Labyrinth 2015

LABYRINTH 2015

Copyright © 2015 by Labyrinth Literary & Fine Arts Journal All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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AS Publicity Center & Copy Services Western Washington University 516 High Street Bellingham, WA 98225 as.wwu.edu/women​ This book is not for resale. For copies please contact the L ​ abyrinth Editor-in-Chief ​at: ​AS Women's Center Viking Union 514​ Western Washington University 516 High Street Bellingham, WA 98225 Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2015 Design by Enkhbayar Munkh-Erdene

LETTER from the EDITOR The theme for this edition is, Examining the Internals and Externals of Identity Marginalization. I conceptualized the theme over the 2014 summer and it has come to command the greater part of my life for the past nine months. In the summer days, I would sit in the sun of my hometown in coffee-calm afternoons and study of how this publication has grown. Based upon Labyrinth’s history, this theme seems only fitting. Labyrinth has blossomed into a strong, reaching, and ambitious publication: its growth of inclusivity in content over the decades is a testament. This theme is meant to extend that growth and broaden the arms of Labyrinth – it is meant to be all inclusive.

I read a book over that summer called We, The Drowned. I bought it off the sale rack at Powell’s on way to the check out because I liked the cover. The book became a favorite read and was impactful enough to weave its print in here. The story follows four generations of sailors from a small Norwegian island in transition from sails to steam powered ships. That actually story doesn’t have anything to do here, but its title does.

When I was fourteen I discovered dysthymia, I discovered it by my diagnosis. This thing – dysthymia – was something that snuck up, something that slowly pulled the floor from under my feet.

For dysthymia is a creeping thing: a thing that asks you to carry pebbles – a pebble a day – and not until the weight of a boulder rests on your shoulders do you realize its trick. Dysthymia, for me, is a silencing and drowning thing. By living through how this can alter my life I came to understand a more tangible definition of depression and to understand other things: how the sting of assumptions of experiences can feel, how the silencing act of marginalization can suffocate, how invalidation for seen and unseen identities and experiences can break us.

Working for this publication, Labyrinth has taught me that we are all marginalized in some fashion, that we are all ailed by something, that we are all “drowned”. And with all this in mind, sitting in summer sunshine contemplating on what I’d be writing for this introduction nine months from then, I crafted a theme that would welcome all identities – those of external and internal nature. I crafted a theme that hopes to give a platform to validate the fact that we are all drowned, together.

In the course of editing Labyrinth, I’ve witnessed how it breathes. I have glimpsed its roots, backbone, face, and heart. This fifty year old magazine supporting marginalized identities has survived a lot. It’s changed a lot. The copy you hold in your hands now is not what Labyrinth used to be and not what it will be. This publication has changed its definition and scope of audience and content and has come to showcase a great array of lives and experiences. Starting from a group of dedicated women in the 1970s, Labyrinth got its legs as a magazine exclusively for the female-iden-

TABLE of CONTENTS tified. Today, it’s no longer limited to the female-identified experience and has become a place of varied perspectives on marginalized identities, intersections, and experiences.

A special thank you to Logan Broulette, Hannah Streetman, Mary Metzger, J.L. Gazabat, A Ulmer, Jessie Ulmer, Megan Langston, Laural Hong, Griffin Silver, Bailey Cunningham, Felicia Powell, Nicolas Sweeney, and Darcy Ruppert for all your direct help with this curation and editing process. Thank you to my family, friends, and loved ones for the support you’ve given me in this process. Thank you to the staff support within the AS and the University for this publication.

Thank you to the artists and authors. Every piece in this edition of Labyrinth took ambition, dedication, and resolution to cultivate, to showcase, to illustrate human experiences via writing and art. This is no small feat: it takes an incredible force to share a story. Without the work from the published artists this book would have no purpose, no life. Thank you to the artists and writers who put their confidence in their stories and pieces and submitted to this journal; thank you for telling of your experiences and for showing what you’ve lived and seen; thank you for not being silent.

I feel honored to have been able to curate and edit this edition of Labyrinth and hope all who have been associated with this process see their hard work and effort within these pages glimmer and shine.

Sincerely,

JOHNNA GURGEL

IDENTITY 6.

CHAMELEON // Victoria White

7.

THAT’S JUST HOW IT IS // Chantel Pedicone

8.

MY LIFE IS NOT A BINARY // Nat Bellows

9.

IS THIS BETTER? // Kory Olson

11.

I CAN ONLY BE SEEN ON FIRE // Alex Vigue

12.

GO GRIZZLIES GO // Lanegan Bicchieri

13.

GO YOU TIGERS // Lanegan Bicchieri

14.

DICKS // Tay Sanders

16.

BECOMING // Keira O’Hearn

19.

I AM A BATTLEFIELD // Maggie Grasseschi

20.

NAVIGATING PURGATORY // Ana Sara Epstien

24.

AMYGDALA // Courtney Taylor

26.

OJOS // Luke Price

27.

EYES // Luke Price

28.

BLUE // Deana Fuller

29.

HIPS AND THIGHS // Natalie Bellows

31.

BOGEY // Rosa Tobin

32.

DRAWING WOLVES // Jesse Ulmer

34.

DANGEROO // Mikey Moore

37.

SEIZURE // Bethoven Mic Linden

38.

TREMORS // Bethoven Mic Linden

39.

PLAYSTRUCTURE OF MEMORY // Alexander Gittleman

42.

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME // Natalie Eitel

MENTAL

IMAGES 46.

HOW MUCH FORCE DOES IT TAKE TO BLEND BACK // Coco Spadoni

47.

OVERSEER // Allie Paul

48.

UNTITLED NIGHTMARE // Carrie Cooper

49.

ON VULNERABILITY // Kari Vanderburg

50.

HOMINIS // R. Grant Williams

51.

AJ // Katy Bentz

52.

AUGUST // Katy Bentz

53.

JACOB // Katy Bentz

54.

SILENCE NO. 1 // Sarah O’Sell

55.

SILENCE NO. 2 // Sarah O’Sell

56.

SILENCE NO. 6 // Sarah O’Sell

57.

PLASTIC I // Camila Frey-Booth

58.

PLASTIC II // Camila Frey-Booth

59.

PLASTIC III // Camila Frey-Booth

60.

UNTITLED FROM A SERIES OF PAGES // Michaela Patrick

61.

SELF PORTRAIT // Hannah Rivers

62.

BUSTED RIBS // Hannah Rivers

63.

DOWN DOG // Nicole Lorence

64.

SISTERS // Nicole Lorence

65.

MINDFUL // Cassie Howlett

67.

CHARCOAL MAN // Elise Dresel

71.

SCATTERING ASHES AT SQUALICUM // Timothy Pilgrim

72.

GUNSHOT // Theresa Williams

73.

HELP // Erica Reed

75.

IT’S PERSONAL // Taylor Romero

76.

DIOS // Alexandra Bell

DEATH

FEMALE IMAGE 79.

UR A DYKE // Jesse Ewing-Frable

80.

UGH // Taylor Romero

81.

CHANGE THE ENDING // Amelia Marchetti

83.

PROVE IT // Chantel Pedicone

84.

AMERICAN GIRL // Mackenzie Streissguth

85.

A WOMAN OF WORTH // Hannah Streetman

86.

WHISPERS OF CRIMSON // Elspeth Jensen

87.

RED GLOVES // Sarah Daniels

89.

BAPTISM // Rachel Broenkow

ARTIST STATEMENTS

IDENTITY

CHAMELEON // Victoria White

“You’re only black when you want to be,” my roommate laughed. I laughed too, knowing it was true. I pulled it in and out of myself, concealing my heritage at times. Unlike my roommate, I was only ¼ African American, so barely black in almost everyone’s estimation. I had the years of family interaction, my grandma’s Louisiana cookin’, and let’s be honest, I picked up a little Ebonics on the way, but what are these compared to melanin. I always knew I wasn’t truly black, because black was a thing written on your skin, as I’d been taught over and over again.

A Chameleon, I moved in and out of social circles, trying to find the one like me, learning to blend in along the way. But I am a rare and exotic breed, living between margins, shedding my skin and morphing when the need arises. Learning to adapt to the people around you gives your personality fluidity that not many can claim. I am all personalities: loud, shy, outgoing, modest, funny, and demure. You name it, that’s me. Running circles around those who know themselves instead of re-creating themselves every day.

An email pops up, “Join the Ethnic Student Center.” I test the percentages within myself, but my 75% white feels a little too strong today, so I delete the email. Maybe another time. Maybe after summer, when my skin shows a little more of the heritage not rightfully my own.

THAT’S JUST HOW IT IS // Chantel Pedicone

Wear your preference in your hair,

on your clothes,

with your nails.

How you’ve kept them cut so as to wear your identity

at your fingertips.

On hands that have been to unsuspecting places –

but they won’t know,

oh, those unsuspecting faces.

Until you paint your title in your roughed-up sneakers, your faded slouchy hat.

It’s a statement.

It’s natural.

Until the goal is plastering a smile in everyone’s mind but your own.

And that’s just how it is.

Until you blend yourself into the societal concoctions of what you should be what you should wear to convey your preference, your weakness, your identity.

But I think I’ll shake it up.

I’ll come out as me.

6

Not exclusively “gay me,” because my interest is not my entire identity.

And that’s just how it is.

But they’ll never have a clue, assuming assumptions they think to be true.

My hair does not

define my preference.

My makeup does not

scream my sexuality.

So why am I apologizing to negative reactions (assumption retractions) when I tell him I’m gay?

I did not ask for

your attention.

I did not ask for

your transgression.

I did not ask for

your proposition of entitlement because I don’t

look

gay

enough.

And that’s just how it is.

7

MY LIFE IS NOT A BINARY // Nat Bellows

Society tells us that life is a binary We have to identify on one side or the other Society tells us to be either/or We cannot be both, none, or in between Lived experiences tell a different story Life is not as simple as a box I am a person outside the binary I am not a man or a woman I am not a straight person or a gay person My life is more complex than that My gender is outside the binary My identity is not male or female My identity is not even on the spectrum I am none of the above My sexuality is outside the binary My identity is not straight or gay My identity encompasses the whole spectrum I am all of the above Society tells us that we live within a binary But many of us reject this whole notion I am an agender individual I am a pansexual human being My identities cannot be confined to a box Nor should they ever be

8

IS THIS BETTER? // Kory Olson

I’m no good at multi-tasking. My mom tells me to stop unloading the dishwasher so I can say what I need to say, and I do, but I can’t look her in the eye. “I wanted make sure before I told you.

‘Cause what if I don’t mean it and it’s forever?”

There are some things you never come back from.

My doctor tears open the silver packet and rubs the gel between her hands. She says she’s going to show me how to put it on. She grabs my arm. I thought she meant on herself. It’s cold as she spreads it across my skin, and she smiles, says, “Do you feel different?”

Shrooms and hormones don’t mix. It’s twelve degrees outside and my brother’s apartment doesn’t have a heater, but I’m sweating on his bed, tearing off my clothes. My thoughts are like channel surfing in my head. I wish boobs were socially acceptable so I could take my shirt off.

The cigarettes burn my throat but I can’t cough ‘cause the librarian might hear. Brian tries to defend me, says, “Nah. He’s cool.”

“Yeah, sure. I just wanna know if he’s gay. It’s okay if he is. I just wanna know.”

