LITERARY AND ARTS MAGAZINE
Volume 9 Spring 2018
LITERARY AND ARTS MAGAZINE Volume 9 Spring 2018 A Production of the Hofstra English Society
CONTENT WARNING:
Some pieces featured in Font may be upsetting for certain audiences.
HOFSTRA ENGLISH SOCIETY 203 Student Center Hofstra University Hempstead, NY 11549 hofenglishsociety@gmail.com facebook.com/hofstraenglishsociety twitter.com/hofengsoc instagram.com/hofenglishsociety issuu.com/hofstraenglishsociety Cover art: “trying to leave a party,” Hannah Aronowitz
STAFF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
MANAGING EDITOR
DESIGN EDITOR
Sarah Robbins
Alex Markle
HEAD COPY EDITOR
Regina Volpe
ASSOCIATE DESIGN EDITOR
Hannah Aronowitz
Téa Belog
COPY EDITORS Melanie Haid
Hannah Matuszak
Nick Rizzuti
Kira Turetzky
Amelia Willard
GENERAL STAFF Amelia Beckerman Erinn Slanina Jess Kurtz Emmy Blaner Sharon Rus Nicole Dykeman Claire Helena Feasey Kiera Bussiere
Anna Fletcher
Rachel Wright
Jessica Bajorek
Rachel Elizabeth Frank
Rebecca Kaiser
Dana Aprigliano
Jack Haefner
Alixandra Wilens
Michela Polek
Rose Sheppard
Shawna Zeisner
Brooke Sokoloski
Rachel Carlin
Kiera Bussiere
Olivia DeFiore
Rachel Carlin
Jenna Reda
Emily Nguyen
SPECIAL THANKS
Eric Brogger Craig Rustici Scott Harshbarger Denise DeGennaro Hofstra University English Department
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Oftentimes, we want to escape the outside world. Turn off the news, walk away from Twitter, escape all that depressing politics. But I have some bad news for you: everything, including this magazine, is political. This is not a social justice themed magazine – for that, you can turn to our other publication, Growl. But the thing about existing is that everything is politicized. We are increasingly finding that we cannot comfortably identify as we so choose without it being twisted and used against us. There is nothing about who we are that is not in defiance of the system. I present to you a magazine full of the works of young people who are constantly ridiculed, undermined, and shut down by larger systems made for and by privileged adults who scorn our voices. Most of what is in here is not activism, but a group of young people getting together in order to celebrate art, to uplift unique, personal stories, and demand of each other that we grow and learn as an act of defiance. Yeah, we are the “me” generation. We are celebrating ourselves. Why not? We all have amazing stories to tell. I enjoyed reading every submission we received this semester. The talent of my peers overwhelms me, but also uplifts me; I know there is a community around me that will help me be better, and build me up when I need it. I am so grateful for the Hofstra English Society family that we have fostered here, and I am so proud of all the work that we do each semester to create this publication. Thank you to everyone who submitted. Big thanks to everyone on staff. I only yell at you because I love you all so, so much. Sarah Robbins, Editor-in-Chief, Font
CONTENTS Dear Poetry Editors Twenty Freaks Dear Editors of Poetry Hey Most Esteemed Editors of Poetry Magazine The Climber A Caricature of Fear 1999 Toyota Camry Named Cammie Stress Road Trip #7 Linda 16B Exhiliration ENERGY FLOWS THROUGH A Postcard From Your Mother Metropolis Wheel There’s No Goodbye I Have Never Ever Been to Arizona Understanding Modern Art Whens in Kansas EARTH’S OFFICIAL HISTORY FINAL.DOCX Fish and Wildlife Maelstrom Supplementary Reading The Half-Eaten Bird Perro y Niño, Bogota, Colombia-2016 Wires, Wires Train Time Monday Sunrise The Littlest Prince
10 10 11 12 13 14 16 17 18 18 18 19 20 21 22 22 23 24 25 25 26 30 30 31 32 32 33 34 35 36
Nick Rizzuti Amelia Beckerman Nick Rizzuti Nick Rizzuti Peter Soucy Sharon Rus Sarah Robbins Sharon Rus Claire Helena Feasey Hannah Aronowitz Regina Volpe Robin Deering Luchi Bucci Amelia Beckerman Kat Anderson Alissa Anderson Hannah Matuszak Sarah Robbins Robin Deering Hannah Aronowitz Amelia Beckerman Nathaniel Lewis Alex Markle Sharon Rus Rose Sheppard Cem Gohkan Dana Aprigliano Erinn Slanina Kaitlyn Yonamine R. Elizabeth Frank
Hannah Aronowitz Sarah Robbins Claire Helena Feasey anonymous Claire Helena Feasey Tom Ferb Claire Helena Feasey Alex Markle Regina Volpe Amy Sena Giulia Baldini Hannah Aronowitz Hannah Dolan R. Elizabeth Frank Luchi Bucci R. Carlin JaLoni Amor Hannah Mastuzak Alissa Anderson R. Carlin Kathryn Burba Luchi Bucci Oluwafoyinsayemi R. Carlin Olivia DeFiore Nick Rizzuti
38 39 39 40 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 46 47 48 51 52 53 54 54 55 56 56 57 58 59 59
2% Don’t Compare Any Aspect of My Existence to Food Forgetful Time Jazzy The Flavor of the Day Response to a Real Overheard Conversation... Broken Irrational Fears Good Will Hunting With A Long Island Spin Scientific Thoughts Swing Maybe I Should Go Outside More Berlin, Again END OF SILENCE Dichotomy Questions for an Interview with White Male Novelists No One Ever Told Me I Could Write This Poem NY Metropolitan How to be Brave REFLECTION Christina: Melanin Madness, Darkskin Duchess Surrender Trapped Wooden Bridge
CONTENTS
DEAR POETRY EDITORS, Attached is a video of me juggling two racquetballs and a baseball, for consideration in the next issue of Poetry. I am not sure if three minutes of freeform juggling counts as a poem, (especially because I dropped the balls one or two times :( ) but I practiced very hard so I think it probably does. I am also not sure about the best way to put a video in a print magazine. Maybe you could do one frame on every page like a flipbook, maybe in the bottom corner instead of folios so that there is still room for all of the other good poems. I think that would be fun. Thansk have a good day!!!! Nick Rizzuti Dear Nick, Yes, we will publish your juggling pome. It was fun to watch and we liked it lots. Love, The Editors of Poetry Magazine.
“Twenty Freaks,� Amelia Beckerman 10 FONT MAGAZINE
DEAR EDITORS OF POETRY, I believe that in contemporary culture, Rap is a much more relevant, important, and useful medium of expression than traditionally published poetry, and that in many cases rappers are doing the work of Poets better and more effectively than poets are. However, my Rap Game is incredibly weak and writing weird prose poems and genre-hopping metapoetic pieces like this one seems to be all I can manage :( . Does this specific form of anxiety count as a poem? If so, do you want to publish it? Ok Goodbye, Nick Dear Nick, Unfortunately Science isn’t smart enough to let us publish an emotion in its pure and abstract state yet. Instead, the best way to publish a specific feeling is usually to try to write a poem or other work of literature that captures that feeling and then communicates it to readers in a way that makes them feel it for themselves. We could publish your cold, analytical description of that feeling as if it were a poem, but it probably will not have the same effect as it would if we could just publish the emotion in and of itself. Hope this helps,
Poerty Hi Poetry thanks for the advice. I think it would be best to just publish the description of the feeling so that people don’t get confused. Writing a poem with that level of emotional precision sounds hard! Also, it is not actually that nice of a feeling so I think it would be mean to trick people into experiencing it for themselves. Love, Nick
SPRING 2018 11
HEY MOST ESTEEMED EDITORS OF POETRY MAGAZINE Hey, Most Esteemed Editors of Poetry Magazine hows it going? Oh hey nick its going good. how about you? I am glad to hear that you are doing well. I am doing pretty good also. Hey, I recently got a pet snake, does that count as a poem? You mean the pet snake itself or the act of getting a pet snake? I don’t know, both I guess…I hadn’t really thought about it that way. Geez, you guys are smart, I like emailing you because I always learn a lot about poemtry! Thanks Nick, We like emailing you too :) I hope you enjoy being a snake parent. Thansk I will certainly try my best to provide a good home for my new pet snake (I guess that home will not be the pages of Poetry Magazine?) Unfortunately we do not currently have the technology to print a live snake Ok thanks anyways! Bye until next time, have a good day Bye!
