Pandora's Box Winter 2022

P A N D O R A’ S

Box

Magazine

From emotional portraits to enticing poetry, I am excited to present to you the Winter 2022 issue of Gunn High School’s Pandora’s Box Creative Magazine! The intricacies and creativity that our student body has showcased are truly a sight to behold.

In this semester’s submissions, I was particularly impressed with the quality of photos, writing, and artwork. I would like to thank and congratulate more than 100 contributors who decided to share their creativity with us.

I would also like to thank all our officers for the countless hours they have put in to make this issue possible. You all made this issue’s production incredibly smooth. An additional thank you to Mr. Dunlap for supporting our goals along the way.

Yours,

Nimisha Sivaraman Editor-in-Chief

Table of Contents photography

mice Lydia Gray 83 crush Siena Tacy 85 untitled Samhita Krishnan 86 MargotEleanor Stern 87 City Dalia Gutierrez 88 The Lone Snowman Olivia Souter 89

art Museum of Overwhelmingness Aeron Man 8 Survival

Obsession Kaylee Cheng

Reincarnate Labyrinth

Paranoia Flying

Aeron Man 32

untitled Madison Lee

9 Ascending

Aeron Man Madison Lee

Kaylee Cheng Jenna Ahmed

24 59

30

Kaylee Cheng 58

27 71

Headache Claire Xu 74

Swollen Eyes Glancer Us

Claire Xu Aeron Man Aeron Man

poetry what do want to do before you leave

75 90 91

What Are We Flood

Margot Zelkha Claire Xu

what do want to do before you leave

At The Doctor’s

Saniya Sajith Claire Xu

“Remarkable, A Must-See” choose carefully

Kaylee Cheng Saniya Sajith

Sparkling Carry Me Through The Pine Neighborly

Kaylee Cheng Margot Zelkha Jasmine F

Miscommunication

Saniya Sajith Margot Zelkha

10 72

17 73

34 76

17 84

36 49 69

Museum of Overwhelmingness Aeron Man

What Are We

Margot Zelkha

What are we Without our own words The stains Of a page Binding together in Nebulous forms without these hazy ideas These emotions Realizations Conveyed We are a mere Shell of Demure acclamation And deprecation Of the Harmony We hold What are we Without our own voices Without our laughs And our freeing bodies For without This peaceful portent of humanity We are no longer

Even within our trembling words And whispered voices

There are constrained beauty And power

Like dew silently trickling downwards against a Family tree for after the dew Always comes an untouched morning air

Untitled Rachael Gold

what do you want to do before you leave?

Saniya Sajith

if you determined your end, why not make it happy? people who have been given a certain end make sure that it is happy and light. if you so stubbornly ensured your end, why not live dangerously, why not live happily?

if you’re going to leave, at least before you go, go tell them you love them, go do the thing you’ve been too scared to do, go say yes, go appreciate life one last time, go be happy.

light at the end of the tunnel Misha Vasilevskiy

Untitled Ezra Furtado-Tiwari

Untitled Tejas Thiyagarajan

Reincarnate Aeron Man

New York Skies

Midori Saito

The Webs of My Mind

Margot Zelkha

The webs of my mind Entangled as the world

Becomes clearer One of a spider’s silk Gently wrapping around my intellect Opening my heart

My cheeks flushed with Understanding To kiss the earth And dance upon the marigolds Becomes not a wish But a tranquil longing

Paranoia Kaylee Cheng

This photo was taken during Gunn Prom 2022, at the City View at Metreon in San Francisco. This was the first Prom since 2019 on account of the COVID-19 pandemic, making it many seniors’ first and last Prom experience.

Afterparty Michael Zhang

untitled Kaylee Cheng

Survival Kaylee Cheng

“Remarkable, A Must-See!”

