Issue 32
Fall 2023-24
Art by Ryan Eom ‘21
Ode to Loyalty
Mona Lisa
Hoarder Tendencies
the poem must be 50 lines long.
there must be a red, yellow, blue, and brown bird.
Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo
Family
In Tender Water
My Mother Does Her Makeup
Friends
Home
I learned at sixteen that it takes jet lag, losing earbuds for an hour, and a lonely night to kill me.
A Silent Letter
Ode to Loyalty
There is something
primitive about loyalty
that is coded in my
genetic makeup
showing its face
from my earliest memory
in Beijing watching
the Olympics when
Sweden loses
a major event that left
me tasting salt as
tears dripped onto
my jersey of blue and yellow
an inexplicable loyalty
to a country I barely knew
at three years old yet
the same loyalty blazes
for my last name
and my family and cats
never earned but always given.
Now I realize
loyalty has different faces
especially when I leave
the home where love
is unconditional and
venture into a world
full of mercenaries
so I search for a loyalty
not bound by blood
but is earned and sealed
with a silent oath whose
warmth thaws any
discontent in my heart
like a lit fireplace
softening the stiffness
of my fingers
in the middle of winter.
For loyalty I can be
a shotgun unafraid
to ruin the slumber of
a sleeping town
or a comedy movie
unashamed to provoke
eye rolls and laughter
because the loyalty in me argues
“a friend to all
is a friend to none”
so my loved ones who
has my allegiance
they give me
strength
in the crevices of
my heart
together building
loyalty’s lasting legacy
Poetry by Emily Hellqvist ’24
Art by Katie Yang ’25
Poetry By Remy Lee ’26
Photo By Pete Assakul ’18
Mona Lisa
I hold in my palm a photo
Squarish and dull with fading margins
There you’re sat
Cross-legged besides an aged oak trunk
Rustling leaves and tousled hair
Lovely as ever
A dove in
Orange and yellow plumages,
A wondrous shower
Holding you in my palm,
Still you are lovely as ever.
From outside the frame
My eyes are sodden with tears
Salt so strong that it stings
Strumming my pain with your fingers
Your eyes return my gaze—
Still and lazy,
But lovely, lovely as ever..
Mulling the burn,
I turn up the ISO
Grains spreading over your smiles
Dots eating away at your eyes
Like smallpox on midsummer’s night,
Feverish.
Finally
You are faded on a sea of dimming stars,
Become one of them
To die an explosion,
A wondrous display,
shards swooping space in escape
delivering the kill shot
Hoarder Tendencies
Poetry by Grace Gordon ‘24
There is a nest in my head
made of grassy spindles of time
home to none
but a crow with a bad eye
blind to shiny pennies and gold
but keen to dust
to dirt
coughing out a predilection
for duned piles
how long
have you been sinking a hoarse
talon into my memories stacked
like layered bloomed yellow pages
grayed garden eulogy
to a book never read
but that book was a gift
for my 12th birthday
so it must be sacred
to my ragged old bird
Grandfathered in by a yellow eye
scanning frantic
around a graveyard
with promises of
not forgetting to remember
the gentleness
of a day when she
was before she was
perched on the mantle
guarding a salad of birthday cards
in colors faded to all but that yellow eye
frantic among the waste
stuCng old newspapers
behind pillows
Feverishly grasping at a
house of blurry black and whites
taken with a girl whose
name I forgot
but the crow remembers
the warmth of that day
May seven years ago
it kept the socks
with holes on the heel
because pink was my favorite
peeking out the backs of sneakers
too small now for my feet
so small I alone cannot see them.
Art by Sophia Piao ‘25
Art by Emily Grimm ‘25
red bird:
my dearest first
we flocked and flapped our wings
until you made me burst
further feathers fell
kindred kisses swell
your beak puckered when i fluttered through hell
we birdbrains blind to our bird tails’ tales
you yearned for my womb
to fill your holy grails
six and two more and i eschewed lores
red bird you taught me how to fly on all fours
you only just rose from the roost
fresh off the boat
off with a partridge
i pray you stay afloat
yellow bird:
my nest’s next
gray on the sides but ripe in the flesh
when wits wander
your bits squander
pockets rarely empty
and your wrists far yonder
fearless chirps i worship and thirst to echo
scriptures i preach during your recitals
we frolicked round trunks
guffawed among saplings
but never mimicked the nightingale’s song
as much as we were darlings
yellow bird you taught me to soar in the sky
though your cassowary grows
i pray you fly concerto high
the poem must be 50 lines long.
there must be a red, yellow, blue,
and brown bird.
