LITERARY AND ARTS MAGAZINE Volume 3 Spring 2015
LITERARY AND ARTS MAGAZINE Volume 3 Spring 2015 A Production of the Hofstra English Society
HOFSTRA ENGLISH SOCIETY 209 Mason Hall Hofstra University Hempstead, NY 11549 hofenglishsociety@gmail.com facebook.com/hofstraenglishsociety twitter.com/hofengsoc issuu.com/hofstraenglishsociety Cover art: Stalagmites (front) and Pipes (back) by Hayley Blomquist
STAFF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
MANAGING EDITOR
Melissa Rostek
Melanie Rainone
ART EDITOR
DESIGN EDITOR Alexis Willey
TEXT EDITOR
Lillian (Lilly) Smith
Gillie Houston
COPYEDITORS
Elly Weinstock Kirby Sandmeyer Alice Gunther Stephanie Kostopoulos
GENERAL STAFF Amy Butenhof Michael Cicchetti Brianna Ciniglio Alie Coolidge Toby Jaffe Emily Levine Batson Xiang Li Nick Rizzuti
SPECIAL THANKS
Eric Brogger Craig Rustici Scott Harshbarger Nicole Thomas Hofstra University English Department Hofstra Print Center
CONTENTS between, space Coin Toss Wow I Am Truly the Fox of You A New Perspective Voicemails X-Actor Blade Sephora Tall Tales Dolls Coastal Apples: A Reply Papa scolpito (sculpted pope) Before You Jump In... Blush Imperfection Haha and then what ;)—Modern Dating ... CJ Lover Remedy Surrealism Stradivarius A Rounded View Hangovers Scream Morning Coffee Snow, Wake My Mind I’m in Like with You
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Sultana Alam Victoria Snak Nick Rizzuti Evan Gardner Kayleigh Lobdell Lucia Regina Palazzo Melanie Rainone Julie Pate Amy Butenhof Alice Gunther Raymond Alexander Turco Maya N. Carter Kat Higgins Madeleine Carroll Alexis Willey Francesco DeLuca Jacqueline Hsu Eric Crocombe Elly Weinstock Dan Willis Emily J. DiLaura Mika Hawley-Bowes Emily J. DiLaura Jeremy Livi Michael Cicchetti Amy Butenhof
Toby Jaffe Melissa Rostek Victoria Steele Brendan Morrow Stephanie Kostopoulos Gillie Houston Kayla Garritano Victoria Cocolaras Eric Crocombe Eric Crocombe Anonymous Hebdah Uddin Ashanti Davis Ricky Michiels Ryan Douglass Williams Jared Charnov Mahalia Lerebours Dylan Cahir Batson Xiang Li Zachary Johnson Sultana Alam Kristen Washington Nick Rizzuti Rebecca Kollmer Aaron Burger Melissa Rostek
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Rainy Day This Is Not a Love Poem Three Years of Memories in Seven Haikus It Is With You Night Terror Ohio, 4 a.m. Stampede You’re Beautiful Dancers Far Away Fed Up Smile Look Up Vixen Burning Blurs A Kind of Hero Six Strangers in a Room Something Dumb About Glass Houses Inspiration Kissing Graves ىوقت (Taqwa) Snow Covered Tombstones Iceland Gondolier In What They Call “The Beginning” St. Peter’s
CONTENTS
BETWEEN, SPACE Sultana Alam you, a comma your presence, a question mark us, a period
COIN TOSS Victoria Snak Coincidences consist of coins, so maybe loose change can be my shiny chance since planned heartbeats, scheduled steps never seem to lead to you. I’ll toss pennies with my tongue instead, swallow those that landed heads to get ahead in a game that flips fate with one flick and smirks when we don’t understand. Then I’ll throw the rest into fountains, forget my wish and walk away because dreams are too tried, too tired and I might run into something if I stop looking.
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WOW I AM TRULY THE FOX OF YOU Nick Rizzuti foxes mate for life and usually when i am in need what i need is not some beautiful collection of nails and scissors or to be covered in plaster i am cold november becoming warmer for you and now you can wear your fox skin if you need to and i can listen to the sounds of the pigeons if i need to and we can move away from each other in circles and i am the incredibly violent wave of you against me let’s go into the middle of the country where it gets dark at night and get naked when it rains and touch the grass with us and we will have us and the sky and the earth will have us for all of time as dark foxes
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A New Perspective, Evan Gardner
VOICEMAILS Kayleigh Lobdell I am leaving a voicemail to the last person I will ever let love me. You, planet of music, rings and harmonies, everlasting notes and resounding melodies, you were not the first planet I swallowed up in my black hole heart. I am too big to give love. I am collapsing in on myself. I am all mass, all consume, all destroy. And you, little planet- you were too beautiful to resist. You sang of eternities in a way that a planet does- your forever was but a moment in my enormous existence, and yet, I believed that forever could be as perfect as you made your’s sound. I asked you to lean in closer, I wanted to feel your light, hear the music of your rings but I forget that I am destruction, I am the darkest part of the night, there is no explosion, not even collision- my black hole heart swallowed you before either of us remembered it could. To the last person I will ever let love me- I am sorry. You think I didn’t care about you, and I did. We were all tragedy, the loss of your love a blip in your forever, the loss of your love the final mark in my solitary eternity. I don’t know how to make you understand that I did love you. I don’t know how to make you understand I destroy what I love. 10
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X-ACTO BLADE SEPHORA Lucia Regina Palazzo Red ribbon on a satin cream shift before a 6th grade choral concert. My makeup artist mother taught me how to blend lipstick: burgundy, carmine, maroon— layered with painter’s precision over chapped, flaking skin. Guiding my nervous hand, she couldn’t have imagined that wine-stain shade someday colliding with your plum lips until our mouths mirrored the bruises darkening on your pale breasts. Red ribbon on a satin bra— now my knife slides down your thigh and again I am a painter, smearing rust and sweat and salt on a twitching, throbbing canvas. You guide my trembling hand with murmured assurances that you’re alright, and I’m alright— as right as we can be on this hard mattress, spiced rum sticky on the sheets and three hours before your train. I lacerate skin and then silence when you shriek, “It tickles!” as if that’s a reasonable reaction, and I’m a reasonable person— as if most people carve flesh instead of just kissing it. My hands are cherry, copper, scarlet— and steady when I place them over your lips.
