The Folio / Winter Issue 2018-2019

a literary and art magazine

conestoga high school - volume li - issue i

the folio a literary and art magazine

conestoga high school winter - volume li - issue i

Cover photo © 2018 “Woman in Dress” Stella Lei Copyright © 2019 Conestoga Literary Magazine Staff Internal Design © 2019 Gabriella Miko and Laila Norford Copyright © of each work belongs to the respective author or artist First edition 2019 All rights reserved. All works are copyright of their respective creators as indicated herein and are reproduced herewith permission. The Folio is a public forum for student expression produced by the students of Conestoga High School.

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FROM THE EDITORS literary

laura liu & alexandra ross

art

gabriella miko & laila b. norford

business

madeline murphy & kavya singh

copy

lara briggs & jessica frantzen

4

From the Editors

O

n February 4th, 2018, the Philadelphia Eagles entered the U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota to the sound of “Dreams and Nightmares” by rapper Meek Mill. Four hours later, for the first time in history, the Eagles won the Super Bowl over the New England Patriots, 4133. After 51 years, their dream of lifting the Vince Lombardi trophy was finally realized.

In addition to the Super Bowl, audiences were captivated by A Star is Born and Bohemian Rhapsody, movies that told the inspiring stories of those who dared to follow their dreams, even when success seemed impossible. In the midterm elections of 2018, record numbers of women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ individuals were elected to Congress—as our government becomes more diverse, more and more groups see themselves represented in a new American Dream.

Earlier this year, we asked ourselves an important question—as a publication, what is our dream? Is it simply to showcase the wealth of talented writers and artists at Conestoga High School? Or is our mission instead to seek out diverse and underrepresented voices and give them a platform for expression—someplace where everyone can find a piece of themselves?

In the end, we discovered that just as the word “dream” cannot be confined to one definition, our dream is not just a celebration of craft, but also contrast. Keeping our own aspirations in mind, as well as the aspirations of our generation, we decided to continue the global conversation about these dreams through our theme.

We have categorized pieces into Daydreams, Nightmares, and Lucid Dreams, with each section representing the different facets of our dreams—the whimsical and the fantastical; the formidable and frightening; the self-reflective and the self-aware. These transcribed desires reflect both the observations centered in our developing worldview, as well as our reactions to conflicts and injustice. As you peruse this issue, we hope you will discover dreams of your own and gain the courage to express them as the authors and artists within these pages have.

Our ambitions have only come to fruition due to the endless support from our faculty advisors, Mr. Smith and Mrs. Wilson. We recognize and appreciate their dedication to making The Folio a warm, welcoming community, as well as their desire to constantly enrich the quality of our publication. The success of The Folio is also due in large part to our staff members, whose diversity of experience, valuable insight, and passion for their craft inspire us to dream further. Not to mention, who else would we celebrate these dreams with if not our readers?

Your goals may not be as prominent as winning a Super Bowl or starring in a movie—or perhaps they are. But whether they are big or small, global or personal, no dream is too insignificant to pursue. So dream on.

THE EDITORS

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The Folio volume li

issue i

table of contents 6

Table of Contents

part 1: daydreams 10

Girl In Yellow Dress Grace Kinkel

12

city Peaks Eileen CheN

13

Best Friends laila B. Norford

14

Welcome James Naser

15

Life Force Rachel Hunt

16

A Letter to Love Alexandra Ross

17

Simple Rose Natalia Green

18

Gone Fishing Olivia Wang

20

Girl in Pink Headdress Audrey Kim

21

Allahabad Laura Liu

22

Colors laila B. Norford American Identity Gabriella Miko

24

Festival Jessica Frantzen

25

A Fairytale Mistake KavYA Singh Wrapped in Wonder cocoro Kambayashi

26

The Earth and Her Wonders Lara Briggs

27

In The West Olivia Wang

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part 2: Nightmares

8

28

Pop Art Zombie Sofia Bertuola

30

Ink Raven Kaitlyn Chen Latrodectus Alexandra Ross

31

Salem Alexandra Ross AcciDentally Summoning Satan Ryan Casciato

32

9:08 PM Jessica Frantzen A Wolf In Rams Clothing Leila Jones

33

Plastic Heart Scott Hennessey

34

I Scratched My Vinyl Scott Hennessey

35

The VIbe James Naser

36

Glance Elizabeth Farrelly

37

Failure Sebastian Castro

38

Sunset City Madeline Murphy

39

Gear Shift Laura Liu

Table of Contents

part 3: Lucid Dreams 40

Met Lara Briggs

42

The Way We WEre Laura Liu

43

Monday Blues Gabriella Miko

44

Skin Angelina Ziarno - Shrum

48

122 Days Lydia Naser

49

Boyscout Camp Horseshoe Gothic Ryan Casciato

50

Oh My Goodness Lydia Naser

51

Tomcat Chloe Williams

52

Easy ankita Kalasabail On target Jessica Frantzen

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Looking back Madeline Murphy Where’s The backspace? Lydia Naser

