Submit your works to STYLUS II

EMAIL YOUR POETRY, PROSE, AND WRITINGS to:

ASHSLITMAG@HOTMAIL.com

Who Is to Say

Who Is to Say

Olivia King ‘17

Perfection is but an illusion
Chased around like a lightning bug in the dark,
Appearing just long enough for you to grab hold,
Only for it to escape and once again taunt, in the blink of an eye
The compliment, more so a burden,
Haunting a society, which so desperately tries to achieve it
Leaving all who walk the earth preoccupied
With the nonexistent myth

Perfection is but an affliction
Thrown around like the “hot potato” when you were six
Labeling one thing before something different comes along,
Snatching the word for an instant
Before something else does the same

Perfection is but a misconception
For who is to say what is?
The idea as unique to an individual as a fingerprint,
Changing from one pair of shoes to the next
Leading to the brutally honest reality
That not only is perfection not real

But perfection is not right

Life Is Like a Train

Life Is Like a Train

Andrew Forschler ‘16

Streamlined, steam line

Chromed body

The train rushed on through the valley

A woman

New white mink coat

A man

Gun in hand

Dark suit

Sat down to eat in the dining car

White floor shining

Chrome counter glistening

A waiter

White tailcoat

Came for the order

“Bring on the champagne!”

Demanded the man

“I think I’d prefer a red wine tonight.”

Said the woman

The waiter brought the wine and glasses

A taste

“It’s good.”

The woman said

“More! Pour!”

Shouted the man

The waiter poured wobbly when the train rocked from a rough place on the rails

The mink

The floor

The tailcoat

The man

Gun in hand

Fired

*bang*

The white floor now had a new red coat

I guess what I mean to say is

That life is like a train

In that there is a definite beginning and end

Wake Me Up

Wake Me Up

Catie Ogilvie ‘17

The alarm goes off.

It’s 6:10.

I roll back and forth.

Slowly and calmly,

I rise to make the loud noise stop.

Wiping my eyes,

I notice the extra make up from the day before.

The halls are dark.

No lights,

natural or artificial.

I close the bathroom door behind me.

The creaking echoes throughout the house.

Gently,

I turn the shower knob.

The warm water hits the shower floor.

One toe at a time,

I step into the small bathtub.

The water comes down like small sprinkles fall onto ice cream.

It washes away the tiredness of the morning.

Finishing the shower,

I brush my hair.

Every strand is a different shade of brown.

It dries quickly,

almost as quick as it took to brush my hair.

Finally,

I put my make up on.

Girls put it on like they would put paint on a canvas,

unique to each person and very carefully.

To finish the morning,

I eat a small breakfast.

It consists of fruit and a cup of juice.

A light breakfast to hold me over until lunch.

My morning goes by slowly,

and then all at once.

The day opens and closes like a book,

and we repeat the same story line until the last chapter.

The Mood of Music

The Mood of Music

Bernadette Pantazis ‘17

Pop, the leader of the age

Contained in today's mainstream cage

Who's designed to give what the masses want

While every station encourages her flaunt

Rock, the rebel, born of rage

Whose goal is to break the decibel's gauge

Inciter of feelings revolutionary

"The Devil's Music," approved only rarely

Techno, the computer's musical wage

Where software and programs replace the page

And noises and beeps comprise its face

Its only goal: to "drop the bass"

Rap, the words of those deranged

All bare, no talent, no melody, no range

The poet's naked feelings, spit out on a mic

A loud and brash rant, the two are alike

Classic, the olden day's golden sage

Who waved the baton like an ancient mage

Thrown to the side, outdated, ignored

Its most recent achievement is making youth bored

Everywhere you look, some music is hated

Someone's taste is wrong, it seems to be fated

Some genres will rise, and others must fall

All I have to say is, "What's wrong with liking it all?"

The Best Man (a memoir of a loved one)

The Best Man 
(a memoir of a loved one)
Patrick McInerney ‘17

Why must we die? Why must our loved ones leave us? One day we’re here, the next we are gone. Gone forever. Why do bad things happen to good people? The best man of all men, the most courageous, the most loving, the one which looks after everyone but himself. Why must he leave? No one knows the reason for sure?

There once was a man who was as strong as a lion, as courageous as a bear, and who had a love for his family deeper than anyone alive. God took this man from this earth a year before his 50th birthday. He was the best of all uncles, the greatest of all siblings, the most sincere of all sons. He was the person who deserved life more than anyone. Maybe that is the reason that he is gone. Maybe God called him early because he deserved paradise. My uncle truly was the best of us. I talked to him two days before his unexpected passing. He called for my brother to congratulate him on his high school graduation. He called on three different occasions, unable to reach my brother on all three. I so deeply regret that I had not tried harder to let him talk to my brother by phone. The last time I spoke to him he wished my family his blessings and his love. Every time he called he would send his blessings and love.

