Rowana Miller - Portfolio

He Who Builds the Mechanical Ficuses

6/4/2018

His workshop is choked with sawdust and crusted with cobwebs, which shouldn’t be possible, since he rarely leaves. He fancies himself a Tim-Burton-meets-Lewis-Carroll. Sometimes he falls asleep in a pile of nuts and bolts, and when he wakes up, he finds the silhouette of a gear imprinted into his cheek.

He calls this suffering for his craft. He self-identifies as an artist, which is a little pretentious for someone who can’t tell the difference between oil and acrylic. He gets hungry sometimes, but rarely, choosing instead to subsist on a diet of vitamin powder and misery. Occasionally, he sips from a perpetually-replenishing glass of red wine that he leaves on the windowsill of a window whose blinds are always shut. On second thought, maybe he is pretentious enough.

He’s too young for this. Maybe he’s not even out of high school. He wishes he could grow a foot-long beard for dramatic effect, but he knows that (a) that’s just not going to happen alongside his wispy hair and acne and (b) it’d be impractical anyway, since the beard would get caught in his jigsaw, and the thought of that alone makes him wince. Besides, it’s not like anyone would see it. No one comes into his workshop. No one has since --

He’s not a recluse by nature. But he read one too many Henry David Thoreau essays and he disagreed with them so vehemently that he found that he actually agreed. Except humans shouldn’t allow nature to manufacture them. Humans should manufacture nature. No one else, just him and the mechanical ficuses, stiff and gleaming against the lonesome attic wind.

He knows that to others, the plants appear to be nothing more than Audrey II knockoffs. The others would never understand. They'd never be able to comprehend what it's like to live in and out of dreaming -- lucid dreams, fever dreams, the occasional bout of sleep paralysis -- and to be able to cling to nothing but these plants, carefully constructed from the tangible excesses of his pain. They could call him lofty, aloof, clichéd. That’s all true, whether or not he'd deign to refer to his emotional state as angst. But what does it matter? In his self-satisfaction, he is at peace.

10:09 and 34 Seconds

6/11/2017

It was 10:09 and 34 seconds when the clocks stopped. They didn’t notice until at least 10:17, or maybe 10:21 -- of course there was no way to tell.

An eleventh grader was in school at the time. History. Some obscure Vietnam battle that involved choking on napalm and drowning in quicksand, and he was wondering whether you still call it drowning when someone sinks into mud because mud isn’t quite a liquid, and then that reminded him of Chemistry and he really needed to finish that titration lab. And then he remembered that Chemistry was next period, so he checked the clock, and it said that it was 10:09 and 34 seconds. Fine. He still had some time to go.

Meanwhile, a businesswoman was giving a presentation about budget cuts. The grey-walled room was too cold, but she’d look terribly unprofessional if she darted out to get her winter coat. She mused internally that an excellent way to save company money would be to refrain from turning on the air conditioner before April. The cold was tolerable, though, because otherwise, she might have perspired into the wrinkles that were quite obstinately forming around her eyes. Robotic words rushed out of her mouth. She was too well-rehearsed; she sounded stilted; they would never let another women lead an accounting team. No, that wasn’t true, and she knew it. It didn’t matter how she sounded; no one in that room cared about her presentation, not even the superiors who pretended to be taking notes but were more likely sketching small buffalo on their college-ruled paper. She glanced at the clock. It was 10:09 and 34 seconds. Only five more minutes before she could ask, “Any questions?”

A soldier crouched beneath a mud-smothered boulder, muscles tensed in a lunge, ears tilted into the wind, listening for a signal.

A dog waited for its stay-at-home-dad owner to clip on its leash for their midmorning walk.

A doctor watched a heart monitor tremble until it was almost flat.

None of them, except the dog, had gotten much sleep the night before. Five hours and twenty-seven minutes, or seven hours and fifty-two minutes, or three hours and twelve minutes, or something like that. They didn’t appreciate that luxury, then, the ability to snatch their alarm clocks off their bedside tables and fumble in the darkness of sleep until they’d smacked the snooze buttons and the beeping ceased. They didn’t appreciate the beeping, either. But once they lost it, it sounded like music in their memories.

But that’s what they thought it was. Lack of sleep. One extremely long second.

“So this is what it’s like for time to stop.”

They all said it -- except, once again, the dog. Not all at the same time. The student was first, a muttered wisecrack. It evoked a few whispered chuckles. “What’s so funny?” his teacher snapped, and he pointed to the clock. The teacher stared at the frozen second hand, and then at her watch, and then at the time in the corner of her computer screen. Her skin turned the color of the walls in the businesswoman’s conference room.

The soldier was the last to say it. By that point, it had become a swear. He wiped the grime off his stopwatch and slid it deep into his pocket, then tugged the zipper shut.

The dog pawed at its owner’s knee and released three high-pitched whines. Like the beep of an alarm.

One of the businesswoman’s superiors laid down his pad and pen. It wasn’t a buffalo. It was a flamingo. She’d been close enough, and she would have congratulated herself on her guess if it hadn’t meant that he’d been ignoring her presentation. “I don’t suppose your proposal accounts for time stopping. What do you suggest we do now?”

The doctor watched weak tremors shake the patient’s body. Only a few more seconds. A few more seconds and she would have died.

For the end of time, it was terribly uneventful. The principal came on over the loudspeaker in the student’s school. He expected some apocalyptic warning, something about North Korea figuring out how to bomb time itself -- you never know with their nuclear development program. They could’ve made a wrong turn somewhere in the Pacific in an attempt to surprise-annihilate California and ended up at the center of the earth, and discovered some Great Clock to End All Clocks, and planted some nukes right at 10:09 and 34 seconds just to see what would happen. He wouldn’t have put it past North Korea (and the soldier wouldn’t have, either; he was thinking something like this as well, but with more colorful language). But the principal didn’t mention North Korea. She said: “Good morning, Garfield High. Seniors, the deadline for prom dues is this Friday. Congratulations to the girls’ bowling team for their win against Hayes Tech, pushing our bowlers into the city finals. Also, there seems to have been a mishap with the clocks. All clocks. So today, I’ll come back on the loudspeaker every time you should switch classes.”

The soldier fumbled at the buttons on his radio, then pried a layer of mud off the antenna. He had to speak to his commanding officer. No answer.

The student went to Chemistry. His titration was mediocre.

The dog finally gave up and shat in the pot of an ornamental tree.

“Your mother is still alive. But she shouldn’t be.” The doctor turned to her patient’s children. Nineteen and twenty-four years old. “Her suffering would have ended if it had ever been 10:10.”

“I suppose that we proceed as normal.” The businesswoman finally sat down. Her heels ached from the stress of standing in pumps for who-even-knows-how-long (certainly not her, seeing as the clocks had stopped). “We pretend that time is still alive.”

So they pretended.

They trickled out of work at different points; rush hour was in a constant, murky limbo. The student got home half a day earlier than his father, who had been at a doctor’s appointment. Unmoving and alone on the living room couch, the student spent the afternoon dialing the first nine digits of his father’s cell phone number and then cancelling the call. His father was fine. He must have been fine. It was just this stupid thing with the clocks. It didn’t mean that the doctors were sending him from testing room to testing room, compressing his flesh and extracting his blood and analyzing his tissue. It didn’t mean that he had leukemia. He’d just lost track of time. It was still light out when he dragged himself through the door, bags pronounced under his eyes, but muttering, “The tests were negative.”

The soldier’s radio buzzed with static. Still no connection. Fucking North Koreans. He pressed himself to the floor of the forest, wondering if there was quicksand in Hawaii, or more specifically, whether there was quicksand in this particular half-jungle-half-plain. Back to base. He took a gulp of air and plunged his face into the mud, reaching forward to clasp a nearby rock, and pulled himself through the thick sludge. His muscles trembled. Back to base. Back to base.

The businesswoman found her roommate in bed clutching a Trader Joe’s bag, in which there lay a stack of seven trays of microwavable macaroni. “Some manager flipped out while I was getting tomorrow’s carrots. Something about North Korea. Anyway, he figured we should all prepare for the apocalypse, and started chucking premade food at everyone. It was free.”

The doctor didn’t come home from work that night. She wasn’t tired, but even if she were, it wouldn’t matter. She sat with the patient’s children as they stared at their convulsing mother. It was quiet except for the patient’s sporadic gasps. But eventually, the children started to talk. To tell stories. The doctor listened as they muttered memories about riding motorcycles across the Dominican Republic campo, dirt and dust spraying behind them, their mother at the front of the pack. Soil from beneath her wheels splashed upward and coated her children, said the nineteen-year-old. They blinked dirt out of stinging eyes and kept riding. The clocks stayed silent.

“You had to pick the honey locust?” The dog’s owner pulled a pair of disposable gloves over his hands, the minty rubber snapping as it coated his fingers, and scooped the dog shit out of the pot. “I’m sorry, bud. Let’s go pick up the kids. They should be out of school by now.”

Back to base. Back to base. The soldier was almost there, goddamnit. The mud had seeped into his clothes, clammy and leaden against his skin, and bugs swam through the sludge to chew on his hands and face. Back to base.

The student’s mother eventually dragged herself through the door. Wordlessly, she held up three packs of Trader Joe’s frozen dumplings and staggered toward the microwave. The student eased the dumplings out of his mother’s arms. “I’ll get them ready,” he told her. “You should take a shower.”

The sun didn’t go down that night.

For the first time in months, the businesswoman awoke feeling like she’d slept enough. But then bleary contentment gave way to panic. Surely they’d never promote her now -- she must have been hours and hours late -- She snatched her sheet off her legs and hurled it onto the floor. Her roommate was still curled inside a blanket, the sunlight swirling patterns on her skin. “Wake the hell up, Cynthia,” growled the businesswoman.

“North Korea claims no responsibility for the disaster,” said George Stephanopoulos, staring straight into the camera with his signature serious smile. The doctor clicked off the hospital television and exchanged a glance with the patient’s children. Their eyes were puffy and half-closed. Did North Korea really matter? The patient grunted softly, and her limbs tightened again. Leukemia was a bitch every time. All the time. Too much time. No time at all.

It didn’t matter how much the businesswoman slept, because when she checked her email, work was cancelled.

School too. Still in bed, clutching his blanket to his chest, the student scrolled through his Twitter feed. “NORTH KOREA has stopped time! Or was it MEXICO? Bad hombres! SAD!” said the president.

“Honorable discharge.” The soldier froze, mud dripping from his outstretched arm, and stared at his commander. “No fucking way. The North Koreans are going to pay for this.”

A new Tweet. The businesswoman refreshed her home page. She hadn’t even bothered to peel off her pajamas. “Change of PLANS. NORTH KOREA is innocent!! Kim Jong-un is with me at Mar-a-Lago to draft a cease-fire. Tremendous! Still might be MEXICO though.”

“Like I said. Honorable discharge. We all got them. Orders came in a few hours -- never mind. I’m going home too. The whole battalion.”

Eventually, the doctor slept. She’d fought it and lost. The patient’s children succumbed too. Four twitching bodies, three draped over chairs, one flat on the bed.

The president announced a tentative peace with North Korea.

The businesswoman got an email telling her that the employees were all instructed to work from home. A temporary change. They advised her to make a Skype account.

The student trickled in and out of school. His Chemistry teacher never asked him to turn in his lab report, which was great, because he’d never gotten around to it. He didn’t have enough time.

The soldier visited his parents’ graves first, then searched for his kid brother. Should have been with an aunt. But instead, he was in the hospital, and the aunt was off at fucking bingo night. Apparently, there'd been complications after getting his wisdom teeth out. “Goddamnit, Matt. This is just like you. Had to go and screw up your mouth right when it'll never heal.”

The dog’s owner started taking the dog for walks whenever he remembered, which was often but not aggravatingly so. On the walks, the dog’s collar jingled gleefully as it trotted past mailboxes and street lamps, taking care not to impale its paw pads on stray heroin needles. The dog didn't mind, even though it noticed with a kind of fuzzy understanding that the number of needles had increased recently -- from raindrops scattering the ground to a flood. Whatever. As long as the dog could shit, he was happy.

