THE SPIRE Literary Magazine The Spire is The Governor’s Academy student literary magazine. Students submit their short stories and poetry to student editors who then decide which entries will be published. The Spire has been a voice for student literary creativity since 1966. Winners of the Murphy/Mercer Short Story and Poetry Contest are also included in The Spire. The A. MacDonald Murphy Short Story and Thomas McClary Mercer Poetry Contest was created more than two decades ago to honor the work of the two English masters, whose combined service to the Academy totaled more than 65 years, and to encourage students’ pursuit of creative writing. Students submit entries which are read and voted upon by the English
Department. First prize winners in each category receive a book prize and their works appear in the annual publications of The Spire each spring. Student Editors: Jessica Choe ‘22 Tianyi Shen ‘23 Tilley Winokur ‘23 English Department Faculty Advisor: Tom Robertson P’16, ‘19, ‘24 Cover Image: Inside Out Judy Wang ‘23 Special thanks to faculty and staff in the departments of English, Arts, and Communications
A. MACDONALD MURPHY SHORT STORY CONTEST 2021 First Place
Sketchbook Bimba Carpenter ‘21 2020 Teenage chatter surrounds me in the student center amidst the rustle of backpacks and the muted clacking of rolling desk chair wheels on the stone floor. I am supposed to be working on my Economics homework, but each time my eyes travel between my 1.5 inch thick textbook and my laptop, something in the room distracts me. The grill attendant calls out someone’s fry order. A ping pong ball rolls by my foot. A teacher walks through to remind kids to keep their COVID-19 social distance. With the distractions mounting, I decide to close my textbook and take a break. Glancing around the room, I notice a number of four-legged, tall, dark green metallic bar stools clustered together. The jumble of their intersecting legs in the
foreground and background creates a pattern vaguely resembling the criss-crossing trunks of a bamboo grove. I pull my sketchbook out of my bag and grab my Uniball pen from my backpack’s zippered pouch. My uneven ink lines start filling different parts of the page with my attempts at capturing the intriguing pattern. A friend approaches. “Hey! What are you up to?” “Not much.” She comes behind me to see what I am sketching. “Mind if I peek?” “Nope,” I reply without looking up at her. She looks at my page for a few seconds and then says, “Wait, are these the legs of the stools over there?” “Yeah.”
“Hmm. Why are you drawing that?” “I dunno. Something about all of them together caught my eye, I guess.” My phone pings with a pop-up reminder that my next class is about to start. I write “Leg Pattern” under the image, close the book, and start packing up my things. 2017 “Dad, what’s in that box in my room?” I yell down the stairwell. “We collected Grandpa’s sketchbooks when we were cleaning out his house,” my father shouts back as he leans down to place another box on the bottom step. He looks up at me. “We thought you might like to look through them.” “Oh. Cool. Thanks,” I reply slowly, processing the situation. “How many months have passed since Grandpa died? Three?” Already heading back to his car to unload more of my grandfather’s boxes, my father turns around to answer me. “Yeah. That’s right. Three months and three days to be exact.”
We silently stare at each other for a few moments. “You ok, Little Bear?” He asks, referring to me by one of my nicknames. “Yeah, sure. I just can’t believe it’s already been three months.” “I know… I know.” My father looks at me and nods before turning to head back to his car. I go to my room and sit criss-cross applesauce on the carpet next to the box and open it. I put my hands around as many sketchbooks as I can pick up in one go and pile them next to me. Many of them look vaguely familiar. A folded piece of paper on which my grandfather drew 7 boxes, one for each of his seven grandchildren, drops out from inside the cover of the first book I open. Each box contains a tiny image of something related to the child - a saw for one cousin, a horse for another, a piano for one of my brothers, and so on. I tuck it back in and start turning the pages. This book, similarly to the others, is brimming with drawings and notes to himself. Everyday
objects that happened to be in front of him when he had time to kill scissors, wine glasses, piled books fill many pages. My grandfather, an architect, packed other pages with detailed studies of particular objects, many of which he labeled with his flawed spelling such as “Furnitur Ideas” and “Bidges.” His drawing style permeates every gentle, squiggly line of ink that flowed from his favorite Uni Ball red, blue, and black pens. Despite his uneven individual lines, his drawings demonstrate an architect’s trained perspective and as a whole possess an unwaveringly sharp precision. Scattered among his sketches of inanimate subjects, he also captured family moments. I gently giggle when I see an entry from one of his visits to our house with the inscription “Sept 4 ‘09 @ Seb house = 3 angels + Elis & Seb and an old fart.” Above it, 5 lively stick figures representing my two brothers, my parents, and me stand next to a sixth with curly hair, glasses, a broad smile, and a bow tie. That is him, the “old fart,” with his
trademark characteristics. Despite being a stick figure, it captures him so well that I momentarily feel his presence in my room. I pause for a moment and look up at my own sketchbooks filling my bedroom bookcase. On a partition separating my shelves, I notice a photo that has been taped there for so long that I have forgotten it. My grandfather and I are smiling while we sit on cool white marble steps under a searing hot Tuscan sun on the grounds of the leaning tower of Pisa. As a three or four year old, I was too little to climb the tower so my grandfather stayed behind to watch me while my mother escorted my older brothers. My grandfather looks carefree and relaxed with his thin cotton khaki trousers, loafers without socks, and his grey curly uncombed hair. He has two Uniballs - one blue, one red - clipped near the open collar of his polo shirt. As I examine the photo, I notice I have both of my hands on top of a brown leather, soft-cover book that is about to slip off my lap. Wondering if it is one of his
sketchbooks, I root around in the box and find one that looks just like the book I am holding in the picture. When I open it, I immediately recognize three drawings on the first few pages as my own toddler versions of people with enormous heads, tiny bodies, and large eyes. My name, written as I used to back then - upside down and backwards, sits next to one of the two blue ink drawings. Curly hair covers the oversized head of the red person who is sporting clumsily drawn glasses and a bow tie. 2016 I slurp Cheerios by the milky spoonful on a hazy August morning. My eyes graze past the spines of the art books that overcrowd our kitchen shelves and eventually land on the numberless wall clock near one of our kitchen windows. I usually glance at the clock quickly to get the time, but sometimes, like this morning, I study its unusual design with its twelve thin, straight lines protruding from a central disk. Each
undecorated line has a ball on its end making it look like an emaciated snowflake with swollen tips. Wondering what kind of clock I could design if I connected the twelve points to each other rather than at the center, I pull a nearby pencil and an unopened envelope towards myself. I first draw twelve balls in a circle and then start connecting them in different ways. One version looks like a black First Aid cross overlaid on top of a 12 pointed asterisk. Another is an abstract weblike formation as if I connected the stars in a constellation to each other. My father sits across from me sipping steamy tea with one hand while looking at his phone with the other. “Daddy?” “Yes?” “Do you think I could make a clock that looks like any of these?” I push the envelope toward him. My father can design and build pretty much anything. His
creative engineering mindset continues to amaze me as much today as it did when I was in nursery school and told my teachers he had a magical “tooler” that gave him his building superpower. After briefly glancing at my drawings from across the table, he reaches out to take the envelope. “Anything’s possible in theory, but let me take a look.” A few moments pass while he considers my sketches. “Hmm. These are pretty interesting, but you’ll need to work out your ideas a bit more. You know, like where your clock motor might go, the dimensions and materials you’d make it out of…” His voice trails off while he continues to study the drawings, cocking his head left to right. “But first I’d love to know...what made you think of this?” I point to the clock on the wall. “Huh. That inspired you to think of these?” He says gesturing toward the clock with the envelope. I nod. “Pretty cool, Little Bear.” 2010
My grandfather sits outside at the round metal table in our garden on a cool, dry summer day. His sketchbook and Uniball pens rest atop a messy pile of various sizes of paper at the center of the table. He looks at a list he has made of all seven of his grandchildren, pressing his pencil tip on each name and saying it out loud as if he is worried he might forget one. “What are you doing, Grandpa?” “Your mom thought it would be nice if I made a drawing of all the grandkids together.” He pulls a large blank sheet toward him and takes the cap off of one of his black pens. Watching my grandfather draw is as thrilling as watching a magician do a trick or a superhero use her powers. He rarely sits for more than ten minutes without sketching something either in his sketchbook or on whatever scrap paper he can find nearby. While it is fascinating to watch architectural studies flow from his pen onto a page, I find it particularly fun to see him give life to his cartoon-y creations. At my brother’s request, he once drew a
proud Daddy tunafish smoking a pipe while showing off his tuna family to the other fish. We howled with laughter at the absurd scene that was swimming on the page, reacting purely to my grandfather’s simple curves, shapes, and lines that were telling the story rather than needing a single word. At our garden table outside, I am in a bit of suspense since his first few lines make no sense to me. Seven circles are inside a wide rectangle. “Is that a...bus, Grandpa?” “Yes indeed.” “That is a super wide bus...is that part with the circles the back or the front?” “That’s the front.” “Wait, what?” “It’s a bus with seven drivers.” “Seven drivers? How does that work?” He continues drawing while he answers. “How does it work?” Grandpa has a habit of repeating questions that he needs more time to answer. “I don’t know, but this is how I think of you guys.” He starts adding detail to the faces. “I draw it how I see it, Little Bear.”
