Letter from the Senior Editor

hen I was a freshman, I submitted a sonnet to Rhapsody about writer’s block, the age-old subject that people struck by writer’s

block love to write about.

As a senior, I have had the pleasure of perusing countless Rhapsody submissions that prove that my peers have anything but writer’s block. The student body—a diverse group of poets, wordsmiths, painters, photographers, doodlers, and dreamers—is brimming with innovation and pulsing with creativity. Within the high school community are words worth writing, pictures worth drawing, and stories worth telling.

I hope that we never lose the urge to express ourselves, but an inordinate focus

on math and science in our nation all too often threatens to bury it. My parting wish for our high school is that we never succumb to erroneous theories about the frivolousness of the humanities. Art is always meaningful. Creativity is always valuable. Originality is always lucrative. Imagination is always important.

And if you ever find yourself plagued by writer’s block, just like I did as a ninth grader, I suggest that you crack open Rhapsody. I assure you that the remarkable talent within these pages will inspire you.

Yours truly,

Emily Zauzmer

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RHAPSODY 2014

Senior Editor Emily Zauzmer Junior Editors Amy Li

Casey Reed Writing Editor Elena Press Art Editor Alan Yang Sponsors Mrs. Kaplan

Mrs. Favin Layout Designer Emily Zauzmer Cover Artist Tovah Kaiser

General Staff

Sejung An, Anthony Aquino, Jill Axelrod, Calvin Chan, Melody Cheng, Nina Cheng,

Michael Deng, Hannah Dorsey, Gloria Han, Emily Hershgordon, Henry Hoffman,

Hannah Holbrook, Shoshi Israel, Vidula Kopli, Hannah Lamberg, Yuval Lev, Gillian

Nolan, LeeAnn Raynor, Emily Won, Jennifer Xiao, David Zeng, Richard Zhang

Upper Dublin High School | Volume XXXIX | Est. 1975

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Table of Contents Prose & Poetry

5 Anthony Aquino

Adapting or Dying

7 Anonymous Mother to Daughter

8 Lauren Goldenberg How to Tell a Girl You Love Her

10 Gillian Booth The Tree and the Birds

12 Yuval Lev A New Kind of Child Labor

14 Vidula Kopli The Atypical Stair

18 Avery Beer The Dimming Light: A Memoir

25 Elena Press

Alice Not in Wonderland

26 Thomas Henning Wolf

28 Hannah Beier The Corners of My Mind

31 Casey O’Neill The Melting Pot

32 Jillian Axelrod She Was Wrong

36 Joey Lunghi Barren

38 Jonathon DaCosta Crescendo Lines

40 Ian Snyder Life’s True Meaning

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Table of Contents Art & Photography

4 Valerie Wan

6 Molly Beegoo

9 Lina Brouse

11 Christina Fusca

13 Molly Rapine

15 Jenny Kerrigan

16 Annie Tsay Making Wings

17 Annie Tsay When Pigs Fly

19 Hannah Holbrook

20 Dana Tascarella

23 Rebecca Johnson

24 Tovah Kaiser

25 Victoria Truong

27 Emily Nhan

28 Hannah Holbrook

29 Mazzy Bell

30 Annie Tsay

33 Rebecca Johnson

37 Jonathan DaCosta

39 Komal Haque

40 Grace McInerney

41 Sue Mun

4

Valerie Wan

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ADAPTING OR DYING Anthony Aquino

I poured my emotions into the ocean.

Fish learned to cry from that poisonous potion.

Tears made tides rise. Waves hit the shore,

violently beating the land to the core.

Trees had to grow, or else they would drown.

Flooding with sadness, rain plummeted down.

Too high for flight now, birds learned to swim.

Adapting or dying, their future was grim.

I am not sorry for making them weep. I poured my emotions,

and made the world deep.

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Mol

ly B

eego

o

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MOTHER TO DAUGHTER Anonymous

Baby, I’m gonna make a toast to them six months we’ve had and to many more. I know these past months, well the last three I’d know’d you existed, were rocky, but I promise, baby, we will figure it out. We’ve left the only home we’ve ever known and our only family, too. And even though Daddy knew he was gonna be a fatha, he left us. We don’t need him and all his shit, baby, ‘cause we are stronger without him. When he comes poundin’ on the door one day, we’ll let him figure it out on his own just like we did.

