Al #012 by Jessica Gleason

Aberration Labyrinth

Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805

June 2014

Issue #012

A Note From The Editors: Summer is here and we have a brand new issue of AL for you to enjoy. As you have probably noticed, our wonderful Ben Mohr has designed another cover image for us. He is still taking art submissions. So, if you have something, please submit! We would love to see your epic art as well.

The Commute Ernest Keiper We stomp to work on carbon clouds in crumbling tunnels gliding through piss. A similar sad face flashes by on the express train across the tracks It his only a smudge of features yet I am envious that I approach my doom slower with more stops in between more time to witness the cracks in the wall I can see him now because our speeds are almost relative a businessman and behind him passed out a bum sleeping off a night of wine.

Lights On JD DeHart There is a small blue car you have left your lights on and are parked on the gym side. Instant embarrassment, the chance for self-deprecating humor looming. When we arrive, it is only a toy auto complete with a wind-up feature.

I Am Necrotic A.J. Huffman tissue, refusing to breathe. I am rotting in place, becoming useless piece of skin, hanging on for nothing. I am spreading, contaminating daily. I am killing as I am dying, waiting for salvation, the quick cutting decision of amputation’s knife.

A Prophet covered in Blood A.J. Huffman Take these wings. I detest their curse. I am condemned to spread. Such an archaic weapon, this child's toy, tortured by an adult's spite – mostly mine for I am its latest master, your newest god, and you are my fool, wearing red to hold my attention. You Make it easier for me to see my rage reflected through your eyes, so believing – unlike mine, all emptiness and crying to be filled. All I have left to offer is agony. It will do. It will soothe my mind. At least for tonight my job will be done. © This work is the property of the individual authors within.

Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805

June 2014

Issue #012

Journey dan von der embse

Black-Hole Minotaur Brad Baker

The push of youth gives way to the pull of old age its gravitational field weighing upon each step in a struggle to stay upright I look at myself in the mirror to see what is there: a worn piece of shoe leather that has become my face the lines telling of a journey taken without a map the worn eyes that have gazed upon too much There is less acuity of senses now less feeling in the hands and legs but some things are felt more like the cold which even on a summer day leaves me with a chill I imagine to be death's coming attraction Emotions grow less sudden but more deep put away except for special occasions to be brought out for the young to behold in wonder that something so old could feel at all I am being pulled a little faster each day every moment racing toward the horizon only a matter of time till we get there might as well enjoy the ride

It hovers in the center of the cosmic labyrinth, the end of the inevitable and fundamental funnel, shrieking soft and melodious odious dirges to its hunger, licking its lips which taste of shredded threads of light, shaking the body of the girl who sees it, her eyes widening, spinning, turning into themselves, pupils red-shifting the rays they exude, stratiating the world and pulling it into itself, until there's nothing but the steamy breath, the keratin data spikes, and the sense of 'something once was here'.

The Wonder Years Ernest Keiper

Glass Tongue JD DeHart The mouth speaks what the brain cannot, the rows of glistening idols arranged like penitents around the pink movement of transparent syllabication. A little saliva acts as salve, makes all the difference – the mouth has healing properties even the hands do not. A mother licks the thread of unruly hair, the canine cleans its tattered paws. Of course, if the bit of flesh were glass, glossolalia would arrive with a clink while songs and poems would chime.

Shadows from the trolley chug across an old drunk's face. He only has one good eye and talks to himself as the lights rattle. The bartender pours him his beer from a bottle and feels bad taking his tip.

Old Birttany Banks Old men sit in chairs in rooms where they don’t belong because they just don’t give a shit where they sit anymore.

Young people slither by with their eyes, too damn conceited to care. © This work is the property of the individual authors within.

Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805

June 2014

Issue #012

Ein Paris/The Tyrants Return Benjamin Welton

And then I saw it: Insectopia. Kathrine Yets

The spirit of the age was not Napoleon upon a horse but a plump joy girl in a Parisian bordello.

