Portraits in Ink, 2017 by Portraits in Ink

p o rt r a i t s i n i n k

Durham School of the Arts DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA VO LU M E X I I I

2017

PROTEST dOCuMENTARy digital photographs :: CHELSEA JOHNSON, 2017

About Portraits in Ink The mission of Portraits in Ink is to showcase the creative work of the Durham School of the Arts community, to encourage students of all backgrounds to explore their potential as thoughtful and original writers and artists, and to give a voice to those who didn’t know they had one through the publication of a beautifully bound document that we share with the student body and the greater community. We hope to serve as a launchpad that skyrockets ideas into a united universal collection of creativity. Durham School of the Arts is a public, lottery-based, magnet school, population 1650, with grades 6-12, in the Durham Public Schools district. Portraits in Ink is a student-run, high school extracurricular club. The editorial and design staff meets year-round to produce an annual, juried publication. The jurying, editing, layout, and design is performed collaboratively by staff with faculty guidance. The editors of this magazine gather submissions through advertising on social media and around the school, hosting contests, submit-a-thons, and pop-up-submission stations at open mic nights, and soliciting writing and visual art directly from students and their teachers across the school, regardless of enrollment in an art or writing class. Edits made by the staff are discussed in a conference with the author prior to publication. The staff also works closely with the visual arts faculty to access to a wide range of student

Awards 2016, volume 12 CSPA Gold Medalist Critique CSPA Gold Circles Traditional Fiction, 1st place, K. Elizabeth Danford, “Skin” Essays, 2nd place, Dominick Oliverio, “On Living Underground” NCTE PRESLM Highest Award North Carolina Literary and Historical Association Student Publication Awards, 2nd place Featured in volume 13 Scholastic National Silver Medalists Scholastic Regional Gold Key Winners Scholastic Regional Silver Key Winners Portraits in Ink Contest Winners Noted

stages: the staff reads all submissions to compile a list of top choices, then they come together as a group to

Membership

and advisers compare the demographics of the writers selected to those of the school and adjust accordingly to

Columbia Scholastic Press Association Southern Interscholastic Press Association National Student Press Association National Council of Teachers of English

Only one piece of writing per student is published to ensure a wide range of voices. Visual art is then selected based on the needs of the magazine and the nature of the pieces being published. Portraits in Ink, Literary + Arts Magazine Durham School of the Arts 400 N. Duke Street Durham, North Carolina 27701 p. 919-560-3926 f. 919-560-2217 portraitsinink@gmail.com portraitsinink.weebly.com @portraitsinink on Twitter + Instagram

Dear Reader,

After nights of horrible dreams, we can feel different in the morning light, as if we’re not the same creatures we once were. Sometimes the metamorphosis isn’t our own; the world around us can have seemingly changed overnight until it is nearly unrecognizable. This year has been a metamorphosis for most of our student body. The facing page and the cover of this edition feature the text of HB2, an article of legislation passed by former North Carolina governor Pat McCrory in March 2016, as well as Executive Order 13769, also known as the “Muslim Ban.” A topic of national news, HB2 states, among other things, that people may only use the bathroom of being repealed recently, this has led to the alienation and rejection of transgender people in our state. On March 16, 2017, Executive Order 13780 was put in place to limit travel from the Muslim-majority countries of Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Iran, Syria, Somalia, and Sudan. The ban was supposedly enacted to counter any extremist terrorists coming from those countries, citing 9/11 as an example, though none of the hijackers were from these countries. These two examples, among many others, show the growth of fear-based othering in America. Our Muslim students, our trans students, our students of color, our arts classes, and even our public schools themselves are being treated like they just don’t matter. No one deserves to be dehumanized or to feel alienated from their community. As we read submissions this year, we were struck by the somber, desperate tone of the pieces:

post-bombing dystopias, bleak visions of beauty, and socially-aware poetry dominated our inbox. Through editing this magazine, we were introduced to the differing views of our student body. After receiving 270 writing submissions, we chose nearly 60 to feature here, accompanied by artwork. Being able to read these pieces helped us to better understand our peers and to connect with them in new ways. We hope this metamorphosis of opinion and understanding will also make our readers more sensitive to the people and world around us. Only through understanding can we expand our horizons. ––The editors

Table of contents Poems

S to r i e s 8 9 31 34 38 64 73 74 80 87

ZOEY NORTHERN You Are Invited SABRINA HUSTON Jeff KELLY COPOLO The Shard SOPHIE J. Balance SCARLETT EARNHARDT Silent Streets CORA MARTIN Car Accident C. V. Streetlamp H. F. A Stab from the Shadows BROCK MONKS Jean and Frances MAURA SCROGGS Stolen Carts and the Places They Hide 106 CAITLYN SOSBE Deadzone

JOKES + LISTS 69 $KYLER HOFFMAN Bootleg Broadway Plays + Dumb Inventions 70 SARA THOMPSON 50 Things I’ve Learned (The Hard Way)

7 12 16 18 21 29 32 41 43 45 46 49 51 52 53 56 58 59 60 61 66 67 68 68 78 94 96 97 99 105 108 110

R. H. this is how the world begins ZOË THOMPSON The Daydreamer BELLA CUDE America WALKER GARRETT IXXI (Pantoum) JESSICA AGBEMAVOR A Word on Past and Present Campaign Slogans ALBERTO BUFALINO What We Do in Dreams SIMONE RIGGINS The Morning Star EMERSON JAKES Metaphorically SARA Other CIZ The Little Things LEO EGGER The Fly Fisher M. D. Original LEXI R. Home JOSEPH CAMPBELL Monsoon LAUREN Metaphors KATE CROSS Candlelight Spell NAJIIA THOMAS Dear Melanin MIMI That Hole IAN CLARK ; ALEXIS KING Dear Society KATI REDMAN The Love Poem NATHAN CREADICK Driving Jules to Caledonia KIRA YOUNG Oxy Is a Moron. ABIAGEAL MANGUM Untitled (Roses Are Red) CIARA SHARPE Dark Chocolate JOE H. Hallucinations ELLIE PATTILLO Turning Time ISABELLA DORFMAN frost killed the apple blossoms LANI Terms and Conditions KATIE RAINS Bucket List LENA If Love Was Water LEO KERNER Triumph in the Final Hours of the Universe

s p o k e n wo r d 14 GUAC THE POET I Have Never Regretted My Speech 85 VERONICA ENIERGA Misconception of Me 102 HOPE FAGER + CAITLYN SOSBE Change

E S S AY S 10 HADAS HACOHEN Dandelions Are Flowers and the World Is Probably Round 22 KHARI TALLEY You’ve Grown So Much 26 JASPER thoughts from the surface 42 LAURAN JONES Phenonmenally Me 50 RUMAISHA TASNIM From Bangladesh to American Spanish 55 ALEXANDER BATTEN My Left Hand 62 SARAH FOX 27th Avenue 79 MIYANNA SMALLWOOD On Becoming a Mother 101 Chapter 1

MUSIC 100 THE CHOSEN ONES Tom Brady JEREMIAH HENDERSON, JEREMIAH GRIFFIN, MARCUS HILL, ZACK WOODARD

FILM 59 ALEXANDRIA FERNANDO, CAMERYN GONZALES, SAVANNA KANU, SIMI GBADEGESIN How My Mother Braids My Hair

I M AG E S 6 8 26 28 47 9 35 30 65 100 12 84 17 52 81

AVA LOZUKE Bugs: cover, 3, 4, 110, 113 ALEX BROCK Gemstones A Girl as a Gun 12 Moons Virgin Prism DIANA ORELLANA Sunset ZOË HAUSMANN Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing Skull Sorry, OK Crow JOE H. Corner Melting Dreams BRENDAN HOEKSTRA Cranes Glow 2 Musician 1

19 20 22 44 25 63 33 86 93 106 39 76 108 41 57 43 48 50 54 58 59 61 62 67 68

72 2 75 78 79 96 107 98 103 104

CLAUDE STIKELEATHER Inktober Business Dhole GILLIAN CHIANG Collage Distorted Portrait BELLA CUDE 2:43 a.m. Odd Light KATELIN YEE Mermaid Morning Glory By the Shore Cat SAM FINLAY Domestic 2 Smokey 1 ANITA MALPICA Shadows Hands MIRA SANDERSON Self-Portrait NYREE KOVACS Self-Portrait JUSTIN BRENNAN Interior JOSE GARRIDO PEREZ Unedifying Hand KIANA TUTT What Shade Is Beauty? ALEXIS SALGADO Portraiture Portraiture 6 BETHANY SMITH Body Paint RUMAISHA TASNIM Mountains CHELSEA EVANS, JOSE GARRIDO PEREZ, DIAMOND GRAVES, AVA LOZUKE, CAROLINE SKALLA Telephone VINCENT LE Visual Barriers CHELSEA JOHNSON Protest Documentary 1 and 2 Lightness DY-MIA CHRISTOPHER Self-Portrait RITA PAOLANTONIO III Enchantress ALAN-JOSHUA CARRASCO Self-Portrait Emulation GRACE BISHOP Dancer MURPHY CREDLE Untitled 2 (Jack) HOPE ROBERTS Dreams

GEMSTONES watercolor and ink on watercolor paper :: ALEX BROCK, 2017

R. H., 2020

letting their seeds coax us to sleep drinking in sunlight on grass-stained knees until the clouds wept champagne slid down our throats the line between dreams and reality shattered we kept drinking, climbing toward a lethal dose, i felt no pain we fell asleep with bottles in hand under a hazy chandelier, we dreamed of cities founded by wine gas station coffee woke us up steam still rising as we walked to the car park we drove down highway sixty-six with sublime cds in the player and we started to kiss and the world began

You are invited A GIRl AS A GuN watercolor and ink on watercolor paper :: ALEX BROCK, 2017

ZoeY noRTHeRn, 2019

“Welcome Baby Girl!” hung in the kitchen entryway, emof glitter glue. Having deemed the glittery Party City ribbon inadequate, Janice had replaced it with a satiny pink from her third favorite sewing box. Margret from church, who slipped checks into father’s bible every third Sunday, remove the price sticker. (It was sixteen dollars on clearance.) Two bowls of violently pink punch were visible on the bar counter. Both boasted half a pound of tiny marshmallows, and a myriad of snacks rested on the dining table. Cubes of cheddar, Swiss, and Colby-Jack sat beside layered salami; each had its own plastic cubicle. Pink fringe decorated the back of the bar stools and the top shelves of the bookcase. His father greeted people at the door in a pink gingham shirt he had bought, full price, for the event. His mother conversed in all pink with guests thing appropriate. 8

Jeff saBRina HusTon, 2017

Jeff. Short for Jeffrey, American for Geoffrey, German for traveler. Or a peaceful pledge. The French say it means God’s Peace. He wishes they were right. The truck’s wheels spin against the great asphalt. They grip and release over and over. Simple, yet important. Vital. They make a difference. If only life was so. Cracks slice up the road. Dried from heat, split by changing pressures. Pressure. Ha.

SuNSET 3 digital photograph :: DIANA ORELLANA, 2017

God’s involved, certainly. But His peace? If only.

the night. Quick shower, quick sleep. Out the next morning. A traveler’s life is supposed to be majestic. See the world, cross the oceans, view every monument. That’s what it’s supposed to be, not an endless view of faltering wheat. It never works out quite right. That’d be expecting too much. But the world could be a little nicer. Sunrise. Don’t overstay the welcome. Five dollars off for leaving by 6:00. Another coffee, quick breakfast––oatmeal and an apple for the road. of wheat. 9

Dandelions are Flowers AND THE World is Probably Round Hadas HacoHen, 2020

ARISTOTLE WAS WRONG. Above us there is a dome of turquoise and indigo and stars shining, and below us there is a craggy lump of rock dropping off into an endless void. How else could the earth turn upside down? You just wake up one morning and look at your phone, and you see the news. Someone has been killed or hurt or thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been new legislation passed completely, like itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decided to go on vacation, be-

MASK digital illustration :: ANONYMOUS

cause honestly who wouldn’t? You feel like you’re a dandelion, and you’re going to do what dandelions do best: which is go poof in the wind, except that you can’t, not really, because you’re human. But it’s hard to think because everything’s the wrong way up and turned around. But you’re a Person and People have to go to work or school and can’t just screw around at home crying about the world. So while you go through your day trying to focus on quadratic equations or emails or not pissing off customers, you just feel like the inside of you is trying to go poof but the outside won’t let it happen and your hands shake and your body forgets how to breathe but no one notices because maybe you’re remembering how to breathe but who

who think that your autonomy is worth less because you have a uterus; people who think that the person with the dyed hair in your art class is a girl because they have a vagina when it’s clearly none of their business and they should just piss off because people have a right to exist out of other people’s preconceived notions. We’re not all dandelions or black roses or red tulips because we’re people. People bleed and die and we don’t photosynthesize and we cry and we eat and we make stupid decisions and sometimes we drink too much or sleep with someone we’re not supposed to. But people should be able to exist in a world where the thought of them isn’t abhorrent to eighteen percent of their nation. And guess what? Apparently, we don’t get privilege. Still, we’re people, and we didn’t survive thousands of years of bears almost killing us to stop ex-

You just wake up one morning, and look at your phone, and you see the news.

So while the president is up in his golden tower, you’re down on the ground trying to not focus on how people are nearly as fragile as dandelions; how there are people who think the neighbors down the street are terrorists; people who think the boy who gave you candy on the bus is more likely to commit a crime; people who think that the person who sits in front of you in history should be deported; people

their mold. So Aristotle might have been right after all because I think the looming black void is up there with the stars and not below us (if below us even exists). ‘Cos hey, the world is round.

