist’s office and think about yourself and your moments and wait.

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07

Muzzy Lake, Rootstown Bessie Toohey The lake is small: you won’t find it on any Map of the World or even Ohio. It sits, marshy shores dotted with scrap-wood cottages and twenty-year-old pontoon boats and improvised rope swings hanging from trees, demanding nothing from us and giving everything in return.

Perched on the back of the boat, we peer down into the murky water below us. Trusting, unafraid, we fly into that space between sky and water where hot air balloons float and Canada geese form hazy v’s.

We do not expect the cold. We do not shrink away from it.

In the water, green and cool, we swim until our thumbs are pruned and our tiny legs are tired. Curled up in towels and each other and our parents’ arms, we bake under the sultry summer sun until we burn. We do not mind.

Tomatoes, with basil and mozzarella. Corn, picked this morning.

Bluegill, caught at five, cleaned at six, grilled at seven. Candles drip hot tears of wax onto green wine bottles older than the family that eats around them.

Mosquitoes as big as dimes, and fireflies as big as quarters. The heady smell of citronella candles and gasoline. Marshmallows, sticky on your fingers and chin where they will remain until morning. Sand, between your toes where it will remain until September. Your father’s sweatshirt on your mother’s arms around you, young, safe, and still sweet-smelling.

Gravel crunches under tires and toes, that familiar sound signaling baby feet becoming calloused and another summer sighing itself into fall. Someday, we will come back to this place and marvel at how much has changed. New cottages, new boats, new ropes. But for now, we fly.

07 Innocence by Regan Brady 08 Crashing Waves by Diana Muha

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West Olive, Michigan Rosalie Phillips For one cherished week in the fifty-two I am allotted each year, our six-person family reunites with the twenty-three others who make us whole. In a cottage by the shore of Lake Michigan we eat and play. Things are always just the right size, and sand is embedded into every inch of life.

During the days, we play in the sun but walk in the water to preserve the soles of our feet inside a sea of scalding sand. We are bitten in the shade by bugs and burned out of it by the sun. Our sandwiches crunch with a rocky flavor, but smiles never leave our faces. Together, as a family, we sing classic rock like we are at mass, and find a million ways to fill the cracks between the rising and setting of the sun.

But when the water calms and the flies lose their fight, we are still found cemented to the gorgeous coast. Still saying our prayers lead by Father Freddie Mercury, we turn our eyes to the sun dying on the horizon in an explosion of orange and purple hues. Contrary to popular belief, a perfect sunset does not happen on a clear night.

It happens on a night when there are fragile clouds waiting to be kissed by the dimming rays of our dropping star.

As the sky hardens into a pierced black we sit around a fire, our feet cook on the ring that contains our wild flames.

When the warm flickers are finally tamed, we retreat. We rinse. We repeat.

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09

The Blacksmith and the Raven Jordan Harris Adrah lifted a half-forged chain link from the slack tub to her left. Its searing skin no longer glowed white-hot, but a blur above still warned of its lethal sting. She examined the metal through shaded goggles, holding it daintily within powerful tongs above the tub, filled to the brim with chilled and sizzling water. Slowly, she twirled her work, like an old carrousel begging its gears to shed its thick, rusted coats.

A sigh exuded from her heavy lips, and the woman slid the link to bask in Hell’s flames once again. She stared at the metal loop as it sat atop an eggshell throne, her own sweat evaporating in the swelter. As Adrah gazed into the hearth, it glared back, incinerating the ghosts of hair follicles it had burnt off long ago. A clatter of claws broke her concentration as a raven appeared through the open window, and as she stepped forward to greet it, Adrah removed two, massive, hide gloves from her hands.

The creature ruffled its feathers as it settled at the charred, wooden sill, then peered at Adrah somewhat curiously. His head was slightly tilted between his ivory scapulars, as if in question, yet it was clear by his eyes. The bird already understood the situation.

“Mind yourself, Corax. I forge as I please.”

Corax clicked his beak disapprovingly and continued to glare at Adrah as she pointedly turned her back.

To distance herself from the discomfort of the conversation, Adrah returned her attention to the thundering fire and her softening metalwork within.

Extending her right arm, she reached for the tong handles. Her skin didn’t even contact the steel when she let out a stifled shriek of pain from the Hellish heat. Rushing to cover her hands in hide again, Adrah could hear the echo of teeth on teeth and a bone-shattering vibration tore apart her head.

‘Stupid, stupid, stupid,’ she scolded herself, wringing her wrists.

The raven’s gaze still pierced through her spine into her sagging lungs when Adrah gained the breath to finally speak, “If you disagree, leave. My shop: my rules. You respect them, or you get out.”

Resultantly, Corax leapt to the floor, only spreading his wings enough to guide his descent, never slowing it. He began picking at the floor, scraping his beak along the dirt with sharp movements. Tick, tick, tick, tick… From beyond his line of sight, Adrah scowled, becoming increasingly more annoyed with each peck.

It was only a few seconds before she snapped, “Go make yourself useful and fetch the orders.” She swatted her hands dismissively, “out.”

The bird was silent. He had heard this many times before, and he would never win. It was a battle Corax had learned to give up early. Sighing, he ruffled his feathers, disappointed. Then, the raven hopped off his perch and swept to land atop a well-used tool rack, carefully avoiding the searing heat of the fire. Though he was clearly out of reach from Hell’s flame, Corax readjusted his legs to tuck up rather than back, covering a patch of skin with slightly fewer feathers than the rest of him. He had made that mistake before and would not soon forget.

Corax sprang up, surprised at the woman’s sharp tone, and then waddled submissively out of the room. However, he wasn’t gone for long. Adrah had barely removed her gloves to examine the raw skin beneath before a blur of feathers whizzed through the entrance and zipped to her toes. With feathers ruffled and excited, the bird waved several, yellowing, envelopes around the blacksmith’s booted shins. She knew by their hue what they requested and immediately understood Corax’s excitement. Within each envelope listed orders by the dozens: whips and daggers, swords and clubs, axes and picks, lances and shuriken, anything and everything a man would need to slay his demons.

“Corax,” Adrah was clearly losing patience, “off.” She could feel her hand already puffing to horrible blisters and simply wanted to be free from the company of others, finishing her chains. Well, they weren’t for her… but they served her own purpose.

Adrah jerked away, dropping the letters and tossing her body dangerously close to the fire. She didn’t seem to notice the heat, in fact, the blacksmith appeared to shiver where she stood. Corax froze in reactant to the nonexistent chill, unsure of what to do. He had known Adrah would not

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Stars

Morgan Sutton

take kindly to the letters, but she had never responded like this before.

Paralyzed by the cold, the two hardly blinked. Only the roaring fire proved the scene wasn’t a photograph, shucking shadows like corn husks onto the cracks in the stone floor and walls.

Then the woman slowly turned, rotating her face to the inferno and her back to the raven. Inside the hearth, there was a slight stir, and Adrah’s eyes flashed to chase the flame. Beyond this, her body was silent, wrinkles creasing her forehead and pupils shrinking to pin pricks. Though Corax took no notice, the movement was unmistakable to Adrah.

Lying in your flatbed Staring up at the stars, I see my past and my future.

For I am nothing but fragments of star, An insignificant compilation of chemical reactions, Bonds that will surely be broken.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Yet how is it that something so flawed as me Could come from something so beautiful?

That from the stars destruction, I was born.

Why? Hydrogen molecules under the pressure of gravity Formed my bones.

Clumps of iron fused with oxygen Shaped my muscles And brought me to life.

I was forged in the universe’s nuclear furnace, Casted from the remnants of interstellar detonation.

If you could separate one hydrogen atom From one molecule of oxygen in my body, Attain its atomic size like in the Fantastic Voyage, Reverse time, and follow it back through its unimaginable life Would you find me in the aftermath of the Big Bang?

Is it inconceivable to imagine.

That one day, long ago Someone wished upon the star that I am made of?

The smith began to shake more violently and Corax quickly shuffled closer to his friend. She wheeled on him, screaming, “They are me, Corax! Don’t you see that? Can’t you understand it? I am-” The raven shrank to a sparrow, huddled and fearful on the ground, and Adrah stopped with a stutter as she noticed his pain. She slumped to the floor, distressed and wishing nothing more for her friend’s comfort. She received none.

