The Junction 2019 by The Junction

Editors Raisa Alexis N. Santos Matthew Cummins Tim Caston Leah-Lyuba Livshits Jared Green Justine Mekonen

Sophie Shnaidman Kalae Mobley Michael Raymond 2

Rose Sugar David Yusufov

Samantha Merzel Kate McGorry

From the Editors, The reason why we create art is to capture rare moments that our over-crowded minds will soon forget. Our art speaks volumes when it comes from a place of truth and experience. Art, in the form of writing, painting, or photography, provides a sense of tranquility. With every snapshot and collision of vibrant colors on a canvas, a new reality is made. Words that carry the weight of your happiness, fears, and promises have found a safe place at the English Major’s Counseling Office. We are, quite simply, big fans of a lot of our contemporaries at Brooklyn College. They glare out at us from the crowd; authors who, whenever during the semester when it comes time for them to submit their work, excite us, enthrall us, and endear us. Sometimes it can go as far as to make us feel a little unworthy. It’s hard to get that same sense of satisfaction from our own writing. That is why The Junction is so important. To write is to drop little pieces of our existence here and there in the text, disguised fragments of our whole self. When viewing other’s art, without your private veneer of insecurity clouding your judgement, you can truly appreciate what your talented friends have created—and then to see your own work counted there, among that great work, brings to us an unbridled feeling of satisfaction and joy. The English Major’s Counseling Office began the tradition of compiling the work of Brooklyn College students more than two decades ago. But we like to think this is more than a mere compilation—it’s a celebration. Without your phenomenal sense of creativity, there would be no diversity or community. Thank you to everyone who submitted, and we hope this leaves you satisfied. Riverrun English Major’s Counseling Office bczinesubmissions@gmail.com theboylanblog.wordpress.com “Books are the secret utterances of visionary clowns undressed in their inner locker rooms.” - These Days of Candy by Manuel Paul López

Table of Contents

Poetry

(6) watercolor moon by Zachary Troyano (7) You Can’t Sea Me by Kathleen Conlon (8) Primary by T.G. Caston (10) My Thighs by Imani Morgan (14) Ransacker by Akjemal Toshieva (18) The Reaper by Kathleen Conlon (19) Untitled by Liza Rodriguez (24) Wednesday, November 9, 2016 by Justine Mekonen (25) A Kinder, Softer World by Fatima Islam (26) Sativa by Imani Morgan (28) Yellow Fever by Raisa Alexis N. Santos (29) Guilt by Jessica Drigun (30) “Voicemail #47” by Quentin Felton (31) Epistemology by Tim Caston (32) The American Crime Story by Romel Martinez (33) Lost Ones by Fedora Cox (36) To You, To Your Brother by T. G. Caston (38) Humble Pie by Jared ‘WordIzBond’ Green

(64) Autumn Hymnal, or the Burgess Quartet by T. G. Caston (70) Departure by Kali Norris (72) I Walked by Fatema Islam (74) In Search of the Miraculous (From the portraits of Kehinde Wiley and life) by Jared ‘WordIzBond’ Green (75) What Do You Call It? by Jessica Drigun (76) The Kitchen Table by Samantha Merzel (81) our share of the shade by Zachary Troyano (82) I touched yesterday by Jason Applebaum

Prose (9) Immortal Ambiguity by Kate McGorry (12) Morbid by Kali Norris (20) The Games by Kali Norris (34) Carsick Memoir by Matthew Cummins (39) Forget-Me-Not by Raisa Alexis N. Santos (58) Jackalope by M. Cummins (66) Again and Again by Kate McGorry (71) Place by Romel Martinez (78) It was the one… by Leah-Lyuba Livshits

Featured Artists Frances Shnaidman - (11) (50-51) (56-57) Emily Cotler - (6) (19) (26-27) (29) (75) Leah-Lyuba Livshits - (7) (16) (22) (63) (70) (76) (78) Kate McGorry - (8) (9) (12-13) (28) (30) (32) (33) (66) (74) Raisa Alexis N. Santos - (25) (39) (64-65) (72-73) Samantha Cotler - (23) (81) Tim Caston - (14-15) (17) (18) (31) (37) (58) (83)

Intermission, (52-55): Leah-Lyuba Livshits/L. L. L. - [A] Kate McGorry - [B] [D] [E] [H] Emily Cotler - [C, “Parade”] [F, “Rosko”] [G, “Lourve”] [I, “Portrait of a Pirate”] [J, “Molly”] [K, “French Horn”]

Special thanks to Kate McGorry for the cover. Special thanks to Samantha Cotler for the back cover, “Planets”. Special thanks to Frances Shnaidman for the editors’ page. Special thanks to Raisa Alexis N. Santos, Editor-in-Chief.

watercolor moon Zachary Troyano

harboring that hate in your heart kept you heavy, it’s time you came up for air. you’ve been busy drifting aloof, splashing blues, the watercolor moon would like a word with you.

dry that damp ha l e ir tow

fe pa ss e d an

d it turned cold o

, ere h t ut

deep fish don’t make dance partners give a loose curtsey and let’s go, knockoff clowns shed their scales under murky disco. you knew better too, how quickly living in light can set to shade, the watercolor moon warned you all tides have a tendency to change.

“Tropical Sky” Photo by Emily Cotler

You Can’t Sea Me Kathleen Conlon

Could you lead me to the ocean? To empty my sins Till the water runs clear. Could you stay with me awhile To watch them disappear? My heart got broken from Stepping on crushed seashells, The jagged little pieces Were daggers in my veins. If you look closely to the horizon You could see sirens Luring men to their deaths With a heavenly song. The mermaids with umbilical cords Of seaweed reel in the fishermen. Alas, you cast your line, Everything is fine Until you’re hooked. Pull or be pulled. My skin of scales, Salt water entwined blood, Toes in the shallow end Clump up like mud. The waves wrap around my body To take me home Where the seafoam silence Makes harmonies of My bones.

“Don’t Play Koi With Me” Photo by L. L. L.

Primary

T.G. Caston

I like to think of Blue as a homicide. Unless carefully considered the satirist may find himself taken seriously so contextualize my brevity, Polonius, and bite your thumb while you’re at it. He may call me ugly but if his tears really mean anything it is that it’s time to cut my hair. I will pick the daisies in left field until the inning is over. I like to think of Yellow as an ego death, a hand hold. Make sure to chalk your hands and pool cues, these things weren’t meant to be held. A holding cell is a considerable distance a Marriott hotel but both doors will lock behind you.

Kate McGorry

Red has been canceled until further notice. There has been a copyright claim made and the rights holder has found the use of their property appalling, though an interior decorator might call it “Bold” if they were asked. Consider a throw pillow laid carefully, yet causally upon the velour couch. Maybe throw in a sequint or two.

Kate McGorry

Immortal Ambiguity

Kate McGorry

YES IN WANT OF BODY, ENCASED IN GLASS, LOOK PASSED THE PRESENT. Their gaze is broken by the decay of time. A crack crosses through the iris, having pried out the gemmed pupils long ago. What remains are large black globes pitted in the center and submerged in a sea of chalky white. Through the jagged edges of oxidized bronze, the stone eyes rest their broken gaze on the Greek and Roman Wing of the Met. As I look closer the serrated lashes remind me of the luminous teeth of a Venus flytrap. They lay in wait, preying on others sight. I retreat in search of a body to house them. The figures surrounding them appear in the mathematical perfection one would imagine for the time. I envision these eyes socketed in the blank marble stares of the surrounding statues and recoil. Their expressive character

seems antithetical to the demure existence of their cousins. Each attempt to house these orphaned pair merely increases the anonymity of their being. I find no home. Genderless, ageless, actionless. They are pure sense distilled in timeless observation. Transcendent from temporal being, all time dwells in these eyes. Within the absence of a confirmed existence, my imagination goes swimming in the ambiguity of their being. My sight is finally conquered. A new form takes shape beneath the glow of artificial light. From the underbelly of their austere stare a shadow peers out. The post on which they perch merges with the teethy lashes to create an illusion of blossoming dandelions. Their ambiguous existence is once again reborn.

My Thighs Imani Morgan

My thighs are not for your eyes They are mine. They are mine you cannot take them from me. They are attached to me like a newborn baby to its mother, But they attract you like bees to honey. As if you have never seen anything as sweet. Thank you sir, I know I am a treat. But I am more than a sweet lick and suck of your fantasy of what I may taste like, what I may feel like. My thighs hug on my hips like the tightest pair of jeans I squeeze in. I strut what my momma gave me but not for your lustful eyes, But for my sister pride. Pride to know I cannot hide what I grew into. That I won’t change it, Or hide it away behind a curtain because you can’t keep your eyes from looking my way. Your tongue locked behind your mouth, That mouth that came from another sister with elegant pride. Pride that I demand to take back from your hungry eyes Your touch and feel unwanted. Just watch with your eyes. Lips locked so your cat calling words are tangled and trapped behind your mouth of lies. The mouth that will spit and smile and grin evil lies to break down my unapologetic shine and pride, To feel in between my thighs. But I will not shrink to your words, I will not take offense of your confidence to even try me; Because you did try me. My thighs are mine and you’ll only get it if I want to share them like a slice of cinnamon butter pecan pie, With a little sprinkle of sweet and spicy, Like a hot tamale. You know that sweet, spicy, sexy attitude my sisters walk the street with when we take back our pride. You know sisters, that day you feeling good, you looking right. I will not crumble to your cat calls, I will not let you get to me, Because I hold the key to want you think you need. But you can’t handle what comes with all of me, You just want my thighs, But my thighs are mine and we are here to shine.

