Menagerie 2017

MENAGERIE FORGE

MENAGERIE FORGE FORGE

Lyons Township High School Volume 42, 2017

2017 • Vol. 42 L y o n s T o w n s h i p H i g h S c h o o l Menagerie • 53

Mission Statement

Menagerie is the student-run literary and art magazine of Lyons Township High School.

Our goal is to showcase and synthesize the works of our talented students in a professional publication. By honoring the writers and artists of our school, we hope to encourage their future work and inspire innovation within our student community.

How to become involved in next year’s magazine: Submit your work!

Send your stories, artwork, poetry, plays or anything else you’d like considered to menagerie@lths.net by January 19, 2018.

Join the staff!

The first staff meeting for the 2017-2018 edition will be January 23, 2018, in NC35.

Become an editor!

Editorial applications for the 2017-2018 edition can be found at www.lths.net/menagerie and are due September 6, 2017.

MENAGERIE

2017 FORGE

Volume 42

Lyons Township High School 100 S. Brainard Avenue La Grange, Illinois 60525 www.lths.net/menagerie Contact: menagerie@lths.net 708-579-6300

Table of Contents Poetry

Prose

Fragility, Sarah Valeika, 7 August, Abby Cundiff, 8 Structure, K. Westrick, 12 Apple Picking, Marina Auwerda, 13 Pine Trees, Marina Auwerda, 13 Latina Mixed with Suburbs, Brianna Ramirez, 14 The Sarcophagus, Tegan Murrell, 17 Marbled, Caroline Garrow, 21 Fear and Pain, Nicholas Murphy, 24 Where I’m From, Jane Layden, 27 Shattered Love, Grace Dekoker, 28 Hope, Grace Dekoker, 30 Supernova Highway, Caroline Garrow, 38 Thirteen Ways of Looking at Paper, Laura Flores, 44 Of Things Unknown, Nicholas Murphy, 50 The Revisionists, Tegan Murrell, 52 A Hungry Man to His Sandwich, Marc Johnson, 59 The Man of Few Words, Caroline Garrow, 61 The Introverted Extrovert That Stayed Home Too

Long, Hunter Pendleton, 62 Momentary Peace, Tegan Murrell, 66 Peter Pan Syndrome, Claire VanDerLaan, 69 Lovely Florist, Francesca Restani, 70 If You Were Mine, Iris Leahy, 73 You Wouldn’t Know, Eric Ko, 80

Recipe: Camp Donuts, Tim Mikulski, 10 What’s Your Vector, Victor?, Michael McInerney, 22 Soybeanboozled, Andrew Callahan, 32 Sorry, Wrong Eulogy, Sarah Valeika, 36 Connectedness, Marc Johnson, 55 Little Things, Lauren Trail, 65 Under The Streets, Maya Djurisic, 74

Plays Action Hero, George Kennet, 83 Then Talk, Koko Stubitsch, 83 Stars Are Out Tonight, Connor Trimborn, 83 Life of the Party, K. Westrick, 83

Nonfiction Realizations and Revelations, Michael Quinlan, 18 Let’s All Burn in Hell, Dheeksha Ranginani, 34 Mud, Bella Lazarski, 40 Him, Tyler Bernklau, 47 Skin, Marina Auwerda, 48 Wild Cat Road, Morgan Sides, 56 Election Day, Peter Eggerding, 77 About English Majors, Sarah Valeika, 78

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3-D

2-D

Eagle, George O’Malley, 9 Loral, Alexandra Drobny, 9 Bee, Emily Leitz, 9 Connected, Madeline Dixon, 14 Mirror Black, Faith Saibert, 21 Teapot, Christina Demes, 61 Insecurity, Liz Becker, 68 The Unknown Soldier, Koko Stubitsch, 77 Butterflies, Koko Stubitsch, 79

Heart, Grace Barone, 5 Hold, Grace Reilly, 6 Self, Maranda Jackson, 8 Face, Lauren Tramontana, 11 Tranquility, Amelia Brisk, 13 illality Stickers, Noah Denten, 16 Continuity, August Domanchuk, 19 Woman in Repose, Lauren Trail, 23 Chain Monster, Noah Denten, 25 Golden State of Mind, Lucy Hawblitzel, 26 Koko, Kaylee Miller, 29 Mary, Arden Kurhayez, 30 Krause, Graham Voetberg, 31 Bridge, Grace Reilly, 32 33Quin, Brendan Pugliese, 33 Silent Manipulation, Lucy Hawblitzel, 34 Restricted Wonder, Maggie Caplice, 36 Self Portrait, Cayden Olsen, 38 Dhar Tichitt, Kendall Collins, 39 Plastic Spoon, Will Lipchik, 42 Untitled, Maranda Jackson, 43 Beast, Graham Voetberg, 46 Scarlet in the Woods, Sydney Weber, 50 Monster Posters, Noah Denten, 51 Demonic Grace, Graham Voetberg, 53 Drip, Caroline Higney, 54 Stained, Kaylee Miller, 55 Llorraine, Koko Stubitsch, 57 Explorer, Clara Weismantel, 58 Sandwich, Eleanor Keelan, 59 Sister, Maranda Jackson, 66 Untitled, Stefan Marin, 67 Flowerhead, Eleanor Keelan, 71 Happy, Eleanor Keelan, 72 Bridges, Grace Reily, 73 Gift, Emily Flores, 81 That Face, Emily Flores, 83

Photography MoonChild, Brie Voetberg, 6 The L, Kyle Niego, 12 Summer Nights, Kyle Niego, 20 Season Unending, Isaac Wisthuff, 27 Flight, Caroline Wuerl, 35 Darkest Dawn, Liz Becker, 41 lil breezy, Maggie Hennessy, 45 Never Ending, Trinity Cruz, 47 Will, Andrew Norvilas, 49 Squishy, Ashley Lites, 54 Max and Molly, Lauren Trail, 60 Reach, Kyle Niego, 62 Flowers, Max Lux, 63 Capital, Caroline Wuerl, 64 Crawdad Slough Two, Tim Mikulski, 75 Overhead, Caroline Wuerl, 76 Looking Up, Andrew Norvilas, 76 Dublin, Laura Flores, 82 Goat, Maggie Hennessy, 82 Wisconsin, Megan Aletich, 84 Home of Life, Jordan Dockins, 84 Curtains of Beauty, Madeline Karlson, 85 Lost in the World, Julia Dean, 87

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Editors’ Note

This edition of Menagerie is inspired by the word “forge,” which is both a place where metal is heated and wrought, as well as the act of making or forming especially by concentrated effort. This is precisely what we did by looking at our school as our environment and our workshop. Through our combined efforts, we have formed new meaning out of existing works, structures and textures.

As you flip through the pages of Menagerie, you will immediately notice something new - the black and white textures that serve as a backdrop for every page. Each background is a photograph of an industrial texture at Lyons Township High School, textures we often fail to notice, but when illuminated, become interesting. These textures range from the intricate and historic roof shingles, discolored from decades of exposure to harsh weather conditions, to the scuffed and patterned linoleum tiles that you drag your feet and desks across daily, and to the wood grain that you see on the doors that welcome you to your classrooms. As you peruse these pages, take note of the textures that we have showcased and that serve as a foundation for our literary and artistic pieces.

Even our literature and art speak to the notion of transforming mundane topics into masterpieces. While “Supernova Highway” attributes a playful demeanor to changing traffic lights, “The Revisionists” will leave you questioning the true meaning of the fairytales you are accustomed to. By contrast, “Connectedness” focuses not on one individual detail but on how numerous everyday objects are interrelated.

This transformation is also present in the art as “Golden State of Mind” repurposes ads to hint at the increasing prevalence of commercialism and “Looking Up” provides a new perspective on the buildings people walk past every day. We hope you will enjoy the diverse literature and art, which honors the effort required to transform the ordinary into the profound. We ask you to create transformations of your own by paying attention to your environment, your workshop, and finding ways to see these surroundings in a new light.

Dheeksha Ranginani • Graham Voetberg Editors-in-Chief

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Heart • Grace Barone • Silkscreen

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MoonChild • Brie Voetberg • Photography

Hold • Grace Reilly • Drypoint

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Fragility Sarah Valeika

Beyond the quaking glass enclosures scattered through the realm, there are soft, quiescent branches hanging daintily and saintly in their vestments of pure silver.

Silver quivers gingerly as thin as paper fluttering in the muttering whispers of the air and the quaking glass of the sea.

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August

Abby Cundiff

The sound of birds in the trees chirping to the droning cicadas, a perfectly cacophonous symphony.

The song of summer coming to an end.

Fireflies dance in the shade of the oak to the music of the evening.

They waltz in and out of scattered leaves dead in the lengthening shadows, the sun makes its final descent.

It was the sunset whose piercing flames scattered across the earth washing the world in an aureate glow for just a moment before fading into the purpled-pink hues of dusk the dark indigos of the coming night and the chilling grip of the promise of autumn and summer’s final farewell.

Self • Maranda Jackson • Acrylic

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Eagle • George O’Malley • Metalsmithing

Loral • Alexandra Drobny • Metalsmithing

Bee • Emily Leitz • Metalsmithing

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Recipe: Camp Donuts Tim Mikulski

A simple, sweet dish for a delicious dessert or to go along with breakfast. The simple instructions mean the kids can get involved!

Prep time: Ten minutes. Jesus, only ten? Then why does this one camper session always go over?

