2025 Spring Litmag Bittersweet

SPRING2025

PILLARSOFSALT

The Literary Arts Magazine

THE ARCHER SCHOOL FOR GIRLS LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

BITTERSWEET

As spring unfolded, our staff gathered week after week, watching as submissions filled our inbox. We noticed a pattern from the submissions one laced with aching beauty and raw, visceral feeling. So many of the pieces turned to nature, not just as a setting, but as a human emotion: swiftly changing, quietly overwhelming, and tender amidst doubt. From this, our theme took shape bittersweet.

Bittersweet is the quieted silence after laughter, the dying stars as night sets on us. It walks in moments too full to last and ambles by memories too vivid to fade. As much as bittersweet can hurt, it can also encapsulate that not a single moment is everlasting and there is beauty in transience.

For seniors, this final year has been full of similar moments. In the liminal space between holding on and letting go, we fear regretting time left unspent. Are we fools to gratify each feeling of urgency? Hardly, and yet the future beckons, waiting for us as the days start to dwindle.

In contrast, juniors begin to blur sweet, familiar adolescence with a daunting, potentially bitter journey. They retain the footloose memories that have faded by senior year, yet keep one foot in their glimmering, intimidating futures. The over-worked and sleep-deprived class begins to see the peak of an insurmountable mountain, and the view from above is sweeter than they ever imagined.

Sophomores find themselves in between mountains; staring up at what they must summit and looking back at what they’ve climbed. Between childhood and adulthood, verging on mature responsibilities, they gear up for a future of hard and equally satisfying work.

We often have a difficult time looking back, similar to Lot’s wife in the biblical story. Against warnings of dire consequences, she succumbed to her longing, looking back to the burning city of Sodom. For her disobedience, she was turned into a pillar of salt. This story inspired our magazine’s name, and it continues to hold relevance. Instead of being punished into a pillar of salt for looking behind us, we cultivate our creative works into Pillars of Salt.

Being able to curate and produce this issue for the Archer community is so special. Thank you to Ms. Keelty, our staff, and the incredible writers and artists who have offered their bittersweet narratives and granted us access to their creativity.

So, pause. Feel it all. Let the art guide you through the bitter ache and sweetened beauty.

And remember whether we’re here to remind you or not, submit to Lit.

Lucine Stephan ’25, Natalie London ’26, and Chiara Silveri ’27

Editorial Policy Mission Statement

Our staff welcomes any and all Archer students to submit their work. Staff may work on the literary magazine as an extra-curricular and as part of the creative writing class. Works are solicited in a variety of ways, including pithy posters advertising our email address for submissions, teacher encouragement, and word of mouth.

In meetings, all works are thematically paired with a complimentary piece, allowing for multiple symbolic narratives to be interpreted. All members participate in this process in order to include a variety of perspectives of how we all wish for the literary magazine to be displayed.

There are no strict limits on the number of works that an individual can have in the magazine, nor are there limits to the number of works featured in the magazine.

Through Pillars of Salt, we hope to showcase the diverse pool of writers and artists we have at The Archer School for Girls.

We distribute copies for free to all litmag staff and everyone published in the issue. Copies are also available in our Tia Palermo library.

Pillars of Salt is also published online. Please visit our site to read archived issues: issuu.com/thearcherschoolforgirls

More Information

The Archer School for Girls 11725 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90049 archer.org (310)-873-7000

486 Students and 151 Faculty Published April 2024 Circulation: 150 litmag@archer.org

Fonts: Garet, Open Sans, Cardo, Inter, Nantes Web

Some backgrounds were found on the Met Open Access Collection website, which is considered public domain.