- I AM

Frances Shnaidman

Morbid Kali Norris

“It won’t be the end of the world.” The nurse told me, cheerful, showing me how to hold the gauze. I supposed it was true. Inside, the waiting room was luminous and almost empty, but the windows were dark, flat and close, the night outside pressing in like dark water. I wanted to turn on my headlights, just to reassure myself there was something beyond our strange bubble of fluorescent glow. But it was far too great a risk. The only other patient was a woman, sitting by the door, with her back to the windows. She looked young at first glance, a teenager maybe, with a soft, sweet face and pale, weightless hair. There was something hard in her expression, though, that made me think she must be closer to thirty. There was a sudden, unearthly cry, rising over the forest and echoing off unseen mountains. I jumped, jabbing my wound and causing blood to run over my hands. She looked up at me, then. I had the sudden, uneasy realization that what I was looking at wasn’t a person. “I’ll never get used to that,” I said. I sat down facing the windows, which meant I was also facing her, whatever she was. “Yes, you will.” Her voice was ordinary, sweet, her lips like the bloom on summer peaches. Her gaze was intense. “Do you want me to tell you when you’re going to die?” She asked, in the same level way, as though she were offering tea. “Do I?” I asked, licking my dry lips. She looked away, but I thought she might be amused. 12 12

“Tisiphone?” The nurse called. My focus had been so close I hadn’t heard her return. The creature in front of me stood, and I saw she was cradling her stomach together. Her blood was the lurid purple of grape jelly. She seemed calm as ever, graceful as a dancer. She smiled at me as she passed, and I would have followed her anywhere. I wondered what dealt such a wound to a creature like that. “Do you want a ride?” I asked her carefully when she came back out. She had offered me something, after all. She smiled, knowing. It transformed her face, at once more lovely and more frightening. “So few people have manners anymore.” The nurse called my name. When I was done, the creature was gone. Outside, the night was cool and still, the wind making the trees sway softly. The sweet smell of fruit hovered on the air, like ripe blackberries. She had painted an unearthly sigil on the hood of my truck with her own bright blood.

Photo by Kate McGorry

Ransacker Akjemal Toshieva

BEFORE Ogry gelmezden öñürty Tomusiñ issy güni Saçak başi doli Garpiz we paçagi Asman doli guwanç Kömurde bişirlen etler Ak marli köynek Derli gizgin entak Gijeler yöreyäñ monjuk Deñiz başiñdan Gaygysiz, aladasiz diñe söygi

BEFORE Before the ransacker trespassed summer was sticky picnic tables adorned with watermelon rinds Patriotism painted skies Blackened meat from backyard barbecues Gauzy white dresses. Sweatstreaked skin Midnight walks across pebbled shores And love. Clumsy, careless, but love.

Tim

#1 Ogriñ oynayan wagti Günyaşanda Piçak uji bilen yarilan today Kesilen yara, garalyar gözüm Obada ses, gikilik Sögünç belki ol dem alyandir

ton

Cas

#1 Encroaching sundown ransacker playground Knife tip busted lip half-hearted kick Flesh incision blurring vision Sirens blaring nosy neighbors staring Curses seething is he breathing

Tim Caston

IN THE DISTANCE

Şol owadanja öü Bü dünyäñ çünkinde Aynalar midama açikmi Gizgindan dinmak üçin Bu gapi bejeriljekmi Yadindan çikarilan Gapi yapilmajakmi Gorkezmek, açip goymak Ogra añsat girmek

That lovely little house cornered into the earth Was it the windows always open A reprieve from the heat Was it the latch never fixed Practically forgotten Was it the unlocked sliding door Teasing, begging a stranger to embrace hearth and home

INTERLUDE Pikir edersiñ möjekdir Esitseñ nahili Gürleyar yada aydyar Gazet erbet habardan doli Adamlar kömek iberyarler Yaragim bolsa Atardim şoni Ogri öyümi boşandan soñ Komek gözlemek maña Gati kin boldi Gözlerim yaşdan doldi

INTERLUDE You’d think it was a boogeyman to hear the way they spoke or even the way they wrote Violence tinged newspaper pages Social media fueled fundraisers Shoulda had a gun shoulda shot him Shoulda woulda coulda

L. L. L.

AFTER Ogrini izlamak Kime gerekdi Yûz sipati yatdan çikarildi Endamlarim kesim kesildi Özümi gurpladim men Uzak günlerim Yaram gelip gidyar Yöne diñe yara.

AFTER

Tim Caston

After the ransacker trespassed summer was strained therapy sessions punctuated by shaken sobs Investigators losing interest Sketches of ski masks forgotten Thick bandaged wounds. Scarmarked skin Self-imposed twenty-four seven confinement And pain. Inconsistent, obscure, but pain.

The Reaper Kathleen Conlon

Tim Caston

I know death, Counts my breath On bony fingers And harshened whispers. I dance on the dials Of clocks that freeze, Hoping the time will stand still Enough to bring me to my knees. I pray to the vastness of the sky, That my soul will be revived By sunrise.

“La Tour Eiffel” Emily Cotler

Untitled Liza Rodriguez

‘It’s romantic, isn’t it?’ ‘Very romantic, he said.’ Among the broken fragments Of the last 5 minutes at the table. The candles, lit again Pointlessly Wanting to look squarely at everyone But yet, wanting to avoid all eyes. To a certain temperament The situation might have seemed Intriguing Needless to say, I followed Around in it’s deep gloom Feeling it’s lovely shape.

The Games

the rage boiling my blood. I hate this goddamn city. Kali Norris Everything is worn pale grey, t’s Friday, so Lyla and I are sun-bleached like Lyla’s hair, going to the games. She wears the light off chainlink blinding, cutoffs and her most intimidat- but Lyla is always losing my sunglasses. ing smile. I hear the arena before I see it. It’s a reaction to the city, to the It’s broad daylight, but people world. When I was young and are hot and furious, and it’s not furious, I guess that made sense like we have anything better to to me. We leave the apartment, do anymore. I nearly stop at the Lyla waiting impatiently as I door, but the thought of what turn the deadbolts. I wear a sumLyla would say about me getting mer dress like maybe this isn’t squeamish after all these years happening. drives me forward. This is who I chose to be. We started going to the We games in high school started Inside it’s baking, but when we were just going to the downstairs it’s even two shitty kids games in high worse, the sun kilning near dropping out. school when we the packed bodies so It was something were just two it’s hotter than hell. to do. A reason to shitty kids near sneak out, a way to dropping Maybe it is hell, I think, lightheaded, following feel as wild and violent out. Lyla to the bar. as our lives, a way to feel like monsters or survivors. And She passes over a steel wire and then it just never really stopped. gets us two draughts of rotgut We went while Lyla was pretendin her flask, to be passed back ing she was going to make someand forth, as though any sort of thing of community college, and communion is situationally apwhen my parents got divorced, propriate. She slides to the front, and her brother died. She cried for three days, and then, after dodging elbows and bodies. It’s mostly men here, but there are the games, she was better. enough women I never worry It is a twenty-minute walk in the too much about being killed. At baking heat. It has to be push- the front there’s a man with a ing a hundred degrees, but what broken nose, just letting it bleed, else is new? Old men on stoops and it’s sending the creatures in whistle at us, and I start to be the pit into a frenzy. The first is ready for violence, the heat and small and sleek, almost like an ermine, but wider, serpentine,

covered in brilliantly green feathers. The second is stocky and could have once been some sort of bulldog. The lizard is leaving bleeding streaks down the dog’s side, but as I watch, the dog gets hold of its neck, shaking, and I hear a snap. The crowd loses it, and Lyla hands me the flask, and it doesn’t matter if it tastes like crude oil, I take a generous swig. She’s looking at me. “Something wrong?” She asks. “Somehow that shit tastes worse than usual,” I say. I look back at the pit, even though it’s the last thing I want to see, besides Lyla’s expression. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you.” She says, but I hazard a look, and she’s smiling. I wish I ever knew what in the hell she was thinking. .

“I’m getting in there.” She says.

“You’re what?” I ask, but it’s too late. She shoves the flask into my hands and vaults over the chain rail. For a moment it seems it will collapse under her weight, and then she lands in the pit, pretty well for how light the flask is in my hand. It’s about a hundred and fifteen degrees in here, but I’m cold. Her legs are very bare, and the dog didn’t look big before but it comes up almost to

the hem of her shorts, and she probably has only fifty pounds on it, if that, and no teeth. She doesn’t look like she has any regrets. She snarls, and the crowd is going wild, and I think, this is how Lyla dies, and I’m standing here holding shitty liquor, and when we met, in the first grade, she was the only one with piercings, three up her left ear she’d done herself with sewing needles heated red with her stepdad’s lighter, and one day she’d found a broken piece of bracelet or necklace, fine chain of tarnished base metal, and she’d threaded it in and out of the holes, dripping like a snake from her ear, like a monster or a sorceress. In the pit, the dog is growling, but Lyla is drunk, furious, fearless. It rushes her, all at once, and my heart tries to escape my throat before I stomp it back down. She kicks, her boot heavy, the steel toe meeting the dog’s jaw with an awful thunk. And then I almost feel bad for the dog, even though it’s a killer because it didn’t stand a chance. She’s standing over it, kicking it to death, and I wonder if this is really my life, if I’m really watching a girl I’ve known for decades kick the shit out of a dog, even if it has teeth the size of a fist. And I think, she’s really going to kill it. But this is a business, and that’s their prize fighter. Two women come in and haul Lyla out, and she doesn’t struggle. They give 21

her her winnings and another shot and leave her at the bar. There’s blood on her bare legs, and she looks out of breath and wild. She takes a moment to notice me. “Can you believe they fucking stopped me? Can you fucking believe it, Marcelene? If I was an animal they’d let me kill whatever the fuck I want.” She takes the shot. She looks flushed, feverish, and it is really too hot in here to be beating anything to death. I sort of wish I hadn’t come, but I’m also sort of suspended the kind of stasis where whatever the hell is going on might as well just happen.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, even though I can’t remember which of the dirtbags Jack was.

“I fucking hate being single.” She says, starting furiously for home.

I want to tell her I’m right here, but what the hell good would that do? I follow her. She’s wearing real earrings, just fake diamonds from the dollar store, but they make her look like an em“Let’s get out of here,” I say, be- press or an enchantress. “I fuckcause another fight’s started, and ing hate everything,” I say, and between the rotgut and the smell she laughs, and I do too, maybe of blood if I have to hear any- just because it’s true. thing else die I might heave. She follows me, for once, near stumbling but defiant, and when a man in the crowd reaches for her, I hear the crack of his fingers snapping. Outside in the sun, the blood on her skin is unbelievably stark, not even beginning to dry. She’s still coiled, posture violent, looking around like she wants another fight, and I think, I don’t know her at all. “Jack and I broke up.” She says, looking out over the used car lot, gaze steely. 22

“Galaxy” Samantha Cotler

Wednesday, November 9, 2016 Justine Mekonen

2244

Photo by L. L. L.

