2025 National YoungArts Week Anthology + Catalogue

Page 1


Anthology + Catalogue

Select works by the 2025 Winners with Distinction in Design, Film, Photography, Visual Arts & Writing

Anthology + Catalogue

Select works by the 2025 Winners with Distinction in Design, Film, Photography, Visual Arts & Writing

National YoungArts Week T-Shirt
Designed by Cynthia Zhou (2018 YoungArts Winner in Design & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts)

Acknowledgments

We are thrilled to welcome you to this Anthology + Catalogue, comprising works by the 2025 YoungArts award winners with distinction in Design, Film, Photography, Visual Arts and Writing. An affirmation of the caliber of their expressions, these editions are often the first opportunity for young artists to see their work published and represent a bold step toward a professional future in the arts.

Our work is a continuous process that depends upon the knowledge and commitment of a vast network of guest artists, teachers and educators. We are grateful for the many partnerships and artists who have helped inspire this next generation of artists. We extend our gratitude to Anthology Editor, Lizette Alvarez and Exhibition Guest Curator, Katia David Rosenthal.

This volume and National YoungArts Week programming are made possible with generous support from Anthropologie; Aon; Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation; Batchelor Foundation; The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; The Kirk Foundation; City of Miami Beach, Cultural Affairs Program, Cultural Arts Council; Miami City Ballet; the Miami-Dade County Tourist Development Council, Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; Miami Downtown Development Authority; National Endowment for the Arts; New World Symphony; Northern Trust; Sidney and Florence Stern Family Foundation; and the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Family Foundation.

Please visit youngarts.org/donor-recognition for a complete list of donors.

Above all, we extend our sincerest gratitude to the artists featured. We dedicate this publication to you, your families, teachers and mentors.

Select Works

Victoria Pham

Myesha Phukan

Jocelyn Pope

Torrey Rainey

Juewan Roh

Sarah Rooney

William Rudolph

Naliyah Salahuddin

Santiago Salazar

Sadie Schoenberger

Christopher Schwarting

Ashlyn So

Maya Tzonev

Riley Walsh

Select Works

by the 2025 Winners with Distinction in Design, Film, Photography, Visual

Arts & Writing

Kiitan Adedeji

They have KFC in Nigeria

When they cut the electricity and the air swells around my body, we play hide and seek in the dark and trip over the mattresses in the living room.

On the table, there is agege bread and Milo and Lipton, and knives dipped deep into the Nutella jar. My cousins spread it onto their bread to consume it like a first-drug high.

I show them the Capri-Suns in America, have them taste Goldfish and Swiss Miss hot chocolate. I make pinky promises to bring jars of it all when I come back.

The light returns and they confess they would give it all to go back with me. I invite them to touch the kettle,

electric shock, when I touched its metal and felt my hand wave in and out of reality. Who knew this was how electricity would first flow through my body? We shared turns, and laughed, each of our fingers to the metal over again.

Around the couch, SpongeBob on the TV, we eat KFC and jollof rice, and they turn the AC on low in the background, just for me.

Lafayette Senior High School Lexington, KY

Hannah Ahn

Silent World

Jung: love, affection, sympathy in Korean, the idea that all Koreans are connected spiritually.

Chapter 1: The Silent World

It had been two months now and Siyeon hadn’t yet returned.

This morning Jihoon kept watch from the windowsill, watching the blue sky drift past, clouds pregnant with rain. All afternoon, hurricane warnings streamed from the radio he kept tuned so low it was barely audible. If he concentrated, he could hear its low hum, the newscaster’s staticky voice muffled by the fog of the kitchen. His sister had disappeared without a trace eight weeks ago to the day.

Siyeon had gone to Alaska, searching for the house where their father, a bachelor in his late sixties, was supposed to be living. The detective she had hired had told her over the phone how difficult the man had been to find, but that over several months he had tracked him down to an apartment on the east side of the city. In all the photographs the detective had sent by mail, the subject was grainy, half-blurred by darkness. “I apologize in advance for the quality,” the detective said. “He only comes out at night.”

The following evening, Siyeon took the second car and as much cash as she could carry. Jihoon remained in the house, waiting every night now, for the phone to ring or a letter to appear on his doorstep, but still nothing. Radio silence. He shivered in the cool darkness, thinking of the look on his sister’s face as he had last seen it: hard and unyielding, the mouth sharp, eyes burning with some hidden fire. They had not seen their father in sixteen years.

Jihoon had begged to let him accompany her, but she refused. I can’t, she said. Who knows what we might find? He said he didn’t care that he hadn’t seen the man in sixteen years. He had forgotten what he looked like, the color of his voice. Just let me go with you, he begged. Don’t leave me all alone. She shook her head slowly, her expression mournful, almost saintly, and that had been the end of the matter.

In truth, he did know something of the man who had given him life. In the past, his mother had said his father’s ancestors had once lived in fishing villages along the coast when the imperial soldiers came to exterminate them. Fleeing to Siberia, they had intermarried with their own kind and had labored as farmers, cheap workers, hired hands. They would drift for a season and then go, never to be seen again, recluses and migrants. His mother was real Korean, from the motherland, and she had named Siyeon and Jihoon as such. But I can’t scrub that farmer’s heritage away from your appearance, she often said to Jihoon, her mouth tight. Now Jihoon studied his flat face in the reflection of the window, the dark crease of the brow, the tanned bones of his nose and lips. His mother had told him that he had inherited that quality from his father: the darkness of his skin. She told him that his forefathers had labored all day in the sun, and any weakness, any characteristic of suffering or servitude, Jihoon had inherited from him as surely as a birthmark. Blood could remember, even as the body forgot. Even your father’s language had an odd quality to it, she said, having been passed down so many generations. It was the first thing that drew my eye, the night I met him. His Korean was so harsh, the syllables were like the scraping of a knife. That was how I knew he was a monster, she said, laughing bitterly. He watched his mother now, asleep on the floor, sinking into her mattress, her dark, tangled roots of hair, her sun-freckled

face. Her hands were the strangest part of her. For a woman so young, the skin was sagging and liver-spotted, the veins blue and swollen. For the last five years she had worked at the nail salon at the shopping center on Route 70, tending to the dirtiest parts of other people. Sometimes she would speak enviously of the women who came to visit her in the shop, the ones with powdered hair so blonde it was nearly white. “Just like the television commercials,” she said, her face bathed in dream-like awe. Those women tipped the best and he knew that she was jealous of them because she had once nearly been them. She had nearly lived the way they did, nearly transformed herself into them: almost luminous, their skin artificially pale, their feet tiny and the nails so perfect, each coffinshaped square surrounded by a shore of delicate cuticle, the white keratin hedged like a cut of fat. She had so nearly married their husbands, borne their children. Their proximity drove her insane, with both wanting and grief.

***

The sound of rain pulsing across the sky startled him. He turned his eyes back to the gray sky, listened to the wind rustling back and forth through broken trees; it so nearly sounded like a heartbeat.

He set some water to boil on the stove and waited at the table. Sunlight streamed weakly through the curtains his mother had purchased once from a flea market- the fabric originally cut from a woman’s dress and repurposed. He watched her sleep, the slow rise and fall of her chest. Next to her, a small figurine of an angel lay propped on the dresser against the wall. He heard the hiss of the kettle and turned his head. When he turned back, he could feel the angel’s eyes staring at him. It was the only thing that his mother had brought from her home overseas, a sort of family heirloom. Its porcelain face was cracked and the white paint had chipped from improper care; the lips were drawn a grotesque bright-red and the eyes reflected no light. The angel’s hair had been done in two black braids that swung down her back. What kind of angel has black hair? he’d once asked as a child. His mother slapped him in response. I won’t have white people angels in this house, she hissed. Maybe that had been the warning sign of her impending madness. Later, when he grew older, she constructed tales of how the totem had been passed down through generations in her family, that it contained the ashes of a firstborn son in the family who was born with a cleft palate and died, inauspiciously, a hundred days later. He haunts us now, she said, matter-of-factly. Tragedy was always refracted in these stories; whispers of grandeur and misfortune carried aloft in his mother’s high, breathy voice. It didn’t matter if the stories were true or not. The totem had come to serve as a reminder of a family’s failure, real or imagined, to take root in a barren land. Sometimes, his mother would drunkenly tell stories of other conflicts: warplanes droning in the sky, artillery fire falling like rain, soldiers sneaking through river grass, their faces smeared with grim dusk. He was never sure if they were stories she had heard once or imagined. He knew from history class that she was too young to have lived through any war in recent memory, and still she told these stories with the precision of an eyewitness, her voice cloaked in fear. Even then, there was a hidden violence to the way she told it. To scare him, at the end of the stories, she would leap up, clapping her hands, squawking, to mimic the sound of a bomb erupting, gunfire popping, wailing like a ghost back from the dead.

***

Now he thinks of other ghosts, other hauntings. They are not like anything he imagined as a little boy, in the sense that they

cannot frighten him. Instead, they always linger by the doorway, pressed against the reflection of a window, mournful, almost filial. But he is not deceived. He knows when the opportunity comes, they will eat him alive, swallow him whole.

His father was the first one to become a phantom-man and disappear without a trace. In the ragged photograph in Siyeon’s wallet, the picture rubbed so tender that touching it was like running fingertips over silk. His face was shrouded by shadow, hard, severe. Siyeon said that she had rescued it from the fire the night their mother had gone on a rampage and burned every trace of him in the home- anything that contained his name or his face, anything he had ever loved or touched. She had only let Jihoon see it sparingly. He had studied his face over the years, searching for any sign of the fabled nomad his mother spoke of so disparagingly. But in the man’s face he found no trace of the traits his mother said were commonly found among his ilk - thieves, fools, and criminals. His features were as blank and heavy as a slate. He looked like any man, any father.

Jihoon carefully poured water from the kettle, watching the steam fissure and rise. He retrieved a small jar of tea leaves from the cabinet and, using a spoon, carefully scattered them over the surface of the water. He watched as they clung briefly for a moment before they dispersed and were absorbed by the darkening liquid. It was a Monday, and he had stopped going to school several months ago. He was taking night classes at the local community center to finish his credits now. When he told Siyeon, her gaze was even-eyed, accusatory- What are you going to do? she asked. But the venom in her voice was weak. How are you going to make a living now?

I don’t know, he said. There’s always work

Siyeon shook her head. It’s not that easy, she said, her voice tired. She had worked at the call center on the other side of town since she was nineteen, and spent five days a week dialing strangers, waiting for voices on the other end of the line. He could almost hear the clipped, disembodied tone she used when speaking to customers. She had spoken her name so many times that the sound of her own voice no longer meant anything to her. Already, she looked older than her twenty-four years.

I mean, he said, it’s okay. I thought you could always make money in this country.

This was an inside joke he had with Siyeon, but the corners of her mouth didn’t lift.

I thought you didn’t always want to live like this, she said. The meaning was clear enough: I don’t want to live like this anymore. Her hand was resting on his, her warm, strong fingers enveloping his own. Her mouth was trembling, but her eyes were dry, unaffected.

Another ghost hung between them: He could close his eyes now and imagine the way that she had cradled the baby to her chest in the sterile air of the hospital- his reddened, bruised head so slick with blood-and-fluid, his eyes closed, the delicate, puffy pink fingers. Fingernails the size of a grain of rice, Jihoon thought, staring at the baby. He remembered what their mother had said: their bloodline was fickle. But lying on Siyeon’s chest, the way that her hands shook from exhaustion or grief as she carefully combed his crown of ink-black hair, he could almost imagine the eyes opening in fear or shock, the cry piercing the room’s silence. The doctor was in the next room, ushering in other patients. A nurse stood by the bed, her face sympathetic but helpless. But Siyeon wasn’t looking at her. It’s time to start over, she said to him in Korean. She hadn’t spoken the language to him since they had been children. But this was something only for the two of them to understand. He nodded at her, not fully comprehending. Siyeon smiled grimly, her face pale from blood loss. I mean it, she said. My life is going to change.

In his head, that was the catalyst for her departure. The first time she brought it up, the idea of going to find their father, they had been sitting together in the cramped storeroom of the Korean Mart where Jihoon worked shifts on the weekend. Siyeon had been smoking a cigarette atop a stack of radish crates, fanning

the sour-smelling smoke, still dressed in her work uniform, the laminated pin that spelled her name gleaming in the darkness. It had been six months since the stillbirth. There were strange bruises all over her body- on her legs and her cheekbone, her wrist and the tender skin of her thighs. She looked like mottled fruit- as if she were rotting. She seemed dazed, her eyes glassy. I’m going, she said, covering her face with her palms. I’m going to go and find him. I mean it.

Now it had been two months, and Jihoon carefully marked the days on the calendar that hung above the kitchen sink. He observed his reflection in the mahogany gloss of the kitchen table and wondered where she could possibly be now. What if she had found their father and simply lost track of time after their joyful reunion? Or perhaps she had been rejected, and the grief had been too much to bear? Was he living with a woman? Did he have new children? The private detective said that there was nothing on the local marriage registries, but Jihoon knew that didn’t mean much. His father hadn’t married his mother, either. It was partially the reason why Jihoon assumed she resented him. He had lured her across three continents with the promise of money and respectability, and then dumped her with two children.

Do you ever think that maybe she went with him because she loved him? Siyeon had asked once, in the darkness. That had been when they slept together in the same cramped room. If she leaned over her bed, he could see her eyes glinting in the dark, steadfast, determined. You think she was capable of something like that? Jihoon asked. Siyeon shrugged. I don’t know, she said, rolling over to lie on her back. She was staring at the ceiling. He could hear the tension of her breathing. You never know, I mean. With the human heart.

He couldn’t imagine that now, Jihoon thought, no matter how hard he tried. He had always attributed it to some partial mixture of his mother’s girlish foolishness and his father’s skill at deception. But that girlish foolishness had fled far by now, and with it any trace of anything that could be mistaken as love. In its place was something harder, and crueler.

She wasn’t always like that, Siyeon said sometimes, almost carelessly, without ever referring to what exactly she meant. Still, Jihoon would nod. He understood. They both did. It had been years since Siyeon lived in the house or attended to either of them. She remembered glimpses of what she had seen, and certainly she suspected. She had smelled their mother’s breath, malt-scented and sour, but she hadn’t seen her on her worst nights, undressed and driven to the brink of furious insanity, ranting and bereaved.

He knew that whatever Siyeon did now, he couldn’t blame her. He could never blame her- even if she ended up wronging him to death. They had survived it all, together. That April morning, he had been the sole witness as he watched Siyeon bury the casket, barely measuring a foot, in the rain-softened ground. They had swaddled the infant in baby clothes, the pink so pale, the lilac so blue. It hadn’t lived, not one day, and not one hundred days, he thought to himself, dazed. His mother would have said that this meant the baby’s soul had disappeared like a ghost. The curse, he remembered in silence. Now that Siyeon was finally gone, he knew it had been a matter of survival for her.

***

The tea had gone cold by the time that his mother awoke, and the phone still hadn’t rung. Jihoon was painfully aware of the silence now, how it gripped his skin and heart, spread gooseflesh on his arms.

She sat at the table, silently rubbing her hands against the cup he brought to her.

She drank slowly. “Medicine,” she said, hoarsely, turning to him. He walked to the cabinet to bring out the bottle and counted two pills. She swallowed them and then finished the rest of her tea. Her eyes regarded him blankly. “You’re awake early,” she noted. He wondered if she knew that he was waiting, even if she didn’t know for what. She had to know that it had been weeks since Siyeon passed by the house, that the steady stream of groceries that had once kept the fridge full had abruptly stopped

without warning. But he couldn’t translate his mother’s old, once high and proud brow, the curling mouth that rested passively in disgust or disdain, her skin drawn taut over cheekbones. She had made herself up for work, and her lips were blood-red, her eyes heavily coated with mascara. There was something aristocratic about her face, even now, about her pencil-straight posture, and he understood why his father had been drawn to her quiet pride, her cool assurance.

“Work today,” she said. “Coming home late.” Her eyes roved sharply over the house- the broken table, its leg splinted by a phone book, the counter scattered with grocery receipts, forks and plates crusted with dried food.

“I’ll clean it when I come back from school,” he said. She smiled at him and reached out to touch his cheek almost tenderly. Her hands were cool to the touch. “My baby,” she said. Then she snatched her purse, unlatched the door and opened it, a long shadow hanging in her place.

It was almost winter again. The leaves were rapidly changing color; he could see them outside, the slow onset of orange and yellow creeping over green, the way they fluttered down to Earth, blanketing the streets and sidewalks. He tried to remember how they looked when Siyeon left. Had they already begun to change? He was so conscious of everything around him now- the sounds and senses of the atmosphere, the tick of the clock, the rush of his own heartbeat pushing blood down its four chambers.

He wondered if his father was a romantic man, if he cared for the change of seasons, if he preferred winter better than summer, fall better than spring. If he had been better at math or English in school. If he had lived alone or had a new family of his own now.

He sat, watching the sky turn gray, shift tones and trade colors. It was going to rain soon, he thought. Maybe the man in the radio was right. They were all headed for trouble. But none of that mattered, not yet. He wasn’t in the eye of the storm and maybe it would just pass him by instead.

Now, another memory came to him. The night that his father had convinced his mother to finally buy plane tickets to America. He had taken her to a showing of “Gone with the Wind” at the local cinema. Siyeon had shown him the movie because he had mentioned offhandedly that they were reading it in school. That’s what Mom thought life in America would be like, Siyeon mentioned when the credits began to roll. So much money it would be obnoxious.

Not for everyone, he said. Not everybody’s got money. No, she said. She thought she would be one of the lucky ones. But I mean, can you believe that? Can you believe she thought a film from the thirties would be accurate?

She shook her head. That’s what you can base a life off of, she whispered, wide-eyed, almost to herself. A feeling. Something that can always change. ***

In the empty house, he tried to kill time. He scrubbed the dishes until they shone bone-white, and he could see his distorted reflection staring back at him; he cycled the laundry, polished the counter and the cabinet shelves. Eventually, he grew tired and sat on the couch. He watched television, allowing the cool, medicated blue stare set him awash in the afternoon light, and when that didn’t work, he rolled over and tried to sleep. But he was afraid he would dream of the man.

In the days following his sister’s departure, while he sat in night classes or laid in bed, while he ate or worked, an image flashed across his face. It was always of his father, his father’s broad, rugged face as he had seen it in the photograph: unsmiling and hard-eyed. On TV late one night, he saw photographs of missing people artificially aged by technology to resemble what they might look like in a few decades. He tried to imagine what his father might look like as an old man, adding a few wrinkles to the face, deepening and darkening his under-eyes. But still the face looked like nobody he knew. He knew if he passed a man like this on the street, he wouldn’t look twice.

What happens if you find him? he asked Siyeon, the night before she left.

They had hurriedly packed a few bags for her, collected the packets of money she kept underneath the mattress in her old room, practiced the excuses Jihoon would make in case their mother ever asked where Siyeon had gone. They were breathless now, tinged with fear, even excitement.

Siyeon shrugged. I don’t know, she said, truthfully. I guess we’ll find out. But I can’t die without seeing his face again.

That night, Siyeon slept in his room, the way they did sometimes when they were young children. She whispered stories in the darkness, her voice strained and hoarse. He asked about their father, and though she had no new stories, she dutifully repeated the ones she had told him all their life. “Mom’s right,” she said. “He couldn’t speak any language well. His English sounded strange. His Korean sounded strange. Like he was an alien.”

“I can’t imagine him,” Jihoon confessed. “Of course you can’t,” Siyeon said. “It’s been sixteen years for you.”

She paused. “I mean,” she said, “sometimes he would sing. The radio would be on and he would be singing along to it. He memorized the songs, apparently, on the way to work. He knew all of the words.”

“Was he kind?” Jihoon asked. He knew it was a silly question to ask- child-like, betraying too much longing. It had escaped him before he could rephrase it.

There was a long pause, devoid of breath. “I mean,” said Siyeon, “if everything goes according to plan, you can decide for yourself.”

“But what do you think?” Jihoon pressed. He stared into Siyeon’s face, memorizing the arch of her brow, the divide of her lips, then the slope of her nose, where it began and where it rose to her forehead. He had played this game a thousand times before: trying to divine how much of her came from their mother’s sharp, mournful face. It was like subtracting from an equation- whatever was left over could be assumed to be their father’s portions. It wasn’t a game he could play with himself. If he ever tried, he would stare into the blankness of the mirror until something tore inside of him, and he would be forced to close his eyes and look away. Mercifully, the reflection always looked away as well.

Siyeon’s breathing was light and airy before she spoke again into the darkness. “I don’t know,” she said. “What kind of man deserts his family for sixteen years? A dead man, maybe.”

***

In Shin’s Korean Mart, Jihoon hauled crates up and down the aisles and rearranged soda cans and radishes for hours until his arms ached and the overhead light circled him like an animal ready to pounce. After his shift ended, he waited in the empty backroom with the owner’s son, Kallan, a skinny boy around the same age as him. Kallan smoked a cigarette, and he watched as the glowing orange tip jumped into the darkness. He breathed in the smoke. Siyeon smoked for two years before quitting. It was the day she found out she was pregnant. He had gotten used to the smell by now, and the smoke. He never coughed anymore.

“I thought you weren’t coming here anymore,” said Kallan. His voice was even, his gaze observant, cool-eyed. Jihoon shrugged. “I found a way,” he said.

Kallan kept watching him. He didn’t much look like his father who was also narrow-boned but sallow. Jihoon had seen him only once or twice in passing. He had gotten the job because his mother knew someone who went to church with the man who managed the shop. He and his mother had never gone to church- his mother had insisted on that. There was a certain kind of appearance you needed to keep up with people who knew what you were. Even now, when she saw someone at the grocery store that she thought might also be Korean, she stiffened, took out a hand mirror to fix her hair, bit her lip and watched them pass by.

“OK,” he said. “I mean, it doesn’t matter to me either way. More shifts for me.”

“Thought you got paid either way,” said Jihoon.

“Nobody gets anything for free,” said Kallan, mournfully.

Jihoon was quiet, but he recognized the truth of the sentiment. He looked at Kallan, and he couldn’t bring himself to envy him. He dressed only a little better, ate only a little more at the table. There was nothing extravagant that awaited either of them.

“I’m not saying anything,” he said, quietly. “But I have plans.” Curious, Kallan looked at him. “What does that mean?”

“This is only temporary,” he said, and the words filled him with such unexpected warmth that he felt shocked.

The rest of that day was spent cataloging the number of itinerary items offloaded from the delivery trucks. Jihoon liked the mindlessness of the work, of rubbing a soft-tipped red pen over the numbers until they swirled together in his head. After he finished his work, he left the clipboard on the table in the storeroom and stripped off his apron. He drifted out the door, walking to where his bike remained chained to the knob behind the brick back-wall of the convenience store. This was a Korean shopping plaza- next door there was a Korean hairstylist, a Korean clothing store that imported brands straight from the motherland, and a Korean masseuse.

Even in this country, they stick together, a school counselor had once remarked to him knowingly. There’s so many of them, and they all know each other.

He didn’t know any Koreans, not besides his mother and Siyeon. For a time, he would pass any Korean-looking man on the street and study his features, wondering if the man was his father. He felt nothing watching other people of his kind. His mother had once explained the concept of Jung to him. “All Korean people are connected,” she said. “We all understand each other, for better or worse.” The concept sounded wistful and a little naïve to Jihoon, like some fairytale idea transplanted to a new nation. If he met the man who was his father, would there be some kind of kinship? How could such a thing exist?

As he began to steer his bike out of the parking lot, a heavy calm settled over him. The autumn air felt cool against his fevered face as he sped past the fancy homes, the manicured gardens, and the traffic signals. A slow conviction took hold as the world rushed past. If the phone didn’t ring by tonight, he thought, he would begin to change his life.

Charlotte Anthony

Film
Menlo-Atherton High School
Atherton, CA

Saj Baldwin

Visual Arts
Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts Houston, TX
Sunsets, 2023
Colored pencil and acrylic paint on poster board

Lane

Beller
Visual Arts
Lovejoy High School Lucas, TX
Chapel, 2023
Dried chicken head, metallic paint, LEDs, oil paint on cut wooden panel
Zahra Bello
Film
Sierra Canyon School
Chatsworth, CA
Screenshot of Light Work, 2024 Experimental film, 2 min., 29 sec.

Jordyn Brown

Girlhood Tainted by Things Beyond Me, 2024
Oil painting on wood and cellophane

Tristan Burchett

Quantum Spect(at)ors

Dylan Fuentes walked into the rocky-slick marble lobby and shook the rainwater and a few yellowing leaves from their umbrella. It was their 120th day at JP Morgan, one of the biggest banks in the world. But, amid the sea of 31,000 days that made up their life, who was counting? The lobby’s glass walls caged the sound of rain outside. Having managed to stay dry despite the rain, Dylan paced over to the elevators and pushed the button for the quantitative trading floor near the top of the building. The seams in the elevator paneling frowned at Dylan with grim lines.

Dylan’s thoughts crawled along well-etched tracks of boredom as they approached their desk near Caspian Wells, the boss. Dylan’s father, a janitor in name but a philosopher in practice, struck up an unexpected friendship with Caspian during the latenight work that merged the world of finance and filth in ways Dylan had never quite understood. The connection still clung to Dylan like a fine layer of dust.

Dylan’s job was to write code to monitor prices that alerted the trading desk when something out of the ordinary occurred. Things rarely did. Most days here felt like walking across a desert to Dylan—dry, repetitive, lifeless.

A bank of television screens buzzed with the day’s financial news crawling by. Dylan let the headlines wash over them without impact, trying to muster enthusiasm to start coding their current feature. Then their attention caught on a headline at the bottom of one screen: “New Test for Many Worlds Interpretation Announced.” Quantum mechanics, the eerie theory Einstein had dismissed as “spooky action at a distance.” Fascinated (with this) and bored (with work), Dylan surreptitiously tunneled into the internet to learn more. They idly flipped their wallet open and closed. The Many Worlds Interpretation theorized that the whole universe was in a quantum superposition where all possible quantum events occurred at the same time with varying probabilities, branching out into many realities. Dylan pictured a ghostly overlay of other possible “worlds” on top of theirs, interleaved and weaving through their life. Each depended on the probability of a quantum event. What superposition of Dylan existed, dead or alive, beholden to their father’s memory or not, financial programmer or…? Dylan’s mind floated, imagining those other versions of themself in the fog of possible worlds.

After college, Dylan had looked for jobs, applying to countless postings in the finance industry. Their father saw finance as the vertical of life even though he walked unseen among it, an ignored presence who cleaned up its messes. College loans loomed. But once the windows darkened each day, Dylan turned to writing, a passion they had harbored in college amid the detritus of parentally sanctioned coding and finance classes. One evening, Dylan’s father asked them in a tone that was at once tired and berating, “What are you doing? Writing those stories will get you nowhere. You can’t live on dreams. Not on stories. And I can’t support you forever.” Their father was a man who believed in the steady dryness of work, the quiet erosion of days until you were left with nothing but a paycheck and the need to clean again.

“I’ve talked to Caspian Wells,” their father said. “He set you up for an interview next week at JP Morgan. I risked a lot to ask him. You will succeed there. Perseverance is in the Fuentes blood. We take the path given.”

And so Dylan had gone in for the interview, passing through the marble lobby and into the ranks of workers. Their footsteps echoed their father’s, the same and different. Then a month later, their father died. A heart attack. A sudden collapse, like a fountain turning off at the height of its arc. He left behind

a tangle of grief and a daily work life his presence hovered over. Dylan felt dry and rung out with expectation.

“Dylan!” Caspian’s voice tore Dylan out of their recollections. “We have a problem. Italy just announced they’re keeping their stock market open tomorrow, even though it’s a national holiday. Our systems aren’t designed to handle this. I know it’s hard to be in two places at once, but we need all-handson-deck to write emergency code to handle the issue.” Caspian always spoke in directives, firm and solid, like water carving stone. After a planning meeting with Caspian at the helm of the enormous conference table, Dylan headed back to their desk with doubts about their skills swirling through their mind like desiccated leaves.

Code spun out of Dylan. The clatter of their keyboard rose like the hum of desert insects. But even amidst this rush of problem solving for the shades of capitalism, Dylan felt parched with boredom. Finally, around 9 p.m., Dylan pushed a patch to the system. An error message arose: Memory Error at 0xdfa5313. Build failed (exit code 1). Dylan looked around nervously as everyone typed away, all of them deep in the water of concentration. Dylan looked again at the error message. Why would there be a memory error?

Lake, a senior coder, leaned over. “What happened?” she asked, noticing Dylan’s screen.

“I… I’m not sure,” Dylan stammered. “I changed the configuration, but nothing that should cause this…”

Lake quickly pulled up the system log files: 135 new error messages. New errors multiplied down the screen. “Oh god –” Lake muttered. “Did you run a system diagnostic? You always have to before pushing patches when there’s a potential system overload.” In the whirlwind of fixes, Dylan had forgotten. Now, the system was overwhelmed with new code and, as a result, was behind in critical self-checks. The system diagnostic was meant to stop uploads to allow it to catch up. Without the diagnostic that Dylan had failed to run, their upload was one too many. Memory had failed.

