Winter 2022 / The Folio by The Folio

The Folio Winter - Volume LIV - Issue I Conestoga High School 200 Irish Rd, Berwyn, PA 19312

Cover photo © Casey Kovarick Inside cover © Daniel Gergeus Copyright © 2021 Conestoga Literary Magazine Staff Internal Design © 2021 Eileen Chen, Daniel Gergeus, Casey Kovarick, Ashka Patel Copyright © of each work belongs to the respective author or artist First edition 2021 All rights reserved. All works are copyright of their respective creators as indicated herein and are reproduced here with permission. The Folio is a public forum for student expression produced by the students of Conestoga High School. Published and printed in the United States of America www.stogafolio.weebly.com Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @stogafolio

From the Editors

After a whole year of mostly virtual learning (which honestly felt like it lasted a decade), we’re back in the building. Back to regularly interacting with our peers and bumping into people in the crowded halls, albeit they’re wearing masks now (whether they’re being worn properly or not is a separate discussion). To top it all off, we can no longer hide behind cameras or muted microphones during classes. I doubt I’m alone when I say that the switch back to a fairly normal school routine under very abnormal circumstances has been jarring and, at times, overwhelming. Creating art and writing has been a stress reliever and a way to work through and escape the discomfort this new school year has brought. It’s also a way to express the changes we’ve experienced the past year behind closed doors and interactions through screens. Here at The Folio, we want to embrace these changes and the new situation we’ve been thrown into by presenting what we’ve learned and gone through during quarantine. We’ve done our best to accommodate our members who are readjusting to being back in the building or who joined The Folio while virtual and aren’t used to the procedures of a normal class. It’s been a rocky transition, but our staff has done a remarkable job in the new environment and have submitted some show-stopping art and literature. Among the changes we’ve gone through and all that we’ve learned during quarantine, many people have taken up new hobbies and tried new things. Our theme for this issue is meant to reflect all the DIY projects people have taken up over quarantine, from sketching to scrapbooking. Our lovely art editors have worked hard to create a consistent theme throughout the issue’s layout to encompass the aesthetic of said DIY projects while blending well with the pieces on each page. We’d like to thank our staff and other editors for all the hard work they’ve put into this issue, as well as our advisors, Mr. Smith and Mrs. Wilson, for their support and assistance. They’ve done so well, both with nurturing creativity among our staff and facing the challenges presented this year. So, without further ado, please enjoy The Folio’s winter issue of 2021.

Heads Please look out for up! trigger warning pieces!

Table of Contents A Mother’s Guide to the Perfect Performance of Parenting Olivia Chu

Till Death do us Part Olivia Chu

What Am I Made of Anouk Freudenberg

The Right Brain Ruhri Lee

Minature Dioramas Stella Lei

Smile for the Camera Christine Jung

It’s All so Glamorous Vivian Dong

Welcome to Cat Mountain Sasha Reeder

A Tail’s Tale Chloe Williams

Playlist Audrey Nguyen

Heart Eyes Emma Laragione

Mind You Natalia Green

You Try Anouk Freudenberg

The Art of Derealization Sarah Hegg

Student Silence (Advice from a Teacher) Olivia Chu

Hangman Kyle Hoang

The Game Room Jordan Jacoel

Anatomy of a House Fire Stella Lei

30 Steps to Surviving an Alien Apocalypse Ashka Patel

Practice Makes Perfect Peyton Harrill

A Monologue from a Melodramatic Pencil Olivia Chu

Counting Sheep Lily Jiang

Green Guinevere Reaume

Dino Friend Casey Kovarick

Imaginary Friend Nikkita Pandey

Notes

Time’s a-ticking Nikkita Pandey

Every Single Day Anika Kotapally

Milk or Sugar Daniel Gergeus

Innocence Chiho Jing

Frayed Rope Guinevere Reaume

Tea for Two Clara Steege

Broadway in the Rain Shreeya Gomatam

Kites Ashka Patel

Why Ironman Doesn’t Have a Song Chloe Williams

Bent Ashka Patel

Between the Lines Ashka Patel

Texture Sasha Reeder

In the Dream I Had Anika Kotapally

Zentangles Sasha Reeder

Roses Sowmya Krishna

The Hero’s Return Home Ava Bruni

My Notebook is Alive Sasha Reeder

The Demigoddess and Me Sarah Weng

Nature’s Touch Katie Wang

What Will Stay Anika Kotapally

Carbon Copy Deirdre Cunniffe

The Happiest Day of Mommy’s Life Emily Zou

New Cars Guinevere Reaume

On My Love-Hate Relationship with Glee Paige Munroe

El Matador Peyton Harrill

To Dream Eileen Chen

You Emma Laragione

Glass Bones Ava Bruni

Doodles

Increments of Heartbreak Vivian Dong

Underwater Katelyn Wang

The Girl You Used To Be Anouk Freudenberg

Prospective Final Girl Sits at the Gas Station Stella Lei

On Building a Nest Stella Lei

100

Late Night Break In Emma Laragione

101

Silent Dusk Carly Broseman

102

Kiss Me Goodnight Ethan Liu

103

6:37 P.M. Emily Zou

104

On Loving Anika Kotapally

105

Idealism on Standby Olivia Chu

106

Black Madonna Emily Zou

107

Red Apple Sasha Reeder

108

nothing is wrong Ava Bruni

109

Down with You Natalia Green

110

Beneath the Mushroom Casey Kovarick

111

To You Vivian Dong

112

Eyelash Bokeh Audrey Nguyen

114

Dear Self Audrey Nguyen

115

Space Boy Natalia Green

116

Good Friends Guinevere Reaume

117

Graveyard Friends Guinevere Reaume

118

Bloody Fate Nikkita Pandey

120

To the Lovely Spide Blocking Me From the Door Olivia Chu

121

Exit Leyla Yilmaz

122

A letter for the girl at the grocery Emily Zou

Diaries

Notes

This piece contains

It wasn’t the life she wanted. sensitive topics: This life drained the light from her eyes, - Suicide Turning them to deep gray circles, - Emotionally distant Her voice lost its tone, relationships She lost herself. Mothering was not a part of the plan. She was supposed to get out. Out of the house, The town, A Mother’s Guide to the The state, Perfect Performance of Go to school, Parenting To college, To work. Olivia Chu Grab the job of her dreams by the reigns, Ride it into the fantastically detailed future That she’d been planning since the 6th grade. A home, A steadfast group of friends, Maybe a dog. But not a kid. Not a husband. This was not the plan. Over the years, she learned to pretend, That she was happy. If not for the kids, for herself, For the husband, Trapped in this provincial life, She was happy. Wake up at 7 a.m., Make the bed, Walk downstairs, Make coffee, Make breakfast, Remake the bed that you forgot to make. Wake up the kids, Get them ready for school, Get the keys, Rush in the car, Get on the road. Go home. Sleep because you can never sleep at night, Trapped in the spiraling paradox That prances in your mind, Telling you that this is not your life. It shouldn’t be. It can’t be.

At 3:00 p.m., Get back in the car, Pick up the kids from school, Get the kids back home, Get back on the road, Resist the urge to keep driving Past the house, into the night, Never to be seen again. Resist the urge. Because you have to. At 10:00 p.m., Make sure the kids are in bed, Make sure the lights are dimmed, Make sure the stove and oven are turned off, Go to your room, Your husband won’t be home yet, At least for another 2 hours. You’ve got time to kill. Read a book, Look for flights, Watch a show, Cry into your pillow. No one has offered their shoulder, For a very, very long time. Husband comes home at 12:00 a.m., Takes a shower, Crawls into bed next to you, You exchange pleasantries, He turns off the bedside lamp, What to do tonight? Another successful day, Within minutes, he’s asleep. Set off without a hitch. Walk downstairs, Fold the hampers of laundry, It’s 3:00 a.m. now, The kids will be up in 4 hours. You’ve got time to kill. Maybe this time, You and time can trade places. Maybe this time, You can keep driving. Maybe this time, You can be free. Maybe, but not today

‘Til Death do us Part

Artist’s Note: In the 1940s, during World War II, the parachutes soldiers and airmen in the air force were made of silk. These silks from the parachutes were turned from a token of war into gorgeous garments and wedding dresses. It is a very symbolic and poetic piece from history, and shows that even the worst of situations can be turned into something beautiful. The idea behind my piece is a backwards retelling of a story of a bride and how her dress came to be made. It’s entitled “to death do us part” because of the innuendos in relation to weddings and marriage ceremonies, but also because, as the blood splatter was meant to signify, death was what brought the silk to its next life, after floating down to the ground with someone who had just lost their life.

Olivia Chu Collage and Paint

What Am I Made Of Anouk Freudenberg

I am the beginning Of all that is good And I end In fires burning at my feet. Everything I touch goes up in a blaze. And I wonder sometimes If I am not to blame. Which match started the fire? Who was the first to burn me down?

Sometimes I feel like Ashes on the floor, Sometimes I feel like I blew out in the storm, But I am still burning. Maybe I devour everything in my path, But I am made of stronger stuff than you.

If I could pinpoint the moment It all went up in flames, Maybe I could tame it. But then, would I want to?

Ruhri Lee Acrylic

The

RIGHT Brain 15

INIATURE DIORAM INIATURE DIORAM

Stella Lei

MINIATURE DIORAMAS

Clanging trains rouse the paper dolls. They shudder from slumber, peeling themselves from the table, shelf, floor, and stretching their card stock arms. They have been still for so long. Wind rushing from the window topples three, and they flounder, rosy cheeks pressed into crumbs and lint. One skids across the rooms, sliding into the darkness under a cabinet. The dolls wobble to unsteady feet. They brush their twodimensional skirts, tissue paper crinkling under chipped hands. Paint flakes off the corners. The legs of some are bent, material creased in pulpy knots that fold at the slightest touch. These dolls kneel, palms to the ground, spines arched in eternal question. Eyes wide, the others meander—they have missed so much during their sleep. Unvacuumed corners cradle them in dust. Their colors are faded in the fingerprint-greased mirror and their silhouettes bulge around glass, distorted by years of sweat-sweet hands. Some open a drawer and uncover a stack of postcards buried under stamps and pens, strange worlds glowing from glossy paper. Soft mountains dissipate into clouds. Canyons bite through stone. Sunlight, sunlight, sun. Bolded script leaps across the photographs. The dolls trace unfamiliar names, hold Rocky Mountains and Zion between their chapped lips, press each syllable into the roofs of their mouths and let them dissolve. They stare at the images, touch the paper until they too are dusted and pale, clouded by grime.

DIORAM DIORAM DIORAM DIORAM

So, for a day, for a moment, the dolls sculpt a landscape in the room. Prairies sway in beige carpet. Hills ripple through swollen cushions. The furniture looms—great mountains reaching for painted sky. And yet everything presses together, table against chair against wall. A room cannot contain a world. If they squeeze their eyes shut and fling them open, the blinding light almost halos the room in ethereal glow. But technicolor brightness pulses behind their lids, steeping scenery in oversaturation.

INIATURE INIATURE INIATURE INIATURE

Pretending is difficult once dusk casts the world in monochrome. Cloth becomes cloth, scratchy against worn palms. Everything is frayed and soft and gray—charcoal smeared across paper—indistinct in the waning light.

The dolls return to the drawer and trace the postcards, lining the edges of the earth.

They rummage a roll of stamps from the shadows and dress in 4¢ postage. Even the broken dolls, the ones who cannot stand, bandage themselves with flowers and flags until they quaver upright, shaking like grass in the breeze.

