Botticelli Magazine Issue 15 by Botticelli Magazine

arts & Literature

cover art by // NICK DAP

Edition 15

untitled // ETHAN BENAVIDEZ

// botticelli magazine staff // Faculty Advisor...................................................................Ariana Sophia Kartsonis Co-Editors in Chief...........................................................................Rebecca Borrows

Elaina Workley

Social Media and Events Committee....................................Gitjana Bagley

Carson Cullers Maraya Metz Eva Sherman

Literary Staff....................................................................................................Madilynn Bost

E. Keener

Art Staff..............................................................................................................................Jamie Hoy

Meta Feagin 9A Wells

Design Staff..............................................................................................Jadelynn Blauvelt

Leon Byerly Nicholas Dapolito Bob Diaz Thomas Holmes Jessica Willmore

published by Columbus College of Art and Design for submission inquiries email botticellimag@gmail.com 3

// Prologue // FROM PROFESSOR KARTSONIS, PHD As I write this from the farm where I spend weekends and breaks, it is late March, and we’ve been hunkered down since Spring break, weeks ago, keeping the prescribed distance from the people and activities we love and enjoy. Buds are beginning to accessorize the branches around the farmhouse and I can, in my mind’s eye, see how gorgeous the CCAD campus will wear this season. It always does. And there would have been a moment up ahead, full of students joyous in the warmer weather. The quad populated with Spring musics: laughter, frisbees slicing the air, dogs barking in play, and so much birdsong. I would have walked through it as I have each new Spring this past decade, steeped in and infused with all that vibrancy. I would have looked at the sky sectioned by the bright red ART sculpture, the sky itself a new blue, freshly laundered as if for the season. Thinking about it now, it’s easy to pull Keats out of context for just the lines “Where are the songs of Spring? Aye, where are they?” The week before classes abruptly ended, the Botticelli staff sorted through artwork selected for the issue before you now and projected it onto a screen in our classroom. Review day is a giddy day for me, the faculty advisor, as it is the first time I am seeing the artwork that will eventually light up the pages of our next issue and grace our cover. This issue’s offerings were particularly electric to me and I could hardly wait to see how they sparked with the literary selections. We were playing with numbers. The previous issue, Issue 14, made for a fun numerical echo with CCAD’s 140th anniversary. And Issue 15, the first of 2020, could play with the idea of 20/20 eyesight. It was the playfulness of collaboration and optimism. And then, as we slid into Spring break, it became clear concerns about a pandemic were increasing. Precautions began to include an extension of Spring break, and then, the unthinkable, we wouldn’t return to campus for the rest of the semester. Following that, it’s become a season of unthinkable. Numbers became less playful... Two o’clock became the hour that revealed the day’s new COVID cases, confirmed cases, and the tragic daily death toll. The themes we toyed with at the beginning of the semester for Issue 15 now seemed frivolous. Numbers became darker harbingers and our collective windshields went blurry. The magazine--this fresh, bright, shiny collection--felt a little vestigial. The way forward presented questions, and we sat with a hazy nowhere feeling. Vision.

Things are shaded differently after any major event. I began watching movies as an escape and if the film was set in a contemporary setting, I felt an unease and an urge to scoot characters apart in an illogical preoccupation with social distancing. Even in our own Botticelli, upon revisiting Ethan Benavidez’s photograph of people walking away from a vehicle, what I saw were bodies, spaced in not-quite Abbey Road fashion and so, my eyes tried to calculate for six-foot spaces between. Years from now, I know that the image--unrelated to any pandemic, shot in another time and place--will still bear the memory of this time. That urgency, that recasting of how bodies are spaced, is not a bad thing. It adds a layer, just as the knowledge of the grave illness of a young John Keats only added to the richness and texture to his ode, To Autumn where an image such as a fullgrown lamb resonates sadly with the young poet’s awareness that he will not live long. We might write our own elegies in art, but we also, capture time, forecast, celebrate, congratulate, and carry on. Art allows it all. In the poem: Music Swims Back to Me by Anne Sexton, she says as much: And in a funny way Music sees more than I. I mean it remembers better; The same can be said of all art, be it literary, visual or musical. It remembers better, and also, it sees ahead. Since what is a maker faced with before any creation? The blank page, the empty canvas, the unformed lump of clay, the tubes of glass to be heated beyond form and then, somehow back to something more. If something must always rise up first if only to give us a way to follow it, to find a direction-- I think it must be art. Imagination is all we have during the most uncertain moments, and so it falls to the imagination to help us draw, sculpt, compose, and simply inspire a way forward. What I felt a few weeks ago in that classroom as I first viewed the art you’re about to experience was what a balloon must feel as it is animated by those first gusts of human breath-- a filling up, an ascent of spirit and form. We invite you to ascend with us, through this very unique season and the vision of those who made this magazine a match for it. This assemblage of works was pieced together in scattered locales, with no central group; and the handful of days we checked in on each other’s distant faces and voices were bittersweet and left us wistful, but I must admit, they had their music, too. Behold, our composition. We hope that for you too, it sparks and sings. Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis, Botticelli Faculty Advisor,

April 28, 2020

// Table of Contents // a lullaby to // JAMIE HOY................................................................................................. 12 Canceled, lol bye. // ERIK AKERMAN....................................................................... 13 At Least Icarus Flew // JAKE WISE ......................................................................... 14 headspace // NICK DAP................................................................................................... 14 Screampark // AMBER STRUBLE................................................................................. 16-19 Gathered Glassblowing Studio // MINNIE LUCAS........................................... 20 Thru the Looking Glass // NINA WELLS................................................................. 21 The Undone Cemetery // LANE LEVITCH.............................................................. 23 Rains on Wednesdays // META FEAGIN................................................................. 24 Dandelion // SEVEN BURY............................................................................................... 25 The Sun Will Come Up, The Seasons Will Change // ERIK AKERMAN................................................................................................................. 26 Topiary Park // ZAK BAUMKER.................................................................................... 27 This One Sounds Like A Song // BROOKE BRAGG ........................................ 28 junk drawer thoughts // ANNALISE BARBER...................................................... 30 Decipher // META FEAGIN.............................................................................................. 31 Hey Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Me Again // JAKE WISE................................................................................... 32 Viva La Chicken Nugget // ERIK AKERMAN......................................................... 33 6

My Experimental Mind (A headache)// REBECCA BORROWS................. 34 Pollen // NICK DAP............................................................................................................. 35 Invisible Woman Vanishes on a Plane // A. JENSEN............................................................................................................................. 36 Chairs at Three Heights // ZAK BAUMKER........................................................... 37 Bliss // META FEAGIN......................................................................................................... 38 You // E. KEENER .......................................................................................... 39 I Hate Midtown Specifically // LANE LEVITCH.................................................. 40 Power // ERIK AKERMAN.............................................................................. 40 untitled // DARBY EVANS................................................................................................. 41 Meta // ALLISON MCGOVNEY....................................................................................... 42 Guilt // META FEAGIN......................................................................................................... 43 Quarter Horse // MINNIE LUCAS................................................................................ 44 Country Gate // MIKAYLA SCHAFFNER.................................................................. 45 Clowning // ERIK AKERMAN.......................................................................................... 46 Pick up the Phone // NINA WELLS............................................................................. 47 Dial Tone // BRE BROOKS............................................................................ 48

