Spring 2015

Our Spring Issue 2015 featured work from the weeks leading up to May 13th, 2015.

WRITING

Featuring poetry by juniors Gabby Clifford, Kurt Dean, Cyle Hairston-Gomes, and Rachel Landau

Finally
by Gabby Clifford, ’16

Feeling
Somewhat
Satisfied

What
Is
Life
What
Is
Happiness

The first kiss
With the boy you met an hour ago
The last dance
Until your face is longing for more

Some component always missing
When everything seems to
Come together
Shattered into a million different pieces
And we do care
Because when we pretend to not
We become emotionless
When we really do

What
Are
These
Games
We
Play
What happened to straightforward
Direct

Because we are complicated humans?
Strangeness comes between us like glass
One event turns two friends
Two lovers
Two people
Into strangers
Like they never even knew
Each other.

Why do we do what we do every day of our lives.
Push forward in the hope that everything will be fine and love and life and happiness will be served up into our deserved souls.

What is family when your brother forgets to call you.
When you cease to feel important in your own home.
When you cry a little because you feel disappointed
By the people you trusted
Loved
Felt safe around.
Why didn’t they call you back
Why is loneliness prevalent
You rebuilt yourself
Not to get knocked down again.

Leaves
by Kurt Dean, ’16

The leaves mingle: tossing, rolling, sprawling
through the streets. A mystery: the home of each leaf.
A mystery: the stories each might tell. But no one
stopped to listen, and the only noise they made was
to crunch under impatient feet,
crumbling beneath fresh black rubber soles. The
brightest orange. The perfect complement to its
neighbors. A modest burnt umber, cast against the
wild reds.

The leaves leap up, saying “What I have seen, what I
have seen… Listen! Listen to me!”

“Have you seen the brisk, sunny, spring mornings?
Have you woken to the sunrise and seen the world
brighten? Have you seen the bright blue afternoons?
The midnight blue evenings? The gray skies and
heavy downpours? Have you heard laughter among
friends? Have you felt the serenity of a mountaintop,
loud with birds and wind in the trees, not cars or
human lips? The lips on cheeks, foreheads, lips
whispering love? Lips parting in a smile as noses
touch? The full, trembling breath of ecstasy? Have
you heard a child’s speech impediment in a ‘twoy
stoire’. Has your skin split on the stones and the dirt?
Did you get up–brush yourself off–and smile? Have
you ever chosen to live?”

After
by Cyle Hairston-Gomes, ’16

I awoke

and noticed I was feeling foreign warmth,

from another sun.

Rays danced across my skin to the sounds of a soulful drum.

***

I’d never felt this rhythm before.

***

Slowly, I began to move with it.

Becoming present in my stride.

Each breath and step forward,

the Earth beneath replied.