Third Place - The Rivers School

theCurrent2008
The Current is dedicated to providing the Rivers community with cultural
enrichment as well as a stronger appreciation for the arts
through poetry, prose, and artwork produced by Rivers students.
Jon Cryan ‘09 Phil Seidl ‘09 Suzanne Gray’09
Each year, the Current holds a competition for all of the submissions received throughout the year. This year, with the
number of submissions we received, we were able to have five categories: Poetry, Prose, Black and White Photography,
Digital or Color Photography and Mixed Media (excluding photography). The judges all excel in their fields and
were generous enough to give up some of their time to help us. The Poetry judge is well-known poet, Jeffrey Harrison,
who has judged the Poetry competition for the last two years. Our Prose judge is Sharon Pywell, a local novelist. Anne
Havinga, the photography curator of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, was willing to help us by judging both of the
Photography categories. Carol Gildar, the former art editor of Scholastic Magazine and a renowned Chicago artist,
judged the Mixed Media competition.
A special Thank You to all who submitted work this year, and to our judges!
Sarah Weintraub ‘08 Molly Jarvis ‘08 Olivia Frosch ‘08
Editor’s Note
This year has been an amazing one for theCurrent. I want to thank our amazing
designer, Molly Jarvis, and my fellow editor, Olivia Frosch. Without you guys,
this magazine would not have been finished on time. I would also like to thank
the rest of the staff, who cram into the tiny Current room during Monday
meetings. You have all been such a big help and a wonderful team of people. I
know you’ll continue to make theCurrent a stunning magazine in the years to
come. Thank you also to everyone who submitted to theCurrent. Regrettably,
we were not able to include every submission, but even if nothing of yours
made it into the magazine, we want to know that your contribution did not go
unappreciated. Congratulations to the prize winners, and thank you to all of
our judges for your input. Also, thank you to Dr. Willard, our wonderful
faculty advisor. We hope you like the ninjas! Lastly, I want to dedicate this
edition of theCurrent to Suzanne Gray, who was our junior editor for the
first half of the year. Unfortunately, she was not able to continue the rest
of the year at Rivers, and she has really been missed. Sue Gray, we love you
and we hope you feel better. Thanks to everyone for a fabulous year.
Sarah Weintraub, Senior Editor
theCurrent 2008
Stephanie King ‘10 Brigitte Laukien ‘10 Kathryn Najarian ‘10 Vanesa Pacheco ‘10 Alejandra Rojo ‘11

Table of Contents
4. A Room With A View by Kathryn Najarian
Building by Kate Szostkowski
5. Snakes by Greg Clifford
Trapped in a Pinwheel by Molly Jarvis
6. Kaiser Wilhelm’s Watch by Molly Jarvis
7. Sammie Says by Shannon Deady
Honorable Mention - Poetry
8. Tiger by Kat Gourinovich
First Place - Art
9. A Hobby by Jon Cryan
Harbor by Alex Marz
10. Sacrilegious by Vanesa Pacheco
In a Luxurious Dungeon by Molly Jarvis
11. “Doomed for a Certain Term…” by Lori Suvajian
Third Place - Prose
12. Liquidating Virtue by Rachel Hunter
Discards by Molly Barstow
13. The Tunnel of Memoirs by Molly Jarvis
14. Sonnet 26 by Jon Cryan
D&G by Charlie Rugg
15. Biting the Bullet of Hope by Callie Bullion
16. Horizons by Cristina Taylor
17. Stone Cloaks by James Bowman
Second Place - Poetry
Julie and the Chocolate Factory by Molly Jarvis
18. Nature’s Term by Lori Suvajian
Water Hands by Alex Marz
First Place - Digital Photography
19. Gathering by Molly Barstow
Waiting by Olivia Frosch
20. The Mirthless Shadow by Sean Gannnon
Third Place - Poetry
Tree Puddle by Phil Seidl
Second Place - Black and White Photography
21. Five Hundred, Twenty-Five Thousand, Six Hundred
by Anonymous
Second Place - Prose
22. Masquerade by Sarah Weintraub
23. The Street by Stephanie McCartney
Second Place - Art
Color Dance by Olivia Frosch
Honorable Mention - Art
24. Lunchtime by Molly Barstow
Third Place - Black and White Photography
25. Cellar Door by Matt Segal
Honorable Mention - Prose
26. Joey’s Park by Jen Keefe
Pointe Shoes by Kate Szostkowski
27. Supply & Demand by Brigitte Laukien
Third Place - Digital Photography
28. Cornucopia of Love by Lila Knisely
29. Lines Composed in My West Newton Home by
Brian Hoefling
Lap by Leah Stansky
First Place - Black and White Photography
30. A Product of the Game by Brigitte Laukien
Ruthi by Aaron Behr
31. Rosela by Sarah Weintraub
32. Civil War by Matt McGuinness
First Place - Prose
Untitled by Alec Long
Third Place - Art
34. Chains of Inheritance by Brigitte Laukien
Generations by Molly Barstow
35. The Death of a Father by Shannon Deady
First Place - Poetry
Scattered by Sarah Weintraub
36. Untitled by Anonymous
Guitar by Alex Marz
Second Place - Digital Photography
Mmm... I Wanna Linger by Olivia Frosch
37. Giraffes by Kat Gourinovich
38. Liberty by Jon Cryan
Leap by Kate Szostkowski