My family may not like you at the minute, but that is my fault. I’ve been runnin’ my mouth and body ‘round so many times that it was bound to happen. Ya know, I do take after my momma, but I won’t let you take after me. Not in my house you won’t. Theys shouldn’t disown them own folk just because they bring a life into this world by accident. Only Carla Jay was the planned baby, an’ she crashed Daddy’s Chevy three times. They’ve heard ol’ Cal preach that life isa gift an’ isa God-awful sin to waste. I guess they never listened.

No matter how much they push I’ll pull ya closer to me. I will hold you like a cool spring day where the sun grazes the tall grass that you never want to let go. When you go out with your friends, I’ll be there waiting stick in hand ready to give ya a good beatin’. I’ll be there, waiting all night on the porch steps prayin’ that my baby comes home. If you don’t then I’ll be a crazy woman lookin’ all over town for the other half of me. Even if it takes me to my death bed.

We betta get back to the shelta instead o’ that ol’ shack called home. It’s nice to look at, but we ain’t comin’ back to nobody that don’t want us. Thems nuns we’ve been livin’ with love us just cause I chose life. Ima sorry to admit this, B, but I ain’t the perfect Christian by no means—none. But them nuns take care of me, provide us shelter, and will help us along the way. Yeah, the prayin’ and Christian shit is annoyin’, but with God as my witness, we gonna be okay. Maybe we’ll go to church, B, just you and me. I’ll get you that lil white puffy gown, and I’ll put that special water on yo forehead.

You wouldn’t notice, B, but I stopped drinking for you—actually the drink was how I got you. From now on I will replace hard cider for cider, patience for pleasure, and I promise with my whole heart that I will never stop loving you no matter what this world hurls us with. Regardless of the drinks, the boys, and the fights, there is nothin’ on God’s green earth that can get between my love for you.

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HOW TO TELL A GIRL YOU LOVE HER Lauren Goldenberg

Your girlfriend Has blonde hair. Tell her it looks like a haystack. She’ll love that. Trust me. Tell her that every time you gaze Into her beautiful green eyes That they look like poison. She’ll feel powerful. When she smiles at you Remind her that she forgot To call the dentist last week. She’ll thank you For remembering. When you hold her hand. Tell her she would make A great softball catcher And she wouldn’t need To spend money on a glove. She’ll love that you called her athletic.

Call her every night And remind her to shower Even though you love how she smells Because you’ve gotten used to it. She’ll be flattered you like her Without expensive perfume.

When your girlfriend cries, Tell her it’s not worth it. Empathy Is unnecessary in relationships. Trust me. And when she tells you she loves you, Just smile and nod. Girls like the mysterious type.

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Lina Brouse

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THE TREE AND THE BIRDS Gillian Booth

The pale bright moon started to leave the sky, And the white dove’s baby wailed out in hunger. Sound pierced out in the daylight, a sharp cry. The mother heard and flapped her wings stronger. The tree that held that small, tiny white dove Was weak and old, burdens of life pressed, Dying despite the life upon its glove. In agony, the tree let go, distressed. Now the air was filled with two darkly sounds, Tree roots releasing and an empty bird. One mother, traveling in speeding rounds, Desperation inside of her there stirred. Suddenly, two birds were in the light air, With a dead tree lying in deep despair.

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Christina Fusca

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A NEW KIND OF CHILD LABOR Yuval Lev

In 1938, when the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed, children of the United States finally got a chance to really be children, to play freely and marvel in the small wonders of the world, at least until one of their warmhearted mothers shouts, “Time for dinner!” and all the children scurry back to their respective homes for the night, never noticing the freedom they had been given. Child labor had finally been outlawed, way back in 1938. But now, in 2014, nearly 80 years later, nearly 80 years later, we have a new kind of child labor. 14, 15, 16, and 17 years old, these kids, merely subatomic particles to the great Earth that we live on, but with the hopes and dreams of this whole great big ball of life thrust upon them. “You are the future!” seemingly wise adults say. “You can make the world a better place!” But these remarks embody the expectations of an entire nation, hoping that teens will lead them away from damnation. But Atlas is dead! Replaced by a class of young adults expected to hold up the sky, but we just can’t!