The Daydreamer Zoe Thompson, 2018

You were an expired coupon You were that one ripped sock You were somebody’s favorite pen that stopped working, but still had ink in it You were the enforcement of the broader end of the spectrum ... I have been taught that life is a tangled web and you can never believe everything is certain The creator of totality is a spider that never dies, Spinning an ongoing web that is the earth and each raindrop is every person I am a raindrop, born at the top of the web, racing to get to the bottom for an unforeseen awakening I have yet to experience On my way to the bottom, I crashed into you For a moment, your two hydrogen molecules bonded with my one oxygen molecule And I felt bigger than this “unforeseen awakening” Until gravity summoned me to collect myself and CORNER digital photograph :: JOE H., 2018

In the rushed mess that was me collecting myself, you took one of my hydrogen molecules, and I took one of yours I thought myself to be complete, just differently You were the gravel in my shoe that didn’t fall out when I shook it You were a water balloon that didn’t burst when it hit me You were milk in a bag You were the hug my grandfather never gave me I wanted you to be my moss on the north side of the tree But you were a bush of poison berries I ran into You swore you were edible, and you were You fed me like I was having my last meal And to return the favor, you kept me full, always You took up so much space in me, I thought I was full You sat in my stomach like a rock I was starving myself, and I didn’t realize it Until my body did and regurgitated everything you gave to me I was left weak and malnourished But the bush had food now, nourishment for days I would believe But it wasn’t enough I purged everything I had into you, and you were still empty

You were a record player that always starts skipping at the second verse You were an outdated link on a 2004 model laptop You were the reason I evaporated before I could reach my awakening You’re a dream I can’t quite recall ... I made myself less awake for you I compressed my awareness into a fog until I was holding a cloud You took this cloud and morphed it into a reality in which the world was defending itself from me But when I woke up, awareness rained on your abusive parade and I realized I was blindly swinging at the demons you planted inside of me There is no metaphor for that; you just made me look stupid I had woken from a seemingly eternal sleep, Realizing I was self-sabotaging my dreams for her until I realized she was you And I had been blaming myself for someone I never really knew at all You, you were a movie that was a failure to the book You were a vulture disguised as a dove You were the reason I stopped daydreaming And now? You’re just good writing material.

I Have Never Regretted My Speech Guac THe poeT, 2020

bit.ly/2qDXØyz

I have never regretted my speech, Only my silence. Sitting for years and letting black jokes and stereotypes be the hinge of everything I believed in. I wasn’t supposed to be beautiful, That was a quality black girls didn’t possess. I wasn’t supposed to be articulate, Only a statistic. My parents weren’t supposed to be together, And my sisters and I weren’t supposed to have the same father, And my father wasn’t supposed to have a job, And my mother wasn’t supposed to go to college, but she did anyway. See, I’m not supposed to dream big or have aspirations in life, Nor am I supposed to hold rallies, or pray, Or love. And I sure as hell am not supposed to be smart . . . but who says so? My silence speaks louder than my voice ever has, And I am ashamed of it, For believing all the things a system built on the suffering of my brothers and sisters told me I wasn’t supposed to do.

what they look like. Keith Childress isn’t supposed to be dead Along with Bettie Jones Kevin Matthews Leroy Browning Roy Nelson Nathaniel Pickett Tiara Thomas Cornelius Brown Chandra Weaver Jamar Clark Richard Perkins Philando Castile Sandra Bland Trayvon Martin Michael Lee Marshall The list goes on, and The list isn’t supposed to go on, So I’m gonna end this poem by saying this: I am a representation of the world that will come after my parents have taken their last breaths, And the ones who fought for me In this space Leave me but a legacy and bloody footprints. I will never again be afraid to love. I will never again be afraid to dream. And if I’m told that there’s nothing prideful in nappy hair and black skin, I will remind them, Of why I should be proud of who I am and where I am from. I will remind them of all the rallies that were held on behalf of my well-being. I will remind them of all the marches that were held on behalf of this moment. I will remind them of all the blood that was spilled on behalf of my voice, And I will never be silent again.

America Bella cude, 2019

So I felt: America can freeze and melt Into casinos and alligators and graveyard favors, All storms and saints and things with names, A fever dream in shreds at our feet The darkness will seep and everyone can sleep Peaceful dead with skin that bled Perfume and wine and blood in kind A different melody, the collapse of time Deep space will corner the swamps of Florida

CRANES digital photograph :: BRENDAN HOEKSTRA, 2017

IXXI

a pantoum WalkeR GaRReTT, 2019

Falling. I see a blur of crimson, an inferno of rage, and taste salty tears. I see a blur of crimson the taste of salty tears

I’m swarmed with ringing phones, but the grief of giving the bad news causes me such distress; it is too much for my soul to bear.

But it’s hard to escape reality.

The grief of giving the bad news to a mother of six is too much for my soul to bear. Burned, I tell her, shattered.

becomes my prison. It’s hard to escape the reality of my monotonous task.

To the mother of six, my words are like a broken record. Burned, I tell her, shattered; there was nothing left to save.

My prison is swarming with ringing phones. The monotony of my task causes me distress.

My words are like a broken record fed to me by the suffocating bureaucracy: there was nothing left to save. Falling.

INKTObER #2 pen and ink :: CLAUDE STIKELEATHER, 2018

buSINESS dhOlE collage :: CLAUDE STIKELEATHER, 2018

A Word on Past and Present Campaign Slogans Jessica aGBemavoR, 2018

This is a white man’s government This is a white man’s government Of the black woman’s world Of the black woman’s world A white man’s government of The black woman’s world, this is. A kinder, gentler nation A kinder, gentler nation For who? For who? A kinder, gentler nation For who? I am the fruit of the white man’s anger I am the fruit of the white man’s anger I made America great again I made America great again The white man’s anger, I am, I made the fruit of America great again. The black woman’s world, a kinder, gentler nation, For who, the white man’s government, the white man’s anger, The fruit of America I made great again.

You’ve Grown So Much kHaRi TalleY, 2018

Scrolling through social media will soon be a topic for historians to study, revealing how the average millennial spent his daily life. Yes, as a millennial, this is, indeed, how I have wasted my life away so far, but at least I can admit that I’m a mindless zombie.

That is, until one particular Friday night when I found myself glued to my phone screen. Part of it could have been that I’d felt swamped in meaningless homework assignments the week prior, so I hadn’t been on my phone for what felt like forever.

COllAGE watercolor and pen :: GILLIAN CHIANG, 2019

was greeted by the usual contestants: in one corner, nothing to do with the picture; in the other, photos of people with their friends at parties intended to make all others’ social lives feel obsolete. But for some reason the entire practice seemed lackluster compared to preceding social media binges. This could partly be because of the endless stream of

ly into bugs. Every day at recess, she would carry around a stick with a caterpillar she had baited cameo in today’s photo. I “liked” the picture; I wanted to show her that I approved of her not-obsolete social life. As I scrolled

many of my pictures. I was appalled. How dare she like all to a product named after a common fruit. photos when I had not done so for her? This meant But then, I was met war. Historians of milleni did WHaT anY with a photo that actually nials would put it this way: made me stop and look. if I hadn’t replied, it would self RespecTinG, It was a picture of a girl have been a violation of baI knew way back in my sic social media etiquette. YounG, sinGle male Would do WHen a elementary and middle An hour went by, and it GiRl Gave Him a numBeR and school years. We’ll call was clear that our alternatpeRmission To TexT HeR. her Heather. The picture ing blows of picture-liking in itself was nothing spewere not going to end soon. cial. It was just a photoThis was certainly a war of graph of her, seemingly attrition. Soon, I was met at a party, surrounded by her friends, and which This time, I was alerted she’d probably posted to make all others’ social not for a like but a comment: the words “Text me” lives feel obsolete. accompanied by a laugh face and heart emoji, all Heather and I had lived in the same neighborwrapped up with a phone number. hood in elementary school––Evergreen is what it With no thought at all, I did what any self-respectwas called. Our parents knew each other from going, young, single male would do when a girl gave ing to PTA meetings. I remember she had brown him a number and permission to text her. I followed hair and was nice to everyone. And she was realher instructions.

i folloWed HeR insTRucTions.

I started off my text with a cool “Hey” and an “ok” emoji to match. “Long time, no see!” she replied. “What have you been up to?” I sent next. “Nothing, what about you?” she responded. This The entire interaction felt forced, as if neither party was truly interested in what was being said. “So, I see you’re working on some writing. How’s that going?” she questioned. “It’s ok,” I replied. “How’s school?” “Oh, you know how school can be sometimes.” My replies didn’t get much deeper than that. Just as she pushed on with each inquiry, I pushed on with my cold responses. I had no idea what had gotten into me. Back in elementary school with this girl, there was nothing we kept from each other. We were practically best friends. Now all of the sudden, we were strangers, making abandoned conversation like two people forced against their will into the same room. With every minute, the person who I had felt so comfortable with was now so uncomfortable to talk to. After a while, the time between her responses increased. Soon, the texts stopped coming altogether. Just a couple of years ago, Heather and I had the same interests. We watched the same movies, enjoyed the same foods, listened to the same music, and hung out around the same crowd. But according to our latest installment of conversations, her favorite movie is The Hunger Games, her favorite food is anything that comes from a coffee shop, her favorite music group is The XX, and she is now a cheerleader. Alas, my favorite movie is Dope, my favorite food is a good burrito, I listen to Flatbush Zombies, and

I hang around skaters and artists. We are not the same. Not anymore. her part. Certainly I was still Khari––the only thing that’s changed about me is the amount of facial hair I have. But as more Friday nights passed and I scrolled through social media, I found more and more friends turned acquaintances. Soon those acquaintances became mere strangers who I knew nothing about. No matter how hard I tried, through text or Instagram, I seemed unable to connect. I started believing it was me who had changed, and not for the better. Things that made me laugh a year ago didn’t make me crack a smile. Certain guilty pleasures I used to enjoy didn’t bring me happiness. I was a different person, but not necessarily a better one. After this discovery, I became critical of my own decisions, trying my best to please those around me at my own expense and jumping through hoops to change what people thought of me. After a while, it got to me. Technology had built an illusionary wall between me and my friends. All of the feeds, likes, comments, and posts made me feel closer to these people than I truly was. As millennials, we are wired and connected yet so very disconnected at the same time. We share immense amounts of information, all the while knowing little to nothing about who we’re sharing that information with. We use texting as an excuse for communication so much that we, as a generation, have lost the intimate effect of normal face-to-face conversations. Who I become as a person should not be molded by the likes and comments of others. I should not have to seek validation for my evolution from other people.

I have come to cope with the fact that change happens, and as much as I may hate it, it happens a lot. We may grow apart from people we were once close It will happen. However, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Change can bring something totally new to the table that we love, or turn us into an even stronger version of ourselves. Change is what brought us few things that don’t change, like the movies we watch religiously, the quirks we keep, the music we still enjoy, the food we can’t get enough of, or the

2:43 A.M. digital photograph :: BELLA CUDE, 2019

friends who stay by our side for years to come, we get to appreciate them just that much more. I’d like to believe that behind all of the social media buzz, if we just take the time to step away, we tion and stay connected. But our lives, just like our tion, are not stationary. People are serialized stories, and just like serials, characters and settings come and go. So be excited for your serial. You’ve grown so much already.

thoughts from JaspeR, 2020

The whispered words echo through the corridors of your mind. How can something be so thoroughly thought out? A completely constructed pyramid of just one idea. If you know something, it’s hard to get rid of it. Tuck it away, far away, in the deepest depths of the ocean that is your mind. Create an island far out at sea and leave it stranded . Don’t wave as you sail away. Explore new continents and new conceptions of reality, but never return to the island. Exhilarating, excruciating exaggerations. For something to be so exalted, it must be expertly experimented and found to be extraordinary. It’s for the stories that slip silently into your mind like a snake slithering past the sloping walls of secrecy you hide behind. I’ve written so much poetry about fear and sadness. I’ve told my story a million times in my head and in the poems I don’t like to show people. But I’ve never told the whole story. This is just one more angsty teenage essay. I guess I should start from the beginning, dart past the present to the sion, I was a combination of the freshness of youth and the sharpness of memory. “Gay people don’t have rights. Gay people can’t get married.” All I could think was, It would suck so much to be gay. But it wasn’t just frustration for a situation that was clearly bad. It was combined with a deep chilling fear I couldn’t quite shake. A frost that crept all the way through my bones. It chilled me so much that I made myself forget it. I managed it helps you in life. Skip to the 7th grade. I’m sitting on a bed in a room that smells vaguely

the surface walls display black and white photos of the past. The shades shut out the world––I don’t think I could be doing this otherwise. On my lap rests a clunky laptop. The glowing screen is the only light in the room as it plays yet another coming out video. 2:13, 2:14, 2:15, time is slowly passing. There are tears rolling down my cheeks. I can’t recall beginning to cry. When I look back, I can’t recall ceasing to sob, either. I try not to look back too much. blankly at myself, somehow unable to look away, and a single thought appears in my mind: What if I’m gay? And after that, all I can think is, Oh shit, this is not happening to me. The frost is coming back so quickly, so thoroughly, I don’t have time to do anything, say anything, before it envelops me completely. I was at the bottom of a lake, drowning, and suddenly I am at the surface, taking the I couldn’t stay away from the island. Its dark, treacherous currents pulled me back to the rocky cliffs that cirI have crept closer to the place that I have always feared the most. Past rapids and tall mounds of earth and dark holes in every path, holes that I sometimes feel compelled to plummet into. Here I am, weaving the web that is my story. Like a spider spinning its interlacing gossamer threads in the dusty pink ombre that is the dawn. I have spent so many nights lying awake, wondering about the curiosities that humans truly are. It’s hard to imagine or look back on the hours spent hiding in cold bathrooms. I’m trying to think of anything else in the whole, enormous world of things that is easier to imagine than the minutes I will foreseeably spend coming out to someone, the seconds while I wait for a response. 12 MOONS ink and watercolor on watercolor paper :: ALEX BROCK, 2017

VIRGIN ink on paper :: ALEX BROCK, 2017

What We Do In Dreams alBeRTo Bufalino, 2018

Sometimes I want to engross Myself in the lines of a Stranger’s hands, Read the archaic hieroglyphics of Sweaty palms, And tell the tellings of a soul. Sometimes I see my face Cutting the edge of the wind, ‘Sayonaras’ to the far and Passed birds. Sometimes I see myself, Frantically falling further And further, arms rushed against the tides; But life is so.