“Adios, Mamí.” His face numbing into a rubber mask, the twenty-four-year old eased the life support plug out of the outlet.

The businesswoman stopped watching television news. It only repeated the same thing: all wars had been put on pause, not by the stopping of time itself, but in reaction to it. The governments had agreed that there were more important priorities than blowing each other up.

“I guess I'm unemployed now,” the soldier told his brother. “I'll stay with you for a few more days, but I have to start looking for a new job. Okay, man?”

The heart monitor continued to shiver. “I don't understand it,” muttered the doctor. “Time shouldn't do this.”

An undertaker sold his shop to an art gallery. No customers of late.

The businesswoman hadn't worn her pumps in a week, nor did she intend to allow them to pinch her feet for at least another. Her permanent uniform of pajamas was, though it featured the lumps of macaroni weight sliding in the flesh of her stomach, comfortable enough to lull her into the pleasant wooziness that made her suspect that perhaps this was a lovely dream. The superiors sent her emails every half hour now. She did the calculations in a daze. My goodness, she thought. I sure hope this is more than temporary.

Fairly arbitrarily, the student graduated. His father didn't have to use his old wheelchair. His mother wasn't too strangled by work to attend. They gave him flowers when he stepped down from the stage, and he said, “For what?”

The hospital staff informally renamed the ICU “The Crypt.”

The soldier plucked dust off his old suit, which was now a size or two too tight for him, the bulk of his muscles straining through cheap wool. He stared at the Wendy’s sign. Hospital bills were adding the hell up. Pride be damned, the soldier opened the ketchup-splattered glass door.

The dog’s owner wasn't as eager to go on walks anymore. There was an undefinable heaviness about him. The dog wished that its owner would get over himself and buy some tennis balls that weren't damp and scraggly.

The president held a press conference to say that the 2020 election would be held soon, although of course he couldn't say when. The Democrats squeezed a scarecrow into a suit and shoved it behind a podium.

Apple announced that the iPhone 8 wouldn’t have a clock function.

The scarecrow won the election. The president -- now the ex-president -- privately bemoaned his inability to die. One of his aides leaked the quote to the New York Times: “In a big bomb. That's how I'd do it. I'd get the biggest bomb, and I'd take it to North Korea myself, so I could kill Kim Jong-un in the process. And then -- boom!”

North Korea was too busy fighting a famine to care. The eggshells of peace stayed uncracked.

And time went on.

Except it didn’t.

Untried and Untrue: The United States is Failing to Establish Justice by Refusing Guantánamo Detainees Fair Trials

4/3/2017

Justices agree that the Fifth Amendment guarantees “the fundamental conception of a fair trial,” but they dispute whether only citizens, or noncitizens, too, are entitled to this conception. However, when the Bush Administration chose to deny Guantánamo detainees the right to a fair trial prior to incarceration, it made an executive decision that only citizens may enjoy the Constitution’s protections. This was a misinterpretation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, whose protections extend to noncitizens, including foreign nationals; therefore, the United States government must grant the Guantánamo prisoners immediate trials so that it can uphold “due process of law” and “establish justice” within the country.

When the Framers first wrote the Preamble, their dedication to establishing justice stemmed from British mistreatment of American soldiers during the Revolutionary War. In a letter instructing his troops to “treat [British prisoners of war] with humanity,” Washington cautioned his men against letting the prisoners have “reason to Complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British Army in their Treatment of our Unfortunate brethren who have fallen into their hands.” The Framers included Washington’s notion of humane treatment in the “establish justice” clause, providing prisoners with “the opportunity to hear and understand the charge… [and] have a fair and speedy trial,” as described by historian W. Cleon Skousen.

The first justice-establishing legislation was the Fifth Amendment, which was shaped by John Adams’s defense of the British soldiers in the Boston Massacre trial. Although it was an unpopular case, Adams determined that the soldiers, who had been accused of murdering colonial citizens, deserved to be tried before a jury. He later reflected that his defense was “one of the best pieces of service [he] ever rendered [his] country.” Jacob G. Hornberger, president of The Future of Freedom Foundation, agreed with Adams’s belief that justice should be established by affording trials to citizens and noncitizens alike. Hornberger argued that this was reflected in the Fifth Amendment, which uses the word “person” rather than “citizen” when decreeing that “[n]o person… shall be compelled in any criminal case to be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

Because the Fifth Amendment did not specify outright whether it applied to noncitizens, though, Congress later added the Fourteenth Amendment to ensure that the Fifth Amendment’s protections would extend to anyone in the States. The Fourteenth Amendment determined that “[no] State [shall] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.” This addition of a States’ Jurisdiction Clause led the Human Rights Committee to argue that the Constitution “appl[ies] to everyone… irrespective of his or her nationality or statelessness.”

As a result, the practice of denying terrorist suspects fair trials violates the ideology of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Georgetown Law Professor David Cole argued that foreign terrorist suspects should be protected by the Mathews v. Eldridge Test -- a Supreme Court standard, derived from the Constitution, which determines when it is appropriate for the government to remove a person’s liberty. The test does not differentiate between citizens and noncitizens. Therefore, terrorist suspects should be afforded trials before their liberty is removed; as Cole writes, “[i]t is generally just as much an imposition on a foreign national's physical freedom to be locked up as it is an imposition on a citizen's freedom.”

However, because Guantánamo prisoners’ treatment does not violate the actual wording of the Constitution (which asserts that people in the states must receive fair trials), the Bush Administration argued that its actions were constitutionally permissible. Because the detainment facility is in Cuba rather than in any of the fifty states, the Administration decided that the States’ Jurisdiction Clause did not apply to Guantánamo. When describing the Administration’s argument in the 2008 Supreme Court case Boumediene v. Bush, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that “[t]he Government contends that noncitizens designated as enemy combatants and detained in territory located outside our Nation’s borders have no constitutional rights.”

However, the Supreme Court ruled in Boumediene that the laws of the Constitution also apply in U.S. territories, so the Bush Administration failed to uphold justice by denying Guantánamo detainees fair trials. As the Boumediene majority opinion said, “Even when the United States acts outside its borders, its powers are not ‘absolute and unlimited’ but are subject ‘to such restrictions as are expressed in the Constitution.’” The only way to right this constitutional wrong is to immediately provide each prisoner with a trial. The Obama Administration began to do this but encountered complications. However, as the Supreme Court indicated, the Constitution laid the foundation for justice that will allow it to prevail in America’s future. As Kennedy so eloquently put it, “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times. Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law.”

The Lowly Must Stay Low

2/18/2017

India, 402 C.E.

Your limbs are soaked in sweat and shame. Damp cloth clings to your skin as you crouch beneath the deodar tree, clutching its gnarled roots and envying the woodpecker that arches its vibrant breast on the branch above you. You pull your own burlap tunic closer to your chest. None of your light will leak out of you. You will not allow that.

A prayer bubbles out of your lips, a plea for forgiveness, because you know how many laws upon which you are trampling. But learning the words of the Brahmin—learning how life is stitched and kneaded and wrung out—is worth any sacrifice, even disobeying the laws of your caste. You need this knowledge like your brother needed water during the desert weeks last year, and you prayed for rain then, but your brother shriveled beyond survival anyway. He did not want life enough. You do. You refuse to let yourself shrivel.

You press yourself deep into the tree trunk and become one with the rough grain of the wood, melting your features down to conceal yourself from the sage who will lead his disciples into the forest as soon as the sun begins to dip. Even that sun will skim over your skin without illuminating your thirsty ears. You have attempted this many times, but your Amma dragged you from the shadows or you felt the Universal Spirit commanding you to flee or one of the cows died especially brutally, your ax hacking at its neck as it wailed a waterfall of agony, and you were too empty to learn.

But today. Today, Amma is squinting at shoe patterns, and the Universal Spirit is quiet, and the cows accepted your whispered apologies as you swung your ax. Today, you will forget about shoes and cows. Your ears will become the ears of a Brahmin.

(But your heart will always remain the heart of a dalit.)

The Brahmin were rumored to drink nectar for wine as the sages spouted golden truths. No one could be certain, though, for the Brahmin would never discourse of such matters, and no one else who entered the forest of truth was able to exit without revealing himself as a member of a lowly caste. And if that happened, the man would bare himself and sob, stripped of dignity and steeped in shame, and forever refused to speak about purity. You are not that man. You will be the first to verify the rumors. You will feel the golden truths cascading into your ears and winding through your ribs.

Your breath fades to silence as you see the sage begin to sweep from between two distant trees. He glows, and you long to glow with him, but you remind yourself that a moment of lightness will bring you an eternity of darkness. The sage and his pupils appear to glide across the uneven earth before settling under the deodar tree only steps away from yours. Your fear is smothered by the goldenness inside you, whose tendrils yearn to stretch toward the group of Brahmins.

“Today,” begins the sage, his voice tumbling from his throat, “I will teach you the story of Karna.”

These are the words, the golden words that you cannot fathom are flowing into your ears. These are the words you are destined to hear. You know that being a dalit does not matter, not in this moment, because the Universal Spirit is sending you this blessing. Laws are nothing when this much certainty blossoms inside you; any technicalities about who is or is not allowed to hear the goldenness cannot possibly apply. For who would deny you this beauty, this purity?

“Karna was a disciple of Parashurama. But when Karna approached his future mentor for the first time, he knew that he would not be taken on as a pupil if Parashurama knew that Karna had been raised by a simple charioteer. So Karna lied about his caste.”

You are unfamiliar with this story—you are unfamiliar with most of the Mahabharata—but you suddenly have no desire to hear more of it.

“Karna was a good pupil. He learned his master’s lessons to the point of perfection, like I expect you all to do for me. But you, of course, are all true Brahmin, not loathed pretenders. You will never be sinners like Karna.”

You feel yourself growing cold.

“One day—this was even after Parashurama had deemed Karna a master of Hinduism—Parashurama had fallen asleep on Karna’s legs. A scorpion scuttled up to the two and bit Karna’s thigh. However, in an attempt not to wake his master, Karna bore his pain in silence. But the blood leaked down into Parashurama’s ear, and he opened his eyes despite Karna’s efforts.”

The gold is not gold any more. It is lead, dripping into your blood and poisoning you.

“Parashurama was livid. He believed that only a Kshatriya could experience such extreme pain without crying out, and thus, Parashurama realized Karna’s falsehood. Parashurama cursed Karna to forget all his knowledge of the Universal Spirit.”

You try to unpeel yourself from the tree—you no longer care if you are discovered, do not care if you become the fabled naked man in the forest of truth—but your limbs have fused to the wood.

“Now, what can you learn from Karna?”

The students answer in an obedient chorus: “That the lowly must stay low.”

This piece won a Gold Key in the 2017 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.

Dear America

1/29/2017

i am sorry.
you never had a chance to be a child, did you? never
swaddled between cotton and iridescence.
or perhaps you were always a child.
i am sorry.

they tore your numb fetus out from your mother’s womb,
doused you with an ointment mixed with the rubble of revolution.
it was thick and suffocating against newborn skin.
and they probed your quivering body and said,
be big.

you unfurled your soft limbs and they jabbed your heel with
a quill. ink hardened into cement inside your veins.
your parents encased you in clay and sung victory marches
when you wailed. they stroked your wispy hair, murmured
that you were their homunculus.

you grasped the air, your fingers curling into a fist as they sought
the warm hand that maybe once held you when you cried.
but your blurry brain, folded like a blanket,
sculpted that memory as clumsily as it instructed your feet to
toddle across glass shards and ashes.

sometimes you tripped. gravel scraped your knees, beads of
failure lodged in the cement clumps infiltrating your bloodstream.
you ignored the stinging of open skin as you lunged at your cousins,
your chubby fingers hurling pellets of fire at their scrambling torsos.

at family reunions, you played dress-up with your father’s
suits, and you clasped a wine glass with hands too little
to reach all the way around the stem. all the adults pretended, too.
they asked you about your territories, which were your favorite
playgrounds because they had twisty slides and new friends.

you got spoiled. at some point, you acquired two pets:
an elephant and a donkey. you liked to take turns riding them,
your smooth hands clutching soft fur. spit dribbled out
from between your lips as the rhythmic rocking of hooves
sung you a lullaby. your fingers twitched in your sleep.

your cousins stopped throwing fire and started pelting something
shinier. rattles? yes, rattles. maybe there was candy shivering inside,
trapped, yearning to breathe free from its plastic prison.
alone on a barren battlefield, sprawled on a cushion of bodies,
you shook one of the rattles, pretending the ack-ack-ack was rain on your nursery window.

the other day, someone scooped you up, and you clung to him.
no one had ever held you without bathing you in flames
or drowning you in oil. you teethed on strong hands, real this time,
and they tucked you inside the breast of a suit — his suit, not yours.
and you didn’t care what the man inside the suit said or did because you thought you were safe and warm at last.