Cook time: Two minutes per donut, or until that Mason kid gets splashed with the tiniest bit of the hot oil from the pan and starts crying and as usual you have to do them all yourself. Then, one minute.

Ingredients:

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Refrigerated biscuit dough. Quantity: 4 cans, Pillsbury, or store brand if you’re working at an always-broke Boy Scout camp because the executive at Council waxes poetic about how many donors he’s piling up for “big changes” but somehow the program budget never really sees any of it. Guidelines: Keep refrigerated until use. Seriously, please do. Remember when you left them out on the counter for the whole lesson when you were teaching this to the adults and the top literally flew off and you just about soiled yourself? You want that to happen again?

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Canola or other cooking oil. Quantity: Enough such that if you don’t really cook all too often you will have learned by the end of this that cooking with hot oil brings far more abject terror than added flavor and you probably should have just tried this on the skillet instead.

Guidelines: Try not to guess what canola actually is or to imagine what it must be like to fall in the giant vat they inevitably have to keep large amounts of it in at some point during the production process.

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Toppings to taste. Try powdered sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon! But actually, the commissary is only going to have this one janky bag of brown sugar from the back, and you have to whack it against the metal table to break it up, and you’ll wonder why for all the oatmeal we serve at this godforsaken camp we don’t have any brown sugar to spare.

Instructions: 1. Pour canola oil in the pan until there’s about a half-inch of liquid at the highest point of the pan. Yeah, highest point. This pan has been at this camp since God-knows-when and might as well be a scale model of those foothills down at Kettle Moraine. Man, isn’t it so cool being an awesome nature-y camp counselor and getting to say things like that seriously? Put on low heat, and turn off if oil starts to do that burny oil smell, because then the donuts will burn on the outside but be raw on the inside, and it will be pretty gross but you’ll totally still eat them because there was no way you were going to have those sketchy gyros at lunch but you would have three in a heartbeat right now you’re so hungry. Is that mini box of Frosted Flakes still in your backpack?

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2. Open the biscuit dough. Yes, you can do the slam-it-on-the-counter thing, and the campers will think it’s super cool, but you’ll try it for the adult class and it won’t work at all and you’ll feel like a real knucklehead. Form the dough into small doughnut shapes (that’s how a fancy cookbook would spell it), and then admit defeat and make donut holes when every donut separates from its ring shape in the middle and you end up with all these vaguely phallic not-donuts. You thought you could actually make a ring? Are you kidding? What else, do you think these are going to actually taste like donuts?

3. Hang on, isn’t the adult class from that Outdoor Leader Skills program? You swear you remember your dad talking about when he did OLS he got taught by all the area directors.

It’s your first year! Where even is your area director? At least you have an excuse now.

4. Set the donuts in the oil, and flip after one minute. Flip very gently (re: the Mason kid).

Remove once golden brown, and set on a paper towel or cookie rack—a cookie rack? Who am I, Gordon Ramsey? I know he’s a chef not a baker, but there aren’t really any big name bakers, unless you count the Pillsbury dough boy I guess, but we don’t see a whole lot of him (re: donors, above)—to cool off.

5. Fill a plate or shallow pan with your toppings, and place one or two donuts at a time in th

[Author’s note: The rest of this manuscript was unreadably torn and stained. It appeared to have been caught in a zipper (backpack?), and dried liquid splotches (oil, judging by the paper’s content) were visible around the damaged edge.]

Face • Lauren Tramontana • Acrylic Menagerie • 11

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Structure K. Westrick

I’ll build this house from the ground up for you Bedrock of hard knocks from when my locked thoughts are overdue Lay down some dirt from soiled souls and ground up feelings Grovel for gravel to unravel stories and be more appealing Mix concrete with abstract to abstract their sense of perception Plagiarize your walled words with enough pretension to call it invention Make a better door than a window but keep transparent Lay roof tiles so your bedrock is not apparent Sit in your house, make it your home, kick off your shoes This vicious cycle of pain and creation is too good to lose The longer you linger the more you realize what you’ve gotten You didn’t build a house, you nailed the stakes into your coffin

The L • Kyle Niego • Photography

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Apple Picking Marina Auwerda

apple picking. collecting in thick wicker baskets and they taste so much sweeter when we cull them ourselves. bisect them into slices so we can slip them between our lips like secrets

Pine Trees Marina Auwerda

pine trees. the only ones that keep their precious spiny leaves. they smell like daddy’s red tin box filled with powdery peppermint-pills. feeling the chills of endless winter wood our breaths are two swirls of smoke swimming through thin air.

Tranquility • Amelia Brisk • Drawing

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Latina Mixed with Suburbs Brianna Ramirez

October 2001 Born in the beautiful islands.

Growing up in a small town.

Everywhere I turned.

Poverty.

Abandonment.

I was lucky.

In the words of Baby Cham and Alicia Keys.

“I grew up where hell was my home.”

July 2007 New York.

Dodging bullets to stay alive.

Running from the people said to protect me.

My mother was strong.

Her accent changed the way we were treated.

I guess luck ran in our family.

August 2009 Illinois.

Moved to a small quiet town.

My first night I was scared.

The quiet song of the crickets.

Rubbing their legs together.

I missed the sound of loud car horns.

The rudeness of people on the streets.

I don’t belong here.

I guess my luck was running out.

December 2011

Connected • Madeline Dixon • Ceramic

The year my ghetto attitude became proper.

Catholic school was the epicenter of my fallout.

The church had crucified my culture.

I had a teacher.

Her name remains unknown.

She told me my Spanish was not allowed.

I became mute.

If I could not answer you in English I wouldn’t answer at all.

My voice was silenced.

My opinions put on hold.

I lost my accent.

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I traded in my arroz con ave chula for Starbucks and Chipotle.

Straightening my hair in an imitation of Barbie.

Looking at these girls.

I’m not a size two.

My curves that were once so vivid were slowly leaving me.

I remember the day I forgot who I was.

When my grandmother tried to speak to me in Spanish.

I couldn’t find the words to respond.

I yelled and screamed.

“Abuela I promise I didn’t forget!”

She looked at me.

Disappointed.

“Mi hija, you’ve become lost.”

April 2013 No more.

I’m tired of being judged.

People look at me down the halls.

They call my brown locks a burden.

I call it breathing.

They don’t understand.

Where I come from this giant head of hair is how we communicate.

They say Dominicans can do the best hair.

They can iron out every lock.

What they really mean is that we are the best at giving amnesia.

We are the best at helping people forget where they come from.

January 2016 I’m happy.

My lost accent has been found again.

I’ve remembered my ancestors.

The ancient Tino tribe mixed with the Aztecs.

They were my originators.

I’ve started to enjoy cold cappuccinos.

And spicy burrito bowls.

My teachers have begun to accept me.

They understand me.

They understand my need to stay true to my family.

Mi familia es mi mundo.

I am no longer ashamed to speak my native tongue.

I’m Puerto Rican.

I’m from La Grange.

I’m a Latina mixed with Suburbs.

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illality Stickers • Noah Denten • Digital Menagerie • 16

The Sarcophagus Tegan Murrell

Sarcophagus comes from Greek sarx meaning flesh, and phagein meaning to eat, literally translating to “flesh eater.”

They call me “flesh eater.” Their papyrus faces gape at my richness, my exposed gold.

Their sterile eyes do not see how my living lips wince at the glass.

I am floundering in a magician’s tank, the seconds dripping towards drowning.

They assume I liked being entombed.

New museums summon me, so I ride the rumbling truck.

Darkness slaps my lacquered face.

I breathe the perfume of rotted cloth from a stolen mummy.

I miss my home of cobwebs, the ancient sand’s embrace.

I’d like to ride a motor bike across Arizona, see the scarves of dust billow beneath my wheels, or perch atop the Grand Canyon like Horus.

But I’m locked in a windowless truck, blindly bumbling through the Badlands.

They call me “flesh eater.”

They love the death in my folded arms.

But the Egyptians named me “possessor of life.”

They knew that I am the desert; the jeweled scorpions, the staunch saguaros.

They understood; I belong under the wide sky with the secretly-alive lizards, the tan jackals, the dried out subsisters of the sand.

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Realizations and Revelations Michael Quinlan

Heart racing, I trailed the student before me down the stairs to the basement of the Northwestern school of medicine. I was amongst a group of around twenty students from across the country attending a weeklong summer camp focusing on medicine and leadership within healthcare. Today, though, was the day I had been anticipating in nervous excitement.

As we continued down the stairs and into the low lit basement, I could slowly make out the sterile white tables, littered with stainless steel tools for dissection that lay next to amorphous shapes covered in white sheets. We took a seat next to our table as the leading physician gave us an overview on what we were here to do and a brief history on cadavers and human dissection. We then rotated to each table, viewing several different organs kidneys hearts and eyes - each more intricate than the last, until we reached the last table which held a real adult-sized human brain. Picking it up, I initially noticed that it was heavier than I expected, feeling like some sort of denser jello.

Then it hit me, the realization that, in my hands, I held what just a few weeks before was a person’s everything: every petty jealousy, every insecurity and fear, every hope, joy, and pleasure. Inside this brain held decades of knowledge, experiences, and emotions that I myself have yet to have. This specific brain decided to donate itself and its body parts to science, it chose its own fate, while my own brain studied it. Everything that ever was for that person, from first breath until last, lay in the palm of my hands.

