Art

A collage of Sunlit Watercolor Trees - Ekamjot Kaur Bedi 

Rundown French Cottage - Ekamjot Kaur Bedi 

Foggy, Misty Forest - Ekamjot Kaur Bedi 

Writing

Josephine - Vidmahi Tantry 

The Shoreline - Nathaniel Remon

There’s No Body to Batter When Your Mind is Your Might - Avantika Choudhury

Refracted - Naomi Morton

STAGNANT ECHOES - Iqra khan Turk 

A Blazing Heart in the Cold - Lyan Angela Agustin

The Drake Equation - Katie Kim

Whispers in the wind - Farhat Shaheen 

Welcome - Tia

All Hallways Lead to You - Lyan Angela Agustin

Day After Day/The Elements of Comfort - Ekamjot Kaur Bedi 

The Warm Embrace of December - Florina Konwar

Reflection/What's the truth? - Bornil Murchhona

By Vidmahi Tantry 

Vidmahi Tantry is a 12th grader from Bangalore, India. She studies Psychology, Economics, Commerce and English in school. In her free time she enjoys reading, listening to music, pacing around her house and watching long video essays on random topics. 

Oh Josephine,

her smile as bright,

as the light

of the phone,

we snuck out

at midnight.

her eyes as shiny,

as the Swarovski

crystals my family

used to give as gifts.

her words as sweet,

as the sugar and ghee*

my mom used to feed me.

Oh Josephine,

Aren't you the greatest thing,

anyone has ever seen.

How perfect has your life been?

Oh Josephine,

How does it feel, being

object of everyone's desires?

Oh Josephine,

Don't play dumb,

How could you not know?

You’re every mother’s dream,

every teenager’s nightmare.

Oh Josephine,

I've catalogued

your every move,

I’ve analysed

every step you took,

I do everything

the way you do.

You poison my every move

and I hate the way I worship you-

You're everything I am,

and everything I’m not

and everything I want

and I can't seem to

bring you down

from the pedestal I put you on.

I despise my insecure eyes

and how much they seem to love you.

I despise my envious eyes

and how much they love to hate you.

*clarified butter made from the milk of a buffalo or cow, used in South Asian cooking.

By Avantika Choudhury

Avantika Choudhury is a sophomore at Millburn High School. She was born in Singapore and moved five times, spanning multiple continents. She began writing at the age of thirteen, rediscovering her love of books during the pandemic. She also loves listening to music and hiding song references in her writing for readers to decode. She lives in Millburn, New Jersey, with her mom, dad, and dog, Bonbon

There’s No Body to Batter When Your Mind is Your Might

Suddenly, I was present. My mind was reeling, taking in the textures beneath my feet and the wind tickling my fingertips. In the night, figures screamed past me whilst running on their four limbs. I copied their behavior. I crawled through the dense forest, thorny twigs cutting my fingers and leaving small red gashes. Crawling was uncomfortable, but I slowly got used to the feeling. My legs were disproportionate, one shorter than the other, and the rest of my body followed a similar pattern. Suddenly during my expedition, I found myself beside a brook with a howling stomach.

My tongue relaxed in the space between my two rows of crooked teeth. My body began to gravitate towards the brook, where I eventually quenched my thirst. The satisfaction was almost immediate. This was when I began to distinguish desire from necessity. For a minute after, I believed that my purpose was to drink water; to empty this brook and whichever other body it led to. I didn’t yet find the beauty of consciousness.

The brain which I housed between my ears sloshed back and forth, it did not fit properly. I shook my head back and forth, trying to find meaning to my brain. It did not do anything, I assumed, so why did I have it? I believed my mind was empty since I often thought of nothing, so I guessed it would expand as I thought more. My body was hopeful in the sense that it believed I could expand my brain enough to fit my large head.

It was then that I began to enjoy more complex pleasures of life: heat, clothing, and optimism. Stray beggars left a live fire still burning; I approached it with curiosity. As I got closer, the frigidity in my bones began to melt. Overjoyed, I ran toward the fire, instantly scorching my little finger. I took a step back, creating a safe distance between my body and the fire. My body was not unalterable, I learned. The embers of the orange fire left a mark on my finger that stayed forever. Some wounds could heal, since the marks on my palms from thorny twigs had been long gone, but there were some wounds time could not mend, I presumed.

