COURTESY OF MEREDITH SUMMERS/THE OBSERVER
8
The Comma
October 9, 2014 THE OBSERVER
Hercules By CORINNE FITAMANT
May the gods let it rain May the gods let it rain. Tell them Hercules will come, “Il vais aller” Like a poor man to champagne. Take the poison from his chest Put his burning heart to rest And let it fall. It hits you at your weakest point Start to move, can’t feel your joints “Vous êtes içi, Il est en bas” You can’t move, so you pray to God “Vous êtes en bas, Il est en haut” Nowhere to turn, nowhere to go And it’s simple, restez tranquilles Let it be it’s your Achilles’ heel And that mean mean arrow made you bleed ‘till you bled Red roses, bleed ‘till you bled. Stay my hands, they have failed Stay my hands, they have failed. Couldn’t put them in the water, dans l’eau Didn’t put my fingertips below Too hot, hot for me there Mais ce n’est pas la fin, j’espère Trop chaud, trop chaud, too hot for me Trop chaud pour moi.
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The Conscious Consumer By BRIANNA GOODMAN
The sign read: Organic Heirloom Tomatoes--Grown in Mexico. She selected three and placed them carefully in the provided plastic bag. She then selected and bagged Organic Bananas-Grown in Ecuador, Organic Lemons--Grown in Italy, and Organic Peaches--Grown in Georgia. The potatoes she bagged twice, after the first bag tore slightly when the third potato was added. She tried the guacamole sample the lanky, bearded employee offered her. She took another when the employee turned his head. She bought nine ounces of chicken breast—“Could you wrap that one more time? I don’t want the juices leaking…”—and two bags of Organic Brown Rice Pasta© in both penne and fusilli. As she got to the register, she smiled politely when the woman asked her: “Paper or plastic?” She produced two identical canvas totes from inside of her purse. “Neither,” she replied. “I brought my own.”
Riverside Park By SANJA DMITROVIC
A golden glow emanates from the drooping elms. Children laugh, college kids scream. As strollers pass by, as squirrels scurry around The elms continue to sink, the vibrant glow fades. The shriveled brown leaves rest on the cold concrete Shaking, shivering, suffering. The biting wind gusts, Causing three mangled Trident wrappers to fall into The glistening water. The branches grow weak. A cigarette butt falls, joining the other debris. The bark starts to chip away. The light disappears. COURTESY OF SAMANTHA NORMAN
Living By CORINNE FOX
Unsatisfied By KATHERINE DUGGAN
“I don’t want to set you on fire.” “You already did.” We lay there in the sticky dark together, slow burning embers passed between two mouths. I threw my lighter into the mess of sheets, snarled my free fingers in the curls of his chest. The lighter quivered in my hand just like I had quivered only moments ago in his. I gave a quiet laugh as the flame danced precariously close to his blonde scruff. Now I sighed in happiness and uneasiness, a deep sigh that pulled my lungs open wide and poked my ribs against his. He held my Marlboro 100 aloft in his square fingers. My lips brushed filter and flesh as I took another drag. It was my pack, but he offered them confidently, the same way he took credit for my nerves firing and my toes curling. We listened to the celebrating drunk girls outside his bedroom window, laughing, screaming, spitting and preening. I listened to his breathing slow to sleep before gently extricating the cigarette from the hand draped over my chest. I nursed the dying cigarette back to life, coaxing it with an expertise he just didn’t have. He didn’t smoke habitually, just when he was drunk or high or after sex. All the normal times. I smoked when I woke up in the morning. I’d smoked in the shower, letting the hot water carry away the fumes. I sat on porches and leaned on doorframes, talking about God and menthols and everything in between. That’s where his fingers first brushed my thigh: a smoky doorway. And when we kissed his teeth like nicorettes. But he didn’t smoke. He didn’t always want to feel just a little different than he did. He wasn’t always on the verge, pestering on the edge of a cliff, satisfaction laying at the bottom, a thousand feet below. He wasn’t so lustful, so hungry, so selfish, so desirous, so imaginative as I was. He didn’t wake up wanting everything, because he fell asleep satisfied. And I fell asleep, smoking, floating embers like dreams I could hold a finger length away from myself but never touch. I fell asleep unsatisfied.
