Corridors Literary Art Magazine 2019 by Corridors Literary Art Magazine

CORRIDORS v.5 2019

Staff

Fiction & Poetry

Nonfiction

Editor: Staff:

Editors: Staff:

Art & Design

Matt Brown Jackson Barzun Jocelyn Early-Hubelbank Keelin Ferdinandsen Riley Gerrity John Gillespie Katie Giron Jenna Granato Angela Miceli Drew Sly Ema-Joanne Walden Matt Brown Cara Hullings Julia Bagent Shannon Bedrossian Angela Licht Kelly Lyons Cassie Mihalczo Jordan Raccuia

Editors:

Cara Hullings Catherine Tsilionis

Staff:

Victoria Bartolomeo Hannah Boland

Publicity

Jelly Iglesia

Editor in Chief

Miranda Nolan

Faculty Advisors

Lucas Southworth Tiffany Curtis

Editor’s Note Every year, the creativity and innovation of Loyola students culminates in one magnificent collection: Corridors.

Corridors Literary Journal Loyola University Maryland. Volume 5/2019

This book in your hands is filled with the kind of work you’ve come to expect from Corridors over the last five years: stunning poetry, bold artwork, captivating nonfiction, and imaginative fiction. As you flip through the pages, you’ll travel from Cinque Terre to Tanzania, from Bulgaria to outer space, from the mind of a wannabe cowboy to a bathtub on Saturday night. There’s artwork that makes us squint and tilt our heads, open letters that remind us of our civic responsibility, and a raw and powerful ode to a member of our Loyola community that both breaks our hearts and helps us heal.

Corridors does not claim publishing rights of any kind for the materials within its pages: all rights remain those of the author or artist. We invite the Loyola student body to submit original poetry, fiction, nonfiction, artwork, and photography to next year’s issue. All submissions remain confidential. Please direct all electronic submissions to corridors@loyola.edu. Published by: Mount Royal Printing Co. 6310 Blair Hill Lane Baltimore, MD 21209 Cover: Gesso on Cardboard, Maeve Ponticiello Inserts: Spilled Milk, Alex Vigliotti Transcribed Valley, Nathalie Walker

Corridors 2019

All of that, bound between two paperback covers.

We are grateful that we get to share the best that our community of creatives has to offer. These are stories and artwork collected and created from all over the world. We hope you can get lost inside this assemblage we’ve gathered for you here. A special thanks to all of our incredible contributors, editors, and designers. You remind us that creation is a community act. Miranda Nolan Editor-in-Chief

T A B L E O F

Fiction

Poetry

The Aftermath by Erica Mones...........................................25

Bliss by James Grant..............................................................73

Route 22 by Anonymous......................................................33

Apples to Apples by Cassie Mihalczo................................74

Here Come Cowboys by Kathleen Ball.............................35

Shackles & Chains by Brett-Ashley Hooper......................76

Jade by Cassie Mihalczo......................................................39

Butterscotch by Kelly Williamson.......................................77

Saturday Nights by Ellen Mitchell.....................................43

Child of the Spark by Mary Sutton.....................................78

Rain, Rain by Mary Sutton...................................................47

Ode to Satan by Xela............................................................79

My Little Fox by Rayonna Burton-Jernigan......................49

C O N C R E T E by Anne-Marie Fienkeng.......................80

Bug-Out Bag by Emily Engelhaupt....................................51

Still Life with Melon and Peaches, 1866, Édouard Manet by

Solum by Chelsea Little........................................................53

Daniela Laudisio....................................................................82

C O N T E N T S Corridors 2019

I Found You, Then I Lost You by Nevay Archuleta.........83 purple by Rodlyn-Mae Banting...........................................84 Pink Wallpaper by Emma Wydeven..................................85 The Kiss by Emily Marquardt.............................................86 Celestial by Maci Torres.......................................................88 memory–partway through a round of beer pong by Ellen Mitchell...................................................................................90 OrangeYouGlad I Didn’t Say Banana by Katherine Freeman..................................................................................91 Gilded Romeo by Nikki Wieman........................................92

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

Corridors 2019

T A B L E O F

Poetry

Nonfiction

Inspired by Frida by Jill Fury..............................................95

Caramel Doesn’t Change by Chloe Shields............................123

Orbity by Emily Engelhaupt................................................96

Our Human Drama by Amanda Waggoner...........................127

Patience is the Night by Carolyn Al-Ghusbi.....................97

LANGUAGE LOST by Daniela Laudisio...............................131

Foreign Friend by Mia Condé.............................................98

Ode to My Father: Did You Notice? by Rayonna Burton-

Roller Baby by Emma Wydeven.........................................99

Jernigan........................................................................................137

Sandwich, Massachusetts by Katherine Freeman..........100

Procrastinator’s Creed by Nikki Wieman...............................141

Serene by Angelica Casillas...............................................101

Snapped by Delaney Porter......................................................145

Sunlight by Carolyn Al-Ghusbi.........................................102

Lost in the Dust by Evan Visconti............................................147

T A B L E O F

Verbesserung by Jack Ebmeier..........................................103

C O N T E N T S

The Idea of Color by Amber Davis...................................104 trapped by Kelly Williamson.............................................106 Pittsburgh, October 27th by Elisabeth Freer.....................108 Gone, Changed by Mia Condé..........................................110 Marked by Rodlyn-Mae Banting......................................111

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C O N T E N T S Corridors 2019

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

Essay Winners

Art & Photography

First Place:

Badtime by Mark McGowan.......................................................14

On Alternate Dimensions by Kristin Auer.......................165

Reflection of the Soul by Alex Vigliotti.....................................15 Bones by Alex Vigliotti.................................................................16

Second Place:

Serenity by Averi Cannon...........................................................17

An Open Letter to Governor Mary Fallin of

Rise Up by Gillian Chambres.....................................................18

Oklahoma by Caoimhe Mannion......................................169

Self Portrait of Eye by Joshua Chrobak.....................................19 Dusk Falls on St. Peter’s by Jack Finnegan...............................20

Third Place:

Body Aura: A Series by Nathalie Walker.............................61-65

Open Letter to Senator Mitch McConnell

Smear by Christina Damon........................................................66

by Brunilda Neufeld............................................................173

Line by Christina Damon............................................................67

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Terrain by Christina Damon.......................................................68 Etch by Christina Damon............................................................69 Pígéon by Rayonna Burton-Jernigan.......................................112 My Mind by Mark McGowan...................................................113 Glass Orb by Nathalie Walker..................................................114 Manarola Sunrise by Jack Finngan..........................................115 Equal Justice Under Law by Jack Finnegan...........................116 Untitled by Matt Jakab...............................................................117

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

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T A B L E

Art & Photography A Glimpse of Santorini by Angela Licht.........................118 Blue by Emily Engelhaupt.................................................119 Tranquility by Averi Cannon............................................154 Nativism by Nathalie Walker............................................155 Tin by Alex Vigliotti............................................................156

O F

1975 Mustang Fastback by Joshua Chrobak...................157 Taxi! by Angela Licht..........................................................158 Charlotte by Averi Cannon................................................159 Capitol Dome by Jack Finnegan.......................................160

C O N T E N T S Corridors 2019

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” —Scott Adams

Badtime Mark McGowan

Reflection of the Soul Alex Vigliotti

Serenity Averi Cannon

Bones Alex Vigliotti

Rise Up Gillian Chambres

Self Portrait of Eye Joshua Chrobak

Dusk Falls on St. Peter’s Jack Finnegan

“Writing fiction is the act of weaving a series of lies to arrive at a greater truth.” ― Khaled Hosseini

FICTION

The Aftermath by Erica Mones

Penny used to be a tea drinker. Her veiny blue hands would wrap around a lukewarm mug as she took dainty sips. The tea soon turned into black coffee, which turned to Adderall—no toast, hold the butter. Ryan would hold her. His hand would graze along her spine, under his oversized college football sweatshirt until she decided to sit up, usually in a swift motion. “Just a moment, love,” she would murmur as her stockinged feet made way towards the bathroom. He would lay there, hearing the faint sound of retching (which never failed to make him wince and prop himself up on one elbow), and when she padded back, he would thrust his arms around her and whisper, “I love you, beautiful.” She would always squeeze her eyes shut until all she could see was red. He would dust tendrils of grayishblonde hair away from her eyes. She never did bother to return his gaze, afraid that he would detect their vacancy. Her breaths were sharp, like punctuation following “buts” and “ors”—abrupt, as if she had something more to say. But Penny would stay silent. Ryan would grab her milky white hand that was never quite still as it twitched and caress it until the twitches were faint ripples that easily smoothed out. Like that, they would fall asleep. Two years later, in the quaint diner, their eyes met between coffee cups and a golden band that tightly embraced his finger. The magnetic pull of the gold held Penny’s pupils, fixing them on his fingers. They were the fingers that had once interlocked with hers. She drummed her own fingers on her sharp clavicle as she watched him gawk at her with a pitying smile. As Penny poured his coffee, Ryan’s elbow grazed the back of her hand. She smiled weakly and padded towards another table of disgruntled old women. They had been trying to flag her down for at least two minutes. If Penny didn’t hustle, they might drop dead. Tea. Coffee. Adderall. She could remember their first date and glasses of Chardonnay that they had held tightly like promises not meant to hit the floor. They drank much of the wine and both erupted in hiccups. Each time one would hiccup, the other would laugh hysterically, worsening his or her

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fiction

26 own hiccups. Her cheeks had been as rosy as her pink sweater as Ryan leaned in for their first kiss. Penny giggled because his breath tickled her nose. Her thick, blonde hair had been pulled back into a bouncy ponytail that jolted like electricity each time she laughed. She could remember the card games that ended in sloppy kisses regardless of who won or who tried to cheat, and the cold nights spent on the sofa with his arm wrapped tightly around her skeletal shoulder. She could remember laughing until her lungs were deflated—what it felt like to be alive. What it felt like to be alive; to love and to be loved. To memorize every blemish and deformity of another person, and never want to let go or see someone else’s perfection; for nobody’s perfection could ever compare to a lover’s precious flaws. To fight over trivial matters, like the umbrellas Ryan seemed to lose on a weekly basis, but to love him anyway. To feel his forgiving love even on the days she questioned if it was worth it. It was worth it. Her parents still asked about Ryan from time to time: were they friends on Facebook? Did he seem happy? Did he get that job at the law firm? How were his grandparents doing? Penny answered all these question easily—she didn’t know. She did not have time for social media nowadays, and even if she did, she would not be focusing on Ryan’s new life. She did not mind their inquiries, as it was a distraction from the comments about her weight and bizarre eating patterns. Penny thought of this when she saw him. His eyes seemed to answer all of these questions as they peeked up from behind the menu. She could remember the tears that had streamed down his face while it was buried in his palms the night he found chunks of beef stew overflowing the toilet. “Tell me the truth,” he had pleaded with his voice muffled. “Why are you doing this? You need help.” Ryan reached for her hand, but Penny turned away, sobbing. “It’s not what you think. It’s just food poisoning.” She had begged him to just call a plumber. She had begged him to forget this ever happened; it was a one-time thing. Nothing was wrong with her. Ryan stayed even when Penny had begged him to leave. She had not wanted the darkness to consume his light—his beautiful, benevolent light that had fed her spoonfuls of hope. He had refused to walk out that night and slept on her floor until the sobs stopped. Then there was the night he had stayed up telling her stories from his childhood and how he

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27 wanted nothing more in life than to be a father. Penny could remember the precious glow of his eyes as he talked about how he would drive his children to sports practices someday. She never could see herself as a mother. After all, she couldn’t even keep the lilacs in the garden alive. Ryan had loved Penny even when her hip bones would stab him as he hugged her at night, and he had loved her when she cried for three hours straight, unable to utter so much as what was wrong. He had loved her when her hair was tangled in greasy knots and mascara was smudged along the edges of her pasty white cheeks. He had loved her when she had begged him not to come back or call; she hadn’t wanted him to see her cry over a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or sit in a room full of people just like her with their families talking about how they’ve been in and out of this nightmare for years. She feared that one day he would see life as more than this dull place. Ryan had potential, but Penny had learned potential was fleeting. She had not wanted him to waste his potential on her. Ryan’s voice, cracking and hushed, had inquired, “Will you ever see what I see? I love you. Will I ever be enough to convince you to keep fighting?” Her silence cut deeper than any combination of syllables ever could. Penny had not dared look into his eyes, scared that she might selfishly unpack her suitcase. She had been scared to let him touch her because the mere sensation of his skin on hers would have been enough to make her greedy, so Penny had grabbed her itchy, wool coat and did not dare glance back. If she didn’t see Ryan cry, there was still a chance that he was not crying or in love or out of love or anything; he wasn’t even the dull ache in her head that morning after a night filled with vodka and tonic. Instead, he was the nights of restful sleep in her cozy apartment. The nights filled with the comfort of emptiness. Penny’s phone rang, halting her thoughts. She could barely hear it over the chatter in the diner, so she took it out of the milk-stained pocket of her apron, reminding herself to wash her apron that night before it began to emit a rancid odor, and walked out the door and took the call. “Hello,” she said. “Hi, yes, is this Penny Winters?” “Yes.” “I’m here from Dr. Liebold’s office. I’m just calling to confirm your three o’clock appointment today.” “Yes. I will be there. Thank you.”

fiction

28 Penny hung up the phone as she walked towards the entrance with its fading sign. It was meant to read DINER, but the N had nearly faded completely. She walked back inside to remind her boss that she was leaving early today. She almost did not because she never left early, and most people did on a weekly basis to pick up their children from school or their fathers’ houses. She dutifully worked through her lunch breaks— something no other waitress did. She saw Ryan and noted that a woman had joined him. The woman that sat across from him was as beautiful as Penny expected; her hair rippled a few inches below her shoulders, her skin glowed, her body had curves and her form-fitting dress proudly showcased it all. Her smile radiated vivaciousness as if she were the source of life itself. She would be the perfect mother—she would probably even remember to cut the crusts off her kids’ peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Penny could imagine the couple on their wedding day—Ryan shoving a gracefully iced cake into his bride’s face. She probably wouldn’t even flinch or hesitate for a nanosecond before inhaling the cake as if it were oxygen. Penny imagined the woman pregnant with Ryan’s first child—her skin even more glowy than it was that day, making the bulge of her belly somehow stunning. Her breasts would probably be even more voluptuous. This woman would certainly be a living Aphrodite, Penny thought. Penny peered down at her own abdomen. Its flatness then seemed nothing more than flat. Her life’s work did not reward her with love or happiness, but a lonely sort of comfort. The woman smiled as Ryan told a story about his college days as a wannabe frat boy. She shook her head and said, “I can’t imagine you doing anything like that. Ever.” He shrugged. “I said I wanted to be in Kappa Pi. Not that that dream would ever come to fruition. The guys wanted me to carry their books for a week. Back then I didn’t have these guns.” He flexed his slightly defined biceps. The woman snorted. “Is Kappa Pi even a real fraternity?” “Eh, I don’t know the actual name,” he said with a smirk. “After all, I never was a brother. I blocked it out. Back then I couldn’t take a blow like that.” As Penny turned away from the couple, she felt Ryan’s gaze. His eyes held her like her favorite sweater; they set her soul ablaze as if to say, “You’re still beautiful.” Her eyes began to water like they had every

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29 time she returned from the bathroom in the middle of the night. Her thoughts were interrupted when the woman asked if she could have creamer for her coffee. “Sure,” she nodded and walked towards the kitchen, pulling the black apron off. She said to her coworker, Aaron, “The couple over there wants creamer for their coffee, but I’ve got an appointment I’m gonna be late for if I don’t leave now.” Aaron nodded, “I’ll tell boss. Things going alright with you?” “We’ll see.” She turned and headed out the door without looking through the frosted windows that showcased the booths like the cakes that mercilessly taunted Penny from beneath the counter. She had no time for a longing glance or even a regretful thought. After she left the appointment, Penny watched as the other cars sped pass, counting how many white cars there were, like she did as a child. As the light changed, Penny, immersed in her thoughts, heard the car behind her honking. She wondered why everyone was always rushing. She wondered why she was always rushing. She was the girl that got her Bachelor’s degree in only two and a half years. She was the girl that seemed to know how each love would end before it even began. She was the girl that hated the crippling vulnerability that always attached itself to surprises and gifts. She was also the girl that had lived; she would drunkenly laugh, grabbing Ryan’s pleasantly clammy hands, and drag him towards the dance floor. She was the girl who once dared to let her heart guide her life for a fleeting moment. Two years later, she was the girl who raced the clock, pouring coffee and smiling robotically. Her apartment was only a few blocks away, but she decided to drive around for a while. She had lived in Boston for nearly three years, yet she never saw much of it. She did not have time for sight-seeing or driving or anything that was not absolutely necessary. She had not been in that part of town since she ended things with Ryan. She didn’t avoid it; she just never found a reason to drive that way. The storefronts were beautiful—decorated with red, green, and gold tinsel. She parked once she saw the jewelers. An old necklace had been sitting on her dresser for six months because its lobster clasp had a deformed claw. The necklace wasn’t anything lavish; it was a delicate emerald. It wasn’t a sparkling ring, but it still reeked of the kind of sickly sweet love that Penny loved to scoff at. It represented the sugar-infused, bubblegum-flavored love that always

fiction

30 seemed to end perfectly in popular films. Penny never wore green anymore, so she could never bring herself to get it fixed. That day, she rationalized that she was already here, so she might as well not waste the gas. As she stepped out of her car, she noticed a handwritten sign on the door. It covered the window that once showcased the rings Penny loved to stare at, pretending that what she and Ryan had would make it through another winter. Cobwebs lined the once sparkling window. It was a lonely sight. The store had been robbed of its dignity. “Sorry, we’re out of business,” it read in black permanent marker. Penny knew that even if it reopened, she would never return. It was too late. What was once a beautiful sight had been tainted by the stringy cobwebs and makeshift sign. As Penny walked back to her car, she reminded herself that she never wore green anyway. She watched the pedestrians. They looked like they had just walked out of a J.Crew holiday ad, but from afar, they looked like ants. One girl in particular, who looked like she was in her early teens, was wearing a red peacoat that reminded Penny of a coat she had in high school. The girl’s frame was slight, and she kept her head down in a fruitless attempt to block the cold. If the wind blew any harder, she would have tumbled over. Like many of the other people, the girl was not wearing gloves, but instead she shoved her hands into her pockets. Penny wondered how many of these people were one gust of wind away from collapsing into nothingness. She wondered if they all felt unsteady like she had for years. That night, Penny sat in a circle with twenty or so other women and two or three men. It was her doctor’s idea. Apparently, Penny needed to brush up on old coping skills. The room smelled of eucalyptus and lavender—a hippie cocktail of sorts. The table in the center of the room was barren of anything potentially edible. No bowls brimming with the sinful, sugar-laden packets that could make Penny gain ten pounds from a tentative glance. The same four women dominated the conversation every time, and Penny could just about predict what each one would say. One named Melanie, whom Penny especially hated, always talked about her divorce. Penny wondered if this woman had ever been in love. Penny couldn’t trust her because she claimed to be a freelance writer, yet used phrases like “so-so.” Melanie looked like the type of woman that could have been pretty or smart, but instead, her skin was ghostly white and her mousy brown hair was always tied in a low ponytail. Penny hated the way Melanie described intimate parts of her previous marriage; was

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31 nothing sacred anymore? Melanie always claimed that her weight loss was a result of colitis, but everyone knew better. Penny knew better; it never truly was colitis or the flu or stress—it was shrinking under the weight of the world. Penny stared at Melanie’s bony, hardened figure and she wondered if she ever looked that small. Some days, Penny felt like an ant scurrying off to fulfill her meaningless life’s duties, while other days she felt as conspicuous as an elephant in the middle of Manhattan. Melanie droned on for fifteen minutes, and as the time passed, Penny’s legs grew more and more restless. She had started out gently tapping her toes on the floor. By the middle of Melanie’s monologue, Penny was wildly swinging her legs back and forth. She feared that if she was still, she’d disappear or explode. Her stomach hurt. It felt as if she had swallowed stones. The other women rambled about hypermetabolism, heart palpitations, dizziness, nausea, vomiting blood, and a host of other things Penny didn’t want to think about. One boasted about not using laxatives in over a week. What an accomplishment! Penny pumped her legs furiously, as if she was a child on a swing set. The moderator, Jane, looked at Penny, “Penny, is there something you’d like to add to the conversation?” Penny knew Jane from her twoweek stint at the center. Jane was well versed in treating that illness, but not so much in minding her patients’ feelings. When she’d first met Penny she told her that her childhood best friend died from electrolyte imbalance. Penny felt bad, but she didn’t know why Jane divulged this. The same uneasy feeling filled her stomach, making her feel like vomiting. “How? How do all those people manage to stand tall while the wind is blowing? The wind blows in your face to the point where you don’t know if you’ll ever breathe again. It hurts. It hurts so much you don’t know if the pain will stop or drill a hole through your heart or send you flying. Am I the only one falling? Am I the only one who feels like I’m one breeze away from disintegrating?” Penny’s voice was quivering, but it was enough to silence the room.

fiction

Route 22

by Anonymous The snow was falling down so beautifully, coating the trees ever so delicately with each individual snowflake. However, there was a chilling sensation in the air that suggested the beautiful weather was responsible for something. The tire tracks in the road led a man to pulling over, putting his hazards on, and dialing 911. Over the ledge of the road, headlights were still beaming through the falling snow, trying to show any sign of life left. “911, what’s your emergency?” “Hello, I am reporting a car accident off Route 22. A mile down from exit 8.” “On our way.” The man was eager to go home that night, waiting to see his loving kids. He heroically stayed and dedicated his night to waiting until the ambulance arrived on the scene because in some strange way, he seemed as if has been here before. Gazing over the edge, he noticed the snow wasn’t falling as softly as it was earlier. It had an angry intent as it started to create a layer of cold on the undercarriage of the car. Glass and metal were scattered all over the snow bank. The man was questioning himself, gazing down upon the car. He opened his trunk, pulling out what he needed, and started to walk closer to the edge. “I’m going to regret this,” he mumbled nervously to himself. Stumbling his way, trying to avoid falling through ice buried beneath the snow, he saw the victimized car in the distance. Glass started to the take place of the snow, and there were red dots surrounding the near perimeter of the car. Closing his eyes, he made his way to the window. Totaled. He gripped his hands and peered down taking slower and slower breaths between his chattering teeth. However, he felt a sudden rush of courage overcome him. He screamed. “Hello?!” No answer. “Hello?! Please, can any of you answer me?” From the driver’s side, he heard a faint mumbling sound. The man wiped his eyes. He couldn’t tell if he was staring at a man or a boy. “Sir, please forgive me, I never meant for this to happen.” He lifted his eyes to meet the man’s face. Silence was mixed with heavy breathing, teeth chattering, and trying to find the urge not to cry.