Covering her face in her hands, Adrah continued in a choked whisper, “To destroy them is to kill a part of me…” A solitary tear ran down the blacksmith’s darkened face, washing away the grime like a live wire in a bank of soft snow. Her next words were so quiet, they sounded like little more than a heavy sigh. From desperate and exhausted breathes, Adrah exhaled, “I will never tame my demons, but I will always keep them on a leash.”

09 Front Yard Winter by Katie Kaufman

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You fell.

I felt it all.

Lizzie Crotty

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01

01 Brayden by Maddie Brown

Escapist

Answer

Lauren Battle

Pacing her room her shoes her bent rimmed eyeglasses what will she say when I no longer speak

Where will the children walk when the path within their heart has dissipated into the sun in dust and shame

How will she breathe Where will she rest her young head What will she be

With soft soil between her toes How will she sleep?

Where will she run without my gentle words soft and subtle When will she see that the beauty within the prose is vanishing and the curve in her Eyeglasses has transposed into her soul

Olivia Leslie

I am dancing with old friends.

Feeling again their paper skins, Rereading worn, Times New Roman memories.

Prison walls and matte letters evaporate.

Feeling again their paper skins, We hold each other in the folds of pages.

Prison walls and matte letters evaporate, Books grow heavier each year.

We hold each other in the folds of pages, Their spines are broken and skins are yellow.

Books grow heavier each year.

My fingers have folded these dog-ears before.

Their spines are broken and skins are yellow.

Tape is a bandage; they have healed me too.

My fingers have folded these dog-ears before, And deep creases remain while old scars fade.

Tape is a bandage; they have healed me too.

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02

“Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love

42.

with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what

it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing

Chloe Schwartz

only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is

Once upon a time, Life fell in love with Death.

It happened so gradually that neither of them noticed - they would pass by each other, Life laughing, hands intertwined with the wind, Death sliding molasses slow and thick along the edges of the green. They would glance at each other out of the corners of their eyes, Life’s colored irises trailing the edge of Death’s cloak and Death’s black lashes closing on the image of Life’s smile. Their eyes never met, not once, and somehow each fell in love without the other noticing.

One day, Life decided ‘to hell with it’ and walked straight up to Death’s winding footprints. He strode alongside her for miles and miles, not saying a word. The sun rose, the sun set, and the world was at that quiet place where light fades into darkness when he spoke.

“You are beautiful, you know.”

Death laughed in her whispering way. “Beautiful? Me? I am the edges of misery sewn into my hood, the last vestiges of the shadowed moon, the dregs of tea in the bottom of the cup. I am made up of everything lacking beauty. You may be lovely, but I find little charm in your lies.”

And here Life stopped, and here he gripped Death’s hand so that she halted with him. “Milady, here you are mistaken. The edges of misery are that which contain the sweet beginnings of brightness. The moon in shadow is but a part of an endless tapestry of stars and beauty, and the last dregs of tea are made of blooming flowers and sweetened spice. You are truly the most beautiful sight my eyes have ever seen, and I have seen many. I do not lie to you. I would never lie to you. This I swear.”

Death’s fingers curled around his, and at last their eyes met, his a myriad of ever changing shades, hers the darkest blue. She smiled at him, and it was as though her ghosts had begun to fade. “I believe you. I believe you. This I swear in return.”

The two walked on along the border of green, swaying into one another but never crossing. On Life’s side, flowering vines danced towards him, wind swirling through his loose fingertips. Death felt the lingering ghosts fade, bits of starry souls clinging to the edge of her cloak. The endless night came out above them, aurorae borealis waltzing to a hidden tune.

As the night grew dimmer, blending with Death’s misty blackness, Life’s steps began to slow and ramble, his feet making bee-patterns on the endless green. The moon was full at the stars were vibrant when he fell to his knees, hand never slipping from Death’s without a whisper. Death fell to her knees beside him, hand reaching over the misty line to trace his hair.

“Milord? Are you well?”

Life shuddered, as though colder than the ice forming on his fingertips.

“I-I do not know Milady. It is all so cold to me. I cannot feel my fingertips.”

She lifted his hand up, and in the moonlight, she could see that it was as black as the spaces between the stars. With a horrified cry she pushed him

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but the passing shadow of a cloud...”

–Yann Martel, Life of Pi away, and almost instantly the darkness began to recede, color blooming back under his skin.

Life trembled, gazing at his hands in shock. “I was fading into you...”

Neither of them noticed the color dissolving out of Death’s fingers.

Death’s breathing came short and quick, and she began to back away, lost souls whispering in her ear once more. “I’m so sorry, Milord. I—I have hurt you. Oh Creator, I have done harm to the one that I love most. This cannot be forgiven!”

Life reached for her hand once more, but she jerked away, backing into the shadows. He winced as he rose to his feet, edging the verdant line as he reached for her, desperate. “Milady, you have not hurt me.

Look upon my fingertips, I am unharmed!”

She scoffed, turning away from him, wrapping her cloak around her like a last defense. “My very touch is poison to you. You are all the best of the world, and I am meant only to take away that loveliness.” Her words became muffled and streaked in tears. “I love you but I bring you only harm. There is no good in me. Leave, save yourself, before I destroy you!”

Life reeled back as though struck by a comet. “Milady, you cannot mean that!”

“Life, I am not—” “No!” He replied, words etched from his lips with angry desperation. “I will hear no such nonsense about my love!”

Death curled further in on herself, darkness swirling. “It is not nonsense, it is truth. How can it be anything but, when I have it proven to me every day!”

“Milady, you do not destroy me!” There was a silent pause, souls and wind holding still on stiff air. Life began again, softly. “You do not destroy me. You remake me with your very presence, with your shining smile and lonely hesitance. I would gladly be remade a thousand times over for you. It does not hurt me- it is simply different.”

Death laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. “And it is just as before: your words are lovely but they do not ring true. They cannot ring true, for they have no

02 Paris by Amanda Zeilinger

veracity. I love you, with an infinity that permeates my entire being, but I will never do anything but hurt you.” With that, she stepped away from the misty border, taking careful, measured steps into the void that grew before her.

Life stumbled forward, dipping and swaying over the borderline.

“Milady! Death! Please, I will do anything, so long as you stay with me!

I would halt this world on its axis for you—” And here Death stopped, and here she smiled, though Life could not see her do so. “Milord, if you think I am worth the life of millions, I must regret to inform you that you are mad.”

angry souls clamored into the distance, his knees gave out and he collapsed, vines winding around him comfortingly and grass tugging at his knees.

And so Death wanders in her darkness, vestiges of memory whispering around her. Life wanders as well, lit by sunlight but forever displaced. He does not walk beside anyone, but he does greet others in their passing, clouding their memories with bits of messages—hoping that one day, at the end of it all, those souls will reach his love, and she will hear those memories, hear him, and return to their misty border once more. For now, their verdant leaves and angry ghosts are their only company—but someday, they will meet again, as lovers do, and the world will find balance once more.

And with that she faded into the darkness, stars falling from her cloak with a soft clattering. He stared after her, words stolen from his lips, until her outline blurred and he could see her no longer. As the last of the reddened,

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03

Orchards of Peaches Becca Lambright

If you knew this place as I know it You would see that love can exist within the confines of academia Professional love spun amongst passionate, atomic debates The thrum that comes with seasons turning beneath your soles Is an amphetamine often mistaken with infatuation but you must learn to take it slowly Even God stung himself many times learning that needles hurt No matter who you are See, this place is a burial site without tombs And here, many people have left their thoughts to unmarked graves The Korean War had little effect on America But my mother, whose real name is Young Hee Lee, Often tells me about eating peaches in the dark so she wouldn’t see That they were rotting and I think back to how easy it is To remove yourself from your body Try to understand the word love by what it takes from the world And remember that many wars have been fought In the name of a loving leader, country, martyr, God A disguise for pride and hunger I don’t think I need to tell you what we all have lost

03 Painting Lady by Maria Perilla

So, if you knew this place, you would listen to the ping of chapped lips Held in tension And I promise that it would teach you that there is no harm in nostalgia I would know I revisit every day

A Tulip’s Haiku

Kat Phifer

The wilted petals Of a young tulip dying Holds semblance of you.

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Empty Seats.