The Shard kellY copolo, 2018

AfROdISIAC digital image :: zOË HAUSMANN, 2017

its morning stretch toward the sun. It holds, just puncturing the blanket of clouds persistently cloaking London. The Shard is a reminder of everything we are, everything we want to be. If it had eyes, they would be like blue amethysts in the skull of a fox––trickster eyes on something unextraordinary until you aren’t used to it anymore. It would have a thin-lipped smile. It sits too tall for anyone to challenge it, its silver sides conversing with the sun. When I was little, my father took me there in “the Can,” my mother’s maroon colored Suburban. He always said that it looked like a crushed Coke can. At the top of the Shard, towering above my anthill, I felt like a ballerina––weightless as I stood a thousand feet in the air on a building made of glass puzzle pieces. My father pointed down at the Tower of England and smiled at me with told me as we gazed at the tiny castle that it used to be a symbol of the king’s power and wealth, something the monarchs would use to remind the common people of their place. I asked him why the king did that. His skin seemed to turn to parchment. He frowned down at me, and his amber eyes darkened the way the sky does as fair warning before a downpour. “Because people live like sheep and wolves, and you can either be a sheep, or a wolf.” I asked him what that meant. He didn’t say anything. I asked him if I was a sheep or a wolf. I’ve never seen someone’s face split in two the way his did then. His eyes were sad, watery, like the windows of our apartment building when it rains for days, mercilessly. His mouth made a sound that was laughing, yet certainly couldn’t be. “No, pumpkin, not like that.” “I don’t get it.” “Yeah, me neither kid.” The smell of cigarette smoke was strong on his clothes, sort of hazy and heavy like when it’s about to snow. “Me neither.”

The Morning Star simone RiGGins, 2017

An alphabet soup of names and nonsense Intertwine in a sparkling lattice of faith, Making her question what she was supposed to believe in And the breath of life left to be pondered. She settles down with her chin upon her hand, Gazing at the stars that make up the universe as Life sprouts from a single planted seed. There Venus grows. She opens her mind and her heart, Ready to take on the world, but it never comes Because she’s afraid of the promise of Venus’s body And knowledge that’ll never quench her aching thirst. Encased in a pillow of sleep, on and on again, She drifts off down her galaxy-painted sea of dreams, And a kind soul tries to make her whole again.

And it’s Venus who guides her the rest of the way And then it’s her who’s planted in the ground Underneath the snow that gathers to await her return.

MERMAId digital illustration :: KATELIN YEE, 2017

Balance sophie J., 2020

I got good grades. Not good enough to be recognized, just high enough to call good. I didn’t dye my hair. I didn’t wear clothing too ugly or too pretty. I didn’t have many friends––only two. If I ever went through a teenage rebellion, it went on unnoticed and didn’t last long. My family was in the middle-middle class. We got along alright. We didn’t have to worry about putting food on the table, but we also couldn’t dream of fancy vacations or having things just to have them. I was at an equilibrium. Not going to one side or the other. I didn’t teeter on the see-saw; I maintained my fragile balance in the middle. The breeze never swayed me. Nothing bothered me to make me fall. I knew what was expected of me. I did what I was supposed to, messing up sometimes to maintain the balance. Enough about me. I just want to record what happened.

Like I was being examined: pinched, pushed, and pulled by something. It started last Tuesday night. I had just taken a shower. I was alone because both of my parents work long hours. my hand and my hair shot upward without warning. The lime green walls seemed to expand out until the air around me became a murky green. I looked to see myself in the mirror but could not make out

anything. I also tried to hold up my hand a few inches from my face, but could not see it. Sight was gone. I screamed pitifully, as if anyone would hear. I closed my eyes to calm myself, but this did not work. I could feel the hair, like strands of spaghetti, wet and pliable, being unwound from the other hairs at the roots. It wasn’t painful––quite serene, in fact. I felt myself relaxing and opened my eyes automatically after the last hair had been untangled. I could see again. My hair was the smoothest I had ever seen it, shiny and dry, glistening from the dim overhead light. The air was dry; evidence of my shower was gone. I couldn’t have imagined this, but I couldn’t tell my parents because they would never believe me. The next strange occurrence was on Thursday in Language Arts class at the computer lab. I arrived early and chose a computer. When I pressed the keys to log in, nothing happened. Frowning, I tried again two more times, but nothing appeared on the screen. With a little, angry grunt, I checked to make sure everything was plugged in properly. It was. I the restart button. The rest of the class had arrived and Ms. Burmingale was calling role. As she called my name, I raised my hand absently. “Is Abby here today?” I heard her ask another student. “I’m here!” I shouted. She didn’t look at me; no one even glanced at me.

wOlf IN ShEEP’S ClOThING digital image :: zOË HAUSMANN, 2017

was gone. Just two horrible eyes that gazed at me, “You’re late again,” Ms. Burmingale scolded as the into me. class clown paraded his way into the computer lab. Look at your new form, she breathed out. “Oh, uh, sorry. Where should I sit?” he muttered I screamed and screamed. sheepishly. She didn’t move or speak again. She just watched “There’s an empty seat right there.” I watched as I broke down in terror. slack-jawed as the teacher The next thing I remembered pointed to me, or rather to my was the drive home. seemingly empty seat. i shouted. “Your teacher called me to tell “All right, then.” He made me you weren’t feeling well, so his way over. I jumped out of she didn t look the chair, which didn’t even move as I slid through it to a at me. no one even commented. “You aren’t really sick, Abby.” My brother had no standing position. “You can’t sit here, I’m sitting at me. compassion at all. “Yeah, it’s more of an internal here!” sickness,” I muttered, shivering, and slouched in my seat. Nothing. He sat down, and my fellow students “Right!” he chuckled. quieted as they began their work. You have no idea, I thought. I ended up in a corner of the library, crying. I knew that I was visible again almost an hour latThe next Monday, I was on the bus going to er when the librarian touched my shoulder to tell me school, and I closed my eyes to think. that I should go to class. I had spent the past weekend afraid to go anywhere or do anything without another person for fear of Friday was my piano lesson across town on a ragsomething else strange and unexplainable happening. gedy, old upright with a new teacher right out of As the other students talked around me, I curled music school. My brother drove me to class, and my up in a ball, my arms around my shins. teacher started me off with scale practice. I didn’t When the bus stopped and I stood up, something happened. I could feel myself changing. There was across the keys. She always looked the same anyway. the pressure of something tense and real inside my Dark blonde hair, chunky glasses, a nice shirt, and mind. My nose was starting to stuff up, and a pool jeans with tennis shoes. of blood was leaking down my face onto my shirt. “Why don’t you start your piece now?” she asked. My eyes were watering, and when I reached up to Her voice sounded strange, mutilated. feel an ear, it was swelling and wax was trickling out. I turned to her and jumped up from the bench. My head was getting lighter, making room for someMy mouth opened in a speechless cry for someone thing else that was coming in. to tell me this was just a dream. My vision was blurry, but I could still look around. Her body had transformed. I couldn’t see her The other students were shooting me wary looks and face anymore, just two beady black eyes. Her body

i m here!

glanced

talking amongst themselves. I crashed back down to sitting and kicked my feet wildly against the seat in front of me. Hello, Abby. Sound was cut out, like walking alone on a snowy trail deep in the woods. Everything was quiet. You can only hear me now. somehow charged off the bus and dove through the crowd at the entrance. My whole being was quivering in fear. I didn’t know how I was moving. I knew it was making me move, speaking to me. Look into my eyes. I felt a hand on my arm that made my skin tingle. I was forced to turn and meet a pair of small black eyes that almost blended in with the surroundings. I started to pull away from its grip. My mouth had gone dry and shriveled up, my tongue folding in on itself. Say your last words. “What?” I shouted, but I could no longer feel the rumble of speech. Take your last look around. After I blinked, I just saw just black. The voice was the only thing left. It was gentler this time, soothing and sweet. No one will notice you’re gone. You’ll fade into the backany change. They don’t wish to change themselves or the world. They don’t do anything. You don’t deserve this life, but I do. I deserve a second chance. I was left to the blackness, and my thoughts and memories rolled like a sad tape in my head. You can’t leave me here! Where are you! Talk to me!

You’re on the same wall I was stuck to for years. You’ll get bored and maybe be driven to insanity. That’s to be expected, of course. That’s how you change, come out of balance. Your eyes, your new, black eyes will open when you want to live again, when you want to change back to being a human. What will happen to me? My body, I mean. Will I ever see my parents again? Will I have a future? Will I die or keep living forever? like your past self: in the middle, at equilibrium, balanced. Then you can escape. As for Abby, well, I’m the new Abby. I’ve been watching you for a year now, and I’m ready to continue your life. My life? It’s my life. I had it all in front of me, a whole lot of time. I don’t get it back, do I? then feel yourself transform, live the life you were meant to live. I would never do what you did. No one deserves this. In time, I know your outlook on all this will change. What if I never give in? You will. Everyone does, in time. How do you think I was created? This is my story, yours, and many others’ to come. The silence that I accepted so many years ago changed me into someone else, someone that won’t fade. I’ll be different. I promise. Abby, a circle of normality traps us. After you change, when you are still stuck to this wall, you will be bound to follow the same path, to gain back what is missing from your life in order to recreate the balance that has been lost. You can’t change something if you are unable to change. You can’t be daring if you have never tried before. We are two people lost in equilibrium, Abby. I’m not done with you! Get back here! I could feel it was too late. So I did the only thing possible: I waited.

Silent Streets scaRleTT eaRnHaRdT, 2019

As the moon rose in the sky, the streetlamps woman sat on the wooden steps in front of her house as her two-year-old daughter played with a plastic

glass of Chardonnay that sat beside her. As the rim of the glass touched her lips, the phone began to ring inside. She put the glass back down and looked at her daughter. “Mommy will be right back, sweetie,” she said, while her daughter’s focus remained on the shovel. She opened the screen door and stepped inside, pushing her sleeves up to her elbows. The ringing became louder as she approached the kitchen. She picked up the black landline. “Hello, this is Time Warner Cable calling to inform you about our new update,” the robotic voice said. She hung up, ignoring the message, and placed the phone back on its stand. As she stepped outside, she looked to the spot where her daughter had been

dOMESTIC 2 digital photograph :: SAM FINLAY, 2017

that she sat upon. With the shovel in both of her hands, she attempted to dig a hole that would’ve led to nowhere. The concrete grew cold on the mother’s bare feet as she rested against the side railings. She stretched her arms through the long sleeves and zipped up her gray Columbia jacket as the breeze blew her stray hairs in front of her face. The daugh-

sitting. It was now left with the marks of holes that led nowhere and the shovel lying on the ground, its owner gone. precious giggles, was left silent. She ran down the stairs, looking left, then right, then left again down the street. Screams hurled from her mouth as the terror set in that he daughter was gone. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, hands shaking, and dialed 911. “Hello this is 911, what’s your emergency?” the woman asked. “Um . . . he-hello, my daughter is gone! She was just here an-and now she’s not!” she said, standing in the middle of the road looking around. “Calm down ma’am. What’s your address?” the woman asked. “156 Whitcome Avenue,” she said in a rush. “156 Whitcome Avenue?” the woman repeated. “Oh, a woman said she was driving past that address a few minutes ago and found a girl around the age of two roaming down the middle of the street. She brought her into the station. The woman was a little suspicious, so we brought her in for questioning, and I believe she is still here. We can return your daughter to your address right now. I am so sorry.” The woman pushed her hair behind her ears as another gust of wind blew by. The thoughts of her daughter with someone she did not know made her

want to throw up. She thought of how the hair on her baby’s arms would stand up when the breeze blew by or how she would ask where her mother was going. The woman paced back and forth on her porch. The dark street lit up with red and blue lights as the police pulled up. She began to run barefoot toward the car, feeling the rocks jam into her calloused skin with every step. The car came to a stop, and the mother rushed to open the door to the backseat where her daughter was sitting. The girl’s blue eyes sparkled next to the blue lights. Her mother unbuckled the seatbelt and picked her up out of the car. She nuzzled her head into her daughter’s neck as daughter wrapped her little arms around her mother and rested her head on her shoulder. “Thank you so much, sir. Words can’t descri-” “Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad your daughter is safe. Next time, make sure you keep a close eye on this one before she gets into more trouble,” he said as he let out a chuckle. The tears dried matte down her cheeks. She watched as the police drove off, this time without the lights. “Don’t you ever do that to mommy again, you hear me? You had me worried sick!” she said to her daughter. As she approached the steps, she picked up her wine glass, half full of Chardonnay, and enjoyed a sip as they walked inside.

Metaphorically emeRson Jakes, 2019

I am a sculpture of wax the tape sealing the edges of perfectly creased wrapping paper a carbonated bubble swelling to the surface of a soda a purple button down with a perfectly starched collar a honeysuckle vine climbing wild with youth the dried violet in the screw of a cap a nitrile glove splattered with blood the black hole in third grade science I am a vial of mercury

ShAdOwS digital photograph :: ANITA MALPICA, 2017

Phenomenally Me lauRan Jones 2018

When I walk into a room are the black people. On Friday, there was a room with two white kids, a white adult, and me. I was reading one of the many forms of this sucks when you are the only black person in a room. Especially the only black girl.” Then I stopped because I really wanted them to understand. So I added two little words: “Like now.” Then, they looked around the room, like there wasn’t just four of us. “Oh . . . I guess you are.” This made me mad for some reason. I had wanted to shout at them, “Did you suddenly forget that we are the only four people in this room?” Everyone seems to worry when there is one white person in a sea of black people but not notice when the room is full of whites and it’s just me. It seems like my entire life I’ve been the only black person, the only black woman. talk about it. The second time I noticed, I was doing a school tour with another African-American and an Asian-American. The kid was from a preppy charter school. Cringe-worthy khakis; round, unnecessary glasses; and one of those jackets that screamed, “I do not care!” This kid couldn’t understand that only Josh’s grandfather is from China. Not Josh himself. Then he looked at Khari and me. “Did you have iPhones in Africa? Are there tigers?” The third time I noticed, I was in a room full of women, and I was the only black one. And this time the crowd was a lot more than three.