This melon sized organ I held before me and others of its kind created everything that is today’s society, from the invention of the lightbulb, to drafting the Declaration of Independence. In psychology class, the brain is essentially studying itself and its structures and how its own consciousness arises from the matter that it’s made out of. Being arguably the most complex system in all of science, I was temporarily awe-stricken, baffled at how one relatively odd-looking structure could do so much. This beige, gelatinous mass makes us who we are as humans; without it, we are nothing but a shell of skin, muscles, and bones with no driving force to direct the body. When most people see a brain they react with an “Ew! Gross. That’s nasty,” but what’s funny is that reaction is coming directly from another brain, one who has seen itself and yet reacts in disgust. From everything we have been, we are, and everything we will ever be, the human brain is our pilot, the one inalienable thing that drives us to make our decisions. It’s one of the first organs to be made in an embryo, and upon death the brain is the last organ to lose its primary function. The brain is our foundation, and for that, mine will forever be fascinated.

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Continuity • August Domanchuk • Mixed Media

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Summer Nights • Kyle Niego • Photography Menagerie • 20

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Marbled Caroline Garrow A glaciated marble of aquamarine blue rolled from under the velveteen ottoman.

Gazing with a tantalizing cat’s eye at an unaware dribbly tyke.

Stubby and viscous toddler fingers grasp outwards, claw-like in the alluring glass ball’s direction.

Round eyes gazing in unsuspecting wonderment.

Marbles, though, have minds of their own.

Winking that enticing cat’s eye and rolling, illusively from the sticky stunted digits of entitled youth.

Mirror Black • Faith Saibert • Ceramic

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What’s Your Vector, Victor?

Michael McInerney

VIGNETTE ONE: Wily and reedy, the oboes of fate play on in the background of this broken scene. A miser and his looking-glass wife sit with their daughter outside the window pane. She speaks, “Alas,” and then commits what is to be committed in these kinds of circumstances. Silver dollar, silver dollar, a sliver of you holler towards the penny arcades and the gymnasiums. Gypsies dance around you.

Clowns and jesters wrap around you. Celebration fills both your and their air with the sort of air that is reserved for things of the air. Wild. Wild, I call you. Standing beneath the bean as it were, the sharp and golden albatross lies strung and wrung and wung out. “It’s hard to fathom,” I say, and thus is this and this brings us back full circle.

VIGNETTE TWO: Russian Red and the Sundance Kid walk into a bar or a saloon (depending on your disposition) and see Bill Haley, the Space Cowboy himself standing or sitting (depending on your position).

“Rock me baby, rock me all night long” says a man by the door. “Your love keeps lifting me higher and higher” Russian Red says to a back-alley seamstress, and they both go upstairs to sew a shirt (depending on your addiction).

VIGNETTE THREE: When I was a cowboy, out on the western range, I knew a thing or two about this sort of thing or two. Wouldn’t you? It’s not that hard to be found bumming around with your head on the ground, right? Don’t get hung up and uptight, just be outtasight. Alright. Tonight and every night.

VIGNETTE FOUR: Things don’t matter to those that are poor or dead or overseas or in jail, you know? I had a friend who was once all of these things. He’s fine now. He now spends his time clipping magazines and gluing those remains to his remains. That is to say he stopped, or to say he’s just begun. However, I don’t find this to be of too much importance and you likewise. On to the next vignette.

VIGNETTE FIVE: Silver hands followed together the sounds of the guitar in the garden, standing in mystery like the wide Russian Winter. The Walrus, free or for a hey-penny, must be dealt with in prudence.

Hardly ever is a house a home and that I know to be a universal fact. Need you should find me, my cows will be in the fields tomorrow. I, on the other hand, can be found hiding in a polythene bag submerged in the pavement. At the cost of a day or the price of a paperback, life benefits within life, the Madonna and her seven dwarves come to work, fixing better guns for the soldiers and the children.

Twisted diamonds fall from you like sunshine. “That’s the ticket,” says Rigby or Rugby as it were.

Norwegians felt the grass. The losing lover Rita drives by to let sixty-four fine men named Rocky please her, all loving well. Her help winding nowhere.

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VIGNETTE SIX: Moonbeam flowers cling to the adhesive in the air, the fertility of the daisies is found optimum by the gods while figureheads discuss brass ends with the disbelievers. Drunken Westward expansion by carnivores, angry for their greatest enemies stand prime with pomp and circumstance.

Savage Elephants believing fistfights to be the true contest push tanks at the dry pilgrims, all the while, the assassins’ practical headhunt is found allowable. The government breaks into an involuntary fit of gladness, before bleakly mouthing the far from positive response, “As you say, Mr. President.”

VIGNETTE FINITO: Let’s get a bit more light-hearted and a bit more light-headed before our little collection comes to an end, yes? The bikers and the grandparents informed me that some of the odd ends are loose ones and some of the loose ends are odd ones and together they make dead ends. Don’t you worry though, in the end they all lived happily ever after. And so it is The Word and so it was good.

“That’s a quite good ending,” I say as I ball up my paper. “That’s a quite good poem,” I say as I throw it in the trash. “On to the next one.”

Woman in Repose • Lauren Trail • Acrylic Menagerie • 23

Fear and Pain Nicholas Murphy

Fear comes first It is in the man’s eyes as he blindly stumbles across your path And in his hand as he hastily pulls the gun from his pocket It is the click you hear as the cock is pulled back And the cold that seeps through your body as the nozzle is pressed tight against your forehead Fear is the paralyzer It is what turns your blood to lead What fills your lungs with iron Transforming the liberating air into the suffocating water that drowns you in a sea of helplessness Fear is the knowledge of your own inability to act The feeling of being trapped inside a powerless body Fear is the body’s inhuman torment of itself Fear is the eternity between when the gun comes out and when the trigger is released And the trigger is always released Because when the finger twitches And the gunshot’s echo rings in your ear Then the pain ensues Pain is the obliterator It is the bullet that travels straight to the brain Chewing its way through flesh and memory There was nothing before this pain and there will never be anything after it For in the moment of pain you are nothing You are nobody You are a slave to the pain Another meaningless soul caught in the crossfire Yet also in these moments of pain These moments of hell Lies the chance The narrow, fleeting, near nonexistent chance To become more than what we are

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Chain Monster • Noah Denten • Digital

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Fear and Pain Nicholas Murphy

Fear comes first It is in the man’s eyes as he blindly stumbles across your path And in his hand as he hastily pulls the gun from his pocket It is the click you hear as the cock is pulled back And the cold that seeps through your body as the nozzle is pressed tight against your forehead Fear is the paralyzer It is what turns your blood to lead What fills your lungs with iron Transforming the liberating air into the suffocating water that drowns you in a sea of helplessness Fear is the knowledge of your own inability to act The feeling of being trapped inside a powerless body Fear is the body’s inhuman torment of itself Fear is the eternity between when the gun comes out and when the trigger is released And the trigger is always released Because when the finger twitches And the gunshots echo rings in your ear Then the pain ensues Pain is the obliterator It is the bullet that travels straight to the brain Chewing its way through flesh and memory There was nothing before this pain and there will never be anything after it For in the moment of pain you are nothing You are nobody You are a slave to the pain Another meaningless soul caught in the crossfire Yet also in these moments of pain These moments of hell Lies the chance The narrow, fleeting, near nonexistent chance To become more than what we are

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Fear and Pain Paul.indd 2

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Chain Monster • Noah Denton • Digital

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Fear and Pain Paul.indd 3

4/18/2017 11:10:34 AM

Golden State of Mind • Lucy Hawblitzel • Mixed Media

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Where I’m From Jane Layden

I’m from a new home only a block away, from a family of six and a family of thirty six.

I’m from father daughter dances, from mom’s curls and affable nature.

I’m from orange toast and epsom salt, all gifts from grandma Honey.

I’m from pale Irish blood and my Papa, from saltines and cookies when I was sick.

I’m from uniforms and quiet hallways, to the roar of thousands of classmates.

I’m from 10 o’clock mass and then brunch, from the forest preserve just down the street.

I’m from painful pointe shoes, then worn knee pads, from hearing, “I’m sorry but you didn’t make it.”

I’m from blueberry picking and pumpkin patches, from loving the tulips and hating the snow.

I’m from running to the bus with breakfast in hand, from my mom yelling that I forgot my gloves.

I’m from remind me’s and forgive me’s, from trying to do the best that I can.

Season Unending • Isaac Wisthuff • Photography Menagerie • 27

Shattered Love Grace Dekoker

I loved her.

I loved him.

Her eyes stood out like gold; brown gets a bad rap, but hers sparkled like amber and honey and sunlight. It was my life’s mission to capture their onyx sheen on canvas.

Cloudless skies on a spring day, turbulent waves crashing and falling, clear reflection pools; somehow, they were all trapped beneath his lenses.

A chocolate waterfall splashed down her back, looking like the icing on dark chocolate cakes, curling and twisting and entwining, drawing everything in towards her with mystique.

Freckles dotting his face sparingly, so faint they were only visible within a few inches; stars on a dark night, a photo in negative.

Her name like a song, growing softer and softer into a whisper as it moves up through my mouth.

Lips like the first flowers pushing through the earth as the snow melts. They were always chapped. I never cared.

One sentence of hers contained enough intelligence to run this country. She would have been great at it too.

His hands that moved like the wind, appearing reckless but carefully thought out, laced with precision, that could capture the essence of a person, their soul using paper and paint.

Her smile lit up a room, teeth providing luminescence for the blind.

He held the door for every person. He tipped well. He gave hugs on bad days. Never in my life have I met someone as pure heartedly kind as him.