T

Full Plates.

he holidays used to be a solely happy and light time filled with joy, but now they come with a tinge of sadness. As I sit around the table at Thanksgiving and Christmas I can’t ignore the elephant in the room. I look around and realize that fewer seats are filled than the previous year. It feels as if with the passing of each year another seat is left vacant. Sometimes it is only temporary and sometimes the seat will never be filled again, but there is no denying that with every mouthful of pumpkin pie or every gift opened from under the tree, the holes become more obvious.

When I was younger, my house would be packed wall to wall with my family. My grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousin, brothers, and sister would stay for the holiday break, breaching the occupancy of each room and making our enormous house that usually feels empty with only my mom, dad, brother, and me, feel like it was finally serving its intended purpose. On Christmas morning all of the “kids” (anyone under the age of 30 really) would wake up around 6 o’clock impatient to begin the holiday cheer, and make coffee for the adults. I was usually the first to rise. I would first wake up my brother, then we would together quietly wake up our half-brother and sister and our cousin. I never felt more like one of the big kids than when I first smelled the sharp, strong, distinct smell of the coffee beans fresh out of the grinder. Being the baby of the family and the youngest in the house, I rarely felt like a grown up and always aspired to be just like the big kids that surrounded me. I’d look up at their faces as they placed the ground coffee beans in the coffee maker and poured in the water. I didn’t really take part in this activity because I barely knew what coffee was; I just knew that adults needed it. It appeared to me to be magic how the machine would whir for a little bit then the liquid would start squirting out, filling up the glass with this magic adult drink and filling the room with its unique scent. But, what I loved most was what happened after the coffee was made. That was my time to shine.

I led my older siblings up the stairs into my parents’ room where I screamed at the top of my lungs “WAKE UP EVERYBODY IT’S CHRISTMAS!!” and jumped on their bed going absolutely berserk until I was sure that they were completely awake. They probably didn’t even need the coffee after I was done with them, but the faster they woke up, the sooner we could begin. The entire day was full of joy. Once all the presents had been unwrapped we selected a couple of our favorites to take a picture in front of the “corner cupboard” (literally the cupboard in the corner of our living room where we opened gifts). There were so many of us it was hard to fit everyone and their gifts in one picture, but we packed in tight and made it work.

I was always a child that greatly enjoyed eating, so the meal was one of my favorite parts. We ate family style with all the wonderful dishes spread out in front of us, nearly covering the table, which was adorned with a crimson red table cloth, reserved for Christmas dinner and Christmas dinner alone. We feasted on goose, homemade cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy, Hawaiian salad, green bean casserole, stuffing, mushrooms and

Lizzie Crotty

onions, and of course pumpkin, pecan pie, and an array of delicious cookies.

I would pile Hawaiian salad, mashed potatoes, and goose onto my plate, as my family joked that I never ate anything with color to which I typically responded, “Pumpkin pie is orange! Orange is a color!”

Looking back, it seems as if one Christmas I walked out of my room to begin our morning ritual and realized my parents were already up; my brother and grandparents wanted to sleep in longer, and there was no one else to celebrate with. The corner cupboard picture consisted of more presents than people; there were often too many leftovers to consume in one week, and no one made jokes about the lack of color on my plate; they were just glad I was present and eating. All that magic has worn off. I now have room to spread out plates and glasses on the dining room table, and could extend my now quite long legs fully without kicking anyone. I miss having barely enough space. I miss being the first one to run to the kitchen for pie because I thought it would run out. I miss the cozy, full house. Now it feels empty and hollow.

My aunt and uncle from my dad’s side and my cousin haven’t been at the dinner table in 7 years. My half-sister has chronic and excruciating facial pains due to a condition called trigeminal neuralgia and hasn’t been able to come visit us in 6 years. My mom’s brother passed away about 6 months ago, but will always be with us at the table in spirit. This Thanksgiving was our first without him, and it was the hardest yet. My grandma and grandpa live in Florida, and my grandpa has Alzheimer’s. He no longer remembers anyone in our family, and will not be able to travel this year. He has no recollection of our family traditions or any idea that he is missing them. He feels no pain because his brain doesn’t even know what pain is. Sometimes I think he is the lucky one. My grandma still joins us for the holidays, but it is especially hard for her to leave him behind, no matter how briefly.

I can’t help but acknowledge what is missing, but at the same time I know I must still be thankful for what I have. My half- brother has finally rejoined the dinner table with his wife, since he moved from California to Columbus, and my brother still comes home from college to see us. I am thankful for that warm pumpkin pie, the oven that can bake it, and my mother who has taught me all I know about preparing a Christmas meal. I am thankful for my gifts under the tree, the wrapping paper that adorns them, and the people who carefully selected them.

No matter how much is missing I know I have to appreciate what remains. I look back on those days of making coffee at 6 in the morning and jumping on the beds, and I can’t help but smile. It hurts now to realize that things have changed, but I know that I can only feel the pain because I felt the joy before. As sad as it is to recognize what is missing, it helps me to be thankful for what I had. It may sound cliché, but I know it to be true now. I find comfort in thinking of all these great memories with all these incredible people who have had such an impact on who I am that I am not the same in their absence.

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Caitlin Coyne

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04

My heart knotted to his fist Jamie Spain

04 Shot Through the Heart by Li Stebner

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Code Crimson Madeleine Schroedel

The doctor asks him if the pain worsens when she presses on his back and chest. He says no, it doesn’t, but I can tell it takes an effort for him to even lean forward. She’s talking now, explaining the levels of troponin in his blood, how they are slightly elevated, but it could be insignificant, and maybe it was just from the strain of playing tennis earlier. She’s leaning against the side bar of the bed, acting casual and looking calm, like it’s no different than any other night to be at the Emergency Room at twelve thirty in the morning.

Beeping. It starts beeping, loud sounds that cut through the soft shuffle of the night shift. Yellow, the heart monitor is flashing yellow at the top. More beeping. Glancing at the screen, the doctor keeps talking, no change in emotion, no emotion at all. Dad says he feels flushed, that he doesn’t feel good. I start to get nervous. What does that beeping mean, Mom asks, forehead creased, worried. His heart rate is low, she says. 50 it shows, highlighted and bold, blinking with the yellow light. 49. 48. 50. Yes, she says. We have patients drop to 45 and they’re fine. It’s back to 48. 47. 45. The doctor walks out of the room, talking in hushed tones with the nurse. It drops to 39. She walks back in.

It’s below forty, Mom tells her. It’s below forty. A nurse comes into the room, rolling a machine beside her. More nurses flood the room. I step back, eyes glued to the number on the heart monitor. 37. 36. 34. 32. 31. 30. This isn’t happening. This isn’t real. 29.

Go outside the door, Mom tells me hurriedly, so I go, the door not quite closing behind me. The beeping, it’s everywhere. I stand there, still, back to the door. I can’t look. Voices. I don’t know what they’re saying, it’s just a jumble of voices. Beeping. My eyes become blurry. This isn’t happening. This isn’t real.

I can’t listen anymore, so I start walking. Right left right left right and I’m standing in front of an empty room with a heart monitor that’s still beeping even though there are X’s on the screen. Nurses are perched in front of computers, unaffected by the sounds piercing this air that’s too still to breathe in. Wiping the water from my eyes, I turn, facing a copy of Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe. Focus on the pattern. I try not to think, but the voices seep into the hallway. The murmur of a television left on to the sports channel distracts me for a moment. This isn’t real for them. They don’t even know this is happening.

I start pacing. Up and down this overbearingly white hall, the harsh lights reflecting off the shiny floor. Mom walks out of the room and now I’m standing still. I don’t expect words of confirmation of the worst to come out of her mouth, and they don’t. A nurse pokes his head through the cracked door, bringing out one chair, then another. They need more space. I sink into one, staring blankly at my shoes. She says they couldn’t get the electrodes on his chest. From the right a woman is wheeled by on a bed. She’s old, her skin pale, bruised. I can’t look, but my eyes won’t pull away from her limp arm. Mom doesn’t say any more, just gets up from her chair and goes back into the room.

I don’t know how much time passes. The janitor in navy blue keeps passing by, trailed by a trash bin once, a gurney next. I sit there, eyes downcast. How many times has he seen people sitting in the hall, waiting? And I wait. I wait and I wait. I cross my legs, hug one leg close to my chest, turn and prop my legs on the chair next to me. I wait.

