The Gazebo: 2022-23 Edition

G A Z E B O

G A Z E B O

G A Z E B O

GAZEBO STAFF GAZEBO STAFF GAZEBO STAFF

STUDENT OFFICERS

Editorial Director

FACULTY MODERATOR

Mr. John Mills '12

Patrick Ryan '23

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TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS

Joey Young

Dylan Cawley

Page 2 James Reitmeyer

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Daniel Borrero

Kevin Derr

Max Wickersham

Chris Lasky

Samuel Ross

Jack Farren

Thomas Yaegel

Shay Channell

Cameron Stimmler

Aiden Opiela

Eddie Sutter

Patrick Ryan

Sam Otis

Shay Channell

Addison Tornetta

Nick Tait

Cameron Stimmler

Luis Hearn

Quinn Ryan

Jeffrey Craig

Jacob Sciscio

Chase Vitulich

Joey Young

Chase Vitulich

Horace Simmons

You

Shadows

YOU SHOULD KNOW YOU SHOULD KNOW YOU SHOULD KNOW

I just thought you should know, I’ve been with you at your best and your worst, I’ve seen your life in person, through a screen, You aren’t how you used to be.

But there’s nothing I can do—

What’s done is done— I can help you, but I can’t change the world.

You have to fight this on your own.

I still love you.

I just thought you should know.

SSISYPHUS SISYPHUS ISYPHUS

Flying rockets blaze above, piercing clouds with metal domes and checkered sides in white and red.

Gleaming iron, thin as paper, slices easily through thick stems

Men turn gears all interlinked, as they move forward: progress and labor!

Men march forward in order and chant as plated shoes hit the ground in unison.

Sharp needles slowly dive through the skin and muscle; a chemical substance is released, and spreads quickly.

Boulders roll quickly down the mountain.

Crowds wait at the bottom, hands extended to stop it to catch it to embrace it.

I stand on boulders

Life created again

Made by the titans

A new Adam to behold

Through time and pressure

Humans become like God

Never to be moved

But only for a moment

Not by mortal hands

Eden is still out of reach

EEPIMETHEUS EPIMETHEUS PIMETHEUS

CCENTER CENTER ENTER

I have always wondered what resides at the center of the Universe. Place, thing, or being pulling the rest of us in.

Between clouds gray and black, fractured upon the ground, White and cold as snow, A thousand eyes stare back. It streamed through the window, From shattered broken fragments on a cold winter’s night. The whole is lost and gone, a ray of cold moonlight Never to come back together.

FFRACTURE FRACTURE RACTURE

LITTLE THINGS LITTLE THINGS LITTLE THINGS

I want more of the little things in life like going to the zoo, eating lunch on the beach, and spending time with my family.

Got

I want to do what I enjoy the most like snowboarding, or playing lacrosse, or cooking.

I want to be happy prove to myself that I can change, that I can get better, that I can succeed.

I’m trying my best to bring success Run with what the world gives

SSWEATERS SWEATERS WEATERS

A hoodie with no hood

Green apron

A long sleeve-

misunderstood-

Burnt brown

Keeps me warm when cold.

The valley in the basement Turns gray to green and

plain to extraordinary

Pale plastic pretense

boring to madness to serenity

I was so close it seemed

never gets old

silver piercings...

If I could be one, I would

Red tape

Reaching It glistened then stopped and blinded my mind

BBLINDED BLINDED LINDED

AALIGN ALIGN LIGN

Only if the stars align

If I control myself, I control the stars; formless, endless.

Only if the stars align

I will align the stars for you because the stars can move; I do not move the stars, but the stars can move.

Only if the stars align

In a world of chances, the stars will move for us. We will take risks, seek opportunities, and look at the sky in a different way.

My cheeks are damp from the moonlight because it only shines for me. I love you to Saturn and back. I will protect you from the meteors since you hate your dimples, and I’ll still make a wish for us. We laugh at the hollow souls below. Oh, how they wish! I just wish we didn’t have to go through these phases; you are always full to me. Just stay—I wish you could come down with me. The birds will find their way again, and those waves are fine. I prefer the current anyway.

