The Courant FALL 2014
the
Courant
fall 2O14
"You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in a drop." - Rumi
THE COURANT 2014-2015 Board
Tyler Tsay & Alex Westfall Editors-in-Chief
Arts Editors
Lincoln Herrington Olivia Berkey Lara Danovitch
Fiction Editors
Poetry Editors
Claire McDonnell Samantha Lin Teddy Lasry Grace Tully
Alessandra Allen Alex Leibowitz Chaya Holch
Marketing
Jack Lane Jack Lawlor Ali Hill Zoe Sottile Sloane Sambuco Frances Yackel
Faculty Advisor
Kevin O’Connor
Layout & Design Phoebe Gould Sara Luzuriaga
Table of Contents Karissa Kang
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Emma Kaufmann-Laduc
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Lauren Luo
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Tyler Tsay
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Sarah Eikenberry
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photo
photo
Bible Studies as a Woman
Ankle Socks
Lauren Luo photo
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Schuyler Hazard
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Sitara Rao
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Olivia Legaspi
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Eulogy
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Nostalgia
Jump the Life to Come
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Lara Danovitch
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Anonymous
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Emma Kaufmann-Laduc
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Scott McDonald
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photo set
Doormats of Eden photo
artwork
Billy Casagrande
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Tiffany Bauman
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Julia Xia
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Noah Hornik
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Anonymous
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Emma Kaufmann-Laduc
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Alex Westfall
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Alex Westfall
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Noah Hornik
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Golf Course photo
when everyone dies, there is no punchline photo
Bonkers photo photo
photo photo
Tejasv Arya
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Julia Beckwith
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Anonymous
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Katherine Wang
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Emma Kaufmann-Laduc
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Karissa Kang
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Evie Elson
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Anonymous
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Gone
photo
Four Days Later Hong Kong
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The Word of God photo
Tangled in You
In for Five, Hold for Three, and out for Five Karissa Kang
I i don’t smoke but i know what you mean when you say your lungs feel empty when they’re not filled with something more than air 5
II i’ve discovered vestiges of you, spindly and almost imperceivable, mostly in the form of 0.5 mm scrawl, everywhere, inside lamp shades, underneath tables, hiding between lines of Lolita i wonder if they were intended for me or a different lover III i wake up, the gentle buzz of your breathing suddenly missing i reach for you my hands are filled only with air
Emma Kaufmann-Laduc
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BIBLE STUDIES AS A WOMAN
TYLER TSAY
The apple is a joke: bitten through like a bride. It twists along the stem, red and exiled — a dull reminder of the female flaw. Fruit in hand, I rib into the woman I love today as we mock our mothers and the one story they tell: daughter, you were built from another. What japery: to be in debt from the start. Take the first rib I cracked— pushed by a boy at school. I was a girl and he was a boy and that was the problem.
Lauren Luo 7
The bone split eagerly like a doll made of sticks. I think: not built,
ANKLE SOCKS but broken. I let this woman slide into me. She is Eve and I am Eve and I worry about our kids, about their origins, about the stories we claim. Tell us the world isn’t still balanced on rib bones, that the word burden won’t always wear the face of a woman. Tell us we begin with no snake around our necks. Tell us before we are bitten.
