Objet d'Art Spring 2014

8/18/2019 Objet d'Art Spring 2014

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Objet d’Art Magazine of literature, arts, and culture

Spring 2014


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Staff Editor-in-Chief

Matt omasello

EditorsLisa Mathews

Justin RodriguezLucero Calleo

Sabrina RestivoNick Abraham

Table of Contents

Editor’s Note

Our small staff at Objet d’Art worked dilligently to assemble amagazine out o some o the best creative writing and artwork theRutgers community has to offer. A big thanks to Lucero, Justin,Lisa, Sabrina, and Nick or all o the time and effort they put intomaking this, and to all the students who let us publish their workhere. Te submissions we received were poignant and thought-provoking, and it’s an honor to be able to include them in ourmagazine. And thank you or reading Objet. Maybe you’ll finda poem or a picture in here that you really like and that you’llremember or a long time. Even i you don’t, just by picking it upyou’ve helped us keep the arts alive here on campus.

Matt omasello

“Everyone should be able to do one card trick, tell two jokes, andrecite three poems, in case they are ever trapped in an elevator.”– Lemony Snicket

Layout EditorLucero Calleo

Cover Image

Eriko akatsukiJonathan LeeVictor WongLucero Calleo

Kleptok by Anonymous 4

Waiting or You by Jonathan Lee 5

Dots by Brandon Robert 6

PDA (“riend” watching) by Maxwell Williams 8

Tree Cups o ea by Lucero Calleo 9

Untitled by Victor Wong 10

Little by Brandon Robert 11

Lovely une by Alex Cruz 13

Fantasy Portrait Color Sketch by Lucero Calleo 13

Color in a Bag by Anonymous 14

Confidence by Brandon Robert 14

Untitled by Eriko akatsuki 15

Emma Watson by Brandon Robert 16

Aqua Vitae by Rahul D. Ghosal 18


Styrooam Cups by Anonymous 19

Cherry Blossom Petals by Lucero Calleo 20

A Blue Magpie’s Song by Rahul D. Ghosal 21

Untitled by Victor Wong 22


Te Dance o Lights by Lucero Calleo 25

Simple Math by Matt omasello 26


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Kleptok Tere’s an industrial meadow in Kleptok where men with castles on their backspass around a monkey’s jaw and imbibe a lot o beerthe courtesan comes to summonthe last remaining manso the court can watch his castle meltinto clouds o mustard gasthe seeds burn in the soilgrowing clever tongues o flamethat wrap around our anklesand shout everybody’s nameand i I saw that you were choking I would hesitate to ask i you thought that I was strong enough to wrap your head in bits o

ice and steelso that the blood in your eye sockets would stop flowing down youracebut i I lack the muscle mass, just keep bleeding anyway

Anonymous

Waiting for You

Jonathan Lee


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DOTSOur proximity is like two pinpoints trying to reach the sametrajectory o a passionLike stardust sprinkles into my sleepless nights without you,

Or the way the wind tugs on my hair pulling each strandnorthboundSaying that you’re up there and I’ll be there soon,

Or the sun giggling its way down to me with a war

m massage to myheartKneading through the doubts,

Or whispers in the meadows that listen to my mind as the wheatsways trance-likeAnd I listen or the answers.

Sometimes my stomach is like a harness attached to a bungee cordO my intestinesAnd as I jump,It wraps around my neck binding the reality o my breath.

Look, I can sit here and write every thought o you down on paper

But postcards are just too small, and so is paper.

When I describe visceral antasies o what we’d be doing right now,It’d be so different rom our small talk sincerities.

I’m like a butterfly that continues morphing into mysel because as I grow,I want to grow stronger with you.I will flutter my golden wings,But they’re nothing without your breeze guiding me through,Helping me fly into your lie with all o my words.

I we both aren’t perect, then why do riends all tell us that we are?

I struggle with the day-to-day,Te routine o “I-wish-you-were-heres”Tat reverberate through my ballpoint pen each time I try to makesense.

Tere is a boy ar away who is sprawling you out onto papero solve the scramble o our utureAnd my poems can only do so much.

I can carve the wind like a sharpened blade on my motorcycle,Revv the engine, and leave a cloud o dust behind me,But we are on two different maps right now like two dotsreading, “YOU ARE HERE”

Te gps is struggling to guide us through our separate routesAnd each time the wind speaks to me as I ride,I call on him to carry my message out to you.