Poetry by Quisha Lee ’24
Photo by William Yee ’25
blue bird:
spring’s fleeting fling
even i had no clue
as to when the egg first cracked
flare your flaunting feathers and i fall to your endeavors
blow your wings blue and blew your beard flow
i mistook you as bluebeard for your flight was not low
flaps per second all too brief
camouflaged among magpies perched with kiwis
your chirps not brill but you nest with skill
sometimes your mating calls
allure the lone brown bird
we bipedal in claws until one of us falls
until the sun prods through our treetop guards
blue bird you taught me the sincerity of parlies
we met geese cross stitched and migrating ducks fleeing
blue bird brown bird owls after dusk
i pray your song lasts
Photo by Jami Huang ‘25
Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo
Soundtrack: Sergei Rachmaninov, The Isle of the Dead
Prose by Gibson Werner ‘24
Photo by Maddie Lykouretzos ‘23
Excerpt from Canto II → Poultry
We stepped through the door marked “Poultry,” and were immediately met by a wall of overwhelming stench. Peering in, I could see even more hulking steel structures. This time, however, I knew instinctively that they were cages. Rows and rows of cages. Filled with humans.
Inside the cages, hundreds of people stood packed together like sardines in a tin [1]. They were so tightly squeezed in that even small shifts in position were nearly impossible to maneuver. There was no food, nor was there water in their cages. The only thing there besides the humans and their oppressive stench was a fine layer of wood shavings. The shavings, however, did little to mitigate the fetor, and even less to absorb the tears that flowed freely.
As my guide and I walked through the rows, many in the cages gazed at us pleadingly, wordlessly begging to be set free. We continued to walk, and as the end of the row grew near, I spotted a wide, empty space. “Mr. Carter,” I said, “What is this arena? Is it used so that the humans can stretch their legs a little?”
“Unfortunately for them, it isn’t. This is not a place for freedom or open spaces, this is for judgment” he replied. His tone was slightly ominous, yet I allowed my gaze to follow his as he raised his sights from the arena floor up to the ceiling. As I did, I first saw their heads. Heads, then shoulders, knees, then toes. Humans, hundreds of them, hung from the ceiling, unrecognizable bodies [2] swaying as they struggled to escape their predicament [3].
Next to the arena were a few rows of bleachers, where I followed Mr. Carter, and managed to sit down while not losing my line of sight to the arena. Just then, an imposing figure, what looked like a chicken, rounded a corner from behind a row of cages, and made its way into the arena. The chicken meandered below the strung up humans, reaching up to touch their bodies one by one. I watched in bewildered awe as the bird ran its wings up and down their anatomy. Sometimes a peck, other times a squeeze as the chicken quietly, but intently, examined every one. The chicken stepped back and seemed to ponder for a moment, then pointed to three particularly sturdy specimens [4]. It left the arena with a satisfied air, leaving the humans to dangle.
[1] Normally, when showing broiler hens, each owner keeps all of their birds in the same cage. It is much better for egg-laying hens, or ‘fancy chickens,’ who normally get a cage to themselves.
[2] “And he to me ‘You muster an empty thought. / The undiscerning life that made them foul / now makes them hard to recognize’ (Canto VII, p. 133, Dante).”
[3] While showing broiler hens, exhibitors hold birds upside-down by their feet to be judged.
[4] Egg layers, sometimes referred to as “fancy chickens” are shown in a different category that broilers are shown in typical stock shows. Fancy chickens are used only for their eggs (although there are some rare exceptions to that rule, for example, the silkie chicken is considered a delicacy in some parts of Asia), and broilers are used for meat. While broilers are shown, a judge moves around the arena, feeling the breasts of each chicken, and once the best three chickens are found, they are sold. In this instance, the hanging humans represent the broiler hens that they brought to the stock show.
Family
What does it mean to be family?
Is it blood, thick and dense? Weighted?
Or is it a bird flying free through the air?
Relieved?
Could it mean to sacrifice?
To love so truly and deeply you risk a bursted
heart?
To be a tree? A strong formidable oak forced
to shed
Its leaves, left bare and feeble in order to
survive?
To let your dreams fade so that others may
shine
like the Stars?
Maybe it is to balance?
To dance upon a tightrope knowing you
might fall?
For there to be love, light, and laughter
As well as detest, darkness, and despair?
To be within a fingertip of the Moon
And yet, feel universes away?
Or is it to be vulnerable?
To throw yourself into the abyss
With only stone cushioning your fall?
Whatever the answer may be,
There is one certainty.
Like something carved into stone,
Family forever defines.