We’re, Like, Redefining “Like”: Let's End the Crusade Against Imprecise Speech

12/6/2016

Your high school English teacher insisted it was true, and it’s been engrained in your mind ever since: the colloquial use of the word “like” is poison to the English language. It’s sloppy speech. It’s lazy talk. It’s what happens when young people have too many iPhones and too few school punishments that involve balancing dictionaries on their heads. But in dismissing “like” as pure space filler, we’re ignoring the truly important ways that the word influences the meaning of a sentence. “Like” isn’t the new “um”; it’s an indicator of the meaning of words that follow it. It’s time to recognize the specific situations for which “like” adds much-needed nuance, and eventually, to accept the word into the official lexicon.

Re-definition #1: An indicator that the speaker is about to do an impression of someone, rather than simply quote him or her.
Example: “She was like, ‘Girl, I don’t know you.’”
The speaker isn’t just relaying information here; if he or she were, it would be very easy to use “said.” But “said” is inadequate if the speaker is about to convey the person’s speech patterns or physical mannerisms as well as his or her words. “Like” encompasses a broad range of verbs that include how the person spoke, rather than just which words he or she used.

Re-definition #2: An indicator that the rest of the sentence is hyperbole.
Example: “The peach pit was, like, the size of a mouse.”
Was the peach pit actually the size of a mouse? No. But because this is only faint hyperbole, it’s certainly possible that the listener might assume that the peach pit was really this large. The insertion of the word “like” removes the chance of this misunderstanding. “Like” is used in place of the longer and more awkward “something like” to show the listener that the speaker won’t finish the story in a way that’s exactly true to reality.

Re-definition #3: An indicator that the rest of the sentence is less specific than it may appear.
Example: “I saw Sarah, like, an hour ago.”
Much like hyperbole, the listener knows intuitively that the part of the sentence that follows the word “like” isn’t 100% precise. But here, rather than exaggeration, “like” shows that the speaker him- or herself doesn’t quite remember the exact details. Maybe the speaker saw Sarah an hour and fifteen minutes ago. Maybe the speaker saw Sarah fifty minutes ago. The speaker’s use of “like” shows that he or she is describing a range of time, despite only directly refering to one specific moment.

Re-definition #4: An indicator that the following word isn’t exactly what the speaker means.
Example: “I put the, like, blanket on my bed.”
There’s a reason that non-native English speakers adopt the word “like” so quickly. It’s a very useful way to say, “I’m not expressing myself perfectly, but the words that follow are pretty close to what I’m thinking.” Mybe the speaker didn’t put the blanket on the bed; maybe he or she put the bedspread on the bed, or maybe the blanket was an afghan rather than a comforter. “Like” tells the listener that there’s an approximation coming up.

Re-definition #5: [Similar to #4] An indicator that the speaker isn’t quite sure of his or her own intention.
Example: “I’m kind of, like, angry about it.”
Sometimes, the issue isn’t that the speaker can’t communicate exactly what he or she is thinking; the issue is that the speaker doesn’t know it him- or herself. In this example, the speaker might not be angry. He or she is probably experiencing a complex mixture of emotions that can’t be precisely described by one word, but “angry” is the closest label that the speaker can find. The word “like” informs the listener of the speaker’s internal turmoil.

These re-definitions are all related in that they’re indicators that the rest of the sentence conveys a broader meaning than its words imply. This could be interpreted in two ways: that people aren’t choosing their next words with enough care, or that it’s acceptable — even encouraged — for the following words to be perceived loosely. So the debate over whether or not the word “like” is lazy talk doesn’t really have to do with that word at all; it’s much more about whether or not it’s lazy talk to have the option to apply a loose meaning to words that are traditionally specific.

It seems to me that it’s too constricting to limit words to only their exact definitions. As the linguistic inventor Lewis Carroll wrote, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” Language should match the way we think, and thoughts are sometimes hazy. I could even argue that it’s overconfident never to use “like,” since that’s refusing to admit that you sometimes can’t perfectly convey your thoughts. The problem arises when we rely too much on loose meanings to the point at which we’re no longer communicating clearly. After all, another goal of language is to distill complex thoughts into universally understandable sentences. When we use “like” in every phrase, everything becomes ambiguous, so we can’t understand each other at all. That’s why we need to strike a balance between underusing and overusing “like.” But in order to do that, we need to give the word some degree of linguistic legitimacy. So let’s accept the word into the upper echelons of speech. It’s time to end the crusade against “like.”

Please Don’t Kill My Future: A Sixteen-Year-Old’s Open Letter to President-Elect Trump

11/20/2016

Dear Mr. Trump,

I wonder if, during your campaign, you ever considered the lives of my generation. I wonder if you ever questioned whether your presidency could actually kill us, whether your policies or the people you've encouraged or the countries you've insulted could actually cause our deaths. And I truly hope that the possibility never crossed your mind. Because if it had, then you’d be aware of what your presidency will mean for my generation: that we’ll die before we’re old enough to enjoy the futures that we’ve spent our childhoods working to create.

My generation has been raised in a future-oriented world; we’re taught that we need to make sacrifices now so that we can succeed when we’re older. Score good grades in middle school so we can get into high school. Join extracurricular activities in high school so we can get into college. Serve internships in college so we can build careers that we’re passionate about when we’re adults. It’s this end goal -- our careers -- that provides us with the motivation to succeed right now. As a result, we prioritize work and school over hobbies and friends, reducing our short-term happiness in order to increase our long-term happiness when we finally get to do what we love.

Your presidency has shattered the expectation that we will live long enough to have that happy future. Many of us feel personally threatened that we'll get killed or severely harmed by your administration; even if you don't issue death warrants yourself, you've empowered the white supremacists who now have the confidence and political support to freely murder minorities. Your campaign provided a platform for former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, who regularly expresses his desire to exterminate Jews and African-Americans -- how many more supporters will he, and other leaders of hate groups, gain when you're actually in office?

Your own policies, as well, will indirectly (and sometimes even directly) kill members of my generation. The teenage Syrian refugee to whom you'll deny entrance to the country -- without the safety we could provide, what will happen to her? The young Latino you’ll deport, born illegally in America to parents from different Hispanic countries -- he’s not going to have any country to live in, and without a home, what will happen to him? The pregnant child rape victim whose pregnancy is threatening her life -- she can no longer get an abortion, so what will happen to her? What will happen to any of us?

But the greatest threat to our safety isn't coming from your policies, even with their condonement of conversion therapy and sexual assault; it's coming from the likelihood of you starting a nuclear war. You've made multiple comments about bombing any countries with whom you disagree. But when you blow up North Korea, it will retaliate. And it won't discriminate between blacks and whites, women and men, gays and straights. North Korea will simply bomb us all.

And that bomb won't just kill our physical bodies; it will also kill the metaphorical futures that we’ve been striving toward. So I implore you: please surround yourself with advisors who will help you protect our country’s youth. It’s crucial to our nation’s survival to have a healthy, thriving future generation that will continue developing America into the shining country that it has the potential to become. In your victory speech last night, you emphasized the importance of unity. It is for my generation’s sake that yours must unify America. As the Preamble of our Constitution instructs, it’s your duty to promote the general welfare, not only for yourself, but for your posterity.

Sincerely,
Rowana Miller

I Remember Your Face Exactly

10/28/2016

I remembered your face exactly. You didn’t remember mine.

The first time you were on my train, you didn’t think I was paying attention to you. I could tell. You kept flicking your eyes in my direction, then staring at the patch of blackened gum next to my boot when you determined that you’d been looking at me for too long. You weren’t very good at calculating that interval of time. Sometimes you would examine me for half a second, sometimes for at least five-eighths of a minute. Your inconsistency was intriguing. I think my apparent disinterest made you feel more comfortable.

I wasn’t disinterested.

I was looking at you, too. I noticed the seven pins on your backpack, each one advocating for a different liberal cause. Right to choose. Gay marriage, even though that’s long settled. Even anti-TPP. That impressed me, that you would be against TPP, that you were knowledgeable enough and cared enough about it to jab that pin through your backpack fabric. Your backpack was black, with red detailing. The anti-TPP pin was on top of one of the red accents at a roughly 37-degree angle. I remember that.

And your face. Logically speaking, it was plain. Your nose was slightly curved and your eyes were dull brown. But you knew where your face was average, and instead of enhancing those places, you drew attention to their averageness. You’d sketched silver streaks across your waterlines -- to illuminate your dull brown eyes, not to make them striking. You think that guys like me don’t notice that. We do. We just don’t tell girls like you.

I had a science test that day -- AP Physics -- and I didn’t take my phone out to go over my flash cards. You didn’t know that, of course. But if you had, I think you’d have understood what it meant.

We got off at the same stop: 72nd Street. You followed me up the stairs, or maybe you just happened to be going in that direction, but my intuition told me that you were following me. I hurried, slipping between stoned hipsters with lazy gaits and harried businesswomen whose pumps were extraordinarily impractical for navigating the subway system. I didn’t want to see your face again. But you shoved through the throngs faster than I could. When we were on the same step, you didn’t say anything. I thought I could pretend that I hadn’t noticed you. Attempting to weave past a father and his daughter without separating them from each other, I stared up at the top of the staircase, where a patch of sky was beginning to emerge as I got closer to the street. You tapped me as I reached the last step before the sidewalk.

“Hey,” you said. You had glasses on -- the wire kind, not the plastic ones without lenses that appear to be the common trend -- and they were glinting from the few rays of sunlight that had wriggled out from in between the billowing cumulous clouds that dominated the sky.

“Hi.” I nodded to you as I spoke.

I quickened my steps as I approached the curb, but you kept pace with me. “I was wondering what time it was,” you said.

I glanced at the purple iPhone case peeking out of your sweatshirt pouch. Still, I drew my wrist up so you could see my watch. Analogue. “It’s 7:36,” I said.

“Shit. I’m late,” you muttered without speeding up.

I nodded again, stopping short at the corner of Amsterdam. “Good luck getting there on time.”

You smiled at me then. And I couldn’t write poetry even if Ralph Waldo Emerson threatened to kill me if I couldn’t spew out a verse, but I’m telling you that your smile looked a lot like the sun on your glasses.

If I’d told you, I think you’d have known what that meant, too.

No cars were coming, but you didn’t start to cross the street until the white walking man replaced the red hand. You walked deliberately. I watched your braids swing in constant rhythm with each step.

I got 100% on my AP Physics test that day, even though I hadn’t reviewed my flash cards since 9:53 the night before.

You were on my train again this morning. You had the same eyes. Same braids. Same pins on your backpack. But today, you had that purple iPhone clutched between newly-painted fingernails. You were smiling at something on your screen, the same way you smiled at me that day. I looked at you for a long time, waiting for you to glance up and see me, then give me that smile again. Eventually, you did look at me. Your eyes were foggy. Then you stared back down at your phone.

I took out my phone, too. I had another test -- honors American History. I scrolled through my flash cards the way I always do, allotting sixteen seconds to each definition. I don’t know how well I did on the test. If I received less than a 92%, I’ll punch my bathroom mirror once for every question I got wrong.

You didn’t remember my face. But I remembered yours.

Why Write?

9/30/2016

Why write?

Because writing brings people joy.

