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Excerpted from The Silencing Properties of Snow by Georgia Witt Marge sighed. It was a sigh that she always released after baking cookies. An exhale that yes, was from the labor of baking, but also held something melancholy to it. Something she never could place but always felt. It reminded her of the sighs she always had on Sundays, back when she attended school. Those Sunday night sighs that she let out while her father snored in front of a ball game, while her mother nagged her little brother about finishing his homework. The drone of the sport’s commentators narrating the ball game, her backpack stuffed with books in preparation for the next morning, the laundry folded neat on the couch, the dinner leftovers packed in Tupperware, stored in the refrigerator, the hazy sun melting away like a creamsicle pop, all the light gone now, just black, quiet night that would soon break into morning. A new Monday. A new week. A week uncannily similar to the last. All of it such a rat race, a maze. Dreary and monotonous, leading to what exactly? Her books in her backpack, her studies, all leading to college. College to a career? A career to make money. Money to make her happy. They had money. And they weren’t happy. “It was like a guitar string inside her, some invisible finger strumming against it continuously until it just snapped.” Marge pinched her nose to break the spiral of thoughts. She patted her apron, washed her hands, entered the living room to join her husband. “Cookies are in the oven,” she said, dropping to the couch. The beaten leather coughed under her weight, and she coughed into a fist. “Mmm…,” said Seamus. He was halfway through the paper now. Finger shaped streaks of sweat were visible on parts of the flimsy pages he had previously gripped. Marge stared. She watched Seamus’ mouth, slightly agape, and his tongue flit around lazily inside. She watched his finger dig in his ear. She lasered in on his tee shirt, the end of it pulled up a bit to reveal his pot belly. She felt disgust twinge in her stomach. It was like a guitar string inside her, some invisible finger strumming against it continuously until it just snapped. “I’ve got to use the toilet.” Marge said suddenly. Seamus didn’t seem to notice her abrupt manner. She sat up from her spot in the couch with much effort and walked away. “Okay.” Seamus murmured. Marge walked to the bathroom, feeling the broken string writhing into rage inside of her. She tried to quiet it. She dragged down her slacks, placed herself on the toilet. As she peed, she rubbed the skin of her forehead, trying to stop whatever feeling was inside her at the moment. But it continued to heat up, just like her oven in preparation for the cookies. She had felt that red hot temperature rise slowly all afternoon, and now it was at the checkpoint, ready to rumble. She wiped herself dry, stood up and flushed the toilet. In that moment many things came together at once, and Marge had to lean her forehead against the cool glass of the bathroom window to prevent her head from swimming. It was the sound of the toilet water flushing. The smell of their bathroom, the same smell as her husband and his wretched soap. The smell she woke up to each morning and went to sleep with each night. Her sweating feet and the icy tile meeting. The sickly yellow lighting weak as broth. The image of Seamus back in the living room, cocooned in his greasy armchair, his hands probably rifling in a bag of cheesy potato chips. It felt good. Her eyes closed. The perfect silence of the home. Save for the distant whistling of falling snow outside. She felt she was in a liminal space. Some blinding, dangling dream-like spider sack bouncing silently in space and time. The plate of cookies untouched on the kitchen counter. Seamus burning through his paper. Snow falling through pitch black forest outside. No people for miles. Just the two of them.

