Literary and Visual Arts Journal Volume 58 // 2016
The Phoenix
// Literary and Visual Arts Journal
Eastern Mennonite University 2015 - 2016
Staff Editor-in-Chief // Naomi Scoville Literary Editor // Bethannie Parks Visual Editor // Carissa Luginbill Cover and Layout Design // Lauren Eckenroad Finance Manager // Lauren Sauder General Staff // Amber Davis and Kevin Treichel
Thank you to. . . Everyone who submitted material Our faithful readers Our dedicated staff EMU Student Government Association EMU Print Shop
From the Editor “I not only have my secrets, I am my secrets. And you are your secrets. Our secrets are human secrets, and our trusting each other enough to share them with each other has much to do with the secret of what it is to be human.” –Frederick Buechner When I was a child, my mom would tuck me into bed and then read to me. We worked our way through the Little House on the Prairie series chapter by chapter, me hanging onto every word as tightly as I clutched my stuffed bunny rabbit. When Mom decreed it was time for me to go to sleep, I would lay in the dark and imagine that I was Laura, and I had to huddle under my blankets for protection from the howling winds and coyotes that surely roamed outside our suburban house-turned-cabin-in-the-Big-Woods. It was here that I learned to love stories. I loved the deep yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum that accompanied my adventure to Treasure Island, sympathized with Anne’s fiery temper and quick tongue, and wished desperately for a horse that could talk. Stories let me leave my life behind in favor of one ruled by imagination and endless possibilities. Now that my days are far more often filled with academic texts and the clicks of a laptop keyboard, I listen to stories in other ways. From friends sitting around a table in the cafeteria, my siblings as they tell me of new jobs, quirky students, a mistakenly-purchased truck, from art galleries and theater productions, concerts and people-watching, and from you. The ones who bravely share pieces of their souls with us, who entrust us with their hearts-on-canvas. Art, in all its forms, is about sharing secrets and stories. It gathers up thoughts and feelings and memories, mixes them with something we can grasp, and delivers them to us on a page once blank. To create is to perform magic; the magic of translating the human experience into something we can understand. Thank you for sharing your stories. It has been an honor and a privilege to walk alongside extraordinarily talented individuals who make The Phoenix possible. It is their hard work, diligence, and creativity that transforms blank pages into the ones before you. And so, without further ado, I present to you the fifty-eighth version of The Phoenix. Naomi Scoville Editor-in-Chief
Contents Cover Ralston Road - W 44th Street // Jonathan Bush 1 Love is a Waterfall // Harris Roker As the Sun Sets // Carissa Luginbill 3 Kitchen Sink // Abby Hershberger Through the Fence // Lauren Sauder 4 Just Another Cat Picture // Jordan Leaman 5 Ode to Our Favorite Frog Hunter // Liesl Graber 7 As Dawn Breaks // Andrea Cable 9 Legacy // Olga Baltazar 10 La sombra verde // Olga Baltazar 11 Brea[k]fast // Naomi Scoville 12 Duomo // Lauren Sauder 13 Caring for Your Hands // Brooke Lacock El pasado y el futuro // Olga Baltazar 14 Escape // Bethany Tuel Get Ready for the Fight for Change // Analidia Paz Hunter-Nickles 15 Spaces // Kaitlin Abrahams 16 Perched // Carissa Luginbill 17 Clarke County // Macson McGuigan 19 Love is No Legs // Harris Roker Empty Suit // Joshua Curtis 20 Strawberry Ice Cream // Liesl Graber 22 Campus Canvas Fun Run // Andrea Cable
23 A Sense of Direction // Carissa Luginbill 24 Love is a Good Conversation // Harris Roker 25 Citizens // Naomi Scoville Seaside // Lauren Sauder 26 On Falling for a Free Spirit // Lauren Sauder 27 Their Love // Brooke Lacock 28 Every Other Friday Night // Amanda Williams 31 Fed on a Silver Spoon // Joshua Curtis 32 Steel Under Stars // Macson McGuigan 33 Winding // Lauren Sauder 35 Annie // Brooke Lacock Part II // Makayla Baker 36 Airheart // Kaitlin Abrahams Mystified // Lauren Eckenroad 37 A Change of Perspective // Teresa GarcĂa-Bautista Ode to the Bed // Jenna Heise 38 Pa(i)ne // Carissa Luginbill 39 The Art of Disappearing // Kaitlin Abrahams 42 Boom Road // Macson McGuigan 43 Glorious Glimpses // Lauren Eckenroad 45 Baba // Brooke Lacock 46 Awake or Asleep // Bethany Tuel 47 Too // Lauren Sauder Trek Yourself // Andrea Cable 49 Si las columnas hablaran // Olga Baltazar
Love is a Waterfall Harris Roker water reflecting moss green under trunks poling a low canopy. “wallpaper quality,” says my fave celeb of her photo tweet. I select “set as background image” & close my bedroom door to hold all her nature in.
