Fall/Winter 2021 Cover Art: Ephemeral by Jayci Bryant Table of Contents Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button Editor's Note Blair Bowers and Brendan Nurczyk Editor's Note 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000003 Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 0 Gravity Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button Brown Fruit Gravity Autumn Hill Brown Fruit Nishka Mirchandani 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000002 Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 1 Lily Pond Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button St. John Lily Pond Kathryn Moore St. John Kadynce Singer 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001 Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 2 Eye Can See Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button Allegory Deferred Eye Can See Lynn Kong allegory deferred Adrian Gibson 8369316c-3922-48ab-afd4-a7f4470baf45 Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 3 Coming Apart at the Seams Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button The Weight is Worth It Coming Apart at the Seams An Lin Hunt-Babcock The Weight is Worth It Audrey Lendvay a00f936e-1e60-441a-be88-713de7174eff Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 4 Dysmorphia Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button GAIA Dysmorphia Lynn Kong GAIA LaBrenda Bell 244b5e6c-812d-4eb2-bf1c-edd3f530b234 Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 5 My Tears are the Ocean and the Weight of them drags me Down Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button Sea of Stars My Tears are the Ocean and the Weight of them drags me Down Sam Howell Sea of Stars Deshea Reed 326b340e-bd96-45cd-96db-4e58c0253b22 Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 6 Can I Keep Them? Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button The Ocean Voyager Exhibit Can I Keep Them? Kota Locklear The Ocean Voyager Exhibit Moriah Roland df22dff7-3690-4541-8248-c989c591ee6a Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 7 Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button Goose Esmé DeVries Goose a6e55e00-fcbc-484d-9122-651e78de9275 Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 8 The fantastical world of Henry Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button The fantastical world of Henry The fantastical world of Henry Eleanor Goodwin c74a45c2-321d-4a81-87e9-cfeb1ed2d3f2 Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 9 Wishful Thinking Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button To the dock of the Black River Wishful Thinking Alisia Vinson to the dock of the black river Rose Knudsen db57fdf3-f02f-429b-9a7f-cb811d5d82f9 Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 10 Scoliosis Orthosis Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button barbeque ribs Scoliosis Orthosis Ziyi Yan Barbeque Ribs Harper Golden 1b92b68a-bfb6-4e66-b8c0-0b8b33525784 Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 11 Reflection Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button Reflection Reflection Nyriel Saures 9f6b710f-6a61-4fe7-9759-7c368f1ee09b Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 12 Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button The Silencing Properties of Snow Georgia Witt The Silencing Properties of Snow 23ee8108-19c5-4efc-9e81-f5c3da82aba3 Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 13 Sleepy in the Shade Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button Ripe Sleepy in the Shade Bella Hart Ripe Eleanor Goodwin 8a4e3407-8e03-4d94-830e-62a75a3e0870 Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 14 Ephemeral Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button You Used to Know How to Dance (Really Well) Ephemeral Nayra McMahan You Used to Know How to Dance (Really Well) Jayci Bryant 8e1b07b1-1814-4122-a8f0-df0a0e9c82d0 Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 15 closed window Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button Heavenly Gifts closed window Phillip Simmons Jr. Heavenly Gifts Dion Hines fb3f835e-4020-450a-ad15-b1f0f2df7f61 Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 16 A Thriving Abyss Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button your favorite song A Thriving Abyss Blair Bowers your favorite song Catye Evoniuk 2a60ad91-3507-4f09-928b-51b03f75df91 Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 17 Rebirth Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button The Laws of Melittology Rebirth Kaydence Rice The Laws of Melittology Elanee Viray 33fe79c2-e827-40fe-ae8a-1ebf5d2271eb Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 18 Kamayan Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button Kamayan Kamayan Camille Faustino 0f6194bf-28f8-4a61-93c3-58d65ab358cb Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 19 Southern Heat Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button Homes and Houses Southern Heat Audrey Brant Homes and Houses Madison Bradley 3d598145-bb97-430d-85d8-b7fc76be6048 Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 20 I'm Not Alone Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button I am listening to my parents argue downstairs I'm Not Alone Alisa Chamberlain I am listening to my parents arguing downstairs Micayla Latson 0e52b592-56ac-4c46-80cb-90516339fcf1 Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 21 What Happened to Us Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button How to: Make it to Room 404 What Happened to Us Chloe Pancho How to: Make it to Room 404 Dion Hines 36f0a7ff-d1e8-4901-832d-db4fd6a095ed Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" 22 Fall/Winter 2021 Staff Blair Bowers Brendan Nurczyk Zarria Belizaire Nia Moneyhun Parker Sheppard Lanina Herndon Anna Smith Nayra McMahan Bonny Bruzos Sage Whitecotton Kaysyn Jones Leila Warner Editor-in-Chief Junior Editor-in-Chief Poetry Editor Prose Editor Art Director Junior Art Director Associate Art Director Managing Editor Junior Managing Editor Social Marketing Editor Associate Marketing Editor Associate Marketing Editor

