2021 | Tabula Rasa

COLOPHON

TABULA RASA is set in EB Garamond and Futura typeface. The front and end covers, as well as the title page, feature a sculpture created by Emily Takara entitled “Kankara Sanshin: Music of the Moment.”

The magazine was produced on Adobe InDesign and printed by Folger Graphics, and the pages were designed by Eva Liu, Prithi Srinivasan, and Micaela Rodriguez Steube. It was printed on Pacesetter Digital 10% Recycle paper.

EDITORS’ NOTE

Here we are, coming to the end of an unprecedented school year. Lockdown due to COVID-19 has made this year particularly challenging, leaving writers and artists alike at a loss for inspiration and motivation. However, the talented students at Pinewood School have overcome these obstacles and produced beautiful works of literary and visual art.

This year, Tabula Rasa expanded to include a website where literary and visual artists in grades 7-12 may submit their work year round under quarterly themes. Particularly outstanding works have been featured on our website (www.pwtabularasa.org) and on our Instagram page (@pwtabularasa), and have been included in this magazine.

The works in the 2021 edition of Tabula Rasa explore themes not only of change and unrest, but also of beauty and introspection. From pieces about the Black Lives Matter movement to the intersections of different cultures, this year’s publication reflects what the pandemic has helped us learn about ourselves.

The artwork and written works alike highlight the strength we have found in ourselves and others. Ultimately, they teach us that resilience and light shine through the darkness of fear.

Thank you to our advisors, Ms. Strand and Mr. Wells, for making this possible, and thank you to the Pinewood community for sharing your stories with us. It is our honor to present them so that each can inspire others to reflect and persevere.

Eva Liu, Prithi Srinivasan, and Micaela Rodriguez Steube 2020-21 Editors

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STREETLIGHTS AND LANTERNS , Emily Takara 2

DEAREST TICONDEROGA PENCIL , Raghav Ramgopal 5

DROWN , Rye Kianpour 6

BENEATH THE SURFACE , Cindy Lin 6

FOR IF I BREATHE , Riva Rubin 7

MODERN WARRIOR , Emily Takara 8

GONE FOREVER , Prithi Srinivasan 9-18

DANCE OF THE ELEMENTS , Sania Choudhary 10

HANAFUDA PIXELS , Emily Takara 12

DANCING FLOWERS , Sania Choudhary 14

RED ROCK CANYON , Drew Mahlmeister 15

CAGED , Janet Liu 18

ON OUR OWN TWO FEET , Jaden Norwood 19

MODERN LEADER , Emily Takara 19

CHINATOWN , Samantha Hsiung 20

BICULTURAL , Janet Liu 20

A SONG SILENCED , Arina Oberoi 21-29

ROUND BIRD , James Chang 22

THIS MAGIC MOMENT , Drew Ness 24

GOT HER HEAD IN THE FLOWERS , Sania Choudhary 26

FAT BIRD , James Chang 27

MANDALA, Micaela Rodriguez Steube 29

A LOVER’S TOUCH , Drew Ness 30

A LETTER TO LIFE , Maritsa Christoforou 31

THE PERFECT NUMBER , Prisha Moha patra 32

WHEN THE WORLD WAS ENDLESS , Annabelle Eaton 33-34

DREAMING OF THE FUTURE , Emily Takara 34

SEE YOU SOON , Sophia Yao 35-36

WELCOME HOME, LITTLE READER, Sania Choudhary 37

WHAT WILL YOU DO , Makena Matula 38

STAR-GAZING , Christina Tanase 39

WHERE I’M FROM , Jackie Pan 40-42

OVER THE CITY , Cindy Lin 41

INVADERS , Cindy Lin 42

BIRTHDAY CANDLES , Sophia Yuxuan Cheng 43-44

FIFTH BIRTHDAY , Micaela Rodriguez Steube 45

DEAR THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR , Anika Nambisan 46-48

OUTER SPACE , Eva Liu 49

OUR SPACE , Sania Choudhary 49

SHE MADE ME , Samantha Hsiung 50-51

MENPO FOR A HOPEFUL FUTURE , Emily Takara 51

WHITE BLACK , Eva Liu 52

WHERE THE DANDELIONS GROW , Magnolia Lemmon 53-58

VIEW FROM SPACE , Emily Takara 53

WATER ON HAND , Drew Mahlmeister 55

ZEN SUN , Leela Jarschel 58

MAYBE IT’S JUST ME , Sania Choudhary 59-60

A DIFFERENT DAISY , Anika Nambisan 61

MODERN FIGHTER, Emily Takara 62

SHORT STORY COMPETITION , Lulu Diffenbaugh 64-65

RHYMING COUPLETS COMPETITION, Leo Gray, Emma

Hwang 66

DEAREST TICONDEROGA PENCIL

By Raghav Ramgopal, 9

Some may look at you as nothing: just another meaningless object in our fast developing world. But I think you are more than that.

You are the key to all the world’s knowledge.

With your fine charcoal leg and your rosy pink head, your long yellow body and your dark green neck, you bring me an abundance of inspiration. With you in my hand, the possibilities are endless.

We have gone on a plethora of adventures together, making lasting memories along the way. I still remember learning how to embrace you with my stubby little fingers at the age of two.

Once I learned how to hold you correctly, I used you for everything. Writing stories, annotating books, taking important tests and quizzes. We have done it all.

On this memorable journey, mistakes were made, and your head was rubbed off; anger was felt, and your leg broke, But you fought through it all. granting me the gift of learning along the way.

I will never forget the long, yellow Ticonderoga pencil that welcomed me into the classroom and brought me the world.

You will always be mine.

DROWN

By Rye Kianpour, 10

It’s cold, so very frigid I have nothing to hold, as my body goes rigid If only my eyes would open If only I weren’t broken, I would be able to see, But that is not my fault, simply that of the sea. These waves that pull me under, Have they always been this strong, I wonder?

Alas my eyes have always been open! Yet this darkness has only just now spoken; Has death finally come to greet me? Or is this another subconscious plea? I do not wish to fall into the clutches of sleep; I wish to live longer among the roaming sheep! Yet I am too tired to even weep, And this cold is so very very comfortable and warm... BENEATH THE SURFACE BY CINDY LIN,

FOR IF I BREATHE

By Riva Rubin, 12

For if I breathe a single breath

I encompass what I am A woman strong till lonesome death

Soul weighted by the gram Through my existence, I choose to fight

For me, my friends, and you And through this solemn, dreary plight

I see man as virtue

But if I breathe a single breath

For what must I now owe?

It’s nature’s gift to me, this depth I mustn’t stoop this low I say nature supplies me so, To inhale and breathe out

But the leaves, the water, and the sky will grow

With me, or without

Nature isn’t made for me

Nature isn’t mine

I claim to fight for freedom

Yet just extend to the divine

I ignore the rotten trampled Earth

As I wield her as my sword

But forget that I must nurture her For I see her, not the Lord

I breathe and breathe to say these words I breathe to write this now I will never understand the Earth But at her presence, I will bow

GONE FOREVER

By Prithi Srinivasan, 11

“The early bird gets the worm.” This aphorism never made much sense to me. Why is it only the early bird? I’m sure there are plenty of worms to go around for birds that are delayed in traffic or those that have other engagements to attend. If not worms, I’m sure other insects or even small rodents would make a passable snack. Take a centipede, for example. Writhing and wriggling in all its glory—the perfect amuse bouche for the discerning myna bird. One day I witnessed this very pairing, a mid-afternoon myna stalking its proverbial worm. But the bird never received its snack, and the centipede died shortly thereafter, despite my best efforts. Perhaps the saying should be revised: “There are birds and there are worms. They both die in the end, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Picture this: a warm day, so humid that every breath felt like inhaling a sauna. This was usual for the winters in Chennai, India, the booming city on the coast of the Bay of Bengal; you could almost taste the impending rain on your tongue. The rain that had pounded the rooftops even before sunrise was just beginning to let up, and the gloom began to lift. But the second I was told, “Prithi, get ready. We’re going to Sam thatha’s house now. I have some things I need to get done,” the gloom returned with a vengeance, hand in hand with its closest companion: dread. I knew that we would have to go there eventually, but I didn’t realize that it would be so soon, that we would be called to stop by on just the second day of our visit. I leaned into the couch, processing the news, while the world around me was thrown into the bustle of hurried preparation. My mother was draping a thin cotton dupatta over her blouse, her mouth set in the same business-like frown she always had when she concentrated. Her eyebrows furrowed as she rifled through closets and drawers for bags large enough to carry whatever she expected to receive at her father’s house. I sat still, picking at my fingernails. “I think I’ll stay back with Vasan thatha and Usha pati,” I wanted to say, but my father was already handing me a bottle of sweet-scented bug spray and kicking my flip-flops towards the couch.

“Let’s go,” he said sternly, when it became clear I had no plans of getting up from the couch. His face was tense, and he kept glancing

down at his watch, as if every minute I dallied was really a decade, or a year at the very least. “I’m serious, Prithi. Let’s go.”

“Fine! I’m coming,” I said, getting up from the couch. I trudged over to the door, flip-flops slapping loudly against the tiled floor, careful to step around the swirling kolam, a design of rice flour and water neatly drawn in front of the entrance. My mother joined my father and me at the front door armed with two big bags and a purse. I looked at the floor, following the powdery lines of the kolam, not wanting to meet her eyes. She seemed perfectly fine, I thought to myself. She seemed as though she could walk into her father’s house with no complaint, with no fear, with no tears. I swallowed loudly, suddenly tasting bitterness in my mouth. I was mildly aware of my father unhooking the door latch with a soft click and of my grandmother reaching towards my face to pinch my cheeks painfully, but the next thing I knew, my parents and I were in the parking lot of the apartment complex waiting for an auto to pass by.