54

Bros Sebastian Castro (feat. Noah Lanouette)

55

Penguin on a beach Scott Hennessey

56

Highlighter Reagan Gerrity

57

Air Jordan 5 Wings 1 Line Angela Chen

58

Aurelia Laura Liu

59

King Midas Darien Irizarry

60

I Am Still Sweaty Sebastian Castro

62

Conflict and Controversy James Naser No More Good LUCKS Kavya Singh

63

Still I rise Lindsey Colantuno

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DAY DREAMS “Girl In Yellow Dress” by Grace Kinkel digital painting

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11

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Daydreams

“City Peaks” by Eileen Chen acrylic

best friends

Laila B. Norford

I’m not quite sure how we met.

I remember seeing you for the first time in fifth grade reading class, thinking of you as the tall girl with the puffy ponytail.

We must have started talking, because the next thing I remember is making the split-second decision to sit next to you on the bus, and that was the start.

In fifth grade, it was the roller coaster game, where we exaggerated all the movements of the bus so I would end up smushed against the window and you would end up pushed into the aisle.

In sixth grade, it was singing at the top of our lungs, songs about koalas named Paula and penguins named Brave Little Tom. In seventh grade, it was the “nicknames,” the long chains of rhyming words that managed to have a rhythm but still make no sense at all.

In eighth grade, it was M.A.S.H., where we would take the game played at the bus circle and make up a half-hour-long rendition of the person’s life story.

“ Mix two stubborn-minded people and you will get

plenty of misunderstandinG ”

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Best Friends (continued)

Then we got to high school, and while I rarely rode the bus anymore, some things didn’t change.

To this day, you remain my primary source of cute animal pictures and stress relief, always knowing what will make me smile and finding a way to make me laugh with the smallest of comments.

You remain my closest confidante, the person I can unfailingly go to for an honest opinion and to know if I am correctly reading a situation.

You are my number one choice if I want someone to keep me company or back me up.

It hasn’t been without its ups and downs.

Mix two stubborn-minded people and you will get plenty of misunderstanding.

But there is also the fun kind of stubborn— when you insisted everyone in the stucco-house neighborhood hated you because you hated stucco or when you insisted everything green and living was a vegetable.

And then there is my favorite kind of stubborn— your constant, tacit insistence on being my best friend.

“Welcome”

by James Naser print with watercolor 14

Daydreams

“Life Force”

by Rachel Hunt

ink

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A Letter to Love Alexandra Ross If it were me who put the stars in the sky, who scattered life upon this Earth, who called on the sun to rise each morning at dawn and laid it to rest each evening at dusk; if it were me who created your mother’s womb, and her mother’s before her, and so on, with the hope that one day you could live; if it were me who healed the skin over your raw knees and scraped elbows, who made deep wounds feel impermanent somehow; if it were me who placed a beautiful, bright yellow canary outside your window every morning to sing you awake; if it were me who held your heart in my hands before you were born and kissed blessed life into it; if it were me who created all that has been created; if it were me who were the genuine center of the universe; if it were me around whom all things revolved and to whom all things owed life, I think somehow you would still elude me. You’ve always found a way.

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Daydreams

“Simple Rose”

by Natalia Green photograph The Folio

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Daydreams

“Gone Fishing”

by Olivia Wang oil on canvas

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Daydreams

laura liu

ALLAHABAD

in the river, i watch: feet against the sand bed, kissing the ganges. on the bank, my son lights a diya— touches a coin to forehead, chin, chest. eyes closed, he skips it like sunlight on the water. it sinks like chuwarak in the gut. before the sand does, i catch it, scoop up some more. shake. coins emerge like rings of a millipede. on days and nights like these, the weeds flutter against our ribs like hunger. some call them holy, these coins. i call them ours—they must be. the silver answers to riverbed prayers, the silver fish for which we fish. when we cannot see the bottom, we must place our faith in our hands, among the snails and sand, until we see the silver glimmer of another day between our fingers. like that, i tell my son. beside me, he smiles, slips back into the water.