It happened so suddenly, the day after the graduation party many family members were still around. We received a call that my uncle had died that morning at his friend’s house in Colorado. At this point no one knows why or how. The only thing I know is that I love my Uncle Danny. Every person that met my Uncle loved him. God loved Uncle Danny. I know that one day we will meet again in heaven. One day we will see each other again in paradise. Until that day I will try my best to be like Uncle Danny. I will do my best to love the way he loved his family and his God. Uncle Danny, I wish you were here with me now, I wish I could talk to you again and hear you laugh. I wish I could give you that big bear hug you always give me.  I wish I could go fishing with you like we planned, and go skiing in Colorado. I wish you would pick me up from that airport in New York one more time, and we could sit in traffic. Even then I would still be happy because I am with you. I wish I could spread the happiness you spread every time you walked through the door. I cannot bear to think that I will never see you again on this earth. I wish that this was just a bad dream, and I could wake up and know that you will come to visit soon. Uncle Danny I love you. Pray for me as I will pray for you. Take it easy in heaven big guy, I will make it back to you one day. You will always be in my heart Uncle Danny. I love you so much. 5/24/15.

Our Love Story

Our Love Story

Eva Price ‘17

Beautiful dawn, with its golden streams

The pink of roses blushing the morning

The ease of dewed grass and the comfort of blue

That is how love is supposed to be.

But ours

Ours was swift morning air

Tinkling the branches and sweeping the bird’s calls

And I was hypnotized by the powdered sky

But I guess you weren’t.

If it had to end,

I wish our dusk would have settled into the lilac fields

With the slow of evening.

Not into quick shadows,

And dark, fogged skies.

Once my irises could welcome the black silence,

You were gone.

Too many false hopes,

Too many hours of denial were spent

Before the storms had begun to turn to drizzles,

And the up above had decided to mercifully calm.

The mist is still softening

But the moon is beginning to glow through

And finally the stars are coming alight

The Greatest Mask of All

The Greatest Mask of All

Anonymous

It grows deeper, her smile that is, oh a fake one so. For that she must show off her fake white teeth surrounded by the lips covered in artificial color highlighted by the dark powder pressed upon her light skin. Every so often in which her fake sun-bright yellow hair brushed upon after having her acrylic nails run through the strands just occasionally getting caught in the long intentionally darkened eyelashes. Eyelashes sprouting out from underneath the crease-free rub-on color of brown upon her eye lid spreading up meeting the filled in mini hairs known as eyebrows. For the girl was left with nothing natural on her face except the color surrounding her pupils of a bloodshot reddish tint on the eye ball. The eye that she starred at for just a second longer before increasing the space between the glass girl and her.

Love Bites

Love Bites

Natalie Holmes ‘17

Love bites. They don’t hurt like a broken heart. They don’t scar like a wound. They don’t even leave a mark that you can see. They aren’t bites that can kill you, or bites that can make you turn into a superhero. Love bites are like the butterflies in your belly, they make you feel weak. They make you feel light headed. They make you feel as if the world is standing still, and the only person moving is that boy at the end of the hall, and you. You, the wide eyed girl who can’t believe the sight that’s been bestowed on her by an unknown presence. She can’t speak, it’s as if the air had been snatched from her lungs like a thief in the night. That boy down the hall, with glasses, doe brown eyes, at least 5'11, doesn’t even know you are staring at him. He doesn’t even know that you exist just a couple of feet away from him. He doesn’t know you’ve been bitten, by a love bite. He doesn’t even notice you are just standing at the end of the hall, gazing at him with wide greenish-blue eyes, like a silent ocean wave. You suddenly see him walking towards you. Your heart begins to race. You don’t know what to say, you can’t speak because of how handsome he is with those puppy brown eyes that could melt your heart in an instant. But then, oh lord, he makes eye contact with you, you don’t know where to go. You feel as if you want to run behind a rock and hide. He is only a couple feet from you, you are breathless, heart racing. He looks at you and raises his eyebrow in a greeting. You do the same with a small smile. Wow, you can’t even begin to comprehend the fact that he even bothered to glance at you, to acknowledge your existence. You can’t describe in words the feeling that you have for that boy standing in front of you. But the only sad thing is, you don’t know if he’s been bitten too, and you probably never will. That’s the thing about love, it can break your heart, or it can change your life, forever.

Where have the Flags gone?

Where have the Flags gone?

