SEED: Phantasm by Erika Schmidt

SEED phantasm

PHANTASM

autumn 2014/winter 2015 Seed Literary Magazine Bates College 2 Andrews Road Lewiston, ME 04240

phanâ&#x20AC;˘tasm [fan-taz-uh m]

noun 1. an apparition or specter 2. a creation of the imagination or fancy; fantasy 3. a mental image or representation of a real object 4. an illusory likeness of something

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF & MAGAZINE DESIGNER ERIKA SCHMIDT ASSISTANT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, HEAD ORGANIZER JACK KAY

e d i t o r s

ASSISTANT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, HEAD ORGANIZER NICOLE DANSER CONTENT EDITOR, SEED TREASURER MARTHA SCHNEE

CONTENT EDITOR, COMMUNITY LIAISON BEAU SPERRY

T H A N K S ADDITIONAL CREDIT Maine Authors Publishing

The Bates College Student Club Budget Committee A special thanks to all those who took the time to send in submissions

COVERS

front Natacha Danon back Pernilla Persson

OPENING PAGES Jack Kay

CLOSING PAGES

submissions Erika Schmidt photo Nicole Danser

EDITORS PAGES Jack Kay

CONTENTS PAGES Pernilla Persson

CENTERFOLD Ashleen O’Brien

INDEX PAGES Erika Schmidt

EDITORS WORDS

nless you are a fan of eighties cult, horror films like myself - or perhaps the teachings of Plato - you might be wondering where the word “phantasm” comes from. The SEED team thought that it would be nice to take a different creative approach to the design and production of this year’s magazine - which features the works of forty-seven Bates students - by creating a more cohesive and visually-centered product. Thus began our quest to pinpoint a pertinent design theme to tie together the pages of this literary magazine.

We found that phantasm, with its multiple interpretations, came to be a word that was really representative of both this years approach to production, and the wide variety of received submissions. The intentional, unexpected pairings of content, worked to help produce our phantasm - a spooky, yet dream and mirage-like visual product, that showcased our interpretation of the fantastic. We hope that Phantasm, with its amalgamation of different creative works, not only encapsulates the essence of what we truly see as quintessentially Bates, but also boasts and challenges a creative spirit that resonates throughout both this publication and our campus. We hope you enjoy Phantasm.

Erika Schmidt

P.S. Also, is it just me, or do the tree branches on this page make a face? [Hint: It’s a man with a mustache.]

s e e d

SEED Literary Magazine 5

Untitled (How Does It Feel?); Fourth Listen By Jameson Jones Photos by Ashleen O’Brien

Mio By Barbara Crespo Photos by Max Huang & Kiana Keller

CONTENTS

20 Untitled

By Jameson Jones Ceramic Works by Lauren Piccarillo, Julie Self, Joseph Marques, & Teddy Poneman Photo by Erika Schmidt

Untitled By Tristan Brossy de Dios Photos by Bryan Lehrer Art by Mary Schwalbe

In Which I, The Poet, Realize I Have Muscles In My Legs With Which I Too Can Leap Into The World! By Jameson Jones Photo by Ashleen O’Brien Art by Alisa Amador

Maribel By William Hallet Photo by Hannah Kiesler

Funeral By Erica van Sciver Photo by Courtney Foster Small Spaces By Lane Peterson Photos by Bryan Lehrer

6 SEED Literary Magazine

Untitled By Mary Schwalbe Photo by Kelsey McDermott Windows & Jars By Julia Dunn Photo by Durotimi Akinkugbe Ode to Train Stations By Jackson Emmanuel Photo by Martha Schnee

30 29

Self Portrait As My Father At An Undisclosed Location, 2004 By Beau Sperry Art by Sal Sprofera

Some Homes Are Better Than Others By Mary Schwalbe Photos by Natacha Danon

Leaving Maine By Zaynab Tawil Photo by Pernilla Persson

Bones By Shana Wallace Photo by Erika Schmidt

The Lilies By Shelby Sullivan Photo by Sophie Pellegrini

Phantasm Photo by Ashleen O’Brien

In Honor of the Dismembered Crow Outside Of A Local Youth Center By B VanDerburgh Photo by Sophie Pellegrini

Coffee By Pat Wood Art by Saleha Belgaumi

Essences By Hannah Tardie Photos by Nicole Danser & Bryan Lehrer

Chant of Being By Jameson Jones Photos by Ashleen O’Brien

Hunger, My Boy By Juwon Song Photo by Courtney Foster

Vortex Hour By Courtney Foster Photo by Jonathan Neufeld

A Bad Orange By Nicole Danser Art by Irem Ikizler Photo by Bryan Lehrer

Contra By Hannah Tardie Photo by Kiana Keller Present With A LimeTwist By Beau Sperry Photo by Hannah Kiesler

This is How I Remember By Nicole Danser Photo by Lena Szeto

Maintenance By Talia Mason Photos by Ashleen O’Brien, Courtney Foster

Kuhlia Mugil By Zaynab Tawil Photo by Nicole Danser

Emmulations By Jane Spardel Photo by Jonathan Neufeld Art by Kate Blandford Falling to Eretz By Talia Mason Graphics by Erika Schmidt Some Feeling By Tristan Brossy de Dios Photo by Martha Schnee

Happiness By Monet Blakey Art by Sal Sprofera

Bugs in Amber By Jameson Jones Art by Avery Margerum

Everyone Looks The Same In A Parka By B VanDerburgh Art by Alisa Amador

Index

UNTITLED (HOW DOES IT FEEL?); FOURTH LISTEN 8 SEED Literary Magazine

It was 8:00 pm when we writhed through bedroom sheets, you and I two snakes at play, perhaps in love, perhaps just seeking the ultimate pleasure of skin, friction forcing falling scales, falling like the apes tempted by us snakes in Paradise, forever to live on in naked mortal pleasure. 8:00 pm when D’angelo came on, asking the forever eternal question that seems to haunt all writers, some of them of course caught up in technical aspects, nerves and brains and cocks and orgasms, D’angelo instead knowing showing the sensation. Rippling muscles and scandy groin shots and sultry falsetto wavering through to some new sexual dawn. Dawn perhaps as manifested in the way we awoke together, too squished on my college twin bed, dawn when I put on D’angelo again, this time in a futile effort to relive, remember, and sit looking at each other, my hazel into your greyish blue, not noticing the faint coy sheepish smile playing at our respective lips. 8:00 am, and you’re gone, me draped quietly, pressing an ear to the faint rush of cars filled with humans going off to their jobs or church or school, going somewhere, and me not moving, paralyzed, wondering, much like Amelie, how many people were climaxing at that very second. PHOTOS BY ASHLEEN O’BRIEN WORDS BY JAMESON JONES

SEED Literary Magazine 9

10 SEED Literary Magazine

Mis ojos fueron dibujados a la perfección Ambos cómo dos almendras Mi piel fue vestida de un material llamado “trigueña”

MIO

Mi cabello fue trenzado tan largo como algas que flotan extendidas en el mar Nací con tatuajes que marcan mi cara como si fuera un lienzo En la vejez líneas arrugadas marcaran mi frente como topografía

Las curvas de mis labios contarán historias llenas de sufrimientos al igual que momentos de alegría Cuando en mis brazos cargue yo mi propio destino Cargarte conmigo toda la sabiduría Mi habilidad de cambiar lenguajes es tan fácil como cerrar mis ojos No dejare que ni una sola palabra pierda su valor

Este cuerpo al cual le han llamado colonia Yo lo llamo mío.