We were having a discussion about insecurities and racism. As we started talking, the leader crossed her legs and pare me to talk about all black oppression or the daily life of an entire continent that I’ve never even been to. I’m black—an African-American—but I don’t own the knowledge of all black history. I’m not that amazing. I’m black. Just because I love nothing more than writing and getting lost in a book; just because I’m funny but not as crude as Richard Pryor; just because I have OCD, a disease seemingly reserved for white folk, doesn’t make me the blackest-whitest person you know. I’m black—not to mention tenderheaded. I’m not a dog. Don’t pet me. My hair is just that: hair, not the eighth wonder of the world. My hair is not a museum display where you or your kids can ignore the “Do Not Touch” sign. I’m black and my name is Lauran, with 2 A’s. My name is not a “white name.” My name is mine, and I will do with it what I so please. I’m a writer, an author, a musician, a cousin. I’m a black woman. I’ve got thighs that tell the truth no matter how clothes, but that doesn’t make me any more or less beautiful. I’m black, not colorless. If my blackness makes you uncomfortable, that’s your problem. Don’t tell me you can’t see my skin color. My skin covers my entire body. You can acknowledge that I am the only black person in the room, If you don’t see color, you don’t see me. But . . . even when I am the only black person in the room, I’m black, beautiful, and phenomenally me.

SElf-PORTRAIT digital photograph :: MIRA SANDERSON, 2018

Other saRa, 2021

My parents are not the same race They’re black and white I’m different I have light skin And coiled hair Look at my brother “You’re not mixed” “You’re white” People will say Because he looks white They can tell him, his race Glance at my mom Then look at me “You’re adopted” People will say I’m not I don’t look like my mom Or my brother Or half my family But I’m still her daughter Multiple boxes to check “What’s your race? Choose one” White Black Hispanic Asian Each single race And then Other I check the box I’m other People will say But is that what I am to the world?

43 43

dISTORTEd PORTRAIT charcoal :: GILLIAN CHIANG, 2019

The Little Things ciZ, 2020

I used to hate my laugh. I didn’t hate having reasons to laugh, I just thought the way I sounded was atrocious. It wasn’t until one day, a person turned to me and told me, “You have an infectious laugh,” that I realized it doesn’t matter if the sound that comes out of my mouth when I’m happy or amused isn’t “cute” or “normal” because it’s infectious. It’s the little things. My cousin hates the scar above her upper lip from the time she fell down on the playground as a child, but she doesn’t realize that scar is a childhood battle wound, and it shows she is a survivor. It’s the little things. My best friend hates her big nose because she doesn’t understand that her nose is the best goddamn sniffer in this whole universe because it’s her nose, and she’ll rock it until the day she dies. It’s the little things.

mouth. It’s the little things. You can spend all of your money on the latest and greatest shoes, but I think that I’ll stick to my ratty old Converse that are falling apart at the seams be-

cause every scuff and crease and stain tells a different story. It’s the little things. When we were kids, my friend said she hated the freckles on her face, and I told her that I’d kill to have the sun sprinkle a little love down on me. It’s the little things. I met a Norwegian boy who hated his accent because he thought it made his English sound bad, but I said to him, “Who cares about the sound of your voice when the words that are coming out are so beautiful?” It’s the little things. It’s the little things that make us who we are, so why are we trying so hard to fall in line behind everybody else? Normal is just a setting on the washing machine, not a setting that should be embedded in our brains. We shouldn’t knead ourselves like dough to make ourselves perfectly round because it doesn’t matter if that pizza’s a little uneven, it’s pizza for crying out loud, and it tastes delicious! So be bold, be loud, yell and scream at everyone around you, “I am not like you.”

The Fly Fisher leo eGGeR, 2019

It’s just a second . . . -It’s nothing. Not an explosion of ecstasy, Just two dull eyes meeting in a sideways glance, Faded river rocks and broken sea stars, -I look away. I laugh. -What an experience, to feel a pang of all that is missing and laugh about it with blind apathy! Shame is natural. We are all naked children. We blanket our wretchedness in falsehood. -I’m overthinking it. -Barnacles peek their heads through the ceiling and I’m swimming. I get one measly breath of air before spiraling deep below. -My body is soiled and air escapes into bubbles. A metamorphosis. The futility makes way to uncontrollable giggling. We are all laughing. Even the coral and the seashells join our chorus of laughter. --

PRISM watercolor and ink on watercolor paper :: ALEX BROCK, 2017

The master with a whip of line reeling and spinning through the air. He trudges through the muck until he is up to his waist in jelly. With every whip of his line, the purple waters begin to churn. Viscous bubbles climb to the surface and pop like gunshots. -The line cracks the water beneath it. The world cascades into laughter. Cooked lobsters are broken apart, a girl throws a shell into the impending tide, and seafoam kisses the shore. The world melts away. I always hear it.

SElf PORTRAIT digital photograph :: NYREE KOVACS, 2019

Original m.d., 2017

What if we could cut and paste our bodies? Their thigh gap Their poppin’ booty Their toned arms Their chests Their hips Their straight teeth Their curly hair And paste their traits Onto our own bodies Get rid of our “imperfections” No more blemishes on the faces No more scars on the arms No more stretch marks What about the originals? Those who love how they look? Should that even be allowed in a society Where we constantly change our beliefs on this So-called Beauty? Should we let those originals go free? The ones who didn’t right-click to copy?

From Bangladesh to American Spanish RumaisHa Tasnim, 2017

Though there were plenty of stars in

INTERIOR digital photograph :: JUSTIN BRENNAN, 2018

car, I started thinking about the future. I had always dreamed of moving to a different place, but I thought it was just a dream that would never come true. Now that it was happening, I was not sure that I wanted the dream to come true anymore. Did we make the right choice? Why am I thinking about it now? Why didn’t I think about it before? I mean, I was already in America. Even if I changed my mind, I could not go back to Bangladesh. There was no turning back now. My dad asked my aunt, “Did you look for a school where they can get admitted?” My aunt said, “No worries, I already talked to the mission. Also, I got jobs for you two in a store close to my home. You will have to work as cashiers.” I was surprised that my mom and dad would work as cashiers because in Bangladesh my dad was a lawyer and my mom was a housewife. She had never worked outside the home before. My brothers, Tamzid and Tahsin, were asleep beside me in the car. They looked tired and worn out. I wondered how they would feel once they found out. I started to wonder why they even came here. But I realized I knew: they came here because of us. My parents wanted me to have a better future. They cared about us more than they cared about themselves. At that moment, I decided that no matter in life. I would make my parents proud. But in school, my grades were very low. I couldn’t 50

understand what people said, and they couldn’t understand what I said. I felt dumb. It was irritating because I liked to talk a lot, but in school I couldn’t talk at all because of the language barrier. I was surprised at the school system in America. In Bangladesh, I had eight subjects: Bangla Grammar, Bangla, Math, Science, Social Studies, Geography, Religion, and Physical Education. If we didn’t do our homework, the teachers would hit us with a ruler or give us hard detentions like standing up on top of the desk and holding our ears the whole class period. On the other hand, in the U.S., we don’t have homework every day for every single class, and for punishment, the teacher just lowers a student’s grade. In Bangladesh, I had test for each subject, and for each I had to write nonstop for hours. Sometimes I felt like I was writing forever. Here, most tests are multiple choice. Needless to say, I ended up liking the new educational system better than my old school’s, and I believed if I tried hard, I would succeed. I started going to ESL class, which helped me vastly. I also studied my dictionary and did my homework every night. As time passed, my English got better, and I could communicate with people. Eventually, I made friends, and my grades improved. Now, the girl who couldn’t communicate with others is in AP Literature. Not only is she mastering English, she is also using English to learn a new language: Spanish. The girl who couldn’t handle a normal level class now takes AP and honors classes. The girl who used to need tutoring, now tutors other students. Sometimes, I am astonished at how much I

Home lexi R., 2019

I have never been home. My feet have never walked upon the sun-rich dirt, or the golden waves of the desert. My hands have never touched the cloths that draped my ancestors. My stomach has never tasted the food of my culture, prepared from memory and passed the Nile. My eyes have never grazed the hills stretching like the arms of a mother, grasping the earth like it would crumble. My ears have never been brushed by the beautiful melodies and drums, loud like the screams of mothers separated from their children, loud like the cries of victory because freedom was a privilege, not a right. My skin has never felt the kisses of the blessed sun, blazing like the spirits of the free when the chains dropped. I have never been home.

Monsoon JosepH campBell, 2017

Effervescent organisms ascend to a chaotic tempest Frustrations at a lack of promised success

Translucent guppies told to climb trees Sponges as they may be, absorbing pollution of this Primary World Monsoon above. Monsoon below.

Metaphors lauRen, 2020

I am a snake a Sour Patch kid a cat a viola I am fall a butter knife Tuesday a pineapple

GLOW 2 digital image :: BRENDAN HOEKSTRA, 2017

I am a pair of winter gloves

uNEdIfyING hANd pen and watercolor :: JOSE GARRIDO PEREz, 2019

My Left Hand alexander Batten, 2023

It was in fourth grade, in science class. I was tossing my pencil until–– and to my horror, I saw a pencil-tip-sized hole in my hand with a black spot lodged deep in the middle. It was sore, but what was I going to do now?

The lights were off, but I felt like I was drowning in the shadows. The class was learning about rocks; I was learning about life and death! . . . Would the detached pencil tip poison me? Would I ever see the light again, or would I fall into the shadows that I was bound to meet sooner than everyone else? I continued to ponder my poor, soggy future. Why did I have to toss my pencil!? Oh well, life’s over. TTFN world, cheerio Friday, toodles eleven, I guess I’ll die at ten! And yet the life inside me tumbled and fell straight into a pool of faith, a fountain of life! For life is never truly extinguished––it lives on in another dimension! Living in that classroom full of kids, in the shadows of a sunny afternoon at school, I learned that you should never stop believing. Don’t give up! For protecting me. That day in Mrs. Bedoya’s fourth grade class, my foolish ghost was waiting for me on the playground, waiting to strike! But he never did . . . because I

stayed alive. I walked out of elementary school a whole different person that day. When I returned home, I realized that I was going to have to come clean, in more ways than one. So that night, my parents ended up using a sewing needle to try to get the pencil tip out. It was super painful. And super futile. It stayed in there. I worried all night that I was going to die. No more funny cartoons. No more laughs with my brothers. It was all going to end. I was up all night. I could smell death galloping around me. I felt jolted––I could hear death’s calls encouraging me to fall to my knees. But I woke up the next morning. And then I went Then, my parents tried to get it out again. It hurt, but it remained submerged in my hand like a yellow submarine. Somehow, I managed to make it through the next week and the next and even the next. Until I realized that I probably wasn’t going to die (maybe). Then I learned about my Grandpa. I found out the same thing happened to him when he was a boy. It’s been in his hand his whole life, and he’s seventy years old. All in all, that pencil really made me change. It’s like a game. When you see Game Over, you should RESET! My life is now at the next level. And I will keep climbing the ladder of life until an equal and opposite force acts upon me. That’s Alexander’s First Law of Life––take that, Isaac Newton! Watch out death, ‘cause I ain’t givin’ up so darn easy.

Candelight Spell kaTe cRoss, 2020

That I had so craved I was the kindling

Ashes to ashes And as we all fell I was still under Her candlelight spell Haunting my memory Torches and smoke Feeding off words That I had once spoke Even in daylight I know all too well Of her candlelight spell

HANDS DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPH:: ?, ?, ?

hANdS digital photograph :: ANITA MALPICA, 2017

Dear Melanin naJiia THomas, 2017

whAT ShAdE IS bEAuTy? linocut :: KIANA TUTT, 2018

Dear Melanin, Brown is the color of your skin, Soft and smooth, So deep and rich in melanin. My melanin is beautiful. It’s strong and powerful. In the naked truth, We are queens and kings. Dear melanin, Thank you for the stride of my hips, The curve of my lips, The fullness of my face. Melanin is me. It’s you. Embrace your melanin.

Dear melanin, You are the sweetest thing I’ve ever known. Your touch, Your soft caress, Your style of dress, The way you walk. Our different shades make us special. It’s the melanin in us That shields us from pain. Dear melanin, Thank you for sticking with me Through thick and thin, For watching my back, For loving me. Melanin, I am perfect with you, And I am nothing without you. I’ve gotten to know you, And I love you.

Dear melanin, You are worth the beautiful thoughts that you think. You are worth every dream. When I felt that I was too dark, You said, “Dark skins are the best skins. The darkest girl is the bravest girl.” Dear melanin, You survived what everyone thought would break you, And that’s what made me. From the color of my skin to the texture of my hair, I am perfect in every way.

How My Mother Braids My Hair (2017), Cameryn Gonzalez (2017), and Savanna Kanu (2017) based on a poem by Simi Gbadegesin (2017) @ bit.ly/2qjw3xD

That Hole mimi, 2020

I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t imagine what would happen if I hit the bottom would my neck break?

depression unzips its jacket takes off its shirt its shoes its pants

and shows joy

PORTRAITuRE digital photograph :: ALEXIS SALGADO, 2017

; ian claRk, 2018

Don’t go. Don’t leave while there’s still so much to see. Open your arms, feel the yellow beams Of the sun as they fall on your face. Don’t leave now before you’ve tried.

Don’t go. Dance in the puddles after a storm One more time. Buckle your rain boots And stop imagining the blue water Red.

Don’t go. Stay in your house on a day when the Rain thunders against the window panes and The power almost goes out. Cover yourself With a blanket, and stay in bed.

Don’t go. Go into the bathroom and scrub your Palms; take the red from the creases in your hand. Keep it from your life line. Throw the towel away.

Don’t go. Don’t turn around and close the door; leave It open for one more day. Let the air circle your room and rid it Of the odor of blood and tears.

Don’t go. Laugh one more time. Don’t Turn into a shell; come see A show with me. Don’t turn into someone I don’t know.

Don’t go. Stand in the rain; let it wash over you. Let the drops shine down from the clouds,

Don’t go. Put down the knife, put on short sleeves, Show everyone what you lived through. Wait for me; I’ll go there with you.

And the world. Don’t go. Stay for one more winter; look outside And see the glittering crystals and icicles Hanging from the backyard play set Where we used to go.

