Photography by Jacob Marre

The Fourth Floor: the Jones College Prep Literary Magazine

Volume 3, 2017 – 2018

Lead Editors
Sophie Keller
Olivia Landgraff

Editors

Henry Brennan
Lucy Cowden
Samuel Harris-Watts
Jessica Horwitch
Adrienne Korey
Ava Norman
Greta Olson
Thomas Sheppard
Olivia Stephani
Emily Valdez

Artists

Faith Lasley (Front Cover)

Colette Therieau (Back Cover)
 I kill an ant
and realize my three children
have been watching.

- Kato Shuson
 Untitled
Eleanor Griffith

I want the world:

I´m moving too fast

I´m racing and I need to
Stop because

I want to trace the colors in the sky

Where pink fades to orange
And blue to purple
I want to pinch the clouds
Sickeningly sweet, I want to pluck them
Cotton candy
I want to sink through water
Touch the floor of the ocean
Breathe: submerged

And I want to be by myself

I want the sky and the clouds and the ocean and everything under the sun all for me
And for you maybe
But you´d need to be somewhere far away
I can love you better like that

I´m learning to live

Selfishly, thank god
 fold/unfold
rachel dohner
I folded in at thirteen.
That’s where it always starts, isn’t it?
The cusp of teenage years and self discovery-destruction fit together like sweaty hands. I
always wondered when it would hit,
adolescence, I mean, maybe
it was the moment i breathed inside out, folded into ironing board, knees grazing chin,

It started with a dream. Garage roof warmed with the girl from pre-Algebra, our hands held
like teenage years meets self discovery, but sweeter,
waking up was falling down.
Off that roof, and I had never thought of girls like that, like that, but there were our hands fit
together, fit together, folded together––
I tried to decode my subconscious. Write it off as odd neurons firing, fold it up
with justifications,
Fold in with curtained eyes, it is so easy to feel
complete at thirteen, and
prodding that premade identity is like pulling a hangnail;
there is always stinging. It is so easy to not
question yourself.

It’s been five years and I’ve unfolded. Rolled back

over myself, expanding, I try to be a telephone poster flapping in the wind.
There, always there,
for everyone to see, an unchangeable force taped down, weather resistant in some unknowable
way, open and asking for response, but
there are still creases. Whisper ridges of how I used to compact, swallow myself, breathe
backwards,
I want to be an armchair.
Or a fresh sheet of college-ruled, paper thin and powdered white, I want to be
something that cannot reduce itself. Something
that cannot shrink down when I have to explain to someone how I love girls, or why, I
want to be platinum,
as solid as I feel when we can talk about girls and laugh because it is so normal,
I want to be something that cannot be melted down easily because
when I have to explain myself I feel that metal melt into soft underbelly of unguarded girl.
Vulnerable girl. It is so easy to
fold creases back.

I try to fold them the other way. Pin their paper arms back.
Keep my fingers outstretched and uncondensed, like that dream spread softly open around
my head before being twisted through my thought process, I wonder
When those creases will fade; I wonder how much time will pass before I can just
become a first day sheet of paper––I will someday; I wonder when those creases will fade,
I wonder if they ever do.
 Mi corazón es mi hogar
Anthony Leal

There is beauty in the struggle and ugliness in the success

I grow up on the West side and no doubt I did have less
All the bills and school fees steady caused my momma stress
But compared to others I thank the lord that I was always blessed.

When I was born my life didn’t start with

―Oh well once upon a time?‖

It started with two lovely parents doing their best trying,

To give their son a chance at life but spent most of their nights crying,

Cause the thoughts linger in their mind

About the riches I might find,

If my upbringing was different and we lived in a better time,

But then I ask my parents,

―You know, what’s money without happiness?‖
―Or hard times without the people you love?‖

Although in our life we might never know what’s really gonna happen next,

There is this one thing that we must dispose of

It’s this predisposition that in our position we’re losing our grip
Because our life isn’t an unchangeable script
With characters whose destinies are already foreseen

Cause even though I’m 18

I know how this world works
All it’s little imperfections and all it’s little quirks.
So look to the people around you and think about this,
But first look at their clothes, now look at their wrists,

now look at their phones, now look at their hands and watch them turn into fists,
Cause I bet you got some holes up inside of your fits, and some of your arms
probably do have a few slits, and a few cracked screens, and no to cause a scene but I bet you
someone is jealous wishing they had what you had but you know what you raise that shit

because it shines bright

Brighter than a room lit up by god’s light
brighter than a rolex and a life with no stress
Man don’t tell me that this feeling ain’t the very best
To be proud of where you come from cause no one can define you because the best home is
the one right in the middle of your chest, it’s your heart, its protected by the people that will

forever always love you dearly, so I hope after this poem all of you truly hear me, to be proud of

who you once were and who you are now

But anyhow my name is Anthony and welcome to the club
Here is where we find happiness and unconditional love

It’s my home, my heart.

Untitled
Lauren Nichols

Dusted in gun power and silt

He stood in the midst of chaos
And with every bullet came guilt
Memories of home felt far
As his once hopeful demeanor began to wilt
Whilst equipped to kill, there was no will
They buzzed like bees
Tearing through air as if flesh
Sent out to serve his nations needs
A gun was never a man’s best friend
Until the enemy began to grow like weeds
Whilst equipped to kill, there was no will
A family man with wife and kids
A son to young to understand
Why pops and shots loosen his lid
A daughter to old to agree
Why dad would risk his life amid
A wife who wants her husband home
He consistently did his best
Worrying it would never be enough
He sat wondering of his life, the rest
The battleground surely wasn’t his playground
But coming home would surely be the greatest test
War being his new home
Memories of a calm sunny day
The wind smelling of crushed leaves
Yet, on the battlefield wind blows a different way
Homes scent no longer lingers
That saddened morning in early May
After which things were never the same
But for his country he served proud
And above all he was a soldier
He did it for his country, not a crowd
A warrior by day and a warrior by night
And even when the grounds get loud
It was for America he served
 1:00-3:00 am
Abby Barton

You can hear the house

breathing.
Full of soundly sleeping early risers.
The floor hums with the singing furnace,
the walls doze in pale white light.
I wonder what it will be to
live the witching hour away from
here.
I wonder what it means to know the night
there.
I wonder if the stars will know
me.
Where We Come From
Julissa Sanchez

Tell me, why my people,

who fit under the category
of ni de aqui ni de allá,
who are living in constant purgatory
under constant surveillance,
face a threat from our new president
as well as our republican government.

Tell me why my friend’s physics instructor,

who teaches at a historically
black Chicago alma mater,
had the nerve to shamelessly
say that he voted for
he-who shall-not- be-named
because he believed that everybody
should go back to where they came from.

Tell me why our 45th president’s supporters believe that my people,

that we should be the ones to go back to where we came from.
Tell me where you think we came from.
I’ll tell you where we came from.
We came from struggle.
From oppression. From injustice. From inequality.
From lack of opportunity.
Yet my blood still faces scrutiny.

My blood carries the blood of Spanish Conquistadors,

my blood carries the blood of french fur traders,
my blood carries the blood of African slaves
taken with dissent in the first place.
My blood carries the blood of native people, of Aztec and Mayan royalty.
I come from people who speak Spanish, Nahuatl, English, and
a variety of languages that I can’t
even begin to imagine
how to comprehend.

I am concoction of cultures.
I come from everywhere
and yet I fit in nowhere.
Not even in the country in which I was born. It doesn’t matter if my family
came here legally
or not. The fact remains that
I grew up in this country, and that
 I am one of the few privileged Latinos
who understands their native tongue.
And even then, I am limited
on my ability
to express myself.

English is my flourish,
with words, souls I nourish.
Tell me why my people, minorities,
should leave,
and why the white immigrants,
the Irish, the Germans, the Russians,
the British, should stay.
We are a nation built on immigration,
built on the backs of slaves,
and off of the labor of Latinos
who receive little to no compensation.
And yet we are the ones who
should go back to where we came from.
So tell me...
where do we go?
 the dam
Becca Gadiel

i have mastered the art of control

perfected the science of calming the waves
redirected the tide an endless amount of times
but still-
i cannot stop the water from rising
cannot keep this dam sturdy forever
the water is relentless
and the waves are too high
the dam is starting to crack
and i am tired i am so tired
so close to just letting go and
letting the waves overtake me
but then what has it all been for?
so i keep going
i am a dam pushing back the water
and that is how i will remain
keep on keeping on
Untitled
Caleigh Vanecek

I feel fine-- a fragile kind of fine

A kind of fine that sits on the turbulence
of emotions and haze that usually comprises my life
And just
rests.
Somehow assured by itself.
Fine-- enough to get by;
A getting by that isn’t a bucket of water under a leaky ceiling on a
rainy day
rather
the rain clouds have seemed to pass.
It had been so long since I’d seen color unobstructed
that I’d began to think my vision impaired
my memory
despaired
and yet today it is sprawled out in front of me:
vibrancy, defiance, alignment.

I feel peace-- a gentle kind of peace.

Enough to tell me
things will be alright.
 Sister Savior
Helen Laboe

First day of kindergarten: yellow lunchbox in hand,

smile on face, hair in pigtails, one tooth missing.
Sissy is just one grade up, one classroom away.
There to protect her and her favorite yellow lunchbox,
a guardian angel who doesn’t disappear -
the smiling kindergartener, responsibility.

A duty and a privilege, sister savior.

