Botticelli Magazine Number 10 by Botticelli Magazine

Art & Literature

Cover art by: Tyler Davis

ISSUE

10 1

Jared Sanford Geometric Funk 2

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Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis Jared Sanford Bethany Carman YaneÃ© Clements Lewis Cade Marisa Mann Tracy Powell Kwok Hei Vincent Chan Tyler Davis Alexander Jones Matt Massara Kyle Newton Sok-oeun Saiyoeun Ryan Bremmer Tim Frey Patrick Hayslip Joo Young Joung GiGi Wang

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Published by Columbus College of Art & Design 1

TABLE OF CONTENT

Stalked Lee Meyers

She Mariah Holmes

Superstitions: Parts One & Two Lee Meyers

Hymns in Church on Sunday Mariah Holmes

Blood Sisters Rosella Lampp

Torch Song Leona Laurie

A Respite from Wanting to Rip My Fingers Off Shelby Enlow

When Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m Not Charlene Fix

Low-Frequency Noise Larissa Garcia

Am I Dreaming Tracy Powell

The World is Linked Together Like a Chain Hannah Bates

Sorry Rosella Lampp

Bare Branches Maximillian Heinegg

Yankee Go Home E. Martin Pedersen

Fear of the Vessel Ali Massinople

Piggy Charlene Fix

Death, Missouri Edward Patrick Huycke

Tyler Davis A Leopard Canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Change Its Spots Nigga/Damn My Nigga Who Up Next 4

Hannah Burns Shenew Spirit 6

STALKED Lee Meyers

I tread carefully in the wake of your shadow. It’s 10:23pm and you’ve started shaking. They extended the library hours till around 10 o’clock for late-night cram sessions, but everyone knows they can squeeze an extra 30 minutes out of you. Maybe a part of you actually wanted to stay, just to be away from me. One of your pale hands clutches at the corner of your elbow, holding in what little warmth still emanating within you, the other snaking around the contours of your scalp. Your hair is short, cropped, buzzed at the bottom like those girls who wore it better in magazines. I kept a piece the day you cut it off, small enough to go unnoticed. It smelled of vanilla and cigarettes and splintered like dried grass the moment it left your head. It wasn’t glossy like it had been when you were twelve, but rather wiry and straw-like, bleached a hundred times over. It crumbled like ash. It still does. The first thing you do when you reach your car is light up. You take

hit after hit as if it were akin to breathing as you fumble with the radio dials. I slip into the backseat, my shoulder pressed low against the leather and my hands wrapped around the skirts and shirts that lay piled on the floor. I can feel the weight of their filth trapped within the fabric: smoke, sweat, booze, and all manner of other things. I can almost see those nights you wore them: black tank-tops following the curves of your rib cage, chapped lips wrapped around the mouth of a bottle, needles pricking your pale blue skin. When I coil my fingers into the folds and bring them to my cheek I can almost feel you there. This has been going on for years now, but I’ve been careful. I first found you at a party: one of those packed high-school marathons you always hated. I was never invited, but I had my ways of blending in. It was easy to hide in chaos. You were held up on the other side of the room with your knees tucked under your chin. I could tell you hadn’t eaten that day, maybe not even in the last two or three. A boy was laying out five little white pills, pushing them into your palm and closing your fingers around them. He’d said they’d enhance the beer, whatever that meant. But, more

importantly, you were ugly and he was pretty. So you took the pills, because they were already in your hands and your stomach of empty. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s when our eyes first met. I could feel the warmth that spread through your body like the slow running wax from a candle. Your grey-green eyes drooped and a cathartic grin played on your lips as you exhaled. I moved through the crowd and stared down at you: small, head lulling sideways against the corner. You felt bliss like you hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t in years and pills had been the one to give it to you. It numbed you, masked the guilt in your heart. After all, what had you suffered? A loving family, loving friends, more than what most people had. And yet, this is what made you happy. This is where you belonged. You saw through me. You smile. Every time you used we saw each other again. First there were pills, then came the needles. And we saw each other more. I crept into your parties when you fell on hardwood floors, under your bed when you slept through the afternoon, in your shower when you washed away the smell of it. I watched you run your hands through your tangled hair, across your collarbones, and down your thighs where they no longer met.

I could feel your cold, like a corpse who had learned to walk. Only in your drug-filled hazes was I actually able to touch you. In those moments I would place my fingers around your neck, your pulse still brushing against my palms once every minute, your chest rising and falling like the wind. It wouldn’t be long now. You push your Pontiac as fast as it can go, the exhaust belching smoke while more of it leaks through your teeth. Your hands are trembling, rocking against the rubber of the wheel. You’d bite your nails if there were anything left to bite besides bloody, peeling holes. Still, your fingers travel to your lips out of habit, drawing shapes around the sores. There is something burning in your stomach, licking at your heels, threatening to consume you whole. I touch your shoulders as you go. You don’t feel a thing. The world begins to pass you by in slides: keys, car door, stairs, apartment, and more keys. They are moments you’ve seen a hundred times that you’ve mastered with efficiency. You don’t even sense them anymore.

Somewhere, far away, you wonder what became of you. Where you used to be. Where you are now. Where the other parts of you went. Not that it matters. Your canines sink into the black plastic around your arm, whining in the time it takes for you to find a vein. By the time I reach you you’ve already pressed the plunger into the syringe. I watch you slump and sigh, deeper and deeper into the abyss. Perhaps it was because you hadn’t used in while. Perhaps it was because you had used too much. Even so, if it wouldn’t be this night, it would simply be another. It was a scenario that had drifted between your thoughts, but had never held any truth. First, you start to spasm. It runs up and down you legs, knocking your knees together, your feet beginning to kick, your skull thudding gently against the plaster wall behind you. Your heart clenches, falters, then hums, beating through a coma as your brain still fires aimlessly. You vomit. Your eyes roll. You’re terrified. You wonder if anyone will help you, if anyone will find you, if anyone will even notice that you are gone.