The road, if one could really call the unpaved, glass-littered path a road, was quiet for once. Instead of the ever-pervasive scent of cow dung and stubbed cigarettes, I could only smell ash—not the kind of

DANCE OF THE ELEMENTS

BY SANIA CHOUDHARY, 11

ash that you would smell in a campfire or the kind of ash that hangs in the air in the months following a California summer, but the sweet, lingering scent of vibhuti, holy ash. I inhaled deeply, digging my flipflops into the dust beneath me. My mother tried to meet my eyes, an expression of mild concern on her face, but I stared right past her into the oncoming traffic. I had no use for her sympathy. An auto stopped in front of the gate of the apartment complex, and the driver slammed his palm violently against the horn, producing what I could only presume a goose being violently strangled would sound like.

“Enna, sar? Enga ponam?” he asked my father casually, one hand on the handlebar of the vehicle, the other deeply burrowed and vigorously scratching under his left arm. What, sir? Where do you want to go? My father told him the address of my grandfather’s house, and we piled into the auto, the three of us squeezing uncomfortably into the two-seater space of the back seat. I stared out the open side of the auto for most of the ride, feeling the wind whistle against my face. The road leading up to my grandfather’s house was wet, giant potholes filled to the brim with murky brown-grey water, swaying back and forth in anticipation of the oncoming autos. Even as the auto sank recklessly into one pothole after another, sending a spray of water across my ankles, my eyes remained fixed on the road. Suddenly, the auto stopped, its motor grinding unpleasantly. We had arrived. Shaking the mud and dust off of my feet, I made my way to the front gate. The gnarled red face of a smiling demon greeted me from the facade of the house, its face contorted in a deep laugh, the kind that comes from the belly. It was customary to see such a demon on or near the front doors of houses in Chennai, but I had always found myself transfixed by the bright, animated one that graced the exterior of my grandfather’s house. Now, it was chipped, the white and pink paint having washed off from its eyes and tongue. I looked to the door directly beside the demon, half-expecting my grandfather to push it open with a cheerful “vanakkam,” welcome, his arms outstretched and his mouth open wide in a brilliant grin, but no such thing happened. Wind whistled softly through the white shutter windows framing the door. I didn’t have to peek through the slits to see that the house had been emptied; only a last whisper of breath lingered in the abandoned home.

My mother went ahead into my grandfather’s tenant’s house, knocking on the door with a pleasant smile on her face. My father and I stayed behind, walking circles around the entrance of my grandfather’s house. I kicked a couple of pebbles, which scattered soundlessly across the pavement. Suddenly, I stopped. Something on the ground below me caught my eye: a faint red mark in the concrete. It was faded around the edges, and I knew that someone had tried to wash that mark away as much as they could, but it was still there, clinging to the grains of sand and silt. With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I raised my eyes to the roof of the house, where I had once walked with my grandfather not six years before. Last time I had been up there, on the far edge of the roof, he had taken my hand and walked me to a little dip where a bit of insulation was peeking through, just in front of the water heater. We had watched the myna birds fly circles above the road, their whistling calls echoing off each other. I could feel my eyes fill with tears, but I tried to blink them away.

“Are you okay?” my father asked, suddenly stopping to look at me.

“Something in my eye,” I mumbled, raising a finger to brush the tears that were collecting under my eyelashes. It came back wet, a single puddle swaying on my fingertip, cooling the skin it touched. I looked back at the red stain, then again up at the corner of the roof,

HANAFUDA PIXELS BY EMILY TAKARA, 11

where the water heater no longer was. How do people just die? They wake up one day, check their emails to listen to their granddaughter playing Concerto in A Minor by Jean-Baptiste Accolay on the violin, music they never really enjoyed, but tolerated because it was their granddaughter playing it, then they go up onto the roof to check their water heaters, and then they’re gone—four stories below, then in a hospital bed, then never to be seen again. And that’s it. In the weeks following, everyone is called for a thirteen day ceremony, and everyone goes except the granddaughter, of course, and she’s the eldest granddaughter, too. It’s not fair that they all got to say goodbye, when they didn’t even know him the way she did. Still, the eldest granddaughter never cries because if she cries, then it will all be over for everyone. If she cries, then they’ll know for certain that something is wrong because she’s never cried for anything. She doesn’t want to cause any unnecessary worry, she reasons to herself; she doesn’t want to take any attention away from the matter at hand. She’s not allowed to miss him, so she doesn’t. It’s as simple as that. Because of this, it’s the eldest granddaughter who has to come back to the house and see the blood on the concrete. It’s the eldest granddaughter who has to go into the house and gather up all the things she has given to him and put them in a little bag to bring home with her. She’s doing perfectly fine; she can handle it. At least, that’s what she tells herself. I kicked the ground one more time, viciously, vindictively, then I walked away.

“Anjana!” my mother called me from the doorway of my grandfather’s tenant’s house. I narrowed my eyes at the use of my middle name. She must need something from me, I thought.

“What?” I shouted back, not without venom.

“Come here!” I trudged over to her, flip-flops grating harshly across the concrete. “Walk properly!” she called to me, and I pulled a face in return. When I reached her, she held out one of the bags she had been carrying on the ride to the house. It was no longer empty, filled to the brim with documents and letters: bills from the bank, checks from other tenants, and old photographs of my family. “Can you take this? I’m going into thatha’s house,” she said. I nodded, taking the bag in my own hands. The papers slid against each other and against the plastic-coated walls of the bag with a heavy rustle. My arms dropped suddenly, unable to support the surprising weight of the bag. “Careful!” my mother warned. “We need those papers.” I nodded again,

DANCING FLOWERS BY

SANIA CHOUDHARY,

11

shifting my grip on the smooth plastic handles of the bag, which dug like wires into the skin of my palms. She watched me a little longer, then began to head up the stairs to the front door of my grandfather’s house. “Do you want anything from inside?” she asked, looking back.

I paused at that. What could be inside? A pile of cobwebs, perhaps. The choking taste of dust on your tongue. Possibly an old photo. It struck me. “If you see the pallanguzhi, can you bring that?” I asked hopefully. I thought back to the day my grandfather had taken me up on the roof. We had stood by the edge for ten, fifteen minutes, then he had lifted me up and brought me into the house.

Then, he asked me, “Do you want to play a game?” I had nodded vehemently, and he went into the storage room, shuffling around shelves, drawers, and cabinets, pushing papers and silk saris aside to retrieve a plain wooden box. It was covered in splinters, wood fibers peeling off like pieces of thread, sharp and stiff against my curious hands. He turned it towards me so that I could see a metal latch holding the top and bottom of the box together. I reached for it with my stubby child’s fingers and tried to pry the box open, struggling to

RED ROCK CANYON BY DREW MAHLMEISTER,

push back the rough and rusted hook in the latch. He watched me with amusement for some time, then took the box from me, sliding the hook back with ease to reveal a game board with fourteen “pots,” each filled generously with white cowrie shells of all shapes and sizes. He had taught me how to play pallanguzhi on that board, turning a blind eye every time he saw me skip a pot or “forget” to drop a cowrie shell.

The familiarity of sitting on the wooden couch with Mickey Mouse cushions, balancing the board on the dip of the fabric, washed over me. I could almost see my grandfather reaching for his fifth grease-laden and salty vada while he waited for me to finish my turn. My eyes pricked. I was still looking up at the front door, where my mother was standing with her key positioned at the lock.

“If I find it, I’ll get it,” she said. “I’m not making any promises.” I nodded gratefully in return.

The front door opened, then closed behind her. I began to walk in circles around the stairs that led up to the front door, constantly readjusting my hold on the bag in my arms whenever it started to slip. A sharp metallic clanging sounded behind me, momentarily startling me. I turned to find the source of the noise: a myna bird had landed on the railing of the stairs. I stared into its beady eyes, and it stared resolutely back at me, ruffling its tail feathers and stretching its wings. I wondered if it was one of the myna birds I had seen when I was up on the roof with my grandfather; he always did have the habit of leaving out a dish of lentils or rice for them to eat. It continued to look unblinkingly at me. I shook my bag towards the myna bird, hoping to scare it off. If anything, its scaled feet gripped more tightly on the railing. I stepped to the left, but its eyes remained fixed on the spot I had been standing before, where a centipede was writhing and wriggling on the cold cement. The bird snapped its beak hungrily, hopping down the railing to get a closer look at the tasty snack. So it wasn’t eating dal rice anymore. So in the four months that my grandfather had been gone, the birds had all forgotten about him or left. They had simply and opportunistically moved on to other things— and perhaps I could say the same about the people who had known my grandfather as well. Perhaps I could say the same thing about myself. Within a day of hearing the news I was back on my feet, going through life as usual. While my mother was cooped up in his house,

dealing with days of funeral ceremony, I was traipsing down the halls of my school, not a care in my mind except whether the year would be all I expected it to be. They didn’t want me to cry, so I didn’t. But how is that enough justification for not shedding a single tear at the death of someone so kind, so gentle, so wise? I glared at the bird. It stepped closer to the wriggling centipede, challenging my authority. I stomped my foot hard on the ground, once, then twice, then again and again and again, moving closer and closer to the bird. It flinched with each thundering snap of my flip-flops. I was less than a meter away from the bird now, gaining on it as it gained on the centipede. A foot now. The bird let out a piercing caw, then took off, landing on the telephone pole across the street.