Sarah Eikenberry
Your mother will tell you to pay attention, but you can only focus on picking the buttons from the cushioned pews fashioned in perfect rows facing towards the minister. She swats your hand away from the forest green bench, identical to all its brother benches. Your minister’s words float over your head in garish strings of vowels and exclamations. You know Jesus, or at least of him; okay, you’ve got the basic facts down. You know his birthday and his death, how he hung nobly on a cross for your sins and was then resurrected from the grave by our Holy Father, God. You know he’s the reason you’re here today, like every other Sunday (except today its Easter, and so your outfit is cheery and bright and meticulously picked by your mother). And you know God, too. You know that you are to thank Him before 8
every meal, and ask Him to heal your grandmother and feed the poor every night before you go to bed, even though your grandmother died last year and you are pretty sure He is not even listening. Your mother, who seems to know more about God than her husband or child, never fails to remind you of God’s preferences. You know God doesn’t like people who interrupt, or whine, or are too loud, or are stupid, or people who cheat, steal, lie. He does not like children who do not say “please” and “thank you”, or who will not share their toys (which they don’t even deserve). He does not approve of bad words, bad questions, bad girls who don’t like baths or brussels sprouts. In short, God may not like you. But you sit there, in this holy house, and listen to, are surrounded by, His sweet creations. You itch your face and your mother’s eyes flash down then back up while her head stays fixed. The minister continues his speech, pulling words from a bound leather bible and hurling their weight into the static air. His voice sails through and across the stained-glass portraits and settles in the crevices 9
of every ornate gold statue, flower, and leaf that covers the alter. The painted figures that fill the vast mural on the church’s ceiling inhale his verses like addicts fresh out from jail. God does not like the greedy, he wants it all for himself. As the service comes to a close, you scoot forward on your seat, ready to escape. Your bottom rubs against the run-down velvet fabric of the pew and makes a meek noise that your mother scares away with a small black look. Only after your mother and father stand do you follow them into the church’s newly renovated basement, where cookies and refreshments are served. It teems with up-tight lemon yellow mothers and dark-suited, emotionally-unavailable fathers and their subsequent children dressed in expensive clothes bought to impress the other parents. This morning, mother told you that your skirt was almost $100, so please don’t spill on yourself, dear. The minister meanders in and out of circles, still in his robes which you’ve secretly always found pointless and confusing (if God doesn’t like when
you wear boy’s clothes, why does he let his ministers wear dresses?) saying hello, Happy easter, be well, oh you will be for the spirit of Christ is within you, God bless. Your parents stand with two other families, and you, still on the clock, stand next to them. Your mother talks with Mary Long and some lady you don’t know too well, Terry or something. They speak of an upcoming event in late april-- a carnival that, with a Crest-whitened wrinkle-free smile, “will be just wonderful with your help, Mary!” Your father makes small talk about something or other with the men of the circle, the complimentary husbands of these ladies. Your mother ignores the men save an initial hello, and your father does not speak to Mrs. Long or the other lady. They do not speak to each other, either. You stand next to your mother and to Terry-or-something’s daughter, a girl slightly younger with glasses and a gap in her front teeth, bound in a white tulle dress that was almost-certainly overpriced. The two of you do not speak, and using your parents as an example, you do not speak to
the two Long boys also chained to the circle. You four silently focus on the easter-egg shaped sugar cookies, examining the crumbliness or chewiness. You tap your mother’s arm to ask if you may have another, but she responds with a finger in your face: not now. By the time your silver sedan pulls into your oversized pebbled driveway, you’ve seen enough smiles and hidden tensions for the entire week. You’ve heard one too many, “oh, how darling you look!”s and said one too few “thank you’s (“you thank your way into Heaven, and say please at the pearly gates”, as your mother is quick to remind you). At dinner, there is lamb, and you poke at your mother’s attempt of being a perfect housewife; only after you say grace of course, holding hands with your parents who are just a little too far away for your arms to comfortably reach. Your father focuses on the meat while your mother gossips about the ladies. “Mary could not stop talking about the Spring Carnival, but my goodness, I was too distracted by Trish’s blouse to even listen! 10
Completely inappropriate. Why come to church, if you are just going to prove you don’t belong.” She finishes her glass of red wine while your father doesn’t reply. She continues as if he had responded, like he is really listening, while you munch on your potatoes. “I don’t know, I just feel the church should not be subjected to her obvious lack of self-respect. I mean, there are children around, and she dresses as if she wants to ruin every marriage in the room. Honey?” Your father grunts, agreement implied. She stops the conversation there, and stands up to get some more wine. He is aware of her absence and your smaller presence. He looks up at you to see your eyes staring back. You have the same eyes. He swallows his meal and dives into his martini to find something to say to you, but he is too late and your mother is back with a too-full glass and a quip about Karen’s hair, which your father once again ignores. Back in your room, you strip off the soft knee-length pleated skirt and complimenting sweater set and throw them on your carpeted floor. 11
