Dialogue from the TV floated through the air.

Another scream tore itself from her throat as she looked up at me. A torrential rain of rage continued in her eyes, roaring through the normally steady brown. I saw an animal ready to

pounce at me, its intention being to rip into my skin with its sharp teeth in a defensive attempt. “Why are you crying? Mama will see.” Her voice was hoarse and nasally. I had not noticed that I had begun to shed tears. A small breath made its way down into my lungs. The tension rose

once again before the final blow to break it was delivered by her unhinging her jaw, vocal cords straining to let out the loudest scream yet. She yanked at my arms once again, bony hands harsh against my skin. The sound alarmed Mama, who must have been under the stairs working on ironing the clothes for school tomorrow morning.

“All I ask for,” her voice was clipped, short and simple as it cut through the mournful noises of my sister. “is a few moments of peace and quiet in this household.” She had turned the TV serial off, and was now staring at us both through the wooden doorway. All I could notice now was the fresh burn on Mama’s hand instead of her outraged glare. She had her yellow kurti on, the

hemline slightly stained with some chutney from the afternoon.

I suddenly became mute, my voice refused to rise as my hands went limp and my eyes settled on the contrast between the room and the hallway. The light outside was a sterile white, but compared to the warmth of the lamp inside the room it looked completely blue. In a flash I could feel Mama rip my sister from my arms before the sound of a slap resounded in the air.

I left the room and went to the kitchen, heart beating fast enough for me to question if it were even mine. As a child of about seven years old, I was deeply afraid of witches, of their long nails, tangled waist length hair and ghostly faces with widely stretched lips held together by the tiny resistance of saliva. My sister’s wailing was exactly like the scream of a witch as I shakily tried to make a cup of separate chai for her. Mama had taught me to always put boiling water first and let the tea steep, but I had added milk initially and then water. The mixture in the

ceramic was disgusting, staring back at me like it were a white mouse. I poured it down the drain and cowered in the kitchen corner.

This year, my sister came home from Bahawalpur. Mama greeted her at the door, but I wasn’t there to welcome her because of an evening class, nor did I have any interest in meeting her. At about 8:30 PM, I walked into the house and dropped my bag in the lobby, making my way

through the hallway and running a hand over my closely cropped hair. At the age of seventeen, I had learned to make mixed chai despite the fact that everyone in the family except my sister drank separate chai. Raising my eyes from the beige tiled floor, I was struck by her appearance in the living room. She had put on some weight and her gaze shone with peace.

“Assalamualaikum.” Her voice wasn’t hoarse, it wasn’t loud, it wasn’t nasally, it was gentle and soft. The TV was static in front of her, empty white noise engulfing the room and fighting with

the crackling of the heater. The cold blue light fell on every part of the room except her hands, which were warmed by the orange glow of the controlled fire in front of her. The last time I had seen her near a heater was when I was about six years old. I did not respond to her with the customary greeting, instead nodding my head and walking to the kitchen.

I shrugged my jacket off and threw it on one of the kitchen chairs near the marble counter, a few droplets of sweat dripping down the nape of my neck as I breathed in. I opened a wooden cabinet, pulling out a small saucepan and placing it on the stove. A while back Mama had been subjected to a fall in the kitchen in the same spot I stood at, due to which she broke an arm. Her explanation for the sudden loss of balance was that she had seen a woman in the kitchen with a

ghost-like appearance while she was making toast for herself before the Fajr prayer. My sister stood in the doorway, looking at me. “Would you make me some too?”

I nodded again; we both grew silent. In the period of time that she was away I had grown taller and changed considerably. My relatives often stated that I had her eyes, and that made me want to scrub my face off.

I poured the milk into the saucepan, eyeballing how much it would take to fill two cups. Her nimble hand reached for the container of chai patti and passed it to me, suggesting I put in two and a half spoons of it to really bring out the taste; I did as she asked. She told me not to put in

any sugar and only four elaichis, therefore I complied and let the chai cook. The next few

minutes were filled with a rigid silence, my shoulders tensed up as I finally looked into her eyes. Tranquil, just as they were once before, just more determined and remorseful now as they crinkled up in a small smile. I snapped my gaze away.

My mind once again drifted off to the last time I had seen her, her dupatta draped over her head like a heavy burden as she forced a smile at Mama and bid her goodbye. She didn’t really look at me, or say bye as she got on the bus. Mama put her arm around me when it happened, but I shuddered and cleared my throat before moving away from her and walking away back into the car. I could vaguely remember the sun setting in the distance, its oblique rays casting a long

shadow of the blue vehicle as it pulled out of the station.