A single fluttering body, they pry open the window and step outside. Still air embraces them like a forgotten friend. Around them, the world is drowsy and slow, half-formed under the moon’s gentlehands. A train flashes along the tracks, whirling the paper dolls into the sky like swallowtails taking flight. The deep, guttural roar is sweet against their ears.

Originally published in Gone Lawn

Smile Smile for for the the Camera Camera

Christine Jung Mixed Media

Click, Flash, Boom Then it’s just whiskey and burnt-out cigarettes

“Give us a smile!” Give them a smile

Then it’s never being pretty enough, never being perfect enough

Show off the diamonds that glitter on your neck

Then it’s hidden tears in gleaming closets

Show off the gown that flows down to your feet

Illicit affairs just to feel something again

Show off the man on your arm Hollywood, it’s all so glamorous Smile, Wave, Kiss Snake your arm around his waist

It’s All So

Blush when he leans down and whispers in your ear

How dapper do we look? Step into a limousine, still holding his hand Before the door shuts, lean into his lips, The photographers go crazy Then it’s just the two of you Then you pull away from him and he pulls out a flask Then there’s no more cameras, or adoring faces

Now, you’re in your bedroom

Now he’s screaming at you, telling you what a piece of shit you are What a dirty, dirty whore you are for looking good tonight

I was drunk, he says, I’ll never do it again, he says I love you, he says Drink, Slap, Apologize But don’t tell him you stopped believing him the third time he hit you Don’t tell him all that’s left of you is the glittering husk of a broken dreamer

Once upon a time, you were a wide-eyed girl who wanted to be a star Well, now you’re a star Hollywood, it’s all so glamorous Click, Flash, Boom

Glamorous

Look, he’s drunk again

Now he’s ripping off your diamonds, your dress You watch them fall to the floor

Once upon a time, your marriage was shy smiles and electric stares

And now all that’s left are dirty truths and dazzling lies

Now he’s slapping you You feel his handprint on your cheek Look, now he’s on his knees

Vivian Dong

Wel

tai n u o M t a come To C 22

Sasha Reeder Digital

A well-groomed tail tells a lot about its owner. It says that they are thoughtful, careful, and precise; that they care a great deal about hygiene, that their own duties and nobility do not make them foolish and carefree, and that they do not laze around doing naught but sleeping all day. A matted, dirty tail says just as much, if not more, about its owner. They are clearly snobby, slobby, and in every way unapproachable. Nobody wants to associate with a knotted tail-bearer. Of course, when something is so lodged in the fur of the tail, as this has been, to the point of near-certain failure in the attempt to remove it, one must hope that someone will come along and remove it for them. Attempting to remove it oneself would not only likely be pointless, but require the exertion of so much energy that must be reserved for other, more important duties, and thus there is naught to do but wait, and perhaps take a well-deserved nap in the meantime.

A TAIL’S TALE

It is a nuisance to have something stuck in one’s tail, when it is commonly known as one’s best feature. When one gets lots of comments on it from all manner of people, one gets to be rather proud of it. It is nicely fluffy, and has the tendency to look groomed even if it has not been washed in quite some time. It looks nice with every piece of furniture in the house. Every photo is made better with the addition of the tail. It is a pity that humans do not acquire one, as a well-groomed tail is an essential to the appearance of all around well-being.

Chloe Williams

playlist Audrey Nguyen

im sitting in a parked car its a Sunday afternoon and i have about a million tests this week but somehow i find myself smiling because of the sweet tune playing through my tangled earbuds and because of you who I seem to have associated every song on my playlist with each lyric puts to words the emotions i had yet to decipher each melody paints my perfect world better than i could’ve imagined a universe where you and i can dance freely like cosmos flowers in the summer breeze no painful reminder of yesterday no daunting question of tomorrow no worrying about whether you secretly have thoughts about my almond eyes just us existing as two beautiful and broken teenagers as i gaze at the endless stretch of highway and coniferous trees beyond the gas station i wonder what it would be like to share this view this song this endless journey with you maybe someday when we’re older and learn to drive ill play those songs out loud for you against the roar of car engines and highway air maybe someday we can finally be that obnoxious couple you at the wheel and me in the passenger seat our hair flying in the wind and voices hoarse from screaming along one day ill finally feign the strength to tell you of my manic daydream playlist but for now i can only listen to it through my tangled earbuds alone what will happen when I say those three words what will draw the line between a quiet melody bouncing in my head and the anthem of our burning teenage love?

Heart Eyes

Emma Laragione Digital

Natalia Green Digital

Mind You 26

You

Sometimes you think you’ll just die with all the feelings piling up inside of you. Like, the loneliness that creeps through you like blood in water, And this heavy kind of sadness that’s in your bones, in your chipped nails and split ends And sometimes you don’t know what all this pain is for, Like, sometimes you wonder why you keep chasing after this thing called “happiness” when it’s all a mirage,

Try

Anouk Freudenberg

And so you retreat into the darkest caverns of your mind and ruminate in your bitterness and wonder how anyone could possibly feel this much. What do you do with it all? You feel like you might just explode, like there’s a ticking time bomb that lies right where your heart is and one misstep could destroy you.

But that scares you. So, You hold your head up. You walk like you know where you’re going, even though you spilled water on the roadmaps you drew to the future, and your destination is unclear.

And sometimes you feel like you’re a phantom, watching yourself through a movie screen, So you wear your clothes like armor, And you wear your smile like a shield. And sometimes you just want to collapse in on yourself, so you laugh to cover the silence. You stray away from hope, you reject it, but you always come back. You try, You try, You try, And yeah,

You Try You Try

You Try

Try

You Try You Try You Try

You Try

You Try You Try

You Tr You Try

Sometimes you feel like this empty echo of your past self, But, the girl in English always offers a high five And the boy in History shared his Air Pods and you listened to shitty rap music together. Maybe it all amounts to nothing, in the end But you hold your head up high. You do it again, You do it again, You try, You try, You try.

You Try

You

You Try You Try You Try You Try You Try You Try

You Try You Try

This piece contains sensitive topics: - Suicidal Thoughts

The Art of Derealization t is the feeling of floating but falling where all your anxiety is caught in your chest but you are somehow watching yourself. It is the idea that every action you have taken every word you have ever spoken every thing you have ever written is meaningless. It is ripping out pages in blank notebooks because the ink won’t run the ripping your hair out because it gets on the sink the ripping clothes off the rack because nothing feels good anymore. It is the thoughts of jumping the thoughts of running the thoughts of pinching the thoughts of eating. You are not yourself, you are everything and everyone but that. How can you be an individual when someone has felt exactly how you have and written about it better? When you are never the best at something but never the worst but not bad enough to be with the worst but not good enough to be with the best. You never know it is happening but you see the signs. Hating what you love and having days that are bad for no reason and feeling nothing. But you say maybe it isn’t that this time maybe it’s just a bad day maybe it has gone away for good and you’ll never feel it again. And then you wake up one day and that feeling is gone and the hurt and pain come back and even though you know to feel is better than to not the not is so much easier. Even though you wanted to die at least it distracted from the living.

Sarah Hegg 30

Student Silence (Advice from a Teacher) Olivia Chu

Make noise, be loud, bold, let your voice be heard; don’t be a wallflower, we have enough of those already, the world needs leaders; you are soft spoken, don’t let dismissal by others of your quiet tone discourage you; yell if you have to, if it’s what it takes for your voice to be heard by others; you have things to say, so say them; But what if I’m uncertain of what to say; speak with an open mind, listen to others, their words are just as important; look for your future, find it, start to live it; I’m a bit young to be thinking so far ahead, aren’t I, the future isn’t your adulthood, it’s what you make of yourself, now, in the future, and a revival of your past; find people you can rely on, and who can rely on you; be sure of yourself, don’t let others tell you you’re wrong without giving you the chance to speak; you have many things to say, so say them, do not be afraid, But I am afraid; and so what? say it anyways; women are far too often dismissed without a chance of voice, of heart, especially of mind; do not let them make this of you too, do not become another single narrative for them to write in their cis, het, white, rich, male, history textbooks; make some noise; make sure that if any page in that history book pertain to you, it will not be about your silence; I won’t.

angman Hangman

Kyle Hoang Charcoal 32

The Game Room

They started laughing over something. Something that I couldn’t see nor wanted to see. Something so… small. But never smaller than how I felt whenever I walked into the game room. Big people, big noises, big laughter, cries of victory and groans of failure. The crowd around the pool table could intimidate any outsider, especially those without an assigned place in any of the gatherings. My shoulders were hunched, curled inward to my chest, my phone held in a tight grip, arms clung to my sides. I awkwardly shuffled at the sidelines, unsure of where to stand, unsure of the facial expression to make, unsure of how to act. Yet every time she looked at me, I mustered a smile. Faded pink hair, cut at shoulder length. A vibrant shirt tucked into black boyfriend jeans. She was a part of the game, one of the rising players. As they cheered for her, she didn’t blush, just smiled modestly. Blue eyes met mine as she got closer to victory. No one ever spoke over her. The laughter bounced off the walls. The air reeked of it. I didn’t want to laugh, I had to, though. I was a part of the crowd no matter what. I laughed, and she looked at me briefly. I laughed almost as long as they did. My smile quivered, but I continued because my friend across the table smiled brightly. And I’ll be happy for them. Even though I can’t be happy for myself.

Jordan Jacoel

6 7

Anatomy of a House Fire Stella Lei

1. Kitchen: Gas on the stove. Grease in the air. The pop-pop-pop of heat shriveling paper towels and dishcloths, fabric wilting into itself like a flower in reverse. 2. Dining room: Smoke swelling like a storm. Placemats melting into table—saving spots for ghosts—checkered squares bleeding into particle board grain. 3. Living room: Sofa cushions burning. Mantle photographs—lips pursed before candles and cake, dimples, gapped teeth—burning like flash paper, each soot-smeared face a burst of gold. 4. Closet: Twin coats tangled in embrace. Size small tucked inside large. 5. Study: Patents. Novels. Comics. Superman flaking into ash, It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s— 6. Hallway: A mother running, feet tangled in the carpet’s plush. A mother crawling with her head below smoke. A mother. 7. Bedroom door: Fists blazing. Skin cracking against wood. Nails scratching against knob. A cry. A shout. Wake up. Please.

Originally published in Okay Donkey

Sasha Reeder 35

30 Steps to Surviving an Alien Apocalypse Ashka Patel

1. Pretend that everything is normal and you’ll wake up from this bad dream (in your cat pajamas) 2. Realize that it is real 3. Scream and run around while waving your hands in the air 4. Get shushed by the others and realize that now the aliens have found you 5. Run for your life 6. Use your grandma as a shield and sacrifice her to the alien that is currently grabbing your leg 7. Find a cave to hide in 8. Realize that there are others in the cave with you 9. Get judgemental looks for sacrificing your grandma 10. Rock back and forth 11. Cry like a baby 12. Get shushed again 13. Try to start a fire 14. Fail to start a fire 15. Go to sleep 16. Wake up in the middle of the night 17. Hog all the food and stress eat 18. Get yelled at by the others because you ate all the food 19. Sit in the corner and rub your full belly 20. Watch curiously as everyone else communicates with their eyes 21. Get scared when your leader announces that its time to eat someone 22. Sweat a little when all eyes turn to you 23. Realize what’s about to happen 24. Run out of the cave screaming like a banshee 25. Get attacked by aliens 26. Die 27. Wake up 28. Realize that you’re surrounded by humans tending to your green bumpy skin 29. And feeding you intestines 30. Yup, everything is normal

Practice Makes Perfect Peyton Harrill

30 minutes a day. Soaring, sweeping melodies. Each sixteenth note dancing and leaping through the air like a graceful ballerina. 3 hours a day. Time goes on and fingers grow sloppy, endlessly slapping and dragging with a certain pervasive heaviness. The weight of every muscle becomes apparent and each movement is accompanied by a dull aching. 6 hours a day. Sharp, screeching tones. Sour notes that stain the tongue, leaving a foul residue on the tips of your fingers and tearing your ears apart from the inside out. Each mistake rotting an already decaying body that’s restless and hollow from lack of sleep.