A Kinder, Softer World

My heart would never be broken My soul not worn down by time

In a kinder, softer world I wouldn’t be so hesitant To raise my voice when it’s needed I wouldn’t be afraid Of the sound of my own voice When it matters, if I speak

In the softer, kinder world I sometimes see in the corner Of my vision

Fatima Islam

In the softer, kinder world Of my dreams My hands wouldn’t strike hurt In the wake of my anger My fingers wouldn’t shake With the force of it In a softer, kinder world That doesn’t exist I wouldn’t be afraid to step into The depths of my feelings That I don’t hesitate to drag Others beneath In a softer, kinder world That sometimes I can’t help But long for My skin would stay unscarred

My shoulders would not slump With exhaustion My eyes would remain clear with time In a softer, kinder world I once wished for My smiles did not change I could look you in the eye I could speak when I wished too Morning comes and goes as it pleases This is not a soft, kind world This is life as we know it We make due with what we have I carve a step and walk Forward. Never once do I look back

“Don’t Be Such a Crochead” Photo by R. Santos

Sativa

Imani Morgan

I’m concentrated on nothing. Nothing is everything. Endless paths from dimensional worlds, I’m focused. Where do I go? I’m high in the clouds trying to get lost from Everything. The world has so much to offer In such a short time. Not enough time. The sky is the limit, If I go up, What about if I go down? My creativity flowing like a river leads me to wonder where will life take me, like a mary-go-round? Pause, I need to pause time. To breath. Breathe the air, meditate on the life around me. I am living. I don’t appreciate it.

e’s r e Th

2266

ing, no pausing. L p p o t ife no s

“Lilac” Photo by Emily Cotler

moves

y. a w a like clouds, just passing

Too bad it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t move as slow. Slow motion I see the world with my tunnel vision of what I must be, need to be, To break family cycles, toxic behaviors- I need to be high up in the clouds to get away from reality I cannot escape. Being so high in life I cannot imagine, So use to being close to the ground, But what is up there, what if I do not find? Find what others found, lose what others lost. What goes up, must come down. If I leave the earth just let my love go around, Around in a circle that life takes us. A journey to where we do not know our final destination. For right now, my destination is the clouds. Because what goes up, must come down. - I AM. 27

Yellow Fever

Raisa Alexis N. Santos

It’s just a kiss on the cheek you said The lightest of touches What about a feathery caress From my hand to my arm And slowly up my thigh I’ve turned into a little Chinadoll Yours to be dressed My Asian features make you think I’m some kind of prize One who won’t try to refuse your advances The perfect mail order bride I’m a weak and timid girl Living off the fountain of youth Perpetually kawaii But what can come true Are those dreams in your head Just say the word I’ll be a geisha in bed This sexualization of my ethnicity Makes me an object to use Not a subject of my own story All because of this contagious flu This isn’t an anime I’m a three dimensional woman And your sleazy unwanted desires Of making me a Barbie to your Ken Are really the effects of colonization When men refuse to label their lust Asian fetishization 28

Photo by Kate McGorry

Guilt

Jessica Drigun

Time heals all wounds. Yes, but when? A nine year old wound has reopened.

It wasn’t fully healed anyways…

Omissions of guilt have come back to the surface; You weren’t there the last days before your dad died. You were with a boy. You didn’t paint your grandma’s nails before she died. You were ‘busy’. You were relieved when your grandpa died. No more mathematical questions. If I knew then, what I knew now. Well, that doesn’t make the guilt go down Any better than trying to drown it in substance abuse. I don’t abuse – I use it only when I need it. Keep telling yourself that. I’d tell you that it gets better, But it doesn’t. I’d tell you that you can leave, But you can’t. You’re here. Stuck.

“Patchwork” Art by Emily Cotler

“Voicemail #47” Quentin Felton

Kate McGorry

don’t expect rings to bind when bands are black holes when galaxies of monogamy empty themselves into cosmic veins his vows vexed at the knee be my slaughterhousehusband a daddy dedicated to devotion fathers deny in fear of the sons they’ve always had our mothers lending silk pant-suits from divorce settlements family matters coaxed in champagne should we serve chicken or steak or mackerel marmalade at the reception all the men i’ve fucked live-streaming from the parking lot anyway just checking to see if love’s been buried if you’d flower girl the funeral

Tim Caston

Epistemology Tim Caston

Is it premature to congratulate your exit? I swear this never happens, it’s just an unfortunate affliction like the spreading eczema you hide beneath your collar. Color me unimpressed, or unenthused, really. Your formal reality supersedes my shame but it doesn’t erase it, unless you account for your total lack of empathy about my situation. Conception happens so casually, a casual chain, an accident, mostly. To conceptualize being a mother is a harder task to handle. It may be too early for celebration but the booster shot has been administered and the histamines have lost their control over the infant. Immaculate conception, you emasculate me like the road from Damascus and the Virgin Mary in high heels. Tell me why the carpenter works with wood, but you with your hands and mouth? Bury my shame but don’t lose it, it’s still useful for making kimchi. Excuse me I have no rights the product but feel rather entitled to it, like frozen pizza or cup noodles. 31

Kate McGorry

Were you waiting Within the arms of the abyss. In the shade of war; like the othRomel Martinez ers By the numbers – strict and Keep your head up is what you pressed for time – said. Bathed in lies, I’ve tasted the Learn how to jump, I’ll catch nectar you. Of your youth. You can trust me! I’m the heart And what did I expect? Of your soul – the seed of I never believed in the afterlife – Your body. Nourish me, Only in you – you were too real. For I need life. No, you were a dream. The others believed in me – A fantasy I could inhale – run See how they turned out. through Begging me for more. With ease like a mercurial river Turning on themselves towards of regret. Totality I trusted you – I swore to you. I jumped – Never landed. You told me to jump – one life I don’t remember you there. to live. I’m here now. My chaste enveloped by hunger.

THE AMERICAN CRIME STORY

Lost Ones Fedora Cox

Kate McGorry

Tell me about a dream where the praying mantis viciously feeds on the live body of its mate, In honor of its young who will inevitably fall victim to a similar fate. How we trade: a pebble for a pearl; cotton for silk; a bar of soap for a bar of gold, Tell me it’s okay, a trade is a trade, reassure me that this never grows old. Mother shrieks as baby’s new teeth mischievously bites down on her sensitive nipple, She bares the pain with a smile and gently wipes away baby’s dribble. Tell me how one can bare the stench of morning breath that stinks

so badly of rotten meat, Yet is greeted by a welcoming smile and provides a place of retreat. How in greed, arrogance and a desire for worldly pleasure, he leaves and considers no one, Return! Return! oh Prodigal Son. Return! Return! No harm is done! Look at the light it will surely guide your path, please know that you are never alone, Tell me of your miseries and of your experiences as you journeyed home. Is it a curse or a blessing in disguise? Or is it just one of nature’s lies? Tell me, oh tell me, I really need to know, How this heart within this cage continues to grow? 33

Carsick Memoir

Matthew Cummins

he four years of my life that I spent in Albany, living with my mother, Donna, and my step-father, Ron, are a blur. Little Matthew spent a lot of that time simply surviving, and I can’t blame him for having small lapses in memory considering what he went through. Often, when I (very rarely, and usually reluctantly) take a look back at my past, I’m confronted not with a cohesive string of memories linking one event to another, but a series of scenes, precisely frozen in time, floating in the aether of my head with no apparent ties to one another. In one scene, I can remember the cool inside of Donna’s beat up Toyota, sitting on a perfect summer day in the parking lot of the Stewart’s convenience store where she worked. The AC recycled a tepid atmosphere of old cigarettes into a slightly cooler, but still cigarette scented breeze. The stained fur of the grey car seats felt fuzzy beneath my fingers, and next to the buckle of my seatbelt was a black resin, a piece of gum that had long since hardened into a dull amber. I had spent much of the car ride over picking at it, trying to pry it off the car seat, but was unsuccessful. Right now, though, younger me was looking rather incredulously at a camera my husk of a Mother was attempting to hand me. She wanted me to take pictures of the bloody blotches on her back and face that Ron had beaten into her the night before. Being a child somewhere between the age of four and eight years old, I remember being filled with the apprehension that, one: somehow I was in trouble; and two: that I was going to have to do a thing that I really did not want to do. Donna tried coaxing me further, and by this time in my life I had already learned that little boys who displeased their parents got hit, or locked outside for a night, or hit and then locked outside for good measure. So, I took the camera, and Donna awkwardly undressed in the front seat of her car.

As I sat there, snapping away at each mark, I think that even at that time I was struck by the thought that other children my age were not doing similar things with their own Mothers. Donna took me inside the convenience store and bought me my favorite snack: Yodels. I even got to keep the changeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a single pennyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;which younger me thought was a much more life-altering occasion than the events that had preceded it only a moment before. The Toyota, Little Matthew happily inhaling his Yodels in the back seat, returned to my home, and to the haze of my childhood memories. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even remember what she used the photos for.

To You, To Your Brother T. G. Caston

A Corpse is a Corpse Is a Corpse. Until it is embalmed, left waxy by the process made to preserve you, after the world has torn your body to shreds. Like a lamb thrown to lions. Your eyes: closed. Your suit: pressed. Your lips: sewn shut, as if to prevent you from screaming to this room of mourning children â&#x20AC;&#x153;Live! I know a pain that ends in darkness. I have felt the worlds prick and then its quick release. I have felt the tears of my Father glide gently down my bare shoulder and was helpless to dry them.â&#x20AC;? The school will be quiet the day after. Students will drift, like petals from dogwood trees. White. Weightless. Shell shocked from a war they did not know they were fighting. Your name will not be mentioned, except in hushed tones at cafeteria tables and will always be preceded by a hesitation, as if bleeding has turned your name into a dangerous incantation. Your brother will not be seen, but will not be marked absent.

Your classmates will approach your altar one by one and kneel before your wax. Looking, half hoping, to see the place where the log pierced your side and opened your body to the world. They will remember that moment. They will cry. They will wipe their tears and snot onto their sleeves and gasp for air conscious that you cannot breathe it. They will go back to school. Then they will graduate, and by then you will have been buried, but they will carry you through that moment, and the rest.