PHOTOS BY MAX HUANG, KIANA KELLER WORDS BY BARBARA CRESPO SEED Literary Magazine 11

ventually I Irealized Eventually realizedthat thatlights lights were not I I would wereEventually not helping helpingII me. me. would Eventually realized realized pend spenddays daysat ataatime timein inthe thedark dark with with Noah Noah and and Henry, Henry, sometimes sometimes that lights that lights iding in the boxes of hiding in the boxes ofour ourrooms; rooms; ther times other times we we shoved shoved ourselves ourselves nto dense bushes and the holintowere dense bushes and the were notholnot ow lowspaces spacesunder underthe theoverhanging overhanging ranches of branches of twisting, twisting, caressing caressing helping me. and helping me. rees, hard trees, hard with with dried dried sap sap and 12 SEED Literary Magazine

Eventually Eventually II realized realized that that lights lights were were not not helping helping me. me. II would would spend spend days days at at a a time time in in the the dark dark with with Noah Noah and and Henry, Henry, somesometimes times hiding hiding in in the the boxes boxes of of our our rooms; rooms; other other times times we we shoved shoved ourselves ourselves into into dense dense bushes bushes and and the the holhollow low spaces spaces under under the the overhanging overhanging branchbranches es of of twisting, twisting, caresscaressing ing trees, trees, hard hard with with dried dried sap sap and and shaped shaped over over lifetimes lifetimes into into homes homes for for ants, ants, for for rabbits, rabbits, and and for for me. me.

PHOTOBY BYBRYAN BRYANLEHRER LEHRER PHOTO ARTBY BYMARY MARYSCHWALBE SCHWALBE ART WORDS BY TRISTAN BROSSY DEDIOS DIOS WORDS BY TRISTAN BROSSY DE SEED Literary Magazine 13

My arm is naked, plastic against the marigold couch whose flowers have faded from their daffodil youth to urine. My son's drool is on the needled pillows.

MARIBEL

His dog is on the ground. My morning coffee has turned to vodka over the winters. the shutters open and close with the wind. my name is maribel. i am eighty-four, now.

The first time I met Jeffere was in the spring. I was nineteen, living on my father’s plantation off the coast of Georgia at Plum Orchard, the house where I and my two siblings were raised. The groundskeeper had purchased Jeffere at an auction in Jackson. He was a tall, thin man; young, with a great black guitar on which he played Negro blues, quietly. He was a kind man, happy. I believe we were meant to have shared that island together for that time. I believe God wanted it so. I believe that Jeffere was the kind of beautiful soul that knew how to stand at the pulpit of his own heart while at that of another, as he stood at mine in Plum Orchard for a summer, like some people just cant. It was a morning: one where your eyes kind of startle to the whiteness of the fog and you have to scrub the sleep out of them with your hands. My dreams were still fresh with me, I remember: Out of the window, by my bed, I looked at the fog moving so slowly through the plum trees and their branches so that you couldn’t be sure of which part of which tree you were seeing at any one time. The fog moved like a brush, sweeping. I watched for a long time. I was transfixed. I don’t . . . I don’t think I could move, at the time. Sitting there in my bed on my knees, I saw the fog brush itself aside against the black image of a man. And the man was looking at me. He was looking straight at my eyes, through the window. I knew it was Jeffere the

moment he came out of the mist, standing there silently in the orchard, waiting. He was wearing his white uniform. He had his pants rolled up at the ankle and his shirt rolled at the wrist. He had on a straw hat tightened around his head by a blue and red ribbon, looking at me, looking at me in my nightgown. I got up and I let myself out the door in my room to the back stair and I walked down the steps and through the kitchen, out the screen door. I walked out on the grass and got my feet wet on it and walked at him, at Jeffere, who was standing still, right there in the orchard, looking at me. I kissed him. I got up on my toes and took his cold face in my hands and I kissed him and he started walking through the plum orchard with my hand in his. We walked down past the trees and he lifted me up and over the stone wall by the servant’s quarters and lifted himself up and over it and he didn’t ever say anything. He took my hand and we walked down across the fields where there wasn’t so much fog. The cotton heads brushed against our faces. It was so silent there in the morning, when the wind wasn’t up and no one else was up to speak of, or to come across. We walked down the dirt carriage path to the edge of the bayou by the Gables where my cousins were born and then down into the shallow water, which was colder than I remember thinking it might be. My nightgown was covered with dirt and was wet, but I

didn’t mind. He led me into the water, through the tall reeds and the Lillie pads where the weeping willows came up out of the glades and draped their tendrils back down onto the water, sending ripples at us. We waded out through the silence until I was waste deep; and he stopped beside a dead, boney tree and reached his hand down so his ear was to his reflection and he fished out a white door from beneath the sand bed and drew it up to the surface; setting me up onto the front, where I sat on top of the water and looked down into it. He lifted himself up quietly onto the back where he stood and pushed us out into the bayou with a dead sugar cane like he was a gondolier. We moved on the water and past the trees and I put my hands up and brushed the willows and I looked down around us at the catfish who swam beside the door quietly, flexing themselves through their unseen ether. Jeffere pushed the cane down against the mud bed and drove us on through the bayou, deeper than I ever knew. And out from the grey trees and the thin canopy the fog came back down on us and shrugged against my shoulders like something that was lost. And Jeffere eased himself down into the water, holding my hand until he put his head under and left his straw hat floating and swam away with the rest of the catfish: leaving me to sit on the door, prostrate to the bayou sky.

PHOTO BY HANNAH KIESLER WORDS BY WILLIAM HALLET SEED Literary Magazine 15

F U N E R A L Q A

WHY DID THE ORANGE CROSS THE ROAD? IT RAN OUT OF JUICE.

Q GRANDFATHER, A LOOK, NO HANDS!

WHAT DID THE DIGITAL WATCH SAY TO THE GRANDFATHER CLOCK?

Q A 16 SEED Literary Magazine

WHY DON'T SKELETONS FIGHT EACH OTHER? THEY DON'T HAVE THE GUTS.

