Prometheus Literary Magazine | University High School 2023

PROMETHEUS looking sideways

University High School Literary Magazine | Spring 2023

DEAR TITANS,

We are so excited to bring the first issue of University High School’s Literary Magazine, Prometheus. Prometheus in Greek Mythology is a Titan and a bringer of fire to the world. We wanted to further capitalize on our first edition by naming this issue, “Looking In Sideways.” It represents a new view of our student body by sharing your voice in a very different way. Our students are filled with talents that are not often recognized. We’re not just looking forward. We’re looking at all angles, even sideways. Thank you to all our students who have contributed their photography, artwork, and literature to our magazine. We could have not done it without you.

Sincerely,

2023 National English Honors Society

FAITH AXON

ALYSSA BICE

JULIANNA DAVILA

SAMANTHA DOERING

RACHEL EDMANDS

VALERIA FLORES

JULIANNA GARRIS

ALEXIS GONZALEZ

ALEXIA HERNANDEZ

MADELYN JABLONSKI

GABRIELLE LEBERT

DILEINI MARIANI

JENNY-ANN MARIANA

JOSIE O’QUINN

GRETA PEEPLES

VICTORIA SALIMBENE

ADIANEZ SANTANA

AUDREY SENEZ

ALLISON SPIROFF

TEAGAN SULLIVAN

MELANIE TIPPENS

ALLYSON WILSON

MORGAN WORLLEDGE

ELY’S GUZMAN RIVERA

Maggie at the Lake | Photo by Katie DeSousa Prometheus Literary Magazine is a production of the National English Honors Society of UHS

That Ugly Therapists Couch

By Melanie Tippens

Hello. Welcome. Sit on the couch or the chairs, if you prefer. I’m finishing up here. Get comfortable, stretch your legs, relax. Take a breath if you need to. Oh, you’ll need to.

Now, why are you here? Let’s start at the beginning if you will...

When you were a child, how was your relationship with the mass of meat lodged in your head?

Did you get along well with your amygdala induced hallucinations, machinations?

Did your syndrome symptoms elevate when you began the fundamentals of theory of the mind?

I see you are confused, let me rephrase...

Tell me about your urge to urgently originate betwixt Plato and Diogenes. Do you frequently compare yourself to the lengths of Socrates and Dionysius?

If you were to draw me up your current schedule, would I find your future plans to Alleviate yourself to elevations more befitting someone of a sounder mind?

I don’t mean to pry, but it has been a while since our last session...

Are you still finding it difficult to differentiate between Escher Mandelbrot illustrations and fractals?

These discoveries are important, you know.

My objective is to assess through your rather non-subjective concise conjecture.

If you are still able to attend our more propitious and rigorous settings

Oh, you have a different idea. A more muddled, murky, medicinal, magical approach?

I appreciate the enthusiasm, but you are hardly in any position to propose pre-dispositional projections

How about this?

Monday, clinical assessment of your apotemnophilia

Tuesday, titration of that unseemly mess of mucus and murder

Wednesday, a re-introduction of capgras and the fundamentals of lysergide daydreams

Thursday, a perhaps well needed surgery to remove that which is spreading at an alarming rate

Friday, a well-deserved break, if you think you still deserve it after the transorbital lobotomy

How does that sound?

Well, it looks like our time is up.

I would appreciate it if next session you contributed a bit more. Please, less screaming would certainly be an improvement and make sure you work on that as your homework.

I’ll see you next week.

page 13

Remember.

By Alyssa Bice

It is late December

My arm is out the window, my skin prickles in ice and my mind races as I remember

I know I am partly to blame, but it hurts to recall, When I feel so altered and you are remarkably the same cold blows through my hair and tears stream down my face. this feeling lingers, incapable of being fair

My hand burns against the frost, yet i keep it out there, thinking of how i gave all my heart, and all that i lost i wonder at your cause as i pass all the moving lights, one hand floating around, like me, breaking all the laws

but through the headlights, is the first fall of snow i remember all the firsts to still be had, and all the people that i haven’t gotten to know and it feels worse than winter for me to sit at this red light and let my life slow

I feel deep down a spark of an ember

Still too cold in this weather to truly spark But as my fingers dance in the wind

Slowly, I heal, and it becomes easier to remember

In My Adolescence

By Kiana Blair

Thirteen

Affable days down by the lake, Sunbathing on the beach

Time spent in town with Mom’s money

What will tomorrow bring?

