Vol. I, May 2017
the art and literature magazine of St. Paul Academy and Summit School
Cover Art: “Dreams” by Mira Zelle
Cover Design: Quinn Christensen
The first art and literature magazine at St. Paul Academy and Summit School in our archives was published in 1982 and included only senior art and literature. Over the years, the magazine evolved to include more grade level representation, including several years when middle school students were invited to submit to the magazine.
Iris: Art + Lit is the newest iteration of this publication, incorporating not only art and literature from the 9-12 student body but also engaging the community all year. From Open Mic events to Paint Nites, the new student group invited all students to show their artsy side.
So why Iris? In nature, an iris is a flower known for its vibrant purple petals. After roses, irises are the most common flower captured on paint canvases. In mythology, Iris is the messenger of the gods. She is personified by the rainbow, and is a symbol of communication and inclusiveness. In science, the iris determines how much light comes into the eye, impacting vision. Our eye color is genetically set in the iris, and when others look into our eyes to judge our intent and sincerity, the iris frames the black pupil. Iris, in its many forms, embodies nature, myth, truth and how we interpret what we see.
Welcome to Iris.
Nikolaus Elsaesser / 12 / Internship
Mari Knudson / 17 / An Unexamined Life
Noah Solomon / 26 / The Oreo Sandwich
Amodhya Samarakoon / 29 / Pink Flower
Leah Hughes / 37 / Shadow
Tess Hick / 48 / Liminal
Ben Atmore / 50 / The Tale of Day and Night
Oscar Millerhaller / 57 / The Environmentalist
Heba Sandozi / 44 / Mina’s Story
Noor Qureishy / 68 / Marium
Diane Huang / 06 / Daily Dose
Eli Striker / 08 / Glimpse into Eternal Nothingness
Brian Orza / 11 / Bare Face
Ned Laird-Raylor / 22 / Grub Hard
Rahul Dev / 30 / Where I’m From
Emilia Hoppe / 34 / Walking on a Bluebird Day
Quinn Christensen / 46 / Teenage Search for Immortality
Lea Moore / 54 / To Be or Not to Be
Arib Rahman / 61 / Children Move from Place to Place
Paul Watkins / 62 / The Walk
John Addicks O’Toole / 65 / Flowers
Hannah Scott / 66 / It’s Been Too Long
Anna Snider / 73 / On Starting Over
Dorienne Hoven / 77 / A Cold Morning
Hana Martinez / 07 / inks
Phoebe Pannier / 09 / ink and watercolor
Ashley Su / 10 / watercolor
Charlie Keillor / 13 / watercolor
Quinn Appert / 14 / slip and glazed stoneware
Adelia Bergner & Bailey Donovan / 16 / packing tape, umbrella
Naya Tadavarthy / 20 / watercolor
Muriel Lang / 23 / chalk pastel
Maria Perkkio / 24 / photography
Mira Zelle / 28 / acrylic
Micah Gwin / 31 / photography
Will Swanson / 32 / photography
Jasper Green / 35 / monoprint
Leah Hughes / 36 / inks
Ethan Dincer / 41 / photography
Lillian Pettigrew / 42 / acrylic
Tony Dierssen-Morice / 44 / glazed stoneware
Mackenzie Kuller / 44 / photography
Martha Sanchez / 44 / glazed stoneware
Liam Will / 47 / photography
Anna Perleberg / 49 / photography
Emma Hills / 52 / slab constructed container
Martha Slaven / 55 / photography
Ella Matticks / 56 / photography
John Connelly / 60 / unglazed stoneware
Eric Lagos / 63 / glazed stoneware
Sophie Heegaard / 64 / glazed stoneware
Elea Besse / 65 / glazed stoneware
Zoe Hermer-Cisek / 65 / glazed stoneware
Peter Wilson / 65 / glazed stoneware
Andrew Ellis / 66 / glazed and slipped stoneware
Jack Benson / 68 / glazed stoneware
Maya Edstrom / 70 / photography
Kate Thomas / 72 / acrylic
Meley Akpa / 76 / fashion: paper menus
Eva Malloy / 78 / photography
Editor in Chief // Dianne Caravela
Chief Visual Editor // Olivia Williams Ridge
Design Team
Quinn Christensen
Sky Li Griffiths
Gabriella Harmoning
Martha Slaven
Anna Snider
Ashley Su
Club Leaders
A.M. Roberts
Amodhya Samarakoon
Adviser // Kathryn Campbell
Iris: Art + Lit is published by a team of Ibid yearbook staff and Iris: Art + Lit club members at St. Paul Academy and Summit School in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Poetry, prose, and artwork is submitted via Open Mic night participation, teacher submissions of notable classroom work, and individual students.
Professional artists and authors jury the work. The art juror ranks the top 15 works in each medium: drawing and painting, ceramics, and photography. Staff members remove names from the literature submissions and the judge ranks these anonymous works on a 5 star scale for publication. The staff publishes works that receive the highest scores from jurors.
Bios for this year’s jurors can be found at the back of the magazine on p. 79.
Iris: Art + Lit is an open forum for student expression. The ideas presented in the work, as well as the copyright for each piece, belong to the author or artist who created it. However, the magazine staff reserves the right to deny publication to those submissions that are deemed inappropriate for a high school audience. The staff may also edit pieces for length, with the goal of maintaining the integrity of the original.
The mission of Iris: Art+Lit is to celebrate the diverse creative voices in our community and encourage engagement with the arts.
Inspiration comes in many forms
I take mine as a regular pill
It really depends on how your doctor feels about it. I told mine that I had a chronic case of mundanity and that was that 10 milligrams a day.
Most other doctors would expect a bit more than that. They might make you take a test on a scale from utterly boring to mildly uncreative. They’ll ask you open ended questions and give you example answers and if you use those answers as yours well then, I’m sorry but you might have to go in for some serious surgery like Jennifer Krawetz from Accounting just last Thursday. But most people, they get a prescription. The doctors these days hand them out like lollipops. You can take it as a gel pill like I do Or a silicone implant in your knee
Or a gummy shaped like Vincent Van Gogh’s ear
The one he lost of course—
When I forget to take yesterday’s pill and make it up for today I sometimes imagine he walked around looking for that ear And after searching for hours, He found it stuck firmly on his head
Just in a different place than usual. You can take those hard pills, too.
But I don’t like those ones, they’re too bitter
But some people really enjoy the bitter Truth is, I can’t imagine getting inspired that way. Maybe if I just thought a bit more about it Or went to the doctor.
Diane HuangCalamity
Hana Martinez
I am a rhinoceros-- or, should I say, as green as a rhinoceros.
I taste the music of the forest, as I hear the trees playing the drums. I am affectionate and kind, and callous and malicious.
I see the sun, and I put my onion glasses on.
Suddenly, a stegosaurus stomps over the horizon, and I spill my tortoise-like ice cream. I had to taste it to know its secrets, but now a small, creamy drop dribbles down my chin. If I take another step, I will not fall, but my ice cream fell, so I am no longer okay, a dead man walking. I feel the warmth of the moon on my skin. I see the sound of leaves chirping. I close my eyes, melting into a puddle. Suddenly, I panic, as I cannot find the one thing that I treasure most. I worriedly shriek, “Honey, where is my supersuit?”
An aardvark slowly creeps up my leg. This will make an excellent addition to my collection.
An empty face is a strange place. The steel frame slides down like a car going up an icy hill. Clenching fists while your finger pushes it back up again and again. Stares from friends who’ve never met you, laughs from friends who’ve always known you.
The blur goes away and the letters are clear, and the small shadows beneath your pencil appears. The sour taste in your mouth starts to fade, and the clouds in your head all disappear. An empty face is a strange place.
