Dear Aberration Labyrinth Readers,
Since 2012 Aberration Labyrinth Magazine has gone through several rebirths. When we started out, we had an idea and little direction. So, we were very informal. After a few issues, we decided to move away from the blog format and more toward a digest format. We also changed from monthly to bi-monthly. We were overwhelmed with the amount of interest and support that we received. The magazine took off. It has been much more popular than we had ever imagined. And, that’s awesome. We are so happy to be able to provide you with a platform for your work and a place to read some non-traditional poetry. Keep at it. Due to the vast submissions and our personal lives, we’ve changed the format. We will now publish twice a year. So, this is the first issue of the new format. We sort of skipped over the quarterly issue and decided to just go with the new format. We also re-did the site. We hope you like it. In addition to that we are FINALLY moving away from Green Submissions. We listened to all of your negative feedback on the system and we played around with some options. We hope that they new submission system works for everyone. That being said, here is our new issue. Thank you for the patience you’ve shown us while we’ve been experiencing some growing pains. Thank you for bringing our creation to life. Enjoy. Jessica & Ben
Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016 SHRUNKEN HEADS Jeffrey Park
EXTORTION PATISSERIE Alexander Daniels
With a rather bitter if not altogether unexpected sense of disappointment, one realizes that, reconstituted, they may in fact regain their original size and shape, but something in the texture is never quite right.
We take delight in handcrafting our delicacies for you Purchase Now! On Sale! For a mere life.
SIGN OF THE TIMES Jeffrey Park In the last desperate scramble for resources, man finally turns his attention to the heavens. Engineers flex their technological muscles and crack open the moon. And what they find is a great pair of dusty, dried-out lungs and the fossilized remains of a monstrous heart. SOUNDING Jeffrey Park Your boudoir, darker than a beast’s lair – even with the curtains opened wide the interior is proof against moon or star or streetlight.
I concentrate, inch my way forward into the darkness, hands outstretched, heart pounding, hoping the echoes will guide me to your bed.
Our finest Pate Feuillete Taste - you'll never forget Regret We drown By sweet Limited Edition Mint Condition Immediate Attrition Must have now! Past the limit of feeling human worth surpassed Our service unmatched Shall we make more? Consumer T'adore Whatever your wicked desire Guaranteed Our skilled artisans will satisfy How far should we go? Drenched in honey Candied Marbled Fleshly-delight Here you'll find Anything Death Has designed Hell Inflation less-than-minute elation momentary infatuation eternal damnation cutely packaged with ribbon bows, nice perfume Irresistible Rouge Can't compute How much you'll lose In this shop Money has no price
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016 CHASTE Louie Crew Clay
HOW NICE TO WALK BRISKLY Louie Crew Clay How nice to walk briskly. I dream that the grapefruit juice will unclog my veins. I did not find the couple trysting down by the fish hatchery. My lover said that he spotted them there on two mornings when he jogged; once they pumped leaning against the car. He may have told me that just to lure me out of doors. It worked. My alter ego and I are integrating nicely. What a venerable dame. A frog squashed on the road looked like it had been cooked first. I remember watching frog legs jump in the pan. Mother always said that Dad and I would have to cook any reptiles we ate — a small refusal in her indenture. She stressed that her father said women should never have to make the fire. She said it enough that it worked in our household. She must not have shared her trick with sisters down the block; or maybe she did and it did not work for them. I remember watching Ms. McDonald poking at clinkers in her basement, while Charles and I waited for her to make us lemonade, or built a house with bedspreads over chairs.
Dan kept his brain in a chastity belt and sent false clues to all seducers. Always seeming at first to agree, he talked to win control. and heeded mystery in no one else. Dan had to say when it was time to be aroused, had to suggest so before it was ever time to leave. Dan wouldn't let you tell him a thing, had no time for another culture, much less for other mental space in this one. Once you got his drawers down and his shirt open, ready to touch his intelligence, Dan would slam shut that damn belt that locked semen, surprise, and wonder in the metal jockstrap of his mind.