// Table of Contents // Search Engine Playlist with a side of Algorithmic Instagram Scroll Call and Response* // REBECCA BORROWS..................................................................................................... 49 Bridge of Sighs // MIKAYLA SCHAFFNER............................................................... 51 Against // MARIANA FLORIA........................................................................................... 53 Distant Heavens // HAY MULHOLLAND.................................................................. 54 Hospital Poem #5 // SEVEN BURY.............................................................................. 57 a lullaby to // JAMIE HOY.................................................................................................. 57 hummingbird // ANNALISE BARBER......................................................................... 58 Ode To My Blue Night Dress // A. JENSEN............................................................ 60 Rocky Shores // MIKAYLA SCHAFFNER................................................................... 62 Little Sister // A. JENSEN................................................................................................... 64 Body Baggage // ELAINA WORKLEY......................................................................... 68 Frustrated Morning, Night Time Observance // ALLISON MCGOVNEY..................................................................................................... 69 270 S to 670 W // BROOKE BRAGG............................................................................. 72 Landmark // ERIK AKERMAN.......................................................................................... 72 Are Bees Trustworthy? // META FEAGIN................................................................ 73 Unearth New Friends // ANNALISE BARBER........................................................ 73 Wish // ERIK AKERMAN...................................................................................................... 75 8

mixed // ANNALISE BARBER........................................................................................... 76 Lady Killer to my Hick Degenerate Cousins Who Burnt My Dog Alive // A. JENSEN.............................................................................................................................. 78 Holga Negative // SHADA GRANT............................................................................... 79 Polish Chickens // MINNIE LUCAS............................................................................. 80 Stumbling Stallion // ALEXANDER CHARLTON................................................... 82 Clipping Goat // MINNIE LUCAS................................................................................... 83 6 Cities // ALEXANDER CHARLTON............................................................................ 86 Light on the Lake // ZAK BAUMKER........................................................................... 88 Back Alley Cat Scratch // JAKE WISE........................................................................ 90 The Prophetess // META FEAGIN................................................................. 91 The Cord After the Flood // A. JENSEN.................................................................... 92 Koi Fish // MINNIE LUCAS............................................................................................... 93 Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep // ALLISON MCGOVNEY................................. 94 They // SEVEN BURY............................................................................................................ 99 Biker Dyke // JAIME HOY................................................................................................... 100 Complain // ERIK AKERMAN........................................................................................... 101 a lullaby to // JAMIE HOY............................................................................... 102

WE are very grateful for the support and enthusiasm of Bob Redfield and Mary Yerina. // Creative Writing Award Series Winners 2020 // Botticelli congratulates the Fifth Annual Red Wheelbarrow Creative Writing Winners.

Prose (Fiction/Nonfiction)

First: Jenna Ronto // “Just a Passing Place” Second:Amber Struble // “Much Needed Break”

Poetry

First: Hay Mulholland // “Distant Heavens” Second: Annalise Barber // “mixed”

Screen Writing

First: Amber Struble // “Screampark”

// judges’ notes // From Prose Judge Christopher Coake on: Winner: Jenna Ronto // “Just a Passing Place” “Among many strong entries, this very powerful short story was the one that kept returning most often to my mind after reading. In careful, spare language, the author tells a gut-wrenching story about parental neglect that contains anger, but also a kind of grim understanding for the forces that make children like their parents. Its details linger too: muddy rainbow leggings, a game of UNO in an abandoned house. The feeling of safety and care, yanked suddenly away.” runner-up: Amber Struble // “Much Needed Break” “This is a short story, snappily and inventively told, from the perspective of a woman stagnating into rage. It moves briskly and surprisingly from start to finish, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, especially for the moments when it spoke about the relationship at the story’s center in ways that completely countered my expectations.“

From Poetry Judge Jen Town on: Winner: Hay Mulholland // “Distant Heavens” “‘Distant Heavens’ is a retelling of the story of Adam and Eve from Eve’s point of view. In Part I, the poet imagines Eve’s thoughts on Lilith, Adam’s first wife, her hair “red and fiery (Adam described it as bloody, his tone venomous when/ she had asked).” In Part II, we witness the moment when the snake tempts Eve. The language is elevated and romantic, the character of Eve well-developed in relatively few lines, and the poem builds to the last line, which offers a jolt of surprise.” runner-up: Annalise Barber // “mixed” “In “mixed,” the poem begins with the mother “gut[ting] the innards/ of apples into the resemblance of pie” and ends with an image of spices, “nutmeg, cinnamon, clove/ blossoms into a child of otherness.” This poem uses repetition to good effect: the skittles the speaker buys reappear as the last item purchased by Trayvon Martin, reappear again in an art project. Each stanza examines this mixed race identity from a different vantage point. A poem that rewards rereading.“ From Screenwriting Judge Paige Webb on: Winner: Amber Struble // “Screampark” “Screampark vividly captures the world of a run-down theme park with a murderous past, balancing dynamic tone – thrilling to comedic – with lovable, quirky characters in the trenches of the all-too relatable tedious summer job; with all its technical prowess, including its seamless pacing and tension, this pilot makes you immediately want to see what will unfold in episode two.“

a lullaby to // JAMIE HOY

Canceled, lol bye. // ERIK AKERMAN Crying on the floor, eating my feelings. My “date” canceled. Too high and too sad, I considered eating a tide pod, and saying goodbye. I feel like I already ate it. I hate it. I purge when I feel like I’ll never hear the words “I love you.” I drink when I feel that my mind won’t shut up. I don’t think I’ll ever find love, and I hate it. A bitter whatever.