I stopped, then, watching the insect on the concrete. It was curling and uncurling its thin frame over a small pebble embedded in the concrete. I crouched, gathering the bag I was holding up into my chest so nothing would spill out. I could see that the centipede was lying in a small red stain, much smaller than the one by the front gate of the house, a mere splatter of scarlet. Its legs were pointed up, and each was kicking half-heartedly in the air. I looked for a stick, wondering if I could turn it over, but when I looked back at the insect, it had flipped over onto its side, still twisting and turning in the crimson mark. I felt my lips start to tremble. It had hit me for the first time: Sam thatha was gone. Nothing I did or didn’t do would be able to change that. My mother was puttering around in the house upstairs, looking for a game I would probably never touch when I came home. My father was on the phone with his parents, already talking about what we would eat for lunch when we returned to their apartment. They had mourned already, while I was preoccupied with portraying an inhuman display of stoicism. “Who was I really helping?” I thought to myself. I doubt my parents would have batted an eyelash if I had burst into tears or if I was more somber than usual—they had done exactly the same. It wasn’t as though I would be sparing them some great loss by showing no emotion. I was doing no one a favor; I was simply sparing myself, hiding from the truth. Perhaps I thought that if I ignored it, then it would be as if it hadn’t happened at all. It would be as if my grandfather was sitting in the swing in his front hall, rocking back and forth without a care, waiting for us to come visit him. But that would never happen. I needed to stop pretending. He was gone, he

was gone, he was gone—forever. I mustered as much resolve as I could gather, still staring at the pavement, my throat feeling tight. The centipede gave one final kick, then was still. A drop of water landed on the ground with a spatter. Then another. I didn’t have to wipe my eyes to know that I was crying, for what felt like the first time in a long time.

CAGED BY JANET LIU, 11

ON OUR OWN TWO FEET

By Jaden Norwood, 11

A month to celebrate our culture

A reminder that no one can take it—no, not a vulture

Because what is ours is sacred

It is a part of who we are

Just like the hands we use to continually climb and crawl over the mountain, our limbs fatigued

From the unbalanced battlefield we musn’t retreat

We must stand tall, on our own two feet

Our words are powerful, like a high tide

We can’t bicker over winning, losing, or trying to tie

Coming together is of utmost importance

No matter if they’re black, pink, or white

What truly matters is the color inside

Our inner palette makes us, us

And you, you

There is a future that we must set the blueprint for Not only for ourselves

But for the future leaders, teachers, and creators

It is up to all of us to leave a path for them to succeed

But only if we join together, a valiant creed

We must stand tall together, on our own two feet.

CHINATOWN

By Samantha Hsiung, 10

InFebruary2020,anAsianmanwasassaultedbyagroupofmeninBayview, SanFranciscowhilecollectingaluminumcans.Arecordingoftheincident waspostedonTwitter.Init,peoplecouldbeheardmockingthemanand shouting,“IhateAsians.”Whilethevictimwastryingtoretrieveabagcontainingthecanshehadgathered,oneofthemenalsoswungametalpoleat him.Therewereseveralbystanders,butnoneofthemintervenedorattemptedtostopthegroupofmenfromfurtherattackingtheAsianman.

baba / this city is ours / our / black fortune / plastered on brick walls/ in fresh blood & pomegranate / cracked paper lanterns / their oil bellies / starving / tongues / stuffed down our throats / what flaps in a foreign wind / too red / five stars / not enough / stars / porcelain bodies / blue constellations / spun around bones / bleach / in our pockets / an antidote / to white man & yellow skin & swollen tongue / an old / asian man / snarfs down soda cans / by a sidewalk / in bayview / san francisco / when death extends / a finger / to his temple / here / you are cupping my hands / in your hands / head pressed against the sky / praying / like / this city was never ours

This piece won an honorable mention in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

A SONG SILENCED

By Arina Oberoi, 11

Righty tighty… lefty loosey. No. No, that doesn’t sound right. Is it righty loosey, lefty tighty? No, that sounds even worse. Maybe if I play around with it, I ca-

“When’s your first day of school?” she cuts me off, abruptly enough that I flinch, letting the microphone thud onto the floor, making me wince once more.

“I think- I think tomorrow,” I say on a deep exhale as I pick up the dropped mic. My mind flutters back to the day that awaits before me, which I had failed to recall in the midst of my performance that afternoon. It’s not surprising though; music often tends to be my distraction, my shelter from the flames erupting around me, burning all that is familiar til it was ash.

“I guess a lot of things are changing for you right now,” Mrs. Lindsay says as she wraps up some loose microphone cords. I feel my heart drop just a bit. Not as much as one would’ve expected given the circumstances, but a certain, distinct sinking feeling arises in my stomach. And as my mind winds back to every instant that led me to this moment, I mindlessly trip over the stage, letting my microphone thud. Yet this time it’s a violent crash with the hardwood floor beneath echoes, ringing throughout the room like a violently struck bell.

It had been about a year of chaos. Yet, it never felt like it was me who was enduring it, that everything was happening around me. That it was happening around me. It felt as though it were all happening to someone else. It was just too much to happen in real life, let alone mine. Simply put, it was as if I had clawed out of my body, perched myself on a tree, and was watching what was happening below. How did this all happen?

What does it take to silence a nightingale’s song?

About a year prior, my dad began commuting to Arizona for work. He spent Mondays to Fridays away from our home and went to stay in someone else’s. Even in the grand home we had, when both my mom and dad were together, their voices could be heard in every

room, and on bad days, it would travel up our winding stairs, all the way to my room on the opposite side of the house, where I would sit in the corner and play with my treasured dolls, not able to understand how my parents couldn’t get along when my dolls so easily could. On these nights, my grandma would tell me that everything was perfectly normal, that everything would be mended soon. In one sense, she was correct. My parents would both join forces with their own lawyers so that they could shuffle through the mountains of dreaded, jargon-filled paperwork. The paperwork would eventually be completed, and the deal would be set.

The butcher’s cleaver would slam into the entity, making its mark and leaving a clean chop. But even when the chop is clean, there is still blood that erupts from the wound.

Unlike most kids’ experiences with divorce, my parents never sat me down and told me explicitly what was going to happen. It all happened so slowly and in such a way that it was just a gentle stroke of pencil on the paper that was my life. Yet, it was the only gentle stroke of pencil to light the paper on fire.

One day, my dad would be in Arizona for a week. Then two weeks.

Then three. Then, he just stopped coming back home. He eventually bought another home nearby, and I was supposed to leave my home, the nest I was so perfectly perched in, every other week to visit his.

He came back into my life, but the cohesive family I once had didn’t. The perfection I had before in my childhood had evaporated with their marriage. My toy bike sat rusting in the corner of our garage. Beach toys lay untouched, scattered in a still sandbox, collecting cobwebs.

Homework was left with illegible scribbles on it, all of which read of unaided frustration. The stones I had once played with in the backyard were left unturned.

Worst of all, my two dolls were separated so I could have one in each home, meaning I could never play with the two of them together again.

For so long, everything appeared to be perfect. For so long, I couldn’t hear the shouts echoing from the kitchen, but they were there. For so long, I couldn’t see the pity in the world’s eyes, but it was always watching me. For so long, I missed what was right in front of my face. For so long, I had dissociated from the life that was mine. I had flown up into a world that wasn’t there, blissfully denying reality. I wasn’t prepared for the inevitable.

But the inevitable doesn’t care whether you’re prepared. It just knocks on your door and hopes you’re ready.

Knock.

“Before you go home, I want to give you this,” Mrs. Lindsay says, pulling out a silver, diamond encrusted jewelry box. The box has the distinct shape of a bird with a striking yellow lining. A dark warm, beige color, it looked like a nightingale.

“I have a lot of these guys in my yard, and I’ve noticed you watch them while you perform,” she says. “Are they a distraction for you? Yes!” she lets out a hearty laugh, but quickly refrains herself, “But, I figured you might appreciate some distractions right now.”

With that, the sun on that Sunday set, leaving young me to explore the new world I was about to enter. A place where nothing was familiar, not my family, not my friends, and, soon to be, not myself.

The following day was my first day at a new school. I wasn’t supposed to change schools, but my mom found it inconvenient to drive me to the school I had been attending previously. Like a small bird perched

perfectly in a nest, I had found no reason to move. But my parents’ choices over the past year had already changed many things for me by then, so for my school to change as well was no surprise. Had they known that their decision could be compared to that last stroke of a match that lights a fire, maybe they would’ve thought again.

For months, the life I was living didn’t feel like mine. It wasn’t mine. The broken family wasn’t mine. The dampened pillow wasn’t mine. The slamming doors weren’t mine. The half empty home wasn’t mine. None of this was mine.

And now, school wasn’t either.

A school painted with unfamiliar faces, scribbled with new names, an environment as unfamiliar as uncharted territory I would have normally indulged myself in. Yet, this time, it was no longer an exciting adventure of exploration that awaited me.

Instead, it was the loss of the familiar forest green uniforms that often chafed against my skin when I sprinted across the blacktop, chasing after the friends I had known for years, the hands covered in sand from all thetime spent building castles in a sandbox, the fingernails painted with silver sharpie from the times I was bored in art class, the scars on my legs from each time I fell face first onto the blacktop because I had forgotten to tie my shoes.

I thought I was fearless. I thought I was brave. But it’s easy to think you’re not afraid of the unfamiliar when everything around you is familiar.

I would learn this the hard way, when my last piece of familiarity, this school, was snatched away.

To this day, I can’t explain why I reacted the way I did. Even at the prime age of nine, I don’t think I knew why I did. But within a week of being at this new school, it wasn’t just my family that wasn’t familiar, nor my school; now, it was myself.