CURSE TWENTY-TWO Louie Crew Clay Jethro's Loas mount your soul, my dear. Your govis rattles on the altar. I warned you not to deny me. Jethro's Loas mount your mind, my dear. The Poteau-mitan pierces heaven and hell with rectangular jabs that release other zombies to keep you company. You never should have left me. Jethro's Loas mount your body, my dear. Feel his hot breath against your lobes, his stiff rod pushing through your robe, his sticky silence as he smothers you. I told you that I wanted you.
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016 THINKING OF YOU AILEEN (executed October 9, 2002) Darlene Cleary He looks from your tight cut-offs to your raised thumb, pulls over, the sand granulating its fizz till he stops. Maybe he asks where you’re headed, and maybe you say honey, wherever you like; for a price. You sit on the bench seat flashing eyes like he’s king handsome, and he rests a dark haired hand just above your knee. We all know what happened to Mallory. We all know what happened to six more men at the end of your gun. And who wouldn’t carry one if they hitchhiked and hooked? I would have. It’s no excuse, and yet I can understand: you were raped at fourteen. No love early on. What a grizzled old pinch-faced woman I saw, in a photo—your mother. She dumped you. So did Gramps. At fifteen, prostitutin’ down the highway what else were you supposed to do? I had it bad—not like you —but I sold it too. I got raped. He had a hunting knife unfolding to a six inch blade sharp, like an edge of paper you run your finger across and wonder at the darkening red on white. He did what he wanted, though I’d said no. Time was on ice for me. His silver prick sliced mettle into meager little pieces. But what if I’d had a gun Aileen? What would I have done? I know…self defense…but really? In my fantasy, popopopopop till he’s hot red rag limp dead and even then I might not stop.
CHESS Michael Mech Oh great,venerable knights, sacrifice yourselves. And the bishops of thine, Shall come to your help. Foot soldiers and pawns, Sheathe thy weapons for fight. The battle goes on, Protect the bishops and knights. Great lady, my queen. As pretty as a flower. Yet you must intervene. For you hold great power. Justification by end, Artistry by means, A game that comprehends, Synthesis and possibility. Castle with the rook. En passant the pawn, Computation overlooked, Deserve pieces gone. Positional advantage, Tactical outplay. Calculations edge, And intuitive display. Life is but a game, Played without a board. Yet, it’s not a shame To play on your accord. For you are the king, And we all await. To allow you to bring, An end with checkmate.
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016
NO WORDS Michael Nemchick PĂˆRE LACHAISE Michael Nemchick Hap short for Hapless or no-his bald head utter lack of any front teeth
He "dig" Digs right in to the memory and personage of the bodies resting seeking only sleep. His job was vague His breath was wretched, made worse by his touch Always grabbing and probing for conversation beyond the packed dirt
He walked with purpose Begged with a composure the ladies in front of Notre Dame should note I was helpless with my wallet Lacking any small change Hap sought no hand Shaking no cup head steady as a rock He still walked away with 10 Euro
I was drinking yes I was but he said, "No, you can't say my name" She did this little girl unable to realize her future is his or others like him Her feet tapped crazed against the pavement oblivious to the severity of his words Like the child she was I listen but refuse to look too long When I'm drinking I stay on point Can't be seen not now This escort his words infuriate me upsetting my stomach before I check out from the world for like 6 hours watching images move in unison to people too blind to see what's wrong with the picture
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016
GOLD Joie Michaels She’d wake from dreams of deserts and graffiti walls and he’d whisper, “I find strands of gold on my pillow”. She’d smile and stare at a slightly dusty ceiling. This was the beginning of morning. He held her so tightly, during their first meeting, he buried his face in a mess of curly hair. “You smell like home,” he gasped. “You smell like home.”