The intern stared up at the tall glass building, the hustle and bustle of the city right behind him. He walked through the excessively large glass doors ready to take on the day. His internship was phenomenal, working for one of the top firms on Wall Street. The gig had immersed him in real world issues and problem solving situations, and after six months of sucking up to his boss and working grinding hours, he would have one more impressive display piece on his resumé. Then he could use this new resume to get a new job, sucking up to receive a fancier title, maybe something like Assistant to Vice Portfolio Manager.
Processing the demands, “Sell our stake in Big Mac and place a buy order for the Hash Browns!” He thought. The intern took mental notes of each order like a machine and rushed out of the room to fulfill his mission.
The intern hurried back from McDonald’s with the food everyone wanted. A total of 30 hashbrowns, 12 Egg McMuffins, 20 hotcakes, and milk for everyone... except the CFO didn’t want milk. He wanted OJ, something acidic and sharp. The intern stood in disbelief, in horror of what he had done. The CFO stood up, grabbed the kid-sized bottle of milk, and poured it slowly on the intern’s head. They continued to work.
They all look the same, just like him--messy hair and baggy eyes from the long hours, and some sort of sauce or drink stain on their shirt from the anger af a high ranking executive.
He walked into the big meeting room, the intoxicating smell of cologne and shoe shine seeping into his nose almost making him dizzy. It was earnings season and the executives were under pressure. The intense chatter settled down and before he could even ask, the executives started shouting orders:
“Get me an Egg McMuffin!”
“Hotcakes!”
“Milk!” It was as if he was on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and they were shouting buy and sell orders.
The intern left the office around 11:30 for the executives’ lunch: Subway, of course. He knew all of their favorite sandwiches by heart because it was a requirement for the internship. He recognized interns from the other firms in the city at the Subway. They all look the same, just like him--messy hair and baggy eyes from the long hours, and some kind of sauce or drink stain on their shirt from the anger of a high ranking executive. Though it may seem they would come together in their shared pain, the exact opposite occurs. They become competitive animals--starved hyenas fighting for the last bit of food. They sprint and dive to get in line before each other, and like the ranking of
the firms they work for, the top firm’s intern comes out on top. With the milk still drying in his hair, he turns and scoffs at the other interns behind him as if they are his inferiors. He lists the order off with lightning speed and grabs 12 napkins.
The intern comes back around noon. The confidence from the encounter with the other interns evaporates as soon as he walks through the meeting room doors. Three meatball marinara, two grilled chicken on flatbread and two BLTs (one with honey mustard). He hands out the sandwiches one by one, each time his hand shaking from nervousness as if he has seen Lucifer in the flesh. He gives two napkins to each executive. He hands the CFO his BLT with honey mustard but doesn’t have any more napkins. The intern is speechless, horrified at what he had done. He sputters,
“I, I, I can fix it it’s okay! Just gimme a second!” looking around hopelessly he turns back to face the CFO, who has a look of disgust in his face. He starts eating the BLT with the intern standing next to him and the honey mustard begins to drip down the CFO’s cheek. The intern untucks his white dress shirt he bought from Nordstrom Rack the week before, and uses the corner to wipe the CFO’s face clean of honey mustard, getting a bit of aftershave layered on his shirt as well. The other
executives just look on without care as the CFO doesn’t even say thank you.
At 3:45, after hours, the company had just presented their earnings to investors. The intern, shirt still untucked and stained from honey mustard, had just returned from Starbucks with coffee for everyone. Six with cream and one straight black for the CFO. Everyone wanted two packets of sugar except for the CFO; he wanted three. But this time the intern was prepared for the CFO’s crap. He handed everyone their coffee and sugar like an exam he had just aced, and got to the CFO, set down the coffee, and dropped the three packets of sugar in front of him like a microphone. The CFO lifted his gaze from the coffee to the intern and said softly,
“You’re fired.”
The intern stood in shock.
“But I did it right! I got three packets of sugar,” the intern responded.
The CFO agreed with reluctance. “That’s not why. Investors weren’t happy with our financials and we’re going to need to lay some people off.”
The intern stood in shock, emotions rushing through his head: anger, sadness, frustration.
The intern looked at the CFO, down at the honey mustard on his untucked shirt,back up at the CFO, grabbed the Starbucks coffee and slowly poured it on the CFO’s product-filled hair.
His hand shaking from nervousness as if he had seen Lucifer in the flesh.
Once there was a man who didn’t think about anything. Whatever words came into his head came out of his mouth. Whatever he wanted to do he did. And so on.
While never thinking had its advantages, it also came with challenges. For example, he would never make it to work on time as he lacked the capacity to meditate on the consequences of staying in bed all day. So a routine was devised.
Every morning an alarm went off with a ring-a-ding-ding. He had been conditioned to climb out of bed whenever he heard this sound. If his alarm was switched to make a ring-ading-dong noise, he would not get out of bed as this sound meant nothing to him.
He went to bed naked each night, so when he climbed out of bed he would be cold. His clothes were strategically placed next to his bed so when he climbed out of it he would step on them and be forced to take notice. As at this point he would be realizing that he was cold, he would recognize the clothes and recall their ability to warm him and subsequently put them on his body. And so on.
Surprisingly, he had a girlfriend. One would think this would be impossible, what with the not thinking about anything, but who else would be
the one to lay out the clothes and condition the ring-a-ding-ding response. Not thinking about anything also had certain romantic benefits. Like being a very generous lover, because he was never only thinking about himself, because he was never really thinking about anything.
He rode the subway to work each morning, because him behind the wheel of a moving vehicle would be detrimental to society. One day a man came up to him and asked him for spare change because he was an army veteran and had lost the use of his right arm and had a dog and two kids to take care of and so on. The man, thinking of nothing, did what was asked of him and handed the man his entire wallet.
Despite this act being a heart-warming gesture, the man’s wallet had his employee key card in it so when he got to his place of employment he was unable to swipe himself into the building. This had never happened before and, unsure of what to do next, the man simply stood there, waiting for something to happen. He grew tired of standing and sat right in the middle of the sidewalk. This is how the police found him.
“What are you doing here?” the policeman asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“I think you’d better come with us,” the policeman said.
“That’s a great idea,” he said, unsarcastically.
The police asked him a series of questions, which is never a very good idea with a person who never thinks about nothing.
“Who are you?” the police demanded.
“Who are you,” he reflected.
“What game do you think you are playing?” they asked.
“What game do you think you are playing.”
They charged him with being a hostile witness.
“Witness of what,” he wondered.
In a matter of no time, he had been fingerprinted, orange jump-suited, and given the task of dialing his one phone call. He had never had a phone before, and therefore didn’t know any numbers, so he punched a series of random buttons and was lucky enough to actually get through to someone.
“Hey there, handsome,” a woman’s voice said.
“Am I handsome,” he wondered.
“You sure sound handsome. What are you wearing?” she said.
“What are you wearing,” he wondered.
“Nothing at all,” she replied. And so on.
Prison was actually a splendid place for him to be because of the mundane regimentation of it all. Every morning his cell mate woke him up by dumping a bucket of cold water on his face. His cell mate wasn’t unfriendly,;the man was simply hard to wake up without his ring-a-ding-ding alarm. The same
strategy applied to get the man into clothes by his girlfriend was replicated with the man’s orange jumpsuit. And so on.
All the man had to do was imitate what everyone around him was doing. He took a few beatings due to his habit of staring blankly off into the distance, sometimes landing his gaze on a fellow prisoner, thus eliciting the whole what do you think you’re looking at ordeal.
