The Lust Issue by Blueprint Magazine

CONTENTS

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VOLUME 12 ISSUE 6 FEBRUARY 2013

Society drives people crazy with lust and calls it advertising. JOHN LAHR (1941 - )

LITERATURE

PROSE

Do You Remember?

Kysse

Pleasure of Looking

Blood

A Lifetime

The Monster

Haystack

Hunger

Her

Lustual Seduction

Crave

Press Further

POETRY

Crave

All Day Long

Lust in a Jar

Chronicles of a Lonely Woman

JOSHUA HOWE

EMILY ZAREVICH

EMILY BULL

ASHLEY NEWTON

SARA STACEY

FIORELLA MORZI

ALICIA KOLENDA

NATALIA SMIAROWSKI

KATIE PARKES

ADRIANA BERADINI

TORY ABLE

LAUREN RABINDRANATH

DANIELLE DMYTRASZKO

FIORELLA MORZI

KATIE MCNAMARA

MARIA KOUZNETSOVA

Front Cover

OCTAVIO CONTRERAS

Back Cover

OCTAVIO CONTRERAS

Inside Front

NICK LACHANCE

Inside Back

BRENDAN DEVINE

EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Lakyn Barton

THE LUST ISSUE

lakyn.barton@blueprintmagazine.ca

Production Manager Katie Parkes katie.parkes@blueprintmagazine.ca

Literary Editor Fiorella Morzi

Lust is not necessarily sexual.

Art and Photography Manager Allie Hincks

It is however, always about desire.

fiorella.morzi@blueprintmagazine.ca allie.hincks@blueprintmagazine.ca

Radio Manager Katie Parkes katie.parkes@blueprintmagazine.ca

Brantford Manager Carla Egesi carla.egesi@blueprintmagazine.ca

Interns Jessica Groom, Ciana Van Dusen Staff Contributors Adriana Beradini & Ashley Newton

CONTRIBUTORS Tory Able, Emily Bull, Adriana Beradini, Danielle Dmytraszko, Hugh Fisher, Joshua Howe, Katie McNamara, Alicia Kolenda, Maria Kouznetsova, Lauren Rabindranath, Natalia Smiarowski, Sara Stacey, Emily Zarevich

A deep secret passion for something you crave. Your body actively drifts towards it, drawing you in, asking you to move. We desire for many things. Commonly, we desire money, attention, material objects. But the objects and sensations we lust for expand far beyond the topics in pleasant conversation. These desires might be whispered in a lover’s ear, bravely shared into a microphone, or never spoken aloud. Everyone has one lustful urge that has been told to a maximum of one soul. What’s yours?

ADMINISTRATION President, Publisher & Chair Emily Frost Executive Director Bryn Ossington Advertising Manager Angela Taylor Vice Chair Jon Pryce Treasurer Thomas Paddock Director Kayla Darrach Director Joseph Mcninch-Pazzano Corporate Secretary Allie Hincks

Lakyn Barton Editor-in-Chief

CONTACT Blueprint Magazine 75 University Ave W Waterloo ON N2L 3C5 p 519.884.0710 x3564 blueprintmagazine.ca Advertise angela@wlusp.com blueprintmagazine.ca/advertise Contribute submissions@blueprintmagazine.ca blueprintmagazine.ca/contribute

COLOPHON Blueprint is the official student magazine of the Wilfrid Laurier University community. Founded in 2002, Blueprint is an editorially independent magazine published by Wilfrid Laurier University Student Publications, Waterloo, a corporation without share capital. WLUSP is governed by its board of directors. Content appearing in Blueprint bears the copyright expressly of their creator(s) and may not be used without written consent. Blueprint reserves the right to re-publish submissions in print or online. Opinions in Blueprint are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Blueprint’s management, Blueprint, WLUSP, WLU or CanWeb Printing Inc. Blueprint is created using Macintosh computers running Mac OS X 10.5 using Adobe Creative Suite 4. The circulation for a normal issue of Blueprint is 3000. Subscription rates are $20.00 per year for addresses in Canada.