Tis poem is not finished,Yet then again, neither is our story embeded in it.I know someday I will be writing about a poem that we both willshare togetherIn the proximity o the same mapin the same plain.

Brandon Robert


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PDA (“friend” watching)Your mouths locked together--

Slurping…

sla

pping...probing...

(as I sit herewatching…)

Keep me locked out--invisiblewhile barely eet away

Maxwell Williams

Three Cups of Tea

Lucero Calleo


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Lovely artistic rendering o the atherrom Malcom in the Middle

Victor Wong

LittleYep, I got you right in the balls, remember? right in the sweet spot,Tat spot that reminded you that your little nugget o a brothertook karate,And that I knew how to make you sound like a pipsqueak as momWalked into the kitchen, surveyed the damage, and said,“You deserved it,” and then stepped over you to complete her lunchtelling you about her day,While you lied on the floor heaving like a steamboat engine without

the steam,Or a water filter that can only filter air afer the last drooping drop.Call it an awkward beginning, but let me tell you Greg,Tat I don’t laugh like a girl,Tat I love eating peanut and butter jelly sandwiches, the ones Imake you ALL the timeLike the one you dropped gently as you avalanced to the groundKicking and screaming as Oreo barked woofing down thatsandwichFilling her tiny belly.

But I do know that when you called me on the phone the other day,and said, “Remember when we used to play tag?”I could eel the red ree alling rom my nostils and know that even

though I tasted blood, I bled love,And even though I nosedived into the bed spring during that gameo indoor tag,I could taste your innocence,that you didn’t mean it as you teared up and mom tried stitching usback togetherLike a quilted mattress you told me to bounce on so high that one jump brought me back to the present,And I tasted understanding;

And it was sour at first like the war heads we challenged eachother to as the lime, lemon, and cherry mixtures multiplied and wecontinued double daring,


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Your ace scrunched up while I thought, “What a terrible idea thisis”And did we stop? O course not.And it was salty like the popcorn you sold at all our neighbors’doors or Boy Scouts with dad,I watched you sell them all within a week.It was sweet like the Gertrude Hawk chocolates I sold telling youhow I waited or all my girlriends to sync their periods togetherlike an iPod playlistso that on box would vanish.

Growing up, my social security card might as well have read,“Greg’s Little Brother.”Te attendance lists o all my teachers said Brandon in bold ink but the teachers still called me Greg.It’s ok, “I’m his little brother.”

I met God, and I believed in God,Because God was a clarinet player. He wears glasses with squaredrims, has a roaring laugh that makes mine sound like a whisper,resides in a small, Jersey town,and I want to be just like him.

When your little eight year old brother kicked you in the balls,It wasn’t to humiliate you, it was to let you know I was there.When you called me the other day, everything collided into arealizationTat love is all the flavors o good and bad, riend and oe,

And though our eight year gap was wide like the hole between mytwo ront teeth,When you called me on the phone the other day,you said,”Brandon, I really love you.”It’s ok, “I love you too, Greg.”

Brandon Robert

Lovely TuneMiles away . . . ar away.

A thousand miles away, there is a lovely tunebeneath the moonlight, it sings its beauty

And caught up in a tree, by the lovely tuneenchanted by the melody,

Tere’s a cute little bird, and it has taken the lovely tune into its beak but last night, it took flight into the skylines, ar away or those to hear

It flew and chirp away with great beauty

And the nights, And the skies became silent, and the world became stillthe lights went out, and the world got colder

But then one night, all o sudden, the lovely tune returned back to the skiesIt came rom above, rom the little bird that flew miles

and miles, the one that spread its wings to sing the lovely tune to my soulLittle bird, sign to me, sing to me endlessly, would you?

I would sing to you, endlessly.

Alex Cruz

Fantasy

PortraitColorSketch

LuceroCalleo


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Eriko akatsuki

Color in a BagA bag ull o colors reflecting your acereveals all the missiles your mother misledrom the back o the scenery, the dirt and the greenery hiding the battalion o plastic army menperectly camouflaged, with toothpick-sized javelinsaimed at the eyes o the second-hand manswimming in rainbow paintwith eyes the size o the room

that deflate with the breaths he takesand make the colors ade in and out.

Anonymous

CONFIDENCETe clouds hovered, stretched likecotton candy against a twilight canvas.

