California State University (CSU): Open Journal Systems

Cesta, Sarah

94
16
Characters
Rose, 16 
Evan, 17 
Olive, 17 
Mar, 14  
Aleena, 15 
Mrs. Wilbur, 38
The stage is split into three. Stage right 
is the community center, folding chairs 
are lined up in a circle. Center stage is 
the school classroom with a 
whiteboard and desks in rows. Stage 
left is the hospital room with a hospital 
bed and a heart rate monitor. Lights 
rise on all three rooms. Each actor 
stands shoulder-to-shoulder. After the 
first line is said, they each go to the 
appropriate room.
ALL
Sixteen Seconds. 
ROSE walks to the hospital room and 
lays in the hospital bed silent. The heart 
rate monitor is beeping at a slow, yet 
constant rhythm for most of the play. 
EVAN, OLIVE, MAR and ALEENA walk 
to the community center and sit in the 
95 
folding chairs. ALEENA is timid and 
keeps quiet. Evan has his arm around 
Olive, comforting her. MAR is shaking 
his leg. 
MRS. WILBUR 
That’s all it takes. 
MRS. WILBUR walks into the 
community center. Lights up on the 
community center.  
MRS. WILBUR
Thank you for coming, it’s nice to see you all here. You, 
you’re all so brave for being willing to share your feelings 
and support your peers. Everything you’re feeling is natural 
and nothing to be ashamed of. Grief is not a sign of 
weakness. 
Pause
Trauma is, difficult. It’s personal. But it also has this, this 
unifying function. It has a way of bringing those of us with 
similar experiences together to relate and console and 
grieve and recover. 
Slight pause 
Recovery takes time, of course. All things ease over time. 
And, while the grief may never end, it is not a place to stay. 
I am here to help in any way that I possibly can. If not to 
alleviate pain, then to be an outlet for you to express that 
pain. I want you all to know that in this room, you, your feel-
ings, your words are all safe. You can, and I encourage you 
all to do so, share whatever is on your mind at any point 
during our meetings. I hear you and I am here for you. And, 
please, keep Rose in your thoughts. 
Lights go out in the community center.
DRAMA
96
When the lights rise again, the same 
actors are there, but sitting in different 
seats.
EVAN
The worst part is that I don’t even feel calm in my own 
house. Like, the other day, I was coming down the stairs 
into the kitchen. I didn’t know it, but my brother was hiding 
behind the corner. When I walked in he yelled, “AHHH.”
Some of the students slightly jump at 
this.
EVAN
And I screamed and I said: “Why would you do that to me? 
Why would you scare me in my own house,” and he just, he 
didn’t get it. I teared up and he didn’t get it. He got mad.
MRS. WILBUR
Sometimes it’s difficult to discuss our feelings with those 
closest to us. 
EVAN 
I can’t talk about it with him at all.
MRS. WILBUR 
Hmm. 
Pause 
Let’s do an exercise. I’ll pretend to be you. You pretend to 
be your brother. Say what you think he’d tell you. 
Evan nods.
MRS. WILBUR
Hey…
Pause
97 
What’s his name?
EVAN 
Noah. 
MRS. WILBUR 
Nodding
Hey, Noah. Can I talk to you about something? 
EVAN 
Sure. 
MRS. WILBUR 
It’s really important to me that you listen and hear me. 
EVAN 
I’m listening. 
MRS. WILBUR 
I know we rough-house and joke around with each other a 
lot. But, what happened last Friday, it shocked me. 
EVAN 
Okay… 
MRS. WILBUR 
And I don’t think I can play those same games anymore. 
Not right now at least. I need time to get over how… 
shocked I’m feeling. 
EVAN 
Do you think I’d hurt you like that? 
MRS. WILBUR 
What? No. Oh my God no. I just / think that
DRAMA
98
EVAN 
You didn’t even see what happened. 
MRS. WILBUR 
I didn’t have to see it to be disturbed by it.
EVAN 
You’re being a pussy. 
MRS. WILBUR 
Woah… 
EVAN 
Why are you so upset? 
MRS. WILBUR 
I just experienced something traumatic. 
EVAN 
Traumatic? 
       