The kids don’t like her lunchbox! Her favorite

yellow lunchbox. One grabs her pigtails,
now she’s a lion with a wild mane,
but not the predator.
Still smiling, holding the yellow lunchbox,
taking the talk and thrashes.
Sissy stomps up, surly and searching for the
smiling kindergartener.

A duty and a privilege, sister savior.

Hand in hand they walk,

her and sissy, through the playground,
up the sidewalk and into the house.
Yellow lunchbox in the other hand,
a smile on the face of a lion
and her savior’s.

A duty and a privilege, sister savior.

 Don’t weep, insects –
Lovers, stars themselves,
Must part.

- Kobayashi Issa
Eyes To Him
Holly Beith

They look at me.

Sometimes, I look back,
And I look into their eyes,
And I see the eyes of God.
Their height is mine, and mine times three,
Their skin weathered, a waning wit sharpened,
These beings I despise,
Ignorance- for they believe that they are God.
I am six years old, dodging debris.
Those eyes of theirs slowly burning my body black.
They see me, yet choose to ignore my cries,
I cast my gaze up, and I look to God.
He doesn’t answer, He especially.
I am naked, there is no turning back,
There are no pleas, no denies,
That will keep them at bay,
Keep them from ripping apart your thighs.
 cycle of the heart
Eryn McCallum

lenient love is a fairy tale – a broken childhood promise

dusted off, boxed up memories of tasteful tears and glorified heartache
i fight to forgive but cannot forget that crooked smile you have when you lie and say you’re
sorry
oh, my shattered pieces cannot be secured with your hands holding them together
for those shaky hands reach for the bottle and i am on the ground beneath you
i wonder why you need that to handle my attachment

you’ve let curses (honey, please don’t say that) slip from your tongue in spite of my care, my...
attachment
i should have known your drunken kiss was quite short of a promise
angels and demons alike told me to stay away from what they know to be you at your worst
i lied a lie of steel that my vessels can stand another – more and more glorified than the last –
heartache
willing to tear myself apart to put you back together
alas, i couldn’t -- and for that -- i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m so sorry.

a singular statement i heard enough times to count on a million broken hearts -- ―sorry‖
you’re allergic to dust –– you call a fond attachment, suffocation
willing to look away from your sneak sip as long as we intertwine fingers with no end to together
i gave you the world but not the one thing you wanted, thus a broken unknown promise
should i apologize for my heartache?
what an inconvenience, dear, it must be for you

i would still do anything for you

i swear on this infatuation, i will never apologize for that
perhaps a masochist exists in all of us, for i find solace in this blood-pumping, mind-crushing
heartache
a stitched up wound is no match for this soul-bent attachment
i give my spirit breaker a silent kiss upon those potent lips -- an unspoken promise
no matter how far the sun is from the earth, aren’t they always dependent and always together?

i’m not myself when you and i are together

a sort of poison these moments are clouded with (dust) past, present, and future you
i don’t ask for much but today i yearn one promise like you yearn for distance ––
please be sorry
because your tendency to touch and tease and pick over my pieces formed this burning
attachment
go on and write your name on this heartache

the land beneath your feet is not free of my heartache

i am under shattered glass, holding your feeblefrailfalling world together
i regret but understand your need for intoxication to accept this attachment
because with your ghost torturing my sanity, there’s never a me but there’s always a you
i don’t expect you to be sorry
but had i lost all respect for myself and given in to your touch, i would’ve expected a real
promise

another can never free me of this heartache -- your one and only bona fide promise
and as long as the moon and the earth are in this galaxy as one, together (like us), i will be sorry
an attachment too strong for my own good, yet i will suffer to allow growth -- something -- in
you
 Coda
Raine Yung

You make video games.

Zeros and ones masked behind a false reality of three dimensions:
I feel like I know you.
And how you think.
And what you’d do.
Questions never answered but suggested through new material,
I want to get to know you.
My fingers are polar. Following the
north and south horizontal of my temple wet
from the questions settled underneath my tongue.
They feel the skin taut by an eyebrow raise,
I am getting nowhere.
His work is stunning,
though
files and files of jail cells pile on top of one another,
filling the next to implosion.
Is this where you live?
I tell outsiders,
my mouth dry now.
They love it,
they all love it.
Their honey sweet words dampened my just cracked lips.
A loosened secret now.

Maybe this honey can coat your jail cell walls,

acidic enough to break down anything that can’t fit through the bars,
Including you.
You can make your way to me,
finally i’d be able to make out your face,
But you won’t let me.
―When did my work represent me?‖

―When did I let you share that with the world?‖

―When did you ever ask me?‖
―When wasn’t this about you?‖
 Untitled
Samaiyah Lewis

To she in which I continue to reach

In the placement of my hand in yours, I allow for the creation of a balance between your mental
dimension and our reality.

Because for reasons I have yet to discover

your being always distant.
Like I can only grasp the attention of your left brain and the meet of your eyes in 17 second
intervals.

And me being all the women that I am longs to pull you in closer;
Signal that when your mental is elsewhere in the literal I am here.
And so I reach for you.

A knowingly temporary fix

And the creation of my insanity, leading me to the now realization of just how long I have been
reaching.

You see 6 months ago I reached out for you knowing,

Knowing that our hands wouldn’t fit.

That my finger could never be that in which

wraps around yours like the meet of vine and brick on castle walls.
I knew our hands weren’t equipped to make this fairytale work.

But still I reached out for you

In an attempt to get a sense of what pain life has brought you
The trauma in your last release that has you not wanting to grasp again.
I reach If only to swirl the flesh of my finger around your calluses.
To get a feel for how hard you would be willing to work for me if I could get you to hold on.

So I reached out for you.

Knowing how delicate and fragile your hands are.
The shake in your fingers when I made the first move
The heat of the sweat on your palms, when I grabbed hold
As if my reach was enough to make your blood boil.
And it was then I should’ve known-
Just because I reached didn’t mean you would know what to do once you grabbed on.

But I continued to reach out for you knowing,

Knowing your being and mine too far away.
Our stars not aligned
Both bodies being on earth but mentally a million miles away.
And still I reached out for you knowing,
Knowing that our palms touch would cause a numbness
my hot and your cold
Us never being the same temperature.
Fire and water.
Freedom and suppression.
Never knowing when to let the other’s hand go.

Yet still I reached out for you

In an attempt to connect the lines of your life
Your flesh and brown in mine
Your story

So I reached out for you

if only for that my heat and your cusp would meet.
In hopes our energy would nuclear fuse like the sun
Perhaps my warmth and you winter
Would allow our hands to melt into one

It hasn’t yet.
And I don’t believe it ever will.
But isn’t that the lesson.

Because after all how could I ever trust myself If I didn’t knowingly reach
If not for knowing the extension of my grip would fall short and reaching out anyway
When would I learn to have faith in my gut

If not after seeing what follows in my failure to resist the urge to contradict a predetermined
destiny
If not after using my reach as a test of our strength
Genuineness in both our grip into our shake
In our touch

Aren’t I here in that exact realization

Arm bent at the elbow
Hesitation in the arch of my wrist
Lost hope in the tips of my finger

After the insanity of a something 1/2 365 day reach

Not having to wonder what we would be
What less I would know
If I wasn’t the one who reached.
And now allowing my arm to fall
To pull in.
And reach for my own.
 don’t leave me in the cold
Madeleine Ortega

see, when i think of happiness, i think of a summer night

i think of dewy skin, warm air on bare shoulders, the hum of crickets in surround sound
i think of a cool pool, expansive under my body as i float, float away.
oh, summer nights, you held me in your arms once long ago, but it’s been months since then
under your skies, your glows and shines, you gave me a freedom i haven’t felt since
you’ve left me in the shivering in your absence

don’t leave me in the cold.

see the seasons haven’t left me alone since you left

autumn brought me a suspicious comfort, despite placing loads of dead leaves on my back
winter came with an ice that slivered into my veins, tracing loops around my heart
hard to believe those grey, dying clouds once held a vibrant sun in its place.
summer nights are hard to dream of when you can’t feel your fingertips, lost in the breath of the
cold
so tell me, oh tell me, how i’m supposed to push through
these cold nights are too long, too dark, too alone. too alone.

don’t leave me in the cold

you’re the photo i pinned to my wall last august, as i felt your arms fading
you’re what i see every morning, what drives me to push my sheets off my body
you’re what flashes behind my eyes when the choke of stress clenches a little tighter
see, spring is arriving. i never thought it would.
that blissful tension of feeling the growth of your presence, the ebb and flow of warmth
the cold is fading, summer, and i’ve missed you

don’t leave me in the cold

untitled
Leo Weldon

Helpless
The woman lay helpless
Muddied on the ground
Under the filthy bridge
That children run through
They held their breath close
And closed their eyes while
Avoiding it at all costs
She used to live in the pretty house
The one on the riverbank
With a white balcony and lucious daffodils
But that didn’t last
Because her husband kicked her out
And pushed her toward the bridge
He wanted to get her professional help
But the talk never came because she was
Avoiding it at all costs
She started to crawl towards the dull light
She sensed a healthy escape
But then the clouds came rolling back in
Rain poured under the bridge flooding it
She slowly rolled out with the tides
And passed her house where the talk awaited
Avoiding it at all costs
 Adieu, In Tears
Jenise Sheppard

your two lips would once excite & part by the sight of me,
like tulips that smile as the sun kisses its
content garden
that thirsts for more

they have shriveled and broke apart at the sight of me

like roses that haven’t been drenched in water for weeks

How do we tango when I am always a step behind you?

