imagination
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contents/folio 1 /poetry dead man singing, Meeah Bradford age, Liv Rubenstein my october, Camille Carleton
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/prose The Great Divide, Sophie Lesniak Angelflower, Thomas Grannen
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/art Pigeon and Palm, Lauryn Kapiloff Splish Splash, Lauryn Kapiloff flex tape can’t fix that, Gabe de la Cruz Wilted, Celine Huang Jumping for Joy, Lauryn Kapiloff The Moirai, Celine Huang
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/inserts [untitled]. Angela Xu, ’21. Pen on paper. 2020 /cover monarch. Camille McFarland, ’21. Pen on paper. 2019.
Dear Reader, In these challenging and unusual times, it may feel like the world is stringing you along. It is true that this semester has been peppered with disappointments of various calibers. While most of us impatiently remain sequestered in our homes, expressions of loneliness, forms of celebration, and the notions of community all assume new meanings in a COVID-19-riddled America. As for our publication, we enjoyed one of the largest submission pools in history this semester, and with a recent expansion of our reading staff, we couldn’t wait to share our peers’ creative work with you. In adapting to these new circumstances, we currently cannot realize our original vision for the Spring Issue. However, we are excited to showcase three collections of art and writing that feature a selection of the works we planned on publishing. We know how important it is to celebrate each other’s creativity, and we will always find a way to do so no matter the circumstances. We designed our first folio to mirror the sense of derailment, or loss of control, you all may have experienced recently. In “The Great Divide,” Sophie Lesniak navigates the unpredictability of a medical anomaly. Thomas Grannen’s “Angelflower” reflects on the fleeting and uncontrollable nature of love. Urgency and subsequent resignation saturate the landscape of Meeah Bradford’s “dead man singing.” The narrator of Liv Rubenstein’s “Age” dreams of overcoming the confines of young womanhood. We end with Camille Carleton’s “My October,” charting the course of a past relationship via the inevitable passage of the seasons. The art chosen for this folio accentuates these feelings with beautiful imagery: photos, illustrations, paintings, and even a pen-on-arm drawing grace these pages. As we drift toward summer, we hope that storytelling, whatever form it may take, continues to be a touchstone for you—keep writing, keep making art! In the meantime, we invite you to join our Writing Circle program. Remember, our Imagination community is always here to support you and your work! With love and respect, Alexa Theofanidis and Tyler King, Editors-in-Chief
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Pigeon and Palm. Lauryn Kapiloff, ’21. || Photograph. 2019.
Splish Splash. Lauryn Kapiloff, ’21. || Photograph. 2019.
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Sophie Lesniak, ’22
The Great Divide T
he room is dark. A mountain of heated blankets tries to break the chill. A voice I cannot see speaks to me through a holed speaker in the paneled ceiling. “Are you comfortable? You won’t be able to move. Can you hear the movie?” “Yes.” My throat is dry. My heart pounds in my ears like a low bass from a loudspeaker. My fingers are cold with fear. Icicles. I feel my mom’s eyes on me from a chair to my left. I hear her not breathing—holding her breath—praying. A jolt, and the table moves back. A resounding hum drowns out noise, and I am sucked into the machine—the truth-teller. Everyone waiting. What will the pictures reveal? What drew the line? I try not to move—to follow the instructions. I close my eyes to the drawing of the line—to the great divide. Two days until take off. There’s a Slip ‘N Slide in my mouth. Not my whole mouth, just the right side. Slick like oil in a pan. Absent. Not feeling. “Mom, my tongue feels like plastic. Slippery. It’s weird.” Eyes bounce up from a suitcase. Skeptical. “What? You’re fine.” One day until take off. There’s a line. A border—down the center of my tongue. Tasting and not tasting. The before and the now. “Mom, my tongue feels strange. It’s like metal. Slick.”
