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A Chill in the Air

Table of Contents

Poetry + Prose

Sweet to my feelings, Laya Nair
Blue, Aarna Shah
daffodils, Abby Lu
Untitled, Bhavya Annapureddy
A Pure Lotus Blooms, ​Laya Nair
On the Fence, Charlize Andrews
Yellow, Aarna Shah
Free, Aarna Shah
on the grasslands, Liane Ma
Bird, Aarna Shah
Climate Change Impacts Seasons and Everything Else, Siri Manneri
burning, Abby Lu
Picture
Moment in Time, Brianna Hong
Picture
December Nights, Liane Ma

Art + Photography

Moment in Time, Brianna Hong
December Nights, Liane Ma
Snow Capped, Sanya Padmaperuma
Lost, Shaili Shah
Viola, Jisha Singh
Julian, Rebecca Yang
Fading Away, ​Jisha Singh
Twisted, Sanya Padmaperuma
Bioluminescence, Devin Prasad
The Orange Garden, Liane Ma
Race to the Deep, Devin Prasad
Mythical, Jisha Singh
Absent Minds, Ava Prior
fluorescent adolescent, Caroline Chen
Little House, Brianna Hong
Blue Jeans, Brianna Hong
Happy Anniversary, Caroline Chen
buses, Seojin Lee
a quiet view of home, Abby Lu
Untitled, Liane Ma
Captain, Ava Prior
Fall, Seojin Lee
Hungry Hungry Sea Otter, Devin Prasad
Gator, Sindu Rachakonda
Sky, Seojin Lee
I'm Getting Butterflies, Sindu Rachakonda
2 point perspective street, Rebecca Zhang
Little Lizard, Megan Miller
Blue Butterfly, Sindu Rachakonda
Blue Jr., Caroline Chen
This edition also includes Flash Fiction and Art produced at a Literary Magazine connectivity meeting.
Special thanks to the Green Level HS National Art Honor Society for their contributions to this edition.

Sweet to my feelings

Laya Nair
​Melting hot fudge that is
Sensitive to the tongue
A calm scent of matcha tea
That flows through the noses
Of the young

My loyalty to dark chocolate
Is like Elon Musk to his wallet

The love I have is equal to the
Love of a butterfly and flower

The smooth feeling
The bittersweet taste
Cannot compare to any other

Oh the sweet sweet aroma
Of warm hot chocolate
Fills the atmosphere of nostalgia
The coziness under a cold chilly day
Picture
Snow Capped, Sanya Padmaperuma
Picture
Lost, Shaili Shah

Blue

Aarna Shah
Blue is the color of sadness,
It drives me slowly towards madness.

Blue sounds like the empty chirping of a bird,
One of which will never be heard.

Blue feels like icy cold snow,
It restrains me below what I owe.

Blue tastes like bitter sweet berries,
The results always vary.

Blue smells like the cool winter breeze,
It strips me of all my ease.

Blue feels like loneliness,
It brings me down to my lowliest.

​Blue feels like a dark empty room,
It drowns me in its overwhelming gloom.
Picture
Viola, Jisha Singh
Picture
Julian, Rebecca Yang
Picture
Fading Away, Jisha Singh

daffodils

Abby Lu
​march

The first flowers to bloom are always the daffodils. They’re in a hurry every year, springing up at the first hint of spring. This year, they were already growing out in mid February, and I was terrified it would snow again and kill them before they got the chance to bloom. I should have had more faith in them, though. They’re more resilient than you’d expect for one so impatient.

Some of them have yellow centers. Some of them are orange. I like to think that the orange centered blossoms were just a little too selfish, wanted a tinge of red in their yellow, because it just wasn’t good enough for them. Daffodils are thought to be self centered - their scientific name is Narcissus, after all. In the Greek myth, Narcissus rejected all the love advances thrown his way and fell in love with his own reflection. He pined away until he died, turning into the flower.

What if that's not the whole story, though? What if he didn’t know that it was his reflection he fell in love with? What if he died pining after something he desired but thought he could never have?

​
sleepless nights

When sleep evades me for more than three hours, I slide out of bed, wincing at the cold floorboards beneath my feet, and drag the curtain to the side, pulling the crooked blinds up. Crawling back under the covers, exhaustion crashes in waves that I can almost feel behind my eyelids - yet sleep still refuses to come.

I curse the streetlight between our house and the one on our left, scoping out the sky to see if there are any stars bright enough to be seen tonight even with the light pollution. There is one I can see just barely, if I crane my neck at just the right angle to see a few inches higher than the windowpane normally allows. I wish for the streetlight to go out, so the stars further away can wink at a lonely girl at midnight as well. 

I wonder how many wishes can be granted in a night.

