Unanchored: Lake Forest Academy Literary Magazine 2014

LAKE FOREST ACADEMY LITERARY MAGAZINE 2013 - 2014

LAKE FOREST ACADEMY LITERARY MAGAZINE 2014 i

COVER ART BY VICTORIA KHODORKOVSKAYA

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

UNANCHORED - Sophie Hanson

53 TO BREAK THE GLASS - Maria Pereira

6

PYROMANIAC - Ryan Williams

60 PERFORMERS - Victoria Khodorkovskaya

7

DESIRE - Hallie Ventling

61 BROKEN HOUSES - Joyce Caldwell

8

GREEN WINGS - Anne MacLeod

62 SALT AND SUGAR - Julia Gilette

10 AGE - Jason Xiao 11 ABSENCE - Claudia Kirby

63 LOVE LETTER FROM HAIRDRYER TO BATHTUB Lexi Silver

13 FACES OF CHINA - Jason Xiao

64 PUFFY - Sydney Brundige

14 APRIL - Maddie Zhang

65 ADDY’S HAIR - Ryan Williams

15 THE WEDDING - Sophie Hanson

71 PALM TREE - Jason Xiao

16 HARD TO LET GO - Alex Wang

72 BRAZIL IN WORDS - Maria Pereira

21 STREET FIRE - Jason Xiao

85 UNFURLING - Ryan Williams

22 COLLECTION OF HAIKUS - Aidan Doak

86 IN THE BEGINNING - Maria Pereira

23 PRAY - Anne MacLeod

90 SINKING - Ryan Williams

24 EGGS ON TOAST WITH AVOCADO - Ella Ekstrom

91 OBLIVIOUS TO BLESSINGS - Ella Ekstrom

26 TEA CUPS - Jason Xiao 27 TOO MUCH SWAGGER: AN INSULT POEM Jack Shaughnessy

92 THE HIVE - Arthur He 93 AN ATTEMPT TO DESCRIBE - Sophie Platcow 94 WILDERNESS - Madeline Sommer

28 THE STATE OF BROKEN - Maria Pereira

95 GOODBYE - Gaston Adam

29 THE MAN IN YELLOW - Joseph Kim

96 SPIKES - Maria Pereira

36 A BRAIN IS NOTHING BUT A POND OF LIQUIFIED JELLO - Arthur He

97 PREPARING - Sophia Platcow

37 N2 M4 H6 - Marcus Koppenhoefer

99 GONE - Joyce Caldwell

38 SAO PAULO SUNSET - Maria Pereira

100 TOUCH - Ryan Williams

39 WHY DO I SUCCEED - Daniel Joseph

101 BLIND - Claudia Kirby

40 IN YOUR HAND - Victoria Khodorkovskaya

102 A WISH - Arthur He

41 THE DEVIL’S DEN - Djordje Petrovic

103 TO DUST - Sophie Hanson

46 OLD RED - Jason Xiao

111 MY COUNTRY ‘TIS OF THEE - Ella Ekstrom

47 AMERICA - Lexi Silver

112 RIPPLE - Victoria Khodorkovskaya

48 QUADRA ORCHID - Jason Xiao

113 METROPOLIS - Victoria Khodorkovskaya

49 HYPOTHESIA - Arthur He

114 AWAKE - Sophie Hanson

52 FIREWORKS - Victoria Khodorkovskaya

115 REVEL - Ryan Williams

98 RIDE - Madeline Sommer

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STAFF ADVISOR Ms. Emily Asher HEAD EDITORS Aban Yaqub Sophie Hanson CREATIVE EDITOR Sydney Brundige ASSOCIATE EDITORS Maria Pereira Maddie Olivieri Julia Gillette

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UNANCHORED SOPHIA HANSON

High noon on the spine of the Earth.

Limbs crumpled, discarded notions That missed the waste bin.

Hair drenched with tar, voice stoppered With your own leaden tongue Color pours from your irises, Paints the flowers you crush Beneath your bones and brutal skin.

Moments peel off the face of time in hours, Fall through the net of trees wheeling above, As frail, as flat as rice paper.

They cover your skin with the veil of what could have been.

Now, shift your head to the side.

Let the grass paint pressure patterns on your cheeks.

Let your vision slide from focus, So the fine hairs on your forearm Meld with the blades of grass, Which want only to twine with your muscles.

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So the skyscrapers that sprout from the soil, Yearning fingers, scorching claws Slide back into the ground.

Brick by brick, atom by atom, into the black.

Crisping, seething in the day, you wish to follow.

Your blood follows, hot with the memory of the day.

It filters up to your cheeks, dyes them red.

Your hair stands on end, stretching up, up, up.

The trees shrivel, curl, retreating into themselves.

Your white eyes, the lids dissolved, are unafraid.

You hasten the night, yank down the blinds, Lace your eyelashes tight, double, triple knot them.

The sun is a penny through your vein checkered lids.

Relief swoons when it rolls away, down the gutter

They see themselves mirrored in the sky.

She does not speak, knows you never trusted words, But pries you, every bit of you that ever mattered, from it’s shell, Which drops like a stone, sinks like a sigh,

of the sky,

All the blood, bones, and bows.

Leaving a blanket of merciful nothing in its wake.

It lies void, waits for the Earth, the crows to feast,

You are half drenched in Earth’s cool blood

All while you drift upward, until there is no above

When you feel the tug, the static pull From somewhere past the lacework of branches.

or below.

Nestle your anchor-less self in the bosom Of the merciful moon.

You wait, it swells.

Raises a mountain range of gooseflesh on your arms, Your belly, your legs, your hands, your feet.

5

PYROMANIAC RYAN WILLIAMS

6

DESIRE HALLIE VENTLING

Missing you is every bit as rough As walking barefoot down a gravel road At three in the morning honey when It’s dark and you can feel the crisp air Swallowing you and sending chills up your back And the want stabbing into my Heart. Every step yearns for an un Attainable necessity- somewhere a phone rings, And the little things help the separation of two lovers Whom nothing can touch - no, not even distance!

Oh! The pain with which my heart does proceed Pressing like air, almost but never quite, Of wind the chill of wind the chill of wind.

7

GREEN WINGS ANNE MACLEOD

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BED OF SKY IRENE NANG

Leaving you is every bit as impossible as running a marathon under the sun at midnight darling when it’s twilight and you can see the moon vanishing into this air as if it makes room for the sun.

Stars start to make phantom constellations in its bed of sky somewhere dominated by silence, and cold air surrounds the two lovers whom nothing can hold together- no, not even love!

Oh! The loneliness with which my heart proceeds freezing like snowflakes almost but never quite of ice the cold of ice the cold of ice.

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AGE

JASON XIAO

10

ABSENCE CLAUDIA KIRBY

It is gone like the moon on the first phase There one second, gone the next I noticed it when I no longer found joy in my

A pet that finds survival possible without its owner Less unlight and less air to breathe

usual passions

Worry, stress and sadness

I talk without liveliness

It only fuels my quest

I eat and drink without enthusiasm

To recover what once kept me smiling

I stare without seeing

I will search the ends of the earth

I no longer dream but neither do I face reality

Until my life has reached its previous luster

It is gone like the passing of a loved one

And to live is once more a luxury

There one second, gone the next

That everyday I find laughter

Oh where is my happiness?

Even in the most unlikely situations

Why does it elude me?

So that my life can improve itself

It gradually disappeared with your absence

And I can once more feel the satisfaction

And since then the space it occupied has only

Of waking up to a new morning

grown deeper More hollow and more painful It increases with the lack of a home With the distancing of a friend A child's body growing while the memory of me fades

And my cloud of despair will wither away With the sunny rays that push through So this is my dream, my goal, my aspiration, To no longer dwell in sorrow I will take whatever steps necessary 11

No matter who I must eliminate from my life Or what aspects around me must change Because change is the key to my recovery Without it, I face the inconceivable fact That my life will never be whole again And that I will die miserable and incomplete No longer will this be my reality And only happiness can make me whole once more

12

FACES OF CHINA JASON XIAO

13

APRIL MADDIE ZHANG

So much happened Upon

A big rotten Mango

Passed the whole Summer

Under a Christmas Tree

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THE WEDDING SOPHIE HANSON

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HARD TO LET GO ALEX WANG

"One two three ...... Fifteen, ready? The police are coming to catch some dirty thieves!"

In Shiyan primary school's break time, one boy stood aside against the wall with his head down, his eyes were covered with a black towel to block the vision.

Other kids had already hidden in some secret places, inside of the teacher's closet, bending underneath the curtain, climbing into back of the air-conditioner. He suddenly ripped off the towel and turned around, smiling with a little exciting face and chasing those hiding fishes. There was another little boy standing at the corner of the hallway. His eyes were full of desire to play. He watched boys running around and catching and joking. He stood up, and his hands were shaking. It seemed like the hands were trying to get something, just like a young eagle swinging his wings wildly and painfully and trying to fly.

That boy, Alex, wanted friends.

Everybody was innocent back when they were kids, and so was I. I loved slapping people's butts when I first came into elementary school. After class, I would go outside to the hallway and search for my "target". Once I found a chubby guy with a fat butt, I would sneak behind him without letting him notice and slam my hands to his butt with a hugesound of "Pa", and his face would blush immediately and walk away. I would always laugh oudly and mock him. I felt funny and excited when I saw people getting awkward. Later on, all my classmates started to avoid me, some of them thought I was the most annoying kid in class. After the first year, I was isolated, and no one tried to make friends with me.

"Ding!!!" The bell was buzzing all around the hallway and classrooms. It was at the third grade in elementary school. The last period had just ended, and our classroom started getting noisy and crowded. Some people were packing their bags and walking toward the science building to wait for the school shuttle bus shifting them back home. Some girls were getting their phones out to search some nearby malls for shopping. I looked at the people around me, and they all gathered in different groups and talked about their after-school plans for hanging out. Iwas sitting on my chair at the back 16

row, and there was only the white wall behind me to accompany with me. Everything seemed so dead silent around me compared to the groups of people. I heard the sound come from the bottom of my heart, it echoed around my ears.

"I want friends," it said.

"What can I do? People all hate me. I was doing gross and disgusting things." I sighed. " Hey! Let's go to play basketball, buddy," one of the boy in the boys group suggested to his friends. I turned around and looked at him.

He was Tang, and he was the monitor and sport representative in our class. He was good at basketball, and so many girls and boys all followed after him. It seemed like there was no time he was alone. He was smiling with dimples and laughing with his friends around him.

His friends tapped his shoulder and put their arms around his neck and screamed at the same moment, "time for b-ball!"They all jumped to their seats and grabbed their bags, and they ran down to the playground. I watched them running down to the stairs. I closed my palms facing with each other tightly. I was hesitating in my mind. I wanted to take the first step out. But I immediately shook my head, I was guessing they would give me the face with ignorance and kick me out of the court since I was an annoying kid. Then I opened up my mind to give it a shot. I packed my bag and walked down the stairs. As I looked through the window, I saw they had already gotten there and were just shooting around. I counted the numbers,and they only had seven people, so they needed me to play! I felt that playing with them might actually be possible and I might break the ice. I smiled happily and kept walking. I got to the court and walked toward them. They gave me a little glimpse, and talked with each other about something, then they just kept on shooting.

I stood on the side, my body actually was starting to tremble because I was getting nervous.

"Hey, can I join in the game with you guys? And you guys still need one person so..." One of the boys interrupted my talk with a laughing sound, " Hah, We do know we need one more person. We have already saved the spot for him, and he just went to the bathroom. it is definitely not you, Wenfeng. That guy is Tang, who is way more popular compared to your chubby and silly face, loser. Just go away, will you?" The other boys chuckled and all looked at me with the eye of contempt. Some of them shook their heads and turn their backs which made me feel like they saw me as some trash they were disgusted to look at. My whole body suddenly froze, and it hurt. It was like the painful surprise you get when you get shot by a bullet in the back straight through your heart. You can't breathe or even 17

scream; Your whole body is just paralyzed, and your face turns to pure white like a dead body. I turned my face back at them. This was a whole opposite result that I didn't expect. Where did all good wishes about breaking the ice thing go? They just challenged all my dignity as a classmate. I couldn't believe they would reject me in such a harsh and straightforward way. A tear slid down my nonchalant face and puffy eyes, followed one by one, until soon, a stream of salty tear flowing down my pure cheek. "Guys, I am back, so let us get started!" I looked back and saw Tang stand near them. That boy whispered something into Tang's ear. I couldn't hear him, but I was guessing they were talking about me. He looked at me, laughing at me with his vicious smile and looks, as if telling me that this was not your world and I should go back to my lonely world with a pure white wall.

As I arrived at my home, I didn't even put down my bag. I just immediately pulled myself into the bathroom. I stood at the mirror which reflected a little chubby and upset boy. I felt like my mood fell into the bottom of a well. I bit my teeth and rubbed my hair back and forth with my hands, and then I put hands on my face and closed my eyes. I was so frustrated. I sat on the floor against the wall and bent my knees. I started thinking while chewing my finger nails. All those images in which I slapped people's butts and laughed at them suddenly froze in my brain. I shook my head and hoped it would go away. However, it got deeper and deeper so that my mocking sound kept echoing around my ears, and it was annoying. Suddenly, the feeling of guilt filled my heart. I started to realize how poorly I treated people. Tears of regrets slid down my face. Being a jackass deserved to be hated. I stood up and pulled myself into the water sink. I hoped it was the "magic" water, and I would be totally changed to a nice person after. I had already made my choice. It was time to change. The next day, I had a quick breakfast and rode to campus with the shuttle. As I climbed down the stairs. I saw Tang walking with a bunch of his friends toward the classroom. Just like usual, they were laughing and pushing each other around like those Bro's romance. The little girl who walked alone may have felt the embarrassment of walking alone compared to Tang, and she just put her head down and quickly passed by them. Those Bros pointed at that girl and chuckled. It looked like they were laughing at her. I speeded up my footstep, my heartbeat starting ascending.

I took a deep breath. I walked to their group and tapped Tang's back.

"Hi! Tang, how are you?"

"What's up? Bro..." He said that relaxingly when he turned around. However, suddenly, his eyeball expanded, and his mouth opened to form a shape of "O." He was obviously surprised about my coming. I tried to calm myself down, and I tried to make a perfect smile. It was the smile which people 18

were always eager to learn to show their best first impression of themselves when they first got acquaintance with someone. However, I was guessing I was a terrible actor. I smiled unnaturally, and it became a choked smile that brought everyone's attention. I just held it there, with expectation that he would reply back with the typical scenario like "I am good, what about you?" However, he just turned his neck back and walked away with his friends. I bit my lips tightly against each other, and I somehow felt relieved by greeting to them. I knew it would not be an easy shift.