I had become so scared of everything around me, fearful that the small constants I had would disappear. At this point, the only thing I was familiar with was the loss of something familiar.

In the mornings, when my mom dropped me off to school, it was a struggle for me to let her leave, to stop clinging onto the cuff of her comforting, cashmere cardigan. I would insist that she stay, dreading that if she left, she wouldn’t come back. I would make her promise

GOT HER HEAD IN THE FLOWERS BY SANIA CHOUDHARY,

that she would be back at exactly 2:15 that afternoon. On the worst mornings, I would lose control of myself, clinging onto any part of her I could get ahold of, desperately hoping I wouldn’t lose my grasp. At best, I would simply watch her leave, feeling my eyes beginning to hurt as they dampened and hearing my heart thumping in my head, as loud and quick as the footsteps of the children dashing into the school behind me.

During the school day, I began to obsessively fuss over which pencils I used and books I touched. At the age of nine, I refused to trade Elmo and Hello Kitty pencils like all the other kids. I refused to trade pudding for cake or lend my Harry Potter book to a friend. I was fainthearted when it came to the thought of losing something else and built myself a cage of familiarity, trying to protect myself from another loss. But I couldn’t protect myself from everything. Knock.

FAT BIRD BY JAMES CHANG, 8

The inevitable day came where I had to return a science textbook to school at the end of the year. I had been dreading that day for weeks and woke up that morning feeling the growls of my churning stomach and the wavering consciousness of a dizzy mind. When the dreaded deed was done, and the book was returned, I couldn’t help but get my tears all over my mom’s warm, comforting cashmere sweater as I sobbed in her arms, longing for that familiar, 2nd grade textbook back.

In the new school itself, I began to develop an especially odd fear of certain parts of the building. There were five wings in the school: A, B, C, D, and E. Besides the B-Wing, where my classroom was, I had always refused to enter the other wings out of unease, an unease so strong, that even when my entire class would go down to the D-Wing, I would refuse with my whole heart to go and would often miss class doing so.

My year of third grade went on just like this. I wasn’t the girl who would explore every inch of her yard anymore, charting the uncharted territories that lay before her. I had become the girl who was too afraid to do a single thing that fell out of my comfort zone, and my comfort zone shrunk drastically.

As this year of turbulence and change wrapped up, it was time for that same annual performance I had participated in a year prior.

“Are you ready, Arina?” Mrs. Lindsay whispered, trying to stay quiet backstage.

“Yes,” I responded, knowing I wasn’t. My entire body shook, my heart beat out of my chest, my breaths were shallow. I knew I wasn’t ready. But just a year before, I had been more than ready.

But I wasn’t that girl anymore.

She was oozing with confidence. She thought she was the best in the room.

But I- I couldn’t even bring myself to take that first step onto the stage. And so I didn’t.

“Arina, it’s your turn,” Mrs. Lindsay nudged me. But I stayed frozen, as if I had just seen a ghost. And I had. The ghost of a year prior stood before me, performing on that stage as if it were instinctual, and moving across the stage in such a comfortable manner that it

seemed as though she were flying. But now it was as if my wings were pinned to the ground, and my mind was rather the one flying.

That ghost within me wanted so badly to do the thing she had loved, the thing she was so familiar with. Yet this newfound cage of familiarity kept her far away from it.

“I can’t.” I whispered, feeling my throat tighten with pain, and my eyes begin to water. “Not today. I can’t.”

So I didn’t. I stayed quiet, huddled in the back of the stage, lost in my own mind. Lost in the world I had thought myself to be so familiar with. And in protecting myself from loss, I gave up what I loved most.

So, what does it take to silence a nightingale? The nightingale herself.

MANDALA BY MICAELA RODRIGUEZ STEUBE, 12

A LETTER TO LIFE

By Maritsa Christoforou, 11

You stand there invisible

Moving far, moving steady, moving near I can’t see you, but I feel you crystal clear

You make me elastic

Tug my arms, my legs, my mind

I’m shaped into a masterpiece of some kind

You’re in every form possible

My family, my friends, my enemies

Some people wish you away, but stay with me please.

I am you

I am coincidence, I am fate, I am culmination

But have I overlooked you being the causation?

I blamed you

For sadness, for exhaustion, for pain

Until I realized the details you had lain.

An imperfection

A scratch, a crack, a harsh line

You were adding mistakes that could only be mine Memories

You brought, you pushed, you stained My body and soul are forever ingrained

I am you

No thief, no robber, no malady

Could take that away from me

I wouldn’t let them. I am you.

THE PERFECT NUMBER

By Prisha Mohapatra, 8

A mother, a father, and a child. Sublime harmonies deepen their bond. For three is the perfect number.

Three sides make up a triangle: the shape with the deepest of foundations.

Three sides make up the triangle that can withstand the harsh winds of chaos Both easy and hard to handle.

Three vertices make up a triangle: the sharp nature of a true bond.

Three vertices make up the triangle that can be thorns on a rose that prick when necessary.

The sides, the thorns, and the strength. They make the triangle balanced.

They guide the way for an unbeatable foundation. There’s no better thing than to see our triangle blossom.

My mother, my father, and me. Sublime harmonies deepen our bond. For three is the perfect number and as three, we have an unbreakable unity.

WHEN THE WORLD WAS ENDLESS

By Annabelle Eaton, 8

When the world was endless Oceans held depths of infinite light With kingdoms of folk and of fairies

Every mountain was a majesty towering above the sky

The throne of ice and angels

Days held no numbers

Life knew no thoughts

From the dewy morning daybreak

To the flaming sunset sky

Chase the sun through fields of golden spun time beaches of white glistening sand

Leap from crashing tsunamis

My world was reflected in a different eye

A view of wishes and wondering Spirits haunted forests

Portals to another land

Monsters were born of the darkest shadows

Where light was banished from its realm

Magic was the wind that blew by The flame of a birthday candle

The waves of the ocean

So close you could touch it

Dreams spun reality

Night wove the day

Wish I were in wonderland wasting away

Now these glorious days are days long forgotten

Years slide away

falling on ice

Frozen tears dropping from faraway rain

Sliding down the window

Minutes, days, months, or years

When the world was endless

DREAMING OF THE FUTURE

BY EMILY TAKARA, 11

SEE YOU SOON

By Sophia Yao, 9

Dear existence, Thank you for choosing me.

I know you had to look through hundreds, thousands, millions of souls Flickering like fireflies through the endless darkness. I know you had to make the hard choice Of which to nurture, to nourish And which to release back into the deep blue night. But you chose me.

Dear existence, Thank you for teaching me.

I know you had to mold me, guide me, prepare me. You found two beating beings to become my blood You planted my soul, my light, my esse Into blood and flesh and bones.

You dropped me down on a parachute light as dandelions and whispered,

“See you soon.”

Dear existence, Thank you for testing me.

I know now, the pain, the joy, the euphoria, the defeat. You gave me the overwhelming pain and the heart-crushing hurt So that the simple joys of being were magnified a hundred times. You watched me carefully on the hardest days So you could tuck happiness into crooks and crannies of my life And watch me smile.

Dear existence,

Thank you for taking.

Thank you for showing me the beauty of a finish line.

Thank you for carefully collecting the delicate souls one by one

When they slip out of blood and flesh and bones

And float up, up, up,

Like little luminous lights in the deep blue night

Returning to their one true home.

One day I’ll float my way back up as well.

Maybe in years and years

Maybe in a couple of minutes

Maybe somewhere in between.

Either way, it’ll only be a few moments for you

So I guess it’s only fitting to say

“See you soon.”

WHAT WILL YOU DO?

By Makena Matula, 9

The world is drenched in storm, Drowned in the rain, Knocked over by the wind, Struck down by lightning. We can choose to see the pain. The dense, unforgiving grey clouds, The dead, soaked streets, The biting, hostile air. But look closely and you can find beauty. The glass puddles, The swaying trees, The soft sound of pittering raindrops. Will you stay inside, hiding from the storm, Or will you go out and dance in the rain?

STAR-GAZING

By Christina Tanase, 8

When she looked up, into his eyes, She could see every star in the galaxy. Every supernova, Every constellation, Every planet and their moon. But when he looked down, into her eyes, He simply saw his reflection. You see, To her, he was the universe. So vast, and notably riveting. To him, she was so close. So close to being his universe, But not close enough. This distance between their love Was light years away.

If only the crude reality Was not shrouded

By the narrow lens of her telescope, When she looked up, into his eyes.

WHERE I’M FROM

By Jackie Pan, 8

I’m from coming home every day to a little apartment, in a huge metropolis, and from opening the door of a house in the suburbs after school.

From one of those cities you’d see in movies, with all those sparkling skyscrapers and high rises and pigeons.

And from one of those sunny little towns, with houses with yards lined up next to each other, and a library just a bike ride away and people out and about.

From having time differences memorized, and my cousin never getting the memo and notifications I’d get at 3:00 am that made me roll my eyes.

From going from seeing my grandparents every week to only seeing them once a year,

And only after a 12 hour long flight in an airplane whose movies list I still have memorized.

I’m from people I’d watch pass by from my apartment window and the daily dose of wind, fog and smog.

Yet also from watching the squirrels in my backyard fight and the plants thrive and the sunshine almost all year, every year.

I’m from 4 different schools and near 7 different houses, all in the span of 13 short years.

From building 1, floor 6, unit 2, and from 20453 Davidson street.

From moving trucks and suitcases, trunks and planes and oh so many cardboard boxes.