A Monologue from a Melodramatic Pencil

Oh, woe is me, for I have been forgotten by my keeper, infinitely lost in these terribly bland linoleum squares (is this even a color? Beige? No, I’d never insult beige like this), no home, no purpose. The air is just so cold! Perhaps my body has begun to freeze in time, as I no longer have a reason to be on this sad spinning rock we do so happen to call Earth (oh, there’s an air conditioner). My keeper has left me for dead, didn’t even spare a final goodbye. No hurrahs, I suppose, for a sad, lanky old piece of wood like myself. If only someone were to pass by, and notice me, buried in these dangerous shadows, before my hexagonal build is taken aloft by the air kicked up by a battalion of hundreds of shoes, sending me tumbling down the stairs. What’s this? A child! A child has brought me into the warmth of the light shining from the window, picking me up with delicate hands (they must know how fragile my spirit is right now). The radiance of the sunbeam fills each fiber of my being once again, rekindling of vigor within. As I am risen into the comfort of my new keeper’s backpack, I feel at home, a comforting place I know I can count on, with mesh and zippered protectors that would never drop me in a treacherous hallway during the rush of class changes. I am once again revived, no longer forced to relive each agony I’ve faced in my pitiful life (the horrible traumas I’ve endured from anxious test takers, who chewed off my previously luscious layers of chrome pigment). I befriend my fellow comrades, hidden with me in the safety of this defensive citadel: Pens, Mechanicals (though we, the Dixon Ticonderoga #2, were the original – the revered, all cedar, 45,000 word-per-use writing pencils since 1913, unlike these click-click bandwagons!), even Erasers (those judgmental pricks). We all feel a collective THUD! of the backpack we’ve been cruising in, and light is let into our citadel, our fabulous fortress. These gentle hands once again have allowed me to soar and rest on the cooling, beautiful silver color of the wooden desk, and my new adventure begins. Okay Students, you may begin your tests… now! My new guardian seems rather distressed about their teacher’s wondrous announcement. Wait (I’ve been lifted far higher than the paper, the familiar smell of cafeteria food accosts me)… No please, OH GOD, NOT MY DAZZLING PIGMENT! NOT AGAIN!

Olivia Chu

Doodles

Counting Sheep Lily Jiang

One sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four sheep I lie in the dark, eyes wide open. Five sheep, six sheep, seven sheep, eight sheep A loud plane flies past our city. I cover my ears. Nine sheep, ten sheep, eleven sheep, twelve sheep More planes fly overhead. The walls vibrate. Thirteen sheep, fourteen sheep, fifteen sheep, sixteen sheep There is a sound of an explosion in the distance.

Seventeen sheep, eighteen sheep, nineteen sheep— An ear-splitting roar. A flashing light. Screaming. I run outside into the cold night and see everything ablaze as another bomb falls from the sky.

Green

Guinevere Reaume

Green was always his favorite color, ever since he first went on a camping trip. He would just lay in the grass for hours and hours. His dad would get a bit cross about this. His dad wanted to go hunting or fishing or really do anything else. He only cared about laying in the bright green grass. He would only pick the green apples when he and his mother went shopping. His mother said his love for the color was a blessing because she didn’t need to convince him to eat all of his vegetables, he just would because they’re green. He even started playing tennis because he liked all the different shades of green, from the tennis balls to the court. No one ever had to worry about him not wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day. He thought it was the most beautiful thing to ever cross this earth. By the time he was older, he appeared to be disinterested in the color. Maturity took away his fixation on it. Until he looked in her eyes. They were the greenest eyes he’d ever seen. He forgot all about the taunts that were thrown at him, because he once again discovered his love for the color green.

Dino Friend Casey Kovarick Digital 47

Imaginary Friend an array of flowers,  sitting in the garden—  the ruby red tulips,  the oceanic blue cornflowers;  their fragrance, addicting;  i walk out, barefoot,  feeling the unruly  lime-green grass pokes me,  the dewy nature combatting the heat  as i endure the rays of the sun;  i step on a vine, carelessly left on the ground. i stay still, as it wraps its arms around me,  enclosing me in itself—  a trap, yet i find no will to leave;  its forest green fingers spreading their poison as its thoughts flow down my body,  calming me with its lullaby. all my fears slip away,  vanishing into the breeze,  perhaps landing on another victim;  but i close my eyes,  and keep imagining my garden.

Nikkita Pandey

Originally published in Uplift Magazine

12 11

12 12 1

Time’s a-ticking Nikkita Pandey

tick. tick. tick. the numbers on the clock fall; an increased effort paying no reward the: fireflies’ light, crickets’ chirp, crisp air’s smell— all of it a distraction: from the time slipping from our fingers,  the words leaving our mouth— a trap, locking us in letting us assume it is plentiful  but striking when least expected; our only source of wealth, with limited amounts given to all spent on futile memories, every single day adding to time lost— rewinding the clock slyly and gradually unbeknownst to how much longer it will pass the test of time before, like everything else, it passes its expiration  hearing the last of the ticking until: its traces vanish its lovers leave its followers move on12 and its story is killed.

12 9

12 8

12 12 7 6

12 3

y a D e l g n i S Every

Anika Kotapally

I want to exist in the same world as you and smile when you smile and laugh with you too. I

want to go to the grocery store and pick up your

almond milk and my 2% because you’re lactose

intolerant and I’m allergic to nuts. I want to sit in silence with you and know neither of us is going anywhere. I want to hold your hand in mine, on

the sofa in our apartment, in the heart of this

inconsequential life we’ve built for ourselves.

Daniel Gergeus Acrylic Paint 51

Innocence

Chiho Jing Digital

Guinevere Reaume

Frayed Rope

No magnetic pull, just manual labor.

Our hands, calloused, Trying to keep this thin rope from breaking,

Because once it breaks, you’re gone, And my thoughts would crawl inside your soul. How I wish I could stop them,

Permanently feasting at your brain, So, I just pull until my arms give out and then some.

When you get too tired, I’ll work for the both of us.

A merciless battle against the unknown, And I can do nothing but pull.

roF aeT owT

Tea For Two 55

Clara Steege Watercolor

Shreeya Gomatam Photography

Broadway in the Rain

Kites

Ashka Patel Photography 57

Why Ironman Doesn’t Have a Song Ironman, Ironman Does whatever an iron can AUTHOR’S NOTE *Sing to the Spiderman Theme Song

Makes things flat And that is that Ironman, Ironman

Chloe Williams

Bent

Ashka Patel Photography

Between the Lines Ashka Patel Photography

Sasha Reeder Photography

e e r r u u t t x e x T Te 60

m a e r I D Ha e th

Anika Kotapally last night, we were outside and you were smiling at me. Were you happy? I don’t know. How can you tell if someone is happy? You were smiling at me in my dream and you smiled at me in real life too. My memory of you is not perfect. Maybe when you smiled, you weren’t really smiling, but I couldn’t tell the difference. In the dream I had last night, I made a joke and you laughed. I can’t remember your laugh when I’m awake.

ANGLES

ZENT-

Sasha Reeder Digital 63

Roses

Sowmya Krishna Acrylic 64

The Hero’s Return Home Every time she broke

She became all the more beautiful Every time she failed More hope came upon her Every time she cried She became that much braver When the world was falling She carried it on her shoulders And with every sacrifice she made The earth grew stronger Until it could be the one To carry her home.

Ava Bruni

o b e o t k o N y Is Alive

Sasha Reeder Mixed Media 67

Diaries

She has the eyes of Hera, Deep, Dark, Glinting and soft like black mica, The face of Aphrodite, Not angular and severe but soft and innocent, The body of Artemis, Athletic and trim and everything I’m not, The heart of Hestia, Gentle, Humble, Full of a zest for life that never wanes like Hestia’s sacred hearth, The mind of Athena, One that is intelligent and infallible unlike mine, The hands of Demeter, Hands that are unsullied by labor but are the source of marvelous creation I have the eyes of Medusa, Dull, Leaden, So vacuous and unbearable to look into, The face of the Minotaur, Bullish and crassly unfeminine, The body of Dionysus, Muscular but enveloped in grotesque pockets of fat made of impulses and gluttony, The heart of Persephone, Solitary, Tenebrous, Lost in an unfamiliar and hostile world, The mind of Eris, Spiteful and cynically scorning humanity as the screeches of the righteous Furies echo faintly, The hands of Hephaestus, Brutish and unbecomingly calloused in places.

The Demigoddess and Me She thrives upon her gods-given Olympus, I languish in a Tartarus of my own creation. She surrounds herself with the Charites, I conspire with the Fates. I want to love my life, My gifts, My passions. It is hard, Watching the light from so far below, Wishing I were her, Wondering why I always turn out to be the mediocre to her superb. One day, Our worlds may collide, Intersect, Converge. But before that day comes, I will silently watch in vain from the shadows of my Tartarus, Looking up at the demigoddess in all her glory.

Sarah Weng

What Will Stay

Anika Kotapally

Here is your loss, they told you once, pointing at your heart. You looked down at it, pulsing and brilliant and beautiful, then back at them. And here are the ways you will stitch yourself together. Here is the needle, the thread, the solemnity of your fingers as they stitch them together. Needle of your bone, thread of your tendons. You building you. There is the laughter on the wind and the phantom on your couch. It sits, it laughs, no one hears it but you. You will never get rid of it. It comes and comes and comes. Yesterday, you walked past a glass with fingerprints still left on it. On the moon there are footprints that belong to men long gone from its surface. This is not the moon. No lunar ethereality here to preserve that which is forgotten. The names are gone, lost in a garden whose key is within it too. Rattle the gate, smell the flowers inside. You will never see them again. In your head they remain, hands in hands, blood on thorns. Maybe some things should be forgotten. You never remember what they wanted you to. Oh, but here is the imprint of them in your heart, your loss. No place for the love to go now. It is the one thing that will never enter the garden.

Nature’s Touch Katie Wang Painting

Carbon Copy Copy Carbon Deirdre Cunniffe

When you are younger you won’t get it when they compare the two of you. It’s hard to see the depth of what she gives you when you are still barely big enough to peer over the countertops. Then, there’s a resemblance, sure. But that is common, expected even. Same hair color, same eyes, but no reason to call The Times. You’ll stand next to each other and unknowingly pull the same face. Then, one day, you’ll look in the mirror. And she’ll be staring back at you. In your eyes, your smile, the way you hold yourself, your laugh, your cheeks, your nose. Then, when people compare you two, you’ll smile and nod and understand. And you’ll be so afraid of the day that the tone changes, to one less novel, and more sad. Tinted with a loss, you are afraid of becoming a reminder. You’ll grow and change and make the places that she gave you your own, but no matter how many times you insist it’s true, You are never taller than she is. The exact same height, down to the half-an-inch. And your family will laugh because when film comes back ‘in style’, They have to start double checking the captions of pictures, To see if it’s you or her. The words will always be there, on the lips of every person who knows her, when they meet you, it’s the first thing they say. Because in you, they’ll see so much of her, and so much of what her love does. And each time it will light you up, Your proudest accomplishment. “You look just like your Mom.”