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TALL TALES Melanie Rainone Very few people came into the bookstore sandwiched between the 24-hour convenience store and the hardware store. The bookstore had a worn brick façade with a large front window and faded green panes. Above the front door, which was the same faded green as the chipped windowpanes, hung a tavern-style sign that read “Books: New, Used, Rare.” Most passersby would look at the store, muse over its old world charm that was so out of place in the commercial area of town, and continue about their days. Some would be struck enough by its charm to pull open the heavy, wooden door and see what treasures lay inside. Unfortunately, there were not nearly as many of the latter as there were of the former, much to the chagrin of the store’s owner, Mr. Jack Saunders. “How can anyone choose a computer over one of these beauties?” he’d say incredulously, lifting a used, cloth-bound copy of Death of a Salesman from the shelf, cradling it gently like one might a fragile heirloom. His granddaughter, Claire, would sigh and agree, pushing her laptop farther out of sight beneath the counter to avoid fueling the inevitable lecture. It happened each time Mr. Saunders got a bill in the mail, or a customer would come in and not make it past the glossy bestsellers in the front quarter of the store, or when, God forbid, he would catch someone comparing the prices of his volumes to those on their e-reader. 12
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“It’s just not the same,” he would say, his large, thin hands shaking slightly, the only physical indication of how old Mr. Saunders truly was. Claire loved the store nearly as much as her grandfather, and the books within just as much, but she saw past the sentimentality of it all to what Jack Saunders could not, or would not, see. The store was tired. Perhaps in another place, an artistic corner of a major city, or a seaside town of tourists and retirees, the store could have continued to thrive as it had in its heyday. But here, in this small town that was little more than franchises, gyms, and upper-middle class housing developments each as mundane as the last, a gem like Saunders’ couldn’t survive. “You’re right, Grandpa,” Claire would say, walking the fine line between comforting and patronizing like a tight-rope walker, “they don’t know what they’re missing.” She took the Arthur Miller out of his hands, gave his arm a squeeze, and put the volume back on the shelf, noting how pretty its cloth binding really was. The store was Claire’s on Tuesdays. Mr. Saunders would take the C bus to visit an old friend that lived in the Cedar Knoll Community Home a town over. The two men would play cards, reminisce, and drink the beers that Mr. Saunders always managed to sneak past the young nurses. Meanwhile, Claire would sit at the front counter of the store and help any customers that happened to wander in.
Mostly, though, she would read. After a night of little sleep, Claire decided that today should be a re-read day. She tried to reach back into her archives of countless literature classes taken during college, trying to pick a then favorite that was worth a revisit. As she thought, her eyes were drawn to a worn copy of Wuthering Heights, tucked farther back than some of the other books to the point that it nearly disappeared into the space behind them. The cover was a blue-grey fabric with silver lettering. It was gems like these that her grandfather’s store had always been known for: beautiful copies of wellloved classics, or obscure reads on local history or animal life. She brought the book to her seat at the front of the store, settling in for a day that she already imagined having little to no interruptions. Claire opened the book, which clearly hadn’t been opened in years based on the distressed sound its binding made, and as she did, a worn, brittle-looking piece of paper fell from somewhere around page forty-five. Claire bent down to pick up the tiny sheet of paper, ready to throw it in the trash or maybe use it as a bookmark for the day, but paused when she realized it had delicate writing on it.
Dear Joseph, I hope this note finds you in good health, or as good as can be expected under the circumstances. I will be at our usual place, at the usual time, this coming Thursday. I hope to see you there,
but if I don’t I will understand. With all of my love and affection, Marie Claire looked the note over, turning it several times in case there was more that she had somehow missed, but she found nothing except a blank back with what appeared to be a small tea stain in the lower left corner. If the note is still here, Joseph must have never gotten it, she thought. She sadly pictured a woman, young and beautiful, standing beneath one of the flowering trees in the nearby parks that had once taken up most of the now commercial town. The edition of Wuthering Heights that Claire was still clutching had been printed in 1954, so Marie and Joseph could have fallen in love any time after that. Mr. Saunders had opened the store when he was a young man in 1956, so this could have been one of the original volumes from the store that had been pushed to the back of the shelf so many times that no one had paid it any mind. Claire found herself overcome with sadness, wondering what had ever become of the couple, and wondering why they had chosen her grandfather’s bookstore to send secret messages to one another. To take her mind off of it, Claire read. No customers came in and the inexplicable knot that had formed in her stomach after reading the note never subsided, so she read all day with little interruption. She had forgotten how beautiful the story was and found herSPRING 2015
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self more lost within its pages than when she had read it as a young college student what felt like ages ago. By the time she removed herself from the story, the sun had set over the little store that had, once again, remained empty. Claire put down the book and picked up the note one more time, running her fingers over the ink as if it would tell her what had happened to this girl who, in her mind, was the loveliest girl in the world. Claire thought of her grandfather, probably resting in his recliner in the home the two of them shared a few blocks from here, tired from a day of laughing with his old friend. Had he known Joseph and Marie? Claire pictured the two of them sitting at the cherry wood tables at the back of the store as her grandfather, then young and handsome, sat where Claire sat now, peeking around the shelves at the young couple as they hid from the world. She wished she could have been there just long enough to ask them who they were and why Marie had left the note in this particular book, and why Joseph had never returned for it. Claire pretended just for a moment that Joseph had found her in their usual spot, and that the two had lived a happily ever after together, but she knew better. Claire glanced out of the window of the store, her view of the street obstructed only by the worn green panes. For a moment, she saw a pair of figures in the middle of the street. The man and woman were beautiful, wearing simple 1950’s clothing and holding one another, close but not too close. They were dancing. They danced in front of Mr. Saunders’ store, paying no mind to the convenience store, or the vitamins and supplements store beside it, only seeing each other. He spun her, gently, their eyes never leaving each other’s. Both had small, sad smiles on their faces. Claire saw the pair fade away, blending into the bright colors of the burger joint across the street, until there was nothing where they had once stood but the reflections of the stars in the shallow puddles that still smattered the ground from an afternoon rain storm. Claire looked at the spot where she had sworn she had seen them and wondered if they had ever actually found each other. She looked around her, small dust particles illuminated by moonlight and neon signs. Maybe in another place, she thought. Some small corner of a big city, or a seaside town. Not here.
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DOLLS Julie Pate If we were wooden toys I’d be a bobblehead doll And you’d be Pinocchio Your nose keeps growing I keep nodding And our smiles are painted on
COASTAL Amy Butenhof If that hooded figure came for me now I think I might kiss every pale white finger like a friend or a lover come back at last to carry me with capable arms to a place void of heat and of cold, where my eyes are closed forever and we’re drifting, drifting, suspended in oceans. When we slip into the water from the windless coast the heat remains unchanged; the only difference between water and land is that now we float. SPRING 2015
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APPLES: A REPLY
(after Brian Steigletz) Alice Gunther Nothing stopped you, my son. It is not my way to lock things up. One thing I forbid you; one. If the beasts I gave you to name avoid the fruit, it is not because they are wiser than you, but only because they are brute— Routed along instincts they did not instill, tethered by chemicals to their intrinsic traits, they mate, but they cannot love; their ways are innate. To you and to Eve I give this gift--you may love. Therefore you may hate. No beast may embrace as you may embrace. Therefore you may rape. I am sorry to see you leave. At least you had the decency not to blame Eve. My son, the Promised Land is not guaranteed to any man who can hold a staff in his hand. I do not prevent you. I ask only: If you mislead my people, how can you lead them? The people I freed. I opened the sky to them, fed them manna from heaven, and you would lie to them. I am the God of the fission, splitter of rocks and slitter of seas. Because you take the credit for this division, that does not make you divine; it makes you a politician. If I let you go, the land you found would become an echo of Egypt. Yourself its Pharaoh. In time, another will lead you by the hand. Another, bleeding, will sign the deed for your land.