The store girl puts a number on the dressing room door and holds it open for Alecia, even though I’m holding the clothes. I have to squeeze past. The store girl takes a second, then smiles with her eyes the way no one understands when I try to explain it.

“Grandma?”

“Yes?” I wish she wasn’t watching TV, but she’s not the only one and I can’t just turn it off. I say, “Grandma, you need to listen.”

She turns to me but her eyes still flit over to the football game.

T.J. and Brett are fighting over who gets to pick the Green Ranger. T.J. picked first, but Brett has the action figure. I pick the Pink Ranger.

“There’s no Pink Ranger.”

“Yeah, huh. Her name’s Kimberly Hart and she pilots the Pterodactyl Dinozord.”

Renee says I can’t pick the Pink Ranger ‘cause that’s hers. I tell her I picked it first and I have the action figure. She says, “No. You can’t pick her ‘cause you’re a boy.”

He stumbles clear across the bar and hits our table, spills his drink laughing, asking me, “So what are you exactly?”

I haven’t fully slept off the high when I hear my brother pouring a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles. He sits in the chair opposite me, looks me over, smiles the way he does when I know he wants something. He says, “Can I feel them?”

9

I CAN ONLY BE SEEN ON FIRE // Alex Vigue

“Uh, fuck no.”

“Why? They’re not real.”

I’m sitting on the toilet in my parents’ house, listening to Defying Gravity and crying and trying not to look at myself in the mirror, knowing how poor green Elphaba feels and how the pellet they put in my butt cheek that morning is making me do it.

The lady hugs me tight and says, “Hate the sin. Love the sinner.”

I know he’s following me ‘cause it’s night and I’m alone. ‘Cause there’s no one else on the street and I’m wearing Rue 21 pants. I put my hood up and try to walk like a man. I don’t know when I had to start trying. My shoes glitter. I can hear him breathing louder than his footsteps. He touches my arm. I can’t move. He can do it to me now if he wants, but he sees my face, sees my Adam’s Apple. He says, “Oh. Hey,” and just walks away. I vomit on the sidewalk.

She says her name is Patty Fawver. I can call her Dr. Fawver if I want, but I don’t have to. She says, “What are you? I mean, what do you consider yourself?”

After twenty-six hours of labor, the baby falls from its mother’s womb. The nurse lifts its wet body and watches as it takes its first breath.

“Here he is, Mrs. Olson. Would you like to hold him?”

The nurse hands the baby over and the mother cradles it. They close their eyes, holding each other in the hospital bed, drifting off and into sleep.

10

We burn better on the weekends. Wait all week just for some company. Fill ourselves with liquors and play a game of who can get the most free drinks. Waste out time on cute boys. Light up with them. They just stare and breathe in our slow burn fumes. It kills their high so they keep quenching.

Throw me on the fire sticks and all. Thin tiny hairs wisp wil-o with cinders rise. I have a history of burning like Rome and London and teenage hearts growth stunted while body shells linger along on broken sidewalk ways. Clothing burns in different colors. I know. Blue dye burns purple and at the perfect temperature to forget faces. You can write a letter to someone who will never read it. You can speak it loudly in front of the fire and grip it with spell hoping fingers. You can weave satisfaction from the ashes. You can try to chain smoke everything away. Cigarettes are tinder spells. Lighters are filled with the tears of past elemental selves.

You can’t burn the magic out. It seeps back down and is reborn. Wet naked wings. Butterfly or phoenix? Undercuts and ombre hair: lit up magic. Glow in the dark revolution. Pacts with demons give claws. Pacts with fallen angels. Pacts to take back the Earth.

11

GO GRIZZLIES GO // Lanegan Bicchieri

“COME ON GRIZZLIES, MAUL ‘EM!” My dad calls out from the bleachers Stained by parental ambitions left behind.

The yell hits me like a cannon ball.

I smile and nod and settle my jersey as I jog back on court.

My defender is a Goliath, and though I am 6’3”, I am David. Just not on the court. Not now.

I can’t help but tap my foot as I anticipate the pass.

I can’t help but play basketball.

I can’t help but win, and I can’t help but please my dad.

Dad was a Grizzly, still is. The battle ship that is my father played any position he chose, and got A million girls, his words. Also cannonballs.

I am aware again, and in time to receive the ball. I put it up, right over Goliath, and my ears explode.

A grinning, dumb blown-up cardstock cut-out of my face extends out of the whooping crowd, who sit on the exhausted bleachers, and I smile at that face as it smiles at me.

Both of us have dumb grins, and I am ashamed because mine is as flimsy as the cardstock. The game ends. Dad claps me on the back. He tips his red cap and winks, knowing I’m off to abuse alcohol and women, like a grizzly.

I see my girlfriend on the bench, Jenna.

I can’t help but go over to her, and to ignore her as I tell her I am going out for the night. I can’t help but notice the smile fall apart like straw in the wind.

I can’t help but wish I’d lose.

I can’t help but pretend she is a James when I kiss her goodbye.

12

GO YOU TIGERS// Lanegan Bicchieri

“Go Tigers, Go! Go youuuuuuuuu TIGERS, RAWR!!”

Bouncing, smiling, shaking, and done.

I sit on the bench, done for the first and not last time.

Cheerleading is like eating; I’ve done both as long as I can remember, and both make me feel fat like a walrus.

But I am a tiger: fierce , sexy, bright.

Cliché and fake like a pink flamingo strutting in the yard.

The bench vibrates, and I pull for breath and reach for my phone, like maybe I was plummeting off a cliff, and the phone a necessary root.

“Daniel Kuzaro:)” the screen reads.

It screams, “We need to talk.” below the familiar name with the colon and parentheses .

My eyes dart around the gymnasium full of Tigers.

Where is my tiger?

Daniel would be getting ready for the party, that’s right.

Being the Grand Vizier of high school post-sporting event parties means facilitating the alcohol, and the collecting thereof. Everyone knows that.

“Hey, what’s up?” I text, and I want to rip off my fake nails which are orange and black.

I want to throw up and discard my tight jumpsuit along with the skirt that reveals more than just skin.

“You been whoring around again? Don’t lie.”

The whistle blows. I set my phone on the bench again, and the thought assaults me again that as I rise, at least a hundred horny teenage boys will glare at my body.

I discard my tears, one of the few things I have control over, and churn up a smile.

Bouncing, smiling, shaking, and done.

13

DICKS // Tay Sanders

I have lost track Of how many times I’ve have my Ass smacked, Balls fondled, Or dick whipped With a wet, twisted towel.

All in the spirit of sport.

And as I sit In my football attire Of padded spandex And a pacifier Molded to the shape Of my teeth Wearing a blindsiding helmet Too tight for my head Turning all my thoughts into inaudible grunts I hear shit like Nah bro, I don’t swing that way. I’m as straight as an arrow!

I sit and wonder to myself, What the fuck does that mean?

And you gotta love that shit.

Love it until it is Your profile picture.

Until you want to stick your Dick in its exhaust pipe.

Until you trick it out enough to impress A women who you inevitably treat Not nearly as well.

Or like cat calling, chest bumping, or poking your dick into the backs of girls dancing alone in clubs even after the 5th no.

Because no means yes and yes means hell yes and dude she totally wants this dick why wouldn’t she want this dick.

--But this is just one chapter of the code of man That I have always failed to understand.

Like how a car Is not a car.

It is a women.

Your baby.

14

Because boys will be boys, They say.

Because behavior is excused, Because it is institutionalized, But I won’t open that can of worms right now.

But what I will Say

Is that For some reason It bugs me That I have never been accepted into this culture.

That I am forever beer bonging my way To the red bull sponsored gates Of club man.

And not to say that being a man is hard Because we all know manhood is the epitome of privilege.

I’m just saying this shit is weird sometimes.

Never making it in But being called faggot by the jocks, Being called a jock by everyone else Not man enough for the boys, But too manly for everyone else not associated with traditional concepts of masculinity.

It’s like dick limbo up in here.

Because I learned about ironic homo-eroticism far before I learned what it meant to be queer.

Because I was in all dude naked shower parties years before I kissed a boy.

Because I love you always has to be followed by, man.

No homo.

15

BECOMING // Keira O’Hearn

It’s funny, because growing up, you never think you’ll have to come out.

You start your school career kissing Kyle Love when you’re in Kindergarten. You like chasing boys around the playground at seven, and they like to chase you back. Your mom says that “boys will be boys” and that they’re “pulling your pigtails.” You know she’s right, because she’s always right.

Your mom knows everything.

(And hey, the other moms tell you that, too.)

You know you’re cute in second grade. Everyone tells you so, says you’re going to grow up to be a real heartbreaker ‘cause your momma was a lawyer and your daddy was a looker. You know you’re cute, and you know you’re smart.

It’s pouring rain outside and Leif pushes you by the tetherball courts. You chase him, tear his sweatshirt from his shoulders and throw it into a puddle. You stomp on it until it’s soaked through and the recess teacher pulls you away. You get sent home with a disciplinary slip, and you aren’t sorry, you aren’t. He had it coming.

You are the hot one throughout the rest of elementary and middle school. You have breasts.

The other girls don’t.

Your high school boyfriend lets you suck his cock, suck his cock, suck his goddamn cock. He lets you. Like it’s some sort of privilege. You don’t even know what pleasure feels like.

Girls confuse you. They are warm, they are soft, they are kind. They are cruel, and boys are simple. Boys want sex, they want your lips on them, they want you as a vessel. It’s not complicated, and you know you owe them. You know that this is what women have been doing for forever. So if you fantasize about what Scarlett Johansson would feel like beneath your fingertips, or how Zoe Saldana’s lips would differ from a man’s, you do it in the dead of night, and you forget. You forget, and you go back to what’s comfortable, and you don’t know what pleasure feels like.

It’s raining when Martin jumps on your back out in front of your second grade classroom one morning. He thrusts his pelvis into your ass and you don’t know what’s happening, you just know that it doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t feel–

You don’t find out until your freshman year in college. It’s January again, and you think back to that time in fifth grade when you learned to be silent, when you learned to cover up, when you learned to not lean over, or else boys will stare at your breasts. You cry. You cry because you didn’t think it was possible–that you could be this, that you could do this–that you could love yourself.

You go to Catholic school for two years. The girls make fun of your training bra at the same time your mother tells you, “You’re becoming a woman. It’s something to be proud of.” You carry pads in your backpack every day and wait for the moment it’ll come–that thing that will make you a woman, that will make you an adult. It doesn’t stop the girls from laughing. It doesn’t stop you from getting sent to the principal’s office, it doesn’t stop you from kicking a girl in music class because you don’t know how else to ask for help.

Your short haircut leads girls on, and you take one’s number on a whim. Nothing will happen.

Nothing ever happens, because you would need a connection with a girl before you sleep with her, because you’re a one on the Kinsey scale. (That’s what you tell yourself. You can’t admit that you’re closer to a four because if you did–if you did….) You don’t tell anyone because you think you might be imagining it, like it’s a political statement. Like it’s a badge you can apply and pull off, like a tiny rainbow pin.

You don’t think you’ve ever felt so alone.

16

You go back to public school and get your period two months before your eleventh birthday.

You remember because it’s January tenth, exactly, and you’re walking down the hallway to the bathroom because you know. You just know.

You lose your virginity in May. You scrub your skin raw in the shower the next day, cry your eyes out of tears, and you can’t get clean. He’s in you, you can feel him, and you’ll never be clean.

You had it coming, after all.

