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June 2021 | Volume 33 | Issue 3

Memoirs• Pieces of Paula• The Pendant• Tic-Tac-Toe

Teen Ink News• Contests & Call for Submissions

Fiction: Part 1• Lost & Found• A Thousand Shades• To Be A Cat• The One in the Spire

Art Galleries• Photography, watercolors,

charcoal, oil paintings, & moreFiction: Part 2• The Dare• The Story of an Involuntary Seer• Special Attack

Poetry: Part 2• The Last Conversation of a Dying

Father to His Son • Steering the Wheel • Ode to Pens• Black Marks• the bitter taste of flames• I Exist for You• Phantoms of the City• Judgement• Soul• A Glance at Medusa• Afterimage• An Animal Lives Beneath My Skin• An Observation• Unexpected• the road• Schoolwork• Welcome to the New Teenage Life• Sonnet of a Glass Library• Teeth• Anxious Awakening• Cobwebs• Alloys

Fiction: Part 3• Standing Stones• The Letter• I Think I Just Gave a God

a Kleenex

Artwork by Ruby Tseng, Taipei, Taiwan

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22Poetry: Part 1 • Where I'm From • Time Slipped Away• Old Friend• A Metal Picket Fence• Bracing Breezes• Why I Can't Write Poetry• When the Sidewalk Falls

Through• plucked feathers• Interlude to Vehemence • Arnold Palmer• Book Burning• What Is• Again and Again• Morality• North• Driver's Test• Alternate Universes• Walking Alone• Life is Beautiful:

A Palindrome Poem• Mikros Kosmos• I Care• Ducati• Advice To Your Past Self• Statistics• Celebrities• Blackberries• I Have a Name• Long• Lightkeeper• Syzygy

A canary flung itself against the window, and I knew. A splay of reds and oranges and yellows,

spread out in front of me to look like angel wings, slowly inching down the glass. A drop of water in the midst of a flood. I knew, I knew, I knew.

Everyone else screamed and laughed and cried out in horror, but all I could think about was how the wind would treat its fragile body. How the snow would cover up the mess and hide what truly happened there. How the world would still spin and people would still cross the busy streets.

It was January, and the winter did not care about a dead bird on the side of the road.

But I did, and I knew.

I knew what it felt like to fly; I knew what it felt like to fall. I wondered if the canary did, too. Did it know that its heart would stop beating one day? Could a creature such as a

bird realize that life is fleeting and no one, not even God, could prolong it?

Paula wasn’t a bird, or a bug stuck to a windshield. She was a senior in high school, dancing on the edge of graduation and

college and adulthood. She was nerdy and funny; she had all of the qualities anyone would like to cherish and keep forever, locked away in a heart-shaped box. You would never let the box get dusty because you would open it up every day just to look at all of those things you wish you could stuff inside yourself.

I was a quiet freshman. I kept to myself, stowed away in the music room with my viola pressed against my chin, unassuming and uninterested in anyone other than my close-knit group of friends.

We laughed in crescendo, warm honey dripping down our throats and bubbling from our lips. We tiptoed in pizzicato down the hallway to the kitchen, stealing snacks and whispering about how badly we needed to refill the cabinets. We were attuned to the music we created just by mixing our voices together, no matter how different they were.

Paula wasn’t anything you could read in music. She wasn’t a dead bird. She wasn’t even a close friend – more like a friend of a friend. I’d talked to her only a few times, each conversation brief but, oddly, I could remember everything. I remember her smile and how huge it looked on her face – how it felt like the sunrise after a dark and lonely night. I had a lot of those

We lived from heartbeat to heartbeat and cried when everyone else went to sleep

PaulaPieces of

by Kaylie Mancino, Farmingville, NY

Artwork by Aayush Kumar, Sunnyvale, CA

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MEMOIRS | JUNE 2021

nights where I’d stay awake and count the tiles on my ceiling. I’d etch mountains and valleys across my skin, hiding it the next day because the sun was there; everything was okay.

Paula and I, we were alike in that way. We lived from heartbeat to heartbeat and cried when everyone else went to sleep. I wish we could’ve grown closer because maybe the silence wouldn’t have been filled with so many thoughts. Maybe we would have spoken them aloud to each other, side by side, night by night.

We were not friends, but when she died, I cried all day. It felt as if the flowers sprouting from the April dirt were mocking me because they were alive and Paula wasn’t. Warmth shouldn’t have crept up on us so quickly because my acquaintance, my best friend’s friend … all she had known was the cold. All she had known were the frozen roads and the bare oak trees that came with autumn's departure. I couldn’t wake up with the sun anymore because Paula would never wake up again.

