INK: Issue 24, Spring 2019 by ink.

ink. issue 24

Staircase

A Letter

Hallowed Be Her Name Tan

Helix

2 Untitled Pieces 26 27

by George R. by Michael L.

Premature Faith

Seaweed on the Ocean Floor Flower Bomb

A Poem for Home

For Believers Who Hesitate Spring Sounds y sigue

“Ōdī et amō. Quārē id faciam fortasse requīris. Nesciō, sed fierī sentiō et excrucior.”

“I hate and I love. Why I do this, perhaps you ask. I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.” ––Catullus, 85

Sta irc ase

On a cloud meandering about the sky, Limestone rectangles sunbathe in rows To form a floating case of stairs. 10 steps that will stand Even post-elephant-stampede. As bronze-plated knights post at each step The railing shines in the sunlight's reflection. But An explosion of green grows on the rail And sifts inside the bars of brass, Sprawling from underneath the shrubbery's tail. A baby blue plaster fills all crevices Within and beyond the frame. Beneath the steps and the feathery cloud, An angel of blue rendering the sea Hoists the stairway up with her pinky.

Poem by Charlie Comfort â&#x20AC;&#x2122;21 Art by Nina Sukonrat â&#x20AC;&#x2122;20

The public square fosters exchange and social discourse, demanding one to adopt a more broadened understanding of purpose and self. Civic engagement requires empathy. Symmetry subverts hierarchy. Unity is achieved through multiplicity. Permeability invites public ownership. Sharing information should be free, but online we are bound to transact data to corporations. This center features a public library and archive of periodical print publications - a space to unplug and focus on authentic interaction in response to manipulative and divisive digital media. Visitors may register to vote on the premises. The forum cultivates civic engagement through different levels of social interaction. Wraparound benches encourage respectful conversation, while framed views of the harbor offer moments of introspection. Tensile cables converge and maintain the buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s structural integrity, signifying strength in unity. This is a contemporary palazzo for the people. The proposed site is located in downtown Boston, surrounded by imposing financial buildings, a rapidly developing seaport district, and repurposed factories. This Center reclaims Boston Harbor, where the spark of our nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s revolution was ignited in an act of political and mercantile protest, as a public space to congregate and exchange ideas. The structure is reminiscent of the massive ships that carried immigrant ancestors to the city, reminding of humble origins and the promise of the future. The Center for Civic Engagement facilitates social revitalization. Architecture by Sam Golini

Dear little sister, This might not be the first thing you choose to identify yourself as, or even the thing you are most proud of. Or maybe it is. Maybe you don’t want to be identified this way, or maybe you hold onto this identity very, very tightly. Regardless, you are who you are because you are someone’s, and they are yours. I made the mistake of placing my human siblings on divine pedestals. They spoke the Truth, they did only Good, and if they said, or believed, or did anything, it was Right. They loved me, protected me, guided me, and their paths were the only ones I ever considered attempting to follow. I believed implicitly in their every move. And I leaned heavily on this belief. Do you remember these feelings? But I grew, and I listened, and I heard things I couldn’t unhear. Things that shook my deep faith unalterably, dangerously. James Baldwin once wrote “Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shining and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one's sense of one's own reality.” Once, my reality was simple and clearcut. I had all the answers, given to me by my beloved role models, and I knew exactly what to do - because they were there to guide me. But I grew, and I listened, my divine idols, once glistening on their pedestals, began to reveal themselves to be something far less divine: human. And as I began to make this discovery, I was filled with angry terror, but also a guilty twinge of something like relief - for along with the comfort of believing that your predecessors are faultless comes a massive responsibility to commit no fault. Do you remember these feelings? If you don’t, look again. Dear little sister, dear dreamer, dear believer, dear naive, faithful little follower, it is not bad to be any of these things. In fact, it is a beautiful thing to believe so fully and completely in those you love. But beware of idols - you will want to find them everywhere you go. And can I tell you something else? Every single one will be human. David Foster Wallace once said, “There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship... is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.” I am not asking you not to worship, and not to love, because these are things that you will never unlearn. Rather, I am asking you to take care in what you worship, and exactly how much of yourself you give to that faith. I am asking you to ask questions, to be wary without being jaded, and to realize that you don’t have to turn to others for all the answers - many of them you have, and will figure out on your own. I am asking you to “know from whence you came” without being afraid to go somewhere new, and not to fear the truth of the humanity that you will find in all things. It is within your reach to conquer your fear of being without idols, and in fact learn to take the place of those whom you once admired. Feel no shame, regret none of the faith you have placed so completely, and learn to love unconditionally. Practice this, and never lose the constant awareness that humanity is in all things. Practice this, and your heart will grow to fill your soul. Practice this, and you will never find yourself alone. Love, A little sister Writing by SK Hurlock ’19 Photo by Edward Guo ’19

