I've Tried Again and Again with Time

Michelle Ikejiani

time has become an ever-revolving door where past blurs into present.

i keep yearning for the things i’ve never had, perhaps, relics from a past life.

i think i could fit years into the palm of my hands if i tried, but i have tried, and they tumble out every time.

i seem to be losing track; maybe we got older, or time simply slipped away from us.

if it’s the same place, it’s different now; the weeds are all grown out and you don’t look so majestic anymore.

i want to preserve your memory, so for your sake i’ll tend to your dead plants, release the voices trapped in your broken radio, watch as the dust curling from your curtains fractures in the sunlight.

Galatea

Hallie Gibson

She is elegance. Carved from marble, dipped in glaze, Her blunt edges were long ago softened beneath the sculptor’s hands. Now the beauty of her beholder, his finest achievement, she is praised for settling into solid strokes.

The sculptor, however, can only view what shines upon her surface. He is blind to the cracks in her foundation, indifferent to her splintered heart. No, he does not realize, that fragile statues inevitably break.

Rise and Fall

Natalie DiMaria

On the first night:

“We’ll never look back,” we said. We shared stories. We drank from the sea and gagged, giggling away the last drops of revolting water. We never spoke of the journey; we dreamt of luster and riches and mansions so big they could fit our inflated ambitions. We wept that night, for all the friends we’d lost and all the hopeless nights spent patching up skinned knees and digging trenches in the pasty sand. But we never wept for Mother or Father, only wondered. Yes, we looked back that night. We've looked back every night since.

On the second night:

The water was lovely that day, so we had a swim. I can still describe each of the fish: there was a red one with blue stripes, a whole school of black, a great spotted ray with eyes the size of quarters. You swore you saw a shark in the distance, yet you were so calm and delicate, pointing gently over there, because maybe we could take a look if we were careful enough. I swam the other way.

I know Mother would’ve dragged us out, shivering, sputtering, back to the boat and back to the shore. She would have sworn that every one of us on this goddamn island was doomed by our curiosity, and Father would’ve been driven raving mad by her worry. I saw the red outline of his hand across your cheek, but it was only the flush of wind chill. I draped the towel across your shoulders.

On the third night:

The winds are stronger. All our luggage had fallen in the ocean—we’re stuck in these old rags now, not that our others were any cleaner. We couldn’t start a fire on the raft, of course; all our fish were raw. But I always wish I learned to cook. Back before, I hardly had the patience to sit and learn a new skill. I fumbled through a painting just once. I jabbed myself with sewing needles until I gave up, and I bet our teachers called me a natural quitter in the break room. Sometimes, I catch you polishing that strange old tackle you said you’d bought at the market. “It’ll be a family heirloom,” you told me, pronouncing the H. But who buys fishhooks of real gold? More like a set of earrings, if you ask me, too lovely and delicate for Father to spare some generosity.

On the fourth night:

The raft is a prison, greater than our home. And yet, still I wonder: would I become a sailor in this new life? People rarely do what they want, only what suits their competence. That’s how accountants are hired. And if we’ve made it four days in a pathetic little raft, maybe this is my calling.

I wonder about yours. I think you’d rot and die if you were an accountant. Maybe you’d become a radio star. Maybe you simply will be too indecisive to make up your mind, just as always. And in that case, you could come with me. You could navigate, and journal, and sketch the clouds over the sea. Collectors would seek your illustrations as treasure.

On the fifth night:

I’m worried about you. The salt mats your hair; the wind turns your face to an icy pallor.

And you’ve watered down the sea with your tears. Yet you’ve never made a sound—not a whimper escapes your lips.

Never leave my side. I tell you the sun will rise; it melts the sand in pools of radiance, and you can bathe in them if you stand long enough. And you tell me you’ll never want to see sand again—you’ve seen enough—because more than we’ll ever see is beneath us and crushed by the tide.

The shore will be made from asphalt, then. And at midday it’s warm, and it never sways or crests. We can rebuild our chalk murals, the great cities with more new beginnings than we could ever dream of, then wait for the tide to wash them away.

Fine, that’s the shore.

On the sixth night:

“Do you think they miss us?”

“I’m sure they were looking for us.”

“Do they miss us?”

Sourly, I laugh. “They’ve stopped looking by now.”

On the seventh night:

The wind could’ve torn through our papery sails and sunk us that night, but it didn’t, by God’s grace or his cruelty. We were catching fish when the sky opened; it soaked the sea with torrents and lightning and so much water you’d drown if you tipped your head. We staggered across the deck, hunched over to keep our faces dry, to put away our bait for a final time.

That damn tackle. Some family heirloom or a family heist. You barely spared me a glance when it slid across the wood, catching on the edge of the boat. I wish it had fallen off. I wish it never gleamed in that sickening light again. I wish you’d just sulked in the funeral stillness of the storm’s wake.

When the wave hit the boat, I screamed. Now, wherever it may be, I wait for the sea to carry you home.