12 FONT MAGAZINE
THE CLIMBER Peter Soucy
I am a tea bag post-squeeze, sitting in a mug of my own brown water. Not enough for a human sip, but enough to keep the chamomile and other dried flowers hydrated. A sack no wider or deeper than two fingers with my florally mush herded to the bottom, a sweet-smelling used diaper, folded and stapled at the top. A transparent stomach filled with essence, yawns, and dead things, my string dangles over the ceramic walls holding a white paper flag that reads, “Climb up O tiny man.� The tiny man takes hold of my string and scales the ceramic. He plants shoe after shoe vertically. His arms are mountain ranges quaking with muscle. His hands grab with all their bony might. He vaults the ledge and crashes safely onto me and my dead-wet flowers. He presses his face through his own reflection and slurps. He yawns and collapses back on my cold mush. In his sleep, he dreams of gingersnaps.
SPRING 2018 13
A CARICATURE OF FEAR Sharon Rus
Fear lives in the mossy house at the corner of 13th Street. Every window is plastered with newspapers. Sometimes, Fear opens up the doggy door and peers out into the street. If he sees a person or a car or a, god forbid, child, he slams it shut. He lives on a strict diet of bottled water and puffed rice. He used to have it with milk until he realized the truth about cows. He’s sent emails and emails to Trader Joe’s and Stop and Shop to stop sucking from the teat of capitalism. No one has responded. Fear’s full-time job is coding websites, but his part-time job and true passion is trolling internet forums. He likes to downvote every comment with the wrong form of ‘your’ or warn YouTubers about the inevitable destruction of society. His mother used to call every Friday, but one day she stopped. Fear would call her, but...what if no one answered? What would that mean? Fear loves these sorts of questions. The ones whose answers lead to more uncomfortable questions. He likes to sort and file them into drawers, bury the drawers under blankets, leave the blankets in the basement, and avoid walking past the door. The smell doesn’t bother him anymore. He stopped showering once he realized the truth about pipes. Fear used to cover up the stench with air freshener until he realized the chemicals were killing him.
14 FONT MAGAZINE
Now, he breathes only through his mouth. Without tap water, he’s had to make sacrifices. The plant wilted. The goldfish shriveled. The parakeet has stopped singing. Why, the only things Fear can’t kill are his dirty habits and the roaches. He doesn’t mind the roaches. They make for quiet company and, unlike his ex-girlfriend, only occasionally try to get into his bed. At least the bugs can’t speak… Although, sometimes at three in the morning, he hears them whispering. Fear has rigged all the clocks, so they skip three a.m., but he can feel the time. Three a.m. makes his skin crawl and itch and…no, those are just the roaches. One roach has crawled inside his alarm clock. How hasn’t it died yet? What has it been feeding on? Electricity? It scuttles back and forth over the neon green numbers. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and— Fear wants to throw away all the clocks, but he needs them too much. Otherwise he might eat puffed rice at five instead of six. Otherwise, he might forget his daily hour of self-loathing, reserved for twelve to one a.m. He’s working on a new theory these nights. It’s a beautiful piece of prose linking the rise of dairy to the fall of the American Dream. By three
a.m., always three, his skin itches, so he reads it aloud to the roaches, and they hiss their agreement. He’d print it out if he didn’t know the truth about printers. Instead, he forwards it to all three of his closest friends. His senator. His fifth-grade teacher. His mother. None of them respond.
getting inside. Fear throws out all the cereal. He’s sweating and screaming because now he knows the truth about puffed rice.
The roaches start to get more insistent. Louder. They hiss and bite his skin all night, and he wakes with scratches and gashes that ooze with blood. When the clock goes dark, skipping over 3 a.m., they tell him to unlock the door.
The door, they hiss, open the door.
What door?
The police find his corpse by the computer.
That’s ok, he reassures himself, there’s still the bottled water. He has three bottles. Three bottles. Three a.m.
The pile of letters grows. His water supply shrinks. His flesh starts to consume his flesh. He’d call people for help if he didn’t know the truth about people.
He yells that there are many doors in his home: upstairs and downstairs and Died of starvation, the coroner says leading outside. and then jokes, but the roaches were well fed! Which one? The basement door is locked, so they Stop stalling, they hiss, you know break it down. The stench is horrific. which door it is. The door. The door. Bottles and bottles of expired, curdled milk line the floor. There they find The alarm roach scuttles back and drawers covered with blankets. When forth. Without the glow of the numthey open them up, they uncover the bers, Fear can’t see it, but he can feel dismembered parts of what appears it deep, deep inside him. Deeper than to be an elderly woman. DNA tests his skin or the scratches. Deeper than would later confirm it to be his mothany itch. er—Love. He cuts his nails, but it doesn’t matter. The roaches start to live under his skin, even past the hours of three am. They scuttle behind the lenses of his eyes. Back and forth and back and forth and back and...
The poor old woman. His own mother, can you believe? That’s what comes of living alone, the neighbors will whisper to one another and tug their children closer when they walk by the house.
Four restless nights later, Fear realizes he’s starving. He goes to eat his puffed rice, but they’ve laid their eggs inside the boxes. That’s how they’ve been
Sometimes they glimpse a shadow. Sometimes they glimpse a roach. Sometimes, at three a.m., they swear they hear someone crying. SPRING 2018 15
1999 TOYOTA CAMRY NAMED CAMMIE Sarah Robbins
There are mice in the ignition (that’s how it ignites, there are wheels down there and they run and run and that’s what makes the big wheels run and that’s what makes my chariot move) One time I put the car in park before I had come to a full stop and it was terrifying Neither I nor the car knew quite what to do, and neither did the boy in the passenger seat but I was just dropping him off at work. he didn’t have his license. Mice in the ignition and there is rice in the engine because one time Cammie took a quick dip in a huge puddle on Ministerial and she did not significantly enjoy it, and there is a girl in my passenger seat listening to my dad’s old band and she says she’s going to play his music on her indie themed radio station and I’m not quite sure if we’re falling in love but it wasn’t out of the question. The rice is mixed with glitter and stardust and sand and my worst nightmares. and an appreciation for the seats not made of leather because then my thighs don’t stick but I wish they had been leather because fuck, did those seats stain. Cammie goes on the highway, Cammie can’t do above seventy or she shakes hard I don’t go on the highway, I’ve never driven on the highway, I’m just too scared of the highway, I’m scared of getting hit or lost or someone honking because I’m going too fast or not fast enough The mice are eating the rice but they’re avoiding the nightmares because they’re all nightmares about people I used to love yelling at me and I imagine those cannot taste good. When Cammie died, my boss saw me standing in a ditch on the side of Ministerial Road she pulled over and walked up. I said “I guess I haven’t made it very far” She said “No, You have not.” 16 FONT MAGAZINE
“Stress,” Sharon Rus
SPRING 2018 17
ROAD TRIP #7
Claire Helena Feasey
The heating in our minivan is broken, the sunroof doesn’t close, and there is snow filling the ashtray— our palms and knuckles are cracked. When we pull up to the coffee shop next to the drive-thru lingerie store, we’re in Hickory: a town coated in asphalt, smoke, and lace. We send postcards to the heavens while we park. My suede jacket is draped over your forearm and so am I, like crawling wisteria vines. We open the car doors and the smell of us evaporates, disappears, a read receipt, tossed into the waste bin. My intestines are searching for warmth in the cafe. We look at the menu, craving Eggos, but settling for eggs.