Trapped in a Pinwheel
5
Snakes
I hate snakes
slithering snakes long slithering snakes
I hate them
sneaky slithering snakes long sneaky snakes
snakes slide through life
sometimes never seen
I hate snakes
I hate their bodies
I hate their tongues
I hate how they hiss
I hate snakes
slithering snakes
I hate their sleek camouflage skin
I hate their sneakiness
snakes have secrets
they kill
they eat
they slither
I hate snakes
slithering snakes long slithering snakes
I hate them
I hate snakes.
Greg Clifford
Molly Jarvis
Opposite Page: Building by Kate Szostkowski, A Room With a View by Kathryn Najarian

Kaiser Wilhelm’s Watch
Molly Jarvis
6

Sitting on a father’s knee,
He tells her,
“You can be anything you want.”
Instead of being anything
She’s everything:
A waitress,
a chef,
a hairdresser,
a mother.
Without ever leaving the playroom,
Sammie can be all of these things
She believes.
Corvette, red lipstick,
Bold brown eyes, and playful pigtails
clunk clumsily down the hardwood hallway
In six-sizes too big black pumps.
Looking in the mirror,
She sees Cinderella winking back.
To be smart, to be beautiful, to be satisfied.
To be the dreams of all girls
is to be Sammie
Sammie spins.
Arms extended,
offering the world an embrace.
Sammie spins,
giggling and rejoicing,
and finally tumbling gracelessly to the ground.
Her white eyes glance to the sky
she finds her world overturned,
but blurry with bliss.
The big blue above
and the soft green below
swirl together
like the finest of finger painting.
SammieSays
Shannon Deady
Honorable Mention
With the help of her imaginary best friend,
Sammie scrambles to her bare feet.
The pair skips sprightly up the wooden steps
flinging open the creaky porch door
which slams behind.
Sammie lies
in the damp grass in a midsummer’s eve.
Sammie lies
Kept warm under a blanket made of stars
woven by god.
Tightening the lid,
pressing her face glowing with curiosity
to the glass,
her coffee eyes observe her firefly glow
against the backdrop of a blank night’s sky.
Sammie serves me the sincerest of smiles
and says that she wishes to someday be a firefly.
So, she too, can light the world when it’s dark.
I want to tell her she already does
Hoping to someday find truth exist within my words,
I return a convincing smile and tell her
Dreams are never as far as they seem.
7

First Place
Kat Gourinovich
8
Tiger

A Hobby
The day is fresh within my memory:
The day I first set sail. Some northern gale
Blew crisply, growing to a steady wail.
Her pine and crimson hull-work seemed to bury
A hot coal in my chest, a fiery
Emotion; Robin’s wing, a fleshy pale,
Embraced me as I crossed the gunnel-rail.
No angel could more of my fancy curry
Than my vessel cardinal, my Robin.
Alone with her, out on the surf, the sea
And breeze quick-kissed me tenderly.
Return to port did seem to me a sin,
But was inev’table: can’t avoid land.
While on the sea, no sight is worse than sand!
Jon Cryan
Harbor
Digital Print by Alex Marz
9

10
Sacrilegious
Reminiscing on my beatific past.
Meditating on an emotion of security.
I felt safe hiding this secret of pain.
But with one quick jolt.
I could collapse & choke myself to death.
A fall from grace.
Forsaken from the eyes of the lord
& Indifference creeping over me…
Vanesa Pacheco
gradually sinking deeper inside of me.
A stab.
A wound.
I bled.
I dissolved into a profound slumber
& my memories rolled into a hidden
chamber.
But I bled until I was dry.
And then I remembered too late.
Too sick. Too infected.
Contaminated by the disease of a lecher.
They found my flaccid body,
in a wan & gloomy palace,
surrounded by my blissful memories,
& a stain so invisible
it was painful to acknowledge.
In a Luxurious Dungeon Molly Jarvis

