Issue Seventeen

Premonition Haibun

By Vera Caldwell

The air, harsh with dust, looks for a throat to snag behind the front door. The particle board cabinet has a vacuum cleaner hiding in it like a ghost, its doors gently swaying back and forth on their hinges.

The red carpet is peeling, lightly touched by sunset’s cool fingertips and pressed down by years of heavy footsteps. Dust bunnies in the corners blow in a draft; lamps sit on the floor like abandoned obelisks.

She won’t understand

the parts of her old age she

can’t handle feeling.

One should be afraid of stepping on the scalding, rusted heating vents or knocking over her eclectic art collection: triangles indented into turquoise clay, watercolors of sharp toothed faces in the moon, and pictures of spiraling white houses that look like desert apparitions.

Her sheet music, the corners of the pages yellow and soft, still sits on the piano. The giant windows above the couch are smudged where the greasy dog pressed his nose as he whined to go outside.

We’re helpless with her;

we watch each room’s warm lightbulbs

burn out their bright hearts.

She has cardboard shoeboxes of glass slides with tiny pictures of icons and saints, their eyes asking everything of us. It would take days to go through and years to learn how to throw away. She left an apple, now rotten, on the stained kitchen table, with her reading glasses, black diary, and ripped envelopes.

Single pane windows

out of place; will her house look

like this when she’s gone?

Vera Caldwell is a sophomore at Houston’s Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Along with writing, she plays the guitar and composes songs in her band Nobody’s Daughter. Some of her favorite writers include Mikhail Bulgakov, Stanislaw Lem, Patti Smith, Ocean Vuong, and Fleur Jaeggy.

Grotesque- The Naked Picture of Feminism

By Phuong Mai Nguyen

Grotesque, a crime novel written by Japanese author Natsuo Kirino, uncovers the diary behind the death of a prepossessing prostitute, Yuriko. The novel begins with the autobiography of Yuriko’s sister, whose name is deliberately kept anonymous throughout the entire story. Her narrative gradually reveals the apathetic relationship between the sisters, as she admits: “(…) I also do not care about finding out the truth about her death.” Her hostility towards Yuriko stems from her inferiority complex about appearance when constantly being compared with her gorgeous sister during childhood.

Since her birth, Yuriko has appeared as God’s own creation, standing out among any crowd that has the privilege of surrounding her. Yet, that idiosyncratic beauty embraces an unusually distorted soul. Unlike any unconfident Disney princess, Yuriko is fully aware of her superior appearance. Precocious realization of her gifted advantage – beauty – has fashioned a child with the capability to arouse the “Lolita” blind lust in men. Yuriko’s “career” of riding the flagpole initiated when she was only 12 years old, at her complete will and satisfaction. As the story progresses, Yuriko is murdered after appeasing the sexual appetite flowing in her veins. Coincidentally, the man who killed her is also charged with the death of Kazue Sato – an ambitious classmate of both Yuriko sisters at Q. gifted high school. Now Yuriko is dead, her sister becomes the legal guardian for her son. The novel ends with Yuriko’s sister, a 40-year-old virgin, standing under a street lamp at midnight, craving for “the clutch from a man” for the first time in her life.

Behind the tragic fate of female characters and memorable description of humans’ salacious desire, Natsuo Kirino delivers an in-depth message on modern feminist movement.

The protagonists in Grotesque can somehow be seen to represent typical feminist ideals: Yuriko embodies the rise of third-wave feminism, advocating for women’s utmost liberty to pursue their beliefs, even if their values contradict past movements by objectifying women as men’s possession. On the other hand, Yuriko’s sister is a second-wave feminist who strongly believes in the significance of women’s independent status, which leads to her opposing stance against prostitution. She even goes so far as to refuse any intimacy at the position “beneath” men. Although their mutual high school friend, Kazue, does not directly express her personal viewpoints, the character is built around the ideal model of modern feminists: ambitious, well-educated, and hard-working.

Despite their differences, the main characters suffer almost similar endings: they are forced to submit to male dominance in various forms.

Yuriko takes advantage of her mesmerizing charm to seduce men for materialistic purpose, but when old age arrives and her beauty is fading, she becomes nothing more than a depreciated goods.

