SPECTRUM MAG.indd - Detroit Country Day School

Spectrum is Detroit Country Day School’s literary
magazine organized by Spectrum club members. As such, our
goal is to represent the student body through creative writing.
This annual issue is the culmination of both club members’ and
non-club members’ work. As a club, Spectrum offers student
writers the opportunity to write, edit, or ponder poetry once a
week every Tuesday. We also have an insert in the school
newspaper. An important aspect of the club is the encouraging
environment for students to produce their writing.
Students explore the artistic process of writing with the aid of
staffers, the review of their writing, and the pride of
published work.
Editors-in-Chief: Lydia Wang and Rachel Clephane
Associate Editors: Claire Wang, Jiwon Yun, Maggie Chen
Design Editor: Lydia Wang
Editorial Board:
Lydia Wang
Rachel Clephane
Claire Wang
Jiwon Yun
Maggie Chen
Mina Lee
Faculty Advisor: Mrs. Beverly Hannett-Price
Submissions are accepted year-round and can be sent to staffers and the faculty advisor Mrs. Hannett-Price by dropping off
hard copies in room 130 or by emailing work to BPrice@dcds.
edu. We accept all types of creative and non-fictional writing.
“Seasons” cover art by Lydia Wang
Cover
Font: Papyrus
Paper: Card stock
Artwork: Watercolor by Lydia Wang
Edited on Adobe Photoshop CS5.1
Typography
Title page: Papyrus
Table of Contents: Tempus Sans ITC
Headlines: Imprint MT Shadow
Body: Imprint MT Shadow
By-lines: Tempus Sans ITC
Credits: Tempus Sans ITC
Design
Program: Adobe InDesign CS5.5
Paper Stock
Copy paper
Photography
Ms. Susan Lucas
Spectrum Literary Magazine
Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the
human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.
- Maya Angelou
Detroit Country Day School
22305 West Thirteen Mile Road
Beverly Hills, MI 48025-4435
Headmaster: Mr. Glen Shilling
Upper School Director: Mr. Tim Bearden
Phone: 248-646-7717
Website: www.dcds.edu
Volume No. 44
“Sunflower Girl” page art by Lydia Wang
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Seasons [theme]
“To Be True“ Lydia Wang & Rachel Clephane
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SPRING
Spring Section Introduction
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“A Common Odyssey”
Mina Lee
“An Open Letter...”
Justin Graffa
“Milk Dream”
Claire Wang
“The Moment”
Tara Tang
“Garden”
Rachel Clephane
“Mothers and Daughters”
Yara Al-Nouri
“My Dog”
Justin Graffa
“Rolling Down the Hill”
Lydia Wang
“Someone Else’s”
Jema Fregene
“Dissolving into the Atmosphere”Mina Lee
“Broken”
Tara Tang
“Cusp of Spring”
Jon Scott
“Man”
Nina Nakkash
“Simply” [Excerpt]
Tara Tang
“To Love Oneself”
Nina Nakkash
“Love”
Lydia Wang
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SUMMER
Summer Section Introduction
“That One Time a Jellyfish...”
Yara Al-nouri
“At Sea”
Jon Scott
“The Purge”
Mina Lee
“Sunset”
Samina Saifee
“The Wooden Chair”
Karen Jiang
“Eyes”
Rachel Clephane
“3 A.M. Subtweet”
Justin Graffa
“The Avenue”
Jon Scott
“Surrender”
Tara Tang
“A Valuable Life Lesson Learned” Katherine Kim
“The Sirens”
Karen Jiang
“Fire Dance”
Lydia Wang and Mina Lee
“Transfixed” [Excerpt]
Mina Lee
“Just Some Hot Air”
Justin Graffa
“Far from Insignificant”
Nina Nakkash
“And the Chandelier Falls”
Samina Saifee
“Misunderstanding”
Lydia Wang
“Boy, I Love the South!”
Jon Scott
“A Poet’s Task”
Dominique Nikolaidis
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AUTUMN
Autumn Section Introduction
“Anticipation”
“Just to Exist”
“Forever”
“Lindy”
“The Play”
“In Ocean of My Subconscious”
“Fall”
“Slam Poetry”
“Cursed”
“A Color of Coal”
“Reality”
“The Storm”
“Dark”
“Storm”
“Alabaster”
“To Eradic-”
“Stepping into Greatness”
“Wasted”
“Mother and Son”
“Digestion”
“Alone”
“The Fire”
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Maggie Chen
Nina Nakkash
Samina Saifee
Claire Wang
Justin Graffa
Nina Nakkash
Rachel Clephane
Justin Graffa
Tara Tang
Claire Wang
Maggie Chen
Samina Saifee
Rachel Clephane
Tara Tang
Claire Wang
Sara Dassanayake
Chris Jackson
Jema Fregene
Tara Tang
Claire Wang
Kone Bowman
Lydia Wang
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WINTER
Winter Section Introduction
“Reality”
“Black Leaf Spots”
“Foreign Familiarity”
“A Closed Rose”
“Let Us Meet Again”
“Anatomy of Love”
“Crimson”
“Schism of Life”
“Untitled”
“Indefinite Space”
“Lotus Flakes”
“Asleep in Wax Dreams”
“Sweet Thunderstorm”
“Silence”
“Ice Princess”
Letters from the Staff
Credits
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Jon Scott
Sara Dassanayake
Tara Tang
Rachel Clephane
Nina Nakkash
Lydia Wang
Maggie Chen
Mina Lee
Justin Graffa
Lydia Wang
Karen Jiang
Claire Wang
Maggie Chen
Lydia Wang
Jiwon Yun
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PICTURE CREDITS
Lydia Wang
Taema Brinjikji
Tyler Jackson
Bobby DePollo
Rachel Clephane
Halie Conyers
Marah Brinjikji
Emily Herard
Abby Fisher
Halie Conyers
Sreesha Sivakumar
Angela Lee
Harout Wartesian
Josie Teachout
Neha Nayak
Darrel Davison
Leanna Schulte
Marilyn Smith
Darrel Davison
Shayna Mehta
Hannah Hansen
Henry Fu
Jessica Thomas
Emily Herard
Neha Nayak
Bobby DePollo
Hannah Hansen
Sonali Prasad
Hannah Hansen
Bhavna Guduguntla
Sydney Shanbrom
Hannah Hansen
Phil Kovalev
Keegan Haines
Marilyn Smith
Neha Nayak
Angela Lee
Hannah Hansen
Becky McGeorge
Hannah Hansen
Katie Mansour
Kayla Lee
Emily Herard
Marilyn Smith
Austin Santangelo
Helena Chen
Darrel Davison
Darrel Davison
Austin Santangelo
Austin Santangelo
Helena Chen
Maddie Friedman
Halie Conyers
cover
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SEASONS
Seasons, the theme of this 2014 Spectrum issue,
are a natural cycle in this world. Most may experience the seasons cycle from refreshing spring, through
sizzling summer, across windy autumn, into silent
yet majestic winter. However, depending on where
one lives, places exist where there are no seasons, and
depending on one’s perspective, a limited number of
seasons exist.
Seasons are relative. Spring is alive and beautiful after a silent barren winter, and autumn explodes
in a farewell finale after an intense and steady summer.
Seasons can be a fitting representation of life; sometimes they transition smoothly from one to the next,
but there can also be abrupt shifts.
Here, we seek to explore the spectrum that exists
in the cycle of the four seasons. The spectrum of this
issue runs from spring through summer and autumn
to winter.
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TO BE TRUE
The darkness of your dreams
Surrounds your beam of hope
Which attempts to shine feebly through the day
Comforts will occasionally sprinkle your soul
Threading from humble soil up high,
A balloon, worming towards the sky
Spraying rivulets of rainbow ribbons.
But the size of that dark cloud overtakes
this hope metamorphosizing
into an oval moon,
You push your cheek on your fist and tilt your head
your eyes half closed and tired of seeing
seeing the crooked life you’ve placed yourself in
Replaying the video
With characters acting in the shadows
Curses in disguise
Spoon-fed with ulterior pride.
Stairs lead to a painted mural
Of heaven’s ajar and beautiful door…
Though once you longed for black and white.
And no,
you don’t want to be caught anymore.
You don’t need beauty,
the sweet
the silk
the lies.
Lydia Wang and Rachel Clephane
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SPRING
“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems
by heart.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
REBIRTH
BEGINNINGS
GROWTH
RAIN
BLOOM
REFRESHING
BLOSSOM
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A COMMON ODYSSEY
Embark on a journey dear friend
Hold your head up high
Never stoop in your worries
For that, will only bring you many ends.
Maintain face
Stand steadfast
In the face of all that annoying surplus
And plod head
Soul pure.