emotions once tangled

unravel instantaneously

months of time invested disposed of in seconds

How do we remain grounded when my tears fill up the floor we once danced on?

eager to win your heart back

after being
weighted down and anchored with
much more complex mechanisms
simple tweaks of a key couldn’t shake

my comfort dwelled in the sheets where I was most wrapped and hidden
a portion of me I could only reveal when I knew the outcome was certain

our muses could collide for hours

abstract contemporary art
painted on stainless steel

i could kill for your forgiveness

i would kill for your forgiveness

these wounds have never seen light

tattooed on an abandoned home
with broken windows
derailed gutters
wisteria tangling around the sides

i risked my sanity for you

to feel what love felt like

when i was most satisfied in

a world of lust

your arms possessed the tightest grip

when my emotions would scramble
itching to run loose

you know parts of my soul I wouldn’t dare

visit again
dark yet thorough empty roads covered in quicksand

i pray you remember this tainted soul

bruises once laid gently across your vanilla skin

have healed with my growing absence

your scent still lingers miles apart

i dared to never feel anything again

but I gave you a chance
i would innately reprimand

I felt forgiven for my sins

yet in a court of convictions

i stand

I’ve bawled indigo colored tears

from amethyst irises
onto
a poem filled with emotions scattered through the ink
paper soaked
with smudged blue lines
across the page
a bright hot pink margin
couldn’t keep

in these lines we part forever

a poem designated
to break ourselves
apart
into
toughened tempered glass
words & actions
left ourselves to fend for
 From time to time
The clouds give rest
To the moon-beholders.

- Matsuo Bashō
may
by lucy cowden

my dad drinks his coffee black

but my mom’s mug leaves caramel-colored rings on the table
and i don’t drink coffee at all but i like the smell,
like saturday mornings and dust in sun
drowsy-eyed sisters on the couch, ten a.m.
it’s nice when we don’t have anything to do
but sit
and drink coffee with the back door open
 The common unknown
Maud Tabak

Tickled nose and tickled toes all tingle like a bell.

The road ahead descends into shadows, each blurred and uncertain.
No painted monopoly squares gave direction, no get out of jail free.
All was uncertain, or was it just waiting to be discovered?

No calloused, love trodden hands to smoothly guide way.

The scent, wafting unfamiliar, intriguing open mind.
The texture prickled raw, rubbing into unmarked fingertips.
The world was new, but it was one of quiet excitement.

Small steps turned into wind swept strides of passion.

Ready eyes scan the horizon, the path seeming to move them in gentle ebbs.
Unknown excitement and strife and smiles and hardships and moments of silence awaited them.
But they were ready, finally ready, to move forward.
 The Evening Sun, Has To Go Done, Once In A While
Jasmine Washington

It was late August, soon fall would arrive. No humid air, tanned skin, and sweating drinks
to soothe a hot body. It was time for change, a new era, as some might say. The leaves would
transform into hues that were not the bright pastels of summer and spring. The clothes would be
heavier, the drinks thicker, the wind a little crisp. Yes, everything would differ from those long
summer evenings.

Selene sat on a park bench, waiting. Her thoughts embracing her with past moments,
memories. The trees yet to produce even a dead limb, a shade other than green. Her location
seemed to deride her present life forcing her to still depend on warmth, comfortability. Her hands
rested on the gentle fabric of worn blue jeans. The color washed from its familiarity. A phone
buzzed, it was hers of course. She absentmindedly reached for the thin, practically, glass phone.

A message showed on the dimly lit screen. She hoped it was him, oh she hoped. She
looked closer, thumb rubbing against the even surface. She found a message that inundated her.
Her rosy lips parted slightly, her breath hitched. She read the name in almost a gentle whisper.

―Augustin.”

