Font Literary and Arts Magazine Spring 2022

LITERARY AND ARTS MAGAZINE Volume 18 Spring 2022

CONTENT WARNING: Some pieces featured in Font involve themes that may be upsetting or triggering in nature to certain audiences.

HOFSTRA ENGLISH SOCIETY 203 Student Center Hofstra University Hempstead, NY 11549 hofenglishsociety@gmail.com facebook.com/hofenglishsociety twitter.com/hofengsoc instagram.com/hofenglishsociety issuu.com/hofenglishsociety Front cover art: “Transplant Brings Life,” Sabrina Blandon

STAFF EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Jocelyn Disselkoen Ally Herrington MANAGING EDITOR Kaitlyn Kinnard

DESIGN EDITOR Daniela Wydler

HEAD COPY EDITOR Dickinson-Frevola ASSOCIATE DESIGN EDITOR Lex Besecker COPY EDITORS Andrew Cardell Marissa Feiler Julianna Grossman Josie Racette Roddyna B. Saint-Paul GENERAL STAFF Debbie Aspromonti Donovan Ellis Lauren Ballinger Morgan Johanson Sabrina Blandon Aissatou Ndiour Ian Covel Marlena Titus Madison Donnelly SPECIAL THANKS Erik Brogger Stan Cherian Karyn Valerius Hofstra University English Department

CHIEF EDITORS’ LETTERS Dear Reader, Spring is, literally and figuratively, a season of beginnings. But it’s also the end of a long winter. It’s fitting, then, that this issue marks the end of my first year as co-editor-in-chief of Font. I’m not complaining, here—my year with this magazine has been wonderful—but it’s also been a lot of work. This year I’ve forged new friendships, built new skills, made new and exciting mistakes, and learned by doing; it’s left me as ready for a rest as I am excited to do it all over again, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. So I’d like to dedicate this issue to endings, and to beginnings. If this is your first issue of Font, as either a reader or contributor, I want to thank you for beginning your journey with us. If this is your last semester with Font, I want to specially thank you for helping to make this magazine the beautiful thing that it is. And if it isn’t either, then I want to toast you to a year well done, and to a bright and restful summer before we get ready for the winter once more.

There are more people to thank: the entire staff of Font has put in a lot of work to make this issue happen, and a lot of very talented artists have given us the permission to show you their wonderful work. There are also, of course, a lot of lovely readers (hello there!) giving us a chance to show them the fantastic talent of the Hofstra student body. But I’m sure you’re eager to jump into the fantastic poetry, prose, and art we’ve promised you, so I’ll keep it short. I hope that you’ll enjoy your time with this issue of Font, I hope that those of you who feel inspired to pitch in or create after reading this will consider getting involved with the magazine next year, and I hope you all have a great break before next fall. I’m sure we’ve all earned it.

Jocelyn Disselkoen, Font Editor-In-Chief

Dear Reader, First and foremost, I would like to extend my gratitude to our readers and members of the Hofstra English Society. You all are the reason this magazine exists, and I know I can speak for everyone on the Font staff when I say we are so, so grateful for all of you.

This semester, a pattern I noticed in many of our pieces was the observation of loneliness, pressure to perform, and the lingering ache after a loved one is lost.

It is clear the last several months have wrought a common disturbance upon our relationships to one another, and the resulting hesitance to seek connection after hurt is palpable in this issue. The human pursuit of connection will always be accompanied by a potential for pain. Of course, it is important to validate our own pain so we may grow and heal from it, but it is also necessary to give attention to those shining moments where our connections sustain us, and we are given the beautiful opportunity to sustain others in return. Just as a wilting plant needs water, our hearts need nurturing to survive. It is our relationships that inspire us to make the crucial distinction between surviving and living. To all those who turn their attention to our magazine, please let this issue be your reminder to give yourself permission to not only exist, but truly live.

I’d like to give a special thanks to Julianna Grossman and Sabrina Blandon for their consistent patience and advice this semester. Thank you to everyone who submitted their work for this issue, and to those whose continued support and readership have sustained our magazine.

