EVOLUTION
EVOLUTION
Images and Layout by Jessica Richardson Writing by Katherine O’Keefe and Kelly Ganning Special Thanks to our advisor, Brian Kievning, To our editors; George LaVigne, Mark Gutkowski, and Cynthia Laudadio. Also a huge thank you to our lovely models, Angela Pagan, Emily McLaughlin, Julianne McLaughlin, and Alanna Beneroff. Images © Jessica Richardson, 2014, all rights reserved. Writing © Kelly Ganning and Katherine O’Keefe, 2014, all rights reserved 2
Table of Contents
Piece Author 3. Chemistry Class Katherine O’Keefe 4. A Poem About Kelly Ganning Conformity 5. Feel Something Kelly Ganning 6. A List for Teenage Girls Katherine O’Keefe With Permanent Wanderlust 7. My Unanswered Why Kelly Ganning 8. Vulnerable Kelly Ganning 10. The Honors Track Katherine O’Keefe 11. My Technicolor World Kelly Ganning 12. Not Here Kelly Ganning 13. Roots Katherine O’Keefe 14. Falling Asleep Kelly Ganning 15. Maybe You Were Wrong Kelly Ganning 17. I Could Never Be Kelly Ganning Pretty at Best 18. Freedom Kelly Ganning 20. Now Kelly Ganning 20. For a Moment Kelly Ganning 21. Euphoria Katherine O’Keefe 23. The Conservation Katherine O’Keefe of Mass 25. I Live Kelly Ganning
3 3
Chemistry Class
you hush your mouth and you hush your mind listen to me I am your authority you sit there passive as I fill you up overflow, tip over the cup but the well’s run dry and the pitcher is empty and the children running at you begging for a drink but you can’t give them nothing because you can’t make them think.
4
A Poem about Conformity
My imperfections make me perfect or at least that’s what I’ve been told. However it seems as though they’ve changed their minds because now I am being told to fit into a mold that is far from the shape that I am and no matter how hard I try I just can’t fit and now I hate my imperfect imperfections.
5
Feel something I long to feel extraordinary euphoria exhilaration but instead I feel dull ordinary numb. Everything seems uneventful and thought out and worthless. I give up. We should throw caution to the wind and laugh until we run out of breath. I’m tired of being cautious. We should be spontaneous unpredictable and careless.
6
A List for Teenage Girls with Permanent Wanderlust
1. There is always an adventure out there, it’s just a matter of finding it. 2. You are not lost, you are exactly where you need to be. 3. Your answer to “when can you be ready?” should be fifteen minutes or less. Five minutes is better. Right now is best. 4. Give yourself some credit, you’re a capable human being. You can do this. 5. Take care of yourself, it’s hard to go adventuring if you pass out because you didn’t eat or sleep. 6. You are allowed to talk to strangers. Make
friends with store owners and street artists. Get over your shyness and ask them the questions that are already on the tip of your tongue. 7. Support the artists, we are all trying to get by somehow. 8. Fall in love recklessly. Fall in love with new things, places, and people everyday. Let passion dictate your life. Write things down, take pictures, ask questions. 9. Chaos is not the enemy. Sit down and drink coffee with chaos, enjoy its company. You’ll find that sometimes it’s the only consistent thing in life. 10. Buy strange CDs from artists you’ve never heard of. Listen to them, let them become your anthems. 11. People will be impatient, insensitive, and rude sometimes. Forgive them, for they are human. 12. You will be impatient, insensitive, and rude sometimes. Forgive yourself, for you are human as well. 13. Create! 14. You are a force of nature and you are allowed to act like it. 15. Embrace your bumps, bruises, and scars. They are your story. 16. Embrace your messy hair and smeared makeup. Embrace the strange looks they will garner you. 17. You cannot change people, you can only love them. 18. There will be days where you feel like you’ve been plowed over by a steamroller. They will feel like they will never end. They will, I promise. 19. Don’t be afraid to fly; just make sure you don’t fly too close to the sun and melt the glue off your wings. 20. Cry when you feel like crying, scream when you feel like screaming, and laugh when you feel like laughing. Life is fleeting, don’t spend it hiding your emotions. 21. Never let the bucket list end, never stop longing for more. 7
My Unanswered Why Why does it always come back to you.
Why does my heart pound and my breath hitch in the middle of class and the middle of the night when I am inevitably reminded of us. And I hate it. I hate you and I hate me but I don’t exactly hate what we used to be, because I used to walk on clouds and glow brighter than the sky during a meteor shower. But now air leaves my system when my fond memories turn to disdain disgust and sheer regret because you made me 8
crash and shatter into bits of broken glass and I am sure that I put myself back together the wrong way because my breath never comes smoothly and my old glow is now tons of little glimmers and I have to admit hints of light are a lot less glamorous than a sky full of shimmer and I hate my pounding heart and my hitching breath and my shattered glow and I hate me and you but all of that is nothing compared to how much I hate my unanswered why.
Vulnerable I used to protect myself wrap myself in thorns so nobody could get in and I couldn’t get out however you came along with gentle hands and carefully picked your way through. Now I know what it’s like to be touched to be cared for to be vulnerable but the gentle hands are gone and it feels as though they were once thorns.
