rhapsody
vol. XLV 2021
Cover & Graphic Assets by Liz Zheng Layout & Design by Anna Zhou
Upper Dublin High School (& District) Fort Washington, Pennsylvania 2019-21
Volume XLV | Est. 1975
Editor’s Note: Over the past year, our world has come to a long-delayed reckoning with itself: with fear, with injustice, with truth. At Rhapsody, we have seized this extraordinarily rare gift of time to search for our own individual truths through writing, drawing, and creating. To capture the fundamental truths of a universe in ceaseless motion is the incredibly daunting, incredibly necessary task of those who make art. Our thoughts and physical beings occupy a world where change exists as the only sure constant. As you peruse the 45th volume of Rhapsody, we encourage you to notice this state of entropy—an inevitable, unpredictable progression towards disorder—in each work, and to bask in it. We urge you to embrace art as a platform for activism, as a catalyst for change; and to explore the transformative power of seemingly small, daily acts of resistance. Perhaps while reading you will be inspired and empowered to disturb the universe in your own singular, invaluable way. And yet, there are always quietly glorious moments of calm to be discovered and cherished—times of true joy, contentment, and love. These places of rest are also interwoven throughout this year’s issue, so that you may gain strength and healing from them as one turns their face towards the sun. It can be easy to forget the warmth of companionship and comfort when you alone begin to feel the weight of Earth’s daily revolutions. With that said, it is our deepest hope that you will one day be able to create your own definition of peace amidst the surrounding chaos.
In solidarity,
Anna Zhou
2021 Senior Editor 2
Senior Editor: Anna Zhou Junior Editor: Liz Zheng Writing Editors: Bryn Malizia, Eileen Xiao
Art Editor: Cecily Johnson Social Media Coordinators: Hannah Gong, Megan Lim Faculty Advisor: Mrs. Stern
Finn Anderson, Rowan Blankemeyer, Allison Courtenay, Alyssa Dixon, Katie Farley, Ashley John, Celina Li, Prajvala Mysore, Evelyn Racz, Carissa Shellenberger, Alexandria Tarditi, Maisie Weiss, Emma Yang, Jane Zhou
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TABLE of CONTENTS POETRY Combustion 6 Hannah Gong Phantom of Lust and Roses Finn Anderson 8 13 Here Lies the Slut Bryn Malizia Night 14 Grace Noh Car Window 15 Allison Courtenay Prunus Persica Nicole Huggins 22 To Be Free Sinead Scullion 26 Spring 30 Maisie Weiss Bodily 33 Finn Anderson Writing with Nature 34 Katie Farley Ethereal 39 Anonymous to explode 40 Hannah Gong On Poetry 46 Grace Noh Chinatown 48 Anna Zhou My Retrograde Finn Anderson Pomegranate 50 56 Haley Hong Her Hands 59 Past Lives Nicole Huggins
PHOTOGRAPHY Digital Photography 11 Kayra Shah Digital Photography 12 Evelyn Racz Digital Photography 14 Prajvala Mysore Film Photography 16 Anna Zhou Megan Lim Digital Photography 22 Anna Zhou Film Photography 24 Emma Yoon Digital Photography 34 Emma Yang 35 Digital Photography
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volume XLV PROSE Morning Dew 10 Lilian Loi Daily Rituals 18 Anna Zhou Rowan Blankemeyer 28 Universality Narrative 36 Cecily Johnson To Be Loved 42 Daydreams of a Broken Girl Bryn Malizia Haze 45 Eileen Xiao Roommate Allison Courtenay 52
ART 7 Digital Art Digital Art 9 10 Wood Burning 19 Mixed Media 21 Digital Art Liz Zheng 27 Acrylic Rowan Blankemeyer 29 Mixed Media Annabel Coplan 31 Acrylic 32 Lauren Li Graphite Pencil 36 Watercolor Liz Zheng 38 Digital Art Jake Robinson 39 Digital Art 41 Digital Art Rowan Blankemeyer 43 Collage Clara Kim 44 Colored Pencil Peyton Kullmann 47 Acrylic Jane Zhou 49 Graphite Pencil Liz Zheng 51 Digital Art Celina Li 55 Digital Art Rowan Blankemeyer 58 Acrylic Liz Zheng 61 Graphite Pencil
Liz Zheng Celina Li Jane Zhou
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Combustion Hannah Gong Your lips touched mine And we became an inferno; A jarring reaction, a flame in the making, How easily we were formed; How easily we ended. The universe, striking a fateful match, Formed the products of our equation, Fed us oxygen, grew our light, Waited for us to burn through the atmosphere, Watched as we extinguished ourselves. We were flickering white flames, Relishing in the deceiving halo That smoldered on our heads, And we were naive when we Ignored the flames turning Dangerously hot, dangerously bright, Becoming unpredictable, uncontrollable, Waiting for something to stop us, And laughing when it never came.
