The Real Girl

Sarah Fosdick

The real girl has legs. She doesn’t have roots. She is not recorded; She is real-time. She can just walk out of his room, manifesting into the real world as the boy’s real sin. The plant on his window sill

Cheap cologne and loudspeakers Of Kurt crying something about being In a jar and thinking you’re happy. Indeed, nothing is more nourishing Than the approval of a brooding boy Who’s sensitive enough to buy plants

The plant on his window sill

Was anointed as the only beautiful Thing in the ugly world he hates, Valued because of its untainted beauty, But forgotten because it’s only a plant. The leaves that were once green And pointed to the far away sun Have turned brown and shriveled Because he drank all the water.

The plant on his window sill

Knows that he is a murderer who went Hiding inside his safe haven: The place where he crawls back To dry his tears and wring his hands And relish in his victimhood, Thanking God he does not contribute To the ugly world he so nobly transcended.

The plant on his window sill

Feels hopelessly similar to The pretty girls on his screen, So it wrote a poem about him. It goes like this: “He lies under his ceiling layered in sequins. A trap for demise, his hand willingly begins. But they’re only imaginary virgins, They’re only his imaginary sins, The crown of an imaginary prince.”

The plant on his window sill

Once saw him take a girl back with him, A real girl with long hair and easy lungs who Endured the stabs of his bitter sword and Bore him light and beauty in his little room. But she didn’t know there is always a serpent In the garden; she thought she was being watered. Despite his great struggle to balance his crown, He still didn’t notice that she was not just

The plant on his window sill.

THE DIFFERENCE*

Chadwick Sterling ’10

I graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature. Currently, I am working as a technical content developer and adjunct college instructor. While my professional writing is mostly in the I have always been a storyteller and continue to write creatively whenever I can. Two boys leave two houses in the middle of the night. waving at his neighbor from across a well-cut lawn. The other tucks something into his pocket, avoiding the eyes of those huddled in the corridor of his apartment building.

partly like a pioneer riding into new territory, those brave souls who have been around since the Birth of a Nation. Like his father’s hero John Wayne, he strides to his car with purpose: His grandpa had fought in the war, a member of the greatest generation to correct the tilt of history. In his veins runs the blood of men and women who braved the wilderness of the west in the time of President Polk. He knew how to use the gun and he was no coward.

The second boy wears the dark colors, who withstood the heat of the southern sun His grandpa too had been a soldier, but like the boy hiding his hand in the folds of his hoodie, his grandpa hid all signs of his time at war before taking the bus back home. He too knew how to use the gun and was no coward.

He has seen the images of neighborhoods burning, and his grandpa taught him that was when he was most needed to hold the red lines drawn by those who founded this country, to stand up for what was right.

True, he was just a boy and a year too young to join the force, but he was also the heir to an ancient legacy, the same legacy that protected his young grandpa that night in ’55 When a man whistled at his daughter, who was then only 16, and it had been up to him and his friends to protect her honor and his own.

The other boy wants to feel safe. just like it had always been. His grandpa had taught him how to survive, that he had been born a suspect and needed to act like one, avoid eye contact when walking to the bus stop, carry all the answers even though they could be heavy, because to be caught without them was a death sentence. When he was young he did not understand, But then once His grandpa caught him playing with a plastic gun, grabbed him by the collar of his wrinkled white shirt, and with a hoarse voice told him about the baby-faced uncle he had never met who had been hanged in ’55 after he smiled at the girl in the gas station.

*Content Warning: Racism, Death, Violence, Weapons