Fools Vol. 13

a thank you to our sponsors, Fools Magazine is generously funded by the Magid Center for Writing, The School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and Undergraduate Student Government.

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and are not representative of Fools Magazine, the Magid Center for Writing, the University of Iowa, or its affiliates.

Editors

Marriah Talbott-Malone - Co-Editor-in-Chief

Aspen DeGroot- Co-Editor-in-Chief

Katherine Steahly - Creative Director

La Della Gallagher - Treasurer

Anna McDonald - Design Editor

Sarena Gibson - Design Assistant

Tianyi Pan - Design Assistant

Aspen DeGroot - Photo Editor

Erin Challenor - Writing Editor

Grace Champagne - Writing Editor

Parker Jones - Writing Editor

Abby Wedemeyer - Writing Assistant

Allison Izui - Writing Assistant

Hannah Janson - Writing Assistant

Fidel RCJ - Web Editor

FoolsMag.com @FoolsMag @FoolsMag

Dear Reader,

After what has arguably been one of the toughest school years for Fools, we are beyond thrilled to bring you our signature print issue again. Volume 13 of Fools is a testament to our strength, creativity, and teamwork, a curation of the many voices and visions that went into these vibrant pages! We are proud to say that the pieces in this issue are written straight from the heart and hit you straight in the gut. Since there were many times during the year that we feared the future of Fools, our writers and artists pulled no punches. We knew there was no time to lose, and that our stories, no matter how contested, were ours to tell.

Though oftentimes it felt as if there was no existing path before us, we remained driven by the immense talent, passion, and dedication of our contributors. If we could dedicate this magazine to anyone, it would be the authors and creators within these pages who bravely shared their work with us. We are so grateful that you have chosen us as the vessel for your stories, your emotions, and your dreams, and as always, we are delighted to witness your brilliance.

It’s possible we may always worry for the future of Fools, but we can’t help but feel as if Fools has hit a sort of reset – that now Fools has the opportunity to rediscover what it means to be a team and a publication. It’s scary moving forward, but we know you will always be there to remind us what it means to be a fool.

With love, Aspen and Marriah, Co-EICs

ContEnts

Contributors

Maybe I’ll Be Like This Forever

Hannah Showalter

Where does your heart live in your body? Everywhere. There is not a place on the map of my body that does not hurt, that does not miss you, that does not miss some imagined version of myself. I don’t know what is wrong with me. Maybe I’m stuck on the top of a broken rollercoaster. Maybe I am walking up the stairs in a house I have always lived in and am always missing the bottom step. Maybe I’m a bad person and I am the only one who knows. It is a huge secret to carry. I am tired of it in ways I do not understand. I am not a person, I am actually twenty trembling hands in a trenchcoat, standing outside of my house, hoping someone on this street is as sad as me, in the exact same way. When I get anxious, I like to run my hands through each other; I like the idea that some part of my body can feel comforted by another part of my body. I feel comforted by no parts of my body. Maybe I’ll be like this forever. So what. I’ll let the depression stick to my body like honey and I will like the taste of me despite. I’ll pack an extra coat. I will eat some fruit and try to say smart and good things. I will love people, and maybe one of them will be me. I’ll look at my hands, holding each other when I am absent, and will marvel at myself continuing.

I <3 Women

Arylaan Evans

The coupon had stood stuck to their fridge for a while now. Her Mother had clipped it out of the newspaper over a month ago and looked every morning at that glowing ‘50% OFF’ as she waited for the tea water to boil. Now it was tucked safely into her Mother’s purse as they drove, out of reach for her to tear it, destroy it, swallow it whole.

The funeral was tomorrow. She wasn’t ready, though, she didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to be in this horrible car. She wanted to be on the maroon velvet sofa where she rested day in and day out and her Mother fed her hot ginger tea and brittle cookies and spritzed her with perfume every day when she couldn’t shower. Where they curled under the purple crochet blanket and listened to the disco legends CD her Mother had burned in college and everything was fine.