After months, quite suddenly, she was no longer his home. She was his warden, his oppressor. She held the guns toward young children who threw rocks, a reminder of occupation, the leftover debris from explosionsFinally, the strands of gold were pulled, slammed against an old Buickmixed with tears from the Dead Sea.
And he wept. They were forced His home was mangled, rubble, dried blood pale faces with blue lips.
apart with walls created and endorsed by white judges.
His home was a prison within hers, mosaic walls, armed guards, families in cafes, chatting as though genocide were just another appetizer.
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016 ASMR Alexander Duensing
PERHAPS LOVE—NO STUPID! Anita Nahal
it is clear from your face blush is overturned by relief and returned by remembrance,
Straight and proud A stallion horse on the prowl An arched inviting back Like a crescent moon on the hunt for the other half. His dark side reflected in my doubts and His dread locks hid the mysteries Of the lunatic full moon. No sound of satisfaction escaped his lips Yet as I washed myself clean Another unrequited moment ran noisily into the sink.
a machinery so simple and beautiful that it would be remarkable even if imaginary— like, perhaps, we could lift the needle from this record before it finishes and almost tickle each other a moment with half-crude remarks and quiet, ambient pieces— lifting, lilting as shifted dimension, analogous to the moving fabric of whispers or edges of space.
THE DRIFTING MIND Drake Newcomb Feeling through your fingertips lasting only moments, measures of time that are what you make them to be.
COMING AND GOING Anita Nahal Like intermittent clouds in a monsoon not yet here, lazily, slowly, swaying, your love keeps coming and going. The coming is so passionate, satisfying like the rush of warm shower on my cold body that I cannot forget. The going is so painful, repeated so often like Columbia breaking up again and again that I cannot forget.
To see a swift passing of clouds in the distance distraught by the fact that they might not be reached. Not in your life anyway. The mysteries of nature unravel all around yet they seem to hide behind the shadows of giants amidst an explosion of exploitation. Nothing seems to bring complete thoughts in the most clear, beautiful day when your mind searches for pieces of a less perfect picture.
There is no more feeling. Time no longer bounds you. The mind drifts into a dream-like state and wonders.
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016
GUNSHOTS ARE RED Sayan Sen you remember the first time your teacher taught you about guns. a time when you thought nothing, could hurt as much as that injection making a passageway on your left arm which, your mom said kept away every malady known. you remember seeing the boy with whom you shared, your first kiss, carrying a gun and charging innocent men and women and you never believed your own eyes or borrowed ones your heart couldn't have been this blind, you thought.
as you pick up that gun, run to the fence and shoot, blindly, fiercely, unflinchingly, your children hiding behind you, as every relic about peace, falls apart, you remember that injection from childhood, the one which you thought hurt too much because it wiped every malady the world could possibly find. but,
now you know that there is no cure to the disease called man. and that one gunshot only leads to another.
you remember your father returning from the market, gun in hand, blood on his faded shirt and you couldn't resist asking him about what he'd needed that for. he never answered you and now you know, why.
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016 ENEMIES Gary Beck We may have more enemies then ancient Rome, the most hated empire before the U.S.A. Rome certainly had religious enemies despite state tolerance of all religions. The emperor and Senate never understood how one God, would not allow Jupiter and Mars to exist, though they weren’t the one true God. No other empire, except for a few years, expanded as fast as The Persians, Rome, The United States, And when those daring Greeks defeated Darius, defeated Xerxes, they cleared the way for Alexander of Macedon to rampage across many lands unexpecting his visitation until he arrived, but didn’t last long enough for dynastic continuation. But Rome, Rome, the most sophisticated conqueror that started with less than Athens, but grew fast enough to preserve and transmit the cultural heritage, the foundation of Western civilization.