Ally Herrington, Font Editor-In-Chief

CONTENTS spring cleaning Ghazal gastropods Ophelia, Revisited ponytail An elegy to our perpetuity: things I wish I was brave enough to say to you in memoriam: on living in a former frat house If I was a drama major I would bawl my eyes out stay sharp chipping the chain Body Absolution blue flower lady The Trials and Tribulations of Working at Kmart The Space Between Days of the Week native fox the invisible girl versus the world be perfect it’s hidden a home town

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TD Natasha Bonilla Dickinson-Frevola Kieran Leo Armstrong Lauren Ballinger Khiya

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Dickinson-Frevola

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Lauren Ballinger

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Dickinson-Frevola AR Esteves Skylar Kirk Sabrina Blandon Andrew Cardell

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Julianna Grossman Lauren Ballinger Sabrina Blandon Dickinson-Frevola Lauren Ballinger Lauren Ballinger Dickinson-Frevola

Marlena Titus Gabby Luftschein TD Andrew Cardell

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Lauren Ballinger Andrew Cardell Shura Wyss Sabrina Blandon Ian Kovalev Sabrina Blandon Andrew Cardell Lauren Ballinger Thomas Doherty Sabrina Blandon Ian Kovalev Yashu Pericherla Khiya Ian Kovalev Andrew Cardell

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Sabrina Blandon E. Stultz

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an open letter to luna Letter to a Former Friend self portrait it’s not camp you’re just not listening to me i am overwhelmed general mills (they are friends) even though LUCK AS A CONSTANT skyline lycanthropy the bowling alley aneurysm rippled dance Mum …and many more to come Look Up ЛАЙКА the magician issue and its relation to the STEM shortage morbidly beautiful In 7.59 Billion Years the Sun Will Swallow the Earth data log: subject 4.54.0.05

CONTENTS

spring cleaning TD i think i’ve been waiting for my life to start for a while. i sit in my room until the floor devours me like quicksand, grains digging into hips and palms, pouring in through my nose and mouth and ears, this tumbling dune of it would be better if i wasn’t here if i wasn’t doing this if i had more space if i looked like that if i was out if i was somewhere else if it was if i were if they had if i could if i you me you if coming up with these excuses for why i’m not living. why am i not living. i deserve good things. and it is a struggle to come to terms with the fact that we must labor to survive, but can i not labor to live? can i not find joy in my commute, in my lunch, in the people i meet, in the miracle that is being able to meet new people? can i not hand you half of my clementine and ask you about your day? can i not gather the courage to look strangers in the eyes? can i romanticize my own life? when the laundry pile becomes a landslide and my fingers make snow angels in the dust and there’s papers scattered everywhere and i haven’t showered, can i be the protagonist? i find it such a chore to take care of myself. and she sits beside me, like she always has. and the fireflies in your chest, the small little victories, i’ve let them fall to the wayside like rocks found on a walk that weren’t worth the trouble of carrying home. the paint on my hands and the pull of the yarn and the ache in my muscles, these things that remind me that my head is still attached to my torso, that these doll parts fit in their sockets. these things i should love that instead are weighing down my pockets. and yet again i’ve fallen into a lull of nonexistence, of watching the light dance away from me, spilling pools of long shadow across the asphalt of the street i don’t walk on. a paper person under tissue sheets, trying to get the motivation to clean. but i will hold your hand when you extend it to me. and i will manage the courage to compliment strangers. and i will brush out my gnarled, knotted hair with loving fingers until i feel real again. i deserve that much.

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Ghazal Natasha Bonilla I let myself sink deep into your arms until I am just a heap in your arms It has been many days, months, years, since I saw father, but daily I weep in your arms I labor all day in my field until finally I place all I reap in your arms You strike me down, you vile villain, and yet I return to you and creep into your arms You “generous shepherds” who guide us, oligarchs who take us sheep in your arms You sit there and say women are worthless and I can’t help but feel cheap in your arms Desperation gnawing, you grab a needle and wait for it to seep into your arms I dwell on the edge of insanity, now sweet mania I leap into your arms Before you leave you put on a sweater to cover up secrets you keep in your arms With a sad smile, sweet Lizzie says to him “How long since I last fell asleep in your arms?”

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gastropods Dickinson-Frevola 1/24/22 8:02pm i’m thinking about the snails in my room. how i was so excited to get them, to have a pet that required minimal care, something to observe and take care of besides a plant. i would watch them explore and traverse the glass sides of their terrarium, stared in juvenile delight upon seeing bits of red pepper travel under their translucent skin as they ate, shuddered with glee as their cold wet bodies tasted my day on my hands. the excitement lasted for a brief period; now, they’re more of an obligation. a requirement, and not a very pressing one. it started with the bugs. tiny creepy crawlies that i imagine came from the plants in their terrarium, or from the veggies i fed them, hitchhikers interested in learning the miles contained in a small secondhand fish tank. regardless, i don’t like bugs, especially not in my house. after that, the obligation to take care of them became more of a punishment i was dreading, one that forced me to think about the bugs escaping and burrowing into the soil of my plants, or into my ears while i slept, or into my closet to nestle in the stitching of my coats. i do not think i am allowed to be cruel just because i can. just because their problems seem smaller. what does a snail feel? i hope they like me despite the mess.