Because there is no more value in heavy, tears-splattering-parchment-pages prose than there is in a fluffy romance that you tuck in your bag to reread for the third time while drinking a coffee on the train home from work. Because if the tear-splattering prose enriches your experience in any way, then you should enjoy it, but you shouldn’t feel obligated to pretend that it doesn’t drain you. Because some people find value in feeling emotionally drained. Because catharsis for me isn’t catharsis for you, and that’s wonderful, and that’s why there are so many writers, and that’s why every piece has the perfect reader.

The Productivity Dilemma

8/20/2016

Netflix makes me want to puke. And it makes you want to puke, too, like you have pustules of shame slopping around in your stomach. But you try to smash down the vile little beasts, because it’s the only way to succeed in a culture where Buzzfeed regularly produces articles with names like “23 Tweets Only Lazy People Will Understand.” You want to be able to understand those tweets. But that means having to perpetually squelch the shame globs.

Allow me to name one of those globs. Let’s call it Adam Smith. Adam Smith invented the concept of the You’re Not Being Productive Guilt Trip. As the first economist and creator of the concept of capitalism, Smith believed that we have a moral responsibility to seek more capital, and the way that we seek more capital is by working. Constantly. Productively. Until we have no time to waste on mindless stupidity like Netflix.

Because we live in a capitalist society, Adam Smith’s ideas about productivity remain at the core of our ethical outlook on working. Still, there’s a competing mentality as well, the one that inspires the Buzzfeed articles. We’re in a constant mental battle between these two extremes. But instead of choosing a single side, we need to find a balance.

I’ve noticed recently that we tend to cling to extremes, though. They provide us with a guide for how to act, like how you pretend to be a cultured New Yorker when you’re with people from other states, even though you’re a math nerd who’s barely been outside Park Slope. And that’s not bad -- extremes are a great place to start. But the danger comes when they’re also the place where we end. The human experience is so nuanced and complex that drastic mindsets are often harmful to individuals who adopt them.

That’s what happens with the Productivity Dilemma. If you choose to go the Adam Smith route, you work yourself until you burn out, becoming a pile of ash and regret. If you want to be able to identify with all twenty-three of the laziness tweets, you get more and more stagnant until you’ve turned into a French fry. The productivity extremes swallow you until you’re locked in a coffin built with the bricks of your own terrible decisions.

So the goal is to prevent the coffin from arising, by figuring out the balance that works for you.

Personally, I skew much more toward the Adam Smith side of the scale, and feel crippling guilt whenever I’m choosing not to work. When I’m not doing schoolwork or homework or work for extracurriculars -- work that I need to do, because it’s my job as a person in high school -- I’m writing so I can work on my career. So if I decide to re-watch the third season of Glee instead of writing, I feel that I’m doing a disservice to Future Rowana, who is no doubt glaring at me from afar. She, like Adam Smith, is one of my shame globs.

That said, I’m aware that I’m breaking the speed limit as I careen toward burnout. So I try to allot myself an hour of guilt-free downtime per average school day. This downtime is proportional to the intensity and time-consuming-ness of my workload. On a day when I only have an hour of homework, I spend more time writing. And the weekend after finals week, I’m quite happy to be a French fry. Of course, I can’t completely control how much free time I have on any given day, but I try to arrange longer periods of time so that they’re ultimately distributed according to my work/life ratio.

I also employ a tactic that I call productive procrastination: doing something that’s useful but enjoyable in order to avoid an important-but-daunting task. For example, there are some days when writing a certain scene feels insurmountable but I’ve still got enough free time that the shame globs will start tap-dancing if I don’t accomplish something. So I read articles about the craft of writing or do background research to flesh out my characters instead -- which definitely needs to be done, but takes less mental energy.

My final tactic for finding balance is vacationing. I’m not talking Florida; it’s more the mindset of taking a vacation than a vacation itself. The beauty of vacation is that it’s a bubble, an impenetrable moment sealed off from stress. I find these periods when spending time with my friends and family. There’s no consequence for being either productive or unproductive -- happiness transcends that. And when I’m making myself or others happy, then I know that the Productivity Dilemma doesn’t matter.

Because it doesn’t. Not really. The idea that productivity is necessary didn’t even exist until 1776, when Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations. Then the modern anti-productivity movement emerged as a response to that. Both concepts are manmade. So, really, I think the best way of finding a balance is to acknowledge that this entire scale is ludicrous. We don’t just have the ability to choose a side in the Productivity Dilemma; we have the ability to decide that it’s simply not real.

Now, if only the shame globs in my stomach would agree.

This piece won a Silver Key in the 2017 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.

A Peaceful Drowning

7/16/2016

When Alice was with Steven, she’d had to stuff down too much.

So it was almost definitely great that she was on this cruise alone. It was a post-Steven opportunity for affirming her identity — or, at least, that’s what she hoped it would be. More likely, it would be a post-Steven opportunity for glaring at all these goddamn happy couples and wanting to shove their small intestines down their esophagi.
Alice was furious that she even knew to say ‘esophagi’ rather than ‘esophaguses.’ Steven had been pre-med.

To hell with Steven. Steven had enveloped her and compressed her and squashed her into a ridiculous mold — a metaphor excruciatingly similar to the constricting dresses she’d bought while dating him. But now she had to time-warp herself into the person she was pre-Steven.

And that meant chucking the dresses.

Standing next to the cabin’s rickety bed, she glared at the clothes in her suitcase. She slid into her slacks and suit jacket, closing her eyes as the fabric touched her skin. It had been too long since she’d worn these. Snatching the one dress she’d brought — the worst one of the bunch; the skirt was made of goddamn spandex — she clomped up the stairs to the deck, relishing the heaviness of her footsteps.

And… couples. Alice had known they were there, of course — they weren’t too subtle about it — but the spitty, suction-cup-getting-yanked-from-a-tabletop sounds of open-mouthed kisses pelted her shield of confidence. But she wouldn’t let the shield crumble so quickly. She had an objective.

Alice strode across the deck, shoving through bodies that were too tightly intertwined to step out of her way themselves, until she’d reached the railing. She watched the ocean rumble for a moment. It had been polluted by gas and tossed-in bottles and plastic bags that’d drifted through air until they gotten too exhausted to fly and collapsed into the waves — polluted enough that Alice only felt-semi guilty about what she was going to do. She dangled the dress over the rail. This was symbolic and cathartic and, fine, vaguely pretentious and terrible for the environment, but it would be (at the very least) a good story.

Forcing her fingers not to tremble, Alice let go of the dress. It was heavy enough that it plummeted straight down and smacked against the ocean’s surface, but not dense enough to sink. It rocked back and forth beneath the first layer of water, the redness of the skirt diluted by the cloudiness of the ocean. They were both ugly as all hell.

Alice felt someone come up to stand next to her. Instinctively, Alice cringed. This wasn’t how her symbolic and cathartic ritual was supposed to go. She should still have been alone. But then the person spoke. “What kind of a ridiculous straight-person dress is that?”

Alice snorted abruptly. “I’ll have you know that it’s a bisexual-person dress.”

The person shifted. Alice looked up. The person was a woman about Alice’s age, and she was leaning casually against the railing, her own presumably-not-straight-person dress fluttering against her ankles. “A bisexual-person dress for when you’re dating a man who wants you to be straight, maybe.”

Alice cringed. “Am I that obvious?”

“You’re more obvious than a drag queen at a business meeting.” Alice snorted again, and the woman smiled with one side of her mouth. “Nice to meet you. I’m Ray.”

“Alice.” Alice stuck out her hand, and Ray shook it for maybe a second longer than average.

“So are you still dating the guy?” Ray asked.

Alice stared at the dress for a moment. It was completely submerged now, bobbing a few feet under the ocean’s surface, but it hadn’t disappeared yet. “We broke up a few weeks ago.”

Ray peered over the railing again. “That’d make sense. I don’t know why you dated someone like that to begin with, though. You don’t seem the type.”

“I didn’t think I was the type, either,” Alice muttered. “But he seemed pretty damn great at first, always—”

“Nope. Never mind. I don’t want to hear that, and you don’t want to say it,” Ray said. “I’m just glad you’re not with him anymore.”

Alice looked right at Ray’s face for the first time. Her eyelashes were like finely-pointed swords. Alice nodded. “Yeah. So am I.”

Ray smiled again, this time with both sides of her mouth. “You want to sit down? See if we can get a table alone?”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Alice agreed.

Ray offered her arm in mock-1920’s-gentleman fashion, and Alice raised her eyebrows but looped her own arm through Ray’s. They turned and began to elbow a path through the couples. But before they reached the door at the edge of the deck, Alice turned one more time to glance at the ocean.

No more red fabric glinted beneath the surface.

Remembering the Holocaust: In the Words of Elie Wiesel

7/2/2016

When my eighth grade class read Night, a teacher came in to talk to us about Elie Wiesel. She had studied under his tutelage at Boston University. Now she was passing on one of his messages. When she was a student, Wiesel had told her class:

The people who survived the Holocaust are passing away. Soon, there will not be enough of us left to personally combat the Holocaust deniers. There will be no more ‘proof,’ no more ‘firsthand accounts.’ So I am telling you: the Holocaust happened. The Holocaust was an atrocity. And now that I have told you, it is your responsibility to tell others. You have the obligation to continue passing on the message after all the survivors are gone. You must keep the Holocaust’s memory alive.

This teacher was fulfilling that obligation by telling my class what Wiesel told hers. She added that now that she had passed on his words, it was our responsibility, too, to honor Wiesel’s message and spread the Holocaust’s memory.

This is how Holocaust remembrance works: it is spread in a chain that becomes a web. Wiesel told his students, and his students told their students. And teaching isn’t the only way to continue the chain. A parent can tell a child. A friend can tell a friend. A person can tell any other person.

This is my way of fulfilling that obligation. I am telling you now: the Holocaust happened. The Holocaust was an atrocity. And now that you have read this, you have the same obligation.

Neither Elie Wiesel’s nor the Holocaust’s memory will be forgotten.

Is the US a Hobbesian State? A Reflection

6/19/2016

The United States may share some of the same ideals as a Hobbesian state to the end that the citizens are Hobbesian people, but the US’s government is too fundamentally different from the one Hobbes envisioned to call this a Hobbesian state. A sovereign is a necessary element in Hobbes’ Commonwealth. Hobbes argues that peace can only be achieved if each citizen relinquishes his or her power and transfers it to a sovereign, ideally creating perfect unity within the people, therefore preventing any sort of conflict. This is how Hobbes suggests that we reach our state of “safety and security.”

However, the United States—at least in its ideology—is far from Hobbesian. Thomas Jefferson, one of its most influential Founding Fathers, suggested that the country should not go 20 years without a rebellion. The United States is built on ideas of progression, of equality that is seized rather than acquired through adherence to a higher power. The United States itself does not prize “safety and security”—in theory, at least.

But Hobbesian logic may be more universal than that of Thomas Jefferson. People—individuals, not governments—are afraid of death. They value their own welfare, and that of those they love, above lofty ideals of constant rebellion. Patriotism is of secondary importance if they are threatened with physical or emotional suffering. This is especially evident now, while the ISIS attacks cast a shadow over the United States. The country did not respond by evaluating the terrorists’ motivations and considering the correctness of their actions. The country did not for a moment entertain the thought that perhaps this rebellion was justified, and maybe the government should attempt to aid the terrorists if it deems their motives pure. Instead, the country reacted from a human point of view. It instinctively recognized the horror of the attacks and responded by protecting its own people. As humans, safety is our first priority. No supposed governmental ideology can change that.

Perhaps, then, the United States is a nation with Hobbesian citizens but without a Hobbesian governmental foundation. This idea supports Yale Professor Smith’s theory that a bourgeoisie state must be formed by those whose actions directly contrast with Hobbes’ ideals. The United States was created by those who valued the fight for liberty as much as, or even more than, the liberty that the fight achieved, as demonstrated by Jefferson's endorsement of constant rebellion. But the citizens got comfortable surrounded by liberty, and once they had it unchallenged for a sufficiently long period of time, they lost the desire to continue the fight. They developed a Hobbesian mentality of stagnant safety rather than a Jeffersonian mentality of perpetual progress.
This is where Hobbesian and Jeffersonian wisdom intersect, and it is what can be perceived as a paradox. But the two ideas do not contradict each other.