Te sun yawned nestling to bed.In an opening o the cotton was a light.Te star was lonely among the sky,Waking up and shining or nighttime.And as the sun continued to rest,Te little ball awoke stronger and confident.Te twinkle in the ocean blue, sparkled, while its neighborawakened: glowing too.

Brandon Robert


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EMMA W

ATSONI ound love when she entered the movie screen.She stole my heart the first time she spoke.From one small clip my heart meltedlike an ice cube sitting in sun-warmed iced tea.

ell me that I were to meet Emma Watson,And I might think you were transfixed.I don’t think I can handle such a lie,

For my body would shake like a jackhammerYou know, the one you hold or hours in construction.

I would angirl like a baby that wants the comort o a hug,Emma, I just need a hug rom you.

When I sit at home with nothing to do,I orget about writing,Tough I could write a poem, a short story, and a Novel all abouther.When I go online, I go to the search barBrowsing images and interviews o my true loveBut there is never enough time in the day Because like a water lily she floats on water and ripples my

heartbeats.

“You are a crackhead,” “She doesn’t know you,” “She’s a HollywoodStar,”My riends chronically complain to my ace,And yes she is a star, a star I’m wishing on each night.

I I got to meet Emma Watson,I want her to know that she’ll never be alone,Tat I want to spend every moment showing her I care,Tat I would buy her the entire galaxy and then tell her she is thequeen o my universe,

Tat I am quite alright with being Brandon Watson or the rest omy lie,Tat I know just as much about Wizardy and as Hermione Granger,Tat when I go to the movies and she kisses another guy,I know she’s just acting and practicing or me,Tat in the confines my private thoughts there’s a “StrangerGranger.”

Emma, your accent has a rhythm that uels my racing pulseLike a metronome clicking to a constant speed,Your acting is as captivating as the proposal I havewritten out and waiting five years.

Emma, you stunned a little boy who is now a grown man,And though riends doubt our love,Tough I wish I can grab my wandand cast my love in a spell that you already know,Emma my love, we will meet on our wedding day,And although our ceremony will be ar rom traditional, just or you, I will switch quidditch teamsBecause the best man, who is my boyriend, will just have to dealwiththe act that the seeker finally ound his snitch.

Brandon Robert


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Eriko akatsuki

Aqua VitaeApplauding raindropsTe murmur o the oceanBaptismal solace

Rahul D. Ghosal

Styrofoam CupsIn her house in the middle o the oceanI slither like an earthworm on the pavement, tearing up my flesheveryone so ar away yellow rivers or her bleeding gumspush on her loose teeth with my tongueI rinse and spit into a cupwhile she shovels guts off her sidewalk

Anonymous


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Cherry Blossom PetalsWhen people look at the cherry blossom petals blowin

g in thewind, they think it’s such a beautiul scene.

But many ail to realize that beore the petals came there, theywere once part o a beautiul flower, snuggled on the branch o abeautiul tree. Ten the wind snatched them away and tore themapart, seizing them rom the love and warmth o their homes. Teybecame separated, alone, tossed about by the urious wind.

Aferwards, when they reach the earth, they are only trampledby muddy boots, never to see the light o the sun again once thedirt closes in on them. Ten they just rot away and are never everremembered or the little bit o beauty they brought to the world.

But who knows. Maybe that brie moment o glory when they’reflying on the wind and fluttering through the sunbeams is worth anentire lie o heartbreak and despair.

Lucero Calleo

A Blue Magpie’s SongDedicated to K.C.

Majesty heralded by a name—Fanare accompanyingEvery phonetic breathTat composes its poetry;A syllable—an inchO ceaseless silk damask

Rolling off the tongue—Te embroidery refines one’s tastes,As the linguistic threads dissolveAnd the violet dye spillsUnto one’s buds,Into one’s veins,Depositing in the lefmostVentricle.

A sonorous afertasteO that deceptive cadence—SuspendedDrifingAnd never settling.

Aporia.

Rahul D. Ghosal


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Victor Wong


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The Dance of LightsYour love is unmistakableOur bond, now unbreakable.I know now who you are,my beautiul star,brighter than a thousand suns,but the only oneor me.

I reached or You, but blindness reigned,engulfing every screamdrying out my flesh‘til it turned to crust and steam,crumbling, vanishing as the wind blew by learning only how to die.