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My son, run for your life. I am sending someone back— Someone stronger than you, more resistant to flame to get the rest of them. Never mind His name. He will push them out of the path of the blaze, and in return, they will pull the roof over His head, will break Him and beat Him and maim Him until he is dead. They will roast Him on a spit. But they will live, if only on His remains. They are all I have to give. I will hold you again when all is done, my son, my son, my son. (Disclaimer: I don’t claim to know what He would have said. I wish they had asked.)
Papa scolpito (sculpted pope), Raymond Alexander Turco
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BEFORE YOU JUMP IN… Maya N. Carter Know that my love that comfortable type of love. That bakes you cookies and calls you dear before you ask for it My heart prepares hotel rooms without asking me; yours is the penthouse suite. Baby, we have found each other hungry, but we waited, had our fill on other things before we could remember what we had an appetite for. My love the type of love that sweeps the floor at 4am rather than kiss your cheek cause I’ve got a shaking inside of me but God. Do I wish I could hold steady enough to poem you further into these bones. My love, I love you sweet. I love you ripe peach bleeding juice down both our chins My love the type of love’s got secrets. Got 3am death wishes and and nowhere to put them but in your arms. Got an aversion to your arms. My love’s the type of love that can’t be touched but wants to be. My love is a contradiction. It’s a strong bite, teeth latching into us like dog with bone I’ll gnaw it raw and greet it like its new But my love’s the type of love can get old fast. Can crawl away mid-kiss just to be difficult. My love screams into a pillow instead of screaming at you My love knows you want my voice. My love is trying to give it. My love the type of love to try and tell you then bury it in your eyes, silent and starved, hoping your pupils are shovel enough to find my treasure. Sometimes, this love the type of love to hide in a cave and not invite you in. Sometimes this love is callous. Break plates. Looks around, won’t text back for weeks cause the air felt funny when you said hello. Says goodbye but means stay with me. Says get out, calls you a jaded motherfucker, but secretly wants to kiss Neruda’s most beautiful works down your spine.
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My love is nonsensical. My love is wanting to touch you. My love is wanting to touch you. My love is wanting touch. My love is wanting, My love is— This love the type of love to get scared on a first date. Spend half the meal staring out the window, talk too fast at dinner, hardly touch my salad… my love the type of love to get salad instead of fried chicken. Will make you fried chicken and collard greens with my grandmother’s recipe. Burns the chicken, and orders pizza instead. Tries agin next week. My love the type of love to go to confession just to tell the priest how beautiful you are when you’re chewing a pizza crust… Will eventually get comfortable wrapping her hair around you, But won’t wear a scarf around your friends, Will eventually wear a scarf around your friends Plays Call of Duty with your brothers. Beats them all. My love gets really competitive when playing taboo, Will turn you to dust, do not try to beat my love at board games…you will fall. My love is a soldier. My love is falling fast into you. My love is falling fast into you. My love is falling fast. My love is falling, My love is— This love the type of love to tell baby stories with a rueful grin. Cry while looking through your baby pictures cause you were so damn cute. Think about how cute you are and how cute our collective babies would be… This love the type of love to unironically call you “my baby daddy”… Remembers societal convention and shuts up. Bucks societal convention and screams from the rooftop. My love the type of love to talk to anyone and everyone in a darkened room, about the love she has yet to give away… My love is trying to practice pragmatism. My love is trying. My love is waiting. My love. My love. SPRING 2015
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BLUSH Kat Higgins In the beginning, I wasn’t sure how this was going to work. Falling in love had never been a favorite pastime of mine, but it was something he was well practiced in. He took my hand in front of strangers, held my face so gently up to his that when we kissed he made sure the whole room was looking. Everything was done to push me out of my comfort zone. Everything was for the sake of getting me to blush, to feel that red hot blood boil to the surface in a heat of emotions and hormones that I never really thought twice about. He laughed at me, and I at him. Loving him came as easy as counting to one. His star filled night sky followed my sunny morning in a brilliant twilight that made me appreciate the sound of his periodic silence. His kiss was smoother than the finest whiskey and it encouraged me to bite back. He walked through the garden of my mind and stuck around to see what I grew, because he saw a forest in me. My lover is not restricted by boundaries or borders; he thrives on pushing his limits but still fears his mother and recognizes the importance of Sunday dinner. He taught me that family, above all else, is what is most important in this world and it is not limited by language or blood. My lover encourages me to create, and shimmers with pride when I produce creativity through my fingertips. When we finally got together my best friend said, “You two are glowing.” And I replied, “That’s what it feels like.” Although there was a brief intermission between us at some point and our bones broke in a way that when we returned to each other the breaks were so jagged that we had to sand them out every night just to find where the other stood, I was an ocean of emotion when he was a safety deposit box full of feelings with a pad lock I didn’t have the combo to until I realized he had given me the key years ago. I want you to know that I am grateful for his presence, for all the ups and downs, my lover still remains that starlit night sky to me. Because my god there are times I look at him and fumble with my words because I’m still in awe. And after seven years I still blush.
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IMPERFECTION Madeleine Carroll Your life is not at stake. See how you inhale, exhale? Only mortality’s finger can flicker a light switch. Any other breathing moment is dim candlelight on which you must burn a part of your skin to kindle a flame that, to you, can’t be enough or even present because if it can’t be brighter, “By God,” you say, “Blow it out.” Your lips tease the flame with cautious breath: the smoke pencils a shaking, frantic flurry before disappearing. Though flustered and fluttering all its life, smoke can never outlive a flame. Your flaws are not public hangings or private interrogations beneath fluorescent bulbs, but are there, here, fine, under perfect sunlight, starlight; and when the candlelight is fainting, the earth rips through her soiled skin, handing you fragments of her wooden bones: Rub them together to spark a fire. Never wonder why a flame shines. Simply, universally, it shines because it shines, because it’s alive. SPRING 2015
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HAHA AND THEN WHAT ;)—MODERN DATING IN FIVE STANZAS Alexis Willey Hello flower spit or swallow? Tell me something arbitrary What’s your story? Do you like it? can I buy you a drink or 10? Nice smile Beer or wine? you got the same name as my cat You up? Dtf? Can you punch me in the face? How do you feel about avocados? How do you feel about eloping immediately? How do you feel about cum on your face?
CJ, Francesco DeLuca
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LOVER Jacqueline Hsu He was just a boy I barely knew, a lover between sheets, night, lights dimmed, seen in hues. In the morning, I wouldn’t want him to go, feeling his toned warmness under my fingertips. But we are strangers, and I get out of bed.
