The Truth Issue by Blueprint Magazine

CONTENTS

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VOLUME 12 ISSUE 5 JANUARY 2013

All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie. BOB DYLAN (1941 - )

LITERATURE

POETRY

The Man With the Chartreuse Hat

Losing Time in Côte-des-neiges

Unsearchable

Truth

Well-Practiced Liars

Truth of Self

Something to Remember Me By

Vase

MARNIE LAMB

KATIE MCNAMARA

PROSE 5

Secret Treasure, Secret Burden

Wrong Impression

Triple Triple

Make & Mash

MARY FERGUSON

LIZ SMITH

ASHLEY NEWTON

SARA STACEY

EMILY ZAREVICH

ANDREW SAVORY

EMILY BULL

COSIMO DE FRANCESCO

CADY MISENER

ESSAYS

FIORELLA MORZI

Front Cover

GIZELLE PANTON

Back Cover

GIZELLE PANTON

Sticky Truth

Above the Lanterns & Under the Stars

Inside Front

BRENDAN DEVINE

BREE MANTHA

BENNET CATCHPOLE

Inside Back

BRENDAN DEVINE

EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Lakyn Barton

THE TRUTH ISSUE

lakyn.barton@blueprintmagazine.ca

Production Manager Katie Parkes katie.parkes@blueprintmagazine.ca

Literary Editor Fiorella Morzi

The truth.

Art and Photography Manager Allie Hincks

We’re told many things about the truth. We’re told to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We’re told we can’t handle it, but also that it will set us free. And who can forget about the quintessential experience of Truth or Dare.

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, Andrew Savory

CONTRIBUTORS Emily Bull, Adriana Beradini, Bennet Catchpole, Osheen Chibber, Cosimo De Francesco, Bredan Devine, Mary Ferguson, Marnie Lamb, Bree Mantha, Katie McNamara, Cady Misener, Adele Palmquist, Victoria Parker, Dana Silvestri, Liz Smith, Sara Stacey, Emily Zarevich

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

The game of Truth or Dare explores the fear we have around the truth. Apparently, telling the truth is so terrifying that you might be persuaded to complete a (slightly) humiliating mystery task instead of speaking any of it. These personal truths, our secrets, are things only shown to the people closest to us. Having to share them with anyone else is petrifying. We all have our own personal truths. These are things that we know deep within our very being to be true. They are unique to each and every one of us. The truth is out there. 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 “Lust” Submissions due February 4 On stands February 13

COVER Art by GIZELLE PANTON The ability to make enough money is dependent on your level of education. This makes perfect sense, yes – but someone’s level of education is predominantly dependent on how much education you can afford. Of course there are avenues available to those who need help when it comes to the acquisition of a degree, but you still have to pay that money back. Those who can afford a higher level of education have better opportunities than those who can’t. We may not like it, but that is the truth. This design expresses how I feel when I think of “Truth” and student life.

Losing Time in C么te-des-neiges MARY FERGUSON

Here, here is the truth hanging high on a wire here is the truth spat out like a snake here is the truth rubbed out like an eye stomped out like a curb split like a smile, cracked like a rib here is the a lock where there is no key here is a thumb here is a day when your eye is a lock and your thumb is a key here is the truth, strung tight like a spine here is the truth sliding out like a child here is the truth bloody and wailing here, here finally, is the truth

FIORELLA MORZI

Sticky Truth BREE MANTHA

I’ve known it since I was old enough to speak - that telling the truth is the right thing to do. So why did it feel, so often, like I never actually told the truth, but I choked it out through a tight airway lined with humid, sticky, soon-to-be sobs? “The truth shall set you free.” The truth never spilled out of me gracefully like the fresh, running water from a stream. It sputtered and sprayed like a shaken bottle of soda, leaving an uncomfortably sticky residue that I just couldn’t shake, no matter how many scrubs and showers passed. Because really, there are two kinds of truths - there’s the truths that are so subtle, we don’t think of them as truths. “Yes, I would like almond milk, please and thank you,” “That’s my car over there,” “I just bit my tongue.” These are the truths that will come out so easily, despite not really being all that crucial. I could easily lie about burning my tongue, and no one would be harmed. But then there’s those shaken-soda-bottle truths. These are the truths that we know as truths, because they need to be told. Sure, they can go unsaid; the bubbles will settle and you’ll be left with a flat soda with no spike or bite. Your counter stays clean, but you can’t help but feel that you just let something die. The last big truth - a shaken-soda-bottle truth - I told was