You are naked, in a pair of cotton underwear. In front of the mirror, you stare back into your reflection for no reason but that it does not reply to your thoughts; you do not have to smile back when it looks at you. You stare at your stomach, waistless. Your eyes float up to your nipples, symmetrical and almost completely empty. Your mother tells you, “you’re beginning!” but you have no idea what you are beginning, and where the end is. You have yet to see anything but a welt under each pink dot. If you turn slightly, you can see the glimpse of your ribs under skin. The end, you suppose, is growing a full set of breasts, but that finish line hardly seems worthy to cross; your mother doesn’t have to say what she believes for you to know that “sluts” (you thought she was actually saying slug until a boy in your class clarified last year) are the only ones who show off their breasts. You think of Trish, and her top today. And you think of your mother and her blouse buttoned to the very top; how she is determined to end whatever it is you’re beginning. And you throw on a t-shirt and open your sock drawer
to pull out two pairs of white cotton ankle socks. You wad each pair into a lumpy ball and stuff them down into your shirt where you think boobs should be. They falter slightly, the left one angled towards your armpit and you cup your hands around them and adjust, feeling their scratchy threads latch onto your skin. You turn to the side, your silhouette now completely altered, like an earthquake just pushed your ribs up into the shape of a new woman. You walk toward your mirror, and away from it, across your carpet, to your bed, looking at your new physique in action. And something in you stirs. Something new, something better, like a different person with your white cotton breasts in your creamy pink shirt. You suppose you feel like a slut, whatever that may mean, complete with a fiery head rush that sweeps across your ribcage and between your legs. And yet there is something disquieting about this act of shoving socks up your shirt: you feel an unease that quickly turns into shame. You do not need your mothers voice to tell you that God does
not like what you’re doing. But you do not take the socks out, you hold onto your tits for a little longer, examining them with your small hands, pushing them around and over your soft flat skin. You feel perverse, an unnatural and twisted mudslide flooding your intestines-- but you do not run for higher ground. Easter is over and you are back to your routine of school, come home to your mother and your prepared after-school snack of carrots or red peppers. She asks, but does not listen, about your day, and you tell her mindless stories of what you learned about a salmon’s breeding patterns in science class. She then directs you to the dining table, where she watches you as you do your fifth-grade homework. She corrects you before you make the division error, and takes white-out even to your erasures. She will not blink until your work, which only your teacher may see, is adequate enough to be associated with her blood and name. Only then are you excused to play before supper time, and you bound up your stairs into your room. 12
Now, you do not play with your expensive dolls and their various historical dresses. Ignoring them, you go straight to the sock drawer, muster up your thickest pair of wool socks to ball up again and stick them under your cardigan. The buttons at your chest now pull from the fabric; the bigger, the better. You strut around and stare at yourself in the mirror, inspecting the feeling that still rushes upon you. Your mother always told you, that even if she doesn’t see it, God will. You look up to the sky, blocked by your white ceiling. You wonder if He can see now, even through the attic and all the paint and wood and plaster. But do not bother to ask Him; you’ve learned by now that He will not respond to you because He chooses when to speak and He apparently only speaks to your mother. You are ashamed of yourself for your own actions—but you do not stop. You recount the seven deadly sins which have been drilled into your conscience, but cannot find them in your activity. Regardless, you cannot scare away this guilty feeling that makes you feel sick and abnormal. You look to your dolls, 13
flat chested and straight and stuffed with heavy fabric stories. You begin stuffing their dresses with their own little socks, imagining stories in which the size of the chest changes everything; the imaginary boy doll chooses the bad girl because of her knee-high, wool-sock breasts. You have no experience with this, but it seems to be a trend that is inherent. Your mother tells you, after six glasses of wine, that it is easy to spot the bad in God’s eye; they were given a large, D-cup marking of sin right on their chest. Thats why women like Trish are going to Hell (she does not tell you the real reason she hates Trish, but once the divorce is filed you find out quickly). You still wonder, though, why these socks placed in just the wrong place bring you such new, good feelings, and why you automatically feel ashamed of them. You wonder if God likes to feel good, too. At dinner that night you want to ask, but you know God does not like girls who ask stupid questions. So you listen to the knives saw off meat loaf and the forks stab at asparagus and hit the
Lauren Luo 14
plates instead. Then you do it anyways. “Does God like to feel good?” Your parents stop eating and look up, your mother at you, your father at his liquor. “Excuse me, Honey?” your mother says. You repeat the question. There is a long pause. Your father chimes in after a minute, “Of course he does! He wants to feel good as much as the next guy, wants to feel the pleasures of life that He deserves. Its just hard when there are so many obstacles and engagements for Him. Lots of people stop Him from feeling good.” Your mother looks up at him. You regret the question immediately when you see how her eyes burn into your father’s. “But God is not selfish, and doesn’t put His happiness above all else. He knows the rules and knows that some so-called pleasures are forbidden, though they may seem nice. He has responsibilities,” She looks back to you, and onto your plate, “And if you really want to make God happy, you will take your elbows off the table, and remember that God does not like when you talk 15
with your mouth full.” It is then you begin to realize that God looks a lot like a suburban housewife with highlighted roots and a tight, toned body. He does not like large chests because he wants one for Himself. He does not like girls who ask stupid questions because He does not have the answers, and He does not like good feelings because He can no longer give them. Over dessert, your father complains about his work, and your mother asks if he likes his pie, to which he demands, “Do you even listen to what I say?”
