Kula Manu 2023

KULA MANU

Cover Photography: Silence by Lyssarah Graffe

The perspectives expressed in Kula Manu do not represent those of the editors, Brigham Young University-Hawaii, or its sponsor, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Special thanks to our contest judges and to all who shared the gift of their work with us.

Copyright 2023 BYU- Hawaii Faculty of Arts & letters. Copyright for individual work is retained by the individual authors, creators, and artists.

Kula Manu 2023

STAFF

Faculty Advisor: Joseph Plicka

Editors-in-Chief: Noah Clark & Grace Vaught

Design Editors: Denim Layton & Naomi Lameg

Short Fiction Editor: Isabella Wherity

Non-Fiction Editor: Takara Mcbride

Poetry Editor: Chenoa Francis

Art and Photography Editor: Camdyn Smith

Staff Note

Literature and art serve to represent the thoughts, feelings, and experiences that each and every one of us encounter at some point in life. Collecting pieces of literature and art and showcasing them in all of their raw, messy, beautiful glory is the goal of Kula Manu, Brigham Young University of Hawaii’s only Literary Journal. For the past 60 years, the students of Brigham Young University-Hawaii, along with the Lā’ie community, have submitted work to be published in Kula Manu.

As the staff of Kula Manu, we are honored to present the 61st edition of the journal. A journal that showcases the unique qualities only to be found in BYU-Hawaii’s 2023 student body through art, fiction, nonfiction, photography, and poetry.

During the creation of the 2023 edition, we have seen various pieces that artistically reflect the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of the people who have been affected by BYU-Hawaii's unique qualities. The subjects of these pieces have ranged from sunny beach days to difficult and personal issues. We want to express our appreciation for every piece that was submitted. Without the honest and personal reflections of each submitter, Kula Manu would not reach the same great impact that it has throughout the years.

As you experience this year's edition, we hope you enjoy a dive into the ever-evolving world of art and literature and are able to feel the special spirit of the small, close-knit community that is Lā’ie. It is with great honor that we now present the creative work of students, faculty, alumni, and community members of Brigham Young University-Hawaii in the 2023 edition of Kula Manu.

Mahalo nui, The Kula Manu Staff of 2023

Table of Contents

Art

Happy Moment, Missing Moment by Ching Hsuan Lu, pg.8

Laniloa Beach at Late Afternoon by AryLue Jones, pg. 9

Laniloa Beach at Sunrise by AryLue Jones, pg. 10

Where Am I? by Ya Yun Lin, pg. 11

My Grandfather’s home in Taiwan- The Living room, The Kitchen, and The Bathroom by Zhi Yun Zhang, pg. 12

Short Fiction

Of Pork Hash and Winter Nights by Ysabelle Junio, pg.13

The Almost-Woman by Carly Stone, pg. 15

Boxes by Carly Stone, pg. 18

Tala at Buwan by Leonilyn Llona, pg. 20

Pearl by Joseph Brown, pg. 26

Becoming a Butterfly by Allyssa Alfoja, pg. 31

Creative Non-Fiction

A Hop at a Time by Aubree Whiting, pg. 36

Humpback Whale by Portia Thompson, pg. 38

A Letter to Dad by Wynne Adriel Logroño, pg. 41

Closer to Us by Autumn Barraclough, pg. 44

The Truth about Santa by Abigail Allen, pg. 46

Photography

Patience = Success by Xer OLegna Basulgan, pg. 53

Where Our Fathers Were by Raianne Sereene Baysa, pg. 54

Genealogy by Raianne Sereene Baysa, pg. 55

Patience = Success by Xer OLegna Basulgan, pg. 56

If You Could See Me Now by 태정임(Taejeong Yim), pg. 57

Master of the Flame by Zane Saenz, pg. 58

Quick Shade by Zane Saenz, pg. 59

Patience = Success by Xer OLegna Basulgan, pg. 60

I’m Glad There Is You by 태정임(Taejeong Yim), pg. 61

Shoreside Walk by Megan Bills, pg. 62

Laie Point Sunrise by Michael King, pg. 63

View From Above by Michael King, pg. 64

View From Above III by Michael King, pg. 65

Navigating the ‘Aina by Zane Saenz, pg. 66

Poetry

What is Beauty by Annie Haws, pg.67

Patchwork by Autumn Barraclough, pg. 68

Clarity by Sierra Allred, pg. 69

Orion's Belt by Madison Sudekum, pg. 70

Kismet by Aaron Bernard Corridor, pg. 71

Rising by Madison Sudekum, pg. 72

Mother Medusa by Sophia Hendrix, pg. 73

Listen Now by Annie Haws, pg. 74

Til You Forget by Gene Cymmer Ramirez, pg. 76

Rebuke from the God of Love by Joseph Brown, pg. 77

To Young Me by Aubree Whiting, pg. 78

13 Years by Brooke Lim, pg. 79

Burning by Manhattan Ethington, pg. 80

Won't by Autumn Barraclough, pg. 81

Waves by Caitlin Alder, pg. 83

Jinsei by Regina Shumway, pg. 84

Timeless Moments by Ching Hsuan Lu, pg. 85

Ugly by Annie Haws, pg. 87

Kula Manu Award Winners Pg. 88

Happy Moment, Missing Moment

Art by Ching Hsuan Lu

Laniloa Beach at Late Afternoon

Art by AryLue Jones

Laniloa Beach at Sunrise

Art by AryLue Jones Second Place

Where Am I? Art by Ya Yun Lin

First Place

My Grandfather’s home in Taiwan- The Living room, The Kitchen, and The Bathroom

Art by Zhi Yun Zhang

Of Pork Hash and Winter Nights

Fiction by Ysabelle Junio

Between the half-written paper analyses and overdue assignments, I find myself seeking solace in places I don’t expect the most.

I take a deep breath as I step out into the cold, I planned to order for one but ended up with two plates of pork hash in hand. I don’t even know why since I can barely finish one plate. At least, not at this moment I decided to step out of my room after an intense writing session.

The winter cold reminds me about how my pajamas are made out of thin material. As I start walking back to our dorm, the street lights cast silhouettes of the school buildings I’ve grown accustomed to seeing every day. The dead of the night amplifies the silence the walk brings. Something feels off, until I arrive at the lamppost Coby accidentally bumped into when he wasn’t looking. Eli’s hearty laughs echoes in my mind, along with Cy’s quip remark.

I squint my eyes as strong winds try to whisk my body away. Holding the plates tight, I force myself to brace through the cold.

The walk doesn’t feel long before, but that’s because they filled the silence with their mindless chatter. They always have a way of starting conversations unrelated with the things we discussed.

I used to be comfortable with my own silence. Now I don’t know which I prefer: the endless conversations or the cacophony of thoughts blending into one, “I wish they were here.”

Eating alone doesn’t bother me. Now I’m searching for a familiar face to eat with. Even when I visited the school store, it felt cold and unfeeling with the hard lights and a laughter-less atmosphere.

The thing I hate about loneliness is the absence of the presence I’m accustomed to be with.

My eyes go towards the dark horizon of the night. This isn’t working.

Stacking the plates together to free my left hand, I take out my phone, the screen serving as a stark contrast with the darkness. I sent a quick message to the group chat. I don’t even need to wait for a few seconds to receive a reply.

My lips curl into a smile as I see Coby’s chat head along with the question, “Where are you?”

The Almost-Woman Fiction by

Carly Stone

I used to be more than just a sunken body in the river. I used to be a girl who laughed and played and listened to music, but today I am just a corpse caught between two flat rocks keeping me from following the tide. My parents knew me as a baby and then a child and then an almost-woman. My dad used to pick me up and tell me how big I was getting, and my mom always said I had long legs. They knew my freckles popped out when I smiled and disappeared when I got embarrassed. My mom knew I had a crush on Baker Stevenson (who lived down the street) because she found his school yearbook photo cut out and taped behind my bedside table, but she would never tell. She is a great secret keeper. My dad knew I only acted scared when he threatened to throw me in the ocean on our family vacation, but he let me stay small for one more day. My friends knew how much I loved basketball and skipping in the rain. They knew how much I desperately wanted to learn to dance but would never try unless I was alone. My best friend Adrienne knew lots of my favorite secrets and dreams, and I knew hers. Together we shaped our futures. We were both going to be famous and make enough money to buy houses on the same block and make our husbands go golfing together while we had pool parties with our nannies and kids. We played MASH and hosted sleepovers with lots of ice cream and loud music. She knew me as the person I was and the person I could have been. My murderer knew my body. He only knew my button nose and budding chest. He knew how I smelled when I walked past him in the library every summer afternoon. He knew my fingernails were usually cracked and bleeding from picking and fidgeting. He knew my legs were fast but not fast enough. He saw my body parts and thought he knew the sum of me. He even tried to break me into those parts, but it didn’t work. He would never know who I was. He took me far away from myself even before he murdered me because he

thought he could own me if he removed my body from my life back home.