After taking the attendance, we would sit down in our seats. Tang and his friends sat in the

middle

of the class. There was lots of crowds around them. I opened my bag and got my calculator out for the upcoming test. I also prepared a back up calculator in my bag just in case the first one would be out of batteries. "Ding!" The first class's bell was buzzing heavily.

Everybody sat at their seats and put their test pencils and calculators out. Only Tang and his friends, were still gathering together circling around the table and playing poker. Mr. Lan, our math teacher who came in with a dozens white tests on his hand, pulled students' nerves and choked their breaths. My desk mate hold his chubby hand fingers together and locked his eyebrow looking like a priest who was praying. The girl sat in front of me was getting nervous. Her entire shoulder could not stop trembling, and her teeth were rubbing against each other. I closed my eyes and hoped I would do just fine. Suddenly, one noise broke the silence. Tang was searching something anxiously in his bag. He threw all other textbooks out and pulled the bag upside down to get everything on his table.

He couldn't find his calculator, and he would definitely get strewed if he did the test by hand. Everybody just pretended calm and focus because they just worried about themselves at that point. I looked at Tang, and his face was blushing and full of anxiousness. I decided to give him a helping hand. I turned around and got my back up one out. I stood up and walked slowly to his seats. I could feel the tension from other students. They all gave me the eyes with surprise. I pretended to be calm while moving forward. Finally, I stood aside of his seat. I put the calculator on my palm and handed it to his desk. "You can have this." I smiled to him. He did not move for a couple seconds, and it felt like he had been paralyzed because of the shocking news that I was doing him a favor.

"Thank you." He murmured softly. He seemed kind of awkward and picked up my calculator.

Sometimes you ask for a lot of things in life, like a great mansion with a 1000 meter square

sophisti-

cated swimming pool and a barbecue machine, or a beautiful woman who will stay with you for the rest of days. For me, that "thank you" was what I had been waiting for. I nodded my head and went back.

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"Ding..." The bell rang again. I took a deep breathe. This week was finally over. While I was

organiz-

ing my bag, I gradually heard some footsteps which were coming toward my direction. Who was that? Maybe he or she just came and threw away some trashes they left during the whole week, or maybe he came here to give me some trouble or laughed at me. Then I looked up, it was Tang. He hold his basketball on his hands. He passed the basketball right at my chest. I caught it with surprise. He grinned at me and smiled with his dimples being seen. Then he opened his mouth and talked, "We are planning to play some basketball after school, do you want to join us, Wenfeng?"

He scratched his back head, and he turned his eyes to the side way in order to not being

nervous.

I was kind of uncertain about his motivation. I Squeezed my teeth tight, and I slid my chair back a bit.

I was still used to my comfort zone which was I stayed alone. "Well... I still have to work on my history project, but thank you anyway." I said it to him relentlessly. He smiled awkwardly and left. I put my head down in my shoulder, there was a contradicting feeling which felt like a paradox inside of me. I wanted to hang out with him, and it almost counted as my dream, but every time I put myself out there, my laughing sound just echoed back in my ears again. I felt vulnerable and frightened to the past. I didn't want to get hurt again. I packed my bag, and directly walked to the bus. “Ding..." The doorbell rang again, but it was five years after that. I became a freshman in a high school. I stood up and one of my friend tapped my shoulder. "Let's go to hang out in KTV, Shagua and Shujun are waiting for you." I suddenly hesitated, and I visualized Ang's appearance and all things happened before.

"Are you all right?" He saw me being paralyzed. I suddenly woke up from memory. I rubbed my eyes, and I hold his shoulder."

Of course I am fine, let's go!" I looked at the clouds through the window. I knew I still had the fear. The friendship thing still struggled with me, and I still felt hard to let go.

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STREET FIRE JASON XIAO

21

COLLECTION OF HAIKUS

AIDAN DOAK

Summer Out in the field hay bails are stacked tall, on the shinny silver truck bed Waiting Before the sun falls over the hill, the cicada makes his last cry Uninvited The crack in the wall invites the ants to come in and stay for awhile.

Snap Silence is broken under my feet on that thin twig and the deer runs

22

PRAY ANNE MACLEOD

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EGGS ON TOAST WITH AVOCADO ELLA EKSTROM

The relaxation of sleeping-in and endless time provides a certain hunger only filled by the simplicity of my own cooked eggs, made with love. This is a recipe made only with the most concentration and dedication as professional chefs use in meals for kings. It has no rigid time requirement, just a process. It must be made in the morning while the house is still silent, no T.V., no music, no interruptions. Once all of the fundamental requirements are met, then it is time to prepare the work place. I take out a modest sized pan as calmly as possible and gently set it on the stove.

Immediately, I turn on the burner and in one fluid movement retrieve the butter from the refrigerator, cut a piece with the hand-carved and painted Swedish butter knife (this is essential for to obtain the highest quality of cooking) and set it in the pan. While the pan assumes the correct temperature and the butter, the correct consistency, I once again go to the refrigerator and gather the eggs. This is the moment when you remember to find the lid for the pan, it must be taken into account that the lid is forgotten until now otherwise the eggs are too rigid and stern, for eggs to be proper, they must assume a flexibility and looseness of the chef. When the butter seems to be thoroughly melted, open the drawer and salvage for the vintage metal spatula once used by my great-grandmother (this is actually not essential, the second best option would be a hardy plastic spatula, moderately used.) I stir around the butter, methodically set the spatula aside and open the egg carton. I then pick up two eggs of the best condition and strategically crack them in order to not contaminate the innocent eggs with a piece of cracked shell. Once in the pan, I lightheartedly sprinkle salt and a smidgen of pepper.

I take one last look at my potentially wonderful eggs and shield them with the lid. While awaiting the beauty of breakfast eggs to be done, I pop a piece of Ezekiel bread into the toaster and find a perfectly ripened avocado to so bravely be sacrificed. I cut around the stubborn seed of the avocado and like a doorknob, twist it around it’s axis and pull the two halves of the avocado apart, revealing fresh, green delight. I take the half without the seed still dominating its surroundings and scoop it onto a cutting board. I slice it up, put away the excess avocado into the refrigerator and place in on a plate. Then I remove the newly born toast from the toaster and butter it (again with the Swedish butter knife) and place it also on the plate. I quickly transfer the avocado on top of the toast and walk over to the stove where my eggs are yet to be reveled. I finally lift my eggs from the sizzling pan on top of my masterpiece and voila, you have Ella’s eggs.

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25

TEA CUPS JASON XIAO

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TOO MUCH SWAGGER: AN INSULT POEM JACK SHAUGHNESSY

I'm not that bad!

I've made as much progress as Obama I can tackle him!

I hit like a small child.

My stance isn't that bad...

I get out of it, Like Stephen Hawking Gets out of his wheel chair.

I've played in games before , Almost as many times as Canada's been in wars I touched her inner thigh.

Woah, slow down there Hugh Hefner!

27

THE STATE OF BROKEN MARIA PEREIRA

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THE MAN IN YELLOW JOSEPH KIM

I was sitting in a dark, silent room waiting like a prisoner waiting for his death sentence. I was on the verge of getting thrown out of school with my pride and confidence in my race was completely wrecked. I didn’t have any friends that I could trust, nor did I have adults around me that I could rely on and be comfortable with.

My 6th grade year was my first full year of school in America. I got used to the American system and culture during my 5th grade year and was able to get to know a lot of people. My English got significantly better; I had a bonanza of vocabulary in my brain. I also started playing many sports like soccer, and basketball. Although I was confident stepping into 6th grade, I was still very worried about one thing: Racism. I was the only Korean in the community, except for the other two who were in ESL, thus I didn’t really have any racial advantages.

During my 6th grade year, surprisingly, I accomplished many of my goals and was able to make a transition into the community very smoothly. My report cards were rocking all A’s and A+’s. Even in English, my most feared subject, I had an A. As I started accomplishing more and more of my goals, I became more relaxed, and eventually the fears of racism didn’t even exist in my mind. My pride for being Korean was skyrocketing and my confidence in myself was higher than ever, despite the fact I was virtually the only Korean in our grade.

Unlike my very successful 6th grade year, the start of my 7th grade year however was a little bit shaky. I still maintained good grades and wasn’t late to any of my classes. I finished my work in time, efficiently, and focused extremely hard during classes. The only problem was that I was getting in trouble with teachers. A lot of them.

One day on a bus ride, I was doing homework and my papers fell on the floor. The bus driver misinterpreted the situation, and thought I was being disrespectful, so he told me to sit in the front. I tried to explain that I wasn’t doing anything, but he continued to yell at me and tell me to sit in the front. I’d yell, “Shut up you dumbass!” in Korean, knowing he couldn’t understand. I fortunately didn’t get in any trouble since he didn’t understand what I was saying, but our relationship wasn’t into a 29

very good start. This all started with a small misinterpretation, which developed into an argument and eventually became a big conflict between him and me. However, I didn’t get in big conflicts like this with academic teachers. Since my grade depended a lot of how they thought of me, we only got into minor arguments.

For example one day after getting a test back in English I would ask, “I think number 7 should be choice “b” instead of “a”, Mrs. Sidoti.”

Then she would reply, “Well it’s not.” and just move on to the next topic.

I replied with some annoyance in my voice, “I believe it is choice “b” because of these reasons.”

She would then tell me to stay after class and she would talk to me about me being “disrespectful to her.” I said I was sorry and moved on so that I wouldn’t get into any bigger trouble.

I usually got in trouble with teachers for some valid reasons, rather big or small, but there was this one teacher named Mr. Nordhaus who always picked a fight without a really good reason, like an immature little 7 year old. On the first day of class, I was asking for a pen and he started yelling at me saying that I wasn’t even prepared for class. Later in the day he sent me to the hallway because I was being “disruptive.” My science teacher would try to get me in trouble at every opportunity he had.

I didn’t know why at the time, but later I heard from Korean parents who had kids going to that school in the past that he was extremely racist against Koreans. They explained to me that it was probably because there was this one Korean student in the past that was in his class who would bring drugs to school and smoke cigarettes. He was caught by Mr.Nordhaus several times, and was eventually expelled. He apparently wasn’t the last person to be expelled by Mr. Nordhaus and consequently, Koreans didn’t really have a good reputation with him.

Because of this one student in the past I never really had a good reputation even among other teachers, but it wasn’t severely bad either. I acted like a typical 7th grade student so the teachers never really had a reason to hate me. I decided that I should just ignore him, study my hardest, and get everything right on my quizzes and tests so that his opinions towards Korean would maybe become better. I tried my hardest to not get in any conflict with him, and I was able to for the first couple of months. Then the trouble came, at a time that no one could ever had imagined.

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It was a December, only a week before the first semester ended. During the past 3 months, I had a variety of achievements, such as winning competitions and maintaining good grades, despite all the little arguments with the teachers. I think I was able to continue to do well because at least I wasn’t being put in trouble due to my race, thus I was able to still be confident in myself and be mentally strong.

Having achieved so many goals I had set for my 7th grade year, I went to school nonchalantly and relaxed, as if it were just another boring day. The same routine went on again: take the school bus, go to gym, then orchestra, then go to other classes. Well… It wasn’t exactly the same. 8th period, my last class of the day, was a bit different than what I had planned for the day. It actually may be one of the worst 45-minute sequences of my life.

Being the last full day of science class, Mr. Nordhaus decided to be “nice,” as he claims and have us write letters to each other. I thought he was just in a good mood, but I was wrong. This was actually a meticulously planned conspiracy. It was as if my teacher had the brain of the snake that got Adam and Eve to eat the apple as he tried to get me thrown out of school. I should have noticed when he gave my friend and me a marker when everyone else got a pen or a pencil. I finished writing my letter, took out my Rubik’s cube, and started turning it. As I solved the last layer and finished the cube, I saw a black permanent marker shooting at my face with the reeking smell. Next thing I notice, I was in the principal’s office.

It was my friend attempting to draw something on me with the marker. I was accused of attempting to get high during class. My science teacher sent me to the principal’s office with a report for getting high during class. I stepped into the principal’s office and my science teacher came in after about 5 minutes. He started “explaining” what happened to the principal, as I was dumbfounded by my teacher’s ability to frame a student into getting expelled.

I had a chance to explain what I thought of the incident after he (the science teacher) was done with his elaborately decorated conspiracy speech. I started with a light clap, exclaiming “What a talent Mr.Nordhaus! It would’ve been better if you used that smartness in teaching instead of getting an innocent little kid in trouble.”

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The principal attempted to interrupt, but I shut him off to state, “Do you really think a 7th grader would try to get high during a class, right in front of a teacher? Check my past record. I don’t have a single record of getting called to the office let alone the principal’s!”

He replied, “That’s the past and this is the present. Things could change over time. Besides, this incident is way to serious to be neglected.”

I answered back, “Do you actually think I was attempting to get high, or is that jackass just paying you to get me expelled?!” At the time, being a little naïve 7th grader who still wasn’t fully Americanized, I didn’t know how serious of a problem drugs were. I didn’t know that students ever used drugs, and only thought really horrible beings used it. I felt insulted to be classified as one of them and was furious.

He got furious and told me to stay in his office until he told me to come back out, and I obeyed his orders. While I sat in the dark office trying to pacify my emotions, the principal recruited his favorite members of the disciplinary committee and put me on trial. The trial was going to go on a time span of 3 days: 2 hours after school for the next 3 days. How it worked was going to be the teacher questioning me and me explaining myself to each question. Normally the school wouldn’t use this much time for a student trial, but considering the severity of the matter, they wanted to have sufficient time to make the ideal decision.

I went home and my mother asked me if something happened in school. I took advantage of the fact that the school didn’t contact my parents and didn’t tell her about this at the time. I was afraid to be punished and I thought I already had enough on my shoulders. Being on the edge of getting thrown out of school, I couldn’t concentrate on anything at all. I did horribly in my violin rehearsal and didn’t finish any of my homework. Despite all the hardship and trouble though, I tried my best to hold onto my mental focus and still do well in school, since I thought this would be the only way to beat my science teacher.

School was over and I walked into the office thinking of what my father always said to me. He always told me, “With a strong mentality, you can do anything.” I took some deep breaths and walked into the room to get myself out of trouble. There were a total of 10 people, not including the principal or me.