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34 The man peered in the back, fighting back tears. Gazing at the victims, he rubbed his chest nervously. “The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt them. Can you check to see if they are still breathing? I can’t move any part of me.” “Of course. Hang tight. This isn’t your fault, and help is on the way. I will do whatever I can.” The snow was falling harder and harder by the time he made his way around the car to check for heartbeats. “Please sir, please, are any of them still alive?” He put his hand on each individual chest, through the tattered clothing and frozen blood. Then checking their necks, looking for hope. He swallowed hard. “Nothing.” The man heard a scream from the front seat. It was nothing like he’d ever heard before. As his eyes filled with water, he couldn’t tell if it was the cold, or the pain he heard emanating from the driver’s body. “I’m so sorry. The best thing I could’ve done right now was to call an ambulance.” The driver quieted down and managed to steady his breath. Sirens in the distance were coming closer and closer. He closed his eyes and tried to fight back tears. “Sir, can you please do me one favor before you go to get the ambulance? I just can’t move to do it myself.” “Of course, anything.” “Do you see the girl in the left, back seat?” “Yes.” “Can you please give me the ring on her finger?” “Shit, man, I was afraid you were going to say that.” The man responded rubbing the back of his neck. With tears in his eyes that he couldn’t fight back anymore, he said to the driver. “I know exactly what you’re going through.”

Corridors 2019

Here Come Cowboys by Kathleen Ball

His dad always said he was mean to look at. He may have been talking about himself, or maybe the man was talking about his son, but he knew it didn’t matter. Because if his dad was mean to look at, he was too. A pig-faced scowl and scrunched-up eyes from too much squinting in disbelief were the makeup of his dad’s face. He wondered sometimes if he had always had an anger to match or if that came later. Summer meant he got to see a lot more of his dad’s mean face, usually spitting curses. He lay flat on the ground, his stomach pushing into the ugly orange carpet as he tried not to turn away from the blue glow of the TV. Behind him in the kitchen, his father’s mean face shouted back into his mother’s, her hands smacking the counter in rebellion, even when her mouth didn’t move. He was used to it, lifting the remote control to turn the volume up just a bar or two, enough to hear more but not enough for them to notice him. “Goddammit I am trying—“ His father’s voice faded into John Wayne’s on screen. “I haven’t lost my temper in forty years, but pilgrim you caused a lot of trouble this morning—“ “—This isn’t easy on me—“ “—and somebody oughta belt you in the mouth. But I won’t, I won’t. The hell I won’t!” He heard his mother’s hand slam down on the table, breaking off his father’s sentence again. He didn’t turn as he heard his mother’s body fall into the shelves by an invisible force, Tupperware clattering down. He sighed out through his nose, shuffling up to stand, still not turning around. Leaving the TV on, he slipped his shoes on, ignoring the cacophony behind him as he slipped through the screen door. He could still hear his parents through the open windows, blocky and snuffed like the sounds of an old movie. The evening air was barely cooler than the humid day, but the glow of blue dusk was comforting as he headed down his street. Past dinner time, kids spilled into the street, men in tank tops sitting on stoops, swigging from brown bottles. The air buzzed with the white noise, and the sandpaper rawness loosened a little in his chest. Kids like him splattered across puddles, swarming and blasting apart as cars passed, feet clattering on the gravel and sidewalk. He kept walking past the groups, thinking of his mean face and a lone horse disappearing in a sunset.

fiction

36 He knew he would have to turn back to the apartment soon, dusk turning into the magnetic night, the street light flickering gold down onto him already. He wasn’t as sure if he was ready to go back to the tightness in his chest, and he wasn’t afraid to admit that to himself. He crossed the narrow street, ready to circle back around when he saw three kids swarm to the convenience store parking lot. The metallic handlebars danced in the fluorescent lights, and the glow shone on the boys’ faces, older than him, their faces kinder than his, looking like cowboys on their shiny horses. He watched as they rested their bikes against the wall by the dumpster, the metallic primary colors bright. He slowed his pace, heart beating faster, watching them. He slowed more as two of the boys went inside the store, leaving a lookout who seemed put out by the job. His pale face was smashed into a pout, his back to the bikes as he watched the other boys inside the store. He walked past the boy’s shoulder, his back, the pale face never turning towards him. He thought of the boys’ faces when they were on the bikes, the same as the cowboys feeling wind on a prairie, and his feet moved closer to the bikes. He inched behind the boy’s back, his rubber soles meeting toe first and slowly arching to the heel. He thought of the helpful Native American tracking through the plains, quiet and stealthy. His hands shook at his sides as he reached for the bike, the boy still not noticing, reaching his hand out to lie flat against the seat of the bike to calm the stallion. He breathed one last exhalation through his nose as he leaned forward, moving his hand up the body of the red metallic bike. He heard the bell jingle from the convenience store door, heart in his throat as he leaped forward to pull the bike back. The lookout whipped around, eyes wide, the boys by the door a shouting frenzy as he dodged away from the other boy reaching after him. His ears thrummed with his blood as he leapt onto the bike, using the sloped parking lot to kick himself off into the road. The pale boy chased him down to the sidewalk, but by then he was too far ahead, the other boys shouting after him as he pumped the bike under each streetlight. The thrumming in his ears only slowed down as he had made it down a couple blocks and realized the boys must have been hopelessly behind him. The metallic red of the bike flickered against the gold streetlights, the clicking of the chain the only sound in the dark city. The night had set, and he was free, wind whistling in his ears. Here come the cowboys, he thought to himself, far beyond the law. He could stay out all night, and why not? There wasn’t anything to stop him, he had the bike to keep him going, he never had to stop now. He would never have to hover in that summer melting, the yelling, the stand-still feeling of lying on his

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37 orange carpet and watching the flies bat against the windows. He was freewheeling, moving, streaking to the sunset with his trusty steed. He felt the knot in his chest loosen, his throat bringing clean air into his lungs for the first time in forever. He breezed down the next hill, rising to meet the next street and the next freedom. The breath stopped short in his throat as the hill revealed the same boys, grouped on the corner of the block, looking red faced and angry. At the sound of his screeching brakes, they glanced up, the pale boy’s blue eyes planting right on his mean face. “Hey!” one of them shouted, the other leaping into action after the cowboy scrambling back up the hill. He huffed as he pushed his heavy legs to pedal hard up the hill, the gears moving too slow for him as the boys ran their bikes closer to him, pushing their mustangs beside them. “C’mon boy, we can do it,” he whispered to the bike, pushing his tights legs over the hill, pedals moving violently beneath his feet in the relief of momentum. The boys behind him leapt onto their bikes, the third standing on the back of one of the bikes, his scarecrow frame hurling obscenities in their chase. He couldn’t help frantically glancing back at them, their red faces getting closer and closer. He knew he wouldn’t make it, they were gaining too quickly, and he couldn’t get his pedals to move fast enough. This would be his and his red mustang’s last ride. The chase moved down the stripes of streetlights, coming closer to an empty parking lot, fluorescent lights of the store signs still blaring down onto the pavement. If he could get across there, he could ditch the bike and climb the fence, maybe they wouldn’t follow. Plan in his head, he pumped his legs as hard as he could, turning to see the boys closer than ever, one of them reaching an arm out to try and grab him. Swinging into the parking lot, he heard their tires skidding as they rushed to follow him. “Alright pal, this is it,” he murmured to his bike, gently patting the handlebars as he neared the fence. He thought he could feel the breath of the boys behind him on his neck, their anger warm on his trail. Aiming straight at the fence, he gave one last push of his legs and jumped off of the bike, grabbing the rungs of the fence and pulling himself up. “The fuck is he doing?” one of the boys barked behind him, the skid of their tires in his ears as he tried to place his feet on the fence, rubber soles slipping. His foot dangled for just a second, but long enough for one of the boys to grab the leg and yank him onto the asphalt. He hit the ground hard, high whining in his ears as he grabbed his head, curling in on himself. “Look at this mean little ugly face,” laughed one of the boys, his voice sounding distorted and underwater. The remark was punctuated by a kick to his ribs, the hit a small burn in the background of the thumping in his head, his breath hiccupping in is throat. “What were you gonna

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38 do, sell it?” laughed another one, another hit in his back, one boy leaning over to smack him on the shoulder, shifting him to lie on his back. He kept his eyes clenched, the fear of the next abuse more crushing than the burst of pain with each strike. “Hey, wait,” one of the boys started, the other hitting him hard in the face, the gravel ripping at his skin and blood flooding over his split lip. “I think he’s just a kid,” the boy continued, his voice tight. He tried to curl harder in himself, but another kicked his arm. “Just a kid stealing bikes, right?” The sneer was harsh, but the boys seemed to back away, one last kick to the ribs. “Whatever, let’s go.” He felt the boys leave, their tires skidding as they left him in the parking lot, the ringing no longer deafening but the pain flooding in. He clutched his head, his forehead feeling wet under his shaking hands. He struggled to sit up, finally blinking his eyes open to the fluorescent lights of the parking lot. The boys were gone, bikes collected and retrieved. He wondered where he was, how he might get home. His breath was heavy as he tried to stand up, his ribs protesting and his head swelling with dizziness. Leaning against the fence, he pulled himself along the parking lot edge, making his way back to the sidewalk. In his head, he was back at home, lying on that orange carpet, his mother giving him ice for his head. The TV was playing his favorite movie, John Wayne speaking to him through the speakers. “Do you know what a cull is, ma’am?” He managed to the sidewalk, starting back up the hill that lost him everything. The arch seemed so much less now, and he felt a spark of resentment at his useless legs that had failed him and his red mustang. He hoped he would get home late enough that his parents wouldn’t be awake. He didn’t know if he could stand them yelling at him while his brain felt like it was leaking out of his ears. He wondered if it would swell, if he would have a black eye, if he could be the tough guy everyone thought his mean face meant he was. “A cull is a specimen that is so worthless that you have to cut him out of the herd.”

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Jade

by Cassie Mihalczo Jade used to love the winter. Waking up in the morning, gulping down her “special candy,” as her mother used to say, “to make your brain work right!” and getting in the car to go to her favorite park with the hill, where she went sledding with her friends from her social skills class. Jade and her mom would stay up late the night before to bake cookies for her friends, the whole house becoming entrenched in the aroma of a fresh dough and chocolate chips. “Always do one nice thing for someone every day for the rest of your life, even if it doesn’t look like they need it,” Jade’s mother used to say. Having made it through school with the help of her “special candy,” Jade went on to be a college graduate, and five years after college, accepted a job at one of those large accounting firms that you always hear of. Jade was still living at home to save money, but she didn’t mind. She was close with her parents and felt comfortable being at home. Every morning, she got up, optimistic of the day ahead of her. She had just recently stopped taking her “special candy,” meaning that she’s grown now, and if she hasn’t learned anything yet, “I don’t think she ever will.” It only took her five minutes to walk to the train station, getting on the 8:30 am train to head to work. Exiting the train, she had the apple in hand, ready to feed to the homeless man outside her firm. She had been instructed by her boss not to feed him because he would keep coming back begging for more, but she didn’t mind. Thinking back to her mother’s words, Jade knew it was her moral obligation to do one nice thing for someone every day for the rest of her life. Who knew the homeless man would be the one to cause her the most distress? The days would go on just like this, going to work, feeding the homeless man, and then eventually coming home for the day. It was a nice routine that Jade became accustomed to, kind of like a security blanket. Life was pure. It was all up until that night, though, when everything changed. It was like a plane crashing. There was a loud boom that shook the house, but Jade didn’t mind. Surely it had to come from outside. There are loud noises all the time. Maybe it was just a loud car crash. She would pray on it quickly and maybe bring by sandwiches for the first responders

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40 in the morning. But why was there glass breaking downstairs? Why was Jade’s mother crying? The boom came from outside. There shouldn’t be a reason to worry. Jade’s father was screaming now, begging and pleading, as if trying to make a deal. But he was in sales, he did this every day when marketing those wireless printers, whatever the hell that is. He’s probably just practicing. Jade heard one sharp boom before everything went silent. Surely everything is okay by now, her mother and father must have gone to bed by now. Jade was asleep within minutes. The next morning, Jade saw blood splattered like cobwebs all over her mother’s china cabinet, but no china. The front door was no longer there, instead lying flat on the hardwood floor below, allowing a cool breeze to enter, hardening the blood to make permanent stains. Jade couldn’t find her parents, which immediately worried her, but maybe they had gone to help with the accident that occurred last night, which reminded her about the sandwiches. Maybe the blood all around the house was of the people in the accident, breaking down the door, begging for help. When Jade thought about this, she didn’t mind. Those people needed help. Her parents were probably screaming and yelling because they were frantic and were trying to gather supplies as quickly as possible. Yes, surely that’s what happened. Jade still proceeded to go to work that day, deciding that she would go to the police station after work and ask about the accident. She decided to pre-make the sandwiches and put them in the refrigerator for later but bring one to work for the homeless man. Noticing her “special candy” next to the refrigerator, Jade immediately threw them out without a second thought, knowing that she didn’t need to rely on those things anymore. When she arrived at work, the homeless man wasn’t there. Huh. Maybe he was out for a walk or maybe he found a new spot. But this still puzzled her, bothered her even, but she didn’t know why. Deciding to take the elevator to get to her firm’s floor, she immediately saw the homeless man. He was standing near the right corner of the elevator, slouching, baseball cap covering his eye. It was as if he was waiting for her. But Jade was happy to see him nonetheless and offered him the sandwich. He declined. “What floor?” he asked. “Five please,” Jade responded. “You’re Jade, right?” “Yes, I am.” “I have greatly appreciated your kindness towards me.” “It’s really no trouble. I don’t mind. I’m glad I can help.”

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41 It was at this moment that Jade realized that the homeless man was covered with dried blood, peeling off of his shirt and onto the elevator floor. He had what looked like the shape of a handgun in his pocket that he kept clutching. Suddenly, Jade remembered that she had never told the homeless man her name. The events that happened after this were all a blur for Jade. When the elevator doors opened, the security outside her law firm made the call for help. What happened to the homeless man she never knew. Jade was transported to the hospital, where she was evaluated and then on to several psych wards. PTSD, or whatever they called it. Being declared “okay” to go back to home, Jade was forced to live alone, all by herself. Two years later, there was a loud knock at the door. Jade was already in bed at the time but was woken up. Jade was aware of the challenges her PTSD came with and the daily grievances, but she didn’t mind. She knew that loud sounds could trigger her, so she was quick to control herself. Sometimes, those sounds were a figment of her own imagination. Jade did her deep breathing exercises, said her prayers, and fell back to sleep. When she woke the next morning, she was greeted by the homeless man at the foot of her bed. With a gun to her head, the homeless man said, “Let’s pick up right where we left off.”

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Saturday Nights by Ellen Mitchell

I sank lower in the water, pulling my husband up against my chest. The swirling pink and purple threatened to spill over the edge of the tub, but after a few weeks we’d finally figured out how far to fill it so both of us could go almost completely under without flooding the bathroom. It was only our first year renting the apartment, and I wanted to see how long we could go without having to make an embarrassing call to our landlord. We were doing a pretty good job of fulfilling the barely-on-our-feet young adults stereotype, but that was an experience I’d rather avoid. These Saturday night baths were the highlight of my week—and Sean’s too. He spent long hours on his feet all day, and my job was emotionally draining, to say the least. We needed a chance to unwind. Sometimes we talked, and sometimes we just listened to our playlist of quiet but not sad music. I liked to rub Sean’s shoulders—given the scented candles we lit (mostly vanilla, something soft and sweet and just barely there) and the stockpile of bath bombs we were working through (birthday and anniversary and Hanukkah gifts we’d been getting since college), it was clear these baths were a chance to treat ourselves. I wanted to do everything I could to make my husband feel pampered, even in our tiny tub. It was a tight squeeze with our long legs bent and knees peeking out above the surface. Sean had to lie against my chest, nestled between my legs for us to fit. But I liked holding him close. I slowly drew my hands out of the water, letting them come to rest on his narrow, boney shoulders. They felt slender compared to my broad, muscular ones—evidence of years of swimming. I was never on a team or anything, but I was vain enough to want those huge swimmer’s shoulders. I liked how they made me look. Even when I wasn’t bared from head to toe, you could tell I was an athlete of some kind. My husband, on the other hand—I liked to tease him by calling him a handsome scarecrow. I gently squeezed his shoulders, pressing my thumbs into his back in firm, slow circles. Sean let out a low murmur of content, lazily dropping his head back to smile up at me—he gave up halfway through, and settled for shifting around in the bath, turning to lay his cheek

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44 against my chest. “Joseph?” Sean murmured. “Hmm?” “Water’s starting to get cold. Get out or top it off?” I let myself slip a little further into the (now lukewarm) water, holding my husband against me all the way with one hand wrapped loosely around his waist. I pressed a kiss to his neck. And another, and another. “Up to you, babe.” Sean lurched forward, struggling for a second to get himself upright without elbowing me somewhere soft or throwing water all over the floor. He fiddled with the drain, the hot water tap, the drain again. Trying to get the temperature and level just right. After a minute or so he dropped back against my chest, a satisfied smile on his face. He gently nudged his leg against mine as if to say, there you go. I’m here. I love you. My hands had come to rest on Sean’s stomach—I started tracing slow patterns up and down, almost daring to drop between his legs before my husband laughed and batted my hands away. “Not tonight, babe.” I shrugged. I was okay with having a calm, quiet evening. I settled myself against the back of the tub and let my eyes close. I thought about how silent the room was except for the music playing and the soft splashes of water lapping against porcelain every time we shifted slightly. Eventually I let my hands drift over to Sean’s hips, stroking the soft skin there with my thumbs, and listening as a cool, breathy voice sang about love and finding a home. We just sat there, listening until she faded out and was replaced by a deep, smooth baritone singing about love. “Alex came by my office again today.” Sean stilled at the mention of Alex. That wasn’t his real name. I had to protect my students’ privacy. But it seemed like a name that fit. “He’s been clean for a month now.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. I keep telling him things will get better. He’ll find someone who’ll love him just as he is, but…” Sean lifted his hands to mine, drawing them up as he hugged himself, arms crossed over his waist. “He still having trouble believing you?” I didn’t answer, just glanced down at our tangle of arms, his warmer brown against my almost pasty white. The streaks of scars

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45 scattered from our wrists to elbows were faint, but still visible through the shifting bath water and flicker of candlelight. “I never thought I’d get this either,” Sean murmured. “Having someone to rent a tiny apartment with. Having someone to help me figure out how to pay taxes.” “We still don’t really know how to file taxes.” “You know what I mean,” Sean laughed. “Yeah.” I held my husband a little tighter. “I just hope Alex will too, someday.”