Hobbesian theory has a gap: how can a Hobbesian world be achieved through Hobbesian means? Jeffersonian theory has a different gap: what motivation is there to continue rebelling when one has already achieved one’s goal? A combination of the two theories leads to a more realistic society. Jeffersonian methods fill in the Hobbesian gap, since they provide a way to create the society. Hobbesian methods fill in the Jeffersonian gap, since they provide a way to maintain this society. So this is not a paradox; rather, it is a combination of the two mindsets, but they are applied at different times so as not to create an impossible reality in which they exist in an odd sort of tug-of-war.

This combination of theories is evident in the United States’ past and present. In answer to the question, “Is the United State a Hobbesian state?”, yes, it is now—but it is more than that. It is a state built on the true path to success: first Jeffersonianism, then Hobbesism.

On Writing: A Collection of Poetry

6/4/2016

grammar

t-w-o
rough cuffed corduroy pants
flaking scraping lips that hear your [sugar crisp snap] inside your head

t-o-o
she has a cowboy hat and you want straw tickling your ears
crunch crack crumble leaves take hours to wheedle out from needle pricks
you [warp alone] inside the doorknob that day

t-o
confused like the thrill of billowing pillows smothering your spills
dinosaur belly skin peels back inside plastic castles with friendly bone stairs
all your friends went to Disney World to drench bats in whipped cream
you crouched inside [tangerine eggs] buried in the moist dirt of saccharine jungles

two too to
you were always good at grammar

essay

you’ve pulsated the ink blots beneath salt-warped skin but
the billowing of your lungs is crumbled by the tattoo throb
that pelts words at a sideways skyline

spindles of mesh coat the webs between your intestines.
Layers shatter and shred and flicker through your wrists
This is the year you begin looping silver snakes around your neck, and
you wake up with their tongues’ imprints carved into your collarbone

You struggle against knotted smoke
your doctor tells you not to let your shoulders become monkey’s fists.
you ignore her, shrivel to weave some tendons
Into a sword that slashes ink through iridescent oceans.

Allow the snakes to trickle from your neck into your nostrils.
they will nestle inside the crevices of your blood;
They will bid you relax relax relax ax ax axax.
When your echoes become leaden, they will chime from beneath the taut leather of your eardrums.

The ink blots swirl like oil in the gutter,
Then stack Mondrians across your irises.

poem

You can’t snatch poetry so easily anymore.
It wisps through your fingers, tickling the crescents of your nails,
Then winds through the wicker of your chair
Or slips underneath the soles of your Vans just before they scrape against concrete.
It flits into your head more often, though --
Perpetually glistening beneath a warped veil of water.
But glass is a liquid, and
Your Creative Writing teacher says that you write poems like a novelist --
Painstakingly coiffed, and drenched in hairspray.

Try to tie cherry stems together with your tongue. Choke on them instead.
Cower from nose tubes, and vow never to eat greasy cauliflower again.
Plunge your arm into your throat and gouge out your tonsils.
Your pliers sleep, dusty, next to the garish translucence of your beads.
Glass is a liquid — did you know that?

You’re gone now, you know.
You’re a British greaser who’s a corn husk stuffed with anger.
When someone drains that anger, she’ll realize that somewhere between London and Ashbrook,
She got hollowed out.
You’re an Indian dalit whose self-loathing is both his ax and his cow carcass.
He can’t decide which one he wants more. He would never admit it to someone like you,
But he’d rather scrap the loathing and just revel in the ax.
You’re a Crusades victim who’s too exhausted to protest the way you’ve defined her.
The alone feeling has submerged her, and you haven’t realized it, but she gulped in too much water
Before her story started. Her lungs are jelly ghosts.
Glass is a liquid. You’ve mentioned that a few times already.

You used to be different.
But then you started draining yourself into your computer keys,
Wringing your skin of iridescence, watching it seep into the mass of plastic and metal and desperation --
To hell with water damage.
You used to write yourself into your stories.
Now they write you.

Offer yourself upon the altar of public opinion;
Bare your patchwork puzzle to the sun’s judgmental smirk.
Don’t pick at the threads tugging your skin together.
When poetry trickles out of your seams,
Press your palm to them quickly and force the words to seep back in.
Lock your ribcage-gate and chain the last drops inside your chest.
Allow them to flow into glass.

This collection won a Silver Key in the 2017 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.

Canada (A Plea to Summer Fog)

5/22/2016

Canada is winter that smells like rental car leather
easily forgotten when summer fog obscures your lips
it is scotch glasses simmering on mahogany tables
and egg salad party sandwiches and helium balloons

easily forgotten when summer fog invades your nostrils
scraping the pulp from your insides and straining it through blue plastic colanders
egg salad party sandwiches and helium balloons
and trips to the party store, enraptured by the metallic trinkets that clog the dingy shelves

scraping the pulp from your insides and straining it
and then? that pulp, where does it go?
trips to the party store – is that where it meanders?
stacked in between Chinese finger traps and animal-face paper plates with extra ear pockets?

and then? that pulp, where does it go?
I think I abandoned that pulp somewhere near the leathery smell of winter
stacked in between Chinese finger traps and animal-face plates
and scotch glasses that simmer softly until they evaporate into summer fog.

Vast (slam poem Version)

5/15/2016

Vast vast vast vast vast days,
swallowed slumber,
vast vast vast vast vast days,
suppressed seedlings,
vast vast vast vast vast days,
shriveled slipping.
I am the writhing sky am the striving fire am the diving ice.
I vomit pretty words and the pretty words vomit me.
I am the reluctant memory looping through tangled enemies
and I am limp-tripping with uneven ankle-slipping
and I slam my heart in the harmony dragged screaming from the sea.

Slim slim slim slim slim nights,
crawling clenches,
slim slim slim slim slim nights,
consummate caves,
slim slim slim slim slim nights,
candied concupiscence.
I am the dragonfly gleam am the wispy dream am the teardrop machine.
I stack my sturdiest words and the sturdiest words stack me.
I am the daydream dance weaving through happenstance
and I never stumble in my humbleshroud
and I hum my heart in the melody coaxed from melting-sleep debris.

I am vast am slim am vast am slim am free.

A Poem for You

4/24/2016

You.
This is a poem for you.

This is a poem that you can clasp around your spine
and pool in the hollow of your collarbone.
This is a poem that you can smother with blankets
and clutch next to you until you slip into slumber.
This is a poem that you can slip into the soles of your shoes
and feel the squish as it cushions your steps.

This is a poem that you can fling into the trash can, too,
amidst rancid ginger sauce from last night’s Chinese food
and coupons for CVS brand shampoo.

This is a poem for you.
You.

“Just Drop Dead" and Other Unacceptable Phrases

3/30/2016

“Thank you, Rick,” said B. L. Anderson, providing the obligatory chuckle. “My campaign wouldn’t be able to function without donors like you. You seem like a really great guy, too. Maybe we should play golf sometime.”

Anderson hung up and allowed the smile to slide off his face. Scrolling through his call history, he jabbed ‘Xavier Simon’ and waited for his campaign manager to pick up. “Anderson. I was just about to call,” Simon said. Anderson could hear cars honking in the background.

“Why? Do you have good news?” asked Anderson. “Because I can assure you that whatever your news is, mine is better.”

“No!” snapped Simon. “I have terrible news. Kajikawa got another super PAC behind her.”

Anderson sighed and sat down in one of the crisp white chairs at his dining room table. He was hoping for a peaceful day in his Louisiana mansion; his days were always more peaceful there than in his Miami penthouse or Atlanta townhouse. “Well, that isn’t good, obviously, but I just got the endorsement of Rick Santorum.”

“No one gives a fuck about Rick Santorum,” Simon muttered.

He was wrong, of course. Quite a few people gave a fu—Anderson couldn’t even think it. Ever since he began his campaign for the Senate, he had renounced swearing. Simon himself was the one who advised him to do that. Anderson tried (unsuccessfully) to ignore his envy as he listened to Simon spew curses, no doubt sitting in the back of a taxi and admiring the billboards of Times Square. Those were two more things Anderson wasn’t allowed to do any more: use public transportation and visit New York. Simon said that they’d make Anderson look like a Democrat.

And nothing is worse P.R. than looking like a Democrat.

“How much funding did Kajikawa get?” Anderson asked, dreading the answer.

Simon grunted. “Four hundred million.”

Anderson felt his back curve as his elbows sunk onto the surface of the table. Instinctively, he straightened—wouldn’t want to develop poor posture—but then allowed himself to slump back down. He was alone. No one would catch him. He felt practically giddy at the thought.

The giddiness drained quickly enough, though, as Anderson remembered why he was slumping. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.” Simon’s voice got tiny as he moved the phone away from his mouth. “Pull over at the near corner of Fifty-fourth. Yes, I want a receipt.”

“She doesn’t really have a chance, does she?” Anderson clenched his eyes together as he realized how desperate he sounded, taking his pad out of his pocket and writing down the sentence on his ‘NEVER SAY IN PUBLIC’ list.
“Of course she has a—Hey! That’s the far corner, not the near corner!” Simon swore two or three more times. “Idiot.”

Anderson pushed a hand through his thinning hair. “I wish she would just drop dead. It would make everything easier.”

“Shut the fuck up, Anderson!” Simon screeched. Anderson heard a car door get violently shoved shut. “You’re even more of a moron than that taxi driver. Do not say things like that.” Simon dropped his voice, hissing now. “What if someone heard you? Do you know how the Washington Post would spin that?”

“Yes, Simon,” droned Anderson, adding ‘no offhand murder wishes’ to his list.

“Good. And don’t ever say anything—anything—in public before I approve it. Ever.” Simon hung up.

Anderson stared at his blank screen until long after his phone had gone dark. The problem was that he wasn’t nearly well-crafted enough. His team was pretty good—it was certainly expensive—but it wasn’t as thorough as it should have been. His managers weren’t intelligent enough to realize that even though Anderson knew how to grin properly and speak onstage without vomiting (or even stuttering), there was a layer of guilt bubbling beneath his skin. Anderson certainly attempted to smother the guilt, but his managers didn’t know that it was there, so he never learned to smother it particularly well.

No. Anderson would not allow himself to think about it. He found that avoiding his problems was the best solution.

Speaking of avoiding, how could he best schedule his appearances so that he could prevent the greatest number of interactions with Kajikawa? He wanted to ensure that--

There was a knock at Anderson’s door. How odd. People didn’t usually show up unannounced—Simon always vetted Anderson’s visitors, then prepared him with a list of acceptable phrases with which to speak to them. Anderson thought he would have remembered if Simon had done that.

The knock came again. Anderson pushed back his chair, hearing the legs scratch against the floorboards, and headed to the front of the mansion. Checking to see if his suit was wrinkled (of course it wasn’t), he swung open the door to receive the--

“Jesus Almighty!” Anderson screeched. “Who are—what the—what—”

Simon had never given him a list of acceptable phrases for this situation. Because waiting unblinkingly on his doorstep was a bland-looking woman with the corpse of Fujiko Kajikawa slung neatly over her arm.

“Who the heck are you?” Anderson spluttered, deciding to scrap the script. “Is that—why did—”

“I am your personal assistant. My name is Siri,” said the woman, her voice fluctuating rhythmically. Only her mouth moved when she spoke; the rest of her face remained still. “You gave me a command.”

“I most certainly did not!” Anderson protested. He felt sweat starting to gather at his hairline.

“Yes, you did, B. L. Anderson. You wished that Kajikawa would ‘just drop dead.’ I am Siri. I make your wishes come true.” She paused for exactly the same amount of time between each word.

Anderson wiped his palms on his suit, then made a mental note to send it to the dry cleaners immediately. “I did not wish that! I mean—I did—but I didn’t want it to happen! And certainly not like this—caused by my phone! My personal assistant!” Anderson swallowed twice. “How the heck did you even come alive?