32

The first question came from a new teacher who just recently was hired by the school. She asked, “I heard about what happened during class, and indeed I am a little bit skeptical of Mr. Nordhaus’s claim that you were getting high, but there probably is a reason why he thought you were. Could you explain please?”

I replied, “I don’t mean to say anything bad about my teacher, but I never had a good relationship with him and he has tried numerous times to get me in trouble. I think this is a meticulously planned plot to get me in trouble. I believe that the only fault I have is being born in Korea.” At the time I didn’t anticipate how demeaning this sounded, but at the time, I thought I was just being honest and “cool”.

There were some other questions asking about my past record on tardies, absences, and detentions and I didn’t have any so I didn’t really feel pressured. The first day ended like that, so I went back home feeling half bitter and half relaxed. I finished my homework, and went to bed early that day to get myself ready for the next meeting. I tried to raise my confidence level my telling myself that I have no fault in this but it still was very hard for me.

There was a different combination of 10 people in the room and the questioning started sharp after school again. The questions were starting to get repetitive and it started getting frustrating and annoying for me after a while. My mental toughness was loosening as time passed on and I was starting to get exhausted. I stilled tried to keep my strong mentality but I lost it when a teacher stated, “We actually suspect you more than we normally would since there were other Koreans in the past being in the same incident. You being in the same race, we have to go through this case thoroughly.”

I started barking half Korean and half English to her. I don’t remember what I said entirely but it was something like, “You racist bastards! Just because some stupid fucking Korean dumbasses got in trouble for getting high in the past doesn’t make all the Koreans the same now does it? With that logic all you white people are fucking dumbasses with IQ’s of 50’s!”

I stood up, went out of room, and slammed the door behind me; day 2 ended like that. I was so pissed and lost my temper and just went straight to bed right after I arrived at home. I remember having a horrible dream, but I don’t exactly remember what it was about. The only thoughts I had at the time were “All adults are devious and are very selfish beings. They think they know everything, show off their age, but fail to understand anything about life.” My parents weren’t an except because as I continued to contemplate on telling my mother about this incidents, I anticipated that she would 33

get extremely furious with me and wouldn’t try to understand my point of view of this tragic incident.

This thought still remains in my brain until this day.

It was the last day of the trial and I apologized for my rudeness. I was expecting one of those old snakes to bite me with their fangs and start rumbling on about their word of wisdom BS, but surprisingly, they apologized back for being racist and were very friendly to me. I slowly explained what happened after I pacified my emotions and the teachers seemed to understand what was going on.

After the meeting was over, I sat quietly in the dark room again for another 30 minutes, which actually felt more like 30 years in jail waiting for a death sentence. I was biting my fingernails out of nervousness and had trillions of thoughts spur up from my head. “Would I get expelled? If so what would happen to me? How mad would my parents get? Why do these things happen to me?” As time went on and on the number thoughts shooting up in my head increased exponentially. The principal came in with a very dark aura and I thought this wouldn’t go very well. As I anticipated, he told me that he couldn’t just let me go, since getting accused of getting high is such an important matter. I got an in-school suspension and had to spend my day in the vice- principal’s office.

Although I was able to stop the school from getting me, I wasn’t able to maintain a good relationship with my teachers. I didn’t get into physical arguments with my teachers but had more mental problems. The whole incident spurred up mental breakdowns making me feels paranoid and vulnerable against racism and adults. I formed many stereotypes against adults, mostly white, thinking they are all mean, selfish, cruel bastards. My social balance with my friends and teachers started to collapse, and for a while, I became very depressed to the point where I wouldn’t talk to anyone at all.

I felt so vulnerable against racism that whenever a topic relating to race came up, I started feeling violated. At one point, I decided that I should be the one to attack other races instead of just avoiding them. When the topic about race would start to stir up within conversations, I leaped in and made demeaning jokes about other races. I thought attacking the other race would help me defend myself against all the racism against me. I wasn’t aware of the fact that not everyone would understand why I started becoming so aggressive and paranoid nor was I interested in knowing other’s opinions. I started blocking people out, even those who truly meant to help me.

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After the whole incident was over, I explained to my parents very thoroughly about what happened.

Surprisingly, they didn’t get really mad with me. Rather, they were disappointed, which in a way could actually be more painful than getting yelled at but they tried their best to help me go through the hardship. I was able to step back up with the help of my parents and some very close friends who continued to be patient with me and help me. They kept pushing me out of my comfort zone and challenged me so that I could go back to my normal self. We went to movies together and went to the library to study for tests. As my daily routine became similar to how I was in the past before this incident and I was able to slowly recover. If it wasn’t for them, my middle school career could’ve gone a lot worse. I probably would’ve kept pushing people out of my life and my social life would be totally destroyed.

One day, I was studying with a friend for our final English exam. He asked, “Why did you have such a hard time? It was just a suspension and they told you that they would make sure it wouldn’t be much of a trouble for you. I mean you’re not the only person who’s ever gotten a suspension.”

“I don’t really know. I think this incident was just a big shock to me since I’ve never experienced it before.” I replied. There was a moment of silence for a couple seconds. I thought about why I was hurt to that extent.

I explained, “I think it’s because of my attitude. If this happened when I first came to America, it would’ve probably been better since I was aware of all the racism going on in this country, but when this happened, I was full of confidence and pride for my country and myself. Consequently, I wasn’t ready to face all the trouble mentally. But at least I learned something from this incident. There will most likely be more hardships laying in my path and I cant do anything to stop it from happening, but I can always be sure that there will always be someone next to me who cares for me and help me. I have to learn to depend on them and just let things go.”

“Well that sounds deep,” he replied with a playful tone and continued on, “but it’s kind of like 3 minutes before the exam so we should probably take off! See you!”

“Good luck!” I replied, as I walked away thinking about all the things I learned from this event. I was confident that with my mental toughness that let me go through all the hardships, will be strong enough to let me survive the last 100 questions of my Junior High Career.

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A BRAIN IS NOTHING BUT A POND OF LIQUIFIED JELLO ARTHUR HE

36

N2 M4 H6 MARCUS KOPPENHOEFER

The world is so full of life, Not the life wanted by some.

You live Cheated, envying, and self-conscious.

The world So ignorant, So blind to not see what is right.

The world is diseased.

Humans are trying to find the cure but, the humans are the disease.

37

SAO PAULO SUNSET MARIA PEREIRA

38

WHY DO I SUCCEED DANIEL JOSEPH

Why do I succeed,

Never.

I succeed because I have a goal,

This is why I succeed

An end picture, An end product That I want to achieve and put to action.

I succeed because I'm willing to go the extra mile, I'm willing to take that extra rep.

I succeed because No matter who may put me down, No matter who may not want me to succeed, I maintain a positive attitude.

I succeed because I'm willing to sacrifice.

I am not shackled by fear.

I succeed because Even though I may get beaten down, I will still rise and return stronger than before.

I succeed because I will never give up.

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IN YOUR HAND VICTORIA KHODORKOVSKAYA

40

THE DEVIL’S DEN DJORDJE PETROVIC

From what I had experienced when I visited her over the summers since my fourth grade, she seemed to be a normal person. After divorcing my father in 2011, the year when I graduated from middle school, I decided to go and live with her because of my sister. I believed that we still had that brother-sister bond like we had had it five years ago before she stayed to live with her.

I moved from Serbia to Croatia right after graduating. I was supposed to go to the seaside, where she had lived when I visited her over the summers, but she welcomed me in Zagreb, the capitol of Croatia, from where we went to Karlovac. That day, we went to the house which her father had built and over which she and her mother have fought for many years. I didn't want to believe that I was there. I didn't want to be there, or anywhere near that house.

We had had the conversation about my education when she came to Nish to divorce my father. She would not let me study languages in high school because I didn't have enough points according to the school application system, although I was right on the edge of the required number of points.

Instead, I had to go to culinary school. The best culinary school in Croatia was the one where she had lived before moving to Karlovac.

My sister and I woke up early most of the days during the summer to go outside and exercise for a couple of hours. It was I who had suggested the idea. We would spend most of our days either watching TV or doing something outside just to kill the time. I wanted to fill in the gap in the brother-sister relationship that we were supposed to have, but she had been living with her for too long and had developed the same mentality as her mother. Since we were living near downtown of the small city, we would sometimes go to McDonalds to buy ice cream with the money that I had saved up throughout the previous year, but after a couple of months we moved to the house that had been

under renovation during summer which was nowhere near the city.

We spent a couple of months sleeping on pallets covered with cardboard and a couple of blankets, she and her boyfriend on one, and my sister and I on the other. There was no electricity in the house.

41

Our source of light were little candles which barely made any light. We didn't have a stove for a couple of weeks, so all we ate were tuna cans. I was sick of them.

I could see shapes in the unfinished ceiling while I was laying there, on the pallets, every night. As if they were faces of the men who had died in the house, which was used as a Serbian military base, during the civil war. She made us help her with cleaning the garden of the scrap metal that had been thrown away by the gypsies who had been living there before the renovation had started. Even though she was scared of unexploded mines and grenades, she still made us do it.

My sister and I called our father in hope that he could do something about the situation, but he couldn't. He was in shit of his own, as usual. He never knew how to handle money. After she found out about our conversations with our father, she nagged us about it for months. Everything she did to get the house, she did behind everybody's back.

Her boyfriend, who is twenty years older than she is, liked to manipulate people. He would make a small issue regarding my sister and me into an unacceptable act. Mostly about me. He couldn't control me like he did her and my sister. He couldn't play with me as with one of his "puppets". I was tempted too many times to break my knuckles yet again on smashing his skull as I had in eight grade when my math teacher gave me an undeserved B instead of a deserved A for my final grade, and I punched a wall with all of my strength and broke three of my knuckles on my right hand.

I was late for class on the first day of school. The teacher let me in, after I apologized for being late.

By the fourth period, we met a couple of teachers, one of whom made us present ourselves to the class. The usual stuff, how old we are and where we're from. After I told them that I was Serbian and from Serbia, it took me a couple of weeks to get to know a few of the kids in the class. Nobody in Croatia likes Serbians. I was that one person about whom everybody thought was strange. I had a couple of friends, if you can call them friends. It was the same way in Serbia. I was the laughing stock of the class just because I was the awkward, creepy kid in the class, but when it came to math everybody wanted help, and those whom I wouldn't help would beat me up. I didn't do anything about it. I was used to not having any real friends.

She met her boyfriend in Bosnia, when she was still married to my father. I don't know what they did during that period, neither do I want to know. She became obsessed with him, probably like his last

42

two wives, both of whom had been completely normal before they met him. Today, one of them is crazy and is living in an apartment without electricity or water. As far as the other one goes, no one knows what happened to her after he left her for her.

Her boyfriend, my sister, and I were sitting at the dining table on a Saturday morning. Her cellphone rang, but she was at work. It was her mother calling. She probably wanted to fight with her over the house again. I answered it and I got a dirty look from him. I spoke to my grandmother for a couple of minutes. I got a lecture from him about answering her phone. As I was spreading Nutella on a peace of bread, I got irritated enough to slam my fist on the table while still holding the butter knife in my hand and yell at him. When she came back home from work, he ran to her saying that I wanted to kill him and that I had spoken to her mother over her phone. I get another lesson on it from her. She never forgot it and always rubbed it in my nose whenever I would do something wrong whether it was related to the wrongdoing or not. She was never the mother that I had always expected her to be.

Every day was almost the same. Wake up, get ready for school, catch the bus to school, have a lousy day at school, come back home, eat dinner, and go to bed. And repeat. And repeat. It got tedious very fast. One day on the bus, while listening to Linkin Park, my favorite band, I see this girl who was lost in her thoughts like I was most of the time. We stared at each other on the bus whenever we sat across from each other, but we never spoke to each other. She went to the same school as I did.

Nothing happened, not even a simple "hello." I was too busy listening to music and thinking to talk to anyone.

I spoke to the school councilor every week. She was a good listener. I liked her until she called her and told her that I had been talking to her about everything that happens in the house. She was very upset with me for a long time, but I didn't care. I just liked talking to someone about what happens in that house, but after that, I didn't talk to anyone. I became isolated for a month or so, only speaking when made to.

My birthday came soon. It was December third. I woke up to change my sleeping position. My sister started nagging me to turn around so that she can wish me a happy birthday, but I told her to let me sleep. I had to tell her a couple of times. After hearing our conversation, he stood up from his computer and opened the blinds just to piss me off. I told him "fuck you" under my breath, but loud

43

enough for him to hear it. I went to the bathroom, put some clothes on, and went outside for a walk with music screaming in my ears. It was the shittiest birthday that I've ever had.

It was a weekend, the time of the week when you can rest and get your homework done, at least I thought of it that way. It was winter. Twenty cubic meters of wood had to be chopped by me. He had a hernia, he claimed, but he wouldn't do anything about it, all he would do all day was sit at his computer and do his "writing", his "soon to be famous book" on how astrology and the universe have an effect on the human being based on its date and time of birth. I had to chop all of the wood by myself. I just wanted to rest and sleep in till noon. She came home from work to see me doing my homework. He went up to meet her and tell her that I hadn't done anything all day. It was around two in the afternoon, by the way. She came to the family room and raged on me for not doing anything all day. She made me feel like a worthless peace of shit. I fought a silent war with him for a month after that. Not a single word was said between the two of us. The only contact we made was eye contact.

I was sick of life, and I didn't have desire to live anymore. During a class in school, I wrapped a scarf around my neck and tightened it as hard as I could. I started to feel the blood run through my veins, I felt wary, but didn't stop tightening it. Finally, I passed out for twenty minutes which were the best twenty minutes of my life. I fell into darkness, nothing got through to me. It's like the darkness consumes you, you're falling, endlessly, there's no bottom, free-fall all the way. You can't feel or hear anything. It's the most beautiful feeling, for me. The second time I passed out was when I had a fever of a hundred and four degrees. She made me get out of bed and eat some macaroni and cheese. I took a couple of bites and tried to go back to my bed. On my way there, I passed out and fell on the floor almost hitting the corner of the stove in the kitchen. I was sorry that I didn't. The two of them picked me up and drove me to the hospital. I experienced the most wonderful feeling during the drive there. I was just laying there, in the back seat, looking through the window above my head only seeing trees as the car moved. It was at the hospital that we found out how high my fever was because we didn't have a thermometer at the house.