Poetry

Ashes by Shayaan Gandhi ’25

Crestfallen Poet by Selah Johnson ’26

Apologies to an Autumn Leaf by Zoe Eyraud ’28

Tails of a Goat by Hayden Seid ’25

the sun and i by Shayaan Gandhi ’25

Deep Thoughts by Maya Cerbo ’28

People by Hayden Seid ’25

When the Cold Returns by Natsnet Habtu ’25

Selfish Affection by Vivianne Arnold ’26

American Dollar by Natalie London ’26

Mistakes by Shayaan Gandhi ’25

nǚ (⼥) by Melinda Wang ’26

A Regular Star by Chiara Silveri ’27

letter to a distant star by Lucine Stephan ’25

Medz, of whom I never knew by Lucine Stephan ’25

Highways by Samara Gottlieb ’28

the troubles with necromancy by Shayaan Gandhi ’25

Irony & Static by Clara Lieberstein ’28

Spring again by Vivianne Arnold ’26

A Continuation of An April Midnight by Echo Meadows ’25

A Taste by Hayden Seid ’25

The Weight of Silence by Natsnet Habtu ’25

Briefly by Echo Meadows ’25

The Value in a Mystery by Charlie Clayton ’25

The Wall by Sadie White ’28

Recycled by Carrie Xue ’26

A Meditation on Distance by Lucine Stephan ’25

Stay by Uma Nambiar ’25

Rise to the Occasion by Cezi Silverton ’25

Visual Art

Sighs from the Sea by Hayden Seid ’25

Block Print by Nora Bromwich ’27

Beneath the Illusion by Evan Weingarten ’26

Autumn Leaf by Zoe Eyraud ’28

Goat by Echo Meadows ’25

Frozen in Time by Avery Panepinto ’27

Peekaboo by Abigail Weiner ’27

Porcelain by Sophia Bromwich ’25

Periwinkle by Sophia Bromwich ’25

Blanketed Dawn by Sophia Bromwich ’25

7.7 by Stella Leland ’26

Crescent Moon by Sophia Bromwich ’25

I’ll miss you. by Uma Nambiar ’25

Transient Summer by Sophia Bromwich ’25

Luminescence by Sophia Bromwich ’25

Beached by Abigail Weiner ’27

Spring Meadow by Sophia Bromwich ’25

A Road to Somewhere by Lily Grouf ’25

Quiet Bridge, Utah by Chiara Silveri ’27

A Feast by Yasmine Haddad ’26

Dimensions of Reality by Evan Weingarten ’26

Nana’s Farm, Vermont by Chiara Silveri ’27

The Teaching Tree by Lily Grouf ’25

Staff

Editor in Chief

Lucine Stephan

Co-Editors in Chief (Production)

Maddie Beaubaire

Shayaan Gandhi

Natalie London

Chiara Silveri

Creative Writing Editors

Daisy Barber

Hayden Seid

Editorial Board

Vivianne Arnold

Abby Borstein

Sophia Bromwich

Kennedy Chow

Lily Grouf

Natsnet Habtu

Clara Lieberstein

Katherine McKillop

Echo Meadows

Addie Myers

Uma Nambiar

Avery Panepinto

Lena Sakhnini

Pasha Selig

Shanthi Seth

Cezanne Silverton

Nicole Svendsen

Mia Vosicher

Melinda Wang

Beatrice Washburn

Abigail Weiner

Evan Weingarten

Emma Winkler

Faculty Adviser

Kathleen Keelty

Ashes

Shayaan Gandhi ’25

I stood in the ruins Of what I had made of my life And I laughed Because what could be

More humorous than this That i had caused What I had feared Twice over?

Crestfallen Poet

Selah Johnson

’26

“Words mean nothing” says the poet, spirit broken by the brute

In the silence that follows, the brute searches in the eyes of his companion, any sign that not even she believes what she has just said

In front of her sits a blank page

When she began to believe she knew what love was, words would force their way up from her gut Clawing in the ways an insect would claw from its cocoon

Spilling onto and soaking through her pages

Him, the brute, found this utterly disgusting He truly had once believed words meant nothing, and said that proudly too

To him, her piles and piles of writing reflected nothing more than pyre

Oh, how he mangled her fondness of expression

His inability to understand, or his unwillingness for that matter, dampened the fire that burned so brightly from her heart through her finger tips and onto those pages

Possibly an amorist would have done the girl some good

Pillars of Salt - 2

One beautiful gesture of romantic devotion

One that made her feel the way those old-world love poems she sought comfort in made her feel

The brute cannot be blamed for being raised in a doghouse

He has heart, however cold and protected it may be, it still beats

It still beats for her

The ephemeral nature of incompatible love

Perhaps something poetic does exist in this tragic story of the poet and the brute

Her eagerness to experience monumental love and his hesitancy to touch the emotional creature inside of him

In the end, they both walk this Earth changed and hungry

She no longer writes, but he keeps copies of her old writing in the floorboard under his bed

In her poetry, he finds solace

Reminded of a spirit so guided by sonnet He remains stuck in this liminal space between what he has done and what he should do

Her candlelight burns out, while his burns brighter The lovestruck brute

The Value in a Mystery

Charlie Clayton ’25

Everyone loves a good mystery. The thrilling sensation when you’re unable to guess the ending, and no one is safe from suspicion. Brought to the screen and filled with tense, unpredictable scenes, the mystery genre has always been the most special to me. My discerning little blue eyes watched the living room TV with fierce intensity, just as invested as the other hundred times the same ‘whodunnit’ played, and tracked the clues and details for an hour and thirty-seven minutes straight. Little Charlie was obsessed with the movie Clue and intimately familiar with the performance of stars like Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, and the rest of the small cast.

I can confidently say that Clue changed my brain chemistry, because there is a slew of memorable lines I can spout out at any given time, and nearly no one (my age or otherwise) has any idea what I’m talking about. When I blurt out, “Communism is just a red herring” (Scarlet/Warren) or “A plant? I thought men like you were usually called a ‘fruit’” (Scarlet/Warren), and start cackling maniacally, I get some stares. In simpler terms, the movie had an enduring

impact on my academic and personal interests, and there are new revelations I glean as I grow older and watch the same movie.

One of the most appealing parts of the film was the fact that it had multiple endings. To this day that remains as one of its unique qualities, and the different results of the storyline were equally enrapturing to me. The fact that (apologies for the spoiler) women could also be killers or masterminds blew my mind. Far from being disappointed in the characters, I loved it. Don’t worry, I haven’t become TOO inspired by them. But it was the appearance of powerful women who took advantage of their situation and the last ending with its wonderful appeal and sensibility that opened my mind as a child.