“Girl with Pink Headdress “

by Audrey Kim acrylic The Folio

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COLORS Laila B. Norford

“We’re going to Avalon?”

My face said it all.

My family had been to Rehoboth Beach for our vacation the last two years, and I was more than a little disappointed to hear we were unable to get a house there that summer.

For the record, no one said Avalon wasn’t a nice beach. It was a nice beach. It was also just a very straight, white beach.

Here’s the breakdown of my 12-person family: 9 Arab-Americans, 2 African-Americans, 1 white 3 queer, 8 straight, 1 too young to know I just wasn’t really feeling Avalon.

And neither were my siblings and cousins.

So we hatched a plan:

Step 1: Arrive at beach house.

Step 2: Scout out highest balcony.

Step 3: Locate flag and flagpole in two over-stuffed trunks.

Step 4: String flag onto flagpole.

Step 5: Walk up to highest balcony.

Step 6: Secure flagpole so flag freely waves off balcony.

Mission complete!

We admired our work before heading to the beach for the first time. It didn’t matter if we felt like outliers—we were showing our true colors.

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Daydreams

‘American Identity” by Gabriella Miko photograph The Folio

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Festival Jessica Frantzen

Children toddle after living lanterns, Tiny hands grasping at smaller pinpricks of light Unafraid of failure, they reach for the miniature stars Until, successful, they tote their glimmering prize, Trapped on a whim and flickering in protest, To parents and friends alike, who beam with pride.

A sound from above draws all eyes skyward, Nature’s light show forgotten in man’s explosions of color, Red, white, and blue flora bloom from their blazing seeds, Fizzling and popping before settling into smoke, A marvel unforgettable until the next summer’s rise.

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Daydreams

A Fa i ry ta l e M i s ta K E Kavya Singh

she was the princess locked in the tower, waiting for a knight to save her and then she found your lustful eyes and fell into the hands of a sinner now she’s torn, charred battered like an old baseball burning just to feel alive forgetting that she must survive she was pure, clean look how you’ve changed her she’s beginning to believe her nightmares are dreams she gave up her crown stripped herself of the innocence and traded it all for a demon’s kiss but now you’re gone, lost somewhere in the shadows forgetting to clean your mess: the ashes of the heart that you left behind

“Wrapped In Wonder”

By Cocoro Kambayashi sculpture The Folio

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the earth and her wonders Lara Briggs

i watch the light of twenty-thousand dying stars sink into the creek, hear running whispers through the grass, like a little secret between me and the ground, and feel shells beneath my feet, hidden in the sand, like the cochlea of the sea; when I hold them to my ear, like a child, the ocean reverberates through the air and into my mind, and I wish that one day the clouds would lift me from the ground and wrap me in their celestial wonders— they are soft yet so cold and when they touch my skin, they will touch my soul, and gaea will walk hand in hand with her daughters, and when I hold the clouds, the shells, the secrets of the creek, the earth will hold me too.

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Daydreams

“In The West”

by Olivia Wang oil on canvas

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Night mares “Pop Art Zombie” by Sofia Bertuola sfx makeup

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“Ink Raven”

by Kaitlyn Chen digital

latro deC tus Alexandra Ross

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Nightmares

She slipped through the crack in my windowpane As I dreamt last night.

She scuttled across my skin And through my hair, Spun her web between my eyelashes To keep me from waking.

I neither saw nor heard this widow’s journey, Only felt, and for a moment tasted, her poisonous bite Before she danced her way through my lips And over my tongue And down my throat.

I might have screamed, I suppose, If only I could speak through the sleep.

Salem Alexandra Ross

Let out a song, a chant, a sob of prayer, Whatever you like, It won’t save you anyhow.

Don’t bother listening to these words you cry— Nobody else will.

Just let them loose And watch them tangle restlessly With coiled smoke and flecks of wayward ash.

Look now, as they take flight toward the skies: Never to return, Never to be answered, No matter how long you burn and smoke and scream And writhe with pain.

“Accidentally Summoning Satan”

by Ryan Casciato photograph The Folio

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9:08 PM

jessica frantzen

You check Schoology.

At the top of the page, a grim phrase burns into sight: Due 11:59 PM. A glance at the clock confirms your worst fears.

There are three hours to complete: Two pages of math worksheets, A 10-page essay on the billboard in The Great Gatsby, A full reading of the Spanish translation of War and Peace, And a detailed, peer-reviewed paper on the best methods to create human immortality.

You steal another glimpse at the time.

Gears turn in your head, searching for a nonexistent solution, Until a sudden noise from your phone seals your fate in a sinking stone.

