Closely
/ˈkloʊs·li/ adverb 1. 2. 3. 4.
in a way that is very similar to something or has an obvious or strong connection with it in a way that involves careful attention to every detail in a way that involves sharing ideas, thoughts, or feelings with very little time or distance between one thing and another
Vol. I, Issue 1 November 2015 “Intention”
I intend to write about intentions but I am stuck I don’t know what my intentions are for this piece I’ve been intending to write for about a week but even the best laid intentions Of writers often go awry
Jay Lundy
Contributors: Amy Accongio Angela Brittain Rand Burgess Kate Burkhardt Madelyn Davey Cameron Gray Alden Lee Jay Lundy Catherine Matthews Victoria Morgan Taylor Oliver Savannah True Randall Carlos-Zenen Trujillo Complied and Edited by Savannah True Randall Contributing Editors: Amy Accongio Kate Burkhardt Jay Lundy Victoria Morgan Taylor Oliver Cover illustration by Madelyn Davey © Fuck Those Bitches Press 2015
He Asked Me To Marry Him in a Hotel Room I was young and he wasn’t and that Spring tasted like Prozac and White Widow smoke but he knew so many things so I promised him, always The first time he said, “I love you” was at 3am calling from his buddy’s house where the last thing he kissed was a Blue Moon and I told him to call back in the morning if he had a different taste on his breath This isn’t to say I didn’t love him, I just loved him before I knew what that meant
Victoria Morgan
1
I think I smell the ocean at a stop light, the steering wheel oily navigating its own direction: far away. With an unnecessary route through the countryside I untangle a wish to be unsalted by the Clinic “Look how healthy I am, crying like this” my lips towards the colorlessness of clouds; they don’t join in the laughter, keeping their empty organs as a cause for hatred in the sky, as a warning vast as the sea which I smell but cannot detect the grit or blueness of Her voice floats up from my belly concerned I’ll drown in what’s not yet unhallowed or without a rippled fear, “Yeah, Ma” I think in my parked car: I will craft the health of my body through words that lilt on hope and for as far as I go I will go as far as I got Amy Accongio
2
Frank by Savannah True Randall I’ll let you in on a secret. I was never going to marry Frank. First off, his name is Frank. That’s a terrible name for a person. I apologize if your name if Frank – not because I’ve said it’s a terrible name but because your parents must’ve hated you and I’m sorry about that. Frank is the kind of name you assign to someone who umpires little league or works nights at the 7-11. Frank is not the kind of name you put opposite yours on wedding announcements. Second, he blows his nose obnoxiously loud. I mean, I know the guy has allergies but there’s a time and a place for blowing one’s nose, right? And you should never blow your nose over cocktails the first time you’re meeting your girlfriend’s parents. Come on, Frank. At the table? Really? I met Frank at a party. I know it’s sort of cliché to say our eyes met across the room but they did – how could I have known at the time that his name was Frank? I couldn’t have. He was just a pair of blue eyes and he wasn’t wearing a t-shirt with an ironic logo so he stood out from every other guy there. It was one of those parties where everyone has to drink out of something that’s not a cup? Do you know what I mean? Like, we were all told to bring something you could drink from but it couldn’t be something that was originally intended for that purpose? It’s fun, whatever. Some people bring the weirdest shit and, so, that’s fun. I had forgotten it was a theme party, so I ended up drinking most of my alcohol in doll-sized portions out of a lipstick cap until someone offered me a blender which I gratefully accepted. But Frank. Frank was drinking out of an overturned Viking helmet. Just straight up drinking out of this plastic fucking hat. It seemed really cool at the time but, looking back, that probably should’ve been my first warning sign. He had clearly tried too hard to win this theme. He actually cared to find something he could drink out of that would be original enough. People who are like