While it was certainly appealing in those aspects, it also made some commentaries on society that a young child wouldn’t typically have context for, managing to bridge that lack of understanding through actor performance and the depths of line and phrase. As the 1985 movie storyline goes, six unrelated adults are all being blackmailed with different, personal material. They each receive a mysterious letter that claimed that, if they showed up to a mysterious manor for dinner, their shared

“financial troubles” would be alleviated. It’s eventually revealed that the reason they were all being blackmailed was that the blackmailer considered them all “thoroughly un-american” (Wadsworth/Curry). It was an exposure to Little Charlie (in a palatable, humorous way) to the inherent ironies and discriminations against certain members of society. or instance, Ms. Scarlett is blackmailed as a member of the “oldest profession,” and Mr. Green is blackmailed for existing as a homosexual. While the other characters’ less-than-savory behaviors might have led to them being extorted and I felt less sympathy for them, seeing the way that those two characters were treated gave me context for American istory in a way I hadn’t yet experienced. It was one thing to hear that now is different from then and that we have made great strides as a society- it was another to see it and see how it could affect people who were living that truth. The fact that Mr. Green would lose his job on security grounds as a gay man, that in itself was grounding for me. It also gave me room and reason to reflect on my own place in society and to look around at others and try to understand the world as they experience it. This insight into society also turned my attention towards the dynamics in my

home. Each member of my family is truly different, and I can transmute them through characters. My mother is kind and beautiful, a thoroughly empathetic person. She is also a therapist, which would make sense with my assessment. My father is outwardly unflappable, and more analytical than feelings-motivated. He is an accountant- if you need further evidence, I followed his advice and opened a retirement account from my work savings at 16. Very practical. My sister and I are combinations of them both- I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve, and she would rather die than do that. She is going into veterinary medicine, and I plan to follow a psychological career path. That is all to say that Little Charlie almost began to understand people through a certain characterizing lens. It was when I first began to understand that every person is truly the sum of the people they know and the experiences they’ve had. My parents’ philosophies started to be much more sensible when I heard stories about their own childhoods, and I also managed to get to the bottom of my elementary school teacher’s vehement, burning hatred for credit cards (around the same time I also learned that money didn’t grow on trees). All in all, it propelled the stage in child development where I began to see multiple

facets in people and saw how different parts of their identity, their experiences, and the people they’re surrounded by could affect them. Yeah, the mean little girl in my class that bossed people around? Just a look at her parents’ behavior in the pickup line, and suddenly everything made sense.This philosophy, while a valuable lesson, taught me another simple truth: you never know what someone is going through. The value of social connection became more apparent to me as I began to actively listen to the people around me. A small story my mother told me about her rebellious teenage years when she chose to wear green instead of white at her graduation ceremony, an offhanded comment a friend made about a book we’re reading in class that I never thought about, or even the old music that my parents also believed was crucial to my character development. This skill also makes hotline work intuitive: to know that I could pass someone on the street that I’ve helped as a complete stranger, purely by listening to them? It’s become one of the most important parts of my life. Who knows, the beautiful woman you meet at your next dinner party could be a black widow, a corrupt politician, or John Quiñones. Whether it’s an intentional facade or guarded memories, every person is the

unique summation of their experiences, and one of the most enjoyable parts of life for me now is learning more. I truly yearn to understand different perspectives.

The last ending of Clue has to be my favorite. Every character played a part in the ensuing chaos and trail of death, and each one had complex reasonings. They held on to fragments of emotions from their past, which drove them to murder their blackmail informants, and the entire group was guilty. While Mrs. White pretended to be unbothered by her husband’s affair, she was actually burning with jealousy inside. The butler Wadsworth turned out to be the real blackmailer all, and the seemingly dull Colonel Mustard was working on the secret of the next fusion bomb. Little Charlie loved watching the careful orchestration of comical scenes like this, but I have now come to value more than anything its reallife application. If you want to know my secret for connecting with anyone I meet, I’ll first have to ask: “Can you keep a secret?” If you say yes, you can, well, “so can I” (Wadsworth).

The Wall

Sadie White ’28

Growing up, I didn’t have anyone. Anyone that I could be myself around. Unleash the ‘real me’. But.. then I met you, and you made me a better person.  I know that sounds cheesy, but that’s me. Dammit, I sound so stupid, talking to myself. Are you even there? *beat* Are you even listening? Sometimes I feel like you’re there, during school, when I’m going to bed, brushing my teeth. God- I promised myself before you left that I wouldn’t talk to a stupid wall pretending it’s you.  I guess we both broke promises. You promised you would be there, that we would be best friends forever. But then you left me, you left me right here! You said you would be there for me, that you would hold my hand when things got tough. But my hand-my hand is freezing. Like a goddamn icicle! God- I would move oceans to see your beautiful brown eyes, so full of life. I miss those eyes. My mom says I have your eyes, but my eyes don’t compare to yours at all-not one bit. Nothing can compare to you. I don’t understand- why? You promised me you would stay, that you were seeking help and you would talk to me. If I could turn back time I want you to give all your pain to me. Throw it at me, stab it at me like you stabbed my heart when I got the call. Please. I can handle it. *moment of realization* I sound like a crazy person talking to a stupid wall. It’s just a wall- it’s hard and cold… and dead. The wall is dead.  the wall is dead. The wall won’t come back. Please, come back. Y’know, when you died, I died too. I can’t live in delusion, I can’t live on the false hope that this is all a dream and you’re gonna come back. I can’t live like this. Help me. Someone help me. Please I- need you tolook at me look at me and  promise me things are going to be okay. Because right now, it’s really not okay.