At Least Icarus Flew // JAKE WISE Bound together like a sunrise to birdsong like beeswax and crow’s feathers In the balmy heat of mid-august with nothing left but strange remembering, Icarus flew. When Zeus pulled a god from his head, like memories, did he feel the dull ache of something forgotten, Recognize the cicada cry from back before the sparrow fell from the sky? –– Dear stranger on a train, stealing glances from one another. Nobody, not even the sun, has such warmth in their smile. My momma always preached “boys don’t touch boys” but she never warned me of the burning image of two men kissing. I’m grateful for the delay, in the belly of bravery I approached. A gentle revolution, a whispered promise of reunion.

headspace // NICK DAP

“Aren’t you lonely?” glazed with her West Virginian barbecue accent. ––– Why aren’t we statues in a gallery? Fabled lovers every bard hums about. Let us be marble chipped away by DaVinci. Make even Caravaggio blush with our intimacy. Let Apollo lean in on us, on my boy who ran to catch the sunset. Unnameable strange ribbon, why must you bind me? Clipped Cupid’s wing on Saint Bacchus’ memory. ––– In constant quiet rhythm, she sings Patsy’s ‘Crazy’, as she extinguishes the last cinders of her bonfire. “Oh, crazy. For thinking that my love could hold you...” Waxing moonlight illuminates the boys climbing out the back window of her camper into those woods beyond. Did she feel the dull ache of something forgotten, Recognize crickets whistling their summer song as a cardinal came crashing into Appalachian pine? ––– Let the nettles be a bed and the dirt our holy martyr. Pray at the altar of Saint Sergius, throw myself upon the sword. When the bark from the tree ripped the shirt from my back, Appalachia was upon my skin, revered like a gold-foiled lover. Let me carve out a space in the contours of your body. One that will let me be tender and soft and righteous all the same. I do hope the trees in my backyard are still gossiping about us.

An excerpt from Screampark // AMBER STRUBLE

Gathered Glassblowing Studio // MINNIE LUCAS 20

Thru the Looking Glass // NINA WELLS 21

untitled // ETHAN BENAVIDEZ

The Undone Cemetery // LANE LEVITCH There should be a cemetery for all things that will never be. The thoughts, feelings, plans. Those big, big plans. Like the ones I wrote down in my notebook in 2nd grade when I was learning how to tell analog time, but also those plans from 9th grade when I was reading The House on Mango Street. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve always tended to sit in the back row of classes, usually in a corner if I can. I like to see what everybody is doing. Their fingers running through their hair in frustration just like how the plastic rake runs through the sand in the box that we always tend to find in therapy waiting rooms. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had some thoughts, feelings, plans that I never shared with my therapist then, and I know that will never see the light of day. When you sit down for dinner, those unsaid dinner thoughts will go to the grave. We are the only ones to blame for the things that will never be.

It Rains on Wednesdays // META FEAGIN 24

Dandelion // SEVEN BURY Are you well dandelion? I’ve been writing letters to the garden plot where I found and left you unplucked, Your roots in the ground like sand in your toes, It’s been a summer since our last weeding, and I’m stricken with grief over our friendship receding Is it my neglect, or a theme of favorites repeating? How I miss making wishes on the wisps of your cares, The warmth of your bliss when I needed you there. A duo unraveled forgotten for one, Who is reckless and avoidant over the things they have done They wore boots in MY garden and stomped out your seeds, It’s love you scream out like it’s the air that you breath. As if silence and slurring are acts of affection, As if watering before noon could allow you to function Your leaves burned black from the suns presumption, That this is your preferred method of falling, Dandelion, My letters are check ins, my poems are crying, I am worried you’re wilting with your love for this mind, I can’t ask your return but I pray you are fine.

The Sun Will Come Up, The Seasons Will Change // ERIK AKERMAN

Topiary Park // ZAK BAUMKER

This One Sounds Like A Song // BROOKE BRAGG Heavy’s got its hooks in me It always feels so heavy heavy Heavy enough to spill my mind Twist all insides Nothing sits quite right when it’s here This unseen weight that begs me down Makes my motivation dissipate I spiral, obsessing over things that won’t change right now So I just ponder of what it’ll be like when it will If it ever will I thumb these thoughts out of my mind Make them appear in front of me Read them back to make sense of it all Talk it out to my bedroom walls Zone out on spotlight configurations that dance on their surfaces Am I making sense here? It’s just heavy, I’m just trying to make it lighter When it trips you up I think it best to go to bed Sleep until it’s gone, or at least find pause in it

untitled // ETHAN BENAVIDEZ 29

Junk Drawer Thoughts // ANNALISE BARBER i long to name a friend for every sky, to traverse underneath that desert of vapor accompanied by the scent of someone loved. the caress of light drapes clouds with honey, and space becomes more than an empty key. to you, i question, i pinpoint the key secret that stars the onyx sky. dream molecules float in the spaces of our lungs, transform, and desert our breath. on a page, they alight in unaddressed letters, unsent. i pen every strangerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s scent as if to collect friendshipâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s key via nose. and though enlightened, i mistake your aroma for the sky, for cherry pits, for surprise dessert, for the butterscotch of outer space. our pauses meet loaded spaces and i prepare for the dissent, the hitch that marks a desert of scrapbooked smiles. keyframes could box our contradicting skies, blur the storm by agreeable light. you are a conversation with sunlight, untying words, once evenly spaced, and jazzing each syllable. my sky informs without permission, sent by a regulated phrase, no longer off-key. we speak, yet i prepare to be deserted. the ocean is my cage, my desert of unending space. a light-housed possibility that i will not key your feet with a backspace, removing all that talk of scent, of friendship, of metaphorical sky. i eat my dessert prematurely, knowing that i pay to take up space, knowing of your choice of violet light, knowing that you were sent as a feathered lyric, a monsoon keyboard, a pluperfect sky.

Decipher // META FEAGIN

Hey It’s Me Again // JAKE WISE My debit card pin is your birthday. Your mom sends me Christmas cards every year. My mind still drifts to you while I’m waiting at stop signs. And I have your fucking fish. (This haunting’s getting old.)

Viva La Chicken Nugget // ERIK AKERMAN DIP ME IN SAUCE, NUGGET OF CHICKEN I AM. I AM CRISPY, SO EAT MY NUGGET ASS. FREE MY INSIDES, EXCITE ME, SAUCE ALL OVER, VIVA LA CHICKEN NUGGET.

My Experimental Mind (A headache) // REBECCA BORROWS Fluid pressure Rage and roll Tsunamic thrust against a monolithic shore Autonomous trickle through unobservable fissures Swirl, bellow and howl Infusing particulates into unforseeable atmostpheres A perilous track onward Voracious and silent tumult Resolution and generation at once

Pollen // NICK DAP

Invisible Woman Vanishes on a Plane // A. JENSEN Waves like frothy milk being pulled by a string slip below my eyes. I glance to the jet engine to my left. Its solid mass seamlessly floating in its place as though we are on display, plane glued to a stick and not moving at all. I imagine being sucked in by that jet engine, like light near a black hole. I’d feel a gargantuan pull to my right ankle above my bootie and like a girl in a horror movie, be dragged into the benign blades, mouth sewed shut as a seam in the grandeur of it all. Or maybe, I’d be a thin sheet paper, just fold in half and go in ass first- a morbid contortionist’s final act. The elegance in reversing my own birth shunts my spine, knowning it’s not up to me anymore. Am I alone in this ghoulish obsession? Would my hair flow as gracefully as a model’s in water? Would I explode into a mess of feather and hollow bone? Or even worse, would I be nothing more than a gust of wind and come out the other end whole and utterly unscathed?