2006 “What animal would you like?” Grandpa’s cheek is pressed to mine. He pinches his black ink Uniball between his fingers. His hand hovers above his sketchbook page, waiting for the signal to draw, like a competitive runner awaiting a starting gun. “Ummm…” is all my chubby toddler self can muster. How can I pick just one animal when I like so many? Grandpa’s left arm envelops my belly like a seatbelt ensuring I do not slip off his lap. He squeezes me gently. “Well?” I suddenly shout as loud as I can, “A bay-uh!” Grandpa drops his pen and squeezes me with both hands. “Woo! What a huge voice for such a little girl!” He exclaims with an ear-to-ear grin. He gives me one of his slobbery kisses on the cheek. “Ok, then. A bear for Little Bear. How perfect!” He picks up his pen and starts drawing, but then pauses.
“Wait, I have a better idea. Let’s have a drawing contest. You draw a bear on this,” he says pointing to the blank side of an overturned envelope. “With this,” he adds while revealing a fat yellow “My First Ticonderoga” pencil from behind my ear. He continues, “I’ll draw one, too. And then we’ll vote. You beat me last time, Little Bear, but I’m feeling lucky today.” Grandpa and I have played this game before. I absolutely love it. It helps that somehow I win every time. I grab the pencil with my pudgy dimpled hand, my tongue peeks out of the right corner of my lips, and my brow furrows. I get as far as a few loosely connected plump circles when I slink off of Grandpa’s lap onto the floor and slide under our large wooden kitchen table, still clutching my pencil and scrap paper. Lying on my belly, I start drawing again and soon hear my father’s feet approaching. “Where’s Little Bear?” He asks Grandpa.
“I have absolutely no idea.” Grandpa knows exactly where I am but continues the game. “If you find her, promise you’ll tell me since she and I are in the middle of an important contest.” “I promise. It sure would be a shame if she missed the contest.” I can see my father’s blue Crocs near Grandpa’s chair. My page now has little triangle-shaped ears on one of the circles, curly-Q scribbles drawn all over the body for fur, and a long loopy shape for a tail. I change my position to sit criss-cross applesauce and notice the jumble of wooden chair legs that surround me on all four sides, one of which also has my father’s and Grandpa’s legs mixed in. The way the straight lines of all the legs rise up from the floor, pitched in at slight angles and intersecting here and there with each other, reminds me of the trunks of trees in a forest. I find it cozy in my “forest” beneath the canopy of the kitchen table. I add trees to my drawing to make sure my bear, like me, can sit in a cozy forest.
“There, I’m done!” Exclaims Grandpa in a loud voice. “Hey, Dad. If we can’t find Little Bear in time, that’ll mean you win the contest, not her, right?” “That’s right, Seb. You know…” Grandpa’s voice suddenly changes to a loud whisper. “I kind of hope we don’t find her because I’d really like to win for once.” I cannot bear the thought of losing the contest for another second. I grab my picture, quietly scootch over toward Grandpa’s chair, and shoot my arm up past his knees, shouting, “I’m hee-ya! I’m hee-ya!” Grandpa pretends to be surprised and disappointed. “Where did you come from?! Oh no! There’s no way I can win now!” My father joins in. “Have you been down there the whole time?! How sneaky!” I look up from below the table to see Grandpa looking at my drawing with my father just behind him. They quickly declare me the winner even though my drawing more closely resembles an oblong pile of bear scat with ears and a tail than the bear itself. Grandpa pushes his
chair back a bit so he can get a better view of me beneath the table. “This drawing is the clear winner. I love all your details - the ears, the fur...and this extra long tail.” He points to the tail on my bear. “What made you draw it that way?” I reply confidently, “Becaws bay-uhs have tay-uls.” “Yes, bears sure do have tails. But are they that long?” I bury my head in my hands for a split second and then look back at him to say in the overly dramatic, slowly enunciated, loud way that little kids have when they are utterly certain of something. “Grandpa... if a bay-uh has a tay-ul… den...den... I have to dwaw... de tay-ul.” “Oh, now that makes much more sense.” He wraps his chin between his thumb and forefinger and pretends to think deeply. “And what about the lines you have around the bear? What are they?” My father, who now has the envelope, kneels down to be at my eye level and points to the lines around the bear. “Dey are da faw-ests,” I say, mistakenly confusing the word “forest” with the
plural word, “trees.” “My bay-uh is in da faw-ests, like me,” I state confidently while I slide back under the table. “You’re in a forest down here? That’s fantastic.” My father
Forgotten Civilization Nancy Xie ‘21
pats my knee. Grandpa looks at me and smiles. “I love how you see things, Little Bear.”