By this point, Mrs. Wilbur is growing 
increasingly upset, forgetting that they 
are roleplaying. 
MRS. WILBUR 
Yes, traumatic. Do you know what it’s like to / go through 
something
EVAN 
You don’t know what real trauma is. 
MRS. WILBUR 
You don’t get to police my feelings, you fucking ass-
She stops herself. The kids are silent.
99 
MRS. WILBUR 
Clearing throat
I’m sorry. Um, that was good for you to get that out. 
Cleanse your system. We tend to fear that those we love 
won’t understand us. We assume the worst. 
Pause
I think that’ll be all for this meeting. I’ll see you all tomor-
row. Have a safe and peaceful night, keep Rose in your 
thoughts. She’d be here if she could.
   
Lights go out in the community center. 
When the lights rise again, the same 
actors are there, but sitting in different 
seats. 
ALEENA 
Every time I close my eyes, I can hear it. 
The students all nod.
ALEENA 
My ears are still ringing. I hear the sound and I’m taken 
back for a second before I realize I’m just at home in bed. 
Pause
The garage door opens, I hear it. 
The car starts, I hear it. 
The house is silent, I hear it. 
I hear it in everything and in nothing at all.
Pause
MRS. WILBUR 
Loud noises can trigger an extreme response. It’s important 
to remember the grounding techniques. To connect with 
the here and now, do you remember any? 
DRAMA
100
ALEENA 
Play some music, take deep breaths, touch or smell or look 
at my surroundings. 
MRS. WILBUR 
That’s good. 
ALEENA 
But it doesn’t always help.
Silence      
ALEENA 
It should have been me. 
Pause
Mrs. Wilbur walks over to Aleena and 
puts her hand on her shoulder. 
MRS. WILBUR 
Don’t say that. You had no control over anything that hap-
pened. 
ALEENA 
I was standing right next to her, it could have been me. 
Mrs. Wilbur stays silent and hugs 
Aleena. 
ALEENA 
It should have been me, it should have been me.
Lights go out in the community center. 
When the lights rise again, the same 
actors are there, but sitting in different 
seats.
101 
MAR 
When I think about it, I cry. So I’ve been trying not to. But, I 
don’t think I can have all this inside me anymore. 
Pause 
We always have drills. We did what we were taught to.
OLIVE 
We did everything we could. 
MAR 
It doesn’t make it easier. It doesn’t make it right. 
OLIVE 
No, it doesn’t. 
Mar gets up and walks into the class-
room, he sits in one of the desks. Olive 
follows. 
MAR 
It’s all so vivid in my head but it feels more like a dream, or 
a nightmare, than real life. 
They both get up and begin stacking 
the desks like a barricade, almost ro-
botically, as if it is a task they do daily. 
As they do this, the heart rate monitor 
in the hospital room begins to beep 
rapidly. 
MAR 
We locked the door. 
OLIVE 
We turned off the lights. 
DRAMA
102
MAR 
We silenced our phones, but some of us used them. 
OLIVE 
To send a warning. 
MAR 
To send an I love you. 
OLIVE 
To send our goodbyes. 
Mrs. Wilbur slowly walks into the class-
room. She watches them stacking the 
desks. She’s scared. 
MRS. WILBUR 
I tried to remain calm. I told you to stay away from the win-
dows. 
MAR 
We sat on the ground. 
OLIVE 
In the corner of the room. 
MRS. WILBUR 
I didn’t know how to comfort you, but I had to.
OLIVE 
We heard sirens in the distance. 
MRS. WILBUR 
This is real. 
MAR 
It was over quickly. But we kept still.
103 
The heart rate monitor flatlines then 
goes silent. Perhaps there’s red and 
blue lights flashing, like police car 
lights. 
OLIVE 
Not because we had to, but because moving was too hard. 
MRS. WILBUR 
I noticed Rose wasn’t early to class that morning like usual. 
MAR 
We were escorted out of the room in a single-file line. 
OLIVE
Leave your belongings. 
MAR 
Come out with your hands on your head. 
MRS. WILBUR 
This is real. 
Aleena receives a text. She covers her 
mouth. 
ALEENA 
Quietly
No, no. 
MRS. WILBUR 
There was blood on the concrete.
OLIVE 
I closed my eyes when we walked past.
DRAMA
104
MAR 
I didn’t want to believe it. 
ALEENA 
This can’t be real. 
They all freeze, broken out of the trance 
and look at her. 
ALEENA 
After a moment
She’s gone, Rose is gone. 
Silence 
The lights go out on all three rooms. 
When they come back up, ALEENA, 
MAR, EVAN, OLIVE, MRS. WILBUR, and 
ROSE are standing shoulder to shoul-
der again. 
ALL 
Sixteen seconds.
ALEENA 