aren’t original at all. People who are like that are named Frank. I don’t remember if I was still taking shots out of my lipstick tube or if I had received the blender yet, but I do remember that Frank crossed the room to talk to me. He pretended like he wanted more beer and that I was just a convenient person to chat with while getting some because I happened to be standing next to the beer. Except I know that was a big lie because Frank totally never got more beer after he started talking to me. I’m pretty great but I’m not, like, mesmerizing enough to stop a guy on a mission for beer. No, Frank just wanted an excuse to talk to me. He also lies a lot. That’s the third reason why I was never going to marry Frank. And not big lies – he doesn’t lie about important shit but about shit that a normal person wouldn’t even think to lie about? Like, sometimes he says he graduated from Campbell High School but sometimes the name changes to Roosevelt? Or I’ve heard him tell people his mom’s a nurse but I know for a fact that she’s a teacher. Or he’ll tell his friends that he doesn’t want to get Italian for dinner because he had pizza for lunch, except I know he ate tacos because I was there. So, I don’t know. I don’t know why he does it. And I didn’t know he was a pathological liar when I met him at that party, obviously, or I wouldn’t have gone out with him in the first place, probably. But he did have pretty blue eyes and that stupid fucking Viking hat. Things progressed pretty quickly with us. Party, date, date, sex, relationship, joint checking, proposal – all within the first six months. The joint checking happened because we were moving in together and that just felt like such a huge milestone. I mean, I had lived with guys before but I had never opened a bank account with any of them. Reason I was never going to marry Frank number four is how rude he is to customer service people. Literally, their only job is to help you, Frank, why are you being an asshat to them? We went in to open our joint checking and it was crazy busy. It was our fault, you know, we went during lunchtime. And,
yeah, they left us sitting there for a while. But is that any reason to grumble loudly how about unbelievable they were being and how incompetent they were and how he was going to call the headquarters and complain? I mean, just leave, Frank. You don’t actually have to sit there and wait. No one’s keeping you there. Come back another time. Go to another bank, for God’s sake. Those pretty blue eyes can turn so cold. That’s five. And, no, they’re not cold now, as I walk down the aisle towards him, still telling myself that I’m going to turn around, that I’m not going to go through with this. But Frank. Asshat Frank who blows his nose in public and and cares what everyone thinks about him and lies compulsively and has a temper... Well, he’s standing there and our eyes have met like they did across the party. He’s not holding a stupid Viking hat this time, but I’ll let you in on a secret. I’m going to marry him. I don’t really know why. I guess I must love him as much as I hate him? That’s not a very good reason, I know. I just thought he’d get fed up with me first. Frank is so damn impatient and no, I don’t blow my nose in public, but I do snort when I laugh. And I might not care what people think but I definitely judge everyone around me. And I’m no pathological liar, but I steal. I take stuff from stores and restaurants and I don’t even feel bad about it. And I’m never rude to customer service people but I also never tip when I go out to eat. I’m a shitty person. And Frank loves me. And my name might not be Frank, but it is Ruth. And, really, isn’t that just as bad?
5
Still Off in distances measured by afternoon haze a disembodied, amplified Voice echoes commands to specks of nowhere boats gliding away
Alden Lee
6
Corners Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is supposed to make you aware of negative thinking patterns, view challenging situations clearly, respond effectively. My first therapist Agnes liked focusing on when I stood outside of school waiting for friends. It was one of the few details I shared with her I often thought ‘I am the worst’, ‘No one likes me’, ‘I’ll never have friends who care’, my brain became familiar with them creating a negative feedback loop. She told me to stop when they pop up replace them with first neutral then positive ones She paused to share her hike in Mexico, her sister and niece, isn’t that picture of the yellow bird pretty, don’t mind the crescent of thumb in the corner. Supposedly the practice of replacing negative thoughts works; eventually you have fewer and fewer intrusions. Supposedly the brain has ways of creating healing connections and patterns. It just needs to be tricked into it; that is, if your brain is disposed to hurting you, like mine. Replacing thoughts doesn’t work for everyone one size fits all solutions for mental illness pinch in all the wrong places. Even within CBT, everyone struggles with their own demons, withholds from their own Agnes. My goals for therapy with Agnes were not recovery bound. To reach a point where I could tell her I didn’t
need her. To stop asking my mom for the ten dollar copay. To not make the lonely drive to therapy. I rushed myself towards healing. Leaping mental pitfalls before I knew they were there. I found myself in therapy again a few years later. Debbie let me talk. She saw when my lips twitched with a thought and drew it out of me. Healing safely with a willingness to find growth in stronger brains