to my sister. I was standing in line at a Starbucks, the sound of mall patrons fading from my conscious perception gradually as I tuned them all out, the dirt from my boots leaving unsightly marks on the freshly-cleaned tiles. “I don’t love him anymore,” I said plainly. It took an army’s strength to keep my head straightened, to stare into her eyes and see her reaction. She had always loved my boyfriend and loved us together. So I expected hot anger or at the very least, shock and indignation. “Are you going to break up with him soon?” She asked. She was giving me an out. I could have twisted the bottle cap tighter, closed it off and let the bubbles settle. I braced myself instead. “Probably Friday.” I was mildly surprised that it came out as a flat-toned statement from a grown woman of 23 and not as a girlish, whimpering peep. “Definitely Friday,” I said with a definitive nod. And just like that, I had drenched my kitchen in a fine, viscous layer of syrup, derailing my life just in the slightest. I had said it out loud for the first time, the thesis I had rehearsed in my head for months with little intention of ever saying it out loud, except for maybe to the steering wheel of my car. I let the cap drop to the ground and stood for a moment, observing the mess I had made. I couldn’t let this die now. It was out there. It was set free. It was sticky.

Secret Treasure, Secret Burden EMILY ZAREVICH

Do you remember when a secret was something you could whisper under the bed covers to your best friend at sleep-over parties in the darkest hours of the night. The words were light on your tongue slipping away like sand through your fingers. each grain a treasure each word meaning “I can trust you.” We were all young once. We were all once too young… too open with our truths though maybe it’s only gotten worse. Years pass, and secrets grow too heavy. Rocks on our tongues, not sand. No longer soft, no longer worth the trouble of treasuring forever. We fling them away at any passerby. And when the rocks hit their heads and draw blood there is nothing that says, “I can trust you.” There is only, “I want to hurt you, because secrets hurt me.”

ALLIE HINCKS

Truth LIZ SMITH truth {noun} it’s a flighty bird a metal cage but it has no shape, only a weight. and like a burn a lie at first doesn’t hurt but continues to boil. Truth, then a salted sea breeze, drops gathered on trees, a cool washcloth changed by tender hands. Truth, too would have you give to a feeling. more akin to an instinct… even if it would mean, suddenly a simple story sleepily unfolding and marching on where was once a blank page to be slowly filled, and hopeful. why then? what then, the weight of Truth? it makes you full, sets you free, makes you slave, to yourself

BRENDAN DEVINE

Wrong Impression EMILY BULL

Things aren’t always what they seem. As I walked down the hall I couldn’t help but notice him: blue eyes, brown hair, mischievous smirk. I did not know that this moment of weakness, knees shaking at the sight of him, would determine my future. He slowly turned and looked me in the eyes as I passed. My fate was sealed. He was a transfer student from Chicago, youngest in a long line of politicians and rich, upstanding citizens. He was perfect in every way. His eyes, his smile, the way his forehead crinkled when he laughed. I was completely under his spell. And that’s just what it was: a spell. Almost as soon as it had been cast, it was lifted. The eyes, once beautiful blue and sparkling, turned to stone. The smile transformed into a straight hard line across his face. His features once seemed mesmerizing, and now I saw them for what they really were- carnal. But it was too late. Unfortunate, really, that I did not notice these things until he lifted the gun to my head.