Dear Linh Kate Kim My grandma’s backyard still looks the same. The potted little yellow flowers on the veranda. The shady arbor wrapped in twisting branches and climbing vines. The wooden bench, splintery and peeling, yet sturdier than any store bought seat. The rows and rows of strange and exotic fruits and vegetables, all in various stages of growth. The large oak tree, with its leaves healthy and lush, its branches stronger than ever. I like to think that everything is the same. But it isn’t, and that is everywhere. Images of my grandpa repairing the brown picket fence, humming nonsensical tunes to his own whimsy, flash by like mirages. Pictures of him on his knees, working alongside my grandma in the garden, and with his deep, throaty laughter as he spun small children around with his arms. He seems to have taken Bà’s soft smile, her airy laugh, and sparkling eyes along with him. The fried scent of bánh tai heo , “pig ear” cookies wafts into my nose as I look around, temporarily wiping any melancholy thoughts away. I trace the scent to the backyard door, where Bà is carefully walking towards me, holding a bright red porcelain plate stacked with her signature treat. She sets them down on the table, the plate thudding dully on contact. “How are you, dear Linh?” she asks, her words slightly stilted from her accent. She slides into the chair and folds her hands together. Her thinning white hair is pinned up, although wispy frontal strands drift astray of the ponytail, brushing against her tanned, wrinkled skin. “I’m good,” I mumble through a mouthful of crisp, sweet cookie. “Oh, lovely,” she says softly. She strokes the kitty, Maggie, absentmindedly and her gaze clouds over as she stares off into the distance, as if covered by an invisible film of sadness. “Ngoại ?” I say tentatively. “Unh?” She shifts in the chair to smile at me. The corners of her eyes crinkle into their well-worn lines. “Are you all right?” “Oh, yes.” She bobs her head in a nod. Under my doubtful stare, she pauses, as she seems to play with the right words, and simply adds, “I . . . miss him.” There is a palpable weight on my stomach when I say, “I’m sorry.” My grandmother, my bà ngoại, so strong, who has gone through so much, looks so fragile. So sad. I don’t know what to say to help ease her pain. “I miss him too,” I bumble. She smiles sadly, then pats my hand. “Cám ơn con ,” she says. Thank you . The effort in her voice to lighten the conversation is apparent. She takes a deep breath and resettles her shoulders, a reset, if in posture only. “You see that tree?” she asks, looking over at me to make sure I am understanding. “Chú Quang and I are going to cut. We build a greenhouse. Much better for plants.” Her stilted words and long pauses leave broken holes in the sentence. It takes me a second, then the crushing meaning of the words falls down on me. "Oh,” I say. My cookie tastes like cardboard now. “When?” She reaches for a cookie of her own. “Quang is coming by next week,” she tells me, seemingly oblivious to my thundering heart. “We try to finish by end of January.” She bites into the cookie, then makes a face. “This is not good,” she spits. “Bá ngoại did a bad job.” She pushes the plate away. “It is too cold out here,” she says. “Inside?” “. . . Yes, of course,” I say, after some hesitation, and push my chair back to stand up. She gets up from her own chair, much more slowly than I. She strains to get up; her hands tremble as they press against the armrests and a strenuous pink blossoms across her cheeks. Somewhere in the back of my head I know that something’s not right, but I bury it deep, deep down. Bà is okay; she is healthy and strong . I convince myself that saying this makes it true. But fear lingers in the back of my head, sticky and creeping and sending chills down my spine. She has to be okay. “You… you did it,” I whisper, my mouth falling open. “You cut it down.” It’s April, and the sun is finally overcoming the crisp chilly air. It’s been three months since Bà’s fall—right after Tết, the Lunar New Year, and almost two months since her return from the hospital. We’re standing in her backyard, staring at the stump of a tree that, not even a week ago, proudly stretched high in the sky. “I did,” she says simply. “Now there is room for the greenhouse!” My eyes feel like they are bubbling, and my face feels hot. Grandpa planted that tree thirty years ago. Gone. Gone, gone, gone. “Linh,” she says gently as hot tears spill down my cheeks. “Oh, dear Linh.” Her comforting words don’t help me; her wrinkled, tanned hands, capable of soothing any injury, heal nothing. The change in the air is unbearable. The tree is gone, and she’s so fragile , and I don’t know what to do. I can’t control anything right now. I need things to be the same. “Bà —” “Oh, good, dear Linh.” My grandma’s frail, wrinkled hand reached up and pats my hand cheerfully, like she isn’t lying in a hospital bed surrounded by chirping, humming machines whose purpose I can’t even begin to fathom. “How are you feeling?” I ask, settling into one of the plastic armchairs