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Title: Murphy Square 2019: Murphy Square Literary Magazine
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: ISSUE 44 2 019 MURPHY SQUARE LITERARY MAGAZINE AUGSBURG UNIVERSIT Y SQUARE Copyright © 2019 Do not copy or redistribute without permission. All rights reserved. Printed on 100% post-consumer waste Cover design and layout by Megan Johnson “Here we are, trapped in the amber of the momen...
Show more ISSUE 44 2 019 MURPHY SQUARE LITERARY MAGAZINE AUGSBURG UNIVERSIT Y SQUARE Copyright © 2019 Do not copy or redistribute without permission. All rights reserved. Printed on 100% post-consumer waste Cover design and layout by Megan Johnson “Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.” - Kurt Vonnegut special thanks to Augsburg University Day Student Government Augsburg University English Department Augsburg University Art Department The Echo Bookmobile editoral board Gabriel Benson, Editor in Chief Sonja Mischke, Associate Editor Megan Johnson, Designer Doug Green, Faculty Advisor Lindsay Starck, Faculty Advisor art editors Rachel Brown Olivia Fitch Rachel Lindo Jen Meinhardt Rachel Thell poetry editors Rachel Brown Abigail Eck Jen Kochaver Yoko Kofuji Rachel Lindo Gabriela Lucía Ryan Moore Emilie Tomas prose editors Julia Charron Abigail Eck Jen Kochaver Rachel Lindo Gabriela Lucía Jen Meinhardt Jessica Mendoza Ryan Moore Morning 3 ON THE USS ALBATROSS by D.E. Green 5 ODE TO MANGOS by Saira Montes Moore 7 UNTITLED by Bridgette Boone 10 TEGUCIGALPA bY Sarah Degner Riveros 11 TEGUCIGALPA by Sarah Degner Riveros 13 16 22 ELAINE RAMSEYER, DAYAMPUR FARMS, CARBONDALE, IL by Grant Berg 23 PERPENDICULAR by Julia Charron 25 AFTER CHARLOTTESVILLE by John Weirick 29 I WILL GIVE BIRTH TO AN EGG by Rachel Lindo 29 CONFLUENCE by Clara Higgins 33 ROCK AND ROOT by John Weirick 34 DAVID by Daniella Clayton 35 HAIL MARY by Kalie Havener ROSA by Saira Montes Moore MANIAC! by Ava Fojtik 17 THREE HEADED SELF PORTRAIT by Ani Cassellius 19 SHE TASTED OF GRIEF by Abigail Eck Noon 42 DAZZLE by Ava Fojtik 57 STORY OF A BROKEN GIRL by 43 NOT A LOVE POEM BUT DEFINITELY Gabby Brooke SOMETHING by Terrence 63 BETWEEN BORDERS by Saira Shambley Jr. Montes Moore 47 BREEZE by John Weirick 65 FREEDOM AND TENSION by Ani Cassellius 49 STORMS AND HOUSES by Rachel Brown 67 GLENN ELEMENTARY, 2 PM by Allison 50 ALMOST EDIBLE by Ava Fojtik 51 REVENGE OF THE SOLENOPSIS by Rachel Lindo 53 POISONED SOIL by Kathryn Graham 55 RIVER KIDS, DAYEMPUR FARMS, CARBONDALE, IL by Grant Berg Uselman 75 UNTITLED by Bridgette Boone 77 TEOTIHUÁCAN, CIUDAD DE LOS DIOSES by Sarah Degner Riveros 80 TEOTIHUÁCAN by Sarah Degner Riveros 81 SOLITUDE by Jen Meinhardt 83 TAKE A DEEP BREATH by D.E. Green 84 FANTASY by Nou-Chee Chang 85 BIG MUDDY MIKE WASHING DOLLY, ST. LOUIS, MO by Grant Berg 87 I AM NOT DECEIVED by Rachel Brown 89 HOLDING ON by Saira Montes Moore night 95 NAKED IN THE NIGHTTIME by Anders Sateren 121 STRANGER by Jen Meinhardt 103 A WARM PLACE TO SLEEP by Jen Meinhardt 123 FRIENDLY by Kathryn Graham 105 IDENTITY CIRCLE IN 3 PARTS, ENDING 125 DAD by Jen Meinhardt WITH A TREK THROUGH THE ANTARCTIC 129 LIFE OF A DESIGNER by Nou-Chee DESERT by Terrence Shambley Jr. 109 MICKEY by Melissa Flores 111 LIES MY DRUG-DEALER TOLD ME by Michael Levine 115 WORRY by Daniella Clayton 118 THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS by Meredith Chang 131 I AM AN ALCHEMIST by Jen Meinhardt 131 A DATE WITH DEATH by Carson Hughes 141 LIGHTS IN THE DARK by Elizabeth Ihekoronye 143 PERCOLATING by Gabriela Lucía 145 AMERICAN ECSTASY by D.E. Green Carstens 119 THE STREETLIGHTER by Gabriela Lucía 147 BULLETS, CARDBOARD, AND SLOBBER by Carson Hughes 153 MY DAD WAS[N’T] AN UNCAUGHT SERIAL KILLER by Jen Meinhardt 155 STAGES OF SLEEP by Gabriela Lucía 157 SUMMER NIGHT HAIKU by Rachel Brown Morning 16 On the USS Albatross D. E . G R E E N This is our ship We will lose our way various as a city our fragile home intimate as a village each other and ourselves less like a nation more like a world But this is our ship with all the possibilities We do not have to drown of neighbor and friend nor to die of thirst on these ironic waters This is our ship We can traverse these seas together swift in the currents winds behind us but in frigid seas This is our ship and dark wintry North We do not need another it grinds through We will not get another excruciating ice Together we can reach our ports of call This is our ship This is our ship We will not get another If we cannot pull together our lips will dry and split our tongues crack and swell our ears blister shut 4 Ode to Mangos SA I RA M O NT E S M O O R E your skin so soft and gentle don’t call me jealous I remember every time but not everyone can appreciate I get to taste your warmth in sweet and caring are you the humid summer nights let me unwrap you all I wish is to with your sweetness dripping be with you all year long you leave me with color no matter the color of the leaves my face flush and sticky or the coldness of my apartment everyone around is envious it’s hard in your absence when I’m with you no song floats in the air how can you let others no other can replace caress you? what we will always have tell me, will you be with me tonight? 6 7 B R I D G ET T E BO O N E Untitled 8 Tegucigalpa SA RA H D E G N E R R I V E RO S Al no verte, te imagino. Although I don’t see you, I imagine you. “Entre las montañas” anuncia tu nombre. “Between mountains,” announces your name. Los gallos cantan tu amanecer, y te rondan The roosters sing your dawn, and trucks camiones sin mufle en tus calles. Without mufflers circle about your streets. The metal roofs frame out the pink houses Los techos de acero encuadran tus casas In the first light of day, their whiteness rositas en la primera luz del día, Blindingly brilliant in the sun. su blancura alumbrante en el sol. And between blocks made of cement, Y entre cuadras de cemento, I feel what lies rooted beneath. siento lo que radica abajo. You tread on the earth with your profound feet, Pisas la tierra con tus pies profundos. In your towns, I have seen the mud En tus pueblos he visto el lodo Of your entrails, the free breeze de tus entrañas, la brisa libre Of the hills crowned by your palm trees. del cerro que encabellan tus palmeras. Beneath all this civilization Por debajo de toda esta civilización, There you are, the lifeblood of the town, allí estás vos, la sangre del pueblo, The River Choluteca. el Río Choluteca. Teguzgalpa, te llamabas, Teguzgalpa, you were called back then, cuando todavía se veía When the reddish mud could still be glimpsed entre tus fundamentos el lodo rojizo. Amidst your foundations. Te rodeaban los cerros de plata, Silver hills surrounded you, coronados de cedro, caoba, y guayabo. Crowned with cedar, mahogany, and guava trees. Todavía se siente el aire de tu selva pluvial. Your rain forest can still be felt in the air. Tegucigalpa, although I don’t see you, I imagine you. Tegucigalpa, al no verte, te imagino. 10 11 SA RA H D E G N E R R I V E RO S Tegucigalpa 12 SA I RA M O NT E S M O O R E Rosa I n the mercado everything holds color. The yellow on the kitchen wall, pots where the frijoles cook for of sunflowers vibrates on the hand-painted toys. hours, and beautiful mugs. Now these mugs, the ones Dulces wrapped in red, yes it will be spicy. Anything dripped with glaze on the inside, are the best for a you could want lives in mercados. The fruits are fresh. chocolate caliente and pan dulce when the sun retires Vendors say, “Ovas, una caja por cuarto! Prueba!” You and the crickets chirp. listen to the vendor, usually a man with kind eyes and you take the grape (you always do). Its skin taut with with such love and care (like everything is here). The the promise of relief and you find yourself with a box salsa for the tacos is always spicier than the merchants of them. It is fine, it is only four dollars. The best smells live here, la comida is made confess. “Pica esa salsa verde?” “No, no pica,” but it is The pottery is handmade with cariño and sits always spicier than they let on. La gente drizzle that on white tablecloth. It drips with glaze that shines in salsa verde and noses soon run. The aguas frescas the sun. All kinds of pottery, small lizards that hang are swallowed down burning throats. Antojitos are 13 sold in abundance. There is nothing you can’t find in el asks, “Cual quieres mija?” She looks, with such focus mercado. Here in the mercado we find her, amid the that children rarely hold, at all the alebrijes. She ignores sellers of pottery and food, amid the mugs with color the ones that cost siete. She knows her dad will buy dripped on them and the salsa que no pica. one that’s siete but she also knows how money seems to disappear quickly and quietly. So many to choose She loves the mercado for these reasons. The from, animals and non animals, all colors that god has colors are her blanket, her relief in this heat. She is safe created sit on the alebrijes skin. here, among her people, among memories of what she once knew. Here people do not look at her when she speaks to her ama in the language her ancestors were thinks, which do I want? Which alebrije will sleep next forced to learn. Here she can wander around, look at to me and ama? Her dreams wake her, when the night the alebrijes that she so much loves, here she is safe. is silent and the air is stiff with knowledge. Which will be Cual quieres? That’s a good question, she able to protect me from nightmares of that night? The She and her papa are standing in the middle burden Rosa carries is much too heavy for a child. It of the mercado, between all vendors and colors. He’s manifests where she cannot escape, her sueños. a man whose hands are rough with labor and life filled with love. Eyes dark brown, with wrinkles that wink at you, and make you feel warm. It is Friday, the end of the from the night Rosa and her padres came. How dark quincena, when money seems plentiful. The mercado and cold it was, in the desert at night. Her ama gave is busy, everyone buying what they need and what her the last of their water. Rosa, the girl with braids and they don’t. Her papa wanted to surprise her with a new focus to what others cannot see, did not know hunger addition to her collection. So they stand in the heat of there but she knew pain (it was a different pain, one the midday, her eyes big, sweat on her forehead. that she could not see, a pain that nestled itself into It is hard for her to separate her nightmares her tummy). She knew how hungry her parents were. She stares at them in awe. Their heads She saw the light from her papa’s eyes become dull. bobble. Up, down, up, down. Left to right. Her dad asks, She saw how her ama was always careful never to be “Cuanto?” The man with skin loved by the sun replies, alone. The men who led the group were not good “Cinco, y estos—” he moves to his left and points at men, neither was the land forgiving. Do not complain, the more carefully painted alebrijes, “A siete.” Her papa her padres made her promise. She still has not broken 14 SAIRA MONTES MOORE | ROSA it. Rosa saw many things, pobrecita. one of the ugliest pig/not pig things that he had ever seen but Rosa sees what others cannot. She knows In her dreams, she walks the desert alone. There are no no one will take him, he’s a beautiful pig in his own sounds, just the thumping of her heart in her ears. Her right but will not sell. He’ll be there, on the tablecloth, feet, so tired. The landscape never ending. The earth heat beating down on him for months maybe, alone. feels dead, only the restless souls of those who did not Two lovely creatures, Rosa and the puerco will find make it are stuck here with her. They cry and hope that kinship instead of loneliness. He will keep her sueños she, a beautiful child, will make it out and grow like the away some nights, and that is enough. “Aye que feo, cactus flower in a desert. She is their cactus flower. si lo quieres?” Is she sure she wants this ugly pig? “Si!” Be careful of the snakes, the bad men told He laughs, what an ugly pig! She likes when he laughs her. In her dreams she is also careful of the snakes. She because she can see papa’s gold tooth. does not know what will happen if they bite her. There is no color, just the shadows playing tricks and objects wrapped up. It’s hot, they all know it. They look up on melting into others. “I do not want to die here,” are her occasion, hoping to see a cloud close by, hoping. None only thoughts. Like the cactus flower, maybe she will come. The girl feels the sun, how it seeks to touch spend her whole life here. Her (re)birth, her blooming, more than her exposed neck. She wishes this moment her death. She always wakes next to her ama and papa, won’t end. She’ll be okay with standing here, focused safe. The alebrijes, animal and non animal are there on the alebrijes, watching how their heads bobble too, on the windowsill. Her papa tells her que todo va with the absent wind. Standing with her papa, with the estar bien, we’ll never do it again. Who will protect her? They stand by the vendor while the pig gets vendor whose skin was loved by the sun and her new So many to choose from. Animal and non puerco wrapped in newspaper. animal. Rosa, her soul now many years old, finally decides, “Quiero este!” She points to the one in the middle. Her dad looks, and wonders for a minute, Que es eso? What is it? It looks like an animal. Rosa sees her dad’s confusion. “Es un puerco, papa.” A pig. A pig that does not look like a pig. It was honestly 15 Here, I will repeat again, she is safe. AVA FOJTIK Maniac! 16 ANI CASSELLIUS Three Headed Self Portrait 17 18 She Tasted of Grief ABIGAIL ECK I live among ghosts. I can feel them there, all the time. Listening, sitting in the rocking chair as I read poetry aloud to them, looking at me patiently as I take breaks to absorb sections, coming over to lean on my shoulder when I close my eyes. They are strangers and loved ones alike, peering in curiously as I tend to my plants and then vanishing, popping in if I mention a name that they are connected to, stopping to smell the mint and the incense and enjoying the fires I light for them on the coffee table. I am - not quite afraid, but I am buzzing, anxious. It is just under the surface, all the time - that pull of the connection, to the spirits that show up around me. In this, I have become more aware, that when I close my eyes, I can feel something within me - my spirit, my soul, the ants that creep along my veins They are trying to detach from my physical being, become moths to force their way out of my pores, and the only thing keeping me anchored is the cat lying on my hips, the only thing keeping me rooted her steady breathing to remind me of her living heart. In this, someone - perhaps, myself - has pried apart my ribs so that my heart and lungs are out in the open, panting, beating, desperately gulping in air and blood, and I am exposed and aware of everything I can feel the oil under my skin, pooling in my elbows and my left hip, circling around my spine and my throat and attempting to creep up up up to join with the dark something that sits in my mid-left-frontal Cortex And in all of this people tell you to conquer your biggest fear, but how the fuck are you supposed to conquer it when that fear is the death of a loved one? Nineteen, and, just like, that he is gone. No one is supposed to be fatherless at nineteen, at eighteen, at twelve - and yet this is all across the world, these griefs and sufferings. It was impossible for me to imagine a world without him, but now - it’s my reality, and it feels more like a dream 20 ABIGAIL ECK | SHE TASTED OF GRIEF And then, it is almost fascinating, how quickly a heart can be snuffed out of this world. They find a trapped mouse, still alive on its trap, slowly dying of starvation, dehydration, of the twisted position it is stuck in, and there are choruses of ewwww and oh my gosh! Gross! They discuss what to do with it - and it is going to die, no matter the conversation I listen to, no doubt about that. I can feel the mouse, though, and I am struck silent - I can feel her spirit seeping away, the quiet struggle and the unknown acceptance, my heart matching hers (it is a female, I know it, somehow), and I feel like collapsing in sorrow for another life(s) gone. I can’t stand