Triple Triple CADY MISENER

You should know I loved you ever since you told me your name. It seemed like a story out of a movie, the naïve young girl and the older heartbreaker next door. Nothing could have made you more intriguing - your car and coffees and cigarettes and sad eyes. I couldn’t tell you when I really started to fall, but I know I never tripped. I dove right in. Maybe I just didn’t want to believe it, but whatever we had was based on lies from the start. You were single. You were truly interested. You were never going to leave. You didn’t want me to forget about you. I don’t remember what your voice sounds like anymore, except how you used to say my name. Whenever I think about you, two memories come back: that day in the country, and the face you made when you laughed. Both of them make me smile, but they also make me cringe, because lately all I can think of is how I will never have them back. But maybe they were never mine. There’s far too much time and distance between us now for me to analyze those long summer days, when I shivered at the touch of your fingers on mine, or coaxed out that rare smile, or—only once, but God, it only needed to be once—the time I tasted your warmth and pain and ash and lust. I had thought that with such intimacy came a promise, to never leave me in the dust of that country road, to remember my name like I remembered your collarbones, your scent of oil, your dirty fingernails and that sweet September sunshine. I dreamt about you last night for the first time in ages. It was a good dream too, which made it even harder to wake up and not feel guilty. Sometimes I wonder how a dream can seem so real, so accurate, and only when I’m awake do I begin to question its validity. Little did I suspect, two years ago, that I should have done the same with yours. I threw away time and money to travel home just to see your face and hear your voice, only to return one day to find you sweet-talking another. Your kiss was not a promise that you’d always be around, and I should have known that before I gave you my heart. All of the little things I loved about you cancelled out the one big flaw in our relationship, which was that you didn’t really care about me at all, because the last words I ever heard from you were “I will.” And you didn’t.

ADRIANA BERARDINI

Above the Lanterns and Under the Stars BENNET CATCHPOLE

Sometimes in the summer it would get so hot that I would leave my room and climb the stairs to the roof. It was beautiful those nights, when the air was thick and warm, and I had the stars and the lights of the summer houses for company. Those in the apartments below would string lines of Chinese lanterns between their balconies, and the scent of wax and chiffon and roses would waft up to me and across the water. I would hum to myself and compose lines of poetry in my head and revel in the heavy atmosphere of possibility and newfound freedom. Those were the summer days, a time when anything was possible and eternal optimism unconscious. We were all intoxicated by it. Unlike some, I think I was at least partially aware that I was living out- a time in my life which I would remember fondly, and which I would never again reproduce. It was not the summer of love which had passed so many years earlier, but I think it might have been such a thing to me. It passed as unnoticed by Bill and the girls and I as it had for those who came before us. We lived then in a little town on a lake, and with the kind of happiness which can only come by accident when one is unaware of it, and the kind of town which people only drive through on their way to somewhere else, and it was ours, and it was mine especially. I knew a girl then, though I cannot remember her name now, and I used to take her to the island dances on weekends. I would row across the lake in the choppy scuttle I borrowed from Bill; it was a tub of a boat, all oars and holes. She would laugh as she bailed water while we crossed and I would chop at the waves like a cricket skimming its wings between hops in a field. We would dance and laugh and drink and sing, beneath the stars and the lanterns which I would look out on when I got home. Sometimes she would come to the roof with me, and I might tell her I loved her if I liked, and she would smile and say it back, and these were the best times when I would fall asleep cradling a girl and a bottle of whiskey. I asked her to marry me once. I hadn’t really meant it but she took the question seriously before saying no. “You wouldn’t want me” she said, “and then I wouldn’t want you and then where would we be?” “But I would want you,” I replied. She only shook her head and said I wouldn’t after a while and so I gave it up, for there never was any winning with her if she’d decided something was done, and I hadn’t really wanted to anyway. I’d only wanted her to want to. I remember one day when Bill and the girls and I had gone to the cliffs at the far side of the lake. Bill had shown off with the high rocks and she had jumped some of the smaller ones and was swimming below us. I didn’t feel like jumping much and so I hadn’t and was lying on the rock face smoking and reading. Bill’s girl came up to me.

