Parallax - First Person by Ramaz School

parallax

First Person

No. 18

2015

Ramaz Upper School

Parallax

First Person

The Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein Upper School of Ramaz Parallax Literary & Ar t Magazine 2015 | Vol. 18 6 0 E a s t 7 8 t h S t r e e t | N e w Yo r k N Y 1 0 0 7 5

First person narrative is but one narrative point of view, personified by the honest and intimate I. We commonly forget that, as Thoreau pointed out, it is always the I that is speaking, seeping through the quiet observations of an unnamed narrator and ringing in the familiar cadence of a stanza.

Sometimes the first person is TRANQUIL, content to appear through serene musings and sleepy recollections.

Other times the I is PLAYFUL, darting out coquettishly with the introduction of a you, mine, or ours, animated by the satisfaction of a late-night epiphany.

First Person

But the first person is not always so bold. Occasionally, the I prefers to recede; the I is somber and DARK, silenced by inner turmoil and regret.

Ultimately, the journey of the first person through our writing is an exploration into identity itself. The I, we come to realize, is unencumbered by narrative or developed characters; it transcends to achieve something DREAMY, drifting through realities and manifesting itself in the abstract.

editors literary editors hannah BenHamo erica Newman-CorrĂŠ adina Weinberger

art & design editors hannah BenHamo abbey Lepor kitty Modell-Rosen erica Newman-CorrĂŠ adina Weinberger

faculty advisors literary: dr. edith Lazaros Honig design: ms. barbara Abramson photography: ms. rachel Rabhan

c o n t e n t s Tranquil. 12 Photograph rebecca Silverman 14 Beach tess Solomon Photograph rebecca Silverman 16 Listen Up moselle Kleiner Photogram Hannah Blas 18 Blue Hooch hannah BenHamo Photograph tamar Sidi 20 Discontent tess Solomon Painting sara Weintrob 21 micro/macro sara Weintrob Painting sara Weintrob 22 Epiphany adina Weinberger 23 Sketchbook kitty Modell-Rosen

Dark. 24 Painting olivia Hershkowitz 26 Acetaminophen kitty Modell-Rosen Drawing jill Adler 28 Naked daphna Ash Sketchbook elaine Adjmi 29 Nothingness elisabeth Buchwald 30 Peep Show hannah BenHamo 31 Photograph oren Oppenheim 32 Drawing sara Weintrob 34 The Ministerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s BlackVeil: Redux aliza Hornblass 36 Photogram hannah Blas Painting josh Kleinberg 37 To Burn erica Newman-CorrĂŠ 38 Clean kitty Modell-Rosen 39 Drawing jill Adler 40 Baby Steps tamar Sidi Photograph jessica Saad

Parallax is the writing club of Ramaz Upper School, as well as the name of our art & literary magazine. The club meets every Thursday after school. Parallax is a juried publication that comes out in June in time for distribution at our annual Celebration of the Arts. Parallax 2015 was printed by Evergreen Printing on 80 lb. bond. Copy and layout were prepared by students on an Apple iMac in InDesign CS6.Titles are Bodoni 72 Oldstyle, and body text is Perpetua. 450 copies were printed. All rights belong to Ramaz Upper School, 60 E. 78th Street, New York NY 10075.

Playful. 42

Photograph*

michael Low

courtesy of RISE magazine

44 First Person hannah BenHamo Drawing jill Adler 46 Writer’s Block rebecca Araten Photogram flora Lipsky 48 Flame adina Weinberger Painting dj Presser 50 Aquaphobia gabriel Klapholz Sketchbook elizabeth Ritz 52 Drawing jill Adler 53 Late Night Studying Epiphanies julia Levi 54 Pixie adina Weinberger Photograph* michael Low

{

courtesy of RISE magazine

Other Art. Cover eliana Present Inside Cover oren Oppenheim Title Page josh Kleinberg Introduction rebecca Silverman jill Adler Editors’ Page talia Davidovsky hannah Blas Contents michael Low

Dreamy. 56 Light Drawing A Whole New Light Class 58 The Consequence of Dream adina Weinberger Sketchbook kitty Modell-Rosen 60 Man-Made Things tess Solomon Photogram jill Adler 61 Silence rebecca Silverman Photogram jill Adler 62 This Is a Delicious Evening mollie Adolf Photograph oren Oppenheim 64 Dreams tess Solomon Painting dynnor Shebshaievitz 65 Photograph aliza Oppenheim 66 “But Abbey,When Am I Going to Be Beautiful?” Abbey Lepor Collage tamar Sidi 68 The Faerie Dance erica Newman-Corré

Tranquil.

admiring buckled like

the

lovesick

way the neighboring air knees in the force of the flame

Beach 14

tess Solomon

We were lying on the beach, stirring sand with our fingers, trying to find a position where our drying hair wouldn’t get sandy, but where we could also tan our pasty stomachs. The view was crowded with girls, t-shirts nearby to don in a few minutes. Lips cracked from sunburn, noses and shoulders peeled like tree bark in little, snowy flakes. The smell of artificial coconut from tanning oil covered the smell of the ocean. I wished I could be background noise. I wished I could be one of the girls a lonely protagonist walks by on the beach when he thinks, “The girls stared out into the ocean with broken hearts” and never thinks of again, as natural to the scene as stepping over seaweed or picking up a broken shell.

rebecca Silverman

Listen Up Have you ever thought about the sound of your voice? I know I have. I’ve thought about it. I’ve tried it. Listened, I mean. And from trying it I’ve concluded I must have terrible hearing because I can hear my voice, in all its murmurs and quivering, sounds of exuberance juxtaposed with sounds of slippery sadness. My voice in all its glory and in all its weakness bellows in my ear, thunders with might. I think twice about the connection between my cochlea, my cerebrum, and the tip of my tongue, And I ask myself Where down the road did I go wrong? I can hear myself well. My voice in all its melodies and tones pierces my ear just right, but everyone else tells me my voice is a soft whisper, my words are small wisps among a field of tall grass. So it must be me then. It seems people think I almost choose to tread lightly with the sounds of my mouth. As if my intent is to wreak havoc on their auditory perception by making them work to hear my thoughts. I should probably tell you

moselle Kleiner

(before you go ahead and judge me, as it is human nature to do)

that this is not the case. In truth, I simply speak as loud as I can, which brings me this time, to ask of you, is it my voice that’s the problem? Am I simply of a shriveled violet voice timid and diffident, pale and cowardly, which is what a soft voice seems to imply… I would not really like to think of myself as this figure with a hushed, muffled tone, so what I think I try, subconsciously of course, to do is conjure up these thick, wordy, contemplative thoughts for a sort of shock effect since you wouldn’t expect it of me because of the delicacy of my voice. Not that I speak harshly or imprecisely, but that I prove your first impression of shy, quiet me, (which is one facet of myself, but not the only one) to be lacking. Now is when I ask you– did I do a good job?