I’m from getting my dad’s taste buds and eating my grandparents’ special recipes, that always made me feel warm inside.

From the hot pear water that my grandma would boil in this giant pot on our stovetop in the winters or just when I was sick.

The same pear water my dad and I now make, even though we don’t actually like it all that much

But also the same pear water that we both also get so much nostalgia from that it doesn’t really matter.

(continued on page 41)

I’m from my basket filled with piles of new sketchbooks whose pages never get cracked open, pristine pages I never dared to taint.

From making my messy pencil marks on the back of my math worksheets instead, and pinning the best art up on the wall as my own little gallery.

A gallery that in just a few rollercoaster years would be transformed into the rows of canvas lined up neatly on my iPad screen.

A gallery filled with drawings that, despite the fact I get embarrassed by just looking at, I never seem to have the heart to throw away.

I’m from Lola and Lucy, and all three Masons, none of whom were actually named Mason.

From my grandfather, who always knew his way around an old computer,

From my dad, and his family, cozy little units, all just a short hop away.

And from my mom and hers, far reaching and all over the place, with relatives neither of us have ever met.

From the amazing people who stayed friends with me despite the fact that I moved 5,000 miles.

And the friends who I haven’t seen in years, but still flicker in my memory.

Buried somewhere in our garage, in yet another cardboard box, is a paper tree.

Made by my classmates before I moved away, with their names and faces and all our memories.

A tree that, when I look at now, is filled with some faces I smile at and some I barely remember.

Some moments that can always make me laugh, and some I would like to purge from my memory

And yet, remembered or not, I am from those moments, those places, those people.

From those people who barely remember, but I know I once said hi to in the halls,

And from those people I still talk and laugh with to this day.

I am from you.

BIRTHDAY CANDLES

By Sophia Yuxuan Cheng, 8

The first and most eventful birthday party I ever went to was my neighbor’s. Looking back, I’m still not really sure what I was thinking when I did what I did, or if I was thinking at all. Some part of it could definitely be attributed to the massive amounts of sugar I had devoured, but I can’t help imagining alternate universes in which I had sat somewhere else or had known more about birthday party etiquette. To be honest, sometimes I wonder if my being an only child had something to do with it. Was I just seeking attention at someone else’s birthday party? The only thing I’m sure about is that I didn’t do it on purpose. I think.

When my mother brought in the mail that fateful evening and handed me the crisp white envelope with “Sophia” written on it in a childish scrawl, I felt as if I had won the lottery. My ever-sticky fingers immediately reached out and latched onto the invitation, tarnishing the previously clean canvas, but it didn’t matter; I was invited to my first party! After a lot of pleading, my parents reluctantly allowed me to bring my golden ticket to show-and-tell at preschool.

Glowing happily, I held the piece of paper up to the light for my awestruck friends to see and basked in their reverent praise.

Preparing for the big day was a flurry of action. My mom took me to Macy’s to buy a fancy blue dress that I would wear and inevitably spill some sort of juice on. While we were checking out, I leaned over the counter and whispered to the cashier conspiratorially, “This is my dress for the party I’m going to! Isn’t it pretty?” The lady nodded nicely, clearly weirded out by the toddler in grubby overalls invading her personal space. However, because three-year-olds are naively optimistic, I decided to take her wordlessness as a sign of encouragement. Walking beside my mom through the large department store to buy a present for Lina, my insides were practically floating away. I’mshoppingatMacy’slikeabiggirl!Ithoughtproudly.Noneoftheother kidshavebeentoparties,andI’mgoingtoonethisweekend!

However, as I stood on the doorstep that sunny Saturday afternoon

clutching a Lego set wrapped in shiny purple paper, a large portion of my excitement gave way to a violent churning sensation in my stomach. The sound of the doorbell reverberated ominously throughout the house as I was gripped with the strong urge to turn around and sprint back to the safety of my own home, but I couldn’t anymore: Lina’s mom was opening the door and inviting us in with her signature wide smile. Smoothing out my dress like my mom had taught me, I took off my shiny black Mary Janes and smiled shyly. Barely a second passed before a horde of children who were playing hide-and-seek rushed by me and swept me away in their game.

An hour and a half later, I, along with every other toddler in attendance, had inhaled an alarming amount of candy, chocolate, and juice; one could make a solid argument that we were no different from a group of drunk college students trashing a fraternity party. Lina’s mom carried the decadent chocolate sheet cake toward her daughter as everyone gathered around the dining room table. At the promise of cake, I quickly maneuvered my way through the maze of bodies and plopped down in the spot next to Lina so I could be closer to the action. Little did I know that I would be causing it.

I have no clear memory of what happened next, but I can safely assure you that at that point, the sheer exhilaration and overload of sugar had combined dangerously to severely cloud my judgement. After the candles had been lit, all the guests sang “Happy Birthday.” Someone called out, “Make a wish!” Lina closed her eyes for a moment, opened her mouth to blow out her candles, and . . .

I blew them out for her.

All the adults laughed. She turned towards me, a bit confused but still smiling, and the complete idiocy of what I had done sunk in. I retreated back into my seat, face quickly turning beet-red. I felt myself sobering up from my sugar-induced haze as her mother hastily relit the candles and Lina blew them out.

Two years later, Lina moved to San Francisco; I haven’t seen her since I stood on my front porch and waved goodbye, her mom’s navy blue Ford pulling out from their driveway. I wonder what her life is like now. Does she still remember her fourth birthday? If she does, I hope it’s with a smile and a fond remembrance of that little girl in a fancy blue dress and black Mary Janes who blew out her birthday candles.

BIRTHDAY CAKE BY MICAELA RODRIGUEZ STEUBE, 12

DEAR THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR

By Anika Nambisan, 9

dear the girl in the mirror, when i stare, you look right back at me, unfazed you look at me dead on, with cold, calculating, controlled eyes you reflect everything i don’t want to see, but i see, unfortunately i see, oh i see...

i see you glare back at me chop off hair struggling to like yourself, to find yourself, to be yourself

struggling to find the right words, struggling to be free

i watch as you drown, submerging yourself within the murky depths of the corners of your dark malignant mind, a place where no one should ever be.

i watched as you turned cold, conniving, and calculating

i watched you cry yourself to sleep, then wake up and pretend to be oh so happy!

i watched you fool others with your false laugh. how could you pretend to be so happy?

(continued on page 47)

i watched you drain yourself of food of family of the potential of something great you could be.

i watched you through my dull, muddy brown eyes that lacked the warmth and kindness, that lacked everything they used to be

i watched as the tears spilled over, as you cried over your body

comments pricked at your skin, leaving trails of bloody handprints down your body

i watched as you refused to eat. i watched as you thought you were skinny. i watched you shove food down your throat to make others happy

these hugs no longer brought you comfort you were alone in this world, yet you didn’t want to be so lonely

you peeled back the layers of your skin hoping to find answers within the flesh scraping at it like an onion... peeling... peeling... peeling…

only to find the bloody and rotten core of your body.

i watched you hate yourself, drown yourself in your sorrows

i watched everything, and quite frankly you scared me.

i watched you grow, then i watched you shrink.

i watched you happy, i watched you sad.

i watched as the tears flowed down your face, caressing you in their wet warmth, kissing the imperfections on your face— it made you feel less lonely.

ineversawyougenuinelyhappy.

i never sawyou.

i then realized i only saw what i wanted to see then the unexpected.

as i watched you more and more, i slowly began to like what i see the warmth seeped back into my eyes somebody had flicked on the light

I am the sun, Radiating warmth, Shining myself in positive energy

I opened my eyes to finally see me.

Dear girl in the mirror, I’m sorry I saw myself as a vessel, Existing just to please.

Dear girl in the mirror, I’m sorry it took me so long to realize How happy I could be

IonlysawwhatIwantedtosee.

OUTER SPACE

By Eva Liu, 12

Losing gravity, pulled up by Fate

To enigmatic and intricate outer space

Where the y-coordinates of molten-gold stars are Functioning with letters of the alphabet

An undefined equation that discreetly scintillates-Chosen words and broadcasts to my secular hands

Within a millisecond, my strange fingers are bewitched By the scorching rays of the Sun

The nonsense starts to breathe: : : With feelings -- and -- heartbeats

Ambling around, slapping the planets into reality

Yet against the explicit logic of my mind

Pitched words of exactness and truth.

I am irretrievably lost in outer space

Floating, fearful of the unknown galaxy

An astronaut, my head inside the helmet of poetry

OUR SPACE

BY SANIA CHOUDHARY, 11

SHE MADE ME

By Samantha Hsiung, 10

when i am six, Waipo¹ scolds me for crying over a boy that does not like me back. she tells me that i don’t need a boy, that i need a 男人².

when i am nine, Waipo drags me into the kitchen to fold dumplings. she chisels a slice of dough into a small and large circle, loudly whispering that my body is the same: it can be whatever shape and size i want it to be.

i (satisfyingly) smile as we toss the irregularly-shaped dumplings into the porcelain pot.

when i am twelve, Waipo brings me to the river to breaststroke. i am taught to cup my hands (in prayer) and stretch out my arms until they fill the wingspan of the sky. Waipo (along with God) watches me practice until the sky wanes, telling me to 不要放弃³.

(continued on page 51)

i spend four hours in the river.

i am fifteen. Waipo whines that she is 孤独⁴, that she is 老⁵, that she wants to give up.

i hush her and whisper that she is loved, that she is beautiful, that she is strong.

¹ grandmother ² man

³ don’t give up ⁴ lonely

⁵ old

WHITE BLACK

By Eva Liu, 12

White.

