From Ashes HYDE LITERARY MAGAZINE

The theme of this edition of the

From Ashes Literary Magazine

is nostalgia.

Brought to you by: Kelsey Talbutt, Brett Van

Vort, Susa Breese, Aaron Ayala, Emma Leven-

sohn, and Evan Coleman.

EDITION #2

No Temple Contains My Faith

Kirstie Truluck

No temple contains my faith,

Instead the thrum of pounding surf…

Have you sailed the cold, green oceans much?

Reaching, Beating, Running with the wind

as an ally.

Whispering wind that babbles and screeches;

It switches and the sail luffs – the sailor adjusts and sighs.

It pitches and the boom jibes – the sailor ducks and howls.

Charted islands to windward as yet unexplored;

so afraid of heeling.

Gunwales washed in cold green water and white foam.

Fear and wonder twined in Ecstasy.

Capsize and hull breech are always possible.

Do I push the tiller to head off or do I pull it in and trim the sheet?

By Susa Breese

By Allison Henderson

Dream Obscure

Anonymous

I had a dream, nights past

Already fading, as these things seem to do

I was standing behind a large window

Out looking the grey, cloudy sky of an industrial city

I knew things wouldn’t always be this way

Sometime it may be sunny

It’s cold and dark today

A shattered mirror on the ground

A broken silver painting of subtle lies

Shadows gloomed on the underside of each building

Morbid Obelisks with ashen faces

Looming the hives of humanity

Bleak

Pale

That’s all I can remember

Winter Snow

by George Zhang

Father Christmas brings blessings and cool air

Snow spreads the white carpet on my home town.

Harvest autumn, red maple leaves are there

Cold winter has come with snow on the ground.

In morning, snow will kiss my face gently

At night, snow will shine under the streetlight.

Snow is like a brush, painting skillfully

Bright snow gives us a sweet romantic night.

Groggy sun rises after its long sleep

Snow knows that the earth is no longer mine.

Snow melts into snow water with belief

Let earth be glad, even in snow's dying.

Northeast's snow just started in December

Evening breeze brings many pigeons' feathers.

By Brett Van Vort

By B

rett V

an V

ort

Containment

Andre Allen

In this jar

I am a beetle

Amongst beetles I step on the

backs of my comrades to ascend

Whilst resenting my alive

For stepping on my own back

~

In this jar

I am a wasp

Among wasps and when I escape

I will translate my pain to my captors

if I escape

~

In this jar I am a mouse among mice

My claws cannot pierce the glass

Maybe if I wait and act civil my captor

will tip the jar for me

~

On this stage

I am a lion

Amidst a crowd and halfway

through a flaming hoop the

flames lick at my toes and I think to myself

“if your cage were this hot

You would bite your way out quickly”

~

In this cage

I am a bird

I am a bird that cannot fly

The sound of wind I’ve never heard

I’ve never known my mothers home; the sky

The knowledge of my prison

Comes with an upswing

Inside, I know I still have voice and claws

And wings

By Anonymous

The Pendulum

Brett Van Vort

We could ask ourselves why,

But some just accept it

It’s funny how the bigger your heart is

The heavier the pain.

I spent most of my life thinking

That the pendulum was stuck in the dark.

I don’t know when,

And I don’t know how,

But I managed to swing it in the light.

I thought life would get easier,

But I didn’t think of how to keep it in the there.

It got heavy

And like all things

motion begets motion.

So maybe I’m at equilibrium.

I feel the warm embrace of light on my back

I feel the hollow cold of dark taunt my face.

And the worse thing is the overwhelming silence,

The willingness to let the pendulum sway.

But isn’t it the natural order?

Or do we choose which way it swings.

Cello Ruidoso

Kelsey Talbutt

If when the lights are out

and the people are all missing

and the trees are frost covered statues,

waiting patiently in the mist—

if I tighten my bow just right

and my rosin stains my strings

if I play softly

and then loudly,

tapping my foot

and counting to myself:

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

my arm will tire

and my fingers will dance

my cello will sing

and my brow will sweat—

Who will not know

That I play best when I’m alone?