“Sea” by Taema Brinjikji
Mina Lee
AN OPEN LETTER TO THIRTY-YEAR-OLD ME
Dear Thirty Year Old Me
You are double my age
You probably look back on these days and laugh
Look at past me, you’ll say
How silly and shortsighted I was
I’m much wiser now that I am an adult
You will say the same thing
Perennially until you die
Well, you’re closer to death than me
So I win a hollow victory
You’ve lived more than me
But I make the decisions for your life
Your life depends on me and what I do
A chain of events centering on me
How much can you live now
Is how much I lived then
When everything turns out okay
Remember it was me who did it
So don’t assume that I am less.
“African American” by Tyler Jackson
Justin Graffa
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MILK DREAM
I swear,
on cold summer nights on Lake Manitoba
you can spit arrows from between the gap
in your two front teeth
and watch the clouds explode like frightened balloons
as you catch white lightning between your fingertips
cackling and shrieking like young boys
that play with tempests,
drunk on dragon’s breath and molten hysteria.
You can feel sprites and goblins breathing
over your shoulder,
crunch lemongrass between your teeth and
exhale the nebulas of old stars,
uttering new life into forgotten souls.
I swear
this place is our home.
Our home,
where we tuck ourselves in at night
with fiery green curtains
stirring beneath our chins
and stay up dreaming under dusty streamers
with hand-dipped bayberry wax candles
whose sleepy flames ripple with the tides.
I sit.
A peppermint whisper escapes my lips
as I dip my palms into pearly
depths of shadows that fill my plate.
Claire Wang
I count…
One,
Two,
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Three.
Consider the aurora for a moment.
Silence.
Then I exhale your name
in chilled raindrops
and at last I emerge
from my milk dream.
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“Sensory Overload” by Puja Nair
“Tears” by Bobby DePollo
Claire Wang
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THE MOMENT
I take a small sip of my Coke, listening to the
popping of the bubbles and the low squeak of my gulp.
Breathing out with content, a light smile alights my lips as
a thin cloud of white escapes from between them and fades
into the brisk air.
I pull my empty hand out of my jean pocket where
it’s been digging, and slowly touch my fingertips together,
feeling the coolness as contact is broken. I lift my arm up
to the moon, squinting a little. My fingers stretch out and I
tilt my head, observing the silhouette of the oddly-shaped
structure I call my hand.
My eyes focus on the tip of my longest finger, observing every detail as they trail down to the middle of the
short length. I bend my fingers a little, watching the small
joint. Then my eyes continue down, down to the knuckle
and down to the back of my hand. Finally, to the wrist.
I hear an imaginary ticking of the clock as the digital
numbers of my watch become clear in my vision. I whisper to myself, ignoring the visible small puffs of breath, 5.
4. 3. 2. 1.
0.
All the numbers on the display change at once into
a 00:00:00. The wind seems to blow a little harder. The
air seems to feel a little colder. The moon seems to shine a
little brighter.
And the world seems to feel a little more beautiful.
Tara Tang
GARDEN
Piles of snow melting away
Bare trees ready to start again
A green petal sprouts from the ground
Followed by another, then another
Sun rising to the top surrounded by blue sky
Shining over the growing petals
As the sun moves across the horizon
A flower now sits in the place of what was nothing
Bursts of color all around
A garden grows
“Water Wading” by Marilyn Smith
Rachel Clephane
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MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS
when the sun streams in through the stained glass
and the light fractals shimmy in a measured pulse
I see my mother’s face on the belly of a teaspoon.
we stand in the kitchen watching as
stories spill out on the table
trading time like cards
the memories so vibrant,
their energy whistles louder
than the tea kettle’s staccato
there is a grace in what we struggle to bridge
she told me once
what parents try to give their children:
the embodied consciousness of youth
memories recollected in flowerpots
Sunday morning conversations don’t do much, I know
the moment transfixed in this stability
and a warm sweetness radiates out.
Yara Al-Nouri
MY DOG
My dog doesn’t know why he’s here
He says hello who are you
He’s my best friend
But doesn’t even know my name
He doesn’t know his name
Just the sound of my voice
It means food and he loves me for my food
The safety of the house I give him
For no reason at all in his eyes
The dog doesn’t know he will die
I do
I think he will die before me
Even if he doesn’t
He wouldn’t know the difference
My absence means almost nothing to him
But his everything is me.
“Faded” by Halie Conyers
Justin Graffa
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ROLLING DOWN THE HILL
I remember,
Our first slide down the steaming slope.
Homey soil dabbled at our sweat-cleansed faces and
Hill stubble tickled my tender pudgy
Fingers clinging onto your cotton T-shirt
Suspended
In the syrupy air.
Hollow ethereal smoke began to whistle and
Saltine cracker leaves gilded in your favorite colors
Cavorted in the wafts of flaming candles that we bought
To share between our earthy souls.
Yet I hated those colors
Until you told me you loved them.
And then the fuzzy white coat of the solitary caterpillar
Began to shed,
Curling up within its own icy lace as did we
Under the bare arms of the hugging tree,
Who sieved with dappled shadows the moon dust that
glimmered,
For a moment
But waned in the next.
Now the stars are shedding powdery tears
Asteroid dust that condenses in
My thirsty nostrils
And it all begins to run with the first drops down my cheek
As I roll down the hill with my grimy face
Sinewy fingers slipping from
The floating ghost
YOU.
Lydia Wang
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SOMEONE ELSE’S
I feel green taking over my soul,
Circulating throughout, plentiful the air.
My heart crumbles at the sight of you
And - her in the hallway - together.
Tears want to come to my eyes,
But I don’t let them show.
I simply crack a joke and sigh
In the green-blue air around me.
Her - I don’t want to be her.
Being anyone but myself is …
Just simply short of impossible.
I wish that I was yours
And you were mine.
“Blowfish” by Marah Brinjikji
Jema Fregene
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DISSOLVING INTO THE ATMOSPHERE
This was a city in which light had never shed its brilliance for centuries, where people thus never felt sympathy. Somehow, the past, full of violent evil phenomena full
of murders, stealing, cheating, betrayals, had completely
sapped the world of its former brilliance.
The child cried
pleading for help
Yet the people simply looked past
Through the child
As if he did not exist.
No one dared stoop to the baby “mongrel”
For fear of contracting its disease and horrible state.
Thus, the child clutched its tattered rags, and drew them
about him
Shivering, Shuddering,
With each shudder
Slivers of energy
Dissipated into the foul atmosphere about him.
Every day,
The child grew cold-hearted
An ever increasing arch in his brow
A flicker of menace growing stronger in his dark-pool eyes.
Occasionally, in the silent night,
When the bague dark figures of the homeless
Would roam about the deserted, musty streets,
The child would emit a high-pitched whine.
Mina Lee
The tragic fall of man from his innocence.
Fraught with agony
Piercing the night.
Suddenly, blurs of sunlight began to leak from the sky
Slowly, golden patches of light suffused through the dark
Children in homes peeked up from the windows
Curiously at this strange phenomenon
Having never seen light in their lives
A mournful mother of pale complexion
Raised her head slowly
Towards her window,
Her mouth slightly agape,
And a tear
Rolled down her cheek.
“Field” by Emily Herard
Mina Lee
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BROKEN
I feel broken. The fragile shards of life that are gathered at
my feet. More and more trail behind as I step with cautious
feet along the path decorated with harsh, beautiful glass.
I look behind and feel lost at the sight of shattered dreams
and withered hopes. But I feel overwhelming longing and
trek back to the beginning, the beginning of everything.
I find resolve as I bend down and extend a shaky hand to
the seemingly untouchable colors.
Slowly, I wrap thin fingers around dimming and darkening memories. I pick up the pieces of myself.
And I feel strong again.
“Blue View” by Abby Fisher
Tara Tang
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THE CUSP OF SPRING
Winter takes it last fighting swings,
Spring descends on long rested wings.
Heavy coats are swapped for sleek shirts
Plants resume their growth in swift spurts.
The colors transfer, cool to warm,
The cycle of cold is now torn.
The Earth initiates its tilt
And the cold air begins to wilt.
Languid beings find new vigor.
Ice on water begins to wither.
The bees are as busy as ever.
Their time of rest is now severed.
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The time indoors is now halved.
The inhabitants shout, jump, and laugh.
Sweet smells and beautiful sunsets.
Spring is arriving, soon to be met.
“Glare” by
Halie Conyers
Jon Scott
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MAN
He lifts his right hand,
Forms a fist,
knocks it into another’s cheek,
And walks away with a boastful expression.
He is
Troubled at mind,
Weak at heart,
Running from troubles,
A coward.
He is troubled at mind,
For he disregards his responsibilities and the rules implanted within this world.
He is weak at heart,
For he refuses to face his challenges,
unable to make himself one
Capable of protecting the people most dear to him.
He is full of hypocrisy, attempting to hide behind his muscular exterior.
One day,
When that little boy ceases running,
Turns around to face his future,
Fights his psychological and spiritual battle,
is able to hold his world’s worries on his shoulders,
He is a young gentleman.