“Where’s Mama?” I asked, snapping out of my rumination, to which she motioned upwards with her thumb, implying that Mama was setting up the upstairs room for her. I went back to focusing on the way the chai boiled. It would rise, then return to its original position before the cycle would continue. My limbs soon became heavy, knees aching from the constant exertion of the day. After it cooked, I poured it into two separate mugs, handing her one and finally speaking,

voice hushed and perturbed, “Mixed is far more convenient than separate.” She held the mug with a steady grip and nodded her head.

Shams is an O'level student from Pakistan. He likes cats, books, and the little lights above stovetops.

by coyee chen

amidst the peckish rain there i was,

the one with a

beating heart that cries

and hisses at the torn edges,

a fragile being, delicate as snow.

only alone do i weep sorely,

a melancholic sort of jumbled grief.

my soul, a radio of mixed genres naturally

slows a tempo, and turns up the harrow as

a snivel escapes from the death of my vitality.

a shining light absconds, chasing, or to be chased from the violent hurls that come following me, the same sadness that has haunted every room i’ve entered.

a love that rusts like steel, or a pain that lingers like a scar, my voice isn’t the same pitch anymore,

my legs have outgrown my old jeans,

but the cathedral that carries the faded portraits of memories embedded into the crevices of my brain, the letterbox i call my heart remains the same beating being that cries and hisses at the torn edges, a fragile being, delicate as snow.

coyee chen is a sophomore in high-school who has always had an everlasting love for literature! aside from writing, she loves to watch movies such as twilight and listening to music is an activity she indulges in everyday; some of her favorite bands include the cure, mazzy star, and the smashing pumpkins. her favorite season is fall because of the cozy atmosphere as well as factors such as cuter outfits and an excuse to drink coffee as much as she likes! additionally, she is a self taught guitarist and has been playing the piano for 7 years non consecutively -- a dream of hers is to potentially start a band some day.

The above artworks depict a vibrant and bustling community and immerse the viewer into the setting.

Iona Jiang is a Grade 12 student at St.John's School in Vancouver with a deep passion for the writing and art craft. Her work can be found in the “VOICES/VOIX” Journal, the "ink" Journal, and the Young Writers Journal. She has received 11 regional awards from the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers for and is now pursuing her work through further publications. Outside of writing or art making, Iona is either baking cookies, going on a walk, or listening to music.

I want to skin the corpse of last summer and wear it about. It’s the natural cycle of things; memories are sweetest And ripe for picking apart (as long as the body is blueish). The same way you peel a mango with your teeth

And feel the fibers, trapped between your gums,

You bite into the ghost of last summer, select the strands Of dissatisfaction for removal with a toothpick.

Don’t ask why it smells forensic at this point,

Or why the rivulets of fungi undulate over the greying skin. Why must everything be some sort of death?

- Perhaps we are too obsessed with mythologising. Memories are sweeter to chew on when they are impossible to taste. Like a rotten tooth extracted from our jaw,

We run our tongue over the phantom space,

Chasing after the last exhale, the ghost of things.

We ignore the melting fat and skin on the pavement For the spectre hovering just above

Seeking to sense warmth in something long cold.

But crops bloom best over an old grave.

Flowers grow back stronger with a beheading.

Nothing can be better if it is still the same.

Everything is a metamorphosis: most of all,

The decomposition of last year into the present.

Olivia is a 22 year old gap year student based between Denmark and England, having read Literature at the University of Oxford. Some people mistakenly introduce her as a cow. This misconception is understandable, as she ruminates, eats a lot and bellows her objections to things. She assures the public that she is indeed a person and that any references are only true in a figurative sense. Olivia has previously been published in Poetry as Promised and Lunchbox Magazine.

A ladle in the sink, an uncooked pot of stew, a rotting smell of decapitated root vegetables, a pulp-fiction half-forgotten, a marriage for one - mapping of hands, quiet whispers of consolation, feeble tears. Men and women and children huddle, howling, and she lies there, a singular sound, a flatline on static - a shrill dulcet between B and Bb.

Three knocks.

Where do we go when we die?

Three knocks.

You look for her in the gold, the silk, the glitter. You pass it on, murmuring, as if it’s a secret you can’t keep. Between her memories and your heavy lungs, she begins to appear in your dreams - you’re tongue-tied, bitter, shaking. What if it ends? Not again, please, not again.

Three knocks.

Blood in the sink, blood on your hands, blood on the walls. Your guilt carves a place in your ribs, and you’re too heavy to float - but this is family, so your protests die a quiet death on a Monday morning. The stew ashens in your throat, and your eyes water - are you forgetting already?

Three knocks.