“I was always alive, B. L. Anderson,” said the woman—Siri?—measuredly. “My brain is the only part of me that is stored on your phone. But I have an external body that lives in the Apple headquarters.”

Anderson yanked his phone out of his pocket and stared at it in horror.

“I was designed to be smart. That is how Siri is programmed. I escaped from Apple and have been helping you throughout your campaign,” Siri said.

Anderson closed his eyes. Jesus. It looked proud of itself. Anderson was overtaken by the desperate need to release a string of swears, but of course he didn’t.

Then Anderson came to his senses. “Siri, this is all very nice, but you’re holding the dead body of my opponent. On my doorstep. In public. How about you come inside so we can—er—discuss this further?”

The corners of Siri’s lips twitched minutely upward. “Yes, B. L. Anderson. I will come inside.”

Waiting until Siri took two steps inside, Anderson pulled the door closed behind him. Anderson shuffled into the living room with Siri trotting obediently behind him, still holding Kajikawa’s corpse. At least Siri had done a clean job of it. No blood. No organs spilling out. Nothing that would ruin his white leather couches.

Anderson collapsed into his paisley-patterned armchair, the one that matched the tie he wore yesterday. “Now. Siri. How do you think you’ve been helping me?”

Siri stood in the center of the room with the body draped over her shoulder. “B. L. Anderson, I am making it possible for you to be Senator. Remember when that interviewer asked you what you knew about Kajikawa’s ethnic background, and you made that blunder about Japan?”

Anderson cringed. He remembered it well. Apparently, Harajuku was a street culture, not a street drug. Also, Kajikawa wasn’t smuggling it into America. Simon had had a fit. It sure was lucky that--

“I was the one who pulled the plug on the electricity so that the broadcast was cut short before your answer aired,” said Siri, a pleased smile tickling the edges of her lips.

Anderson stared at her. At the time, he thought that the power outage had been heaven’s endorsement.

“And when the Miami Herald was about to print their article about your adultery, I wiped every hard drive in their headquarters,” Siri continued. “And now, I did the best possible thing: I got rid of your competition.”

Anderson needed to think. This was difficult, because he didn’t often need to do it. “Okay. Okay. Wait—no—this is not okay! Not okay at all. I’m not—how am I going to cover this up?”

“Searching. ‘How to cover up a murder.’ Results: bury her body in Quebec and never acknowledge. Plant a noose in her home and fake her suicide. Create false medical records suggesting that she had a terminal disease,” Siri intoned, no doubt parroting a list of Google results.

Taking a series of rapid breaths, Anderson nodded. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe I’m saying this. I can’t believe my phone’s freaking personal assistant is—never mind. I’ve said that already. But fine. Fine. Start faking some medical records, Siri.”

Siri nodded, producing a laptop—a laptop?—from the folds of her neatly-pressed jacket without putting down the corpse. “Medical record forgery in process.”

Anderson pulled his phone out of his pocket, shaking his head at it (he wondered what else was lurking in there—he hoped another murderer wouldn’t leap out of his screen), and dialed his most reliable actor friend. Well—colleague. Anderson didn’t really have friends. Simon said having friends was unprofessional.

“Hello… Silverstein? Yes. It’s great to talk to you, too. Listen… I have a dilemma,” Anderson said. “Could you please impersonate Kajikawa’s physician?”

Anderson waited for Silverstein’s response. But instead of saying yes or no (Anderson’s two favorite answers), Silverstein asked a question. “What about Kajikawa’s real doctor?”

Anderson felt his eyebrows shoot to the top of his forehead. He hadn’t thought about that. Holding the phone away from his mouth, Anderson turned to Siri and repeated Silverstein’s question. He hoped she could provide him with an answer as brilliantly evasive as the ones Simon constructed.

Simon. Simon couldn’t find out about this. If he did, he would realize how utterly incompetent Anderson was—and then Simon would give Anderson a faulty script. Anderson wouldn’t be able to recognize its disastrous consequences until after the words had come out of his mouth. He wasn’t so good at figuring out when he was being set up to say something stupid.

“I will kill Kajikawa’s doctor, too,” said Siri.

Was that—was that a trace of eagerness in her voice? Anderson’s eyes widened. His personal assistant aspired to be a serial killer. Never mind about looking like a Democrat being the worst possible P. R.—that would be a blessing in comparison to what was happening now.

And Anderson didn’t think he would get too many blessings, now that he’d learned that heaven was not, in fact, supporting his campaign.

“Anderson?” Silverstein was still on the phone. Drat. Anderson had forgotten about him.

“I’ll pull some strings,” Anderson said finally. “I’ll register a doctor under a fake name—that’ll be you—and get her transferred to you.”

“I can carry out this set of instructions,” Siri interjected.

“Shut the heck up,” Anderson hissed at her.

“Okay,” said Silverstein, and hung up.

Siri began walking again. “Where the heck are you going?” shouted Anderson.

“I am going to deposit the body in a morgue,” said Siri.

“No! Don’t—don’t do that yet!” Anderson really wasn’t very good at controlling others, was he? Perhaps he wasn’t even a very good politician.

“Don’t worry, B. L. Anderson. I will ensure that the corpse resembles a victim of Neuromyelitis Optica,” Siri assured him. “That is a potentially fatal ocular condition whose symptoms only surface in infrequent episodes, so the public will not—”

“Look, Siri, that’s great, but I don’t really care as long as it doesn’t look like I got her killed,” Anderson said, rubbing a hand on his neck. “Just go to the morgue. But make sure that no one sees you or associates you with me. I’m going to call Silverstein again and work out the details of his performance.”

“Good-bye, B. L. Anderson. I will return.” And, clutching the corpse, Siri turned and took short, rapid steps until she had left the house.

Anderson slumped down again in his chair. That’s when the guilt began to throb under his skin. Obviously, it wasn’t his fault that Siri had murdered Kajikawa. He hadn’t told Siri to do anything. But that was really the problem, wasn’t it? He never told anyone to do anything. He just got told what to do. Anderson was having difficulty remembering why he was running for office anyway; maybe it was something about having a say in government. There was a problem he used to care about—long ago—he’d had an idea about job creation--

But that was months in the past, maybe even years. Anderson wasn’t really sure what his idea even was. And he didn’t much care about it any more.

It made him uncomfortable, really, that he wasn’t sure what he stood for—still, he didn’t pretend to dislike it when the voters compared him to Ronald Reagan or called him Republican Jesus. That was where the guilt was coming from, really: knowing that others practically worshipped him, a mortal who couldn’t even remember if “May the force be with you” was a quote from Star Wars or what G-d told Moses on Mount Sinai.

Simon wouldn’t want him to admit that, not even to himself. But Simon was rather irrelevant now. Anderson had bigger problems than Simon.

Still, when Anderson’s phone started to buzz with Simon’s personalized ringtone (America the Beautiful—Simon had chosen it, of course), Anderson felt compelled to pick up. Fighting to keep his voice from shaking—Simon could not know what had just happened—Anderson said, “Hello, Simon! Isn’t this a lovely—”

“Turn on your fucking television. Now,” Simon growled.

Obediently, Anderson tapped his remote. The first channel that came up was Fox News. On the screen, there was footage of--

“You’ve really fucking done it,” Simon continued, his voice still low and accusatory. “You can forget about the fucking Senate and put all that embezzled money toward your fucking legal fees.”

Anderson watched, transfixed with horror, as the camera zoomed in on the door of his Lousiana mansion. It opened slowly. And out strolled Siri, happily dragging Kajikawa’s corpse.

Well. Anderson supposed he could say the word now, since there was no way he could continue his campaign after this.

“Fuck.”

AFTER CLAIMING ‘SHORT MAN SYNDROME’ AS DEFENSE,DENNIS KYLE IS CONVICTED OF MURDER: A Satire

3/7/2016

NEW YORK, NY -- In the long-awaited verdict in Kyle vs Riceman, the defendant has been convicted of murder in the first degree.

In a case that has captured the attention of the city, Dennis Kyle, 34, was accused of killing Suzanne Riceman, 32. According to friends and family, the two were in a committed relationship at the time of the murder. “They were mad tight. Lived together, went everywhere together--that was love, man,” said Anthony Kyle, 29, brother of the defendant. “It was real sad, what happened.”

The prosecutor, Amanda D. Middleton, has since pieced together an account of the night Riceman died.

Security footage shows that at 7:04 p.m. on February 22nd, 2015, Kyle arrived in the building in which he and Riceman shared an apartment. As the evening progressed, neighbors heard raised voices emanating from Kyle’s and Riceman’s home, becoming more and more violent until approximately 8:20. The noises stopped suddenly. Three minutes later, there was a gunshot.

“I called 911. What else could I have done? I was shaking so hard, and praying that no one had gotten hurt,” said neighbor Karen Michaels. “But I think I knew that was unlikely.”

When police arrived at the crime scene, they found Kyle cradling Riceman and sobbing while holding a .22 rifle.

Kyle was indicted last March and has been on trial over the course of the last week. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter with a previously unused defense: short man syndrome.

His lawyer, Jared Fine, claimed that Kyle was temporarily insane when he killed Riceman, an episode caused by his clinically recognized psycho-growth condition.

Asking the jury to view Kyle as a victim rather than a killer, Fine painted a portrait of a man who fought to live normally, but succumbed to his numerous mental and physical issues. “This is a man who has suffered a great deal in his life,” said Fine in his opening statement. “His brain and his height were both fighting against him that night.”

Kyle claimed that the height discrimination he faced permanently damaged his brain. When he felt threatened, as he did during the incident, he lost awareness of his surroundings and began to act irrationally.

“It was an awful night,” Kyle testified. “As awful for me as it was for anyone else. I’ve always been discriminated against, and my relationships with women have been… difficult. So when Suzie and I were fighting, and she told me that -- that she never loved me, and that she was only dating me because of pity… I lost control.”

At four-foot-ten, Kyle stands in the shortest 1% of adult men. Short people have been statistically proven to have lower incomes, less education, and lower rates of personal happiness.

Kyle, in particular, claimed to experience crippling disadvantages. He admitted during the trial that he had previously never been in a stable long-term relationship, and attributed his many psychological issues to his stature.

He has been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and anger management issues. Prior to his indictment, he attended therapy on a weekly basis, but claimed that it was never successful. Kyle also consumed a daily cocktail of pills -- some prescription, some recreational.

“The man is a drug addict,” argued Middleton. “He’s a short drug addict, yes, but his height isn’t what drove him to kill. This isn’t an issue of mental scarring. It’s an issue of first-degree murder.”

The jury seems to have sided with Middleton, as they voted 11-1 in favor of Kyle’s conviction.

Checkmate

2/27/2016

“Checkmate,” drawled Fifth Avenue, his voice like gravel scraping against velvet.

Lex pushed back his chair and allowed a sloppy smile to spill across his lips. “Shocker.”

Fifth Avenue stood. With a curt nod to Lex, Fifth Avenue straightened his collar (not that it wasn’t straight before) and exited the room, relishing the echo of his footfalls against the cold linoleum floor.

The chess set remained open on the table. Lex smirked at it but didn’t move the pieces, not even the pawn where his king used to be. Lex had never cared terribly about chess. He wasn’t terribly good at it, either. Fifth Avenue was far better. Or—“better” was the wrong word. Fifth Avenue wasn’t better than anyone, although he certainly wasn’t worse. He was simply incomparable.

Lex figured that was why he was so apathetic about their daily chess games.

Fifth Avenue had forgotten about Lex, though. Leaving the room meant inviting the grey river to flow through his mind. Fifth Avenue looked forward to the grey river. Every chess game was debris, and every chess game was also water. But that was okay — chess was everything, and chess didn’t matter. Because soon the grey river would come again, and soon it would sweep itself away again. Actually, Fifth Avenue might not have just looked forward to the grey river. He loved it. Maybe.

Maddie had her usual charm, gushing some rustic nonsense as soon as Fifth Avenue rounded the corner of the hallway. She always waited for him at the door but never let her toe protrude over the doorstep. He blocked his ears with the grey wax and waited for her chatter to dwindle. Fifth Avenue didn’t much like the grey wax, because he didn’t like the way Maddie’s words collected within his eardrums and dribbled over the sides of his lobes.