it, now, the consistent death of people and animals, guns and bullets senselessly taking lives, human cruelty destroying more and more of the world every day. It is morning, and I am mourning again. All I want is to feel alive, in this dead world of spirits and the creeping fingers of death, always reaching, reaching. I am Itching for my body to bloom - bloom with ink, spiraling out of my skin in all the just-hidden places, to make physical my thoughts and aches and pains. At least this is something I can control, right? And, Among all of / the spirits /death / anger / sorrow / denial / grief / loss / ants / sympathy / flowers / writing / of / the / obituary / guns / money / signatures / the / ghost / in / the / passenger / seat / don’t / you / see / her / ? / the / hand / that / rests / on / my / shoulder / the / pictures / voicemails / almost / deleted / ink / skin / cigarettes / candles / cats / and / mice / fears / and / truths / - / - / . / . / . / / I / hold / my / fingers / to / my / throat / to / check / that / my / heart / is / still / beating / - / / and / all / is / - / / quiet / . / 21 G RANT BE RG Elaine Ramseyer, Dayampur Farms, Carbondale, IL 22 Perpendicular JULIA CHARRON Even in the quiet of the morning there are people on the sidewalks and cars on the streets. When did the World start to feel so empty, so cavernous? It’s impossible for me to decipher whether it was them or me that began to ignore the other. Perhaps, at a point of intersection we agreed to exist outside one another, and carried on- perpendicularly. The wind is the only direction I can find- although fickle and inconstant. I hear it whisper through the trees and I find more meaning in the leaves than in the voices of any person around. It is me and it is them and I am lonely. But I’d rather be completely empty than feel just short of whole. I can only wait and hope that the quiet emptiness pacifies my bleeding mind. 24 After Charlottesville JOHN WEIRICK “This isn’t America” shouts echo off buildings and blood-stained pavement. “Racism has no place here” confidently declared from states near and far connected long ago by railroads built by Chinese laborers over water and soil abducted from the only non-immigrants the land has known. “Society is equal now” say those whose families once owned other human beings. “Racism is still a problem” cry the families who lived by the law only to lose unarmed sons to bad apples that continue to fall from the diseased tree. “We will not be replaced” shout those whose forebears have never lacked opportunity only grace. “You can’t erase history” protesting removal as if the line vanished between remembering history and memorializing its demons. 26 42 JOHN WEIRICK | AFTER CHARLOTTESVILLE Voices pile up like dry grass and we all carry flames. When will we set down torches and talk through the night catching glimpses of each other’s ragged humanity? After we pause once naïve now ignorant refrains of “All lives matter” baptized well-meaning cliches and meager attempts if any of empathy. “Shut up about Charlottesville” he reminds himself for his prompt opining feels true until he steps beyond the echo chamber humbled yet welcomed to those night talks where he finds his place which today is to listen. And then what? 28 I Will Give Birth to an Egg RA C H E L L I N D O No matter how much time the traveler spends as she attempts to invent a wild contraption to give herself and her friend, a witch, time-and-space whiplash or how many times the witch summons a spell that won’t give them split ends, they always end up at a movie theatre. The time traveler sat down next to the witch at a bench outside, both an hour early to a movie they managed to be two hours late to. Thanks to the traveler’s mother who also bends space and time like pipe cleaners. Before the movie can even dance with British action movie stars, the mother calls. The traveler’s father once told his daughter, while he stood in the middle of their clustered time machine, Your mother is going to have a bird. Before the traveler answers the call, her hair a wild mass thanks to the flawed witch’s spell, she yells, I will give birth to an egg! The phone vibrates and cracks the witch’s last-minute incantation made to save their chances at seeing the film. While the mother sprouts a kuku bird over the kitchen floors that the traveler scrubbed clean that aren’t clean enough, the witch closes her eyes and prays for the traveler to smash her egg on the kitchen’s tile to fly. 30 C L A RA H I G G I N S Confluence 31 32 Rock and root, glistening slick from night’s refreshment. Away from rain-shy crowds JOHN WEIRICK Rock and Root left at the rolling hills. Higher in, peaceful fog, the cover of wistful solitude. The forest’s silence broken only by distant planes, brutish trains, and emergence of human voice, strained. In morning’s solace, nothing clearer. Steady footing a luxury, light and swift on narrow paths. Mountain’s peace, effort’s reward. DAN I E L L A C L AY TO N David 34 KALIE HAVENER Hail Mary A damp, crumpled yellow piece of notepad still clutching the yellow paper. Grandma Mary had paper was being passed around the stuffy written her dying wishes so openly and honestly, and hospice room among my aunts, uncles, and her tender words were just too much to handle right cousins. It was the middle of March, and unseasonably now. I read her words over and over, and before long I warm. I sat cross-legged on the sticky floor, out of walked back to the room, and no one commented on the way and quietly writing in the visitor’s journal that my absence. I was just in time to hear my aunt retelling the nurses claimed to read to my dying grandmother the story of how she discovered the yellow paper every night. The wrinkly sheet finally made it into my when she was cleaning Gram’s little back bedroom. In sweaty palms, and I immediately felt her words pull at a twisted sort of way I think we were all thankful she a soft spot inside me: Carry a rose down the aisle for was not conscious right now. The nurses told us each me, and I will carry you in my heart. time she woke up she asked them when she was going home. I don’t think any of us would have had the heart Growing up I always hid boyfriends, tattoos, to tell her she would never be returning to her cardinal piercings, and underage drinking from my family, red cottage on West Road. and yet here I was having a raw moment with them watching me. Feeling unhinged by my sudden onset of tears, I peeled myself off the ground and swiftly left, Catholic Church. It had been a month since I held 35 The tolling bells rang out above Saint Joseph’s that yellow paper with my Gram’s words, her final like wisps became brown barrel curls precariously thoughts recorded in shaky handwriting. The whole pinned up around her neck. She held a single rose. church was filled with clean white candles. There were white calla lilies that looked like tiny upside-down and those around me were laying sniffling heads wedding gowns, delicate yellow layered roses like the on shoulders and clutching the arms of loved ones. pages of an old Bible, and the belles of Ireland which Father Mark was wearing his vast robes of shiny gold were skinny finger-like stems with a knot of a flower and white that stretched across his giant frame along on each joint with a tiny white blossom inside. The with black loafers that prayed for mercy while they choir voices picked up where the bells left off, and I groaned in the silent church with each step he took. let out a deep breath as I walked forward and picked My cousin whispered something about how the Priest up a single rose and held it in my hand as I followed was crying, but I knew better. Father Mark’s massive Gram’s casket into the church. I smiled into the rose body was glistening with what could have only been and thought about the story she told me right before the Holy Spirit, and he dabbed his face not for tears— I graduated high school. but for sweat. He made his way to the podium and I closed my eyes, and the two of us were in began to speak. her sitting room, sun illuminating the crystal prisms that dangled delicately from her sparkling windows. back to school to support them when her husband of us was sitting in a squishy armchair. died of cancer in 1968.” “You know, Kalie-Illa, when I was graduating from Catholic school they had a ceremony too,” My grandparents met through letters in World War Two. Grandma had been writing to her beau at Gram said. “Sometimes being nervous is a good thing. the time, and at his insistence she wrote letters to his It means you really care about what is to come.” “Mary loved her family and friends and her faith. She went on to raise six kids on her own and went The heavy scent of flowery tea filled the air, and each I took a seat on the glossy wooden bench, friend who didn’t have a girl back home. Grandpa fell I was picturing her at eighteen. Her knobby in love with her through her letters, and when they hands that held coupons and bills before me were walked down the aisle she held white calla lilies. It is now covered in elbow-length white satin gloves. The because of this story that I believe in the power of heated blanket that covered her legs was replaced by writing and the power in my own words. a gown with a white tulle skirt. Gram’s silvery moon36 KALIE HAVENER | HAIL MARY fallen queen by her devoted disciples. Mom squeezed my arm and asked if I was okay. She was handing me a tissue but raised an eyebrow once she saw my dry face. I told her I was The fresh smell of the flowers inside the church was replaced by the earthy scent of wet pavement in fine. I honestly couldn’t bring myself to cry. Maybe the parking lot we had to cross in order to get to the Father Mark and his script of sympathy wasn’t doing muddy graveyard. It was drizzling over my curly red it for me. I felt as though I should cry… if I was going to hair, but I didn’t worry about it frizzing. The slick mud make a big emotional scene, this was the time where clung to my black velvet heels. My family members it would be most acceptable—even welcomed. And were weeping all around me as we made our way to yet here I was coming up empty in the emotions the open wound in the ground. So this is where Gram’s department. Soon it was over, and the choir began to body is going to lie from now on? I shifted my weight sing once more. from foot to foot in order to steady myself on the We were once again back at the entrance hall, uneven hollow ground. The ground groaned in protest with its candles burning brightly and flowers spread as if to say, “Hey! It’s not that bad here!” My Gram, the all over like an Irish garden. I looked at my family so light of my life, was going to be buried beneath this distraught and I felt out of place, but what else is crooked red headstone and sloshy wet grass. Father new? I touched the little green-looped ribbon with a Mark had sent his assistant out to say his blessings. blossom in the middle that I made into a pin. I stayed up all night making them for Gram, amid bottles of “So he was too fat to walk thirty feet!” I heard my uncle’s voice griping beneath his bushy beard. It alcohol and old Irish pub tunes she used to sing to me. had been Gram’s dying wish that Father Mark lead the I made enough so everyone could wear green in her funeral procession, and he couldn’t be bothered to honor. My little Irish grandma, who celebrated Saint bury her in the rain, apparently. Patrick’s Day religiously and always made sure we had enough shamrock-shaped cookies to last all spring, was buried wearing a soft green ribbon pinned over skinnier and dressed in street clothes led the Hail her heart. The pall bearers now had the casket once Mary: “Hail Mary full of grace! The Lord is with thee…” He more and were making their way up the aisle, and rushed through this, and said some quickly thought- we all fell silent. I moved out of the way and stood by of condolences and ushered us to come forward with myself, and I smiled. This was her final time making her our final goodbyes. My cousin lay spread-eagle over way through a church aisle, and she was carried like a the casket, and I looked down at the charm bracelet 37 The second-hand priest who was much hugging my wrist. life and death. Gram and I loved to speculate about the deeper meanings of dreams, and so she indulged Once again I was back in her warm cottage, me with this gem. steamy tea billowing out around us causing the whole room to look misty. Gram asked me to reach for a catalogue. It had fallen by the wayside from the in my childhood bedroom but I can’t find the light fortress that was her great brown leather rocking chair. switch.” Gram coughed painfully and her body lurched Her hands grabbed the catalogue from me, her skin as forward and she made to hide the blood that came up thin as crepe paper. in her lily white handkerchief. I winced. Gram carried on as if nothing happened. “Now, Kalie-Illa, I want you to pick out something from here, my treat!” “Well, Kalie-Illa, I keep dreaming that I am “It seems funny I wouldn’t be able to find the light switch in the home I grew up in. I don’t know what I knew money was tight, and I didn’t want to it means but I have had this dream every single night be the reason she didn’t have something she truly since I came here,” Gram told me. needed. Gram was so excited though, and in the end I settled on a silver charm bracelet with shamrocks and tiny silver keys. was rising, and the light spilled over everything like a Gram passed on Easter morning as the sun golden halo. When I woke up that morning, I saw that I continued to look down at the charm my light switch had been unexplainably turned on, and bracelet, on display in a very different atmosphere, I smiled, knowing she had finally finished her dream. and I wondered if Gram knew one day I would wear it to her funeral. I spun it around and it made a tinkling sound, as if it were laughing, and it drowned out the memories carrying me and keeping me safe. As long weeping around me. I couldn’t help but think about as I have the memories, I never really have to say what she told me before she passed. This was the last goodbye to her. I walked toward her casket, my long time we spoke, when she first entered the hospice lace shawl swishing in between the raindrops as I did and the pain wasn’t bad enough for them to increase so. I placed my hand on the smooth mahogany wood, her doses of morphine. the bracelet tinkling along as I reached for a single Though it was her funeral now, I felt the rose. I was squeezing her hand one last time. The burial The hospice walls were listening in on us. The was over, and we slowly drifted away. walls were saturated with the secrets uttered between 38 54 Noon 56 AVA FOJTIK Dazzle 42 Not a Love Poem but Definitely Something T E R R E N C E S H A M B L E Y J R. You look good in my sloppy camo sweater. I lent it hoping it would catch your aroma the only part of your ugly ass that isn’t bitter. Girl, if you don’t get yo ole talk so loud on the phone booming at your mom so steady while we in the library and students studying ole one word response ole Crimson Chin forehead ole too cool to show teeth in your pictures but when you do smile make me wanna get my life together Ole when I ask you what is this, you say What do you mean? and I say what is this you kill it all with a damn nigga I can’t just come sit next to you? Ole always wanna be in my space ole too strong to send a I miss you text ole fat nose bean neck peanut head ole seem too disinterested to send a come thru text ole cute belly gloss skin clout eyes 44 60 TERRENCE SHAMBLEY JR. | NOT A LOVE POEM BUT DEFINITELY SOMETHING ole I don’t have an answer for you right now Ole why you assuming I was on that when I was just asking but you too slick to answer a goddamn question girl I barely know you but when we together I feel so settle I write poems after and air more than I should. 