I remember the drive being long and winding. From the back of the truck, I could catch glimpses of the trees that were busy changing from a deep emerald to burning colors of red, yellow, and orange. Those same trees were too busy to speak to me, although now, from under the water, they have lots to say. Now, I can look up at them forever and sing like my mom once sang, “All the leaves are falling down, falling down, falling down…walk around and pick them up, pick them up, pick them up.”

They used to look for my body, which made me sad because they thought that if someone found it, they would have a part of me back. I guess the truth is that they would have parts of my body back, but they could never have me. My attacker took part of my collarbone for keepsies to prove that he owned me once, but he doesn’t know that I am not my bones. And my parents don’t know that my body won’t bring me back. And Adrienne doesn’t know I can still see her dreams without eyes.

I hope they forget about my corpse and never find me. It would be unrecognizable to them now. My legs are bloated; My freckles have faded from the darkness of the depths; My nose is broken in places that disfigure my entire face, and my chest is caved in from the weight of the water; My fingernails are all but gone from trying to scratch away my bindings. My body tells the story of my death, not my life.

There are lots of us down here: almost-women who were ourselves once. I hear them hum, bubble, and settle into the riverbed just like me. But I will never know them. I will only know their parts, not their stories. I make-up names for them and pretend I know who they were back then. Kendall is twelve and used to be really good at braiding. Alejandra just turned fifteen and loves thinking about her shiny quinceañera dress with lots of sequins. Marley is 16 and loves to read; I think I’ve seen her in the library before. Sometimes their stories bleed into mine as I remember who I was and what could have been.

Sometimes I am my chubby knees or uneven smile. Sometimes I am even tips of my fingers. Sometimes I am the pull of the ocean or ripple of a pond or the wind in the fall trees, but I am never just a body caught between two flat rocks keeping me from following the tide

Boxes

Fiction by Carly Stone

I live in a city of boxes.

I lay on a soft mattress box while I sleep inside of a bigger box where I have all of my things. I don’t want to remove myself from the soft box until the last moment. My eyes are shut, and I am safe for a moment. My sleeping box is inside a bigger, apartment box that holds two flatmates in their respective boxes. When I finally get out of my soft box, I rotate through all the boxes that belong to me: clothes box, bathroom box, food box. My lungs feel like lead, and my arms swim through the heavy morning atmosphere. It is quiet and dark when I start out in the morning, and it is essential that I do not miss the transportation box that leaves every twenty minutes from the station. Then, I leave my apartment box, that feels more like a shoe box, to face the looming ice chill outside; I walk through the hall between different family boxes and pretend to hear their slowly fading early morning dreams. Then, I am outside. The city is still quiet.

As I wait for the transportation box that is more rectangular than square, I look at all the boxes towering over the station. Some are lit up with warm yellow light, and some are still midnight blue, waiting to wake up. If I’m lucky, I see a family stirring awake, someone frying their eggs, or a couple embracing before work. The vignettes are like wishing stars that twinkle in the dawn. They are squished close together, six inches of bricks between them, but they never touch. In the cold morning air, I long for my own warm apartment box.

When the transportation box comes, I hurry in, sit on the box meant to hold my weight and look out at another glass square. Soon, I am at a vantage point where I can see numerous boxes. Some in Manhattan are already glowing as if they had never been dark. They stand tall and symmetrical in the distance. All the glistening squares are perfect. The Brooklyn boxes are more crooked. They have character and

lean into each other as if they were cakes removed from the oven too soon. They are shards with different angles that lead into half circles or sometimes points. Smoke boxes poke out of the living boxes and always have an angular lean, never even, always tipped. The city starts to wake up and get louder and brighter. I seem to move past the boxes at breakneck speed as I feel the vibration of the morning pickup.

I get to the large learning box as the sun comes up. Here, students are put in mental boxes. These types of boxes turn into caskets, and each of their owners turns into a slave. I can’t see these vestibules as easily as the skyline, but they are as tangible as concrete. Every day I come to the learning box and pry open the invisible coffins for eight hours. I try to lift the lids over my head, but the weight is too heavy. Every day there is a new box, container, or lid designed to suffocate the owner, so I go home. I pretend that I helped one student remove their mental box. I pretend that I don’t have a mental box of my own that seems to be weighing more and more every day. I pretend that tomorrow there will be fewer boxes, fewer caskets, and fewer barriers.

I live in a city of boxes. We all do.

Tala at Buwan

Fiction by Leonilyn Llona

Walking home from class I went down a stretch that I hadn’t walked. I felt the cool breeze tickling my skin. I sighed as I watched the trees sway and the birds sing sweetly. Enjoying the moment, my foot caught. I looked down, my eyebrows lifted as I read, “Aswang” knowing what it meant. Aswang is a mythical being in Filipino folklore, an imaginary creature known to be dangerous. Intrigued, I took it home. That night I reached for the book. As I settled down into bed and slowly flipped through the pages I came to “Chapter One, the first hunt,” and started reading. A loud yell broke out in the middle of the night from the thick forest. People were alerted to the presence of the aswang and the attack on the helpless victims. In that tiny community, residents stayed inside their homes and stayed inside till morning. The Aswangs have an ability to blend in with its victim is its most terrifying trait. The Aswangs appear and behave exactly like humans during the day, getting jobs, having families, and even hobbies.

I discovered that Buwan is the Aswang tribe's powerful king. To defend his family and clan, he can act violently and even kill people. Kidlat is his enemy, and he constantly engages Buwan in battle because he wants to replace Buwan as the leader of the Aswang tribe. Even innocent people are harmed and killed.

“Chapter 13, An Expected Guest, Buwan is having a walk in the village of normal people,” I read. I was awakened when someone poked me in the nose with a stick. I glanced about as soon as I opened my eyes. Dawn had broken, and I realized I was not in my bed anymore. There were many unique trees that I was unfamiliar with. A mesmerizing waterfall was to my left, and I was lying in the midst of a field of vibrant flowers. I exhaled in astonishment at the beautiful place.

“Where am I?” I whispered gently. The stick then poked me in the nose again. The fact that someone was standing in front of me surprised me.

"Who are you, a human being?” a tall man glared at me with a harsh gaze.

“Why are you here?” his voice seemed to be powerful and had a thunderous ring to it, and I immediately felt afraid.

Despite my desire to respond to his query, I couldn’t. He continued, “I ask you, Human, answer me, or this will be your last day.”

I said, “I have no idea.”

I saw his eyes grow red, as though I were being choked by a strong wind, and then, without even touching me, his hand reached out and suffocated me through the wind. My eyes began to well up with tears, and I begged, “Please, I don't know, I'm sorry.”

I quickly gasped for air and went to my knees as he gave his final blow and released me.

“I don't care who you are. Leave right away, and never return,” he commanded.

I desperately wanted to go, but I was unable to do so because I had no idea where I was or even where I could go.

“Could you perhaps point out the exit?” I asked. He was frustrated, and when his face turned black, I could tell he was furious. He spoke inaudibly while turning his back on me. His back had a tattoo that I immediately recognized: “Buwan” I assessed and searched for the source of its name. I was surrounded by smoke until I started to cough. After the smoke cleared, I saw that the environment had changed. What? From daytime to nighttime?

“Where am I again?” A group of people then came running after I heard hurried steps.

“Hey, what’s happening?” I asked.

One of them yelled, “Aswangs are coming, run, hurry.”

Someone pulled me and we ran as if it was our last day. I saw a lot of dead people along the way.

“Buwan and Kidlat, those monsters are killing us!” Another shout from the crowd.

Despite what was happening, I was engulfed by curiosity. To my surprise, I saw two people battling who had special abilities. I thought things like this only happened in books and movies, but here I am seeing it in real life. I saw their faces when the moon shined, and I recognized one of them as Buwan. Due to my sense of adventure, I am scared of nothing so I blocked the blazing fire from reaching him. I heard the command to “Cover!” but it was too late for me to run away.

I murmured, ‘blood” because I blocked the blazing fire, I was hurt.

Now that I'm thinking about things, my head is spinning, Buwan? Kidlat? Aswang? I suddenly realized “No!” A familiar face appeared when I opened my eyes.

I murmured, “Buwan.”

He narrowed his eyes and said, “I thought you didn't know me.”

“Ouch!”

“Where did I get these wounds?” I asked as he cleansed it.

“Kidlat and I had a fight yesterday. A lot of normal people died, supposed to be you're one of them, luckily you survived” I wasn’t paying attention to what he’s telling me. Am I dreaming right now?

“You didn’t die, what are you?” he continued.

“Buwan, the king of Aswang, and Kidlat is your enemy because he wants to replace you as a king, right?” I asked.

“How did you know that?” His answer confirmed my thoughts.

“No, this is impossible, tell me I’m just dreaming” I reached his hands and slapped it into my face.