I wonder it too. And I think it’s funny, how quickly a parent’s love fades when their trophy begins to weigh on them. How they didn’t want a work-inprogress, but rather a rose-tinted mirror. Yet, out you came, and they spoke the words, “we’ll love you just the same” without ever knowing what it meant. What it would cost. And when the expectations grew too high you dismissed them altogether. There had been a method to your sadness, pain that drew from a crack where you hadn’t formed quite right. Your parents thought they could fix you. You thought they could too. If only they knew that the fracture that divided you was what made you. It was you. And it was easier for them, to repeat this moment in their heads, grieving the loss of a daughter who wasn’t yet lost. Your friends, your family; they had known me all along. You tense and relax. Your eyes stay fixed. A noise seeps from the back of your throat. You see colors, then blackness, then white. And then, finally, you see me.

Tim Frey Ghaile the Dreamer 13

SHE Mariah Holmes

I adore the laughs that sicken me candy pink, pumping me dizzy and nauseous with a cerebral cavity fever. Like the spell of dizziness, it is a crippling headache in your presence. You’re drinking up the thread-like fibers of my brain. Your hair, your nails, your teeth quake with envy, because you’ll never utter a word, a phrase, a clause like I. And that is what burns you, witch, acid from the inside. For a soul-seer, you are offensively transparent as you’re beating, picking and stabbing at your own jagged edges. You melted plastic Juliet, little more than a narrow-nosed sparrow with only one gift: to speak and speak and swear at the moon. I’ve carved your name on arrow and bow, dreamt of your eyes begging as though they’d like to be gouged out, but they scream an unfair verdict. Feathered, prophetic, tell me: what future do you see now? Color me vulgar, color me habitually ill, but at least I don’t strive for false imperfection, don’t urge others to kill. I throw pleas to the stones that I throw as they fulfill karma’s ideal.

Royal Dunlap Sunset 15

Tim Frey Call of the Abyss 16

SUPERSTITIONS: PARTS ONE & TWO by Lee Meyers

Part One: Cursed. Probably. Genetically speaking. Under a bridge that the trains go over. Holding your breath like she’d said to. And all the things you’ve ever wanted flash before your eyes, to satisfy, a hole you’ve had since birth. And they still do. Never had it, so you can’t know it isn’t true. Cursed. Since birth. Holding your breath until there isn’t breath to hold. Killing every cell inside the mold. Of inconsistent flesh and bone. Remolded, renewed. Formed from a soul. With a hole. Filled.

Part Two: It’s terrifying. That you still can’t say it. “Or it won’t come true.” Stretching your body thin. For a cosmic promise. Made beneath a bridge. Breath held. Eyes closed. And if you still blew out candles: “Happy.”

Zane Miller Reference to a Paper Clip 19

Rosella Lampp

HYMNS IN CHURCH ON SUNDAY Mariah Holmes

You never know Sally’s anymore, isn’t that the truth? It’s always either Carolyn or Ruth or Sue. Maybe Veronica, maybe Betsy, maybe even the broads who spend all their money on menthols, perched atop the curb by the corner mart, I think their names are Gwen, Cat, and Polly. They sound like a girl gang that you wouldn’t want to meet walking down an alley; half past eleven on the way home from a slasher movie, hands dusted in sweat lightly, gripping onto a peppermint patty, salt-water taffy girl named Sally, who sings hymns in church on Sunday.

BLOOD SISTERS Rosella Lampp

My shifty eyed little fox, you swell with the burden of impending stillness, of a darkness you cannot command. You hide your disability behind lock and key and curls; Blood Sisters, we are. But Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve always been jealous of you, my little June bug. Your crocodile tears are legendary. You threaten peace with your knowing eyes and unfiltered lips. You wear a crown of thorns and woven copper, but you are no queen. With red ribbon, they fasten stones to your ankles and watch you sink. Do not fear, my darling, you were made for this. Your teeth cut iron and bone. I whisper your name. And together we levitate, feet six inches off the floor, and watch as they turn to ash before us, our serpent ringlets hiss and coo and crackle at the embers. We are Blood Sisters.

Rosella Lampp

Jared Sanford Mary Shelley 24

TORCH SONG Leona Laurie

Middle aged spinster carrying a torch for her first love: she loved the theatre, but it broke her heart. Carrying a torch for her second love: she loved a man, but he broke her heart. Middle aged spinster with hands full of torches. Can’t pick anything up without getting burned. Can’t grab anything new unless she lets go. Won’t let go. These torches cast untrustworthy light-- shining and shading. Everything has been lit like this for twenty years. What does the world even look like? This isn’t rose-colored glasses-- it’s a flickering half-light, full of shadows. Middle aged spinster because of her torches.

A RESPITE FROM WANTING TO RIP MY FINGERS OFF Shelby Enlow

Sometimes when I am frustrated with things ranging from Very Important to “My stomach looks like a bag of cottage cheese in the mirror today,” I want to rip my fingers off. Have you ever wanted to do that? They’d make that “thWOP” sound, and you’d lay them in a plastic tub while you put more entertaining things in their place… maybe crayons, or even cheese sticks. I never imagine it being painful – just satisfying. You can pop them back on whenever you’d like, but the release of having them off for a while is enough to get you through the day. Since I can’t rip my fingers off, I have to seek other ways to relieve myself. I’m too prudish for massages, and too overtly sexual for church. I don’t take time for myself enough because I seek to please others so much. I do this, as I like to think, because I am a giving, luminous angel who will be publicly admired as such by her loving husband one day. But really, this happens because every time I do take time for myself, I am determined that it is the watershed moment that sends me straight down the beaten path of becoming a lunch lady. (It might be worth adding that I’m extremely molded by the very shitty movie “The Butterfly Effect”).

Mostly, I’m very afraid of not achieving my dreams; it’s a part of the people- pleasing complex. If I haven’t achieved my dreams, whatever will I have to tell people about myself? Will I have to talk about them? Will they have achieved their dreams, which will mean that I never will? So, sometimes I need a reprieve. We all do. Here are some things that have worked for me. Ham – Wow, what a treat. Ham isn’t the typical snack food, but it can do wonders for you. That sweet and salty game gets me. Ham is a place where you can sit and think about all the things that bring pleasure to you – including ham. Zumba – Everyone makes fun of me for this, but they can go straight to hell while I single-single- double all over their goddamn graves. Zumba is very good at tricking me into thinking I’m sexy. Never mind the fact that I’m fumbling through a bunch of Latin-inspired moves next to an older woman who is clearly kicking more ass than I ever will – I’m dancing! I’m wanted! Sexii, babii!