People strolled pass looking at her oddly but she paid no attention. She refused to let this
moment slip pass her, to fade. She continue to read on, curious of his words. The message read a
simple: ―Dinner for two possibly? It has been a while.‖ She laughed a little, he was always so
articulate when typing. She replied with just a ―yes.‖ She looked at the soon setting sky, a golden
reflection in dark eyes. Her short hair drifting along with the tender wind. She was ready.

~~~

She arrived in her empty apartment. The sun shining through the small windows. She
placed her bag down on the floor, finding her way to her room. This place was something she
valued, simplicity. Everything down to the walls were neutral. Her mother would complain about
it but she didn’t mind it. Sometimes she wished her life could be more like her apartment.

She didn’t know exactly what to wear but she didn’t want to impress. She stood in front
of the classic mirror, holding up a simple lilac dress. She saw her sandy toned reflection hoping
to see her own beauty. She held her palm against her face, sighing, nothing.

A familiar buzz sounded from her phone. He would be here soon. She got dressed
hesitantly, unadorned.

~~

The car ride was filled with silence neither saying a word. There was not even a slight
glance tobe shared. Maybe they were both unsure, nervous. Either way this hurt had to be faced
not just through a text message but in person.
 Their hushed journey came to an end as they reached the restaurant. Nothing particularly
memorable passed her mind as the place came into view. The only thing the she could feel, the
she felt, was his presence. He walked out just to open her door. This typical of him-- he was
never not a gentleman.

―Ladies first.‖ She smiled faintly, taking his gesturing palm.

His smile was still handsome, placed on smooth painted skin. The sun collided with his
already honeyed tone. She admired how a reddish tint flickered in his eyes, a sureness in them.

They walked into the scene together, hand brushing against hand. There were no
compliments to be shared but they were thought. The table that they sat at was near a window, a
nice view of the evening sun. Soon, their food was ordered nothing fancy. Selene rested her palm
on her chin, rising her eyes to meet his.

―So, why dinner?‖ she asked him.

―What?‖ His dark eyes stayed with her somehow trying to prove his firmness.

―Why now?‖

―I thou-- .‖

―You thought what? That me seeing you would change my mind, that every moment
would replay the same. I broke up with you, I-- I don’t understand.‖

―I don’t think that. I was hoping we could just talk, not to be together. To be-- .‖

―Friends.‖

They both observed each other then. A truth soaking into their minds. The sun setting in
their gazes. Yes, it was time for a new era, casting its latest ambience.

~
Third Grade Days
Thomas Sheppard

As a third grader, I sat criss cross applesauce in single-file line. I wasn’t my usual
sociable self. The meaningless chatter of the peers around me vibrated in the background. My
gaze shifted from my hands slowly twiddling, to my shoelaces, to being transfixed by the
distance out the window. My thoughtless, emotion-filled concentration was broken by the shouts
of one of the older kids across the gym,
―Santa Claus isn’t real,‖ he yelled.

Immediately, my minded shifted from formless feelings to Santa. Quickly, I brushed off
the older kid’s remark. My unwavering belief in Santa convinced me the kid must just be stupid
or confused. But the interaction triggered an existential chain reaction in my mind. I started to
think about my own existence not just Santa’s. Right then, in the third grade P.E. line, I believed
in the existence of Santa and at the same time started to wonder what the point was in existing.
The week before, my Grandpa died; explaining my initial uncharacteristic behavior. I did not
have the vocabulary to express my feelings of loss to those around me. It was unfair, my
Grandpa has just been taken away from me, and I couldn’t understand why. I didn’t cry when he
first died. I couldn’t understand what it meant. The tears came later. It dawned on me that I was
going to die. Everyone was going to die. This abstract realization in my still infantile mind
sapped the fun out of my everyday interactions. I figured there was no point in doing, or being if
it would all be taken away from me eventually. Even if eventually was some distant, far away
time that I couldn’t and still don’t comprehend. I wallowed away in depression for about a week
or so.

But soon after I returned to my fun-loving self. I was sociable and laughed with friends, I
was silly with my family. I was happy again. I was smiling again. I was studious again. I was
competitive in everything from the classroom to the playground. I tried to be the best at
everything. Because of my uncanny motivation for a third grader, I was the best at a lot. I loved
my friends, I loved my family, I loved my life.

My childish innocence and ignorance had led me out of depression, although I realize
now that my third-grade self might have made an important insight. I had found a purpose:
happiness and excellence.

As I got older and smarter, these same hard existential, philosophical questions
confronted me once again. But this time I couldn’t walk through them with my third-grade
simplicity. I began to dance with them. They pushed out of my head as I went about my day to
day business. They flowed back in sometimes at night. They were the undertones of my late
nights staring at the ceiling and my past midnight conversations. Some days I rested happy.
Other nights I tossed and turned, and my lack of sleep and confused thoughts manifested
themselves as frustration and angst in the daytime. I got good pretty good hiding it, but I needed
a new way to tackle it. I needed to find a purpose.

Now that I’m old enough to understand the implications of my existence, I’m able to find
purpose and preciousness in pointlessness. Looking back on my third grade days has helped me
find that purpose. Life is bookended by nothingness on both sides. Darkness in the infinite
beginning and darkness in the infinite end. There’s that little light of life that shines through.
Appreciating that little ray of light, the fact that you’re even alive at all, created by sheer luck
and crazy circumstance, allows me to bask in the wonder of life. It’s all I’ll ever have for myself.
But seen with the right perspective, it is fantastic, like Santa Clause. I’m not going to hide from
life or huddle in the shadows. I’m going to cherish the light, and work to make it a little brighter
for everyone else, and I know how I’m going to do it.

That’s my purpose: To be happy, and to be excellent.

 Little Things
Annesa Dey

The light wisps of her long hair glided with the sea breeze, dancing among the air’s salty swirls.
Strands which were now thinned from the tick-tocks of time had once laid across the bare of her
back in rich waves. The water rocked with a soft cradle, arriving to gently kiss the tips of her
toes, and then retiring back in shyness. Her feet bore ridges in the skin, calluses hardened
under the sole, like the lines which had toughened in the palms of her hands. The sand which
sparkled bronzes under the sun molded underneath the curves of her body, tracing the shapes
of her cheeks and her lean legs. The warm rays which bathed her visage seemed to unfold the
creases of her forehead, erase the tired in her eyes, and return the fullness of her lips. Yet the
scars, hidden by the scarf slunk around her neck, did not disappear so easily.

She remembered the tiny trail of footprints left behind in the mud, as she skipped under the
pouring rain in her little white dress. It was her Very Most Favorite, the one with 12 red roses
around the waist. 5 + 5 = 10, ten, eleven, twelve. The tag on the inside made her back itchy, but
she did not mind, because the dress with the 12 red roses made her a Princess. The mini
flowers on her waist were babies of the big one Ma had in her drawer. She would put it in her
long, dark hair for special nights. Ma was prettiest like that, with the flower tucked above her
right earlobe. Goodnight, my baby, I will be back soon, she would whisper to her half-sleeping
child, on special nights. Bouncy curls tickled the 5-year-old’s face as she would give her
daughter a Goodbye Kiss, curls that smelled like pink shampoo. I will be back soon. But it was
not soon yet. The Princess in the Little White Dress did not know where Ma was. She skipped in
the backyard with bare feet, splashing small dots of dirt on her knees. The rain made the dress
feel cold and sticky on her soft skin. Around in circles she went, spin, spin, spin, waiting for Ma.

Another day, when it was not soon and Ma was not home, The Princess put on her little white
dress and went to her Castle, the backyard. She chased, barefoot, the Black Bugs crawling on
the ground and the birds soaring overhead, zoooom like an airplane. The co-pilot stirred her
aircraft and flew to the oak tree in the corner. Behind the tree was her Super Secret Spot. She
would hide there when Ma would bring home a Scary Man. They all looked different, but were
the same-- big, loud, noisy. Some of them stayed for months, years, while others, for a week. At
the end, they would all leave, and then a new Scary Man would come. One time, Smelly Scary
Man, who always stenched of The Drink in his glass cup, banged Ma’s head against the kitchen
counter. Screams, too many screams. The 5-year- old ran to Super Secret Spot, hiding behind
the tree in the corner. She sat there, cross-legged, in the dirt, until The Hospital People found
her in the morning.

Smelly Scary Man stayed with Ma the longest.

The space behind the oak tree, nestled in the corner of the backyard, was not the sole keeper of
Dark memories, of scary men and screams. There were Light memories, too. A boy moved in
next-door on one of those rainy days, when the girl in her little white dress was on her
Adventure outside. He had shaggy, yellow hair that reminded her of the barking dog near the
playground. His two front teeth were larger than the rest, with the left being slightly crooked. He
wore a pair of blue sneakers, with a couple holes and faint, green stains. They were his Very
Most Favorite; he always had them on his small feet. She knew, from the first glimpse of him
amid the pouring rain, that she had found her Prince. He was like the Pretty Men in the
storybooks Ma would read, ones Ma always thought she could find.

The girl would call her new friend, with the yellow hair and crooked tooth, Honey. Just as her
Ma would call those Big, Loud, Noisy Men. Hand-in- hand, they would run through their
backyards, he in his red sneakers and she in her Princess dress. Together, they would chase the
Black Bugs on the ground and go zoooom like an airplane, splash in the mud and watch cotton
balls floating in the sky. They had a wedding behind the oak tree, when it was not soon and Ma
was not home, on one of those rainy days. They crouched on the dirt, she with her bare feet and
he with his red sneakers, and Pinky Promised. With their tiny fingers interlocked, the Prince
promised his Love for her. Just as the Teen Jock, the Basketball Player, the Handler, the
Workplace Romance #1-3, the Sugar Daddy, the Failed Comedian, Husband One and Two, and
the Lawyer Who Hit Too Much did. Her own list of Scary Men.

She sat there in silence, facing the stirring waves of the sea. Eyes closed, she listened to the
calls of the birds flying above and the crunch of the sand between her fingertips. She was alone.
And happy.
Rewind
Grace Adee

I wait for those nights where time folds

and we breathe backwards,
like exhale, inhale,
like conversations where we become just vocal box vibrating
and habitually fidgeting fingernails.
Those nights like falling up stairs,
when the song ends and you wonder if it was always playing.
The dim lamps illuminate the ancient rhythm of black ink on yellowing paper
where the words dance into colored pencil pictures,
stop time like thunder before a lightning strike.
Those nights, those pre-nostalgia nights,
have you ever ached for the present?
I imagine rolling it in black velvet and tucking it at the back of my throat,