A single message illuminates your room as you read: “Hey, did you finish the philosophy paper yet? It’s due tomorrow and it’s like 50 pages”

“A Wolf in Rams Clothing”

by Leila Jones watercolor and ink

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Nightmares

Plastic Heart Scott Hennessey

The wind is like clockwork: it’s ticking and stark Organic, no panic, and pulls things apart It rips lives open and makes you go dark At least it used to, before plastic hearts They used to be bronze, then steel, then glass But plastic stays and lets goes of the past When good men die they do nothing but laugh And sit on their lawns of long plastic grass Winds tear down wood Winds bend on metal Winds shatter glass Winds lift on pedals But plastic just sits And pumps thick black tar Smiles are great But they won’t get you far Because plastic lives on And so will you too Hate yourself And hate others too But when plastic finally shrivels and dries And melts in your body and leaves you to die We’ll realize what’s wrong with tears in our eyes And feel the weight of long held lies But make sure to smile Make sure you stand tall Do not be afraid When winds pull you apart

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I SCRATCHED MY VINYL scott hennessy Really can you hear me Really can you hear me Listen to the man I don’t know Now I know I don’t know Now I know Pass the ride don’t hide I’m scared don’t leave me don’t be me don’t really relinquish me can’t you see I’m understood a mistudy lost custody I’m underneath you and your life goddamned a sham really am I the man can’t stand not standing for I the lamb of assholes they have battled for they believe in shrieked and breathed and see me I’m a face viscosity it’s oddly me but I’m not me but Really can you hear me Really can you hear me I don’t know But now I know I’m scared and slow But I don’t know

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Nightmares

“The Vibe”

by James Naser watercolor The Folio

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“Glance”

by Elizabeth Farrelly watercolor 36

Nightmares

Failure

Sebastian Castro I’m alone in a room.

It’s devoid of color or decor, But I’m still distracted.

A man appears, His suit looks cheap.

He’s got a blank piece of paper.

He holds it very close to my face.

“What do you see in this inkblot?”

I blink and clear my throat.

“What inkblot?”

He looks at me, annoyed.

He writes on a clipboard with sharp, angry strokes.

I hear him mumbling under his breath.

“No potential… failure… waste of time.”

He walks out without a goodbye, Not bothering to explain anything.

I wonder what I did wrong.

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Nightmares

by Madeline Murphy

photograph

“Sunset City”

gear shift Laura Liu

for E.G.C. as a child, you drove a toy car around in the rain, swooshed every time it hit

in the cliff face you leapt down last summer. the nissan a steel jaw locked

a pothole. water flew. i hovered— i was a helicopter parent, dropped the parent

in a halo. your body a crumple zone. you folded on impact—i’m sorry

in sixth grade. you flew— when you couldn’t escape, you drove. you fled

your last meal had to be your own tongue. maybe you felt freedom before,

the nest too soon. red means: no means: slow means: STOP means: emergency means

but look at us now—me, dressing myself in your ashes. you, with corvids pecking

ma’am, please step away from the scene. my scream a hairline fracture

at your fingertips. like incense, the rubber burning my eyes for days.

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lucid “Met” by Lara Briggs photograph

DREAMS 40

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Laura Liu berwyn, pennsylvania fog swallows the birdcalls. we sprint through the forest like hunters— artemis and orion, but with a thud of bark against your skull. you cover the scar with bangs, later, a soft cotton patrol cap. after the wake, i went up to look at you. the stitches shone through your makeup. the chill follows the body home. we brew hot chocolate from store-bought tins and the last splashes of milk. marshmallows in your hand, dropped one by one to drown.

THE WAY rain hangs heavy like a promise. we chalk evacuated cities on your driveway, each stick white as cigarettes and thin as your fingers. we walk the sky’s dislocated spine to its end.

WE WERE

as the trees furl their sails, we catch chestnuts in our hands and bake them until their shells split. i can hear them now: thunking on the ground, left outside to rot.

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Lucid Dreams

“Monday Blues”

by Gabriella Miko photograph The Folio

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Sk In A N g e l i n a

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Lucid Dreams

Z i a r n o

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S h r u m

M

y skin is like me – it overshares. When you see the absence of freckles on my face but others sprinkled over my arms and shoulders, you know about my battles with the sun, and you might know about my battles for it against my mother’s sunscreen barrage and UV-proof surfer shirt artillery.

