Viridity - La Pluma Vol. 6

Cover by Ashley Kwong and Dana Yang

Viridity

La Pluma | Volume 6

La Pluma

Staf

Ofcers

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF

Sonia Verma*

Alyssa Yang*

LEAD

SELECTIONS EDITORS

Dana Yang (art)*

Aashi Venkat (writing)*

SECRETARY

Ashley Kwong*

PR EXECUTIVES

Jillian Ju*

Giljoon Lee*

Letter from the Editors

Springtime is strange—remnants of winter in the bleak skies and chilly breeze give way to summer weather, only to return the next week. The unpredictable El Niño weather makes spring feel less like a season of flowers and blue skies and more like the liminal space in which winter slowly unfolds into the promise of warmth to come.

Now, at the cusp of summer, rain has given way to a bursting of green. The unfurling of leaves rekindles the youthful lust for life within us all. With the conclusion of AP exams, we look forward to what summer has in store. For freshmen and sophomores, summer break is filled with the promise of learning and growth. Juniors ponder upon their future as they prepare for the next step of their academic journey. Seniors anticipate going to college as their ofcial foray into adulthood, leaving high school—and the ball-and-chain of adolescence it represents—behind.

We are always eager to look forward. But we never seem to look around.

Artists Writers

Palakdeep Bassan, Lisa Fan, Michelle Huang, Aletheia Ju, Bernice Kwong, Owen Liu, Aster Nguyen, Katie Wang*, Lillian Wang, Selina Wang*

Arielle Fam, Carina Ke, Subin Ko, Suhana Mahabal*, Rudrika Randad, Ellie Wang, Selina Wang*, Elizabeth Yang, Justin Yaung, Shannon Yu, William Zhang

Adviser

Vennessa Nava

*Viridity production team

In Volume 6: Viridity, we travel through forests, seeking the fountain of youth. We reminisce on the naivete of our childhood. We plant gardens; we bury ourselves in them. We stand still, just beginning to understand the fleeting greenery that enshrines us. Time pulls us through the viridity of our lives too soon, so we write, draw, and paint to remind ourselves of our innocence.

Volume 6 is a reminder to us all that our youth—with all its wide-eyed and wobbly-kneed inexperience—has more to offer than we could ever imagine. High school may embody the liminality of a California El Niño Spring, but the green of our youth fades as fast as it blooms. As we sign off on our last issue of the year, we hope Viridity inspires you to treasure your roots as you grow towards your future.

Sonia Verma

Co-Editor-in-Chief

Alyssa Yang

Co-Editor-in-Chief

(n). the quality or state of being viridity:

green

Lily of the Valley

Garden of Words

Color of the World

On the Horizon

Writing by Elizabeth Yang

Art by Owen Liu

Writing by Selina Wang Art by Dana Yang

By Subin Ko

By Aster Nguyen and Katie Wang

By Palakdeep Bassan

Man in the Forest

By Carina Ke

By

By Aashi Venkat

By Ashley Kwong and Jillian Ju

By Michelle Huang

Writing by Suhana Mahabal Art by Bernice Kwong

Jillian Ju

By Justin Yaung

By Arielle Fam

By Alyssa Yang

By Giljoon Lee

A Brief Paradise

Writing by William Zhang Art by Lisa Fan

Writing by Rudrika Randad Art by Ashley Kwong

lily of the

Art by Owen Liu / Writing by Elizabeth Yang

[ white hyacinth and lily of the valley one sprung from tears and one dilly soon left her sister, deep in the night, she slid through the rain but came back to the light ]

she smiled, laid a wreath of peaceful lilies upon a snow white head with eyes of viridian/ cardinals, pink daisies drifting, they landed, dawn shone in their eyes

i. white hyacinth

“A ring—a ring of roses,” joined hands it was so lonely in the meadow

“But we’ll always have each other!”

“I promise.”

“Laps full of posies,” they were hungry, she kept to herself, nothing but lilies and a storm a-coming but no shelter in the meadow

“Awake—awake!”

glancing over her little sister’s delicate features, she pulled her own crown of white hyacinths off her head turned towards the woods where she would pave a path of for her sister to follow

“Now come and make—” she was scared, dappled starshine leaves her empty a blaze, a blaze, ablaze? because the forest was ablaze because the woods were so dark and the smoke was getting thicker and she couldn’t see anything and where was her sister? she needed find her sister

Graphics by Dana Yang

the soot coats her feet, a winter wonderland of ashes the makeshift clay sticks to her sole

“now come and make ” a ring, a ring of hyacinths cold dew clings to her legs so cold, so cold, all she wanted to do was find her big sister! why couldn’t she find her sister?

A ring, a ring of roses, she leaves in the woods, hanging limply from the branches that had formed such a cruel cage

she stepped into the meadow at last.

Garden of Words

Art by Dana Yang / Writing by Selina Wang

Ximena Diaz was a giver. She was called Ximena Diaz not because her mother and father had said so or because the priest had picked out a name from the Bible, but because she had to reclaim herself with the one thing she had: words. She had given herself her name to rewrite the words that had been scarred across her back. Just as she had carefully planted and plucked the words that became her name, she reaped countless others to give.

When spring came, she carefully dug out rows of holes in the tilled soil, placing a word in each. Then summer would come with its glaring sun, and stems would sprout from the ground. By fall, the field would be filled with the sound of paper rustling in the wind, the ground covered in crops of words. She carefully picked a few words a day—some days five, others ten, occasionally as many as a few hundred—and loaded them up in her cart and went to the marketplace. Sometimes she whispered them for free in dreams; sometimes she sold them for a couple of gold coins. Sometimes the words could be exchanged for a dozen eggs. And in the shivering, cold winter, she stayed inside, writing the words to be planted the coming spring.

people who had a gnawing ache in their chest and needed a fantasy to escape to. They drank up Ximena’s words like medicine for their wounded hearts.