That winter we went to see our father in Bosnia, where he moved after I left Serbia. He was always fun to be around. I could tell him whatever was on my mind most of the time. We have more of an empathic than a conversational relationship. He cared more about us than she ever has, even though he was away from home a lot. We had a wonderful time with our dad that winter. His friend and he

44

drove us back to Karlovac. Dad gave us a new computer, just for my sister and me. Right after dad left, a fight between her boyfriend and me broke out. We were arguing why I wouldn't let him use it.

She started fighting with me for the same subject when he started yelling at me. He's never done that before. He asked, "Who are you to tell me that I can't use that computer!?"

"I am the one to whom it belongs," I said. "And you have no right to raise your voice when talking to me!" We all went to bed after that. A couple of weeks had passed before she made me say something to him. The first thing I said to him was "fuck you" and turned my back on him.

At the end of February, she wanted a fight, so she got one. I asked why she had given birth to me if she didn't love or want me. Her response was, "your father wanted a second child." My next question was, "if you didn't want a second child, why didn't you make him wear a condom? That way you could have not had me and I wouldn't have had to know you at all."

We didn't say anything to each other for the rest of the night. The next day, when she came back from work, she told me to choose where I wanted to go. My options were the orphanage, my grandmother's place in Serbia, or back to my father's. My first choice was the orphanage because I didn't want to change schools, but I didn't go there since my sister would have had to go with me, so I went back to my father's. I packed my bags and we went to the bus station, where she tried to make amends, but I said, "screw you and your boyfriend," and left on the bus.

45

OLD RED JASON XIAO

46

AMERICA LEXI SILVER

Walking into this crowded building, feeling lonely as ever.

gun, a knife."

I'm held hostage by "She's such a loser," and

The sound of laughter fills my ears

"He's so cool!"

Girls grab by the arms, pulling each other in for

I guess land of the free doesn't apply in high

hugs and pep rally cheers.

school.

I'm surrounded by fake compliments and false "I missed you this summer! How have you been?"

I'm trapped between "Hey dude, what's up" and "It's good to see you again," I'm stuck in a room of "What is she wearing..?" and "Did you SEE those scars on her wrists?"

I've been cornered by "She's such a slut." and "She's definitely a virgin,", and "What a prude; she's never even been kissed."

I'm attacked by "Damn, what a crazy night," and "She's so lame, does she even have a life?"

I've been slapped by "Yeah, I heard she tried to commit suicide," "Took some pills, a 47

QUADRA ORCHID JASON XIAO

48

HYPOTHESIA ARTHUR HE

A man made of flesh and meat will crave for the

Of the craziness only lasts for an hour or lasts

one and only existence.

for a year but never lasts when he ages because he could not bring forth his wonder-

Of the recognition and approval of someone

land.

who he hardly know or hardly would ever know.

Of the broken stained glasses in the Church of Of the infatuation he had on the small little paper full of graphic and violent, ultra-graphic or

Beijing and the non-existing supremacy that will always look over you yet so blind.

ultraviolent swings, shots or powders.

Of the closed eyes, closed mouth, closed nosOf the feeling when he moves his limbs through

trils, closed stomach and lungs, fighting the

the flow of the blood that flows through the music that flows through artificial, electronic, man-made wires.

Of the swelling eyes of people on the street, yelling, raving, howling syllables kind or unkind that makes his guts feel revolving.

Of the kind of waking up with blondes, booze, boobs, nipple, the shaking of the body and

impulse of being inside out so that he could clean.

Of the fighting against people that put forth their life to be better then people, to achieve a goal with no feeling of completion.

Of the beauty of words, sentences, paragraphs loaded with light, sunshine, brightness,

the shaking of the hands.

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and rainbow when sides of human are ugly and

milky slime.

all he can see is the ugly.

Of the gaseous ignorance the people inhale Of the slate ride without a slate.

that turns into solids clogging their throat while trying to call for help but all you hear is the

Of the dinning without a plate.

Of the breathing without lungs and eating without mouth.

blunt vibration of their voice chord.

Of the dissection of an intestine until it becomes strings of strong meat that are bleached, cleaned inside out, flicking, swinging, resonating, as the most beautiful voice that could come

Of the consumers that are being consumed, preys that are preying.

Of the obscene ode on the garden of evil and it’s residences although he no longer lives

out of a human’s body filling the liquefied brains.

Of all the apples he ate to fulfill his dream and yet his dream is filled with apples.

there.

Of the square when people go to work or get off Of the miserable life form creeping in his bathroom, hoping for sunlight and think the

from work or maybe never work again but still blend in a mixture of crowd that he

fake light is the sunlight.

would never know.

Of the real beach and real sunlight but yet cov-

And all the pine trees he have ever seen would

ering them with a layer of white silky

fall on him, for wishing, craving too much

50

for what he does not need.

For crying for what he did not strive for.

51

FIREWORKS VICTORIA KHODORKOVSKAYA

52

TO BREAK THE GLASS MARIA PEREIRA

That night wasn’t going to last. It was cold outside, with the sound of the trees whirling to the wind, its kisses penetrating through the thin curtains and scratching the window glasses. It was warm inside, the boys were all scattered in the white sofas of the living room, absorbed by The Matrix playing in the TV. Peaceful. A sort of which only comes when you less expect.

Nero was reviving Trinity when Zé came in. I hadn’t even notice that he was missing, but his voice materialized talking loud and fast about something that I was too slow to catch. As usual, I ignored it.

What he said usually wasn’t of my interest or too confusing to catch up on, as he fluctuated between nerdy comments and responses made of pure and genuine sass to anyone who contradicted him.

Most of the times, though, I ignored him simply because I could see the glass bubble around him – and in his little world, he was unreachable.

With the corner of my eyes, I saw a glimpse of him finding his spot in the rug next to me. He didn’t ask or turn to acknowledge me – he simply caught the tip of my blanket and curled himself with it. He probably didn’t even realize what he was doing, or I was too astonished with his sudden initiative of human interaction to think of why he was doing that. I didn’t say a thing.

Something cold was brushing against my leg. It was Zé’s knee. He looked too absorbed by the movie to realize it. The cold touch suddenly became warm, and soon enough I realized that our arms were also brushing under the blanket. I didn’t move a muscle.

Something was different. He looked different. His glass bubble, always so thick and impenetrable, appeared curiously thin now. And all of the sudden, my fingertips urged to touch it.

The wind wasn’t the only thing scratching glass that night.

I didn’t feel groundless; there was simply no ground at all. They had shattered it all in an impressive blitzkrieg attack that would have made Hitler jealous. Even with nothing to support my feet on, I surprisingly was able to stand myself up after the last sentence was pronounced, but I couldn’t hold myself back from thinking about their faces – especially about their eyes. Emotionless wouldn’t 53

describe it well. They were drained from any source of sparkle or color, only darkness remaining, like an intimidating white shark’s stare seconds before it devours its prey. And while they devoured me, I took a moment to face them, to look directly into their eyes, and I felt my heart draining out of air with terror. A tiny, shy glimmer amidst the shadows of their eyes. They were enjoying it.

The whole thing still echoed in my head, but those last words were as clear as black on white. My mind was a blank page. My legs seemed to move by themselves, trying to lead this body away from them in the hallway. The bell rang, announcing the end of the break, and I raised my eyes to see Mari coming. She slowed her pace as she came towards me, as if she was trying to avoid contact with a leper in the street. And she had her look upon her face. Her look. Like a small, defenseless cute white bunny when facing Alice’s hole.

“How are you?” In that low, confused voice of hers, she asked, barely asking anything at all.

“F-fine, I gue…”

I heard the girls – the sharks – behind me calling for her. She turned her head in a weak smile at first, then a chuckle as she left me behind to meet them. The little cute bunny had found its way back home.

“We hate you.”

Barbed wire was unwound between them and I. No one dared to trespass either side, except for Mari, of course. With her sickening fabricated worry and irritating low voice, the cute bunny jumped back and forth across the wire, barely scratching its immaculate white fur. I felt humiliated – but I didn’t have the guts to go on a bunny hunt.

On my side of the battlefield, I was reading Byron’s biography. His complicated life sometimes had the power to make mine seem ridiculously irrelevant.

“He was a psychopath, to say the least.”

Startled with the sound of being directly spoken to in so long, I raised my head to see Zé staring back at me. He was half-sitting half-standing in the chair in front of my desk, the last one in the row, with his classic undefined look. He looked at everyone like that. Facial muscles relaxed in his mask; eyebrows down in a chronic expression of either boredom, superiority, or both; lips so thin and tight 54

against each other that you’d wonder if any words ever came out. Never stepping out of his glass bubble.

“He was a poet. He had a different way to look at things,” I talked back, glancing back at the paragraph I had stopped at. I was not up to deal with Zé’s shenanigans today.

“Of course, because being a poet is the perfect excuse for killing people and using their skull to drink wine. Sure.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but I gave up right away. It was useless to discuss with him.

Completely useless. I went back to my reading, but I couldn’t concentrate. I felt his look burning down on me.

Are you ok?

At first I thought I didn’t hear it right – it was just an echo in my mind.

“Are you ok?”

I looked up at him, astonished. I thought I would see the pitiful look on his eyes, just like I had on everybody else for the past week, but I didn’t. I saw the guy who had been sitting next to me for the past months with a different book every three days. I saw the weird-looking guy who was always by himself and had his hair always messy because of the headphones he used to escape the world. The sassiest and most rude guy I’d known. I saw his blurry glass bubble protecting him from everything and everyone, so distinct amid air that I wondered if him – or anybody – had ever tried to break it.

“What do you think?” I finally asked, regretting sounding so rude.

“I think you are not, but I can be wrong.”

Suddenly feeling very tired, I closed my book and held my head in the palm of my hand. I replied his stare, hoping that he might find something in my eyes that I couldn’t say out loud.

“Is there something I can do?”

Was that the sound of a crack in his bubble glass that I heard?

“I don’t think so,” I lied.

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“Well, I’m here if you need to talk,” he said, and he left.

“Hi,” I said, looking down to the ground.

“Hi,” he mumbled, sitting curved in his book.

I didn’t even waste my time asking if I could sit down with him, I simply did. Across from him, I could finally see how his hideout felt like from someone in it. We would always pass by him during the breaks, the sharks and I ignoring him coldly. Recently, however, I’ve become utterly interested in it, but a sense of unworthiness kept me from approaching it. Who was I to invade his private space?

Who was I to come closer? Who was I to defy his little world’s order?

I had a book on my own too – something that I thought would be my passport into his world. The Complete Tales of Edgar Allan Poe. “I guess Byron wasn’t enough of a psychopath for you,” Zé’s mumbling took the shape of a strong voice all of a sudden. His eyes were half staring at me half reading a stanza from his own book. So he had noticed me there.

I’m trying different things,” I responded, caught uneasy all of a sudden.

He looked up at me, with a half-smile.

“I don’t even want to know what these things are.”

I laughed easily on getting the joke. I thought I was laughing with myself, but I caught a glimpse of a giggle on his lips with the corner of my eyes. I made him laugh.

He was reading The Book of Disquiet, by Fernando Pessoa. As he told me later, Pessoa was his favorite poet. He asked me who mine was, to which I replied that I had many. Another joke on Byron, of course, was made, and the uneasiness quickly disappeared. That hideout that he made out of one of the corners of that school full of sharks, next to the library, close to the gardens, and far away from the noise of the patio, felt more like an oasis.

As the days went by, I didn’t feel like I was invading that world anymore – I felt part of it. Some days we talked more than we read, others I felt as if we were still talking even as the pages were silently

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turned. He wasn’t a stranger anymore. But his bubble glass was always there, protecting him even inside that place that was supposed To be a refuge.

He sometimes looked as if he were choking with the compressed air inside. But who was I to break it?

I told him. I was straightforward, crystal clear, honest. No room for misunderstandings. It was one in the morning here when I typed the fatal words. Three when he visualized them there.

It took him forever to respond.

“What do you mean?” the first sentence popped up on my Skype chat.

What do I mean? What do I mean?! I thought I was being as clear as I could possibly ever be in my life!

More words followed from him. “Because you’re the person whom I trust the most, and one of the few, if not the most, people that I care about.”

I took a deep breath. It felt as if someone had broken the glass wall of a huge aquarium and now water was coming down in massive waves, compressing everything.

I was drowning.

“And does it go beyond that?”

“I don’t know.”

“I told you that I don’t like answers like ‘I don’t know!’”

“What if ‘I don’t know’ is the truth? Would you ask me to lie?”

“No.” I didn’t know how longer until my lungs exploded with the water. “But you wouldn’t play with me either, right?”

“Never.”

I love you. It’s like explaining what water tastes like.

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And just like that, the night was over. So fast, so swift, like the feeling you get after waking up from the delicious torpor of a dream. The party had ended a couple of hours ago, but the music was still echoing in the back of my head. Piles of opened presents, wrapping paper, undone ribbons, and fancy gift bags guarded me like my personal bodyguard. The extreme happiness that I had felt hours ago was starting to fade – just like the hyper effects of heroin in your veins.

But something was missing. Better said, something was back.

I didn’t remember feeling like this in months – disappointed, empty almost, upon realizing that something that you wanted to have happened didn’t. The fool’s paradise. And I knew all too well the last time I had felt this way. I was trying to break someone’s glass bubble for them, and I ended up with nothing but deep cuts and stitches.

My feet hurt because of all the dancing, so I turned to massage them a bit. My dress, which I refused to take off until it was undoubtedly time to let that night go, floated with the movement and got stuck under one of the packages. I turned my head to face it, and then among all the pictures of the packages of that night in my head, I remembered it.

When I opened that one I couldn’t tell right away from whom it was. It was a small, rectangular package wrapped with plain light green paper. I ripped the tape – I thought how rather unusual it was to wrap a present with plain, simple scotch tape - from the paper uncaringly, and then I stopped. My hands froze under the weight of the ripped package, and I stared at the content for a moment.

Poetry. Two hard-back books of Fernando Pessoa and Camões, to be precise. Aching with a burgeoning expectation, I opened Pessoa’s book first, then Camões, anxiously running my fingers through their pages multiple times before I gave up looking. No card. No message. That was it. And in the middle of all that delusion, the deception, the fool’s paradise, I couldn’t help but to smile and think: That’s so him.

Now the tip of my dress was stuck under the two volumes. I turned to pull my dress from it when the green wrapping paper was brought out along with it. And it was only then that I saw it.