Pretending to be confused when I am not at all confused – This is more something I like to do online. For example, when a relative comments on a political post of mine with such dripping condescension that I vomit right into my hands, I pretend like I’m just as confused as they think I am. There is something about another person sitting smug in their confirmation that I am dumb as paper that just tickles me. Trying on Halloween masks – This allows you to just be somebody else for a few minutes. Feel like a ghoul with blood running down its face? Then be a ghoul with blood running down its face. Feel like a troll with nails hammered into its skull? Pull that thing over your face and suck some sweet rubber toxins in for a spell. Plus, people that work in Halloween stores are…delightful. Birds – Some people love birds for bringing a sense of calm, but I love them because they are goddamn strange. Just watch a bird be a bird for a minute or two, and you’ll realize nothing else matters. They’ll hop around and eat trash and then fly gracefully into the horizon. They strike a balance we should all strive for.

I’ve come to believe that taking time to take care of ourselves doesn’t take away from our dreams, but plays a crucial in achieving them. Lin-Manuel Miranda claims the idea for Hamilton came to him while he was on vacation, which I find to be slightly false, because angels are always on vacation. I know this because I am one. Most of my greatest ideas have been thought of while I was on vacation too, because all of them have been, “Let’s get more ice cream.” But, these moments of peace, where all the noise is gone, allow our truest selves shine through. Sometimes we don’t want to see our truest selves, because they fart, or laugh at the wrong times, or want to rip our fingers off. But, it isn’t noise. It’s real, and quiet, and sometimes you can feel a hum when you’re in the middle of something wonderful. Our truest selves don’t care who they’re pleasing, because they’re wrapped up in being true, and true is true. True is warm, and true doesn’t reach for anything but itself. And the only time we can reach for any dreams at all is when we’re not reaching for something else. So, seek time away from being false – from feeling so false and far away from true that you want to rip fingers off because they don’t feel like yours anymore. You’re not going to be a lunch lady, unless your truest you really wants to be, which is totally cool with my truest me.

WHEN I’M NOT Charlene Fix

“When I see pictures of people in costumes, it reminds me that I’m not wearing a costume.” Alejandro Bellizzi Again the child is father of the man, though Alejandro is no child but a young poet and artist, to wit, a former student, and I am not a man but a woman clad in time, a kind of costume. Bios semi-accomplished, let’s return to the meal. Remind me to tip the waiter Alejandro. For when I see long tails of horses swatting flies, I lament my hair, its spools refusing to unwind beyond a certain length. When I hear geese honking in formation high above, I vaguely recall a life with wings and feathers. Now I tread in silence on the ground. When a full bus barrels by, I know-at least I think I know-that the woman in the window with nomadic eyes and hair slipping from her bun, isn’t me.

When neighbors are walking, pausing, walking their dogs, I consider the price of my uninterrupted gait: redolent paws and so much else, times minus one. When I hear the fellow on the porch across the street finger picking his banjo, I am aware of my guitar snoring gently in its flabby case. When I see boot tracks in the snow, I realize they arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mine, for who can move ahead of her own journey? When I behold the soft round cheeks of a child, I know though I love the way its fingers penetrate and catalyze my skin. When I see the moon, I know I am not the moon, though my vision mimics how she sees through veils of clouds. When I hear the ocean, I know I am not the ocean, yet I understand her restlessness and hidden luminescent lives. When I lean on a Laurel, I know I am not a Laurel, but I never say never. Daphne was the first of many to transform.

LOW-FREQUENCY NOISE Larissa Garcia

Erica Eppert Bonsai 33

AM I DREAMING Tracy Powell

Did I wake up to find that my people are still not free? Free from poverty? Did I wake up and find that we still have so far to go, Yet we have affirmative action, isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t that enough? Did I wake up and find that our people are still At the end of the totem pole, jobs, homes and education? Am I dreaming? One drop is all it takes to be a jigga. We deny our blackness to our friends, when will the self segregation end? Quarter this, half that, but when they see you, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re just another black. Am I dreaming?

Coaching my son on how to drive black. Walking down the street, black. How to act Defenseless when I know that we derive from kings and Queens, yet treated as peasants. I am still searching. Tear stained pillow cases as we lose more and more of our children to the streets. Self esteem twists in the wind, hanging on a thread of lies that have been instilled from the womb. Arise, king! Arise queen! Awaken from your slumber! Be who you were created to be. Dry your tears Momma, dry your tears Papa. Weeping shall endure for Just a night but joy comes in the morning. I am not dreaming. Reality is painful. Cover your tracks Cover your lies, You learn well. Taught by the best. The trace of your History wiped away. The Trail of breadcrumbs that lead to your truth, eaten. Arise, awaken From your slumber. This is not a drill. This is reality.

Kyle Newman Urban Sprawl 36

THE WORLD IS LINKED TOGETHER LIKE A CHAIN Hannah Bates

Idling bus fills lungs with the taste of exhaust while caffeinated brains lead stiff bodies through routined commutes. Skin blinded by white sunlight bouncing from reflective glass to neon orange-yellow- green to chrome coated feats of civilization. Rubber soles of apathetic egos litter the bleached concrete, melting in the heat of success and productivity. Underneath, unappreciated sewage systems where dinner dishes and morning showers flow ceaselessly in a river of mysterious brown-green filth-water. Patterns of weekday worry methodically following the footsteps of the day before, and the week before, and the month beforeâ&#x20AC;Ś Asphalt, concrete disintegrate, crumble from the stress of the earth, desiring to shed its man-made crust and to consume human ingenuity in its molten core

Mariana Floria We Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Bite 39

Katrina Francis Cleveland Flats 40

SORRY Rosella Lampp

Legs sprawled on blue swaths of velvet, you spun my curls into gold; wrapped them around my bones and pulled them tight; ripped the loose threads from my skull, tangled and unraveled me from your clutch in one fluid movement; then you stood back and watched the blood drip onto my eyelashes.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Pretty purple pin pricks to my skin, a tattoo of your own personal constellation and you promised me light. You cannot lie. The constellation you crafted out of me illuminates even the shadows of our darkest hiding places. With folded hands and your chin to your chest,you wish upon the stars that dangle like christmas lights from the gaping hole in my ribcage.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

But from the dying embers, I pull a sword and you take it in your hands and swallow it whole. The blade pierces your stomach and carves notches into your spine: One for every apology thats fallen from my teeth; Two for the noâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s that should have been yeses; Three for each mile I drove to your door. And so I peel back your lips, rip the pearls from your frown with my delicate fingers and replace each one with a single Magic 8 ball:

Maybe later. Maybe later. Maybe later.