I lean my head against the wall. It’s two now, and my alertness is fading along with my clarity. This isn’t real. When my eyes blink open, I’m looking at my mom standing in the doorway.

Me, And Brady Furlich

And storms downstairs, lights a cigarette, telling Me why everything is wrong.

Me, I say, doesn’t understand why; Me’s brain doesn’t work overtime even for extra pay.

Me, I say, doesn’t care why; Me’s heart hasn’t been in it since And started smoking.

Me, I hope, ought to care, since this house has a mortgage that won’t go away even if And takes on a second job.

Me, I think, ought to empathize; it’s been hard on her, too.

And blocks the crowned door, reaching for the ashtray.

And turns slowly with one last look at Me and goes to get a drink from the kitchen cupboard.

And comes back with only one whiskey on the rocks, not thinking of Me. Me, I know, turns her head to look out the window past grainy paint into her neighbor’s kitchen window, where they are dancing.

There are no more sounds coming from the room.

I was only seventeen.

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How to Gradually Become a Skylar Luke

Cheese Lover First, start off asking yourself the question, “Why don’t I like cheese?” If you have tried all the many different types, and it just didn’t sit well with you, then maybe you truly do not like cheese, and I would advise you to stop reading here. But if your answer is a mere, “I don’t know,” then you should probably continue reading this self-guide.

Start off with a pizza. Go to Papa John’s because they tend to go easy on the cheese. Order the pizza with pepperoni and sausage to disguise the taste of the cheese.

Actually, order double pepperoni and sausage. If you are a vegetarian, order a deluxe with no meat. You want to begin with a food where the cheese doesn’t completely consume the flavor.

Open your personal diary and write about this encounter with the cheese. Be detailed. Talk about what it tastes like, how it felt sliding on the taste buds of your tongue. Explain to your parents that after years of thinking that cheese was the enemy, it’s possible that it could soon become one of your friends.

Don’t get mad at your mom when you ask her to make lasagna without cheese and she says that she can’t do that.

She isn’t trying to be difficult…it’s actually hard to make lasagna without cheese.

The bell sounds. It’s one o’clock and you are just being released from your dreaded X-Period class that you didn’t sign up for but somehow it ended up on your schedule.

When you walk down the marble stairs of the atrium and enter the dining hall, walk over to the serving station on the right where they serve the awesomely, cool, funky foods. Don’t wait in that long line on the left…the food isn’t as great. Don’t skip going to the serving station on the right just because the dish’s main ingredient is cheese that day—this is your opportunity to eat cheese. Seize the moment. Pick up the plate, greet David with a smile on your face, grab your glass of infused water because there never seems to be regular water around, and go find a seat in the overly crowded room. After a short while debating as to whether you’re actually going to put the food in your mouth, put the food in your mouth. Just like that, simple, right? They tend to use milder cheeses for the lunch items, so the taste shouldn’t be much different than the taste of the pizza.

Okay, so now you’ve tried Mozzarella and Provolone.

It’s time to take a shot at the real stuff like Cheddar, Asiago, and American…well, I’m not sure if American cheese is the “real stuff”…but try it anyway. Go to the local bar and grille once a week and order a cheeseburger, each week with one of the different types of cheese they offer. This will help you filter out the cheeses that you truly do not like.

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When you get admitted to Tufts University, go there.

They have a Cheese Club. Yep, you guessed it; they meet once a week and just sample different kinds of cheese. It’s rather new, so if you want to hold some type of leadership position, it probably wouldn’t be too hard to do so. Write the fact that you were President of The Cheese Club on your resumes. I mean, how many people can actually say that they were the President of the Cheese Club? None.

Begin to wonder why people do the things they do.

Take a class on human reasoning and human behavior and human psychology. This will interest you. Decide that you enjoy learning, not just academically but also on a worldly level. Become well-rounded; become a (global) scholar. This will take you very, very far in life, and you will enjoy doing what you do.

At law school, take advantage of all the opportunities that are in your face. Go to fancy dinners with important people where they serve fancy cheeses that you are embarrassed to pronounce like Roquefort or Camembert.

Try Cotija or Teleggio or Chévre, which is actually just a fancy name for goat cheese…it’s the French word for goat.

See, you really do learn not for school, but for life!

When you are finally able to keep a steady relationship, you’ll take your partner to Black Tie Affairs and drink cocktails and sample the extravagant hors d’oeuvres. On weekends, you’ll go to wine tasting with cheese pairing parties. Use the skills you obtained through your club back in undergrad. You already know which ones you really don’t enjoy, but try them again...you never know if palate has changed.

You’ll get married and have kids, and the time you once had to go out on the weekends will slowly start to diminish. Wine tasting outings will soon be replaced with soccer games. Yes, you are becoming the soccer mom driving that wretched, blue mini-van that you said you would never become.

Your parents will come up for the Thanksgiving weekend and spend time with you and their grandkids. You will have spent all Wednesday evening cleaning the house, getting the dogs groomed, and preparing meals for the rest of the week. The Saturday night before they leave to go back home, everyone will be sick of eating the leftovers of the Thanksgiving meal that are still occupying every shelf on the refrigerator even after three days in a row of consumption. So don’t eat it. Order a pizza from Papa John’s…this time with extra cheese.

Acorn on the Table Isabel Byrne

There was a time, not so long ago, where dinner was the time for my family to be together. Dad would always try to be home from work in time to sit with Mum and me. We would talk about school, debate current affairs, predict the future, and we would laugh. Gosh, we would laugh. At the end of a busy day, give Dad a couple glasses of red and it’s bound to be a good night. He wasn’t drunk as such, but he was relaxed and happy.

And that was contagious. Dinner was family time. Heck, even the two dogs joined us. They had their spot under the table, and every five minutes you’d feel a call scraping your leg, or a slimy tongue flicking against your hand. This would be closely followed by a gruff “get out of it!” by Dad. My parents are excellent in the kitchen. The familiar smells of chowder, seafood paella, chicken risotto, veal limone, or lamb ragu would engulf the entire house in delectable anticipation.

But now, as I look back on the times were the three of us ate together, and it’s not the food that holds most significance. It’s the presence of love that never left the table. Not overtly so, but you could just feel it.

A small, brown acorn lives in the center of our dinner table.

Regal yet isolated, it sits atop the large circular slab of white marble and glass top. It symbolizes absent friends, so often Dad will toast with it in his hand. I’ve often found myself staring at the little acorn—when my food doesn’t taste too flash, or talk of politics gets overbearing. And I’ve now come to realize that the little acorn has been present at every family meal we’ve sat.

It has bared silent witness to joyous union, but also involuntary separation.

Dad works overseas. And when he’s home, it’s different. The family bond isn’t lost, because if it were, I would not have the attachment I still do. But the little acorn wouldn’t be able to see it anymore. And I blamed so many things for that demise in connection. But mostly, I just blamed my Dad. Isn’t that the easiest thing for a teenage girl to do? He was turning into a grumpy old man. Moody, seemingly preoccupied with work.

Could never understand Mom and me. Complained about being excluded. And gosh, it made me angry. I would tell one parent something, but not the other. Mom would talk about Dad to me and Dad would talk about Mom, but never to each other. The tie of three was suddenly just spasms of individual relationships. The unity was lost. The little acorn couldn’t hear laughter.

But now as I look back, I find myself in tears. It was never his fault. He was away six out of eight weeks to put bread on our table, and when he returned, he found a girl who was finishing ballet class at nine o’clock. Or swimming until seven. And she would eat dinner in the car and come home to study before sleeping. The only time she would open her heart to him was

when she broke down from “stress.” His daughter’s life was there, flashing before his eyes, and his absence gave him no understanding of it. And now his little girl is a very long way away from home, and family time is not a remote possibility.

Without being there to eat a burnt steak, I’m only just beginning to understand the value in family. And thinking about the little acorn, I do know that I definitely valued it back then but just didn’t realize at the time. Because on the few occasions where circumstance allowed us to sit down as a family, the acorn would see me sit on Dad’s lap and snuggle after eating. Perhaps at sixteen that’s a little immature, but I was trying so desperately to hold on to the love we shared. And I know he refused to let go of it either—because even at restaurants (and I refused to comply for shame) he would still beckon me to cuddle.