REMEDY Eric Crocombe Remedy this, my fragile self—
I’ve allowed you so far, so deep in my life, but it’s just a hollow pursuit— A whisper in wind, still silent and cold. Like a claw stretching out from vulturous soul, grabbing and gripping, yet nothing to hold. Trace it all over and pull it on back. Is it the same, have you left me intact? SPRING 2015
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SURREALISM Elly Weinstock it’s like any other day, the mailman comes but the envelopes are empty the woman across the street strolling her child’s carriage finds its cries were only whistling winds, look at the way the light bends through the trees to touch my face remember there have been whole years without being touched at all— I reach inside my chest to find the organs the ribs the blood and nothing there is only a letter saying maybe all of this was real in a dream a long time ago but this world is gone now, perhaps it was written to me, but I don’t trust that I exist unless I am an echo, I want to build from scratch but I can’t trust that my hands are really here and if they are, what have they done besides bury all the things someone else tried to resurrect?
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STRADIVARIUS Dan Willis The lacquer is faded where my hands rest. Greenish/bluish copper rust is mixed with the dull brass. The lacquer on the bell is faded too, despite no contact. (I’ve never known why) There’s a callus on the back of my finger where the trumpet rests. The more I play, the more it bruises. I needed a retainer in the fifth grade because I never played the trumpet correctly. I pushed the mouthpiece against the right side of my mouth and slowly slid my teeth out of alignment.
A Rounded View, Emily J. DiLaura SPRING 2015
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HANGOVERS Mika Hawley-Bowes I love hangovers. Not the pounding in my head or feeling like I’m going to throw up every time I convert my body from a horizontal to a vertical position, but the red tape they set up for me. They are a tangible representation of the boundaries I’m not willing to cross. I don’t hate myself, but every few days I just get bored of myself. I’m bored of my braces and my spindly limbs, and how I don’t own nearly enough oversized sweaters to satisfy my ideal aesthetic (think “party in a Brooklyn loft” and add converse), but that I can deal with. I can’t deal with how I’m just average and I can’t seem to motivate myself to be anything but average. But a glass of wine? A red solo cup full of whatever liquor the frat boys can’t stomach? After those, I’m electric. After those I do things that aren’t average, I feel things that aren’t average, I kiss boys who are probably average but feel anything but that when their mouths are on mine. Intoxicated Mika is exciting, she’s fun, she doesn’t care (a lot) about the number of knitted garments in her wardrobe, she’s… not me. She’s kissed four boys; I, none. She’s done things that I could only hope to do in my weirdest and wildest dreams, and she does them without hesitation. She’s drank straight from a bottle of rum and made a makeshift eyepatch out of paper towels just so that she could sing “yo ho! yo ho! a pirate’s life for me!” with the utmost accuracy. She’s—I’ve—jumped fences, danced silly dances and not cared who was watch26
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ing, ran around my unsuspecting rural neighborhood with fourth of July sparklers lit, screaming all the while, in the middle of October. I’m not scared to talk to new people, I’m not worried that we won’t have anything to talk about or that they’ll think my conversation is a waste of their time, which they could be spending talking to anybody else or pondering the philosophical ideals of the 17th century or something. I’m me, without the difficulties of being me. I wish that I could be her all of the time. I wish that I could take the easy way out and just always be drunk, hopefully the kind of drunk that carries around a leather canteen full of wine strapped on my body in creative and varying ways, but I know that’s unrealistic and naive. I’m reminded of that by the slurred words and clumsiness, the embarrassing moments that accompany me when I drink, but most of all the hangovers. The pain in my head, the lethargy, remind me which of Robert Frost’s metaphorical roads I need to travel by: the difficult one. The road with bumps and potholes, and counseling sessions and self-reflection, and hopefully a brighter end than the one littered with empty wine bottles. So that’s why I like hangovers. They keep me from taking the easy, albeit more expensive, what with the rising cost of alcohol, way out. They point me down the road that I should be going down anyway, but maybe wouldn’t have the power to if I didn’t hate headaches so much.
Scream, Emily J. DiLaura
MORNING COFFEE Jeremy Livi You are a cup of coffee. You make those that take you in shake and rattle and vibrate in caffeinated seizures. You try to mellow yourself with cream and sugar, but you are still bitter, and your darkness is never truly gone.You are dark and bitter; you are rich and full-bodied; You are robust and strong, because of the fire you have endured. SPRING 2015
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SNOW, WAKE MY MIND Michael Cicchetti Snow, wake my mind to the bitterness of winter, to the freezing of toes through drenched socks. Wake me from the constant worry and zealous nature of my surroundings. Pull the folds from my eyes like ripping tape, holding what bandages couldn’t. Cover these dead trees with weighted water, holding still as the frozen could freeze again. Snow, pull me out for the weight on my branches snapped and I no longer see the beauty in dead leaves fallen. How slothy the ones surrounding. How they struggle to hold up empty air and wind gusts, the slightest tipping snapping them in two. And with little endurance, I rake up what they leave behind for the season. Snow, slide away the way you slip down car windshields before the wipers kick you out. Melt like butter in the oven glazing dead birds and beasts before they fill another, stuffing and all. Make the roads your glaze and watch cars swerve and struggle to stay on course. Stick to fleece coats and red-cold noses and drip like sinus draining. Snow, make me sick. 28
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Snow, cover me from everything. Hide me away the way you hide the plastic unassembled Nativity set in the backyard that no one noticed. The plastic Frosty looks more like sleet-white tumors under a blanket of white ice. Tree bark soaks you up, bricks turn drenched sponges, asphalt turns black ice. Blizzards leave nothing untouched. You leave no surface safe. Snow, I’ve missed you, but that is not the case now. I used to dig igloos in you, now I speed over slush. The cold was fun, now I only wish it melted faster each year. Your flakes used to brush by, now they only pound down tougher than downpour rain. The ice was liberating, now it’s punishing. Snow, stop pushing. The shorter days are too much. Hours slip as you fall and soon it will not matter what time it is for it will be long and cold and it will cover everything, the way bedsheets just miss your toes.
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I’M IN LIKE WITH YOU Amy Butenhof I don’t want to shout my love from rooftops. I don’t want to wrap you up in warm blankets, hold you in my arms, and never let go. I don’t want to place my thumping heart in your out-stretched hands and let you care for it, let you cherish it, let you bounce it on the sidewalk like an egg you aim to crack. I don’t want to wake up every gentle Tuesday morning to your smile, or your thoughtful frown, or your tousled hair, or your steady breath. But I do want to say this: I like you. Let’s get coffee. I won’t say I’m drowning in your eyes and their hazy soft green, or that you’re my sun and I am just a pale blue dot revolving around your sphere of light. I won’t say I can’t sleep in the weight of your absence, or that you’re the thing I think about before I drift away. I won’t say I start trembling when I see you walk past; fingers, arms, lips, stomach, all the organs whose locations I forgot after passing my 7th grade science test. But I want to tell you this: I like you. Let’s get milkshakes. I don’t think you’re a half of my whole, don’t feel like you’re a segment of the clementine of me whose loss would make me imperfect. I don’t think you’re church bells, tantric mantras, Talmud verses, 30
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holy pilgrimage, and if I lose you, I will not fade away to nothing, gripping tight to something never meant to be mine. But here is what I do think: Though I cannot offer immortal love or sweet clichÊs, I really, really like you. Let’s go get drinks sometime.