Eulogy Schuyler Hazard
I have a tattoo on a Hidden bit. I wanted someone To know that before I Die. I had a binge drinking Problem too. (Don’t put that in The program though) I love the beach at night. And the feeling of purging Too.
Snowflakes melting on my Nose, the tug of someone Pulling My hair, chapped lips Meeting yours, I loved It all.
And all those things That make my life – Worthy of the program Or not – I worshipped them all.
I want you all to know How I feel when I roll down My window. When I scream from My soul and hate It all.
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Sitara Rao
Nostalgia Olivia Legaspi Tuesday. Lonely. Was it? “Table for two.” “You have such lovely eyes.” And how often do
you really look back? Wisteria and apple pie, vodka swimming pools and happiness beneath our feet. You cradled me like I needed you or anything at all; the dirt below your fingernails reminded me I am dead. Silhouettes against the evening sky have never been anything but plain dark hate. Do you know what you’ve done to me? “Love is a beautiful thing.” Choke on it. Don’t cry. Look. Stare.
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Jump the Life to Come Thomas Earl McGraw Around and around the ring you cling To the reins. Your horse sniffs the forest air; Something deep and dark whispers him on To match the blood of his father’s father: That if he could run fast enough and free, Alone atop a hill, the wind would play His mane a riffling anthem of liberty, The rippling fields a flag of sweetening green! But something else answers, his neck is bowed To the bit and lead, and he hears voices Calling a numbing cadence of order. Humbled, he measures his pace, and gathers A strength stronger than ten fathers’ father’s 19
Wild freedom: for in the saddle A girl coils, is poised, gathering hope And steeling her nerves for the jump to come… And the sweet weight we carry seems to light At night, in the stall, and we wish it back. But the jumps in the ring are hers, not ours. She has harnessed under her sweet strong hands Some unknown ancient brute blood of air: In the quickening pace, she gathers herself… He feels the love of her weight, and prays With her always to jump that life to come.
Lara Danovitch
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Doormats of Eden Pecola
Anonymous
My parents were teenagers in the heat of the of the 1960s Negro Defiance. They married young in a fit of rebellion, against all warning that they’d have tar for children, they married. Against all advice to marry lighter, marry better, they found ‘love’ in one another. Forgot for a split second that ‘love’ don’t exist for black. We are a nation of lost fathers and broken single mothers, there’s no room for ‘love’ in this cycle. ‘Love’ is pure, ‘love’ is white, ‘love’ is fair. Where in the hell have you heard of ‘black love?’ We don’t even get to hold hands in the streets, but my parents forgot that, and so now they have tar for children. Skin so black and slick it’s surprising it can sustain any life form. Ain’t enough scrubbing in this world to get the black off you. 21
All hard fist, loud voice, black boots fighting Negros my parents followed the Black Panthers, a harsh group of brute black animals that killed white people and hung their precious lily white skin on trees like strange fruit. My parents and people like them are the reason Eden exist, why we can’t cross the Mason-Dixon Line into paradise. And now they want me to stay, in this ghetto, this hellhole of a life. After Klan put down the biggest figurehead Negro of the movement, Martin Luther King Jr., Klan put down the rest of the movement. The Klan could never see blacks and whites as equals again so they separated us. It has been the same since 1973. The Klan is cautious with us Negroes now, but it’s okay. We live in the generation of the new black. We don’t blame our problems on other races now. We can fix it, the Klan fixes us if we pass the Test and they let us live in Eden among all the other white angels. We can be fixed. After the child passes the test the Klan exterminates remaining parents left in the ghetto
that never passed the test in their age. If the child chooses to stay, the family is exempted until the next generation makes their choice. My parents want me to stay, when the Klan can fix me. When they can get this black off of me, like adding milk to coffee. I get to be sweet for once, to be heavenly, worthy, fair and I’m supposed to give that up to save their black asses from something they’ve created. What am I supposed to choose? My salvation or my burden, this empty legacy of shackles I am to carry on. I’d be grateful for more.