Ximena used to dream when she was a little girl. She dreamt of worlds where the sun shone purple and the stars green, of talking fish dancing across lakes and tiny men who lived in the clouds. It was these dreams that Ximena wrote down, childhood fantasies that had been erased by the bitter sting of whips against bare skin. Perhaps that’s why Ximena practiced her trade. To right the wrongs and failures of a childhood that had not been.

They drank up Ximena’s words like medicine for their wounded hearts.

It had been a long time since Ximena last had a dream. The only dreams that existed were in the stories she wrote each night, in each batch of seeds to be planted. Ximena’s lack of dreams had never become a problem— her childhood imaginings were an undying reservoir of ideas and stories—until one day there were no more letters to be written and no more dreams to pluck words from. After twenty-five years of trade, in the winter of the end of the 18th century, Ximena Diaz’s reservoir had been emptied.

Ximena traveled the country some years, vending her letters and phrases to the people of Cudillero and Barcelona and Albarracín. Others, she would stay in her little town, chatting with the shoemaker across the street or the village ancianos. People would travel long and far to purchase Ximena’s words; people who had lost something or someone,

Ximena tried hard to dream. She visited the local pawn shop, scouring the shelves for cursed artifacts and magical antiques. She traveled to the city and borrowed fantastical books from the library about witches, duendes, and cuélebres. She asked passing travelers to tell her about their journeys, about the coup in France and rebellion in Vietnam.

The season of planting was quickly approaching, but

Ximena had nothing to give. The dreamless writer would sit at her table with a pen in hand for hours, until the ink had run dry and still the slips of paper remained empty. At night, before sleeping, Ximena even began to pray to the God she had long ago forsaken. But it was futile, and even as God wept tears of rain across the land in the spring, no seeds had been planted in her fields.

It was with these heavy burdens on her back that Ximena set off to the marketplace, a bag of cherished jewelry clutched in her hands, hoping to pawn some off in exchange for grains and vegetables. On the way, Ximena heard the shattering of glass and a mufed shout. her eyes were drawn to a dark alleyway, where the figure of a man loomed in the shadows, a broken beer bottle in hand.

Ximena felt the scars on her back start to pulse intensely as her eyes traveled to the little girl crouched under him, arms wrapped around her head in protection. The little girl looked up and met eyes with Ximena. And oh, what a piercing green her eyes were. They were not the eyes of a dreamer. They were not eyes stuck in childish fantasies and daydreams; they were eyes so fiercely green Ximena could feel the weight of their strength. Ximena mouthed two words

to the girl and hastily scurried off to the market.

Miraculously, Ximena had a dream that night. She dreamt about herself, about the little girl curled up in bed, bruised hands clutching at a worn down rosary, praying for a God who would never come. She dreamt about the faces of her parents that she had long forgotten, and they became the man in the alley and she became the young girl with the green eyes. The girl—both little Ximena and the one from the alley—cried out for help. Ximena awoke with a start, and then she began to write.

God can’t save us, miss. Dreams can’t save us. We can only save ourselves.

Ximena, for the first time in her twenty-five years of trade, wrote words that were not beautiful. Words about herself, and about the girl with the green eyes. Words reminiscent of a childhood of slaps on the wrist and nights gone hungry. Ximena wrote down the burdens of her lifetime to grow them into something lovely. She would give the soil her torn memories, and the soil would give them back as something beautiful.

It was the dawn of the 18th century, and two things happened in that October: Ximena Diaz began to dream again, and for the first time in over a year, a tiny green sapling sprouted from her garden of words.

GraphicsbySelinaWang

Color of the World

Subin Ko

The color of the flower buds fit together to make a beautiful view

Rebirth of leaf, New life of sprout

Abundant grass, Mysterious bush

The whole world turns to Green

Yet we remained as white

Lining the street

Cherry blossoms, reminder of spring Tulip, petal with love dyeing the street into Pink

Yet we were gray

In garden of the house

Rose, raised by passion

Mail box, storage of news

Bicycle, transport that belongs to our own paint the garden

Red

Yet we were black

I only turned away from the colors of the world

Living a life without—

On the Horizon

Aster Nguyen & Katie Wang

There, There

Palakdeep Bassan

The Man In the Forest

Carina Ke

An old man gazed fondly into the forest. His eyes wandered from emerald leaves on towering trees to bright spring clovers that sparkled with morning dew. They lingered on a single dark red spot, perched among the grass, bright amidst the surrounding greens. Perhaps the wings of a ladybug out on a stroll?

“Excuse me sir,” a voice called from among the greenery. He turned to see a young photographer, no more than half his age but a good head taller.

“Hello there,” He replied. “What brings you so deep into this forest?”

The photographer smiled with upturned lips before hiding it behind the lens of his camera. A nice smile, the man thought to himself.

“I’m investigating,” The photographer declared proudly as he examined an image he had just taken, his voice ringing between the trees. A strong voice.

“There are rumors of a fountain in these forests that can do all sorts of wonders and I wish to find it!”

“Ah.” The man spoke quietly, wary of his aging throat and raspy voice. He was all too familiar with the hopeful young adventurers that had tried and failed to find the fountain of their imaginations.

“But, you know, it is a futile mission. You are not the first to come; all those that returned before you did so empty-handed. The forest is easy to lose yourself in, many do not ever leave.”

“I know I will be the one to succeed!” The man could only smile, for he had heard those words a thousand times before.

“Well, I wish you the best then.” He turned to leave. “Although, I should warn you, I have never once in all my years seen that fountain do anything special.”

“Wait!” The photographer’s grip was firm on the man’s bony arm. “You know where the fountain is?”

“Why yes,” the man gestured vaguely towards the path behind him. “I live just beyond the forest’s edge, and I enjoy watching the ladybugs that tend to gather at the fountain. Would you like to see?

