janus

JANUS

a magazine of literature and arts

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volume 51 spring 2013

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The Williston Northampton School Easthampton, Massachusetts

janus staff editor: Pankti Dalal Liz Calderone Oliver Demers Cameron Hill Henry Lombino Zack Maldonado Erik Ostberg Mackenzie Possee Eva Stern-Rodriguez Meredith Westover Lily Sun cover photograph: Eggs, a photograph by Laura Bowman faculty advisor: Sarah Sawyer

Contents How to Fall in Love According to Professor Arthur Arun...a poem by Athena Yeung Wave…a painting by Yu Chen Wang At Dusk…a poem by Mika Chmielewski Death…a poem by Couper Gunn Untitled...prose by Zack Maldonado Nightmare…prose by Hannah Lee Suit of Hearts…a spoken word piece by Henry Lombino Happy…a poem by Alex Li Brother…a poem by Cameron Hill For Us…a poem by Abby Jackson Untitled...a drawing by Zack Maldonado Edge of Hell…a poem by Meredith Westover Grasp…a poem by Elizabeth Calderone Boy...a painting by Yu Chen Wang Swelter…a poem by Brian Hendery Chocolate…a poem by Alex Peng Jealousy…a short story by Emma Kaisla Winters…a drawing by Keely Quirk You Look Like a Hero…a reflection by Keely Quirk

How to Fall in Love According to Professor Arthur Arun, New York Psychologist Who Studied The Science of Flirting To fall in love, all you need is thirty-four minutes. Thirty- four minutes undisrupted with a stranger. What is your name? Where are you from? Talk for thirty minutes. What are things important to you? What are things you don’t tell other people? It is okay to feel awkward or uncomfortable, continue. He is listening whole-heartedly. What is something intimate, something unusual about you? He is listening. Trust me, thirty minutes wouldn’t feel enough, but now you have to stop. You enjoyed being listened to, and you found yourself telling him about the troubles you once were in or problems in your family you’ve never told people you are close with. Weird, you think. He is not a stranger anymore. For the last four minutes, stare at each other deeply and fall in love. Arthur Arun says This is science.

At Dusk We lived here once in quiet solemnity, lethargic contentedness, Were we happy? Did we think that we were? Perhaps, perhaps We lied. When you left us behind that warm autumn morning, I said nothing, did nothing Just watched you walk away down the dusty road, The baby nestled softly on my hip. You going, me staying here, In the silence of your receding footsteps, The aching knowledge That I must return to our empty, preserved home like a tomb Me, the baby, the oppressive curtains, And an empty, never ending reflection of you.

Mika Chmielewski

What happens when we die? Do we go to heaven? Hell? Do we rest in eternal sleep? Do we leave earth? Or does earth leave us? Couper Gunn Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, Tick I never liked the metronome’s tick. The single note, the innocent tick.The beating, little, horrid stick.Back and forth, twice as quick.Enumerating life just as quick. A moment, now wait… a tick. A moment there, just as quick.Fleeting, ending, at the pace of that stick.Gone in a second, faster if possible. But moments don’t pass just so. No, a moment happens and sticks and won’t go away. I remember the glowing eyes. Beaming at me as my car’s headlights beamed back. The windshield wiper made one smooth motion, back and forth, and then the bump as it finished its cycle. Bumpbump. I stopped. The rain continued to fall on the roof of the car as if the moment didn’t matter. There was no one behind be on this back road. Only the poor soul that lay in front of me.Drip. I got out of the car slowly. I could see the town in the distance. The light pollution bled a yellow hue onto the night sky. And the boy bled too. Drip. I panicked. Drip. Here I am, confined to myself. What’s done is done, what passed has passed. My sentence will hardly last. I could sit like the others and complain about lost lives. But no, instead, I will complain about lost freedom. Tick.Who lost more: him or me? Choices to choices and I’m driving down that road. Choices to choices and he’s lying on that road. A somber moment for the sober me.And what of he?Tick. I am here now because of his choices. The rain was falling harder on my head. The windshield wiper kept wiping and the rain kept raining. The dirt became mud. The eyes were closed now. His windows into the world barricaded from the storm. I groveled on the side of the road, digging. Bump bump. Headlights down the road. I wasn’t alone after all. I jumped out and waved down the traveler. Bump bump. Can I borrow a shovel? Bump bump. What for? Bump bump. Bump bump. Bump bump. The light pollution bled a yellow hue. And so the traveler made two. Drip. I panicked. Drip.