that sit by her bed. My uncle is in the other, his eyes closed. I’m not sure if he’s sleeping. He’s been fussing over my grandma all day. “Okay,” Bá hem-haws. “I have many people taking care of me. How about you? You are good?” “I’m good,” I say hesitantly. “Good?” She inspects me closely, scanning my face. “No, I do not think so.” Her warm fingers brush against my forehead. “I am,” I say, but it’s hard to swallow. She touches my cheek. “Linh,” she says calmly. “Look at me. Tôi đang lành lại —I am getting better every day. You can’t do any -thing.” This last part is said rather bluntly as she leans back on her bed. “I fell. We cut the tree. It happened. All done. Now we just focus on how to fix.” She pauses, thinking. “Or how to grow.” Her words are clipped, blurred, mixed up in the space between her native tongue and English, but I know what she’s trying to get across. I marvel at how my small little grandma can use the few words in her limited English inventory to land such a hard punch. Beside me, Uncle Quang lets out a loud snore. “Is there anything I can do?” I blurt after an extended period of silence, surprised that coherent words are able to tumble past the rock in my throat. “Oh, yes,” she says, looking pleased. She draws herself up and starts rambling off a list of things in Vietnamese. “I need my sewing basket, my cup—” “Hang on—” I scramble for my phone and jot down all her wish list items. She continues. “—book on my bed table—ahhmm—pillow? Mmm . . . kem đánh răng —how do you say?”—she jabs Uncle Quang awake and asks him something in rapid-fire Vietnamese, who replies groggily, “Toothpaste?” (“Ah! Yes!”), then continues, “Picture of Ông Ngoại …and pretzels.” The corners of her lips curve into a smile. I don’t know why she loves Snyder's pretzel rods. She always keeps a stockpile of at least three king-size bags in her pantry. I read the list back to her to double-check. She nods, pleased, once I’ve finished reciting it. I kiss her on the cheek, then get into the car and drive to her house. Maggie is right at the door when I unlock it, mewing at me angrily. “Hello, Maggie,” I giggle, slipping my sneakers off. “I know. I’m sorry. Bà being sick is tough on you too, isn’t it?” Maggie stalks across the floor. “But she’s shown us she can fight.” I pause, thinking about her struggle these past few months. “If there’s one thing we’ve learned about her, it’s that she’s one tough cookie. . .She’ll get better soon.” I continue my monologue as I pour some cat food for Maggie. First on Bà’s list is her mug. I’m already digging through the cupboard for her floral peony mug when the window catches my eye. I walk outside, Maggie at my heels, and sit on the bench, facing the stump with a clear view of the expansive backyard. I lean back and take a look at the potted little yellow flowers on the veranda. The shady arbor wrapped in twisting branches and climbing vines. The handcrafted wooden bench, splintery and peeling but sturdier than any store-bought seat. The rows and rows of strange and exotic fruits and vegetables—longan, grapefruit, guava, all carefully selected by Bà—all in various stages of growth. . .and the oak stump. I take one long look at it, in all its glory, and walk towards it, inspecting it closely. Yes, things aren’t the same. But that’s okay. I think it is. There’s nothing more to do—nothing I can do. My gaze falls on a few forgotten planks of wood by the stump, and I think of the abandoned efforts to build a greenhouse. Bà’s words in the hospital come drifting back to me. Now we just focus on how to fix. I slide my fingers along the smooth bark, wondering. Or how to grow. With an effort that’s almost painful, I wrench away and walk back to the house. Bà is still waiting. Return to Piece Selection

Handcrafting a Predictable Meatball Anthony Bernando The Peace of Pre-Quarantine Kyra Lai “Arrivederci Roma” playing from the street like Dean was there himself, Vendors selling fresh bread, fruits, and vegetables. Brooklyn, New York, 1983. Frank Caporaso got his hair cut. No charge from the barbers. They were joyful to see their homemade Italian meatball prepared, Covered in his own red sauce and shame. The dismal child walks home, His empty abode filled with the lingering stench of a vodka soaked carpet. Mama never had the money to replace it. Papa spilled drinks on the carpet whenever he got disoriented. He’s been gone for three years. Papa had his own world. It was filled with parallel figures, Deforming the fabric of his family. He was never alone, though he was never there. Cut Frankie out like the chooch’s cut into his head, Disappeared into a forest of voices and riches, Never cooking the meatball, No seasoning or preparing, only leaving blood and ground meat of a cow. Meatballs are meant to be cooked and served for the world to enjoy: Just a little pink on the inside, Delectable and scrumptious with a little ricotta. So why not follow in its true footsteps alone? Return to Table of Contents