The Happiest Day of Mommy’s Life

This piece contains sensitive topics: - Violence - Psychological abuse She’s the perfect housewife, and she lives in the perfect white house with her perfect husband and perfect kids in the perfect neighborhood and everything’s just so perfect and nothing could be better because she’s the perfect housewife, and she lives in the perfect white house with her perfect husband and perfect kids in the perfect neighborhood and everything’s just so perfect and nothing could be better becauseshestheperfecthousewifeandshelives intheperfectwhitehousewithherperfecthusbandandperfectkidsinthe perfectneighborhoodandeverything’sjustsoperfectsoperfect everythingeverythingisperfectperfectperfecperfectperfectperfect She’s making tuna casserole for dinner tonight. The oven’s on and she bends over the countertop, imitating the woman she once saw on the billboard during a drive to the grocery store years ago; the advertisement still selfishly sears itself into her memory and she can even recall the exact angle of the woman taking the baking tray out of the oven and the pint of her pastel yellow mitts. She slips the same pair on now and leans over to her left for a kiss on the cheek to no avail. She smiles at her idiocracy and longing to be loved and she goes upstairs to wake him up from his nap. He must’ve been so tired from work that he had overslept, the poor thing. “Honey, I made your favorite.” She knocks twice, smiling while imagining how delighted he would be to see her and his dinner personally prepared, then carried upstairs for him. After all, she read once that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach and that a wife’s duty was to satisfy their husbands, and she would not disappoint him.

Emily Zou

Moments before leaving, she sees the lights hurriedly flicker off from the crevice of the door and her suspicions are ignited again, that stupid habit of hers to jump to assumptions and more begrudgingly, accusations of her dearest husband. Ears pressed to the cold surface of the doorframe, she listens intently to confirm or alleviate her doubts and ultimately, the hushed, sensual whispers of two voices concludes the former. “Are you still sleeping? Oh dear, I’ll just leave it right on your nightstand then.” She mutters to herself, purposely out of earshot to convince herself that she had at least warned him before she barged in. And when she does, the first thing her hands search for is the light switch in the dark, and she feels her ring threaten to slip off her finger once it hits a knob on the wall, revealing a tragic, yet humorous scene straight from a modern-day Latin soap opera unfolding right in front of her. She immediately gasps, dropping the tray and the hot tea spills over the hem of her skirt, dripping to her ankles and temporarily scarring them a fuming red.

The Happiest Day of Mommy’s Life

Still holding the tray close to her chest, she waits for a response, a sigh even for anything as long as it meant that she still existed to him. So she just silently stands there, yearning for him to let her in. Of course, he doesn’t and she makes an excuse up in her head for him because everything she did was illogical just like he said and what was she doing there, standing like an idiot anyway? Marley was still at Lesley’s Day-camp for Boys and needed to be picked up at six and Lainey had a playdate long overdue with Mary Lou’s daughter, the one down the street.

The Happiest Day of Mommy’s Life

He frantically shifts his position to pathetically cover himself and the whore with the thin, white bed sheets - the same bed sheets she methodically hand-washed for hours like he asked her to- and his gleeful, playful smile, the one she never got to see again after their marriage, disappears and is replaced by a sheer look of panic. He scrambles to explain himself and stumbles on his words, an uncommon sight to see for someone whose job purely depended on people skills and charisma. “Oh darling, don’t you worry about me! I’ll be just fine.” She laughs to herself, politely and girlishly, on the verge of tears from how funny it was to see her husband in bed with the same Mary Lou down the street. It was just ironic (and she loved a good irony) how that whore of all people could seduce her husband but not her. The same whore who was now gasping and profusely apologizing as if she felt sorry for her and didn’t know her husband was married. Well of course he was married, and to her, and he was hers and only hers, how silly of her not to know! The tendons in her petite hands tighten around a piece of the broken dinner plate and she hurls it at the slut’s pretty face, hitting her right in the forehead as she emits a cry for help, the fragile pieces breaking upon impact. At once, one of Mary’s ocean blue eyes that she always envied were bleeding, and wouldn’t open completely. Good, that way she would never attract his attention ever again. God, was that the reason? That Mary Lou was prettier than her? That lying, two-faced home-wrecking fucking bitch!

It was a shame really that he had to die too, but if she couldn’t have him, then neither could anyone else. Except, maybe it would have been easier for her to swallow her anguish if he wasn’t actively fighting against her. She goes out of the room only to return with Marley’s prized bat, and thankfully, he’s still reclining over his injury and leaving himself susceptible to her aggressive, repetitive bashing of his head. By around eight hits, her lucky number, it splits open, but she continues until he’s unconscious and after that, just for good measure, she strangles him with her passionate, unrequited love. She looks at the two dead bodies and makes no effort to cover up her amateur work, if anything, parading the deed as a personal accomplishment. She’s still shaking after the murder and she calms herself with a cigarette, smoking it while pacing back and forth and finally, she heads outside, gets into her car with the first genuine smile in years and drives off to pick up her kids. Daddy wasn’t coming home for a long time.

The Happiest Day of Mommy’s Life

Next, she grabs the flower vase and slams it against Mary’s feeble arms, raised to protect her deformed, ugly face. She giggles at the pathetic act of self-defense and reaches for her own bedside pillow to muffle the woman’s childish whines, staining the white with a blotty scarlet and suffocating the last gulps of air from her former friend out of her. Her husband attempts to stop her, dragging her back with his hands but she wins the struggle, somehow kicking him in the groin in the process. When she’s finished with Mary Lou, she turns to him, a sympathetic, but crazed look in her eyes.

September 7th, 2011 I’m 6 years old. Standing in the driveway with my parents beside me. Mom’s teary eyes are looking at the car backing up. I don’t really get why it’s such a big deal, it’s not like you’re leaving us. You just got your license. You get out mom’s old car, it’s beaten down and ugly. I don’t think you care, you’re just happy you got freedom. I wonder if mom’s going to be like this when I get my license. Probably not. My dad’s making some joke about everyone staying off the roads now. I tune him out. I focus on the white tail end with a small sticker on the back. I think the car would look better if it was bright yellow.

NEW CARS Guinevere Reaume

August 25th, 2013 I’m 8 years old now. You’re off to college and, once again, I don’t get it. It’s not like you’re leaving forever. You’ll be home for Thanksgiving and Winter Break. It’s only a couple states away. Mom’s really crying this time. Tears falling off her chin and mascara smudged. You hug each of us and drive off in your red truck. I know you don’t like it but it was the cheapest thing we could find. It rattles as you drive away and you can tell it’s probably going to break down before you even get there. But maybe you’re just happy to be going away.

November 16th, 2020 I’m 15 now. You’ve been living back at our place for the past couple months. It’s been nice and we’ve gotten closer. I knew I needed someone to remind me that you wouldn’t be here forever, but I clutched onto the naivety that I had. I came home to find that all your clothes had been packed away in boxes. You were leaving for a guy you met a month ago. I’m alone now in the house that used to feel too full. And I didn’t even know. I get it now. This one is permanent. You didn’t even have to say it for me to know. Mother’s not crying this time. I watch as the small grey car pulls out of our driveway.

Glee On My Love-Hate Relationship with Paige Munroe I started watching Glee in middle school, probably 7th grade. My parents decided that a theatre loving nerd, such as myself, would probably enjoy a show like Ryan Murphy’s Glee. They were right. I remember sneaking our family iPad into my room to watch more episodes after my parents had gone to bed. I got caught. They gave me some lecture about how there were adult themes and how I shouldn’t be watching without them. They didn’t let me watch it at all after that. Then, a yearish later, I started watching it again. This time on my own, and this time I was hooked. I have since re-watched the show countless times, started Glee Discussion Clubs with friends, and formed strong opinions about every happening in this wonderful mess of a TV show. I think an important place to start explaining my connection with Glee is by telling you a little bit about myself. I am a high school cheerleader and in choir and in theatre and gay (Santana Lopez who!?). Because I have real life experiences that correspond so directly with the show’s major plotlines, I feel that I see the show from a vastly different perspective than the “average Joe”. I see the choir room scenes from the perspective of a kid who has choir almost every day, I see the cheerio scenes through the eyes of someone who has taken tumbling her whole life and has been a varsity cheerleader through high school, and I see the LGBTQ characters and issues from the perspective of a lesbian. All these intersections are hard to come by and Glee was somehow able to highlight all my highlights. Now that some context has been established, I can go more in depth to my linkage. I am a junior in high school. When I first started Glee, I was in middle school, and as I have continued to watch the show while growing up, I see my ideas and thoughts about the high school setting change. To start, Glee is generally related to the average high school experience. The characters go through the struggles of balancing school and social life, applying to college, and other cookie-cutter high school situations.

As a now current high schooler though, there are some glaring issues that anger me to no end. One is present in almost every episode: stagnant hallway conversations. Many important issues are conversed in this way. Some include romantic troubles, ending friendships, and even proposals. There are scenes where characters make up during what seems to be class changing times, and hug in the middle of a hallway. I cannot fathom that this is a common thing. If I saw any of those situations play out while on my way to 5th period AP Lang, I would purposefully run into them. It is incredibly unrealistic, and it makes me think the Glee higher ups just used an easy short cut to move plots along. A specific scene that makes me want to rip my hair out is when Will Schuester and Emma Pillsbury kiss in the hallway, marking the start of their relationship. For all the non-gleeks reading this, Will is the Glee club teacher, and Emma is the school guidance counselor. The discomfort that would rip through my body if I saw two of my teachers profess their love to each other while I’m on my way to calculus is unexplainable. A further extension of my relationship with Glee is my being a cheerleader. I will give the Glee lords slack for most of the issues with the Cheerios. Anything that involved the cheerleading coach, Sue, was overdramatized, so much of the dramatics about the team and their performances make sense. I do, however, have a very large problem with how the team is categorized. Apart from the pilot episode the team rarely does difficult stunts. They often perform intricate dance routines instead. For this reason, I fully believe that the cheerios are not an actual cheer team and should be called a dance team. This shouldn’t bother me nearly as much as it does, but as someone who has dedicated a fair portion of her life to cheerleading, I hate that the team is so blatantly not a cheer team. While cheerleading and high school do allow me to connect to the show well, my heavy involvement in my school’s music department is what I believe is the largest factor in my love-hate relationship with Glee. As I said before, I have a music related activity almost every day. Whether it’s choir, musical rehearsal, or a theatre elective, I’m jamming in the music hallway at some point. Through this, I have a very good idea of what high school music is, and it’s not how Glee describes it.

As an example, real show choirs prepare for months prior to competitions, unlike in Glee where they go so far as to fly to nationals without a set list. Everything in Musical theatre is planned and rehearsed. To say that it isn’t is an insult to those who spend so long perfecting their craft. The writers of Glee deciding to rarely show actual repetitive rehearsing highlights how unrealistic the team is. The remaining factor in my uncanny similarity to Santana Lopez is my sexuality. I want to preface this paragraph by saying that I don’t think it’s statistically possible for a town as small as the town Glee is set in to have the amount of minority characters that it does. While the representation is wonderful, it becomes unrealistic at a point. The most outward example of this is Coach Beiste coming out as transgender in the final season. To me it seemed like the writers just wanted another minority group represented. Beiste’s character arc throughout the first 4 seasons he was in had no suggestions of him being trans, and I personally think it was short sighted. With that said, Glee did help me accept myself and if the weirdly large amount of minority groups also represented helps other people, then that’s awesome. So, let’s talk about Santana Lopez. She was a cheerio and begrudgingly joined the Glee club as a spy in season one. In season two, she becomes a series regular, and the audience learns that she’s a little fruity, if you will. In season three, she starts publicly dating her best friend, Brittany Pierce, and has a combination of being outed and coming out on her own. As someone who was outed—never severely just some friends told other friends—it made me feel less alone. I remember watching her coming out episode for the first time in eighth or ninth grade. I was sitting on my basement couch, deep in a binging period, at around midnight. My dog was asleep beside me, and I was fighting off sleep myself. The cluster of episodes I had been watching were all centered around Brittany and Santana, and I couldn’t pull myself away. Seeing Santana feeling so vulnerable and betrayed was abnormal. She was a self-identified “bitch”, but that attitude was not at all present in this episode. Because I relate so much to her character, it hurt to see her so exposed. Seeing her process everything just felt so real.