NEXT ISSUE On the theme of “Nostalgia” Submissions due March 1 On stands March 13

COVER Art by OCTAVIO CONTRERAS The cover is loosely inspired by Oscar Wilde’s play “Salome”, which presents a complex relationship between the desirer and the desired. When John the Baptist (or Jokanaan) spurns Salome’s advances, she demands to have his head on a silver platter, perhaps because she lost hers over him. What are we willing to do to satisfy our cravings, and what happens once they’re satisfied?

Kysse

NATALIA SMIAROWSKI Here. Let me learn the etymology of our kisses. From the German kϋssen, the Swedish kyssa, the Norwegian kysse. Two mouths closed and open against each other, molding bodies around each other. Did you know when you press your mouth against my neck, we are becoming another part of the history of love making. When we savour each kiss we are in the classic Latin saviori, meaning we are having an “erotic kiss” Because quick kisses aren’t going to make this girl melt. And even if I try to push you off, we are going to sink together. These kisses are going to last forever, and I know you think that commitment is scary (so do I) but you’ve already tread over my skin with your hands, and stared at my eyes enough to keep those memories going. v. to express affection by touching this part of you to me. I don’t think I want you to stop touching this part for a while. n. the kiss of death, which “signifies impending failure”. The last kiss on your lips to mine, as I take you out my life on a warm September night, or a cool morning. But that failure, that kiss, will only keep that fire ablaze and maybe I’ll reconsider your fate.

Blood

KATIE PARKES I want to suck your blood. No. I want to be your blood. Thick, fiery, crimson liquid confidence. Swirling under your skin as I push myself, press myself, deep into all the little nooks and crannies of your shape. Swimming faster and farther into the warm bath of your cells. I want to be surrounded by your red and white bubbles. I want to feel like your queen. Memorizing you with my floating and soaking. Forming your narrative with my splashing and thrashing. Tracing your soul without sinking. Growling and howling as I pump my way into your desperate heart. I crave the safety that dwells inside the blue walls of your veins. I lust for the heaviness, the pounding weight of the dark purplish red. I long to help you live.

ALLIE HINCKS

Do You Remember? JOSHUA HOWE

Do you remember? That’s all I can find myself thinking as I sit across from you, on the far side of the dreary classroom. I know the answer, actually. Of course you remember. I know you won’t forget. You simply don’t forget things like that. But I can’t help wondering if time will take it from you and crush it in its foul grip. I remember. We were so young. We still are, sitting here in a high school classroom. But we were even younger two years ago. And we were innocent and bright eyed. We had the world in front of us, not a care in the world until we met each other. And then we went on our first date to a small little café called Coffee Beans. It was funny and sort of awkward, because I’d meant to take you to Coffee Culture, a more mainstream place, but we just ended up staying there on a whim. It was miraculous that we even pulled it off. Your parents didn’t know where you were. Neither did mine. I’d even made up an excuse to get my mom to drive me into town to meet you. But once we got together in that little place, and sat across from each other with warm hot chocolates in our hands, oh boy, that’s when I felt the sparks shoot up from my toes to my fingertips. I know you felt it too. Back then. We talked and talked for hours. I don’t even remember what we talked about exactly. Isn’t that terrible? Perhaps it was because I wasn’t all that focused on the subject matter. I wanted to make you laugh, and I did, even if most of our laughter was partially out of nervousness. Your eyes were what got me, though. Right away, they caught my attention and held it there and I was unable to tear away. I’d never seen such a gorgeous blend of blue and green; they reminded me of the sea and were just as mysterious. It always felt as if you could look straight through me and see into my soul. That hasn’t changed. I still feel that way when I look at you. I may be able to fool everyone else when I want, but not you. Not you. When our gazes locked that moment, neither of us realized how adept we’d get at being able to read one another. How could we? We were simply enjoying the moment - that small space in time. I miss being able to do that. You know, enjoy the moment. I remember having to leave the café after our waitress kindly told us that the place was closing in ten minutes. We’d been there for hours. And neither of us had even looked at the time. We were far too engrossed with each other and the learning of who we were. Then we stepped out of the restaurant and I walked you home, staying close to you but with my hands fiddling around in my coat pockets. I had been too anxious to try and reach out