Jonah Kerst We Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Bite 43

Trent Lindsay Cellular Perspective 44

BARE BRANCHES Maximilian Heinegg

How many leaves will never adorn these bare branches, carving light into shadow, wrapping poor shrouds Â of shade, the wind in no need of its whetstone to pass over branches that absent blossoms already jut into the sunâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye, each a single finger that cannot hold rain.

Brenda Mijangos An Evening Sight 47

YANKEE GO HOME E. Martin Pedersen

I need to move to New Zealand I hear itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s paradise on Earth The Kiwis Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve met are the nicest And the tattoos spectacular Trent worked his ass off his whole life Cleaning johns at the airport Taking shit from his supervisor And his kids hate him He retired and moved to New Zealand Got robbed on the way to the hostel Moved in with a family of sailors Until one drunk woman knifed him. The damn Yankee.

Sara Guzman Taika Portrait 49

Ali Massinople A Place to Rest 50

FEAR OF THE VESSEL Ali Massinople

The Eyes

Orbs roll in their tombs. The little portholes I place in themrip-in half Lost behind the great jelly boulders. Rollthem back in search, but they get stuck as well I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see outside anymore I watch the thoughts in the back of my head now.

The Hair

Too shortbe mistaken for a boy. Too longbe mistaken for a girl. Longer yetSome fool may fall in love with you.

The Nose

So strange, to stick out so far, seems so fragile. It should be less conspicuous to protect it from blows-accidental and intentional It could shatter, break off leaving me with the image of a flesh skull, or be shoved back into my grey matter. It has bled many timesbut hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t brokenstuff the nostril with cotton. Please try to avoid striking it when we spar.

The Ears

Twin caves fitted on either side of my head cover them with a blanket when I sleep, lest I suffer as my middle school teacher had. Doctor pulling ladybird from her ear orthe boy from the news who became residence for a family of spiders.

The Mouth

Trapped inside an ivory cage, bars too close to allow any light. The pink animal that lives behindin the way of my throatstruggles most when I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want it too, I worry I will bite it off- if I trip writhing still on the side walk like an earthworm. Instead I could choke and swallow him, as my mother told me Persons who suffer from seizures do.

The Flesh

Take care not to eat too much clothes may become synonymous with sausage casings. Eat to littlehaunches lose their cushioning never allowing you a comfortable seat. High school English 1 my hind bones were bruising.

The Heart

The ancient Egyptians said the heart was where emotions happened. The brain is the source, but I feel it in my heartfear most of all causes it to dance. Keep a low resting heart rate- they say there is a ceiling over how many beats a heart can beat

Ali Massinople Liplesst 55

The Stomach

I feel sick. Peptobismal and Tums in the cabinet, maybe I am about to be violently ill— turning inside out, losing my insides, coming out in a mighty magenta and violet rush— all swirling into a great Turkish marbling

The Loins

Keep the open wound between my legs clean and coveredfree of all foreign objects-protected from disease, infection, procreation. It won’t heal.

The Legs

When I sleep they believe me unaware. My legs try to walk away from me-jerking me awake. It is very startling, and wastes my heart beats. Despite attempted abandonment, never have they betrayed mein my time of need, I have always been able to flee. 56

Ali Massinople Garden Party 57

PIGGY Charlene Fix

My sister gave our mother the nickname Pigg y after surprising her in a kitchen corner polishing off a cream puff, tell-tale whipped cream peaked on her nose. The moniker stuck. A language evolved. We called a tidy house piggified, a visit to our mom pigging it, the plural form for Mom and Dad the pigs, or hams, Mom alone, Pink Pig, Pinkness, Hambone, Ham. Warnings of impending parental visits were pig alerts. Finding our mother well, we pronounced her fork tender. The hospital that treated our parents was Porksicordia, after Winnipegâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Misericordia, Momâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s doctor brothers on the staff. The trope crested to a wave leaving in its wake a plethora of objects: pig trivets, coasters, hooks, and other pig-embellished gifts

that our mom would tuck away only to find them returned to the light of day and back on display by the two-headed monster, her daughters. On a flight through Atlanta to a family reunion, my sister said “Piggy” out loud. Exiting the plane, we overheard the Southern stewardess mumbling to herself, “Pig-eye? Pig-eye? I wouldn’t want someone calling me Pig-eye!” Complicating this, we’re Jews, alleged shunners of pigs, admiring them only from afar. Be assured, affronted reader, that we never devoured our mother or served her up on a platter as in unhealthy love, though I admit we salted her some.

Erica Eppert Bird Lady 60

DEATH, MISSOURI Edward Patrick Huycke

1. On the day Virginia was buried I was waiting in front of the old workhouse castle across the street from my apartment, toeing a clod of dirt into nuggets of dirt into particles of dirt. It was time to get real, no way around it: the suede Michael Shannons I wore didn’t match my trousers. I should’ve worn my Oxfords. My ride was nowhere to be seen, figured I had time to run across the street and change. A coffeetouched wind passed. The Folgers’ plant had been closed for I don’t know how many years but it didn’t seem to matter. That’s what I remember most about Kansas City, the wandering smell of coffee, not a cup, a factory’s worth of it, acrid and rolling over the city’s gridiron like an empty grocery bag or a ghost. And like that it was gone and Ashton’s rustcolored 1990 Ford pickup whipped off 19th from the Passeo and barreled up Vine, braking with a doggish yelp. The idling engine gurgled like a coffee tankard. The passengerside head and taillights were covered with masking tape and either Ashton never rolled up the passenger window or it just wasn’t there anymore. The hood looked like it wanted to spring open to show the world what was wrong with it. No way this piece of shit lasts much longer, I thought, approaching the truck. Not the way Ashton drives it. Far as I know, it ran fine till about five years later when Ashton ran himself off I-70 at a hundred and ten mph.