It was only once he reached the basin’s edge, once the water became as bright as a ladybug’s wings, that he fnally realized what was inside.

“Of course!” The photographer’s eyes widened and his grip on his camera tightened as he leaned forward with anticipation, his eagerness emanating from every pore.

“This way then.”

The man led them deeper into the forest where there was soon no longer a path beneath their feet. As the coverage grew denser, the photographer felt as if each tree leaned in and away from him at the same time, trying to speak to him yet too scared to come close.

“Excuse me,” The photographer asked not too long after. “Might we stop for a while, I’m a bit tired.”

“It’s not too much farther,” the man said coolly.

He felt none of the photographer’s exhaustion, not a hint of even the sore body and weak bones that had plagued him for the past few years.

“You don’t want it to get too dark, now do you?”

“I suppose not,” the photographer smiled, once again excited to see the fountain.

But, the deeper they went in, the more the photographer felt as if the forest was trying to muggle him, both with the fog that had suddenly appeared and the absolute silence that was around. In what could have been minutes but felt like hours of walking, not a single living thing had crossed their path. No sign of even the ladybugs that were said to gather there.

Graphics by Katie Wang

“Excuse me, there must be something wrong with my eyes, I can’t see clearly.” The photographer spoke up again suddenly.

“It’s colder here.” The man said, strong white clouds emerging from his mouth as he spoke. “Anyhow, the fountain is just beyond here. I will warn you though— it might not be what you expect.”

Indeed, even at the fountain there was no magic to be seen. In fact, the forest seemed to lean away from the simple stone pool; the ground was barren if not for the brown and crumbling leaves fallen from small dying trees that had grown too close.

The photographer gazed in astonishment. He could just see the tops of what filled the fountain’s base, but only that. As he crept forward, no longer aware of his growing fatigue, the water that seemed to spout from solid rock became tinged in red. It was only once he reached the basin’s edge, once the water became as bright as a ladybug’s wings, that he finally realized what was inside. However, by then, he no longer had the strength to lift his camera. He could only turn to see the smiling face of the old man who didn’t look so old anymore, who raised his cane with an arm so different from the one he’d grabbed before.

He stands ready for the new life that he has been given, feeling the same eagerness as was once felt by the already forgotten shell he’d left behind.

mass of red water to cover him completely. The man grabbed the forgotten camera and saw the photo that was taken earlier: a single red ladybug amidst the green of the forest. The man was surprised as the swarm never usually strayed so far from the fountain, choosing instead to wait for the man’s victims as they had done now. He did not ponder it for too long, however, and pocketed the camera before leaving the ladybugs to their work, exiting along the same path upon which he came.

The young man gazes fondly at the forest around him. His eyes wander from pine needles scattered on the ground to bright spring clovers that sparkle with morning dew. They linger on the splatters of warm red, dotted among the grass, climbing onto his cane. But as he strolls out of the forest, cane resting on his shoulder despite the uneven path, he smiles with the upturned lips that were once hidden behind the lens of a camera.

It took mere seconds for the photographer to fall, and for the

He stands ready for the new life that he has been given, feeling the same eagerness as was once felt by the already forgotten shell he’d left behind.

Graphics by Katie Wang

self-portrait of a rotting fruit

Jillian Ju

the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. i was raised decent, feminine, an ofering for a world that didn’t want me for me, always told i was sweet, on hold, in demand—don’t let it get to your head. don’t let yourself bloom too early. so all i did was grow up round, full-faced, skin-deep & tempting. not tempting enough. the bare minimum for men seeking satiation, i hated myself. i wore dresses hoping someone would tear of the embroidery. i wanted to be destroyed, smashed underfoot, my graveyard a mush of foral masculinity. you could say i was asking for it. why should i save myself at all? for what? from what? my own inescapable decay? you could say i was asking for it. so he snatched this mannequin body of of the tree, freed it from its naivete—and you can learn so much by staying still in the face of repletion. he liked me quiet. he liked me distant, and i kept that promise, as if by rejecting motion i could deny my own responsibility in being exposed. in tearing myself

open like a fresh canvas and letting him make art out of my anguish. in letting him. in letting him in. you could say i was asking for it. but i’m sick of metaphor. i’m sick of people saying it’s defowering or learning or growing up or deserved at all, because all it is is pride, and all I can remember it as is violence—and knowing my own pain, it was my burden, my choices, my my body, my vices, my stomach, my ruin, my word against his. because no one ever told him that fruits could bleed. and in the afermath i liked to ask what that use did to me. tossed aside i knew i was nothing more than a travesty, a footnote in his story: not pretty. worth nothing. used and bruised and sad old news. as though it wasn’t his teeth bared on the core that halved me, his palms burned on the chest that betrayed me. and for a while i wanted to be cleansed so thoroughly, to slice of my edges, to tear out my weakness the same way you would a worm from a rotting apple—but even a worm can have its reasons for staying. and it took me years to learn that the same spots i cut out could taste just as sweet, that i could be gentle to myself despite the pieces i had missing, that i could be wrong and wronged and still worth loving.

so why blame myself. why become afraid of my own vulnerability when it allows my bones space the way my roots never let me, to melt into the soil, to unearth this body’s blessings—and when she holds me / renews me i can say i’m not sorry. to be sof and saved when we’re all so bent on toughening: loving myself can be no tragedy.

eArt by Bernice Kwong / Writing by Suhana Mahabal

There is no peace like the peace found in Avirac. The few lucky enough to enter have the chance to breathe the freshest air they ever will and drink the sweetest water their lips will ever touch. The sun never sets on the village and the people never stop smiling. It’s nothing but a collection of red-roofed houses amid sloping hills, yet it seems like heaven on Earth. It’s a deep, heavy peace. It’s home forever no one leaves the Vinery I’ve never told anyone this, but I used to have a friend.

