Front cover photography by Zainab Aziz
CONTRIBUTORS arranged according to alphabetical order Astri Evelyn C. Hafsa Musa Izzy Jade / j.y. Keren Chelsea R. Ortega-Rojas Rachana Hegde Saki / s.k.g. Sia / s.g. Stefani Tran Zainab Aziz
Illustration by Astri
DIAMOND by Astri so carbon did not construct the molecular composition of a diamond to become you, and according to the textbooks you are a simple arrangement of bone upon muscle and veins interwoven with nerves a pretty disappointing physical existence in all honesty. but look, diamonds can shatter a tree can snap and burn and stars can wither into the crumbling ether that is the cosmic lottery all matter indispensable and renewable celestial dust reincarnated into people and forest roots regrown into urban jungles so really, who knows maybe the carbon binding your calcium into bone upon muscle, interwoven with nerves and veins, dissolved from gems. you, the carbon based descendent of shattered diamond.
photography by Saki / s.k.g.
PLANT LIFE by Hafsa Musa a. mycelium creeps through soiled underbrush woolly heads true face due north & breathe for the first time in twenty years. push at that heavy thing, call it doubt. turn your silent mouths on as the sun implodes on itself. feel that coursing gray matter. lights go off in a scream, stream down those woolly roots tangling fingers flirt gently coaxing the dirt to arousal, to push up through soil and dust — watch transitions & learn how to live again. b. fertile responsibilities bough to bear adam’s fruit, dragon-tongued & dirty you watch them rot
on the stump of a judas tree with your father’s smile. sample them at noon-time, when the insect tide rolls low, dip your little toes in. remember how the beetles crawl? recall yourself into carapace. reminiscent & detritivore minded. regret, that ancient grain budding in your throat like sand beneath the oyster’s tongue fungi-soft & glowing. c. bury your longing in the yucca. the desert is the only place for a woman so deeply (un)rooted.
2015: THE YEAR OUR CHEST CONSTRICTS / CONCEALS / CAVES IN by R. Ortega-Rojas Spring: our chest is getting over the ache from last year. it ripens and lets the roots dig into our bellies. we brush hands with friends and glow a daytime pink. we know things. we see the future. our eyes are clear and shiny and for the new year, we wished for our lips to learn softness. we watch friends bloom and our chest hurts with flowers. our lips quiver. our hands are so fragile they might snap. we don’t know what to make of this. our chest is nervous Summer: our chest hibernates. we forget how to get out of bed. a slow trickle of exhaustion hooks onto our body (and refuses to let go). our tongue thickens but we don’t care, we don’t, why do we need a mouth anyways? (what do you say, when all your bones feel like husks? when your throat is red and shut?) our mother writes it off as boredom. we get drunk for the first time and trip and vomit and yet still, our sobs refuse to come out from behind our ribcage. there is nothing good about this. there is nothing worthwhile to write about in this. Fall: our chest is struggling. everything is sepia toned and melting at the edges. we wish we were in a film so the reel would finally end. summer is over but the heat is sticky and unrelenting against our skin and refuses to let us forget (we just want to forget. we just want to forget. we want to go back. we want to go back to last year when our chest was just our chest and not a metaphor.) Winter: our chest finally cracks but when we dig our hands inside, there is sand and sour air and no water; no water, none at all. our best friend’s hands become stained with pulp and grief (they don’t know what to say. we want to cry but can’t.) we leave them behind and never come back and when we see each other again our eyes avoid the others.
OF WHAT REMAINS by Evelyn C. the first thing to know about bones is that you will never own them. (do NOT steal them do NOT go gravedigging do not do not) you might find them in the curves of your riverbank or wedged in between spiralling branches but they can never be yours. if they’re fresh and tender then leave them in the dirt and let the crunch of soil and wind melt away the flesh. second thing: bones, being dead, cause blooming. the beetles will come and the plants will twist around the tendons. third: sometimes you come back and the soil is broken, and the bones are gone. sometimes you find a ribcage and it goes to dust in your hands. but here is the anthem: redeem, refresh, reset. rejoin. remember. you never recall what dies where but you can smell the ghosts and maybe that is enough: to soak somebody else’s memories in peroxide and call them clean again.
