Aberration Labyrinth
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
September 2014
Issue #013
A Note From The Editors: Hey Folks, We’d like to let everyone know that AL will be a quarterly publication moving forward. Response time has slowed a bit due to the volume of submissions. So, we’ve decided to move in this new and exciting direction. -AL
Playing Sophie’s Choice Rebecca Dalise First I or you tender the inevitable question: But really, if you had to… Then we laugh the laugh of the un-amused, we three, my mother always playing the mother. The two of us playing either the chosen or the other. Sometimes I am the one saved, taken like a death flower into death’s kindred hands for a moment until she snatches me back from earth’s underside. Sometimes, my luck runs out and I face the ashes of my fate—the ugly girl who forgot to put on her lip gloss and hipster panties, the girl who is almost all boy inside and forgets she can’t lay so close to other girls when the lights turn off. In this version my mother always changes her mind. She drops my hand and calls back to you, the older daughter who is all perfectly girl, even after you have walked around the bend of the never forgotten. In an instant she sizes us up, lays our paths out before her like a soothsayer, and sucks in the air of her mistake.
The Shade I Prefer S Fitts I don’t want you to look like a tart I think you look best in the morning Hair matted and wild and your stomach Tight from the night’s fast So the clothes you wear will always Be irrelevant to me And the shade of lipstick I prefer Is none
Kate Was Right S Fitts Kate was right – I am a misogynist. I only tolerate women Who think like men Who guard their vulnerability As if it were shameful Who drink and laugh When they puke, if they do Who never talk about clothes But are impeccably dressed Because I like women to look Like ladies No different from your grandfather Hoarding a mistress Just like you
The Train Conductor Sam Cho
When the train of thought, the Ivory express due north of the hippocampus at Eight in the afternoon sharp with passengers of self-driven content and a speed higher than them, crashes, the only careless casualty is the cursed train conductor. But– as though the life of the Sun depended upon it, the tame circle taught to bite, even he lives to crash yet another train again. The end of the Sun is when the graves of the trains over flow. But the end of the circle is in its center.
© This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
September 2014
Issue #013
Disorder Disorder Andrew Romanelli I want to marry a woman; Much older, like— death bed old and— ensure her children— get not a dime and I’ll— donate it all to charity. Because— fuck them! With money in my pocket I— want to steal a twelve pack. Distribute it amongst— the underaged misfits— that inhabit my neighborhood. Because— fuck laws! I want the most exclusive— house in the city in the— most exclusive neighborhood. Where I’ll set up a meth lab— and blow that bitch up. Because— fuck homeowners associations! With a legally registered gun I— want to save your life; Without thanks. Just a new perspective. Because— fuck the closed minded! Lastly, I want— AIDS to be eradicated - the— middle finger of science thrusted down— the throats of bigoted bible thumpers. Tell your God— check mate— bitch!
Ever Last Rachael Williams Red and puffy Long and skinny Running cross your flesh. Stitched together Jagged lines and gaping holes Hardly worth the pain. Invisibility masks his face Buried in my soul. Scared to rear his ugly head Scared to be rejected. He's scared of you I'm scared of him A twisted thought I laugh. Delirious yet hanging on One for momma One for sister The rest were all for you For what I did and didn't do. Barley moving, barley breathing What punishment is this? A price to pay for hurting you? Pain embedded in my soul The devils watching me. Listening to my ragged breaths Waiting, watching, wishing death Stop! I'll never last. But still I'll pay the price The punishment I must bare To see you smile yet again.