Kaylee Cheng

Maybe if the crime scene tape were sparkly or the yellow an octave higher in saturation, I could imagine it strung across a stage, framed by a proscenium that tortures its audience over a slow flame, wringing bodies of their sweaty anticipation that runs down the velvet stairs— burgundy ones, the color all too jarring and real. The bolded letters—crime scene do not cross—would weigh the same as all the other styrofoam props: the fantasy able to dissolve into buoyant pulp at any whisper spoken too loud. The audience might clap, astonished at the chilling accuracy of the scream, wondering how an actress could deliver pain so tangible and how the ticket only cost thirteen dollars. And when the knight is held by the neck and submerged underwater, everyone will hold their breath

and cross their middle finger over the pointer until they hear knuckles cracking even though the play is not a tragic one. The knight will plunge his sword through the enemies’ heart and resurface, coughing out water and blood and fish but his face will look just as handsome, cheeks rose with kisses from his damsel. But the stage is gone when the pale man wheezes his last breath, ripping out the last few pages of this story, pulling the curtains closed.

Sparkling

Kaylee Cheng

It was the summer of sticky armpits and pinkies unscathed in their promises, of that nauseating sunscreen smell sticking like a filter to my cupid’s bow. Back before I needed to be marked on a map, before I needed to be scared I’d slip and fall in between those lines of latitude, when I was allowed to blast music on the highways, pretending to be a dog out the rolled-down windows, tongue out, taunting the wind’s inability to keep up. I remember it as the summer

I started drinking sparkling water. It wasn’t that initial flash of bitterness that I enjoyed but rather its fleeting, almost unruly nature. I liked gambling on the risk of not knowing if the drink had been shaken up, if, after the hiss of air, the contents would regurgitate and stain my skirt. The bubbles rising to the bottleneck, defiant against the laws of gravity they’ve been told, fascinated me. But nothing, exhilarated me more than the possibility of the soda going flat, losing its life and fizz, deflating into something boring. I loved the chase against time, with Cronus on my tail, desperate

to capture me as I chug and chug and almost choke on my breath. I don’t remember when I stopped loving that, when I started leaving my sparkling water out to get flat before drinking. The pragmatic thing to do, I thought, is to accept the inevitable, to eliminate the stress and enjoy something less fleeting, but I never stopped drinking it despite the hassle, perhaps it brought me back to those summers, perhaps it allowed me to revel in my diminishing wisps of youth, but perhaps, I just hated admitting to myself that the only thing I love about sparkling water now is the bitterness.

Dress Abby Kuang

Infatuation Will Racz

untitled Abby Kuang

Platti

untitled Isabelle Abran

Lake Louise Fiona Li

Waterfowl Lakes

Fiona Li

Tangle Creek Falls

Fiona Li

Carry Me Through The Pine

Margot Zelkha

From the stillness of winter In the foamed branches of snow Lies peace of a new kind The fuzz in our brains seeps into our warm coffee by the fire and The rumble in our stomachs is simply set aside Long days and time

Come to a pause When you are alone For the sweet smell of pine And the chill of the swift wind carries us through the beauty of winter granting nothing Yet everything for you

Waves Zara Wang

Grey Whale Cove Zara Wang

Underground Cave Nickan Soliman

Sunset Lake Jasmine F

Ascending Madison Lee

Steps of Nature

Kai Lobell

A Pool of Mud Kai Lobell

A Reflective Lake Kai Lobell

Geyser Kai Lobell

Trotting Zara Wang

Calm Waters

Katie Shih

Neighborhood Cat Zara Wang

Mid Autumn Moon Zara Wang

Neighborly

Jasmine F

Dear Neighbor, I can finally enjoy some Peace. Today, you’re getting Evicted. Only thing that separates us is one piece of Dry wall. Every time you sing, it gets Thinner. For 18 years, I’ve suffered through your Christmas carols Prematurely in November. Blaring rap music hurts my ears every Night. I hate your overly enthusiastic “Good morning!” when there’s nothing good about Mornings. It’s quiet now. Yet weirdly, neighbor, I still hear the echo of hardwood floor, Creak of stairs, Ponytail swish of your sun-bleached hair. Wind brushing past orchid leaves on your dresser, Strumming of your ukulele,

Trickling water from your fish tank. I’ve kept your room the same, Even though I hate the mess, smell of old fish food, pink curtains

Only thing we have in common is Mom, Dad, and one piece of Dry wall. Everything else, We refuse to share. It’s that habit When siblings pretend They don’t care. So now that you’ve moved out, Perhaps, I’m finally starting to love My neighbor.