We are like apples, each one of us. You can spray your pesticides and polish the skin and rub it up on your shirt as much as you want, but the inner core will always be revealed, and society has drilled into the inner core of every child today to mold from the inside-out, melding them to mesh with the most basic ideas of success. You want to succeed in life, you want to have a job, you want to support your family, you want to contribute to the world, and you want to be remembered? Well, unless you’re the greatest oboe player ever or you invented a new way to diagnose thyroid cancer, you’ve gotta get take the AP, ACT, SAT, GRE, MCAT, LSAT, and more so you can get your GED, Bachelor’s Degree, MD, PhD, all so you can “succeed.” And if you don’t then you’re a failure. Last time I checked, we aren’t really even adults, we don’t understand ourselves or the world or other people or anything! At least, I know I don’t. Many still don’t realize the desire of society to exploit each of us until we expire. And if we are made to believe that we are expected to know everything, what does that do for our self-esteem, our dreams? Everyone’s a failure by these standards, whether you like it or not. Think about the last time you went to school not just to succeed but also to learn. Maybe you were lucky enough to have that rare teacher in middle school. Maybe you happened to sign up for a writing class and you finally were able to escape this system, if only for a few brief moments. But

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really, this kind of class is so rare that it hardly ever exists. Serious students nowadays must memorize the material, ace the test, and then forget, only to cram the night before a midterm as if an entire lifetime of work was riding on an hour and a half of bubble-filling and essay-writing. And all the other students sit at their desks as if their minds are empty, chewing gum and abusing casual drugs because they weren’t even given an opportunity to begin with. “No Child Left Behind” is bullshit! No one goes to school to learn; they go to succeed and get the A because that is what is right to do, that is what is expected from you, that is what you must do. Or if they aren’t lucky enough to have that opportunity they don’t try at all. At the end of the day, we’re all still children. Live your life how you want, live out every moment to its fullest potential because it’ll never happen the same way again, and each of you knows deep down in the synapses of those bulbous brains of yours that you’re smart. Your life’s worth won’t and can’t be boiled down to one letter, one score, one test.

Molly R

apine

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ATYPICAL STAIR Vidula Kopli

Beveled stair Another beveled stair Among perfectly square stairs Fixed, ensnared By a fear of tripping unaware And a fear of receiving an awful stare But be aware of this one stair Though not rare, it is not ensnared By a fascination with affability, without a care This one stair basks with air where Other stairs would not dare To descend with flair in fear of err

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Jenny Kerrigan

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MAKING WINGS Annie Tsay

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WHEN PIGS FLY Annie Tsay

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THE DIMMING LIGHT: A MEMOIR Avery Beer

I didn’t want to know she could make herself feel that way. I wanted her to acknowledge that

the world is glass which is always prone to shattering but reconstructable with elbow grease. I didn’t want to know that there was a feeling: so strong that it could eat all passion inside and distort the eyes so there is only darkness. I didn’t want to know, but I did. I knew there was a chance that pills could perplex this evil that veined through her and that they might peak light through the clouds, but they didn’t. I didn’t want to know that the light at the end of the tunnel could lose power and extinguish the path. I didn’t want to know. But I did.

***

The aromas of hazelnut coffee and steaming chocolate chip pancakes are not wafting through

my grandmother’s embracing home this summer morning. My grandmother’s lemon-lime garden is left dull—daffodil buds refusing to percolate through parched soil. Wilting flowers lay limp in the warm summer breeze. Koi purse their lips gaping for food. Laundry piles high with sorrows and regrets, yet we sit and stare at the mess and think what could have been—what we should have done differently.

*** I trotted my tiny feet down the flattened 1970s carpet steps and checked the kitchen, hoping Grammy was whipping up pancakes. She was not. Puzzled, I sat in the living room to watch TV while I waited. I saw Grammy zooming through the house like an injured fly, finding small duties to keep her busy. Something felt strange; something felt wrong. My stomach roared as I sat at the bottom of the steps, listening as my dad’s nervous feet paced through the rooms and his hushed voice muttered “mhms.” This was unlike him to not spend every minute by my side while he visited from Las Vegas. Ever since the divorce, my time with my dad was cherished more. I went back in the living room and glanced at the clock. 10:30. Jojo’s Circus was just beginning. My dad finally forced his hesitating feet down each step. “Honey, I need to talk to you. Could you please come in the living room?” he asked with red eyes. I dragged my feet along the olive carpet, eyeing my chipped hot pink nail polish painted across my toenails. I sat down and saw Grammy across from me, staring down the box of tissues resting in her lap. The firm linen couch in Grammy’s crisp living room supported my trembling knees, sheathed by cotton pajamas. I inhaled confusion, wondering why my dad placed his large, thick-veined hand on mine. Grammy’s usually puffed rosebud cheeks sagged as her hazel eyes teared. The July sunshine

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peaked through the royal blue and teal sea-glass shards aligned across the shelves by the window. Bloodshot, clouded eyes rimmed with sorrow and shelter gazed at me. “I need to tell you something,” my dad said, exhaling the last grip of control. “Your mom has been very sick and this morning she went to heaven.”