A Letter

Photos by @hotchkisslandscape

Hallowed Be Her Name Poem by Abby Sim ’20 Art by Jacqui Rice ’20

do you think Mary wanted a baby? one She knew would never be Hers, claimed by every sinner, every saint, every goddamn believer except Herself. when She held christ in Her arms, She must have known She had served Her purpose, nothing more than an ark after the flood, a half-eaten forbidden fruit. the moment he left Her, in a rush of pulsing light and pain, did She realize Herself as obsolete, no longer holy or blessed or useful? imagine Hera –– in all Her female glory, Queen of the gods, more cunning and ruthless than Her own husband –– remembered as just another jealous bitch. Cleopatra disintegrated into eyeliner and exotic seduction, reshaped and recollected as caesar’s most prized possession, the same way Medusa transformed from rape victim to monster the second She became too scary to be pretty. history grips Our wrists with one hand, covers Our mouths with the other, and asks Us why We look so still and quiet. Leaves Us with nothing by which to remember Our Foremothers but the wrath wrapped round Our hearts like a serpent offering divinity. tell Me, Sister, when was the last time You bared Your jagged, iron teeth without shame? aren’t You tired of tasting blood all the time? aren’t You tired of speaking in questions? I am done with moses and hercules, abraham and muhammad. sometimes, I would rather scream than listen to a holy voice through water -no god who knew My hunger would ask Me to be quiet and supple and easy. the truth is: history may swallow Us whole, but in his grim and clotted stomach, We will always find room to gouge Our names and remember.