“Ouch, I’m not,” I concluded.

How did this happen? Why am I now in their world? I started crying.

“This is not right. I’m not supposed to be here. I want to go home” then I ran outside.

But, I stopped, a lot of creepy creatures appeared everywhere, vampires such as naguneg, abat, buruka. Weredogs, called kiwig and malakat. Witch or the mambabarang, ghoul or the balbal, all kinds and manner of

Aswangs. My knees trembled, and I was about to fall but someone caught me.

Buwan ordered, “Everyone, please go back first to your places,” everyone nodded and departed.

I screamed, “NO, this is not real; you are merely fictional characters in the book.”

“What do you mean?” He appeared incredibly confused.

“You! All of you! You’re not real!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

I told him everything, but he didn't seem to believe me.

“Then why did you block the blazing fire for me? Are you not terrified of us?” he asked.

In my mind, why should I? He's not true anyway. I admitted to him that I knew they were frightful but didn't care because all I wanted was to get out of here as possible.

I then tried to step forward, but he grabbed my arm and said, “It's dark outside, it's not safe” he continued, “tomorrow.” Is this for real? A kind Aswang? I doubt it. Yet, I listened because he appeared threatening.

I was awakened by a sunbeam and took my way out. Again, Aswang of every kind were everywhere. I still can’t believe that I was in their world.

They were all staring at me when I clumsily said “Hi!”

They all kept doing what they were doing after that, so I kept walking. Buwan was nowhere to be found despite my best efforts to find him. I made an effort to approach the Aswangs with more friendship. They were all frightful but yet good. It was all incredible; they taught me magic and made things float. They changed from human to Aswang figures, and I was too shocked to react. They also changed into other animals, like pigs, dogs, birds, cats, and more.

“Amazing!” I mumbled.

They admitted to me that they were formerly wicked Aswangs, but when Buwan became the king, they learned kindness and distanced themselves from the people in order to avoid harming innocent people. But since Kidlat enjoys eating and murdering people, he didn't like the idea. He

desired to become king in order to resume the custom. This was the underlying cause of Buwan and Kidlat's anger.

“What a selfish and wicked one” I said in disgust.

I realized now that I made hasty judgments and felt sorry for myself. I began to admire him as though my heart were being pinched. They had taught me magic, so I asked them to assist me in creating a star.

“Tala,” I said. Tala means star in my world. Since I knew that I would only be in their world temporarily, I made this star. I would give this to Buwan so he could always remember me and my name. We were startled by a loud crash. Kidlat is attacking us along with his followers. Everyone was running and fighting. I need to find Buwan. I disregarded my friends' calls because I had to find Buwan. There was a war, and many Aswang were dying in great numbers. I sensed the tension, I saw magic everywhere, and I saw a variety of strange things that only Aswangs could create. I saw Buwan wrestling with another Aswang as I reached the falls, and I had a strong feeling that it was Kidlat.

I yelled loudly “Buwan” to get their attention, and they both turned to look at me.

“Aha! you have a guest, and I smell sweet human blood,” Kidlat remarked.

I instantly got goosebumps because I realized he was referring to me. Buwan said, “Don't you dare touch her.”

“Oops, I can tell that she really means a lot to you, huh?”

I'm not sure what happened after that; all I know is that Kidlat was holding me hostage and strangling me.

“L-et m-e g-o,” I tried to get away from him, but I couldn't because of his strength.

I felt like I was being bandaged with ropes and was having trouble breathing when he threw me up in the air.

Buwan said, “Kidlat, stop it, let her go.”

Kidlat responded by shouting, “Then give up your throne.”

“No! Ignore what he says!” I had to cut them off. “Don’t let him win!”

Kidlat blasted me with magical arrows when he became angry. Both the pain and the blood dripping from

my body were vivid to me. My vision began to fade, and I was now too weak to fight. I lose consciousness as Kidlat and Buwan are currently engaged in a violent battle. I was startled to discover Buwan was crying when I felt the warm liquid on my face.

He tightly hugged me, “Hey, I'm okay. What happened?” His sobs are all that I can hear.

Kidlat said, “He gave up the throne so he can save you” and turned to leave.

I cried out in a bloody cough, “Sorry, this is all because of me.”

In my pocket, I found the star I had created, which I handed to him. I dried his tears and said “I made this for you; it's called Tala, and that's my name.”

With tears in my eyes I continued, “Let's meet in my world next time, Buwan.”

Pearl

Fiction by Joseph Brown First Place

A fish outta water. That’s how she was known. Raised on the coast and taught how to swim before she could walk. Her grandfather called her his little kumu due to how she looked the moment she was born. Red, slimy, and squirming like a fish with a hook in its mouth.

“It took everything the doctors had just to getcha to breathe,” he would remind her. “Your gills just weren’t used to suckin’ air yet!” She believed his story longer than she believed in Santa Clause.

The only daughter of an avid surfer and champion freediver, the ocean was her home. She loved the feeling of the Pacific sun on her back, and liked the way her skin tingles when ripples of wind tore across the surface of the ocean and sprayed her with a salty mist. Just adjacent to the ocean was a freshwater faucet where sea goers would rinse after a day at the beach. Only a few paces from the main spigot was a small bubbling fountain, the porous outer edges of its granite bowl eaten by years of billowing sand. Within the crystal waters was a crowd of coins that tourists had contributed, along with shell fragments, bottlecaps, and shimmering shards of sea glass. Unable to see over the wall of the fountain, her father would hoist her up, where her eyes leaped on the hoard of trinkets and abandoned treasures. Her little hands would grope vainly in the air, and occasionally splash stubbornly in the water, her fortune just out of reach.

“Kumu listen,” her father would intervene. “They’re in the fountain already. They belong to the water now.”

Her fondest childhood memories were of chasing sandcrabs, blowing rings of ascending bubbles, and sleeping on sunset kissed beaches between her parents as the tide played its steady and comforting rhythm.

It was that same ocean melody that lured her into the ocean year after year. Her head was buried just beneath the

surface, the faint whistle of her breathing echoed through her snorkel tube. The sparkling, bitter taste of saltwater was familiar to her, as was the steady swell of the waves. Her chest rose once more, this time inflating like the beach balls which lined the shore, before she pivoted at the waist, and dove effortlessly underwater.

Suspended in the blue horizon, she felt as if she was flying. She was the most alive when she couldn't breathe. Here, she was limitless. Here, her arms and legs combined with the current, and she danced to the tune of crashing waves. Here, she felt free. There was a deep and distant rumble rising from the unexplored depths of the volcanic trenches. It blended together with the prickly sound of sediment being swept over the reef, which sounded almost like tv static. The choir of oceanic voices was music to her, and she found that the bellowing rumble of the water drove any remnant of the outside world from her mind. Everything seemed to slow down, the earth itself hovering on its axle. She retreated inward, allowing her thoughts to settle like calm water, and her soul to rest like an anchor. She let her eyes slowly roll backwards, feeling the deep and dark embrace of the ocean.

But there!

Her eyes shot open, captivated instantly by a flash of white light.

There!

Through a small crack in the reef below, a single ray of sunlight illuminated a single pearl, glimmering with temptation. Immediately, without thought or hesitation, she dove out of her meditation deeper towards the pearl. She felt a building pressure in her ears and behind her eyes as she inched closer. Finding the crack too small to fit so much as her finger, her hands gripped the coarse, prehistoric clumps of reef as she crawled along the ocean floor, her head swiveling left and right like a lighthouse. Wrenched from her inner sanctuary, her body began to protest her movements, each one sapping her of precious oxygen. The steady tension in her chest had begun to feel heavy, and a primal voice from somewhere within her frame pleaded for air. Her brow

furrowed, her grip on the rocks tightened, and she shook the voice away.

Creeping along the bottom, she came to a cliff which sank another 15 feet into a pacific plain of white sand, which spanned for as far as she could see. Peering along the edge, she found what she was looking for. Not any bigger than herself was a crevice which split from the lip of the rock. Shrugging off another petition to breathe, she poured her head into the crack, and saw that it yielded a cave in the same direction of the pearl.