Geometric Textbook Cover Design Teddy Hwang ‘22
A. MACDONALD MURPHY SHORT STORY CONTEST 2021 Second Place
Emerald Love Tianyi Shen ‘23 That ragged piece of worn-out blue sky framed in a feather-light wooden frame is my grandmothers’ inexplicable and faithful, everyday worship. She has worshipped the man in the frame every minute before and since her death, making us grandchildren doubt she had started her pilgrimage from birth. Her husband was but a knowledgeable man in a worn grey suit neatly ironed, with grey hair sprouting between clusters of black torn by big wind near the lakes. In my eyes, my grandfather was but a lollipop concealed of abnormalities in a sugar coat of submissive and timid kindness; he was but a typical, docile Chinese man. If Laolao ever sees this, she will tear me apart though I am her own. She has silver-lined curls that didn’t fade after she was put to the tomb. In fact, everyone in the family admits that her death had made her younger--- her plump stomach flagging
beneath the flowers pressed onto her white blouse like thumbs as she rose from the ground, silk pants sliding down her ironed bosom and draped legs. Laolao looked like our wrinkled and energetic black cat Maria that she considered the most unfortunate in lifetime. When Laolao came back to us in her flowery blouse, the first things she said were: “I did not find him.” Her slim and silky fingers crawling together without the slightest of trembles, her thoughts stuttering beneath firm words as she took over the white and yellow flowers that we were supposed to leave on her grave. She repeated again, holding her chin even higher next to her black marble tombstone, the left-over fat draping down from her cheeks and swinging from left to right above the wane flower petals: “I did not find him.” She
made it sound all that simple. “Yes, Ma.” Josephene only nodded, and brought her forward into the light of our century again. By then the mild, drooling fog had started to gnaw at the edges of a warm, mid-southern June, and the Century Tower was barely visible from where we stood twenty miles away. As we crammed into the car on our drive home, I couldn’t help but notice how Laolao clung to the wet, funeral flowers--- the poor, withering things tightly bounded to her beating chest as if that way someone could return the dollars Josephene spent. The front of her blouse was already damp. Soon we rode into the neighborhood and apartments closed in on us like gigantic, displaced cuboids, leaving me to wonder if the lighted windows, like eyes, were confused by Laolao’s return as much as its own existence. We led Laolao through the apartment door, the building towering over her like a ghost, her small feet in flowery skimmers wobbling like the little mermaid on concrete. When she stepped into the silverish lift that had taken her down from her deathbed and
carried her to her dreams two months ago none of us had imagined her returning. Surely she did not imagine it either. So when she returned to that lift, and closing doors swallowed her crouched back with little flowers like thumbs, for a moment I thought she was putting herself back into the grave. We were her real grave. That first night she was back she ate way too many salt crackers before going to bed. Josephene stayed up late and made sure Laolao wrap herself in the old emerald blanket with green fur like intestinal villus before going to bed. In the steamy summer air, we thought she had slept in her stomach and slept sound. But the next morning, we woke up to a soaked linen carpet, with patches of vomit seeped in like bruises. *** “The cat had done it again! Look at this.” Janine raised her voice towards the living room in a condemning, coquettish way. When the woman in the other room failed to respond, she went on to complain some more: “I just don’t understand why you had to bring the thing back.
As if we don’t have enough to worry about!” She stormed out of the bathroom barely wide enough to hold her stomps. “Well, we thought he’d be a laugh.” Laolao approached the living room from the kitchen. “Never thought they’d fight.” “I told you they’d fight!” Janine whined. “Janine, be polite.” Josephene walked over and picked up the stinking carpet that she normally wouldn’t even have come close to. “We love him. He’s adorable.” “Only you love him.” Janine scoffed and trod away, making way for Laolao, who came stumbling into the bathroom to free Josephene from the reeky carpet: “Jo, let me do it.” “No Ma, I got this.” Josephene twitched her brows as she dumped the carpet into the sink. “You rest some. It’s almost the Shi Chen---it’s almost time.” “Wanna be a good daughter for the last two days?” Laolao rolled her eyes as she let go of the carpet in a mocking way, “The Buddha knows better.” She returned to her little wooden bed crammed with worn
clothes that piled and slacked to the side, on the very top a colorful, fake fendi scarf. Sitting down near her mess, she continued to fold her collection of old clothes, gathered from thrift stores she couldn’t resist, friends she complained to be too meager and Josephene she condemned for being too lavish. Behind her, a squarely folded emerald blanket sat quietly on its own, in a different pile from all the others as her most beloved treasure. Laolao always folded her blanket so that its single, red brimming wouldn’t show, making the piece of cloth a perfect shade of emerald. She had owned that blanket for centuries. As she packed, I imagine that sparks would have flown out of her murky eyes and even the corners of her lips would have moisturized a little under the irresistible thought of finally being away from all of us. She left the pictures of Laoye and her hanging on the wall as she prepared for a final, relentless journey towards him. By then, the sky in the frame was just a faint blue. That same night before Laolao left us Josephene called Janine
to the side and told her a story. One I wish I hadn’t known. *** I wasn’t supposed to be back that day until late afternoon. I was in middle school, your age. Maybe it was 1991. Or 1992. But Ms. Lan--- our teacher--- let us out early that day because her son was sick with the flu. So I biked home around noon and when I opened the door--- I had my own keys--- I found another pair of shoes. Not Ma’s flowery skimmers, but a pair of plimsolls, very chic back in those days, and much smaller than my Ma’s feet. I knew it was a woman’s shoes. I was already fifteen. They heard me come in. The woman, and Pa. And the next moment this very tall and slim woman appears out of the master’s bedroom and comes to meet me. You’d imagine them scurrying away like rats out of their dens, but the woman seemed very calm, fully dressed, her short fuzzy hair neatly combed like nothing was wrong. I remember that her hair made her neck look extravagantly long, and she had this single, bulging front tooth that was simply unforgettable. She
smiled at me, and I remember being surprised at how her other teeth were just as clean. She told me she was here to fix the lights. “I’m a friend of your aunt’s!” She squeaked into my face like I was a baby. Pa appeared behind her, and for a moment they looked so much alike I couldn’t tell them apart, just as tall and slim and normal-acting. The light-grey suit hung over him like one of those empty, trick lollipops I’d re-wrap for my sister, the docile and submissive look around his lips stiffening upon our silence. His eyes averted mine when I looked up, and I felt a strong urge to tear him open: his disguise made me sick, and I knew him too well to know that he was secretly smirking inside. To be fair, the woman was friendly, and wickedly smart too--- you could tell just from her speech. But I felt disgusted, even though I knew we had a broken light. I just kept thinking how ironic it would be if she actually knew my aunt. That night when I passed their bedroom, I saw the emerald blanket again, squarely folded on Ma and Pa’s
bed in the same old place. Everything was right except for one thing. She would have noticed, because she was a clever woman and she could have gotten away with it, except that the red brimming of the blanket was showing. And that’s when I knew they’d slept. Later that night I heard Ma and Pa making love under the blanket again just like how they always do on Thursdays and I tried not to listen. Love frightened me as a kid. I suppose it frightened every self-taught Chinese kid who confused making love with love. But I just kept listening until they were done and went quiet again, thinking about the shiny tooth and Ma and Pa’s crumpled blanket, with sleep escaping me again through the whispering of two imaginary bodies. Laolao never knew that, you know. Pa died early and how she grieved. But I never told her that. I didn’t think it was my story to tell. *** In the morning Josephene washed the carpet anew while Laolao cooked us breakfast. The familiar smell of tomatoes steaming from the kitchen again, mingled with a fume of