Apologies to an Autumn Leaf

Zoe Eyraud ’28

An Autumn Leaf

Perhaps is breathing its last breath,

Objecting to the fall, but

Look at it there!

Oh it is beautiful, isn’t it?

“Green just wasn’t its color”

Is what another apathetically said, yet,

Even in its last moments, I am captivated

Sadness and Death ultimately inspire its color

Tails of a Goat Hayden Seid ’25

The rain has a way of making people disagree

But then again, everything does So quick to say what we know or think or feel We completely forget how stupid we are

I’m pretty sure that’s not a problem for a goat

Ask a goat what it finds meaningful

They won’t be able to respond, because they’re a goat

But just picture it he same question n-N-Out burgers d financial things

But that’s just me make a great goat

Recycled

Carrie Xue ‘25

Do you ever feel like you’re constantly recycling yourself from within? (Emma looks down for a moment, thinking as if she should stop talking. She collects herself and continues with a casual tone). I don’t mean that in the way people usually talk about it. It’s more like, I am invariably recycling.

It’s not always an overt choice. It’s just how it happens. I’ve lived in so many places–different cities, different countries, different cultures–that with each move, I reduce, and then reuse myself. I try to take what I can carry from the last place, the little pieces of myself that are molded by the standards of the place I was in before, then try to fit in again. I recycle myself.

You learn quickly that there’s no room for the whole person, not in every place. You can’t expect to bring your entire life with you and think that it can just slide into some new place like it used to. (Her shoulders tense up, revealing her pain and agony). So I recycle myself, I reduce the layers, the things that don’t quite fit. I reuse the things that might be just enough, not too much, not too different. And I leave

them behind. Sometimes it’s hard to know what I can keep. And what can I afford to let go. Then, I just use what’s left. Effectively reducing who I am, to be just enough.

(She takes a deep breath, exhales, and her expression shifts, becoming more ruminative, introspective, and bright). The more I move, the more I realize I don’t truly fit anywhere. I can reshape myself, reduce myself to nothing, reuse myself until all of the configurations have been worn, and no matter how much I do, there’s always something about me that feels…foreign. A part of me that belongs to somewhere I am no longer. There are all these little deviations I carry with me now. Quirks, behaviors, words, culture, parts of me that don’t fit the standard anywhere. Parts I don’t always know how to change, how to make others more comfortable while staying satisfied myself, or controlling things that might make me stand out in a way that isn’t welcome. And so I…I just recycle.

In one place, I’m the one who speaks too loudly, who makes too much eye contact, and asks too many questions. In another, I’m the one who needs to soften her edges, quiet herself down, and pretend to be a

little less sure of things. Each time, I tell myself, “This is just for now. Just for this place. Just for this version I need to be.” (She shifts her position, pauses briefly, and lets out a quick but heavy puff). But it’s so tiring! So tiring! Because no matter how much I recycle myself, I always have a certain part of me that doesn’t fit properly. I have become so many versions, to fit somany standards, that I’ve lost track of where one version of myself begins and another one ends. So, who am I really? (A beat. She goes back to her position, slumping her shoulders modestly). (She lets out a defeated laugh). I guess it's just what happens when you move around so much, when you carry so many pieces of so many places with you. You never fully match. You can never be just one thing. You can’t fit into every box, because the boxes change everywhere you go. And so, you’re left constantly recycling, shifting, adjusting, and reducing. It’s funny, you change yourself so much to fit in, only to never truly belong, and realize you’re not even sure who you were to begin with. (She pauses, her voice grows quiet, and contemplates her thoughts).

Maybe, this is what life is. A constant process of recycling, even when it feels like you can never truly become or belong.

And I guess…I guess that’s okay. Maybe the real question is not whether I match perfectly, but whether I can find peace in not matching. (She speaks with clarity). Maybe that’s enough. To continue to recycle, no matter if it’s impactful or not, to just keep on being a little bit of everything and a little bit of nothing. Because I’m still readjusting. Still reforming. Still shiftingmaybe that’s the most honest version of me there is.

Frozen In Time

Avery Panepinto ’27 (Digital Photography)

the

sun and i

Shayaan Gandhi ’25

Pillars of Salt - 12 for so long I had feared what would become of me without the bounds  that you put on me the chains of what had kept me here tethered to this earth and as you broke into a thousand pieces into a million pieces  of glimmering Light.