As the Sun Sets // Carissa Luginbill
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Kitchen Sink Abby Hershberger I almost lost you that day, or at least that’s what it felt like to my pre-k brain, my little rubber body, my skinny arms that could barely hold you up as you slipped down. It didn’t seem to hit you ‘til your head fell, hit the metal, bitter water filling your mouth. Then we both panicked, me most of all because suddenly you couldn’t make noise anymore. I did it for you, for both of us, and until strong, tan hands replaced my brittle grip I continued to scream. I still remember your slippery stomach, and how the lukewarm water felt as it soaked into my elbows. It was an off temperature, I thought, especially after you were wrapped up warm in a towel and I still stood, my sleeves cold and wet, staring at you. I had thought I was helpless before, but in that moment you needed me.
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Through the Fence // Lauren Sauder
Just Another Cat Picture // Jordan Leaman
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Ode to Our Favorite Frog Hunter Liesl Graber
My family cannot keep a cat alive for more than seven years. When it reaches six years of
age, even if the cat seems as healthy as a young sprite, we cross our fingers until our knuckles turn blue in terror of what the year may bring: a slow, frostbitten death by the pond, a pile of fur and bones found in the woods, or possibly a gruesome tearing of flesh caught in the jaws of a canine. Our cats did not die of old age. They did not die on the side of the road like a scatterbrained squirrel, guts strewn across the pavement. They did not die from choking on the rat poison Mom stashed under the kitchen sink. No, our cats were different.
The first one to go was the one we wanted to live forever. Snowy was our family’s
favorite: a husky white Maine Coon who could box his way out of any dogfight and purr his way into the soft spot of any soul he met. Snowy was bold. Snowy was brave. He fished for frogs in our pond, bringing us the most honorable of feline presents to our doormat. He loved eating the legs: every severed, squishy torso he gave us was missing its hind hoppers. His favorite spot to be petted was the downy fluff of his belly. I could run my fingers through his fur for hours and he would purr without end, his eyelids drooping into happy reverie.
One frigid February afternoon, a white plastic grocery bag got itself stuck on a clump
of weeds along the edge of our pond, intruding on Snowy’s favorite fishing perch. We thought nothing of the bag, deciding to leave it alone until warmer days would make its retrieval easier. No frogs were out this deep into winter, so Snowy would not be bothered by the presence of the bag.
Days passed. Every morning, I scooped cat food into the communal bowl and called for
the cats. I waited for the trotting thump-thump of Snowy’s paws on the porch, straining my ears, pausing with my hand stuck where I had left it hovering over the cats’ bowl. Snowy did not appear.
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“Mom, have you seen Snowy lately? He didn’t come to eat this morning,” I asked with
slight concern. Sometimes Snowy took momentary leave for a rejuvenating hunting trip in the woods when the frogs weren’t hopping.
“No, I haven’t, dear,” came Mom’s reply.
The next morning, Snowy did not come again. I sat on the porch step, calling out, “Here,
kitty, kitty, kitty,” over and over until my throat parched from the cold February air. I circled the house, peeking under bushes, checking in the cat house, pawing through the straw in the barn.
“Mom, Snowy didn’t come today, either,” I told her.
Mom frowned. “He’ll show up. He always does.”
The following few mornings brought me more disappointment and increasing fear of the
unknown. Still, Snowy did not show.
We were driving past our pond on the road to our house when Mom had a thought. She
slammed on the brakes, hands clutching the steering wheel as she squinted through the fog on her driver’s side window. Her eyebrows raised, her eyes widened. Without a word, she pulled into our driveway. I held my breath.
“The white bag,” was all she said. She shouted for my dad, pulled on her rubber barn
boots, hat, gloves. We all half-sprinted to the pond, fear holding our hearts captive in its icy claws. Standing at the edge of the pond, we stared down with gaping mouths, stunned. The ice was shattered, black-green water lapping against the muddy bank where the bag was lodged. Only it wasn’t a bag—we could see that now. There he was, our loyal friend, our favorite fluffy feline, a mass of frozen fur matted with mud and chunks of pond scum, dry grass. The bank was scraped away, his forelegs outstretched, reaching for the safety of the bank he couldn’t quite grasp, his green eyes spreading wide in panic, a silent cry for help echoing in his open mouth.
We had removed his claws when he was a kitten so we could keep him inside, so he
would not bother the curtains in the dining room, so he would not accidently scratch us while we dressed him up in doll clothes, tied bonnets to his head, combed his tail, picked him up and dragged him around by his armpits. We had declawed him so he could have a better life with us, a life void of aggressive shouts pointed in his direction, a life of warmth and comfort, curled up on the couch, stretched out by the woodstove. Those claws that had seemed so unnecessary at the time were now decomposing with the trash of a veterinary office from long, long ago, discarded, disowned, unable to serve their purpose.