So good, so simply, unequivocally good that when given the choice to kill a human demon, she found herself unable to take a life.

I realized it would be nice to have someone by my side; I didn’t have to be in it alone. I wish I’d had the opportunity.

The best moment of my life was undoubtedly when she showed up at my door, two-thirty in the morning. It’s when I began to know her as more than a figurehead, more than the crown. Cassandra Parrine was a person, a real person, whom I grew to adore.

Will DeVall- more than that circle, more than the thin border inked into his skin. Someone I would abandon everything for. I did.

I loved her.

I loved him.

It was too late.

Why hadn’t I ever told him?

What was wrong with me?

Because now it was too late.

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Koko • Kaylee Miller • Drypoint Menagerie • 29

Hope

Grace Dekoker

Fate and Coincidence rarely met over the years. they’d grown bitter. too many people relied on them, and their own relationship had grown strained. they never had easy jobs, and people were so adamantly against one or the other they found it easier to simply part ways. that is, until Hope came along. and although Fate had known all along it would happen, and Coincidence was taken by surprise - the two embraced.

fancy seeing you here.

please, this was meant to be.

that is when everything began to look a little different.

Mary • Arden Kurhayez • Silkscreen

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Krause • Graham Voetberg • Acrylic Menagerie • 31

Soybeanboozled Andrew Callahan

Mon, Nov 28, 3:18 AM Why cant i fall asleep Should I just start writing the next great american novel Heres the introductory poem I was once like you.

I had the same mentality.

The same we got it, The same lets go, The same do more.

But when you get hit, And you’re pinned From getting back up, You get a paradigm shift.

Yeah i was like you, But I really gotta express, Once.

Chpt 1 “I really hope youre kidding” “No, no its for real. I don’t want to be this guy, but i find myself oddly drawn to it.”

Bridge • Grace Reilly • Pencil Menagerie • 32

So when I overheard my dad talking to our neighbor, Mr. O’Reilly, about condemning his son for wanting to take a a six month hike down the Appalachian Trail that spans from Maine to Georgia, I found myself oddly drawn to it.

It says Casey Peters on my birth certificate.

I find it odd how people denote the essence of who they are by their name, but i guess a labeled shell of a person is all people need.

I might as well add a layer of thickness to the shell i just created and share that I was born in Sacramento in the aftershocks of the 2017 San Andreas Earthquake that managed to dismantle the majority of every business in the shopping district minus my father’s Architect Liability Law Firm.

So, due to the obvious lack of competition and plenty of architecture related injury to file, by luck of circumstance, I would be able to attend private school.

Don’t worry chpt 1 will keep going once the funding comes in

The people i have come to know at Wellesley Academy are always apt to point out that i am not “the sharpest tool in the shed.” I have taken this verbal slap and turned it into a slogan of mine.

Because while i’m not the sharpest tool, i sure as hell can be the best flat head hammer.

And while chemistry, art history, and algebra have left me hitchhiking on the side of the pathway to success, I still believe I have an acute sense of reality and an aesthetic for the exploration of humanity’s mission.

33Quin • Brendan Pugliese • Ink

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Let’s All Burn in Hell Dheeksha Ranginani

At age five, I stole used up gift cards from my mother’s wallet so my sister and I could pretend they were credit cards while we played. At seven, I lied and told my mom I ate only two brownies, when I had eaten three. By the time I reached ten, I wholeheartedly embraced the idea of gluttony, sneaking myself extra pasta when nobody was looking. The perfection emphasized by Heaven’s lofty requirements was already unattainable.

The sins continued to pile up. Whether they stem from greed, laziness, envy or pride, these acts determine my afterlife. From far away, Heaven likes to tease me with its tantalizing rainbows and unicorns. Influencing people all over the world to advertise its greatness, Heaven has an incredibly effective marketing team. Naturally, we spend our whole lives trying to be worthy of admission. Like the exclusive VIP section at a Taylor Swift concert, Heaven is incredibly hard to gain access to. Dante set that unattainable bar in the Inferno by excluding anyone who was different and imperfect, tossing them aside into limbo.

With such strict rules and without margin for error, I am not surprised that by contrast, Hell would have free admission and be at full capacity while Heaven would be an invitation-only affair.

Heaven is not filled with angels but bullies who refuse to let someone sit at their lunch table, increasing their superiority while assaulting everyone else’s self esteem. Heaven is a lie that cannot exist because perfection is unrealistic. Hell is the truth. It doesn’t sneak around telling white lies, ignoring that time I took my sister’s Halloween candy as an act of revenge.

While Hell has its fair share of villains, it is comprised mostly of average people who made a few inconsequential errors. Hell stood up, presented me a mirror and made me confront my weaknesses and mistakes. Hell may be blunt, but at least it is honest and real. Heaven preaches telling the truth, but it is Hell that really follows up on that advice.

Silent Manipulation • Lucy Hawblitzel • Ink Menagerie • 34

Flight • Caroline Wuerl • Photography Menagerie • 35

Restricted Wonder • Maggie Caplice • Collage

Sorry, Wrong Eulogy Sarah Valeika

Carlisle was hardly aware of his mother’s ailment. In fact, he had been so negligibly informed by his elder sister, who maintained the old woman in her final years, that he was the least equipped, amongst her neighbors and even neighborhood passers-by, to write an accurate eulogy.

He had not been out of the pulpit for two minutes before Annie leaned over to him, prodding his burly shoulder with her program, saying, “She didn’t die of old age, Carl, it was pneumonia. And do sit upright, you look oafish.”

Despite minor inaccuracies--age, cause of death, a life story among others-- Carlisle’s speech was well-received. His cousin Jerry called it “a damn good finale,” and, as the crowds milled about in the muggy aisle between muggy pews and a muggy prayer room, he could hear Mrs. Potters’ southern drawl remarking on “what a shame it was the boy settled on construction work.”

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In retrospect, he mused as he picked at a calloused finger, it was an odd choice of vocation for a white young male of solid academic standing to apply to college and then, leaving university reply letters unopened on the antique mail table, decide quite abruptly and contentedly to pursue road construction. He had been the sort of good student who laughed mildly at food fights, but who had no inclination to participate; who respected but was never obsequious; drank but never got drunk; and about whom teachers felt indifferent while teaching but fond once he had graduated. As he would explain to his curious but not prohibitive mother, “Downtown cubicles have met their quota for guys like me,” and as an accountant’s jaded ex-wife, she seemed to resign herself to a tedious blue-collar, as opposed to a tedious white-collar, son.

Now, in the tea-cake-and-tears reception of the old woman’s funeral, he could taste his poorly replicated version of her meatloaf she used to make on Mondays. As she herself never boasted the highest intellect, those meatloaf days were explained as being “just like the Meaty Mondays of World War Two.” That mother was one he hadn’t seen since his almost-engagement.

It is always in the midst of these long-untrodden trails of thought that serendipities are wont to happen, so, lo and behold, there across the church was the almost-fiancee Agnes, chatting (or rather being chatted to) by Carlisle’s sister Annie. Her blonde hair ascending into a bun as though emboldened by a will of its own, and her quick, analyzing eyes scanning always, even while she talked. She was brilliant. She was attuned to every shuffling foot, she was… as Carlisle watched her left hand drape across her folded elbow...engaged again. As she continued listening (to a conversation in which Carlisle had little interest) surges of something like foreboding began crawling up his legs. She had told him once, in that lemony voice of hers, “A broken woman is the one thing that you are incapable of fixing, Carlisle. New, hot tar doesn’t fix her broken road, new road lights can’t spare her from a crash with an impact already ten minutes old, and new bricks-- God, Carlisle, new bricks can’t fix a broken home.”

And as he walked with a trapped, staggered lag, he was met by another inconsequential mumble of admiration for his faulty eulogy.

For a woman he hadn’t even known, a woman who had gotten to know a daughter-in-law she would never have, who had suffered an illness he had never been told of, and who was under the impression he could fix himself up as a construction worker. At least then, he could make something right.

What, he then thought, with shadows in his eyes, have I done to my mother?

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Supernova Highway Caroline Garrow

bright cherry neon becomes an emerald bulb winking from afar

Self Portrait • Cayden Olsen • Linocut Menagerie • 38

Dhar Tichitt • Kendall Collins • Digital Media Menagerie • 39

Mud Bella Lazarski

It was rare my parents ever knew where I was on summer afternoons. However, at the rebellious age of six, it was never quite difficult to find me. My block was blessed with an empty lot, or as we liked to phrase it, the Big Field. It was our home for firefly catching, Fourth of July fireworks, and overwhelming amounts of cuts and bruises. Emily, Roger, and James, conveniently both my best friends and neighbors, were the co-founders to our Secret Society of the Big Field. Special codes, handshakes, languages were shared between only the four of us. Most of the time, it was common to find us causing unnecessary chaos amongst the rest of our neighbors. I often recall Roger sprinting to catch a wild rabbit amongst the front lawns of our neighbors, receiving complaints on destroyed flower beds. Or running away from our younger siblings’ desire to be a part of our exclusive club. However, on a particularly hot afternoon, history would remember the day as the most hectic day of the Big Field Society.

The four of us, dripping with sweat, decided to lounge in the hidden branches of the magnolia tree in the field to avoid the overbearing sun. Each too tired to move, too exhausted to swat away the nearby gnats or bees humming by our ears. Emily, the oldest of the four members, spontaneously mentioned that pigs normally bathe themselves in mud to keep cool from the sun’s harmful rays during afternoons like this. Within seconds, James shot up from the tree in a frenzy. I was surprised anyone could move that fast in that amount of heat.