Doomed for a certain term to walk the night
And for the day confined to fast in fires
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are purged and burned away
(Hamlet 1.5.15-18)
Third Place
I imagine it had started as a clear day, that day. Spring air warm as it greeted the waking family.
The late April sun starting to rise, anxious to reach its full potential. It would soon get too heated,
though. Blood is hot, and that summer, that year, it would fill the streets with its violent heat. But
they didn’t know. How could they? To think that man was capable of such evils. They didn’t know.
A father, a mother, their children. Close, together. Love. A little one tugs at his mother’s apron as
she cooked breakfast. A father makes the familiar walk down the road to bring home the day’s milk.
A son helps his younger sister dress as time quietly plans to transform him from a boy into a man.
If only. Because soon, the blue sky would darken as their lives are ripped apart.
The officers arrive and charge through the door. They knock the little girl off her father’s lap, drag
him from his seat, from his life. His family watches. He is taken to a prison, stomach still filled with
breakfast, and beaten, kicked, broken, shot. Over the next few months, his family would endure the
same torture. His family, his neighbor’s family, a thousand families. In that genocide, over a million
would die. Killed because of who they were, what they were. What I am.
I did not know them, but know them too well. In my dreams the young girl reaches out to me. Her
face is smashed. Her hair is matted with blood. She has the same color hair as me. She screams
my name, eyes wide. She has the same color eyes as me. She grabs my arm, her fingers leaving
bloody marks on my skin. She has the same color blood as me. I wake and feel my face. It is slick
with red, skull cracked, bones snapped and hanging at sharp angles. She was me. She is me. Her
sorrow and her anger live inside my mind, my heart, and they burn through my being when I make
myself remember: They have shot my brother. They have raped my mother. They have shoved
knives beneath my father’s nail beds because they did not like his last name. And the world has
forgotten, left our bodies to rot, and the truth with it. They have buried the truth with our corpses,
and we cannot begin to heal until it is brought to light. We started our suffering ninety two year
ago, and continue to be killed by the lies that live on. Wandering, in limbo. Politics and cowardice
conceal our history, as we are informed that our murders never occurred.
That is why my hair is black. Why my fists tighten. Why my chest pounds, literally pounds, when
it is mentioned. No one knows, no one cares, save the people who were killed, and those who came
from them. Save us. Save me.
Lori Suvajian
11

12
Discards Molly Barstow
Liquidating Virtue
Blinded by tangible temptation
Eden’s apple spoils
corporation perfection.
Raw military emotion
screams in uniform silence
against Purity’s unsung strain.
Rachel Hunter

Molly Jarvis
The Tunnel of Memoirs
13

Sonnet 26
How odd it is that I should feel this way.
My breath is short; my heart beat’s quick; my mind
Is rambling and left with naught to say.
I’m speechless in this atmosphere divine.
Your presence is a strong tropical breeze;
My spirit is a tossed and stormy sea.
When you approach, my common sense is seized;
When you depart, my heart breaks callowly.
Your voice, an angel’s song: perfectly versed
And tuned to an enchanting melody.
Your wake: perfume. I’d rather be immersed
In yours than any Paris offers me.
Some gorgeous sirens beg me anchor to
The lovely floating isle that is you.
Jon Cryan
14
D&Gby Charlie Rugg