LINDA
Hannah Aronowitz Linda Buys Houses Fast! I’m proud of her
16B
Regina Volpe you see your future self on every airplane you ride. she wears a cat muumuu, averages 2.5 games of sudoku per hour, chews an entire pack of Dentyne Ice before takeoff, orders seltzer water, no ice, denies the pretzels with a wave of her hand. you rather ginger ale and savor the pretzels every time. it must come with age. 18 FONT MAGAZINE
EXHILARATION Robin Deering
I stood there with a façade of calm on my face. Inside I was frantically calculating the next step. One wrong move and it was all over. Each action had to be perfect. My eyes scanned the products in front of me, quickly evaluating each option. Too big and I’d be exposed, too small and it would be all for naught. Exhilaration pulsed through my body as I made the final plans. Within moments I began the execution, enacting the terrifying and longed for adrenalin of knowing I was past the point of no return. My body steady, I swiftly reached out my hand, fingers at the ready. Now to play the role of a lifetime. My mind toying with the notion of distress and pleasure intertwined together, I made my way out. Nearing the door, for a split second both emotions were shattered and replaced by a sharp sense of guilt. But it didn’t last. It was swiftly overcome by the possibility of triumph, of reaching true euphoria, of trumping everyone around me. As I reached for the door, I could do nothing but look forward. I knew I had done it. Stepping outside I began to break my relaxed exterior, revealing wicked gratification. Everything had gone perfectly. The aftermath of anxiety and exhilaration began to pour in, filling my body and lifting me higher. Slowly, as if savoring the remaining moments, I peeled each finger back to reveal the glistening yellow wrapper covering a freshly stolen pack of Fig Newtons.
SPRING 2018 19
“ENERGY FLOWS THROUGH,” Luchi Bucci
20 FONT MAGAZINE
A POSTCARD FROM YOUR MOTHER Amelia Beckerman
Dad and I will be back on Thursday. Please don’t forget to take Orange County out of the oven and don’t let your sister leave all the lights on over New York again, even if it means some of the neighbors know we aren’t home. Remember that the recycling goes out on Sunday night, which means if you’re getting this on Monday or Tuesday you’re already too late— and I know I asked you to water Disney World but make sure the hose gets turned off before the whole yard is flooded. Don’t forget I love you both except I don’t really trust either of you that much and I’ll be so disappointed if I come home and the house is a mess.
SPRING 2018 21
METROPOLIS Kat Anderson
Be like a city Always staying ahead of the game, Creating something better Awe-inspiring Dreamland You Are the capital city You are the lights in New York The food in New Orleans The party of Vegas You Are Incredible.
“Wheel,” Alissa Anderson 22 FONT MAGAZINE
THERE’S NO GOODBYE Hannah Matuszak
Light falls different here in this back yard, frosts grass blades and kisses the black dirt. The air tastes of sunset, 4:43 PM, southern Ohio. And the grass is just grass but in the honey-speckled shadows I read a choice: Stay here, sunset, 4:43 PM, southern Ohio. It will hurt but in a way familiar, old scabs on knees bruised by buckled sidewalk. Know intimately every crack in the wallpaper, every sweetly rotting thing under all that earth, name them, they’re yours. You can keep also the fields cupping the sky in wheat-gold hands. Sunset, 4:43 PM, southern Ohio. I close the back door and let all that light slip from my fingers.
SPRING 2018 23
I HAVE NEVER EVER BEEN TO ARIZONA Sarah Robbins
Welcome to Arizona, I assume that there are cacti here. and I assume we’re all aware that cacti are the thread holding star children together. (perhaps because they stick in your skin) Perhaps we are blood siblings, pricked unintentionally but banding together anyway Welcome to Arizona, it’s hot out here but there’s… sweet tea, I guess, and air conditioning in the Benny’s™ except there isn’t a Benny’s in Arizona, and there isn’t a Benny’s in Rhode Island either. I don’t remember what I’ve ever looked like before this very moment but honestly I don’t remember what I look like right now. I have a hard time looking in the mirror and understanding that that creature is me We are star children, but I don’t mean that we are made of star stuff, or that we’re special or that we’re going to be famous one day someday, I mean that we are stars. Light refracting through the earth’s atmosphere, giving the illusion of a twinkle.
24 FONT MAGAZINE
“Understanding Modern Art,” Robin Deering
WHENS IN KANSAS Hannah Aronowitz
When you forget to turn off your tractor and a cow steals it When your cow climbs over the fence When hay gets in your room When you forget to feed your chickens and they peck you to death
SPRING 2018 25
EARTH’S OFFICIAL HISTORY FINAL.DOCX Amelia Beckerman
“This is a very good opportunity and you’d be very stupid to turn it down,” Maria tells me over the phone. It is Thursday and we are all meant to board the ship on Monday. I don’t answer for a very long time. “And I was their first choice?” “Uh, yeah, something like that.” There’s a pause on her end. “Maybe not first, but that’s why it’s so last minute. They thought Stephen was going to do it. Left him a message and everything, but it turned out he boarded that first ship last month. No one realized until now on account of his living in the middle of nowhere and everything, so now they need someone who’s fast, and then they thought of you.” I pinch my forehead between my thumb and index finger and I don’t say anything. “Listen, this is your chance. Your big break. This is what gets left behind. If you don’t take it, someone else will. Dan. Or Joan. You could be big—the biggest thing left on Earth! You get to decide what the biggest thing on Earth was! And it’ll be our names on the cover—I can see it now. Maria Cristiano, agent to Earth’s official historian. If the print shops weren’t all shut down, I’d get business cards made.” I look around the kitchen. Susan has been in the process of packing and unpacking all our things. All of the cabinets are open and old report cards and tax forms are spread out on the table. “What do they want me to include?” 26 FONT MAGAZINE
There is a laugh on the other end. “That’s the best part! It’s all up to you! No pressure.” “Okay.” “Amazing! They’ll need it Monday, obviously, before boarding. Did you get that notice about the explosion? I can’t believe it. But after everything, I guess it’s for the best. And to think— the only thing left will be a direct result of my hard work! Kiss my ass Swanson, kiss my f—” “Okay Maria. I think I’d better go start now.” “You’re right! That’s why you’re the star. I’ll touch base tomorrow! Get writing! Don’t forget the acknowledgements—Maria Cristiano, my dearest friend and all around great person!” I hang up. I clear the papers from the kitchen table and retrieve my laptop from the bedroom. I open a word document and name it “Earth’s Official History.” I decide to skip dinosaurs and cavemen and all that because I don’t know that much about them and they don’t seem that important. At first, it seems very difficult to write about everything that has ever happened on Earth, but as soon as I am in the swing of things the words spill out of me. I decide to ignore Jesus because he is very controversial, and also, because I really want to be writing about the bubonic plague, which I did a project on in the sixth grade and know a lot about. For instance, some people drank bacon fat because they thought it was a cure for the plague. I make sure to put that in.