Barefoot, James took Roger to the back of the house with Emily and me following closely behind. I was anxious to see what sort of commotion was being caused, and I wasn’t surprised with what I saw. Both boys had decided to strip down to their underwear, tossing the remains of their clothes around the driveway. Emily didn’t hesitate to start bickering with James about his poor actions and behavior, and James didn’t hesitate to tell Emily to shut up. Meanwhile, Roger ran to the back of the house, switching the valve of the hose on and letting James pour the warm water over the dry, dirty backyard. Within seconds, the dirt carpeting the backyard transformed into dark mud. Although unaffected by the premature actions of the boys, Emily was livid. She and James went off on tangents about what the other one was doing while Roger and I sat behind, afraid to step on any toes. James had managed to get Emily off his back as the backyard continued to flood with muddy dirt. He explained to the two of us that the only reasonable way to escape the heat was by covering ourselves with mud. Of course, I thought, it’s the only logical way to keep cool.

Without hesitation, I sprinted home to grab a bathing suit. No way was I going to strip down to my underwear in front of boys. I felt the corners of my cheeks turn up when I returned.

James and Roger had already been covered from head to toe. Dripping in warm mud, you could hardly tell there were boys under the dirt. Emily, still debating her commitment to stay cool, was shuffling her feet in the corner. I, however, didn’t give myself time to think about the consequences and dug my hands into the backyard mud. I caked my arms, legs, stomach, and face. Covering every inch of my body was warm, rocky muck. I was no longer a girl. I was practically animal.

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Darkest Dawn • Liz Becker • Photography

The boys began to laugh at my appearance, mocking how the brown of the soil matched the black of my eyes. They commented on how I looked like a monster. Monster. The thought echoed throughout our heads. James suddenly brought up his arms above his head and began to roar from his belly. The hairs on the back of my neck began to spike as Roger repeated his behavior. The two looked at one another, nodding and howling as they chased each other about the driveway. I burst. The way each one pranced about the concrete was beyond amusing and something I found hilarious. I ran along with them around the backyard, and I couldn’t determine whether I wanted to howl or laugh at our odd behavior.

The chase had transformed into a race. Both James and Roger competing to be the fastest monster on the street, me being too slow to keep up. It wasn’t long before we left the comfort of the Big Field and ventured into the rest of the neighborhood in a frenzy. Screaming nonsense words to one another in attempt to scare the other were exchanged as we sprinted across lawns and driveways. Trails of muddy water and dirt were left in every footstep we took. I recall following a set of steps to find Roger snacking on his neighbor’s cherry tomatoes, avoiding an empty stomach for his dinner that evening.

We had laughed and run until our bellies ached with pain and hunger. Since the mud had been put on, it felt like hours had passed by and I decided to leave. Waving goodbye to the other two monsters, I made my walk home. Stepping into the back door, I was greeted by a loud gasp and shout. Calling to my father outside, my mother made no hesitation to make fun of my appearance and drag me out to the back of the house with a hose in her arms. I whined as the cool water ran over my skin. The monster was gone, along with what felt like my freedom. The sticky mud rinsed down my dirty arms and muddy legs and stained itself into my backyard. My father chuckled at my childishness and filthy toes while my mother attempted to keep her pursed and disappointed lips straight.

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Plastic Spoon • Will Lipchik • Acrylic

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Untitled • Maranda Jackson • Drypoint Menagerie • 43

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Thirteen Ways of Looking at Paper Laura Flores

after “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” I. A careworn poet slumps on a splintered wooden desk, his hands writing a love story upon a piece of paper.

He sees by the light of a single lamp.

II. Children sit around classroom work tables, their scissors cutting shapes from rainbow paper.

Dozens of creations cover every inch of the ceiling.

III. An accountant slips a note onto his coworker’s desk, his hands nervously crumpling the paper.

He anxiously hopes for an answer.

IV. A haggard mother makes an important phone call, her pencil frantically recording numbers on pad of paper.

Her baby cries in the next room.

V. A businessman prints several documents from his laptop, his ideas slowly forming on crisp computer paper.

His gold-plated watch reads 1:00 A.M. VI. Thousands of protesters march down public sidewalks and streets, their arms carrying paper posters with strong images and words.

Their message inspires the world.

VII. A quiet cartographer sketches maps of the world, his pencil silently moving across long sheets of paper.

Mountains, oceans, rivers, and cities appear on the page.

VIII. A hardened soldier pens a letter to his family, his eyes dropping tears upon a dirty sheet of paper.

This will be his last Christmas.

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lil breezy • Maggie Hennessy • Photography IX. A young boy bikes throughout his neighborhood, his arm tossing rolls of newspapers on every front porch.

He hopes the job will be temporary.

X. Tiny children learn the alphabet for the first time, their wobbly hands struggling to write on sheets of paper.

They are the next generation.

XI. A young girl lies bedridden in the hospital, her fingers folding paper into one thousand origami birds.

She hopes to be happy one day.

XII. A teenage boy rebelliously hides from his parents, burning paper fires in the middle of the woods.

Heat is his only chance of survival.

XIII. A worried mother checks her mailbox, her fingers finding a paper envelope sent from her son.

He will be home for the holidays.

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Beast • Graham Voetberg • Print

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Him

Tyler Bernklau

I really like him. He makes me feel more reassured that I will overcome my obstacles, which is not something everyone can do. I make myself think and stave off feeling, but he makes me feel a variety of emotions. Guilty when I criticized him on a skill he has mastered, a skill which I know little about and had no place in making a judgement. When I meet him it’s like getting on a rollercoaster, blindfolded. I feel happy when I see him - like winning a race with weights on. Because of how much knowledge he has that I don’t have, being with him is like going into a cave with no light. To quote Sylvia Plath, “If I’m alive now, then I was dead.” Of course, I can live without him, and I can feel anxious and elated and guilty like lying to baby, and happy without him, but I don’t want to, because he makes these feelings palpable and almost out of reach from my Titan mind. So, for doing this, I like him. I really like him. I love him.

Never Ending • Trinity Cruz • Photography

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Skin Marina Auwerda Skin is the only part of your body that senses touch, and touch is what brings us together when we have fallen apart. When everything is wrong, and nothing is right, we rely on a comforting squeeze of the shoulder; a snuggle bug; a stroke of the cheek; a bear of a hug; a kiss of a true love.

Her face is buried in the couch, wet and red and puffy and hot. The snow swirls outside her window, clumping onto the bushes like blankets. She folds her knees up to her chest, burying her face deeper into a pillow and sighing heavily. She is alone and the house is achingly silent, except for the sound of her small companion padding towards her.

At first she hears its feet, tapping faintly across the floor as it approaches. Then she hears its breathing; more of a lethargic panting sound. It is sitting at the corner of the couch, and although she doesn’t move or see it, she can imagine it tilting its head in faint sympathy. There is a slight pause, and then a thud; it has leapt onto the sofa beside her, lolling its tongue.

It yawns, making a mild squeaking noise. She doesn’t move, so it finds a nook next to her body and snuggles inside, creating a home in her empty spaces. She can feel its ginger chestnut fur nestled up against her skin, warm and soft like velvet. They have become one small bundle of comfort together, and she forgets about how sad she as been for a few delicate, hopeful moments.

Skin is there for our best moments, but it’s also there for our worst.

She looks down at her leg, still dazed. Her mind is stirring, but she sees the russet droplets running down her legs in streams. There is a gash there; wide, and she imagines it to be a canyon; a split in the barren earth. She tries to get up, but there is nothing but metal, surrounding her like a monstrous cage and trapping her. No matter which way she shifts, it hurts, and she feels blood dribbling down her forehead and onto her cracked, dry lips. She screams until she doesn’t have a voice; she struggles until she can’t feel her feet; she looks until she can’t see and the world has descended into darkness.

When she awakens, everything is frosty white and she has tubes for veins. Her arms are covered with scars and dried blood; thin black stitches have closed the canyon on her leg, though she feels it aching to split and welcome the air again. When she finally is released with her broken arm, she swears her canyon leg will never seal shut. It creates a black and purple wound on her perfect pale white skin, like a disease she will never be rid of.

It has been five years. The black stiches are vanished; they are a distant memory, almost a figment of her imagination. The memory of the crash has become like a dream, and so has the wound. Now it is a shy, wandering scar; a creeping vine; a sealed gap. It is the miracle of healing, the miracle of regrowth and regeneration.

Skin is one of the few organs that grows back. It heals all on its own, swallowing wounds whole and enveloping them in fresh, pink flesh. Skin is our outermost organ; a guardian for our insides; a shell for our brittle bones. It may be frozen, burned, sliced, or cut, and yet it still overcomes. It overtakes its absences and acts as our greatest protector against the outside world.

Skin is a sign of health and of life, all you would find on a well-rested corpse are bones.

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Bones act as nothing more than a frame. All frames are created the same, and in regards to bones, all people are essentially created the same. And yet they aren’t.

Skin is one of the features that sets us apart. It comes in countless colors, from chocolate to olive to tan to milk to blushing pink. Skin is one of those traits that makes you uniquely you. It might identify you with your heritage, or it might identify you with your family. Skin is something that was passed down to you, and it is something to be proud of. That said, it is not something that should be exclusive or something that creates boundaries between crowds. Skin is powerful, but it should never keep people apart. It should bring people together.