Art by Kali Ryder â&#x20AC;&#x2122;20

The bus didn’t show up. It’s sometimes a minute, two minutes late. This one just never showed up. Another forty-five minutes. One hundred fourteen degrees. Don’t fall asleep. You never sit on the tan bus bench on the northbound side in the afternoon. The sun’s in the west and the tan northbound bench faces west and so the sun’s shining right onto it. You might as well take a match and light the seat. No, you don’t sit on the tan bus bench on the northbound side. You sit behind it on the tan curb next to the tan rocks. There are holes in the back of the tan bus station, but at least there’s some shade. Ninety-five, maybe one hundred. Forty-five minutes is a long time in the heat with nothing to do. You sit on the tan curb with your feet stretched out on the tan rocks and your back on the back of the tan station not moving too much. You’re sweating enough already. You look up at the buildings that come in five different shades of tan and count how many cars are in the parking lot. They’re easy to spot, they’re the only things that aren’t tan. Save your water. Eight ounces. Forty-five minutes at the station, another forty-minute ride, then hopefully Mom gets there before you have to wait at another tan bus stop next to tan rocks surrounded by tan buildings. Eight ounces will have to last that long. Just don’t fall asleep. Lips chapped shirt drenched cool breeze no cool skin clammy can’t save the water all eight ounces bus will get here soon don’t fall asleep Mouth not open not closed. hanging. just hanging. breathing slow, silent eyelids heavy tan blurs no don’t fall asleep bus will get here soon Low groan of a bus engine as everyone leaves the tan curb. Quick! Grab your bag, onto the bus, sit down. Thank God for air conditioning. Forty more minutes. Don’t fall asleep don’t fall asleep don’t “This is the last stop, kid.” Groggy, parched, get up, stumble off the bus. Mom not here. Bus leaving. Phone burning, one percent. One text, quick. “Missed previous station. At last station. Come now.” Send. Hot. Sent. Shutting down. Water fountain, just fifty feet walk over maybe a hundred feet keep walking it’s just there keep walking it’s just there almost there it’s just... Mom drives by without stopping no come back pick up rock throw no keeps driving rock bouncing on ground sit on curb can’t cry want to but can’t mouth hanging eyes staring into nowhere breathing slow silent almost not at all cold shivering sun bright shivering cold cold cold Car approaches slowly stops door opens five steps just five more steps get up get up five steps hands burning on concrete get up get up five steps She runs out from the other side pushes me in shuts the door back to the other side She hands me water mom looks back asks if i’m okay She says go quick i can’t get the water hands too weak for the cap She takes it back uncaps leans my head back little sips little sips water dribbles down as mouth hanging breathing slow silent head too heavy falls onto window eyelids drooping eyes looking out to nowhere to tan dirt and tan rocks and tan walls and tan houses flying by A single tear falls along my cold, clammy face.

Prose by Ian Gill ’19 Art by Asher DuFord ’20

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Art by Carolyn Ren â&#x20AC;&#x2122;19

I used to believe in love. You think you’re feeling, your chest fills with warmth. Suddenly, you’re an oracle, the future unfolds before you like that familiar hallway of your childhood. I used to believe in love. Who’s left to love? Lustful love for the sculpted figures around you. Devoid of humanity. Statues are beautiful, white marble made of curves. Cold, harsh, still empty. This is no love. I used to believe in love. She laughs, so natural and undisturbed by the rigid world. Her nose crinkles when you tease her. Such purity, the future unfolds before you like that familiar hallway of childhood. I used to believe in love. She doesn’t see the sculptures, she wants the sculptures. You should be ashamed. You’re not special, you’re not a character, no celestial being watches you. You can’t rip out your eyes for sharing. You think the world is full of blind wonders. You are pretentious. Succumb. This is no love. I used to believe in love. She chooses to talk to you because you’re not a star crossed lover. No sonnets will be written for you. You just like her smile, her eyes are so bright, the world is lit by the giant of humor. Her skin is soft and warm but her hands are all you need. A friend. This love stands the test of time, here to stay, the future unfolds before you like that familiar hallway of childhood. I used to believe in love. She worries about you. You don’t deserve it, but you need it. She reaches out and you accept. She saved you she’s not there. Fuck her. You don’t have time for the inferior. She reaches out. You slap her hand away like it’s a fat summer mosquito. Nobody reaches out. This is no love. I used to believe in love. I used to believe in love.