Fall/Winter 2021 Cover Art: Ephemeral by Jayci Bryant Table of Contents Connect to "TOC Art Title" Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button Dedication Élan Staff Small Title Small Title Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" View

< Table of Contents Welcome to the Family by Amrita Ketireddy to my mother, who never cried in room 207 After Ocean Vuong By Aarushi Gupta “i dread the red of your eyes like a / twenty-nine-year-old dreads his birthday.” under a painting of indra (1) scorned, you make your mandir (2) in the familiar dip of the mattress. soon, the view will be replaced by the smiling portrait of your mother, who lays in bed behind. the mattress will turn white, for the only south indian snowstorm is the whirl of dupattas (3) at funerals, icicles melting under the weight of unshed tears. i dread the red of your eyes like a a twenty-nine-year-old dreads his birthday. not black remembering, but the pink of your unpolished nail forgetting itself, pressing crescents into my arm. red, commutative as death itself. if time is a mother, why does it freeze in hospital rooms, where the umbilical cord is forged again and again? locked in this furnace, withstanding the heat of being ganesha (4) for once, you think of the last time you prayed to god in this room. go on, mother, pick up the phone and call. morph into parvati, remember the time they churned my stomach, a samudra manthana (5) . painkiller amrut, splattered on the floor outside our house. floating in that puddle, i saw an eyelash, its shortness a gift you gave freely. yours or mine? perhaps, neither. it belonged to nani (6) first, but so did you. i wish i was there with you, wish i could feel the cosmic pulling of draupadi’s saree (7) pause. i wish i could tear a hole in it, sew an extra yard of cotton into the dupatta of time. but if there’s one thing i learnt the day you first walked into room 207, it’s that no one can hide from a mother’s wrath. (1) indra is the hindu god of rain, storms, thunder and lightning. (2) mandir is hindi for temple. (3) dupatta is an indian garment, similar to a shawl. (4) ganesha is the son of goddess parvati in hindu mythology. (5) samudra manthana refers to a myth wherein the gods churned the ocean to obtain the holy nectar called amrut. (6) nani is hindi for grandmother. (7) draupadi’s saree refers to a tale from the mahabharata wherein there was an attempt to humiliate draupadi by pulling off her saree. however, lord krishna intervened, making the saree infinitely long and preserving draupadi’s dignity. About the Writer... Aarushi Gupta (she/her) is a high school senior from Bangalore, India. You can find more of her work at www.aarushiwrites.com . About the Artist... Amrita Ketireddy is a junior at Creekside High School. She has done fine arts for nearly ten years alongside tennis. She is a member of numerous honor societies and clubs, though is an officer of her school's Creative Writing Club, Film Production Club, and FBLA. In the future, she hopes to study Software Engineering along with Fine Arts and follow her passion for creating things from the ground up.

No Fresh Air Ana Rosenthal Choppy brown hair falls over his eyes, Like a curtain blocking out the world, Like he likes it. Hand-me-down clothes, muted colors, Like he likes it. He attracts no attention, Just the way he likes it. He forces his thin, shaky legs To feel like boulders As he takes a step forward And breathes in the fresh air. The air of his new life. Return to Piece Selection