Hands holding the little paper program they press in my grasp so gently as I pass through the double doors and stand my spine against the wood pew and I am clutching at the scanty quotes from scripture and your smile printed so grainy on the page as if they could give me the answers to all the things I never learned about you Where are the corny jokes you loved so dearly? There is that mangled scrap I twist and tear into smaller and smaller pieces until snow piles on my lap and oh god, I wish the priest would just stop preaching about the better places when all I can think about is the Hell of mother's soft hand on my the small of my back rubbing forth devastating little circles that evoke the ghost of the fish he and I caught in a crab net that one time and how it wouldn't stop trying to swim through air, there, now hush pay attention

An old man and a young one walked up the aisleâ&#x20AC;Ś

To the bathroom at the corner of the room and started arguing it was an emergency, you see and the young man needed to move faster and stop fumbling just stop fumbling goddammit he's not the one with palsy What on earth was taking so long? But as the priest desperately tried to hurry to the hymn we all heard it: the sound of a drawn-out stream of piss consecrating the porcelain bowl; the blessed relief contained within that subsequent sigh and suddenly mother and I are shaking like junkies in withdrawal we are crying and trying to control our snorts but not succeeding and now the whole church is looking at those two maniacs in the front row Pop Pop would have loved the one about small bladders. ART BY COURTNEY FOSTER WORDS BY ERICA VAN SCIVER SEED Literary Magazine 17

L M

18 SEED Literary Magazine

A C

L E

your footsteps are felt as well as heard and i know the space you roam and inhabit. the walls may give us the perception of distance but you are quite close.

can you feel me living in the other room? the beat—foot against floor— is gravity incarnate. you are gravity incarnate. sloped ceilings and small doors: the setting in which you exist you look at me with teeth and crinkled skin. i look at you with closed cracks. we try to transcend our anatomy.

you say the same words but to new people. i can see them fill your mouth : excitement that wasn’t there originally. people come into my space identify me for me without me vague questions about who people think i am. i talk, you talk. i wish we talked together different words but the same meaning

felt as well as heard and i know the space you roam and inhabit. the walls may give us the perception of distance but you are quite close. can you feel me living in the other room? the beat—foot against floor— is gravity incarnate. you are gravity incarnate. sloped ceilings and small doors: the setting in which you exist you look at me with teeth and crinkled skin. i look at you with closed cracks. we try to transcend our anatomy. you say the same words but to new people. i can see them fill your mouth: excitement that wasn’t there originally. people come into my space identify me for me without me vague questions about who people think i am. i talk, you talk. i wish we talked together different words but the same meaning your footsteps are felt as well as heard and i know the space you roam and inhabit. the walls may give us the perception of distance but you are quite close. can you feel me living in the other room? the beat—foot against floor— is gravity incarnate. you are gravity incarnate. sloped ceilings and small doors: the setting in which you exist you look at me with teeth and crinkled skin. i look at you with closed cracks. we try to transcend our anatomy. you say the same words but to new people. i can see them fill your mouth: excitement that wasn’t Literary Magazine

PHOTOS BY BRYAN LEHRER WORDS BY LANE PETERSON SEED

UNTITLED

34 And now I bid unto all, farewell.

I soon go to arest in the bparadise of God, until my cspirit and body shall again dreunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the eair, to meet you before the fpleasing bar of the great gJehovah, the Eternal hJudge of both quick and

dead. Amen. 20 SEED Literary Magazine

PHOTO BY ERIKA SCHMIDT WORDS BY JAMESON JONES

h d i e

CERAMIC WORKS BY LAUREN PICCIRILLO [f,i]; JULIE SELF [a,d]; TEDDY PONEMAN [b,e,h,j]; JOSEPH MARQUES [c,g]

IN WHICH I, THE POET, REALIZE I HAVE MUSCLES IN MY LEGS WITH WHICH I TOO CAN LEAP INTO THE WORLD! 22 SEED Literary Magazine

Me as a wee small boi, seated zenly like an old island in the middle of the room. “Little buddha,” they call me, for i never crawl or walk. Yet I do not notice, instead fixated on alternate worlds and dimensions, as all young ones are wont to be. Little buddha plays with legos and crayons, purple dragons with green flames, crepuscule of forms in pixelled blur of crayola. Little buddha doesn't care for accurate representation, preferring instead the capturing of a motion, synapse firing off into the depths of a brain, synapses blazing paths to a real imagined place of real imagined talking animals. Bathing in real imagined place, little buddha thrives, synapses devoted to preservation, growth, focus. Story goes a long way, he remembers, forming bonds, befriending apes and dogs, learning voices, personalities, ready to stay under forever. Yet through the real imagined sky of this real imagined place, daggering through blanket fabric, through to exposure, warm body up against the cold, a strong voice sounds out “Jameson!” repeated like a drum roll, and—as if on cue— little buddha blinks his eyes, comes to, and bounds across the living room carpet.

PHOTOS BY ASHLEEN O’BRIEN ART BY ALISA AMADOR WORDS BY JAMESON JONES

SEED Literary Magazine 23

it s tarts w ith th e a i r r i p p l in g i t s ta r ts wi th th e a i r r i ppli n g

lik e an el ec tri c a l c u r ren t i s r un n i n g th roug h i t.

I don ' t k n ow mu ch a bout s c i en c e

bu t I k n ow ox yg en i s n 't s uppos ed to boi l a n d i f i t d i d

ever yon e woul d n oti c e,

bu t h ere I a m, c onvi n c ed I a m

th e sol e wi tn es s to th e a poc a l yps e.

I tr i ed to say th at s pati a l l y th i n g s don 't ma ke sen se

any m o re bu t i n stea d I s a i d

24 SEED Literary Magazine

I spend a lot of time confused these days.

and there' s p rob a bl y a pi l l for th at:

bl a c k b ox w a r n i n g : fata l s en s e of i mpen di n g d o o m .

I g r i p th e edg es of th e ta bl e

a n d l i s t ever yth i n g I kn ow to b e tr u e

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; say i t w ith me:

your name is mary you are 19 you are alone in a green room.