I felt trapped in a gas chamber, unable to breathe or see the world around me. Innocence and ignorance escaped my tear ducts.

***

The world was gray and soundless, but in the midst of silence I heard my aunt’s key twist behind the white door. She burst the door open as her bangles shifted and clanked down her arms. I felt a strong embrace as her Pantene hair tickled my dried face. That week, tissue packages were shoved in my face and casseroles and cakes crowded the counter. The world still moved around us, but life paused in the 1970s stone and robin’s-egg-blue home. The world was as blurred as my melted vision. I felt selfish for caring about irrelevant things like dolls and the luxury pancakes I had wanted to devour that morning. My sheltered world was wide open, like a message-in-a-bottle that has been popped, bursting its hidden contents into the world. Her arms would never embrace me, except in spirit. I could no longer touch her freckled soft skin or cradle her lean, working hands. Her shoulder-length auburn locks now only remained wrapped in the bristles of her hairbrush. I shut out most who came into my presence. I laid on the upholstered couch in the family room and let my restless and rattled self sob. “Just eat something; I’m worried,” my grandmother mumbled from across the corners of the living room, offering a tin of pretzels. How could I digest something tasteful when my body felt bland? My cheerful pupils and bouncy pigtails were now lost beneath the heavy bags under my dried-out eyes and tangled in the ragged knots within my unwashed hair. A few days later, the funeral occurred and I grew weary of hearing “I’m so sorry for your loss” or “I can’t even imagine.” Voicemails and emails crowded our electronics. Letters and grief cards spilled through the mailbox. So many people came forth in our lives, but all we wanted was one.

Hannah Holbrook

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D

ana

Tas

care

lla

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We had lost a mother, a daughter, an aunt, a friend, a sister, and a coworker. We gained a hole in our hearts. My bones were visible through my pale skin, unexposed to the sun and food. The clothes on my back were the shirts and shorts that had remained in the back of my closet. I had insomnia for many unsettled and confused nights; I was lonely. I lay awake staring at the blank ceiling, envisioning my mother’s arched eyebrows signaling to go to sleep. I missed my mom’s medium, square crimson nails trailing along the smalls of my back as my hazel eyes drifted into dreams. I hated that fact that all she “is” would be a “was,” and nothing could change that or bring her back. The summers used to bring happiness, a time to activate my imagination and play with its potentials. I used to be a safari explorer, traveling the world in just the small corners of Grammy’s backyard. I used to climb trees, examining every insect that landed beside my golden legs, tangled between the branches. But this summer was different. This summer was life-pondering and lazy hammock days, laying for hours next to the pond. As the grieving summer passed, I continued through my elementary school years. There was no show-and-tell, field day, Monday morning, or waking moment when I did not reminisce about the days when my mother was present with me, caressing my heart-shaped youthful face. I missed the morning car rides to school when Mom blasted the classics of John Mayer and stopped at Wawa. She used to dance while she fixed her coffee, yelling “AM I EMBARRASING YOU YET?” I never appreciated that zest for life until it was gone.

The families of those in my classes mainly contained both parents to support them, both to go to soccer games, and both to tuck them in at night. My dad was the mommy and the daddy: the dynamic duo. He dropped off forgotten peanut butter and jellies, put my choppy hair in a ponytail, and gave me the life advice I needed to conquer the third grade. Dad was the “soccer mom,” but instead of the minivan, he sported the BMW. During Mother’s Day, everyone else in the class addressed their cards to their mother, and I made mine for my aunts and grandmothers. The feeling is ineffable. The “not applicable” or “deceased” that was scribbled in my dad’s illegible handwriting on the lines where it asked for a mother’s contact information were the most excruciating words I had to see. At the Girl Scout’s mother-daughter teas, my aunt would accompany me. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate all the empowering women in my life, but the relationship between a mother and daughter is unlike any other. Mom would not be sitting on my bed when I returned from my first date, waiting to hear how it went. Mom would not give me the “girl-talk” and teach me how to apply makeup. Mom would not be there for my elementary school, middle school, high school, or college graduations. Mom would not tap discreetly on my door with chocolates and a movie to cheer me up after my first heartbreak. Mom would not crowd through the lenses of other parents’ cameras before prom, trying to snap the perfect picture. Mom would not be the first phone call after I get engaged or the second set of teary eyes I would make contact with while walking down the aisle. The facts were facts: that is a mother’s duty, and there would always be a missing spot. When my teachers would ask about Mommy, my shoulders got tight and my awkward eyes wandered. I did not want to scare anyone away. I did not want to be the girl that anyone pitied. I wanted an equal chance at everything in life.