If you ask about my skin, you’re in for a story and a half. I’ll tell you about the scar on my lip – small, bright-white, and diagonal – that came from a shard of glass that got stuck there when my mother dropped her wine glass at a restaurant. I’ll tell you, snickering, about the large, dark dimesized mole on my upper thigh from when my Grandmother left me to sleep in the Thailand sun on a vacation, how with my luck (or lack of it thereof) the one spot on my chubby baby body that hadn’t been covered by a sheet charred benignly under the sun.

And, if I’m feeling especially willing to risk embarrassment for the sake of laughter, I might tell you about the near-invisible, long, white scar that ghosts down my lower arm from when I tripped in the library in middle school and managed to drag my mechanical pencil two inches down my arm.

But there are other stories I won’t tell.

Or rather, stories I will tell and try not to

dwell on myself. The scar on my face, for instance, was a cancerous growth, removed when I was seven in a surgery in Moscow.

The doctor was, I was told, one of the Best in Moscow. It wasn’t until years later that I realized that Best in Moscow in 2009 was not nearly as reassuring as my mother made it out to be at the time. I remember when Best in Moscow pulled me over gently to ask if I wanted to be put completely under with anesthesia, which was experimental and somewhat dangerous at the time, especially for children. He looked at me cordially and expectantly, smile barely reaching his eyes, almost as if he cared about what I had to say.

But as I met the eyes of my family members and assistant surgeons in the room, blinking through the white dust floating in the beams of light straining in through grey blinds, it was obvious that this wasn’t really a choice.

And so, I pulled my cheeks into a smile and said that “just numbing my face would be ok.”

I’m not really sure how I didn’t pass out anyway during that surgery, out of self-exaggerated pain and fear. My thoughts slipped and raced without pause, burning scatters of white light whirling around a room when the sun hits a prism. I thought about how scared I was that one of my breaths would shift my body too much and mess up the procedure, I thought about how the blue

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Sk In A N g e l i n a

Z i a r n o

sheet they put over my face with a hole to access my cheekbone didn’t block the blinding orb of light trained above my face or the gleams of metal in my periphery. I thought about the rough, white mountains of the peppermint-sized scar on my hip from the liquid nitrogen surgery I was whisked off to get hours after being born. The prism picked up speed. I thought about how my mother might look if I told her that I knew it had been cancer years ago, that she should’ve expected I’d find a way to decipher the mark’s cause or meaning given that I was a curious child with too much time on my hands and access to Google. I thought about Best in Moscow, and how his eyes were less of a question than his words, I thought about what my face might look like after the operation, I thought about anything and everything and tried to grind it to nothing, trying to re-ground myself to focus on taking breaths with minimal movement.

I’ll tell you this story of course, because I am like my skin – I overshare. But I’ll only tell you this story if I think I can somehow make you laugh with it, if I can move on from the topic fast enough to not think about what I’m scared I’ll think about.

I was born with multiple melanomas. I was a normal kid, but any

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Lucid Dreams

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S h r u m

second, any one of those spots could’ve become malignant, and turned my normal-kid life into a forgettable cover story. Any second, a timer could’ve started on my life.

I often think about how we disregard common proverbs and “words of wisdom,” whether out of disbelief or just habituation. No man is an island.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Life is fragile. We all say we understand sayings like these, but we are just used to hearing them, to letting them flow in one ear and out the other.

And maybe it’s just me – maybe I’m just sentimental and dramatic, maybe I see more in things than there is to be seen (which is funny coming from someone who’s legally blind) – but I think we only understand proverbs once we live them, often accidentally. You don’t learn that ‘the early bird gets the worm’ by reading it in a book of sayings. You learn it when you finally take a chance with a person you’ve decided you’re willing to take chances for, only to discover that ‘fortune favors the bold.’

You don’t learn that ‘life is fragile’ by nodding along to your grandmother’s ramblings, you learn it with cold metal on your skin.

Sk In A N g e l i n a

Z i a r n o

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S h r u m

“We all say we understand sayings like these, but we are just used to hearing them, to letting them flow in one ear and out the other.�

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“122 Days”

by Lydia Naser etched print 48

Lucid Dreams

Boy Scout Camp Horseshoe Gothic Ryan CasCiato When you enter the camp, you see the Scouts scrambling to get to their merit badges in packs. No one wanders alone--not since what happened to Troop 94.

On the first day Scouts have hope in their eyes for a fun summer. By the start of the second day, they are glazed over and dead.

Chanting echoes from the dining hall. There may be no one in there. It never ceases. Oh god, why does it never stop?

Troop 106 worships a false god every Tuesday. No one dares to tell them that they are misguided.

