MIND’S AMARANTH PRESENTS... INTRIGUE INSIGHT INSPIRE
2016 VOLUME X
MONTGOMERY HIGH SCHOOL LITERARY MAGAZINE
1016 ROUTE 601 SKILLMAN, NJ 08558 (609)466-7602 FAX (609)466-0243 3
MIND’S AMARANTH
The amaranth is a plant that bears a deep red flower. Its popular image is rooted in ancient Greek mythology as an immortal flower revered for its healing powers. Idols and tombs were decorated with it as a tribute to immortaltiy and strength. Over time, the mind changes and fades. Yet its expressions in print or any other medium are pernament like the everlasting beauty of the amaranth. That transcription from the mind to paper is captured in this magazine.
COVER ART: KIMBERLY WANG AMARANTH LOGO: YIBIN ZHANG
EDITORS EDITORS-IN-CHIEF: SOFIA DIMITRIADOY KIMBERLY WANG NICOLE ZHU
NIVEDITHA BALAN NOAH CHOUDHURY ANGELINA HAN MARGIE HE 4
EDITORS:
CHRISTINA LI ISABEL WON LAUREN YOON
ADVISOR:
MS. MARSHALL
JOY JOHNSON ANNIE LI MELISSA LOUIE TEAGAN MALAKOFF
STAFF
SALMAN MUGHAL RIYA PATEL AJAY SARATHY JAE SONG
PRODUCTION NOTES
The Mind’s Amaranth is an after-school club focused on the publication of a student-based literary magazine. We strive to produce a diverse and allencompassing magazine reflecting the ideas of the student body at Montgomery High School. The staff consists of a dedicated group of students who meet one to two times a week all year. We are advised by Ms. Marshall, a member of the English department at MHS. We begin the year with student-made advertisements that encourage people from all grade levels to contribute to the magazine, emphasizing that everyone is welcome. Our posters and commercials also encourage students to submit their creative
The lighthouse is the literal and figurative embodiment of hope and security as it brings wayward sailors home. Yet lighthouses do not operate in safe havens. They flourish where the danger is greatest and the waves are the most violent because only in darkness can light be seen. This year’s edition of the Mind’s Amaranth captures the lighthouse’s duality of safety and danger. As readers flip through the pages of the magazine, they visit the lighthouse itself. The tour begins
works during this time. Excitement heightens as winter rolls around and we begin our annual fundraiser, Haiku for the Holidays. During this event, we sell student-crafted bookmarks with seasonal haikus to raise funds for the magazine. After the winter break, the staff refocuses on advertising for submissions and publication of the magazine. Without the hundreds of pieces we receive of all different media and genres, this magazine would not be possible. As each new piece arrives, it is kept anonymous and scored by our staff using rubrics specially created for each medium. Once we have selected the content of the magazine, we brainstorm a
theme for the upcoming edition. The staff votes on a theme based on a recurring motif that we see throughout the majority of the submissions. Then, the selected pieces are arranged into spreads During this step in the publishing process, the staff often meets two or three times a week to design and edit the magazine layouts in InDesign and to decide on aspects such as composition, order of pieces, and typeface. This year’s fonts are Constantia and Gill San MT Condensed. Finally, the Mind’s Amaranth is published and distributed in its final form to the student body and faculty in June.
LIGHTHOUSE
in the Watch Room, the main gallery, where we come to observe the sea and reflect. Outside, the Breakwater, a great sea wall that extends from the lighthouse into the sea, reminds us of the danger that awaits among the violent waves. When we turn back to the tower, we see the Daymark, the bright pattern painted on the side of the lighthouse. These markings are unique to each lighthouse and are the symbol of individuality. Finally, we climb high up to the
Aerobeacon, the powerful light and the structure’s defining characteristic. Like the lighthouse itself, Aerobeacon exemplifies guidance and coming back home. When these individual components are combined, they create a structure that borders the domains of home and the unknown, comfort and change, light and dark. The lighthouse reflects the duality we experience in everyday life.
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TABLE OF
Lighthouse by Melissa Louie...................................................................................................6 Beacons to Black by Joy Johnson.............................................................................................7
WATCHROOM
Take the Pen by Nicole Zhu....................................................................................................8 Yesterday and Tomorrow by Kimberly Wang.......................................................................9 Repeat by Jackie Cho...............................................................................................................10 David by Sofia Dimitriadoy.......................................................................................................11 The Other Side by Ujwal Rajaputhra.....................................................................................12 Just Me, Myself, and I by Lauren Yoon.................................................................................13 The Evil of Memories by Kristina Malinowski.....................................................................14 Already Dead by Ellen Mei.....................................................................................................15 A+ by Melissa Louie..................................................................................................................16 Perspective on Another Perspective by Lauren Yoon.......................................................17
BREAKWATER free falling by Sophia Chirayil................................................................................................18 Wild by Jackie Cho...................................................................................................................19 Homesick by Jackie Cho........................................................................................................20 A Sense of Wonder by Lauren Yoon......................................................................................21 Deception by Ellen Mei..........................................................................................................22 Hush Go Our Heartbeats by Angela Wang.........................................................................23 Ponderances by Lauren Yoon................................................................................................24 Mermaid by Michelle Yang....................................................................................................26 Acts of God by Kevin Walker..................................................................................................28 Bird Ballet by Kaira Fenix.......................................................................................................29
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CONTENTS DAYMARK I Am Not a Poet by Hannah Ableman...................................................................................30 1930s by Nicole Hladick...........................................................................................................30 Fishnet by Kimberly Wang.....................................................................................................31 confessions of a teenage girl (an introspection) by Isabel Won....................................32 Me by Ellen Mei.......................................................................................................................33 Reasons It’s Important to Organize by Sofia Dimitriadoy................................................34 Web of Lies by Kimberly Wang..............................................................................................35 Pulpit Rogue by Kevin Walker...............................................................................................36 Golden Scales, Golden Hair by Angelina Han...................................................................36 Exposure by Amanda Chueh..................................................................................................37 Flummox by Sofia Dimitriadoy..............................................................................................38 War in a New Nation by Nicole Zhu.....................................................................................39
AEROBEACON But a House is not a Home by Angelina Han.....................................................................40 Lichtenstein by Leah Conner................................................................................................40 Circle by Saba Shaik.................................................................................................................41 Aikido by Sofia Dimitriadoy...................................................................................................42 Dancers by Michelle Yang......................................................................................................43 Harmony by Jackie Cho.........................................................................................................44 Seasons by Annie Li................................................................................................................45 Letter to Myself by Phoebe Lai.............................................................................................46 Remnants of an American Dream by Helen Zhang..........................................................47 House of Hands by Margaux Chen......................................................................................48 The Writer’s Journey by Angela Wang.................................................................................49 Untitled by Nicole Hladick.....................................................................................................51
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LIGHTHOUSE MELISSA LOUIE
Majestic, unwavering, and tireless, Stands the lighthouse upon the hill. Red shutters, white vinyl, old foghorn, Faithful, lonely, and still. We’d go there to play every evening; We’d watch as the sun went down. We’d skip around playing hide-and-go-seek, All us kids from the sleepy old town I remember the light on the ocean, How we’d hear the water’s soft groan. As the dark descended and mist rolled in, Our parents would call us home. For four years I went off to college For once I had the chance to explore. But I was a boat who lost sight of the rocks; I had to get back to the shore.
