Like a Book -- Anonymous

I can read you like a book.
I know why you do things
      say things
I see your motives and your reasons
I have annotated and reread
utilized marginalia
I have highlighted my favorite passages
     so that some days when I’m sad
     I can find them and smile.
I have done an in-depth analysis
     (aren’t you proud of me,
      LA teachers?)
Of your plot twists and motifs
And I get you.
I grasp your deeper meaning
and I can read you
(like a book).

But some days
you’re written in
Greek or
some language that I have no hope of ever translating
and I see that you’re saying things
     shouting them
     crying out
but the words mean nothing
and they contradict each other
and I think that I grasp a phrase but then I realize I’ve been reading it wrong
and I puzzle for hours:
     why, how, what?
What do you mean?
And I don’t understand.
But I can see
     in the curve of that letter
     and the shape of your chapters
your sadness
which is a part of everything
you do
and is the reason for everything
you say.

So, I can read you
like a book.

To The Moon- By Nancy Yan

Descend- Hailey Scholla

Volcano- By Julia Ting

scarved, gift-wrapping ribbons of lava
bleed over charcoal like
syrup on ice cream. they chase chase 
chase and raze, chase and raze.
It is a tie in tictactoe, but instead of x’s
and o’s it’s fear and destruction,
dotted along the grid of the mountain.
that is what is not happening.
this is what is happening:
gray. arsenic. ash. battleship. platinum. slate. black.
sweet strokes seven shades of gray
a painter’s eye lazily caressing the sky.
the peak of the mountain hazed slightly
in the smoke of fog. 
red the color of flames
splashed along the quiet wasteland. 
it is a dream here, no sign of
pen or paper or 9 empty
squares waiting for letters.
it is nothing.
nothing but a
catatonic catastrophe.

Ellipses Blog!

Hi everyone!


Welcome to Ellipses' exciting brand new blog! Thrilled to have you here, truly. Ellipses has decided that we should start a blog in order to showcase more of our student body's artwork and writing samples, and this way, it's free! Yay! Free stuff!

We haven't quite worked out all of the details about how this is going to work yet, but we hope you come back soon! :D

~Maia Raeder