Maryland Troop 22 had 15 Scouts yesterday, but now there are 3.

You have not seen a girl in weeks, even though the camp has only been running for a few hours now. You are forgetting what they look like.

They are myths amongst the Scouts.

The siren goes off. “It’s time to get to hardcover” your Scout Master’s voice says in the back of your mind, but there is no hardcover in your immediate surroundings. They will find you soon enough if you don’t find the hardcover. The siren grows louder.

The Camping Merit Badge class has been assembling tents for hours.

There appears to be no end to them.

The Scouts sing the camp song, but it is the middle of the camp session.

They should not be singing it. Not yet.

There is an unspoken rule about the Mason-Dixon line, something to do with the cage around it, but none know the precise rule.

In the camp store named Trader Bill’s, the deer blink from the mounts on the wall, and the cashier flickers in and out of reality.

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“Oh My Goodness”

by Lydia Naser linoleum print

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Lucid Dreams

Tomcat Chloe Williams Bein’ a cat ain’t no picnic It ain’t full o lyin’ around Ya always gotta be ready to fight.

With the dog Who keeps on whinin’ After the humans have turned out the light.

With the adults Who keep on pettin’ the wrong spot They never get it right.

With the baby Who cries and keeps ya up Half the night.

And there’s always that rat That manages to slip right through yo’ paws into a gap that’s too tight.

Yeah, bein’ a cat ain’t no picnic But I’ll admit, it’s pretty nice At its height.

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On Target Jessica Frantzen

“Easy”

by Ankita Kalasabail photograph

Wooden limbs twist in on themselves, twin wings guided by a puppet’s string, Contorting themselves for the sake of their master, Arms drawn back lazily, eyes focused on a target the archer can hardly squint at, Struggling to hold their form like an actor posing for their camera.

Teetering as they relinquish their control, the archer watches With the hope a gambler places on their horse Until a jarring twang strikes their ears. “...aaaaand that hit the ceiling.”

“Don’t worry kid, you’ll get this eventually.”

“Probably.”

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Lucid Dreams

Looking Back

“Where’s the Backspace?”

by Lydia Naser linoleum print

Madeline Murphy Notebooks balanced I miss the days when I would write for myself.cheek s scarlet, I would my ing paint sun , trees between the limbs of r what anyone else matte t didn’ It scribble down whatever I was feeling. my medicine: was ng Writi ve. belie to me d wante s other thought, what wounds, est deep the even ing cover crinkled papers with purple ink ages. like band I think I was much braver as a kid.

belong Now, others own my words. I write to please and

unravel. to s mean no have I ideas and justify, wrapped in threads of , yet my feet again soar to want I n, canyo a of s depth the over Teetering remain planted—too afraid to venture further.

I loved to.

I miss the days when I would write simply because

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B R Yo meet my boy Chrysanthemum.

Oh, what’s he do?

No, he’s just there sometimes.

We were having the best weekend ever, We went down to the city and got mugged.

I don’t know, I had fun.

Oh, now’s not a good time?

Sad about your wife?

Just use diet murder.

All the murder taste, none of the murder calories.

Oh, she’s already dead.

Well, you win some, you lose most.

Would a flowchart help?

Come on man, don’t be sad.

You’re not literally alone.

You’re just figuratively alone.

What, did you expect me to help?

You know what my mom said, sympathy’s a bad look on me.

Well, that’s a double whammy for my hammy.

Relax, a nosebleed’s just your heart sweating.

Fine, you know what?

It’s been kinda good, it’s been sorta real, but it hasn’t been real good.

In conclusion, the end.

Of our friendship.

Let’s roll, Chrysanthemum.

O S Sebastian Castro (feat. Noah Lanouette)

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Lucid Dreams

Scott Hennessy

I’m a cartoon laughing I’m real comical Flying through space Getting astronomical I’m hazy; crazy Psychiatric hospital Didn’t think it’s possible I’m so diabolical Welcome to the teaching system Must’ve missed him Some conniption Someone help me hit them This life isn’t fact: it’s fiction “X” on his eyes Must have kissed him How about we tone it up Blow it up And get pills stuck in my throat and just look UP UP U P then, %Down%

They gave me smiles, but they’re hard to reach They gave me good vibes, that’s fine with me They gave good books, but they’re hard to read I’m a penguin on the beach They gave me glasses, but I couldn’t see They gave me something, get away from me I’ve got nightmares and melodies I’m a penguin on a beach