Flying Jenna Ahmed

Flood

Claire Xu

Author’s Note: I wrote “Flood” in April 2022 for a New York Times poetry exercise that, in celebration of National Poetry Month, challenged writers to use the Golden Shovel form. In this form, you end each line of your poem with words from a line of another poem or text. The New York Times advised to practice with a headline, so I randomly chose “Moon Knight Starts Well Enough, But Interest Wanes With Each New Phase” (not my personal opinion).

In the early mornings where the moon is the guardian of the darkness, a knight cloaked in clouds, the starts of a rainstorm hang in the air. Well nourished are the trees after the downpour, there is enough water to flood the streets—but too much of anything is bad, too much and we lose interest; the pale moon wanes until all that is left is a sliver, with the darkness eating at it each night-it’s nothing new, an inevitable phase.

At The Doctor’s

Claire Xu “good,” she said when asked how she was doing; but the nurse’s lips twitched and their eyes disbelieved, for “I don’t think you’d be here if you were good,” they said with a disinfected smile and the girl laughed dryly, realizing her lie, her swollen throat smothering the last embers of artificial ecstasy

Headache

Claire Xu

Swollen Eyes

Claire Xu

choose carefully

Saniya Sajith

Author’s Note: for mera dil, mera jaan, your memory will stab my heart until my last breath mera jaan, there is poison flowing thorugh my veins, and at my fingertips. there is venom at the tip of my tongue. be careful when you choose me because then you will understand why storms are named after people. my love is a dagger; i will carve and gut you with it. beware, for a woman’s love is dangerous. it will destroy you in the most beautiful way possible. her cries will shake the earth and skies. screams etched into her throat. a woman in love will drag the devil himself from the depths

of hell for you. she will look at the darkness inside you, yet still she looks at you as if you are the sun and the moon and the stars. she will see every terrible thing you’ve ever done, you are still her sun and you are still her moon and you are still her stars shine brightly, mera jaan. at least for her.

Untitled Clea dal Cero

Untitled Clea dal Cero

Kylemore Abbey Zain Bhalla

wow

Matthew Delgado

The Rock Mia Saad

mice

Lydia Gray

Miscommunication

Margot Zelkha

I spend my days writing Trying to communicate Saving poems to the drafts Forgetting the words written n letting them desecrate Yet they resurface in conversations

In the problems I face

The written words kept unspoken swallowing with a bitter taste No empathy seeps through the cracks in my cage and no opinions take flight off of the page

crush Siena Tacy

untitled Samhita Krishnan

Margot

Eleanor Stern

City Dalia Gutierrez

The Lone Snowman Olivia Souter

Glancer

Aeron Man

Artwork Blurb: I really wanted to emphasize the uncertainty of the woman. I further immerse the viewer to this ideology by deliberately leaving the girl in black in white to add a sense of enigma.

Us Aeron Man

Winter 2022 Staff

Editor-in-Chief: Nimisha Sivaraman Vice President: Fiona Li Layout Officer: Julia Kang Publicity Officers: Abby Kuang Managing Officers: Julia Kang, Katie Shih Club Advisor: Mr. Dunlap

Rotational Layout Members: Emma Cao, Kaylee Cheng, Stephany Handoyo

Pandora’s Box Creative Magazine has been a part of Henry M. Gunn High School’s student community for over 25 years. We are a student-run literary and creative magazine, featuring work by student artists, poets, writers, and photographers. Pandora’s Box provides an outlet for students to explore their creativity and showcase their talent.