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“Ophelia, Revisited,” Kieran Leo Armstrong

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ponytail Lauren Ballinger Calculating control freak with crescent moons carved into her palms.

Cuticles hold onto razor blades and miracles are the only thing she knows to demand.

No prayer necessary.

The fire, the forest, and the witness; the one who holds the lips of those she kisses in a jar just above her bed frame.

She pickles eyeballs so no one can see just how mean she wants to be.

But some still hold the power of sight, long after she’s plucked their pupils from the sockets.

Those who know be damned.

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An elegy to our perpetuity: things I wish I was brave enough to say to you Khiya i hope you still know i believe in infinities even if i took our forevers away—I’ve tucked away my promise ring in case i can find a way to call no crossies count on our vows to each other i tell my friends that I don’t love you secretly hoping they won’t believe me because... i am lying Trying to find ways to get over you, get underneath my feelings side-step the same mistakes i’ve made over and over again i am directionless without a guiding star but i’m still lost as to why i used you as my sun

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i am so Done putting others before me but somehow i still feel the need to revolve even my poetry around you i have poured my heart and soul out leaving myself for somebody else to fill but i’m still waiting to feel the empty space i left for myself i’m stuffed with all the words i still have left to say to you, all the meaningless metaphors masking my mourning But that’s what i really am doing i’m in denial that you’re gone, angry you didn’t fight harder, striking deals with myself not to text you, or check your page again, crying, or trying not to just to accept you’re gone.

When i close my eyes and sleep i still dream of you in ambiguity Your hair, the smell of that horrible granola deodorant And i wonder if that’s all a break up is—saying goodbye to what you thought was perpetuity.

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in memoriam: on living in a former frat house inspired by barbara kruger’s “untitled” Dickinson-Frevola we are the second to last house on the street. faded siding and rotting tiles on the roof, a leak that never ceases, and black marks on the wall in the basement, which we aren’t allowed into after dark. empty rooms in empty houses and the lingering smell of smoke and stale beer. eyes press into your back at the top of the stairs and the fluorescent lights hum like cicadas nestled in the lining of these stained popcorn ceilings. the living room is blue now but the smoke burns sweeter than their expectations and we reach out to intertwine our fingers with the handprints on the ceiling and the walls. your ghost sits beside me on the couch, barking out a laugh. i feel you passing through some days, these cold echoing touches, these desperate clawing hands. i walk laps around the beaten wood floors, mapping the bounds and the pitfalls of the rituals that allow you to touch the skin of other men.[1]

“Untitled” (You construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other men) (Barbara Kruger) , 86.1995,” Harvard Art Museums collections online, Feb 18, 2022, https://hvrd.art/o/286927.

[1]

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If I was a drama major I would bawl my eyes out Lauren Ballinger the theatrical facial expressions painted in shades of blue and gold on the large, wooden manor doors have a certain irony. for you could cry for the tragedy, a tale of despereaux, or laugh and chortle as the jokers on stage with parachute pants hope for you to do. sensibility tells me neither of these will be accepted moving forward. so the gemini portrait is less of an invitation to air grievances and personality alike, and more like a collection box; donate your money and time, charity, and all that makes your cheeks grow rosy and red. leave your heart at our doorstep. the cavernous throne room makes it so any movement beneath your skin is curbed. you don’t want your heart to wither and froth, do you? no, i suppose that wouldn’t work. drop your soul and brain neatly into fresh ziplock bags. take a knife to your pit and twist, slice a seven-inch sliver of skin, to reveal the tangy red blisters that live in your organs. and peel off your clothes. hell is hot and cotton burns quickly. lovers in foyers will say you’ve grown sickly but the truth is you’re ruthless, with no end in sight. your showmanship and reputation meet new heights, and the world can see as you show your insides. for only one night. for tonight, and only tonight.

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“stay sharp,” Dickinson-Frevola

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chipping the chain AR Esteves The knife is in my hand I can either unsheath it and hack myself free Or turn it around into my own chest And time and time again I feel the blood rush forth Cortisol and red iron caked against my chest The tension will swell again in a few breaths But I chase the release How many hours or days or weeks would it take?

Metal against metal, until the blade dulls or my chains give in Why risk getting so close only to stay trapped here When instead I could stay here, but get to lose myself for a few Sweet deliriously insensate moments I see the end The meager sunlight leaks from the chipped mortar Down the hall, so many chains just like mine clink A mournful chorus whose faces I cannot see And cannot see mine They clink Metal against metal Link to link How could one distinguish the sound of the blade Against the lonely chain?