17

I AM A BATTLEFIELD// Maggie Grasseschi

You’re in Canada at a nightclub when a girl approaches you outside the bathroom. She takes your lips and swallows you; you feel like you’re drowning. This, you think. This is how it should be.

That wave of something in your chest, the way your hands grasp at her hips, how her lips give under yours. They’re so different from a boy’s, and you know. You know.

When you’re growing up, you never think you’ll have to come out. You like boys for the way they pulled your pigtails in the playground, for the way they looked at your breasts in the fifth grade, for the way they like it when you suck cock, for the way they hold you down when alcohol floods your system. You never let yourself think about girls, because if you did, would people really understand? You think about boys, think about cock, until one day, you can’t do it anymore. You picture soft lips, wide hips, stretch marks littered like battle scars.

This, you think.

This is my becoming.

on my own terms or none at all

revolution-coated irises screaming red, red, red

Waterloo rests between the craggy Alps of my hips the bones beneath carved into bayonets attentive, awaiting the right Napoleon Marathon shape my legs a sea of arrows hone the distance from head to foot, send my heart running

18

birthed from the head of a god my mind spans mountains ticking ten steps ahead turning chess pieces to clockwork and back Russian winter rationale my teeth Nagasaki, Hiroshima hollowed not pitted leak nuclear energy built up stronger meant to last I am a battlefield

my wooden horse ribs bring kings to their knees make embers of cities topple empires I am no peace offering Warriors fill my belly

and my generals carry no white flags

I replace my eyes with guillotines let carnage wash away my sins something sinister roiling beneath starch sheet whites

I am a battlefield

I will have no Yalta to strip me bare, reconstruct me I pen my own histories I strap my own armor I am a battlefield dipped in honey of victors tarred by poppies of loss hands bathed in choices of others that I make my own I am a battlefield singular, multiple bloodied, rubbed clean I am me.

hold no parleys strike no bargains

19

NAVIGATING PURGATORY// Ana Sara Epstein

My diagnosis(s): Anorexia Nervosa, Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Self-Harm tendencies, and a “fuck ya’ll” attitude.

After a three and a half month long stay at Laureate Psychiatric Hospital for Eating Disorders in Tulsa, I kicked, screamed and swore the entire way back to Bellevue. When I left the plane, I checked the phone I’d had deactivated for months. Two text messages.

Alice: Where are you?? Are you alive?

Ken: Where the hell are you? This isn’t cool! I miss you so much.

I deleted my whole inbox.

The next morning, I drove directly to the Humane Society where I adopted a black kitten with a white belly and tiny snow mittens for paws. Her name rested on my lips the moment I lifted her onto my lap. Venus. I told everyone that she was my little goddess of love and beauty, and my inspiration to love my body and myself. That turned out to be true a few years later, but at the time, the statement was mainly fancy bullshit to convince everyone I was all fine and dandy now. The truth: I just wanted a damn friend.

My therapist, dietitian, doctor, and parents all approved of the cat decision, but now my clothes clung tightly to my skin, my thighs were caked in cellulite, and my stomach ballooned outward. I could give a fuck what they approved of. *** I finally began school at Bellevue College in late September (no way in hell was I going back to high school). Every morning, my brother woke me up by flinging my door open, plopping Venus on my face, and singing THERE AIN’T NO REST FOR THE WICKED off-key. I’d shoot a string of good-natured profanities at him, and we’d face each other at the kitchen table, both sporting bowls of oatmeal or whole grain cereal. Eating hurt—I swallowed and scowled, my mouth sore, my stomach furious, my fists clenched. We didn’t speak much. *** My life officially restarted during what counted as my senior year of high school at Bellevue College. A girl in my year, Cindy, introduced herself to me. When she’d first said hi, I thought it was some kind of joke. Sure, talk to the silent, skinny girl with her hair over her eyes—see if she actually thinks you want to be friends. Apparently though, this wasn’t high school.

Cindy wore her black hair in dreadlocks. She dressed in flowing skirts and tank tops that clung to her curves. I didn’t like talking much at first, so we just passed notes across our desks for a week or so. On the Wednesday of the second week, we sat in a sunny patch of grass and read the textbook

20

to each other. Two beautiful boys walked by. I blushed and bowed my head, but Cindy called out to them.

“Jesse! Aaron! Come study with us!”

It’d been five months since Cole. I’d forgotten how to boys.

Soon Jesse and Aaron’s friends also sat with us, and then more friends of Cindy’s came, and more friends of Aaron’s, until eventually I thought I’d start hyperventilating.

“I uh…I have to get home.” I stood and started backing away, clenching my teeth.

Cindy furrowed her brow and frowned. “Okay. Text me though! We should hang out again.”

“Yeah, sure. Okay. See ya.”

Jesse stood, brushing his blond hair out of his quizzical blue eyes. “Do you live near here? I could walk you home.”

“No, I’m fine. But thanks. Add me on Facebook or…whatever.”

I ran.

When I booted up my computer at home, a notification popped up. Jesse Connors added you on Facebook. Click to accept. I blushed furiously as I pressed the button. *** That Friday, Cindy chatted on and on about Occupy Seattle, what a great cause it was, and how she’d been there every night that week. I nodded as I sipped my Ensure.

“We should go this evening, after class!”

That evening I had a weight check. “Um…I got something going on at four, but I guess I could meet up with you after.”

“What do you have going on?”

I thought of a couple lies, disregarded them, thought of a few more, and disregarded those too.

I met her eyes. “I just have a doctor appointment. It’s no big deal.”

“I can come with you, and then we can leave straight from there!”

“Okay.” I breathed deeply. “It’s at Children’s.”

“Children’s Hospital?”

“Yeah. Um. I—” And for literally no reason at all, I said it. “I’m recovering from anorexia. I need to get my weight checked every week. It won’t take long, but yeah, it’s at the hospital, so if my weight’s down too much they can just tube feed me without a big fuss.”

I’d been staring fixedly at the desk. I gradually met her eyes. She shrugged. “Hey, no problem. I’ll just wait in the lobby ‘til you’re done.”

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“Please don’t tell anyone, okay?” I thought of Jesse. “‘Course not. Why would I tell?” *** Cindy insisted I revisit my old high school with her. I blatantly refused. “Before I left for treatment I wouldn’t talk to anyone. I can’t face them again.”

Cindy proceeded to give me a lengthy pep talk about how they’d be so happy to see me, how they’d be proud, how big a step it would be in my recovery, blah blah strength, blah blah courage, blah blah I wouldn’t regret it. I finally agreed, mainly to shut her up, but I sort of knew she was right. A vague acquaintance of mine from two years ago drove us across town, rock music blaring and the windows down. I hid behind her as we weaved through the hallways of people. We perched ourselves on a windowsill for half an hour, breathing in the scent of hormones and death. A few boys I knew from my freshman and sophomore year approached and harassed me for answers. I dug my nails into my palm and plastered on a smile. *** Cindy, my former best friend Alice, and I, finally made our way out the building at 4:15. A voice jolted me. Ken. I turned slowly, to see him frowning, and then breaking into a grin. I sprinted towards him and flung myself into his embrace. He squeezed me into his chest and inhaled my hair deeply. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too.”

“Where have you been?!”

“Hell.”

Ken chuckled. “Well, I’m glad you’re back.” *** My therapist cried when I told her I’d faced my old friends. The girls in my ED Support Group applauded me.

Their praise all blended together. Fuck. I couldn’t ruin their glee by saying, “Yeah, but I kind of skipped lunch today, and I really wanted to take some lax this morning…help?” They’d think I wanted to cling to my eating disordered thoughts rather than embracing recovery, as they frequently accused each other of.

Venus stayed awake with me that night while I stared blankly up at the ceiling.

Restlessly, I picked up my phone from the bedside table and texted Ken. “Wanna grab lunch Wednesday?”

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MENTAL

AMYGDALA// Courtney Taylor

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I imagine you tiny, Shrunken like the raisin Compressed to the point of an easy and simple exhaustion Poisoned by the hand that feeds you, mirroring your host Fetal position–curled up, unwilling To let go of your tension would be to make a decision Ambivalence at its finest You’re processing fear As you become defined by it Frozen, restless, unforgiving I picture little footprints stamped across your crinkled surface Previous “conquests” Lessons learned, a transcript I dare you to recite them in order Not by date Or by place By their significance Can you?

I could recite to you the commandments of my spirit The protective mantras of my past, present, and future There are three: pleasure, protection, praise You see, Amygdala, this was your piety To thrust me forward into passionate oblivion Where I saw the endless potential of every human being Every living thing Except myself It was there in that place That I found solace in your words The manic whisper, “This could be what you’re looking for” Balanced by wandering doubt And piercing confidence The intensity you sought, even an ocean wouldn’t have sufficed “Only shallow pools,” you thought Where you drank with wild eyes, a thirsty heart

Every aspiration met Any infatuation welcomed You devoured, hungry Beyond satisfaction How do you subside the cravings of the unsure Of the constantly wanting The emotional glutton?

If my memory were kept on paper A file crusted with fresh dust Continuously abandoned and often revisited Eraser shavings Tab labeled “Rough Draft” I’m organized in stages By the levels of dopamine that’s released Amygdala Can they hear you churning while I speak?

She stood there Eyes green like jade A voice that held peaks and valleys Mountains A walk like wheat that swayed She quieted your temper And calmed that inner voice Until you wandered off Into a loud, noxious storm Lust Stop screaming, Amygdala She cannot hear you Sit silently, love These waves are not strangers And neither is she Trust the tide, Amygdala This is your vessel Keep Rowing

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OJOS // Luke Price

Por estos ojos que he visto toda mi vida Y cada pensamiento es la celda roída Los sonidos de sueños colorean mis visiones Sólo estar vivo me da convulsiones Mi mente es la corriente en agua hirviendo No grito cuando me estoy hundiendo Mi corazón viejo bastante tiene el pobre Ruego a Dios que mis hijos no coman con el cobre Estos ojos planean y hacen espirales A lo largo del flujo reluciente de colores La realidad se esconde en mi antiguo cerebro Las neuronas rechazan la verdad y celebro Mis miembros son los de un siervo. Están maltrechos y rotos Sin embargo, la espalda fractura pa’ ningún otro Y sobre ella se soportan las cargas de masas Cada día, vuelvo a casa y aplico las gasas Por estos ojos que he visto toda mi vida Y cada pensamiento es la causa perdida

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EYES // Luke Price

Through these eyes I have seen my entire life And each thought is the tormented cell The sounds of dreams color my visions Just being alive gives me convulsions My mind is the current in boiling water I do not scream when I am sinking My worn out heart has put up with enough I pray to God that my children won’t eat with copper These eyes soar and spiral Along the shining flow of color The reality is hidden in my former brain The neurons reject the truth and I celebrate.

My limbs are those of a servant. They are battered and broken Nevertheless, the back breaks for no one else And upon it the burdens of the masses are supported Each day, I return home and apply the gauze Through these eyes I have seen my entire life And each thought is the lost cause.

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BLUE // Deana Fuller

I was six years old when I first saw the work of Pablo Picasso.

Using hues of blue he painted images of poverty that eventually lead to his own, but still he painted.

Searching for warmth within the cold and life within his depression.

What the public failed to see was that blue with which he painted was the unoxygenated blue of his own bloodstream.

He painted with the colors that poured from his heart.

Sometimes the most life filled things are colored in cold and dark.