Moesha Upon birth the doctors warned her against naming me so, it was too coarse for their likings, too ghetto and uncouth. But being the queen of all things rebel Mother named me Moesha. She said I was drawn from the water. She could’ve named me anything, anything at all. I could’ve been a Kelly, a Sally, a Rebecca, a Molly would’ve been so much sweeter. But she gave me Moesha
and it doesn’t taste as easy or as sweet as a Molly. A Moesha tastes like Charlie in kindergarten calling me dirty, disgusting because Moesha doesn’t fit right. It’s a black name and black just doesn’t fit right. Everyone calls me Mo now, Mo sounds closer to Molly. One more month before I’m eighteen. I’m going to the correcting center in Virginia and the Klan is going to fix me. It’s almost surreal because I’ve spent years trying to fix me. I’ve used only the best skin lightening creams out there. Mother says they’re a waste, but I can almost pass the paper bag test. My hair is straight, not a single piece out of place. I know enough but not too much. I know how to walk with my head down. I know how to speak respectfully and only when spoken to. I have stayed within my bounds. I have been tamed. I am almost there. I am almost good enough. I am almost Molly. And the Klan is going to fix me and then they’ll let me walk through those pearly white gates into Eden. I will be beautiful. Mother never passed the tests, she 22
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Emma Kaufmann-Laduc
was never named beautiful, but I will. I will be beautiful. I will be worthy. I will be fair. Mother always walks with her head held up high. She knows too much and never hesitates to prove so. Her skin looks like chocolate. Chocolate bad, chocolate makes you round in all the wrong ways. She can’t be tamed, she says don’t take the nature out of her. She calls her nature beauty, but how can something so uncouth be beautiful. It doesn’t fit right, too many curves, too much kink, it is not beautiful. It is wild and wild doesn’t belong in Eden. It’s not fair. I had to teach myself what fair is. I bought my own relaxers, my own lightening creams. I’ve prayed every night since I was six to be fair. Let me be beautiful. Let me be worth saving. Let me be someone’s miracle. Let me be good enough. Fix me. Make me right. Make me acceptable. Make me fair. Make me fair. Make me fair. Make me fair. Make me fair. Makemefair. Makemefair. Makemefair. Makemefair. Makemefair. Makemefair. Makemefairmakeme-
fairmakemefairmakeitfairmakemefairmakemefairmakemefair. Someone, anyone, make me fair. She said I was drawn from the water, an ocean in skin. I guess she’s never known an ocean to be tamed.