Just as fast as it came, the fire departed. Since I found it by chance, I was left itching my head about ways to bring it back. Giving up after hours of toil, I looked for other forms of heat. Beside the dead fire, I saw a small cloak. I had not noticed it before since the majority of my focus was on my injury and the fire. The cloak was one, solid color. The color was richer than that of the brook but lighter than the bark of the trees. I took the cloak and wrapped it around my nude frame. The satisfaction of the fire was uncontested, but I accepted the comfort the large cloth provided. I decided that if I dedicated my time to finding the lost fire, it would come back. I just hoped it did not leave because of me.

The morning after, the sun beat down on me. It was warmer that day, and I was exultant. Heat provided a comfort that I could not describe yet. I wrapped the cloak around my lower body and embarked on my journey for the fire. During this journey, I felt an incessant need for food. It was not a desire, it was a necessity. My stomach was offended by the scarcity of food supplied, and it was begging for more than just water. Like how it guided me to the brook, my body began moving to a distant noise. It was bustling, it was music. It was pizzicato strings and rhythmic beating. I continued to approach the sound.

The cacophony was interrupted by a shriek. There was an old man to my left, his mouth agape and his eyes threatening to pop out of their sockets. I was confused by his reaction. I tried to communicate with him. My attempts in speaking resulted in a sound similar to his shriek, which sent him running. I was unfamiliar with my vocal cords, I wished the man understood that. At the same time, there was no way I could convey my message to him, I should have practiced earlier. 

My previous altercation with the old man was forgotten when the music got louder. More noises joined in, sharp ringing sounds and harmonized whisper-screams of people. I tried to emulate the noise they made. I started with my mouth closed and tried again with my mouth open. The noise was much louder open than closed, so I continued to hum during my stroll. I could see the town then, so I adjusted my cloak and walked into the crowd. I heard piercing screams from multiple directions. Little children, old women, and teenage boys wore the same bewildered expression as the old man from earlier. People openly pointed at my scarred legs and my huge head, muttering things like ugly, revolting, and demon. One boy, in particular, stood out. His dull hair sat flat on his fitting, proportionate head. His legs were not too long and not too short. His eyes were equidistant from each other and his teeth were straight. He looked familiar. He looked like my creator.

When I was born—galvanized, created, etcetera—the first thing I saw was a man. My creator. He was lanky, yet his figure fit him. He stared, trying to communicate with me. He quickly realized I had the body of a thousand men, yet the mind of an infant. My words were only moans and whines, I was trying to make sense of the new world. My anger was bubbling and my moans became grunts. He held a device in his hand, the one that shocked me alive, and I felt resentment. How could he bring me into this world with my repulsive face and obtuse mind, thinking I would want to live?

I looked at the young boy in front of me, the one with the hair, and grabbed him by the neck. Barely able to fight back, he flounced around. I choked the voice out of him, I tugged on his hair, and I took my sharp nails to his knees. When I was finished, he had multiple lacerations below his kneecaps and a bruised nape. His breathing was constricted, and he was only able to bleat in pain. Gradually, his breathing slowed to a stop. I abused his carcass with my nails for a second time, targeting his arms and face. I stood up, looking at his corpse and the empty town square. I did not know when the others left, too engrossed in my victim.

I felt no satisfaction. I felt greater happiness from the fire than the boy’s dead body. I shook my head to and fro, and to my chagrin, my brain sloshed. No thoughts inhabited my brain, giving it no purpose. I sat on the floor. Looking at the boy’s corpse again, I saw that even while dead, his brain fit him. Even with the sum of my limbs, I could never be like him. I had a torso, arms, and legs, but my brain was not nearly as developed as his. My limbs are just bits and pieces of others. Still, I killed the boy with the will to live while I lived without. Without a working mind, I had no purpose. The boy, on the other hand, had working parts and ideas. I lived with half-pale-half-tan arms and an infantilized view of simple things. I would never be like the rest.

By Iqra khan Turk 

Iqra Khan Turk is an aspiring poetess from Pakistan.She has recently co authored the anthology under TWS publication,"Whispers of a Thousand Voices".

STAGNANT ECHOES

I am at the point

where I mourn no longer

over deceit of others, over

their lies. Strangeness in

their eyes and tears in mine—

none can tweak this current, I opine.

I sighed and sighed and sighed.

Deceit was not my fault; besides,

I felt my head sink to the earth,

and brows low, face like hearth.

Tears stagnant, hands unmoved,

my steps so static,

accused of being untruthful.