Nina Nakkash
When he can apply his battles
To the civilized wilderness,
And can cherish and shield his loved ones,
Then he is a man,
Strong in
body, mind, and heart.
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“Bob Marley” by Sreesha Sivakumar
Nina Nakkash
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SIMPLY [EXCERPT]
We leap into each other’s arms,
Tears streaming down our cheeks.
No words are spoken;
What happened to us
Doesn’t need to be told to be known
The world might be against us,
But we have each other.
Simply that
Is enough.
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“Puppies” by Angela Lee
Tara Tang
TO LOVE ONESELF [EXCERPT]
Inhaling the lightly fragmented air,
my senses are lifted,
tranquil, content, blissful.
I step back to absorb the full sight.
Petal skirts move to wind’s beat,
shining under Mother Nature’s sun-kissed rays,
flowers bellow and dance in the breeze,
filling the air with their light scented sweetness,
enjoying what little time they have left before winter.
thriving purely, exquisitely, exclusively…
I take Nature’s lesson and lock it in my heart.
Everyone has something of beauty,
a certain splendor, no doubt.
I may even have something magnificent about me, too.
Perhaps the time has come for me to see the splendor in
myself.
For it is important
To love oneself.
Nina Nakkash
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LOVE
It’s the endless hours staring at
Spring buds pursing their lips
Waiting for the moment they unfurl to kiss the thick fertile
air…
No.
It’s the adrenaline of a fish wagging her tail
Fast
Faster
Faster!
Until she tears through the surface tension out the tiny fishbowl
Gurgling with mirth into the deep embrace of the vast generous ocean,
No…
It’s the transparent tints of hand-crafted glassware creeping
Stealthily across the white cotton curtains
Billowing the rhythm of our breathing,
Yours deep
Mine hurried and shallow…
But it’s more, there’s more!
It’s the thick trunk of the old oak tree in my backyard
Still growing
Its young leaves tickling my cheek as I press it tightly
Against the bark and I hug and squeeze and never want to
Let it go,
It will be forever mine, I tell myself,
You forever mine
And all this I feel, all this I want
All this I dream of, I dream of
Opening my arms wide
With every secret glance I flicker
At you.
Lydia Wang
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SUMMER
“Summer has filled her veins with light and her heart is
washed with noon.”
― C. Day Lewis
HAPPINESS
ENERGY
MYSTERY
FREEDOM
TURMOIL
CONFIDENCE
WARMTH
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THAT ONE TIME A JELLYFISH STUNG ME
A sting
the electrician floats away
the victim paralyzed with pain
The shot, a shock, vibrates through a left leg
Angry welts grip around a red thigh
Braised skin reads like Braille
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“Seahorse” by Harout Wartesian
Yara Al-Nouri
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AT SEA
The eternal sway
The constant composition
Baby blue, navy, and white
Always.
Forever.
Day after day,
I remember the docks
Sailors and Shipbuilders
The moist mahogany wood
The commonplace British sailors
Intermingled with the French, Dutch, and the occasional
Moor.
The conversation, the art of the deal
Variation.
Redundancy is the theme of the ocean.
A continual refrain played by an immortal chorus.
The rocking rhythm of the abyss,
Blue and white the only colors.
The same men morning, noon, and night.
“Mermaid” by
Josie Teachout
Jon Scott
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THE PURGE
Pureness burst through the seam
Seeps through translucent flap
Streams, sputters,
Into a gushing stream
And engulfs the frontier
Whisking away the animals which graze
Which tread
Which soar
Who fight.
Finally.
There could be peace.
“Indian Dance” by Neha Nayak
Mina Lee
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SUNSET
She walked into the sunset, and
Shut the door on the rough ends.
She turned away from those
Calling her name, and those,
Whispering it under their breaths.
She walked into the sunset, and,
Away from all the sorrowful deaths.
She turned away from the cheering stands and
The rioters calling her out at every simple use of words.
She walked into the sunset, and
Watched the moon slowly rise,
To shine. The water lapsed around
Her feet, pulling her in with the tide,
As the moonlight went out of her sight.
“Inverted Chaos” by Darrel Davison
Samina Saifee
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Over skyscrapers, the smoke travels,
With haste, they go,
They climb onto another mountain side,
Colliding with fresh pines of
Another species.
Unlike Manhattan,
Spoleto is a small wooden chair,
Where I sit and write
Of many fallacies.
Every morning, I walk
Its narrow, neat streets.
Admiring the floral
Villas, the steep green
Yellow dirty slopes,
And the sunflower fields,
Veiling beauty
In absence.
Voices overflow the boutiques lining the alleyway,
A viola plays, though faint,
Echoing joyful jubiloso notes of
Con te Partiro!
A little girl dressed in blue, the tinted glass window, the old
shop keeper,
Stare at an ever more bizarre creature,
Shedding its nativity against a corridor.
Unlike Roma,
Unlike Firenze,
The quiet night breeze,
Suits me without flaw,
Like the many roses encompassing years of bents and dents.
Karen Jiang
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EYES
Squinty eyes moving left and right
Taking in the glow from the sun
Radiating a weaker hue
Still stronger than the rest
Observing
White piles as far as the eye can see
Weighing down the arms of pine
Suffocating the ground
Brisk air swooshing down the path
Now unrecognizable
Lost in its own direction
Eyes twitching
Remembering the path.
“Eye” by Leanna Schulte
Rachel Clephane
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3 A.M. SUBTWEET
Missed calls from Mom
Recents to my ex
Even though I deleted her number
But it’s hard to forget
When you burn a hole in your mind
With a cigarette
She cried when I answered
To my surprise
I’m the last one standing
I’m the Lord of the Flies
Love today is less than 3
It’s down to a science
Math equations for what I’m thinking
I love you in my phone
But never out loud
“I love you” saved to drafts
Because I don’t like the sound
It’s all too much and it’s all too fast
Last time I spoke to you was at the party and you were
drunk
Feelings bottled inside but lately it’s run amok
I don’t know how to end this
Exactly like our relationship
Parting with one last kiss
A captain going down with the ship
Never could I leave you
Gonna love you as much as I can
Give you all I got
You never leave me either
Up to the sky like fireworks
Never can I say no
Gonna give you everything
Justin Graffa
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LET ME TAKE YOU OUT
YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL
DOWN SOUTH WE STARTED GOING BUT
NEVER COULD I DUMP YOU
GONNA GO ALL THE WAY
TURN LEFT WHEN I TWIST
AROUND TO YOUR BEAUTIFUL FACE
AND I WOULD EVEN LOVE YOU IF YOU WERE IN A
DESERT DROUGHT UNQUENCHABLE THIRST
YOU ARE MY RAIN
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“Splash” by Marilyn Smith
Justin Graffa
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THE AVENUE
A unifier,
A divider,
An ancestor of American Motoring.
An All-American Road,
An Automotive Heritage Trail,
A namesake to the chief,
Augustus Woodward, the great judge.
A carrier of carriages and cars for centuries,
The platform for classic cruising in the summer,
And the passageway for commuters year-round.
The ground zero of motoring,
The birth-place of the assembly line.
Decade after decade,
A definer of Detroit.
“Blind Eyed Angel” by Darrel Davison
Jon Scott
SURRENDER
They’re beautiful. The words flow together and they
paint pictures and they prick at my emotions and they
whirl in my mind. My head hurts and my eyes cry and my
heart breaks but I am still here, reading.
I’m reading her words and I’m experiencing them
because they are worth experiencing. They are worth feeling. Her anguish is tangible and her fear is relatable, and I
am captured.
But she says she is giving up. And I am hoping,
praying, wishing she doesn’t.
She needs help and I just wish I could give it to her.
Tara Tang
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A VALUABLE LIFE LESSON LEARNED
In the summer, roses bloom in the backyard of my
grandparents’ Georgia home. They turn from frail, timid
buds into burning red blossoms in the course of months;
the harsh changes of nature change them so. My grandmother reminds me of them. Over the years she has developed such patience and inner strength that no one I
know can match her independent spirit. Her husband, my
late grandfather, had always been the original caretaker;
he fixed her house, managed their finances, and drove his
wife to church and the grocery store. However, when his
health began to decline, my grandmother could no longer
be dependent on him for support. For a few months she
seemed to live in an alien world and faced many new and
difficult challenges that come with immediate and forced
independence, but through those ordeals she has taught
me a great deal. It witnessed first-hand how loving a person can be while caring for the people they love and how
fortified and emboldened someone’s character can become
in the process.
Independence sometimes comes at a mental and
physical cost. Finding herself now alone in the world
without a sole caretaker, my grandmother had to change
her lifestyle in a drastic way. I got to see her change over
the course of the last summer before my grandfather’s
death. She became my grandfather’s eyes when he could
no longer see, learned to manage her own finances, and
tended to my grandfather’s health needs every hour of the
day. The work became non-stop for her as the months
progressed, yet with every new hurdle she faced, she grew
a little bit stronger and more patient than before.
