< Back Waiting With Bun-bun by Sophia Waller We Part Ways at the End By Luigi Avila Characters: LIAM (30) – Haunted by mistakes, desperate for his mother’s forgiveness, terrified he can’t change. MOTHER (60s) – Frail in body, sharp in memory. Speaks with precision, even when her voice is weak. Setting: A hospital room in the afternoon. Sunlight filters faintly through partially drawn blinds, casting lines across the walls and floor. On the side table: a vase of wilted tulips, and a glass of water untouched. Monitors hum quietly. The soft green numbers glow steadily. INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - AFTERNOON SCENE 1 MOTHER lies in bed, her breathing shallow. LIAM sits stiffly in a chair beside her, hands clasped, eyes flicking nervously between her face and the monitor. MOTHER You’re quiet. LIAM Don’t want to tire you out. MOTHER Dying tires me out. Talking doesn’t make a difference. LIAM I…I wanted to tell you something. I’m getting married. MOTHER To Claire? LIAM No. That ended a long time ago. To Anna. MOTHER Ah. The one who stayed. Even after you vanished. (Liam flinches, his eyes darting away.) LIAM I should have told you sooner. I should’ve been here… for everything. MOTHER You should have told me many things sooner and should have been here sooner. But lies and excuses are for the living. Honesty only arrives at the end, like uninvited guests that step in when the house is almost empty. (A BEAT) LIAM Then… be honest with me. Do you forgive me? MOTHER Forgiveness is not a gift. It’s a debt. And I am too tired to do that work for you. (Liam leans forward and seizes her hand, pressing it to his forehead, desperate.) LIAM Then what am I supposed to do? Carry this forever? MOTHER Yes. Carry it. Let it weigh on you until it changes your spine, your walk, and the shape of your body. Feel the pain of leaving your family to fend for themselves, of missing birthdays, holidays, hospital visits. Feel the hollow absence of a father who stayed, who struggled just as much as you, yet never walked away. That’s what made him better than you. He tried, Liam. Even when it broke him. You abandoned us. And that… that is yours to carry. LIAM I don’t know if I’m strong enough for all that. MOTHER Neither was your father. But he tried. He got up every day, even when grief threatened to crush him. He gambled us dry. He broke us into nothingness. He became addicted to it. But even though he failed, he tried. He tried to put us back on path. He tried every day. That is what separated him from you. That is why you feel the weight now, and why you must feel it fully. You left us too, after what we could barely get in our age. You killed us. I wrote things down when the pain was unbearable. Not for you, just for myself. You’ll find pages where I couldn’t finish the sentences. They’re broken, unfinished, the remnantsn of a life we tried to share. That will be yours to carry. The unfinished parts of our relationship. LIAM (reaching for the notebook) Can I— MOTHER Not yet. Let me go first. (Her eyes drift slightly toward the window, sunlight catching the wrinkles on her face.) LIAM I’ll carry it. For both of us. MOTHER (looking back at Liam) No. Carry it for yourself. If you do it only for me, you’ll drop it the moment I’m gone. (Eyes half-open, voice barely a whisper) Then we can part ways at the end. (The notebook slips from her hands and falls to the floor, and the pages open on a half-written sentence. Liam stares at it but doesn’t pick it up. He slowly lifts her hand, inhaling and exhaling sharply. His thumb brushes over her skin, holding onto what remains. The monitor hums steadily.) BLACKOUT. About the Author... Luigi Avila (he/him) is a young Brazilian writer currently residing in Jacksonville, Florida. He attends Douglas Anderson School of the Arts as a junior majoring in creative writing. He was part of Douglas Anderson’s yearbook staff for two years. Outside of school, Luigi is working on a musical, titled “The Ballroom Dance.” The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards has acknowledged his songwriting for an honorable mention, and he was published in Poetry Out Loud Gets Original. He enjoys songwriting, fantasy romance, fictional romance, and most especially scriptwriting. About the Artist... Sophia Waller is a 12th grade Visual Artist at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. Her ideal mediums are painting, printmaking, and drawing (either with charcoal or colored pencil). Previous Next

Rebirth by Elanee Viray The Laws of Melittology by Kaydence Rice Listening to the whistle of the wind I whispered to you every single piece of honey I had left on my tongue. I think I saw it, still in your ear. Can you still feel it stick to drums and drip down your neck like sweat? The drone you named died last night. You don’t seem to know if what I said was true, if what I said was true then why are you still here? I watched a drone dance for the queen this morning. She ate him. It’s only a matter of time until the honeycomb rots. I’ll wait here until it reaches the bottom. I’ll never understand how you could forget how to dance. Is it because you didn’t want to learn in the first place? Honey drips down the trees and onto the dying grass. Why haven’t you left yet? What happened to thinking I wanted you gone? Bees buzz too loudly to deserve to be called flies. Bees buzz too loudly to deserve to be anything at all. The only good quality of a bee is the fact that their sting is gentler than a wasp’s. And the only good quality of a wasp is that it doesn’t buzz as loudly as bees and perhaps that means that wasps are flies. And perhaps that means that you didn’t hear me the first time.