15
Biting the Bullet
of Hope
Callie Bullion
My head is aching and my stomach is churning, threatening to show me all that I haven’t eaten. I don’t know
how long I’ve been here, probably a month or two. But I know they’ll come for me, they’ll come. I can still smell
the smoke and hear the explosion and feel the shrapnel and fear flying past my face that started this nightmare, and
it makes me drunk with nerves. Those dirty men dragged me here, wherever here is, and beat me ’til I had to cry
for mercy. They just laughed and left me in this room, blindfolded and terrified. But they’ll come for me, they’ll
come. I’ve never felt true fear before; maybe I thought that I had a few times, but it was nothing compared to this. I
don’t know where I am, I don’t know what’s going on around me, and I can’t even understand what my guards and
captors say. I think I regret not taking that Intro to Arabic course I was offered freshman year. For all I know they
could be plotting where to dump my body once they kill me. But no. They’ll come for me, I know they’ll come.
It’s chokingly hot in here and I haven’t breathed fresh, free air since they brought me here. I’m hungry,
I’m thirsty, and I have way too much time to spend thinking, which is the most dangerous thing of all. I think
about my mom, my dad, my little brother, and I know that my situation is causing them as much fear and
pain as it’s causing me. I think about my buddies back home and over here with me. What I wouldn’t give to
be with them now, safe and laughing, without the constant fear that I might not live through the next day. But
they’ll come for me, they’ll come. I’m too weak and tired for tears anymore and mostly lie curled on my side,
trying to sleep and only succeeding when I either worry myself to sleep or when fear exhausts me so much
that I can’t do anything more than hide in the dark wings of sleep. But they’ll come for me, they’ll come.
The only sickeningly ironic upside to all this is the fact that I’ve probably been on TV more times than
I was in my school newspaper. The only time I’ve moved from this room was when they wanted to make their
tapes. They blindfolded me and either placed a gun to my head or a sword to my neck, made threats, and made
me beg desperately for my life in front of the whole world. But I pray that no one listens to my false pleas. One
of these days they’ll kill me, but don’t give them what they want. That’d be a dishonor to my memory. You
won’t have to give in to their demands anyway, because they’ll come for me, they’ll come. At first I tried to fight
them, but I’ve long since lost that strength and courage, preferring to keep my head for as long as I can, just a
kid cowering in a corner now. I wanted to be a hero, but what am I now, lying broken on some stone floor, my
throat almost too dry to speak, my clothes torn to rags, and my thoughts wandering wildly around my head,
crazy with loneliness and fear? I’m no hero. I’m a prisoner waiting for my death sentence to be carried out and
my only bail is the lives of others. But it won’t matter soon because they’ll come for me, they have to come.
All the survival training that I’ve ever gotten has left me now and I’m only living day to day, minute to minute,

eath to breath, trying to force the panic rising in my heart and mind back down into my stomach, where at least
I know what it is I’m feeling. It’s hard to make out individual emotions now, fear and panic and pain and despair all
mixing together in some disturbingly hard to endure concoction in my mind. But it’ll all end when they come for
me, once they come. They can’t forget me here. I’d always seen myself as an optimist before this, but I’m becoming
more and more of a pessimist with every second that ticks by no matter how hard I try to fight it, hoping they’ll
come for me, hoping they’ll come. They promised.
I hear gunshots. That’s nothing new at all. I hear what I think is English being spoken but don’t dare to
hope, barely giving it notice, knowing that I’ve heard and even seen things before that weren’t really there. But
never before have figments of my imagination sworn and yelled and kicked down doors. My heart jumps into
my mouth and I choke on it and on pain as two of my buddies grab my arms and pull them over their shoulders,
supporting me like they always have. I feel weak with pain and relief as they half carry me out into the sweet,
fresh air and the clean, bright sunlight that my body hasn’t felt in months. My eyes water in the almost blindingly
beautiful light and I find that I’m crying as I remember the one thing that I clung to through everything, the
lifeline that I had almost let go of, and they came for me, they came.
Horizons by Christina Taylor
16

Stone
17
Cloaks
Second Place
JamesBowman
When one talks of the Veil of Secrecy
And the tricks that it plays
On the mind
I can’t help but think to myself
If they only knew
How it really felt inside
For Secrecy isn’t a veil my friend
It can’t be seen through
Or cast to the side
It’s a long sweeping cloak,
Stitched with long chunks of Granite
Not silk
Or cotton
Or wool
But yards and yards of
Cold
Hard
Oppressive
Unforgiving
Granite
Which engulfs, enwraps and envelops all inside
The stone hangs concretely over my shoulders
Pressing down with the weight of my lies
The lies that were told to keep up the secret,
The secret that hangs
Obstructing my eyes
Julie and the Chocolate Factory Molly Jarvis

Water Hands by Alex Marz
First Place
Her belly swollen from an aching frost,
A white expanse across a mounded field.
But underneath the soil seedlings dost
Grow until that pregnant state is yield.
The young green babes are naked in their youth,
Protected from corruption above,
For with their shelter comes a naked truth:
Naught is purer than a mother’s love.
For though she braves the icy winds herself,
Her children are protected from the blast.
Through all of January, like an elf,
The greenery will hide till born at last.
In sacrifice will Nature bear her load
18
So in April beauty can be told.
Nature’s Term by Lori Suvajian