Tim Caston

Humble Pie

Jared ‘WordIzBond’ Green

Staring at the blue while the sky cries open Not a cloud in sight and yet I see it weep This meat stuck in between my teeth From bloody deers and miscellaneous Creatures now deceased Resurrect themselves inside my pridefully belly And even in my sinful mind, I can’t find any peace I feel these beasts breathing Stampedes while the corners of my mouth Their blood slowly leaks. I’ve been wandering around inside my mind Questioning my actions that got me to this place Now this coagulating humble pie on this table Is being pushed into my face Being shoved down my throat The feeling of losing hopeChoking all the life out of me This crust pulling back my windpipe is a makeshift rope . This walk with Jinn These Prideful sins Bad decisions And now here I am But I swallow my pride While I devour this pie Prideful belly agonizingly rumble as the crust Crumble Remember this feeling Remember these demons Remember this feeling Remember these demons Remember this feeling Lingering off lips and fingertips 38

“topsy turvy” R. Santos

Forget-Me-Not

Raisa Alexis N. Santos

Astrid wakes up to the unfamiliar, dewy smell of flowers one Saturday morning. Yet, she didn’t smell flowers when she went to bed last night. This both alarms her and rouses her from her stupor. She’s in her room, with everything in place, and that throws her off. The paint splatters on the ceiling from countless redecorating mishaps are there, and her raggedy old stuffed sea lion Sherry is perched on the bookshelf next to the door, just as she remembers. The flowers shift everything back to reality. She sees a bouquet of five-petal flowers resting right next to an old-timey television. There are two things wrong with this image. Flowers are always kept in the kitchen so her parents remember to water them. And she distinctly recalls her mother forbidding any TVs in her or her siblings’ rooms. Whoever has tried to replicate her room is sorely mistaken. She finally moves from her bed, cautiously at first, quickly glancing outside the one window in her room to confirm her fears. Instead of seeing a familiar street lined with other houses, she’s surrounded by trees and the light pitter-patter of rain. The forest seems desolate and she tries to open the window to let in some air. But it’s firmly shut. She tries the door, her chipped mahogany one with a 2027 Cat Calendar hanging from the back. She expects it to lead into a familiar hallway where everything will make sense – her brother still soundly asleep in his room, her sister already studying in the early hours of the day, and her parents making breakfast. But it won’t budge. She’s stuck in a room that is both hers and isn’t. So there isn’t anything left to do but search the room for clues and possible escape routes. The television and flowers call to her, and she makes her way to them. For such an old television, it has a surprisingly modern remote perched on top of it. Turning it on doesn’t reveal 39

much, except a blank, staticky screen. She tries her best not to damage the flowers as she sifts through them. She finds hidden between beautiful petals a single notecard with an official seal, addressed to her. “Ms. Astrid Delosreyes, it is my pleasure to inform you that you have been chosen to be part of a sample governmental project...” … Mr. Delosreyes spends his Saturday mornings cooking breakfast for his kids and his wife, with a blaring TV in the background as he fries eggs and longaniza. The local news channel is interviewing some university professors about the latest conspiracy theory. They postulate that the slow, but steady decrease in people nationwide has something to do with the government. The funny thing is, there are no records of these people even existing, much less disappearing – but censuses still show an obvious decrease. It’s then connected to the recent sanctions set to regulate the usage of natural resources that are about to dry up, and how other governments are starting to tightly control populations, limiting the number of births and marriages, and everything else in between. Where Mr. Delosreyes lives, there isn’t much beyond driving curfews and talks of rationing, but government is government. Unease hits lawmakers soon enough. It makes sense that in a few years time, there won’t be enough on the planet to sustain everyone, but the whole disappearance thing sounds fishy to the middle-aged father of two. The current professor speaking calls it a “governmental lottery to control the rapidly rising population.” Some lottery, Mr. Delosreyes thinks. He often dreamt of winning millions from lotto numbers and just getting lucky, but this isn’t a lottery he’s interested in winning. If anything, he is lucky that his family is spared, so far at least, from having a loved one chosen for whatever guinea pig tests they have planned in order to decrease the population. Granted that this all exists, of course. Breakfast is almost ready to go, and he starts to grab mugs off the rack so he can pour some strawberry milk and hot cocoa. He dangles four mugs on his fingers, but his eyes rest on a lowly fifth one, waiting to be picked up. “Strange,” he says aloud, to no one in particular, “I don’t remember having any guests over recently. Maybe…” he shakes his head and banishes the thought, placing the mugs quickly down on the countertop and storing the fifth one away for another day. … 40

Within a few hours, Astrid discovers some subtly placed cameras in her room. There’s one hidden in her black polka-dot curtains that don’t match any of the teal décor and another one attached to Sherry’s flipper. Answers come to her when she removes the minuscule camera from her precious stuffed animal’s flipper and starts yelling at its tiny screen for the one in charge of the “Forget-MeNot” Project. She doesn’t get the one in charge, but instead, she gets a young man who comes in through her door. He’s around her age, maybe a year or two older, and identifies himself as her case officer, complete with the button down shirt, ironed slacks, and rimmed glasses. “So, you mean everyone I know is infected?” Astrid asks as she measures the word carefully in her head. The case officer barely gets a word in before she interrupts. “Infected,” she repeats, this time louder and with an edge. The case officer looks at her, unperturbed, and continues with the formalities. “The government calls it a serum. It is only temporary, Ms. Delosreyes. Their memories will be altered for only five days, provided they manage to overcome the alteration and remember you before five days pass. There are also no long-lasting side effects for those we administer the serum to, save for some nausea and dizziness during this observance period. ” Astrid is shocked, with disgust and horror registering on her face as she tries to process the information. The media is always talking about the government abandoning its people and has lately been airing different specials on which scientists and professors discuss theories of missing people with no records, but she never realized the truth of their words. Has she lost someone she cared for, without even realizing it? “And if during this so-called observance period, they can’t remember me, I will be… forgotten.” She eyes his nametag – Lucian Grekov. “Mr. Grekov,” she ventures, carefully, “I know I’m just another name on your ever-growing list, but think of the reverse. Don’t you have your own family, your own friends? How will you feel if your existence is suddenly erased from their memories?” She is trying a different tactic, Lucian considers. He wouldn’t buy into it, as he’s heard it all before – the yellers, the bargainers, the devil’s advocates. Eventually, they submitted to their fate, giving up in the end. “Miss Delosreyes. There isn’t enough space on this planet for all of us. We’re running out of resources, and more importantly, out of time. We have to cut corners where necessary.” He glances briefly at his watch and proceeds to give further instructions. “You will be allowed to view your loved ones’ progress on the television. Food will be delivered to you three times a day. I will visit period41

ically to check on your progress.” Lucian pulls a small timer out of his pocket, places it on her nightstand, and presses a button. “Consider this the start of the observance period and your official start in the “Forget-Me-Not” Project.” As he retreats from her room, he makes a singular dismissive motion towards her and the stuffed animal she’s gripping tightly in her hands. “One last thing, you don’t have to scream at toys to get answers. Judging by your file, I thought you were better than that.” She throws Sherry in his direction, though she misses when he closes the door behind him. Astrid starts screaming at the nothingness surrounding her, “Get out! Get out! Get out! You know nothing about me! I am not a goddamn corner for you to cut!” Tears are forming in her eyes and it hits her, once again, that she’s not at home. There’s no one here to comfort her. … Adrian is usually busy on Sunday mornings, but today he has to pick up his older sister, Alice, from her MCAT prep. Given that it’s his first time to do so, Mr. Delosreyes has to repeat again and again where the place is located. It’s just so out of the blue to Adrian that he would be asked to pick her up. “Didn’t Alice used to take the bus to get home from class?” he asks his father as he makes his way towards the car. “Not to my knowledge. Wasn’t it you or your mom that picked her up?” His father is just as puzzled, but then again, his father always ends up wearing two dissimilar socks when he goes to work. He probably forgot after too many late-night shifts. Several minutes later, Adrian is waiting in the car for his sister, pondering this last exchange with his father when his sister shows up, entering the car bursting with energy. “Hey, hey Adrian! You’ll never guess what happened today.” His sister starts rambling on about the abnormal psychology terms and the biochemical reactions she was taught in class and all the stuff he doesn’t care about as he drives home. All of a sudden, he is driving by the park, prompting a faint scent of flowers to fill him with a brief memory. He’s just not sure what exactly it is, but he can practically hear a teasing voice from the backseat. But when he turns his head, it’s only his sister sitting next to him. Alice stops talking, too, and she gives him a concerned gaze. “Hey, bro. Are you okay? You’re usually interested in what I’m talking about but today, you’re really spacing out on me.” He thinks again of the conversation he had with his father a while back. He can’t recall a time where he was even the slightest bit interested in his sister’s medical pursuits. 42

This fact alone troubles him and gives him a headache. … Astrid is studying the television closely, watching her father as he enjoys his Sunday night dramas. It’s the second observation day and, judging by her television screen, no progress has been made. Her sister is studying fervently in her room, and her brother is playing video games. Her mother has just joined her father in his dramas. They all look so content, so happy without her. It aches to see her family go on as though she never existed. She’s so engrossed in the television that she doesn’t notice her door open. “You know the chances that they will remember who you are… they’re not the best chances.” Lucian enters the room with a plate of food to deliver to her and the bowl she requested the day before. “Only one in ten people chosen by the project have family members and loved ones who have resisted the serum’s effects.” It was, essentially, a foolproof plan, Astrid realizes. Just how can he be so calm about this? She picks off a piece of bread, grabs the bowl of strawberries, and shoots back at him, “Why not just end us all while you can? Keep your officials, your cabinet members, and your president, but let the common folk rot.” He blinks, finally caught off guard by her bluntness. “As entertaining as the idea is, Ms. Delosreyes, we’re not monsters, you know. We do extensive research before deciding who is the easiest to be forgotten. It has nothing to do with who is rich and who is poor.” A harsh laugh is accompanied by an incredulous look from Astrid. “And you picked me? What shitty criteria you have. Middle child, average, and boring in every way,” she says, sarcastically. “Can a few checkboxes on a page really tell you if I’m lab rat approved? Or is there more to your little project?” He shakes his head, “It’s more complicated than that.” “It’s not complicated at all. You claim to not be monsters, yet here you are, taking part in very monstrous things.” … Noah Chang hasn’t been feeling well recently. Since the weekend, some people in his town have been going through what is described as occasional headaches and nausea, and they don’t know what the cause is. Normally he would have attributed it to spring fever, but when it happens every couple of months, this is comparatively worse than what he is used to. He ran into his friend, Adrian Delosreyes, yesterday, and he was apparently going through something similar as well. Both of them blame the weather. But his mother had urged him outside to get some fresh air. So he went to the park to enjoy the slightly cool spring breeze and 43

