PEGASUS Pingree School 2019
Editors Cam Moore Katy Pierce Art Editors Kayla Tarnowski Mason Burns Staff Lilly Blake Lauren Strickler Faculty Advisors Mallie Pratt Michelle Ramadan Photography Deb VanderMolen Mallie Pratt Printing Journeyman Press
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Joan Kiely Audrey 4 Emma Greaves LĂnea Verde 5 Carolyn Kennedy Untitled Collage 6 Lilly Blake Love From Gill to Fin 6 Lilia Hutchins Winch 8 Lily Connors Song of the Ocean 9 Julianna Aguja Two Halves of a Whole 10 Cooper Sullivan Ceramics 12 Julianna Aguja Untitled 13 Cameron Moore Hurricane Girl 13 Lauren Strickler You Promised 14 Maddie Harrington Old Man 15 Kayla Tarnowski Profile 16 Abby Pierce Poop Brown 17 Sarah Fleming Airplanes 18 Liz Zelten Grass 19 Andreas Schaedle There Was a Child Went Forth 20 Kaleb Habtigebriel O.B.E. 22 Julia Siegert Chasing Butterflies 22 Savvas Varitimos Without An Identity 23 Katie Sieker Architecture Drawing 25 Vanny Nelson Without A Home 26 Tim Dowd Birds 27
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Jenny Minney Abstract Still Life 28 Grace Finnegan A Change in Perspective 30 Max Garcia Flowers 32 Lauren Strickler Behind Church Doors 33 Kyle Collins Untitled 34 Katy Pierce These Four Walls I Call Home 35 Max Garcia Falling 36 Izzy Marble August Gone 38 Carolyn Larsen Body 39 Ella Greenfield Grief 40 Nicole Capozzi Untitled 40 Mason Burns Self Portrait With Dream Girl 41 Katy Pierce This is How it Feels Talking to You 42 Julia Siegert Hands 43 Cameron Moore The Hardship Sank 44 Enzo Caruso Tomato 45 Sofia Mottola Braid 46 Sydney Raess Untitled 47 Isabel Job Flower Pot 48 Liz Zelten Dandelion 49 Ben Daume Untitled 50
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mixed media work by Joan Kiely
LĂnea Verde by Emma Greaves
I am the poet of bustle, of the squelch and toil of the underground railroad, of Park St, Arlington, Boylston, Copley, of transit, of sweet escape, of a deliberately delayed metro plagued by corruption and elbow-to-elbow. Rush hour approaches nigh on the green line. Through each toll, the laborers, the artisans, the musicians, the toilers, the menials, the Type A breadwinners, they all swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe. Charlies and flimsy tickets and monthly passes. O, the commerce, the action! They swim pilgrimages and trek exoduses, and passengers transfer train to train, winding endlessly over shallow hills and bulged valleys. Commotion and endeavors of capital gain. What is here? I, the transparent eyeball, see nothing that can be put to words eloquently. Dirtied, monied, scholarly, slothful, tasteless, and tasteful. I am woven into the gloved mosaic of numbed fingers and chilled breaths.