RAINY DAY Toby Jaffe Drip Drip Drip on California Avenue Droplets of subtle insanity inane musings on the lampposts The head lights flash indicating nothing everything Hot chicken noodle soup on a rainy day Oh the troubles just melt, run, kicking and screaming away
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THIS IS NOT A LOVE POEM Melissa Rostek I’m not much of a romantic but I admit to sleepless nights spent fantasizing of finding the words that fit together the way our bodies did making sense of us in free verse of taking pen to paper to describe the way my skin feels long after you’ve let go of it of composing couplets that capture the bite in your laugh and the snarl in your smile of scrawling frustration and complication and incomprehensible emotion into similes and simple rhyme of scratching stanzas into your skin meter and metaphor maintaining every thought before it fades of turning the abstract and unspoken into typeset on a page turmoil taken down in Times New Roman— but I do not write love poems and I am not in love with you 32
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THREE YEARS OF MEMORIES IN SEVEN HAIKUS Victoria Steele we must say goodbye but I don’t mind because I got to say hello skyping you often infinite conversations my daily delight I count down the days to feel your kiss each morning and your arms’ embrace my darling, I love holding your hand in my hand pleasingly simple lazy mornings spent in bed bodies intertwined feeling your heartbeat our love is so great it reaches across oceans and connects the stars let’s fast forward time to a point when forever is within our reach
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IT IS WITH YOU Brendan Morrow Nobody wants you. You are not loved. You are alone, and you always will be. As you lie awake in bed, it is with you. It is watching. You hear it breathing but refuse to shift your eyes, in a staring contest with the ceiling and trying to imagine anything else.
Why do you even bother? It stands confidently right in the middle of the room, perfectly angled in your direction. Its breath gets louder. You look over, though it’s not like you aren’t used to what you’ll see. The both of you have been through this so many times it’s like a rehearsed dance. You wish you had a name for what you’re seeing so you could try to make sense of its existence in any way, some sort of cool demon name with an apostrophe in the middle that you read about in a dusty old book. Standing about six feet tall, the creature is one giant, hunched over mess of dark black fur, if that’s even fur at all. Your mind desperately tries to make out any sort of face in there, but all you can see is black. If this was one of those horror movies you like so much, it would have evil red eyes, sharp teeth, maybe a top hat or something to be ironic. But you can barely even make out a shape, and you’ve stopped trying to. You could call for your roommate, but he won’t see it. You know the drill. This is just for you, your own personal Neopet of hopelessness. You hear the screeching it’s planting inside your head and you know that you can’t fight it.
You are alone. She doesn’t love you. You don’t deserve happiness. Your brain is pulsing as it inches closer, its breath becoming somehow aggressive and directed. Tossing off the covers, you finally give in and look. If you could make out any eyes, you would imagine they’re staring right back. It knows you can’t fight it, the cocky bastard. You look down to see some sort of black goo spreading from where the creature stands, like ink out of a pen that has it out for you. The floor becomes perfectly covered in a layer of darkness, as if that’s how it was always supposed to look. It moves upward with a mind of its own and the desk, with all its bright colors and your stupid knickknacks, is washed away in an obsidian sea. The creature—is it a creature?—slowly and methodically climbs up onto your bed, jerking around like it’s stop motion animated and finally crouching there at the end. It leans in as if to mock you, staring straight ahead as the sheets change color and 34
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that vague charcoal sludge crawls up your legs. You close your eyes, but why? You know it’s a lost cause. You just have to ride this out.
She hates you. They all hate you. He’s dead and it’s your fault. The creature seems to crouch down, though you can’t really make out any sort of limbs, crawling up towards you like a baby. The screeching gets louder, and you can feel your brain firing out of control. It pulses away and your skull aches, as if trying to escape from the prison of your skin.
There’s no use fighting. Give in. You pry yourself away, as if you can do anything about what’s happening to you. It whips around and stares as you make your way for the door, the pulsing growing stronger and stronger. Out in the hallway, you’re surrounded by doors that once contained hope and mystery, but are now just reminders of the friends you’ve lost.
What’s behind door number nine? Someone else who hates you. Tally them up. You’re worthless. They’re right. It isn’t following you, but it doesn’t have to. The screeching has become all you can hear or have ever heard, and the blackness shoots out from behind as if from a canon. Why did you even come out here? There’s nowhere to go. You can’t escape your own brain. You burst into the stairwell and as you peer over the edge, letting yourself gracefully plunge down these 10 stories seems like the best idea in the universe. You collapse, resigning to stay on this cold, dirty floor forever. There’s no point. Give up. It crawls down the stairs towards you, and the movie of your life is beginning its slow fade out. You’re not going to go through the routine this time. You’ve had enough. Give in. Grabbing on to the bannister, you slowly ease yourself up. As you stare the creature right in the “face,” you reach into your pocket as you’ve done time and time again, pulling out the crumpled piece of looseleaf paper, your anchor to reality. With all its rips and tear stains, how is it even still whole? SPRING 2015
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You know what it says, but you read it anyway. You read it and read it, refusing to acknowledge a world that is anything other than these four words: “You are not alone.” Instantly, you’re back on that warm, inviting couch so many nights ago, the first season of a show that ran way too long. She held you and assured you it would all be okay, your hand cradled in hers. You are loved, she told you. You are important. As if this was always the plan, she passionately ripped out a piece of notebook paper and grabbed the first pen within arm’s length, writing down your daily reminder to keep with you always: “You are not alone.”
She lied. She hates you. He does too. They both hate you. You deserve to be alone. It approaches confidently, the endless, harsh sea of darkness welcoming you in. You stare and stare, and for a moment you can make out her warm smile embedded in that murky abyss. You clutch the paper like your papyrus shield. Read it again. You are not alone. The blackness around begins to subside, but the creature still stands and stares, refusing to move. In the movies, this is the part where the monster would crawl back into the night because of the power of love, surely to return for the sequel the following year, but the creature remains still. The screeching has stopped and the light is slowly returning, but how can you celebrate? It hasn’t even moved. As you stumble back towards your room, you look over your shoulder for one last glimpse, seeing nothing but the empty hallway. You crawl back into bed, but you know the drill. You look over and it’s still there, standing stubbornly in the center of the bedroom exactly where it was before. As if that would be enough. This isn’t a movie. There’s no magic spell, no “klaatu barada nikto” to banish the spirit. It is with you, and it always will be. But you can still live with it. You can still fight. Don’t give in. Don’t forget. You are loved. You matter. You are not alone.