I opened the passenger door and said I forgot something. “Hustle up,” he said. “We’re late.” He was late. I’d been waiting there since he said he would pick me up like we’d planned. Ashton nodded. “It was a good plan, Carl. I’ll bet you come up with a new one that’s even better. What’d you forget?” I told him I forgot my wallet. He threw the gearstick in park and I ran inside. “Nice shoes,” he said when I came back, climbing into the passengerseat. “I like the ones you had on before better though. ‘I forgot my wallet.’ Lyin ass motherfucker.” Ashton threw the truck into drive and gunned it down Vine like he was evacing his humvee out of another killzone. I put my eyes down on the aluminum foliage of energy drink and PBR cans sifting over the surface of the floor. That’s the only way I could stand Ashton’s driving, just pretend it’s not happening. While watching the floor, I saw the cover of an unopened and unfortunately titled booklet, “How to Care for Your Prosthetic Limb.” The truck slammed into a redlight at a fourway stop, otherwise clear. Ashton tried to sit still but let out a long imprecation and reached beneath his seat for his M9. He flicked the safety off. Checking his mirrors one after another, he unloaded and reloaded the pistolclip until the light turned green. He always did this at stoplights. A carhorn blared from a parallel street. Ashton flattened his back against his seat and brought the loaded pistol up to his left shoulder with both hands on the grip, his finger hovering over the

Jake Coulson

triggerguard, eyes wide and blank like he was already dead. I told him I liked the other shoes better too. But these go better with these pants. He looked around like he didn’t know where he was. Pistol still at his shoulder, he looked down at my feet. “Huh.” He brought the pistol down and nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” The light turned green and he put the gun back under his seat with the safety on. Saint Monica’s wasn’t far. One lot over, Parade Park chirruped with weekenders, children and family dogs. Mourners slouched across the sunbaked asphalt toward the church, their backs to the adjacent plot. I noticed two types at Saint Monica’s that day. The first was younger. A wake of them lounged in the shade of the churchface, smoking, grimacing at the middle distance, jaws set against the world, against the unfairness of their friend’s death. Marge was among them. I decided to wait until after the service to say hello. The second type was older, Virginia’s family. They walked from their cars into the church and they looked at the ground while they did it. Nothing new under the sun. I shared my observations with Ashton. The friends wanted to know the why. The family just wanted to get it over with. He shrugged. “The real difference,” he said, rubbing his leg where his knee met his prosthetic, “The kids all say she fell but her family knows she jumped.” Virginia didn’t fall and Virginia didn’t jump. She was on a bridge and then she wasn’t, and her lungs filled up with Missouri River. That’s it. Waste of time and heart arguing the details. Didn’t

matter whether she was drunk or sad before she went into the water, it didn’t matter. Because now she wasn’t either. At least the family got dressed up, I said. Most of her friends wore jeans and tshirts. Made me want to spit. But then I saw Virginia’s mother, and her dress, and it wasn’t black or even dark grey but a woodchip brown. So I spat anyway. We shouldered open a red pair of tall Catholic doors, doors that don’t care how much you think you don’t believe in god or a life after this one. Toward the back of the nave was a whitetop foldout table bearing a spread of coffee and donuts. I told Ashton, It doesn’t get much classier than this. “Hot damn!” He limped past me, his shoulders bouncing off his prosthetic. “I haven’t eaten. You’re not hungry? It’s McLain’s Bakery. Can’t say no to McLain’s.” It seemed weird. Coffee and donuts at a funeral. “Funerals are always weird,” Ashton said through half an éclair. “No reason to turn your nose up though. At least this one’s the eatable kind.” A headache was starting and I felt a little dizzy. I told him there’s a way these kinds of things are handled. “What way is that?” he asked. “Shit, they got any cream?” I don’t know what way it is. But this isn’t it. Looks like they just have that powdered shit. Ashton shrugged. “Can’t win em all.” Despite the Romish setting, the service itself was unaffiliated. I guess that’s fine. But it was so haphazard, shoddy, thrown together. Funerals are like music, they come from something you feel but can’t

say but have to do something about. The benefit of religious funerals is that religions have had centuries to melodize their bullshit: get the bereft in so they can tear up, get some endorphins flowing, and send them back to reality without the boogeyman of the inevitable hanging on their shoulders. It’s just a vain myth anyway, remembrance, affection, regret, tragedy and that nonsense, coins we drop into a wishing well so we can pretend we’re at the center of the universe. But credit where credit’s due, the Marines know how to put someone in the ground. Uniforms like they’re carved from stone and those delicate white gloves. Rifles fired into the sky. Horsedrawn carriage. A bugler blowing a tune you’ve heard a million times and it’s like you’ve never heard it before. But the best part is the flag. Draped over the casket like a bedsheet then folded twelve times and presented, not given, but presented by one of the honor guard like a man with an engagement ring. I tell ya, when he took a knee in front of mom’s chair and started with the “On behalf of a grateful country” spiel, I felt it. I knew it was all bullshit but I felt it anyway. Virginia’s funeral was more like group therapy. No focus, no goal, no use, just speaker after speaker saying the same thing, the thing they should have told her when she was alive – “I love you.” And how is someone really supposed to weep with pieces of donut stuck to their teeth? I still hadn’t decided between reciting John Donne or Dante, waiting to see what shape the grief would take. No fucking way was I gonna resort to Dylan Thomas. That would be such a cliché even Ashton would get embarrassed. Some hipster read a poem that he wrote for Virginia. Am I the only one who knows you never read

Reed Costello Cleveland Rains Fish 69

your own poetry at a fucking funeral? I feel like that’s pretty common knowledge. On top of that, it was a dreadful poem. It even rhymed. People clapped anyway. Sheep. They’d probably prefer Dylan Thomas to Dante. Sheep herded straight off a cliff. Then a guy in a dress with a guitar strapped around his shoulder walked up to the podium. I’d seen him around but didn’t know him. He looked so much like Kurt Cobain that my memory actually imposed the image of Kurt Cobain onto Virginia’s funeral. Deadtwig skinny. Long, greasy plaits of pissblonde hair shrouding most of his face. Stubble wasn’t long enough to be a beard but too long to be a five o clock shadow. His spine was shaped like an S so that his left shoulder sloped evenly and his right was bunched up and crocked. Ratty, untied, secondhand combat boots. The flowerpatterned sundress was barely long enough to conceal the netherparts verging his alabaster legs. I couldn’t tell if he was actually singing lyrics or just mumbling then screaming with rhythm as he cut at a Am-E-F-G progression. The gutted pig shriek held the congregation hostage for five long minutes. Then, as inexplicably as he appeared, the young man chucked the guitar with a timbred whack near the tabernacle. Bootheels cannoned his descent from the altar, down the aisle, out the door. Deaf stupor palled the churchhall. No one even shifted their weight. This is my moment, I thought. Donne. I can undo the craziness that maniac let in here. I can do something worth remembering. I can be the Marine on his knees with both hands on a flag.