dust and cat fur. Laolao always pressed down the wrong buttons on the ventilator--- back in her days, she used to tell me, she had her own chimney to use. A week from now on, the smell of cat piss will slowly make its way into the living room after Laolao takes over the litter box, Josephene will spend less money on cat litters, and Laolao will start cursing at our meowing Maria again near dinner time. For a moment, life seemed normal again. The bruised carpet was only left with a thin outline of spew now, with a smell like condensed dish soap and roses. I knew Josephene was ready to brag about it for the whole day long, but more than all I wondered if she thought the same as I did. Was Laoye with the slim woman that he had cheated on in his next life? Is that why Laolao had left her death to return to us? I remember praying to the Buddha about Laolao’s departure on one of the last good days in Jiangnan’s June. The clank our coin made in the offering box sounded like her, and Josephene and I both thought she’d get the safe trip she deserved. Still, in the end, my
grandfather had wronged her love. “What’s the problem, Jan?” Laolao looked up at me from the other side of the dinner table, my mouth full of rice but her chopsticks pointing at the tomatoes, “Try the tomatoes.” Laolao always wanted me to try one dish while I was on another. Looking up at her, I found my own eyes staring back at me, the exact shape, only not quite its charm--- her wrinkles neatly drooping around the corner like curtains, her pupils embedded in the center of what seemed like a sculpted, slim almond seed. She used to have long braids when she was young, but now she had the same short, fuzzy hair as all old women did. It suddenly occurred to me that, very soon, I could go back to complaining to this old lady about bringing back the second cat. We would end up in huge arguments about the littlest things, like the leftovers of wet cat food flowing in the toilet that she wouldn’t flush, her sneaking salt into my salt-free diet pie and the pairs of old slippers that would magically disappear from our shoe cabinet one day. But it was peculiar to think that Laolao would never leave us
again, and perhaps she would even let her lovesickness go. Surely she had seen what Laoye was. When I walked into her room the second day, I took a seat beside her in front of the new and glistening television. I was not planning to see the emerald blanket, the hanging pictures on the wall, nor any trace of Laolao and Laoye’s long lost love. Naively, I thought she had moved on. But when I sat down and turned around to lay down on her stiff, wooden bed, the blanket was just there, lying quietly behind us, showing upon her flowery sheets only an unadulterated, undeteriorating emerald. *** For many days since Laolao’s return, there were moments when I felt like I could tell her the truth of her century-love. But then, always when I looked at her, the way her almond eyes flapped, her chest rose and fell deep down again with her wrinkled, bent neck drawn inwards like a fishnet, I lost courage. I would touch her hand to feel the warmness of her long calloused, sunbaked skin, knowing that this was a woman I had hated for the
littlest, most annoying things, a woman that could have lost fairly to a clever affair, that wouldn’t hold a chance against a slim and brilliant woman, that still, miraculously, managed to hold on to an outdated love through outlandish decades. That in my hands was a woman who raised me and loved me regardless, for whom I could curse any man that ever wronged her to hell. Laoye, the man in the frame, still stood there on the wall after all these years, holding on to my Laolao under a white-washed sky as if time had not passed at all. His features half-seen under the shade and lights of the north Chinese coast, an upright, reaffirming look on his face as he consoled the woman most dear to me. Ever since Josephene’s story Laoye became nothing but a lie to me. Still, even to this day, when I look up at their picture and turn to meet the woman sitting next to me, a woman who once lived in that frame, felt the very winds of the turmoil coast and decided that the man next to her was worth relying on, I know it is not my story to tell. My grandmother had always loved her husband and
undoubtedly always will. Whether she will ever find out that her life-long love had cheated on her I do not know. I do know, however, that the love between Laolao and him was not gold. It did not gleam, and it did not pin through time like a silver needle. But though it wasn’t grand it wasn’t cheap either, even when Laoye’s eyes flickered with one lie after another, when his thoughts traveled to another while his hands were sliding down Laolao’s blanket. Through the times when Laolao wet her eyes for his dead picture, a mere memory of how he used to take her hands and lead her through an awkward public-square dance, back when the Century Tower wasn’t even built yet and we were never born, she had their glistening love engraved on an aging soul. Because of the fights that they compromised into kisses, because of his outburst when they told Josephene to abort me as a girl, and because of his wobbling bike from left to right as she wiggled her skimmers on their ride home, she would not to notice the red brimming when she opened the door, regardless if she meant it. The flicker
of red would disappear under a rising sea of emerald, vaporize under her stuffed meat and cabbage dumplings jumping out their stove. The kettle would ring when the water boils, and I have come to think that through all
Fading Judy Wang ‘23
this time, their love remains emerald. I have hated my grandfather for stealing Laolao’s love. Perhaps she knows.
THOMAS MCCLARY MERCER POETRY CONTEST 2021 First Place
Jew-ish Lilly Baumfeld ‘22 I am half Jewish -Half a month of lighting candles and cleaning melted wax off counters, of Christmas carols drowning out dreidels on the living room floor before the gelt chocolate and bright flames are replaced with candy-canes and light bulbs on trees. Half a definition of shabbat shalom and l’shanah tovah, of Yiddish words and Hebrew prayers that mix with English into something that I only vaguely understand. Half of latkes dipped in applesauce, gefilte fish with too much salt and just enough broth, of Hebrew letters on dreidels and braided challah melting in mouths, of ch’s scratching at throats. Half a Jew -and I’m still trying to figure out if that is too much -or not enough at all. It depends on who you ask; (and it’s almost like this decision is not up to me at all). See, it’s my dad who is Jewish:
Full-blooded, Brooklyn bar mitzvah at thirteen; father born in Germany after 11 million lights went out and Fay just happened to make it out alive. And according to someone who I’ve never met before, that means I’m not allowed to be a Jew -because it’s not up to me anymore, (it never was, I suppose); It was supposed to be up to my mom. But I’m still half a Jew -(half a day of fasting, half a definition of gut yontif, or yom tov), half of feeling either too Jewish; or not Jewish at all. The “half” at the front or the “ish” at the end seem just as see-through to the ones who tell me I’m not enough, as they do to the ones who tell me I am Jewish enough, for all the wrong reasons. And it seems like a sick game of tug-of-war, but instead both sides are pushing as hard as they can. Because I’m half-in and half-out, in the foyer of something I can only peer through the window at, but never fully enter. A foot in the threshold with a door slammed in my face.
So it feels like maybe I shouldn’t wear the Star of David, be sung a Yiddish lullaby; but I should still feel the sting of a swastika carved into a desk; a Nazi salute in a hallway. Because I’m not nearly enough when I want to be; (just stuck in the middle of something I can’t control); and then suddenly I’m too much. And I guess my parents might understand: The chuppah and a shattered glass weren’t enough for some members of a family that refused to celebrate a union because he was Jewish; and she was not. But still; they went under the canopy, stepped on the glass -so now I’m either too Jewish, or not nearly Jewish enough. And then December comes again; with Yiddish prayers and Hebrew blessings, melted wax, chocolate coins and bets with siblings -and Christmas carols drowning out the sound of dreidels on the floor -with candy-canes and latkes, tree ornaments in the shape of David’s Star. And the distant memory of a Yiddish lullaby from a Jewish Grandmother with a Bible on the shelf beside her -So I guess that sometimes it means that I'm too Jewish --
But I think it’s worse when it means I’m not nearly Jewish enough.
