Wednesday, February 25, 2015 // The Statement
4B
Wednesday, February 25, 2015 // The Statement
5B

When the men hoot and holler

It’s not because you’ve done something.

Flowers do nothing to be picked

Except be there and beautiful.

Grow where you will

And bury your roots deep

Like a spiked weed.

Don’t wish you looked like one.

It’s not because you’ve done something.

Living shouldn’t be this hard.

A bitter bunch of pennies sit on the back of my tongue,

Each time your fist makes love to my eye.

We always begin with a dance of words.

The battered goat in the basement of our love

Limps into light,

All matted fur and tattered ears.

You create the creatures in the corner

That crawl up my spine.

I force you to feel like you are falling from the 35th floor.

Nightmares and fears:

Weapons best wielded by the ones we trust most.

Our words have weight behind them,

Then we put our weight behind them.

Strange flowers, the prints of knuckle on flesh.

Strange paint.

A math teacher once told me that

Architects are considered geniuses

for close following of a form to it’s function

That when the form of an object is suited perfectly to its

function,

We are left with inherent beauty.

And it’s got me wondering

If the number of hearts I break

Exceeds the number of times I trip over my own feet

Does that deem my form

My architecture,

Inherently beautiful?

If I conduct my body like a well oiled machine

With grace and maximized efficiency,

Am I the product of some architectural genius?

Because if my form followed function

I’d have hips just wide enough for you to paint on

And above that,

A sliced piece of cedar bark

Cascading curls would serve their purpose

Of driving lovers to dizzying insanity.

I’m no mathematician nor a masterpiece

But they say that when your form follows its function

With empty spaces to be filled

And smooth surfaces to run fingertips across

All things reflective and light

You’ll have beauty like bridges unbroken

And towers tall and thin.

or blonde haired blue eyes

i am yellow in the wrong places

they call it gold on hair

but for skin it’s a sickness.

in english to be beautiful

is not

black hair trying to soak up sun

while avoiding its rays on your skin.

being dark is only cool when it doesn’t

remind people of how they used

your culture to build their houses and towns.

your boyfriend’s mom sees you

and tells him that she looks full of herself
because you’re not allowed to be proud
of yourself when you’re not beautiful

only full of

too many years avoiding mirrors

gulping up shame
and pretending.

one phrase eavesdropped

becomes a mantra

boys will never like asians

when they can have some blonde chick.

layers of make up

and forced confidence
will only get you as far

as cute or exotic

people don’t remark on my beauty

but on my height

my skinniness

or how i (kind of) look like my mother

huge nose

small slanted eyes

skin with holes

looking at my reflection

is a girl

who learned from day one

she was the opposite of blonde

haired and blue eyed,

ugly.

For Sale

2.7 Acres

Vacant

but there are trees

Johnny knew of the angry nights in pool rooms, when his father whirled like an eight ball spinning

above the socket. A shiver of movement, and the game was over. He saw the muscles rippling as the

man rustled his morning paper, the flash of gritted teeth as he pushed the lawn mower through the

sticky pit of summer. His strength was his skin, worn into like the habit of flinching at a firing gun.

The same thick blood raced through his son. While the house quivered under his father’s footsteps,

Johnny would run. Dashing in the dewy mornings, guided by starlight and his own breath, around

wispy fields and sunken sidewalks and unmarked rivers, their names scrubbed off of maps. He would

sit at a school desk, sneakers tied, legs wiggling too much to concentrate on combustion reactions.

Boom. At the bell, he was a hamster in a wheel, treading on rubber until the coach told him,

Go home, Johnny Boy. Desire bubbled from his tremendous lungs at supper, burning a hole

through the tablecloth, deep in the wood. He would walk dutifully to bed, only to slip

out of his sheets — a blurred bandit. The day of the race came. Johnny broke the

news like eggs over breakfast with his father. I’m busy today, Son the

man said. And that day, outside, the defeated man pushed

the lawn mower over the dying grass. It was his third

week without work. He was listening. The

chorus of voices rose up, over the

bushes, through the thick, wet air.

A roar.

by Hailey Middlebrook, LSA junior, Daily Arts Writer
THE RUNNER

DISRESPECT

by Jean-Pierre Seguin, LSA senior

AN OPEN FIST

by Carolyn Darr, LSA senior

FOR LUCY
by Alexis Springer, LSA senior

ARCHITECTURE
LESSON

by Maria Robins-Somerville,

LSA sophomore

BEAUTIFUL

by San Pham, LSA junior

ILLUSTRATIONS BY LUNA ANNA ARCHEY