RISE AND FALL RISE AND FALL RISE AND FALL

Animals don’t exactly have any idea what time is. The sun rises and falls every so often, which means that it’s time to sleep. They lay down and think of nothing but what their stomach tells them. Minds struggling to fall asleep are nonexistent when thoughts are only of the present. The sun rises and falls and once more it is time to walk and explore and eat, nothing more, nothing less. Months and seasons can pass by. Leaves in a swift current.

Soon the cycle starts from its beginning, but also its end. An old animal falls, a new animal rises. Curious, how time, ever present, was only named by thought. Thought that animals surely don’t have. The sun falls, which means it's time for sleep again.

No matter how it’s perceived, this place is strange. Although you would never notice at first glance, these symmetrical halls and rooms are a collection of only the most bizarre. Although I struggle to believe it, everyone here used to be normal, or at least, they seemed it. From the winged weasel to his brittle kindred, everything was once as expected. But, to my chagrin, time affected them, turning them anomalous. No, perhaps that isn’t it, perhaps they became more truthful, less shrouded in pomp and circumstance. As they change, I find myself increasingly annoyed with them, like biting into an apple and tasting an orange. Perhaps they are not the only ones. Perhaps I am strange myself.

BIZARRE SYMMETRY BIZARRE SYMMETRY BIZARRE SYMMETRY

I have no thoughts I hear no noise

But nothing is something which means I can hear something

I don’t know what color my last piece of gum is and my glue sticks have rhythm but rhythm isn’t spelled how it looks

Math is red and 7 is yellow and science is green and English is blue

5 is blue and 3x5 is blue but 7x9 is orange

I don’t like math or even Spanish but I’m writing nothing important Nothing is still something

The world was quiet, save for the occasional gust of wind and the rhythmic rise and fall of a set of solitary footsteps. A lone wanderer moved through the ruined remains of the city, the crumbling buildings and overgrown greenery a stark contrast to how the city existed in his memory. He listened for threats, human or otherwise, over the noise of the wind.

"I barely made it away from those raiders; I can’t risk another close call," he thought to himself.

Low on ammunition, his next fight could be his last. To make matters worse during his last firefight, he had lost his Geiger counter and his gasmask had been destroyed. If he accidently wandered into a radiation hot zone, there would be no hope for survival. I just need to get lucky and find a peaceful settlement. As he continued his march, he passed building after building, all in the same state of disrepair, occasionally stopping to search for any supplies. He did not find any.

He saw something in the distance; a glowing yellow light that stood out more and more as the darkness of night arrived. It seemed suspended in the air, the ominous glow making the wanderer wary of approaching too quickly. He moved towards it slowly, eyes scanning his surroundings. As he neared, he saw a building, clean and perfectly preserved, fluorescent light spilling out of the windows.

“What the actual hell?” he said, out loud for the first time in a long time.

The yellow glow he saw before came from a sign, with text, which caused him more surprise and confusion than even a nuclear apocalypse and mutated creatures. The sign read: Waffle House. And then he smelled it: freshly cooked sausage, waffles, and coffee. It filled him with nostalgia, thoughts of his life before the war. Losing himself and his instincts in the rush of memory, he pushed the door open. A bell rang overhead as he entered. The interior looked as if the war had never happened. Tables and chairs as clean as they were going to get, fluorescent lighting overhead, and a waitress standing behind the counter.

"Hello! Welcome to Waffle House!” she greeted. “Please feel free to take a seat anywhere you’d like. I’ll be over with a menu in a moment.”

“Um, thank you?”

He looked at the menu she placed in front of him. It looked exactly as it would have looked before everything happened.

“I’ll take two waffles, some eggs and sausages, I guess. And some coffee too please,” he ordered, still not sure if he was dreaming or not.

She wrote down the order on a notepad. “Perfect. That’ll be out in a few minutes.” She went through a door behind the counter to what he assumed was the kitchen.