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Rain, Rain by Mary Sutton

Rain. It never stops. It’s like I’m living in Seattle where the sun never shines or like I’m on Venus during the acid rain season, but I’m in Philly and this rain won’t kill me—though it feels like it just might. The Schuylkill is overflowing, ducks are swimming down Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce, and Pine—oh, how I pine for the sun on my face, something other than galoshes slopping on my feet. Sometimes rain is like a metaphor used when life is crumbling around you, damp and cold to the core, no sun in your future, no dry day in sight. Rain is incessant, like bad thoughts that flood your mind and don’t subside until sun breaks through the clouds and warms your face, but I have no bad thoughts. It is just the rain. Rain even floods my memories. My high school graduation—rain. Light blue gowns drowned in water, mascara running like our feet to shelter. The day we laid my Nana to rest—rain. Umbrellas in a graveyard, our dress shoes stained with mud, teardrops interchangeable with raindrops. My last cross-country race—rain. Spikes splashing in saturated grass; a soaked, gloved hand reaching out for a teammate, our skin slick from the rain. Elvis once sang about the rain. Searching from town to town looking for you, with the cold, cold Kentucky rain weighing down his shoes. When I was a kid, my granddad and I would listen to the Elvis station on XM Radio as we would drive to and from Fort Dix Air Force base, to and from Home Depot, to my house from his. Now and then, I’ll think about the drives with my granddad, the drives with Elvis. After all these years and after all that rain, I wonder if he ever found you.

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My Little Fox

by Rayonna Burton-Jernigan My little fox, how sly you are. I decided that I didn’t want one. No matter what, I always said I didn’t want one. I knew I was doomed from the start when you were all I could think of; what would you look like? Would you be brown, pink, yellow or white? Would your eyes be as brown as melted chocolate, or would they look like the blue ocean? Would your footsteps be gentle, or would you leave a mark in your wake? Would you want to lay in your den, or would you run around the forest, yipping and creating havoc? My little fox, how sly you are. You and mother nature must have discussed when your time would come. Once the hunter found its prey, and after a fight that neither wanted to lose, you were created. Under the stars, the moon was at its peak as it beamed down on the earth. Mother nature be damned if this creature was not created. My little fox, how sly you are. You are coming into this crazy world with hunter and prey as your creators. Doesn’t that defy the laws of nature? You don’t care as long as you come into this world. How sly you are, my little fox. 10 months. 1-0 months. Little fox, how sly you are. You made your creators wait until you were ready. When the sun rose, she knew to give her heat for the delivering of this beautiful creation. Critters from all over gathered for this wonderful occurrence. No one thought that the fox would be made, yet here everyone is. Usually, the hunter scares the other critters with the belief that they will hurt the prey. Looking around, the hunter knew that everyone was here for the fox. My sly little fox, you came into this world with a bang. With a few detours, with bumps that needed a few pushes, you slid into this world. Looking around, you open your mouth and let out a wail. It is one of happiness, of unfamiliarity, and of confusion. The other critters jump because they do not know what to do with the prey quieting you, and you are given your first taste of the world. My little fox, you are beautiful, with your big brown eyes, button nose, pink lips, tan skin, and black fur. With your small ears, tiny hands and little feet, you are perfect. My sly little fox, when you are big, you will be the best hunter. You will be the most sought after and the best creation of mother nature. My little fox, you are Roxanne. Your name means “Dawn,” the dawn of a new era, the dawn of happiness, the dawn of love, the dawn of the fox.

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Bug-Out Bag

by Emily Engelhaupt Like any good woman, my bug-out bag is like a purse. If you ask for it, it’s in there. Of course, I have the essentials: lighter, matches, water filter, energy bars, knife, first aid kit, yadda yadda yadda. But so does everyone else. Our group of seven has enough fire-starting tools to last this entire apocalypse and into the next. Did you know Chapstick is great for healing small cuts? Yup. When Michele slipped on the ice and split her eyebrow, no one wanted to waste the few Band-Aids we had left. I whipped that little sucker out and that cut never even got infected. Oh, and when Red got some gunk in his eye, eye drops did the trick in washing out the filth. Still don’t know what that boy was thinking, playing with a carcass. I’m pretty sure I became a god when I produced a toothbrush and toothpaste. No one even minded sharing when fuzz was starting to grow on our teeth. In the first summer, we came across this crying girl, sweetest little thing, who couldn’t find her parents. We didn’t have the heart to tell her, she was too young to understand, so I dug around in my bag and found the sweets I packed. Butterscotch became her favorite flavor after that. I think I still have some in there, but not sure if they’re edible. Dog treats might have once seemed a waste of space, but they saved Maxwell from that mangy stray. In this world of decay and danger, with threats hiding behind every overgrown tree and in every crumbling tower, I’m prepared for anything.

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Solum

by Chelsea Little “When I first left earth, I remember looking out at that little blue marble and thinking it was something beautiful. You probably think it’s beautiful too, don’t ya kid? How many years has it been since that planet made me smile? I remember looking down at it at night, and seeing all the lights glowing, and I would try to guess which country it was that I was looking at. I used to love that damn planet. I used to love the people on it. I used to get calls from my wife. She used to tell me what was happening back at home. Used to tell me when the neighbors got a new dog, or when her coworkers would start some dumb drama. After some time, though, the miles got to her I guess. Separation or just forgetfulness, I don’t know why, but she stopped calling. I’d try to reach her, but then I stopped trying too. Too much time. She never answered. Kid, I miss her, but I can’t expect her to remember me. Sometimes I feel like it might have been easier on her if I’d just died. I don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter. What I’m saying, kid, is that you aren’t there anymore. That place, we can look at it and remember, but we aren’t a part of it now. We are gone, living new lives. We don’t exist down there. It’s best to just forget about it. Maybe when you go to space, you don’t exist anymore more at all.” The man turned from the window, his eyes sagging and tired. A curling brown beard pulled at the edges of his lips, and an unruly mustache overtop forbid any smile. The blue of his irises had long grayed, time sucking the life from them. I never thought someone could look so aged with only artificial gravity weighing them down, but this man had something other than nature weighing on him. He had the weight of his demons. His red hand grasped at the edge of the porthole, where the sun could be seen shining brightly against earth. “Look, I know you’re new.” He fumbled a bit over his words, like he forgot I was sitting there in the first place. “I wanna manage your expectations. You can’t always get calls. You can’t always be trying to contact Earth, and I doubt they wanna get your calls anyhow. This isn’t summer camp, and mommy isn’t just an hour away to drive and pick you up. This is space, the dark endless monster that will eat you up and spit you out if you have an ounce of regret or homesickness. The best way to thrive out here is to forget about that damn planet. In the end it will hurt

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54 less, and in the end, you are gonna thank me.” A frown pulled his lips deeper, sagging his face more than I thought possible. He wilted under the weight of his words. “Welcome to the Telluric 6. The biggest hunk of junk made since the Telluric 5. This is your world now,” he said in a huff. He turned, a small limp pulling him to the side, and went out of the room, leaving me alone to my thoughts on my first day. This man was a curiosity, and I remember wondering why it was he who greeted me at my arrival. I later found out that he wasn’t a captain, but nonetheless, this man was my first encounter aboard the cargo ship. It would take us three years from that day to reach the Outpost, a year to reload, and another three years until we were back on Earth. My job was the engines, keeping them clear of buildup, and fixing up occasional damage. It was simple work, mind-numbing at times. It was what I had trained to do. I was good at it. So, when the old engineer put in his notice, they assigned me to the ship. We would be working together on his final trip, and then I would take over. I’d learn the ropes from a veteran. See all my teachings played out in person. That was the plan. I watched him after that day. Something was off about that old man. Maybe it was his apparent limp, or his eyes, or maybe just the fact that he laid out his whole life story to me minutes after I stepped onto the ship. He was easy to watch, too. He was the engineer whom I was to train under. He didn’t like having a lackey. That much was easy to figure out. He was usually quiet off duty, but for some reason when he was around me he was cynical and raw. He seemed to like it that way, free of social pleasantries. The crew didn’t like him, and so, by association, they didn’t like me. Every time he opened his mouth, it was to tell someone something they were doing wrong. And most of the time, he was talking to me. “Hey Kid, that’s the wrong end of the wrench.” “Hey Kid, have you tried turning the thrusters on?” “Hey Kid, you look like death. Maybe try sleeping sometime.” Every one of his remarks was always followed with his loud coughing laugh that ended as fast as it started, like the crude alarm that rang every time something broke down. He was exhausting and even infuriating at times. I quickly got tired of being called Kid, no matter how old I really was. His tired sneer and squinting eyes started to set me on edge. I couldn’t tell you how many times I was tempted to shave that

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55 disgusting beard off his smug face. He was there to help, but the little work he did was always wrong. I began to think he did it just to mess with me, to test me in some twisted way. And yet, if you were to ask me if I liked this sad old man, I’d begrudgingly say yes. I remember one night, about 3 months into the journey to the Outpost, I found the man staring into the ship’s main screen, watching the sunset on the western coast of the United States. It was a beautiful view, and the man stood there for some time slowly watching the lights throughout the country light up as the sun slowly disappeared. At this point in the journey, Earth was far out of view of the portholes, but here on the ship’s main screen you could see the planet just like you might from a satellite. I had walked out of the engine room smelling like oil and dust. The man had left hours ago, limping away with the alarm of his laugh drifting into nothingness. I was hot, tired, and desperate for a drink, and I just so happened to walk right into the old man. The light of the screen blinded me slightly as I shuffled out of the dark engine room. I was so in awe at the sight of the ship’s main screen that by the time I noticed that the man was crying, he had already noticed me. He looked at me with his sad eyes, and the first traces of a smile hid under the hair on his lip. He turned back to the screen. “This is where we used to live, me and her. Gorgeous place, but that could just be because I had her joy to look through. She was something fierce. A strong woman filled to the tip of her wild red hair with fire. That lady could never keep still. Always pulling me from one adventure to another. I was a quiet country boy back then. She, a rough city girl. And I loved her more than my pops loved his whiskey. She used to love the summer nights, the noises, and the glowing little bugs. Made me buy out whole stores of string lights just to hang on the house in the summer. She wanted to be like the bugs, glowing bright enough to be seen from space. I promised her that when I went to space, I’d look for home and tell her how brightly she shone. Wonder if she turns the lights on anymore.” A knot found its way into the muscles of his back, and I could hear him stifle a sob. This man, obviously so sick of being completely alone, craved only the comfort of his wife. In that way, he doomed himself when he left Earth. I wondered if that grayed look in his eyes was like that before he left his home. I wondered if he was this beaten down before he began traveling to space.

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56 He drew a hand up to the neck of his shirt, took a deep sniff of the crusty common room air, walked away from the screen and out of the room. It was as if he hadn’t been there at all. I stood there for a while after he left, staring at the lights on the West Coast. I am not quite sure why I stayed there. Maybe I was looking for answers or a solution to this man, but all the screen gave me was more questions, and by the time I walked away, disappointment was the only thing I felt. That and lost. From that night on, I would find him always at that screen after work, watching the sunset on the West Coast of the United States. He almost always told me about his wife, about her job or her family. On the rare nights that he didn’t want to talk about her, he would ask me about my family, my life before the ship, my friends. We never spoke about him, and he seemed to like it that way. In his mind, he was as good as dead. No longer important to the grand scheme of things. On occasion, when he had finished talking about his wife, I’d try to pry something from his lips about who he really was. He would never answer my questions. I never even learned his name. When we finally reached the Outpost, he would disappear from the ship for days. Sometimes he would come back after a week, stumbling onto the vessel and straight to his room. Sometimes he would come back angry, yelling at anyone and anything he saw just for the sake of yelling. Most of the time, though, he would simply come back sad. He would walk onto the ship with a confused look on his face and tears clinging to his eyes. He would find me on those days just to tell me that she wasn’t there, and then head to his room to fall asleep and start all over again. It was during our time at the Outpost that I learned that this was his last space mission. After 49 years of service, he was finally to be freed from his contract and allowed to go home to his wife. The crewmen call him Solum, as none of them cared to remember his real name. They seemed to think it was funny. An old word or an old man, too stuck in the past to smile at the future. Solum had been on mission after mission for the last 49 years, never having more than a week in-between each. With Solum not following me around like a lazy bodyguard, the crew grew comfortable with talking to me. By the time some of my questions were finally being answered, we were off the Outpost and on our way back to Earth. Solum stopped showing up in the common room to watch the West Coast go dark, much to the crew’s relief and to my disappointment. He even stopped showing up at work. I started to miss his snide comments, and graying eyes.

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57 The rare times he did show up, he was quiet and absent-minded, only speaking up to offer advice when I was stuck. I never called him Solum to his face, just as he never called me anything more than Kid. The crew wasn’t the same as the old man. They were nice enough, but they weren’t the same. The three years passed by with a monotone swiftness I didn’t recognize until they were finally over. By the final few months, I had forgotten about the mystery that wrapped the old man, just as he seemed to forget about me. We were nothing more than workmates at that point, two people assigned to the same job. The day came when we were to land and finally disembark from the Telluric 6. The whole crew was assembled at the loading docks, but I stayed behind in the common room, thinking. We had landed in Asia to trade some cargo before heading back into the stars. I don’t know what made me do it, but my hand swiped at the screen and the West Coast at sunset appeared. I stared at it for a few moments, thinking about my first few months on the cargo vessel, and about the odd friend whom I lost to himself. I looked down at my hands, lightly coated with calluses and rough patches. He was right, I thought. It isn’t as beautiful after all this time. “She will be there. She’s waiting for me outside that door.” I spun around only to see Solum standing there, his eyes ringed in red and his lips curled in a small smile. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. He looked excited. He looked crazed. “She’s out there waiting for me. She’s been waiting for 49 years. Oh, I can’t wait to feel her red hair against the side of my cheek. I can’t wait to see her hazel eyes stare into mine. She’s out there. She’s out there. Come on kid, let’s go see my girl.” Solum sped towards the door just as it opened and I struggled to keep up with him. We reached the loading docks just as the metal doors heaved themselves off the side of the cargo vessel and outward towards the expecting crowd. There were so many people waiting for us: parents, friends, family, lovers. Everyone had traveled there just for our homecoming. Solum raced out the doors and through the throngs of people to a bobbing head of red hair. A smile grew on my face as we went. At long last, this sad man would be reunited. We reached the girl, who at Solum’s beckon, turned around and frowned. Solum frowned, too. This was not his wife. “Where is she?” Solum’s voice cracked under the weight of his

fiction

words. “Where is my wife?” “She was so sick, that’s why she stopped calling you. She was so sick she couldn’t speak anymore. She asked me to come here and tell you when you landed, but you never came off the ship. I promised her I’d tell you. She loved you. She just couldn’t wait that long. She died in her sleep. I’m so sorry.” The girl with tamed, red hair spoke softly, like silk. Her words were choked with former tears. She leaned to grab Solum’s hand, but he pushed her back and turned me away, all emotion draining from his face. Solum clung to my side for the rest of the night, but at some point, he disappeared into the crowds. My family was there. My friends were there. Everyone I knew. I didn’t realize he had vanished until it was too late. Maybe it became too much for him, the fact that he was alone now, completely. Maybe he was tired of blocking out the truth. His wife was gone, and he was still here, existing. I think about him a lot now, and something he said to me on my first day still hits me. “The best way to thrive out here is to forget about that damn planet. In the end it will hurt less, and in the end, you are gonna thank me.” I really wish I had had the chance to thank him. I never heard from him again.

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fiction

Body Aura Nathalie Walker

“Poetry is like a bird— it ignores all frontiers.” —Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Body Aura Nathalie Walker

Line Christina Damon

Smear Christina Damon

Etch Christina Damon

Terrain Christina Damon

POETRY

Bliss

by James Grant Find me in the icy woods deep inside, where my heart melts at the sound of your voice. It flourishes here, pumping fireflies through my blood, illuminating my skin with every vein lightly fluttering until every butterfly pours out of my stomach from your gentle touch. With stars in your eyes I fall for you, shooting for greatness, but sometimes natureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bliss feels foreign. The sun too hot. The trees too full. But I love the same stars as you; so letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shoot to the moon, explore the dark side and fall all over again, so that when I look up at the sky and relish in the clouds I know I want you, but I know I want more. And in this moment, I feel happy and safe. And in this moment, I find myself.

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poetry

Apples to Apples by Cassie Mihalczo

Why have we been bred that love is animate? We consider those on TV, famous love, as its definition. Love is supposedly centered around touch, accompanied by a pleasure so gratifying, we thirst for more. But the love we crave is not bound by the pleasures we feel but the fear it induces.

On the edge, it hangs by a thread, fighting, old and new bruises greeting each other from afar. Seconds are always smaller than the main course. One final bruise, and it’s finally ripe. I’m ready, love says. Falling, falling, boom. Love breaks. Dead and gone, dead and gone, dead and gone.

Love grows through mother nature’s roots. Growing tall, bruised by the pressures it encounters. Touching the sky is its climax. We made it. I did my duty, I did my time, why do I always have to stand so tall? love thinks. Bruises come, bruises go, bruises come, bruises go? Stop it, love says, but the sun starts to shine, and love grows once more. It grows stronger, rounder, crisp, full of life?

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poetry

Shackles & Chains

Butterscotch

I am no better than the dirt beneath the elites’ feet. I am no better than the marks upon my back. I am no better than the scraps of food they give me. I am no better than the noose they hung my father from, upon the long dark slender tree. I am no better than the others that are put on display for the white people’s aphrodisiacs. I was stolen and now just a broken piece of dirty, unwanted property. I’m seen as if I’m a belligerent, greedy, indigenous savage that deserves to be punished, that deserves to be put in confinement. Put into confinement just because I am black. The heavy chains around my neck and feet remind me where I belong. I’ve seen for centuries that my people are nothing. Just property that’s used then replaced. We’re just furniture and objects, our elites have pleasurable, unspeakable acts with us. I’m nothing. I know that I’m nothing without the guidance and rules of my master, and my master would be better off with a better piece of property. We’re use to being split up from our loved ones. I’m used to being seen as my master’s puppet. And only my master’s puppet. Remember, I don’t have my identity. I’m nothing. I’m used to seeing my beloved ones beaten down, and filed by the own hand of their masters, the white men. I was always told by my higher authorities that I’m stupid, I’m only good for work, a nigga like me doesn’t have the mental capacity to learn to read or to write. I’m seen as a simple animal that deserves to be treated like a piece of common paper, that’s just discarded afterwards. The southern leaves, the southern trees where we were hung from. That’s the only place we’re familiar with. My people will just be things that are forced into containment. For decades it has always been a ghoulish hell for my people. Even nowadays the only thing we’re actually good at...is being target practice for the police. Even white people are too blind to see that there is no equilibrium, and only to see that we are still submissive pets, yet...more pets are to come if society keeps this bullshit up.