always one heartbeat away.
 Untitled
Semira Garrett

My afro is squished on one side.

The uneven, un-clipped ends
end up on my pillowcase;
DAMN I forgot to twist and cover my hair last night
Honestly I don’t know what time it is
The clock’s hands twirl around my locks

Where’s my pick?

I know I put my pick on my desk

just for these occasions.
The cotton crushed towards my ear
I pull and pick. Pull. Pick. Still ain’t even
Just like my conscious.
I begin a fight with my 4c she calls me ignorant.
I call her unruly
She calls ME the wooly mammoth

Where’s my pick?

After the fight ,

we relax in the presence of some cream and oil
Both of us let out a sigh of relief
I massage her ends
She remains tamed for a day or two
Then we’ll fight again in a couple days but that’s okay

I left my pick at home today

Lines
Ian Crowley

You know, I really couldn’t say when I first saw the lines. I mean, sure, I know it was
sometime around my tween years when I saw them for sure. I was 13 when I saw the brightly
colored lines cutting straight across the gravel parking lot, leading me back to my parents after I
had gotten lost on that road trip. But before that? I really couldn’t say. Maybe I had seen them
before, mistaking them for pavement lines and supermarket markings. Regardless, after I noticed
them, I couldn’t help it. I saw them everywhere.

Two lines, red and green, etched into the ground like they were marked in paint. No one
else could see them. I’d commented on them once, to my mother, and she looked at me like I was
crazy. I was old enough at that point to know to keep my mouth shut. But I watched, as they
wove their way in and out of my life. And, as one does, I inevitably found myself overwhelmed
with the need to investigate them, to see where they led. The curiosity was more than I could
take. The memory of that first time was too fresh in my mind, of the green line leading me
straight back to safety.

And so, when I was 14, I grabbed a bottle of water and a snack, and I followed them. The
green line, of course. Green is good and red is bad, right? It just seemed smarter that way. It had
taken me on a winding, twisting path, deeper and deeper into the city, until at last I found myself
at a robotics tournament being held that afternoon. It was thrilling. I had no idea that something
like that was even a thing, but my interest was piqued. I decided - I wanted to do something like
that with my life. And I looked at that little green line with newfound respect. So I followed it
again.

Over and over, I followed it. And time after time, my life was rewarded for it. It took me
to the front door of a prep school where I met Mr. Graves, whose tutoring I hold directly
responsible for getting me into college a few years down the road. It led me out of danger, as a
kitchen fire burned out of control in my school. And, it crossed my path with that of the woman
of my dreams. Literally. We smacked into each other in a crosswalk.

So, here I was. I was 30, and the world was at my fingertips. I sat in my leather gaming
chair, in front of the desk holding all of my equipment. I looked out the window of my top-floor
penthouse, gazing down at the city below. The walls were covered with the awards I had won, in
automation and robotics and system design. My lovely, smart, beautiful wife was in the other
room, reading a book as she brewed coffee. It was perfect. Really perfect. All thanks to that little
green line. But I couldn’t help it. I was bored.

My whole adult life, I’d relied on that invisible line to guide my steps. It hadn’t bothered
me when I was younger. I was just a kid, and this line opened doors for me I didn’t even know
existed. I’d followed it without hesitation, trusting it to take my life where it needed to go.
Now that I was older, now that I had time to stop and think about it, I wondered if this had all
really been for the best. Had I just taken the easy path? Had I gone with the flow, and given up
on taking my life into my own hands? It kept me up at night, I’ll be honest. And through it all, it
burned, in the corner of my vision. That red line. It seared into my sight like it was on fire. It
demanded attention, begging for me to give it the shot I’d only ever given its green brother. That
old curiosity was back. And so I grabbed an old messenger bag out of the closet, a remnant from
my college
days. I threw in bottles of water, and a pocket knife. A charge cable for my phone, and a granola
bar. I laughed to myself, as I saw it. It looked so much like the bag I had packed, all those years
ago, when I first walked the green line. But that felt right, you know?
I slipped out the door, with a quick goodbye to my wife. She accepted my excuses of
taking a walk without hesitation, pressing a kiss to my cheek and wishing me a good day. I
smiled to myself, as I left the house. She was the best thing that the green line had ever gotten
me. And then I stepped onto the red line.
 Day Nineteen
Caroline Cisneros

It has been nineteen days since it happened. Nineteen days since the paramedics and
nurses and doctors and everyone in the damn hospital burst into the brightly lit room. It’s
been nineteen days since dozens of blue latex gloves snapped on, and yet the piercing beep
beep beeeeep from nineteen days ago continues to ring in my ears.

I stand in line waiting for an Inca Cola, as the hazy smog dulls my line of sight. My hand
impatiently swats at the air, hoping the smoke would just disappear. But an endless supply
of fumes emanates from the singing lady frying empanadas two carts over.

The park was what most tourists would consider a mess. But for some reason the grass felt
greener, and despite the smog, the park smelled like dinner at your grandparents house.
However, the strangest thing to me was that no matter where you looked, happiness
radiated off of people’s grins. They appeared to be more genuine than any smile I had ever
seen in anyone’s face in America. They smiled like they were actually void of stress for at
least the split second they shared their toothy grin. Their eyes held a certain sparkle.
Maybe it was because most of them twinkled with hope.

My cousin and I carried ourselves over to the plaza where everyone seemed to be
gathering. All of a sudden a man wearing a black bucket hat and a traditional cotton
jumpsuit comes to the center with a big bottle of Whiskey. He says he is about to do a
typical dance called ―El Wiskisito.‖ My eyes laser down to the floor, but before I know it, his
hand has grabbed my hand. His raspy fingers wrap my frail hands around the bottle of
Whiskey. The man, beaming, leads the dance. I felt as if I had been put into a trance. My
feet marched back and forth on the soft cemented floors and my arms flew above without a
care in the world.

I looked up at the sky and sang ―El Wiskisito‖ for my papi who loved a glass of straight
whiskey like nobody else. Nineteen days ago life gave him his final toast. But for one split
second the whirlwind of hospital paraphernalia escaped my head like the Ghost of
Christmas past. I wanted to freeze time because I knew Day Twenty and Day Twenty One
and every single day would be as ominous as the clouds of smoke that swirled the terrain.
But time does not freeze, Day Twenty was next in line, and all I could do was smile and
raise the bottle high one last time.
Little Bird
Belma Sarajlic

You were the soldier of the sky.

tearing through the wind,
Singing through the storm,
Teaching others how to fly.
But you’re frailer now, it seems.
maidenly melodies turned to twisted tunes,
wings abandoned their fluid moves,
Wind and storms now haunt your dreams.
You’ve lost your home, I fear.
your sky is now a stranger.
The wind has lost its song,
It can’t dance when you’re not here.
But when it’s time, once again, to be
Back home, where you were meant to be
I’ll call upon an army of angels,
Finally to set you free
 Untitled
Samuel Harris-Watts

you broke the ocean in half

just to arrive in a place
unacceptable and shut out.
but where you are
and where you’re from
is not who you are.
you learned
when to show your colors,
and when to tell a white lie.
they utter in thorns,
and you speak in rose petals
and yellow petunias.
carry the weight
upon shoulders strong,
these days will pass
if you find how to
spin them into gold.
stay to stargaze
even on cloudy nights.
 grime girls
Rachel Dohner

untwist:
strawberry pink bubblegum,
cotton candy, they
say you are one swipe away from happiness:
happiness when you smack your lips,
happiness when you smell blue raspberry,
happiness when she passes you a tube of twice
licked lollipops.
she says happiness is covered
in sheen,
shiny and unexpected like
the streaks down your face the first time
you got sucker punched.

she says she knows what’s good for you.

holds you close like a slow song at a middle school dance,
she is strawberry pink snapping
the bubblegum you hate to taste,
bubblegum like the bubblegum stuck to your scalp,
bubblegum she cut out with safety scissors
between shining teeth and squeaking
floors made of her shoe soles.

she says that you are infinite:

you as in you two, as in you are nonexistent without the other,
infinite as in expiration dates are irrelevant—
there’re so many chemicals mixed up in that smoke and mirrors dance of ingredients
she
doubts you’ll notice the ones you can’t pronounce.

strawberry pink bubble gum,

she thinks that by the time you’ve caught on to that
candy flavor, that
silica sweetness,
all that red dye number seven and paraffinum will
hold you tight in its plastic packaging,
lay you down in a cellophane cemetery made of falling lights and
shelf lives lost.
those dates mean nothing, anyway. because

you know you will always be there.

clinging to lips like lost tempests,
six months on her teeth,
five years under her tongue,
held in sticky subjugation until the tube is
empty.
Flowering Sanctuary
Nicole Jimenez

My sanctuary receives you

arms stretching
hands unfolding
chest unbinding
fingers loosening
feet fluxing
legs extending
eyes awakening
cheeks elevating
mouth softening
energy vibrating off your aura
and it goes through my fingers
my smile flourishes.
I feel myself melt
derritiendo me como la miel
And my body receives you
With open arms
acquiring your energy
I’m struck by your altruism
by the beauty of your heart
My sanctuary receives you.

*Derritiendo me como la miel - melting like honey

A Story to Tell
Lucy Cowden

Come here, then, and let me tell you the story of the girl who walked through rain and snow until
she reached the end of the long road.

Her friends had gone ahead to the edge of the clearing, where they lay down in the sweet grass
and wet their backs with dew. They waited there, under the clouds and the moon, for so long that
their very bones softened and their flesh turned to earth, eyes open and reflecting the distant stars
in the sky.

The well-trodden path took her past this meadow, but by the time the trees opened up, her friends
were nothing but mounds of earth. And even then, you couldn’t see them because of the snow,
which came in great white drifts, blanketing the earth all the way to the horizon. You know how
the trees look under all that winter? It was beautiful, back when things could be beautiful and
uncomplicated. You wouldn’t remember; you were too young. It was a different time then.

There was a great, silvery-blue waterfall, where she used to go swimming with her little sisters
and her mother when she was little. They waited for her, too, sitting on the edge of the bank with
their feet in the water like they used to. They didn’t move their eyes from the path, watching for
the figure of the girl, but she never came. They sat there so long, waiting, that they turned to
stone, weathered by the wind and the spray of the waterfall.

It took her two hours to get to the waterfall while her future skipped ahead, wrinkling in the blind
spots in her peripheral.

She stopped to lace up her boots about half a mile from the snow-covered clearing. The statues
she came upon by the little bridge across the river were faceless and grey. One of them, she
realized with mild surprise, kind of looked like her mother. But people don’t turn to stone and
