Issue Ten

Composing Constellations

By Morgan Almasy

You crush a firefly between fingers.

See? Still glows.

I know it does, I know.

I don’t look.

The clouds are suspended

around our faces.

My eyes water,

smoke induces my tears

I swear

I want to leave

this state of mind

To string necklace

from gum wrappers in your pockets,

Hold a hand while

we compose constellations

Because we never spot the real ones

Though I’ll never confess

I would rearrange the stars

until my fingers glow yellow

for your smile.

I want to know your whisper

from the wind’s,

Because still

they sound the same to me.

I want to know you.

But here we stand

words in my throat,

heart at my chest.

Morgan Almasy is a junior creative writing major at her high school. She has twice attended the creative writing summer camp at Interlochen Center for the Arts. Almasy has previously been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing awards and has been awarded Gold Keys, Silver Keys, and Honorable Mentions at the regional level. Almasy has previously been published in Moledro Magazine, Blue Marble Review, and Literary Orphans magazine. She hopes to pursue a double major in marketing and creative writing in college.

Numbers

By Patrick Erb-White

My life is full of numbers, which intrigues me a lot

I’ve been crunching these numbers, and this is what I got:

I added them together, and they all added up to you.

Either that, or I forgot to carry the 2.

Let’s see.

I’ve had at least 3 crushes, 5 at most,

I have 2 blogs, 1 of which has only 4 posts.

3 favorite PC games, between which I’ve played

over 300 hours – about 12 and ½ days.

4 years of high school, of which I’ve completed 2,

Then about 4 years of college – woohoo!

So, if I do the calculations right,

that’s about 2,390 days and nights

(rounded up in case of leap days).

As far as dreams go, as far as I can recall,

only 3 have to do with you in any way at all.

I can’t even remember 90% of my dreams, rounding down.

I’ve had 5 nightmares, 2 of them relating to clowns.

I write about 80% of my fiction based on dreams, well,

the dreams that are interesting, like 1 where I traveled to hell

(or the CGI equivalent).

7 days a week, 365 and a 1/4 days in a year, which means

there’s about 52 weeks a year, so it seems.

To convert that to seconds, if I may be so bold,

means I’m over 530 million seconds old.

Yes, I’m an old man, bet you didn’t sign up for that,

but I think 505 million is where you are at.
But we’re pretty young compared to the earth we are on,

whose life so far is, well, a number with 17 0’s, seconds long.

(really puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?)

299,792,458 m/s is the speed of light,

that’s the universal speed limit – yeah, right.

You, my friend, are much faster than that;

you shoot down my questions before I even ask.

My crush on you, in terms of months, only lasted 4,

and since then have passed almost 19 months more,

and over the course of those 600 days,

you think I’ve moved on, hell, you think that I’m gay.

But, if I’m to let the truth be known,

I am just as I was before I met you: alone.

My life is full of numbers, a heck of a lot,

I’ve crunched all these numbers, and this is what I got:

They all add up to someone, anyone besides you,

and this time, I remembered to carry the 2.

(I highly doubt I messed up, but even then,

I don’t want to go through all that again)

Patrick Erb-White is a poet, playwright, and amateur mathematician. He goes to Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School, where he majors in Literary Arts and reports for the school newspaper.

How to Accept the Terrifying Fact that You’re Going to College

By Lilly Hershey-Webb

If you’re like me and take months to fully process the extremity of things, you’ll understand where I’m going with this. If you’re a perfectly functioning human with a god given spoonful of eagerness for the future–screw you.

I’m just kidding. We all have our things. My thing, however, is knowing that college is around the corner. When I first opened that acceptance letter, my heart sang a thousand tunes of 50 Cent’s “Birthday”. It was supposed to be a celebration, right? A big whoopy doo from the parents, a congratulatory wine evening with the friends, and a $25 Amazon gift card from Aunt Judy. It felt, however, that people were more excited than I was. I couldn’t complain–I got into my dream school in a beautiful town with a beautiful campus on a beautiful farm with beautiful goats, but man, why wasn’t I jumping for joy? Immediately after the celebratory dinner, I went straight to my room and had myself a little pity party, ironically blasting “Congratulations” by the one and only MGMT. Why was I so desperately trying to hide from this seemingly happy occasion? All I could hear was my mother’s voice in the back of my head, saying, “It’s ok to let yourself be sad.” Sure, it was a cheery line, something out of a romantic sitcom, but it had substance to it. So, here I was–sitting in the pitch black, binge eating popcorn and religiously repeating “Congratulations” until my head was consumed with catchy melodies and melancholic lyrics.

Fast forward to three months later. I’m walking home from school, following my usual route, when I pass by the local bakery. The bakery where, for the past seventeen years, I’ve bought my birthday cakes (always vanilla with chocolate frosting). Children are stuffing delicate madeleines into their small cheeks and pestering their parents for just one more cookie. And that, my friends, is where it hit me. Amidst the sweet smells and smelly children, I came to the conclusion that I was growing up. Literally moving on. No more madeleines or birthday cakes, but ten page term papers and a whole new set of expectations. I was leaving behind everything I was familiar with. I never thought I would be one to fear change. But here I was, drowning in an existential crisis that was the reality of college, listening to Elliott Smith and wondering if he felt the same way.

Fast forward to a month later. I have confirmed my decision to attend Hampshire College, filed all the hefty financial aid forms, and all in all, cannot wait to start a fresh slate. You may ask, what changed? Well, my friends, I merely accepted that life goes on. Carpe diem, seize the day. But really, my fear channeled into excitement. New opportunities, new friends. Ramen noodles and midterms and freedom and freedom. A change was an alien concept to me, but now I’m learning to embrace it and find a new, better version of myself for the years to come. As David Bowie said, “turn and face the strange”.

CHANGE PLAYLIST
“Change” – David Bowie
“Never Let Me Go” – Rachel Portman
“Congratulations” – MGMT
“Sober Up” – AJR
“That Easy” – Yellow Days
“Like It the Way It Was” – The Emergency

Lilly Hershey-Webb is an aspiring film director and writer born and raised in NYC. She is slowly accepting the hefty student loans she will have to pay off after college.

Editor’s Note

By Molly Hill

Dear Readers and Writers,

We learned early on to surround ourselves with the very best people, and once again— it worked! Here we are already at Issue Ten. As the school year winds down we insist on extending enormous gratitude to The Writing Center at Minnetonka High School, Krista Hitchcock, Writing Center teacher and coordinator extraordinaire, and the many (check the MASTHEAD) students who diligently appeared at school well before sunrise to talk writing and help critique submissions. A generous perfectly timed grant (windfall) appeared in the spring enabling us to continue our streak of paying all contributors as well as our high school editorial team.

We’re feeling pretty lucky.

Our young writers keep the inbox filled, our editors remain attentive and thorough and (wow) our grant donor —! We’re surrounded by the very best people.

Read on!

Molly Hill
Editor

Morning Song

By Laura Ingram

Dawn shrills from the beak of a goldfinch

pink and chapped as a kiss to the temple

dreams scaling down

from the second story window,

scampering off on all fours.

I wake up

sun under my tongue,

pour my pulse into a chipped coffee mug,

gulp.

Laura Ingram is a tiny girl with big glasses and bigger ideas. Her chapbook, ‘Junior Citizen’s Discount’ was recently released with Desert Willow Press and her novel, ‘Stand Up’ is forthcoming for release with Raven Publishing. Laura has also been published in over fifty literary journals, among them Gravel Magazine and The Cactus Heart Review. She loves Harry Potter and Harry Styles. Her chapbook is available here: http://desertwillowpress.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=50.