Tears escaped my eyes. I lost it. I was in a place in my life where my confidence about my sexuality was mainly a façade. I had jokingly shaken it off when I found out that people that I hadn’t told knew my deepest, darkest, and scariest secret, just months before. Maybe I didn’t realize it at the time, but it hurt. Seeing my favorite character go through something similar broke my fragile façade. I was incredibly angry that she had to go through coming out on other people’s terms, but there was a bigger part of me that felt comforted by the fact that she got through it. After she comes out, Santana continues to be her regular bad ass self. Perceiving this, so shortly after completely breaking down, helped me so much. She was gay, everyone knew it, but she was so many other things too. I think the reason I love Santana so much is because of that. As a young kid figuring myself out, seeing such a strong role model helped me in my self-confidence and individuality. I saw that I could be exactly the person I already was, and gay. As Santana’s story line progressed, so did I. With all of this in mind, I still connect Glee with my music department the most because everyone watches it. When I entered High school choir and began making friends within it, I realized that I was far from alone in my obsession with Glee. There are debates at the beginning of class about if Mr. Schue is being creepy towards the kids, or if he just cares a lot. Just this week, my best friend and I used Matthew Morrison (the actor who plays Will) as our Microsoft Teams background in Choir. The Glee discussion club I mentioned at the beginning of this was formed as a result of Glee discussions at Musical rehearsal. A few of my friends and I, that had already watched the show many times, convinced a few other friends to watch. We re-watched as the newbies experienced the mess that is Glee for the first time. For anyone that has not watched Glee, I would claim that the best part about watching it (with friends, or without) is screaming at the TV when something stupid happens. This weird club that I formed with my then close friends, now very close friends, bonded us through venting and yelling about how much we hated certain characters or situations. Months later now that we have all finished, we still Facetime on occasion to talk about an episode that one of us re-watched and a scene that we hated in it.

I keep saying I hate Glee, and I do, but I’m also here writing an entire essay about it. Admittedly, many of my favorite high school memories come from Glee. Scream singing the Glee Club’s rendition of PYT with my best friend on our way home from wherever, renting The Glee 3D Concert Movie on a random weeknight over the summer, duetting River Deep Mountain High with my friends on Glee Karaoke Revolution during a sleepover, and watching the competition episodes on a projector around a Bonfire with the Glee Discussion Club are just a few examples of how Glee has slithered its way into my social life. I even dressed up as Santana for Halloween this year. As odd as it is, through its weird half-sexual scenes involving Will and Emma, unrealistic budgeting, and so much more, Glee has become one of my favorite things. This brings up the burning question of: How did it do it? How did a show that has a complete episode centered around twerking being banned, take me, and the rest of the world by storm? As much as I don’t want to admit it, I think a lot of my love for this show comes from how awful it is. The overdramatic satirical style and unbelievability are purposeful (I hope). Screaming at the TV at 1 am with my best friends about how awful the Glee club’s costumes are, is why I love it. It’s so stupid and unrealistic that you can’t help but laugh. Glee has brought me closer to the people I love and shown me that it’s ok to be me and I can’t thank the creators of this god-awful show enough for that.

e t a H ve o L y e e l On M G th i W p i h s n o i Relat 86

Peyton Harill

We walked down the rickety staircase, With flimsy, wooden and metal railings, Rusting to a golden-black color Which left a metallic residue when held. I wonder how many others held it before me And realized it gave no support To the wobbly stairs

El Matador

El Matador El Matador El Matador El Matador El Matador

It was a cold day — Colder than what I would have liked, especially in California. We stopped at a cliff overlooking the ocean. The steep path Leading down to the beach Dotted with tiny yellow flowers.

Leaving the vertigo-inducing stairs, I slipped off my shoes And dipped my feet into the chilly sand, The small rocks, poking at my feet. As I avoided the sharp stones, Corpses of tangled seaweed bodies Lay across the ground in huddling heaps, Almost looking like an ancient creature That slithered up from the sea floor. Like ink splattered on a dreary watercolor painting, Monoliths rose from the ground. Those too, could be more timeless beasts, Stuck in time forever like petrified wood, When they were endlessly roaming And wandering the Earth. The briny ocean undulated and crashed on the shore, Leaving chalky remains. As each tide pulled in and out, Swaying as if to hypnotize the viewer, It whispered names from the ghosts of the past And those who had been there before me. Perhaps the beach was a burial ground For monsters of the past. A cemetery for god-like entities who take their place on the Earth. As clumps of seaweed, As sharp, towering rocks As crashing ocean waves And even possibly As an old, rickety staircase.

To Dream Dream To Eileen Chen Digital

You You

Would you take my hand if I held it out to you? I wonder if you think about me the way I think about you

and maybe this is forward of me but I want to know everything about you

the music you listen to, your favorite childhood memories, your comfort food when you’re sick

and could you look away and stay distracted long enough for me to memorize everything about you? the color of your eyes, the way your hair goes, whether or not you absent-mindedly fidget when you have nothing to do but sit and please tell me if I bother you when I talk for too long, too loud or don’t, either way, my heart, my brain, something of mine might burst, or overflow, or shatter to pieces And do you feel like dancing the way I do when we speak? I replay every moment I spend with you at the end of the day the way your eyes lingered on me, or our hands brushed, or I sat close enough to feel the heat of your arm radiating to mine and I can’t say a word because this feels scary and strange but I think I would take your hand if you held it out to me, too

Emma Laragione

Glass Bones Ava Bruni

Your voice was honey. It stuck in ears, Golden and sweet. Your words were venom. They tainted the air, Poisonous and deadly. You were soft petals and thorns. You were a happy song that made me cry. You were everything I wasn’t. You were everything. Everything, Everything, Everything. With your head held high, Your sticky voice would point out my scars. The ones inside my head that no one could see. No one until you. You laughed with purpose. The sound traveled to the stars and the planets, So they could laugh too. Every bone in my body crumbled apart in front of you. Everything broke until I was sand. Until I was nothing. I was nothing. Nothing, Nothing, Nothing. Air refused to rush into my broken lungs And my weak heart nearly burst with every beat. I felt empty and sick. Crying for my scars, Mad at you for spreading them, Until my skin was fire, And my bones found their way together again. Barely whole and barely working. Every step was agony. Every time I got hurt I would shatter again. As if the sand in my body turned into glass, Making me fragile and transparent. I walked with care but still I got hurt. I could feel the scars in my brain.

You could feel them, too. At least, that’s what I thought. How else would you have this power over me? You tell the sun and moon to laugh at me some more, Breaking my glass bones again. So they could become sand again. Shattering again. Again. Again. Again. I would get mad And my blood would boil and I would be whole. As whole as one can be with glass bones. We were in a tedious cycle. No beginning, No end. And the worst part is some of me wanted it. When your sticky voice was melodic, And you were everything, I would have sold my broken bones just to be your friend. And since I couldn’t have that, Any amount of attention from you pulled at my heart. I am unworthy of anything from you. You turned me into glass, yes. But I was nothing before. I am nothing, And you are everything. Everything. Everything. Everything. Everything. Everything.

Everything. Everything.

Increments of Heartbreak Vivian Dong

I told you to stay and you told me you had to go. I begged and pleaded while you packed your things. but you said we weren’t good for each other. You said we’d kill each other in the end. But when you left it almost killed me. I was a bridesmaid at your wedding. I watched you cry as she walked down the aisle. I clapped for you when you kissed her with all the love in your body. That love used to be for me. I toasted champagne while I wished forever upon you. Nothing had ever tasted so bitter. I was at your housewarming party. It was small, just the group from college. I like your house; did I mention that? You’re right, the lawn is nice. And the park down the street will be a great place to teach your kids how to ride a bike. Sorry, I know I was distant, but I kept looking around, feeling the holes in my chest, thinking this could have been us. I held your daughter the day she was born. I watched as you cried when you saw her for the first time. I cried too. I hugged you guys, told you how happy I was for the both of you. I really, really was. I held her in my arms, her tiny fingers curled around my thumb, and I kept thinking how strange it felt to be impossibly happy and sad at the same time.

Your daughter calls me Aunt. and not so long ago, that would have killed me. A million years ago I told you to stay, and you told me you had to go. Because you completed the parts of me I couldn’t. You fixed me up so I wouldn’t have to. But the nice thing about time is that it heals most wounds. and the ones it didn’t, I healed myself. The way I loved you tore me into pieces. It forced me to look in the mirror and figure out where to stitch. You have each other and I have me. Isn’t that wonderful?

Underwater

Katelyn Wang Acrylic

The Girl You Used To Be Anouk Freudenberg

You see her In your dreams, In old journal entries, And photos taken years ago. She haunts you, The same smile Stares back at you With cold, empty eyes. And you wonder Where she’s gone. What she has become. She is rain pattering merrily Against your window, And she is sunlight Peeking through the clouds. So you stand outside In a torrential downpour Hoping to feel close to her. But the only thing you feel Is cold So you sob along with the sky. It is a good companion, in the end. Partners in misery And nothing else at all.

Prospective Final Girl Sits at the Gas Station Stella Lei

and palms sunrise until it melts like hard candy, sugar lacing her wrist as Coke flattens in the can. Here, highway racing before her, she is teaching herself patience. Restraint. Practice: dig heels into gravel, sip without the swallow, slide the ozoned cut of summer’s storm across the tongue without tasting its sweet. Outside 7-Eleven she fallows her skin of want, crumples the can until her knuckles open like chapped mouths— teeth sharp with neglect—declines each offer for a ride because when bodies meet highway they make roadkill, smeared into skid mark, ribs split to the sky, rotting under blood spattered billboards advertising the next best slasher film. And if this was a film, she could press rewind as bone marrow peels itself from tar and dirt, each organ sliding home. If this was a film, she’d be fighting for the role of final girl: count down seconds in the corner of the screen as the killer nears, calculate how long it takes to prowl a hallway, to slash a blade. She is fighting for the role of final girl and she has studied all the tropes, knows to survive she has to be pure, clean, empty of everything but gasp and gape, so she pours her Coke onto asphalt, refuses to die in a space defined by destinations on either side. The sun splinters white against the sky and she kneels at each vending machine, each rusted pump, watching its reflection as it fades.