“She really likes you, you know,” she said. I said that I knew and liked her in return. “But no, I mean really,” she continued, “she cares more and you’re going to have to be careful of it.” I wasn’t sure what to say to that and said so. Seeking to avoid further conversation, I jumped from the cliff. It seemed to me then that nothing could go wrong and wouldn’t. I didn’t worry much and time went on for a while as it had before. Days of contentment streamed by like rivers to the ocean, and it never occurred to me that they might be pulling me towards something bigger and more frightening than that which I already knew. For a while, however, the dances continued and so did the rooftops and the laying and sleeping and the laughing and drinking. It was on one such night - as I lay smoking with her head cradled in the crook of my arm, the cigarette pushed to the corner of my mouth to make way for the bottles neck, my mind wandering and wondering idly and remarking to itself that my arm had fallen asleep before the rest of me, but that surely the rest would soon follow - that she muttered in my ear. “What’s that?” I asked, paying little heed and sleepily struggling to reclaim the peaceful state of half-dreamt wakefulness I’d been maintaining. “You shouldn’t smoke near me,” she said “it’s bad for the baby.” It was then that I’d asked her to marry me, and as I said before I hadn’t really wanted to but I was surprised and understood that people said such things in situations such as mine. Of course she said no. However, I suppose I was relieved for that and grateful and guilty of it too. She didn’t sleep with me on the rooftop that night, but we lay there a while and eventually I felt her leave my side and heard her go to the door. I didn’t say anything to stop her but I crawled to the ledge and saw her shadow flit across the courtyard by the lanterns below. I thought of calling to her but then thought better of it and so I didn’t. I didn’t see her for some time after that, and then not until the next summer. She’d had a new boy with her and she’d lost some weight but otherwise looked much the same and looked happy and so we didn’t speak. I didn’t feel quite right in the town afterwards, which was strange because I’d been looking forward to going back to it, but I needed money for school anyway and there was no work there, so I moved on. At times I wonder about her and how she is, and how my life might have been if she’d said yes and we’d kept it together. I try to remember her name but never seem to manage it, and I think that although that part is forgotten I will always remember that summer I spent with her and Bill and Bill’s girl, and the smoke and the sleeping and laughing, and the drinking and dancing and the chiffon and rose and wax. I will always remember that summer I spent in that little town on the lake, putting prose together in my head and laying with her on a rooftop, above the lanterns and under the stars.

OSHEEN CHIBBER

The Man in the Chartreuse Hat MARNIE LAMB

In the twilight the city opens up like a cankerous mouth, the street lights throwing into relief the open sores. The homeless man forgotten in the trample, and now crouched, trembling, against the icy storefront window. Used condoms and needles no one bothers to kick aside. The fresh batch of dead migratory birds, fatally attracted to the radiant glass office towers. Inside one of these towers, the halogen light illuminates the monitor of the computer she shuts down at exactly six o’clock. She pulls her ID tag over her head, and reaches for her navy Burberry, which she buttons to the top to lock out the November drizzle. In neighbouring cubicles, the others are pulling ID tags over their heads and donning neutral-coloured trench coats. This is one of those evenings when she wants to grab all the trappings—the reports so meticulously prepared, the monochromatic prints on the wall, the plaque her department won at the company talent show for singing Macho Man while dressed as the Village People—to grab all these, dash them to the floor, and yell, “Fuck this shit!” But as always, she is able to contain this outbreak of rebellion. She wonders if the others have these secret urges or if she is atypical, her desires symptoms of some neurosis. She pulls her itchy navy toque over her ears. She owns two hats, this one and a carnation pink newsboy cap dotted with tufts of yellow feathers, which she bought on a lark and has worn once. Outside, she strides past the trembling man, the condoms, and the youths gathered on the corner smoking and laughing a little too loudly. Her breath is shallow, an attempt to avoid the concoction of diesel, cheap perfume, and street-vendor hot dogs. Despite her efforts with the Burberry, a line of drizzle has feathered down her neck. Inside, she shuffles past the ticket collector, down the stairs, and to the middle of the platform, moving at the same pace as the others. She stares at a poster hung above the tracks. It advertises the latest blockbuster, Renegade, which stars a newly minted heartthrob. While debris and chaos swirl behind him, he scowls at commuters, dirty blond hair matted to grime-streaked forehead, sculpted biceps ready to burst out of torn shirt. The tag line reads, He lives by one set of rules. His own. “He’s so hot,” one of the others moans to her friend as they pass the poster. They walk down the platform, gold heels clicking, splattering mud onto their uniform of skin-tight jeans and black jackets. The train arrives. The doors open and close so quickly it seems the left and right have switched positions. She sits in one of the handicapped seats. He is seated directly across from her, reading the newspaper, a dumpy little man of uncertain age, wearing a chartreuse top hat. On the brim a saffron-coloured bird is perched. As she stares at it, the bird begins to revolve around the perimeter of the hat. It makes two complete turns. It then halts, rotates in place, and chirps three times, before resuming its revolution.