Hannah Blas

Blue

Hooch

tamar Sidi

hannah BenHamo

My grandmother was a pretty girl—an occupation that doesn’t do much for you in the Appalachian, where even the women have hands deep and callused like used schoolhouse erasers by twenty-five. She was pleasant—a real nice girl, my Great-Uncle Jerrod will tell you with a gummy grey leer. She wasn’t much for conversation. She had never cut her hair. She wore it in braids when she remembered, but otherwise it hung down her spine like a wet sheet of water, fusing from the scalp down from flaxen to a murky sort of creek-water color and then, by nineteen they say, to a gentle, resigned dove gray. She couldn’t cook—women who cook, despite what husbands are led to believe, are pushy, always reappearing with another plate, always seeking praise for the same damn hash browns they’ve been serving since their mothers taught ’em how. She couldn’t clean either—the whole household knew that. When given a broom and a dishrag, she’d take them both in one hand and then grab a wastebasket with the other, and walk through the house tossing things into the basket, murmuring farewells to little trinkets—shot glasses from the Great Lakes, a pretty rock found at the Quarry, anything. But she was a real pretty girl. It was my grandfather who decided she may as well be the tester. It was an unconventional choice, one usually left to the wise, to the oracles of the Appalachians, but my grandfather was insistent. My grandmother would be the tester. And so she was. Through all of her pregnancies, through the entirety of her forty-year marriage, while letting the kids roam around toting sippy-cups of cola in their underwear, my grandmother tested. And I, though she shook her head vehemently and whispered that I shouldn’t, that this job was not one she’d be giving to me anytime soon, watched. I watched her take her long, witchlike fingers and grab a sterling spoon—one of Paul Revere’s, she used to tell me with a tinny little laugh. She’d dip the spoon into the mason jar, tap it against the glass twice, if only to hear the chime, and then lift the spoon back out, this time bathed in a thin layer of clear liquid, clear liquid so still that nothing—not my grandfather’s loud cowboy boot footsteps stomping across the living room, not the winds of the storms we sometimes got—could even bring it to a tremble. And then she, shakily, smiling her thin-lipped watery smile, would set a match to it. The flame lifted off the spoon like an aura, levitating above us all. Cobalt, electric—not a blue I ever saw much around here. The blue guaranteed we were in the clear, the hooch was safe for consumption and off to be sold—but my grandmother was never in much of a hurry. She’d wave her long liquid hands in the air surrounding it, admiring the way the neighboring air buckled like lovesick knees in the force of the flame. A smile would play on her face and she’d tilt her head around this way and that, as if hearing invisible music, and then she’d take her pinky and swipe it through the fire real quick and laugh like she was surprised. She did it all day, bottle after bottle. Sometimes, the flame was red and all us grandchildren would stop and, like the big grandfather clock when it hit noon, recite, “Lead burns red and makes you dead.” The red flame was supposed to be the appeal, the power of igniting that drop of poison on that delicate silver little spoon, but my grandmother was a blue flame girl. “Nothing like it,” she’d say, looking at me. “You’ll never see anything like it around here.”

Discontent The surface of the lake is frozen except for the very edges. On the sloped bank, I break off pieces and throw them down hard onto the surface. They shatter like glass, and the pieces shoot out from the point of contact radially, like billiard balls. I continue until all the ice I can reach from the bank is somewhere out there, and then it is dark and my mother shouts for me from the house. I will go back to the island later with my family, bundled in a wooly scarf and earmuffs if I can find them, carrying a tray of graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallow fluff in squares of tin foil, and extra long matches, and catalogs of plastic toys, hoping to find some dry wood in the stack behind the stone oven. I will sit and wait for another year to come sputtering to a stop, a commuter train arriving back just where it started.

tess Solomon

micro/macro You pick flowers for your mommy because mommy is the most important thing in the whole world, but the earth does not flinch when you pull a hair off its scalp. It is preoccupied with other things, things more important than mommy. Worldly things. When you zoom out of the tulip hair follicles, you get the molten lava eyelids and the constellation freckles and the solar system breasts.You are surrounded by greatness. A vast eternity of movement.Your butterfly wings can make mommy smile, but the wind you create will not cause enough momentum to shake the sun. So be inconvenient. Do not be a bug in earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s garden. Do not let yourself fade.

sara Weintrob

Epiphany It came to me last night with head underwater, Pink translucent bubbles attached to my lips There is an aesthetic to discreet, and light, and clear Sea foam and sea shells I miss fine lines and regimens Counted calories and multicolored pens...

Now she is gone and I am alive More alive than she ever was The chemicals in my system fool around And every now and again I am happy The memory of the epiphany hurts between my eyes Still, I cannot forget it…

There are insects that reside in my eyelashes I guess I don’t really mind I can allocate some space for you, I suppose In the folds of my brain And the cracks between my toes...

Forgive this transgression For I had nothing from which to digress, I take a deep breath And my lungs fill with m&m’s and acetone It all means everything to me and nothing to you But I cannot stop…

If I stay here forever, this way Allowing my thoughts to wander Would I age? Or could my skin forget to sag? But my fingers prune without consent So why would they ask permission Before they grabbed my throat… And squeezed…

Did she think of me when she penned the note? Leave it alone, leave it alone That scab took years to form Don’t pick at it now I wash my hair, wipe the bubbles from my skin…

It all goes back to that papier-mache Unfinished in a second grade classroom Rotting beside the participation award I never brought home But there is no time machine And I’ve lost her again There is no time machine...

I’ll wake up clean tomorrow It is a luxury to wake up okay I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry And I pull the covers up high and fall asleep. It comes to me again tonight And I push it from my head There is no room for worry or anticipation Just numb and pastel and sweet.

adina Weinberger kitty Modell-Rosen

Dark.