Her name was Shelby Grimstooth and she was from America. She had bright red hair and freckles and a toothy smile that I couldn’t help but laugh at. Her accent was dry and crisp to my little ears and I loved to hear her endless supply of jokes. She, along with her parents, had come up during their spring break.

Her parents were the hippie type—endlessly looking for adventure and experiences they could brag about, unwilling to pay for it. They hitchhiked up here and were charmed by the snowy peaks and the bright wildflowers and the white-clothed, wide-eyed children.

Shelby was a breath of fresh air. Where everyone around me was stuffy and uptight, Shelby liked to roll around in the grass and get her knees dirty. She liked whispering in closets and picking up ladybugs and wishing on dandelions.

“Hendrika, have the Elders told you yet? You’ve been chosen for the windmills!” she tells me.

The windmills are the most coveted working spot. That’s the only place where the men and women get to work together. Though it may be against the rules, this incites the smallest spark of excitement in my belly.

“Hendrika, hurry along. You’ll be wanted in the Gallery,” she urges me before I can respond, and so I leave the kitchens with my head high and my heart pounding. As I walk to the meeting spot, the sun above my head and the birds chirping, I cannot deny that this is perhaps the happiest I’ve felt here. Avirac used to feel like a cage, yet perhaps it can be exactly what it is for everyone else.

I’ve been working in the windmills for a few weeks now. It’s actually quite simple—all we do is feed the Vinery.

The Elders speak of the Vinery with reverence, as if it’s God.

“They supply everything you see, Hendrika. They strip us of our uncleanliness and restore our purity. They remove any doubt that prickles through your mind about Avirac. Isn’t that incredible? Isn’t that just so beautiful?”

The lders speak of the inery with reverence, as if it’s God.

I’ve always been curious about what it is, yet I know not to question the Elders. Whatever they do is working. Avirac is producing more than ever, the windmills are running as if on magic, and the people seem happier—if that’s even possible.

I saw an Elder watching us once, when I was ditching my chores to sit in a patch of daisies with her. Our little hands were twisting daisy chains, the white petals scattered across our bare legs. I saw the Elder’s eyes, wizened and ominous and a bitter green, watching my best friend.

Shelby and her parents were gone within a week.

Now, I’m too old to hide away from my chores and run in the fields. Now, I wear the same dress my mother wears and I braid my hair the same way every woman in Avirac does. I wake up in the morning to a pink sky and head out, not sparing a glance at the Alps surrounding me. I bow my head to the Elders and before I eat, I whisper my blessings to the Vinery.

When I arrive at the kitchens, I see my mother bent over, the steam from the pots blurring her profile. She’s hunched over, laboring heavily, and I thank the Vinery that she’s close to the retirement age. Retirement in Avirac means the Vinery embraces you whole—peace she desperately needs.

When I greet her, she looks up with a tired smile, yet her eyes are bright.

Even I feel happier. I feel a sense of peace I hadn’t known I could find in Avirac. Walking into the windmills makes me lightheaded and airy, as if I’m walking on clouds.

Sometimes I think I can feel the Vinery—it’s spidery and snakey and it’s a bruise against my unblemished skin and a metallic kiss on my forehead. feed us

Every day, morning to night, I move heavy bags back and forth from the reserves to the windmills, where some other men move it elsewhere—who knows?

Sometimes I pause and look up at the windmills. White metal figures, stark against the deep azure of an expansive sky. They’re angels, heavensent with their hazy halos.

My sister lies beside me in the green grass. The sun is hot and heavy. It’s our lunch break and our hands are intertwined as we lie in the shade of a windmill.

“How can the windmills power Avirac?” she asks.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been talking to a visitor. How can we get enough wind to power such a large town?”

“It’s not wind. Don’t be nonsensical.”

“It’s the wind that powers the windmills. Not the bags. Not whatever we’re hauling in them.”

She’s been talking to visitors? tainted traitor dirty scum

“Hendrika, can’t you see something else is running this town? Some other energy?” doubt is the root of chaos preserve, protect, please us “Hendrika, you’ve been promoted.”

I turn and meet Elder Carolein’s eyes. A smile stretches across my face as I straighten, hands clasping behind my back in perfect symphony.

“Thank you for the honor, Elder,” I reply, head bowed. I am now the Bookkeeper. It’s a well-respected job. I am in charge of keeping records. The Vinery trusts me.

I flip through the heavy pages and see long lists of names. I dare not to ask who they belonged to. Carolein stands behind me, her aged eyes watching my every move.

“Stand up straighter and wash your hands later, Hendrika. The Vinery demands respect and cleanliness.”

“My apologies.”

“I’ll leave you to your work. Remember: a mistake and the Vinery is always ready, Hendrika.” hungry to feed

Night falls and my ink-covered fingers ache from gripping the pen. The names I write are foreign. I do not know who I am condemning. I choose not to ask for my own sanity.

only the clean can trust unconditionally and flower

On a whim, I flip backwards and find an old page.

My finger drifts down the list until Shelby Grimstooth: Dangerous influence to youth FED

My blood runs cold—

I haven’t seen my sister in days—

My eyes click open— bitter and green and hungry to feed

al a

Aashi Venkat

Twin footsteps on the pavement, secrets whispered to keep between the two of us. Something so innocent sparks between us, lingering in the twilight sky that slowly looms upon our silhouettes as we continue down the street, oblivious to the meaning this spark and this street will soon hold in both our lives. The birds have stopped chirping—even the squirrels are nowhere to be found. It’s dark, so you insist on walking me home. The mellowed glow of the street lights look down on us, like an old married couple observing two lovebirds on their first date.