PHOTO BY KELSEY MCDERMOTT WORDS BY MARY SCHWALBE SEED Literary Magazine 25

rehtonA“ :enildaeh eht derutcip I .esuac tsinim was to my students—the young women who hurt I erus saw I ”…dnuorg on sniag izanimef naibse emselves in defense against the all encompassing I...?namow sa stnuoc tahw tuB .namow sa tnuoc t erwhelm surrounding our gender: Tonight on I ,yddaD“ :rehtaf ym dlot I 01 saw I nehw reb e subway I saw the parents of a girl who used to erom dna ynnuf era yeht esuaceb retteb era syob ll me fat behind my back in the sixth grade. They ,em ot ees —”.retcarahc niam eht syawla dna gnits dn’t recognize me—and I didn’t say hello because thgin etal :sa ylno detnuoc retal ro—tnuoc t’ndid n am still fat—though I don’t often say that stnavres“ sa delebal erew yeht erehw set t loud. It doesn’t bother me so long -eb emit emos em koot tI... ”.syot kc I process it internally—All my or-fied esoht eveileb t’ndid yllacitsiloh ns are working and my bones are taht dezilaer I erofeb emit emoS .s t creaky—for all silent intents and ytimertxe rof sgolb eseht emalb e rposes I am healthy—In no need tnatalb erom elttil a ylno er’yeht take up any less space...It is not un-er neeb ev’I egassem dexim yrev words are spoken or pictures taken emit emos—ybab a saw I ecnis g at I’m transfigured—into a pig—into niks ma I fi rettam on taht thguoht zy—into doesn’t try hard enough—I revetahw ro ,xes dna sevruc ro ,seno m not in a constant state of shrink and for enizagam htlaeh nem s’htnom siht fo rov o decades I have been taught that that is sick… sa yfilauq t’nod I taTh—namow sa yfilauq t’nod st recently I started noticinghow sick I am with ynam woh rednow I...defiitcejbo eb ot hguone lufi ciety—that every time I was not taught to pour -olem sa thguoht taht ssimsid dluow sdneirf elam yself powerful from clothes or shown to revel in -nosrep ym taht wonk meht fo ynam woh rO ?cit y naked curves, I tried desperately not to write this --kaeps I nehw taTh—?sdnah rieht otni nrob saw

WINDOWS

J A R S

26 SEED Literary Magazine

f eht ylgu n did emer kniht retni mow sbew f dna I erof oitin poep ehw naht iviec taht dna fl eht taht uaeb m fo mard dooh

The last time I tried to give someone my whole heart it was to my students—the young women who hurt themselves in defense against the all encompassing overwhelm surrounding our gender: Tonight on the subway I saw the parents of a girl who used to call me fat behind my back in the sixth grade. They didn’t recognize me—and I didn’t say hello because I am still fat—though I don’t often say that out loud. It doesn’t bother me so long as I process it internally—All my organs are working and my bones are not creaky—for all silent intents and purposes I am healthy—In no need to take up any less space...It is not until words are spoken or pictures taken that I’m transfigured—into a pig—into lazy—into doesn’t try hard enough—I am not in a constant state of shrink and for two decades I have been taught that that is sick…Just recently I started noticing how sick I am with society—that every time I was not taught to pour myself powerful from clothes or shown to revel in my naked curves, I tried desperately not to write this poem. Frankly, I thought I couldn’t without hurting the feminist cause. I pictured the headline: “Another ugly lesbian feminazi gains no ground…” I was sure I did not count as woman. But what counts as woman?...I remember when I was 10 I told my father: “Daddy, I think boys are better because they are funny and more interesting and always the main character.”— see to me, women didn’t count—or later counted only as: late night websites where they were labeled as “servants and fuck toys.” ...It took me some time before I holistically didn’t believe those definitions. Some time before I realized that people blame these blogs for extremity when they’re only a little more blatant than every mixed message I’ve been receiving since I was a baby—some time that I thought that no matter if I am skin and bones, or curves and sex, or whatever the flavor of this month’s men health magazine that I don’t qualify as woman—That I don’t qualify as beautiful enough to be objectified...I wonder how many of my male friends would dismiss that thought as melodramatic? Or how many of them know that my personhood was born into their hands?—That when I speak--it needs to be in their tongue with a tongue that can also tie cherry stems into cute little knots. That I have to be the adorable virgin and tantric porn star simultaneously—That I cannot worship my thick thighs unless they are already in the hands of an equally pious man... Later, in bed (with my boyfriend), I am confused…confused and submissive…confused and empowered…confused and unsure of if I am respected by him or myself—confused—and scared because: He cannot lift me easily (in any sense). I am worried that all I’ve ever wanted is to be lifted into strong arms—I don’t know what to do with the fact that I still always need help opening windows and jars. With the fact that none of this is anyone’s fault but we are all held accountable. Or with the fact that now there’s a new person to whom I want to give my whole heart...That now there’s only one set of arms I curl up in—sometimes drunk. And in those arms sometimes I feel safe. And in those arms I process words which: confuse, encourage, excite, or hurt me...And for some time I thought I was hopelessly devoted but now I realize I’m wholly devoted and I don’t know which version is easier to betray—or if either ever felt like woman before he told me I was one... I only feel self possessed when he’s gone—wanting him to stay feeling like someone who proves people are reliable, missed connections, rare connections, chemistry, entertainment, tenderness—do I get my own future?—I wonder how much he alPHOTO BY DUROTIMI AKINKUGBE ready knows about me and if it is enough--and if it isn’t—WHY. NOT?...How WORDS BY JULIA DUNN is it that the man I’ve promised my heart to might not know the rest of me? SEED Literary Magazine 27

There is a banana peel under a garbage can where a man is wailing for pocket change while waiting eyes graze upon cities and times and few are yet brave or dreaming enough to take one of us and say, "Is it a thought or a smell that makes this place? This place of Not-Arriving, but yet also (and still) of Not-Having-Left? This place of too many Almost-Meetings?" PHOTO BY MARTHA SCHNEE WORDS BY JACKSON EMANUEL

28 SEED Literary Magazine

When a train comes in groaning like a strange steel cousin of the rhino I marvel at how quickly all of us move closer wordlessly, at once to wherever we are going.

ODE to Train Stations

Self Portrait as my Father at an Undisclosed Location, 2004

Speak to me of _______________________________________________________________________________ maggots grown lethargic, and I will give you an homage to the Humvee door _________ that slit my eyelid forty miles outside of ____________________ , __________________________

the reason one pupil sleeps in the bruised bed _________________________ that cradles ___ ______________ this cornea, __________________________ which is a canvas tent _______________ which is a lung frightened by its own expansion. This ____________________ camp and __

_________ its ligatures _____dddddddddddddddddddddd_ to heart ____________ and chest

make a broken ___________________________________ exit _______________________________________ ______________ strategy ______ ; _______________ as if each capillary __________________________ __________________________________ has been ____________ ambushed in the act of ___________ ____ bursting. Most have bled _____________________________ internally but few ___________

___________ escape the _____________________ sand or _________________________________ saline,

their _______________ warm ___________________________________________ premonitions of _____ ___________________ being ______________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________ swallowed _________________ __________ _________________

______________________________________

Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Sperry recently retired after serving thirty years as a combat surgeon in the United States Special Forces. Lt. Colonel Sperry served as a medical attaché in Vietnam, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He survived two IED explosions in Bagdad and was awarded the Bronze Star for Valor in 2008. He currently lives in rural Utah and continues to practice medicine.

