Pictures

Lauren was their first, so most of the pictures were of her. There were pictures of every birthday party she ever had. There were pictures of her playing in the mud. There were pictures of her eating mashed potatoes and turnip. There were pictures of her in my father's glasses. There were pictures of her first bubble bath, her first smile, the first gap that had borne the first tooth that she had ever lost. But I wasn't bitter. I realized that with two young children, the amount of picture-taking time had to be split in two. Plus, Lauren had had five extra years of picture-taking time. It was only logical that there should be more pictures of her than me.

My sister Lauren ran away from home five years ago, so now there are no longer any pictures of her in our album. When she left, she was fifteen and I was ten. She told my parents that she was going to the store and did we need anything? We didn't, so she never came back. We knew she had run away because she called us. First she spoke to my mother, who was hysterical.

“Lauren, baby, why did you leave? If you would just come back then I'm sure we could fix whatever went wrong. I know we didn't always get along, but you're my daughter and I love you....What do you mean? Of course you fit in here. Tell me where you are and Daddy and I will come and pick you up....” Lauren never said where she was, but she always asked to speak to me. Mother would kind of look at me and frown. “Why do you want to speak to Elizabeth? Please stay on with me a little longer.” Her voice calmed and her questions became less probing. She was just listening to the sound of her first child's voice. She closed her eyes and swayed back and forth. “How is the weather where you are?” They would stay that way for about ten minutes—ten minutes that could have been a normal conversation. They talked about television and sometimes politics, but then Mother's questions would become frantic again. “Do you eat okay? What about school?” So Lauren would request to speak to me again, and this time Mother would have to give up the receiver.

“Hey Brat,” Lauren would greet me, and I'd have to smile.

“Hi,” I answered quietly.

“How's everything over there?”

“Okay. How's everything over there?”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Hey, look, I know I missed your birthday. Sorry about that, okay? I couldn't make it. Maybe next year.” “Right. Maybe next year.” Then I would whisper, “Lauren where are you?” and she would tell me different things each time.

“I'm right here silly,” or, “the equator,” or, “I've got one foot in France and one in Spain.” Or she would whisper back, “I'm at Andrew's house—don't tell.” Then she would ask to speak to Dad. It was him she really wanted to talk to, but Mother always picked up first.

“Bye, Brat. Don't be like her,” and I nodded, because I wasn't too sure what to say to that. “I love you Brat. Lemme speak to Dad.”

Phone calls from Lauren were a family event. The phone would ring, and Mother picked up each time hoping it was her, hoping their conversation would be different this time. If it was Lauren, which it rarely was, Mother's cry of something between grief and happiness would let us know. We all filed into the living room—me, Daddy, and the twins. I sat next to Mother while she talked. She stroked my hair the way she used to stroke Lauren's, and I know when she looks at me sometimes she pictures Lauren's face.

Dad sits in the chair across from the couch, Amy sits at his feet. Alex sits on my lap—quiet, still, curious, while his mother begs a sister that he doesn't remember to come back. We all have our roles, but the twins have it worst. They know Mother loves them, but they also know they signify her trying to find peace after Lauren. Because of Lauren. I wanted her to come back too. Not just for Mother or the twins, but for me. I wasn't bitter because of the attention she got, or the attention we lacked. I missed her too.

There aren't any pictures of her anymore because Mother started cutting them out. She cut Lauren out of group pictures, and school pictures, and family pictures, trying to erase the guilt. Once I saw her in her bedroom with a whole bunch of little cut-out Laurens, standing between her drawer and the garbage, trying to decide whether or not she wanted to move on. I didn't stay to watch the decision she made. I'm not bitter or angry, I just want her to come back.

So when I look through our album, there are spaces and holes that are full of my mother's pain, when they used to be full of Lauren.

Ariel C.

Ten Minutes and Twenty Years

Our hero felt horrible. He was curled up next to a jukebox on the floor of a tiny bar in South Boston, and last call was ten minutes ago. He wondered if he could sneak an hour of sleep past the disgruntled waitress, or if he should not try, for as his friend Lucky Larry always said, “Better to be thirsty for rest than taste only a drop of the sweet elixir.” Anyway, being shaken by the head, dragged feet first through a room full of people, and thrown into a freezing puddle on the curb is not the most pleasant thing to wake to after one has only been asleep for twelve minutes out of the last thirty-four hours.