HIPS AND THIGHS // Nat Bellows

Sometimes I wonder what people think when they look at me Do they see what I see when I look in the mirror?

I wonder if they see my big hips and fat thighs as I do Or do they see them as a part of me in ways I could never imagine?

I have big hips and fat thighs This is a fact I have learned to live with I wish I could say that I love these parts of my body But sadly this may never be true My big hips and fat thighs are a part of me that I can never change No matter how much I eat healthfully and exercise The genes that came together to create me Gave me naturally big hips and fat thighs

It is from this darkness that we are given life.

In my favorite book, The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas writes that, “There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more.”

Sometimes the moments in which we feel most alive are the ones where we are lay in wait on death’s door.

It is when we embrace our mortality that we discover our immortal legacy lies not in that which we have acquired, but, rather in that which we leave behind.

Picasso’s blue period allows us to look through his eye into the heartbeat of the world.

My five year old nephew’s bright blue eyes once looked deeply into mine as he asked: are you happy? And even though at the time I had no money, no job, and no place to call my home, I still told him yes; because in that moment holding him in my arms,

This does not mean that I cannot love what my body is capable of Every day I wake up and I walk and I work and I breathe My body was not built for much running But I can walk for miles and dance for hours I wonder what people see when they look at me Do they see me as I see myself?

Do they see my personality and my character?

Or do they see me only as far as my surface?

Can they see my love of music and of animals?

Do they know my capacity for compassion and understanding?

I love my innate ability to listen and care for others Yet no matter how hard I try, I sometimes cannot see my own worth

How could I be anything but blessed?

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BOGEY // Rosa Tobin

I am passionate and patient and determined And my mind works in very logical ways Do people see these traits when they look at me?

Or is all they see only what I let out?

Addicts recover.

What do people see when they look at me?

Do they see my emotions and state of mind?

Can they sense my inner turmoil and depression?

Can they see my deep sense of loneliness that I cannot seem to escape?

Chains, baskets, forever in the throw of it all – alone.

They join together sharing scores.

Solace only in new obsessions – chucking discs.

At night, I wish my mind would rest and let me sleep But no matter how late into the night, insomnia’s tight grip has a hold on me My mental health is a part of me that I am working to improve It is a long journey that is only beginning and still very far from over Sometimes I wonder what people think when they look at me Do they see me as I see myself?

Do they see my inner struggles and depression?

Or is all they see on the surface of my big hips and fat thighs?

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DRAWING WOLVES // Jesse Ulmer

all I want to do is draw wolves over and over again until they break away from the page wolves running wild around my bedroom the inside of my chest is delicate I scrape poems from the walls nails catching on the ridges of my ribs words peeling down, curling around themselves shavings off sentences there are wolves in the wallpaper we’re not supposed to talk about it mom redecorated our childhood room right before grandpa sold the house I have a brother I’m not supposed to talk to not because he’s mean because he’s not real but he’s in family photographs anyways always standing right behind the curve of my scull a little to the left you can see him in the way my head is turned back as though someone’s just called my name I hear it so often these days I pull words from my throat like magicians do scarves but I never learned the trick right so it’s no trick at all just letters and sentences stuffed into my stomach cruel ink sharp sides that scratch my lungs and tear my throat

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ta-dah what a clever trick they say while I heave onto the stage is this too dramatic?

I can no longer tell but back to the wolves in the walls in my fingertips in the beds of my nails wedged between my kneecaps and my thighs I don’t understand commas or how to punctuate a poem what patterns of letters are supposed to make sense nothing does I knock at my breastbone to hear if anything’s there at all what a worthless poet they say a mechanical failure the bones of my body don’t fit together like they’re supposed to they pull each other out of place try to head east when I’m going west creak and snap making small talk with the trees the creak by my house flooded its banks I breathed easy for a month I used to be afraid of monsters

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CALL ME: ICKY (OR) I’M A DANGEROO (OR) DDR // Mikey Moore

I’m fodder, father, please hit me. Big Sis hand my 1st fuckin’ whiskey.

Kharon said “I’m gonna offer you a pre-order.” I got that going for me.

Automatically play the role: of the ottoman Just try and put your feet up

.

Get sliced off / my teeth.

Icarus

/ Icky . Oh, you again?/ Cuddle butane kisses so I feel tame / nah I feel hot to the touch—no reins ‘round my neck.

Call me Kenny McCormick— next up dead, kill him first—mumbling:

I meant: I be Odysseus: I am No

Man.

I don’t sugarcoat I jacketSriracha slap on a smile You Nala — mania/cal(led)—beat me all up—pin me down &I’m awestruck

Poor linoleum absorb my violence/ ^V^v^V^ Smashed my pride. rock face: stony silence; I miss my lion ex

expecting Smile a mile-a-minute, vile menace courting nemesis whenfuckin’ever;

I’m allergic to intimate constantly consistently

timid insistently; intimidated by mirrors, vicodinin’ Michael .I did it. wait, let me finish

I. am. No. Michael I’m obnoxious

Nah I mean I be nauseous nope

I be noxious to you

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I’m a storm trooper, a fuckin’ loser, mama said “Imma Trooper” But truth hurt and truth here is Dorothy murdered my witch inside of my wicked mind.

I loved that Delicious Demented Resistance. DDR.

I dnc out my demons it’s imminent “Hey you there, Ayuda!”

.I never mute my dilemma.

Let me crack my armour open/ Kill My chuckle; don’t coddle

Pills?: my muzzle. Unmuffle me.

My muscle milk: curdled.

Yelled: “Help?”:moot. I’m already murdered.

Taboo? I don’t have aversions

Her style be rude; the most venomous

“Who me?”

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SEIZURE // Bethoven Mic Linden

Yeah, you.

your mess is Delectable Dangerous dripping on the Dncfloor Calm down? Nah Inanimate object when you cuff my ghost.

Intangible: I’m an animal who never folds, no origami— I am

^V^v^V^ Fuck ever holding my liquor / Drink and I be holding my ground / I wanted the title: Mr. /

When sleep is broken crumbling like break – glass. Pieces descend Seizing the stars pushing me down I push back cumbersome – my voice struggles un-heard

I want to tell you I’m okay – even as I become mute esophagus and spine It’s not as bad as it looks I would lie.

No, Michael.

let me be weak. Now.

Slumber-ripping tremors open me up Back arches tempestuous wrenching I want to reach for you I need you to reach for me I don’t want to think of the darkness.

I want to tell you I’m okay – even as they strike me unexpected; sudden It isn’t as bad as it looks I always lie.

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TREMORS // Bethoven Mic Linden

THE PLAYSTRUCTURE OF MEMORY // Alexander Gittleman

These eyes-lids are puppets – hair-triggered the neck sags – pupils recoil

And I Drop.

Pretending to be unbeaten – twitching fiction Jaw drops out – useless; enfeebled my hands cover it They stall – they gawk While my head seethes When will it stop?

Flickers-twitches A racking that does not kill twitch only pains Drop.

Demanding – capturing me I cannot escape They come always there Quick and quicker prosecuting Drop.

Through glass Drop.

They shatter me – outcast me I sway and waver They persist – I am lapsing My world is lapsing – waiting Drop.

World out Too quick Drop.

It fights against the body A tooth-tipped stabbing

mouth bleeding – gurgling Clicking phlegm Wheezing from a sand-bagged esophagus

“Are you ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok. I’m going to need you to concentrate. Take a deep breath. And try to remember the first time you felt isolation from the rest of the world.”

I closed my eyes and drew my breath.

“Well, I had that feeling a lot of times when I was younger. I’m not sure I can—” “Just try,” she interrupted. I exhaled.

The room rose silently, like a full moon over the horizon. I couldn’t hear anything, but rather I could feel its presence. The moon and the memory, the moon as the memory, both intertwined into one.

“Ok, I found it. I—“ “No. Don’t tell me. Just experience it. Let me know afterwards.”

Once again, I drew my breath.

I am derailed – Drop.

▼

At the age of five.

Beyond a wooden gate lies an elementary school playground. A three-level play structure is stranded in the middle of a desert of woodchips. It is four-sided; jutting out of the left side is a set of monkey bars, parallel to the gate, and out of the front grows a swing set. The three levels of the main structure skew so that a small child can climb from the bottom to the top with a stretching set of stairs and an assisting metal bar that leads to a higher and higher landing.

The late afternoon sun latches itself onto the highest level of the play structure and slowly pulls itself downward, downward, and downward further to the ground, striking the chips ablaze. As minutes pass, the shadows of the assisting metal bars swell and engulf the top floor in black. One by one, the illuminated floors of the structure falter and are swallowed into darkness. Shadows of the tree branches, and the school building, and the play structure consume the final flares from the sun at the furthest end of the playground.

It’s 5:55 pm, five minutes to closing time. One child with nightmares of being abandoned remains on the playground, sitting on the swing set, in silence. ▼

I exhaled.

The same silence rose as earlier. I couldn’t hear anything; but rather I could feel its presence, or maybe its essence coming, like a swelling crescendo to the ears of Ludwig Van. The same way that recalling a favorite song can bring forgotten times back from the dead.

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▼

Ten minutes passed and a teacher brought me in through the swinging playground doors, through the school building, towards the front steps where I would sit until my father’s arrival.

Why am I alone? What’s different about me?

Have I been forgotten?

At around 6:20 my father came shredding through the empty parking lot in his copper-colored Toyota Celica. Boston, “More than a feeling”, was bulging through the speakers I tottered up to the car and struggled into the passenger seat. The glare from the low afternoon sun pounced off of the dashboard into my eyes and hid his identity. I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t remember him. He placed his hand on my head. “Sorry kiddo, it won’t happen again.” ▼

My eyes opened to my mentor Margaret’s, they were hazel with tiny specks of black separating from the pupil. Her hair was brown with silver streaks radiating through. She had wrinkles from a continual smile that she wore throughout my appointments with her.

Not a smile of happiness, but rather a smile of wisdom. I imagine her—20 years earlier— walking through a field of daisies with one in her hair that she’d picked from the lowest bloom; she felt it didn’t receive enough sunlight. This wasn’t a thought that I imagined from attraction. Rather it was that I was enamored with the idea of what someone with her altruistic mindset would do at my age in her spare time.

“Ok,” I said, signaling I’d finished.

“Now you see, if you can target the emotional experience of what you just went through and alter it to a positive one within the memory, you can view the world in the present from a whole new standpoint. If you’re unhappy with a belief you have, then why have it? Just alter the memory attached to that, and poof, change it to whatever you want.”

Once again, I drew my breath. The machine I was attached to was working. ▼

During the Spring break of 2014, I participated in an experimental treatment called Neurofeedback to cure my hovering sadness leftover from isolation and grieving from the death of my father. Each session, electrodes would be attached to different sections of my skull in order to tune in to different brain frequencies. The electrodes provided the therapist with necessary information on the frequencies. She used this information to read which areas of my brain weren’t working properly, and to then charge and tune down certain frequencies in the brain, all in attempt to normalize. At

40

the time, I was creeping out of isolation. My memory was changing. My moon was shifting above me.

“Do it again.” She said, “Change your emotion in this memory to whatever you want. I’ll wait.” ▼

Beyond a wooden fence lies an elementary school playground. A three-level play structure sprouts from the middle of a field of woodchips. A small child plays in a swing-set showered in sun.