I am almost finished with pilgrims and the witch trials when Susan comes home. I tell the kids to wait in the living room and they ask if they can draw on the walls in there and I say okay. Susan sets her purse down on a chair and squints at me. “I have some exciting news.” She does not appear to believe me and instead begins pulling Ziploc bags full of Q-Tips and Band-Aids and Trail Mix out of her purse. “Carolyn says they’re still not sure what they’ll have for us up there.” “I said I have exciting news.” “And Katie’s already packed too many coloring books.” She picks up the stacks of papers I’d moved and starts to spread them back out on the table. I puff out my chest a little and uncross my legs. “They’ve asked me to write the official history of Earth.” My wife eyes me suspiciously. “You?” “Yes, so I will be very busy until Monday.” I expect anger but instead she tilts her head and looks at me the way she used to at book signings when I was first starting out. “So you’ll decide everything that people will read after us?” “Well, they say it’s unlikely that it will be people. At least, not for a very long time.” “But, say, in a very long time, we come back and that’s all that’ll be left? Whatever you write down?”
I consider this. “Yes.” She moves her purse off the seat next to me and sits down, laying her hands near my laptop. “Are you going to write about us?” I think about what I have written so far, about the Gladiator fights and people with boils drinking bacon fat and Mary Queen of Scots. “Uh, yeah. There’s a whole chapter just for you and the kids.” She breaks out in a toothy smile and pats my knee before standing up. “Better get to it then. Don’t want you saving that chapter for Sunday night.” Susan clears the papers up again and carries them into the living room, where I hear her compliment Noah on his drawing of a missile crashing into his school. On Saturday, we go to Susan’s parents’ house for dinner. Susan’s father opens the door belly first and ushers us into the dining room, where the full extent of Susan’s sisters and cousins and respective family members are waiting. “Look who it is,” Jerry, Margot’s proctologist husband slams his hand into my back as I sit down. “The big shot! The man in charge! Who would have thought, eh?” Susan’s mother, Cindy, carries in a ketchup-smothered meatloaf and lays it in the middle of the table. “Isn’t it great? I was telling Susie on the phone about how I can’t wait to read it.” My leg bounces too fast and Susan prods my foot with hers. “No one will, SPRING 2018 27
uh, actually read it. You know, not for thousands of years and by then whatever humans or humanoids or robots might not be able to understand English or the written word or have hands for that matter,” I say.
goes all the way from New Jersey to Oregon.
“Well I still think that’s very nice. It’s such an important job and they picked you out of everyone!” Cindy says, as she picks up the meatloaf and lets it fall, piece by piece, onto each plate with wet thuds.
She looks at me for a long moment. “Are you really going to write about us?”
Jerry nudges me in the ribs. “You can write whatever you want, eh? Say all kinds of stuff. You can give President Cuban three noses. You can give yourself a big shlong!” Cindy slaps Jerry’s meatloaf down with a little too much force and the ketchup splashes onto his shirt. “Is everyone almost done packing up?” her mouth says but her eyes say, “Why are they saving that bomb for Monday.” Margot narrows her eyes at her husband and he shrugs. “What? Nothing he wasn’t already thinking.” When we get home that night, Susan tucks the kids into bed and I sit at the kitchen table with my laptop. I have just finished writing about World War I and am struggling to recall the European history course I took in college. I write the sentence “A man named Hitler rose to power in Germany” and pause to consider it. I glance over my shoulder before replacing “Hitler” with “Jerry.” I smile to myself. Soon, I am writing about the allies and bombs and Normandy. When the soldiers come home from the war, I give them all free Porsches and big houses and a victory parade that 28 FONT MAGAZINE
Susan comes in and empties the rest of a box of merlot into a mug that says “I climbed Mt. Washington.”
“Of course.” “Do you think in three thousand years someone is going to come back to Earth and all they’re going to find is your book and they’re going to read about me and Katie and Noah and think ‘wow life sure was boring back then.’” “Maybe their lives will be even more boring.” “Maybe.” She leaves her mug of wine on the table. “If I drink anymore we’ll open our bags on Monday night and they’ll just be full of left shoes and Partridge Family records.” Once she’s gone, I finish her wine and crack my knuckles the way they do in movies. I write about the first time people went to space, which I think will be very interesting to think about in the future, but I skip the part where JFK goes to Dallas because I don’t really think he deserves all that, and instead I let him win the election in ‘64 too. Soon I’m writing so fast that my fingers can’t keep up and I stop using words like “a” and “the” and just use the important ones like “Dorito” and “hurricane.” I write like this through the night, only taking breaks to use the bathroom or help Susan decide between
things that stay and things that go. The next morning, Carolyn and her family come by to drop off small tubes of sunscreen. They will be in a different section of the ship and now is the time to say goodbye. I have never been close to Carolyn because she is always telling us not to let Katie and Noah eat Toaster Strudels or play in the creek behind the old UPS shipping center. Still, she pulls me into a tight hug and says, “I hope the writing’s going well. Some things need to be remembered.” She pauses for a moment. “Maybe not this end bit though. I’d rather forget all this.” My eyes are very droopy and her breasts are pushing against my stomach, and so I nod too fast and peel myself off her. Later, Susan sits with me as I write. The TV is on in the other room and I can hear Lester Holt’s voice. It must be pre-recorded because I think I saw Lester in the footage of people getting on the first ship. “I’m here with Mr. Kurt Sutton, who used to own a bodega right here in Chelsea,” two-week-old Lester says. “Kurt, how are you going to spend your last night on Earth?” There is a pause and I picture him holding out the microphone to the man. “I’m going to watch myself on TV.” Lester and the man both laugh.
parents and the bathtub in our first apartment. She asks me if I’m going to put this moment into the official history of the Earth, and I say yes. The next morning, I am carrying a clean stack of papers in one hand and pulling my suitcase with the other. When we get to the entrance gate, Maria is standing with a man in dark glasses. “Look who it is! My superstar!” She is beaming in a wrap dress and a fur stole. Maria ushers me out of line and the man leads us into a roped off section of the lawn. In the middle, guarded by three other men, there is steel gray box the size of a large pizza. They ask for my ID tag and I show them, and they open a small slit in the box. “In here, sir.” I slip in the stack of papers and then go back to join Susan and the kids in line. After the ship takes off, the pilot comes over the intercom and tells us to look out the window. There is a blue flash and the glass fogs up and I look over at Susan, who no one will remember, and she is crying.
I look at Susan and then my laptop. I open a blank document and name it “Earth’s Official History FINAL.” I save it onto the desktop and then I close my computer. Susan and I open a new box of wine and pour ourselves mug after mug. We talk about college and our grandSPRING 2018 29
FISH AND WILDLIFE Nathaniel Lewis
Flies land on the ‘gator A shotgun shell falls The water ripples Fatal alligator attacks are rare in Florida. The state records about seven biting attacks per year. When an alligator does kill someone, Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission agents search for the offending reptile in the body of water in which the attack occurred. The agency has an easier time finding the alligator if it has been tagged during a population survey. Once the animal is located, agents capture the alligator and execute it with a 12-gauge pump-action Remington Model 870 shotgun. The state is responsible for the sale of the meat, bones, and hide.