Would that engine even feel more than a bump? Would it know my name my mother’s name, the name of my first dead canary? My hair would be a confusion of threaded needles stitching at my eyes, sheilding me from the fact that my roller blind dress rose to show everyone my ripped tights. And I would try to explain that I never wear those types of things, but my breath would be confiscated in the gale. Still, I’d squander my final twitch reaching to pull my dress back down to hide my thighs like some modest Houdini. Yet, I would not appear in the vacant 22-B. I’d lose it all to those engine’s lamprey teeth. I’d be gone in a flash and no one would see a thing; no one would see a thing.

Chairs at Three Heights // ZAK BAUMKER 37

Bliss // META Sometimes I catch the sun moving just a little when itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s setting. like time speeds up ten fold for a single second and my mind is trapped in an alternate reality briefly fleeting like the imagery one sees while sitting passenger in a fast moving car. my life ours lives are constantly shifting , altering like an everlasting motion picture. We canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stop the film. we been in it so long that we canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember the beginning and we have no idea when it ends. those of us who feel powerful end it whenever they decide those of us who feel powerless wait it out and thirst for adrenaline and those of us who are too simple to ponder life live in bliss.

You // E. KEENER You’re all I ever hoped for. I can’t believe it’s true, That you belong to me And I am all for you. You’re my best friend, And I know I can trust you. Sometimes I get broken, But I know you’ll always be my glue. Sometimes I get scared And I don’t know what to do. I worry of false things, But you always remind me of what is true. You worry of what to give, But love is all I want from you. Sometimes you just need reminded That all I need is my boo. Never worry that it isn’t enough, Never worry that it isn’t true. I can insure that if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t still be with you.

I Hate Midtown Specifically // LANE LEVITCH I never truly loved you at first, I never saw why people loved you. You were always this suicide thought city. I’m not sure what happened between us — I either realized your beauty, or I didn’t want to take my life anymore. Maybe it’s the time I spent not thinking about you. Now you’re the only city that I love, that I can be myself in. And for that, I’ll always love you.

Power //

ERIK AKERMAN 40

untitled // DARBY EVANS

Meta // ALLISON MCGOVNEY I allow myself to feel for five more seconds, Then release every sensation like a butterfly that only landed on my hand for a moment. It landed on my scar, I couldn’t feel it’s tickling Insect legs against damaged nerves. Nervous laughter erupts, I know better than feeling chosen. I am a platform for organic interaction, perceived satisfaction, convincingly literate investigations of social abstraction. Every word has become a placeholder, I’ll think of something better after the marbles stop rolling around in here. I can feel your momentum and I plead for you to share, share something more than your lighter today, share your essence. It’s dripping off your jacket Like warm rain. I blink and the butterfly is gone. The caterpillar is dead.

Guilt // META FEAGIN I feel guilt. more than the average person I think. before bellies me. gobbles me up. separates me with teeth of what if’s and I should haves and i shouldn’t haves. belts me to the table of absolutely no closure bends me out of whack, weakens me. I know i’m still young and i have plenty more to make but I so deeply contemplate my mistakes that they at times overtake me and I have made some bad decisions in my life times where I didn’t think twice about suppressing my vices squeaking like mice in my consciousness under the bed of my mind. I can’t sleep at night sometimes because of the remembrance remaining trapped inside my skull on repeat like broken records burn the records of this guilt please I feel sick to my stomach when I think about how and when I wish I could relive the past but its permanent more permanent then a car keyed tattooed sleeves a sight seed more permanent than me my wrong doings work me to death I see them in my surroundings I see them in my dreams I overthink everything to avoid impulsive decisions to avoid feeling like I’m guilty.

Quarter Horse // MINNIE LUCAS 44

Country Gate // MIKAYLA SCHAFFNER 45

Clowning // ERIK AKERMAN I have the strange urge to get fucked by a clown... Probably because all I ever fuck are clowns... But like I also have a thing for sad clowns... Oh wait... Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re all sad clowns...

Pick up the Phone // NINA WELLS

Dial Tone (left) // BRE BROOKS

Search Engine Playlist with a side of Algorithmic Instagram Scroll Call and Response* // REBECCA BORROWS Search takes a step to the left, fingertips flick to the right The darkness mirror reflects DNA of all the fruitless searches that came before Empty promise, empty hand? Wind through visions rife with pylon and cone reconstructions of pretty looking roads Dreams shift nightmares, the refuge makes captive Search “the best route out”. An electric world -this gathered together life Gets through to this other thing called life Search a mighty long time- “forever that is”. Step to the left, flick to the right and so on and so forthReflex off lock step as the cadence loops on and on Excavate with precision Kittiwat Unarrom baking bread for cannibals What forms from the trail of disregarded crumbs? Search the undigested pile for “mutant parasitic symbiosis”. Play villain and hero in lieu of peaceful slumber Life is so strange never knowing? Destination an unknown infinite anything, frequent nothingness all Taking time on the ride, depart early with no shows and late arrivals. Presume knowable that which has never been known? A mighty long time, “never that is”. Search! *referenced songs: Rio, Duran Duran: In Your Eyes; Peter Gabriel, Save a Prayer, Duran Duran; Let’s Go Crazy, Prince; Destination Unknown, Berlin; Ride, Twenty-One Pilots

Bridge of Sighs // ARIANA-SOPHIA KARTSONIS Been a long time crossing that bridge of sighs been a long time crossing sings a man like Byron, half in love with what may or may not be the near-dead strolling from palace to prison & back, but just a man on a covered bridge being moved from here to there. There is no last sigh if what you mean is intentional intake & relinquishing, a bridge of sorts. Though there is another way the body slings a swan song. A secret breath it holds back until the soul’s well on its way to the world, not of this world, & not really there if you mean there in the way a river is there, or say, a way back. The dead sigh is a function of air & slow collapse of lung. The sighs we hear are from the survivors. The dead cease to regret. (Or so we pray). The bridge as Byron pointed out is an enclosed bridge between palace & prison, but it is not a bridge between life & the moments we seize for a lyrical end. Still I’d like to imagine us there, holding hands with the doomed, walking in beauty so sharp it sighs --& we sigh back. The view isn’t really the last thing they look back for or from. Because the bridge was built after the executions ended. That’s the size of it. But I prefer Byron’s telling, before I knew that it was not a last glance to the water, the city, the air so bright-burning beautiful it must singe the eye & the heart about to sing & then un-sing everything it ever loved & lost. Back to a place before there was a man crying. Been a long time crossing this bridge of sighs. Before there was only the body & not a bridge built of stone or sigh Dead sighs leave the body as birds bored with the place they chose to light. There, I imagine the sighs alone: whisper-soft-shoeing, to brush against the stoneless air, so light, and not one echo, to slingshot back the tale of us & just how it goes.