A Piece of Me Rayha Karanth ‘22
THOMAS MCCLARY MERCER POETRY CONTEST 2021 Second Place
Names Judy Wang ‘23 I remember when I first came to the U.S., People asked for my last name So I said, “Wang” the clerk at the hotel chuckled and said to his colleague, “We spell that with an ‘O’, not an ‘A’. ” But I didn’t understand why my syllables had to accommodate their tongues. I couldn’t grasp why my last name that represents my family Could become the chatter for their afternoon tea. So when they asked, “What is your name?” I told them it is Judy. J U D and Y each letter spelled clear and loud They asked me to say it louder. As if afraid that my brown rice colored skin couldn’t hold a voice loud enough for them to hear. We are people from the mountain, from basins, from deserts to river valleys. We have voices that could tumble out of the Himalayas and give the chilling snow a tremble. We are the people who discovered gunpowder to make fireworks.
Who created gifts for human celebrations rather than for human elimination. So when they say: “No, No, No what is your real name?”. I spelled it out for them. HEXUAN. and I repeated it for them, loud. Each fragile letter standing alone Never pieced together as if switching to my birth tongue would have wounded the civility of this conversation. It was me trying to contain each letter within itself So that each character could stop reaching for their other halves So that two pieces of my identity can remain separate, untouched. Once I told someone that I feel Like a margin of two places. A body with knees that had learned to kiss the floor in front of elders, With hands that learned to use chopsticks before a pair of scissors. And a mouth that somehow could speak the foreign words better Than my own. So I stopped accommodating my name for other people I stored it somewhere in a jewelry box. I shielded it from the foreigner’s thirsty tongue and dirty mouth, And cleaned it like a crown, Waiting for a day I am proud enough to wear it.
Chamber of Rumination Alex Haas ‘21
Red and Black Brand Leng ‘22 I opened my eyes as hard as possible, staring into the ceiling. The ceiling, normally as pale as a blank page, was completely black. The wind bumped on trees outside, creating enormous noise that penetrated the window and my eardrum. Once in a while, a car roared across the street and disappeared. A glint of light lay on my floor. It was so faint but attracted my attention. I got up from my bed and drew the curtains slowly, watching the glint on my floor fade into a void. I knew something was there, keeping me awake at two o’clock and squeezing my heart. I couldn’t see anything but the deadly darkness. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her stand right in front of me, giving me the dancing look. Something warm crept through my face, down to my chin. Maybe it was a tear. I didn’t know. I lay on my pillow and let memory bring me back to third grade
in elementary school. I strolled across the playground with Zoe, heading toward the cafeteria. It was the middle of the summer. The sun was like a burning coal on our head, heating up the boiler below our feet. On our way to the cafeteria, I complained about the temperature as if it was the most heinous thing in the world. She laughed at me for being finicky. I couldn't help looking at her face. The captivating smile and the dimple on her left cheek attracted me. Suddenly she met my eyes and yelled, “What are you looking at?” I hastily turned my head, “Um, there was something on your face.” “Really?” She hurriedly rubbed her face. The shyness that appeared on her face was so cute. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t clear it out. We climbed a couple of stairs, and the air condition made me realize that we were already in the cafeteria. I rushed into the line waiting for ramen. She grabbed a piece of cake and joined the line with me. Time went
so fast before I realized that it was my turn to get the ramen. Asking for a bowl of pork soup ramen, I took a pair of chopsticks in my left hand and tried to hold the bowl full of soup and noodles with my hand. But I lost my grip even before I lifted it up. The edge of the bowl was too hot. I stood there embarrassed as the next person ordered his ramen. Just when I was at a loss what to do, Zoe handed me her cake and said calmly, “take the cake.” I took the cake and dumbly watched as she grabbed the edge of the bowl where the soup had almost overflowed. I followed her silently to our seat and observed her placing my ramen on the table. Her hands shook a little bit, as the bottom of the bowl reached the table. In my astonishment, I even forgot to say thank you. I sat down face to face with her and stared right into her face. “Is there still anything on my face?” She looked at me with shyness on her cheek. I paused for a second, looked down at my pork ramen, and gazed at her black watery eyes. “Wasn’t that burning hot?” She seemed surprised by my
question and swiftly moved her eyes away from mine. “It was fine.” She shrugged. Her fingers on the right hand had turned red. I remained silent and a peculiar feeling haunted me. It felt like the nectar of the most gorgeous flower in the world saturating my heart. The euphoric, dizzy, nervous, confused feeling overwhelmed my mind and my palm started sweating. Zoe and I became a couple when we were in fifth grade. We spent our first date in an amusement park. It was not quite a date, but it really felt like a date for fifth-grade elementary school students. I still remembered one time Zoe begged me for a week to go to the cinema with her. Watching films was nothing special, but watching a horror movie in the cinema was too much for me. I was scared. For that week, every conversation between us started with Final Destination. Every time I would utter only one word, No. I thought her passion would die away in one or two days, but I was wrong. She asked me the same question at least four times a day from Monday to Thursday. And on Friday, I gave up.
Right after I said, “Ok, ok. I’ll go,” the familiar smile was on her face again. The corner of her mouth was up, and the dimple showed up on her cheek. Her eyes resembled a pair of crescent moons. That was gorgeous. Soon, however, I learned the cost of that smile. I didn’t feel too scared when I watched the movie in the darkness in the cinema with surround sound, but later on that day when the moon pushed the sun away and the world sank into darkness, everything changed. I lay on my bed and I couldn’t close my eyes because every time I tried to sleep, the fresh blood was all over my face and forced me to open my eyes. Accordingly, the next day I went to school with a black rim decorating my eyes. And, of course, the first thing Zoe said was, “you look so tired today.” I was somehow prepared for this question, but it still surprised me a bit. I calmed down and reorganized my lines. “Yeah, I… I had hockey practice yesterday night.” I was pleased with my excellent pretext and consummate acting, but a familiar voice struck me at once.
“I thought you were scared by the film,” Zoe teased me. Time went so fast (at least in memory,) until six years of elementary school life came to an end. The graduation ceremony was happy with lighthearted music and laughing faces one after another. Teachers congratulated us one by one, and boys talked about Minecraft. I walked out of the campus with my mom and left the most precious six years behind. I didn’t talk with Zoe that day because maybe my mind was full of Minecraft, or perhaps I subconsciously tried to avoid the conversation. I sat on the seat, pulled the seat belt, and shut the door gently. The scene started moving outside. The aspens passed me one by one. My classmates were in my sight, and all of a sudden, they were gone. The standing basketball hoop greeted me and sent me away. Half of my mind asked me to send a chat to Zoe, but I had no idea what to say. Our last date was at the same amusement park where we began. It was the same happy day. We rode the roller coaster, ate burgers and ice
cream, chased each other, chatting and laughing. I would never believe that was to be our last date, but I had a sense when we walked out of the park at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. The sun dropped down half way between sky and horizon, and the world was covered by brightly yellow. I walked behind her across the street, heading toward the Pizza Hut on the other side. All the cars stopped to escort us across the street. There were lots of noises on the street, people yelling, cars beeping. Between us, however, only silence remained. Our chat dwindled from one hundred messages to ten messages a day. Two weeks later, I sent her a message, which proved to be the last
message for the upcoming four years. “I think we don’t have many topics to talk to.” “We’re not in the same class anymore,” she replied. Later that day, I deleted her from my chat. I didn’t talk to anyone that day, even to my parents. I lay on my bed and held my phone in my hands, pretending to play video games, but actually, I was just looking at the screen dully. Unfortunately, the fierce wind outside kept me awake the whole night. There was no cloud that night, and the sapphire moonlight shined upon the floor and distracted me. I drew the curtains and stared into the ceiling.