Warped stars, you know this singer is my favorite. You say we share the same favorite song and ask to see the recording I took of her singing it live, and I blush in excitement as I show you what I have accumulated. You watch each video with the utmost attention, pausing only to comment on her vocals or the colorful flashing lights behind her. You smile after it ends, whispering I can see why you would like her because you know me like the back of your hand. I play her songs in your car, and your eyes light up every time you hear the song we’ve collectively claimed as ours.

The numbers on the clock stare back at me, a bold 4:00AM, and your voice that is normally so clear and confident is now a hollow whisper. An eye for an eye, one of your secrets for one of mine, and we share with each other our deepest valuables, trusting the other to lock them safe forever.

Springtime roses blend with the all-too-familiar scent of weed as the sunlight pours onto the floor of the bus, lighting up your face as you peer out the window ahead of us. I rest my head on your shoulder and let your cologne enter my body and light me up, my defenses withering away like ice in your fire. The city blurs ahead of us, the intentional streaks of grafti turning into mindless blurs as the bus chugs along. My fingers reach for yours, your fingers reach for your phone.

our words that once made my heart swell seem meanin less now.

We’re in your car again. It’s a pattern I’ve noticed, where this is the only place we’re spending time together. I bite my tongue. Your words that once made my heart swell seem meaningless now. The hearts I drew on your window all those months ago keep coming back, taunting me, reminding me of who we once were. I can’t help but miss them—the original hearts, our original love, the original spark that grew between the two of us.

A hat here, a sweater there, your scent lingering over my body longer than my perfume. Your clothes fit me like a glove —if the glove was slightly too loose and stretched below the wearer’s wrist—but you insist I keep them on. You’re taking pictures of me, with my makeupless face and too-big clothes, claiming that I am the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. I can feel myself melting in your presence, taken by a gratitude to have earned a place in your camera, for that, to you, is a place in your heart.

We’re in the backseat of your car. I’m outlining hearts on the fog that clouds up the windows—you’re double-tapping hearts to other girls. Kids are playing soccer on the fields behind us, screaming to acknowledge each goal they score. Your silence is haunting. I wonder if you think the same thing, if you think my silence is haunting. I wonder if you are just waiting for me to speak up. You break the silence with a simple I love you, and my heart swells as you wrap your arms around me, holding me close to you like a precious gem.

It’s love, when I cry and you buy chocolate to cheer me up It’s love, when I shiver and you wrap your jacket around my shoulders

It’s love, when I whisper I missed you and you interlace your fingers with mine

I love you, so I’ll be your secret if that’s what you want I love you, so I’ll stay loyal as you play the field I love you, so I’ll fake a smile when you bring her around I love you, so I’ll remain quiet as you fall in love with her

I’ve given and given until my heart ran dry and my lungs collapsed, but somehow everything I gave was never enough, somehow all that I am, it was never enough. You say it’s all in my head, as if it was not your hand that pulled the trigger and embedded the bullet into my skin. I don’t know which is worse: you shooting me or you making me believe that the loaded gun was forced into your hand and I was painted a bright red target. Then you held me as I bled out and my heart broke for the last time and suddenly I became a corpse in your arms. All I wanted was comfort and you were offering it to me on a silver platter, so I forgot how you shot me and I forgot how you ripped every scar of mine wide open and I forgot how you were the reason why I was bleeding in the first place. I let myself feel safe in your arms and I put my face inches away from yours, as if we were not broken, as if you did not break me, as if I loved you. But I hated you. I hated you so much. Except my words were daggers, incomparable to your gun, so I yelled and you stayed quiet as my yells turned to sobs and your silence remained constant. You hugged me and I cried into you and my tears stained your sweatshirt and I forgot about the gun and the trigger and the wound because you were holding me and telling me you loved me.

You never wanted a label, so I quietly accepted a life in your shadows while you became the muse of every poem I wrote, most of which you could never quite understand.

You really do love me (but why did you say the things you said and do the things you did?)

You really do love me (but why is it a secret that is only yours to tell and mine to hear?)

You really do love me (but why do I feel so alone?)

I wish the street lights were brighter that night.

Michelle Huang

recreational gardening

Arielle Fam

Mother, my neck is bare

Except for the threads seeping across My throat—roots in the freshly turned soil—soil from The grave that birthed me. I am softened By your hands, malleable

To your will

Your fingers pry at the Blemishes I could never have seen on my Own. I wish your eyes were like mine that the scorn Pricking from your lids would prick No longer. I wish my eyes

Were like yours so I could find my faults Before you even lay your gaze on them. An eon passes before the needle Withdraws. A voice like steel

Knives: Let’s plant something here. Make you pretty. (I know you meant to say Perfect.) I see myself strung up in Vines, head bobbing and my limbs

Hanging like too-heavy branches

Weighed down with overripe dreams. Alright. It’s always alright. I close my eyes and Wince as your trowel digs me out.

Mother, my neck is frozen over

But under it I can feel the squirming

As rain hits my (cracked-dirt) skin and seeps Deeper than my pain

You’ve sowed worms—worms that move

As if they are dead, or like the blood Trickling through my veins: Slowly. Slowly now, because slow and Steady wins the race—it’s an excruciating numbness That gnaws at my bones and brings me To my knees.

Mother, my neck is life

Or so you tell me as you croon with delight In the creases of your face. I can only trust You, because my eyes lie to Myself. My eyes, which I no longer see Through because I am neither here Nor there—just held in Between, liberated from (by you) but Chained to (by you) this flawed Body. You touch me, I think. Blade-sharp Jewels: Soft, prickly, strong. In your saccharine honey Voice, a glimmer of praise— For the skin but not the flesh For the plants but not the earth

Buried under the foliage

Full / emptied of (my) vitality.

Mother, my neck is a shrine (for you) And inside there is nothing but bone.