Her Mother kept saying “We have to use the coupon, it’s just great value. If we wait and it expires, you’ll have to get cremated with some cheap service. Being buried now is the perfect time.”

50% off full funerary services and burial. Expires March 11. It was for the local family funeral home. Maybe they were going out of business. That’d be unfortunate, but if it takes a business closing for a deal this good, so be it.

The funeral home would give her a full face of makeup as part of the package. Correct those dark circles and hopefully save her eternally chapped lips.

The lipstick her Mother wore was a shade of pink that she thought only Barbie’s wore on their face. It was the drugstore brand that she bought in bulk when it was on sale. Her Mother bought it insisting it was for both of them, even though she never wore makeup. So she always declined, telling her Mother she didn’t think the color would suit her, privately thinking it wouldn’t suit anyone.

“I wish you would make more of an effort,” her Mother would sigh. “You could be so beautiful if you tried.” Her Mother had been hesitant about burying her at first. She loved her, after all. She was her beautiful baby girl. But she did tire of propping her up every morning only to have to lie her down again every night. And the good sofa was being wasted on someone who could hardly appreciate it. Her Mother was forced to seat guests on the wobbly kitchen chairs and give weak excuses to brush off the cloying perfumy smell pouring from the sitting room.

“You don’t want to be left in an ugly urn. At this price I was able to pick a beautiful casket! Maroon velvet lining. It will be just as good as the sofa,” her Mother had said.

She wanted to tell her Mother that she would prefer cremation. More eco-friendly. Modern. Trendy. Delay-able.

But there was no point in arguing. Her Mother had decided and the funeral had been scheduled. The whole extended family was coming up from Louisiana and down from Toronto, there was no delaying. Even her Older Cousin who gave birth last month and was hardly up for travel was coming. The Baby would be at the funeral. She might get to see her.

There would be an open casket ceremony before heading to the cemetery. She was excited to ride in the hearse. Seemed pretty cool. If she had to be buried, at least that would be her last ride. Far better than this one. Her Mother was singing to the disco hits disc at an offensively high pitch. Donna Summer didn’t deserve this.

A man met them in the parking lot and helped her from the passenger’s seat of the car. He was very tall and wore thin, black glasses that completely masked his eyes. She liked that he looked scary. It justified her hatred for him. It did ruin, though, the hope she’d had that he might take issue with the burial. She’d wished that he might see her and take pity. Say that he couldn’t go through with this. Tell her Mother where to shove the coupon. But he didn’t. So she let his big hands lift her weight and shuffle her into the building and take her down the long hall away from the lobby where her Mother stayed, and she hated and hated him.

She had been a little excited to see the back room where all the preparation would go down. It’s not like normal people got to go back there. They only ever see the careful image of the funeral hall.

The metal table where he laid her was cold, though. And the tools that were so interesting before were now unbearable. It smelled too much like cleaner back here. The man pressed her eyelids shut.

She heard her Mother’s voice cooing at the Baby amidst that deep floral scent. Her Mother had told her the funeral hall would be filled with pink roses.

“They’re the classiest flower, baby. Everyone will know you were so loved.” Her Mother had said as they went through the ordering paperwork. She preferred lilacs, like those growing outside the kitchen window. Once she had moved to the sofa she couldn’t smell them anymore.

“Lilacs are not appropriate for a funeral, baby. People would think we were cheap.”

The scent was overwhelming and she imagined that if she opened her eyes, the color would be worse. Pink, pink roses to match pink, pink lipstick.

Laid back with her eyes closed she could almost mistake this for the living room when her Mother laid her down on the sofa every evening for bed. The velvet was comfortable. Her Mother was right that it was a nice casket. All that was wrong was the scent. Pink roses washing out the smell of ginger and perfume and rot.

She could hear the Baby giggle. She wished she could open her eyes to see. She was sure the Baby was beautiful in her Mother’s arms.