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The inferno scorched our souls, Scarred our very beings, Formed ash and embers from our innocence, Melted us in its blue, hellish center, And we danced, oblivious, As the fire became an imposter of passion, The flames hiding a natural disaster, Until we finally realized That our combustion Was better unfinished.
Digital Art Liz Zheng 7
Phantom of Lust and Roses Finn Anderson
He lies in the rafters A man of darkness that trails mystery in his wake He floats above, at once warm comfort and chilled distress We dance together in the sky like a Van Gogh painting, we the strokes Him the night and I the star but still My light cannot brighten his darkened soul for which I am indebted His cloak ripples in the bitter air like a train of chiffon off a maiden's gown The very cloak that is tailored to fit his purity now only fits his guilt A ceaseless reminder of the scar that lays hidden beneath For how can a fragile vase entangle with a prickly rose One cannot hold onto a rose for that beauty is sentiment enough The thorn shall always follow And that thorn shall prick the blood of the forgotten and the disgraced Let my love be this rose And let it drown in the lake of the stars Where we once danced
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Digital Art Celina Li
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Morning Dew Lilian Loi The crunching of wood chips under his leather boots came to a halt. He stopped to take a swig out of the jug his wife set out for him that morning. As he gulped the crisp water, the familiar metallic taste washed around his mouth, and he took a deep breath to admire the surrounding flora. The winds whistled between the looming redwoods and sent chills down his spine, enveloping him in the warm musky scent of earth. Rolling his neck to loosen the strain from the previous night’s sleep, he glanced at the tangled webs of huge branches above him, barely allowing the dawn light through. Inhale. Exhale. The moist morning air was so refreshingly chilly with undertones of last night’s rain. At that moment, every bird seemed to chirp a melody in unison, a choir under the sole roof of nature, their song infusing rich life into the forest. He re-started his trek down the trail, swinging his woven basket with each step, making sure to pay special attention to the roots. The little saplings reminded him that he had yet to reach the depths of the woods. Here, he was perfectly, quietly content.
Wood Burning
Jane Zhou 10
Digital Photography
Kayra Shah 11
Digital Photography
Evelyn Racz 12
Here Lies the Slut Bryn Malizia The sepulchre is downed in floral bouquets but soon enough, the flowers abate. The stench of her infamy whittled them down to their blackened stems; with festering petals, the grave lays bare, left deserted and in ignominy. The scene captured her demeanor betoken of her future with sins that darkened her soul. Just as the ebony decay of her flowers, she was once pure. With ivory innocence, caught in a utopia that she mistook for the world, which she later found was cruel. No matter her pleas, words spread far beyond her reach, a scarlet letter falsely inscribed into her chest, rotting away at her virtue until that single letter defined her whole being. No one asked if it had been misplaced, whether this symbol that had wrought such guilt, was simply derived from a false word. The ill light shown upon the so-called slut, only depicting who she seemed to be. Broken like the mirror into which she gazed, the girl pondered if this was truly who she was on the inside, that her uncorrupted nature had been a mask for her impure desires. 13
Night Grace Noh The sky wanes as it ripens, stripped gently of color. Time pales her skin, as last words are said, or Breathed, and night drenches the earth. A charcoal drawing, its pockets of depths—mere imitations, Or limitations, of night’s rich wells. Darkness seeps, settles, and like snow, clings, Subduing all appearances. In unadulterated clarity I soak as time passes over me, Changes me—an outline in the folds of a sea, as sleep Kindly submerges me.
Digital Photography
Prajvala Mysore 14
Car Window Allison Courtenay Water droplets dribble down Sprinkling the window pane Like push pins in a travel map. My fingertips dance along the window’s dewy puddles, Tracing the dots to fabricate shapes; A ship skipping waves like a buoyant stone. Or a chopper pushing against the air, The blades a roaring mountain lion Howling at the peak’s summer glow. The light fractured by the droplets Twinkles like the pinpricks of white paint strewn about an evening sky. But just as my imagination begins to heighten, The rain becomes weary and falters. Radiant rays soak up the sky’s final tears As I welcome the warmth of the sun at last.