Katherine Kim
Love and patience can bloom in the midst of such
suffering, sorrow, and difficulty. My grandmother inspired
the perseverance in me by her actions during those dark,
chaotic days so that, like her, I will be prepared to face
whatever changes or hurdles nature throws in my path.
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“Emotion Has No Age” by Shayna Mehta
Katherine Kim
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THE SIRENS
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I press a button.
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Water springs out of the faucet,
Water springs out of the faucet,
Through a child’s uncouth mouth.
It climbs down the drain,
Meeting dreams,
A cup of black milk,
Spills into
Pipe.
Racing down the
Vortex,
Figures emerge,
Dancing around a fire,
The last of which melts into
Absence.
Water springs out of the faucet,
This time.
It comes closer and closer until -- I
Find myself dripping
Constellations.
Karen Jiang
FIRE DANCE
Tissue paper flame
Spark of passion flows through veins
Close your eyes and caress the sky
Singe away your doubts.
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“Swirl” by Hannah Hansen
Lydia Wang and Mina Lee
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TRANSFIXED [EXCERPT]
The curtain
Heaving
Sighing
Heaving
Sighing
At first you recoil
Admonishing yourself
To seize your busy train of thought
And attend to responsibilities
Yet…
The warm golden pool of sunlight
Splashes on the window sill
And swells into a pool
On the floor
Gentle breeze
Skirts about
The chafed wooden floorboards
The brightness and splendor of it all
Becomes bored into your eyes
Slowly
You will yield yourself
To your surroundings
And let it engulf you
Whole.
Mina Lee
JUST SOME HOT AIR
You can’t take a shower and wash off the shame
Exfoliate your name, game, flame, and fame
Leave when everything goes down the drain
And you’re just a naked body
in front of steamed up mirrors
You can’t see who you are, what you were,
and who you will be
Because the steam that blocks your eyes is just
hot air people blow.
“Flying High” by Henry Fu
Justin Graffa
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FAR FROM INSIGNIFICANT
Declare me unworthy and unable,
‘til your fractured, bitter heart becomes satisfied.
I know who I am.
I dare say -I know who you are better
than you know yourself.
I can see right through your plastic exterior,
through your heart’s barriers
desperately attempting to cover
the only two feelings within your indifferent, emotionless
heart:
fear and greed.
I have a heart rich with emotions,
Eyes that clearly define myself,
and identify what you are.
So call me what you wish,
Just know I am far from here,
Thinking of the future,
Where I do great things any worthy, significant person
would be doing
because I am small,
but I am far from insignificant.
Nina Nakkash
AND THE CHANDELIER FALLS
Enclosed by four walls.
No where to go, hiding in this room.
She can’t return to the world beneath her feet.
She can’t face what she’s always known.
She has to find an escape,
So she begins to write.
Her emotions pour out of her on paper,
Her floating thoughts have suddenly become concrete.
She hides them away, and returns to them,
Every now and then,
But she can’t return to the world beneath her feet.
She can’t face what she’s always known.
The yelling, the screaming, the noises,
Continue to bash the fragile walls.
It becomes too much,
She must leave the room that entraps her.
She goes to the world that was beneath her feet,
Where her voice is never heard.
The chandelier is crumbling, everything,
Is coming down.
But she remains where she is.
She is crushed, by the shards of broken glass,
She bleeds out, but no one has anything,
Anything at all to heal her wounds.
Samina Saifee
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MISUNDERSTANDING
A crack formed between us
A nick as we stared at each other,
not noticing.
I talked to you, you drew away
Turning to other things on your side,
none of which you shared with me
Yet mine straddled the crevice between us
I called to you, you replied
But your back started waxing with the high tides,
Eroding the boggy soil we stood on
I watched the sand trickle down, but I pretended the
Crevice was still barely noticeable
I smiled at you, my smile barely covering my dissolving ruins
as your silence prevailed, and I was sinking into the soil.
Every day the cycle kept turning until gradually
the leap between us wore into a canyon
I screamed to you, but your silence and indifference
overpowered my echo
Reverberating with the beds of fossil ancestors trapped
The sand was at my chin, and I let everything of mine
Stay on your side
But I was sinking, still sinking
As the sediment enveloped my nose, I flailed but
Something in my head
Snapped
Suddenly I’m not embedded anymore, I’m standing free,
Staring at your miniscule form and I will my soul to fly
back to me
Lydia Wang
I’ve turned my back as well now, walking away strong
As the canyon prevails, bigger than ever
Filled with your screaming silence.
But is this all a misunderstanding?
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“Division” by Jessica Thomas
Lydia Wang
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BOY, I LOVE THE SOUTH!
Tangled towers of wheat and grass.
As relaxing as a sip from an ole pocket flask.
The chickens strut and cluck with the usual sass.
The men wake up, always prepared for the day’s tasks.
A certain gentility
Prevailing proclivities
Hidden hostilities
Yet a place quite capable of tranquility.
The home of less traveled routes
Interminable hoots and shouts
A place of the occasional drought.
But boy, I love the South!
“Escape” by Emily Herard
Jon Scott
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A POET’S TASK
A poet sits alone at night
To think what can’t be though and once
She can -- or so she thought she could -Reduce such sharp and pointed edge
To rolling wave and rhyming word.
‘Tween dusk and dawn she does her work
To grasp for moment’s worth,
To sigh and breathe and hold it close,
To give what ne’er has had a host
A quiet place to draw its breath.
It chokes! It chokes on empty air:
The air itself a harsh refrain
Of whirling winds. An empty space
Exists cannot she fill at all?
And blow, escape, and think we ought:
The word, at once itself, is naught.
“Giggle” by Neha Nayak
Dominique Nikolaidis
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M a way as to make the girl who was moving there seem fixed
AUTUMN
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to a sliding walk, letting the motion of the wind and the
leaves carry her forward.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
RIPE
INTENSITY
DIVERSITY
ACCEPTANCE
EAGERNESS
DETERMINATION
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ANTICIPATION
Just the trickles of red licorice vines
Melting to trail like rivulets on skin.
Head turn, pupils dilated in fear
Careful.
A swinging silver pendulum of fate,
Back and forth, back and forth.
Cracked slivers of green
fell in time with the hourglass.
A lull for every flinch, every minute
Move, don’t dare such a feat.
Don’t sleep.
But Gravity, the oblivious wicked child,
Gently begs for your body as the angels
Drag you upwards by your toes.
The prickles of steel needles in your skin,
The burning fire roasting you inside.
The puffs of white breaths fog your eyes and you
Slowly, slowly, drown in ice water.
Wait! No!
Somewhere in front of your eyelids, a lone wolf
Howls and mourns you,
Like a B-grade tragedy.
As you fall
Down,
Down,
Down.
Maggie Chen
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JUST TO EXIST
I shield myself from your obliteration.
You, who conducts the wind to slash in my face.
Whose eyes blaze with degrading animosity
with unsatisfied, egotistical wishes.
But my face stands strong,
I refuse to bow.
I will keep my high upon my small shoulders.
I continue down this path
in spite of you.
You may tear my soul,
but I have my passion and pride.
One day, our paths will be split for eternity.
So I can simply be an existence of my own choosing.
Yes, just to be,
Nothing more,
Nothing less.
“Mask” by Bobby DePollo
Nina Nakkash
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FOREVER
Continuing on a blissful path,
The deep memories overtaking every sporadic thought.
Nothing lingers in this place,
It is far too small and everchanging.
Nothing here lasts forever.
It seems like an eternity, but
When will we truly savvy the passage,
Of all things and everything.
When will we grasp the distressing truth that,
Nothing here lasts forever.
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What should the present ever mean to us?
For the past is out of tune,
And what is to come seems so far away.
We forget so easily and so readily that,
Nothing here lasts forever.
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“Neptune’s Muse” by Hannah Hansen
Samina Saifee
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LINDY
I remember the soft creases around her eyes, shifting gently
as her voice danced over the opaline craters of Change’e’s
moon. She read with Ma’s frankincense and Daddy’s foul
cigarettes choking the air until I would press my nose into
her sweater and breathe mellow freedom and sweet lavender.
I used to point to the liver sports on her hands and ask
where they came from. Lindy just cackled. “They’re beauty spots,” she would say. I looked at my own hands, small
and male and nail-bitten. “One day you’ll bloom and taste
the stars,” she continued, clasping my hands in her own.
“Every night the moon will bend to kiss you goodnight and
the planets will turn to curtsy. You’ll be a woman. Then
you’ll have beauty spots, too.”
One night old Lindy paused mid-speech and closed her
eyes. Her hands stopped moving. Her voice stopped waltzing in its high-pitched ballroom. I sat staring, waiting for
more, but the song had ended. The air soured and sharpened to a still.
I screamed.