ART BY SAL SPROFERA WORDS BY BEAU SPERRY

SEED Literary Magazine 29

some homes are better than others

the tv said “it was a religious endeavor” and everyone laughed when i didn’t get the joke but i didn’t cry— i was only sad for a minute or two while i watched my dog slip in and out of consciousness like she was on a raft

riding the tides of some better day. we watch lots of things on the tv you made or didn’t make i don’t remember the way the leaves sounded outside but i remember the way you liked to lay on my chest even though it wasn’t soft and it wasn’t home. 30 SEED Literary Magazine

it must have been torture.

PHOTOS BY NATACHA DANON WORDS BY MARY SCHWALBE

Everything is throaty, barely humid. All the air moves up up up towards the sky, turning it eggshell, opaque and dome as it pulls back. I spot the reunion: hundred of houses huddled behind the pines – some now naked, others still hairy; all still surviving. Their warmth (the warmth of the living) makes for full waving, and I do my best to smile back at each one. My neck strains to see the stiff salutes, their roofs peeking out from behind this Great Emerald wall; I know they are trying.

Small bushels of stinkgrass lean in, breeding under the concrete barrier, last of the revolutionaries. I do my best to steer around them – they do not really want to die, are unsure of how far they can take their desperation. I will do them this favor – take notice without taking their thin lives; they are not

leaving maine

the chipping maple leaf – swan-diving towards my windshield – flat, open palm soft toddler reach – their selfless reminder. The two species are nations apart under this unrecognizable sky. There is only thin plexi-glass between us, only shaky, browning metal of separation on either side – reach for me, friends! Hurry! the road is turning, wheels kissing the curve as I quickly become a thick, creamy blur, hurry! –

PHOTO BY PERNILLA PERSSON WORDS BY ZAYNAB TAWIL SEED Literary Magazine 31

EQUITROP NWHASEB AXLTIRWN QSFRGHDE ZACOPUIL I RT I UY BG H LKPARBSD RNYNREST BUQWZAP OT I J K M E RT BADITPQZ RTJVCPAE ROLHUQNU TADJHIPO V N M G RT D J L PY EW XC S IT DLOHUY E B N M P ST E RUKDRNUI L H A SC EOY W N X ZQY E I OPHJKLMG ETRSPRLN

the days are growing shorter and the world is shaking off the pieces it no longer needs. the boy slaps water to his cheeks, loosens jaw. yawns, thinks he should go outside for a moment before it gets too dark to see. lights blink through the fog and the leaves on the ground are all the same color now, brown. the boy wraps strings around his wrists to keep the blood flowing, the rivers tighten and the trees shift. he walks and walks and for a moment remembers a ghost who once slept at the crook of his arm. the boy remembers his hand cupping her chin, he thinks about when she stole the moon for him but cannot seem to remember the sound of her laugh. the sky is too big and his palms too rough to hold something as tender as the last moments of the day. he goes home. shuts the door.

PHOTO BY ERIKA SCHMIDT WORDS BY SHANA WALLACE

outside the window a forest is burning, but his eyes tear from a different kind of smoke. and wrapped in dust and venom, the boy closes his eyes.

THE LILIES

PHOTO BY SOPHIE PELLEGRINI WORDS BY SHELBY SULLIVAN

si t c l o s e t o t h e wi n d o w , wh i te an d m o vi n g wi t h t h e b r e e z e . si m pl e b e a u ty c o ul d n e ver m a tch th e f l o wer s on a d a y l i ke to d a y, s un b oun c i n g i ts g l ow of f f r o s ty tip p e t al s , an d b r e ez e s c en te d h Ă¨ r m es , f r om th e c or n er s h op b e l ow. e ven s h a d o w s tr ai l i n g th e wh i te m ar b l e , m o ve s o f tl y wi t h t h e a i r an d ch an d e l i er al on g th e ch ai s e l on gu e . a sil en c e n ot en ti r e l y s i l en t , d i s t ur b e d b y th e b us y si d e s tr e e ts of th e s e i n e . b u t th e l i l i es h us h , g l o wi n g a n d m o v i n g wi t h t h e q u i e t wi n d . a g i f t for th e wom an wh o k il l e d h er s e l f th e ni gh t b e for e .

SEED Literary Magazine 33

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House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm = phantasm phantasm phantasm sm phantasm phatntasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm pha phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phatntasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm pha phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm sm phantasm phatntasm phantasm phantasm phan-

She appeared to be walking in a dream; or, more truly, the vivid life and reality assumed by her emotions made all outward occurrences unsubstantial, like the teasing phantasms of a half-conscious slumber.

34 SEED Literary Magazine

{

}

Bog-lights, vapours of mysticism, psychic overtones, soul orgies, wailings among the shadows, weird gnosticisms, veils and tissues of words, gibbering subjectivisms, gropings and maunderings, ontological fantasies, pan-psychic hallucinations -- this is the stuff, the phantasms of hope, that fills your bookshelves.

John Barleycorn by Jack London

phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phan tasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phatntasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm phantasm SEED Literary Magazine 35

IN HONOR OF THE DI W

ill held up his two hands some distance apart and said it must have been about as long as his forearms. One wing found after months of cryogenics, hidden under a few feet of tightly-packed snow. I like this when I hear it. Cryogenics aren’t really my thing—at least, so long as prolonging life is concerned—but there’s something romantic in preserving the moment-after-death. A few weeks later he found the beak. Over the course of one winter, he uncovered the torso and wing as well—but chest, left-side, and nose

36 SEED Literary Magazine

ISMEMBERED CROW do not a full living form make. Were he a boy again, perhaps he could rescue the rest, crayoning in its missing parts. Reframe the blood pulp as its crow-skirt or spilled drink—a trick of the eye.

I remember young butch Elizabeth from elementary school, January of some grade. At recess she cradled a frozen cylindrical dog turd as if it were her child, asked all of us to send the two of them our wellwishes, playing some sort of slant pretend house, the kind of queer I knew to stay away from. Recently at a party a friend admitted to her own childhood morbidity. She told us of the dead squirrel she once rescued from her lawn, kept loved and warming for several days in her bedroom closet.

Questions I did not ask: Was the squirrel intact? Was it named? Did you gender the carcass, make a bed for it—or did you let it sleep naked, an open sore in the mild stale air of your well-heated, suburban bedroom? When I was eleven, I was fond of writing down macabre grocery items on our family list. Apples, bread, mayonnaise, sea salt, tombstones, nutritional yeast, broccoli, creamo’-wheat, nightmares, non-dairy creamer, death. Years later, I found myself on a beach with friends. We lit handfuls of black seaweed on fire, placed lobsters gingerly onto the flame, watched them burn, hiss and try to flee.