Elijah I never had a father to teach me what makes a man. I’ve wandered so far gone within myself to the darkest of places I never thought I could’ve came back from. In this journey I still ask what’s in man. Is it all just masks and closed fists? Is it looking for yourself in other’s validation and lies you tell yourself ? Is it all just anger, the only emotion you are allowed to feel and show? In the deepest crevices a man will you find his closet? The only skeleton you find in it is his own snatched away to make him spineless and moldable into everything he is told he’s supposed to be. Will you find him cowered in the corner afraid of his own desires? All I’m certain of is a man is to only want 24
a woman. A man does not let himself wonder what it’s like to spend the night in the arms of another man exploring the Picasso of their body from neck to the curve of their back. A man does not wonder what it is like to be raw with another man, baring your soul, telling the tale of each scar. A man should can only want a woman’s touch and there is no question of that. They never explained in Man 101 what makes a man. They told us it is leadership. They never told me what to do when the music of my heart is not enough to keep me going. They never told me what to do when every part of me reeks of shame. They never told me what to do when all I’ve felt since I’ve known what to feel is anger. I am angry. My writing this letter makes me angry because I know in the end my voice doesn’t matter. I am nothing more than what the Klan system makes of me. I am a slave to their alchemy. Under them I am no King, there is no such thing as black boy beautiful. Under them, I 25
am a flaw, grime underneath their whiteness. Under them I am Frankenstein waiting to be corrected. The Klan take out the melanin, the culture, the black out of you, and they call that beauty. But how can something so empty and hollow, washed clean of all that is right be beauty? You don’t take the light out of stars and call that beauty, because their supernova light is what makes them beautiful. You can’t whitewash a whole history of rhythm, of grace, of survival and revival and call it beautiful. There is no beauty in something that has been bent backwards into submission. There is no beauty in being broken down. There is no beauty in loss of history and meaning. Their Eden is no paradise for black people. It’d be naïve to think the troubles end there. The test of Eden is “How much do you hate your black? Do you hate it as much as we do and will you serve under us yet again?” There is no rest in this ‘afterlife.’ I am angry that there will never be a paradise for me to call my own.
Scott McDonald
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Golf Course
Billy Casagrande
Oh Golf Course, You greet me everyday with a stone cold hand shake Even on the hottest day of the summer. A double here, a triple there, Oof, that’s a bummer. Oh Golf Course, You, in all of your glory, When gale force winds batter you incessantly, And your trees are about to be toppled Like a toddler playing with broccoli, Redirect this power at your old friend Billy.
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Oh Golf Course, How, I ask, can I never defeat you? You are a punching bag. You take every drive, every chip, every putt, Every determination, And toss it aside without a second of lag. Oh Golf Course, We’ve been doing this a while now, How about we head to the 19th hole, Accept your applause, Take your bow. Don’t worry, Golf Course, I’ll be back tomorrow.
Tiffany Bauman 28
when everyone dies, there is no punchline Julia Xia
two fish walk into a bar
(there is a big fish in the tank.)
(it is so very old that its thoughts are too heavy to be sent in words, so it sends images instead.) said the little fish to the big fish, “why may we not leave this place?” said the big fish to the little fish, glass over air over water
fine bubbles out of a filtration tank, rough muffled barks of shadowed figures beyond little fish that jump halts, brittle branch-bones snapping, falls in a mist of scarlet said the little fish to the big fish, “do big fish fall too?” little fish morphs into big fish: shrinks, expands
big fish that jump halts, brittle branch-bones snapping, falls in a mist of scarlet
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the little fish swims in little circles, like a clock, like a wild trapped animal. the motion disturbs the plants, waves them, whispers to the other fish do not come near for there is danger here said the little fish to the big fish, “will i ever be able to leave?”
little fish carcass on moss-covered ground, clouded, branch-bones unhidden under half-gone scales net-spoon reaches down, holds little fish carcass, lifts it past water past air past glass not there the plants writhe.
said the little fish to the big fish, “why are we here?”
said the big fish to the little fish, “there is nowhere else to be.”
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Noah Hornik
Bonkers
Our grins curl high – someone’s bonkers! A clown goofs off in that aisle ahead, Wheezing just like us before!
Anonymous
Am I squinting now, good friends?
We romp down drugstore aisles at dusk And giggle giddy jester cries.
The ground jolts dull with a deep thud.
Cheetos, Milky Way, or Gushers,
A woman weeps, “Call 911!”
Fruity Chewies, decision making, lack thereof,
My friend upstairs snaps back from faded cloud.
Which of these to choose?
As red, blue lights flash bright outside. Why’s that ambulance still here?
Generations of human progress At our silly willy fingertips.
The baby shrieks, a radio chats;
Homo Sapiens Sapiens used to drop dead for meals, Paranoia dwells upon my mind. But hey there my good friend of mine, Why’s my mouth so dry tonight?
A ghoulish groan croaks out of sight.
Should we leave? Repent? Blame Chance and end our holy sacraments?