She is the only one sitting within ten feet of the man. Pretending to look at the advertisements above the seats, she checks the others’ reaction. Several bare-headed businessmen look obstinately down at mass-market paperbacks. Two plastic-bonneted women shake their heads and cluck softly. A pair of ball-capped teens snort and use their ears as rotary telephones. “Fucking psycho,” the angry one mutters. The joker leans around a pole and calls, “I tot I taw a putty tat.” The man pays no attention and continues to read the newspaper. She watches the bird for a full two stops. It revolves, halts, rotates, and chirps, then continues revolving. The number of revolutions and rotations is never consistent. She wonders how the man makes the bird move. Perhaps he somehow uses the tips of his ears to press a button that causes the bird to stop revolving and rotate, or vice versa. She likes to think that he is doing this for her, but after scrutinizing his ears, she is forced to concede that there is nothing unusual in them, except large, saggy lobes the shape of snot on the end of a nose in winter. The bird must be on some sort of timer, she decides. She feels a smile forming, a benign growth. The man is looking at her. He folds the newspaper. [He, somewhat tentatively.] “Zeitgeist?” [She, without hesitation.] “Suffocating.” [He, confident, a little ironic.] “Renegade?” [She, allowing a laugh to escape.] “Underground.” [He, relieved.] “Algorithm?” [She, eyes darting from side to side.] “Flight.” [He, disgusted, accusing.] “Craven.” [Then, encouraging.] “Engage.” [She, sighing.] “Kowtow.” [He, jocular, almost affectionate.] “How now brown cow?” [She, snorting.] “Horse’s ass.” [He, lifting his eyebrows.] “Plucky.” [She, slowly, with narrowed eyes.] “Outbreak?” [He, smiling.] “Becoming.” [She, lips parting.] “Idioglossia.” [He, warmly.] “Weltanshauung.” The train pulls into her stop, and she stands. He tips his hat to her, the saffron bird bowing. As the doors close, the bird chirps. On the platform, she turns to look at the departing train. She moves against the tide of the others, ignoring their shoves as she pushes in the opposite direction, hoping. Tomorrow, she tells herself, I will wear the feathered cap and ignore the sneers of the others. Tomorrow, I will refuse to participate in this year’s talent show. Tomorrow, I will give the homeless man change, a muffin, maybe even a smile. As the carriage leaves the station, she sees the man in the chartreuse hat, sitting in the same seat, the bird revolving. I will, she thinks. Behind her closed eyes, his outline appears in blazing saffron, and she tries to fix it in her memory. Then the others crowd around her, a pandemic spreading in every direction, and she is forced to move with them. I will, she thinks, I will.

