Archarios Magazine 2022

Archarios Archarios Archarios Archarios Archarios Archarios Literary Art Magazine

2022

Contents Table of

Best in Show

1st Place - Growing Pains 2nd Place - Rocio de Abril 3rd Place - Unknown

1 3 4

1st Place - Love in the Time of Cholera 2nd Place - Ain’t I A Sestina?

3rd Place - Silence of the Concrete

5 7 8

Artwork

Fall Broken Blows Her Untamed Hair Devour the Maggots Myrtle Beach Gekkeikan Redesign Triangulation Inez Painting Aiolos Existence Wasted Times Self Portrait Fool’s Game Spark Self Portrait Cynophobia Quarantine Skateboard The Reality of Healing Leftovers On the Edge Sake Winter’s Invitation Sugar Free Inversion

10 12 15 17 21 22 25 26 29 30 32 33 38 39 40 42 43 44 47 50 51 52 53 56

Literature

Moon Mother I Could Finally Be Free Divine Machinery Striking the Last Match Dough Girl A Uniquely Upsetting Curse Alone in the Ether Gray Is Not Red Nagi The Pit Pajama Shells Bitter Home Morning Silence Contoured Space Draining Fluid

11 13 18 20 23 24 27 31 34 35 41 45 48 49 54 55 57

Credits

Meet the Staff Special Thanks

59 61

Growing Pain

1st Place | Art

1 | Archarios

Ava Starnes

Internal frustrations and exhaustion resulting from continuous mental arguments with myself. This is encapsulated in a worn-out, limp-bodied self-portrait drained of color and life. The body is the subject matter of this work; however, the concept doesn’t relate to the physical body but instead represents a manifestation of fears and doubts. The figure exists within a void, isolated with its emotions.

The exclusion of background elements allows me to more fully and precisely explore the internal emotional battle occuring within.

2022 | 2

Rocio de Abril Cebastian Thompson 3 | Archarios

Unknown Micaela Freile

2022 | 4

Cholera Love in the Time of

1st Place | Literature

i am what they left behind. i am the remnants of land they’ve stolen; a secluded puebla cradled in the valley i am a smoke factory, a peasant laboring until depletion. my blood runs cold like a polar front plunged in midsummer. i am the sun that rises and the day that dies, the best sunsets are found at an institution of flesh and blood ‒ a speech of politics but absent of saliva.

5 | Archarios

the most beautiful faces i have ever seen are found in pictures of missing migrants. my body is a plot of land exchanged for a basket of frijoles my spine curves in the shape of the earth’s equator. i am latin america a nation standing on broken limbs but manages to walk. i am tamales at noche buena i feel the chill of an absent seat for brothers and fathers left in el salvador my blood pools in lakes my veins are its rivers freshwater pearls when i smile. autumn leaves dying like DACA dreams i am hopeful wishes written on a starlit night by a migrant worker at a cane plantation under the moon of cuba.

the tears i cry for my country are used for rituals with holy water. my fight is not fruitless because my heritage is a mango grove my father works hard but with pride i refuse to blink when i look at you so you’ll remember my name we walk.

Here the struggle is perceived. on broken legs we walk.

Maritza Mazariego

Titled “Love in the Time of Cholera”, this poem references the original work of the same name written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Both works highlight the magical realism that lies amongst agony and the persistence of love – whether that be for absent family, heritage, potential lovers, or a nation victimized by colonization and capitalism. This work discusses themes such as deportation, disappearances, grief, and the socio-political climate of Latin America through the melancholy personification of Latine struggle. The narrator takes on various temporary forms: a smoke factory, a hearty meal, wishful thinkers, and those decayed by years of disppointment. This vessel for storytelling all conjoins with a similar motif: Latin America’s rich indigenous history and culture has been impeded upon by Eurocentric values, resulting in a crumbling system. Yet when Latinos seek salvation through immigration, they are often denied or killed in the process. This work seeks to reclaim the struggle, to take back the remnants of our culture; while it has been abused in the past, it is a humble, simple lifestyle that many indigenous communities take pride in rebuilding.

2022 | 6

Ain’t I A Sestina?

Evonne Sherman

What if we just lived today?

And let the world be our game board.

Freed our souls from the shackles and expectations of this world, And frolicked in fresh fields of perennial rye.

You. I. We are more than our struggle, Way more than slaves trades and three-fifth rules, What if we just made our own rules…

Chose to be the change we wanted to see today – Proactive with our passion so generational struggle No longer whispers behind ear, and in the meantime fix this board.