29-7-24

© Iqrakhanturk 

By Katie Kim

Katie Kim is a speculative fiction writer from Fulton, Maryland. Her work is published in The Descriptivist and has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, as well as by the Last House Writing Contest. When she isn’t managing her creative writing club, Litwits, she can be found conlanging or working on her novel. 

THE DRAKE EQUATION: [N = R* ⋅ fP ⋅ ne ⋅ fl ⋅ fi ⋅ fc ⋅ L]. “A probabilistic argument used to estimate the number of active extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy with which we could communicate.”

I. R* : The Mean Rate of Star Formation

Your mother’s womb is the upper bowel of an hourglass in the dark. Light leaks in and God-knows-what leaks out, and the walls pulse with enriched blood and foreign movement. For stars to be created, the dust and gas inside nebulas must collapse. The gel of your lungs drips lost time, a storm breaking. 

Your mother has a scar grafted through the tissue of her lower belly. Her surgeons had slit her open and ripped you from her uterus by your ankles. When you were safe in her arms, she cried over your ugliness. She looks like Uncle Nam, she wept, scrubbing at your dimple with her thumb until the skin turned red, mistaken for dirt on your face. The fat folding at the summits of your cheeks forced your eyes to narrow, barely a glimmer in the tepid hospital gloom. 

II. fP : The Fraction of Stars that have Planets

You tear off the popsicle wrapper and nibble at the frost crusting the purple ice. Somewhere far away enough to give you a moment’s peace but too close to keep it, Jimmy and Brennan are digging to Antarctica in the sandbox. Beyond the playground fence, Barrett terrorizes the sparrows with his yellow plastic bulldozer. You let your legs dangle underneath the jungle gym’s dome, then drop gracefully to the ground. The smell of wet mulch rises around you. The world is breathing. 

You steal one of Jimmy’s buckets and hold it steady between your knees as you dump wood chips and dirt inside with one hand. You catch a drop of popsicle with your tongue before it splatters onto your other hand, then give up and throw the entire confection into the bushes. This is a two-handed endeavor, worth attracting ants, flies, and other unwelcome guests to your preschool’s yard. Looking up, you notice Barrett gaping at you, bulldozer discarded. You glare at him and nod toward the sparrows hiding in the ginkgo trees. He picks up his toy and continues on, making whirring noises like an engine. 

Once your bucket is full, you flip it upside down and tap on the upturned base with one of Jimmy’s shovels, then slide it away. A tower of mulch remains. You look around the playground to see if anyone will notice your small triumph. By the sandbox, one of the teachers forces Jimmy and Brennan to refill their pit. The other is doing her best to herd Barrett back into the confines of the fence. You kick over your tower and smooth it back into the ground. 

III. ne : The Mean Number of Planets that Could Support Life per Solar System

God says to love your neighbor, but your neighbors are weird. Loni from 11758 won’t play any games, her twin Landyn cries too much, and Izzi from 11756 likes to gather everyone together to make you confess what you hate most about each other. (Loni was too naive, Landyn was too sensitive, and you were too bossy.) It was also her idea to hunt for tadpoles in the pond, and her mistake of leaving them in a flowerpot outside during the coldest week of the year. The only other neighbors you have are Izzi’s brother Jack, who tried to run you over with his lawn mower, and Roni, who you and the other kids spun in a hammock until he vomited after stuffing himself with Cheez-Its. 

So maybe you’re not the only innocent one. 

You spend the summer before third grade practicing what to say when your homeroom teacher asks you what your favorite book is. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Where the Red Fern Grows. The Wind in the Willows. Whatever sounds long and intellectual and memorable. Especially the memorable part. You are prepared to be remembered. 

On your first day, the boy sitting next to you on the bus asks you why your haircut is lopsided. He asks why you have a mole next to your right eye, why there’s a lump on your ring finger, why your shoe size is so small, why you haven’t heard of Imagine Dragons. He probably would have asked more questions if you hadn’t scratched the back of his hand until it bled. His thin skin rips underneath your nails, retribution and rage and the reality of self-perception. As he cries out, you stumble back in shock, your heart a wasp lodged your chest. What have you done? What has he done? 

That night, you point a hand mirror toward the full-length one in your parents’ room and see that the boy is right, that one side of your haircut is longer than the other, and that perhaps you’re not who you thought you were after all. 

Your homeroom teacher never asks about your favorite book, and he constantly mixes you up with a bespectacled Vietnamese girl with a bob and symmetrical bangs. More often than not, you don’t bother correcting him. He doesn’t get either of your names right. 