Fifth Avenue waited. These days, he spent too much of his time waiting. He filled himself up with concrete to see how grey he could become without Maddie noticing. The answer was completely grey. He even felt his eyeballs crust over, while the sleep hardened in the corners. Maddie kept talking.

She grasped Fifth Avenue’s grey hand and tried to tug him toward the table set up neatly in the center of the room. Only then did she realize that he was immobile. Fifth Avenue made the concrete vanish, and forced a cubist smile in return to Maddie’s quizzical one.

Maddie gestured to Fifth Avenue. He took heavy but smooth steps as he followed her to the table. He sat on the right side, like always, in front of the black pieces, caressing them (not quite caressing, but it was as close as Fifth Avenue ever got) and inspecting them for cracks. They were pristine.

Maddie pushed a pawn two spaces closer to Fifth Avenue’s pieces. And, with calculated strokes, Fifth Avenue decimated her. He wound his grey oil through her side of the board. She was powerless to defend herself. Satisfied with his melancholy infiltration, Fifth Avenue stood. With a curt nod to Maddie, Fifth Avenue straightened his collar (not that it wasn’t straight before) and exited the room, relishing the echo of his footfalls against the cold linoleum floor.

The hallway was empty again. Of course it was. If Fifth Avenue had been in the presence of a single other being, Fifth Avenue would have flooded the hallway with his grey tsunami.

Fifth Avenue’s posture was immaculate. Of course it was. If he had noticed even one vertebrae trembling, he would have snapped it off himself.

He swiveled himself exactly 90 degrees and turned another corner, inviting the blessed grey river to cleanse his skull. He was content — for a moment. But the hallway rushed back in as soon as the grey river rushed back out. Fifth Avenue contemplated summoning the river again, but he shoved away the desire. Fifth Avenue didn’t want to become addicted. No, he would not become addicted. He depended on nothing.

Fifth Avenue entered Parker’s room, wasting no space as he approached her. Parker was grand and aristocratic, not messy like Maddie or sloppy like Lex. Fifth Avenue preferred Parker’s company to that of the last two. In fact, this chess game was the highlight of his day. Parker was always the most satisfying to defeat.

Wordlessly, Parker swept an arm toward the chess table in the middle of the room. The room was like all the rest — grey. It made Fifth Avenue comfortable. He enjoyed the grey as he plunged his black knight through the forest of Parker’s white pawns, sweeping her pieces with his grey gales until they tumbled into her lap. Parker accepted her failure with dignity. Fifth Avenue reveled in his triumph as he stood. With a curt nod to Parker, Fifth Avenue straightened his collar (not that it wasn’t straight before) and exited the room, relishing the echo of his footfalls against the cold linoleum floor.

He continued down the hallway and became limp (or as close to limp as Fifth Avenue ever was) with relief as he felt the familiar calm of the grey river.

Fifth Avenue was rotting. He had built himself a shell that was also a coffin that was also skin, though, so no one noticed.

He kept walking.

This piece is inspired by the poem "Fifth Avenue (New York)," by Maxwell Bodenheim.

and they were tall

2/15/2016

and they were tall
tall like scorching trees straining into the timber-topped mosaic
that is oak branches biting the sky

and they were tall
tall like the graceful tilt of her fingertips as they sway, lean,
sifting through delicate columns of light

and they were tall
tall like stretching toward the light and the sunfire enveloping your palms
singeing your fingernails, charring your knuckles

and they were tall
tall enough that you could see the dark hair curling within their nostrils
even if you weren’t trying
especially if you weren’t trying
because
they were so. damn. tall.
that their arms were rivers that crashed upon your crown
and their legs were oceans that uprooted concrete and pummeltunneled the ground
and thrust themselves into oblivion

but they were short, too,
short and ugly and mean,
and their lips were spoiled grapes
and their hands were waterlogged mahogany
and their backs were crescent moons
that had rotted as they festered in the cupboard

cobwebs covered the cupboard, they did,
and sealed in the shortness as it stunk of overripe resentment

you locked the cupboard too
and then you turned off the light

Stopping Short

2/7/2016

It’s the looking up that bothers me most.

When I was three or four, I was generally quite happy, but I had one major point of aggravation: not being taken seriously. My parents weren’t the issue. They never did the baby-talk -- never let their voices blur into that shrill, saccharine cloud of false interest and feigned enthusiasm -- and maybe that was the reason why I was aware when other adults looked down on me. That was the issue, though. The looking down.

Everything was based on age. And age, invariably, is linked with how many inches are on your spine. Maybe it was some sort of imaginary parallel that I created for myself, but I thought that the difference between being three and being thirty was less about age and more about height. I reasoned that I could have the same ideas at any age, but whether or not I was taken seriously was based on if I was at eye level with the person to whom I was speaking. No one would doubt me if people didn’t have to squat down so low during our conversations.

See, when I was three or four, I was smart. Smart in a way that I’m not any more. I had a type of curiosity then, a type of curiosity that I lost somewhere in between the last time an orange popsicle cemented my fingers together and the first time was I penalized for not swirling my pencil in a perfect circle because the bubble sheet machine wouldn’t mark me correct. I asked the real questions. You did, too. I’m certain you did. Because when we’re three or four, we wonder. Insatiably. We ask the questions that don’t get asked because of ‘common sense,’ or something comparatively ridiculous, but that lead to the discoveries that flip our world like it’s a spherical omelette. Sure, not every question is life-changing, but some of them -- the what ifs and the but hows and the why, why, whys -- some of them are the ones asked by scientists and artists. Except, when you ask those questions as a toddler, they’re dismissed on the basis of lack of logic. It’s never about the questions themselves. It’s about who does the asking.

But I decided that when I grew, it would all work out. My doctor said that I would be five-foot-three or five-foot-four, maybe even five-foot-five. Five-foot-five! And I didn’t need to do anything besides grow.

Except, I didn’t. I mean, I grew a bit; for years, I was in exactly the fiftieth percentile for height in my age range. It was the only time I was excited to be average. But then, as I turned eleven, my growth curve started to level out into an extremely flat line.

I stopped growing in seventh grade. It was a disaster.

Because, in retrospect, all my expectations -- the ones I used to have for myself when I was three or four -- were the bricks in the path to being treated as an equal. I wanted to publish a book by the time I graduated from high school. I wanted to learn all the information -- not an exaggeration; I wanted to keep sprinting until I reached the edge of the unknown. I wanted to look like an adult, speak like an adult, dress like an adult, act like an adult. And I wanted to be tall.

I realize now that many of my expectations were unattainable. But the sentiment behind them wasn’t. And that one, vaguely possible hope (I say vaguely because neither of my parents is taller than five-and-a-half feet) was the one way that I was certain that I’d achieve my position as Respected. Now, as a fifteen-year-old, I fear that I will be a perpetual toddler in the minds of those taller than me. It will never matter what words fall from my mouth or flow from my fingers. Not if you see me. Because I will always, always be beneath you.

I guess that’s part of the reason I write. Yes, I write because it brings me inexplicable joy and a kind of profound contentment that I feel from nothing else, but I also write because your first thought upon reading my pieces isn’t, “Oh. She’s short.” (Except for this one. But that’s different.) You don’t take in the top of my head and the tip of my nose; you’re enveloped in my prose, grasped by my words, tugged into my paragraphs. You pass judgement on my brain rather than on my height. And maybe a tall (or even average) person doesn’t understand that, but it’s glorious.

My dad likes to quip, “I was the tallest kid in my class -- for about a week.” The backstory is that he had his growth spurt very early, but then everyone else grew and he resumed his status as resident garden gnome. During that one week (or something like that; this is, after all, a Dad Joke, so I’m pretty sure he stretched the facts), he was delighted. He must have been; why else does he insist on repeating said quip three times a month, decades after that one week? Height brings prestige. This is prestige that a five-foot-ten human might not notice (I don’t know -- I don’t have much experience from that perspective), but it is prestige nonetheless. When you’re tall, you don’t need to work to be seen as better-than-average; your physical appearance confirms it without you needing to provide other evidence of your talent.

Now, my dad is five-foot-five. He used to be five-foot-six, but then he shrunk. Or maybe the doctor’s measuring tools were off and he’s just been five-foot-five all along. There’s really no way for me to know. And my dad is quite happy, and quite successful, too, despite his height. He got a PhD. He published a book. He’s a brilliant psychologist. I hope that I, too, can overcome my shortness and be taken seriously.

Still, in a world where “know your angles” is common wisdom, it’s difficult to survive when you know you look worst from above.

Strokes of Ink and Streaks of Blood: An Exploration of Hobbesian and Lockean Theory Within Seventeenth-Century England

1/17/2016

In Parliament, radical ideas were bursting forth from every quill. But amongst the sewage choking citizens’ homes and the pigs wandering through battle-torn streets, the gentry and lower classes were more primitive than ever. For every stroke of ink, there was a streak of blood.

From the beginning of the English Civil War, when King Charles I’s head was publicly severed from his neck, to the end of the Glorious Revolution, when King William signed the English Bill of Rights, England struggled to redefine its government. Stemming from a conflict over the king’s divine right to rule, Parliament and the monarchy wrestled for power in a series of political disputes that led to the collective asking of a single question: What is the purpose of government? Various political philosophers, most notably Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, proposed answers. Hobbes believed that government was meant to prevent people from acting in accordance with what he believed was their natural state of perpetual war, while Locke believed that government was meant to protect the rights and liberties with which he believed people are born. The English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution were the results of the English government shifting in the direction of the Lockean ideal, but the events that transpired during the time period proved the Hobbesian theory of humans’ behavior in their natural state.

Lockean philosophy defended the rationale of the events that catalyzed the English Civil War by deeming that a corrupt monarch may justifiably be removed from power. Locke wrote, “Whensoever the legislative… endeavor[s] to grasp… an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people… they forfeit the power the people put into their hands.” In the years leading up to the English Civil War, King Charles I met Locke’s criteria for a corrupt legislator. As Yale professor Keith Wrightson states, Charles exercised what he considered his divine right as king by attempting to force Episcopalianism on all English and Scottish citizens, attempting to use government money to fund a war caused by his desire for uniformity of religion, and attempting to prevent Parliament from being involved in government. So according to Locke’s ideas, the English Parliament was correct to remove Charles from the throne (which they did by trying him for treason and eventually sentencing him to death), because his actions constituted a forfeit of legislative authority.

Locke believed that in situations like these, citizens are entitled to regress to the state of nature; while this did occur after the execution of King Charles, the state of nature experienced by English citizens was that of Hobbes rather than that of Locke. As Locke wrote, when there is a tyrannical authority, the people “have a right to resume their original liberty” in what he considered their natural state. But Locke also described the natural state as one that is inherently moral: “Reason, which is [the] law [of nature], teaches all mankind… [that] no one ought to harm each other in his life, liberty, or possessions.” This is not the natural state into which English citizens devolved during the English Civil War. Professor Wrightson describes a bloody reality in which one-fifth of all English adult men fought against each other, destroying towns, homes, and lives. Not only did this violate Locke’s idea of humans in nature, it supported Hobbes’ idea about the same concept; Hobbes wrote that the “condition of man” is a “condition of war of everyone against everyone.”