Perhaps I am just as selfish as the daffodils.

april

In April the cherry blossom tree in our front yard always reaches full bloom by the end of the first week, and it is leaning from the weight of thousands of tiny flowers. When the wind blows just the slightest bit too hard, it looks like it’s snowing again, the petals drifting and hovering on the air which isn’t heartless enough to send them straight to the ground.

On the eighth it is the birthday of a girl who has passions so bright they could set the world on fire if she wanted them to. It's quite contagious, really - I'm convinced her dog is every bit as passionate as the girl is, or perhaps the former just hates me.

Unlike the cherry blossom tree though, she is reserved and private.  The cherry blossom tree wants to spread love to everyone, while she just wants people to care more; and maybe it is better her way, because for all the cherry blossom’s unconditional kindness, it is covered in lichen, and it looks so, so tired.

The tulips sit all pretty in April, like they have someone to impress, and the last few daffodils of the season are surrounded by the debris of fallen pink-white petals, and even though they stare at everything else with disdain, it is impossible to hate the cherry blossom.


kintsugi

It is inevitable that things break. No matter how careful you are, how proactive you are, something will line up one day and it will all go wrong, and maybe it’s not your fault or anyone else’s; maybe it just is.

But just because it’s broken doesn’t mean that’s the end, doesn’t mean it’s done with. Sometimes things are put back together in the kindest way, the imperfections are made beautiful, the piece is made human, because all humans have those broken parts that may not seem so pretty.

It is like kintsugi, the Japanese art where broken pottery is repaired using gold, and maybe these gold cracks keep us safe from a fate like Narcissus’s.


** This is an excerpt from a larger work.

Picture
Twisted, Sanya Padmaperuma
Bhavya Annapureddy
Even the most beautiful places turn dark during the night

Every day we do the same things

Rinse, wash, use, recycle

At night we do whatever we want to make up for what we didn’t feel during the day

We laugh

We smile

We cry

We let everything out

Wanting to stay in the moment forever

Never let the night end

Make all our responsibilities go away and never have the lingering dread of knowing what's coming

Then the sun rises

We rinse, wash, use, recycle

Only to realize the next day

Even the most beautiful places turn dark during the night
Picture
Bioluminescence, Devin Prasad
Picture
The Orange Garden, Liane Ma
Picture
Race to the Deep, Devin Prasad

A Pure Lotus Blooms

​Laya Nair
Crimson colored
Cloudy curving skies
Waiting and waiting
A flower in hand
Walking and walking
Till bare feet met thorns
Howling in mourns
To fall again an honor

Energy surged
Darkness purged
Yin and yang merged
Evil and justice breathe
Underneath the flute goes
Only wishing
For forgiveness
Crying smiling
Following loving
Under the blankets
In baskets]

A Pure Lotus Blooms

​Followed with dooms

Two facing on one side
One follows the wind
The other drowns
In the wind together
Forever with the stem
Picture
Mythical, Jisha Singh
Picture
Absent Minds, Ava Prior
Picture
flourescent adolescent, Caroline Chen

On the Fence

Charlize Andrews
White picket
Smooth curves that throw themselves into one another
Not the ideal place for me to sit
But I hoist myself atop their dividing lines

The fence stands tall
High enough from the shrubbery below 
to break a bone should I tumble off, 
but low enough for a safe landing if I emerge confidently.
I wonder to myself
on which side of the fence will I stand taller?
 
I don’t know how I came to this position, 
balancing on the thin verge of a fence, 
but I now have two choices:
I can fall backward into my yard
I can retire back to my room in comfort;
Blankets the same and details already studied.
the safer option.

Or I can leap off in the opposite direction: forwards. 
I can divert away from familiar places
and discover something new.
It could be rewarding or distressing, 
but nevertheless foriegn. 

I realize as I sit on this edge
That I am drenched in indecision. 
So for now, I’m on the fence.
Picture
Little House, Brianna Hong
Picture
Blue Jeans, Brianna Hong
Picture
Happy Anniversary, Caroline Chen

Yellow

Aarna Shah
Yellow is the color of the sun,
We dance under it and have fun.
Yellow tastes like sugary lemonade,
Almost just as sweet as marmalade. 
Yellow smells like freshly blossomed sunflowers,
The colors burn brighter as they grow taller. 
Yellow feels like soft, warm silk sheets,
As I lay, I sink deeper and deep into a golden sleep.
Yellow sounds like a soft breeze, 
Blowing
Shaking the trees,
Slightly tampering with the bees.
Yellow feels warm,
Like the calm right before a storm.
Yellow feels like safety,
I can trust it to guide me safely.
The warmth of yellow clouds me,
It surrounds me profoundly. 
Picture
buses, Seojin Lee
Picture
a quiet view of home, Abby Lu

​Free

Aarna Shah
Through the morning frost
I find myself feeling lost.
I feel the icy cold snowflakes
fall from the sky, landing gracefully,
 on my wet teary eyes.
My hands as cold as ice
the wind feeling nice.
​I look up at the stars above me,
And wonder how they can be so free.