Zack Maldonado

What was your nightmare last night? Did you see me, in the dark, swimming through the fog in search of you? Or did you see yourself, like I always do, heading to a place that we promised to go together? In my dream last night I saw you under the northern lights, majestic green shimmering above your shoulders. When I realized that you were crying, you were too far away from me, you kept on treading your way away. Were you crying, because you were sad, were there too many sorrows out there during the day? How deep down did you fall how hard did you hit the floor. You know what I really hope? I really hope that you didn’t let your jar of dreams shatter as you crashed, you better have held the hopes nearby. I’ve seen so much pain in your eyes I do not know if there is any left of that smile you used to give, but I really hope too that that is still there, somewhere below, well guarded and still growing. Boy, I don’t know how a thousand words could describe what it was that I saw in my dream, that place was just for us remember? It could be cold there could be rain but that place was for the two of us, together. I thought you knew it to be true like I did, but phew, none of that was right. I thought you understood everything when I said anything and you probably thought the same exact thing when I didn’t understand you we loved each other so much we had too much to give and it all came at wrong times everything was jumbled. And most of that’s still tangled. But what more can we do, what else can I ask, now that I have asked you about your sleep, it’s time for you to say it was good, and walk our paths astray.

Hannah Lee

Suit of Hearts Pulse pulse Heartbeat set to the tick tock of Grandfather's clock Gears a hundred years old regularly oiled but never replaced because that would be unimaginable. Pulse pulse A knock on the door from everyone you've ever met over drinks or smokes, checking to make sure you don't stray too far off your chains. Pulse pulse A beat inside that drives to be released from secret shackles always felt, but never seen. All that's heard is the whispers when they slide and grind around your skin. The drive to get out of this pen of a thousand peacocks fanning their feathers, trying to discretely ruffle their competitors. New York is not made of stone, it's made of ears and eyes that listen from the walls and cracked open windows and peer from every peep hole and shadowed cranny. Every letter sent is a gunshot into the night announcing revolution, every flower received is an opened scandal, every party is a battleground where the fine European cigar smoke closely resembles the cloud of fired gunpowder. Pulse pulse Laws may allow anything but customs restrict everything, and traditions hold tighter and stronger than mere legislature. Knocks on wood, golden spyglasses searching for the next victim to assassinate. Hearts locked away in pockets, wound up with keys to keep beating. They stopped using blood long ago. It's not efficient enough. Pulse pulse. Old fashioned gentlemen that are only gentle in their surface words, Still clinging to the coattails of the past, claiming them as their own. They are policemen that patrol dressed in black and white uniforms, waiting for the right tongue to slip, for the right word to catch in a person's mouth. They may not have said it but still it escapes to hover in the air and that is all they need to make an arrest. There is no judge or lawyer at your trial, just a jury of all the people you fooled yourself in to calling friends that quietly votes you to be hanged from the tallest and most elegant gallows they can find. Till the last worthwhile breath leaves your lungs in this world of pretend and no one, no one will ever listen to your words again. Pulse pulse

Henry Lombino

Happy Maybe you remember days out With hamburgers and sweet lemonade And balloons that touched heaven, almost As if we would reach it from here. I was always waiting for you Over here some days and there on others. You stopped. I stopped. Maybe when I don't feel - I shall think of you And perhaps, I will write to you And remember you, Listening to the sharp snicks of Pencil on paper. But for now, I walk. You walk. Alex Li

Brother When we were young, we built fairy houses in my garden. Do you remember that patch of wilderness, abandoned, before I found it, in our grandparents’ field? We whiled hours away, lying in the grass, watching clouds change shape. You wondered at ladybugs crawling across twig walls. The marvel in your eyes when a butterfly landed on your knee is my most vivid memory. You were only a boy- I was your hero. I held your hand, dragging you behind me, as we walked home, mud coating our feet. Then Mother tugged on your blond baby curls and pulled you to the sink. I was too old to be washed, and too young to care about streaks of dirt along my face. You’re grown now, and I don’t believe in fairies. My garden lies untended. My favorite place to play in childhood summers doesn’t welcome me, and isn’t mine.

Cameron Hill

For Us I want to write a poem that will make me brave, brave enough to roam my mind for ways to fix it all. I want to find a way to stop the traffic and cross the new road that lies between us, to make a street no longer divided. I want to make everything okay. Alongside the artifacts of our past. They are intact but the shine has dulled. I can see cracks starting to form but I do not want to just catalog them away I want the weak ones to shatter and the strong to become worn from loving you too much I have acted on impulse from sight that is not always accurate but never seems to be wrong and maybe that is reason enough to fix it. For you, for me, for us. Abby Jackson

Zack Maldonado

Edge of Hell Tips of heaven brush the ground And shards of nightmares fall to tears In a pit where dreamers drown. Angelic delusions smash without a sound Where divine gates embrace lost fears And tips of heaven brush the ground. Angels paint the sky with bloody crowns And fabrications of immortality disappear In a pit where dreamers drown. Hidden flames are finally found And deceased miracles clear As tips of heaven brush the ground. A rusty thirst for stars resounds When abandoned demons leer In a pit where dreamers drown. Eternity shatters all around In hope that God will interfere While tips of heaven brush the ground In a pit where dreamers drown. Meredith Westover

Out of my Grasp Yearning for what I desire most, Leads only to the frustration of knowing It is just beyond my reach. How I dream of nature. Another day of the endless cycle

In cramped workspaces. We sit in a crowded room, Toiling with notebooks amid volumes on dusty shelves. We can’t hear the sounds of freedom.