Old Lindy, beautiful Lindy, forgive me. Forgive my unmoving hands. Forgive my voice, reduced to a choked
sputtering. Forgive my callow eyes which stared at death
like an inexorable friend rather than striking it up and out of
your trembling vessels.
Blue, Lindy, blue as cobalt. White, Lindy, white as chalk.
Over time, are people reduced to the lame colors of death?
Claire Wang
Blue veins and white skin and purple lips—that’s it? That’s
what I remember the most.
November sixteenth—I say you lying there in a dress I had
never seen before, eyes closed in pensive sleep. I wanted
to touch but Ma said no. I wanted to TOUCH, lindy, I
wanted to know what you were thinking about, what you
could have been thinking about with so many teary-eyed
strangers gesturing and sniffling and staring. I wanted to
know what you were going to say next, how the song would
end, how you would close the blank.
After that I didn’t stay.
I threw my hands to the sky and lightning broke them. I
gave my lungs to the scabrous asphalt and they sublimated
in a feathery mist of perfumed glass. I drove my body into
the earth with the force of a hundred horses and it exploded
in a smattering of red wine. I felt the moon bend to kiss me
goodnight. The planets curtsied, then resumed their elliptical orbits. Thunder rumbled in a moment of regard and
rain stepped gingerly around the mess I made.
I believe this is how people leave us, Lindy. No cry, no
wind, no roof. Just convulsing in a pool of their own tempests, waiting, hoping it isn’t true.
Claire Wang
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THE PLAY
Scene one you met her on a freezing gray morning
Scene two you stared at her hand when you laughed together
alone, but you never touched it
Scene three you stuck your hands in your pockets as she
danced, twirling around, inviting you out
But in scene four, you felt you had the right to be bitter when
she left the party with another man
You said it was someone else’s fault
Hers, perhaps, for not giving you a runway
Or his, for having the confidence you don’t possess
But that’s not verbally how you blame him
Scene five you gave her tissues on that old leather couch you
helped carry up the stairs
But you inched away when she moved in only to realize your
mistake later
Scene five she packed up and wanted a new start
You wanted to say something or make a big gesture
But instead you helped her pack
Scene six you called her but she didn’t answer.
Scene seven you texted her but she didn’t respond
Justin Graffa
Scene eight you texted her.
And texted her.
And texted her.
You bothered and pestered too much, but you were ready to
sweep her off her feet.
But the only thing you got back was a text
Saying “who is this?”
Scene nine you deleted her number out your phone but you’ve
never forgotten it.
Scene ten you deleted all of the pictures of her you two took
together.
The curtain drew to a close in the anticlimactic finale
But the show starts up again soon.
“Indian Puppets” by Sonali Prasad
Justin Graffa
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IN OCEAN OF SUBCONSCIOUS
Your tone thrashing against my ears,
scratching,
accusing,
agonizing.
Your voice no longer comprehendible,
muffled by the waves in my subconscious.
Your image,
with wrathful creases of insanity,
once filled my eyes.
No longer do my eyes identify you,
your image opaque by the water above me.
Memory of your existence remains,
etched in my very spirit.
The evanescence of my whole being continues,
in hope that one day,
your voice will perish;
your picture nonexistent,
your existence unrecognized…
unknown but to me.
Your existence
will become nonexistent,
drowned by the water,
in the ocean of my subconscious.
Nina Nakkash
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FALL
Wind floating around the branches
Twisting and turning through the maze
Looking for the way out
Pushing anything in its path
Zooming through tiny openings in a leaf
Lifting and breaking it by the stem
Held up by the wind for all to see
To fall.
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“Star Crossed Lovers” by Hannah Hansen
Rachel Clephane
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SLAM POETRY
Slam poetry is basically a subtweet
And real poetry is only in a textbook
The verse and free rhyme is only conceit
And your rap is only the next hook
Because everyone wants to think they’re deep
Even me behind the computer screen
People move on because they can’t keep
Their angst filled fuel they had as a teen
And the real metaphors they used die in the alley
A syringe in their arm of compliments they gave others
Laced with heroine and they’re part of another taly
A death count of dreams they say were killed by their fathers
The leather suitcase with their adult things is a coffin
And the tie around their neck a noose
Their mausoleum is their corner office
Another life of dreams made into a collection of suits.
“Dots” by Bhavna Guduguntla
Justin Graffa
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CURSED
Small tugs on the string, light pokes on the shoulder. I
think of her and how she called my name and held my
hand. Her eyes used to sparkle and her smile used to
shine. I never really realized it but I think she loved me.
Now she’s different. She’s full of darkness and hatred,
anger and pain. That last sliver of optimism has left her,
probably taken away by me. I can’t help but think this is
all my fault but I think she loved me.
Flutters of the heart, skips in the step. Her bright spirit
was contagious and I, I was enraptured. I broke her but
I think she loved me. And a pang of guilt shoots through
me because I think.
I think I loved her too.
“Drum” by Sydney Shanbrom
Tara Tang
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Right now I am sitting under something disgusting
Choking on cigarettes and whatever still counts as love.
Waiting. And I am terribly lonely.
I am the biggest cliché of what counts as
Lonely. Lonely and tired.
Sublimating. But I have broken too many backs
To complain.
This wind has made my insides cough and sputter,
Like the rested coils of some twisted machine made
To shred fingertips in one clean sweep, snap tailbones and
shatter retinas. Where the striations along
my forearms bleed like tired men and the ever-present sound of
WHO EVEN GIVES A D*MN runs stale because
We are nothing but dutiful ghosts throbbing in the shadows
Of real people.
When I was small my mother sat me down
On the kitchen table and spoke quietly, “Son, people like us
Don’t make it out there. Look at your hands, the color of
Coal. Your eyes, like shots fired from your daddy’s pistol.
What do you see? What is hanging on the end of a silver string,
waiting for you to clasp it between your small hands?”
She stroked my hair that was not quite hair yet and
smiled a drop of sadness.
At first when she spoke I could do nothing but nod. Her love
For me was convoluted. My love for her was boundless.
When I was fifteen I left her. Took the keys and kicked
a foot through the screen door in the middle of the night
because I was too ashamed and too much of a coward
to leave while she was watching. Closed my eyes and made
myself
Claire Wang
forget who I was, where I came from. I forgot how she
laughed. I forgot the scent of orange soap on her neck.
Forgot the yellowing mattress and
the quivering light.
Tonight I dream I am swimming in a nebulous pool
Of ghosts. They run slippery fingers through my insides
As if to claim me for one of their own. I close my eyes and
a tongue passes over my left ear and
sings of a God chanting my name,
Holding my soul on the frayed end of a silver string.
Dangling by my eyelashes.
I look up and she’s laughing. She smells of citrus and
Watered down coffee and painted light. Her lips are moving but I can’t hear the words.
I am screaming.
Strain and strain for something tangible. Then,
With the flick of a finger, I am lost again.
My love for her was convoluted.
Her love for me was boundless.
“Blue” by Hannah Hansen
Claire Wang
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REALITY
The Labyrinth of Dreams spanning my brain
dug deep into the crevices like a
criminal of knowledge,
hidden from Nature’s raging desire
to bombard it with infectious doubts.
Dream killers fly like birds, golden daggers
tearing at soft gray walls,
That confuse them evermore.
A supercilious world where I cannot
see truth in my dreams,
but my nightmares.
“Balloon” by Phil Kovalev
Maggie Chen
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THE STORM
A storm prevails, so devastatingly strong.
The people are frightened and smothered by the fog.
No one knows where to go or who to ask,
But there was the man who knew how to stand.
A man of no warmth lies,
In the ground, and he stares with glazed eyes.
The grievances begin as he is lowered in,
Into a place of darkness and demise.
He is remembered by all, for he wasn’t vain,
In fact his prestige stemmed from other people’s disdain.
The fact that he didn’t back down, and stood up,
Through the lightning strikes and the pouring rain.
When no hope was left, he fought through the flood,
Through the raging currents, and the impeding mud.
When everything came to an end,
The people realized who enlightened them.
When the clouds turned back,
To the shade they came from,
To that vivid sky,
The people looked down at their feet.
They see the man of no warmth, resting in peace,
Leaving his people behind,
In a world of obscenity, with nothing but his words,
And he is lowered into the darkness, forever.
Samina Saifee
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DARK
Dark clouds filling gaping holes in the sky
Peaks of mountaintops casting a shadow
Curving down the mountainside
Light at the bottom shifted
Crushing weight of the dark puts
Light off-track
Rise up to the sky desperately trying
Yet to be covered
Out of the dark comes a grey matter
The cycle is complete
And the light is banished
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“Cape Cod” by Keegan Haines
Rachel Clephane
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STORM
When a tree falls in a lonely forest,
it falls on crushed dreams
and dead hopes.
It falls
on lost love and
forgotten sacrifice.
The trunk destroys inspiration and
the leaves smother
determination,
only despair left
in their wake.
It falls and cracks at the roots, and
the sunlight is shed through
the falling branches,
not welcoming but
agonizing and blinding.