Originally published in Honey Literary

On Building a Nest Stella Lei

My mother’s house looked halfway to collapse. She had paid copious amounts of money to build it this way—its perpetually slouching walls, its staircases that jerked into corners before snarling to the next floor. This was because she preferred things that existed between one state and another. Her philosophy was as follows: you cannot determine something’s worth before it is finished, and most everything finished is bad—corrupted by greed, or rust, or the general incompetence of its maker. And so the house lurched across a river like a lopsided Fallingwater, its unending rush lulling her to the edge of sleep. When she awoke, she stood in the middle of one of her precarious staircases, fingers to her lips, surveying the distance between her body and the floor. As a child, I bumped into buckled walls and tripped over uneven floorboards. Cuts rusted down my legs in slashes of bronze, and my mother wiped them clean, warning me to be careful with the currency of my blood. “You see this?” She held up the towel, stained through and sour with disinfectant, “You let all this go. Gone. Wasted.” She believed blood was metal metabolized. Gold lining our veins. “That’s why it tastes like pennies,” she said, and I swiped my finger across the wound, bringing it to my lips to check. Our ancestors thought drinking gold—untarnishable light— could instill them with youth. Their organs would never rust into disuse, polished instead with health. What they didn’t know, my mother said, was that we were born with gold bottled in our veins. She smoothed a Band-Aid across my knee. “So the real secret to youth is to avoid bleeding. To seam your skin and keep the gold inside.” For years, I was careful not to bleed. I tiptoed around corners and walls. Climbed the stairs while gripping the banister, unpainted wood strangled in my fist. I weaned my legs off running, teaching them to slide slowly across the floor’s hardwood swells.

My mother said the world was a pipe bomb, people just fuses ready to light. When she was young, her father exploded in her face— fists clenched to grenades—and left her blue as the sea. That was why I was forbidden from going out alone, my flash-paper bones too easily expended into smoke. And so I stayed home, insulated from flames and men, replacing school with the encyclopedias lining the office shelves. I worked my way through the books in alphabetical order, repeating each word to myself, sculpting my breath against the sound. A for aviation. B for beak. C for critical period: the period of time in which young animals are most likely to acquire learned behavior; when imprinting occurs. The period of time in which a baby bird’s song crystallizes like rust on steel, its voice molding to that of its parents. The period beyond which the bird can no longer learn to sing, its notes fracturing like a face in warped glass. I was twelve when the bleeding started. It woke me in a pool of sour warmth, wet against my legs, sticky in my joints. I shouted for my mother, certain my tissues were dissolving, my organs churning to pulp. She scowled as she changed the sheets and soaked them in cold water, but told me I wasn’t dying. What had happened, she said, was I became too close to fully formed—transitioning into a woman who could eventually smoke, and drink, and leave her behind. The solution was to regress to my halfway point. To freeze my body in time so gold would lie snugly in my veins, youth unable to escape. That evening, when I asked about dinner, she told me if I went long enough without food, I could shrink my stomach into a fist. Exorcise the years from my body, leave only purity. Bone. Calcium scaffolding my shins like pillars of salt. How I could reverse my flesh within myself, surviving off nothing but smooth planes of skin. From then on, she fed me only feathers so my years could take flight and leave me clean. She boiled them soft and piled them on my plate in quivering puffs of down.

“The body follows a clock of its own,” she said, “You just have to wind it in reverse. Close the hourglass’s waist. Look at each bird through its mouth.” When I told her I didn’t know what she meant, that all the birds I’d seen were mouthless, roasted in the oven or strewn across my plate in ragged plumes, she pointed out the window and said “Those birds, there. See how each note matures in their throat before they sing it? That’s where it all starts. The throat.” I flipped through the T encyclopedia until I got to throat. Esophagus. Trachea. Larynx. I traced my finger down the diagrams and taught the page to swallow. Air digested into air. In the bathroom, I opened my mouth in the mirror and peered inside. My throat was a cavern of darkness rippled with heat— something pulsing and alive. I clawed my fingers in to see if I could retrieve the half-formed notes in my vocal cords, cup their soft vibration in my palms. I retched into the sink, but my stomach had hardened to a pit, too empty to expel anything but breath. Feathers clotted against my teeth. The bleeding eventually stopped, my uterus rewound into a state that didn’t know time, years resorbed into my body. When I looked in the mirror, my collarbones were arrowheads grafted to skin. In place of blood, cold permeated through me like a haunting on loop. I wrapped myself in sweaters and coats—molted in reverse— and stood with my mother at the staircase’s head. We held hands and peered down the house’s narrow throat, too scared to fly. My mother’s New Year’s gift to me was a music box, gilded gold, a lark perched on its crown. An heirloom passed down by her mother by her mother by hers, carried through generations like our coarse hair and heat-shriveled eyes. She wrapped my hands in her own and showed me how to wind it up. How to coax a bird to sing. We cranked the key as far as it would go, the lark shuddering in the anticipation of dance. I tightened my fingers around the knob as it pushed against my palm, fighting to unspool its song—to fly free. The notes stuttered out, slow, splintered into shards. Originally published in X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine

Late Night Break In Emma Laragione

Charlie glanced to the clock, which flashed 1:12AM at her in a vibrant red. Sighing, she leaned back and spun in her desk chair, then peeked at the house next-door. The lights were all out. She grabbed a hoodie off the floor and fumbled into it, pulled her hair through the collar and swung her bag over her shoulder. Before leaving her room, Charlie peered down the hallway, taking note of the lack of light shining underneath the door down the hall. The socks with the cat pattern she was wearing softened her footsteps as she crept out of her room and down the stairs, deftly skipping the two that creaked, arriving at the front door. She placed her hand upon the doorframe as she pulled the door open, made a crack just wide enough to slip through, and eased the door shut behind her. She let out a breath before crossing the yard and jumping the fence. Even though the lights were out, she still peered through the living room windows to make sure no one was downstairs. After her survey, Charlie slunk to the trellis, which was covered in ivy and morning glories, and proceeded to climb it. Her feet uncomfortably arched to fit into the holes of the trellis, but with all the practice she’d had, she knew how to get the best grip even with socks on. The window above the trellis was always unlocked, so when she reached the top, she just slid it open, jiggling it in the place it usually sticks. Charlie hoisted herself over the windowsill and rolled into the room, but when she landed, she hit her funny bone and hissed a curse. The other girl in the room flinched and looked up Carly Broseman from the laptop in front of her. Charlie winced and looked to the girl and then the door, worried the other Photography members of the house may have heard her thump to the floor. She motioned for the girl in the bed to be quiet and received a glare in return, the illumination of the blue light from the laptop making the shadows of her expression all the more prominent. She sat up, disrupting the covers draped over her, and leaned toward Charlie. “I told you not to sneak in here after midnight anymore,” she whispered harshly. “Hi to you too, Liv,” Charlie groaned, sitting up. “My mom’s gonna kill us if she finds out you’re here.”

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Silent Dusk “Please, your mom loves me.” Charlie grinned before she hoisted herself to her knees and burrowed her elbows on the edge of the bed to support her chin. “And I wouldn’t have snuck in if you had just answered your phone. I need help with math.” “You’re the worst. You’re annoying and I hate you.” “I love you too,” Charlie pushed at Olivia’s leg as started to pull herself onto the bed, “Now scootch over and help me.”

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Kiss Me Goodnight Ethan Liu

around, age come s s a p f o er sound; vow, a rite elody of h a solemn m s e a th fe , li s y w ir mirth, rro I see m alked in fa irping spa h w c t s e a y , t e n c en y worth; Benevole omnipres ess lay m d in e p ll p ra a h th r n resides, in he She who e er grace, salvation h s d e rm k a ic r u im yo dnight! Divinity m being, in s me goo t is n k e d m n le a c , in , you e, tuck me Oh, mum bles, age off m g g a b in to sham is a g a ll Take th fa ou would mple; cry, and y to d e s ver was a u I re n fo e e h v w lo r e ornings, your I rememb e winter m gony, for th a g y in m d d a e ings; dre ish my yearn Soon van in sheets, to d e ic n in to tw n e pt e re th this right? When I sle nd make spring we a s a e t m h o g c li u t? teps goodnigh y won’t yo Your foots t now, wh d kiss me u n o a , ll a in c e I e, tuck m But when gage off m g a b is th lusion Take ver to sec re fo d e m oo illusion; of men, d ed into an te h c fa me, it e w e th b f , empowers aking t m I know o a n th w o th ir d d thee; rea n of the spirit, I fin it’s your b ; y th m In a priso u in tr f d o e in , you loci ds, engra d, Oh, mum arren lan b e discovere th o s h s w ro ight c re a a g c r in me goodn Walk in you s y is o k b d le n a tt , at li tuck me in I am still th e off me, g a g g a b emory, Take this s turn to m rm fo t hurry ll a , pass r, so I mus to o n e a m e o c m e t l, tions mus a fragile d d my sou All tribula e nurture lf has now c e n s o t u n o a y g r ele wants like Mum, you r lingering u o s I hold y r fo s in my arm a And care , s ; so let me e p o h your eing to be b ll a ty f p o dnight. m w e o Kn nd my s you goo a is k y d d o n b a , n e in Your brok , tuck you baggage r u o y ff o Take

6:37 P.M.

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Emily Zou Photography

On Loving Anika Kotapally

Here is what I want you to know: loving you has always been the easiest thing. It’s like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Let me explain. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says that although we cannot see elementary particles, we know they exist because of their spheres of influence. I love you like that. When I reach for the milk the morning, I do it with hands that love you. When I yawn in the night, I do it with a mouth that loves you. And when my neurons fire, sending signals from synapse to synapse, they do it with molecules and atoms and quarks and gluons that love you. Here is how I know: your name comes up on my phone and I smile. I see a Hershey Kiss and I think of you. It’s easy to love you, you know. It feels like what I was made to do.

Idealism on Standby Olivia Chu Welcome to our generation, We hope you enjoy this fantastic nation, Kids here stand on a quicksand foundation, And fear their schools are a gunned down station. When they watch the news near and far, The horrors they witness leave a scar. When they’re in school, their fears on par, They remember their bleeding peers, free and barred. How many wars are being fought? And how many of them are being taught? Do our leaders know these kids are distraught? For every noise could be a deadly onslaught? But our nation’s great, it has its perks, We have freedoms and fireworks. But there are red-stained hallways where great danger lurks, Forcing our emotions to be overwrought and overworked People come here to fulfill their dreams, Or escape their hometown’s deadly screams. They soon learn this country isn’t all that it seems, It ignores and distrusts and divides into teams. Children across this landscape are torn by division, Hoping for a lawful collaborative solution. Anxiously waiting for a black-robed decision, Wringing withered hands in hope of a life-changing conclusion. A country is ripe with discrimination: That’s America’s way of “education.” “Land of the free” is a mischaracterization, Of a world that clings to willful exclusion. But we mustn’t surrender to the dark powers that be, A more perfect union is within reach, you’ll soon see. A time will come when all the “isms” will ride away with the breeze, And through the sizzling warmth of empathy and liberality, We will earnestly redress this fractured morality.

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Emily Zou

We’re on the tenth-story balcony of a five-star hotel. You’re draped in a silky nightgown. It flows past your ankles, almost cupping one of your heels. There’s nothing separating you from the City of Angels except pillars that barely reach beyond your waist. You lean deeply into the palm of your right hand, facing the soft sunset which illuminates wet charcoal-black hair, and the elbow of the same arm is hanging loosely off the façade of the building. The other is patiently at the side of your hips, swaying with each stroke of wind. “Call me when you’re ready… to be real.” Words cascade out of your scarlet red lips. They’re in low, husky tones and they’re seductive, dangerous. Cold like you. You leave, and I catch sight of a cigarette pressed between two fingers that resemble claws. They’re wrapped around the petite cylinder the same way a ravenous wolf ensnares an unsuspecting rabbit, the same way you suffocate my creativity and individuality. I meander around the balcony for hours, dazed out of my mind. If I were responsible, I wouldn’t chase after you and instead, I’d settle down. Maybe I’d have a wife and kids, and a job that doesn’t work me to death. Yet, I pack my bags, following you on the remnants of your long-forgotten path. I know I’ll trip and fall too many times and the reward won’t always be worth it. But I will always run back to you because I’m in love with you. And that’s true even when I’m passed out in the backroom past midnight and I have sleeping pills in my right hand. Even when the paparazzi documents my every move and I’m ridiculed by the public for yelling at a photographer who won’t mind her business. Even when I’m burnt out writing songs and I have nothing to offer to the world anymore. That’s because you are my Black Madonna, my forbidden mistress, my darkest flower. An unquenchable thirst for fame.