the smell of blooming flowers. He supposes it is better than lying in bed all day. But the flowers are making his head foggy with something not entirely unpleasant. He vaguely starts to picture the shadow of a girl running happily through the park. She even starts to hold his hand. This shadowy girl is leaning closer for a kiss… Before the image of the girl can materialize, he is pulled back towards the present. A distance away he spots his classmate Leona Ramirez, who is making her way through the park path with a pile of books in her hands. He always found her pretty, in a nerdy, introverted sort of way. But he’s never had the chance to talk to her, and he wonders why. Now is the perfect opportunity to do so. As she makes her way down the path, she doesn’t take into account the patch of rocks that has yet to be cleared. In a flash, Noah is walking towards her, calling out to watch her step. It happens so fast, but he notices his headache alleviating as he speaks to her. He can’t help but have a nagging sense of guilt when he asks her out on a study date after half an hour or so of pleasant chatter, and the shadowy girl returns for a brief second, but he pushes her and his feelings aside. … “He was worthless, anyway,” Lucian says calmly as he watches Astrid dazedly stare at the television, witnessing her boyfriend’s betrayal. He makes a few notes on his notepad for the third observation day before continuing to speak, “Don’t take it too personally, though I know you will.” This comment registers in her a second too late, and she snaps out of her trance, immediately pointing an angry finger in his direction. “What do you know of worth, Mr. Grekov?” “Well, his files showed that he had a minor infatuation with Ms. Ramirez before dating you. From there, it doesn’t take much to alter his memories. Simply inducing the hormone pregnenolone should do the trick…” “People are more than their chemistry! But you would know nothing of that,” she cries out, gesturing around her room. “You’ve sentenced countless people to their deaths when you could have saved them. You’re nothing more than a fucking puppet.” It is true, in a way. He’s seen many people break down from things like this and worse. But it didn’t bother him then. As he leaves her room for the night, he keeps on trying to reassure himself that it certainly doesn’t bother him now. … Astrid doesn’t feel the urge to get out of bed today. She’s just flicking through the channels, watching everyone she knows 44

live happily without her. Adrian is playing video games with Noah, while her parents are going out for the day. Alice is studying at the local park, and her friends are hanging out at the mall. It hurts, but she simply has to keep hoping that they would remember something. Anything. It feels better than being trapped in this godawful cage. Lucian comes by with a tray with her breakfast, but she just isn’t feeling the need to eat. There’s a bowl of strawberries to complete the meal. “You need to eat, to keep your strength up.” He’s sounding surprisingly sympathetic, and she can’t have that, especially from him. “For what?” she retaliates, “isn’t it my last day tomorrow? Don’t you call it the dismissal period? Why even bother?” Lucian is about to say something, but she cuts him off, “I know, and I don’t need your pity.” She makes a furtive glance towards her food before turning away, taking Sherry into her arms and wrapping herself in her blanket. The next few hours Lucian spends in silence, casually lounging on a chair he set up by her door and looking at his notepad, trying to think of something else to write beyond, “Subject remained uncooperative and refused to consume meal.” But as he begins to leave, he notices Astrid pick up the remote, and look at the television with a sliver of light in her eyes. He quickly jots down, “Subject still remains hopeful that they will remember.” … Lucian can’t sleep tonight. He’s too frazzled, too unsettled. He would think Astrid feels the same, but she’s alone in a desolate facility in the forest, and he’s in a five-star hotel room paid for by his superiors while he handles this case. Once it’s over, he’ll be assigned to another city in another part of the country, complete with all the accommodations fit for a king. The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes she’s getting the worse end of the deal. He gets up from his bed after feeling around for his black frames. His bare feet drift towards the coffee table, and he starts to heat up some water for his tea. English Breakfast tea, six hours too early. He tries to recall his other cases, their names almost escaping him. Mr. Cousland, a divorced man, was going to visit his kids and his ex-wife three weeks ago, but he doubts the former Mrs. Cousland, now remarried as Mrs. Hawke, would remember even having a first husband. Her kids, who look nothing like Mr. Hawke, are already rewritten as sperm donor children. Before Mr. Cousland 45

"If you’re reading this

it’s too late" - Monica.

was Mrs. Shakina. She held the title as the oldest and unmarried great-aunt of the Shakina family until two months ago. Her sisters’ grandchildren recall nothing of the old woman who made pies and cakes for their birthdays, and now the family shops for store bought desserts. There were countless more over the course of the past year. But he’s struggling to remember them all. Why can’t he remember? In six hours, he’ll have to drive over to the facility, and wheel Astrid out to meet her fate. He shudders to think of her end because the final part of the project isn’t exactly the most pleasant. He’s remembering her yells, her curses, her stuffed animal Sherry, of all things, as he jiggles his leg and studies the phone in his hand. Government policy is the last thing on his mind when he decides to make the call. One ring, two rings, three rings follow in tandem. “Hello, this is Lucian Grekov. I need to speak to the doctors who are handling Astrid Delosreyes’s case at 7 am.” The secretary on the other end complains about the time, and he rushes out, “I apologize for the lateness, but I’m hoping to make a last request.” … For Astrid, the light doesn’t last for long. The hours pass by and nothing happens. Once, her sister went into her empty room, which government officials had altered discreetly to be a guest room, in confusion. Alice had inspected the walls and closet carefully, as though she was looking for a trace of her, but when she couldn’t find it, she quickly walked out. When several men in lab coats come for her with a wheelchair, she asks to bring Sherry. Inanimate he may be, he is the only one who knows who she is. They wheel her out in silence, even though she was adamant about using a wheelchair, one that would be guarded on both sides. “Trying to keep me from escaping?” She sneered. “It’s a bit too late for it, but don’t say I didn’t try.” It’s all false bravado. Astrid’s no Albert Einstein, no hacking genius, and definitely not in the running to be a sneaky spy. The government was very thorough in keeping her under lock and key. Maybe that is why they picked her – she’s plain and unremarkable in every way. She won’t have a funeral; she won’t have a proper grave. She won’t have family and friends crying over her body. She’s finally brought into the brightest room possible. There are people surrounding her from above, no doubt government officials who need to document her death in their records. Astrid is ushered onto a small cot, and quickly enough, a man in a white lab coat and a facemask hands her a tray with a glass of water and a

"Buy Gold" - Matt.

small pill. She’s suspicious, rightfully so. “So I’m going to lose my memories before I die, too?” He looks at her strangely. “Why would we do that? We’re not inhumane. Though we don’t typically allow it, the pill is to ease you before we inject you.” She takes the pill, swallowing without water, and notices a syringe in the doctor’s hands. “Ah, the classic injection. Kind of tame, don’t you think? You know, guillotines were quite popular in France in the 18th century.” Right before she’s injected, Lucian steps into her line of sight, muttering words that only she can hear, “The pill was a special request, Astrid.” For once, it’s she who’s taken aback by him. “Isn’t it a bit too late for surprises, Mr. Grekov?” … The drive to Astrid’s house is a quiet one, save for the brief interludes when Lucian would flick the radio dial ever so slightly at each traffic intersection. After several radio stations, songs blur in his ears and sound exactly the same, all dulcet tunes and rhythmic twangs of guitar strings along lyrics of loss and sorrow. Loss and sorrow is a bit of a stretch, in his book. He barely knew her, after all. What he did find out, in the five days of sitting with her, was that she liked strawberries. She had mumbled a faint and reluctant, ‘thank you,’ when he delivered her first tray of food and did not speak to him as she ate. But when he returned for the tray, there was a hastily scribbled note – “I request more strawberries.” It wasn’t really in his orders to comply with a subject’s demands. Other subjects were more complicit, more accepting of their eventual fate. They wouldn’t request more bearable situations or even mementos from their previous, pre-Forget-Me-Not lives. He could have easily thrown away the note and ignored her command. It didn’t even include a please. But every breakfast, lunch, and dinner that followed after included an extra bowl of strawberries. She always glared at him when he entered the room, though her eyes would light up upon seeing the sweet fruits. He didn’t bother to include this random factoid in his notes. He also didn’t bother to include her love of the color teal. She had requested, in another one of her notes, that her curtains be made teal. The replicated room was supposed to match the original perfectly, so her request caught him off guard. She wouldn’t explain the reason for this change, not to him, anyway, but he assumed it was something she had wanted to do, yet never got around to it. That and the original black polka-dot curtains did not match the rest of her teal room. Supreme Lord Editor Raisa.

It was only a guess that it was her favorite color. He will never get the chance to ask her if it was. Or ask if she liked country blues, or even banter with her on the differences between early twenty-first-century pop and the drivel they produce in 2027. He greatly prefers the former, and wonders if she will, too. If she would have, Lucian mentally corrects himself. The Delosreyes residence is coming up on his right. He isn’t sure who would answer – her mother, her father, one of her siblings? He has prepared note cards for each just in case, fearing Alice most of all. The files had said that the sisters shared a close bond. He hides a bouquet of flowers and Astrid’s stuffed animal Sherry surreptitiously behind his back as he makes his way towards their door. Her father, Mr. Delosreyes, answers, clad in a terrycloth-sleeping robe, and eyes the strange twenty-something at his door in a suit. “Are you here about our magazine subscription? Don’t bother; we moved it online.” Mr. Delosreyes makes a move to close the door, but Lucian interrupts him, “No-no sir, I’m here on behalf of a friend.” He subtly moves the flowers into plain sight. The older man’s eyes widen and he nodded, sagely, “Oh, you’re a friend of my daughter’s, I take it?” He places emphasis on the word friend, and holds up a finger, preventing Lucian from interrupting once more. “One second.” He shuffles back inside, leaving the door open and Lucian all alone at the doorstep. Lucian hears pronounced yelling from Mr. Delosreyes coming from the background, “Alice! Anak, my child, stop studying for one second. You have a gift from a friend.” There’s a back and forth argument between the two about the importance of some medical exam, apparently the MCAT, but a reluctant Alice Delosreyes meets him at the doorstep. She’s not Astrid and she definitely is a few years older than her deceased middle sister, but the resemblance is there. The fiery eyes and the look of annoyance catch Lucian by surprise and places him at an immediate unease. “You’re not my friend,” she states, slightly irritated that someone would pull her from her studies. Even the disgruntled proclamation rings with similarities to a forgotten middle sister. “Ah, yes, Ms. Delosreyes, I was trying to tell your father I’m merely a messenger.” He holds out the bouquet of forget-me-nots towards her and places Sherry in Alice’s arms. “Sherry the sea lion missed you,” he murmurs, patting the toy on its head. Inanimate he may be, he is now the only reminder they would have of her. He’s running short on time, and he makes his way to his car without further explanation. Even when Alice calls out, demanding a reason for such a pretty, but sad looking bouquet, as well as a worn 48