to grasp your hand. And as such, my palms had been sweaty anyway. It didn’t take us too long to walk to your house since it stood not far from the centre of town. I’m smiling stupidly now, remembering this part. You turned to face me and we stared at each other for a long moment. Neither of us knew what to do. Hug? Kiss? Shake hands? Instead, you thanked me and I thanked you and we gave each other a long smile before I watched you disappear inside your front door. I trudged back in the other direction and paused to check a message on my cell phone only a minute or so after leaving you. The message made my hands feel warmer, even though it was way below freezing outside. And I’m smiling even wider now. I hope you aren’t noticing from your spot across the classroom. But I’m sure you do. The message said, Is it weird that I already miss you? And I responded, No. I miss you too. And then I added a smiley face for good measure. But here we are, me sitting in my desk and you at yours halfway across the galaxy. Or so it seems. We are in a different time now, even though I know you remember. This isn’t what I just thought of. Instead, somewhere along the ride we fell apart. Somewhere, between the lies, crying, trust issues and heartbreak we fell apart. And I hate that. I hate that more than anything I’ve ever hated. It’s the strongest feeling I’ve ever felt. I’m not sure you know that I feel this way or that I will always feel this way. It’s been two years and the feeling has grown stronger. I feel like it’s my fault, although I know it always takes two to tango. My mind is constantly conflicted now, my heart butting in about every five seconds to ruin the current rationale I was trying to form. I’m not sure of much anymore, except for two things: That my desk chair will always be infinitely uncomfortable, and that I love you. And now you’ve looked up and our eyes are locked again. That rush of feelings forces its way through my body again, even as I remain as still as stone. Those eyes are the same color to be sure, but now they know. They’re filled with memories galore, good and bad. But what about that one that’s most important, that first one, where we accidentally went to the wrong restaurant, laughed and talked for hours? The one where we fell in love for the first time. Would you forget that? Has evil time taken it from you? That memory is the one where I will always have to ask the question. Do you remember?

The Pleasure of Looking EMILY ZAREVICH

She saw sexuality as something to be seen, this friend of mine. Something to be admired, to be captured on canvas, with hands, with a paintbrush, with a rope net. An object, a wild animal, never an activity on its own, like going for an early morning jog or an evening stroll. To my friend an activity was making and creating…making and creating art in its purest form, with the perfect blends of paints, with models with paintable flesh. And sexuality was what showed up inside the frame, after hours or weeks or years of labour, years of frustrations and artistic orgasms and bliss, bliss, bliss. She was a strange girl, this friend of mine. She never had sex. She told close friends and nosy jerks this raw, solid fact with an indifferent shrug to accompany it. She was a virgin and wasn’t making any statements except that her constant ache was in her mind and fingers and eyes (especially her eyes) and not between her thighs. The word prude was whispered spitefully by rejected would-be lovers, asexual by worried parents and professors and doctors. I thought she was very brave, and perhaps a little strange, but maybe because I was in awe of her, this friend of mine who oozed passion without compromising her principles, who snatched contentment out of the air while the rest of us wept for its absence in our lives (and lay on our backs for it, some more than others, in the late hours of the night when contentment’s absence hurt the most). This friend of mine spent those hours painting instead, and came out splattered, dead tired, smiling, content. She was a firm believer in something she liked to call “the pleasure of looking.” I didn’t understand this until she started using more technical terms to enlighten me. Scopophilia. Eroticism. The Ancient Greeks and their awesome (if flawed) societies. “Do you get it now, hun?” The sexual ache was in her eyes. She lived for looking. I understood. Looking was her pleasure. She collected inexpensive posters and paintings of bowls of bruised fruits, Italians villas with ivy slithering down the walls, and women in embroidered bustiers, pushing up their creamy breasts, offering them to the artwork buyer, her. It was all she could afford. She was on a student’s budget, after all, and art supplies didn’t come cheap. Her roommates made fun of her, of her bedroom art gallery. They wanted to set her up on dates with their guy friends, for their amusement, to draw her away from this private independent world she’d built for herself that they were shut out of, this world of looking, savouring, not