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Film Photography
Anna Zhou 17
Daily Rituals Anna Zhou “Nai-nai, I don’t want to do this anymore,” I complained to my grandmother. Two silver trays rested on the kitchen table: my own looked up expectantly at me, half-full with pale, shapeless blobs that I’d purposefully mutilated, while hers bloomed with neat, manicured rows of meticulously-crafted dumplings. I watched begrudgingly as Nai-nai continued her ritual unfazed with mastery over every minute detail: she dipped two calloused fingers into water before delicately maneuvering a marbled orb of meat and chives onto the translucent dough in her palm, sealing its edges with an impossibly elaborate crimped pattern. It all seemed like a terribly complex process for a couple dozen blobs of dough that were to be steamed, dipped into soup, and consumed in mere minutes. We humans have developed a knack for ruining anything remotely sacred that we can get our power-hungry hands on. Whether it be land, labor, or simply other human lives, Homo sapiens have become creators and catalysts of destruction, often choosing ‘progress’ at the cost of desolation. This shift in humanity is perhaps most present in our everyday lives, in an act that many of us do without much thought: eating. When I look into the history of eating as a sacred act, I turn back to see Demeter and Persephone, Greek goddesses of the harvest, bestowing their divine services to lowly mortals in the form of crops, and the mortals attempting to pay their dues in sacrifices and offerings and celebrations in what probably seems like nothing more than an imbalanced power dynamic to modern people. Yet I also notice the Catholic Sacrament of Holy Communion, the suhoor and iftar meals of Ramadan, the hollow begging bowl of a Buddhist monk. I see the undying partnership between man and nature, the fruits of man’s toil under an unforgiving sun. 18
These practices themselves have not lost their sanctity or significance; rather, the belief and intention of the people who perform them has dimmed. Who can blame them, when anyone can pick up a Big Mac Meal for six bucks at a drive-thru? In an age of ever-growing consumerism, GMOs, and food supply chains, it’s easy to lose sight of eating as a mindful act rather than something purely driven by convenience and capitalism. Burger in one hand and phone in the other, we forget the farmer’s toil, the Earth’s gifts, the hours of care and nurturement. We forget the power of eating as a universal act, as a form of communication and bridge between cultures, as an act of love, healing, and labor. We view our favorite “comfort foods” as guilty sins worth repenting through exercise and diets, rather than bringers of joy, nostalgia, and nourishment. We fail to realize that there is a certain kind of reverence that comes with routine, that there is something quietly divine about the daily rituals of even the least religious like myself.
Watercolor & Colored Pencil
Jane Zhou 19
As a young Chinese-American girl born 7,000 miles away from her parents’ hometowns, my relationship with eating has never been simple. I used to pride myself on my unnatural enjoyment of “American-style” Chinese food, stubbornly preferring to eat syrupy orange chicken and flaccid lo-mein out of squeaky styrofoam boxes with plastic forks rather than carefully picking my way around the spine of a whole steamed ginger -soy fish on a porcelain plate with bamboo chopsticks. I stuffed my cheeks full with too-sweet or too-sour gummy candy each October, rejecting the array of intricate, flowering designs stamped onto my mom’s homemade Mid-Autumn Festival mooncakes. To a Chinese school dropout, the meticulous petals of my nai-nai’s dumplings and delicate lotus patterns of my mom’s mooncakes resembled all too much the smooth, flowing written characters of a frustratingly beautiful first language that I had chosen to stop studying. But eating turns out to be more powerful than language sometimes. You can forget the pronunciations and meanings of words—you can even attempt to forget where you and those words come from—but you rarely forget the taste of a food once you’ve tried it and unknowingly savored it, especially when it’s gone. When Nai-nai grew too old and moved back to China, I found myself longing for the indescribable comfort of small, delicate wontons bathed in fragrant hot soup. One day around Lunar New Year, I call Nai-nai in my broken Mandarin through an international phone call spanning 7,000 miles, begging for tips on how to get all the crimps and creases just right on the thin dumpling skin without tearing it. Almost as if she were expecting the call, she walks me through each step patiently, from folding the skin to chopping the scallions and adding the final splash of sesame oil to broth that greets me like an old friend with a burst of steam. Before reaching for a porcelain soup spoon to meet the bowl, I take a long, purposeful pause. And then, I slurp. 20
Digital Art
Liz Zheng
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Prunus Persica Nicole Huggins I remember the langor of warm summer nights, watching heaven move across the sky with our backs on the sun-warmed pavement. I wished that we began and ended here: the last summer of our childhood, twinkling on the horizon like a distant star. Sometimes too far away to comprehend, sometimes close enough to touch. Things would never be this simple again. We would disappear into the orchard behind the decrepit farmhouse at the end of the street, the summer sun beating on my back, and we would pick peaches. The trees bore such a bounty that the branches sagged with the weight of heavy fruit. We waited patiently for weeks, fingers itching with the thought of plucking a single plump peach from the tree, the satisfying snap of the stem; libidinous desire filling our mouths with saliva.