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NIGHT TERROR Stephanie Kostopoulos I remember the night those red rockets flooded the sky and left smoky streams in their wake. I stood still—gazing, awestruck—until I realized I was hauntingly alone, searching for you. Maybe I was selfish for wishing you were there but how beautiful could destruction be, faced alone? I checked the abandoned supermarket and the empty park and even that hallowed house for a sign of you,
but only a fool would think that it all wasn’t gone, and that you weren’t gone with it. All that remained was that old floral couch. I decided to lay on it like you used to, hoping to find some resolve, hoping you would lay with me and laugh up at the sky. Instead I lay alone and watched in horror as the ceiling peeled back and the stars smeared like liquid glitter across the black sky. I prayed to the person behind it to make it stop and to bring you back. But it was no use. I just sank further into the dark.
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OHIO, 4 A.M. Gillie Houston In the back seat of a truck of a boy I just met, whose name I can’t remember, the air is breathless cold, windows cracked just slightly to fit our limp wrists, dangling half-smoked cigarettes into the matte black night, red tips a thumbprint spark on a backdrop of deep, dark wood. And when the stranger next to me asks to make a promise, I say okay. We lock pinkies, like pale reflections of our young ghosts and kiss closed fists. And it feels good to make promises, even the ones I know I can’t keep. I draw them in slowly, hold them in my lungs like sweet nicotine, And for just a moment everything feels— steady.
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STAMPEDE Kayla Garritano I refuse to comprehend the problems you placed upon all that was pure to me. All the sanctity inside of you overtaken by a vicious beast. The demons held hostage finally unleashed. A herd of piercing tusks stomping on innocent creatures trying to run away from an unexplained mystery. That magical feeling you once brought has now left me conflicted with no escape route. Nowhere to go, nowhere to run. It’s a path in the woods with two turns. Do I follow your footsteps and crawl behind the back of a soulless body? Or escape and soar towards freedom? I hear echoes in my ears. Words of reassurance. All to mend something that has never healed. SPRING 2015
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YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL (after Simon Armitage) Victoria Cocolaras
because of the way your mouth and eyes work together when you smile. I’m ugly because my left eye never stays fully open in pictures. You’re beautiful because the questions you ask don’t have answers. I’m ugly because I do the extra credit the day that it’s assigned. You’re beautiful because you gather meaning from The Catcher in the Rye. I’m ugly because I wore Holden Caulfield’s hat for trick-or-treating last Halloween.
Ugly is a handgun, Beauty lives in lore. Beauty is the tip of tongues, Ugly makes me sore. Ugly comes to fill my lungs as Beauty swims ashore. You’re beautiful because you go to baseball games and share popcorn every time. I’m ugly because I bought a Jeter jersey the last time the Yankees won the series. You’re beautiful because you place empty bottles on your windowsill for memory. I’m ugly because I traded my first doll for four dollars at a yard sale. You’re beautiful because your words assert themselves. I’m ugly because I exhale helium in social circles.
Ugly is a handgun, Beauty lives in lore. Beauty is the tip of tongues, Ugly makes me sore. Ugly comes to fill my lungs as Beauty swims ashore. You’re beautiful because you went to school twenty-five hundred miles away from home. I’m ugly because I ran into my high school music teacher at the pizzeria last week. You’re beautiful because your mother lives in Singapore and you visit her every summer. I’m ugly because I told my father I wouldn’t pay for his life support. 40
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You’re beautiful because you find substance in my words. I’m ugly because I find substance in my words.
Ugly is a handgun, Beauty lives in lore. Beauty is the tip of tongues, Ugly makes me sore. Ugly comes to fill my lungs as Beauty swims ashore.
Dancers (Cuba 2015), Eric Crocombe SPRING 2015
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Far Away (Cuba 2015), Eric Crocombe
FED UP Anonymous The words you speak are like virtues dripping in kerosene, jumping blindfolded off cliffs, wasting the privilege of existing. It is different to grasp a body’s soft flesh with the tips of caressing fingers, than to clutch its meat until blood runs down your shirt because you like the way it lingers. To swaddle sorrow with warm cotton rounds is not to shackle it with a bear trap made from used parts. The whispered hymns of open pores are different than the raps of a needle etching eulogies into limbs. When it comes down to specificity, there is a difference between you and me. 42
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SMILE Hebdah Uddin I like the way you smile It suggests warm summer afternoons with the crickets chirping under the tall grass and The tingling of a candy cane on that first trip up a wet, eager tongue and The smell of the seaweed piled up on the beach with shells tangled up in it like jewels in mermaid’s hair and Fairy floss and fancy chocolates and sitting with your feet up on expensive ottomans A Queen of Narnia newly knighted A child with a four-leaf clover in between chubby fingers There is nothing poetic about the shape of it It is uneven not bracketed at the ends but like all uneven, edged, unfinished things it is a foundation and a start I like the way you smile It gives me the feeling that I’ve been wandering the desert That I’ve been lost in a dusty, dank, unhappy novel That I’ve wandered the moors in the rain hem soaked and tattered and I’ve caught sight of a lantern or a rescue boat or a flag waving me back to a safe harbor Happiness Home
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LOOK UP Ashanti Davis If she were to catalogue herself—break herself down into a list of things, habits, objects, or trinkets or times or relationships—if she were to do this, she would start with the number of mouths she’s kissed. Five. All of them were large, round, except one: the white boy she’d given CPR to that one summer when she over-romanticized lifeguarding and quit the second time she recognized the look of release on a person’s face, hovering in the corner of the neighborhood pool. She’d move on from that to the two months after her fourteenth birthday when she thought she was trans; she was just a girl who did not like boys, but loved their jackets and jeans, their Battlefields, their basketball and tennis, their hair, their Jordans. She called everyone “Love” but only apathetically with her lip curled, and she made sure to be the last one to leave any room. She was two days away from being fifteen when she first thought, How am I going to tell my mom and sis I’m gay? Her sister got sick when she was sixteen and her sister was thirteen and her sister’s hair, the glorious cloud of curls on top of her head, disappeared in three weeks. She was the one hundred and twenty-seventh person, she counted, to walk across the stage erected in the middle of the football field in May, grab her high school diploma, and shake the principal’s sweat-damp hand. Her sister 44
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helped edit college essays even with six months to live. Fifty-one. The number of books that hide in her sister’s closet; she’s read thirteen and can’t enter her sister’s room to read another. The number of sexual partners she’s had—fifteen; the number of relationships she’s been in—seven; the number of times she’s thought of “marriage and forever after”—twenty-two; the number of times this thought has made her run—twenty-two; the number of days since she’s had someone to talk to—one thousand and ninety-five; the number of shoes she sold to pay rent—zero; the number of extra hours put in at the coffee shop she works at—thirty-six. Forty-six thousand dollars. The money she needs to buy that space down the block and have her own bookstore. Three people—she’d only ever told three people the words, “I love you.” Once, she lied. Twice, she did not believe herself. Nine. Approximate number of the times she’s stolen jewelry to sell at back of her high school and gotten away with it; eight: the number of months it took for her to get the fuck out of bed and find a damn job if she’s not getting a college diploma—Christ—after her sister was buried. And this one quote, her sister’s favorite from some retro-fantasy book, stuck and rolling around her head: “There
are gods and there are men. Pick into which category you fall.” Five. The number of friendships she destroyed because she wanted something to do. Four. The number of college acceptance letters she ignored. Three. The number of hands she ever held. Two. The number of cheeks she ever kissed. The number of times she’s said the words “I’m sorry,” or just looked up at the stars or city lights: one—one hundred thousand times; she’s lost count, but tells everyone, “Please, I can’t see through the smog.”