Kazue leads a double life. Her white-collar job and social status establishes her as a role model for modern women, but her true-self only comes out when Kazue wears a nubile skirts and stands in a wintry street at night. She views satisfying men’s sexual desire as a means to assert her femininity and attractiveness based on social standards. Even her brilliant academic achievements cannot dispel the inferior perception of self-worth, which has penetrated in her mind since high school. From Kazue’s eyes, the value of a woman is determined by her appeal to men. As a matter of fact, excellent student awards can never attract as many boys as a two-second wink from Yuriko.

Yuriko’s older sister, who spend her entire life living under her sister’s shadow, tries to conceal her insecurities by separating herself from men (or even the whole world) and labelling that lifestyle as rational. She looks at life through the most negative lens, she only sees the ugly parts in humans. She avoids nearly every social interaction, not even bothers to tell her name and vice versa, no one recalls her name. But in the front of her unimaginably beautiful nephew, she is willing to work as a prostitute – a job she used to detest – in order to “save money for the future.” After struggling to establish the independent role of women, the anonymous lady gives up her belief, ironically because of a young man, and allows the objectification of women to continue.

The endings of three characters partially depict the dark side of feminist movement, which can hardly be acknowledged in today’s media. The submission of female characters to invisible suppressors implicitly confirms the immaturity and lack of cooperation among feminist movements. Three women suffer under the same regime but instead of uniting for a common cause, they choose to let personal enmity and jealousy prevail. Why does pop culture associate genuinely intimate comradeship with “brotherhood” but fake smiles and back stabs with “sisterhood”? Can frail internal structures, and isolated branches divided by ideology gather enough power to change social prejudices?

Behind the exploration of dark aspects within women, Grotesque left us pondering over the misogyny that takes a deep root, even in modern society…

Phuong Mai Nguyen is a student, movie critic, cartoon artist and part-time drummer from Hanoi, Vietnam

Fifteen Candles

By Julia Do

Fifteen candles and six pairs of cracked slack lips sent smoke through song and sky. The neighborhood boys swapped pencils for cigarettes and grew fast, hard, and knotted—like trees. Root beer floats on Saturdays now sloppy Smirnoff and strobing streets. No more body of Christ on Sundays, amen, just steaming Stiiizys and girls passed out on the beach.

The boys shake sand from their hair, their Vans, and underwear. Sand spills from their belly buttons and trails behind them, endless breadcrumbs. Their feet move fast and their eyes even faster—darting over bicycle pedals and long legs nicked by metal.

These boys were once marshmallow men. Bumbling toddlers, smiles sticky from sweet jelly and peanut butter. Milk bellies, round as the moon, full of honey and oats and all things good.

Like taffy, they were stretched and chewed. Chewed and spit out by the world they knew. Their faces changed. Some shadow clouded their mother’s grace; some vice seemed to poison their holy place.

But poison, no, they say. Not poison. Not the venom of some green garden snake, but nectar, rather. Marshmallow fluff and peanut butter. Baked bananas and strawberry jelly. On teenage tongues, beer tastes like honey.

Julia Do is a junior at La Quinta High School in Westminster, California where she is the copy editor of the school yearbook. A recipient of two Regional Gold Keys from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, Julia attended the 2019 Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop and has had her artwork and poetry published in Canvas Literary Journal. Her work primarily focuses on girlhood, family, and identity.

Sharkskin Heart

By Olivia Lee

glide deep beneath the gilded blue-—in

somber, slipping sweet inside

for loveliness, in secret sand

and beats, in pulsing glow and hiss—

hammerhead, slide passively

drip, your darkly hanging maw

hunger, darling, toothlit bane

quiver love in flashing jaws

from seaward, vast eternity

throbs, electric flutter-time

a hundred fish, drawn gasping in

betrays electric lateral lines

now move, in false serenity

then pant: in ever-rasping gills

but even when the deed is done

the hungry searching never stills

and in this gaping chest of mine

in cartilage: no bony parts

nothing, dearest, satisfies

your roving bloodless sharkskin heart.

Olivia Lee is a junior in the Creative Writing Conservatory at California School of the Arts – San Gabriel Valley. Her writing has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and Princeton University. She has work published, or forthcoming in LiveWire, Aerie International, DASH, Canvas Literary Journal, Polyphony Lit, and Body Without Organs Literary Journal, among others.