FIRST TIMES by Rachana Hegde The first time I fall in love, I cry because I can’t stop thinking I’m not good enough. Never mind that him and I are total opposites – he never studies and I’m the girl hunched over textbooks in the library. Never mind that he’s crude, a painting half-finished (why does he use fuck in every sentence?) Never mind that this is probably not love and I probably shouldn’t be crying. The first time my mother saw him, she asked me to stay away from him. Last summer, my friend asked a boy what he wanted from her. He traced the scar on her wrist and asked what she had to give. This year I promise to fall in love with poetry instead. I track words in and out of the house. 2016 is written on the walls of my bedroom. Instead of painting over the numbers, I take photos. I take a photo every day like a reminder: Hi, hello. You have work to do this year. Don’t forget! First time I paint the walls white again, Claire is there. She promises not to drip paint, not to ruin anything important and I tell her people have always tried to take my things. (I was the kid you wanted to bully because I looked “too innocent for my own good.”) 2016 reminds me that this is a new year, new me, new walls. I should be celebrating the fact that I am no longer that kid. I say to my mother, I want you to know that I am trying.
AD FINEM by Sia / s.g. I couldn’t stop thinking about your hands running through my hair, so I cut every last strand off. I watched the white tiles turn black and did not shed a single tear. The weight on my shoulders didn’t decrease but at least it ceased to be visible. I couldn’t forget the way you pushed my glasses up with the tip of your finger, so I decided to wear contact lenses instead. I snapped my old, scratched spectacles in half and threw them away. My mother told me she was glad that I had decided to grow up. I couldn’t stop reaching for your sweatshirt on cold mornings, so I threw it in the fireplace and warmed my hands over it. I pretended that the fire made me glow more than you ever could. I sharpened my edges till I became more knife than girl. God, I just wanted somebody else to hurt for once. Look at what loving you did to me. Look at the monster you created. Look at my claws and my pointed teeth. Tell me, can you see my gleaming scales or just yourself reflected in them? Tell me, do you like what you see?
PLOT TWIST: I LIVE by Keren Chelsea I am fragments of yesterday’s clothes and darkness trapped behind closed doors. Someone told me this was the only way to live; I believed them. I can’t remember now who this was, or what they wanted, but I remember the darkness. I remember the darkness, the only thing that made sense through all these. I swore to a God I used to believe in that I was sorry, but I couldn’t see him anymore. And could he take a raincheck? I was sick, and I didn’t know what to do. Died within myself, and died within two years— but plot twist: I live. There is something greater than this, greater than the death that has conquered me. I see it now, now that my eyes have been relieved. By the time New Year’s eve knocks on my door, I am welcoming her with open arms and I am wearing a pretty new smile to match. The world is so used to the death of young women, and the devil is so used to murder. But, plot twist: I live. I live, I live, I live.
SHAPING HURT by Rachana Hegde Someone once told me time is a social construct. When New Year’s eve arrives, I’m sleeping fitfully, trying to escape the numbness. This was the year I fell in love and fell out love; the year I kept searching. the year I refused to settle. An old friend asked me to stay away from her – I remember the texts. then, my sugar-coated anger. then, my late-night tears. The last time I saw her, I walked away, refused to engage. toilet flushing itself empty after I screamed myself breathless. I am hurting to say the least but I carve up it up and give it shape. there are only so many times I can say goodbye until I begin to ache. this was the year I stopped craving validation. Now all I want is to turn to that girl and say: Look, look what I have become. I’m everything you, once, aspired to be. Instead: I say sorry, I’m so sorry. because old habits die hard and I have always apologized first. also, I am too scared to look at the hate buried in my stomach, taste the hollow in my mouth.
SERIES: ENDINGS by Jade / j.y.
THINGS THAT DON’T HURT ANYMORE by Keren Chelsea the pile of your text messages still sit on my phone memory card, and though I don’t erase them, please know that it doesn’t hurt anymore. (we are growing up and growing out of one another.) sometimes, I think about the last two years and how I’ve changed so much in the time that I’ve known you, and other times, I think about the years to come and how I will change nonetheless with or without you. and then I think about how you will change without me, and how you will love someone else that is not me, and how you will be someone I do not know. but it doesn’t hurt anymore. sometimes, just a little bit. sometimes, not at all. there is no shame in this, and I wouldn’t blame you if the thought of me doesn’t hurt anymore either.