“Shut off the critical systems before-” snapped Lake, her expression darkening, “the server crashes.” The screen flashed Lost connection to server. Memory dump (18.1 TB) at 23:59 EST. Dylan stood frozen, like a statue carved from uncertainty. Eighteen terabytes of code updates potentially lost because of them. The dry, weightless feeling expanded, hollowing them out.

“I need someone to check backups!” barked Lake. “Dylan, don’t stand there! Get Infrastructure to check the backup server, now.” Dylan rushed to Infra, hovering as they checked backup server status and the last successful backup. Safe. They were safe, time stamped an hour ago. Dylan sat down with a thump of relief and dismay. The system could be rolled back, but an hour of the team’s frantic work was lost as the clock ticked toward the Italian market open.

Caspian appeared beside them, his expression unreadable. He looked at Dylan, the thread of their shared connection stretching between them. “You’ve done enough today, Dylan. Your father…” Caspian sighed. “Go on home.”

With their father’s memory a palpable presence between the two, Dylan grabbed their bag and headed down the elevator and into the fog. The image of disappointment on their father’s face floated in their mind. Dylan knew the job was a track they were on, like the sparking subway rails or taut elevator cables, but they still felt the pull of their dreams, away from the scarcity mindset their father ingrained in them. They trudged down the

Saint Ann’s School
Brooklyn, NY

steps of the subway and onto an uptown 2 train. The old train clattering down the tracks wasn’t enough to distract from their deafening thoughts. What would their father have thought of today? Was this really what their father would have wanted them to be spending their life doing? Their memories presented an imperfect view of their father, like a window streaked with rain. How would their father, and Dylan’s view of him, have changed if their father had lived? Unable to face the apartment, Dylan rode the train to near the end of the line and then switched tracks. The tracks gleamed in both directions. Finally, they got off at their stop. In the nearby park, the leaves on the trees were turning, crisping at the edges. An empty fountain seemed to stare at Dylan as they neared their apartment building.

Dylan reached into their pocket, out of habit more than anything, to look for their wallet so they could flip it open and closed as they walked up the stairs. It wasn’t there. They patted their pockets again. Empty. The wallet—their father’s wallet given to them at twenty-two, worn and softened by time—was gone.

Dylan ran down into the subway, scrutinizing their past steps. Their father had pulled out the wallet when Dylan was a child to teach them about finances, a constant worry for their father. Earlier still, the wallet had emerged on hot summer days to pay for ice cream, their father laughing as dessert melted down their fingers while Dylan told him imagined stories.

Dylan jumped the turnstile and looked up at the sign to see when the train was arriving, but the sign was not working. Scanning the platform for the missing wallet, Dylan found nothing. They couldn’t stop thinking about the wallet, about their father, about the choices that had led them here. It felt as if his ghost was everywhere, pervading every corner of their life. The fluorescent station lights above flickered for a few seconds, off, on, off. They tried to take their phone out of their pocket, but their hands shook and their phone clattered to the ground.

They knelt to grab it just as the lights returned. Dylan found themself upright, their phone in their pocket. Had their vision faded out, in, out, in panic? Which memory of themself was true? A train roared into the station.

Finally reaching the office, Dylan arrowed up the elevator again. At their desk, they searched for the wallet. They cleared everything out; pens, notebooks, and pencils tumbled to the ground. Their wallet wasn’t there. They grabbed the one pen they cared about, their father’s, and wearily headed to the conference room.

There, its black leather gleaming in the moonlight, was the wallet. They quickly flipped through the pockets. Everything was there, even the picture of Dylan and their father tucked inside as if the two of them were watching over the cash. Dylan held their breath and released it, over and over, a slow-motion panting meant to calm the body. Shoving their wallet into their pocket, they realized how quiet the office was. Had everyone finished dealing with the Italy situation? A garbage truck ground its teeth nearby, and an ambulance wailed past the building, carrying the hearts of its occupants and their families. You’re okay. Everything is fine. Patting their pockets, they treaded out of the conference room and down the elevator into the mist.

Back to the apartment, past the park and the shutoff fountain, Dylan collapsed onto the couch in exhaustion. In the early morning, they woke up with a start. They had been having a dream about their father scolding them for…what? The memory eluded them. They had been having nightmares ever since their father died, dreams that haunted Dylan with paternal expectations. They felt torn in two, wanting to live up to what their father wanted. A doubling of desire, folding back on itself. It’s in the Fuentes blood.

Unable to fall back asleep, they pulled their phone from the couch pillows. The memory of yesterday’s news story about quantum mechanics whispered through their mind. Many Worlds. Maybe, in all versions of the universe, Dylan wasn’t dryly slogging through their job, playing out their father’s vision of a career. It was a hope of sorts. Maybe there was a version of themself that decided to take a different path. What dictated such variations?

A search revealed that a decision needed to be tied to a quantum event in order for it to produce a new version of oneself and the world. Just the possibility that one might choose a different path was not enough. But Dylan could use a quantum random number generator to generate a number from quantum fluctuations; all possible numbers were generated but they only saw one number in their world. Dylan would need to decide on a path they would take, a decision they would make about their future, for each possible number produced by the quantum number generator, before running it. Then, using the quantum number generator, multiple versions of Dylan would split into existence: one for each path dictated by each quantum number. Each Dylan Fuentes would not know anything about the other, but they would know they were out there. Their possible worlds would be overlayed, both existing to haunt the other.

Could they be brave enough to try this? To forge their life with a flip of a quantum coin? With one side, they would have to commit to doing what they loved -- writing and creating. With a quantum two, they would stay in finance, living up to their father’s ideals, which had somehow become mingled with their ideals over shared ice cream and money lessons. Dylan’s finger hovered over the button of a web-based lab quantum number generator on his phone. Yes, they could be that brave. One for leaving. Two for staying. The universe in superposition, letting both Dylan Fuentes’ pursue their lives.

Their finger descended. The universe split.

Dylan knew what they needed to do. The number was in hand.

The rain had stopped by the time Dylan emerged from the apartment. The world was still soaked, but it didn’t feel heavy anymore. The air was fresh, alive, washed clean. They walked past the spouting fountain in the park, which the rain had filled enough to bring back to life. A detour to a food cart yielded coffee;he slipped their last two dollars out of their father’s wallet, leaving it empty now except for the old picture of them and their father. The coffee sloshed through their body with warmth. After the susurration of the 2 train, they flowed up to the trading floor, still quiet in the early hour.

Dylan took out the wallet again, fingers hugging the leather. They put it on the desk, the photo on top, the sunlight glinting off their two faces. They grasped their favorite pen, their father’s pen, and stories filled their mind. They tucked it inside their pocket.

And they walked away, other possibilities overlayed in superposition.

Epilogue

A real-world quantum number generator produced the number dictating Dylan’s decision, a quantum coin flip based on a quantum event. Odd numbers meant that Dylan would walk away to find a way to become a writer. Even numbers signified Dylan would stay and commit themself to the path their father had walked in a different way. Because a quantum number generator produces all numbers in superposition, and because it was used to make this decision in our world, readers are in a quantum superposition of both endings. According to the Many Worlds theory of physics, this story exists written both ways. Both endings exist. Which one did you read? The story’s possibilities haunt the world. The story is a ghost of itself.

Chloe Burzynski

Design
Wauwatosa East High School
Wauwatosa, WI
Keeping Away Vampires, 2024
Nylon stockings, stuffing, fabric dye and yarn

Maya Caren

Plumage, 2024
Wire, straws and fabric
Shelby Carter
Photography Stivers School for the Arts Dayton, OH
Image 1 of Celestial Being, 2024 Digital photography

Anna Cassell

Anna Castro Spratt

A Life of Tailored Tranquility

Sam and Elena had been talking about a child for years, though mostly when Elena brought it up. She’d mention it during dinner or while they lay in bed at night, her voice soft, almost pleading. Sam would nod along, half-listening, but something always got in the way. His job, her projects, the general messiness of life. It wasn’t that they didn’t want a baby. It was just that they liked their lives as they were—quiet, unbothered by the kind of chaos a child might bring. Especially Sam—he lived for their twice-weekly movie nights, ordering in and laying against each other on their black leather couch. Routine was his vice. He’d only ever known how to attend to tasks on a schedule, which repeated endlessly—he knew a baby would make his weekly to-do unpredictable.

But one night, after a bottle of wine, Chinese takeout, and a particularly empty silence between them, Elena looked at Sam and said, “We’re running out of time, you know.”

Sam didn’t respond right away. He knew what she meant. No one had a baby the old-fashioned way. Not with the possibility of old-time abnormalities, or the immeasurable pain it took to push one out when machines now could do it painlessly.

“I’ll file the application tomorrow,” Sam finally said, though the words felt strange leaving his mouth. He wasn’t sure if he really meant it or if he was just tired of the conversation. But Elena smiled for the first time in weeks, and that was enough to make him follow through.

The application process was long, full of forms that asked the same questions over and over. Sam did most of the paperwork. Elena signed things here and there but grew restless with the details. They had to sit through interviews with Department of Family Making Services officials who asked them about their relationship, their jobs, their plans for the future. Sam handled it calmly, answering questions with the same steady voice he used when troubleshooting tech problems at work.

Elena, on the other hand, couldn’t hide her impatience. She tapped her foot during the interviews, sighed loudly when asked for more documents. She hated the wait. Sam could see it in her eyes, the growing frustration. Once, after one particularly long session, she snapped in the car, “Why does this take so long? We’re not criminals. We just want a baby.”

“They have to be sure,” Sam replied, though he wasn’t sure he believed it. The whole process felt more like a test of endurance than anything else. As they drove, he observed a couple, two small figures in the distance who grew larger as he approached the stop light they stood by. In the grassy median, the man and woman, clearly growing old and nearing the end of their TrialChild request window, stood solemnly. Their clothes were worn but clean, their faces exhausted but hopeful. The woman grasped the arm of her partner as he held a poster board sign, and on it, scribbled in black ink: NEED MONEY FOR TRIALCHILD.

“At least we’re not those people,” Elena whispered, her frustration replaced with pity. Once the car stopped, she rolled down her window and handed the man a measly five-dollar bill and whatever loose change rattled in their cup holders.

After months of waiting, they got the call. Their application had been approved. A TrialChild was on its way. Elena was ecstatic, buzzing with an energy Sam hadn’t seen in a while. She began planning, buying things they didn’t need—clothes, a crib, toys. Sam kept his excitement to himself, unsure how to feel about raising a TrialChild. It didn’t feel real yet.

When the TrialChild arrived, it was delivered in a box no bigger than a suitcase. It sat on their porch for hours before Elena

noticed it on their doorbell camera, but she was wet out of the shower and didn’t want to drip water on the roofed veranda. When he got home from work, Sam opened it, half-expecting something more, but inside was just a bundle of synthetic skin wrapped in blankets, eyes wide and unblinking. Elena hovered over his shoulder, waiting for some spark, some feeling. But Sam felt nothing, just the cold weight of the thing in his arms. He handed it to her.

She held the TrialChild awkwardly, as if afraid to break it, then smiled weakly. “She’s beautiful,” Elena whispered, though Sam didn’t see it. It was hard to call something made of circuits and silicone beautiful. They named her Ella.

The first week passed slowly. Ella cried on schedule, needing feedings and diaper changes like a real baby, though neither of them felt the urgency of it. When she cried, Elena would stare at her for a moment, sigh, and pick her up reluctantly. Sam tried to help but always felt like an intruder, like this wasn’t his job. His real work was outside the house, fixing machinery in industrial plants that needed him. The baby didn’t.

They went through the motions, both of them. But Sam noticed little things. Elena would forget to feed her sometimes, brushing it off because Ella wasn’t real, not yet. “What does it matter?” she’d say, her frustration bubbling up. “She’s not going to die if I’m five minutes late.”

Elena seemed stressed, anxious, even if she seemed also vaguely disinterested in the child. She was different. Sam thought he should help more, but the child responded better to Elena, as though programmed to value a mother’s imaginary milk in the same way he heard real babies did.

Sam never said anything, just watched from the sidelines, feeling a quiet unease growing in the back of his mind. He couldn’t shake the thought that maybe they weren’t cut out for this, that maybe the government had been right to make them wait. But it was too late now. Ella was here, and they had to see it through.

Still, Sam and Elena tried to stick to the routine. They followed the manual—fed Ella when she cried, rocked her to sleep when she stirred in the night. But something felt off. Ella’s cries, though programmed to sound natural, lacked the desperation of real life. Her needs were too neat, too predictable. Within weeks, they felt themselves going through the motions

“She’s not real,” Elena said one night as she leaned against the kitchen counter, the weariness in her voice out of place for a mother of a machine. “I feel like I’m wasting energy.”

Sam didn’t say anything. He had already thought the same, though he wasn’t about to admit it. Instead, he kept his eyes on his laptop, scrolling through user forums dedicated to the TrialChild. There were sections that detailed minor programming tricks— small hacks. Nothing major, just little ways to make life a bit easier.

That night, after Elena went to bed, Sam stayed up late, staring at his screen. He could feel the pull of curiosity, the strange temptation to peek under the hood of Ella’s operating system. The TrialChild’s software was supposed to be secure, foolproof. But Sam was a technician, and the simplicity of the system started gnawing at him. He knew he could crack it, and something about the idea of control thrilled him.

Yet there was still another feeling in him, one he couldn’t admit to himself. A strange part of him that wanted to be a good dad, a real father—but how could he feel like a real father when his child wasn’t real itself?

He started small— accessing a few lines of code buried deep within the TrialChild’s system. The initial adjustments were

subtle. He reduced the frequency of Ella’s cries by slightly altering the response algorithm. Instead of waking them up every three hours, like clockwork, Ella’s wails now came every five hours, then six. He didn’t tell Elena. She didn’t notice the difference.

Within a few days, Sam had hacked Ella’s feeding protocols, too. The manual had insisted the TrialChild needed regular nourishment to simulate proper parenting, but Sam overrode that. Now Ella could go longer and longer between “meals.” The bottles piled up on the counter, unused. Elena didn’t question it. She just accepted the ease as if it was meant to be that way.

“Maybe she’s just a calm baby,” Elena offered one night, staring into Ella’s blank eyes as the child sat silently in her crib. Sam only nodded, but deep down, he felt a rush of satisfaction. Ella’s calmness was his doing. His sense of pride deepened; he knew how to calm his baby, how to make it happy, or at least, not sad. He was a good father now, he thought, justifying his actions.

Over time, the changes became more drastic. Sam found himself spending more nights at his computer, poring over the code. The deeper he went, the more flaws he uncovered—small vulnerabilities he could exploit to shape Ella to suit his and Elena’s whims. The diaper changes, for example, became a thing of the past; Sam rewrote the code to keep her perpetually clean. No more fussing over messes, no more disruptions. One night, Elena even stayed up with him, watching two episodes of a new show.

The hacking felt like a game. Each adjustment brought a new convenience, each line of code peeled back another layer of difficulty. Elena had stopped waking up at night altogether, assuming Ella had simply “matured” past her sleepless phase. Ella didn’t need sleep. She was just code now—a series of numbers and algorithms that Sam could rewrite at will.

One night, Sam deleted her crying protocol entirely. Ella was silent for hours, her synthetic eyes wide open but unmoving. Elena barely noticed. “She’s so easy now,” she said absentmindedly, flipping through a magazine on the couch. “Let’s order some takeout and open a bottle of wine.”

Sam didn’t respond, but he knew the truth: Ella wasn’t easy. Ella wasn’t anything anymore.

Her body still moved when prompted, but only in jerks, like an old machine on the verge of malfunction. Her cries—once loud and piercing—had long been replaced with silence. The baby now only stirred when Sam remembered to trigger her movements through the hacked interface.

Sam hacked deeper, rewiring more essential functions. Ella no longer required feeding, attention, or care. Her entire purpose had been reduced to existing in the background, propped up in her crib like a prop. Occasionally, she would blink—an action Sam left in her system for appearances.

One night, while Elena was at work, Sam stood over the crib and stared at what was left of his TrialChild. Ella’s arms lay stiff at her sides, her face frozen in an expressionless gaze. He felt a strange sense of detachment, like she was no longer even a product of their request. She was a project, an experiment in control.

Elena walked in late that night, dropping her bag by the door. “Has she been good?” she asked, her voice distant.

“Perfect,” Sam said, looking at Ella, who had not moved an inch since the last time he had reset her program. Elena didn’t even glance at the crib.

Months passed like this. Elena barely looked at her anymore, and Sam, when he did, felt nothing but the satisfaction of control. Their twice-weekly takeout and movie nights were now once-weekly or every couple of weeks, if Sam was lucky. It was on those nights that Sam finally felt he had his Elena back. And Elena stopped giving money to TrialChild beggars, knowing, secretly, she was doing them a favor.

Then the letter arrived.

The letter! A new excitement suddenly rushed through Elena as she stared at the pristinely typed lettering of their names on the kitchen counter. All the empty parenting she’d practiced had made her nearly forget its end-goal, and now the crisp envelope felt like a surprise, though she knew exactly what it would say.

Elena ripped it open while Sam hovered over her shoulder. The seal at the top of the letter from the Department of Family Making Services gleamed under the warm kitchen light.

Congratulations. You have successfully completed your TrialChild period and qualified for the next stage in parenthood. Please report to the Department of Family Making Services headquarters to retrieve your child.

Their real child.

Elena let out a breath. “It’s happening,” she said, a faint smile flickering at the corner of her lips. Sam nodded, but his stomach churned with unease. They had gotten used to the quiet convenience of Ella, the way she asked for nothing and simply existed.

“You excited?” Elena asked, folding the letter and placing it carefully on the counter.

“Yeah,” Sam replied, but his voice lacked conviction. He wanted to feel the excitement, the anticipation of what was supposed to be the most important day of their lives, but all he felt was dread. The real child wouldn’t be like Ella. The real child would need things, demand things—things Sam couldn’t reprogram. He worried about his wife becoming anxious again, becoming distant from him and the child he’d be left to raise. The child she’d spent years pining for while he excused himself for work.

Still, they packed their bags. The Department was located in Chicago, not too far from their home in Michigan. It would be a simple road trip—two days there and back. On their last night of TrialChild parenting, the couple took part in one last takeout and movie night. Sam grieved the loss he knew would come, while Elena impatiently awaited their departure, ignoring the movie her husband wanted so badly to watch.

They set out the next morning, the car quiet except for the hum of the highway beneath the tires. Elena kept glancing at Sam, as if expecting him to say something, but he just kept his eyes on the road, his grip on the SmartWheel tightening with each mile.

“I hope she looks like you,” Elena said at one point, her hand resting on her belly as if the child had been growing inside her all this time. “Or maybe she’ll have your eyes.”

“She?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. I just have a feeling,” Elena said.

Sam nodded, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He kept thinking about Ella, sitting motionless in the baby seat behind Elena, her empty eyes staring at the roof. He felt unready to exchange her, to say goodbye to his masterpiece so soon. He had planned a timed reset of her settings to take place once they arrived, making the nine previous months of paradise undetectable; he didn’t want to alarm the staff.

They arrived in Chicago late in the afternoon, the city buzzing around them as they parked outside the towering building that housed the Department of Family Making Services. The glass doors slid open, and they stepped inside, greeted by the sterile smell of disinfectant and the low hum of machinery. Sam had seen much of it in his workplace. But here, everything felt too clean. Too controlled.

A receptionist directed them to a waiting area where other couples sat, some nervously tapping their feet, others holding hands tightly. They checked in at the desk, handing Ella to the employees who walked briskly between rooms they couldn’t see inside of. Elena gave Ella an easygoing goodbye, to which Ella cried again for the first time in months. With her, Sam cried too, at the loss of his baby. He spent fifteen minutes in the bathroom, staring himself down, affirming repeatedly that he would get a semblance of her back. He returned to the waiting room.

After what felt like hours, a woman in a crisp white uniform called their names. She led them down a long, dimly lit hallway to a room where the real child waited.

“Your baby has been developing in the human incubator,” she said as she opened the door. “She was created from the DNA samples you provided during the application process and has been growing for the past nine months while you underwent the TrialChild. She’s ready now.”

The woman disappeared into another room, leaving them standing in silence. Elena’s hands trembled as she reached for

Sam’s, but he didn’t take it. He just stared at the door, feeling the weight of what was about to happen.

When the woman returned, she carried a small bundle in her arms. The baby was swaddled tightly in a soft blanket, her tiny face barely visible beneath a mop of dark hair. “Here she is,” the woman said, gently placing the baby into Elena’s arms.

Elena gasped, tears welling in her eyes. “She’s perfect,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “She’s real.”

Sam looked down at the baby, his chest tightening. She was real. No wires, no circuits, no code. Just a tiny, fragile human being, made from their DNA. He reached out, hesitantly, and touched her hand. It was warm, soft—nothing like Ella’s cold, plastic skin.

“Congratulations,” the woman said, smiling warmly. “You’re officially parents now.”

The drive back to Michigan was different. Elena couldn’t stop cooing over the baby, talking about all the things they would do together, all the dreams she had for their future as a family. But Sam was silent, his mind spinning with doubts. The baby was real but so were the responsibilities. The demands. The unpredictability.

By the time they pulled into their driveway, the baby had started to cry, her soft wails filling the car. Elena cradled her, shushing gently, but Sam’s hands tightened on the SmartWheel. He missed the silence. The control.

Inside, they placed the baby in the crib that once held Ella. For a moment, the house felt alive again, filled with the sounds of real parenthood. But as Elena rocked the baby to sleep, Sam stared at his computer on the desk, the computer he had reprogrammed Ella from, making her the perfect baby. He wished he could sit at the desk chair now and send their new baby to sleep.

“I want to name her Stella,” Elena whispered to him, avoiding awakening her sweet new child.

In that moment, he realized something he hadn’t before: They had gotten so used to the quiet convenience of the TrialChild that they had forgotten what it meant to truly care for something.

The first few days with their real baby were a blur of sleepless nights and tearful days. Stella cried incessantly, her wails filling the house in the middle of the night, during the day, whenever Elena tried to feed her or hold her. Nothing soothed her, and with each passing hour, Elena’s patience wore thin.

Sam, too, felt the weight of the new reality pressing down on him. Stella wasn’t Ella—she couldn’t be hacked, couldn’t be silenced or controlled. She was relentless in her demands, her tiny body writhing in discomfort as they became more disheartened about their parenting skills. And Elena wasn’t the same woman as she had been with their TrialChild—she never rested or spent the same amount of time with Sam as she did with Stella. What had been downgraded to once-weekly takeout and movie nights with Ella was now a distant memory. His comfortable nights with Elena, which he’d never imagined would end, were gone, and it crushed Sam.

“I don’t know what to do,” Elena admitted one night, slumped on the couch with Stella screaming in her arms. “I can’t make her stop.”

Sam stood in the doorway, watching her helplessly. He had tried to help at first, but Stella seemed to reject him even more than she did Elena. She pushed away from his touch, her cries growing louder whenever he held her. He had never felt more useless.

“I don’t understand why it’s so hard,” Elena continued, her voice cracking. “We were supposed to be ready for this. We went through the whole process. We passed the test. Why can’t we handle it?”

Sam looked at Stella, red-faced and sobbing in Elena’s arms, and something inside him snapped. “Because this isn’t what we wanted,” he said, his voice low but firm. “This isn’t what we signed up for.”

Elena’s eyes darted to his, a mix of confusion and anger in her gaze. “What are you talking about? Of course it is. We wanted a child.”

“No,” Sam said, shaking his head. “We wanted Ella. We wanted convenience. This,” he gestured toward Stella, her tiny fists clenched as she cried, “this is chaos. It’s too much.”

Elena stared at him, her expression slowly hardening. “What are you saying, Sam?”

“I’m saying we made a mistake.” The words tumbled out before he could stop them, and once they were in the air, he felt the full weight of them. “We aren’t cut out for this. We were fine with Ella. We should’ve stopped there.”

Elena stood up, holding Stella tighter, as if shielding her from Sam’s words. “She’s not a mistake,” Elena said through gritted teeth. “She’s our daughter.”

Sam ran a hand through his hair, pacing the room. “Elena, I never told you, but—” He hesitated, knowing that what he was about to admit would change everything. “I hacked Ella. I reprogrammed her.”

Elena’s face twisted in disbelief. “What?”

“I changed her settings,” Sam continued, his words rushing out now. “I made her stop crying, stop needing things. I made her easy. That’s why it was so simple, why we passed the trial period. I hacked the system.”

Elena stared at him. “You... what?”

“I couldn’t take it,” Sam confessed. “The noise, the demands. And you . Your stress and anxiety. How we barely talked. I thought maybe, if things were different with her, we could go back to normal. To takeout and movies, Tuesdays and Fridays. It was all too much, I lost so much for this, so I... I fixed it. And now, with Stella, I can’t—” He stopped, swallowing hard. “I can’t fix her.”

Elena’s face darkened, her eyes narrowing as she processed what he had done. “You lied to me,” she said, her voice cold. “You cheated.”

“I didn’t mean to cheat,” Sam said defensively. “I just made things easier. For us.”

“For you,” Elena said. “You made things easier for you. And now you’re saying you want to go back to that? You want to give her up and go back to Ella?”

Sam didn’t answer, but the silence between them said enough. “You’re sick, Sam. You want to trade our real child for a machine? For a thing?”

“I’m just saying we could—” Sam hesitated, not wanting to push too far. “We could go back to the Department. Talk to them. Maybe there’s a way to—”

“To what?” Elena cut him off, her voice rising. “To return her like she’s some defective product? She’s a baby, Sam. A real baby.”

But even as she said the words, Elena’s exhaustion was visible, her eyes hollow from lack of sleep. She loved Stella, but Sam could see the wear and tear this child was causing her, too. She was depressed.

They argued late into the night, the tension between them growing thicker with every word. But their decision was already made, even if they didn’t want to admit it. By morning, they packed Stella into the car and started the drive back to the Department of Family Making Services in Chicago.

The silence in the car was heavy. Both of them knew the weight of what they were about to do, but neither acknowledged it. Stella slept most of the way, her tiny body limp in the car seat as they wound through the highways, the noise of the road drowning out their thoughts.

When they arrived at the Department, it was a different experience than the first time. The receptionist smiled at them as they approached, but her smile faltered when she saw the baby in Elena’s arms.

“We’d like to return her,” Sam said, his voice steady but hollow. The receptionist blinked, confused. “Return her? I’m sorry, sir, but that’s not possible. Only a TrialChild can be returned. Once the real child has been placed with the family, the responsibility is yours.”

“We’re not ready for this,” Elena interjected, her voice shaking. “We thought we could do it, but we can’t. We want our TrialChild back.”

The receptionist’s face softened, but her tone remained firm. “I understand this is difficult, but the Department cannot take the child back. She is yours now.”

Sam’s chest tightened, the words crashing down on him like a weight. He glanced at Elena, who looked equally crushed, her grip on Stella loosening as if the baby had become too heavy to hold.

The receptionist pointed them toward the exit, her expression a mixture of pity and professionalism. “I’m sorry,” she said. “There’s nothing more we can do.”

They walked back out into the cold Chicago air, Stella nestled in Elena’s arms.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Elena said. “I just can’t.”

Sam looked down the street, his eyes landing on a couple sitting alone on the curb of the Department of Family Making Services parking lot. The two held a cardboard sign, stained with sloppy, dried lettering: NEED MONEY FOR TRIALCHILD. NEARING END OF WINDOW. Sam swallowed hard, feeling a knot tighten in his throat. He recognized them from the day they’d returned from one of their TrialChild qualification interviews. He looked back at Elena, locking eyes with his wife. There was a silent agreement between them.

Elena stopped in front of the couple, voice shaking as she asked them, “Is a real child okay?”

At first, the couple looked confused. Then, the man’s eyes opened wider with surprised gratitude. “Anything is okay,” he said.

Elena’s hands trembled as she gently set Stella down in the stranger’s arms. For a moment, the four adults stood there, staring down at the baby, who squirmed slightly in her sleep but didn’t wake.

Sam and Elena didn’t speak as they turned away, their footsteps heavy when they walked back to the car. Sam opened the door, glancing once more at Stella lying in the beggars’ arms, her tiny body dwarfed by the grateful new parents above her. They got in the car and drove home, and ordered Chinese, and ate their noodles on the couch, holding each other beneath their food. They sat down to watch a movie they had seen years ago, sinking right back into their life of comfort, a time untainted by uncomfortable memories of their fleeting attempt at parenthood.

Austin Cohen

Photography Greenhill School
Addison, TX

Dana Colston

Visual Arts
Lovejoy High School Lucas, TX
i live inside you (Body), 2024 Mold, fabric, thread, wire, zipper and fishing line

Janae Crespo

Visual Arts
New World School of the Arts Miami, FL
Love, Edric, 2024
Photos, painted mangos and tissue paper additive

Sophie Da Silva

My Little Sister is Tired of Poems on Suffering

St. Agnes Academy Houston, TX

Say the storm is a rain dance. Say the Costco shelves were already empty. Say we saw the ants hide long ago. We spend our free time checking flashlight batteries. Our gas tanks are always full. Last two hurricanes weren’t Harvey moments. Say the sky was beautifully dark, you were staring at bright dots, at the architect above. Each minute, say you felt cool drops. Dad called, the other side of town was dancing in rain. Our hands wet, we ran inside. Knotted ponytails sat by the TV. Together we watched the news, clutching our rosary beads. Say the alerts were helpful reminders. Say the dog came back inside. Say watching the sky darken wasn’t a horror movie. The hail sounded like white noise. Loud sky was Zeus’ electric chuckle burn through the air. Say the downstairs closet is safe. It is the bare bones of our home. Doesn’t move. Other valuables won’t matter if we aren’t together. Say our prayers always protect us, that la oración de san Charbel1 keeps us alive. That we would stop the chickadee from the window. Be you and me, not euphemism or flooded garage. I say we’ve suffered enough.