< Back Cradled by Beauty by Angelina Gao I stuff my torso with history, curl my body into fetal position to withstand the impact of centuries. Umbilical By Vanessa Chen NaiNai lays out her patchwork 旗袍, 1 each seam a mouth stitched shut with the protests of 1989. she tells me about how her lotus blushed amidst the destruction, but all I can think of are her regrets —she must be so sorry for letting Ma see fighter jets cut across the night & believe they were shooting stars. at NaiNai’s funeral, Ma kept looking out the window to make sure the migrating geese hadn’t lost their formation —this vigilance is intergenerational: NaiNai counted losses she couldn’t undo, & Ma prepared for ones that never came, & I crawled out of her, clinging to my lungs for fear they’d slip out & forget breathing. I stuff my torso with history, curl my body into fetal position to withstand the impact of centuries. this 旗袍 holds a girl holds a lineage holds all that could go wrong. I will leave this world holding onto what I entered it with: lungs, white foam at the mouth, an umbilical still tethered to the dark it first knew. 1 qipao: a traditional Chinese dress About the Author... Vanessa Chen is a high school senior from Vancouver, Canada. Her work has been recognized by The New York Times, the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, and the League of Canadian Poets, among others. An alumna of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, Vanessa also edits for Polyphony Lit—and she’s a devoted cheese lover. About the Artist... Angelina Gao is a Senior at Western Albemarle High School in Virginia whose love for visual arts began in early childhood. Her favorite mediums are acrylic and graphite. In her artwork, she seeks not only to express her own emotions, but to gently remind viewers of the silent dialogue between humanity, the natural world, and the vast universe we share. Previous Next

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

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.

Tatyana Jones Tatyana Jones is a senior at Douglas Anderson School of The Arts. She is a Scholastics gold key winner she enjoys making content videos and showing how fun she can be.