Jay Lundy
8
savor this as a nimble skeletal construction in a field of sound infrastructure, with square windows screaming for exposure to burning helium. wood chip confetti raining from the giant jungle gym, a concrete paradise for animalistic naysayers who look up to seek comfort through a swiss cheese ozone layer. spinning and iridescent, a top in motion, elemental cohabitation in a room that uses bumpers while bowling, with electrons bouncing wildly, winds blowing mildly. waves flooding into rituals with blankets scratching eyelids, the paradoxical nature of scary clowns giving life advice. your composition is a seal, dripping wax, a trade well crafted. ants and their queen, lines and flocks, bees and hierarchy. oval cones dangling from your branches, honey dripping all over my ovaries. spices, liquorice, dandelions, moss, associated splendor. with every pigment coloring my sky, every undiscovered wonder rustling my emotional continuum, every savored hint of sensory transportation to moments long before; forever your wicker basket and willow branch, sage and lavender. buffalo heart, trail with me deep within the woodland. gather together once forgotten pieces with stitches, glue, and scotch tape. your instructions are to snip the calloused edges, to mend with strong adhesive. to speak softly in your mother tongue. dreams afflict the weary, the cadence of your exquisite dialect indelibly ingrained, hot iron burned into skin. you ask of fathers? i agree, so greasy, with sun burnt faces, leather stretched over chipping marble. rubber burning, radioactive sensory judgments, sun son sun son. once a son and never a father, your father left you at his own will, so young. i can see wrinkles between your eyes, you are twenty three now. composition of iron beams connected in strong formations, triangles as bases, bolts colored like periwinkle - the button on mom’s suit. you ask of mothers? so structured, buttons vertical, climbing up her unshaven legs, clinging to her outsides. her embryos are the size of trees now, my statuesque brother, an adult, his sister small enough to fit in a pocket, her little brother’s woolen pocket, shrouded in lint and stabilized worry, sporadic succession, a sound connection, and erratic confessions. a son, living and breathing. i am home now, capsized in eternal dial tones. sweden gave birth to the fruit of a memory: a friendly mouse in a corner, chipping floorboards, disconnecting voice transmitters, using fiberglass insulation as a cancer pillow. barn window, stacked over and over, higher and higher. climbing the infrastructure, massaging the notches in spines, peeking over ancient literature behind closet sheets, oats and tea, fingertips eliciting electric shocks, fire, burning orbs, the sky falling. i spot you chewing on pencil lead, pretending to forget, pretending to forget. i promise i’ll listen to gravity, but i’ll still find your window, i’ll find the memory, mixing and kneading, baking into bread, breaking, ingesting, loving you forever.
Catherine Matthews
Watashi wa I’d like to increase the level of hipster for my pants, But I worry about public indecency charges. I’m not really all that interested in becoming a bronie, Although I don’t think pony training is beyond me. My hair isn’t neon enough, although there is enough hair, I’m just going to say it concerns me, or at least my scalp. Hugging strangers has crossed my mind, especially when I don’t know them, Of course I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried that they’d hug back. I just want to stand up on the bus and read things that might make poetry, Except there’s a good chance they’d pull over and let me off because it’s totally my stop. The connection between what was said and what was meant is anorexic at most, Purple-Green static strip on a porn channel downstairs with the lights off, You know? Rand Burgess
10
Off-Brand Romance by Taylor Oliver
I knew he didn’t love me; he just loved the idea of me. But I kissed him anyways because I liked the idea that anyone loved any part of me. I took him home even though he wanted me to go to his place because other people’s carpets make me nervous. When he slid his hand up my shirt all I wanted to do was ask him if he’d had a dog as a child, because I don’t really trust people who grew up with cats. He seemed like a dog person, though, so I let him unzip my jeans. He turned the light off, but I kept my shirt on anyways. He didn’t seem to mind. I felt guilty in the morning, so I showered with the door locked and took extra time washing my hair because I knew he had to pee. He knocked– five rapid little sounds and I told him I’d only be a minute longer, grinning like a child who was getting away with something naughty. When I finally let him in, I stood outside the door, listening