Tethered
Issue one of three
Liminality
Volume Nº37
Winter is on My Tongue
By Jessie Horowitz
Harsh air entered the atmosphere
Knocking on the doors of people
Who unknowingly await
The letters left in their slots
Filled with the blunt ice
Waiting to melt and spread
Yearning to explore their homes
While running under their noses
Laughing at their blank stares
Reeling into their minds
Stealing all they find
Until the people understand
About the world that's about to come
So at once they all say
Winter is on my tongue
Ariella Marmon
Fall
By Ariella Marmon
The trees begin to shed their leaves.
Orange, red, brown, yellow, green.
Softly floating, tumbling down;
By wintertime they’ll coat the ground.
For now they cling tight to the trees
Fighting each and every breeze.
Believing they can stick around,
Unaware they’re earthward bound.
Doomed to a fate beyond control,
they must nevertheless fulfill their role.
Oh what a joy to be evergreen,
Standing out in a barren scene.
The other trees stare with envy
At branches that will never empty.
A struggle that cannot be seen;
fought beneath limbs, bare and clean.
I am a Dreamer
By Michael Duell
My grandma was an artist
She painted ponds
With fishes, and frogs
who watered flowers
with their splashes
My mother was a poet
she embellished those flowers
with bees, and butterflies
who clung to the arid air
around her mother’s floral grave
My grandpa was a novelist
He created kingdoms
and heroes and villains
who inspired his tales,
enhancing them with gold
My father was a scholar
he studied Shakspeare
and wars, and kings,
filling his library
with tales enriched by his father’s career
I am a realist
I write about tears,
and death, and grief–
– my notebooks overflows with tears
as my pencil colors its pages –
painting it with curvy shapes
– we like to call “letters”
No!
that was a lie,
I am a dreamer
I contemplate artists, poets,
novelists, and scholars,
To honor my lineage
Gray Reflection
By Miriam Deborah
I am always stuck.
Stuck between giving it my all,
Or holding back.
It is an issue
That I think about.
Every hour,
Every minute,
Every second.
It has taken over me.
If I give it my all,
I can create long-lasting
Special relationships.
But if I hold back,
I remain whole
If they leave me.
These thoughts,
Drain all my energy.
Leaving me,
To blend the black and white
To make a merry gray.
A perfect balance.
I’m stuck
On what I should do.
What choices do I make,
So that I won’t end up hurt?
I don’t know. I’m tethered,
In this state of confusion.
I need help.
But there is nobody
To hear my cry.
I scream to ghosts
And expect a response.
The Little Boy and the Lion
By Ellie Weisberg
There once was a boy whose mother told him stories late at night. Stories of lions with big claws and razor teeth, who looked at little boys like nice pieces of meat. Every night she would tell her stories, and then she would kiss him on the cheek and leave. The boy never told her, but once she left, every night, he would crawl hastily out of bed. He would check under his bed and in his closet. He would lock his window twice and stare at every shadow until it was just a shadow. Then when he was done, he would climb back into bed, shut his eyes, and pray to the one up above that he would never see a lion. This is how the boy went to bed every night of every week of every year.
One afternoon, when the sun was plastered on a blue sky, the boy went out into the forest. He spent hours between the leaves and the vines. Listening to the sound of chores of birds singing and the symphony of trees blowing, he walked deeper along the paved path into the woods. Suddenly, he heard a sound. The sound made the forest cry and the birds silent. Gradually, as he stood there amongst the silent birds, stories began to drift into his head. The stories of a scary beast with big claws and razor teeth filled his head until there was no more room and no more air, and then he snapped. In fight or flight he chooses flight, running to the increasing beat of his heart. He ran for hours past the birds and the tree and the vines and the path.
He ran and he ran and he ran, until he stopped. There the boy stood in the valley of Azaleas, Baby’s Breaths and Roses. Of Buttercups, Poppies, and Lilys. Of Carnations, Daffodils, and Forget Me Nots. It was a valley of flowers that lined the earth past the horizon, and it was beautiful. Yet there was one flower that screamed to him, shaking its stem under that sun-plastered sky. He sat there and stared. Out of all the flowers he loved this one with his whole heart. Maybe it was something about its color or smell. Maybe it was something about the shape of its petals or the way they swayed in the wind. He loved that flower but didn't know its name.
He sat there a long time peering past the dirt to its roots, trying to find a label with a name on it, but he saw none. Then, he saw a man walking his way through the valley. The man walked the way rivers rolled, flowing in and out of reeds and grass, intangible. His face was warm, maybe because of the stars that gaze out from his eyes. The boy trusted him the way the flowers trust the river. He must have the answer to my questions, he thought. In the openness of the valley the boy cried to the river, “Do you know the name of this flower?''