I blocked their escape. Their hard and shined red exterior held form throughout the slow boil execution, would have stayed visibly pristine forever if we hadn’t gotten cracking minutes later. Who knows how long the bird was a whole dead thing, if it ever was wholly and fully dead at the same time. The kids have not seen the carnage, but if they did— perhaps they’d make some fun from it, give it a name or two, christen it a muse, sculpt its house from the slowly-emerging mud, flick its beak along tabletop in a game of paper football.

PHOTO BY SOPHIE PELLEGRINI WORDS BY B VANDERBURGH

C O F F E E / / Spaces more conducive to love are small and alive. In the ways that marble and glass cannot allow, love flows through wood, dirt, and water. Warms this house to the brim and keeps flowing over the kitchen counter and spills out onto the porch. Gathering in the veins of our arms and of these rocking chairs, whose paint has been worn away by weather and is colored by our familiar grips. So too are the points between the joints of our fingers we interlock often now splintering.

COFFEE

38 SEED Literary Magazine

Worn down by prolonged touches and corroded by the sand beneath our fingertips and in between our toes. Unwittingly collected on the beach where our bodies joined as they do every night, cradled together under the sky. Sky whose midnight is dissipating into orange light and although we are watching this morning grow above the yard from the porch, we see steam rise and feel it on our faces as it joins the world. By now, after much learning, our bodies know each acute movement of the other and have formed their own daily rituals in sync.

Laying in the corner our dog, whose muzzled face has grown gray around the whiskers and droopy mouth, flicks an ear slightly and resumes waiting for perhaps a scrap of breakfast. He was once an eager puppy with its head between our legs, begging to be fed, but it has grown tired and tame, and for now it can wait. In that way, our dog has become much like death, and the three of us wait. Wait too, for the phone call from our daughter, who we knew bringing into this world to be a selfish, audacious and foolish act. Another broken soul in a world that will ceaselessly tell her she is powerless, that she is limited, that she ought to be another way.

E E F F O C But merely the thought, the idea, and the dream of her was powerful enough to snap a chord delicately wrapped around the neck and toyed with between my fingers which you know hold as if it were something deadly. But for now the only rope is the gentle cradle of the hammock which rocks in the breeze, as it did beneath the many stars at night, and does to the ringing of the phone. And you take another sip, without a word I rise to answer. Our calls never come from the begging under the table, we have tamed it, it has grown older And can only now offer sweet untamed licks and nudges.

Our conversation will never be interrupted.

ART BY SALEHA BELGAUMI WORDS BY PAT WOOD SEED Literary Magazine 39

40 SEED Literary Magazine

melting and treading waterlust, dry phobias of philia and greek tragedy plague your blood streaming, there is nothing quite like the transience of sipping youth from a coffee mug and skinny-dipping with age like caffeinated warriors:

a battle-cry for the era of pages you havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t read and crooked spines, a scoliosis of desire. navigating all your demons on the wooden steps, you rise to greet (and be greeted) by the wrinkly whisper.

PHOTOS BY NICOLE DANSER, BRYAN LEHRER WORDS BY HANNAH TARDIE

you dive into a porch of green lights,

SEED Literary Magazine 41

42 SEED Literary Magazine

I am a land dweller I am a land dweller Lie down on ground Dig fingers into dirt I am fixed to a point There’s no removing me I am a land dweller I am a land dweller

Chant of Being PHOTOS BY ASHLEEN O’BRIEN WORDS BY JAMESON JONES SEED Literary Magazine 43

Your ears ring first, yet so soon then your hands tremble in scribbling your no. 2 pencil, lacing up the downtrodden shoes. The weakening peels of your heart-it peels, crusty and thin and salty chips. They fall fast to the ground when you race down the cement stairs to meet your mother. You trace hunger in the curve of her belly, the rush in you, the rumble of your belly, slumps down to your groin, where it lies, sighing and heavy. Your little hands ache like fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s carpel tunnel. The warm room, flies buzzing around the white kitchen sound closes in the center of your eye.

PHOTO BY COURTNEY FOSTER WORDS BY JUWON SONG

HUNGER, MY BOY

44 SEED Literary Magazine

PHOTO BY JOHNATHAN NEUFELD WORDS BY COURTNEY FOSTER

Awake at the time when Time becomes infinite, Hours dissolve, Seconds melt into a pulse Mind races ahead of matter Thoughts s c a t t e r as the sand man waits at the door

“no, you won’t visit me tonight”

Vortex Hour SEED Literary Magazine 45

a bad

orange 46 SEED Literary Magazine

How disappointing is a bad orange

Promises of light rivulets Sliding down thin wrists and balmy palms wiping the sticky into slickness

How disappointing when Thick peeled rinds lead to rot.

Like a starved man in a suit jacket six sizes too big with skin that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t fit and seedy eyes sunken in.

How disappointing Shaking his head, he tosses it.

ART BY IREM IKIZLER PHOTO BY BRYAN LEHRER WORDS BY NICOLE DANSER

SEED Literary Magazine 47

PHOTO BY KIANA KELLER WORDS BY HANNAH TARDIE

the ability to be inside and sour milk wondering if this is good enough: satiation is a strange concept taught to avoid like sperm-shaped commas asking for a quick breath; why, then, are there melon rinds clinging nimbly to fingernails,

smiles rounded down with wanting or lacking, and being inside is a strange concept not quite ready to avoidâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; taught only to accept the wholeness, to penetrate a worsened smile, wholly, only,

CONTRA

48 SEED Literary Magazine

not quite ready.

it occurs to me it is not actually snowing r n but i could have been fooled. the basement windows are low enough i can’t see the treetops + the way their branches tessellate + dance snowflakes from their damp navels makes me think the whole thing is staged + this moment is a reenactment of everything that came before it only a little different like the present with a lime-twist or the future undercooked and runny— complain about the texture if you must but w/o it it’s just there, the same way the street lamp by my house is crooked just b/c it was crooked before + plans to resume its crookedness tomorrow or at least the next time it occurs to me to look.

PHOTO BY HANNAH KIESLER WORDS BY BEAU SPERRY

Present

with a Lime-Twist

SEED Literary Magazine 49

[ t h i s

i s

h o w

r e m e m b e r ]

I think our genes are encoded with impulses to preserve the remarkable. As seconds grow, the body switches on-realizes it’s vital to remember; So the brain presses the record button. Through this instinct, I am certain that anyone who has ever held a small bird can recall the details of the moment. The creature’s velvet aerodynamics, the hollow bones, the beating heart, the chirp.