I stared down at Snowy, crippled by our guilt. Because of us, he was cold. Because of us,
he was dead. He was empty, a blur of white as listless as a bag in the breeze.
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As Dawn Breaks // Andrea Cable
Legacy // Olga Baltazar
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La sombra verde Olga Baltazar Ahora dices que soy importante, que soy tu madre, para que yo caiga pero me viste y te volteaste burlando mi canto, mi plegaria, mi lengua. Entre montañas verdes que llegan al cielo, me escondiste para solo entintar mi dedo, lo que más anhelas. Me escupiste y pisoteaste mi piel dorada ahora arrancas mi vestir según tu para que me conozcan. Cuando mi llanto el mundo ha escuchado: Hambre, sed, justicia, igualdad y sin respuesta me he quedado. Me has llamado, no por mi nombre: Mujer salvaje, mujer inculta, mujer indígena. Soy la mancha que nunca borraras. Soy la sombra que te seguirá. Por siempre caminaré a tu lado. Recordando lo olvidado.
This poem is about the indigenous women of Mexico who have been and are still being oppressed by society.They live in the mountains and are considered savage by a society that does not understand them. The indigenous women are exploited by the people who buy their homemade traditional clothing.
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Brea[k]fast Naomi Scoville I was peach juice dribbling down the cement cleft chin outside of Julio’s Antiques. You were the faintest purple of a bruise-blossom, standing on the corner of Seventh and Cloud. Bravery is step, step, pause. You checked. Once, twicea babushka throwing salt. Left shoulder, right. Pride runs and beats his chest but Dream buys time in coal-hot bread yeast dough molded under fingers thick with melancholy. I translated your dreams then, the ones dipped in maple syrup and Poseidon’s anthem, arm wrestled them into fourteen lines. It was me who mixed sleep-wake with milk and blueberries and served you legends golden brown.
Photo: Duomo // Lauren Sauder
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Caring for Your Hands Brooke Lacock Cracked knuckles, hard, tough skin Formed through neglect. Skin wearing, drying, breaking With overuse and no restoration. Working hands, busy fingers Who say they have no time to heal. Flaking surfaces of ignorance and selfish pride. “Look what we can do!” They cry. “Look, I’m broken too!” They cry. In time, knuckles grow so dry they become raw. Moisture, nutrients, and oils sting the arrogant hands in their initial stages of recovery. Daily treatment or simply proper care of hands Could have prevented this pain, But of course pain is inevitable– Fingers get busted when hit, nails break too short, cuts sting. Please care for your hands. While others may not always be able to see their injury and flaws as they do their job, They do the work well when cared for. These hands are a gift from God. Remember to moisturize.
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El pasado y el futuro // Olga Baltazar
Escape Bethany Tuel The snow blossoms red as night turns to day. The body was found but the guilty got away.
Get Ready for the Fight for Change // Analidia Paz Hunter-Nickles
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Spaces Kaitlin Abrahams She used to go to art museums just to stare at the great stretches of blank walls in between the paintings. He used to go to art museums for art.Van Gogh,Vermeer, Renoir, Rembrandt, Raphael, Rubens, Picasso, Pissarro...oh, he could name the names but he couldn’t memorize the frames like she could, like she did, the frames and the precious spaces in between. He used to listen to music for hours. Classic seventies rock and alternative folk and even jazz with a dash of the blues. She used to listen to the heartbeat within a tree. Lean her ear close, so close. She used to walk outside just to see her shadow stretch out on the sidewalk. He used to walk outside to get the mail. The Washington Post! Honey, it’s the Washington Post! He used to attend meetings full of bright minds in identical black swivel chairs with identical overpriced ballpoint pens. She used to sit down in a room carved of blue crystals to meet with all her souls. Her many, vibrant souls. She used to pretend she couldn’t talk just so she could fully think. He used to practice speeches in front of store windows. Less intimidating than mirrors. And sometimes, the customers sipping coffee smiled at him on the other end. Actually smiled, honey! He used to call her honey. She used to call him the man in the moon. She used to dance only when the moon was full and she was ankle-deep in a tallgrass field; she used to dance so that she could fully feel the moonlight. He used to only shut his blinds when the moonlight stole in. He used to spend mornings drinking coffee, flipping through news, cutting his chin while shaving, checking his email, tying his tie, straightening his tie, complaining about the wrinkles in his pants, straightening his jacket, retying his tie, drinking more coffee, flipping off the news, putting on his shoes, and passive-aggressively not slamming the door. She used to spend the morning studying the abstract pattern his discarded sheets made on the floor. She used to sit up in bed and breathe in the deep, sweet silence. He used to pretend his work made him forget.
