LABYRINTH

2013

Labyrinth 2012-2013

• Members:– Samantha Baum– Eva Castillo– Dakota Cohen– Amanda Ellis– Elise Littlefield– Amanda Puig– Liana Salgado

• Advisors:– Laural Olsen– Renee Pastor

Cover Art by Amanda Ellis

Does Anybody Hear Her?

She is running a hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction.She is trying, but the canyons are ever widening in the depth of her cold heart.So she steps out on another misadventure just to findShe’s another three years older, and three more steps behind.

She is yearning for a hunger and affection that she never felt at home.She is searching for a hero to ride in and save the day.In walks her Prince Charming and he knows just what to say.A momentary lapse of reasoning and she gives herself away.

Does anybody hear her? Does anybody see?Does anybody even know she’s going down today?Under the shadow of a steeple, with all the lost and lonely peopleSearching for the hope that’s tucked inside of me.

Judgment looms under every steeple.With lofty glances from lofty people.Can’t see past her scarlet letter,And you’ve never even met her.Does anybody hear her? Does anybody see?

By Anonymous

Fractured Reflection

She dawdles alongside me and speaks of her troubles and dreams.She deserves better I continuously tell myself, every day I see her face.

She hypnotized me when she sang, when she spoke, when she kissed me.Except the kiss didn’t happen; I made it up.

She stayed when the party disbanded and spoke of her troubles and dreams.She was crying inside; I could feel her tears in my eyes.

She demanded of me to help her, to hold her, to dance with her.Except the dance didn’t happen; I made it up.

She asked my advice and spoke of her troubles and dreams.She flung upon my shoulder; I supported her.

She wished to be more, to be priceless, to be worthy of someone’s love.Except love was holding her, wishing It were worthy of hers.

I gazed into her eyes, into her essence of being.I was looking in a mirror and finally seeing.Perhaps we weren’t so different, she and I.

Both of us being broken inside.

By Anonymous

By Amanda Ellis

The empty universe stared me in the eye

Turbulence is perfected by the shaking window that divides the

perpetuating lonesome and I.

I look out toward the sea,

Sand clinging to my body

As I commit and engrave the placidity to my memory.

I inhale tranquility;

Life forever changed.

With seventeen dreamers stretched out on a wrinkled plaid sheet,

The stars bled restriction and twinkled freedom.

We were a single breakdown, a connected soul.

We polluted the sea with our imperfections as we melted into our own

ocean.

With our sisterhood existing through a crummy telephone connection,

All that remains are jagged-edged seashells

And fingerprint contaminated photographs

To justify this perfection.

By Anonymous

Wanderers

I wander through trees, like the scrawny fingers of giants reaching towards a blanket of black night, poking holes, clawing through galaxies and comets. I am a tiny bundle of energy moving quietly in the thick silence through empty alleyways over cracked sidewalks. I pace down these streets at a time which exists only when one wakes suddenly from a nightmare—the hours which many will die without ever experiencing. There are others like me—wanderers. We orbit like planets around the city, searching, seeking, but we don’t know what for. At this time of night we aren’t people. We are silhouettes. We are nothing.

Some are wanderers because they don’t have a choice. Because it’s their only chance of escape from their terrible life of consistency. They learn to flee their houses as quietly and discreetly as a ballet dancer moves with a symphony. A twist of the doorknob could give you away. Then comes freedom. Night washes over you like an eclipse, shadowing all you’ve ever known and you love it. Take a few steps and familiarize yourself with this unknown terrain, your bland, insipid world is now a maze, an artist’s canvas with dark purple paint still dripping from the edges.

We don’t speak, us wanderers, but there’s an indescribable force between us, like the magnitude of something more than ourselves. Behind every hooded silhouette, there is a story. A reason. A name. But that doesn’t matter for now. For now we are the silver glow of the moon, the whispering wind, and the silence.

By Kendall Stark

By Amanda Ellis

A note

When I say that nobody speaks to me, mother,I’m half-lying.(I mean, teachers count, so…)Of course, your attention/interest span concerning my feelings isIncredibly lowBut you make an effort to understand, if not for just a few momentsOf your busy adult lifeSo picture thisYour DaughterSeemingly antisocialSeemingly unapproachableWith a desire, an aching desire, to evade all human contactCommunicationParticipationSelf-isolation juxtaposes gripes of LonelinessCrowded hallways make me paranoidSemi-empty hallways just plain creep me out, I stumble.Group work disturbs meAs do the conversations that screech near my ear during lunchI think that disturbs me the mostGod help those poor soulsDense, naïve, infectiousThose who maybe do know one or two things are hopelessly contaminatedThat’s beside the point, howeverWhen you think I’m making progress by starting to talkDon’t assume that those people ever talk to me again.

By Victoria Silva

Lunch- a hodgepodge of writing

I don’t even want to write anymore,repeating cliché after clichéAvoid becoming the hypocritemartyr I despiseHow can I preach if I am still soyoung?I detest these poems Yet I continue to write for I find noother friendAs relatable as Pen and Paper, asunderstandable as Pen the speaker, Paper the hostThey understand me,They are me. Which is creepy in a wayBut no one else will listenTherefore I dedicate myself solelyTo my thoughts, to my interestsTo myself.(Thanks, Kerouac.)

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green eyes, brown hairEven the back of his headpleases me so

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An empty table full of backpacks

Well, until the girls return from the

lunch lineAt least I have a table to

sit at Right?Otherwise I’d float

around like aslowly dying balloonYou know, when it’s

running out ofhelium Because I’m running out

ofMotivation.

By Victoria Silva

By Pola Dobrzynski

Food for Thought

You are the Sawney to my Bean,And you are the Donner to my party.

Before you wrecked my Dumaru,You wooed me with “Titus Andronicus”

You Aztected my heart,And later you ripped my Jack.

Lo, I was the fool,All along you Albert Fished for a compliment,

But now I remain as silent as a lamb.So now, my heart Alexander Pearced,

It’s time you Piers Paul ReadBetween the lines.

Then meet me for a late lunch.

By Emma Bernhardt

Doubt

is the newspaper boy of reason

is a stalactite in the cavernous skull

is a mustard stain on the

lapel of talent

is every loose thread of every paperboy’s cap

is all of the echoes ever diffused in the cloth of Hawaiian shirts

is an expensive suit which fits

badly

By Luke Krsnak

Basketball

In between the lines, I am free. Free from life, anger, and stress.The game of basketball is more than just a game, more than a hobby,It is my life.

Without this “rock” in my hand, there is no me.Sometimes this “rock” is simply nothing but my imagination because if I do not have it physically, then I own it mentally.It’s a must. I feed my obsession by playing every day in any way possible, if not, then I am sober.

Any type of temperature, weather, state, playground, park, gym, you can find me trying to improve my game.I compare my skills to “natural born talent,” it was my destiny to play this game.

When defended I want to punish my opponents.Not because I’m mean, but because I can.

By Anonymous

Lotus and Kelsey

By Amanda Ellis

What would one do

For twenty golden flowers?

If one can buy anything

For twenty bucks

You may exchange an answer

For twenty more questions

But what would you earn

For twenty more thoughts?

Will life continue

For twenty million eons?

Would I give my life

For twenty unknown souls?

For the world

Endless Four Twenty.

By Anonymous

Mints and Markers

By Amanda Ellis