46 Breeze JOHN WEIRICK Sore. that kind of contribution? Did you ever think you would feel so sorely ready Well, for that summer breeze did you expect it to turn out that whipped up dust and grass clippings well after you spoke your mind the day you packed your books and trinkets at lunch and all the extra notepads and everyone was silent? with your name next to theirs There’s not enough vinaigrette to (too many notepads to just throw away), cover the wilted arugula and sour tomatoes, and you walked out the doors let alone your expired belonging. that used to unlock with your badge, But you are less concerned back when you had one? because you feel it again, that summer breeze, More. too hot to befriend— Bid adieu to any morsel where will it carry dry leaves of future memories you believed about when summer is gone? your contribution to the cause, like a volcanic island: heat, light, molten core spewing, relegated to slip down the rough mountainside into the ocean— 48 Storms don’t form they’re built like houses on gravel RA C H E L B RO W N Storms and Houses with bricks and white plaster cloistering the heavens. But houses aren’t homes they’re goods situated on beds of sand and engraved imprinted like pirate treasure lost in a sea of lifelong guarantees. Roses aren’t gifts they’re dust turning brown and crisp crushed by the weight of the sun in a vase in a house not a home. Roses are dust blowing in the storm that was built not formed. AVA FOJTIK Almost Edible 50 Revenge of the Solenopsis RA C H E L L I N D O Red ants stumbled past me and bit my pal Greg. Myself a survivor, I boasted. Greg told me I better harvest my luck during a luck famine. I panicked and threw off my shoes believing the red ants tore through the soles. My lungs were gnawed on. I forgot how to breathe and shook him, begging that he’d give me his lungs. He refused. I pushed his shoulders, like how an infant slapped his mother’s hand away when she airplane’d orange muck into his mouth. Our struggle needed an audience and Hermes arrived, but not for free. His golden eyes shifted to my great-grandmother’s necklaces, riches dangling around my neck. He stretched out a hand. I dove into the sea, my right hand over my left to become a sharp knife that could cut through choppy waters. I needed to make a bouquet out of deceased coral, believing there was a chance my lost humanity would scamper back and lock itself into my hands. 52 Poisoned Soil KAT H R Y N G RA H A M If you want to talk about painful love, because you’re so tired of caring let’s talk about a flower born into poisoned soil but it refuses to live or die about carefully measured cups of water about how some people call your flower about weeds that have grown with it a weed that have grown into it about how much you love this stupid little flower. strangling it with faulty love about how despite everything you’ve done If you want to talk about painful love, the flower is practically dead let’s talk about my sister about the room full of books on and the time I found blood in the bathtub gardening, weeding, soil, flowers, loving and a torn apart razor on the floor. about the frustration of suggestions try weeding water it just let it die about how sometimes you get angry and just pour every drop of water you have into its dry cracked ground or rip out every weed you see until the earth around it is ruined or spray it with herbicide to just kill it already or neglect it for weeks or months or years 54 55 G RANT BE RG River Kids, Dayempur Farms, Carbondale, IL 56 GABBY BROOKE Story of a Broken Girl T he first time I ruined my father’s life was unaware of the life of imperfection it would soon lead. long before I emerged from the womb. He This wasn’t revealed until later, though. At the time, and my mother had been arguing again, one my father took my mother’s words at face value and of the many that were destined to occur throughout decided he was done. the course of the unplanned pregnancy. The power struggle between the two came to an abrupt halt as street to the park by the house he lived in at the time. my mother said the one thing she knew could be used He looked around for a little while before finally finding to force my father to back down: “I lost the baby.” Later that day, my father wandered down the what he thought to be the perfect spot. The branches It wasn’t true, of course. The bundle of cells of the tree looked sturdy enough to support the rope growing and developing into the baby girl that would he had brought with him and any additional weight become me remained firmly attached to my mother’s that happened to be attached to it, so he tossed the uterine lining, perfectly healthy and completely piece of cotton over and tied a knot he knew wouldn’t 57 slip. He then proceeded to place his head through the birth a boy. My father therefore put more effort into loop this knot created, tightening the rope until he making his relationship with her work than he could stopped taking in air. muster for my mother. The desired effect wasn’t achieved, however. They made it through the first three years of Instead of being embraced by the darkness of death, my brother’s life before their relationship fell apart. It the rope snapped. Instead of the permanent crushing was within the first two years of this timeframe that I of his windpipe, he got a couple scrapes and bruises started to notice my father preferred his new son to me. from hitting the ground below. Instead of escaping for a better, less painful world, my father found himself eight years at this point, I knew I couldn’t do anything stuck suffering through the unjustness of this one. Having grown up under my father’s rule for fun until I mastered all my homework, both what my The first time I disappointed my father was on teacher assigned and what my father did. Because of the day I was born. The sound of my parents fighting this, I lay on the floor in the dining room of the woman’s filled the hospital room as they tried to establish a house finishing up the last couple of problems. It only name for me. Both parents were not far out of high took a few minutes, so I quickly put the packet back school and were unmarried. As such, my mother into my folder and shoved it in my backpack, climbing wanted me—not her first child but her first child by up off the floor as I did so. this man and her first daughter—to carry out the judgment that came with her last name. Much more wandered into the living room in hopes of watching traditional, my father thought I should share in the some TV. The sight meeting my eyes seemed normal fame that came with being so close to the heights. enough at the time: my baby brother, his mother, and Their words permeated through the air for quite some my father cuddling on the couch. Similar expressions time before they finally reached a conclusion. In the filled all three of their faces, a mixture of happiness end, my mother won. Done with everything required of me, I and contentment. I felt my mouth turn up in a smile The first time I noticed my father’s feelings as I looked at them. “Oh, what a happy little family,” I for me was when he was still dating the next woman said. They laughed, I walked over to the armchair in the to get pregnant. She, unlike my mother, managed to corner, and we sat watching cartoons together. 58 GABBY BROOKE | STORY OF A BROKEN GIRL Later that night, after my father and I had that I’m not good enough. Why did I get stuck with this returned to our own home, I found myself struggling failure of a daughter? to fall asleep. My eyes were drawn to the darkened periwinkle of my bedroom wall time and time again. hatred was a month before I went back to college. I Shadowy fingers skittered across the paint as the wind didn’t want to admit he only cared about the mold blew through the lilac bush outside the window, and I he kept shoving me into. I wanted to believe that he realized I hardly ever saw that look on my father’s face would back off enough to let me live my own life if it when we were alone. looked like I was starting to achieve some semblance of The day my best friend and I went into the success. One warm, sunny day in July, however, he threw counselor’s office at my high school to find out our his true feelings for me in my face like a vat of acid. results for the ACTs, I was ecstatic. I expected to get a score similar to hers, only a couple of points above His first text that day was something that I probably should have seen coming. For years I had the average. Instead, I somehow managed to get one taken the brunt of my father’s anger and frustration, of the highest scores in my class. Once the shock of so I should have been used to it. Still, the message seeing the handwritten number on the little slip of came as a surprise. I paused my conversation with paper wore off, I pulled out my phone and texted my my boyfriend and unlocked my phone to see what father. “I got a 31 on the ACTs!!!” The first time I acknowledged my father’s the message contained. I regretted it almost instantly. A few minutes later, I got a reply. “Who “After sunday your phone will be turned off,” the text did better?” The ecstasy I felt earlier faded into read, containing the numerous spelling and grammar nothingness as I stared down at my phone. errors that I had learned to ignore. “If you want to keep your number you will need to be back here tomorrow My first semester of PSEO, my GPA was a 3.62. with enough time for us to go to a sprint store to “Why didn’t you get all A’s?” transfer it into your name. You a grown. Time to start “Why aren’t you home to watch the pups?” taking financial responcability for yourself.” “Do you have a job yet?” Silence. A deadly stare, eyes screaming at me Reading the words off my phone screen, fury started to bubble up inside of me. I hadn’t done 59 anything to prompt this sort of reaction from my my anger into a full-on rolling boil intense enough father. In fact, I hardly ever did. Knowing that any sort to send the water of my sanity over the edge of of misstep could lead to this sort of reaction, though, the pot. As it came into contact with the burner, it I had made sure to tell him before I left that my completely evaporated. boyfriend worked at 4:00, so we couldn’t have stuck around like he asked. “He’s not going to pick me up icon next to my father’s name on the screen. My rage for another ten minutes, though,” I mentioned, trying continued to double in size with each subsequent dial to still be of help. When my father chose to ignore me tone until finally he picked up the call. “What?” he said and go inside the house, I figured he no longer wanted gruffly, sounding as angry as I felt. my assistance and that I was in the clear. Apparently, this wasn’t the case. I immediately hit the small telephone-shaped “I’m not waiting until tomorrow to talk about this. We are going to talk about this right now.” The fiery I stewed in the heat of the cherry-red Impala anger coursing through my veins caused my vision to but said nothing. He takes his frustrations out on you blur. Instead of a three-lane highway, all I saw was a sea all the time, I thought to myself. It always blows over of black. The pounding of the warriors desperately in a couple of days. I stared out the window at the wanting to draw blood blocked out every other sound trees whipping by, but I didn’t really notice them. filling the car. Every sound except my father’s breathing I focused instead on the pounding of my heart, on the other end of the line. calling out like a war tribe about to go into battle. Slowly but surely the screaming started to settle into a whisper, at which point I turned to continue after a few seconds of silence. “Do you really want to my conversation with my boyfriend. talk about this when I’m angry? Because you already know how this is going to turn out if we start talking Not even two minutes later, my phone pinged about this right now. It’ll go so much worse for you, again. “Will wil also discuss the terms of your rent and you know it.” With each word came a new wave tomorrow,” my father now wrote. “Payment will be due of hatred that stacked upon the one prior. When the on the 1st.” “Do you really want to do that?” he asked culmination of waves built itself into a tsunami he This statement sent the gentle bubbling of released it, directing all of that power at me. In one 60 76 GABBY BROOKE | STORY OF A BROKEN GIRL fell swoop, my father managed to not only crush the Dear Father, rebellion but drown all of the battle-crazed warriors I’m sorry I ruined your life so thoroughly. I’m sorry I failed marching out to meet him. The battlefield was empty to become the child you thought you deserved. I tried my save for a few raging questions. best to live up to your standards and be everything you What kind of father comes to hate his wanted me to be, but I couldn’t force myself into that own daughter? What kind of father can focus so mold. Maybe it would have been better for both of us if I intensely on creating the perfect daughter that he had been able to. Maybe you could have had a better life can completely ignore his breaking of her? What than the one you’re stuck with now. I’m sorry we’ll never kind of father can see the damage he causes and have the chance to know. Maybe your other child will do doesn’t care? a better job at pleasing you than I did. Not just for your sake, but for his. The hatred in my father’s voice and the words accompanying it finally broke me completely. I had If things still fail to go as desired, however, know that I done absolutely nothing wrong, and yet he still felt refuse to give up hope. You may have succeeded in it was necessary to tell me, “You fucked up your life breaking me once, but I survived. And I will continue to too many times and I am done dealing with it. You are survive, despite all that you put me through. You may an adult and it’s time for you to act like it. It’s time for tear me down time and time again, telling me about you to suffer the consequences of your actions.” The how I will never amount to anything in life, but that won’t fire fueling my anger gone, I felt nothing but sadness. ever stop me from trying. I will continue to persevere until Tears welled up in the corners of my eyes, and my I either gain the approval I so desperately want from you throat swelled to the point of almost entirely closing. or I die trying. Either outcome will have the same effect. I no longer wanted to tell my father his decision was Love, going to make it impossible for me to go to college. The Failure I didn’t want to confront him about the fact he was attempting to ruin my life in much the same way I had ruined his. At that moment in time, I no longer had a life to ruin. 62 Between Borders SA I RA M O NT E S M O O R E I was born but I can’t go back to where I was born. My brownness is stuck between borders. It is stuck between: whites mispronouncing Saira for they do not know how to caress my name on their tongues and a land I do not know. I ache. I exist between borders. I grow with the little water that’s in the desert. I heal and allow myself to grieve over what has been taken. I allow myself to grieve and remember I resist between borders. My skin is blessed, with the color of earth. I allow myself now to live, to love between borders. 