She paused, peering once to the blinding light of the sky above her. At this point she reckoned she was 30 feet below the surface, and she knew she was approaching her limit. The charming rumble had transformed into an ominous cathedral chant, and her heartbeat rang in her ears like the merciless pounding of war drums. She felt something almost pulling her into the cave, as if the pearl itself had a gravitational field. Lowering her head and fluttering her legs, she resolutely disappeared into the jaws of the coral cave. She used her hands to propel herself deeper into the dark, only barely perceiving the black silhouettes of fish lurking beneath the structure. They looked at her with large and indifferent eyes, void of sympathy, concern, or malignance. Drifting forward, she placed her right hand against the wall, her fingertips sweeping for any sort of opening that would lead her to her objective. The wall withdrew from her hand and retreated into a crooked and narrow crack which she could see opened into a thin horizontal cavern. Through the gnarled vent she could see weak beams of light falling from holes in the ceiling, one of which rested upon her coveted pearl. Already, she had been underwater longer than she ever had before. Her sides ached intensely, and her lungs felt as if they were about to burst. The water in the cave felt ice cold, and her arms felt like they had weights chained to them. The ancient voice within her head was screaming now, wailing inconsolably like an infant temper tantrum, begging desperately for air. Unable to ignore the voice any longer, she twisted and contorted her body, wriggling vigorously to reach the cavern. The beating in her ears quickened and

intensified with every moment. The graceful water dance she had performed only minutes earlier had been replaced by reckless abandon, and she raced deeper, feeling the crushing weight of the pacific ocean behind her sternum. Her fingers wrapped around the pearl and snatched it from its resting place, before whipping around, hitting the crown of her skull against an unforgiving rock ledge. Blinking rapidly in recovery, she craned her head forward scanning for the fissure.

But it had disappeared. Her rapid movements had sent pillars of mud and sediment into the water column, flooding the cave with a thick and impenetrable cloud of murk. It would only take a minute or two for it to settle down. But that was more time than she had. A dismal grunt of terror escaped her mouth, and an instant wave of panic swept over her. Dropping her prize, she plunged blindly into the smoke, waving her hands wildly through the water. Feeling. Hoping. Praying. Clutching. Her legs swung frantically, filling the entire cave with sediment. The deafening hammering of the drums made her head feel light, and she felt the roaring thunder of the deep swallowing her whole. There was a blinding pressure in the back of her head. She had lost control of the inner voice, which shrieked and clawed and gnashed its teeth with the vengeance of a damned soul. She sucked in any dead air from the nose pocket of her mask, and felt it grip her face like a wet cat clings to a log. Everywhere she looked now she saw nothing. Disoriented, defeated, and drowning, she pawed aimlessly at the walls of the tomb. Her diaphragm contracted violently, beating against the walls of her chest cavity with the poison and ferocity of a bucking horse. Stars mingled themselves among the floating particles of sand, and she felt herself helplessly sinking into a narrow chasm, the dark walls closing her field of vision while the sound of booming drums cudgeled her between the eyes. And then.

Slowly.

She began to settle…the same way the disturbed sand gradually sank back to the ocean floor. The drums receded like a falling tide, and the pressure leaked like a deflating

balloon. The ocean pulled her deeper into its arms with its lullaby, and her body rested lifelessly on the snowy white bottom of her coral coffin. On a clear day, one could see her golden hair glimmering on the ocean floor through a slit in the reef, like a nickel in a fountain.

Becoming a Butterfly Fiction

by Allyssa Alfoja Second Place

“You’re the prettiest girl in the world,” my mommy said while she was struggling to make my short hair into a little ponytail. My mommy is lying. Aurora from my art class is the prettiest girl. Aurora has beautiful, and long, and black straight hair, and she always wears a beautiful dress. My Abuela said my dress is beautiful too, but my hair is awful. It always hurts when my mommy combs my hair.

“Done. It’s beautiful.” My mommy said after putting the butterfly hair clips on my little ponytail. “Please be good to Abuela when mommy’s away, okay?” she said. I touched my little ponytail, and then I faced my mommy. I don’t know why my mommy is crying right now. She was crying a lot today and it makes me sad. Maybe combing my hair hurts her too. My mommy kissed me on my forehead, nose, and cheeks just like she used to with me and Angelina. She said that’s her way of saying I love you. I love my mommy.

When my mommy left, it was just me and my Abuela. I like my Abuela, but she doesn’t talk much like my mommy used to. But my Abuela smiles a lot and I like that.

I’ve been to my Abuela’s house before. I like Abuela’s house. It’s big and it always smells like flowers. There are lots of pictures hanging on the wall in my Abuela’s house. There is a picture of my Abuela when she was my mommy’s age. She looked just like my mommy but happier. There was a picture of my mommy when she was a little girl just like me. But my mommy was more beautiful before because she smiles. In the picture, my mommy was holding a stick with a worm that looked like it was going to fall. My Abuela said my mommy would use to go to the garden and draw everything she sees. I would always watch her drawing flowers on my art book. My mommy likes flowers. I like flowers too. I like blue flowers, and yellow, and pink, and purple. But my favorite flower is blue because Angelina’s favorite color is blue.

Me and my Abuela went to her garden. The garden is beautiful but there are a lot of bees. I don’t like bees. The bees sting boys and girls. I don’t think bees are nice.

I ran to the trees that have blue flowers. My Abuela can’t keep up because I ran so fast. I like to run fast. And I feel like I’m the fastest girl in the world when I ran.

I climbed to the tree to see the blue flowers. I’m going to pick the blue flowers so I can give them to my mommy when she comes and picks me up tonight. I climbed up and up the tree until I can reach the closest flower. When I was about to grab the flower, I saw a big worm. It was brown, stripy and ugly. I froze and held my breath, but my heartbeat was so loud. I don’t want the worm to hear my heart beating so loud. I tried to climb down the tree very gently, and then I heard a loud crack sound.

The last thing I knew, I was on a couch with a lot of band-aids on my face and on my elbows and on my legs. My elbows sting. Maybe the bees came to me and sting me on my elbows. My Abuela said I was crying and calling my mommy until I fell asleep. She said that it was good that I didn’t climb very high because if I did, then I would be in the hospital. It’s good that I’m not in the hospital. The hospital eats people. My daddy was sent to the hospital once and he never came home. I think the hospital ate my daddy. I don’t like hospitals.

My Abuela said that I was a silly little girl. She said that she took the callipiller from my hand, and she put it in a big jar. I don’t know what she was talking about. I don’t know what callipiller is. But it sounds beautiful and important. She said that the callipiller was in my hand when I fell. It was good that I didn’t smash it because my Abuela said callipillers, I mean caterpillars, she corrected me, are very delicate. Delicate, I don’t know what that is either.

My Abuela took the jar and placed it on the table next to me. She called the ugly worm a caterpillar and I can’t believe that thing was in my hand when I fell.

I told my Abuela that I fell because of that caterpillar. I told her I froze and got scared when I saw it. I told her I don’t like the caterpillar because it was wrinkly and thorny and ugly, and it looked weird. My Abuela just laughed. She looks younger when she laughs.

Suddenly, she took the picture of my mommy on the wall. She said that the worm on the stick that my mommy was holding was a caterpillar, and my mommy used to hate it too. My Abuela says caterpillars are nice. They don’t bite or sting people. Caterpillars are beautiful creatures.

The next day, I woke up crying. My mommy didn’t come back to pick me up. I miss her. I waited and waited for her last night until I fell asleep. I hope she’s fine. My Abuela said that my mommy will come here later. She just needs to do something important far away. I hope she comes here soon.

My Abuela told me that we will feed the caterpillar. She said the caterpillar likes leaves. So, every day I find green leaves and put them in the jar for the caterpillar to eat. I like it when the caterpillar eats my leaves. I think we're becoming friends. Me and the caterpillar. Now I have two friends, Angelina and the caterpillar.

One day, the caterpillar stopped eating my leaves. It made me sad. I’m not sure if we're really becoming friends. I watched the caterpillar the whole day and night. I ate my meals in front of it, and I even tell it me and Angelina’s secrets.

I woke up the next day seeing the caterpillar hanging upside down in the stick inside the jar. It's just like the one in my mommy’s pictures on the wall. The caterpillar doesn’t move anymore. “It’s dead, it's dead. My caterpillar is dead!” I cried to Abuela.

Abuela came to see the caterpillar and she told me that the caterpillar is not dead. It was only the start of its change to something beautiful.

I kept on putting leaves inside the jar. I thought maybe the caterpillar will go hungry again after hanging on the stick for days. But each day it stays still. Maybe the caterpillar forgets how to move, the same way how my mommy forgets about me.

I noticed that the caterpillar spins itself and its bottom is becoming silky and shiny. Abuela said it’s going to be a cocoon. This time I asked Abuela about the words I didn’t know. I asked her what a cocoon is. She said the cocoon is going to be the caterpillar’s home. Home.

I thought about my home. My home smelled normal. Normal smelled like mommy. And mommy smelled like the streets we used to go where she gets our money. My Abuela's home smelled like flowers. I think I like the smell here better because my Abuela doesn’t smoke.

My Abuela taught me how to read. She taught me how to write my name, and she taught me the days of the week. Today is the third Monday since the caterpillar changed into a cocoon. The leaves I put in the jar are now dry. But the cocoon stays the same hanging on the stick. My Abuela said tomorrow is going to be a big day. I just must wait.

The next day I woke up and saw the jar with the cocoon beside my bed. My Abuela must have put it here this morning. I looked very closely to see the change of the cocoon. To my surprise, the cocoon was wide open, and I couldn’t find the caterpillar in the jar. I got out of my bed, ran, and called for my Abuela.