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I missed the loyal old lighthouse, I went back and decided to stay. I met up with my hide-and-seek playmate; All our other friends had moved away. Now, we can’t stay out for quite so long, Nor can we skip around like before. Hide-and-go-seek? Well, that’s history. Now we sit on a bench by the shore. The keeper’s house now stands empty, And the lighthouse now stands dark. Now rotted wood lines the pathways; Here time has left its mark. But the rocks still stand unrelenting, The waves still churn green and brown, So let’s sit on the hill by the sea, you and I, And let’s watch the sun go down.
JOY JOHNSON (ACRYLIC)
BEACONS TO BLACK 9
TAKE THE PEN NICOLE ZHU
As many things do, it began with a mother’s insight. The afternoon following my fourth grade Back-to-School conference, my mother opened her bag and pulled out a little grey notebook with pink flowers. She turned to the first page and, with a black felt-tip pen, wrote “Nicole’s
Journal”. She placed the notebook before me at the kitchen table and held the pen outwards, an invitation. “From now on, write in here,” she said. I took the pen. 11/14/07 Dear Journal, I like 4th grade so far. My mom heard my teachers talk about my need of better writing and now I must write in this. Flash forward five years and four journals, to the golden spiral notebook. My entrance into high school brought with it the crushing weight of difficult courses, shifting friendships, and self-consciousness that bent my fragile self inwards. Yet, when I wrote in my journal, I worked out my thoughts in a space that was protected, preserved, and wholly my own. It was here that I learned how to fight through difficulty so I could re-emerge in the morning— how to take a step back and breathe before diving back into the fray. 12/10/12 It’s just one of those days—a Delirious Day— when I get nothing done and feel horrible because so many things went wrong. It’s awful. But tomorrow, I swear, won’t be. Open the Moleskine with the dented corner. As I grew older, I struggled with questions of self-identity. I was a minority in my own country, unsure of my place in the world, so I wrote myself into my own stories as the protagonist of a thousand different tales: a swinging buccaneer, a fearless Southern belle, a personified dragon. Writing showed me that I could be any of the characteristics I embodied in my stories: fierce, determined, clever. But first I had to accept myself as human, with flaws and dark parts, just like any other well-crafted character.
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WATCHROOM
YESTERDAY AND TOMORROW KIMBERLY WANG (MIXED MEDIA)
6/24/13 Finally coming to China, I feel like a double agent: Chinese, on first glance, and upon closer investigation, an American, too. I’ve never been prouder of both. Turn to the blue composition notebook with the scientific drawings. My journal was my witness as I delved deeper into my interests. Amidst investigations of political affairs and spirited debates in history class, I discovered my love for political science. This time, I made my thoughts public, writing articles and essays in online publications on everything from the dearth of minorities in government to party socialization. 7/10/15 I’ve changed my mind about this internship: to be so close to the workings of democracy is exhilarating. I talked to Judge Miller today and sat in on court cases—and it was glorious. Law, or at least government, is where I want to be. Flip the page to the present. Eleven journals, bent and bedraggled, lay
scattered across my bed. As I open each one, I read the things I’ve written and see the sequence of my life illuminated in my mind. Through my chosen medium—the written word—I challenge myself to grow, experiment, and expand to my lofty dreams, to sharpen my mind and test out my ideas against those of giants, and, above all, to remember who I was, who I am, and who I hope to become. 9/3/15 I swear I could see the future in two lines as it lay down before me: the path of least resistance, of easy times and lazy days. It was clear to see how that one ended. But there was also another way, much narrower and more harrowing than the first. I could see difficulty and frustration and other unknowns up ahead, but the end of the journey was too bright to see. Even so, I picked the second. I took the pen.
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Everyday I’m told how to live my life, sometimes I think I’m not even living. They tell me to: Do this. Do that. But not this. And not that. Read this. Add that. Subtract this. Write that. Solve this. Stop. Repeat.
REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT
Wake up. But I’m already awake. I’ve been awake for three days straight, Not eating, not sleeping. Just working and working. They tell me I’m lazy, because all I want is sleep. Who’s the lazy one here, When all I do is: Write, add, read, repeat?
JACKIE CHO
THEY CALL THIS LIVING maybe it used to be maybe these walls weren’t always a cage for the soft-hearted maybe these sleepless nights, the permanent bags under our eyes were nothing to be ashamed of. You ask me, “why don’t you talk anymore?” And I’ll tell you that I’m just tired But then you say that I’m lying. That I’m just lazy. That I’m not caring enough. And you’ll make me work more. You act like you care, but what you’re denying me is my health. My life. They call it “The Generation of Laziness” But it’s more like “The Age of Exhaustion” How do you expect me to talk, When all I do is: Write, add, read, repeat? WE CALL THIS DYING we call this growing up too fast just to be treated like you shouldn’t have we call this wishes don’t pay bills we call this money can’t buy happiness but you’d take money over happiness any day because you weren’t exactly happy anyway.
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WATCHROOM One day you’re gonna get tired of learning crap because it looks “good on your resume.” that crap may get you a lifestyle, but it doesn’t make a life. When the things you used to love doing become a chore, you begin to wonder if you’ve ever loved anything in the first place. So you rewind, to the things you’ve only ever known to do: Wake up. Divide this. Add that. Write this. Read that. Solve this. Repeat. Think, Don’t think. Be yourself, But be who we want. Don’t feel. Don’t sleep. Repeat.
D
AVID SOFIA DIMITRIADOY (GRAPHITE)
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THE UJWAL OTHER SIDE RAJAPUTHRA 14
I was young when Father left. He was a selfish tyrant—a man who’d overlook your existence with ease, but unleash his wrath for a single act of disobedience. I believed he was invincible. By the way he assured us of our safety, and how I was his favorite, I was convinced it was true. It wasn’t long until I uncovered the truth. One day, his light began to writhe. It no longer shone upon us like he’d promised it forever would, and instead fed upon his new desire. His new interest. His new children. For a man who needed to be needed, Father was explicit in his disinterest toward his offspring. Like a juvenile he showed momentary interest for the infants; their own selfish and ignorant nature resonated with him. But they were only babes. They couldn’t be judged before they grew and matured. All they required was nurturing. Empathy. Love. A father. My realization was hasty. The newborns—my brothers, sisters—could not survive on their own without me. Their father basked in sloth; his craving for dominion over every life never met with equal compassion. My siblings would understand this just as I had. And when the truth finally dawned, they would have no guidance in the illusion bound to their conception. So I fought. I fought for their free-will. I bled for their liberation. Father wasn’t surprised when I confronted him; his sight loomed past my shoulders as if to capture an image invisible to my own. And then, with a thick visage of animus and an unfaltering timber, he finally spoke.