Outside the ice cream parlor on the wooden bench we sat, watching the cornstalks of Laurel Locks —leaves, husks, and all— dancing, as the summer wind guided their choreography.

by Brett-Ashley Hooper

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by Kelly Williamson

Unencumbered in the June daylight, you touched my cheek, looked at me, eyes tender and blue. Most would say they were the ocean. To me, they were quicksand. They captured me. Swallowed me. I sunk deeper down. The sweet, sticky substance saturated our cones. A race against time. It leaked. We laughed and licked. “Butterscotch has always been my favorite flavor.” Mine too, I thought, as the melting dessert dripped between my fingers.

poetry

Child of the Spark by Mary Sutton

Ode to Satan by Xela

She sat among the woods there a midnight longing in her heart a child worn of innocence whose light echoed in the dark

Uncontrolled and uncontained Freedom grows to its truest form

a candle on the water for him she’d always burn waiting patient as a whisper by sunlight she’d return They say the darkest moment is inches before dawn creeps her lovelight over mountain shoulders reaching out with a yawn They say when you’re blinded, you can’t quite see the dark As is the heart at midnight, when a child of the spark

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poetry

CONCRETE

by Anne-Marie Fienkeng I never got the saying “concrete jungle” to describe a city. I live in a city, after all. And I only see—hold on—

bright cafeteria ground, damp with who knows what, limp olive batons hanging from the sky, but they invite you to run around. They’re— Y’know...jungle-like... Huh. I guess I do live there.

cell bars confining a block of red to one block in that “jungle,” trapped, but still looming over me with a large brick dullness. The intermittent beeping always seems to come from there. And the courtyard floor is a thin stripe across my view, free of fights but full of surveillance like a driveway going beyond my sightline. And beyond that, an ocean of green sits frozen in place more like an arm, restricted in movement, imitating a wave swelling up before an awkward crash shaped like every kid’s ideal winter slope. Well, maybe they have a point. Since the second brick structure with cell doors and walls made of material I can’t identify (Are they concrete?) eclipses the sunlight. Leaves spot the sky, connecting two brick trees in a “concrete jungle.” This place is my home. When you say “jungle” I picture green. Leafy guard towers,

Corridors 2019

poetry

Still Life with Melon and Peaches, 1866, Édouard Manet by Daniela Laudisio

It’s the green and gold hues, the stark contrast between the immovable dark surface and the creased white cloth unevenly draped beneath the fruit which crave our attention. A deflated white rose with tinges of pink points toward the curvatures of the fruit, arcs which barricade it from the drab rigidness of the black bottle and the floral-etched wine glass. Stationary, the variously sized fruits remain, their presence evoking a sense of brashness for even within the confines of their plates, their aliveness cannot be denied. The melon and peaches seem to sway off-kilter, subtly, yet with substance. They act as a bridge between the two ends

I Found You, Then I Lost You by Nevay Archuleta

I met this guy who looks like you. He stared at me through the silent night while I pretended to sleep. His eyes were empty like the darkness cast from the sun during a new moon in winter. His hair was the lifeless color of a dried dead leaf in autumn, and his voice reminded me of you when you cried. After some time, I realized you held me when I couldn’t sleep. Your eyes were black, as black as the universe with dancing and illuminating stars, like there’s a world beyond this one, and your hair was the color of obsidian. You were far from lifeless – and I felt helpless when you cried. Then again, maybe he didn’t look like you at all, but for some time, he definitely felt like you.

of refined dignity so often followed by opaque, unyielding severity, and of the pure innocence of the natural world slowly slipping from view.

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poetry

purple

Pink Wallpaper

darling, you would never believe / who I ran into on the way to / make friends with busboys and poets! / it was our portland purple palace / parked on the wrong side of syrup-fish street / on the opposite side of the country / nestled in my secondary tri-state / back again from the afterhours of / my consciousness, gentle in her reminder / I asked if she remembered the parachuted coda / in her top left chipping lavender / how brushing lips after six weeks of waiting / sent us breathing heavy in covert delight / how you kicked off your shoes and / maybewecanstayhereforalittlewhile / before two strangers kicked us out and offered us their / consolation weed / or how the palace owner scolded / “no visitors allowed!” / but didn’t she know that / you you me / and / I me you? / I asked if she remembers the night we sat in / your father’s beat up car / and how, you, when / I finally left / let out your adjacent indigo scream / into the barefoot idle night? / does she / remember the last time we ever slept / forgetting mass with your mother, and how I / awoken by the lack of air / choked / on / my / impending / seasoned / solitude? my, how her shutters winked / in knowing! / little does she know that today, this sunday / I watch my new bearded boysenberry lover read / on the couch in bare-bulb brightness / ever does she know that / wherever we go, we are all haunted / by the same ghosts.

You came tiptoeing through the patterned door, looking for a drink or maybe something more, a little peace of mind, perhaps the comforting sound of silence. This city is exhausting you, and the remaining scraps of your spirit. But in this house of shadows, you can finally see yourself, and when you do, you turn to me and say, “If these walls could speak...” with the flickering sound of regret lingering in your voice.

by Rodlyn-Mae Banting

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by Emma Wydeven

And I tell you that in the heart, of our pink and tender flat, we will always have each other, and these little rituals will offer eternal saving. Rereading postcards from past lovers, sipping afternoon tea, and seeing the sun fold back behind the city skyline, as you smile at me, reminding yourself of something, you always seem to forget.

poetry

The Kiss

by Emily Marquardt for Gustav Klimt

We shine like morning’s sun, my dear, so don’t pull away and hurt me. I’ll stay like this, golden with you, until our love breaches eternity.

Man: I’ve kissed many before, but never, never like this. In this moment, your virgin cheek graces my longing lips. The sinful world around us melts to glistening gold. The barren field from where we stand sprouts wild flowers in love’s midst. Our peasant clothes change to royal cloaks as dainty vines crown our skulls. Neither love nor lust captures my draw to you, this must be Cupid’s hex. Yet, I fear if when I pull away this magic will flee from Love’s rest. Let’s stay here forever, my dear, our bond will draw the masses. They’ll envy us from museum walls. This love won’t sink or pass us. Woman: You must go slowly. Hold me snug, but gently. There’s only shrapnel left of my heart, for it’s felt Love’s wrath before. Please do not deceive me, I beg, or lie to me with your charm. For I feel I’m slipping into the grass, but further into your arms. Closer now I lean to you, not two souls, but one. I close my eyes to feel your grace and to breath in deeper your love.

Corridors 2019

poetry

Celestial

by Maci Torres june there was solace in your warmth during the summer nights when we were fifteen, lying next to you on my terrycloth blanket, interlocking my life with your pinky and wishing summer would never end. you have taken the flowers out of the neighbor’s garden and planted them deep in my soul, awakening the butterflies living in my stomach when you invaded the muscles of my heart with the words I love you stealing its rhythm and making my wish on the shooting star of that lucky night come true.

september but you live on the Moon’s hour silent, dark, and sad as you wait for me to leave casting your dark shadow on what we could be but our love is starry-eyed as you and we were made to last for light years. i hope one day you see it, too.

july my love, you’ve done it again crawling your way into the depths of my brain. i dream of those nights in my backyard, gazing at our future in your starry eyes that steal my breath and fuel the world with the air from my lungs. the planets orbit around us so far away as i watch you continue to dance around me but i know how blessed the galaxy is. august my blue and green eyed Earth, i have found you in the craters of your despair and fear, swimming in the ocean of sorrows and i know i can be your Sun.

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poetry

memory—partway through a round of beer pong by Ellen Mitchell

That was when I noticed her, standing on the other side of the table. There was always something between us—a table, a row of chairs, another person. But I could see her perfectly clearly, how she dipped and rose again in time with the music, how I found I couldn’t stop watching her. Somehow I started to realize she’d never look directly at me— we were in the same room, and she couldn’t look me in the eye, and somehow I couldn’t look away. I worried it was the wrong kind of looking. I worried it was dirty. She’d like me even less than my mind already whispered she did.

OrangeYouGlad I Didn’t Say Banana by Katherine Freeman

The yellow-fleshed sphere was once a half-time smile during November soccer in second grade. The pulpy sweetness takes its next form purposefully placed in scraped Nikes: a gift from the Leprechaun, and a pleasant surprise for a third grader. And by fourth grade, the fruit takes shape in a brown paper bag, until I finally transition to grapefruit.

But still I stared. Entranced by how easily she moved—a gentle sway of hips, lifting a hand to brush hair back from her face. Even in the low light, I saw everything I wanted to see—her face, her neck and her collarbone, her bared arms all aglow in golden light, and it was all I could see through the darkness and all the space between us— and I was almost afraid she’d look directly back at me.

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poetry

Gilded Romeo by Nikki Wieman

12/18 When you tend to a fire; it gets bigger. Flames engulf your body, and the fever boils the blood running through your veins. The bruises on your skin mimic darker galaxies, and yet your light is still content to illuminate the night away. Like a supermassive star, capturing everything in its path effortlessly, naturally. And soon, to its surprise, it dwindles into a white dwarf: cool and distant. You would think it would learn better by now, but it still trusts the universe to feed it with life, fuel its desires, when all it receives is darkness in the naive pursuit of hope. Oblivion, forgotten passion and feed. How quick things are to leave you. Nothing golden can stay. Not the sun not the autumn leaves. It no longer finds a muse of your golden skin and amber eyes, no more for you—because silver is just as shiny too. But you saw this coming, miles away, an ominous blemish on your horizon; are you to blame? FINE—“I don’t think I should say I love you anymore.” 1/5 Your kisses taste like cheap wine, and I am sick off your aura. But what is it about you that stirs me so? Is it your emotional immaturity and my need to heal the void I suspect your life has? I radiate feeling through my touch and careful gaze, brown eyes in my own sunshine. I swear, I thought I had won our war, your realism over my fantasy, when you told me not to look at you like “that.” I thought that I had entered your bloodstream, brought the magic of life to your frozen heart. I understand now that I was a merely a temporal body to dull your pain. And though I’ve dreamed many dreams by your side and braved the bitter cold for the chance to be encased in you, I know now—that you were the coldblooded creature giving me an unshakeable chill, it was not the shadows of the moon that iced my summer skin. But, still, with an entire day without your criticism I struggle to walk away. Teach me to retreat into your cave of nothingness.

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93 2/4 I had to step away. Deep into the woods. Dove into new waters, I found another. Taken by his current, I feel a different rhythm. I am unsure whether to sink in your sin or to swim with him. With my heart as a navigator, I know I will fail. Destined to get lost in you, moon man. Let me go. I cannot find a place where the sun always shines. Even so, I would soon return to the shadows, nothing stirs me like the cool, blue, temptation. 2/8 Why are you incapable of loving me? Slam my spine against the icy cinder wall. 7AM exposed in the fluorescent lights. Can you see my fragile beauty, my white flag? Dig your fingers into my skin. Tear away at whatever I have left. The blood on the floor belongs to me. You watch as I lick it up and breathe—when I crawl away. 3/16 You’ve taught me everything in life is temporary. Especially happiness. Why did you tell me about your absence from my life? Do you already feel yourself longing for my presence: no, it’ll be easy you say. You’re a changing moon, pulling me with you—as I belong to the sea, crashing down on myself, filling my lungs with silence. I must talk myself through you. Logically, soundly. My currents have led straight to the stars, overshadowing my moon man. I feel at home in the refection you stain me with. Some might call it love. But why do I go gasping for more salvation. Because I know you do it too? No. Because I’m drowning. 3/25 The priest asked me to raise my hand at church today. He knows I’m good at love. And now, you know that too. Avoid me still, after begging for solace in those three words. Still undeserving. Still looking to you. I am a pathetic girl. Hoping for the liquor to loosen your lips, because when you’re stumbling, I can catch you. And you let me. And in our secret garden you show me your secrets and I feel the sacred sunshine. 5/1 It’s been a while, you and me. I fell from ‘I love you’ and I keep falling. How are we able to travel galaxies apart after being the closest of neighbors? I will never understand you even though we knew each other

poetry

94 so well. I don’t think I was meant to understand you. I don’t think we will speak again. I think we closed our book and hid it in a forbidden library. Even if they find our story, no one will be able to read it. I can’t be around you. Your presence makes me feel everything that I don’t want to feel. I can’t breath around you. I need to talk to you. I am scared. I KNOW I hurt you. But I know you broke me deeper. I know you used my gifts to your advantage. I know it’s over. I know that it’s been over before it started. And I know this is a unique flood of pain. FINE—“obnoxious, immature, and annoying”

Inspired by Frida by Jill Fury

I am building a shrine to my femininity— Creator, Enemy. Candles carefully placed that will, one day, burn themselves down. Pictures of the body I have become, the body I came from, and the mothers before that One. Every fucking tampon I have ever shoved inside me and ripped back out—transformed; I don’t just bleed with the moon. What a ridiculous concept— I shed myself with every ray of Son. I am building a shrine to what may or may not be sacred. You may worship quietly.

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poetry

Orbity

Patience is the Night

The waves lapped against rocky shores, like a reminder of your insistent questions: Why? Why? Why? Over and over, again and again devouring all other thoughts. Against your questions, my only defense was silence, for who can stop the endless waves?

In the muddy fields, where the potters’ graves settle, marked by old rocks sticking up like rotted teeth. Bones buried in the shallow graves, long forgotten, unnamed people.

by Emily Engelhaupt

Far beyond my sight, below the cresting waves, monsters lurked with venom on their tongues. Your mind, so inviting at first, held vile secrets I couldn’t imagine. Something there ate away at all that was good, feasting on your soul. There, it grew until it could no longer hide, and surfaced in hideous fashion. Cool water engulfs my waist, but I am not the ocean’s feast. Your ashes, so small, so sweet, drift along the surface until you drown under the relentless waves. I’m sorry, I couldn’t save you from yourself.

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by Carolyn Al-Ghusbi

Imagine skin eaten away as the body is reclaimed by earth. The factory workers have come home, stepping over the decaying pumpkins and squashes in the dead leaves, moldering. Children running and playing amongst the ash and soot. They’re hands filthy from the dirt. A man walks back, boots sinking in mud shovel in hand.

poetry

Foreign Friend

Roller Baby

Love. i shuffle the 4 letters between my 2 lips, like i know what they mean. i swallow every syllable and they’re tasteless on my tongue. they slide down my throat like icy little marbles. Love Love. Love. i say it ‘til it’s lost all meaning and i’ll chase it ‘til I’ve lost myself.

She works as a maid at the Motel Six and skates at night. Her father died in a trucking accident when she was in the second grade. Her older brother overdosed on meth in the high school parking lot three summers ago. Her mother sleeps with the married landlord and a nine-millimeter Glock under her mattress.

by Mia Condé

at night i finally close my eyes, and you make your way back into my mind. i’m calling out for you once again. Love. Love. Love, little foreign friend.

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by Emma Wydeven

The only light left is on the neon track, where she unspools every night across the buffed floor. Smooth as a fluorescent film roll, trying to tell a new story. Perhaps a better one, because pretty soon she won’t be alone, not anymore, when she finally gets to meet you.

poetry

101

100

Sandwich, Massachusetts by Katherine Freeman I am reminded of the sand: dandelion wine in color, harsh in texture. The gulley connected the Atlantic to the spit. The marsh caressed our toes, with low tide perfuming the salted air. In this state, we waited in limbo for the waters to rise so that we may jump against the cutting breeze.

Corridors 2019

Serene

by Angelica Casillas Tranquility seems to be my closest ally, always seems to be closer than I anticipate, overwhelms me suddenly, unexpectedly but more or so loyal to my necessities, flute noises overbear my senses, making me see colors, bright yellows and purples calming my every move, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the sound you should stop to hear, for the animals speak through it, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll never understand why a frog ribbits or why a dog barks, but the sound of music will uncover most sentiments, creature upon creature it will unveil, the desperate cry of help, the anxious screech it shares, you see all the animals speak one language, it is up to you to listen and uncover, the true meaning behind their uproar.

poetry

103

102

Sunlight

Verbesserung

A woman wearing a yellow sundress lies in the tall grass of an open field. She holds a magazine above her head March 23rd, 1999: ‘Genocide is Unfolding in Kosovo’ is sprawled across the cover. She shields her face from the bright sunlight that burns through the sky. A man takes her photo. And it is summer, and they are in love. A gentle breeze blows over them, blowing loose hairs into their eyes. With a click, the moment is trapped forever, in June 1999.

Man brings iron from the foot plane, and builds tall needles to the sky.

by Carolyn Al-Ghusbi

by Jack Ebmeier

The Babel Tower cries in warning from its paper prison. But a tree’s rustling is always drowned out by the sound of thunder. The years go by and we soon cry: will we ever be free from the ground? Disgusted— —with our own skin. Man builds new worlds from His hands. Man rules the new pile of ash.

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The Idea of Color by Amber Davis What are you? Where are you from? How did you get here? And why did you come?

It’s hard being scared, being analyzed and prodded. Feeling as if the world is against you, simply because of the melanin you were allotted. I think it would be easier, if we all just did this one thing; recognize all of our beautiful colors, but don’t let it be the only thing you see on our string.

Is there some sort of list, that people automatically have? When people see color, it’s as if their minds turn down a different Ave. Now don’t get me wrong, I know it’s not all. But that’s hard to remember, when people touch me like I’m a new doll. Yes I am different; my hair is kinky and thick. But I’m still a person, so please don’t act like my name is Stitch. I am not a pet, so please ask before you touch me. Especially if you’re a stranger, because you don’t know what my reaction will be. This isn’t me being rude, or overly aggressive. It’s just this is my body, and I am very possessive. Try to understand, I don’t mean to accuse anyone. But how would you feel, if you were forever the exotic one?

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trapped

by Kelly Williamson during the night, my mind wanders; my fear swallows me whole. ice cold sheets. my heart beats. I pace.

the doorknob turns. his footsteps on the kitchen tiles grow louder as they approach. just breathe. my resilience still rattles the cage he locked me in. one day I will be freed.

the alarm clock reflects on the wooden bedroom floor. 3:42 am. how foolish am I to think time could ever stop. before him, my unwavering resilience stood strong as a tree still, no matter what hurricane the weather brought to wear it down, the clock still ticks. I brush my fingers over raised, sore bruises. dark purple paints my arm. my body, a canvas of the sky before the night turns black. awaiting his arrival, I try to remember the person I was before him. I need to be freed, but the inevitability of his nearing traps me like a chain.

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Pittsburgh, October 27

by Elisabeth Freer

Jeff The Jewish doctor who saved his life. It is not my job to judge him, just to care for him.

The Tree of Life.

David and Cecil Never missed a service. Richard Had his 38th wedding anniversary. Jerry Spent his life healing others. Irving Never had an unkind word. Daniel Was known for quick wit. Joyce Devoted her life to teaching. Melvin Told the best dirty jokes. Bernice and Simon Died where they were married. Rose Made sure to always greet everyone. Robert Killed 11 people. Injured 6 more.

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Gone, Changed

Marked

The girl who stole my heart is gone, she’s changed. Caught up in her own insecurities, lost under the pressure of her boiling thoughts, I lost her. I loved her. And I miss her.

“Every time you meet someone it’s hard not to wonder

by Mia Condé

We fell in love under a blanket of rain, and she passed with the storm. We buried her in a casket of cold judgements, now she’s gone, she’s changed. Every day I mourn her, she’s the only person I want and the only person I can’t have. But she’s gone, she’s changed. I still see her around every corner, she had those eyes, she carried that face, you even have her voice, and sometimes, I think she might still be in there, I think there’s hope, but she’s gone, she’s changed.

by Rodlyn-Mae Banting

who they’ve been—one story breaking so much into the next:” -“Unmarked,” Tim Siebles Suppose Tim and Natalie found out that we had done it too— had the ducks prelude the hoodied reintroductions that followed our first kiss. hello.