What if we just burned those fresh fields of perennial rye?

Your spirit has to be strong to survive in this world.

What if we set fire to this world?

Threw out all the rules…

Flat out forgot the fresh field of perennial rye Finally present in today, And sparking a global uproar because we got tired of the Board’s Performances with absolutely no signs of struggle?

What if we flooded black joy like we do black struggle – Actually taught the African Diaspora across the world, tossed out the half history books and reinvented the school board?

We could really be about it, say fuck white supremacy and any rule That condones or enables it, and really be present in today.

Oh yeah, and don’t gentrify that field of perennial rye.

7 | Archarios

The environment would benefit from fields of perennial rye, Big corporations would sweat, maybe struggle, From the lack of land they couldn’t exploit. That’s for another day.

Let’s live in the free world – simply forget the word “rule.”

Let’s make a new game board.

Cis white men of the senate must never know what it is like to be bored.

Sticking their noses anywhere it can fit while chomping rye Sandwiches, implementing rules but never following the rules Themselves, snickering while they watch everyone struggle, Swimming in their privileged, sebum world, And Singing their ally song with their white sheet tucked in back pocket, acting today.

Sick and tired, actually bored straight, shaking off my struggles, This world runs on rye smiles and news today programs, I often wonder if this is what Yəhōwā envisioned.

Silence of the Concrete Tyqueashis Bridges

Bullets abrade his back; black lips kiss the concrete.

Born into a world of melanin, his thoughts cried on the concrete.

White chalk mimics his form. Cold eyes surround the blood of a man that died on the concrete.

The news is stained with melanin blood, immortal graves, gives us images of crime scenes studied from the concrete.

Tears run off and evaporate into the clouds, fallen angels turn pain to heavy rain on the concrete.

His mother lost a part of her soul, her baby’s touch to life rocks to the silence of the concrete.

Quiet letters slowly typed on the obituary remember the bridge to death of a man birthed to the concrete.

2022 | 8

Fall

Christian Livingston

9 | Archarios

2022 | 10

Moon Mother Sage Short

This body was carried in the soft underbelly of the moon, into the cavities of the sea, where I dreamed of a place covered in itself.

I have spent my entire time ashore destroying this body.

Only in reflections, the twinkling of stars, and dimples, do I see myself.

I am not a woman and I never was.

Only when I am walking the coastline am I reminded of the worth I’ve been assigned by those who have never talked to the moon.

I stand on my tip toes, examine broken shells in a light beam, deliver it into her arms.

The water trickles down my side like a narrow river, wide misty eyes, an entire ocean at my feet, as I witness my birth bloom from the horizon.

11 | Archarios

Broken

Keely Campbell

2022 | 12

I Could Finally be Free Abril

If I were to take Off my skin. Here.

Take off my fear of losing Everything I clench onto,

If I could take off my skin And set it out to dry while My meat frolics on ancient Love and heals.

Without panicking, without shaking incessantly, chattering, convulsing on wet feet on wet tiled cracks on old new memories on cold hot wind, without screaming at the reddened reflection pulsing screeching without leaking without moving, without missing out.

I could finally be free.

If I walked down the steps and said hello to the old woman who birthed the line where we set our clothes to dry, (she birthed my lust and my sadness).

It is because of her that I walk upon the creaking bread that flakes onto the braided mats.

It is because of this house that I touch myself.

I touch myself in this house again

I drank under the thatched roof I used to sleep Under the eyes of an old woman Next to a young woman Who live in the house in which I touched myself.

They are ones to judge, and they did not judge me.

They opened their arms to my chattering And bat their slumping eyes.

We danced under the thatched roof without the third old woman.

I also will be old someday, I am old now, to the younger woman I am an older woman and to an older woman I am a younger woman and to a man I am a woman.

I am a free woman who flew to the mountains and beach on her own feathers.

Learning to bat and pulse my wings Even when I am weeping in the cold air alone under hot water, I am free flying far away from the cracked moldy seeping leaking peeping sores.

I set out my skin to dry in the steam of the tiled sunken Cheek that pulses to heat.

Dancing in weep to the Slumping yellows, reds, and blues That birthed me.

Touching myself to finally be free.

on the creaking glass that fogs at night under near-light and cold breath from the Listerine under the steam of the water that I shouldn’t drink, moldy cracks at my feet not enough for shaking panicking, chattering and weeping from the cold leaking from the windows.