I felt my heart missing a beat with the sudden memory of his handwriting. It’s funny how sometimes you only realized you missed something when you see it after a long time – and that tells you how badly you missed it, depending on how much you heart hurts on realizing it. Before even reading the 58

message, I caught myself looking at his handwriting. I had seen it so many, uncountable times before, but now it seemed like I had found a diamond amidst dirt. The handwriting that every teacher complained about, so sloppy and careless. Memories of him during sitting in the classes of physics, Portuguese, history, math, hurriedly taking notes so that he could go back to his books. Memories of him sitting in front of me, the closets I had even gotten to him. Sitting with his bulletproof glass bubble.

I tried to break it for him. I ended up cutting myself instead.

Was it worth it? Everything is worthy If the soul is not small. - Fernando Pessoa

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PERFORMERS

VICTORIA KHODORKOVSKAYA

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BROKEN HOUSES JOYCE CALDWELL

I bet if I put my Ear to the walls of That broken house, I would be able to hear My parent’s voices Growing angry and loud, And I bet I would mistake It for the Television blasting The same way I did back then.

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SALT AND SUGAR JULIA GILLETTE

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LOVE LETTER FROM HAIRDRYER TO BATHTUB LEXI SILVER

Like oil and water, my friends say that we don't mix.

They laugh in my face, tell me it’s stupid.

Just a game of mindless tricks.

But they don't understand, how strong my love is for you.

Oh Bathtub, full of bubbles and water so blue.

Why can’t we be together, I ask.

We love each other, it’d be such a simple task.

Our love would be electrifying.

Our love is a soap opera But I am willing to sing along with you.

I know you think that I am hot-headed, But I will stay good tempered, as long as we are wedded.

Bathtub, I love you Always I swear, You are my forever We make the best pair.

Dangerous.

Life threatening.

Powerful, strong.

Something worth never forgetting.

Oh Bathtub, You are bubbly and loving, I find A slippery love, sure, but is there any other kind?

We suit each other perfectly, and imperfectly too, 63

PUFFY

SYDNEY BRUNDIGE

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ADDY'S HAIR RYAN WILLIAMS

As wise man Thom Filicia once said: "MEAN PEOPLE ARE NO FUN." Not a day goes by I don't thirst to travel back in time and smack some sense into eight-year-old Ryan. If I could, I'd say, "JESUS, RYAN. Stop letting people shit on you all the time. You are not a toilet so stop acting like one." I really wasn't even a sensitive child, I was just passive...sheeplike. Actually, a sheep was the perfect way to describe me. In second grade, I basically followed this one bitch, Susie, around like I was her servant child. But no, I wasn't even that. I wasn't even considered a human when she was around because I was her little black sheep. Baa baa black sheep, need a toy to play. Yes ma'am, yes ma'am, right away. She herded me around, snapped at my heels, and shaved me clean of my confidence. Unfortunately, I was the shiny new penny at school and my mother had some strange motive to venture into the office and ask the principal for the house numbers of four of the most outgoing girls in my grade.

From what I've read, outgoing, in any context, is never defined as vicious. Yet, somehow, Susie's name ended up on that list. Out of the four my mother called, only her parents called back.

I was immediately shipped over to Susie's house to play with our American Girl dolls. I sat on the floor with her, brushing my Addy doll's hair, as Susie brushed hers. Susie's doll was one of those fancy create-your-owns, and it really looked just like her. She named the doll Suzy (with a Z). Suzy had light skin, long, flawless brown hair and light brown eyes. Susie had light skin, long, flawless brown hair and light brown eyes.

Addy was different, and that made me squirm a little. Addy was a "historic" doll, an escapee from slavery during the Civil War, which I did not fully understand at the time. But I could still tell she was different. I didn't get to customize Addy, but I guess she looked like me. They made her with big cheeks, dark brown eyes, and long brown hair that was very texturized. I didn't understand why my doll's hair couldn't be as shiny and smooth as Susie's.

Susie brushed her doll's hair in long, gentle strokes which were virtually soundless. When I brushed Addy's hair, it was scratchy and raucous. I did my best to make Addy's grooming as neat as Suzy's, but, try as I might, Addy's hair didn't budge. Susie's skin crawled as it started falling out a little. Each fiber that left Addy's head irked her into small spasms of irritation.

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"Ryan, you're getting hair all over my floor. Clean it up."

Heebie-jeebies. My blood ran cold as I smoothed back my own hair and obediently stood to pinch and pull Addy's thin brown strands out of Susie's carpet. I ran to the trash as fast as I could and sat back down ever so slowly, so as not to disturb the queen.

My eyes flickered up at Susie a couple times as I pretend-brushed Addy's hair. After a while, though, I got bored and started really brushing it again.

I nearly wet myself when I suddenly noticed Susie hovering over me. Her tiny hand had clenched the hair brush so hard I squinted in preparation for the thing to explode into a million pieces. Her cheeks were bright red and I could almost swear there was a fleck of fire kindled beneath her glistening eyes. As a child, I always imagined people in this such mood with smoke blasting out of their ears.

"Ryan, how many times do I have to tell you. You're literally getting on my nerves," she spat. Boy, that thing she did with her syllables when she was upset—stressing nearly every other word—it really goaded me.

I wanted to cry.

She swiped Addy out of my arms, marched her to the bathroom, swathed her head in toilet paper, and pitched her into the sink.

I panicked.

Susie walked back over and sat down in front of me, only to return to her brushing routine. She never made eye contact.

After what seemed like forever, she raised her eyebrows—in that way she always did— and said, "Some dolls' hair just aren't meant to be brushed." ...what was that supposed to mean?

Funny thing though, nine years following our playdate, some of the girls during volleyball practice were rollicking around the gym to "Heads Will Roll", whipping their ponytails around and around. Wishing to join the fun, I attempted to whirl my spiral-wound hair simultaneously with theirs. It, instead, jerked in a straight line. They only said: "Maybe your hair isn't mean to be whipped." Oh, alright.

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I d i d n ' t s p e a k , s o I s t a r t e d p i c k i n g a t m y f o r e h e a d .

"Maybe you can take it to the doll hospital and get her a new head or somethin'."

"But she doesn't need to go to the hospital," I whimpered. "That's how she came."

Susie didn't hear. "When my doll's hair got all ratty like that, we took her to the hospital and they gave h e r a b r a n d n e w h e a d . A n d e a r r i n g s . " I c o u l d o n l y s t a r e a n d h u g m y k n e e s f o r t h e r e m a i n d e r o f t h e p l a y d a t e .

That night, I took Addy to my mother with the toilet paper still wrapped around her head. "Oh no!" she playfully cried. "What's happened to poor Addy?"

"Mommy, do you think it's ok if we take Addy to the hospital tomorrow?" I offered my mother the doll.

"Hmmm, I don't know, she looks pretty healthy to me!"

My head fell down between my shoulders. "Well, um, uh, Susie said that maybe we should take her to the doll hospital because they could fix her hair."

As an expression of anguish fell over my mother's face, I began to wonder, If I went to the hospital, could they fix me too? If Addy's hair wasn't meant to be brushed, what was it meant for? And if my hair isn't meant to be whipped, what is it meant for? Why is everyone else's hair meant for brushing and whipping, everyone except me?

It's a shame a second grader could have so much self-doubt. I grew up hearing my mother repeat the words "black is beautiful" almost every day when she would braid my hair. Black is beautiful...black is beautiful...black is beautiful. Growing up was not a struggle of me being black, it was of me being different, maybe even a little weird. All my life, I've been reminded I am different, whether it was on purpose or by mistake.

Kindergarten was an example of one of those unpleasant, stinging mistakes. Everything used to be sunny and golden and promising. Stepping into a vibrant room everyday with beaming faces, group hugs, and the smell of peanut butter jelly sandwiches was an antidote for childhood blues.

Story time was a series of electrifying moments; tales of the classic (but wonderful) princesses and talking animals brought a smile to every pair of lips, and I even sort of liked the books about history.

Plopping myself down in the back of the story circle was my place. While everyone else strained their

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eyes at the pictures through a wall of ever-moving heads, I listened quietly. She read a story of Abraham Lincoln, a tall and lean fellow who made a pretty big splash in history and somehow— "And if not for Abe Lincoln, Ryan wouldn't be sitting with us today."

Suddenly it seemed as if everything stood still, and the heads of all the children made a complete 180 degree turn, gaping at me through big stony eyes. I became, all at once, an alien to the entire kindergarten. I was a weed amongst a nosegay of daisies, plucked from the earth and dumped in the trash.

What else could I do but fix my eyes on the carpet and hold my breath? I just sat there with a lump in my throat as big as a gumball. Seconds felt like hours, but I didn't dare look into the eyes of my classmates. Finally, the teacher continued on to a fable with talking animals, and peace was restored among the children. My lips parted and a gust of hot air was released from my lungs. Shame and humiliation forced me into a state of apathy, bringing new feelings of seething enmity towards my teacher. I never told my parents.

I've never learned how to exist as "different." I was never sure whether to front a "screw you" kind of personality to the world, or to bury my head in the sand whenever I sensed I was being judged. I chose the latter for the majority of my life, but I realized if I'm constantly sticking my head in the sand, I'm gonna be pretty full of shit. The people who resist harsh criticism in life are the ones that only believe their own reflection in the mirror and choose to, instead, change the reflections of others. For example: Susie.

I realized this on my 12th birthday. I was celebrating at Key Lime Cove, an indoor water park that felt and looked like summer, even in the piercing cold of early January. Four friends was all my mother allowed me to bring, although, this was not a heartbreaker for me since four friends sounded about like everyone who tolerated me.

Ten barefoot little feet had eagerly plodded through the shallow pools of malodorous chlorine waters and made their way up to the water slides. Only, we made it up about three steps because the place was packed. For reasons yet to be discovered, Natalie decided to take in her surroundings and share them with the world.

"Wow, I'm the only white person here," she chirped.

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It was true, though. The park was certainly sardined with people who were anything but white. Funny, I hadn't even realized this until she pointed it out. I began to think out loud: "Wonder if this is what everyone else feels like when I'm the odd one out." I craned my neck left and right, in search of another white or whitish person to mitigate Natalie's unease. I wasn't exactly sure if I wanted to help her. My intentions were comparable to watching my little brother set an ant afire with his magnifying glass; a part of me wanted to snatch it from his hands and pump the biggest amount of possible air from my lungs to smother the flames. Yet, another part of me itched to watch the insect immolate, to scrutinize the way it blazed.

I heard Natalie mumble her last sentence again under her breath. The look on her face was priceless.

I bet she never imagined she'd be the speck of lint sticking out on some dark clothes! I couldn't contain a couple of giggles and snorts towards the poor thing. She wouldn't stop shuffling around the steps, and her arms folded breathlessly above her chest as goosebumps budded from her skin. It was difficult to deduce whether she was having the chilly kind of chills, or the freaking out kind of chills.

Natalie murmured again.

"It's fine, Nat. I mean at least we're not gonna judge you."

Did I just say that? The moment those words slipped out of my mouth, I knew I was toast. My attention was hypnotically drawn to her, powerless against the bristle of her narrowing eyes and rapid gulps of air. If looks could kill... Swiftly, and without warning, that girl slapped the shit of out me, and I had the marks to prove it.

Natalie stormed away and the remaining girls didn't budge. I contemplated the consequences that would arise if I charged after her and busted up her face. I could not execute this act for two reasons: 1) Things that go well in my head never turn out well in the real world, and 2) I knew the hit was deserved entirely for me. Some crooked, eternal flame in my body flared up and gave rise to a side of me that had always longed for reprisal. Never had I felt so low, or been so prejudiced as to make Natalie my scapegoat to heal the wounds inflicted by the real transgressors. I was worthy of much worse than a slap to the face.

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Everything was flip-flopped into this horrible, tangled mess. I'd arrived at Key Lime Cove with four girlfriends, and left instead with three black friends, and one white friend. I'd arrived at kindergarten as a child, and returned instead as Abe Lincoln's miracle. And I'd arrived at Susie's house with a head full of hair, and left instead with nugatory frizzies.

Addy's hair stayed the same.

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PALM TREE JASON XIAO

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BRAZIL IN WORDS MARIA PEREIRA

!

HEARTLESS MOM LEAVES NEWLY BORN CHILD TO DIE IN DUMPSTER Salvador, Bahia, 1942

Every 10 out of 10 scholars agree that the most distinguishable, the most important and undeniable characteristic that makes the female species unique among all beings on Earth is their capacity to love unconditionally their offspring. They need not love classes, for they are the masters of the subject and perform their job with marvelous perfection. As our beloved Freud said once, “I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a mother’s protection.”

Thus, what can we gather from the inhumane monstrosity that happened during the night of past Thursday, in the alley between the Praça do Pelourinho and Santa Maria street? The vile responsible, identified as the unemployed maid Rosa dos Reis, 32 years old, coldheartedly left her daughter of twelve days old to die amidst trash and rats. Around two-thirty in the morning, few minutes after the abhorrent atrocity was committed, the poor baby’s desperate cries woke some of the citizens of nearby homes. Pluto Ferreira, a steel mill worker and one of the witnesses awoken by the noise, affirmed that the baby was wrapped in two thin blankets when he kindly took the baby inside his home to feed him. Authorities arrived the following morning with a social agent to take the baby to a foster home and express their gratitude to such a benevolent human being. God bless his soul.

The presumed mother was never found. Acquaintances of the monstrous women, as heartless as the devil, reported that she left no explanatory note for this unspeakable crime.

The night was hot and humid. The acrid filth of the Pelourinho streets blended with the strong salt from the wharfs, but that scent wasn’t anything but pungent dirt inside the alley. Hard to see, blending with the putrid darkness, the shadow of a women stood still, staring at the pile of linking trash that composed the profile of a commonplace dumpster.

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In her apparent stillness, she was shaking. She held something in her arms, something that at first looked like a package of mangy blankets and a pair of eyes sealed by a calm sleep. His skin, just like the sky above the alley, was black. The baby’s tranquility enraged her. How could she be so serene?

How dare she, be immersed in a soundless sleep in a place like this? In her indignation, the woman’s legs shook like bamboo trees.

The baby slept, ignorant to her mother’s fury. It had been months since the woman had any rest in sleep. In her last months of pregnancy, her back hurt as if Satan himself had been pulling her bones out of her body in a slow and steady pace. Her husband left her when she was five months pregnant.