Across the room, her eyes lift. Frazzled. Bottles of sunscreen, passports, chargers, novels, and backpacks litter the breakfast table. Homeless. Suitcases are open on chairs. Like hungry birds, their mouths gape, waiting for something to drop in. A packing list peeks out from the front pocket of her shirt. “You are fine, love. We will get there, and you will be fine. I promise.” We are leaving. Finally. The clock ticks. Everyone eagerly smiles but my mom—a whirlwind of double-checking. Suitcases sealed. Plants in the sink. Treats for the cats. Toothbrushes and paste for the plane. And then, there it was. A flash. Just a moment. An instant. Like turning a page, or flipping a switch. The truth revealed. “Mom,” I choked, racing down the stairs. “No!” She knew before she saw me. Horror spread over her face like a wave on the sand. We had been to the divide before. We knew. The right side of my face stood still. Again. For the third time. The truth absorbed like molasses. The ceiling crept lower, my chest tightened, and the reality of the next two months spelled out—like having read the novel before seeing the film. Vacation passed without a smile— not in public anyway. Not one on film. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t want a memory of this. I didn’t want to draw stares as only one side of my face swung up—as only one eye crinkled.
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Flex Tape Won’t Fix That. Gabe de la Cruz, ’22. || Graphites. 2020.
I didn’t want people to talk, but they talked anyway. Or at least I thought they did. Fear, self-consciousness, embarrassment—I thought the world was staring at me. Whispering about me. Gawking. My mom, dad, and brother beaming and me in the middle—stern, abrasive. “What’s wrong with that one?” people would say to each other as they walked passed while we ate dinner, took a picture, sat on the beach. From behind large sunglasses that protected my unblinking eye, I wanted
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to scream, “My face is what’s wrong! Half of it won’t move! It feels like thousands of needles being pushed into my skin! I have an excruciating headache! STOP STARING AT ME!” But I didn’t. Every five days, my mom would photograph my face. Smile. Crinkle your nose. Raise your eyebrows. Scrunch. Documentation of the right side’s failure to follow any of these commands. I think this must be what it is like to not be able to move your legs or your arms. There is a desire—an incredible desire, but nothing happens. It’s
horrible. Frustrating. Defeating. I worry that my face will stay like this, one side unable to express itself, unable to show joy or sorrow, unable to yell and be angry without the stillness taking attention from my words. I worry that I will be ugly, and that’s what people will see first. I have been lucky two times before, and my face has returned to normal. There is a tiny difference when I squint in the sun, but no one would notice unless I said something. I want to be myself again. Normal. Ordinary. “So lucky,” the doctors say. They are referring to my face. It came back. Again. Creeping slowly from the dead, baby steps. “Remarkable. A mystery. Rare.” All the things I don’t want to be. While most kids never get to experience the freezing of their face, I have drawn the winning ticket three times. Doctors crowd around me like I am a star. They talk about my blood work, they look at my CT scans, they discuss my MRIs. I can feel their excitement. I am a puzzle to be solved. Each wants to be the one. Rheumatology, Neurology, Otolaryngology, the facial nerve specialist— minds race. Eyes look past me, trying to see inside. This MRI showed the same thing. There was the same tremendous sigh and grateful tears wiped quickly when they said no obstruction, the adult’s euphemism for tumor, but there were no answers. Answers are hidden in nerves and glands that insist on being swollen. They aren’t telling. This MRI will join the others in my file waiting to be pulled the next time they look inside my head and neck. Paper crinkles under me as I shift on the table. Rheumatology steps for-
ward. It’s his time to shine. “How do you feel? Now that you have movement again, is there anything different?” Feel? Different? What do I say? How do I answer that? I am normal. My new normal. A line has been drawn— the great divide between who I was and who I am. I move my tongue around my mouth twenty times a day checking. Is it slick? Are there ridges? I eat to confirm I can taste. I look in the mirror constantly to see if my face is swollen. Sometimes it is, and my heart races. I can’t catch my breath. I take a photo and send it to my mom. Can she see it? In my new normal, I am anxious. I am angry. I am desperate for an answer—why has something so unusual happened to me? I am no one. Why has this adult disorder decided to seek me out? It is not supposed to attack children. I should be safe. I am mad that no one can figure it out—that you can’t figure it out. And I am terrified it will happen again. Worse—that it will happen during the school year when my friends will see, when I will have to sit in a classroom and speak, when I will not be able to hide. But this is not the question—not what he wants to know. “I feel fine,” I reply. “Today my face feels fine.” And I wait. Stuck. A line has been drawn and, so far, I cannot go back.
