EDITOR’S NOTE:
As the school year passes and blurs into summer, it's important to celebrate the communities we have built with one another this year and the joy we have created through the chaos of high school. There's nothing more impressive than sitting in a blank classroom and creating beautiful art, and we all feel incredibly lucky to exist in a school packed full of incredible writers and artists. Thank you for building this wonderful space to create with us. Our magazine exists because of students like you.
- The team of Ink & Venom
FEATURED PIECES
You Just Stare
Izin Villarreal
Amelia begins to shake as she continues to talk to her pastor, who has a recording device active on the desk they share. “She was so young, my little girl loved me and David. We spent so much time with her, she used to cry when she met family members and friends”
Amelia hugs herself, tightly gripping each elbow. “The day of her death, I couldn’t sleep. Not even with David in bed with me.” With each word, she chokes on her cries and trembles. “We were horrified by her death in her bed, but when I came home from work the next day, I swear I could feel her in my arms-” In between her words, Amelia offers the air an embrace, hugging nothing to demonstrate her feelings, “-like she was greeting me. It was like holding an ice block in my arms, and it wouldn’t let go until I felt numb. Soon after, I heard footsteps leading to my room-” Amelia begins to sob with tears falling down her face, sharply inhaling post-sob, desperate for air.
She looks up, attempting to remember the moment. “And there she was… standing there with a man, smiling… She held the man's hand.” Amelia looks down at the pastor, losing some of her tension, “The man walked with her into the wall, fusing with its paper, and soon after, these faces began to form from behind the wallpaper. There were sad faces, mad ones, scared ones, happy ones, and evil ones. They all started screaming, laughing, and sobbing at me.”
Amelia wipes sweat from her face and wipes it onto her dress. “It’s crazy because you’d think you’d scream and run from this, but in reality, you just stare. You freeze like a moron. You act like prey, like a deer in a car's headlights. Maybe it’s because deep down, the two of us have something in common. We both know it's over.” Amelia takes a deep breath and cools off. Her hands stop fidgeting with the crinkles on her dress. “And then the hands followed the faces, stretching from the wallpaper, pulling my room’s skin abnormally far and grabbing at me. Clawing and grasping, but not in a hurtful way, more as if they wanted me to pull them out. Like a crowd trying to escape, drowning in the walls.” Amelia’s pace begins to quicken, “And at the time, I did finally scream. I screamed so loud I felt as if puke were trying to puke out of my body in fear. I ran from that room and ran to the kitchen. The hands and faces were everywhere on the walls. The lights began to flicker, and I felt a hand close to the ground grab my leg, tripping me, and causing me to plummet to the floor. From the walls, the people finally did it. They escaped the choking wallpaper. They tore through, their flesh red and rotting like corpses that fell into a blood bath. People with mouths inside mouths and eyes inside eyes, all crawling and running toward me, but as the light continued to flicker, the electricity went out. I felt and heard nothing. I could feel nothing. Then I cried and thought, “What if this is what death is?” Dark, scary, alone, open yet closed, choking, suffocating, and horrifying. Then, the light switch turned, and David stood there, questioning my sanity and capabilities.”
L.E.G.I.O.N
Nyle Schmidt
An Ode to Childhood Memories
Seth Alvarez
Oh childhood, how I've yearned for you
Those memories of when life was sweet and simple
Those summer days with my dripping clothes
Running through the garden
From climbing trees to falling from them
Running with my friends, not thinking about growing up
Not thinking about what the future had in store for us
The only thing we were thinking about is what adventure we would go on
From adventuring into the wood
To adventuring to my grandmother's garden
And when the night came upon us
And the stars shone so bright,
We lay beneath them, exhausted.
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