Attached to the swing set is a play tower where 40 minutes earlier he and a friend named Sonia were having a tickle battle. Branching off of the tower in a right angle from the swing set there are monkey bars, where an hour and a half earlier, he raced against his best friend Shivan. He’s not alone.

The late afternoon sun spills onto the highest level of the tower and slowly leaks downward, and downward and downward to the ground, striking the chips in incandescent drips of gold. As minutes pass, the sun shifts positions to reveal new areas of the park that had once been blanketed in shadow. It’s 5:55 pm, there are only five minutes left to play. One child with the dreams of having a playground to himself has had them granted. ▼

Exhale, The same silence rose for the third time. I couldn’t hear anything, but rather I felt presence, or maybe the essence, or no, it was more than a feeling, more than a song; I could sense it, such as a door left ajar to the blackest night, and no response to the question, “Is anybody out there?” There was someone out there. ▼

At around 6:20 my father came shredding through the parking lot in his copper-colored Toyota Celica. As he pulled closer to the school building, Boston’s, “More than a feeling,” swelled to my ears like a crescendo. I dove into the passenger seat and gazed out of the back window at a full moon. As I turned to his face this time, I could remember his 80’s goatee, his goofy personality and his smiling eyes. I could remember him.

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STOCKHOLM SYNDROME // Natalie Eitel

Woke up sloughing off dreams Painted by the layers of lives clinging

still to memories Living in the present

Both before and after me and realized I am here spun

of fibers

From the many lives I lived

Prior to this one Grains of the people

I was before Both harrowed warrior and yellow survivor And in this faint memory

I feel us here Spun

of the ropes bound round our ankles Spun

of the threads of circumstance That tore us apart Just before the water swept over

the best of us at our worst And the fibers remain embedded, still

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in the forgetfulness of our dreams

IMAGES

TRIGGER WARNING:

Some of these images contain strong language and scenes of domestic violence, nudity, and rape.

HOW MUCH FORCE DOES IT TAKE TO BLEND BACK Coco Spadoni

OVERSEER Allie Paul

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UNTITLED NIGHTMARE Carrie Cooper

ON VULNERABILITY Kari Vanderburg

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HOMINIS R. Grant Williams

AJ Katy Bentz 51

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AUGUST

JACOB

Katy Bentz

Katy Bentz

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SILENCED NO. 1

SILENCED NO. 2

Sarah O’Sell

Sarah O’Sell

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SILENCED NO. 6 Sarah O’Sell PLASTIC I

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Camila Frey-Booth

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PLASTIC II

PLASTIC III

Camila Frey-Booth

Camila Frey-Booth

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UNTITLED FROM A SERIES OF PAGES Michaela Patrick

SELF PORTRAIT Hannah Rivers

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DOWN DOG BUSTED RIBS

Nicole Lorence

Hannah Rivers

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SISTERS Nicole Lorence SE ÉCHAPPER Cassie Howlett

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CHARCOAL MAN // Elise Dresel

1.

It wasn’t as if I could make it up myself. I was spreading my forefinger and pinky outwards and my nails caught on the first cloth they touched.

How was it that I didn’t know what I was holding but it only put my presence into a different memory from my past. Warmth and the smell of just lit gasoline as it lined your house and mine.

Goodbye I mumbled and my mother grabbed my face asking me what I had said. What did you say what did you say she repeated. Her face was shadowed and her hands felt cold and tight. What did you say?

2.

DEATH

I was born on a Sunday afternoon in August. My mother told me I was a Leo and that I had fire in my stomach. Ouch. The stove burned me. I pictured the round red rings circling downwards into my innards. They motivated me. My father told me that I shouldn’t talk downwards towards others. Lower, lower. Don’t talk downwards to the lower. I did anyways. My fire burned and rustled as my ego grew larger. My fire lit and sparked and I knew the only way upwards was to talk downwards. I fell to the ground the day my father hit me. I never talked down to the upwards.

My brother was born during a storm in late December. I called him a Capricorn. Well rounded. He spoke clearly about his feelings and liked animals. Practical. Think straight not down or up or bent over. What do you really feel? Asked the psychiatrist as she wrote a prescription for a five year old. He played with Legos and the little dog bounced around the room. Scared. The dogs name was Millie. I remember because she put her paws in your lap to pet them.

3.

Remember the day when we walked to the neighbor’s house and watched it burn down? My vision was tinted a gray color and everything smelled like a sour, burnt stove. I remember we wanted to call the fire department but you got too scared and then faced your own home. I wonder how the

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fire started? We kept walking and saw an image we don’t talk about. That mom was grabbing her daughter. She hit her in the face and the air changed and I smelled gasoline. I looked around for a car. You grabbed my wrist and we pulled each other to the street corner and we walked our separate ways.

4.

I lost a lot of weight and everyone asked me how I did it. I didn’t know how I lost the weight but my clothing was loose and I felt better about myself. Later in the year I went to the doctors and they took my blood. You are sick. What? You are sick. I have the occasional IBS symptoms but I’m not sick. You are sick. I have a high fiber diet.

5.

The burned down house stuck up into the sky. Black and charred against the tall green of a tree. I wanted to go there when it turned dark so we could see what it smelled like now. You agreed reluctantly. I remember thinking that you had a crush on me. We walked down the hill to the towering black beams. Long yellow tape blocked the entrance but we ran through it like we finished a race.

You stared at my smile. As we walked closer to the house I saw the fireplace standing still, untouched.

You kicked a plank of wood and it broke a dinner plate. I knelt down to pick it up and I could barely see the design. We stood there. Silent. Something in my stomach started to deepen. I later decided it was guilt. I felt sad even thought it wasn’t my house. You gasped and pointed at something that was hard to see in the darkness. We saw a man’s body. It was hanging, charcoal black.

6.

7.

You didn’t talk to me for three whole days. I thought about the body swinging from the earth’s rotation in the black and burned house. I named him Charcoal Man. I didn’t think it was the brother. I looked at the perspective Charcoal Man’s Facebook and saw that he was handsome and I daydreamed about him. What if we dated and I was his grieving girlfriend. I would lie on my bed and sob. I would contemplate death. You called me back about a movie playing in the theater downtown.

8.

I stood next to your body. I was the first to see it. I could tell. I didn’t know it was you at first but I stared at your burned fingernails and could tell they were picked apart. I tried to convince myself rats did it, but I know you did seconds before you lit us up. Your motives are unclear. My motives are to touch your skin and so maybe some of you will become part of me. I decided to lay on the ground with my eyes underneath your burned rubber shoes. You tilted above slowly. Your chin faced downwards, speaking downwards. Talking downwards. I saw you upwards.

9.

I wanted to go to the bonfire on Bonnie Street but you told me it was too triggering for you.

Triggering for you? I heard the anorexic girl whose house burnt down is there, and her brother killed himself. I told you. They don’t know if it was her brother yet. It was the end of summer and all I wanted was to go to the bonfire. To see the wood spark and the smoke follow beauty. It never plumed towards me. And when it started to I closed my eyes, waiting for it to engulf me in its dark, suffocating gray but it would pull back and go to the gymnast instead. She was flexible. Beauty was a curse.

Do you think Heaven is real? He asked me. Yes, and there are demons that will haunt you until you get there. I answered. He started to fidget. I wonder if he is in Heaven now. He was innocent.

Someone at church told me if you killed yourself you got sent to Hell. I guess that is a good enough reason for me to suffer until the end so I don’t have to go there. I guess it wasn’t a good enough reason for him.

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SCATTERING ASHES AT SQUALICUM // Timothy Pilgrim

10.

Yesterday my Dad told me to pray.

“For what?”

“Your brother.”

“Dad, it doesn’t work that way if he is in hell.”

My dad slammed his hand on the hotel door.

There was a knock on the opposite side.

He opened it and two little kids stood there holding hands and with matching dresses on.

“Is this supposed to be The Shining?” my dad asked.

I remembered it was Halloween.

I asked the kids for candy and then threw up in the sink.

Friends drift in on wind, recall her independence, imagine her smile returning, surging with high tide. They know even now she won’t be owned, believe she will rise to greet them so they hum a song of hope. Sisters carry shrouded ash – charred end after a long battle – endure dawn chill, begin the goodbye. Their collective breath dives deep, pauses vacant, still, but not lost. Tossed aloft, she dances again, a small gray cloud spiraling in mist. Butterflies, purple, gold, white, sweep by, flit upward into clearing sky.

11.

The autopsy came back and it turned out that it was the brother that killed himself in the fire.

He was only nineteen. You told me he was older but the paper proved you wrong. The memorial was at a marine park and they played music by Neil Young. You told me that ruined Harvest Moon for the rest of your life. We stood on the outskirts of the memorial. We didn’t know the family.

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GUNSHOT // Theresa Williams

shoot to sun oh unhung son so soon so soon to hush

HELP // Erica Reed

after Robert Lashley’s “Frisked on Fraser and Woburn Death Fugue” and Frazey Ford

no shout no song got no guns on no shouts no songs us ghosts shot too soon oh unsung moon not sun not son hot guts no noon sun no son no son no thought us ought hush hush us unhung moons us unhung moons got hung got hung hot sun

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When you got religion I was counting death fugues written by my black friend we congratulated him when he was published (nailed) and forgot to ask does it hurt? forgot to offer yes and just and battalion we posted and reposted his poem left him alone

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IT’S PERSONAL // Taylor Romero

in his apartment with forgotten and flashbang and used When you got religion I was counting death fugues written by my black friend protesting in my sleep my western bed eating everything grey in the house Not knowing how to not knowing how to notknowinghowto

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I think the world lost a little extra laughter that day in April Certainly my world did It’s funny how the little things are what bring me to my knees more than anything else That video of us as elves or that song from your BBQ music playlist At least when I picture you it’s always of you laughing I’d like to think that’s how you always were And not because the cancer grew so fast we only had days to remember anything else “gotta do what you’ve gotta do” became less of a mantra and more of a demand with each day.

There are these moments of forgotten pockets in time when I pick up the phone to call you or speak of you in present tense what lovely torturous pockets those are what horrifically nice breaks form reality because the moment you appreciate the normalcy is the exact moment you relive the awful moment you knew he was gone the same one you get when you are waking up from a dream about him only to remind yourself, that is the only place you will ever find that person again in those brief pockets of forgetfulness driven by habit alone the sad part about habits is once we stop fueling them, they die.

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DIOS // Alexandra Bell

The prince is lost, pink cherry red Her eyes lie limp and hollow The princess speaks, “she can’t be dead.”

“There’s no pain or oozing sorrow For what is love without some loss?”

She asks her long dead kin.

“Just fried eggs and ketchup sauce.”

Is how she hides her sin.

But alas it reeks of tricks and lies.

There, a rose, a garden waits Up to the sky, the gates do rise “She’s mine, you see.” She firmly states “A doll I made when all was lost.”

“A flower grown to choose our fates.”

Even with the gambles tossed “She’s mine, you see.” She says once more.

“My secret love to keep.”

Clutched to her chest, her inner core.

A grave to long lost sleep Yet, Her brother lays so still She laughs at the corpse unburied A broken mess of painful will Because the prince she carried Her lips mouth words to royal tears A riddle too hard to crack But souls are all the princess hears For now all there is, is black.