Will

then

achieve

nothingness?

A c e t a m i n o p h e n I feel dizzyâ&#x20AC;Śthe familiar panic and discomfort begins to settle, once again, deep within my skull, above my ears. And those ears, those ears. They dare to capture every unnecessary sound, every decibel, every one; everyone around me isâ&#x20AC;Śeverywhere and nowhere all at once.

I struggle to comprehend my surroundings as they consume me.

Noise pains but whispers kill, so silence is the long distance friendâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;always there, but never when you need it most.

I cry and I shake and I wonder if I will make it home.

I enter the train and when it departs it jerks my body, and my brain swims and melts and burns through my temples.

jill Adler

The heat of the pain and the anger that comes with it seep through my pores, only to be obstructed by my winter coat. So the heat from my skin lingers and turns to lava and I wait, impatiently, for it to burn its way back through my skin and take me down with it.

Just let the pain eat me. Let the pain feast on me. Let it enjoy my suffering. Let it lick its lips when itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s finished with me.

Then maybe, just maybe, once more, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll feel fine.

kitty Modell-Rosen 27

Naked Naked filthy and terrified she wondered if dreams will lead you

daphna Ash

elaine Adjmi

Nothingness Mom tells me to clean my room, To fix the mess I keep recycling. I throw out more and more And smile as I show off my clean room. But little does she know that cleaning my room means stuffing my mess into a different spot, invisible to her eyes and mine. It is too hard for me to live a life of nothingness. Like a child grasping onto her mother’s arm, I hold on to my clutter. Who is my mother to demand that I achieve the impossible? I’ve never felt emptiness. Mom tells me to clean my room. I throw out more and more, But deep inside, it’s all just one big mess I’ve forced myself to collect. Until the day I move out, I will never see the floors of my room Or the insides of my cabinets. Will I then achieve nothingness? Mom tells me to clean my room. I throw my body to the floor; My head falls so hard my eyes can’t recover. I see blank screens of white. I see nothingness.

elisabeth Buchwald

Peep Show hannah BenHamo

The old man once had a wife, but now he lives alone with his wife’s dog, a scruffy dog with, impossibly, burrs stuck in its fur even though the couple had only ever lived in Manhattan. The dog’s bladder went just about when the old man’s did, and so the pair frequently go for walks (for the dog), but keep them brief (for the man). The dog prefers to relieve itself in the same place during these walks, a crevice next to a former dry cleaning store. It is there that the old man first noticed a couple, a boy of sixteen and a girl of roughly the same age, arguing about a new movie the man had yet to see. The old man found them striking. The boy was lanky, with a long neck that seemed almost aggressive, and cropped hair. The old man did not understand his appeal. The girl had a relatively pretty face—small, green eyes and doughy cheeks that made her look simultaneously irritated and amused—and a body that looked just the tiniest bit swollen in her tight jeans, which made the skinny fellow appear all the more odd and giraffe-like in contrast. The dog took his time relieving himself and the man felt it was not impolite to observe this strange couple. The next day the old man let the dog lead him to this same spot. The dog lifted its leg, scratching at a burr as it did so. The old man peered into the deserted storefront. This time, he spotted the couple again, but they were kissing, tentatively and then not tentatively, coming apart to laugh, to let the girl gesture to the boy’s watch and then let the boy cajole her into staying a little longer. The old man left immediately. He’d intruded, after all, or maybe he hadn’t because there was nothing particularly private about a storefront, even an empty one, in the bustling morning, of all times. But the dog still had its preferred spot, and the couple was always there, and the old man liked to say it was no one’s fault. He learned a lot about the couple. The boy had a penchant for feminine affectations that the girl did not—he enjoyed scarves looped twice or thrice around that long, regal neck of his and morning pleasantries, howare-you’s and you look beautiful or let’s go to the diner and get pancakes. His girlfriend preferred to grumble, to show up to their meeting place with her hair thrown into a haphazard top-knot and her eyebrows knit in irritation. If the couple knew of the old man’s presence, they said nothing and once, when the girl had departed early to get to school on time, she smiled kindly at the man and knelt down to pet his sorry-looking dog.

oren Oppenheim

The old man passed the couple, together and individually, in the neighborhood at various times of the day, and he began to feel a certain thrill that felt indecent to him. He knew that on Wednesdays, for example, the couple chose to forgo their morning meeting, and on Fridays the boy came with a bag of croissants for the girl and a carton of cigarettes for himself. The man began to wake the dog up, tugging it to its feet and into the leash in time for their morning walk. On their afternoon walks, the man wondered, endlessly, why the couple did not visit the dry-cleaning place in the leisurely after-school hours. It was an unseasonably warm morning, an Indian summer, the man’s wife had always called it, when the old man dragged his ancient dog down to the lobby to go for their morning walk. He decided it was the perfect day for a lover’s quarrel, for a quiet moment spent holding hands, or for some spurts of laughter that would waft over along with the scent of bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches. When he got to the dog’s place, he collided with the boy, who cussed under his breath and then continued on, lifting his hideous giraffe-like neck into the air. The man felt the need to lean against something; he grabbed onto his dog for protection. The girl was sobbing at the storefront, her knees drawn up to her chest. She looked up briefly, perhaps to see if her long-necked honey was still there, and her eyes met the old man. He averted his eyes. “You!” she called. She had an accent. It was slight and unexpected, or maybe it was just the tears. “You don’t get to watch this whole time and then look away when I cry!” She was laughing amid her tears. “You sit here and watch me!” The man bowed his head and nodded and the three of them stood there for the next few moments, the dog picking at his burrs, the girl sobbing, and the man watching— until it was time for the girl to gather her bags and head to class.