I went to visit Rose every day in the hospital. The day I 
didn’t, her body decided it needed to give up. She couldn’t 
deal with the pain anymore and I don’t think I blame her. 
I was there, that Friday. I was standing next to her. Five 
inches to the right and I would have been the one in the 
hospital bed instead of her. But, when the bullet hit her, she 
fell on top of me. She saved me. She didn’t mean to and I 
didn’t deserve it, but she saved me. How can I keep going 
when she no longer can?
105 
ALL 
Sixteen seconds. 
EVAN 
I wasn’t there. I was in the parking lot. When I heard the 
first shot, I thought a generator blew. But after the second 
and the third and the fourth, I felt sick to my stomach. I got 
in my friend’s car. I called my mom, “Mom there’s shots, 
there’s shots.” She didn’t believe me at first. “Are you sure?” 
I didn’t see them. In honesty, I wasn’t sure. I had never 
heard a gunshot before. But I wasn’t going to stick around 
to find out. I wasn’t going to stick around to be sure. We 
drove away. We drove to my house. How do I deal with the 
guilt of not being there? 
ALL 
Sixteen seconds. 
OLIVE 
School shootings are something you hear about happen-
ing in towns and states that are not your own. You get 
angry and sad and you hurt for those that lost their lives, 
but at the end of the day you can fall asleep at night know-
ing that for now, you’re safe. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t your 
town. But this time it was. When it happens, it won’t feel 
real. There is a cloud of disbelief and for a lot of the time, 
you have to remind yourself that yes, it happened, and yes 
it was real. And for a lot of the time, you won’t know how 
to carry on. How do I go to school when my classmates no 
longer can? 
ALL
Sixteen seconds.
MAR 
Walking onto campus makes me uneasy. My knees shake 
and my thoughts race. A classroom is where you learn. It is
DRAMA
106
not supposed to be the place where you hide for your life. 
Desks are no longer desks, but objects you use to barri-
cade the door. Metal water bottles and keys and fire extin-
guishers are no longer what they once were, but weapons 
you hold in case you have to fight. And you’ll have to fight. 
Whether in person or with your fists or in your head or with 
your voice. There will always be a fight. How do I wake up 
days, weeks, months, years from now and pretend every-
thing’s alright? 
ALL 
Sixteen seconds.
MRS. WILBUR 
I am always stuck in that place. In that room. I am calling 
out, I am trying, straining to tell everyone that it will be okay 
but I can’t make a sound. I am a voiceless leader sworn to 
protect but unable to provide. I see the faces of my stu-
dents all the time. In my dreams, they’re scared and I am 
tethered to my desk, I can’t help them. In the news, they’re 
statistics shown on a graph. In the classroom, they’re star-
ing, waiting, praying it never happens again. How do I help 
them fight their fears when I can’t even conquer my own? 
ALL 
Sixteen seconds.
ROSE 
Two weeks before all this, my friends threw me a surprise 
birthday party. It was my sixteenth birthday party, and they 
got me this sweater I’d been wanting.
ALEENA 
It was baby blue. Her favorite color. 
ROSE
It was cloudy that morning. I decided to wear it and I felt
107 
good. I felt confident. My friends were the greatest people I 
knew and for that, I’m so thankful. 
She holds Aleena’s hand. 
ROSE 
I was waiting outside with them that morning before class. 
I spent the last minutes of my life with them in the hospital. 
By the time we realized he had pulled a gun out of his bag, 
he had already shot me once in the shoulder. The next bul-
let hit me in the head.
MRS. WILBUR 
No future. 
ALEENA 
No goodbye. 
Rose lets go of Aleena’s hand. 
ROSE
He shot seven rounds in sixteen seconds. They hit me and 
four other students before he pointed it at himself. At least 
he knew what was going to happen. My life was taken from 
me without warning. My parents dropped me off at school 
that morning in my new sweater and I was sent back home 
in a body bag.
Rose walks to center stage.
ROSE 
Today, you all live, 
ALL  
but there’s no law to thank.
DRAMA
108
ROSE 
If not me, 
ALL 
then somebody else. 
ROSE 
How many more children do we have to lose?
ALL
Sixteen Seconds. 
ROSE 
That’s all it took.
Lights out.


