Aberration Labyrinth
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
April 2014
Issue #011
A Note From The Editors: We have purchased a new submission system. It is not yet live, but should be shortly. You will be able to create your own account and track submissions within the system. The learning curve here is that we’re not code-savvy. So, as soon as we figure out installation, we’ll be up and running. Please check back on our site for updates. -AL
GRAVITY ASSIST Jeffrey Park
Rusty Metal Plates Chase Spruiell
Time calls engines throb and moan someone mouths the magic words * slingshot effect * and we begin the long, terrifying fall but as the flaming limb of the sun swells to fill our entire field of vision its gentle curve slowly flattening into a molten horizon I can’t stop myself from thinking – they don’t make an SPF high enough for this shit.
The space between my charming metal frame and your innocent way of loving is becoming thick
RISEN Jeffrey Park The dead have risen again gray masonry dust streaking their exposed flanks like urban camouflage – at the opening strains of the recessional they bow their ragged heads and file through the blasted gate out of the shadows out of the stifling basement of memories and into a collective dream of colors and smoke and life and the living and the inky darkness that comes pouring down from the bloated face of the harvest moon.
The empty space somehow finds a way to become emptier when it thinks of us And with that emptiness comes a reality that seems too important to neglect The metal plates that were born with me begin to rust without you.
AGING Robert Lavett Smith The tiny insurrections in our bones, resignation marshaling in the blood, the mind like a city sacked by invaders an hour after curfew, windows boarded up or broken, a dozen small fires blistering the horizon as the rattle of crickets fills the humid, insouciant night.
© This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
April 2014 Sunset at Montmajour Vincent van Gogh, 1888 Joseph R. Trombatore For over a century I've paraded the cross of my master's palette, like a gown on a mannequin before a dust-covered crowd. Stashed away in an attic like an orphan; a relative deemed unworthy to sit at the Christmas dinner table. I've evaded the greasy fingers of fat Germans; the bombs the bonfires of my brother's my sister's demise; stuck my tongue out at ignorant self-appointed appraisers. Crafted in love, his brush strokes caressed the folds of my fabric, my flesh, stretched taut as a mainsail on a warm Summer's breeze. I turned the rudder of Vincent's intent; the ejaculative touch of his oil-dabbed mast. I glow with the metal of my survival.
A DRUNK SPOILING FOR A FIGHT Robert Lavett Smith Having never met his eyes, I will not recall his face— only the taunts on a late night bus, the raised voice, low and guttural, the anonymous rage of a stranger that lands on me as randomly as seeds from agitated trees blown loose in the spring night.
Issue #011 Hair of the Dog Ian Melo "lets go look at flowers." she was very persistent when you knew what she wanted. "don't bring any of that dreadful booze of yours, i want you to appreciate something for once." i was already drunk enough but i slipped my flask into her purse anyways. i held her hand as we drove. she liked that. the car swerved some but with some noise we made it to the fields. she smiled so wide. sunflowers. she ran into the thick of them all, leaving her purse behind, and spun and danced. i hung back. drank. i sang loudly to her something by the strokes, something by the shins, and she danced beyond my vision but i felt her spinning in that dress i liked. "come in here and feel them!" she called. "they are tall, like you, and feel just as much." i yelled back that i wouldn't know where to run to. "i didn't either." so i put the flask down and ran into the horizon of yellow petals, arms stretched out wide, yelling, laughing, living, following her humming and the indents of her feet into the dirt.
Š This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
April 2014
Issue #011
Piss James Jenson
There’s a crumpled ball of paper inside my chest It’s dripping with ink That I put there in a swill of angst The sweat sliding along the pen Knuckles white It sits in there Breathing And thinking Maybe enjoying a leisure glass of wine Or a cigarette Or maybe it’s on the patch Good for it But the point is That it’s there And as the ink drips off of it It is pooling somewhere below And I can’t keep track of it I can’t write it all down Before it gets pissed out And packed away with the trash But I feel it there Breathing and thinking And drinking or smoking or not I feel it there
20 Bucks A Week Chase Spruiell I spend 20 bucks a week on peace With paranoia I blow the devil’s whistle I hear the dogs bark outside of my window I sink so far into my bed I can’t even call it Sinking anymore I fear the things That I can’t keep track of I burn old writings I close the vents To keep the scent From drifting I try to forget But it only makes me Remember What I’ve done With the moments I’ve been given I tell myself to breath I choke on the words I fill up my lungs And I let it all go .
© This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
April 2014
Issue #011
Meal Zane Castillo Wrinkled and callused hands lay upon the crooked table. A deteriorating plate with insubstantial food is placed before it. Flavored water, and small mounds of meat, float within in. Unsteady hands pick up stained utensils and mechanically delve into it.
Lost in a Daydream Zane Castillo Blueberries crumple underfoot as she moves directionless through the beckoning trees. Branches graze her skin and latch upon her shirt. She walks completely unaware of her surroundings; oblivious but for the picture playing too vividly before her mind for her to acknowledge reality.