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I have always felt that I have been exposed to life more than the rest of the kids my age. Maturity was my middle name. As the elementary school years passed and I grew older, the clothes that my dad bought me were not ideal for a sixth grade girl. Middle school was a time for discovery. The standard middle school juvenility was seen through my Abercrombie jeans and experimentation with bright, sparkly lipgloss. Middle school also brought truths. As I got older, I started to question how my mom died. I had been told that she died in her sleep, but I finally realized I was being protected, and I wanted to ask about the truth.

My royal blue fingernails spooned Apple Jacks into my mouth as I sat pretzel style on the taupe couch in the family room. I was ready. “Dad, I need to ask you something,” I said with every ounce of courage I contained. He muted the television and sat up on the other couch. “What’s up?” “Dad, I think I am old enough to know the truth. How did Mommy really pass away?” Gazing into my blue-shadowed eyes he sighed, “Well, sweetie pie, I have been waiting to tell you until you asked. She was depressed for a long time. She took medicine, but it just didn’t work, and she became worse. Her depression took over, and she was in so much pain that she decided to take her own life. I want you to know how much she loved you, though. We all tried to help her, but sometimes the chemistry in your body gets really messed up, and there is nothing anyone can do.”

I had been puzzled before this because physically, she was fine. The eyes do not know what they

do not see, and the wounds that cannot be cured with Band-Aids or stitches are sometimes the hardest to fix. It is one of the worst feelings to know that the person who gave you life could not bare the pain and sorrow just to be there to cherish it with you. I wish I could have understood and given her what medicine could not. Now I am in my teenage years, also more famous for being the toughest and best at the same time, and I am still pondering how that could be. One day I am ecstatic, and the next I start considering how I manage to keep it together. Maybe that is something a mom could have answered. People ask me why I smile all the time—why I am always happy. I am human; I am not always happy, but here is why I don’t give up: I smile for my mother. I smile for my father, friends, family, and the people who cannot even force the slightest smirk. I know that although I am only one, I have so much potential, and I refuse to waste my time on Earth being miserable. Still, my grip on innocence was snatched when I was seven years old. I wish that the light at the end of the tunnel always glistened for everyone. I didn’t want to know that this light could ebb. I didn’t want to know, but I do. So hold on to that light; give it warmth and attention. Recognize its radiance, beauty, and power because at any moment it could perish.

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Rebecca Johnson

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Tov

ah K

aise

r

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Victoria Truong

AL

ICE

NO

T I

N W

ON

DE

RL

AN

D

Ele

na P

ress

I think the rat-a-tat-tat of the jittery cat Is a one that I can’t ignore The sound blares off the slat And into the vat of taunting, perpetual roar. On this versus that, or how could a cat Be so conspicuous as to force me Into the scope of my brain A foreboding terrain While the sly little cat continues to tippity-tap And the tea cools ever longer

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WOLF Thomas Henning

The sun stabbed through the clouds, radiating sharply through the gaps between them. The light hit the ground in small, scattered strips, a rod against the gloom. The heavy, damp air hung like a cloak over him. Pulling his hood to block the wind from crossing his face, Jordan side-stepped the large puddle that spanned the gravel path in front of him. There were no sounds—none other than his own footsteps. Jordan always walked home alone. Every day he made this solitary trip from school. Down Rittle Avenue. Take a left at the second stop sign with the small orange sticker in the center. Cut through the blue house with the gate that never closes properly. Get on the pebble park path. Take it until you reach the third swing set, the one that’s missing a swing, then turn right to go towards the small bridge that crosses the creek. Follow the path, and there you are. Jordan had memorized every detail of his walk. When you walk alone there really isn’t anything else to do. He often wondered why he bothered—it wasn’t as if there would ever come a time when he would have to describe it to someone. And it wasn’t as if the place he went to was home. No home existed for him, not here and not anywhere else. Jordan’s hadn’t had a home since he was 13. It was four years ago, but after that, nothing since had mattered. Jordan was alone, abandoned. He was just a loner, a wolf without a pack. And no one cares about those who walk alone.