Ants

Her distended belly ate the city and a million German students, too. American men from Nebraska came and went, leaving wet, misspent thoughts on the carpet. They never returned to collect like the bearded Algerians, nor did they write that song for the southern Seine soirée. But Cole Porter's Boston beans did it, and she did too with an ein Paris between and history behind. Doom used to be waiting across the sea, but now the undead dwarf Abbartach! comes dressed in unlight across invisible sound waves that beam Bradbury-like into that space that Dad said was between my ears. The tyrant is not dead these brain-jars say, and now we must find a way to kill it again with nonviolence the spirit of '89! But it's so tiring trying to put the cannon and the eggs back together again. Can't we, she says, go silent and green like mother's graveyard.

Sometimes our dreams are covered in shit Or we find shit in our dreams But we find happiness Over the checkered picnic clothe Nonetheless. Let us be cheesy; Let us smother the moment in cheese. Everything has been so morbid as of late And I just want you to know There is shit everywhere, There is shit on the walls, But despite this fact, We should love. Despite the “shit happens” catch-phrase On the tip of every tongue Somewhere south And north, where homeless hold up Truths on cardboard posters*, And the Blues singers and midnight nurses take a break, We should appreciate the sidewalk and street lamps After drinking margaritas on Main Street—you know, Them simple things. There is shit, Yes, a whole lot of it: on the screen of every Smartphone, in the Victoria’s Secret changing room, Down a ways from Buffalo Wild Wings’ parking lot, Everywhere. Forget your cup of tea idea Of what exactly it is to step into your dream Because, honey, this shit is real.

Thaw Brittany Banks dipping my brain into molten knowledge, emulsifying the crisp pink folds in an amber sap of books we used to read together

Shouldn't we, she says, just learn to live with the tyrant's return?

Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805

June 2014

Issue #012

90’s Goth Chicks Jeremy Ritch

Consider Cobwebs Brittany Banks

In high school I loved girls who drew pictures of dead cats The goth chicks who listened to the cure and were into the occult They hated me The only time they talked to me is when they needed weed or a pen Each of them had a piece of my stupid broken heart Their fishnets were so terrifyingly erotic My fear kept me at bay, as I was too scared they would ridicule me I was enamored with their beautiful hatred of nearly everything Such angelic pasty white vixens of depression We took art classes together but they would never talk just glare at me I tried to be funny but these chicks only found humor in the irony of death Morrissey was the only man they would fuck And they rather have drank his blood I was even a punk skater kid but that was not dangerous enough They wanted to date a ghost or a fucking corpse They never dated other goth guys but who really would? They dated skinheads and college professors I just dreamed of them and went out with girls who wanted to piss off their folks That was okay It wasn’t bad I just wanted those dark bitches to draw me a dead cat I even made out with one of them at a PJ Harvey concert The girl told me she made papier-mâché severed heads of various woodland creatures We French kissed in the balcony of the theater She told me she wanted to stab my eyes and that I was cute The she wrote me a note a week later telling me that she hated me Early 90’s Goth chicks ruled so hard

strolling with a divining rod in some snap finger tableau

Slug Love Sophronia Knott Slugs make love and look like vulvas. Perhaps having sex is purer that way.

lend me life, offer some route i promise i will kiss the bloated earth in silence i will taunt the hubble and every ball of gas, saying seep your heavy oil threaten my notochord come to me with gifts living on the farthest strand of the cobweb will never make you any less allied with the center unfurling the web you think you can untangle the maker won't consume you if my cup fills with oil i will float i think, dripping

The Last Dance Tabor Flickinger Take my hand in your crooked claw I’ll guide your hips In a slow motion pirouette Bread crumbs grace your gown Tonight. Gaudy bangles Declare your allergies as We shuffle on the moonlit stage Your milky eyes gaze past Me to the window, where the stars Applaud your new steps

Anthropomorphism, Misdirected. Bodily fluids, messy. Best if left natural. © This work is the property of the individual authors within.

Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805

June 2014

Issue #012

The Rash That Became a Boy JD DeHart Epidermis surface with small bubbles – nothing really, just a blemish. Two days later, it was a full epidemic spread up the arm, across the shoulders, down the back; the doctor has no idea. Two more days later, and I name it Henry. I ask it what it will be when it grows up. A politician, the rash answers, I will spread farther until they all know my title. My ideas make small red dots, Henry says. By the weekend, Henry has left me. Sometimes I see campaign commercials. I disagree with Henry’s politics even though he came from my very self. They grow up so fast, and they are so much like us, and yet not at all our image.