Skin that grants endless privileges

Untouchable clouds, the power of Zeus

Doctors who miraculously save us mortals

White.

Basis of immutable Constitution

Bones of the trees, sacrificed for us

Impartial guardian of all other colors

White.

Color of ignorance and neglect

As we often forget its existence

Color of purity and perpetuity

As the bride in the wedding dress

Fills out the blank form of marriage

Mysterious, aristocratic, powerful Race in which they advocate for justice

Police in uniform who serve our nation

Black.

Pencil lead that leads us into a new era of Ringing the bell of equality and fairness

Combination of all other colors

Black.

Color of pride and prejudice

As we treat it with instinctive bias

Color of darkness and honour

As the elegy is sang during the funeral Dressed in black, he too is blessed Black.

WHERE THE DANDELIONS GROW

By Magnolia Lemmon, 11

A pet peeve that plagues the nation: don’t step on the cracks. Vast fields of rough, light gray cement are customary of every suburban landscape. The squares of pavement are laid down in yard-long blocks with minuscule valleys between each. Valleys are sometimes home to sidewalk vegetation, usually crabgrass and dandelions. When I was a child, my brother would walk with his head down, eyes fixated on the ground, so his little grey converse shoes wouldn’t make contact with any of the valleys. His mission: avoid the cracks at all cost, a sentiment carried by much of the world’s population. I, on the other hand, whether it be from an untreated psychopathic tendency or some mutated gene, do not fear the cracks. To the contrary, I quite enjoy the feeling of the sole of my foot hovering between two blocks of cement, as if I were mending them, and for just a moment, both sides are one unified entity.

Out of the 6,251 days I have lived, I can’t forget this one. It was November 4th, 2016. The night before I slept soundly with the knowledge that the world was too good, too pure to let a Cheeto with a toupé into office. I woke up with the cool crisp mid autumn Mexican air tingling my cherry red cheeks. The fragrant smell of maple and cinnamon wafted up from the kitchen, so strong that I could taste my mom’s heavenly French toast. Wrapped tightly in my pink

VIEW FROM SPACE BY EMILY TAKARA, 11

floral blanket, I felt that nothing in the world could harm me. Arthur, the yellow Labrador retriever that is plastered on much of my camera roll, rested gently at the foot of my bed snoring lightly. The first female president. Now that was a feat. First a Black man, then a woman; the world was sure headed in the right direction. I let my eyelids gently flutter and then close as the soft glow of the morning sun peeked through my window. Along with the light murmur of songbirds, I heard a tap on my door. My dad stood tall in the doorway, likely there to wake me up for school and tell me the good news. I knew the answer, but I asked anyway, “So, who won?” His brow was too furrowed and shoulders too slumped. The pause too long and his eyes too dark. “Your worst nightmare.” Then, he left. My eyes locked on the door. No feeling was left in my body. My hands numb, my head numb, my heart numb. The cold air stung my blood red cheeks. My blanket strangled me. My dog pinned me. The icy sun glared at me through the window. A chill crept its way from my neck and crawled down my spine worming its way into every crevice of my being. I was frozen. Helpless. Faces full of morbid curiosity surrounded either side of the school hallway. They all carried an expression of horror and awe. They took brief intermissions from their gaze in my direction to exchange quick murmurs with nearby faces. Occasionally, a pair of feet would shuffle, like a child on the edge of a diving board, in my direction, followed by a rapid retreat and return to the cluster of faces and other feet. Each time the feet would scuttle a little closer to their destination, until one pair finally made it. She lifted her face in line with mine and asked, “Did you vote for him?” We were standing outside my seventh grade science classroom, me, an awkward thirteen-yearold dressed in odd-fitting neon shorts, forehead covered in acne, but this did not dissuade her from asking if I had voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 American presidential election. “No,” I answered. No, because I had no vote to cast; no, because Trump is the personification of everything wrong in the world; and no, because we weren’t even in America. She knew all this, but what she really wanted to know was if I believed what he said: there should be a wall between us. A crack in the pavement between me, an American, and her, a Mexican. The answer to that is also no. She retreated back to the cluster.

Above that wall, way up North, schools were filled with people of every color, but down here all their skin glowed a deep amber, all but a few. One of the faces that lined the hallway was peach white. It was framed by sun bleached golden hair and adorned with ocean blue eyes. Her parents were from above the border wall and had made the trip South to serve at the American consulate. Today her dad wore his bright red tie with the big bold print reading, “Trump 2016.” Meanwhile, all my dad wore was a sunken expression. Her eyes didn’t harbor the same defeat that mine did; to the contrary, hers glowed with victory. We locked vision from across the hallway, the discrepancy in our emotion screaming over the silence. Then our gazes faltered, and the valley between us grew wider and wider until it was more of a canyon, and I could barely see her from my side. I passively watched my best friend drift further away as the great schism grew wider and deeper. I ached to see her again, but she became a speck in the distance. I let the schism push me off of my usual course in her direction to my first period science classroom. The same thing happened second period, and then third, and fourth until the lunch bell rang.

There it was, shaded by the rough foliage of a bushy green tree, surrounded by others just like it. Its vibrant red color stood out from the beige cobblestone floor it sat on. Little diamond-shaped holes permeated its surface. It was perfect. Each of its four sides fit one person and their lunch. This table had hosted my friends and me for the past three years quite amiably. But today, something was different. Only one person sat at the table this time, Annie. She resembled Sofia in the sense that she had the same cream white skin, blue crystal eyes, and

WATER ON HAND BY DREW MAHLMEISTER, 12

sun kissed hair; however, those ocean eyes carried the same sadness and defeat as mine. I sat across from her on my side of the table. “So where are Sofia and Rose?” I asked while unzipping my lunch box to reveal an assortment of stacked plastic containers. “I don’t know,” she said, looking down at her chicken quesadilla and poking it aimlessly. “Hum.” We didn’t have to exchange words to know what the other was thinking. Yesterday we were four friends, but today we were two Democrats and two Republicans.

I watched in my peripheral vision as Sofia sheepishly crept towards us, Rose trailing her flank. She took an unusual route to the table, preferring the edges of the landscape rather than the clearing. She would stop every now to camouflage into a trash can or bush. Not a moment after she made it into hearing distance did she lift her gaze, eyes wide with fear, and mutter, “Rose and I will sit over there,” gesturing to another table. She retreated before I had a chance to respond.

The two tables were miles apart. Two islands with a vast ocean between. Two trees with a forest in the middle. There was no seeing her from this side; furthermore, there was no hearing her. If I wanted to relay a message from my side, I would have to shout, and even then my voice would be muffled. All we could do was yell, and not even at each other, because God knows the other would be inaudible from this distance, but for our own pleasure of having said something. I sat, a tiny ant on my side of the pavement, unable to communicate over the crack. The piercing cold down my spine, the numbness in my heart, I felt frozen again. But this time was different. This time I wasn’t helpless. I couldn’t do anything about the results of the election, but I could do something about its result on us. It didn’t have to be like this.

I stood up, and marched into the schism. I ducked under crabgrass and leaped over dandelions until my sole was precisely on top of the crack. I could see her again. She grew from a speck to a person until she was finally in earshot. “No. We have to sit together.” This wasn’t a question. This wasn’t a command either. It was simply the truth. So together we marched back to the table shaded by the green tree. We each sat on our side; we each took out our lunch. Then we began to talk. First about school, then drama, then politics. Not only did we talk, but we listened, and even better than that, we heard. We heard why Annie thought the Spanish quiz had been way too hard, we heard how Rose planned on asking her crush to the dance, and we heard why Sofia

wanted Trump to be president.

“My dad likes to talk a lot about politics,” Sofia started, her shoulders and forehead a little tense. “I know it’s stupid to believe something just because someone else told it to you…” she paused, her eyes wandering left and right as if searching for the right words in the green tree. She finished, “...but a lot of what my dad says makes sense to me. He told me about how some of his policies would lower taxes on my family up in Virginia, and how they need that money.” She continued, her words timid yet firm, “My family is Catholic, and I don’t know, but I just can’t find a way to support someone who justifies killing an unborn baby.” Although the last words made me flinch, and the urge to yell accumulated in my throat, I swallowed my anger. I knew that she believed in her opinion just as strongly as I did, so who was I to claim correctness on the matter. So, I decided to just listen.

“I don’t like the way he talks about people, or the way he approaches every situation, but leadership is more about the action one takes than the words one says.” I took a brief pause to ponder her point. She was right, I suppose. She was right I suppose. Obama long ago did say that marriage should be between man and woman, but I was quick to forgive him when gay marriage was legalized during his presidency. It was hypocritical for me not to apply the same mercy to Trump. It was nice to know that she had reasons. Reasons that clearly made logical sense to her. She wasn’t some zombie hypnotized by an orange demon; she was still just Sofia.

“I hear you,” I said. “It’s just….as a female of color, I feel that his character will play into his policies. I just want a president that will serve all people, not just the ones who agree with him.” There wasn’t an ounce of hatred in those ocean eyes, just a deep desire to wrap her head around where our ideas clashed so strongly that they could spark explosive national division. The problem was, that they didn’t clash. She and I had just said the same thing in two different ways: we wanted the best for people. It was only there in the middle that I understood how simple it really was. The terms we used to label one another just described the way in which we thought it best to help humanity. Because that is all any human wants; we want what is best for the world. We just had different approaches to getting there. “I want that too,” she said earnestly.