64 65 ANI CASSELLIUS Freedom and Tension 66 ALLISON USELMAN Glenn Elementary, 2 PM I t was the second week of October, and the air outside was cool and the leaves on all the trees on When did Mrs. Carpenter say she was coming?” the lawn outside John H. Glenn Elementary were turning red and yellow and gold. Inside the school’s “When did you say the mother would be here? The secretary twisted the phone cord around her finger and looked once at little James Carpenter, main office, which was usually all but deserted at this sitting in the gray plastic chair just next to the teacher’s. time of the afternoon, the school’s secretary sat with “I told you, Ms. Heller. She didn’t say,” the secretary said. the phone cradled between her left shoulder and “And I can’t call her again, she’s probably left already.” ear, a pad of white paper on the desk in front of her. She didn’t bother to cover the mouth piece of the She was in the middle of writing down the name of phone as she spoke. a particularly uncooperative postal worker when the teacher sitting in the corner chair, just across from the desk, stood up and asked the question she had been and walked back over to the seat she had been sitting intermittently posing for the past twenty minutes. in but did not sit down. Instead, she crossed her arms 67 Ms. Heller, captain of room 307, let out a sigh and planted her loafer-clad feet firmly on the floor. already taken care of it.” “No, honey, I wasn’t talking to you,” the At the mention of the girl Alice, James had let secretary said into the phone and then rubbed at her out a groan and doubled over in his chair in a position temples as if the postal worker’s apparent confusion that might have been impressive due to the flexibility had the instant and singular ability to produce a required of the performer but under the circumstances headache in whoever happened to be on the receiving just looked sad. He sat with his forehead touching his end of it. knees and his arms wrapped under his legs for only a few seconds before Ms. Heller dropped her hand from “Well I don’t know what I’m going to do if her ear and spoke again, all sense of a kindly pretense she doesn’t get here soon,” Ms. Heller said. “I just leaving her voice. don’t know.” “Hang on a minute,” the secretary said into “What did you say? Did you say something?” she said. A muffled reply came from the region of the phone, and then, after pulling the receiver slightly James’ knees. “Sit up, please, so that I can hear you.” away from her mouth, she said to the teacher, “Why don’t you go back to your class? Why don’t you just go back to your class and leave him here with me?” said, ‘I didn’t say anything.’” Ms. Heller either didn’t hear the secretary or James sat up. “I didn’t say anything,” he said. “I “Oh, I’m sure,” Ms. Heller said, and began chose to ignore the suggestion. She uncrossed one twisting her earring again. Then, turning to the arm and lifted a hand up to her ear, twisting the back secretary as if James wasn’t there at all, she said, “Do of one of the little pearl earrings she was wearing back you know how many times we’ve been through this? and forth between her fingers. “I have a whole class of Do you know how many times in just this year? Seven.” students back in that room waiting for me, and that The secretary nodded. she said, her voice taking a tone of pity. “What am I “Or something around that number, I can’t supposed to do about that? What am I supposed to remember.” poor girl Alice still has pencil lead stuck in her hand,” tell her parents?” “It’s only October,” the secretary said “I don’t know,” the secretary said. “I told you, observationally. James, who was listening to all of what just go back to your room and see if they haven’t was being said, didn’t seem to mind so much what the 68 ALLISON USELMAN | GLENN ELEMENTARY, 2PM secretary said. He didn’t appear to be upset at the use while the secretary turned back to her pad of paper. of the phrase “only October” in relation to his seven visits to the office, didn’t seem to feel accused by said once the secretary was faced away from him. it. It was as if the secretary had asked if anyone else thought it was too warm in the office or if she had pointed to the fluorescent lights on the ceiling and said, “These sure don’t help my complexion any.” It was The secretary snorted. “Nothing right now,” shook his head no. “I’m going to go back to my classroom now,” “It means I’m waiting for the person on the other line to come back. Right now they’re doing and you can deal with him. I can’t wait around all day something else, and I gotta wait.” just for the mother to show up.” “Alright, alright. You do that,” the secretary James nodded the nod of a child that doesn’t quite understand but wants to give the illusion of said, and watched out of the corner of her eye as Ms. understanding, the same nod that could be found Heller turned on her heels and walked through the adopted into the behavior patterns by any number of doorway of the office. children at Glenn Elementary. Once she was sure the teacher was gone, the secretary turned to James, her hand covering the James waited for the secretary to turn away from him before posing his next question. mouthpiece of the phone, and said, “I told her to go “Ma’am?” back to her room a hundred times, didn’t I? I swear I told her to go about a hundred times since she came in here.” James watched the back of her head for a means?” She turned around to face James again. He Ms. Heller said. “I’m going to leave him here with you, she said. “I’m on hold, dear. You know what ‘on hold’ not say anything. “The post office,” she said. Abruptly, Ms. Heller reached out a hand and patted the desk twice. The secretary looked up but did moment and then spoke. “What’s it saying?” strictly an observation. “Who are you talking to on the phone?” James “Yes? What is it?” the secretary said. She didn’t turn around. James didn’t say anything. He squeezed his knees together and tapped his shoes lightly on the floor 69 “How many kids usually come here? I mean— how many kids usually end up here on a regular day?” never arrived in the first place?” she said, and that was when James stood up from his chair and pulled “You mean how many kids come to the office the door to the office open just wide enough for him like—like you do? Is that what you mean?” “Yeah,” James said. “Oh, I don’t know. Not too many.” “How many of them are weird? Are a lot of to slip through. Which he did without making a noise until the door slammed shut behind him and he broke into a run down the deserted hallway. quickly descending a flight of stairs, James hooked them weird kids?” James said and waited. Being a boy all too familiar with the perils of his index fingers through the two belt loops on the The secretary, as if only now understanding outermost sides of his pants and pulled as he ran just what it was James was getting at, turned around down the school’s front steps. Outside, in the October and arranged her face into a smile, tilting her head afternoon, the school grounds were empty. The only a bit to the left− that is, as far as she could without movement came from the rustling of the trees out the phone slipping out from her shoulder’s grip. She by the playground and the occasional bird flying over probably thought the motion looked kindly, maybe the athletic fields. Even the sky appeared still, the few even sympathetic, which it might have if it weren’t clouds slightly covering the sun hardly moving at all for the self-satisfied look in her eye, the look that so that the whole scene gave off the impression of suggested what she was about to say was going to a photograph. James stopped and looked at it all for make her feel better rather than the child she was a moment, his fingers still hooked around his belt supposedly comforting. “None of them are weird, loops, before he started down the pathway to the honey. None of them are weird at all,” she said and playground. About halfway down the path, he stopped then turned back to the papers on her desk. and veered off to the right so that instead of walking directly down to the play equipment, he was standing Evidently, the postal worker on the other in place just before the ground dropped off and was end of the line began speaking then, as the secretary held up by a concrete retaining wall. picked up her pencil and began writing something down. “Uh-huh,” she said into the phone, and then stopped. She set the pencil down and switched the tapped at the concrete with the toe of his shoe. Then, phone to her other ear. “So you’re telling me they as though there were nothing else he could do, he 70 He squinted out at the playground and ALLISON USELMAN | GLENN ELEMENTARY, 2PM lowered himself down onto the wall and sat. Although coat, and looked rather casual standing there in the the ground was soft, it was still cool on his skin. He grass with his hand in his pockets and his tie loosened dug the heels of his hands into the dirt and rubbed around his neck. He looked like the type of man whose at it until the friction warmed it and the dirt smeared desk probably contained at least one drawer with, if across his palms. He was occupied with the dirt for not a full-sized at least a travel-sized, bottle of aspirin. only a minute before he heard the distant creak of the “Is this seat taken?” Mr. Mitchell said and nodded to school’s front door and, soon after, the sound of dress the space beside James where the boy had wiped the shoes on pavement. dirt off his hands. He didn’t turn to look at who was coming. Instead, he pressed his open palms flat onto the top “No, it’s not taken,” James said. “But there’s dirt there.” of the wall on either side of him and rubbed the dirt away, leaving his palms slightly pink. Then, with great “There’s dirt everywhere,” Mr. Mitchell said, and lowered himself down onto the concrete. ceremony, he lay back in the grass and folded his hands across his stomach, his legs hanging down in front of him. He was positioned in such a way that if don’t you have a jacket on today?” someone happened to glance at the retaining wall “Where’s your jacket?” James asked. “Why “I didn’t feel like wearing one,” Mr. Mitchell said. of small legs from the knees down, three inches apart “Oh yeah?” James said. By now both his eyes and seemingly unweighted by an attachment to any were open but he was still lying flat on his back. from a distance, they would only be able to see a pair human form. nice a day for jackets. All this beautiful weather and all.” James was lying in this exact position, with his eyes closed, when the sound of the dress shoes on the pavement stopped, and a shadow crossed over where At this, James sat up. “You can still wear a jacket even if it’s nice out,” he said. Mr. Mitchell shrugged. No he lay. He opened one eye, his nose scrunching up on one spoke, there didn’t seem to be anything to say, one side with the movement, and looked up into the until James stared at the junior counselor long enough face of Junior Counselor Mitchell—or, as the children to wonder what was going on in his brain. at Glenn Elementary usually called him, Mr. Mitchell. “Yeah,” Mr. Mitchell said. “I thought it was too Mr. Mitchell was in his shirtsleeves, no sport 71 “What are you thinking about right now?” James said. I guess.” “What am I thinking about right now?” Mr. Mitchell repeated. He scratched at his head and then crossed his arms. “Ticonderoga pencils,” he said. James frowned at this but did not say anything. “Alright then, I guess I’m thinking about “Well you just asked me what I was thinking Mr. Mitchell let the question mull over in his down the front of his shirt. When he found the words he wanted, he spoke, although pensively as to give the illusion that he was finding the words as he went. began to walk along the edge of the concrete. loose and so he undid it altogether and just let it hang James jumped up suddenly from the wall and “I don’t want to talk about that,” he said. “Am I weird?” James said again. out his tie, but it kept feeling either too tight or too their hands.” brain for a bit. While he thought, he tried to straighten Ticonderoga pencils and little girls with them stuck in Mr. Mitchell shrugged. “That’s fine. That’s fine, “I’d say you’ve got about, oh, I don’t know, slightly more weirdness than your average third grader. About. If I had to guess.” about,” Mr. Mitchell said. “And that was it.” James nodded solemnly. “Yeah, I know. I just don’t want to talk about that.” “My mother always tells me I’m not. Well, my Mr. Mitchell watched as James teetered on mother and father I guess. And this morning, that lady told me I wasn’t.” the wall. “Would you sit down?” he said. “I don’t like you being that close to the edge.” “Lady. You mean the−?” “Sec-retary.” James pronounced the word in “It’s not that high,” James said. He kicked at a few leaves on the wall and spoke again. “Am I weird?” two, his expression serious as he did so. “Oh,” was all Mr. Mitchell could think to say. James twisted his face into what looked more “Why don’t you just sit down, huh? Why don’t you just sit down here?” Mr. Mitchell patted the concreate beside himself where James had been like an imitation of a sneer than an actual sneer, like he sitting just moments before. didn’t want to actually wear the expression but more “I don’t think I want to,” James said. so wanted to try it on for size. He bent down then and 72 ALLISON USELMAN | GLENN ELEMENTARY, 2PM picked up a leaf from the ground. It was red along the not looking and didn’t need to be to know what Mr. inside, near the stem, but the outside edges were a Mitchell was talking about. “He ran all the way in less bright yellow. He pinched the stem between his index than thirty seconds. I couldn’t believe it.” He shook his finger and thumb and spun it back and forth four times head for emphasis. before letting it drop to the ground. He watched it until it lay still. “I guess I’m pretty sorry about that girl Alice,” “In twenty-seven seconds,” James said, still digging the hole. he said then. “Her hand was just sitting there and all, on the table. I didn’t mean to do it, it just happened.” “I think it was twenty-eight.” “Sure,” Mr. Mitchell said. “I see.” “No,” James said, looking up now. “No, it was “It really did. I really don’t even know how it twenty-seven. I remember.” happened. I don’t.” delinquent, always in the principal’s office, always “Okay.” spending your lunches with the counselors−” “Really.” “Oh? And why should I believe you? A “Because I did it,” James said, not quite James crouched down in the grass and believing that Mr. Mitchell didn’t know this already wrapped his arms around his folded knees. The but still insisting on it nonetheless. “I ran all that way in grounds around the two were still, no movement in twenty-seven seconds. That was me.” the athletic fields or the playground. Only occasionally a wind came through and shook the trees, but even Mr. Mitchell wagged an I-should-have-known finger in the air and nodded his head theatrically. that didn’t last for long, and everything grew still again. “That’s right,” he said. “That’s right, it was you. It was.” Before long James began to occupy himself by digging a small hole in the ground with a twig he found lying by his shoe. just long enough for a bird to sound its call somewhere There was quiet between the two for a time by the athletic fields, the sound itself ringing hollow “You know,” Mr. Mitchell said, breaking the and thin throughout the school grounds, the way silence. “I once saw a kid run all the way from that bird calls in the fall often sound to those privy to hear field to that swing set right there.” He pointed as he them. Just after the far-off bird fell silent, the quiet spoke to illustrate what he meant, although James was between the two by the wall was broken. 