When she woke up one hot morning in the favela, despite the existence of any kind of explanatory note, she knew he had left her. She couldn’t bear to make love with him anymore because of her growing tummy and indisposition, so he found another woman – younger, prettier – to love.

Not that she didn’t feel sad at first, but some sort of relief established inside her, greater than grief.

She wouldn’t have to worry about his drunk nights anymore, when he reminded her so much of her dad she almost called her husband by her father’s name, coming through the porch of the slum just to run against pots in the kitchen, waking her up in the middle of the night and complaining that he was hungry. She would then get up from bed, put on her frayed night robe and fry him something similar to meat in used oil, praying that the neighbors didn’t awake to the loud cries and complaints from her husband and call the police.

After he was gone, a strange blessing came down to her in that insignificant favela (1) house in the form of a slender young man who looked like he had just got out of his adolescent years. Beto was his name. She used to see him around the neighborhood in his baggy shorts, flip flops, and worn out shirt that was too big for him, and in her yearnings of a better life, she daydreamed about his gentle light eyes and slim hands caressing hers. After her husband left, she realized that in her fragile mobility she was unable to feed herself and the baby. That day Beto appeared at her porch with some extra milk and a piece of meat that he had saved from the last barbecue felt as if Angel Gabriel himself had appeared before her with a message from God. After that he began stopping by her house almost everyday until he began sharing the same bed as her. In her 32 years she had never felt so loved that she did with Beto.

Naturally and slowly, another kind of love made residence in her heart as well – in her 7 months of pregnancy, she felt for the first time affection for the child she was bearing. Gradually and innocently, 73

plans for the future rested in her mind – plans of being the mother she never had, plans of admitting her to the studies she never had, plans of having a family and a father, like Beto, that she never had.

However, Salvador is a heartless city for the poor, and in the favelas violence reigned. Beto went to the beach one day to make his living when an arrastão (2) dozens of other victims, caught in it, and a lost bullet hit him in the back. At the same time of the shooting, miles away from that cold Salvador beach, the woman went into labor and was taken to the hospital immediately. She had the baby, a healthy little girl, but barely survived it. She had lost blood, liters of blood, and passed out for three days.

When she woke up, she had missed the funeral. Her daughter was still healthy, the doctors said, and that was all that mattered.

Now she was there, at that dark, fetid alley, holding the parasite responsible for all her pain. If it wasn’t for her, he would still be alive. They would have gone home together, she would have laid in bed and breastfed the baby while he prepared dinner. After, they would sleep together and love each other and forget about the pain. After, she would get a job as a maid and he would leave his thievery to a noble job. After, the baby would go to school and they would move to a better place and leave the favela forever. After.

The woman held the baby in her arms, but not close to her heart. She wanted to touch it as least as possible – in fact, all she could think was how she wanted to strangle it. She imagined the soft bones of its neck cracking to the sound of her calloused hands around it. It was so easy, almost too easy.

What she could do? It was just a baby, an insignificant insect in comparison to the full-grown woman.

But something was keeping her from doing it. It was something lighter than rage, sweeter than revenge, and dimmer than love. The woman suddenly felt the urge to put her finger around the baby’s neck and gently suffocate her – tenderly. She wanted to kill it, get rid of that cockroach – but lovingly.

A window slammed hard with the breeze in the distance, and her heart started pounding. She rushed towards the pile of trash and laid the baby on a full plastic bag. The woman picked up another plastic trash bag and placed it on top of the baby before running back to the entrance of the alley and disappearing in the dark and putrid streets of Salvador.

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NUMBER OF ABANDONED CHILDREN IN STREETS IS THE HIGHEST IN HISTORY OF NATION Rio de Janeiro, 1970

With the census having taken place this year, millions of Brazilians were shocked with the numbers revealed. But population growth and national exports weren’t the only rates that boosted in this last decade. Directed by Maria Braga Ferreira, conductor of census-related studies in society, a study revealed that astonishing 8 million children and adolescents between the ages of 5 to 17 live in the streets of cities in Brazil.

In her study, Maria Braga interviews 86 children that have lived or still live experiences like that, and the results are impressive. These children hang around in corners, wandering, involved with prostitution, drugs, and thievery. The result of such a brutal injustice? Streets are more dangerous, roads are being overpopulated with sick beggars, tourism declines due to such a disgusting view.

We can’t let our children play in the streets anymore for they might get raped or kidnapped. We can’t drive around the city with windows down for we might be pointed a gun at and robbed. We can’t trust our change to little children because we would be contributing to the drug commerce.

Her main goal with this study, she affirms, is to expand the awareness of the Statute of the Children and the Adolescents to possibly eradicate the outstanding number of homeless children. According to the statute, “Every child has the right to life, health, freedom, education, culture, and dignity.”

In a parallel study sponsored by the government, over two hundred foster homes and day care centers have been built during the years of 1950 and 1968. Most directors of these centers affirm that the children are aware of such centers, but prefer the streets to free care and food. Even children already enrolled in such centers sometimes escape to go back to thievery and drugs. Why? Alberto Carvalho, the director of governmental foster home Para Todos states, “They prefer the streets over caring centers where they can find love and a home simply because it is easier to comply with thievery. Drugs, sex, violence; it’s easier to find them in the streets, and most thief kids are just looking out for trouble. They resist all they can to discipline.”

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His little legs sprinted through Copacabana Street, the sand from the beach in his bare feet like white foam against rocky brown mud. Soon the sand was substituted by the cement gravel of Rio’s dirty streets, making the desperate run more painful to his still soft feet. Pedestrians avoided his way, discreetly entering a random store or even changing sides of the street on seeing that black little boy running at them. He looked like he couldn’t be 7 years old yet, but these days you never knew the danger’s true identity.

He wiped the hot tears that escaped from his eyes with his baby-fat fingers. His butt still hurt from this morning’s whipping, but there was nothing he could do to avoid it the second time that afternoon. Her mom had said it, “R$20.00 or else yo don’t get food and a good whipping to teach y’all manners.”

One whipping’s pain per day was still manageable; however, when his work’s profit in the traffic light had summed less than what agreed for every day’s profit, his mom’s angry tone and large, fast hand beating him with her thick leather sandal was more than enough to leave his body burning with pain and his heart pounding with fear.

He couldn’t take it, so he ran before the whipping was finished. That would infuriate his mom even more, but he avoided thinking about it for now. He would have to sleep in the streets tonight again.

In his frantic escape, he forgot about the most important lesson that street children learn when couldn’t even walk by themselves – to know exactly where in the city they were in the city like a sixth sense in their bodies. It was crucial for survival. Rich neighborhoods meant strict patrolling; poor neighborhood meant violent crossfire between the police and drug dealers. But all that occupied the little boy’s thoughts at that moment wasn’t to survive the mean patrolling that often spanked him in alleys; it wasn’t to survive lost bullets from gang fights. It was to survive his mom.

He finally stopped running, and he sat at a nearby bench with his legs weary from the sudden exercise. He caught his breath and looked around, finally noticing the park he had run himself to. It was a nice park, he thought, with the midday sun escaping through the verdant green of the trees, neatly-cut bushes, rows and rows of planted flowers composing a breathtaking picture that reminded him of one of those huge billboards that advertised for a travel company. How he wished he could leave this putrid city and go to those places….

“Hi!”

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The voice startled him. Immediately he saw a young girl a little older than him, rosy cheeks and caramel eyes. Her hair was divided in two braids, and she wore a blue dress that made her white skin stand out. Beside her, a huge white Labrador with shiny pelage rested from the walk. The dog was beautiful, just like the girl. He was suddenly aware of his brown, ugly skin, ragged clothes and bare dirty feet. He felt infuriated.

“Who do you think ya’re talking to, girl?” He wanted his voice to sound serious and threatening, just like when his older brothers sounded when they were making money in the streets.

“I think I’m talking to the only one next to me, boy!” Her confused expression rapidly vanished into a smooth naivety again, something that unsettled the boy even more. How dare she talk back and not feel scared?! “Did you see the ice-cream man passing around here by any chance? I wanted to get some lemon popsicle.”

The boy didn’t respond, instead he locked his eyes to the ground, hoping she would go away if he ignored her. That wasn’t the case.

“Hey you, boy, I’m talking to you!” She asked a second time. He didn’t have another option than to answer her. “… N-no.”

Then, absentmindedly she sat down in the bench next to him and said, shaking her body like a doll, “Oh well, that’s too bad.”

He didn’t know what to reply, so he was caught in the surprise of having someone so close to him. He moved to the side a bit, still very embarrassed – and from the corner of his eyes he saw the girl’s profile looking extremely thoughtful, as if she were debating over the situation of the ice-cream man.

“I’m sure he will come back though. He’s always at this park, selling all flavors of popsicles. My mom loves chocolate, just like my sister, but I prefer lemon.” She looked at him for a second, as if making her point clear. Then she stopped talking, and the boy started sweating with the thought that she had finally realized whom she was talking to. Any moment now, she would start running away from him.

Any moment now.

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“What’s your favorite flavor?” she turned and asked him, in a genuine curiosity that somehow unsettled the boy more than it would if she had run away.

“W-what?”

“What’s your favorite popsicle flavor?” She repeated the question, with a tone that made the question sound like the simplest thing she had ever said in her life.

“I-I doesn’t know.”

“How come you don’t know?” She raised her eyebrows, and shook her shoulders. “Ok, I get you point. There are so many flavors that sometimes it’s hard to pick a favorite.”

“N-no, that’s no it, I-I just…” He stopped.

That girl. Why? So pretty, so rich. How dare she be nice to him? How dare she even look at him!

Didn’t she praise her life? Didn’t she know who he was? Anger poured down to his body like lava burning everything it touched.

“Hey, why are ya asking me all these question? Do you know who ya is talking to?”

“Oh, I see. My name is Angela. This is Branco,” she caressed the Labrador’s head, making it close its eyes with contentment. “What’s your name?”

“It don’t matter! You really don’t know who am I? I live in the streets, I steal money, I’m dangerous! You should be scared of me! Real scared!”

“Well, but I’m not.” She simply replied, folding her hands that held Branco’s collar on her lap. With that calm gesture, that tranquility that the boy couldn’t guess where came from disarmed him. His angry face now was a mixture of utter confusion and curiosity.

“B-but, I look like a thief!”

“Just a little dirty, that’s all. But one time I was just as dirty as you after playing in the rain, and I went to my mom and she got really mad, but she washed it for me.” The girl said, with a smile. “I can go to your mom with you if you want. That way she won’t be able to get mad because moms don’t get mad when other people are watching.”

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The boy shook his head at the ground, negatively. “My mom don’t care about dirty clothes. She care about me none. She only care about money,” the boy said, a bit more to himself than to the girl. Then he remembered about her mother, and what she would do to him when he came back penniless.

He turned his head to her, a hint of desperation in his eyes. “Do you have money? Don’t lie to me, I know you do! My ma told me to beg for money and I really need money!”

The girl opened her right hand, and four coins of one Real (3) shined in the sun. The boy’s eyes scintillated with the vision of money – he rarely saw coins of one Real in the streets; it was always only five cents, ten cents, even fifty if he was lucky. He stretched his hands to grab it from her.

“Hey! Hands off!” She closed her hands again, in an angry tone than again became passive in a split-second. “I can’t give this to you. This is money for ice-cream. I can get you a popsicle if you want.”

“I don’t want a popsicle! I want the money!” The boy stood up from the bench, furious. His yearn to look threatening came back, along with the wish of being taller. He, standing up, was as tall as the girl sitting down. “Give it to me! I’m stealing it!”

“No, you can’t steal this! This is mine!”

“Alright! If you won’t let me steal your money, I’m stealing your dog!”

He then violently took the dog’s collar from the girl’s hand and started running away from her. He heard her screams behind him, and even turned to see the girl’s face contorted in sadness. He laughed. He was better than her. He could do as he pleased; in the streets he was king. She was imprisoned by money and family. He had no family, no one to please, no one to love. Love didn’t feed you, love spanked you with a leather sandal. If that was love, he preferred hatred. Hatred made him feel special, better than others. He hated that girl, so he was better than her and her love.

But then the girl stopped screaming. He turned to see why, meters away from her, and he saw the girl sitting back in the bench and facing down at the ground. She looked terribly sad.

Beside him, the dog barked towards his owner. It wanted to come back to her, but the boy held firm to the collar. The dog then starting crying, those strident deep cries that cut through everyone’s heart.

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“Shut up!” The boy told the dog, but it didn’t seem to listen. “Shut up, stupid dog! Shut up!”

The boy looked down at the girl again, her eyes wet with tears. He drew a deep breath, already feeling the whipping in his butt that he would receive soon, and let the collar go.

The dog ran fast as a rocket to the girl who, on seeing her pet again, dropped to the floor on her knees in a warm hug. She looked up for the boy, but she couldn’t see him anywhere. Standing up after getting the dog’s collar in her hands again, she left the ice-cream money on the bench.

BODY OF STUDENT FROM DANTE HIGH SCHOOL FOUND IN PLAYGROUND; PRINCIPAL AFFIRMS TO BE “SHOCKED” Sao Paulo, 2010 This Monday, the 26th High School, was found lying in the playground of the school. Autopsy analysts affirm that the girl died from asphyxia as enormous quantities of sand from the playground were found in her system. When interviewed, principal André said to be shocked but didn’t allow our team to interview students.

Claudette, 16 years old, was attending the tenth year of high school in Dante High School when her family placed a missing report at a local police station on Friday, the 23rd. Her widow mother, Dona Laura da Silva, affirms that her daughter, second of the first marriage, didn’t come back from school on Friday night as usual. She placed several reports during the weekend, leading a police team to investigate around the area of Campo Limpo, the poor neighborhood where the household lives.

However, it was only this Monday that Dona Laura became aware of what had happened to her daughter. The body of Claudette was found lying in the middle of the sand playground next to the elementary school building by a cleaning employee at 5:45am. The body of Claudette da Silva Carvalho, student at Dante employee claims that the body had started to smell slightly, but he didn’t see blood. When autopsied, the body presented clear signs of physical aggression and sand in the lungs and throat, which led the team to believe that Claudette was assaulted before she died. No witnesses were declared among the students.

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The teacher had barely finished the question when more than half of the class raised their hands with an answer. She was one of them, sitting in the front of the class, good posture and glow in her eyes.

She loved this classroom, the sun that shined hot and thick through the open shades and made the room cozy and illuminated, her classmates, always so caring and intelligent, and mostly the soft perfume of the young teacher that still looked a collegiate in his friendly manners and docile green eyes.