© This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
September 2014 Velvet Madhouse Francis Erdman this place is nice as these places go gourmet food at lunch designer coffee machines a meditation garden a fully equipped gym you are young and beautiful raven tresses flowing forever emerald eye pools of thought classic face high forehead indicating high IQ between classes of cognitive behavioral therapy dialectic behavioral therapy art therapy and anything else they can think of to treat my depression i think about you and wonder what if we had met in different circumstances but sometimes two people meet in the middle of a war zone and that cannot stop their love for if it did the war would have already taken everything thus they must hold on to love if even for a brief allotted moment you and i are also in a war a war for our own sanity and victory is by no means guaranteed if we make it to the other side there is nobody I'd rather share the time with but for now we are here in a velvet madhouse which conceals the uncertain future and we must make the best of things
Issue #013 Security in a Social World Celestina Waters
Three years in waiting Paperwork a mile high Reminiscing on pain put away Humiliated by disbelief Carried on the tides of the law Each little box ticked off Yes no yes no Always the trepidation Yet always the hope Soon my disabilities Will be honored as abilities Showing the world my differences Are really gifts Recognized by those in power An illness is an illness Debilitating even if not seen Here we go Into the depths of the future A single decision Making a lifetime of difference
The Fear Kurt Radke
What monster waits for me? Is this the end? Death, Sickness, Accident, or Broke, Loveless, Alone. The torment is equal, escape is the goal. My worry is omnipresent. My worry consumes me. My worry won't stop.
still, I'd rather be here with you amidst our mutual existential nausea then somewhere out there outside the pall thrown by the aching brilliance of your young yet fathomless eyes Š This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
September 2014
Issue #013
submerged sensibility Olivia Wu
Cracked Katharine Conaway
i empty myself from memories of long wet kisses dripping ephemeral tendency overwhelmed serendipitously by the varied intensity of emotionality
Marie was lithe like a lily today. She smiled and frowned in equal measure. Marie barked like a dog if it suited her. The other kids thought she was crazy. They whispered behind her back. The girl herself always giggled; they didn't know she had a knife in her knapsack.
i wash my memories clear bleaching them with prudence purer than pure Image Andrew Spence
hanging them up between excruciating dissonance and diffusing yearning drying them with a spray of sensitivity either merely unspoken or seductively undetected folding them carefully into a closet storing consciousness too delicate to be touched or illuminated if laundry is too tedious a chore there is the simple palpable option of a new lover
No Return Ralph Monday I know that you are not alone because an ill spirit blows through the house like some ghost ship, transparent to the eye, bone felt in the dust of ages where chi connects perished and the living in networks of tangled karma manifest in flesh, nerve, an unseen whirlwind drawing you like a black hole sucking you toward the event horizon, point of no return. Then the day will be lost. You cannot return to me. Sail with the thing you embraced that has only a body of flesh and bone, all else inside, a wrecked ship eaten by rats— so many holes no pitch can ever make sound.
I got an image: back button pressed against the front of my eyelids I am staring at the front of a tele-screen I am going down I am burning books and asking where I can buy a copy online I need more time to be alive I need more time for being life-less holding technology in the palm of my hand pressing the hand-warmers in my pockets against the wires there is nothing more interesting the human-genome-computerized
10 lines // 82 words Seth Cushing Self-dismember every part of your body. Examine every piece, cleanse and repair That with which you are not satisfied. And if, when you are done, anything displeases you still, Cast it away in disgust. Rebuild yourself in whatever way you find most desirable In the hope of finding a form that you can live with this time. Or maybe - don't even bother. Maybe you've decided that there's nothing worthwhile in this life And you'll leave the pieces to sit and rot.
Š This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
September 2014
Issue #013 We Can Do This Heather Boyd
The Dead Keep Secrets Morgana Kennedy The dead keep their secrets in the silent spots where they lay. I keep earth around me. My eyes, black craters. Tiny insects gorge my fascia. I am becoming the earth. You! Who walks above the shallow spot I lay, shall I tell you my secret? Dark-lit room, crimson floor, Him hunched savage. Wild eyed. A wife once fair cascaded on the floor. His hands the reaper, drenched in elated death. Fear audible, bellowed from my mouth. My legs were anchors cemented to the floor. The reaper hands ensnared my oxygen, voided my sensation. Hop-scotch, skinned knees, hands, strong, safe, hands. The dead keep their secrets in the silent spots where they lay. Oh trust me father, I won’t tell!