I could only stand and watch As that light took me with them Far far away when i remembered that day light years away I remember thinking that it was all a dream

i thought that without you i would be just another empty husk in this broad wasteland of space but love, my sun, you did not destroy me and i have kept going, floating through the cosmos years and years after you’ve gone

Abigail Weiner ’27 (Digital Photography)

Deep Thoughts

Maya Cerbo ’28

Time is a never-ending stopwatch, moving with every breath

Water is an everlasting friend, always waiting for you

Music is a friendship bracelet that connects millions of people

Sports is a rope, stringing many people together

A movie is just a long story you can relate to

Hayden Seid ’25

I like to believe that we are good Because I think mathematically, statistically factually technically and honestly it’s true

A Meditation on Distance

Lucine Stephan ’25

It was snowing on the day of my grandmother’s funeral.

It was snowing, and I could see you standing there, a ghost illuminated in the petals of the softened, cloud covered sun. You used to say that if there’s bad weather at a funeral, that means the death wasn’t peaceful. Vestiges of the deceased would cling to the land of the living, restless in hopes of achieving some forgotten sense of purpose. But no, it's snowing, and in a land where snow is revered and abundant in its glittering waves, I know to receive this sign graciously.

I’m standing beneath the frosted trees, my shoes unsuited for the surrounding forest. The slush around the roots is fading seamlessly into my heeled boots. The cold isn’t unwelcoming. I listen to foreign, mournful words in a language I cannot speak fluently, in a land where I venture twice a year but frequent in my dreams. The unfamiliarity is both poignant and familiar. I feel myself returning home.   Here in the Swabian Albs, away from the reaches of a sprawling German city, we find

comfort and security. Life is simpler here. Each morning you made me hot chocolate with one too many spoonfuls of Kaba, and we ate rolls of pretzelbrot with butter and cold cuts. I’d reluctantly play card games with you and Opa — why did I refuse that outstretched hand? I’d watch you work on your crossword puzzles — there's still a stack of them in the living room, next to the document camera that you used when your vision began to dwindle.

I swallow the lump in my throat. The urn — a pretty, decorative thing made of angel feathers and purity and lingering hope — is slowly lowered into the ground. Focus on anything else. I force my gaze back to my sorry shoes, as if some form of consolation awaits me in the fading snow and dormant meadow. You told us you wanted to be buried someplace where you could return to the earth that bore you, to give flowers and foliage a second chance at life, to become one with nature. Is this what you envisioned, Oma? Have these trees sprouted from the ashes of the dead?

I swallow the lump in my throat. The urn — a pretty, decorative thing made of angel feathers and purity and lingering hope — is slowly lowered into the ground. Focus on anything else. I force my gaze back to my sorry shoes, as if some form of consolation awaits me in the fading snow and dormant meadow. You told us you wanted to be buried someplace where you could return to the earth that bore you, to give flowers and foliage a second chance at life, to become one with nature. Is this what you envisioned, Oma? Have these trees sprouted from the ashes of the dead? Will I, in a decade's time, return to see a sprout, whose young trunk sways in the wind, in place of a solemn dirt patch?

The wind gently caresses each branch, but murmurs no clear answer. The snow-laden twigs send flurries of powder onto us from ages above. It was merciful, I suppose. Harsh, buckets of snow could have unceremoniously piled onto our shoulders, but instead, curling beacons — whorls of snowflakes, I realize — dance in the mild breeze, forming graceful clouds upon their departure, melting into lands of heavy gray.

The forest around us is soundless. Everyone honors the silence. Flowers are clutched loosely by the mourners. I can almost feel the dry residue sticking to skin as they are released into the (cont’d on page 16)

earth with you, beautiful fallen things that shall turn to dust. And as I watch, the emptiness in my chest only grows. I clutch at the hollowness in the void that seems alive and festering, tearing through muscle and sinew, replacing my organs with falsehood. I choke on the crisp air, as if my lungs clench and reject the seeds that germinate within me and continue to grow, as if I’m becoming a forest of my own, a terrarium of lost things. The only phrase that comes to mind is a worn out cliche: I never got the chance to say goodbye. Only when you lose someone do you miss your chance.

Did I truly honor you? The few days I saw you each year were fleeting — both wistful and bittersweet. On one such trip, I’d hastily pocketed a shattered ceramic kitchen tile, one you told me would soon be replaced. I treasured that small thing, thumbing its edges, reminding myself of the house that raised me — a house half the world away. Ceramic — cold, hard, and fragile with time — wasn’t enough to hold you close, so is it enough to love someone when you feel you haven’t loved enough?

I’ve become acquainted with grief. I’ve learned to acknowledge it when it saunters hrough the door: its presence is still as jarring as when I first felt it. But who said

that grief is only love with nowhere left to go?

Still, the snow continues to fall. Still, the skies are blue, after unending days of fog and murky grayness, the slush on the side of the roads makes way for fields of cream.

Still, the forest around us breathes, its sunken flowers waiting until the promising birth of spring.

Still, I see you. I see your ghost standing next to your resting place, watching me with kind eyes. I see a you that isn’t bedridden, or effortlessly still, eyes closed, with cheeks that are sunken in. I see a you unburdened, flying with wings born of flurries, swaying to voiceless music with your sister and friends, who welcome you into that veiled realm.

The sun is shining, and although the birds aren’t singing hymns of glory, I can honor this silence. Yes, perhaps this is enough.