The problems starting rolling in, however, when the man accidentally became involved in a plot to bust out of prison. He had simply been standing in a corner, minding his own business (of which there was practically none) when suddenly a group of prisoners in fierce discussion nearby noticed his presence and assumed he knew too much. After a lengthy discussion, they decided against, as one member had advocated for, smashing his head repeatedly against the wall and instead enlisted him into their prison break.
The man soon became highly valued amongst the group members for his boldness, because, never thinking before he acted (as he never thought at all), the man failed to consider the consequences of his actions. He also was a fantastic follower, as he lacked the capacity to really have an opinion on anything, let alone decide his opinion was better than anyone else’s.
The prisoners had decided against the whole “dig a tunnel out of prison” approach to breaking out (which they deemed cliched) and instead opted for the “arm themselves and wreck anyone who stood between them and freedom” strategy. Arming themselves
posed the real challenge; prison shivs were not well suited to this purpose, as they broke easily and were only useful in close range combat. So they decided they needed to something get a gun off of one of the guards.
The man was willing to just go up to one of the guards and wrestle his gun off of him, but the rest of the group decided they should wait for a more opportune time. Finally, one came along when they were all in the kitchen together, cleaning. The man was mopping, which he very much enjoyed doing, given the repetitive nature of
ten where he lived, as they had taken the slip of paper with his address written on it when he had first arrived at prison. The paper had only been for emergencies; his girlfriend had run him through his route from home to work and back enough times that it had been ingrained into his brain. But he was not going from work to home, or home to work, and therefore was in uncharted territory.
the wiping motion, although he often picked too much water up with each trip to the bucket and consequently, the kitchen floor was soaked by the time the guard entered the room to check on them, causing him to slip, fall, and be knocked unconscious.
The group leader grabbed the guard’s gun, and the man held onto his mop, in case another man was needed to be knocked unconscious. He dragged the mop behind him as they ran out of prison, causing any guard that ran after the group to slip, fall, and be knocked unconscious. And so freedom was achieved.
Everyone in the group wanted to immediately see their wives and girlfriends after the break out, so the man decided that he should do the same. Unfortunately, he had forgot-
The man tried to remember what was on the slip of paper. He had remembered something before, but that was long ago, and of course he had no recollection of that now to serve as a guide for this particular moment. Remembering something as complex as a series of letters and numbers, last seen several months ago, required thinking, which the man was not capable of. So he simply started walking forward, spurred on by the vague feeling that whatever was forwards was better than whatever was behind.
He walked until he was tired, and upon sensing this he sat down, despite the fact that he, again, was in the middle of a busy sidewalk. This caused a disturbance of the peace, which, as everyone knows, is the worst type of disturbance. A policeman approached him.
“Were you aware, sir, that you are causing a disturbance of the peace,” the policeman demanded.
“Were you aware,” wondered the man.
“I think you’d better come with me,” declared the policeman.
“Yes,” said the man. “That sounds right.”
“I think you’d better come with us,” the policeman said.
You gotta grub hard. Buy two burgers if you need, Put it on the card.
Brisket, not too charred, Roasted sunflower seed, You gotta grub hard.
Buy a tub of lard, Do not resist your greed, Put it on the card.
At the table, stay on guard, Let no one steal your feed. You gotta grub hard.
When all that’s left is a shard, Restock: and with great speed! Put it on the card.
Go out to the yard, Sit and feel your stomach bleed, You gotta grub hard, Put it on the card.
Maria Perkkio
The New Jersey grocer from Hoboken had just gotten off of work. He was beaten and wanted to go home after a long 10-hour shift. He closed up his small business where he sold groceries and small goods. He glanced at the only old clock in his shop as the big hand ticked past 7. It was getting late in the day; the grocer put on his jacket, headed outside in a beaten done-with-the-day manner. The only light was the disappearing sunset brushed across the sky. The red and orange light just peeking over the horizon as if to see the New Jersey streets. The piercing wind greeted him sharply as he inhaled and felt the knife like cold air ring through his nose. He shivered, lowered his head, stuffed his hands in his pockets and began the long trek to his small home. He looked up at the swirling flurry of little snowflakes circling towards him. Disgusted at this sight in March, he groaned and continued his walk down the Jersey streets.
People were still out and about, but all of the shops were closed. Everyone outside was beginning to retreat to their homes for the night. The grocer groaned again realizing he hadn’t eaten since 12 o’clock when he ate the lunch his wife packed. He wished he could somehow bring food and keep
it with him on long work days, but he knew that was outrageous; the food would spoil by the time he would eat it many hours later. He waved this thought off, thinking the idea was stupid. Ten minutes passed and he was about a mile away from his home. The cold air still piercing, but the painted sunset had disappeared. He glanced up from his buried position in his warm heavy jacket and saw a shop that was still lit. He found this strange; he had walked these streets countless times but he hadn’t seen this store before. He decided to enter the store to see what they were selling. He glanced at the sign outside of the store: “Nabisco.”
The shop was lit with oil lamps. The heat from the flames was warm. The grocer asked the store owner, “Good day, what have you here?”
The store owner looked ecstatic and pitched his main item with pride as if he had rehearsed it many times: “The best cookie you will ever taste guaranteed, called The Oreo, exciting your mouth with three new flavors.”
The grocer chuckled to himself clearly uninterested. The store owner must have understood the grocer’s feelings as he went on to say, “Two beautifully embossed chocolate-flavored wafers with a rich cream filling,” a desperate attempt to hold the grocers’ attention.
“Please buy one sir. Today is the grand opening of my shop and nobody has bought an Oreo sandwich all day.”
The grocer felt bad for the store owner so he decided to indulge in the matter. He paid 25 cents for 3 Oreo cookies that came in a glass encasing. The grocer’s lips were dry from the cold. He licked them slightly, a sign of his hunger. He studied The Oreo’s unique design with 4 clovers surrounding the word, “Oreo.” He bit into the Oreo, and his taste buds tingled. He tasted the perfect cream to chocolate patty ratio: 33 percent cream, 67 percent chocolate patty. He wavered his body with delight and quickly downed all 3.
The store owner took out a notepad and wrote, First customer: March
His mind raced; he started to smile realizing what this store owner had done. If he could process other foods, then the grocer could hold food in his store that would stay fresh for longer. He thought of his mediocre corner grocery store and his wife and future family; he needed to do better for them. If he could process other foods like The Oreo, he could finally make enough money for his family, and maybe even support his dying parents. He could even bring food from his home to eat later that would not go bad.
He tasted the perfect cream to chocolate ratio: 33 percent cream, 67 percent chocolate patty.
6th, 1910. The store owner looked up and proceeded to give a history lesson on his cookie. He was proud of taking the idea from a similar cookie ‘The Hydrox.’ He talked all about his plans to change the cookie’s name to “The Oreo Sandwich” in many years and then to just “The Oreo.” He said the cookie’s cream was made out of pig lard and explained how he created this new technique to process foods so they last longer. The Oreo was a prime example of his processing technique. The store owner continued to talk, but the grocer tuned him out, lost in thought. The store owner’s words muddled and muffled in the background. The grocer began throwing thoughts back and forth.
He looked into the future where he could walk into the Oreo makers store and buy delicious Oreos and go back to work. Or even buy a whole batch of fresh, unprecedented Oreos, and sell them in his store. He was enticed by these ideas. He was ecstatic about the food possibilities that this little Oreo had created. The grocer knew what was to become of that little cookie. He pictured a world of processed food and the money behind it all. What made him really smile was the fact that he could eat Oreos all day at his little store; his hunger problem on long work days was solved. The grocer gave his head a quick shake and tuned back into the present. He turned to the store owner who was still talking about his cookie and smiled big once again. Before the grocer left that store, he said, grinning, “I’m gonna need the recipe.”