Prose by George Reynal ’22

“ You can’t look into a bottle with both of your eyes,” My mum used to say every time there was an argument between us concerning school and soccer. Ghanaians, in general, have the perception that as soon as a kid’s interest in soccer grows, their interest in education will disappear. My mum wanted me to play football for fun, but not in any serious way. I grew up in a society where everyone has a passion for soccer, and school often isn’t taken seriously. Most parents’ greatest worry is that football will have a negative influence on their child’s education, and therefore, their lives. My mum was no different. I remember that one sunny Friday morning, when I was standing outside with her. We were about to have our largest argument. I desperately wished to play for my local team in a game that coming Sunday afternoon, while my mum had other ideas. She was so crossed and started shouting at the top of her voice. “Go to school, wo be sei wo life1” she said. I tried explaining to her how much I loved soccer, crying after every word. “I just want to play, just let me play!” But she kept insisting that I couldn’t, kept repeating the same reasons, the same old mantra: “ You can’t look into a bottle with both of your eyes!” (This is, I think, a peculiarly Ghanaian turn of phrase. I don’t know where it came from, but it means you can’t properly focus on more than one thing at time. It was (and still is) my mother’s favorite refrain along with “me krakye2”, which she uses for praise.) “You’re getting me totally wrong,” I said, “I won’t give up school, I don’t even want to, I like school!” But she just wouldn’t listen, and in the end, I said something I shouldn’t have. “Wa gyin swa.3” “Ow” she said softy in response. Silence fell between us, and I walked away. I walked for a few minutes and found myself in a quiet backstreet, shaded by the tall buildings around it. I sat there, on a large, smooth rock. Guilt was hitting me like the harsh rays of sunlight on the cracked white plaster of the building behind me. I felt ashamed, my problems seemed to be cascading down and crushing me like an avalanche. I must have sat there numbly for two or three hours, not really knowing what to do. I thought about my mum and what she might be feeling and how I hadn’t meant to upset her. The sound she made was playing repeatedly in my head – my words had wounded her. After a while, I looked up, noticing the dark street was now really gloomy. My belly was groaning with hunger too – I started walking home. When I opened the door, my mum was standing in the hall. “fakye me4” I said. She nodded, and we silently continued our days. I didn’t play that Sunday. 1 2 3 4

you’ll ruin your life my scholar small minded forgive me

Prose by Michael Leon ’21

Photos by Harry Roepers â&#x20AC;&#x2122;19

Premature I think sometimes I miss it, the peeling, liberty-stained walls plump with stubbornness and the precious ingenuity of boyhood, the landscape of flesh in the crib nestled side by side, belly to back But the picotee blue walls tainted with blotches of dilated liberty, served as a pillar, for stacks of accolades and snapshots of recollection As the frayed carpet imprinted with the wondrous shades of fēi xíngqí rustled, under the tumulus of our soft, soaking hoodies Cue adolescence, the insatiable yearning of a masculine bear– beer bottles backing up bathrooms to the brim, He drank abundantly leaving behind petals and picotee blue walls.

Poem by Jerry Qiao ’22 Art by Katerina Gill ’21

Faith Faith is a little girl with her fingers crossed behind her back Gripping the hem of a flowery dress Telling lies with the boldness of truth in the hopes they might get confused And tell her that she’s right It seems to come true once in a lifetime That you believed and it was true You could have sworn the first time you touched the ocean you were a mermaid That the muscles on your back would turn to wings if you just jumped high enough Faith is bouncing on her toes in Mary Janes Running off to the next thought before fallacy has the chance to catch up to her She’ll twirl through the crowd A glimpse of a swirling pattern will catch the corner of your eye Flirting with oblivion Teasing the endless demise Fleeting with the flowers wearing off a hand-me-down dress

Poem by Anne Sappenfield ’21 Photo by Emily Heimer ’21

Art by Katie Moore â&#x20AC;&#x2122;20

Seaweed on the Ocean Floor I Yujia Li swayed in the cramped subway like a string of seaweed on the ocean floor. The crowd pushed against her in all directions, so that she neither could nor had the need to grab onto a handle. The smell of sweat bloated in the airtight space, then exploded into drops of sweat in her clothes and her ponytail. Through the layers of heads, Yujia spotted a small girl of six or seven sitting on her father’s lap. The little flower bud was dressed in a rose pink dress with pearls stitched to the brim, laughing with a small boy of two or three. They had the same round eyes. The siblings reminded Yujia of her and her brother, but a strong sense of suffocation soon washed over that she had to look away.