erode in the space of two miles, she thought. It’s only been a couple hours.

It always happens like this, you know. Time, who walks the long road, cannot see how things
age around her.

The snow softened into rain the lower the path went, off the top of the mountain and down into
the lush green basin below. The trees shed their winter and you could hear the birds so clearly.
There were many more colors back in those days, before our ancestors decided that there were
too many shades and cast some of them out. You wouldn’t remember; you were too busy
learning how to count.

The girl wasn’t in any hurry. Life is far too short to hurry along, she thought. She took the long
way more often than not; and as air warmed she stopped to eat her lunch underneath the canopy
of a great aspen tree, whose leaves fluttered in the wind and soothed her sore feet.
Up ahead, people went to school. It was a big school, with classrooms filled with students and
professors that smiled grimly and assigned papers. There were parties, of course, and late-night
cafes with friends she had yet to meet.

She packed away her lunch and took the ten steps between the birch tree and the school. It was
right in the middle of the path, but when she rounded the corner, she met no obstacle.

After nearly two hundred years of use, the school had closed. The students had left and the cafes
had been torn down, and now the rotting planks of what could have been fertilized the ground
she walked on.

The end of the path was in sight, and it started to rain as she made the last small ascent up to the
road.

She had walked for six hours, maybe less, while the rest of the world hurtled too quickly through
its life.

It had been three hundred years, and there was nothing left.

But think of your own path-- of the one you must walk for longer than six hours. If there’s
nothing at the end, there’s nothing to regret. Nothing to miss.

This was Time’s greatest gift to the girl-- the end of the path, and nothing but empty road.

Yes, so maybe it’s sad. Or unfair. Or doesn’t make sense. But this has been told to you as my
grandmother and great-aunt told it to me who heard it from their grandmother and so on until
you reach those very same people that threw colors out because there were too many. But you
wouldn’t remember that; you were too busy growing old.
 The Wren
Earns his living
Noiselessly.

-Kobayashi Issa
 What Do You Dream About?
Greta Olson

Space girl, child in the 60s, bright eyed and eager

looked up at the stars and saw her future hidden there
and she was heading to the moon
stretching out her fingertips, rocket ship blasting off
but the moon was only a small part of her voyage
she had to go farther, fly faster, do more to reach the future in her sight

Space girl, dreaming of the stars,

but do they dream of her?

Space girl, our modern priorities beat her back

her face still young, her eyes still bright, but now so old
has it been too long? or not long enough?
every new year sends the dream further away
the stars aren’t brighter than today’s glare
no new rockets made to lift her spirits
discovery is never on the news channels
things are hard, it’s not what she chose, not what she planned

Space girl, dreaming for the stars,

but do they dream of her?

Space girl, moving forward, throwing stars into eyes

she tells you she has many names
Nancy. Anna. Sally. Annie.
names few know the stories behind
but she’s going to change that, going to spread the word
and we’ll all reach for the stars together

Space girl, dreaming of the stars,

but do we dream of her?
 Dream Alice
Sylas Cooper

She would say that her hair is a darker shade of brown, but when I look at it in just the
right light, I see a dark maroon. She would argue that her skin is flawed and rough, but from here
it looks smooth as rock and with touch her squishy face turns as soft as her fleece jacket.
Her eyes start changing from a blueish green to a yellow orange in minutes, always inviting and
demoralizing, and sitting beneath thin eyebrows always kept neat. Her nose lines up with her
thick lips so perfectly that it seems impossible she could have been created by anything but a
master artist. All of this is held perfectly together by that dark maroon hair, parting down the
middle and falling loosely to her shoulders.

Her chin turns into her neck, then flows into her collarbone effortlessly. A white lace
shirt shows only her tiny hands, soft and warm, some blue nail polish chipping away on her
fingernails. The girl is quiet, often sleepy and quaint, naps whenever possible. If I am lucky
however, I will get to see her energetic and playful, and a true curiosity and innocence possess
her, and me with it. A girl.
 Manon Beauchêne
Greta Olson

It was a warm day when she was born. Warm days were her favorite, waking up in the
summer, the hot sunlight dancing off her fiery red hair with an orange glow. For Mother’s Day
when she was five she had drawn a picture of her and her mother, carefully picking out the
―scarlet‖ crayon for their hair. It was too bright a red for her mother, but it was just right to
capture the thick crimson tresses of Manon.

Every June, the Beauchêne’s would all pile into the car: three girls, three boys, two
parents, a big grey mutt named Fondue, and one eleven hour drive. They would go all the way
down to a tiny town in the south of France, Fos-sur- Mer, to visit her mother’s family for the
summer. She forever cherished the memories of those days, occasionally calling up her siblings
to laugh about them: exploring the town with her sister until they knew the streets like the
bottoms of their pockets; intricate and expansive games of hide and seek with their cousins,
scores of red haired children crouching behind flower pots, trash cans, etc.; squeezing in around
a dinner table that had been too small to fit everyone for three generations; throwing sand at her
brothers when she lost at beach volleyball, and the wind blowing it back into her face.

Sometimes when she was off at college, researching for a paper or cramming for a test,
a warm breeze would float through the window and briefly take her back to those carefree
childhood summers. Yet, the memories were quickly set aside; she was a busy person now, and
so those treasured warm days were spent working, learning, or studying. She would walk from
her dorm to the library with the air of someone who had five papers, four tests, two jobs, and an
internship but had just spent three hours reading about tropical birds and was now regretting
everything. By the end of her first semester she could tell you about environmental loads,
multivariable calculus, and wind patterns in South America, but she was no longer confident on
the spelling of her middle name (Cloe).

Manon was the kind of student who sits in the back of the class thinking up tricky
questions to get her professors off topic (she’d learned about the South American wind in a
graphics design class.) At the end of the day she’d amuse her friends with off-syllabus facts she
had learned that day. She liked to make people laugh, and was quick to come up with a joke.
She especially loved bad puns, but she ran into trouble when she tried to use a pun that works
in french with her english-speaking friends.

That tended to happen a lot, as she was a naturally forgetful person. She had bought a
planner at the end of high school, determined to keep to a schedule when she got to college: it
sat unused at the bottom of one of her drawers. Despite her heavy course load and tendency to
read books that even Hermione Granger would eye nervously, she did have enough time for
schoolwork, a job, a compulsive knitting habit, and friends, even a girlfriend, Alice, an exchange
student from Canada. But she couldn’t figure out how to balance everything and manage the
time, so things got forgotten and often left behind.

Yet, somehow, with lots of help and a ton of luck, she managed to make it through her
freshman year. That summer, she went back to Fos-sur- Mer with her siblings, parents,
girlfriend, and dog, the warm Mediterranean air once again filling her summer days with laughter
and she used her forgetfulness to ignore the looming stress of September.
Mami
Esmerelda Rios

Mami who takes care of me always

And asks if I’m okay
Who is the gentle breeze on a summer day
Who is the ocean when I need peace
Whose soft embrace
is my gravity
Who taught me to respect my body
Who told me I have worth, no matter what Papi says
Whose melodies craft the memories of my youth
Mami who taught me how to be beautiful
Who taught me my body was only a vessel for the soul that dwelled inside me
Who taught me how to love the culture inside me
Who gave me words and sounds to roll off my tongue
Is rhythm
Is the metronome that my heart beats to
Is hands clapping and drums beating
Is hips swinging and laughter ringing
Mami who gave me dancing
Is the music of life in my veins
Mami who takes care of me always
Is the gentle peace of the ocean
Asking if I’m okay
Where did he hurt you? Where?
 Lizzy
Maud Tabak

Lizzy always smiled like she had two tennis balls in her cheeks. Rosy pink globes jutted
out from criss- crossed, sparkling teeth, her posey lips strethched like rubber band over a wild
smile. Lizzy always had her curling, rotini locks pinned high on her head, random strands
sticking out like she had taken a wet stick to a telephone wire. Lizzy was always going
somewhere, her scuffed up, loved up ballet flats always beating the floor, her fingers always
tapping an unfamiliar tune against scratched up desks when she was constrained too long. Lizzy
always hummed, little vibrations came in times of deep concentration, aging tunes slipped from
her lips like the record player the grandson found in a browning box in grandpa´s basement and
blew the dust off of. Lizzy always covered her muted green eyes in deep, sharpie marker strokes,
shading pale eyelid skin in black, wax darkness. Lizzy never did her work, yellowing sheets of
assignment papers built up a jenga tower on her egg shell carpet, and she was not willing to go
for a lucky pull. Lizzy desperately wanted a cat, a little ball of checkered fur to call her own.
Her bright red, liquid dripping, sunburnt kind of sore nose disagreed. Lizzy was always cold, big,
brown argyle sweater overwhelmed her closet, making her wardrobe the stuff of Saturday
morning cartoons. Lizzy always bought boxed pasta, premade pie, and freeze dried appetizers.
Lizzy could burn water on the stove, thick greys smoke swirling through alarm bathed air as
opposed to a soft, comforting soup. Lizzy is always tired, heavy, shaded lids cover diluted eyes
as soon as the sun goes down behind fluffy, marshmallow clouds, and Lizzy sleeps, and Lizzy
dreams.
 Untitled
Janae Douglas

She was the epitome of beauty, with a warmth that brewed and glowed from within. Her
hair was as smooth as silk, a long flowing and dark river that complimented her rich tone. You
could feel her happiness and see her soul just by peering into her brown eyes that glimmered like
skipped stones in streams. Her internal light would flicker off and reveal the golden specks that
lay hidden on her cheeks. When she smiled the world seemed to halt and cherish her. She had
this everlasting embrace that could piece together the broken hearts of many. Appreciated and
loved by all, although she was a perplexing enigma. She had slender arms but a strength that was
equivalent to the beauty she casted. She was nurturing, and loved in the way that only a mother
could. Yet with the wrong moves, the power she had could be lashed out, like thunder in the
storm preceding a rainbow. She had a vengeful side, one as mysterious as the moon in a way that
overlapped the sun. It was what made her whole, the completion of her being. They knew and
they had always known. And even with the occasional waves of storms they accepted her; simply
because it was worth being in her presence. They wanted to bask in her fluorescent glory just so
they could taste the fruit her core bared. It is the one thing they all shared, for she had laid the
first drops of succulency on their tongues, breaking them from the traditional bleakness of life. In
short, she had a spirit as potent as the Gods and a gentle touch that sparked revival.