Maya Greer

Patterns of rainfall

Lyndsie Conklin

It begins in minuscule spirals bathing concrete charcoal and stirring iridescent oils to pool in the street corners of historic boom towns.

Inertia begins its intensity sending winds to a high north. These same winds push travelers in a similar direction, yet miles below ground in national caverns where bats and mild darkness play with sounds, depth perception, and father’s need to touch one waxy stalactite in defiance of mother’s whispered protests. How adorable they appear, with the wind-pushed droplets gathering on their bifocals.

With the darkest formations comes the waves and angled streams upon dirty windshields and brothers’ jests and robust crudity, unapologetic to form. It is all violent, but we giggle because we are stuck inside with a lingered stink or the damp exterior. The droplets gather in weight and fall away into the earth while the crudeness creates quiet mysteries of who may be next to forget simple manners.

The midday drizzle is reminiscent of dimming downtown lights dripping neon on our dewy skin. We were steaming within circles of friends doing silly dances, making others thunder in laughter. Strangers kept the humidity close and mumbled the words to songs we forgot.

But in the moments when quiet was needed for secrets, just you and me would drip into the seedy corners and make a new type of moisture before noticing our toes have numbed from the cold.

It begins in minuscule spirals but now home on our porch I think of all the patterns the rain creates and all intersections within earth-cycled water.

DON’T FORGET TO CHECK FOR RAZOR BLADES

I don’t remember a time when I had to hold back words; all I learned was that they shouldn’t drop out whenever I wanted. I held them in until I was so full they pushed against the back of my eyes imagining a permanent headache in the front of my skull. I started seeing the words instead of speaking them I rearranged them until I thought I was beautiful I just wanted to make something beautiful from the shard of glass thrown like a dart would be at your favorite bar. I wish I could remember a childish word vomit habit but I don’t.

I remember a time before you told me to be quiet and listen. I don’t remember a time when what I had to say held any amount of importance my voice always paled in comparison to yours.

I slid into silence the louder you got, I tripped over small words when you demanded one-word answers; I tried reading your mind so I knew whether you wanted a little bit of words or a lotta bit of words.

I tried I tried I tried so hard to be good for you I retreated so you could take up the space you thought you needed I crushed my personality like you would paper scraps and I wedged it behind my sternum so you didn’t have to interpret I wasn’t up to par, but you wanted that.

the less, the better, you said.

maybe that’s why I’m so full of words; I always said more is—

Eternal Nalani

Sunday

A Mural by Jill Wells

Samm Yu

Mikaela Hoover

OniOngrass

by Gwendolyn Hanson

I am sewn into a body I cannot own / I am a part of something I cannot know.

At the river, in the river, inside me I reach out a bloodied hand.

I lose a piece of me in driftwood hypnosis / I tie myself to a bad man. Bring me a new rib.

It’s growing a knot in me, All parasitic onion flower, I call for a culling.

The moon is still alive at the time of writing and I’ve learned my lesson— (It is much too hard to be a girl learning how to be a woman learning how to live)

I stand beneath a shower head burning with shame and the water makes my lungs paralyze with regret. I find out that a body bruises from absence.

I’ve whittled myself down to a theremin, I’m screaming from the loving of a benevolent abductor

I recall living in a stranger’s house and teaching myself survival in the nighttime.

A faucet spout down my spine has already run dry. Jesus watches from the ceiling, kitty-corner to the taxidermy.

Chase me down in the library, heart racing like a bad habit, Giving up in the russian literature section.

I pant the whole way home, a breathless epicenter for the lies I choose.

HEllo?

Greta Ingham

sunflowEr Haibun

Ella Michael

A bee flies past at a stoplight—green to garden, yellow to yield. Blinks a turn signal, following path of sunflowers off road. Bumblebee floats up grove, sifting each leaf, spread of butter petals, each perfused ray, and seed. They drink in and drift until their golden selection, the flower closest to sun. Bee stretches out their fuzzy legs, arms, rolls their torso onto this pollen pillow, and rests in its head.