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RED APPLE

Sasha Reeder Photography

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nothing is wrong ava bruni

A feeling boils up into your throat and you cant explain where it came from or what it is and your stomach hurts and the room is spinning and you forget how to breathe and you want it to go away and you need it to go away but it doesnt want to its a parasite that feeds on your bad emotions and terrible intrusive thoughts and everything you hate and you just want the room to stop spinning so you try to find a little spot on the wall thats not moving but you cant and you wonder if its really the room or if your brain is spinning around a million times trying to hurt you and your eyes burn with tears that arent there and you cant cry because its not working and nothing is working so you try to find out whats wrong with you but you have no reason to be sad and no reason to be stressed so that’s not it and you ignore your shaking hands and try to think of something else but theres nothing except the spinning walls and something boiling in your throat and you think youre dying because why else would air be having so much trouble getting into your lungs but you want to live and you know crying will get you there but you still cant and you need to feel better but nothingisworkinganditfeelslikeitmightneverworkagain.

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Natalia Green Digital

Down with You

Beneath the Mushroom Casey Kovarick Digital

Scan the QR code for the full animation

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Dear you, Hey. How are you? It’s been a while. I hope you’re okay. Oh, I hear you got a new place, do you like it? You seemed really excited about it on Instagram, I’m happy for you. I passed our old apartment yesterday. It felt like walking past a grave. Some old guy moved into the place. He’s got this crazy mustache and a smoking problem. Yeah, I watched him from behind the trash cans. No, I’m not sorry. By the way, I still have that Beatles shirt you gave me. I can give it back; I know you liked it. It’s at my place right now. I can drop it off anytime, just let me know when you’re not home. Oh, funny story, I went back to Pete’s Coffee the other day. I accidentally ordered a double shot espresso for you. I didn’t even think about it, I was just running on automatic. Do you still drink those? Sorry, that was off topic, my mind’s kind of just wandering these days. Everywhere I go, something reminds me of you. The bench where we first met. The beer you used to drink. The building where we used to work. It hurts. Everywhere. Does it hurt for you too? Or are you okay? Did you find the space that you needed? If it hurts, maybe you understand. At least it’s something, right? At least it feels like something. Anyway, that’s all I have to say. Sorry for rambling, I know you hated it when I did that. You don’t have to reply. I just wanted to tell you. All my love, Me

To You Vivian Dong

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Eyelash Bokeh Eyelash Bokeh Audrey Nguyen

Author’s Note:

The Bokeh Effect is a technique used in photography to produce parts of an image that are out-of-focus, often depicted as circles. Similarly, the narrator wakes up from a coma, and the first thing they see is the light refracting off their eyelashes, forming their own rainbow bokeh. Like how a camera adjusts and shifts focus from different things, the bokeh symbolizes the bridge between the narrator’s slumber and reality.

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Winter’s pale curtain draws back Releasing a stream of sunlight through the hospital room Its milky liquid fills every crack Every crevice of my imperfect skin that forgot its warmth It embraces me as I peer at the awakening world Oh, how vivid the cityscape seems Even if my only view is that of bustling highways and various shades of gray and brown It could never compare to the darkness of slumber My frozen ears begin to thaw as well The dull hum of winter fading to the precious sounds of urban life 8 A.M. conversations over coffee The usual morning commute And the husky voice giving the 5-day forecast through my bedside radio Slowly I am melting the frost That once sealed my lashes shut Clogged my ears And took away my everything As my gaze shifts into focus I notice something new Or perhaps Something that’s been there all along The quiet shadow of a girl watching over me in the form of rainbow spheres I’ve rarely seen myself Other than in the mirror and pictures But these delicate drops of sunlight Bouncing off my eyelashes Undistorted by filters and insecurities Are mine They are the curtain to the world beyond my head The window from my soul to reality And finally, after what feels like years, I remember what it means To be real

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Dear Self Sitting in a midnight room Exit lights become my moon Such empty promises you made me Were ashamed of what you had So you left me beside the trash Can’t help but wonder why you hate me “No one’s gonna save you You have to do it yourself” We both know you’d rather Go and save somebody else Pick me up from the lost and found Discarded things are someday thrown out I hope you find the courage to stand Be strong enough to reprimand yourself Cause you can’t keep counting on people To save you from your own evil It’s only a matter of time Before we must say goodbye ‘Course you left me on purpose Tried to drop such a burden Weighing down every thought in your head Everybody’s got a reason For committing such treason Still, how could you worship her instead?

Audrey Nguyen You know yourself more than them Know all your aspirations So why are you waiting for Someone else’s clarification? Pick me up from the lost and found You know there’s no escaping this now I hope you find the courage to stand Be strong enough to reprimand yourself You can’t keep standing there hoping No guarantee when the world’s broken That someone will care enough To give you the skills to adjust You’re the only one I have Everybody leaves eventually I’m the only one you have So, will you leave us at this perpetually? Wake up from the lost and found We both know there’s no avoiding this now I hope you find the courage to stand Be strong enough to reprimand yourself Promise you’ll be proud, ‘cause even a little progress Is moving forward, nonetheless Just, no matter what, don’t let yourself go You’re more precious than you’d ever know

Author’s Note: This poem is a song I wrote somewhere in the blur of quarantine. While waiting for the whole pandemic to be over and selfishly praying it would return my life to “normal”, I realized I was the only one who could make lasting change in my lifestyle. However, actually putting in the effort was an entirely different story, so I wrote this with the hope it would bring me some encouragement and motivation. The narrator can be interpreted however you like, but I wrote them as the innocent child in me who desperately hopes the “you”, or current me, will realize their potential and start prioritizing themselves more.

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SPACE BOY

Natalia Green Digital 115

A loving kiss The secret glances across the room are secrets no more And I look at you with the strength of all the gods With the stolen power of a sinner And I will take you by the hand No longer scared of besmirchment or the glaring eyes My darling, I have never been more sure That I want to defy the face of everyone who doubted That there are no lengths I wouldn’t go to for you my love Ah yes, good friends

Good Friends

A longing kiss Three desert days that seem like years Dragged apart by the swirling sand People dream of dying for love But darling, I can For the followers will have my head If I ever love you like I should Do they not know how it is to love you? To be held up by the power you hold Six feet under would not test my loyalty So why do they speculate? Trying to reach for you But their hands cling to my clothes, pulling me back One day I shall once more hold you Such a wonderful thing, good friends

A goodbye kiss So still, a statue made by mortals A graveyard of roses and bones The world will never know about us For despite all that I have done For all the kisses and stares I could never scream from the rooftops How much I love you But now you are no more A pale outline of what was once such liveliness So I allow calloused hands to pull me away And live the life they wanted me to Because without you, my darling, I don’t have the power And we will go down in history as good friends

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Guinevere Reaume

Graveyard Friends

The funeral was yesterday I wouldn’t be surprised if no one came I knew, even then, the future wouldn’t wait Not for us, not for them but there’s no one to blame

Guinevere Reaume

We sat our entire lives, twiddling our thumbs Standing by and discovering our own world Creating our own language and speaking in tongues Thinking we were ready for whatever they hurled Our entire lives were spent in each other’s company We decided not to worry about what happens next Going on through life, silent, and with subtlety Miles apart communicating through texts When we died, it was together, just like everything else Cold hand in cold hand across the finish line I sometimes wonder if people are besides themselves And for once, not in a lifetime, we’re on cloud nine Six feet, two oak walls that keep us apart now We still smile and laugh at dumb jokes in spirit Even if we wanted to come back, we don’t know how And now even after we’re dead, we still push the limit

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a F y d o o l B dy F o o l B dy o o l B 118

e at e t a F e t Fa Bloody Fate

Nikkita Pandey

the blood runs out of your mouth— every drop, a hidden clue, helping to guide my journey. they say reach for the stars, but they’re corrupted, evident from the crimson on your chin; they don’t notice your flaws, i know you can’t help me; your blood, thinning as your lies run out, you say: put your faith in me, i will guide you to freedom. i follow you, in awe, thinking you would lead the way, not realizing i was moving farther from heaven, now only a mile away from your home; i saw an end to my youth, as my bloody friend, tricked me into eternal damnation: i believed your deceptions, thinking your red trail would lead me to success, i should’ve known you had no power, you were fed from my greed, my laziness— so i ended up in a ditch, fire surrounding me, as my lungs gasped for air, you returned, your bloody wounds gone, gold ichor flowing— as i screamed with my last breaths, i realized my mistake of taking in your words, only passed your crimson on to me

Originally published in The Young Writer’s Initiative

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This piece contains sensitive topics: - Arachnophobia

To the Lovely Spider Olivia Chu Blocking Me from the Door To the Lovely Spider Blocking Me from the Door, Please, oh please dear critter, please fucking move. Your creepy crawly little legs are haunting my dreams. I can’t even fall asleep because you and your two-centimeter stature are keeping me from entering my room. I know that you may have no home, but this room happens to be mine, so please, please dear critter, move before I cry. Maybe you have a story. Perhaps this home was yours long before my family and I inhabited it, if so, I am so very sorry, and if you would kindly write me back (after moving away from the door of course), I’d be more than happy to evacuate these webbed premises. However, dear critter, until this letter is responded to, I will take recognition in the assumption that this house has always been my home, and this room as mine, always mine.. I tried everything. I tried to speak to you, at which you began to crawl towards me, and I screamed and ran back downstairs, for I may have been too foolish to see that you were trying to reason. I tried to trap you in a Wawa coffee cup, but you laid your eight eerie legs on my index finger, and as our little tradition goes, I screamed and ran back downstairs. I tried to kill you with my slipper, but I don’t suppose either of us need to reconcile that… incident. Dear, dear spider, my parents left me alone this week for a business trip, entrusting me with the home they spent oh, so much money on, and I would really hate for them to return to nothing but a pile of ash and spider webs. That’d be incredibly unfortunate for all parties. So, dear critter, if you would be so kind as to move all of you and your eight eyes and legs away from my bedroom door, I’m sure we could come to a civil compromise! All the best, A Very Concerned, Arachnophobic Inhabitant of the House P.S. PLEASE MOVE I SWEAR TO GOD I AM ABOUT TO BURN THIS PLACE TO THE GROUND YOU CREEPY, CRAWLY, BRINGER OF DEATH. Thank you for your consideration! Take care. :]

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EXIT

Leyla Yilmaz Photography

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A letter for the girl at the grocery Emily Zou

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Dear Rachel, I don’t usually stalk random girls. I mean, that’s not the right way to put it. I guess you could say I was following you for a bit. It was out of my character and it was an immoral thing to do. Yet, when I saw you, walking down the street from your apartment on Sinclair Bridge, in the exact same complex I used to live in, I couldn’t help but follow you. You’re popular at school, cheer captain and whatnot. Remember when you won Prom Queen junior year with Jon McKenny? I do. You know, we were actually in the same class multiple times! In sophomore year, I sat behind you in Biology, yet I still don’t think you know my name. It’s okay though! It was probably since I was the quiet kid. Well, I’ve always been the quiet kid. Anyway, I couldn’t have been trailing for more than three minutes when you headed into the grocery store on Tamper Avenue. I didn’t know you shopped here… I thought everyone goes to the one downtown, but I can see why you like this one.