 My life, -
How much more of it remains?
The night is brief.

- Masaoka Shiki
 Ode to Sun Peoples
Semira Garret

Just because the soil

is
Dry,
Doesn’t mean the seeds aren’t stuck under the surface

They say we ―Evil Crop‖

Drowning in cows dung

& poison

BE AFRAID OF US!

Cuz,
Check it out
Cuz

The World

[Under]

Suffocates as if we were boxed coffins

Not alive cause we lacking liquid
They deny us of our clear waters
Soil submerged in quarter Juice

Corner Store Cropped,

security cameras zoom in on me.

Me.
The sun flower.

Being
with hidden light,
Harboring the sun within the crevices of my palms.

I bet you thought I stole this too,

huh?

Banana colored life line

We ride the sun rays poking out the sides of our feet

Running.
Growing
Looking ….
BLooming Again.
With rose thorns
Stabbing through our
Soles
So we levitate
away from the grave.

Fly from the 6 deeP

our petals do not/ cannot melt
when close to the sun

We are the sons of the main star.

Scientist say
at one point we will die out

Shrivel
Up
Just a crust near the corner of the concrete with our petals dented in

Unbeknownst to them
we annual crops
When the season turns sunny again we’ll always come back up
In a more significant form than when we left
Refusing you a chance to forget about us

You gon look us in the face and admit we beautiful

We sun children
Sun flowers
LOOK AT ME!
I’m golden & brown
Roots stronger
than ever before
And I produce nourishment from one of the biggest stars in the universe
 Death lingers
Patricia Garcia

Death sits with you in the car

It eyes your seatbelt and the road
Its presence makes you remember the news
There’s a familiar undercurrent of panic
It threatens to surface but you stop it
It doesn’t go away when you finally park your car

Death walks side by side with you

You both glance at every person that passes by
Hands in pockets or bags are suspicious
Men make you freeze then hurry to get by
Anyone is capable of anything, your mind whispers
The whispers don’t stop even when you enter your house

Death makes itself comfortable in your home

It watches as you move around and do your daily tasks
The kitchen knife in your hand feels like a bomb
One wrong move can mean the end
Each cut rings in your head
You can’t stop imagining accidentally slicing your hand

Death tucks you into bed

Its presence is so familiar, it lulls you to sleep
But then you realize, there’s a dreadful possibility
You could never wake up again
One minute you’re just closing your eyes
And the next you’re in the afterlife
You fall asleep with the thought repeating in your head

Death watches over your relaxing breaths

It will still be there in the morning
 Neighborhood
Abigail Golitz

There’s this one lamp.

a sunset honey bee
it hovers over that alley
in a content kinda way

All the other lamps hang

over their streets
orange tint flaming the sidewalks

yet

This one
-- it guards the house
of an old cubs player -- no longer there
it stands
a fortress built on top of a small house

a small house
who use to be guarded by a
flaming orange fence,
a small garden once tucked inside

gone

new houses, new families swarm

So different now
Orange fades to yellow
as drunk 30-somethings become families
 If Someone Had Only Seen Him
Holly Beith

He was my Uncle Mike.

On the rare occasion that I visited my dad, Uncle Mike lurked. A lurker, that’s why he
made people so uncomfortable. He was pale, white pale of winter influenza, with coarse black
hair. His light blue eyes that reminded me of a husky’s were sharpened by the darkness of his
hair. He had tattoos on his knuckles, numbers, and another tribal tattoo on the back of his neck, a
sharp oval with dark swirls cascading into a strange symbol in the middle, just covered by the
shores of his hairline. When I hugged him, I could breathe in his smoky perfume that he never
tried to hide. Whenever he paid a visit, Marissa would grab the kids and lock them upstairs. He
looked hard, but what people didn’t understand is that he was more fragile than the rest of us. He
never meant any harm. Except maybe to himself.
Sprinting around my grandma’s family room I would hear his heavy clomps behind my
rapid childish feet. I would feel him grab me from behind with a wicked ―Gotcha!‖ And I would
giggle. But what really got my grandma hollering at us was the second part of the game. He’d
hold me by my ankles, I could feel my blood rushing to my head. ―I’m gonna have to flush ya
Darlin’!‖ He would say with his little smirk, his thin lips stretch across his face reminded me of a
clever lizard. He’d hold my head just above the bowl, and then flush the water. That’s when I
would get scared sometimes, ―Uncle Mike NO!‖ My shrill voice echoed off the bathroom walls.
He’d laugh and put me down. ―Just messin’ with you Darlin’.‖ And then I’d go outside.
He was bipolar, my grandma paid his phone bills, gas bills, electric bills, and everything
else. He couldn’t really hold down a job. But even so, when I got a little older he treated my like
a princess, his darlin’. I remember going to the movies with him and he’d take out his pen, and
blow big, thick white clouds of smoke that left a haze the smell of juice boxes. ―Uncle Mike you
can’t do that in here!‖ He would just say ―You know I love my smokes, this the only way I could
quit.‖ I would laugh and lean back in the chair. ―Shittin’ on high cotton‖, that’s what going to the
movies meant to him and my dad, I didn’t really understand what it meant, but if it meant we
were going to the movies I didn’t care.
As I got older, I began to see things as they were, which meant I could see what my dad
was, and how manipulative my grandma was, so I got busy. Busy meant I didn’t have to visit as
often. I could feel myself wriggling free, I could see them in my rear view mirror. But I was
pulled back in when I got the call. That he was missing, vanished, poof! His wallet, phone,
computer, everything of value perfectly where it should be in the apartment he shared with a
friend.
I figured he just left just to clear his head, that he’d be back.
His face on posters, on Facebook posts, in frames everywhere, he became something else,
an entity that inhabited the brains of his family, that stared blankly from behind the glass of the
frame, that poured from lips looking for him. He wasn’t a man anymore, he was a ghost. They
looked for him everywhere, and after days passed, I knew he didn’t wanna be found. It was one
of those feelings you get when you know something is wrong with someone you’re close to. I
picked up on his wavelength. He left everything behind, wherever he was he had not a single
earthly possession. He was leaving, and he did not intend to return.
It had been three weeks, and I was listening to David Bowie’s Space Oddity when the
feeling came over me. It was just after school and my stomach began knotting, pulling at me
from the inside as if desperately trying to tell me something. I needed to get outside. So I just
went out to the front, breathing heavily just needing the air. My friends spotted me from the
window inside and rushed out to me noticing something was wrong. I started to get dizzy, my
breath started escalating and all of a sudden it felt like I was high, the buildings became stark
against the sky, like cardboard cutouts. They gave me something to drink but I couldn’t swallow
it, I couldn’t swallow anything. They filled the bottle cap of gatorade and attempted to give me a
drink, but upon realizing I had lost control of my throat my body rejecting it. The crystal red
liquid splattering the sidewalk. For just a second my eyes rolled to the back of my head, my body
jerked back as the blackout almost took me. My friend behind me caught me before I had the
chance to fall. As quick as it had come, it evaporated from my pores. The physical phenomenon
had ended, but my mind was left reeling, and I just wanted to go home. It was then that I knew
he was dead.
It wasn’t a spell or some weird spiritual awakening, I don’t know, it was a disruption of
wavelengths in the form of a panic attack. But the following day I got a text from my dad. They
had found his body. In a forest miles away, in a grassy ditch, by the train tracks.
I was right that he didn’t wanna be found.
My Uncle Mike died by suicide. He was a tormented soul, that I knew. He was a victim
of his own mind. Part of me, in a very dark, odd way, respected him for what he did, maybe even
was a little proud. He had gone his whole life starting things, never finishing them, failing, and
falling down. This time it was different. He planned to do this, and he went through with it, from
start to finish. But, he was a black candle, only some people could see his light but it was there. I
loved him, and I miss him.
The funeral wasn’t for him, it was for grandma. An older man held the doors open to the
Gospel Church that held my uncle’s body. I was greeted by a shaky table that held the
refreshments for after the service, and a big board with his face from all different ages. The
parlor opened up gracefully to the sanctuary. His casket was showcased right at the end of the
aisle, so you had to look at it until you finally sat down. I made my way to the mourners’ bench,
my father squeezing in next to me. The service commenced , my dad burying into me and
sobbing, my grandma’s wails periodically stabbing the sermon into silence. I didn’t cry. I just
thought about how much he hated this stuff. But I realized something else. I looked around, I saw
a lot of suffering. People I cared about, lives destroyed, and I did the strangest thing. I pretended
that this was my funeral, with my body occupying the casket. I had been suicidal many times,
played with the idea of dying, thinking of finally being at peace. But I never thought about what
would happen after, how it would make people react. I decided I didn’t want that, I didn’t want
to increase the suffering. I didn’t want to die anymore. So I just sat through the service, fixing
my eyes on the picture of him on the altar.
I’m not mad at him, in fact I love him very much.. My grandma keeps a pair of his shoes
by the front door in case he comes home. I look at the shoes, and sometimes I think about what it
was like in that forest, wondering if he died barefoot. It makes me miss my Uncle Mike, makes
me wonder how he’s doing. It makes me wish people didn’t get so uncomfortable around him, it
makes me wish somebody would’ve just talked to him, maybe then they would’ve seen my
Uncle Mike.
 Free Failing
Myah Jackson

Born black with a jungle on my head, brown skin on my flesh, and more questions than answers
So I invented them myself
I didn’t believe in my dreams, I lived them
I was the star and in my head I found Neverland
But children grow so their brain can too, and so their hearts can shrink and make more room
I grew but my brain did not, my heart was my brain and my brain is my heart

I do not fear, fear itself but I fear for myself without fear

I’m not afraid to look down because the ground lifts me up

I’m not afraid to seek the discoveries above
I’m afraid to look left and see the pain and destruction that humanity faithfully protects
I’m afraid to look right and see beauty, because this world wasn’t meant for beautiful things
We may walk on the ground but people hold their heads high
This world of corruption of destruction, deceit, and lies
We try to build strength and solidarity without trust, without forgiveness, without love
History is his story and hers, but not mine because

I do not fear, fear itself but I fear for myself without fear

Fear is simply a word for those that invented it

But for we that embody the origins of that meaning
Fear defines us, confines us, and then dispenses what is left of our humanity
And I become, we become, he becomes, she becomes, they become
Fearful of the fearless and fearless in the face of those full of fear
Deferring the dreams that are different than what they are expected to be
 Ni de aquí ni de allá
Esmeralda Rios

She opened her lunchbox.

Thick aromas spilled into the air around her body,
she breathed in deeply- reminded of her roots.
When her gaze lifted, she found her friends staring, their faces pinched with distaste.
Her eyes darted like gazelles,
and her cheeks turned the color of a falling sun.