11 Effete by Kylie Tanner For Naomi by Jessica Bakar The first time I lied about my writing, the line between truth and lie was a two-letter word. In a tense conversation with a friend, I found the fracture between my comfort and her curiosity irreconcilable. This essay she’d found had been recently republished in a regional magazine— a publication that, despite being known in my community, I assumed was rarely read. She dropped the bomb in a text. “Did you write ‘Legacy Ends Here’?” A text bubble accusation—a violation. My hands shook as I stared down at the screen in disbelief. She’d found, read, chewed, swallowed, and regurgitated something unintended for her eyes. Stunned by this impossibility, I barely found the strength to turn off my phone—to deny her question for another moment. My writing itself is denial. It’s pen names and anonymity in emails to editors, it’s changing my hometown in author bios. It’s staying in the closet. It’s telling nobody but my notebook about an eating disorder, the page watching me recover. It’s witnessing my life exposed on the computer screen, reserved for anonymous eyes throughout America. It’s assuming nobody in my personal life would ever read my work. ⁕ When my friend asked if I wrote that essay, I lied. “No.” I replied, then powered off my phone. ⁕ My writing isn’t Jessica Bakar. My writing is Naomi Carr. It’s 33+ Linkedin profiles, none of which are my Naomi. It’s the safety in knowing myriad Naomis exist, none of which are my Naomi. It’s the secure seat behind a pen name, the thought that my pen name can hide behind a number of real people who exist. It’s the sound assumption that nobody would ever draw a line connecting Naomi back to me. ⁕ I met Naomi the first time I was published. Molly Hill, Blue Marble ’s EIC, strongly suggested I employ a pen name for security. Even with her advice, the decision was unbearable--- hypocritical, even. I couldn’t separate myself from my work, from the experiences and pain that stained the page. That piece, like the rest of my writing, was a morsel of my life. It was me. To change the name attached to it, to would distance myself from my work, my writing, my life. I couldn’t reconcile how truth could become so untrue. It tasted like a lie, betrayal, sick denial. Amid my indecision, I texted my that friend— the one who would find this piece months later in another publication. I told her nothing. She did not know the name of my piece, the genre, the content, the publication— nothing. I simply told her my work was accepted, and that I didn’t know if I should publish under a pen name. I told her the thought of a pen name felt superficial, but I considered Hill’s advice heavily. I told her I couldn’t relinquish comfort, when really I meant safety. She told me to be authentic. She told me to own my real name. I didn’t tell her daring to write that piece was owning my real name. I didn’t tell her that attaching my “real” name to that piece would put a target on my back, would make me prey to four different people I call predators. She told me to be authentic, but I didn’t tell her that piece— each word handpicked at an ungodly hour— was the most authentic act I’ve ever committed. I didn’t tell her that maybe my essay didn’t need my real name in order to be authentic, that the absence of my real name made it any less true. Hours of internal turmoil ended in a reply to Hill, thanking her, and ultimately taking her advice. Naomi Carr was born. ⁕ My writing is creative nonfiction. CNF is the highest commitment to the truth. It’s bleeding my life onto the screen, ripping my heart out, stripping naked before a blank page, dismembering my body with my own hands. CNF writers are not always authors, but we are always entirely human. We are explorers of the self, reverse engineers of emotion. We understand how moths know of loneliness, how masochism and homesickness are the same. We know ourselves through the quiet contemplation of clattering keyboards. We know others through transposing the real world onto the page. We know that, sometimes, the most vulnerable moments are not with others but with pen and paper. We know that success is embracing vulnerability, reality, discomfort, pain. CNF is a commitment to myself. My writing is entirely me. ⁕ Naomi is my mother’s middle name. Stowed away between her first and last, the beauty of its Japanese origin always fascinated me. Carr is extracted from the second syllable of my last name—a familial sound carried across bloodlines from India to Trinidad to Canada before landing in California. Naomi separates Jessica from my work, but Naomi is still part of me. She’s my creation. She’s my own. She’s more experimental than any lyric essay or prose poetry or trilingual abecedarian. She lives with my essays and memoirs—in me, between my memory and unwritten words. Naomi’s name is a patchwork appreciation of those I love. Perhaps she’s an act of self-love—the acknowledgment that my work’s vulnerability, and my humanity, deserve protection. She’s a prayer that one day, those closest to me may linger over my words— that one day, the distance between Naomi and me will be nonexistent. ⁕ A week ago, I told my friend the truth. On an overcrowded bus ride home from school, she posed her question again, after months of living with my lie. It was abrupt but nonchalant, as if a conversation about college apps easily lent itself to inquiries about my personal writing. “So, did you? Did you write that piece in the lit mag?” She hesitated in a hushed voice, seeming to feel the gravity of her question this time. I hesitated. She did not have to specify which piece or which lit mag, but I knew. Smiling in discomfort, I made a futile attempt to evade her question with broken eye contact. “You don’t have to say, if you don’t want,” she reassured, staring straight at the side of my head while I looked for the answer outside the window. I took a breathe, stared back at her, and found the words to connect my writing back to me. “No, I did. I did write it.” The truth was just simpler than a lie. About the Writer... Naomi Carr is a young writer from San Francisco, California. She is an alumna of the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop and has found a home in creative nonfiction. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Blue Marble Review, Apprentice Writer, Aster Lit, Ice Lolly Review, and Pile Press, among others. When she isn’t writing, Naomi enjoys practicing photography and studying art. About the Artist... Kylie Tanner is a senior at Savannah Arts Academy, Kylie is an arts major who uses photography to capture unique moments and tell unique stories.