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UR A DYKE // Jesse Ewing-Frable

FEMALE IMAGE

stared me down straight on that teal blue stall

asked about my spelling & I proclaimed the noun

when I stole the hall pass from Sister Ruth

on stall four. We drove sixty in a school zone

to see about my sharpied ode to Joni Mitchell.

back to Holy Names, stole a soap bucket

Truth is, when I saw that word among declarations of undying

from the Janitor’s, and spent the rest of Tuesday

for Johnny or Conner or Patrick or Kyle, I felt no sudden

scrubbing that word like it was sin.

shame, no rustling fear—only a used tampon under my left Chuck Taylor. I skipped home & found Mom in the blue watching soaps with Ethel. She

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UGH // Taylor Romero

CHANGE THE ENDING // Amelia Marchetti

I like how you laugh after I say “that’s what they all say” as if it doesn’t apply to you you mediocre tempter and half-hearted lover

A quiet night inside, my legs over hers, blankets stacked high as we watch the television from our cramped couch. She’s a sweet girl who I should call a woman, and she tries to be my friend.

She makes promises she forgets, tells stories I’m never sure I believe, swears to set me up with girls, and I’ve given up on her. I’m not committed to this assessment though. We share a bedroom— though assigned by the school—I don’t want to think I can’t rest my feelings in her hands.

“Why so sour sweetheart? Learn to smile.”

One day I hope you meet someone who is as kindhearted as me that isn’t invisible to you “She’d be so much hotter if she was a little taller and thinner” there is just far more sex appeal found in a woman out for blood than in a women out to heal “Don’t take it so personal” See my distrust in men happened around the same time I found out lust was not an emotion but an action.

We’re staring at the television, wrapped up in the night and empty apartment, and my thoughts are spirally in my head. Words bubble up like spoiled champagne in my throat—sour and jagged with the promise of past pleasantries going foul and wrong. They scare me, these rotten words and invisible scars. Sometimes I wonder if they’re even there. The fear that I’ll say they are when they aren’t is as discoura—no, as nauseating as them being real. I’m going in circles and I need help. I think I even want help.

“Hey,” I say. She doesn’t notice. I wonder if this is in her deaf ear. I could take it back, “Hey.” “Hmm?” She doesn’t look away from the television. I can’t recall what we’re watching. I can’t remember anything in the condensed moment where words are tumbling between my lips.

“I’ve been wondering—” how your classes are going, how things with Justin are going, how a mostly spiritually based relationship is working for you, have you even asked Victoria Brienne Audrey— “if I’m aromantic.”

She looks away from the screen too easily, isn’t choking on fear, uncertainty, surprise, sympathy, anger, pride, tears, or heartbreak. She looks at me with bewildered pity.

I see her lips move and I this is what I want to hear: “Really?”

I’d nod. I wouldn’t be able to speak.

She would swallow and look at me, look as confused as I feel.

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PROVE IT // Chantel Pedicone

“Okay.” She wouldn’t be certain, how could she be when I’m not? “Okay.”

The words fall silent around us, and I can taste the words that would reply. I’d tell her that it’s just a question, that I’m scared to wonder, that she doesn’t ever have to bring it up again, but I want her to be on my side. I need someone on my side.

I needed validation for my fears more than I realized at the time. It only became apparent when I told my Queer Support Group the real ending. How she never told me “okay,” never asked me “really.” I told them how she actually said: “Sweetie, you just haven’t found the right person, you’re just a little lonely.”

I told them that when she looked away like the conversation was over, she broke my heart.

I couldn’t say the words again, not for months, almost a year. I couldn’t say these words that later liberated me.

I told my group that I didn’t know anymore who I was. They told me it was going to be okay.

Really.

He told me: “If it’s not paying the bills, it’s just a hobby.”

I say: “I do.”

Not as a contract of life, but as a declarative factuality.

Dear presumptuous he:

You say: “Yeah right. Prove it.”

If you only knew.

If you only knew how many shows I play for the love.

For the ability to live, to feed this rotting mentality that money is all that exists.

If you only knew how I’m not taken seriously until I play, until I hop on stage.

Still, fighting off the gruesome who take the opportunity to look up my skirt, to look down on my gender, and doubt my ability to strum more than a ‘C,’ a ‘D,’ an ‘A’ major, mediocre, melancholy.

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As if that wasn’t a given.

As if I hadn’t heard it before.

As if I gave a fuck what you thought anymore.

Prove it.

They say.

They think.

They assume.

To keep me down low.

Prove it.

Girls can’t play guitar.

Girls can’t write music.

Girls can’t perform without a man to guide them through it.

But what if they were wrong, as their socially constructed minds favor the oppressive assumption.

What if it was your fault [presumptuous he] for harassing a musician on the street?

Instead of mine, for being a girl out at night.

Proving herself at shows.

Proving herself past gender lines.

Proving herself just to get by.

Oh, if you only knew.

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AMERICAN GIRL // Mackenzie Streissguth

A WOMAN OF WORTH // Hannah Streetman

You’re wounded, too - I know, I know.

But, so is the grand canyon to the carter of the moon. It is nothing new.

I will love you only as Brutus does the senate floor, only as medical tents do bayonets.

I promise.

Give me a chance to prove it to you, like remembering that railroads still own destiny and that steam boats still hold revolution.

Like a New Deal, a Marshall Plan, a Declaration – promising, but hurting those before and after.

Like your mother, once, baking rhubarb pie and your feet underfoot, tugging on umbilical strings.

And biting my fist as you fight for them, The Fatherland, your father’s land, his stern words against “those” people, i.e. me; crowding you against the kitchen counter, kissing acne, a cracked necklace.

But you and I outlived the men who raised us.

“Who can find a woman of worth? For her price is far above rubies.” -Proverbs 31:10-31

And you – red, blonde, and blue – I will love you, I promise, only as a book on the top shelf of a flooded library.

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She takes her monthly Midol She never flusters, muddles, or tenses Her problems are preshrunk cotton, worry-free Her scalloped heart rests on a beveled mirror She snowshoes with poise She gives her all She takes his tendered regard She makes tender offerings in return She watches the blush of the sundown clouds while Her fruitful, willing hands tend to loam in Her vegetable garden’s sown bedding She gives thank-you cards She takes her time She scoops out her sugar by the half-teaspoonful She chooses between eggshell and peroxided paint samples She wears eyelet blouses and waterproof mascara while She poetically garnishes and then She gives him her byline

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WHISPERS OF CRIMSON // Elspeth Jensen

THE RED GLOVES // Sarah Daniels

Whispers of crimson and I know again I’ve jumped the tracks but I fear maybe when the moon comes to howl full again my body will be mangled beneath steel dragging flesh along that doesn’t touch on human

Once upon a time, there was a little girl with red gloves. The gloves had been given to her by her mother. Her mother told her the gloves had magic powers.

Don’t go out into the woods without your gloves. They will protect you.

The woods yawn and sway. She will be lost. She will not be lost. She dropped breadcrumbs in from her basket to mark the way.

The girl had a peculiar trait: everywhere she went, she saw the shadows of things. She saw the things that were, but she also saw the things that weren’t. When she saw something that frightened her, she put her gloves on and kept walking until she couldn’t see it anymore.

What waits there, in the dark? When you are small and tender, everything wants to eat you.

She knows this by instinct; she does not need her mother’s warning to stay on the path.

She sees what there is, and what there isn’t.

She knows now that to dream of red means death. As the little girl grew, the things that weren’t grew too. Not only wolves and witches, but goblins, fairies, and men. The most dangerous wolves are the tame ones.

Do not stray from the path, her mother said. Keep your head down. Keep yourself small. Do not dream of red. Do not dream of red.

In the end, she realized that warning was a myth. Even before she saw her first blood, she was a morsel to be devoured. Hunted across every tale, there is no refuge for the tender.

She put on her gloves and kept walking, but keeping your head down and making yourself small won’t save you in the end, little girl. She saw what was there, and what wasn’t there. Isn’t the world scary enough? her mother asked. Isn’t it enough to contend with wolves and witches and goblins and trolls and kings and men; do you have to make things up, too?

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BAPTISM // Rachel Broenkow

Her sleep grew restless. She sometimes wakes up gasping like a drowned thing, she sometimes feels a weight on her chest and opens her eyes and sees it leering down at her, all teeth, all fingers. If you let the wolf in, is it your fault that you were eaten?

Do not dream of red. Do not draw their attention. But her mother gave her the red gloves and told her they were enchanted. She wore charms around her neck and carried knives in her pocket; she wore her red gloves and kept walking until she couldn’t see the things that weren’t anymore. If you go into the woods carrying fear like a stone in your belly, the breadcrumbs will dissolve and the birds will peck out your eyes. Never go without your gloves, her mother said.

She kept her head down. But she hears the footsteps behind her in her dreams and in her waking. She hears them even when she puts her gloves on, even when she keeps walking. The woods will close around her; the trees will snag her clothes and pull her hair. There is no enchantment that will save you from your own fear. She will be devoured or she will become inedible; there is no safe place for those with soft flesh and soft hearts. The prick of the knife is nothing to a wolf. The prick of the spindle is nothing to the ones who wait in the dark.

Do not dream of red, her mother said. But she puts on her red gloves and goes out into the world.

One step up, one breath in.

She feels the thin white bar pressing into her naked soles, and takes another. There is no one else on this side of the pool. Only small children in pastel suits and gossiping parents, and they do not breach the plastic barrier that marks where the water begins to deepen. Their shrill shrieks are blunted by the humid air and stadium-height ceiling; the girl imagines hearing their voices through the spiraled intestines of a shell. They sound the way her own voice does when she is too drunk and her head feels like it is unscrewing from her neck.

She tells herself that she will make it this time. She will resist the manic urge for air, will hold her breath in her burning lungs for long enough to reach the bottom.

Another breath, another step.

She remembers the last time she drank in the field off the abandoned road with some other kids from her high school, and how her voice rang denial when they called her a dyke.

Tracks of fluorescent lights beam down, illuminating her collarbone and streaking her tangled hair. Her outstretched arms grasp the metal safety bars that flank her sides, and she watches beads of water clinging to her glistening skin. Finally she stands at the base of the diving board. The chlorine-bleached deep blue mouth ripples under her, darker than the turquoise of the shallow end.

She thinks about the shimmering water and the glistening saliva tracks her tongue left on Eden Thomson’s neck and breasts the last time they’d combined.

Five steps, and she stands at the edge of the board.

She is alone, separate, and above.

She wants to touch the bottom with her fingertips, feel the smallness of her body, take herself somewhere forbidden. Swollen air presses her body like exploring hands, and the warmth on her lips reminds her of the huff of Eden’s breath when they kissed in the dark gym supply closet of their high school, or maybe it reminded her of the cigarette smoke Luke Skiles blew onto her mouth after he took her virginity in the backseat of his mother’s car.

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ARTIST STATEMENTS

She raises her arms above her head and looks up at her scarred silver-lined wrists before testing the movement of her body and the flexibility of the board with an easy jump. Eyes closed, she takes one final breath on the second hard jump and leaps from the board. Maybe it is a perfectly executed full dive, maybe it is a bellyflop , or maybe her body is rigid and breaks the skin of the water like a needle through fabric.

Her body slices the surface and is pulled down. Her momentum takes her halfway. Eyes clamped shut, she resists her buoyancy and heaves her open arms up, pushing against the water.

Push. Push. Push. The deeper she sinks, the more she is absolved. The heavy water licks away her stains, leaving her pure. Her legs reach for the rough cement bottom, but there is nothing. She can feel her hair float around her face before each new kick. The pressure on her skull makes her head ache.