He picked at his meal when it arrived, trying to determine if the sausage was actually human meat, but it appeared to be in order.

“How do I pay?” He asked the waitress.

“Oh, we trade for supplies. A few bullets should do.” He dropped the last of his bullets on the table, and walked out the door.

I’m the creator of all life

Left untapped, I flow free dangerous and unknowable as a knife

a mirror of the world you see the world you fill with debris

so carefree, browning my blue beauty ignoring your duty

One day soon, I'll glisten and gleam

a mutiny of sea and stream

But for now, it seems, you prefer me unclean

BBLUR BLUR LUR

my vision, blurred by the water— die for it, kill for it— flow before my eyes, as long as it’s mine.

the light grows faint, eternal euphoria fabricated, consumed by inevitable.

“It’s never enough,”

Grasping for nothing ahead— it can't die this time.

in

The water from the sky

falls toward the earth on the window

strings of pearls

on the drooping trees

And on the cold stone.

Consciousness is the science to the art of your imagination geometry is the solution to the waves they crash in peaks on the valleys of immortality

Water moves freely with no boundaries.

How deep does it go?

We still float. Sound surrounds you; engulfs you.

The only thing that confines water is the vessel in which it is held. Water adapts and conforms to its environment: its worst quality, but also its best.

VVESSEL VESSEL ESSEL

EFLECTS

How do colors work?

They reflect the light into our eyes

So, is everything is a color?

People are like colors, reflecting light into our eyes; That’s how we feel love and pain. Our goodness reflects light and their evil rejects it; That’s how we know right from wrong.

t

who is to say

that it matters at all?

SSHADOWS SHADOWS HADOWS

So pale and so cold in the shadows of foreboding a lost soul in search of escape from their fate regret remains in the dark with their secret despair forever

In the distance, trees flow as the sun and moon glow. In sequence, I will be seen along with others that shimmer and gleam. Not all have this bright light, but each of them might.

MMACHINATIONS MACHINATIONS ACHINATIONS

A history of struggle, a fight to keep out the forces of darkness. Struggled against God, struggled against one another. Devoid of meaning, they created their own: to become God, to control the forces that cannot be controlled. From the stick to the hoe to the plow, the earth bent to their will. Metallic hands guided the future through the design of their creators, a bountiful future. Lives, subject to the machinations of machinery, controlled as a god controls the weather. Slaughtered, harvested, molded in their image: resources converge historically…

A chicken McNugget, shoved into a greasy maw passed a rhythmically bouncing gullet beneath the glowing arches.

Chick-fil-a chicken sandwich, the most exquisite of meals Each ingredient from top to bottom, so flavorful and pure When Sunday comes around, I get in my feels.

The Chick-fil-a sauce is an important part, too; When I go to get a sandwich, I need at least two.

Such an elegant meal, it should be shared with the world! The best sandwich of all; this statement is true. A sandwich from anywhere else? I would have hurled.

RROOTS ROOTS OOTS

I walked to my car as the cold bit against my face. The night sky ripped the saturation off of the world like a great, black band aid. As the wind tore at my coat, I heard it: something whispered in the night. The gloomy trees spoke to me secret words I should not have heard. A name I did not know I owned; an invitation.

As I ventured into the thicket, roots pulled at my ankles. I felt shadows looming over me. I slipped—into the night, into the darkness—and joined them.

At home on this little street, you stood and watched; silent, patient, still. Oh, to know what in that eyeless sight you saw! Seed to sapling; sapling to giant. What memories did you keep closed tight within you?

How many have you seen come and go? How many have you seen plant themselves here and, once grown, fall? How many have passed you by just as I have?

Beginnings and endings, successes and failures. How quietly you died. And when you did, you took it all with you. Quiet now; all quiet.

Old baseball cards

Dusty, worthless comics

A cockroach or two

Maybe mouse feces

Leftover insulation

Family photos

Capturing the past

Wedding dresses

Stained tuxedos

A shattered mirror

Reflecting broken rays of light

Old writing

A glimpse into the past