I cleared my throat. Silent as the church had fallen, many heads turned. I approached the altar. There was a strange smell. Acrid, like burning fabric. My mouth tasted like a soda can. I ascended the altar, turned, and many people were looking at me oddly, like there was something on my face. My palms were covered with slime. I opened my mouth to speak but my throat clucked like I was swallowing. Then I heard a whisper from the empty space over my shoulder and turned around to see who was there and that’s the last thing I remember. 2. His sundress soaked with sweat, he reached with serene exhaustion into his left boot for his cigarettes. The sounds from the park next to the church, the light from the sun, the feeling of the ground beneath his feet, all these were more like faded memories to Wally. He lit the cigarette, breathed in, saw Virginia dancing on the edge of the Paseo Bridge, crying and laughing and cursing, ignoring him, him shrugging and looking up at the cables of the bridge, their arms disappeared into the dark, losing himself in a daydream about sending messages into the sky and when he looked back Virginia was gone. Then the church doors broke open like they were plywood and the guy with a metal leg barged onto the front steps with his friend spasming in his arms. People inside watched slackmouthed. The door closed on them. “Is he alright?” Wally asked slowly, knowing how dumb of a question it was. “Get his legs, will ya?”

Wally complied, dropping his cigarette. “Shouldn’t we call an ambulance?” “He doesn’t have health insurance.” Wally was pretty sure that they should call an ambulance. But the onelegged man’s tight eyes had cut the flab of consideration away, his movements so sharp that nothing existed but this moment, this space, this trial. Right and wrong didn’t matter because Ashton knew he wouldn’t know the difference until after it was all over. They reached the truck. “Put him in the back,” Ashton said. He opened the gate and hefted himself and the paroxysmal upper half into the bed. He couldn’t have moved more efficiently if he had both legs. The body banged against the truckbed like a fish flopping upon a dock. The sound, the gagging, trembled in Wally’s gut. But Ashton didn’t seem to notice, barely noticing when Carl’s left shoe flew off his foot and struck Wally in the face. “You alright?” Ashton asked. “Come here.” Wally climbed into the truckbed, but stood apart, rubbing his face. The sound of hands and feet walloping the metal was like machinegun fire or rain on a tin roof or anything that wasn’t human and alive. “You need to hold him down like this,” Ashton said. “Use both hands. Here, from behind, where the neck meets the skull. Hold him firm. Try not let him move his neck or his head too much, but be careful not to choke him.”

Wally asked if they should put something in his mouth. “Negative. That’s some old wives’ shit. Worry about his neck

and his head.” Ashton looked up at Wally who was still standing over them with his hands at his sides. “You been fuckin listening to me, mortard? Get the fuck down here and hold him!” Wally complied. Carl’s eyes were wide and rolling. A long strand of saliva crawled out of the corner of his mouth. Ashton slammed the gate closed and made for the driverseat. “I drive fast,” he said over his shoulder, “so hold him tight. Careful not to choke him, mortard. He can hardly breathe as it is.” “You can’t drive with us back here like this!” Ashton, the front door open and one metal foot already in the cabin, stopped cold and deadstraight gave Wally the craziest look he’d ever seen. “We can do anything, man.” As the truckengine started, a semblance of the peace that Wally felt after walking out of the church returned. This was happening, and whatever it was, it was happening its own way which didn’t have anything to do with how Wally would have had it happen. So he straddled Carl and locked his muscles tight as Ashton floored it back to Carl’s apartment. 3. Acrid and returning from the doorway horizontal at terrific speed like a riverbroken casket, the rubbish of nature I had allowed myself but can not remember anymore, a minor plot painlessly lost within this indivisible territory of sense-memory-thought and darkness where I can feel Virginia, never drowned and somehow always drowning too and he does not know it but I can feel Ashton too, his eyes set and empty, and the boy in the dress, and my parents, and my brother,

Kayla Holdgreve

everyone ripped apart and blended together and souped through a space shrugging the bandied words and the hurry and the gutted wails, and the blame and the guilt, forgetting the pulse once so crucial, never gone but now so small, the space that never cared about the pulse cradling cells and bodies and corpses in the same unstarted breath as all time swollen beneath an ageless hour of gold, look closely at the holes the ellipsis makes upon the page, at the space beneath, life and death so close that they are be mistaken for each other, are mistaken for two separate rooms when there is only the doorway returning and acrid … 4. The sun had reached that day’s civil dusk by the time they pulled up to the workhouse curb across from Carl’s apartment. Yellow spears shot through its penal ramparts. Carl’s seizure was over and Wally collapsed against the side of the truckbed as Ashton threw the gate open. “He say anything?” “I don’t know,” said Wally. “He’s breathing.” “I don’t know,” said Wally. “No, I’m telling you,” said Ashton, climbing into the truckbed with a disappointed sigh. “He’s breathing.” “He pissed himself,” said Wally. Ashton took a seat on the opposite rail of the bed. He had a gun. He started tossing the clip in and out of the chamber. “Say his name until he responds.” Carl rolled his head from side to side. He gave a tiny, low moan, but did not answer to his name.