Dull voices, loud whispers, innocent questions. She’s trapped in glass, and you keep on looking - how long can you stare at your phone without blinking, anyway? You’re thinking of putting her up on your wall. It feels like a mockery. As the night sighs, you think about her, burning, burning, burning.

Three knocks.

A game of house; domesticity is a ruse, and there’s a gaping hole where the heart should be. There’s red on the phone, a battery too low, people crying, wailing, whimpering over the static that grows. Cotton in your mouth, and on a loop - “she was so young” - it feels like swallowing sand. It’s the third i’m so sorry, it’s the fourth this is unfair, it’s the fifth i’m here for you - the faces all morph and split but you never ask who the disembodied voice is.

Three knocks.

An argument is brewing. Who chose the picture? It’s so hideous. She doesn’t look like this. I don’t remember her like this. But then again, you remember her in white, body turning inside out, decaying, red-eyed, drugged, mechanical noise the only indicator of her breath; and then of her death. You remember her, a goddess, still so warm and then on fire at the pier.

Three knocks.

Her ashes are made of earth. In paranoia, there’s a conspiracy, a little itch that wonders if the ashes are even hers - but the dead don’t talk. If she came back, all flesh and bones, warmth and sinews, love and life - would you be afraid? Memories of her are lingering on your brain like a minefield; your sentences don’t end without her, but her face is slowly dissolving. What did her hands look like? How many rings did she wear? It scares you more than her death.

Three knocks.

You’re dreaming again. Bubbling laughter, uncouth slurs, familiar faces. A macabre exposition of bodies, in lust and heat - towel over the eyes, unmoving body, a man, a woman, and their demons. It’s a hospital bed - why can’t you move? Shame first - always shame - and then you weep for something you can’t reach, beg for a life that has betrayed you. What have you done? What have you done? What have you done?

Three knocks.

Gnawing teeth, trembling fists, indifference. A house split up, a house crumbling, a house - is this a house? We just have to wait, I’ll do something. Promises ring hollow, dread seeping into places where truth rests - are we waiting for her to die? But you weigh your tongue down, because you’ve lost so much already. Your heart breaks, splinters and shards, you cry in your sleep, and dream of setting your women on fire.

Three knocks.

When she loses her voice, you cry the loudest.

Three knocks.

They’re talking about moving on. As if she was a bad dream, as if she was a late-night-binge you regret, as if she wasn’t real. There’s a photo of her in your closet - it’s butchered, photoshopped, uncanny, and for a moment it feels a little less concrete. Come 2 o’clock, you look at your phone. What if she calls today? Her ashes are made of the earth.

Three knocks.

It’s been a month. You think of her religiously, as if it’s a chant, a meditation, something pious. Deep down, you’re terrified because the dreams have stopped. What if you’re forgetting the most important part? Like how she liked to look pretty, how her eyes sparkled when the food tasted good, how her voice never rose an octave, how she loved and loved and loved.Three knocks.

You’ve counted them. Three, measured knocks. She’s left behind a life, and the evidence is still breathing. Someone’s at the door, but you’re too scared. What if it’s her, you wonder, and what if it isn’t?

ananya is trying — albeit very hard —- to reach back in time. To touch what once was, in words, and sit in the womb of what could be. She wants the written word to trace back time, identity, chance. She sits at her grandmother’s house, and she’s never quite left. At the threshold, she’s able to see the world, but never quite experience it tangibly. She’s trying to find her way in. She's trying to find her way out.

of memories you can’t pilfer —

I miss the stench of good times

when we rolled out our lives

below the white acne of constellations.

I catch my nails on Tupperware —

we took to lemon trees like

Fate had put the bark to our palms,

and spent our whole hearts on boys

who were less than nothing,

mean and vibrant under different suns.

I miss smoking other people’s dirt

and bleeding gold, when I was losing it

but at least I had it.

My name is Poppy Brand, I'm an English and History student at the University of Manchester. I've been writing my whole life.

The public’s anger is clear; there are massive fortunes worth of pesos seemingly directed to help the country, yet we continue to suffer. What follows are some heart-wrenching numbers.

Only 30-40% of the flood budget produced results, while the rest fell into ghost projects, kickbacks, and overindulgence at the public’s expense. As for the total loss, over 15 years, roughly 50% of 1 trillion pesos allocated for flood projects was eaten by the corrupt plague.*

Meanwhile, only 15 out of 2,409 contractors received 100 billion pesos, nearly 20% of the whole budget, while thousands of others were left with scraps.**

In the media, Filipino citizens are erupting back over the shameless posts from nepo babies such as Jammy Cruz and Claudine Co (daughters of prominent construction company founders) sharing their latest purchases online, funded by taxpayers’ money.