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He used to call her in the weeks after she left when he got lonely. Or angry. Or confused. She used to answer with Vivaldi playing softly, softly... and her breath. She used to answer the phone with her breath, with her breath, and then the click. He used to count the seconds before the click and breathe them in... and breathe them in... her breath... Now she goes to art museums and doesn’t try to learn to love the old masters. Now he stares at the phone whose silent breathing is like the blank spaces between paintings. Now he remembers how he never tried to see what she saw there.
Perched // Carissa Luginbill
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Clarke County // Macson McQuigan
Love is No Legs Harris Roker “he was into textures,” corduroy & suede, his free palm pushing crosswise against the thin lines composing his pants, fingers striping erasing stripes on his jacket’s brushed leather cooler days he wore wool and pulled at the hairs “i think he was kind of pissed” the way his hand agitated his clothes, like unable to figure the brown patches in his lawn
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Empty Suit // Joshua Curtis
Strawberry Ice Cream Liesl Graber She skipped along the warm, speckled sidewalk, swinging her arms and legs to a repetitive tune. Sam couldn’t quite remember where she had heard the song, perhaps it was from the television, or a passing car radio, or the fading notes of the ice cream truck, but she knew that if she kept singing it to herself, the words might come back to her. The hot sun burned on her skin, turning her exposed hands the color of her strawberry ice cream cone. Long pink trails of cream ran down the backs of her hands, squishing between her fingers and sticking to her palms. A little bit dribbled onto her toes, giving her glitter flip- flops an unpleasant rhythm—whap-whop stick, whap-whop stick—and she stopped in the grass to wipe it off. Now you’ve got dirt on your toes, Samantha. Now you’re going to have a bath. No, thank you, Mom. Samantha doesn’t want a bath today. Well you’re getting one tomorrow. Okay, Mom, that’ll be fine. Tomorrow Samantha is having tea with Madeline and her toes need to shine. Look at her, rhyming in her head. Sam patted herself on the back for being a poetic genius. The wind smelled of hot pavement and melting sunscreen. “In the jungle, the mighty jungle,” she hummed, suddenly remembering the words. Her steps picked up pace, whap-whopping to the beat in her head. “Hush, my darling, don’t fear, my darling, the lion sleeps tonight.” Sam wondered if the sleeping lion liked ice cream, too. Maybe that was why he was so happy to take a nap instead of munching on people—one of the villagers had finally realized that, hey, lions like ice cream, too. Everyone likes ice cream. Sam crunched into the cake cone. “Wee, I’m on my way.” Whap-whop. Whap-whop. She peeled off the paper wrapper and crumpled it into a ball. Whap-whop. Whap-whop. She dropped it to the ground, watching as it floated down, down, hurtling through space in a glorious free-fall. Don’t litter, Samantha. It’s okay, Mom.You didn’t see Samantha litter. Gravity is strange, she thought. She wondered if Isaac Newton preferred strawberry, too, or if he was one of those boring folks who ordered the plain vanilla.
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The paper wad hovered over the sidewalk, almost touching but not quite, paused in the last moment of freedom. It spun in circles, quivering, rattling, but refusing to touch the ground. She squatted right there on the sidewalk—forgetting entirely that, Samantha, girls do not squat in dresses!—and squinted at the floating paper orb. She poked it. The wad shivered. She blew on it. The wad spun in place. She reached out to grab it. The wad dropped through the sidewalk just before she could touch it. Just like that—snap fingers—it was gone! Disappeared right through the sidewalk! All that was left of the wad was a small, charred-looking black spot in the lumpy concrete. Ever so slowly, Sam stretched out on her stomach, sliding forward to get a better look at the spot. A slight puff of smoke trickled out of it, like the exhale of Granddad’s cigarettes. Samantha, dearest, you’re getting your dress dirty! Shut up, Mom. Sam inched her finger closer to the spot. A zap of electricity tugged at the tip of her finger, willing her to poke it, daring her to see what would happen if she did. The hole widened, its black edges rippling closer and closer. Sam couldn’t resist. She squeezed her eyes shut, stretched her finger farther, felt the zap, and then her finger was pulled inside something, a large cavern, perhaps, cool, damp, breezy. The electricity spread through her body, tensing her muscles, grabbing at every part of her with irresistible magnetic force, and then she was hovering, spinning, sucked through the hole into the dark unknown. Told you not to litter, dear. Thanks, Mom.
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Campus Canvas Fun Run // Andrea Cable
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A Sense of Direction // Carissa Luginbill
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Love is a Good Conversation Harris Roker “why are you such a” & “you’re wearing my mom’s sweatpants” & “traveling the particulars of the nude” & “they egged my car” & “looks like the sun’s bleeping that cloud” & “plump map” & “I want to take a crap in your skull” & “long time no see” & “that’s my report” & “I’ve been off lately” & “are you good?” & “hello”
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Citizens Naomi Scoville I saw you, once-friend and my mouth formed your name, now awkward tasting, now half-forgotten (like the box of childhood trinkets in my closet). We whirled in rhythmic storms under the brilliant unearthliness of the Northern Lights. You wanted to chase them (the aurora, your namesake). You joined their sea-star dance, improvising step, step, twirl, arm-linked with their wildness (citizens of nowhere, everywhere). I stood, fist to mouth, fist to earlobe, breathing sand and ocean-froth and you, magnificent in spread arms and raining skyfeathers (we are a moment, we are infinite). I saw you, once-friend swap dance for rings of lavender, forsythia moon-breaths for certitude (ripped polaroids of once-times).