Across the entire four-foot-wide room sat a young boy who was pretending our hero had a place to stay. This boy had a problem with his mind when it got cold outside. He seemed to think that it just wasn't right for so many people to have nowhere warm to go when temperatures went below freezing. He imagined such a situation would prove fatal, but he quickly pushed these thoughts out of his head and concentrated on the lips of the girl sitting with him. She was talking about her friend, and the boy, having no real interest in this subject, waited till a pause in the conversation, put his hand behind her neck, and pulled her to him.

He could tell in her kiss that things weren't the way they had been. Where had all the intoxicating passion gone? She used to bite his bottom lip with such genuine excitement that he'd get lost in her mouth on the cold stoops of the neighborhood, and not notice that his hands were frostbit until he let go of her and took her home. He had sung Drifters songs loudly with joy on the empty streets those nights, as he walked alone to his apartment. He had been floating in those magic moments, and not even the harsh winds or frozen rain melting in his hair could wipe the smile off his face. He hadn't kissed her like that for weeks, and he wondered if he was wasting his heart.

Our hero had decided against a nap and was now watching the young lovers kiss. He too saw the coldness in their lips. He had himself endured many meaningless nights of fabricated emotion, and tried to remember, as he did so often, the faces of some of the women whom he had known over the years. There had been quite a few, our hero bragged to himself, and he was comforted by the fact that at one point in time women had found him attractive.

This was the one thing he truly missed most, more than friends, family, good food, or even the sweet cigarettes he could no longer afford. He longed for the sensation of a woman's hand on his cheek. He would give his life for that complete contentment he used to feel when a beautiful lady fell asleep on his chest. When he was fortunate enough to save up the dollar-and-a-half price of a forty-ounce bottle of Midnight Dragon malt liquor, he would quickly down the vile fluid, close his eyes, and try to remember the feel of a woman's body against his. As he sat curled up in whatever alleyway seemed safest, he would touch his neck and face gently and tenderly as he pictured the faces of the women of his past.

As our hero watched the young sweethearts walk out the door and into the cold Massachusetts snow, he felt a bit of bitter jealousy and a dash of utter loneliness. Though that pimply, pale boy might not have found what he was looking for in the lips of his lady, and though his face would probably end up a half-forgotten image in her ever-changing mind, at least for this one icy night they had each other.

Andrew U.

The Boat

That blue boat, I'll have it burned.
Flame. Fiery hell, I want it to creak itself dead,
Pity, the groaning belly bottom'll burst out from underneath.
Shame. I'll burn the cellar down. Conflagration.
Those yellow bulbs twitching monotonous jaundice explode from above.
Gooey paint streaming melted tires, flaming canvas fiery portrait hot, hot.
The ruined painting slashed through years ago, smiling eyes at each other,
Burned. The woman's hair brought from her face an ashen heap when
All's done. The boat is soot. Wooded edge across the frame, prickled seats.
I'll set the dead adrift in it.
I'll send it down a shallow stream.

Margo G.

Magic

We all want to be the antichrist,
The god of idolatry,
The lover,
The fisherman,
And the King of New York.
Right now, I am but a Journeyman.
I touch my fingers to the glass
And I just get
Glass.

—Why is it that you are so adept at being my superior yet you've only surprised me once?—

You gleam up on your cross
And snicker when they turn their backs;
Under your thorn crown
You have defeated me again.

We meet in class the next day.
Already you can start fires
And I can only put them out.
I try to breathe sleep into your eyes
But you freeze it and reflect.
I am scarred and tired.

I've been sleeping since Tuesday,
And when I awake, I find you
Looking down into my eyes.
You snicker, “It only took me two days to rise.”
You kiss me and you leave.
Oh, how I hate that!