Coming Apart at the Seams by Audrey Lendvay The Weight Is Worth It a response to The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien The question of “what do you carry?” leads me to the very simple answer of “too much.” If you were to ask me why do I carry, or how do I carry, or who do I carry, I could give you a much clearer and concise essay. But since that is not the case, this will have to do. Let’s see. On a daily basis, I carry numerous things. I carry my phone, earphones, a charger, band-aids, cans, and cans of Arizona, the necessities. Sometimes I carry a journal and almost always forget the pen. Other times I carry nothing and regret it. As I roam around carrying nothing, I feel exposed and naked, a deer caught in headlights but the headlights are spotlights and the road is the stage. I wonder if this is a universal experience. That every human feels the need to be prepared for everything, that the change in your pocket, the things you carry but then scatter throughout the day, mean more to you the more you live. “I think about how that person got dressed that morning not knowing they’re wearing their dead man clothes.” I carry impatience and not being able to sit through end credits. The end credits feel like the ghost of the movie, trying to hold onto life so badly that it will haunt the living to do so. The end credits are too greedy to be the end. Seeing those names without faces makes me anxious, and it’s always too cold in the movie theater. Why are ghosts always described as chilly? Why can’t they be hot, walking, dead steam? I think people would be a lot more wary of them if they burnt your insides when they pass by instead of leaving you with a raise of the hair. When I watch something made for a single sitting, I can’t focus. Everything but the movie suddenly becomes so much more interesting. Was that light always there? Why? It’s so hideous! Oh, that spot on my wall looks like a camel with Jesus on his back. Jesus is the only dead person allowed to haunt the living. I carry my skin and everything in between: my lungs, bones, muscles, heart. I constantly feel like I’m in a swimming pool fully clothed with my bag full of junk I can’t part with. I carry it with confidence, too much confidence that it breaks and all spills out. I’m watching the materialistic things sink to the bottom and I can’t go further than the surface of the water but I can see them going further away from my fingertips. The things I begged for are being soaked and submerged forever. My organs are swimming around in their own filthy pool. Sometimes I think too much about breathing and the pumps of blood in my heart, how it chokes and sputters inside me. My heart was never taught how to calm down. When that happens I have to check the pulse on my neck to remind myself that I’m still alive. And until I can feel those bu-dump, bu-dump, bu-dumps slow-down, I am being tossed around in a stranger’s palm, and my fate is up for grabs. I carry the weight of being human: stomach aches, headaches, my lost baby teeth in my mother’s underwear drawers. When you are taught about mortality, no one prepares you enough. You can not pack a bag for the talks about death. When I first learned the word death, I treated it like any human would, with curiosity and fear. As I continued to learn about my inevitable end, the fear turned into sadness. I discovered that sadness is the only emotion I can feel in my stomach like it’s something I’ve swallowed and went through the process of digestion. S came first, then a d n e s s followed and played scrabble in my stomach. It sat by itself, warding off last night’s dinner. No one told me how heavy an internal organ could be. I carry not being able to spell sincerely right without autocorrect. Or saying, “I am a strong, independent woman,” but will do a, “but I’m oh so fragile” when it comes to girl push-ups and bugs in the house. I need to be taught that seeking help doesn’t make me weak, that I will never know how to solve world peace. I need to be humbled, to have someone shove their finger in front of my mouth and tell me to shut up. I need to be grateful that I’ve never witnessed the death of another, that whenever I see a death splattered on the news, it only affects me for a couple of minutes. I need to remember that the world stops only for those minutes and not the rest of my life. I think about how that person got dressed that morning not knowing they’re wearing their dead man clothes. What they carried that morning wasn’t enough. So I will carry their things for them, fistfuls of gratitude, and socks full of hope that I can see the sunrise the next morning. Over time I will lose as many things as I will carry and then have my inevitable death with my bags full of junk. And everyone will know that I died because they will hear the sounds of empty Arizona cans clatter to the floor. The world will weep.

Fall/Winter 2021 Cover Art: Ephemeral by Jayci Bryant Table of Contents Connect to "TOC Art Title" Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button We Desire Anything but Peace Don't Let This Darkness Fool You Chao Small Title Jenna Williams Small Title Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" View

14 < Back Sunday Sunday by Faith Spicer About the Artist... Faith Spicer is an upcoming artist, born and raised in Baltimore. She is attending Baltimore School for the Arts where she studies visual arts and will be graduating this year. She was introduced to the art as a child and it developed as she went to the TWIGS program at BSA. During her senior year she was selected as a first place winner for the City Halls black history contest for her oil on canvas piece titled "The Black Butterfly on the Fence". This was an exciting and also rewarding experience and now she is going to work with mayor Brandon Scott for upcoming projects. Faith is currently living in Baltimore but plans on pursuing her art career in New York for college.

Olivia Sheftall Olivia Sheftall is a junior at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts and a Layout and Design Editor for Élan. Her work has been published in Élan twice, as well as Poetry Out Loud Gets Original. She’s been a passionate writer of all genres but takes a special interest in personal essays, screenplays, and poetry.

< Back Editors' Note As Élan blossoms into its 2025 Spring/Summer digital edition we invite you to explore and tend to the soil of your mind. This issue is a curation of art and writing pieces created by some of the most intricate young voices from around the world. We hope that you will take the time to peel back the layers of every word and stroke that captures the light, life, and breath of these talented artists. Take a deep breath and join us within the worlds hidden in the pages. Signed, Jupiter Hayes, Jaslyn Dickerson, and Avery Grossman