And a piddling city state fought and grew, built roads, ships, fought and grew until the legions marched across the known world, only thwarted by stubborn Germans for hundreds of years, recalcitrant tribes refusing the benefits of civilization, resistance to be crushed as long as the empire had the means, the will to crush opposition. But Rome grew soft, sated with riches of a plundered world. They still had the spirit to fight the Goths, but ignominious defeat brought a new regime, until Roman ways seduced the wild Goths and made them citizens of an acceptant empire that began to tremble as the hoofbeats of the Huns, drew closer. A miraculous victory destroyed the Huns, saved Rome from being sacked, the last triumph before descent to darkness.
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016 BROKEN CHARISMA B DUB Ever arrested Between the ears of a boy The cradle of tonality And then schizoaffective perception of voice unspoiled grace In young male form Flesh in coordination Wise with young eyes The brilliance before Observance befits abuse The vessel captured And with certainty of his stillness There should be no cooperation But balloons of all colors Missile pops Cap guns And candy cigarettes
TO HOMEOWNER OR CURRENT RESIDENT Matthew Shoemaker I have taken the drugs you left on the counter and which you probably needed for health.
THE SEMESTER’S END Amy DeCal As things come to a close, perseverance becomes harder to muster; The call of Netflix becomes louder, and speaking of loud, I'm dry on pot. I usually smoke a lot, but here lately it's been debately between tobacco and weed. Whatever happened to the seed of purity that used to reside within me? What is it about stress that denies us our best by the hands of our selves grabbing books off the shelves, I mean booze-pour a glass, spark a blunt, play some blues blissed out in this nothingness I do-anything but more school-anything but another "to-do" Can't I just be as I am, resting happy in the art of doing nothing?
Forgive me for the mess and my corpse in your living room.
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016 LEAR’S PANEGYRIC MUSIC SET TO THE HOLLOW WORDS Sy Roth Another sad dawn awakens the sky, infuses it with a morose sun, rises like a mad man lost on a propless stage set. Adrift in tatters, he chews the set that drapes his mortal coil. One truth when purple-velvet curtains lift, his voice rising in the wings. The onlookers gasp, ears full of his mournful pronouncements. Took my spot, row 118 among the gawkers center -row rubber-necker. Another Friday evening to unlock my face. Chilled voice like cold water slaps my cheeks into red-alive awareness Fresh from a whore's-embrace in my dream. I see the spent lovers' dead skin bristling with dribbled sweat cooled in a pool on snowy sheets. Reality slapped the player awake--Lost in the spider web of coveted daughters. They dress him in glib garments with their words. He apes happiness. Follows their shadowy feet and floral utterances A moth-skritching from behind drawn to their light. Breathless daughters blackened with false words, Vixens who ululate in bent-soulless tones. I thought he knew. But I didn't, so I ad-libbed his words, Heard them reverberating hollowly in my head. I writhe in an agony of each syllable. He cajoles them into adorational speeches Screams for love in arm-twirling dances. Seeks praise from the odists. I rail at him, hiss at his glib acceptance of empty words. I only imagine returning to my dream bed, Joined in ephemeral coupling, Dancing to a false rumba Locked in an armless embrace Nestled in papyral sheets Covered by the wreck of their silence and his disbelief, Jimmy Fallon's thank yous set adrift on a melodic, tinkling keyboard, He screams out a storm of his own creation. I squirm and dance with him, Music set to the cannonades of our collective silence, Stare sadly at the splashed face and saddened eyes At all the hollow words.
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016 A DYING SUN Renier Palland There are nights when I wish to expand like a dying sun and reveal every cog and inner working of my skin I asked you here
But like a dying sun I can only expand and expand and include you in the blistering subterranean cities of my skin and trust that ultimately
to meet me on this page and dance on my words with pirouettes and shoulders bent like that bird we found with the crimson wings and the seconds in her eyes.
it was enough.