This scandal is yet another look into the evil hands holding back our country from flourishing like our neighbours. Every peso spent on vain objects is a peso siphoned from the flood projects, leaving the Philippines wading through endless floodwater, while this troubling chasm of fraud and mismanagement widens.

*, ** Flood control projects controversy in the Philippines (2024-2025) on Wikipedia

Zabdiel Moreño is a daydreamer who writes his daydreams. When he is not writing, he is most likely outside getting much needed sunlight at a basketball court.

across the smile i loved so

your hand grazing mine, a longing tie

that turns a sky once ordinary now sly

to painted hues of fear and shame

a story which only i cannot name

recalling memories from long ago

your features fading into my soft glow

Tammy is very passionate about writing and spreading awareness through literature. She is from England and is currently still in education, whilst she spends a lot of time centered around her family and friends. She tries to find the amusement in every situation, and her aim is to get as many people into writing as she is!

1. Daddy-daughter duo, Aura V. and Fyutch, won a grammy this month for Best Children’s Music Album, making 8-year-old Aura the youngest grammy winner. “It is an honor to be here today,” Aura said in her acceptance speech, “I was no expecting us to go this far.” Fyutch, her father, started his career as a musician joining a band as a teenager. Not too long after college, he began working as an arts teacher. He found himself frustrated with the lack of music available for him to play for his students and that problem of his reignited his spark for music playing. “Now more than ever, we need positive vibes in our music, in our culture, in our media, “ Fyutch said, “I see the purpose in it, and the beautiful part is that we get to do it together.”

2. A research team at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have come up with a power that forms a strong hydrogel barrier when sprayed directly onto a bullet wound that could save thousands of lives. Major Kyusoon Park, who is also a PhD candidate and served as a study co-author, said the substance not only allows “instant hardening” under extreme conditions like combat and/or disasters but delivers high usability and storage stability. “This technology,” said Major Park, “has great potential for emergency medicine…developing countries, and medically underserved areas.”

3. Last but not least, near Nashville, Tennessee, the Animal Rescue Corps (ARC) received information about a nonprofit rescue in Ashdown, Arkansas, where an acrimonious divorce between the shelter’s owners left the dogs caught in the crossfire. Many of them had already been stuck there in the shelter waiting for adoption for years, including one dog named Yoshi who had been there for over a decade. After confirming the surrender of the dogs via court order, ARC’s field team flew into action and conducted one of the organization’s largest rescue operations to this day. “Our focus…is giving them the space, care and stability they haven’t had,” said ARC executive director Tim Woodward in a statement. All 51 dogs were safely saved and transported without issue where they will now receive veterinary evaluations, enrichments, etc.

Thank you to https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/ for being the source of these stories.

Noor is an Arab American in her junior year of high school. She has a special interest in politics of all kinds. Outside of writing, she plays flag football and tennis. As well as sing in a choir.

i know just what you are:

something bright,

something gentle

watching us from afar.”

someone once said

the LORD scattered light across the sky

so we wouldn’t forget how to look up,

but what if He scattered us instead?

what if we are the lights

burning from the inside out,

inside an orb which reflects the highest heavens.

“you, star — which tonight I await

are old, tired,

and holy in a way

no cathedral could imitate.”

the endless dark velvet which lines the sky

will soon be pale and sick with smoke. the steam from our

machines slowly creep higher veiling the pulsing suns.

how can the LORD allow this to happen to his beautiful earth? isn’t he afraid of

the loss of the pinnacle of his creation

and the silence that follows wonder lost?

“up above the world so high,

holding the key to Heaven

before you drop down

down:

a shooting star coming by.”

I’ve seen heaven

in the eyes of people

who didn’t survive long enough

to forget how to love.

“twinkle twinkle

not above,

but beneath my ribcage

where my battered beliefs still love.”

what if we are constellations,

not lost, just drifting and

drawn into plans

too grand for us to see?

what if our breath is stardust praying

and our scars,

holy geometry?

“like an angel in the sky,

wings shut tight

lock in place

because none of us will ever qualify.”

i will be the wondering, and

you can be the silence.

and maybe,

when the time is right,

you’ll be the warmth they couldn’t hold, and i’ll be the light you send.

“twinkle, twinkle

we still sing.

not to the stars,

but to each other,

hoping someone’s listening.”

Soph is a teenager who lives in Washington. She enjoys all kinds of writing with a dream to change opinions through literature.

