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IntheTub ABeachinCalifornia
OntheRoadHome
Thoughtsto
t
Powero
fTwo
Ashtray
Home
De
Amicitia
Rebellious
PowerStruggle
Holocaust
Virg
inity
Mag
noliaG
ods
Assimilation
Porcelain
rythin
gto
Learn
from
th
eCla
ms
GraveFr
eedom
Vol. VII
Issue I
Fall 2011
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DockNina OndonaDigital Photography
ONE
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My sister guarded the door,
a sentinel at the exitand gave the okay
to engage in battle. I could smell
its fear. It smelt of
mud, then soap, then lemons.
I reached out and was clawed
and before I could retreat
another smell: blood,which filled my nostrils with copper.
Step by step, my sister
came to my side at no-mans-land.
Water, then soap, then wet fur
which stuck, plastered its body.
I grasped. My sister poured
more warm water. I cringed and lifted
her dripping cat
out of the tub. I held his body
and wrapped him in warmth
First in a towel. Then in arms. Then in sleep.
In the TubErna WoyeeInspired byIn the Well by Andrew Hudgins
two
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A petroleum slave with shattered shackles
Escapes the imprisonment of great-grandfather carbon,
A fugitive briefly to be returned to a fiery reincarnation
While, breaking our promises, we choke his children
With the smoke of his own cremation.And while grains of sand mingle with long-lost beer bottle shards
We sweep them all under rugs and call ourselves benevolent masters
To have returned the plantation to such a virgin state.
Cover your tracks
And mask your distilled perfumes
With resin and musk
So that the last man on earth might hide from his despair
And believe he is the first.
A Beach in California Jordan Harrison
three
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Passageway Into the SeaHolly Modlin
Digital Photography four
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Autumn is coming. Soon. Soon. Its the way of the world. After
autumn, winter arrives. Let the seasons spin.
You called to me many times before, but never bearing the perfect
orthogonal of a blade over your chest. I cannot see past the haze
of years, but your words crawl past distance and time and comfort
and I have never heard anything more beautiful.
But beauty is not the most glorious cry your heart vibrates to. Itsyou, its you, and I cant help but to think of winters and frozen
crystalline blue, the exact color of shivering lips, splayed thinly
over your lawn as we engraved footprints into the ice that would
not last forever.
And I envision: snow is falling over the city of New York, sparing
nothing but the steam like silk, blooming like the last white
gardenias over our coffee shop. Memories like that are the
worldthose that havent been made yet. The days of our future
have been pressed upon my bones so much so that they bleed into
my past, as my ribcage aches to breathe against the delicate flutter
of memories that do not exist but in
timelessness.
So let me take that blade from your hand. Let me lead the way
back and melt the frozen plains of your fingers. When summer
comes, well caress the dunes of each of your fingertips that
evince your existence.
Well watch the seasons spin.
On the Road HomeJessica Gao
five
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Desert Flower Selena HamiltonDigital Photography
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Berries Selena Hamilton Digital Photograph
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(Sometimes, I wonder.
I wonder what youre thinking,
where your mind visits while we talk.
I try to figure it out sometimesmostly by looking at your face.
I never come up with anything sensible.
After a while,
I realize that it might be better
just to ask,)
How do you feel?
eight
Thoughts to the Powerof Two Svend Larsen
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I sit. I sat. I am sitting in the waterfall
Coming from the shower
Head pounding my scalp
Trying without success to wash
Your fingerprints
From myself
That smile
That bright white
Row in your perfect
Mouth the one that spilled
Lies, broken promises
I should have listened
To the voice in
My heart
That said In a boy
Who smokes
You should take
No part
But the smoke
Left me in a haze
My clothes were permeated
I washed them
Three times
You were notWho you said you were
And I will never
Forgive you
For sprinkling your ashes
Onto our time
I was not your ashtray
You owed me
A goodbye
Fingerprints on an AshtrayEmily Boaz
nine
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WiltingRefection
Je
nniferAntoniono
FilmPhotography
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8 MinutesMia de los ReyesWire & Paper
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This past summer, I lost
What I had once called
Home.