But You restore every piece o melike placing every lea back on a withered tree.It’s time at last or me to shine,morning star, celestial lie joining in the dance o lights.I am reborn, whole again

knowing now You are my riendknowing that I’ll never endbecause you live in me.

Lucero Calleo

(lef) Eriko akatsuki


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Simple Math

Ollie Pak was good at math. He couldn’t dance or cook

or hold a conversation, but he knew Conic sections like a second

language. He understood complicated mulit-variable integrals,

knew how to calculate the rotation o curves around all three axes,

and could write out an entire advanced aylor series in under a

minute.Te students in the General Pre-Calculus class he taught

didn’t try very hard. Tey were seniors who were more concerned

with organizing parties and coming up with a senior prank. Tey

didn’t know or care what a aylor series was. Tat subject would

never be reached in a Pre-Calc course, and Ollie couldn’t have

explained it to them anyway.

When Ollie was in grade school there had been a daily ritual

where the teacher would select a boy to stand in ront o the class to

give the morning salutation and lead everyone in singing Poland’s

national anthem. Te day Ollie was chosen he rose rom his seatand walked rigidly like a wind-up toy to the ront o the room. He

stood there ghostly white beore his audience, stammering and

unable to speak. Four agonizing minutes went by until the teacher

quietly asked him to sit down.

“Okay, so uhh…” Ollie shuffled back and orth in ront o

the whiteboard. He wrung his sweaty palms together. “So, when

we take the derivative o the velocity, the, uh, the… przyśpie…no, I

mean, the uh…przy…” Te words choked him like thick tar in his

throat. He couldn’t remember the English word. “Te…przy…uhh-

“

“Are you high?” called a student loudly rom the back, and

the rest o the class screeched with laughter. Ollie’s ace blanched.

“Te uhh…uhh…the acceleration!” he finally got out, but no one

heard him over the ringing o the final bell.

Ollie gripped his desk tightly as students brushed past,

pushing each other savagely. He was a little boy, humiliated again in

ront o the class. He stared at the ground and wished he was one o

the floor tiles.

He sensed movement in ront o him and looked up to

see our o his students knock his file rack and all his olders off

the desk. Ollie immediately dropped to the floor to pick them up,

trying to grab them out rom under the culprits’ eet. When he got

them all he got up and started to yell at the students, but the yell

was more o a squeak, and it was mostly in Polish, and the our

boys were already out the door and running down the hall beore

he could translate himsel to English. He slammed the olders down

on his desk with a rustrated grunt.

Ollie took a large gulp rom his cup o coffee and sat down.

He rearranged the olders on his desk. He had a long night o

grading ahead o him. He knew he could do his work with the

rest o the teachers in the lounge, but decided that he’d rather be

isolated alone than where other people could see him. He drank

more o his coffee.

He looked at the first student’s paper. It belonged to Maria

Komito. Maria was seven months pregnant and being raised by a

single mother with a minimum-wage job. Tere was no way she


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could economically support the child, but she had lashed out at

every counselor and teacher that had reached out to her, and now

they hated her as much as she hated them. Ollie finished the rest o

his coffee.

He wondered what Maria’s baby would look like when

it came out o her. She was always chewing gum in class so he

pictured it emerging rom the womb with a giant wad o Spearmint

in its mouth, just like its mother. oday he had watched her chew

three pieces in his class, sticking each one underneath her desk

when she finished them. He pictured Maria holding her screaming,

disgusting inant, plucking the chewed gum out o her own mouth

and shoving it into her child’s.

Ollie stared down at the bottom o his empty coffee mug. He

realized he’d been looking at it or a long time. He shook his head

as i rom a trance and moved on to the next paper, which belonged

to John Dumont. John Dumont owned a switchblade. Ollie had

overheard him telling other students about it almost every day, and

one time he had even seen it. It had been tucked in the pocket o his

sweatshirt, and Ollie had caught a glimpse o it as the student had

passed his desk one day. He suspected that John had been trying to

show him it was there.

John was there, in the room. Ollie blinked. John moved

closer. Ollie stood up abruptly rom his desk and John was gone.

He took a deep breath, suddenly eeling cold. He began to rub

his hands together vigorously, but he kept getting colder. He had

a ever o some kind. He breathed in again and the whole world

seemed to breathe with him. Every surace o the room seemed to

undulate toward him in one uniorm motion, as i in one breath.