If I touch myself in this house again, maybe I can be free.

13 | Archarios

2022 | 14

Blows Her Untamed Hair Kele Bullock

15 | Archarios

2022 | 16

Devour the Maggots Cebastian Thompson

17 | Archarios

“As maggots nibble flesh but our wounds scar”

Divine Machinery Lizzy Arnold

My body is a mystery to me And its berries are endlessly rotten.

Their rich liquor brews putrid tea That leaves my organs aching and sodden.

Orchids blush and lure with seduction In constant need to conquer what’s foreign.

Vivacious roots severed. Limbs with function Are all I can claim with blossoms barren.

I’ve sold my slain body countless times To Valentine’s Day meat markets. The Tsar Of stolen womanhood watches his design As maggots nibble flesh but our wounds scar.

This divine machinery treasures me And my valorous curves will set me free.

2022 | 18

Striking the Last Match Jennifer Terry

If catching all the stars in the sky would bring you back to me, I would burn them without a second thought, hasten their destruction so our paths never crossed. We were never lovers. How long did I wait for you to see me? I trapped myself in a slow-motion replay, waiting for the match to strike against the box. Light us up like crackling fragments of a firecracker, watch as all the glimmers fade, just like the ones I used to see in your eyes.

I saw myself in you. Passion, hesitation, impulsivity. Your eyes held the world, my world. A duality that I never thought possible. Tell me your secret. How do you keep safe from the explosion, your firecracker heart telling you that you actually felt something? I’d like to believe destruction is not innately yours. Someone taught you to love the flames, showed you to strike when no one expects it. You are a pyromaniac and you have never realized it. You

all the matches, sift through ashes and crumbling ruins, but our eyes will never hide all our problems. Instead, they’re windows. They see the firecrackers we wanted to light but never did, back when we had the world. It was always you and I. How do we cope with that? Our friendship didn’t end because of me.

Now all I have is blue eyes I can’t look in anymore, and firecrackers that I’ll never light. We have quit striking matches. Instead we lean on destruction to see us through. I don’t know what I wanted to happen. I just didn’t see me without you.

would rather burn than fade away, and for a time, I tried to understand. You want roads to call home, but burn bridges without a second glance. Look in my eyes. I cannot comfort you if you choose to burn to ashes. You have to learn to strike a balance between self- sabotage and self- fulfillment. No one, not even me can sift through the remnants of the fires you’ve set trying to keep warm. Destruction takes moments. Healing feels light-years away. I can’t keep you from crackling like firecrackers set by unsupervised children, racing towards the sky for an escape. Firecrackers search for a place in the stars to settle, to burst with wild abandon. Is that what you want? To obliterate without hesitation, with no one stopping you? Maybe destruction is your way of being safe. You ruin what you think you cannot have. Set your eyes on something more tangible, something that won’t abandon you. You don’t know me anymore. Neither of us are the same person we were a year ago. We are new strikes on a page. We are strangers. I won’t be the one with the water hose, waiting to strike against buildings you keep setting ablaze. We are both just damaged firecrackers, our only difference being that I won’t set myself off anymore. I can still be me without burning other people in my quest to extinguish my own flame. You never seemed to learn the difference. When I look into your blue eyes, striking as they may be, I know how our story will always end. Destruction follows us everywhere. We are no longer phoenixes, and the destruction we rain upon everyone else will destroy them too. We can strike 19 | Archarios

2022 | 20

Myrtle Beach Logan Beasley 21 | Archarios

Gekkeikan Redesign Samantha Senig

2022 | 22

Dough Girl Brandon Davis

She kneads my body with her hands, molding my flesh like dough. When she scrapes away my insides, she leaves me empty on the cutting board.

She stuffs me whole again with fresh fat, plumping what needs to be plump.

In the oven, I start to rise, as I am baked and I am good.

Cook me, until I’m golden-brown and my crust is nice and flaky; just the way you like it. I am full of your sticky desires.

See me now, your little dough girl; my smoking body, just for you.

So spread me out, slice me up, and eat me, baby, while I’m still hot.

23 | Archarios

A Uniquely Upsetting Curse Catie Zimmer

Two stars trapped in one orbit, waiting for the other to burn into nothing. I stare into the dark wishing for some cure to this devastatingly heady high, our beautifully grotesque melding of bone.

