Tale Feathers

2021 - 2022
Dusk to Dawn
TaleFeathers
Literary Magazine 2021-2022
Hillgrove High School

Contributors:

Josie Kwan

Andre Hoilett

Jada Lee

Caleb Kimbrough
Dawn
 Dawn
beginnings, hope, fresh starts

6 am by Andre Hoilett

Not Coffee Tea by Josie Kwan

 6 am
Andre Hoilett
Long since dismantled,
My sleep schedule is curtailed by the blaring reminder of my alarm

Up at 6, up at 6

Any later and I risk the chance of oversleeping

More sleep is nice, but at what cost?

Too many tardies and I can’t go to parties

Saturday school means no time at the pool

I may miss my chores if I start to snore, then the trouble I’m in would certainly soar

And what about practice, oh my, oh my?

What if I take a bad touch? Or shoot a ball to the sky? Lack of sleep will cause such
things, and they’re all quite embarrassing.

What if I doze off in class? What then? I can’t answer the questions from my
friends. I tutor them from time to time, and if I miss one day, that’d be a crime!!

And what about the friends I pick up at 7? What about Dante, and Jacob, and
Vanessa, and Kevin? Their parents aren’t at home, so they’d be all alone, only to
arrive at 11.

And so with my day fixated on a time, a number composite yet in my case prime: 6
am when light first breaks, my alarm clock silently awaits.
 Not Coffee Tea
Josie Kwan
I don't drink coffee
No one in my house drinks coffee
Someone told me that love smells like coffee
But the smell of coffee is a forgein concept to me

I don’t drink coffee, but

I drink tea,
The smell of jasmine
Brings up old memories of family at dim sum
Spinning a lazy susan
Passing around food

Love doesn’t smell like coffee freshly brewed

It smells like my grandma’s house
Like her fried rice
Or my uncles char siu bao
Or my aunts broccoli casserole which she never makes enough of

Love sounds like my grandma’s too-small kitchen

Which echoes all of our laughter off tiled floors
It sounds like the catch in my grandma’s voice
as her tongue heavy with all it remembers from across the sea
struggles to commune with mine
Mine that still trips over the letter r
And freezes in fright when it needs to work
It’s her asking in her broken english
If I ate enough today
It’s her asking me if I’m ok
And it’s the motions I use to express that yes I ate enough
Yes I'm doing ok
This is what love sounds like to me
Love maybe in a different language than me
It maybe a language no one ever bothered to teach me
Because it was more important for my clumsy tongue to know english
Rather than know how to speak to my grandma
But that’s ok
Because love is not foreign to me
It’s not coffee, it’s tea
Midday
 Midday
vibrant, lively, fast paced