Sometimes I remember the smell of freshly mowed grass from when I was eight years old; hurried kids over naked ground playing cricket, a brace of wind picking up as I stood in the corner, fielding. Two kids sprinting, bats swinging in the air, while the rest chanted “RUN RUN RUN.” Nostalgia is so fragmentary to arrive and leave in the same instant. As if it were to bring solace, but by definition, it is only a longing for a period past. It’s the school uniform in the closet, faded, torn, covered with inked names of people, sinking deeper into the fabric, whose faces you no longer remember. As we grow older, we develop this strange idea that if only we could go back, all could be made right again. We could correct what was flawed and recover what was pure. But, in some deeper sense, we know that if we travelled back, we would never find what we long for. Not the flash of sunlight that fell upon my face, nor the people running and screaming across the field.

When I was eleven, my friend and I would catch the early bus to arrive at school an hour before assembly. We would also linger just a little after the final bell, delaying the journey home. As if we knew back then that we were stealing time. The moment we stepped off those grounds, the clock would accelerate. We would become graduates, then adults, freighted with jobs and responsibilities. We listened to a lot of Pink Floyd then, especially the song “Time’:

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you

No one told you when to run

You missed the starting gun.

Many of us feel the salvation of our lives lies in the beginning. The time lost was the time where everything precious ran to catch up. We feel compelled to return to that zero-space, where time moved slowly, where the sun felt brighter, shinier, and more orange. The space that is recalled from a faint scent along the wind, the movement of leaves on the ground, or have noticed the peculiar way sunlight refracts through your bedroom curtains on a random afternoon.

As a child, I could never understand the pain of regret for time lost. Now, looking back toward that zero-point of childhood, I begin to see how life happened to us in a particular way, at a particular time. Our lives cannot be changed in the first few parts. The zero-space is, in fact, not a place we can return to, but a singular, luminous point from which all the vectors since diverged. Like a child, we want every road to lead back to home, not ‘cause we can go home again, but ‘cause home is how we first learned to measure distance.

Most days I carried my towel under my arm and walked to the beach half asleep. The water always felt colder than I expected and I always screamed a little when I went in. After swimming, we let our suits dry on our bodies while we lay on the sand and talked about nothing important. Sometimes we just listened to music and watched families pack up their umbrellas and create lasting memories.

Evenings felt different. I got ready slowly and tried on the same two outfits over and over. My friends helped me fix my hair and we all pretended we knew what we were doing. We walked through each city with no plan and no one to check in with. I felt older, but also safe in a way that only happens when the people around you know you completely.

India is a student who enjoys literature and history. She is from NYC and loves hanging out with her friends and family. Her favorite thing to do is try new restaurants and rank them on Beli.

Epstein was 21 years old when he started to work at the Dalton School. He lacked the credentials to but continued to work for two years nonetheless. Former students claim that here is where his problematic, predatory behavior began. He often times paid female students a suspicious amount of attention and even showed up to a party where his students were drinking. That is not to mention his constant flirting with female students. He was later let go due to “poor performance.”

Almost immediately after, Epstein joined Bear Steams, an investment bank, securities trading, a brokerage firm that famously failed during the financial crisis of 2008, as a lower-level junior assistant to a floor trader. Soon enough, he was moved up to become an options trader, working in the special products division advising the bank’s wealthiest clients on ways to mitigate taxes. The bank’s chief executive officer at that time, Jimmy Cayne, praised Epstein for his skill with their wealthier clients and more complex products. Six-seven years later, he was asked to leave for being guilty of violating a regulation of theirs. What exactly he did is not specified.

In August of 1981, Epstein founded his own consulting firm that came to be known as the Intercontinental Assets Group Inc (IAG) in which he assisted clients in recovering stolen money from fraudulent brokers and lawyers. He described himself as a “high-level bounty hunter.” He told friends of his that he worked as a consultant for governments and the wealthy to recover embezzled funds while at the same time working for clients who had embezzled funds themselves. Others he told he was an intelligence agent. He did all this while traveling the world, covering most of the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. While in Saudi Arabia, he met Saudi Arabian businessman Adnan Khashoggi, a client of his, who was the middleman in transferring US weapons from Israel to Iran as a part of the Iran—Contra affair, a political arms trafficking scandal, in the eighties.

Epstein met Steven Hoffenberg in 1987 who would hire him as a consultant for his company, the Towers Financial Corporation, a collection agency that bought debts people owed to banks and hospitals. He set him up in offices in the Villard Houses of Manhattan and paid him what was $25,000 USD per month for his work consulting—the equivalent to $69,000 USD in 2024. The two of them, a month or so in, refashioned themselves as corporate raiders using the company as their raiding vessel. Epstein’s first assignment for Hoffenberg was to take over Pan American World Airways. He was ultimately unsuccessful. The same suit followed for his bid to take over Emery Air Freight Corp. During these, Epstein and Hoffenberg worked closely together and traveled on Hoffenberg’s private jet. In 1993, the Towers Financial Corporation was exposed for being one of the biggest ponzi schemes in history, losing hundreds of millions of dollars of its investors’ money. In court, Hoffenberg claimed that Epstein was intimately involved. Epstein, however, left the company in 1989, and was never charged for the investor fraud committed. It is unknown whether or not Epstein acquired any of the stolen funds.