What would I have if you were no longer here? Your being makes me worth less alone, one part of an undoubtedly stronger whole. I think I may resent you for that.

I had the potential to be so much, anything really, now my world is flat without you, fading to a muted hush.

So, I guess that’s what I’m resigned to be— your match, half of our holy binary.

2022 | 24

Triangulation Logan Beasley 25 | Archarios

Inez Painting Kaylie Carpenter

2022 | 26

Alone in the Ether Catie Zimmer

We don’t have to speak, just stay next to me or turn away and I’ll be forever content watching your back.

I will haunt you.

Promise it.

in alignment, arms open to yours. At night, I feel the numbing of my limbs as I lie on my back, praying you can’t hear my thoughts across the vast, unyielding Atlantic as you wake next to him. I stare at the ceiling fan, blades cutting through stale air, thanking foreign gods that you never stopped living like I have, constantly straining under the pressure of breathing. It hangs around me, grief I can’t outrun, a cloud the shape of a mountain. Our time ran out and you 27 | Archarios

rn in

g ea

with care and pale clay. You were always plucking that string, the thread binding us together, playing it like a harp. I still feel it. It’s there, in the twitching of my fingers, searching for the shape of you that I lost in the ether years ago. In your old shirts I never returned to you, tucked in the back of my dresser drawer. In your mother’s coconut curry recipe I still faithfully prepare whenever I have company in the house that you have never seen, that you will never share with me— the house where I dream of you and wake up hoping to find you in bed next

n

ou

nd ta

you never had to

of l i suff er in the tra

ra Ti r “Ou

m

e

to me, but all that’s there is the forgotten sound of your voice. Better luck next time. The bathroom mirror reflects tired eyes. I sometimes wonder if I’m going mad, that I imagined it, you having once been mine. I think of you most in flashes of light, evading me in the faults of my periphery. I reach towards the flickers, but I’ve never managed to catch you.

But it must have been real once, even if we were just two dancers performing for no one. If you ever feel the urge to dance again, just know I’ll be waiting here for the pas de deux, back

now fo llow sm e.”

Come home to me. I can take care of you now, or I will die trying. Trust me even if I haven’t done anything to prove I’ve earned it. I know I can’t go back to fix what I’ve broken, but I’ll still hold our pieces, even when they cut me. Won’t you look at me? Look at me. Please, think about what you say next and consider that if you just do not say it, we can resolve ourselves to happily standing here forever.

rth that

one last time. Amidst your yellow cotton sheets, I showed my devotion to you with my tongue between your legs and my fingers in your mouth. I’ve never forgotten the taste of your desperation, feeling your heart beating against mine, your next breath sipped straight from my lips. I don’t care if it’s a lie, say you love me anyways, with that secret smile on your face and fingers crossed behind your back, I promise to pretend I don’t see. Whatever you need me to shape myself into, I will sculpt it

never had to suffer in the trail of burning earth that now follows me.

bu

Burn me on the pyre for my sins. There wouldn’t be a single fleck of ash that could ever forget the glowing hum of being close to you. Do you think of me?

Of that divine space our entwined bodies occupied in the universe? If the answer is no, don’t say it.

I will carry that word, that denial, for an eternity, pillar pressing gravely on my back, Atlas cursed with the weight of your absence. Please just give me the next three minutes, the next ten. I don’t need very long, just a few moments to look at you, to be near you

2022 | 28

Existence Tiera Rivers

Aiolos Olivia Ayers 29 | Archarios

2022 | 30

Gray is Not Red Christy Waters

Crumbs of decaying nutrients line the path to my cave.

Particles of dust lie nestled in clumps of gray.

With the endless ticking Of a mindless clock, There is no time left For the slender vacuum To clean away the gray.

All that is left to do is stare.

Stare at the blood.

Glare at the page.

Blink at the pencil and wince at the stain.

The stain of red.

Gray is not red.

I am not gray.

Every time the monochrome pencil is pressed To the monotonous page, It cracks.

Splintering into shards of lead.

The page becomes littered with Lifeless specks of gray.

Into the tattered cloth case I reach.

Moving past a zipper, Broken and rusted, I find a new pencil.

Its crumbling eraser is a dull hue of gray.

Sharp lead knicks my finger, a freckle of blood shows it’s sickening face.

The obnoxious red is blazing.

My burnt, scathed eyes are seeping red.

Red is not gray.