Will • Andrew Norvilas • Photography Menagerie • 49

Of Things Unknown Nicholas Murphy

What’s the one thing you lose the longer you wish for it We all begged for more that night, but time is ruthless Church bells rang signifying the hour They could’ve been cannons for the way we ran Out into the night engulfed by darkness Together we could not remain My sprint became a jog and then a walk of silence Speed was important but stealth is essential Entering the house was no change from wandering the night It was as if the walls had allowed the shadows to permeate in Silence had to be absolute My own heartbeat was too loud

Scarlet in the Woods • Sydney Weber • Digital Art Menagerie • 50

Monster Posters • Noah Denten • Digital

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The Revisionists Tegan Murrell When he saw his princess belly up, cold as a fish, curled lashes standing guard against the shadows that crept down her pale brow, skin the color of October rain, dry lips parted, mouth full of death, he cried out.

He flung his hands upon her chest and pressed his lips against hers.

The cow-brained peasants overlooking saw her awaken and told their children the story of true love’s kiss.

‘Twas the first documented case of successful CPR.

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Demonic Grace • Graham Voetberg • Mixed Media Menagerie • 53

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Squishy • Ashley Lites • Photography

Drip • Caroline Higney • Watercolor Menagerie • 54

Connectedness Marc Johnson We are all connected;

it just depends on your perspective,

and to what extent you are willing to go.

Lyons Township High School, Lions, Roar, “You’re gonna hear me roar,” Katy Perry, Katy short for Katheryn, Catherine the Great, Mother Russia, Vladimir Putin, #ManCrush, Donald Trump, Hair Force One, Toupee, Tupac, Sick rhymes bruh, Rhyme time, Time Magazine, News, Fake news, Big lies, Big Eyes, Margaret Keane, Kenan Thompson, Saturday Night Live, NBC, ABC, ACT, TNT, Dynamite, Termite, Frostbite, Date night, Tonight, Quick bite, Gigabyte, Website, Google.com, Gmail, Emails, Hillary Clinton, I’m with Her, And her and her and her, Rhymes with Aaron Burr, Sir, Hamilton, Musical, Politician, Expedition, Exploration, John Smith, Will Smith, Independence Day, 4th of July, Fireworks, DreamWorks, Dream theory, Sigmund Freud, Freudian Psychology, Philosophy, Taking me back to Friedrich Nietzsche, Like what is he even saying?, In a daze, Holidays, Holiday Cards, Hallmark Store, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, Otto von Bismarck, Otto, Palindrome, Racecar, Madam I’m Adam, Adam Levine, Maroon 5, “Moves Like Jagger,” Mick Jagger, Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney, Disney Pixar, Toy Story, Buzz Lightyear, #LotsofHateInThisBear, “But he smells like strawberries,” Strawberry shortcake, Food Network, Beat Bobby Flay (haha yeah right), Bobby Flay, Filet mignon, Steakhouse, House of Cards, Deck of cards, Queen of Hearts, Queen Bee, Spelling Bee, Spell “Succedaneum,” Can I have an alternate pronunciation?, Enunciation, Articulation, Foundation, The Founder, McDonald’s, “Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” And on that farm he had a chicken (e-i-e-i-o), Chickens lay eggs, Raw eggs, Rocky Balboa, Rocky Horror Picture Show, “Let’s do the time warp again,” Time warp, Time travel, DeLorean, Back to the Future, Back in time, Did aliens build the pyramids?, Pyramids, Illuminati, Bugatti, Fancy car, Classic car, Classic literature, Fahrenheit 451, Fire Starters, Firefighters, Firemen, Dr. Waterman.

Stained • Kaylee Miller • Mixed Media Menagerie • 55

Wild Cat Road Morgan Sides

My grandparents live in Jacksonville, Illinois, a small town with only 19,000 people inhabiting its 11 square-mile area. My grandpa has spent countless hours shuttling us around this small farm town, showing us all the landmarks of the place he’s lived for a very large portion of this life.

Jacksonville is home to a school for the deaf, blind, the first Ferris wheel, the old state mental institution, the state penitentiary and Illinois’s largest book bindery. All of these landmarks are much less interesting than they sound, especially when you’ve seen them a few dozen times.

One particular visit to my grandparent’s house, my grandpa finally realized the redundancy of his Jacksonville tours as we drove past the largest book bindery in Illinois for the seventh or eighth time. My younger cousin and I were half asleep in the car trying to please my grandpa as we sat through the same speech he always gave; that was until my little cousin started snoring. I nudged her and she jolted back upright. “Sky? Did you fall asleep?” my grandpa called back to us.

“Yeah, sorry Grandpapa, I’ve just heard this story a few times already…” My grandpa could tell he was losing our interest. “Well, have I ever taken you to my home town? There’s this road called Wild Cat Road we always used to speed down when I was little! It was how we had fun when I was a teenager!” Parts of Southern Illinois are actually very interesting. Way, way, way back in the day, the prairies were actually the very bottom of a shallow tropical ocean that eventually dried up; thus remains beautiful rolling hills that were once land masses amidst the water. My grandpa was born and grew up in Mount Sterling, one of the towns at the bottom of the sea. So, my little cousin and I, thinking about the rolling hills that surround the tiny town were eager to go. We could already picture racing through the bumping, twisty-turny hills that were a half hour away, or so we thought.

My grandpa made stops along the way to show off historic houses, expansive cornfields, our family farm and a little hotdog shack where we got lunch. The journey ended up taking two hours; all the while, my little cousin and I were dying with the anticipation of driving along the coveted “Wild Cat Road.” I could picture the swarms of teens living in a small town racing a long this road way back then. It must’ve been a primitive roller coaster or something of those sorts. It must’ve been epic. It WILL be epic. We drove a little longer after our stop for hotdogs, past more corn and more blue sky. Finally, we pulled up to the start of a small road. My grandpa, who had been blasting smooth jazz, shut off the radio. He turned back around to look at me and my cousin. He tipped his sunglasses, “Now who’s ready for Wild Cat Road?” After two hours of long lectures about old houses, corn and the goat he almost got arrested for tickling (I’ll save that for another story), we were finally here. My grandpa put the car in drive, sped up, and sailed down the road and then we hit it. Yes, it. It being a bump. One. Single. Bump. That was Wild Cat Road? Are you kidding?

“YEEHEE! So many memories! How was it? Exciting right?” The car was quiet. “Grandpa we just drove two hours for a single bump in the road?” We all erupted into laughter and poked fun at my poor grandfather whose most exciting form of entertainment when he was a teenager was driving over something we now call a speedbump.

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Llorraine • Koko Stubitsch • Colored Pencil

I originally looked at that day as a waste of two hours until I realized that I actually had a lot of fun. I got to learn about houses that were a part of the Underground Railroad. I got to hear about my great grandfather working at the train station a few towns over. I got to hear stories of my great grandfather taking a boat to work when the valley would flood after massive rain storms. I got to hear about the first time my grandpa shot a rifle and stories of the old farmer he used to torment who owned the infamous tickled goat. And I got to see my grandpa’s past and relive some of his youth alongside of him, which at the end of the day, was even wilder than that single bump on the ever-so-tame Wild Cat Road.

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Explorer • Clara Weismantel • Digital Menagerie • 58

A Hungry Man to His Sandwich Marc Johnson

after “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” Come live with me and be my food, And we will cheer each other’s mood, No pantry closet or fridge door, Within the kitchen stops us more.

A dress made of lettuce leaves The finest blankets of Swiss cheese; A tasty belt of bacon slices, With meats of the purest spices;

And we will dine upon fine ware, Smelling your aroma in the air, By the toaster to whose presence The two minute ding! makes your essence.

Some fresh vegetables perhaps, Or a sparkling olive cap: And if these pleasures prove thee good, Come live with me, and be my food.

And I will make thee a bed of fries And a bag of chips besides, A candle lit meal for you and I A starched white napkin on my thigh;

The dinner bell shall ring delight For each contented appetite: If these delights are heartily viewed, Then live with me, and be my food.

Sandwich • Eleanor Keelan • Acrylic

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Max and Molly ∙ Lauren Trail ∙ Photography

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The Man of Few Words Caroline Garrow Jaundiced satin skin weighs damply On the wiry birch frame That once held a man Of very few words Tautly held by a thin crown, Coarse calico hair adorns the scalp That once held a man Of very few words Narcoleptic lids envelop The milky cerulean eyes That once held a man Of very few words And in silence, I lie On the bleached hospice bed That once held a man Of very few words

Teapot • Christina Demes • Ceramics Menagerie • 61

The Introverted Extrovert That Stayed Home Too Long Hunter Pendleton

Some movie is on TV. Everyone upstairs is asleep.

You pick up your phone to check it. You set it back down.

You look up to watch for a moment or two. A man and a woman stand next to a car.

You grab your drink and take a sip. It’s almost empty. You place it on the table.

You pick up your phone to check it. You set it back down.

You look back up at the television, and pay attention for a minute or so: the woman slaps the man across his face. The tension on screen is rising, but you can’t bring yourself to climb with it.

You pick up your phone to check it. You set it back down.

The man runs away from the woman and into the car. He tears away blindly. The screen fades to black.

“To be continued” flashes on screen.

You pick up the remote, and turn off the TV. It’s dark.

It’s quiet.

It’s 1 A.M. Your phone lights up, and you check it quickly.