Unsearchable KATIE MCNAMARA

Smoke wafted through my office as I sat in a saggy desk chair and pondered over the alarming amount of similar cases I had received over the course of a few days. The sign on my office door – Private Investigator - could hardly be read through the thick smoke in the air. I wondered if my skills were becoming cloudy for not getting a lead on these cases after my lunch break. Men and women of all ages were looking for the same broad. None of the schmucks knew her name and could barely give me a description – no height, weight, hair or eye colour – but they all paid me their month’s rent to sniff out this dame. What’s a starving P.I. like me to do? Maybe now I can catch up on my own rent...as soon as I buy another pack of cigarettes. Over the next few nights I scoured through the pubs that are frequented by most of the scumbags I’m hired to hunt down. I caught glimpses of her in the shadows, in the dark corner, in the arms of a gangster, but she disappeared whenever I looked in her direction. She remained in my periphery; I was never to catch a complete glimpse of her. If only I could see her entire figure for a moment! She drove me to the whiskey bottle on the nights I tried to find her fox hole. After a few weeks of this goose chase, I started to think she was following me...or maybe that was the whiskey convincing me so. As I ate soggy sandwiches at run-down joints during my lunch breaks, I could feel her fingers smooth over my back and her sweet whispers in my ear: They are seeking truth. You are seeking me. When I turned around, her back was facing me as she walked out the door. I changed my game plan. This doll wasn’t going to be found with people who aren’t worth the dirt under my fingernails. I checked out churches, libraries, and the halls of universities. I felt like a heel in those places because even I wasn’t worth the dirt under my fingernails, but this case had become the magnum opus of my P.I. career (I overheard the phrase as I walked in and out the doorways of classrooms). I couldn’t face my increasing number of clients and tell them I was a flop. P.I.s have pride and heart, too. I still see her playing in the shadows of the alleys, running between the bookshelves at the library, and sitting in pews at churches. No matter how many tricks I play, I can never see her face. I’ve met a lot of people who claim to know her, but they can never set up a meeting so I can see her, talk to her, and ask why so many Johns and Janes see such a treasure in her. The smoke in my office is still veiling the view of my sign from my desk, and I know it won’t dissipate until I find the truth.

ADELE PALMQUIST

Well-Practiced Liars ASHLEY NEWTON

No one cares For the truth of anything They just want to see The way we’re all pretending If you close your lips And shut your eyes You’ll soon discover How we learn to live among the lies No one believes you No one ever will Because your pain is exciting; It’s nothing more than a cheap thrill They say it was not real Such things have never occurred Yet all those people are not real It’s from the lies, I’m sure We are built to be liars But we are also born to speak The two go hand in hand It’s what makes us all weak The truth keeps stirring Like a hidden realm in our flesh Somehow, we are taken by the lies; They prevent us from being our best Even the best are born to lie Though they say their words are true But we are all well-practiced liars Even you

Truth of Self SARA STACEY

I look past the mirror, past my own dull eyes, to see the emptiness inside. To see the grey waves numbly settle where there was once a violent tempest of pain and happiness. The battle of memories which ended in both sides defeat. Beyond the stagnant emotions I see a cracking going deeper by the minute. An abyss involuntarily growing pulling in the once-great storm. The abyss, the void filled with pain: malignant and benign. Fresh or rotted with age, all decaying, unnoticed, inside these dull grey eyes.

DANA SILVESTRI

VICTORIA PARKER

The Floor BREE MANTHA

Vase

COSIMO DE FRANCESCO So you want to know how to break me, How to shake me and bend me, How to shatter me and scatter me. It is easy. First start with dust. Put enough pressure on it, Turn each grain into sand. Then take a flame, Melt it down and mould it Into a vase. Put any decoration you want on it. Make it as big or as small as you please, But don’t get used to it. Fill the vase with water. Overflow it with your thoughts, Let it fall over the sides, Covering each inch of the design, Until all you see is yourself Upon the reflection.

Take a flower, Whichever you prefer. A lily for peace, Sunflower for light, A Gardenia for every scent that is right. Place it into your creation, Having it absorb your mind, Blossoming from your emotions, Letting its fragrance fill the air, Taking the place of pain So it doesn’t seem as bad As it may initially feel. Find a place for this vase. A safe place, A place where Even if it falls... It won’t break. Maybe in your bedroom, Just to keep it close, While you are dreaming, And when you wake, It is the first image you see. Just to keep you smiling For a little while.