“After all, I’m just a distant observer.”

I think I started to question my decision when you stumbled across the same aisle I went to. I pretended to look at the cereal boxes which I didn’t need, of course. I’m not sure if you noticed, but I took a couple of glances at you. You’re really pretty from what I can tell, flawless skin, a cute set of dimples, ginger-cinnamon colored hair, and ocean blue eyes. I could go on, but I’m sure you already know yourself. After all, I’m just a distant observer. I tried to talk to you. I was too shy, however, so I tapped you on the shoulder instead. That’s one of my weaknesses, you know, being shy. I can never tell people what I’m feeling inside. That’s why I wrote this letter so that maybe you would know.

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Here’s what I recorded of our brief dialogue. Or what I can still recall.

“Hey.” “Hi.” “Is there something you…?” “No.” “Oh, okay... you come here often?” “Not really.” “I’m Rachel.” “I know.” “Great, um…It was nice meeting you.” And like that, you left, and I was too tired to follow. I think I stayed in the store for a good two hours before the clerk got suspicious that I was trying to steal something, and I had to go home too. You might think I’m really weird for detailing all of this as a stranger, and I’d agree. However, I don’t think I’m that much of a stranger. Once again, we go to school together, and I sat behind you in biology during sophomore year. You might also think that I have some crush on you. Well, I don’t. The truth is, I want to know everything about you. I want to know how it feels to be like you. That probably wasn’t any better, but I’ll explain. I’m guessing you don’t want to hear an entire novel about my life. It’d be pretty boring anyway. I’ll cut it to the chase: I’m depressed. I was diagnosed last year. I haven’t been myself for a very long time and I’m still not. There was a time where things got so bad that I couldn’t get up from bed in the morning and my parents had to drag me out. Since then, I’ve taken antidepressants regularly and I don’t feel like a shovel six feet underground anymore. I know that doesn’t give me an excuse to follow you around town, but I hope you’d at least understand why. I don’t usually hate things because that’s out of my character, yet I hate living like this. I thought that because you were so popular, and pretty, and happy, I could learn something from you. Like how to live life freely.

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So, you’d bet it surprised me when you went to the grocery store on a Saturday evening. I assumed you would’ve preferred partying with your friends or visiting your boyfriend at college. It made you more approachable knowing you did normal human things like buying milk or a can of diced tomatoes or a family-sized bag of potato chips. I think that’s why I tried to talk to you. I wanted to tell you that I’m just like you.

If you see this and read this, I hope we could talk sometime in the future. We don’t even have to be friends or anything.

P.S. Is this the right address?

Have a nice life, Drew Goodman Drew Goodman Skimming through the letter, Rachel distastefully sighed to herself and without hesitation threw the crumpled paper with handwriting so messy that it induced anxiety into the recycling bin.

“I want to know everything about you”

“Who was it?” Her mother asked, dumbfounded. “No one important.”

It was probably a prank letter. She got those a lot for some reason and they were usually from the boys at school. They always tried to scare her, she assumed. Besides, she didn’t know a Drew Goodman from anywhere or even remebered what happened at the grocery store today. Days for her flew by like a speeding jet. It was hard enough to get up in the morning, yet remember mundane things. “Oh okay. I’m going to sleep.” “Me too.” She lied in bed for a long time, mind too heavy to fall asleep. Sometimes, she wished she could have someone to talk to, a stranger even. They didn’t have to be friends or anything. She also wondered what it was like to be invisible at school and to live days without a care in the world. The thought comforted her, and she dozed off.

125

Won’t Tell a Soul Carly Broseman

He wants to tell everyone, but I know for a fact that it’s a bad idea. If one word slipped out of that boy’s mouth, if people found out, that was it. Everything would change for the worse and nothing could be done to undo it. If we were to tell other people our secret, it could mean not just the end of our friendship, but also the end of the world as we know it. Hysteria in the streets, things on fire, buildings caving in... Ka-boom. Suffice to say, I decided it would be best to keep our mouths shut. Permanently. Of course, I’ve also considered the benefits of sharing our confidential matter, no matter how miniscule they may be. The weight of our secret is heavy on both of our shoulders, and I don’t doubt that letting it go would be no small relief. I would love to look at myself in the mirror and see an honest person- not a good one, for the time for that has long passed, but I’d like to believe that being honest is at least one step in the right direction. But unfortunately, we cannot afford ourselves that luxury. The world cannot afford it.

126

Plus, breaking the news might- and with a lot of emphasis on mighthave the opposite effect of what I predict. Our secret could bring the two of us even closer together and the world just might go on with little care or repercussion. But for that outcome to occur, we would need one-in-a-million luck. And if we possessed any of that, we would never have ended up in this unlikely situation in the first place. So, with all factors in mind, I know that we should not tell a soul what we know and what we did. That boy is an idiot, and I am indisputably in the right. For the good of us, and for the good of pretty much everyone still alive, what is confidential must remain so. If he did let it slip out, we would be lost to each other forever, and more than likely the world. Or we could finally understand one another, and maybe even beyond. If somebody found out, our world would go into panic, and nobody would ever forgive us- I wouldn’t forgive us. Or we could be happy, and the world could go on non-the-wiser. If our secret was revealed, the guilt that we carry would multiply ten-fold, and build up until it crushed us and everything in its path. Or we could be relieved. But, I am well aware that any luck either of us ever possessed has shriveled into nothing. We will never tell a soul. If people suspect us, we will deny. If the weight becomes so heavy that we can no longer look ourselves in the eye, our repents will remain locked in our chests. If the people around us pick up on the wrongness we conceal, we will not give in. No matter what happens, no matter how difficult life gets, we will keep our secret. I know what would happen, I know I am right, and I will not let him tell a soul. It is a secret that must go to our graves. We must not tell a soul.

127

Meet the Staff

-Walk the dog -Organize books -Make cookies

-Finding my lost pencils from Narnia -Folding laundry! -Taking my dog outside!

Olivia Chu

Caden Aldridge

Carly Broseman

-Work -Sleep? -Think of a good bio description

-go Christmas shopping -finish up unfinished artwork -organize and clean room

Riley Deile -Go to tennis. -Get new drum heads and cymbals and change guitar strings. -Listen to the newest episode of “The Dark Parts.”

Ava Bruni

-Make a playlist for snowy weather! -Move somewhere hot.

Abigail Dobson

-screaming All Too Well (10 Min Version) (Taylors Version) -rewatching old Friends episodes

Eileen Chen

-Get outside -Go touch some grass

Vivian Dong

Anouk Freudenberg

Daniel Gergeus

-Take a nap. -Don’t forget to feed the cats! -Get more coffee

-buy a new scented candle -feed cat -do my litmag discussion hw

-hang out with chi! -play mario kart on my switch

Peyton Harrill

-Dance while no one’s watching -Pet my dog -Live :)

Sarah Hegg

-watch marvel -sleep

Natalia Green

-Start homework (OR NOT) -Wait till 11pm to start anything productive

Jordan Jacoel -Drawing on my hand with a white gel pen

Hannah Gupta

-study for science :’) -OVERDUE STUDIO ART ASSIGNMENTS -clear up icloud storage your phone is literally dying :/

Lily Jiang

-friend date with my runaway buddy! -scheduled cry break at 3:17 (a.m.? p.m.?)

Chiho Jing

-hang out with peyton! -clean my room! -farm albedo artifacts

Emma Laragione

-BLACK COFFEE. -autopilot 7 hours -eat Korean food -rewatching community for the fiftieth time -defending dorothea

Ruhri Lee

Anika Kotapally

-Finish editing -feed the cats! -make art -feed Rico -go to bed early

Stella Lei

Casey Kovarick -Doing yoga and making hot green tea! -Listening to some vinyl records!

Sowmya Krishna

-Try to fall asleep before midnight -MUST finish my history project that I have been procrastinating on

Audrey Nguyen

-Make poorly timed decisions -Absorb Ammaiza’s personality -helikopter helikopter

Ammaiza Omair

-Complain about my classes -Steal Tashikaa’s jokes -Use sarcasm in every situation

Tashikaa Senthilkumar

-Need to finally finish that art project -Remember to walk the dogs

Nikkita Pandey

Ashka Patel

-Say I’ll take a refreshing walk and end up watching Netflix -Commit to meeting friends and then regret it because I have no social ability -Sit down to write and then face writer’s block

-Nails at 5 -Water my plants! -Restock kitchen!

Clara Steege

-school project that I procrastinated for weeks -defeat the final Divine Beast in Legend Of Zelda -take a pic of the sunset and be grateful for such a beautiful end to the day

Noor Usmani

-finish a project (any of them)

Guin Reaume

-walk dogs -make banana bread -go on a run

Ashley Vadner

-Feel a deep surge of emotion and try to channel your feelings into an awesome lit piece -write the lit piece -delete the two lines you wrote because it’s not good enough

Katelyn Wang

-finish that cardigan!! -get more banana milk ahaha -wipe your tears :’)

Emily Zou

-making wild, impossible plans -buy big blanket

Sarah Weng

-Tennis with Celina at 4 PM on Saturday. -Remember to renew library books. -Finish learning up to section G of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 3.

Ben Smith

-Grow a small human to join us this spring. -Binge listen to crime podcasts. -Find a minute to stare into space and do nothing (unlikely, but desired).

Chloe Williams

-College Applications (18 hours) -Homework (6 hours) -Watch TV/Relax/ Sleep (0 hours)

-reading my book -doing the dishes -making chocolate chip cookies

Leyla Yilmaz

Katie Wilson

Managing Editor: Nikkita Pandey

Senior Copy Editor: Chloe Williams

Art Editors: Eileen Chen

Copy Editors:

Daniel Gergeus

Peyton Harrill

Casey Kovarick

Lily Jiang

Ashka Patel

Business Managers: Ava Bruni

Lit Editors: Emma Laragione

Vivian Dong Anika Kotapally

Stella Lei

Staff Advisors: Ben Smith Katie Wilson

About the Folio

We are a student-run literary and art magazine from Conestoga High School in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. Although we’ve only been The Folio since 2007, we have collected, compiled, designed, and published student-produced art and literature since 1967. Our staff members are dedicated to furthering their own artistic and literary talents and promoting an interest in the humanities school-wide. The Folio welcomes submissions from all ‘Stoga students. Applications to join The Folio open during course selection in February. More information can be found on our website: stogafolio.weebly. com. You can also find us on Instagram @stogafolio. The National Scholastic Press Assocation has rated our publication All American. The National Council of Teachers has ranked us as a Superior magazine. The Pennsylvania School Press Association has awarded us their Gold Rating.

@stogafolio

Winter 2022 / The Folio

Articles inside

Roses Sowmya Krishna

Zentangles Sasha Reeder

Texture Sasha Reeder

In the Dream I Had Anika Kotapally

Why Ironman Doesn’t Have a Song Chloe Williams

Kites Ashka Patel

Tea for Two Clara Steege

Frayed Rope Guinevere Reaume

Innocence Chiho Jing

Milk or Sugar Daniel Gergeus

Time’s a-ticking Nikkita Pandey

Imaginary Friend Nikkita Pandey

Dino Friend Casey Kovarick

Every Single Day Anika Kotapally

Counting Sheep Lily Jiang

A Monologue from a Melodramatic Pencil Olivia Chu

A Tail’s Tale Chloe Williams

30 Steps to Surviving an Alien Apocalypse Ashka Patel

Practice Makes Perfect Peyton Harrill

It’s All so Glamorous Vivian Dong

Till Death do us Part Olivia Chu

Minature Dioramas Stella Lei

What Am I Made of Anouk Freudenberg