GraphicsbySelinaWang

Mother teaches me how to cook instant ramen while father waits in another country

Giljoon Lee

How do you like it? The noodles. Soft or firm? Decide.

Turn the fire on till the flames flirt with the pot’s metal.

There is another war. We are a sleep -walking humanity.

Your father always cooks till the noodles are too soft.

I see the history. They have lost all rational thought. I see the chorus.

Okay. You prefer firm, like me. He always said we, you and I, had good chemistry. He was jealous— he loves you so much.

Justice & anger belong to the young. You do not know enough.

Boil the water first. It takes longer than you’d think. Still, watch the stove. Be careful, always. I love you.

They have no empathy. Stay in the center, always. They will come for you. Be careful of your words. It’s a dangerous world.

Now, put the soup powder in. The water bubbles & turns angry -red, like a volcano! Stay away; don’t be burned.

Don’t play your music here. You’ll only get distracted and the fire will get you.

Drop the noodles in gently, & know the splash is coming. Minimize it.

Graphics by Giljoon Lee

LUVIT

Justin Yaung

The moon rises as I stand under a canopy of foliage, casting dark around my feet. The wind blows softly, grass swaying around me like millions of tiny creatures dancing to an invisible tune. The pearly light lets me look into the lake and stare at my own blurred reflection, making me wonder why I’ve done this. She asked to meet me here, the slender girl with her scintillating eyes, said she would show me wonders, said she would show me magic.

She keeps me from waiting for long. The water slides open and a multitude of shadows escape, my surroundings illuminated by unseen glitter as she steps out, she who has somehow already shown me magic. She is not like me. Her features are miles from blunt – even her face is slender, with delicate eyebrows and pursed, smiling, dangerous, lips.

Mama always told me to chase my dreams. What can I do but follow her into the lake?

stationary rest to join me in my flight, dead wood becomes living the same way i have now lived, but all good things must come to an end, and again I fall to Earth.

and we swirl around and around and around until my vision is shattered pane by pane and put together into a mosaic

My heart drops in fright, my body following soon after, plummeting through verdant layers of greenery before landing softly in a net of moss. I reel at the sight I witness. A mighty cavernous space where they gather. Ivy hangs from the ceiling, dripping sparkling lime-colored nectar.

She reaches towards me. Her palm settles on my forehead, and before I can process her actions, I fall into fitful sleep.

When I awake, she stands over me holding a drink, derived from the same liquid I saw earlier drip off the ivy clouding the faux sky. Mother Earth, it whispers to me, whispers at me to drink, to feel, to live, to burn, to fly.

it kicks. She calls my name

i never told her my name

and we swirl around and around and around until my vision is shattered pane by pane and put together into a mosaic

A mosaic of joyous freedom. I am free like I have never been.

Each square centimeter of my eyes is working overtime, imprinting her flashing emerald eyes deep into my brain. A rhythmic cadence pulses through my veins, the beating of a million drums swelling through my heart and veins.

I sit shivering, holding myself in her absence as my mind clears. I moved barely 10 feet the entire time. Where am I? Her ears were never round. where is she? her ears were never round. shes back i wanna fly im ready

In this moment, I am eternal. Her glory keeps me afloat, and they say my bones still move at night.

Graphics by Giljoon Lee

HYou Call Her the

Alyssa Yang

e marries your mother because he is a good son, and because she is a good daughter, she smiles when he introduces himself and lets him take her hand. Much later, long after the first time he placed his hand on her belly where you were growing, even longer after he kissed her beneath her veil, you learn this story and you are told that everything that happens afterward was not his fault.

h h t eally ha e

He is a shy but brilliant son who grows into a quiet but charming man, the kind who graduates business school with high distinction and wears tailored suits, ties, and a genial smile as armor to work and forgets to take them when he gets home. He is everything his parents could have hoped for. Still, he is just a few years too far past twenty, so his parents arrange for him and your mother ee shop on a Saturday he happens to be in town. His parents make the introductions. He simply smiles at your mother, who is sitting on the other side of the table beside her own parents. She is likewise everything they hoped for, and so she smiles back. They go to dinner, then three, and at the third restaurant he interlaces his fingers with hers over their fine white tablecloth. After the fifth date they have a spring wedding on a clear, breezy day where everyone and anyone they know is invited. The breeze tugs gently at her veil and train, blowing stray rose petals into his hair, and thousands of photos immortalize the two of them that day—laughing beneath the sunny sky—to the world, if

And so begins a new chapter in both their lives, where they live side by side, back to back, in a new house with lush yards and a tall white fence. He goes to work every morning with tailored suits and ties your mother picks out for him. She quits her job. He doesn’t suggest hiring a housekeeper; she doesn’t ask. Two months later, she tells him she’s pregnant, and he

twists his fingers into hers and hugs her and laughs and feels his heart lurch and smiles, smiles, smiles. They tell his parents first, then hers, and all the while he feels his heart could burst. When he smiles at your mother, she smiles back, radiant in every way.

It’s an easy pregnancy. He goes to her first two obstetrician appointments, then he’s called away on business and she asks her parents to come for the next three. While he’s an ocean away, they call and talk about potential baby names when he should be sleeping. He comes back, and a few months later, his boss pulls him aside again to hand him two plane tickets. He tells your mother he has to go. He says sorry. She tells him to come back soon. As the car taking him to the airport pulls out of the driveway, he looks back to see her standing at the open gates.

The call comes while he’s waiting at the airport gate for his flight back. He’s told that she’s in labor. He’s told that she’s already in the hospital. His fingers and legs jitter all the way through the plane ride and the taxi to this hospital, and his heart again feels like it’s about to burst. When he finally rushes into your mother’s room and sees her holding you, everything falls away and there is nothing else that could ever be so important.

He’s called for another business trip. He tells your mother, says he’s sorry, that he has to go, he’ll be back as soon as he can. Your mother pauses and says no, he can’t go.