12 Shrill and Cut Loose by Annalisa Strub Summer Mornings by Keira Doody On summer mornings, I watch, as the sun fights to rise above the clouds with fresh orange juice dripping down my face the same color as the light. I watch, as the stars die while the sun rises. On summer mornings, it is just me and my knife, sharp metal cutting into soft flesh. I do not know how to cut an orange but I do try. On summer mornings, the rays hit the clouds just right, they look like cities in the sky. I wonder who lives there, lost princesses or lonely girls, certainly only outcasts of our world. On summer mornings, Venus is in the sky. Our glowing morning and evening star, I never see her anymore at night. And I wonder how horrible am I for missing a planet and not my mother. On summer mornings, I use my orange half as a bowl, and I am reminded of my birthday several summers ago. Chocolate cupcakes in orange peel frames, I do not like chocolate or oranges, But I’m afraid I miss people loving me. On summer mornings, the sun crawls like some spindly creature reaching its long legs over the horizon. And it finally cracks, sun pouring out a golden orange yolk on the pale bruised sky. On summer mornings, I look for people I will not find. My mother in every woman older than me, a lover in every girl my grade, people I’ve left, people who will never come, and people suspended in between them both. On summer mornings, I let it all go. That is why I am here, the sun rises into the sky a rebirth and I am born again. On summer mornings, the whole crowd of us flock to the beach to watch the sun rise until we can no longer see. Watching because it’s pretty and we like pretty lights, watching until we think we will go blind. Are we fools or romantics? The poets would say they are the same thing, but I am a poet and I do not know anything. On summer mornings, I imagine the love of my life. When I kiss her, she will taste like oranges and bad ideas. And I will smile as the sky burns like paper. About the Writer... Keira Doody is a student at Nease High School. She lives in Florida but idealizes her childhood when she lived in Atlanta, Georgia. When not doing homework she is writing, reading, or researching articles about outer space. At any given point she's most likely daydreaming about something or outside in nature. About the Artist... Annalisa Strub creates art, generally in acrylic, because of the beautiful colors and contrast acrylic's make.

< Table of Contents Lurking by Sophia Gapuz the disease called home. By Anayelli Andrews-Nieves The machinery hums its familiar tones. Lyrical stories and medicinal lies Course through my veins, And yet, even with that saccharine anesthetic, I can’t get it out of my sight— the way everything in the house seemed to live , how each system pulsed and breathed, and my survival hinged on all of it. “Bougainvillea petals are floating in my IV.” Bougainvillea petals are floating in my IV. i can see the tree from that hospital bed’s window. i picked the petals from the concrete and mixed them in myself. Their memories leak out and The color seeps in. My skin is colored a shade that looks so wrong, Blooming from blemished skin. it’s a shade that once meant i was home. I’m dyed down to my bones In the colors of a dead man. they were supposed to save me. the systems have already stopped sending signals. the house became pallor and cold a long time ago, and yet the curtain hasn’t been pulled over it. “allow me,” and “i wouldn’t dare,” the heart monitor screams as my fingers run along white fabric. sometimes i think i must be a corpse still attached to life support, endless wires connected jaggedly to my veins. they stretch and tear and dig into my rotting, festering flesh. when (if) it ends, will these marks be burned away? there is no remedy for what isn’t a disease, and a decayed heart cannot beat again, so what am i to do? sweetening my senses until there’s nothing left, swallowing down falsities, i’ve changed nothing. that place is still so very far, so far that i shouldn’t be able to say “i still, i still, i still,” but the words form the sound of my pulse, and the words stab into my heart. i still hear birds chirping in a cage on the front porch, i still find myself in sync with the whirring of an oxygen machine, and i have such a weak heart that it will beat in a different rhythm if it believes its going at the wrong pace. But for my own sake Even with my weakened body, I can stand At the gravestone of a memory. About the Writer... Anayelli Andrews-Nieves is a student at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in the Creative Writing department and a member of the Black Arts club. She is a biracial, queer writer and was born and raised in Florida. She enjoys writing and reading fantasy stories that have a balance of character and plot focus. A side from fiction, she also has an interest in free verse poetry that uses visceral descriptions to get across intense emotional ideas. About the Artist... Sophia Gapuz is a visual artist at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville, Florida. She majors in drawing and painting, and explores the world in an emotionally abstract lens, continually searching to create something new.

We Stopped for Daily's Blair Bowers Mirage and Menagerie Rowan Blankemeyer We stopped for snacks at the Daily’s on the way back The lucid, translucent orange and blues hit the windshield So perfectly. Not bound by brick and mortar Untaxed by the worries Of becoming a starving artist. We listen to Sublime on the way home (Just like we do every Friday) Your brother turns up the volume so loud I can’t hear my own voice. I drown in the music The bass hitting with each heart beat Still, I listen closely. I drink pineapple soda and sit in the backseat I think to myself; I want friends like you Have. The kind that stops for snacks and firewood at Daily’s The ones that know what the other is saying without Saying a word. We’ve known each other for seven months, But when you invite me to the conversation I still look at you with golden eyes. Before you I spent so long feeling the heaviness Of a burden too large to bury. I look out these windows and see into my past, Graveyards of past best friends Abandoned And in mourning. When we pull into the driveway, Opaque stars have awakened, their light Travels across our eyes Your brother takes a swig of pineapple soda. My pineapple soda. I don’t take this as an insult, but rather a compliment He knew he could take mine And suddenly I feel as if I, too am a brother. Return to Table of Contents