“Maelstrom,” Alex Markle 30 FONT MAGAZINE
SUPPLEMENTARY READING Sharon Rus
Mom has a personal library under the kitchen sink. She hides there the knowledge of how to smooth smoothies, how to cook meat pies, how to cook vegan meat pies, how to detox her liver, how to de-acidify her blood, how to eat according to her body type or astrological sign or style, or how to change her lifestyle so she lives like Gwyneth Paltrow. She’ll supplement her main diet with books she borrows from the public library. Those pages are filled with stories of women who overcome the weight of their childhood, shed pound on pound, and metamorphosize, into their “Best Self.” The self that can fit into Lululemon size three yoga pants. Then their problems are solved, children well behaved, husbands well shaved, coworkers impressed, that they’re now so slim and well dressed. But instead of making Mom de-stressed, as she plants organic food onto our plates, the thicker her library grows, the more chocolate Kisses she steals from the Halloween basket.
SPRING 2018 31
THE HALF-EATEN BIRD Rose Sheppard
The half-eaten bird wing is coming closer to my front door There’s no body Just a wing We aren’t sure what killed it Probably not a squirrel Maybe a student out of meal points It’s grisly, all blood and blue feathers It’s an omen, probably An unexpected visitor in the form of a feather Probably not doom Probably deserves a better resting place Than the sidewalk outside my building Or the nearby snow
“Perro y Niño Bogota, Colombia - 2016,” Cem Gohkan 32 FONT MAGAZINE
WIRES, WIRES
Dana Aprigliano Walking along the ground, they pinch at my skin I step heel to toe I know I can’t fall, but I don’t know just why I breathe shallowly The wires curve up through the soil and stab my feet The punctures bleed red-black, sickeningly sloppily My legs are getting stiff, the ground is turning to wet clay The soles of my feet stuck in, and I know I can’t get them out They have my brain and heart in their grasp now, they whisper to me I am silent, gagged as soon as they hit my mouth They curve out of my mouth now, closing my lips in a death spiral Clenching my jaw and taking all the air from out my nose Stuck and silent, I will never open my mouth and I will never move again I am a statue of chipping, fading marble, sewn to the soil by invisible wires that filter my air Made solid by distrust, by fear, by regret, and by distant, sudden gasping of feeling Seeing me, you’re scared stiff, but you can still run away, so you do. I don’t blame you at all; you know the wires, the wires would take you too.
SPRING 2018 33
TRAIN TIME
Erinn Slanina There’s this thing I like to call train time when you sit in the waiting area and twenty minutes can feel like two hours maybe it’s the constant moving or the fact that everyone has somewhere else to go but it’s odd you see train stations are like a pocket of space just outside the rest of the world where time doesn’t exist and the person sitting next to you could be going home or to work or running away and for a moment a minute, an hour, an eternity you are the same all just waiting for the clock to slow down again and for the train to pull in to take us to where we are meant to be
34 FONT MAGAZINE
MONDAY SUNRISE Kaitlyn Yonamine
A ghost whose presence is marked by the scent of cabernet, a pounding gavel, the roaring of Vietnam, holds in Catholic palms a blue angel with such beautiful hair, watches black boars wander the coconut rainforest, hears the ding of the elevator: My grandmother cleans teeth, laughs exuberantly, gets us free cookies from the grocery, and my grandfather falls asleep on Good Friday. I shiver at the scent of hospitals, pray my mother sleeps through the night though she wakes up a bittersweet balloon, five thousand miles of passionless knots in thick back and skull, each mole or freckle benign comfort. There is no need for snow boots on the sugar plantation. I am fourth up to bat, generations contained in the driveway of hopeless bingo while downstairs where the canary was murdered, the tangerine tree fort defends against revelations that blood, apple crumble, steamed carpets, and unmade beds do not ignore the seeds which recently have uprooted from their terracotta pots, bearing such kind weakness. My father says: There is no passion in water piping, only multiplication flashcards, phone calls to San Jose, foreign discourse, tofu soup, and silent understanding. With the door gapped, stabbed, and closed and fish floating so carelessly, dragging behind them trinkets of waste, tossing smog and painting dirt, I sing e hele me ka pu’olo, carry on scorched shoulders a cerulean mountain, pretend I am deaf and eat empathy for lunch on Tuesday. Resolve: I am that fabled reform, a storm in a lockbox, behind me red thread connects a constellation of nine stepping stones and I am the warmest I could ever be. SPRING 2018 35
THE LITTLEST PRINCE R. Elizabeth Frank
He hadn’t changed. He looks older, more worn for barely seventeen, but there is no difference from the nineyear-old’s hand she let go of in a mall parking lot to search for her car keys. The doctors all told her he would be different. He wasn’t the same little boy. He wasn’t hers anymore. He wouldn’t act like a nine-year-old. And he wouldn’t act like a seventeen-year-old either, for that matter.
corner for her to sit in. Hana dragged it as close to Toby’s bedside as she could get and gripped both of his hands like he was going to be taken from her again.
Hana hadn’t cared. She had said, “Yes.” She had said, “I understand.” She had said, “Can I see him now, please?”
He was weak, Hana knew that. He hadn’t seen the sun and his muscles hadn’t gotten nearly as much use as they needed. But Toby was different from other long-term trauma patients. He spoke and he understood and he learned. He wasn’t suffering from his past, he was moving forward and Hana was proud of him for that. That willpower, that inner strength. That hadn’t changed from his nine-year-old self.
He was supposed to be a different person. He had been beaten, raped, starved, burned, tortured. He was supposed to be different. There was something in his eyes the first time she saw him in the hospital. A fire, a pain. It was something torturously wonderful and exquisitely sad. She wanted to leave, she wanted to run out the door and run out of the hospital and get her car keys and drive away. She hadn’t thought about the possibility that he wouldn’t recognize her, or that he wouldn’t want to see her. What if he didn’t want to see her? But then he looked up at her, and said, “Mama?” in a voice so small and ragged that it broke Hana’s heart. And suddenly she was running to him, and holding him, and crying and kissing him and he was crying too, and she was saying, “Oh, Toby, oh baby my baby my baby.” The nurses raced to her and apologetically pulled her off of the hospital bed. One pushed a chair out of the 36 FONT MAGAZINE
“I’m here,” she told him. “You’re okay, Mama’s here.” Hana hadn’t been Mama in a very long time.
Sometimes he jumped when the door opened, but that was all. And of course, all of his doctors and nurses had to be women, or else he would become agitated. That was understandable though, considering what he’d been through. He started physical therapy considerably earlier than any of his doctors had initially thought he would. Hana watched as he grew stronger, strong enough to walk, strong enough to come home. He’s okay. He cries in the driveway the first time she brings him home. Hana helps him inside and starts to lead him up to his room. Halfway up the stairs, he realizes where they’re going. With a scream, he pulls himself out of her arms and
slides down the stairs with the same elegance he always had as a boy. Hana chases him around the house for ten minutes before he finally tires and she is able to catch up with him. She leads him to the couch, and he’s stumbling and crying and shouting, “I don’t want to go, please don’t make me go!” Hana sits him down on the couch. She rubs his shoulders, “Hush, hush baby. You’re okay. You don’t have to go, Toby. You don’t have to do anything, Toby. No one’s making you do anything.” Eventually, he calms enough for her to get him a blanket and a cookie. She puts the cookie in his hand first, and he nibbles on it while she tucks the blanket under his elbows and makes sure it covers his toes.