1 Saint Charbel’s prayer

Aaron Dai

Washington, CT

X.

It was a hot August morning during an unusually sweltering summer when Ji’a watched the sunrise from the weedy field behind the high school. The field was mostly a place where pimply teenagers smoked pot, but it was also his refuge. Ever since Ma stopped asking about where he was and who he was with, Ji’a found himself drawn to this bare, dandelion-covered oasis. He didn’t know why – there were many emptier and weedier fields throughout Washington. Still, Ji’a visited the field every morning, laying in the grass as mosquitos buzzed his shins. By the time he checked into the Tribune’s office at nine, his legs had flushed and swelled into ripe tomatoes.

In the two-room wooden building that the Washington Tribune called home, the AC rarely worked, so the air was perpetually thick with sweat and dust. Most editors worked from home, and only a handful of volunteers and summer interns, like Ji’a, came in every morning to sift through the mailbox for physical submissions and scan digital pieces for missing periods and comma splices.

“So you get paid to do what Word can do for you?” a fox-eyed blond asked him once at a party. They were alone on a stranger’s bed, their heartbeats synced to the muffled bass from downstairs. It was warm where their shoulders touched. “Yeah,” Ji’a mumbled, before adding sharply, “but I don’t get paid.” The blond glanced at him, following the curve of Ji’a’s neck past the cleft of his lip up to his goldfish eyes.

“What do you write?” the blond asked, his eyes tracing back down. A vein in Ji’a’s neck danced with the music. “Not much. Just mainly about my life.” He leaned forward and got up, deftly stepping towards the open window where the streetlights shined. The blond followed. “Do you write about Washington?” Ji’a moved his hand against the white sill. He saw a dead fly in the window, its six legs pointed to the sky in eternal prayer. “Yeah. Sometimes. I wish I could write about it more.” The blond pressed up against Ji’a as they moved towards the bed.

“I hate Washington,” the blond breathed.

“Me too.”

X.

Washington, Connecticut is about 80 miles from the nearest form of civilization. Shoved up against the state’s southeast border, it’s closer to drive 10 miles into the Atlantic than it is to either Boston or New York. It’s one of those towns whose fossilized brick buildings creep up between the cornfields and rotting logs. It’s not a poor town by any means –no; its tartan rows of shops along the town center are bleached white and minty. Parents wake early under the cover of starlight to send their pristinely uniformed, booger-eating children to private school and the women file into church, glossy pink pearls hanging from their wrinkly necks, though few of them ever tithe. Smooth sidewalks line almost every spacious street, but there is no need for them; even dog walkers drive to the next town over.

In Washington, news speaks in whispers: gossip spreads through check-out-line gossip and over lazy afternoons by the pool, where children and their parents gather. Locals say Washington is about as interesting as toilet paper, but Ji’a had heard too many stories to know that isn’t true; too many sentences dance across his notebook about single immigrant mothers and suicidal veterans, fake cancer charities and rampant infidelity.

For the most part, however, these stories stay in his notebook. Ma shuts down talk of gossip at dinner with a flick of her chopsticks. She often sighs, musing between bites that “private business should stay private.”

“It’s cool, though, to hear how messed up some of these people are behind closed doors,” Ji’a responds. They made a routine out of this argument; it didn’t matter if it was Ji’a’s friend or Ma’s, the mayor or a lifeguard.

In the rare moments when Ma disclosed anything about her past, whether it was about the Cultural Revolution or bicycles, she first made Ji’a promise to keep his fat mouth shut. Ma told stories as if she were back there herself, her eyes gazing back into her own memory, looking to see who was listening. She was somewhere else in those moments, standing on paved streets that had long since changed names. Ji’a listened along, though his head was usually elsewhere. Perhaps that’s why it was so easy for him to keep his fat mouth shut.

X.

Chrome History for yittilicious101@gmail.com – Tuesday, August 30th

1:53 AM fastest ways to fall asleep - Google Search

2:37 AM best interview questions for old white history teachers - Google Search

2:47 AM how many questions in a thirty-minute interview

2:58 AM Why NYU? :r/urbancolleges - www.reddit.com

3:01 AM Wordle - The New York Times - www.nytimes.com

3:02 AM Ernest Lance Teacher Profile - Washington High School.com

3:03 AM (35) Ernest Lance | LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com

3:15 AM Drafts (98) - yittilicious101@gmail.com - Gmail

X.

Dear Mr. Lance,

Thank you for allowing me to interview you for my upcoming project, On Washington. I really appreciate your time and hope you will thoroughly answer my questions. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or concerns about my project. You were the first one I wanted to interview, and I’m so happy with how our conversation about [...] turned out. Thanks again for your time!

Have a great summer,

Ji’a

Sent from my iPhone

X. Robin Today 12:19 AM

Yeah I still have to visitApparently my dad threatening to kill her wasn’t enough for her to realize that he should rot in hell

Is your Mom still making you go to NY

Is Delilah nice at least LMAO she can pay for boobs but still couldn’t buy her way out of bitchhood

I hate the fact that I have to put up with her and my dad for a month Makes me wanna jump in front of oncoming traffic

Lol yeah I could imagine When do you leave again?

January 30th

At least you get to skip school I guess

Do you need a ride to the airport I’ll probably uber

Okay Plz take pics of NY!! I need to see what I’m getting myself into if I get into nyu

Chinese song she was singing, but her voice rang like a bell, clear and sweet like glassy sugar. Nobody dared to breathe too loudlyuntil she started crying. It started off as a twinkle rolling down her cheek then turned into thick, slimy tears. Though Auntie Shiu tried to convince her otherwise, she only sang at two more festivals. That night, however, was different. When Robin had sucked the last noodles from her soup, she started humming. It was breathy, far away at first, until she started mumbling the words. She had heard somewhere that singing when your throat is irritated could cause permanent damage, but she grew louder anyways. Ji’a, grabbing the remote, hastily keyed in the song, twisted the volume dial all the way to the right and started singing, as well.

When* you get in And I will I’m tired

Goodnight X.

By the time the first snowflakes landed and softened on his car, Ji’a had just changed the screensaver of his computer to a picture of a polaroid of the sunny New York skyline. It wasn’t his – Ba never offered to bring Ji’a on his trips. Rather, he found it one night on the white brick stairs outside of a house party he wasn’t invited to, about two dimes to the right of a steaming lob of mold green vomit that punched at his nostrils. Holding it up by its two left corners, his other hand pinched against his nose, the tip of the World Trade Center quivered as Ji’a tilted the picture left and right. There was something promising about it, a hopeful nostalgia the faded film captured. For a moment, the skyline morphed and enlarged; he saw himself on those shrieking streets, vibing with the sounds of construction and smelling the warmth of fresh bagels.

Despite his pinched nose, he swore he could taste the vomit. He set the picture down on the steps, slid out his phone and leaned over, zooming in and taking the picture before deftly avoiding the vomit as he walked up the steps and pushed the door open. It was only after he parked the car outside his house, whitney still heavy on his breath, that he noticed his own shadow had eclipsed the honey glow from the porch light. He saved it anyway.

X.

“I swear to- Ji’a. Give me the ramen.” Robin stood in front of the stove in front of a pot of almost-boiling water while Ji’a sprawled on her living room couch, picking off bits of dried noodles and crunching on them. Auntie Shu was gone for the weekend, “probably spending it with another meathead boyfriend,” as Robin said. As a result, she and Ji’a freely used her mom’s corner cabinet collection of ramen past midnight.

Robin tore at the spice packet with her molars until it opened. She poured the crimson powder into her empty bowl, making sure to flip it upside down and shake it a few times before tossing it. She only poured half of the packet into Ji’a’s bowl, leaning the rest against the porcelain side. She shuffled over to Ji’a, whipping the dry ramen out of his hands. “You’re cheating yourself of Shin, I hope you know that,” she said, before plopping his gnawed wheel of dry noodles into the water. Ji’a grumbled something back and lifted a thumbs up in Robin’s general direction. When Robin came back, he sat up and moved aside as Robin set two chili red bowls of instant ramen and a half empty spice packet on the glass coffee table.

They ate in silence; they always did when they ate something spicy, a tradition they started only after Robin had stopped singing. The pair had met at Washington’s annual Lunar New Year festival when Robin was twelve and Ji’a was eleven. He had watched as Robin got on stage, her shiny mushroom haircut gleaming against the harsh lights. He didn’t know a word of the

At some point during the night, they both got up and swayed to whatever song was on the T.V. They danced and they yelled. They sang and they screamed. They shut off the lights and let the words on the screen light up the room, illuminating their faces, transforming them into the children they used to be.

X.

1 New Voicemail Ji’a Washington, Connecticut December 19th, 20– at 9:47 PM Transcript: Wei? Hello? Ba. Did you know Connecticut is the 14th least flown-over state? I know you’re in France right now and you’re probably super busy, but I wanted to tell you because when I heard that, I remembered how you used to point at the sky and yell out look! airplane! when we played badminton just to distract me so you would win. I couldn’t even find half the airplanes you were pointing to. Yeah, I still remember that. Do you? When you get back next year, let’s play again. We can go to that soccer pitch where you used to teach me how to dribble. How’s France? Do you need help figuring out Duolingo? Ma’s been getting on my case about dropping French, but wouldn’t you want your last year of high school to be fun? Can you come home quicker so you can back me up or at least call her sometime. Remember when you told her she shouldn’t be so strict about my driving privileges? It worked, so just do that again. Just give her a call. Or, actually, just take me to France with you, or New York. Definitely New York. When you get back next year, take me to New York. But other than Ma, things are okay. Are you eating a lot of those snails you like? Did you try that nasty duck liver food? I have to finish writing my essays for Columbia, so tell me later. Just give me a call. Bye.

X.

Chrome History for yittilicious101@gmail.com – Saturday, January 13th

2:31 AM January 13, Connections - The New York Timeswww.nytimes.com

2:34 AM birthday cards CVS washington ct - Google Search

2:37 AM how to tell if a friend is struggling - Google Search

2:40 AM audio to writing transcriber - Google Search

2:41 AM Subscription Plans - transcribeme.com

2:41 AM best free audio to writing transcribers - Google Search

2:42 AM Home - koalatranscribe.net

3:26 AM how to tell if phone has virus - Google Search

3:58 AM insomnia symptoms

X.

Though he usually recited poetry, and Robin sang at the Lunar New Year festival, he was alone this year. “It’s gorgeous,” Robin said about her stepmom’s penthouse in Manhattan. “You can see all of Central Park from the window on most days.” Bu I’a knew it was envy, not awe, that tinged her syllables.

Aside from her absence, the festival continued as usual: it was held in the same muggy wooden basement of the Chinese church off the highway and, just like always, a swarm of children with pastry crumbs caked on their lips awaited their red envelopes. Willing teenagers read poems they didn’t understand for the sake of their culture. Unwilling teenagers read poems they

didn’t understand for an extra twenty in their envelopes. Ji’a was one of the latter. So, when he forgot a passage or when the too-bright stage lights inevitably blinded him momentarily, he didn’t mind.

By the time Ji’a sat down at plastic roundtable #28, only Auntie Shu was still there, wrapped in the pink and blue scarf Robin had knit her for Mother’s Day, sipping a plastic cup of sour plum juice. When she saw Ji’a, she got up and hugged him as she always did, the cold edge of her white jade bracelet pressing against his back. They said hello and how are you, you’ve gotten so tall, and you haven’t aged a day; they talked of university and Washington, filling the space between them with the usual pleasantries.

“Are you going to keep writing in college?” she asked. Her eyebrows raised and curved like the pale arc of a sunset. “You read poems with so much maturity. It would be a shame if you were to stop writing.” She squeezed her knuckles together, sliding the jade band off her wrist and into her palm. She gripped the pale stone before continuing. “I could never get Robin to get into character like that. And she had the worst stage fright. Couldn’t perform to save her life.” She fed her bracelet back through her closed fist, staring at it as she talked. “Did she ever tell you her grandfather loved to write? He used to read his poetry to her when she was a baby in Guangzhou.”

She had – on the curb of the parking lot after school. Most of the cars had already left, so it was just them, elbows resting on their knees, and a red Nissan. “She didn’t even know when Yeye died. He wrote hundreds of them ahead of time – letters – some of them were dated for just two months ago.” Ji’a handed her a used napkin. Her phlegmy sniffles sounded like Velcro and echoed across the cement field. “Grandma sent them for him, almost every week. When she died and the letters stopped coming, that’s how Mom found out.”

Auntie Shu started to wiggle the band back on. She drank again from her cup, though it was mostly melted ice at this point. She retucked her scarf while saying, “I’ll see you around, Ji’a,” and got up. She hugged him again before she left, her jade bracelet warm as it trailed across his shoulder blades.

X.

Chinese (Simplified) - Detected 床前明月光疑是地上霜举头望明月低头思故乡

English

Before my bed lies a pool of moonlight I imagine that it’s frost on the ground I look up and see the shining moon Bowing my head I am thinking of home

X.

Chrome History for yittilicious101@gmail.com – Thursday, March 14th

1:42 PM ap bio unit 7 quiz answer key washington hs - Google Search

1:53 PM March 14, Daily Crossword Puzzle - www.nytimes.com

1:57 PM birthday gifts for asian moms - Google Search

2:04 PM Heavy-Duty Broom Perfect for Home Pet Hair Rubbish 54 Inch - amazon.com

2:05 PM are poems bad gifts - Google Search 2:19 PM Ma Bday Poem - docs.google.com

X.

Happy Birthday, Ma By Ji’a

Let’s go for a walk. It will be dark soon. It’s okay. Do you want bug spray? Yes. I think mosquitoes like me more. The air is so nice right now. How are your allergies? There’s a car coming. I see it. Wait, there’s a tree here that smells really good. The cicadas are so loud today. There were millions of cicadas where I grew up. Is that a blue jay? When I die, what are you going to remember most about me? I don’t know. What do you remember most about the last 17 years?

I remember the sound of your snoring. The apartment where we lived in Baltimore. The way you stayed up late at night. How we tried to grow tomatoes from our balcony until the pigeons got to them. How we ate dinner from a metal table meant for some richer family’s patio. The crash of a car rear ending us on our way home from dinner. The way you’re so proud of our dog every time he sits. Your singing voice. How you look without glasses. Your pride. I’ve never been to this part of the neighborhood. The houses are so big. That house is so ugly.

Yeah, it is. It’s almost dark, let’s go. How do we get back? It’s okay, follow me.

I’m sorry that I get home late and never call, and that I didn’t get into Columbia, and didn’t even apply to Harvard. I’m sorry that you’re going to have to spend 25k a year to send me to some school in the city that doesn’t even offer aid. I know things are hard for you right now, especially with Ba away, but I’m going to make you proud. I want you to be happy; to work overtime less and sing more. I want to hear you sing and talk and dance. You said you used to read with flashlights when your daily electricity went out, so I’m going to get really rich one day, and buy us a big ugly house with a big empty yard so you can tan and read all day like you always say you wanted to.

X.

Robin Today 4:31 PM

It’s fine

Delilah’s been less bitchy than usual

Not really

I’ve been rotting in my room most of the time

Broadway was cool

Going to vessel next week

Then I get to gtfo

Sounds good

Been craving recently

The same

He pretends I’m not there most of the time

I don’t even mind

I’d rather he ignore me than act all father of the year suddenly

End of june

How’s ny

That’s good lmao Have any good pics?

Real

Did you go to broadway and the vessel

Let’s go out when you get back Kim’s sushi got replaced with another sushi spot

Fax Hows your dad

Fuck him

When do you get back

Gonna nap, bye lol cya

X.

It was Robin who had convinced him to start waking up for the sunrise that past summer. “If one of us wakes up,” she said, “then it’s their responsibility to wake the other person up. Even if it means banging on their door.”

Both front seats were reclined flat that night, and the sunroof of her car was open so they could see the handful of stars scattered across the sky: the North Star. Most of the Big Dipper. Venus if you looked carefully. She had a star map pulled up on her phone and raised it to the night, comparing the stars clutched in her hand to those heavenly bodies.

“Fuck light pollution,” she said, and Ji’a almost hadn’t heard her over the cicadas. “You know, I read somewhere that we’re all made of stars,” she mused. “When the Big Bang boom happened, it

blew up so many stars down to their atoms that got recycled into making Earth.” They both listened to the cicadas for a moment. “So, when I die, I want to get cremated and have the ashes flown to space.” They listened again. Ji’a watched the blinking lights of an airplane glide past their sunroof view. “That’s deep,” was all he could muster.

X.

1

New Voicemail Ji’a

Washington, Connecticut June 4th, 20– at 5:05 AM Transcript: How’s France, Ba? Sorry this is a little early for you, but when I was younger, do you remember telling me to fake it ‘til I make it? Well, you did, but now I have a question. How do I know if I’ve made it? Because I don’t think I’m a writer. Or a poet. Or any kind of great performer like you said I am. Ma already photocopied my diploma, but I don’t feel like a graduate at all. Do you know that feeling? Like I’m somehow doing everything and nothing at the same time? I don’t want my life to be pointless. But I want you to be happy. When did you stop faking it?

X.

“Ma, I didn’t mean to publish it. I swear,” Ji’a pleaded to the back of Ma’s head. She hadn’t spoken to him all day, an anomaly even by her standards. He had left her alone until he found a copy of the Tribune on her desk, neatly flipped to the spread with his poem in the bottom right corner, his name below it in blocky, dark print. “I know things are hard for you right now, especially with Ba away…”

– Robin had never been so high up before; no buildings in Washington ever peeked over the tree line. Life had always been planar, a two-step series of looking across fields and into stage audiences. But from her vantage point on the 10th floor of the Vessel, the proportions shifted.

She imagined she was flying, feeling the wind drag past her neck and feather through her hair. Looking down at her 2D world, she was free of its rules and theorems. She stared at the people and the sidewalk below, watching the distance stretch between her and them. She was suddenly aware of how fatal it would be to fly. –

“Dinner’s ready.” Ma slid a bowl of stir-fried tomato and egg in front of Ji’a, a vermilion chunk slipping out as the bowl shook and quivered. “How we ate dinner from a metal table meant for some richer family’s patio.” As she walked away, Ji’a didn’t bother asking if she was going to eat as well. He picked a chubby glob of egg and spooned it into his bowl, though he didn’t eat it. Instead, he shouted to the door shutting behind him, “It wasn’t even about you.”

–As she climbed up a set of stairs, one of Robin’s stepbrothers mocked her from the top, “Bet you can’t catch me!” and took off. Obligingly, Robin chased, following the ripple of their white shirts in the wind. The Vessel bloomed as she ran, layers shifting and circling wider as she chased the boy up. She didn’t notice, but a smile had pulled itself onto her face as she kept running, and she started laughing. “I’m catching up!” she yelled out, which caused the boy to squeal. It was a hearty, bellied laugh, the type that dripped caramel at its edges.

The door didn’t open. No desperate knock, punchy kick, or frenzied twist of the knob shook the metal bolt. Even when Ji’a pleaded, “Ma, I promise. Nobody will read it anyway.” The door stayed silently shut. A paper – the newspaper – fed through the bottom slit of the door. Ji’a picked it up, glancing past the familiar stories. His fingers traced the soft edge of the paper, and it didn’t register that it had been ripped until his eyes found the bottom right corner where his poem had been. “I want you to be happy; to work overtime less and sing more. I want to hear you sing and talk and dance.”

–When Robin reached the 16th floor, the rhythm of her steps slowed to a pause. For a moment, she leaned over with her palms on her thighs, catching her breath as the sharp wind filled her lungs. She looked past the boy, who hadn’t realized she had

given up, and at the line on the horizon where the sky met the trees. –

The light in the room had turned off. He was lying down, cheek pressed to the dusty hardwood floor, staring through the gap between the door and floor. The left side of his head ached dully. Periodically, he sobbed. But he mostly begged. “Ma, please. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“When I die, what are you going to remember most about me?”

“Robin, we’re leaving,” someone, maybe Delilah, called, but she had already walked to the glass barriers, letting her palms cool against the metal bars. She stayed fixed on the New Jersey horizon, but she thought of Washington and Ji’a, of her Mom’s voice, telling her to go to sleep. She leaned over the edge and swung one foot over the smooth railing, never looking down.

X.

X.

Robin

Yesterday 10:04 PM

When ru home

Chrome History for yittilicious101@gmail.com – Friday, July 1st

3:41 AM July 1, Daily Crossword Puzzle www.nytimes.com

3:59 AM Home - The New York Times - www.nytimes.com

4:00 AM Teen who jumped to death from Vessel was laughing with brother before leap, guard sayswww.nytimes.com

Robin Yesterday 10:04 PM

Today 3:19 AM

Ma Today 7:37 PM

Dinner is ready

I leave a bowl outside your door. Eat soon, food will get cold

X.

When ru home

I’m sorry

Chrome History for yittilicious101@gmail.com – Monday, July 15th

5:12 AM Location - Quinn-Hopping Funeral Homewww.soaringmemorials.com :16 AM DoorDash Food Delivery & Takeoutwww.doordash.com

X.

Her funeral was in the ivied, naked graveyard down her street, only a ten-minute walk from her house. It was a small gathering, the handful of black-veiled mourners lingering around her closed casket like flies on rotten meat. There were many that spoke of her, though only some spoke to her. Very few eulogized her. When Ji’a stood up, Auntie Shu stared at him, her lips printed into a terse but reassuring smile, as if saying you don’t have to pretend to be okay.

At the podium, Ji’a looked down the open lane leading to Robin. It looked like a runway, and he wished he could jet off to somewhere far away – far from Washington, Auntie Shu, and Robin. He imagined soaring up and up until her casket faded into a memory that would sink into the current of his consciousness like a rock. One day, when time and its erosion had finished their invisible work, it would simply wash away.

So, when he spoke of her, he didn’t speak of much. He only wished to forget.

X.

Chrome History for yittilicious101@gmail.com – Friday, July 21st

9:02 AM Chrome History - Delete Browsing Data - chrome:// settings 9:21 AM July 21, Daily Crossword Puzzle www.nytimes.com

X. Contacts

–R Rachel Ricky Roav Rochen Ryan

X. 1 New Voicemail

Ji’a

Washington, Connecticut July 30th, 20– at 5:41PM

Transcript: Ba, I miss you a lot. So much has happened since you left, and I’ll tell you when you get back because I don’t know if I can remember it all now. But I wanted to let you know that Washington won’t be the same as how you left it, not even remotely. The streets will be the same as how you remember them and the soup dumpling place is still open, so don’t worry. The neighbors still park too close to our driveway on Thursdays which you’ll still have to yell at them for and the tree that Ma says smells good is still blooming. I’ve tried to water your tomatoes and plant some squash of my own, but they’re not as sweet, and the deer somehow broke the fence you installed. You know, Ba, I’ve never really noticed it, but Washington is just like that. It never changes until you’re gone for too long, and then it will seem like everything suddenly has.

X.

“Can you grab that big white plate for me?” Ma called out, pointing to the top shelf of an open cabinet. She poured some sort of ground meat into the oiled wok with her other hand and let it hiss before starting to stir. Ji’a walked over and reached, lifting it up by the rim and setting it down next to Ma’s wet cutting board.

It was stir-fry day, one of the many new days Ma had created since Robin’s funeral, including pasta day (Ji’a’s favorite), ramen day (Ma’s favorite), mochi day, smoothie day, matcha day, and mango day (Robin’s favorite). Most days, the kitchen sink was filled with pulpy blenders and dozens of tasting spoons, and the stove fired up four pots at once.

Today, however, Ma took out a single wok, bathed in the glow of the amber light over the stove, her carnation-red dress whirling as she moved. When she twisted off the flame, she took the wok with her and transferred the jumble of meat and vegetables directly onto Ji’a’s plate. He picked at it with his chopsticks, as if searching for something. Plucking out a nugget of pork, he blew twice on the steaming lump before biting in.

“Do you like it?” She studied his face, glancing between his eyebrows and lips, and Ji’a glanced back. He could never read her expressions, but he did learn its punctuation: a crease in her brow, the tick in her jaw, the crawling shadows under her eyes. “Yeah, I like it,” he said.

1 New Voicemail

Ji’a

Washington, Connecticut

August 4th, 20– at 10:41 PM

Transcript: *Crickets chirp as a car whooshes past. A boy walks up the steps of a house he doesn’t know

Where are you R u okay?

I’m sorry Come home

I love you

X.

Ma

Yesterday 11:39 PM

Today 12:42 AM

Today 1:02 AM

Washington, Connecticut is about 80 miles from the nearest form of civilization. Shoved up against the state’s southeast border, it’s closer to drive 10 miles into the Atlantic than it is to both Boston and New York. It’s one of those towns whose fossilized brick buildings whisper stories in broad daylight and stagnate in a perpetual state of decay. It’s not a poor town by any means – no – where it is poor in passion it is thick with silent detail: the peachy laugh of children on a playground and the hush of confessions eased out by stolen whiskey. The way the sunrise reflects streaks off the glass of the high school on a misty morning.

Ji’a did not remember how he ended up sprawled across the oval lawn in front of the high school, nor did he remember walking or driving there. He sat up and twisted back towards the school, fingers digging into the scratchy grass as he leaned his weight on his palms. He reached for the phone in his pocket and clicked it open. 5:12 AM. He got up, his legs dully itching, and turned to face the school. In the past four years, he had spent more hours in that building than with his own Ba, he thought. Suddenly, he felt the urge to take a picture, to capture the transient moment he had seen dozens of times before in the back field. Slowly, Ji’a started home.

In the process, he realized he had never seen Washington at sunrise. He never saw the faerie lights that were strung up by the church or the scratchy man that unloaded groceries into the backdoor of the bagel mart. He never heard a jogger’s rhythmic slap echo against empty roads, nor had he smelled the garbage that was littered behind town hall. He had never seen a surge of birds sway in the sky or the pink hued clouds that reminded him of watermelon. When he pushed the front door open and found Ma asleep on the couch, a yarny blanket stretched over her mellow frame, he found that he’d never noticed the bands of white that peppered her hair. He pressed a kiss to her scalp before returning to the front steps and sitting down. A plane coasted past as clouds drifted away, and the bright chirping of robins melted into the rustle of yawning oaks. An old man with a cane walked with a hiccup. Down the street, a lone dog started to bark. Ji’a got up, looking out into the neighborhood, before pushing the door open.

Chantal Eulenstein

Ode to an Air Fryer

Mamãe buys an air fryer with her credit card points, like she does with so many things— my computer, the Dyson cordless vacuum cleaner she will never compliment because it will never be better than the rectangular horsehair broom she bought in Germany so many years ago. When our family was still whole.

The air fryer comes a week later, large and wide, in gleaming stainless steel. Cuisinart. It is a convection oven, too, something we cannot understand; we throw away the instructions— Mamãe is Brazilian, after all. There are so many knobs to turn. I am lost. My toast comes out an uncooked slice of bread, as cold and soft as the underside of my arm.

Mamãe buys an air fryer with her credit card points because in Brazil, in the kitchen in Titia’s apartment, in a hall so narrow that I wonder how her hips fit between the counters that line the walls, there is a black air fryer. On a piece of old parchment paper Titia fries inhame (yam)— the root vegetable that Mamãe tells you the slaves took from the indigenous when they fled to quilombos, the villages they built in between trees and rivers to escape their masters. When you bite into the golden-brown flesh, the color the sun beats into Mamãe’s skin, you wonder how much of their blood runs through your veins. The veins that cross Vovó’s arms, bound by paper-thin skin as though they are a map, roads that run like Rua Barbosa Lima (Road Barbosa Lima) runs in Brazil, like you run sometimes when you are afraid. But your skin is the color of the flesh that spills, the white starch that slips out when you bite into a piece of inhame burnt golden brown.

“Puxou o Pai,” they say. She takes after her father. You are so white, so American, that when you go hiking with your cousins, the guide does not even learn your name. Instead, he calls you that name you are now too old not to be called, that name your cousin shouts at the ticket counter of the museum when the girl working asks for your school ID. He calls you Gringa.

You laugh every time. You scrunch your cheeks. You tense yourback the same way you do when you want to keep from crying. It should not really matter that they call you Gringa. You are supposed to laugh. You are not supposed to care. Gringa embraces Latin America the same way Mamãe held you when you were hours from her womb, naked on her chest. Sometimes you wonder if Gringa is an amulet Latin America has against the world. In a moment, Gringa can create an “other.” For Latin America, Gringa is power.

That is why you can feel the word in your chest, trailing down your abdomen along your veins. It stings. They do not know what Brazilian-American means. It does not exist in Portuguese. You are American, they are Brazilian, how could you be both? It does not matter that you speak Portuguese, that you have family in a city with a beach somewhere north in Brazil; you have a chair at a dinner table where you do not belong.

On the car ride back from the hike, Duda and Poiya, the cousins that are almost 15 years older than you because Mamãe had you when she was 42, tell you that Americans are obnoxious and stupid and full of themselves.