The handsome teacher picked her, which always excited something inside her, and she answered the question promptly. It was an easy one: calculus. In a few minutes the same teacher would end the double math period and start physics for 50 more minutes, and then another lovely young teacher would enter that classroom and teach Portuguese in her sweet Carioca accent. But before the grammatical sentences and writing exercises on the board with happy smiles, she had to go through break.

Suddenly, the bell rang – and with it all the glory of those marvelous classes with the striking teacher vanished in split seconds of strident noise. You didn’t have to be from outside that peculiar classroom to notice that every one, even the most agitated of boys, even the most talkative of the girls, seemed to have succumbed to a state of lethargy when preparing for break. They collected all their pencils and pens, used in class or not, put them all neatly into their pencil cases, pilled up the books and notebooks and gently placed them in the compartment under their desks. They rearranged the seats back, doing everything while talking to each other about the lesson, casual little things, the weather, more about the lesson, before finally, when they couldn’t stretch their time in the classroom anymore, leave for break. The girl, after making sure to do all these things in order and after the 20 students had left, kindly stopped the teacher for some more talking about her homework.

She had managed to be late 10 minutes for the long break of 40, less than usual. She considered taking her novel book to the girl’s bathroom, but today she wouldn’t be able to mask the hunger. In her tight usual morning schedule, consisted of waking up at inconceivably early hours of the day to take the first of four buses to cross the abhorrent traffic of the city only to arrive 10 minutes in front of the blue gates of one of the most expensive and privileged private school of the state, before the first class started. In today’s crazy schedule, she had had no time to fit in a breakfast.

She walked through the school’s imposing hallways and sharp-edged staircase listening to the threatening laughs of adolescents in the patio. She furtively made her way to the line behind a small 81

crowd of loud 7th and 8th graders-the ones she dreaded the most. Cold sweat forming in her neck as she waited in line to get her snack. When she finally got it, she regretted almost immediately: hard, greasy ham with unsavory cream cheese in a flat, tasteless piece of bread accompanied by a tiny juice box were her source of energy until lunch, which was going to be most likely as disgusting as that. How a school paved with verdant, beautiful trees, multiple colorful playgrounds, well-lit classrooms and handsome teachers – besides being so expensive and prestigious – be so nasty in the little things was beyond her golden-medal awarded brain’s comprehension.

However, the worst part was yet to come. Going out of the cafeteria’s line, she was obliged to go through another loathsome crowd, more scary-looking than the 13-year-olds simply because they were 17. She put her head down, in a habitual ritual, and fastened her steps away from the crowd, with her heart beating so fast she wondered if they would hear it.

And they did.

“Hi, Claudette!” The dreaded group of girls stopped their obnoxiously noisy laughing to tease her, making sure that her name was heard loud and ugly by the people nearby. “Oh, no, that’s right! It’s not Claudette, it’s just Clau! Isn’t that how Lucas calls you?”

They laughed evil laughs. She had heard that same laughs so many times before, so many years before, relating to different themes each time – now, the subject was that new handsome teacher, Lucas. At least this time they had caught her in a public place. They couldn’t beat her while people were watching. Could they?

The girl refused to turn her head and tried to ignore and keep walking, but they soon started towards her and soon they surrounded her. They stood there, the five of them, looking so imposing and confident that she doubted that she was of their height. She shrugged, like a helpless mouse trapped in an experimental labyrinth, looking at this huge wall right in front of her. This wall, however, wore nice brand clothes, expensive shoes, heavy make-up, and had black, emotionless eyes – like a shark’s ready to devour it prey.

“If you’ll excuse me…” The girl asked, more to the floor than to the girls to hear.

“No, I don’t excuse you.” The leader said. The girl didn’t have to look at her to know her features.

Everyone in school talked about her – how her dyed blond hair was always so smooth, how her 82

skinny body was always so perfect, or even how she was amazing and so cool for attending 3 different night clubs during the weekend, at the beach, with X person, doing you-name-it cool stuff.

Her astronomical ego and her led the pack. And her dreadful voice now made the girl not be angry with her, but feel ashamed of being in her own skin.

“How many times do we have to tell you? Lucas is not for you. He only teaches your class because he gets paid extra for teaching kids with scholarship. I mean, let’s be real here,” she chuckled an evil chuckle, “who would even like to teach a group of favelados (4) yourself?”

They laughed among themselves, but the girl had to hold back her tears. What has she ever done to her? To any of them? Mother said that they did that because they were jealous. Jealous of what?

What is it of so special that she had that they didn’t? They were right; she was from the favela. She was black. Her eyes weren’t green, nor was her hair straight and blond. “You are useless here, nobody likes you,” they said. “Why don’t you just die?” they whispered. “We can do it for you, if you want,” they suggested.

“Excuse me…” She tried to break the wall, with her head down and voice low. The group saw a teacher approaching, and dispersed quickly.

But before she had vanished into the crowd, looking for her own spot to read, she heard something that she didn’t expect. A new insult.

“Fucking Nerd.”

1. Favela: a settlement of jerry-built shacks lying on the outskirts of a Brazilian city. In Brazil, favelas are where poor people live when they cannot afford living in other places. Violence, drug dealing, and prostitution rule the favelas, and drug dealers are kings. When talking about favelas or favelados, Brazilian society talks indirectly about black people.

2. Arrastão: A form of crime, occurring in Brazilian cities, in which a group of criminals surround a location (usually a beach or tunnel) and steal every object in it.

3. Real: Brazilian currency

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4. Faveldos: An adjective so unique of the Brazilian culture that I couldn’t translate. It relates a lot to the N-word, both in history of discrimination and hatred.

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UNFURLING RYAN WILLIAMS

85

IN THE BEGINNING MARIA PEREIRA

In the beginning, I didn’t like the idea of going to that place. It felt so wrong to leave everything the way it was between us, so messy and blurry, pack the bags and go. “It’s like paradise on Earth,” he told me, and many affirmations followed about how that trip would help us put the trails in order. That was his plan of sorting the problem out: running away from its origin. That was fine, wasn't it? I myself had run away a million of times before. Maybe that was why I didn't like the little escapade of ours.

Running away from problems may make you believe that the solution will come in time, when in fact it just keeps you out of the battlefield that would set you free. I've lost many battles already not by wearing the wrong armor, but by not having the courage to even put the armor on. This time, however, I knew I couldn’t be selfish to think it was all about my insecurity and me. Although resisting as long as I could, I ended up bending, as usual.

My worries were right, in the end. Inside my head I could still hear the shouting of both of us. I felt the ice block that had been consuming me for the past days putting an inexpressive look upon my face. I didn’t swear, I didn’t feel hot with anger. If this had happened last week, I would certainly have done so, but maybe the constancy of my lack of confidence colliding with his extrovert heart has made me used to feeling empty after our fights. I simply crossed the elegant hallway and its white doors toward the elevator, as if his warning of leaving me weren’t burning me from inside.

I was looking down to the marbled floor, avoiding staring at my blurry reflection on the elevator’s golden doors. Suddenly, the doors opened, and I stepped in the soft, red carpet, pressing the button of the ground level. When the doors closed, I timidly raised my head to admire the tall, wooden walls of the elevator. They intimidated me, but they also transmitted an inviting, cozy atmosphere. As the elevator passed through the floors, my muscles started to tense. It was that familiar, uncomfortable feeling enclosing me one more time. Sixth, fifth, fourth floor. I couldn’t help my heart from pounding more and more.

Once again, the golden doors opened, and I felt the humid air of the sunny day against my skin. I took the first step forward, and the sound of many parallel conversations and laughs invaded my

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ears. I felt my cheeks blushing uncontrollably with the thought of seeker eyes turning to me, as judges in a court case.

I knew that sooner or later I would have to raise my head. “There is no reason to feel intimidated,” I thought to myself in a lame attempt to start my way through the reception easier. “Not by the elevator walls, not by my golden reflection, and certainly not by these people in the balcony.” Immediately, I knew that I was quoting him.

However, by the time I made up my mind, I had already crossed the marble floor with my head down.

I got a glance of the refined statues that decorated the reception of the hotel at my right, as well as the small groups of people sitting in elegant, white sofas. Before I knew, I was walking toward a large, open French door with floating curtains.

A bright, warm sunbeam struck directly my eyes, and my iris took a while to adapt to the clarity. I protected my eyesight with a hand, and I felt astonished when I realized what he meant by “paradise on Earth.”

Extending as long as my eyesight could reach, there was an incredible, verdant garden, fully adorned with pink and white flowers, pines and sequoias with its curtains of delicate leaves. Having taken a few steps forward in amazement, I found myself in the edge of a porch made of stones and with the ground covered by white gravel. The gravel followed by a sinuous trail, passing through vivid green carpets of grass and delicate pink flowers.

Before following the pathway, I stopped to admire the beautiful fountain that splashed water in the edge of the garden. Pruned bushes of lavender surrounded the cascade, and a magnificent arc had its image reflected in the dark water. The arc, made of gray, polished stone and wood, stood like a small temple protecting the garden.

As I was walking, I felt the intense smell of flowers and wet grass, and surprisingly I couldn’t help smiling. The garden was deserted, no one was wondering in that divine peace of land except for me. The heavy, leaden clouds inside my head seemed to have been blown away. For the moment.

Two delimited lines of white, delicate flowers were indicating the way through an open space of grass, and I realized that this garden could also hold weddings. This time, I felt my heart smiling.

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Following the gravel path, I heard the peaceful sound of stirring water as I got closer to the fountain.

The wind blew stronger, messing with my hair, and I glimpsed the green water of a lake in front of me.

Low stature trees surrounded the borders of the lake, and as the wind blew, some of the lowest leaves of the branches caressed the surface of the lake. The water reflected the sun, illuminating everything around me.

I felt warm again.

I closed my eyes to listen to the cicadas’ songs. They were loud, louder than the sound of the tree leaves being stirred by the wind. Why did I have to make things so complicated? Look at this place, look around you. Nature isn’t complicated. Life is simple.

Still with my eyes closed, I started to take my shoes off. Gently, I stepped in the grass, wet with the fresh dew. It must have rained not long ago. I can sense the humidity in the air. As I felt the soil beneath me, I tried to remember the last time I had felt the grass, or at least the last time when I had felt peace.

In front of me, yellow butterflies played together amid the high grass. Their wings seemed so fragile, yet so strong. Sitting down near to some daisies, I picked one from the ground and frolicked with it.

No, I wouldn’t start reciting the daisy game, although it was my intention at first.

Looking at all this natural beauty, being all by myself, a surprising insight came across my mind like a flash. Suddenly, everything looked clear for the first time. I felt sure about what I had to do, but just to guarantee, I started to pull petal by petal.

Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes! I jumped to my feet, and started to cross the garden again, ignoring the delimitations of the gravel trail and running on the grass barefooted. With my shoes in one hand, I reached the porch and passed through the French door, both happy and apprehensive. I looked around nervously, and all the faces that seemed to have judged me minutes ago were now insignificant. Except for one.

As I cut my way through the people who crowded the entrance of the hotel, I wasn’t thinking about the rough air conditioner irritating my skin. I didn’t notice the tall, elegant walls intimidating me. The

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curious looks on the people’s faces didn’t have any effect upon me while I was almost running to reach the parking lot.

I couldn’t let him go. I knew that if I did, I wouldn’t get him back this time.

When my feet touched the gravel of the parking lot, and I finally stopped to catch air, I felt my heart pounding fast with the run. I looked at my right, and through the gravel road I glimpsed the shadow of a car.

No. I hadn’t been fast enough. He’s gone.

My gaze was still lost in the curve that the car had taken seconds ago when I heard someone clearing his throat right behind me. As I turned, I realized with a smile that I had mistaken myself. But never was I so happy to be wrong.

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SINKING RYAN WILLIAMS

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OBLIVIOUS TO BLESSINGS ELLA EKSTROM

I was blind.

My life is blessed- it can be unrealized

I saw with a monotonous eye to the reality of life As I grew older, however, this eclectic sheet

These circumstances kissed my life while

thrown over my sight was slowly yanked off

spitting at others

I began realizing the blessings of living where I

I am blessed

do I saw what I took for granted only from seeing other’s misfortune My blessings began appearing everywhere I looked.

I have never truly been through a disaster in my bubble life, I explore it, though, through other’s eyes And I can feel the contrast between where I am living and not

My life is stable- it can be unreliable My life is lavished with amenities- it can be bare My life is safe- it can be hostile

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THE HIVE ARTHUR HE

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AN ATTEMPT TO DESCRIBE SOPHIA PLATCOW

It's the shivers that echo through our collar-

Sewing sweater after sweater with borrowed

bones.

thread.

Blooming in the daydreams that haunt us all

Thriving in the depths of passion that fill note-

when under it's spell.

book after notebook with foolish poetry. And un-

It's the end to a fight

finished songs.

Or the reason the fight began.

It's smashing broken typewriters as if to untan-

It's as gentle as the soft breeze that whispers

gle a broken story.

lullabies to our hair.

It's what you want

Or as sharp as the edges of guilt.

and

It's late nights spent walking the streets of

what you don't.

empty cities.

Sharing desserts and basking in the warmth of each other's presence.

Maybe it's hidden in the steamy mist that coats the bathroom mirror after a long shower. It's a new beginning, when the world's dark secrets are exposed by the dawning sun. Sometimes, it's waiting next to the hidden spare key.

Maybe it's growing in the roses that sit on the kitchen counter.

Maybe it needs water.

Or time.

It's in the songs that play in the background of old Italian restaurants.

In the pictures that hang like shadows in abandoned hallways, waiting.

It's wearing someone's else's problems like jewelry.

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WILDERNESS MADELINE SOMMER

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GOODBYE GASTON ADAM

It's that time of day again The time you say goodbye The time for me to man up And try hard not to cry You roam around your bedroom Gathering all your gear I wait outside your doorway With a heart empty of cheer We descend the stairs together Not one smile on my face Inside I prepare myself To watch you leave this place This has gone on for years now So you'd think that I'd be fine But this could happen for a thousand years It gets harder every time.

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SPIKES

MARIA PEREIRA

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PREPARING SOPHIA PLATCOW

I’ve spent years preparing.

I missed.

Saving your laughter

Bandaging every cut and every scrape with

in tiny jars.

hope.

Collecting your smiles

Killing every headache with determination.

like postage stamps.

Keeping your kisses in envelopes with no return addresses.

Holding each memory like a new born child.

And I'll never be done.