It was
Sad, ironic, cold, beautiful.
The dew still clinging to the cacti as we walked with linked arms,Hands intertwined,
Feet pacing awkwardly,
I walked her
Home.
It wasnt
Any surprise.
The sun clung to the lip of the calm, expansive, pacific ocean,
Rays ablazeAnd shoreline to define what was
The boundary between
Earth and Heaven.
Time was moving not too slow,
Nor fast. For once in my life, I could feel
Happy, going
Home.
She rips away at the frayed ropes, with
Gestures disturbed and rough, as if to hold back the angry torment boiling
Inside
And I begin to count to 10.
1; Whats the matter?
2; Nothing
3; You are never like this. What are you thinking?
4, 5, 6; Aboutyou know.
7, 8; Yes. You can say it.
9; How did you know?
10; Ive known since then.
And I ask her for two favors; To let me carry her and to turn around and walk back
the way she came until she returned home.
We hug tightly. She abides by my rules. I do not. I lose composure.
I run
Home.
Then I kiss my abode farewell. And the sun falls into its magenta slumber.
H
omeJaehy
eongLee
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Handing me sweets which
Burst onto my open palms,You smile,
I didnt have a container.
Your blunt apology infects me with a grin --
Dont you know that the food is the packaging?
De AmicitiaIan Maynor
eleven
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Iridescent PavoJamie DicksonDigital Photography
twelve
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UntitledTyler KissingerDigital Photography
thirteen
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Shave your legs, though it can make you bleed,
And pluck your eyes to tears, because you need
To look the way that theyd expect;
Trust me; its a sign of your respect,
Though you show none for what I believe
And that is what is my pet peeve
Cause theres an easy way, and a right way
And I think Ive a right to say
That right now Id like not to conform
When I see a problem with the norm
Please give me time to figure out
What I think my life should be about
I know Im wrong I know Im mean
But keep in mind Im just sixteen
And in my mind I cant amountWhy grades and work, why they should count
Much more than the way that I do dress
While what I think, why is that less?
And I know, mom, Ill lose the bet
To never wear this new corset
Its just Id like to be the one to choose
cause mom, its not about the shoes
Im just afraid that if I lose
The girl Ill be
Will have lost the right to be called me.
Rebellious Power
Struggle
Emma Dedmond
fourteen
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The windowpane I had been resting against vibrated sharply in sync with the purring of the
storm. I lifted my head just enough to see over the windowsill. Lightning flashed across myeyes in an instant, and I figured that to anyone watching at that moment, it must have been
beautiful: to see white streaks across a sea of deep brown. The thick glass fogged from the
humidity, but I did my best to make my way through the thick droplets to watch that
ongoing war called nature. The rain fell with tenacity, as if it intended to punch straight through
the anthills below my window. The ground rose up with each drop, as small clumps of dirt
exploded upward. To an ant, Im sure it must have been tremendous. To me, it meant a day
inside. Funny how an apocalypse for one is a lazy day for another.
Holocaust Zack Fowler
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I did my best to calm the storm with my mind; to stop the apocalypse, but to no avail. The
Earth would roar on without me. But, who am I to stop a storm? Then again, who am I tosave an ant? I had no right to interfere. If the rain was so determined to destroy those hills,
perhaps I should have let it. Perhaps, the ants were meant to die that day. They had never
done anything for me. After all, it wasnt me that was dying; Im not an ant. I suppose I
could have run outside and saved them. I could have sheltered them; been a pillar of love
and support. I could have stepped in and been the calm in the storm that they had prayed
for. But, Im feeling lazy. Funny how an apocalypse for one is a lazy day for another.
Was
itallaD
ream?GraceL
amblin
Digital
Photography
sixteen
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Its all in the name.
If we didnt have a word for itit would lose the weight
that hangs heavy on each letter
and all the gasps and whispers and rumors
would fade into backdrop -
just another fact to be stocked away.