Vixen, Ricky Michiels SPRING 2015
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BURNING BLURS Ryan DouglassWilliams What a wonder are these wits! Drinking words out of the pages, catching phrases through the eons, ripping notions from the ages.
(Fogging up the window pane as I doctor up to drink. Pills unravel in my brain, powder sweeps across the sink.) We’re on par, we check the time. We keep the rhythm, we know the rhyme. We are millennial arcades punching buttons, getting paid.
(Snapping every safety pin, twirling wind around my hands, bodies press into my skin, toxins rush into my glands.) Lessons rap upon my skull. All the colors keep me sane. Neuron fractures, knuckle sprains, numbers seeping from of my veins.
(Blood is battered by the beat, spinning tops along the curb, throwing lightning in the street, shifting into burning blurs.) Sipping, screwing, make it stop. When I’m rich, I will be free. I could scramble to the top. I’d never settle for a B.
(Jumping over neon walls, I will fly before I fall. Tracing patterns in a stall, I swear to God I’ve seen it all.) 46
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A KIND OF HERO Jared Charnov What kind of hero do you want me to be? Because I’m not too sure myself What kind of hero I should become So I can save you Shall I become one with the Earth? Have her whisper me her secrets To gain knowledge of the universe and beyond To use my wisdom and intellect as my sword and shield? Or is that not enough? Shall I be defined by what I desire? Have my dreams spread across the world Have time judge all And fight till the sun goes up Or is that not enough? Shall I become faster than the wind? More gentle than a forest More brilliant than a raging flame Higher than the tallest mountain Or is that not enough? Shall I consume the forbidden fruit? And possess untold power and strength To conquer everything in my path Striking down all who oppose me Or is that not enough? Shall I make you count up your sins? See the weight of your greed? Will I become your last hope? Shall I make the world my stage? No, it is never enough. So I will become a hero for myself Riding down the road of solitude Fighting for freedom and justice The fluttering of a crimson scarf in the air For that is enough for me SPRING 2015
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SIX STRANGERS IN A ROOM Mahalia Lerebours There were six people in a room: A widow with the scars of life plastered on her face. She mumbled words of distinct nostalgia. A blurry photo aged with time. No longer a memory but a faded dream of a life she did not live. Her somber eyes spoke of fiery passions wasted in youth and drowned in poison. A man whose face was seized by the smoke birthed from his cigar. The lit cigar threatened his anonymity with its hot scarlet glow. He said nothing, but said everything in his deliberate silence. No one knew the man or saw the man, like an apparition of a lost soul. A naive mother who cradled her swollen belly. She was the sun and the stars, brighter than Apollo himself. The daughter of Astraeus. She impregnated the dark sky, her blinding rays reaching past the horizon. She was the death of dusk and the birth of dawn. But her light revealed the Earth’s corruption that once lived in blackened night. 48
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A young man and his partly shadowed face like the vexed moon in its quarter phases. The shadows of his convictions, blended into the dark corners of the room. He was a sweet lover, mad with lust. is hands molded from the curves of a woman. Reading poetry and drinking fine wine, he was drunken with loneliness, wherever the sun couldn’t reach. A child with dull gray eyes and lips plump with youth. She had toys scattered around her that she did not play with. She did not say a word, but instead, whimpered like a wounded dog, with the bruises on her knees covered by her white tights. She combed her porcelain doll’s hair, clinging at its golden strands, staring at nothing but the ghost of her father. And then there was me, hidden in the deep paradoxes of my mind, suddenly deafened by the blaring silence, a flag of defeat worn around my neck. The wounds of our yesterdays cut deep on my wrists. I looked up and they were all glaring at me. Five estranged strangers. Five cracked mirrors with the same dreary stare of my own reflection. We had all lost something. Something that couldn’t be found, that couldn’t be returned, and that couldn’t be loved anymore.
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SOMETHING DUMB ABOUT GLASS HOUSES Dylan Cahir But I’m not that strong. I’ll take all these compliments—some of them true, some of them empty—and I’ll layer them onto my armor like papier-mâché. That’s why I study politics: so I can be like the United States and expend too many resources on my defenses and not pay attention to what really counts. I’ll erect a fortress around my core (I don’t have a heart anymore). Every time I fall to pieces, I’ll build a new wall out of the resulting pile of bricks. The mortar will be the lies I tell myself to pull myself back together. But I’ll be sure to go back afterwards with my touch-up brush and make it look more welcoming. Because I want to be unbreakable but not alone. I’ll drape the brick bulwarks with smiles and play a laugh track from speakers on the battlements. I’ll even construct a lavish antechamber to receive guests in. There, I’ll be perfect for those who want me to be. It’ll be richly decorated: a smoldering fireplace with a rocker next to it, thick carpets to make sounds less harsh, and maybe even a chandelier because why not. It’ll be the perfect place to show people how fine I am. How I have all my shit together. Oops, I mean, how I have all my ducks in a row. I guess I’ll have a second room to show people who push or pry. It’ll still be candlelit and warm but maybe the chairs won’t rock. I’ll include some convincing chips in the paint. Something a little more realistic. Because I know I won’t convince everyone I’m perfect. If it goes according to plan, though, no one will ever see my bunker. I’ll be safe there. Because even I will spend most of my time in the sun on the porch, waiting to show my friends my perfect, plastic self.
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INSPIRATION Batson Xiang Li She peeks down the endless abyss. Startled, she quickly steps back. Horseshoes beat on the earth heavily like a drum and keep getting louder. She sits down to observe the mountains. Then she bites down on her lips and she looks down the cliff again. A platoon of riders appears from the woods behind her. She rises and turns to the riders as their commander pulls the horse. Her warm eyes defy the ice in his. Her soft white gown against his hard black armor. Men rush to her upon the order but she opens her arms to the mountains and lifts her face to the sun. For her last embrace with Mother Nature, she leans forward gently and royally. The sun lightens her path as she descends like a piece of feather drowning to the bottom of the sea. A few hundred years after the riders leave in despair, atop the same cliff stands the statue of a princess. Artists and poets climb miles high just to visit her. While up there, they draw paintings and write poetry about her.