It’s so disappointing though that a family only values the bond it shares once an element is taken away. I’m disappointed in myself for only beginning to understand family bonds once I left my own. The three of us are indicative of the annoyingly accurate concept “we don’t know what we’re missing until it’s gone.”

And the saddest thing is that so many families who are able to relish in the opportunity to dine together choose to eat in separate rooms. Eat with their homework, or in front of the television. The opportunity to interact is gone. And every day, the understanding and depth of relationships deteriorate more and more. That little acorn sits alone. It no longer witnesses the flashes of grins, or hands joining under the table, or rolled eyes, or rude gestures that somebody definitely wasn’t meant to see.

It doesn’t hear the laughter, or drunken bellows of happy men, or the cash of a fork to a plate when something shocking is announced. It doesn’t share the meal.

Our particularly acorn symbolises missing friends. Kids grow up. Couples split. People die. Friends and family go missing all the time and become a figure symbolized in the middle of the table. And it won’t be until an absence occurs that the true power of family will be recognised. Time together is so important. And I don’t want that acorn to sit alone.

I know now one of my biggest fears. The inevitability that one day, very soon, I will be toasted with the little acorn. Perhaps I already am. We are all growing up and spreading our wings.

Perhaps we all are.

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Remembering Caroline Jobson

I can remember the weight of my father’s books, heavy on my hands, their bulky covers collecting dust, illuminated by the light of my parent’s night stand. Pushing the grey filaments off the edge of the cracked, worn covers, torn and tarnished with yellowing pages, I remember climbing up onto my parents’ bed, mustering the courage to read a line or two of text. I would speak the words aloud, savoring the foreign taste. Relaying these exotic syllables and syntax to my father, I would grin, eagerly awaiting his reaction. Though I cannot remember the meaning of these words or the plot of these books, I vividly remember his smile.

Each night, I would continue with this ritual, hoping to once again uncover that smile I so yearned to see. While I did not know the meaning or significance of these words, nor the significance of my father’s books, I knew they belonged to him.

To me, it was my father’s smile; and to him, it was the act of me verbalizing these words that mattered.

After that, my appetite for new diction and prose was insatiable. I can remember my mother listening as my ten-year-old self maneuvered the mots muets, the sly liaisons, and the myriad of sounds and symphonies of the French language. To the tune of Le Petit Prince, we would sit suspended half way between native tongue and foreign language, frozen in a symphony of French that brought us together. I can remember laughing as she would grab my nose, instructing me that the vowel must come from inside the nasal passages, rising with the expelled air. Mincing and tangling the tones, I admittedly sounded much more like angry car horns during rush hour than the melodic elegance exhibited by une vraie française. Nonetheless, I can remember my mother’s words, soft yet assertive, instructing me on my pronunciation while the crown of Le Petit Prince glimmered in my sacred story book.

I remember cocooning myself into bed, carried away by my mother and father oozing sweet sentences with voices like honey, laughing at the fussiness of The Seven Silly Eaters, perhaps my favorite tale I was told at a young age. In this book, the first child, Peter Peters, would refuse cold milk, only welcoming what was warm, while Lucy, their second, opted for pink lemonade, to be made daily by Mrs. Peters. Growing odder and odder with each request, this peculiar system continued with all seven children. Eating only what each of their preferences entailed, the Peters children sought the efforts of their mother to satisfy these requests. While this precarious system founded itself on the details, the rich minutia of it all, it

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had, however, a sense of predictability and was susceptible to collapse. Despite the eventual chaos that arose, a murky mess of all seven foods, this literal coming together of minute details converted the singularity of each child’s story to the collective theme of the text as a whole. A central theme arose from this explosion of details that, in the end, were trivial.

While I too have been bombarded with details, I find myself going back to the central themes and images of my experiences, a smile, my mother’s gestures, voices that flowed like honey. Choosing to remember the significant points — the memories, emotions, and experiences — I am much like the murky mess of all seven finicky children’s foods.

After all, the human mind can only hold so much.

Minute details swim in the sea that is my subconsciousness, mingling just so that a central theme emerges, crashing like waves on the rocky shore that is my consciousness. These waves — the joy my father’s smile brought me, my mother’s soft yet assertive words — are like sea foam.

Clinging to the shore, these central themes anchor me to memories. Rather than drift endlessly into my stream of subconsciousness, the fragments and minutia that compose this reservoir, I recall the significant human interactions made in the presence of each text — my father’s books, Le Petit Prince, The Seven Silly Eaters.

Just as the Peters family managed to synthesize these singular stories into a collective theme, I narrow my focus to include only the significant points of each interaction. With the stories of my childhood acting as a background for these memories, I can vividly recall the worthy aspects that grew out of each book. I filter the heavy stream of my subconsciousness, the torrent of detail — an open and endless ocean — internalizing only the crashing waves, though few and far between, that hurl onto the rocky shore that is both my consciousness and my store of memories.

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05 After All This Time by Amanda Zeilinger 06 Loyalty by Amanda Zeilinger www. h b i n r e t r o s p ec t.co m

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(You) x (Me) Becca Lambright

Each Odysseus makes it home again In the movies, in the books But the shipwrecked stay ruined in poems Calculus cannot be done in the dark And my feet can only stay on the Brooklyn Bridge Running from you For so long.

Under covers, over bed, you called me A Trojan horse Here to ruin you under the pretense of love.

But I told you that love was an emotion for the historians And that I was a mathematical derivative of distanced emotions Dy/dx equaling the square root of (You) minus the (change in my life) Δx being the origin of where this began.

The End of the Rainbow Jenna Hahn

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I listened to you talk about old Greek warriors And heroes wearing crowns of purple flowers Poetic dailiness whispering at your temples.

But as June came, it turned to bloody wars And your growing Achilles heel, a frayed piece Starting to creep up your leg.

When I curled around your brainstem in the form Of a cubic root, the equation of foreign invasion I could tell that you had lost hope in glorious battles And a Hero’s welcome, Trading it in for an ocean that pulsed to the beat of your serotonin, Dropping and rising in foamy peaks; Sirens calling you to tattoo “Lost Cause” across your chest Like I had feared you would.

I cannot stop you from sitting on the steps Of New York’s cathedrals, praying to Saint Jude Thaddeus And hoping for salvation like it is the correct answer To a complicated equation But I can say that maybe you are not a poem And maybe you are not a historian And maybe we can program to the ocean of the East Coast To flow in time with the product of (You) x (Me).

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Days bled, and healed into night Grace Homany

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Jonah, the Whale, and the Last Great Nightmare Laura Mueller

dream: a swimming pool dream: the world, upside down dream: a killer whale vs. all human desire dream: a locket, with your face inside dream: the world, as a pineapple upside down cake dream: your face, as the world, on the inside of a locket dream: your face, lit up by birthday candles dream: a killer whale in a swimming pool dream: a locket filled with pool water dream: the world, lit up by human desire dream: human desire, lit up by birthday candles dream: three days and three nights underwater, learning to breathe dream: you, in a swimming pool you, in the world you, in a locket you, eating pineapple upside down cake you, swimming with killer whales dream: you, as Jonah, eating birthday candles underwater. we’re all singing along, singing to the tune of all human desire, singing to you, make a wish, the candles are all lit and you’re late.

we’ve been waiting for you

Nocnica Laura Mueller

The clock never chimes out loud But I have had night terrors, my dear, and my heart — it is pounding in my head waiting for a door to open.

But I have had night terrors, my dear.

It is Ancient Rome and I am running, waiting for a door to open.

There is a gladiator with a fire in his eyes.

It is Ancient Rome and I am running to save you because there is a gladiator with fire in his eyes, as I wake up to save you because there must be something to fight besides myself.

As I wake up, there is only my breathing.

There must be something to fight besides myself, but I have night terrors. My dear, there is only my breathing and my heart. It is pounding in my head.

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The Fault in Our Stars:

My Search for Augustus Waters Li Stebner

Monday night rolls around, and usually I would either be at a class of some sort, running errands that we were too busy to do on the weekend, or cooking dinners to save for the busier nights of the week. This Monday, however, was different.

Already behind schedule, my mom and I shortened our after dinner walk, because God has recently decided to make our evenings merge earlier into our days. Upon coming in the door we decided that it was a good night to finally rent The Fault in Our Stars. I read the novel last fall and have been meaning to see the movie ever since. It sparked an interest in my mom, not only because she had heard how wonderful the story was, but also because we knew an actor in it.