19
Gathering by
Molly Barstow
Waiting by
Olivia Frosch

20
Oh I can see it coming now
I can see it coming down the lane
One, two… one, two…
Through the mossy wood growing greener by cycle
Across the flowing stream of yesterday’s sorrows
Past the rocky crevasse of age-old stones
Past the traveler’s mailbox rooted to the earth
And out into the open where love roams free
And where the air above is light and calm
It pauses here to say goodbye
Because the truth told was surely a lie
Stopping just long enough for me to know what I need
For the tears to stroll down and the heart to shower blood
I guess that way we feel is in the waves
Flushed out into nothing with the changing tides
And so it heads back from where it thrives
Trampling on my reason in the passing way
Back to where the sky’s cloudy and dark
And she’s on the other side of the stream now
Because I dread tomorrow sorrows
That ever-present wretch knocking on the door
One, two… one, two…
I let her slip and now she’s gone
The hope I saw was never there at all
And as I reach out, there’s no pull, no one holding on
Tree Puddle by Phil Seidl
Second Place
[
The Mirthless Shadow by Sean Gannon]
Third Place

So here’s the honest truth about all of it. I know that you probably expected that from the beginning,
and thank you for over-estimating me.
You promised you’d call me on my birthday, but you never did. I know you weren’t in any shape to be
making promises when I asked you if you’d sing ‘happy birthday’ to me again like you had a year ago, but I
foolishly thought you would remember. You forgot, and on my seventeenth birthday I sat by a window and
counted the smoldering leaves tumble from the oak trees and waited and wished to hear your voice. On the
first day of my seventeenth year, I would have gladly forsaken every gift and every hallway smile just to hear
you speak one word. Just to know that I had occupied your thoughts for one minute of the one-thousandfour-hundred-and-forty
that constitute your day. That would have been enough. But as I waited through noon,
sunset, evening, and midnight, I gradually came to reach a dreamlike realization that the damage was done
long ago. I am far less innocent than I like to make myself out to be. I imagine you know this by now.
A year before that day, I had answered my cell phone as I had walked over the rolling, sunny green
hills. It was an Indian summer, and your resonant baritone had sighed a smiling rendition of the Birthday song
as I scuffed my bare feet through the grass and smiled into the approaching sunset. You and I had sat close at
bonfires and roasted one another marshmallows until our eyes burned from the smoke. You and I stargazed on
a steep hill in silence until I fell asleep. You woke me the next morning, and I was happy. I made a playlist for
you before you left for the weekend, and as I saw you getting into your car I wanted to give you a sixth hug,
but I didn’t. Until I saw your car pull out of the dusty driveway, I didn’t realize how much I would miss you. I
still don’t.
I know now that I said too much and too little. I both loved you more than my mind could bear and
gave you such a small corner in my heart that I should find no wonder in the failure of our friendship. I
ignored you and simultaneously had an insatiable thirst for your attention. I failed to see how sorry I was until
that door had closed and you were long gone, and I failed to make you hear me when I asked you to come
back. For all this and more, I am impossibly, infinitely, agonizingly sorry.
You were it, as far as I’m concerned. My best friend, my mentor, that one person I would have, in all
pathetic honesty, done anything for. Which is why I still can’t think this is at all real. Which is why, even after
repeating the truth, all I can know is a hazy unreality in which you are still my favorite part of my dull and
insignificant existence.
I mean, has this ever happened to you? Have you ever had someone ripped out of your heart before
you had time to make it better? Before you could kick or scream or cry and beg for the universe to
take something else, anything else, instead? It’s still too huge for me to understand the magnitude of this loss.
And the worst part is that you aren’t even gone – you’re as tangible, as real and wonderful as you always have
been. But you tiptoed out of my life before, in my excruciating naïveté, I saw the symptoms of my beginning to
drift from you.
That’s what you say happened – we grew apart, plain and mind-numbingly simple. And maybe I’m
525,600 Anonymous
Second Place
21

22
an idiot, but honestly? Life hasn’t been that easy since I stopped playing Legos and cowboy games with the
boys and started wearing dresses. Even I know that you don’t just let someone special go without the fight
of your life. I knew I wasn’t special long before you did, but I wasn’t about to tell you. There’s a lot I never
bothered to tell you that now seems so urgent and important, and yet so irrelevant.
You now live in a world in which I do not exist but for fleeting, second-long thoughts. I forget when
your birthday is, but I will remember on one of those days when the thought of you gives me phantom
pains. And I will want desperately to call you and sing to you like I used to.
But if you don’t ask me to, I won’t. I know that it’s a little too late, but I will take the blame for this.
I hope you never know I wrote you a letter, and I hope you don’t miss me, because the notion of
you needing me back as badly as I need you makes me sick to my stomach. Two-way streets are where
accidents happen. I hope you don’t miss me, but I wish you would.
Masquerade
Sarah Weintraub