A wave of relief, almost as refreshing as turning the AC on in a car that had been baking in a beach parking lot under the sun, washed

over me. She was still Sofia, and I was still me. I peered directly into the center of those sapphire eyes and said, “Thank you for helping me understand.” Her shoulders dropped and the little wrinkle on her forehead softened. The little sheet of ice left between us melted until the warmth flooded in. Here in the middle we weren’t two Democrats and two Republicans; here we were four friends. Four friends who could speak, four friends who could hear, and four friends who could love each other even through our labels.

Most people avoid the cracks in the pavement. Not because they can’t step there, but because they have grown too accustomed to the feeling of cement on their feet and a change in texture would feel strange under their sole. It’s fear of the different. Fear of talking rather than yelling and fear of hearing rather than listening. Fear that the other might have something valuable to say. But one can’t see, one can’t learn, and one can’t grow from their side of the pavement. It’s scary to venture in between those blocks of pavement, but one must, because that is where we are just friends, because that is where we are just human, because that is where the dandelions grow.

MAYBE IT’S JUST ME

By Sania Choudhary, 11

It’s a funny thing, trying to describe myself, what makes me, well, me. What gives me my identity. I’m not so sure that I know, nor that I ever knew, nor that I ever truly will know. To myself, I am just a camera, a lens through which I watch the sequence of events known as my life.

I could tell you what makes my mom who she is, or my dad who he is, or even my dog who he is, too. I could do the same for my aunts, for my uncles, for my friends. But myself? I wouldn’t know where to begin.

Maybe it’s something physical. Maybe it’s my wavy hair that I’ve parted the same since I was three. Maybe it’s my long eyebrows that I learned to synchronously and asynchronously wiggle around when I was five. Maybe it’s my lips that I first learned to whistle through when I was six, scaring my mom into thinking a stranger was in our house while my dad was away on a trip. Maybe it’s my small frame.

Or maybe it’s something emotional. Maybe it’s my tendency to feel deep emotions. Maybe it’s my smile in my naturally joyous state. Maybe it’s my tears in my darkest sorrows. Maybe it’s my subconscious reaction to block things out when they begin to affect me too deeply.

It might be what I like. It might be that I enjoy playing multiple instruments, that I’ve played the piano for twelve years. It might be that I like making art, drawing, painting, just about anything. It might be that I like reading, that I could sit alone and read for hours on end and feel at true bliss. It might be that I’m obsessed with dogs, that my heart melts any time I see one.

Or it could be what I don’t like. It could be that I very much don’t prefer to be around insects. It could be that I can’t take a shred of horror, that even children’s cartoons can scare me. It could be that I would much rather eat twenty KitKats than one piece of bell pepper or cauliflower, but really who wouldn’t?

What if it’s cultural? Maybe it’s that my parents are both North Indian, that the rest of my extended family lives across the globe. Maybe it’s that our celebrations can last the length of a week, that we celebrate with traditional dances and songs and food. Maybe it’s that we wear heavy dresses with all imaginable colors. Maybe it’s the native language we speak, that it was my first language, that I lost it when I began going to school. Maybe it’s that I was born here and not there.

Maybe it’s my family. Maybe it’s that my mom and I can be arguing one second and then crying from laughter the next. Maybe it’s that there’s nothing that my dad and I enjoy more than a scenic drive. Maybe it’s that my dog is my other half. Maybe it’s that we named him Dude.

Or maybe it’s my friends. Maybe it’s that to me they are the same as family. Maybe it’s how we fall on the floor as we laugh over the smallest joke. Maybe it’s how we hold each other as we cry when we remove a heavy weight from our shoulders. Maybe it’s our obnoxious sleepovers where no one really sleeps. Maybe it’s how we can talk for hours, only to realize it was really about nothing.

Or maybe it’s a multitude of other things. My optimism, my weirdest habit, my style.

Maybe it’s how I’ve changed. Maybe it’s the change itself. Maybe it’s that I wonder what the me from ten years ago would think of who I am today, that I wonder what who I am today would think of who I will be ten years from now. Maybe it’s that I wonder how my identity is changed, how it will change. Maybe it’s that I wonder if it has changed at all, if it even can change.

It could be anything.

But looking back I find myself thinking, maybe it’s not just anything.

Maybe… just maybe…

Maybe it’s everything.

A DIFFERENT DAISY

By Anika Nambisan, 9

I am a daisy in a field of roses, The difference as clear as day and night, Clear as glass, Blurry as the lines we draw, Is this reality nice?

Warped into different perspectives, Kaleidoscope representations, But which one shows me really?

Defying the rocky slope, It grows against the will of others, Will I grow, or be harnessed down?

Stuck in a brown pot, When I need to be in the forest, Among the trees that grow strong and tall, Will I grow to be like them, Or crumble under the pressure?

A chameleon, In the eyes of others, With each blink, my color changes, Which one do I feel, suits me better?

MODERN FIGHTER BY EMILY TAKARA, 11

C P M O E T I T I O N S

Prompt 1:

Choose five words from this list: migration, admire, unobtainable, reputation, culture, atmosphere, oven, balance, find, focus. Then, write a short story, fiction or nonfiction, with those five words. Your story should be 1-3 pages, double spaced.

Winner: Lulu Diffenbaugh

Prompt 2:

Find or create an image (photography and art both accepted) and pair it with an original rhyming couplet (a pair of rhymed lines). Your work will be solely judged on the couplet and how well the couplet fits with the picture. If you find an image, please include the source you used.

Winner: Leo Gray

Runner Up: Emma Hwang

SHORT STORY 1st Place

OVERWHELMED WITH NO EMOTION

By Lulu Diffenbaugh, 11

She was reaching for something unobtainable. With nowhere to go and no one to talk to, she was alone and lost. She had thought she could start over and find some new sense of normalcy, but she was wrong. Everything she knew was gone, and she was forced to grovel her way back to something worth experiencing. She pulled her keys out of her back pocket and inserted her house key into the small hole. As she twisted the metal figure to the right, she thought about how this key had a perfect spot, a designated job and place to be. She had nothing that even resembled that–she was instead floating around with no motivation. She stepped into her apartment and let her bag slide onto the ground with no care for where it landed. She walked into the kitchen and froze. Everything she saw reminded her of him. The pans they used to make music with, the freezer they used to store bags of frozen raspberries in, and the chairs they used to stand on to access the higher cabinets. He was everywhere. And yet nowhere. He was gone. She stood, rigid and still, trying to find a balance between her mind and reality. In the past months, she had realized that if she stopped to think about him, she would lose any connection to what she was doing in real time, completely distracted by the memories of the past. In this particular instance, she was remembering the time they woke up extra early to spend the summer morning at the lake while watching the sun rise. They were just kids. They ended up spending the whole day there, staying entertained by the occasional frog and tadpole visitors. As she remembered the cool water and soft summer breeze, she smiled. Her mind was put to some ease with that memory. Her stiff body relaxed, and she turned to focus on the next task of the day. Dinner. She opened her freezer and pulled out a premade pizza.

She removed the plastic wrapping and shoved it into the toaster oven. Distracted by the events of her busy day, she was surprised when her timer went off a short four minutes later. She dragged herself and her makeshift meal over to the counter where she slowly consumed the food. She subconsciously completed the rest of the night’s tasks and found herself laying in her bed, staring up at the ceiling. She rolled to her side and stared at the photo on her bedside table. There he was again. Although he was actually there this time. Grinning from ear to ear and holding his first caught fish, her brother’s happy self stared back at her.

After losing him three years ago, she still had not adjusted to a world without her best friend. She went through the same routine day after day, with no emotion or adjustments. She was stuck, living the same day over and over again. She felt trapped, trapped in a world without him, a world she did not want to have to see everyday. She switched the light off, and rolled back over to her stomach. She closed her eyes and fell prisoner to the sleep that would make her temporarily forget her pain.

COMPETITION 2: RHYMING COUPLETS

1st Place

Binds of Time

By Leo Gray, 8

Don’t let the binds of time control your days Break free, live life in all its blessed ways.

2nd Place

Sunset Blossoms

By Emma Hwang, 9

Roses catch the dripping setting sun, Those golden hues sift through silk petals undone

PHOTO COURTESY OF GOOGLE

PHOTO COURTESY OF EMMA HWANG

James Chang ’25

James is an eighth grader. He is very happy to have his artwork published in Tabula Rasa. His two drawings are “Round Bird” and “Fat Bird.” They are just two birds, the gray one, a sparrow and the other, a robin.

Sophia Cheng ’24

Sophia is a freshman at Pinewood. Writing has long been one of her favorite hobbies — she has always loved the process of getting a lightning strike of inspiration and working tirelessly to weave together a story out of nothing but the sheer power of language. At Pinewood, she is the incoming Arts and Culture editor for The Perennial, plays basketball on the JV team, and is an officer for the Creative Writing Club.

Sania Choudhary ’22

Sania, a current junior at Pinewood, loves reading, writing, painting, crafting, making music...just any artistic thing. She also loves food (lots of food), animals (her dog’s name is Dude), going for walks and drives, listening to music, and exploring new things.

Maritsa Christoforou ’22

Maritsa is a junior who absolutely loves movies, books, and pets (she has two cats). She has a love for literature, but more specifically poetry. She fell in love with it after reading Robert Frost’s “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” and from there, her infatuation grew exponentially. She wrote “A Letter to Life” after reading The Sound and the Fury, and it is meant to adapt to the reader’s perception of life.

Lulu Diffenbaugh ’22

Lulu, a current junior at Pinewood, loves listening to music, reading a good article, and cooking with her family. She fell in love with writing after she learned how it could be used as a way to connect with people. Whether it be creative writing, short stories, or articles, she feels that writing is just another form of communication. She is grateful to have opportunties such as Tabula Rasa to grow her writing skills and connect with other young writers.