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so a little while later, i sat on bone-cold marble floor, chills down my spine, bitter tears running down my cheeks, chin, and chest, pooling alongside me like blood on an operating table, but not being truly surprised that the dead man singing had died.
but nothing did.
i watched a dead man sing once. he closed his eyes and spoke to me, tangible purple letters splashing me in the face as if raindrops were Welch’s grape juice flavored. i stood there, a small figure in the rambunctious crowd, a devious cloud haze surrounding screaming, thrashing mannequins, notes washing over thousands of empty heads, forever living lives devoid of thought. and i stood there, tallest in the room, wondering if anything else realized how dead this man was.
dead man singing
Meeah Bradford, ’22
Wilted. Celine Huang, ’22. || Watercolor, 9 x 12. 2019.
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Thomas Grannen, ’20
Angelflower T
he room was in a state of disrepair. Black wallpaper was curling at the seams; pillows were strewn about on the couch. The stained carpet and broken ceiling fan indicated that at some point long ago, this room had been the epicenter of joy. Now it was a sad, dark place. Only the tiniest glimmer of sunshine was able to creep its way in through a gap in the red drapes, illuminating a yellow bell-shaped plant located on the windowsill. But even the flower drooped lifelessly. In fact, the room itself was devoid of all life, save for the consistent creaking of a rocking chair in the corner. There sat a skinny old man in his late seventies. He rocked back and forth, slowly and methodically. Thick glasses covered his somber, worn face. Frowning wrinkles had crept over the smiles of his youth. But even then, or perhaps especially then, he recalled that time of his life fondly. Looking at the dead flower next to the drapes, one particular memory came to his mind. More than sixty years had gone by, but even in his old age, he could remember that day in the woods perfectly. It had been a warm day, not a cloud in sight. Not that he could see the sky; it was covered entirely by trees, but his memory gave him the impression of a spotless sky above the leaves.
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The wildlife around them was naturally silent. He saw birds in trees but heard not a peep from them, not from the blue jay nor the mockingbird perched on opposite sides of his vision. A squirrel running up a tree behind him did so without a sound and without a trace. He was sitting with his back against an unusually tall sycamore. The girl stood a few feet ahead of him, quietly observing the scattered leaves surrounding them. A cool puff of wind swept through the forest, rustling what he could see of the back of her hair. After it had settled, she spoke to him. “Have you heard of an angelflower before?” He shook his head. What an unusual name. “Well, it’s a small yellow plant that looks just like an Esperanza, if you know what that is. But it’s special. If you smell the blossoms of an angelflower, their pollen puts you in a permanent euphoric trance that makes you fall in love with the next person you see.” As she said this, she turned to face him. “Sounds like a story we read in school. What is that, Much Ado About Nothing?” he asked, looking around for anything that would match such a description. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream, actually,” she responded, “But this forest is the only place it’s ever been found
before. And it’s not just the pollen. You have to be careful about the berries. They’ll take you to another world.” “Is that so?” He looked up from the ground around him. Her dark blue eyes were almost purple in the shadow of the woods. Those eyes that had left him entranced since he’d first seen them in preschool. “It is,” she explained, “People thousands of summers ago came here searching for food and shelter. The only thing they found were angelberries, and they took all of them back to their villages. Within a few days, their houses were abandoned and they were nowhere to be found. But the ones smart enough, or I guess delicate enough, to pluck only the flowers of these plants without eating the forbidden fruit found nothing but love and joy for the rest of their lives.” “Hmm, sounds dangerous”, he replied. He was lost in her ethereal gaze. He didn’t need to sniff a magical flower to fall in love with her. “Well, that’s how the story goes, at least. It’s what my mother told me and her mother before her and her mother before her and so on and so forth. Nobody’s ever found such a plant and nobody ever will. Just imagine it, though. What if someone had that kind of power, like a real-life Cupid? The power to make someone fall in love with a person of their choice but also the power to make that person eternally happy. Would it be wrong to use it? Wouldn’t it be wrong not to use it? I think it would be really selfish for them to keep that to themselves. Don’t you think they’d owe it to humanity to share that?”
