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This month, the RHS Art Department gave Images access to these wonderful pieces of art that express diversity, unity, and love. We at Images wish to highlight these students and enforce their message with our own artwork and writing.
The Cat in the Woods
Katie Houde
The journey I took
Through the woods filled with snow
Would be much warmer
If only my fur would grow
It had happened before
On a day I was down on my luck
But that day was different
That day I turned into a buck
With crashing hooves
And large huffs
With antlers like old trees
And as tall as a mountain
Today I needed something different
Today I needed to be small
To be sneaky and sly
And able to hide
Today I was a cat
Black as the night
Today I was a cat
Smaller than small
I'm still being watched, though
By my friend in the tree
I'm still being watched
By someone who cares about me
The Robotic Babies
Sean Fitzgerald
Seemingly at random, they wandered into the maternity ward
They picked the ones who slept and made no noise
In their place was a bundled up heap of flesh that resembled an infant
But behind the artificial skin was a metallic structure
They moved as if they were real
They even cried too
Each one of them with the seemingly natural sensation of yearning for a mother’s love
Yet they did not truly yearn
They did not truly love
They were programmed to believe they did
In fact, not a single emotion they produced was produced by themselves
No one noticed the difference
but they were made to be unnoticeable
Alicia Williams
Scalene Thompson
You and Me
Leah Drago
​
I’m just like you
Even though my problems look nothing like yours do
You’re just like me
Even though your skin looks nothing like mine does
I’m just like you
Even though I hide my feelings more than you do
You’re just like me
Even though you speak in a different language than I do
I’m just like you
Even though my parents raised me nothing like yours did
You’re just like me
Even though you don’t have the same opportunities I do
I’m just like you
Even though I struggle with finances more than you do
You’re just like me
Even though you have a religion and I don’t
I’m just like you
Even though my story is different than yours
Even though your story is different than mine
I’m just like you
You’re just like me
We feel
We unite
We love
Untitled
Rebecca Killion
​
I’m just like you
I put my heart in my hands for you
I shared my emotions with you
You shared yours with me
And we became closer
All my scars and my past,
Our lives, so vast
I’m just like you
Untitled
Sean Sugrue
​
Love is totality,
Heroic heart of all things,
Yet bathed in brutality,
All grave destruction brings.
Sole tormentor of mind,
Singer of sweet sorrow,
Hope of most wicked kind,
Promise of better ‘morrow.
Bolt of Evil’s archer,
Aimed only to betray,
Prolongs its departure,
Leaving only dismay.
Brian Driscoll
Jailene Escalera
Brian Driscoll
Untitled
Marissa Smith
​
I'm opening my heart to you,
spreading love and joy.
Though often I feel very blue,
I don't tell others why.
I hope to see the good not bad,
and hide the dark inside.
The mask upon my face is bright,
I think my heart has died.
Untitled
Sean Sugrue
​
A far distant light ever enters my sight,
Growing always clearer, never nearer,
So very bright all through the night,
Thus, is made all the dearer.
But being so dearer the light,
And to my sight never nearer,
I may see, even in the night,
My dismay’s dread steerer.
That object of such swift decay,
Whose rotten fruits have I tended,
Makes of me a golden prey,
A broken heart never mended.
Sinus
Jacob Nunn
It’s dying
It can’t breathe the air it needs
Its immunity has failed it
Its anatomy is tainted
The throat is closing
The head is flush
The glands are swollen
The damage is done
There is no simple mistake
There is no benign addiction
There is a place in hell for this one
The sick succubus was nurtured to no avail
This one is dying and nothing can be done
Sonnet -18
Sean Sugrue
Shall I compare thee to Hell?
Thou art no more lovely or temperate
Fires blaze and all is fell
And Satan’s lease hath all eternal date
Ever too hot the infernos burn
And seldom is the rouge complexion dimm’d
And every fear from fear doth Hades earn
By nature alone, not some chance untrimm’d
But thy eternal despair shall not fade
Nor gain possession of that fair thou desire
With luck, Death shall brag thou wander’st in his shade
For in eternal lines to time thou art bathed in fire
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see
So long lives this, May this give death to thee.