Her left foot finds purchase, and she pulls herself down, all outstretched hands and feet grasping the rough cement. She stares at the floor through her lashes with stinging eyes, wanting to prove that she is there. Her compressed frame aches, threatening to burst. She launches herself upward, and then waits loosely for her body to carry her to air as she becomes lighter layer by layer, her lungs singing for the first new breath.

IDENTITY CHAMELEON // Victoria White This piece is a short poem about my life as a quarter black woman. The theme of internal and external identities struck me this year because I believe my life, and my personality, have been greatly shaped by my ethnic background and the color of my skin. Having to convince every friend I’ve had that I’m black, and then having to explain that my heritage means a lot to me even if it isn’t written on my skin, has manufactured the way I view race. The contents of this poem shed light on a type of discrimination (a word that I never thought to use, but I now know to be accurate) that not many recognize, but that has dominated my life.

THAT’S JUST HOW IT IS // Chantel Pedicone Sexuality is such a fluid element of being human, but tends to be shoved into rigidly defined categories, as to make us feel “comfortable” labeling. This poem gives insight to some of my personal experiences identifying as a lesbian, but being perceived as heterosexual on the basis of assumptive stereotyping. I highlight some ways that people change their appearance to better suit societal standards or “fit” their sexual identity (in comparison to changing for their personal reasons or desire). I find it’s important to stay true to who you are, and that your sexuality is an important part of your identity—not your entire being (to prevent others from dismissing all other aspects of your personal story). This piece examines the conflict between internal and perceived-external identity—how “passing” as the non-marginalized group in society can have negative effect and be at perpetual odds with your true identity.

MY LIFE IS NOT A BINARY // Nat Bellows The piece is the first poem that I ever wrote which also became my first ever work of spoken-word poetry and has since been reworked to reflect my life as it is now. This piece deals with what others perceive me to be versus how I perceive myself. This is directly correlated with this year’s theme of external and internal identities because it focuses on what some of my personal struggles in life have been and how other people would not be able to see these when simply looking at me.

IS THIS BETTER? // Kory Olson I started classes at WWU just a couple months after female hormones were introduced into my body.

In the two years since, I’ve seen nothing but change. Being trans is an emotional, psychological,

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physical, and social experience. It is wonderful and overwhelming and disorienting in ways that no one—especially I—could imagine. This is piece is an attempt to convey that experience. To write beyond the clichés that have integrated themselves in the popular imagination and show—without judgment or anger or pity—the true experience of what it takes to change one’s gender in the world of today.

I CAN ONLY BE SEEN ON FIRE // Alex Vigue This is a poem born out of frustration but also from revelation. Since graduating college I have been thrown back into my hometown, which has not changed much since I left. I, however, have changed a lot. Queer is an insult here rather than an identity, yet as a gay man I am somewhat of a commodity. Most people here have not met a gay person and are more intrigued than unpleasant. This poem is an anthem to myself and others who are struggling to stay themselves in a place where they are pigeonholed or placed in a box. This poem is about burning the box and if need be the people who placed you in the box.

I AM A BATTLEFIELD // Maggie Grasseschi Bodies are so often are a point of contention in society. “I am a battlefield” started one day as I looked at myself in the mirror and saw nothing but flaws. Once I told my friend that his scars meant he was a survivor. In this poem, I aim to look at the body from a standpoint of power. No matter gender expression or sexual identity, every one has struggled with themselves at some point. This poem works to take images of war and conquest paralleled with the body to show that the costs and trials (real and imagined) of the journey to body acceptance.

GO GRIZZLIES GO // Lanegan Bicchieri “Go Grizzlies Go” to me is a piece that speaks to the identity pigeonholing that is a major part of high school athletics, notions of masculinity at a young age, and even family dynamics. I wanted to include this poem because as far as marginalizing someone, I think father figures and peers hold a great sway over teenage boys. To be fair I also think they hold great sway over these boys as they become men. I felt it was especially palpable in this context however.

NAVIGATING PURGATORY // Ana Sara Epstien Anorexia is borne from a vast combination of trauma, self-doubt, societal influence from the media, and irrationality. People plagued with this illness tend to lose their sense of self, but in the recovery process, that self is both reborn and revitalized. Internal identity surges to the surface as it is realized that external appearances do not reflect internal character. I feel that this realization, tied together with a rediscovery of self awareness, creates a vivid image of identity that I’m very excited to share.

GO YOU TIGERS // Lanegan Bicchieri “Go You Tigers” is a sister piece to “Go Grizzlies Go” only in general theme and presentation. More than that it reads differently and speaks to how young women are characterized in their own debilitating ways in their high school years due to an urge to be sexual yet also be appropriate, not being entirely comfortable in their blossoming form, and more than anything be the “it” girl who pulls off perfection easily. It strikes me that girls at this age are being asked to be both a sexy and promiscuous being and a participating, school bound saint. The dichotomies are striking, and I hope I was able to look at some of those intricacies critically.

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BECOMING // Keira O’Hearn Keira O’Hearn is a junior majoring in Political Science and History. She is deeply invested in identity politics and has spent much of her college career exploring her own identities and exploring historical and contemporary privilege and oppression. “Becoming” is her first published work, detailing her own struggle with internalized misogyny and homophobia and her attempts to overcome her internal barriers.

DICKS // Tay Sanders Tay Sanders is a sad rat from Kennewick, WA. He likes being uncomfortable. He is always questioning.

MENTAL AMYGDALA // Courtney Taylor This is about my patterns of thought and their manipulation of reality as I know it. Sometimes I forget that I am not my diagnoses. The following poem is an example of some of the everyday explorations I am taking to better understand my mental wellness and sense of self. There are days where I cannot trust my thoughts, about whether or not they are truly intrusive and harmful to my state of mind, or if they’re actually protecting me. When we talk about mental illness, when there are diagnoses made, sometimes we grasp on to that. I grasped firmly, indulging in the thoughts and behaviors I’ve come to learn through my doctors are indicative of bipolar disorder, PTSD, depression, and 93

anxiety. I clung to these terms as answers, as resolution for what I’d come from and experienced, as if they were identities, even proof, engulfing my self-image in a cloud of what I considered acceptance.

But it’s not; it’s become submission, a renunciation. For so long I’ve surrendered my peace to my mind, begging for an absolute truth that it cannot provide. My only absolute is that in recognizing my cyclic nature, my habits, my thoughts, my almost weekly breakdowns, I am addressing the ways in which I need to remain patient with myself in this journey of recovery.

OJOS // Luke Price Ojos is about perceptions, and realities. It’s about life. It’s about introversion, escapism, anxiety, and being trapped. It’s about the experience of being alive. Ojos is about whatever you want it to be about. Ojos is whatever you interpret it to be. Ojos is about you and for you. As long as you feel it pertains to you.

BLUE // Deana Fuller I think my piece’s stance on oppression looks not to the ways in which the outside world oppresses us, but rather the internal ways that we oppress ourselves: mortality, life’s purpose, the struggle of man against economic, social, and emotional circumstances. All are forms of oppression that we experience. Though to different extents through varying circumstances. My piece takes the perspective that these circumstances are just one piece of life’s puzzle and that in changing our outlook on the things that oppress us we can in turn change our circumstances. I once heard a saying that monks detached themselves from earthly concerns and in doing so found peace.

HIPS AND THIGHS // Nat Bellows This piece that I am submitting is about my own personal identities as a queer individual and how they cannot be confined to the boxes that society tries to put people in. This piece deals more with the external views of society and how it tries to influence our internal identities, but the piece talks about how we can reject this notion and that our internal identities and who we are cannot be defined by society.

BOGEY // Rosa Tobin I wrote this poem after playing a round of disc golf with my dad. We were reflecting on how a lot of former addicts of one form or another seem to pick up a disc and start throwing. I wanted to write a poem for the broken that become a little more whole when they’re on the course.

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DRAWING WOLVES // Jesse Ulmer “Drawing Wolves” is an autobiographical work that pertains to this year's theme of external and internal identities by expressing the author’s experiences with depression and chronic pain through the use of magical realism. It deals, primarily, with internal identity, and touches on the ways a person is responded to when these parts of their identity manifest externally.

DANGEROO // Mikey Moore I mute my pain by being neon...a color greater than itself, a forced smile no matter what. Now that I’ve been off narcotics for some time, and most recently quit alcohol before my 23rd birthday this year, I’ve begun to break down my walls and masks. Kill my facade; allow myself weakness, vulnerability. I’m not that kid who always has a smile on his face: happy-go-lucky Mikey. I’ve never let myself feel weak, or imperfect. Now I’m trying.

SEIZURE // Bethoven Mic Linden This poem is about just one of the struggles I go though with epilepsy. It exemplifies the feelings I have even while my lover is lying next to me. I often see how concerned my lover is about me, but I cannot speak, I cannot comfort them. This sometimes heightens the discomfort I have in knowing that they are scared as well.

TREMORS // Bethoven Mic Liden This poem is about one of the types of seizures that I have. They are the smallest of all, but also the most upsetting because they continue for about an hour and come 2-4 minutes apart. They involve slow loss of motor function, a lot of facial twitches, and the loss of all my neck muscles. I always have to remove myself from public areas, as they can draw unwanted attention. They are always unwanted, and their inundating nature causes me distress.

PLAYSTRUCTURE OF MEMORY // Alexander Gittleman “The Playstructure of Memory,” is a short story about internal identity and scarring memory—how changing the perception of a memory can change your current outlook on the world. A memory that had previously confined me from childhood was altered, and the catharsis of this transformation freed me from its terrors.

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STOCKHOLM SYNDROME // Natalie Eitel Natalie is a WWU alum living in Seattle. She hopes for all of you happiness and liberation from the people who have held you back or held you down in the past.

IMAGES HOW MUCH FORCE DOES IT TAKE TO BLEND BACK // Coco Spadoni Ceramics has been a particularly important medium in my life the past year. Coincidentally I started working with the material of clay during my time of transition as non-binary, and I really relate to its qualities of being extracted from the earth and its capacity to endure so much in its transformation process. My documentation of the performance “How Much Force Does it Take to Blend Back” is an exploration of the feelings around being extracted from my family and past life through education, growing my own agency, and building a community in a new town. This summer I may have to spend two months at my mother’s house in my hometown, and I am worried about the amount of energy and force it will take to attempt assimilation for survival. The act of throwing clay back into the earth is an exploration of exhaustion around trying to blend back once you have been extracted.

The overlapped layer is of ceramic caterpillars I have been constructing for the past three weeks, they are an act of foreshadowing or future possibly if I do not go the route of assimilation back into earth, but create intentional form for my life.

OVERSEER // Allie Paul Art has taken me into an ongoing domestic narrative through self-portraiture: confronting battles with vulnerability and beguilement, through the expression of body and the duplicity of self.

UNTITLED NIGHTMARE // Carrie Cooper This piece was inspired by a dream/nightmare I had in which I woke up holding my own, live, disembodied arm. The imagery is a nice metaphor for how women often “cut off” parts of themselves– oth literally and figuratively – that don’t comply with their society’s feminine ideal. I think a lot of marginalization is subtle and indirect, simply making us feel inadequate until we get rid of the offensive trait. This is me trying to hold on to those dismembered parts I’ve been encouraged to discard.