Oren Oppenheim

The Ministerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Black Veil: Redux aliza Hornblass

sara Weintrob

The villagers milled around, waiting for their new minister to appear and lead them into the

church to begin Sunday Mass. As is common in such a small town, the matrons seized on any new topic to gossip about, even one as holy as the new minister. “I hear he comes very well-recommended, but near straight out of Oxford,” one old lady whispered conspiratorially to anyone who would listen. “Mr. Hooper, before he died, selected Mr. Calvert himself,” a younger passerby reminded her, defensively. “I respect his judgment, even in death.” “I would give the boy a chance, Minerva,” the white-haired sexton added. Fortunately, the old woman was saved an argument by the appearance of the new parson, Mr. Calvert himself. His walk was elegant, his figure long and lithe for a man’s, his priests’ garb impeccably washed, his collar well-starched. But the most astonishing part of the parson’s appearance was the black crape veil that hung over his face, obscuring all but his chin and his youthful, lively mouth, set in a solemn line for the occasion. “Why is the parson wearing such a thing?” the sexton asked, bewildered. “It is so…womanly,” Minerva frowned. “I do not like it,” a young man declared to his fiancé. “It makes me uneasy.” “I, too, feel a dark presence emanating from the veil,” she replied. He gave her an odd look. “No, that’s not what I meant,” he protested. “I only…what is he hiding?” But there was no more time for idle gossip and speculation: Parson Calvert had entered the church, and the service would soon begin. _____________________________________________ The congregation was so aflame with a burning desire to know the truth about Mr. Calvert that it could barely preserve a polite façade of attentiveness during his (quite skillful) handling of the service and sermon. This was quite a shame, for those who did pay attention reported afterwards that Mr. Calvert was a fascinating speaker, able to relate the terrifying, chaotic Puritan prophecies to the average congregant’s life in a hopeful way. Equal parts demagogue and arbitrator between his parishioners and their God, he inspired those who listened—and were not affected by the strangeness of Mr. Calvert’s veil—to do good deeds and, in doing so, to live happy lives. After services, Squire Hooper, one of those fortunate few, invited Mr. Calvert to take a midday meal with him and his many guests. The matrons of the town were scandalized: how could the squire invite him into his home in the face of Mr. Calvert’s strange veil? How could he stand it, they whispered amongst themselves. Hooper only smiled at the wizened old woman who was so audacious as to ask the question to his face. “If you had not allowed the veil to distract you, dear lady,” he murmured, “you would have found a very special young man, indeed.” With that, Squire Hooper strode off to collect the parson. And according to all accounts of the meal (for in close quarters one learns to look past oddities), it was just as Squire Hooper had said: Mr. Calvert proved to be lively and personable in company, a bright, intelligent man, well-spoken and well-read, his knowledge unconfined to Church doctrine. He led the table in discussion of the pertinent events of the day and even gave the squire quite sound advice for the laying aside of money for his endowment ere he died. When the table, which included in its ranks a lawyer, reacted with shock to his wisdom in money matters, Mr. Calvert merely smiled and said: “I chose to enter the priesthood quite late in my time at Oxford. In my deliberations, I studied many subjects, and I am not wont to forget such matters.” 34

His learnedness salvaged his reputation amongst many of the townspeople, perhaps because Mr. Calvert’s interactions in a social setting showed a little bit of the man behind the veil he wore. Mothers began to consider bringing him into their families as the husband of their daughters. One Sunday, some of the young ladies approached him, upon the directive of their mothers, but he did not seem interested. One of them, a much more forward girl by the name of Molly, asked Mr. Calvert outright: “Do you mean to take a wife here, Parson?” He seemed shocked for a moment, though his face was unreadable behind the veil. “I…no, I did not think to ever marry.” “But, why not, sir?” Molly pressed on. “I cannot find anything in your person nor situation which would not recommend you to a lady.” “Some others of my flock would seem to say otherwise,” Mr. Calvert protested. “They find my decision to wear a veil…nigh satanic.” Molly only smiled. “Well, then, surely your taking a wife who would love you despite anything you are hiding behind that veil would prove them wrong.” “I hide my face for sorrow, for secret sins; the veil will not be removed in this mortal life,” Mr. Calvert replied stonily. In that instant the church bell rang, the signal for everyone to begin moving into the sanctuary. The parson seemed relieved to lead his parishioners into the church for the service. And after that, no one asked him about the veil. _____________________________________________ Mr. Calvert shut and bolted the door of the parsonage securely behind him. His first activity upon returning was to make up a fire in the kitchen and put the kettle on for tea. The kitchen was neat and well-organized, the bower window looking out upon a quaint vegetable garden. His house had a well-kept, almost womanly air about it, but there was neither a housekeeper nor a wife to give it that air. The parson closed the shutters against the setting sun before going upstairs, shutting all the blinds on his way. Upon reaching his bedroom, a humble, though comfortable burrow, Mr. Calvert shut those blinds, too, and stirred up the fire from a few burning embers to a pleasantly roaring blaze in minutes. He sighed wearily, pulling out his white clerical collar as he collapsed into a wooden armchair before the fireplace. After a moment to take off his boots and a glance to the covered windows, Mr. Calvert stood again and walked over to the full-length mirror to his right, unbuttoning his jacket. This he laid on the bed; then his shirt, then his infamous black veil. From his trunk’s hidden compartment he retrieved a long white nightgown. Returning to the mirror, Mr. Calvert unlaced his (…her!?) chest binder and pulled the nightgown on over her head. Now in the mirror was reflected a tall, well-formed, elegant young lady of no more then eightand-twenty years. Her hair was cut short, in the manner of a man, and the veil hid nothing but overtly feminine and quite handsome features. ‘Here I am,’ the imposter smiled at her reflection, in gratification and relief at her role as a man. Then the kettle in the kitchen below began to whine, and she put on her slippers to go downstairs and make her tea. Chamomile, she decided, to help her sleep in preparation for the wedding he would preside over the next morning. 35

hannah Blas

josh Kleinberg

To Burn

erica Newman-Corré Why do flames always lick? What about that flickering, upward motion inspires writers to think of tongues? The verb is not romantic or warm, not in the way fire is. But maybe they don’t see the beauty in fire the way I do. Maybe they don’t follow the tendrils skyward with their eyes, tracing their glow against the midnight backdrop. If they did, they would not compare fire to tongues. Flames are birds, and I simply set them free. I can’t recall anymore my first fire. It should be cemented in my memory, framed on my wall like a millionaire’s first dollar, but I was too young to realize the importance, too young to really know what it meant, the path it would set me on. I didn’t know that I would soon be a student of the art of burning, nor that I would grow to be its greatest master. It is harder to burn cities than it used to be, fire codes and skyscrapers preventing the proper inferno. I have spent years, expending all my time and effort on new techniques, better ways to burn. And now I have done it, and all of you will see my glorious creatures, my phoenixes in the night, my last symphony, my final bow. Bradbury had it right: “It was a pleasure to burn.”