down toy, he can only offer two words as he drives away. “To remember.” … Lucian has one more stop left on his illicit un-government sanctioned trip. The bodies are buried in some nondescript lot on the outskirts of town. He doesn’t exactly have the authority, but he pries it out of his superiors in exchange for extra hours. He doesn’t like visiting the graves of the forgotten, but days passed and he couldn’t forget her face. Astrid wasn’t anything extraordinary, or beautiful, or brave. She exists in his mind alone, wiped clean from the lives of everyone else’s, and filed away by his higher-ups in a cabinet for further study. He isn’t sure if that is a comfort or a curse. It has been years since he’s been to a funeral, but it has only been days when it hit him that people died under his watch almost every week. He went to his superiors after she was injected, and in the calmest voice possible he tried to convince them to lessen the dosage in the future, to give them a chance at remembrance. They only laughed and suggested he finally use those sick days he’d accumulated to rest. In his hands is the wilted bouquet from his first meeting with her and some flower seeds. He wasn’t much of a gardener, but someone had told him that flowers brought back memories. Even though he didn’t know exactly where she is buried, he figures someone else might, someone more important. By leaving a similar bouquet of flowers with the Delosreyes, he knows he is starting something that is dancing along the lines of legality. They will remember, and then, recalling Alice’s quick-tempered demeanor, there will be hell to pay. And he will go down with it, as a final justice, he feels he deserves. The plot of land is desolate for now, but in time the seeds will bloom, given a few more weeks of spring. Lucian leaves her grave and the graves of many others, catching the faint aromatic scent of flowers in the wind.

"As my artist's statement explains, my work is utterly inco

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omprehensible and is therefore full of deep significance."

Frances Shnaidman

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[B]

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[D]

[E]

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[F]

[G]

[I]

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Frances Shnaidman

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"She loved to walk down the street with a book under

r her arm. It differentiated her from the rest." 57

Jackalope M. Cummins

Tim Caston

UDY SNUCK OUT OF HIS ROOM AT 3 AM. Tucked into his backpack was a flashlight, his phone, some Rice Krispies, and a bottle of Gatorade. Under his covers was a vaguely childshaped lump, just in case he wasn’t back before his parents got up. The window, his co-conspirator, barely hissed a whisper as he slid it up, then popped out its screen. With his footsteps hushed by the long grass outside his window, nature aided the boy’s escape as he slinked into the treeline. Rudy had been playing in these woods for as long as he could remember. In his youth, it’d been a treasure trove for him and his friends. Every bush promised hidden boogeymen or buried treasure, and every tree dared them to climb to it’s highest branches. They had started three separate tree forts and finished none. As he got older, though, Rudy spent less time chasing dragons and more time throwing rocks at cans. Recently it seemed more like he went there out of habit than anything else. The woods at night were unfamiliar though. It was noisy, not quite like he’d expected. Crickets screamed invisibly from the grass. Somehow Rudy felt better this way. Things would be a lot scarier if everything was silent, and if he was scared he wouldn’t be able to do what he had to. Jackson deserved that fat lip. His uncle wasn’t a liar. Rudy would prove it. He stumbled around in the dark. Saving his battery was his number one priority, but he suddenly got spooked by something moving in front of him. At least, he thought it was moving. His flashlight’s gleam revealed only an old tree stump. It was weird how the shadows swam around him. Shutting it off again the woods seemed even darker and quieter, and only the thought of feeling like a fool

kept him from shining his light on apparently mobile tree stumps or rocks. At least now he knew where he was going. Duck Rock wasn’t hard to spot; its sheer face poked above the tree line at all times, an inviting silhouette in the distance. It got its name because it was generally agreed upon that, at some point, the mound of stone had vaguely resembled a duck. The resemblance had faded, but the name had stuck. A barbed wire fence materialized behind the trees. The fence had been here as long as Rudy could remember. Quite the opposite of the town’s intentions, the fence had only made Duck Rock more appealing to teenagers, and with little trouble Rudy found the hole clipped in the wire by the older kids. It was bigger than he thought. From a distance, it only just barely peaked above the treeline, but from here Rudy could see it towering over even the tallest of its neighbors. Hard as it was to decide where to begin climbing, the eager boy settled on a small shelf of stone just a few feet overhead. Every time he felt ready to jump, he held himself back. Fear was making him hesitate. Well, he was already out here, and he wasn’t going to go back home without at least trying to climb to the top, so Rudy reasoned to himself he should just get it over with. With this line of logic in mind, he leaped, grabbing the edge of the shelf, and hoisted himself up. A few empty beer cans fell off as he climbed. Above him, further than the shelf he had just climbed but still reachable, he saw a second shelf. It was going to be a long night. ... “A what?” “A Jackalope,” Rudy repeated. “My uncle saw one.” “What the hell is a Jackalope?” “It’s like a rabbit with antlers.” The shadows hung long on a late summer evening in the woods of Little River, Wyoming. The friends were walking down a familiar path. Rudy held his arms folded in contempt as Jackson and Seth tapered off their laughing fit. “That is the stupidest monster I’ve ever heard of,” Jackson 59

“I solemnly swear

that I am up to no good.”

said, adjusting his thick-rimmed glasses. His voice had the jaded self-assuredness of a twelve-year-old who’d been rudely awakened to a world without Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or Spiderman. A stray tree branch took a swipe at Jackson’s head as the three ducked around a tree. They’d been squatting in these woods since they were four, but Jackson had grown a full foot this summer and walked like a newborn fawn. “It’s not stupid and it’s not a monster. It’s a myth. There’s a difference. Right, Seth? I mean, a Unicorn is just a horse with a horn.” For Rudy, the veneer of childhood hadn’t quite rubbed off. At least when it came to this particular myth. “Don’t drag me into this,” Seth said, taking a step back. The ruddy-cheeked boy had long grown used to his friend’s arguments. He enjoyed the spectacle but never took a side. Rudy felt his face growing hot. Today Seth’s impartiality felt like a betrayal. “What about Bigfoot?” Rudy said. “If he’s out there somewhere why can’t there be a Jackalope?” The lack of an immediate answer from Jackson meant Rudy’s point had struck home. Bigfoot had escaped the immediate purge of childhood fantasies. The consensus among the boys was that he was out there, somewhere. Like Aliens. Or the Illuminati. “Bigfoot’s Bigfoot. Besides, you’re not talking about Jackalopes hiding in, like, Yellowstone. You’re talking about your Uncle seeing one. On Duck Rock!” Jackson said, pointing at the decidedly not duck-shaped rock peeking at them from above the treeline. “We can see Duck Rock!” “My Uncle wouldn’t have lied!” … Every time Rudy thought he’d made progress Duck Rock seemed to stretch a little taller. Only the thought that he might eventually have to look down kept him moving up. In spite of his misgivings, the rock made itself pretty easy to climb, and despite a scary moment where his foot slipped climbing one of the shelves, he was making steady progress. The higher he went, the less garbage he saw. Apparently the novelty of drinking beer this high didn’t outweigh the effort you’d spend climbing. Instead of trash, messages polluted these higher

"Michief Managed."

Tim is the coolest.exe

steps scratched on the wall by past climbers. Some were simple with just a name and a date. A lot had the same kinds of things kids write everywhere; stuff like ‘if you’re reading this I just wasted 12 seconds of your life’ and ‘this is high.’ A nearly faded message etched into the rock caught Rudy’s attention. It read: ‘Max was here James is a loser’ Rudy’s heart throbbed. He kept climbing. … The two things Rudy always remembered about his late Uncle Max’s old apartment were the smell of cigarettes and the taste of TV Dinners. His Uncle had been sitting with him on a couch that reeked of smoke, two fold-up tables with steaming plastic trays in front of them. Rudy’s brother, Ambrose, was too good to come along with his younger brother. Rudy was grateful; it left more Uncle Max for him. Secretly, sometimes he wished he had been born Max’s son, and that his brother was his cousin instead. He always felt guilty for this thought afterwards. “So this one time,” Uncle Max said through mouthfuls of lukewarm mashed potatoes, “your Dad ran over a wasp’s nest with his bike, and we had to run. But no matter how hard we biked or how fast we ran once we got to the trailer, those suckers followed us. Your grandpa started screaming at us, ‘you fuckers! Close the door! Now we can’t go outside, I can’t do anything with you two!’ The wasps were buzzing against the windows, they knew we were in there. “Oh,” Uncle Max said, interrupting himself, “don’t tell your Mom I said that word.” Uncle Max wasn’t married and never had any kids, but Rudy’s Mom always called him a silver fox. His Dad didn’t like that. Rudy couldn’t figure why though. He did have silver hair. His Uncle had an endless vault of stories: another one with bees where he had frozen them to use for a school project and they thawed out, angry, in the house; another where Rudy’s Dad ran away from home but came back after two hours in the woods. But Rudy’s favorite was the Jackalope story.