We got about halfway through the movie when my brother called with his own personal issues, and since this doesn’t happen often, we stopped the film so my mother could help. She had enough crying for the week anyway. You might be thinking, “Yeah, I thought it was sad, but I wasn’t weeping at the halfway point.” Well, you might have been if you were watching your own life happen on the big screen.

I am sure everyone has something personal that they can relate to. Whether it be it a movie or a book, you connect with it because it touches a part of you that is unique, a struggle most other people do not have to go through. For my mom and me, this is how watching A Fault in Our Stars was. I being Hazel Grace, my mom being, well, her mom.

I’m not saying that I connect with Hazel, who has a loving boyfriend that understands her. I’m also not saying I am a cancer patient, but I am as sick as one. I found it amazing how the movie really does convey how it is to live as or with a terminally ill teenager.

01 Trees by Erica Kahn 02 Piper Looking Up by Maddie Brown

have. The way it makes you change, not only physically but mentally as well. Much like Hazel, when you are ill, you do things strictly because you think it would make your parents happy. You go to “support group,” or you go try out for something that you would still hate even on the best day of your life, and you do this because you want to show them the illness does not stop you.

You want them to see that you are “normal,” even though how can you be?

My mom confessed to me the way that one line in particular had touched her. As Hazel asks with tearing eyes if she could go to Amsterdam, her mom responds with, “Honey, you know I would do anything for you…” something my own mother comments on a weekly basis. I think it is just this thing that, when a mother realizes her life will be longer than her child’s, she decides it is up to her to make all her child’s dreams come true. She strives to give what will make happiness, when, in reality, their support is what is most important.

It is funny, because after watching the movie, it finally became clear what someone who is ill truly wants. It is not to travel the world, or to live longer, or to even be well as most people assume.

We do not long for the impossible, we long for the home runs. The things that seem, even though rare, possible. I do not wish to travel to France, for I’ve been to Italy. I do not wish to be able to eat anything I want, not feel pain, not have to take pills with every snack, meal, drink. No, these things are water under the bridge. I think, much like Hazel Grace, most people simply want a friend who sees them as being, not sick, not a patient, but just another friend. Everyone is looking for an Augustus Waters.

The way she becomes unable to breath in the middle of the night and how this is almost routine. That is life. The restlessness because of pain and the longing for whatever stupid organ is bothering you to simply “get its’ sh*** together,” (quoted from the movie) is the only longing you

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Honu McKenna Ritter When I was two and restless My parents brought me a stuffed animal back from vacation A huge turtle that my skinny, sunburned arms couldn’t reach around I named him Honu, the Hawaiian word for sea turtle

My friend attempted suicide A girl at school asked me if 17 was too young to marry her boyfriend Someone I loved couldn’t eat, fearing the pictures in her tankini in middle school I pulled on the loose thread of Honu’s bowtie

My parents sang Sweet Baby James to me each night In pitches that comforted me and brought my ear out of tune I twisted my fingers in their t-shirt sleeves And rubbed the seam of Honu’s head on my upper lip

Easy answers, we would love, don’t exist

When I was five and high-strung My new puppy ripped out Honu’s eye I doubt it was a malicious act I divided my attention evenly between them

When I am 75 (blessed if I live that long) my wrinkled hands will pet the uneven shell of Honu Just as confused and afraid as before Simply standing atop the wriggly, strangled years The Earth scratched and bruised by my footprints

I sat on the stained white tiles of the kitchen floor In the crook of the lazy susan I cried about how Honu would never be the same Mom said that scars and tears build character When I was eight and curious I questioned the existence of heaven I didn’t want to sleep at Grandma’s alone anymore I began to spend 20 minutes praying each night I met with the priest for insight My conclusion: he doesn’t know much more than I do “Have faith,” everyone kept saying.

Every time I thought of death, I knocked on wood three times, each hand and then both When I was 13 and hormonal Many nights I stared at my clock The antagonizing digital numbers Switching so gracefully with the pacing minute Though math was not my favorite subject I manipulated the numbers trying to get them to equal 24 I smiled when the boys called me a “try-hard” in school Because at least they noticed me When I was 16 and self-aware Took medication to reduce the anxiety I embraced my love for learning I felt on the road to true self-discovery and possible inner peace

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Synapses reaching answers to the thoughts that rattle us But it doesn’t work that way

Yet these meager marks won’t scar But will heal with the first rainfall

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Always Katie Raguz

Time is a recurring image of the crystal past blending into an opaque future.

We develop.

The bees will sting.

The bones will break.

The mountains will sink.

And Just when you blink – The clock will tick on.

Always

03 Clouds by Molly Sharpe 04 Endless Beauty by Sue Roy

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When Dreams Come True Hannah Yahraus

When I first heard of Disney World fifteen years ago, my mom promised we would go. I fully expected to drag a giant suitcase up the stairs, pack three weeks ahead of time, and all the while have my big brother help me out. Even though fifteen years later, Disney World still exists only in childhood daydreams, I cannot say my mother broke her promise. You see, her promise came with a condition, a condition my dream happily conformed to. We would go when my brother “got better.” I know my mother used these words for the sake of my two-year-old mind, because no mother knows how to explain to her daughter what the word “autism” might imply, but perhaps I did understand at two years old why my brother did not speak, because that is when my hope to hear him say “I love you” began.

Only now do I see how my dream of Disney World and a dream of hearing Mark’s voice were drawn in parallel. Neither dream ever eclipsed the other, and if I were to predict my future, I would have listed Mark getting better along with college and marriage and other inevitable life milestones. When my little sister would ask about Disney World, I would say “When Mark gets better.” When my elementary school friends would ask, “When Mark gets better.” When I watched new commercials come out every year, “When Mark gets better.” Ever since I first heard those words, “getting better” has taken on its own meaning. To me, it meant “finally getting to know” or hearing “I love you” and that he would have freedom from a mind that does not know how to shine its brilliance over the world.

Even as I held onto my Disneyworld dreams, I faced anger and frustration as I grew up trying to relate to someone who did not know how to form connections. Being shoved in the gut mid-hug changes your view of a person, especially if they are your brother. Every experience with him has forced me to work all the harder in trying to understand the different type of love letter he might be trying to write through living. As I try to write him back through living as well, my inner voice continues to become all the more apparent to me. While it has helped me become reflective of my actions and perceptive of emotions hiding behind another’s eyes, it also means I have confronted the darker side of myself more times than I would like. Yet those revelations have been the most valuable sleepless nights and prayers, and I have never regretted any question I have asked myself or God. I might never find out “why” God had a different idea in mind when he gave my family Mark. I only know I am who I am because of that decision. Through the bitterness that sometimes comes along with Mark’s life, my spirit has been sweetened with the joy that comes with living alongside a disrupted heart. I have learned life can be hard, but true beauty comes with realizing that control is beyond the reach of my shaking hands. Perhaps the world might look at Mark and say he is different, and therefore it might be harder to learn to love him. I never needed to learn to love my brother. I always have. I always will. I needed to learn to love Mark in a way that he understands, and I have learned that the only thing that needs healing is the hurt that echoes behind his eyes when those trying to listen cannot understand. I am still praying for a miracle. Every night, I pray that the next day I would wake up to hear a voice I have waited for my entire life, and that voice would sound just like the smiles I have collected all this time.