It’s their first argument. He’s tired and starts yelling sooner than he’s proud of. She screams back at him. She’s exhausted. She can’t do this alone. She’s being unreasonable, he finally says. He’ll be back soon. He needs to do this for his job, for both of them, for you.

e he ay

ere, your mother says, smilin e haustedly, and he holds you, stares down at you, and falls in love.

Here, your mother says, smiling exhaustedly, and he holds you, stares down at you, and falls in love.

After going home, caring for a newborn is not easy. They’re woken up in the middle of the night far too often. Dishes pile up and clothes lie strewn on chairs, without anyone with the care or energy to clean. After a week, he goes back to work. It’s hard to appear composed at the ofce and even harder to do anything besides collapse at home, but he cooks and sweeps and dumps laundry into the machine once a week. At night you cry and cry while he sleeps like the dead and your mother drags herself up to come feed you. Gradually, he gets used to this new routine, but each night, it takes more and more time for your mother to come find you.

He’s back within a week, and throughout that week, they don’t call. Miss you, she texts him, get home safe, and when he steps back through the hand-wrought iron gates she smiles at him and says, welcome home. He hugs her and picks you up to kiss you on your forehead. That night he and your mother eat dinner

side by side on the couch watching a movie she picked, until she falls asleep on his shoulder. Eventually you start crying and she wakes up blearily, before sighing and pulling herself off the couch to go feed you. After you fall asleep again he spends a few minutes standing over

you, watching you sleep. He feels so in love and so happy to be home.

You still cry through the night, and he still sleeps like the dead. Work doesn’t get any easier and the nights don’t get any shorter for your mother. One night he finally wakes up and realizes that you are crying and crying and you aren’t stopping. It takes a while for him to wake up enough to get out of bed and find you, in your mother’s shaking arms, both you and her crying. She won’t stop, says your mother. This keeps happening, says your mother. I’m so, so tired, and I don’t know what to do anymore, she says.

He pries you from your mother’s white-knuckled grip and holds you until you fall asleep again. Then he falls back into bed and stares up at the ceiling, wide awake, listening as your mother cries herself to sleep.

It happens again, and again, and so he takes a day off work to cook a week’s worth of meals and properly clean the house, the way it hasn’t been since nearly a month before you were born. For the first time, he notices that your mother spends most of the daytime in bed. She doesn’t cook for herself, she hasn’t gone out in weeks, and she treats getting up to feed you like a chore.

trying his hardest and she’s selfish to not recognize it. She says him leaving again is too much. He says that he’s doing everything he can to support you and her.

he ay that he a t eve the e he y

He yells more after that, and she screams, but in the end he goes on the trip and the first night after he comes back, when he wakes up in the middle of the night to you crying, your mother tells him to feed you. There’s bottles in the fridge, she says. He drags himself out of bed, and when he comes back he can’t tell if she’s already asleep again or just pretending, but he doesn’t ask.

he throws a plate at him and he arely dod es in time, and they oth watch it smash to pieces, oth reathin hard.

Every day he goes to work wearing a tailored suit and a tie he picks out himself, and every night he comes back to a cold house and heats up dinner for both of them. Once a month they go out to eat with both his and her parents, and he smiles, and she smiles, and both he and your mother fold their hands in their laps, beneath the tablecloth, and try not to talk about their house or about you, even though it’s all their parents ever ask about.

He doesn’t know how to bring it up, so he doesn’t. He’s called away on business again. He tells your mother he’s sorry, he has to go, he’ll be back soon. She says he can’t go.

He sees the fight coming, but that doesn’t do anything to stop it. She says she’s exhausted and can’t keep doing this anymore. He says he’s

You grow bigger. He gets a promotion. He starts coming home to find empty beer cans in the trash. He asks your mother about it, and she’s evasive. After he prods she finally snaps and says she’s an adult and can make her own decisions. It’s not like she’s breastfeeding, anyway. He isn’t happy, but he leaves it.

Empty beer cans turn into wine bottles left on kitchen countertops and in the bathroom. The house gets messier and messier again. After a Sunday spent picking your toys up off the floor he finally brings it up, and he barely finishes his words before she snaps. You don’t know what it’s like, she says. It’s so hard, she says. She throws a plate at him and he barely dodges in time, and they both watch it smash to pieces, both

breathing hard. She starts crying. He hugs her and promises everything will be okay, and they leave it be.

Two nights later he comes back late from a company dinner. You’re crying. He follows the noise to the living room. You’re sitting silently under the table, with—and his heart lurches—a stinging red mark on your left forearm. Your mother is sitting by the counter, picking broken pieces of china up off the floor with a blank face. He sees pieces from the broken plate, as well as a few shattered wine bottles.

He crosses the room before he even realizes what’s happening, picks you up, and you cling to his neck and start crying, heaving big breaths and saying Daddy, Daddy. Your mother stares at him with the same blank face.

He starts to say her name, and then stops. He stares at her helplessly. She looks back at him, and then she starts crying too. I’m sorry, she says. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

He moves forward to hug her, but you squirm into his chest, so he lets you down and you shrink back under the table as he wraps his arms around your mother. She cries, and cries, and cries, and eventually her tears run out.

t hat t your mother says.

ll th he says, and holds her as she starts crying again, until she cries herself to sleep in his arms.

He is a good son and she is a good daughter but none of that could ever have prepared them for something like this, and he is so, so lost. Still:

ll th he says, and they both know it’s a lie.

Graphicsby Ashley Kwong

A Brief Paradise

by Lisa Fan / Writing by William Zhang

Art

Basking in the sun, I squat in the desert sands, where neither a stroke of gentle breeze nor a trickle of moisture offer me respite from this purgatory. The bulk of my trunk thinning, the wrinkles in my grooves deepening, my spines protruding more from my shriveling body every passing day, I pray for nature’s sweet nectar to moisten my roots, to grow tall and high, to bear even the smallest flower. But I lay a dejected plant, alone in the wasteland, huddled under my blanket of thorns.