Unrequited Love for the Boy Millicent Allen In the wake of the day, He found me there. In the withered grass, My hair free and loose. The sun was gleaming Down on us. Two people striving to love, But I couldn’t give my all to him. He was just a boy, Immature and afraid. I tried to love him But I couldn’t.

Hyde and Jekyll Sophronia Knott Jekyll, The Vagina. Hyde, The Penis, Or Perhaps, The reverse Is true. If Hyde, The Vagina, And Jekyll, The Penis, What, Pray tell, Is woman?

He asked me why, I told him why. He knew so little Of my dreams and my passions. He could never have understood the depths of my thinking. I understand though; He was just a boy. He thought I was going to be his bride. I think he was quite smitten with me, Or the idea of me. I would have married him, But you can’t marry a boy.

Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805

June 2014

Issue #012

talking intellectual freedom with a bare assed girl John Grochalski before i can get a word out there’s a picture of her bare ass on my work computer screen she says it’s for her boyfriend he’s been in prison for a year he’s been missing this, she says and i can obviously see why

and the close-up shot of her mugging for the camera all in full page black and white do you think that’ll hold him off until he gets out? i ask i hope, she says he’s out in twenty-five days one can only imagine what he’s going to do to that bare ass once he’s back on the outside

…but mam, is all i can get out

when i give the photo prints to her she smiles and folds them up into an envelope like the dutiful girlfriend

what? she says i’m not embarrassed by it

he’s really going to love these, she says

it’s not that, i tell her this can get me in deep shit here

then she frowns are you sure you can’t print that picture of my bare ass?

i thought you were printing out a resume, i say as much as i’d love to, i tell her i still am, she tells me as the two of us stare at her bare ass it’s one of those self-pictures fresh out of the shower the side of her face and her toned back then down to her wonderfully youthful ass if i were her and her age i probably wouldn’t be embarrassed either

i think i understand now, she says then you understand america, i tell her she shrugs and walks away licking the envelope the cloth covering her rear end a mere formality between us now

i’d walk around brooklyn naked on sundays i can’t print that for you, i tell her she still doesn’t understand why not but she minimizes the photo much to the chagrin of the teen boy who’d been standing behind us the whole time you’re just scared, she says tell you what i’ll print the other pictures for you, i say we get the one of her in her tight burgundy mini

the two of us having forgotten all about that resume of hers.

Eat Well Sophronia Knott You, Panzer man, You, Plato man, you Rectum thrusting hussies, Knowledge hogging whores Dehumanizing Herr Thus cannibal consuming Me © This work is the property of the individual authors within.

the one of her in a puerto rican flag bikini

Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805

June 2014

Issue #012

and i thought they only made these in America John Grochalski he looks like an ape sitting there in the liverpool hotel dining room with his shaved head, pug nose and overly muscled body he takes up half the table and half the room hunched over his breakfast as if daring someone to steal it everything is piled into a large greasy mound on his plate the eggs, the bacon, the tomatoes, the sausage the mushrooms and baked beans a traditional english breakfast for sure he’s using a spoon and holding it in a clutched fist like a child would do he keeps farting and huffing in his scent while he eats his girlfriend sits down from the buffet to join him she’s his polar opposite beautiful with a head of blonde hair brushing her shoulders refinement the whole way around she has all of her food in neat little compartments fruit and toast with jam hot tea, and a bowl of corn flakes waiting for some milk he greets her by burping into her face and then diving back into his food she sits there glaring at him for a moment then says, can’t you be proper? he stops shoving the food in after that looks at her for too long a moment then says something slow and deliberate that i cannot hear before he gets up from the table and storms out of the room smacking into food trays and tables the proverbial bull in a china shop while she follows after him sullenly nary a bite of toast taken and a cup of lady grey waiting for its first sip

Burning Romance Jordyn Tobias The blood Drips like water from a wilting rose Down across his face. Over those perfect lips Those lips, they had done much: Love, Kiss, whisper sweet nothings. Lied, Scorned, Cheated on the most important of things Whimper, Beg. Gape open with all but a breath. The gun, Lays at her feet. The black mark Of the crime Is it a crime When actions are fueled by flaming Passion? She wakes the stars are still out dancing The warmth from The imprint left Next to her on the bed, Burns at her side The love Not yet extinguished But still a wick, Barely burning on.

All artwork for this issue has been provided by Ben Mohr