It falls with a crushing thunder,
a storm piercing
through the hearts of those
who need a hand to hold
and a shoulder
to cry on.
It falls and leaves nothing
but pain.
When a tree falls in a lonely forest,
does it make a sound?
Tara Tang
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ALABASTER
1:25 AM. The sky exhales ropy clouds.
The mountains rage softly in their pearly cloaks.
I tip my head back and all of a sudden his
lips are on mine. His smile is the color of
electric blue nail polish and Aerosmith CDs.
He thinks I am beautiful and
I think I am ordinary. We drink
to blue dahlias and Eskimo kisses.
It’s Friday night
I’m in love.
Now we are running. We are in a dirty gray
pickup truck that wheezes and whoops clouds of
cauliflower. He smells like rain and
midnight meteor showers and peppermint soap.
He thinks I am tired and offers his shoulder. While I
sleep he pitches me to the stars and they dye my fingertips
purple.
It’s Friday night
I’m in love.
We are underwater. Everything is alive.
The moon, the color of milk, washes over us like
flames dripping into a thick pool of wax. His eyes are
everywhere like broken glass spinning in a kaleidoscope.
He thinks I am asleep and
trieds to talk with God. I listen quietly.
He cries alabaster tears and chuckles to himself.
A broken keyboard sings a song of sadness.
It’s Friday night
I’m in love.
Claire Wang
Tonight I lie here alone. Red lips and tiny shoes
and soft dirt. The fog seems thicker here. The trees
seem whiter. The sky churns with the eyes of a
hundred flaming coils.
He thinks I have forgotten and drowns Memory in a viscous oil of affliction.
I close my eyes and imagine lips flickering
under the moonlight, lips which do not speak but
tell me a story of dreams and sprightly love
and slippery fingertips,
nothing but cool palms weeping in the wind.
1:29 AM. The sky sputters quietly in its charcoal tomb.
I tip my head back and the stars bend
to kiss me good night. It’s not the same.
I think he is beautiful and close my eyes.
He is with me for a second.
It’s Friday night.
“In Orbit” by Marilyn Smith
Claire Wang
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TO ERADICI see it all
upon the desk I am confined.
Pens scribble boldly,
highlighters mark pages of ink.
But Pencils?
Shouldn’t even bother.
Leaving stains of feath’ry spider webs,
smudges of missives past:
infuriatingly impermanent.
Nevertheless, it is my nature to eradicate.
Note how
I mechanically destroy while they disappear willingly.
The slanted letters
never wish to stay:
Not for the wife, the mother, or the daughter.
Lithe fingers grasp the wood;
trained hands move quickly,
relishing in attempted honesty.
Her business trip:
“Gone for a few days-honey, the truth is I’m having an aff”
my head meets the page and she rubs until the delicate handwriting vanishes.
I feel a little shorter as she brushes my shavings to the floor.
Golden Number 2’s quiver,
Sara Dassanayake
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shaking in their hysteria.
The uneven scrawls
never wish to stay:
Not for the friend, the daughter, or the employee.
Laughter jingles from lips pink as whor
-tleberry flowers and polished digits rifle through fat, white,
envelopes.
They leave her sweaty palms to grip a graphite-filled tube.
The end of her new career:
“I can’t do this anymore,
I qui”
she grabs my head and rubs until defined strokes fade to slivers
of gray.
I feel a little thinner as she brushes my shavings to the floor.
“Alone” by Neha Nayak
Sara Dassanayake
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STEPPING INTO GREATNESS
Those stern hands reached out to me; grooves and
ridges telling the tale of his life’s work. His hair was so white
it could have been likened to that of a cotton field. He was
old but not in terms of time. Age had not been good to him;
the beatings life dealt him had taken a toll on his soul. He
looked about 80 but if I recall he was a mere 60 years old
when he left. My last memory of him is vague. As I try to
recall my last visit with him, the only image that comes to
mind is a man descending the steps of his front porch. With
each step, he tells a chapter of his story. No words; just his
presence. The presence of a broken man who spent his
entire life working. I watched as he descended those steps,
which were caked in rust and baked by the golden rays of
the afternoon sun. That was the first time I truly saw him.
I saw his struggle, his pain, and his pride. As I stared into
his dark eyes, those eyes work by age, which sought refuge
behind the blue film that shielded them from my gaze. His
eyes acted as a mirror, which reflected back into my soul. In
that mirror I saw something. His gaze imparted a lesson that
would change the course of my life. Education is power. My
grandfather was an intelligent man, but now I understand
that an education would have changed the course of his life.
I saw a man crippled and beaten by the toll that manual labor
took on his body and his soul. On that day, as I observed his
shadow of a man, I vowed to never take education for granted.
Each day brings a new challenged and a new obstacle.
When I feel like givin up and succumbing to the pressures
of school, I now stop and reflect. I remember that broken
man stepping down those stairs which were caked in rust and
worn by time. My memory has made me a better man because it was instilled in me a drive to do better than he did; to
not take education for granted because without an education
Chris Jackson
one is powerless. Knowledge is power and that is why I dare
not take pity on this man. Although he had little money and
few comforts, he was a man rich in knowledge. The knowledge that he acquired during his lifetime acts as a map in my
own life. As I navigate my way through my life, I at times
think that I am lost. The cloud of temptation at times blocks
my path to victory but the memory of my grandfather shows
me another way. He provides me with another route, and
the route always involves education.
The mirror is a beautiful thing. Through our reflection we are able to see ourselves as the world sees us. As I
look in the mirror, I see that man who descended those steps
for the last time all those years ago. I see those dark eyes
and then I see myself. I realize that as I looked into those
eyes for the last time, I formed a lasting connection and that
even through death he teaches me. Even without a college
degree he is my teacher. He may not have graduated from a
university, but he was a student of life. He showed me that I
have two choices: I can just sit in the passenger seat and coast
or I can be an active participant in my own life. I now have
taken ahold of the steering wheel of destiny and my grandfather is my GPS. His spirit guides and motivates me. Now
as I embark on the road trip I call life, I can trust in him to
provide me with directions. I now see the world for what it
is-- a novel. With every page we can choose to give up if we
stumble on a word we don’t understand or we can keep reading and see what the next page has in store.
Chris Jackson
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WASTED
I could have cried crocodile tears for you.
I could have ripped out my heart for you.
I could have give you everything I had,
But I would have been wasting timeThrowing away my time, not yours.
Maybe I had restless nights because of you
Maybe my heart did hurt a little for you
Maybe I gave up some things for you,
But you never would have noticed.
How could you see those sly looks I gave you?
Or the way I shook my head and smiled
Whenever I saw you around?
You didn’t.
“Puppy Eyes” by Angela Lee
Jema Fregene
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MOTHER AND SON
She was 23 and that made him 17. But she had become the
mother and he had become the son. And although she knew
it didn’t normally work that way, she still embraced it and she
told herself she would become the best mother this boy will
ever know.
She told herself she would, she worked until she was, and when
she finally did it, she stayed that way.
Sometimes she can’t help but show the world who he is to her
and sometimes he gets a big embarrassed, with a little boy’s
blush and a small series of nods and everything else. But deep
down, they both know he’s grateful because she stayed that
way. She really stayed the best mother he’ll ever know, and
he’s thankful.
Their love is a mutual thing, it’s just that some people express
love more than others. She knows that and he knows she
knows that.
He grew up with a hole in his heart but she filled it, and in the
process she filled the bigger, deeper hole in her own heart.
They’re both grateful. And their love is a mutual thing.
Tara Tang
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DIGESTION
When you were a child
Did your mother ever pick you up and
point to a curling river
And tell you THIS IS BEAUTY
Did your father ever hoist you over his shoulders
And say THIS IS FREEDOM
Did your older brother teach you all the constellations
And scream at the stars, with all their white caps
THIS IS GOD
Good god, this is God.
This is God and He had made all the difference
in our Lives. He created the dauntless Sun
and the briny oceans, the lithe serpents and
the demure fauns.
This is Nature. She held your Hand before you
Even knew you had Fingers. She filled your Stomach
With Moths and you dreamed a bloodless Belly of wax
figurines:
You called the first on your Mother,
For she had bleached fingernails and
A leaden heart of gossamer tendrils
That reached benearth your sternum and
Made a pact of LOVE
You called the second one your Father,
For he came with a long pipe but no smoke,
A sable shotgun but no bullets,
A white collared shirt but no cuff links.
His eyes fluttered half-open in a moment of regard,
Then settled back into their viscous sockets.
Claire Wang
You named the third one after Me.
It was an odd-shaped thing, always twisting
And convulsing into new forms. Sometimes I was
As small and useless as a marble, other times
I was mottled and scabrous,
A sadistic nightmare.
I have tried so hard to understand your Beauty.
I clawed at my face which was sharp and angular
Like parquet. Curdled wax melted off my cheeks and
I felt my shredded complexion collect in a puddle of hot acid at
my feet.