In the living room, there was my Abuela sitting on the couch waiting for me. She was smiling looking at the strange thing on her finger I could barely see. The whole house feels bright. As I was walking towards her, I was surprised there was a blue butterfly sitting on her finger.

“Come, look, this was your caterpillar. It changed into a beautiful butterfly.” my Abuela said.

“It’s your favorite color too.” she added.

“It’s Angelina’s.” I said. My Abuela just smiled at me. She’s placing the butterfly on my finger.

“It's beautiful.” the only word I can think of. My Abuela was smiling. And then suddenly her smile disappeared. She looked at me straight in the eyes, longer than anyone has ever looked me in the eyes.

“You might not understand everything right now, but you will eventually. You’ve been through so much, mi amor. The loss of your sister Angelina and your dad has been a lot for you, especially at your age. You’re too young to go through this.” My Abuela kissed my forehead, and I felt her warm tears on my face.

“Your mommy couldn’t handle it. She tried to protect you the best way she could. Your mommy loves you, remember that. She will be thinking of you wherever she goes.

Right now, she’s just going the wrong way, and she doesn’t want to drag you with her. Por eso estás aquí. Conmigo. For a little while, I will be your home. I will be your cocoon and I promised to protect you and encase you with love just like your mom would. You’re going to be the most beautiful butterfly, Ariana. I’m sure you will.” said my Abuela. I believe her.

A Hop at a Time

Nonfiction by Aubree Whiting

We all strive to be successful someday. Whether we dream of being on the big screen, or to waking up on time, each of us longs to accomplish something. However, sometimes we fail to achieve our goals, or at least when we hope to. My greatest failure took place nearly ten years ago... The sun was hot and the tension was high as each individual was paired up. It was the most important day of our elementary school careers; the day of the Annual Oakdale Elementary Second-Grade Hopscotch Championship. Round one was starting, and we all felt the extreme pressure of needing to win. The teacher paired me with one of my good friends, Samuel Whitehead. We approached each other, and after a quick game of rochambeau, it was apparent that he would go first. Mrs. Wright gave us permission to start and Sam began to throw the marker and proceeded to hop to the first space. After easily replicating his actions, a feeling of satisfaction overcame me as the taste of the sweet victory permeated my being. This was going to give me bragging rights for the rest of the year! The game went on, slowly growing more difficult as we hopped from space to space, until we were in the final moments. Neither of us had messed up, but he was going to. He had to. My intense hopscotch practice was bound to pay off, right? It was impossible for me to not win! He threw the marker into the final space, then began to hop. Anxiety rose in my chest as he grew closer to the tenth space, then hopped his way back afterward. As he returned next to me, he yelled a triumphant, “Victory is mine!”

Extreme bitterness built up, and anger overcame me. That should’ve been my glorious win. This was unfair! He only won because he got to go first! It was impossible for me to even have the chance to win! After explaining my frustrations to Mrs. Wright, she didn’t take my side. Rather, she bent down and said, “Well, Aubree, sometimes people get to go first in life and accomplish

something before you do. This doesn’t mean that you failed, it just means that you have to keep working so that when your chance comes you’re ready to take it.” Feelings of failure still lurked, especially while watching Samuel accept the trophy after beating everyone else in our grade. However, Mrs. Wright’s wise words still ring in my mind often.

This experience taught me to always be prepared. We never know what life may throw at us, but we must be prepared for when opportunity intersects with preparation. Though sometimes life gives us career-ending failures, we must keep working for what we believe in. In my life I’ve found myself competing with others many times for different opportunities. However, much like my teacher taught me, it is necessary to keep in mind that life gives us many chances, we just need to be prepared to try our best when they come. We may often fail, but life is all about our perspective. Perhaps a better opportunity will arise in the future, we just need to be prepared for when it comes. Unfortunately, my official hopscotch career ended shortly after my loss of the championship. After such a traumatic failure, hopscotch slowly became a less important aspect of my life. Yet, the lesson still remains clear in my mind. Life is more than simply being the first to accomplish something, or winning at hopscotch. Life is about rejoicing in other’s successes while being prepared for when our own chance for success comes.

Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae)

Nonfiction by Portia Thompson

After a long and challenging car ride consisting of screaming and crying, we pull over, sit under the blazing hot sun and wait. Suddenly there’s a resounding crash, like an avalanche, as a tail slaps the water. A humpback whale! A few minutes passed, which consisted of staring at the ocean until my eyes burned. Finally, there was a spray a mist like a volcanic eruption of water droplets from two whales. What made the moment even more special was that it was a mother and her baby calf swimming only inches apart from each other. I couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of love and awe as I watched the humpback whales gracefully breaching the surface of the water. Sitting there watching the whales with my three-month-old daughter made me wonder, does the humpback whale have it all figured out? Does being a mom come naturally? Does she get overwhelmed? Does she get tired? Does she wish she sleeps when the baby sleeps? Does she have days where she just wants to skim along the surface and do her best to just get by? How does she do it all?

A humpback whales’ melodic and beautiful songs that can be heard across the ocean remind me that I’m not alone. Humpback whales create complex melodies, almost like lullabies, for their babies. Females make specific social calls while nursing their babies, and their calves make similar calls while near their mothers. These sound waves can travel up to 20 miles away. The high melodic chirps, clicks, and whistles, while we still can’t understand them, demonstrate that these whales communicate and care for one another. Each night I sing my baby to sleep, and if she doesn’t fall asleep after a few minutes, I switch and make my husband sing her to sleep. The melodic, soothing lullabies usually calm her cries, sometimes in just a couple of minutes, other

times, it’s hours of nonstop crying. I’m starting to realize this whole “mom” thing doesn’t ever end.

While we watched the whales glide peacefully through the water, I couldn't help but think about the dedication and care that goes into raising a child. Like the humpback mother and her baby calf, a mother’s love knows no bounds. Migration is a vital part of humpback whales’ lives as they travel up to 5000 miles every year. This is because they feed in the polar waters and then migrate to tropical areas to breed and give birth. Hawaii is one of the many places humpback whales can be seen during their migration. While humpback whales are in breeding grounds, they will not feed the entire time. That’s six months without any food. This means that a humpback whale mother will produce 50 gallons of milk a day, vital for its calf's survival, from its stores of blubber. Due to all the energy required to make milk for her hungry calf, she can lose up to one-third of her body weight, a semi truck’s worth. The whale will lose a whopping 20,000 lbs. Another piece of the puzzle of motherhood fell into place, knowing that a mother's sacrifice for her baby must be one of those instinctual feelings. It’s as if it were written into my DNA, my genetic script, telling me that I must care for, protect, and nourish my child. While I may not need to sacrifice a third of my body weight to feed her, I do probably change one-third of my body weight worth of sour, musty-smelling diapers every day, a sacrifice worth each and every trip to the dumpster. Besides sacrificing nearly all their energy for their babies, female humpback whales are also very protective of their calves. They will constantly stay near them and use their canoe-sized flippers and shipping container-sized tail to shield the calf from danger. For added protection and security, the whales will swim in large pods allowing other adult whales to protect the baby. It’s as if the calf was a quarterback and the rest of the pod huddles around to keep them safe. The love and protection that the mother provides is strong and selfless. Humpback whale mothers are the ones to teach their calves essential survival skills such as finding food and avoiding predators. While it is my responsibility to teach my young one, her development comes as part of a

community that supports her. We humans tend to say, “it takes a village to raise a child,” but we are not the only animals who live by this saying. I never have to do these things alone. I have my amazing husband to support me and all my friends, as well as my family. Like humpback whales who travel in pods, I’m grateful for my protective pod. My daughter may never remember the whales we watched together, the times I’ve bounced her on my tired knee, sung songs to her for hours on end, or snuggled up to her all night. She won’t realize all the time and energy it took for me to feed her and care for her every cry, but I will remember these moments. I will cherish these memories with her as they create a connection between us. There’s something unique about motherhood that creates a strong bond between you and your baby that nothing can replace. This special bond between us will be cherished forever. Motherhood is ineffable. However, this whale mother encapsulated it so easily. Looking down at my baby in that moment I realized that I am not alone in this journey and that I have beautiful examples all around, from which I can gain motivation and strength. As we packed our small family back into the car with the sound of protesting cries from our baby girl, I knew that just like the humpback whale, I would be able get us home safely.