We marked every inch of that rainy town, rode our bicycles into the sky and higher, traded bus routes for dessert, fetched groceries at midnight. (These are the things from atop castles that you cannot see.) Would they think twice to think it a fraud? Or perhaps a form of flattery, they too reincarnations of lovers past.

In that moment I knew I loved you yesterday— and the me who came before me, too— long before I understood what it meant to know and be known.

You remind me of her, but you’re only an outline of the person she was. You’re only a shadow of what’s left of the girl I loved. The girl who’s gone, changed.

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poetry

My Mind Mark McGowan

Pígéon Rayonna Burton-Jernigan

Manarola Sunrise Jack Finnegan

Glass Orb Nathalie Walker

Untitled Matt Jakab

Equal Justice Under Law Jack Finnegan

Blue Emily Engelhaupt

A Glimpse of Santorini Angela Licht

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Caramel Doesn’t Change by Chloe Shields

“I had nothing to offer anybody, except my own confusion.” —Jack Kerouac, On the Road

My home never stayed the same for very long as a child; different towns, different friends, different women. Only one thing remained consistent in the diminishing world around me, the smell of caramel drifting through the air. My dad loved making caramel, and I loved eating it. This typical pastime was one of his so called “jobs,” one of the better ones actually. The only job I didn’t have to lie to my mom about when I went back to her house. I’d wake up every weekend to the bubbling sound of hot sugar, the sweet aroma of caramel overtaking the barely recognizable scent of home. I would stretch out of bed to the scene I saw so often: a bare kitchen, and a monstrous pot of thick, hot liquid. Its amber color as magnificent as the autumn tree line. The caramel never changed, unlike everything else. There he always was, standing over that pot. There I always was, alone, trying to find some form of entertainment. I would color while he was preoccupied because crayons were cheap. I never stopped asking to accompany him in making the caramel, and I never understood why I wasn’t allowed until years after the fact. I was, however, given some room to join in on this process because he never wanted to let me down. The wrapping of the delicate candies was where I came in. Taking the small cut parchment paper piece by piece, placing the sized soft caramel in the center, wrapping it up, twisting the edges shut. That was my part, my contribution, my tiny way of helping. Looking back, I had never known a child of that age to partake in supporting her family, but my childish mind didn’t see it like that. After this, caramel was our thing, but he had always been my person. It wasn’t until later that I realized the sweet smell that radiated through the house was the “treat” that kept us fed every weekend. Without its soft flavor that melted in your mouth with every bite, we would have no means. It typically sustained us, but on occasions that changed, too. I would reach for the fridge to find nothing but heavy cream, pounds of butter, and liquid sugar in masses. Luckily, our bare fridge never stayed desolate for long. This empty fridge was a secret we kept from my mom, then and now. If only my child self could have detected the peculiarity in this. The only thing that made the lack of a real home better was

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124 that we were never there for long. At most one day, sometimes two, depending on how much my dad planned to sell that weekend. After the blissful taste of childhood was finished boiling, it would be time to hit the road for days at a time. Sometimes we would be gone longer than my mom and the courts allowed us to be. I knew then it was wrong, but he was my person. How could I say no? It was always just us, the car, and the caramel. I loved those drives, the new scenery, and the company of my father. We would drive hundreds of miles a day with the warmth of the sun filling the car with that ever so sweet and potent smell of caramel. We would stop every so often at a gas station to give them our best sales pitch. I was always told to look cute and, as instructed, I always tried my best. I would tell them about how delicious it was and how hard it was to put down. Thinking back, they could probably perceive that through my plump frame. My dad was a sales genius in my eyes. Everything he did amazed me. His art of persuasion could draw in anyone. He was my magician, as he morphed into a different person with every new store owner. Through my lens of ignorance, I saw this as no more than a sales tactic. In today’s reality, it was a glimpse of his true self. No matter how far we went, he knew just what to say, and exactly how to say it. Eventually, I too fell deep into the ways of his deception, unable to see the man he really was for years. I frequently think about those trips today. Regardless of my age then, how didn’t I see it? Or was it that I didn’t want to shatter the illusion of a good father? Life was covered in caramel for as long as I could remember, too sticky and complex to see through. As I grew older, I started to pick the elements of my confusing childhood apart piece by piece, carefully, just as I wrapped those tiny caramels. I was too naive to see past my father’s sales pitches made in an attempt at love. When my dad vanished, as he did a lot, he would leave the caramel. No explanation, no address, no “I love you,” just caramel. I was six when he left for the first time, and I was halfway to seven by the time he came back. For those six months I longed for the bubbling, and that sweet aroma of caramel in the air. I wanted to wake up and see him standing over that large pot in that bare kitchen. Watching as he looked into the amber syrup. I would have taken that bare weekend fridge over the absence of my father any day. To this day, I remain unable to understand why the love of a father meant so much to me because the love of my mother meant nothing then. I knew she wanted him gone; she always had and I resented her for it for most of my childhood. I know now that she wanted him gone for good reason, as she too had been caught in the depths of his persuasion at one

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125 point. She fell in love with a good man, like I fell for the notion of a good father. Back then he had a real job; he supported my family and loved us unconditionally. But like I said, things always change. After years of this caramel-covered haze of a life, I figured it out. I realized that I was no more to him than a store owner, someone to deceive with the lies of his own mind. Between six and fourteen, there were countless other disappearances, where all I wanted was that caramel scent and the love of a father. All were unexplained, and yet all were forgiven up until this day. Before this, I prayed for him to return nightly. I dreamt of that warm bite melting in my mouth with its perfect saltysweet flavor combination that would allow me to reminisce on a better time. My own insistence that he was a good father and a good man would be the unravelling of my fantasy. If only I could see then what I see now because, this time, it was different. This time, I knew the truth. My father was bipolar, something that had been hidden for my own protection for years. When I was little, he changed. He decided that he knew better than his doctors and frequently refused to take his medicine. This led him into countless manic spirals, causing him to detach from reality, and to leave a child with no father and no knowledge of why he left. It all started to add up after this, piece by piece, just like those parchment paper wrappers of my childhood. My mother wasn’t trying to tear me away from the sweetscented, loving father I knew, but from the selfish man who tore her life apart, just as she knew he would do to mine. She was right. I could finally see the sticky mess of my reality. I haven’t talked to my father since I was fourteen. Every detail of that day still lingers in my mind as it marked the disentangling of my childhood illusion. As he drove me home, the sweet flavor of caramel continued to waft through the fabric of the car, but that scent was no more than a fool’s paradise now. It morphed into a stench, just as I saw him transform into his true being. He was now my monster, but he would always be a magician. I left just as he always did: no explanation and no “I love you.” To this day, I still wonder about all the things that could have gone differently, and I probably always will. If I had been able to escape my so needed fantasy of a loving father and recognize who truly stood before me, I could have saved myself. That unwavering stench of caramel remains potent in my mind, and I sit here, nearly five years later, still unable to forgive. The pain he imprinted within me appears indelibly in my heart and the redolence of that sweet candy that wafted through my childhood memories is inescapable.

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Our Human Drama by Amanda Waggoner

Cancer: it’s the uncontrollable multiplication of you. I am perplexed by the entirely internal nature of this affair. How an evil sum can be drawn from parts that are inherently good is a riddle impossible enough to stump even the most methodical of Honors students among us. Because here’s the thing: every bit of Angela Grace DeCarlo was so good. And no external force planted the seeds of cancer within her; paradoxically, the disease that killed her was simultaneously the growth of her goodness. I suppose Angela’s body was like the rest of us: in tune with her goodness, it wanted more. So she multiplied—incessantly, exponentially, dangerously; her tissues, bursting with more her than they could healthily fathom, demanded richness in heaps that they could not sustain. We adorned the windowsills of our college years with potted succulents. Some of our plants were endearingly tiny, and others were goofily lopsided. Oh, how we loved them all in the ways that we could. Angela nurtured her plants how she did her friends: with intentional and perfect enoughness. I, on the other hand, tend to adore in extremes—I have buried my share of succulent carcasses because my love is too thick. Since antiquity, I have conceptualized Angela’s cancerous cells as overwatered succulents sodden with this much-too-thick kind of love. Still, no limitations on her botanical being could abate her brilliant and full Flowering. Angela blossomed even as her leaves fell. She bloomed through every four-course sequence she ever knew: [this/infinite] human drama, [those/ nonexistent] stages of her metastatic disease, and [these, forever our own] collegiate shenanigans. I.

ANCIENT “At the heart of the program is a four-course sequence known as the Human Drama, which takes students from the ancient to the modern world in their first and sophomore years. In each course, students read important works and discuss the great events, ideas, and beliefs of each period.” 1 1 Taken from the website for the Honors Program at Loyola University Maryland.

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128 I met Angela DeCarlo at the overnight orientation for incoming first-years at Loyola University Maryland. By the will of the gods—among hundreds and hundreds of newly enrolled students on the Evergreen campus that weekend—Angela and I were assigned to stay in the same apartment [the Universe had drawn us together]. We met again a few weeks later on move-in day for students inducted into the university’s Honors Program. Though I do not remember our first conversation [for my nerves and overwhelming skepticism about this new place and its people rendered me more or less incapable of lucid human connection], I distinctly recall that it was Angela’s eighteenth birthday. During this first semester together, we engaged with the minds of Homer and Socrates and Augustine and many others. In introducing me to the dirty chai latte and expressing admiration for the idiosyncratic lens through which I perceive the world, Angela helped me to keep up with these minds and to better understand my own. My whole life, I have been searching for people who requite my unexplainable love for other beings, and only in getting to know Angela DeCarlo did I realize that I am not the only one who empathizes with Polyphemus when his eye is burned and existence blinded. On the weekend that Angela’s physical body passed on, the lessons from the ancient world that we first learned together at eighteen flooded back into my consciousness. I saw her mother’s boyfriend as Hermes— messenger of the gods and patron of traditions—coming from Olympus to the waiting rooms of Earth with news about the impending mortality of a demigoddess. Who will weep for the Cyclops with me now that you’ve returned to Olympus? I’m left to voyage these waters without you. Around this time last year, you told me that I helped you move mountains. I know that Mounts Olympus, Everest, and Kilimanjaro will never be the same—are eternally moved by your Love. II.

MEDIEVAL “We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.”2

2 A quotation by Thich Nhat Hahn; one that resonated with Angela in her exploration and embracement of Zen Buddhism.

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You were a pilgrim searching for nothing but herself and you found her and I know that. Show me that you have made it to Canterbury and I will keep telling your tale. III.

RENAISSANCE “Nevertheless, she persisted.”3

The original intent behind this inadvertently empowering phrase was to silence a woman from speaking her truth. Despite the Senate’s overwhelming desire to hush Ms. Warren, the Senator vocalized courageously, imperviously, and intentionally: she persisted. Angela DeCarlo, former Campus Outreach Coordinator of the Peace and Justice Club at Loyola University Maryland (and fellow activist for justice, peace, and equity) reclaimed this phrase—much like other modernday intersectional feminists—as characteristic of her own strength and tenacity. For two years, Angela DeCarlo nevertheless persisted: throughout her unrelentingly courageous battle with cancer, Angela remained deliberatively active in her promotion of peace and justice through her leadership role in the Peace and Justice Club, scholarship in Global Studies, and in many other initiatives on and off campus. Civically-minded, boundlessly empathetic, hopeful, and with a profound capacity for love (to both give and receive it), Angela poured love into the Baltimore and global communities alike. Her grassroots activism ranged from serving meals in shelters for people experiencing homelessness to committing herself to a lifestyle of consistent sustainability. We are all better for knowing and learning from Angela: we are better humans, activists, and friends to the Earth and to each other. Angela, you inspire us to nevertheless persist—to move mountains—for peace. Rest in power and peace. IV. MODERN “I’m strong as I continue with my studies, delving into the politics of Eastern Europe, the concepts and implications of global inequality, and the inner workings of the dark room and film development. I’m strong as I live with two of my best friends, laughing and making memories as we 3 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the persistence of Senator Elizabeth Warren.

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130 navigate school, the future, and my disease.” 4 About two years ago to the day, you gifted me a collection of poetry for Christmas. I have been thinking about this excerpt ever since: Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place. 5 Thank you for affirming who I am and for helping me become who I always wanted to be. Thank you for encouraging me to t a k e u p s p a c e, for carrying me even in those moments that I carried you, and for being my person.

LANGUAGE LOST by Daniela Laudisio

I think it is the year 1998. The film of the VHS tape is surely stamped with a date and time, but it has been so long since the last time my family sat down to view our “home videos,” and besides, in the one I am thinking about, I am extremely young. I am too young to talk in full sentences but old enough to walk on my own, and my younger sister is nowhere to be found in the clip, so 1998—over a year after my birth but still about a year away from hers—makes the most sense. I am hobbling around in my driveway in the video—the weather seems nice, so I assume it is either the spring or summer. My mother shakily films my steps as I teeter around, exploring my environment in a carefree manner. I eventually stumble across our dark green Dodge Durango parked in the driveway, and for some reason, I am fascinated by this massive object blocking my view. My mother calls my name to try to get me to look at the heavy camera currently falling from her grasp, but as I begin to make handprints using the soot on the car as my paint and the vehicle’s trunk as my canvas, her smiley coaxes turn into mild scolds uttered in Italian phrases, of which I am unable to conjure from memory except for the few key words my toddler mind can comprehend: “Don’t touch the macchina.” “It’s too sporca.” “No!” Car, dirty, no. Simple enough. ***

I know that you are flying. glittering. dancing and giggling— Everywhere. I know that you have made it to the stars and everywhere in between. That you are experiencing and seeing all that you wished to, and more. Altogether Muse and poetess, you will always be my favorite epic to read. With love from worlds ancient to modern, Mand. x 4 An excerpt from Angela DeCarlo’s September 22, 2018 MyLifeLine blog post 5 See “The Fur” by Iain S. Thomas in I wrote this for you: pleasefindthis, 2016

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I am certain the year was 2003. I was unaware of the exact details of our location, and I was told to characterize it as basically the Southernmost point in the Italian mainland (the “toe” of the “boot” that is the country of Italy, if you will) as well as the region from which the majority of my Italian ancestors were born and lived out their lives. Vibo Valentia, the city in the region of Calabria from which my lineage came, was simple, yet striking. It was positively the most primitive place tuned into mainland pop culture (even Italy has Disney characters on their cereal boxes) I had witnessed thus far, causing both perplexing thoughts as well as piquing my interest in the town as a young child. I think back to the ancient streets; they were uneven, cobblestone paths that were caked in a thick black grime that was invisible to the

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132 human eye until it found its way to the soles of our feet after several hours of what felt like nonstop walking each day. I remember the hill. It was steep, lined with several store fronts and houses—the most primordial of their kind that I had ever observed—of which included the home at which we stayed. There was a building in the town which was once a castle, a medieval castle if I am not mistaken, stationed at the hill’s peak, and it exuded a sort of grandeur that, due to its regal size and archaic build, made it hard to miss among the streets of the residential area that it overlooked. For years, the grand, stone structure had ceased to exist as a residence for royalty or for only the wealthiest elites of the era in which it was erected. Instead, it now functioned as a place of knowledge for the public. “It used to be a castle, like for a princess (or rather, principessa— one Italian word I never forgot considering it was my parents’ nickname for me as a young child), but now, it’s a library,” I believe my mother told me. I was merely six years old at the time, so naturally, I am unsure if that sentence is actually just my mind playing tricks on me. Did she say “library,” or had she uttered “museum?” Clearly, the only thing of relevance that caught my attention was the idea of being in the presence of the former home of a principessa. I guess whatever the castle had become, it was not deemed worthy enough by my young self to cause me to delve deeper into the mystery of this element of Italy’s past. I would later realize that the castle being transformed into either type of modern day home for history, literature, and the arts would make sense, for neither idea is that farfetched when it comes to what one would come across on any given day in southern Italy—southern Italia. Unfortunately, I would never make it a point over the next decade or so to discover the full truth encompassing that elusive and entrancing piece of architecture. Instead, I would become increasingly enamored with the Romance language that leapt from tongues and entered innumerable ears (mine included) as I walked the streets of its birthplace. I remember the house in which we stayed. Some of my recollections are from photographs of this trip, a multitude of which were developed and stationed in a large, square album once we returned back home to America. However, many of my memories still remain pure and unchanged by existing photography, kept alive in the depths of my long-term memory. Saying it was an old house was an understatement. It contained varying shades of gray, its interior walls protruded in ways that shrouded multiple rooms in a shadowy darkness, and it was built with a type of massive stone that was cold to the touch. The windows

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133 had bars on them that had been wielded into a sort of decorative pattern (to increase what little curb appeal it had, I guess). The beds with creamcolored sheets resembled hard, immovable cots more than anything else, and much to the chagrin of my parents, armies of ants marched in and out of the back room of the house each day, coming and going as they pleased. Still, it was a free place to stay, for it was owned by a cousin—una cugina—of my mother, who lived in an apartment above us and rented out the cold, gray home whenever she desired or deemed it appropriate or necessary. The windows, although barred, lacked any sort of glass or screens. The iron bars did little to keep out the merciless mosquitoes that summer. Claiming the mosquitoes, le zanzare, to be simply wretched was a compliment to their species, especially since the blood-sucking pests forced us to lather ourselves in bug repellent every night before falling asleep. The stone structure of the house did all it could to keep the interior cool, but its efforts to keep out intruders were no match for the attempts of the feasting mosquitoes who left dozens of red bumps across our skin every night, nor was it a formidable adversary for the unbearable heat of the summer itself. Considering it was the hottest summer recorded in Italy in four hundred years, the heat of the region of Calabria in mid-July was sweltering, to say the least. For this reason, efforts at keeping an unruffled disposition and a calm composure whilst dealing with the oppressive temperatures proved to be a great challenge for tourists and locals alike. We attempted to cool ourselves each day with circular, handheld fans bestowed upon us by one of my mom’s elderly Italian aunts, her zia. I could understand this newly-introduced relative of mine enough to know who she was and that the fans were a gift, un regalo, but the language barrier between us blocked the exchange of any conversation beyond that. I have pictures of us holding the fans, but their simplistic beauty would have stayed firm in my mind even if it were not for the visual record. They were made of plastic woven together with string and wood, a pattern of multicolored butterflies painted on the face of the rudimentary, yet oddly artistic, contraption. As we fanned ourselves, we sipped apricot juice with the fruit’s Italian epithet, albicocca, sprawled across the label of the box from which it came. We continued to attempt to give ourselves temporary respite from the record-breaking temperatures in the public fountains; we took turns splashing the water, l’acqua, on our faces, cupping our hands together so as to scoop out the liquid before taking long, drawn out sips. The occasional stray cat (we had a black and

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134 white gatto of our own waiting for us back in New Jersey) would saunter by before slumping its body against the fountain’s base, hoping to catch some residual water from our splashing or at least some desperatelyneeded shade as it sat in silence and stared down all who dared to look its way. *** The year is now 2018. I am a few months fresh off a full semester recently spent abroad in Rome. My Italian has never been better, but I still wish it was more developed than it currently is. My grammar could most definitely use some work, but according to my cousins, who are permanent residents of Rome themselves, even the native-born speakers of the language constantly have trouble with the grammar, la grammatica, so I should not dwell on it too much, or at least I should not let it dictate my speaking, for such a thing will cause hints of hesitancy within my voice and hinder my pronunciation. I try to practice whenever at home or on the phone with my mom, or at least when I can remember to practice it with her, because more than anything at this moment, I do not want to re-lose the parts of a language that I was able to so uniquely and quickly relearn to a certain extent. My mother and I forget at times to switch to Italian instead of relying on the comfort of English when conversing, for moments when it is just the two of us are the most opportune for impromptu language lessons. It may occur when we are home, or it may be when we are in the pristine chill of the refrigerated section of the grocery store, trying to decide between buying lemonade—limonata—or iced tea—tè freddo —for the house. Many times, as I call her on the phone from the security of my dorm room at school, I will make the daring attempt to switch the conversation to Italian (or at least “broken” Italian), and she will chime in accordingly and without delay. Even so, my mom is starting to realize that her own lack of use for the language on a day-to-day basis has caused her to forget multiple words as well. She still has me beat, of course, but having to remind her while in the department store of the local mall that the plural form of the common word “men” is actually irregular and correctly translated to uomini has further motivated me to stick with and grow my knowledge of the language that so many of my ancestors, including my grandparents, and so many of my current relatives even, spoke.