I called this caustic broth my salvation.
I called to my Mother and my Father,
My ill-conceived family
Which I begged to free me.
I stood bent over and retched for
an eternity before I finally
Digested the Truth.
“Comic Beauty” by Hannah Hansen
Claire Wang
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ALONE
No one understands me, no one feels what I feel
All this pain inside me, there’s no space heel
So stressed out, this life kills me
So i go to my own world where I can truly be me.
I’m all alone, I have to stay isolated by myself
I’m all alone, and they talk about me instead of help
Everyone on my case, life gets harder and harder
People hate, but it makes me stronger.
Everyone doubts, they have no faith in me
But I don’t care, I will rise. Just watch and see.
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“Bionic” by Becky McGeorge
Kone Bowman
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THE FIRE
It blazes
Leaves; freshly striked matches
Incense colors
Everything swept away
Devoured by the paint bucket
Carelessly poured, splattered
Down
Smoldering leaves crunching; flickering
Stomp.
Then wisp of relief
Hollow wind whistles; log teeth
call reverberating the core
Stirring the rising dust
Crumbling coals
Smothering flamboyance and
Finale burst of campfire sparks
To dabble in vain
At creeping cold
Tucking summer ashes
Sleep.
“Old Rusty Blue” by Hannah Hansen
Lydia Wang
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WINTER
“If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.
You leave the same impression
Of something beautiful, but annihilating.”
― Sylvia Plath, Ariel
SNOW
REFLECTION
SILENCE
ENDINGS
DEATH
DECAY
SOLEMN
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REALITY
One must simply do
Speculation yields no fruits
It is the weapon of the instigator,
The enemy of the achiever.
Results.
The truth is undeniable,
Real.
Whether the offspring of accident,
Or the outcome of constant calculations
The truth is.
No more, no less.
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“Spheres” by Katie Mansour
Jon Scott
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BLACK LEAF SPOTS
Leaves sway, rustling
to the warm echoes of fresh abscission.
Twisting in roaring zephyrs,
tossing in icy winds,
silver droplets fall from an ever-melting sky.
They pounce
upon fresh olive parchment,
Poking, prodding,
revealing of a new palimpsest the scant inky remnants.
Water tears
like quick, meticulous needles,
ripping open
tender green flesh.
While cross little pools scab to muddy splotches.
The wrapping tainted, gem-like wounds redress the present
They wind around the russet cheeks of golden apples
with the vigor of new stamps.
The fruit blushes black,
reveling in an envy-soaked garden of Hesperides.
Nymphs still rival muses nine if pure infection stain the track
of not only the truth but chaos swathed in scales
that taint what was once forbidden.
Only choice of venturia
betters unequal opportunities,
exposing seedlings to no more than marssonina.
Sara Dassanayake
To consider susceptible shrubbery,
to extend the wait for those most disposed to disease.
Referring, of course, back to the original problem of venturia,
thinking only of Second Comings, for all that came first served
as mere
hallucination.
Inspiringly infectious? Indubitably so.
Notoriously new? Otherwise useless.
Gold for fools? Fools for gold.
Sores will blemish canopies, but scars will stain the forest floor.
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“Bottle” by Kayla Lee
Sara Dessanayake
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FOREIGN FAMILIARITY
I’ve been waiting for you
and I still am.
You, with your warm eyes and gentle smile,
you give me faith.
My heart settles
with the words on the tip of your tongue.
I see you in myself,
but still you feel foreign.
You can help me, I’m sure,
help me live and help me feel,
and yet I wonder.
Who are you?
“Don’t Turn Your Back On Us” by Emily Herard
Tara Tang
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A CLOSED ROSE
Petals stuck together
Tightly shut until its bloom.
With time passing by as
Change takes place.
Prepare for opening.
One petal unfolds
Stretching like the arms of a child.
Followed by another
Ready to be seen by the light
Ready for the shine.
The vibrant colors were washed out,
The red edges started curling down,
Folded away from itself.
On by one dropped
Down
Until all were spread flat on the ground..
“Reach” by Marilyn Smith
Rachel Clephane
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LET US MEET AGAIN
Your peachy face,
illuminated by the hazy glow of the lamp post,
Betrays your soft smile,
showing a sea of tears in your eyes,
branching off into streams
Upon your pearly-smooth cheeks.
In my arms I hold you as you slowly fade.
I smile for you, love.
I wish to leave you with a smiling memory of myself.
I gaze into your sorrowful eyes,
we both smile at one another.
Your weight lightens,
You disintegrate into nothingness.
All I hold is air.
I live on,
In hope that
we will meet again, love…
In another time,
In another place.
“Cadillac Dash” by Austin Santangelo
Rachel Clephane
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ANATOMY OF LOVE
My love for you was merely firings of neurons
Ions jumping over sheaths wrapped around
aggregates of phospholipids
Rumbling with the stampede of particles and currents swirling
Up and down my body to finally vibrate down at the bottom
Epinephrine unlocking doors to the secret cells of my longing
But now I’m at homeostasis
Or am I?
Why does my heart ache so?
Perhaps the myocytes contract in fear of loneliness
Perhaps the lack of oxygen,
The lack of you, has accumulated the acid,
Eating away tissue with every beat
And blood is straining to burst free from the bond we didn’t
share equally
Is love merely this cycle of substance,
This electric circulation of protein, carbohydrate, lipid and cell
fragments?
Powerful is he who can stir up this mad brew in my placid veins
And powerful is he who can silently lyse every passionate cell
Leaving nothing but an organic pool of why?
“Imbalance” by
Helena Chen
Lydia Wang
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CRIMSON
We roam along beaches, you and I.
Let the gentle ties bathe our feet,
Cleanse our soles of the glass shards
That we march through everyday.
A tranquility that lasts but a second
As the sun dips into the sea,
Dyes it crimson, pink, and purple.
This is the moment we live for.
Walk with me, you say,
Right palm up, heart lines exposed.
Do you realize what you’re doing?
No, I don’t suppose you do.
Your distant eyes look far,
dimmed in the shine
Of a bright white crescent.
I envy the person dancing on your insides.
Shatter me and ignore my tears.
Understand I’m not the one you want,
I’m not the one you need,
I’m not the one…
Willow branches shimmering
With droplets from tears shed.
Before I curl into myself,
And disappear before your eyes.
Five years pulled from a magician’s hat,
Like a white rabbit’s blank stare,
A blank slate.
A new life.
I forgot what you want
And became what I need.
Maggie Chen
But you, you sly darling,
Still remember everything.
Back to the beginning with the sand
Between our toes, nostalgic isn’t it?
Your gaze shines, like the sweet, new
Dawn flushed rosy red, like our cheeks.
Another beginning.
Meet me halfway, lean forward
Just a tad, more than enough.
I will complete your broken cycle.
A first kiss swathed in drama,
Lacy bows and silk ribbons
And glitter bombs.
Time doesn’t stop like it should,
But thins out like threat
For the wings of gold dragonflies
To weave through our hair.
This is the moment we live for.
“Unfnished Business” by Darrel Davison
Maggie Chen
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SCHISM OF LIFE
Fragments of memory
Flit about
Boasting the great childhood past
Of serene landscape
Flooded with happiness
How overwhelmingly frustrating
Exasperating
Is the present.
Whirling in a frenzy.
Cluttered and strewn about in utter disarray
Sapped of energy.
Yet continuing to pummel into my soul
Seeking even the carcass.
“Life Balance” by Darrel Davison
Mina Lee
UNTITLED
Poetry doesn’t really exist anymore
It’s an angst-filled teenager with WiFi
Or a dying grandfather with a typewriter
They only mean half the things they say
And people fill in the rest with what they want to hear
Literality doesn’t exist in poetry
Free-verse or rhyme - it’s always something else
The only thing given to you straight are the lines on paper
“No no,” your English teachers says
“The blue sky isn’t blue, blue means his inner depression”
Because I don’t mean anything I say and it never happened
But people will read it and try to sound smart
And we could turn authors and poets into energy
If we hooked up wires to them rolling in their graves.
“1932 Front End” by Austin Santangelo
Justin Graffa
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INDEFINITE SPACE
Walking across the acres of fields between our homes
Earthworms whining under hard, determined feet
Tissue paper clouds melting away from the
candlelight of the setting sun
I see you in the distance
Only a small black dot.
But clearly I see
You have a walking stick
Ripped from an innocent tree
Bare from autumn shedding.
I see every fold and crinkle in your face in your concentration
Swinging at imaginary monsters and demons
Saving your damsel in distress.
The distance between us closes, and now you’re a silhouette
I see the windblown T-shirt glowing red
I’m imagining your twinkling eyes laughing at the sight of me
And I hear your wild laughter even though
I know you’re too far away
For me to hear you.
The sky turns from red to purple and now you’re blurry
But we’re coming in closer
Still coming, and I’m waiting for you
Anticipating the moment we come face to face.