With these thoughts, he continued his solitary hike. Moving closer to the place he once called home that was now just a wormhole of bad memories. Down Rittle Avenue. Take a left at the second stop sign with the small orange sticker in the center. Cut through the blue house with the gate that never closes properly. What does it matter—there was nothing there anyway. There never is for loners like Jordan. There is no haven for those aimless souls, nothing except the inevitability of fading from the consciousness of all those who once knew them.

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Emily Nhan

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THE CORNERS OF MY MIND Hannah Beier

The corners of my mind

Dark and lonely Yet decadent, fulfilling

The warmth of a familiar comfort Lulling me to sleep

Where I pull the covers over my head Tucking thoughts amongst the sheets

Putting the issues to bed As the corners of my mind

Proceed to close in

Han

nah

Hol

broo

k

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Mazzy B

ell

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Annie Tsay

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THE MELTING POT Casey O’Neill

Heat, season, stir the ever-melting pot The many flavors will thicken this sweet broth

But do mind your tongue, for it may be quite hot Add sugar here, salt there

And whatever else you’ve got But wait, hold your ladle still

Don’t tell me you forgot These flavors don’t go

For the people don’t wish to taste what they are not

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SHE WAS WRONG Jillian Axelrod

"A moment of silence please for Josiah, a graduate of our high school who passed away this morning due to unknown causes,” the principal’s voice crackled over the intercom speaker as we stood in room 132. My eyes were squeezed shut. Before the moment was over, the bustle of the class resumed, silence broken as students rushed to pack up their bags and gossip about the latest freshman-senior scandal.

It wasn’t fair. Who were they to decide how much of a moment Josiah deserved? After

all, how long is a moment anyway? I sat down slowly as the classroom emptied out, my heart sinking. My mood was brought down six notches from joyous to somber as I mechanically placed my pencils in my bag. My friend was waiting for me to walk with her to last period, so I blinked ten times to shake the tears, thanked the teacher, and caught up with her.

“Jeez, what took you so long?” she asked.

“Sorry. I don’t know, Hope. I’m just shaken up.”

“About what?”

About what? I thought. Seriously?

“Well, the news that Mr. Bennett told us over the speaker.”

“Oh yeah, that sucks. Pretty sad shit,” she deadpanned.

We walked on in silence. She didn’t understand.

“Rebecca,” she started. “Why are you so upset? You never knew that guy; you never even heard of him. It’s no use letting news like that ruin your day. If you let every little bad thing in the world make you so upset, you won’t be able to accomplish anything.”

Maybe she’s right, I thought. If I let every single depressing detail of the world get to me, then how can I ever be productive in life? She interrupted my thoughts.

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Rebecca Johnson

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“After all, I would never think like that,” she continued. “When I hear bad news, I don’t get upset. I always channel that into being productive in some way or another. I automatically think of a way to make things better. Things just don’t get to me emotionally. Being sad won’t get you anywhere.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I paused. “Maybe that’s true.”

“See? I told you. God, I would hate to have your mind!”

And with that, she was off in a blur of equations and stoic expressions, heading towards math class, unscathed and unbothered. I, on the other hand, had heat radiating from my being. I tried to make myself agree with what she had said, but there was something holding me back.

My friend is one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met. I refused to believe that she could have been so wrong about something so monumental. I convinced myself that I needed to change the way I felt, the way I thought, the way my heart thumped against my chest, amplified by the thoughts in my mind. It took days of deadpanning and stoic expressions for me to finally realize that she was wrong.

She. Was. Wrong. The words sounded strange to me, even in my own mind. I’m one of those people. Yes, I’m the one who bawls at every movie and whose paperback

pages are stained with tears. I feel and I feel and I feel and I feel at every chance I get. I walk down the city streets clogged with hundreds of people and only notice the homeless. I mourn the loss of men I never knew. When I see a puffy-eyed face trying to hide in a classroom, I grab her arm and bring her to safety.