73 started to scream and−” “I’m not a delinquent.” The assertion came softly from the space just beside the freshly dug hole in the ground, in the voice of someone trying to He broke off at the same moment that he dropped from his squat to fully sitting on the ground, convince themselves of a thought while not quite sure his knees folded in front of himself where he could about its truthfulness. On the wall, Mr. Mitchell shifted easily hug them to his chest. his weight so that he could get a better look at James, who had by now dropped the twig altogether and was again hugging his knees. With his right leg pulled up He breathed in as if he were going to say something onto the grass now and bent at the knee, Mr. Mitchell else but then stopped, apparently thinking better of raised his eyebrows at the boy and waited for him to it. James, too, took in a rather deep, although shaky, say something else. When he finally did speak, it was breath and then remained silent. He began to wipe at in the same small voice as before. his face with seemingly no specific intent. He might “Alright,” Mr. Mitchell said. “That’s alright.” have been wiping away tears or frantically feeling to “It wasn’t my fault, with the pencil. It wasn’t see if his eyes, nose, and mouth were still where he my fault.” left them, it was difficult to tell which. Whichever one “Oh?” Both parties were hardly speaking it was, though, the two sat there in the grass, holding above a whisper; if there had been even a slight wind, their respective positions for an impressive amount neither would have been able to hear one another. of time, until in the parking lot, a good fifty feet away from the retaining wall and just out of earshot, a car “Her hand was just sitting there on the table. pulled up and parked. It was just sitting there.” Mr. Mitchell was still; he was waiting for James to speak, not prompting the boy in the slightest. In fact, he looked almost accustomed to the act of silently waiting for the boy to speak, hardly moving at all for fear of disrupting him. “It looked soft, and I had the pencil in my hand.” James paused, starting to cry now. “And I don’t know what happened, I just know that girl Alice 74 75 B R I D G ET T E BO O N E Untitled 76 “For Carl Brandhorst” Teotihuácan, ciudad de los dioses SA RA H D E G N E R R I V E RO S La puerta de la ciudad del fuego y del agua The door of the city of fire and of water es la calzada de los muertos que guía Is the pathway of the dead who guide a través de un arco iris celeste. Through a celestial rainbow Pasa por el camino de las estrellas, That passes along the way of the stars orientada al norte astrológico Oriented with the astrological north a la entrada del paraíso Tlolcán. To the entrance of paradise, Tlolcán. Entre nopales y agaves, sobre las piedras Between prickly pear cactus and agave, sube el pirámide de la serpiente emplumada, The plumed serpent’s pyramid rises over the stones hecho de los restos de las esculturas caídas Built with the remains of fallen sculptures, de la cabeza del jaguar, un templo From the jaguar’s head, a hidden and discovered escondido y encontrado en las entrañas Temple in the womb of a volcanic mountain. de un monte volcánico. On these rocks depends the fertility of the earth. De estas piedras depende The gods keep watch; Cipactli, la fertilidad de la tierra. Scaled monster from the underworld, Guardan vigilia los dioses Cipactli, The caiman lizard and its duality, monstruo con escamas del inframundo, Tláloc, god of the water from the sky, the rain, el lagarto caimán, y su dualidad In feline form representing the morning. Tláloc, dios del agua del cielo, la lluvia en forma felina que representa la mañana. Further along the walk of dead, Rows of pilgrims wind along the profile Más allá en la calzada de la muerte, Of the sun pyramid. los peregrinos hormiguean en fila To the right of the stone road, they walk por el perfil de la pirámide del sol. Along the horizon that passes through worlds. A la derecha de la calzada, pisan The grey temple remembers when it wore 78 SARAH DEGNER RIVEROS | TEOTIHUÁCAN, CIUDAD DE LOS DIOSES el horizonte que traspasa mundos. Smooth stucco painted red, El templo gris recuerda cuando llevaba And when the gods were honored un estuco pulido pintado de rojo, In the form of a fetus buried inside the uterus of the earth. y cuando se honraban a los dioses, The death overcame them in asphyxia, plantando la semilla del cuerpo humano Their last breaths choking on the dust en forma de feto en el vientre de la tierra. In the womb of the volcanic earth. La muerte les sobrevino en asfixia, su últimos suspiros ahogados de polvo At the far end of the walk, the pyramid of the moon en las entrañas de la tierra volcánica. Rises up in light, reflecting the sun. The energy crisscrosses the stone steps Al fondo de la calzada, se levanta iluminada From side to side, zigzag. The angle detains la pirámide de la luna que refleja el sol. Human breath amidst the heights. La energía cruza las escaleras de piedra Raising the gaze to observe the mountains de lado a lado, diagonal. El ángulo detiene And pyramids from afar la respiración humana con la altura. Is to feel for a moment in time, looking down from heaven, Levantar la vista para observar de lejos Like a god of history, as the owner of the past, los montes y las pirámides abajo The present, and the future. The moon keeps watch es sentirse por un momento desde el cielo And remembers everything that has taken place, un dios de la historia, dueño del pasado, Illuminating prophesies with every cyclical turn in the del presente, y del futuro. La luna vigila years to come. y recuerda todo lo sucedido y profetiza cada giro del ciclo del porvenir. 79 SA RA H D E G N E R R I V E RO S Teotihuácan 80 81 JEN MEINHARDT Solitude 82 Take a Deep Breath D. E . G R E E N Even the air we breathe is processed, has to be now that the fires in the north and west have flung particulate matter across the continent. So we carry on, don our masks and our oxygen tanks before we sit down to play the harp or piano—no trumpets or trombones since we cannot inhale enough to blow, Gabriel, blow any more—and pretend life is good, still pretty good, as my friend Bob likes to say, just as the gauge on the tank veers toward empty and the lightning cracks and the floodgates open and we become curios and knick-knacks in nature’s wild parlor. NOU-CHEE CHANG Fantasy 84 G RANT BE RG Big Muddy Mike Washing Dolly, St. Louis, MO 85 86 I am not deceived RA C H E L B RO W N I am not deceived No I am not deceived I am not totally made of water even if I can’t get you now but like liquid I seep through the cloth when the ice caps melt that wraps around your wide shoulders there will be no more places and I warp your bones for you to slither the way rivers shape canyons and your high ground cutting will be under my waves. cutting eroding away until you’re brittle. I will not be deceived not again I have seen the way you snake inside of girl’s hearts flick them with your split pink tongue and lap away at the moisture there and while I am not water like liquid I will encircle you ophidian snakes can swim but only for so long. 88 Holding On SA I RA M O NT E S M O O R E mami does not speak sunflowers & white roses about the past of Mexico she died from the mistakes of my abuelo abuela’s favorite flowers in hushed voices I heard: sida. of crossing acquired immune deficiency syndrome, how did we cross? AIDS eso que no te importa it does not matter, what matters is that we are her daughters do not grieve her anymore here I do but here we have enough no la conozco. maybe one day I can stand on the soft earth, it’s not enough but the past won’t catch up if with sunflowers and white roses in my hand you forget and are gone her name etched in the gravestone maybe one day I’ll— my phone shelters notes of scattered words Mami lets slip from the life before me, some days all I smell is patchouli, my father loves the smell she gives me these gifts eres como el, inteligente with softness and in passing mami always compares me to him but at night when all is quiet I wonder memories barely clinging to reality memories that could mean nothing but how can you leave your niña? I hold with a clenched hand at night 90 106 SAIRA MONTES MOORE | HOLDING ON how do you sleep at night, when all is quiet and your daughter does not love you? el no es mi papa, no lo conozco I hold on to the past with love and coraje I sleep at night with memories in my phone with dreams of patchouli, sunflowers & white roses No los conozco maybe one day I’ll know them maybe it will not matter because I’m here 92 night 108 AN D E R S SAT E R E N Naked in the Nighttime I awoke in the fetal position, huddled under the miles per hour. I sat alone in a seat toward the front warm glow of a vending machine. As I sat up, of the bus, head propped against the window, feeling there was a nice, chilly sensation as my bare the vibrations as we thundered along the highway. butt cheeks pressed against the concrete floor. I sat For the last fifteen minutes, my attention had been there half-asleep, feeling the gentle rumble of the split between the pages of the book in my lap and the coin-operated soda dispenser against my back and passing landscapes to my right as it changed from tried to figure out what exactly was happening. In my flat farmland to a wall of towering pine trees. befuddled state, I didn’t fully realize the disturbing reality of my current predicament. I was lost, drew closer to our destination: Camp Wijamego. At disoriented, and entirely nude. A tangible excitement could be felt as we my high school, there is a tradition in which, once The bus traveled northward along Interstate a year, the band, choir, and orchestra kids pile onto 35 toward Duluth, Minnesota, doing just over 70 buses and go on a fun little retreat together to 95 someplace the teachers deem exciting enough. We that things would be okay, the lingering fear that my then spend a few days engaging in miscellaneous sleeping disorder would act up on this trip would not musical activities, participating in team-building leave the back of my mind. exercises, playing games, before performing in a final concert. I was a freshman, so I’d never been on the under the vending machine, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I was, in trip, but from what I’d overheard, it can be pretty fact, not dreaming but rather living through the lame. I took it over the alternative: going to school absolute worst-case scenario for any high-school and doing homework. Back student: being caught naked at a school function. A low hum of high-school voices filled the Understandably, I began to panic, my heart beating bus, mostly originating from the back of the bus, out of my bare, hairless chest. Given that my wiener which was where the upperclassmen dwelled—the was fully exposed, I quickly scurried out of the open cream of the crop from Central High School. I sat and into the dark nook behind the vending machine. up front, listening, and could make out the voice of I must’ve looked like Gollum or some other type of Ryan Norman above the rest. We played on the tennis demented creature while nakedly sulking in that team together last year. Well, I was on the B-team, damp corner. There were so many questions being and he was on varsity. He was a junior, and I was in hurled in my direction, and I had no answers for any eighth grade so we never talked, but I’m pretty sure of them; it reminded me of math class. Am I still in he at least knows my face. Of course, he was also the lodge? Why am I naked? Where are my undies? the captain of both the hockey and soccer team, so I doubt I was even a blip on his radar. Okay, let’s pause for a second. While my current predicament may seem rather odd to most Anyway, we were all assigned random ordinary people, waking up in places other than roommates, and with my luck, Ryan and I were set to my bed has actually been somewhat of a common be roomies on this trip. I had not yet talked to him, but occurrence throughout my life. I believe the formal I could only imagine how disappointed he must’ve term for the bizarre sleep disorder that I suffer from is been to have to room with a freshman. That was not somnambulism; however, most people affectionately what was worrying me though. I had never been on refer to it as sleepwalking. Throughout my childhood a trip like this, and despite my mom’s assurances and into my early teens, I would occasionally wake 96 ANDERS SATEREN | NAKED IN THE NIGHTTIME up downstairs on the couch, on the comfy leather Ryan would be fast asleep on the other side of it. News chair in the living room, or in our creepy, dungeon- travels fast in high school, and if even a single soul like basement with the multitude of centipedes and were to find out about this, the entire school would spiders. One time, I even woke up in our front lawn, know in a matter of minutes. I don’t know Ryan, but cuddled up in the long grass. When I slept over at somehow I doubt he would keep this secret for me. friends’ houses, my parents would have to call ahead The sheer embarrassment would be more than my and warn that I might wander around their house or fragile teenage psyche could bear. Every ounce of raid their fridge in my sleep. It goes without saying my being wanted to cower in my safe haven behind that I wasn’t invited to many sleepovers. that vending machine until the end of time, but that would basically ensure my capture come morning Anyway, as I made my way through puberty, time. Eventually, I would have to leave my cove and these nighttime escapades became less frequent, journey out into the frightening world. and by high school, they had all but stopped. I was happy to have left my sleepwalking and bed-soaking days behind me. Fast-forward to the end of freshman formulate in my mind. I imagined that I was James year. At that point in time, my sleepwalking had Bond planning an elaborate infiltration of a Russian become so infrequent that I wasn’t overly worried embassy, except naked. My dossier made it clear that about staying in a lodge in Northern Minnesota for a avoiding detection would be absolutely imperative in few days. Oh, how wrong I was. order to complete the mission with my dignity intact. Slowly but surely, a loose plan began to It also read that in order to stand any chance of ever Okay, deep breath, dude. Pull yourself together. reaching my destination, I would need to figure out Let’s try to be rational about this. Obviously, I need to exactly where the hell I was. This meant that I would get back into my room and for reasons that need not be have to sneak around and find my bearings. I took stated, nobody can witness me doing this. The problem a deep breath, said a quick prayer under my breath, is that the doors in this lodge lock automatically and gestured a cross across my chest (I’m not Catholic, specific key cards are required to unlock them. I highly but I could use all the help I could get), and slithered doubt that my sleepwalking alter-ego was considerate out from behind the vending machine into the enough to grab one of them on his way out. Simply illuminated hallway. knocking on the door is out of the question because 97 With one hand permanently cupped over placed decorative plants. Similar to the Predator my genitals, I tiptoed through a long hallway. Staying scanning the jungles of Val Verde in search of its next as low to the ground as possible, I glided down the trophy-kill, I scanned the room for any signs of life. I long corridor, all the while keeping my bloodshot detected no movement and picked up no auditory eyes peeled for any clues regarding my current cues; everything was eerily quiet, a little too quiet whereabouts. Dorothy’s yellow brick road may if you ask me. Concluding that the coast was clear, have led her to Emerald City, but mine led me to I cracked the door a little bit more and prepared to a door marked “Lobby.” My situation was still quite make my big entrance; that’s when I saw him. dire, however. I was at the very least relieved that I was still in the hotel. There were no stairwells or overweight, middle-aged man with a rosy-red nose, a elevators leading out of the hallway. It seemed that shiny baton hanging off his utility belt, and powdered proceeding through the lobby was the only viable doughnut residue caked onto the large caterpillar- course of action. I stood in front of that door for a few like mustache rested upon his top lip. I’m surprised minutes and cursed this entire awful situation. What a stream of urine didn’t go shooting down my leg as had I done in a past life to deserve such dreadful I lunged backward through the lobby door and, with luck? There was a good chance that once I passed two hands, covered up my nuts like a greedy squirrel. through that door, I could very well become the first Dear baby Jesus, tell me that he didn’t see me, I thought documented case of non-consensual streaking. I to myself. Every second felt like a million lifetimes as was never cool enough to have been assigned a I waited for that door to come swinging open and nickname in the past, but now my fate as the “Camp for my cover to be blown, but that time never came. Wijamego Streaker” seemed all but sealed; social Eventually, the stress-induced heart palpitations died demise was inevitable. He was your prototypical security guard: an down and I gathered enough courage to peer into the With my naked body as my witness, it was lobby once again. The man (who I will affectionately time to make my move. Slowly, I edged the door refer to as Paul Blart from now on) was seated open, one creak at a time and peered through the motionlessly behind the front desk with his head slit into the well-lit lobby. The large room seemed tilted back slightly. The adrenaline pumping through all but uninhabited, aside from a few strategically my naked body must have heightened my senses 98 ANDERS SATEREN | NAKED IN THE NIGHTTIME because I swear that I could see his long mustache sleeping security guard, I got down on all fours and whiskers quivering in the hot wind escaping his stopped breathing entirely. There was no way that I nostrils. Paul was definitely fast asleep. was going to risk disturbing Paul’s beauty sleep. Like a Paul’s poor work habits were a ray of sunshine in an otherwise