Here are the fantastic submissions that we accepted before January 16, 2015.

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WRITING

featuring poetry by Ramya Yandava, Rachel Landau and anonymous, and short stories by Katie Scholl and Abi Starck

Nine Water Lilies

by Ramya Yandava, ’17

Out of the memory-shaped unfurling
The light fell in germinating veins
So that the colors precipitated out into the open air

I see the red flower
With the dragonfly in the middle of it;
Unsettled, hovering

Walking,
Thinking of the past
And those ghosts lying under the trees

The last red waterlilies
Nine abreast, half transparent
In precipitous deliberation

Perhaps out of unnatural still
Making gestures like spirits of the dead
Nimble, yet fraught with desire

The memory-shaped pauses
Toneless and monotonous
Pressed down into the soft earth

I see orchids
And rain and vultures
Substance and color

Down under the shadow of the flowers
Where colors of all shapes wavered
And sought shade upon the horizon

The dissolving voices
Broke the silence, and turning,
Cried aloud

forty-four

by Rachel Landau, ’16

in the gray house of chimneys
and a milky-eyed horsehead statue
and three china plates (two of them fractured)

bursts of wind scrape the windows
and furnish the floor with a layer of dust

ghosts cry over broken glass;
phantoms delete old messages
from the answering machine

under starless skylights they retrace the stairwell
and sit dormant in an antique silk rocking chairs
and gaze silently upon a garden of flowers
some of them pink and all of them dying

do you see the sidewalk marked by scars of winter’s ice?
the nineteenth century blueberry farm          the baseball field
the cemetery

beside it all, there is the gray house
that still smells of camel cigarettes
smoked by a man who died decades ago

who now shares my permanent residence
as a smattering of darkness wandering the halls at night

A Creature of the Light

by anonymous

I am a creature of the light
Two am wanderings
Still reveal my might

Sitting alone pondering
What makes this wrong
Or right
For misery was prevalent all along
But powerful when I lost sight

Avoid open arms and join the throng
Of darkness and safety in flight
Now the music’s up too loud
Enchanting despite

The incredible proud
Within my self comes this fight
I have to be a little proud
When I awaken the colder night

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Life as He Knew It

by Katie Scholl, ’15

It was a lovely day. Outside the stately dwelling there were green trees, and green grass. As young Adam viewed the garden, all he could notice forever was green, if not to count the yellow square in the sky. Black butterflies mechanically cycled out of the grass, only to disappear again moments later. Other than the absence of pollution, you would think it was the olden country days. That’s what the world prided itself upon. It was the year 3102 and there was no more need for technology. There was no more need to carry around cell phones to talk to people, for now every person you could care to communicate with was in your direct vicinity. There was no more need for the automobile, for every location you could ever need was always surrounding you. There was also no more need for jobs, for money was no longer a necessity or desire in the modern society. With the worries of money eliminated, so was the distress of competition and rivalries. Everything was perfect.

When Adam’s day started it was always 6:98 AM, as the clock told him. And every day he had a few choices for what to do…

Find the rest of Katie’s short story here!

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A Hero’s Welcome

by Abi Starck, ’16

The walls of the cavern began to shake and the ceiling started to crack. People rushed to leave, terrified of the ceiling caving in. Most of my familial unit decided to stay behind; they had heard that the land above was safe. They would not sway from their ideas. We wore our most resistant armor, the heavy cloth with metal plates sewn throughout, hoping that it would protect us from the intense light above. We pulled bits of fungi, the best air filters, from the exit of the tunnel. They became our masks that would give us the ability to breathe the hostile air. Then we armed ourselves, unsure of what we would find in the wasteland that sat on top of the bunkers, the home of the survivors. Our second lids shut in preparation to go into the world of the light…

Read the rest of Abi’s short story here!