You agree. ***

Because I am not American. Because I believe I belong in the grey space that exists somewhere between Brazil and Germany. Because red and white and blue do not suit me. But neither does red and black and yellow. Neither does green and yellow and blue. It does not matter how many times I wear the white Havaianas with little Brazilian flags on the straps, and blue

and yellow and green stripes that run around the edges. It does not matter how many times I eat rice and beans, and chicken and fish, with silverware that has thick black plastic handles. It does not matter that I speak to myself in German in the shower until the water runs cold, because my Papi left me a language and half of a culture and the broken heart of a child who has been left alone too long.

I will never be Brazilian.

I will never be German.

Yet, watching pirated versions of the TV Globo sensation

A Escrava Isaura (The Slave Isaura) with Mamãe, I know America is where I belong. I know I love America.

I love America because in America I meet another girl, tan skin and brown eyes and curly brown hair that falls to her shoulders. One of her eyes is bigger than the other, and she jokes that her genetics split her Japanese and Arab heritage into halves of her face. I have been watching her curly hair. I have been watching the way it grows with water, as though it is a plant, every curl reaching for the sun. I have been watching how beautiful it is, how it falls over her shoulders. I have been wanting hair like that and skin as dark as the one she wears. Together, we trade the stories we find written in the palms of our hands. We bond over the words of our Japanese and Arab and Brazilian and German parents. Over the laughter that follows. Over the hush that wraps its arms around our bodies and stays until we are ready to let go. America is an in-between. It is the middle ground I fall in love with every time I open my eyes and trace the stories that come, braiding them until they become strong enough to mask the whispers of pain with laughter.

America is the smile on Mamãe’s face when I find out that I have to turn the temperature dial on the air fryer for it to work, and she hugs me like she hugged me when I was seven and Germany won the World Cup, arms around my shoulders because I was so small and could not stop jumping in the shirt I painted black and yellow and red. The photos are blurry because I could not stop moving and she could not stop smiling and when Mamãe smiles her whole body shakes as though she is going to erupt, but it does not matter because it does not take a definition to see joy.

***

Your cousins in Brazil do not know what it is to sit with another immigrant daughter and trade stories and laugh until you are sore. Your cousins do not know what it is to live in-between, to smile so hard that your body breaks because an air fryer reminds you of what you think home is. They do not know how beautiful it is to touch so many worlds. They do not know how lonely it is to be the only one who can touch so many worlds. They have never gone to Vovó’s house or listened to Mamãe speak and fallen to their knees and cupped their palms, waiting for the stories to come like waterfalls, until they slip between their fingers. Your cousins will never know that when you visited for the first time in six years you wrote down in a black notebook, “Brazil comes in pieces.”

It sinks in slowly first. McDonald’s in gate C10 and Mamãe not realizing that she is speaking a language that everyone can understand. That Brazil stands up straight and shakes your hand. That Duda is driving you home from the airport to what you didn’t know was Titia’s apartment; you don’t know what to say.

How do you ask how six years have been? How do you explain your curves and larger chest to a family who still thinks you are ten?

“Seis anos é muinto tempo, muinto tempo para não vir pra casa,” the lady at passport control says. Six years is too long, too long, to go without coming home.

You find Brazil in Titia’s living room, on the TV that never turns off. Noticias in the morning, talk shows in the afternoon, and the novellas (soap operas) that run on channel seven on TV Globo when the sun has dropped into where the sea meets the sky. The novellas are not as good as you remember.

That first night you put your head on Titia’s lap because you saw that the cousin that you remember as eight, now with a rough voice and curly hair and a nose so massive that Mamãe immediately tells him how ugly it is, picking at Titia’s feet with his hands until she tells him to stop. You watch and stare in wonder at how close they are. Because six years is too long - too long to know that you are family. In America, loneliness comes like the sheets you and Mamãe pull over your chests in bed. You see loneliness in the way Mamãe tells you the reporters on NPR and Washington Week and the PBS Newshour are her only friends. America is the loneliness that creeps, slowly, like someone pouring the sweetened condensed milk Mamãe uses to make her beijinho de coco (coconut kisses.) The loneliness comes a little bit stronger, in waves, every four years, when you watch the World Cup with Mamãe on Telemundo in Spanish because it is free, and the only thing you understand is, “Ay que GOLAZO,” because it is the same in Portuguese. Ay, what a goal! But America is also the sound the air fryer makes the first time it toasts bread at 450 degrees, and you say, “Olha Mãe (Look mom)! Look how hard, just like in Brazil.” Because in Brazil they toast their bread until it crumbles like sawdust in your hands.

You find Brazil in the smell of soft red goiabada (guava jam) in Bolo de Rolo stuck underneath the gel nails that Titia takes you to get done in a place on the road next to the favela. In a little room with three chairs and a sliding glass door, the technician holds your white hand in her brown arms and shaves away at the gel she applies to your nails. She tells Titia about her daughter’s Papai and about her trip to Germany, and you wonder how she can afford to go to the country you have not seen in years. You wonder if you are prejudiced, and if everything Mamãe taught you about Brazil is wrong. The nail technician tells you your Portuguese is very natural, but she only talks to Titia. She does not want to talk to you.

When you finish, Titia asks you, “Too long?” and you say, “Não (No),” even though in your mind the only words that come are yes, yes, yes.

It rains when you get back to Titia’s apartment. Duda says it is you and Mamãe— that every time you visit it rains. Still, the sun comes out later that day, rays of light in between the raindrops. It’s beautiful, the way the raindrops come, sparks spiraling until they fall, imprinting in the sand as though the sun is falling apart. The sun could really be falling apart and you would not know, because your eyes are paralyzed by the sparks that fly like you wish you could.

Mamãe tells you, “Sol e chuva, casamento de viúva.” When the sun comes out in the rain, a widow gets married.

It’s the only Brazilian idiom you can remember.

Sometimes I wonder if I would write, if I were not American. If I did not exist in the in- between, in the stories wrapped in laughter that I trade with other immigrant daughters. If Vovó did not greet me with 600 reals in white envelopes, all the money from birthdays and Natals (Christmases) that I have missed every year. If I did not go to Brazil and stare at the family photo in Vovó’s house, tracing the outline of the way my family photoshopped my toddler photo into the image because I could not be there.

When I leave, I leave with the promise that I will come back when everyone is a year older. I write it in the palms of my hands, the same hands that hold Vovó when she says goodbye in the airport, and I am afraid that it will be the last time that she holds me in her arms.

Brazil is the only place where my skin will turn a darker shade, the only place where I can watch the way tan lines appear on my shoulders. The morning before I leave Titia takes me to the beach so that I can take a sunburn and the word morena- lightbrown- with me.

Lembrancinha de cor (remembrance of color), Titia calls it. I write this down in the car on a notepad that I have not touched in months. When I read the journal entry months later, I can see, written in the lines I left empty, the way Vovó let her eyes fall over my shoulder. She wanted to see what my handwriting looked like.

I told Mamãe to buy an air fryer because I wanted to fry inhame (yam) like Titia did in Brazil. Instead, I dragged cará (Brazilian root vegetable) home from the only Middle Eastern grocery store in town, and put my finger on the black spots and watched Mamãe boil it until the skin began to peel. Instead, I put it in my mouth and waited for it to taste like it does in Brazil, soft and warm and almost sweet, but it did not. Instead, it tastes the way coming home from Brazil feels, stepping into a place surrounded by the bare white walls that Mamãe has never hung anything on because she does not know how. The smell, the silence, and my world are Mamãe and I again in a house where everything is quiet and still. The taste of the water I let drain from the pot stays there under my tongue.

Mamãe sets the air fryer on fire one morning when she is making fish to put in the thermos that I bring to school. So, I eat beans instead. Beans that Mamãe cooks in the Instant Pot and serves with parboiled rice that she buys from the Mexican grocery store and colors yellow with turmeric and onions.

Mamãe teaches me how to dance Forró, a traditional Northern Brazilian dance, barefoot in the kitchen. She says I am too German because when she asks me to shake my hips I do not know how. My hands are in hers, and I am stepping on her feet, and we are both smiling the smiles that show the top of our gums and the stains on our teeth. In the window I see the reflection of the way Mamãe held me when Germany won the World Cup ten years ago, of the way I shouted when I found out how to work the air fryer for the first time and Mamãe wrapped me in her arms and dug her head into my shoulder. In the window, out of focus, is joy.

So, I stay, lost in Mamãe’s arms and the sound of her laughter on Sundays when we watch A Escrava Isaura (The Slave Isaura) together and cannot stop giggling at the actors and the plot and the special effects, like two little girls.

So, I stay, sitting with the words I find written in the palms of my hands, stories slipping through my fingers, between my fingertips.

Found in the in-between.

Mina Fujii

Visual Arts
Abington Senior High School
Abington, PA
Love Language, 2024
Cardboard, colored pencil, water-based & acrylic marker, acrylic paint, gelli-print, notebook paper, soft pastel, plastic/foam mesh

Luna Garay

Photography Miami Arts Charter Miami, FL
Ma, No Te Vayas, 2024 Digital photography

Elana Gardner

The Cane’s Rebellion

The Trail of Tears, a forced relocation of tens of thousands of Native Americans during the 1830s, was orchestrated under the presidency of Andrew Jackson. Known as “Old Hickory,” Jackson carried a cane that became a symbol of his authoritative power, wielded not only as a walking aid but also as an extension of his control. This poem imagines the cane’s perspective during one of the darkest periods in American history.

I travel with my silver-plated head facing the ground.

My wooden tube body bears more weight than that of a normal cane. I’ve been brandished, battered, held with impenetrable grip— but never broken.

Not like the spirits of those he banished with one horizontal sweep.

Endless apologies to those who weep.

Was I the last thing you saw?

The final image imprinted on your irises? Was it my hickory frame, black and narrow, that tortured your gaze last, my rubber tip mere inches from your solemn face?

I’m black, scuffed brown, my silver head plate worn, dented, from the furnace-hot grip of his hand.

He tapped me twice on the earth, ordaining your absence—

He thinks himself your father, a false deity.

King Andrew never saw a burning bush, yet he thinks with my motion he can part the sea, tear apart your families, exile your souls.

Andrew and me—this flaming black cane, chopped from my true father, that white oak you nursed from a slumping sapling.

He chopped him down too.

Sometimes I fear I’ll be swept into your Creek, splintered in two by this false Zeus, spitting thunderbolts with his words, lodged in trees that burn down forests.

He waves me like a cruel conductor, a rogue marshaller of spirit flights— landing your planes with my narrow rod body on a deserted island in the woods. Though you didn’t ask to board, that single carryon has to stretch for an eternity.

Not everyone’s on his side. Sometimes I still whisper with the trees— they tower above, lean over your paths to shield you from the sun’s laser eye. They say you didn’t go quietly into darkness those summer nights, shackled,

double file,

ants on a log.

You weren’t fooled by empty platitudes, pointless promises preserved in ink.

He came to you with a forked tongue, beady black eyes, words slithering from his lips.

But as the tool of his anger— the weapon of his accursed wit— I’ve beaten many men down. I’ve ground the dirt over unmarked graves of those claimed by the earth along the way.

So my gift to you, fine architects of my life, is to fragment, decay, inheriting the future he prophesied for your nation. To spite that wicked man, from under his grip, I will break.

I am no longer his weapon, just a cane.

Spoken Word The Westminster Schools

Honor Giardini

Resenting Gravity

It happens slowly; so slow most don’t notice. First the udders of your goats dry up, and now you drink soy milk with your cereal. Then the refrigerator dies and must be replaced. The chickens are killed, one by one. You get new chickens. They’re given new names. The dogs become old and hunched and incontinent. One stops barking in the backyard, the other stops running towards the car when you get home. The turkey that used to roost behind your bedroom lives across the street now. You are in fourth grade. Mommy J has a new car—she buys one every time the cancer treatment works. A change of classroom seats, a change of bullies, a change of plans, and now you are in 11th grade. It happens slowly.

In the summers between third and sixth grade, Mommy J delivered summer school lectures on the back porch. Devon and I sat on the porch, me miserable, her ecstatic, and listened to a spiel about how the world is round before doing some cool-ish shit with evaporation and mason jars. During these lectures, I didn’t sit down long enough to hear anything much, and when I did sit down, I was too focused on the fact that I was sitting to listen to anything my detestably brilliant family members said.

One of these lessons was about gravity. Mommy J began with a description of its discovery: Issac Newton sitting under an apple tree, wondering why apples fall.

Mommy J, as she spoke, probably sat next to Devon in some Hawaiian shirt. She probably asked questions in her low and quiet voice. She smelled like the laundry cabinet, which sometimes I’d crawl into and inhale on my way down the hall. I don’t remember what she actually said about centrifugal force, and I still don’t know how to explain gravity. Devon, grinning in her pixie cut, the more mature one (as in the more articulate, as in gifted) always had answers to the questions posed. I did not. I hated gravity in that I hated sitting still. I hated, and still hate, being forced. I hated anything I couldn’t define, and that is an impossible cage to escape.

NOVEMBER 17TH 2020

The sun heats up the windshield. The air is on; it is hot. When she stops the car, I’m alone. I look at a fat woman walking up the ramp, and I lay on the floor in the backseat of the Prius because I have an irrational fear of being shot in parking lots, and I do all this silently because I feel very little—and what I do is delicate and measured. Like when you break a bone and find a position that doesn’t hurt— and stay still so as not to ruin it. I’m like a 13-year-old who’s about to lose her Mom. I’m a 13-year-old laying at the bottom of the car. That’s all I am—a 13-year-old— and I wish I was more than that.

Loss in any form—large like Mommy J or minuscule like the loss of a sock, the loss of time, the loss of a math sheet-- comes in tolerable increments; time is the most forgiving of destroyers. It takes your Moment, crushes it into a fine powder. And then it gives you another. It breaks the only thing you have and then replaces it.

The week before Mommy J died was the first week of November. The grass outside my house was green—and the sky became that awful combination of gray and bright. Mel and Dan, Mommy J’s kids from her previous marriage, flew in from Florida and Nevada, respectively. Mommy J was moved from her armchair to a hospice bed. She was organizing a Zoom meeting with my Mom to say goodbye to friends and family who couldn’t travel because of the pandemic. I live in the living room, only leaving to pee, sleep or grab another book.

Everyone in the room was relieved. It’s the relief that comes with knowing that the act is more bearable than the idea.

That the particulars are less grand than the gestalt; and although everyone in the room had at some point wished for the gestalt, we were grateful for the lowly particulars. We were grateful for the cooking of curried carrots in the kitchen and the bird feeders that need filling and the fact that election day was tomorrow and that sometimes Mommy J still needed to eat. We were grateful for the fact that in the mornings we washed our faces and in the evenings we undressed ourselves, and we are grateful for the showers we take and how badly we smell and the pads we put on loudly in public bathrooms at the hospital, and we are grateful for these awful particulars. Each of them is remarkably easy to live through. Fuck the gestalt. Fuck the annihilation that is the glimmering idea of someone, and then the glimmering idea of them gone.

3:00am. Dan, who has her face, opened the door to my room and said, hey honor, I just thought you should know; go back to sleep if you want. I said ‘oh.’. He left. I was calm. It was a slow-motion horror movie with no climax. I walked upstairs like when it’s Christmas and I’m small, with the same anticipation but this one awful. I sit down on the couch, where my Mom lay all night holding her hand. Mom woke up. At 3:02, she had dropped Mommy J’s hand and that is when she died. She was wearing the socks she wore since I was born— the ones with light pink toes, and white the rest of the way. I touched her foot. I felt better. It felt like the same foot. And I could imagine she was still the owner of this foot and I touched her foot, slowly and quickly like it was something very hot, and I felt better.

NOVEMBER 10TH 2020

A social worker came the day before she died and tried to talk to me, the first of many social workers. This one didn’t come just for me, though, as the others would. I told her to get out of my house. I hated the idea that this was her job— that she thought I was some stupid kid. This was my first experience with mental health professionals who thought they knew something about me they didn’t. She held an awful condescension, the kind that comes with the thinly veiled questions and sympathetic nods of adults who forget they’re people.

The last time Mommy J walked in the door, she sort of teetered in the door buried in a flannel. It was dark outside, which made the orange hall lights brighter—-made her face look some kind of unnatural orange— and she hugged me and I was trying not to cry, and she whispered i’m sorry. I’m sorry my bright spark in my ear.

NOVEMBER 11TH 2020

The woman writes down the time of death as 3:02 a.m. When she came in, I couldn’t talk to her, even though she asked me questions. The woman, who wore all khaki, was gorgeous in a hot park ranger kind of way. I couldn’t answer her because I was gawking at her hotness. I remember thinking this was an odd thing to think about while holding your dead mother.

The morticians came in leather jackets. They had East Coast accents and took their shoes off before they came into the house. They spoke in short sentences, referring to my mother as

ma’am. They walked out with the body, and Mom and I sat on the porch, watching.

“Those men are sweet” Mom said. “They look like Italian gangsters. Like their names are Vinny or Hank or something.” After that, Devon said that Death’s name was Vinny, and I snorted.

DECEMBER 1ST 2020

A few weeks after she died, I lay in bed in third person: Honor was in her bed, sitting there thinking about how she was, and she woke up. She was reading at night; nights are always the most personal, like opening someone’s shirt and sleeping under it. Then I was I, and woke up from some dream. I saw her in the corner of my room by my keyboard, by the turquoise dresser. I saw her, and I cried like you cry when someone comes back from the airport you didn’t think would ever come back or how you cry when the bad thing didn’t happen.

When I woke up, I had to learn to live in a different timeline. A world in which the past, present, and future are one object— so I could exist with this person I can’t exist without. I don’t mean emotionally. I mean she can’t be gone because she was here. She has existed in the flesh, and as someone who has lived. I know that Being haunts you like gravity does.

X, X, 2020

My sister never came out of her room. Mom yelled at me most mornings. I read my books and wrote my poems.

NOVEMBER 11TH 2020

When Mommy J died, I became a larger fraction of the family. It wasn’t my job to exist but my job to remain upright, to work, to do the laundry and make grocery lists and not fail. It was my job to comfort my mom when she cried, and make sure I did my homework on time, and call the lost and found. It was my job to hug myself when I was sad, and it was my job to decide if I wanted to live. It was my job not to fall, and if I did, it was my job to fix myself. It was my job to decide what I should and shouldn’t watch and read and if I should leave in the middle of the night, and it was my job to take my credit card away, and I was mine.

FEBRUARY 2023

I think the first time I wanted to die, I was in tenth grade. It started with sleeplessness. I went two weeks with two hours of sleep per night. I felt like I was being attacked by bees. Like if I sat down they’d sting me. I got caught in this cycle. At some point in the year, I began to fail my classes and had panic attacks almost daily; I regularly went to school in my pajamas, was often found crying or panting in a corner. One day I sat down and didn’t get up. I lay crying in the corner until my English teacher dragged me to my feet, and I hugged him and cried until I got picked up from school. I didn’t sleep that day and couldn’t sit still. Like I was on a motor that couldn’t stop, rapidly accelerating towards a hill I knew would kill me.

I won’t go into too much detail; I don’t want to. All of it was humiliating. I don’t feel sorry. I felt forced into a life I had been told was mine. I didn’t want my days all over me. And there they were— I was slathered in them.

I didn’t think, at the time, that any of my mood issues were related to Mommy J’s death, because I didn’t think. I was sent home from school for 15 days and put on meds that made me too dumb to try anything.

I don’t know how to write about this. All of my words come out wrong. I’m trying to talk about the ways in which I’m hard. And it’s so much smaller than I’d like it to be. Ow is so small, and it sits very still and it’s easy to miss and it shivers. But the largest most important part of your world is always the part that hurts.

APRIL 2023

I take a walk down the driveway—it’s spring break. Everything other than the sheep is obnoxiously green; the escaped, stoned, rabbits from our weed-growing neighbor’s farm had begun to proliferate. It was a perfect temperature, and I had my audio recording next to me, which I chatted to; this is how I outline essays. Halfway through the walk, I clicked on a link to a podcast my Moms had recorded when my sister and I were toddlers.

ALYSON GIARDINI AND JACKIE STANFILL MARCH 12TH 2011

00:03 I’m Jackie Stanfill. I’m 51 years old. This is March 12th, 2011. I’m in Oroville, California with Alyson, my wife.

00:14 I’m Alyson Giardini. I can’t remember how old I am.

I laughed, like you laugh at your own baby videos, with distant affection, the kind you can only have for someone you can’t see but know better than anyone. I thought I was fine with the fact that Mommy J was gone. I didn’t realize what it would be like to hear her voice again. As I settled myself into the grass, I started to cry, quietly, peacefully—like something wet and newly born—a vulnerability I hate but can’t get rid of.

Jackie 45:14 “But there’s so many wounded people. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. People have been wounded in serious ways, emotionally, so that they aren’t really able to be the kind of parent that kids need and so, you know, when I am seeing that, I’m surrounded by that in the job that I do, and then coming home and having these perfectly normal regular girls and perfectly normal regular wife.”

I wanted her words to hug me like the laundry cabinet. As I listened, the grass was so brilliantly green, and I couldn’t help but feel it was another sign of how awful I’d gotten after she left. How out of balance, and erratic, impossible, not perfectly normal. We didn’t talk much, not ever.

she teetered in the door buried in a flannel; it was dark outside which made the orange hall lights brighter—and made her face look some kind of unnatural orange—and she hugged me and I was trying not to cry, and she whispered i’m sorry. I’m sorry my bright spark in my ear.

And she cried softly, briefly, because she was incapable of doing anything loudly. Her mouth was small, and I couldn’t stand the order in it. I was disgusted with myself for living in this awful green world that screamed, and ashamed that I never learned to whisper.

OCTOBER 17 2023

I worry that Mommy J wouldn’t like me if she were alive. I know she’d love me. But I’m not perfectly normal— I keep secrets. I feel awful sometimes. I hate the idea of her finding out that I ever wanted to die. I don’t want her to think she wasn’t worth it. I hope dead people don’t know what we’re doing because I don’t want her to see me like this.

NOVEMBER 7TH-11TH 2020

While Mommy J was in hospice, Emilymia, the family cat, jumped onto her stomach and hit her tumor, which led to a yelp from Mommy J, a confused cat, and several extra morphine tablets. Emmy didn’t know what was wrong. As I listened to her talk about her perfectly normal regular girls, I felt a little like I imagined our cat felt: confused, sad, angry at her sudden dismissal. I lived in a world which is at once past, present and future— and the timeline didn’t seem to matter to me. When I heard her say this, I thought about the times I was little, the hours I spent in occupational therapy— the number of times she tried to tell me I wasn’t different— which to her meant wasn’t worse. But overall, I wanted her to like me when I heard her say that, and I thought, I’ll do it. I’ll do everything right. I’ll do my laundry, I’ll look people in the eye, I’ll make friends, I’ll be perfectly normal, I’ll write sane things, I don’t care. I’ll do it.

I’m terrified of getting in trouble and adverse to doing anything I’m told to do. This has caused problems. I still work out these problems through a committee of characters I speak to every night, like an office meeting, if you held meetings in bed. There is kind me who never wants to say anything mean; there is sardonic me who doesn’t give a shit; there is the strict moralist, the ethically dubious creative, and then some fucker who sits in the back saying ‘well actually’ to everyone. I hesitate to call the committee dysfunctional because the subject we are working on- time- is so explosive. I talk to them constantly, and they understand, and they maneuver through a world in which the enemies know the future better than I do. The separation that a name gives to these otherwise sprawling concepts in my head helps me function, and by function, I mean feel real enough to brush my teeth in the morning.

Another way I do this is by making things. Creating is the dissection of something and the re-assemblage of it into something foreign. It’s hostile, engaging, and comforting. The first thing I ever made was mold. When I was seven, I spit into two glasses of water and let them sit on the windowsill— and watched the mold grow. Then I dumped it out and started again. This was my way of reconciling with the unholiness of facts. The spit grew, and every week, I dumped it out. I still can’t define gravity in a way I feel is true. I have nothing else to compare it to. However, losing Mommy J gave me an idea of what an alternative might be like— taught me what it meant to be relieved of an essential burden.

I wonder if living people are like words. If through living, people become their own definitions, the content of which exists with or without them on earth. This might be what grief is—- the expansion of their definition, who they were, their past recognition of everyone and everything around them. Someone like Mommy Jher definition has shaped and influenced me like a first language, a mother tongue. I think that’s what the morgue men did with her, and why they were so kind as they did it. They cleaned up her words. They go from house to house, take the shell of some definition, and put it in a fire. They take our warm, familiar bodies and deconstruct them. And then, they start again.

Jorge Guifarro

Visual Arts University School of Milwaukee River Hills, WI
After the Fall: Page 2, 2023
Gaomon tablet/pencil and Clip Studio Paint

Zan Holtgrave

Photography Stivers School for the Arts Dayton, OH
Hang in There, 2023
35mm black & white film, silver gelatin print

Emily Hsu

how Taiwanese food was invented

braised pork. splayed over rice. this is me, when i return home from another day sacrificed to the fork. a girl in second grade used to kick me under the table. splayed at a forked path between her own business and mine, her legs brownnosed the table’s, imploring make way all distances to kick me in the steam of light. but the desks were arranged in groups like soup dumplings. 小籠包 steaming at each other’s presence. baby skin dragoning at the pores. no way of turning around no flipping the pan I said I’ll tell on you, and she stopped. deadpan, burnt on one side, she shriveled at confrontation. nowadays, kids don’t sit face to face— faced forward, a girl blasted her feet through me, the way i would attack a 蔥油餅. all flimsy, scallions like open pockets, the pancake’s aroma begging like red envelopes: open on one end, sealed on the other, inviting me like home or 火鍋, or hotpot, or a steaming, laughing, esteeming bowl of love. but behind me, she thought jackpot and i should’ve said no, i’ll turn around to face you, flip the pan but i didn’t. i spared her a burn. oh, i shrivel at confrontation.

instead, i smelled foul whiffs of unchastity. her two feet and my bum were now 刈包, waning from hipbone to hipbone, martyred to shoe soles, some fat bread, sandwiched by the ballsy, unbred force of odium, boastful sex, and fatherlessness. Stop. it kills me to bring this back home. it kills the land too— a bully’s bread is invasive. it is not Taiwanese. it is opulent grand like a Chinese cuisine: succulent, naked, petulant, pining for scentless bloom.

soul beaten by sole, i thought about how Taiwan had been kicked too— kicked so deep in the stomach it regurgitated a culture. dishes small, ugly, forgotten. on the eleventh hour, it threw itself past waters. put itself out there, words succinct, savory, ambrosial, desperate. food forever sweet, living unbeknownst to the opposite, be it sour, salty, spicy, bitter, blasphemy, bile. existence floating, ungrounded. jettisoned this was their way of saying “i’m here.” forever a disputed, disposed postulate. because they didn’t have anyone above to say they would tell on them to. because who was above them, they didn’t know.

who tells you who is above you it’s a weird thing. who tells me whom to tell, who tells me why i shouldn’t tell who tells me to be afraid—who tells? so i show like in “show-and-tells” my best 牛肉麵: plump noodles like rivers carried by the things around it: bok choy, beef, yummy stew. 鹽酥雞, or fried chicken sizzling like the night markets in Taiwan, full of cries for home when in home, or for a known future without it. 滷肉飯, which i order all the time, in every crevice of this country to show my tourists, this is where i want to be. i leave hints of how food is meant to be ripped apart. shoes are meant to be worn. i leave leftovers in every Taiwanese restaurant, begging for someone to see. i write poems “showing, not telling.” you can see from the gaps in my writing. i am ___ a silent victim not

Spoken Word
John P. Stevens High School Edison, NJ

dead meat taken by the fork, i masticate 鳳梨酥, pretending i’ve wild-caught these pineapple tarts to finally be the offender. wait: i’ll find a lover who can eat 仙草 with me, carve out of grass jelly like selling souls and secrets worth kicking under the table face-to-face.

braised pork. splayed over rice. this is ___ me. wishing my words will save me, somehow i come home, and my family is whom i tell myself to tell. so we talk, and i write, and they give me food.

Translations

小籠包 (xiao long bao): soup dumplings in bamboo baskets

蔥油餅 (cong you bing): scallion pancake

火鍋 (huo guo): hotpot

刈包 (gua bao): pork belly bun

牛肉麵 (niu ro mian): beef noodle soup

鹽酥雞 (yan su ji): Taiwanese popcorn fried chicken

滷肉飯 (lu ro fan): braised pork over rice

鳳梨酥 (feng li su): pineapple tarts

仙草 (xian cao): grass jelly

Nyle Jones

Photography

Ian Kim

Documentary film, 9 min.,

Film
Harvard-Westlake School
Studio City, CA
Screenshot of My Sister’s in the Stars: The Story of Lee, 2023
55 sec.

Jennifer Kim

JOYDIAL, 2024

Design
Orange County School of the Arts
Santa Ana, CA
Fusion360, Keyshot, Illustrator, Photoshop, foam board, cardboard, corrugated cardboard, laser cutter, acrylic paint

Terry Kim

CA

Design
Fairmont Preparatory Academy Anaheim,
Union Station Variations, 2024 Paper, reflective paper

Olivia Le

Afterlife Being Common Elegy For Guessing How

an abecedarian modeled after Alphabetical Africa by Walter Abish

Ask again about angels. Blame anyone, argue almost.