Dreams // Mira Zelle
She scampers among the flowers on her toes, her bare feet sinking into the muddy grass with each step. She does not worry about the dirt, letting it splatter up to her knees and settle under her toenails; she treads carefully so as not to uproot any plants or crush any stray worms in her search for a pink flower. The sunlight warms her dark arms and long dark hair as well as the green leaves surrounding her, and she imagines them stretching like cats after a long nap with purrs like the sound of branches rustling in the wind. She continues her hunt with the thought of a thousand green cats humming in synchrony setting a smile across her cheeks. Many knee-high splotches of dirt and well-searched flower beds later, her eyebrows arch in joy at the sight of a small pink bundle settled in the earth. Her fingers dig earnestly into the ground and pull out the flower from its roots. She watches the petals float around the muddy yellow center in the wind, almost loping around it like lazy cats meandering in the sun. She laughs to herself, picturing a circle of sleek pink kittens wandering around in beams of yellow sunlight.
Soon, her thoughts about the perfect vase for such a specimen are interrupted by overlapping shouts and giggles. Nearby, boys and girls her age
kick up woodchips and swing across monkey bars. She never understood their mindless enthusiasm towards getting bruised elbows from hard plastic and sore hands from scratchy rope. Seeing no magic, no vampires or ghosts, and no quests involved in their games, she sits in the grass and admires her pink flower.
Yet, from the corner of her eye, she watches them play. Each thud of their tennis shoes against the ground make her feel more and more like a doll in a tutu who has lost her heels. So she pushes her pink flower behind her, shielding it from view.
A sudden movement behind her brings her to her feet and her eyes meet the smile of a boy. She glances down at his hands and sees them crippling the petals, his nails carelessly ripping apart the roots. He laughs at the sight of the softened pink petals mixing with dirt between his fingers. “Why do you spend so much time picking flowers - don’t you want to play with us? ” He searches her face, not comprehending her heartbreak, not seeing leaves that stop purring. She gets up, turns around, and walks through the flower bed with her heels slamming against the earth, leaving behind the rags of the pink flower lying at the feet of a very bewildered boy.
I’m from eyes, from refresh and proparacaine.
I’m from the office in Edina to the office in Duluth
I’m from the mask that hangs in the living room.
years of happiness and keep the glass half full that my dad always told me when I was upset.
I’m from a laid back religious background and being vegetarian on Tuesday’s. I’m from the Sunday school I attended until middle school.
I’m from the bicycle accident that killed one of my friends from that Sunday School.
I’m from Edina, Minnesota, the land of the so-called cake eaters
I’m from paneer and tikka from the golf club in India every visit.
I’m from the photograph that hangs over my bed, the picture of a street in London, the double-decker red bus.
I’m from the black piano that welcomes me when I’m upset, the red cover we put over it when it’s not touched during the busy school year.
I’m from the piano teacher who taught me how to play those very keys, the countless times I’ve been screamed at.
I’m from chivra and tradition, from Dadi and Dada. I’m from the golf cart we drive when we visit them in Florida.
I’m from the school conversations and travel, not understanding the magnitude of the experiences I had. From 7 years of hard work makes 70
I’m from acting, watching numerous plays in London, usually a different one each night.
From the Parkinsons my grandfather fights through, the golf addiction of my nana, that makes him want to call me weekly about his new swing.
I’m from the times he taught me how to ride a bike
I’m from the catch me and my dad played in the backyard
I’m from the football games at recess. I’m from the photo album my sister made for mother’s’ day
I’m from the family dinners,
I’m from the people I have met, the memories I have forgotten, but eventually will remember.
The memories I have forgotten, but eventually will remember.
Micah Gwin
Rahul Dev
Here the sky awakens from its fourteen hour slumber, ultrabright Dodger blue, snow screeches like styrofoam beneath my boots, wind tickles the skin yawning over my right cheekbone, sunspots pulse out of the sky in long-exposure photographs. My thumb huddles in the warm room of my palm, clouds and cloudy exhalations flee from daylight, red watermelon melts into the numb tips of my toes, as tree branches sprawl out like so many forlorn fingers raised in supplication. I feel not cold so much as fresh-faced and wide-eyed-searching the sky for signs of Bluebird. But he is erased by the blueness of the sky and so instead, here is solitary Cardinal, releasing a desperately melancholy shriek in mourning.
II’d been on my way into town the first time I saw the boy. It was the dark time of the morning, when the street lamps turn off in preparation for daylight, but the sun has not yet awoken. The summer air was tinged with autumn cold and dew still clung to spears of grass like cold sweat on a nervous forehead. I remember thinking how funny it was that the world reincarnates every summer morning—wet and fresh like a newborn. I remember this, because it was one of the few moments of clarity I’d had since I’d moved here. I wanted to believe it was something about the house that was plaguing me, not my own deteriorating mind—that the space was so small and cluttered with junk and smells and memories that it was overflowing into my brain and littering my thoughts— I just needed to get away from it. I was planning on walking the few miles into town and purchasing a train ticket to whichever destination was leaving first. I was walking through the overgrown grass towards the gravel road that stretched between the house and our neighbor’s when I heard a faint creaking, overpowered by a rhythmic scraping sound, like someone dragging
their feet. I couldn’t imagine why anyone else would be out this early—certainly there could be no innocent purpose—and I held my breath, afraid that even disrupting the air would catch its attention— as I watched its silhouetted form disappear over the hill. When my heartbeat regained its regular rhythm I continued down the path, but I grew worried about my grandmother. She’d lived on her own for years before I moved in, but she was having increasing trouble with her memory and movement. Halfway to town, I stopped. The sun had turned the sky periwinkle and heat was beginning to seep into the valley, but I got a chill and felt for some reason that I couldn’t leave her now, so returned to the house and raced into my bedroom just as she was awaking.
grow shorter then disappear, then grow longer on my walls and outside my window as the earth followed its familiar rotation. The walls were covered in a cream colored wallpaper, full of pink cursive diamonds that dispersed into lavender and pearly flowers just below the ceiling. All of the furniture
was made of white-painted wood, but that in no way made the room appear cohesive. My grandmother had cluttered the dresser and the desk and the shelf in the closet with stuffed animals. I pointed them all
through the day. My grandmother had left a sandwich at the door. I assumed something would eat it in the night. I was pretty sure she had mice.
to face the wall because they were old fashioned and their eyes were made of dull beads that made me uncomfortable, so I was constantly surrounded by animal butts. There was a whole garden of dried flowers hanging near the window and the empty wall seemed to be a shrine to religion. A picture of Mother Mary hung at a slight angle (the straight wooden cross next to it gave away its slant), with a rosary hanging from one corner and a holy water container poorly nailed to the wall on the other side. My grandmother expected me to pray, but I was more interested in the shadows these shapes produced. I watched my own shadow too. I thought it was funny the way the ceiling light formed one shadow and the window cast another. Throughout the day I imagined that one of my shadows was overtaking the other, like the Jekyll and Hyde stories that my bother used to try to scare me with. Eventually there was just one shadow left and I realized that I had sat
II’d been sitting in a rocking chair by the window and drifted in and out of sleep through the night, my dreams trying to take hold through my brains clutter. Somewhere between my conscious and subconscious I heard a creaking and the slow shuffling of feet. My nose against the cold glass, I watched a child trudge his feet through the gravel, dragging a rusty red, empty wagon behind him with one hand. The streetlight illuminated his bleach blond hair and blue striped shirt. He was wearing baggy cargo shorts and dirty sneakers that may have at one point been white. I couldn’t see his face. I kept my face pressed to the glass for hours, waiting for the boy to return. I was nearly asleep again when I heard a heavier creaking of rusty wheals and the dragging of feet. The street lights were off by now, as the sun was about to rise, but squinting through the darkness I realized there was something in the wagon.