Like a sandstorm in the exhausted air of the Arabian Peninsula do you also appear as if brought on by some intrinsical pleasure in the wicked gods
As dusk wanes into Moonless night, When the chaos of the day has ended, I peer into the placid lake Blackened by the midnight sky, To see the peaceful shadows beneath the surface Spinning in a spiral, and beckoning me to join them. I wonder what mysteries yet unfold Will appear to me, and I hesitate, Fearing what lies beyond the vastness of the deep But slowly, my fear is eased by A smoky arm reaching out to my hand, Its own outstretched with spider-like fingers Gently enticing me to their parallel universe, And willingly, I reach forward and grasp.
you do not stay to watch me capture light with my breath you only implant my body with the stitches torn from my chest I asked you here to hold my requiem in a swollen legacy and remember that once once upon a night I too revealed the amber sky beneath the dusk.
THE SORCERER’S DREAM Jonathan Atwood
Smooth surfaced teardrop sphere, Illuminating with the insight of The midnight sun's rays, Reflecting, then refracting back again. The solid world inside the crystal, Frozen like the ice sheets of Norway, Yet clear like the mountain's spring water, Where images skim by and flow into Rippled waves across its surface as flat-stones, Inside this teardrop sphere, Reflecting, then refracting back again.
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016 IMPURITIES Sarah Valeika Quite potent, so don’t drink the pink, frothy off-tasting glue-like shampoo-though you do want to filter out bilge-spilling waste from the days when your throat only opened alone on the phone, you would swallow your choking and wallow in dirty impurities GO ON Renier Palland Go on - leave the door open so that the dead can walk with mud and death into the living room so they can sit down and eat meat, rotten legs and arms protrude from them like bundles of spiders with fangs poisoned and sharp as needle pricks Pierce the dead and they do not bleed only washed out memories and half-faced thoughts eject from them like vile vomit.
IF YOU ARRIVE Renier Palland FOR C If you arrive at my window like a distorted vine which outgrew itself, I shall welcome you into the glass. Your lithe breathing will become the dusks and dawns of each day. You will burn in the sun and your shadow will last on my bed like a forgotten stranger. If you arrive at my window like a single line that runs like a vein down the glass into my room, I shall disguise you so that the universe cannot find its missing piece. Do not break the glass, or ruin the light, just remain in me like the purple hue of a silhouette at sunrise.
Go on - leave the door open for the cracked ruins of my mother's face cannot be like I remembered. Perhaps she is now made of orchids and thirst?
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016 DARK Jameson Stroh Burning out the light. You must be darker for me to lay with you. You must be broken, damaged, untouchable. You must be passionate, beautiful, perfect. You must be darker for me to lay with you. You must not see me when I see you. You must let me see you without seeing me. You must do as I please. You must be darker for me to lay with you. Fragile and open. Truthful and forgiving. You must be darker for me to lay with you.
You must fuck me in a dressing room. Fuck me in a bathroom of a bar. But not in my bed. You must be darker for me to lay with you. You must not cuddle up beside me. Kiss me like lovers would. Not hold my face and stare in my eyes. You must be darker for me to lay with you. You must bite my body. You must steal my wisdom. You must feel torn into pieces. You must be darker for me to lay with you.