When I finally learn to cast the spells,
Though merely a Master, and you, the Healing Adept,
I decide that I am ready to die, and you meet me in
The black infinity of Limbo.
“Worship me,” You say, “and I will give you eternity.”
I politely decline; I don't want to worship you.
I want to be you.

Crystal B.

The Cholowinks

Sometimes, when the moon is full and the trees are singing, the cholowinks come out to play. Johnny, Penny and me sit outside on the porch talking about the cholowinks. No one else knows about them. The cholowinks are afraid of humans, except for the three of us. We are nice to them and we don't try to capture them because my parents are gone. They went to play bingo and left us with a baby-sitter. She fell asleep two hours ago on the couch.

Johnny is really smart. He is nine and he's very smart. He can read. He has a book that tells him when there is a full moon. Me and Penny don't understand why he doesn't just look up at the sky. Tonight, there is a full moon out. It is harder to figure out if the trees are singing. We have to sit in the apple grove next to the house and be really quiet and still. The three of us sit in a circle on the ground and hold hands. If we still don't hear anything after a while, we start humming. We hum the song of the trees. The cholowinks taught it to us last time they came out. The trees sing a song that makes us feel like we are floating. That is how we hear their song.

Tonight the moon is full and the trees are singing but the cholowinks aren't out to play. We've been sitting on the porch and waiting for half an hour and there are still no cholowinks. Maybe they aren't coming tonight. Maybe they are having a dance tonight. Sometimes they get together and dance underground. That must be why they aren't out tonight. They should have told us so we wouldn't be waiting for them. They should at least have given the message to the trees not to sing to us. Tonight me, Penny and Johnny will sit in the apple grove singing to ourselves.

Stephanie R. (Yalith Fonfa)

To the Point of Friction

My eyes traveled under the rising curtain
And were lost on a forest of white legs.
Each pair was a frozen compass.
Together they built an intricate scaffolding.
Light fell as the overture gave a last throb.
Dancers sprung at their cue,
Bodies floating,
As though dandelion seeds caught in wind's exhale.
They spun on,
Those delicate spindles,
A beautiful blend of petals and snow.
Yet something pierced my conscience.
Something disguised, at first, was now unveiled.
There under each belled skirt of tulle and lace
Were two matches,
Pirouetting on their hard red toes.
Tips grazed the stage, that wooden countertop.
Every move was trailed by blue sparks.
Soon flames leapt at their ankles,
Licking the trunks of paper trees.
Reflections glowed on the smooth brown faces of cellos
And glimmered round the gold lips of trumpets.
The dazzled audience was swallowed by the sight.
As the performance reached its climax,
Ballerinas fanned smoke with their porcelain arms.
They were mere puppets of a higher power
Steeped in brightness, a hard raw light...

...After the show,
Ladies stuffed their still-smoldering programs into their purses.
Patrons shuffled down the aisles,
Their mink shoulders or silk ties slightly singed
—but cooling.
At their backs were remains of a stage,
Drained of attention.
All that was left was a colorless heap of ashes,
Hidden by a thick red curtain.

Christina Porter

where were we?

this is where we were: battery park, and you know how the mud crawled its way up onto our knees
      and it didn't need an invitation.
it was a “one of those things” and you must know how these things go, and i rode on

these shoulders (i'd never even seen them before) a pair of 2 shoulders under a tie-dyed t-shirt and I felt so regal. on top of the world, to name a cliché (and then to name another in recognizing the cliché for what it truly is).

on that night:
we walked in our bare
(bare)
feet we walked oblivious to the city streets for the first time (since brooklyn last week when we kicked off our flip-flops since they're beach shoes anyway and only keep you so far from the ground)

and there we were.

Alexis G.

Silenced

I want to tell you that
you look like Pippi Longstocking with your stupid hat
but you're not looking
so I don't
           I am the ghost you rented in that horror film last night.
           The cup you left in the sink.

I want to tell you that
the jokes you tell only make you laugh
but you're not listening
so I don't
           I am the image you see in your funhouse mirrors.
           The bird shit on your car window.

I want to tell you that
I love you even with your claws and fangs
but you're not caring
so I don't
           I am September.
           The things you always tell me come too fast.