Can I Keep Them? by Moriah Roland The Ocean Voyager Exhibit by Whenever my eyes close I see it: The whale sharks drone above me Beside me Around me A pocket of air escapes my lungs and floats to the surface A sea turtle nips at the ball and chain Tied to my sore ankles I didn't mind the water all too much If only it didn’t feel as if my lungs were being crushed I can see the two walls beside me, painted to resemble A free and expansive ocean Above, the harsh white ceiling lamps shine into our tank I look at the viewing window, and all I see is a reflection Of my water-logged skin And empty reddened eyes Hair being tussled by a manta ray, With a gray nub replacing his stinger The glass holds a lie: I know I have an audience The glass holds a truth: It shows me who’s at fault Exiled to the depths of my mind, I wait in place for the water to flood my small lungs And for the salt to make me anew The whale sharks are beautiful Oh giant floating mass of wisdom I wish I was just like you Gigantic, mindless, idolized Pacing your football-field sized cage When all of this is said and done, Will they find my rotting corpse in your carnivorous maw? The ball stays cemented in the sand The chain floats freely between us A gasp is all it takes. The inky water sucks the air out of my lungs And the audience of past mistakes (Would-be’s, talk-to-you-later’s, and i-love-you’s) Watch the person I used to be Drown in that most gorgeous place

bdaef953-30b4-4207-acd3-a2a92ccdebf0 Pisgah by Audrey Lendvay The Willful by Nayra McMahan The garden in my backyard is dead. I planted it in a spring long past, dug my small hands into the rainy earth and poked holes small enough for my seeds— Roma tomatoes, pickling cukes, pumpkins— to find comfortable. I spent hours planting, kneeling before the boundary I’d created between grass and fresh earth until it felt something like home. Summer never brought me the growth I was seeking, though. An unforgiving sun fried the tomatoes before they were green; the pumpkins and cucumbers never even sprouted. Weeds, teeming with barbed seeds, took root in the earth that I had worked in. No gloves could keep my hands safe. I let my hands bleed, dripping life into the soil. Now, relentless yellow Florida grass clumps where the tall weeds aren’t. It settles its roots into the home I made, inserts itself where it was not welcome, and grows. Grows, despite it all. Despite the weeds above it taking the sun, even when they’re dead and dry and browning, selfish corpses. Florida grass doesn’t worry about its yellow. It doesn’t care that it’s splotchy and rough on bare feet. It fights for sunlight. I want dirt under my nails again. I want grit and bitter yellow in my blood, the strength to have roots that live through frost, through fire. Roots that find comfort in my beating, beautiful Florida sun and grow new green leaves as soon as they burst up, stubborn and singing, through the dirt. Return to Table of Contents

< Table of Contents Editors' Note As Élan has continued to sail into its 38th year of publication we have explored the fluidity of authentic art, and the variety of ways it can appear. In these pieces, artists from around the world grapple with the hard realities of what makes them belong and stand out as they perch on the precipice between childhood and adulthood. Journey with us as we dive deep into the true meaning of these human desires. As Editors-in-Chief, we are beyond proud of the work the staff and artists have put into this issue. We hope that you will allow this collection of work to sit with you. Let the tides of emotion within these pages take you out to sea and lead you somewhere different from where you began. Signed, Niveah Glover, Emma Klopfer, Avery Grossman, & Jaslyn Dickerson

< Back Embracing Flesh by Haven Foster I know I’m supposed to treat you kindly, I can’t By Olivia Chao I. Acidosis Attempting to fix a progression that started ages ago, a body, my body, lies open on the operating table, acid burbles from inside the hemoglobin. Ever so slowly, a vector approaches, years of disuse have finally caught up to me. Erosion eats away at my skin, neurons leak through pores, spilling onto the floor. It’s too late. II. Hypothermia I can barely remember my childhood. Distant, lie vast green fields splotched in windmills, bathed in sunlight. I do my best to describe it to you, but I’m left with nothing. Static. Snow. Wound left untreated, infected. Ripped away as quickly as it came I return to the present Mutilated. III. Coagulopathy I want to bury myself in the skin of your youth, bathe in a lake filled with your blood, somehow let your memories fill the gaps in mine. Waves of nausea sweep over me nostalgia rots away at what’s left of my body I want to run. Remember. I can’t. No matter how hard I try, they slip out of my grasp. Like blood. Death. You look at my attempts, my body, horrified. Wriggling out of the snare I’ve made for myself I sink, slipping out of your gaze and onto a pile of my own organs. Stitches gelled back Scars swelling I remain Wholey incomplete About the Author... Chao is a young writer and artist from Florida. They attend Douglas Anderson School of the Arts with a major in creative writing. Their artwork has previously been featured in the Downtown Jacksonville Public Library, and their writing has also previously been featured in Élan. About the Artist... Haven Foster is a Junior at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. She takes inspiration from self-identity and likes to experiment with different kinds of mixed media. Previous Next