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Photo: Seaside // Lauren Sauder
On Falling for a Free Spirit Lauren Sauder Something about her is breathtaking, and I wonder how she came upon such freedom. If she found it in the harsh winter air or a crisp autumn breeze, as it rushed through her lungs. Did she discover it as she walked through the trees that whispered it to her, offering it on the soft tips of their limbs? Perhaps it floated by her, and she whisked it out of the sky, swallowing it whole. Maybe she tripped over it one day on her way through the rain, and found freedom catching her. Wherever it came from I wish she would tell me, so I might unearth it too, because something about her is breathtaking, and I wonder if she could ever love my captive soul.
Photo: Their Love // Brooke Lacock
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Every Other Friday Night Amanda Williams Waking up Knotty hair covers my head and my blanket is wrapped around my shoulder and leg like skin. I push them away and free my tangled, febrile body. I lay there feeling the pull of gravity hold me tight to the bed. My hot hand rests on my stomach like an iron, flattening the inflamed, tender skin puffing up from the injection that happened five hours ago. Blood pulses through every part of my body, now concentrated with a molecule that is supposed to help my brain stop degrading itself. It, however, boils my mind and leaves it blistered in the process. Hot and thick, it surges through my heart and makes its way from my arm to my fingertips. My skin is traced with the heat of my sickness. I can’t hide the mark it leaves. I slowly close my eyes. Between awake and asleep Cringing, I hug myself. I just want to go to that place where I am free of pain. Laying here, I can’t help but wish I felt nothing in my brain. The snow falls outside, so quiet it buries secrets and replaces the ugly death of winter with wonder. I slowly become numb to the torment. Ice cold, frozen rain beckons me to lay down in its wintry depths, promising me I will only be found when the sun shines long enough to lift this heavy burden, or when someone cares enough to find me. My phone vibrates. My hand fumbles in darkness to find it, but collapses before it gets there. My eyes struggle to open, and the soft orange glow of my lava lamp dancing against the wall entrances me. Everything is colored with the orange hue. My leg twitches and makes me flinch. My muscles tense and I lay as still as a sun dial, listening to time slowing with the rhythmic throbbing of my heart. Dreaming of you I turn on smooth sand and look toward the pink sky. I sit and watch the sun slowly sink into the Earth, painting the sky with deep greens, and purples, and reds.You are here.Your face brazen like gold.Your skin radiates the light and peace of Heaven.Your aroma is like honeysuckles on the beach after a mid-summer rain shower.Your hair flows like a breeze flows through willow branches.You take my hand and we float into the night of space. We are
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weightless and free. The blue marble behind us, endless nothing ahead, below, and above.
Dreaming in my room I sit at my desk with my head down working tirelessly on an unsolvable problem.You slide into my room, opening the heavy wooden door like a feather.You come behind me and press into my back with your fingers, slowly working out the knots that quickly accumulate when you are not with me, or when I realize that I can never have you. To you, I am just sitting here. To me, life is bounding within me, bursting at the seams and overflowing with power. Every touch is like a fire in my belly that consumes my mind. Every muscle in my back relaxes and then tenses at your soothing touch, hoping it means more but knowing it never will. It is like a wave crashing over my head.You are not just digging into my back, you are digging into my soul. My deepest desires roar like a rip current. I want you. The war of wars wages inside of me. It is me. I am at war with myself. A giant wave slaps the sand like a whip cracking. Up again I wake up. My blankets and pillows fall to the floor. I ball up my hot, knotted body like a puppy and hug my knees. A salty tear makes its way down the gradual slope of my cheek and evaporates before it reaches my chin. I feel alone. I turn over in my bed to face the wall and feel my breath hit my face. The cold wall is solid and I place as much of my skin on it as possible with hopes to cool off. I lay on my side and lay on my back and lay on my front. I sit down and sit up. I place my hands above my head, below my back, between my arms. Nothing caresses me to sleep. I start to shake. Shiver. Tremble. I cry out in a hoarse moan to anything that can hear me. The haze Can you hear me? Or is it just the distant sound of pure, heartless people wasting their night on Netflix, or drugs, or other stupid things like partying? Who cares? Not them. I waste away in my room stoned and abandoned by the Pharisees. The physical pain incomparable, the mental agony corroding my soul into tiny particles. Their mocking and scoffing voices and laughter drone deeply in my mind and remind me of who I am. Each stone leaving its own bruise and a mound of blood stained memories with it. Who wants to waste their time curing diseases they don’t have when they could buy a Starbucks coffee or go to the movies? They ridicule me, they tell me I am a waste of their time and money. Everything slowly fades away and their distant voices become the sound of my fan.