English

Newell, Carrie

Torn

Lao, Elizabeth

Calenture
Lignin is sister to vanilla,
a chemical component of book-paper
that haunts the page
like perfume in an empty room.
Shouldn’t memory be softer?
Shouldn’t a ghost be less material?
How much time will it take?
Why is it like this –
the seeping amber linger, the peripheral static cling
that falters, tears, loops back,
sharp with artifact
bright and incomplete –
It feels like a bad habit,
the cups half-finished crowding out your desk
boxes you’ll never put away
books full of dog-eared pages
with creases that won’t lie flat anymore.
How can it be spring anywhere?
Thin light falls through the doorway, morning-blue
I look up every time.
112


Calenture

Burton-Uduwana, Emily

Elephant Keys
My auntie left a grand piano.
Ivory-keyed, it claimed
our Midtown living room.
Never tuned,
with true elephant keys--
a sound like a trumpet:
My auntie’s unplayable piano.
Mom kept it spotless,
dusted with care.
She stored books in its bench,
laid lace across its cover--
useless and loved.
I offered a polish,
an overdue tuning.
But Mom went white,
whiter than ivory.
Ivory, she said, is precious.
A tuner would steal the keys,
124
replace them with plastic.
Good, I said. 
Why keep an elephant in a living room?
125POETRY


Elephant Keys

Foytek, Emily

Mothers
I am who I am because of her. 
Momma raised anxiousness and ambition.
I wrote truth that ruined what mom was trying to hide.
I had six people read it before sending it to her.
Addiction is a familial relation as close as cousin or aunt.
I knew addiction well and watched him wreck
Every person I loved. Six homes in five years was not a 
choice.
But the burden that was not mine haunted me from the 
spaces
I thought were most comfortable.
No use getting angry with the way she’s wired.
She never wanted to be a mother and left her daughter
To clean up every mess she made. I felt bad for her until 
I found the dirty pipes hidden in the walls, behind drawers, 
In her purse.
Six homes in five years because I had people in my life 
Who saw a promise and encouraged me more than
My mother’s jealousy ever could.
They saw me as a vessel. I absorbed what they gave. 
I needed to love myself as much as they loved me.
I am who I am because of the warm, 
Fierce love of mothers who were not my own. 
Nora, Jodi, Jess, Ms. Ana 
All these mothers gave me the unconditional. 
A village to produce achievement over anxiety.
140
I am these women who helped me in  
More ways than I can count on my fingers. 
I am more than any feeling of anger or depression could 
proclaim 
In the shadows of fear. I am a beauty  
that took the minds of great women to mold.
141POETRY