I had given up on finding water. My roots shrink towards me in an attempt to conserve energy, and I ready myself to enter a neverending hibernation. The air grows cold around my spines as I dream of a cool breeze that flows past my deep grooves, soft raindrops caressing my head. I dream of gorging myself in the water unleashed by the desert torrent , swelling to twice my size and growing taller, my roots deepening. I dream of sprouting flowers and branching my trunk so I can sprout more, of insects sipping my sweet nectar, having nature appreciate the beauty of my humble existence.

your fruit trees, your precious vegetable plants? What do you gain from caring for such a detestable plant like me? I failed to see why I am not rejoicing in being rejuvenated. No, this is all still a dream. The ground should be dry as the ashen depths of Hades. My trunk should be shriveled like a prune, and my roots and spines should be rotting.

But the girl lifts the watering can and lets a stream of refreshness flow across my body. Immediately my doubts dissolve in the water as I sink myself into the bath of moist sand.

What is paradise but a feeting sensation, a forlorn

memory?

A few days pass, and I finally grow a flower, a pink and strikingly beautiful bud that flourishes into a spiral of petals. Insects visit me to admire it, buzzing happily as they drink its nectar. The girl wanders by and strokes its petals. What a kind soul she was! I would be more than happy to let her pluck this flower from my head. But she never takes it from me, as if knowing that it is my happiness in life.

Hibernation’s over. I feel refreshed somehow. The ground beneath me is damp, beetles are drinking the sap on my spines, and nearby, a young girl stands with a watering can. Why waste so much effort tending to a cactus? Shouldn’t you be sparing that precious water for your blooming flowers,

The girl stops visiting me after a few more days. The scorching sun feels hotter than usual, threatening to boil the stored water inside me. I wish for her to return, but perhaps I am too humble of a plant to be worth caring for? The days grow longer with not a cloud in the vast skies, and I dread the purgatory that looms ever closer. The flower begins to wilt, then browns, grays, and crumbles off of my head. My trunk shrivels despite my meticulous distribution of water, and I am back to where I started.

What is paradise but a fleeting sensation, a forlorn memory?

hea a he

Art by Ashley Kwong / Writing by Rudrika Randad

i.

you wake at some point with a pounding headache.

it’s midnight—the clock strikes twelve. you could be in a fairy tale, if only you weren’t lying face down in your sheets, crumbs from dinner stuck everywhere.

the dawn creeps closer to your eyes, still you lie face down. there’s a soft glow on the city, grayish haze illuminated with streaks of sunlight.

it is midday now. you’ve turned your head towards the light cast on the wall; the window was too bright to look at. there is a colony of ants in the corner between the wall and the ceiling. they might be in a death spiral. you might be.

does it matter?

ii. there’s a snail in your chest. it doesn’t do much, and you don’t realize anything if it does. it just sits there, nibbling away at internal intricacies.

some days you don’t feel it at all. you like to think, that on those days, you’ve made peace with it. a compromise of sorts. and then there are days when it feels like the snail is slowly gnawing its way through your lungs and heart. some days, it feels like there is nothing but a gaping hole inside your chest, save for the snail.

metaphorically, of course.

was no path that led into it, or metal fencing, just five acres of gravestones and overgrown weeds.

the evenings you had nothing better to do, the four of you congregated there. the idea of sitting on dead people didn’t bother you, why would it, when you had more immediate fantasies to play out?

the summer beat down all remaining life in the graveyard that day, save for you four. one of you pulled out a roll of paper, and you crouched over like men prostrated before the divine. what do we write? someone asks, and the rest of you remain silent, pondering.

iv.

certain moments in life come to the front of your mind frequently, and you can’t help but focus on them like a camera.

a few days ago: you’re in the car; a small, beat-up dodge colt, some car from the 80s you found on craigslist to evoke feelings of nostalgia.

there’s a snail in your chest.

you sit in the driver’s seat, head tipped back against the headrest, listening to your own lethargic breathing. a crow on the fence picks at a discarded cracker. the pungent smell of gasoline infiltrates the car interior, heavy like a headache. a family steps out of the shop, a parent and two kids, ice cream dripping down their fingers. the taste of strawberry ice cream coagulates on your own tongue, reminiscent of airplane trips and motion sickness. you start the engine.

v. you think now, to a certain degree, that question never got its answer.

iii.

pieces of a past long gone surface; bubbles in an ocean of drudgery.

the summer hit hard, and left the city a dying fish: belly up, scales scorched into gruesome orange, arteries exposed and twitching in a concrete jungle gut.

it was the summer you were truly children; the last one, you like to think in an attempt at romanticizing life. naive, teenage losers living in the same neighborhood— mondays after school you bought the same cheap packets of peanuts from the stall on the corner, thursdays it was sticky cups of sugarcane juice from vendors fanning themselves with the previous day’s newspaper.

a few kilometers down from the group of shacks you called a housing complex, there was a graveyard—a pitiful thing, a dilapidated remnant of colonial glory, etcetera. there

perpetually lonely, words hung in the air, hands outstretched and never touching. you remember adam’s fresco, that piece of renaissance art that elicits nothing but feelings of alienation from the divine.

fickle-minded children moved on to other games, the summer gazed on in its torturous heat, dead people remained buried, and you still think about it: what do we write?

vi.

so, here’s your ode to childhood. a long, chicken-scratched manuscript of thought layered upon thought, each one asking what do we write? summers came and went, and they will continue to come and go, and one day you might be one of the dead people you once sat on in childish glee, but today—

today, you are alive, and that is enough.

Viridity

La Pluma | Volume 6