Wasted Times Daniel Cauz 31 | Archarios

2022 | 32

Nagi

Jade Schmitt The body has a will Has some patience the mind does not To lay so restlessly still So grayly devoid of thought I did not want to find her Not see her amidst the grass Delicate as a rabbit’s fur A fracture in the glass And still she stands before me Still as Vanity’s mirror Looking yet not realizing we Not seeing what is near her I, as the birds in the air The prints in the mud and the leaves in the trees We, still without, continue to stare Without breath in our lungs or clue of a breeze Her scar is mine, our wrists are veined Is there a voice you have to plead?

To wonder why her dress is stained – Why the scarlet rains return to bleed

Self Portrait Micaela Freile 33 | Archarios

2022 | 34

The Pit

Kelsie Crough

There’s a pit under my bed. I swing my legs over and out, they dangle for a little bit as I stare into the pit. It’s impossible to tell how deep it is. Sometimes when I step in, it’s shallow. Nothing more than a pothole in mid-December. Cold, common, but enough to pop your tire.

Other times, it’s pretty deep. One time, I was gone for a whole weekend. I remember crawling out of it, hands and feet cut all over from grappling and wrestling with its moving walls. When I got out Sunday morning, I ran into my roommate making coffee. Wordlessly she handed me her mug, in a small celebration, and slid away to her own room. There, she tames tigers and men. She’s very good at it. I never hear any roars except for her own.

This morning, however, I didn’t step into the pit. It’s my birthday today and I deserve something different, something special. The early sunlight crept in through the cracks of my blinds and offered just enough for me to see its seething shape. I never see the pit from the outside, not in full. From the edge of my bed, I held my pillow tightly, like an anchor, and wiggled my toe off the edge. Bait for the pit.

Groggy with the haze of the morning, the pit moves slowly out from under my bed skirt. It crawls on spindly little legs like that of a giant spider, although it has no eyes. Instead it looked like twisted and tangled black snakes writing on top of one another, in and out, tied like a knot. They are covered in an oil that stinks like gasoline. When the pit enters the center of my room, it brings a thickness to the air, an oppressive cold. Their unified hisses create a low rumble, and I wonder if my roommate can hear them, or if it was all in my head. As if the devil had reached up with his favorite ballpoint pen and scribbled on my carpet.

Looking at the pit, you would think it to be a solid mass, but it runs deep and forever.

It waits for me, expectantly, as I stare at it. Uncomfortable with my glare, I’m assuming here, the pit shifted in what I could only describe as a slow twirl to see the rest of my room. I don’t think the pit has ever left underneath my bed before. It’s knot of snakes enjoy the discarded laundry that littered the floor, the half empty coffee cups that crowded my desk, and the half-flickering Christmas lights that lit my room off-season.

It made a higher-pitched rumbling noise. Something I would only assume to be judgement, almost as if saying, “You live like this?”

“Well of course I live like this,” I say to the pit, tucking my toes that have long since grown cold into the safety of my comforter. “I have a pit living under my bed.”

Another rumble. “Don’t blame me.”

“I am going to blame you,” I say, easing back down into my pillow. “You’ve made me like this and I’m not entertaining you any more.”

I think it whimpered and shrunk for a moment. I continued.

“This bed shall be my island, and I will wait here until you shrink away into nothing. I will no longer have to play your games.”

Silence.

The pit began to circle within itself a little faster with each passing minute in which we sat in silence, in contempt for one another. How could the pit expect me to love it the way it loved me? The way that it

35 | Archarios

likes to pull me by the ankle, by the strands of my hair, by the rings on my fingers, and by the skin of my teeth. The way it likes to poke holes in my brain only to fill them with doubt. I am it’s favorite punching bag.

It didn’t see the ugly purple and yellow bruises it caused.

“Be angry,” I say, crossing my arms and staring at the ceiling, “but I have no interest in solving the puzzle today.”

It rumbles a little louder this time, drowning out the tigers in the next room. It’s spider-like legs stretched and reached for the laundry on the floor. After the pit swallows what was immediately around it, it stretches and bends and gathers each garment, one by one, and swallows them whole until the pit covers nearly the entire floor.

I shrugged. “Don’t need it when I’m here on this bed.”

The pit pulsed with anger, rattling the books off my windowsill and into its depths. A chord was struck somewhere in my chest, but I quickly darted my eyes back to the ceiling. The pit didn’t notice my discomfort, and simply began to extend and climb over my desk. Mugs gifted to me by friends, papers half written, diaries filled with memory, and painted portraits soon no longer belonged to me. The pit took them.