Throughout the day I imagined that one of my shadows was overtaking the other, like the Jekyll and Hyde stories that my brother used to try to scare me with.
I watched the boy go back and forth every morning, intrigued by his load and him timing. I watched the shadows go creep back and forth against my walls. I weeded the garden and planted herbs on the windowsill when I was tired of the blandness of my grandmother’s cooking, and I dusted the house when breathing began to make me cough. I searched the basement for books, something with adventure, and found only cookbooks that she hoarded in her overflowing cupboards. I wasn’t sleeping because I was watching for the boy and I was losing my mind between dressers and bookcases. Once I tried to show the boy to my grandmother but it was especially dark and she couldn’t see or hear well enough, and she grew angry with me for waking her up. Then she asked me how often I watched for the boy and scolded me for not sleeping. I didn’t talk to her about it again.
and leaned out. Still there was nothing. He wasn’t there. It was hot and windy and I nearly choked on my hair as it blew into my face. The trees were beckoning wildly like a storm was on its way so I closed the window. It must have been the old wood of the house creaking in the wind. Then I heard the dragging of feet. Still there was no boy on the path. Maybe the mice were running through the walls. There was a clunk and the sound stopped. Then the door creaked. I realized I’d left it unlocked after weeding. Maybe it hadn’t latched all the way and the wind blew it open. There was a louder creak and cold fear rushed into my lower back. This was coming from inside the house. Still the boy was not outside. I tried to piece my brain together from the disorder but it was like tearing a room apart to find a single pair of keys and the creaking was getting louder, overpowered by the steady, rhythmic dragging of sneakers on tile, and
...it was like tearing a room apart to find a single pair of keys and the creaking was getting louder, overpowered by the steady, rhythmic dragging of sneakers on tile...
ne night the creaking was especially loud. I searched the path from the warped glass of my window but saw only still gravel the creaking was getting louder and louder. I opened my window for a better view and saw nothing, then removed the screen
then wood as the creaking clunked over the step between the kitchen and the living room. I walked to the door, but froze when my hand was on the doorknob. I didn’t want to miss the boy if he walked by. I ran to the window and searched again for the child, but he was nowhere to
be found. There was a th-thud and the groan of a wooden step. Then another. And another. I felt another rush of cold and my bones felt liquid but I fell through my door and into my grandmother’s room. I stumbled my way to her bed and started shaking her. “Grandma, there’s someone in the house”, “Grandma, please, you have to get up!” I shoved her hard. She wouldn’t move. Her hand was hanging off the side of the bed. I’d never noticed her wrinkles before. Her veins laced around each other and over her bones like exposed tree roots on a riverbank. Her skin looked so pale and fragile— almost translucent against the beige, floral wallpaper. Her walls were different than mine. Flowers crawled
up the ceiling vertically, their leafless stems intertwined. I tried to shake her again. The sound had made its way to the top step. I started hitting her outstretched arm. The doorknob twisted. I leapt into her open closet and crouched in the darkness. The first thing I noticed was his blond hair, then his red wagon. I still couldn’t see his face. He dragged his feet into the room and pulled my grandmother by her outstretched arm into the wagon. She slumped in, neck first, and he folded her legs sideways. Then he turned towards me and I realized he had no face, as if it had been melted away, and he turned and clunked down the stairs. I ran to my window and watched him shuffle down the path.
The sound had made its way to the top step. I started hitting her outstretched arm. The doorknob twisted. I leapt into her open closet and crouched in the darkness.
I believe that the sky is made of glass. If you look close enough, you can see what goes on in the heavens. That’s what I think happened the day Nazo found me, lying on our front sidewalk unconscious. Before she ran for Kontara and I slipped on the world, I think I looked too close and saw things that weren’t meant to be seen.
The realization came long after the day I fell. It was made over nights staring at hospital walls and burrowed into my brain every time I drew constellations on popcorn ceilings. If I could see through the stars and their night blanket, they’d tell me their secrets about me.
KullerThe doves call to me from the sky and my own Dove puts her straitjacket arms around me.
I looked too hard at the sky after that day. My family thinks I lost them among the clouds, kites, and marble vomit catchers. They don’t know that I saw them up there. They led me down with forehead kisses and newborn nieces and baby sisters that suck their thumbs. Their names pull me to shore.
As I stare at the horizon after a sleepless night, it’s my thumb sucking Poet who reminds me that there is no happiness in the dawn. That life is too short for a beauty.
And when I finally drop off to sleep, my Awakening kisses me to sleep with the promise that I’ll come back to her. That I won’t lose myself in the stars.
They say I hit my head pretty hard on the way down.
“Their names pull me to shore.”Colorado Field // Mackenzie
mossy steps, the quiet is worth remembering but we aren’t
i won’t forget what he said but the rest of the world will a faded stone, no name
he said the saddest part is that in a few hundred years that’ll be me
underground, alone and no one will remember even if they want to see names have a lifespan too, only a little longer than those that own them
arching branches, he apologizes to the dead
how morbid we are, so young and talking so often about endings characters always seem different in the first chapters.
we aren’t special, it’s why we point out that we aren’t we
want to be the first ones to say it, some twisted attempt to be different
and still just the same as everyone else.
he’s on his teenage search for immortality
and all i can do is make him immortal in this moment so i tell him that i will remember him.
but one person isn’t the world and we both know not even the world is big enough
and he scares me when he tells me he doesn’t care
enough about anything, that he isn’t ambitious because i’ve never met someone
who is that good at lying to themselves, i write about him a lot
but never about what he said because i run away from the teenage search for immortality
if only because i know we’re going to fail.
so scared of being forgotten, we forget to remember that we’re just kids
holding hands in the dusk holding breath in the dark
we won’t forget each other.
Man, fuck January. The girl flexes her fingers inside her mittens. The metal bench is cold, and the Light Rail won’t arrive for another eight minutes. The station is empty, but the city goes on around her. A car squeaks through an intersection. In the distance, horns honk. Across the street, a woman walks by with a German Shepherd. The girl tracks her progress until the woman reaches the end of the block and turns, and is no longer visible. She pulls her phone out of her pocket and checks again. Still eight minutes. A memory stirs of a dog. It must have been in New Jersey. New Jersey comes to her in flashes of ocean and a small white house. She tucks her head down against the cold and tries to remember. She’s seen the dog in pictures, laying next to her on the linoleum kitchen floor, gap-toothed grin pointed at the camera. She painted the dog, once. That was it. Spilled blue fingerpaint on its light brown fur until it looked like a Pollock. She snorts at the memory. They must have left the dog when they moved, but she was young and only remembers the red balloon her parents got
her and tied to the back of the car in order to get her in it. It had worked, because she was four and didn’t understand what moving meant.
She checks her phone again. Six minutes, and a text from her friend Oliver. She’ll reply later, she tells herself. Her fingers are too frozen now, yeah that’s it. She pushes away guilt. She should be happy for him, she tells herself forcefully.
New Jersey winters were the only other ones she had, and it was never this fucking cold there. In San Fran the bay brought in morning mist but even in December it cleared. In Florida it snowed once when she was in seventh grade and school was let out for a week. Here winter never ends. She checks her phone again. Six minutes, and a text from her friend Oliver. She’ll reply later, she tells herself. Her fingers are too frozen now, yeah, that’s it. She pushes away guilt. She should be happy for him, she tells herself forcefully. He got into a good school in California and he’s doing cool shit. Same with Elodie at NYU. Sarah at University of Boulder. Zach at Reed. All doing cool shit, she thinks. Ultimate Frisbee. Skiing in the morning and then surfing in the afternoon. Posting pictures of their plays and picnics with their friends. She knows they still love her. She knows they still love her. It sounds forced, even to her. She shoves her phone back in her pocket. Only one
year of age difference fucks stuff up.