A body beginning american always answers by asking, arches accolades attributed broken back apocalypse–Atlas, an Asian boy, burnt a communist anthem and border became boat, a dying ceasefire breaching bodies between countries, between cultures. Believe an engineer before an education camp. Despite body behind bars, any cell could burst. Bent aptitude. Cerebral collapse. Dread becomes breathless calls from an ER endless falling and falling and falling beside a bed, an edge— Grandpa.

Born an altar. Air for an American girl. Girl gone for an east coast camp but coming back to California, but applying for college becoming anything but a doctor. Deteriorated expectations. Can everyone explain dementia? an arbitrary affirmation, a dangerous answer, excuse for aging an ache. guess forgetting can’t equal fault. girl’s fault for going. girl’s fault for absent fluency. girl forgot first. focused growing. fixating future. custom familial guilt. charged for holding his figure. His face begged for God’s belief—-Buddha’s holy belly — and asked anthem how home goes.

Forgive con1 for hỏi2: how can forever can be fleeting? Could heaven be behind him could forgetting everything be heaven also

1 me (as a person at least one generation younger than the other person)

2 asking

Spoken Word
Orange County School of the Arts Santa Ana, CA

Chengyu Li

Film
Beachwood High School
Beachwood, OH
Screenshot of Daily Reminder, 2024 Animation, 1 min., 35 sec.

Karla Linares

Photography Alliance Ouchi-O’Donovan 6-12 Complex
Los Angeles, CA
Calle Victoria, 2024
Digital photography

Connor Logevall

Photography
Warmth (5 of 5), 2024
Film photography

Zella Lollar

Sittin’ Around, 2024
Upcycled baby afghans, burlap, sticks, clay, felt, feathers, crochet, sticks and wire

Maricic

Work 1, 2023 Coffee, cigarette butts and string on raw canvas

Savannah Massey

Eden, Mississippi

The Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science

Columbus, MS

On Sundays, we left screen doors that sang as they closed and went down to the river dividing the bare trees to baptize each other in the filthy water. We danced like we were famous and covered our day clothes in mud because that’s what they were for. Once, we went farther than we were supposed to and found a starch white carcass stretched across the rocks. You faced away from me, shirt rolled to your shoulders so I could count each vertebra poking through your soft skin to see if the ribcage in the water belonged to us. I will never forget how you felt under my fingers, dragging each one over the freckles and dirt on your back or your hair two shades darker, drenched and making wet swirls down your spine like blue lines on a map. Later, we walked to the railroad track that split the land just behind your house and pretended we belonged between the cross ties and kudzu. We made sad little bouquets out of the weeds and little white flowers hiding between each rail but gave them to each other like trophies. Momma said that us girls are growing up to be good southern women. I think you’re a good southern woman: soft eyes, long brown hair and a kind mouth. She says we’re good at what we were raised to be and that one day, we’ll have to make a home outside of these woods. But I think we’ll stay calve-deep in the creek, with pollen and flower petals wedged under our fingernails, until it freezes over.

Poetry
Caroline Matthews Design Lovejoy High School Lucas, TX
Cleaning Friends, 2024 Hand-sewn fleece stuffies made with soft fleece to contrast harsh chemicals

Jada McAliley

Visual Arts
George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology Towson, MD
My Baby’s Not A Baby Anymore, 2023
Graphite pencils, kneadable eraser and collaged photos

Anisia Mike

Untitled 3(balloons), 2024
Acrylic painting, colored pencils and glued on images

Merrik Moriarty

Ghost Stories

The summer she found the car, the town was as slowmoving as a dying thing. It was the same summer some faceless New York businessman bought the solar plant and fired half its staff, the summer Pigeon’s father turned the living room into a dreamscape of coke-bottle ashtrays and Vietnam War film sound effects. The bars in town filled and then overfilled before noon every day, and talk chased itself, doglike, in aimless barking circles. The desert seemed hotter than usual, windier, as if everyone’s collective sigh was stirring the dust into its rusty wisps. With the house all shut up, heavy with grenade sounds and stale air-conditioning, Pigeon took to spending her days looking for the places shade gathered in the sand: a jade-colored watering hole, a collapsing rest stop a quarter mile down the road. She was twelve now—old enough to slip out into the dunes without her mother’s finger hooked in her collar, old enough to know to watch for rattlers and that if you stayed out there too long, all the ghost stories started to become true. The desert’s seen things, her grandmother liked to say. Things you and I will never see.

She discovered the junkyard on a day that hung heavy with rain clouds. Off the asphalt and out into the spiky purplish brush, it lay like the rotting bones of some enormous dinosaur, a jumble of corrugated metal sheets and sun-bleached wood, coils of rusted bike chains and beer cans crumpled into the dust. Like a dragon’s nest, or a shipwreck. She slid down the slope, kicked at an old oil can, crouched in the sand and sorted through a scattering of bottle caps. She spent a while imagining a boy stepping out from behind the piles of rubble, all dusty and smudged and translucent.

“How do you do?” she said aloud, in an old-timey accent.

“Not from around here, are you?” he said, in her head. He balanced on one foot like a crane, china-chipped and flickering.

“I know the area,” she said. “I know it well. It says what it means.” This was something she’d heard her father say, back in May, when the businessman was only a rumor and the four of them sat out on the porch husking corn into brown paper bags—lots to complain about, he’d said, but this town’s not one for sugarcoating. She’d thought of the sticky pools of syrup around the slushie machines at the gas station, and later, about the matter-of-fact way the businessman’s name had been passed around. Julian. Chapman. She’d had to try it out herself, sang it out into the wind on the walk to the bus stop the next day.

“Let me show you around,” the translucent boy said, and disappeared into a pile of nylon nets.

Pigeon trailed him around the junkyard for a while, flipping her baseball cap around her thumb, thinking up ghost girls and ghost cats and ghost knights-in-shining-armor. Around a set of cracked traffic cones, up and down a pile of scrap metal, she looked up from her sneakers and tipped her dad’s sunglasses up off her face and there it was: a long white car, scratched to hell and halfway sunk in the sand, its windows spiderwebbed and strips of paint peeling from its sides. She looked at it for a long time, hands on her hips and whistling under her breath. It had a face, she thought— two glass eyes dripping rust, a thin chrome slash of a mouth.

“What’s that?” she asked the ghost boy.

He thought for a while and then told her, “The best thing here.”

“What’re you supposed to do with it?”

“Well,” he said. Shrugged. “Drive away.”

By the time she got home, tracing out her carefully counted footsteps around the towering saguaros and on to the road, in all its dusty emptiness, back to where houses started to appear more regularly, it was verging on dark. The chill had started to set in, the

sky reddish and dimensional. Her grandmother was standing on the porch, a hand on the railing and the other stretched up to the clouds, something colorful gripped in it.

“You’re late, Birdie,” she said, as Pigeon came closer.

“I found a car,” Pigeon said. She squinted up at whatever her grandmother was holding. “Can I see?”

It was a little knotted bundle of yarn, red and yellow and purple, a sage leaf and a white stone wrapped into it.

“The spirits?” Pigeon said.

“The spirits will not touch this house tonight,” her grandmother said. Her hands were shaking a little. She’d taught Pigeon to make her charms once, when Pigeon was too little to stay home alone during the day and they’d spent the summer out on the front porch and in the white-lit aisles of the Market Basket. They’d made sun-tea that day, poked big black tea bags into mason jars of water and set them out in the yard to turn amber, and while they waited, she showed Pigeon what the different yarn meant, where to twist and what kind of teeth it protected you from. For a long time, Pigeon had carried the little knotted person tied to her backpack.

Inside, nobody had thought to turn the lights on, even in the kitchen. The gauzy curtains over the window above the sink blew around in the wind; sometimes her grandmother got in the habit of opening all of the windows and leaving them like that. The TV muttered from the living room. Pigeon stopped to put her father’s sunglasses back in their drawer, peered down at a pot that was steaming on the stove, went over and stood behind the couch and watched as, onscreen, a man crawled through black jungle mud. The room smelled like coffee dregs and cigarettes and something sort of briny.

Pigeon propped her palms on the back of the couch and leaned there. She looked at the graying back of her father’s head. “How do you fix a car?”

He looked halfway around at her, the hook of his nose blue in the light from the TV. “Where have you been?”

“Out,” she said. “How do you fix a car?”

“Depends how much is wrong with it.”

“But what do you start with?”

“I don’t know, Birdie. You’ve got to be more specific.” Someone screamed on-screen, and he picked up the remote from somewhere and turned the volume down a little. “Come over here.”

She went over and crouched by the coffee table, sorted through a handful of peanuts that were scattered there. She didn’t like to look at him these days, at the grayish beard across his jaw and the way his eyes skated over her without ever really settling— she didn’t know what was wrong with him.

“What if the tires are flat?” she said.

“Well, you’d get a pump out to them, wouldn’t you?” He was bent over now, elbows on his knees and a thumb pressed between his eyebrows. “Your mother still at work?”

“I don’t know,” Pigeon said. She was thinking about the engineering manuals in his bedside table drawer, all their dashed lines and tangles of labeled arrows. “I just got home.”

“You’re not lonely, are you?” her father said.

Pigeon frowned. “No,” she said, and then thought about it for a minute. “No. Are you lonely?” He looked at her, leaned over and tapped the brim of her hat. “Let’s go make some dinner.”

The tires she found the next morning weren’t just deflated but melted into sticky black pools in the sand. After a while of poking around at them with a piece of scrap metal, she abandoned the plastic bike pump she’d brought and climbed in through the empty passenger side window. Inside the car, the seats were the color of boiled sugar and as hot as it, too. Mold bloomed along the

inside where the broken windows had let water in, and a fine snow of dust slid under her knees. Pigeon crawled into the back seat, her breath heavy and dry in the heat, and searched around under the seats, coming up with a handful of brown paper scraps and a lipstick tube that spilled hot red wax onto her fingers. In the glovebox, when she pried it open, she found a yellowed stack of postcards tied together with twine, a couple of warped cassette tapes, and an empty envelope stamped with a lipstick print and signed, in spiky black handwriting, Clementine & Beau, 1979.

“It was rockstars!” she called out the window to the ghost boy. “It was cowboys!”

“Well, which?” he said.

Pigeon pulled herself up to sit cross-legged, her legs stuck to the cracked leather of the passenger seat. Across from her, palms pressed to the wheel and head tilted coolly back, she imagined a girl with long, dark hair and glossed-red lips and a pearl necklace. Or short red hair, a leather jacket. Rings on every finger.

“Do you know how to fix cars?” Pigeon asked her.

Clementine’s ghost looked over at her, eyebrows arched. “And who are you?”

“Nobody important,” Pigeon said. “Except that I’m trying to fix up this car.”

“What for?

“I’m going to run away,” Pigeon said, and the words were sugary in her mouth.

“This car hasn’t been ship-shape in a long time, honey,” Clementine said. In Pigeon’s head, she was a Hollywood star, a professional thief, a girl from a tiny, dusty town running away with her forbidden mechanic lover.

“Hey, he knows about cars, doesn’t he?” Pigeon said. “I don’t know, why don’t you ask him?”

Pigeon draped an arm out the window, stuck her head out and called to the silhouette of a man standing by the ghost boy. When he looked back at her, his eyes were dark and kind. She thought he should be wearing suspenders, or a cowboy hat, or sunglasses.

“Start with the engine,” he said to her. The sun was bright today, and hot; she pictured it slanting through his shoulders.

“You’ve got to be more specific,” she said, and turned back to Clementine. “How’d you end up out here? Why’d the car get left to be all scratched up? Where did you even come from?”

“They sent the sheriff after us,” Clementine said. “We weren’t supposed to be running.”

Beau was by the window now. “Could barely see where we were going with all these dust clouds and everything. We ran off the road and the engine died— old thing, you know— and we walked the rest of the way to Mexico. Coyotes almost got us on the way.”

“Did you know there’s a story about coyotes?” Pigeon said, thinking of the draped-blanket tent she’d set up when she was little, of her father crawling in, all yellow and soft in the lamplight, of the fables he’d made up for her back when he still made up fables. “Did you know they say back when humans didn’t even exist yet, the coyotes ruled the desert?”

Her father had knelt with her there, in the dim, and drawn out the story with his hands: The sand was silver, back then, and it was the Sonoran’s most precious treasure. And the first time man stepped foot on the dunes, the coyotes opened their jaws and, so the people couldn’t put their hands on that treasure, swallowed it whole, saguaros and scorpions and all, and the sand in their bellies made it so that even today, when the sky was dark, their eyes glinted silver in the night. For weeks afterward, Pigeon sat on the porch with her grandmother for as long as her parents allowed it, watching the desert shift from red to yellow to blue, waiting for coyotes to appear out in the brush, eyes bright and hungry.

“Did you try the tires?” Beau said. “The tires always used to give us issues.”

“I tried,” Pigeon said. She picked up the postcards and the tape and put them back in the glovebox, climbed back out the window to stand on the sand, where the wind threw dust, stinging, around her ankles. “Why’d you run away?”

“We wanted to see the world,” Beau said. “We wanted to escape.”

“Why are you running?” Clementine asked. Pigeon shook her head, and crouched in the sand to pick a wrench from the toolkit she’d hauled here in her backpack. “Everybody hates it here. My dad hates it here.”

“Hey, are you taking your dad with you? I bet he’s a hell of a car-fixer,” Beau said.

“I asked him already.”

“Did you tell him all your big plans? Maybe he wants in.” Clementine was up on the hood of the car now, her legs crossed, chin angled up toward the sky like she was sunbathing. She flipped her hair around her shoulders— black, then blonde, then red. “Ask him again.”

At home, her grandmother sat at the kitchen table, norteño music playing from the crackly portable radio she kept that helped muffle the gunshot sounds coming from the living room TV. Smooth desert stones were sorted into piles by color and size in front of her; she was stacking them into odd little towers. Pigeon stopped and peered over her shoulder at them.

“Would you run away with me?” she said.

“The spirits have spoken strangely today,” her grandmother said, vaguely, and pressed a smooth purplish stone into Pigeon’s palm. “Help me, Birdie?”

Pigeon kissed the rock quickly, its surface river-cool against her mouth. She let her grandmother guide her hand to the right stack. Her grandmother nodded in approval, surveying her work, and Pigeon slid in her socks into the living room.

“I need you to help me fix a car,” she said to her father. He sat on the couch, in the same spot he’d been sitting since he wandered in, tie loose and eyes untethered, the day Julian Chapman fired him. There was half an unlit cigarette in one of his hands, his mouth tight and angry around the corners. He didn’t look at her, with her cap on crooked and her face pink and hot from the fast walk home. His eyes were dulled blunt.

Pigeon squinted a little, and through the haze of smoke, she could see him out on the porch, his hands big and steady as he peeled away corn silk. They say these are the days they’ll talk about, he’d said, low, out to the desert. But between you and me, baby, I think they’re still coming. She could see him, like Clementine, palms against the wheel and head tipped back into the sun, the road wide and cracked ahead. A cowboy hat, or sunglasses, or suspenders, the sand all silver behind them.

“I found a car,” she said.

The TV whined with missile fire. In the kitchen, a pile of stones clattered over. Pigeon’s father pressed a hand to his forehead, and then he looked up, right at her. “What car, Birdie?”

Collin Nelson
Film Oaks Christian School
Westlake Village, CA
Screenshot of A Soldier’s Dilemma, 2023
Narrative film, 3 min., 40 sec.

Eion Nunez

Screenshot of The Mechanization of Man, 2024 Narrative film, 10 min.

Jahin Claire Oh

Design Archbishop Mitty High School San Jose, CA

Will Ortega

Visual Arts
Abington Friends School
Jenkintown, PA
Face Ocarina 2, 2024
259 Standard stoneware with an application of red iron oxide wash and fired in a cone 10 reduction atmosphere

Aaron Pakola

Design
Tappan Zee High School
Orangeburg, NY
An American in Okinawa, 2024 Fineliner pen and colored pencils on paper (drawings); cardboard, chipboard, artificial greenery and toothpicks (model)

Rowan Pan

Visual Arts
St. Augustine High School
St. Augustine, FL
Love, Everlasting, 2024 Acrylic, colored pencil, oil pastel, paper

Anna Parker

Party Princess

Play or Script

Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts

Houston, TX

Cast of Characters:

AUDREY

A party princess. 20s.

CAROL

A suburban mother. 30s.

The Time: The present.

The Place:

A suburban doorstep.

Setting: A suburban doorstep, late morning.

At Rise: AUDREY hovers beneath the portico. She is wearing a tiara and a fluffy blue ball gown and carrying an incongruously modern tote bag. She takes a breath. Does some lip trills. Then she snaps into her princess persona for some last-minute rehearsal.

AUDREY

Well, hello! Don’t you look pretty! (Slightly less affectedly.)

Don’t you look pretty? Are you the birthday girl? (Enunciating.)

Are you the birthday girl? (Beat.)

The lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue… (Another lip trill. And perhaps some Disney princess-ish vocal exercises.)

Hello!

… Hi.

(The door swings open behind her.)

CAROL

(AUDREY swivels around to see CAROL.)

AUDREY

Hi! Hi. Sorry. I was just, ah, doing some vocal warm-ups… Vocalizing! You know. Talking to the squirrels and the pretty little birdies…

CAROL

Right.

AUDREY Sorry.

CAROL

I’m Carol. Glad you could make it. (She extends a hand. Instead of shaking it, AUDREY curtsies.)

Sleeping Beauty.

And what’s your name?

… Sleeping Beauty.

AUDREY

CAROL

AUDREY

Oh, so we’re going full Method then.

Pardon?

CAROL

AUDREY

CAROL

Like even out here, you’re doing the high little voice and the curtsies and the…

It’s company policy.

You’re kidding.

AUDREY

CAROL

AUDREY

At Magic Sparkle Wonderland, the premiere party princess agency, we strive to provide the most authen–

Fine. Okay then. And the costume?

… Pardon?

CAROL

AUDREY

CAROL

I was just wondering if that’s the costume you usually wear. As Sleeping Beauty.

AUDREY

Well, it’s my favorite dress. A fairy spun it for me.

CAROL

Yes or no.

Yes.

Of course.

Is something wrong?

AUDREY

CAROL

AUDREY

CAROL

No, no, I was just. Kind of under the impression that it would be pink.

Well, it’s blue…

I realize that.

AUDREY

CAROL

AUDREY

People sometimes get confused because they’re expecting the Aurora Disney character? But there’s this whole copyright thing where I’m actually the public domain fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, and in the original story it never actually specifies what color her dress—

CAROL

That’s why Natalie wanted Sleeping Beauty, because of the pink. The theme of her party is pink.

… I see.

AUDREY

CAROL

And I said to her, any other princess. Pick any other princess . But no. And now I’m throwing a reductive antifeminist birthday party and all of her friends’ mothers are judging me for throwing a reductive antifeminist birthday party and I have fifteen hyperactive preschoolers in my living room and the dress isn’t even pink.

I’m really sorry.

It’s not your fault.

Oh, I know.

AUDREY

CAROL

AUDREY

(A beat. CAROL massages her temples.)

AUDREY

Okay! Well, normally I’ll go in and get set up, gather up the kids, start with / story time–

CAROL / Listen– can I talk to you for a moment?

AUDREY

Of course!

Like you you. Not your character you.

Absolutely.

CAROL

AUDREY

CAROL

You’re still doing the princess thing. I can tell.

AUDREY

Sorry. That happens sometimes, I’m just gonna–(She does a lip trill. Shakes it out.)

Yes.

CAROL

Before you go in. I was wondering if we could kind of preview what you’re planning to say to my daughter.

Like everything?

AUDREY

CAROL

Anything that could potentially perpetuate damaging feminine stereotypes.

Right.

So everything.

AUDREY

CAROL

AUDREY

Well, usually I’ll greet the kids in character—

CAROL

And say—

AUDREY

Well, hello! Don’t you look pretty? Are you the / birthday girl?

CAROL / See? There.

AUDREY

What?

CAROL

“Don’t you look pretty.” Immediate focus on her appearance.

AUDREY

We could change that part?

CAROL Please.

AUDREY

What a sweet little girl you are. (Off CAROL’s look:)

Right. Um. What a… smart little girl you are.

But that’s too generic.

I bet you’re really good at spelling.

She’s terrible at spelling.

At… multiplication.

She’s in preschool.

Um–

We’ll come back to it.

At coloring?

And next is story time?

CAROL

AUDREY

CAROL

AUDREY

CAROL

AUDREY

CAROL

AUDREY

CAROL

AUDREY

Yeah, I’ll read the kids the Little Golden Book of whatever character I’m playing, Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty…

CAROL

And you never sense an aura of… disempowerment? Afterwards?

AUDREY

I think they just like to look at the pictures.

CAROL

You never wonder about the implications of what you’re teaching them?

AUDREY

I mean. I don’t think I’m personally responsible.

CAROL

Ladies and gentlemen, the problem with American politics.

AUDREY

Listen, Carol, I feel like we’ve gotten off on the wrong / foot here–

/ Right. You’re right.

CAROL

AUDREY

We’ll just calm down… Take a breath… Smile (Off CAROL’s look.)

What?

CAROL

It’s just a little hard for me to be around you when you’re all–(She imitates AUDREY’s princess mannerisms.)

AUDREY

Sorry.

You apologize too much.

Sorry. Uh, I mean…

It’s okay.

CAROL

AUDREY

(A nervous giggle. AUDREY is a real human person in this moment. CAROL can’t help but soften a bit.)

CAROL

AUDREY

Sometimes it’s really hard to shake off? Like I’ll start doing my princess voice in real life, by accident. It freaks my boyfriend out. But you know what’s really weird is it works sometimes. Like on policemen? Like– Oh, officer, I had no idea I was going over the speed limit! You see, I have this audition and I’m running late and… It’s like magic.

That’s… really manipulative.

I know, right?

See, this is what I’m worried about.

CAROL

AUDREY

CAROL

AUDREY

I promise that I do not give preschoolers advice on avoiding speeding tickets.

CAROL

These kids see you as a role model. You know four-year-olds, they don’t listen to their parents. But you’re wearing a frilly ball gown. You’ll have about as much influence on Natalie in half an hour as I have in the past three years.

AUDREY

And I can assure you that at Magic Sparkle Wonderland, we do not take that responsibility li–

CAROL

Last week, she told me that she wants to be a princess when she grows up.

Aww...

I see.

AUDREY

(This is the wrong response. AUDREY clears her throat.)

CAROL

Which is cute, right? For a two-year-old, maybe, or a three-year-old. But she’ll be in kindergarten next year. Her friends want to be astronauts and veterinarians. Little Callie Andover is going to be a gastroenterologist like her dad. She can pronounce the whole word, gastroenterologist. And she’s only three and a half.

AUDREY … Wow.

CAROL

Maybe that’s the problem, that I’m not like Rich and Cynthia, that I’ve tried to let Natalie dictate her own interests. “Follow the child” and all that. She wanted to spin around in a tutu so I put her in a ballet class. She begged for a pink room so I painted the walls. She hated the gender-neutral wooden Montessori elf dolls Santa brought her for Christmas so I bought her a Barbie. She wanted a princess party. So.

Maybe she’s just imaginative.

AUDREY

CAROL

But at what point is it innocent imagination and at what point is it my failure to protect her from gender-specific socially conditioned internalized oppression? (A beat.)

Oh! Did you actually want me to answer–

AUDREY

CAROL

What is the right thing to say when your four-year-old daughter tells you she wants to be a princess?

What did you say?

AUDREY

CAROL

Well. I tried to tell her, gently, that “princess” might not be the most viable career option for someone who isn’t born into a royal family. And you know what she said? What about Kate Middleton? Well, it isn’t for Americans. And then she said what about Meghan Markle?

That’s actually kind of funny.

Hilarious.

AUDREY

CAROL

AUDREY

She’d make a good lawyer. If the princess thing doesn’t work out.

Tell her that. Please.

She sounds like a smart little girl. Really.

She really is.

CAROL

AUDREY

CAROL

(A beat.)

AUDREY

There’s this thing we could do. Instead of the Golden Books.

Yeah?

CAROL

AUDREY

Sometimes Magic Sparkle Wonderland has me do non-princess gigs? Like if the Wonder Woman girl gets sick, or if a Peter Pan party needs a Wendy or a Tinker Bell or a girl pirate. And they do story time differently, they sit the kids in a circle and have them make up their own thing. Like I’ll say “Once upon a time,” and the birthday boy will have the next line, and so on. That’s what the game’s called, Once Upon A Time.

Interesting gender disparity there.

CAROL

AUDREY

Anyway. It’s always so fun to watch. The kids don’t have any idea of plot conventions or time period or anything, so Peter Pan has lightsaber fights with space aliens and Captain Hook’s hook gets flushed down the toilet and Spider-Man swoops in to save the day.

CAROL (Thinking.)

Once Upon A Time.

AUDREY

… There was a princess. (Beat. CAROL stares blankly at her.) Oh, were you not…

(No, CAROL was not trying to start an improv game. But what the heck. Yes, And.)

CAROL

… Who was pretty but also clever and brave and those things were more important.

She wore a blue dress…

AUDREY

CAROL

That was a symbol of her dual rejection and embrace of conventional femininity.

… And she made compromises.

AUDREY

CAROL

And she tried her best to be a feminist role model for impressionable children.

And she was?

AUDREY

(A beat.)

CAROL

Why don’t you come inside? Natalie’s waiting.

(AUDREY starts to follow, then hesitates. CAROL turns. AUDREY extends a hand.)

AUDREY

I’m Audrey, by the way.

Carol.

Nice to meet you.

CAROL

AUDREY

(They shake.)

Saheim Patrick

A Nigga’s Tragedy, in Five Acts, Recited by a Cynical, Drunk Romantic

prologue.

I am seventeen, and so any truthful wielding of prose cannot accurately depict my tiredness. It, in other words, will not submit to it. Not accurately. It may very well be able to capture it honestly, in all its naïveté, absurdity, its ultimately prima-donna nature. Indeed, the tone of this prologue may already seem to convey that tone just by the disclosure of my age in its beginning. Certainly, then, my use of prose, in its current instant, will not be able to withstand the eyerolls of you, reader, when I begin to disclose the details of my tiredness. When I say that I am tired, weary, of every experience in my life being “meaningful,” every hardship necessary, all the feelings of being an outsider existing only to highlight something much more profound and spiritual than what I would receive “fitting in” with the ones who I want to fit in with. God, could you imagine if I went on like that? No, to spare you, reader, I will not employ this use of prose. To spare you, reader, I will not speak in the present tense. Not in the voice of youth. Nor in the voice of sameness. For no one ever wants to listen, seriously, though they might argue the opposite, to anyone younger than them, or even to someone the same age. What are the beliefs espoused in this nation but sweet nothings we whisper to ourselves for comfort, for the illusion of stability? No, instead I will employ the tense of respect. The tense of experience.

We want to listen to the tattered and bruiséd. Those who, in the words of Nina Simone, the world has already done its dirty deed to. Those are the ones with stories, after all. So, for you, reader, I will speak as if my experiences and life have already happened to me. As if I am not dead-square in the middle of them. As if the shores have already washed over my weary body and do not sit waiting, right in front of me. Will you swim with me? Won’t you come swim with me? They cry as havoc does. Yes, I will come to you, simply, in the words of Joni Mitchell, a cynical and drunk romantic boring you in some old, dark café. To convey my tragedy—our tragedy, reader—I will employ a past tense.

act i. when the character comes out and does the famous soliloquy

Allow me, reader, to speak of old things. Of things you might find oversaid and weary. To speak of things you might find profound, or of which you may find boring, barely even surface level. Trust me when I say, I do too. But these things are necessary to enunciate once, twice, and thrice again, to get to where I have been entrusted to guide you. When one finds himself born Black American - I use the term ‘Black American’ instead of the broader ‘African’ for reasons which will become clear in a moment - when one finds himself born a Nigga, he finds himself one who must reckon with an intangible, through and through. For not only is this “thing,” which he must wrestle with beyond words (shall we name it a legacy? A heritage?), but the ways in which this “thing” has found itself tangled, found itself intangible...the intangible itself is intangibly tangled, intangibly intangible. Get me? I must ask you again, reader, another thing. I am terribly sorry. Allow me to do to Kant’s theory of authority—his judgements of morality and taste, how the two are inextricably intertwined— the act of which my last name is a product. Allow my prose to be heavy-handed, manipulative, crude, assaultingly repetitive. For though I come to you old, cynical, drunk, romantic, allow me the lyrical mischief and irresponsibility implied at the beginning of all this. Every

Black American, which is to say, every Nigga, is a victim of sexual violence. As well, every Nigga bears the last name of their abuser. These are the facts of his birth. May we speak of his life, reader? And, since this is a tragedy, after all, his death?

act ii. when the play’s “action” begins

We never took over the world. We only ever stayed lying on the rotator cuff by the gas station.

Our hands are warm. The air is not. We only ever knew both worlds. We were only ever unknown by the Other. But we knew Everything about them. But we knew everything about them. If only we, too, could have known everything about us. This is our tragedy. We die at the end.