The Street
Stephanie McCartney
Second Place
23
Color Dance
Honorable Mention
Olivia Frosch

24
Lunchtime
Molly Barstow
Third Place

As I walk through the yellow-tiled linoleum kitchen, I spot the white wooden door, with the slightly rusty and
age-worn brass doorknob. I turn it, and it yields with little protest as I swing open the cellar door and descend into
the abyss. Going down the thirteen creaky stairs, I see boxes piled up on a shelf to the right. I pick one up and feel
Cellar Door
a slight, cool breeze. I read the label: bike riding. I suddenly
find myself on a sunny knoll. It’s a late fall day, and my sister
is busy at her figure skating lessons. The crisp autumn air fills
my lungs and whips past my smiling face as I speed down the
hill, with the trees whizzing by me. I go faster, and faster, and faster, until suddenly I’m back on that fifth stair.
I place the box back on the shelf, pull a beautiful reddish gold maple leaf out of my hair, and continue
downwards. I reach the grey stone floor, and wince as my bare feet encounter its frigidity. Reaching up, I pull on the
small chain, and a single, naked, forty-watt bulb fills the room with a tired yellow light. I kneel down and blow the
dust off a storage bin marked Legos. I reach in, and am immediately upstairs in my living room, sifting through the
plastic jungle of pieces, looking for one of the perfect size and color needed to complete my latest creation. I find it,
and my face lights up as I click it into place and sprint around to the other side of the recently finished track. I pick
up the two cars that I had made earlier, and begin to race them, adding sound effects that are thousands of times
better than any you could find in a computer file because they are my own. The drivers are neck and neck, and the
squealing of brakes fills the room as I stand up slowly from the box, detecting the faint smell of burning rubber and
watching as the single bulb casts a weary shadow on the opposite wall.
I glance farther back, and see a cobweb hanging lazily from the top corner of a blue aluminum filing cabinet.
I walk over, and train my eyes on the middle drawer. I’m assaulted by a puff of stale air as I reach out and grab it.
I instantly pull my hand back as if the handle had been burning hot; hot enough to melt steel. I look down at my
hand, but it is the same, unblemished as it has always been except for the occasional childhood scrape or cut. Out of
nowhere, I’m filled with a sense of dread, and all my mind wants to do is to retreat, back to that cool autumn day,
back to my sunny living room, but again, my hand is drawn towards the handle. I grasp it, white knuckled, and find
myself waving goodbye to my mom, as Evan and I head off to the nearby school to skateboard. It’s a warm summer
day, but the heat is nowhere near as oppressive as it could have been. As we begin walking down my secluded street,
I hear a crow, unusual for this time of day and this season. I pass it off as nothing, and continue towards my school.
We each carry a board, and the rough sandpaper grip rubs against my arm. I shift my board as we begin to cross the
steet, and the sound of a glaring car horn getting nearer and nearer assaults my ears. But it’s only our neighbors,
honking hello to us. I wave back, and find myself already at the school’s basketball court. We put on our helmets, and
I tentatively inch along as Evan zooms around me. We both laugh at the difference of our riding styles, and he starts
to do wheelies, balancing expertly. I look jealously over at him, as he glides by a weeping willow. Not to be left out,
I build up speed, and lean back on the tail end of the board. Everything starts happening slowly. I can pinpoint the
exact moment when the board begins to fly out from under me, when I can see it rocket across the pavement, when
Matt Segal
I’m completely in the air, suspended above the unforgiving earth, when I reach out with my
elbow to break my fall. I land. Hard. But I feel fine. I get up, and then notice the dark maroon
stain, fouling the ground. I glance at my elbow and see the gash, leaking blood all over my shirt. My mind is racing
as I inhale a sharp, ragged breath and let it out in an ear-shattering scream that reverberates and echoes off every
surface in the cold, dark basement.
I jerk away from the cabinet, bathed in a frigid sweat, panting. My wild eyes flit down to my elbow and see
the scar there, exactly where it has always been. Trying to calm myself down, I turn around and head back to the
stairs, still cold, still scared, still adrenalized. I pass by dozens of cartons, each uniquely shaped, labeled and colored,
but I give them no notice. About to walk up the thirteen creaky stairs, I glance sadly at all of the boxes that I lack the
courage to unpack as I turn off the tired yellow light for the last time.
Honorable Mention