Dear Society alexis kinG, 2019

I often tell myself I am not what they made me. Touch my skin, the same skin on the same face on the same girl with blistered hands beaten by the harsh whip of words. Excluded from depictions of beauty. Ignorance Is Bliss. Before they taught me my art was an uncensored artifact of mind. Blonde princess. Scantily clad goddess. Their thoughts replaced mine with foreign ideas. Would he notice me and billowing, blonde curls? I am not who they made me, but I, too, can lie. PORTRAITuRE 6 digital photograph :: ALEXIS SALGADO, 2017

bOdy PAINT digital photograph :: BETHANY SMITH 2017

27 TH Avenue saRaH fox, 2019

There is a house on 27th avenue with sixteen windows, three outside doors, and ten rooms. The outside looks mostly normal: red bricks, green shutters, and a gray roof. There’s a part of the porch separate laundry room smells faintly of cigarette smoke and has been the birthplace of at least seven litters of kittens. In the yard is a mostly broken playground, the green cloth covering left in shreds, attached to the corners only. Beside it is a creaky swingset and a trampoline less than a year old but 62

esting mix of superheros (mostly Batman) and My Little Pony dolls scattered about the yard. Buried on the edge of the woods are two generations worth of pets. You don’t listen to the little voice in your head telling you not to do it (maybe it’s only for me) and enter the house. You walk into a large eat-in kitchen. There’s an old library table, scarred from over swept and covered in multiple cereals, the hardwood stained in big splotches of Kool-Aid red and green. There’s a room to the side, the one we always used

sweet snacks. The next door down is my old bedroom. Three walls are stark white, the other is salmon. It’s my cousin’s room now, and at one point it was both of my aunts’. It smells of lipstick and glitter. You can still see the faint outline of old superhero stickers on the walls. Directly across the hall is the bathroom. I learned how to put on makeup there. My grandmother would sit me down in front of the big sink on picture days (and sometimes Sundays) to curl my hair, spraying it so much that I would have to take two showers that night just to get it all out. I learned about being a woman during that time. The next door down was my grandparents’ room. It’s not the master bedmother would put a cartoon in the DVD player and sit all of the kids on her bed to watch it. It still smells like popcorn and drugstore perfume. The last room on the hallway is the actual master bedroom. It’s about ten feet smaller, but it’s the one with a bathroom off it (though it never worked). It was my brother’s, except for the time twelve people lived here. Then, it was both of ours. He had these bright red and blue bunk beds and always insisted on having the top bunk. The dresser is those same colors and still sits in the corner, its paint chipping away. It may seem to have been a happy home, and mostly, it was. But of stairs. They lead down into what was my father’s room for a long time. It’s been converted now into a living room. There is a couch down there, with a brown cloth cover, almost like vinyl. On the farthest left cushion is a stain, but not one you can see. Now, maybe, if you sit down, you will feel it. The stain is a part of me and the childhood I spent in that house. A part of every memory I made and all the happiness that used to reside there. It was taken from me late one night on that couch. If you do feel it, I can only hope you get up and leave. stained porch, past the old playground. I wish you nevth Avenue, sitting on the stain of me. 63

Odd lIGhT digital photograph :: BELLA CUDE, 2019

as a living room. Now, it’s a bedroom, the windows blacked out and the door permanently locked. There’s also a hallway, unlit of course, because no one likes to change the bulb.

cora martin, 2019

You are so afraid of running out of stories. You’ll scream at the sky in prayer, willing it to give you something more to say. Mama didn’t come home on the night it happened. You and you weren’t supposed to. It was the same night that Mrs. Ferdinand had a heart attack downstairs, so her tea kettle just kept on screaming until there was no water left to boil. The wind on your face as you get off the train always shocks you. The unfamiliar accents. It so rarely rained in Phoenix. The phone rang the next morning. It was Jones, who Mama always said had a stick up his ass, and he didn’t know where

The publishing house you work in smells like the Lush soaps that your brother likes so much. It’s full of the sounds of clicking keyboards, the words of your typing instructor’s voice cartwheeling through your head, telling you that someday this would be of the utmost importance. You can’t stomach the tea

was her. It was too stuffy in the police car that technically

wasn’t a police car, the black kind that the well-to-dos were always driving around in. The room they had her in was cold and surgical, unwelcoming to the children made to come here. Now, you suppose they did this on purpose. To remind you: Stay in line. They keep rejecting your ideas. You come in every pitch. The higher-ups turn you down for sport. Little black girls with voices don’t appeal to the masses, they tell you again and again. Your dad was an especially good dad after it happened. He was front and center at every school play and parent night, save a seat for Mama, and he never stopped. “So I’m thinking, a politically-aware dog story, like for fourth graders? Or is that too much?” “The mini-Destinys will love it.” Your dad never stops being just enough. Eventually you will learn to tell your own story. There are mini-Destinys everywhere and they deserve the world.

SORRy, OK paint chips and embroidery thread :: zOÃ&#x2039; HAUSMANN, 2017

The love poem kaTi Redman, 2018

The love poem speaks with a mouth full of butterscotch and whispers sentences that had an end before a beginning. It will die young with the help of a bullet and a twisted scotch tape ribcage. It screams silence. We are planets apart in the imprints of a bare mattress. His collarbones hide under his skin 12:00. How I would love to trace them. Press. Release. Watch the color fade and return. But I’m supposed to be asleep, so instead, I memorize every line, every texture, and draw them into maps that always end up at the corners of his birch bark lips. When he is not in front of me, he exists entirely in fragments; china dishes that slip out of palms and land on walls. Fragments of images and sounds and the way his If I don’t remember, I make it up. The love poem hums when I tell him that his eyes are the color of chocolate in the summer.

(Everything is more gentle in the summer.) The love poem is the factory-perfect stitches in his polo shirt, and the string that came loose––if I pull on it, I’ll unravel the whole shirt, so I cut it with my teeth and tie my own lips together. The love poem knows that it is simply a collection of broken ideas, and it does not falter, except for the occasional sideways half-step and dizzied lunge. When it rains, the love poem goes wherever love poems go when the sky is heavy enough to crush trees and skulls and everything in between. I stay dry in between the vertebrae of his spine, where every time he stands up, I crinkle like tissue paper and exhale dust. I won’t move for hours, and spiders will build His chest rises with tides, sometimes fast, sometimes heavy.

you fall asleep?” “No.” He pulls me close with saturated hands. His chest falls. We breathe the same stale air as I trace his collarbones with love poems.

Driving Jules to Caledonia nathan creadick, 2017 In a way, our killing was graceful–– helming checkered hills and siltbathed bluffs, bellowing mortal errors that we had otherwise learned to conceal, but they are stubborn and clamored, refusing to escape through a crack in Jule’s ribs . . .

come from lungs too, and roll peacefully away with the smoke . . . but, oh! they recoiled with more fury than they took to shout, slitting our cheeks, allowing further confession to torrent down our necks, pool in the gulleys of the collar, and my steamy young breath gargled barked like a blind dog for water or sight Our body, whose name is Jules, spewed dance music on the road behind us, (we ought to be more careful for many others sing their own traveling songs behind us) and big rigs move politely in their slumbering masses, and Jules, barreling toward bitter end, folds the steel walls underfoot, our shell melts like hot caramel,

and the mountainside eats my body

MOuNTAINS dry pastel and digital illustration :: RUMAISHA TASNIM, 2017

Oxy is a moron. kiRa YounG, 2018

The only reason I talk to myself is because Well Who else is going to talk to someone that talks to themselves?

Untitled aBiaGeal manGum, 2018

Roses are Red, or White, or Pink, Despite what Romantics would like you to think, and Violets less Blue but more Indigo. Some things great poets donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want you to know.

TElEPhONE telephone book pages and mixed media :: CHELSEA EVANS (2019), JOSE GARRIDO PEREz (2019), DIAMOND GRAVES (2017), AVA LOzUKE (2018), CAROLINE SKALLA (2018)

Bootleg Broadway Plays

, 2021

fman

Hof kYleR

Fanny: A fanny pack that gets adopted by an unfashionable hipster. A Midsummer’s Fight Team: A summer boxing camp

Phantom of the Oprah: It stars a guy who stalks Oprah.

dumb inventions

Llama Mia!: An Italian llama, duh!

The Alpaca Pack: a backpack for your alpaca

Homio and Boba Fett: It’s a story of two characters

The See-through Mirror: a window

anything else that rhymed with Romeo and Juliet.

Dyslexia-Enabled No Trespassing Signs: they read “Pirate Property” Toasted Notes: post-it notes made of toast Croc Crocs: Crocs for your pet crocodile (The company was all out of ideas.) Apple iJuice 7: it’s $300 and doesn’t come with a place to put a straw in New Advanced Military Grenade: Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Fat-free, Gluten-free, Sugar-free, Chemical-free, Bag of Chips: a plastic bag with just air in it

50 Things I’ve Learned (the Hard Way) saRa THompson, 2020 WINNER OF THE HUMOR CONTEST

1. I cannot ride my bike around the altar in church. 2. I cannot dress up and pretend to be M. Bison at school. (Even if I wish I could.) 3. Pyjama day does not include Victoria’s Secret. 4. Or nothing. 5. “Napalm Sticks to Kids” is not in the Girl Scout songbook. 6. I am not the god Thor “with lightning hewn in my golden locks.” 7. I cannot sing Rammstein songs in a public bathroom. 8. The youth leader is not Puff Daddy. 9. I cannot shoot cows for sport. 10. I cannot join the army in the seventh grade. 11. I cannot place a fatwa on my brother. 12. Or anyone. 13. I should not sing the theme song to “Cops” when the police can hear. 14. Harambe is not my spirit animal. 15. I am not an arctic wolf trapped in a human’s body. 16. Shotgun shells are not full of Sour Skittles, and I should not tell toddlers they are. 17. “Amazing Grace” was not written by the Dropkick Murphys. 18. I cannot dance on the roof of the Academy Building. 19. Fellow Girl Scouts are called sisters, not comrades, Jugend, or mis amigas. 20. I should not grab the ankles of my friends if we are swimming in a murky lake. 21. I cannot exhume any graves. 22. I cannot paint myself blue, like in Braveheart. 23. I am not allowed to do the Tight Pants/Body Rolls song in front of small children. 24. I will not ask living soldiers what their K/D ratio is. The answer is obvious. 25. I cannot run for president.

26. When confronted with a serious situation, the answer is not to lick the other person’s mouth. 27. It is also not advised to roll over and display my soft belly to avert responsibility. See #15. Not the truth serum! No, you bastards! Aaarggh!” 29. I cannot sing the theme song to The Zula Patrol during an oral presentation. 31. The answer is never more cheese. 32. It is wrong to shave my eyebrows on a whim. 33. Shaving someone else’s eyebrows on a whim is somehow worse. 34. When Mr. Hawks visits class, I should not click my heels and announce, “All is in readiness.” 35. I should not test an umbrella by using it in the shower. 36. Jesus loves me, but this does not make him my bro dawg. (His opinion was not asked.) 37. I cannot start a children’s crusade. 38. I am not allowed to make my own moonshine. 39. I am terrible at beat-boxing and should not try. 40. I should not claim to have been exiled by Stalin, as I was not alive then. 41. Never attempt to put the “fun” in funeral! 42. I will not sing gospel when everyone else is singing old timey hymns. (And no clapping.) 43. I am not a at the cockpit of my Sopwith Camel. 44. I should not stab anyone over a game of checkers. 45. I cannot crown myself the new Caesar.

49. I should not try to drink a Coke on the looping part of a rollercoaster.

VISuAl bARRIERS digital photograph :: VINCENT LE, 2018

Streetlamp c.v., 2020

It rained. It rained, and he was out in the rain. But that was okay. He liked rain. He stood under a streetlamp, just in the shadows so the light gave him a soft, green outline and left the rest hidden in darkness. He was soaked, and he was enjoying it. He was alone. And then, he wasn’t alone. “Stupid rain,” muttered a voice. His friend was approaching, clutching his umbrella tightly as the wind tried to rip it from his grasp. “I like the rain.” “I don’t,” the shadow replied, stopping just out of range of the streetlamp. “It’s cold, and it’s wet, and it keeps me awake.” “Everything keeps you awake.” “I know,” said the one with the umbrella. “That’s why I’m always up at night.” The one in the rain looked at him. He looked back. They said nothing for a few moments. The green one noticed a faint light in one of the windows. Two silhouettes were visible, one leaning out the window to feel the rain and the other hanging back, trying to shield itself from the water. The silhouette leaning out the window waved, and he waved back. “You know,” the shadow commented, “they’d be a bit like us, if we were human.”

A Stab From the Shadows H. f. SCIENCE FICTION CONTEST WINNER

I ripped out his heart and still he walked. He stumbled on the rusty bars of the train tracks, blood seeping through his bright white shirt. The dark limbs of my creature peeked out from my dress collar and clung fast as I began to run after him. “He’s not going to stop,” my creature said. I could feel his eyes judging me as I continued. “He isn’t human like the others. He won’t go down so easily.” I pulled up my dress closer to my chin, smothering my creature under the folds of fabric. It wasn’t hard to catch the man. He was still walking at a slow pace, the constant trips caused by the him and extended my hand so when he got to me, his chest pressed into it. The blood dripped down my arm and stained my dress. His heart pumped in my hand. “It’s dying. We need to leave and preserve it,” my “Have you eaten recently? You’re stick thin.” “Keep your thoughts to yourself, Ten,” I growled, punching him. I felt his small body recoil against mine. “Well excuse me for trying to be compassionate.” “That’s not our style. You’re a shadow. You really shouldn’t even be talking.” I felt a claw make a long scratch across my chest, and small beads of blood seeped out visibly onto my dress. I stuffed the still-beating heart into a pocket of my dress with one hand and with the other, pushed the man over. He twitched as his body shut down.