II When Yujia was six, she had wished for a rose pink dress with pearls too, but her parents wouldn’t have cared what she wanted. but the pronoun “she” ignited her parents like a lit match does dried hay under the sun. The birth of a “he” converted all her parents’ hate into love, though not for her. She remembered the day she first saw her brother. The fresh, new cradle held a pale, fat baby, nothing extraordinary at all, but his blue knitted hat indicated having the extra part down his pants that the sisters all wished they had. Yujia had never seen her parents smile so genuinely, not even when she scored perfection on her final exams in fifth grade. Life started to spiral like a tornado, and in the peaceful tornado eye stood her angelic little brother -- angelic only because their parents thought so. Yujia spun around as gravity peeled off her skin, her flesh, then her intestines. Yujia, what have you done! How are you ever going to marry if you can’t even take care of your own brother! Her mother yelled while smacking her in the face. Yujia, if anything should happen to your brother while we’re gone, you can go starve in the streets. Her father looked her in the eyes while the toxic words seeped out the corner of his mouth. Yujia, that is not how you talk. You’re a girl, save some face for yourself and be a good role model for your brother. Her mother glared while smacking her in the arm. Yujia, don’t talk some bullshit about love, leave that broke scumbag right now! We didn’t raise you so you can waste money marrying some broke carpenter. Her father chided while putting new toys in a shopping cart for his beloved son.

III Between school and having to take care of her little brother, Yujia failed and dropped out of middle school despite her best efforts. However, she didn’t fail her parents’ expectations. At the age of twenty-one, she married the richest man in their small town, a stout, balding middle-aged man whose beer belly took up half his weight. On the same day that Yujia announced her marriage, her little brother got his first one-hundred percent on a test. At dinner, the whole family drank and celebrated; Yujia and her parents depleted two dozens of beer. Laughter and alcohol soaked the air, bloated in the airtight dining room, and exploded into tears on their faces. Her parents howled about the hardships of raising her, how indocile and obstinate she used to be, and how hard they tried to make her the perfect bride so that they would see her in matrimony with the proper man. Yujia cried too, although she was too inebriated to have heard a single word her parents said. She simply wanted to cry.

IV Yujia went to the city that day to secure a place for her oldest daughter in the best boarding middle school in the province. She could’ve taken a taxi or traveled with her husband’s driver, but instead, she chose the crowded subway just so that she could see with her own eyes. She had heard tales of limitless opportunities in the city for men and women alike, and it was true. As Yujia stepped out of the enclosed space and onto the platform, this mother of three children breathed a superfluous amount of the stale underground air to calm the suffocation from seeing the little girl in the rose pink dress. She couldn’t locate for who or what she felt it for, but it continued to burn until the heat coated every fiber in her body with a layer of hellish misery. Yujia didn’t know if she simply yearned for more or regretted what she had lost –– a middle school certificate, her sweet carpenter, or perhaps something else, something more. She had no means to verbalize the thought; it was never taught to her. The burn just fluttered; it pushed in every direction possible that she swayed helplessly for a moment like a string of seaweed on the ocean floor, then it was gone.

Prose by Summer Liu ’20 Art by Asher DuFord ’20

Art by Jiahua Chen â&#x20AC;&#x2122;20

Flower Bomb

Poem and Art by Olya Sukonrat â&#x20AC;&#x2122;21

Everyday I wake to this. Skin folding in soft peach pillows, spines clicking as we lean back, Legs shooting outwards like two lovers dancing, Hair rippling, the way a river trickles, Hands stretching up, brushing the constellations above into place. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a timeless oil painting or polaroid-worn-away-atthe-edges kind of beauty about this dream. Crisp citrus perfume. Twilight-saturated irises. Honey and caramel lipstick prints. Sunlight bathing our marbled collar bones. Rose-stained cheeks following soft curves. Heads tilting so far back in rapture one could kiss the hollows of our necks. We move with two pearls on our chests, guiding down to the crease between our legs. And with every outwards breath, thousands of water lilies are birthed. We paint mirrors of fires on our lips, with redness that shines even through the dark. Our rib cages are home to fragments of power the earth was too weak to carry.