dark, hellish nightmare. It was this stroke of good fortune that gave rise to a tricksy, devilish idea. Up to this point, I had no clue how I was planning on actually getting into the room little, naked mole-rat, I quietly crept along the ground, inching ever closer to the treasure awaiting me behind the desk. I was nervous, exhausted, and sweaty, but I had to endure. There was too much on the line to turn back now. once I arrived at my destination. Paul’s deep slumber provided me with the means of entering the room tentative crawling, I arrived at the side of Paul’s desk. undetected: a room key. On the shelf directly behind I couldn’t see him yet, but I could hear the deep, the dozing behemoth were a few small stacks of key reverberant rumble of his breath. I’m sure it also cards. If I could slip past Paul and grab one of the reeked of powdered doughnuts and cheap coffee. keys, I would practically be home free! This would As I peer around the edge of the desk, I found myself be an extremely delicate and potentially hazardous face-to-face with a pair of stained khakis. Now was not maneuver, but acquiring one of those fabled key the time to be distracted by Paul’s life habits; I needed cards would be necessary if there was any hope of to focus, retrieve the key card as quickly and quietly this infiltration ending in success. as possible, and put as much space between my As I slowly crept into the lobby, I felt like Bilbo Baggins entering Smaug’s lair for the very first time. I was fully exposed. If only I had a ring that could grant me the power of invisibility. Stealthily, I slithered across the large room, getting closer and closer to the front desk. The gravity and sheer ridiculousness of what I was about to attempt felt like the weight Hand. Knee. Hand. Knee. After ten feet of naked body and the crime scene as humanly possible. Without making a peep, I rounded the corner of the desk, made my way past the dirty khakis, and headed towards the prize. Almost there, almost there... Then out of nowhere, I heard a heavy grunt and cough echo out behind me. Every nerve in my body tensed up and I curled up into a tiny ball on the floor. of a thousand suns on my bony, teenage shoulders. With only around ten feet separating me from the Considering how startled I was, I’m surprised that a 99 In his deep slumber, Paul had stirred. little turd didn’t plop out of my bare bottom onto the around and began cautiously crawling away from carpeted floor. I lay there on the ground scrunched Paul, my unclothed booty raised with pride. into a ball, eyes plastered shut and completely in the nude. I didn’t move a muscle. I was so nervous that I in unnoticed. Compared to everything that I just wouldn’t be shocked if my heart had stopped beating endured, this would be a piece of cake! On the other entirely. After a few of the tensest moments of my life, hand, walking around the halls of a camp in the nude I opened my eyes and slowly looked behind me. Paul was no time to get cocky. When I eventually pass had shifted slightly, but he was still out cold. If I dared away, I guarantee that Lady Luck will track down my to make any noise, this is when I would’ve left out a gravestone herself and chisel in, “Pride goeth before massive sigh of relief. I had to put this minor speed the fall.” My room was on the fourth fl oor, and I guess bump behind me and continue on my quest, though. that it was too much to ask for me to walk up four God, what I would give to be back in my bed right now, flights of stairs because some irrational, stubborn wrapped in a warm blanket. No, stop! Now is not the time part of me decided that it would be a good idea to to fantasize! At this point, I was a mere foot from the take the elevator. Like a stupid lab rat, I was enticed key cards. They were so beautiful that I could’ve cried. by the cheese and foolishly entered the trap. Upon At that moment, I wanted one of those keys more entering the metal box of doom, I nonchalantly than anything in the world; it would be my ticket out tapped the button for the fourth floor and watched of this nightmare and back into reality. the heavy doors slowly screech shut. I had traversed the lobby, slipped past Paul—the fearsome, slumbering All I had to do was get to the room and slip dragon—and The elevator jerked up floor by floor as I leaned against the wall, eyes closed and head resting finally, I had arrived. The treasure was within reach. contentedly upon the cool metal. Things were going Despite the circumstances, I felt a very real sense well, considering the position I was in less than an of accomplishment. With a slight grin, I hooked my hour ago. At this point, I had gotten quite used to my arm up and grabbed a handful of key cards off of au naturel state, but even at four in the morning, I was the counter. There was no way I was going to risk fearful that the elevator would come to a halt and an the card not working, so I took a few backups, just in unsuspecting visitor would enter my naked, metal case. After retrieving the precious cargo, I shimmied tomb. Yet in a surprising turn of luck, I reached my 100 ANDERS SATEREN | NAKED IN THE NIGHTTIME floor without any hiccups or roadblocks. I was home room behind him. free at last! Yeehaw! I could hardly look at Ryan as I passed him, but Despite this, upon exiting the elevator, I I wasted no time getting into the room, immediately checked both ways to make sure the coast was slipping into my Pink Floyd boxers. He followed me clear. It was, thankfully. Yet again, as I made my way into the room. down the hallway, I found myself close to the ground, sneaking like a ninja in the night. But then, I saw it. “I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t fall back asleep. It took a while to notice you The promised land, Heaven, Valhalla, whatever you weren’t here.” want to call it; it was there: my room. Okay, just sneak in unnoticed and put all of these shenanigans behind you. Upon approaching the door, I let out a deep sigh, once more cursed my dreaded somnambulism, and “Yeah, I had some business to attend to.” That was all I could come up with. I was now perched on the side of the bed, looking down at the reached out for the door. But just then, with a creak, ground in shame. the doorknob began to turn from the inside. Again, as if on cue, the fear I had felt many times that night flooded my senses. I watched in horror as the circular “Apparently.” knob rotated ninty degrees, turning and turning, “With no clothes on?” Ryan eyed me down, looking for answers. I sighed. It would be easier just to explain. figure, gawking. It was Ryan, the senior, in his pajamas, “Well, this has happened before. Well, never looking down at me, eyes wide as saucers. It was quite like this but...yeah, I sleepwalk.” Ryan stood there clear he was trying to comprehend exactly what he for a moment, nodding, before going off on a tangent. before letting out a slight click and popping ajar. The door opened, and before me stood a was looking at and really struggling with it, looking at this skinny, pale, naked body in front of him. After a sleepwalked into my room and peed all over my few moments, he blinked as if coming to his senses. “You know, one time my little brother Pokémon cards, a whole binder full.” “Uh...come in,” he said, gesturing towards the 101 I looked up and Ryan was now smiling, telling his story. same way it had been all year, only a nod from Ryan as he looked up and saw me passing by. “And then he walked over to the other side of the room and peed on my Godzilla comics. Everything I had ever loved!” Now I was smiling. “Man, I tell ya, I was so mad I could’ve killed him. I screamed at him for hours the next day, How hard is it to make it to the toilet!” I was in no mood to laugh, but the conclusion of his story made me chuckle. Ryan let out a smile, now done reminiscing. “I would’ve been mad too,” I agreed. I awoke the next morning in my own bed, thankfully, yet still filled with the dread and embarrassment of the night prior. Ryan wasn’t in the room, and I assumed he was already down at the mess hall for breakfast. I slipped on my jeans, a hoodie, and my sneakers and went off to face my social reckoning. Upon arriving at the mess hall, I found Ryan and posse already gathered there at a table in the corner, no doubt waiting to get a peek at the freshman who was found wandering the grounds of Camp Wijamego in the nude. Yet as I walked past their table, there were no jeers, no taunts, no social ridicule. There was nothing from the seniors, the 102 JEN MEINHARDT A Warm Place to Sleep 103 104 Identity Circle in 3 Parts, Ending with a Trek through the Antarctic Desert T E R R E N C E S H A M B L E Y J R. The only glow radiated from a string of icicle lights laid semi circle in the center of the room. Our group gathered in a nervous halo around it, the lights candle dim hypnotic & spook. The leader of the halo, a little black girl turned self assured chair woman says take a step into the circle if you identify as African or black and we all step. Step into the circle if most of your friends are the same racial or ethnic background as you and we all step. Step into the circle if you ever felt like you don’t belong and we all step. Step into the circle if your authority figures look like you and no one steps. Step into the circle if you ever watched the fire die in a set of eyes that are brown as yours, whether in person or on video and we all step. Step into the circle if you routinely hear stormtroopers spit I feared for my life as an apology 106 TERRENCE SHAMBLEY JR. | IDENTITY CIRCLE IN 3 PARTS and we all step. Step if you ever felt unsafe walking the streets at night and we all step. we all step. we all step. My eyes are fixed on the icicle lights the whole time. As we step its glow is a swinging medallion a spoon tap to a coffee mug a calm hand up a puppet’s back and when the leader says take a step if one of your parents is an alcohol or drug user I’m the only one that steps enough for the both of them. Take a step if you a stutterer only I step. Take a step if you identify as queer only I step. only I step. only I step. Take a step if you identify as non-binary my feet twitch whole body jerk and stop like slammed brakes a myriad of irises pierce holes in my skin and my eyes are fixed on the icicle lights laid semi circle in the center of the halo the whole time. Its glow is a sneaky portal. A lone body landlocked like a peeling corpse gawked by a ring of crows. And as the lone body stands 107 idle there’s a snap in landscape a poof of halo a vanish of room and lights and emerges a plot of bald frozen snow repeating into the distance. The lone body steps. 123 109 MELISSA FLORES Mickey 110 Lies My Drug-Dealer Told Me MICHAEL LEVINE Television, as dramatized as it may be, can only teach you so much I thought I had it all figured out at eighteen, but rather the drug had me as its crutch. I tried it. I loved it. I used it more than anything in life, And the only thing that I carry with me today is the awarded t-shirt and much strife. Years went by and a decade removed, While looking back, I am the only one that noosed. When I went to buy drugs for the first time, No one told me that these drugs would become more important than a perfect rhyme. Not only lies my drug-dealer told me, but lies I told me So that I convinced myself that this is who I wanted to be. Once it set in that I made a mistake, I thought that I could undo it by a few more extra minutes to bake. Treatment centers, jails, and suicide attempts became more of who I am Than scholarships, marathons, and a full container of jam. I have been caught in a cyclone of cynicism meshed with regret, Even Eddie Vedder living my life would have missed that fret. 112 128 MICHAEL LEVINE | LIES MY DRUG-DEALER TOLD ME Retiring my drug catalog, Now the time has come where my fog Has begun to dissipate, And those lies I am beginning to hate. I know the direction in which I am starting to lead And thankfully I no longer have to worry about putting in a not-guilty plea. 114 115 DAN I E L L A C L AY TO N Worry 116 The Seven Deadly Sins MEREDITH CARSTENS Beware: Violet-armored horses trot with hubris Orange-tongued pigs leave fields fruitless Emerald-eyed dogs covet man’s glories Midnight blue cows graze warm bodies Crimson-stained bears break spears and quivers Yellow frogs desire more than the golden rivers Sapphire goats idle by celeste waves and will stay ‘til the end of days. They lurk in the shadows, A dark reflection which shows Our flawed mortal souls bare. 118 The Streetlighter GABRIELA LUCÍA Do I know you? I feel I should as a flame dances in your hand like sunset on your palm. Meandering down my calf, meeting the underskin of my knee. Every knot untwists, Bluedark slips between our fingers, and my body bends for you. The fire undying patterns my side and the warmth crawls like rainfall from the ground. Now your hands are laced around my waist, a binding I cannot escape. And every unsung lullaby seeps from my heart when you do let me go. 120 121 JEN MEINHARDT Stranger 122 Friendly KAT H R Y N G RA H A M There is a man like a ghost, who is taller than me like a monster, and broader than me behind me, and much, much older than me in the dark. and whom I know to be a bit too friendly. There is a man who took my safe place There is a man and poisoned it with terror, who sends spiders crawling under my skin, with dread of a surprise. brews witches’ potions in my stomach, grows vines up my throat, Because there is a man and shakes the earth around me. who is taller than me, and broader than me There is a man and much, much older than me, who never touched me, and whom I know to be never spoke a threat, a bit and yet there’s fear too that fills me up, friendly. that drains me. There is a man I avoided in memories and pushed aside like someone I never met, until he appeared again 124 Dad JEN MEINHARDT Aries is incompatible with Cancer, and he was Aries and yet the cancer got him. A fire sign standing on the beach where Cancer became a wave, a chitin tsunami rising dark across the horizon. Cancer sucked the shoreline of his future out, out, o u t, and then sent it crashing back in again. Cancer covered the Aries fire, dousing his flame and finding its way into the brain and with the lunar pull of the moon it tracked, down, down, down, pulled by gravity along the outer orbit of his spine, paralyzing lungs as Cancer flooded them even after the waters receded. Dry drowning, a doused fire sucks out oxygen 126 142 JEN MEINHARDT | DAD leaving no flow to the brain. Cancer laps at the banks where Aries stood and each wave that hits the ground strikes, eroding it in a crumbling chorus of Abide With Me Fast Falls the Evening Tide. 128 NOU-CHEE CHANG life of a designer 129 130 I Am an Alchemist JEN MEINHARDT I submerge my skin and transmute the water no forlorn contemplation, the past spirits away from clear to deep blue, a hue the shade along with the steam and I breathe, lungs of distant Neptune, and I expanding further then they have before. This is have been immersed in stars. the alchemy of life turning the lead of the everyday I stare, enraptured into golden, glittering sparkles. at the captured heavenly bodies, twisting and turning they glint around my heavenly body, reflecting the light of the lamp that makes my distant sun. Comprised of a stick of sandalwood incense, a flame in the cosmos burning down and pressing into every gap like the way a child might press her nose into her papa’s neck looking for cologne and after shave, safety and musk combined into one. Together smoke and steam are breathed in through my lungs and with another spell are expelled into the air where they circle the room in a translucent veil of lazy cosmic ghosts looking for their next haunting. Puckering my lips I blow a steady stream of magicked air and they dissipate before the power of my voiceless incantation. Banished remembrance, 132 CARSON HUGHES A Date With Death L ike everything else in his life, Ted had managed nebulous, pitch-dark cloak. Ted could only nervously to screw this date up. He knew he should have stare as a putrid brown rapidly devoured the crimson called in and made a reservation at L’arnaque petals of the half-dozen roses he had bought for her, Chère, the most luxurious, yet quaint French eatery in twisting and wrinkling