Specters of the past drift in the background of my life. What are memories but the particles we see floating in a beam of sunlight? Dancing. But we can lose sight of them. One thing doesn’t change— We’re forever entwined in our passions that never leave us and just keep building. They suffocate each other, And somehow give each other life. Sharing air and somehow managing not to die. You rage knowing that every perfect dream you ever create will never come true. You agonize that perfection does not exist because it is solely subjective. Come back to me, that feeling I can’t describe, come back so I can know you. Don’t leave, you didn’t stay long enough. I think I may love you. What fire you spark in me is the kind that hurts in all the greatest ways. It isn’t masochism if it makes you better. Heal me, let me feel that release. Opening up, reaching out, Like the waves of a melody bursting through the walls of its creator’s abode, No one can own you. No one can control you. But I’m going to try. I just keep leaping up into the air, hoping that at some point I will take flight. Did you ever have that fantasy? Driving through the fields, Standing at a cross street among the grime and the car horns, Staring at the sky with only your mailbox and suburbia as bystanders, Have you ever dreamt of rising up and leaving this world? Taking with you only you, All your glory, all your sorrow. Every pretty and painful piece of you that you wouldn’t dare to part with because You suffer and rejoice and die, and it’s all worth it because you are alive.
YUANXI LIU/THE OBSERVER
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THE OBSERVER October 9, 2014
The Comma
9
The Prince and the King By BENNY REGALBUTO
Today, I am the prince of Ranthrak, the northernmost kingdom on the mighty continent of Flentatia. Tomorrow, I shall be its king. Allow me to explain. The king is a great king, a loyal king, and, most importantly, an understanding king. He is responsive to the wants and needs of all Ranthrakians – the rich and the poor, the beautiful and the ugly. Advised by a wise council of brilliant lords, backed by an army of the best knights in the known world, he is a force to be reckoned with. If he wanted, the king could easily conquer the rest of Flentatia; but he is a kind and gentle king, only employing armed force when deemed necessary. But what is he most known for? Why do all men really respect the king of Ranthrak? In short, he killed a dragon. And not just any dragon, but the dragon: Wytherm, Creator of Fire. The beast’s oversized head hangs precariously – mouth gaping open, as if it was still straining to let out one last, glorious burst of searing orange flames in an attempt to fry its destroyer –in the king’s bedchamber, where he’s seen many a concubine in his day. Based on his traits as a ruler and his might as a warrior, anyone could easily conclude that the king is a stand-up guy, a benevolent man. But not everyone has to live with the king. Like I said, I’m the prince. That basically means I’m obligated to live in the castle – the dank, dreary, dim castle. I’m the kind of guy who embraces dank, dreary, dim places, so I don’t mind in the slightest. The only light I need is that of a few candles so that I can go about my studies. You can say I’m a bit of a glutton for books. My room is chock-full of them, covering every topic you could ever think of, from the one detailing the anatomy of red-tailed florks to the one recounting the events of the War of Xander II. I spend as much time as possible pouring over the volumes upon volumes of unending knowledge in order to increase my own brain capacities. Or should I say I spent as much time as possible doing that? This is where me becoming king tomorrow comes in. You see, the king, my father, recently took notice of my scholarly pursuits. He would walk in on me studying, reading, writing – all that good stuff – and always have something to say about it. “Aren’t you tired, son? Sitting here all day in the near-darkness doing nothing but this?” I would never answer, and he would leave. But one day, something changed in him. He marched in with a smile as wide as the River Yasint, and as idiotic as a dunbar. “Son,” he flourished, spreading his arms, “come with me, if you will. Please.” Something must have changed in me, too, because some force within me compelled me out of my well-worn bedroom chair; the only time I ever do that is to eat and