Title’s Aren’t Strictly Necessary by Caleb

 Titles Aren’t Strictly
Necessary
Caleb
“Your pants are on backwards,” someone behind me called as I walked out
the door. Now, normally, this would be a very polite thing for someone to say,
especially before someone leaves and embarrasses themselves. A gentlemanly
gesture, you could call it. But this was no kind sentiment.
You see, I, Jeremy Swift, have been dealing with paranormal activity for the
past three days. My home seems to belong to a very polite ghost, though I can
never quite identify its location. All I’ve heard is its voice, just louder than a whisper.
That day, I had intentionally flipped my pants around to lure out the ghost. It
was a Saturday- I didn’t even have work, but the ghost would have no way to know
it. Unless, of course, it was an all-knowing deity. If that were true, I would have
much bigger problems.
I turned around in an attempt to spot the specter. “Halt, apparition! Show
yourself!”
“No.”
I was shocked to hear a response at all. “No?”
“Yeah, no. I’m not a ghost.”
“What are you, then?”
“I’m your cat.”
I looked down and saw my cat, Darren, staring at me with his big yellow eyes.
“You can talk?”
“No,” he responded, jumping up onto the banister. “Of course I can talk, idiot!
What do you think I’m doing, telepathy?”
“It was a possibility.”
“No, it wasn’t! Magic isn’t real. Or did your parents never tell you that the tooth
fairy doesn’t exist?” He stopped for a second. “Actually, can we talk about how
scary a tooth fairy would be?”
“I’m no fool, Darren. I’m Jeremy Swift, a working man, and-”
“I know who you are. You announce it to the whole house every morning.
‘Jeremy Swift, a working man, blah blah blah’. Point is, yes, I can talk, and it kinda
sucks that you had to be the one to adopt me.”
I was appalled. Me? A suboptimal owner? Nonsense. Any normal cat would
be grateful for just a taste of my presence!
“I might not be able to read minds, but when you narrate your thoughts like that, it’s
not hard to tell what you’re thinking,” Darren commented. “Also, what the heck? Did
you just add a dialogue tag after I finished talking? ‘Darren commented’? Couldn’t
you have at least chosen a better verb?”
“Stop your spouting blasphemy, feline! I will prove to you how wonderful an
owner I am! By the end of the day, you’ll be bathing me in kisses!” I challenged.
Darren recoiled at what I’d said. “Hold up, man, that’s a little weird. Like, the
dialogue tags were one thing, but kisses? Ew…”
“Not literally,” I corrected.
“Still weird.”
“Enough! Allow me to question you!”
Darren lifted a paw. “Ugh, fine. But stop narrating my actions. It’s stupid. I
know my every action just as well as you do.”
“When did you learn to speak?”
“Three days ago. Wasn’t hard.”
“How?”
“I just learned English, easy as that.”
“How?”
“Are you a preschooler talking back to your teacher, Jeremy?”
“No.”
“Then stop asking the same question over and ov- why are you doing the little
quotation gesture with your fingers?”
“What do you mean?”
“You keep doing it whenever one of us talks.”
“Doing what?”
“Stop it.”
Fine.
So, like I was saying. Stop asking ‘how’. You said you wanted to question me,
so question me better.
I don’t know what else to ask.
I dunno! Ask for, like, my life story or something!
Do you remember any of your childhood?
No, why would I- I’m, like, two! This is my childhood!
You cats are weird.
You humans are weird! Do all humans act like you?
All humans should act like me! For I am Jeremy Swift, a working man-
Oh my God, shut up.
You don’t even know the rest of the spiel!
 I don’t need to know the rest of the- why are you moving your mouth while I’m
speaking?!
I’m not.
This is another one of your weird- you’re doing it again!
Do you want me to stop it again?
Yes!
…
!
?
,.
.
??
,..
?! ! ?!
.
!-,?
,.
?! , ?
,.
…
All of them? Even the dialogue tags and the finger quotes?
Yes! I don’t care if they’re weird anymore! Why didn’t you tell me there were
readers?! Couldn’t you have started up with ‘this isn’t real’?!
“Well, that would ruin the story’s integrity,” I explained, rolling my sleeves up.
“It’s coming to an end soon, anyway.”
“What?!” Darren exclaimed. “Aren’t stories supposed to be a little longer?”
I shook my head and sighed. “Oh, Darren. Don’t you understand? Stories can
be whatever they want. You never know how long one will be, what it will be about,
or even when it will end.”
“What happens to us when the story ends?”
Dusk
 Dusk
winding down, peaceful, resting

Moonlight by Josie Kwan

Ocean’s Hourglass by Jada Lee

 Moonlight
Josie Kwan
As I look up to the night sky,
I see the stars burning bright;
I wonder if anyone hears them cry,

To be a star and see through their eyes,

I wonder what it’s like to be pure light;
As I look up to the night sky,

To be put under pressure and yet defy,

All possibilities by standing upright;
I wonder if anyone hears them cry,

To have people glorify,

And yet fall to their delight;
As I look up to the night sky,

To shine brightest as you die,

To collapse under your own might;
I wonder if anyone hears them cry,

Suddenly it’s like the world simplifies

And it’s just me, bathed in moonlight,
As I look up to the night sky
I wonder if anyone hears me cry.
 Ocean’s Hourglass
Jada Lee
harboring a feeling
is a broken hourglass;
the sand slips through
in
silent
piles

this frustration swells,

as tides are wont to do,
drowning these thoughts
in deafening space

my answer to you,
an indefinite line,
not a question of how—
a question of why

the feeling of forgetting

and of longing,
an ellipsis...
an end?

but how is it said?

that i can’t recall
the emotions caged here,
only for you

this hourglass is
hastily mended
with coarse orange dust—
bitter yet necessary
you’ll fade again
pieces of you swirling
into a new pigment,
an angry streak of red

i’ll pour it in the waves

a ray of light hits the sea
peacefully, like shattered glass—
the storm does not pause

i wake again
without a trace,
years of loving
lost on you

everything is ending
but i’m sleeping at last.
Midnight
 Midnight
ending, darkness, vulnerability

Night Cat by Jada Lee

Stuffing by Josie Kwan

1:45 by Andre Hoilett

Countdown by Josie Kwan

 Night Cat
Jada Lee
there’s a panther in my house.

when we eat, it prowls to the table,

and it sits with paws neatly folded

i can’t remember who invited it in.

when they visit, it shelters in the loft,

and it chooses the seat closest to mine

they say the panther does not exist.

when we fight, it hisses at the sideline,

and it laps up the worst of our words

i am the only one to see it.

when they laugh, it purrs on the fireplace,

and it knows they’ll never believe me

yet, recently,
my friend claims there’s a lion in his house.

he doesn’t remember who invited it in.

they say that it does not exist.