Saplings sway in the wind As birds chirp their songs of independence. A distant gurgling stream laughs When a faint wind tickles the green leaves.

Papers rustle in the cramped area. Stifling heat and stale air cloud my vision. The every day drone has wasted away our memory Of vibrant voices speaking to us from outside.

Sparrows chatter, flowers gossip, And the luscious grass grows. Nature’s sun, the mother of it all, Nurtures and beams down to her children. We are sequestered for weeks upon weeks. Filtered light from the windows isn’t good enough. I want to learn out there Where my imagination is free. Elizabeth Calderone

Swelter I close my eyes and I smell only the pervasive presence of cloth seats car in june How the heat made the ground swelter and buckles burn The auras of false images false speech blame. I knew it was wrong. Those are the worst moments. You had the power to stop You had reason to stop You possessed everything you needed to stop. Brian Hendery Your smell, the undeniable scent, Drenched me fully with desire. Broken as I am, without a single cent, Oh how I have wanted you for over a year. Nay, each time I think of you, you leave me a dent In my heart oh, I cannot stand the lack of you my sweet dear. My love, my passion, what could it have meant? All these hours I yearn for you with the crisp sound I imagine I hear. How I want to hold you in hand and break you apart, With my mouth I want to enjoy the taste of you. But when shall you be in their hands let? I may right now, for you, depart, With a pistol in hand I care for no few. For the deepest lust, I crave, my dear chocolate. Alex Peng

Jealousy

It was a simple argument, really, over a pearl necklace. “But you’re not even going,” “It doesn’t matter, I don’t want you to wear it. Take it off.” “You’re so selfish; you’re not even using it. Mom says you should just let me wear it.” “I don’t care, take it off.” It quickly escalated from nagging to insulting and from insulting to yelling, and somewhere in there the real reason for the argument was lost. Until of course, Lindsay, in one quick, argument-ending movement, ripped the string of pearls from her sister’s neck. The clasp broke and the pearls came crashing down like a tiny avalanche. They ricocheted off the wood floors and bounced in every direction. Her sister had yelled at her. Now look what you’ve done! Had almost cried. Their mother spent a good ten minutes calming her down and fixing her hair and finding a new necklace for her to wear. Her mom had threatened Lindsay with consequences before she left with her sister. Lindsay vaguely wondered what they’d be. But she had at least an hour and a half before her mother would come home; they were surely still taking pictures, and her mother was always one to stay and chat. Lindsay knew that her Facebook newsfeed would already be flooded with pictures of the Winter Formal. Girls in sparkling dresses and boys in suits and matching ties, posing, lining up like dominos in front of fireplaces, on flights of stairs, even shivering out on front porches. It was happening all across town. Houses with five or six cars parked out front, packed full of giggling teenagers and their parents craning to get a nice shot. She didn’t need to see the pictures to know what it looked like. Lindsay sprawled herself out on her bed in a big “X.” She was comfortable; sweatpants and big cozy sweaters had that effect. She was happy that she wasn’t out shivering in the evening air on someone’s porch, awkwardly hugging someone for the sake of photos she would surely look ugly in. Her fuzzy slippers seemed a much more comfortable alternative to the glittery pumps her sister would have to spend the night in. She may have been comfortable, but she was thoroughly annoyed. She’d have to sit through a lecture. Probably lose her phone or get grounded for the rest of the weekend. She hated her sister. Hated the way she kept her voice calm and the way she could easily provoke Lindsay into rage. Hated how she found it so much easier to keep her head. Hated how she had selfishly insisted on wearing the necklace. Hated how that necklace was now strewn about in all corners of the room. She should’ve been doing homework or something but she didn’t feel much like doing anything. She rolled onto her side and tried to fall asleep. She couldn’t sleep though, so she just lay on her bed staring at the wall. She looked at the clock. By now, Lindsay knew, at a dozen different houses they were piling into a dozen different cars, being careful not to step on the ends of dresses or to mess up anyone’s hair. People would argue over who would have to sit in the middle. The cramped back seats would smell like hairspray and an overpowering mix of a dozen perfumes. Someone would pull out a pack of gum and a chorus of voices would beg for a piece. Elbows and hands would bonk noses and delicately pinned buns in the reach for a little strip of gum. Lindsay reached over to her bedside table and dug around in the drawer until she found a pack of gum. She opened it, but it was empty. She sighed and threw it vaguely in the direction of her trashcan. She could picture her sister and her idiot boyfriend arriving at the banquet hall, matching corsage and boutonniere, his tie the same ridiculously electric shade of blue as her dress. She could see her friends with their dates, and the other nameless kids, filing quickly in from the cold.