“Your phone is low on battery. Find a power source to continue usage.”

You put it back down, and yawn.

You get up.

You walk to your room.

And you go to bed.

Reach • Kyle Niego • Photography Menagerie • 62

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Flowers • Max Lux • Photography

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Capital • Caroline Wuerl • Photography Menagerie • 64

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Little Things Lauren Trail When the air suddenly hardens and ground slowly stiffens, lonesome leaves flutter sporadically onto the decaying yard, covering the earth in a soft layer of wrinkled intricacy. The burning orange stains the dreary lawns sprinkled alongside the yellow and brown, occasionally piled along the pebbled curb overrun by heavy rubber tires.

There, close to the curb, I meander among the towering oaks, their splintering bark a dreary shade without their full coat, now lost at their feet until the next season. The wide streets, like the others usually bare of such seasonal decay, lay covered in thick layers of unwanted life, each little leaf crushed beneath tromping feet.

As I walk across the field revealing the exposed branches dangling onto their last buds of colorful life, I hear the rushing conversation of nearby trees, as if their hallowed branches only wished for their plumage to return in full. The soft whispers of the wind carry these small conversations to my ear, chills running through my bones before passing on to hear the gossip of the next towering tree, only to produce the same loud chatter of twigs and remaining leaves.

Little things, the wind quietly sings, caught between the chorus of crunches and thuds beneath my feet, before disappearing back into incessant chatter among looming twigs. The words come quickly to my lips, rising up to my rosy pink cheeks and bright eyes, sparkling against the freezing air.

Meanwhile, the faint clicks of a bushy tailed squirrel approach, another lingering nearby, appearing to hold a recently discovered treasure covered in earth.

There, up among the trees where they prance up and down the long trunks, their screams echoing as one chases another like school children on a playground, tails swishing in their wake. From up on the rattling twigs, an amused woodpecker watches the scampering squirrels, unperturbed by the fast-paced chase below. Luxurious feathers, a brilliant blue, flutter against the wind’s whispers while the woodpecker hops along the towering tree’s trunk, as if it were a game of jumping rope. At length, a robin joins the woodpecker on a bare branch to watch the echoing pecks made with a beak as sharp as a knife that overpowers the wind’s song.

Little things, the wind calls, a chilling gust cascading down my shivering spine.

Once again, the words tumble onto my lips as the robin soars towards the freezing earth, ruffling thick plumage after gracefully landing. Staring across the collaged yard of mud and decaying life, our gaze locks with curious fascination; the sole survivor of an overshadowing oak plummets downwards to the toes of weather worn leather boots. Distracted by the vivid color flashing before me, the disturbed robin soars back into the air as numbed fingertips grip the crisp leaf, appearing with such saturation none seem as bright. The soft words travel from my mouth as the brilliant red leaf disappears within my pocket.

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Momentary Peace Tegan Murrell

My car is parked on the edge of the public garage, overlooking the hilly landscape of red-orange-yellow.

The wind frisking the fallen leaves sounds like gentle rain.

I sip my smooth black tea, and suddenly I’m home in Seattle.

I hear the waves pounding, sucking, slurping and the rain sizzling, and my grandmother is pouring tea.

Open my eyes, and I’m back.

The garage smells calm like cool cement, steeped leaves, motor oil.

I have essays to write, groceries to buy, but my life of endless motion, beating waves, has slowed, like how the wave’s trough retreats, then hovers just before it swells up and falls again.

Sister • Maranda Jackson • Silkscreen Menagerie • 66

Untitled • Stefan Marin • Drawing

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Insecurity • Liz Becker • Mixed Media

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Peter Pan Syndrome Claire VanDerLaan

you are five so you plant your small fingers on the windowsill, pressing your tiny nose against the screen that bars you from your multicolored plastic castle and you daydream how you will get there along a path made of fireflies and sunflowers each curling in your wake as you skip through your peachy pink illusion. you are eight so your attention span is shorter than a fuse that has been lit as you sit at the kitchen table and watch the sun drape itself over your mother’s garden with beams cracking so brightly across that you find you are blinded by the sunny-side up eggs your father sets down before you. you are fourteen so in the late winter, you are the last one left at your desk, as your eyes carve through the freezing air to search each individual snowflake, hunting for the originality that is promised with each one, white chips of nail polish that are getting caught on the leaves of bushes planted in hopes of inspiring some semblance of freshness in the dryest desert you’ve ever known. you are eighteen so leaves crackle as you walk all alone, sparks of flames exploding underfoot the sun is undeterminable under a sky that is too fresh to be blue but too blue to be anything else, and as you walk you find that every window you see has tiny fingers planted on its windowsill, a tiny nose pressed into its screen.

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Lovely Florist Francesca Restani

last night I had the strangest dream reminiscent of dead leaves and thorns, clippings of my aged school years now beyond me every gnarled branch had found root within my soul, within each dry crease in their hollow husks the reminder was a swig of whiskey, oddly warm and painfully scorching; each pang of remembrance stung my throat with malice and smiling sorrows I tended to each dead, potent plant, which has cleverly drawn water and sun and oxygen from my own body to feed their oh-so-growing branches of eyes hands words the eyes of unwelcome lust the hands of unwarranted grazings the words of my negative mind, my own mind in spite of their state of decease, nothing continues to sprout like dead leaves and thorns, clippings of the past now beyond this morning I awoke with the faintest anxiety like each of those aged years lingering from the remembrance of my garden of weeds, not quite beyond or behind me becoming lost in each gnarled branch, thirsty and hollowed-out memories of the past lost and more lost I became until a familiar brush of a gardener’s touch met me tending to me with shared oxygen and sun and water and solidity of newfound eyes hands words his eyes of a gaze full of care the hands that held mine with warmth his words that uprooted the weeds and plucked each dead leaf off each thought of mine despite their persistent resproutings, nothing tends to the garden of my mind like the lovely florist of mine and with each flower he plants, creations of new memories awash me like water; the feeling of life brought again leaves me clean the most wonderful thing about my florist is he tends to my mind’s garden every time the thorns break earth and makes his forest of love for me there with space enough to grow my own.

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Flowerhead ∙ Eleanor Keelan ∙ Acrylic Menagerie • 71

Happy • Eleanor Keelan • Colored Pencil Menagerie • 72

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If You Were Mine Iris Leahy

Why I would clutch The stars, Pick them from the sky, And make a ring As bright as The Milky Way. I would swim In the rain and music Of a summer night, And leave the grass Star diamond dusted, Like a trail of pixie dust.

Why I would wear A dress Of blush-pink summer dawn, And make a crown Of pearly dewdrops Set deep in chocolate hair.

I would waltz In sun-filtered forests, And send my heart in song Over the gold green Leafy treetops Like lazy, flowing wind.

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Bridges • Grace Reilly • Drawing

Under the Streets Maya Djurisic Stories are made for the people who can never live them. For the people who go about their lives meaning nothing to the world and something only to those around them. Average to the bone.

Rain Tanaka knew this and buried herself in books appropriately. Born and raised in a sleepy suburb, her entire life was already planned out for her. Finish high school, go to college, get a job, raise a family.

Finding a cryptic entrance beneath a sewer grate was not part of that plan. Not that it stopped her.

Squinting through the darkness, she pulled her phone from her pocket, turning the flashlight on and swinging it around the tunnel. The walls were bare and ominous, stretching on further than her flashlight could reach. She almost turned back when she saw an arrow chalked onto the wall, pointing down into the darkness. So she pressed on.

“Hello?” she called, her own voice echoing back at her menacingly. She walked endlessly, the cold of the cement tunnel cutting through her thin coat, and before long she was shivering.

Her phone screen switched on abruptly, startling her. Low battery. She muttered a curse under her breath, turning the flashlight off and tucking her phone into her pocket. Only then did she realize that the dark tunnel had lightened marginally, turning the dark conditions a little brighter, the light a faint turquoise. More arrows lined the walls, becoming more and more numerous as she walked.

Picking up her pace, she started jogging, the light getting brighter as she did. The tunnel ended abruptly in a set of double doors, bright light slipping through the breaks in the doors and spilling into the tunnel beyond. There was a thrum of life coming from behind the door, people chattering and laughing, and the beat of dozens of footsteps in time. Curiosity opened the door for her and what she saw was breathtaking.

It wasn’t unlike a small village, teeming with people and bioluminescent flora, covering any inch of ground not paved, lighting the town like the sun. Where one might find houses in a village, however, there were dozens of stalls, vendors selling everything under the sun, all colored in the same teal glow that the plants had. All light sources had the same color and appearance, with oversized fairy lights stringing endlessly down the street ahead of her, each lantern seeming to be filled with their own, little glowing plants. Larger lamps lined the street alongside the paper lanterns, wrapped in glowing vines and topped with shining paint reminiscent of the astonishing plant life. Stalls were painted with it too, and the people--They were everywhere. Dancing, singing, talking, it was a wonder they hadn’t been louder in the tunnel. Everybody had some of the bioluminescence painted on them, either on exposed skin or clothes. There was an atmosphere of calm, as if nothing had touched these people before.

Rain didn’t notice she was staring slack-jawed at it all until the people loitering at the entrance of the tunnel raised their voices, the words coming faster and feverishly.

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“We’ve got a new one!” a voice shouted to the gathered people gleefully. An eruption of cheers followed, and as people drew near she realized that she could put some names to faces.

English teacher. Tennis coach. Classmate. Librarian. School aid. She looked around, hardly able to form words or comprehensive thoughts. A hand clapped her on the back, followed by a mirthful laugh.