their foliage into dried tendrils. town. Instead, Ted sat with his date Lady Death, Reaper It was becoming quite clear that the roses wouldn’t be of Souls, Mistress of the Damned, and Goddess of the up to the standards of Target’s return policy. Styx, at the local Olive Garden, waiting on another round of unlimited breadsticks. It certainly didn’t help Ted thought of what he could say. What does one say to the living embodiment of death itself, that his chosen topics of conversation, ranging from let alone a woman? Ted’s efforts to say something how surprisingly little traffic there was on the way witty, charming, or insightful were a futile practice. here to the ridiculously high prices of gas these days, He was simply not the type of person who could say didn’t seem to interest her at all. He could already feel witty, charming, or insightful things. On the contrary, the disappointment radiating from underneath her 133 most of what Ted had spoken throughout his life was that seemed to emerge over and over again no matter completely unnecessary. Ted’s words swam where the how many times Death popped the pus out of it. tributaries of cliché entered the river of small talk. His openers for any conversation were, “Some weather “I think I’m going to head to the washroom,” Death finally replied. we’re having,” and, “Did you catch the game last night?” which lacked any reverence for the type of weather or game being discussed. Prying an original sentence catching himself mid-blunder. from Ted’s lips was like trying to extract the last drop of toothpaste from a flattened tube. Whether it be “Wait, you go to the—” Ted asked before Death sighed. “This was a mistake.” This wasn’t the first time Ted felt his name tied to the word for a best man speech or for the eulogy at his father’s “mistake,” and he was confident it wouldn’t be the funeral, Ted could never be expected to summon up last time either. Mistakes defined Ted’s life before he anything greater than a “Merriam-Webster’s dictionary was even born. He was the unfortunate byproduct of defines fatherhood as…” four Coors Lights, three sunrise margaritas, the men’s “You know, these breadsticks are actually bathroom at a Chili’s in Gainesville, Georgia, and a pretty good,” Ted offered with a nervous chuckle. broken condom. After the inevitable shotgun wedding, “Not as good as how you look tonight, of course,” Ted was born feet-first in the breech position, resulting Ted stammered a few moments later with a line as in a cesarean scar his mother never forgave him for. smooth as extra-chunky peanut butter. The steam from his minestrone that had tickled his lightly Death gazed down upon the insignificant, cowering mortal. “I thought the man who could see whiskered upper lip withered away as Ted waited for Death would be a lot more interesting.” an acknowledgement from the ceaseless, encloaked void. What thoughts could be dancing in that shadowy ether? wrong foot,” Ted responded. “But you have to give me “Look, I think we may have gotten off on the a chance.” That motherfucker, Death thought. Not this shit again. Unfortunately for Death, it was this shit “I don’t have to do anything!” wailed Death. again. This mortal male habit of interpreting any and “R-right,” stammered Ted. “What I mean to say all kindness as insatiable lust was an annoying blemish 134 CARSON HUGHES | A DATE WITH DEATH is, I’m sorry the reservation fell through, but this is a here and a grandmother there, Death’s visits turned unique experience for the both of us. It would mean a from calamitous uncertainty to comforting certainty. lot to me if you stayed, just for a few minutes. I mean, Death’s arrivals were a routine reassurance that the what’s a few minutes to a timeless, eternal, and, may I world was operating how it was supposed to be, like say, quite beautiful being like yourself?” a rolled-up newspaper waiting at the doorstep every morning. Ted became so well-acquainted with Death’s If Death had eyes she would have rolled habits that he wasn’t the least bit surprised when he them. Unique this certainly wasn’t, though a State found his father choking on his own hunting rifle and Farm Assistant Manager professing his love in the his brains splattered across the attic of his parents’ confines of a faux Italian restaurant was new for home. her. The Ernest Hemingways, Cleopatras, and Kurt Cobains of the world had all tried to woo her and even they weren’t able to tie her down. Still, within the confessed. “And I know you’re probably just waiting to manatee-shaped man before her was a dangerous get out of here so you can collect more souls, but I think secret she needed to know. So Death responded it’s good to recognize that first impressions can often the only way she could. “Oh my god! You think I’m be deceiving. You probably know more than anybody pretty?” she expressed coyly. how misleading first impressions can be, right?” Ted couldn’t believe his luck. As they sat down, Ted breathed in Death’s familiar chill that was “Look, Death, I gotta say, I like you a lot,” Ted “Wow, you’re sooo clever!” Death cooed while tossing her head back as if she had hair to flip. more bittersweet than bitter. His longing looks into the obsidian void where her face should be would Ted blushed. “Well, State Farm doesn’t let just anyone be employee of the month five months have disgusted Ted when he was younger. Ted was in a row.” just six years old when he and Death first met. Sparky, the family basset hound, was crushed underneath Dad’s 1988 Dodge Ram after he returned home at 3 appreciation flattered Ted, though he couldn’t recall AM from the pub, forever staining its “MILF Hunter” telling a joke. bumper sticker. Like most children, Ted hated Death at their first encounter. However, after a few goldfish 135 Death giggled. “You’re so funny, Ted.” Her Ted spent the next 22 minutes and 46 seconds regaling Death with his most famous end waiting for everyone. I have always belonged with exploits, from the time he spotted a mouse by the you, I just never realized it until now.” copying machine and heroically alerted his coworker Fred Pawlenty so that he could catch it to the time his “I feel the same way,” Death responded. “I knew it ever since you roamed through all those expert couponing skills landed him 78 percent off of a different rooms at that hospital trying to find me. Tide detergent combo pack with a second pack free. Speaking of which, how were you able to find me? And All the while, Death responded with equally impressive please, be specific.” contributions to the conversation such as, “You look really good in that polo,” and, “You have such a great taste in dining.” cheery “How are you liking your meal, folks?” Ted became transfixed by the waitress’s blue eyes. Her “I feel so connected to you right now,” Ted blonde curls, round cheeks, and open smile made her professed. “Can I tell you something?” “Of course,” said Death. “If there’s one thing you should know about “Well you see—” He was interrupted by a appear like a golden retriever with two tennis balls in its mouth, wagging its tail in anticipation for another round of fetch. She wore a black button-0down shirt with a green button that greeted, “Hospitaliano!” me it’s that I have always felt off,” Ted admitted. “It’s like I’m not supposed to be here and I just got squeezed into the middle of everything. I’ve never got some reports of a manchild talking to himself, so been particularly important to anybody. I’m just an I decided to take over. How’s it going, Death? I didn’t assistant manager at the State Farm down the road. If expect to see you in a place like this.” I fell into a ditch tomorrow, someone would be there to take my place before you even got to me. Dad’s “I hope you folks don’t mind a new server. We “That’s interesting, Life,” Death retorted. “Because a place with plastic scenery is exactly where with you and Mom’s down in Florida getting Julian to I would expect to find you.” lather suntan oil all over her. Point is, life hasn’t been kind to me, and at a certain point a guy has to start asking himself ‘What has everything been for?’ I finally such a charmer. Speaking of charmers, I see you figured it out. You are the goal. You are the one at the brought a friend, and it looks like he’s one of mine. 136 Life giggled. “Oh, Death, you always were CARSON HUGHES | A DATE WITH DEATH What’s your name?” horseshit. What made you decide to go into that The bright glow that radiated off of life hospital and try to find me?” seemed to seep into every pore of Ted’s body. “T-t-t-tted Ted Butkus, ma’am.” “No, no,” Death exclaimed. “Skip all that “Well, my life was going nowhere, and I was looking for some finality and…” “Well aren’t you as cute as a deer in headlights,” cooed Life. “That cocksucker!” Death shouted. “Y-y-you think I’m c-c-cute?” “Excuse “Sure, in a sickly kind of way. If dying elephant me?” Ted replied. “Is there something wrong?” seal is your type,” Life growled. “You always did like the ones who were pale, bloated, and infested with pests, to kill themselves because they’re thinking ‘Hey, that didn’t you, Death?” Death chick is pretty cool. Black looks really slimming on her. It sure would be fun take a drive out with her “Shouldn’t you be out earning your minimum while we sing Ramones songs at the top of our lungs.’ wage by getting us our check?” hissed Death. “Life! It’s always Life. Nobody ever decides Nope, it’s because Life started to treat them like shit, “Of course, sweetie,” Life bubbled. “But I’ll give which she always does, by the way, and they think, ‘Oh, you two lovebirds plenty of time to catch up while I well Death isn’t so bad I guess. I can settle for her. She’s do it.” Ted turned around to watch her walk away and a pretty good number two and she’ll take anyone. Yep, didn’t even mind it one bit when Life jammed her heel she’s reliable like a goddamn newspaper!’” into his toes. Suddenly, Ted began to shiver as an icy aura began permeating throughout the room. sick, moist texture of living flesh. “You know…” started “Here’s a question,” Death growled. “I want Ted. “I could always take you out driving—” you to think carefully. Think hard. Actually use your feeble little mind for once to actually think. Why did “Oh stop it, you creep!” Death slapped his hand away, leaving a little bit of rot on his palms. “One you decide to come and profess your love to me?” Suddenly, Death’s pearly white hands felt the more comment like that and I swear to God, I’ll make “Well, it started with my childhood…” you immortal.” Ted jerked his hand away and nursed 137 too-hard-to-swallow ego of yours for twenty minutes the curious new bumps with his thumb. and you feel like you’re on top of the world. Welcome “I just don’t understand why people like to Life. That’s what she does, lifts you up to take you her more,” Death grumbled. “All Life does is toy with down when you have something she wants to take people. She turns every person into her own little from you.” game manipulating them from winning the state soccer tournament to fracturing their spines, getting married to the loves of their lives and finding out Life had a different plan, birthing their first children “Life’s a bitch,” Ted offered. “Please don’t patronize me,” Death responded. “The only reason I’m telling you any of this is because only for them to grow up to be disappointments. It’s there isn’t a singular person in the entire history of the wave after wave of happiness, shit, happiness, shit, world whose opinion I care about less than yours.” happiness, and do you know what comes next? Shit. I don’t play games. When you’re with me, you know how it is. There’s stability. If I want to hurt you, I always will. If Ted replied. “One time I almost got on Jeopardy. I I want to love you, I always will. I’ll never lay my lips on filled out the registration, took the test, auditioned, a man I hate or wrap my hands around the neck of a everything. They told me I qualified and was all set woman I love. The most influential book in the entire to go on the show, but they accidentally invited the world promises that being with me will be a paradise, wrong Ted Butkus. In the end, I just had to settle for an but still no takers.” autograph from Alex Trebek. So trust me, I know all the “Death, you know you’re the only one for me.” “I cannot believe this. Are you really so dense? “I’m serious. I know exactly what you mean.” crazy turns Life can put someone through.” “Look, I appreciate the sentiment, but it’s clear that even you, ordinary, mediocre, forgettable I don’t care about you. I never cared about you. I’m just you, would still prefer Life than settle for Death. I trying to get you to tell me how you can see me, how mean, look at where we are right now. If you wanted to you can sneak up on me. You think that bubbly ‘You’re find me, if you really wanted to find me, all you had to so smart and talented, Mr. Butkus’ is me? No, that’s do was take the rifle out of daddy’s mouth and put it in just my impression of Life, and you fell for it. That’s yours. Instead, you wandered around, looking for me, shallowness for you. All I had to do is raise that not- still clinging to her.” 138 154 CARSON HUGHES | A DATE WITH DEATH The conversation settled, and all was quiet. better when I saw you for real, in your real form.” The table became a bubble of silence in a room filled with the slurping of soup, the crunches of breadsticks, as though the void within the cloak was churning, and the whining of children. Ted stared at the noble, bubbling, stewing. Had this been another mistake? eternal figure of Death, hunched over, swirling a lone He knew he should have said nothing. Death slowly finger in her zuppa toscana. turned to meet Ted’s eyes. “Would you like to see my It was in that moment that the most unique face?” she whispered. thing happened to Ted. A thought. A simple little thought. Ted hadn’t experienced a thought in ages, Ted nodded. Death pulled her hood back. Ted’s flesh began to tingle. The hairs on his arms but here it was. The thought planted its roots into twitched and stood upright as goose bumps began the fertile, untouched landscape of Ted’s mind. The to rise. They expanded and grew bulbous and filled thought bloomed and grew larger and larger still, until with pus. The swelling spread until it looked as if the point Ted could no longer contain it, until the point tumors covered Ted’s entire body. They bubbled and Ted finally had something to say. Death was a corpse, still and silent. Ted felt swallowed his eyes and lips, turning his face into a mass “I’ll tell why I can see you. It’s Life. Or actually of red, wriggling bumps of flesh. His body ballooned the absence of life. Nobody knows, you Death, not as if it were being pumped full of helium. Within just really. You drift in and out of Life so infrequently. And one second, it was over. Ted exploded, pieces flying well, that’s what I do too. I spend so little time with Life across the restaurant, covering the ceiling, floors, and that I got stuck in the same plane as you. That’s why even customer’s entrees. Death wore a smile as she even though we’ve met so many times before, I didn’t laughed with delight. really see you until Dad died. When I climbed up that attic staircase, I didn’t feel frozen like all of those times before. You weren’t a thief in the night this time; you were a healer. You cured the house of being filled with demented wailing in the halls and fist-sized holes in the walls. You’re a miracle-worker that puts an end to age, disease, and mortal wounds. That made it all the 140 ELIZABETH IHEKORONYE Lights in the Dark 141 142 percolating GABRIELA LUCÍA Let it come creeping Let her sigh into your bones seep like rain or ocean into bedrock. Let it slosh against the sides Of your veins. Let her sing and fill up your spaces, your darkness with sound— cold, loud sound— Like rain on the ocean. Let her love you and she’ll love you until she doesn’t. 144 American Ecstasy D. E . G R E E N Jazz in my ears yeah I want all of you the east classic vocals west north and the south of you the American Songbook & want you to take all of me too I love like I love you go to my head you champagne you my dearest bubbles sparkling Burgundy brew my potato-potahto got that old feeling once again tomato-tomahto more than you know – pow! – I love you my all-I-do-is-dreamof-you-the-whole-daythrough