Her mind is beginning to numb along with her body. She’s seen no one since the German Shepherd, and is running out of things to think about. She starts to catalog the people who came into work today. The little kid with the monkey-backpack leash. The quiet woman with what must be waistlength red hair intricately pulled up in a bun. The elderly couple from Canada. She gets stuck on them. She had leaned over the counter to hand them their pin-on badges so they could enter the art gallery, and asked false-cheery, “so are you from around here?” The woman had taken the pins and looked lovingly at her husband.
“Are you from here, darling?”
“We’re just passing through, aren’t we, sweetheart?”
He nodded. “Why not take a look around while we’re here, eh?”
They were driving down to Chicago to see their grandson graduate from college. Minneapolis was a necessary stopover, to stay the night.
Gentle snow begins to fall, pulling her again out of her reverie, and she looks up at the slate sky. It hasn’t snowed since December. What’s left is frozen into gray heaps by the side of the road. She looks across the street, but the snow ends several feet in front of her. She reaches out, into the whirl. It’s not snowing. A shift in wind brought what little icy powder was left rushing down off the top of the Light Rail shelter. It settles quickly, and looks as if nothing has changed. There are no cars on the gray street. There are no lights on in the windows in the dusk, no leaves on the black trees, reaching towards the blank sky with no snow left to fall. Maybe she should want to cry. She doesn’t. So she sits, curled into herself in search of any warmth left, waiting for a train.
“Are you from here darling?”
She answers herself. “Just passing through.”
Long long ago, there was no such thing as Night. All the world was bright and Day reigned over the earth. People sang and praised Day, for He was warm and light, and they had never known anything different.
One time, a darkness appeared in the Sky, and the people looked up to see that Day had gone. He was nowhere to be seen. The Sky spoke to them and it’s voice was cold and harsh.
“I am Night. Day has abandoned you, so now I come to rule over you.”
The people cried,
“We want Day back! Bring Him back! Where did He go?”
To which Night replied,
“He has gone far far away from you. He abandoned you because He does not love you. He simply uses you as entertainment.”
The people were furious at their treatment: they thought Day was kind, but Night had convinced them otherwise. She told them that Day left them because He had grown bored of them; that they weren’t good enough for Day.
But Day did not leave His people. He was forced out by Night. She had banished him to the Nothing, and He looked on as she lied to His friends, deceiving them into thinking he left.
Back on earth, it began to turn cold, for there was no light to keep things warm. Night blew chilling winds which howled through trees and battered people as they walked. The people looked up at Night and said,
“Why is it cold? Is Day doing this? He’s supposed to keep us warm.”
Night was confused: she did not know what “warm” meant. She lied to the people, saying,
“Yes! Day has taken your warmth away!”
Then, people started to cry. They were cold and quite uncomfortable. Night did not know what to do. She tried to comfort them saying,
“I will sort this out, not to worry!”
And in saying so, she took off. She sped to the Nothing and asked Day to help her.
“Explain to me what ‘warm’ means, for the people say that it is gone.”
Day told her, “Warm is a feeling in which it feels like all the Oranges and Reds and Yellows are wrapping themselves around you.”
“How do I make it warm again?”
Asked Night, for she did not want to lose the people’s trust.
“You can not. Only I can make warmth, for I am all which is light in the Universe. But now that I am gone, the people will start to freeze.”
Replied Day. He sounded very calm, but He wanted to get back to His rightful place in the sky, so as to watch over His people.
Night stormed off. She was furious that she could not make warmth. She went to the people of earth and lied,
“I have come back bearing news. Day has taken away your warmth in His hatred of you.”
The people cried, saying,
“Why has Day abandoned us? It’s all dark! We can not see you Night, where are you?”
Night was confused.
“Why can you not see me? I can see you perfectly fine.”
She said.
“Help us Night! We are blind, and cannot see when our deaths come. We are all blind and freezing!”
Again Night went off to the Nothing to visit Day.
“Day, the people are saying they can’t see me. Why can they not see me? I wish for them to gaze on my terrible beauty, and be afraid,”
Night said. She was truly in a rage now.
Day responded. He knew Night would have to yield her place in the Sky back to Him, or else there would
be no reason for either of them.
“I grant them sight, dearest Night. You took me away, but in taking me away, you took away what I represent: Love, Warmth, Sight, Health.
“I suggest we strike a deal. You may have some of the time in the sky, and I shall take the times that you aren’t there. That way the people can live and be healthy, and also look on you.”
Night was nervous. She thought Day was trying to trick her,
“Only as long as we both get half of the time in the sky.”
So Day and Night came back to earth with glad tidings:
“We have decided,” They said, “to share our time in the Sky.”
“When I am in the sky,” Said Day, “it will by Day’s time.”
“And when I am in the Sky,” followed Night, “it will be called Night’s time.”
And so it was that Night and Day shared the sky, ever chasing each other for a game. Sometimes, Day would run faster than Night, and Night got more time in the Sky, and sometimes Night would run faster than Day, giving Day more time.
And in the end, Day and Night agreed to work together and keep the people of earth safe.
To be a poet, you have to play God. Be the composer guiding the emotions.
To be a poet, you have to calculate the importance of each word. Not a syllable left untouched.
To be a poet, you have to paint with white space. Love the possibility of emptiness.
To be a poet, you have to speak with imagery. Nothing is what it seems.
But I don’t want to play the Creator. Can you imagine that kind of pressure?
And I don’t want to calculate every sound. (I don’t know that many words).
And I don’t want to paint in the negative. That blanket freezes my message.
And I don’t want to speak through nature. I am not a leaf.
Someone once told me poetry is meaning without a story. But stories are how I communicate.
So here I go.
Mary wakes up at 7:00 in the morning, still tired after napping for a few hours, and bikes to her job, where she spends her time trying to create a renewable energy source to power the world. For lunch, she eats only the fruits and vegetables that she has grown in her backyard. “Don’t you get sick of eating the same thing every day?” asks her coworker, who must have asked the same question a thousand times before.
“I’m willing to endure anything, as long as it’s for a good cause” is always Mary’s eager reply.
Her coworker approves of her answer with a smile and says, “Thanks for saving our planet.”
After work, Mary meets her friend, John, in the park.
“You ready for today’s haul?” John asks. ”It feels like the more trash we pick up off the ground, the more there is the next day.”
“Think of how bad it would be if we didn’t spend hours picking up all this garbage every day. The whole park would be a pile of garbage,” Mary replies, ecstatic to begin her work with John.
“That’s true. It just sucks that people treat the planet this way. Some people are scum.”
“You’re totally right, John. That’s why we can never stop cleaning this park together. Five hours a day I have to pick up trash in a park with a complete loser,” she says as she hip checks him flirtatiously. She wonders if he knows how she feels about him. They pick trash up off of the ground for five solid hours, until the park is spotless.
John says he’s going to call it a day, and Mary decides to go home as well. Mary takes all the bags of trash she and John have collected, and dumps it into her large garbage bins at home. Biking, it takes several trips to get all the trash to her house. Mary sits on the couch and watches documentaries about deforestation and CO2 emissions, eats her standard vegan dinner that she grew herself in her backyard, and heads to bed at 10:00.