“Look what you’ve done,” Ten said, peeking out from my dress and pointing at the man who I couldn’t distinguish as being dead or alive. “Now the heart has even less of a chance to survive.” “It’s in the temple,” I said. I patted the pocket I had put the heart in. “It’s alive. End of story.” I sat on the railroad tracks, the old metal groaning just slightly under my weight. You need to eat.” “I am not like a human, Ten. I don’t need to eat.” I reached into my dress, pulled out Ten, and threw him at the ground. His small body bounced against the metal of the tracks and expanded until it touched the back of my feet. “You’re so cranky when you’re hungry,” Ten’s voice said, the noise echoing through my head. It was at the most unfortunate time that the sky opened up and the acid rain poured down. It sizzled on the pavement as I walked. The Demonhead shopkeeper wouldn’t keep his building open in such conditions. The last time I came to Demonhead in the rain, he greeted me by running outside with a new vial to dump into the transport cube strapped to his back as he always did. The acid rain took away one of his lives, and his burned fur was on the streets for weeks. When I walked through the front door, the shopkeeper was asleep on the table, curled up into a furry shoulder. He gave a low growl. “Good afternoon, Mr. Yave.”

lIGhTNESS light bulbs, wire, wood :: CHELSEA JOHNSON, 2017

You re starting to sound

like a human, Wendell.

complain

about their They always I nodded and “There is no reached behind new vial today, me, picking up Ten Wendell. I am that will end in the universe losing a speck of and closing him sorry,” Yave meaningless matter. inside my hands said, not even What s wrong with you? to help him form again. opening his eyes. “Didn’t I tell you that there was something going down around here?” I glared at Ten my hands. and held him over my dress pocket, threatening to “Calm yourself. What’s with all the blood? You stuff him inside. kill someone?” Yave meowed loudly, almost as if he “Let’s not get too hasty, now.” Ten wasn’t strugwere laughing. “Oh, who am I kidding. Of course gling as he usually did during my threats, and his you did, Wendell. You and your murders. Almost voice didn’t even have a hint of fear in it. It was as close as you and Ten.” He meowed again and maddening. jumped off the table. I followed him over to the

small , insignificant lives

counter where he went through a small cat door and jumped on a few boxes I had set up a week ago when I couldn’t pay for one of my daily vials. “Don’t think I am scamming you. Trust me, I am not.” “I’m sure you understand, Yave. I need to get home.” “And I am sure that I do not have any vials to give you. Why don’t you stay on this planet for a while. It is the closest you have had to Earth in-” “Don’t, Yave.” I held up my hand and placed it on his small mouth. “I know what happened there. You know that I do.” “And that’s why I stopped you. Listen, do you have a vial or not?” “No,” Yave said, glaring at me with his yellow eyes. “I have told you that I do not. I do have a blood join in?”

It’s quite a scene down there, and I think that you would enjoy it.” “Not anymore, Yave. I’ve just remembered something. Tell me when a vial is ready. I don’t like waiting.” I turned toward the door and threw it open. Yave ran up behind me and pawed at my foot. He went on his back two legs and offered an umbrella that he held in his teeth. I took it and walked out. “You really are a mystery, Wendell,” Ten said as I walked us out the door and tossed the umbrella on the welcome mat of Yave’s store. The rain had long since stopped. “Some days you’re off to conquer the world and murder every living being in sight. Others, you’re like this.” “That doesn’t pertain to you or to anything. Stay out of my head.”

SMOKEy 1 digital photograph :: SAM FINLAY, 2017

“You know, I would if you didn’t stuff me up there every other afternoon.” We continued walking in silence. The sound of a siren grew as we entered a large dumpster yard. I put my back to the closest dumpster and slid down behind a pile of boxes. “They’re not coming for you, Wen. What happened to police chases?” “I got old.” through his claws. I slapped my hand against his face. “Shut up.” The siren faded. I took my hand off of Ten’s face. “If you’re getting old, why don’t you look any different?” he asked, poking my face in inspection. “Looking different as you age is a human thing.” “I was under the impression that you were a human.” I threw Ten into the dumpster and got up, dusting off my dress. “I was joking.” “It wasn’t funny. What’s the point?” “You’re starting to sound like a human, Wendell. cant lives that will end in the universe losing a speck of meaningless matter. What’s wrong with you?” “Ten.” “Sorry. It’s hard to not notice things when I stick by you all the time.” I looked down at my shoes and puckered my face into a frown. “What do you say?” I shook my head and started to walk. “Come on, Wendell. What do you say to your wonderful shadow partner in crime?” “Thanks,” I mumbled under my breath. I could feel Ten’s smug grin. “Don’t think too much into it.”

SElf-PORTRAIT digital photograph :: DY-MIA CHRISTOPHER, 2017

Dark Chocolate ciaRa sHaRpe, 2017

No. We are not alright, and we are not living the American dream. We are living the negro’s nightmare. Afraid to walk around the streets, Because people feel “endangered” by our very existence. What are they afraid of ? Those two black hands in the air saying don’t shoot? The tears dropping from the brown eyes of a black mother standing over her son who was brutally killed?

They want my culture, my hair, my lips, and my hips but when it comes to my soul, my body, my mind, I don’t matter. I’m here to let the people of the world know that I am beautiful, and I am black.

On Becoming a mother “Mom, I’m telling you it’s really time. It’s time to go now!” I yelled as I held my stomach, as if it would stop the pains. My mother turned over in her bed and looked at me as if I had a sign on me that read stupid. Then she slowly sat up and started to laugh. “Girl, this is just the beginning. Go back to sleep,” she said while laying back down. I slowly made my way back to my room after stopping by the bathroom for what felt like the tenth time that morning. Getting into my bed had been a struggle for a while with all the extra weight in the front throwing off my balance, but with these extra cramps, I couldn’t make it. I knew what it meant: it was time. I worked my way back down the hall and told my mother again that we needed to go to the hospital. Now. This time she got up and looked at me and said, “Congrats on making it to adulthood. You’re a mother now.” This moment completely changed me as a person. Having a child would change anybody; it made me grow up faster than most of the people I would normally hang out with. Another human was completely dependent upon me. The responsibility that comes with having to take care of another person changes you. I had to meet her every need without complaints, from making bottles at one in the morning to changing stinky diapers. I had to put my teenage life on hold to take care of her. I also gained patience; working with a baby who is learning ev-

down and become a calmer person because they can’t do or know everything you can. As my child began to age, she didn’t need as much help doing things. She began holding her own bottle, sitting up, crawling, and walking. She needed new stuff, so I had to earn enough money to buy it. Working on top of school and raising a child made my life a whole lot harder. I remember

easy since I was out of school. But school went back that next Monday, and it was the worst day of my life. I had to go to school for eight hours, then go to work for six more hours, then go home to do homework. I didn’t make it to bed till almost 1:30 a.m. I told myself I would never work another school day again. But eight months later, I work, go to school, do homework, and still have time for my child and a social life. Practice makes perfect. I have evolved a lot during these past two years, physically and mentally. I went from being a girl who didn’t care about anything she was supposed to do, including going to school, and who always wanted to go out and party with friends, to a woman who does everything in her power to pass all her classes, and who spends as much time at home with her child as she can. Motherhood changes you; it’s one thing that you can never go back from. I love being a mother. I love watching my child grow up. I love how my life changed. 79

III ENChANTRESS from unnamed Tarot deck watercolor and pen :: RITA PAOLANTONIO, 2017

miYanna smallWood, 2017

Jean

AND

Frances

BRock monks, 2017

Jean lay on his pull-out bed, intentbought him years ago entitled Montreal: The City of Saints then hit the tonearm button. Jean, I’ve got something from your Mémé. Can I hand it to you, or should I slip it under the door? his mother asked. Slip it under the door, please, Jean said. Jean picked up the letter from the ground, opened it. The letter was written on stationery from the Hotel de la Tremoille in Paris. He pondered why she of neatly divided stationary and put the other pages aside. He started reading. Dear Jean, 6/10/15 By the time you receive this letter, you’ll be seventeen. I know you’ve grown accustomed to the yearly Hallmark card and gift birthday. This might very well be the worst year of your life, or second worst after sixteen. If you were on a bike, this part of

MuSICIAN 1 digital photograph :: BRENDAN HOEKSTRA, 2017

All I really want is to spend the rest of my life in my city. The your life would be the steepest uphill. That doesn’t mean there city I’m from. Please tell your mother I can get around all by won’t be other hills, but by then you’ll be better equipped to myself, I’m quite capable. I swear she wants me to stay within handle them. her line of vision and knit for the rest of my life. If she thinks I don’t pretend to know how your love life is, but I’ll assume I’m going to die in some cozy hospital bed while everyone cries it’s about how mine was at that age. Simply put, love will over me, she’s mistaken. I’m not dying like Pépé did. never be this hard again. Someday, you’ll learn how to comHope all is well! Gros Bisous! partmentalize your infatuations and think logically. Frances Getting a job will never be this hard again. Someday, emP. S. I know your mother trained ployers will actually take you seriousyou to call me Mémé, but I’d rather ly. You’ll be trusted to use your head and not just your hands. Deeply understanding your emoJean closed the letter and tions will never be this hard again. i m going to put it back in the envelope. Eventually, your emotions will start to some cozy hospital bed He sat silently in his room make sense. while everyone cries over me, until side two had ended. He took out the shoebox full of Jean leafed through the sevpostcards his Mémé had sent eral pages and decided to skip him over the years. He read the messages written ahead to the last. He picked it up and continued: on the back, getting up occasionally to put on different records. Don’t get very attached to how you feel at your current After a long while, Jean rose from his bed and age. In a year, you’ll have a completely different life. A year walked out his bedroom door toward the kitchen. from now, you won’t have the same worries. You’ll have His father sat coolly with a black coffee and the Sundifferent things to worry about. University might be better, day paper. His brother Luc, meanwhile, was busy or it might not. It depends on the school, your classmates, with Calvin and Hobbes. Every few seconds Luc would your teachers, your interests, etc. . . . Personally, I loved have an outburst of laughter, causing him to spit up some orange juice. Jean sat down in the chair adjarest of my life. That being said, it might take you until your cent to his father, next to Luc. He nodded toward his father. That’s all I’ve got for you. Please don’t feel like no one Hello, his father said. understands how you feel, because I do. I remember that age so So Frances is staying in Paris? Jean asked quietly. well. We’re very similar. Frances? His father turned his head for a second, Lastly, after much hemming and hawing, I’ve decided to his eyebrows arched. ––Oh, yes, Mémé is staying stay in Paris. I’m guessing your mother hasn’t told you yet, so there, at least for now. I thought I should. I want you to know it’s nothing personal.

if she thinks die in

she s mistaken.

I don’t think Frances plans on leaving, he whispered back. We’ll see. According to your mother . . . He took a sip of coffee. She’s been on edge ever since Pépé, you know . . . He looked at Luc then stopped himself. Luc noticed his father looking at him. What? Mémé isn’t coming, Jean said. Why? he asked. Jean shrugged my shoulders. He crossed his legs, sat back in his chair. Why is she always trying to parent Frances? I would leave that battle alone if I were you. He paused and took a long sip of coffee, then laughed. From what your mother has told me, Mémé has always been like this. He paused. There’s this one story . . . He leaned in closer so Luc couldn’t hear. He glanced at the front door, then brought his eyes back to Jean. Mémé hated her secondary school. It was this very strict all-girls school, run by the nuns. No chatting in class, no wearing pants, no laughing, nothing. Apparently, your Mémé was quite the rebel. Jean nodded his head. She constantly skipped school and wandered around Paris. One year, she and her friends got caught skipping so many times they were given detention for a full month. Oh my god. early and boarded a train for Copenhagen. Jean audibly burst out in laughter. Her parents thought she’d been kidnapped. His father had a stern look on his face. Eighteen months later, Mémé came back to Paris in order to go to University. No explanation for her disappearance whatsoever. It’s a good thing her parents were so understanding.

Yeah, if I did that, I’m pretty sure you’d never speak to me again. Mémé told your mother she’d gotten a job at a factory within a couple days. Apparently, that’s where she got her bad cough from. *** Jean sat in his room for another hour. At 2:00 p.m., Jean glanced into the kitchen, telling his father he was going to the Café Névé to study. He walked out the white post-and-lintels of the house. He textI forgot that Café Névé is closed on Sundays. I’m going to the record store. Hoboken Terminal was a ten minute walk from his house. He’d brought with him a satchel. Inside were ten copies of his resumé, legal documents, two clean shirts, a pair of work boots, the letter from Frances, and his bent, paperback copy of Franny and Zooey. On hand, Jean had two hundred and seventy dollars, kept in a nondescript manila envelope at the bottom of his bag. The train was set to arrive at 3:15. He sat on a cold bench, reading the parts of Frances’ letter he’d skipped over. The large clock next him rang out on the hour. As it did, Jean felt a buzz in his pocket. His father had sent him a text message. He read it slowly and put the phone away. Frances has died. Please get back when you can. ished rolling in.

listen to the poet @ bit.ly/2pNE6nQ

MElTING dREAMS digital image :: JOE H., 2018

Misconception of Me veronica enierga, 2017

My parents tell me I’m beautiful They are proud I look mature Boast about my accomplishments On Facebook But after all these things called “compliments” My parents follow it up with “You have another blemish on your face.” But do they know these blemishes are caused by stress? Stress on getting good grades Scoring the highest But all they see is acne Some messed up mirage of a perfect daughter Even when the son fails, they can always turn to her She should have beauty, intellect Let’s not forget about beauty I am supposedly feminine yet handle the workload Get into Ms. America and bring the medal home But why should I rely on their perception of beauty? What is beauty? Pretty? That you are proud of where you are now How you look now

Why even rely on the media when more than half the women are white? I mean, there is nothing wrong with a porcelain complexion But is there no future for the sun-kissed perfection? Is the market only good for the fair Because the last time I saw they were tanning again I don’t even get why not even a single shade of foundation Matches my skin The media pushes for new techniques now On how to be lighter Because average weight is not attractive Prefer sexy over healthy Didn’t you hear? Anorexia and Bulimia is what’s selling Nowadays, beauty is a misconception Of an Angelina and Brad We are pushed up against one another To see who can become the perfect pretty Ugly That’s what we become My parents tell me I’m beautiful

But thanking God you even have a face And that, by itself, looks good

Stolen Carts

AND THE

Places They Hide

mauRa scRoGGs, 2018

If you interrogated her about her favorite part of her job, she would tell you that jobs aren’t of time between adolescence and adulthood, where you live out breath upon breath. However, when you prod her for further details about her existence in the chain of Pink Palms Gas and Go Stations, she would whisper into your ears stories that raised goosebumps on the skin, your brain unsure if the cause is the tale or the proximity of her body to yours. There is the pastor who, at 3:48 p.m. every other Friday afternoon, peels onto the cracked pavement, his hand halfway up the skirt of Maureen Calderazzo, the longstanding general manager of the roller rink on the opposite side of town. He thinks no one can recognize him out of a suit and with darkened tints on his windows, but at the checkout one can catch the slight drawing-out of his I’s, allowing for the momentary connection as dampened dollar bills lay in your palm. Then there is the elderly woman with two large birthmarks over her right eye, who strolls in twice daily with her mangy dachshund wrapped tightly against her chest by the baby carrier in which he travels to and from the store to purchase outdated cans of dog food. And when the

same three things each night. One can of sardines, Spider-Man perched atop the container, and a copy of the National Enquirer from a broken magazine rack. Out he journeys into the darkness, clutching his juice in one hand, and two blocks he walks to a neglected bus stop where he sits atop an overturned cart eating sardines and laughing at the articles describing alien abductions and gay orgies with David Miscavage. Sometimes when you leave the Palms, you pass by him in your car, and you always ask yourself if you should pick him up, take him to the mental hospital across the Pontiac River Bridge, but you feel as if doing so would be too much to ask of yourself. chased six years ago, but now this one has different ering light over the kitchen table. Your skin still has -

by a prepubescent boy you haven’t yet made the effort to know by name, the man in the red coat appears rapping the glass doors with his knuckles. He never ceases to wear the coat, its sleeves lined with years of grime and dirt, and he purchases the

noiselessly tap on the countertop, trying to dispel but not eradicate the incoming ant infestation. “Did the Pepsi guy deliver the drinks yet?” Charleen yells from the staff bathroom, the faucet running over her hands. “No.” “What a shame he didn’t come earlier, I had my nice lipstick on, the one my boyfriend bought for me down at the Tri-County Outlet Mall.” “What happened to it?”