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The darkness I lay in my bed. I reach over to find my flashlight and forcefully swing my legs to the floor. Sitting up, the blood rushes out of my head faster than I can handle, and I fall back onto my bed. Second try. I sit up and successfully balance on my feet. I feel heavy. I walk over to my dresser and find my hand mirror. I switch on my flashlight and point it at my face. I look into the mirror. Sapphire blue shards sit in a ball of white and stare back at me. My eyes. The white is outlined with streams of red. I blink and the shards flash like the fire of hell. I jump. My flashlight falls. I am left alone to face the demon within me.
Fed on a Silver Spoon // Joshua Curtis
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Steel Under Stars // Macson McGuigan
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Winding // Lauren Sauder
Part II
Annie // Brooke Lacock
Makayla Baker “Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.” –Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina Understand this: Never has there been such trepidation between leaves of sheets, You and I are the whole world behind kindred weary plates. Just as we’ve always done: Corridors and caviar, volumes and vessels, and order and the Orthodox. Only– Get on the final train, taking off the rings on our left hands– Never once thinking about the theories of the dead. We’ll pour a glass of opium and never grow old.
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Airheart Kaitlin Abrahams I watch her trailing over the seas— my bold, my bright, my Amelia Earhart, spreading her wide & phosphorescent wings as one who suddenly blinks all suns away to aerodynamic nothingness. And who could blame her, this star who never set, this meteor who sailed on, exponentially, for deciding that it was best to never land again, to never anchor in green or brown of earth, to never fall out of orbit? Skies, skies, after all, being boundless, being serene as their blue, lidless eyes, tangerine as their sun stained mouths, loud as the whirr of her unstoppable engine when even the horizon became too small for her.
Mystified // Lauren Eckenroad
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Ode to the Bed Jenna Heise Head bowed down against the biting wind, lips and hands chapped, feet dragging, the icy air permeating layers of clothes and flesh. Grimacing as hands are temporarily exposed pulled from pockets to open the door leading to warmth, sleep. The bed beckons in the winter, a comfort, enveloping the frigid and crestfallen. Blankets piled on, their weight a comfort by itself, while the resonating shivers leftover from outside slowly change to heat, as the body relaxes, breathing slows, and finally the sweet embrace of sleep is able to be surrendered to. Photo: A Change of Perspective // Teresa GarcĂa- Bautista
Pa(i)ne // Carissa Luginbill
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The Art of Disappearing Kaitlin Abrahams We have entered the world of sand. Whole cities have vanished here. “Where is Jesús?” they ask me. Our Chevrolet crawls up another dune. “Where is Jesús?” mis padres ask. “We thought he was with you.” I shake my head. Jesús was digging tunnels in the dunes and I was his watching shadow when the grown-ups sat by the car, eating their almuerzo, chatting, throwing out the bones. He was still digging tunnels, digging to his new world, when the clouds of dust rolled in. I ran back to the car, screaming. I thought he followed me. But I left him digging tunnels; I left him in the sand and though we searched and called and prayed after the dust rolled back away, we could not find him. We cannot find him. There was only sand behind us. There is only sand ahead. Sand and then a great grey gate with ugly spires of forked wire at the top and a guard with a gun, pacing. Someone told me that no land is worth entering unless an angel with a flaming sword stands at the door.
“Where is Jesús?” Abuela wails, and I clasp her wrinkled hands, hands that tremble from coming too far
against her will. “He will be okay,” I reassure her. “We will find him.”
These are words her deaf ears will never hear. But we do not know if she is really deaf.
All we know is that she has never listened since Abuelo disappeared. Our Chevrolet is eating up sand. It is coughing up muck. Soon the engine will be full and we will have to cut it open and scoop the darkness out.
Our worry doll hangs from the rearview mirror; in her brightly colored dress she swings
as Abuela sighs, swings as Madre cries, swings as Padre tries to pray.
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I hold Abuela’s withered hands, her cold, old hands in mine. As she trembles, I know she is remembering, remembering. There was a great swarm of people in the square. We were raising our voices. We were raising our signs, our words, our fists. “No más!” said Abuelo, smiling to her. “No more!” said Abuela, standing tall. “No más! No more!” we shouted, like the roaring of an avalanche—each voice a swift, hard stone—rolling, rolling.
But then they swept in—strange men with foreign guns, appearing from nowhere.