Mary feels groggy when her alarm goes off at 4:00 AM. She crawls out of bed, slips on shorts and a T-shirt, and walks to her backyard to pick her breakfast of blueberries and strawberries. Then she walks into the kitchen nervously. No matter how many times she does it, it never stops being scary to her. What if I get caught? She thinks, Would he find out?
She grabs all of the garbage that she and John spent so long picking up, along with the small amount of garbage she has created in her house. She goes into her garage, where she puts the garbage into the bed of her truck. I hate how bad this truck probably is for the environ-
ment, she thinks to herself. Unfortunately, it’s all she could afford that was big enough to fit all of her garbage. She got it at a yard sale for 400 dollars, so it was in terrible shape, and had even worse fuel efficiency. Nonetheless, Mary felt this had to be done.
Mary drives back to the park, drives over the curb, and parks her car in the middle of the grass. She gets out of her car, hesitates for a moment, peers around, and then begins throwing all of the garbage into the park. Periodically, she drives the truck to another spot, attempting to spread the massive amount of garbage evenly throughout the park.
“Some people are scum.” John’s words echo in her head, getting louder and louder until she can hardly stand it. But this is for a good cause. John doesn’t know it… but it is… she tries to justify it any way she can.
Tears stream down Mary’s face as she drives home consumed by guilt. She feels terrible, but she believes it was the right thing to do. One day, she thinks, one day he will be mine… one day he will realize how incredible I am. When Mary gets home, she cries herself back to sleep as the sun rises. She wakes up at 7:00 in the morning, still tired after napping for a few hours.
Mary takes all the bags of trash she and John have collected and dumps it into her large garbage bins at home.
With memories that walk the night alone, Surrendering the love they must embrace Yet most survive with a peculiar grace, Even though their hearts should turn to stone As they move about from place to place. Perhaps within themselves they find a space
To furnish as they would a mobile home, Surrendering the love they must embrace, A memory like lace, Thoughts and dreams that only they have known, Moving as they do from place to place, Their childhood impossible to trace In the years of yearning after they are grown, Surrendering the love they must embrace Yet with their losses upon their face, Pain for which no pace is shown.
Surrendering the love they must embrace
How can they move and move from place to place?
The only difference between falling and walking is control of yourself, of your step, of your rhythm that pervades you as you fall forward and forward again, beating in time to your own inaudible march, marching again and again until you inevitably stop. Because even falling comes to an end and eventually you hit the soft earth, embracing you for all you are and all you aren’t.
Figure // Sophia Heegaard
Inside a vase – the Flowers die –The glass a murky gray –They frown at me and droop so low –They have something to say –Streaks shine through – the Jalousie
Licks the tulips nose –Legacies of – Fallacies –Deny a growing rose –Inside a vase – the Flowers died –But left a gift – Unbound –I bear it from the stifling vase –And plant it in the ground –
Sky blue fluttered to orange who twirled towards purple who tripped and fell into black.
Our dying battery croaks its last words, ghostly white circle scarcely illuminating the landscape.
Foreign shrubs jump out of the expansive rock, whispering “boo!” as they brush past our ears.
The packs start to slumber, steadily falling into the jagged ground’s cooing lullaby. Our steps slow to a blundering trudge.
Rolling sweat turns to a sticky layer of salt-flavored jam as Temperature sits in the thermometer’s descending elevator.
We’ve been out here too long.
Our thick, hardened mud warpaint cracks with smiles that whoop as three distant bright lights begin to bounce.
Their lights are so dazzling we can’t see their eyes, only three sets of teeth glinting and laughing and smiling.
Four notebook pages are crudely linked with athletic tape their large, goofy block letters explaining the obscure scenery: “Welcome Home.”
We were born an hour apart in the middle of August. My parents’ voices crackled over the phone, somehow communicating pure joy, wonder, and fear to Gurya Khala – my aunt, her mother – who was staying in a hospital in Karachi. My parents had only been living in America for a year up to that point; a few short months ago, my mother had boarded the plane to New Jersey already pregnant with me, though she didn’t know it at the time. My parents had come without even an inflatable mattress for my mother to sleep on within the bare walls of their new, closet-like apartment. For a few days before their furniture made the journey over the ocean, my mother slept on the ground with comforters wedged underneath her aching back.
She raised me on carpeted floors and in parks with clouds of ducks that we fed with the ends of the bread loaves we’d been hoarding all week. In Pakistan, my cousin grew up with dusty concrete floors, sweet mangos, and the scent of jasmine draped like an afghan over the house.
My cousin and I spoke over the phone twice a year for as far back
as I can remember, always the same greeting – “Asalamalaikum,” followed by a rushed “Happy Birthday” or “Eid Mubarak” before we dutifully passed the phone back to our mothers, who immediately launched into loud, raucous chatter. The low quality connection didn’t seem to bother them; their voices just got louder in response, my mom’s head nodding and hands gesticulating wildly, her voice so saturated with emotion that somehow, she was able to communicate for hours despite all odds.
I didn’t understand the kind of love, the kind of connection that would motivate them to push and struggle through hours of forced interpretation, with only the broken, distorted fragments of sentences they got from each other to go off of. My memories of Pakistan came in jumbled, vague forms: the smell of gasoline and sweat, the sun making our skin glow as we tried to make straw baskets on the roof, the rush of gutter water on a day over a decade ago when the streets of Karachi flooded and made it impossible to walk outside.
I remember watching my mother on days when her phone conversation dragged on longer than usual and noticing all the things we had in com-
mon: noses, stubbornness, height, manner of speaking. No one would mistake us for anything but mother and daughter. But as I watched her speak over the phone to her relatives in Pakistan, she seemed to be oceans away. This feeling of disconnection isn’t uncommon among children with Pakistani parents; within Pakistani culture, parents are expected to behave more like authority figures than friends. At a very young age, we are told that Heaven lies under the feet of our mothers. Consequently, getting into arguments with my mother always felt like a betrayal, a violation of respect and trust, like I was fighting with a part of myself instead of with her.
A weak phone connection separated my mother and her family, and even that didn’t stand in her way most of the time. I, however, had to contend with oceans of awkward silences, a language barrier, and cultural misconceptions when I tried to communicate with my cousins.
The summer
I turned twelve, my parents decided it was time to visit Pakistan again; it had been seven years since our last visit. We arrived at the airport in the middle of the night, my mother and aunts embracing for a full five minutes before my cousins helped us load everything into two cars, cramming our suitcases into the back seat when the trunk got too full. When we reached the house where my oldest aunt, Bari Khala, lived, the two cousins closest in age to me, Marium (Gurya Khala’s daughter) and Rimsha (Bari Khala’s daughter), were awake and waiting to meet me.
They stood together, hands clasped loosely and sides touching, with an easy comfort that came with years of friendship. I thought that I
I thought that I would know my cousins immediately.
would know my cousins immediately, that a part of me would recognize them somehow – Marium in particular – because we were born an hour apart, because we were family, and even though I didn’t know what that was supposed to feel like, I still saw the way my mother smiled at her sisters and I wanted that for myself. But all I got were empty stares and polite questions for the first two weeks.
mildly mannered children. As neither Marium nor I fit that category, it is safe to say that our relationships with our parents were complicated at best, troubled at worst.
That day, we had planned to visit Gurya Khala’s house, but once the driver dropped me and my brothers at the front gate, a prickly feeling set in at the back of my neck, like a swarm of mosquitoes had settled underneath my scarf.
By then, I had resorted to reading an older cousin’s copy of Les Miserables, lying on the bed at Bari Khala’s house with a glass of ruavza and a cup of steaming tea, flipping through the pages of the book out of sheer boredom and a desire to avoid another awkward conversation with one of my cousins.