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KISSING GRAVES Zachary Johnson You are unequaled. Radiant in measure, captured in conviction, woven delicately from hand to foot, strand to stem, knee to chest, heart to heart, lips to lips. I want to trace lines across crafted smooth hills and plains feel the warmth of basking rock stick my toes in the sand and feel the cool breeze caressing your skin. Out of me you make mountains and valleys and rivers. Caressed in touch and gaze and heat and light standing hand to hand, strand to strand, chest to chest, heart to heart, lips to lips. I want to lie among the light of a hundred dying stars tendrils of flame and dust surrounding, prodding, pulling, discovering feeling lost in something bigger than myself kissing your lips. Though you wonder if they would say we have sinned against them, I wonder if they would say we have sinned against ourselves. But I tell you, they wonder if they have sinned against us. 52
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You are unequaled. Chasing concepts running in circles avoiding conflict never really getting to the point. Wishing, dreaming to stand hand to hand, heart to heart, chest to chest, house to train, hello to goodbye. I want to find a light that won’t go out bonds of ebb and flow changing, dancing, and crystal-still. But you keep making mountains and I keep kissing graves.
ىوقت (TAQWA) Sultana Alam We, human. We, vulnerable. Two hundred and six bones, one hundred trillion cells, and infinite wishes wrapped inside every puff of air you breathe. There is a stillness in the way she moves her lips and fingers, counting incantations to beg a universe beyond her control, praying, praying, you are alright.
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SNOW COVERED TOMBSTONES Kristen Washington Snow covered tombstones of those not quiet Six feet under Watching just to know they aren’t quite yet Dead, Smiling and laughing at the hollow reflection in the mirror Coughing up tears in the wake of their sheets, Slipping in to inter the matter, Remembering the cortege of others that lined these hallowed palls, Speaking his eulogy A foreshadow to her epitaph, She sent her repose in lilted words Wilted souls shake heavily in the mortuary of his bed, Kissing the scythe’s tender blade, He exhumed her once more as if he forgot his grave secret His niche for her too deep, Thinking she cannot take it, He hides her behind coffin walls Deep in stalls of dirt and rock, slowly watching her putrefaction with the sick grin of a reaper Knowing that no matter where she may run to he will always get to keep her, Leaving her friends bereaved, Keeping her pain inside, He lowers her in the ground once more laughing at how she died. 54
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ICELAND Nick Rizzuti You are made of the graceful animals of beautiful rivers. Look at how we are shaped like a swan together. A hundred Vikings build a boat of us and sail to Iceland. The Vikings are pillaging and I love you. The Vikings are killing and I love you. Villages are burning and I love you. The sky is red and beautiful and the dark smoke of the sky now is ascending and we are facing the other direction. We are using the Vikings to row us home to a small island where we are made slowly into mulch by water and insects so that plants can grow.
Gondolier, Rebecca Kollmer SPRING 2015
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IN WHAT THEY CALL “THE BEGINNING” Aaron Burger
It was Tuesday night in one of those poorly-lit recesses of space outside of space, where those of everlasting grace and glory go to spend their everlasting lives doing God knows what. God did not, in fact, know, and at this time between time he was ogling the gyrating movements of Ninlil from across the cosmic haze that was the dancefloor. Death observed this interaction, and wondered if God was getting in over his head. Putting this aside, Death swiveled around and scanned the crowd of jostling shoulders. Tonight, all of the fan-favorites were on the guest list. Dionysus and his posse of satyrs were running the bar, prancing back and forth between divine patrons at a speed that might not exist at all. Why a club, or any business, would exist (or not) in such a realm might be a matter of contention. Whether it was actually a club is irrelevant; it could just as well have been a beach or a penthouse. To the present patrons and proprietors, it simply was. God was seated on a divan at the far end of the room, opposite the dancefloor. Adjacent to him sat Vishnu, and occasionally the two would turn and murmur to one another with mischievous glee. Death was willing to wager that their conversation was lacking in celestial dignity. Lurking behind them with a crew of unsavory-looking elves was Loki, and on the wall to his right Bast and Thoth were playing pong against Thor and Sif. The game had been going for, well, ever, but each play sent the ball hurtling in an interdimensional ellipse, with gusto. As Death continued to monitor the crowd, it occurred to him (or your preferred pronoun) for a brief moment (one so deathless that it ceased before it had even formed) that attendance on this night was far more diverse than usual. Cliques and pantheons mingled in a perpetual orbit. The air (or whatever it was that filled the space of space outside of space) bubbled with something transcendent. Death could feel it, but, like the other deities of Aztec, Slavic, Semitic, and countless other origins, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, so he forgot about it. But they all came together in that space outside of space, with more time than time, and they did just what they always did with eternity: got really, really hammered. The plane was “going up,” as it were. After a few martinis (of which the bottoms were likely absent), some gossiping with Osiris and Ereshkigal, and a spat with Hades, Death was starting to get into the swing of things. The rolling bass drifted through the astral sea of bodies. The energy in the room began to spark, the fabric of the domain rippled with anticipation, and Aditi started to heave. Whether it was due to the bottomless drinks or the stench of ethereal sweat, no 56
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one can say, but that hole in space outside of space was, for a microsecond, radiant beneath a glowing, arching fractal of vomit. Death stood, transfixed, and in a frame of anti-time so immeasurably small that it froze in a fresco of pristine frost, he saw something. Deep within the spiraling globules of regurgitated ambrosia, matter plunged into nothingness. It collided and coalesced, and, after eons of flashing galaxies, Death looked down upon a simple planet. Amidst the trivialities of his daily life, he saw himself standing against a bar, where a similar crowd jostled to similarly trendy club hits. A harrowing crackle crept up Death’s spine, like at the last moment remembering to plug into a charger. Whatever the dimension in which he stood at that time, Death knew it was not first, nor was it last, halfway, or anyway determinable. He had existed for so long without a concern for his life (or lack thereof), but now he knew that inwards and outwards, and in all directions and nondirections, he was watching himself. Naturally, Death’s concern was as fleeting as all things immortal and ephemeral, and he tossed it aside with a shrug and got back to the party. Gods got wild, things were fun, and anything left behind at the end of that never-ending night was in disarray. The patch of slime spattered across the floor continued to churn within itself, in its own space and time. Forgotten, the realm soon dissipated, but the space of space beyond space, in a time inside time without time, long remained.
St. Peter’s, Melissa Rostek SPRING 2015
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Disclaimer Font exclusively features the work of Hofstra University students. No personal preferences were taken into account in the selection of material for publication in this magazine. Each staff member reviewed and ranked submissions individually using a scale system of one to five (1-5). Submissions with the highest average group rating were chosen as space allowed.
Font Literary and Arts Magazine. Volume 3, Spring 2015. Hofstra University. Copyright 2015 Font Literature and Art. All artwork and literature contained in this publication are copyright 2015 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