rushing, not doing. There was a reason she shut her roommates out, this friend of mine. At least she let me visit. I met a model of hers once. A deliciously plump, olive-skinned girl with kissable lips and the strangest, most beautiful pair of molten gold eyes. This friend of mine was fascinated—and a little obsessed—with this creature. She was obsessed with those eyes, those curves, and the possibility that she, this friend of mine, would be the first to capture it all with a rope net and put it on a canvas. I quietly sat down in the background and watched this friend of mine paint the girl with the golden eyes and noticed (or discovered, to be precise) the reason why this friend of mine loved this model so much. This girl also understood the pleasure of looking, because she never took her eyes off my friend, who sat perfectly poised on her artist’s stool and wielded her pencils and brushes like they were extensions of her arm. They took pleasure in each other without ever touching. My friend was beautiful too, so this wasn’t a surprise as much as it was a revelation for me. The pleasure of looking was real. I’d seen it, with my own two plain brown eyes. It happened between two people, both made of human flesh, both smiling and content. The golden-eyed model never made her way into my friend’s bed, and the other models (female and male) that flitted in and out of my friend’s life never did either. They met for lunch every once in a while, the golden-eyed model and this friend of mine, and they probably spent the whole time looking at each other, daydreaming and letting their saucy meatball sandwiches go cold on their plates. I’m sure that my friend still sleeps in an empty bed, except when she’s restless and wandering around her room, drinking in beauty with her eyes, letting it warm her like a lover. I have a lover of my own, though that’s not really the truth. He’s more of a fuck-buddy, a romp partner. He doesn’t look at me much. His ache is in the snake between his legs. You’re probably wondering where mine is. Mine went away long ago, and when my fuck-buddy is on top of me, in me, slapping flesh against flesh, I’m sort of just… there, and I wonder. I wonder if this friend of mine has the right idea, if it’s better to master the art of making love with your eyes before making love with the rest of your body. This friend of mine has a world of art, and I have…this, a fuck-buddy snoring next to me, taking up too make space, eyes shut. I think of her, this lovely artist friend of mine, and I wonder, I wonder, and I feel sad and empty and cold.

ALLIE HINCKS

All Day Long ALICIA KOLENDA

All day long I sit and wait and wish and hope and dream And when you come along I say, “Come sit and dream with me.” So we sit on this bench, side by side, saying not a word aloud, But you, sweet boy, are company of which I can be proud. We could bike our way to a magical land Where fish fly through the sky. Or jump off a cliff and fall into A needle’s one true eye. We could run forever on until We fall of the world’s very edge. We’d float through space then come back home By hopping the garden hedge. We’d climb to the top of the tallest of trees And emerge in the kingdom of clouds. We would grab a-hold of number nine But be off when the darkness enshrouds. We’d kill a pig, a bear, a dragon With only a blade of grass. Then feast on our plunder, like pirates would do And bathe in Sassafras. I would turn to you and grab your hand and tell you of hidden love, And then we would kiss and you would see what I’ve been dreaming of. So I sit and wait and wish and dream of things that can never be, Because silent we sit, all day long, just for you and for me.

HANNAH MELNYK

The Monster ADRIANA BERADINI

Soft lips and innocent eyes, if only I could have sensed your lies. The boy was beautiful. He possessed the body of a demi-god. The soft silhouette of his body mirrored one of a roman statue. His cunning charm captivated me. I was clearly under his spell. His rash indifference and arrogance I could not for tell His voice echoed through my brain, a soundtrack I listened to on repeat. With his attractive hazel eyes, no other man could compete I remember that coy, boyish smile that made my heart race Shortly after the yearning and the sweaty palms took place Since those first moments, my life has forever changed The beautiful man I once knew transformed into a monster. The Dorian Gray of all ordeals, he only valued himself To him, it was a sin to lend out his heart to somebody else. This dangerous feeling had a dreary demise My best advice is never to fall victim to lustâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lies.

BRENDAN DEVINE

Hunger TORY ABLE

We had a voracious appetite, devouring each other with no consideration for the consequences, thinking only of those deep holes inside of us both that demanded to be filled. We drank each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s breath, I tasted all of you, each mouthful was more enticing than the last. Your neck was smooth and silky, like a perfect crĂ¨me brulee, you said that my hair was light and floral. My fingers crunched in your teeth, and your eyes popped in my mouth like grapes. Neither of us wondered if we should turn back, we only plunged forward. Our hunger was overpowering, like those who had not had a crumb in years, our insides grumbled happily, calling for more of each other. Your blood was nectar, you said that mine was wine, and we grew intoxicated. I chewed on your earlobes, and you sucked on my marrow. I ate your lungs, whipped and light as air, you ate my kidneys, pulling them out of my back. We gave each other pieces of our minds, first only the parts that are easy to share, then the darker, deeper meat, and we hesitated only now, fearful. We ruminated, trying to understand the complex flavours. There was a change. We fed each other our own hearts, and then we were sated. All that was left of us was satisfaction.