Digital Photography
Megan Lim 22
We would go exploring in the small stretch of sprawling green forest just past the fence, waiting; I picked yellow buttercups in the meadow until the pads of my fingertips stained, and pulled the petals off, one by one. When the skin of the fruit finally flushed orange, the color of a soft sunset, we would wait no longer. The supple skin bruised under our naive thumbs, pliant. I was Eve and the serpent, the fruit clutched tightly in my grasp, fangs aching for a taste. My teeth pierced the skin of my prey. The fruit was sweet and ripe, I let the juice gather in my palm and run down my forearm. We would gorge until our stomachs bloated with our prize—the soft, hot fullness of peaches fermenting in the afternoon sun. As summer drew to a close and the nights stretched longer, we stopped returning, having eaten our fill in days gone by. The last of the August air turned brittle, and the peaches thumped unceremoniously to the ground, overripe, rotting fleshed wasted and bruised, mottled brown and purpling. They decomposed, returning to the earth from which it came, forgotten. That was a thousand summers ago now, and we are withered from the many seasons that have passed. But the memory remains ripe in my mind, golden and tender like fruit in the blazing sun.
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Film Photography
Anna Zhou 25
To Be Free Sinead Scullion So the days continue to pass onward Farther and father out of my close reach Even after my day had been conquered Society clings to me like a leech Everyone expects the very best from me Perfect grades, a perfect body, a perfect, smiling girl I do not want to be this, for that I cannot guarantee I am not that type of person, a perfect shimmering pearl I am who I am, abnormal from all others I fight for my place, the place which I desire I am not perfect, just like my sisters and brothers My freedom I want is myself, to be myself and fly higher I want societal freedom, to not have to fit in a perfect mold I want to be imperfectly me, despite what I have been told
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Acrylic
Liz Zheng
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Universality Narrative Rowan Blankemeyer I swim into Sea Green bathrooms with pink tiles, oriental patterns tugging at their skirts. My extroverted self crawling from her deepened cage; there were opportunities for friends with waved hair and enlightened spirits, who became my own close-knit relationships as time ticked closer. With no time to say goodbye to my new acquaintances, for breaths to be taken, the school of heavy-clustered fish begins to swarm below. I lock hands with fingerprints I recognize, pulling me closer to them, the main lure just minutes away. We wade through the mass of fluorescent-scaled people, the light above caressing them and weird men caressing some of them too. Weird men, women alike, stare and push in my direction, and I don’t like it. People with hands and arms I know keep these people away from me. The lights dull into absence, and my nervous system begins to do the same. Fuschias and yellows seem to blend and pixelate in front of me, my head sways, body sways; and then my eyes gloss over. Sound, light, and color grow silent for me as I lay on a stranger’s feet and hard concrete; Yet the world spins on. I awake, with the world sleeping with me, in tufted blankets with hot tea in hand. Sea Greens and pinks wave hello. The world seems comfortable too.
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The world will listen to beautiful music and create beautiful art. The world will hug their neighbors, in knowing they can hug again. The world will go on, as it already has. It will awake as I did. And I will probably run to the Sea Green bathroom with pink tiles to feel a moment of silence, before slipping out again into the same hazy masses, where my thoughts overstay their welcomes, where my body is too hot or too cold, where I’m uncomfortable. I pray for discomfort today, and yesterday too.