He nodded, “I suppose so.” In spite of her story, the only thing he could think about was her. Her long, brown hair and her smooth, cold hands. Her seraphic smile and the celestial sound of her voice, firm with a touch of concealed insecurity. The two of them sat there in silence. He thought about what it would be like if an angel came down from the sky at that moment and blew magical dust into her eyes, leaving her fawning over him for the rest of his waking days. Wishful thinking. After a while, she came over and gave him a kiss on the forehead, saying nothing, feeling nothing. She stood up and walked back out the way they had come, leaving him in a bewildered stupor. That was the last he would ever see of her. The day after their time in the Lost Woods, she didn’t come to school. He went to visit her house to see if everything was okay, but it was empty. As if nobody had ever lived there. He had so desperately wanted her to love him, but she never would. It was like she had been from another world. The old man focused his gaze once more to the wilting specimen on his windowsill. Surely during its germination, it had been full of energy and life. It had been a proud blossom, eager to grow taller and taller until it reached the heavens. But ultimately, this dream had been frustrated by unforgiving reality. Like Icarus. It reminded the man, who now bowed his head in sorrow, of his own dying hope. A single tear rolled down his cheek. No one would ever know.
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Liv Rubenstein, ’22
age
I have one hope that sits between my ribs, shining and bleeding from dawn until dusk, it beats out a rhythm. like a drum come to life, it whispers against my lungs: To be a marvelous woman To be old and frivolous and overflowing with honey and vintage life To know the stars by name and be looked upon by the heavens. It thrums through my blood, tinting my desires red, makes me want to paste poppies to the ceiling, fix wine bottles to my window sills, (So the sunrise dresses in burgundy). I want to sweep over tiled floors in a tomato-red robe, Let the dying sun rest on my back like cellophane across a muffin, like sweet skin on an apple When you’re old, and I mean eyes-grown-cloudy old, teeth-gone-soft old, first-name-basis-with-history old, all the places you’ve been become a legend to tell sitting children, a flower to pin at your collar. And you can shed shame like the funeral shroud of a man awakened on his pyre; timber not quite burnt, bouquets still fresh. All the strange impulses we bury beneath our feet In those growing days of hiding and slicing and fitting burst forth from the earth with vigor like strange fruit and flowers unaccustomed to sunlight. And really,
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Jumping for Joy. Lauryn Kapiloff, ’21. || Photograph. 2019.
the “crazy old woman” is simply the workhorse unbridled, its muzzle breaking up dirt packed by worn hooves. And I dream of breaking through the gates, crashing over fences and lawns so carefully arranged about me, of walking on the grass instead of the pavement, of touching every painting, pinning crystals to my ears, and leaving shame out with the recycling. Now I walk bent nearly to the ground. The weight of football games spent standing up. Boys with passing hands. Hair burned straight just to melt on the walk to school has ground my bones into something hard something bitter. It has bent my back into a hook.
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And so I dream of that blessed morning, When I’ll wake to silver at my brow or lines wound about my eyes I’ll abandon my chores and spend the whole day ironing out the kinks and curls in my spine. I’ll pour lemon juice against the brown spots. I’ll starch its cords and pull them tight. I’ll hang it up to dry on a clothesline. Let the sunshine bleach the vertebrae white. And when it’s dried and sweet from the fresh air, I’ll walk for the first time since my hair grew beyond my shoulders. Standing straight up. Freedom is a library book left on hold till you have served your time in the world as a mother or daughter or son Its pages are yellowed; its binding has torn and to read it aloud would draw nothing but stares: For what gives her the right to speak so loudly? But I’ll wait beside the desk past closing time just to stroke its cover.
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Camille Carleton, ’22
my october those october eyes, changing right in front of me with all the reds and browns and soft greens of a dying summer and coming fall are scathed with light, lit by the cigarette smoking in your fingers fumbling & moving with the grace of a dancer you long to dance under the moonlight but you smoke instead and i can see it your eyes that guilt of late october. you are born of autumn leaves a stark, dark cool surrounds you a personality trait i, for one, never picked up and it reminds me deeply of the crunchy leaves underfoot as we race on our slim bikes down the path jackets left behind because our fall is never as cold as we would like it and we put off the coming winter because snow brings Christmas, and Christmas makes us lonely and so we wait in our chilled, goosebump arms throwing stones into a river we swim in between our favorite times of year the air is lit by the sound of something falling leaves touching the harsh ground probably just mother nature bending her arms as her eyes closed a quiet sleep surrounding her as summer ends and fall comes tracing its cool fingers around us as we run, endless and spineless into the dying light.