The man smiled and nodded. “A dandelion”.
Jessie Horowitz
Bound
By Millie Schwartz
I have long been built up and broken down
By those I have loved and those I have lost
Forever a bubble away from drowned
Over every pain and tear I have glossed
I have gone every length to hide my fear
Becoming the last bloom in the first frost
I cannot imagine fleeing from here
Cannot topple the foundation I am
I can’t destroy what I now hold so dear
I will not be my own battering ram
I will not bring myself to broken shards
I won’t let my facade burst like a dam
I can’t break away, it’s not in the cards
I’m your light in the dark though I can’t see
If I tried to leave, you’d call for your guards
And whyever won’t I let myself free?
It’s because I have tethered you to me.
Millie schwarz
Moonsong
By Eliana Birman
i still feel like a child
and yet i’ve never felt so old
still young, still free, still wild
still too scared to be alone
but i’m getting there,
i know it
and I’ll be old quite soon
and the phases of my life
are moving on
like the moon
but it is beautiful
and so is life
and so I’ll be okay
and when i’m older
I’ll look at the moon
just like i did today
and it will change for me
just as it has
for the last 17 years
young, free, wild,
moving with the music
of the spheres
i’m getting older
but I’ll always be young.
Notice
By Ariella Marmon
Have you ever noticed how wanting burns you from the inside out?
When you yearn so fiercely for something unattainable that envy begins to consume you?
When your vision is distorted by desire and hunger echoes behind every thought?
Have you ever noticed how painful it is to love someone in silence?
When you thirst so desperately for someone unattainable that pain starts to devour you?
When your thoughts are corrupted by longing and every waking moment stings?
Have you ever noticed how much it aches to love?
Have you ever noticed how much it burns to want?
Have you ever noticed how much it hurts to live?
Handcuffed
By Lifschitz
I was born this way
I came into this world with handcuffs
Before I could even speak
This world was never built for me
I've always been this way
Tied up in chains
But no one seemed to notice
So I pretended I didn't either
She says I'm special
That it's a superpower
These handcuffs grow and grow
Yet it seems she doesn't know
It's not fair to sit in the window
Looking at what I can't have
Every time I get close to the day
It seems to run away
A chain sprouts from my ankle
I look down expecting to see a big heavy ball
I look in surprise
At what’s tied to my feet
It's the girl I never was
The girl I tried to be
That tearful kid
Who never will be me
He says we make the best of what we have
Life throws obstacles at us
But sometimes it's too much
And sometimes it's not enough
I was born into a prison
And handed a flesh suit
Too itchy too small
It never fit at all
I was born into a rigged game
I was born tied up in chains
Tape on my mouth has taken my voice
Do you really think this all was a choice?
Monsters
By Ariella Marmon
A timid pair of eyes stare into the void.
The void blinks.
“This is not how we usually meet,” says the void.
“No,” replies the owner of the eyes.
No, this time, something is different.
The roles are reversed; prey seeks out its hunter.
The scales are imbalanced and tearing asunder.
A girl crouches low, peering under her bed.
The monster under her bed is crying.
“Why do you cry?” the little girl questions.
“I cry for you, my dear,” he whispers sadly,
Mourning every harsh word that his girl must endure.
He curses her adversaries as he cries silently.
He simmers with rage and he seethes righteously.
The monster awaits her late into the night.
She returns beaten; bruised and battered.
“Who did this to you?” cries the voice of the void.
“What do you mean?” asks the girl in confusion.
Her empty gaze stares past him, unseeing.
She will not survive this; she cannot endure.
Their cruelty is boundless, their souls are impure.
A twisted form emerges from the darkness.
He will ensure they regret all that they’ve done.
“I will avenge her,” he growls through his tears.
“They will suffer for this,” he swears with a cry.
He is true to his word and they pay for their crimes.
Retribution for the cruel; justice for the unprotected.
Her abusers are damned, and she is resurrected.
Ellie Weisberg
Nightmare
By Nava Lacher
At night I hear them-
Voices tittering in the dark,
Creeping across my room.
The shadows on my walls-
Are they real?
Am I?
I don’t know much,
But I know I’m not safe-
That even in my own home,
I’m not really home.
I can’t sleep.
Our door is unlocked,
our windows opened,
And strange people come.
I see them, even now,
Out the corner of my eye
Leering at me, stroking my hair-
GET OFF! I shriek, but they never do-
they only ever leave
When my sister chases them away.