Clean “What have I done?” he asked himself, with a trembling voice and shaking fingers. He stared at the mess he’d made of what had once been a living, breathing, human being with a bad sense of style and even worse taste in eyewear. Those round, mean, librarian-type glasses that used to rest on his victim’s excessively elevated nose bridge now lay with a crack in the lens, disturbing the surface tension of a growing pool of blood. After some time filled with hyperventilation, re-evaluation of the value of one life in the scheme of things, true acceptance of his actions and the punishment that would follow, and the realization that he would probably be murdered within his first week in prison, Roger came to the conclusion that he had to act fast. He’d killed Waldo, and calling the police would mean admitting to the crime, but calling Vinny for help with a body dump would mean being in debt to the Italian mob, which was just as bad as being murdered in prison. Roger was a school janitor, so after calming down and gaining control of his rampant emotions, he decided he’d do what he did best—clean up another kid’s mess. Eventually, the other kids would wonder where Waldo was, and the police would get involved, and the parents would cry and plead for their son’s safe return on a local news station, and that news station would re-run the footage every hour for about a month, seasoning it weekly with additional new footage of tears and enduring hope.Yet, despite all of this, the kids would never suspect Roger, for the only evidence he left, night after night, was the new plastic bags in the trash bins by the door of every classroom that waited, patiently, to be filled with kids’ messes.

kitty Modell-Rosen

oren Oppenheim

Jill Adler

Baby Steps tamar Sidi

ive years ago, I saw her sitting alone on the bus, listening to music and biting on her nails, chipping off the fresh coat of polish. She would glance over at us occasionally, before sinking back down into her coat and staring at the window. We were all joking around together; she was the newbie. I turned around to start a conversation; she seemed capable of being good company. I asked her a question and she stuttered a bit, a shy smile and a nervous laugh, but she answered well. Something about her intrigued me. That night she took my pack of Oreos, stripped them of the cream and filled them with toothpaste. I ran away with her phone then, making her chase me through the halls, even though it was lights out.

oon, we began to hang out at this coffee shop near my house; it was our place for the next year. We tried meet40

ing once a week to catch up on everything in our lives. She used to get me to talk, really talk, and it was weird how I gave in. She liked chocolate; the coffee shop used to give one piece out with each drink. One time I asked for eleven. She used to make me laugh so hard that she laughed at my laughter, a couple of kid hyenas. We liked grocery shopping for my mother. Every once in a while we biked to the farmerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s market like the sophisticated children we were. One time we made sushi. Another time I cooked her dinner.

hree hundred and sixty- five days later, the coffee shop had molded into the walls of a little Indie Cinema. We used to go watch these insane filmsâ&#x20AC;Śnothing ever shorter than three hours. We took them seriously, debating them afterwards.

ifty-two weeks later, we made the streets of the East Village our home. One time it rained so hard that I carried her on my back so we could fit under the tiny umbrella. Another time, we were sitting on these swing sets in the middle of December and it hit me how close we were, how you could feel the trust between us— no judgment, no mockery…just facts and silence. Refreshing, really. I used to ditch parties just to sit with her.

welve months later, neither of us was doing so well; teenage life was starting to get to us. She used to come over just to sleep while I rolled blunts. Work was being piled upon our not-fully-formed backs, and while she became immersed in it, I strayed from it. We tried to forget about the passing time by filling it with childish games. We played hide and seek and mailed letters to strangers who lived in random countries. We ordered Italian pizza to donut shops. We hid little things in old trees and wrote surprise notes to our future selves. We ran around with flags in the summertime, painted each other in bright colors just for the heck of it and ordered larges of almost everything. I drank regularly, got high when I wanted. But never her.

ne year later and it’s a weird age now: we are torn between the extremes of childhood and adulthood. 1992, Avenue C and 5th, 2am.

ou know that voice in your head? The one you think sounds like the way you speak…how it’s like you’re trying to tell yourself something, but so is your mother? Such a distinct part of a person, so intimate—more personal than a conscience, more connected. And it’s always there, a part of you…a lining in your mind. My voice, at least, it’s always buzzing away. I wonder if I actually sound like this. I hope I do…I sound so smart talking to myself. “Jenn, stop; my head is hurting, I have a headache plus I’m laughing too hard.” I saw her fighting against the others as they rolled on top of her. Good for her getting out for a night. “Here, have an Advil.” I mean, sometimes I know when I sound smart… but then other times I get really weird looks from others and get mad at myself for speaking too much. Alex opened up his backpack, tossed something to Jenn and gave me one of his looks…challenging me? Before I could register what was going on, Jenn slipped a pill into her lips and handed her a beer to get it down. “What is that?” “Chill, man, we wanted to try it out.” “Try what out? Jenn, what did you give her?” I kept yelling and shouting, but they became nothing but two unresponsive stoners, protecting whatever little secret they shared. _________________________________________ They said it was an overdose. She has tubes in her. I go up to the roof of the hospital, lean on the bars. I’m tall enough to get over them. I hear her tell me she is coming out, that she was failing her test anyways. A nervous laugh and a shy smile.

jessica Saad

“Pass me another.” “Get it yourself.” I throw her a cigarette and she returns a bottle. I guess she finally cracked, asking to join my bunch tonight. In the past all she did was roll her eyes at the mention of the desolate alleyway. She looked happy going out like this with school tomorrow. I was a bit nervous about taking her along but it seems to have helped. Jenn and Alexander entertained themselves by fiddling around with her blonde locks, causing her to tumble down on the sidewalk and get tangled in her headphones. We were sitting in one great fog of smoke, coughing in hysterics with teary eyes. Yes, it was one of those nights. “Dustin, I feel like I’m back in that field, the one caked with the purple wildflowers, as far your eyes could reach. Little purple petals on the outside and a great blob of yellow in the center.” She kept rolling.

“Remember how good that felt, how the flowers looked happy with all that sunshine, how you felt naked amongst them…as if it was something you shouldn’t be seeing.” She grinned, remembering, her eyes searching for that bliss.