Bed of florets, our eyes, the smallest reflection of Spring’s ever bloom.

Another bee tumbles onto flower, a bed made queen-sized. New bee moves beside original between honeydew sheets, and droplets of sugar fuse to their black lashes, unfurl their open-mouthed eyes. They savor every inch of the other. Their buzzing shakes pollen loose, and it catches on everything— already yellow fluff, meddling fingers, a bit on the nose. So close, what does bumblebee see in the eyes of their partner? Can they separate dilated pupil from iris, and determine if this is love or florescence?

TRACK #1

You are never going to finish the album, he laughed as he leaned against me, if you insist on starting at the beginning every time.

The warm weight against my side distracted me from the warm weight in my palm. The cover art winked at us — a singer our parents loved, and so, a singer we inherited from days toddling into the sacred realms of their kitchens and offices — and the album begged to be played through my gnarled headphones, tangled and woven around our ears. The thickest of the knots laid between us, touching neither of our skin yet irritating both.

I hooked my pinky in the knot.

He wouldn’t have laid out the album like this, I protested, if he didn’t want it played at the beginning.

And our favorite fight was brewing, and the sky filled with dark clouds, for I always insist on beginnings, and he insists on ends.

He didn’t put that much thought into it, he whispered into the ear free of the headphone.

I knocked our shoulders together, fighting him back. He did!

How would you know?

Because I would have. I would not start my story in a spot I didn’t believe in. I would not start in a way that didn’t lead to the next part, and the next part, and the next.

He went to tap on the screen, his finger hovering on the final track — the thirteenth track — before I batted him back again. His laughter mixed with the silence, a melody so familiar yet so distant. He would want you to listen to his album!

He would want me to listen in the right way!

Is there a right way?

Yes! There is always a right way to tell a story!

I think a story is a story.

He would start this story sooner, but he would start this story in the middle. He would start with moonlit roads and flickering stoplights, and he would start with a hand reaching across the console. My hand would find his as I watched the blurred outside. The world belongs to our childhood — this is where we went to elementary school! This is where we kissed behind the climbing wall before we knew what kissing meant! This is where he proposed with a dandelion ring! This is where we suckled the dew off the grass blades as champagne for the new year! — and yet, we step into it as young adults. We are the same, he would start the story, and we are different, and we are learning how to be enough.

The right way to tell this story, though, started here, and so, I insist on this beginning.

He has already insisted on the ending.

TRACK #3

The streetlights stopped working this late. They flashed yellow, again and again, as he drove past them, meandering like a river beneath our feet. I remained curled up against his passenger door, so close yet so far, and he wove us through the roads of the world we knew better than anything else.

I love you, I told him in the silence.

And some words demand the world to stand still. If I glanced out the window, I would have noticed the shooting stars going stagnant in the sky,

the dandelions holding tight to the ground, and the wishes all holding their breath to see what happens next. But I did not. I closed my eyes and waited for the night sky to wrap around me, and spoke aloud the words I could never have denied.

I love you too, he said, mystified.

I want to say it, so you have something to tide you over, I told him. Until tomorrow.

When he spoke, the world moved with him. The wishes all swelled around him, enchanting each syllable, and some words do not demand the world to stand still. Some words ask the world to join them, and they twine around you in a dance you have always known, that you inherited in some way, and you think about sliding around the kitchen in socks and singing into hair brushes, and somehow, these words have always been there in your life even if you have not seen them into now.

I love you, he told me. And you can hold onto that until tomorrow, where I will tell you again.

But I waited until the clock struck midnight on the streets with no red lights, no green lights, to lean over and whisper in his ear, I love you, just to hear the melody of his laugh as he hurried to tell me the same.