dispose of waste. He meanderingly led me to the training yard, where we have any number of bows and arrows, maces, greatswords, and all other sorts of brutish weaponry. “What are we doing, father?” “My dear son, it’s time that you realize that you can’t live your life through books. If you want to be king one day, you need to experience the real world. What better way to start than by venturing into Chintok Woods for a hunting expedition?” He wanted to change me – to fit his image of a perfect son. How quaint. His smile did not let up. In a monosyllabic monotone that would send a chill down the spine of Wendif the Fearsome, I simply stated the following: “No. I don’t want to.” “My boy, I insist! You need this. You are my only heir, and I need you to be capable of doing what a king must do when I’m gone. Do you understand?” I paused. Thought. Within moments, I mimicked his own ridiculous grin, welled up some good ol’ fashioned fake tears, and responded in a trembling voice, a voice of loving devotion, “Yes. Yes, father, I understand.” He embraced me in his mighty dragon-slaying snare, his great, bellowing laughter echoing off the thick walls of the courtyard. And so we began. Why did I accept? Why did I continue to go on trip after trip after trip? If it isn’t obvious by now, it’s exactly what I need to become king as quickly as possible, to prove that my intelligence outweighs my father’s compassion and skill. Still confused? Think about it. My father is training me with deadly weaponry in order to hunt, but who said it had to be used to hunt just the beasts of Chintok? Yes. I am going to slay the king, just as he slayed Wytherm all those years ago. This evening, for the first time, he has insisted that the royal guard does not accompany us into the dense forest shrubbery for our next trip; he wants some alone time with his son, the faithful dog of a prince. I’ve put on a good show; he suspects nothing, suspects that ever since that first day in the training yard that I’ve been enjoying every minute of our outdoor excursions. It’s all too perfect. Too perfect. Tomorrow, Ranthrak will fall into new hands earlier than expected. Tomorrow, the king will die a gruesome death befitting that of a dragon-slayer. Tomorrow, I shed the skin of princedom. Tomorrow… I become who I’m meant to be.
TYLER MARTINS/THE OBSERVER
The Decision By AREEG ABDELHAMID
We have decided against it, we have chosen not to. Forgive us but it was a matter of minutes. and we could not afford it, So we ask you, not to judge our decision, not to question our morals, not to repeat this story. Since, he will know. We have decided that tonight was the right time. We do not apologize. It was merely a choice. It is your last day.
i am By KAYLA D’ANGELO
i am a lowercase person. my eyes are entranced by shadows as i drift through life, never rising to meet another pair. i prefer gray so that i don’t have to choose between black and white. when i am silent i am invisible. i hardly even exist unless i prove it with my voice.
i am told we are all unique, we all come from stardust. there is no excuse to not make something of ourselves. i do not deny that the iron in our blood comes from the stars but i deny their definition of success. i am something. i am a lowercase person.
Washrooms By CHRISSY PUSZ
A complete stranger in an Olive Garden advised me to break up with my boyfriend before we’d ever been on a date. She sang me a lullaby as I wailed for my grandma in a bathtub at midnight. A paranoid teenager breathed a sigh of relief when I assured her there were no man-made stains on her Scene Queen jeans. A girl from the popular clique fetched my best friend when she found me crying into my kilt over a fight with my mother. The neighborhood drunk looked me in the eye and demanded I buy MAC because “that’s the good shit” and proceeded to explain the importance of moisturizer and lip liner. I stuffed sand-paper towels down the side of a Quinceañera dress where the seamstress had forgotten to remove her pins. A voice on the phone prayed over me in Spanish as I banged my face against the tiled floor, tormented by a love I had never received. She told me I had purpose as I contoured her face with tiger stripes. An aspiring nurse made a toilet paper Band-Aid for a friend who had been stomped by a Louboutin. I kissed tears from her cheeks when the PA announced she’d lost her Student Government position. A classmate slid a pad across the sink when she saw me rinsing out my boxers. I scraped gum off her boots as she recounted a tiff with a friend. A mother waited patiently as we crowded in front of the mirror for the perfect Facebook selfie. I twiddled my thumbs in a Dunkin Donuts as she prayed that the test wouldn’t show two lines. She dish-soaped stage makeup off the face of a friend who was too shy to face her boyfriend as an old man. I made plans to visit her dorm in fall as I learned to bleach hair in summer. A child-sized woman wiped tears off my face and assured me that I was the most beautiful girl she had ever seen. World peace could be achieved if politicians and diplomats treated one another like women treat women in the privacy of bathrooms.