Savannah Wallace ‘17

A legendary declaration made for inalienable rights

A sense of unity brought on by common strife

A daring ride made in the dead of night

A land famous for giving people new life

A new superpower brought on by a shift to Truman

Centuries of isolation ended due to a war that brought on ruin

A civic duty felt when joining the house that’s white

Power given to the common people

A significant advantage that gives our country its might

But with a continued stream of terrible news

Some people seem to forget about the red, white, and blue

Patriotism is not limited to a calendar date

Americans must remember to appreciate

A legendary declaration made for inalienable rights

A sense of unity brought on by common strife

A daring ride made in the dead of night

A land famous for giving people new life

Our Broken World (Never Know You Again)

Our Broken World 

(Never Know You Again)

Amber Kreitzer ‘17

Everything good starts and ends with little left but former friends

and love gets lost and morals bend

and even the strongest can't always fend

against the sorrow and the pain

of struggling just to speak a name

and think of those you'll never know

or ever get to see their flame spark

in this messed up world

where even brightness turns to dark

and if you're strong or if you're weak

if the life you lead is bold or meek

the only thing all humans share -

how we must face our own despairs

the scariest thing about life is  

that everyone dies but not everyone lives

Galaxies

Galaxies

Abbey Holmes ‘16

within each of us, there

is a galaxy.

it starts out small,

with a big bang.

it destroys,

and creates.

stars are born,

which reflect in your eyes.

the sizzle of contact between us,

just two meteors smashing together.

when you smile,

the sun shines through and you glow.

when you cry,

it rains and puts out your light.

within each of us,

there is a galaxy.

and yours and mine,

is part of one.

Night

Night

Elyse Pellegrino ’16

The night stars twinkle so bright.

And evening colors are fading.

Just a perfect dark sky at night

The moon in the sky, just waiting.
Life ever so still and silent.

At day time, it was never like so

full of mystery but not violent.

The lamps give the streets a soft glow.
Tall trees have a lingering shadow.

A soft warm breeze across the grass.

Sleep a silent foreshadow.

I wish this moment could last.

Christmas Comfort

Christmas Comfort

Jordan Heydt ‘17

The bright lights on the tree

Illuminate the house with a warm comforting glow

Outside the small frosted window is a world covered in white

The black sky offering a deep contrast

I feel the energy of a roaring fire

It comes alive with a violent explosion of reds and yellows

A delicious scent snakes into the room

It carries many laughs and smiles along with memories from Christmas's past

A perfectly wrapped present sits patiently under the tree

It receives excited gazes from all who pass, what could the tiny box hold?

A comfy chair sleepily calls to me with its fuzzy handmaid quilt

Every stitch another reason to be thankful on this magical Christmas Eve

The Blizzard

The Blizzard

Ava Froble ‘17

All the world’s a blizzard,

And all the men and women merely snowflakes,

Not one is exactly alike,

Varying in its own intricacy and magnificence,

Its journey first starts in the clouds,

Oblivious to the world around them and down below,

Only to slip sway from the sheltering clouds very slow,

A case of clinging curiosity overwhelms the snowflakes,

And they fall faster and faster accelerating down to Earth,

The wind picks up sending the Snowflakes on an unexpected detour,

Lost and unsure, the Snowflakes quarrel,

Arguing and squabbling furiously,

Time passes by and they start to lose their delicate patterns,

Melting down to the Earth their beauty vanishes.

Reggae Hippo

Reggae Hippo

Anonymous

The rare blue hippopotamus looks out of

the cage

Feeling so trapped and alone inside,

wanting to experience the world outside

People walk by and the hippo starts to cry

Jealousy builds up, as the hippo turns green

Inside the zoo, isolated, without even a screen

to look through

No friends around

But load are the sounds

Of people walking by

Oh how the hippo just wants to fly

Away

From all the people, trouble, and fears

That have become more apparent over the years

The zookeeper arrives to bring him food

and the hippo changes his mood

The door is open, the hippo has his chance

to break free into a dance

He likes disco and ballet

But most of all, he likes reggae

Which he does every day

Wishing all his troubles away.

Hugo's Journey

Hugo's Journey

Anonymous

In his warm comfortable environment, an egg, Hugo decided to call it, everything was safe and serene; it was perfect, except that Hugo wasn’t content. Hugo, for some reason, had a desire, a compulsion, to leave the egg, so he started pecking at it with his beak. Hugo had a feeling that the beak was intended for this purpose, and he kept pecking, and pecking, and pecking until, finally, the egg cracked. As Hugo began to move out of his shell, he encountered two things: the cool, coarse, and grainy stuff surrounding him, he called it sand, and his many brothers and sisters, who, like himself, had cracked open their respective eggs. Upon exiting their eggs, Hugo and his siblings began to dig through the sand collectively, towards whatever lay above them. This self-excavation took hours, which turned into days, and, sometime during this process, Hugo’s beak fell off.