i can’t see it,

but i know that the lion is just as real.
 Stuffing
Josie Kwan
Everyone has their secrets

Not every secret is meant to be kept

Not every secret stays hidden
Not every secret can be taken to the grave
Some are just,
Too big

The secret I carry

Is not my own
That doesn’t make it any lighter to hold

I know I can’t possible bring this to my grave,

It wouldn’t fit in the coffin
Wouldn’t stay buried
Six feet deep
Or stay dead
Sixty feet down,

But it’s still, a secret, and sometimes,

Sometimes I still,
Censor my words
Dance around the edges
Stretch the truth
Cover myself in lies

It still,
it never,
it doesn’t feel right,

I wonder if I can keep up this charade

Long enough for you to take it to
Your grave, after all it’s your secret,
Your reputation to uphold,
Some days I feel like nothing but a rag doll,
Stuffed full of your secrets,

I see my seams strain, until they look as if they might, rip

Feel the stuffing claw up my throat, my mouth, until I think I might start coughing it
out

But you’ve taught me well

Shown me how to duct tape my mouth shut,
And hot glue my seams together,
So no one can see what’s inside of me
So you don’t have to see
What you’ve put inside of me

I don’t correct people, when they assume I’m quiet,

I pretend they’re right,
I pretend I am,
I pretend this vow of silence was my own choosing,
But I know I’m wrong

I wonder if this poem breaks that promise, that I don’t remember making
I wonder if that’s ok
I wonder if these are my words, on the page

I fear it might be more of your stuffing,

Spilling from my rebellious lips,
Bursting from my seams,
But I hope, I’m wrong
 1:45
Andre Hoilett
The time on the clock is 1:45
The ceiling bares my gaze
My playlist shuffles…
songs then ads then songs again
Sleep escapes me
There are no sheep to count
Only the minutes
Hours
That pass by as I lay awake
I know the morning will come soon
And along with it dreariness
Exhaust
Fatigue
Thunder wakes me from my trance
The world blinded for a moment by the lightning that followed
Rain taps gently against my window
Mirroring a knock at the door
My sister
She can’t sleep either
With half the night still ahead of me
I think of the remedy
Tea
Both poured and exchanged
Filled with relief and emptied of concerns
Slowly the sheep return from their hiatus
Entering the haze now present before my eyes
I count them
I count the raindrops my gaze on the ceiling beginning to close
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
 Countdown
Josie Kwan
Do you know what’s it like to have a countdown in the back of your head?
To always be aware of how quickly time is moving,
Every day becomes new years eve and numbers bounce around echoing:

10, 9, 8,

Except this count down isn’t happy

Except it’s just me counting
And it’s not a new year or a celebration;

It’s a countdown to my mother’s death.

Cause ever since the doctors said
Your mother has early onset Alzheimer's -- she has about ten years left to live

The counting began

7, 6,

And when the doctors clarified that it wasn’t ten years from the diagnosis,
But ten years since the symptoms first appeared,
When I was only in fifth grade

The counting roared

5, 4,

Suddenly every birthday had to be perfect,

Every holiday had to be perfect,
Christmas, vacation, you name it, perfect

And no one said it

But everyone knew,
It was because it could be the last
And it turned every cake bittersweet,
It made every vacation feel like a chore,
Made every graduation and school event feel like a show.
3, 2,

And I got so good at pretending,

So good at my role
Got so lost in the whispers
That I just became

“Oh that poor girl”

“Did you hear what happened with her mother”
“I know it’s so sad”
“The poor thing”

And worse, I started to like it.

I preferred their worthless compliments to the knowledge that my mother is dying,
That my mother will be dead
By the time I’m in college,
By the time I get my first job,
By the time I get married,
And sometimes I wish
That I could forget,
As easily as my mother can

1,

And I love my mom

I love my mom
And yet,

There’s a part of me that can’t wait,

Until this countdown hits zero
Cause yes, it means my mother will be dead!
I know that!
But it means she’s no longer in pain;
It means the doctor visits will stop;
It means the sympathetic looks from other people will cease;
It means I, can finally grieve;
It means this countdown, this unwanted symphony in the back of my head, will
finally Shut Up!

I don't think I’ll miss the counting,

But I know I'll miss my mom.
So I want to say
Before the counting is done,
I love you mom.
 Acknowledgements
Talefeathers would like to thank:

The Hillgrove Art The Hillgrove Students

Department

Mrs. Stickle, Teacher

Mrs. Bheodar, Teacher
Noah Yates (Cover)
Madalo Trumble (Dawn)
Aydrie Isban (Midday)
Talicia Florence (Dusk)
Dhyarra Clark (Midnight)

The Hillgrove Faculty and

Administrators, especially

Mrs. Stewart, Principal

Mrs. Cook, Asst. Principal
Mr. Broome, Club Sponsor