The school made an announcement on the loudspeaker that following Monday. During

Paula’s moment of silence, the kids in my first period history class did not quiet their voices. Instead, they talked about the homecoming dance.

I wanted to stand atop my desk and shout that Paula would never experience another dance again, but I picked my cuticles and waited for the moment of silence to be over.

I realized, after her suicide and the funeral and the minute of silence, that the school ignored a lot of things. They ignored the man-made nooses hanging from the lockers, the blood on the hallway floors, and the putrid smell of vomit in the girl’s bathroom. They ignored mental illness and they ignored Paula.

They ignored me.

In tenth grade, I realized I could no longer

hear music when the doves that stood on branches next to my bedroom window quieted their songs. I realized I could no longer dwell on the beauty of a concerto when the notes on my sheet paper blended into a cacophony of gray. I just waded through thick puddles of sadness that stuck to the bottom of my shoes, carrying it everywhere with me; it beat like a second heart, pulsing through my veins.

A few months after the music stopped, I found myself standing in the ward of a psychiatric hospital. I’d been there a few weeks, and slowly, I started to come to terms with the bridges I’d burnt and the people I’d lost. I found myself healing with every breath I released from tired, surviving lungs.

I was growing into a woman, but on that particular day, I missed the girl I used to be so much.

I began to cry. I cried and cried for the canary. I cried for its pain and its life and its end. I cried for Paula and I cried for a world full of hurt that burrows itself in the empty crevices of our bodies, creating a home to live in.

Paula and the canary were dead. They were dead and neither one of them could come back. But I was not dead – my lungs still inhaled, my brain still fought furiously against itself, my future still lay ahead of me like fragmented parts of a puzzle.

Before its heart stopped beating, I wondered if the bird saw a flash of a better life in front of it, reflected through the glass; I hope it died with a beautiful view. I hope Paula is at peace, I hope the canary can fly again, I hope death isn’t just death and that music still exists when we’re not alive to hear it anymore.

I took all of my hope and held it tightly in my hands, so tangible and real. I decided

to keep it in the box, the one where good things are stored. Pieces of Paula still coated the bottom of the old, worn wood – a sea of all that was once lost but is now found. I added in my hope and my sadness and my now.

Paula was not just my hindsight. She was my past, my present, and my future. She was the heart-shaped box, and the canary, and the snow that blanketed its body.

I locked the box and stuck it back inside myself, where it lived and breathed, waiting for another day I might need to open it.

Far away, high in the treetops, there was a faint chirp.

I took all of my hope and held it tightly in my hands

I missed the girl I used to be

Photo by Reagan Padgett, Brooklet, GA

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MEMOIRS | JUNE 2021 MEMOIRS | JUNE 2021

Artwork by Remy Bregu, Tirana, Albania

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MEMOIRS | JUNE 2021

Artwork by Evy Mansat-Gros, Greenville, SC

Artwork by Neha Vinod, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Artwork by Abbie Barrows, Jupiter, FL

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ShadesA Thousand

by Caroline Wei, Spring, TX

Y our dress is 3,000 shades of white, just the way you like it. Always the one with the keenest eyes, even when nobody else could distinguish the

difference between pearl and the palest azure.

So, everyone who asks me always gets the same answer. I’ve known you for 17 long years, and if there’s anything I’ve learned from that time, it’s that you’re not conventional. If you could do anything exotically, you would.

The aisle is overlaid, not with a red rug, but with every single piece of clothing you were wearing on each date you went on with him. From my seat, I can see a jean skirt and a mismatched sock clinging onto a sun hat. Your grandmother is appalled that there is a bra in the collection, but I am not surprised. It’s you, after all.

The flower girls, six years old and eight years old, do not toss rose petals, but sticky notes. According to you, you met him because he kept writing you love letters on those. I wish I'd thought of that.

People laugh in their silk and decor as they reach out with their hands, trying to catch the fluttering pink birds. The flower girls are smiling at each other toothily, their little crowns gleaming in the fluorescent lights, reminding me of the ninth grade homecoming where you spilled punch all over your dress.

The music that your older brother is playing on the grand piano is not "Canon in D" or the classic "Wedding March." Instead, it’s “Party In The U.S.A.” by Miley Cyrus because that was your favorite song for three straight years in middle school.

I don’t have to turn around to know you have entered the room. All around me heads swivel, eyes widen, and lips turn up. Your mother looks like she’s about to cry.

Finally, I lift my eyes toward you because I must, even though these kinds of tears taste about the same as joy. Your hair is chestnut red, gleaming different hues of mahogany and strawberry as you walk.