       Hugo and his brothers and sisters eventually pulled themselves out of the sand and into the night’s open air after days of digging. As Hugo took stock of his surroundings, noticing the gargantuan expanse above him, which he called sky, he acquired an urge, a very unexplainable thing, to move towards the blue moving expanse in front of him, another aspect of his surroundings that he noticed. It was a strange thing, this urge, as it wasn’t painful or gnawing: It was just there. It made Hugo feel incomplete within the very core of himself. Acting upon this urge, despite digging for days straight, Hugo began moving toward the expanse, the blue expanse he called the sea, and realized, quite quickly, that he wasn’t much acquainted with moving. But this didn’t stop the urge, and therefore, didn’t stop Hugo, who decided that he was going to learn how to move right now and quickly to get into the sea. So, with great determination and energy, Hugo began closing the distance.

       As night gave way to dawn-a distinction Hugo made as the big yellow orb in the sky, he called the sun, replaced the crescent white figure, the moon-Hugo was closer but still not at the sea. Hugo began to notice flying creatures, birds, circling above him. Hugo quickly concluded that the birds were dangerous, and as soon as Hugo made this judgement, the birds began to swoop down upon the beach; snatching up Hugo’s brethren in their sinister beaks. Now, with these evil birds around, Hugo’s desire to enter the sea grew, as the inexplicable urge was compounded by the immediate desire for self-preservation-the same could be said for Hugo’s siblings. What became of this was a mad dash towards the sea, by Hugo and all of his brethren. However, there was another factor working against them: the heat; it was drying Hugo out, sapping his energy, exhausting him. In the face of all of this Hugo carried on, never stopping in his long journey towards the sea, joined by the rest of his siblings, but as the distance go closer, so too did the birds: they were running out of targets on the extremity of the collection of Hugo and his siblings and were starting to strike closer to the center, where Hugo was; seemingly for every step Hugo took a bird would swoop down and abduct someone near him and would get closer and closer. Everyone left in the group was running as fast as their bodies would take them towards the sea, which they knew meant safety from the evil birds. Then, an evil bird, the most massive in the scourge of birds snatching Hugo and his brethren, decided that Hugo was going to be his next target, and as such was plummeting towards Hugo in a dive so fast Hugo couldn’t follow it. Hugo still moving towards the sea, thought he was doomed, when, out of nowhere the bird’s descent was interrupted by something hard, something hard that, as far as Hugo could make out, was thrown by a figure on the outermost horizon of Hugo’s vision. Hugo decided to call the hard object a rock and the figure a human-this human and the rock that it threw saved Hugo’s short life from the evil bird. Because of the actions of this human, as well as the consequence of a hard-thrown rock connecting with a devil bird, Hugo made it into the sea. Hugo’s feeling upon entering the sea are almost unexplainable; he felt content, despite his knowledge that he had more to do; he felt at peace; he was safe from the devil birds and the oppressive heat; he felt at home; he was always meant to be in the sea. However, despite his current elation and despite the dangerous and difficult journey here, Hugo knew that his journey had only just begun.

Floating

Floating

Anonymous

Floating

Bobbing on the surface

The surface of a sea of blank faces

They are robotic

They have no identity for they have no individuality

I broke the surface

So I float

There is a vague sense of identity

It is on the horizon

But as I move closer

It moves further

The distance is set

For the horizon cannot be reached

But still I move because it is all I want

All I need

A purpose

An identity

Ocean

Ocean

Jessica Riley ‘17

Infinite, so infinite

The ocean may seem

Blue and rough

All but a dream

The waves they crash,

Hard against the shore

But there the ocean is,

once more

Ever changing

Ever moving

Not calm or discreet

The ocean,

So dreamy yet strange

But a treat,

Unknown and mysterious

Are the secrets it may keep

Birds and Boats

Birds and Boats

Felicity Davis ‘18

Birds and boats,

So similar, yet so different.

When looked at, would they ever

be considered the same concept,

but living completely different versions

of it?

A bird travels by air,

and can be her own person.

Exploring the skies in a

matter of seconds. If it tries,

maybe it could reach the

moon and the stars.

A boat travels by sea,

but must be guided.

Its captain can navigate the

waters as he pleases. But

the boat can’t decide where

he goes. He gets no say.

But the bird has limits, too.

Humans.

With their awful weapons and

their need for food or her

beautiful feathers. Though not as,

she still has to fear.

The boat may be safer than the bird.

His captain makes decision to

ensure his wellbeing. If the sea is

too stormy, or other ships are looking to

hurt the boat, he will be kept safe by the

captain, to survive another day.

Whose life is better, the bird’s

or the boat’s? The bird lives a

life of freedom, but she risks it by being

free. The boat is always safe, but

accepts his limits.

Are you the bird or the boat?

Maybe a little of both? We live a

life of freedom like the bird,

but similar to the boat, we sometimes

are scared to go beyond the limits. Be

a bird. Be a boat. Fly free, be cautious,

like both, but never give up.