He sleeps on the couch again that night. And the night after that. And every night. Hana sleeps on the armchair near him, because she loves him. And because she wants to make it up to the nine-year-old boy she lost in the mall parking lot, the nine-year-old boy who was taken, her nine-year-old son whom she killed. This person sleeping on her couch isn’t her son. Her son is dead. No. No, no, no, that’s wrong, it’s all wrong. She lost him but now he’s found. He’s here. And nothing has changed. He’s the same boy she loved before, only now he screams in his sleep.
He sleeps on the couch that night. Hana sleeps in the armchair across from him. She doesn’t fall asleep until late, staying up to study the details of his face, his outline under the blanket, the way his chest rises and falls with each breath. When she wakes in the morning, he is still on the couch, exactly as he had been when she had fallen asleep except, no, his eyes were open and he was staring up at the ceiling. He eats when he’s given food and speaks when spoken to and attends counseling twice a week and goes outside for a short walk twice a day like PT recommends, but only if Hana reminds him. He offers no resistance. Most of his time he spends staring at the wall, or sometimes out the window. His lips move but no sound comes out. SPRING 2018 37
“2%,” Hannah Aronowitz
38 FONT MAGAZINE
DON’T COMPARE ANY ASPECT OF MY EXISTENCE TO FOOD Sarah Robbins
Once he wrote me a poem, and in this poem, he wrote about pizza, and one time he held me in one hand, and a slice of pizza in the other, and said: “I’ve got the two best things in the world in my hands, life can’t get better than this.” I do not like being compared to pizza.
FORGETFUL
Claire Helena Feasey When the gum wrappers line your coat pockets and my honeysuckle perfume clings to your skin, but my trainers aren’t in the closet anymore, you won’t notice I’ve taken my contacts and gone. We were the roof beams in a house we never built, the speaker that blew after a hurricane song, the forever stamps at the bottom of the drawer. We were just cold enough to keep snow on the ground. And sure, my debit card remains on the table, And my khakis are on the bedroom floor, But my hair ties don’t jog your memory. Powdered sugar has settled over my bones, violin strings have wrapped around my arms like vines, and I fade away like sitcom laughter. Slowly.
SPRING 2018 39
TIME
anonymous yesterday is today today is a mystery the future is the past that’s why they call it a gift tomorrow is h i s t o r y
“Jazzy,” Claire Helena Feasey 40 FONT MAGAZINE
THE FLAVOR OF THE DAY Tom Ferb
I’ve invented a new flavor of ice cream. I am confident you will find its taste entirely palatable and adequate. The primary ingredients are: alarm clocks, paying your rent, and being entirely oblivious to the fact that at any moment you could be crushed by a box of porcelain owls, plummeting from a cargo plane, ordered as a last-minute gift for Nana, 2-day shipping courtesy of Amazon Prime. The keynote flavors are: being too tired to stick to your New Year’s resolutions, and that squeaky sound your chair at the office makes, “you know the one”. On rainy days or days when the lady at Starbucks puts too much milk in your coffee, that incessant squeaking drives you mad. But not mad enough to switch chairs. We are highly reviewed by our patrons; one satisfied consumer reports “it’s like ordering chicken tenders, there are plenty of new things on the menu that you want to try…but you always err on the side of caution and go with the chicken tenders.” The name of my flavor is Rootin-Tootin-Routine. Try a sample—you may find yourself a regular customer.
SPRING 2018 41
RESPONSE TO A REAL OVERHEARD CONVERSATION ON THE G TRAIN Claire Helena Feasey
I hope you get stung in the face by a bee while you help your dad tear down the rotting swingset in the backyard, the one next to the barn and the boulders where the snakes whisper about your parents’ crumbling marriage. I hope the wasps swarm and I hope you’re allergic. I hope you get the largest splinter while climbing up the side of that barn to patch a leaky roof and your leaky ego, because the metal bucket under the hole is starting to overflow, and so is your poker face. I hope that splinter gets infected and I hope your eyes give you away. I hope the next time you get in your car while wasted, you have to pull onto the shoulder of the Lincoln Highway because your shitty Honda Civic just isn’t what she used to be. I hope the car realizes you’re a dirtbag and I hope you fall asleep. I hope the highway patrol officer sees that shitty Honda Civic and goes to check on you. I hope he knocks on the glass, you roll down your window, and he can smell your breath from outside. I hope he pulls you and your whiskey mouth out of the driver’s seat and I hope you get a little bruised. I hope you have to collect trash on the side of the road, and I know it’s only four days of community service, but you’ll still tell your friends that you were in the system. I hope you get punched in the face by someone who actually went to prison and I hope you go home and cry about it. I hope you fall in love and I hope she can’t help but walk away every time you open your mouth. I hope she’s smarter than that girl you left next to the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park. She sat down on a mushroom and told me that she knew you were looking for a good time, not a long time. But she stayed anyways. I hope the girl you love blocks you on Instagram, and I hope you create a new account just to see her face in your feed. I hope you live for another sixty years, and every day you look in the mirror and think, “I am the worst person I know.” I hope you twist your ankle while running away from yourself. If I were you, I’d run away too.
42 FONT MAGAZINE
“Broken,” Alex Markle
SPRING 2018 43
IRRATIONAL FEARS
Regina Volpe
If there’s a stairway to heaven, I think you get to hell via escalator flames spit at you while those thick black bristles bite at your ankles and you’re stuck on the right side because the left’s for passing and who wants to walk to hell am I right the “screams of the damned” are just uneasy coughs reverberating because of the unnecessarily high arched ceiling the mechanical chug down to hell is probably mundane no one wants to talk about the rotten egg smell or how sweat keeps forming on our brows or what brought us all here exactly or the differences between Milton and Dante’s interpretations and how neither include an automated staircase or if someone at the bottom could hit the emergency stop and leave us frozen in place I hope my shoelaces don’t get stuck at the end.
44 FONT MAGAZINE
GOOD WILL HUNTING WITH A LONG ISLAND SPIN Amy Sena
I was mad because you touched me and it hurt I guess I was mad because it hurt not because you touched me but you pouted for what felt like hours and we didn’t talk for even longer I didn’t feel like any of this was real and I started crying that’s when you just put your shoes on and you left. I stayed in bed the rest of the day and I watched Good Will Hunting I didn’t particularly like it but I was sad and I needed to think about something that wasn’t me and I was wondering if you would be coming back and then I remembered that you had spin and that’s why you left in such a hurry because we had a problem but you didn’t want to miss spin. I didn’t know when I’d be seeing you next, but you had spin you could be in Texas by the time the next semester starts, but you had spin and I’m leaving in a week, but you have spin and your mom thinks you’re getting fat, so you go to spin and I don’t see you again. Will Hunting sees a therapist because he doesn’t know what he wants in life you should see a therapist, maybe he’ll figure out what you want I don’t know what you want but I know that I want you maybe I’ll follow you to Texas and maybe you won’t want me there and maybe I’ll be stuck in Texas with someone who wants me to leave. Maybe I am Will Hunting who went to see about a boy and it didn’t work out. All I know is that because of you, I need therapy. SPRING 2018 45
SCIENTIFIC THOUGHTS Giulia Baldini
Love. is a process. You made me realize. how essential light is for a flower. to bloom. - photosynthesis
“Swing,” Hannah Aronowitz 46 FONT MAGAZINE
MAYBE I SHOULD GO OUTSIDE MORE Hannah Dolan
There were a measly six minutes of sunshine recorded the month of December in Moscow. The woman on NPR interviewed a Russian man who said that Those sparse seconds of sunlight were more of a spread of warmth on the back of your neck Than a visible change of weather. I understand that there were more than six minutes of sunshine recorded in New York. But I’m sure that for most of them I was inside, Staring at my crusty, yellow-painted walls, Unaware of the sky outside, All too aware of my own disposition, Believing that I could relate to those poor Russians Who cannot afford to believe that sunshine is anything more than a feeling.