ON A BEACH

PENGUIN

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“Highlighter”

by Reagan Gerrity colored pencil 56

Lucid Dreams

“Air Jordan 5 Wings 1 Line”

by Angela Chen mixed media The Folio

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aurelia Laura liu

Troubled 29-Year-Old Helped to Die by Dutch Doctors

—BBC, August 2018.

i hear voices all the time— they say you have hope but there is no hope, my words shriveling like skin in my throat.

i’m not yet thirty. they want to wait a few more years it’s not too late to change your mind but my obituary is printed on the insides of my eyelids and unanswered prayers have fled the mouth like smoke and small birds. my mother says i have a nice voice, a voice made of light but it doesn’t match my body, my face— nothing matches. i light a match. my hair won’t catch fire. i cross days off with black ink and a man in a suit leads me inside the crematorium like a guest, but please, don’t stand for me. i am no guest. outside, sparrows shake— snow settles on the spokes of chained bicycles.

aurelia: golden one, golden apple of my mother’s eye. mother— bedside, the doctor downstairs, god watching from the window. i toast the barbiturate to another life, touch my wings to the sparrows— the sun is liquid gold and i’m to become its messenger.

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Lucid Dreams

“King Midas”

by Darien Irizarry mixed media sculpture

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I am still sweaty s e b a s t i a n 60

Lucid Dreams

c a s t r o

I had practice.

I practiced my practice.

I don’t know if that sentence makes sense, But that’s neither here nor there.

My mom drove me, which was nice.

We talked about Trump on the ride back, which wasn’t.

I got home, said hi to my dog.

He acted all excited, then got bored of me after a minute.

It hurt, but I don’t blame him.

I went to my room, sat on the bed.

My mom just did the sheets, And there I was, all sweaty and gross.

I didn’t want to move, Even though my hair was damp, And my skin was sticky with dried sweat.

Maybe I wanted a mark, Something to prove my efforts were real.

A need for validation.

Men sweat, right?

Did I want to be a man?

Probably not right then.

I’m sure there’s a subtext to my actions, But I’m pretty sure I was just lazy.

How manly.

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No more good lucks KAVYA SINGH

Hollow tubes fill more than me and naked trees still look pretty blank walls call for a painter’s hand for a mind filled with creativity But I’ve stripped myself, bare and free, falling through the clouds I thought I could touch

And my clothes are torn, my skin is ripped through and my empty body bleeds all it could not succeed People watch with horror and awe at all the secrets I couldn’t keep and all my talents I couldn’t be

Paint me white once more and fix the mistakes I’ve drawn or keep them hidden behind the dark stars and ask those that pity to get rid of their tearful stares and robotic statements And if I stand on a star hoping to touch the clouds please tell them: no more ‘good luck’s “Conflict and Controvery”

by James Naser colored pencil

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Lucid Dreams

“Still I Rise”

by Lindsey Colantuno mixed media

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meet the

Lara Briggs (Copy Editor)

is likely still lost somewhere in Paris.

She likes sharp cheese and jazz fusion and is a cat lady, save for the fact that she is only a junior and doesn’t have any cats. She has recurring dreams of her appendix rupturing in the middle of an airport.

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Staff Pages

JEssica Frantzen (Copy Editor)

is a junior and a dangerously close-cutting procrastinator. While in math class, she daydreams of fantasy worlds and characters that she knows she will never write about, but still values more than differential equations. It is still popularly debated whether she is real or a figment of the staff’s imagination.

Laura Liu (Literary Editor)

is a senior who lives vicariously through her fantasies. She kept a dream journal for two months before becoming too weirded out to continue.

She likes college-ruled notepads and cheering for the underdog.

dream team.

Gabriella Miko (Art Editor)

is a senior, a lucid dreamer, occasionally eats teeth for breakfast, enjoys the color orange, and hates ants. Gabi one day dreams of proving you wrong and defeating lactose intolerance. She also designed this book, You can usually find her behind a camera, a computer screen, or on her website, fordiem. com.

Madeline Murphy (business manager)

is a senior who once was told she sings in her sleep. She dreams of winning a million dollars on the TV Survivor, yet has never gone camping and probably would die first in an apocalypse.

Laila B. Norford (Art Editor)

is a senior who only remembers her dreams when she wakes up in the middle of them, which unfortunately happens daily at 6am. She dreams of a day when she does not bump into any furniture or choke on water and has enough free time to finish writing her many fragmented poems.

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meet the

Alexandra Ross (literary Editor)

is a senior, a poet, and a lover of bread.

Once, when she was four years old, she had a nightmare that the Big Bad Wolf came down her chimney. She hasn’t been the same since.