“Things are just things.” I say, tugging at skin in the crook of my elbow until it bruises. I didn’t realize how tightly I was holding myself or how hot tears could run.

From the desk, the pit moved meticulously across my walls, popping the Christmas lights like little pills. I stood on the edge of calm and broken right before it reached the photos that were haphazardly taped to the walls. They were all taken last year, I took all of them. Discarded snaps that never made it to the portfolio but held a spot on my wall. The tiger tamer in the room next door laughing at a restaurant. It was her birthday. My mother was standing in line at an amusement park, beaming. It was my birthday. The man that I love but no longer speaks to me the way he used to, kissing. It was his birthday.

Today, there are no streamers or cake or three cheers for joy and an extra for good luck. No photos of me to commemorate the 22nd year. No. There is only the pit.

I reach violently for the pictures, almost falling from my haven. “Don’t take them!”

A mistake, really. One of the snakes of the knotted pit sprung up and wrapped itself tightly around my wrist, up my arm until it had enough leverage to rip me from my safety and down into the hole.

I land in the center of the knot. The first snake does not let me go, but rather insists its friends join it. So the snakes wrap around my chest and my stomach and my throat. Tight, tight, tight. I think they like cheating death, making my heart pump just a little too fast, my breathing a little too shallow, my eyesight just a little too blurry. I hear the pit rumble again, only this time it must be in a major key or something because it sounded so close to laughing.

Things are dark in the pit. Typical of a pit to be so dark, but this time it felt worse. The type of dark that reminded you of absences. The type of dark that reminds you that your senses are only temporary.

A dark so dark that I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the snakes that composed the pit stretched upwards and swallowed the sun. A world I once knew is now gone and ceases to exist. I know nothing now but the steady turn of the pit. The snakes tie a tighter knot, slithering over and under one another and myself. I lose feelings. They turn into purple fingertips and cracked lips that once held and spoke of so much promise.

I have become a pit myself. Watch me writhe and twist and turn in newfound agony, newfound peace. Watch as I look to the sun like a challenger. I know there is no challenge though. Because on the 2022 | 36

sunniest days I am still a pit, composed of snakes and spiders and other nasty things.

Until there is a glimmer. I am not sure what it is at first, but I imagine this is what it must feel like to be found. I hear nothing, no calling out of my name or frantic pulling at the pit to let me free. I am alone.

Accompanied by the low hum and growls of the tiger tamer’s den next door.

The glimmer was enough to spark some curiosity, some will to resist the pit. The pit tried tirelessly to get my attention back. Rocking picture frames, knocking over long-dead plants, ripping drawers off their rollers, blocking off windows. I do not care. That glimmer is still there, I am sure of it. I must find out what that is.

I circle my head as much as the pit would allow and that is when I spot it again. A glimmer of light, reflecting off of the lens of my camera. An artifact of a once beloved hobby, now collecting dust under my desk. Now protected under my desk.

Desperate, I flail my hand that is closest to it in weak little circles, as if enticing the camera to come closer. It does not. The snakes tighten the pit shakes as if it was struck by an earthquake. It had thought it had consumed everything, including me. It thought it had won.

I lurch myself in the direction of the camera, straining my joints so much so I fear that they might pop. Until it happens. Just as I hear my bones begin to crack under the pressure, my stomach squeezed out of place, my purple fingers reach out and wrap around the strap of the camera…

I can breathe again. The midday sun filters in through the cracks in my blinds. My belongings have returned to my desk. I lay on a pile of clothes, gasping. Hot blood rushes back to my appendages, playing with pins and needles. My heart gets an extra pump of adrenaline. The room is silent. No low rumble of the pit, no roars from next door. Around me, the pit dissipates into a million tiny snakes. Most make their quick escape, now fearing something in me.

Except one. The one on my wrist never let go, but this time it rests easy on the joint like a bracelet. It sleeps. I am freed for the most part.

I stand like a newborn deer, bracing myself on the desk with one hand and holding onto the camera with the other until my ankles feel like they can support me again. I find it hard, even as I struggle to steady myself, to let go of the camera.

I make my way to the doorway, eager to check on my roommate. Maybe she wants to get coffee and share victories. This time I will have something to offer. Just before I leave, I turn to the destruction of my room. I snapped a picture, just in case. Just in case I forget what it looks like without a pit in it.