Poetry By Lily Yawand-Wossen ’24
Photo By CHAP (Dear)
In Tender Water
Poetry By Richard Lu ’24
Photo By Matthew Weinstein ’20
a river flows through all
–that loves;
loved those who live and it
hurts so bad as it ((they ((we
inhale to never
let go. and the river doesn’t
have treasure,
only exes that mark a
colonized body, bruised by
birth into a bloodied
blue. expand and learn from the mother.
leak into a cobalt sky.
the river is a pioneer.
trailblazer–
smothered stream
smooths edges off rocks.
robbing banks of their memory;
iron, zinc, and copper.
violent affection washes away
itself as it tears
up from the earth and
attempts to fly.
and the river reaches toward rain
only to drown in
the pitter-patter. could we ebb
tender water
and let the tranquility
ripple through
our body?
if only we could
breathe in
–exhale.
Photo by Jami Huang ‘25
My mother does her makeup as I brush my teeth over the sink beside her. The bathroom is large. Large enough for her to see her pores in the mirror, enough for me to slide across the tiles in my socks without hitting my heels on the legs of her chair. Large enough for her to look small, small enough for my thoughts to jut from the walls. I wonder if she ever feels insecure. When she dabs the concealer underneath her eyes, if she ever feels like she’s pretty. If she scolds the mirror when her body doesn’t look right and tucks in her stomach when she’s standing in the shower. I wonder if she feels young, if she recalls her first kiss. If she feels like she’s still growing up, like she still cries to her mom. I wonder if she ate lunch alone in highschool, if her coworkers snicker when she walks through the door. I wonder if she ever feels lonely, like everybody hates her or laughs at her on the days when she likes what she’s wearing. I wonder if she feels con<dent and sexy, or if those feelings stop at a certain age. I wonder if she feels any of these things at all. I feel like she might, and I hope that she doesn’t. She feels like someone I never got to know; someone who’s name was passed around in a game of telephone with me on the sidelines. She feels mortal, beat, and fresh like a daisy. She feels like a frame, and I’m starting to feel old.
My Mother Does
Her Makeup
Prose by Sam Rodrigue ‘25
Art by Albert Chen ‘26
These feelings are fleeting, and my wonders run out. She turns her cheeks before giving up with a sigh. She gets up off the chair and says we’re leaving in five. My sisters walk in and take their brushes from the drawer. But there is something so much more peculiar about it all when I never quite realized that my mother does her makeup, too.
Poetry by Ava Frankel ‘24
Photo by Quisha Lee ‘24
Friends
Sometimes, you lose everything for nothing
You find yourself drowning in possibilities
If only I didn’t do this, if only…
You beat your instincts to a pulp
hoping that out of the ashes a rose will bloom
You look to the translucent hands of fate
praying they can smooth your deformities
gliding over your skin as with a clay pot
You suddenly notice barriers around your soul
When did they grow so tall?
The calculations stew in your mind,
is it better to have loved and lost
when the loss leaves scars?
You once had it all
presiding over a glittering house of cards
but now you’ve lost me
You attempted to guard your secrets
beneath the distrust on your face
pasted sloppily across your smile
by a new species of fear
You started to build anew
despite the emptiness gnawing way to your core
You started to race against the day
on which the darkness would consume you.
But then
there was
only light.
We both lost everything for nothing
We both drowned in possibilities
If only we didn’t do this, if only…
We both beat our instincts to a pulp
and watched a rose bloom out of ashes
We both looked to the hands of fate
to smooth our deformities as with a clay pot
We both trapped ourselves behind the barriers
When did they begin to crumble?
We both loved, we both lost
We both paid the ultimate cost
Now, but again, are we friends?
Home
Strawberries and
salty air. We sit, eating pineapples
on the beach, shoving raspberries into our mouths.
She is like the pacific ocean. The big, blueberry colored ocean
deep and fascinating. It feels like home. Home, where I eat mango.
Ripe, juicy, yellow mango which my dad chopped like he does every day.
Where my mom eats cherries, her favorite, where my dog takes whatever we
Don’t eat. Kiwi sit next to the mangoes. I love kiwi, juicy, green, tart yet sweet.
Home, where my cat eagerly eats my clementines, those small, orange, yet filling
clementines. I push him away tenderly. But then, I turn, and I’m not home.
I’m on the beach with a person I love, eating strawberries, yes,
at a place that I love, where it feels like home, where I have
so many good and bad memories and coconuts
and dragonfruit. It feels like home but
feeling like home is different from
being home, isn’t it?
Art by Isabella Deng ‘21
I learned at sixteen
it takes
jet lag,
that
losing earbuds for an hour,
and a lonely night to kill me.
I turned sixteen three weeks, six days, and two Zelda blood moons ago.
I asked for banana bread as my birthday dinner because it was an empty August evening
and
I still somehow had summer reading to do.
My childhood friends started their junior year of high school the day before
And for the first time, I spent the special day alone.
