Open up the LitX November issue and you won’t be seeing the work of lifetime artists by Tallwood’s two art teachers (both featured in prior issues). Rather, readers will enjoy an entire feast of images from freshman artist Jennifer Yang.  Alongside them, as usual, are an entire array of writings, from poetic works, to a children’s story, well worth the read.  To access the magazine, readers should go to www.ths-litx.weebly.com.  Prior issues are also available, as well as guidelines on how to submit any written work.

As is the tradition, staffers read through the magazine and decided on two written works to be featured in the Roaring Gazette, and November’s winners are Ava Sailey and Jordan Tiaba, both sophomores at THS.  Interestingly both featured pieces borrow from folklore and mythology, Japanese folklore in Sailey’s poem Crane Wife, and Greco-Roman mythology in Tiaba’s piece entitled Commonality.

crane wife:

Ava Sailey

i know my hunger very well
i have been hungry as
long as i can remember.
in a cathedral i
peeled back my hands
and look at all the people:
people who want and
have such immense shame for
wanting.
i want;
i want.
i want more than
anything else i do.
i want to be in less pain,
and i want something i can’t
talk about. this has nothing
to do with carnal flesh,
no lipstick stains, no blood bank
i desire and it repulses me.
the closeness is food
for the famished.
when i lay beside my lover and they
hold my hand under theirs
i can run my thumb around their fingers
they know of cartilage in knuckles and
about all the veins
they read my palms and hold my
knuckles to their mouth.
they kiss each finger,
and hold skin to lips.
i want this

i feel like a crane wife,
like i can pull out all of my
feathers to be beautiful if
i could have that forever

i am supposed to be ashamed of
how much i want it
i’m a bad catholic
but a better wife
when i close my eyes i keep
seeing a world where i wear
an apron:
i never understood a housewife,
but i would be their trophy
i could learn to bake, decorate a house, tend to the horses in mountainside
i cannot explain it; it feel cannibalistic
taboo
my upbringing smiles at me when
i think of a simple life to take
care of somebody i love
my upbringing drives a
spear through my side
when they see me thinking
about hands (a girl),or their mouth (my lover) or when
i could feel warmth from their lips to my knuckles (they said they are folding sixty five thousand paper stars to give me)
my hands unfold from prayer and unravel into wings

Commonality
Jordan Tiaba

Ares, whose blood boiled with fire.
Aphrodite, whose mind seemed filled with romantic dreams.
He begged for violence and egged on wars,
She simply wanted peace and love for humankind.
Calloused hands with dried blood under worn down fingernails,
Glistening skin and a gentle touch.
Rage clouded his eyes
Unrealistic dreams of a lover bundled in her head.
His untamed self personified the hell of war
She teased others because she represented the out of reach pure love so many desired.
Ares, the god of bloodshed and war,
Aphrodite, the goddess of passion and love who caused these needless battles
Both raised a glass of ruby red to their lips,
They are of the same bunch; they grow from the same vine.