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I always saw my mother’s adeptness and near-fluency of this “Romance language” as a sort of super power all her own. It was a way to exude the power of her parents’ and grandparents’ and cousins’ culture —food, music, history, trends, and so on—all through an act as simple as speaking. Not many people I had known while growing up understood her skill, and the fact that my young childhood self could usually comprehend it made me feel like I was in on the secret, too. It was as if I had my own superhero training regarding this talent, but with more siblings being born, and my regular schooling earning a more prominent presence, and lives just generally becoming busier, consolidating all intel into one language, that language being English, seemed to be the most advantageous thing to do. There were many a time when my mom attempted to recommence the second-language lessons for me and my siblings, but no newly-purchased notebooks and flashcards nor endeavored routines ever seemed to withstand the temptation of the efficiency and ease that came with speaking the now-dominant English, the now-dominant inglese. With my newfound knowledge of today, oggi, it is safe to say that I have not been able to speak this much of the language since I was a toddler, and although I have failed to channel the inner child that once had the ability to sing along with Andrea Bocelli over the car stereo, I find that it is the little victories, along with the continuous practice, that lets me hold onto that tiny piece of culture, of language, that has constantly popped up in my past, proudly shaping it into a life that is all my own. It is a life of rooms within my family’s home decorated with numerous visions and framed renderings of Italian phrases and landscapes, dishtowels etched with bright yellow lemons from a port city in the South, and a small bowl of rocks unearthed from the sands of a Calabrian beach. It is the overwhelming smell of seven different kinds of fish, pesci, that floats through our kitchen each Christmas Eve, which, although it is the aroma of a multiple-course holiday dinner, it is an indicator of an annual, Italian-American tradition more than anything else. It is home videos from my toddler years of my mother asking me to “count to ten” in Italian; it is me forgetting and confusing that simple sequence of numbers as Spanish and French classes (Italian classes were never a viable option until I studied abroad as a college student) take precedence regarding the foreign language component of my academic world. It is a life of scattered memories, of both meaningful and insignificant places and people and conversations. It is somehow simultaneously trivial and essential to my identity. It is a sort of magic—the princess-castle-turned-library kind of magic – that I unwaveringly hope to keep in my mind, or at least in my heart, for the years—gli anni—to come.

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Ode to My Father: Did you Notice? by Rayonna Burton-Jernigan

Did you notice when I was born? When I took my first step? Lost my first tooth? When I turned one? Did you notice when I liked wrestling more than cheerleading? When I liked to play video games and cheered when I realized I was closer to being the son you wanted? Did you notice when I knew you would let me win just to make me feel better after losing five times? Did you notice how I followed you like you were the sun to my moon? Did you notice the look on my face when I watched you break my motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s arm? The look of fear and sadness because I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what to do? When you slapped her in Orlando but proceeded to take me to Disneyworld to find Mickey Mouse? Did you notice the sadness and tears I felt when you argued in front of me? The development of my anger and realization that love includes arguing with your partner? Did you notice that I wanted a younger sibling? The pain on my face when she lost not one but two of my siblings? Did you notice the settlement that I only had a mom, dad, and two cat siblings? Did you notice the envy I had for all my friends and family with more than just one kid? Did you notice the love and happiness I felt when you proposed to Mommy on Christmas? Did you notice the pain in my eyes when she lost the baby the next Christmas? Did you notice the hate I developed for Christmas? Did you notice the quietness that developed afterwards? The lack of laughter, pitter-patter, or love? Did you notice when I started puberty? When things got bigger (or

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138 smaller), marks or bumps started to appear, or when my emotions started to shift from child to young adult? When I started to ask questions that you wouldn’t answer? What is love? What’s happening to my body? Did you notice when I started my period? When I hid in the bathroom, crying because I didn’t know what was happening to me? No? Well I started in your guys’ bed. Did you notice that your little girl was on the verge of womanhood? Did you notice that I saw when you didn’t respect my mom? Or me? Did you notice when I learned you were cheating? When you used my cheerleading events as an excuse to see your mistress? Who happened to be my friends’ mother? The friend who took her life after letting her demons win the constant internal battle she struggled with? Did you notice when my mom caught you at the game but didn’t want to make a scene for my sake? Did you notice you are the reason that I quit cheerleading? Did you notice when I went to high school? When your relationship with my mom was at its end but you both tried for my sake? Did you notice my heart break when you walked out on Christmas with a promise to not return? Did you see me reach in the cabinet and have my first taste of vodka? Did you notice when I tried to find the love you wouldn’t give me in different boys? When I was tricked by a junior male into believing he cared about me? Well, him and his friend? Did you see when I met my first love and finally started to get the love that you wouldn’t give me? Did you notice that you started the downfall of my mental health? When I started to participate in whatever I could find that would make me feel something other than what I was feeling? Did you notice that you are the reason I stopped showing emotions or crying in front of people? The reason I cannot truly ever open myself up to anyone? The reason I have separation anxiety and believe that no one wants to stay with me? The fear I have that I am a bother to everyone? That in order to make them stay, I have to hide my feelings and emotions and take theirs on so that they are happy? Did you notice when I almost lost my mom? When I thought my heartbreak was bad, but hers felt like she was dying? When she would stop eating and got skinnier by the moment? Did you notice when I started to cry because I thought she was going to leave me too? When I had to beg her to eat something as small as a TV dinner? How, when she

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139 finally ate, I watched her like a hawk until she had her last bite? Did you notice where she got healthier? For a while, we were good, it was just us. Did you notice when she started to drink more because you kept causing hell in both of our lives? Did you notice the destruction that you left in your wake because you decided you wanted to play tug of war with our hearts? Did you notice when I had to get into therapy? When we both had to get into therapy? Where you created such a rift between us that we couldn’t talk to each other? Did you notice that we both are two fucked up individuals pretending to be okay? Did you notice it only took for you to leave for us to realize that? Did you notice that, at the age of 15, I had to grow up quicker than most people at my age? Did you notice when I started to cope by throwing myself into school? When I started to take college classes so that I could run from home and from you? When I started to distance myself from Cleveland and run to other places with the hope that you would not be there? Did you notice the happiness I felt when I didn’t spend my summers here? Did you notice the slight ping of happiness that I felt when I discovered that Mommy was pregnant? Did you notice the anger I felt when I realized it was you that she was pregnant by? The betrayal and sadness there because I thought we moved on from you? Did you notice that every time she carries one of your children and they survive, it’s when you aren’t in the picture? Did you notice that my little brother looks exactly like you? The eyes, smile, and nose? Just like I have. Did you notice he doesn’t know what you look like or who you are? Did you notice that you haven’t seen us since I graduated high school? Did you notice that I am about to graduate college? Did you notice that we are moving on without acknowledging who you are and why you matter? Did you notice that I still can’t sit through the father-daughter dance at a wedding without running out the room crying? Did you notice that you will never meet the love of my life? Or my kids? Did you notice you will never be around for my accomplishments? Did you notice that I don’t need you anymore because I have my mom?

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140 Did you know that I am trying to grow as an adult, and I want to stop being angry at you and what you did? Did you know that I just want my dad sometimes? That no matter what I say in this poem, I love you? Did you notice that every time I tried to write this, I ended up crying? Well maybe you should notice.

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Procrastinator’s Creed by Nikki Wieman

It’s true that I should receive an award for my skill. In all aspects of my craft, I am far superior to the competitors. I often find great pleasure in the reactions of my peers when they discover how naturally my gift approaches me; they become a mass of gawking eyes and gaping mouths. Whiny voices screech my name, providing for an inconspicuous allusion to their jealousy. The voices desire to surrender their practical, organized, and terribly responsible self-design, but hastily abandon the effort in the presence of unrelenting fear. Those who understand my proficiency in this talent and even utilize similar techniques themselves, cautiously nod their heads in solidarity with me, a lone soldier surrounded by haphazardly placed papers, four empty Venti Starbucks cups, and a profusely twitching left eye, that can even be mistaken for a friendly wink in the darkness of a 3am sky. I am a diligent procrastinator, ensuring that I never begin an assignment or project with sufficient time to complete; with such a demanding brevity of completion that mandates the blockage of adenosine (a huge thank you to my sweet friend, Caffeine) in the poor, overworked pink thing sitting my skull. Although I relatively reserve no time for any official work, I thought it would be kindly—and particularly generous of myself—to find three whole minutes, a lifetime-long 180 seconds, to expose the vaulted secrets of procrastination for your personal benefit. Become a dexterous procrastinator, if you have the time and courage. Procrastination is a gift to the world and it will surely set you free. Life is too short to not procrastinate. Firstly, you just have to stop giving a whole fuck. Bob Marley sang to me from the grave, these lyrics, now forever immortalized by an impulsive tattoo displayed proudly on my lower back: “Don’t worry about a thing, ‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right.” Thanks, Bob. This is your new mantra, your holy grail, hold it tight and never let it go. Recite it every morning at dawn and start losing the fucks. Defenestrate them, burn them, give them to a friend—it’s pure and effortless simplicity to abandon these nuisances in your life. Give half of a fuck, even better give a quarter, and then you’ll be on the path to enlightened procrastination. I urge you to listen to Uncle Bob Marley.

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142 What to Do: Forfeit your fucks. What Not to Do: Let your fucks control you. The second step to evolving into a skilled procrastinator is to do what you love. It is frivolous to use the fleeting time offered to you to egregiously outline and execute your “meaningful” tasks for the day, month or year. This would again appear to be a relatively modest deviation from a typical cognitive methodology of a non-procrastinator, but many biological non-procrastinators are still influenced by the demanding shadows of their fucks. Translate this dutiful energy from a work-based focus, to move towards a pleasurable, fulfilling experience. A deadline on the horizon battles the desire for a double scoop of chocolate peanut butter cookie dough ice cream in a warm waffle cone from the best creamery around. Go get that milky goodness. What to Do: Go to an ice cream shop. Eat your preferred flavor. Savor. Every. Lick. Go home. Google how to make your own homemade ice cream. Go to the supermarket and buy the ingredients. Make your ice cream to the tune of “Ice Ice Baby.” Eat your ice cream. Realize that you are an elite ice cream chef. Google available spaces for rent in the local area. Open your own ice cream shop. Congrats! You’re a small business owner. What Not to Do: Finish all your work. Get a head start on outstanding work. Get ice cream as a reward. The last and final procedure to stepping into the role of a procrastinator is the copious use of a single phrase: yes. When you allow your tongue to utter that monosyllabic word, you are consciously assenting that a door of opportunity to be unlocked and open to you. A simple “yes” holds the secrets to solving all your problems. “No” is declaratory, aggressive, and finite; finalizing the notion that you’re bland. But, “yes” gives you an adventurous air that’s inexorably contagious and coincidentally invites all your acquaintances on a similar journey through procrastination.

143 buys you kamikaze shots and you bond over the nature of life through collective tears. What a great story to tell as you show your future children your yearbook and point out Mr. Ryan from AP Lit. What Not to Do: Tell your friend, “Hey girl, you know I’d love to...but it’s a no from me. I’m sorry. No. Yeah, just no.” So, now that you’ve received the methodology of one skilled procrastinator (me), you must certainly be considering why you should adopt this into your daily routine. If you’re worried about the quality of your finished, polished work, refer to tip #1, but also understand that under the influence of “procrastinatory” clarity the value of one’s work is actually enhanced. Take Frank Partnoy’s advice if my college-aged undergraduate wisdom proves subpar. Partnoy is a professor at the University of San Diego, and as an avid procrastinator himself, managed to write an acclaimed book detailing the benefits of procrastination, Wait: The Art and Science of Delay. The idea here is that active procrastination leads to a happier and more successful life. It also stimulates that creative gene in your brain, so your work literally becomes the best that it can ever be! Do you love Greco-Roman culture? Are you awed by all that architecture, aqueducts, arts, roadways, and philosophical thought? These ancient societies glorified procrastination. As Megan Gambino writes in “Why Procrastination is Good for You,” “The wisest leaders embraced procrastination and would basically sit around and think and not do anything unless they absolutely had to.” Mozart, Victor Hugo, Franz Kafka. They’re fucking awesome procrastinators. Do you get it? Procrastination is the way. So now that you have this essential procrastinator’s creed at your disposal, I should urge you to stop what you’re doing and start procrastinating. But I can’t, because that would be in direct opposition of the beautiful essence of procrastination herself. So instead, I offer you this: I hope one day you find yourself with 54 minutes left to complete a final assignment and enjoy the rush of adrenaline as you hit submit at 11:59:59. Then, and only then, will you be thrust into an elite society of procrastinators.

What to Do: Agree to going on a sporadic adventure a 10pm in the midst of frantic essay writing. Find yourself at the local dive bar sharing a barstool with your friend and your old high school teacher. Your teacher

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by Delaney Porter I. Well, she was only a mother, and maybe that was the problem. But it’s hard to blame everything on motherhood when in that first picture she’s looking down at three-year-old me in the waves—hand brushing through my still-blond hair, her pregnant belly hanging from her. Her bathing suit was red. She was lovely. II. In the second picture, she’s looking at my dad from the couch. He’s taking this picture from the floor, and, well, taking pictures from everywhere, he was always behind the camera. And he was no photographer, but this one almost hurts to look at, if you know what I mean. Because this one could’ve been taken two weeks ago, and I wouldn’t even question it because she doesn’t age. She looks the same and that couch is the same one in every vacation home in the whole world and if you told me this picture was from now (note: taken by someone new) and not from 15 years ago (when I was three and my mom was lying on a sofa and my dad was taking pictures of her from the floor), then I would believe you. I can’t see her belly in the picture. Her eyes—I want to know what she’s thinking. I want to know what she’s thinking. I want to know what she’s thinking. I want to know. I—I want to—The shafts of light that escape the spaces between the blinds fall over the couch, over her face. III. They’re in a bar in this one, I think. The flash is on and everything behind her is so dark and her face is so bright and she looks pale. She’s grinning. She has hoop earrings on. Her face is sideways in the frame—she’s jumping in front of the camera. Her hair is so so curly and it’s pulled back just a little like mine always is and her eyes—her eyes are the same as mine, the same muddy green that never looks that good on me. But she looks so free. Why didn’t she feel free? As free as she looked? IV. The worst part, though, is that I can tell that she’s happy in this one—it’s morning. There are palm trees in the background. Her elbow is on the table, and her cheek is resting in her hand. She smirks, her eyes lifted just a little above the camera.

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Lost in the Dust by Evan Visconti

After 28 days of waking up before dawn, I still hadn’t adjusted to yanking myself out of bed so early in the morning. I pushed past the mosquito net that surrounded my twin mattress and entered the tiny bathroom that connected to my room. Stepping into the dark-tiled shower, I turned on the faucet and watched as two drops of muddy liquid fell into the drain. “Damn it, they shut it off again,” I mumbled under my breath. The lodge regularly turned off the water for the staff housing around this time of year. Between June and October, there was always the threat of running low on water in Tanzania, and who would pay thousands of dollars to stay in the bush with no running water? I resorted to one of Sasakwa Lodge’s famous water bottle baths. I didn’t have enough time to heat my water on the hot plate, but it didn’t matter. Today was the last day of my internship in Tanzania, and I’d have the rest of my life to take hot showers back home. Raising the giant Kilimanjaro water bottle over my head, I poured a splash of its contents onto my hair. A rush of cold jolted my eyes from their resting position, and I quickly lathered in soap. Another longer pour from the water bottle rinsed a layer of dark orange Earth from my skin. I watched it spin slowly down the drain at my feet, like washing away yesterday. The clay-colored dirt in Tanzania coats every surface with a thin sheen; even my tan, long-sleeved “safari shirt,” as I called it, was already stained orange from countless hours on safari the past month. After pinning my gray Sasakwa nametag to my shirt for the last time, I opened the sliding door and unlatched the thick steel gate that secured my bedroom. “Never leave this gate unlocked. The vervets [monkies] will break in and shit on everything,” I remember Rich telling me when I first arrived. At breakfast, I was one of five people scattered around the tented dining hall. Beneath a clay-stained tent rested about 25 tables, all ranging in size. I chose a small table with my back facing the long buffet at the edge of the tent. After pouring some tea, I scrolled through my emails to find my flight confirmation for the next day. Had it really been a month already?

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148 As the hot liquid touched my lips, I was jolted into spilling half the mug on my lap by the deafening clap of a high-powered rifle. Nearly stunned, I swung my head around to see Martin, one of the senior safari guides, aiming his rifle out into the plains that surrounded the tent. I focused my eyes further down range to see a large baboon slumped to its side. I quickly recalled the events of last night when a giant male baboon sent the crowded tent into an uproar. As people filed in for dinner at eight o’clock, the baboon sprinted through the main entrance hissing and charging at anyone in his way. The women screamed and ran to the opposite side of the tent. Before the men could react (baboons purposely target women while confronting a group), the baboon was at the buffet. Pausing to analyze which table offered the most rewarding prize, the baboon leaped on top of the most decorated one to find a vanilla-frosted birthday cake. He reached his hairy hand inside the center of the cake, pulled out a scoop of the tasty desert, and ran out of the entrance unpunished...until this morning. About 15 minutes passed after the baboon was murdered, and my heart was still racing. I knew the relationship between man and nature here was tense, but this was my first time witnessing death as the final result. Stories were constantly being told of life or death situations in the bush, the most recent of which happened when a worker at the lodge was speared by a buffalo earlier this summer (he died before a medivac to Nairobi could get to them). As the tent grew steadily louder with Swahili voices, my friend Brendan walked through the entrance. Brendan was the only worker at the lodge who was even close to my age. When I first met him, I thought to myself, what’s this long-haired beach bum doing at a safari lodge? With a tall stature and bleach-blonde hair past his shoulders, Brendan was hard to miss. He traveled from his home in Cape Town to work as a photographer at Sasakwa Lodge, much like myself. “What’s up, Brendan? You know what’s on the schedule today?” I asked him as he approached my table. “Howzit brah? We need to drop off some things at Faru Faru, and we’ll look for lions on the way as usual,” he responded. Faru Faru was the neighboring safari lodge, about a two-hour drive from Sasakwa Lodge. The supplies were already in our safari vehicle, an old Toyota jacked-up on massive all-terrain wheels, painted light beige like all the other vehicles here. Ours was especially dusty, making it a darker orange and distinguishing us apart from the shiny