OF MEN by Hafsa Musa A man walks across the intersection of 5th and 8th with a pocketful of darkness. It is a wild darkness, warm and bushy and prone to nipping his fingers if they stray too close. The cold autumn air cuts straights through his overcoat, pressing ice cubes into the cuts on his back. He aches as he walks. The wild darkness laps fatty blood drips from his wrists. His father used to tell him, “A man who carries his darkness like a friend can never be betrayed,” before swinging his black like a sledgehammer into the crumbling white wall of his wife’s face. At twelve he hadn’t wanted to believe in a black so absolute it could turn love into hate. At fourteen he prayed it couldn’t. But at sixteen his father’s darkness was insatiable and taking its teeth to him as well, and by eighteen he was wiping away tears and snot with his jacket sleeves, crawling into his bedroom closet, unlocking the rusting crate and staring warily into the eight gold eyes assessing him from deep within. “A man who holds his darkness will never be betrayed,” he’d said and it had come, inching, into his palms, small and toothy and already attempting to smile. At twenty the darkness was a glutton, at twenty-two tight stomached and fat, twenty-four blood wild and giddy, and now, at twenty six, fourteen years later, it slumbers heavily, comatose and needing to purge, black fur matted and weighty with odor in the pits of his pocket. His eyes look like plum pits. He licks his lips, his teeth mossy to the touch. Here, the darkness feels comfortable about the hips and hands, a well-worn scarf grown warm with constant use. A man humming on 4th thinks of music. At night he listens to the sound of its wheezing breath, shrill whistle notes drilling holes in the studio glass of his apartment. His darkness keeps him up at night, Thinking, now the man crosses 5th at a hurried pace. He slaps the crosswalk signal too late and keeps his head down, brim of his hat blacking out the angry honks and neon lights. The man counts each breath as he goes, listening to the sound of oxfords on pavement and rain in the clouds, ignoring the mewls and coughs of the darkness raising its stalky head out of from his pocket and onto his skin. He thinks about the gunpowder smell of Fourth of July two months ago, the taste of burnt meat and nationalism redolent of American pastimes, the way Susan McKinney’s brassy curls withered and shrunk into miniature roses in the bonfire’s heart. He remembers his darkness, the way it had stood on two feet on the other side of the pire, how it had stretched its arms and cracked its mouth into a howl. How, pressed between pine trees and flame, it had almost looked like a man. He remembers the crooked jags in its cavernous mouth, the teeth like spilling bone shards as it smiled into the pit he had dug for her dearly dismembered corpse. He remembers the ill growl, how it had almost sounded like a good night, the creaking laugh of hidden horror.
A man running along 4th thinks many things and now he thinks the weight of his coat is too heavy in the palm of his hands, too great, the blood in his pockets too thick for any river to wash clean. He thinks the night too deep and dark these days for his tastes and the fur between his toes too coarse and above all too many teeth pushing through the gums for the world to sustain his appetite. A man crying on 6th thinks all of this and none of this as he paces the bridge sidewalk, looks into the city lights for a reflection of something that isn’t his father, and jumps.
THE EATER by Hafsa Musa TO THE EATER: we hide our filthiness behind ill-pronounced three-dollar wines, diy candelabras, & paper mache mirrors; we know what we won’t say. mistakes ink our skins. you take the table with too much grace for a common dog; you’ve always been so good at pretending. you smoke cigarettes, put them out in babied plates of filet mignon, give me that cauterized smile: all raw. your mouth has no teeth. your lips, wide for the eating: you sop up saliva trails with gold-embroidered napkins & laugh without eyes. i tuck napkins beneath my chin to stop the bleeding. those red-tipped hands spread against lacquered mahogany with the patience of tres lobos you suck marrow from bone after bone, never blinking. for a wild thing, you are rather fond of cages. i do not know what you think of. i imagine you think of wet grass, the smell of my wild frenzy, the stop-start stutter of my mortal soul. i am thinking of orion, of woods running breathless into nothing, of bloodied mouths & coarse hide, of the uptilt of your cantarella lips in the candlelight, how much easier it would be to kill with a kiss than subsist in this sick domestic intimacy.
i tuck napkins beneath my chin to stop the bleeding. (the rugs relish in the excess.)
TO THE EATEN: i eat you like a man starved: tearing through salt-skin, snapping against you with the roar of rocks, cracking crab ribs i suck down that soft white meat. i devour with intensity i gobble you up pausing only for an after meal mint. the gullet is where i glorify; each slurp as wealthy as hymn. you asked me once if i knew how to be holy see figure I: your image crucified with knife & salad fork. i have never known how to eat unlike a man home training had no place for me; etiquette set for me no place at its table.