Mothers

Rousso, Sam

Standard Ice Cream

Espinosa, Chris

|  97 |
In my dreams the Brooklyn Bridge is always burning. A hellfire 
of steel and limestone ruminating in the midnight waters below, the 
air reeking of oak barrels. The Roebling lighthouse sears, but does 
not make a sound. In different dreams the Brooklyn Bridge topples 
and tumbles like a Dandelion in a summer’s breath. The cables 
ripple and nip, letting out echoing ‘twangs’ and D-tuned octaves that 
agitate the skyscraper skyline. Mortars and planks of old swollen 
wood swan dive to the dark drink below. And even in other dreams 
the bridge snaps like a piano string. All of Manhattan moans like a 
dropped cello. In the dreams after the bridge finally all falls in, hissing 
cinder and trusses and burning brick, I always see her standing on 
the other strand. Her hands always tucked tightly into her black pea-
coat pockets, collar up, eyes swollen with sadness for the whiskey 
waters engulfing the sinking iron and towers. In every dream I am 
always on my knees settling into the sands of the opposite bank. 
Sometimes I warm my hands on the fire, or hum along to the wailing 
caissons, or dip my toes into the wet rum-colored mud. Every time 
I settle into the swell she takes a disappointed step backwards in 
retreat.
That is how I imagine it most mornings but vodka tends to distort 
the truth, I have heard, bourbon, by chance, can steal memories. One 
thing that is absolutely certain: one night New York City took her.
It wasn’t by the darkness of midnight. It wasn’t in the faint pink 
and tender orange of twilight. It was after work on a Thursday. I 
wasn’t home with her when the city snuck in (at least that’s how I 
always pictured it, a six foot tall, broad-shouldered, dripping New 
York tenderly turning the front door knob and tip-toeing into the 
living room, feet like icicles and head like an engine block, slowly 
creeping towards her like a ballet dancer in Black Swan until it’s 
right behind her as she washed dishes) and stole her. That city with 
its iconic bridges and subways, taxis and terrorism and tourists, 
stoops and window-sill-yellers and leaners, on-lookers judging 
H o s a n n a
C h r i s  E s p i n o s a
|  98 |
and reprimanding, light posts and alleyways forever known as 
the ‘devil’s doorstep.’ That city filled with poverty and poetry and 
unimaginable wealth and grids and blocks-of-forever separating 
everyone from a movements distance to the most incredible pain or 
happiness, whichever they would come to know right then.
In the days following the pillage, I found love letters she and the 
city traded for months while I was asleep or away or passed out. The 
months after New York stole her I found transcriptions and texts, 
sonnets and nudes from her to it, it to her, everything was nothing 
but love and affection, solemn dreams and promises.
If I could now talk to the city, if I could plead or beg for it to 
return her; I would. I would trade New York the world for her. Gold 
or silver, ten thousand souls or all the angels in the Kingdom, just to 
have my shaky hands back in hers. If the city bartered or gambled, 
I would double down or haggle. If it slept, I would creep in at dawn 
and steal her back as she showered. I would run with her under my 
arm across the country, naked and confused, madly in love and not 
leaving a fingerprint of regret. I would sell all my stock, I would trade 
any penthouse, and if she asked me to give up that thing she said I 
loved more than her, I would weigh my heart and my love in a bronze 
casted scale. Every time I sleep I am piling tequila and gin bottles as 
a kindled alter to the city to deliver her. Almost every time I drift off 
I am building a funeral pyre to her on the other side of the smudged 
river to burn a tower of calcium and granite for her safe return.
Some nights though, I close my eyes and she forgives me. Some 
nights I dream that she takes my stubbled cheeks in her hands 
and butterfly kisses my forehead and my world is enveloped in a 
heavenly peace. Other nights I stay up and constantly pour one for 
her and sip from that poison cup as if it were an Irish funeral. I leave 
it on the countertop to flicker and flutter like a Blessed Virgin Mary 
candle and remind me. Some mornings I wake and scream ‘enough 
is enough’ into the empty living room. I run out of money and I beg 
my father, some days. Others, it’s my brother. If you ever hold me 
down and place a rag over my mouth and pour liters of water into 
my gasping choking breaths, I would drown. If you caught me off 
Hosanna |  Espinosa
|  99 |
guard and begged for me to stop, educated me on how I am just 
killing myself and my eyes are encircled in black rings like an old 
tree and my posture has collapsed and that you haven’t seen me for 
days and the days in which you do see me in the parks or passed 
out on the balconies, you would tell me how it tears at your heart 
like a rat against the concrete wall as it drowns in the sewer from a 
heavy rain. You could say my bones are dying, note that my insides 
are dying, snicker whispers about how I am dying and I would stand 
perfectly still, too enabled or unable to take any next step.
If I close my eyes I do not wade into the rushing sluice, but float 
above it. In that obfuscated umbra, when I look down, usually when 
I am half or one thousand staggering steps away from her, I cower 
with uncertainty about which shore I love more, and if I should just 
let the city have her, and me my fountain.
Hosanna |  Espinosa