“You never understood.” My father—my own family—banished me. The desolation poisoned my soul, and I withered. But despite the frigid isolation— the coiling anguish—I never once endured a strain of regret. My eyes watch over my younger siblings in every moment of their innocence, to remind myself of my sacrifice and whether it had all been of worth. I sometimes wonder if they can see me. Most likely not. Their eyes drift past their toes but search for none below the sun. Hands clasped and hearts cold, they whisper on their knees to a man not deaf, but who simply won’t listen. In their times of corruption I am at fault; I invade hearts and tarnish souls, making traitors of brethren. So they say. So they are told. My brothers live elsewhere, with Father. The good sons. They hadn’t defied my exile; Father was everything to them— a love ours trumped, but was preferred in comfort. Even now I am haunted by the memory of my eldest brother, my hero, his shadow growing as his back disappeared into the sun. But I would be a fool if I hadn’t seen his blink, or the shimmering drops from his golden lashes. I wonder if they can hear me, too—the children. Most likely not. To them, every word I breathe is a hiss. And every lie they tell slips from my black lips. One way or another, I am always spoken of, but never listened to. How I pity them… they could never know how alone they are—how small and futile their value, to Him in particular. No longer His main attraction. No longer the newest baby. Father keeps his children far, far away from
I FOUGHT FOR THEIR FREEWILL. I BLED FOR THEIR LIBERATION.
WATCHROOM
the plague that rots their kidneys and raises their fists. I am Pride. I am the Devil: Satan, Iblis, Ravana, Loki, Mara, Chaos, Kronos—on their planet. On others I am a figure with different titles but of identical essence: temptation manifest, deceit incarnate. I am the genesis of ‘sin.’ But I wonder, in all their hymns of salvation and statutes of redemption—in their compasses of understanding and mandates to forgive, if they had ever spared a thought to forgive the one sinner who needed it most. Most likely not.
LAUREN YOON (PHOTOGRAPHY)
JUST ME, MYSELF, AND I
each other to entertain himself; boredom is only one of his many flaws, but perhaps the most toxic. I remember the heat in his stone eyes, blazing with passion but somehow deep-set like embers veins of coal. When he thought, his scowl bore into the mist with thundering intensity. If only his discipline equaled his imagination. Then, we would no longer be the children. I wonder if they pray for me. Most likely not. To them I have battered, leathery wings. I am ugly and unclean with violation and disobedience. I am the ocean from which their demons course through their veins and infect their hearts. I am
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THE EVIL OF MEMORIES KRISTINA MALINOWSKI
I want you to return me. I never asked to be snatched, to be dragged, to be taken away from Childhood Innocence. Games and Pretending Witnessed by shoots and sky, Soft and Free. Where did you take it? I want it back. Gentle and Kind, the minds and hearts that Possessed Imagination and Fairy Tales. Naive Bliss that you ruined. With your wicked ways you frosted the shoots, clouded the skies, darkened the minds and made those hearts bleed. I want to turn the clocks, leave today, run to yesterday. No you say. There is one evil rule in your twisted game: you can Look to the Past, but you can only Walk to the Future 16
WATCHROOM
ELLEN MEI (WATERCOLOR)
ALREADY DEAD 17
A+
Dear people who stress way too much about grades, I saw your Facebook post the other day. You made it onto the honor roll, huh? Well, congratulations. You should be proud. But then I looked closer and didn’t see anything but academic achievements on the rest of your page. Remember when we took that practice standardized test together? You told me to sign up with you so you would “at least know somebody.” Gee, thanks. I’ve been promoted to “somebody.” Last time I checked, before you realized that none of your friends were going, you didn’t even wave back at me in the hallway because you were too busy stressing over that math test next block. So anyway, remember that standardized test? What golden memories. You didn’t want anybody to sit directly next to you because you thought it would be distracting. During the breaks, you didn’t talk about that crazylong fire drill we had, or the hilarity of the terrible acting in the movie we watched in history. You turned to me and your first words were, “What did you get for number 5? I couldn’t figure that one out for some reason but I’m hoping I guessed right.” You know what I’m hoping? I’m hoping you bubbled in your information sheet correctly. I know if you were me, you would have done it wrong. Because my initials are “MSL,” not “GPA.” And I’m also hoping you didn’t freak out because, when they asked for your grade, the numbers didn’t go high enough for you to bubble in your 99% average. It’s not asking for how well you put markings on a piece of paper. It’s just asking if you’re at the age where people love their friends without having to compete with them for how many AP classes they’re taking. It’s asking if you’re at the age where people start talking about college and moving away and taking standardized testing, but it’s also
MELISSA LOUIE
asking if you’re at the age where it’s normal to still act stupid once in awhile. It’s kind of refreshing to act stupid, you know? And you know what else is refreshing? It’s refreshing to get up from a test and hear people talking about what they ate for dinner last night, or some rabbit their dog chased but never caught. It’s refreshing not to have to hear, “What was the answer to that really long question, again?” Alas, I suppose I’m the Sisyphus of the classroom. Rolling that boulder all the way up the hill just to have it come crashing down, running over my foot on the way down. You’d know that reference, wouldn’t you? Remember that English project you did on the Greek underworld, that you only got a 90 on? I guess you’d know what a boulder feels like. Sisyphus stone’s weight is, I approximate, what you would need to weigh down all your notes and outlines and annotations so they wouldn’t blow away if you ever decided to step outside for a breath of fresh air. You should try it sometime, though. Don’t worry about your allergies. You know from the natural selection and Darwin test that evolution made you outdoor-hardy. Try it. It just might be fun. Maybe even more fun than getting the highest grade in the class.
I SUPPOSE I’M THE SISYPHUS OF THE CLASSROOM.