UNTITLED by Zainab Aziz I can’t remember if your casket lay first in the pews of a rundown church or in our living room when the doctors wheeled you in and proudly exclaimed you had so much more time you wore your hair in flower crowns because you thought it complemented your hospital gown. would you be happy knowing that it was the last thing you ever wore? I hope you say yes or I’ll feel unreasonably guilty. I was left alone for two hours with your rotting body and battleworn smile and contemplated whether you would prefer my lips to your forehead or my hands around your neck. you didn’t pray growing up so I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to so I just pretended to cry and hoped someone was watching your hair fell out so you can’t wear it in flower crowns anymore and they changed you out of your hospital gown for the funeral tell me, would that make you happy? would I make you happy? did I make you happy? were you scared to die? I was scared to become
UNTITLED SERIES by Zainab Aziz
GODHEAD by Hafsa Musa they sit surrounded by blood. old blood: thick and maroon, sluggish and congealing in the trough cuts inlaid into the cedar wood grain. new blood: pumping and onerous, piping hot as it hisses beneath the foyer windows and sinks into the sitting room carpet. sitting there across from one another, will watches arturo’s face tip back, full lips slow in their spread towards wantonness, acute angles of that dark and weathered mask coming together into beaten lines and burnished metal work, neck guilded by steady vein and clenching tendon and swelling throat. his face is an arthurian goblet, wide and tempting, as honey colored as the eyes that part through veils of firelight to pierce will’s breast-bone, every faint gesture and tilt of the neck an invitation to drink deeply. (as if he knows the blood will sees and opens himself up to the sick fantasies cooked up by will’s sick little brain.) his is a cup for holding. a glass so full of himself will feels a bit punch-drunk just at the thought of partaking. and arturo, full and ripe with will’s want, knows it. knows that will wants him, knows that will hates him for knowing that. they sit surrounded by blood and smoke, sipping cherry wine without ever taking their eyes off one another. they loose the tigers from their cages and listen to them pace through the slick-wet. the room stiffens in anticipation; will can feel it cementing in his thigh’s, settling him into a state of when? a sudden fear, a reaction as natural as the sheep rolling it’s eyes at the wolf’s scent. he must be calm, relaxed, when facing this man. will’s eyes close. just to prove to arturo – to himself – that he can. ——– when the police come to the door stinking of diesel and cheap coffee, he is quiet. the older officer takes off his hat, midwestern polite to the bone, and wonders if he has seen the Du Mott sisters prior to their disappearance last week. he tells them he has not. they nod, smile, encouraged by his messy brown hair, soft shaven face, crooked glasses held together by a weathered piece of masking tape. he knows how he looks: a sad, wide-eyed writerly sort, vaguely unassuming in his swath of hand-me-down jeans and ugly thrift store sweaters. the second officer hands him a hotline number and asks him to call if he hears anything and, of course, to lock his doors at night. they both tip their hats and shake his hand, then disappear in a cough of gravel and sand.
they believe him. and the monster thrills at that. ——— “you would love paris at night,” arturo purrs from his seat. flame licks the angular ridge of his unshaven jaw. pricks of light catch on his stubble like cat’s fur on briar burrs. will wonders if arturo started with animals before moving his way up the food chain. “you would love paris at night, william,” arturo repeats, lips wet and cherry-sweet, “because it has the makings of a modern fairytale. everything is tall and otherly in the dark. the people are pathetic, washed out and helpless behind their artificial bravado and neon lights. everyone watches the time and pretends not to. they fear their own impermanence and reject it with ignorance, pretending their way to immortality. they visit the louvre shrouded by pretense – as if by looking back on beauty they can anticipate the ugliness they’ve unwittingly summoned from the deep. it smells of metal and liquor and people and artifice, will, and you would love it because you would see how ugly people are, and how small, and you would revel with them in their pettiness.” will finishes a glass, pours another. downs it just as quickly. the wine fuzzes the corners of his eyes where the tigers circle, rendering them into swatches of burnished orange and ash. he can feel them breathe as they move, sway backed and lithesome, sensual in their evaluation of one another. waiting to see who dares to strike first – curious, even. as if this were a game of chess and not life and death. he knows better. arturo’s lip twitches as if he knows what will is thinking. this is a game will, he seems to say, this is chess, this is chinese checkers, this is ro sham bo and it is your turn, make your move, show me how you arrange the game, make up the rules and try and twist them, show me how you know me on this battlefield of wits, make my mind your board. show me how you play the game. “what can i say? god loves ugly,” says will, and reaches for the bottle again. his palm sticks to the chilled glass. arturo’s chuckle is omniscient and amicable. the tigers dance and the flames move with them.