Whenever my cousins did attempt to find topics of conversation that we could bond over, the discussion inevitably turned to our parents. The children of Pakistani parents carry with them the knowledge that their parents and their grandparents before them struggled and fought to be able to offer them the opportunities that they have today. The adults in my family all belong to a generation that has either lived through the Bangladesh Independence War, through its aftermath, or both. The expectations born out of a history of hardship often lead to contentious parent-child relationships, even among the most
Ali, Marium’s older brother, wasn’t smiling crookedly and ushering my brothers upstairs like he normally did, and even though I strained my ears for the sounds of Marium getting ready last-minute, swiping her hair into a ponytail and stubbing her toes on the books she always had on the floor of her bedroom, I couldn’t hear anything except the whirring of the overhead fan. When I realized that Gurya Khala had only insisted we eat once before giving up, I knew something was wrong.
The quiet occupied the corners of the house like a real, tangible being. It caught my breath and made the muscles in my legs and stomach shake as I moved slowly and carefully, stepping around the rug that had sent me sprawling the last time I visited, up the stairs that were made of slick stone that stuck to the bottoms of my feet. As I approached Marium’s room, I heard the faint noises of someone moving around, and my posture reverted back to its usual slouch immediately, the tension leaving my body.
To my relief, the door of Marium’s room opened to reveal her bright smile and typically messy room. It
wasn’t until fifteen minutes after I had started talking to her that I noticed how her hands trembled slightly under the blanket we had spread over our legs. She saw the alarm on my face a second later and we both looked away at the same time, and I smiled uncertainly, my own hands shaking as I patted her on the back, as awkward and overly-formal as it is possible for someone to be. I wondered what could possibly be wrong –had a tragedy occurred in the family? As I struggled to put the pieces together, I studied the expression on her face. She looked unsettled, a little
sad, a little guilty and ashamed. She looked like I always did after I’d been arguing with my mother, who always seemed to know what to say to cut the deepest.
I retracted my hand, wincing as I felt the distance between us widen even more, readying myself for another awkward silence or sharp look. But she must have seen the understanding on my face, because she reached up to take my hand instead, returning my smile with one of her own, warmth spreading from our intertwined fingers as we sat in silence, thinking of our mothers.
“I am burning. I am fire.”
Writing poetry in coffeeshops, spontaneous road trips with no destination in mind, loving myself more— this poem was going to be about resolution. Was going to name hope the placeholder between each word, reeking of redemption and forgiveness and starting over. Was going to highlight all of the ways that I planned to be better this year.
Like maybe if I follow this blueprint I will really be happy this time. Maybe I will become who I’ve always wanted to be:
The girl who knows how to navigate through a hallway without mistaking it for a forest. Whose skin seems to fit in all the right places instead of growing claustrophobic from the emptiness bursting at the seams. Maybe this year I will finally become that person.
But you see, I’ve never been very good at beginnings.
There’s too much fumbling around in the dark for these shaking hands to draw anything beautiful. Too many ways I could fill in a blank page that I never end up deciding. There’s too many unpredictable paths that first conversation could lead down, that I never commit to a direction to walk in.
& you see, I have a bad habit of shrinking into myself. Of waiting for somebody else to answer the question because I know my voice will come out shaking. Of not showing anybody anything less than a final draft. Of never walking away in the middle of a painting, even if it supposed to take weeks to finish, even if there are supposed to be hours between the different layers. Have a bad habit of breaking myself in half before allowing myself to make a mistake.
& sometimes I wish I would break into something beautiful,
like ice washing up to the shore, like rain pouring out of the sky, like paint filled balloons exploding onto an empty canvas.
& sometimes I wish that I could learn to see my life in paragraphs, to be able to step back and witness how all the different pieces weave themselves together. Sometimes I wish that I could learn how to see myself in drafts because how much easier would it be to put the first word on the paper if it didn’t have to be a final draft the first time through?
& how much easier could it be to firework-out instead of crumbled-building-in? How much lovelier could I be by learning to shatter myself into raindrops while falling down and kissing the trees while evaporating my way back up? What else could be possible if I dared to take a step even if I don’t know where I’m going? What else could exist beyond these crumbling walls?
Writing poetry in coffeeshops, spontaneous road trips with no destination in mind, loving myself more— this poem is not about resolution. This poem is about starting over.
Everything swirled. My throat fought the rising acid; I curled over, The bus rocked pushing me closer
Over the edge
My eyes darted from sign to sign
Hoping, praying one of them was mine Just hold on, Not for too long.
Every breath terrified me Knowing that something much worse could be Coming, but then, it was my stop! I ran off the bus
Feet staggering, ice crunching Head swaying, wind howling.
My chest heaved and Frozen strands of hair stuck in My mouth and eyelashes.
Wet Paint is your friendly neighborhood art supply and custom framing store at 1684 Grand Ave.
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Areca Roe is an artist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She received her Bachelor’s degree in biology from Oberlin College in 2001, and her MFA in studio arts, with an emphasis on photography, from University of Minnesota in 2011. She primarily works with photography, as well as video, sculpture, and installation. A recurrent theme in her work is the interface between the natural and human domains. She has exhibited throughout the region as well as nationally and internationally, and recently became a member of the Rosalux Gallery artist collective in Minneapolis. Roe has also received several grants and fellowships in support of her work, including the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant. She teaches photography at various colleges in the TwinCities area. Roe’s Housebroken series has been featured on Slate, Juxtapoz, WIRED, as well as several other art-oriented sites.
Chris Martin is the author of The Falling Down Dance (Coffee House, 2015), winner of the 2016 MIBA Choice Award; Becoming Weather (Coffee House, 2011); and American Music (Copper Canyon, 2007) chosen by C. D. Wright for the Hayden Carruth Award. He’s been a writer-in-residence at the Minnesota History Center’s Gale Library, a Bartos Fellow at United World College, a readerin-residence at the South Minneapolis Society Library, and is the recipient of a 2017 NEA grant for poetry. In 2015 he co-founded Unrestricted Interest, a consultancy and writing program dedicated to transforming the lives of kids and adults on the autism spectrum through poetry. He has also taught at The Loft Literary Center, the University of Iowa, and Carleton College.
Iris: Art + Lit 2017 was printed by Ideal Printing in Saint Paul, MN on 70# uncoated paper with a 80# soft touch laminate cover.
Body text font is Constantia regular 11 pt. Titles and authors font is Kohinoor Devanagari in Light, Regular, Medium, Semibold and Bold.
All graphic design was completed in Adobe CS6 on iMac computers with 27” monitors.
425 copies of the magazine were printed. One copy of the magazine was distributed free of charge to each 9-12 student, with the help of patron funding and the support of a publications budget for the magazine. Additional copies of the magazine can be purchased for $10, subject to availability.
When we look at a piece of art or read a piece of literature, our unique perspectives and experiences shape how we understand it. Similarly, the iris in our eye controls how our pupil takes in light, determining the extent of what we see. Iris: Art + Lit is composed of artists’ and writers’ creative visions, but the content is shaped by each reader’s interpretations as well.
Even though the magazine represents only a small sample of work that was submitted and an even smaller sample of the art and literature that students have created over the course of this year, it allows us to celebrate our creative spirit and to explore how the same piece of art or writing can evoke dramatically different emotions depending on the eyes that view it. Everyone brings something new to a piece of art, and I encourage you to discuss what moves or interests you in the magazine with friends, to engage the creators of the work in conversation, and to think about what speaks to you. I hope that no matter what your personal perspective is, you have found one piece of work in this magazine that inspires or interests you in some way.
Dianne Caravela, Iris Editor-in-Chief