TRACK #5

And our favorite fight had always been brewing, for I insist on beginnings, and he insisted on ends. And I cannot know what he thought as he stared down those bright headlights, two moons converging on the road and barreling towards him. I cannot know what song played in the car, whether his foot skipped back and forth, back and forth, from gas to brake to gas. I cannot know anything but this:

He had always insisted on ends, for he thought an ending was beautiful. And for me to paint a gory picture would be a discredit, would be a disservice, to the boy I once knew and the man I wanted to watch him become.

This is not my ending to write.

But this is ours:

Twin lights glow on the street, clearing away the mists of the rain. They beckon, bright and beautiful, and images dance within their outlines. If he squints — and he squinted to find the beauty in the smallest things — he can see the memories swirling in their depths. There are memories of home and of people shaped like home and home shaped like people, and, in the rain still rushing all around him, there is a song in the air.

And the song sounds mournful, but he smiles, his teeth glowing like stars in the dark night, because to be mourned is to be missed is to be loved, and he has always prioritized love over all else.

And the song belongs to him, and the song belongs to me, and the song has not been inherited, it has been given, not from our parents but from the world itself, from whatever power out there knew we needed the melodies, and there is a difference, and now, he gives me the ending.

I give you what I have, he says as the lights embrace him, as his breath leaves on one last delicate exhale.

The song trembles as it ends, the album finally coming to a close, and somewhere, elsewhere, my heart trembles as it senses something shift.

And that is enough, I call back, letting his joy fill me because he is dead but he is remembered and that is enough.

Josephine Geiger-Lee

Ceci Bradley

We know it well, the dark dance floor. The disco flash illuminates hands

Ceci Bradley

We know it well, the dark dance floor. The disco flash illuminates hands

They grab our waists and cover our mouths—cigarette stained lips have become

They grab our waists and cover our mouths—cigarette stained lips have become

More familiar than the lemon tree in my childhood backyard.

More familiar than the lemon tree in my childhood backyard.

When I was a girl, I watched the fruit drop from the burdened branch into

When I was a girl, I watched the fruit drop from the burdened branch into

My lap: well past ripe now a sour lemon, not worth a tender dance.

My lap: well past ripe now a sour lemon, not worth a tender dance.

I just watched all these birds fly over a church— a swarm of them, like gnats in the sky surrounding a piece of floating meat. They just kept appearing like seriously, goddamn, where are all these birds coming from? Where are they going?

Can I go with them? They just keep moving— and then they are gone. This is usually how it goes: the pit in my kidney grows heavy and morose because I specialize in retrospective emotions like missing, reminiscing, regretting.

I just watched all these birds fly over a church— a swarm of them, like gnats in the sky surrounding a piece of floating meat. They just kept appearing like seriously, goddamn, where are all these birds coming from? Where are they going? Can I go with them? They just keep moving— and then they are gone. This is usually how it goes: the pit in my kidney grows heavy and morose because I specialize in retrospective emotions like missing, reminiscing, regretting.

Can’t lick my conscious’ fluttering envelope seal and stick it back in the present. It is like I am always waiting for the cold, soppy wetness to shiver my scales enough to wake up, Wake up.

Can’t lick my conscious’ fluttering envelope seal and stick it back in the present. It is like I am always waiting for the cold, soppy wetness to shiver my scales enough to wake up, Wake up.

Start asking the important questions— like what is it with actresses in corsets always posing with donuts? But I don’t want to feel the hollowness of a win surfacing amongst this ruin. I don’t need

Start asking the important questions— like what is it with actresses in corsets always posing with donuts? But I don’t want to feel the hollowness of a win surfacing amongst this ruin.

I don’t need

a birthday hat when you aren’t here to wear it. This victory is drowning in a rain silo of loss.

of loss.