“that he does. do you fancy yourself god, will?” “do you?” “such a rebuttal is disappointingly elementary, will. try again.”
“fine. i fancy myself only as what i am.” “and that is?” “that is,” his hands, tanned and well-worn from hours laboring beneath the sun, finger the sleeve of his dirty coat, picking at loose threads, pulling them long and loose into his palm. a bad habit retained from his first life. when he was still small, and quiet, and nervous. before he had materialized. before he had realized. before he had been awakened. he hates the hesitancy that leaks into his voice like an accident. that isn’t who he is anymore. he’s different now. he sips more wine, eyes momentarily fluttering closed at the silent encouragement, and steels his voice, ripping the last few strands and dropping them into the rising stink, watching them slip away on an imaginary current. “that is, i re-invent. i am … i make things – people – new. i guess.” “then you are a creator. The Creator. a heavenly force guiding humanity’s lost back unto the path of perfection.” “your words, not mine.” “i am not afraid to call it as i see it. you are a god, will. beautiful and sublime. divine and terrible. awesome in your wrath.” will’s eyes close again. despite everything else between them he still can’t bear to see arturo like this: raw and excited, pupils dilated to the point that only a thin sliver of gold iris remains, lips parted faintly, lean torso leaning ever so slightly forward. he can’t bear to see him look so goddamn proud. proud, because he knows that if will is the creator then he is the augmenter, the alterer of human psyches, the unlocker of doors and finder of keys, the one who opened will up to his true nature and loosed him upon the world. shut eyes do nothing to distort the image. he knows how arturo looks. right now his long body has abandoned its uptight comportment. he sits, legs crossed and fingers steepled, relaxed yet professional, the barely restrained glee glittering behind the surface of those golden eyes the only distinction between this strained moment and an upscale business meeting. he looks at will like a longing lover, like a proud mother, like an anxious father – “i know something you might like.” the wine hums love songs in the pit of will’s stomach. he can smell the blood coursing into the room. it’s up to their ankles now, soaking his generic white socks and arturo’s silken cuffs. part of him wants to slip away and languish here, nearly drunk and buzzing in every limb, as the water level rises until it pushes him out of his seat and he is floating like a child in floatie or a corpse in a salt sea. but arturo has him now. his eyes flash as he rises from his seat. his long legs cut silent swaths through the blood. “do you now?”
“a story. would you like that?” arturo smiles. “i’d love it.” —— the officers don’t love it when he tells them the story in an abandoned warehouse. or maybe they did. he couldn’t discern one scream from the next. they had had trouble communicating around all that thread. —— once upon a time, when i was young, i took a boat out on my family’s private lake. it was my father’s cabin cruiser and it was an absolute piece of shit. the mast was well beyond safely rusted and the cabin smelled permanently of cigarettes, whiskey and cheap perfume. my father would take it out for days at a time, up to a week, leaving my mother and i alone in the house. because i was trying to understand why my father always suddenly left and somehow be brave for her, i would call her princess and she would call me her little prince and together we called the old haunted house our castle by sea. i was angry with my father for always leaving because i knew it hurt her to see him take off without warning like that. in my diary i called him a monster. i was always trying to protect her from monsters. i drew countless pictures of myself slaying dragons, or minotaurs, or whatever, and she would tack up every sketch on the front of the fridge with pride. when we walked down by the beach at night i collected pearly white seashells and brought them home to her by the bucketful. they were always soft and white, broken and oddly shaped, smooth bits of the ocean washing onto the lake shore. some were as small as my pinky nail and almost as clear, color stripped away by the decalcifying effects of sand and sun. i loved pretending that they were the bones of dragons and sea monsters. no, maybe not pretended. that isn’t the right word. monsters have always been very real to me.