< Table of Contents Still Holding On by Andie Crawford The Myth By Hannah Rouse Mermaids, much like humans, have fingers so they can thread through seaweed. The only differences are their shimmery, scaly tails and magical lungs or gills or whatever they use to breathe underwater. Maybe their skin is seafoam green, and their fins like stained glass with the texture of damp leaves. In my head, they look just like in the stories and the movies. They’re out there somewhere, singing ships to sleep. Perfect and perched on jagged rocks. Dancing in waves that collapse into nothing. They fall in love with sailors and revel in the wreckage of storms. They’re not afraid of sharks or the vast, aqua emptiness that is their home. *** I always wanted to be a mermaid. Even when I wouldn’t swim in the pool unless my parents checked it for spiders and frogs. I wore Disney Princess floaties on my arms, a small inflatable tube on my stomach, and green and blue goggles to protect my eyes from the sting of salt water. I wouldn’t put my head underwater until I was five or six years old, when an older girl asked to play mermaids with me. After that, I finally managed to dip my skull beneath the ripples. My long, brown hair, pulled lovingly into a braid by my mother, once dry, dripped with dreams of my legs merging together and growing gold or green scales. *** I used to reenact the giant rock scene from The Little Mermaid at the mini-golf course. I sang “Part of Your World” softly to myself. The rough surfaces scratched at my skin but all I could think about was swimming with Flounder, about having a dinglehopper. At seven years old, I still wanted a Snarfblatt more than anything in the world. My new room at my grandparents' beach house was decorated entirely by myths: dolls, ornaments, signs, and miniature statues. With my toes in the sand, I observed the whitecaps breaking in the distance, wondering when I’d see her for real. *** There is a painting hanging on my wall: a mermaid sits on a rock, arm outstretched toward a white unicorn—beach waves in her hair, a pale gray seashell bra, and a glittery green tail. The sky behind them swirls, pink and purple around a flaming sun. But their reflections show them as they are. A girl and a horse under a boring blue sky, fantasizing about a life where they could be something magical. *** “I pretended that my swimsuit was made from scallop shells.” Until I was thirteen, I wore a full-length pink mermaid tail in the pool. Exhilarated by the sensations of gliding, slicing through the thick water. I took my hair down and let it float behind me in the chlorine, a cloud of thin brown strands with a mind of their own. I pretended that my swimsuit was made from scallop shells. Imagined that I was fearless enough to swim, not in the confinement of a pool, but engulfed in the ocean’s cerulean darkness. *** “I’ll give you a dollar to stand by that shark,” Mimi said, pointing to Tommy, the giant fifty-foot statue of my worst fear, whose gaping mouth was the entrance to Jaws Resortwear. I didn’t look at him, but knew all too well what the store and Tommy looked like. Beady, black eyes. His sharp teeth pointed at any poor soul who wanted to enter. All the windows next to him were covered in towels with the terrifying creatures printed on the front. Other sharks, Tommy’s friends, I presumed, were posed to look like they rose through the concrete, their faces full of hunger. I shook my head. Just the thought of standing anywhere near the store made me sick. “Five dollars,” she smiled. I did not. “Ten dollars?” I wouldn’t have stood by the door of Jaws Resortwear for anything. She upped the offer to twenty, thirty, then finally, forty. I always refused. For the rest of the week-long vacation, Mimi tried to make that same deal each time we passed Tommy, the ominous entrance to the store. Not once did I budge. Not once did I even think about actually letting her take the picture of me standing in Tommy’s mouth. On the surface, this is why I cannot live in the ocean. *** For him, my bra was not made of seashells, but rather of wires and lace and polyester. I did not have a tail. My hair draped across the armrest as if again just released from its braid, free to float. I reveled in the way he looked at me. Perhaps he was just a shark, like Tommy, and I just never noticed his bloodthirsty mouth. Or maybe he was the ocean. Seaweed limbs wrapping around me. Hands all over, the stinging tentacles of a jellyfish searching for something shiny in a shipwreck. But he found nothing worth loving in the rotting planks of wood. Drowning in the stained leather of the couch, I began to see myself as the reflection