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LOVE FROM GILL TO FIN by Lilly Blake Pure determination, that was all I saw painted across my dad’s face. The game was simple: get the ping-pong ball into the small, glass jar. He furrowed his brow and connected his eyes as if by springs to the jars laid across the table in an array. His arm arched and extended as he popped the weightless ball into the air. It danced along the rim of a jar, and slowly dropped into the dark crevice which had eaten its friends before. My desire to get a goldfish was sparked earlier in the week. Charlotte, my friend from second grade, showed us all pictures of her new goldfish during recess. My little heart thumped with excitement at the thought of a pet that was all mine. It could sleep in my room, swim around, and do all the things little fish love to do. I’d told my dad about just how cool the fish-mom life would be. I would feed him, tuck him in for bed, and we could just talk. My mom said I had my dad “wrapped around my finger.” I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but being sixteen now, it's pretty clear to see that it was (and still is) the truth. He listened to my wish and said that the following weekend we would go to the fair and win my new child. When I asked why we couldn’t just go to Petco like normal people, he asked, “Where’s the fun in that?” That was his usual go-to answer. I knew not to fight him because after all, a conversation between mom and me would not have gone this far. 6
collage by Carolyn Kennedy
A few minutes and fifteen dollars later, waiting impatiently on the fairgrounds, the fish still swam trapped in their jars behind the careless carnie’s counter and not in my loving arms. I started drawing shapes in the dirt with my fuzzy boots; my dad kept tossing those ping-pong balls. I watched his arms, how after each shot they repositioned just a little bit. I observed his feet, how they created a flurry of dust with each throw. And I observed his brain, which my eyes couldn't exactly see, of course. I knew exactly what was going on in there. He was thinking about me. I was the reason he drove to the crowded fairgrounds after a long day of work. Tired from giving root canals and squirting novocaine, the thought of my excitement and pride kept him going. Suddenly, the grounds were silent until the little ball slapped the water inside one of the jars. We both leaped into the air. My dad wrapped me up in his arms and my nose smooshed up against him. The teenager behind the booth unamusingly handed over the fish, but my dad and I had enough excitement to share. My fish, my new baby carnival goldfish, would mean more to me than any random Petco swimmer. 7
print by Lilia Hutchins 8
Song of the Ocean by Lily Connors
I am a salt-covered, unpredictably tumultuous, vastly diverse, and exceedingly dangerous, loving child of the ocean. A curious investigator of uncharted space in Davy Jones’ locker— her scaly and slimy inhabitants, her volcanoes and trenches and valleys, her reefs and shores and treasures. She boasts the largest graveyard of unidentified human bones and unrecognizable skeletons, of ships that fell victim to her violence. Her depths host the makings of nightmares, monsters with reaching tentacles and endless rows of piercing teeth.
But I still want to swim in her waves, join her slimy and scaly inhabitants, have her salt sting my eyes and open wounds. For my limbs to tire from treading water, for my fingertips to wrinkle, for sand to make a home in my hair, for waves to crash overhead and pull me home. I wait for the orange and purple summer nights when the sun leisurely falls into the ocean: an endless pool of empty until I cast my hand into its bitter waters to illuminate a coven of iridescent jellyfish, their glutinous bodies glowing blue-green-red at the touch of my fingertips.
They call to me to dive in, allow the blackness to swallow me whole, fill my throat and blind me, seek comfort in her torturously exquisite watery embrace.