You may also want to carry it around. Keep it close and near, Just as you do with your feelings. Do not let it drift too far away, You may lose yourself. Only when you are ready, You can let the vase go. Even if that means Climbing to the highest point you can, Holding the vase outstretched, Over the edge, Emotionless. You have taken what you needed from it, And now you can let it go... Watch, listen... As the vase screams and falls, The inevitable fate which you gave it. Crashing onto the ground, Only dust remains. Unable to be reassembled, Left to drift alone, Lost among the rest of the earth, While you, carry onward. Finally, when you understand its feeling, A vase of you shall be made, And for your sake. Hope they hold onto you, As you hang off their arm On their mountain top.

ALLIE HINCKS

Something to Remember Me By ANDREW SAVORY

You can pass me up, It doesn’t matter either way, Although it may be tempting to jump into the fray, Please spare me what I don’t want to hear, For I promise you there’s nothing to fear, I haven’t anything to hide, Not when you’re at my side, And yet I feel broken, I’m not here to be your token. A gentle stream may be flowing downward, But don’t think that these drops are for you, They arrived long before you began to misconstrue. I always said that I would be there, Said there would never be anything to give you a scare, I allowed myself to falter, Now I can manage nothing but a stammer, In my hands I had your trust, Even so, I’ve done what I must, I can’t ask you to understand that, Just believe me when I say that, “this is where head’s at.” There’s not much left for us to do, And so it has to be the case, That we’re both looking to go our separate ways. After all that we’ve been through, I’d wish that I’d left you with more than a gushing wound, It seems you can’t make a sound, All that exists between us is a void, Serving to remind us of the growing space we can’t seem to avoid, Looking at you only evokes memories of what we built, Only to crumble into rubble ridden by my guilt.

You look at me as if I’m a different person, Please, just take your hand off the alarm, I promise that I mean you no harm. What we shared was something that I’ll always cherish, Even if I seemingly allowed it to perish, Through my fingers I let it slip away, With this I started to decay, Piece by piece you took me with you, What we had was no longer true. From time to time I’ll reflect on what was, Occasionally I’ll stop to think by hitting pause, Alas, all I see now are our flaws. I know you’ll never understand why I did what I did, In essence it all seems rather unfair, There’s no use to compare, We weren’t like others, But I guess that’s the same with all lovers. It’s not my intention to be an anchor, Never would I want to drag you down, I just can’t seem to help but drown. All that I’ve done is torture you bare to the bone, There’s just no other way to tell you that I need to be on my own, I’m sorry if you think I was a mistake, This just had to be a clean break. As I let out one last sigh, I hope that this gets to you, It’ll be something to remember me by.

Make & Mash FIORELLA MORZI

I feel as though all of the writers I know and don’t know are standing there, chanting my name, encouraging me to put these words down on paper. I hear their cries and I clutch their hands and I see their grinning faces. As one collective body, they edge me onwards, seductively daring me to be creepy, experiment with cocaine, learn to french-braid, meditate beneath a willow tree. I swallow saliva and metallic fills my mouth. Am I ready? They don’t care. As my toes curl against the lip of the bridge, they say flying feeds the aching soul: my momentary suspension in time and space clears my conscience and I am delighted by the darkness. My dwindling belly reminds me of the importance of literature. Creatively engaged, I let sadness and unwashed hair spew horrible poetry. I let the smell of apricots and texture of Grandma’s yarn stimulate affirmative prose. I can’t tell if desire or desperation urges me to continue creating. Art, whether it belongs to Frida Kahlo or the woman across the street you suspect is a witch or the toddler you babysit, has the tendency to blur definitive lines. Overlaps, softening, fog. Out of this seemingly indistinct shape that creativity produces, a sense of wholeness washes over me. I am full of its purpose to ignite activity and to demonstrate. I am full of an intensified awareness that integration among the wildest and most practical of individuals, the movement and reception of messages, works to establish an expansive communicative spiderweb necessary for sustaining human life. Like creators before me, I relish in words and I believe in their power. I believe in images, installations, and sculpture. I believe in carrot seeds. I feel Virginia Woolf circulating through my veins.