Bridge of Sighs

// MIKAYLA SCHAFFNER

untitled // ETHAN BENAVIDEZ

Against // MARIANA FLORIA

Distant Heavens // HAY MULHOLLAND I adam’s second wife wanders through her gilded cage. but gilded it was indeed, overflowing with verdant life and clusters of fruits in too many colors to count. despite the verdigris and beauty of the creatures adam has yet to name eve is unhappy. every night, under the watchful gaze of the moon she feels something too big to name. adam’s arms wrap around her tightly, holding his gift from god to his chest as if afraid she would run from him. she wanted to. she wants to. she’s so lonely. indigo skies above her and the ever-present feeling of being watched jarrs her heart and makes her sweat, the feeling more than just the sticky kiss of skin against skin against skin, clothes days away from being thought of. lilith. lilith was adam’s first wife. instead of being plucked from his chest, made from an insignificant bone from the nexus of his being, lilith had been drawn from the same soil that birthed adam. on nights when adam’s arms are just slightly too tight and the peacocks and canaries are silent, she thinks of lilith. quivering in the cold and quiet, she imagines lilith’s hair, red and firey (adam described it as bloody, his tone venomous when she had asked) and, lightly twisting her own tight curls, imagines touching it. would it burn, like fire? or would her hand come away with unreal and ugly sticky strings of bloody membrane, violent with clotting. eve knows, in the recesses of her soul, what it would feel like. it would feel dry and smooth xeric and curly, like her own. there, under the stars and trapped by adam’s arms, eve yearns. and in the morning, when adam takes her by the arm, and names some striped thing zebra, she does not pay attention, her mind caught on a fruit as red as lilith’s hair. II. zen and serene, the serpent that slithers up to eve is crimson with large, luminous yellow eyes that sparkle at her knowingly. it hisses at her, 54

xenial, and she smiles at it, stroking a long finger down its copper head. when it wriggles its way up her shoulders and nestles in her kinky hair it blinks at her, vain and proud. her vacuous smile makes its tongue flick toward her cheek. it grins, unlike any of the other animals in the garden, and she hears a hissing voice toll in her ear. ‘hello eve.’ its voice is soft, and lilting sounding amused and generous. ‘hello serpent.’ she replies, tickled giddy by hearing a voice other than adam’s, other than the creator’s. quirking its head, the serpent looks her over, golden eyes piercing, and it hisses a sigh. ‘you are hungry, eve.’ over the hill, she can hear adam. he is talking to god. she knows because his voice loses the nauseating haughtiness he has when talking to her. she adjusts her feet on the marshy ground and turns her head back towards the thick curve of the looming serpent on her shoulder. ‘i am.’ she sighs, not quite understanding why her stomach kicks at the admission. her heart is beating at a rabbit’s pace jumping in her chest like the grasshoppers and other insects that dot the grounds of eden like freckles on the shoulder of a redheaded woman. head, scaled and red, inclines towards the tree that stands proudly in the center of her cage. gracefully, despite her shaking shoulders, the serpent winds its way down her arm, fitting its face, pointed like an arrow, neatly into her palm as she stumbles on fawn legs to eden’s one and only rule. ‘you are hungry for more than food, eve.’ deadened to the world, eve cannot hear the whispers, her consternation a palatable and physical being burrowing in her chest. she takes the fruit as red as the serpent’s scales, the apple, as the serpent murmurs, more to herself than to eve, ‘i should know.’

Hospital Poem #5 // SEVEN BURY my limp liver silently crying my lungs gone black and toes indigo hue as I peeked at Chicago from the hole in my room I saw billions of ants, except they were all people, Like you with no meaning, no faces, no name it felt lonely as lonely will always remain then the pills in my stomach They caused me to bleed out little words like the cold ones You speak You speak like my mother with the coldest of feet just like my brother when You pretend to weep at bruises on walls that are crumpled like paper, like regrets that tell lies like we could have saved her if we would have listened if we would have catered to her every need and done every favor but who would we be but a putrid enabler a cog to the codependent, how could we blame her I stared out the hole toward the lake with black sky, coals burning bright only a few miles high I reached out to touch it The star’s soot in my hands, spreading like ants with unhealthy demands and maybe you could have, in some other time catered and listened like a dog who’d gone blind I sighed out a sorry knowing you wouldn’t hear but at least I had said it, and that I was sincere.

a lullaby to (left) // JAMIE HOY 57

hummingbird // ANNALISE BARBER stooping above cemetery gravel, pebbles wave as earthen tears. the ground gifts her children, those rock infants, who exist to ease the hearse. i pluck bodies from the dirt and cradle lonely children chipped away from mother. those heart-shaped beings who bled, homeless. families equalize under hospital light, yet mine skews beneath streaks and shadows. no, there is nothing equal here. morphine smiles persuade urine to dress as lemon. sour, clean. a couple (another family) is a pair of pillars with a bridge between. the baby, the bridge. they live as a newborn nursery. their misfortune: the cries of a healthy baby. brother welcomes church doors, singing of a newborn sister now lost. oh, his melody, a poison. mourners avoid my brother; they stare, instead, at the wood-grained savior perished by iron. demure, his eyelids kiss as if singing, an attempt to make content an agony. mosaic glass filters time and stains black velvet with the memory of color. her casket is closed. a dead hummingbird bruises the road, dejected by mechanical engines of speed. once in the air, now in the road. (a common tragedy.) claws replace the head. yellow lines of street permeate its chest like a garish smile, crusting the nightmare pavement. the humming-corpse: a peeling scab from the earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flesh. winter seeps color from the flattened thing. in fact, you probably wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t notice that it is a hummingbird at all.

my first corpse: a finch in a park. the chaperone instructs my class to retreat, yet i linger with that body of dappled tree light. the finch was a breath descending in its park, in its home. the hollow bones met the ground with moss and soothing maggots. even so, that finch was not a hummingbird. it was the finchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s privilege to die aged, to die under the branches of its nest. mother insists upon feeding the hummingbirds, the palm-sized creatures who note the homes that bless them as children. mother believes one of those beating bodies encloses the spirit of sister. she replenishes glass jars with liquid sugared with the promise of cyclical return. she darts to the window for hummingbirds to flitter, flutter by the feeder. their wings shutter at ghostly rates. they part before she can appreciate their presence. it must please my mother to pretend that she can nourish her child. but even small birds meet unjust ends.