26
Joey’s Park
Jen Keefe
Mechanically rings a bell
Books drop, paints drop, blocks drop
Like falling rain of Thunder’s storm.
“Go single file up.”
In cadence fifty feet approach
The breath of recess. Yawns
Humidity through open doors.
Shoes clambering fast over lawn
Then cross black asphalt quick. From heat
Rise hazy tendrils of steam.
Like bugs that gravitate towards light
In summer, kids amass
Pointe Shoes
Kate Szostkowski
At Joey’s Park. The gravel gives,
Releasing wispy gas,
A cloud of dust, polluting lungs
Of young. Protecting high
Above the dust, a fortress---slides
Of metal, chains of fence,
Slade towers, wooden turrets---guards
All childhoods. Innocence
Remains untouched here. Sacred still
Is mud as worshipped by
Hands, sweaty, pink things, clutching Earth’s
Warm blanket under sky.
When grown remember how mud feels
With gravel at your heels.

27
Supply & Demand
Third Place
Brigitte Laukien

28
Cornucopia of Love
Lila Knisley

First Place
Lap
Leah Stansky
Lines Composed in My West Newton Home
Some restless nights I lie awake;
On others, quiet steps I take
To view through glass the silent world
And think that day is some mistake.
Brian Hoefling
A gentle snow begins to fall,
Obscuring land and buildings all,
Wished Christendom to join her thrall.
The yellow streetlight makes no glare,
And earth is stripped of all her cares.
Soft shadows ëround the street lie curled
And all is still in the cold night air.
The world is cleansed of all her sins,
And over chaos, stillness wins.
But such a peace is much too thin
When daybreak comes, and life begins.
29

Kick me again,
Just another time,
As you ruin my rhythm,
And smother my rhyme,
A Product of
the Game
Keep on laughing even after you’ve called me a disgrace,
All you friends stand by you, kicking dirt in my face,
And since OBVIOUSLY I don’t know my place,
You are more than ready, ready to erase,
My ways, my words, my wisdom and love,
But I’m not ready to fall and let my soul rise above,
I’ve just started down this fresh road,
But I guess since I don’t fit your code,
The “powers-that-be”
Have a problem with me,
Funny how the ones who marked my words with rage,
Are the ones who are trying to keep me in my cage,
What powerful feelings they gave to a lonesome child,
I guess they didn’t know I would have gone wild,
So I bite, I fight, I scream and I shout,
Because I know no other way to let my frustration out,
Now I’m breaking hearts, throwing loved ones to the floor,
And yet I still find I’m yearning, reaching for more!
Brigitte Laukien
Ruthi Aaron Behr
30

31
Rosela
Sarah Weintraub

32
Third Place
Untitled, Alec Long
Civil War
The two boys stumble across the threshold, dripping with sweat from the hike. The first is older,
with a grizzly beard and a long, flowing mane of hair bursting out of his helmet from all sides. He is much
larger, strong as a mule, and takes great pride in his physical dominance. The second, younger boy is leaner,
with sharper features. He carries a look of determination, despite his state of exhaustion. He has always
been the mouse to his brother’s lion, but his more reserved personality doesn’t keep him from remaining
competitive. The two wearily change out of their sweat drenched ski clothes with nothing but thoughts of
a hot tub and a nap on their minds, a relaxing end to a day of intense action.