TESSA VAN BERGEN/THE OBSERVER
12
The Comma
October 9, 2014 THE OBSERVER
To Be a Writer. By JESSICA VITOVITCH
Writers. We are romantics. Thinkers. Architects of the mind. We build whole cities, open heavens, and part seas. We fight demons in the deepest, deathliest bowels of hell. But, not do we fight for glory or victorious prestige. Nor for man or likes of his kind. O’ not my dear friends. We are warriors of the mind, battling for what was knowledge in its purest, most delicate form. As pure as the light we had sucked up from the sun or the luminous glow we had drawn from the moon. We fight for light as it dwindles so dismally from being covered by the shadow of man’s mighty hands. Our battle I believe, the battle of a writer, is far more dangerous and complex and consequential than any war that could be fought, any blood that could be spilt, and any kingdom that could crumble. For without the mind, without the truth we are nothing. We are just bottomless echoes in the sea of same. Our minds deteriorating in it’s own wasteful, hollow thoughts. But with writing, with beauty, and creation, the mind becomes alive - pulsing and racing with thoughts, colors, emotions all unified into one beautiful piece, one deeply voice that shall not go unheard. This, my friend, is the sole drive of why I write; and why you should listen.
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Why I Write By ERIKA ORTIZ
The first of the poetry I experienced Was not Dr. Seuss or Shel Silverstein While the written word has its own place in my being It was not what opened my heart to poetry My dad played the violin as a child And he opened my world up to music And it was in each unique tune that I found the words The rhyming, the meaning, the emotion In attempts to learn, to be part of that music I learned the lyrics, the harmonies, the essence The aura they gave off, the aura they engulfed me in The mood, the rhythm, the feeling As I grew up and went to school Not every set of words had a melody But I read and I learned and I found something important A lesson that spurs me to create, write, compose Every poem is a song, even if it has no music
TYLER MARTINS/THE OBSERVER
The Grandpa
The Corner
By NICHOLAS RAGO
By MARGARET FISHER
He smells like pencil shavings and hazelnut coffee He stirs in a spoonful of brown sugar He reads the times at the table on his front porch If he craves a cigarette He eats sunflower seeds spitting shells into a mason jar Today his eyes smile on an auspicious Thursday in June His oldest granddaughter will visit They will drink iced tea and eat peanut butter and honey sandwiches She will read him the poems she wrote while at school or on the train And he will read the ones he wrote on his porch reading the paper and eating sunflower seeds
Today feels like wet woodchips. Like a soggy playground, and a misty field. Like moisture that beads on grass that is too green and seeps through socks as you step through, lifting the knees too high for little legs. Steam rises off the buildings here, and it would be warm if I could get inside. Today feels like wet woodchips. Like woodchips, and it smells like rain. Rain and dark circles. Dark circles to rub, because it’s Spring and time to move on. Because it’s raining, and that means it’s time to say goodbye. Today is like oak clocks in an old hallway, and a carpet that’s deep red like wine, and how pennies taste on the tongue. It would be warm if I could get inside. But I’d rather be out on this damp corner Under the shadow and the overhang. Today I’d rather be steeped in rain and fog. To sit on this dark rock and watch the forms pass silently by. Today I live just to soak. Because I know what it is, now. It came to me like a juicy secret, last night, when I rolled over and realized I hadn’t closed the blinds. “Love is a slow burn,” it said. “Love is a deep cook. It makes you soft. It makes you easy. It makes you finished.” So I reached for a paper to write it down, and today it was waiting for me by my bed like a fairytale bird. The kind that ties your hair back with a ribbon, and then pecks at your eyes.
KIRSTIN BUNKLEY/THE OBSERVER
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THE OBSERVER October 9, 2014
The Comma
13
Language Lover By KERRY MCCABE
“Qu’est-ce que je fais sans toi ?” I ask him, not expecting a response But thinking through the scenarios myself, mind occupied while lips automatically curl upward and prepare to touch— Sensation blocked by imagination I am southward-bound I am on a beach And the waves crash with force and fortitude And they remind me that the soft sand, that my soft flesh is only temporary “Que mes baisers soient les mots d’amour que je ne te dis pas,” he tells me And as lips touch again, mind occupies self with the speech of dreams “I know you,” he says, “And I know life is difficult to accept. We will work to find the antidote together.” Lips separate and silence sets Mind reels “Ça va ?” he asks me, and I reply, “Ça va.” But “ok” is a strange sentiment And if it goes, it goes where?
NELANIE CHAMBERLAIN/THE OBSERVER
COURTESY OF SAMANTHA NORMAN
COURTESY OF MEREDITH SUMMERS/THE OBSERVER