Now you’re meters away, and I feel your
presence, flying to join mine
I smile, you’re finally here
But where are your lean arms?
Your freckles, the red glowing shirt I saw so clearly
It’s too dark, but it doesn’t matter, I know it’s there,
Somewhere, swimming around, slithering behind.
Lydia Wang
I don’t imagine you anymore, because you’re here
Now you’re here, coming to stand beside me
The stars out and the planets teasing me
Challenging me to trace the short distances between each star
And I do, but the stars are shifting, running away with peals of
laughter
I laugh too, but then I start to cry
They’re all running away from me
I turn to you, and I grasp your hollow shell
I reach for your hand, but all I feel is air
A slow breeze purrs over my face and rustles…
As I open my eyes to curtains billowing by the window.
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“Sounds of Summer” by Austin Santangelo
Lydia Wang
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LOTUS FLAKES
Since time did not wait for me,
I made haste to catch up.
The zoo held animals of all kinds, but
I am still unwelcome.
Under unfamiliar glares,
I locked away
my picture frames and my names too,
Behind opaque windows of a dusty zoo.
As I walked around the pond,
People stopped at the glass.
Peering, yet
Passing into flames of eternity.
Or maybe, I passed them.
An indiscernible veil.
They glance only, where a crowd stood,
To the signs that bulletpoint me.
“Veil” by Helena Chen
Karen Jiang
ASLEEP IN WAX DREAMS
Sing me to sleep,
with a voice that curves
over my sleeping silhouette
like boats riding the pithy flicker
of the moon -touch and go, touch and go.
Never in one place for too long.
We hold close and watch quietly
for the wind to fall,
a star to drop,
a name to be whispered
into the dead of night.
Look through lucid pupils,
darling. See anything
Look for the silver lining,
a golden ticket, what do you see?
You cry and cry and I think
your tears might somehow transmute to a song
in our doting slumber.
but every hour
silence greets us like an old friend
and tell us to go,
the door is on the left.
And so I ask you nothing more,
than to sing me to sleep
with a voice that curves
over my sleeping silhouette
like grace bending to ebb
over an old river
for I am only one cell
in the sea of wax dreams.
Claire Wang
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SWEET THUNDERSTORM
I tasted the dull gray of clouds
As they grow.
My flesh scorched at the trickle of droplets.
My heart ached at low growls and
Heavy gray claps.
My scarred fingers itched to kiss
Your sweet sparks that sprinted
Through the atmosphere
I cannot shed my skin of hunger,
So tightly wrapped
That nerve and bone were bared
In its abandonment
Where were the memories
Of ignorant bliss to feverish desire?
Of cherished dreams from then?
Tethered by a toddler’s
Wisdom teeth.
So dangerous.
Five steps from chasing
The blazing tree.
Five grains of sand cradled
Near my ears,
Clasped
In my open palms.
Held close
LIke a lightning rod.
I smiled and breathed:
Good day, my sweet thunderstorm.
Maggie Chen
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SILENCE
It’s a ring in your ears,
a buzz that creeps to you as its opposite retreats,
knawing away at eardrums.
The pressure builds until suddenly it crushes,
tsunami wave roaring over beautifully deadly
conch shells in the shifting sands
forever and only
echoing the faint lub-dub of the sea.
It’s alive.
It’s a monster that kidnaps the children first,
gobbling in and spitting them out, cold
stealthily armed with weapons until
the elders are engulfed in their own contraption.
All are affected, all misunderstood,
staring at each other with
ammunition in mouths.
What’s next?
It blossoms into a screaming web with
the rising of the sun
each invisible strand a shot fired,
a petal unfurling.
And with every rising the web weaves
thicker and thicker, knitting a snuggly blanket,
smothering intersecting lasers of knowing eyes
over the din of fibers confining Naughty
to the dark corner
Where the eight-eyed beast glares at the others,
daring for them to make a first flinch…
It’s patient,
It’s comfortable,
It’s silence.
Lydia Wang
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THE ICE PRINCESS
It’s funny to think about it like that - with words like
mental disorder. They
taste funny in my mouth, foreign and strange.
To me she was always just a girl, an Ice Princess girl,
who floated on icicle legs and had a face small enough
to crush in my fist.
She breathed frost onto the bathroom mirror, incriminating
Fog that told us of her tears.
And she armed herself with a plastic spoon when she slipped
into a stall,
While I waited my turn and listened to her emptying
the sinful waste in her stomach.
So mental disorder isn’t the right word - not really.
The Ice Princess, surrounded by so much summer, merely
melted away.
“Winter” by Maddie Friedman
Jiwon Yun
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“There is nothing so stable as change.”
~Bob Dylan
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“Sirens” by Halie Conyers
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LETTERS FROM THE STAFF
First of all, I’d like to thank Mrs.
Hannett-Price for her dedication and
support of the Spectrum Club. I’m also
thankful to Rachel, the members of the
Spectrum staff, and members of the club
for their help and love of writing. Participating in Spectrum has been a great way
to channel ideas into different methods
of expression, and has helped me mature
by giving me insight about my life. One
can say that Spectrum is a quilt of squares
sewn together, each square representing the ideas and philosophies of each
individual in the club. Together, we knit
together a bigger story - a distinctive eye
opener to the soul and the world it resides
in. I hope you enjoy this issue!
~Lydia Wang, editor-in-chief &
design editor
First of all, I would like to thank
Mrs. Hannett for her guidance and endless support for the creation of the Spectrum magazine, and to Lydia and the rest
of the staff for all their help. The theme of
this issue was seasons and the emotions
felt during each one of them. The characteristics of spring, like trees growing
and flowers blooming, inspired the poetry
in this section to have themes of rebirth
and growth, while the hot weather and
thunderstorms of summer led to themes
of happiness and unrest, decaying leaves
during fall created themes of closure, and
snowfall prompted darker themes such as
death and sadness.
~Rachel Clephane, editor-in-chief
LETTERS FROM THE STAFF
First and foremost, thank you to Mrs.
Hannett and Mr. Sadler for all the mentoring
they have provided me in writing this year
and last. I am truly grateful for their inspiration and guidance over the years. Working
with the Spectrum staff has brought me a
greater appreciation for the editorial process
and for both writing and art. Throughout
this issue, one can experience the cyclic
qualities of both nature and human existence
itself as topics of passion, fearlessness, decay, and renewal are explored through our
overarching theme of seasons. Being part
of Spectrum has been an enlightening and
rewarding experience and I hope to continue
to be a part of future issues! Enjoy!
~Claire Wang, associate editor
For me, this year at Spectrum was a
time of beginnings. I’m so thankful for the
opportunity to work on such a compelling
and inspirational magazine. I would especially like to thank the editors-in-chief Lydia and
Rachel for teaching me so much about not
only the mechanics of the magazine, but also
the work and insight that goes into creating
such a masterpiece. Mrs. Hannett-Price has
always been much more than just the faculty
advisor of Spectrum. She has been a guiding
force and a constant source of inspiration.
Her perpetual dedication and love for the
magazine has kept all of us motivated to always do our best, and for that I cannot thank
her enough. Even though this was only my
first year, I have already been swept up into
the tide of Spectrum’s vast ocean. I cannot
wait to continue my journey in the years to
come. It is the product of hours of work and
passion and I’m so thankful to be a part of it.
~Jiwon Yun, associate editor
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LETTERS FROM THE STAFF
These past years at Spectrum have
been a great learning experience. I both
created and edited poems and stories to be
placed in this year’s magazine of Spectrum
2014. I want to thank the Spectrum advisor, Mrs. Hannett, and the two Spectrum
editors-in-chief, Rachel Clephane and
Lydia Wang, for aiding me in the process
of becoming an intern and of editing pieces
of poetry. I’ve learned so much about writing and creating a magazine. I love every
minute of time spent in Spectrum!
~Maggie Chen, associate editor
“Spectrum”, I believe, is the medium through which students can unleash
their emotions and express their opinions.
“Spectrum” allows every one of us to savor
even the most negligible components of
life. It is my hope that the reader can be
whisked away to distant, blissful memories as they read each work in this issue
of “Spectrum”. I would like to thank
Mrs. Hannett for having founded such a
wonderful literary magazine which never
ceases to impress the faculty and students
here at DCDS.
~Mina Lee, editorial board member
CREDITS
Editors-In-Chief:
Lydia Wang and Rachel Clephane
Associate Editors:
Claire Wang, Jiwon Yun, Maggie Chen
Design Editor:
Lydia Wang
Editorial Board:
Lydia Wang
Rachel Clephane
Claire Wang
Jiwon Yun
Maggie Chen
Mina Lee
Faculty Advisor:
Mrs. Beverly Hannett-Price
Special Thanks:
The Spectrum Staff
Ms. Mary Ann DeVogel
The Art Department
The English Department
Sean Davis
Student Visual-Artists and Writers
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