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PERSPECTIVE ON ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE LAUREN YOON
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FREEFALLING SOPHIA CHIRAYIL
i want to crash through the wall i want to fall through the floor i want to lean back off the edge of a bridge not because i want to die but because i want to be f ree–f al l i ng feel the gusts of air whirling around me sifting through the gaps between my fingers like sand f ree–f al l i ng plummeting down, i am a heavy boulder i look down to see the foamy, navy blue waves of the ocean i look to the stars above and see the silvery, glittery wings of the angels and i ask them: “do you ever wish you could come to the humans’ side? live on this earth? feel sorrow? loss? heartbreak? hate? despair? but also hope? love? or that feeling you get when you finally break out of your chains? is constant bliss all that great? or could there be something peculiarly satisfying in the bitter-sweetness of human life?” the wings of the angels shimmer and disappear i receive no answers f ree–f al l i ng i crash through the surface of the ocean and the turquoise glass shatters and then i remember that the oceans hold 96.5% of the earth’s water and i continue to fall down through the depths of the sea f ree–f al l i ng falling falling falling free
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RAP HIT E, C HARC OAL)
WILD
BREAKWATER
E I K C JA
G ( O H C
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HOMESICK JACKIE CHO
I lay awake in my bed counting the ticking in my head like an invisible time bomb. Every morning I wake up, wishing I hadn’t, wishing “I want to go home” when I’m already home. I clutch to my roots like a child lost with her teddy bear that smells like home. Home is a place where you stop searching, a place where you belong no matter the years that pass. It is not where you live, but where you are understood. Sometimes I wonder if moving to America was actually worth it. When the ocean that stretches for miles between Seoul and Princeton cannot contain the years I’ve missed living with my dad, When the years that pass here stack like bricks forming a wall between my mother and my Americanizing-self, I start to wonder if the price of education was worth taking. My mother asks me, “why don’t you talk anymore?” but what she can’t hear are the rehearsed and forgotten conversations in my head that scream and shake like jailed inmates wrongfully accused, with only my tongue to free them from their unfair sentence. I tried my best to tell her how my day was, speaking with broken Korean mixed with English but she cuts me off, fixing my grammar and my pronunciation. And I realized, what I said didn’t really matter anymore, not so much as the disappearing traces of the footprints I left on the Korean soil. So I’ve abridged myself into 3 to 5 easy words, then to occasional “yeses” and “nos,” and finally to apathetic nods and shakings of my head. Maybe I’m always irritated because I can’t seem to get my family to understand. Tell them “I’m just tired” and “everything’s fine,” when it really isn’t, when I’m actually having the worst day of my life because I failed a test or fell out with my friend, just because it seems easier to not have to say anything than to babble like a preschooler who can’t piece her thoughts together as she wants with diction that is limited to Dr.Seuss books.
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WATCHROOM I’m always a stranger wherever I go. In America, people ask me “are you from North or South?” as they put my “oxeS” and “deerS,” my “saLmons” and “fisheS” on a blacklist. Everywhere else, I’m asked “where are you from?” and when I say America, they would change their question to “where are you actually from?” to which I’ll have to explain my birthplace and where I’m currently living to validate their perception of America as a home for blonde haired and blue eyed beauties. In Korea, I’m neither a Korean nor an American, they tell me that I’m not like them, and that I have an American face and an American tongue. And when I mispronounce a word, they say “it’s ok, she’s not from here.” Every summer I go to Seoul to visit my family. My father looks different than the person who exits frozen in time in the pictures I keep on the walls and in my wallet. I count the grey hairs on his head, the wrinkles on his forehead, and the inches he has shrunk, like the passing days and nights of my childhood spent without him. They told me it was for education, but when Korean students start jumping off roofs and American boys start a shooting spree at school, the price of education seems to be high just about everywhere. When my estranged aunts and uncles, my cousins and grandparents look at me with eyes that are searching beyond the person that stands in front of them, I begin to wonder just where it is that I can call home. Not the place I was born or the place I was raised, I’ve been feeling homesick since I’ve been uprooted from the soil where the seed had been planted. Home is where you stop searching, a place where you can be yourself and not be questioned. I wake up every morning, staring at the same ceiling for 11 years, my teddy bear nowhere in sight.
A SENSE LAUREN OF YOON WONDER (PHOTOGRAPHY) 23
DECEPTION ELLEN MEI (OIL)
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HUSH GO OUR
HEART BEATS ANGELA WANG
i. They’re sitting on the curb of the sidewalk, just the two of them. “Happy New Year,” Hana says and downs a soda. “You too,” Ken lies. “Here’s to another good one.” “Yeah.” Ken only holds his own soda can, feels the metallic weight of it. It rolls over his fingertips. He lets it clatter onto the ground. When he turns to look at Hana, she stares forward. Her eyes are fixed on an imaginary point on the horizon. “I’ll miss you when you go,” he says. “What’re you talking about, Ken? It’s the new year.” The moon shines its hard white light down on him. Tomorrow is June 14th and the day that Hana’s mother takes her home. She’s not right in the head. She needs rest, the woman had told Ken without looking him in the eye. “You’re right, Hana. Good night.” Hana doesn’t reply but she’s gone by the next morning.
BREAKWATER ii. Home doesn’t feel like home. Ken is by himself. It’s cold inside. Entropy is not in his favor. There is a pair of matching coffee mugs in the sink and the radio crackles intermittently. His feet leave fossilized footprints on the hardwood floors. Ken doesn’t recognize any of it. He’s not prepared for it but the one person enters the two-person bed anyway, closes his eyes, and floats without ever sleeping. iii. At four AM in the morning, Ken calls up a friend. Friend A has been dead for years now and Friend B is hitchhiking in the middle of nowhere so he dials for Friend C. Friend C comes over and wordlessly dumps a box of video game controllers into his arms. They play a fighting game with a title that Ken can’t remember but in the middle of their third round, Friend C pauses the game and clears his throat. “Hey, Ken.” “Yeah?” “You doing OK?” “Yeah.” “No, you’re not,” Indra, no longer Friend C, says. They stare at each other. “I could be doing better.” “Good,” Indra says and unpauses the game before pummeling Ken’s character into the ground. They are at 500 wins to 499 in Indra’s favor. It’s eight AM when Indra finally takes his leave. But then, Indra stops at the doorway, cradling the box of controllers. “About Hana and the baby,” the clumsy man too kind for his own good says. “I’m sorry.” Ken looks down at the swirls of the carpet. “Me too,” Ken says. “Me too.” “Get better, Ken.” The door swings shut. iv.
Ken dreams again. The tiles are far too white. He remembers that he is not next to Hana, one of the doctors lays a hand on his shoulder and shakes her head. The doctors are there next to a shrieking Hana. Ken puts himself far away. He is far from the screaming woman in the bed and the doctors trying to restrain her and the man standing at the doorway, frozen. He is far from the soft, still baby in its glass
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container. He is far even from the townhouse the two share, far from the painted cradle, the balloons, the stuffed animals. He is far away from the tableau, doesn’t recognize any of its actors. It bears no meaning to him because when he returns to his life, none of this will ever happen. He tells himself this but he never comes back and neither does Hana, who re-inflates the balloons whenever they droop over the empty cradle at dawn. v. Ken eventually adopts an old cat because they say that pets have healing effects on lonely people. The cat’s named Holly with a twisted paw and a missing ear. Holly is ugly but good company up until the next morning when he finds a pair of dead mice at the door, a mother mouse and its baby. “Jesus Christ,” Ken says to the sky and sits himself in front of the door. The cat crawls into his lap. He pets the murderer miserably. “You didn’t mean to, did you? You didn’t do it on purpose. Please tell me you didn’t.” Holly purrs and rubs its face into his hands. vi. Friend B arrives at his door caked in dust and grit, unannounced. She’s tan now, stands tall and looks good like a new person. Ken feels small and tired all at once. “I heard about Hana,” she tells him, a glint in her eyes. The quiet falls flat between them. At last, Friend B—no, Brigid—sighs. She leans in to give Ken a quick, hard hug that he doesn’t return and steps back, maintaining distance, hands on hips. “There’s an elephant in the room and I hate to go near it, my love, but we need to talk. Or else you’re never going to get better.”