Playful. Dance around the room until youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re dizzy

First

hannah BenHamo

jill Adler

Person

You were not the first person. The first person was your younger brother, who sat not across but next to me at dinner the first night, his denim thigh incidentally leaning against my bare one in a way that implied intimacy, yes, but, like I said, incidentally and so innocently.Your younger brother has lovable, canine-like features—floppy, golden hair and an easy smile and a need to proclaim Good Will Hunting the best film there is because he watched it with his girlfriend after they both (incidentally) got mono. Still, there were problems.Your brother drinks tequila which is (incidentally) the first alcoholic beverage that made me vomit, and thus the sole drink whose pungent odor, not too distinct from nail polish remover and lacking vodka’s refined clarity, I find unpleasant.Your brother offered me a drink of my own, but I demurred because, as a girl, I enjoy demurring and the word demur as well. All this your brother was supposed to just know, but he just shrugged his broad shoulders (a family trait, you have them too) and lifted his glass to his lips. A friend of mine, by the way, did not mind your brother’s tequila habit and his loud, boyish laughs and his tendency to talk of summer camp like it had just ended yesterday, and I, valuing friendship, gracefully withdrew. You were not the second person either. The second person was your older brother, who is, I am sure you realized in middle school maybe, the most objectively good-looking of you three. He, however, was taken, and I, for all my romantic tendencies, for every Gabriel Garcia Marquez book on my shelf, am relatively pragmatic when it comes to boys and moved on. All that leaves you, which, I know, makes attraction seem awfully levelheaded. Still, there was a surrealistic beauty to the way things shifted, to the way your nebulously handsome features, your blue eyes-dark hair-five o’clock shadow seemed to focus. I became acutely aware that you had sat not next to, but across from me at dinner, at a distance that allowed not for touch but for sight, for the vague sense of someone’s presence opposite. I watched you shift from something ordinary to something oddly compelling and then back again, like those optical illusion drawings where the squint of an eye transforms a duck to a hare. I watched you watch me and I glanced down every so often and feigned impatience when I could no longer see you as ordinary. So, tonight, when I don a dress and come down to the bar, I try not to mind when your eyes slide over me before asking some blonde if you can buy her a drink. I listen to the blonde answer, wordlessly it seems, with a shy giggle into the crook of her neck. I smile wistfully as you lift two fingers at the bartender and drum your fingers against the bar top (you’re so very male), and then I try not to smile too widely when the girl suddenly excuses herself and you watch her leave, dumbfounded (you’re so very boy). And when your eyes land on me again and you mouthe, because we’re familiar enough to mouthe, do I want a drink, I get to my feet with a good-natured roll of my eyes and glide on over.

I wasn’t the first person, but then neither were you.

Writer’s Block rebecca Araten

This is what I write When the letters float just out of my grip, Tantalizing me because of my helplessness and inability. Twenty-six letters in the alphabet A dictionary of over 100,000 words Yet I cannot formulate any into a coherent Thought, idea, theme, poem. All that I can write is nonsense A poem of absolute nothingness, as empty as your ice cream bowl when you’ve finished it. To conceal the utter lack of meaning, in this poem I shall utilize Fancy Poetic Devices. I’ll make it seem as though I am an expert at being artsy, articulate, and meaningful, although it is all just rhetoric. I’ll write a line and then add some Enjambment. Add rhyme to a few of these lines So the flow will sound divine. If the reader be benign, Of my incompetence he’ll find no sign. Only when he delves deep Down, will he realize no message can be found. But I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen Distract him with all these shenanigans.

I’ll employ iambic pentameter, Although it’s really out of character— A final touch of language befuddling in nature, An aberration from my usual blithe manner. I’ll continue sitting at this page all day and most of the night, torturing my pen into revealing its secrets. My greedy, glorious pen, Who lets his enigmas and ideas wither away, without sharing. I’m now all alone, lacking a pen, talent, and a poem worth sharing. This is what I write When there is nothing left to write, When I don’t know what to write, When all I can think about is my math test Or the mark on the table that is now fascinating beyond belief. The test score, celebrities, my commitments, pink elephants, my stress, my weariness and fatigue… I must admit: my efforts have turned this blank page into a poem, but the paper would be much better off if it were still

Flora Lipsky

Blank.

lame

dj Presser

He wears his shirts backwards and inside out, and sucks his thumb until it wrinkles like the pieces of homework littering the bottom of his backpack. His teacher calls on him when he falls asleep and tells him to “see me after class.” His mother is beautiful, a kind of objective beautiful that cannot be bothered with student teacher conferences or permission slips. She whispers that she loves him as she tip-toes into his room holding her high heels. He opens one eye and watches as her shadow pulls away. He is picked last for the softball team again, and he kicks the dirt until he gasps for air—the dust isn’t good for his lungs. He watches the boys run from base to base and wonders if he could ever erupt like that. His flame is too weak to sound the smoke alarm, so no one calls for help or asks if he is okay. But he figures that he’s fine, because he can sing the alphabet backwards, and a dog licked his hand the other day, and his favorite author announced that she would release a new book this week. So he kisses his booboos goodnight and reads his books under his desk, and picks flowers for himself because he deserves them.

adina Weinberger

Stop. Breathe. She comforts herself in vain. Don’t jump, there’s a life to live outside of what’s below. Think of all that will be missed – The fresh air, the feeling of the cool breeze on bare skin. Think of the warm summer grass tickling the recesses between the toes And the feeling of earthworms wriggling in the palm. Don’t jump, there’s still a life to live. How will the world seem when unable to breathe? No sight. No sound.