The rooster on the roof is spinning. In this game of life my mind is losing. I still want to meet the girl in my dreams who taps the shoulder of the wanderer and whispers

The rooster on the roof is spinning. In this game of life my mind is losing. I still want to meet the girl in my dreams who taps the shoulder of the wanderer and whispers

Keep on traveling but I want to be your destination. More realistically she flicks a penny into a swimming pool wishing that the man could crawl into her skin and feel the way she’s feeling just so he could say Oh damn and then her pain would be real because he said it is. Anyways

Keep on traveling but I want to be your destination. More realistically she flicks a penny into a swimming pool wishing that the man could crawl into her skin and feel the way she’s feeling just so he could say Oh damn and then her pain would be real because he said it is. Anyways

I just watched all these birds fly over a church. They bedim the sky crow claws grasping a robin egg—

I just watched all these birds fly over a church. They bedim the sky crow claws grasping a robin egg— It is like I am always waiting for the sun.

It is like I am always waiting for the sun.

EMI O’BROCHTA : EXCERPTS FROM i n E V E r Y d E V

limbs reaching down to little hands; our cheeks lips and knees painted purple-berrysweet by the fruit— the tree grew in my grandmother’s yard, witnessing my father’s childhood before mine, his sister’s with him, my cousin’s with me, and would have seen my brothers not long after on two knees, my cousin would hand a berry to me— crushing it in my palm, I turned flesh to blood that was communion the only communion I understood— mulberries for the wafer, mulberries for the wine; to the sky we cried Hosanna

BUT AS I PRAYED

I looked through a stained-glass window, and a mourning dove spoke out, sweet from the other side.

It was like I was talking to myself in a language that we had both developed individually but happened to be the same.

we are not happy anywhere for long, we cried. We are chasing His light in every deviation of flight, but when we fail…?

When we reach just beyond our gravity and find that there never was God to catch us; what then?

THE WINDOW

The earliest examples of stained-glass windows can be found in seventh century British churches.

It is apparent that there has always been a fascination with experiencing divinity in every deviation of light.

READ THE REST OF THIS PIECE AT FOOLSMAG.COM

They tell me about you, your son and daughter

They tell me stories where you are not the hero, are not the villain.

You become someone in-between, a pale shade of a person I should know.

Somewhere in these stories, I construct a man. Like Frankenstein, I pull together parts of a person, always waiting for the last bit that will electrify you, bring you to life. For the first twenty years of my life, I meet you again and again in photos, in stories. When I am twenty, the person I have made learns to speak.

I commune with the dead–you– in Prudential calls and retirement funds. You left me, your eleven-month-old granddaughter with all the money from the insurance company, and even though I never knew you, not like you knew me, I cry when I get the call, just three weeks after my twentieth birthday and five weeks after the day you died, but maybe it’s because Daddy called me crying at work when he got the letter saying that James Franzone Senior’s account was in my name. I didn’t (don’t) know what to say. How does anyone know what to say when their father is crying?

The Prudential Customer Service line tells me that they are so sorry for m grandfather’s death, and I tell them that it’s alright, that he died nearly twent years ago, and then when they put me on hold I cry again. What for?

For you. For lost opportunities. For untold stories, for unknown voices. I I imagine your voice, can you imagine you know mine?

It takes thirty-three minutes for me to finally get through to someone tha can help. They’ve asked for my social security number four times, and I’ve given i to them each time, XXX-XX-XXXX.

There’s a part of me that thinks by accessing this fund, I’ll give a part o you back to my dad, your son

I am my father, he is his father, you are your father, and on and on. Am a piece of you already?

There’s a part of me that thinks this fund is lightening, that by openin it, the pieces-parts body I’ve made will spring to life, that I’ll finally know wh you are

(Then again, maybe I know everything I need to know. Because you died nin days before my first birthday, and somewhere in those weeks before you held a baby your only son’s only baby– and you decided that she would know she was loved, i whatever way you could).