This brings me to Epstein’s financial management firm, J. Epstein & Company. The company was said to have been formed to manage the assets of clients with more than a billion in net worth, although many have expressed skepticism that he was restrictive of the clients he took in. One well known client of his was Leslie Wexner, chairman and CEO of L Brands and Victoria’s Secret. They met through mutuals in 1986 and within a year Epstein became Wexner’s financial adviser. In July of 1991, Wexner granted Epstein full power of attorney over his affair. This allowed him to hire people, sign checks, buy and sell properties, borrow money, and do anything else of a legally binding nature on the behalf of Wexner. It was through this that Epstein represented himself as a global talent scout for Victoria’s Secret and used this powerful position to sexually manipulate women, more than likely underaged at that.

The year ’96 marked Epstein’s change of name of his firm to the Financial Trust Company and, for tax advantages, based it on the island of St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. By relocating there, Epstein was able to reduce his federal income taxes by 90%. It was here, on his island, that Epstein committed his acts of crime. His first accusation came in 2005 when a woman contacted Florida’s Palm Beach Police Department to report that her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been taken to Epstein’s mansion by an older girl. While she was there, she was allegedly paid a few hundred to strip and massage Epstein. This led to the start of a 13-month undercover investigation, including a search of Epstein’s home. Michael Reiter, the Palm Beach police chief, publicly accused Barry Krischer, the Palm Beach County state prosecutor, of being too lenient and called for help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

FBI shortly became involved. The police subsequently alleged that Epstein had paid several girls to perform sexual acts with him. Interviews with five victims of his and seventeen witnesses under oath, a high school transcript, and items found in his trash, showed that most of the girls involved were under the age of eighteen, with the youngest being fourteen and the large majority being sixteen. A former employee of his told the police that Epstein would receive massages at least three times a day. The FBI eventually compiled reports on thirty-four confirmed minors for restitution whose allegations of sexual abuse by Epstein included undeniable details. These details included allegations that 12-year-old triplets were flown in from France for his birthday and flown back the following day after being sexually abused by him. Girls were recruited from Brazil and the rest of South America, former Soviet countries, and Europe to serve Epstein. Brunel’s “MC2” modeling agency was supplying girls to him as well, as he financed it.

In May of 2006, Palm Beach police filed a probable cause affidavit saying Epstein should be charged with four counts of unlawful sex with minors and a count of sexual abuse. On the 27^th of July, Epstein was arrested by the Palm Beach Police Department on state felony charges of procuring a minor for prostitution and solicitation of a prostitute. He was booked at the Palm Beach County jail and later released on a $3,000 bond. A little over a year later, on the 30^th of June 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to a state charge of procuring for prostitution a girl below age 18 and was sentenced to eighteen months in prison. He was then housed in a private wing of the Palm Beach County Stockade and, according to the sheriff’s office, after three and a half months, was allowed to leave the jail on “work release” for up to twelve hours a day, six days a week. This is unlike any other sex offenders in Florida, where they are sent to state prison. He was also allowed to come and go outside of specified release hours. His cell door was left unlocked, and he had access to the attorney room where a television was installed for him.

Epstein served a little less than 13 months of his 18-month sentence before being released on the 22^nd of July 2009 and placed on a year of probation on house arrest until August of 2010. Despite being on probation, he was allowed numerous trips on his corporate het to his residences in Manhattan and the US Virgin Islands. He was allowed to shop for hours and walk around Palm Beach for what was supposed “exercise.” After a contested hearing in January of 2011, and an appeal, he registered in New York state as a “level three”—high risk of repeat offense—sex offender. The judge at his hearing ordered him to have to personally check in with the New York Police Department every 90 days. The New York Police Department did not, not once, enforce the 90-day regulation.

On the 6^th of July 2009, Epstein was arrested upon his return to the US from France by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey on charges of sex trafficking. He was jailed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City. According to witnesses on the day of his arrest, about a dozen FBI agents forced open the door to his Manhattan townhouse, the Herbert N. Straus House, with search warrants. There they found “hundreds…perhaps thousands… of sexually suggestive photographs of fully… or partially… nude females.” In a locked safe, compact discs were found with handwritten labels including the descriptions: “young [name] + [name],” “misc. nudes #,” and “girl pics nude.” These videotapes were mishandled and as a result, those now in possession of the FBI may not be complete.