A Letter to Dad

Nonfiction by Wynne Adriel Logroño Second Place

Goosebumps ran along my arm as I stood in the doorway, watching you being carried to the ambulance. The next time I’d see you would be at your funeral three days later. I had no more tears to cry. I ran my trembling hand along your casket, watching your peaceful face. You looked like you were in a deep sleep. Were you really gone? Nobody told me it would hurt this much. I couldn’t believe I would be fatherless at 20. I stared unseeingly at a distance, thinking about how it would be just my siblings and mom from now on. Why did you have to leave right now? I thought we would still have more time. I still had hope that we would be able to fix our relationship. As they carefully lowered you to your final resting place, your voice rang in my ears. “I can’t take it anymore.” It was your last words to me, but I didn’t say anything back. Now, I choked on all of the words I never got to say to you. My dad – the one who played a big part in my life, maybe the biggest part, had gone just like that. Although you weren’t an ideal father, I loved you dearly. I still do. My childhood memories were golden. It was a time filled with the sounds of my siblings and I playing with you. You told us stories when it was time for bed, and I would plead for just one more. You would brush my hair, and I would complain about how it hurt my head. You would embrace me in your arms, and you were safety, peace, and comfort. Now, I'm left vulnerable and open without a safe place to hide. You were my defender, my champion, my hero. Nothing was impossible when I was riding on your shoulders. I often wonder when it all went wrong. Was it your fault for distancing yourself from us? Was it your illness that was making you that way? Was it my fault for being scared to reach out to you?

As I grew older, we got used to never being quite as close to each other as before. I look at you and think to

myself: Can you miss someone, even if they’re right in front of you? It felt like I lost something I don’t remember losing. You drifted away from me so gradually, and I didn’t know when I let your hand slip away from mine. We used to be as thick as thieves, but now we’re strangers living under one roof. All we could see were each other’s faults. Your harsh, distant voice, your furrowed brows, your cold, cold eyes that could make me feel so small. Was it possible to love someone but not like them? Because I didn’t like you. At all. You were bad-tempered, rude, and mean. Growing up, I could frequently hear your complaints about life, about people, about me. There were moments, of course, rare it was, when I thought you came back. When you would cook for us once in a blue moon, when we would laugh together over one of your lame jokes, and you would hug me like you did before. These times used to give me so much hope, but your frown would always come back to chase it away.

Sometimes, I forget that you’re gone. I play, I laugh, and I smile like something in me isn’t broken. But then I see your ghost in the corner of my eye. I want to come closer. I want to walk with you once again. People say, one day, it won’t feel this painful. They don’t understand. What if I want it to hurt? I want to remember you. I’m scared of waking up one day and realizing that I’ve forgotten your voice, the color of your eyes, and the feel of your hand in mine. You don’t have the slightest idea how much I wish I could just see you just one last time. Now that you’ve passed away, I feel my memory of you becoming softer. I want to remember only the good parts of you.

Today marks exactly one year since you’ve passed away. A part of you will always be with me, but I know I can’t let you haunt me forever. I need to free myself from the chains you’ve bound me with. Grief is my companion, and I still need to complete my journey with him. Maybe it’ll never be finished. In the meantime, I need to go and live my life. The sun is still high in the sky, and I have a lot of errands to do. I’ll be missing you always. You may be gone, but your memory lives on in me. I have written your name in my heart. When we meet again, I want to tell you all the things I never got to say. I want to hold your hand in mine again and

love without the fear of rejection. Most of all, I want to run into your arms like I once did when I was a child coming home.

Closer to Us

Nonfiction By Autumn Barraclough First Place

The twinkling lights contrast starkly with the snowcapped mountains as I walk the streets we used to wander at night. My mouth is now silent as my mind wanders in contemplation of us when it used to be full of words that would pour into you and our future together. The snow crunches where our hearts used to flutter, and I think of you as a distant memory.

Over the years, you’ve become a concept that I can’t quite formulate. I used to trace your face from brow to chin with my fingertips, but now you’re married to a stranger. Has your face changed, too? Does your face still soften when you sleep? Does your mouth still twitch into a smile when you wake up?

We used to linger at my doorstep for hours trying to procrastinate saying “Goodnight,” but now all you are to me is our last “Good-bye.” I don’t really remember the last time I saw you or the first time I was able to think of you and feel nothing, but being without you has shied from my greatest fear to my reality.

You're out there somewhere with someone else unaware of how close to you I am, while I’m here contemplating what life would’ve been like if I had stayed with you.

I didn’t have to bust my head on a textbook for four years on an island. It could’ve been us against the world. It could’ve been my child in your arms or even my cooking that you are eating (for better or for worse). Maybe I could’ve been a better person or perhaps a better friend if I had given up my plans for you.

Instead, I chose to drift away from you. Instead, I went to France. Instead, I went to school in Hawaii and didn’t transfer with you. Instead, I chose to give up on us. Each time I said good-bye to you, I thought that was it for me. I thought I wouldn’t be happy without you, but I couldn’t settle for you

either.

My laughter echoes on the empty street where we used to be as I think of the new plans that I have made independently. The life I’ve made for myself. The accomplishments I’ve had in my own struggles and academic success. We are so close in this moment, but you don’t know where I am or who I’ve become. There’s a liberation of the soul knowing how much I have become. I am free because the plans we had together on this silly, empty street never happened.

The lights are twinkling, the street is glowing and I’m wearing my own coat to keep me warm. The street fades as my mind fills with what my reality is now. I think we are both closer to us now than we were when we were together. I’m closer to me and you’re closer to you; we are closer to us and who God wants us to be.

The Truth About Santa

Nonfiction by Abigail Allen

I had to have been three years old, because my brother, Thomas, hadn’t been born yet. It was a warm Christmas Eve night in North Carolina, and my mother had made lasagna. I’m sure it was a delicious lasagna – it’s one of my favorite meals now – but I was convinced I despised it. Honestly, I hadn’t even tasted it. Instead, I alternated between staring at the bare white walls of our apartment and watching my father feed my baby brother, Andrew.

I was an interesting child, to say the least. While other children played with Barbies and cars, I picked dried worms off of the sidewalks, taped them to paper and wrote science reports about them. When the older neighborhood children pulled pranks on me, I enjoyed annoying them by figuring it out before it happened and not falling for it. Instead of playing on the neighborhood’s playground, I was catching fireflies and – I’m not proud of this part – creating bioluminescent art by pulling off their bottoms and painting with their guts.

I don’t know how my obsession with truth started, but maybe it was with a song. My mother had a CD of children’s music that we often listened to, and two of the songs rooted themselves deeply in my psyche. The lyrics of the song “Never Tell a Lie” terrified me as I imagined the situation happening to me:

“You'll get caught and then you'll start to cry, You'll have a horrid painful pounding in your head, and you will feel your face get hot and turn bright red, then your heart will start to thump, in your throat you'll get a lump, and you'll feel so bad you'll wish that you could lie right down and die”

My overactive imagination had no problem showing me exactly how this would go down. Another song, “When You Tell One Lie” added even more:

“And each lie you tell will keep multiplying 'Till the whole wide world will know you're lying Then you'll be Suspected Detected Rejected Neglected Disliked And you should!”

Mom told me that if I did not eat at least one bite of my lasagna, Santa would not bring me presents the next morning. I, knowing that Santa was all-knowing, thought long and hard about this while pushing my food around my plate. To my surprise, when my mom returned to the table, she congratulated me for having taken ‘one bite of food’ and she assured me that Santa would bring me presents the next morning. I don’t know why this happened; at the time, I thought she must have just mistaken my messy plate for a plate missing a bite. Now, I wonder if she knew I hadn’t taken a bite but had given up and just wanted me in bed as soon as possible.

Regardless of what her reason was, I remained silent. My obsession with truth put me in an awkward position. I could not lie and tell my mom that I had eaten a bite of the lasagna, but I would not deny that I had either. I weighed in my tiny heart whether or not tomorrow’s presents would be worth not having to take a bite and decided that yes. I would forgo presents to avoid eating a tablespoon’s worth of lasagna.

Thus began, I believe, an unfortunate habit that I still occasionally struggle to break. While I do not actively lie, I omit the truth or simply remain silent. After all, if truth is the absence of falsehood, then not saying anything is still true. At least, that’s what I decided. I can tell the truth and imply something untruthful while not actually going so far as to lie.

Perhaps this in and of itself is a lie, but it’s also the truth. I guess it just goes to show that you have to be careful with the conclusions that you draw.

In order for something to be truth, doesn’t it have to be completely true? Now, I consider something different –something can be true and yet not be entirely true, that is to say, not every aspect of it is true and yet on the whole is true.

It was with a heavy heart the morning after not eating my lasagna that I followed my brother to the Christmas tree. Above all else, I was afraid my parents would soon know the truth – that I had not eaten even a bite of it. It was clear to me that they would be able to figure it out based on the lack of presents addressed to me.

To my great astonishment, there were indeed presents for me from Santa. I was filled with skeptical dread. Clearly, something about this was false. Either Santa didn’t care about disobedience like people said, or he was not really all knowing as I had been told. Looking back, I think it was the most somber Christmas I have ever experienced. I spent a great deal of the day thinking about it, and I eventually came to one conclusion. Santa could not be real. It just didn’t add up.