in the painting. The reality. No magical lungs or gills or whatever the mermaids would use to breathe in the chaos of the ocean if they were real. Nothing more than a girl trying to touch something that looks mythic, magic, but is just as raw, as real as she is. *** Now, I don’t dare go in the ocean. Not a single painted toenail touches the seafoam. Even pools scare me when I can’t feel the floor below me. The concrete scraped holes in the thin fabric of the pretend mermaid tail I outgrew. But I still think if I stare at the ocean for long enough, I’ll see the sparkle of a mermaid's fin somewhere in the distance. So, I watch the waves closely, waiting for my girlhood to return. About the Writer... Hannah Rouse is a junior Literary Arts major at Appomattox Regional Governor’s School. She has been published in Asgard, Fledge, Under The Madness, Appelley, Free Spirit, and You Might Need to Hear This. She won runner-up in Georgia Southern University’s High School Writing Contest, as well as fiv e G old Keys, a Silver Key, and five Honorable Mentions from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. She received first prize nationally for the Sarah Mook Poetry Contest in 2023. Hannah is also a competitive dancer and enjoys spending time with her two cats. About the Artist... Andie Crawford is a 12th grade visual artist at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. Her best mediums are drawing and painting.

15 Evergreen by Babafemi Fatoki Tidewater by Grace Thomas “You have to write goodbye ,” he said. “So the ghosts know not to stick around.” I rolled my eyes, but wrote it anyway. He was drunk enough that the Virginia had bled out into his oral posture, vowels bent out of shape with the memory of his father’s tidewater raising. I sound so backwoods, he'd say, laughing with his hand over his mouth as though trying to keep the sound of it trapped inside. When I thought about kissing him, I sometimes wondered whether he’d taste like dogwood and creek beds and sweetgrass baking in the sun, teeth dripping with his childhood home. He bent his head low, squinting at the board to make sure that everything was in check, spots of soft darkness appearing on the paper where the rainwater dripped from his hair. Outside the window, thunder cracked so loud I could feel it in my teeth, and he smiled at the sound of it. “Perfect weather for this, huh?” I shrugged my agreement. He struck a match, lit a candle then his cigarette, hands pale like a drowned boy’s. I flipped off the light. Sometimes, when the nights are dark enough, I find myself thinking through all of the cruelest things I could say to him. I lie on my back and stare up at my shadowed bedroom ceiling, watching the fan carve its slow rotation. My heart beats faster as I picture his hand in mine, picture his face as I say I hate you, I hate you, I’ve always hated you . I don’t mean it, of course. I’d never tell it to him, anyway. But I think that’s why the thought of it grips me so damn hard. Like tossing your phone onto the metro tracks. It’s forbidden, and therefore it calls to me. Tonight, I picture pulling the planchette over and over back to goodbye, hands moving in subtle deceit. He’d get excited at first, try to frame it as a reluctant spirit disturbed from its slumber by our homemade ouija board, our dollar store taper candles. But slowly the disillusionment would set in, and he’d look at me with those sharp-edged, knowing eyes. “Cut it out, will you? This isn’t a joke?”“Then what is it?” I’d reply. He would furrow his brow. I wouldn’t. “Honestly? You can quit all of this ghost hunting bullshit,” I would say. “If you want to see your father again, just keep drinking like him.” The only thing that makes me shiver more than picturing him crying is picturing how his face would feel pressed against my shoulder as I apologized and he forgave me. But I would never say these things to him, of course. Never let him show me the moth-wing shudder of his breath as he sobs. It’s late; I’m alone. The rain beats against my bedroom window like a thousand fists, conjured souls that hadn’t been properly sealed away. I imagine it filling up the gutters and the drainage ditch, then seeping onto the sidewalk like a pot boiling over. It would lift up every broken bottle and glinting puddle of leaked oil and the dead rabbit rotting by my bus stop with its legs splayed out and its eyes glazed and unseeing. All of it coursing down the avenue like the river Styx swollen with memory, washing everything clean. I close my eyes. Tidewater raising. About the Writer... Grace Thomas is a senior at Montgomery Blair High School. She writes poems and short stories, which have been recognized in local publications and competitions. She is the head literary editor of Blair’s literary magazine, SilverQuill. She lives in Maryland, where she enjoys spending time with her friends and her cat. About the Artist... Babafemi Fatoki is a senior at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. At DASOTA, Babafemi is a visual arts major. The medium of their piece is paint.