The story of Zeke and Farley is a happy one. There is a skinny brown dog named Zeke. And there is a pudgy gray rat named Farley. They enjoy playing cards, but Farley cheats. Zeke doesn’t even know how to play. They live in the space between Papa Dino’s Pizzeria and Mosley’s Soul Food. Tom and Moses, the owners, don’t get along very often, but every night at separate times, they gift Zeke and Farley with that day’s garbage Zeke and Farley then enjoy the finest cuisine that the dumpster has to offer. Even though it’s not quite their speed, fancy soul-spaghetti dinners make them happy. There’s a reason they’re in an alleyway; can you imagine what the world would say to their love? Farley enjoys 80s rock music, gambling, and living the high life. Zeke doesn’t talk much, but he probably enjoys something like that as well.

Farley has lived in this alleyway his entire life He was born in it, raised in it, and stayed in it after Mom, Dad, and all his siblings journeyed off and went their separate ways. They don’t call much anymore, but they’ll be back eventually. When you have that many kids, it’s hard to send a letter to each of them every week. One day; Farley is sure of it. Zeke only moved in recently–last summer, actually. That day, the sky glowed a silent orange and smoke filled the clouds. Unfortunately, when stuff like that happens here, the sirens don’t come. The vagrant dog found shelter between Tom’s and Moses’. Farley wasn’t quick to welcome the orphan, but he eventually warmed up to the company Zeke used to live pretty lavishly, so Farley showed him how to eat just as well as he used to. Zeke had the audacity to teach Farley some manners. Farley was offended, but it made him realize that maybe he’s more than just a pudgy street rat. Zeke misses his old home, but it’s not so bad being stuck between Hell and high water. It used to be pretty lonely. There’s only so much that happens in an alleyway and only so little that happens in a mansion. The company helps.

And sometimes the people of the city like to put on shows for little Zeke and Farley–romances, which Farley isn’t a fan of, but Zeke can really dig into a good one. The people gather in the streets–large clumps of them with their sticks and lights. They put on explosive firework shows and demonstrations that paint the atmosphere in extravagant shades. Then the city joins them in dance with their own sticks and special effects. It’s an abstract art, but being able to enjoy garbage together under the lights while watching the exhibition is something they will never take for granted. All those

wind-aGE, wolf-aGE (no Man will sparE anotHEr)

Noelle Franzone

I will rip into you, claws-and-teeth, the wind whispers. It is a promise, something deeper. I will scatter you to the ends of the Earth. Of course, after promises come threats, because there is no reason to be in debt to anyone without blood to back it. After threats and promises, there is one decision to make. Two choices. No way out, no loopholes. One choice, the other, and you. Will you look it in the eye?

I will tear you, far-runner, sun-searcher, the wind hisses. There is no escape from me.

You could do this: you could turn into the wind, let it rage at your eyes and strip your skin from your bones. You could unbecome a person, relearn how atoms work, and the wind could take what remains of you away peacefully. This is the option of least resistance. What do you lose except yourself?

There is not much stock in hair, in clothes and nails and teeth. It will be over quickly, and then you will join the wind as it moves from one person to the next, ever moving.

Dance with me, dance with me, dance with me.

The other option is much harder. The wind may take your body from you, but this choice steals away your very soul, until all that’s left of you is a husk of a person, a facsimile of who you used to be.

Because the other option is to run.

When you run, you must run as fast as you can, as far as you can, for as long as you can. Do not stop, do not look back. Learn your lessons from antiquity, and learn to harden your heart against anything that could make you stop your race.

If you run, remember this: You made your choice, but the other doesn’t disappear. While you run, while you tear your feet to ribbons and stretch your lungs and turn your legs to putty, the wind will keep whispering. These are kinder words, kinder than the threats and promises of before, and so much more insidious.

Stop, the wind whispers softly. Stop, child, racer, searcher. Why do you run? You better have an answer for that one. The wind’s questions will bury under your skin, wiggle under you like worms and make grave dirt out of you. Grave dirt cannot run.

The wind will whisper so softly, and so you will grow to hate soft things. The time will come when you stare another man in the eyes, and you will find softness, and you will hate him too. Then what will you do?