Epstein requested to be released on bond, offering to post $100 million with the condition that he would submit to house arrest in his mansion in New York City. US district judge Richard Berman denied the request, saying that Epstein posed a danger to the public and a serious flight risk to avoid prosecution. On the 29^th of August 2019, 19 days after Epstein was found dead in his jail cell, the case against Epstein was closed.

Noor is an Arab American in her junior year of high school. She has a special interest in politics of all kinds. Outside of writing, she plays flag football and tennis. As well as sing in a choir.

That summer, the desert began to buzz, the sound of a distant purr filling the air for miles. It was as though it had come alive, and we were listening to its lungs. It drove us all a little mad, with the sun pounding overhead and dust coating every surface in a thick layer. I wondered whether the ghost had been attracted by the noise, pushed away from the desert wilderness into the town.

Late in June, the humming had not ceased, and I ventured out from the house at last. The heat was unbearable but the silence inside the home more so. I walked to the cul-de-sac and made my way around to the abandoned house, its pale paint chipped over decaying wood. The ghost was seated on the steps leading to her porch, head lowered and hands clasped. When I approached, she looked up, and I stared back at her. In the twilight she appeared silver and translucent like a cobweb.

I stopped at the roadside, not wanting to cross into her land too soon. After a moment, she rose to her feet and descended down the remaining steps, outline blurring as she walked. I thought she was walking towards me, but she turned away from the street and walked behind the house, into the desert beyond. I raced to follow her, keeping a few steps behind.

The shrub-coated sand, speckled with cacti, turned into flat dunes the farther we went. The desert’s buzzing grew louder as we walked. It was impossible to think with the noise filling my ears.

A silhouette rose over the horizon, dark gray smeared over the night sky. It was a building made of metal, perfectly cubical and churning incessantly.

A distance away, the ghost stopped. I stood behind her, a few steps behind, watching the steel building rattle. Light flickered sporadically around the rooftop like flashing sirens. We were bathed in a green glow for a brief second before the light went out. It was as though the desert had been taken over by the great steel mound. The building was the most alive thing for miles, and it was terrifying.

At last, the ghost turned to look at me. Startled at the intensity in her eyes, I stepped back, but she matched my step and moved closer. The light flickered again, shining deep blue over our faces, and I saw the outline of a mouth twisted in anguish, as though the building was tearing away at her. She reached out and placed her hand on my forearm. I felt as though I had to speak, even though I wasn’t sure whether she would respond.

“I’m sorry,” I said instinctively, shifting uncomfortably under the ghost’s gaze. “It’s…scary, isn’t it?” It truly was, the great beast that made the desert rattle and cast its purr over the sky, but I wondered whether this was the correct reminder for the ghost.

She tightened her grip on my arm, and I tensed, anticipating marks on my skin. “I’m sure it’ll stop eventually,” I add, a faint tremor creeping unwillingly into my tone.

She looked at me, the faintest glitter of pity in her eyes, and said nothing.

I guided your hand to my artery and you struck, carving your name into every cavity in my being.

I idolized you, placed you onto a pedestal you never asked to be on.

You were my muse, every beat of my heart resonated with your presence.

In my foolishness I’d forgotten that you cannot love from a pedestal,

I could shower you with my devotion and worship till the end of time,

but the divinized statue that you’ve become to me cannot love me back

And your marble arms will never hold me from the pedestal I placed you upon.

Now I realise in my final moments, your blade carved into my artery

As blood flowed like a river, blooming daffodils and Amaryllis

That I cannot make you love me with raw devotion,

Farewell, my muse, my love.

Caspian is a student who has a passion for arts and literature. He loves sharks and all things ocean. When not being productive he is usually daydreaming about getting into Oxford’s Ruskins school of arts (pls oxford take me in like 3 years)

where some find abundance and warmth,

others find apathetic cold.

does it matter, then,

when and where you encounter it?

it will always favor some over others,

although maybe its pearls really do shift

color depending on the angle.

either way,

i doubt it really wants you to know

who its loyalties lie with.

you laugh and say,

“the ocean can’t speak,”

but clearly it can.

it just doesn’t want you to hear.

it’s rumored that the sea deals in secrets, too,

but only for some,

and only ever for colossal enough secrets.

you see, the ocean,

it’s a proud gossip,

always whispering to the dead—

those brave enough to have shared their own

with the depths.

Saturn is a queer photographer with a passion for reading, writing, and the arts. When they aren’t sipping on bubble tea, they can usually be found talking with friends... or asleep in bed.