Mixed Media
Rowan Blankemeyer 29
Spring Maisie Weiss Hark! What be this, at our humble abode's sweet entrance? A mother bird, her head nuzzled beneath her home of earth. A hearth of twigs at her door, a home that is all her own. Who are we to disrupt that sweet slumber? Weeks pass, and our mother bird has children. She cascades down from the air to her hatchlings, feeding them and loving them: a mother's bond. Who are we to disturb that sweet slumber? However, not everyone is as kind as us. Fierce and evil, sweeping through the skies, sails a bluejay. A formidable foe. Mama will not fight him. Mother Nature has taught her to flee. We do our best. Shoo! Shoo! We call to the bluejay. We must now disturb their sweet slumber. 30
We cannot always be there. He arrives when our backs are turned, preying on the innocent birds. We come back one day and there are only three. The next day, two. The day next, one. Only one! A family decimated by a beauteous creature, our beloved finches are nearly gone. She can only escape. Mama is not there to chirp for her. So she chirps herself. Fly, child, fly! She listens. For she is smarter than her beloved siblings. She flaps her wings and departs from her home of earth, falling to the soft ground. And again. Again. Fly, child, fly!
Acrylic Annabel Coplan
The bluejay cannot catch her now.
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Graphite Pencil
Lauren Li
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Bodily Finn Anderson Does my feminine tone offend you? Do my nails burn your weary eyes? Does whom my soul connects to Attack and force a clear blue cry? Do my long silk gloves pain you? Or my train of black and white? Do the click click clack of confident heels Incite an uncalled fright? Do I force your mouth to shudder? Your vocal tendrils to shake? Do I make you solemn, unsplendid? Does my gayness make you quake? Does your fragility crumble through my gaze? Does my pride make you quiver? Do I make your mind run through a maze? Your sense turned to a sliver Do I pierce your stone cold ego? With my diamonds sharp as wit Do I ripple your reality? Expose your inner hypocrite? Your homophobia is on display The museum door is open America inhaling putrid hate You’re the one who’s smoking 33
Writing with Nature Katie Farley Graceful, golden foam Frolicking on the water’s surface A blank piece of paper Floating with endless possibilities Multicolored, magnificent rays Emerging in the sunrise Characters, plot, tone Glinting off of each stroke
Glassy, glorious ripples Growing into waves Written words Flowing through self expression
Digital Photography
Emma Yoon
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Digital Photography
Emma Yang
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To Be Loved Cecily Johnson It was a warm yet brisk day in suburban Pennsylvania, one that carefully toed the border between summer and autumn. The sun, confused in all its glory, shone gingerly upon my cheek, and the wind danced around my right hand, firmly clasped in that of my love. Our shoulders brushed as we strolled and our voices whispered with a love that only comes with familiarity. As she raised my hand to her mouth, her eyelashes tickled my knuckles as she pressed a kiss to my warmed skin. My heart pounded as she glanced up at me, the beginnings of a giggle bubbling underneath her eyes. I felt my lips curl up into a smile and found my hands grasping for her waist, only wanting her closer. We embraced for a long while, then parted, for it was the type of love that she could only imagine. She would always act with such tenderness when we were alone. She would speak often of not knowing herself. Her fears were clearly painted on her face as she thought of her peers, those she spoke with each and every day, discovering her facade. She would dwell on this alone, with her chin in her palm and her mind in the sky and I would beckon for her to come but she couldn’t because she didn’t know herself and, “How could you love me if I don’t even know who I am?”
Watercolor
Lauren Li 36
But she said that she loved me. With me she was truly radiant, but there was always an underlying anxiety of being second place, and when this fear was voiced to her it was dismissed as irrational. So I waited, but not for long because the love in my chest was constricting and whenever I saw her I felt my heart grow and leap and dance and my cheeks would heat with fondness at her warm smile and how could anyone resist loving her? So, no, I didn’t wait long and it was on a completely ordinary, mundane, boring day that I snapped and dramatically professed my love for her. She stood, then sat, then stood again, and she flailed on like this for a while before finally looking upon me with tears in her eyes, searching for the truth in mine. And I showed it to her. She sniffled grossly and her tears fell on her lips and then on mine as she kissed me on the mouth. It was strange, as the love we shared before this kiss seemed more ferocious than this small act. There was someone else, however. Another who was blessed with the means to whisk her away from her problems. He was flawed, yes, as was I, but his flaws seemed more perfect than that gorgeous ghost of a smile she’d get while watching a nostalgic film. And he was beautiful, but his face didn’t subconsciously turn towards hers when she was near, and his eyes didn’t graze each corner of her face for unhappiness, and his hands didn’t itch to feel hers and he didn’t want her. But he was, unfortunately, inevitably, devastatingly beautiful. And my love convinced herself that he was hers, and he used this in his favor. Yes, he was the loveliest thing I’d seen, nearly as lovely as her. But he didn’t want her. Now, I walk down our normal path, and look upon the flowers we’d see, but now I pass her. She walks hand in hand, shoulders brushing, with him. And they’re in love because he’s beautiful, and so is she.