Kaili Hill
Cassie Ofurum
Sand
Scalene Thompson
​
The blue canvas of murky water, shimmering over my head, provided tranquility. I held my breath, plugged my nose, and gazed into the sandy beyond. My hair floated around me, short now, after I decided to change myself. Short now, after I realized I hated what I was. My mind flooded with the endless hazy memories, and my lungs burned intensely. For a moment my mind wandered to the darkest crypt of the sea, but no, I said, and I dove up for more air.
Water is like a sheet, masking the world around you, stinging your eyes and making the world grey and blurred. Those moments, that my eyes try to clean the filthy water away from my sight, are the moments I can get away. The moments I can be blurred from the world, instead of being clearly inside it. But eventually, as always, my vision returns back to its normal state. Then, and only then, can I think. But I don't want to think. I don't want to think of the “splendid” (or should I say “Splenda”) artificial life I had to live. The life that when I needed help, nobody would listen. The life where I couldn't be sad, or hurt, or defiled, because of everything I had. I plunged my head back underwater.
Again, this stopped the thoughts. I could only think of the air escaped from my lungs, the water enveloping my body, the dirt being kicked up around me, and I sank deeper hitting the soft cloudlike sand. My fingers dug deep into the cold surface, the cold, smooth surface. My fingers dug through the sand trying to get out. My fingers dug through the sand. My fingers dug through the sand. If only I could stay here forever, if only this could not be just a short break, but an escape. My mouth opened, bubbles of air seeped out, my eyes glazed over. I couldn't think, I couldn't care, I couldn't focus on my aching lungs. I heard their screams, I heard their calls for me. I took in the biggest breath I ever have, and the cold escape filled me.
Suddenly I was gone, gone but not gone, gone in the bed. The bed. I looked around me, I felt the caress, the cold freezing fingers creeping about. I felt it again. I hated it, oh god I hated it more than you can imagine, but I couldn't move. I couldn't scream. I gazed ahead of me at the ceiling, the ceiling that looked like the murky sand, and I thought, “If only, god, if only I could float away out of here.” But, the ceiling caged me in, the soft, wet, cold, sandy ceiling caged me in. I wanted my fingers to dig through the sanded ceiling.
“If only, god, if only, I could have my fingers dug into the sand. Into that cage above me.”
And then he took it from me. The only purity in my life that I had, and he took it from me, without a single care. Pulling, touching, breathing.
I'm back. I'm not in the bed, or the water, or in my own head. My eyes are rolling, they hold me tighter and closer, I'm on the beach, the dry beach, I can't breathe, I can't move, I can't think. They pump my chest over, and over, and over. I let go. I hear the echoes of them crying for me to wake up, my body goes slack, my eyes gaze ahead.
My eyes gaze into the murky, sandy beyond, where they were meant and bound to always stay.
The Marionette
Ingrid de Carvalho Oliveira
​
Do you ever feel like you are not the one in control of your life?
That the life that you know is just the consequence of others' choices?
That people make choices for you?
They ask you what YOU want, but always end up making what THEY want for you?
They do certain things to look like you are choosing for yourself,
But, in fact, you are not.
It’s like you are a little marionette
Having several strings attached to your legs, arms, hands, and head
People are pulling the strings when they want you to do something
You can never reach what you want to because you are tangled in those strings
Maybe you see those strings as the pressure of the expectations that people put on you
You need to have the best grades
To be polite
To be pretty
To go to a good university
And to never disappoint other’s expectations
But don’t worry
There will be a day when you will cut those strings and set yourself free
Just like a pretty butterfly that has to break its cocoon to be really free, you will too.
To be free from the feeling that you don’t have a voice and no one listen to you
To be free from the feeling that you have to accomplish other’s expectations
To be free from the chains of your low self esteem
To be free from the thought that you can’t be as pretty as the other girls, because you are beautiful just the way you are
Just to be free...
Megan Lund