When the Cold Returns

Natsnet Habtu ’25

Increasing gusts of wind swoop in

As my body goes backwards trying to go forwards

The water loosing its reflection

drowning my feet

Traveling through every inch of skin

The cold-as-ice feeling

Wanting to stick my feet in a bubbling hot bath

As my hands go numb

My nose starts to run

Body shivers as time passes

I look over yonder to see the moon igniting

A path along the inky sea

The star-filled sky surrounding the moon

Oh how perfect this is

As I lie back down from the ocean

On my teal blanket

Encompassed in my blue puffer jacket

I feel the warmth melting my goosebumps away

Allowing my comfort to breathe

Unitil the next night, when it came back

Suffocating me , I begged  to have my wrap  again

Blanketed Dawn Sophia Bromwich ’25 (Digital Photography)

Selfish Affection

Vivianne Arnold ’26

In the kitchen, saw a bug on the floor. small, black, oblong. Wasn’t sure what it was and killed it with a paper towel.

Tía said it was a light bug. Looked up, horrified, thinking I had killed a Firefly–

No, she meant bug that is attracted to the light. Lifted up the towel to throw out and saw, with great relief and fear the little, black, oblong bug scurry out hurt and alive.

God, how had I mourned it only when I thought it had something to give me?

American Dollar

Natalie London ’26 Pillars of Salt - 20

i give the man at the grassy intersection the extra cash in my pocket and he puts down the cardboard sign  about his four children  and his time in the army to tell me “god bless”  with his gentle eyes and a well-used smile and i know for a fact i have never prayed to whatever divine influence he has invoked on my sunday drive and i cannot tell if it is  sacrilegious or benevolent or american  but i infuse his god with my hollow generosity and can only hope no one is listening when i tell him “god bless” and my ears begin to bleed from the incessant screech of freedom howling in the wind as i leave the man at the grassy intersection with a smile, my money, and god.

Sophia Bromwich ’25 (Digital Photography)

I’ll miss you.

Uma Nambiar ’25

(Digital Photography)

Mistakes

Shayaan Gandhi ’25

I see her face through every mirror every window every crowd

I see her face in my dreams. in my imaginings. next to me.

I know she is Not there. Never there. my darling  who  was I to run away?

of Salt - 21

Stay

Uma Nambiar

’25

Stay. The feeling of not knowing, of innocence, of childhood. Stay with me as I open my letter. Tell me not to grow up as I read my decision. Stay in the veins of my body, the nudge that I’m still a kid. I’m not going to college. I’m not moving away from the only family I’ve ever known. I’m not leaving my sweet sweet dog.

Stay, innocence. Stay, childhood. Stay, curiosity. Infiltrate my soul and remind me who I am. And if things change -- which they won’t because it’ll stay -- I’ll remember you. I’ll hold on to the thousands of sparks and memories and laughs we’ve shared. That time when vanilla bubblegum ice cream ran down my fingers, hopelessly clinging to the promise of youth.

Please, my darling, stay with me. I want to hold you in my growing arms, safe and sound. Youthful. Please, stay.

Transient Summer Sophia Bromwich ’25 (Digital Photography)

nü (⼥)

Melinda Wang ’26

This poem is meant to be read left to right

nü becomes a woman when you give her a figure, spined curves and a hat so she works diligently in the paddies every day to ensure the children are fed. nü becomes a woman when you pair her with child, when child comes from the a seed planted in her lips, and sprouts like a ginger root that has spent far too long in the cupboard. nü becomes a woman when you feel her domesticity is overrated and you want the love born from her hands and every single dip in her body when she lays to rest. nü becomes a woman when you wish her by your side, pairing her left, in the right side of all good things. nü becomes a woman when you flee her head, when she is born from a love, not when you use sticks to create her bones.

A Regular Star

Chiara Silveri

’27

My life is a prototype full of first takes. First take interactions, situations, and decisions, that things to come will ride on.

It's an email with semicolons and painfully unenthusiastic exclamation points. Attempts at being formal to appease others, integrate into the ether, present as prestigious, preform.

I’ve met lucky people before, people who seem to be in the right place at the right time. Where I am feels wrong, and so does the time.

No matter what I do, what fantastic revelations I come to, the sun will not glance my way. She cannot bear to meet my eyes, so she meets me at my shoes.

I never thought of the sun as an anxious being, but now I see she's just like me. Worn and worthy. Quiet, because she wants to be. Heathlily reactive.

Pillars of Salt - 24

Afraid of outsider observation, She shines to avoid getting dissected.

Avoids letting anything in for fear they’ll take a closer look.

I feel a connection to her as I do to every object that graces this Earth,

Nobody, not even Mother Earth herself, knows the deep appreciation I possess.

Mother Nature is enthralling, With her sporadic state of motion but perpetual peace, She keeps me, a regular star in the night sky, shining.

Luminescence

Sophia Bromwich ’25 (Digital Photography)

letter to a distant star

Lucine Stephan ’25

Tell me dear, what troubles you so?

Your lights splutter, even as the oncoming night pierces every lament of your call.

Perhaps I could call you beautiful, but to entrap your unearthly qualities in a single word leaves naught for the masses to grasp.