“So we were at Duck Rock,” Uncle Max would begin. Rudy immediately stopped eating. This story deserved his full attention. “This was before they put up that fence all around it. You used to be able to go there and climb it whenever you wanted, but now one kid falls off and they fence off the thing forever. If you ask me, too much coddling and you kids turn out soft. Back when I was a kid we got stung by bees and it built character. If you fell and broke your arm, the next time you didn’t fall. Am I right?” Rudy nodded enthusiastically. “Anyway, it was almost dark out, and me and James had a dare to see who could make it the higher up the Rock. I’d climb a shelf, wait for him, sometimes help him up--you know how your Dad is, gotta let him think he’s got half a chance or he’ll quit. So we’re climbin’ up, and climbin’, and climbin’, and your Dad goes ‘Max! Max, I can’t see anymore. Let’s go home. “I said ‘you go home,’ and kept going. Even wrote one message for him, not that he ever climbed up again to see it. It was pitch black when I got to the top, but boy, when I tell you you could see everything, I mean it. I could see my house from there, the edge of the woods, the river, the whole deal.” His Uncle paused like he was ending the story. “And then?” Rudy demanded. “And then what?” “Come ooon.” “Oh, right. How could I forget?” Uncle Max said. Like he was imparting a grave secret, his Uncle leaned close enough for his bushy mustache to scratch Max’s ear. “I looked for your brother at the bottom, and he was gone, of course, but right down there, staring up at me, I saw… The Jackalope.” Even though he already knew, Rudy asked what it looked like. “It was bigger than an ordinary rabbit and had these big antlers. Like a deer. And once it noticed me looking, it took off into the woods.” ... Rudy’s flashlight a tiny star, he clawed and pinched his way up the side of Duck Rock as the treetops sunk below him and the 62

wind grabbed at his hoodie. Rudy felt like he must be the first besides the hawks and the robins to climb this high in years. The insects had quieted and the birds were beginning to wake and sing for the dawn. Yearning for the closeness of the top drowned out any whisper of fear. Rudy’s adrenaline numbed the pain from his trembling fingers. The sun was just beginning to peak from behind the mountains as this shaking, exhausted eighth grader hoisted himself onto the flat stone peak, standing in triumph and exhilaration. The birds grew louder as the sun finally crowned the horizon. The view was everything his Uncle had promised it would be. The forest below was a sea of greens, reds, and browns, and where the autumn colors ended Rudy could see his house, it was true, but he could also see Jackson’s and Seth’s, and the school they went to and the library and his Uncle’s old apartment, all nestled like ants into the brightening hillside. The wide river in the distance was gilded golden in the morning light and past that the plains, like vast carpets of green, stretched as far as the eye could see. But look as he might from the peak of Duck Rock to the forest below, his eyes searching every bush, every dimple in the canopy beneath, Rudy could not find the Jackalope.

L. L. L.

Autumn Hymnal, or the Burgess Quartet T. G. Caston

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Hail to you Honeybee! Wings around my Adam’s apple, that blossom which you serenade so sweetly with a sonorous hum, a buzz. Descend onto my neck and caress my stubbled skin with your individual stinging nettle. Release your venom into my circulative stream and allow my throat to swell. Make me feel your pain, sweet pain and as I scream out, remember that this is a psalm I sing to you.

Summer collapses like a weak-ankled pirouette, her cheek resting on hardwood. The tilt that causes leaves to brown clogs a duck pond. Mucks it up. In a literary sense there is decay but beauty is in malevolence. Summer collapses but not before bird song chorus changes, cicada mass funerals “But best of all he loved the fall” but why write about yourself, the Fall was one woman, one snake, blind and a monument in Idaho. Fall rises an indecent erection like the Washington monument toppling foundations of collapsing structures. Falling rubble, be careful this a hard hat area. Fall rises apples fall. Fruit flies rise to the occasion an is apple born of them. An orchard does not burn but smolders, rots.

“Lava Lamp/Space Takeoff” Photo by R. Santos

Scare a bird from a hiding tree and fold its wings to its sides. A feather is a golden calf to a subway rider but to an aesthetic it is a dearly begotten son.

Hail to you hornetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nest! Whose home my covered foot steps through, disturbing the delicately made beds of pupa and queen bee. Swarm around the trunk of my chest with an ambivalence tied hand in hand with a cynegetic impulse to defend, to kill. Land your blows upon crook of my shoulders in chaotic symmetry. Cry your Whitmanian yawp and in the midst of your frenzy, find reformation.

Scare a bird from a hiding tree but do not disturb its peace. A stranger might not understand the sensitivity required of them so let us become familiar with the unladen Swallow; trust the Thrush. Clarity is a golden tipped wingsecurity a tightrope. Comfort a scaring bird. Tuck it into bed. Scare a bird from a hiding tree. Watch it flail and scream and whine its wings through sickly air. Hear it cry for ambivalence, for the quota to have been met. Pray that it comes back.

Kate McGorry

Again and Again Kate McGorry

â&#x20AC;&#x153;My mother had a special and secret relationship with words, taken for granted as a language because it was always thereâ&#x20AC;? (31, Audre Lorde). * My mother possesses a secret gift for storytelling. She weaves a single thread of reality through blankets of imaginative fiction. As a kid, I did not recognize it. I saw it as reality. Images in my mind sprung from her words as I tried to place them in my world. They did not fit. As I got older I saw these stories as lies. But now I see that she is a mirror. A thud becomes a bang, a pause transforms into a moment of unredeemable silence. Her words reflect the desire of her listener, a desire for excitement. * I remember when my parents told me my Aunt Lenore died of cancer. An image of red and green sprouted in my mind. They sim66

plified it by calling it a “growth.” And “growth,” to me, meant life. The image vividly crosses my mind. A seed amid the gore of internal blood sprouts into life like the tales of swallowed watermelon seeds. Soon, green replaces red. A forest develops and life kills life. I don’t remember her death, just her constant presence in my early childhood. She lives as a saint in my mind separate from this gory image. * The name sounds clunky, McGorry. The lowercase “c” lodged between “M” and “G” with all those lowercase letters drifting at the end creating a visual imbalance. And then comes the “gorry” part that I only realized just a couple years ago. But, Marshall has a respectable familiarity to it. It’s a department store, a law enforcement official and even has a space theme to it, like Martians from Mars. My mother kept her last name, Marshall, and as a kid I envied it, wanted it, plotted to take it. I’d tell her I had plans to change my name and she’d tell me not to tell my father; he always had so much pride in the name. But Marshall also sounds so generic and McGorry tells a story and so my plans have faded. “The environment gives so little it lures us back, again and again. We cling to it through the narrative we create” (183, Dodie Bellamy). * On the electric screen I swipe through profiles, take bits of given details and compose a human in my mind and then an encounter and then a future and then I swipe. The smallest details form the meat of my imaginations in the absence of actual substance. Daydreams defy space and time; whole encounters spanning hours in reality pass through my mind in seconds. My list of matches accrues as an accumulation of possibilities, each representing their own imagined future. I start to wonder if my analysis tells more about them or me, but the visions that emerge from these details are too enticing to contemplate this further. My thoughts commence. * Bubblegum, the epitome of coolness. Nothing but rubber immersed in sugar, devoid of any applied value. My mother objected to it, calling it “gross.” She’d never buy it for me…knowingly. Held within a frozen sea of yellow, my loophole laid. I can remember the 67

taste, at the time it tasted like frozen cotton candy but in the realm of memory, only nostalgia exists. The jingle rung and I got my fix, placing my order with the ice-cream man. I remember the perfection of the wrapper that contained my treat. All the colors in their place, imprisoned by the tyranny of lines. The exterior betrayed its interior. As I ripped open the wrapper, a deformed Spongebob emerged. His black bubblegum eyes bled into his yellow face. With each chew, the flavor flew away. CHOMP, CHOMP. CHOMP. And the flavor fled. But I did not chew for the flavor, I chewed for the aesthetic. “We have three things that make up a picture. What are they, now—?” (139, Samuel R. Delany). * What divides life? Lines is what passed through my mind as I stared out the window. In my 2D world of drawing, lines were the only way to distinguish one object from the other. Form and color were nonexistent. And so I searched for them endlessly and when I couldn’t find them I’d think up answers to rationalize my theory. I imagined scientists arranging atoms in line formation or god guising lines in invisible cloaks. I wanted so badly to harness this power to make lineless images, to create images that reflected “reality.” And sometimes I’d actually find “the lines,” hidden between columns of light. In hindsight, I see that those “lines” were merely the shadows taunting me. * Band-Aids, are a utilitarian solution to the healing process. But childhood transforms these symbols of healing into fashion symbols, adorning them in illustrations. My sister has Epidermolysis Bullosa. Her skin possesses a fragility so intense, the delicate wings of butterflies symbolize her affliction. Even the things meant to protect her produce injury. And so those symbols of healing transformed into fashion symbols, transformed once more into objects of injury. When we went to the store for Band-Aids, we did not buy the waterproof, illustrated or sticky kind that actually stayed on in the shower. Instead, we bought the plain fabric ones, the kind that fray at the sight of water. For this reason, cuts and scratches, at others’ homes produced a strange feeling of joy. The strange joy of covering my 68

wounds with SpongeBob. “All this occurs in the past, except this sentence.” (51, Dodie Bellamy) * I remember time standing still after my dad died. For two years, time compressed amid chaos. Memories from the day before appeared side by side with memories from the year before, absent of temporal distance. Even now that time remains separate from all other time. They were the days of wine bottles and locked doors. They are the days now left behind but never lost. Frozen in my memory, they remain. * In the morning their voices ran through my mind’s eye. The silver screen invaded my imagination as form emerged from sound. Their dated voices produced black and white imaginings in A-line skirts and trench coats. During that time before I left for school, my dad listened to his old time radio shows. They always hung a gloomy mystery over my mornings. Ambiguity arose from all angles. A killer on the loose at an unknown time, in an unknown place with an unknown face (a consequence of the medium). A high pitched Beee-Baa--Ooh—Oooo sounds and the episode ends. I hear it again, Beee--Baa--Ooh—Oooo, on my phone as I scroll through the ringtones. “Sci-Fi” contextualizes the eerie sound with no reference to the old time radio show. The sound stands distinct from the rest and its peculiar existence on my phone brings me back to those mornings of mystery.

Departure Kali Norris

â&#x20AC;&#x153;185 stepsâ&#x20AC;? L. L. L

I left a piece of myself behind, and I can still feel it, crawling and cruel as a phantom limb, like losing my right hand, like my eyes burning out. I wake with char pressed under my fingernails, hair dripping river water, mouth full of crushed rose petals.