COATS Michael Estabrook for a conference in a dorm of some sort she’s with roommates on the second floor I’m with roommates on the third even though we only just met we’ve planned to meet later in the night after everyone else is asleep I’m anxious, pacing, watching down in the stairwell like I’m waiting for her to show up when a herd of guys, 5 or 6 of them come in to party in her room so I realize our plan for the evening has been dashed next morning everyone’s leaving I’ll never get the chance to see her again but leave my room, and the building find her in a car filled with coats a clutter of coats I open the door, she’s so sad I sit in beside her take her pretty face by the chin “you all right? I missed you last night” she motions with her eyes towards the back seat and there in the corner huddled beneath a pile of coats is Philip O. and old work buddy staring at me through his thick glasses “OK well I’ll talk to you later have a safe trip home” I say to her and slide back out of the car watch from a window in the building as the car drives off and I never see her again
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016 NIGHT ALONE Joe Donnelly She’ll come home to the shot glass in the sink Spoiled and morose The lining of bourbon filtering everyone around him to the bottom She’ll walk to the bathroom first Wash, brush, and rinse, second Look on the bed with disappointment, third He thinks he’s clever using the hallway recycling bid A stoolpigeon waiting for the door to open Secrets live in wastepaper baskets and reusable cans She gets in her pajamas with care Breathes deep as he gargles carbonated phlegm His vibrating nose is a sign, a song, a siren of sour notes When the morning comes he tries to get up early But nightmares and personal terrors mauled at his sleep He doesn’t want to look too desperate for that first cup of water When morning comes she goes to the gym Promises float on the early morning streets She will only recognize strangers at this hour Productive spirits with clear eyes He exercises with effort Relaxes with self-confidence Realizes in these moments you are only lucky for so long Reality will always set within the final sun
HEMINGWAY Michael Starr Heard you there, no need to Repeat Repeat Heard you there, no need to-Found a way out of madness and If we cut ourselves some slack we Could probably sing a tune from Old Joysack's aging dog slurping At the waterbowl for a free meal.
THE SCAR Sally Lehman There is this set of knives in my kitchen drawer. They have these perfect new-snow-white grips built with the adult human hand in mind, the way fingers and thumb bend and grasp so as to never slip away.
Made to fit into a palm beautifully, effortlessly, lazily. The blades sharpened so well that a tap of the wobbly edge of the pastry spreader will slice cleanly into thumb-thick skin. I daydream about taking the French knife with its pointed end and inches-thick blade made for fine mincing and swift-thin vegetable cuts, and shoving that blade through my arm. The placement would have to be just so. Between the elephant and the words on the smooth skinned inside.
Between the ulna and radius bones. Up through the skin untattooed with vines and a Celtic knot. I imagine how it would look. White sculpted handle touching skin below. Red dripping silver above. The slow motion drip. Blood on silver. Beautiful pain. I've done the math. Checked the angles. It could work. And wouldn't the scar be amazing.
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016 WHORE Lorri Bethel This is what they call me with fists to the mouth, blood lipstick, black and blue eye shadow. ”You only got what you deserved”, they remind me again. And, again, I believe.
”Cock-Sucking Whore” they Tattoo with welts from my unworthy head to my unworthy toes. Fathers in suburbia, boys in locked garages and fat, old men in Cadillacs choking on Old Spice, uncles, son’s-in-law, husbands, boyfriends; every species of cock on two legs. With ones, twenties, hundreds, groping claws slap and yank, murder and steal. ”Dirty, Cock-Sucking, Whore” they write on me filthy quills dipped in black souls. Rorschach carrion birds circle my story: the one they have written with hatred, fear and currency. Millionaires with dinner plates on fine, gold chargers, sports heroes on smiling magazine covers,
church-going demons dressed in piety and leisure suits, laying hands on you... and me. Good ol’ boys, your next door neighbor, the rare psychopath, and the common pedophile tearing off pieces of my holy bread, washing it down with my holy water. ”Dirty, Filthy, Cock-Sucking, Whore”, they call me. One day I met me… a little girl with pigtails.
SUPPOSE Sal Marici On a sunny Sunday your foot falls into a woodchuck hole. The rodent claws skin between two straps on your sandal, drags you. Dust you slide on clogs your lungs. Above, brown-eyed susan and goldenrod drop seeds. Rain soaks their coats, swells embryos. Stems burst. Roots tie knots so tight no one finds the opening.