05 Rooftop by Maria Perilla 06 Tomorrow by Isabel Byrne

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December Madeleine Schroedel

i’m tired of the blue, she said of the light and the squints the blinding and the melting chill i want the clouds, she said the dusk of daylight when the sky becomes ground

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i want the room with no lights, she said just barely seeing the frozen handprints on double-paned glass i miss the bright, he said the shocking snow and beaded droplets found in the warmth from everywhere but underneath i want the clear, he said the crisp breath with every step when i walk toward the beams and the green i want the blankets off, he said the fire hot enough to thaw december but not burn us both i want twelve back she said i’ll take two, but i don’t want one, he said i just want you

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we have to live in vulnerability McKenna Ritter

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01 Grand Canyon by Lauren Kahn 02 A Horse for the Journey by McKenna Ritter www. h b i n r e t r o s p ec t.co m

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All adventures start from unfinished endings Sam Keum

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An Approximation of Incompressible Flow Brady Furlich Mach 0.7 Concrete walls used to block me from subsonic nightmares but I soon wondered if ghosts were leaking through like molasses Mach 1.1 Drop me into the bay, chained and nearly transonic, before I deny you all leaving on swept wings and silence Mach 3.2 supersonic requires sharp edges but violins have round edges I have never learned to play they say beginners stay at low speeds but I need to make up time Mach 8.7 if you want me to grow leave me with my skin water my petals no matter how fragile robots are not “there” yet still in a hypersonic mode that I retain I will shrink my wings instead since 9.6 is all we’ve reached Mach 14.7 high-hypersonic sound races me; finishes before I wake out of this dream shaking under flannel sheets reality’s voice has infiltrated my brain before my nightmares do Mach 27.3 if you have taken me to this uptide beat by beat by beat while my ears popped how will I re-enter without yours popping too?

03 Found by Amanda Zeilinger 04 Shattered Glass Y by Mackenzie Hridel

Pink Rip Hannah Yahraus

Until the first rip of pink appears in the sky, My mind is anxious.

Waiting for sunlight to warm it, Waiting for red to stir it softly, To blend with what remains After the night swept away the darkness That comes with a day.

Until the first scratch of red stretches across the sky, My eyes are weary from blinking, Waiting to be able to stare, At the sun that always somehow breathes blue, Warming my pupils with the promise to always exist, Despite slipping from sight when I turn to face the moon.

Until the first drop of blue spread through the sky, My breath is shallow, Waiting to no longer breathe in night Waiting to forget itself as the sky becomes itself again, To sing emotion over the earth that the night will never know Or be able to be.

Until the sun shatters the night, I am restless, Longing to face the day so that I know how much at peace I need to be.

And learn how much peace the day stole with the night.

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Her Playground Isabel Byrne

You could taste salt. Sea, sand, and sunshine swirled through the summer breeze. A girl stands with her right hand resting on a potted plant to her right, barely taller than the pot itself.

Squinting in the morning light, her bobbed brown hair shines — her father loved that haircut, and for many years after he would beg her to have a bob once more. But bobs are for little girls, and she’s a much bigger girl now.

Behind her are the bases of two eucalyptus trees which stretch to the sky and shower over the courtyard in a stunning array of olive-green leaves. In fact, old gum trees lined the whole esplanade, almost as though standing guard, protecting Palm Cove.

Every morning the girl’s father would walk her down the beach. They’d splash along the shoreline and feel foam rush to their ankles. On a bright day the water was a glittering turquoise, and the waves would crash to the white sand like a rhythmic lullaby. The father and daughter would continue until they reached the playground. Well, “Her Playground.” She would swing as high as her father dare push, her short legs flailing beneath her as she cheers, “higher, higher!” It was her own kingdom. And of course, any other little boys and girls who visited were welcomed with a disapproving glare. After all, it was Her Playground.

One day an older girl and boy were already playing when she arrived. They were running along the balancing beam. But the little girl had only ever walked very slowly along the beam — and her father would always hold her tiny fingers! “Well,” thought the girl, “if they can do it, I must try also.” So she climbed up and started to bound across the beam, only on the third leap she lost her balance and fell into the sand. Her father picked her up to wipe the tears and sand off her round cheeks. She was crying from embarrassment rather than hurt. But it was still Her Playground, and she returned jovially the next morning.

The girl’s face in the photograph suggests this morning was different though.

The bottom half of her face is turned up in what resembles a smile, but her eyes look dazed and questioning. Behind the camera her mother and father crouched, eyes welling with tears of pride. “Today’s the day, darling!” they cooed, with a hint of melancholy behind their smiles. They should’ve been at Her Playground.

The girl wears a short, checked dress. The freshly pressed cotton felt coarse against her fair skin. A week earlier, she and her father had driven half an hour to an enormous set of white, brick buildings. They walked inside to collect a big cardboard box filled with books and coloring pencils and oddly patterned clothes. She perched her tiny hands on the bench and stood on her tiptoes so that her chin barely cleared the top. The middle-aged woman behind the desk leant forward and peered over her square-rimmed glasses.

She smiled at the little girl and said, “Isn’t it wonderful that Grandpa brought you in to school today?” The little girl looked in her grey eyes and

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whispered, “He’s my Daddy.” Her father quivered with laughter the whole way home, whilst the girl stared vaguely out the window wondering exactly what “school” was.

She wears strange sandals. The pads of her big toes sneakily peep through the gap in the brown leather. They weren’t pretty like the cream or navy shoes she would usually wear, but she supposed they matched her new dress well enough. “Mum, why am I wearing brown sandals? Why not white, or my jellies?” Her mother explained that they had been recommended by the school (there was that recurring idea of “school” again, noted the girl), as the sand would sprinkle out of sandals easier than closed-in shoes. This puzzled the child. When she visited the school, she had not noticed a beach. Her mother piped in and said, “True, there is no beach. But of course there is a sandpit with a big playground for you to enjoy!” The little girl’s eyes widened with anticipation. Another Kingdom. She toddled over to the potted plant and stood there while her mother and father snapped their growing girl.

She loved Her New Playground. There were forty other Kings and Queens to share it with. At morning recess and afternoon tea, the Prep students would sprint out of their classrooms, down the hill and into the sandpit. Their tiny legs would spin and spin, and their high-pitched cheers echoed across the green field. They would climb frantically, spin around, and bounce high and low on the sea-saw. The little girl’s favorite part was the slippery-dip. She would slide down with her tiny hands in the air and scream with delight over and over again.

But there was one play corner which stumped her. The Fireman’s Pole. Every day she would stand on the edge with one hand wrapped tightly around the railing, the other stretched out towards the pole. Only a couple more inches and she could touch it! But as she reached on her tip-toes, she would look down. The sand seemed such a long way down, and her arms were so small she didn’t think they could hold her, and suppose they failed and she fell!

She could bump her head on the pole and fall into the sand and get muck in her hair and eyes! She would stand there, breathing heavily, willing herself to reach only a little further. But it was no good. And a little boy or girl who was much braver would poke her in the back and demand their turn.

Every day I returned to that corner, arm outstretched in the same position. But no matter how hard I tried, I never slid down. One day there was a seventh grade girl standing at the bottom. She seemed such a long way down, but her arms stretched toward me. Her face was kind and she told me that if I fell, she would catch me. I prepared myself in the usual position. A cold tear rolled down my cheek and my heart thumped wildly in my chest. The girl at the bottom nodded encouragingly and coaxed me to stretch just a little further. I grabbed the pole with my right hand and allowed the left to join it. Suspended over the sand, my toes still pressed on the ledge behind me. What if the big girl didn’t catch me? My heart drummed in my throat now and with one last

05

My Token Maaryah Malik

it hurts the way that i say your name it’s a lost token i left you in the ocean where you belonged and is it wrong to miss something that was never yours

05 Santa Monica by Jordan Doak

look at the girl, I closed my eyes. I pushed my feet off and swung my delicate legs around the pole. With a whoosh of air and flying bobbed hair, I felt my feet hit something with a gentle thud. As I opened my eyes, the older girl in front of me clapped madly. I looked down to see that I was standing at the base of the pole, and there was sand between my toes. I laughed ecstatically with the big girl and climbed up immediately for another turn.

As I look at the little girl in the picture, I remember how the daunting walls of the big “school” became Her New Playground. Here, she unleashed a love of adventure. I remember how she would struggle down the Fireman’s Pole, struggle through her handwriting lessons and numbers, and return home in the afternoon with a vibrancy only a learning child’s energy could permit.

All the little Kings and Queens of that Playground possessed a curiosity for the wonders of life and grasped every opportunity their tiny fingers could reach. No fireman’s pole was ever too far away, no swing too high, nor sea-saw too hard. The girls and boys would continue to return to their own corners until their fears were conquered. The thought of giving up had never entered their wild minds.

How I yearn to walk across the balancing beam or slide down the pole once more. I don’t know when the day was where fear overcame curiosity. Nor do I know why fright dominates our will to learn. It seems that as all little girls grow up, so too does their tendency to let doubt shroud their drive. As we are ever encouraged to “not bother with what we aren’t good at,” we forget what

it is like to try—not just attempt, but endeavour and progress. But not only do I envy the way children push themselves, I remember how happy that push made me. Because when children were too innocent and beautiful for adults to ever offend, failure never existed.