MORNING GlORy digital illustration :: KATELIN YEE, 2017

“Boss made me take it off, said that as long as he was manager none of his employees would be looking like whores.” She wipes her hands on her vest and walks over to her register, whereupon opening it she begins to inspect the change. Running her hand through the stuffs it in her front vest pocket while motioning to door to the beer cooler slams at the opposite end of the store as a man lugs a case of Natural Light up to the counter. Heaving with all his weight, the bottles crash onto the counter with a loud thud, as he starts With just the hint of a mustache above his chapped lips, an off-brand polo shirt hiding the fact that since his eighteenth birthday he had indeed put on thirty pounds, and the incessant smell of motor oil surrounding him, he resembles any man within a thirty-mile radius. The sun glints off his pierced right earlobe as you place his cash into the register. “Geena f––ing Kaufman,” he exclaims into the Reaching across the counter, he grabs onto your hand and pulls it to him. Your eyes search his face for any sort of recognition or repressed memory left to rot in the crannies of your brain. “Oh god, you don’t remember me,” his voice falters and his eyes drift down you know with me stealing lotto tickets for you, and you tutoring me sometimes after school for English. Your eyes, the way they’re moving, you do remember, you do!” You scan through the processed memories of repressed youth in hopes that you can at least start out a syllable and he will continue with the name.

“Ben . . .” “Yeah, it’s me! Benny! Well, most people call me Benjamin now, but it’s me, good old Benny.” You trace the wrinkles that appear on his face the larger his smile becomes. This short symbol of caring starts him down an inescapable path. He goes on about his wife, well, now his ex-wife, and oh the vacation home on Manituck Island his parents left him in the will, and the great slobbery dog he found on the side of the road that he calls Bones, and how he had gotten his real estate license, and oh gosh how great it would be if we could catch up sometime. “Your receipt, Benny,” you say as you push the paper into his hand. Hauling the case out of the store, he stops midway in motion before the automatic doors. “Hey if you ever want to hang out, I’m right down the road, at the Belrose Motel, room 22. It’s temporary. You see, my house, it’s getting gassed right now, roaches everywhere. But yeah, you should come by.” Grinning, his grip loosens on the case, and it comes crashing down onto his extended knee. With reddening to his car, a beaten Ford Taurus with broken tail lights. You watch him drive away, thick clouds of dust thrown behind his tires, shrouding you vision. Maybe KWX’s Weather Man Stan was right when he said this was the worst drought in thirteen years. “You should go see him, you know, it’s not like you’re getting any younger,” Charleen remarks, around her head for three hours. “What do you know, Charleen? You don’t even

the Pepsi delivery man. A shining example of monogamy.” “Yeah, but the point, Geena, is I’m not alone.” Hitting her head hard with

What s the worst that could happen?

remnants stain her hand. It’s been a quiet four hours since Benny left, only a few customers here and there, buying the usual Powerball ticket and dented pack of cigarettes. You can’t stop thinking about him––not in an infatuated sense, but in ways you can’t explain. You feel this urge to go and visit him, to sit down and see a small train wreck in action. Deep discussions over cheap beer about an almost-thirty-year-old’s failing life could provide a glimpse of entertainment to the consistently bored. But if you went, would there be ly would not have sex with him, but a little fooling around couldn’t hurt anyone. It isn’t that he is necessarily unattractive, but the thought of screwing a divorced man scares you. What if he exclaimed his ex-wife’s name? Also, he had always been an odd bird, so you never know what he’s like in bed––he might even be into animal costume role play, a thought that chills your soul. Just a casual talk about life, you tell yourself. “Maybe I will go see him, Charleen, okay, will that make you happy?” Walking over to the windows searching for any trace of his car, you notice the unorganized shelving and can’t help but straighten it up.

Pumping sanitizer rapidly into her hands, she reof the store. You follow his steps onto the steaming plies, “No it wouldn’t make me happy per se, but I pavement. Jamming your key into the car door and would love to not hear you bitch all afternoon about throwing your purse into the passenger seat, you slowif you should make the drive two minutes down the ly start the engine and back out of the spot. Getting road. What’s the worst that could happen?” onto Highway 43, you let the windows down, allow“Umm, I don’t know, Charleen. I could get murdered, that’s one thing. Who invites someone he just platinum blonde. Reaching into the glove compartmet after ten years of non-communication back to ment, you carefully spritz your neck with a rejected his hotel room to hang?” bottle of body spray. “A desperate man.” Your eyes scan the The motel springs out “Yeah, and who wants of a patch of the higha desperate man? He’ll be t way full of forgotten real all clingy.” of numbers and catch the estate and declining retail Lifting yourself off shining, faux gold lots. To its left is an abanthe stool, you take one doned garage, ivy tacked last minute to center the onto its brick facade, with dented can of bacon long-since eroded car bodies rusting under the moist summer air. On its right, an aging barber shop with your vest. Throwing both behind the counter, you see customers too lazy in their old age to switch hairCharleen’s look. “What do you want? I just think you should give it a shot. I mean, when was the last time you dated a guy? Three years ago, Marcus or a forgotten murder or two. Rolling into the parking whatever, that weird salesperson at Sears. I mean, lot, you are faced with rows of aquamarine doors, pure creep, with that huge bald spot and . . . didn’t all with chipping lead paint and tackily hung yellow he have, like, a weird, life-like doll or something in curtains. The sun is beginning its descent beyond the his closet?” “Mike was his name, and he was really sweet not ing only part of the words. O VACNY. Your eyes creepy, and, yes, he did have a doll, but it was for his scan the random assortment of numbers and catch social anxiety, helped him practice talking to women.” the shining, faux gold 22. “Just go, please,” she mumbled, eyeing the kid At the door, there is no need for you to knock, for standing near the slushie stand, her gaze never it swings open with a burst of vitality. once wavering. “God damn, you actually showed!” he exclaims, “Hey dimwit, can’t you read? The sign says no blocking the door frame with his mass. He is dressed

random assortmen 22.

in a similar getup to earlier, except for now he has on a bleach-stained AC/DC shirt. “Well, here I am.” “Sorry, that was awfully rude of me, come in, come in.” He makes a grand sweeping gesture to the small room in which he resides, at least temporarily. The carpet is the lovely color that cheap companies employ to mask stains with expert fashion. Above his king bed is a shoddily painted recreation of the birth of Venus, with Venus appearing with one noticeably larger eye and pregnant in state. A decrepit box television sits above the microwave on a cheap shelving unit, and the room has a general scent of bleach and weed. Noticing your reaction to his temporary abode, he interjects, “We don’t have to stay here, we can go down to the pool, sit out on the chairs, talk a bit.” The pool sits in the middle of the parking lot and is surrounded by a corral of weeds and brambles. The concrete in which the chairs sit is a muted pink, that surrounds it. Cool waves of chilled air come off the water onto your skin, and the cracking open of Benny’s beer breaks apart the silence you had creatslip shoes that had molded to your feet, your toes crinkling and dancing under the open sun. Sounds of horns blare in the distance as ripples of heat beat down upon your face. “I’m glad you’re here,” he whispers, nursing the bottle in his hands. “I forgot how lonely I was becoming.” “You’re welcome.” Massaging his leg from the fall of bottles earlier, one can see the slightest bruise.

“How did you end up here?” you question him, “Does it really matter?” “I don’t know. I happen to think it does.” He looks down at the ground, sighing with each passing minute. “I mean, why aren’t you at the lake house, with some family? Why here? Why talking to me?” “Because I made all that shit up!” His hands are shaking as he tries to lift himself off the chair. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I was just curious.” “Yeah well, now the secret’s out. I have no family, no wife, not even an ex- one, no house on the lake, no dog, I just have a shit trailer that I live in.” “I mean, why lie?” “Because goddamnit, I love you, Geena, how hard is that to see!” Burrowing his face into his hands, he begins to sob, heaving as he sways back and forth. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have ever come, I have to go, I really do, I’m sorry.” Rushing out of the pool, you slam the rusted cream gate and run to your car. You close the door with such force a small gust of wind comes over your body, chilling you to your bones. Turning back on the highway, you wonder why you left. It wasn’t the fear. You never truly feared men or love or attachment. But maybe you did. Or didn’t. All you knew was you’d signed up for just casual conversation, no strings attached. Stopping in

the man in the red coat, walking down the street, his eyes lowered to the ground, his pupils turning glassy when they hit the sky.

Pulling over to the parking lot of a Seventh-day Adventist church, you throw open the door and run out. “Hey, hey, hey, sir you remember me, right? I work at the gas station you come in every night . . . ” “Do I know you?” “Geena, I’m Geena, I know you don’t recognize me out of uniform and all, I just thought you’d like to talk.” “Please leave me alone.” He stuffs his hands further into his pockets and along the concrete. “Sir? Sir, maybe we could take a drive, there’s somewhere I need to show you.” capes down the sidewalk, weaving in between the Smoothie Shack and cell phone repair store, leaving your vision. The clouds, opening up with the force as if raised from heaven, begin to drip rain onto your pour. The water rushes through your hair, leaving streaky messes of blonde down your back. You plop yourself onto a park bench outside the church, the words, “And it was spoken, and so it was true,” digging into your back, a pseudo-Braille for your aching skin. You wonder if he is still at the pool, shocked by your abrupt departure, or if he is back in his room, watching Judge Mathis reruns to distract his mind. You can taste his two-day-old pizza and beer breath despite never making contact. The rain steadies itself into a consistent stream, as you rain will end the drought.

by ThE ShORE digital illustration :: KATELIN YEE, 2017

Hallucinations Joe H., 2018

To the caffeine-raised, anxiety-prone successes life, The grunge-wave vampires and pastel pink cigarette smokers To the self-loathing stars and disgusted moons To the multiple personalities they will destroy To all the white rabbits smothered in red velvet vests and golden pocket watches falling down rabbit holes with delusional preteens on the way to a world entirely made up from their own imaginations To all the electric blue caterpillars smoking high-quality indie cigarettes with the “wrong group of people” To all the chatty tulips who won’t shut their two lips To all the aristocrats, polo racers, and big ego golfers playing only on Sundays so that their stay-at-home bleach-blonde wives won’t get suspicious of the already preconceived mistresses To the raspberry cheesecake ombre-haired and the balsamic vinegar-obsessed who were told life was too short not to have exciting hair and outrageous salads To all the sensations that drive our frontal lobes The vibrant rainbows that spin out of control the longer we stare

To all the double-exposed drug-free veins, for at least one of us is doing well To all the stressed and the cityscapes but choose to retain them so that one day they can blackmail you To all the boba tea lovers and periodic table connoisseurs To the egotistic chalk drawings of unknown portraits on winning lottery tickets To all the things you hate about yourself: your messy space buns, distracting ocean eyes, and piercings on your wing eyeliner (next time, think about how they feel) To all the crustaceans that are living it up in Cabo, the cautious isopods, and the young lobsters with explicit fantasies as they sleep To all the white blood cells that destroy families, and the transient homewreckers bouncing around on their lionesque pogosticks Between your asymmetrical eyebrows and sushi-patterned socks, you’re gonna go far in life–– To all the hallucinations we have as we sleep, bearing thoughts of our loved ones and the pretty ones we just meet in our dreams This one’s to you

SElf-PORTRAIT digital photograph :: ALAN-JOSHUA CARRASCO, 2017

Turning Time ellie paTTillo, 2019

Tomorrow youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be far away, with the leaves that tumble off the trees, metal scraps in your garage that rust in wet afternoons, torn pages that curl into dark gray ashes and drift aimlessly. Thursday you will be more gone, The earth will withhold the morning for your ever-turning reel of wasted moments. You will become a rare object in space, witness your demise, and Sunday you will disappear.

frost killed the apple blossoms isaBella doRfman, 2018

I. i believe that i am sorry (really, truly) i believe in sunrise pinks that light up the sky and your cheeks i believe in wind rushing through subway tunnels

II. i believe that i will never forget (though you would like me to) in the white album and girls in gray sun dresses in arms like pillows and suns that rise in the west