Nameless, we would ignore it:
theres no poetry written over
your first cup of coffeeor the first time you paint your toe nails blue
or that one day in second grade when you used
the left swing
instead of the short one on the right
and afterwards you never went back.
Its all in the title.
They call it losing your innocence,
but Ive seen plenty of naive girls with wide eyesfall prey to the lures of their bodies,
and Ive seen cynics turned rebels
with vows of celibacy
(not that theres anyone worth doing anyway, they say)
since a definition doesnt create meaning
it just explains it.
We can find the difference
between 4 letter words
-love and lust and you know them, kids,
the ones you cant speak -
and we can say you lose it,
but honestly,
one moment doesnt rewrite a history.
I am whatever I want to be called.
VirginityJennifer Kronmiller
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Lego Love Navina VenugopalDigital Photography
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Following in His FootstepsNavina VenugopalDigital Photography
nineteen
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Words drop like
Stones
(stones)
(stones)
Through the weightless ether.
A hush of the melody, jangling softly on
Broken notes, fading imperceptibly in the distance
A perpetually decreasing Shepard Tone.
No meaning, and no end to the meaning.
One thousand ways to survive, but
Only one way to live.
Blazing pulses of superficial delight
Glaze over our eyes
The light turned off just enough, indiscernibly,
To startle when turned back on.We perceived a hopeful world, an eager road
Disappearing in the near misty distance
But that was only the light playing tricks
On our eyes.
Two chopsticks diverged in a yellow wood
And II chose both because I could.
Bent over, picking up splinter by splinter
Off the brown and red and whitened roadWhere the sand lay in swirling eddies of dreary purpose
I dusted off the pieces.
Hazy patches of shade
Reached into the road
And shaded me from the glare.
AssimilationTina Zheng
twenty
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When I was young I was young, the magnolia trees were gods.
Their branches spread wide, inviting my sister and I to play.
We were heroes and adventurers.
We were Tarzan and the branches were all the jungles in Africa.
We didnt think of Gravity, only of the wind and the white flowers.
I came back when I was older.The magnolia trees seemed less.
Not smaller or thinner, but no longer gods, and not so different from a nearby fir.
The branches look weak, and I dare not test their strength.
I know better than to climb, lest Gravity remind me that I am hers, and not the winds.
But, I can still remember the Magnolia Gods.
Perhaps dreams of adventures in jungles arent lost.
Magnolia GodsAbigail Gruchacz
twenty-one
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Egress
TylerHayes
DigitalPhotogra
phy
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Jennifer KronmillerGraphite Pencil on Paper
twenty-three
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Tall and regal
With a pompous air
Long neck poised; roses in her hair
Face to the sun; she smiles in the light
Relatives gawk; shes my mothers delight
But a gentle touch or a slight caress
Sends her to the floorfate does the rest
And then she weeps; broken; distressed
Once, a work of artNow, a mess
PorcelainErna Woyee
twenty-four
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Do you know how a pearl is made?
Ill tell you
There must be a sharp grain of sand, a pain
In the soft body of a clam
And the sand, it hurts, it burns, and so the clam
Secretes digestive fluids
To soothe the pain, coating that grain
Until the pain is healed, and the clam cannot feel it
There, is a shining bright, beautifully whitePearl
And that, my friend, is how a pearl is made
Everything toLearn fromthe Clams
Rachel Shore
twenty-five
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Horse Nina Ondona Digital Photography
twenty-six
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Pavement Matt SummersDisposable Camera
twenty-seven
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I have something for you my friend.
Some people live their entire lives searching for it,
But you, old pal, get the easy way.
Just give me your all and we have a deal.
Deal?
If you are hesitant, look around,
The rocks will tell you what theyve found,
With my help.
You see what I offer is something simple,
But very hard to get.
It is commonly called acceptance,
And well, sweetie, I have plenty.
For I do not judge the person I see,
For the person before me is rotten.
We maggots dont judge,
We just eat
And we are accepting of all fresh meat.
Grave FreedomEvan Scarborough
twenty-eight
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