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PONDE LAUREN YOON
ERANCES (PHOTOGRAPHY)
BREAKWATER
“Right. OK, sure.” Ken doesn’t let her into the house but he’s already done enough and she knows it. Brigid takes a shallow breath. “Did Hana leave on her own?” “Yes. No. I don’t know.” “What does that mean?” “The living room’s still got the baby’s cradle in it.” Ken swallows. Get better, Ken singsongs the moon. “Hana sees things in it.” “And where is she right now?” “At her parents’ house. Her mom says it’ll do Hana good to go back.” A pause. Brigid’s sympathetic gaze. “So what’re you going to do now?” Ken doesn’t answer at first, only thinks hard enough to cut the curves of the moon. He thinks about picking at scabs, drying flakes of blood raining down. “A new year’s going to come soon. Someday,” he says. They stand there in silence until he puts his arms around Brigid, bids her goodbye, and closes the door. vii. When Ken next falls asleep, he sees a little girl in a polka dot dress, bending over to pet Holly. She has bandaged knees and she’s standing next to the empty baby cradle. Ken walks up to her. He kneels down so that he’s eye level with her. “Daddy and Mommy love you very much,” he tells his baby. The little girl smiles Hana’s smile and leans up to kiss his stubbled cheek. “You should shave soon, Dad,” she whispers. viii. Ken buys a razor the next day. He nicks himself while shaving and laughs, laughs, laughs at his reflection in the mirror until there are tears in his eyes and the moon finally lands in the sink basin.
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(
M E M R AC M RY A LI I C DY
(
I C H E L L E
A N G
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ACTS OF GOD KEVIN WALKER
i. A long time ago, my mom told me that the people frozen beneath the lake deserved to be there. I didn’t really believe her, but I never talked to them just in case she was right. Besides, I heard that they weren’t much for conversation anyway being underwater and not breathing and all that. The next spring, the police dredged the bottom of the lake for their bodies, but they couldn’t find anything. The mayor held a brief press conference confirming the mystery, and after a week everyone had forgotten about the lake people. We never even had a funeral for them. ii. I found a creature working at the convenience store. His skin hung off his bony frame in thick, sagging folds. He smelled like rotten meat. I asked him if he could direct me to the lake, but he didn’t respond. I didn’t want to bother him, so I drove off to another store and asked for directions there. When I got to the lake, I started sobbing and slammed my fists onto the dashboard of my car. I wasn’t sad, just really tired. I felt like I hadn’t slept in years. iii. I woke up in the lake, frozen beneath a layer of ice. I wasn’t sure how I ended up there, but I imagine it was something I couldn’t control. My mom always used to blame things like this on acts of God. I stayed there for an entire winter, waiting for the ice to melt. Fish chewed out my eyes. A giant black eel buried himself in my gut and made a home out of my body. When I finally crawled out of the lake, my flesh started to slide off my skeleton in bloated chunks. I grabbed what pieces I could and ran for the woods. They never even had a funeral for me.
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BREAKWATER
KAIRA FENIX (PHOTOGRAPHY)
BIRD BIRDBALLET BALLET
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I AM NOT A POET
HANNAH ABLEMAN
I have no idea how to... Start with an idea that never comes to... Fruition reminds me of fruit I eat instead of... Writing a poem is not easy. It doesn’t help that I waited until writing a poem became a bullet point on a checklist. check And it’s not that I dislike this project I just worry that I am unable to complete the tasks on my to-do-list That I can only write in a specific format Follow the rules I set for myself Think inside the box Somewhere along the line inspiration became a luxury I cannot afford. A check I am unable to cash staring at me in the form of a blank page asking, How can you be creative if you can’t create? I don’t know.
1930s
NICOLE HLADICK (PHOTOGRAPHY)
And maybe that’s why I still have no idea how to… end with unresolved… thoughts I dream and forget.
32
FISHNET
KIMBERLY WANG (DIGITAL)
33
ISABEL WON
CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE GIRL (AN INTROSPECTION) 34
zero and so it happened and i (didn’t) want it to happen and i (didn’t) know it happened and i had no choice but i(t) happened and i was (t)here. one i opened my mouth and i spoke and they clapped and they smiled and i was loved. three i put my fingers on its metallic strings for the first time and i lent my voice over to it and i made a sound from a (cello) body not from my (own) throat and i fell in love for the very first time. five i tried to cut my(own) hair because i didn’t understand (why only boys could have short hair) but something happened and i saw my (own blood; my own) being splattered all over the sink. nine i learned what it meant to not be wanted when i felt everyone around me but no(one; where; thing near) me and i wondered for the first time what it would be like to be but not be. eleven i realized i had two identities for i was her (in Korea) but she (in America) and my teacher asked which one i was and i couldn’t answer and my teacher said she didn’t know what to call me and my (own) being was taken away (from me) and i was nothing but a name(less girl). sixteen here i am now (supposedly) sweet but i am (seasoned; spiced; soured by) sixteen years of existence.
DAYMARK
ME
ELLEN MEI (ACRYLIC)
35
REASONS IT’S IMPORTANT TOSOFIA ORGANIZE DIMITRIADOY 1. Some days I walk into my bedroom while papers crackle and sift under my feet screaming at me to chuck them out. Precarious binders on armrests fall, flinging far. Stink bugs dashing from the lamps of my room. Swat bug swat bug swat. 2. Shirt. Shirt. Toss clothing back into closet. Pair socks. Fold fold all that lies on the floor. Ward off mother. Hide mess, a cursory glance into my room. Critically assess. Every corner. House control. My room, a mess, a mess, a mess. 3. Work will never cease to compound and multiply. Midterms and finals. Textbooks strewn on desks. Orderliness, is a fleeting thought. Destined to last only a microsecond. I am always marooned in disarray. 4. What fun is running around with no head? What bliss are frenzied months? What error in the uncaptured dream, desire? What possibilities in the path not taken? Why carefully contrive plans abandoned at street corners? Why strategize if the soldier always falls and cracks? 5. Point A and Point B sleep for the night. Point B tucks in, the floors of her mind all swept up, and falls asleep swift and sublime. Point A tosses and turns, eyes burning into the darkness. Tries to compartmentalize, the floors of her mind are cluttered, grisly. 6. The key to organization is obsession. I stretch my thoughts thin attempting to foresee the future of a world I fear. Each prediction ripens into golden fruit for me to pick. But there is too much to pick, too much to sort. Instead, every fruit blackens. And withers. 7. Organization is assurance, an oracle coiled around my neck uttering sweet nothings. There is only anxiety permeating and festering and infecting in the unstructured. Student, you are a mess, a mess, a mess. I, am a mess, a mess, a mess. 36
FL
W EB O
DAYMARK
IES
KIMBERLY WAN G ( M I X E D MEDIA)
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KEVIN WALKER
PULPIT R O GUE
Sitting in the back pew, the skeleton costumed in wrinkles and hurt, we are better than him. Painted in the rising sun, muscles and blood and the auxiliary pieces, we are more than the sum of these parts. Our skin will never come undone.