15 < Back Temporal Displacement Liang Jingyi Puzzle Man by Nishchay Jain Temporal Dispalcement by Liang Jingyi Prologue With the tip of my pen poised a few millimeters above a dog-eared notebook page and my room drenched in the distilled sound of gaudy reality shows from the cramped living room of my Spanish neighbor, I listen as the cacophonous summer night outside returns to a semblance of quiet. A stream of thoughts slowly washes away the restlessness of my heart. Holding onto each abstract thought, I begin to fathom the elusive shape of a repressed desire. A desire to write about our experience of time. Not in the sense of the ticking clock behind me, but the perceived temporal existence, the work of our minds, which, unlike our bodies, are not confined to the present. Every morning, I wake up to two realities – the physical, immediate reality teeming with sights and smells, and the parallel, imagined reality unfolding in my consciousness. In this constructed reality, the mind’s unique mechanism of memory and imagination transcends all artificial boundaries of seconds, hours, and years. Our minds roam despite our rooted bodies. On the drift of remembrance The crowd has a queer, submerging charm not unlike that of the ocean. Dodging one umbrella after another upheld newspaper while the enveloping street scenes reinvent themselves, I feel like a swimmer in the sea. I’ve always loved a light drizzle like this, invigorating especially in the somnolent afternoon hours. Taking a turn into the children’s park down a forest path, I am immediately enfolded in a rain-washed earthiness, which I inhale with an almost unquenchable thirst. I relish in a few moments of rare solitude until a woman appears at the end of the trail, hurrying as if late for an important appointment. As she passes, the lingering traces of her floral perfume cast a spell over me. A subtle blend of woodiness, sakura, and morning dew. I can’t quite discern what my consciousness is trying to salvage from the dormant sea of memory, but I remain in a motionless trance, afraid to disturb this incomprehensible process. A few seconds later, the frail partitions of my mind finally give way, and the tides of vivid remembrance come rushing into my consciousness. My last morning walk in Tokyo 3 years ago. A slight drizzle. Spring blossoms. Metropolitan speed. I now inhabit my past self who tirelessly fixed her gaze on every house she passed. The glimpse into the privacy of the Other offered tremendous solace, as if HER Tokyo resided in the domesticity of empty living rooms. She saw chairs left askew on the balcony where plants were starting to wither. She caught a glimpse of the Impressionist art on the wall, clashing somewhat with the inviting wooden dining table. She saw five Christmas nutcrackers arranged horizontally on a windowsill. She then conjured up a life – relatable in its humanity, rejuvenating for its exotic charm. 9am breakfasts with freshly brewed coffee, private conversations on the dinner table, living room drenched in a serene, diaphanous light on Saturday afternoons… She relished the feeling, much like when an author delves into the conflicted thoughts of the character and you, in the space of a few pages, become their immediate confidante. Wading along the forest path through the waters of remembrance, I relive vignettes of the past, as fresh and palpable as the canopy above me. On togetherness and solitude "I often think about the way we connect with one another – how the duet of language builds towards a cathartic crescendo where we both know, almost telepathically, that a connection is forged." I often think about the way we connect with one another – how the duet of language builds towards a cathartic crescendo where we both know, almost telepathically, that a connection is forged. I yearn to be seen, to feel the gaze of affection caressing my sensitive skin. But my body sighs, betraying my unbounded comfort in the shades, the corners, and the tunnels where my selfhood, liberated now from the grasp of public scrutiny, stretches into expansive shapes. I still remember that night with George and Anna many years ago. We were an inseparable trio in college. George and I were still together then. With them, I can be whoever I am at the moment. I stay afloat in the fluidity of my emotions. No politeness. No expectations. No pressing social obligations. In a small, tenebrous Turkish diner, we talked while sipping hot Apple tea from ornamental cups. Anna, who is a Buddhist, was talking about how the next generation of Dalai Lama is chosen in Tibet. As our conversation progressed from the innate call to awakening to karmic affinities, I felt entranced in a mythic atmosphere much like my first impression of Lhasa several years ago. Unmooring my mind from the dock of the present, I sailed to the Potala Palace, where the tangy incense-laden air permeated the sunset hour. I lingered there for a while, in my renewed memory of Tibet, while in the present Anna and George busied themselves with their perennial debate over the historicization of science. Later on, we went to a dessert bar where pop songs from recent years were blasting over the speakers. An attractive bohemian man in his twenties kept singing to his girlfriend whenever one of his favorite hits came up. We watched in amusement. I thought of how I might have enjoyed the company of someone like him – energetic, wild, unorthodox. George is the opposite – rational, gentle, thoughtful. Watching him search for the etymological origin of the word ‘sugar,’ which we brought up a while ago, I felt an ephemeral instant of suffocation. George would never take me on his motorbike for a midnight ride, wake me up at 3am to go dancing on the street, or hitchhike across the country without a thorough plan. I was suddenly reminded of an image in a novel I read a long time ago, where lovers are depicted as trees growing in the shade of each other. I thought of how the sanctuary of intimacy, nurturing as it is, may also prevent us from growing in other directions where we might flourish in a different way. Perhaps part of me still longed for the smothering heat of zest, the magnetic pull of a reckless soul. I carefully shelved this thought, closed the drawer in my mind, and asked George whether the word first came from Latin or Persian with full, genuine interest. Somewhere along my journey of absorbed recollection, my neighbor turned off the monotonous documentary. This sudden descent into quiet inundates my heart with a wistful longing for those convivial moments with George and Anna, now painted over by the brushstrokes of memory. On the temporal ambiguity of daydreaming On most days, I dream. It’s like being in a self-directed theater where past memories and imagined future happenings are enacted as if they were the pulsing heartbeat of the present. In the realm of daydreams, all artificial temporal boundaries are lifted. Time becomes fluid, liberating the self that has been gasping for air. In this temporal ambiguity, I feel a state of lightness, where all existential weights are lifted, where I am engrossed in the imagined Now. Ultimately, we invent time to impose order upon chaos, to salvage an illusion of stability from what is otherwise a cavernous hole where all that ever happens to us is an eternal fall. So, what if we fall? About the Writer... Jingyi is a lover of stream-of-consciousness narratives. She can often be found dreaming of a parallel reality, caught in minor existential crises, or wondering what movie to watch on Friday night. She currently studies at St. Joseph’s Institution. About the Artist... I am Nishchay Jain on ASD and I generally use Acrylic medium for my art work. Initially I started with watercolors but gradually I shifted to acrylic. I love painting my own imagination artwork Art makes me calm and it’s therapeutic for me. I was born in India and started making drawing at the age of 10. My art teacher taught me different skills and taught me to visualize the light and distance.