Paper Lanterns

By Lilian Wiegand

Hundreds of glowing paper lanterns, richly colored and adorned with handmade stars and animals, bejeweled the darkening evening. They bobbed on the ends of carrying-wands touted by children wandering down the streets in parade-like processions. I held my lantern, a crescent moon with a smiling face, and walked among winter-jacket bundled crowds, experiencing for the first time St. Martin, the lantern festival. This German holiday celebrates the venerated Holy Roman Empire soldier who cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar during a snowstorm. Through his selfless deed, he saved the impoverished man from freezing.

I had spent two weeks learning traditional songs honoring the Saint so that I could sing from door to door and receive candy in return on this special November night.

For my eight-year-old self, this was the most wonderful and exciting holiday I had ever experienced. I traveled through the grand streets of Neuss singing my songs proudly and admiring the handcrafted sphere and prism-shaped lanterns that shone like planets. In that moment, I was proud to partake in such a beautiful celebration. For me, a celebration of being German. But that same year, someone tried to make me feel ashamed of it.

“You’re a Nazi,” the boy in my third-grade class accusingly spat at me as he pointed in a WWII book at a photograph of a devastated city. There were emaciated prisoners in the picture, being led by German soldiers. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as he said this. He was strangely enraptured by the war and spoke with bitter hatred woven into his words when addressing me. For several weeks I had been hearing these spiteful comments.

I let his invective roll off my back– it didn’t hurt me. But I was confused about why he would accost me; I had never imagined being associated with Nazism and the horrible events of WWII. How could I be assumed a Nazi when all of my grandparents, the most kind-hearted people I knew, had suffered so immensely?

My grandfather often told me stories about his experiences through the war. His family was ripped apart after losing their business and savings, and he and his siblings separated. He had to work as a young boy to help his family, yet he witnessed his mother crying when she had nothing to feed them but the starch-based adhesive scraped from wallpaper. He ran to escape bombings, and his promising education was cut short when his teacher starved to death.

He lost his childhood to the war.

I would listen with a heavy heart to his stories but smile at the end, when he expressed how grateful he was that I didn’t have to live through such times. I became imbued with a great sense of gratitude as well because, thanks to his stories, I deeply understood how fortunate I was. To have a childhood in peacetime, replete with opportunities and choices, was not something to take lightly. From knowing what my grandfather went through, I began to live with a more profound appreciation for what I had.

And so I looked at the lanterns and felt utterly blessed. I admired the colors, the lights, and cherished the beautiful voices dancing in the air. I love the many aspects of my German culture that I am able to enjoy, from celebrating Oktoberfest to watching soccer. Of course, I also share a deep repentance with each German in remembrance of the Holocaust and the role that the German people played in it. But with this shouldered sense of guilt, there comes modesty, the spirit of betterment, and a character of learned industriousness that I believe I inherited, too.

Each aspect of my German culture glimmers brightly in my vision, reminding me of who I am. The undeniable incandescence stays with me, and my path is lit. I am forever appreciative of this.

Lilian Wiegand is a twelfth-grader living in New Jersey. Originally she is from Germany and has spent time living in England as well. She is planning on studying neuroscience in college and going to medical school afterward. She loves writing and reading and hopes to one day write a novel. Other passions of hers include playing/instructing tennis and running cross country and track.

the law of conservation of mass

By Malcolm Slutzky

it works like this:

things are never new—

just rearranged,

uncovered, broken

open. i was here

when the universe

unfurled & space

realized its

emptiness. i was here

when it bloomed.

a blooming. when

a small thing

becomes large

all at once & without

warning. we, of course,

do not understand

these types of things.

if you

think too hard

about it,

the law

does not account

for emptiness—

which did not exist

before fullness,

but can now be found

in all manner of

places. one summer,

i found an

emptiness.

it started in me

slowly

edges curling out

like the beginnings

of a flower. grabbing me

by the throat, stretching me

out & in. sometimes an

emptiness

is so large that a

thing becomes its

emptiness.

depending on

who you ask

i am a girl.

an empty one.

blooming.

Malcolm Slutzky is a queer trans man and college student from New Jersey. In his free time, he enjoys studying physics and playing Scrabble against himself.