“Rise, the ascending dawn,” you say to your believers,  for all shall have no need of me by sunlight—  what am I, but of use to you?

Flames that flare bright in my hope of truth,  my nebulous skin that all would call ethereal,  my sisters and I, your once-prized illuminators at sea.

You, who once created gilded cages and machines to map out my expanding uncertainties,  who reduced me to pinpricks on your painted tapestries,  holds me now as no object of fascination.

You, who describe love as a hunger for the unknown, but in return, discard the visions you have already seen.

Love, the old love, eternity what I had once witnessed,  spun in regale tales of effulgent grandeur,  is fodder of a forgotten age.

Tell me, have those who loved you forsaken you?

“No, those that loved me became my own,  for tales of forgotten heroes are etched upon each star.”

Rise to the Occasion

Cezi Silverton

’25

I'm nine years old, dirt still feels good to me (even when it gets under my fingernails), and the face-framing wisps around my scalp are constantly being blown into my face. My face grows warmer as I crouch over the asphalt, which radiates its heat back at me, and smells bitter. With a nub of chalk gripped between my hands, I grind pigment into the pavement-streaks of deep, solid, rich blue bleeding out onto the hot tarmac in its wake. My fingers hurt, but only just a little, and several curls have sprung out from the two fat golden braids running down my back. At nine years old, my confidence and my resolution are unbridled. I have never, ever seen myself fall short.

I've also never seen instagram models or a pimple on my nose, or college applications, or the price of an apartment in Los Angeles or nudes from a guy I don’t know, or witnessed my dad cry before... Because I’m only nine years old. I don't even have all of my adult teeth yet; I don't know that college is a privilege, or how it's expensive, or that I'm not going to go to the exact

same schools my Mommy or my Daddy went to.

I just know that right now, (and only now matters,) I’m good at school and good at art and always nice to all my classmates... Everyone says so.

I'd never believe that I could one day be mean to my mom, or like playing sports. But at least already I like dogs and polar bears and Halloween candy, which soon I'll find hasn't changed. I don’t know yet that I'm bound to quit making art for six whole years, either, and that with it I'll lose a big chunk of my insides up until the end of high school when I finally remember to do the things that bring me joy again.

I’m nine years old and I can close a fist over everything that makes me happy.

When I'm twelve, I'll graduate from the fifth grade and my fifth grade graduation theme will be, “It’s all within your reach.”

I'm eighteen and I can't help but mourn the

still delayed realization of my ambitions, their sluggish progress. I grieve how late I am to pursue them, and I miss her bitterly, my nine year old sunshine-girl self. As a woman, I have to choose greatness for her. I cherish her inside my eighteen year old, big-girl's head, as if it might help me to crawl back inside of her and to take it all back. To be fresh and new, and nice and kind, and clever and pretty all over again. And then I breathe in and out, and I start a project, and I stop feeling sorry for myself.

Medz, of whom I never knew

Lucine Stephan

’25

No eye that sees could fail to remark you,  a droplet of ruby upon a strawberry leaf,  glistening crescents, caught in summer’s glow—

scarlet wings soft as the rising daylight part  eons pass before flight, spindled legs collapse. The burden of the sun is crippling.

You, my modern Atlas, yearn for halcyon days,  unable to fully shoulder the weight of the world.  Loss, or what I know of it, reminds me of incendiary blaze,

of those quivering antennae, frail spotted shells, where a semblance of void drips from your sun onto my waiting fingers, heady like a jeweled necklace

overcoming against the flesh of the chest. Or perhaps loss  is those paper-thin wings, motionless when in flight,  unbound to mortal properties,

eternally held in stagnancy, time’s honey-glow oozing into my mind, like how your visage is kindled anew in photographs of moments I could never glimpse.

Spring Meadow

Sophia Bromwich ’25

(Digital Photography)

A Road to Somewhere

Lily Grouf ’25

(Digital Photography)

Highways

Samara Gottlieb ’28

I’ve always loved the idea of liminal spaces; Giant arteries to nowhere, Mirages drifting past in an effort to look like a kind of soulless Americana. Further north and you’ll see the bluegrass emptiness That the poets love. Here, lines are shamelessly plucked And thrown away to the dirt and brown weedsThere’s something joyful about a castaway, If you bother to look.

Such a place doesn’t seem deserving of the fanfare baked into the asphaltSoaring anthems whisper from the white lines that Maybe the disconnect isn’t so bad, Maybe I’m just cynical.

Around this time of year the roses come out, And the dusty billboards flirt with possibility, Promising just a few more miles on the roadPast the flickering place where the inns and wild thyme Wave at you in their quiet way From the tired place of still being here.

the troubles with necromancy

Shayaan Gandhi ’25

necromancer beloved

I pulled you up as you pulled me up I felt effervescent nothing And I knew deep in my bones i had changed you had come for me back to me just as I wanted you had wanted.

Irony & Static

Clara Lieberstein ’28

Is it bad?

That the happiest I’ve ever been Has been trapped inside my head.

I’m a pessimistic optimist in the same way that I’m an introverted extrovert–I combine words until they sound real.