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Two Halves of a Whole by Julianna Aguja The first time I stepped foot in the Philippines—the land of pedicabs, white rice with every meal, and supersized malls—I could not even walk by myself. I was barely a toddler—a one-year-old teetering on the edge of two—dropped into this foreign world, not knowing how to make it my own. * I am three years old, sitting at my great aunt’s kitchen table, a hefty stack of phone books acting as my cushion. She presses her index finger into a small rectangle of thick dough and quickly swipes back, forming pasta shaped like mini hot-dog buns. An Italian talk show is on the TV. Five ladies stare at me from behind the screen, talking rapidly in a language I can’t understand. At one point, my aunt laughs. I wish I knew what was so funny. * The first trip to the Philippines—my dad’s homeland—that I can remember was in the third grade. One monsoon afternoon, I sat sandwiched between two cousins, Andie and Tammy, on the couch, a Tagalog picture book in my lap. They pointed at words and phrases, read them to me, and asked me to repeat them. Tammy held the book, Alamat ng Sibuyas—“The Legend of the Onion”—while Andie pointed to a bolded phrase: “Noong unang panahon…” Andie and Tammy said, in perfect, fluid unison. Once upon a time… “New-oong oo-nang pah-nah-hōn,” I mimicked. They thought my accent was funny and I thought the same about theirs. Whenever I tried to say a Tagalog word, they laughed and I laughed too, understanding how silly I must have sounded. For a fleeting second, blood rose to my cheeks, making my face feel hot. This was once upon a time. Noong unang panahon. That trip, my cousins and I became close. Really close. We navigated the lively city streets together, inhaling the scent of chicharon bulaklak and freshly squeezed mango juice. We laughed and talked and laughed beneath the thick blanket of Manila’s humidity, shielded from the relentless sun by the many skyscrapers around us. When it was time to board an airplane back to Boston, my sister and I cried. We all realized, but never said, that there was an ocean and a continent between us. It would be a while before we saw each other again. * 10
It is Easter now. I am thirteen. Springtime in Massachusetts means blue skies, sun-showers, and flowers everywhere. I am wearing my favorite dress, the one I planned to wear to my middle school graduation a few months later. My family and I drive to my aunt’s house. An eerie quietness looms over her dead-end street, but I savor the quiet, knowing that pretty soon, I will barely be able to hear my own thoughts over the chaos of family talking and laughing. After my family and I enter the house and say our hug-and-kiss-filled hellos, I help set the table for dinner. I carefully grab the two dozen manicotti from the oven, while my cousins Christina and Angela get the pasta and lamb. While arranging knives and napkins, all the cousins talk about school and sports and our parents’ odd quirks. We reminisce about the Easter Egg hunts that we used to have after dinner when we were younger, what story from our parents’ childhood will be repeated for the millionth time at dinner, and how no Italian family gathering is complete without an adult handing you some “Ice Cream Money” as you are about to leave. Once the table is set, we take our seats at the kids table located at the end of the dining room, our bellies rumbling. We watch the adults slowly migrate to the table, eager to attack the meal before us. * It is the summer before sophomore year now, and I take the fact that I have to bring homework on the plane ride instead of a coloring book as a sign of my maturity. It is humid and blistering hot in Manila. My cousins and I spend most days inside the house, watching dramatic soap operas while sitting on the leather couch made icy from the blasting air conditioner. The smell of my grandmother’s cooking travels into the living room. I turn to watch my grandmother bustle around her outdoor kitchen, cutting vegetables, watching a sizzling pan of pork on the stove, and stirring a pot of white rice. She never stops moving when she cooks—her wooden spoon traveling from one pot to the next at light speed. Every Filipino must learn how to make adobo, my grandmother calls out to me from the door leading to the outdoor kitchen one morning. Come here. I’ll show you. I am reminded of my grandfather, my mother’s father, who taught me how to make his famous pasta dinner a few months before, complete with homemade sauce, bread, and fresh cheese. He has made this meal many times. Like my grandmother, he never stops moving—running to the refrigerator to the sink and back, never stopping to take a breath. The wall of his kitchen is covered in hooks upon which ladles and colanders and spoons of every size hang. I watch him shake salt into a pot of water on the stove, and he tells me to get him a box of pasta from the pantry. Every Italian must learn how to make a real pasta dinner, he told me. Come here. I’ll show you.
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ceramic work Cooper Sullivan
Hurricane Girl