to his unbroken stream of piss hitting the water in my economical, low-flow toilet. He didn’t use soap when he washed his hands. I asked him if he wanted any coffee, and he asked if I had any cream. I lied and said I was all out because I wanted the last of it for myself. So he drank his coffee black and I added soy milk to my peppermint tea. The silence was awkward, and the awkwardness reminded me of my senior prom, which made my stomach churn and I had cheap-champagne flashbacks so vivid that I could taste it. He asked me what was wrong and I asked him if his memories ever had flavor and he looked at me like I was crazy. But then he smiled, so I guess he liked crazy. Or at least my brand of crazy, which is offbrand but just as good. Like Fred Meyer’s version of Lucky Charms. I liked his smile so I leaned across the table and kissed him, even though he hadn’t brushed his teeth yet. I wondered if he’d ever have a toothbrush at my house. I thought maybe he could, but only if he was really a dog person, and not a cat person in disguise because those are the worst kind of people. He tasted like dark roast and not enough sleep because I probably hogged the covers. “Do you ever think about how weird it is that the moon gets
to be in the sky all day and all night but the sun has to set?” I blurt out before my butt is even in the chair again. He raises an eyebrow at me. “No. I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t’ really think about things like that very often.” He shrugs. “So what do you think about?” “If I really care enough to fold my socks so I have a matching pair before my next work meeting or if I’m okay with showing up in one green one and one orange one.” “Seems like you think about some pretty serious stuff.” “What do you think about, other than the moon, I mean?” He sips his coffee, letting his lower lip rest against the mug after he drinks. What I want to tell him is that I think about germs and carpet stains and how I really don’t like getting drunk but I do it anyways because it’s the only time I feel sexy. I want to tell him how I can’t stop wondering if he’s a cat person or a dog person and how that thought is going to plague me long after he’s gone even if I never see him again because I don’t think I could forgive myself if I slept with a cat person. I want to ask if he likes me or if he just likes that I’m strange and therefore interesting. “I don’t know. Lots of stuff, I guess. I think about dogs a lot.” I cross my fingers under the table. “I like dogs.” But he doesn’t love them. “Shit, I have to go to work in twenty minutes,” he grumbles, jumping up from the table. He didn’t use a coaster so now there’s a dark stain on my dining room table. “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll call you.” He jumps up, throwing his feet haphazardly into his shoes and shoots out the door. The tag on his shirt was sticking out, but I didn’t have time to tell him.
12
Lucky Charms© Rice Krispie Treats©
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.
Open Lucky Charms© box Look for toy Be disappointed that there is no toy Do maze on back of box to console self over lack of toy Get out a bowl Pour milk into bowl Add Lucky Charms© Fuck Realize you’ve made cereal, not Rice Krispie Treats© This is a cereal mistake Laugh at your own joke Eat cereal Drink a glass of wine Make Rice Krispy treats another day
My First First Draft (Dyslexic Poet’s Lament) I’ve nvere written a first drfat. I write crash tests. speeding lettres collidning, bleeding red underliens web across a page, familiar accusatoins, screaming, “Your poems are junk yards and you are sieving for ruin!” Teacher siad I’d be prohpet somday If I could focus and learn to preahc with clearer sermons. But look, I can only see the turth through melted glass adn funhouse mirrors. I spend three huors editing the same peom it fights back with jumbeld firsts I mean fists and I throw a scream knowing I couldn’t spell a voice wrong but in the iar it turns to wasps, stings my tounge, and I cry for a quieter haed
Victoria Morgan
14
you sat on your folding chair and clipped your toenails with a pair of pliers and i sat on your mattress with a pair of scissors and i cut mine (August, 2015) we had just come back from the bar, where i work, not really shitfaced, but you know, something, you would often feel my toenails when we went to sleep, they’d slip against your feet, your legs or a body part it’s happened before, you commenting on my toenails on your skin i’ve seen you with three haircuts since we first became something else and you’ve seen my hair color change once you told me how long my nails were getting about five times before then and you call me baby and i call you honey and you call me honey and i call you baby we say how did we get this way we say we are gross we say we like it i am an emotional observer of casual beauty the casual is sometimes volatile only in a photograph, or in words yet it passes too quickly and banally under the light and subtle contrast of reality