III. i believe in roses (not a dozenâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;â&#x20AC;&#x201C;just one, white with browned petals) and that is enough

dANCER tar paper and tissue paper :: GRACE BISHOP, 2017

Terms and Conditions lani, 2018

America: Land of the free, home of the brave. Warning: Doesn’t apply to anyone who is not white, male, and/or straight. But this is about you. So you think being black is putting on some Jordans and listening to some rap? If it were that easy to be different people, I’d just drink some Starbucks, right? Or take some land that I was never meant to have? Would you like to be black? Okay, now, you go right ahead. Let me read over the terms and conditions with you. I need to help you process this transition. If you shoot up a place in which children go to get their education, you will not get bought a cheeseburger and be told it’s okay you just had a bad little episode. become your new home. When you go to your place of worship, you may get shot and killed, maybe even bombed, but don’t worry, there’ll be a good explanation for the lack If you’re applying to be black––you know, because you love our culture––make sure to sign up your brothers and your mother. Our mothers teach us survival skills: we don’t say “goodbye.” We say “be safe” because your brother could be walking down the sidewalk and then suddenly be killed for looking suspicious. I know compliance isn’t something you’re really

used to because you have white privilege. We have black privilege, too. people I’ve never met. There’s Trayvon, Sandra, Tamir, and Korryn. There’s an ongoing list, so just wait for the next hashtag. I mean, yeah, there’s your black privilege right there–– When you take off your skin that lacks melanin and you stop getting those tans because you have a permanent one, just know that on your back, there’s a target that never goes away. If you’re lucky, it’ll never get used. If you wanna be like me, I need you to understand that we can’t just go back to Africa. I’m sorry, that’s not a privilege we have over here. I don’t know where I come from. Home isn’t even my home because when I go home, I am a guest, but here I am unwanted. Home for you is going to lie between the cornrows your links will get braided into. You’ll taste it when you lift your fork to eat some of your grandmother’s food. And home is the music you listen to when you hear your brother and sister telling the world your people’s story. I need you to be ready, Ready to work a little extra harder. You want to be me, right? In this skin, you aren’t supposed win. So you still wanna be black? 99

Tom Brady THe cHosen ones, 2019 Listen to an original song by Jeremiah bit.ly/2r2XFtO

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CROw digital image :: zOÃ&#x2039; HAUSMANN, 2017

Chapter 1 horatio s brother, 2017 WINNER OF THE COLLEGE ESSAY CONTEST

Stories, no matter how fictional, always have truth––and, equally important, they always have a shred of humanity. The fact that humans have been telling stories for centuries by word of mouth, paper, images, songs, colors, and movement suggests that we need stories to tell, and we need to tell our own. When I go to synagogue, I look around and wonder. In our congregation’s families, I see odysseys waiting to be written, but it also makes me think of my own story. Adopted from Romania by my gay, Jewish, single father and living in the South amidst a community of artists, thinkers, and builders, I know I am blessed. When I volunteer at a shelter, or work on somebody’s house, I see stories. Every laugh, cough, smile, and frown is a sentence from a them and, in the telling, often create more stories. My father taught me to love storytelling by sitting me in his lap and reading The Sabbath Lion and Winnie the Pooh. He also never shied away from our own story. He never hid my Roma roots, nor did he hide the fact that he himself came from a challenging and impoverished childhood. His parents were, at best, imperfect. They dealt with his mother’s gambling, obesity, and lack of formal education, along with his father’s bouts of unemployment, mental withdrawal, and nervous breakdowns. Yet he emerged from this an educated, well-traveled, honest human being. Although he was single and gay, he made a brave choice to adopt and raise a child––me. Not as a fad or a random decision, and not out of fear or desperation or even pity. He decided to adopt because he wanted to raise a child better than his parents had raised him. He wanted to be a father.

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Change Hope fager, 2019 caitlyn sosbe, 2017

But she used Change on car repairs. Change is a broken, bridging thing That forgets directions sometimes Change took me. And can be found in the oddest of places. Took me away to harder things called high Like that one time Change was in Walmart school, On the white metal shelves, bit.ly/2pPvsDG Where Change taught me just how indeciUnapologetically blocking the store-brand sive he could be. lemonade. Where he threw me under the bus, I was too busy staring at my dad across the aisle, Made people love me, His hands holding onto this woman, Cursed me, This woman who didn’t seem to care for the term Slammed doors of chance in my face. “homewrecker” I tried marking you out with Sharpie, When I used it in a sentence toward her, But got affronted when I screamed “bitch” at her in But you only angled the light so I could still see you, So I could never get away. front of the cash registers. Change was holding my mom’s Sunkist, dripping condensation, Change knows of long nights. My dad’s work boots are by the back door. and Change didn’t know how to apologize when I told him, “I hate you.” on the couch, Both holding Wii remotes sideways as Mario’s voice I blame change for what he did to me. yells, Victory. For texting me and telling me I’m worth it Change just shakes his head; his glass bowl is getting until I found out you liked me empty. Because you wanted me. I wonder if Change has forgotten where he is Finding someone else, supposed to be You took them to the basement. Or is actually here on purpose. Hiding in corners, Change was so full of himself, Only telling me when I asked And topping it all off with a “Merry Christmas.” Are you going to love me or hurt me? Are you going to open your arms and invite me into your embrace, or Change remembers Sunday mornings, Are you going to tower over me and assault me with your proximity? Change sat there on the counter in a glass bowl While mom joked that he was my college fund, Not telling me is doing both.

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uNTITlEd 2 (jACK) digital photograph :: MURPHY CREDLE, 2017

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dREAMS pen and ink :: HOPE ROBERTS, 2018

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Bucket List kaTie Rains, 2018

In the future, I will never stop moving. I will feel the sting of every word and accent against my skin. I will leap from the back of a plane in another country, so far away you have to squint to see me. I will hang from the lip of a mountain that sings in whispers over crumbling rock, my hands scraping against loose dirt and roots. I will treasure the cuts, the metallic taste of them, the breeze. I will write diary entries underwater, inscribing my initials in the sand for the waves to wash away. I will coat my lungs in coal dust so that many years after my death they will pull a diamond from my chest and put it on display in a case crafted of church windows and sea glass. I will carve my name into a monument and leave this list attached diamond ring was carved from my heart so many years ago.

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Deadzone caiTlYn sosBe, 2017

The kitten nibbled could hardly feel it, but at least the cat wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mad at him or Liam. Liam had accidentally pushed the gray kitten with his foot, and the yowl it had given caused Liam to burst into tears, apologizing. Liam too scared the gray one hated him now to get close.

CAT charcoal :: KATELIN YEE, 2017

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and was quieter than the gray one. She had just curled up in Liam’s lap, and every once in a while she’d paw at his hand. “They’re like velcro. Aren’t they, Arthur?” Liam was trying to detach the kitten from his shirt, but its claws hooked on the fabric. “We should take them to a shelter.” Arthur ignored the wide-eyed look Liam gave. Liam should have known this was coming. Arthur was always one to face reality, and the reality was Liam and Arthur could not care for these kittens, but it wasn’t safe to just leave them here. Not in the alleyway, where some homeless people were desperate enough to eat anything. They were homeless, too, but Liam would never let them resort to such measures. Were there even any animal shelters anymore? The only one he knew of had been destroyed by the bombs before the deadzones started. Arthur shrugged. There had to be some place to bring them, but he couldn’t think of another. He remembered going over to check out the damage with Liam. They had gotten there at the same wall, a pile of rubble, smashed cages, and carcasses. Liam had begged Arthur to never take them back there again. The kitten crawled back up Liam’s shirt right after he set it down on the ground, and Liam looked at Arthur pleadingly. “It’s not like we’re close to a deadzone or anything, so we know they’re not sick! I’ll share my food with them!”

Liam wasn’t eating enough as it was. He was tall, but his stomach caved in, and shirts always hung baggy on him. Arthur had joked he looked like a tent. They used to have one, too. If there was anything left of it, it’d be in a deadzone now. Almost half the world was in a deadzone now. No one even knew who the enemy was––not the Americans, the British, the French. But everyone blamed someone. America blamed the Middle East and North Korea, Britain blamed Russia, and France blamed Germany––but France always blamed Germany. All they knew was that the bombs were new. They weren’t hydrogen bombs, but they were close. The bombs gave no radiation; instead, all they left was desolate, brown, dusty ground, the land stripped of everything and everyone. A deadzone. If you were caught during a bomb, chance of survival was next to none. Even if you survived the initial blast, this far into the war there were no hospitals to recuperfew hours, and a painful death at that. The pictures it didn’t truly mean anything until the bombs hit London, taking Liam’s brother and Arthur’s whole world with them. “Please, Arthur.” Arthur glanced down into the wide, blue eyes of soft, and her body was a small heater. “Alright, we’ll keep them.” A loud shudder came from the ground, and Liam the dead surrounding them.

EMulATION digital photograph :: ALAN-JOSHUA CARRASCO, 2017

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If Love Was Water lena, 2021 BEST OF MIDDLE SCHOOL CONTEST WINNER

I cupped love in my hands Seeped into the soil beneath me Trees found their way around my body The rain covered me in crystals and Love was made of water

She danced through the canopy She lifted the birds up on their wings I breathed in and Love was made of air I squished love between my toes She nurtured each creature But stood strong as a rock Bending only for the rivers Breaking quietly for every blade of grass so Love was made of earth

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I cried out for love to forgive me For I had not done enough The rivers were full of ash The birds could not glide on an empty breeze The grass crumpled under cement feet She sank down inside me The earth The mother Her pain spilled into snowstorms and hurricanes And spun tornadoes I pleaded with her To tell me what I had to do But she told me, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Oh my daughter, I love you so muchâ&#x20AC;? Love held me in her arms And I cried so hard my nose bled

REflECTION 4 digital photograph :: SAM FINLAY, 2017

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Hours

al n i F e h h in t se p r e m v u i i n Tr U RneR,

leo ke

buGS marker and pen :: AVA LOzUKE, 2018

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2017

E OF TH

I was a child sitting bow-legged beneath an olive tree–– Her legs, curled and intertwining with mine, wrapped the soil into precious jewels and cut the very green into grassroot brown . . . A grasshopper, pristine and glowing in midday jubilance, hair chartreuse and shelly to its delight and to its ultimate torture, Stuttered upon my knee. I kissed him, quivering wavelengths through my cells to the true pneuma of his. And the world erupted from his aquarium soul: his segments spread before me and I arranged them as a spirit does With beryl knowledge of the universe within every hallowed rock and man, every throat carved away into a treacherous void, black ocean swells and recedes like this knowledge in the soul . . . I separate his hands with my steely chalybeous tongue and wish to lick him as this sullen sea touches ink stain’d granite. He sinks and collapses again So I kiss him and guzzle a remaining portion I molded his red eye to the sun–– now she is known and she engulfs the breathing dirt with Spitting arousal. I painted one white hot to circle the Earth which I whittled out from his blushing carapace, He bleeds so much and I made the blooming ocean, my cruelty is ended with the fraying of his transient wings Which I toss into the somber nihility to exist as stars I will kiss him again, one day as the Earth and her sons stumble Through the tiny hole that I poked with a heartless quill in his brain

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Staff LEADERSHIP

Rumaisha Tasnim (2017) ’s favorite class is AP

isabella dorfman (Coeditor + Social Media +

Psychology. She is also on the Nasher Art Museum Teen Council.

Design, 2018) is a theater student. She loves imagist poetry and snow days. This is her second year with Portraits in Ink. lauran Jones (Coeditor + Sales + Design, 2018) is in her third year with Portraits in Ink. When she isn’t being a mermaid, she is reading or writing. She hopes to invent waterproof books one day, or at least waterproof paper, so she can combine the best of both worlds™. nathan creadick (Poetry Editor, 2017) has pub-

lished a number of his books while in the creative writing pathway.

tal. She has been a Tar Heel ever since. She draws, writes, and reads most of the time. When not plotting evil, she can be found with her friends or family or alone.

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS alberto Bufalino (2018) is a junior who has

been part of DSA’s literary magazine for three years. He is very enigmatic and at least a little crazy, but that’s what people like about him. Yessika carapia (2019) enjoys reading and her

EDITORIAL + DESIGN STAFF kelly copolo (2018) is in the creative writing pathway. She loves to read and write. She lives on a horse farm and is totally obsessed with sweaters and anything with caffeine. Her book The Last Hope is available on Amazon. Hadas Hacohen

sara Thompson (2020) was born in UNC hospi-

traits in Ink. His favorite book is Stuff by Jeremy Strong.

micheal Johnson

Walker Garrett (2019) is in the creative writ-

Portraits In Ink. Tyler parrish (2019) is in the game design mikayla Wells (2017) will be graduating this year,

FACULTY

ava lozuke (2018, Cover + Bug Artist) ’s pathways are creative writing and 2D media. She likes to make

alexa Garvoille teaches Creative Writing and English I. This is her third year producing the lit mag. She spends what little free time she has walking her sausage-like dog, Byron Lord Beagle.

lucas mock (2018) has been on the staff for two years.

amber nile teaches English IV and AP Lit. She

third year assisting with the magazine.

acknowledgments Thank you to our principal David Hawks for his support for the arts students alike. Allen Cross was a dedicated and professional resource in recording our spoken word poets. “Change” was written thanks to Mariah, Destiny, Josh, and Yoni of Blackspace and their Wokeshops at DSA. Special thanks to our book keeper Trisha Tant for her long hours and good sense of humor. Thank you to our incredible Visual Arts Department for guiding their talented students and facilitating their participation in this magazine. Special thanks to Darrell Thompson, Jack Watson, Val Martinez, Amber Santibañez, and the 2D AP Portfolio class. Thank you to the families of the editorial staff for providing transportation and love to these young people on a mission to make great art. Finally, thank you to the DSA student body for speaking out for what you believe: your words and images are our arsenal against the reality of this world.

colophon The editorial staff and advisers at Durham School of the Arts, 400 N. Duke St., Durham, NC, 27701, created this 13th volume of Portraits in Ink. CreateSpace printed 300 copies in May 2017, which were sold to the student body, faculty, and families for $10, with a discount for writers, artists, and editors. Lemon/Milk and Codiac were used for titles and folio, Helvetica for the table of contents and artist credits, Baskerville for copy, and The Beetles for glyphs. We used Adobe InDesign and Photoshop CS6 to produce this issue on the 2012 (and older) hand-me-down Mac desktops in the Yearbook room.