< Table of Contents A Mother's Love by Emilia Hickman My.BaptistChart.com By Abbey Griffin After Nicole Sealey “My / father’s mother’s more sweat than blood / half the time.” I have been anxious. I’ve created half the scars on my own skin. I can’t focus. My mother has, my mother’s mother had, high blood pressure. My father is depressed. My father’s mother’s more sweat than blood half the time. My grandfathers are dead or gone. I sleep fine. I don’t eat. Wellbutrin for a will to live. B12 for keeping my eyes open. My eyes are opposite—one near, one far: compensating. I shiver at shadows. Aunt Susan died of cancer. DeeDee, a stroke in bed. Uncle KiKi died at 34, slipped on a cliff during a night hike, no spotter. I have wasted time in weighted blankets wondering if I will die at twilight, too, under a gaping map of slasher stars. I’m anemic. My blood wells too easily, like apples, and my forehead breaks out oily, Ash Wednesday staining my crown the shape of Daddy’s fingerprint. I know from dust we were born and to ashes we will return, but there is a sunrise I haven’t seen in Boston Commons and a memoir, open on a library desk for me. About the Writer... Abbey Griffin (she/her) is a writer in Florida. "What the Living Do" by Marie Howe made her fall in love with poetry and decide to devote her life to it. She hopes that everyone can find their own inspiration throughout their lives and a unique understanding and love of the arts. About the Artist... Emilia Hickman is a junior at Savannah Arts Academy in Savannah, Georgia. She specializes in reali sm, an d her favorite mediums are drawing and painting.

< Back Unzipped by Yujin Jeon 火花 Fire Flower By Joycelyn Zhang I am Asian, born with sparks in my belly, the same fire stoked by my ancestors lighting the first firecrackers. Back then, firecrackers were lit in celebration; they scared away evil. They were long, crackling snakes with tongues of wick, and they protected the Chinese spirit. I used to think I was a firecracker as well, so I could protect my own Chinese spirit. I am American, English a familiar weight on my tongue, ABCs engraved in my head, in my sentences pledging allegiance like clockwork every morning. Firecrackers aren’t allowed in school—they sound too similar to something else. I burned out and buried mine deep inside long ago. My home is clogged with soot and spicy fresh meat, Nai-nai , her nostalgia apron stained with yesterday’s dumpling flour, native language flowing and curling from my relatives’ native lips, like warm water. In China, gray is in the soot that powders the ground, in the layers of smog in the sky, in the air that coats your lungs if you breathe it in for too long. But beneath that gray is the bubble of hot cooking on the old iron stove and the Chinese language that bubbles around you, like a hot sauna. My home is cool and clear and thin like the air, mirroring each other in winter and summer dresses; the paved roads and streets hold their breath when the night comes out to play. A sun that glows persimmon over the ocean is the only ornament in the clear, clear sky. In California, the sky swallows everything up. The ocean rolls and spits white foam onto the sand. The air is clear at night, sharp like broken glass. I wonder if I can cut myself just breathing. It’s hard to breathe freely in America, the land of the free. I am Asian, and so people at school perceive me as such. I am almond-eyed, just like my ancestors. I have golden-brown, glossy skin and a face that betrays no hint of color when I’m embarrassed. But above all, I’m smart, I’m good at math; I ace every test because that’s what I’m supposed to do. Because I’m Asian. I struggle with all my might to rise to the top, struggling to keep my Chinese spirit alive. And this time, it’s not the firecrackers protecting me—it’s the grades. And they never burn for half as long. In China, everyone looked like me—same shiny dark hair and warm Chinese voice. But my grandparents look at me and shake their heads. Her skin is too dark , they agree with each other. She is full of bones. Why don’t you eat enough? How is my golden skin perfect for an Asian girl but not perfect enough for a Chinese girl? Plumpness is beautiful in China—it shows you have enough to eat. Thinness is beautiful in America—it means you have the luxury of choosing not to eat. But my stomach sits in rolls like the mantou that my nai-nai makes, far from the accentuated, glossy LuLuLemon models. My shoulders are too broad and my arms too skinny to make up for it. I’m too plump in America and too thin in China. I will never be beautiful. I’m a foreigner in a country I thought I’d feel welcome in. My scrappy Chinese tumbles and trips over itself as it leaves my mouth. 