anyways, she always kept them, every single one, and when i was gone at school she would glue and sew and mold them together into the giant shapes of the creatures i said they were. i remember an entire menagerie down there in her studio, coiled and propped up against walls and looming down at me from the high ceiling. i remember my favorite sculpture being a giant sea snake mother had suspended with silk cord from the ceiling, a roiling mass of body that terminated in its giant open mouth suspended at shoulder level. once, while i was looking at it, my mother turned around to pick up her needles and thread and i stuck my head in its mouth. it was dry and cool in there, like the inside of a sea
cave, and when i breathed i could smell the salt of the ocean and the diesel of the cruiser and it felt like my father was the one holding me, not those thick bony fangs. i would have stayed there forever if my mother hadn’t caught me and pulled me out. she smacked my hands and told me to be careful, that these weren’t toys, but there wasn’t an ounce of anger in her. she looked … proud. like my foray into the belly of the beast was the first step of my very own bildungsroman. i was never allowed in there unless she was with me, but every sunday she took me downstairs into the basement to show me and ask if i liked them, and when i said yes her eyes lit up and she squeezed my hand and made me macaroni and cheese for lunch. it was our ritual. when i turned fourteen my father decided it was time for a ritual of our own. he started taking me out in the cruiser. sometimes it would be just us and we’d fish and sip beer and swim in the ocean. other times the women would join us. they were all hookers and all different in that same strung out, hazy way except for one, molly, who had two monroe dimples and one eye. later i found out that she was their pimp. i was in love with molly and i think in her own way she was in love with me. when my father and the other two went below deck molly always stayed above and split a cigarette with me while we fished. we never did anything but sit quietly, sharing smoke and belching and throwing back most of what we hooked. she taught me how to play cards and how to ash a cigarette in my palm and how to talk to women. once, though. once she turned to me, ground out her cigarette and said, “are you really okay with what your parents are doing?” i said that my dad shouldn’t be out here with these women, that i’d tried to bring it up with my mother but had always been too afraid of divorce to do it, but that my mother was doing nothing wrong. she was the victim here. she asked if i knew what it was he did down there. i wanted to look smart and mature in front of her and i said yeah, duh, i’m fourteen not stupid. i still remember how she looked at me: sharp, disturbed but not surprised, and then sad and defeated, the way my father always looked every time he stepped back onto dry land. she lit another cigarette and didn’t look at me. that night as we were tying up anchor at the port several miles from our house i heard her below deck screaming at my father – i always went below deck into the side cabin when he dropped the women off, my cabin at the opposite end of the boat from his, as if he was afraid that if i ever saw them too long i’d finally get the nerves to tell my mother, and it was so late that i was always half asleep anyways – and he just screamed at her to mind her own business, to not make his life any more difficult by “confusing the boy with questions”. two weeks later molly stopped showing up and there were no more girls for a while. my mother and i stopped our night walks by the beach. she became quiet, furious, and would lash out randomly at me. she stayed in the house more and more. then dad met more girls and took me back out on the kipper, and my mother made her animals and started smiling again.
after two years of this, the police came to my house and arrested my father and mother in broad daylight. now, i ask you: what had i been picking up by the bucketful for all those years? ——– “the genealogy of a killer,” arturo says softly. the wine is long gone but will is still warm, thoroughly buzzed between the press of alcohol, the tigers’ purr, arturo’s large hands resting at the base of his neck. the touch is electrifying; he cannot help but lean infinitesimally into it, relaxing his shoulders into the dark hands that hold him. arturo’s lips are a kiss away as he whispers, “does your family history repulse you? or excite you?” “neither.” he wishes there was more wine. at least then there was an excuse for how good he felt in this man’s presence, how thoroughly he enjoyed the soft silken touch of fresh blood against his thighs. he could almost imagine arturo’s hands there, swaying and sensuous in a current of lust, guided by will’s want and a desire to claim this body. he likes the way arturo makes him feel: evil, marvelous, beautiful. an angel remarkable in its decadence despite its torn and tattered wings. “it depresses me. killing is in my blood. i had no choice, no agency. i’m merely following someone else’s plan.” he glances upwards at the thought, another bad habit retained from a past life when foster parents had made catholic schooling a constant. arturo’s quarters bear no crosses but the ceiling is adorned in mosaic homage to a dark and hermeneutic god. will thinks it a tad masturbatory. after all, isn’t that what arturo already was? a revenant of the old gods, last of an ageless pantheon, forced to take the sacrifices humanity owes him? “i kill because i have to. you kill because you choose. there’s a powerful difference between us.” “only if you allow one,” arturo hums. hands trail the length of will’s shoulder as he stands before him, bringing himself to his full height, dark and terrible against the gold and mahogany hues of the sitting room. he does not know where the tigers have gone; the blood pumps louder, in time to his racing heartbeat. “you and i, will. we are so much more than our beginnings. it is the nature of mortals to be. but it is the nature of gods –” “ – to become,” finishes will. arturo’s smile is a creeping crescent. will wonders how many have died in the light of this wan moon. arturo extends his hand and will takes it, lacing their fingers together, sighing at the rough slide of arturo’s calloused hands, the knowledge that these fingers would glow blue with the remnants of a million ghosts beneath a black light, that he doesn’t care, that he is in love and loved and his is the body electric when arturo calls his name. “will,” arturo breathes, his breath tinged with wine. theirs is a love demented and fermented, every mouthful intoxicating and poisonous. he was a good man before he met arturo. “come with me. let us leave now before the agents pick up on your trail. let me make you who you have always meant to be. we can go anywhere in the world. we could be happy and … entertained, in paris.”