Suddenly he was choking. He couldn’t exhale, as i the air was

trapped inside o him. He pounded on his chest until finally the

air dislodged itsel. His breathing returned to normal but the

classroom continued to undulate, pulsing back and orth like the

sea. A million different curves rushed toward him in waves, there a

cosine wave, ollowed by a quadratic, ollowed by ones he had never

seen or calculated beore, mathematical monoliths he had never

come close to dreaming o. He was ascinated.

He sat down at his desk, straightened his papers, and looked

up to see his entire Gen Pre-Calc class sitting in their seats in ront

o him, pulsing gently. Joyce texted passively, John ondled his knie

openly, Maria rubbed the top o her belly. Her stomach seemed

to be swelling, like a balloon being inflated. “What…” Ollie was

at a loss or words again. His class was here, the day hadn’t ended

yet. He rose again. Te students were changing. Te pigments

that made up their skin and clothes were simpliying, actoring

themselves down. Tey were cartoons now. Maria’s stomach had

grown to twice its size. She rested her head on it, using her own

bloated body as a pillow. Cartoon John had wild hair like a current

had been run through him. Denver William’s ace had become

elongated, making him look like a something between a horse and a

baboon. All around the room the students were changing. Some o

them became cross-hatched comic book characters, others turned

into shapeless lumps. Vanessa Buyers had merged with the steel

radiator her seat was next to. Tere was a sharp metallic taste in

Ollie’s mouth.


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Without warning the students began to scream. Tey

unhinged their jaws and tore apart the skin on their cheeks as they

all filled the room with noise so loud it could be seen and elt. Ollie

made to scream as well but no sound came out. Te ghouls’ cries

were so orceul that it pushed him backwards, as i he were being

buffeted by a howling wind. Ollie closed his eyes but the shrieks

shook his skull, making him see throbbing light on the backs o

his eyelids. Suddenly a tremendous ripping pierced the screeching

typhoon. Ollie opened his eyes and saw that Maria’s stomach had

burst. She looked down at the torn remains o her womb and began

to cackle like a hyena. From the bloody, pulpy mess rose an inant-

like demon. It had claws that were six inches long and eyeballs that

dangled rom their sockets. Its head was bulbous and deormed

on top o its small torso. It pulled itsel rom its wrecked mother

and started dragging itsel toward Ollie, hissing and gurgling.

With horror Ollie saw that its skin was made o tiny numbers, as

i written on paper but cut out and woven together. He tried to

back away rom it but elt his back hit the whiteboard. He turned

around and discovered that it was rippling like water. He screamed

and turned back to see that the baby had gotten closer. Tere was

nowhere else to go. He shrieked and covered his eyes as the demon

lunged at him.

Te fire alarm was screaming; a routine drill had been

scheduled or this time. One o the assistant principals was sent in

to check each room to make sure everyone had gotten out o the

building. When he ound Ollie Pak his body was splayed out on the

ground behind his desk. Te papers he had been grading lay in a

messy pile next to his empty coffee mug.

Te nurse came into the hospital room at 8 AM to bring

Ollie his breakast. She set the tray down on the table next to the

bed and looked at him nervously. He lay in a reclined position,

staring steadily at the ceiling. He didn’t move or look at her.

Ollie’s doctor entered the room. He peered over his glasses

at the man in the hospital bed. “Anything?” he asked.

“No,” the nurse said. She shook Ollie’s arm gently. “I don’t

think he’s moved all night.”

Te doctor was not an expert on drugs. He knew the three

tabs o LSD that Ollie had taken would be considered a lot, but he

doubted the students who had slipped it into his coffee had meant

to mentally damage him. Tey had probably meant it as a prank. He

also knew that LSD didn’t inflict brain damage, not the kind Ollie

was apparently exhibiting. He studied the lieless look on his ace.

“What do you think the problem is?” the nurse asked.

“I don’t know,” the doctor admitted. “On the outside he’s

fine. He’s just…catatonic.” He glanced at Ollie’s blank expression

again. “I he doesn’t eat anything by tonight then put in a tube.”

“Okay.” Te doctor lef the room. Te nurse adjusted the

bed sheets, then took a step back. Ollie continued to stare at the

ceiling. “Please let me know i you need anything,” she said, her

voice altering a little. Tere was no response. She lef the room and

quietly closed the door.

Matt omasello


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Objet d'Art Spring 2014