beloved my delightful delicious delirious delectable deluxe de-lovely you must remember this when we two lovers woo when we still say I love you you are my oh-my-man-I-lovehim-so my all-through-the-night girl my anything-goes mate 146 CARSON HUGHES Bullets, Cardboard, and Slobber I hate dogs. I mean that and not in a “Oh, I’m not on a planet that has over 70 percent of its surface really a dog person” kind of way. I hate dogs with covered in the stuff. a gluttonous fire in my belly, the kind that inches through your blood and scrapes at your flesh and I can already hear a chorus of protests shouting, “But dogs are man’s best friend,” but the bone. And what’s not to hate about them? They’re a truth is, dogs are every man’s best friend. A dog’s bunch of freeloaders that will tear your socks apart love is unconditional in the worst possible way. You the moment you take your eyes off of them. A dog is one of the most poorly designed animals there is. They drop hair, saliva, dirt, fleas, just about anything you can think of, like a piece of macaroni art held together by a purple Elmer’s gluestick. Worse yet, some moron could club seals for a living and every dog on Earth would still love you. Even Hitler had a dog who loved him. That kind of love is just a feeble imitation of the real thing. I love yous shouldn’t be handed out like candy. Embraces and kisses are precious, and like all thought it would be a great idea for dogs to release a precious things, they have to be earned. pungent stench as soon as they’re exposed to water, 147 It turns out there is a limit to my anti-dog paper and a bright red bow. After hanging up the agenda; that’s why I found myself spending my phone, Mom led Dad to our living room as I ran in Saturday night 25 miles from home with a nearly dead loop-de-loops around our tree. flashlight and thorns in my legs trudging through the heart of the Montgomery Woods. Olaf is his name, a sing-song voice she used only for special occasions. massive, dark-furred hellbeast (Newfoundland) with I plopped down next to her and Dad on the couch, an empty-eyed smile and a white crescent moon on but my legs still ran right above the floor. “Now Max, his chest. He’s lousy, even for a dog, but Mom loves can you sit still and smile for me?” she sang. I happily him, so I guess it’s worth the scars. “Sweetie, over here,” Mom called in that obliged and stretched my mouth agape into a toothy The thing is, Olaf was never supposed to be almost-smile. The press photographers snapped our dog in the first place; he was a replacement. The our pictures, and Dad handed the box to me. “You first dog I had ever received was a golden retriever can open your present now, dear,” Mom cooed after named Freya. It was an exciting time for everyone. It receiving a thumbs-up from the lead photographer. was Christmas, and Mom had just won her first Senate I opened up the box to see two chestnut eyes and a campaign with a 5 percent margin of victory the sunny face peering up at me, sparkling in the flashes previous month. I remember lying on the floor with a of the cameras. “According to the breeders, her, her new package of markers in hand, drawing smiley faces name is Freya,” Dad slurred. I pressed her tightly into on Mom’s ankles while she babbled on the phone with my chest until she started pawing to get free. words that meant nothing to me as a seven-year-old. Suddenly, Dad burst through the front door looking Loosening my grip, I allowed Freya to leap free. I was delighted to see her turn in a circle and begin like he’d come from the North Pole. His red cap and scratching her ear with her back paw. I crawled down shoulders were covered in patches of snow, and his on the floor next to her and ran my fingers through beard was flipped upwards, veiling his nose and eyes. her fur. Mom bent over on the couch to get a better “Ho, ho, ho!” he bellowed with a voice that stank of a look. “Hello, Freya,” she gushed in a high-pitched voice. sourly sweet concoction of candy canes and vodka. I Freya turned from me and wagged her tail in response. squealed with glee as Dad lumbered forth, carrying a “Come on up here, Freya,” Mom encouraged. She box decorated with Christmas tree-themed wrapping clapped her hands on her knees and showed Freya 148 CARSON HUGHES | BULLETS, CARDBOARD, AND SLOBBER her famous smile. It was tender smile, the kind that After bringing the box to my bed, I held it tight to my radiated a soft glow and made your anxieties drip chest. I was kept awake by Freya’s whimpers and the away like a popsicle at the beach. It was the smile she scratching at the cardboard, but after a few minutes wore every time she had a picture to pose for, a voter the sounds ceased. to sit down with, and a kid to tuck in. It was the smile that made Dad, me, and now Freya fall in love with many parenting books on what to do if your kid her. Drunk under my mother’s enchantments, Freya accidentally kills his new puppy, so I guess Olaf was jumped into her lap and proceeded to cuddle with her as good a solution as any. But instead of becoming the rest of the evening. Enter Olaf, the replacement dog. There aren’t my childhood trauma band-aid, Olaf became my With the night over, the photographers worst nightmare. What they don’t tell you about gone, Dad passed out on the couch, and Mom on a Newfoundlands is that underneath all that fur is conference call in the study, I took the opportunity 200 pounds of pure canine muscle that will come to have Freya all to myself. I carried her into my room barreling at you every time you get home from school. and allowed her to lie by my pillow. A clattering noise Of course, it’s not enough for Olaf to incrementally shook me up from my sleep. Freya barked frantically. shatter my ribcage day by day. When that animal Holding my palm to her mouth, I tried to listen. Not a hammers me into the dirt, he has to come over and burglar, just another one of Mom and Dad’s shouting inspect me and press that massive tongue on my matches. After a while, everything was silent, and Freya face. Then comes the drool. This frothing, soggy, pasty stilled, until Mom’s voice rang through the house. secretion dribbling down from a mouth which spends “Freya!” The little golden retriever burst with energy most of its time eating unidentifiable substances but was held back my embrace. I felt a sharp pain in found in-between couch cushions, onto my already my finger from the sudden clenching of teeth into starstruck face. Olaf is more slug than dog, leaving a my skin. I whimpered and held Freya so tight that she trail of slime wherever he goes. whimpered too. Determined to keep her from leaving, I grabbed a shoebox out of my closet and pinned her in the box. I placed the lid on top and weighted it down However, none of that compares to his neediness. Personal space must not be something they teach in dog training. If I sit down for a moment, with a large textbook filled with pictures of dinosaurs. he comes trotting over and rests his head in my lap 149 like he deserves to be pet just for being there. If I’m But soon enough, I didn’t have to worry about that at the dinner table, he’s there right under my feet, happening anymore. not even begging for scraps. If I’m in bed, he’ll jump up and even when I push him off the mutt will still A bullet changed everything. Some deranged lunatic thought he was a holy prophet, and of all the lie down at my bedside. Even when Mom gets home seven billion people in the world, he decided that my from Washington and she gives him a smile and a Mom was the antichrist. I was in the middle of one of kiss on the head, he’ll just wag his tail in response and my drawing sessions when I got a call. A bullet lodged head over back to me. Them Mom will always say, “I in her neck. At the hospital. May never walk again. guess not everybody’s excited to see me,” and, “Max Possibly terminal. I don’t remember the trip there. I you should be spending more time studying and less can’t remember what the doctor said or how I even time with Olaf.” ended up in a room with my mother’s body, tubes As much trouble as Olaf was, he was at least good for protruding from her skin. Nothing we can do right now. keeping me preoccupied. I didn’t need an excuse That’s what he said. Or she. I just remember leaving anymore when Mom tried to bring me along to the hospital. ‘I’ll go back,” I thought. “I just can’t take fundraisers or dinners with her colleagues. Instead of waiting alone. I’ll get a book to read to her.” dodging questions like, “Have you thought any more about working at Senator Murray’s office?” and “You I forgot about the book as soon as I opened the front door. Pow! I felt Olaf’s head tackle right thinking about Princeton Tiger like your mother?” I into my stomach. He approached, ready to lick his could sit at home and draw. Nothing profound really, slobbering tongue all over me. “Enough!” I shouted. just comics. People consider it to be a low art, but That’s when I noticed it. Chunks of paper in between there’s something about them that speaks to me. It’s his teeth. I darted into the front room, and I could the one thing I do that Mom would never approve of. If barely breathe. There were bite marks on the dining she found the stacks and stacks of comics that I keep room table’s legs. Pillows and socks were shredded hidden under my bed, she would pin me to the wall all over the floor. A trail of slobber led directly to my with her eyes. Her voice wouldn’t be angry, or sad, or room. My comics, everything I had ever written kept even disappointed. With a cold utterance, she would in a shoebox under my bed, had been ripped apart. simply state, “You’re becoming just like your father.” There were pages where a clean bite had been taken 150 CARSON HUGHES | BULLETS, CARDBOARD, AND SLOBBER from them. Others laid finely shredded like confetti. laugh while tears stream down your face and you grab Some were no doubt in Olaf’s stomach, and other the leaves, the branches, and the dirt around you. pages, as I would soon find out, laid in a pool of vomit You toss everything wildly into the air because who on the kitchen floor. I didn’t cry. I didn’t yell. I smiled, cares anymore. And then you realize something is off. with the most intoxicating smile I could and said, There’s something wrong with the grass below you. “Come here boy!” We got in the car and drove straight So you run your fingers through the ground below to Montgomery Woods. you, and you realize it’s sticky. You stop because it’s familiar and you’re right to think it’s familiar because I don’t know why I went back for Olaf. Maybe it holy shit, Olaf, for once in your life your drool is useful was for Mom. Maybe it was out of guilt. I just remember for something! sitting in the hospital room with a notebook in hand, trying to recreate all the work I had done. It was useless; I couldn’t even pick up the pencil. I sat curled long, following the trail of slobber. Eventually, I made it over my bruised stomach running my fingernail over to a river’s edge. That’s when I saw two sparkling brown the cardboard backing of my notebook and listening eyes look at me from across the bank. “Olaf, come on, to the whine of the machines. Right then, something buddy!” I shouted. He didn’t move and as my eyes told me that I had to go back. adjusted to the darkness, I saw that his face was not I crawled on the ground for I don’t know how as dopey as it was before. “Olaf, come on!” I shouted. When you’re in the middle of the woods “Mom needs you!” Olaf started to turn around, and I searching for a dog that has ruined your life’s work dashed down the river bank and through the river. at 1:18 AM and you have no idea what’s happening to Splash! A pain seared through my foot, and water filled your mom in the hospital and your flashlight dies, do into my lungs. My body was soon swept up by the river, know what you think? You don’t pray for your mom, and my hands felt withered and torn as they scraped you don’t curse the God who made this world, you along the sediment at the bottom. I reached out for think, “My fucking flashlight is dead. My Fucking a large boulder in the middle of the river. Slick with Flashlight Is Dead!” Then the panic sets in and you blood and water, my hands couldn’t grab on and I was start realizing the dog is probably dead, either caught once again dragged by the current. Suddenly, a tug at by a bear trap or eaten by a bear, and your dumb ass my back stopped me in my place. I could feel myself has no way to get home. So you kick around. You 151 being pulled against the current and onto shore. Olaf stood above me, and licked and licked and licked, but this time I didn’t resist. I simply held Olaf close in my arms and for once I didn’t care that his wet fur smelled like shit. 152 My Dad Was[n’t] an Uncaught Serial Killer JEN MEINHARDT I once thought my dad was an uncaught serial killer stalking The gated California communities because once I was scrolling through some web pages and I saw a sketch that looked like him but like, younger? As young as I remember him when he died, swollen face, bald, and leaking pus from the cracked edges of his putrid dry skin. And maybe because I was young, And maybe because he was young? And maybe because the article said he smelled sick. And maybe it’s because I barely remember him but the time he stuck his salty fingers in my mouth and told me to suck that I’m inclined to be so mean as to believe he could be a serial killer. And maybe it’s even because in his first round of cancer as a young man doing IT work between Omaha, Nebreaska and along the west coast of California leaving his young wife alone With three kids in a trailer that I’m inclined to be so mean. Or it’s probably because he wasn’t really there, but neither was mom but the occasional Saturday where the social worker would drive us to see them. This is your parent, see, even though They don’t like? Parent? You? Anyways. It was a cold case and it wasn’t him because he died in 2000 at 34 and this happened In the 70s and the case was only concluded in 2018 when they caught the ex-cop who Was killing people in an unofficial capacity. Anyways, boy did I feel silly. Sorry, Dad. 154 GABRIELA LUCÍA stages of sleep T hough I don’t have a thing for bad boys, I do name into my skin. have a thing for mediocre ones with absent fathers and degrees in film, a subset of boy incessantly kicking me in the head. I can’t fall asleep which is arguably much worse. knowing he’s sleeping somewhere, undreaming, and I I keep picking his name into my skin. I can’t fall can’t stop having nightmares, even while my eyes are asleep because I keep picking his name into my skin. open and staring at the red 4:05, :06, :07, :15, :28. The red collects underneath my fingernails. I can’t fall asleep with 50 mg of Trazodone Though I was blessed with no acne on my Red 4:04 glows on my face, reminding me ass, I was also blessed with long, strong fingernails that I can’t fall asleep because I keep picking his for reopening closed wounds all over my body, over 155 and over again. Like I’m retreading my footsteps. A fretting, spitting, and affixing my fists but never flexing or nightly ritual. sticking the landing. Moon peers in through the slats of my blinds and paints a square of light on my legs. I look at moon, imagine liquifying her and pouring her over my Frosted Flakes. I imagine Tony the Tiger sitting at the foot of my bed, smoking a cigarette. I imagine having sex with Tony the Tiger. I regret this. I know I should have broken up with him (not Tony the Tiger) when I tried to spoon him one night near the end, and he pushed me out of bed, and while I hunched on the floor, I imagined for one brief, electric moment that I grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head clean off. Oh What is this? Oh I think I feel it coming now. Grease lick, steep slick, spilled liquid underneath and spreading, heading east or was it west, unsending every letter I’ve ever regretted sending, ending every era of dick-clit contact and that’s that. Instead of nibbling split ends, spending and sweating, flipping and 156 Summer Night Haiku RA C H E L B RO W N Shadows flit like moths outside my bedroom window; It’s too hot to sleep. 158 ISSUE 44 2 019 MURPHY SQUARE LITERARY MAGAZINE AUGSBURG UNIVERSIT Y
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