That summer we met a White Girl for the first time. I guess it wasn’t–surely it couldn’t have been, right? -- the first time that we had actually ever met a white girl, but it certainly was in the way that if we had met one before then, we surely cannot remember who it was now. For context, we were everything that a white girl is not. That is, Black, and a Boy. But perhaps the reason why the image lingers in our head so much as to overshadow any who might have come before it is that this was, perhaps, the best introduction to white girls we could have hoped of having. So perfect that our brain rewrote what might have been the fourth or fifth time to seem like the First (maybe to make up for the actual, probably lackluster, first time?). The white girls we met that summer did not come to us as white girls. Or, maybe it is that it was too much of what they came to us as. That is, sure, they came to us as human beings, but we began to realize that we had been learning about them our whole lives. Always reading about them, seeing, even admiring, them in the movies and on television. Hearing songs about, and by them. The white girls we met this summer brought upon us the same feeling we once felt seeing New York City for the first time. To avoid divulging too many details, that if divulged may threaten the unspoken friend Sensitivity, we had spent that summer in that city of dreams, studying something at a school there that invited high schoolers from all over the world to study something there

You see, these white girls brought into perspective just how much we truly loved White-Girl-Shit. And, it is worth, at this point, to divulge, again, only enough so as not to trespass against the friend Sensitivity, that these white girls hailed from the City of Angels, necessary to say that it was, so that we can now say: they put into perspective not only how much we, surprisingly knew, but loved about, specifically, Los-Angeles-White-Girl-Shit. At the least, if we were not equipped with an encyclopedic knowledge of the canon, we seem to have engaged with enough of its Great Works to have rendered these girls as simulacra, in the Baudrillardian sense of the word; to define those common signs of culture and media we have come to recognize, thus creating a shared experience across the nation (e.g. the signs that cause those feelings that you get upon seeing NYC for the first time. Signs like the movies you seem to have been watching about it your whole life). Works like: Joni Mitchell’s Blue, the idiosyncrasies of Lana Del Rey’s discography, fanbase, persona and aesthetic, films of the New Hollywood Movement, the Instagram feeds of various irony-visaged valley girls with selfies of their dead-eyed pouts and pictures of mundanities, like walls and leaves, interviews of famous actresses, or, most importantly, the literature of Joan Didion.

Didion’s work is of chief importance to our point here, as it is in her novels and essays that we first encountered the image of Los Angeles that these girls affirmed in their strange, bothersome,

and frequently beautiful ways. In her work– specifically in the early, popular stuff, such as, Play it as it Lays, The White Album, or Slouching Towards Bethlehem– Didion paints a picture of LA as a dead city. Even amongst storied history and what seems the constant activity of which she is constantly chronicling, there is an inescapable, seemingly essential-to-its-very-livelihood, alwayshappening, death of the city. What shocked us most about these white girls is the ways in which their ways showed to us that its death persisted to that very day. In this way, we supposed Los Angeles was the only truthful city, along with NYC, as they both represented two-extreme-opposites on the pole that is human experience. One, never slept. Because who ever does? All of history, in some way or another, is of life, isn’t it? But just as much, by that same virtue, of death. So, the other was always dying, because aren’t we all? But We forgot about the Other.

act iii. shit starts to go down. hamlet’s ghost

You see, we were the harborers of a dangerous, destructive secret. For a few lifetimes, we not only were subconscious believers in a horrifying supposition, but we consciously rejected its very premise. Even now it keeps its hold on our imagination, like ghosts often do. Even now, because of this ghost, we hesitate to pull back the curtain on what it is I am exactly talking about. To get it over with–the pull of the curtain, that is– here is a clue, which is, really, to say, a dead giveaway: any soul birthed with artistic inclinations and poetic sensibilities, and whose body bears Black skin, knows what it is I am getting at. I’m sorry. Why? The ghost. The expectation met. I won’t speak of him yet. You don’t care about him yet. You want to know the secret. Of course you do.

“I don’t know if we’re going to make it back to Africa.”

For a few lifetimes we had, whether we wanted to or not, not only believed this, but rejected the very thing that animates it as horrifying, macabre, so as not to recognize the harm of it at all. For a few lifetimes, we ran from dreams. Dreams in all forms, but yes, specifically, that one. Yes, Africa. No, we had not rejected it. In fact, ask most anyone who had known us vaguely enough in those times and they might say that we had embraced it! But yes, they had not known what lay beneath. Yes, indeed, no one can. I believe it was Hegel who said, “There was only one man who ever understood me, and even he didn’t understand me.” And yes, they had not known us in a very long time when the time that I speak of came around. A lifetime is quite a long time after all, even if it is only one, and the one of which I speak painfully of was not even really an entire lifetime, but the cold, bitter tail-end promise of one. So do not allow me to mislead you, us. Instead of calling it a lifetime, I will, closer to ‘laymen’s terms’, refer to it as a winter. In that winter, we ran, with the textbook brashness, the textbook ‘legs too short to run with God,’ the textbook prideful, cocky jadedness of an old man. Cynical, drunk, romantic.

We had lived long enough, we thought. Read enough books, seen enough “real shit” to know that the Africa of our imaginations was mere fable. A dream we sold ourselves in the absence of a better reality. Fuck that dream, we thought. Ta-Nehsi Coates, on his father, puts it better than I can: “He meant the Africa of our imagination, that glorious Eden we conjured up as exiles, a place without the Mayflower, Founding Fathers, conquistadors, and the assorted corruptions they had imposed us. That Africa could no longer even be supported in his imagination because the corruption was not imposed at all but was in us, was part of the very humanity that had been denied us. That is where his skeptical searching landed him— not on the shores of a lost utopia, but in the cold fact of human fallibility.”1 There we ran, high and mighty, feeling above those who were not running, purely based on the fact that we had come to a simple acknowledgement.

When we read Didion’s declaration, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” we found no reason to investigate, inquire, further. After all, we were old, and studied.

The influential acting teacher Uta Hagen, in her 1973 book Respect for Acting, writes of age, “Our psychological relationship to others often makes us feel that we are younger or older.” This

is a beautiful way to put it. For I was old, cynical, drunk, and self-involved until I remembered my grandmother. Her love. Her strength. “And Gran keep praying and keep believing/ In Jesus, and one day that she’ll see him/ ‘Til then walk in his footsteps and try to be him,” recounts Kanye West in his 2005 song, Heard Em’ Say. I was old by lifetimes. Older than everyone I knew, older than everyone they knew, until I remembered the dreams of my grandmother.

Several lifetimes ago, our father tells us a story about our grandmother, his mother, wherein she is around fifteen years old, in the deep South, disenfranchised, and she sends a song that she wrote to a record label. The record label shows interest in the song and invites her out to wherever they invite her to. Our father bluntly puts it that she cannot go. She is poor. The details are hazy and plainly spoken. Like most stories, only the emotional truth remains. Only the image of a little girl with a dream that reality will not allow her to believe in remains. Tears well up in our eyes when we see this girl. When we imagine a world where her dreams cannot be achieved. And if that sounds saccharine, schmaltzy, cheesy, corny, it is because we are children. If our grandmother wants to believe in a dream, she will. And we believe that we will fight anyone who tries to get in the way of that in the same way that a child believes he can actually effectively guard his mother’s grocery cart when she, playfully– and since he does not yet understand what makes the proposition playful he registers it as grimly serious as death itself– tells him to “watch the cart” as she briefly goes to grab a copy of People’s magazine. Jesus and Africa are the remnants of that original dream, that song. Coates writes, “That is where his skeptical searching landed him— not on the shores of a lost utopia, but in the cold fact of human fallibility. And yet, here I was, on this boat from Gorée, my eyes welling up, grieving for something, in the grips of some feeling I am still, even as I write this, struggling to name.” I had forgotten the other Didion declaration: The center cannot hold.

I’m sorry. Why? I did not want to write about Africa. I did not want to write about being Black in America. I did not want to write about my Black grandmother in the Black South during the Blackass 1960s. This is the ghost I write of. The unspoken expectation of every soul birthed with artistic inclinations and poetic sensibilities whose body bears Black skin. I thought it boring overly done, aesthetically and contextually childish. I wished to be sophisticated, mature, older.

But you, reader, so gracefully and well-behaved, have allowed me to speak of things oversaid, and tired. You have takenin my past tense. Okay. You know our secret. Can you care about the ghost now?

act iv. i get caught up with some gorgeous monologue in the third act and never make it this far

in a limousine

A boulevard of cars, yours like a casket. Black, and sturdy. You know the one you’re in is pretty.

You’ve never heard anyone say so, but from what others have said about other sturdy, Black bodies, from what you yourself have said about other sturdy, Black bodies, you can gauge that the one you’re in is. The sign of the Zion Hill Baptist Church reads: “God is with you.”

As you ride by, through narrow avenues and open boulevards, everything, really, reads the same: “God is with you.” God is with you everywhere, and then you will die. running

The collected memoirs of Mother human motivation are only one page long, and they read only two words– her mind only thinking just two thoughts: peerless gaiety . The storefront preacher man, the investment banker off of 40th, the Elder in the local Russian Orthodox monastery, the baby born on Wednesday morning in Rush hospital, the hated, the beloved. The optimist, and the nihilist. All alike, conjoined in running towards the same thing, with glitter on their cheeks– that

unpromised gift of unbridled cheerfulness and unearned love. It’s all that you’ve ever run towards. Glitter on your cheeks and all.

But when Georgia pollen grips the back of your throat with long, yellow fingers of fur-- the question of what you’re running for becomes less of a romantic and reflective literary sort-of pondering, and more of a nagging insult launched at your calves. Launched at your brain, like the bow of an ax swinging at your ego with a broken hymn.

Your legs are too long to run with God. Your thighs too wide. from french polynesia

Enclosed in the meringue-colored walls of the middle school’s restroom– you and he engaged in a dance at the center of a pit of soon-to-be apathetics– where he popped you in the arm so hard it fell limp, like a fateful friend in time of crises.

Your head fell limp on my mother’s shoulder. My lips went dumb, and ducts of water readied to fall out as you thought about just how much you had become like the boys around you. Bored with desire, and elated. Lying about what you’re ready for and what you aren’t to girls who are becoming too much like themselves, too.

Cut into my sweet oranges with a bitter knife. Let dirt seep into the white coverings and break the innocent silence. It will teach me guilt.

act v. we die at the end. they reminisce over you towards manna

We were born together on the alps of roads where passersby pick out clovers from under frozen stones. And I know that if you keep thinking about your past, it will become your present. And I know that if and when you move your left foot in front of your right foot, your left leg and your right leg will follow right along until your whole body decides it’s time to go. And I know that your brain isn’t a part of your body, or if it is, it’s much stronger than your left leg. And I know that your past is not a part of your present, or if it is, it’s much stronger than you.

We were born together on the alps of roads where passersby pick out clovers from under frozen stones. You and I were outliers. My legs and I. Plucked from special little cases of grey joy, we arose and were deemed “talented” and “gifted,” and, naturally, before we could even find ourselves under ice, were branded “young” and “black”.

If you’re curious and almost hopeless and you Google, in the hopes of finding out what it really means, “to be young, gifted and black,” and scroll down long enough, you will see a smirking white man. Right under the portrait of Lorraine Hansberry. If then deterred, less curious, and a little more hopeless, you Google, “to be young gifted and black lyrics” and scroll down long enough, you will see Nina Simone tell you that you are a lovely precious dream. I wish that we weren’t born together.

We never took over the world. We only ever stayed lying on the rotator cuff by the gas station.

Our hands are warm. The air is not. We only ever knew both worlds. We were only ever unknown by the Other. But we knew Everything about them. But we knew everything about them. If only we, too, could have known everything about us. This is our tragedy. We die at the end. Any soul birthed with artistic inclinations and poetic sensibilities, and of whose body bears Black skin, knows what it is I am getting at.

1 From Ta-Nehisi Coates’ 2024 book, The Message.

Victoria Pham

Film
Orange County School of the Arts
Santa Ana, CA
Dear Etoile, 2024 Animation, 3 min., 2 sec.

Myesha Phukan

mama, motherhood, & beyond

my mother’s calloused hands are grasping my own / our heads are bowed down / foreheads touching softly / skin kissing skin / her mouth pressed softly to my ear / and she is whispering / her words tickle and dance / down my body / race to my fingertips / my mama’s arms circle my waist / her shirt drenched with salty waterfalls / each wave crashing every 5 minutes or so / and she is holding me / and i am shaking / and we are holding each other / and that is what motherhood is / it is my mother holding me / it is me holding my mother / motherhood is the lips pursed gently against my foreheand / motherhood is the warmth that is finger hearts on frosted windows / growing pupils in chocolate brown eyes / unrequited love / air kisses while the engine runs / motherhood is the perpetual blanket that appears when the couch starts dreaming / standing in the doorway / arms crossed / hips bent / motherhood is the soft white love marks on my mama’s stomach / they came from loving me / and i came from them / motherhood is creating / loving / holding hair when food suddenly swells / motherhood is meetha tel1 on my chest / hands in my oil-soaked hair / tapping my scalp / motherhood is the body that steadies me / when i am an earthquake / the roof that i shelter under when desert storms raise dusty tornadoes / the subtle eye roll / the sigh, impercetibly less so / motherhood is living / surviving / flourishing / learning / motherhood is my mama holding me / and i am leaning into her / and pressing my neck into the crook of hers that was made for me / motherhood is two banyan trees / leaves overlapping / interlacing / thanking god every day / kneeling on soil / watering the roots / watching new life / motherhood is the sun / watching life blossom into flowers / motherhood is loving from the moon and back / the blood that pumps veins every second / hearts beating while palm lays on chest / motherhood is hands on cheeks / curved vowels in murky water / it’s monsoon season / and motherhood is flooding in assam / care spilling into the streets / motherhood is a “we” not an “i” / kitchen oils mixing in a handmade bowl / dripping into land / and i am praying / speaking devotion / and my mother is pulling me towards her / outstretched hand / i am brushing her fingers / and my mama is beckoning me / to motherhood / and beyond

Poetry
Mountain View High School Mountain View, CA
Jocelyn Pope
Visual Arts
John S. Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School Augusta, GA
After The Beep, 2023 Oil on wood panel
Torrey Rainey
Photography Stivers School for the Arts Dayton, OH
Image 3 from Unspoken, Unheard, 2024 Film

Juewan Roh

Film
Korea International School
Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do
Loose, 2024
Narrative film, 5 min., 35 sec.

Sarah Rooney

Marvin

Simon curled his fingertips and felt the bumpy rubber bounce off. He heard the clean swish of the ratty net. A buzzer rang.

“That’s three in, kid.”

He was being handed something shining over the counter, something that reflected and refracted the neon lights of the carnival in shards of rainbows. A clear bubble of light in the darkness. It was a plastic bag, round and oval, tight with water. As the weight was lowered into his hands, Simon saw a little blur of his favorite color, creamsicle orange.

Mom put her hand on his shoulder.

“Wow, you won a fishy, Simon! And on your birthday. What’s his name?”

Simon brought the bag up to his face and met the small black pupil with his own. It seemed to quiver and move with the water, a flash of light winking across it. He looked like magic, he felt like a friend.

“Marvin.”

Marvin

Simon carefully held Marvin with two hands as he walked down the sidewalk, the carnival’s ringing cacophony fading away in the balmy air. Mom walked next to him, wearing the soft moccasins she liked instead of the pointy heels that made her feet hurt at work. His brother Jordan was on his other side, wearing his usual basketball team t-shirt and eating a corndog.

“That was some birthday luck, winning that prize. But do we even have a bowl to put him in? I think that pet store - called something like Happy Paws? - is just up ahead. We should stop there,” Mom said.

Jordan swallowed a bite of corndog and said, “Come on, just put him in a cup or something.”

Mom crinkled her eyebrows but still smiled. “It’ll only take a minute; we’re passing right by the pet store. You two wait here, I’ll run in.”

The store’s bell rang as she went inside. Jordan finished his corn dog and pointed at Marvin with the empty stick. “Fish seems like a lame prize.”

“Marvin’s not lame.”

“What?”

“His name’s Marvin.”

Jordan shrugged and leaned against the store wall. Simon did, too.

Simon held the bag up again and looked at Marvin. He was pale orange, with fins along his back and under his stomach. They were delicate, slowly swishing through the water. Thin tendrils like hair, orange and white, fading to transparency at the ends. It seemed wrong to call Marvin’s magical suspension in the water swimming.

Simon didn’t swim often, but now that it was summer maybe he would. Not this week or the next, though. This was Mommy’s week, and Dad had the membership to the country club.

Dad might take him there for his late birthday celebration. There was the outdoor pool in the summertime on hot afternoons and the echoing interior of the gym’s pool on cold days, both with the smell of chlorine.

When he swam, there was a strange lightness, like being on a trampoline but with gravity slowed down. Floating. Marvin looked like he was flying in the water.

The store’s bell rang again, and Simon looked away from Marvin. Mommy came back out with a plastic bag swinging from her fingers.

“Ready for cake?” ***

Mommy opened the fridge and took out a chilled chocolate cake from Costco. She stuck seven candles in the glossy chocolate frosting and lit them.

Simon sat at the table, looking at Marvin in his new bowl. Mommy helped him pour little blue stones in the bottom and fill the bowl with tap water. The best part was the little castle.

When Mommy finished the candles, Jordan hit the lights, and the wobbly, “Happy birthday to you…” began. When it ended, Simon stood stuck in the suspension of the flickering flame of the candles. The importance of the wish was impressed upon him by their heat and light. He thought about what he wanted.

The candles only remind him of another cake, though. There had been five candles on that one, silver spirals in plumes of chocolate buttercream. Mom had made that cake. She let him lick both the batter and the frosting off the spatula. She’d made him wait to eat a piece until his party, though.

Mavinci the Magnificent had been there. He was a magician and had white stars on his cape. He’d gathered everyone on the floor of the living room and performed many tricks.

Pulling coins out of ears and infinite scarves out of hats. Shuffling decks of cards with crisp sounds - Pick a card, any card. I won’t look - then pulling kings of diamonds and queens of hearts out of people’s minds. His best trick had been his last. He held a white paper in his hands, and then it crumpled and unfurled into the white wings of a dove. It flew up and landed on the tip of his finger. Mavinci took a bow. For a moment there was astonished silence, and then applause. Dad had kissed Mommy on the cheek, and she’d laughed.

But what to wish for now? He couldn’t think of anything better than Marvin… Like lightning, he had his wish.

He puffed out his cheeks and blew out the candles, to more applause.

***

Simon pulled his bed covers closer around him and turned on to his side to see his dresser.

Marvin was there, glass glowing soft and blue in the shine of his nightlight.

You weren’t supposed to tell anyone your wish or it wouldn’t come true. But Marvin was special.

Simon got out of bed and walked over to Marvin. He looked into his eyes and whispered, “Do you want to know what I wished for?”

Marvin’s eyes looked quizzical. He did.

“I wished that you’d always be here and be my friend. You are my friend, right?”

Marvin swam in a circle, then came to face him again, nightlight twinkling in his eyes.

Yes.

Simon smiled and pressed his face against the glass. Marvin was a good listener and a good friend.

“Night, Marvin.”

***

Jordan drove Simon home from his summer day camp. It went until five, and Simon was tired and bored. It was okay, but he wanted to go to basketball practice like Jordan only his junior team didn’t practice in the summer. He also wouldn’t mind just staying home with Mommy like he used to.

Jordan opened the door to their apartment and turned on the lights. There was a baking sheet on the oven covered with parchment paper. Jordan walked over to it and looked underneath.

“Nice, fish sticks.” He popped one in his mouth, and Simon felt uncomfortably disgusted.

Marvin was a fish.

Jordan picked up his bag and went to the door. “Where are you going?”

“The park.”

“Can I come?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m hanging out with my friends, we’re playing basketball. You can’t come, you’re too short to play with us. Just hang out here for a while, mom will be back at eight.”

“But you’ve been playing all day. And I’m not too short.”

“You are. Now stop arguing. You’re being annoying.”

He opened the front door and handed Simon the keys.

“Here, you have to lock it, I’ll talk you through it.”

He’d talked to him through the door, leaning on it. Simon jiggled the keys around as he tried to turn it through the metal teeth in the lock.

“Just turn it until it clicks. Keep going, you’ll feel it.”

Something clicked.

“I think I got it.”

Jordan turned the knob aggressively back and forth, making sure it was locked.

“Great, now I’ll be at the park. You can see me from the window.”

“Why can’t I come?”

“It wouldn’t be any fun.”

“I like basketball.”

“Just stay here. We’ll play basketball later.”

“Jordan?”

There wasn’t a reply. Simon stepped away from the door.

There wasn’t much to do at home alone. He wasn’t good at console games like Jordan, he didn’t really like reading, none of his TV shows had new episodes, his toys got boring after a while, and he wasn’t allowed to play sports in the house.

Then he remembered Marvin, and went into his room.

He was there, and Simon pulled over his chair to sit with him. Marvin was swimming under the little bridge of the castle. It was tan with little towers and arched windows. Simon wished he could go inside.

He closed his eyes. At first there was only darkness. Then waves of water washed it away like running ink, and Simon was floating above blue stones. Curving with the sky overhead were golden stars drawn by a childish hand. In the distance was the castle, a secret of whimsy in the movement of the turquoise water.

Simon looked to his side. There was Marvin. Simon opened his eyes. Marvin winked at him. Marvin had transported them. Marvin was magical.

He closed his eyes again. Marvin was still there, and he climbed on his back, flying in the sea of stars. They gathered all the wishes the stars had heard and stored them in a treasure chest in the castle to grant later.

They stayed in their own world. Whispering in bubbles, blowing up bigger and bigger, smiles growing along an iridescent shine. A dome surrounded him and Marvin, everything their own in a soap mirage.

Eventually he had to return to Earth because he was hungry. Then he remembered there was nothing to eat but fish sticks.

Mommy was at work. She’s a secretary at a big doctor’s office. She brings a bag of lollipops for the kids there, but she never lets Simon eat any. She doesn’t like it when Simon calls her at work, but Simon doesn’t have anything to eat.

He went into the kitchen and called her.

“Hi, Mommy.”

“Hi, honey. What is it?”

Yes, sorry, I’ll be with you in a moment

“I’m hungry.”

“I made fish sticks. Hold on.”

Mommy was talking to someone else. Sorry about that then the tapping of a keyboard.

Simon rocked on his heels. He was hungry, and the kitchen

looked emptier from the corner. Maybe he should bring Marvin in.

He looked towards the oven.

No. He wouldn’t want to see this.

“I put them on top of the oven honey. Just heat them up again in the microwave.”

“They’re there Mommy but I can’t eat fish sticks. Marvin’s…a fish.”

There’s a pause, then a slight chuckle. Usually Simon liked Mommy’s laugh, but he didn’t know what was funny.

“The fish sticks aren’t made of goldfish, Simon. I have to go.”

“I-”

She hung up.

He can’t eat fish sticks. She didn’t even listen. His stomach hurts, and the kitchen’s empty, and she hung up.

He looked out the window. Jordan was still playing. He won’t hear him.

Something else besides hunger curled painfully in the emptiness of his stomach.

He looked in the pantry. The only thing he could find was fruit snacks. He hates fruit snacks, but he takes them. He eats them in his room as he feeds Marvin.

As he watches the little flakes fall into the water, Marvin opening and closing his mouth to catch them, Simon wishes he had someone to talk to.

Then he realizes he does.

“You won’t mind if I talk while you eat, right?”

Marvin didn’t seem to.

“Well, first of all, I hate fruit snacks.”

Simon told him everything about his day. How his sneakers squeaked on the camp’s gym floor as he jumped and watched the ball sink perfectly into the net. The awful slam into the ground, dragging himself up off the floor. He showed Marvin the bruisemisty purple on the outside, curling dirty brown inside, like a snail shell. He seemed very impressed, but with just the right tilt of sympathy to his fins.

He talked about his lunch, how he liked the orange juice but didn’t like the pizza because it was in square slices. Sometimes, they got to watch TV at camp, but the shows always mentioned numbers or the alphabet and Simon wished the characters would focus on what was really important in the story. Basketball was the best gym game, but you’d always lose if you had Aria and Meg on your team. Why were they always straining their arms to raise their hands in class, but barely moved them in gym? They just stood there and laughed like basketball was funny. Simon’s friends yelled at them, and Simon wanted to, but he didn’t like yelling. His friend Henry was very proud of his Pokemon collection, but they weren’t really magical like a magician’s cards.

Marvin was a good listener.

***

Simon was watching Jordan play Glass Sword 2: Bloodborne on the console. Jordan was supposed to be reading The Outsiders, but he wasn’t. Tonight, Simon would be starting his two weeks with Dad; Jordan wasn’t coming, and neither was Marvin. He’d asked Mommy why he couldn’t take Marvin with him. She’d said Dad might not like having Marvin. He’d asked why anyone wouldn’t love Marvin.

She’d looked away and said she didn’t know.

That’s when Simon remembered Dad didn’t love Mommy anymore. He loved his girlfriend, Lysandra.

He didn’t ask any more questions, even though he felt like crying about Marvin, because Mommy looked like she wanted to cry, too.

He did ask Jordan if he’d take care of Marvin while he was gone, though, and he’d said yes.

Jordan’s video game character shot someone in the heart with a magic bolt of light.

“Is he a magician?” asked Simon.

“What? No, Gorminum’s not a shitty magician, he’s a class S mage with a specialty in fire arcana magic.” said Jordan.

His sharp glare threatened what would happen if Simon tried to earn a dollar in the swear jar.

He rolled his eyes,

“But he uses magic, and magicians use magic.”

“I already told you Gorminium isn’t a magician-”

The doorbell rang.

“Shit, the doorbell. Look what you made me do, Gorminum died, and I didn’t even save.”

He throws the controller down, and his eyes tigthen at the second ring. “Will you just go away, you’re so stupid sometimes.”

“You’ll take care of Marvin, right?”

“Yeah, just go already.”

Simon sits for a moment, then gets up. He walks to his bedroom to get his bag.

Jordan said he hated Dad when he left and poured Fanta in Lysandra’s shoe. Then Dad bought him a phone, and he started going over Saturdays. When he broke the phone, Dad said he wouldn’t pay. Now Jordan doesn’t go to Dad’s house.

Simon picks up his bag, then walks over to Marvin. He’s swimming close to the top of the bowl, like he wants to talk to him.

He touches his nose to the bowl and whispers, “I’m sorry I have to go. But I’ll be back soon.”

He goes into the hallway and opens the door. Dad’s there. And so is Lysandra. She smells like nail polish. She purses her too red lips at Simon-- they look like a big sore.

Dad said, “Took your sweet time, huh? Ready to go out for dinner pal? Booked the best restaurant in Seattle.”

“Roger’s Pizza?”

“No pal, something better: Lamont Bistro.”

The restaurant was all shades of cream and beige. It felt like a place where you couldn’t spill anything and stain it. The tables seemed too small and delicate, and Simon’s legs were cramped under theirs. Dad and Lysandra sat across from him. Simon had wanted to sit next to Dad, but Lysandra had wanted to, too. The waiter came up to them and Dad said,

“We’ll have the salmon,” and a string of other words Simon didn’t know that sounded fancy and long and weird. But he knew what salmon meant.

“Dad?”

“Hold on, I’m ordering.” Dad snapped. Simon looked at his hands.

The waiter hadn’t brought any coloring sheets or crayons. That was what Simon usually did while he waited for his food. Dad and Lysandra liked asking him questions instead.

“How’s school?”

“It’s summer.”

“Well, how was school?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Did you know I’m up for a promotion? And it’s all thanks to Lysandra’s hard work as my assistant.”

“Dave, you’re too modest. Your father’s the one who’s been working hard.”

“We might have a party for it with Lysandra catering. Lysandra’s a great chef, Simon.”

“Again with the compliments. Would you like to try some of my cookies at home?”

“Come on pal, answer.”

“I guess.”

The waiter came back, with many small plates swirled with abstract scribbles of food.

The salmon was a fleshy pink slab with a greasy sauce slopping off it. “Dad, I can’t eat this. It’s-it’s a fish.”

“That’s the best fish in town. Simon, I took you out for your birthday.”

“I know, but I just can’t eat fish. Marvin’s a fish and Marvin’s my friend.”

“Who?”

“My goldfish.”

“He won’t eat fish because of his goldfish? Your son is so funny!”

“I’m not funny.”

“Don’t talk to Lysandra like that. And eat your fish.”

“But-”

“Now.”

“No!”

They didn’t get dessert.

***

When they got back to Dad’s apartment, Dad told Simon to go to bed. Simon was still hungry, so he headed to the kitchen. In the hall he heard something,

“Listen Rachel, I don’t know how you’re parenting him, but…”

Dad was talking to Mommy on the phone. Simon hid behind the wall and listened.

“He won’t eat, he won’t talk to Lysandra, he’s a little goddamned brat, and it’s your fucking fault.”

Dad’s talking to Mommy about him.

Simon inched back from the wall and sneaked quietly back to his room, but he still felt like he’d been dangled off an edge. He felt like he did when he looked down the stairs for too long, and sensed the looming gravity, but this was looming guilt.

He felt sick. He’d go to bed like Dad said so maybe he wouldn’t be angry anymore.

He closed the door, extinguishing the bar of light from the hall. The bed sheets were cold. Simon stared into the darkness. It pressed on him like ink; he pushed his hand against it but couldn’t get through. He looked around the room, straining his eyes to see the gray fuzz coming from between the blinds. He clung to it, inhaling the cottony light so he could breathe through the night.

He wished he had his nightlight. He wished he had Marvin. He whispered, “Night,” to no one.