Ode To My Blue Night Dress // A. JENSEN Clumped with second-hand riffraff I reached inside your thrift-store home and rescued you as though you were some third-world orphan. I whisked your Prussian blue fleece away from a life of muddy water and bargain soap to an epic battle of the wills with my self-expression as the prize. You fell right above my eternally bruised knees with your poorly sewn ruffles. And you were just feminine enough to pass as something I was allowed to wear. Nothing irked my mother more than knowing I chose to wear your boysihly blue fabric rather than the pile of silk night gowns in my room. Your wrist length sleeves covered the dirt I never washed, and the crew neck you blanketed me in, helped it seem like I would never grow the breasts my mother would wrap in wires and hooks. I wasn’t the kind of girl people ate right up and I wasn’t what my mother wanted after three boys. You were the wasps nest under her bed that never stopped buzzing of her failure. But to me, unseeing eyes sparkled in your stitched stars. You were a gentle governess who delayed the debt I owed to Adam’s rib, obligating crossed legs tolerating lingering stares and demanding

untitled // ETHAN BENAVIDEZ

I turn the other cheek as my girlhood sheets were taken in penance for my childless womb. My mother was handed her direction like a church pamphlet, and even now when I think of the color pink, I clutch to your torn frilled hem-line like a handle and steer myself in my own direction. 61

Rocky Shores // MIKAYLA SCHAFFNER

Little Sister // A. JENSEN Grassy fields blotched like paint stretch behind mother and daughter. The motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dyed brown hair and bangs propose a long-forfeited youth. This was no more than two months before her eyes became heavy rags trying to wash away her crimson mouth. She covets being my mother; the one inside was gone. I remember the longest hospital visit was when she left home with bloodied hands, and returned with an empty womb. And like the dutiful husband my father could not forget to be, he comforted our mother. II It was the stress that killed you, and like a scorned child, our mother returned her maternity clothes humiliated- like she had stolen them. I remember our motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s demotion from the master bedroom to the guest room, then to a new home. And I remember lying. It was a hitchhikerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lie; the kind that helps you get where you need to go without struggle or complication. It was the kind of lie I begged myself to believe. As a faithless child, I told her that god had a plan to give you to a better family;

I said that god wanted you to be happy when really, I wanted to remain the baby. Our mother swallowed it like the maternity pills she never got to take. And like a thief feeding his family, I justified my lies by being certain you got the better end of the deal. You were an autumn leaf, bound to nothing the catalyst to a failed marriage and the opus of a lonesome woman that would faster blame you, than assume responsibility for the noise. III You would have welcomed this world feeble and brown. And even though you were the quietus of my family, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d have loved you nonetheless. You would have been my sweet little sister the friend for whom I had wished. Yet, like a champion that won by default, I remained the youngest.

untitled // ETHAN BENAVIDEZ

Body Baggage // ELAINA WORKLEY A bag of flowers never needed a bag before. The plastic turns sour. Artificials seep through to core, anything to perserve beauty. Still, gravity petals on the floor. The long stemmed body bends overnight change. A form no more, mind melts what it used to be; before weight of wilted bodies spill the contained. A flawed vessel, seven holes up there of course the dead will jump unconcealed. How to stop the shit from spilling, try this: scoop your insides out like a pumpkin into a bag of mental soup tightly tied Throw it away-- your brain has turned to pulp. Filter out unshapely bits and pause. Make sure to dispose of yourself properly. Ant armies open the fingerless peonies handless but handed a heavy lightness troops drown, viking funeral down the pipes. Shoulderless shoulder perscribed lives. A cat does the expected, one outstretched nail all lifeless now, the body bag slowly leaks.

Frustrated Morning, Night Time Observance // ALLISON MCGOVNEY I guess I have some kind of Cognitive Goal some ideal state of mind I’ll do my best to maintain. This old house seemse to breathe and I pray that it does, but I don’t want to breath for a hundred years either. I cry to relieve that frustration I mentioned, I guess it helped a little. I remember that the sun will rise soon as I listen to another train pass by a fading moon, I sink further into The mercy of this night wondering if I’ve recorded a single worthy thought or if I just like the way it sounds. I guess I like the way it sounds.

I live down the street from a train. God knows what she carries, or to where, or for who, But she’s made her presence known. Once again, I’m up late, or early, if that’s the way you understand night. Flashing colors, the only light. The crickets outside are louder than the volume of the stupid show I turned on to put my mind to sleep, or at least at ease. I know this trick won’t work. I’m stewing in a combination of frustration and the inability to be frustrated. Maybe I’m just tired. I’ve seen this commercial eight times today and each time it fills the room with greenish yellow light and a song plays that makes me want to dance, but I’m too tired, or maybe I just don’t have anyone to dane with. If I did, I promise we’d smoke a cigarette on the porch and squint to see any stars through the dense city sky. I get carried away in my head, squirm in the tangled sheets on this dirty bed. I’ll set down my pen while I hit this bowl, 69

untitled // ETHAN BENAVIDEZ

untitled // NINA WELLS

270 S to 670 W // BROOKE BRAGG I ride the highway home that has become second nature as the back of my hand, the stars at my wrist in just one short summer I fly into the sky with a frying pan migraine not enough or too much caffeine rock melody coming through my speakers, the perfect harmony for a headache It pairs very nicely, splintering smile the clever words in funny rhymes I almost ran out of dimes at work and now I wash my hands of the money of strangers

Landmark // ERIK AKERMAN

Are Bees Trustworthy? // META FEAGIN who am I to trust. why should I trust beings who lust for satisfaction who do actions for personal gain... my eyes are too wise to blindly fall back on these humans in disguise. people who realize behind my fire exterior that I am nothing but a fragile damn. kinda like an egg shell my partner even compares me to fine china. so no. I can help myself up I grab my seat and pull before sitting down I need reassurance for all things out of my hands and decisions made outside of the 8 walls of my mind. because even bees round and plush always carry a pincher and even trees lush and green look wicked in the winter.

Unearth New Friends // ANNALISE BARBER

Portrait of beabadoobee (above) // ANNALISE BARBER Wish (left) // ERIK AKERMAN 75

mixed // ANNALISE BARBER mom’s eyes milken with unknowing as she guts the innards of apples into the resemblance of pie. unapologetically explaining lovemaking and mourning a marriage never made loving. nutmeg, cinnamon, clove blend within pie flesh. flavors are placed before baking so they can mix. do the kids at school call you oreo, injects the well-intentioned woman at the pony keg while i wait in line for skittles. this was mom’s place when she was my age. they do not sell oreos here. in fourth grade, i piecemeal a picture of barack obama and john mccain. both were campaigning under a landscape of crayon. aren’t you going to kiss me, mom asks but really pleads, divorced by the partition of dad’s car window. he grimaces under an audience of two children. he fills her mouth with obligation and plans for somewhere else. in standardized testing, the reader informs me to bubble according to who i am. i scan both pages, yet there is no sphere for duality. our first black president, a merge of kenya and kansas. could it be true that i am not an anomaly. trayvon martin executed by an overambitious amateur. his last possessions: iced tea and skittles. snow day. i go to heather’s house. when our hands collage we imitate the diversity poster from school, brown and peach and brown and peach. she notifies, to mix the skittles, you crush them between unforgiving fingers and tell them to be one. 76

in science class, we are mixtures seemingly homogenous. life evaporates from our disillusioned ingredients until we become remnants of something that was. martin luther king jr. dreamt of my brother and i, the intertwining of hues. i am grateful to exist. dad envelopes us in museums in celebration of m.l.k. mom is not invited. when anxious, i vacuum my apartment and welcome the white noise. the dust, ghosts of skin, spiral into a tornado of race. the hoover then placed behind the stove, and all of the stolen colors die into gray. on thanksgiving, we consume the so-called pie. this is the last holiday that we celebrate before dad dwells in the unbecoming stereotype of black fatherhood. nutmeg, cinnamon, clove blossom into a child of otherness and, slit into halves, she is consumed.