The freest of my thoughts, my purest imaginings, Have not yet entered the realm of human existence, Have not yet been met with the muddling carbon, Have not yet been whisked away by the violent ocean waves, Washed up black and blue, For a shattered mirror cannot reflect.

Words just bleed through matter and dissolve into mist. Only madwomen would subject a scream so loud

To an echo so faint,

Or so I’m told By a name sounding vaguely familiar to my own.

For at the end of it all, it’s all to act like I don’t fear

The well-meaning cacophony you infuse into the most major of my chords

Or how I’ll be left whispering, why did I let your bloodied fingers on my grand piano keys? All I can hear is the dissonance–Or worse, the silence. Pure silence.

Can you even dream without the darkness of your cocoon?

I’m warning you now, Clara, keep your thoughts safe, Before they are drowned out by the slow creak of rusting playground swings.

Spring again

Vivianne Arnold ’26

Spring again and the water runs swiftly

Through you, through the grass

If you could run with it you wouldn’t be here

The air is soft again

And filled with birds, their flight and their songs

And you want to know their names, you want to know everything there is to know about them

You want to know why you feel the water even when it isn’t there

Rushing by you, urging you along

You wish the wind would pick you up and take you with it.

You wish someone would take your hand or land in it

And some part of you would feel full, some part of you would feel ready

Did you forget me so easily?

I’ll be here waiting I promised I would.

Spring again and you love the cold

On your legs, you love the wet earth stain on your knees, in your heart

It’s cold enough that you feel alive

The threat of heat reminding you to keep watch, keep it close to you

And you wish someone would find you, you wish someone would know you, you wish someone would tell you what to do

You think they could if they spoke your language

You’re trying to remember, trying to find it again

You’re trying to hide but it’s well past winter

And if you want to dig yourself a hole you’ll have to tear up the flowers, the roots. What good would that be, beloved, and then where would the birds go?

Something’s out there the loss of it living forever in your veins

I’ll be here waiting I promised I would.

A Continuation of An April Midnight Echo Meadows ’25

To know your face was not as special, not as beautiful, as it was to know your voice. I understand, I know, that this speech will be heard by no one. Perhaps no one is too harsh, as the moon floats overhead, and a stray cat is looking intently. But I acknowledge that this speech is still not known to the one for whom it was intended.

I have come once a year, then twice, then thrice to see if you'd return.

To relive the feeling of a once perceived maturity that was in actuality still youth.

I don't resent this, as we never made any agreement to see eachother again. But the promise of children fresh on your tongue, how with the other we were complete. I don't believe hope is a foolish thing, to believe so would be to disrespect the innate feeling.

I've learned to cope throughout the years, i've brought books, paints, others to pass the time.

But i'm getting older, although i'll have you mind not old, so i dont think ill stay much longer. Still I'll leave you this speech, so if you return the following year, you'll know how I stayed.

This isn't a goodbye, but merely a meek declaration, that I won't wait if you haven't either. But again I don't resent you, I know how you craved the rain. A true lover is said to love as much as the sun rays kiss. And at that I wonder, I hope, that's where you went.

So on the tenth year having met ten years past, i'll read this speech to the moon, and the cat. I'll stuff this paper and tie up a bottle so that if you return you'll know I once did as well. Maybe when I am in fact old, and wrinkles begin to reach your face, we’ll know eachother again. And it will rain as it is beginning to do now, and we’ll love just as we always had.

In the miraculous April weather.

A Taste

Hayden Seid ’25

The leaves are crisp and crunch when I snap them between my fingers

There’s dried ones too - herbs and spices like oregano and parsley, basil and garlic

Their smell is sharp, wafting up my nose with a fierce and steady kind of power

To me, the lentils seem like little gold pellets or perhaps coins

They cascade into the pot like millions of pebbles lining a clear stream

I hear them hit the sides, one by one by one

I listen to the tiny crackle of celery and carrot as I cut my pieces and add them to my pot full of rainbows

Next I add the tomatoes, fresh and full and many

They wipe away most of the color,

Overpowering the scent and filling my nose with a savory and earthy tone

Sprinkling salt like snowfall, I stir and listen to the sound of the stove

The Weight of Silence

Natsnet Habtu ’25

my eyes flooding

wet tears glide against the surface of my face

Eye bags under my eyes as if they were filled

With water in them

As I lay on my side from  4-hour sleep

My back aches from being curved like a ball Against my cotton pillow and bed sheets

My hair oils are still in place due to my satin bonnet

Cold air breezes in smoothly

Slimly getting through the opening of my window

In 30 minutes, it became cold to COLD

Running to get my fluffy brown blanket  And my all-black Columbia jacket

the warmth the  covers provide coursing through my body

Deflating the little goosebumps that were once on my skin

I feel at peace

Nana’s Farm, Vermont

Chiara Silveri ’27 (Film Photography)

Briefly

By Echo Meadows ’25

Could I live, is what I ask; Rhetorically, not for permission.

Distantly a future beckons,  acknowledged in passing conversations if only due to lack of subject matter; Such is fantasy

The privatization of the mind, a solitary confinement that questions human will; Could I live, is what I ask.

The Teaching Tree

(Digital Photography)