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Staff Pages

Kavya Singh (business manager)

is a senior who is not a singer. She dreams of being the next Nancy Drew regardless of the fact that she can barely run without dying every five seconds.

Ben Smith (faculty advisor)

likes making wild, impossible plans with his friends--and without his friends. Most of his dreams involve transportation: catching a train, boarding a plane, getting lost in a bus depot, or, sometimes, looking out of a porthole at a vast and empty ocean.

dream team.

Katie wilson (faculty advisor)

’s dream finally came true when The Folio made it onto her schedule. She can be found lettering with her favorite Tombow Fudenosuke pens, favoring lower case letters, and eating pierogies.

ryan casciato (staff member)

is a senior who has a lot more stories than he knows what to do with. His dreams are weird and sometimes he is not even the main character of his dream and when he is, he dies, like, a lot. Often he wakes up from his dreams confused.

sebastian castro (staff member)

failed his driver’s test and that’s about it.

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meet the

LindsEy Colantuno (Staff member)

is riding the train all the way to spunky funk town. She has good ideas at weird times in strange forms. She dreams that, one night, the moon says hello back.

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Staff Pages

Chris J. Dimond (staff member)

is a senior who loves to over analyze the media he consumes. He dreams that one day people will stop misspelling his last name.

Natalia Green (staff member)

is a freshman who will imagine a full story, but then take 5 years to actually put it on paper. She has finally finished her fourth grade poem about her favorite color: purple.

dream team.

Navya gullapuram (staff member)

is an unnecessarily overstressed sloth in the body of a tragically unathletic freshman. She frequently dreams of good old math class during the horrors of gym. Other than that, she can be found writing short stories and poetry, sitting behind the piano, sketching, or pondering why she never received her letter to Hogwarts.

Scott Hennessey (staff member)

is a sophomore. His last name shares the name of a very famous cognac.

He doesn’t dream often but he once dreamt that his grammar had gotten good.

David Johnston (staff member)

is a senior and dreams of one day being a music producer professionally. He would also like you to know that he can’t turn the beat up anymore as it is at maximum volume and his ears are hurting.

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meet the

ankita Kalasabail (Staff member)

is a junior and her biggest nightmare is the movie Ratatouille being lived out.

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Staff Pages

Grace Kinkel (staff member)

is a senior, artist, and cat person. You can usually find her sketching in her sketchbook or doodling on her school papers. Sometimes she forgets if something was a dream or if it actually happened.

Noah lanouette (staff member)

realized last year that his last name has three vowels in a row. He has dreams about 40-foot tall ostriches chasing him throughout the Northeast United States far more often than any person does or should. This is not a quirky personality trait of his, it is a problem he cannot solve.

dream team.

stella lei (staff member)

is a freshman with a horrible memory who frequently confuses imaginary events and conversations with real ones. She doesn’t have dreams often, but when she does, she forgets what they were about a few minutes later.

sheridan medosch (staff member)

is a passionate headbanger, and you can catch her jump-dancing in the front of awkwardly still concert crowds all over Philadelphia and Brooklyn. She is the frontwoman of the band Florry, who recently released their first record off the DC punk label Sister Polygon Records. Her dreams often consist of loved ones and revisiting her old house in Chestnut Hill.

lydia naser (staff member)

is a tenth grader but also kind of a 75-year-old woman. She is the essence of second-hand embarrassment, pets her dog a lot, and thoroughly enjoys mom dance moves. Her dreams often involve some heavy stuff that she doesn’t really want to talk about.

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meet the dream team.

shreya singh (Staff member)

is a sophomore, soon-to-be drop out, who cannot decide between her love for solitude and her need for attention. She dreams a lot about her teachers stressing her out as if they don’t already do that in real life. Her sarcastic commentary is similar to that of Chandler Bing’s but her execution isn’t as smooth.

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Staff Pages

olivia wang (staff member)

is a tenth grader who has as many ideas as she does the number of unfinished art projects she swears she will finish… someday. Her dreams are few and far between, though when they do occur, are often of things she can’t recollect when she calls them to mind.

chloe williams (staff member)

is a freshman who can be found watching Friends in her rare free time. She has a dream that one day schools will start later, and kids won’t have to wake up at 5:45 every morning to catch a bus in the dark.

About We are a student-run literary and art publication from Conestoga High School. Although our name has been The Folio only 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, as well as staff members. Students who wish to be part of The Folio’s staff may apply during course selection in February.

The National Scholastic Press Association rated our 2016-2017 publication in their highest category, “All-American.”

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