Fourteen

Venust days under the Willow tree

Endless nights beneath the stars with the ones that mattered most What secrets does the world hold?

Fifteen

First loves, first dates, first kisses I gave him my heart Will it last?

Sixteen

Wheels provide freedom

They also come with responsibility Can I handle it?

Seventeen

The shadow of life has crept over me

My final day of innocence is approaching Is this it?

Eighteen

I am now in control of my future, Yet there is no room for amusement moving forward I have lived, but will I survive?

page 15

Bestie Artwork by Solimar Cruz

Garden of Reminiscence

By Lauren Cucciaro

Things come and go, Faster than anyone could hope. A blink turns into a year And everything you know, rusts Now placed into the garden of our past. Which holds memories and people, Some flourishing and others withering, But all were once our reality, Our present.

So whether good or bad, Thank it for what was given And as life goes on, The garden continues to grow. Every so often we visit, But this place is not made for living in So do not carry the stones outside. They will only be dead weight. For every flower and tree sits still, Just how you left it.

Prey

By Ariana Jerelds

I wonder if anytime after you decided to pluck my petals, and grind them into incense that smelled of immorality and pain,

That you’d felt guilty for your harvest.

Or maybe your actions are a distant memory, long forgotten in the trials of time, like that of my childhood.

page 17

Dancers Lament

By Ava Santilli

I’ve spent my whole life dancing. I do spins and twists and twirls. I watch as others watch me. I can tell when they look. I know they know when I mess up, when my foot bends just slightly farther than meant to, when my brow contorting back in pain. I know nobody is looking at my face, and yet I cake on the makeup. All they are watching is my body and they want to see how far it can go. The way it’ll bend, snap, stretch. I see other people doing what takes me years to master so effortlessly. It makes me want to bend, snap, and stretch them. But it’ll always be me, the one, feeling all the pain, because I wasn’t born to be a dancer.

Dancing is a choice. The light steps, the pointed feet, the screams of delight when they see how my back bends impossibly far back like its breaking (it is). I’m told if I like to complain this much, I should quit, and I laugh. My head hurts, it always does. My body hurts, it always does. Sometimes it hurts most seeing those others, the new ones. They never make faces of pain, they never stretch and get the same results, they’re better than me. It is a waste, dedicating my life to something I’m only pretending to be. All of it, a waste. I’m a wasted dancer, I’m wasted potential. When I was smaller, I wasn’t even potential—I was a liar. I wasn’t cut out for the stage, why do people insist I was? Any nine-year-old should be able to do a butterfly sit or lift their leg above their elbow. I refused to dance until I grew up. Everyone is a dancer when you’re older, you must join.

I now feel as though I should’ve left while I had the chance. People warned me that it wouldn’t be easy. But they said it would be a

waste for me to not pursue, this is a once-in-alifetime opportunity everyone gets. The holy grail, the end goal, the highest achievement of mankind. I’m honored to be a dancer; to be presented as a dancer, to represent dancers.

I’ve only danced in one recital, when I was twelve. It was a winter recital, all of us in the smallest leotards and imaginable freezing. Dancing was supposed to warm us up anyways. We danced a small routine. It was the easiest routine of my life. I regret it. Someone was watching that night, a big someone. Now I sit, in a prestigious prison. Everyone wants to go until they get there, then we can’t leave. Everytime I want to quit, I’m offered another recital that never happens. I practice, I practice like hell. This is hell, this entire process. It’s pitiful, a crowd watching as I’m burned over and over. All they do is clap, as I bow. My feet bleeding, getting ready to pass out, being unable to see any of their looks of admiration. The view from the top, is worse than the one below. Everything is blurry, I can’t even see my awards, I can just feel my feet. My feet are bleeding, I should clean that later. And later, I’ll dance again.

And so, today, I ask for no pity, no more. I ask that I have the privilege I always have been offered but never given—my final dance, the one that’s the most painful. But afterwards, it’s all over, and you won’t have to dance anymore. My feet stopped bleeding. It’s time to rest. The stage lights are off. It’s time to rest. My hair is down. It’s time to rest. The audience isn’t watching. It’s time to rest. I take off my shoes and I rest.

Baby Doll’s Tea Party

page 19

Artwork by Josieamer Vega Caraballo

For All Eyes

Shania Gill did the birds fly over me, or did they fly under the clouds? either way, i still saw the beauty in such life itself.

i’m sure, the clouds saw it too although i stand beneath the clouds, i still see what the clouds see. although they are above me, they are just as real, and as deep, as i am. either way, we both saw life and felt life itself.