9
The Honnors Track my mother must be so proud of her anxious, burnt out, honor student who fell off the honors track and is hanging on by her fingernails because no one cares if you’re average you have to be advanced placement, honors program you have to “push yourself ” push yourself to the brink of insanity push yourself over the edge and no one can hear you scream or maybe they just don’t care because it’s one less to compete with one less application one less person in the race to the top one less kid who values their grade over their mental health their physical health their everything then they tell you school comes first
11
but to have six extracurriculars two sports three leadership positions and a job because you “gotta learn the value of a dollar” learn the value of a dollar? I know the value of a dollar because i’m going to be in debt for the rest of my life because of a college degree that tells me whether i’m successful or not because you can’t go anywhere without it or more importantly make any money without it and the dollar dictates my life the grade dictates my life the scores dictate my life and quite frankly, I’m tired of all the numbers.
11
My Technicolor World My eyes see clearly and a little too sharply through a filter where everything is beautiful.
Rivers run with glitter, cerulean and aquamarine, and the sun shines down in ribbons of marigold. Flowers bloom in every hue and right before sunset the world is on fire in a passionate glow of technicolor. My eyes catch the mirrors of dew and the cracks in golding leaves and the webs that spiders spin. Most people brush past unfazed without a second glance; however I am not most people. I live in a life of awe in a technicolor world.
12
Each morning never fails to take my breath away. The wind sails in hints of pink and blue and laughter sounds like sunshine. My heartstrings sing when I witness beauty and thankfully I almost burst with song every single day as I look in awe in my technicolor world.
Not Here My desires are fairly simple since all I really want is to get away from here. I want to leave for a day or two or three or more. I want to be undetectable instead of being held under a microscope where everyone expects me to behave exactly as I have for as long as they can remember. Innocent. Obedient. Predictable. But what they don’t know is that I am not that kind of girl.
13
Roots
open the book stare at the page but it’s brimming inside you that feeling of rage and the familiar feeling simply won’t subside it’s always there you want to run and hide but you can’t hide from what’s stuck in your gut so you close your eyes and just sew them shut because you can’t bear to see so you root yourself down and grow as a tree there’s always someone coming to cut your life down you simply can’t stand just what you’re becoming and now it’s full circle you fill others with rage because now you’re the paper and the words on the page.
14
Falling Asleep I don’t remember how but I used to be comfortably alone. Then you came, wrapped me in your arms, tangled your fingers in my hair, and smiled against my lips and left without saying goodbye. Now I can’t help but hate you, because now, being alone seems unbearably lonely.
15
Maybe you were wrong
Programmed to think this way and that. Programmed to think whatever you want me to. That I should believe this because you want me to and that this is right and that is wrong just because you told me to and I believed it just because that’s what I have been told. However, now that I have grown there are so many more opportunities. There are other rights and other wrongs than what I’ve been told and I can think for myself and I can decide what I should believe even though that’s not what I’ve been told because maybe just maybe you were wrong.
16
I could never be pretty at best Kiss my hair smile and call me a princess but I see your face, when you look at what fills my tank top, and what my shorts don’t cover. Your face says it all even before
18
you tell me to watch what I eat. You don’t remember but I do. I remember avoiding skinny jeans and shorter shorts and skirts making sure my tops never clung to my frame because you made me think that I was big and disproportionate and not at all ordinary, but now years later it is still hard to accept who I am but at least sometimes I can consider myself pretty and rarely beautiful at best no thanks to you.
Freedom
My bare soles slap against the asphalt chasing and racing and my laugh is lost in the air that I have already left behind I can hardly breathe and I am not entirely sure if it is because I am running or because I am free, surrounded by those who mean the world to me with my soles against the asphalt drowning in the euphoria of summer and freedom.
19
Now
Sweat clothes clinging to our frames Hair a mess about our heads our vices scratched and strained our faces flushed however that does not stop us from having the night of our lives letting ourselves loose, singing at the top of our lungs, and dancing even after our feet become sore, and forgetting and remembering.
For a Moment
bare feet and sunglasses laughter playing with wisps of our hair and a glow about our face as we stem our worries for a moment
21
Euphoria
I’ve never been good at happy poems I never knew the words I could rattle off a list of synonyms for that lonely feeling that lingers in my stomach at two in the morning but I’ve never felt happy long enough to seek out the synonyms but lately ecstatic, exuberant, euphoric roll off my tongue and onto the page as if it were the easiest thing in the world But the demons are still ever present clawing their nails into my stomach at two in morning when the excitement of the day has faded and I cannot tell if my mountains are simply getting steeper or if the elevations are actually changing but I’m trying to keep the oxygen tank full just to see how far I can climb up and if I ever come down.
22
The Law of the Conservation of Mass
One of the few things that I have grasped from science class is that matter cannot be created nor destroyed and that I am made of stardust from an entirely inexplicable universe and that when I am spiraling out of control that I am merely a metaphor for the universe I am euphoria and man’s fall from grace I am every story and they scream out from within me I wake up everyday as a different person and I just try to grasp the universe that lies within me.
24
25
I Live I live
for the nights when we hit the road and start moving before asking “where to?�
I live
for the nights when our hearts pound just as loud as the music we play.
I live
for the nights when our smiles are genuine and at least somewhat permanent.
I live
for the nights when our laughter drowns out the sounds of the highway.
26
I live
for the nights when we run away eyes glowing, as we turn around
and live.