IV. fl  : The Fraction of Life-Supporting Planets that Develop Life

Your mother says that you need to be more open-minded. You imagine erecting pearly gates in front of your brain and leaving them unlocked, ready to swing wide. You imagine cracking jokes and dazzling the fumbling peanut gallery with book titles and algebra and the toolkit of the prepubescent mind. You listen to Imagine Dragons and whatever else anyone could be listening to because you won’t be caught lacking again. You are prepared to be venerated. 

You try your hardest to part your hair down the middle, but it doesn’t quite lie flat. Your arm is sore from angling your mother’s plastic spray bottle toward your scalp, and water dribbles down your nape. The comb you were using lies at the bottom of the toilet bowl after you dropped it ten minutes ago. What’s the point of having gates in the first place if you leave them open all the time? 

V. fi : The Fraction of Planets with Life where Life Develops Intelligence

When you are twelve years old, you learn that your imaginary jokes and handy book titles and rabidly insecure consumption of pop culture are not enough to keep your friends around forever. 

“Why are you sitting here?” your best friend’s new best friend asks as you set your biodegradable lunch tray down. 

“I always sit here,” you say. 

“Oh.” She gives you a look that poisons something in you, then swaps glances with your best friend. “Can you sit somewhere else?

Fishing out the rest of what happened is like trying to paint your reflection from the surface of a lake. It’s safe to say that words are exchanged. Most of them make a doormat out of your pride. You can pick out shapes, words, feelings, but you don’t know for sure and the roar in your ears won’t die. You’re a crybaby, two-faced, bloodsucking. Your best friend sits wordlessly across from you as if someone has plugged her ears with wax. She never says it’s over, but as she turns away, you just know. 

You fumble for a reason—you feel entitled to one—but you come up with excuses instead. You wish you had prophetic dreams and had seen this coming. You wish you could name names. You wish you could tattle, tack up a hitlist, spread rumors like wildfire. You wish you could say more, lash out like a whip, be heartless. But that’s not who you are. 

Before bed, you sit by the toilet and cry until you throw up water. Then you print out a picture of Taylor Swift, tuck it into your prayer journal, and beg God to put your soul in a pretty girl’s body when you wake up. Maybe once you’re beautiful and your hair lies flat, everyone will see that you have it, the X-factor, the all-inclusive permit that will bring your best friend back. You wake up to find that nothing has changed. 

VI. fc : The Fraction of Intelligent Civilizations that Develop Communication

You dedicate the book you’re writing to your real friends. It’s a joke, because your only real friend is the dog, and she runs when you try to pick her up. Your therapist Jackie says that your real human friends aren’t really your friends. Really they’re just calling themselves that to excuse their real unfriendliness. Your head feels about as clear as a smoker’s lung. 

It’s a nice book, though. You work on it instead of talking to your not-really-friends, who were ignoring you anyway but would see that you’re busy if they decided to approach. You are prepared to be disappointed. You wouldn’t be caught dead being caught dead, and you don’t like being ignored. If you wanted to talk to a wall, you would. Your protagonist doesn’t have any real friends, but somehow his suffering seems to work out for him. You’re not even suffering and nothing’s working out for you. 

The look on Jackie’s face when you express this to her in one of your sessions tells you that you’ve said something wrong. She wishes you good luck. The penny lodged in your jeans pocket. The four-leaf clover pressed between the pages of your dictionary. The black squirrel running across the lawn, the ladybugs stuck underneath your desk. You’ve never believed in good luck or salvaged wishes. You stash it all in a box plucked from the memory of your neighbor’s grad party, the kind with a slit on top for collecting cards. Loneliness holds you less within its embrace and more by your throat. 

Your mother says that you feel too much. 

VII. L: The Mean Length of Time that Civilizations can Communicate

Your uncle’s dog catches robins in the backyard and drags them to his door, blood rusting her teeth. You try to pet her as he frets, but she wants nothing to do with you, either. 

You make up some friends instead. You’re a regular Geppetto, Pinocchioing everyone in your head into realness. Animated Mikey with spiky blue hair. Sweet-faced Anisa working hard in culinary school. Some friendly white kid named Martin Jackson whose face you don’t remember, a recurring side character in your dreams. The not-really-friends you’ve got leave for friends who care more, again and again and again, just as you knew they would. Your dreams aren’t prophetic; your loss is just predictable. You maintain a straight face and remind yourself that Mikey and Anisa and Martin Jackson would never do such a thing. The lesson is equanimity and you are a star student. 