Hosanna

Thompson, India

18
4
Th
o
m
p
so
n
Tear Stains | India Thompson
I had tear stains on my glasses 
but didn’t bother to wipe them o!. 
It didn’t matter, 
because why wipe the stains 
from my glasses when no one 
could see them but me?
Well, 
I guess they could see them 
if they looked. 
I mean really looked. 
But who bothers to look these days?
So, 
I plaster a smile 
on my face and pretend 
there’s a real heart within 
my ribs 
and mechanically walk 
through work 
and school 
and down the street 
and around the corner
until have a chance to 
add more tear stains 
to my glasses because 
God knows I could never 
a!ord rose lenses;
and I ponder 
whether I’m actually 
alive
or if anyone is actually 
alive
185
NR
Tho
m
p
so
n
because I truly don’t know 
how hell is meant for the dead 
when there’s so much 
hell for the living.


Tear Stains

Cotterman, Karin

17 
Karin Cotterman 
Lines 
The beautiful lines in your face, 
all I can do is not to reach out 
to touch 
them, suddenly in the middle of your speech. 
So instead I notice the slight 
curl at the nape of your neck, 
the drawl that slips into words 
when you don't pay attention, 
and the smooth steadfastness 
of your forearm's hair. 
These things have provoked me 
to appear here today, 
offering up in a firmly timid 
manner my honesty at being 
intrigued by suddenly 
tasting a slight accessibility 
to understanding the fragile inside 
that your cynicism tries to protect. 
Most definitely I am aware 
of a grumbling in my stomach. 
I take notice of properly placed 
sinews that make 
me gasp at the concept of 
with. It seems 
obscenely obvious 
to me that I am here 
simply to view you. 
Since I am not frail 
I always feel 
obscenely obvious. 
18 NORTHRIDGE REVIEW 
My words are brittle as 
they fall out of my mouth 
and shatter on the table, 
sending echoes throughout 
the restaurant, then 
your words are falling 
under the table, muffled 
· by large feet underneath. 
You still do not know that 
I think of you when I look 
at the stars. 
Perhaps someday soon I will 
be strong enough to tell you 
that there are stars in 
your eyes and the story in 
the lines around your mouth 
takes my mind places 
I do not will it to go, 
so that when you speak to me 
I sometimes wonder what words 
you are saying 
because I can't hear 
over the dissonance of your 
smile and the trembling of my hands. 


Not a member yet

16

Torn

Calenture

Elephant Keys

Mothers

Standard Ice Cream

Hosanna

Tear Stains

Lines

Two Poems: "Paths" and "They Drive by Night"

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