by Cameron Moore you’re an ice cream scoop sweet and cold on my front teeth split into waffle cone cross-sections— wouldn’t it suck to get dropped in the sand it’s just me i’m out here in my underwear it’s dark and there’s a current and you shouts at me to keep my hands away from the other drowned bodies— you say my name sounds pretty but reads ugly that ink-black oceans can write newspaper headlines you want to know how i can swallow an obituary with my shorts around my ankles and Big Time Rush on blast skip rocks in the dark and listen to that plip plop ending in a squish when it cracks some hard-boiled buoyant sailor skull desecrating that soggy viking grave like a sloppy handjob two-and-a-half months and your man still looks like a guitar pick— you keep carving cream-cheese holes in me like a pinky finger in a birthday cake— you’ve always been the type of girl who isn’t afraid to eat a couple candles so why do you act surprised when the other kids call you wax mouth— there’s still one wick left on your tongue and i wonder if i could light it with a little friction keep us wrapped in your Flaming Hot Cheeto sleeping bag— two burnt bodies floating through a deep-sea anomaly if God offered to unmake you i’d let him cause if you re-became my rib you’d be closer to my heart i’m sorry that i got sand in your car carpets i’m sorry that we don’t talk about your ex-boyfriend i wish i could pay seventy-five cents and vacuum him up too
photograph by Julianna Aguja
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You Promised by Lauren Strickler Dear Papa, It’s me. I thought I’d write you. I couldn’t put a mailing address on here, because it’s hard to mail things to places you’re not sure you believe in. So, I guess for now, after this is written, it will sit in the bottom of my desk drawer. Maybe by some miracle, you’ll see me writing it, as though you were right behind me, peering over my shoulder while I vigorously worked on school assignments, like you always used to do, only to kiss my head as you would leave. I think Nana would be too upset if she saw it. I won’t lie to you, I’m not happy with you. You promised me another year of sourdough pretzels, and sugar cookies, and sticky buns. You promised to get my room ready with my favorite blankets for when I came to visit. You promised me more stories of your childhood and how you grew up in rolling fields of green. I know you struggled with recalling some of these, so I won’t push you. I always hated seeing you frustrated with yourself, when you couldn’t possibly do anything to fix it. It wasn’t your fault. None of it was. You told me that you were going to cook the turkey for Thanksgiving by yourself, even though you had always left that job to Nana. It seems to me like you just got too scared that you were going to overcook it. I mean, I could’ve helped you. We all could’ve helped. Maybe. I’m not really sure. Doctors can be so vague in their responses to questions. In case you were wondering, the Steelers won their first 3 games this season, and the Phillies are having a strong season. Remember the boy who went to your church with you? DJ? Remember, he was diagnosed with cancer, but you helped him through it? He went to his first game as soon as he had gotten better. He believes it was all because of you. Those were your prayers that gave him hope. You were known for helping others. It was one of those great things about you. I just wish you could’ve stayed with DJ. DJ is great and all, but he’s no master of Eagle Tag. I wonder if you rode on an eagle up there? I would think you deserve a bigger entrance that just that. I really hope you like it. Save me a seat next to you if I ever get a chance to visit. Maybe I’ll bring cards so we can play. All my love, Your granddaughter
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drawing by Maddie Harrington
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painting by Kayla Tarnowski 16
Poop Brown by Abby Pierce
I was pleasantly surprised to find a colored pencil in a beautiful shade of brown sitting on the bookshelf next to my nap space. Don’t do it, my mind said, but I didn’t listen. I never did. Abby please listen. This is serious. My tailbone hurt from the way I was sitting, crying in a ball on the floor of the kindergarten classroom. Abby you have to fix this. The teacher handed me an eraser. Get rid of it, she said. I didn’t listen. Five-year-old me never listened. The teacher called again trying to coax me out of the ball I tangled myself in. Abby. My name seemed to float out into space, hitting the walls of the corner I was sitting in. I grabbed the eraser and pushed over the books on the bookshelf. Underneath was the last thing I ever wanted to see again. Abby loves stuffed animals 100, written in poop brown. A-B-B-Y spelled out in wobbly handwriting across the shelf. If only Abby weren’t my name, I wouldn’t have been caught. I erased my name. Erased myself like I had never been there. I wish I had never been there.