By Brett Van Vort

I had a Dream

Anonymous

I’m scared,

Innocent shootings and police brutality

And that I got a pray my brother gets an equal paid salary

In a public school he gets mediocre comprehension

Kid with a brain disorder gets no special attention

Poor impulse control equals automatic suspension

He’s becoming another godamn statistic

Another minority that can’t be individualistic

With my white friends, cops barely scrape the side talk

But black brother Keenan gets arrested for spitting on the

sidewalk

I’m scared; he’s a man now and could get in big trouble

Or be shot by a cop for showing signs of struggle

Stand your ground laws have innate illusion

Post racial society? Complete delusion

Where’s the justice in our country

When the federal justice system

Trayvon Martin, Michael brown, Oscar grant

A few dangerous unarmed black men that had to be spent

Bias is engrained into our heads by mass media

Everybody’s talking about race yet nobodies listening

But then we shed a tear When white girl goes missing

The media goes crazy and is met with no defiance

But when Families go missing in the hood by gang vio-

lence,

There’s silence

By Emma Levensohn

Dancing Ocean

By Merrill Truluck

The never ending sea lit by the moon

Dances to the songs of nurtures sweet call

The small birds in the trees asleep by noon

Snuggled in tight for the fear they might fall

The waves crash against the rocky shore

As the sun lights up the afternoon sky

Churning up many creatures from the sea floor

Making wonderful creations that fly

Children laughing, playing, singing, dancing

In unison they jump to the rhythm

The sun goes down while night keeps advancing

And the clouds make the shape of a prism

While the day has gone and the season end

The ocean still dances under the moon

The Forest

By Macy Weymar

Leafy outstretched boughs extend to the sky

Sun filtering through leaves pattern the ground

The melodic bird songs are heard close by

If one stands still, there is almost no sound

The forest is so deep one could get lost

The evergreens and pine woods grow so tall

On the lush grass clings dew and morning frost

These acres of green make one feel so small

Wild things watch from bushes, their eyes glowing

Born and raised there, for them, the woods are home

They watch all that passes, as their lands grow

The untamed prowl over mud, rock, and stone

The forest’s secrets can never be told

No outsiders can know the truth it holds

By

Bre

tt V

an V

ort

Why Do We Fall?

By Aaron Ayala

Why do we fall?

We fall from pain, greed, anger and desire,

We fall from vices we’ve let society warp into awkward bloated gods,

Drawing from the well of now malnourished virtue.

We fall from self-pity,

When the cuts on our palms reduce us to infantile helplessness, lead-

ing to a more painful fate far sooner than we could even have dreamt

of what may have been at the end of our climb.

We fall from self-consciousness;

So as to not feel the sting of a thousand rolling eyes and mouths we

meander in the shadows of men far less capable and far more arrogant

than we’d ever allow ourselves to be,

Low and lonely in quiet desperation,

A place where a pin’s drop could startle us into giving ourselves the so

called inevitable, impending lashings we’ve let ourselves be convinced

we deserve.

We fall from distraction,

The ungrateful idea that your life is a given that it cannot and will not

be lost regardless of circumstances,

Adopting the notion that your burden can be placed on your brother

and he’ll feel no pain.

This is why we fall,

This is why I’ve fallen.

I won’t writhe or relish in my suffering; no man will pity me today.

I must remember that pain is inevitable, met by relief or death indis-

putably.

I must remember that shame, self doubt, ignorance, and deep rage are

not such simplistic matters, and have a habit of lingering and clinging

like chains on ones soul.

So let me crawl, and if I drag my jaw at first then let the taste of dirt

only serve me as a lesson to remember;

Let me regain my footing and rediscover my path,

Praying only that it’s as deeply carved now as ever.

Let me move forward steadfast and determined; And if I am to fall, I

shall claw deep into the ridged footsteps left behind by those who pro-

ceeded me, so I will never leave myself helpless again.

By Brett Van Vort

A View from the Oak-Willow

John Romac

Of solid oak and willows roots deep

Steadfast father, mother’s belief.

Blessed stock I am from

Fertile ground where I sprung.

A rabbits life I’ve lead long

Quick! smell the rose, sing the song.

Always sprinting to goal,

Way too fast for my soul.

Now children my mirror to me

Not mine, but wholly free

Their journey not my race

Their trek a personal pace.

But before these old roots whither and dry

Before my quiet end, I must fly.

following new path wondrous and long

Hear the roses, Smell the song.

Soon these old roots will whither and dry

Before this end, quiet path I’ll try.

I Am From

Emma Levensohn

I Am From

I am from a closed box

I am from a label that’s already been written for me

I am from happiness that my parents pay for by the hour

I am from I’m sorry is said way too often

And I’m thankful for you isn’t said enough

I am from picking up the pieces

Preparing not preventing

I am from a town where the beach sings

But not as loud as the people talk

I am from a vocabulary of excuses

Mixed with a rainbow of papers

With letters ranging from A-F

I am from doors of truth slammed

In the faces of the people I love

I am from a closed box.

By Brett Van Vort

The Owl Man

Brett Van Vort

Gracious was the man who found his niche.

It took some time,

Delicate in the storm.

Raindrops forming on a leaf,

Until its pressure finally relinquishes all.

Disappointed was the man who found his niche.

Went through every corner of the maze

To find they all led to the same place.

What was at the end was a mirror-

Raindrops fell from his eyes.

Angry was the man who found his niche,

The world spun as he stayed in place

Infuriated he could not be what he wanted.

Denial planted her seed in his soul

He watered it with his tears.