“entertained how?” “will. now is not the time for jest, though i certainly love your black humor.” arise. arturo says, do you dare to come out of your cage?
arise.
arise.
will’s eyes flutter closed again. the image of his mother, gleeful and unapologetic followed by the teary mournful cry of his father as they were led away at gunpoint, the way her teeth had flashed in will’s direction as she’d called “now you know how to make monsters, my son. now you know true beauty.” molly’s helpless expression. the memory of clutching his pillows around his ears at night below deck to block something – but what? – from his ears, praying for the ocean’s waves to take him quickly into the night. the motley of white scales littering the floor of his mother’s studio. the red paint she kept in the freezer. all flashed before him. he’d known. he’d always known. and he’d done nothing. killing was not in his blood. it was his choice. even then. “i am already who i am meant to be,” will says. “i am becoming all the time.” the kiss is soft, chaste, dry, but beneath their skins is a promise that hums michael’s song. will was a good man before he met arturo. now he is a god.
SERIES: BEGINNINGS by Jade / j.y.
UNTITLED by Izzy i ask myself, WHERE WILL I GO WHEN I DIE? i have ripped myself apart & collapsed in on myself to make like the big bang. & i softly remind myself, BACK TO THE BEGINNING. i have died little deaths, but always woke up the next morning, so listen, does that make me immortal? what is there to say surviving the repeated image of all my little endings?
AD INITIUM by Sia / s.g. I thought I was metal: tempered, shining, lethal. I know now that I’m a piece of glass that shattered because of a well-placed blow. I reflect what you don’t want to see sometimes, as well as countless rainbows when the light is just right. I’m a thousand people and you can’t catch a single one. I cut you when you try to step on me and still look good when I’m crushed, nothing more than dust. You can see right through me, but it isn’t always that easy. I can be stained all over with brilliant colors, I can be a masterpiece you can only dream of. I’m worthy of a sacred place, worthy of hearing prayers. I can be melted by fire but I’ll just take a new form. I’m ready to be reborn, but let’s make this crystal clear, I will not be your bulletproof glass.
FIRST DREAMS OF THE NEW YEAR by Stefani Tran a dream journal poetic sequence – January 2, 2016 I am sitting in a crowded campus student lounge with Danielle, and I accidentally left my backpack on a chair where a half-lion, half-man is now sitting. I am a little bit in love with the lion man. I squeeze past the other tables and apologize as I reach behind the lion man for my backpack, and when I face him again, he has cracked open in his paws a single perfect mango. Where did you get a mango in the winter? I gasp, and he smiles at me, white teeth in a dark golden face, and says, I grow them, as he pushes it gently into my hands. My hands are shaking. I take the mango back to Danielle and tell her to eat it, that I can’t bear to have it. Danielle just says, No, it’s for you too. He’ll know if you don’t eat it. He knows everything, and takes out two metal cafeteria spoons, one of them slightly bent. I look down at the two halves of the mango. One half has become overripe. The other still has traces of green. – January 4, 2016 Nine of the popular girls from school are living in my house. They rifle carelessly through my closets and lounge on the top bunk. In the morning, I am the last person to wake up, and when I go to check on them, they’re all dressed and about to go out. Where’s everyone going? I ask, and one of the girls replies lazily, We’re going to church. I am surprised. Then another girl hands me a flyer, and I see it’s for one of those inspirational youth groups, with singing and trust falls instead of praying, and I think, Ah, that’s more like it. – January 7, 2016 My family lives in a giant black birdcage in a room where the walls are painted like a midnight sky. We live on the second floor of the birdcage and our little black dog lives in a cave on the floor below us. I find our dog and pick her up and carry her in my arms, because I know her cave is dirty and I don’t want her to go back in there. One time I peered in at the entrance of the cave and saw the straw on the floor and the deep tunnel leading away into the blackness and the owlholes in the walls and I got scared and that is why I am holding my dog now. No, we cleaned it up, the cave is nice now, my mom says, come look, and I tell her I already did even though I didn’t because I am still scared of the cave no matter how clean it is. –