A few short paces in the living room later, I am at my roommate’s door. To be polite, I knock one, two, three times. No answer. I call out her name, laughing because this must be some joke or misunderstanding, she never leaves the apartment. Tired of waiting, I try at the doorknob. It’s unlocked, but I don’t enter.

I am met with the bloodied face of the tiger and a disheveled room. Her drawers lay askew, bedspread shredded, coffee mugs shattered on the floor. I try to remember if I had heard a cry or a break or even a slam. I only remember the rumbling of the pit. A scream is caught in my throat, fear clogs my arteries, I drop the camera.

I find that what is left of my roommate is hanging from the tiger’s mouth.

37 | Archarios

Fools Game Olivia Ayers

2022 | 38

Spark Kyle Yalch 39 | Archarios

Self Portrait ELIJAHQ

2022 | 40

Pajama Shells Tyqueashis Bridges

Stay wide awake in this world, never sleep.

Silent knock at the door will kill your dreams.

You are dying tonight, sirens deep.

Pajama shells lay down, and then you weep.

Bloody vision is blurry, your eyes scream.

Stay wide awake in this world, never sleep.

Bullets dig in your chest, and they are steep.

Life leaks from your body like a stream.

You are dying tonight, sirens deep.

Body cams are tired, they fell asleep.

Sky angels are praying, heaven theme.

Stay wide awake in this world, never sleep.

Murder cuffs on your body, death is cheap.

Stealing your last breath, is part of the scheme.

You are dying tonight, sirens deep.

Cop cars play death tunes, for all black sheep.

To live while black, is to never have dreams.

Stay wide awake in this world, never sleep.

You are dying tonight, sirens deep.

Cynhophobia Charlotte Taylor 41 | Archarios

2022 | 42

Quarantine Skateboard Brianna Byrd

The Reality of Healing Charlotte Taylor

43 | Archarios

2022 | 44

Bitter

Christy Waters corner.

“You’re fifteen, Charlie. Too old to be ‘avoidin your vegetables.”

Father lectured me as my fork tangoed with the slimy leaves of spinach withering in my plate’s

“Listen to me when I’m talking to ‘ya, boy,” he growled, stuffing his mouth with a heaping forkful of spinach. Tiny specks of green splattered across his lips.

I felt sick as I watched, my stomach lurching with every bite he took.

He threw his fork down abruptly. It landed across his dinner plate with an irritating clang. “You good ‘fer nothin,” he stood up, cursing me under his breath, just loud enough so that he knew I would hear the insults. “You’re done, boy.”

“Done?” Mother sheepishly chimed in, a hint of distress flashing across her features.

I clenched my jaw as bits of chewed up vegetable plummeted from Father’s chin to the table. I could feel myself drowning in a sea of disgust when a pang of nausea overtook me.

“He doesn’t get no dinner when he disrespects the man of the house!”

Mother furrowed her brows, preparing a weak defense for me. “That might be true, but you’ve sent Charlie to bed without dinner for the past week now. He’s a growing boy, he needs his nourishment-” Father’s filthy knuckles collided with Mother’s face. She choked, a miserable red flowing from the depths of her nostrils. Father looked neither remorseful nor ashamed. Instead, he looked hungry.

He sat back down to continue eating his detestable vegetables. Not another word exited his throat in that thick southern drawl. He didn’t apologize, but instead had the audacity to resume his meal whilst mother and I wallowed in our anguish.

Thoughts began racing through my splintered mind and I couldn’t force them to stop. I should’ve just eaten my vegetables. Mom’s blood would have remained in her veins where it belonged if I had just been a good boy. But the spinach—it was so bitter. I just couldn’t overcome my repulsion.

Bitter. So bitter.

That thought replayed in my head.

Bitter. So bitter. I hate vegetables.

I just wanted it all to end, but it continued reverberating throughout my psyche. That was when I noticed Father stuffing his face with more spinach. The gruesome, obnoxious green repulsed me. I could practically taste its harsh flavor on my burning tongue. It was so bitter.

I hate it. lips.

“I hate him,” I grumbled, barely realizing that my thoughts had manifested onto my quivering

“What the hell did you say boy!?” Father sprung to his feet, reaching across the table to grab me by the collar of my shirt. When I didn’t reply, he gritted his teeth in preparation for the violence that was come. In that moment, I saw an ugly, horrible sight—spinach clung to every single one of his misshapen teeth.