Failure made the children afraid. One day, at the big “school,” in the big world, on their massive Playground known as life, success was taught to be the object of happiness. The reach out to the Fireman’s Pole became the little girl’s burden. Every step along the beam was an agonising reassurance that failure was still imminent. Yet as you and I know, failure is inevitable. We can only know success by knowing failure. The little girl in the picture knew both, and loved both. You and I know both, but hate one.

Before dinner, my father would walk me to My Old Playground, past the brilliant orb of tangerine fire setting behind the glittering horizon, and through the white powdery sand hot beneath our soles. I would walk very carefully across the balancing beam every afternoon, both of my fair arms stretched to the sides, smelling the salt. As the old gum trees grew, so did my courage. And one day I danced lightly across the beam, my giggles floating down the beach. I felt the cool evening breeze whipping past my ears, and my bobbed brown hair billowed behind me. But bobs are for little girls. And I’m a big girl now.

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Ode to the Mekong Isabel Byrne

The gentle breeze swirls through the crisp morning A soft moan echoes across a dark river The old trees stand on the banks Guarding the secrets of a green jungle A single leaf falls and softly tumbles in the wind Its elegant dance ends with grace As it flutters on the water.

The leaf drifts past a vibrant village Young girls bathe their golden bodies under glittering sun As boys glance slyly towards the water Grandmothers bend brittle backs To wash bowls and spoons of the finest timber Laughter and song seep through the trees To shower over the canopy and float downstream The lone leaf follows the melody.

The swift current beckons time forward Where trees are scarred by jungle spray The leaf cascades down a rapid As gunshots sound to the left Men’s cries ricochet over the water Their agonies echoing the leaf’s violent fall Blood stains the river red And smothers the leaf in passion and loss Helicopter blades slice the grey sky And fade as the water calms once more.

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The leaf drifts over a school of fish Their silver tails swishing merrily A black net spirals downwards And chokes their shimmer of life Hauled to deck, thousands of glass eyes Stare to the polluted heavens.

The leaf has stopped drifting It merely floats, trapped in time Engulfed by sea It waits for a new current But there is no gentle push, nor whispering wind Only a grey plastic bag drifting ahead.

06 Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada by Izzy Catanzaro 07 Puffin with Grass by Victoria Race 08 Hidden Paradise by Lexi Anderson

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An Unforgettable Experience to Cuba Roxana Moazami This past winter break, my family and I took a risk by doing something that rarely any other American has done.

We went to Cuba.

Ironically, when we came back, we heard on the news that America was now trying to restore its relations with Cuba. As great as that sounds, we are happy that we got to see Cuba before it becomes too Americanized. What do I mean by that? As weird as it may be to Americans, there were no Starbucks or McDonalds lying on every block. There was no American music blasting from every car, and there were no new American cars. Instead, there were classy cars from the 1950’s that looked like they came straight from The Great Gatsby or Casablanca.

It was a great one-week escape from the American world, and it was truly an educational experience. I got to learn a lot about what it’s like to live in a communist environment. However, although many people make this common mistake, the Cubans prefer being classified as socialists rather than communists. Despite that, the Cubans are all smiles and living as if there were no tomorrow, even though poverty is without a doubt a significant issue in Cuba. One of them in particular told me, “Cubans are like dolphins. We can have water up to our necks but still laugh.”

In Cuba, you can see how colonized the island is, especially in their capital, Havana (called Habana in Cuba). In addition to that, Cuba’s prominent revolutionist, Che Guevara, has his face mounted on just about every building, every car, and anywhere else you might think of – even the Cuban peso. They praise him as Cuba’s true leader, and learning more about

him has really opened up my mind to Cuba’s fascinating history as well as its traditions.

I discovered one of their festive traditions on New Year’s. Once the clock strikes 12, the Cubans in the buildings above prepare water. With an endless amount of buckets at hand, they pour the water on any unfortunate person walking on the streets. This is said to bring luck for the New Year.

Because I didn’t know of this tradition, I was the first in my family to get drenched, but soon enough almost everyone was soaking (whereas some, like my sister, were running for their lives).

Although my experiences in Cuba were great, there was one thing that always failed to satisfy: their food. Although they have very colorful and vibrant dishes, even their five-star restaurants had the blandest food. When we asked where their famous Cuban sandwiches were, they looked at us blankly, saying they had never hearing of such a thing. Even for my food-loving family, the trip ended with all of us losing weight.

I had an unforgettable experience in Cuba – an experience that was like no other. Cuba has a rich culture, with music that just makes you want to get up and dance. Their famous Tropicana show, a world-known cabaret, represents Cuba’s true culture through its music and dance. When they took my brother and me up on stage and asked us where we were from, their faces lit up with both shock and joy. The lady on the stage looked at us and said, “We really hope that America and Cuba will have good relations in the future. After all, Cuba needs America and America needs Cuba.”

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this wind can take me home Jamie Spain

09 Reykjavik Harbor by Julie Coticchia

For Turkey, June Brady Furlich

I never thought I’d be mistaken for one of the Spice Girls. Or a member of Charlie’s Angels. Or see my friend proposed to by a stranger in the street. But this is what inevitably happens, I suppose, when you are a teenager in Turkey.

I should clarify here that I am zero percent Turkish and have no intent on increasing that percentage as of now by blood (I’m not sure how that would happen) or by marriage, even though there were a few cute Turkish guys I saw when I visited. And now, I guess, I should clarify that being called Victoria Beckham in the middle of Istanbul is actually quite commonplace, especially when said-faux-Victoria-Beckham is trying to buy gifts for her family and trying not to look too touristy with her pale complexion, American chatter, and bulky listening device.

You see, in Turkey, shopkeepers don’t just sit behind the counter playing Candy Crush on their phones, casually glancing up just to double check that you aren’t shoplifting. Nope. Not at all. They stand proudly outside their stores and hassle you to no end, sucking up to every shopper on the bustling streets just so they’ll come in for a terrible deal on a “one of a kind scarf ” (with its ‘Made in China’ tag carefully snipped), fake Longchamp bags (actually useful since they’re waterproof), or handmade evil eye jewelry that makes storefronts look as if Argus Panoptes is peering out at you.

These are little flashes that make up the time lapse of my trip to Turkey. There are glimpses of laughs, smiles, and tears of saying goodbye. There are moments of jumping into the bright blue water of the Aegean, screaming as I hit the cold water, of gasping at the sight of the Hagia Sophia, of making it to the top of a hill on a six mile hike. Of all of these, I don’t have a favorite memory. Sure, some were better than others, but, like a math formula that doesn’t make sense until you get the answer, it all added up to an experience, a sense of place, a family, a home.

I didn’t think that Turkey would turn into home for me — I didn’t really want it to, either. I was, and still am, perfectly content with my cozy house and cheery neighborhood. The idea of Turkey is still vague to me, a bit hazy with all of its memories in my mind, but that doesn’t diminish it in the least. But having all of these experiences cumulate into saying goodbye to 19 other people at JFK made me realize that our little group had become a family and, as a group, we had the ability to turn anywhere into a home, whether it was our beloved tour bus, a third floor hotel room with all of the beds squished together, or the deck of a sailboat. And this, as well, remains true at home. From a corner in Phoenix coffee shop to one of the couches at school, happiness doesn’t have to be centered in one place. It doesn’t have to be as I roam through the surprisingly steep hills of Turkey or as I catch an independent film at the Cedar Lee Theater a few blocks away: as long as I have a chance to say goodbye.

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1. Perfect Pieces written and performed by Delani Hughes ’17

2. Winter Wind written and performed by Lizzie Poulos and Madeleine Schroedel ’15 3. With You written and performed by Kat Holleran ’16

4. August written and performed by Joy Archer Frodyma ’18

5. The Approximation of Incompressible Flow written and performed by Brady Furlich ’15 6. In Response to Surgical Inquiry written and performed by Becca Lambright ’15 7. To Me written and performed by Isabella Nilsson ’16 Guitar for Perfect Pieces by James Carr

Recording and Engineering by James Carr CD design by Vanessa Butler

Special Thanks to St. Dominic Church for recording venue

We chased stars in obsidian skies.

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