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149 vehicles that transported guests all around the surrounding plains. “What are we bringing to Faru Faru?” I asked Brendan. “They gave me that box up at the main lodge. There’s a radio and a bunch of picnic supplies in it,” he said. After finishing my tea and banana, I followed Brendan to our safari vehicle. I got into the passenger seat as usual (I never learned how to drive a standard), and Brendan drove us down the winding hill and into the African plains. The sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon, spewing its golden color into the dusty air like an erupting volcano. The landscape lit up, almost as if struck by a match, and I became lost in the amazing expanse of grassland that stretched to the horizon. Four giraffes stood, silhouetted by the sun, feeding from the high branches of an acacia tree, undisturbed by the deep hum of the old Toyota’s diesel engine. My seat rattled as we zigzagged between potholes and weaved around downed tree branches. It looked like a tornado had ripped through this patch of acacias, but in reality, one hungry elephant did all the damage. Most destruction on the plains is easily attributed to the elephants, not only because of their destructive feeding habits, but also because of the scent they leave behind. When males are in heat, they expel a pungent liquid onto the ground as a way of attracting mates and keeping other large males away. The musty scent combines with another sour odor released by the trees to keep elephants from totally annihilating them. To escape the scent, the herd will leave the pungent tree for a fresh one that hasn’t yet enabled its defense mechanism. Continuing down another set of tire tracks and past the downed acacias, Sasakwa Hill slowly disappeared behind us. Between whiffs of diesel coming out of the exhaust at the back of the vehicle, I was mesmerized by the scent of smoke and dust in the air that makes the region so distinguishable. Just last week, I helped the wildlife management team contribute to this scent by lighting a series of small fires throughout the reserve. Controlled burns are essential in this region to keep the dead grass from building up and becoming dangerous. The dust added a dry yet Earthy scent to the air, and it made the sunrise particularly energizing. Birds became audible during pauses of the engine, and herds of zebras, gazelles, and buffalo began moving about the plains. Scanning through the tall hay like grass, I was hoping to see a pride of lions. As a photographer for the lodge, one of my duties was to take a picture of every lion I saw. That meant zooming in on the face, any

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150 distinguishing features, and the whisker pattern. The wildlife team at the lodge was working on cataloguing individual lions, and their whisker patterns act like a human fingerprint, setting each lion apart from the others in its pride. As we approached Faru Faru, more safari vehicles began popping up on the plains. A large plume of dust trailed behind each vehicle trying to catch a glimpse of wild animals in action. Our supply drop was simple; we drove down the main path and into Faru Faru—a giant cluster of little white tents in the middle of a flat and neverending grassland. We handed the box of supplies to a cheerful Tanzanian who spoke broken English. The man was extremely grateful for the supplies and explained why they were needed. He said that a safari vehicle stopped alongside the road for a picnic when a herd of buffalo decided to approach. The safari guides quickly got their passengers back into the vehicles and drove to safety, but they left behind a bag with two radios and all of the supplies for the picnic. After waiting for the buffalo to clear out, they retrieved the bag, only to find out that it had been trampled. Luckily for the workers at Faru Faru, two interns at the neighboring lodge were free to make the supply run. Without radios, guides aren’t allowed to take guests anywhere outside the lodge. Being out on the plains with no way of communication is just too dangerous. Even inside the metal walls of a safari vehicle, an elephant or buffalo could easily charge and cause a lot of damage, or worse. And in the event of a breakdown or flat tire, walking back to the lodge is never an option. When Brendan and I returned to Sasakwa for dinner, the sun was already low on the horizon. Its orange glow beamed rays of light through the familiar cloth walls of the dining hall. We were starving after a long day on the plains, and I quickly grabbed a plate from the end of the buffet and began to feast. I could see how the animals out here got so hungry. The oppressive heat from the sun drains any remnants of energy you wake up with, quickly resulting in unfathomable hunger. We had plenty of water on our supply run, but we forgot to bring our own lunch basket when we departed in the morning. As I gorged myself on rice and oxtail soup, I listened to the diverse conversations between safari guides, cooks, pilots, and scientists. The range of backgrounds found under this tent was incredible. During my month at the lodge, I heard countless stories of adventure from all types of people, usually followed by the common phrase, “Only in Africa.”

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151 Once dinner ended, most of the people cleared out. The tables around me were empty, including the one I sat at, and only the sound of insects could be heard bouncing around inside the covered tent. I looked up to see the jovial smile of a young man named Joseph. Joseph worked as a server inside our little dining hall, and I saw him quite a bit over the past month, always with a giant smile on his face. Whether he was serving food in the buffet line, clearing plates, or brewing coffee before the crack of dawn, Joseph was always humming a cheerful tune and meandering without a care in the world. With a strong Swahili accent and an even stronger smile, Joseph asked me how my dinner was. His glowing brown eyes immediately brought me out of a daydream and back to reality. I told him my dinner was delicious because I knew oxtail soup was a local favorite. In reality, the meat was tough and too gamy for my liking. He was pleased to hear I enjoyed the meal and asked if he could take a seat at my table. Pulling a chair out from next to me, I said, “Of course!” Joseph’s slender body smoothly sat down in the white plastic chair across from me. What he said next took me a little by surprise. Holding steady eye contact, he uttered the words, “Tell me your story.” Unsure of what to say, I asked him if I heard him correctly, and he said, “Yes! Tell me your story, Evan.” Still struggling to think of an answer, I told Joseph my best interpretation of my “story.” Starting where I grew up, I described my family and friends back in New York, as well as my hopes of getting into a good university and becoming a journalist. I tried to speak as clearly as possible so that he could understand me, and as far as I could tell, Joseph followed along with a great deal of enthusiasm. He was excited to hear about my life in a country he had only ever heard of, and he asked me lots of questions about what it’s like back home. Eventually, I grew tired of talking about home, so I asked Joseph to tell me his story. First, he said he lived with his grandmother in Makandusi, a rural town on the other side of the hill, while he was trying to get a job at the safari lodge. “Trying?” I asked. “But you already work here, don’t you?” Joseph explained that he was currently being evaluated by the staff who would decide if his work was good enough to earn a wage. Until then, he was working for free like myself, only Joseph wasn’t tracking down lions and having fun all day. He was hard at work in the dining hall making sure the rest of the staff was taken care of—work that

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152 is definitely worth being paid for. Joseph continued his story much like I did by telling me about where he’s originally from—Kenya. He said that he was forced leave home to find work. I asked him if he has any kids, and he smiled and said, “No, I have three little sisters.” “How old are you?” I asked. “Nineteen,” he said. I knew Joseph looked young, but I never expected there was another teenager working so closely by my side. He seemed mature for his age, surely more mature than I was at the time. As I struggled to get out of bed every morning, Joseph hummed energetically behind the buffet, smiling off into the distance. Suddenly, Joseph paused his story and I saw the smile erase from his face. I noticed dark wrinkles beneath his eyes that had never stood out to me before. He quickly appeared as if he was sitting across the room, staring dimly through me. Unsure of what had triggered this change, I asked Joseph if he ate any dinner yet. “Oh no, I’m okay. I don’t eat dinner,” he said, oddly gaining some life back into his eyes. “Why don’t you eat dinner?” I asked. “My sisters usually call me around dinner time,” he said. “Oh! Are you expecting a call?” I asked. “No, today they called me at lunchtime. They said they have no food. They need me to get this job so that I can buy them food and a school uniform,” he said, appearing more broken than ever. Shocked, I felt my jaw clench. A month in Tanzania had already made me aware of extreme poverty, but now I was more than just aware. I realized that Joseph’s world was completely different from mine in every way imaginable. Despite our similarities at first, outside of this tent, our lives were polar opposites. While my family was safe at home, his was struggling to survive. “What about your parents in Kenya?” I asked, hoping for a reasonable response. My hopes were crushed when Joseph said, “They passed away in a car crash, and since I am the oldest in the family, I had to leave my country to find work.” Again, I was in shock. As a world of nocturnal creatures came to life outside of our dimly lit tent, I felt the first cool breeze of my entire

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153 visit. In this fairy tale land of wild animals and beautiful landscapes, life could be so, so harsh. When Joseph and I parted ways for the night, he asked if he could bring me to the dirt runway down the road once my flight arrived in the morning. I, of course, accepted his offer, honored that he would go out of his way to say goodbye. In the course of a month, Joseph was one of many people I met who were unbelievably kind and charismatic. His gesture reminded me of the Tanzanian cook who offered me a Snickers bar and a package of Oreos to keep me from getting home sick. The morning came quickly. Before I was prepared to say goodbye to this place, Joseph was out front along with three other friends, waiting to bring me to the runway. I was happy to see that Joseph was smiling and humming as usual in the backseat of the safari vehicle. As I left the lodge for the final time, I found myself thinking about Joseph and his family far more than I thought about my own adventures over the past month. It was impossible to get his story off my mind. When the time came to embrace one another and depart ways, I handed Joseph an envelope with all the money I still hadn’t spent on my trip. In a little card with an elephant on the front, I wrote Joseph a note wishing him the best of luck landing a paying job at the lodge. I also gave him the name of the man in Makandusi who would exchange United States currency for Tanzanian shillings so that he could send the money to his siblings right away. Peering out of the small window as we accelerated down the runway, I could see Joseph and his friends waving goodbye until the wheels left the ground and they were quickly whisked out of view. The vast grasslands quickly expanded below me, revealing the true scale of Tanzania’s northern plains. At that moment I felt isolated and unfulfilled, almost like being ripped away from the best book I’ve ever read before the last chapter, only Joseph’s life is far more real than the narrative in a novel, and the pages are still being written.

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Nativism Nathalie Walker Tranquility Averi Cannon

1978 Mustang Fastback Joshua Chrobak

Tin Alex Vigliotti

Charlotte Averi Cannon

Taxi! Angela Licht

Capitol Done Jack Finnegan

“A word after a word after a word is power.” —Margaret Atwood

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On Alternate Dimensions by Kristin Auer

There are days where I feel like I am living in alternate dimension compared to the one I was in as a child. No, this has nothing to do with being away at college; I’m sure original dimension Kristin went to college. She may not have gone to this one, but a college. She is probably studying something similar, if not all together the same. She probably has a similar Grade Point Average, if not lower. First-dimension Kristin probably has the same style of clothes and the same taste in music. The biggest difference is this wheelchair. There is a wheelchair that sits in my basement. That’s all it does. It sits there. In the original dimension, I’m sure it moves and is most likely to be found somewhere in the garden. There is a dog that follows it bravely and, despite her height, can jump from the floor to the wheelchair’s seat. In this dimension, that dog just lightly sniffs it when we go to the basement. That is the key to this new dimension. There is a presence that’s missing. When I was younger, my dad and I would make a train village every Christmas. It may have only been a couple winters when this tradition actually took place, but to me it felt like a yearly celebration. We would pull out this huge board that we set on blocks to raise it from the basement floor. We placed some fake grass all over the board and began to lay down the tracks. Slowly, we would sit together wiping them clean and then wiping them again with oil. We turned into an assembly line. I would clean, he would oil, and so on. We would sit there for hours in the cold basement with nothing but the train tracks, the heater, and the Christmas music that played from the day after Thanksgiving until New Years Day. I would sit in my old car seat and he in his wheelchair and we would sing and clean. He would tell me stories about when I was a baby, or when he was, and we would giggle together until my mom called us up for the night. It was the most satisfying experience when we would finish the town. My dad would wipe down all the trains and make sure they still ran on the tracks. Then we would have my mom come down, turn all the lights on, and watch as the trains chugged by us. I remember

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essay contest

166 looking up to my dad in that moment and thinking how I got so lucky to have that train. I often wondered if the people inside that little train world ever thought about us, especially during January when my dad and I would put away the train set. The trainmaster had his job to do and the little baker had his bread. How would they feel without us? I can imagine as I watched the trains, the little trainmaster holding his sign bright and early in the morning. He smiled as he flagged to the train to start. My eyes, filled with childlike wonder, would follow the train around until it met the trainmaster again. Did he find joy in this dance between he and I and the train? The village people, the carolers, the shop owners: they all lit up as the train rolled by. It would be the highlight of their day. Every day seemed to be one big cycle; they just went with the flow. Wake up, bake bread, sell bread, sleep. The train was the one thing that was new each day. Will it have supplies today, or maybe will it hold new people to visit their quiet village? One morning, on a crisp January day, the trainmaster waved in a load of brand new supplies. He got word that the supplier is no longer coming out all the way to the rural town; it was costing them too much to send trains out that far. The trainmaster, full of self-determination and heroism, decided to keep it to himself until he can talk to the mayor. But word spreads fast in a small town. The carolers chattered about where to find new robes. The grocer feared his store would go out of business. The baker panicked, “where will I get flour so cheap?” The next day, he woke up. He bakes his bread and sells it. The train does not come. He goes to bed. My dad and I do not set up the train village the next Christmas. On one Christmas Eve, my father and I were sitting in the living room after a long argument about how to string the lights on the tree. The two of us were laying back in silence. Me on the couch, him tilted back in his wheelchair, we found ourselves marveling at simple beauty of the lights on the tree. The silence began to have a sound, there was a reverberation around us. The tree itself had a new glow. It was the first time in a while that the two of us sat in silence. It was late at night on Christmas Eve and there was nothing left to say. “We did good, Nin. We did good.” His voice broke through the reverberating silence. I didn’t need to say anything back, there was truly nothing left to say. I looked up at him, smiled, and looked back at the tree. We stayed like this for an hour, alone together. I remember what his presence felt like, as I had then noticed it for the first time; it’s like that warm breeze of summer that

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167 brushes up against you and holds you without hands. It’s just there. We took my friend to the beach one summer. She was not the biggest beachgoer, but she was nearly my sibling, so my dad let her journey with us on our 18-hour drive to Orange Beach, Alabama. We spent two weeks there. By the second week, we had a strong routine down. During the first half of the morning, all four of us would walk down to the shore and then at lunch time Lindsey and my mom would walk up to get our pre-packed lunches. After lunch, my dad and I would go back on the shore while mom and Lindsey went to the pool. Dinner was varied to the day. One day, Lindsey broke the routine and came back down to the shore with my dad and I. The two of us waded into the water as my dad sat watching from the shore. Out of nowhere, a tiny spark of pain lit in my arm. I screamed and ran to the shore. I cried out to my dad, “Something bit me, dad, something bit me!” He assessed the situation with an unwavering expression. My arm began to swell, and the one spark of pain wrapped around my arm in a merciless ring of fire. My dad, again without any emotion, told Lindsey to get a lifeguard. I was stung by a jellyfish on my bad arm. I was crying uncontrollably until my father, steady as a pine tree and soft as a breeze, held his hand out to me. I closed my eyes and squeezed his hand. Like magic, my tears slowed. I closed my eyes while my hands shook in fear. I could sense everything around me. My dad’s hand, warm and steady, the waves crashing with the same intensity as the pain in my arm, and the summer breeze that held me with no hands. The warm summer breeze passes me by. I sit on the beach in this alternate dimension and nothing holds me. In the first, a wheelchair would roll up next to me and I wouldn’t have to look; then I knew he was there. The breeze blew by and we were alone together. The sun shone on my face and waves rolled over me and he was there. Occasionally, he would say something. Often, we would walk the shore for miles. We would talk about the big picture, about the little things, about this, and about that. We once sat out on the shore for so long that he had to move back because the tide was crashing too close to the motor on his beach chair. I sit on the beach here, in this dimension, looking out into the tide, and I imagine what his presence felt like. When I feel that again, I search and there is nothing. I sit alone on the beach now. No one takes me on long walks down the shore. The summer breeze just passes me by. A woman once told me that grief doesn’t get easier, only different. I believed her in that moment because she was someone I looked up to.

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168 I believe her now because, after four years in this dimension, everything has grown increasingly different. I live in metaphor, in memory. I walk through this dimension hoping to find some semblance of the original. Sometimes, however, the metaphor is just lost on me. I sit alone in reflection, and there is nothing to deny that there’s a wheelchair that sits in the basement. A dog that doesn’t do much jumping anymore. A trainmaster who doesn’t conduct. Tides that roll over me. Metaphors that don’t fit. A wheelchair that sits in the basement.

Second Place

An Open Letter to Governor Mary Fallin of Oklahoma by Caoimhe Mannion

Each morning, Johnathan Moy’s two daughters ask him whether or not they will get to see him that day. There are some weeks where he will say goodbye to them on a Thursday only to see them again on Sunday afternoon at Church. Mr. Moy is a bus driver, a landscaper, a football and wrestling coach, a Little League umpire and a rideshare driver. But first and foremost, he is a high school algebra teacher at Yukon High School, just south of Oklahoma City. With his teacher’s salary and these part-time jobs combined, Moy says he brings home just about $36,000 for his family of four. This is not to mention the fact that Moy spends an average of about $1,000 a year on supplies for his classroom. Students at Yukon love Mr. Moy, his joyful presence in the classroom and his fun, unorthodox teaching methods. He uses jelly beans and clever math games to explain and review new mathematic concepts and plays classic rock as students practice factoring polynomials. And his hard work pays off in the lives of his students. They enjoy coming to school and have seen their math scores jump, even with just one year of being in his class. The state of Oklahoma needs people like Mr. Moy—qualified, dedicated teachers who love their students and want to see them succeed. He, alongside his colleagues, are in the process of shaping the future of this state with their work in the classroom. But uncompetitive teaching salaries are making it nearly impossible for him to continue doing the job that he loves in his home state. Oklahoma is ranked at the very bottom of the United States when it comes to funding for education and teacher salaries. The starting salary for a teacher in OK is around $31,000 (which places them barely above the

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170 poverty line and often unable to pay off student loans to the state), while salaries in neighboring states like Texas and Arkansas start at $51,000. Educators in OK will work around ten years before they hit the $40,000 salary mark, and when these figures are adjusted for inflation, teachers have actually lost about 3% of their income within the last ten years. As if the inability to make a dignified living is not enough, teachers in Oklahoma are plopped down into underfunded classrooms with children that have diverse learning needs and live in a state where most families qualify for free lunch programs. Hopefully by now you see, Madame Governor, how disrespectful it is to liken teachers like Johnathan Moy to “a teenage kid who wants a better car.” No. These are educated professionals working hard every single day and trying to make a living for themselves and their families. It is simply not okay to pin the blame on them, claiming that “they knew what they signed up for.” These people took jobs in education because they wanted to make a difference in the lives of their students and set them up for success. They come to work every day because they love their jobs and their students. Enough is enough. Not only are teachers suffering from your refusal to give budgetary priority to education programs, but the children of Oklahoma are too. I now invite you to take a look at the stark reality of what it means to be a student at a public school in Oklahoma. You may find yourself sleeping in on Friday mornings as your school simply cannot afford to keep the lights on for five days a week. You find yourself in a class where your teacher does not know your name because there is virtually no class size limit anymore. You may find yourself in a classroom with a teacher who has no experience in education, as your legislators scrambled to award emergency credentials to fill teacher vacancies. Your high school is missing the AP and honors classes that you need to stand out on your college resumes because schools cannot justify the smaller class size. Your trumpet lies forgotten under your bed, and your hopes of getting the lead in the school play are dashed because arts programs have been completely eradicated in your school district. Your former rivals are now your teammates, as sports programs merged with neighboring schools to save money. Your winter jacket now feels like a part of your body, as your school’s heating and air conditioning system is on its last legs after being

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171 renovated almost fifteen years ago. Every student in your classroom qualifies for free and reduced price lunches, and your teacher digs into her own pocket to buy school supplies for you and your classmates. In the past decade, more than $1 billion has been drained from classrooms in your state. And now, you are missing school days as your teachers go on strike to fight for the rights of students and teachers against a government that refuses to prioritize educating its citizens. Governor, can you please explain to me how you find it within your budget to grant subsidies and tax breaks to oil and gas companies while students in Oklahoma schools are suffering from a lack of funding in their classrooms? Cutting volleyball teams, trumpet lessons and teacher bonuses may seem like the simple and easy option when the state budget gets a little tight. However, the truth is Governor, when you invest in education, you invest in the future of your state. Every dollar you pour into school budgets makes the state of Oklahoma a better place to live for every one of your constituents, not just teachers and students. A well-educated public leads to a well-educated work force. This will attract new businesses to Oklahoma, invigorating the economy as well as boosting tax dollars and reducing the need for welfare in your state. Investing in school music departments, sports programs and AP classes makes children more likely to stay in school. Education makes people less likely to turn to drugs and crime and has been proven to reduce teen pregnancy rates (reducing the need for welfare programs). It is no coincidence that Oklahoma is #39 in education and #2 in incarceration. Fund education and invest in the people of Oklahoma or they will vote you out in November. Never forget that you work for them, and your number one priority is representing their needs in the courthouse, and not the interests of corporate lobbyists and natural gas companies. Your constituents are paying attention and they are taking action. Teachers will march out of their classrooms and onto the streets to fight for their right to a dignified living. Students are realizing the power of their voices, and using them to bring down people like you who exercise power at their expense. The state of Oklahoma is opening its eyes to the fact that you care more about locking them up than you do about investing in their futures. Things must get better. Or you’re out.