***

The two weeks with Dad weren’t very fun. He ended up going to summer camp like when he was home, and Lysandra watched him at the apartment. She didn’t offer him any cookies again, but he wouldn’t have eaten them anyway.

Dad drove him home at seven. Simon would be home alone for about half an hour until eight. Mom was mad, but Dad told her too late to do anything.

Simon remembered what Jordan had said about the door and unlocked it until it clicked. The house was awash in light blue light, the oven clock a contrasting red. There’s another tray of fish sticks below it. Simon didn’t bother turning on the kitchen lights, and headed straight to his bedroom to see Marvin.

He felt a wave of happiness at seeing Marvin’s bowl and went to it.

Marvin wasn’t there.

The water inside was a sickly green scum, with the lapping smell of rot. Floating on top was a twisted shape, bent wrong. Waterlogged and washed out, pale green and yellow. Scaly white skin rose around it ghostly. It flaked off from the body, falling into the water, snow on a nuclear fallout sky. One long piece trailed like an abandoned flag.

Simon stared. Where was Marvin? Marvin was beautiful. Marvin was magical. This was…disgusting.

Marvin wasn’t… Why…?

Simon felt warm water on his cheeks. Where was Marvin? Was he in his burning eyes? The hole in his chest?

He looked at the twisted shape. There was no winking eye with a golden twinkle. What had he done to Marvin? He said he’d take care of him. What had he done to Marvin?

A burn tore through him. Simon knocked the bowl off his dresser, shattering it in a flash of red glass.

He screamed as the pieces skated across the floor, water flooding. He clutched his hand, gushing red, to his chest. He crouched on the floor, and rocked on his feet back and forth, squeezing and squeezing the pain.

It hurt and it hurt, and Marvin wasn’t there, and it hurt, and

he needed help and what did you do when you were hurt? You got a band-aid; the band-aids were in the bathroom. He stumbled out into the hall, fumbling open the bathroom door. He crouched on the tile and got out the blue tote with the band-aids from the cabinet. Except they weren’t there. But they were always there. They were supposed to be there. Where were they?

The blue tote, the drawer, the floor, behind the toilet, the blue tote again. Where were the band-aids, where were the bandaids, where were the goddamned band-aids? Slamming his fist against the tile, rising anger reaching for the swear. He deserved this swear. Some brat hadn’t put back the band-aids. He grabbed a toilet paper roll and threw it across the floor, watching it unravel. He ripped off pieces and mummified his hand. He went to the kitchen and taped it together with long pieces. He watched the blood bleed through in darkening pools of red.

Marvin is Marvin is Marvin is He isn’t even here.

No one’s here.

Simon trudges to the oven to look at the time.

7:35

Jordan’s at the park. Mom’s at work. Marvin isThey’re not home.

Simon eats a fish stick.

William Rudolph

Photography Paideia School Atlanta, GA
Long Days, 2024
Digital photograph, captured with a Sony A7III and processed in Adobe Lightroom

Naliyah Salahuddin

Setting the table, 2024

Visual Arts
New World School of the Arts Miami, FL
My grandmother’s handmade doilies, paper doilies, screenprint and remnant fabric

Santiago Salazar

ANOTHER SUMMER IN ECUADOR

INT. HEN HOUSE - MORNING

JUNE 1997

A constant rustle of wings and soft clucking reverberates through the small space. ROSITA (83F) weathered, wears a faded dress and a woven shawl, her hair pulled back in a loose bun.

Her hands, rough from years of labor, reach beneath the roosting hens. She nudges one bird aside, revealing three brown eggs. A hen flaps irritably but Rosita doesn’t react-- this has become ritual to her.

INT. HEN HOUSE - MORNING

CELIA, or DOÑA CELIA (44F), an indigenous domestic worker, vacuums the floor. The front gate’s bell rings. Doña Celia turns off the vacuum and puts it to the side. She exits into the...

EXT. COURTYARD - ROSITA’S HOME - MORNING

...courtyard. She stops next to a singular door leading to the backyard. The door is made of opaque glass, with a hole in the bottom. In the hole, the head of a large golden retriever, TAISON, sticks through trying to get inside. Doña Celia cracks the door slightly open.

DOÑA CELIA

Miss!

RING! The doorbell rings again and Doña Celia closes the door on a fighting Taison.

She walks a few steps to another door; she knocks twice and opens it. Inside, we meet ARMANDO, (76M), husband to Rosita for the last 52 years. He’s sitting upright on the edge of his bed. He is very fit for his age and has the same energy he’s had since his 20’s. He watches the news on his CRT TV he’s owned since 1982.

DOÑA CELIA (CONT’D)

Sir. Your daughter is here.

She leaves the door open and continues to walk. She stops at the door next to the gate and opens it. In comes PAULINA (49F), American Immigrant. She holds her luggage and wears a cozy sweater but is still cold. The weather is nothing like the hot Miami days back home.

Also entering is SEBASTIAN (18M). First-generation American. Son of Paulina. He holds a luggage and looks around curiously. Paulina gives Celia a look.

Hello dear.

Hello Miss.

PAULINA

DOÑA CELIA

She hands Doña Celia his luggage and gives her a cheek kiss. Doña Celia exits just as Abuelito Armando walks in

ARMANDO (noticing Pauli)

My love.

Pauli walks up to him and gives him a long hug.

PAULINA (concerned)

Where’s mom?

In the back.

ARMANDO

From here on out, our main focus is on Sebastian. He walks up to Armando and gives him a firm handshake.

SEBASTIAN

Hello old man.

Taison comes running out of the house. They don’t pay too much attention to it; they know he will return soon. Just as he runs out, Abuelita Rosita walks in slowly. Paulina walks towards her. They embrace.

How have you been?

PAULINA (CONT’D)

ROSITA

You worry too much.

INT. GUEST BEDROOM - LATER

The door opens and in comes Sebastian. He lingers around the room. It is decorated in antiquity and there is a weird smell that we can’t quite make out. Pauli walks in right after.

SEBASTIAN

It smells like feet.

EXT. DINER AREA - BACKYARD - MORNING

ROSITA, ARMANDO, PAULINA, AND SEBASTIAN sit eating Cuy and Concón at the table. On the radio plays tradition music.

ROSITA

Your Abuelo was a player.

ARMANDO Player? I was very behaved.

PAULINA

What about Helena?

There’s clearly a story Sebastian doesn’t know.

SEBASTIAN

Abuelito! Who is Helena?

ARMANDO

Nobody-

ROSITA

When we were your age, everyone wanted your grandfather-

ARMANDO

That I won’t deny.

Rosita pinches Armando.

ROSITA

But the difference was he wanted me.

SEBASTIAN

Okay player!

ROSITA

So, each week he would buy me something new, something expensive. And he would knock on my door, and tell me the sweetest things ever, he wrote poetry, and he did this all just to ask me to be his girlfriend.

And you said yes?

I said no.

SEBASTIAN

ROSITA

SEBASTIAN

Why? That makes no sense.

ROSITA

Because he already had a girlfriend.

The entire table again starts laughing, chismando. They all tease Armando.

ARMANDO

Bullshit, it’s cause you didn’t want me to stop giving you gifts.

ROSITA (mocking)

That I won’t deny.

Well, what changed?

SEBASTIAN

ROSITA

I made him break up with her. And I told him If I’d ever see him with another girl again, I would tell my dad... So he could shoot him.

Everyone is laughing, except Paulina. She wears a look of relief and pleasant surprise.

PAULINA

You remembered that whole story.

Beat. Rosita smiles at her daughter.

Suddenly, the music stops playing. A radio report of the now 1997 Bar Abanicos Police Raid. A violent homophobic raid on a gay bar in the city of Cuenca.

ARMANDO

Mijo, you like girls?

SEBASTIAN (he chuckles)

Yeah... Sure. But there’s no girls in Pifo, at least pretty ones. Armando turns off the radio.

ARMANDO (CONT’D)

You may be an adult, but you still talk like a boy. What do you know about love?

I’m aware of it.

SEBASTIAN

ARMANDO

Love is the definition of life, the only proof of perfection--the only proof of God. The way a man and woman harmonize- that’s... there’s nothing more natural or beautiful or... or virtuous. (beat)

People... people will try to twist love, corrupt it into something it’s not. You can never let anyone corrupt love--corrupt God, because once love is lost, life loses its meaning. Do you understand?

INT. HEN HOUSE - AFTERNOON

The chickens cluck irritably this morning. Rosita watches as Sebastian is bent over trying to grab some eggs from the bottom of a hen. The hen fights back and flaps its wings, startling Sebastian.

ROSITA

With strength. Don’t be timid.

Sebastian tries again, this time with more assertiveness. The hen once again fights back, but Sebastian doesn’t yield. He holds her in his hands and places her a few feet away. He grabs the eggs gently and tucks them into the basket. He stands up and trades spots with Rosita. She notices a perfect brown egg on the floor and holds it out towards Sebastian.

ROSITA

There’s nothing better on God’s green earth than a nice brown egg. That’s what Mama would say.

Rosita hands Sebastian the egg to hold.

SEBASTIAN

How was your mama?

ROSITA

Ask your mother, she hated her.

SEBASTIAN

My mom speaks well of her?

ROSITA

Of course she does. It’s easy to notice the bad, but the good is always what we remember.

Sebastian inspects the egg. Not totally paying attention. Rosita listens to what she just uttered; a profound realization washes her face.

ROSITA (CONT’D) (calmy, with acceptance)

I won’t remember anything soon.

SEBASTIAN

Don’t say that--

ROSITA

I’m only saying the truth. There ain’t nothing wrong in telling the truth.

Sebastian stands silent.

ROSITA (CONT’D)

When I stop remembering, I won’t remember to take care of my chickens, and God knows your mother won’t either.

Rosita stands up with the basket, having finished collecting the eggs. Sebastian remains silent, unsure of what to say. As Rosita heads toward the entrance, she gestures toward the bin of feed.

ROSITA

Take care of my chickens.

INT. FOYER - NIGHT

Sebastian walks towards his room when he hears his mother and grandfather arguing. He stops to overhear.

He’s still young!

PAULINA

ARMANDO

He’s 18! 18-year-old boys have girlfriends. If he was raised with a father. You better not be raising a fucking queer.

Sebastian’s demeanor softens.

PAULINA

HOW FUCKING DARE YOU. YOU IGNORANT FUCKING--

Armando slaps her. In that same moment, Armando is filled with immense regret. Tears form on Sebastian’s face as he runs out of the house onto the...

EXT. PIFO STREET - CONTINUOUS

...street. Sebastian runs across the street, to a corner store. He orders from the outside. Wiping his tears.

SEBASTIAN

Just a Tango. Thank you.

The store owner leaves to get a soda. Sebastian turns his head and notices a couple, two guys. They seem alone; only at night can they express their love.

Sebastian looks. His tears start to dry, he smiles, A hint of something deeper. Suddenly...

POW! A gunshot. Aimed towards the couple from across the street. Sebastian runs away, faster than he has ever run in his life. He makes it about two blocks when suddenly...

BUMP! He bumps into a guy, 18 years old, tall and lean with dark black hair. This is RIO.

RIO

Damn dude. You good?

Sebastian is out of breath and scared, he doesn’t speak. Rio suddenly understands why he’s running.

RIO

You’re American aren’t you.

Sebastian gets embarrassed. He pretends to not be scared anymore.

SEBASTIAN

Yes. No. I mean... Sup... Dude.

RIO

Sup Dude?

SEBASTIAN

American. Yes. I am, but my parents are from here.

RIO (laughing)

O...k? Are you... okay?

SEBASTIAN (still out of breath)

I am... super.

Rio gives him a look, one that says, “This guy’s funny.”

RIO

You play soccer?

Do...I? ...Yes.

SEBASTIAN

RIO

Fuck yeah! We gotta run it one day. What are you doing Thursday?

SEBASTIAN

I’m free.

A smile.

RIO

I’m Rio.

Before Sebastian can answer, Rio walks away, and Sebastian can’t help but stare.

EXT/INT. HOUSE FRONT - AFTERNOON AUGUST, 1997.

WE linger on DOÑA CElIA at the end of the hall, next to the door of the backyard. She rips chicken breast into Taisons bowl. We hear the hasty run of thirsty and hungry TAISON. He stops as he pants through the hole in the door. Celia opens the door and runs directly to the food.

Off screen, we hear the CREAK of SEBASTIAN’s door as he gets ready to head out. Taison bolts down the hallway towards him as we pan alongside, knocking over his food. We are

now in view of the other end of the hallway. Sebastian wearing soccer clothes. Also in the hallway, Rosita sits in a chair. Whatever condition she has, has rapidly worsened, and we can see it.

Sebastian locks the door, as Taison repeatedly Jumps at him, barking, looking for attention. Sebastian gives him a small rub on his head and then walks to the end of the hallway towards his bike. Sebastian notices Doña Celia walking out with a broom and dustpan in hand. She stops.

Hola Doña Celia.

SEBASTIAN

DOÑA CELIA

Hola chico. A donde vas?

SEBASTIAN (hesitates)

Just going to play soccer in the city.

DOÑA CELIA (Remembering)

Ahh! If you’re going to the city, pick up your grandmother’s medicine.

SEBASTIAN

I don’t know if I’ll have time.

Sebastian hates to say no so he says...

Okay.

Be safe.

SEBASTIAN

DOÑA CELIA

Sebastian waves at her and pulls his bike into the front gate. It opens and he leaves. At the same time, Doña Celia walks back to the end of the hall next to the backyard door. We pan with her; we’re once again at the view of the other end of the hallway.

She puts down the dustpan and starts to sweep up the mess Taison made. We hear a door close off-screen as Paulina walks into the frame with a laundry basket in hand. She notices Doña Celia and walks up to her.

PAULINA

No, No, No... Give me that, I can clean, dear.

DOÑA CELIA

I’m fine, really! I have no problem-

Paulina holds her hand. Doña Celia smiles, so does Paulina. There is a moment. She puts down the broom and the dustpan on the wall and walks away. Paulina puts down the laundry basket on the floor and grabs the broom. Suddenly, Taison runs and makes his way towards the laundry basket sniffing and rummaging through all the clothes.

PAULINA (CONT’D) (with command)

Ya! Taison!

Taison ignores her. Paulina puts down the broom again and grabs the laundry basket back up. We once again pan to the other end of the hallway as Paulina walks across to put down the laundry basket somewhere else. We now see Rosita stood up and walking towards the front gate. Paulina notices and picks up the pace.

PAULINA (CONT’D)

Mama! Where are you going?

ROSITA

I’m going to the... Uhhh... I’m going to the bathroom.

Paulina’s face drops, it’s gotten routine.

PAULINA

It’s on the other side. Remember?

ROSITA

Ahh yes. I remember that.

Paulina grabs Rosita by the arm and turns her around to lead her to the bathroom. Rosita stops in place when she looks her daughters in the face, almost noticing her dismay. Paulina looks at her mother in return...

ROSITA (CONT’D)

Hija...

Paulina lets out a reassured smile. She still remembers her daughter.

ROSITA

I think I just saw a fag leave the house.

Paulina’s face drops.

PAULINA

He’s not a fag. He’s your grandson.

Paulina lets go of her Arm and walks out of frame angrily with the laundry basket. Rosita looks confused and returns to her seat.

INT. PIFO CENTRO - 2003 TOYOTA COROLLA - LATER

Inside Rio’s car sits both him and Sebastian. However, they are not playing soccer. They are engaged in a long kiss. Sebastian pulls back as he notices the sky is darker.

SEBASTIAN

Fuck. It’s Late.

Rio pulls Sebastian back it. Sebastian gives in but only for a moment until...

SEBASTIAN

Seriously, we have to go to Cuenca, I promised Celia.

RIO

Dude, they’ll fucking kill us there.

SEBASTIAN

We’ll be in and out... It’s my last week. More time spent together.

Rio hesitates. He grabs a White Claw from the cup holder and takes a small sip. Then...

RIO

Don’t be stupid.

INT/EXT. CUENCA BRIDGE - 2003 TOYOTA COROLLA - LATER AT NIGHT

They drive back. Suddenly the lights of a cop car siren. Just then - WHOOP WHOOP of a police siren. Lights flashing in the rearview.

RIO

It’s protocol. Just hide the drinks.

Rio pulls over and stops the car. With no response, Sebastian puts it under his car seat. A cop, middle-aged, short and heavyset, walks to the window. Rio pulls down the window.

COP #1

(cool enough)

Curfews at 10. What are you guys doing out?

RIO

Sorry sir, we just had to pick up medicine for his grandmother.

COP #1

If I could just see some license and registration. I won’t keep you too long.

Rio hands the cop his license and registration. The cop inspects.

COP #1

18. My eldest is also 18. Have you guys been doing any drinking tonight.

None whatsoever.

SEBASTIAN

COP #1

There’s no alcohol in the vehicle?

Rio nudges the bottle more into the seat with his foot.

RIO

Nothing sir.

The cops eyes navigates towards Rio’s feet. He notices it but doesn’t want to bother the kids anymore than necessary.

Great.

COP #1

RIO

Great. Have a goodnight officer-

COP #1

One second. I just have to test to make sure everything good. It’s just protocol, I don’t want to keep your grandma waiting any longer than she has too.

SEBASTIAN

No problem.

The cop nods and walks towards his police car to grab a Breathalyzer test. He seems cool enough. He touches his hand and immediately retracts it when the cop returns to the windows. Breathalyzer in hand.

COP #1

If you could, please blow into the tube until the light flashes. The cop puts the tube to Rio’s mouth. He blows.

COP #1 (CONT’D)

Blow. Blow. Blow! BLOW! BLOW!!!

DING. The light flashes. Rio is out of breath, and they share a small chuckle. The cop looks at the breathalyzer, waiting for the results. We wait for what seems an eternity for...

COP #1 (CONT’D) You’re all good.

Relief.

COP #1

Just stay safe.

Just then, as Rio’s hand rests on the center console, Sebastian, in a moment of complete relief, instinctively and viscerally touches Rio’s hand. It’s brief, but enough for Rio to feel it and quickly jerk away. The cop notices, and his demeanor shifts.

COP #1

One second.

The cop turns around and speaks on his walkie talkie to his partner in the car. We are unable to understand.

COP #1 (CONT’D)

Would you both step out of the vehicle for a moment? We have reason to suspect possession of alcohol in the vehicle

SEBASTIAN

Sir, I’m sorry but grandma is waiting-

COP #1

(letting out a faux smile)

We won’t keep you long, it’s just protocol.

Sebastian and Rio get out of the car and walk to the front. As Rio exits, he tries to push in the bottle a little further.

COP #2 steps out of the car and to the car, also short and heavyset. They both start their search and COP #1 immediately heads to the passenger seat and grabs the pack of white claws. He shows it to the boys.

SEBASTIAN

Sir, we are above the drinking age. We are legally--

COP #1 (sternly)

Please cooperate. Place both hands on the car and lean over. We’re going to conduct a pat-down.

They both oblige. The cop starts to aggressively pat them down. At this point, they’re terrified. The cop finishes patting them down and forcefully turns them around. He stares at them as they look in childlike fear.

COP #1 (CONT’D)

We’re going to need you to take off your clothes.

Sebastian and Rio’s expression turn into a confused terror.

COP #1 (CONT’D)

UNLESS YOU WANT TO GET ARRESTED TONIGHT, WE’RE GONNA NEED TO SEARCH YOU.

RIO

Sir...

COP #2 NOT TOMORROW. NOW!

Sebastian and Rio stand expressionless. Slowly and reluctantly, out of fear for their lives, take off their clothes.

Their shirts... Their shoes... Their pants-

COP #1 (CONT’D) Everything.

They take off everything. They hand it to Cop #2.

COP #2 (CHUCKLES) Faggots.

COP #2 throws their clothes over the bridge.

SEBASTIAN WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING--

The cops start to laugh. This entire search was just a cruel joke, and this wasn’t their first time telling it.

COP #1

(as he is laughing)

Get the fuck out of here. Now!

Sebastian and Rio are yelling in terror standing still, that is until Cop #1 reaches to a baton. The boys run to the car; they show no emotion other than pure, unadulterated fear. The car drives off.

INT. PAULINA’S ROOM - NIGHT

The room is dark. The door opens, and Sebastian stands in the door. He is shaking.

PAULINA Sebas-?

Sebastian runs into his mother’s arms. He weeps like a baby. His mother asks no questions and just comforts him. We glide out of the room into the...

EXT. FOYER - CONTINUOUS

...foyer. We glide and we see a confused Rosita walking. We follow her into the...

EXT. BACKYARD - CONTINUOUS

...backyard. Finally, to the...

INT. HEN HOUSE - CONTINUOUS

...hen house. She stands confused for a second. The chicken are all sleeping. She grabs feed and pours it all over the floor. The chickens wake up angry. Paulina and Sebastian walk in.

Mama. It’s 2 A.M.

PAULINA

ROSITA

I need... Uhhh... My chickens.

PAULINA

It’s okay mama. Come with me.

She grabs her mother’s arm and walks her out. Sebastian is left alone. His tears are dried. He stands for a second and looks at the bucket of feed. He grabs some and feeds the chicken.

Sadie Schoenberger

Christopher Schwarting

Boyhood Elegy

Suppose every doorway led to hunger: three Cheerios ground down to powder on the WeatherTech.

Shots poured on glistening bodies, tempered curbside. It’s midnight.

On the cusp of ripening, a boy kneels in the backseat. Outside, a man in Patagonia sings White Winter Hymnal.

He was following the pack. In January, the snow swallows that

Spruce Street boy in his coat. Blizzards molt fleece between fiftyyear-old men, rolled into scarves tied round their throats.

Once on the linoleum that boy played pretend.

Copper nails. Strawberry milk. How humble a feast.

How delicate the powerlines now unfurling in the wind.

I remember his eyes, round meringues, peaked straight into tomorrow.

Capote. The muse. Each poster tacked to bricks. Every man’s a keepsake.

I’ll tell him: Michael, you will fall. He’ll say: better to fall first than watch my love fall in the snow. What spurs lust but thirst for motherhood soaked in Cherry Coke. What to make of tears.

So I stand while a friend resurrects their pride from the Schuylkill.

I turned round and there he’d go— crouching into a white Silverado and speeding past his virginity, slick as ice. He’ll relapse each week, addicted to the sensation: love. This I know.

The Haverford School

Haverford, PA

One morning, he’ll die at his lover’s home.

This I don’t know. Why his lips purse the white snow red.

And why I dream of our mothers picking strawberries in the summertime.

Poetry

Ashlyn So

Chromatic Symphony, 2023
Pleated red organza, curved chrome faux leather crop top, matching ruched pants

Maya Tzonev

Grass Stains and Growing Pains, 2024

Riley Walsh

Film
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Parkland, FL
Afterglow, 2024
Narrative film, 7 min., 53 sec.

Wenshu Wang

Bluegrass

At noon the rays halo us into dead horses. On the Eastern prairie, paddy whistles through holes in their stems. This is what they’ve told us about v Arkansas—that there are too many hours to watch the wheat grow, and home is an idiom when spoken with a Southern drawl. Even at shore we keep rowing, our chicken foot hands in the bayou. Drop pendants to stay afloat. Every settler has a story of roughness. Know what mountains we flattened for this. I, too, comma into a held breath. Tick into cul-de-sacs, my arms re-establishing in crater inches, my teeth stained with want. Mother teaches me to be scared of slowness, of heaviness, of the harvest blade in the bedsheets spread over like astroturf. This is the tercet whittled into my right, pressed palm to a beating second. This is something about stagnation that she won’t say. This is what they haven’t told you about Arkansas—that home circles the picket fence, like a wet hound,

shock collar abuzz. That a knock at the door is a cartridge loaded. The man over the farmhand now, carving a food stamp in his side. The lights flicker blue, porch swing cordoning our necks.

A steel bridge shot on its back. So much is about crossing over with our eyes closed. My chicken foot feet feeling for the second step. Somewhere, my turnpike nineties split into four iterations, each slick and unwilling. We come home with Saturday in our hands, and Mother looks at me like I am any wild thing.

Poetry
Herricks High School
New Hyde Park, NY

Kaleah Webb

Visual Arts
George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology Towson, MD
White Swan, 2024
PVC board, yarn, artificial flowers, twine, black acrylic paint and reading stones

Jake Welton

burning haibun for crested ibis

Moravian Academy Upper School

Bethlehem, PA

mama, just so you know, i have a newfound hunger for meat. tonight’s altar displays peking duck, the gullet still raw & coughing up quills. you say it must be slit. that another child is merely another throat begging to be stuffed with fat. mama, look at the way my blood congeals in the bathroom sink—slices of skin like wilted petals decorating the porcelain. mama, my nape has bent into a blood-tipped crescent, & my fingernails have curved into talons. i am every prayer a drowning mother has for her son: submission. mama, i met a boy whose name was a lie i carved inside of me. he said he would pull every bone out of my body as if it were a breeding call. i burn my pubic hairs under his covers as smoke signal for sex. mama, when he tears apart my tattered clothes, all he unveils is a gray & aborted plumage. i am allopreened all night. i am told i deserve this. mama, why do i gnaw off my feathers & pretend i am a woman? why do i castrate myself until birdsongs seep amniotic from the wound? my head is a stillborn crest where the scalp is exposed & bleeding. by the light of a starving moon, i birth rejected testosterone & measure it by wingspan. for to devour a new man each night is to replace this lack of body mama, there is gasoline cradled in this ungodly mouth, & i choose to piss it out. mama, our dirt-caked television displays mandarin ducks doused in oil, & your instinct is to light a cigarette. one day, you will douse me in oil & strike a match against your papered tongue. one day, you will deadname flight as faggot one day, you will watch your rotten child go up in flames.

// mama , ...know, i have ad hunger for meat. oJjr a the gullet still raw & u say it must be slit. a t another child iserele another ok a t the way my blood congeals in the bathroom sink— —d Lai lted petals ````` t.. A blood-tipped crescent ,J er a drowning mother has fo r her son: s as a lie i le to carved inside of me. he said he would J due burn my pubic hairs u ers as l fo.. sex P he tear s apart my tatter e aborted Ma d all night. i am told i deserve this e pretend i am a woman ? why d o i castrate myself stillborn crest /ed & dl f ……,,, starving i birth rejected testosterone & measure it lack of body a, there is gasoline .Cr.…., mouth, & i , &.. piss it , , , , , our dirt-caked telelays ,,,,,, mandarin your instinct is to lig ill douse me in oil & strike a match against as faggot one da y

you wi ll watch your J r in flames. J. // ,,,, gullet s l congeals i……,, ,,,, son: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.J lie r i r i birth d testosterone J my mouth e & piss it s mandarin , /

Denver Whaley

Visual Arts
Juan Diego Catholic High School Draper, UT
CuraCub - Cover Page and Key Features, 2024 Rhino3D, KeyShot, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop

Chloe Yang

breasts & eggs

It’s a startling thing to break an egg and find blood. It spills over the hot pan with the rest of the yolk, the oil popping its lips. It looks like the nipple of a breast, red and swollen, and then it bleeds into the yellow. I throw it away into the trash, a little shaken. Was that the blood of a baby chick?

I later find out that I’m halfway right. A bloody egg doesn’t mean a fertilized egg, but blood spots in eggs result from the rupturing of tiny blood cells in the hen’s ovaries or oviduct.

All the animals are dying. All the beautiful women are dying, too.

***

My health teacher shows us a picture of a woman’s naked body. We giggle, nervously. How strange is it to see our bodies displayed in front of us on a shiny textbook page? We are told to look at her breasts. We are embarrassed, but we look anyway. Our fingers don’t touch the page.

“When you go home,” our teacher tells us, “I want all the girls to touch your breasts and feel for any lumps or changes.”

Someone asks why.

“For breast cancer,” she replies. We are silent. Cancer is a heavy topic. Our teacher moves on.

I look back at the woman’s breasts. They are pale like milk and are threaded softly with blue veins throughout her chest and down her breasts. She didn’t seem like she would have cancer. ***

On the cusp of puberty, I learn about periods.

It scared me a little, knowing that once I started my period, blood would come out of my body every month until it stopped. Actually, it scared me so bad.

In most books I read, when the girl gets her first period, there’s always this scene where she says, great, now I’m a woman. The girl is always so overjoyed, and she goes to tell her mom. She tells her it has happened, and the mom smiles back and says you’re a woman now, congratulations.

Before I was even born, I was filled with millions of eggs. Once I got my period, they could be fertilized. That was so strange to me. Before I could eat solid food, I had already been stuffed with eggs.

Does blood coming out of you make you a woman? A potential mom? What does that even mean? It confused me so much. I felt like I was trapped inside my body.

Once you get your period, that means you can get pregnant. But every time you bleed, you release the unfertilized egg, and then the pad you’re using catches it. I’ve always wondered if the unfertilized eggs were in the pad, like swollen little beads of red, like roe. ***

My grandmother has known pain for a long time.

She has stage 4 breast cancer. The white hospital light pales her wrists. Her body lays in cuts of fabric, buttons snuck over hems, slack buds in sleep. Sometimes when we visit, she can’t open her eyes or mouth.

Her hands are warm but worn. They feel like a sparrow in between my fingers, shivering and yellow. The blankets on her seem to hide her bird-wing bones—how I long to see her body’s creases and curves, every roll, wrinkle, bone, and goose bump, proof that she is underneath those layers, heart beating and hot against my own cold hands.

Everywhere, people try to end pain–acupuncture, ginseng, sensory deprivation.