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Digtal Art
Liz Zheng 38
Ethereal Anonymous Defined as: Extremely delicate Bright Almost too perfect for this world. Ethereal I never knew another word Could share her name
Digital Art
Jake Robinson 39
to explode Hannah Gong the atmosphere has never felt so heavy on my shoulders. to explode would be a blessing: a blessing for my squeezing lungs; a blessing for my palpitating heart; a blessing for my skull that is currently holding a ticking bomb. it feels like pressure is all that greets me; internally and externally, forces act upon me, opposite and equally crushing my brain at the center, waiting to burst as it tries its best to beat what i've done to myself.
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my own thoughts imploding through my neurons; tightening every muscle fiber of my being, shutting my eyes, panicking panicking panicking waiting for the valve to release, the pressure only building, my own voice in a sea of whispers harsh and screaming. to explode would be a blessing.
Digital Art
Jake Robinson
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Daydreams of a Broken Girl Bryn Malizia I am a flightless bird, entangled in a tiresome vine of jealousy. I watch as those around me soar with great ease and beauty. I envy them. Those wondrous creations with simple frames and structures. They resemble kites in the wind, with their silly tails flailing behind them. I ponder what it looks like up there, where their wings scrape the turquoise sky, frothy clouds dancing about their bodies. I yearn to know. I truly do. Perhaps my longing has been aroused by the plain figure I have been given, bound to the earth and craning my neck for a glimpse of the all-powerful beauties. Oh, how nice it would be to see the great valley as though it was a paper map, with a trickling river and tiny landmarks. In my mind, the world is a glorious, unexplored utopia, and I am but a small being. I do not compare. I have no impact, no love, no sense of self. Melancholy resides in my heart, echoing throughout the hollow organ. Forget. Forget. Forget. But despite my pleas, I remain grounded.
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Collage
Rowan Blankemeyer 43
Colored Pencil
Clara Kim
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Haze Eileen Xiao Kira stares at the blank Google Doc in front of her. It stares back. The top of Google Chrome is lined with ten tabs, ostensibly for research. Resigned to starting her paper, she types, deletes, and repeats. Eventually she’s able to force some words into a hopefully passable thesis statement, and pauses the classical music that’s been long since tuned out. A quick glance at the clock tells Kira that she’s probably got some time before she actually needs to start this paper. With a well-practiced Alt-Tab, Youtube pops up on her screen, and she clicks on the first video she sees. Within minutes, Kira isn’t sure what she’s watching anymore. At some point, she had picked up her drawing tablet and pen, her hand subconsciously following familiar, practiced motions—too familiar for her not to realize what she’s drawing subconsciously. As expected, when she refocuses, a familiar face stares back at her. Messy bangs strewn across the forehead, a pretty pair of eyes framed by rectangular glasses, lips curved into a gentle smile. Given her distracted state, it was a decent attempt. At least her staring had somewhat paid off in the end. The brief sketch did nothing for her mind; if anything, the fog is thicker than ever. Another glance at the time sparks some panic in Kira’s mind, and she Alt-Tabs back into Google Docs. Kira releases another sigh as she flips back and forth through tabs. This time, she’ll aim for a full paragraph.
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On Poetry Grace Noh A picture, anyone can marvel at: what color, what likeness! A song falls easily upon the ear, lovely as beautiful women are. But a poem displeases—dancing barefoot into blurred streets, it is given no glance, or badly beaten. It finds few friends among folks. If a poem is an ocean, they say only the right divers with exact tools can enter. Divers with keys on each finger for every locked door they will encounter; divers with mathematical minds, who will gut poems like fish, and correctly answer the sphinx. To the rest of us, poems are cliffs with sparse handholds, thousand-piece puzzles we leave unfinished, films in a foreign tongue. Poems are sacred bottles flaunted by wine enthusiasts who themselves do not enjoy their bitterness. They are the cold, inscrutable star, the elusive and exclusive God, the proud, dead museum. But sometimes I see a poem lonely in the corner of a room, aloof yet charming, and I listen to her, and her words are strung so wonderfully, so earnestly, that I sit happily by her, saying nothing. And she holds my hand as I enter her mind, leading me gently in her thoughts, her heart marrying mine— I forget to ask what she means.