Lustual Seduction LAUREN RABINDRANATH

Lust is the empty shell love hatched from. Lust is the desire for one’s self, masked as a physical want for another, it is hoping and praying for reciprocation, affirming self-worth and value. Lust is empty beer bottles, clouded thoughts, and broken curfews. It is physical gratification and emotional annihilation. Lust is a Top 40 song that everybody knows. Lust is right here, right now, with no consideration for tomorrow. A humid summer’s day – sweaty, hot, and immobilizing. It’s a thick, dark smoke that fills all the crevices of your self-loathing. Lust expires and decays, just like its root: the body. Lust is everything you want and nothing that you need. It is liquid desire, coursing through your veins. Lust is possession – temporal and passionate. Jet black, cherry red. Your favourite fear. Lust is personal anonymity. Friction.

Press Further

DANIELLE DMYTRASZKO Crammed in the backseat our legs finally touch. The warmth our sweaty and smoky denim produces makes my heart palpitate. Music bellows through the broken car stereo, residue of whiskey on my breath, I press my leg further. Feverishly, I close my eyes. He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, travelling down to my waist pulling me into him. Our naked bodies contour to each other, becoming one. The car door closes, the young man stumbles down his street. I laugh, inhale, cheeks burning as the car descends to another town, away from him. My senses were awakened and pleasured by the friction of our denim.

JODY WAARDENBURG

A Lifetime EMILY BULL

She looked at him with the mingling feelings of love and desire. It was their wedding day, and as she walked down the petal-strewn aisle she could not help but think how lucky she was. He had been the object of her thoughts for so long, and his face had the power to rapture her for hours as she observed every crease and wrinkle. He turned to her and smiled, warming her heart. It was after the ceremony that she looked forward to most of all; he scooped her up in his arms with little difficulty despite the ruffles of fabric cascading off her dress and pooling around her, and carried her through the door to their new home: their new life. The screaming woke her up from her restless slumber on the living room sofa, screeching out from the baby monitor at her side. She slowly rose, pausing a second to allow feeling to enter her limbs. Before she could stand, the crying stopped, almost instantaneously. She heard him singing a soft lullaby to her, their baby girl. Then all noise ceased, and as she lay back on the sofa he entered the room, blue eyes aglow, whisking her into his arms and into the bedroom. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;She watched the car pull out of the driveway, tears filling her eyes and brimming over. He rested his hand on her shoulder, and this was all it took to put her at ease. Yet the tears could not stop as they watched their not-so-baby girl disappear down the road, laden down with all things necessary for the perfect college experience. He was calm, and lifting her into his arms he carried her onto the front stoop and sat with her in his lap as she cried into his faded blue sweater. The music began. One by one, the procession made their way to the front of the room. The cords began to swell, and she could almost feel them moving around her as she stood and turned to look; she had never seen anything so beautiful. Her daughter began to move down the aisle, the same look of love and desire emanating from her features as they did for her mother thirty years before. That desire never went away; it burned a hole in her heart that filled over the years with a feeling of complete contentedness. He took her hand and squeezed, and she knew they would never feel closer.