Only a cold sensation on every part of the body, One that transcends unconsciousness. A pause of uncertainty, Thrashing arms and kicking legs, And nothing to hold on to but the thought of oblivion in the never-ending abyss, Tensing muscles and a disobedient bladder, Yellow liquid and a grin. Stop. Breathe. She comforts herself in vain. And then she jumpsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Screaming as she descends into the cool summer water of her backyard pool. Aquaphobia.

gabriel Klapholz elizabeth Ritz

Late Night Studying

jill Adler

Epiphanies

Congratulations on your epiphany A dent in the Earth has been made the oceans have rippled and brilliant confetti surrounds you like thick fog on a moist May day It is late at night, and you throw your stale cup of coffee in the air Go ahead, and call your friends your family from their slumber, wake up the whole city! You deserve the universe you deserve a break you deserve more sleep than you’ve been getting Go, cut yourself a chunk of cake, the creamy and dense kind Go, look through some movies and watch your favorite one till you’re sick of it After all, this moment is better than your birthday Eat buttered popcorn Dance around the room until you’re dizzy pretending you are relaxed Check your Facebook feed, refreshed six times But it’s twelve thirty at night and you think anyone cares I am long prepared for the final exam asleep and dreaming in my freshly laundered pajamas And you, you have just started Good luck with your epiphanies.

julia Levi 53

Pixie

adina Weinberger

You don’t work for relationships You’re too proud to chase Kisses cascade to your lips And you accept them graciously As if they will never be granted again And maybe they won’t This blue eyed pixie With glitter in her hair Her blond strands streaked with green She is softer than you’re used to Her nails are glossy and short You don’t understand How she can only be yours for a month A solid deadline set in the distance When she’ll board a plane Back to Germany Marked as illegal contraband You kiss her in secret And everyone knows You’re not brave enough for long distance Nor strong enough for apathy You’re not trained in letting go You’re young and alive and a little less than in love You’re beautiful and thin and you easily bruise This blue eyed pixie Explains through the language barrier And only half the message translates

You kiss her Hard Where it used to be easy Now she is revoked And the time has come To return her to sender Someday youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll meet up In Paris or New Jersey But she wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be yours again Not like she was Because what a shame it would be To rewrite her memory Or to share her With a future self

michael Low

she

is another

story being told

Dreamy.

The

Consequence of Dream

kitty Modell-Rosen

adina Weinberger

You’re relevant and imminent, The cool and hip disease, you’re it An STD, or HIV, or anorexia Smoking kills, drinking’s fine But draw the line at homicide You need to pick the scab in time Or else it grows and spreads Your body whole is now a shell Of platelets, plasma, you’re in hell You wander blindly into walls But never ever fell You’re stronger and more present than You were before the accident The incident, a permanent Resident of earth You’re stronger than the dinosaurs Because you’re here and they’re a bore In history museums, or They’ve gone to unmarked graves So pray to the Neanderthals That they will leave you, make the call To live forever, you and all Those green and leafy things You and I, we’ll be all right, All we gotta do is fight Each other, everything in sight Is competition now So us, we’ll battle to the death Once I admit I’m glad we met We’ll battle for the resources And then we’ll go to bed.

I am from heaven, even though I don’t know if I believe that— like that my soul was recycled. But then again, it seems almost likely that I rise and fall through realities like a sinusoidal curve, that I wave and stretch in both directions and one million points of inflection later rise again, since if souls are what we wish they were, they are not a renewable resource. And if they’re what we hope they’re not, we rain down and puddle together, muddle through pipes and channels and man-made things like love and college because we think it’s chemistry to stick together, and we end up in sewers like the River Styx, always thinking that what we want is exactly what we deserve, and we’ll smirk or wallow for eternity in loneliness. Or we’re stupid angels and I think too hard; therefore, I am not. Because I see you or anyone, and all I’m seeing is that chance surge of energy that cooked up a little protein like a mini-cupcake, and, eons of natural selection later, you and I ended up here because we’re souls and God, or because we caught the universe before it started shrinking.

Man-Made Things tess Solomon

Silence The wind dies into the light Gone like a simple hush of thought Whispered carefully as if it might Fall Into the deepest darkest depths of night And interrupt snowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s soundless slumber Softly spoken on white hearts unseen Walking a walk that will echo a drummer Fading before it can dance between leaves Already a trail of the song that it bleeds Falling a long fall alongside loud streams Lost in the deafening dear quietâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s frost breeze That wafts in to disrupt my soundless night And muddle the mess of my dreams.

rebecca Silverman

jill Adler

This Is a Delicious Evening

mollie Adolf

“T

his is a delicious evening,” when a little girl holds her daddy’s hand and looks up at a colossal tree embellished in hundreds of mini lights, leaving her awestruck. A man proposes to a woman and the little girl laughs with her daddy at the “icky-ness” of the fiancés’ kiss. He warms her little hand in his as he leads her into a hotel lobby. They stand behind the pianist and sway together to the calming tune. She doesn’t understand why they’re exploring late on a weeknight, but she never asks out of fear that the answer might pollute the romance of it all. “This is a delicious evening,” when a girl sneaks out of her room at midnight to find her brother watching TV in the kitchen. They make popcorn and stop the microwave with a second to spare to avoid the loud beeping. They watch HGTV and she describes her dreams for her house some day while he smiles and chimes in with his own ideas. She holds that night with her and uses it as a mask to blind her on the nights when it seems as if that boy has disappeared. “This is a delicious evening,” when the dark charcoal of the sky is varnished with the shimmering florescent glow of street lamps and red car blinkers that project in the night. The remnants of fresh snow on the ground sparkle like crystals under the multicolored string lights’ reflections and do a shimmery dance to the medley of conversations that surround them. People hold hands as they

skate to the beat of holiday songs and look up at the sky framed by dozens of flags that stand proudly overhead.The lights from the Rainbow Room awning make the runoff from the snow on the sidewalk blue and pink. Nearby, the 30 Rockefeller Plaza building stands erect and divides the sky in half. Two best friends share a knowing smile as one hums the Thirty Rock theme song and the other chimes in. “This is a delicious evening,” when a young girl lies on her new bed and looks at the Manhattan Skyline through her window, the only decoration in her new bedroom. She ponders life’s most recent tribulation and questions why, after all of that, she feels so at home right now. The new apartment is creepily silent; all she can hear is the wind brushing past the speeding cars twenty stories below. She is all too aware of the absence of a full family in the house, but she feels content. She takes comfort in knowing that each lit window she sees has a story taking place behind it. In each little, yellow square there is a book being read, a sitcom being watched, an argument being hashed out, a cheerful puppy being petted, or a child being tucked into bed. So she doesn’t feel alone; she feels like she is part of something greater than herself; she is another story being told. “This is a delicious evening,” when two young people hop out of a cab and slide across the wet sidewalks 62