Other memories are formed by routine. I am thinking of hand dryers and sinks placed right beneath massive mirrors so that I stare into my own eyes for minutes as automatic faucets spray fingers or tepid air wicks away the water from my perpetually cracked hands. I’ve memorized the marks of my iris. Navigated the vines grown in my soul. I know my eyes better than my lovers’. There are branding iron memories too. The ones I’ve forced myself to remember; Borrowing my first love’s deodorant to roll it on a page of my journala scrawled caption: “this is what he smells like”. Looking back, my insides flinch and tense up. It’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever done. And Old Spice Fiji is not a rare scent. Still, I will find myself turning my head as a stranger passes me on the street. Then there are memories like traps, like snags. A burner flicking on, a shoulder tap. The ones so impossible to hide from. Seeds that blossom when you bury them deep. That regrow when you burn them to their roots. With a color more vibrant than before. Sometimes the only thing to do is fence off part of the garden for these memories. You do not have to water this ground, but maybe you can pick the flowers one day. 50 SEED Literary Magazine

This is How I Remember pulses to preserve the As

remarkable.

seconds

grow,

This is How I Remember the

body

switches

on-realizes

itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

vital to remember; So the brain press-

This is How I Remember es

the

record

button. this am

Through

instinct,

certain

This is How I Remember

that

anyone who has ever held a small bird can recall the de-

This is How I Remember

tails of the moment.

This is How I Remember This is How I Remember This is How I Remember This is How I Remember

The

creatureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

velvet

aerodynam-

ics,

the

hollow

bones, the beating heart,

the

chirp.

Other memories are formed by routine. I am thinking of hand dryers

and

placed

right

sinks be-

neath massive mirrors

that

PHOTO LENA stareBY into my SZETO own WORDSeyes BY NICOLE DANSER for minutes

SEED Literary Magazine 51

Our bodies are holes-ribcage, sternum, tibia-that hold alphabets often unraveled, letters, limbs falling in.

Her eyes are in my eyes; I feel their weight. Her eyes are in my eyes, her body echoing, tying her bones to mine. 53 SEED Literary Magazine

PHOTOS BY ASHLEEN Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;BRIEN, COURTNEY FOSTER WORDS BY TALIA MASON Falling in remembering the cedars, remembering how her eyes are in my eyes.

Maintenance

Spending moments, our bodies are holes, cedars falling in, eyes, bones.

The clouds are looming hands Picasso blue – reaching for sky, sad in their waiting. I wonder if they’ve grown tired of watching the world belly up – if they are missing the grass below, the musky dirt, or if they feel shy around the factory fumes (sexy smooth mist), almost black near their congregation.

The lake is indifferent, the mouse is afraid to be caught, but I bathe myself in their stares, knowing mine is just as soft – with all they know they cannot feign: neither is more full of God, neither is fit for the current. Towers of stretching their backs for miles – haughty, but without champion; heights cannot reach that space of loneliness.

kuhlia mugil

PHOTO BY NICOLE DANSER WORDS BY ZAYNAB TAWIL

dark windows shine alive,

SEED Literary Magazine 53

EMMULATIONS The cool wind tickles my cheek and plays with the wisps of hair that have escaped my ponytail. I am standing on the top of a mountain in the Colorado Rockies, the sun bright and warm. This hike has been more than that outlined in a travel brochure. It is not just a measure of physical endurance, but a test of personal endurance. I carry the mental anguish resulting from a recent family crisis. Looking down, I see a big fall and sharp rocks - and darkness. Looking up, I see the summer sky and fluffy clouds - and lightness. Looking out, I see the colorful mountain range. I finally learn the wonder of “right here, right now”. The earth is caught between Heaven and Hell and, instead of worrying, the best thing to do is just to live. On this summit, the wind lifts the burdens off my back and I finally feel free.

PHOTO BY JOHNATHAN NEUFELD ART BY KATE BLANDFORD WORDS BY JANE SPARDEL

54 SEED Literary Magazine

If only I could spread my arms and jump, not to fall and hit those rocks, not to jump and try to reach paradise, but simply float, appreciating the wonder of the Earth. I cannot fill my lungs enough, gasping for more and more clean air. Living can be hard at times, recent events have proven to me that grief and anxiety can paralyze. Yet, on a day like this, there is nothing more I want to do than live. Feeling the sun on my skin and hearing the birds sing is enough to wake my senses and make me love this life. The poet, William Blake, said, “I cry, Love! Love! Love! Happy happy Love! Free as the mountain wind!”, and it is true— my heart is liberated on top of this mountain. I want to yell and hear how my voice is lost in this wide space.

The horizon leaves me breathless. The blues, greens, and browns of the mountains make my hungry eyes thirsty for more and I cannot fathom the size of them. How incredibly insignificant I must be to the world! Compared to these colossal peaks, I must be a speck on the Earth. If I fell off this cliff, my death wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t impact many, but if a mountain is destroyed, the world is changed. My feet hurt from pounding the ground and I understand why the mountain has an effect on my body. Do my vibrations have any impact on the mountain? No. I am a little ant scampering around the earth, hidden under clouds and trees. Yet, I can have these thoughts. With my two eyes, I can see the splendor of the landscape. Maybe my existence is just as, if more, significant as the existence of the mountains. Mountains have no thoughts, but my mind is constantly whirling. I think this is an even trade. My life is short and small, while a mountainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s is large and everlasting. But I get to see beauty, think, and imagine, while all a mountain does is keep still and be weathered. Mountains are there to invoke thought, be a model for artist and writers, and be a challenge to hikers. Many great people owe their success to the existence of mountains. I have a chance to change the world through motion and adventure, while mountains sit there prodding me to do something significant. I was put here for a reason, to appreciate the grandeur of the mountain, and use its magnificence to better my life. All I can do for now is to love the beauty in front of me and attempt to understand it. A better understanding will come with time, but these glorious mountains have taught me to be strong enough to push through hardships and appreciate the beauty of life. SEED Literary Magazine 55

We met in between bites of falafel and rows of pomegranates.

I was lost in a city of objects rather than a city of people. You reached for a bright, noble cranberry colored fruit, and our hands met, eyes darted up, and we sunk, just for a moment. Our first words to each other coagulated, a mixture of English and Hebrew, and endless silent syllables passing through anything but our lips. You must have thought I was some foolish American tourist wandering around Tel Aviv without a map. In between my minimal Hebrew and your broken English, we exchanged names, “Yoni” and “Gal.” You promised to show me Tel Aviv, and in those instances, your muddy eyes, olive skin and determined stance entranced me, along with the way you gesticulated, fumbled for words. In the space where we couldn’t communicate, we intertwined through our daily adventures. I tripped over my words, stumbled through your language to you, as you opened your arms, your city, to me. We started, weaving through markets (you called them shouks) in Jaffa, old slabs of white stone buildings dirtied and weathered by time, warfare and change. These buildings were juxtaposed against the color of 56 SEED Literary Magazine

the city, the merchants, and their orange juice stalls, schwarma carts and frozen yogurt stands. The scents of the city enveloped us, and my world began to crumble against the odors of olives, fresh pita and tabouleh. We catapulted ourselves down the bustling street, the forceful gestures of stranger hands, intermingling with your firm grasp on my wrist. We careened through space, flowing into the openness of Jaffa’s streets. You held my hand as I balanced along the edge of the city with its white walls and cerulean sea, balanced along the edge of the barrier wall to the ocean. As each foot fell in front of the other, I began to focus on you, the sounds of the sea, and the coarseness of the sand on the bottoms of my feet. We sat, and you told me the story of the sea, and I could understand your every word without struggling and without feeling the tug and pull of the sea, of your language. We were still, and our stillness was deafening, graying with the sea and sky, letting us remain on our adventure, submerged into the sea’s wide expanse into a