A Drum Hanging on the Wall Allen Wang ‘22
When the World Goes Dark Eliana Mlawski ‘22 The air is freezing. I know that my legs are shaking almost as much as the needles of the evergreens in the storm, but my body is full of warmth. Feel the warmth of this happiness because I am in love with everything tonight— your laugh, and the clouds, and the changing seasons. I can see that you understand as well because the emotion in my heart reflects in your eyes. My favorite love is your Cadillac, although it has more years than me, for the clocks stop while we are driving. We must stay here for an eternity. I always say that you need a new car, one that does not smell like the kitchens of Wendy’s, but I actually hope you are never choose another because I secretly crave the fries from Wendy’s. Your car is like my second home, and there is nothing better than this. This feeling is a gift. A hug, when the cold air greets us like a familiar friend. I am awake and comfortable in its arms. We must give thanks to this love for giving us this moment of bliss. While others are fast asleep, we shall celebrate. We will dance and embrace all under the darkness of the moon.
Though it starts to rain, I open my window more because this love is liberty. It is fresh, like the droplets crying out from clouds, and I am in love. Falling together. We fight the silence with our calls to the sky. Awake, and the night is ready. One in the morning is the time to be alive. This moment is short, but the the journey only ends when the car can continue no longer. The wind of autumn moves my hair as if it knows the plan, pushing us towards destiny. Where will this journey take us? I do not know, but your Cadillac will get us there. I love the adventure of these nights. We can go to the beach, or movie theater, or the ends of this Earth. Our only obstacle is not in the road but in the sky because this feeling will disappear with the sun. The morning is approaching too quickly, and I am scared because we cannot stop it.
Hive Lamp Bimba Carpenter ‘21
The Thief of Tides Piper Moulton ‘23 With the sun quickly dipping behind the horizon of my backyard, we hid behind trees, just as the fleeting daylight did, listening in on our tipsy parents’ conversations. The campfire crackled and cast shadows, ones that laughed with those huddled around the flames, a sense of familiarity emerging from the cracks of the stone below their feet. Cicadas and bullfrogs called out to us from the woods, begging us to trudge through the wet leaves and crawl under fallen oaks. Fighting this urge, I turned to Cam. Although only seven, he was the brightest person I knew, reminding me of a young Apollo. An outgoing kid, he enjoyed school and band, and he found it easy to make friends. With a mischievous, impish grin that was always plastered about his face, he seemed to be made of pranks and witty comebacks. He had deep smile lines that were carved like rivers into his tanned skin. His curly brown hair stuck up in flamboyant ways, almost imploring those who looked at him to
take a brush to his hair. He was tall for his age, lanky, even, and I relied on him constantly to reach things off the top shelves of cupboards. His hands and fingers were calloused from whittling wood with his small silver pocket knife that he carried in the back left pocket of his jeans, yet they always felt so soft when they wiped tears away from my face. His eyes were kind and dark, always looking two steps ahead. His upturned nose, spotted with freckles, crinkled slightly when he frowned. This wasn’t often, and when it did happen, I was sure to notice it. He was always aware of the people around him, always so kind and in tune with other’s feelings. Cam was made of pure sun and light. I was Cam’s partner-in-crime, but we were so starkly different. Unlike him, I was always in my own world. I chewed the inside of my cheeks thinking of the magical adventures we would go on next. My adventurous mind, constantly dreaming of goblins and witches and princesses
and warlocks, wandered as I sat in the principal’s office too many times, facing the wall, writing lines on why I needed to pay attention in class. Always moving, always tapping something, and always missing what was right in front of me, always speaking out of turn…I was invariably restless. My daydreams were my hamartia. I had no trouble taking chalk to the pavement, sketching out the movies in my head; innocently hopping over imaginary lava to save a princess or to escape a dragon. Despite this, Cam had been my older brother by chance and my best friend by choice. Our families’ roots were interwoven and intertwined, so we couldn’t have hated each other if we had tried. Every weekend, we begged to sleep over each other’s houses. We planned beach trips, small journeys to the playground, and everything in between. Cam and I were joined at the hip, inseparable, one. If he was Apollo, I was Artemis, the best of friends and closest of siblings. So, when I looked over at him, I didn’t even have to finish my sentence for him to understand what I
was thinking. “Do you want to-” “Play tag?” “You’re going down.” Then we were off. I remember the night so vividly. Now dark, we stampeded barefoot through the wet grass, cursing sticks and sharp rocks that threatened to dampen our moods. The cold air stung my cheeks and left my lungs aching, but the thrill of sprinting through patches of kicked up dirt and mud made up for the soreness. Our silhouettes danced against the side of my house, our path momentarily illuminated by the pale streetlights before we dove back into the woods. The smell of early fall enveloped both of us as we crunched through leaves and quickly picked ticks off of our legs. “Tag!” I slapped him a little too hard on the shoulder, taking off running in the other direction, “You can’t catch me, Cammy!” My tiny legs carried me across the dewy lawn, my toes numb, my sides in stitches. Thoughts of glory and triumph circled through my head: Go!
Go! Go! You can win this! As I tumbled over fallen trees in my pink leggings, now stained with grass, he fell behind. I kept running, blood pounding in my ears and breath escaping me. Finally, Apollo had fallen off his chariot! Artemis was winning the race! The seesaw of tag went back and forth for another hour. Slower and slower the two of us ran, until Cam slowed down and collapsed in the grass. “I won,” he said. I could hear him smiling through ragged breaths. “No way José. I beat you fair and square.” Under the glistening stars, we lay there for what felt like an eternity. It was me and Cam against the world, just like it always was. Just like it was supposed to be. While pointing out the Big and Little Dippers, the bright stars only seemed a few inches beyond our reach. Despite the fact that it was only late August, the moss and rocks of our uncut playground began to glaze over with dew. The backs of our shirts were damp from the cold ground, our hair knotted and our shared laughter filling
the void between the house and the woods. Innocence and purity hovered above us like halos; no worries, no obligations, no rules in the world we had created together. Two friends, sharing a smile, grounded in a moment with clear heads and starry eyes. Suddenly, footsteps approached, causing Cam to sit straight up, leaving me laying in the dirt. I eventually rolled over to see my dad standing at the edge of the lawn, arms crossed, Teva sandals tapping against the pavement. “Piper, it’s time to put your shoes back on.” That was one of the last times I saw Cam. As our parents grew apart, so did our friendship. I went from seeing him every weekend, to once a month, to only if we ran into each other in the grocery store. Eventually, we both forgot about each other. I found out, a little while later, that his parents had sold their business and bought a boat, to live out their daydreams, to sail across the world. His new playground was the ocean. Now it was Apollo and
Poseidon, sandy beaches and ocean heated from the sun. He left without a goodbye, without a phone number to reach him, with no warm hug and no last tear wiped from my cheek. I look back at that game of tag often, yearning to be pulled back into those simpler times. I daydream now, but of something different. It’s no longer spirits and pixies and nymphs, but rather, open-air, travel, and adventure. It’s heaving a camp bag up through the winding trails of the Appalachians. It’s my fingers against the sturdy iron strings of a guitar, strumming for a concert around the campfire with friends who aren’t afraid to sing along. It’s the taste of authentic cuisines from different parts of the country, a foreign language and culture washing over me.