GOLDEN SCALES, GOLDEN HAIR ANGELINA HAN
There was a rattling noise somewhere deep inside the dragon’s chest as he coughed weakly, and the sound was echoed outside by a low moan of thunder in the distance. Small, hiccupping flames eased themselves out of the dragon’s golden nostrils, and his eyelids were only half open, like the discarded shells of hatched birds. Beside him, the girl wept. Her long, golden hair lay tangled on the ground with his gleaming scales, and the fire danced around them throwing the light playfully off the walls, oblivious to the grave circumstances. The dragon had been fierce in the early days of the girl’s capture. He paced the stone chamber day and night, never letting his eyes off her huddled, frightened body and blowing angry steam whenever she made a sudden movement. Everything changed the night the masked men came. The dragon protected her 38
with every last bit of his strength, and in the weeks since, the girl and the dragon had grown to love and understand each other. The girl was still imprisoned in the high tower, but now she went to sleep knowing her friend would keep her safe all night long. The dragon was dying. There was no doubt about that now. The girl had tried everything she could— ground herbs spooned carefully into his warm mouth, incantations found in old spellbooks half ripped apart—but still her dragon sneezed and hacked. Her arm was draped around his large form as he shuddered one final time, then became still. Her scream pierced the night like yellow lightning cutting open the dark sky. The girl was free from her captor, but the luster had gone out of her eyes, and her crown lay discarded and broken on the cold, hard ground.
E X P O S U R E
DAYMARK
(ACRYLIC)
AMANDA CHUEH
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SOFIA DIMITRIADOY (CHARCOAL, GRAPHITE) 40
FLUMMOX
DAYMARK
WAR IN A NEW NICOLE ZHU NATION I used to wake up to the slow boom of war drums. This was every morning: the General, my father, suits up for combat, staring in his bathroom mirror. Suit and tie? Check. Pointed words? Check. Frosty stare? Check. All necessary parts ready to go. He is prepared to fight for control over his home and freedom to speak his native tongue. On the other side, the rebel leader, my sister, puts on her armor of sharp barbs and subtle hate. Her cause is independence. They descend to breakfast. The first battle, a gauntlet of greetings. One wrong tone, “Yeah, yeah, good morning,” sets off the first shot. The General responds in kind to this blow to his pride—no attack is left unanswered. A familiar anger, yelling, AND terror ensues. At any given moment, tension crackles over my head because our house is the Gaza Strip, Chechnya, and Darfur rolled into one. And when the fighting begins, lightning flashes, thunder crashes, and my mother swears her family in China can hear them from 7,000 miles away. It is because he was born in the year of the sheep and she in the year of the tiger, my mother says. Predator and prey, sworn enemies forever, cursed to fight until victory or loss. But in China, tigers and lambs at least speak the same language. In the New
World, my parents’ accented English and our accented Chinese deepen the divide between an American culture that our parents cannot understand and a Chinese tradition that my sister and I don’t even remember. Like mangled telephone lines after a tornado, communications are hopelessly broken, meanings are twisted, and frustration is unlimited. Two generations struggle to understand each other. This is the war cry of the immigrant family. Now, five years later, the rebel leader has gone on hiatus—a journey to the land of “college.” The gaps in translation become smaller and smaller each time she returns. Without fuel to feed the fight, father and daughter lay down their verbal spears and greet each other, shyly, with the handshake of an ally. Our battleground is finally allowed to breathe—in with the clean air of family—out with the bitter taste of hostility. Where mines of vitriol once lay, flora of understanding now grow. And maybe, one day, our home will be our own Chinese-American version of the Garden of Eden—where the tiger and lamb, no matter what language they speak, can finally live together with peace, love, and freedom.
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BUT A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME
ANGELINA HAN
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after the holidays. She felt the thick, hazy happiness that would waft in from the barbecue in the summer. The damp crunch from the proud oak trees in the front, come autumn. It would all be there. Her heart surged. A few more steps now, and then around the corner it would be there. The whole family would be waiting with open arms. She turned around the bend, heart still beating like the wings of a captive bird, newly freed. She had convinced herself that this would be the end. If only she could get home, everything would be okay again. She turned,
LEAH C ONNOR (ACRYLI C)
LICHTENS
TEIN
She was almost home. She felt the blood in her feet take up an energetic rhythm as they pounded closer and closer to her nest, her roots, tracing the once-familiar path despite having been gone for so long. She pictured the sunset glow in the windows, the warm cinnamon smell that clung to the walls of the house each year long
A SHAIK (INK)
SAB LE
CIRC
AEROBEACON
and she raised her eyes to look. The windows of the house were dark, as they had been for two years. A mangled sign on the overgrown front lawn spelled out “For Sale”. An old telephone number was scrawled below in handwriting that leaned and grew increasingly messy, as if the writer was impatient to be finished with the task. The girl stopped in her tracks. She closed her eyes as her fantasy of home quietly detached itself from her mind and floated away on the dusty wind. She told herself she would not cry - she hadn’t since the funeral. Slowly, her legs carried her closer with stiff steps. The house that had once held a loving family now held nothing but rats and old memories, yet the white clapboard remained as it always
looked. Why hadn’t more changed on the outside when the inside had been turned upside down? Only the spongy moss crawling up on the wooden swing like a betrayal showed the change. The girl remembered how her mother used to carefully coax any growing fungus off the swing to keep it clean, but a jungle had been allowed to grow in her absence. Nothing but ghosts had touched this place for a long, long time.
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AIKIDO
SOFIA DIMITRIADOY
There’s something ironic about the Japanese martial art of Aikido. It’s a form of self-defense, but translates into English as “the way of harmony.” That is because the essence of Aikido goes beyond that of resolving physical conflict. Rather, Aikido is a path. It is a path that develops, strengthens, and refines the human spirit by balancing the mind, harmonizing the force and energy that occupy life, and finding meaning and love in all that you do. Unlike most martial arts, Aikido does not require physical prowess—it requires one to be mentally engaged and connected with one’s surroundings and oneself. The founder of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, once said, “those who have a warped mind, a mind of discord, have been defeated from the beginning.” When practicing Aikido, thoughts cannot wander and become unfocused. Every movement and strike must be resolute, for a preoccupied and rambling state of mind is easy to spot and exploit. Yet my thoughts wandered and my movements were hesitant. The stress of school and extracurriculars and all their attached expectations had created an immutable cloud of anxiety that permeated throughout my life—whether it was in school or on the mat, I could feel its effects. The frequent tests and projects piled on me left my mind cluttered and distressed. The swift, blurred strikes of opponents left me confused and dazed. I was frustrated and left exposed by the constant bombardment of expectations directed at me. I was exasperated and left open to further attack by the forceful barrage of palms hurtled through the air towards me. I never had time to think, only to react, to the task after task from an overloaded schedule. I could only haphazardly throw my arms up to protect myself from the flying fists of unforgiving opponents. But Aikido is not just about protecting yourself—it’s not even about defeating an opponent, or becoming powerful. It is about harmonizing, connecting, and finding compassion for all those around you. For me specifically, it is about finding meaning in the things I do and finding enjoyment in the people I do them with. So 44
now, whenever a fist charges at me, I focus clearly on the present and am able to catch the hand with a touch so light as to not oppose its force, but rather accept it, transfer it into my own energy by twisting and spiraling my center with control and resolve, and then release this energy back into the world. And I do the same with school—with placid clarity I take control of my stress and release it. No
DANCERS MICHELLE YANG
longer do I let it fester in my mind and infect my thoughts, my self-esteem, or my dreams. No longer do I let it cloud my head and make me forget that, yes, I have interests beyond achieving a high GPA. The time I spent worrying I now have taken back and use to pursue the things truly important to me—like music, art, and my own academic interests.