My mind can’t make sense of
Anything
Anyone
and I clench my eyes shut as
Tight as I can to block out the nightmares
But still they come,
And when I wake they’re just as real
And vivid-
I can hardly tell the difference anymore.
Ariella Marmon
Ode to a City
By josh stiefel
Surely the cascade of feet will arrest
The turnstiles of the breathing cityscape
Thundering trains ream the rails they compress
While the grimy skyscraped evening takes shape
“Someone will surely cease this commotion”
- Cry shattered hearts of the forlorn unknown;
their hearts of glass discarded and broken
Metrocarded spinsters of blood and bone,
Amid the discord: a harmonic chirp
A solemn sparrow stands perched in stasis
His proud thesis of hope tries to usurp
the beating of an urban night - graceless
Yet, there is no wisdom in this brave flight
Amid the chaos of the New York night
Limb by Limb
By Rosie Fellig
There is comfort in desperation,
In the transmission of doom.
When the twilights beckon for you to surrender
How could you deny,
The lunar winds that guard your bedstand?
How awful are these sheets of soil our tendons have grown in between,
To betray us so shamelessly
And strike our hearts.
That is to say,
To disembowel our faith
Limb by Limb.
Mornings after snowfall
There is a quiet
Creeping from the roots of branches
That have only known outdoor splendor.
The vanity, upright against a winter window
Houses oils glittering with what ought to be.
The mirrors distort the width of our eyebrows
And void is this bedroom
Of understanding.
Where do the stars go?
Do they sleep when we run?
Do they dance while we dream?
There seems to be not a lamp in sight
Rather, a sleeping sun,
And the post office filled to the brim
With greetings from the graveyard.
The current has somehow thawed,
The drought draining the stream as if it were entitled to it’s cool rush.
And i have only remained to watch
How neighboring nature whims
Slowly descend into madness.
How their swift breaths of carbon
Consume my dignity.
The truth?
The stars should be left alone.
So too with the night,
they have become tired of their use in sorrowed metaphors.
The sun need not wake.
The world is in no need for its blaze.
The oil bottles were not sealed tight enough,
and now death oozes over cold, white wood.
Snow has become slush
And the soil has gone coarse.
It refuses to drink.
I remain beneath fortresses
Of solitude, and inadequacy.
Little earthling am I forever to be,
Crazy, crazy girl
Who ought to unlock her own tragic cage -
Once, and then never again.
Within the Castle Walls
By Nava Lacher
You know that old bible adage-
The one that goes something like
“From dust you were created, and to dust you shall return”?
No one ever mentions the hell that’s in between-
really living in the dust.
It clings to everything—my hair, my clothes,
my skin and my books.
All I really long for is to be clean.
To rinse myself of the sting of my mother’s ruler,
to rinse myself of her apathy.
To get as far away from my father as possible.
That’s the only way the grime will disappear,
when his broken mind
And hands can’t reach me-
-can’t destroy my sculptures, or siphon off my freedom
dollar by dollar.
i’m tired of this strength forced upon me.
i never asked for it.
it feels impossible to swallow back my rage most days,
to breathe with these dust covered lungs.
So i gasp at every breath of fresh air
(that sweet luxury)
and grasp at dreams
of a world nothing like the one I know,
clutching the idea of New York skylines
like a stuffed animal
to my chest.
i need to get out.
i need to get out.
i need to get out.
Adara Wachsstock
Perception & Identity
By Kaden Love
I forgot my name
I forgot the words associated with what they think I am
I forgot the discomfort that used to always dwell around me
What used to be my normal
The way it took me over in patterns
Like a chilly breeze on a cold winter night
Who am I?
Who do you think I am?
Are they any different?
Do you see any differences?
Can you acknowledge them like I do?
Can you feel them surround you like the taste of a warm chamomile tea?
Or do you see them, but as what they aren't?
A cold pain, an aching wind, a brutal storm
Can you see it, like it is?
Or are you fazed by the storm you created
The image of a monster in front of what was a warm hug
Aderet Feldblum
Torn
by Selah Ottensoser
“Help!” I scream over and over.
I am stuck in place.
The right answer flashes brightly in my eyes,
Yet my instincts weigh on me with a gray cloud overhead.
Pulled in a tug-of-war between my pride and my empathy,
my Indecisiveness is the true antagonist of this story.
Is it better to free myself or die for others?
To be a hero, To be selfish.
Suddenly, there is no right answer.
I look both ways, but my fears distract me;
"Run!," they say
Run, abandon both your empathy and your pride.
Run, let no one decide.
Run, be the coward.
I now see the right answer and its manipulation is dragging my name,
tethering me to itself; I can feel its freezing hand reaching out to jerk me in.