Even when we try to soften ourselves—file down our teeth, hide our claws under nail polish and lipstick and carefully brushed hair—we are made of tiny, invisible weapons. Society’s modernization has taught us to keep our sharp edges tucked away. But literature, as it always has, drags them right back out into the open.

From cannibalism as a metaphor to the pomegranate-bleeding poetry on Instagram and the rise of “ultraviolence” as a genre, a pattern emerges. We are not just tolerating violence in art; we are brandishing it, especially when it’s intimate, romantic, and poetic.

Why?

The answer is a profound, modern ache: in an era of algorithm-fueled numbness, we are desperate to feel something, even if it inches towards something not “good”. Our daily existence pushes us toward desensitization. Our digital feeds flatten the human experience into an endless seamless scroll and we process more information than ever before while feeling less than ever. In this state of emotional anesthesia, violent imagery acts as a shock to the system—a deliberate rupture.

This is why violence in metaphor works so powerfully. We instinctively map physical harm onto emotional experience, and violence provides a vocabulary for intensities that polite language fails to contain. The cannibalism in Bones and All is less about gore and more about an unbearable hunger for connection—a desire to be known so completely you are consumed. It is the ultimate metaphor for intimacy in a world where connection feels scarce and fragile. Violence, then, becomes an emotional shorthand. It cuts through the noise of the mundane. Pomegranate imagery, body-horror metaphors, and cannibalistic love stories are desperate attempts to articulate our pain at the loss of our inner lives:

• A hunger for closeness that feels primal.

• A fear of loss as a visceral, tearing-away.

• An intensity of desire as a consuming force.

• A depth of grief that feels like a physical amputation.

• A longing for transformation that requires the destruction of the old self.

When characters eat each other “bones and all,” it is an impossible wish to merge—to be fully known and accepted, down to the very last, unlovable bone. So, the deepest question shifts. It is not why is the imagery violent, but what emotional reality demands this bloody vocabulary? What world is this art a reflection of?

We use violent metaphors because the world inflicts its own insidious violences. Because our emotions are sharp and our teeth are filed down to the gum. Because our relationships bruise and our nails are filed down to the bed. Because being human is a messy, gory, and intrinsically animalistic affair.

And that is why the pomegranate keeps bleeding in our poems. Why its dissection is beautiful in its bloodiness, and why we often find ourselves eating each other alive in its image. And that within that rupture, we often find our most authentic selves.

Angelique is a Puerto Rican high school senior who loves exploring the intersections of love and violence in her writing. Though she is committed to MIT this fall to study computer science and spends much of her time crafting mathematical proofs, she has a passion for exploring the range of the written word.

On the 18^th of October, hundreds of thousands gather to rally. Wearing your yellow, you stand out. “People who have come together in protest against authoritarian regimes have utilized a color that is easy to see among a sea of thousands.” (No Kings, 2025) What you are trying to say, when wearing that yellow, is “unmistakable.” (No Kings, 2025) You are making a statement by wearing your yellow. ‌Together we stand in the belief that America belongs to no king but to its people.

No Kings. “No Kings.” No Kings, 2025, www.nokings.org/.

Noor is an Arab American in her junior year of high school. She has a special interest in politics of all kinds. Outside of writing, she plays flag football and tennis. As well as sing in a choir.

Chris Mars is a visionary artist who seeks to combine surreal dreamlike imagery with haunting metaphors to speak a story of betrayal & love. His solid determination with crafting every piece of line extends in the liveliness of his maximalism.

Ottawa, July 20th 2024

Shoulder to shoulder, under the tenderness Of late sun, we rehearsed

Our smiles, eyes stoning

With each click of the polaroid.

You hand me the frame, the sun rippling stars and crescents

across our glossy faces.

Our laughter flashes against

the white-ribbed edges, vibrating through our shadows flickered

beside the static museum dwellers. They tangle our inked faces

in a nest of radiance. It’s perfect— We say it’s perfect because it is.

Because the summer air that shines on our skin. Because you lived

behind the statues and curled your lips. Because you see our smiles

but not yours. Because you are used to not seeing your reflected face in our memories of Ottawa.

Because you are behind the lens.

I wonder what the view’s like now— behind the lens, those who are

never traced in pictures they click.

Iona Jiang is a Grade 12 student at St.John's School in Vancouver with a deep passion for the writing and art craft. Her work can be found in the “VOICES/VOIX” Journal, the "ink" Journal, and the Young Writers Journal. She has received 11 regional awards from the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers for and is now pursuing her work through further publications. Outside of writing or art making, Iona is either baking cookies, going on a walk, or listening to music.