Sometimes I wish I could be a fly on the wall to see from an outside perspective just how that Christmas day went down. How much of my inner thoughts could be seen on my face? I think I didn’t say anything to my parents about it, although I can’t be sure. I was a pretty quiet, introspective child so it would have gone against my nature. I would like to know if my parents noticed how I was acting though. Going back to truth- knowing is subjective. What one person knows to be true, another might know to be false. What God knows we cannot know. We know our knowledge; knowledge is things that have been learned. We know what we have learned to be true, and if we have not learned it, we cannot know it.

Perhaps the issues that I have with truth stem from years of not understanding that there are different ways to learn something. For example, a child might hear their parents say the sky is blue, so they learned it from them, and they know it is true that the sky is blue. Someone else might

read a book about the sky and learn from the book and know that it is true that the sky is blue. In both cases the knowledge of truth is the same, but the manner of learning the knowledge was the difference.

It almost seems to confuse me all the more. If there is more than one way to get to the truth, is there any one right way to get there? If there isn’t one right way, there are endless possibilities to learn, but each might yield slightly different results on what is truth. Yet, if all those ways to knowledge are valid, then shouldn’t all the answers be valid? At the same time, they can’t be, because two things that contradict each other can’t both be true. However, as I said before, something can be true but also not entirely true. Which means that two contradicting things could both be true.

In some instances, there is only one path to learning to gain a particular piece of knowledge. For example, someone might know that the Bible is the word of God because they have prayed and received a witness from the spirit. They learned and now know that the Bible is truly of God. However, someone who is unaccustomed to this form of learning cannot know that the Bible is from God, and because they cannot know, they assume that no one else can know either. This person could say that such a claim is not true, while someone else could say that it is true. Because one doesn’t have access to that form of learning, it would become an impossible conundrum.

If you learn something by reading, the book may be false. If you learn by seeing, your eyes may be faulty, or you may not understand what you see. If you learn by doing, you could make a mistake and not realize the result is not actually the truth.

When I was about ten, my best friend still believed in Santa Claus. One day, probably in late October or early November, we were playing with a group of kids when it came to light that she still believed in Santa. The other children were mocking, but also insistent that she accept Santa Claus was a myth. I saw in her eyes the hurt that she felt hearing this, and I was stuck in an awkward position. At the time, I considered discovering the truth about Santa to be

one of my most formative memories, but I also loved my friend and did not want her to be sad. Through all of my inner turmoil, I came up with a new philosophy. I did my best to explain that Santa was indeed real, because he was real to her. I decided that truth and reality were relative. Years later, I learned about how this very philosophy is used by some to discount the truth of the gospel, and I began to doubt the epiphany I had had about Santa. If people use it to discredit the truth, it can’t be a thought worthy of pondering, can it?

Looking back now, I see an internal struggle to know what truth is and if it is true at all. What is reality, in the end, if not what we see and feel and know, each individually for ourselves?

Throughout the year following a fateful lasagna dinner, I developed a hypothesis – that my parents were the ones that put out the presents. The following Christmas, my cousins, my brother Andrew, and I were sleeping in the same bedroom. I had told them Santa wasn’t real, but they didn’t believe me because of the presents magically appearing overnight. I was determined to see if my hypothesis was correct. To discover the truth.

This past Christmas, Andrew told me about his own perspective on this event. He was doubtful of what I said, but when, later that night, I proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt, his tiny three-year-old heart shattered.

My plan was incredibly simple, stay up until midnight and then sneak out to see who was putting out the presents under our flimsy tree. I did just that. I’m sure you know who was busy under the tree that night. I’ll give you a hint.

It wasn’t Santa.

Countless times over the ages, people have thought they know something only for it to be found false later. If you know something to be true, but then it is proved false later on, it was never true. At the same time, it was true for you for a period. More than that, if we look in the opposite direction – to the future, not the past – we can’t be sure about anything we currently know because it might not be true, and we just don’t know that yet.

When I was six, Santa Claus appeared at our church Christmas party. Of course, I knew the truth- he wasn’t real. However, I was suddenly confronted by the possibility that I was wrong. I spent a long time that night staring at Santa, sneaking around after him to see what happened when he removed his Santa Claus coat. I ultimately figured out which church member he really was. Every Sunday for almost an entire year, I would approach him and accuse him of being Santa and lying about it. He probably secretly hated me by the end of the year. Although my memory on this isn’t the best, I remember him having an increasingly peeved face each week. Perhaps I’m the reason he wasn’t Santa the next year.

For a while, I considered discovering the truth about Santa to be one of the most formative aspects of myself. It represented a realization of a falsehood, and a fruitful search for truth. When I was around seven or eight, I thought it was important that my peers also be rid of the delusion of Santa Claus. Everyone should know what truth is and what is not. I was under the impression that they would want to know, but I was wrong. It was confusing for me. Why weren’t they happy to learn the truth? Why didn’t they want to know when they were being lied to? Since then, I’ve learned that not wanting to know the truth is not unique to children or Santa.

The questions remain. What is truth? I am always searching to know the truth on any one thing. But with it comes simply more questions. Now-a-days, I ponder less on what truth really is, unlike my younger self, and more on why not everyone wants to know the truth. Some actively seek to avoid it, it seems, while others simply deny it when faced with it. Is it any wonder that there are so many different opinions on the matter? Perhaps simply searching for truth is what really matters, not whether or not what we find is actually true.

In fact, in all aspects of our lives we can only hope that what we know is true. In the meantime, we simply have to continue believing what we currently know to be true. There is no other way to be in this world than assuming what we know to be true is true. Perhaps that’s all that really matters.

The real truth is seeking truth, and as long as we are searching for truth, we’ll be okay. After all, we can test the truth we know time and time again, going round in circles forever, since until we know the truth of everything, we can't be sure that we know the truth of anything at all.

Patience = Success

Photography by Xer OLegna Basulgan

Where Our Fathers Were

Photography by Raianne Sereene Baysa First Place

Genealogy

Photography by Raianne Sereene Baysa

Patience = Success

Photography by Xer OLegna Basulgan

If You Could See Me Now

Photography by 태정임(Taejeong Yim)

Master of the Flame

Photography by Zane Saenz

Quick Shade Photography by Zane Saenz

Patience = Success

Photography by Xer OLegna Basulgan

I’m Glad There Is You

Art by 태정임(Taejeong Yim)

Shoreside Walk

Photography by Megan Bills

Laie Point Sunrise

Photography by Michael King

View From Above

Photography by Michael King

From Up Above III

Photography by Mark Gatus

Navigating the ‘Aina

Photography by Zane Saenz Second Place

What Is Beauty?

Poetry by Annie Haws

For beauty is all I see

Through the tears

Even the grief

What is beauty?

For beauty is all I see A breath in the morning

That others do not get the chance to breathe A simple solace that never leaves A sweet kiss on the cheek

A letter of hope to a heart so weak A sonnet of the soul that lives all around me

For what is beauty? It lives within We

Patchwork

Poetry by Autumn Barraclough

We are all made in God’s image

But my version of God’s image that I was created in Feels like it was painted by Salvador Dali

I was born as two halves stitched into one thing. I moved and my soul became spotted with new ideas, concepts, and opinions

Leaving me to be placeless and unrelatable.

My body is merely a collection of pieces That God biologically took from my ancestors

My dad’s eyes

My grandmother’s thighs

My great great grandmother’s hair

All combined into a being of me

My heart was broken, then pieced together again. The shards still jaggedly reach out of the moldable clay I stuck them into.

I’m not complete, but do I really need someone else to do that for me?

Right now, I’m just a collage of meshed outcomes A mosaic of many colors, textures, and materials Or possibly a jumbled, haphazard collection.

I’m not a whole thing

But, if I’m lucky, I could still be a singular work in progress.

Clarity

Poetry by Sierra Allred

Clarity finds me in my peace embraces me in the mountains the place I feel most free. In the stillness I become one with the earth - with my mother Together - to each other –we sing.

Orion’s Belt

Poetry by Madison Sudekum

I look for Orion’s Belt every night. I replay that night in January, often. Driving down the highway. Windows down, with your hand, wrapped Around my neck, resting on my shoulder.

“If you miss me, look for those three.” Those three.

The same constellation scrawled in ink Across your right shoulder I used to touch over and over With my fingertip. Dot. Dot. Dot.

I hope you knew at that moment that I Never stopped looking. Because missing you, Was never conditional. Even now, I search for it.

Even though it’s been months since my finger found The right side of your shoulder.