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mixed media art by Sarah Fleming
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Grass
by Liz Zelten the tails of a thousand happy puppies trembling in the breeze rooted
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There Was a Child Went Forth by Andreas Schaedle
After Whitman’s “There Was a Child Went Forth” There was a child went forth every day; And the first object he looked upon, that object he became; And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day, Or for many years or stretching cycles of years. The curtains became a part of this child, The love for furniture passed down from father, to daughter in-law, to grandson, The paintings by a man who used to live there, once gone but now found again, collected, and adored, And a few well loved carpets, worn to a hardness of the wood found underneath, The woodworking and all of its worms, the chairs with their queer, uneven legs All became part of him. The gardenias and a memory of somewhere special, And the seeding grass, long and short, kept matted by lazy rabbits looking for food and shelter, And that gentle, tried, loving coo of a dove requesting affection, And the familiar May-time call of a blue jay in heat, And the territorial glares between the jays and the cardinals, aggressive in a manner common amongst enemies, And the common animals, field-birds, gray squirrels, blackbirds, and crows, all looking for their share of the land, And the beautiful, enveloping atmosphere of tulips and jasmine, The seductive, gathering feeling of wisteria and lavender, The terracotta, held in place by years of moss which never seems to be defeated by months of cold and snow, The well painted fences on the porch, growing green with pollen and worn from sitting, And the great pine tree, commanding the world’s eyes, protected by a ring of gray stones,
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And the man in a tiny cap who sits on the stoop with his dog, cheery, and pleased to hear anyone’s thoughts, And the ones closest to him, the mother and father who saw it all through, The sister who set the precedent for work and cause, held fast to her toils, The brother who saw passion in life, and could wield enthusiasm in his calculated, cynical way, Those who gave him all that they could; they became part of him. The father, who showed him perseverance, and was always someone happy to talk. The mother, caring, composed, emotional, fair, stoic, helpful, supported, vatic, They, who work, and who showed him work, The doubts of the future and the doubts of the past, the unknowability of anything now, Whither the day moves forward as it does, the calculated mysteries or the apparent riddle of the unfurling of a day, Men and women who struggle to parse and predict––are they to ever truly write The Book of Ages? The faces that aren’t beautiful, the tourists who are, the cries of opportunities lost, the slurred, curt offhand comments coming from park benches, The squirrels, the docks, the witch-run curiosity shops, the grayness of winter and the warm glow of summer, The rank stench of falling, rotting fruit, the cheap confections filling the streets with the smell of sugar and oil, the occasional waft of ocean water, The expanse, the possibility, the places already traveled and yet to be seen, The jagged skylines, the urban seagull, the air of passion and effort and love, These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.
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O.B.E.
by Kaleb Habtigebriel my soul ascended into teal kindness where the lively gods of the gale and the crooning birds of heaven gazed. to the clouds, I said: take this peculiar heart and all the weight it holds. life is an endless marathon in the shell of a turtle.
mixed media work by Julia Siegert 22
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Without an Identity by Savvas Varitimos I find a city on a Massachusetts state map, bolded font, a lonesome asterisk in pitiful company. Isolated in a siege of thinner-font, wanna-be, attention-seeking no-geographic-pinpoint-given-to-their-name-towns, just beyond the short, ugly wingspan of their territory— dulled edges, perpendicular lines, the asymmetry of no-man’s land: a jigsaw puzzle: one piece clearly does not fit. How in the quaintness of Massachusetts, can this map of Essex county be? The textbook-shredded, stained image tucked away in the margins of page 273 is not a cartographer’s smudge, the murky water colors blemishing historical text. Not jagged toothed scissors slicing the map of my city into thin espaguetis, or a pencil etching out the name of a Robert Frost. There is simply nothing to make of Lawrence. No melting pot, no industrial revolution, no prosperous heritage— nothing of the sort. Only what seems to be an accurate mistake in another account of white man’s history.