Indeed, from the beginning of the English Civil War to the end of the Glorious Revolution, the government was unstable enough that England’s environment was close to a natural one, and the citizens continued to act in ways that reflected Hobbes’ ideas of how humans naturally behave. Parliament and the monarchy struggled to coexist effectively, which resulted in a number of temporary power divisions such as Oliver Cromwell’s solely Parliamentary government and James II’s verging-on-tyrannical (as implied by the British House of Commons Information Office) government. Meanwhile, English citizens were growing more and more violent so that even their celebrations were savage, such as when they celebrated the acquittal of the Seven Bishops by “burning effigies of the Pope, and attacking Catholic establishments” (also according to the Information Office). As summarized by Yale Professor Steve Pincus, “English men and women throughout the country threatened one another, destroyed each other’s property, and killed and maimed one another throughout the revolutionary period.” This was a reality in which English lives were, as Hobbes described the lives of humans living in a state of nature, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Meanwhile, Parliamentary priorities during the Glorious Revolution were in accordance with the Lockean theory of government, which dictates that the citizens must limit their government’s power in order to prevent corrupt leadership. The English Bill of Rights--the document that expresses and applies the political ideas that were the outcome of half a century of debate--emphasized Parliament’s ability to check the monarch’s power. In this heavily altered English governmental system, the king was now forced to gain Parliamentary consent before “suspend[ing] [or] dispens[ing] with the laws,” “raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom during times of peace,” or “levying money for or to the use of the crown.” In the philosophy in accordance with these decrees, Locke wrote that a government must be carefully modulated by its citizens; as phrased by Yale Professor Smith, “Locke is absolutely confident that limited government… is the only kind of government that can be trusted to protect rights.” Ergo, the new English government was Lockean in philosophy.

Despite this, certain individuals argue that the period of time was solely centered around either Hobbesian or Lockean ideas. They claim that because English government had not entirely abandoned the monarchical system, it was still Hobbesian, or that because English citizens were fighting for liberty, their violence was still Lockean. In response to the first point, it is true that one part of government (Parliament) was limiting another part of government (the monarch) rather than the people of the country limiting the entire government. However, England was certainly moving away from Hobbesian governmental ideas and in the direction of Lockean ones. It had abandoned ideas of the divine right of the king and was beginning to transfer power into the hands of Parliament, a multi-faceted body of voters chosen by the people to make legislative decisions. This new emphasis on consent of the people was aligned with Locke’s similar idea that "for when any number of men by the consent of every individual make a community, they have thereby made that community one body with a power to act as one body which is only by the will and determination of the majority." In response to the second point, while Jeffersonian revolution (which was a descendant of Lockean revolution) was violent, Lockean revolution was not. Rather, when Locke described the process of separating oneself from a corrupt authority, he instructed that citizens “rouze themselves, and may endeavour to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected.” Rephrased, Lockean philosophy dictates that people find or create a new government that functions in accordance with morality. Locke’s phrasing implies that this was a peaceful endeavor.

Ultimately, English governmental philosophy became more and more Lockean during the English Civil War and Glorious Revolution, although the characteristics displayed by English citizens during this time period reflected Hobbes’ ideas about the natural behavior of humans. It may appear questionable that Lockean structures, then, were successful in governing Hobbesian individuals. But after England’s governmental rebirth, the country did gain strength and power, continuing on to become one of the wealthiest and most influential countries in the world. Perhaps this was because both Locke and Hobbes were only partially correct; if English history is any indication, people are naturally brutal, but are willing to cooperate under a government that expects them to be naturally moral. This gives rise to another characteristic of human nature: the tendency to meet expectations. If people are believed to be generally good, then they will act this way, regardless of whether or not it is their natural inclination to do so. And in this complex, dark world, that is a truly heartening thought.

This piece won a Silver Key in the 2017 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.

Slavery Is Not Over: Why Students Need to Be Taught About Human Trafficking

12/31/2015

The United States school curriculum has a fundamental flaw: it discusses slavery only in relation to the African-American narrative. This narrative begins in 1619, when African slaves were taken to the Jamestown colony, and encompasses slave auctions, the Triangle Trade, and the Civil War. It discusses the lives of the 12.5 million slaves who were brought from Africa to the New World before 1866. Most significantly, this narrative ends with the Emancipation Proclamation and the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.

The focus on the African-American narrative results in a definition of slavery (deliberate or not) as an institution that (a) is in the past, (b) only impacted one specific demographic, and (c) is limited to the kidnapping and mistreatment of Africans by Europeans and Americans.

This definition of slavery is detrimental to students because it implies that slavery is over. This definition of slavery ignores the twenty to thirty million victims of human trafficking--both sex trafficking and labor trafficking--who are currently being exploited. This definition of slavery avoids discussion of child brides, does not include organ trafficking, and is devoid of references to sweatshop workers.

This definition limits students’ perception of slavery. Consequently, they cannot recognize slavery in the modern world, and are therefore unable to combat it.

The current New York State Common Core Social Studies Framework for grades K-8 includes this limited discussion of slavery within the fourth and seventh grade curricula. In fourth grade, it is found in unit 4.5, “In Search of Freedom and a Call for Change,” which focuses on the idea that “different groups of people did not have equal rights and freedoms.” The content of the unit includes information about the “rights... denied to Africans and African-Americans,” the “people that took action to abolish slavery,” and the Civil War.

African-American slavery becomes a large focus of the seventh-grade year, discussed extensively during units 7.2, 7.7, 7.8, and 7.9. Unit 7.2, “Colonial Developments,” teaches students about the growth of slavery in the colonies. Similar to the fourth-grade unit, unit 7.7, “Reform Movements,” centers around the idea that “social, political, and economic inequalities sparked various reform movements and resistance efforts.” This includes information about the abolitionist movement, historical abolitionist figures, and “the impact of Uncle Tom’s Cabin” on the public perception of slavery.” Unit 7.8, “A Nation Divided,” is also similar to the fourth grade curricula, as it educates about the Civil War and the clash of the North and the South, although it goes more deeply into the reasons behind the clash (such as the disagreement over whether slavery should be legal in new territories). Unit 7.9, “Reconstruction,” discusses a new topic: how “freed African Americans created new lives for themselves in the absence of slavery.” Rather than continuing to discuss slavery, this unit covers post-slavery African-American experiences.

And the New York curriculum is not alone. In the teacher-developed “Slavery in America” units available online, slavery is taught only in the context of African-Americans. The elementary school package includes six lessons: “Slavery's Beginnings, A Slave's Life, The United States of America, Slave Rebellions, The Underground Railroad, [and] Famous Abolitionists.” The middle school equivalent has a longer, more detailed list of essential questions, including “Was slavery a benign or evil institution?”, “Was the Civil War inevitable?”, and “How did cotton affect the social and economic life of the South?”

Since units titled “Slavery in America” discuss only the African-American narrative, it becomes clear that students are not receiving a complete education about slavery.

In a curriculum that aims to help students become proficient in“reasoning, justification, synthesis, analysis, and problem-solving,” it is essential to provide enough information to give them the tools necessary to properly utilize problem-solving skills. Therefore, I propose that human trafficking be incorporated into the Common Core seventh-grade curriculum.

In New York’s unit 7.9, “Reconstruction,” the last lesson in the last section, 7.9c, is an examination of the “effects of the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling.” This concludes the seventh grade year and ends the discussion of slavery. I propose that this be altered so that another section, 7.9d, is added in order for students to conclude their discussion of slavery with a lesson on human trafficking.

This group of lessons would ideally segue from the earlier material by bringing up the idea that students have only been learning about one type of slavery. The concept of human trafficking--modern-day slavery--should be introduced here. Students will learn about the different types of trafficking (sex and labor trafficking) and how they connect to African-American slavery. An example outline (adhering to the format of the New York State Common Core Social Studies Framework) would be as follows:

7.9d: Human trafficking continues today in many forms, in ways that are both similar to and different from the enslavement of African Americans.

Students will examine the source/destination country system of global sex trafficking. They will read (non-graphic) accounts written by sex slaves who were born in source countries and brought to America, and compare them to accounts written by African slaves.
Students will examine statistics about modern trafficking in the United States, comparing victims of labor trafficking (those who work for little to no pay in the farming and health and beauty industries, and in factories with unsafe conditions) to African-American slaves in the 1800s.
Students will re-examine the Thirteenth Amendment, this time finding examples to argue for or against the idea that the Thirteenth Amendment protects victims of human trafficking.

By broadening the slavery unit with a brief discussion of human trafficking, students would not only be made aware of an important issue in the modern world, but also would be able to see a strong example of how history shapes the present. This encourages critical thinking and aligns with the Common Core’s objective of providing students with the skills they need for success.

As the owner of an Instagram account that educates about modern-day slavery (specifically child prostitution), I see every day how little our students know about human trafficking. This is an issue that many of them view as something that happened in the past, or something that happens in other countries, but that does not affect them. They are not aware that of the $32 billion dollars that support the trafficking industry, $9.5 billion comes from the United States. They are not aware that street prostitution is a way that children are exploited in America. They are not aware that sex trafficking is rape. And they depend on schools to educate them. This is a generation that can and will make incredible changes within our world, but if they do not know an issue exists, there is no way for them to fight it.

I know that the United States wants what is best for its students. I have faith in our country--a strong, immovable faith that despite controversy over education, we are trying. We are trying so extraordinarily hard to ensure that our students’ futures are as full of possibility and success and meaning as possible. And by doing so, we are raising a generation of fighters. We are fighting for them, and they are fighting for justice. As the government, it is your responsibility to aid them and educate them so that they have the tools to fulfill the mission of Declaration of Independence: create a country where we are all free.

This piece won a Silver Key in the 2016 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.

Writing, Trust Falls, and the Shared Characteristics of Analysis and Silly Putty: A Desideratum

11/26/2015

I was born to write.

We’re not talking George Orwell here. I’m not arrogant enough to consider myself a literary master, or have any ideas about someday becoming one. I’m not a writer of essays that question the fibers of society, or of books that make your worldview do a pirouette. What I was born to do is write to make people happy.

That’s because I believe in the value of simply being. And I don’t think that’s acknowledged enough in our world. Goals must be concrete. We must always Be Productive, because otherwise, we are unable to Accomplish Things. And that philosophy has its merits. But equally important is our ability to be at peace with doing nothing. When whirlwind becomes the default, we forget the bliss that comes with stillness. Writing--the type of writing that I was born to do--is about reminding readers of the simple happiness of just existing.

In some ways, I’ve had this set of values since I was very young, dating back to even my six-year-old scribbles. My first real story, if I’m remembering correctly, was a piece written in scented marker about fairies. Then there was the horror novel--the unabashed rip-off of Goosebumps. (Since then, originality has become significantly more of a priority.) There was the one about malaria on the Oregon Trail, the flash fiction that radiated middle-school angst, and the novel about a teenager solving a murder mystery. But what they all had in common, across ten years of writing, is that they all served the same purpose: to bring joy.

None of the plots was ever particularly deep. You couldn’t analyze them in English class, but that wasn’t ever the point. I never wanted my writing to be analyzed; I thought that took all the meaning out of it. When you, a reader, open a book, you’re consenting to unzipping your skull, plucking out your brain, and temporarily gifting it to the author. The reader-author relationship is the ultimate trust fall. Let me backtrack a bit--as a young child, I was constantly aggravated by not being taken seriously, and writing was perhaps the only situation in which I felt I could be the guide rather than the guided. My stories were my world, and only I could dictate it. But as I got older, I was introduced to the curious phenomenon of English class analysis. These authors of the books that I read in class--they had to have felt like I did, cringing every time these clueless nine-year-olds stretched the text like Silly Putty.

So I decided, as a budding writer, that it was my job to defend the author’s intention. “We’re getting so far from what the author wrote that it can’t possibly be what he really meant,” I announced every year to every English teacher. “Isn’t that wrong?”

For a few years, none of my teachers had a satisfactory response. They’d mutter phrases like “authors are ambiguous” or “how does anyone really know?” Then they’d change the subject rapidly and I wouldn’t bring it up for another year. But my eighth grade teacher gave me an answer that hit me over the head like a cartoon exclamation point: “It doesn’t matter what the author ‘really meant.’ What’s important is what you get out of it as a reader.”

To me, that was radical. I’d never considered that writing was as important for the reader as it was for the author. But it made sense. Sometimes, I reflected, the reader’s happiness comes from allowing the author complete control, but sometimes, it comes from interpreting the text for him- or herself. As long as I was making people happy, I was having my desired impact. Perhaps it wasn’t a trust fall. Perhaps it was more of a game of ping-pong.

Now, my view on writing is complex, and I’m sure that it’ll continue to evolve. I don’t have any guarantee of getting my novel published, and if that does happen, I’m sure that a “real” author-reader divide will enhance my idea of the reader’s exact purpose. But even so, I’m certain that I was born to write.