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Acrylic
Peyton Kullmann 47
Chinatown (中国城) Anna Zhou Approximately one-half of me lingers back in Nanjing: in canal towns demarcated by leaning willows that flirt with the surface of waters carved from jade. It wanders breathlessly through bustling night markets lined with crimson lanterns burning a dull warmth into the starless smoke-filled sky until they are replaced by the sun. It weaves through a haze of eternal summer and language barriers reminders of childhood shame and missed Sunday classes the air so stifling and humid and 闷 some days are simply too hot to go outside a heart (心) trapped inside a door (门). It pores over smooth strokes of the darkest ink that dance across age-stained leaves of papyrus gold desperately tracing a history that etches itself into the upturned crescents of Nai-nai’s saddest smile the ginger roots that branch wistfully across Mama’s forehead telling a tale that seems to stretch on longer than the cicada’s endless homecoming song. 48
The other half of me resides some seven thousand miles west: in a cul-de-sac within another cul-de-sac where the gray gabled roofs are different just enough so as not to forget which home is hers. It stumbles on the same uneven squares of sidewalk that plagued bygone days on hot pink training wheels with perpetually band-aid-adorned knees. It knows the imminent arrival of spring only when the lone plum blossom foolishly signals to the other trees of promised warmth snowy petals momentarily graceful against the iron briskness of March before resting limply on freshly-coated asphalt.
It sits contentedly in the blank silence of midsummer fireflies waving away the doubts that she knows are beginning to drone ever louder from the outside in— the low hum of suspicions that she may not belong.
Graphite Pencil
Jane Zhou 49
My Retrograde Pomegranate Finn Anderson I live in a retro world full of old TVs and fruit filled with dreams One bite and I'm sucked into a whirlwind of technicolor and modernity The seeds little mirrors that stare into my haphazard soul A single taste and my eyes twirl into daisies Reflecting my hippie heart like the Alfeios Nevertheless my mouth feeds into unconventionality and rejects the mainstream My little punica granatum transporting me like a retrograde Sending me back in time with its tart taste and plentiful provisions Its juices reminiscent of a familiarly nostalgic freedom Yet I still live in the black and white Longing for my fruit to return once more
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Digital Art
Liz Zheng 51
Roommate Allison Courtenay I woke up the same as always, a tug-of-war with the supposed promise of the day against the languid comfort of my slumber. Rounds one and two of the game resulted in a draw, with sleep winning out in round three. The game lasted long enough that the world of my dream had flitted away, leaving only dissonant puzzle pieces: the ginger back of a boy’s head, my bloody hands with no wounds, the high-pitched yap of a small dog. I tried to gather the pieces with a sudden urgency but they slipped through my fingers like sand. I was left with a weight in my stomach the size of a bowling ball. My sheets were suddenly very uneven and scratchy. I had slept for long enough. The bed is perfectly centered in the room, with none of its four edges tangent to any of the eight walls. The walls, painted a gruesome sort of light red, angle inward on a curve meeting at a single point at the top. The art that once hung there had deeply distrurbed me; the paintings now rest in a neat pile stacked face-down underneath the foot of my bed. The vanity mirror is where I spend the majority of my hours because, when I peer in, I see someone I do not recognize staring back at me. It's an odd situation to not know your roommate. I am embarrassed to change into my fresh tunic in fear that she is watching. Every time I look at her, she's looking straight at me, which leads me to believe she's always watching. On the first day, I had climbed on the vanity in order to remove the bloody horse painting from the wall. When it came to removing the vanity, however, every time I would pull away from the wall, the girl in the mirror would pull towards the wall, resulting in a net movement of zero. When I pulled away, she greeted me with a look of crazed rage. I crawled under the vanity in fear and lay there with my muscles clenched unnaturally for three slumbers. 52
Every day since that fateful first meeting, I wake up, sit at the vanity, and get to know her. She seems nice enough, but I’m skeptical that her niceness is motivated by some closeted desire. Does she want my bed? Why should she when she has a perfectly identical one on the other side of the glass? Maybe it's just as cold on her side of the glass and she is hoping that I share some of my blankets. Little does she know that’s never going to happen. Every time I wake, I’m a little colder than the night before. I initially arrived at the conclusion that the girl in the mirror had been stealing my blankets. Before I accused her, though, I needed evidence. I approached the mirror cautiously, just as she did the same. I was shivering from the cold and she was shaking in fear, which stood out to me as peculiar. We stood square to each other, her body blocking her bed and my body blocking her view of mine. I took tiny steps to the side, hoping to coerce her into doing the same and once I had a clear view of her bed, I stood my ground and non-conspicuously counted her sheets and blankets. Five layers. I bid her good day and returned to my own bed. I started to count my own sheets, but stopped mid-count when I felt her eyes on me. I glanced back at the mirror and sure enough she was also crouched on her bed, counting her bedding, her eyes staring daggers into mine. Oh, is that how you want to play this game? I kept my eyes locked on hers as I finished counting. Five layers. I grimace. She grimaces back. I guess we’re even then. We bid each other good night and climb into bed.