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ON VULNERABILITY // Kari Vanderburg These photographs are part of my personal exploration of what it means to be a woman. In U.S. culture, females are often portrayed as vulnerable, passive, and physically weak. On the other hand, girls are told from a young age that they must protect themselves and stay aware of their surroundings at all times. I often wonder how women can be expected to strike a balance between these poles, and still remain desirable. I tried to present a complex juxtaposition of passivity, sexuality, and violence in these photos.

HOMINIS // R. Grant Williams The title, “Hominis,” comes from the Latin word for, “Human Being.” I chose this title for two reasons. First: The pictures taken were meant to emphasize the likeliness we have with the homeless living within our community, and on our streets. More often than not, I see people look at these men and women as if they are “subhuman.” Most fail to see them as having any dignity. Second: Through spelling and pronunciation, the title closely resembles the English word, “Homeless.” The true definition being “Human Being” provides a juxtaposition of the appearance of the word with the meaning of the word. The homeless are human beings, regardless of appearance, and should be treated likewise. In summary: The title resembles the English word, “Homeless.” The true definition of “Human Being” resonates the effect that the two are one, even though the homeless are sometimes treated as second class citizens.

AJ/AUGUST/JACOB // Katy Bentz These images are a part of a series of photos called The Body Word Project. I started this project spring of 2013 with the help of Thayne Yazzie, who painted the words, and Rebecca Rivero, Editor of Middle Women. I just finished the series this last fall 2014. I submitted the first half of the series last year to the Labyrinth and my piece “Rebecca” was chosen to be one of the pieces to represent the theme in that issue. The first half of the series was done with women, while the second half, and the pieces I am submitting this issue, are done with men. The project started off with wanting to explore the body of women and unspoken words. My goal was to make these women feel beautiful and confident in their bodies and remind each of them what’s meaningful to them through their own words and their own identity. After finishing those photos I was curious what it would be like to put men in this vulnerable situation. What would be the words they chose? The poses they posed? How would it differ from the women?

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SILENCED NO.1/SILENCED NO. 2/SILENCED NO. 6 // Sarah O’Sell “Silenced” is a photo series depicting people speaking out against others who have quieted them based on their identity with insults, rude words, or hurtful comments. We have all been silenced at some point and those words stick with us. In this series, a remembered quote covers the face and mouth as an act of quieting the person depicted.

PLASTIC I/PLASTIC II/PLASTIC III // Camila Frey-Booth My current work in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program focuses on themes of identity and consent through photography, video and sculpture. In the photographic series Plastic, I allowed a participant to manipulate my face in order to achieve facial expressions that are impossible to the limits of my body. The resulting self-portraits question the role of passivity and humiliation in regards to female representation.

UNTITLED FROM A SERIES OF PAGES // Michaela Patrick Through these “pages” I have been able to take a photograph and cultivate my own context for it to exist within. There is a delicateness to the pieces, but a strength to the subjects in the images. I find the idea of constructing to be pertinent when talking about identities. We experience ourselves by creating ourselves in every moment. Projecting who we are, were and want to be with every step we take through time. The idea being that we’re getting closer and closer to our true selves. A fair amount of this process, this procession forward through our lifetimes, is outside of our own control.

The context in which we exist inadvertently is a huge contributor to one’s own sense of self. Growing up we begin life unconscious of our own construction of ourselves. We don’t start out skeptical or weary of what the world tells us about who we are or who we are meant to be. We adopt all we know.

It becomes ours. We become it. By the time I became aware of my own ability to define myself, an image of who “I am” already existed in the context of my life and of this world. So with these pieces I am taking a preexisting photograph, a reflection of time and experience, and working with whatever tools I have to break it down and build upon it. To extend outwardly, that which has been discovered internally.

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SELF PORTRAIT // Hannah Rivers This painting consists of acrylic, tile grout, rice paper, barnacles, shells, and stainless steel on panel. It portrays my move from the state of Wyoming and immersed in a love for the Pacific Northwest. The nature and life that is here in Washington has taken over my artistic process. However, I still identify as the woman from Wyoming, which is in the central, skeletal structure of my personality.

BUSTED RIBS // Hannah Rivers This work is a bronze casted breast with abstracted ribs, surrounded by faux fur. It portrays the impression of how those who identify as women are idealized to have a certain body type and look a certain way. The breast is covered with various textures and colors to indicate every woman appears different. The shining ribs are on the exterior of the breast to imply what we are made of is more significant than what is on the surface. Engulfing the breast is soft faux fur, which symbolizes comfort and confidence every woman deserves no matter what she looks like.

DOWN DOG // Nicole Lorence This composition is meant to be an abstract self-portrait. My underlying message is external in the fact that just because I am a woman does not mean you have the right to call me names or assume.

You do not know me, you have not walked in my shoes and you do not understand or care to know me. So if you are not going to help me or work alongside me, please leave me alone. I maybe a people pleaser, but I am tired of getting on my hands and knees to come to your every call. I am done, and if you are not all right with this: leave me alone. I have my own needs and desires that have to be tended too before I bend over backwards for you. I am strong and independent – I do not need you but if you are in my life, it is because I want you there. This was my first time printing.

SISTERS // Nicole Lorence This painting is both symbolic for internal and external reasons. Blood makes you related but loyalty makes you family. We share both with each other. We have the others back, and no one’s opinion of the other will sway our relationship. We are strong individually but invisible together. Growing up is hard because our relationship dynamics are changing, but she will forever be one of the most influential people in my life. She has been one of the largest contributors to who I am and my foundation of what shaped me in childhood. It is funny because we have often said that if we were not related we would have never been friends and probably would have never met each other. We are completely different, but she is the person I would walk across America for and give just about anything I have.

She will continue to hold a tender spot in my heart. I am reminded of her in odd ways often and could not have asked for a more genuine person to call my sister.

SE ÉCHAPPER // Cassie Howlett This dance film shows two people trapped in or by something and their struggle to free themselves.

We sometimes trap ourselves or feel trapped by something or by others but once we "escape" our mental prison we realize that we are not alone and we also realize that we become are free.

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DEATH CHARCOAL MAN // Elise Dresel “Charcoal Man” is a piece that weaves both external and internal identities. It follows a family through abuse and death, while two members of the community follow the family’s story from the outside. In a flash-fiction form, this story is surreal and toys with the subconscious. “Charcoal Man” shows that even in contemporary suburbia, the human condition affects everyone.

SCATTERING ASHES AT SQUALICUM BEACH // Timothy Pilgrim Timothy Pilgrim, an emeritus WWU journalism associate professor whose mass media courses emphasized gender equity, ecological concern and curing masculine violence, is a Pacific Northwest poet with a couple hundred poem in dozens of journals (such as Seattle Review, Cirque, Windfall and Labyrinth), is co-author of Bellingham Poems (2014) and included in Idaho’s Poets: A Centennial Anthology (University of Idaho Press), Tribute to Orpheus II, and Weathered pages: The Poetry Pole.

GUNSHOT // Theresa Williams “Gunshot” is an anagram poem about, what else, race relations. It was written in around September of this year when the Ferguson debacle began, and it embodies the melodic sadness and reflection surrounding the death of Michael Brown, and others. It is both external and internal.

HELP // Erica Reed I am submitting a single poem titled “Help.” In “Help” I attempt to illustrate the utter internal helplessness I feel as a white person standing beside my black friend, watching his identity be marginalized and degraded, not only by other voices, but by the ignorance of mine as well. No matter what I do externally, I am not saving him internally.

IT’S PERSONAL/UGH // Taylor Romero Can we remember a time when I didn’t feel this compulsive need to write?

I suppose it’s just the way my soul speaks loudest and truest I get nervous around the people who speak my language, Not because they might speak it better than me, But because they might read it better than me.

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DIOS // Alexandra Bell Dios is a poem about love and loss. Yet it can also be seen as obsession and murder. It is a question of perspective. Who is the murderer and who is the victim? Is the prince a boy or girl?

FEMALE IMAGE UR A DYKE // Jesse Ewing-Frable “ur a dyke” explores my fascination with the forms of writing that shape our adolescence. The words I’ve seen scrawled on the back of a bathroom stall are often completely unextraordinary, yet somehow they have shaped how I perceive myself. This poem pays homage to Elizabeth Bachinsky’s poem “St. Sarah,” which appears in her book of poems Home of Sudden Service. Bachinsky’s work has been hugely influential to me as a writer. This poem draws from some of my own personal observations, and is primarily a fictional exploration of what it means to cope with the power of a word for the first time.

CHANGE THE ENDING // Amelia Marchetti Change the Ending is a piece about some hiccups in my path to accept my romantic orientation.

The first time I told someone, I was told that I was wrong, that of course I had romantic attraction to people. I was crushed, and it hurt me deeply, and I had avoided thinking about my identity for a long time. Aromanticism doesn’t seem to exist to a lot of people, and it doesn’t help the individuals who are questioning their romantic identity. The fact that it’s a nonexistent identity in our society can leave emotional scars that stay for years, and I was no exception. Writing about my experience, about being aromantic and trying so hard to be romantic, and some of the troubles I faced, has helped a lot. Maybe someone will read this, and think, ‘I’m not alone.’

PROVE IT // Chantel Pedicone As a cisgendered female, I experience bouts of oppression through identity marginalization. In this piece, I hope to provide insight on how women-identified musicians are viewed and treated. Much of my time and energy is expended on music—creating, playing, performing, collaborating—which is typically underestimated according to my gender. This poem recalls a situation where I was walking home from a show with my equipment, and had a less than pleasant experience with a stranger.

However few words were exchanged, I hope to shed light on the overarching issue that prompted the encounter, and dismantle some of the stereotypes about female-identified musicians.

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AMERICAN GIRL // Mackenzie Streissguth It is suffocating to look at a girl across the room and find her looking back at you, only to know that you both are much too scared to say aloud what you’re thinking. And there is not much relief from social barricades and family cordons, trapping you into being one thing, and certainly not the other.

Sometimes all that’s left is begging her to cross her fingers and hope for the best, with you.

A WOMAN OF WORTH // Hannah Streetman I modeled this poem after Proverbs 31:10-31, which lists the qualities of an ideal wife. I wanted to compare a biblical perspective on women to the feminine ideals of other time periods. The definition of womanhood is all tied up in where we’ve been, with the residual expectations of who women should be still confused in our history. We can’t be expected to follow it all.

WHISPERS OF CRIMSON // Elspeth Jensen Though I am happy internally and externally being a woman, there are burdens that come with the female body and fears I must carry around because of that. “Whispers of Crimson” is a simple, short poem that’s a manifestation of a worry that as a woman, I must carry.

RED GLOVES // Sarah Daniels In this prose poem I incorporate fairy tale elements – the path, the magical item, the danger of being eaten – into the story of a young girl trying to navigate the way that cultural and physical danger warps her identity. I was interested in seeing how fantastical I could make a bite-sized narrative and still have it remain true to life. In a way then, this piece is nonfiction.

BAPTISM // Rachel Broenkow I identity as pansexual, but it took me a long time to come out as such. I still keep my identity a secret until I know I can trust someone with who I really am. My external identity is whatever people think of me—I don’t bother to correct anyone when they assume I’m straight. However, I know who I am, and I’m okay with withholding my true/internal identity from people who don’t bother to ask.

Maybe that will change as I become more comfortable with who I am. Rachel Broenkow is currently working towards her MFA in Poetry at the University of Kansas. She is a graduate of Western Washington University and Cascadia Community College.

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