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drawing by Katie Sieker
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A Second Home by Vanny Nelson
Samang stepped out of his apartment building in Lowell, Massachusetts. He no longer needed a heavy jacket to walk to work. The air smelled like spring, and it reminded him of the cool afternoons during the rainy seasons that he’d spent playing with his brother and sister in the country roads of Cambodia. As Samang walked down the street, he heard voices shouting in Khmer: people planning for the festival celebrations that night. The shop windows along the sidewalk were filled with brightly colored New Year decorations, Buddhas, and white jasmine flowers. He could feel the excitement radiating as he made his way to the electronic assembly plant where he worked. Today the plant was equally filled with excited whispers of the evening celebrations. Samang overheard workers discussing the food their families had prepared the night before, the decorations their children had made, and the fancy outfits they had bought with their newly earned money. All Samang could think about as he fit metal pieces together was the New Year festival that night. That morning in the kitchen, Samang had remembered how much he missed the smell of coconut curry and sweet rice and seeing his mother’s smile. He finally had something to look forward to. Samang’s mother, grandmother, and his brother, Vichet, were waiting inside their apartment by the door in their colorful traditional Khmer clothing. The colors reflected on the walls and gave the dull apartment a feeling of happiness for once. Together they went down the stairs and exited into the street filled with people like them. Slowly they fell into the flow of the crowd and made their way to the bank of the Merrimack River. As the crowd worked its way along the sidewalks, Samang couldn’t help but remember the day the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh. If he closed his eyes he could still see the sea of people filling the street, their lives packed on their backs and balanced on their hips. Parents held tight to their children as they marched out of their homes, never to return again. Samang remembered how his father had scooped up his sister as his mother packed all she could into two small suitcases. How the whole family had hurried out onto the streets where they fell into the ever-growing crowd. When Samang finally broke through the festival crowd, the scene in front of him instantly took him back to his last New Year celebration in Cambodia, next to the Mekong River that runs through Phnom Penh. Samang’s family had made their way along the river, stopping at stalls to look at the food and crafts being sold. The smell of rice and garlic drifted through the air while dragon boats raced down the river, and children shouted and ran through the crowds. Samang remembers stopping with his family to wash the Buddha statue in the square for good luck as they made their way to the stage by the water. There, people gathered to watch Robam Chun Por, the Blessing Dance, performed to bless the New Year. Little did they know that that would be the last time they would all be together to bring in the New Year. In Lowell, the river had been lined with lights. Families were setting up picnics along the riverbank, and someone had set up an altar in the center of all the activities. There were a few 26
tents spread sporadically throughout the crowd where people were congregating. Music played over speakers and through portable radios. Samang realized that he had almost forgotten the sound of Khmer music. Children played Leak Kanseng, their shrieks and laughter rising over the music as they chased each other around in a circle. If Samang listened carefully, he thought he could just make out Bopha’s laughter echoing through the crowd. Samang’s family made its way through the crowd and found a small spot to sit. His mother spread out the worn blanket she had brought from their apartment, and Samang and Vichet helped put out the food. People Samang knew from the factory came by and said hello, and once everything was set up, Samang’s grandmother and mother made their way around to talk with their friends. Soon it was dark, and only the lights along the river offered illumination to the festivities. Samang and his family sat together on their blanket and looked out over the Merrimack. While none of them spoke, they shared the same thoughts. They thought about how far they had traveled in the past few years, how much they had left behind, how much they had lost. They had suffered so much, and yet here they were: together and alive. Here, in this little sphere of light on the bank of the Merrimack River, Samang saw snippets of the Cambodia he left behind, the Cambodia he loved and missed. Here, Samang was finally home again.
print by Tim Dowd
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painting by Jenny Minney 28
painting by Jenny Minney
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A Change in Perspective by Grace Finnegan
Amber, scarlet, and tangerine twirling from branch to branch are death’s grip disguised across the horizon blooming. The wash of crisp air quenching the stifling summer heat drains the earth of sustenance, the children of laughter, the sky of cerulean and fluttering sparrows. Crunch under boots grinds crispy leaves into the soil which will shortly be nothing but a crumb beneath the snow. Stinging breezes blow noses raw and days fall to night before pigtails play at the park and commuters step off the platform. But despite the biting draft and obsidian afternoons, the gap-tooth smiles of little ones on the nice list and the perfume of toasted pecans in the oven sweeten sugar cookies. Lemony daffodils bloom. Fuzzy ducklings hatch. Sunlight creeps back into the afternoons, teases the idea of trading winter coats for flip flops— dreams of freshly mowed grass wafting through open windows. Seedlings wiggle into pansies, lilies, and tulips and goldfinches harmonize miles and miles along the green breeze.
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Woods full of bluebells blossom and hedges full of blackberries bloom and the sky is empty except for the kite flown by little sweaty hands. Sunburnt and freckled noses play in the neighborhood— manhunt, tag, kickball. manhunt, tag, kickball. But sun always gives way to moon, and lightning bug twinkles fade as mosquitos nip ankles— the end of an endless summer, not so endless after all.