toenails part 2
i didn’t take a picture of you cutting your toenails i didn’t think about taking a picture of you cutting your toenails if i staged it, would it still be authentic? i would title the piece ‘a perfectly staged image of a previous moment’ because i don’t like lying i think this will be a good exercise
i could dramatize and control the scene with conscious spatial awareness, a methodical awareness, based in discipline, following the initial instinct that slipped underneath me all i’ve been doing is drinking and reading in your room, i sit on your bed with the curtains half-open next to an empty jar of peanut butter and a plate with spot’s fur all over it Â
this is not about toenails
i walk the same stretch of sidewalk calling itself downtown back and forth back and forth wearing it thin wearing myself thin
Kate Burkhardt
16
17
Foam Board Labyrinth by Alden Lee Perry decided a while back not to bother naming his Anxieties. Rather, he let them bubble soft and unperturbed in the pit of his stomach, a manageable compromise. Jigsaw puzzles helped with the flair ups – he kept a fresh thousand-piece scattered across the crippled pool table in the back corner of his shop, neat little stacks of similar colors and edge pieces littering the felt-stripped surface. Gradually pulling sense out of chaos calmed him. This was why he’d gotten into the architectural modelmaking business. He had never enjoyed college (or as he called the experience, competitive drowning), and receiving his diploma felt more like a pat on the back than a major milestone. But he had a plan; downtown offered manageable rent; and social stress plummeted when he could sit alone with his carpenter glue and balsa wood, constructing neat and sensible worlds at 1:100 scale. Sadly, his physical appearance didn’t inspire much confidence in clients. Perry’s haggard frame and lack of definition in the shoulders alarmed people. Then there was his hair: it’d never been prodigious to begin with, but late one night the balding V’s on either side of his head conspired to push together, leaving a thin patch of hair stranded in a sea of barren cranium. This plus his fear of eye contact caused contractors to glaze right over his excellent miniature work. Income slumped. His landlord left twice-daily voicemails. Perry withdrew further into puzzles and models he’d commissioned himself out of pity, disturbed by no one. But that changed at two pm on a chilled Thursday, when the front door of Trusstown Architectural Solutions rattled open and a Man entered. Perry felt the air thicken. He dropped the protractor and pen he’d been yielding and stared at the oncoming figure. Strange, really – the man was average height, wrapped in a thick gray overcoat with a sepia tinged comb-over just visible beneath a fedora. His shoes looked like they’d been plucked from the Fall
collection of a Reasonably Priced Men’s Wear department catalogue. Everything about him was nondescript except for his face: it had been chipped from granite, and his eyes were just a shade too pale of blue. The man moved at an unhurried pace to the counter, and placed coarse hands on the laminate. “I’d like to place an order for one Labyrinth, please.” Perry, busy forcing unease back into its pit, was caught off-guard. “…I’m sorry?” “Don’t apologize. I’m requesting a Labyrinth, the largest of your capacity; stone hewn, if convenient. Do you still carry the necessary materials in stock?” “I’m – I’m trying to…understand, here… You’re talking about a maze?” The man looked suddenly embarrassed (a pained expression across his chiseled face) and glanced about the shop. “I hope I’m not mistaken. You are Marcus Perry, the Architect?” “Never been called it like that before… Yes, I suppose?” He swept a vague arm toward his back shelves, where plasterboard mockups of strip malls and two-level parking garages lingered. “Good,” the man said, stoic again. “I’d like you to design and build this Labyrinth within the next year and a half, preferably, but we can swing two if it comes to that. I require quite the elaborate construction.” Perry stood dumbfounded on the opposite side of the counter. “A…a labyrinth,” he managed. “Yes,” said the man. “Massive, with one entrance and endless passages in which to store my Minotaur.” Perry shut his mouth and frowned. “You want a giant stone maze,” he finally said, “built in the central downtown area? I don’t really—” “I have a suitable location,” the man said. He pulled a pocket watch from his coat and studied it, before dropping it back into the folds. “Your talents proceed you, but I can see this is a momentous task to process. May I swing back tomorrow for your terms?”