Annabelle Eaton ’25

Annabelle is an eighth grader at Pinewood. Poetry and music have always been something that she is passionate about and that she uses to express herself. She believes it is truly amazing to look back at pieces she has written to bring back a memory of something that she might have lost otherwise.

Leo Gray ’25

Leo Gray is currently an eighth grader at Pinewood. He loves to write and be creative and expressive. Whether it be poetry, short stories, or essays, he has always loved writing and creating. While he didn’t create the image paired with his rhyming couplet, art is also one of his passions. He also loves music, playing it and listening to it.

Samantha Hsiung ’23

Samantha is a sophomore at Pinewood. She is excited to be a part of Tabula Rasa this year! Writing is one of her favorite hobbies, especially poetry — she just really loves crafting her own worlds and exploring different dimensions. Currently, she is the president of the Creative Writing Club and incoming sports editor for The Perennial. Aside from writing, she likes fencing, reading, and playing the piano.

Emma Hwang ’24

Emma, a freshman at Pinewood, loves discovering new mediums to convey emotion and themes! Whenever she is not writing, you’ll find her drawing natural figures, experimenting in the kitchen, reading Jane Austen, snapping photos with her camera, or learning something new.

Leela Jarschel ’26

Leela is currently a seventh grader at Pinewood. She enjoys art and anything that involves creativity and imagination! Art has always been relaxing and therapeutic for her. It is a way to express her emotions in a beautiful way. She’s so thrilled that her art has been selected by Tabula Rasa

Rye Kianpour ’23

Rye is a sophomore at Pinewood who loves literature, especially Dazai’s and Dostoevsky’s works. They also like to study various belief systems in their free time, with an emphasis on polytheistic ones. Their poetry has always been something particularly personal for them, and they never thought they would have an opportunity to share it, so they hope that you enjoy.

Magnolia Lemmon ’22

Magnolia is so excited to be a part of Tabula Rasa this year! She enjoys expressing her creativity through many media including music, art, and writing. In her spare time, you can find her singing to herself in the hallways or seeking dark chocolate to consume. She hopes you enjoy all the beautiful pieces in this magazine!

Cindy Lin ’25

Cindy enjoys drawing. She is currently an eighth grader and is attending art school. She is happy that her art pieces are accepted in Tabula Rasa.

Janet Liu ’22

Janet is a junior at Pinewood. She loves drawing and anything related to art. She has been learning art since she was four. Drawing is a way of therapy for her because it helps her understand the complexities of human emotions and the world better. She is so honored that the editors of Tabula Rasa chose her art.

Drew Mahlmeister ’21

Drew has loved doing all mediums of art for as long as she can remember. She will be an art and design major at Washington University in St. Louis next year and is super psyched to continue doing what she loves!

Makena Matula ’24

Makena is currently a freshman at Pinewood. They use art, writing, and music as a way to express their thoughts, emotions, and personality. When they write and create art, they are basically smearing their brain all over the paper or canvas. You can usually find them in their bedroom playing guitar, painting, writing, listening to music, or hanging out with their cat while surrounded by their many house plants. They are honored that the editors of the Tabula Rasa chose their poem “What Will You Do?” for this issue.

Prisha Mohapatra ’24

Prisha is an eighth grader at Pinewood. Writing poems, short stories, plays and more has always been her passion, and has been ever since she can remember. In the fall she published a novella, and she is currently working on other short stories, and writing for The Perennial. She is always at her piano, writing and playing songs. Some of her hobbies are listening to music, playing the trombone, and playing lacrosse with her teammates. Her poem, “The Perfect Number,” was inspired by her loving, close-knit family of three.

Anika Nambisan ’24

Anika is a current freshman at Pinewood. Writing has always been a passion of hers: whether it’s poetry or articles about topics in STEM that intrigue her. Other than writing, she loves to be around her wonderful family, friends, and her puppy. Moreover, she also likes to play sports and listen to Harry Styles.

Drew Ness ’21

Drew is a senior that uses art to express herself and document her growth. Her other hobbies include volleyball and just doing more art. She will be attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and can’t wait to grow as an artist and a person there.

Jaden Norwood ’22

Jaden is a junior at Pinewood, and he has loved to read ever since he was little and started with Harry Potter. This made him amazed at how words can come to life as he reads and writes. Jaden’s main passion is basketball. It is something he really loves to do and work on. He loves to travel, especially to Hawaii. He also enjoys sphotography, fashion, and boogie boarding.

Arina Oberoi ’22

Arina is a junior at Pinewood. She has always believed that stories are a great way of sharing experiences and understanding one another. “A Song Silenced” is what she would call an ode to her childhood, as it encapsulates the story of her life thus far.

Jackie Pan ’25

Jackie is currently an eighth grader. Writing stories has always been a longtime hobby of hers, and she has recently started dabbling in poetry. Although they’re pretty new at this medium, they have been really enjoying it. The poem she submitted to Tabula Rasa is called “Where I’m From,” which she wrote for her writing class. Their poem explores the things and experiences that shaped who they are today. She is happy with the way this poem turned out and hopes that you will enjoy it as well.

Raghav Ramgopal ’24

Raghav is currently a freshman at Pinewood. He has always loved writing because it has been a way to express himself. Whether it is through poetry or writing an article about immgrants’ journeys for The Perennial, he is always able to share stories and convey his own emotions with the power of words, and he finds that extremely humbling. Raghav’s favorite book is Refugee by Alan Gratz, and he really likes to read and sing in his spare time. His favorite subjects are history and English and he also likes to travel.

Riva Rubin ’21

Riva is a senior who finds their time and love in music and writing. They study vocal jazz, violin, guitar, piano, tenor saxophone, ukulele, and chromatic harmonica. While their writing is primarily for music, they dabble in poetry and philosophical/theoretical essays. They will be attending Columbia University in New York to study music, philosophy, and linguistics.

Emily Takara ’22

Emily is a junior at Pinewood and has been exploring the pandemic experience as well as family culture through art and design in the past year - both in AP Studio Art and outside of school in her free time. She likes making things and music, and often jumps around to different hobbies. She hopes her pieces can bring some comfort, connection, or thoughfulness to you, and that you can relate to them as well as learn something new.

Christina Tanase ’25

Christina is an eighth grader at Pinewood. For as long as she can remember, she has used writing as a form of escapism. She sincerely appreciates the opportunity and ability to write, create, and share her work with you. The poem she has decided to share is called “Star-gazing.” “Star-gazing” is a brief poem describing the unbalanced relationship between two lovers, while simultaneously exploring the theme of celestiality. She hopes you enjoy and possibly find a reflection of yourself in her words.

Sophia Yao ’24

Sophia is a freshman at Pinewood. She loves writing and poetry so she is really excited to share her poem “See You Soon” in Tabula Rasa! To her, “See You Soon” is a poem of gratitude towards a giant supernatural force behind human existence in this world. Some of her hobbies are reading, drawing, and spending time with friends.

Eva Liu ’21 - Editor

Eva is a current senior who loves the arts, whether it’s poetry, painting, or journalistic writing. In addition to being a Tabula Rasa editor, she is the coeditor-in-chief of The Perennial. In her senior year, she published her debut poetry collection named Outer Space, which includes more than 65 poems. You can also find her research paper about the plausibility of educational exchange programs de-escalating the tensions between China and the United States in The Journal of Student Research. She also loves playing tennis, discussing politics, and listening to kpop music.

Prithi Srinivasan ’22 - Editor

Prithi is a current junior who loves to read and write. If anything mildly interesting or dramatic happens in her life, you can be sure to read about it in one of her heavily exaggerated (for interest, of course) short stories. In addition to being the editor of Tabula Rasa, Prithi designed the Tabula Rasa website. She is also the current Opinion editor for The Perennial, a member of Pinewood’s a cappella group, and a concert violinist; everything related to writing and the arts never fails to interest her. She hopes that you love Volume V of Tabula Rasa!

Micaela Rodriguez Steube ’21 - Editor

Micaela is a senior this year. She has submitted work to this magazine throughout junior high, and she is thrilled to be editing Tabula Rasa this year. In the past, she has focused more on literary work but started dabbling in visual arts during quarantine. Micaela also sings in Pinewood’s a cappella group and student athletic trains for the Pinewood Football Team. She hopes you enjoy this magazine as much as she enjoyed creating it!

Sabrina Strand - Advisor

David Wells - Advisor

ABOUT TABULA RASA

Tabula Rasa, established in 2016, is an annual, award-winning publication showcasing literature and art by students of Pinewood School. Tabula Rasa accepts prose, poetry, cross-genre, and art submissions from Upper Campus students, who are in grades 7-12. All types of work are accepted during our submission period; we simply ask for the best, most honest creative work that each student has to offer.

Tabula Rasa is advised by Pinewood English teachers Sabrina Strand and David Wells and edited by a small group of high school students who love the literary and visual arts. Any questions or comments regarding the publication may be directed to the email address tabularasasubmissions@pinewood.edu.

The magazine’s next submission period will open in February 2022. Students may submit through an online portal that will become available at that time. Students may also submit pieces to our quarterly themes, which will become available starting in September 2021 on our website (www.pwtabularasa.org)

Thank you for reading the 2021 edition of Tabula Rasa. We hope you enjoyed your stay.

— Eva Liu, Prithi Srinivasan, Micaela Rodriguez Steube

EDITORS EMERITUS

2016-17

Zarin Mohsenin ’17

Priya Sundaresan ’17

2017-20

Reilly Brady ’20

Katherine Chui ’20