I want to tell you that
there are more important things than hairspray, hotpants, and bubblegum
but you're not understanding
so I don't
           I come too soon,
           I stay too long,
           I am your grandmother's fat cat.

I wish I could fit my insecurity in Tupperware
I'd microwave it and
like a gremlin it would implode, explode
and all the other plodes and
           In that moment I'd tell you that
You're cloying, vain, self-righteous and absorbed!

           But I am the silence you hear
           When the phone goes dead
So I don't.

Cody S.

Why My Grandmother Says I'll Have to Answer to God Because of a Singing Card

My grandmother is from St. Lucia. She speaks French patois (which is very similar to Creole) and English (not especially well). She is also very religious, believes in “black mageek” which she says cut off the hair at the back of her head (another story) and has a problem understanding modern technology. Example: she turned on the TV early one morning and saw Mr. Rogers putting on his shoes while talking to the camera and thought that he was talking to her personally and could actually see her through the TV screen (she even thought he called her name). Then she asked me if I turned on the TV in the other room would I hear him saying the same thing that she heard. I said yes. “But he's talking to me,” she said in patois. “How could he be talking to you, too?”

“He's not talking to anybody, he's just pretending to because he can't actually talk to anyone through the TV. He couldn't call everyone who was watching the show by name, either, because how would he know their names?”

“Oo trop kooyon! Ca oo connet? Oo pas sa' ee parler ec mwe? Oo we'ee? 'Couter. Oo pas tan ee dit' my fren Janie?'” (“You're so foolish! What do you know? You don't know he's talking to me? Do you see him? Listen. You didn't hear he said 'my friend Janie?'“)

I was nine years old then.

 
My mom works at a hospital. Pharmaceutical companies send the hospital all sorts of promotional trinkets (sort of like miniature billboards) to try and get the doctors to prescribe their drugs to the patients. These things include pens, notepads, CD-ROM discs with cartoony two-minute videos of dancing pill-bottles and calypso music with stupid lyrics, clipboards, pen-lights, desk clocks, and those cards which, when you open them, play a short song that repeats itself. This story is about one such item.

My mom had found one of those cards at work. When she came home, she gave it to me and said, “Give it to your grandmother.” It was in the shape of a cloud, and on it there was a picture of an eyedropper with a halo around it. Above the halo it said, “Hallelujah! The one you believe in is back.” I opened the card. Immediately the card sang “Hallelujah” three times. “She'll love it,” I said to my mom. “Yeah, you know her,” she said. I closed the card and opened it again. The card sang again. I looked inside it. It said, “Opticrom ^TM is back, and everyone is singing its praises.” Ha-ha, I thought. Very funny. I walked into my room where my grandmother was sitting. She's very Catholic, and anything that reminds her of church makes her happy. I don't know why, but she goes crazy for that kind of stuff. I gave it to her.

“Mom told me to give this to you,” I said.

“What dat?”

“Ouve'ee,” I said. (“Open it.“)

The card sang again.

“Ay ay! Dat's a good teeng, oui? She seenging jus' like een de chuch!” (“Wow! It sings just like the people in church!“) She was beaming. “When you opeen eet she seeng?”

“Yes, Granny.”

“When de battree feeneech, you can put anodah one again?”

“Yes, Granny. I guess so.”

“Mmmm Dat's good, oui? Tell mama tank you!”

And she played it again, and again, and again, and again
 

A month later, the card had been played countless times, and she had asked me the same question countless times: “When de battree feeneech, you can put anodah one again?” Yes, I always said. She had wanted to give me money to go outside and buy batteries with! One day I heard my grandmother making that card sing and I heard it faltering on the last “Hallelujah.” “Oh boy,” I thought. “She's gonna start giving me trouble now.”

She asked me THE QUESTION. I said something different this time. “Maybe I have the right battery for it.” So I took it and opened it right up. It used three button cells, not the same size that I had. “Sorry, Granny. I don't have the right kind of battery for it.”

She took it from me and played it. It died after the first “Hallelujah.” Suddenly she turned on me.