Art by Jacqui Rice â&#x20AC;&#x2122;20

A Poem for Home I believe in rusty motorcycles and time-worn book stores In the fresh autumn air, tinged with cheap cigarette buds and black cardamom I believe in the edge-nibbled leaves that scatter the streets, in the sizzling sounds of the market and in my eroding mother tongue in the sleep of calico cats that bask in the twilight sun, warm as the heat of noon, sweet as iced cà phê sua I believe that while the fire colored autumn fades, and the world is painted grey While the skies are stretched further than the abandoned train tracks that lead to the edge of time. While I no longer fit the part of the past-girl, and the mirrors don’t reflect the same way The city will still hold me in the creases of her palms, tracing the branches of her Phoenix hands. Singing her nostalgic melodies alley by alley bent beneath the roof-tops That trickle tear-like raindrops from rise to fall. I believe that where you come from doesn’t change Neither in records nor in creed So, I believe in my home, my heart, my Hanoi.

Poem by Ha Trang Tran ’22 Photo by Olya Sukonrat ’21

Photos by Jerry Sheng â&#x20AC;&#x2122;20

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Poem by Shine Lee ’20 Photo by Luke Gardiner’21

Spring 1. February Some days ago I bought a bowling shirt From Comme des GarĂ§ons Where are les filles? La fille! So much is out of vanity Like this shirt I wear to look athletic But it might have been the yellow Collars Swallowing my eye, like some delight (light truth) and it has made me poetic again.

2. in moonlight down in the souks my fatigue is so new the morning sun roars underneath i saw all of you in Marrakech today lying beside the night its inviting faith upon my bed this window to seeing.

Poems by Dear Liu â&#x20AC;&#x2122;19

Sounds 3. Advisory Sleepover A dog licked my face. Pulled me From my rum dreams I get up to wash my face and stop at the breaths of sleeping friends their trembling lungs, the wooden floor Their soundness elicits the hearing of my own The moon had once again excited me Our taciturn play Perhaps this is it That every longing, thirst Boils down to sharing sleep.

March 3, 2019 4. New York has You Here I am, admiring a glass of cognac Under a particular light. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d often find certain romances in hidden corners, above a table top, very textural, your soft profile in the theaterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s night, Screening my Shoplifters. In the departure lounge, I am reminded that even the Peking grays, Which I strangely romanticized about, its flirtatiousness, my breathless nature After, cannot please me like it used to. For the first time ever, I felt more warmth, closer to my heart, in the roaring winds and despite achieving rien with you in this sleepless city. March 9, 2019

y sigue his hands seem cold. i can tell by the slumping arch of his knuckles under the wheel, hands tiring miles away from sweet slipping slumber. the skin’s like the rubber tires we move on: blackened, limping, knobbly. i remember once my father cut his finger off on one of the giant sawmill blades at work. gracias a dios, the white men sewed it back on and it still works, or he would not be driving me away from our home to my new home during a storm. outside, the rain shoots downward. blots sink into the earth like the dropped webs of sulking spiders. trees and fog and drooping street lights blur, squishing dirt-colored clouds into a swirling clot. it’s a pleasant warning that i pretend to miss: the storm is following us. my father picks a song. a caballero Spanish song begins to drawl, filling vacant air and pushing my head sideways to look at the shadow of his face. “ Your abuelito de tu mamá knew the lead singer. They were both from Miraflores and worked the same construction site. I think she liked him. She played his música too much.” sleep tugs at my chin, but i catch his eyes flickering mouth gaping. it’s like his mind stutters while his mouth recalls those hot nights and bitter beer that went along with the música, salivating for a painful Peruano memory. i feel my lips begin to do the same, but instead, to form still words. ‘Papá, let me choose one, por favor’ and with his sunburnt set fingers he gestures at me. as if to the air around me. i grab a cd from the glove box and push it in. the machine whirls and croaks until it whistles, spiraling. i close my eyes, as i tend to do. tepid warbling from piano rises, but i don’t mind. languid notes stir my father’s head from side to side. “Ahora si! I like this. My papá listened to this stuff. He played it on Sunday nights after church and when he would get drunk I’d ask him for money. He sat beside his old radio with this playing and he’d say, ‘Ay, chiquito, here, go get some beer.’ and I’d take his money and get the beer and save whatever was left over. Oh, and I’d give some change to mamá.” my father’s words always seem to pick at my head. illogicality is a hard thing to grasp, but once you do it’s hard to let go. i let his words roll over me and i feel a little prick in my chest. a slow soft splendid spot sweeps my body. first it makes my fingers twitch, and then my feet. it ebbs in waves about my spine and it makes me think hard, until it pops out from under my tongue, “Papá, did you like your papá?”