January 9, 2016 I am running up the down escalator in a mall. The down escalator is in the middle of a waterfall. The spray hits my face, soaking my sleeves as I run. The LED billboard above my head announces, THE CONGREGATION IS FREE.Still running, I look down at my own feet. I am wearing plastic slippers, and my toenails are painted red. – January 11, 2016 There is a man who is a shapeshifter, and he has traveled far and wide taking on different forms. He is searching for something, but he doesn’t know what. The key to the man’s shapeshifting is blood. If the man stands next to a source of water and a drop of blood falls into the water, he will begin to change. Now the man is walking in a courtyard of stone fountains with the girl he loves. I used to be a little afraid of you, the girl says. I felt as though you were always so far away, even when you were here. The man says, I didn’t know. The girl stands over one fountain, takes out a needle, and pricks her finger, letting a tiny drop of her blood fall into the water. It’s not enough, the man says. It’s okay. So the two of them sit on the rim of the fountain instead, dabbling their feet in the water. I was thinking about moving to Brazil, the girl tells him. Oh, the man says. Then the girl looks at him. But I’m not anymore, she says. At this point, it is obvious something bad is about to happen. The enemy’s arrow strikes the girl directly in the center of her back, and she falls forward into the fountain, her blood spreading in clouds in the water. The man howls in rage and grief, but already he can feel his true power awakening for the first time. He is still howling as he rears up and becomes a towering pillar of storm and smoke. – January 11, 2016 I am growing plants inside a rice cooker. There is a light inside of the lid. I press down hard on the lid with my two hands to turn the light on, pushing light into the greenness of the leaves. – January 6, 2016 I am telling Sol I still haven’t finished the new Tomb Raider game, and he offers to co-op it with me. So I pull back my hair, put on my gloves, and become Lara Croft. No matter where I turn, Sol’s voice is there to guide me through the dark. Together, we swing on jungle vines across impossible gorges. We set off the bombs and sail away on the plumes of fire they make when they explode. See, that wasn’t so hard, Sol says in my ear, at the end. I wonder why I need Sol’s help to be Lara Croft. I am still wondering when I wake up. –
January 15, 2016 We are having our family Christmas party, and it is my job to take videos of everybody, but I can’t figure out how to work the iPad. I take one long video of everyone waving at the camera, of the presents under the tree, my goddaughter playing on the floor, but when I press the button that is supposed to save the video, it deletes it instead. – January 14, 2016 I find out Darra is secretly a drug addict, and that my mom is friends with her dealer. My mom and I run into the dealer when we’re out doing errands, and the two of them start talking, laughing and remembering old times. Sugar is the word they use. It’s your fault Darra loves sugar, my mom tells him, chuckling. The dealer shrugs, but he is still smiling. Then my mom asks him if there’s anything he needs. Two cans of Spam? she asks. The dealer thinks about it for a minute. Three cans, he says finally, his hands in his pockets. And a bottle of Kikkoman. – January 5, 2016 A brown girl meets a black boy in a church of mirrors. The black boy is the newest member of One Direction. They take a mirror selfie. They are happy. – January 2, 2016 The girl from next door and her brother have come over to our house to swim. I change my clothes in my dad’s room with the door open, listening for footsteps in the hallway outside. I time it so that I am pulling my shirt down just as the brother is passing by.
2016: THE YEAR MY CHEST WIDENS / REVEALS / BLOOMS by R. Ortega-Rojas Spring: my chest to tie itself to the moon. to relearn how to use my mouth. pick up my tired body and let it stand on its own. paint my nails. something outrageous. to let the sadness seep out eventually. soon. Summer: my chest to melt into a puddle on the sidewalk, from the heat. for the dog to lick it clean and ask to go on a walk. for my heart to grow brown with love and sunlight. for the months i fall in love with my body. Fall: my chest to split into two, not crack, not splinter. to turn robin egg blue. or persimmon orange. or sweet apple red. to watch the rain fall and no more have it sound like a hollow drum against your breastbone. Winter: my chest to stay home and sleep. my bones to be half thawed. to have no thought in breathing. to look at my hands and see no shaking. to stick my tongue out and laugh in surprise, with my head thrown back, with my chest hurting with all these good things. all this good hurt.
CARBON by Astri a molecular connect the dots someone up there takes a pencil and bridges them together a roll of dice and you’re the dirt a draw of the card and you’re the ocean a blindfold game of pictionary except the cosmos is the only player the outcome cannot promise to be fair the result may be grand or microscopic it only guarantees a particular structure, a particular purpose, a rebirth.
Illustration by Astri