Even for my birthday, I felt rushed through the occasion because
Just like that, it was over. I was no longer Golden Birthday Olivia turning sixteen on the
sixteenth, just normal Olivia, boring Olivia who likes to listen to music by herself for a
whole weekend, classic Olivia who still keeps her ex-boyfriend’s cactus alive, just, you know,
slightly older.
On the same day, my friend told me a theory about how, technically, when you’re one,
you’ve already lived a full year so when you ‘turn one’, you’re starting what is technically
your first year of being two.
And by that logic, I’m three weeks, six days, and two Zelda blood moons into being
seventeen.
And the only upside of being seventeen is connecting with Dancing Queen, but the next
time my birthday rolls around, I will begin my eighteenth year of living on this earth.
By eighteen, I am legally an adult
I can get a tattoo of a Siamese cat by myself, I can get a car, buy a house
I can get married without parental consent, if I’m in love.
I can go clubbing back at home with friends, finally, after ghosting them when they tell me
a fake ID only costs sixty dollars to make.
And by eighteen, I can vote for presidents who decide whether or not I can get an abortion
And as someone who wants to have that choice later in life, in case I am not in the position
to be a mother that eight-year-old me would love,
It matters which old man lives in that White House.
At eighteen I can change my name, adopt a child, move out
And did you know that at eighteen I can draft my own will? On my eighteenth birthday, I
could already be preparing for my last one.
But I’m not eighteen,
Nor am I technically seventeen yet either,
just sweet sixteen, the age you can give your friends rides to school, and the age of consent,
though I don’t plan on giving out either of those anytime soon.
I’m not quite an adult, but why does it feel like that’s all my life is for?
Preparing for the occasion when I’m thrown into this world without warning
And feeling as though I am always trekking behind.
I shout at every waking atom in the atmosphere to freeze in its place,
Sixteen, how do you do it?
Sixteen, is there a clear answer?
Sixteen, I don’t know where to begin.
A
Silent
Letter
Poetry by Lucas Juneja ’26
Art by Shaivi Golyan ’23
Sophistication has lead us to new inception
The passing of our knowledge from kin, to the next,
Entangled in society’s complexities and leverage
Freedom is lost, at the cost of morality’s election
Bright conceptions, not enough, to uphold all our lessons
Mistakes garner more attention than succession
A war on two fronts but only one is in sight,
Deception.
Toxic fumes confront reality so casually ignored
Competition in the heights, selfishness consumes the soul
Onto the next, which card your dealt decides who goes forward
And then to count on promises that
are out of your control
Good decisions put good people in bad positions
The floor is different, mercury spinning, to some uplifting
They laugh and mock because it’s never ending
But nothing’s different
Peek over our world’s ridges
Come as one and we can truly make something different
Again.
Art by Ryan Eom ‘21
Love and Divinity
“I’ll remain where I’ve stayed, among homes whose roofs raised me, upheld aching canopies”
I think of places I’ve left, when I believed I was old, knowing no strife but the chimes of Sunday’s dawn
“I’ll miss the exile I found in him, praying for our shared Earth, as his name was company enough”
I feel empty of her now, a hymn who exploited life, whose echoes long left a church I fled changing
“I’ll live by the bridge now, far from faithful to life, for I’ve just faith in me to prolong waning girlhood”
I love who I would’ve become if I still held those not ill by accident, not drowned by aging niagara
“I'll cry for god’s bells who allow my lapsing, tolling mind, who hear solemn time atoned by naïveté”
I regret who I am, having left places I miss, praying for heart in she who lasts to please remember me
“I’ll rename children his name, one that scared away solitude, who will rename old friends’ names too”
I often imagine how much pain we might’ve left unfelt if I’d stayed and hummed those bells’ chaste notes
“I wonder what I’d know if he didn’t cross rivers who divide divine memory, but deluded age like me”
So I returned to emptied pews, by our simple church for a final time to watch oakwoods grow in forlornity
“From the steeple’s belfry I spot a good canopy who shades walking people who avoid a river dim”
An elder oak missorted rosebuds and hell’s bleeding thorns, vexed green by nature’s hurried reprise
“Snowed upon, nearby his tombstone, the priest at the frozen lectern pardons my waxing grief for him”
At the wake of my broken self, awash by her flooding psalm, we are dying prisms who refract timeless loss
“With age my grief for him surpasses our old oak, as I cross the drying river he traversed years before”
I hear her apology for growth; a sullen anthem for wide-eyed attrition and too little valor not to change
“Yet in my wistful side of my wilting pain, come my death with his in the belfry, I know he heard tolls in his boyhood, too, fading names in the river, our union by the covered bridge as eternal as desired youth.”
Prose by Benjamin Herdeg ’23
Photo by Quisha Lee ’24