Suddenly, Abuelo was no longer at her side. Abuela screamed as she turned around, screamed as Abuelo was disappeared; that scream was the last thing her lips ever heard. Yet it is sand and not men that swarm around us now. Somehow, I do not think sand will be my brother’s end. Tía told us not to come. She said, “They came in the middle of the night. They came into our bedroom and they did not hear the baby screaming. They gave my husband another name. They did not hear me or my baby screaming. And they took him away. They locked him up and fed him wormy stew. And after months of no trials, they sent him back over the border. They will do the same to you.” Now Tío wanders through the desert, trying to find the land he had wanted to lose. Now Tía places her bebé on her breast and it sucks out only the cold salt of tears. But we did not listen to Tía. We had cotton in our ears. We had gotten too familiar with the sound of gunshots in the night, Padre said, so familiar that the shots became the beating of drums in our dreams of far green countries. And then there were the body parts rolling in the river beneath the bridge Jesús and I crossed on our way to school. “Niños shouldn’t have to learn the look of a severed head before they learn their alphabet,” is what my madre said.
She never said who threw them there. Perhaps it was one of the gangs—the beefy men
who walk around without shirts on and have tattoos even under their eyes. More likely, it was the government, the same government that disappeared Abeulo.
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All this is to say why we did not listen to Tía. All this is why, when Abuelo was disappeared, we knew better than to form a search party. We did not look. We did not listen. We disappeared ourselves. They say a land is not worth entering unless an angel with a loaded gun stands at the gate. They say that bread is sweeter than tortillas and not half as hard to make. They say that death is swallowed by the desert and angels leave us nothing to fear. But the worry doll swings from the rearview mirror and all I can see behind me is the sand that disappears. “Where is Jesús?” their silence asks me. “Where is Jesús?” their silence cries.
For the sand has eaten up our words and the desert is all we know. The dunes are all the
same and he might hide behind any one of them. Any dune will do. Any dune can be a hole, a safe resting place for a boy who only wanted to play and found that sand in a foreign place could serve as well as the dirt in his own backyard.
Soon we will see the gate and the helicopter that swarms above it like a giant dragonfly.
Its mechanical wings whirr and its metal legs are tucked up neatly under it. Its eyes are made of glass and don’t see anything. But many eyes are made of glass. The guard’s eyes are made of plastic and they are dark when they look at the world. The sight of his gun is the only thing he sees through. In my mind, I see the guard; he smiles at a speck in his sight, a speck that is Jesús, digging tunnels in the dunes. Some guns are very hard to shoot. They take ages of learning and care. But his gun is automatic. It fires with the flickering of a hair on his arm, with the tensing of his muscles when he sees a target in the sand. Sometimes the sand is brown. Sometimes the sand is white. Sometimes it bursts in drops of red when he fires into the night. Sometimes he shoots at shadows. Sometimes he shoots at wind. Last night, he shot a dark hole and waited for the blood to end. I dream I see Jesús. The guard, the white angel, stands with him; the gringo guard lifts the gate; the white angel lets him in. “Gracias,” Jesús says as his body grows white as a cloud. “For what?” the guard asks, now lowering his gun, now blowing off the smoke. “For the new world,” Jesús replies, his body over the border, his face already dissolved in
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light.
Yet now I open my eyes; now the dream flies from me and I fear we will see Jesús as he
must appear—a small speck at the entrance to a tunnel, a small body with a punched-out hole where the heart should be, a hole as round and red as this rising sun should be. Sometimes the road is winding, sometimes the road is clear. Sometimes the road is blinding, long and edged with fear. Sometimes the heart reminds, sometimes the edges blear. Sometimes to find the road you must let things disappear. ——— Padre got a job at a packing plant. It isn’t good but it pays. Madre sends letters to Tía almost every week, trying to find where she is. Abuela sits by the fire, never warm, turning her hands in her lap. I’m going to school and I cross no rivers, only streets with people whose heads are on them. I’m learning a new language and I like it. This is the first story I have learned how to tell.Yet when they ask me what happened, I make up some sort of end. For though Jesús was more than my brother, I still don’t know where he went.
Boom Road // Macson McGuigan
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Glorious Glimpses // Lauren Eckenroad
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Baba // Brooke Lacock
Awake or Asleep Bethany Tuel I close my eyes and fall asleep, I wake up dreaming or dream I’m awake. I don’t know what’s real or what’s make-believe, my mind can play tricks and try to deceive. I grasp for the truth and struggle to find what’s real or what’s not and what’s just inside. Then I awake I’m lost somewhere dark. Am I awake or asleep? I can’t tell them apart.
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Too Lauren Sauder
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Tonight I’m grateful for people who burn brighter than the stars over our heads; who blaze their own paths through the darkness with a thousand cares but tonight tonight we allow them to fly away with the sparks from our fire. And this moment this night is our piece of infinity. Where the wind kisses our instruments waltzes with notes carries hushed words we are not free but we are unhindered loose changing into familiar strangers morphing out of restricting shells becoming. And I don’t know you but I don’t have to to understand why you sit out here under the stars because I am here too.