Shame became her lover,

replaced her culture.
And she became a hawk,
seeing all the ways she was different.
She noticed the way her canvas was painted in thicker, darker shades.
She studied the way her sentences sounded
like out of tune songs.

She tried scrubbing the color off of her skin.

When it remained a salted caramel,
her eyes became two seas of pain.
She tried teaching her mouth to form words differently.
When it refused to listen, she remained silent.

She had been around the sun fifteen times

before the blood inside her could sing louder
than the beating of the star spangled drum.
She washed her heart clean of the stripes
and stained it green to trick roses and cempasuchil to grow there.
She painted forests until she could follow their roots back to hers.
Alan Lewis
Reflection

―You are forever alone

In a sea of sopranos you sing baritone
No one would ever co-sign your loan
When it’s all said and done no one will bury your bones
No matter your attempts you’ll always be unknown
At a Rock Concert you’re barely a moan
You will try to have meaning in your lonely life
But alas no one wants to be your wife
Because you’re as useful as a Ice Cream Sundae Butter Knife
No one notices your struggle and no one sees your strife
There was no purpose or reason to your birth
You have in no way any kind of worth
Just taking up space on the limited Earth
Things would be better without your girth‖
My mirror tells me this every morning
Always giving me fair warning
Of how things are much worse due to me existing
Always having long listings
Showing why I should be no more
That I have nothing to live for
I do my best to pay him no heed
And tell him that I am something the world needs
But he has already set me on that route
Filling my mind with seeds of doubt
Making it hard to laugh or smile
Because what if he was right about me being a wasteful pile
I have no direction
A terrible collection
Of Awful defection
With a bloated midsection
And teething with infection
I know that I deserve no affection
Who am I to raise any objection
Against many a connection
From a close inspection
On the many imperfections
Made from my reflection
 These Four Walls
Morgan james

These four walls

are not my home
they close in on my existence
slowly, slowly
every second, it’s unholy
squished thin between
broken bricks,
perishing plaster
wish I could say more, talk a little faster
tell me you hear it in my tone
These four walls are not my home

The hole in this roof

has grown and grown,
gaping,
gazing into the deep blue
darkened sky
I can’t see the moon from here
so each night I cry
nowhere to lie my head
my bed’s not even my bed,
for nothing I own
The hole in this roof has grown and grown

All this well hidden

everything unknown
a house
is not
a house
unless it’s a home.
 Untitled
Zoe Treadwell

If you look closely, you can see the world

tearing at its seams, revealing the darkness underneath.
If you skim the ground with your fingertips, you can feel the rocks
collapse beneath them and waste away like the bones of those we’ve forgotten.
If you listen closely, you can hear the wind,
and the ghosts of the bones in our closet whispering,
Pay attention, the world is crumbling.

They know better than we do,

what it looks like when we take our mask off
and rear our ugly head at the things we don’t like
and the people who aren’t the same.
They know better than we do,
what the world looks like from six feet beneath the ground,
Snug in coffins that are too small for their stories.

If you look closely, you can see the sun

setting in America.
If you close your eyes, you can feel the golden rays
slip behind dark clouds and lose their shine.
If you listen closely, you can hear the wind
and the ghosts of the bones in our closet yelling,
Look out, your history repeats.
 Repeat
Nemo Mass

Sweat fell from his brow.

Sun beating down he pushed his burden, his hands were dirty and worn.
The stone was immense, heavy and almost impossible to move, almost.
Slowly he pushed it up and up the mountain, now clearing a ledge he rested for a moment.

With each ledge the job got harder, the mountain got steeper, the man became more exhausted.
But with each ledge he got a little closer to the top.
He had never seen the peak of the mountain with his own eyes.
It must be beautiful though.
He had convinced himself.
And with every laborious inch he gained it became more so.
His mind’s eye could see the peak more clearly with every step.
His journey must be profitable.
Intrinsic worth to his work.

Only 10 feet remained to the peak of the mountain.

This was the moment he had worked for, sweat for, would die for.
As he pushed the boulder to the top it paused,
and rolled over the edge, tumbling down the opposite side of the mountain.

He watched it roll down bouncing off outcroppings.

With every collision the boulder lost a little of itself chipping away as it went.
The man could only enjoy his feat for a moment,
This spectacle he had created with mountain and the sky,
for he was tired.
He rested then, laying with the souls of past rollers
Maybe the next one would have it a little easier.
 Family Values
Ruben Coronel

The revolving door whispered over linoleum tile as the man and woman entered the
hospital. His worn work jeans puffed dust into the cool, dry air with each step, and her rubber
soled boots deposited hints of brown on the polished floor. Looking up from her coffee, the
receptionist was just a moment too late in adopting her usual warm smile.

―And what can I do for you two?‖, she asked sweetly, pointedly maintaining eye contact.

The woman answered.

―We’re here for our daughter.‖ Her voice was strong, commanding, as if the words
themselves would punish disobedience. ―Amber Stern. Fifth Floor. Room 518. You need to write
us passes.‖

―Sure, right away.‖ The receptionist hurriedly looked down, suddenly glad to break free
from that piercing gaze.

----------

The doctor rose to meet them when they appeared in the doorway. She greeted them with
a wan attempt at a smile and an outstretched hand that was quickly retracted after it became clear
it would not be shaken. The man and the woman were silent.

―Ok,‖ she forged on as if nothing were amiss. ―I have good news for you today. Her
condition hasn’t deteriorated further over the last 48 hours. Of course, brain activity remains low,
and we need to keep her on a ventilator, but there’s real hope that we could see—‖

The woman interjected forcefully. ―It’s time to remove life support.‖

For a moment, nothing moved, as if crushed by the immense weight of the statement that
had been spit so callously into existence. The doctor was the first to break the silence.

―I’m sorry, but I have to recommend against it. Given her age and condition, it’s too early
to make any decisions. We should at least wait and see for a few more days—‖

―No. No more waiting. She’s been gone for two weeks. What kind of money do you think
we have that we can pay the bills this place is going to charge us?‖ The woman stepped
menacingly close as she opened her mouth to speak again. ―That truck should have killed her
outright. Give us the papers. Now.‖

Reeling, the doctor inadvertently took a step backwards. She knew she shouldn’t let
herself be cowed by this woman and her harshness, which was beginning to border on disrespect
for human life. But the decision to pull the plug was well within acceptable statutes and
limitations, and there was nothing substantial she could do to stop it from occurring anyways.
Even if there was a chance. Even if the girl laying in the hospital bed looked so much like her
own daughter. She made one last ditch effort.

―Listen, I have children myself. I understand the pain you’re going through. I think you
should at least take another day to go over this again before finalizing anything.‖

The silence in the room was piercing, pulsating, alive.

―Ok, I’ll get you the papers.‖

----------

An hour later, there was a knock on the office door. The doctor’s stomach dropped as she
glanced at the clock. She knew it usually took around 45 minutes to fill out the necessary forms.
She stood slowly, reluctantly, sliding her chair to nestle neatly under the sleek white desk.

She opened the door with her hand already raised, poised to receive the contract that
would sentence a child to death. But to her surprise, the mother’s downturned eyes were red and
swollen. In her trembling grasp were the blank papers, neat printed lines now blotched and
smeared.

―One more day.‖

The door swung shut.

 Version 279
Arlie Averill Thompson

-O somber blue sky-

Grey blue sky in the midst of spring

Though dark frustrations swirl the air

I beg no more than for inspiration

-Some sort of new realization, a mind opening truth. An insight to life. At least some sort of experience.
Something unique? Do I have no such woe to pour a soul into? Nothing to say or express? No frustrations
to show? Just give me something to pull it all together-

Through endless strains of apathy

There's no denying what is clearly true

My creativity has long worn out

- The world is tearing itself apart, people lay in streets dying, protests and movements, a culmination to age old
issues and here I stand with nothing to say.-
Useless jumbles of words chosen for sound

No intention besides a self-assessed, nonexistent flow

A forced display of fanciful language

-Meaningless dribble polished and shipped to anyone unfortunate enough to listen-

A medium of art wasted on a far removed mind

Are such disgraces shows of love

Or self imposed damnations

They're all just botched attempts

For ideas wilt before coming about

 Out of Time
Katie Murray

I once knew time.

I knew the ticking of the clock, like the back of my hand:
the constant sound never ceased
and time was everlasting.

But time is deceitful

and though the ticking never stopped,
life suddenly did.

She was gone.

Time took her.
It killed the light in her ocean eyes,
the endless sea of floating hope was drowned by an empty stare.

Time paralyzed her lively smile that used to dance with laughter,
and left a stifling stillness behind.
Nobody moved with purpose,
nobody moved at all.

Time silenced her beating heart,

and suddenly,
the world had no sound.
Talking turned to mumbles
and scratch-less records refused to play.

As I saw her, lying there,

the world stopped mid rotation,
but the hands of the clock kept spinning,
An undying tick, an endless tock.

She was gone.

I didn’t say goodbye,
I didn’t say ―I love you,‖
I didn’t say how much she meant to me,
Because I thought there would be more time.
Photography by Elizabeth Nelson
Creative Writing

Creative Writing is an elective presented by the JCP English Department. It is open to

juniors and senior. Students find their voices while learning the basics of three act story
structure, crafting a narrative through carnality, characterization through cognitive
psychological personality theory, plot structures and tropes, and forms of poetry,
including bops, prose poems, tankas, sijos, corridos, rubais, and a host of others.

For more information, contact Mr. Bastyr in room 5032 or email bmbastyr@cps.edu

The Fourth Floor: Jones College Prep Literary Magazine

Interested in evaluating and editing short stories, creative nonfiction, and poetry? Visit
our meetings after school on Tuesdays in room 5032 or contact Mr. Bastyr.
To our Dear Writers,

Thank you for sharing your words and your stories and your lives with all of us on
the fourth floor this year. We have loved watching as your lives blend and fuse and
weave together in the best ways possible, and we are despondent to have to close this
year’s chapter. So as a gift to you, we would like to leave you with these few words:

蝸牛
そろそろ登れ
富士の山

English Translation:
O snail,
Climb Mt. Fuji,
But slowly, slowly.

You are all climbing your own Mount Fuji's, whether it be conquering the
unrelenting stairs of JCP or overcoming the ambivalence of the universe. Each step you
take towards your mountaintop is another page in the story of your life. So thank you for
giving us a glimpse into your journey and write your stories with great care, but slowly
slowly.

Best,
The Fourth Floor
The Fourth Floor
Jones College Prep
2017 – 2018
Volume 3