We, pilgrims of this bonkers creed,
Chose the Cheetos, my good friends. 32
DOUBLE VISION
Photos by Emma Kaufmann-Laduc, Alex Westfall and Noah Hornik
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Gone Tejasv Arya my memory of you is tarnished by the overly plush couch in his office when he tells me he understands and that things move on and don’t burn but there is an animosity for leaving me after 15 years of nurture only 2 months after your husband left me talking to you on the phone everyday about nothing yet words were cushion because you stayed steady even after his office told you that you have 6 months left to say your final goodbyes, but here I stand a stick of fire in my hand and people at my back comforting and trying to take your place as the prana shifts and 35
orange erupts with nothing left except 60 unused minutes a month and trembling lips in his office but this couch will have to make do because somehow, even with the bullshit that spews from his mouth, this is the only place that reminds me of you stil.
Julia Beckwith
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4 Days Later Anonymous
Because there is someone we can’t laugh with any-
Look down to the front of the church,
Because all we have are blue bits, and there are no
Past the silhouetted shoulders, And the music in minor.
Look at the Woman in The First Pew With her Son’s arm around her.
Watch as she uncontrollably tremors,
But please don’t watch for too long… You know she is crying,
But couldn’t she just as easily be laughing? Crying is the bleak blue bit of something sweet, A yellow sunflower, a green summer’s day, But right now, 37
We cry, more.
sunflowers around here.
We are presented with times like this, however,
Times when we feel the most oppressing emptiness, To realize just how easy it is to laugh, and how much there is to laugh about. So easy, in fact,
That it already looks like we’re laughing when we’re crying.
You just have to look from behind.
Hong Kong
resonating vowels thrilling the wind. smoke perfumes his eyes
Katherine Wang
skin leathered
a string of ions holds us loosely;
the world walks on and
we are perilous in this black grayness
I.
he still treats his fruits like
where a thousand rebels pore the
gold
endless horizon.
(arrival)
the low clouds tickling the peaks of soft mountains
III. the lights on the buildings glittered
(I cannot sleep)
at midnight the birds were chirping.
yellow onyx, black gold, white silver
on the blue gravel lies the impatient headlights of crying cars
maybe I was delusional
I swallow time like medicine, over
just new york city with a backdrop
but above the thin patina of night,
dosing on the saccharine liquor
of navy mountains
birdsongs rained down on us. the deep light is stroked by wander
sticky foreheads and wet tongues
even in grand languor there is the
ing eyes
inevitable quivering;
(even in the dead hours of night,
a lost voice,
nothing is dead)
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Emma Kaufmann-Laduc
The Word of God Karissa Kang
Do not practice homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman. It is a detestable sin. But if we love one another, God dwelleth in us. A man’s heart deviseth his way: I am not ashamed. Are you? Because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Your love for me is wonderful, more wonderful than that of women. Stay here with me and walk in love. Let us go early to the vineyards to see if the vines have budded, if their blossoms have opened, and if the pomegranates are in bloom-- there I will give you my love. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed. I will never leave thee. There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain. There is no fear in love.
Seasons and days and years. Why does your face look so sad? I love you. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together. Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your mind? Do not be afraid. Perfect love drives out fear. Where are you? Why are you acting this way? How can I say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me? Come home with me and have something to eat. I want you. I love you. But the fighting grew fierce. “You hate me!” “I tell you the truth; I don’t know you!” “You don’t really love me!” You know that I love you. For so long, we have endured much ridicule 40
from the proud, much contempt from the arrogant. You lived in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief. I have loved you with an everlasting love. You don’t have to stay any longer; I don’t need you. You love those who hate you and hate those who love you. I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears. If I love you more will you love me less? You have forsaken your first love. But because I love you, I make a request: Remember your God loves you. He loves me. And that you have loved me. And I loved you. 41
Evie Elson
Tangled in You Anonymous
So you fill me up
So you decorate my skin
And so I grew up
With your sharpest words
With blue
Tangled in blue
And your sweetest sighs
Bruises
I grew up
And my deepest cries
And kiss my wrists
Strangled in you
You fill me up
With burning lips
You soak my pores
With regret
And hug my hips
and stroke my hair
That tastes like vodka.
With unfaithful hands.
You tell me
And nostalgia
Dearest, life is unfair.
That tastes like his skin.
I don’t think I will ever Understand
You tell me I’m beautiful
You tell me I’m beautiful How to please you, Blue.
But empty.
But so plain.
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