54 “Si. Por supuesto, I had to love him. Niki, I always want to tell you. If you feel lonely at school, you call me. You’ve told me before. You make me ask if this is right or not. “I know, Papá. I’m fine. It just happens sometimes. But it’s getting better.” a subtle nod - maybe to check the rearview mirror. “ Your mamá and I always wondered for you. No te olvides de nosotros. Trust me, hijo, if someone knows something about leaving home, it’d be me and us. You think I wasn’t lonely the first few months here? You think I wasn’t sad?” he rubs at the scar on his finger; his faded gold ring always stays on to cover it. i don’t know why, but when people get into a mood and the rain falls like so, it’s hard to get out of one. it’s like when i was a baby and my head was bigger than me and i crawled around the house looking for things. my parents told me i was a smart baby. they told me i knew how to use the tv remote by tres años. and since they didn’t want me playing with glass cabinets they told me they put a fence around our giant box tv - until one day i plopped and prodded around on all fours and saw the shiny glint of the metal. i peered with my tiny eyes so i could see the remote behind glass real close. and i got closer, but my big head got stuck in between the fence poles. my mamá found me crying and she started to cry with me. it was my father that went for the butter first. i want to speak like i speak with myself but i fear it’s too much too quick like this damn rain. Papá, I want to love. I don’t know what I want to be. Papá, why did I used to be quiet? Papá, was I the son you wanted? Should I say this in Spanish? Am I? And mamá? Was she? Would you trade? Papá? leave it to me to wedge my head in between a fence and ask my father stupid questions. “Papá, I got a job at school. I’m going to start working and start paying you back.” with this my father’s eyes stop drifting like two blown candles; his droopy knuckles tighten. he sniffles and starts to park the car alongside the dark road. he punches the música off in one swift roll and we stop. he turns to me, where in the light of the shallow stars i can see the gray strands of his hair. it smells of garlic and ginger: a concoction to keep it from falling out. i see his eyes with wrinkles surrounding, like dug up holes in sand with mud water at the bottom. his voice comes out lean and soft at first - it makes me imagine rushing milk out of a bottle. “Niki, I did that back in Peru because we had to. Because there was a time when we were good with money and then we weren’t. My mamá was sick and my papá had his sick too. We didn’t have anything to eat, ni para comer. With that I tell you all. But I did it because we had to. You, on the other hand, don’t need to.” “But, I don’t feel good if I don’t help out, at least a little“Mira. We did it because we were different and it was different then. Different place. El país era mal; the country was bad. I want you to be okay. I want you not to worry, Niki.” “What about the bills last month, and the costs for the - I think I can help -” “Don’t think about that. Come on, hijo! You’re supposed to be having fun. Don’t think like that.” now it’s different because i can feel wind peeling back our car and his eyes sink in further.