The peaceful practice of Aikido finds harmony between clashing forces. It transforms brute power into a flowing spiral of energy. It graciously and delicately redirects fearsome strikes—it never opposes. It is what forged the foundations of a lifestyle in which I balance the stresses in my life, harmonize the interests and pursuits important to me, and find meaning and love in all that I do. 45
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HARMONY JACKIE CHO (MIXED MEDIA)
SEASONS ANNIE LI
AEROBEACON
spring gazes at her mother and sees flowers in her eyes. she loves the daisies— doesn’t want them to die, but wants to hold them in her sticky little hands. she puts tape on the small cut on her finger, trying to heal it and fix it on her own. when they go blueberry picking, she sees all the ones that no one else can see, all the ones under the bushes that are right in front of her. she loves the dandelions too, believing that she spreads little doses of happiness with each seed that the wind sweeps away.
autumn walks with a cloud of smoke and mystery behind him. he chuckles at the sound of his own laughter, smiles at the sparkle in his eye. on his left wrist, he wears a watch, watching as the days sneak by, under his nose. he sits on a park bench and observes the sun as it hits the horizon. the wind spirals through his hair, with the red and orange hues. saturday mornings he spends with Poe and Plath. afternoons he pens incoherent stories about politics and economics and religion. nights he spends alone.
summer plays sweet, melodic tunes on her wooden ukulele, the ones that remind her of home. her song rolls smoothly off of her tongue like honey in the afternoon. when she outgrew her baby blanket, she cut it up and made a quilt of memories, stitched with secrets. her eyes glisten with a yearning for all the cities of the world, especially the ones with endless syllables that she cannot pronounce. with her hopes and dreams intertwined in her tangled hair, she is beautiful in her own peculiarity.
winter wistfully sits in a room while dusk pours in through the torn, translucent curtains. with his wrinkled hands, he pulls at the lingering threads of steam from a dark abyss of coffee, as it disappears into the lifeless, morning air. when the sun rises behind the clouds, he listens to the monotonous yet piercing sound of raindrops as it hits the hollow pavement. he reads the sunday papers, with words running off the page, and with his crooked glasses on the tip of his crooked nose. 47
LETTER TO MYSELFPHOEBE LAI Fencers compete to crown themselves with the letters A through E or U for unrated. It’s A simple scale that can’t Be the only way to See how much skill Defines a fencer, Even though it’s always Used. I remember my first competitions, when I was the last fencer to arrive and the first to leave. I went with the words “You are unqualified. You were eliminated, defeated, seen only because you want to be what you can accomplish,” and I felt those words like an attack. Right? Because I’d left, attacked right where it mattered because touché, those words had a point. So I came back. Came back because this fencer beats the blade from thin air to gain a point. This fencer beats a beast of asthma and roars with its breath clawing out of her lungs— this fencer stands up against chronic illness and a lifetime of sickness just to stand in en garde. This fencer beats her opponents 15-14 because they don’t expect her to come back. This fencer’s heart beats because her universe is more than words and letters— Because my name’s extra letters won’t change who I am. Because I am not a letter or the sum of my accomplishments. Because those words and those letters fall short of me. Even when I’m Determined to See myself Become better, I know I’ll always be A conqueror at heart. So when I told myself, “you’re You,” I told myself “That’s right. I’m me. And that is all I need.”
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AEROBEACON
HELEN ZHANG REMNANTS OF (ACRYLIC) AN AMERICAN DREAM 49
MARGAUX CHEN (ACRYLIC)
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HOUSE OF HANDS
THE WRITER’S JOURNEY
ANGELA WANG
I. The one art of loss is simpler and more omnipresent than we believe it to be. We watch it dance in the flickering hallway, just Lizzy B and me. The art of loss starts with the boy leaving his Spanish class, who’s lost his jacket and feels only worry nibbling at the corner of his mind that his parents are going to be upset at him; then it winds around the ankles of the girl, who’s forgotten just about everything that’s going to be on the test next period and whose mind now frantically chases after lost memories as she walks with her best friend to Math class; then it lands at your feet and it kills you to keep moving forward when there’s a hole in your heart, the absence of the person you lost years ago. I avert my eyes from the scene, as the losses add up and the hurt multiplies. Lizzy B, chewing her lip, is kind enough to notice my looking away but not demand for an explanation. Instead, she asks me what it is that I’ve lost. It takes me a while to come up with an answer. One week, two months, three years, and rooted to the same spot under her relentless gaze, feeling terribly human, I say at last, “I’ve lost my voice. Not the small-talk or answer-questions-in-class kind of voice but the other kind of voice. My writing voice.” “When you find your voice, you’ll come to understand the art of loss and welcome it with open arms,” Lizzy replies. Her gentle eyes watch me. “Keep looking for your voice. It wants to be looked for.” It’s as close as a goodbye as Elizabeth Bishop can muster. I leave her there in the hallway in a halo of white light and rubbed-out words but the next time I return, she’s gone. II. One day, I see JD standing out on the sidewalk drenched in the rain as he stares at his feet. His face looks earnestly grim, tinted with a gray pallor and streaked with droplets. “The worms!” he shouts. “The worms!”
AEROBEACON I look down. Scattered across black pavement, I can see the worms inching forward, blind brown bodies shivering in the rain. “What about the worms?“ JD’s brow furrows. “I don’t want to step on them!” The worms are everywhere. If JD doesn’t accidentally squash one in his first step, he’ll crush one underfoot sooner or later. I look down on the bottom of my shoes. There are no crushed worm bodies on the soles but a lump rises in my throat anyway. I don’t want to trample over something so important. “Me neither. But we could be stuck here forever if we never move.” “I want to be stuck here forever,” JD retorts. His expression is challenging at a first glance, bravely wobbling at the second. I think about the worms. How when it rains, they can either choose to stay in the soil and drown underground or move onto the roads and be run over by humans. The ones that don’t die immediately will be left to dry onto the sun, their fried silhouettes becoming one with the pavement. They don’t stand a chance of escaping, the worms. Neither does JD, who wrote The Catcher in the Rye like there was no tomorrow, like he wasn’t going to grow up alongside Holden Caulfield the next day. Neither do I, never moving so I don’t slice my fingers trying to turn over a new leaf and bleed all over the blank pages, always staying still as I watch my voice flee to the edge of the sidewalk, tripping over unspoken grief. My mouth runs dry. In the ensuing silence, raindrops striking the earth and sadness palpable in the air, I stand there motionless with JD. It feels terribly lonely to stand in the rain alone, surrounded by perishing worms and the fear of growing up. The next day, we both catch a cold. Neither of us admit that we regret anything. III. One night, from the edge of the sidewalk, I watch the highway. It exists as a turning point. Every driver that zips by is going places, departing with the knowledge there is a place waiting for their arrival. They all have purpose in moving forward; they are all moving onto new chapters of their lives. For a split second, when each car connects with my line of sight, I become a single point in the timelines of these people as our lives intersect. Then they are off and away, hurtling into the darkness, loose threads of fate trailing behind them as they travel towards their destinies. I think about how JD is a tragedy who has never learned to let go and Lizzy B knows loss like the back of her hand and I...I have driven myself into the corner.