Artwork by Helen Lu, Lititz, PA

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FICTION: PART 1 | JUNE 2021FICTION: PART 1 | JUNE 2021

It used to be blonde when you were little, but as you grew older, it darkened. It suits you.

Crowning your head is a tiara of Polaroids. I know without looking that I’m in one of them, and I know precisely which moment that was caught on camera. We were at summer camp, the one week in August where we got to escape our town and our parents and our responsibilities. The sun in our eyes, the dirt on our skin, and the grass at our feet; I had my hand shielded against the blinding flash of the camera. Your hand was grasped loosely around mine, and you were about to trip, your mouth open in a rose-petal O caught mid-laugh. The lake shimmers behind us, full of fish and bacteria and love. You have a piece of dried straw in your hair. That was the day we went horseback riding, and Almonds almost bit your hand off. Afterward I realized that the sky was the exact color of your eyes and the clouds your favorite shade of white, although you would correct me and say that your favorite shade of white wasn’t cloud white, it was ivory vanilla cream, but you would take eggshell if that wasn’t available.

The Polaroids brush against your smiling face. Your eyes are like stars, and your arms are draped with translucent lace, making you look like some sort of angel. I straighten my tie and try to swallow, but it must be too tight because it’s hard.

I can also tell that you’re not wearing any shoes. It’s like you, to walk your moment barefoot. If you wore high heels, you would totter around a lot, like a drunk zebra. That’s what you did at ninth-grade homecoming, and you were still doing it by senior prom.

Your collarbone is draped in diamonds. It’s heavy, but it’s your mother’s, and you didn’t want to disappoint her. Your ears are clothed in little metal flowers, sculpted from tiny bits of silver, dangling to your shoulders. You make sure to make eye contact with as many people as possible. That includes me.

I look away from you to him. He’s standing at the altar, his face golden and tears in his eyes. I wonder what the difference between an ocean and a hurricane is because it feels like both are living in my chest at this exact moment.

His tuxedo is also white. Champagne glitter, you’d say, but leaning on the pale side. Definitely not yellow. You’d be appalled. A bit of your dress —the hem— catches my ankle as you go gliding by. The air feels cold and hot at the same time, and one of the

flower girls smiles at me, so I smile back.

He takes your hands, and the pastor lifts his spectacles, nodding. His hair is the color of iron. “Party In The U.S.A.” stops abruptly to be replaced by something that’s obviously been handpicked by you, uniquely selected. It’s “A Million Dreams” from that movie, “The Greatest Showman,” that you couldn’t stop watching. You once told me that it's the most romantic song in the world, in your opinion.

The pastor starts his speech, and I can’t help but focus only on you. One tendril of hair has escaped and it’s kissing your cheek. You don’t stop to wipe it away, even though you always found those annoying because your hands are clasped in his and you’ve never looked happier.

I don’t know if I can watch this part, but I do. I don’t think I’ve fully known the definition of joy before seeing your expression, at this moment, in your moment, in his.

And then he’s saying the vows. You’re also saying them, your pretty golden lips moving in sync to each promise, floating away from the breeze that I breathed from our childhood. Like dandelion fluffs, I watch them sing in the wind, but I don’t catch them. It would hurt too much.

Still, as I watch you, as he leans in for that final kiss that will seal you forever, all I can see is the kitchen at your mom’s house, and us making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and then you have an allergic reaction because no one had any idea you were allergic to peanuts back then. All I can see is that time when I found out you pierced your ears and could not stop staring. All I can see is that set of swings at our elementary school playground, the mulch stuck in the soles of your shoes, the piano you played. All I can see is Frisbees and bells and laughter and yellow and sunsets and beaches and trees that sing.

And then he kisses you.

Everyone claps, so I clap too.

My tears are glacier white, you’d say.

You would correct me and say that your favorite shade of white wasn’t cloud white, it was ivory vanilla cream, but you would take eggshell if that wasn’t available

Photo by Gloria Ren, Centreville, VA

A Thousand

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FICTION: PART 1 | JUNE 2021FICTION: PART 1 | JUNE 2021

The Last Conversation of a Dying Father To His SonWhen I die, take care of your mum, don't stand by my grave to cry

I see everything, they say that I'm dead, but I don't sleep, it's a lie

Find me in a thousand winds that blow, in the flakes of snow

I am in the happiness which falls like rain, I am in the fields of ripening grain

I am the bird that sings, I come in dreams to say a thousand splendid things

I am the rotten night where as you are a morning, you have to live without me.

by Faraz Ajmal, Lahore, Pakiston

Steering the WheelPeddling in the stray direction, wondering who made the map. A constellation of ambition, an oddity of fate or a trap.