55 with a thought he breathes in air but i can tell there’s not enough in here for the both of us. he looks down at his scruffed jeans and nice boots. with his limping hands he rubs his forearm up and down. yesterday as we drank together he told me that when he bathed his wrinkled father in that white tiled hospital tub he felt the warm soapy water drip up into his arm sleeves and tried not to let his tears mix in. “ You just deal with what you have, hijo. Deal with it, y sigue. What else are you going to do?” and i don’t want to tell him i’m wrong. or that i think i am. i think what i don’t say and i don’t say what i think. life is one contradiction and love is another. everyone is lovestarved, it seems. “But remember, hijo, you are not alone in the way you feel. You are not alone.” everyone around me is lovestarved and i am not alone. i am a lovelittle man in a loveless world and it is my duty to ask questions and answer them myself. it is my duty to rest my big head against my father’s chest as he sobs big rough tears into my thick hair. it is my duty to open my eyes and smile whenever my hermanita asks me to hold her hand while we pray. like my mamá always said, you have to deal with it. y sigue. sigue y sigue y sigue y sigue y sigue. i feel these words in the sturdy warmth of my fathers chest, expanding, pounding - a deluge of crossed oceans. i felt them in the quiet breeze my mamá let in while she washed our kitchen tiles on saturday mañanas. i remember. until my thoughts ripple together like the wind and the rain into the brazen breath of an unspoken word: familia. hard to find, but you cling to it. because when i kneel under my silver cross at night and sound out my own name in Spanish syllables, i want to know if there is a way to reclaim the words of a home i’ve lost. there is a way. some people have fingers that couldn’t be sewed back on but i think they fare better than some that do and choose not to hold hands. when he’s done he sighs heftily and puts the key back in. the car lights up. we turn back into the dark road and our sooty tires rumble through the cement. the storm persists. i look up and squint at the stars through the misty glass; they peek over splayed clouds that move like lost mountains, swirling slowly about the sky. and there’s the moon that unwinds like a silver spool overhead. my eyelids wilt with time and my other home seems a little less farther away, but “See. Now look at me. I have work tomorrow, en la mañana. And now I’m all alone and I will drive back home in the dark, cold and tired. You got it good. Like this means anything.” “No, Papá, don’t you see? Papá. Coming home is everything.”

Prose by Dominic Bellido ’20 Photo by Dear Liu ’19

from turtle import * t = Turtle() t.pensize(1) t.speed( ) t.penup() t.home() t.setheading( t.pendown() , t.tracer(

) )

def draw(alphabet, seed, rules, length, degree, order): pos_stack = [] heading_stack = [] for c in seed: if (alphabet[c] == 'forward'): t.forward(length) if (alphabet[c] == 'skip'): t.penup() t.forward(length) t.pendown() elif (alphabet[c] == 'left'): t.left(degree) elif (alphabet[c] == 'right'): t.right(degree) elif (alphabet[c] == 'save'): pos_stack.append(t.pos()) heading_stack.append(t.heading()) elif (alphabet[c] == 'return'): t.penup() t.goto(pos_stack.pop()) t.setheading(heading_stack.pop()) t.pendown() if (c in rules and order > ): draw(alphabet, rules[c], rules, length, degree, order - 1) alphabet = {'F': 'forward', '+': 'left', '-': 'right', '[': 'save', ']': 'return'} rules = {'F': 'FF+[+F-F-F]-[-F+F+F]'} angle = 27 length = 5 generation = draw(alphabet, 'F', rules, length, angle, generation)

These are the steps of a procedural Lindenmayer fractal progression meant to resemble plants. Procedural Art by Reece Yang â&#x20AC;&#x2122;21

ISSUE 24 Spring 2019 Writing Director Abby Sim ’20 Art Director Beckett Hornik ’20 Design Director Jiahua Chen ’20 Club Advisors Brad Faus Charlie Frankenbach Editorial Dominic Bellido ’20 Shine Lee ’20 Nicole Morikawa ’21 Alec Stern ’21 Layout + Visual Jacqui Rice ’20 Lucy Bulley ’21 Emily Heimer ’21 Covers by Dear Liu ’19 Inside Covers by I Lok U ’20 Content Art by Nina Sukonrat ’20

ink.

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