Her

SARA STACEY I’ve been thinking of him all day, thinking of all the things he’s done to me. I haven’t been able to focus in class. The professor’s words string together into a monotonous drone and all my thoughts are focused on him once again. So many emotions are worming their way through me. I feel the guilt and shame of our secrets. I feel the unbridled passion and obsessive lust. The feelings are swirling inside me and I decide once again that what we’re doing is wrong, even if it feels so mindblowingly good. I’ll tell him tonight, I have to tell him it’s over. The ride to his home is silent, but not awkward. Anticipation and desire fill every inch of the car. We enter his room without a word. The room smells of stale sex. He’s been with her again. He won’t have me tonight, not while he still smells of her. I sit cross-legged on his bed, arms folded, with my best ‘uninterested’ face. He won’t have me tonight. He sits down beside me on the bed, laying his hand on my thigh. Its warmth spreads up my leg to other places. I begin to think of other places that hand could go. No, I think, not tonight. I snap my thoughts back together. He probably did the exact same thing to her earlier today. His hand begins to move along my leg in an unpresumptuous way. Maybe he isn’t trying to get some; maybe he’s just being friendly. That idea quickly fades as he sweeps my hair aside and gently kisses my neck. Thoughts of our bodies intertwined flash through my mind and my bottom lip quivers. He won’t have me tonight, I think without any real resolution, not while he still smells of her. I can’t hold back anymore. Thoughts of his wife fade away as I let him take me once again.

ADELE PALMQUIST

JODY WAARDENBURG

Crave

FIORELLA MORZI I’d love to reach around the back of your neck. I’d swiftly endure a thousand floods to nestle on the spot behind your ear where I can smell you best. I want to collide with you ferociously beneath a layer of dust, oil, and toe nail clippings. You don’t care if my hair gets in the way. I let the doughy bits of your eyes fill my vision. I rest my head on your plump, loving belly, listening to the busy bees in your blood. We share spit. I crave our connection.

ADELE PALMQUIST

Haystack

ASHLEY NEWTON Your fingers reach out for me slowly. Despite your burning hands, your gentle touch sends a shiver down my naked spine. My forehead is sweating at the sight of your smooth chest and I am suddenly overwhelmed with a longing to touch you. You run your hands through your hair, completely aware of the fact that I am watching your every move. I watch you because it’s sexy. I watch you because I can’t help it. I never thought it would happen this way. But it is happening right now. There are no burning candles to set a romantic mood, and no dim lighting to conceal my body. It is midday, and you can see everything that I am. There are no eighteenth-century works of art on your walls. Instead, you’ve got a giant poster of Amy Winehouse staring at me as I begin to lie down beneath you. There are no rose petals lined up on the floor leading to your bed—if I can call it that. We simply fall upon your bed of straw like two animals looking to conquer each other. When I look up at you, you’re asking me about my day. That’s so cavalier of you. I listen to every decibel of sound your mouth produces and realize I want to be lost in it. As if reading my thoughts, you make my tongue feel like a welcome mat until you’ve sucked all the air from my lungs. Your mouth tastes like iced tea—the sweetened kind. My voice grows quiet and dry while yours becomes slippery and persuasive. My brain is a carousel that spins out of control beneath my skull, and I can’t find anything to grasp on to—there’s just you. And you continue to speak so delicately while my eyes glisten with this craving inside me. You tell me to close my eyes, and I begin to feel tense and tightly bound like the strings of the guitar that sits across your room. I feel

your soft fingertips caress my face and the reverberation of your quiet sigh echoes through my desperate eardrums. As if my body has its own tuning pegs, you twist them until I can’t take it anymore. But now I’ve learned that yours turn, too. So I turn them carefully with no intentions of loosening the tension. I weave us and your bed of straw into a haystack. I become the sharp needle in your back that makes you constrict and fall to my undulating mercy. You still try to pull on my strings even though I have you figured out. I only have so many strings, but so many more threads make up your body. And I want every single one of them. We are near suffocation in this little haystack. Nothing but our own mouths can supply oxygen to each other. Our bodies are contorted but we no longer feel pain. We are together in this mess we’ve made. It feels so irresistibly satisfying. I want you to feel this pulsating desire the same way I feel it in my heaving heart. I begin to wonder if this is all a figment of my imagination. But you are not. There you are, gleaming in beads of sweat, whistling a mellow tune in my ear. You appear hesitant. That’s when I realize what is going through your mind. You’re looking for the needle in the haystack that is us. But you’ll never find it. It’s buried deep within me, waiting to be released by my senseless longing to touch you all over. My touch holds us together. Yours has the ability to unravel me like a paper streamer. And you do. You always will. After one quick moment, I realize a horrifying truth that soon becomes less frightening and more appealing to me: I’ve dropped the needle, and now it’s gone forever. You found it while you were unravelling me.

Chronicles of a Lonely Woman MARIA KOUZNETSOVA

The first time that I saw you, My heart, it ran a race; It only ran much faster Next time I saw your gorgeous face.