Lady Killer to my Hick Degenerate Cousins Who Burnt My Dog Alive // A. JENSEN Allow me to begin by saying that I will never let you think that I forgot you dug a four-feet-deep hole in your front yard to cook blood-sodden shredded flesh and then, you philistine bastards forgot it was uncovered as you let my beloved dog out to pee later that night. It wasn’t until the next morning you learned of what you’d done. Of what you’d fucking done to her. That dog was your guest and you barbarians roasted her alive in a god-dammed hole. I’d let that dog inside the house, trust she wouldn’t piss on the floor or dig a fucking hole she’d be above your pitiful reinvention of a grill and forgive you. But not me. Know that every look I send your way is begging for one of your future drug dealing children to fall into that flaming meat pit, burn black and have you awake a pile of bones, the unheard screams and pleas fall on deaf ears- I’ll be there watching your unnsuspecting canines rip into that meat and poison 78

your bellies. Envenomate your pitiful lives and leave you with the slow painful cannibalistic diseases you’ve earned. Like her death contaminated my water supply and soldered the handles shut, you’ll be crawling to me blackened mouth, tail tucked low and I’ll claim I couldn’t hear you over the shrill ranchera music at the clubs, over the next generation of bastard druggies being madeI’ll covet the water and let the sun set you aflame along with that dog.

Holga Negative //

SHADA GRANT

Polish Chickens // MINNIE LUCAS 80

untitled // ETHAN BENAVIDEZ 81

Stumbling Stallion // ALEXANDER CHARLTON Uneasy jade slivers shatter. Shadows drip with intention. Dehydrated roots slither across my vacant bedroom. Your brain is rotten. Hummingbirds fight over the scraps. Disheveled greying bodies cannot be rejuvenated on hope alone. Who watched it dissapear? The lust for life and tangling my fingers in your hair? Yellowing teeth, struggle through daily rot, watches tick. Battered sidewalks, wilting meadows, cower unashamed. Roam freely, stumbling stallion. Water has dried, time has passed. Roam freely, stumbling stallion. Water has dried.

Clipping Goat // MINNIE LUCAS

untitled // ETHAN BENAVIDEZ 85

6 Cities // ALEXANDER CHARLTON Every weekend I run a little bit farther away and my friends ask me if Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m going on tour, like I would have anything to show. The only difference between me and the bastard next to me is I asked for a microphone, we both wait in line. No one listens to tapes anymore, I cower on Spotify and make playlists for people who donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t listen to music. All of my inspiration comes from dead men, I wonder why I struggle with feeling alive. If only the dead have seen the end of the war then I must ask of what use is it to be alive in a field.

untitled // NICK DAP 87

untitled (above) // ETHAN BENAVIDEZ Light on the Lake (right) // ZAK BAUMKER 88

Back Alley Cat Scratch // JAKE WISE Tenderfooted and slick, tin, veneered he lept, with regret stretched jackknifed to the edge. His next step swift and decisive, pebbled claws scratched on autumn rooftops, left scars in the shingles, but whose lookinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;? Soundless and scarcely spotted, a handsome flicker of tawny and ink. Now Clumsied and fooled a gut-plummet thrill of dread, like finding your way through a bar fight. A five-finger metallic haymaker, left windless and begging, limbs clamoring in peculiar ways. In moonlight thrown against aluminum tinned, sound of nettled rain, and yowls of slipping. A left swing left unbalanced righten and try again. Indigoed and slick. Another heavy silver. Scratched open arid debrised, throw the weight on the back foot

and thrust. Red light crazed, cleaved and back again, and headlights now blocking, uppercut climbing bones, and shattering shingles to the cobblestone. Inside now we see the flicker. Inside now we see the crowd. The fool will leap with unfounded grace. The crooner will rise blooming vermillion grin, upon being beaten, still landing on his feet all the same.

The Prophetess // META FEAGIN 91

The Cord After the Flood // A. JENSEN I saw her childhood home, gutted, soaked and laid bare to the world as if it had been raped. And yet, I still speak as if I understand, with my storage room lifestyle and carry-on bag. I speak like I could possibly know. Her father walks me through the ruins like a spirit guide in a dead woman’s home, showing me his children’s long-emptied rooms while he maintains that at least there is still a view of the ocean. II There is a miniscule garage, untouched by the bedlam where he sleeps like a banned book. He attends dinner in his family’s new home. He is the ghosted pains to their collective amputation. We fnish our plates in silence and he returns to his watermarked walls head down like an excommunicated heir. Yet, like a starved stomach that cannot cease to growl its plight, my uncle sounds the familiar pains of my own father. III He is an unwelcome carpenter working to cover the warped wood and caved-in ceilings to a home that will never be lived in. His daughters inch

further inland like disoriented sea turtles escaping unfamiliar surroundings. Eight years earlier, portraits and paintings were torn from my walls, our dog drowned in the onslaught that shattered windows and made a pool out of the living room. The way losing parents instantly makes you an orphan, my dad became obsessively crafty, working to repair dismantled chair legs and replace the front-door that my mother would never again cross. ~ Like brine, his children only served to dehydrate him, parched as my father lived. I still speak like their struggles were mine, ours. And yet, I see the way my uncleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sharp eyes and serious demeaner transform to this aspirant boyishness whenever I offer my ear or my company, unqualified. I see penetrating connectedness between my father and hers, that cord between their struggles. The home may never again be inhabited, but I take a seat beside him and try to maintain that view of the ocean.

Koi Fish // MINNIE LUCAS 93

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep // ALLISON MCGOVNEY I wake up to a voice saying, “It was just a dream, it was just a dream,” and for some reason I pray to God things aren’t exactly as they seem. I let off some steam, then recite my favorite part of my least favorite book. I still feel the last shot I took linger on my tongue. My saliva still burns but the word “Christ” stung less this time. Bind some version of truth in some version of leather. Read it louder for people feeling under the weather. Free fall from grace, it will be more fun together. Chasing adrenaline, chasing you, chasing any kind of pleasure. Plastic bullet casings slide down my throat, settle deep. I haven’t gotten tired of writing when I can’t sleep. Chamomile whiskey chaser, five more minutes, let it steep. He’s already passed out again, I pray the Lord his soul to keep.