Trek Yourself // Andrea Cable
Biographies Kaitlin Abrahams is a second-year student double majoring in English and Writing Studies with a minor in Honors. “Airheart” was inspired by this female pilot’s attempted flight around the world and her mysterious disappearance. “The Art of Disappearing” was inspired by true stories told at the School of the Americas protest she attended last semester. MaKayla Baker is a fourth-year student from West Virginia, double majoring in Theater and English with a Gender Studies minor. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” –Mary Oliver. Makayla’s answer is: make art. Olga Baltazar is a fourth-year student born in the United States but raised in Mexico for 15 years. She is majoring in Spanish Language and Hispanic Studies with a minor in Teaching English as a Second Language. Olga says, “I am an indigenous woman myself, so my blood was boiling while I wrote ‘La sombra verde.’ ” Andrea Cable is a first-year student from Johnstown, Pennsylvania and is double majoring in Business Administration and Photography. In Andrea’s creative process, she either gets an idea in her head and tries to capture it, or just starts shooting and ends up with something she likes. Joshua Curtis is a first-year student from Williamsburg, Virginia and is majoring in Art Education with minors in Sustainability and Honors. In “Empty Suit” he explores the themes of happiness in contributing to the workforce. “Fed on a Silver Spoon” is his visual representation of privilege. Lauren Eckenroad is a third-year student from New Enterprise, Pennsylvania and is double majoring in Photography and Digital Media. Lauren is a firm believer that there is beauty in everything and tries to capture the essence of that in her photographs. Liesl Graber is a second-year student from Bellfontaine, Ohio and is double majoring in English and Writing Studies and minoring in Psychology. “Ode to Our Favorite Frog Hunter” is a memoir piece that serves as a tribute to all the cats her family could never seem to keep alive. Abby Hershberger is a fourth-year student from Millersburg, Ohio and is majoring in History with a minor in Gender Studies. “Kitchen Sink” is a memory from her early childhood, so when she wrote it she was trying to capture the thought process of a five-year-old. Analidia Paz Hunter-Nickles is a first-year student from El Salvador and is majoring in Social Work. She took “Get Ready for the Fight for Change” on a learning and service trip to the Dominican Republic, where there are many people who are working on healing the soil that has been devastated by corporate deforestation and other ecological problems. Brooke Lacock is a fourth-year student from Lancaster, Pennsylvania and is majoring in Psychology with a minor in Art. Her artwork comes from her senior show, in which she drew portraits to help her audience “see one another as more than an ‘other.’ ” Jordan Leaman is a third-year student from Harrisonburg, Virginia, and is majoring in Computer Science. He took “Just Another Cat Picture” while on cross cultural in the Middle East. If he could choose between a spider monkey, a cobra, or a pelican as a pet, he would choose the cat. Carissa Luginbill is a fourth-year student from Bluffton, Ohio. She is majoring in Social Work with minors in Art and Psychology. As part of her Lithuania cross cultural, the group’s leader, Jerry Holsopple, dropped a coin on a Klaipėda map and the students had to go to that spot and take pictures. “Perched” is a glimpse of her spot.
Macson McQuigan is a third-year student from Berryville, Virginia and is double majoring in Environmental Sustainability and Digital Media with a minor in Photography. Macson believes that the camera is a powerful tool that allows him to capture moments that are too fast for his brain to comprehend. Photography is his addiction and he can’t imagine living in a world without it. Harris Roker is a third-year student from Queens studying the efficacy of slacking and how to major in the Creative Writing minor. “Green” is what comes to his mind when he thinks about his submissions. Lauren Sauder is a fourth-year student from Lancaster, PA and is majoring in Economics with a minor in English. Lauren writes poems about things and people she finds beautiful. Her poems and photos always come out of a place of heightened emotions. Bethany Tuel is a first-year student from Frederick, Maryland. She is majoring in Writing Studies and minoring in Pre-Law. She chooses to let her writing speak for itself. Amanda Williams is a second-year student double majoring in Biology and Environmental Sustainability. As the first State’s Ambassdor to EMU, she takes every opportunity she can to share the rich culture and mountainous glory of Delaware.
Si las columnas hablaran // Olga Baltazar
Colophon The Phoenix,Volume 58, was produced by the staff at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) and was printed by the EMU Print Shop in Harrisonburg,VA. The cover and interior layout were designed by Lauren Eckenroad. The books contain 56 pages and all body copy was set in 14pt Gill Sans Regular. Titles were set in 40pt Didot. Author names were set in 20pt Gill Sans Light. The Phoenix was produced using Adobe InDesign.
Want Your Work in the Next Phoenix? Please send all submissions to phoenix@emu.edu. Include your preferred print name and attach all works with respective, clearly specified titles. Although we accept untitled submissions, we strongly suggest titling your work for clarity. Submissions are limited to eight per person and may consist of writing and art. If you are interested in becoming a staff member, simply attend a meeting or email us for more information.