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016 MEDUSA Kirsten Reneau i. Stone, hard against the blades of her shoulders that suddenly felt crooked and soft, the stones were so cold. Saltwater rushing between her thighs and down her cheeks. Her thighs, they had long silver marks she had kept hidden all her life. They had once been as dark as an olive tree. On any other night she would’ve watched the owl that kept watch over the temple but she could only think of the white surf against the tan sand of her skin. Wasn’t that how Aphrodite was born all curves and seafoam, did it feel like a curse then to be born to make men love her? The waves felt like a pulse, a rhythm rushing into her. Her body, clenched like a whirlpool, He left her soft gold hair dampHer hair, covering her eyes, her last shield. He told her she was beautiful and pushed it away. ii. Later, some called it a curse, but she knew it was a gift. The gift of strength, so no man could every touch her thighs again, could take her the way tsunamis took land, could confuse their lust with love. Softness into snakes. Snakes into stone.
ANOTHER EULOGY Kirsten Reneau Robby was twenty-three and bald and lonely, and he believed that the only two consistent things he would ever have would be his guitar that kept breaking strings with a twang he was able to imitate on command and chemotherapy. His face was more skull than flesh and sometimes instead of a heartbeat he swore that his chest held a shipwreck, barely holding itself against the beat of the waves. He talked about death the way his younger brother talked about the game on Sunday, as an inevitable without any fuss other than making predictions about the outcome. He hoped that death would give him back his dark curls and maybe he would be able to sing to me standing up for the first time since he was twenty one. Sometimes when he slept I thought that I could see his bones under the blue wires of his veins and I wanted to scream for the nurses. Robby was twenty-five and bald and dead. He died while I was on a plane, my own body surrounded by harsh winds of an atmosphere that forced my inner ear to all but collapse while he lied in a hospital, his guitar leaning against the bed that had become a temporary home. FIVE MINUTES BEFORE Kirsten Reneau An announcement comes over every speaker every cell phone, laptop, and tablet all emit the same words, barely overlapping themselves. “The meteor is coming. We have five minutes.” I think the voice sounds little bit like my grandfather. There is a moment of silence. Then the sound of too much movement all at once people frantic for phones. Everyone talks at once people are crying the air feels too hot for October. I would call you but you never liked the way my voice sound through the static and I’m tired of your answering machine. The cicadas scream.
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016
COPPER Linda Wojtowick The sand swarmed, fell away. The only steady thing. One night he caught a new sound, a yellow crying under the moon. His thighs went slack. He began to count the sea birds in his head. In the morning he knew something was with him, had followed. Maybe since Tanque. By Taft he could smell her, sharp, glinting, by the gypsum bay. He scraped up fear, hid it. Skull pulled in. His medallions twinkled round the ridge. The horse he loved fiercely and was so protective of I have not mentioned it until now- its strong heart, its back- lowered its head, then raised it again to look toward the choppy town. Exhaled. Ears ticking nervously in wind.
MISPICKEL Linda Wojtowick Cecil had worked in the candy factory a good while come February. On the night of the comet, in the breakroom, he was dividing his things between two lockers. He had brought a change of shirt and some different shoes, a pair minus peanut crusts, flour, or a cornstarch mist. No wax droplets in the lace. Silk flowers burst from his shop n’ save bag like the guts of a heart. He had plans. He meant to surprise Polly, whose shift ended an hour after his. She wore her hairnet with an unlikely grace. Her work gloves fit lumpen and rheumatoid over her rings. He would propose a walk through the quarries out back, through the blue graves, the pounded building dust. Over the little bridge in the bubbling mud. He could see it.
GARNET Linda Wojtowick And they gathered at the kitchen window, breath ragged. They tried to blanket it, to hide the sound. They gripped the meat of each other’s arms. Their eyes, later, and into the next hard day, would ache. They were five. They had just seen something at the side of the house walking back through the yard. If it was still moving, on its long unbelievable feet, it should at any moment pass behind the shed, emerge into the alley in a wash of the puscolored lamp.
He’d make a little stage in their picketfence future yard in the haphazard compost, their charmingly failed beans. Cecil loved his mother, her quiet television and prim flat shoes. But he had to be a man now as he dreamed a man should be, a man with a blazing crown. Though this land was brackish clay and snaking, muculent pipes, there were miracles here too. He could reach for them, he could open his hands. The sugar machines chomped and fizzed in the night. A rock from space sailed toward the factory, an immaculate baseball from God.