Later that night, the brothers sit idly as they watch a movie on the couch, occasionally trading
sarcastic remarks about the on screen happenings. They sit in utter peace, a peace that is about to be
shattered and replaced by bitter rivalry. The elder turns to the younger and confidently asks, “Can I beat
you in a game?” He is met with a defiant, “You can try.” The game, of course, is the last pure sport on earth,
and the only true test of a man’s worth: foosball. Though misplayed by many, the truly skilled know just
how difficult it is to truly become a master. Both boys have been brought up on the game, and are among the
most talented men on earth, artfully controlling every twitch and shift of the little men skewered on metal
poles. The boys take their usual positions, the mouse fielding the red team while the lion fields the blue. The
elder hands the younger the ball to drop ceremoniously into play, a sign of his perceived superiority, giving
up an advantage he feels he doesn’t need. The ball is dropped begrudgingly into play as opposing sides tense,
both aware of the war about to be waged.
The older brother jumps out ahead to a quick three-nothing lead with a series of powerful and
accurate wrist shots, using his strength to his advantage. “It looks like you’ve lost a step,” he confidently
boasts, an insult his younger counterpart has learned to bear without words. In silence, he shoves the
ball back into play, ready for another bout, consumed by his focus. He quickly fires a half field shot past
his brother’s defenders, putting himself on the scoreboard and showing that despite his slimmer frame,
he too can hammer the ball. “All luck,” his older brother quickly retorts as he takes the ball out of his own
net, disappointment evident in his eyes. “Mine always are,” replies the younger, used to such excuses. The
battle rages on in this fashion, both fully aware of the pride that is on the line. The two boys stand at the
table, sweating inexplicably considering the minimal movement required, as they read the scoreboard: nine
to nine. Game point, sudden death, a winner take all battle for foosball supremacy, and the title of greatest
man on earth that comes with the foosball crown. The boys grip their handles with such ferocity that the
bars bend slightly under the strain, and the game’s pace is moved to a new level. The ball flies around the
table as if propelled by wings, slamming into the walls with resounding thuds; it’s a wonder the ball doesn’t
split in two. Suddenly struck with an eerie calm, the younger brother gains control of the ball, and with two
quick passes fakes out his brother’s defenders. He knows the shot is going in before he even strikes the ball.
The ball flies into the net with such force that it manages to fly out of the hole in the back, hitting the heater
with a satisfying “ping” and falling motionless on the floor. The elder slams his fists down on the table in
pure rage, shaking the entire house with the force of his blow. He is filled with shame, bested by his “feeble”
younger brother. The younger brother stands still in complete silence, proud of his victory, but afraid of how
his brother will take defeat. The anticipation builds as they both stand still for what seems like an eternity.
Slowly, the older mountain of a man picks his head up from the table to say just one word: “Again.”
Matt McGuinness
First Place
33

Chains of Inheritance
Brigitte Laukien
the rising dust in this lifeless town
comes up only enough to suffocate the youth down.
clogging up their innocent, struggling lungs,
until, at last, a hero comes
to save them from the dark ways of old.
if only one of them were that bold,
that brave, that unique, that strong,
to teach the old that they were wrong.
to inspire the uninspired, and take action.
so one day, young and old could feel satisfaction.
and break free from their self-imposed chains
in this stolid town where the skies forgot how to rain.
break the mold, and speak for all to hear,
and for once not live silenced by fear.
if only the youth would wake-up,
and show the adults it isn’t too late to make-up
for the lives they let pass them by
for the kids they left alone to learn to fly.
after all, in this dying, desolate town,
where all faces are marked with a frown,
what are the adults here, but children that waited too long?
Generations Molly Barstow
34

Scattered Sarah Weintraub
35
The Death of a Father
You looked so little when you answered the door.
Press 1 to listen to your voicemail.
“I need you, call when you can”
That’s how I knew he was gone.
You looked so little when you answered the door.
I didn’t know how to help you.
I grabbed you.
Your face pressed into my shoulder,
You shivered
And I held onto your hair.
The grief, like cold air, sunk deep into your bones.
I tried to protect you,
To let you know I was there
But the pain held you tighter than I ever could have.
Convulsing,
You told me
“I miss my dad.”
Those words grabbed me,
Robbed the breath from my lungs.
White-knuckled, I clenched you closer.
I didn’t know how to help you.
With each heave of your back,
Each tear on my shoulder,
The clamp on my chest tightened.
First Place
You looked so little when you answered the door.
I had you right there in my arms,
Right there in the doorway,
But I couldn’t save you from the cold.
Shannon Deady

Second Place
Guitar
Alex Marz
Mmm... I Wanna
Linger Olivia Frosch
36
Untitled, Anonymous
My eyes try to pierce through
The fog who lives below
While the cliff holds my feet before hell
Disaster grapples at my back
its frigid breath lingers across my neck.
Freedom sleeps beneath me,
Cradled in Death’s sweet release.
Forward or Back?
Forward, back
I close my eyes and take step.

Giraffes
Kat Gourinovich
37

Leap Kate Szostkowski
Liberty
A bird is free; it dives and flies,
Exchanging dirt for solitary skies.
A fish is free: beneath the sea,
In public reef, or cavern’s privacy.
A dragonfly has not a care;
His home’s untamed and he controls the air.
A tick, a pest, is free to suck
The blood of any beast caught by bad luck.
Even a rat is free to live,
And scurry, lay, and feast on what arrives.
A man is free to be alone;
A roach is free to feed his self and own.
But I am always monitored,
Contained, and watched like I’m a prisoner.
My privacy’s forbidden, so that
I am, to you, less human than a rat.
Jon Cryan
38

What we don’t understand we can make mean anything.
Chuck Palahniuk