“Looks like his neck’s ok,” Ashton said. Wally could swear he heard disappointment in Ashton’s voice. “Just gotta wait to see if his head is too. If he doesn’t answer in fifteen minutes, we’ll have to take him to the hospital.” The words criminal negligence whaled up Wally’s mind. “I’m Ashton. Sorry I called you mortard earlier.” “Wally.” “Don’t take this the wrong way.” Ashton clipped the pistol at a steady metronome. “What’s with the dress?” Wally looked up. “You don’t look like the type, is what I mean.” Ashton looked at his gun more than he looked at Wally. Wally didn’t understand. “You got no makeup. You got the posture of a neanderthal. Hairy legs. Halfassed beard, and don’t get me wrong, plenty of tranis have moustaches or goatees or even full beards but they’re usually groomed or intentional or something. You just look like you haven’t shaved in a while.” “I’m not a transvestite.” “Hence my question,” Ashton told the pistol. “It was Virginia’s dress.” Ashton’s hands paused. “She’d wear it on dates. Not with me. We never went out. We could have though. She said that maybe one day we… She really liked this dress.”

Ashton resumed loading and unloading the gun. “That’s pretty weird, man.” “How do you know her?” Wally stuttered. “I didn’t,” Ashton said. He pointed at the groaning body. “Carl’s been putting the bricks in a friend of hers. Some girl named Marge.” “I know Marge. How you and Carl know each other?” “Why do you ask?” Wally looked from the disheveled but welldressed, hiphaired Carl to the amputated Ashton in Marine issued running shorts with a tattoo covering his left forearm of a skull with a wheel in one eye socket and a clock in the other. “Just wondering,” Wally said. “Knew his brother.” Ashton’s hands slowed. “We were checking out this hamlet. He was on point. Got blowed up. He was in front of me. That’s how come I only lost this.” Ashton tapped the gun against his prosthetic. Then he pointed at Carl and looked at Wally. “He doesn’t know any of that. Just knows we were friends.” “Why don’t you tell him?” “Tell him what? That his brother was there and then he wasn’t there, and good for him, because I’m just here.” The pistolclip had slowed to a stop. Ashton was staring through Wally, staring into the past, into nothingness. His eyes drew to swift attention and the gun began its time again. “Keep saying his name,” he said.

“Carl,” Wally said. “Can you hear me?” “Uhh?”

Erica Eppert Self Help Books 79

“Carl, wake up. You had a seizure. Carl?” “What. Yeah… Yeah. Yeah?” “Well his brain’s probably ok,” said Ashton. “At least, it’s not any worse than it was before.” “You had a seizure, Carl. You’re ok.” “No, no I –” “Carl, you had a grand mal seizure in the middle of a fucking funeral,” Ashton said. Carl tried to sit up and vomited. “Gonna have to hose that out,” said Ashton. Wally asked if there was any water. Ashton pointed at a window in the back of the cab. Wally reached, withdrew a warm water bottle and wetted one hand then pressed it over Carl’s face. Wally dabbed bits of vomit off Carl’s cheek with the hem of his dress. “I lost a shoe,” said Carl. “Yeah, you lost a shoe,” Wally said. “I. I. You? We.” asked Carl. “The dress? I liked your song.” “I liked your seizure.” Wally put the water bottle in Carl’s hand and then sat back to light a cigarette. “Drink it slowly or you’ll throw up again.” “I pissed myself,” said Carl. “Yeah, you pissed yourself.” Wally looked around and saw the strange, decrepit castle

they’d parked in front of. “What is that place,” he asked. “Brant’s workhouse,” Carl groaned. “It’s an old penitentiary.” Limestone with columned tower corners and tall elipticaltopped windows, now boarded. Telling as a bad farmer’s tan, chunks of slow ivy slithered up the wallfaces that saw the most sun. Debris littered the large, unkempt plot and every now and then, kids from some youth group or ministry came with heavy polyethylene bags to pick a patch or two of the property clean but within a week those clearings disappeared as if the refuse grew out of the ground as naturally as the grass did. “Been abandoned more’n a hundred years,” Ashton muttered. “Still there anyway.” The smell of coffee came and went. They stayed in the truckbed. Carl drank the water slowly and slowly came back to himself. Wally smoked and daydreamed as the icy rustorange of Midwestern prenight shot the sky. Ashton continued to load and unload the gun, it sounded like a ticking clock slowing its pace so that it might live a little longer. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick.

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CONTRIBUTORS Tyler Davis Tyler Davis is apart of the art stuff of the 2016 Bottecelli Art, and Literary Magazine. He is currently a junior fine art major at CCAD. His work was included in the 2014 Bottecelli issue. So far in this year (Sept. 23rd 2016) he showed work in the group exhibition “Boost Mobile” at MINT Gallery. Following graduation Tyler plans on spending two to four years in Chicago as a studio artist. You can keep up with him on his instagram @b__td

Royal Dunlap Hello! My name is Royal Dunlap, a.k.a. Animudio. I’m currently a Sophomore Illustration major, with an interest in Animation, Photography, Mythology, Spanish and Asian Culture and Language, as I’ve had the opportunity to visit places like Spain and Japan which have both inturn influenced majority of my recent work since. Sunset, was a stylistic exploration for me to play around with a saturated color palette, as many of my other works include.

Shelby Enlow Shelby Enlow is a Chicago-based comedy writer and performer. She is currently studying Television Production at DePaul University, long-form improvisation at iO Chicago, and has graduated from the improvisation program at The Second City. She is exhausted all the time, thanks for asking! Shelby’s aspirations include writing for late

night television and sitcoms, having a family of Boston Terriers, and getting a Cubs player and/or Tim Kaine to fall in love with her. If this happens, just know that all of her dreams will immediately fall to the wayside. Her work has been published on Reductress and iO Comedy Network, premiered at Chicago Sketchfest, and shown up on some regrettable Facebook posts that have “fired her up.” She is always working to bring more joy and Internet garbage into the world, so you may follow her on Twitter @shelbyenlow!

Erica Eppert Erica is a third-year student at Columbus College of Art and Design pursuing her degree in Illustration with a concentration in 3D modeling for entertainment design. She enjoys exploring her surroundings accompanied by a sketchbook and a good friend, whether that be a person or a dog. The cat refuses to come. Her work is inspired by the fond childhood memories of the adventures that shaped her imagination and an endless curiosity about the forms she finds in nature. When not playing with scissors or flammable objects, she fills her free time with mentoring animation with her former high school’s robotics team and taking long hikes through any clump of trees she can find.