“Don’t worry, we’ve all been where you are. You never really get used to the beauty.

Come on, grab a lantern and I’ll take you to the end of the string.” A kind looking older man led her down the street, handing her a lantern identical to the ones crisscrossing the main road.

Peering into it, Rain saw a little plant held inside, giving off its own eerie, beautiful light.

“Each lantern was hung by someone who came here. Kind of a tradition that every newbie gets their own lantern and hangs it,” he explains, leaping to the side to avoid getting bowled into by a small group of children, each of them wearing their shimmering paint like they were going to war. Instead of becoming angry, he laughed and waved good-naturedly to the children, and continued walking down the road.

People were steadily thinning out as they traveled further away from the entrance until all noise had faded to a dull roar, sounding lackluster against the all-encasing silence that dominated the end of the main street. The older man stood ahead of her, holding the end of the string in her direction.

Picking it up carefully, she threaded the paper lantern through it, before hooking the thread on the latch on the opposing vacant stall. A wave of energy pulsed through the air, filling Rain with a feeling of weightless euphoria. The man beamed as the look of tranquility passed over her features before leading her back to the crowd of people.

“Welcome to Neva’s Underground, kid.”

Crawdad Slough Two • Tim Mikulski • Photography Menagerie • 75

Overhead • Caroline Wuerl • Photography

Looking Up • Andrew Norvilas • Photography Menagerie • 76

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Election Day Peter Eggerding

I was given the distinguished pleasure of serving as an election judge in district 7 in Lyons Township. Even though I had to wake up at 4:30 to get there, the day was a success. The precinct I had boasted about a 70% voter turnout including early ballots, and at the end of the day every vote was counted correctly and reported to the country without any issues, which I count as a job well done. I do have to say that in the room where we checked people in, the voters’ faces were vibrant and warm, their heads were held high, and no one politicked, campaigned, or fought which is the way democracy should work, especially on voting day. All the riots in the news, backlash, and complaints, are indicative of an American people passionate for their beliefs and values. But we need to remember the virtues in constructive petition and patience. So, don’t ever let Democracy down and pass up a vote because your voices deserve to be heard and are all important. God Bless America.

The Unknown Soldier • Koko Stubitsch • Mixed Media Menagerie • 77

About English Majors Sarah Valeika

There is a form of intellectual metastasis known as fear, which can be both conspiratorial and apocalyptic. It is to this state that we are reduced when we glom onto irrational theories regarding the future status of the humanities in the workforce. Thus, to avoid intellectual metastasis, let us here establish the irrefutable truth: the human soul is born to feel. Is this not true? Is it not the inherent nature of sentient beings to love, to be loved; to emote, to perceive emotions in others; to be irrational?

Amongst scholars, there is a much-maligned notion of coming doomsday, a day in which the humanities — English majors, for example — will be a dead pursuit. The idealized poet in a coffee shop? He will dwell in his parents’ spare bedroom, eating potato chips and lamenting cruel fate. The professor of art history? She will downsize to a smaller apartment, to fit all her Renoir reproductions, and will be employed as a secretary to make a living. And as for visual artists? They shall be condemned to a Dickensian end: the poorhouse.

Is this the inevitable reality or a fabrication of minds much given to fabrication and creative conjecture? It speaks well to the sensitivity and foresight of creative thinkers to be so concerned for the future of the humanities. However, the definition of “humanities” is as follows: “learning or literature concerned with human culture, especially literature, history, art, music, and philosophy.”

With the rise of STEM and the explosion of data-based culture, it is time to consider what is often studied by these scientists. It is time to consider the headlines of their scientific reports:

Effects of music on the brain. Is not someone responsible for creating this music?

Study shows benefits of reading aloud to children. A pervasiveness of reading within families is the only reason such a study could exist.

Is DNA modification ethical? At its core, could this not be considered a philosophical question, not merely an objective, scientific one?

These, of course, are merely examples, but the prevalence of their likenesses within the media ought to provide ample reassurance to aspiring English majors: your career is not, nor will it ever be, a mere carcass discarded in a technology-driven world. You are here to stay.

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Butterflies • Koko Stubitsch • Mixed Media Menagerie • 79

You Wouldn’t Know Eric Ko

You wouldn’t know the chemical composition of a smile, the glassy, fragmented shards of slick sand and the ever melting fluid mosaic.

Unless you pulled out a microscope, or at least had an eye for detail, or at least looked.

You would never see the matrices of flowers within every hug the soft sigh of air in the solace of the solstice of winter.

Unless you could feel with your hands as well as with your heart the pulse of humanity hemoglobin, tears.

You would have no hope of comprehending the fault lines in the fine quartz of a jewel-shaped heart when each greeting floats unanswered like mail in the breeze.

Unless you could hear the crinkling of diamonds underneath the soles of feet inside the souls of the living and the caring reaches of the whining willow.

You would have no hope of discerning the true nature of secrets

untold, unexposed forever in plain sight ensconced in a plane of twilight.

Unless you could scent the creeping aroma of penguin feet, marching in a field of tundra snow: eggs.

You wouldn’t leave your arms to the side of aching ribs with laughter spent, earned.

Unless you carried the dish when all runs like a worrisome chalazae creeping from shattered shell for you to taste victory and triumphs never shared.

You wouldn’t breathe the invisible aroma, aurora, of joy at the twilight of rising and hold your breath from the fomenting insanities of the twilight of sleeping by staying wrapped inside a bedroom burrito, asleep.

Unless you lived.

Now, would you?

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Gift • Emily Flores • Silkscreen

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Dublin ∙ Laura Flores ∙ Photography

Goat ∙ Maggie Hennessy ∙ Photography Menagerie • 82

Plays

One of the many electives that students can choose from is Playwriting.

Students gain experience in the writing of monologues and scenes as well as the structuring of comedic and dramatic material; selected plays can be produced for public performance. LTTV, a student produced TV station, was kind enough to film the work which can be seen by scanning the QR code below.

Action Hero by George Kennet Then Talk by Koko Stubitsch Stars Are Out Tonight by Connor Trimborn Life of the Party by K. Westrick www.lths.net/menagerie

That Face • Emily Flores • Acrylic Menagerie • 83

Wisconsin • Megan Aletich • Digital Media

Home of Life • Jordan Dockins • Digital Media Menagerie • 84

Curtains of Beauty • Madeline Karlson • Photography Menagerie • 85

Special Thanks Mr. Geddeis, the Administration, and the Board of Education for their continuous support.

AlphaGraphics for manifesting our ideas as something tangible.

Mr. Maffey for maintaining a sense of humor without diminishing our productivity.

Mrs. Rohlicek for inspiring us with her knowledge and appreciation for art and design.

Ms. Gutierrez for ensuring everything is cohesive and rallying our best efforts.

Graham Voetberg for transforming a vision into a creative reality.

Dheeksha Ranginani for a perfect combination of vision and organizational genius.

Mathilde for being our unofficial mascot (pictured below).

Talented writers and artists for producing incredible content that make this magazine possible.

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Lost in the World • Julia Dean • Photography

Colophon Menagerie is the annual student-run literary and art magazine of Lyons Township High School, home to about 4,000 students and 300+staff. It is a juried magazine whose participants work beyond regular school hours. Students submit their poems, prose and art by January. In February, the poetry, prose, and editorial staffs meet after school for about a month to read, discuss, and evaluate the pieces based on quality of writing, style, originality, emotional accessibility, and subject matter. From the literary staff’s short lists, the literary editors and advisors make the final selections and edit those pieces for grammatical and technical errors. In the following month, the art staff meets several days per week to integrate artwork with similarly themed literary pieces. Other exceptional art is selected for individual layouts. The art staff creates digital layouts that accompany the magazine’s theme. Finally, in early April, the editorial staff makes the final edits on the spreads before the finished product is sent to the printer.

Distribution of the magazine occurs during late May.

Cover: Matte Aqueous Design: Adobe InDesign CS6 with Adobe Photoshop CS6 software to edit and create layouts on HP Z220 computers Finance and Operation: The production of the magazine is funded through a publication fee that every student pays upon registration Publishing: Alphagraphics of LaGrange prints 4,000 copies of the 88 page magazine Paperstock: Silk Coated 100# Photography: All photography featured in this magazine is student photography Typography: Segoe UI Bold, Microsoft Tai Le Bold and Microsoft Sans Serif in varying sizes Menagerie • 87

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The Editors

Dheeksha Ranginani • Graham Voetberg Editors-in-Chief

Caroline Garrow Poetry Editor

Emily Flores Prose Editor

Angela Gutierrez • Joseph Maffey Literary Advisors

Mary Rohlicek Art Advisor

Caroline Wuerl Art Editor

Laura Flores Layout Editor

Abby Cundiff Asst. Poetry Editor

Brie Voetberg Photo Editor

Lauren Trail Asst. Prose Editor

The Staff Literary Staff Megan Aletich, Tyler Bernklau, Megan Burke, Erin Cosgrove, Meredith Gebhart, Isabel Launspach, Kate Miklosz, Paul Skolba, Madalyn Velisaris, Sydney Weber, Issac Wisthuff, Joanna Zienkiewicz, Art Staff Megan Aletich, Elizabeth Becker, Tyler Bernklau, Erin Cosgrove, Sara Finnegan, Ryan Green, Caroline Higney, Peter Schwabe, Paul Skolba, Clara Weismantel

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