SAMARITAN Jeffrey Park Out of season and unanticipated a bumblebee stung you on the fleshiest part of your fleshy arm. Your feet slid out from under you, the ground struck you, a rabid dog snapped at you as you lay sprawled at the steaming water’s edge. I just looked down at you and smiled my special smile. Passers-by, spitting concerned noises, hurried to lift you to your feet, looked at me reproachfully, would doubtless comment later upon the horrid callousness of young people these days. People always do tend to misjudge my age.
Š This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
April 2014
Issue #011
Black Shapes Darla Mottram It's been two weeks since I've slept in my own bed. I sleep on the couch or on my roommate's abandoned mattress. Her room is empty, the blinds broken, and the dripping gutter wakes me, so sometimes I move back to the couch and stare at the fireplace, still filled with ashes of letters and pictures we burned. We watched snapshots of who we used to be curl into black shapes. We are black shapes. We are a smashed bottle of cheap moscato. We are the greying walls of this apartment. We are lightless. Science gives two possible outcomes for when two black holes approach one another. Either one will absorb the other, creating a supermassive black hole, or the smaller one will careen off in the opposite direction. Only the second example has been documented. We are not an exception. We did not prove science wrong. We are not we anymore.
It's been a week since we stood in the Pacific. Deepening dusk and desire for things we don't have to struggle for. We collected crab shells from the sand, brushed dirt from their pinchers. The last time we did this we were eighteen and nothing scared us. I am twenty-five now and everything scares. I am scared of time, and how it won't slow down. I am scared of how much I want, and how much it hurts to want. I don't want to want. I don't want to be scared. A cusp is where two curves meet and create a sharp point. We came for mountains and waves and a fresh start, but we just found one more thing to impale our hopes on. Maybe the curves will close, create a circle. Maybe the things we are scared of meet up somewhere, create in us something brave, a shivering point like the compass that brought us here.
I woke to find the front door to the apartment swung wide open. I thought I'd been burgled, but nothing was missing. It must have been wind. I thought wind was my friend. I am always getting these things wrong. Wind is not my friend. Fire is not my friend. Fire tried to eat my bed. Black spots on my mattress from the night I set it aflame. I did not mean to do it. I lit a pumpkin candle to stay warm, read a book about a girl who wanted to die metaphorical deaths so she could learn to live again. So maybe fire is my friend after all. Maybe wind wanted to tell me something. Maybe wind is telling me to lock my door. The jar by the stove still holds a single potato masher. The other dishes sit piled in the sink. I can't remember the last time I cooked. I made cookies for Christmas but I spilled moscato on them. I made cookies but I drank moscato instead. I keep drinking glasses of moscato, thinking somehow they'll change me.
Š This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
April 2014
Issue #011
Thoughts Swinging Samantha Loomis Back and forth like a yo-yo, zipping up and down with confusing swiftness, temporary indecision leads to life-long regrets. Fingers splayed like a puppeteer, he moves an inch, it gives me a mile; the extra slack unravels, just enough to hang myself. A yo-yo drips down, spinning from its axis, no longer able to recoil itself.
The Pool Shark Benjamin Welton He's Holden Caulfield all grown up, with his bitterness still intact; in fact, it's increased along with his weight. Tonight he's losing to some girl who works behind the bar and recently crashed her car. They're both horrible people. When she sinks the eight, he moves to shake her fist, but she insists on a light kiss
Constricted Pathways of the Throat Darla Mottram I used to think I was a kite, that I needed someone else’s hands to keep from floating into the sun. Sometimes I miss the feel of hands pressed against sternum soft on cheek tracing curve of mouth but I begged those same hands to form noose around neck and they did. I used to think the tingling of constricted pathways of the throat was what love felt like but I’d rather be breathless the way a bird must be breathless, alone in the sky, untethered, afraid the sun will disappear before I get to it.
that says "Fuck You" with sugar. It tingles on his fat, and as he goes to put on his hat, he makes a finger gun and blows out his brains.
Š This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
April 2014
Issue #011
A Poem for a Girl Named Arizona Gabrielle Williams Summers were for us to press honey and roses into. Bonfires, or, later, in the bottom of mismatched bottles, vodka and tea, bitter as our writing going down. I was a different girl in those days, when i sat perched on the corner kitchen counter waiting for kettles to throw in a stove-top tantrum. Humming cicada, cricket, kettle, choir: we orchestrated love, both of us. We were as golden as chamomile at three o'clock in the morning, and sometimes I think I'd like to find the younger us, washed up from our sea, our bloated rib cages tattooed with the recipe for your mother's Miso Soup, the one your sister swears by, and cursive beer bellies below. Late night planning cigarette smoke walks in the sticky evening air"We are the reckless, we are the wild youth."
Š This work is the property of the individual authors within.
All artwork for this issue has been provided by Ben Mohr and Rhonda Williams