Hannes Duncan Hannes Duncan is a senior studying creative writing at DA. He is an avid sci-fi writer and enjoys poetry of all kinds. He also has an affinity for photography.

< Back At Once by Sol Cuneo Believe in the unseen, have faith By Kiyura Davis “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread...” We prayed in silence, Letting our lips hold in lies. We forced our tongues to push them back and felt our throats swallow them whole. We sang hymns and spirituals and believed in something: someone “real.” How can you abandon the faith of your father? Lie and scold the beliefs of your mother? Go ahead and believe in the unknown- Walk off the roof and trust that the angels will let you down softly. I sat in a chair For a 3-hour sermon; the cushion soaked with sweat as I tried to fold myself in. A preacher shouted in tongues while a member caught the Holy Ghost, Her eyes completely white, Her knees buckled and she collapsed, shouting, “Lord, hallelujah!” How do I tell my mother that I don’t believe in God, but believe we were created? That somehow, we were formed and enclosed in a casket--my ancestors return to dust. My bones churn upon each other until they are worn down to nothing. My rib was once his rib, but now it is my own. My limbs are now my own. My faith is now my own. If God is proud of his creation, why won’t he show his face? At church, I get homesick I watch the clock tick while the fabric of my dress weighs me down. When it strikes nine, I run from the ball. I leave a glass slipper, Promising my return. I am teaching myself trust--but my trust in you still falters. Religion doesn’t come easy to me. It’s rough and gritty, burning against my tongue. At nighttime, my mother waits until I bow my head. She bows her own and gives her glory to God. I sit there wondering if he shows pity for single parents Because her prayers are never answered; They never get close enough to Heaven’s ears. Sometimes I fear dying, because if God is real, will I be forgiven? “...forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Amen.” About the Author... Kiyura is a 10th grade Creative Writer at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. She specializes in poetry but also enjoys writing personal essays. She was a spoken-word performer featured in Coffee House 2024 and Extravaganza 2025. About the Artist... Sol is a Junior at New World School of the Arts where they play violin. They have a passion for oil-based painting and writing, and they want to go to art school to major in Painting in the future. Previous Next

5 The scars from my armor by Shanwill Wang Dry by Tejal Doshi They lay stillborn, devoid of heat and heart. She pressed her ear, shuddering, to their chests. Buried her babies herself tugging weeds, swaying beneath the sky’s dead heath. Blinked. Begged charred clouds to tear apart into shards of water. She tasted the earth, lay curled with her girls. Hands tightened into fists, like a baby clinging to its home body. Girls , he’d growled, girls burden . She’d whispered: Why? What sin did my babies commit to earn a death sentence? She thrust her fingers into her mouth, yanked the words snagging her teeth, choked on her cries, flung them to the grave. They lay stillborn, devoid of heat and heart. About the Writer... Tejal Doshi is a high school student of Lotus Valley International School from India whose work appears in Blue Marble Review, Sandpiper Magazine, The WEIGHT Journal, The Start Literary Magazine, Cathartic Youth Lit, and elsewhere. Find out more about her at https://tejaldoshi.carrd.co/ About the Artist... Shanwill Wang is a junior at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. At DASOTA, Shanwill is a visual arts major. The medium of their piece is paint.

0a880051-0ae5-4eca-b9ff-ef300525459f The Gain and Loss in Transformation by Alyssa Giraud My Body, the Sea/ Mi Cuerpo, el Mar by Raquel Silberman me echan del mar they exile me from the sea manos echados con agua hands full of water soy hecha de sal I am made of salt Return to Table of Contents