SPRING 2018 47
BERLIN, AGAIN
R. Elizabeth Frank The doctors don’t know what’s wrong. Berlin has taken every test, some twice, some three times, but the only results are more confusion and a rapidly growing mountain of debt. The doctors have begun suspecting that he’s faking it, and the ones who haven’t tell him (gently) that maybe it’s time to stop with the MRIs and look for a therapist, or a psychiatrist, or a psychopharmacologist. Basically, there’s no physical indicator of the symptoms Berlin experiences. The migraines, the sharp pain in his gut and shoulder, the blinding light, the flashbacks that aren’t his memories or anyone else’s are all simply a product of Berlin’s overactive imagination, or perhaps a side effect of anxiety or bipolar disorder or something else the doctors can’t find in a scan. It’s time to either get a therapist or stop complaining. There’s no money left for a therapist. There’s barely enough money left to eat. It’s dark on the city streets when he steps out of the hospital. It’s 8 p.m.— or maybe 9? There’s a pain in his shoulder, but not his gut, and it’s more of an ache, anyway. Not the blinding agony that feels like a finger is slowly being pushed through his skin and into the muscle beneath his collarbone. That kind of pain leaves him shut up at home, muffling his yells in a pillow to not bother the neighbors. 8 p.m.—or maybe 9. The pain isn’t bad but it’s too much for Berlin to be able to sleep. Coffee. Definitely coffee. He needs to dispel the grime he feels in his mind. He tastes dirt in his mouth, feels the dried clumps between his teeth. He needs coffee, bad black coffee that will replace the imagined dirt taste with a real dirt taste. 48 FONT MAGAZINE
It takes him less than a minute to find nearby coffee shops on his phone, fingers acting on muscle memory. A shop still open and less than three blocks away pops up. Berlin makes a note of its address, slips his phone into his back pocket, and is on his way. A collection of bells on the door rings as Berlin pushes his way inside. The store is nearly empty, a few students and authors hanging around until they’re forced out. Berlin steps up to the counter, not bothering to look at the chalkboard menu overhead. He asks for most bitter coffee they have, and the woman behind the register shoots him an odd, slightly concerned look before accepting the collection of quarters, dimes, and nickels Berlin had to shake out of his wallet before entering the shop. He chooses a seat close to the other side of the counter, intending to sit and listen for his name to be called. Instead, he’s pulled into a daydream, staring at the cars and trucks passing by the window, hearing shouts and explosions instead of honks and squeaking wheels on tar. “Are you Berlin?” a voice asks, and Berlin sits up so quickly his chair almost tilts backward. It doesn’t, and he’s left staring at the man in front of him, maybe nineteen and with red curls spilling out from underneath a baseball cap. “Abraham,” he breathes, the word on his lips before he knows what he’s saying. Abe gives him a goofy half grin and sets a disposable to-go cup in front of Berlin.
“Yep,” the barista says, “Abe, short for Abraham. You got me. Like Abraham Lincoln.” For an instant, Berlin wants to say, “Who’s Abraham Lincoln?” before his eyes catch sight of the name tag pinned on the barista’s apron reading “ABE” in bold uppercase. The world comes crashing back around Berlin, and the lights are too bright and how did he forget Abraham Lincoln? “Sorry,” Berlin says, standing too quickly. He tries to leave, sidestepping around Abraham—Abe—and makes his way to the door. “Hey, hold on,” Abe calls, trotting after him. “You forgot your coffee.” Berlin looks at him, then takes the white cup in his hand. Without thinking—everything he does is without thinking—Berlin outstretches his other hand and sets two fingers on Abe’s nametag. Surprisingly, Abe doesn’t pull away, just watches Berlin’s face with raised eyebrows and a look of intrigue. Berlin’s fingers make their way off the nametag and onto the edge of Abe’s green apron. It doesn’t feel like the canvas blend aprons usually feel like; it feels like old, like a woolen jacket Abraham’s mother might have given him the day he left home, and suddenly Berlin can see Abraham sitting by the fire, telling him stories of life on the farm in Connecticut. Then, Berlin is back in a coffee shop in 2018, hand pressed up against a stranger’s apron. “I—I’m sorry,” Berlin says suddenly, turning away from him and practically running toward the door. He drops the coffee as he goes, hears the hollow
thump of the cardboard cup hitting the tile and the subsequent splash. The bells on the door ring behind him and Abraham shouts “Wait!” but it’s too late. Berlin is running, racing down the cracked sidewalk like he’s being chased by an enemy and not a friend, but Abraham isn’t a friend; he doesn’t know him at all. The pain in his gut is back, and the pain in his shoulder has worsened. He runs clutching his arm, half expecting blood to come spurting out of the imaginary wound. Eventually, he has to stop for breath, accidentally inhaling a hot mist pouring out of a sewage grate. Berlin is abruptly ripped out of his body, spiraling onto a battlefield where the stench of death hangs heavy in the air around him. There are bullets flying everywhere, and his heart is pounding so frantically he is worried it’s going to jump up into his throat and force its way out of his mouth. Abraham, where is his best friend? Where is anyone? He can’t tell who’s on what side anymore, he can’t tell what side he’s on anymore, he just wants to survive, he needs— “Don’t take another step,” a voice says, and Berlin is dragged back into the present—the future—the present. Something sharp presses into the back of his jacket. Gun. “Don’t take another step,” the voice says again, even though Berlin hasn’t moved. Berlin registers the shake in the voice, registers the fear. “Just . . . pass me your wallet and everything will be all right. Your wallet and your phone.” Berlin, idiot that he is, turns to face SPRING 2018 49
the man who wants to rob him. It’s a face that Berlin knows. It’s the face that Berlin sees in the last instant of every nightmare but cannot recall after waking. He recalls it now. He has no name for this man, but he knows him. He knows every inch of him. “I said don’t move!” the man says again, aiming the gun directly into Berlin’s face. Even his shaking hands won’t prevent an instant kill. The gun is a sleek, modern model. Berlin has seen this man again and again. Never with this gun. “Wallet and phone, man. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.” Berlin realizes he has not been responding. “No,” he says, the word rolling off his tongue. He wishes he would reach into his jacket pocket and pass over his phone, but his arms are heavy by his side. The man’s eyes widen. He wasn’t expecting a response like that. “Pass ‘em over, man,” he says, “Or I’m gonna have to shoot you.” The pain in Berlin’s gut and chest suddenly secedes. It feels like the finger has pulled out of him and the imaginary wound is healed. Maybe he has just healed. Before he can form another thought, the gun goes off. The bullet rips into the meat of Berlin’s shoulder, metal pellet tearing through flesh. The enemy soldier— the robber—looks in Berlin’s eyes, equal parts horrified and determined, and pulls the trigger again. Where is this man’s captain? A second bullet 50 FONT MAGAZINE
forces its way in the soft flesh of Berlin’s lower torso. “Sorry, sorry!” the man yelps, running off in the other direction, having gained nothing and lost two bullets. No more bullets penetrate Berlin’s skin, but he hears them, hears gunshots coming from all sides and feels the air whoosh as bullets narrowly miss him. He falls backwards into the field rubble—no, the sidewalk. Berlin stares upward, watching his fellow soldiers leap over him. He is distantly aware of the siren in the background. Looking up at the night sky, he wishes he could see the stars, he—he should be able to see the stars. Before he knows what he’s doing, he whispers, “Maybe this time I live,” almost as an afterthought, almost as a prayer, and then he’s laughing and crying and bleeding out on the city sidewalk and laughing and laughing and laughing and there are tears running down his face because he finally figured it out, he finally figured it all out. “Maybe this time I live,” he says again, this time to a paramedic pressing a synthetic pad into his torso. Maybe this time I find Abraham, and get a job, and die an old man. “Maybe this time I live,” he says. “Maybe this time I live.” He doesn’t.