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that was us. i was the summery one bright and shining a silver lining on your every cloud where i swam in the waters and soaked in my youth you were paddling for the deep end with the anger you longed to fuel. and where i bought us snow cones with hard-earned money you stole life jackets for us to swim in the rapids offshore. we were different, you and i, encapsulated in those moments when we were much younger and all was right. almost.
The Moirai. Celine Huang, ’22. || Pen on arm. 2019.
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my october eyes i wished the best for you but even as the seasons changed and our times came and flew we grew apart, as one does you stayed in your dark little cocoon a flower encased in ice waiting to fly. i was a summer dandelion, always sticking my nose where i wasn’t wanted but you you lived for those deep autumn days with all the reds and golds and dark yellows reflected on your face. and then there i was, standing in the grass as tears rolled down my face the past came running back to those dirt-lane biking trails and slim summer swims our swimmies stuck on the line mama always told us to bring in. you, out back, smoking as you would i painted you once, you know it won at the art festival. it all happened so fast i felt like there was nothing i could do to stop my caterpillar from cocooning.
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Masthead Editors-in-Chief Tyler King Alexa Theofanidis Managing Editor Sacha Waters PR Director Izzy Andrews Poetry Editors Nyla Hartigan Liv Rubenstein Prose Editors Ethan Kinsella Sophie Lesniak Art Editor Celine Huang Design Editors Russell Li Ian McFarlane
Staff Readers Max Beard Natalie Brown Emily Burnett Owen Butler Ella Chen Laney Chang Len de la Cruz Charlotte Curtin Fareen Dhuka Karli Fisher Sophia Groen Nat Larsen Ariana Lee Afraaz Malick Camille McFarland Meridian Monthy Julia Rae Elizabeth Reed Faculty Advisor Max Boyd
The Writing Circle Through this program, Imagination seeks to provide the School’s creative writers with a place to improve their craft and collaborate with their peers. The Writing Circle primarily facilitates workshopping between students, allowing them to give and receive constructive feedback on their writing. These meetings are modeled on traditional workshopping techniques, but carried out in a more informal setting to encourage active conversation between authors and readers. Our hope is that we will organize a cohort of passionate writers that will uplift and support each other. Any student interested in joining the Writing Circle should email Tyler King (tking@sjs.org) and Alexa Theofanidis (atheofanidis@sjs.org).
About Us Imagination is the student-directed literary journal of St. John’s School. We welcome the work of all students, especially those who push the boundaries of conventional writing and language. In line with the School’s Statement on Community and Inclusion, we seek to provide a place for free creative expression, where students of all backgrounds and perspectives can have their voices heard. Imagination is dedicated to providing a creative environment free from discrimination based on belief, religion, race, ethnicity, age, sex, gender, disability, or sexual orientation. Further, we strive to be a resource for developing creative writers at the School. The ideas expressed within the pieces of this journal do not reflect those of the School, the faculty, or the Editorial Board.
Our Selection Process Pieces are submitted by students and selected through two anonymous rounds of judging. Staff readers first read our pieces, providing preliminary feedback and rankings. Due to the volume of submissions, staff readers are separated into different sections by genre for this task. Using the responses of staff readers as a guide, the Genre Editors work with the Editorial Board to select pieces within each genre, before the issue is finalized by the Editorial Board. Imagination guarantees that at least seven people will review each submission, provide feedback, and engage in discourse before decisions are made.
Minutiae This is the first of three folios that will be published in lieu of the 2020 Spring Issue. The submission window for writing featured in the 2020 Fall Issue will open at the beginning of next school year. Art and photography are accepted on a rolling basis. Copyright 2020 by Imagination and St. John’s School. Authors and artists retain the rights to their individual works. All rights reserved. St. John’s School 2401 Claremont Lane Houston, Texas 77019
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