Thinking of Cam now, jealousy twists my heart. He lives untethered from the world, yet more grounded than I’ve ever been. To travel and see the world, to plan last-minute road trips, to hike and feel the wind against the face... Cam embodies these things. I embody nothing more than a burnt-out high school student whose insecurities overwhelm and overwork her. Cam will forever be Apollo, just as I want him to be. As I sit at my desk, typing away, I can see the place we laid, and I can see him in his Godly form, exactly as I want him to be. In my pensiveness, that’s what he deserves to be. Sometimes, though, I fear I will be nothing more than the idea of Artemis’ hunt; always striving for something so hard to get.
Feel Your Size Alex Gibbs ‘22 Ethereal bliss, Waterfalls streaming down. You are at ease with your existence. But a feeling lurks; in the depths of your mind. One of existential dread. Fearing the inevitable, But simultaneously accepting it. A stench of cognitive dissonance. You tell yourself that you’re ready, For what the next world has to offer, But that feeling creeps up every so often. And you know, that deep down You can’t handle the truth of life For that is the human condition. Life is conditional. Death is not. The next time you stare emptily out, at the world in front of your window, remember that your existence is a precious gift, not to be wasted. Feel your size.
Fruit Loops Emily Storer ‘22
A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words Katie Riley ‘22 BANG! The front door slams. I jump up, seeing my dad enter our apartment, ready to leap into his arms. But I stop when I see his scowl. “‘Tis time to move again,” he says in his heavy Irish brogue, sighing. “What? But we’ve only lived here for a few months!” I protest. “And besides, I met this kid at school—” “Sorry, Kathy. We can’t stay.” I watch him leave, feeling miserable. This is the fifth time we’ve moved in four years. A flash of grey at the window catches my eye. I walk over and see a dusty car stop at the door to our apartment. My eyes widen as three black people step out— a man, a woman, and a child, all wearing frayed coats and wheeling beat-up suitcases toward the doorstep. My mind darts to the last time we moved… and the time before that… and all the other times. “Kathy, did you hear? We’re moving again.” It’s my older sister, looking as sad as I felt.
“Look outside.” I pointed to the family, now walking up the steps. “Do you think it’s because…” “Oh, it probably is! Do you remember last time?” “And the time before that, and the time before that.” I furrowed my eyebrows. “But they’re just a family?” “A colored family.” My sister looks at me. “Mom and Dad have always been afraid of them.” “But why?” I asked. “I don’t know, but it must be a pretty good reason if we have to keep moving,” my sister grumbled. “Let’s go start packing.” I turn back toward the window. The family looks run-down and battered, but the kid is laughing, and the parents are smiling. Is it because they’re poor? But so are we… and they look so nice. My sister looks back at me frowning out the window, and smiles, tickling my neck. “Come on—last one there’s a
rotten egg!” I race after her, giggling, my unhappiness momentarily forgotten. *** A bell rings as I race to class, stumbling into my seat just as the nun shuts the door. “Please try to be more punctual, Ms. Mahoney.” Sister Mary’s eyes drill a hole into my forehead as I apologize fervently, breathing heavily. I was already on bad terms with the nuns because my parents hadn’t paid my tuition yet. Last year, I was about to take my final exams with my classmates, but I was pulled from class because they hadn’t paid yet. I talked the principal into at least letting me take them in his office instead of with the other students, so I wasn’t completely embarrassed. “Now that everyone is here, it’s time to start prayer.” As she starts to speak, I try to flatten my windswept hair, which was sticking up all over the place from my run. I can’t help but feel a bit of resentment towards my parents. If we hadn’t moved, I wouldn’t have gotten lost on the way to school, and I
wouldn’t have almost been late. I can feel my classmates staring at me from behind my back, looking at my hair, my clothes, and my bag. While we all look a lot alike, as we’re all white and wear identical uniforms, the urgency I had felt earlier only makes me look more like a pauper than I already do. I fiddle with the frayed hem of my skirt, embarrassed. I admire their clean, ironed uniforms. I really need to get mine fixed. “Focus, Ms. Mahoney!” I put my head down. But all I can see now are my scuffed shoes and my tattered skirt. I look like the black people who moved next door to our old apartment. I peek at my classmates through the corners of my eyes. None of them are black… and they’re all well off. My mind shifted back to my parent’s fear of black people. My parents could barely afford sending six girls to a Catholic school. Why do they bother? What is the matter with the public school? “Ms. Mahoney!” I snap back to attention, trying my best to listen to Sister Mary, but her voice just seems to go in one ear and
out the other. *** I’ve always been good at writing, so I was ecstatic to learn that I was a natural at shorthand and typing when I was put into a typing class at school. Typing class was one of the hardest in the school; other girls in my classes dropped out and transferred to choir or another elective, but I stuck to writing. I practiced hard for two years, and I won a lot of awards. As soon as I graduate from high school, my parents pull me aside. “There’s a stockbroker’s office downtown that is looking for a secretary,” my father tells me. “We need ye to go interview there.” I already knew there was no way that I would be able to go to college, but my heart sinks anyway. “We can’t afford to send ye there, Kathy,” my parents had said. “College is for boys, anyways.” “Secretary jobs are tough to get. Make sure you're ready. Oh go on, we’re counting on ye! The whole family needs this money!” *** I take a deep breath as I walk
up to the large black door. Its height is imposing, as if it’s telling me to turn back. Closing my eyes, I go over all the shorthand and typing techniques I learned in school. I have the skills for this job. I have the experience. All I have to do now is to prove it. My parents are counting on me. I grip the cold metal doorknob, twisting it to reveal a quaint waiting room. The warmth of the room soaks into my clothes, but it doesn’t melt my nerves. “Hello, are you Kathleen Mahoney?” I turn to greet a well-dressed woman with chocolatey skin and long brown curls. My parent’s unspoken words ring like warnings in my head: Don’t trust them. They are dangerous. But the woman is smiling, and her eyes are warm. Their voices fade away. I smile back, and shake her hand, hoping mine isn’t sweaty. “That’s me. I’m here for an interview.” She leads me over to a small reception desk where she sits down and bends over a sizable stack of papers. “I’m Jill, the supervisor. Let me find your file.”
She’s the supervisor? I have to work under her? I search for something, anything to focus on. My eyes land on a small photograph of a dog on Jill’s desk. “Is that your dog?” I blurt out. She looks up, eyebrows creased confusedly. Oh no. Was that the wrong thing to say? I mentally smack myself. “I was just looking at the photograph,” I say quickly, ready to apologize for wasting her time. But Jill smiles again. “Yes! His name is Bear. He’s my best friend in the world.” I feel some of the tension in my shoulders relax. “How long have you had him?” “About three years now. When we first got him at the shelter, he was so shy.” She pulls a folder out of some drawers. “But he warmed right up! Do you have any pets?” “No, but I wish I did.” Jill’s kindness surprised me. Some of my nerves melt away, despite my still hearing my parent’s inner mantra. Jill and I chat for fifteen
minutes while she gets ready for the interview. By the time she lets me know the interviewer is ready, my nerves are gone, and so are my parent’s voices. “Follow me.” Jill leads me to a small room containing a small table with a typewriter in the middle. A man sits on one side, and nods for me to sit down. “I will show you letters in shorthand, and you must transcribe and type them on the typewriter. Ready?” I put my hands on the typewriter. Jill gives me a reassuring smile. “I’m ready.” *** Fifteen minutes later, we’ve finished. My hands are warm and achy from the movement. The man tells me to take my paper and give it to Jill. I pass it to her and wait with baited breath. She looks at it. I wish I could see what she was thinking. Then she looks back at me and smiles. “You’re hired! Would you like a job working with us?” “Yes! Thank you! Thank you
so much!” I exclaim, shaking Jill and the man’s hands. “Thank you!” *** I walk home with a spring in my step. But when I get to my door, my hand hesitates on the knob. My parents will ask me about the interview. “I’m home!” “Kathy! Well, well, how did it go?” My parents were waiting for me. “I got the job!” I say with a triumphant smile. “I start work on Monday!” “I knew you could do it!” My father claps me on the shoulder. “Ye didn’t get all those awards for nothing.” “We’re so proud.” My mother says. “What was the interview like?