Picture
Liane Ma
Picture
Captain, Ava Prior
Picture
Fall, Seojin Lee

on the grasslands

Liane Ma
 on the grasslands we dance with our hearts in twos, and
          the six-eight music replaces the sound of our soul
we follow the hoofprints along the golden prairies 
          and we skip across a hidden river.
crushed bouquets of dandelions litter our paths, and
          the smell of grass and ozone approaches our breath 
opening my arms to hug the rain,
          twirling along as the water bounces off my dress.
even the sheep seem to feel the absence of worries
          frolicking and lost with no one to guide us but them
as the sand picks up and the wind reaches for me,
          your hair smacks me and the sound of our laughter greets the storm. 
the misty days bid no farewell and the next season arrives.
          in our muddied boots that haven’t seen enough rain,
parched, we still smile through cracked lips
          beaming at each other in the midst of a stream.
Picture
Hungry Hungry Sea Otter, Devin Prasad
Picture
Gator, Sindu Rachakonda

Bird

Aarna Shah
​I fly through the trees 
Feeling free.
My wings can take me anywhere,
as I swoop through the air.
The trees below me swaying with the wind,
I look at the humans below me,
 as they watch me and grin.
The sun is slowly setting,
As I had just started sweating.
I find a nest to lay in,
and the moon brings the day to an end.
Picture
Sky, Seojin Lee
Picture
I'm Getting Butterflies, Sindu Rachakonda
Picture
2 point perspective street, Rebecca Zhang
Picture
Little Lizard, Megan Miller
Picture
Blue Butterfly, Sindu Rachakonda

Climate Change Impacts Seasons and Everything Else

Siri Manneri
​It’s winter and yet
It’s warmer on average 
Compared to our past

It's warmer and yet
It'll be colder on average
Compared to our future
​
Weather erupts 
Surrounding us
More extreme
More intense

Politicians and leaders
Succeed 
In failing
To save lives

The system 
Succeeds 
In failing 
To serve everyone

We sit around 
Frustrated
Angry
Useless 
Helpless 
Afraid
Privileged enough to not be already 
Facing devastation 
Deadly floods killed over a thousand recently
33 million were displaced
In Pakistan
One third of the country was underwater

A climate catastrophe 

The most vulnerable
Face the worst
While contributing to the problem
The least

We can just mitigate our impacts
While pushing for better systems 
That do the same

So that hopefully someday 
A chill in the air
Won’t come with the knowledge of 
The coldest season being shorter than ever
And longer than it’ll be, ever

burning

Abby Lu
she starts the coffee machine, and reaches for the instant oatmeal by habit. 

her father, on simpler days, quietly making a bowl of oatmeal for her as she waits anxiously for her coffee.

if you have coffee on an empty stomach, your stomach will burn. eat something with it.

she pours oatmeal into a bowl, adds water, and pushes start on the microwave.

the box says the oats cook in 60 seconds. she sets the microwave for 45.

the oats come out too dry. she adds more water. the bowl doesn't go back into the microwave.

maple syrup enters. an unspecified amount, pooling in the oatmeal like rain collecting on the street.

she opens the fridge. there is a container for kimchi, empty except for the leftover juice.

she pours it into the oatmeal. it is ruined.

the coffee is forgotten. her mouth burns.
Picture
Blue Jr., Caroline Chen

CREATING IN A FLASH

At an October Literary Magazine meeting, we worked on creating within a time limit of 5 minutes based on random prompts. Here is a collection of our work from this meeting!

prompt 1: the language of flowers

flowers whisper.
they are quietly content.
they sing.
they are happy to simply exist.
​Abby Lu
Picture
Picture
Sophia Lee

prompt 3: how the city sounds at night

Picture
Abby Lu
Picture
Sophia Lee

prompt 2: "please shut the..."

Picture
Sophia Lee
I fear 
I fear going outside.

Letting myself go, 
exposed in the searing light

I'd rather be invisible 
lurking in the shadows,
shielding myself from the luminance of the world

Please
Please shut the blinds.
Let me hide from the light.
​Charlize Andrews

prompt 4: a lie (?)

Picture
Sophia Lee
a lie (?)
lies sound pretty (sometimes).
lies make you feel better (not often).
lies are a temporary comfort (most times).
lies don't work (unless?)
lies about lies aren't always lies.
​Abby Lu

A Chill in the Air

Green Level Literary Magazine
​@gllitmag

December 2022
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  • A Chill in the Air
  • Past Editions
    • TFC I
    • TFC II
    • TFC III
    • TFC IV
    • FANN
    • BSU x Lit Mag
    • 2021-2022 Print
  • About
  • Submit
  • Interact