He turned and left without an answer, dust swirling in absence of his mass. Perry stood blinking for some time. He tried sitting next, staring at the door and listening to his brain stutter; then he stood again. No one else followed for the next two hours, so he locked up and climbed a rickety set of stairs to his apartment. He lounged in bed that night battling several newfound Anxieties. Morning found him clammy with sweat. He showered, ate Raisin Bran, hurried back down to his shop and set about convincing himself yesterday was a mental delusion. Two pm arrived – once again the front door swung open and the Man entered. Perry, fully engrossed in his latest puzzle, had just placed the sneering lips to a cartoonish goat in stilettos and looked up in disbelief as the gentleman approached the counter, again cloaked and hatted and this time holding a large, handled crate. “I’ve returned,” the man announced. His crate looked like an oversized dog-carrier, but ancient and off-putting. “What is your price estimate for the Labyrinth?” Perry’s mouth opened and closed like a dying fish. The man seemed to expect this failed answer, and hefted the crate (no obvious strain on his face) to the countertop. The box tremored slightly. “I brought my charge along. You must be reminded the importance in all this.” Perry leaned forward and tried to peer through the hinged front, but the shop’s poor lighting and deep shadows across the grating itself made it impossible to see anything. He got the distinct impression the inside was somehow far larger than its outside. Eyes fixed down, he said, “Listen, uh…I never got your name, but, listen – I don’t know what you mean with this. If you want design specs on a hedge maze, labyrinth, sorry, I can whip up some top-view blueprints and a foam board model, even, no extra charge. Give me a week?” “I have all the templates you need,” the man said, pulling cracked sheets of parchment from an inner pocket and setting them
in front of Perry. “The dimensions are set – I simply require you to design the layout of the corridors, and oversee its actual construction.” “I don’t understand what you mean,” Perry said helplessly. The crate shook. “I’m not a full-scale guy. I like my arts and crafts. I don’t know the first thing about labyrinths…” He glanced over at the figures on the parchment and blanched. “Jesus. This – this makes no sense.” The man grew perplexed. “You come highly recommended.” “I’m surprised—glad to hear that,” Perry said, shrill. “But this is insane. One does not go about building six hundred-ton stone mazes! It’s just not done!” “The Minotaur must be confined,” the man replied. Another ominous rattle. “I don’t know what you have in that dog cage,” Perry said, “but I won’t be building anything like this. Where would I – where would anyone – find these materials?” “This is the Architect’s responsibility,” the man said. His eyes burned for a moment. “It has always been the Architect’s responsibility.” Perry gave the instructions a second glance. He really did. “I can’t – I don’t have the – or the knowledge – or even—” Silence shut him up. “I’m disappointed,” the man finally said. “It appears your praise was…misinformed.” “I’d like to know where this praise came from!” Perry cried, but the man ignored him. He pulled the small watch from his pocket, studied it, and then heaved the large crate from the counter. Steadying it against his side and collecting his papers, he turned to go. “Wait!” Perry said. “You haven’t shown me what’s in there yet.” The man glanced back. “I made a mistake ever bringing it here. Yesterday should have been enough to realize my quest would fail.” Perry fell back in his chair. “Your quest? What the hell is happening! What is all this?”
“My name is Theseus,” said the man, turning fully to face Perry. His eyes were wells several lifetimes deep. “Events you couldn’t hope to comprehend have cast infamy across my reputation, and now, little man, I’ve been given a chance to right the wrongs. But through careless selection, my burden continues.” Perry considered dialing the police, but curiosity held him. “And in there—” he asked, gesturing hesitantly toward the crate, “—that’s the Minotaur?” The man didn’t answer. He turned and walked solemnly out the door, leaving Perry lost and confused in the middle of his shop. The sensation remained for several weeks. At two pm each day he’d instinctively glance up at the door. An anxious bubble would surface for a moment, and then slowly sink back down to its brethren, disappointed. The frequency of this dwindled, eventually, as balsa wood demanded to be sorted, and glue caps rinsed, and blue prints reshuffled, and answering machine erased, and foam board cut to size... But now none of the damn puzzle pieces fit.