“END OF SILENCE,” Luchi Bucci
SPRING 2018 51
DICHOTOMY R. Carlin
here the well rested and the restless stand elbow to elbow mingling golden tinged “glory day” children eternally living out their youth with the already dead the misused recluses succumbing to agoraphobic disuse mixing the carefree social Adonis with crippled speakers and burdensome preachers of cynicism and weary eyes pushing the generous the ever philanthropic toward those lesser beings that need their help urbanites and extroverts united against the deadly misanthropic foe i’ve got the “on the town” look quite down but i never leave my house i’ve got the white teeth grinding hard as my fingers into my palm when i force myself to be the savior the giver of alms the cantor of psalms with a vital grin to spare with life to share a laugh for all the external light never to be extinguished i am the fire that guides inspires i am what people follow
52 FONT MAGAZINE
but somewhere inside i’m the blood under my fingernails crescent shaped scars on my hands yellowing teeth drenched in caffeine skin pale as the white walls i plaster myself in unable to sleep let alone birth magnificent speech damp logs in a collective souring smog of uselessness restless as my twitching glare and under my knotted hair all i want is peace i don’t care much for these glory days i don’t think i will stay much longer in this place
QUESTIONS FOR AN INTERVIEW WITH WHITE MALE NOVELISTS JaLoni Amor
Why are the people in your books always so white and conventional? Why are the people in your books always cisgender and heterosexual? Why are the queer people in your books never people of color and the trans people never feminine? Why are the women in your books always ruining their lives for mediocre men who don’t give a shit about them? Why do you always write about sexual violence against women in a way that suggests it’s beautiful? Follow up: Is it because white men, the most violent demographic, enjoy fantasizing about raping women? Why are the few characters of color in your books always so damn boring and one-dimensional? Follow up: Is it because you perceive “diversity” and “inclusivity” as just a quota system? Why do the male protagonists in your books always feel so entitled to every single woman that they come in contact with? Why do the male protagonists in your books always get so mad when women don’t drop their panties because he was nice to them? Why are all of your disabled characters either the story’s antagonist or the victim of some tragedy that makes the reader cry? Why are the only bearable characters in any of your work always—literally always—the characters that die? Why do y’all write such shitty books? Why do we all then call them all classics? This isn’t really a question, but I wish white men would stop writing.
SPRING 2018 53
NO ONE EVER TOLD ME I COULD WRITE THIS POEM Hannah Mastuzak
for people like us love is the x on a treasure map only there are no landmarks or paths and the x might just be a coffee stain on the paper. because our love is the space inside a locked box: maybe nothing, maybe gold. everyone else was born with the key. we’re out on a road we wrote with our own pens and the street signs are all ghosts and my hand searches out yours with no directions, my hand clutches fingernail-deep; we don’t let go.
“NY,” Alissa Anderson
54 FONT MAGAZINE
METROPOLITAN R. Carlin
ambulance lights canvassed my car painted it in red blue spotlight as if i was part of an exhibit without my permission training their eyes on my car rudely and forcefully edging with sharp elbows to rap on the glass and startle the static sketches i squinted as you would in annoyance and tried to forget my poetic voice but the lights squinted back who is looking at who i was too afraid to ask i waited for its passing so that i could move on they’re just lights but they convey death and life they carry death and life and i will never know which or both it didn’t change my life it just made my eyes water a bit i smudged red and blue paint dripping to the street before the ambulance sped away and caught another forty cars very briefly in its museum of light
SPRING 2018 55
HOW TO BE BRAVE Kathryn Burba
Remember when you were little, how determined you were? The first time your bare toes felt the nip of the cold, the crunching of sand between your bare toes, the wind whipping your salty hair: you felt free. You waded out farther, your little legs pumping so hard you could feel the heat in the back of your ears; then you felt it. A small rumble at first, vibrating to your core till it grew into a towering monster. Its big ugly face met yours in a malicious cackle, smacking you down. You got back up with every wave that hit; when did that change? When did you stop being brave? To face the monstrous wave you need to take a deep breath, feeling the salty air fill your lungs as you let your body sink just below the surface of light. As you feel his rumble squeeze your eyes shut so you don’t get too scared, remember that bravery is felt not seen. Let him come, let him pass and just keep floating below the surface. Because bravery is letting him pass without getting caught in his wave.
“REFLECTION,” Luchi Bucci 56 FONT MAGAZINE
CHRISTINA: MELANIN MADNESS, DARKSKIN DUCHESS Oluwafoyinsayemi
Confidence is a commodity not sold to the black girl. To the Nigerian girl whose umber skin glistens with proof of the sun’s hugs, no Trophy Wife needed. Learning to love yourself leaves some in a bad place. People constantly pushing you down, then telling you you’re mad when you say you don’t want to be around yourself. When you admit that looking in a mirror reminds you that you’re the m in mnemonic: silent, important but forgotten. Broken and wondering how to fit the pieces back together so that each lash, each toe, each finger is like the butterflies found gracefully flying the skies: testaments to God’s love. God of creation, shaping you, making you with all your curves so that those who try to follow them will need a map not to get lost in you. No wonder you’re a follower of Christ, proud member of Jesus’s gang, learning to rise each time you fall. Some things can’t be bought. Some things must be homemade, like taking life’s lemons, adding water, sprinkling sugar, concocting lemonade so sweet that those who know no flavor will want to steal the recipe. They’ll scheme and they’ll duplicate but what they create will be nowhere near the original because you can’t compete where you don’t compare. Keep being you: realistically, beautifully, unapologetically. SPRING 2018 57
SURRENDER R. Carlin
glass squares in the night sky black trees and grey river streets there is ivy climbing over the barriers draping industry in nature and it's not long before it reaches for the cars too i hope it takes me
58 FONT MAGAZINE
“Trapped,” Olivia DeFiore
WOODEN BRIDGE Nick Rizzuti
You were a wooden bridge across a deep canyon, and I needed to get to the other side. I was unsure of my footing, filled with gut-terror and years of falling dreams. You were out there in the weather and it was wearing you down. If I put my weight on you, that might be the end.
SPRING 2018 59
60 FONT MAGAZINE
SPRING 2018 61
Disclaimer Font exclusively features the work of Hofstra University students. Each staff member reviewed and ranked submissions anonymously.
Font Literary and Arts Magazine. Volume 9, Spring 2018. Hofstra University. Copyright 2018 Font Literature and Art. All artwork and literature contained in this publication are copyright 2018 to their respective creators. The ideas and opinions expressed within belong to the respective authors and artists and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors, Hofstra University administrators, or the Hofstra community. Any similarities to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. None of the contents of this publication may be reprinted without the permission of the individual authors or artists. PRINTED IN USA
A PRODUCTION OF THE HOFSTRA ENGLISH SOCIETY