Falling

unified embrace. We stumbled into the sand, and you caught me, our bodies connecting for an instance until Tel Aviv was upright once again. I readjusted to my surroundings heard the screams of Israeli mothers, with “yallas” thrown into the mix. I felt myself expanding, truly feeling whole as we wandered the beach, leaving insecurities behind, like debris washed up from foreign lands. You gestured to the sea and we ran, and as our feet hit the water, you whispered into my ear; you told me the secrets of the language, you told me my name meant wave, and that it was gliding in before us. You reminded me that I was a part, not just a descendent of this sea, land and people; you welcomed me to your home. As your arm slid on top of my shoulders, I peered around, getting a lasting view of my new world. The pomegranate shaped sun set behind cedars and skyscrapers, and in those seconds, those moments where Israel stood still, I felt present, mind and body, and I was here, with you, connected through confusion, entangled in language, and in your arms.

Eretz

WORDS BY TALIA MASON GRAPHICS BY ERIKA SCHMIDT

SEED Literary Magazine 57

Some it looks like you c a me from a pa ra l l el uni verse’s vers ion of the 80’s. your s ungla sses are s ha ped l ike the feeling tha t forms in my throa t

w hen i open the fres hes t w eb PHOTO BY MARTHA SCHNEE WORDS BY TRISTAN BROSSY DE DIOS

58 SEED Literary Magazine

Feeling

Am I really happy? I don’t remember the last time I felt this emotion This word even sounds strange coming from my mouth What does happy even mean? Who gets to determine who is happy and who isn’t? Is there a checklist of some sort? Well, I don’t know I just don’t remember ever feeling like this I feel like the cuts and the tears from the worries of yesterday are gone And I can’t even see the scars that mark my flesh Huh, but do I want to? Not see the scars from my ugly and dark past A past that I constantly find myself battling and trying to escape A past that has left me scarred in ways that I don’t even fully understand Do I need to see these scars? Do I want to bear the eternal reminders of some of my darkest days and most painful nights? Do I want to constantly be reminded

of the dark shadow that I didn’t want? Or the pain of caring about someone who can’t even keep their word? No, I don’t I’m tired of being reminded of those things I want them gone, Gone for forever and a day And never to return But, by wishing them away, would I also be forgetting the lessons that I learned? Lessons about how to love and let go Lessons helped me understand that it is okay to cry and be weak Oh, and how could I forget when I learned the most important of them all? When I learned that no one could love me the way that I love myself And that I shouldn’t expect that of anyone No, I wanna remember them I want to keep my beautiful scars from my ugly past Because they shaped me into the person that I am as I stand before you Beautiful scars and all Because these scars truly remind me of the reasons why I’m happy.

HAPPINESS

ART BY SAL SPROFERA WORDS BY MONET BLAKEY SEED Literary Magazine 59

I have never felt more transcendent or alive than this moment. Erika and i are laughing and crying on the floor, making bad nsa jokes. As one tralfamadorian tells billy pilgrim in slaughterhouse five, B U G S

B U G S

All time is time. It does not change. It does

not

lend It

itself simply

warnings

is.

Take

ex-

mo-

I N

planations.

A M B E R

are all, as Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve said before, bugs in amber.

I N

ment by moment, and you will find that we

A M B E R

It is then of some comfort to me that this moment shall be re-lived and re-visited. O supreme being(s) of the universe. I am a bug. Show me your amber.

60 SEED Literary Magazine

ART BY AVERY MARGERUM WORDS BY JAMESON JONES

this body is neither woman nor man nor beast but fruit seems accurate.

to think i used to wonder how the bean plants grow in the darkâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; why! thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still energy!

lack of sun just one deficiency among many other rich and glorious nutrients!

i myself favor a nice stout several slim jims and five long naps a day!

flower-me will birth the cutest void this baby hospital has ever seen.

SAME

could i reproduce like a flower, all part accounted for and in working order in just one body,

THE

ART BY ALISA AMADOR WORDS BY B VANDERBURGH

i would at least find myself more natural.

LOOKS

EVERYONE

PARKA SEED Literary Magazine 61

INDEX Akinkugbe, Durotimi 6, 26, 27 Amador, Alisa 22, 61 Belgaumi, Saleha 39 Blakey, Monet 59 Blandford, Kate 55 Crespo, Barbara 11 Danon, Natacha 1, 7, 30, front cover Danser, Nicole 40, 46, 47, 50, 51, 53, 63 Brossy de Dios, Tristan 12, 13, 58 62 SEED Literary Magazine

Dunn, Julia 26, 27

Mason, Talia 53, 56, 57

Self, Julie 20, 21

Emmanuel, Jackson 28

McDermott, Kelsey 24, 25

Song, Juwon 44

Foster, Courtney 7, 16, 44, 45, 52

Neufeld, Jonathan 7, 45, 54, 55

Spardel, Jane 54, 55

Hallet, William 14, 15

Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien, Ashleen 6, 7, 8, 9, 22, 23,

Sperry, Beau 29, 49

Huang, Max 9, 10

34, 42, 43, 52

Sprofera, Sal 7, 29, 59

Ikizler, Irem 7, 46

Pellegrini, Sophie 7, 33, 36, 37

Sullivan, Shelby 33

Jones, Jameson 8, 9, 20, 22, 23, 43,

Persson, Pernilla 6, 31, 66,

Szeto, Lena 51

back cover

Tardie, Hannah 40, 41, 48

Kay, Jack 2, 3, 4, 5

Peterson, Lane 18, 19

Tawil, Zaynab 31, 53

Keller, Kiana 11, 48

Piccarillo, Lauren 20, 21

Van Sciver, Erica 16, 17

Kiesler, Hannah 7, 14, 49

Poneman, Teddy 20, 21

Van Derburgh, B 36, 37, 61

Lehrer, Bryan 6, 13, 18, 19, 41, 47

Schmidt, Erika 20, 32, 56, 57, 60, 62

Wallace, Shana 32

Margerum, Avery 60

Schnee, Martha 5, 28, 58

Wood, Pat 38, 39

Marques, Joseph 20, 21

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