“Ay Ay! Oo dit oo ni battree pour ca, et l'heure oo ouve'e, oo kwase'ee, epi atchuelma oo dit oo pas ni battree pour li? Ay Ay, oo maleleeve, oui!” (“You said you had batteries for it and when you opened it, you broke it, and now you're saying you don't have batteries for it? You stomachache!“) And she called me a few other things, too. She didn't realize that the batteries had died before I opened the card. I tried to tell her this.
“Granny, you don't understand. The batteries had to run out sometime. You played with it too much! And I said that I might have the right batteries and that I wasn't sure. When I opened it, they turned out to be the wrong ones.”

She didn't hear or care what I said. She didn't want to hear. As far as she was concerned, she was right and I was wrong. And on top of all that, she added more to her side of the story.

“Espue oo ca fe'ee, oui! Bon Dieu caie pooneew pour ca oo fais mwe 'jodie-

aa!” (“You did it on purpose! God will punish you for what you did to me today!“) She glared at me as if I had killed one of her own children.

 
Note: Currently there is no written form of French patois, so the translations in this story are written phonetically (to the best of my abilities). Any other words that are taken directly from French are in there. The English translations are very literal. When I wrote “stomachache,” I know it sounded strange, but in patois, it makes sense (like “pain in the butt“).

Also, I wanted to replace the batteries since it meant so much to my grandmother, but I couldn't find enough time. But it wouldn't have mattered because about a month later (as I was writing this story, actually) I fully opened the card and found that the batteries were very closely soldered to the circuit board. That meant that if I took the batteries out to replace them, the mechanism would probably have been destroyed.

Dwight B.

Narcissus

Perfect as the surface of a pond on a calm day,
you are the epitome of pleasant,
the wicked flower that makes beauty jealous.

But O! poor, pitiful plant,
you know not love.
Your watery eye lacks the sea's turbulence—

the fire that kindles my blind frustration
when I see you sitting alone,
staring at your reflection in the water.

Micaela M.

Reflective Years

I know Smith Street
its gray stone buildings
its regular graffiti
dark-skinned children playing jump-rope
and the sad dog, one eye missing.
And me, passing in a camel coat
long hair blowing
seeing my reflection in barbershop mirrors
of empty barbershops where the
sad scissors and shears are lined up
in their dusty irregular line.
This is me found solo, nameless, deaf, dumb, smoky
always with a long shadow
in these highland years
      years of down under
      years spent spending myself.

Ten years down the line—
I will be running late
still. Long-shadowed,
still.
Forgetful still,
when the bills are past due
and there is no milk in the fridge.
Perhaps (with hope)
revisiting Smith Street
there will be more resonance
to that dusty reflection.

He will call
new wife, baby on the way,
domesticated, weaning himself pathetically
from nicotine addiction, years spent ashy.

And what will I have to say—
that the years have been broken and forsaken
that the men have
come in
gone out
meant nothing
(hearts broken, drinks drunk, sheets washed
and quarters spent in lonely Laundromats)
that pages have been turned
and burned.
I will say oh yes,
I forgot about Jim Morrison long ago
and I have forgotten, too, what it was like to kiss you
as dawn rose up gray
and our eyes were burning
(what secrets we must have seen,
the dark ones we hold within,
beyond the vast black of our big round pupils
in those summer nights turned to days)

I will say that it all comes back to me sometimes,
the way we could never sleep beside each other
even after the crash
even before the flood.

I will say
I have left it all behind
(almost)
except for Dylan and those Beats
except for the river nights and backyard mornings
the movie afternoons
except for the jaunt over the Brooklyn Bridge
pushing out through the golden zephyr
as clarity arose and we rushed on,
spellbound.

—There will be nothing left of the scars
so that when I meet his wife
she will see that for the most part
I have come together and found my way,
and she will perhaps like me and know that,
essentially, I can no longer hold anything in my hand
that is his
but a piece of his youth.

So now
knowing Smith Street
hands deep in pockets
the years lacking Blake light/Byron woe
the barbershops dimly fluorescent,
yellow and gray
passing over the stones with a long neck and mediocre posture,
I walk on
with tangled dreams and hair
amidst the tangled years.

Emily S.