It's not possible to ever be prepared enough to lose you.

Fragile Delicate.

Fleeting.

Lighting candle after candle with the spark of our connection.

Keeping the path illuminated so we never felt alone.

Coating the walls of my heart with steel and filling it to the brim with fairy lights to avoid the shadows of the unknown.

Painting self portrait after self portrait so you could see the real me.

And handing you the paintbrush so you could fill in what

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RIDE MADELINE SOMMER

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GONE JOYCE CALDWELL

I’m scratching at

even after the music stopped.

the walls of my brain

I wonder if the sound of your

trying to find a part of me

eyelashes brushing against

that isn’t close to crumbling, but all I end up with

your cheekbones resembles

are pieces of your name

violin strings to anyone else

dirt buried under fingernails.

or if you are someone else’s

Some mornings

Mozart nowadays.

I stare at the kitchen floor for hours,

And I wonder if you ever

wondering if there are any crumbs

miss the sounds of my voice

that once grazed your lips

cheering you on.

lingering in between the tile cracks, on bad days, I think of tasting them to find out.

You see you were an orchestra I was the girl in the audience taking your songs everywhere

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TOUCH RYAN WILLIAMS

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BLIND CLAUDIA KIRBY

Ocean waves splashing on us, tumbling and crashing around the

Mouths Choking crucial words

Bodies Threatening to drown People playing in the water, yelling and filled Sand on the beach, sticking and clinging to our Toes Never leaving us

Sun in the sky, warming and shining down on

with Elation Ignoring my cries

My smile bright and wide, laughing and joking like everyone

the Else Faces

Concealing the agony

Creating painful burns

Seagulls flying above, circling and soaring with the Wind Scrutinizing our actions

Salt on our tongues, rinsing and cleansing our

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A WISH ARTHUR HE

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TO DUST SOPHIE HANSON

The man’s footprints evaporate in the wake of the wind. His only map, faded to dust. Red tinged dirt climbs into his mouth and settles, faster than drying concrete. His stinging eyes yearn for the protection of his hat, which must have been snatched by the gale.

Hatless and hapless, he follows the wisp of an earthen road. The balding tundra sprawls about him, bristling sporadically with sickly stalks of wheat and corn.

His gaze falls from the scene to his shoes; stiff coffee colored leather still inexplicably damp with Manhattan rain. The man curses himself inwardly. The allure of the previous night had drowned his better judgement. Martha will surely notice his good shoes stained with sludge.

Perhaps this strange, parched air will dissolve the evidence.

"Hello."

The man's eyes grasp a thin shadow cast by a pair of ashen feet. Just nine toes he notes.

The wound is fresh.

Cringing, he adjusts his gaze to the child’s face. Blunt bowl cut, jagged cheekbones, and wide, dull eyes like foggy window panes. Clumps of dirt cling to her greasy head. Her skin shoulders a tired, gray hue.

"Hello, darling." His voice does not sound like his own, but can he really trust his earth- clogged ears?

"Wouldn't happen to know where a man might find a glass of water around here would you?"

She shakes her head. "Ain't no water here mister, but you can follow me to Salvation if ya want."

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The man flounders, thoughts of God and Divine Word rattling noisily in his head, before realizing that Salvation must be the name of a town. He straightens up with the sun to his back and swallows her in his shadow.

“Much obliged."

The girl turns and begins to move laboriously forward.

"I could carry you if you’d like," he offers, though the thought draws up a shiver. The girl shakes her head at the horizon.

"Ain't got no other way ta live mister. It don’ bother me like it used to anyhow." "Can I ask what happened?"

"Sure," she says. The man waits, but the only reply is the sound of her irregular footsteps. A familiar smell tickles the fine hairs of his nose. The scent does not sit well in his stomach nor on his tongue, yet he inhales more deeply. He dawdles, tasting the air like an animal in search of the source. It smells like late nights. Like rain dampened alleyways and rotting trash.

"Poppies," he murmurs. "I smell poppies."

"Do ya now?" She throws a vaguely curious glance over her shoulder, but doesn't slow her pace. "I smell rust. And my Ma." Before he can ask, the girl speeds up, lame foot hissing as it drags across the sand.

It is not until the sun has slipped from its highest perch to the lip of the horizon that the town appears.

There is no need for the girl to announce it's presence, it is on the only thing that breaks the landscape for miles.

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There are seven buildings on Main Street, all of them hunched and groaning, unsure if they are houses or old men. Their windows remind him of the girl's eyes, frosted over with a sort of filth that cannot be unseen.

"Where is everyone?" he asks his guide.

"Indoors mister, storm’s comin' by the look’a things." The man scans the blank skies skeptically.

"I'd bes’ be goin’," she says in a oddly wistful voice. "I'll be seeing ya, mister." "Wait," he reaches out and touches her thin shoulder. "What's your name?"

Her slight muscles tense under his pale New England hand.

"Ain’t got one." She wrenches away, scampers down the street, and disappears into an alley.

He strains, listening to her crooked gate until it melts into the evening. He creeps a few steps forward, then pauses. A wooden panel hanging from two chains creaks tentatively, beckoning him towards a tavern. An insatiable itch sparks at the hollow of his throat, and in the roots of his mind. He stumbles towards it, propelled by the burn.

He has to put his shoulder into the sticking door. The hinge yields suddenly and he crashes into the tavern, arms wheeling. His flailing stirs the dust in the air. That is all that moves.

The room is lit by three tired oil lamps, which sufficiently illuminate the thick layer of filth. The room houses a few wooden tables, a jumble of bone dry chairs, and a sagging bar with four stools. The tavern is reminiscent of the dwelling he frequents in New York, only he recalls an exotic elegance clinging to the air in that place. Here the stench of whiskey and urine hangs stubbornly air.

“Care for a drink?”

The man starts, his wet shoes screeching as he shuffles back. The voice had come from behind the bar, where an older man is now standing polishing a mug.

“What’s your drink? Come, sit down.”

Trying to wash the anxiety from his face, the man steps forward taking the fourth stool at the bar, furthest from the bartender.

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“The name’s Frank,” The barkeep stashes the mug in the crook of his elbow and offers a callused hand. Gingerly, the customer takes it in his own. Frank’s fingers feel like cobble stones in November, or black coffee gone cold. The man shivers and pulls back his smooth, city hand.

“You got a name?” Frank asks, commencing the shining of the mug.

“I think so,” the man replies, his eyes wandering the ruins of the likely once prosperous establishment. “I’d tell you if I remembered.”

“You don’t remember your name?” Frank asks, incredulous.

“No.” His life is crystalline in his memory, but his name has been struck away. In his mind he roves over documents he has signed, envelopes he has sliced open over the years. In each memory his name is obliterated with generous splotches of black ink, reminiscent of a Rorschach test.

“What’s your drink, stranger?”

Fear takes root in his stomach. He reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket in search of the wallet he knows he lost the night before. His fingers brush against a wad of papers. He draws it out in momentary relief, but these papers are not green. They are raw pink, like burnt skin. From these documents too his name has been struck, but he knows the words are meant for him.

Regret to inform you...cannot continue to employ...unreliable...theft of...untrustworthy...

“I cannot pay,” the man says softly. He sheathes the documents in the folds of his jacket before they cut him further.

“It’s on the house. Can’t have you dying on me, hmm?”

The customer nods in gratitude. Frank flips the bar rag over his shoulder. They are quiet as the drink is prepared.

Frank passes the frothy mug across the counter and the customer takes it with trembling fingers.

Condensation rolls off the thick glass and pools in the crevice between his hands and the mug. He has passed the point of thirst and sits staring into his glass, fearful that he will wither before his lips can find salvation. He downs half the content without pause.

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The beer is almost tasteless. His throat expands and contracts as he swallows, but he feels no relief in the drink. The condensation is deceitful, the liquid is far from cold. In fact it feels warm as it slips into his stomach.

Taptap.

The customer and his server look around simultaneously.

In the far corner of the bar, beneath a dead oil lamp, sits the hunched figure of a woman. At least, the customer is fairly certain it’s a woman. Age and troubles have distorted her body so that it is little more than a lopsided mass of skin and bones clad in a thin, ankle length dress. A shawl is draped across her head, obscuring most of her face.

“Back again are we?” Frank asks from behind the counter.

Taptap.

“I don’t have what you want. ” His tone is chastising, like a father shooing his child away from the sweets jar.

“How do you know what she wants?” the customer asks, shifting his gaze from the unsettling woman.

Her silhouette and mannerisms evoke a deja vu.

Frank draws another mug from beneath the counter and begins to shine it. The dim light collects in the many facets of the gritty glass. It flits halfheartedly from one pane to the next.

“She would accept anything I offered,” he finally says.

“Does everyone in this town have such low standards?” the customer quips feebly. Frank arches a dark eyebrow. “Here, there are no standards. The people here want what they want, and I know what they want. I know what you want.”

The customer shifts on his stool, which moans beneath his weight.

“And what is that?” he asks.

Frank sets his mug down carefully. He leans across the counter, so that their noses are almost touching. The customer squirms inside his skin, but his muscles won’t budge. “More,” Frank hisses the word through his teeth like cigarette smoke. It burns as it settles inside his nose and mouth. He wants to taste it again.

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Taptap.

The customer swivels and the woman’s face is a breath from his. The lines in her skin are deeper than urban canyons. Her eyes are black manholes pried open in the city streets.

The customer reels backward, falling against the counter. His eyes are locked onto the woman’s distorted mouth. Acid swells between his cheeks and he vomits abruptly.

The woman’s teeth, dark amber and semi translucent, poke from her gums at all angles. Perpetual wounds decorate her lips and tongue. The image of the girl’s missing toe bursts into his mind, but he shoves it away.

“Wha...what is she?” The customer whispers, clinging to the bar. The creature blinks at him then her gaze darts towards Frank. Frank offers her the empty mug he’s been cleaning. She snatches it and begins to run her fingers along the cup’s belly, searching for any drop of alcohol that might remain.

“She’s an addict,” Frank says. “Like you.”

“Me? I’ll have you know that I scarcely drink...”

“What’s that smell?” Frank cuts in.

“Excuse me?”

Frank draws in a deep, indulgent breath. His lips spread into a too-wide grin.

“Ah,” he breathes. “There it is.”

The customer sniffs the air cautiously. His pupils fold in on themselves, cowering in the pale blue of his irises. Gravity tugs him towards the floor, but the bartender seizes his limp wrist and drags him up.

“Who are you?” The customer spits, his voice cracking as it climbs two octaves. He struggles against the bartender’s grip. “What is this?”

The aroma from the desert filters back. The sweet waves of the flowers perfume are laced with memories. Violet rimmed nights dripping with sweat and lust, shredded business transactions rolled into joints, and a ravenous appetite that wormed deep into his bones.

“Here, I am called the Nowhere Man, but you know me by another name.”

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The Nowhere Man squeezes the customer’s jaw in his free hand, forcing him to meet his eyes. The customer has stopped squirming, his muscles soothed beneath his skin. He gazes, entranced at the Nowhere Man’s eyes.

The earth-brown irises are melting into the pale around. The black of his pupil evaporates. His eyelids peel back like parchment, rolling tightly into his skull.

Red blooms from the soil of the Nowhere Man’s eyes, two oozing bullet holes. The petals are torn skin, monstrous flags fluttering on a breeze. The customer’s fingers twitch, yearning to brush against them.

“Poppies,” he thinks with a vague laugh. “I knew I smelled them.”

“You knew this day was coming, my good man,” the Nowhere Man says from somewhere behind the growing blossoms. “ I . . . ” “Ever since you started, ever since you didn’t stop, you knew this day would come.” “...Never knew...”

The Nowhere Man draws from his breast pocket a tiny mound of pepper black dust.

“These,” the Nowhere Man tells him softly. “Are the seeds of the poppy. You planted the night of your first visit to the den. You watered them with each match you struck, each hour, then day, then week you missed at work, at home, with Martha.”

Saliva, salt, and blood are leaking from the customer’s face. The Nowhere Man’s words come from all around. They scuttle up his spine, tapping him on the shoulder and laughing when he tries to wriggle away.

“The seeds matured last night, and you know why, don’t you?”

“I don’t...”

“You do.”

“I can...”

“What? You can change? Your roots are far too deep to be pulled.”

The Nowhere Man whips him around and bashes his skull against the counter. With two dirt crusted fingers he pries his customer’s jaw open. He writhes like a spider pinched between two nails, 109

dangling by a spindly leg. The Nowhere Man pours the handful of minuscule, dark particles into his prey’s gaping mouth.

The customer stills. His vision scatters.

The Nowhere Man watches, breath growing stale in his lungs as he awaits the finale. There is movement within the customer’s stomach. It is the flowers, straining forsunlight. Sensing a path, they worm their way up through the man’s throat. They bundle into his mouth, cramming under his tongue, crushing his teeth, bulging his cheeks. The Nowhere Man can hear their muffled cries.

He bends down, a gentle smile probing his own mouth, and gives his customer’s fate passage to daylight.

110

MY COUNTRY ‘TIS OF THEE ELLA EKSTROM

Land of the Free. Independence. Republic.

The United States of America.

The basis of which our country was built is being chipped away under our feet

USA. US. The “States.” …Murica.

The is flimsy Unity is loose States aren’t brothers of what?

America isn’t unique

Cookie cutters shouldn’t be used to fuse cultures Rights shouldn’t be written on ripped paper Equality shouldn’t be just a topic Acceptance should be national

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RIPPLE VICTORIA KHODORKOVSKAYA

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METROPOLIS VICTORIA KHODORKOVSKAYA

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AWAKE SOPHIE HANSON

I should not waste my words

I would ask you to raise them up.

On the likes of you, but they spill

Let them draw breathes from the world

From my chest, slip between the bars

Until your arms splinter beneath their weight

Of my ribcage, only to sizzle, crackle

Until you understand the burden of air.

When they hit the oxygen.

You would beg me to steal them back And I would, I would press them to my face,

I should not give you my time, either.

Blink them into place. I would ask you only this:

Too late, anyway, it is

Isn’t it painful, to be awake?

Dripping from my mouth, my nose, The corners of my eyes Pooling in little lakes between my toes Underground rivers beneath my heels.

I would not ask you to walk in my shoes.

They would not fit your ego, nor could you Stomach their chafe, their pinch.

I would ask you instead to steal my eyes.

Hold them in your palms, they would Gleam like white marbles or miniature moons.

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REVEL RYAN WILLIAMS

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