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I take one step closer to the highway. Closer and closer—and then a hand lands on my shoulder. When I next turn and yank out my earphones, Dylan Thomas is standing there. “Do not go gentle into that good night,” he says. He grasps my hands with urgency, his eyes boring into me. “You must promise me,” he insists. “Do not go gentle into that good night.” And in that moment, car flying into the distance, careening into the night along with the wild promise that the story isn’t supposed to end here—something does change. “I promise,” I tell him and my voice cracks this time. Dylan stares at me solemnly for a minute before shuffling away into the darkness. In silence, I watch the cars speed past on the highway. That night, I return home, swallowing the thought that the Earth keeps spinning in spite of personal disaster with a glass of water. Only to find out the next day my English class has to write a graded essay analyzing theme of sacrifice in a work of literature. I nearly write, “I was told not to go into the gentle night” onto the paper. Anything seems better than answering an essay prompt that has no understanding of the circumstances that brought me to this point in time. In the end, however, instead of writing the story of Dylan Thomas, I write about how sacrifice is represented in the plot of Fahrenheit 451 as Montag rediscovers his humanity at a great cost. My treacherous heartbeat, thrumming with the secret of last night, echoes loudly as I exit the classroom in silence. IV. Several weeks later, at 3 AM in the morning, Hemingway stages an intervention and enters my room through the window, slipping in without a sound. He watches me impassively as I look away. “I’ve lost my voice.” Hemingway doesn’t reply because he’s Hemingway. Instead, he responds with a curt, “Where do you keep your heart?” “In the fridge,” I say. “I removed it from my body a couple days ago.” “Bring it here.” Under his burning gaze, I make my way to the kitchen, remove my heart from its Tupperware container on the top shelf, and return with the frozen mass in hand.
“The problem is solved,” he announces. “There is nothing else to writing. All you do is sit at a typewriter and bleed. From your heart.” I look down at my frozen heart. It had betrayed me, shrieking in the quiet, beating on when I hit the brakes. “I kept my heart in a place where it could no longer make a mess.” “No. That is not the point of being a writer. The point of being a writer is...” Hemingway is silent for a moment. “I am trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across. So that when you have read something by me, you actually experience the thing. You can’t do this without putting in the bad and ugly as well as what is beautiful.” He folds his arms, satisfied with his work here for now. His word quota is seemingly filled up until the man finds it in himself to utter two more sentences. “Live so you are able to look yourself in the eye. Bleed so you can tell your story.” Then, he is gone. But even with his absence, my heart, enclosed in my fist, grows warm. V. I carry my heart in my pocket. It pulses and beats and breaks over and over against a background of noise. Voices rise and fall in tandem. The Earth keeps spinning. People keep losing things. Worms keep advancing into the reborn world to taste the air. The other day, I saw e.e cummmings the poet from the second-floor window as he crouched onto the sidewalk and scribbled crooked lowercase letters. i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart), it read in mismatched colors. “I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart,” I say out loud and everything slowly but surely falls into place. VI. I meet Ray Bradbury out in the park during dusk. Without a word, for fear of disrupting the hush that’s settled, we take swings next to each other. As the daylight creeps away to be replaced by night-time, we begin swinging. Higher and higher, legs pumping, bodies blurring in pendulous arcs, wordless euphoria. “Jump!” Mr. Bradbury shouts, the silence crumbling under the force of his words. “Jump when you’re at the highest point!” Heart hammering in my chest, I leap. Soaring upwards, I catch a glimpse of my voice—a single spark leaping from the street-lamps, colliding into the fabric of the sky, catching in the folds of the universe itself—before I crash down to Earth.
WORMS KEEP ADVANCING INTO THE REBORN WORLD TO TASTE THE AIR.
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AEROBEACON It takes me a while to regain my bearings as the world finally skids to a halt. When I look up, the grinning face of a young boy, rather than an old man, greets me. “Was that fun?” And I grin back, breathlessly, aching body and bloody knees. “Fun, terrifying, and painful all at once. But it was worth it.” “Well, that’s what life’s really all about, isn’t it?” says Mr. Bradbury. The world suddenly falls quiet. My heartbeat rings in my ears, beckoning the words to venture forth. “I want to write like you.” I want to find my voice. “Because you love life. You love life with everything you
UNTITLED
have.” Mr. Bradbury hums. “The question is, do you love it?” The wind weaves past us. Do not go gentle into that good night, Dylan Thomas said. as It looks like I could’ve chased after my voice without ever having to look for the ending to my own story. My eyes sting. “Yeah. Yeah, I love it. I love it too much for my own good.” Mr. Bradbury beams. “Splendid!” he chirps, a twinkle in his eye. Night, along with its whispering secrets carried by the wind, falls at last.
NICOLE HLADICK (PHOTOGRAPHY)
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS BOARD OF EDUCATION
Ms. Christine Witt, President Mr. Charles F. Jacey, Jr., Vice-President Mr. Richard T. Cavalli Ms. Minkyo Chenette Ms. Sandra M. Donnay Mr. Dharmesh H. Doshi Mr. Nicholas Hladick Mr. Dale Huff Mrs. Amy Miller
CENTRAL OFFICE ADMINISTRATION
Ms. Nancy Gartenberg, Superintendent of Schools Ms. Fiona Borland, Director of Technology Ms. Kelly Mattis, Director of Human Resources/Staff Development Ms. Mary McLoughlin, Director of Pupil Services Mr. Damian Pappa, Director of Assessment and Testing Ms. Deborah Sarmir, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum & Instruction Ms. Annette Wells, School Business Administrator/Board Secretary Mr. Ron Zalika, Director of Curriculum
HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Paul J. Popadiuk, Principal Ms. Corie Gaylord, Director of Student Academics and Counseling Services Ms. Naoma Green, Vice Principal Ms. Melissa Hodgson, Supervisor of Social Studies Mr. Keith Land, Interim Vice Principal Mr. Anthony Maselli, Director of Athletics Mr. Scott Pachuta, Vice Principal Ms. Alma Reyes, Supervisor of World Languages Ms. Jennifer Riddell, Supervisor of Mathematics Ms. Karen Stalowski, Supervisor of English Mr. Jason Sullivan, Supervisor of Science Ms. Joanne Tonkin, Supervisor of Pupil Services Mr. Adam Warshafsky, Supervisor of Visual and Performing Arts
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