22
Angela Brittain
Try to sleep Try to sleep Try to sleep Can’t sleep Too in love Oh well
Cameron Gray
The Pineapple I left a pineapple on your doorstep I thought you would know it was from me I thought you would remember our picnic on the beach When we named our pineapple Ernesto and introduced him to strangers It was a really good day For Ernesto the pineapple I left the pineapple on your doorstep Because I didn’t want the day to just go by Without some sort of acknowledgment But there was a certain amount of risk Attached to leaving something obvious So I didn’t leave a post-it And I didn’t leave a teacup I left a pineapple on your doorstep Because I assumed you would understand That it meant so much more
Savannah True Randall
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Copycat Dole© Pineapple Whip
1. Google “Copycat Dole© Pineapple Whip Recipe” 2. Eat a couple chunks of pineapple 3. Drink some of the juice while you’re at it 4. Get out a blender 5. Do you have a blender? 6. Cool Whip? Why? 7. Look for alternate copycat recipe 8. Get discouraged 9. Fuck it 10. Go to Disneyland®
Nkisi by Carlos-Zenen Trujillo To die is easy. To return is more difficult. See, the dead never leave. They linger on. In the trees and the rocks and the water and the bones. They become Nkisi. And their bones find their way to my Nganga. I remember the first time I saw an Nganga. It was Tata Manolo’s and I was 13. Tata had been given it by his Tata who was Negro Kongo. Tata’s Tata’s Family was full of slavery and pain, and it is said that one of them, during the time of the Spanish, had killed his master after a whipping in the sugarcane with a machete dripping in sweet and blood. The constable had him killed for it, but his soul was too strong. It would not go away. He bothered the master’s family, standing over them during the day, creeping into their dreams at night. They were bothered so much that they asked Tata’s Tata’s ancestors to get rid of him. Of course they refused, family should never be Nganga to family. But the master gave them four whippings and they relented. They lured the spirit in with promises of food and sacrifice, then while he was distracted they dug up his
corpse. He had no proper burial as he was a slave and a heathen, so the other slaves had taken his bone and buried them under a Siguraya tree by a creek. Late that night, while he was distracted, they dug up his bones and put them in an iron cauldron and bound his soul to it to make the Nganga. And he has been there ever since, serving the Palero who possessed his home. The cauldron itself was amazing. Made of rough, worn iron that had seen more centuries than anyone in the village and probably all of Havana Country. Inside bones and crude tools that seemed so finite that just breathing on them would cause the whole thing to dissipate into the air and mingle with the smoke and dust all around home. It was caked with a layer of dust that was an inhuman shade of grey, shades too dark. And I stood there watching as Tata told the story from his old wooden rocking chair. It was the type with a wicker back and grime all over. “You must be scarred soon.” He said. “You are getting of an age where you are no longer a child. And the scarring must occur before you become a true palero.” He rocked back and forth and back again, so that his glasses moved with him across his nose. He wiped his forehead with a white rag and kept going. “You will be my heir. The one to follow this tradition. Ah Jesus, we are a dying breed. Palero are fewer now than ever.” But his work flourished. The country was burning, and business was good for a man who works with the dead. That is not to say he sought it out or enjoyed it. Paleros did not enjoy much of the business others asked them to do. But the old saying went “If someone hurts you and you want to feel better, see a Santero. If you want them to pay, see a Palero.” The arts of the Kongo were more mysterious and feared that that of Yoruba, but no more scary. The Paleros just have a more intimate relationship with the spirits. Three days later I was scarred. It is small, only the symbols of Sieterayos, lightning bolts, on my shoulder. The cut was shallow, like a scrape with a wire, it would not become scar normally. But the paleros have an old way to make it stick. To mark you for life as one of their order. Or rather our order. It is difficult to see myself as one of those men. Who makes Ngangas. But I think that is true of any transition. I could speak with the Nkisi then. They talked to me, sometimes as birds, sometimes as rocks and I talk back. Not in words, but in motions. I talked with my Nganga