Two cents of hope on the dashboard, skim through the grounds on a test drive.Finding fireflies on the long ride, rewrite the levels of uncertainty and thrive.

Tonight I am lurking in the back seat, to resist the inertia in my bones and uncover. Singing to myself in the quiet, turn on the rear lights for an unsettled maneuverer.

by Ridhi Kawatra, Jammu, India

Ode To PensSophisticated wand I twirl you with a wizard’s flourish Your blood births the fruits of my thoughts And spills like juice down the lips of the page How grateful I am that I can never be silenced Not as long as I hold you in my grasp Within your ink lies The secrets of my universe A key in each written Word

The fading of your life can be traced in each line And never have I wept as much as when you pass Thank you, Oh sweet scribe of mine You are all my questions Asked and answered Signed with the autograph of my inner knowing A writer, you’ve made of me.

by Brendan Reymann, Murphy, TX

Black MarksX was self-defense Luther was pacifism Parks sat down Till fell down Taylor gunned down Who's next before change happens? Why can't the country change? Why can't the country listen to our cries? How many marks need to be made?

by Bhonzy Augustin, Orlando, FL

the bitter taste of flamesin five minutes tears freeze into icicles burn cold against sallow skin gasping for air — wheels screech down marble floors watch where you’re going! stumble through a spinning kaleidoscope of sound hallways bending chalk-white walls the flat sound of the monitor reverberates through faint, ammonia-smelling air fall back against a metal chair the loud thump shattering the conjured mirage that Icarus would emerge as a phoenix before the final plunge rise above the world, a large chessboard, pieces shuffled by the impulsive fingers of fate taste freedom in the flames dripping down his trembling feathers swallowing blackened scars and tissue baring a pair of lost crescent-moon eyes. 

by Kayla Xu, San Diego, CA

I Exist For YouForget a moth being drawn to a light Forget a bee being drawn to a flower Forget everything you know – All of it – Because I am a body of water Unsure of everything Except for the fact that you are the sun Shining brighter than anything I've seen And I'm drawn to you I evaporate in you, for you I exist for you

by Samantha Weinberg, Beverley Hills, CA

Artwork by Alexis Kirsch, Colwell, IA

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POETRY: PART 2 | JUNE 2021

Phantoms of the CityTell me, What makes you feel safe? Is it the warmth of your mother? Or your sister’s embrace? Inside your swollen lungs, What are you wanting to say? Your guitar strings unstrung, And your burdens displayed. Inside eyes of a patron And the heart of a saint Head resting at a train station, In a thin blanket, you are draped, I just can’t help but wonder, Do you need to be saved? If you sleep with your sorrows, What makes you feel safe?

by Emily Delk, Brooks, KY

JudgmentAsians aren't diseases meant to be avoided Native Americans aren't barbaric Muslims do not carry ammunition or explosions Hispanics aren't outlaws in gangs Blacks are not threats to the red, white, and blue We must acknowledge our own flaws While screaming, "Look at our country's truths!" America in all its indisputable success Was built on genocide, slavery and racism Imagine centuries of foolish judgments Simply based on your amount of melanin

by Adugo Okafor, East Orange, NJ

SoulI press my ear to the floor, only the mosaic tiles know my secrets, my tears, my unspoken words I tell them to the man living underneath I can hear him playing the drums his thumps reverberate in my head, my chest, my body, and the words of my past run through my veins like morphine I lay my head where my heart is and listen to his sweet melodies

by Anonymous, NYC, NY

A Glance at MedusaHis eyes stuck Glued, Tied down, Pinned, His hands feel cold as they become frozen Cement starts rippling through his veins Cold, Gray, Stiff, His shoulders lock into place His hair begins to dust away His stomach holding on with its last will He sees black as his vision goes dark As the darkness becomes blindness. As his heart pumps its last round of blood.Her grainy voice howls while her snakes hiss, Her laughter is the last sound he can hear, As he is now a stone statue.

by Quinton Muhleck, Clarkston, MI

Afterimagebetween strawberries and open books, honey down your chin. counting pomegranate seeds lined on the mountains of your spine, your hands steady me while I slip off of carousels. last night, I sought to burn away your memory and watch as the powder crumbled from your skeleton – pearly white bone, stained with red wine – but I shake at the thought of you and your translucent eyes.broken matchsticks line my room, smoky summer haze, and piles of ash. my hands tremble when I play the piano.every note wrong except those I play for you.

by Raha Zaman, Bloomfield Hills, MI

Artwork by Lyna Huynh, New York City, NY 35

POETRY: PART 2 | JUNE 2021 POETRY: PART 2 | JUNE 2021

Photo by Vaanya Singh, Dehradun, India

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