Horridly, there would be time later for questions, for the aftershocks through their little hearts. There would be shared and varied rearrangements of scene. Sleep would warp, as later would the love for their partners, their homes. In the end few want to be remarkable, to offer a bridge. But the group would go where they were asked, and they talked and talked about that first spring, the year of the Lamb. It was tall, they would say. It was thin. When it moved there by the window my eyes were disbelieving, shamed.
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016 BECOMING THE EVIL Dani Ferguson There is a burial ground in the pit of my stomach. I can feel the weight of it. the weight of all dead the dead insideI’ve done this to myself. you aren’t supposed to kill your demons, not actually.
you’re supposed to make nice, play house, make tea become friends. you have to learn to live with your monsters. when you kill them, you have to bury them somewhere. that doesn’t sound so bad, they can’t hurt you from the grave. unless the grave is you. I am an ecosystem. New cells must be made. They must be fed. I am eating the things that tried to kill me. turning my darkness into fuel, I am making my bones out of their corpses. The decay, the creation. I have become my monster. you do not kill your demons; if you can’t learn to live with them you have to learn to live with yourself.
THE PROBLEM WITH THE HUMAN RACE: A SHORT SUMMATION OR: A RANT Elaine Murray The problem with the human race, in a nutshell, is Crazy Men Fuck Better. It’s a fact. Don’t deny it. If you shake your head, young lady, you are lying. And you, really? I know you bring home the good girl, the one who will barely spread her legs far enough to let you in. But, late at night, with a snoot full of bourbon, you want a bitch swinging off the damn chandelier. So, there’s the problem, the issue with women and men. Society tells us that we should want the Sensitive One, The Nice Guy who will be Caring and Tender. And it drives us women crazy. Or at least, it makes us look insane. People wonder why some women keep going after the Wrong One, The Bad Boy. But, don’t you see, when It comes right down to it The Crazy Wild Ass ones? They’re the ones we remember. Because Crazy Men...
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Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016 ARRHYTHMIA Jenn McCollum
REFLECTIONS Shabnam Ahmed
My heart wakes immodestly Because it has stopped suddenly In between dreams It grows wings And slouches forth from a sudden plateau Like a sick starling Whose arrhythmia is the scream of love.
She looked through the glass mirror And saw a shattered girl Who drank her tears Enough to drown an ocean Whose crackled voice melted honey
PUNK James Prenatt You wanted a Cadillac life: the house with enough space for generations of well-bred successors just like you, a garage big enough to fit your ego, a purebred guarding the castle door, but instead you got a Pez Dispenser smile with nothing inside, the lick of a mutt stray in need of help you can’t provide,
no chance of happy parenthood or a stay-at-home wife. You’ve heard the music for years, but all this time you weren’t listening to it right. It wasn’t loud enough for you to understand the words. You never tried to anyway, the anguish in the untuned chords was enough,
but now your sad life is the chorus and the hook.
You were so afraid of her voice So she decided to be afraid of it too
HUNGER Claire Fitzpatrick You told me to grow a backbone So I ripped one from my mother And stabbed it through my spine You told me lift up my chin So I stole a more defined jaw And sewed it to my face. You told me to speak more clearly So I ripped out my father’s teeth And stapled them to my gums. You told me to follow your lead So I consumed the thoughts of escape And washed them down with a bottle of wine. Starved of your love I ate the heart out of you.
So take a walk and clear your head. Sit on those train tracks a while, have a thought about everything you wanted that life hasn’t brought and start thinking about what it has to bring you instead. Headphones in, let a young man’s angst become the soundtrack to your every step.
Mute the world. Find a safe place to scream.
© This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth Magazine * Summer 2016 Š Cover art for this issue provided by Ben Mohr