Artwork by Natalie Dechiara

Shoe Swirl

Impossible, right?

By Gianna Hall

Every night I swear I see her. My mom. She is on the other side of my window. One thing you should know though... My mom passed when I was fifteen.

I’m thirty-four now, nineteen years and I still miss her deeply. I never saw a body. I don’t know what happened. All I know is one day my father told me she was gone. He held me in his arms that night, we cried and since then, he has not uttered a word about her.

I accepted it and did my best to move on, but it felt like she was watching me, wherever I went.

I felt her presence in my room, at work, walking home, wherever I was, she was too.

On the night of my thirty-fifth birthday, I saw her again. My mom’s beautiful figure stood outside my window, her long wavy hair blowing in the wind, and her hand

perched up on her hip.

I dart up, ran to the window, opened it and she was gone.

I must be seeing things, I tell myself. As I lift the blanket to get into my bed again, it is dark, I barely see her, but my mom is laying there. I fell to the ground in fear and cried out, “Why does my head do this to me?” She took my hand, and I pull away asking “How are you here? What is going on?”

She replies, “I’m here to tell you the truth.”

Just as you are confused now, so was I, “What truth?” I asked.

She told me my grandmother died at thirty five and my father was to blame.

He killed my grandmother. He killed my mother, and You are next,” she spoke with fear in here voice.

He’s coming tonight.

page 22

Seaplane

Artwork by Reiss Matzinger

Emotions Within Artwork by Allison Spiroff

Butterflies

Artwork by Julietta Diaz

TEACHER CONTRIBUTIONS

Inside Out

By Vickie Pleus

I lie, facing the sky. Clouds move swiftly, I feel like it’s me. But I Am

Motionless. My insides churn the decision; the clouds overstay their welcome. I sigh, closing my eye. Sleep envelopes me quickly, I feel like it’s death. But I Am

Timeless. My outside seeks peace; I smile and say, “welcome.” Life, inside out, As I lie, facing the sky.

A dumb thought on a Tuesday, and in case I die.

By Courtney Hanks

If I leave you too soon, know you should always sit in the front row in class – and you should take care of your skin and drink water, though you know I don’t. (Or didn’t.)

Know that you will spend half your childhood trying to fit in and the other half trying to figure yourself out but it’s okay to like what you like, and love what you loveand be happy, okay?

Be happy because there are such things as fireflies and rain and birds that will sing – be happy because life is so short – and so beautiful –and you are unbelievably precious. (Hold that.)

One day you will have someone you look at and think there are stars in some people – like sunshine that will warm you. (Burn you.) And that is beautiful, too. However long it lasts. Float in those oceans in you because they are so precious, too. And it’s all an adventure.

Your life requires your participation and I want magic for youglistening iridescent behind your irises; I want mysteries that cause you to smirk or frown and laugh with your whole body. And don’t get tired of life –

It’s so precious.

I squeeze your father’s hand - or behind his shoulder - as I say, these are the good days. You play in the sand or on the floor or in the bath or just stand there, making us fall in love.

I flinch as I see this play out like a Hallmark movie, or else all the books I’ve read.

I see how my present tense becomes a worn photo of us two and people will say – they will say how pretty I was and how much I loved you.

Looking in, it’s the kind of movie that moves toward tragedy.

I’ve seen this film, and I don’t want to light up rooms, standing still in the past tense. Someone you think of when you look at your hands and wonder if they look like mine.

I wish for a different conflict, and instead I will spend my life running my hands through your hair while I whisper; You have stars that glitter behind your eyes – I cannot look away.

page 27

Cover Photos by Morgan Worlledge

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Articles inside

Prometheus Literary Magazine | University High School 2023

PROMETHEUS looking sideways

DEAR TITANS,

TABLE OF CONTENTS

dandelions

Asystole

Strangers.

That Ugly Therapists Couch

Remember.

In My Adolescence

Garden of Reminiscence

Prey

Dancers Lament

Baby Doll’s Tea Party

For All Eyes

Impossible, right?

Seaplane

Emotions Within Artwork by Allison Spiroff

Butterflies

TEACHER CONTRIBUTIONS

Inside Out

A dumb thought on a Tuesday, and in case I die.

Articles inside

TEACHER CONTRIBUTIONS

Dancers Lament

Garden of Reminiscence

Remember.

That Ugly Therapists Couch

TABLE OF CONTENTS