Orange County School of the Arts Santa Ana, CA

When you feel pain for another decade, another year, another month, it welds into your body, snug.

***

Menopause is when periods, vaginal bleeding, or spotting stop for good. By menopause, the female body will have fewer than 10,000 eggs in her body, most of which will die off through a process called atresia.

Hormone-positive breast cancers are caused primarily by estrogen and progesterone. As menopause approaches, the ovaries produce less hormones.

Women who experience menopause after 55 years old have an even greater risk of breast cancer due to prolonged exposure to estrogen and progesterone.

***

Outside of the shower is a long mirror that stretches across two conjoined sinks.

Once, after I stepped out from a particularly long and hot shower, I looked at my towel-wrapped body in the mirror. In the reflection, the breasts are covered, but I could still see their shape and size, and the even darker outline of the nipples. I felt so distant from the girl in the mirror that I almost cried out.

Who are you?

She is still a girl, learning to be a woman.

***

I sometimes still think of the bloody egg. Of my grandmother and her own breasts, small and well-used; red salmon roe festering underneath cotton pads; the naked woman in my health textbook. Her breasts and their pallor, their curves, the soft vulnerability of the flesh, and its outline of blue veins. The quintessence of femininity.

All the beautiful women are dying, bleeding from yellow yolk.

Katie Yang

Visual Arts
The Hotchkiss School
Lakeville, CT
Unraveled, 2024
Oil paint, fabric, canvas, charcoal, wax thread to stretch and fasten canvas onto the frame
Andralyn Yao
Design West Lafayette Junior/Senior High School West Lafayette, IN

Veronica Ye

Visual Arts
Lovejoy High School Lucas, TX
Something’s Fishy, 2024 Oil pastel, cutouts, loose canvas, handmade canvas and hand-carved linoleum print

Chaeeun Yoo

Photography
Shining Busan, 2024
Photography

Alicia Zheng

Visual Arts
Citywalk, 2024 Oil on unstretched canvas

Aayan Zuberi

Design
Tomball Star Academy Tomball, TX

YoungArts

About YoungArts

YoungArts—the national foundation for the advancement of artists—was established in 1981 by Lin and Ted Arison to identify exceptional young artists, amplify their potential, and invest in their lifelong creative freedom. YoungArts provides space, funding, mentorship, professional development and community throughout artists’ careers. Entrance into this prestigious organization starts with a highly competitive application for talented artists ages 15–18, or grades 10–12, in the United States that is judged by esteemed discipline-specific panels of artists through a rigorous adjudication process.

YoungArts award winners are further eligible for exclusive opportunities, including: nomination as a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, one of the nation’s highest honors for high school seniors; a wide range of creative development support including fellowships, residencies and awards; professional development programs offered in partnership with major institutions nationwide; additional financial support; and access to YoungArts Post, a private, online portal for YoungArts artists to connect, share their work and discover new opportunities.

Past YoungArts award winners include Daniel Arsham, Terence Blanchard, Camille A. Brown, Timothée Chalamet, Viola Davis, Amanda Gorman, Judith Hill, Jennifer Koh, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Andrew Rannells, Desmond Richardson and Hunter Schafer.

For more information, visit youngarts.org.

Join the conversation

Instagram @youngarts

YouTube @youngarts

Facebook /youngartsfoundation

Twitter @youngarts

Notable Winners

Doug Aitken
Hernan Bas
Terence Blanchard
Timothée Chalamet
Gerald Clayton
Doug Blush
Camille A. Brown
Viola Davis
Arsham
Allegra Goodman
Amanda Gorman
Denyce Graves
Jennifer Koh
Sarah Lamb
Tarell Alvin McCraney
Jason Moran
Eric Owens
Billy Porter
Andrew Rannells
Desmond Richardson
Elizabeth Roe
Hunter Schafer
Kerry Washington
Chris Young

Notable Guest Artists

Derrick Adams
Ayodele Casel
Debbie Allen Mikhail Baryshnikov
Ron Carter
Lisa Fischer
Frank Gehry
Bill T. Jones
Naeem Khan
Ignacio Berroa
Dr. Joan Morgan
José Parlá
Rosie Perez
Paula Scher
Jeanine Tesori
Mickalene Thomas
Jeffrey Zeigler
Misty Copeland
Renée Fleming
Marika Hughes
B.D. Wong
Endia Beal
Hank Willis Thomas

2025 Guest Artists

Chip Abbott Dance Coach

Marie Arago

Photography National Selection Panel

Frank Augugliaro

Design Guest Artist

Sorcha Augustine Interdisciplinary Guest Artist

Leticia Bajuyo Visual Arts National Selection Panel

Kate Baker Voice Coach

Jenni Barber Theater National Selection Panel

Pedro Barboza Film Guest Artist (Crew)

Germane Barnes Design National Selection Panel

Mary Lou Belli Film Guest Artist

Ignacio Berroa Jazz Guest Artist

Deborah Birnbaum Voice Guest Artist

Corinne May Botz

Photography National Selection Panel Chair, 1995 Photography & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts

Jonathan Bowens Film Guest Artist (Crew)

Kimberley Browning Film National Selection Panel Chair

Daveed Buzaglo Voice Discipline Coordinator, 2012 Voice

India Carney Voice National Selection Panel, 2011 Voice & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts

Devin Caserta Visual Arts Discipline Coordinator, 2006 Visual Arts

Christopher Castellani

Writing National Selection Panel Chair, 1990 & 1992 Writing

Robert Chambers Visual Arts National Selection Panel

Valerie Coleman Classical Music Guest Artist

Victoria Collado

Writing Guest Artist

Nicole Cooley

Writing National Selection Panel, 1984 Writing & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts

Misty Copeland

Interdisciplinary Guest Artist

Lorna Courtney Aon Guest Artist, 1987 Theater

Lucia Cuba Design National Selection Panel

Melissa Cullens

Design National Selection Panel

Tanya Darby Jazz National Selection Panel

Marshall L. Davis Jr. Dance Coach

Ana De Archuleta Voice Guest Artist

Rick Delgado Film National Selection Panel, 1992 Film

Clinton Edward Dance Discipline Coordinator

Brian Ellison Photography Guest Artist

Wayne Escoffery Jazz National Selection Panel

Diana Eusebio

Design Discipline Coordinator, 2016 Design & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts

Jon Faddis Jazz Guest Artist

Peter Jay Fernandez Theater National Selection Panel

Rebecca Fisher Anthropologie Design Guest Artist

Robin Frohardt Interdisciplinary Guest Artist

Akim Funk Buddha Interdisciplinary Guest Artist

Vanessa Garcia

Writing National Selection Panel

Jaida Grey Eagle

Photography Guest Artist

La Tanya Hall Voice National Selection Panel Chair

Danielle Hatch Visual Arts Guest Artist

Rosie Herrera

Dance National Selection Panel

Reina Hidalgo Dance Coach

Abigail Hing Wen

Writing Guest Artist

John Holiday Voice Coach

MaryAnn Hu

Theater National Selection Panel Chair

McClenty Hunter Jazz National Selection Panel

Javon Jackson Jazz Guest Artist, 1983 Jazz

Cat Jimenez

Photography National Selection Panel

Christina Johnson Dance Coach

Loni Johnson

Visual Arts National Selection Panel Chair

Virginia Johnson Dance National Selection Panel

Katherine Jolly Voice National Selection Panel

Lucy Jones Design Guest Artist

Tanya Kalmanovitch

Classical Music National Selection Panel

Mitch Kaplan Writing Guest Artist

Tommy Kha

Photography National Selection Panel

Yashua Klos Visual Arts National Selection Panel

Kokayi Voice Guest Artist

Joan Lader Theater and Voice Coach

Kari Landry

Classical Music National Selection Panel

Pascal LeBoeuf

Classical Music National Selection Panel Chair, 2004 Jazz

Lydia Liebman Voice Guest Artist

Yvonne Lin

Design National Selection Panel Chair

Marina Lomazov

Classical Music Guest Artist

Jeremy Manasia

Jazz National Selection Panel Chair

René Marie Voice Guest Artist

Dezi Marino

Film Guest Artist (Crew)

Michael McElroy

Theater National Selection Panel, 1985 Theater, YoungArts Trustee

Alex Mediate

Photography Discipline Coordinator, 2016 Photography

Hollis Meminger

Film National Selection Panel

Aaron Miller

Classical Music Discipline Coordinator, 1998 Classical Music

Rashaun Mitchell Florence Stern Dance Guest Artist

Andrea Mogck

Anthropologie Design Guest Artist

Amanda Morgan Interdisciplinary Guest Artist

Dr. Joan Morgan

Writing Guest Artist , YoungArts Trustee

Nicole Mujica Theater Discipline Coordinator

Tracey Newsome Anthropologie Design Guest Artist

Marcus Quiniones Theater Coach

Noel Quiñones

Writing Guest Artist

Christian Reátegui Jazz Discipline Coordinator

Silas Riener

Florence Stern Dance Guest Artist

Rebecca Rigert Dance Coach

Christell Roach

Writing Discipline Coordinator, 2015 Writing

Katia David Rosenthal Curator

Anastasia Samoylova Photography Guest Artist

Chris Sampson

Voice National Selection Panel

Marlon Saunders Voice Coach

Reid Schlegel

Design Guest Artist

Amina Scott Jazz Guest Artist

Vernon Scott

Dance National Selection Panel Chair

Sasie Sealy Film National Selection Panel

Lauren Shapiro Visual Arts Guest Artist

Jean Shin

Visual Arts Guest Artist, 1990 Winner in Visual Arts & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts , YoungArts Trustee

Risa Steinberg Dance Coach

Curtis Stewart Classical Music Guest Artist

Lolita Stewart-White Writing Guest Artist

Zuzanna Szadkowski

Interdisciplinary Guest Artist, 1997 Winner in Theater & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, YoungArts Trustee

Grace Talusan Writing National Selection Panel

Rosana Tavarez Dance National Selection Panel

Caleb Teicher Dance Guest Artist, 2011 Dance

Dr. Nadhi Thekkek Dance Coach

Cristy Trabada Film Discipline Coordinator, 2016 Film

Guillermo Ursini Film Guest Artist (Crew)

Amanda Williams Design Guest Artist

Jamire Williams Interdisciplinary Guest Artist

Charles Yang Interdisciplinary Guest Artist

Susan Zhang Classical Music National Selection Panelist

*as of 12/11/2024

Special Thanks to Educators

YoungArts would like to acknowledge the following educators, named by the 2025 award winners. We can only do the work we do to identify, recognize and award outstanding students in the arts with the support and effort of educators, teachers, instructors, coaches, homeschoolers and arts practitioners.

Ashton Agbomenou

Marina Alekseyeva

Ariane Alexander

Pacheco-Garcia Alexandra

Jen Allen

Kris Allen

Daniel Almeida

Jason Anderson

Kelly Anderson

Maggie Anderson

Jodi Angel

Patrick Anseth

Robert Apostle

Toby Appel

Sophie Arbuckle

Caelea Armstrong

Jeremy Arnold

Leo Arteche

Morgan Asay

Guillermo Asca

Shanthi Ashok

Bob Athayde

Lacy Austin

Marta Aznavoorian

Lakshmi Babu Bangaru

Jean Paul (JP) Balmat

Cory Barnette

Bruce Barth

Nina Barwell

Susan Bates

Aman Batra

Megan Baxter

Inna Bayer

Barbara Beccio

Guinea Bennett-Price

Kimberley Bentley

Rebecca Berger

Jacqueline Bergland

Brandon Bermudez

Brandon Berrett

Gianni Bianchini

Arnor Bieltvedt

Benjamin Bird

Nina Bishop

Sarah Blackman

Pamela Blackstone

Bernadene Blaha

Walter Blanding

Laura Blau

Chad Bloom

Anna Bloomfield

Hans Boepple

Michael Boitz

Paige Borowski

Brendan Bourque-Sheil

Aaron Boyd

Judy Boyter

Colleen Bramucci

Paul Bratcher

Arhley Brazoban

Tadej Brdnik

Starla Breshears

Rocky Bridges

Christine Marie Brown

Devin Brown

Sonja Bruzauskas

Jennifer Bumgarner

Melissa Caldretti

Roan Callahan

Jamal Callender

Nigel Campbell

Ana Campos

Carmen Cancél

Julia Cannon

Paolo Cantarella

Paul Cantos

John Carlson

Roxane Carrasco

Isaiah Carter

Ben Case

Justin Casinghino

Sharel Cassity

Gilbert Castellanos

Brittany Cavallaro

Eddy Cavazos

Nikola Champlin

Charles Chen

Riccardo Chiapetta

Chloe Chiu

Brannon Cho

Daniel Cho

Junnak Choi

Rufus Choi

Winston Choi

William Church

Peter Cirelli

Lenuta Ciulei

Damon Clark

Victor Clark

Julia Clarke

Katherine Clowe

Michelle Cobb

Stephen Coffman

Maxie Coleman

Tom Colley

Jerry Compere

John Condne

Paul Contos

Brannon Cook

jacob Cook

Susan Lamb Cook

Dewitt Cooper

Stephanie Copeland

Paul Corn

Dayana Corton

Kimberly Costanza

Lesley Craigie-Anselmi

Wenying Cui

Michele Curiale

Rozanne Curtis

Joseph Cypressi

John-Micheal D’Haviland

Dante Dalton

Darren Dalton

Gussie Danches

Chanel DaSilva

April Dauscha-Upart

Hattner David

Joe Davidian

Lonnie Davis

Eric Day

Christopher De Leon

Austin Dean

Micheal Dease

Sasha Debevec-McKenney

Bob Deboo

Emily Defoe

Ally DeFreitas

Barbara Delgado

Franklin Delgado

Danielle DeMartin

Chris Detrick

Erin Devantier

Juan Diaz

Erich DiCenzo

Jeremy Dodge

Tiffany Doggett

Amy Dombach

Kate Doss

Kelly Dow

Dean Eaves

MJ Edwards

Tylen Einweck

Cindy Ellis

Ryan Ellis

Kate Engelkes

Nate Eppler

Chelsea Ermer

Ral Estevans

Leo Eylar

Elizabeth Faidley

Lisana Falcon

Kevin Farrant

Allison Fay

Rita Feinstein

Marion Feldman

Elena Ferrante-Martin

Sam Fischer

Kimberly Fisher

Alex Fiterstein

Angie Flaniken

Julia Flasphaler

Lisa Kay Fletcher

Kristen Foote

John Foster

Jordan Fox

Griffith Frank

Pat Fry

Robin Lynne Frye

Mauricio Fuks

Margaret Funkhouser

Javier Gandara

Crystal Garcia

Daniel Garcia

Mary Garcia

Alvester Garnett

Marie-Louise Gaschler

Jim Gasior

Julie Geen

Monica Gerard

Ruth Gerson

Richard Giangiulio

Alicia Gianni

Sarah Gibson

Leon Trey Giddens

Gail Giewont

Jennifer Gifford

Alexis Gill

Joe Gilman

Lauren Gisclair

Nick Gomez

Juliana Gondek

Scott Gould

Ella Gourkova

Luiza Grandchamp

Madeleine Gray

Torie Gray

Liana Green

Clive Greensmith

Erin Greenway

Emily Greer

Julia Gregory

Carmen Griffin

Julia Grody

Mark Gross

Juan Guevara

Troy Gunter

Lin Guo

Scott Gwinnell

Robert Hackett

Alex Hahn

Crystal Hairston

Casey Hall

Chaz Hall

Latanya Hall

Dave Hammond

Jooyeon Han

Emily Harnett

Linwood Harper

Winard Harper

James Harrington

Jennifer Harrington

Greg Harris

Tina Harris

Jon Hatamiya

Andrea Hawkins

Jonnesha Hawkins-Minter

Lynise Heard

Esther Heideman

Daniel Henderson

Jess Hendricks

Troy Herring

David Hetherington

Madison Hicks

Dan Higgins

Pamela Hinchman

David Hinckley

Lovett Hines

Shu Chih Ho Murray

Terrence Hobdy

Monica Hoenig

Logan Hoffman-Smith

Jules Hogan

Lily Homer

Jiwon Hong

Junghwa Hong

SIias Hoover

Jason Horowitz

Hsing-Huei Huang

Judy Huang

Yi Fang Huang

Anthony Hubert

Kelly X. Hui

Melissa Hullman

Scott Hunt

Lois Hunter

Bora Hwang

Lark Hylton

Pavel Ilyashov

Mikhail Ilyin

Zach Inks

Sherry Insley

Kevin Iwai

Matthew Jaimes

Mini Jairaj

Irene Jalenti

Angelique Jamail

Simon James

Kayla Jang

Mark Jappinen

Hans Jensen

Gale Jesi

Maritza Jimenez

Rob Johnson

Christopher Jones

Robbin Jones

Darryl Jordan

Simon Juny Jung

Courtney Kaiser-Sandler

Laurie Kanyok

Veda Kaplinsky

Yoheved Kaplinsky

Randy Kapralick

Hanna Karacic

Lilit Karapetian-Shougarian

Matthew Kasper

Masao Kawasaki

Joseph Kemper

Devanshi Khetarpal

Clara Kim

Hae-Jin Kim

Hwieun Kim

Jiwon Kim

Joohyun Kim

MJ Kim

Myung Kim

Yubeen Kim

Mason Kimont

Katie Klostermann

Michael Klotz

Steve Knight

Kirstie Knighton

Jeff Knorr

Emmett Knowlton

Danielle Knox

Eun-Mee Ko

Florence Ko

Jonathan Koh

Alexander Korsantia

Carla Kountoupes

Rachel Kramer

Jonathan Kreisberg

Pamela Kroll

Ames Kuney

Joanna Kurkowicz

Tawnya Kuzia

Joan Kwuon

Peter LaBerge

Joan Lader

Jeffrey LaDeur

Cori Anne Laemmele

Dale Lam

Judy Lam

Kate Lambert

LaRon Land

Jordan Lang

Rachel Langosch

Celia Lara

Rebecca Larkin

Denise Latimer

Matthew Laurence

Davis Law

Zara Lawler

Danielle Lawrence

Derrick Lawrence

Evan Lee

Jihoon Lee

Marjorie Lee

Minho Lee

Priscilla Lee

Su Yeon Lee

Vicky Hyunjin Lee

Yena Lee

Yujeong Lee

Jamie Leff

Tom LeGoff

Kristina Leljedal

Dharma Lemon

Maylynn Leporacci

Jamey Leverett

Catherine Lewellen

Matthew Lewis

Gunta Liepina-Miller

Li Lin

Boxianzi Vivian Ling

Lei Liu

Lee Lobenhofer

Jesaka Long

Brian Loo

Frank Lopez

Andrew Lu

Ning Lu

Ally Lubera

Noelia Luna L.

Peter Luttrull

Ahmad Maaty

Kelly Mabel

Tom MacIntyre

Nick Mahshie

Christopher Mallett

Chad Manning

Edgar Mariano

Deirdre Marlowe

Raymond Mase

Nicholas Mashie

Maria Maxfield

George Maxman

Brice McCasland

Drew McClellan

Christopher McCurry

Karyna McGlynn

Natela Mchedlishvili

William McLaughlin

Charles McNeill

Erin McNellis

Kate McQuade

Alex Mediate

Joe Medina

Gene Medler

Paul Meland

Chris Mele

Deborah Mello

Joanna Mendoza

Jessica Michels

Matthew Milkowski

Jeffrey Miller

Michael Miller

Willliam Molineax

Ernesto Montes

Jihyun Moon

Caitlin Moore

Rasheeda Moore

Christine Moore Vassallo

James Moran

Jacqueline Morelli

Diana Morgan Yuki Mori

Amber Morris

Chris Morrow

Stephen Mounkhall

Trevor Mowry

Beauty Muñoz

Teresa Murphy

Margaret Murphy Corsino

Dimitri Murrath

Shuchih Murray

Teri Musiel

Laurel Nakanishi

Sharon Neff

Angélica Negrón

Ira Nepus

Amy Newman

Ronan Noone

Cynthia Nooney

Andrew Norbeck

Andrew Norman

Lorraine Nubar

Joyce Carol Oates

Andrea Oberlander

Jeffrey Obrow

Jennie Oh Brown

Jose Olivarez

Jesse Orth

Amy Oshiro-Morales

Karyn Overstreet

Alexandra Pacheco-Garcia

Jennifer Parchesky

Dan Park

Hirah Park

Min Jung Park

Yeon Ji Park

Dejah Parker

Vera Parkins

Matthew Parunak

Natasha Pasternak

Madeline Pena

Marlene Pena-Marin

Charnele PendarvisRomero

Kelli Pennington

Manuel Perez

Angelia Perkins

Matthew Peters

Greg Petito

Carlos Pettigrew

Wesley Phillipson

Jonah Piali

Donald Pinson

Zvi Plesser

Henry Plumb

Celia Potter

Awadagin Pratt

Kelley Prouty

Ashley Pruitt

Eleane Quave

Moshe Quinn

Lilliangina Quinones

Carlos Ramos

Judith Ranaletta

Karen Randazzo

Peter Randazzo

Dr. Janaki Rangarajan

John Rangel

Justin D. Reamy

Dinah Redding

Kate Reid

Anuradha Renganathan

Krystyna Resavy

Dr. John Reynolds

Thomas Richardson

Jennifer Rieger

Lauren Rigby

Janna Riley

Karen Ritscher

Vidal Rivera

Erich Rivero

Brittany Roa

Raymond J. Roberts

Andy Robinson

Bethany Robinson

Rebekah Rocha

Michael Rodriguez

Brittany Rogers

Megan Rojas

Melinda Ronayne

James Rose

Jewel Ross

Alan Rossi

Marina Ruben

Jim Saltzman

Sahasra Sambamoorthi

Lisa Sanderson

Nabila Santa-Cristo

Rolando Sanz

Chigusa Saotome

Ingrid Schaeffer

Steven Schrag

Nicole Schultz

Jared Schwartz

Gretchen Schwarz

Astrid Schween

Meagan Segal

Ginny Seibert

Thomas Sellwood

Alan Semerdjian

Jared Sessink

Ann Setzer

Divya Shanker

Sandra Shen

Elizabeth Sher

Meg Shevnock

Juyeon Shin

Nazgul Shinn

Theresa Shovlin

Jose Simbulan

Nancy Simmons

Gregory Sinacori

Liorah Singerman

Janaki Sivaraman

renee skerik

Sierra Slentz

Matt Slocum

Peter Smeallie

Calvin Smith

Patricia Smith

Victoria Smith

Adam Smyla

Warren Sneed

Michael Snipe

Anne Sobala

Carly Spaeth-Walsh

Jessica Spencer

Catherine Spitzer

Gulnar Spurlock

Sujatha Srinivasan

Leah Stahl

Kaitlin Stanley

Sasha Starcevich

Jeremy Starkweather

Jasmine Steadman

Andrew Stehle

Matt Stock

Cindi Stokes

Mason Strom

Matthew Stubbs

Sean Stultz

Ted Sugata

Chris Sullivan

Maureen Sullivan

Kerry Sumner

Srilatha Suri

Jacob Sussman

Ben Sutin

Judith Switek

Marjorie Talvi

Sondra Tammam

Kyra Taveras

Marilyn Taylor

Liam Teague

Dan Tepfer

michael Thomas

Julius Tolentino

Kym Trickel

Elbert Tsai

Mala Tsantilas

Michael Tseitlin

Pasha Tseitlin

Eka Tvaladze

Amy Uptgraft

Almita Vamos

Antoine van Dongen

Sarah Vap

Jennifer Verba

Priya Vijayan

ChrissyAnn Villavicencio

Shaddy Viste

Kelly Vitacca

Julia Vladimirovna

Ian Vo

Katerina Voegtle

Ines Voglar Belgique

Melissa Wakerman

Jim Walker

Lu Wang

Jessica Ward

Joyce Warman

Catherine Watkins

Steve Watson

Lisa Wax

Thomas Weaver

Annie Webster

Zhao Wei

Cassie Wendt

Rodney Whitaker

Paula Wilderman

Drew Williams

Elizabeth Williams

Dennis Wilson

Matt Wilson

Rachel Wilson

Josh Wood

She-e Wu

Yiming Wu

Stella Xu

Yiheng Yang

Michael Yoshimi

Diana Yusupov

Zoe Zelonky

Donald Zentz

Yaoguang Zhai

Chen Zhao

Scott Ziegler

Dann Zinn

David Zoffer

Terilyn Zuteck

Art opens possibilities

National YoungArts Week Supporters

Support for National YoungArts Week is provided by the City of Miami Beach, Cultural Affairs Program, Cultural Arts Council; the Miami-Dade County Tourist Development Council, Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; and the Miami Downtown Development Authority.

YoungArts Supporters

Thank you to YoungArts’ most generous donors who make programming throughout the year possible.

Michi & Charles Jigarjian / 7G Foundation 500K-999K 1M+

Barbara & Amos Hostetter 100K-499K

Micky and Madeleine Arison Family Foundation

Sarah Arison & Thomas Wilhelm

Berkowitz Contemporary Foundation

50K-99K

Leslie & Jason Kraus
Steven & Oxana Marks / Podhurst Orseck, P.A.
Emily & Mitch Rales
Melony & Adam Lewis
Jen Rubio & Stewart Butterfield
Christopher Rim / Command Education
Dr. Sidney Stern and the Stern Family Foundation

We believe in encouraging the

Aon Private Risk Management (APRM) is a leading global organization that offers extensive experience in servicing the personal insurance needs of successful families and their advisors. APRM provides highly specific risk solutions through specialty practice groups including, but not limited to the Art & Collections Practice, the Global Yacht Practice and Family Office Practice. For more information please visit aon.com or contact Blythe Hogan at 212.441.2409.

Board of Trustees

as of December 2024

Sarah Arison, Board Chair

Richard Kohan, President of The Board

Zuzanna Szadkowski, * Secretary

Jonathan Flack, Treasurer

Derrick Adams

Doug Blush *

Hampton Carney

Natalie Diggins

Kristy Edmunds

Danielle Garno, Esq.

Rosie Gordon-Wallace

Michi Matter Jigarjian

Jason Kraus

Steven Marks, Esq.

Lauren Matthiesen

Michael McElroy *

Dr. Joan Morgan

John J. O’Neil, Esq.

José Parlá

Glenda Pedroso

Victoria Rogers

Deborah Shainfeld

Jean Shin *

Sandra Tamer

Debi Wisch

Trustees Emeritus

Armando M. Codina

Meryl Comer

Justin DiCioccio

Agnes Gund

John J. Kauffman

Dr. Ronald C. McCurdy

Dr. Eduardo J. Padrón

Desmond Richardson *

Marcus Sheridan

Richard S. Wagman

Maurice M. Zarmati

* YoungArts award winner

as of December 2024

Clive Chang, President and CEO

Emily Waters, Senior Director, Innovation and Impact

Regina Moser, Manager, Executive Office

Advancement

Dee Dee Sides, Vice President, Advancement

Dave Adams, Senior Director, Strategic Communications

Krizia L. Alba, Associate, Advancement Operations

Ruby Brown, Manager, Strategic Communications

Lee Cohen, Director, Brand Creative

Nick DaCosta, Coordinator, Advancement Operations

Jess Frazier, Manager, Advancement

Angela Goding, Senior Director, Strategic Partnerships

Sarah Watson Gray, Senior Director, Integrated Advancement

Alyssa Krop-Brandfon, Director, Advancement Operations

Lauren Nesslein, Manager, Advancement Operations

Leslie Reed, Associate, Strategic Communications

Melanie Rodríguez, Associate, Strategic Communications

Artistic Programs

Lauren Slone, Vice President, Artistic Programs

Joey Butler, Senior Manager, Artistic Programs

Zayra Campos, Manager, Artistic Programs

Ariana Castillo, Coordinator, Artistic Programs

Dawn Gardega, Logistics Manager, Artistic Programs

Eloise Janssen (2017 Visual Arts), Coordinator, Artistic Programs

Kelley Kessell (2012 Theater, Voice & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts),

Senior Manager, Artistic Programs

Lisa Leone, Creative Producer

Carra Martinez, Senior Director, Artistic Programs

Luisa Múnera, Senior Manager, Artistic Programs

Natalie Padró-Smith, Manager, Artistic Programs

Ty Taylor, Manager, Programs and Archival Media

Claire Traeger, Associate Director, Artistic Programs

Alexandra Venegas (2016 Visual Arts), Coordinator, Artistic Programs

Neidra Ward, Associate Director, Artistic Programs

Finance & Operations

Melissa Doval, Vice President, Finance & Operations

Gary Blake, Event Engineer

Mari Campuzano, Senior Director, Organizational Growth & Development

Jared De Freitas, Director, Information Technology

Donna Lane Downey, Manager, Operations

Candia Joseph, Director, Finance

Jennifer McShane, Director, Operations and Logistics

Michael Rahaman, Manager, Information Technology

Antonio Rivera, Engineer

Patricia Senosiain, Senior Accountant

Daphne Vega, Director, People Operations

We envision a world that embraces artists as vital to our humanity.

The artists of tomorrow need professional and creative development support today. With the help of our community, YoungArts offers artists the tools they need to pursue a life in the arts, including a lifetime of training, funding, mentorship and community. Make a contribution today.

Visit youngarts.org or scan the QR code below.

Thank you for empowering artists!

Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.