Third time is the charm, And charming—so you were. I thought of you all day and night— You gave my heart a stir.

I still can’t believe it— I thought you were a fighter— Turns out you’re really just dreamed up By some fantastic writer.

Perhaps I should have asked before (“Be careful,” said my mother); I guess that I should just give up: You’re married to another.

I was nervous when I met you; It seemed you liked me a lot. It doesn’t help my case at all That you’re so goddamn hot.

You are always there for me, And you let me hold you tight. I never thought I’d try again, But I’ve found Mr. Right.

I can’t help but think My fate’s to be a lonely hen Ever since the day when I found out That you like only men.

Play all day, cuddle all night— I’d never have thought of that. You’re the purrfect match for me, You beautiful, wonderful cat!

ALLIE HINCKS

Look at Me HUGH FISHER

“Look at me,” she said. “What do you see?” She spoke with the voice of a child, her tone immersed in a witless and yet lovely emotion. It was a sentiment that rendered me happy and miserable at the same time. With my stare transfixed by her splendor, and my eyes hollow and deep like caves, I watched her wavy blonde hair resting on her shoulders in an obsessively delicate nature. Her tiny hands clenched together close over her chest as if waiting for her heart to break. Cossette’s wide blue eyes met mine with but the slightest glint of deceit, and I pretended not to notice, but gazed down at the floor for guidance instead. No words greeted me. She smiled, and I was sure my mind was playing tricks, but before I could ponder on it any further Cossette was growing closer, and had surrendered to the thick tension with the softest of giggles. From the kitchen counter she had brought along with her a plump red apple, teething at its skin as she went. When Cossette was next to me she grabbed at my feverish palm, and held it tightly as if the moment were slipping beyond the tips of our clammy fingers. Then she leaned in until our foreheads met and collected warmth. All the while, a frigid air was sailing down my dried throat and filling up my heaving lungs. Cossette pressed the ripened fruit into my shaking hold, and then withdrew her delicate fingers. She had this way of seeping through the many crevices of my mind. Once inside, she could freeze over and crack at my surrounding skull. In these moments she becomes my mentality. Life is so much

more difficult with her around, but when she left nearly everything lost its value. She had the ability to ail me or cure me, depress me or fill me with joy, but most of all, she could dictate my mind in a way that forced the desire in me to grow, and perhaps even believe it could one day flourish. This was the best thing, and the worst thing about Cossette. It was the false hope that she supplied, which kept my eyes glued to her devilish stare. It was the bittersweet surrender to the chase, which kept my sheer ignorance of self-love at bay. Most of all though, it was the mounting anticipation which rendered me a fool, chasing my tail in endless circles with no indication of what to do should my deepest desires ever come to fruition. I lodged the apple tightly against my jaw, and bit a large piece from it, allowing the juices to sink down deep into my gums and soak them with taste. Cossette sighed, and stepped away from me. Then she glided back to the room from whence she came. Only once did she crane her neck over her shoulder to reveal her face, which burned the color of crimson. In her eyes I found only discontent. Muddled, I dropped her red apple to the floor, where it collected dust. I had contracted from it some sort of poison, and in that moment I came to realize something. I could never truly abandon my craving for Cossette. I could only hold the virus close, and perhaps one day embrace it… “I see no escape.”

Lust In A Jar KATIE MCNAMARA

To my lusty lover, They say moderation is the best way to lead a balanced life. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all about moderation. Is it though? I find myself dreaming my day away thinking of when I can taste you again. My senses bemoan to be overwhelmed with your slightest touch. When you caress my tongue, my eyes roll back and my breaths deepen. These are the desires and emotions that run through me every second when I am without you: You are the cheese to my Liz Lemon. I crave you in the night when I am too tired to move out of my cocoon of warmth to find you. I long for you in class when I am tied to my desk until the clock releases me from my educational ties. I salivate at the very thought of our next rendezvous. I enjoy you with others in the mix, but I love you most. I hope you notice me. My heart is clogged with your sticky goodness. Your love fattens my soul. The more time I spend with you, the more my pant size increases. Spooning leads to forking, but who eats peanut butter with a fork?! Sincerely yours, Me