Confused was the boy who saw his niche

The idea of being different was foreign.

Gracious was I who found my niche,

Was once an impossible task,

18 years under my belt that was too tight.

I dream we can loosen our judgment.

That is my niche, an owl in the morning sky.

By Brett Van Vort

Phat

Aaron Ayala

In eighth grade,

I walked a 19 minute mile,

Not because that’s what 13 year old rebels are supposed to do,

But because the way my lungs burned and heart pounded against my

chest from walking to the cafeteria scared me enough,

And unlike in the lunch line, I knew there wasn’t pizza encouraging

me to power through to the finish line.

I remember on a January afternoon,

Asking my stepdad to take out the scale for me,

His gaze pleaded for me to change my mind,

Silently telling me “You don’t want this and neither do I”

But the type of puppy dog eyes and eager grin that self convince “Yes,

I am a healthy boy”,

Despite the way that I waddled with a two liter bottle,

Made him feel too sorry to verbalize;

My heart landed in the pit of my stomach like a lead shot-put as 238.5

stood out instead of four numbers more like…

Four more reasons to sit in the back of classroom and not raise my

hand,

Four more reasons to keep quiet when someone said hello,

Four more reasons to understand why I had no friends,

Four more reasons I wasn’t good enough.

We both knew what the numbers meant, he perhaps more than me,

The problem with 13 year old him was that he was too thin;

The scale can be a double aged death sentence.

I was paralyzed, hugging him tight, hoping that by the time I stopped

sobbing and the numbers vanished, I could pretend once again that I

Stalking grocery store aisles like a lion sneaks up on a Savannah big

game hunter,

And up close he realizes just how tenuous his greatest fear is,

If he can just…

I do not know my weight right now other than that it’s in the 160s

But I’m sure if I did, it would merely be four reasons to sleep well at

night.

These aren’t stretch marks that crack along my legs, torso and arms,

Only scars I’ve earned throughout the battle for a better life;

Yes my skin is loose and sags in some places,

It’s just resting after a long, arduous adventure;

I know they have a surgery for that, thanks anyway,

I’ve already wasted too much time experimenting with painful ways to

throw away chunks of myself.

By Brett Van Vort

I felt just slightly included;

But I had no smirk or joker to anticipate,

Maybe one who would take the opportunity to reach out;

Wishful thinking;

“Aaron- I appreciate that Aaron isn’t fat”

Two skinny boys reared coyote teeth, cackling hard, like their heart-

breakingly genius irony wouldn’t drive me to go home and eat myself

to sleep. Wait, don’t tell me; sad, I know.

But rather might make me realize that they care and want me to bear

my heart and put the mirror of my self image back together piece by

piece,

And this guerilla classroom assault was in fact the superglue I had

been searching for;

For such a big kid I didn’t know I could feel so small.

I remember the first day of kickboxing,

After a spontaneous decision at an intersection, today everything was

going to change.

Doubling over after mere minutes,

I gasped out between breaths from the ground, with wet vomit build-

ing up in my throat “Please, just let me rest”

Sensei said yes,

And to get changed while I’m at it, because

“In this dojo, we do not accept weakness.”

And so I ran, and for the first time my demons didn’t seem like cracks

developed in finely crafted china dishes, priming them for a garage

sale appearance, but stubborn stains to be washed away with diligent

work and faith.

In October my mom got a call, finding out that after a month in high

school I was already failing all classes but two,

Because despite the pounds I may have shed,

As a punishment, kickboxing lessons discontinued until I could “begin

caring” about school in the same way,

As if by having one passion taken away, the love would just transmute

to academics. These aren’t emotions; they’re stocks to be adjusted and

invested according to greatest profit margin;

And so broke five months of perfect attendance at weekday classes

and when I could shake my stepdad hard enough early enough to

wake him up, Saturdays too,

The last time I went to school was two months later.

In January I discovered the way that two fingers run down the throat

and against the uvula can make your stomach empty entirely,

And for the first few months, thought confidently that there was noth-

ing wrong with me,

Because I feel pretty enough to not need peer interaction, let alone

peer approval.

I say pretty because that’s the only accurate word for the way I felt,

like a plastic flower or printed napkin; Like all the things that make

you smile briefly despite your eagerness to throw them away.

For just a moment, the self doubt and hate faded away just a little bit,

Even if it howled tenfold louder ten minutes later; addiction has no

time for foresight.

After three months, I couldn’t remember the last meal I had held onto

for more than an hour,

Though I still wouldn’t dare try and run the mile,

Because even if I was eager to read the number on the scale,

150.5 can still be four reasons that you’re not good enough.

I don’t remember the day that I quit,

But what I do remember was a process;

I remember running two blocks just to spit up phlegm and vomit,

then slowly walk home,

I remember five minute workouts followed by twenty fine minute anxi-

© Hyde School 2015