I need an escape plan, my Indecisiveness has taken over me.
Do I risk it all to shelter myself or turn for the others in need of help?
“Help!” I scream over and over.
Help!
Past
By Shoshana urman
When I read the things I’ve written
And they take me back in time
I always marvel at that girl
And how she lived outside the lines
How her eyes shone like the moon
On a dark and starless sky
And her hair a deep rich ink
Etching stories in the night
When I close my eyes I see her
Dancing, music in her head
And she stayed outside all evening
Watching stars from flower beds
She ran barefoot through the streets
But her scars they never bled
And she never dreamed of others
No, she never had regret
But is it truth or just a dream
When I recall this angel child
With a laugh that rang like bells
Reverberating ‘round for miles
She danced through rain and flames and pain
Armed with nothing but a smile
Or was it nothing but a lie
A wish run rampant, loose and wild
No this girl she wasn’t perfect
And her heart wasn’t complete
For her eyes were filled with tears
Though they never met her cheeks
She avoided fights inside
By sitting outdoors with the weeds
And you can only write real stories
When you feel the hurt down deep
The girl only ran through fire
So her skin, it wouldn’t burn
She sat still while she was drowned
Asked for nothing in return
And the blood drops on her feet
She said weren’t of concern
She closed her eyes and thought of me
In hopes the future her had learned
Take It All In
by Eliana Birman
sometimes i just feel like the smallest thing on earth
that there is nothing smaller than me
that the world is too big
too beautiful
too full
for me to make anything of a difference
but even the smallest things
like the bees and the flowers
make all the difference in the world
and so i will too.
Multiplier
By Eliana birman
money is never spent just once
it is exchanged, changes hands,
and is exchanged again
so why expect anything different
of anything else in the world?
this is not the end.
this is only the first exchange.
Jailbreak
By Liat Furer
O’ to feel free and not be tethered to her mind.
Trying to get away seems like a crime, but who wants to feel blind?
Freedom speaks to her, but so does being that secure person.
Ominous thoughts squirm at the back of her head.
Sitting while her stomach churns.
Will they still love her if she chops her hair or straightens her teeth?
Maybe she should exchange her personality for a quieter one.
There she stood with her satisfactory name printed on her head.
Untether her from the hopes and dreams of other people.
Let her unleash her potential with grit you can’t fake.
She aches to wake up and yell jailbreak.
Liar
By Kaden Love
Lie
Lie again
Lie since they don’t want the truth
Lie since that’s what they’ll hear anyways
Lie so that you can feel normal
Lie so that you don’t need to explain
Lie so no one knows
Lie so you can live in society
Lie
Build your world with lies
And then,
Lie
Lie again.
Antonym
By Eliana Birman
the opposite of love
is not ‘hate’
it is not ‘disgust’
it is not ‘anger’
it is ‘indifference’
it is knowing that
you don’t care at all
it is knowing that
you are over it
it is knowing that
you are done.
Adara Wachsstock
Sitting Duck
By Ellie Weisberg
Like a stream-
She rushes-
Surges through the mountains
The valleys she crawls across- open
vibrant-
And her waves- they crash
Then disappear back into the sea
To the fisherman who rides them-
I pray for safe travels-
-He longs for- silence-
And the gentle lul of her- whispers-
The safety of the dew-on blades of grass
The fish belong to her- swarm her-
And the great white -bows-
Even in the presence of fleeting footsteps
I prayed for the fisherman-
He longed to feed- on her belly -
-Full of behemoth whales
He sat there- in her eyes
He-
Engulfed in vehement cries-
Swallowed by her roar-
and that is okay too
By Eliana birman
i am not a thing that needs protection
i am not surrounded by eggshells
i am not weak
i am not broken
i am not shattered
maybe i am
maybe i do need protection
just until i can be okay on my own
Multitudes
By Tzipora Gordon
It’s interesting, you know
The way that space and time bend
Create those little in between spaces
The spots where we slip through
Slip through the cracks
In the darkness, where it bleeds into the light
Where the lines of knowledge and ignorance
Or those of power and weakness
Blur together into something new, undefinable
At heart, isn’t that what we’re aspiring to be?
Something undefinable, outside established, black-and-white laws
We are imaginary, and yet we are also all too real
We are everything and nothing all at once
Or so we hope
We hope that while we traverse these paths
These roads of shadow and light
We don’t fall prey to the things that wait
Stalking, to injure the night
We are the guardians of the in-between,
But to do so, we must be the bane of the binary
We must dip and dodge around the edges of the real,
The beautiful, the unfathomable, the eerie