The thing I love most is ruining me, bisecting my soul, sundering my heartstrings, filling my lungs with ichor. I lit a match under rainy skies and begged it not to forsake me, but in the end I returned, even weeping, and I have no one but myself to blame. 70

PLACE

Romel Martinez

see the bridge, sturdy and still, within the confines of its Gothic maze of darkness. I mourn on how secure it was - how confident, being who or what it was built for. The black, representing the endless abyss of certainty, covered the bridge to its foundation. Confident in the sense that it’s holding us all in place, doing its job, protecting us from the fall. Why couldn’t I have been that bridge. That immaterial thing which served its function like clockwork – aware of its place, respecting the order of things. My life held no fixed and rigid owners. There wasn’t any foundations I could lean to – to make myself firm, held in place. There wasn’t certainty of my future which was like aquatic blue or perhaps purple as this prose. For I was engaged into reaching, investing, in frivolous pursuits, only gaining frugal results. Twenty-six years of place placed on a pedestal of desponded virility, tarnishing my youth into transgressional transitions of adulthood. There wasn’t a bridge to allay my constant inner turmoil of place – my purpose. Nothing to keep the endless multitude of forbearance from reaching the point of origin to my defecated destination. No security invested in the purchase of vibrant concrete; for all the soul vanished from within. A soul or a spirit that was never there to begin with – to digest myself, to reduce and rot for the constant malevolence of desire and negative thoughts. Bringing me down, drowning me in the sea of self-despair, riveted in the self-contained chamber without musical cadences dancing lovingly to the vast expanse of my heart. Because it was empty. Never held, firmly in place.

I Walked Fatema Islam

I walked, I walked until my feet bled And blistered Until the Earth itself Soaked up the color of my Life and bloomed. Bloomed a brilliant crimson That faded to a rust This is what my life has Come to

7722

I walked, I walked until my bones Could take no more And my joints ground against Each other And these weary bones Could get no rest because The Earth bloomed my Life blood and said Still you must walk on I walked, I walked until my heart Ached and my throat burned And my eyes rained Worthless gems. The Earth drank up Those worthless gems And still unsatisfied She was, Go she commanded Go your work is not done

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Metrophilisâ&#x20AC;? Photo by R. Santos

I walked, I walked until my hair Turned from day to night When the gold of the sun Burned to the silver of the Moon and the Earth Took until I could Give no more and again She said, Go Still you have not paid your debt

I walk, I walk until the Earth says Your crimson hands Bloom no more That you gave back what You took in turn Only when Your debt is paid and the Sky weeps no more Until then you shall walk Forever more

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Photo by Kate McGorry

What Do You Call It? Jessica Drigun

I want to write, But I can’t. Writer’s block? No – You misunderstand me. When I say I can’t write, I mean; I can’t form Together anything.

“Jealousy” Photo Emily Cotler

The words that Are in my mind, They won’t connect. The dots are lost. Writer’s block is easy – No thoughts = no urgency This feeling is not that. These words Inside my Head Have urgency – With

Nowhere

Go.

The Kitchen Table Samantha Merzel

Standing here, beside you, Pain strikes my heart And sorrow fills my soul As I sympathize for all you have been through. You have the anatomy of an empty grave slot Waiting for a coffin to fulfill its void for all eternity. But for you, Your void remains as vacant as the bellies That sit besides you when they are crying in hunger. Just as their crying bellies, Your emptiness is only fulfilled temporarily.

Some days, they dress you In daisy-woven and sunlight stained fabrics To hide the cavernous scars That they brought upon on. On other days, they leave you naked. Forcing you to hold their shallow porcelain disks With burning bottoms Along with their heavy goblets With forceful aromas, Never thinking about the burns or bruises these deeds bring to your bare skin. The four-legged sculptures that press against you Disrespect the rules of personal space And let out groans when they are pulled away from you. Only once in a while are you shown appreciation, When you are sprinkled with cozy chemicals That awakens the shine that was taken away from you. But it wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t last for too long Because soon the four wooden pillars that bear your very being Will become too weak and give out. Soon your shine will go into an everlasting slumber, And you will realize; All the burns you swallowed, All the wine spills you endured, All the laughter they shared with you, And all the memories they made with you Shaped your very being But meant nothing to them. Because you are just a kitchen table, Taking on as many plates as they want you to handle, but never thinking of yourself.

It was the oneâ&#x20AC;Ś

L. L. L.

Leah-Lyuba Livshits

N THE BEGINNING, THERE WERE ONLY VAGUE WISPS of recollections of bright lights and the smell of luscious green. As I grew older, more details stuck in my mind, like the sound of crumpled wrapping paper and my brotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shouts of innocent joy. Each winter, I would listen to stories about the most perfect and magical being living in a dense forest. But to me, it all seemed too fantastic and impossible - one of those myths or legends aimed to stun and amaze that my brother liked to retell. In time, though, I would learn it was all real. I roamed the forest in search of something I only had an idea of. My body was wrapped in layers upon layers of clothing, my face left bare - a singular weakness in my cozy cocoon. As the sun set and the evening began to cloak the orange-yellow-pink sky, my cheeks were fully flushed from the cold and my lips were left chaffed from the fierce wind trying to unravel my fortress made of wool and polyester-covered goose feathers. In the distance I could hear my family calling my name; it was time to go home. Despite my protection,

"It'd be funny if

I could feel my feet becoming cold - it WAS time to go home. And yet, something stopped me. It was the same thing that urged me to go deeper into the small forest, to ignore my protesting feet - it was the idea of something magical. As the sky grew a shade darker, I was ready to submit to the fact that luck was not on my side that day and that fate would not have me spend a second longer in the wintery landscape. I was ready to turn back, and it was then that I saw it. It stood a few feet away from me hidden behind some of its taller and slightly inferior brethren - I gazed at it and I swear it gazed back. It was perfect; as if one of those siren-folk my brother told me about plucked the image straight from my innermost thoughts. Its ancient song thrummed through the ground and nothing could have forced my feet to walk the other way, towards my family, towards safety. I stood there enthralled by its spell. How can I describe perfection? As I inhaled, its scent poured down my throat and it was as if my heart was set aflame, pumping hot liquid gold through every

vein in my body till the warmth could not be contained and spilled over from every pore. It smelt as if there was a whole forest of pine-trees bound inside its wooden shell. Its leaves were as sharp as the icy air piercing my lungs with every intake of breath. Several snow-covered pinecones dotted the frame and could be found scattered under the lowest of its branches. Perhaps, a code of some kind lay hidden in the designs, waiting to be deciphered one day. And perhaps, the pattern, in fact, held the enchantment that drew me to this magical being in the first place. I stood frozen in its presence for what seemed like hours but what was something more like minutes. It was a myth come alive, it was perfect. And suddenly, I felt an insatiable desire to possess grow in me. Like a dragon bewitched by gold sickness, I felt the need to cut it from its roots and take it home with me. To put it into its stand and ordain it with precious baubles and colorful trinkets. To wrap it with bright lights that blinked and shimmered in mesmerizing sequences of flashes. To lay prized possessions by its feet and to crown its head with a

it weren't so pathetic.

star worthy of its beauty. I called caricature and a gruesome symout to my soon-to-be-icicles fam- bol of my selfishness. I wanted ily; I had made my decision. to cry out, to scream at myself and at my actions, to tell the Unfortunately, the dream could people around me to wake up, not last. Every day I watered my to consider the bodies lying in treasure and every day more of the streets all alone, some dead its dried leaves fell to the floor already, others dying surrounded of my apartment. Every day it by the unfeeling alien world of lost more of its natural green concrete and stone. In the end, color and every day more of its I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do any of that. I spared fragrance dulled till it smelt of one last glance at the corpse by nothing reminiscent of that pine my feet, and as I walked away, forest. And then, the day final- one thought silenced all others ly came when all winter related - my selfish justification - it was holidays had passed and there the one... could be no more denying that all that was left of my perfect being was a withering corpse barley held upright by its plastic and steel stand. We carried the tree down to the street and tried to prop it up against the fence by the bins, only for it to fall on the ground, rebelling against our efforts to keep up the illusion of it still being alive. It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t alive, it was dead. And as it lay there, I realized something important, or rather something that would stay and haunt me forever: no longer was my prized hoard the embodiment of the magical tales I was regaled with when I was little, instead, it had become a crude 80

Oh, what the heck, I'll laugh anyway.â&#x20AC;?

“Koi in Space” Art by Samantha Cotler

I touched yesterday Jason Applebaum

I touched yesterday The buildings, the houses, the streetlights Brooklyn College quietly and quickly walked away from me I relive Brooklyn I go back hundreds of years I get off the pavement I walk onto the crunch green brown black grasses I feel akin to the trees and forests and brush What I touch and what I see I am off the map The feet that walked this grass, these paths Have walked since the sun reflected off the green leaves of the Brooklyn forest When the first man walked in the forest, felt the wet leaves and said What is wet? This grass, this earth Echoing back the stench, the field of winter The field of time The unknown presence Feel it See it The unknown paths and unknown footprints of all those who were here The old lives I feel them and I may not know them But I am in awe.

Tim Caston

The Junction 2019

Articles inside

Table of Contents

From the Editors,

The Junction Editors

The Junction Cover

"I Touched Yesterday" by Jason Appelbaum

"our share of the shade" by Zachary Troyano

"The Kitchen Table" by Samantha Merzel

"What Do You Call It?" by Jessica Drigun

"In Search of the Miraculous" by Jared 'WordIzBond' Green

"I Walked" by Fatema Islam

"Departure" by Kali Norris

"Autumn Hymnal, or the Burgess Quartet" by T. G. Caston

"Humble Pie" by Jared ‘WordIzBond’ Green

"To You, To Your Brother" by Tim Caston

"Lost Ones" Fedora Cox

"Epistemology" by Tim Caston

"Guilt" by Jessica Drigun

"Yellow Fever" by Raisa Alexis N. Santos

"Wednesday, November 9, 2016" by Justine Mekonen

"It was the one…" by Leah-Lyuba Livshits

"PLACE" by Romel Martinez

"Carsick Memoir" by Matthew Cummins

"Again and Again" by Kate McGorry

"Jackalope" by M. Cummins

"Forget-Me-Not" by Raisa Alexis N. Santos

"Sativa" by Imani Morgan

"A Kinder, Softer World" by Fatema Islam

“The Games" by Kali Norris

"Untitled" by Liza Rodriguez

"The Reaper" by Kathleen Conlon

"Ransacker" by Akjemal Toshieva

"Morbid" by Kali Norris

"My Thighs" by Imani Morgan

Immortal Ambiguity

Primary

You Can’t Sea Me

watercolor moon

THE AMERICAN CRIME STORY

“Voicemail #47”