too. I had just recently gotten the bones from Colon Cemetery, and they were getting settled to their new home. Some say the Nganga are our slaves, but I don’t believe that is true. The knife cuts both ways, just as the palero holds the Nganga in thrall so does the Nganga the palero. We are tied. Or were tied. I can no longer hear them. Not since I strapped three wheels together and left the island. Here in the north the Nkisi seem more dead. And cold. Like the life has been torn out of them. The dead are not exalted but hidden here, but hidden, and their spirits left to rot with the dirt and worms. I left my Nganga at home. And every now and then I hear it calling me. Like a faint pain in my chest. Or behind my eyes. Wanting me to come back. I feel the spirit leaving me as well. Like my Nkisi is being bled dry. Is it that this land is barren of souls? Or that those souls are not mine? That I do not belong to them, so they ignore me. I have talked to a few, but they had been driven mad by the distance and the isolation. Was that my fate too? Would my Nkisi wander, no one to shepherd me? I am happy now, a big house, a wife who only speaks English, a job at an office. But my scar has never faded, and my Nganga still calls me. I wonder what will happen when I die. Will I be brought back? Or will I wander until I come to oblivion. Will I be Nkisi, or will I fade away? Tata is dead now. So is Tata’s Tata. And their entire generation. And the Palo Mayumbe he taught me has become my secret, one I lie about when some yankee at work asks me about my religion and I say “I’m not a religious person”. I said I would go back, but I keep making excuses not to. I’m afraid of being punished. But if I die here, will Centella Ndoki come for my soul? Will she fly on her whirlwind 4,000 miles from home? Or is this the domain of strange, cold gods, who ignore their parishioners and let the spirits of their people rot bellow a frozen ground, or wither away in marble houses, or burn into crisps of dust, or refuse to rest with acids and formaldehyde? If that my fate? Death is easy, but who in this place will bring me back?
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Not Another Untitled Poem I do not say that I don’t attract lips instead of ladybugs I do not see why I’ve attracted this mirrored wish for what I did not know I was not ready for I do not believe anything that matters ever truly changes I do not see rainbows when you attach your face beneath them and I do not sabotage my life in waiting for what you can’t admit you’ll never be ready for
Amy Accongio
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Contemplating submitting to Closely Lit Mag? Please send all submissions to closelylitmag@gmail.com by November 20th to be considered for December’s issue, “Simultaneous.” And as a bonus: A whole bunch of quotes from some creative writing professors, probably to Inspire You.
“Your only job as a writer “Don’t let the balloon hit the floor.” is just to blow someone’s mind for an hour.” “If you have to tell people to live passionately...” “You don’t have to make sense of it because it doesn’t make sense.” “The best thing about being a “Surrender yourself to what writer is that you can do whatever you don’t understand.” want for the rest of your life and call it research.” “What are the figs in your life?” “Mess up your neat averageness all you can.” “If it doesn’t cause some “What I’m tryin’ ta do with sort of insurrection or my spaghetti sauce is express blow something up, then myself so I fucked it all.” what’s the point?” “A wizard doesn’t earn being a wizard.”
“Not being risky is an automatic failure.” “If someone comes in that door and even looks wrong, just start throwing shit.”
“DON’T GET MARRIED TO YOUR WRITING.”
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but fiction is more real.” “In my experience in life, glass dildo person don’t watch Nascar.” “Maybe you realize that one of your character can sing.”
“Write for readers.” “We don’t live in a time where we can fake it very much anymore.”
“To write a story is to immerse your whole self in it.”
© Fuck Those Bitches Press 2015
18. Foam Board Labyrinth by Alden Lee 23. Untitled by Cameron Gray 24. The Pineapple by Savannah True Randall 25. Nkisi by Carlos-Zenen
Jay Lundy
11. Off-Brand Romance by Taylor Oliver 14. My First First Draft (Dyslexic Poet’s Lament Trujillo 28. Not Another Untitled Poem by Amy Accongio
by Victoria Morgan 15. you sat on your folding chair and clipped your toenails with a pair of pliers and i sat on your mattress with a pair of scissors
and i cut mine (August, 2015) by Kate Burkhardt 17. Space Invaders by Taylor Oliver
3. Frank by Savannah True Randall 6. Still by Alden Lee 7. Corners by Jay Lundy 9. Untitled by Catherine Matthews 10. Watashi wa by Rand Burgess
1. He Asked Me To Marry Him In A Hotel Room by Victoria Morgan 2. Untitled by Amy Accongio