untitled

// NINA WELLS 94

parasite // ANNALISE BARBER projector indulges in lice to inform that i am prey of the barely seen. invaded by parasites, my hands extract shifting lint from my scalp, for even cotton resembles teeth. reveal my zipperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s teeth and gather legs of jean to lie, exposed by scalpels of parasite eyes. they extract within a crevice door. i piss, i pray for my poor bladder. do not invade. sometimes i dream of invasion via teratoma, the type with random teeth, to be extracted by an expert and flamed with lye. oh, praise the overexcited womb, oh, praise that pretend child of tumor and scalp. my therapist kneads her scalp while analyzing thoughts invasive. i am prey to my mind and her bleached teeth. she waits for me to denounce the lie, she waits to perform the prepaid extraction. i extract my image from his desk. scalp the intimacy i did not license. of your pretend love i am invaded. in the photo, i am smiling teeth. perhaps i was itching for your praise.

under mechanic light, i pray and wait for god to extract the words that die on teeth. oh, god, i fear the scalpel, oh, god, i fear the invasion of memory that thirsts as lice. i prey upon my scalp, anxiously extract the invasive: the teeth that are mine, not mine. oh, the lie of lice.

hi i see you lol // ERIK AKERMAN

untitled//META FEAGIN 98

They // SEVEN BURY I do not grieve for you brother, I do not grieve the boy I once knew to play along my side questioningly. Back when I was neither boy or girl, only curious and confident in the existence of mermaids. When the only thing we were sure of was for the day to be hot and the guava to be sweet. Even amongst the suger-rotted air of the mango tree, I found our backyard to be the most sacred of places. We shared pacts, secrets, and half-truths of the mystical. On candles we wished for wizards and elves to appear from distant lands such as America. One has to find it Ludacris that your nature has changed to oppose what you call the altered natural. I have always been this way, brother, back when we cut my curls down to the tips of my lobes in the pantry. I never tricked you brother, I never promised to be your sister. You forgave the plantain when you found it to be sweet when originally you had thought it savory, you must know these things can change with time. It is so sad that my love and life will only be a whisper to you through exchange of mouths. I can only think that part of you will one day return to me, I sometimes see the glimpse of it rise just above the horizon, but it never stays. I see the shadow tangle you, but there is nothing I can do to save you from it. If you chose not to love me as I am I cannot help you as I am What I am is what we were.

Biker Dyke // JAIME HOY 100

Complain // ERIK AKERMAN LMBO, why the fuck do people have to ruin things. JUST SAY ASS, SUSAN. LAUGHING MY ASS OFF NOT LAUGHING MY BUTT OFF. WHY ARE YOU CENSORING AN ACRONYM?! NOBODY CARES IF YOU SAY ASS. SAY ASS WITH ME. ASS.

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a lullaby to // JAMIE HOY

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A Poem For Your Next Smoke Break // ALLISON MCGOVNEY I keep having dreams about ghosts, then stay awake for days trying to speak languages that can’t be taught or heard or wrote. Swallowing pills to conquer things out of my control. I drop my keys into another bowl, then smoke to forget. I never forget to smoke. I call it a night To remember, I guess I used to have goals. Now I roll on this dirty bed, No god around to save my soul. I’m not afraid of growing old, I’ve just stopped expecting warmth since I learned about the cold.

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// BIOGRAPHIES // Erik Akerman // SENIOR FINE ARTS

Erik Akerman is a fine artist who explores the difficulty of communicating emotions through light, color and sculpture. They have completed their BFA in Fine Arts with a minor in Creative Writing at the Columbus College of Art and Design, their art has been exhibited in such places as Corrugate Contemporary and Skylab Gallery in Columbus, Ohio. They have published photographs and writing in Botticelli Literary and Arts Magazine, as well as two collections of personal narrative titled Not so Lit and Nothing is Lit.

Annalise Barber // JUNIOR ILLUSTRATION, CREATIVE WRITING MINOR

As a creative who explores many routes within the arts, Annalise Barber is chiefly a writer and an illustrator. Her written work examines memory, suffering, and the nuances of being human. Most often, you can find her toiling at her desk, but she would rather spend her time adventuring in a park.

Zak Baumker // SOPHOMORE HISTORY OF VISUAL ARTS & CULTURE

In Zak Baumker’s work every decision made stems from the attempt to cope with anxiety’s entrapment. Through the initial reference to nature’s structure and order he develops a conceptual connection between mind and environment. This allusion is furthered through the use of color and materials that directly coincide with the natural world. Then, by disrupting this notion of order through the manipulation of these elements he creates a metaphor for the exploitation of the mind. Zak Baumker characterizes his soft-edge forms as an attempt to cope with the ever-present conditions of the anxious mind. use of color and materials that directly coincide with the natural world. Then, by disrupting this notion of order through the manipulation of these elements he creates a metaphor for the exploitation of the mind. Zak Baumker characterizes his soft-edge forms as an attempt to cope with the ever-present conditions of the anxious mind.

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Brooke Bragg // SENIOR FINE ARTS Brooke Bragg is a poet who muses on imagery from her daily life and the emotions paired with it. She is completing her BFA in Fine Arts at Columbus College of Art & Design where she is the recipient of the CCAD Dean and Portfolio scholarships. Find her at brookebraggart on Instagram.

Mariana Floria // ANIMATION SENIOR Mariana Floria is studying 3D animation, but tries to keep in touch with her roots in illustration. She started dabbling in the digital art medium once she entered high school. Mariana loves the flexibility of playing with different brushes and painting styles, all in the convenience of a tablet.

Jamie Hoy // JUNIOR PHOTOGRAPHY Jamie Hoy (American, b 1998) is a film photographer and visual artist based in Columbus, Ohio. She works across many platforms to express her gender, sexuality, and upbringing in small-town America.

A. Jensen A. Jensen holds a bachelors degree from the University of Colorado Denver. She won 2019 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Outstanding Undergraduate Award and is pursuing an advanced degree in genetics.

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Lane Levich // SENIOR ADVERTISING & GRAPHIC DESIGN Lane Levitch is a senior majoring in advertising and graphic design at Columbus College of Art & Design who hails from Louisville, Kentucky. He has a small poetry zine called â&#x20AC;&#x153;the highs and lowsâ&#x20AC;? and he would love to show you if you ask him about it.

Minnie Lucas // SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHY Growing up in rural Ohio, Minnie Lucas finds inspiration in agriculture, abandoned places, and nature. Her hopes are to someday expand her travels to see more forgotten places, nature, and rural life in other places in the world.

Hay Mulholland // JUNIOR COMICS & NARRATIVE PRACTICE Hay Mulholland is a Junior Comics and Narrative Practice major and a Creative Writing Minor. Poetry has recently become a passion of theirs, and they look forward to writing much more in the future, including poetry into their comic works and prose pieces.

Mikayla Schaffner // JUNIOR ADVERTISING & GRAPHIC DESIGN Mikayla Schaffner is a Junior Advertising & Graphic Design major with a minor in Photography. She is from Casstown, Ohio, and a 2018 graduate of Miami East High School. In her free time she enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time with family.

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Modern Man Plays a Game of Chess // NICK DAP 107