She was right about something: feeling isn’t always productive. But the truth of the matter is feeling is life. Life is crying and laughing, choking on tears of joy or sorrow. That dismal day in school I scorned my own mind, thinking it a curse that my shoulders, by nature, seek to carry the burdens of every living being in this world. Now I realize that to have my mind

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is a blessing. I would rather feel the highest of highs and the lowest of lows than not feel anything at all.

That feeling has become second nature to me, the pressure building in my throat and the tear ducts quivering behind my eyes. She doesn’t know what this is; she lives in a world of order and productivity and dreams. I wish she would come back to the real world sometimes. What we have here on this earth is far more beautiful, far more ugly than anything we could invent. It’s right here, right in front of her closed eyes, and it’s not the sunset or the rain or the stars. What we have here is living, breathing, begging her to look its way and feel something. Anything. It’s the sadness in the world around us; it’s the starving men and women. It’s the beautiful, feathered singers that spread their peacock dresses in the night. It’s the ones that bring the world hope with smiles and words—I promise they cried over deaths of those they never knew.

Hope, I wonder if you’ll come down sometime. I know you. You don’t feel in the real

world; you dream. You dream of exquisite tablecloths and splendorous lifestyles, France in the spring and marvelous escapades. Here you scrawl plans in your notebook; you have it all figured out. Your life stretches before you like a shimmering red carpet. I know you. You’ll stay smart and succeed, you’ll be loved, and you’ll kiss back. You will plan and plan and go to France and be exquisite and write about mosaic skylines, and you will cry silently under your duvet one night because you never let yourself learn how to feel.

I would hate to have a mind so numb that it shuns the stinging wounds of this world, a

mind so numb to the incessant aching of life. I am adding you to the miles-long list of people that I will hope for, cry for, and love. Maybe someday, you’ll finally understand why my heart sunk for a certain Josiah’s death. And maybe that day, you’ll finally understand why my mind is a blessing.

But until that day, enjoy your dreams of grandeur, and I will treasure the blessing of this

life.

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BARREN

Joey Lunghi

The land was barren Broken and beyond repair The desolation from its isolation created nothing but Despair The sand was arid To the point of extinction Its crust continuously cracked like it had an Addiction The sky was blanketed By a darkening dust Drowning the occasional tree into a hollowed out Husk The bodies were ashen Colorless and void Implying there had once been a time when nothing was Destroyed The land was barren Silent and widespread All that was left in the wasteland was Dead

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Jonathan DaCosta

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CRESCENDO LINES Jonathan DaCosta

The christened dynamo box sits in the corner of room 443 and glows with slack-jawed apparel. It swirls in an abyss like romance, and in some part of my mind I want go outside and make the world a better place.

Car lights zipping towards the moonlight out of self-pity for a wild group of loins.

Church bells ringing on people’s cell phones as a reminder to call their grandparents.

Opera singers eating raw strips of zucchini in an effort to support their cause to legally sing with baby dolphins.

1920s newspaper boy time traveler coming to warn everyone about Nooks®.

Cats protest to stop African poachers from hurting their ancestral brethren.

Dictionaries rebel against their printers to try and get “selfie” out of their skin.

A boy sells his soul to the devil for more swag and gets a new pair of Jordans every week.

President gets replaced with a pile of grape fruits, while the war in the Middle East gets renamed the War on Terr-able Fruits.

Scientists successfully combine a human toe and a cat together and call it a “toecat.”

TV cartoons cower every time they hear the old saying “Every. Villain. Is. Lemons.”

I walk along the moving sidewalk and think swirls of these things, along with green, purple, and blue, while households climb onto the branches nearby and beg Santa to come drop presents into their chimneys. I look to my right and see people gathered around a storm drain, trying to communicate with the mole people or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I’m at a loss for words now; I think I lost them when I turned that street before the other street. They’re probably hiding in my dictionary back at home. At some point in time—or outside of time—I get home and search for my bed among room 443, then I find it, and I finally wake up.

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Kom

al Haque

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LIFE’S TRUE MEANING Ian Snyder

If I were everything If everything were real If dreams really do come true If I’d wonder how I’d feel If the sky were the limit If beyond the stars I’d see If I’d have a happy ending If that’d be enough for me

If I found life’s true meaning I If it’s revealed at last

If once I see what’s happened If I’d regret the past

If ignorance is bliss

If I knew what I could be If I’d end up just the same If that’d be enough for me

Grace McInerney

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Sue Mun

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