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Works Cited Farmer, Liz. “Least Funded Schools Get What They Pay For.” Governing. Last modified June 2017. Web. Greenberg, Jon. “Are Oklahoma Teachers the Lowest Paid?” Politifact. Last modified March 7, 2018. Web. “Oklahoma Second Highest in Incarceration Rates in the US 2016.” News OK. Last modified January 13, 2018. Web. Sanchez, Ray. “Oklahoma governor compares teachers to ‘a teenage kid that wants a better car.’” CNN. Last modified April 4, 2018. Web. Tobias, Jimmy. “Mary Fallin Is As Pro-Oil As They Come.” Outside. Last modified December 3, 2016. Web. Yan, Hilly. “These teachers work up to 6 jobs. Now they’re fed up and ready to walk out.” CNN. Last modified March 31, 2018. Web. Ziegler, Brett. “Education Rankings.” US News. Web.

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Open Letter to Senator Mitch McConnell by Brunilda Neufeld

As you very well know, the rising cost of healthcare has severely hurt working-class America. More and more frequently, US citizens are unable to obtain lifesaving healthcare services because they are unable to afford health insurance’s hefty price tag. These concerns were addressed by your colleague and fellow Republican, President Donald Trump, during his 2016 presidential election campaign. Together, you promised to improve the inefficient and costly US healthcare system. In an interview with The Washington Post, Trump went so far as to state, Americans “can expect to have great health care. It will be in a muchsimplified form. Much less expensive and much better” (Costa). Yet, even as the Republican party controls both the legislative and presidential branches, this promise has been nowhere near fulfilled. After several failed attempts to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act, most recently the Graham-Cassidy bill, which has proven itself so incomplete that it has been deemed unworthy of even a senatorial vote, one must consider other alternatives to mend the fractured system of healthcare (Fox). You, Senator McConnell, as the majority leader in the Senate, have the power to enact substantial change in the realm of healthcare. You have the opportunity, through legislation, to positively impact lives of your constituents, individuals who you are tasked with representing and who, in exercising their rights as US citizens, vote you into power. I write to you today as a humble observer of our nation’s disheartening healthcare system at work. While I am not a healthcare policy expert, I am a woman who has seen the devastating effects of inaccessibility to healthcare on both patients and doctors. I cannot sit idly and watch my fellow Americans suffer because they cannot afford the $20 copay of a visit to their doctor, the time off work due to hospitalization, the cost of new medication, the risk of spending too much on healthcare and not enough on food, housing, clothing, etc. It is simply, to quote your party, un-American.

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174 As the daughter of a primary care physician, I vividly remember following my mother down the dark and eerie halls of hospitals, into the rooms filled with sick patients wondering just how so many people found themselves here. I remember hearing the frustrated grumblings of my mother who was unable to provide for her patients adequately; she struggled to prescribe proper treatments knowing her patients could not afford them. As a missionary, I donate my time to the people of La Victoria in the Dominican Republic providing physical, emotional, and spiritual care to the townspeople. I have seen, with my own eyes, just how quickly disease breeds death. I have seen children suffering and heard the cries of mothers unable to give their child the care they desperately need. While I have, for my entire life, looked to the United States as a beacon of progress, justice, and hope, seeing such suffering first hand has propelled me to question our system of healthcare. I wonder how we, as Americans, can consider ourselves world leaders when we too let individuals go without healthcare and often turn a blind eye to those who make too much to qualify for government assistance, but not enough to cover the ever-growing cost of healthcare? While the Center for Disease Control and Prevention defines health care as, “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not just the absence of sickness or frailty,” at the heart of healthcare in the United States is the idea of capitalism (CDC). Healthcare, unfortunately, is bought and sold to turn huge profits. The healthcare industry represents just under fifteen percent of the economy and, as distinguished professor and chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Alabama, William C. Cockerham, states in his, book Medical Sociology, stakeholders in that industry are not willing to forgo profit in order to better overall health (Cockerham 340). These main stakeholders, insurance and pharmaceutical companies, abuse their power and increase the price of healthcare with little concern for health outcomes. The increased cost of health care within the US has forced many Americans to forgo treatment in favor of housing, food, clothing, etc. As Susan Brink addresses in her NPR podcast entitled What Country Spends the Most On Health Care Per Person, when individuals are forced to pay for healthcare out of pocket, as you are well aware is the case in the US for those without insurance or government assistance, they generally forgo treatment or will have treatment and be thrown deeper into the cycle of poverty (Brink). Thus, cost dictates access. In this field, the United States is an outlier. Unlike Canada, Great

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175 Britain, France, Germany, and Switzerland in which the government plays an active role in ensuring access to healthcare, in America the free market drives the healthcare system. While we would expect competition in the free market to drive down the cost of healthcare, this is not the case; the US spends increasingly more per capita. Yet, this excess spending does not necessarily translate into better healthcare; the United States “ranks 12th in life expectancy among the 12 wealthiest industrialized countries” (Brink). Additionally, according to 2017 World Health Organization mortality statistics, the United States has higher rates of maternal and infant mortality (WHO). Recently, it has become increasingly apparent to not only myself, but to the nation at large, that we must look to other countries for healthcare inspiration. Because healthcare is, as Dr. Jennie J. Kronenfeld, states in Debates on U.S. Healthcare, “of special moral significance” and “critical to survival,” it is of the utmost importance, not only to the individual but society as a whole (Kronenfeld, Parmet, & Zeza 5). Therefore, expansion of healthcare via a national healthcare system accompanied by more significant government action is necessary to ensure the health of the nation at large. Greater access to healthcare breeds a healthier America and, subsequently, economic growth. Additionally, due to the successful implementation of government-funded programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and TANF, we as a nation have defined care of our lesser citizens, our children and the elderly, as a national value. It follows, therefore, that the United States government should, as Dr. Kronenfeld argues, focus on ascertaining the highest standard of physical and mental health through policies that ensure the availability and quality of healthcare (Kronenfeld et al. 32). Effectively, in elevating the health status of our fellow Americans through greater access to preventative healthcare measures, we advance the health status of the nation as a whole. While the implementation of a universal healthcare system has potentially far-reaching positive economic and social effects, I do understand your concerns about universal healthcare as it carries a negative connotation. I would agree that the national government does not need to be held responsible for directly providing healthcare; however, because Congress has the power to regulate private industries, you are able to indirectly increase access to healthcare. You can, for example, support your constituents via laws that “supplement the market where there are gaps and regulate the market where there is inefficiency or unfairness” (Eisenberg, Meyer, & Tang). Take, for example, the German

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176 government which caps cost of health insurance for low-income citizens, care for chronic illness, and services to children. Additionally, they strictly regulate insurance company premiums which are often higher for individuals with preexisting conditions and raise premiums only as a function of age—not health status (New York Times). Increasing regulation of private insurance companies will result in greater access to healthcare, thus pleasing your constituents who fall into lower socioeconomic brackets. While universal healthcare can lead to an increase in government spending, this is offset by greater access to healthcare which promotes economic growth by increasing healthcare utilization, decreasing morbidity rates, increasing life expectancy, and increasing the number of jobs. As Dr. Raju J. Kunnath, an activist for increased access to healthcare, states “a healthy America is a wealthy America” (Kunnath). If healthcare is made more affordable, citizens are more likely to engage in preventative healthcare measures such as regular checkups and vaccinations. This, in turn, will lead to a decrease in chronic illness, obesity, and communicable disease, factors that limit productivity in the workplace and are expensive to treat. Similarly, greater healthcare utilization allows individuals to live longer, healthier lives and thus contribute more years to the workforce. Furthermore, many Americans express concern at the lack of available jobs and the worsening economy. As a senator, you have the power to curb both issues by simply implementing a national healthcare system. According to a study conducted by the California Nurses Association (CNA) this “will open up 2.6 million new jobs” and “help the US out of its current Great Recession, where one in every ten people in unemployed” (Kunnath). In summary, as Gerard Kleisterlee, President and CEO of Royal Philips Electronics, argues his Symposium on Access to Healthcare, prosperity without adequate health care is impossible (Kleisterlee 494). Healthcare has not only far-reaching economic effects but also has profound social consequences. Again, I appreciate Republican weariness of a universal healthcare system and concede that healthy, hardworking Americans are not directly responsible for the health of their fellow citizens. However, ill health is an issue of safety and security. Disease can spread like wildfire and, if not caught early via regular checkups or curbed entirely by vaccinations, it can destroy an entire society. Thus, one person’s morbidity is a threat to every person’s well-being. In a sense, healthcare is comparable to flu shots. While individuals endure flu shots

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177 to protect themselves from disease, their actions benefit the community at large. Individuals cannot spread an illness they do not have. Additionally, the rising cost of healthcare is a threat to citizens’ financial security. If, however, citizens have access to affordable healthcare, they are less likely to go bankrupt and thus will not fall into the never-ending cycle of poverty. Because ill health is a security concern, it is, as Harvard Law School Graduate and leading First Amendment Scholar, Professor Steven J. Heyman states, the role of the government “provide protection to its citizens” (Heyman 508). This function of the United States government was defined by the Declaration of independence in which we, as a nation, declared “that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life...that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” (US 1776; emphasis added). The government, therefore, plays an integral role in the protection of life and subsequently health care, which contributes dramatically to an individual’s life. Healthcare “is a vital sector that literally deals with questions of life and death” (Kliesterlee 497). With our current system of healthcare, the most vulnerable members of our society, the poor living just above the poverty line, are often unable to afford preventative and, often, lifesaving care. With this, you have firsthand experience. How tragically you suffered from polio as a child and how terribly your family struggled to afford adequate care. Yet, you used your tribulations to advocate for greater access to healthcare during your 1990 senatorial campaign (Smythe). It is my hope that your sentiments have not been so dramatically altered by fortune and success. Furthermore, if from the moment of conception to the moment of death, we are in constant need of healthcare, would you not agree that one cannot live in the absence of healthcare? Because healthcare, is the primary means of protection against disease, chronic illness, and death, I implore you, Senator McConnell, to consider implementation of a national healthcare system in which access to healthcare is extended to all members of society, not simply those who are deemed worthy of government assistance. In failing to ensure healthcare for all its citizens, I would argue, you fail to protect the very citizens who give you your power. Furthermore, accessibility to healthcare is a moral issue. We must concern ourselves with the plights of the poor as “they are the people who work in the service industry, attending to our daily needs, working

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178 in our homes, taking care of our children, sending their children to school with our children, and mingling on a daily basis with the rest of the population. They are an important and necessary part of any society” (Rashford 3). It is our responsibility as individuals in positions of power to protect and provide for the sick and impoverished. Does not the bible tell us to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31), to “carry each other’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2), to “do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourself” (Philippian 2:3)? We cannot disregard the needs of our neighbors, our fellow Americans, by allowing them to suffer from inaccessibility to healthcare simply because we place our wealth above their health. To conclude, I ask you Senator McConnell to remember your humble beginnings, to remember how integral healthcare was in your youth, and to remember that you wield a great deal of power both in the Senate and within the United States government at large. As you know, our current system of healthcare is flawed, and I do appreciate the work you have done in attempting to remedy this pressing issue. That being said, your party made promises to the American people over three years ago. Simply put, we were promised better healthcare and have seen no results. Therefore, I ask you, as an individual with a means to enact change, to consider your nation and her children, your citizens. Consider how your decisions contribute to both her health and her wealth. Consider your own health, which is at risk every day your neighbor and fellow citizen goes without healthcare. Consider how the United States would benefit both economically and socially from the implementation of a national healthcare system. Finally, I ask you to consider what it means to be an American in 2017? Are we a people who perpetrate injustice, value money over human beings, and punish individuals of lower socioeconomic status? Or are we a nation of morals, a nation where citizens are protected, a nation where all have equal opportunity to live out the American dream?

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Works Cited The Bible. The New Oxford Annotated Version, 3rd ed., Oxford UP, 2001. Brink, Susan. “What Country Spends The Most (And Least) On Health Care Per Person?” NPR, NPR, 20 Apr. 2017, Web. Carroll, Aaron E, and Austin Frakt. “The Best Health Care System in the World: Which One Would You Pick?” NY Times, The New York Times Company, 18 Sept. 2017, Web. Cockerham, William C. Medical Sociology. 12th ed., Routledge, 2017. Costa, Robert, and Amy Goldstein. “Trump Vows ‘Insurance for Everybody’ in Obamacare Replacement Plan.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 15 Jan. 2017, Web. Eisenberg, J, Meyer, G & Tang, N. “The Roles of Government in Improving Health Care Quality and Safety.” National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Jan. 2004, Web. Fox, Lauren, et al. “Senate Won’t Vote on GOP Health Care Bill.” CNN, Cable News Network, 26 Sept. 2017, Web. Kleisterlee, Gerard. “Universal Healthcare: Access for All.” Vital Speeches of the Day, 2007, p. 493. Edsgao, proxy- Accessed 6 Dec. 2017. Web. Kronenfeld, Jennie J, Parment, Jennie E, & Zezza, Mark A. Debates on U.S. Health Care. SAGE Publications, 2012. Kunnath, Raju J. “‘Universal Healthcare’- Is It the Solution for the Current Healthcare Crisis in the United States?” Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, ProQuest Information & Learning, vol. 73, no. 12-B(E), 2013. PsycINFO, proxy Accessed 6 Dec. 2017. Web. Rashford, Marleise. “A Universal Healthcare System: Is It Right for the United States?” Nursing Forum, vol. 42, no. 1, Jan. 2007, pp. 3–11. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.1744 6198.2007.00060.x. Accessed 28 Nov. 2017. Smythe, Kim. “1990 Mitch McConnell Senate Campaign Ad Running On Healthcare After His Polio Scare.” Youtube. Youtube, 26 June 2017. Web. 29 November 2017. “Social Determinants of Health.” CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 21 Mar. 2014, Web. “World Health Statistics 2017.” WHO, World Health Organization, Web.

essay contest

Contributors Carolyn Al-Ghusbi, 2019, from Denton, Maryland Writing & Communication Interdisciplinary major

Nevay Archuleta, 2020, from Glen Burnie, Maryland

Communication major I have many teachers, mentors and professors to thank for helping strengthen my writing.

Kristin Auer, 2021, from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences major with a double minor in Spanish & English. This piece is dedicated to my dad.

Kathleen Ball, 2019, from Minot, Maine

Writing major with a Biology minor Thank you to Maine, for being an extremely creepy place.

Contributors Paola Angelica Casillas, 2022, from Vega Alta, Puerto Rico

Communication major with a Theatre minor I want to thank my friends and family, for always supporting my work.

Gillian Chambres, 2021, from Kendall Park, New Jersey

Sociology & History major with an Urban Education minor Thanks to my parents for always having a disposable camera in backseat of our minivan.

Averi Cannon, 2022, from Fogelsville, Pennsylvania Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences major

Josh Chrobak

Psychology & Fine Arts Interdisciplinary major I find that creating can be very therapeutic, and I love to study the correlation between psychology and art; one day hoping to incorporate art therapy into community art.

Mia CondĂŠ, 2022, from Silver Spring, Maryland Political Science major

Rodlyn-Mae Banting, 2019, from Eastchester, New York

English & Writing Interdisciplinary major with a Gender & Sexuality Studies minor Thank you to the third space we cultivated, where I can find you when I need to.

Christina Damon, 2019, from Severna Park, Maryland Communication major

Amber Davis, 2022, from Silver Spring, Maryland Rayonna Burton-Jernigan, 2019, from Cleveland, Ohio

Communication with a specialization in Journalism and a Photography minor In the crazy tangled mess that is my mind, I find my inspiration.

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English & Communication major Thank you to Anthony and Barbara Davis.

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Contributors Jack Ebmeier, 2019, from Baltimore, Maryland

Writing major Thank you to all the Writing Department faculty and Michael Ebmeier.

Emily Engelhaupt, 2020, from Monkton, Maryland

Writing major Thanks to Wendy and Emmi, for your encouragement and love.

Anne-Marie Fienkeng, 2022, from Woodstock, Maryland

Contributors James Grant, 2020, from Kissimmee, Florida Business Management Administration major

Brett-Ashley Hooper, 2022, from Baltimore, Maryland

Studio Art major Thanks to my parents and friends for inspiring me along the way.

Daniela Laudisio, 2019, from Marlton, New Jersey

Biology & Psychology Interdisciplinary major Thank God for this opportunity. And Dr. Crotty for making me write this.

Advertising/Public Relations major A million thanks to my parents for their encouragement and unending support.

Kate Freeman, 2021, from Milton, Massachusetts

Angela Licht, 2019, from Rockland County, New York

Writing & Communication Interdisciplinary major Thanks to my family and our memories on Almy Ave. and Standish Road.

Communication major with a Marketing minor Thanks to my parents & grandparents for gifting me with the opportunity to study and travel abroad.

Elisabeth Freer, 2019, from Wayne, New Jersey

Chelsea Little, 2021, from Fallston, Maryland

Political Science & Writing major She enjoys creative nonfiction writing, Netflix true crime documentaries, and will be continuing her education at Villanova University School of Law in the fall.

Writing & Psychology Interdisciplinary major

I wanted to thank my dad, who helped me write ‘Solum’ when I was in a rut.

Caoimhe Mannion, 2019, from West Chester, Pennsylvania Jill Fury, 2020, from Wakefield, Rhode Island

English & Spanish major Many thanks to the many women who have impacted my life.

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Elementary & Urban Education major This is for undervalued teachers everywhere, who give so selflessly of themselves and inspire young lives every single day.

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Contributors

Emily Marquardt, 2021, from Scranton, Pennsylvania

Chloe Shields, 2022, from Eliot, Maine

Mark McGowan, 2021, from Annapolis, Maryland

Mary Sutton, 2019, from Princeton, New Jersey

English major

Marketing major For Granddad & Blue Moons.

Cassie Mihalczo, 2021, from Buffalo, New York

Alexandria Vigliotti, 2021, from Massapequa, New York

Global Studies major Thanks to Erin Wilson, for reminding me what imagination feels like.

Psychology & Writing Interdisciplinary major Thanks to Carol and Mike Mihalczo, the most important people in my life.

Ellen Mitchell, 2019, from Silver Spring, Maryland

Writing major with Theater minor A million thanks to Luke Southworth, and also that couch in the writing dept. that has become my home these past two semesters.

Erica Mones, 2020, from Selden, New York Classical Civilizations & Writing major

Bruni Neufeld, 2021 from Tampa, Florida Biology major & Spanish minor

Maeve Ponticiello, 2019, Falls Church, Virginia Political Science major with a History minor

Delaney Porter, 2022, from Birmingham, Alabama

Writing major For Dad, the man behind the camera, the man who saved the pictures.

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Elementary Education major Thanks to Kristie Graziano.

English major with a Photography minor

Evan Visconti, 2019, from Tully, New York

Journalism major with a Writing minor Thank you to my friend Joseph who continues to inspire me every day.

Amanda Waggoner, 2019, from Staten Island, New York English Literature major With gratitude for the women who move mountains.

Nathalie Walker, Class of 2019

Communication: Digital Media major with a Photography minor Art is one of the few mediums that empowers and legitimizes concepts and ideas that cannot always be articulated through words alone.

Nikki Wieman, 2021, from West Babylon, New York

Psychology major with a Philosophy minor Thanks to all of those who have encouraged me to keep writing, espeically Dr. Leary and Professor Satterfield.

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Contributors Kelly Williamson, 2020, from Limerick, Pennsylvania

Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences major with a Writing minor Thanks to Professor Lucas Southworth, whose class inspired me to continue writing.

Emma Wydeven, 2020, from Wayne, Pennsylvania

Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences major with a Writing minor Thanks to my inspiring friends and family.

Xela, who chose to use a pseudonym

“Writing, then, was a substitute for myself... It is also much more: a way of ordering and reordering the chaos of experience.” ―Sylvia Plath

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