It was filthy.

Unnatural.

Corrupt.

Through those feelings of despair, a new idea dawned on me. There was a clear remedy to the plague that so tormented me. If I don’t want to think bitter thoughts, then I must weed out bitter things.

The knife on my plate urged me to wield it. *** About half an hour later, all was well again. The atmosphere was calm, as though the hell I had been enduring proved to be nothing but a distant memory. Like sugared gumdrops, the flavor of life had suddenly turned sweet.

With a deep breath I exhaled every sour inhibition and Mother and I resumed our dinner. This time, we didn’t eat vegetables, but a new main course. I was eager to dig in, but Mother appeared to be apprehensive. Could she have been feeling unwell?

“Mother, why do you look so pale?” I inquired with concern as I poured her a fresh glass of lemonade. Taking a bite of my food, I was delighted to be greeted with such a glorious surprise.

I was glad that Father didn’t taste like spinach. In fact, he wasn’t bitter at all.

Disgusting.

45 | Archarios

2022 | 46

Home.

Taylor Castelot

Empty space there’s nothing left how can you tell me to not be a mess the floors are cold the walls quiver I wish this season didn’t last forever you tell me to go but I want to stay the skies never seemed more grey it’s for the best or maybe it’s not it’s just a hope of luck and the wish to never get stuck it’s not the same it won’t be any more I must go out the door this chapter ends, another one starts if only my heart could stop falling apart. you’ll always be my place I know that’s true I wave goodbye and you still look brand new the memories dance through my mind you were truly one of a kind.

Leftovers

Christian Livingston 47 | Archarios

2022 | 48

Morning

Rakaia Geddes

The red sun rises.

As first light’s echoes hold me fast, Those departed within me Beckon from the past.

Yet my eyes flicker open To greet the day at last.

But where once was a heart Is just shattered, scarlet glass.

“As first light’s echoes hold me fast, those departed within me beckon from the past.”

On the Edge Christian Livingston

49 | Archarios

2022 | 50

Sake

Mikaela Smith 51 | Archarios

Winter’s Invitation Christy Waters

2022 | 52

Silence.

Taylor Castelot

it’s not the street light or the dog that barks its the silence of the night that makes it so cold and dark my thoughts race down the track in my mind why is the end so hard to find I long for conversations that calm me instead the people who help me along and tell me not to fret I wanted you to be there to interrupt my silence but it seems as though, you too know very well how to stay quiet.

Sugar Free Amber Zajac

53 | Archarios

2022 | 54

Contoured Space Micaela Freile

Our synthetic fibers intertwined time and time again.

Hand in hand floating through the mirror maze simple chambers of reflection in which, i decided, its best i close my eyes.

Every passing second a similar fragment to the next, yet, no meat to create

embellished a fallacy we both craved yet held with disdain we lay together flesh and bone only to exist on separate planes

Tangible Moments.

Your breath of smoke— darker fumes than the hasty drags you’d take of those menthol kools you neatly kept crumbled up in your back pocket. an Exhaust incessantly staining the Spaces within the splits of my vertebrae— the Spaces i so desperately tried to fill.

Your sandpaper hands caress me knowing im fragile like a bomb.

Yet the paper thin contour of your love— formless, stagnant water in those void-green eyes

55 | Archarios

Inversion Jesse Morgan

2022 | 56

Draining Fluid Jennifer Terry

You’re drowning slowly Mother. Fluid fills up your lungs. I turn the spigot on, let the blood-stained liquid drain into bottles we empty into sinks, starting again the next day. I’ve searched countless videos, talked to doctors about the next treatment.

Will it always be like this? We return hoping for an alternate answer. Tests show: Things are looking up. Let’s schedule time for surgery. Surgery: a release from pain, a way to know someone listens.

Maybe God? The Universe? I don’t know.

You’ll never be at full capacity again, but it’s enough to know you can truly breathe without feeling like drowning.

57 | Archarios

2022 | 58

Staff Meet the

Jeff Case Advisor

59 | Archarios

Cynthia Alarcon Art Director

Carissa Soukup Editor-In-Chief

2022 | 60

Special Thanks

Thank you to all the amazing artists and authors who submitted to our 2022 issue, to our dedicated staff, and to Coastal Carolina University for giving artists a space to have their talent showcased.

We would also like to extend our thanks to Sheriar Press and all of our judges, whose contributions attributed to the continued success of our publication.

61 | Archarios