oren Oppenheim

to the entrance of the New York Philharmonic. The snow on their heads melts inside the building’s warm lobby and drips down their long, dark lashes, blinding them. They run up three flights of stairs, all the while noticing the droplets of water that hit the other side of the windows, promising to wait for the girls until they’re finished. They sit down with a minute to spare and feel the blood rushing back to their ice-cold fingertips. The lights dim and they immerse themselves in a new art form. They enjoy the puppet-like style in which each instrumentalist moves with the music. Every elbow shoots up simultaneously and each head tilts to the right with the movement of its arm. Hours later they push past the women in their fur coats, Chanel No. 5 perfume and oversized clutches with fresh blowouts and men on their arms, all the way to the revolving door. They are greeted by a familiar, icy gust of wind and pull their oversized hoods over their brown ponytails. They escape the bitter cold in a nearby coffee shop where Billy Joel’s “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” plays softly in the background. They wrap their hands around their warm cups of white-hot chocolate, and each one giggles at the other’s whipped cream mustache. “This is a delicious evening,” when a young girl makes the closing joke in a show and the lights go black. The audience applauds as they watch the cast hug each other and take their final bows. The people smoking on

the curb are dragged out of their daydreams by the sound of distant laughter that escapes the building when the girl exits. They turn their heads and give her a smile as she walks the other way. In a cab, the girl brags about tonight’s show to her friend on the phone, and then hangs up so she can fantasize about the next one. “This is a delicious evening,” when three best friends sit in one of their houses and spend the night composing the first essay on their comedy blog. They take funny pictures and share outlandish stories, and the night pans out to the sound of their contagious laughter. “This is a delicious evening,” when a girl stays in the recording studio for four hours until she can rush home, proudly clutching a USB port ready to be played. She beams with pride as she watches her brother’s reaction to her hard work. Before she goes to sleep she opens a message on her phone from a very special voice teacher that reads “to the first of many.” his is a delicious evening,” when a young woman feels like inspiration has gripped her in its hands and raised her to the sky. She feels like she can conquer anything and is ready to challenge herself and learn new things. She is stronger and older, happier and more prepared. She is ready.

“T 63

My dreams

are geometrical paint by numbers with convoluted lines I’ve always thought are incomprehensible plains of regret. Trying to find my way out of images of yellow jousts and green bubbles full of rock stars with guitars, I wonder how I got there, and when I think it may be the drummer from the boy band my sister likes, it is, and I had known it all along. I don’t like dreams, and when I say that I feel a certain guilt to the tinny-sounding mouse from the Cinderella VCR and arrogance towards every oracle, every dream catcher. But the truth remains that the people with whom I run down a rusty fire escape at night aren’t strangers in the story I’m watching, but they are oddly generic, people my mind would have named John or Alice if I had asked it. I don’t like not knowing.

dynnor Shebshaievitz

The best sleep is when you wake up and you’re sure it was dreamless, the Benadryl kind of sleep, getting heavier and heavier and finding it so easy to find space between the springs in an old bed, to sink, a broken ship in perfect silence.

D r e a m s

aliza Oppenheim

tess Solomon

“But Abbey, When Am I Going to Be Beautiful?”

I look down into her eyes. If you have ever seen the eyes of a young girl, you know they are filled with love, curiosity, and excitement. But her eyes well up with failure. She reminds me so much of myself in that very moment that I decide to tell her my story: “Stop drinking soda and you won't be so bloated. Don't eat saturated fats. Looking at carbs will make you gain weight. No sweets. Slowly cut yourself on the inside until your limbs are off. Chop whatever is left of you and fit it into the smallest space conceivable.” That’s how I was told I could be beautiful. It hurt. You will look in the mirror and you will cry. You will keep a food log and it will get shorter and shorter and shorter. You will run farther and farther on a treadmill. Your bones will deteriorate.Your mind will deteriorate. tamar Sidi

You will lose all your feelings, and your thoughts will rattle inside your skull. Your body will become a skeleton in constant motion. Your scale will become your best friend. You will look to it for approval in times of need. You will slowly slowly disintegrate until you accept utter defeat. You will scream: I am not beautiful I will never be beautiful Your mother will pat your back and you will feel no love or warmth. You will feel nothing but the thumping of flesh on flesh, and every nerve in your body will try to cave in on itself. You will force your body into the mattress, hoping it will disintegrate, and your body will disappoint you again and again. * But then, almost despite all the bad advice, it happens. Beauty will sneak up on you and sit with you for a while. It will not introduce itself grandly. There will be no flair, no mob, no foreshadowing, Its presence unbeknownst to you. You will wear that dress that you always thought made you look fat and you will not worry. You will wear a shirt in a way you have never worn it before. You will step outside and feel no shame. It will never occur to you that something is different. Then you look in the mirror and see your true self. You will state: Look at that face What a face Look at my body Look at what it can do I am blessed I am so blessed And you will not need to be blessed by another. You will believe in yourself and it will be beautiful When you discover that you already were.

abbey Lepor 67

The Faerie Dance erica Newman-Corré The chandeliers floated. It wasn’t obvious what magic they used to have chandeliers outdoors with no noticeable frame to keep them up. But they were beautiful there, suspended above the grass. I spied a hint of a wire attached to a chandelier and the nearest tree, but quickly forgot it, unwilling to let the magic die. The grass was cool under my bare soles, and my dress swished gently at my knees. The women looked like faeries, barefoot in their light dresses, pink and white and yellow and blue blending into one soft generic paleness. Next to them, the men looked like evil sprites, their dark suits making it seem they had come to steal the faeries from their dance. They too were barefoot, but seemed more awkward for it, not like the women who were lighter on their feet than ever. It was a strange party, all these grown people barefoot in a chandelier-lit clearing at midnight. Everything had an otherworldly glow, as if I had actually stumbled on the faeries’ dance. Lost in my reveries, I almost didn’t feel the touch on my shoulder. It was gentle, like a moth landing there, and I almost thought it was before I noticed a man standing behind me. I turned around, and he offered me his hand. “Oh, I don’t dance.” My voice sounded odd to me, breathy and empty. He smiled gently, though his dark eyes remained piercing. “Everybody dances here,” he chided, sounding like a teacher reminding a dull student of a simple fact. Still wary, I placed my hand in his slowly. He pulled me into the whirling dance, and I was not clumsy or awkward. I floated like the chandeliers in the magic of the clearing. When the dawn came, exhaustion set in rapidly and heavily, all the lovely lightness of the night gone in an instant. All the guests lay down to sleep in the dewy grass as the sun began to shine through the leaves.

Parallax n. fr. Gk parallaxis, the apparent displacement of an observed object due to a change in the position of the observer.