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painting by Max Garcia
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Behind Church Doors by Lauren Strickler
I went to church today. For the first time in a long time. And I listened to the sermon. Somewhat. The wooden pews felt harder than I remembered, as though all of the church’s sins had been captured within them, harder with every vile action committed. I sat down in a pew far away from the majority and sunk as far down as I could. I pulled my new pale pink dress down so that it covered me knees. The pastor stood high behind the pulpit, his body hidden, his hands resting easily on the wooden platform, his words falling on attentive ears, the vowels bouncing off his tongue, the syllables rippling off the roof of his mouth. A mouth spitting fury at those who dared to deceive the Lord, attacking me with every crisp, clean movement of his jaw: a wolf attacking his prey. His snarled muzzle tightened as he spoke words that even he could not bring himself to believe, for no one could ever be as pure as they were made out to be. He must have forgotten about his late night on Thursday in the black Cadillac parked outside my house, car windows tinted slightly, but not enough to hide his lips landing on an unfamiliar woman. His body perched over her, suffocating her. At the pulpit, his hands waved furiously, as though directing the Lord’s blessings to fall on his people. It must have slipped his mind that those hands covered that woman’s mouth as her body shook in fear under him in the backseat. The sermon ends. I slowly stand, wanting to leave before the Sunday flood of men and women holding the hands of children. Children dressed in sunshine dresses and pink ribbons, in button-up shirts with khaki pants laced with dirt. I flatten my dress in the back, and turn towards the door, my feet delicately stepping over the hardwood floors. “We all worry that our actions will be forgotten.” The pastor’s voice echoes like thunder. Some of our actions, I think, will never be known.
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photograph by Kyle Collins
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These Four Walls I Call Home by Katy Pierce When I sit on the floor at 2 a.m., I hear everything. Beyond the wall to my right— the couple that shouldn’t have been. They fight for hours on end, yelling about anything and everything from who has to work overtime so they’re able to pay rent to whose parents they should visit for Christmas. They always visit her family, because last time they visited his family, someone ended up in the hospital. After every fight, they have sex. I can hear the headboard hitting the wall, echoing throughout the floor. She’s loud to the point where it sounds fake. It is. She’s sleeping with his best friend, and she doesn’t sound as fake when she’s with him. The apartment to the left of mine houses a dog. I assume the dog has an owner, but I haven’t seen or heard anything that suggests a human lives there. I can always tell when the dog is walking around the apartment. The scritch scratch of his claws must be leaving marks in the old, wooden floors. He also barks whenever it rains, which means I never get any sleep. It’s always raining here. Behind me lives a family of pigeons. Only one of the parents is left. Two of the babies fell before they could fly, and the last one was scooped up by a bigger bird, and the other parent never came back. I used to be able to hear the babies talking to each other, chirps muffled by the thin pane of glass. Mornings are silent now, except for the lone pigeon calling out when dawn breaks. If I look out the window, he will be alone in his nest. But I understand why he stayed. Hoping maybe one day they’ll be back. When I sit on the floor at 2 a.m., I face the door leading out of my apartment. The lock doesn’t work. The floors are rotting; my ceiling leaks. The heat was turned off long ago, probably because the stack of envelopes move directly from the mailbox to the trash can. I want to leave, yet here I am. Home.
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August Gone by Izzy Marble
August up above. August enclosed in the window frame. Every day watching us play on the street below. August’s eyes searching in the dark, curious, hungry, lost. August embraced in a tight hug, arms linked, never letting go. August, like a tenacious puppy, reaching for me, envying me. August whose mom isn’t dead, just not around. August whispers in my ear. Secrets that echo off the pink walls. August waiting. Waiting unsuccessfully for a response, a secret, a whisper in return. August pulling away uneasily. August in strong arms. Hands intertwined. Faces close. Bodies connected. Waiting. Why is she always waiting? August through the glass, staring up at my father. August embarrassed. August ashamed. August in pain. I desperately want to hug her, tell her she’s perfect. August slowly slipping away. August’s eyes confused, stunned, betrayed. Staring at my growing belly like it’s a monster. Like I’m the monster. August’s head turned, the unanswered call lingering in the air. August walking away. Away from Brooklyn, away from memories, away from me. August sitting on the train bench. Beautiful. Calling out, reaching towards her, train doors close; August is gone.
