When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best By Cleo       You are probably receiving greeting card after greeting card from all those relatives to whom your parents made you send graduation announcements until the cherry flavored envelope glue gave you a bit of a buzz. If you're lucky (as I was), those relatives feel as if they have something to prove and are stuffing those greeting cards with large non-sequential bills. Each of the cards is emblazoned with well-wishes and assurances that this is, indeed, the best time of your life, your most meaningful accomplishment, and the beginning of a rich and wonderful future. Hallmark (and presumably your relatives) has faith in you and your future. Don't buy it.       I speak to you with the wisdom of the ages, or at least my age. I'm older than you peons. And I am prepared to tell you all that no one told me when I was sitting there in some ridiculous robe that made me look grotesquely overweight (which I'm not) and failed to flatter my (otherwise flawless) complexion. Mostly it's the truth.       Remember how you hugged your entire graduating class, some of your teachers, and a certain officious parent? Remember how you told them you'd always keep and touch and never forget them? Bullshit. I've been out of high school a lousy two years. I'm fuzzy on the names and faces of people I used to see five days a week. My best friend? The one I'd been best friends with since elementary? The one who swore to be my maid of honor and I hers? I haven't talked to her in, like, three months. I won't talk to her again until my boredom becomes so severe I seek to rekindle old friendships rather than watch one more episode Friends in syndication. And then we'll realize we have precious little to talk about other than the "good old days" which, in all honesty, really weren't all that good.       Remember how you were hot shit at good ol' FHS? Remember how everybody knew your name and which group you ran with? Remember how everybody thought you were smart or pretty or popular or a real ass? The rest of the world doesn't care; no one even knows your name. Being homecoming queen, most likely to succeed, or class president doesn't make you matter. It's best to realize this soon and move on; you'll look damn foolish if, ten years in the future, someone asks you during a job interview what your biggest accomplishment has been and you explain that everyone thought you were really pretty in high school and you dated the guy.       People continually tell you that this is a time of great opportunity for you--your whole life is stretched before you and you can make of it what you will. Don't believe them. Almost without exception, you each will take the road most traveled. You will do and be exactly what everyone expects you to do and be. You will become respectable and useful (and bitter and frantic and empty) members of society. You will live unremarkable and meaningless lives. And most of you really aren't too worried by that prospect, are you?       Graduating high school is not an accomplishment. People keep telling you how proud they are of you and your accomplishment. They tell you you should be proud of yourself. Babydoll, failure to graduate high school is the statistical anomaly. Fact is, most people graduate high school sooner or later. There's always a few slackers and teen

moms, but c'mon you haven't discovered a cure for cancer or gonorrhea or anything. Besides, if your high school is anything like mine was (and I have on good authority that it is), it doesn't exactly take a rocket scientist to sail through without much effort. Do not be proud of yourself. You haven't done one thing almost everyone else in America has done.       So what is the point to all this? Encouraging the class of '02 to slit their wrists? Or to swallow all those Valium they'd been saving for a special occasion? I'm merely suggesting you take a good hard look at what you're calling a life. Find something real. Between the Lines of Men By Ronny Between the lines of men I read, "SACRIFICE IS NOT SACRED' on a thousand million names not engraved on walls or buried at Arlington Throughout the times of men I discovered rich and poor manicured and deranged trading talent and gift for middle class glory. Tossed amongst the crimes of men I found no courage unscourged no beautiful secret unpurged only room tempature disciples and Machavillian princes Crowed in the follicles of men I met a Cardinal condoning sin the shifting principles of measured men diamond miners who will never win every average and petty ruthless man Far from the lives of men I left company and praise to roll my dice on the street then lost my last dime on freedom the fingers of the clock did not stop so I chose a direction and walked. Cecelia By Irwin Schweenie       We stood in the cool night, my hands around her waist. Buzzed on beer and drunken with lust we got into the cab. Rolling through the 300 year old streets, kissing in the shadows between street lamps. First with lips only, then with hands and tongue. The cabby laughing asked me if we were in love.       Finally we were in front of the San Juan church, time for me to get out and her to continue on. Time for the last kiss the lingering embrace. Holding her in the cool night air, her mouth close to my ear, “I... love you.” she whispered. My silence was total, I wasn’t even thinking. “I SAID, I LOVE YOU.” She restated anticipating a similar reply. “I.... love…. you too... but it’s different than what you think...” It was all I could come up with to satisfy her want for words and my want for an escape. “We’ll talk about it later.” Her words could have only meant she was a user, naive, or emotionally unstable; true affection comes only through the slow decomposition of disdain into love. “Lunes, en la tarde?” “Ok.” I then stumbled home, sober and wondering how I got myself in this mess.       The bus ride to Antigua was more crowded, slow moving and chaotic than usual.