They’d eat dinner in about an hour. They’d sit at round tables and eat chicken fingers because everyone was afraid to try anything else. People would laugh and pour soda from the big pitchers in the center of the table. At least one person would spill it all over the tablecloth. Bonus points if they spilled it onto someone else’s food. They’d start playing music, but it would take a while before anyone would have the courage to go out and dance. Maybe to some Top 40’s pop song. Maybe to some slow song that bored everyone but the kids that had dates. If it was, in fact, the latter, there would probably be at least one girl in the bathroom crying. All the kids would be up and dancing eventually. The teachers would sit at one table in the back, chatting a little and looking uncomfortable.

Lying in bed, cozy and content, was infinitely preferable. Lindsay hated her sister. She felt the anger rising and she needed some sort of outlet. She went

to her dresser, kicking a few pearls as she went, and pulled off a picture that she had taped to her mirror. She and her sister on vacation in Aruba: smiling with their arms around each other. It made her even angrier. She stormed downstairs and into her dad’s game room. She taped the photo to the dartboard on the wall. She yanked the darts from the board and stormed several feet back. It was silly, theatrical even. Like something they only do in movies. She felt almost like she was putting on a show that no one would watch. But she did it anyway because it felt like the only way to get the anger out. She turned quickly like she was dueling the dartboard and threw the first dart. She missed: it landed on the very edge of the board and didn’t even hit the picture. She threw the second dart and this time it landed on the picture: just to the left of her sister’s head. Close. She shifted the remaining darts in her hand and it took her half a second too long to realize she had dropped one. She didn’t have time to jump her feet back so she just braced for the pain. It didn’t come. She looked down. The dart was embedded in the carpet in between her two big toes. She stared at it for a minute. She didn’t quite know why. Maybe she was appreciating the incredible luck she had just had. She looked up and threw another dart. It hit her sister’s shoulder. Closer. She threw the last one. It hit her own face. She yelled and furiously pulled the darts out of the board and ripped off the picture. As she stormed up the stairs to her room she felt tears welling up in eyes.

She thought about the dance. By the end of night the girls would take off their heels and enjoy the free feeling of their bare feet against the dance floor. There would be those songs that made everyone collectively forget that everyone else could see them dance. A couple songs that chased away insecurities and made everyone feel a little more free. Even the girl who was crying would probably be laughing and dancing with her friends.

When she reached her room she furiously kicked the pearls that dotted the floor, sending them flying in different directions. She dropped the photo onto the floor and balled up her fists.

Suddenly she dropped to the floor and started picking up the scattered pearls. Crawling around on her knees, searching them out, grabbing them from under her desk and dresser. She became more frantic as she searched, desperately clawing under her bed, shaking out clothing that was strewn across the floor, checking all the corners and behind the furniture. It seemed to be the only thing that mattered. She didn’t know if she had all of them, but it was enough. She spilled them onto her bed. She took the frayed thread from the ground and with hands that hadn’t yet stopped trembling, began to put the pearls back on. The clasp was broken, she was surely missing some pearls. But it was a start.

Emma Kaisla

You look like a hero. You look like somebody’s son, somebody’s big brother. Somebody has ruffled your hair not so long ago, I think. That smile on your lips is gonna make the girls swoon when they get a look at you. Darling, the sun is in your eyes. You sick yet of the heat of summer and watermelon sticky on your skin and somebody laughing somewhere, wind-chimes in their windpipes making a sweet song, tring-a-ling-a-ling, dance over your ears? You ready to bury yourself in snow? You ready for frost-bitten toes and blood under your fingernails and somebody laughing, a dark hard chuckle rattling from inside their hollow chest? You’re never gonna love anybody like you love your high-school sweetheart with cherry hair and you’re never gonna love anybody like the boy holding his lungs in, curled up in his fox-hole, asking for a cigarette. You’ll smoke a box for him and a box for the boy with the bullet in his brain and another for the boy by your side when war ends and fireworks go off and you’re both trying to hide the way your bodies flinch at the snap bang sizzle in sky like gunfire because you got out but it’s still coming for you. You’re gonna be somebody’s dad and somebody’s husband and you’re gonna be a hero. Darling, the sun is in your eyes. That smile on your lips is gonna make me cry. Somebody has ruffled your hair not so long ago, I think.

Keely Quirk