Kismet

Poetry by Aaron Bernard Corridor

As stars will fade And nights won't last I will love you

Even if fate won't let me

As the wind blows in another direction and our paths won't collide I will love you

Even if fate won't let me

As places won't match and lights continue to flicker and die I will love you

Even if fate won't let me

As time will pass and doors start to disappear I will love you

Even if fate won't let me

As uncertainty hits and reality strikes I will love you

Even if fate won't let me

Kismet, oh cruel mistress

Roll the dice for me

Aid me in this battle

I am yearning to win

Give me what I desperately ask for I will love you

Even if fate won't let me

Rising

Poetry by Madison Sudekum

I wish it were called rising in love. Instead of falling. Because when you fall, Something eventually stops you. Ceases the perpetual motion The body had just been experiencing. But I never want to stop falling with you. I want to rise in love.

Mother Medusa

Poetry by Sophia Hendrix First Place

“Villain,” they called her. “Monster” before “woman.” Before “victim.” Before “mother.” Who made that choice? Who said what her identity would be? What the image in a mind would be when her name was spoken? A woman who was a victim or a survivor. Another who was scorned or upset or maybe just protective But who were both seen as the villains. Both seen as the ones who had a problem. So when the protector said, “Here, take these snakes for hair. Take these eyes that will turn a man to stone.” The woman said she would go away and find a place of solitude. But man found her and said, “Villain. Monster.” And made her a mother but never called her mother.

Listen Now

Poetry by Annie Haws

Well that skirt is really tight

It must have been you who wanted to invite It wouldn’t have happened if you wore that shirt right

You were all over me, the whole night

Telling your story now

For what?

Out of spite

This girl is crazy right?

No listen to me

Listen to me

I will not stop the fight

You don’t know the weight I carry between my thighs

That was ripped open

As I cried

No listen to me

Listen to me

You don’t get to downplay my pain

I am the one who must feel this every day

Beauty taken away

As selfish desires hold down my waist

No listen to me

Listen to me

You do not get to speak

My wrists and neck, wear the colors of grief My mouth covered to not speak

what you do not know though is I am not weak

I do not back down

Or scream retreat

My truth will be loud and shatter like glass through me

Listen now

Listen now

Til’ You Forget

Poetry by Gene Cymmer Ramirez

Flow, my quiet river, And fill with peace, the ocean bed Take all that you deserve, With calming grace that fills your head

Speak to the moon, And with its kiss, you will be blessed. Sing to Mercury and Mars, And speak with all that's in your chest.

Grow my gracious garden, Grow strong and ever true. And I will be here waiting; Til' you forget the things they've done to you.

Rebuke from the God of Love

Poetry by Joseph Brown Second Place

Is it charity or malevolence that you seek?

Approaching your maker with a wish oblique

Words can wound, and there’s a knife in your cheek A wry disposition and a hopeless technique

From the altar, he withholds his critique

The perfectionist’s forbidden wealth

‘The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak’

Thou lovest thy neighbor and not thyself

Where is the love of which you speak?

And yet a parasite of thine health

No inheritance among the meek

To he with no compassion for himself

Why art thou cast down beneath

The Adversary’s judgments upheld?

Mine ancient commandment thou shalt keep Love thine enemy, including thyself

To betray one’s own as did the Twelfth Vengeance against none but oneself Raw dissonance with Heaven’s bell Consciousness bears the depths of Hell

To Young Me

Poetry by Aubree Whiting

To young me, I am so sorry You never deserved what they did to you You deserve to chase your passions And love what you do You deserve to grow and improve You deserve to feel confident in yourself And you didn’t get that

I'm so sorry they did that to you

I wish you could know where you ended up And feel hope for your future

I wonder who you'd be if it never happened What you'd be doing now

I wish you had a chance

I wish I knew who you'd be And while I can continue to wish

I hope you’re proud you became me

13 YEARS

Poetry by Brooke Lim

I remember the morning we got the news You had been born I remember sitting and waiting my turn To hold you

I remember the day we got the news You would soon pass I remember sitting and waiting my turn To hold you

I remember the night we got the news Mom and dad came to us And you didn’t come with them

It’s been 13 years Since you were born And I am still sitting and waiting my turn To hold you

Burning

Poetry by Manhattan Ethington

Click. Click. Swoosh!

The silent gas oven transforms into an electric blue flame. The fire gets stronger, enticing my hands

Closer to the fool’s gold and passionate scarlet.

“Don’t get too close to the heat, dear,” My mother’s voice echoes through the past.

But how can I stay away?

His hair gleams like fire, His eyes glitter like the start of a gas flame, And his touch lights me up before burning, Charring my body and soul like a stovetop.

Won’t

Poetry by Autumn Barraclough

I get it English is hard

Most people don’t speak it properly And diction can change a situation entirely.

Like the difference between can’t and won’t.

“Can’t” indicates that it’s not within your power or your control to do it.

“Won’t” is different. You can do it, you just don’t want to.

I think about that when you say you can’t.

Can’t come over.

Can’t hang out.

Can’t call or text back.

Can’t make the time.

It hurts a lot that you can’t.

It feels like a heavy heart and tight shoulders. It feels like a chipped nail and a tight pair of pants. It’s like reaching for a phone in a pocket when it’s not there.

It makes me feel like I can’tLike I’m the one powerless to move on and let go It strips me of energy and occupies my mind.

It’s odd though, because, hypothetically, “can't” should be better than “won’t.”

Like you would if you could, but you can’t, But that’s not our situation though, is it?

After all these can't's,

I’m realizing why it hurts so much isn’t because you can’t, But because you won’t.

And it’s up to me to be okay with that. Just like learning English And the difference words can make. I have to learn to let you go, So I will have time for the people who will.

Waves

Poetry by Caitlin Alder

Do I ever make a wave In someone else's sea?

While my waves of hurt come crashing

I wonder

Does anyone hurt Over me?

Jinsei

Poetry by Regina Shumway

Floating, wet, and still

On the crest of existence

Flowing into life

The fervor of life

Warming, burning, lighting flame

Youth flares then smolder

Rocking in the breeze

Each breath a contented sigh

Waiting for the last

Upturned soil to rest

Return to Mother's embrace

From dust to dust

Timeless Moments

Poetry by Ching Hsuan Lu

Dad was always serious, it seemed to me So hard to confide in him, no matter the plea Every weekend, when I was young and free Dad took me to a new park, where we could be

But as I grew up, we spoke less and less Dad never praised me, I didn't confess But thankfully, before he had to leave We both shared our hearts, and we both did believe

I can't forget that one day in the hospital ward As I was leaving, Dad called me towards After a moment of silence, he said to me "You... keep going, you hear me?"

I nodded, turned around, and the tears flowed Later, I wrote a song for Dad, a love bestowed The city was our playground, back when we were young With blue skies, light feet, and a heart unsung

But as we grew older, we became like dust Our distance grew, with little time for trust I want to climb up on your shoulders and see What you see, a view to set me free

I forgot what stubbornness kept us apart

But I want to share with you, a heart-to-heart

I want to grow into your wings and brush away your pain

I forgot to tell you, I want your love again

From your gentle eyes, I found my wings Today, I believe, you're flying with the things That makes us feel alive, that makes us sing Together, we can face anything

I want to climb up on your shoulders and see What you see, a view to set me free

I forgot what stubbornness kept us apart

But I want to share with you, a heart-to-heart

I want to grow into your wings and brush away your pain

I forgot to tell you, I want your love again

I forgot to say, the most precious memory I keep Is you carrying me, telling me to keep Holding onto you, flying safe and sound Our memories, forever bound.

Ugly

Poetry by Annie Haws

I wonder what God thinks is ugly. Would he say that when the rain falls and floods a town Demolishing everything to the ground That it was ugly?

Or would he simply say that it must be this way Sometimes it must rain for us to get on with our days

I wonder what God thinks is ugly. Would he say that the man on the corner Laying on his wife’s shoulder, with no home or food to swoon over Was ugly?

Or would God slowly take away their pain, growing them closer each day

To something they have prayed to gain, “By God’s grace” they would say

I wonder what God thinks is ugly. When you are simply there loving Or chasing that utterly beautiful something I wonder if God sees the ugly as much as we do? We are all so determined to Dictate each other without knowing what we each have suffered through

What if we looked for where beauty grew In the small things

Let that be our new truth!

Ugly is a lie!

Ugly is a lens we humans must not peer through

And I don’t think God thinks anything is Ugly.

Kula Manu AWARD WINNERS

Art| Judge: Jacob Jackson

First| Where am I?

Second| Laniloa Beach at Sunrise

Short Fiction| Judge: Stephen Hancock

First| Pearl

Second| Becoming a Butterfly

Non-Fiction| Judge: Emily Plicka

First| Closer to Us

Second| A Letter to Dad

Photography| Judge: Jacob Jackson

First| Where Our Fathers Were

Second| Navigating the ‘Aina

Poetry| Judge: Zach Payne

First| Mother Medusa

Second| Rebuke from the God of Love

Copyright 2023 BYU-Hawaii Faculty of Arts & Letters.

Copyright for individual work is retained by the individual authors, creators, and artists.