姑姑 (gū gu): father’s younger female cousin What do you do when she approaches you with her sons in tow, excitement so palpable you can taste it through your nose, and then she says, “Your little brother wanted to hear authentic English from an authentic source!” If I could say anything to myself from back then, I would ask: do you remember how gray that place was? How you compared the underground to the sky above, how it was as if the smog outside had plastered itself onto the damp walls? Can you picture how the faded murals were the only warmth in the otherwise cold tunnels? How the poems and proverbs consisted of hanzi you’d never once encountered in your pathetic American-curated Chinese textbooks? Do you remember how colorless you felt? 爸爸妈妈 (Dad and Mom) point in a dirty subway station: Can you read this? At school, I’m smart because I have to be, answering question after question like they are tokens of my identity I must earn, so how can four little words leave me unable to speak? My cheeks flame like firecrackers, and not in the way I want them to. I thought that flying to China in a Chinese plane, breathing Chinese air and speaking only Chinese and eating Chinese food would make me as Chinese on the inside as I was on the outside. When you were little, you’d perk up like Pavlov’s dog every time the word “Chinese” was mentioned. You’d clutch your fists into spark-breathing firecrackers and shout, “That’s me!” But was it really you? Was it not the eyes and skin but the heart that made you Chinese? What do you do then? What if all your life, “authentic” meant being Chinese, knowing the streets with those old stone courtyards? I’m fake. I can see it in their eyes, I can see it in quiet ai-yah s they hiss in their authentic accents, like ripe tea kettles—soft and sizzling to the touch—the sounds I’ll never be able to replicate. I’m too American. "I’m fake. I can see it in their eyes, I can see it in quiet ai-yah s they hiss in their / authentic accents, like ripe tea kettles—soft and sizzling to the touch—the / sounds I’ll never be able to replicate. / I’m too American." But am I? If even the people in China, which America sees as nothing but a communist dystopia, can see me and say, nope, not white enough, while at the same time tell me I’m exotic…which is it? Mandarin or English? Asian or American? Is there a line in the sand I must find so I can be equally both? Why do I even care what they label me as? 飞机 (fēi jī): airplane, flying machine The only place I felt free. Because up in the sky, the clouds blurred everything. Even the invisible borders and the sea between the two worlds. About the Author... Joycelyn Zhang is a freshman at Canyon Crest Academy, San Diego. Despite the workload at the school, she finds time to enjoy writing and playing the piano. When she is not busy with dance class, she is thinking about how and what she should write. While Joycelyn prefers to write poetry and short stories, she is open to trying other styles. She is always looking to expand her understanding of the literary world, and is honored to have her work featured in Élan. About the Artist... Yujin Jeon is a 17-year-old junior at Hamilton High School. Her favorite medium is acrylic paint layered with colored pencils. By utilizing acrylic paint she can capture a wide color range and through colored pencils, she can accentuate small layered details. Her motivation as an artist is to create art depicting one’s “flaws or “imperfections” through a confident persona. She feels that it is important to appreciate one’s “flaws” through the idea of body neutrality. This challenges the traditional beauty standards as it shifts the focus from appearance to functionality. Moreover, centering vulnerability in this journey can help individuals be in tune with themselves regardless of physical appearance. She translates her art into a magazine-inspired format depicting the “imperfections” of inanimate objects and people to make it truly unique and give it a sense of individuality. Previous Next

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