I will tell you–in the run, there is no man that will spare another. No man would. There is you, and the wind, and the running. You will turn to this other man, and give him what you want, which is peace, and give the wind what it wants, which is blood.

The other man will have no softness when he is only bones. Then he will become the wind, become softness, and you will hate him again. There is no end to this game.

Do you understand? Have you seen the carousel, the merry-go-round, the way you and the wind are now tied, forever? Then let me tell you this: A time will come when you will be tired of running, and yet you will know that you must keep going. The softness you hate so dearly will begin to invade your heart, and show in your eyes and your hands. You will, despite your best efforts, begin to droop like an orange left too long in the bottom of a bag. What will you do when faced with your own softness? The wind will point it out to you first, and you will hate it that much more.

Stop, the wind begs ceaselessly. Stop, elder. Face me, face me, face me. You cannot run much longer.

To listen would be to give in. To keep running is death, especially when you are built out of everything you hate, and anger besides.

Harden your heart, runner! You’ve had so many years to practice. Keep going, if only for a little while. Drag yourself forward on broken, bloody nails, claw into the ground, and make yourself a creature, an animal to survive.

When is it time to give in? When the softness has invaded your entire body, when your mind is the only thing keeping love and joy at bay. This is when the wind will stop whispering, will simply wrap around your battered and beaten body and cradle you like the lover you never had, or the mother you forgot. And you will turn.

The stripping of your skin does not feel painful. It is like removing a slightly overwarm blanket. The dirt that caked on you will fall away in clumps. You are, however briefly, reborn.

You will learn what it is to be a child again. You will remember laughter, wonder, and hope, these things stripped in the run. The wind will whisper nonsense comfort to you as it carefully unwinds your nerves and removes the memory of pain.

The whole process will take only a minute. Your bones are the last things to go, and when they do, you feel light for the first time in a long, long time. You are taken into the wind, welcomed with open arms by people you gave to it, and you remember home.

And then we will move, although we do not know it, and together we will begin to whisper.

bug-catching

Lela Lemke

The furious haze of summer –the cornfield stretching west under a shimmering heat as the child scoops bugs, drowned and shrunken, from the slick, fetid waters of the kiddie pool.

He uses an orange measuring cup discarded in the kitchen. His insectile goggles gleam sullenly as he deposits the fresh corpse of a corpulent bumblebee onto the shredded lawn.

The retention pond carved into the spine of the cul-de-sac has a paved track around which the older children circulate with bikes and ball-caps and glazed eyes as they pedal harder now, under the scouring white-blue sky into the gusts of wind that come roaring down the barrel of America into the backs of the suburbs of the plains. The red-winged blackbirds glare balefully atop the transplanted pines.

They swooped down at the boy yesterday, badgering him until he cried for fear that his bike helmet could not protect him. Today he flinches at their shadows. And I want to say to him: buck up And I want to say to him: sweet boy But it is not his fault to be a soft-shelled creature who knows no greater hurt than to be left without defense on the groomed asphalt path. Is it mine, then? For raising him thus? This faceless grassy swell, this manicured interruption on the route of the breath of God, blowing and terrible in the dead of night.

The haze, the hot wet air, like a gasp on a window wiped clean to reveal nothing at all.

There’s the carrion circling to remind the living that not all love ends well, A flake of cartilage is unearthed by a talon and we call it balance.

A man ties it all together, blood and love and carcass. With twine, time weaves it all into the daylight— the kind that is stained blue, Too bright to bear.

Butcher paper is creased by his kill, a prey molded by his own hand, An asphyxiation was just a raven with the grasshopper beneath. It’s all a fairy tale, just make believe, If it’s the same to you.

He wraps her thigh up gingerly, tender at last, Caressing in a way that makes the meat spoil if unchecked. The marrow drips onto the tile, It goes to waste.

milkteeth

& the love of the shark amritha selvarajaguru