Were ye nervous? Oh go on, tell us everything!” I do just that, but I don’t mention Jill’s race. They don’t need to know that. They just need to know that I can help them make a living. After one final congratulations from my parents, I head to my room. I think about Jill and her kindness. I knew my parents were wrong about black people. Jill proved that. My eyes flick toward the open door, through which my parents’ voices echo. You know what? I think I have a lot to learn from Jill. Shutting the door, a smile forms on my face as I grab my briefcase, fingers finding papers and pens in eager preparation of my first day.
Gone from the Corner Hollen Knoell ‘21
Forgotten Maura Fiorenza ‘22
Grandpa and Grandson Jacob Liu ‘22
The Place Where I Call Home Rosie Mejia ‘21 It is always two in the early morning when my eyes begin to wander around my room that my chest aches to feel yours. It is always when I lay my head on my pillow and not on the crook of your neck, that I find myself not being able to sleep. It is always when our breathing becomes one that I am the most connected with myself. It is when you run your fingers through my hair, whisper a short prayer in my left ear, that I feel the most loved. Oh, how I wish to be there again. Waking up to busy birds who make a stop by our window as we watch the orange tan of the newborn sky. The tall city outside waits for us to rise out of bed my legs walk a familiar path It is always when I hear the
steaming coffee rising before coming to your room that I know our day has begun. It is always when I walk up the stairs with your cup of coffee, that I feel the most appreciated. It is always when you press your pink lips against the rim of the pearl white mug with your careful hands, your chin slightly hanging pointing towards your chest, see your eyes close as your nose opens its senses… That I find myself able to feel alive. Oh, how I wish to be there again. It is always when we waltz our way to your balcony to see the infant sky, Is when I can dance even though there is no music. It is when we lay in the grey reclining chairs, and finally, let our eyes wander, Is when I am able to let go. It is when I can breathe without having to remind my body to do so It is when I finally feel ALIVE It is when I know where I always want to be and never want to leave… Oh, how I wish to be there again.
The Flying Castle Allen Wang ‘22
Growing Love for El Salvador Xan Argueta ‘23 Mami is sending me to her homeland. I go a month before I turn seven. Still petite as a seed, but in my dreams my arms are branches reaching for the sky. In reality, no matter how much milk I drink I don’t think I’ll ever grow. With her arms stretched out, Mami whispers, “I love you this much. I love you more than the universe. You are my sun, the biggest star” — So bright and unimaginably big that I’ll burn her eyes, and nothing else matters to her because I’ve melted it all. She loves me so much, she is sending me away. She wants me to know the beauty of El Salvador. Mami is sending me to her homeland. I stay with relatives in the house built by my great-grandfather in the 1940s. On the roof, the spaced out rows of long spotted cedar beams are visibly dusty. The wood has never been replaced; it withstood time in spite of earthquakes. The tall long rectangular inner parlor has two double doors without handles that lead to the kitchen. There the roof’s wood is lined
with dried bamboo, and there’s no second wall. Instead we have a landscape view of the first patio. Walls and door handles are needless because everything is open all the time, even the entrance door: welcoming wandering wind. Everything feels big to me. Like the mosquitoes that bite me when there is stagnant air — I flutter throughout my land. Reclaiming the blood and nature of my ancestors. Mami is sending me to her homeland. Where the sun’s rays seem palpable, and it feels like they bore through my bones. I look for shade under the tropical foliage, but my heart melts anyway. In the second patio, my skinny arms and legs are striped by the shade of the palm leaves. Cousin Luis climbs the palm tree to bring down the coconuts. I try to find him in between the trees, but I only see his hairy brown legs. I listen for the klonk of the fruit falling. Cha, cha, cha! On a stump, a machete is opening the hairy brown, sloshing coconuts. My feet walk to the right corner of the patio. I stand in
front of a grateful lime tree. We drown the tree of lime with water, and in return there is a never ending supply year round for everyone on the block. My tiny hands shake the twigs abundant with green limes. Until the limes and I are both dancing. Tia Elsa palms her forehead if I pick the lowest limes because they’re the last to mature. Mami is sending me to her homeland. Over there my three older cousins wake up with the roosters and masses of shrieking bird songs. Their first chore: sweep the leaves fallen from the mango tree in the main patio. With a witch’s broomstick, five times my height, Luis wacks a family of tear shaped, green mangoes. I keep the tree trunk company, criss cross applesauce in a woven reed chair that will leave marks on my skin later. Cindy and Roxana stumble around, chins up, catching the tears of the towering tree. Their large tubs are green; they coddle baby mangoes. The stems cry with sticky milk that cuts your mouth. Unripe mangoes are washed, carefully peeled with a knife, slit in half in the
center of the hand’s palm, and its petite seed is carved out. Under the 50 year old mango tree I munch on the salted, limed mangoes with alguashte, grounded pumpkin seed seasoning. My mouth is drooling. Mami is sending for me. I don't want to leave the land of lazy leaves. I am in love with the innocence of El Salvador’s nature. I beg her to let me stay and grow old with the mango tree. I dream about waking up to constant bear hugs from the rosy-cheeked sun, so I can stretch my arms around the trunk of the tree and transfer all my growing pains into energy. I am a tree hugger because I’m too young to know the science of photosynthesis, so I believe in magical vibes from the glittering sun. It’s the night before I leave, and the moon glimmers on watering eyes. Mami says she wants me to bring her green mangoes. So I use the salt from my tears to put in the water of the containers. I call her, and tell her to come get them herself. She says I have to come home, but I tell her El Salvador is our homeland.
Otherworldly Victoria Liu ‘23
I Don’t Dare Feel Erin Ohlenbusch ‘23 I don’t dare feel Because if I did, if I do, then that means I would have to admit and then accept, Accept that, I relate more to the cracked and battered styrofoam cup rolling on the side of the road, than to the beautiful colorful flower flourishing by its side. Because sometimes it’s easier to let the wind drag you deep into the chaos of the highway than attempt to grow roots through the cold and unforgiving concrete. Because even though the flower is colorful and lively, sometimes the battle isn’t worth the outcome. Sometimes the cracked and battered styrofoam cup rolling on the side of the road, has more freedom. Sometimes the broken and delicate cup has more of an opportunity to land on the other side of the chaos. Sometimes accepting that I am broken and cracked, is healthier than pretending to be the colorful and lively flower
growing through the pavement. Then again I don’t dare feel
SkinDeep Emma Thomas ‘23