We can do this. Through all of the rejection all of The drowning all of the sleeping all Of the worries We can do this. Tattoos are beautiful but they begin As wounds, dogs may shit on your floor But they can also be your best friends, Tornadoes destroy your homes, but someday you’ll Have a better one. We can do this. If I break your favorite vase and your screams Make my ears bleed, if you crash your bike And break your arm, if we slam our doors in Some battle of passive aggression, if you feel Like you want to hide in the tiniest crawl space You can find. We can do this. Never underestimate how tall you can grow, How far your can run, how long we can last, How much you actually know, how far you Can stretch your arms, and most importantly How much I love you. We can do this.
Floating Out of Mind Nile Dreiling Floating out of Mind Born as one of millions, I still hold value; Purpose to those who need what I carry. Molded, stamped and filled, I keep you alive. Come time for selection, I shall be chosen. Your soft hands grasp my perfected, limber body; Lips against mine, you consume my weight. I don’t mind your greed, it pleases me. You disregard my empty figure, Toss me away where I join my brethren, I thank your blindness. Generously, I am taken To the afterlife you so easily take For granted, where many continue to consume My body. Propellers, nets, and animals Fail to destroy me; 100% recyclable, Who will ever collect 100%? I may wash ashore to visit a past life But now you’re dead and I’m still here, Everywhere.
© This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
September 2014 it’s for the swelling Rachelle Shepherd I am swelling inside myself the internal injuries sucking and invisible, immortal, buried in the soft tissues where I can hide them from abuse and speculation why are you like this? he asks me, the corners of his mouth stained milky tan by tea, his eyes wide and wet, shimmering snapshots of this situation so he can roll the film back later across his mind and check for errors
Issue #013 I try to remind him that we are both fighting to keep my bruises buried, keep the calloused core of me just beyond the margins of the photographs so they can’t pick it up later and see his fingers pulling my lips into a smile and he remembers now, he just needed the reassurance that, really, I wasn’t blaming him for the pinches and I even respected him for pulling punches when he didn’t have to, he has to remind me that he doesn’t have to do anything to stop himself if he doesn’t want, I just needed the reassurance
why am I like anything at all?
and I smile with the corners of my mouth stained milky tan by coffee and I ask myself
I might respond with a voice I don’t recognize, it’s unfamiliar cadence vaguely threatening to spill a quiver of teardrops into my coffee
why am I like this?
I don’t like uncomfortable questions and awkward reminiscences
© This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
June 2014
Issue #012
War Dylan Oliver The flick of my trigger is met with a red mist in the distance. The blood of innocent foreigners is the price of freedom. Once Upon a Broken Moon A.J. Huffman
Adrenaline courses through my veins and memories of home flash through my mind. No concern flashes in my mind for the boy I just killed.
I wished my world away, and woke to find a crack in my mind. I climbed through its shadow, hoping to discover peace, instead I uncovered pieces of a life I had erased. I laid them end to end to end, but could not find a single corner to cower in. Resigned, I placed myself among them, opened eyes and mouth and wished: once upon an absent sun. Then I held my breath and waited until I began to melt back into semi-solid semblance of whole.
This is war, after all. I have no time for guilt.
Closed Doors, Open Doors, Life Behind Walls Devin Mitchell Durbin Who you are when the doors are closed speaks volumes to the person you pretend to be when the doors are wide open and the camera’s are rolling.
The Distance James Jenson Lovell feels very far away At 12:34 AM In Boise While somewhere she is being fucked In a bed she made out of snakes And that same poison feeling creeps into my chest As the keys shake As the white vanishes Everything feels nonsensical at 12:34 AM very far away from Lovell As I write a poem I won’t show her As the night becomes morning Slowly
© This work is the property of the individual authors within.
All artwork for this issue has been provided by Ben Mohr