Mariana Floria A bird lady, musical enthusiast, and optimist. Mariana Floria is all of the above. Originally from Massachusettes, she is currently a freshman animation major at CCAD. She can’t wait to get into the fundamentals of 3D animation. Having worked primarily in digital art for four years, she adores drawing her characters, and knowing how to make them move is an added bonus. You can follow her on Instagram (Frozenflights) for more personal work.

Tim Frey Tim Frey is and Illustrator focusing on motion graphics and 3d illustrations. Tim has worked and a designer on the lay out team of Botticelli Literary magazine. Tim was animators on the CCAD illustration produced animated short ‘Eureka!’ in spring of 2016. Tim’s other works has also appeared in the CCAD student shows for 20142016. Other works currently on display include “Ghaile the Dreamer,” a large 3d Illustration, the motion graphics “Parade of the Derelict,” and “Yoshitsune and the Tengu,” which was his group’s proposal for the animated short. Tim can be found on Instagram, Tumblr, and Bēhance by searching the tag TFrey Art. Tim can also be found on LinkedIn. In his free time Tim enjoys camping and participating in live action combat simulation and role-play.

Larissa Garcia Larissa Garcia born in Miami, Florida is currently enrolled in Dimensional Studies at Columbus College of Art and Design. On her free time, she listens to 80â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spoken word, Sade, and Ethiopian jazz. Her style, although aggressive, is abstract in creamer swirls, experimental in lipstick traces, minimal in one chord wonders, and avant-garde in sperm donors.

Sara Guzman Sara Guzman is a Sophomore illustration student from Green, Ohio. My goal is to have a career in character design, but for now Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll settle on finding the narrative within my doodles.

Maximilian Heinegg Maximilian Heinegg is a high school English teacher in Medford, MA. His poems appear or will appear in Tar River Poetry, Crab Creek, and The Chiron Review. As a singer-songwriter, his records can be heard at www.maxheinegg.com, Itunes, and Spotify.

Kayle Suzanne Holdgreve Born and raised in Lima Ohio, Kayla Suzanne Holdgreve attended the Columbus College of Art and Design where she received her BFA in Photography, along with the Outstanding Senior Award for Photography. Holdgreve is currently a freelance photographer and visual artist in Columbus, Ohio, and recently was accepted as an MFA candidate at the San Francisco Art Institute. She will soon hit the road for California, taking many Polaroids on the way.

Edward Patrick Huycke I was born in Kansas, moved around a lot, spent a lot of time in Virginia, now I live in Chicago.

Jonah Kerst My name is Jonah Kerst I am currently pursuing my Bachelors degree at Columbus College of Art and Design. I began exploring the world of art at a very young age, I started with simple drawings family members and the occasional flower or building. As I got older I became more passionate and focused on getting better and with the help of youtube tutorials and my very talented uncle I was able to refine my technique. Here at CCAD I am studying Advertising and Graphic Design at, but I still have a passion for Illustration and using my hands, and would prefer good old friends the pencil and paper, to the computer any day.

Rosella Lampp Rosella Lampp is a junior photography major specializing in portrait, fine art and documentary photography.

Leona Laurie Leona Laurie is a writer who lives at the intersection of feminism and pop culture. She contributes regularly to GeekGirlAuthority.com and is hard at work on her first novel.

Trent Lindsey Trent Lindsey is a conceptual illustrator/animator working out of the Columbus College of Art & Design, whom focuses on generating multi-media for large-scale projects and driving high-concept environments, characters, and relative ideas. Always open for new challenges, he experiments with â&#x20AC;&#x153;world-buildingâ&#x20AC;? for comics and the cinematic arts.â&#x20AC;?

Ali Massinople Ali Massinople is from Hilliard Ohio, she is a fine arts major who has recently been trying her hand at poetry. She would like to write more often, but having the attention span of a kindergartener makes it difficult. She likes to make it known that she feels she can beat most anyone in a fight and is often compelled to challenge others to wrestling matches on the CCAD quad.

Zane Miller I am a 2nd year MFA student currently exploring phenomenon, paradox, and illusion. Narratives among these subjects are presented through installations fueled by continuous exploration and integration of multiple mediums in 2D and 3D space. I am interested in physical properties that exist in our observable universe but are often overlooked. Currently the physical properties I am exploring involve light and shadow, along with object characteristics including place, space, and displacement.

Brenda Mijangos I am currently studying Illustration at the Columbus College of Art and Design. A lot of my work is inspired from artists such as Brittney Lee and Mingjue Helen Chen. In a lot of my work I incorporate all sorts colors to bring my illustrations to life to in order to create a whimsical world. When I’m not drawing my own little world I have my nose in a book reading about someone else’s.

Kyle Newton Kyle is a transfer student to the CCAD animation program, but a junior by credit hours. He previously completed a year-long animation certificate, after which he won an amateur Emmy and regional Addy for his final reel. Outside of school, he’s had past experience as a freelance animator for an independent film, on music videos for a local band, and in making plenty of individual shorts and looping scenes. He now plans on using his foundations in digital illustration and 2D animation to inform his work in digital 3D mediums.

E. Martin Pedersen E. Martin Pedersen, a San Franciscan, has lived in eastern Sicily for over 35 years. He teaches English at the local university. His poetry has appeared in Verse-Virtual, Frigg, Literary Yard, Strong Verse, Ink Sweat & Tears, and others. Martin is a 2011 alum of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.

Hannah Burns Be Mine

Tracy Powell Tracy Powell is a Fashion Design major at CCAD. She specializes in Costume design, Character/Wardrobe design and image consulting/ stylist. Tracy loves to design clothing using unconventional materials. Tracy enjoys spending time with her Husband Manuel and their children. In Her spare time she enjoys reading, watching period films , writing, and painting with watercolors. Tracy works in the literary department and library.

Jared Sanford Jared is Editor-in-chief of Botticelli Magazine for Fall 2016. He is a senior majoring in illustration and minoring in creative writing, business, and fine arts. His poetry was featured in Botticelli Magazine issue eight, and he has participated in CCADâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Red Wheelbarrow reading series. Following graduation, he will be joining the Abercrombie and Fitch team as an Assistant Graphic Designer. To keep up with Jaredâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work, follow him on Instagram @thetallartist