Slowly, life calms. Your mother says that you don’t need Jackie anymore. You settle for something in between a middle and a side part in your hair. You make more friends. They move on. You call it character development; the book is never done. You do not wake up as a pretty girl or a wildfire. You wake up as yourself, the same old rot in your room transformed by the belief that this, too, shall pass. 

VIII. N: The Number of Civilizations with which Humans could Communicate

You’re looking for an immortal friendship. A friendship that spans epics, a friendship so great and infallible that you won’t need to prepare yourself for a new one. You are growing up, but the child building castles alone on the playground never will. You’re just a girl and you didn’t ask for this. You’re waiting for someone to see you and be amazed. You feel alien and wrong. 

Your mother says not to worry. Better things are coming.

By Tia

I have always loved poetry, and found comfort in it. Poetry has always been her way to express herself. 

“Welcome to this new world,

Little one.

Everything you see here,

You will soon touch.”

The mother hugs the child for a little while,

As one takes a picture to put in the pile,

Of happy memories

And happy thoughts.

To never forget this beautiful moment,

With many words unspoken,

 whisper of cries full the hall 

As one watched you curl up like a ball.

“Don’t be scared little one

One day or another you will be just like me.

You will also be free,

Away from the crib and standing with the rest.”

“But sleep for a little while and hug the beautiful night sky,

Cause when you wake up,

Everything you see 

You will soon touch,

And everything you touch

You will soon take 

And create a beautiful life, that this world has to take!”

By Ekamjot Kaur Bedi 

Ekam is a teenage poet, public speaking enthusiast, and artist. She first discovered poetry by reading William Wordsworth poems when she was 9, and now writes herself.

POEM 1: 'Day After Day'

The cling and clang of pots and pans,

My cup of coffee on the kitchen table,

The almost-finished gingerbread chocolate bar, 

And the light of it all, Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar.

They all lie somewhere in my kitchen, 

Kept on the light green tiles,

Making me smile when I look at them, day after day, 

Yet this was all after a while.

Because before when I had looked, 

All I used to see was the mess that I'd made,

Feeling as if I had spilled some tea,

but then one day, it all changed,

And I looked at the kitchen table once more,

And not a mess there laid, 

But I saw a home that was good.

I saw the joy that my things brought me every day, 

so it was perhaps best that I left them on the kitchen table,

right where I could see them, day after day.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

POEM 2: 'The Elements of Comfort'

I always knew when the winter came crawling by,

As I could feel the cold creeping up my spine,

My dark hair blowing in the wind,

And the blue scarf wrapped around my neck as tightly as ever.

Whenever I felt it was going to rain,

The thought of having my pink umbrella kept me sane,

So I always knew I would be safe,

And wouldn’t get wet, even in this pouring rain.

Whenever the sun would start to shine a little brighter,

I’d feel the trail of summer becoming lighter,

And there it was, the pool parties and late evening swims,

I always had my swimming goggles to save my eyes from water getting in.

From the falling of orange and red leaves on the road to the crunching of gravel,

It had all foretold, the coming of autumn,

That we all had to now to wait and watch,

My cream-colored coat was there to bring me some warmth without a doubt.

And when the sun would glow and the flowers on the cherry tree would bloom,

I’d have a Taylor Coleridge poem in my hand, reading it,

Sitting under the shady tree and the cool land, being over the moon.

By Bornil Murchhona

Bornil is a writer and student from Dhaka, Bangaldesh, who enjoys translating and writing about too many things, but most often the magical and mundane and how they intersect. Their work has previously been published in The Daily Star and Feel Lo magazine among spaces. 

1. Reflection 

The first time you find a flaw in your reflection you are barely old enough to be called a teenager. The curve of your nose and the arch of your brow strike you as off, fresh faced and eyes bright. 

The mirror stares back. You return to it as the years pass. When you return as a fully-fledged teenager, young with sunken, weary eyes, nothing is left to strike you as off. 

he face in the mirror is no longer familiar. The speck of light in those eyes have dimmed, dusted over, skin morphed to stretch around growing bones in a foreign shape. 

You reach out, and fingers meet glass. Despite it all, it is still you. The ringing in your ears is low and the air is cool. 

That hair is longer now. Dark, wavy and streaked through with grey. 

It is still you.

2. what's the truth 

am I true to me, 

To what you (see/make) of me

I suspect neither, this spring