53
I woke up the next dawn colder than ever. I feel a sharp pain in my middle section that I get quite often but have learned to ignore. As I greet my roommate, it's the first time I noticed how small she looks, how unwell. Her skin is pulled taut over her skeleton and her hip bones protrude through the tunic’s thin fabric. I wrap my hands around my thigh. With my middle fingers touching in the back, my thumbs can wrap around and touch in the front, but just barely. I look up to see the girl in the mirror performing the same measurement. A thought intrudes my consciousness, consuming me completely. I want to put the girl's thigh in my mouth, chomp down on it with teeth, rip the muscle from the bone, and swallow the meat down my throat. I somehow know this will subside the pain in my stomach. Soon, I can’t look at her without thinking about it. And I can tell in her eyes that she's thinking it too. That’s when I know: if I don’t do it, she will. It’s me or her. It’s her or me. And I am determined to survive.
54
Digital Art
Celina Li
55
Her Hands Haley Hong
The infant girl’s small, delicate hands know nothing. They reach out into the air, searching. If only she could hold onto time. In warm, safe arms, the mother breathes, “Welcome to the world.” The baby’s chubby hands wave around frantically. She pushes herself off the ground. Her mother cheers and gives a warm smile, the edges of her eyes wrinkling. The baby’s eyes search for help as she attempts to take her first steps. The toddler’s miniature hands, shaking, globs her name onto white paper with a color the girl now recognizes as blue. Her mother watches from afar, cooking in the kitchen.
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The teenage girl’s hand intertwines with an unknown boy. She holds up her finger to her lips. She hushes, shhhhh, into the boy's awaiting ear. The woman's hands carry a daughter of her own. Her hands are folded in prayer over her mother’s hospital bed. When her silent mother wakes, her hands cup the woman’s face. I’m okay. It’s okay. The daughter Who has bitten the hands who fed her Who has pushed away the hands which held her Who has kept secrets from the hands who taught her Who has hated the hands that have loved her whispers into her mother’s ear,
I love you.
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Acrylic
Rowan Blankemeyer 58
Past Lives Nicole Huggins My mind is a minefield of memories— I lost my younger self in the snow somewhere, lived a youth swathed in shadow. Deep in the silent woods, I decompose under a blanket of virgin snow, my rotting corpse eaten by worms, my bones stripped of flesh until I am nothing but the dirt from which I came. Years later, I am resurrected: I become a ghost that haunts the nearby towns, the legend that can never die, the body that was never found. I am folklore, the local boys hunt for my bones in the woods, but I am long gone. In my past life, I was a woman.
59
I tie cinderblocks to my feet And sink underneath the choppy waves. How does it feel to scream for help, plead for god from the bottom of a river? The icy water fills my lungs, my limbs dissolve into the current. I do not drown; instead I become the river. I watch from a different body as they lift my old one from the water. In this life, I am a woman. I climb inside the womb of the Earth, bury myself in a fallow field. From my hair grows golden wheat that ripples in the wind like the muscles on a galloping horse. This is my unbecoming. Surrounded by dirt and darkness and deafening silence, I fall asleep for one thousand years. One day, I will awaken and begin anew.
In the next life, I will be a woman.
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Graphite Pencil
Liz Zheng 61
2021