pg. 36-37 drawing by Max Garcia 38
ceramic work by Carolyn Larsen 39
GRIEF
photograph by Nicole Capozzi
by Ella Greenfield
My best friend used to be. Not just a face in my memory that made me scream and cry until the paramedics were called. Not just a name in the newspaper grazed over by men drinking coffee, too tired to read the full sentence. Not just a picture in a yearbook that children giggled over as they mocked outdated clothes and beehive hairstyles. Not just a picture on her mother’s nightstand. She would never return to make the bed she had been yelled at for as she darted through her paint-peeled front door for the last time. Not just a name on a grave. The chiseled lettering barely visible beneath rotting flowers with stems like asparagus boiled for too long. As I sat in front of that grave, pulverizing the dead flower petals in my hand until they fell to the ground like misshapen snowflakes, she was no longer my best friend. Just someone who had died. Someone who used to be.
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painting by Mason Burns 41
this is how it feels talking to you by Katy Pierce
I. ice-pick claw nerves claw away at my skin— like a lit fuse on a firework I haven’t stopped shivering since the first time you touched me. II. your hands around my neck— my breath seeping into your skin, filling your lungs. our breathless beginning. III. you tell me you can’t love me, but as your hands tighten around my neck I can tell you do. IV. mirror images ingraining on my retina— fingertip-shaped bruises I press on endlessly. V. your skin soaked me up like it did the sun: leaving heart-shaped blisters on your chest for you to remember me by.
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VI. our end is the opposite of our beginning— without the expected dramatics— us tied together back to back, flinging ourselves into the open air. consensual mutual destruction. so sure— we faded into a nebula instead. VII. oh how I wish I could save you, but you’re intent on going down with a rope around your neck. I still have more to do.
painting by Julia Siegert
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The Hardship Sank by Cameron Moore
my true body is hulled away in the dilapidated husk of a nineteen-thirties whaling ship just sunken flesh tumbling between the walls like a bloated windmill of fingernails and seaweed bubble-wrapped in the bridesmaid glow of a dozen oil lamps great blubbery flippers sloughed off the side like the moldy rind of a long-forgotten clementine at the climax of every great hunt, the sailors pinch their noses scoop me up by my mossy underarms and tether me around the prow of their boat, a sponge for bad juju can you feel me scream across the infinite dips of these dark waves? at the dead runes carved into my dead teeth? can you read what they say to the ink of this ocean? don’t trust the things i say, you harbor-corner hooker it’s all lies to make the whales feel safer, i get them drunk on whispers dull enough to numb a harpoon the very same whispers some mother dribbled into your crib you are my sunshine, my only sunshine the black-calloused ropeburns of my breath are bloodletters love letters to a dying mammal god, written in the language of groaning this ocean is so shallow that if you reached around the prow and peeled my eyeballs out i could show you where the flippers float so fat and moldy, barnacled slabs sinking for an owner i swallowed these sea beasts once before, to no avail they severed my stomach open and pilfered my entrails flung my lurching captain’s flesh to the sky and saw all the things i’d smuggled down my gullet the moonshine, the only sunshine, the whales
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sailors shoveled my bitter body back down below deck as if i hadn’t already endungeoned myself, as if i wasn’t already surrounded by rats, masquerading in the rigor-mortis ballroom bodies of my crewmates there is no better fate than to be dead, a wailing whaler turned whaling maidenhead so my true body burns at the prow of this ship dripping in fresh whale oil bury the things you are most afraid of in the empty places you cannot go
painting by Enzo Caruso
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drawing by Sofia Mottola
photograph by Sydney Raess
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ceramic work by Isabel Job
Dandelion by Liz Zelten
a weed sprinkled over a sea of green— copycat suns smiling up— ambassadors of spring perfect poofs of gold dug out rejected for daring to add variance among the monochrome
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photograph by Ben Daume
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