Let me bleed here For a few more moments Let me bleed, rather than resume the pull For one more moment Let me pretend to give in

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Body Absolution Skylar Kirk The gentle curve of My soft stomach, The asymmetrical poetry of my stretch marks, The gentle ridges like rolling hills of scars that line my thighs.

A beautiful, bodacious, bountiful, body.

One that tells me a multitude of stories.

Here is the tale it tells me today: Lips and a tongue that curves around A silky smooth piece of milk chocolate.

Legs that stand tall and firm As the redwood trees that lined those Empty streets back in California.

Breasts that are supple and feminine, and yet, So masculine and so powerful that They command an audience.

A body that is mine to define, To decorate, To display, To love, To absolve.

Eyes that stare in the mirror, While hands caress, and Body fat jiggles, And the mind quiets.

Lips speak these words; Body, Forgive me.

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“blue flower lady,” Sabrina Blandon

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The Trials and Tribulations of Working at Kmart Andrew Cardell The display of roses in front of me is stressing me out. We have red, pink, and white. It is Valentine’s Day tomorrow, and Jerry told me to make it look nice.

Jerry being my boss. I will not elaborate further.

So I have spent the last hour organizing them by color. White on the left, pink in the middle, and red on the right. As I place the last rose, I hear a gunshot.

I assume it’s the toy guns in aisle seven. The kids from the nearby middle school love to walk over and fire them at each other. Then I hear Jerry scream.

This, however, is a common occurrence so I remain unconcerned.

I decide to walk over to Jerry anyway, as it’s nearing six and my shift is about to end. I’m usually the one to calm him down, which is needed quite often. As I turn into aisle seven, I see Jerry with his hands up and a high school-aged boy holding a gun, his hand shaking. Both of them are standing there quietly.

The display of baby dolls behind Jerry has one slightly off-kilter. There’s a bullet hole in the head. I do feel like that is quite a good metaphor for gun violence. But, I’m getting off track here.

I feel compelled to clear my throat. Jerry looks at me. The boy, facing away from me, reaches into his pocket and grabs a second gun. He then proceeds to turn so he can aim both guns at either of us. Now, you’d think I would be scared, but for some reason I felt safe as an employee of Kmart that I would come out of this unscathed.

“This is between me and Jerry,” the boy says, trying to be intimidating.

I respond, “Okay could you elaborate on that?”

The boy, surprisingly, does elaborate. “Jerry used to be a Santa at the Woodsdale Mall. He once told me as a kid that he would get me a train set for Christmas. But on Christmas morning, I had no train set. He needs to pay.”

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I respond, “Okay, that just seems like a lot of emotion over nothing.”

The kid says, “I mean, sure it is a lot of emotion, but I’m already here, so I just need to get my train set and go.”

“Why did you need the guns though?”

“Okay, that was a little overkill on my part,” he says Jerry is still silent at this point, but tears are streaming down the man’s face.

He squeaks out with his little hamster-like voice, “Just take a train set from aisle eight and leave.”

The boy responds, “Oh, really?”

Jerry, still crying, responds back, “Yes, really.”

The boy then drops both guns on the floor, walks to aisle eight, grabs a train set, and leaves the store.

I begin to walk to the exit as the kid walks out with his set, I tell Jerry to stay where he is. The kid is walking across the parking lot, and with absolutely no warning, the sky opens up and lightning strikes down on the train set. The kid drops the set as it catches fire. He then looks back at us, and I make eye contact with him.

“Want me to grab another one?” I say.

The kid nods in agreement.

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The Space Between Julianna Grossman I am screaming read a book but I would need to hold it upright watch a show but I would need to open my laptop do anything!! but it’s so much easier to do nothing.

It is Saturday.

The day is mine.

I can do anything, yet I wake up, and I feel nothing but the pull of sleep.

There is a chasm of sloth and dizziness and self-loathing that exists between me and Saturday.

The day is mine so I will not wear pants or put on my glasses or eat breakfast.

I will hide behind the blinds, hide from the demands of the sunlight hate myself for it for as long as I please.

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I build my bridge from scratch.

It isn’t much, but the journey across the abyss from my bed to a case of pills is the hardest thing I will do today.

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Days of the Week Lauren Ballinger severance salary sounds serene, save salt-soaked stares; sadly, sentences served stay scabbed and sealed. maturity means menopausal mornings meeting my methane mouth. take tabs, tart to taste, tabloids, tapeworms, taboo talons tame turncoats where will wandering worms, worn, welting, weeping, wake when waxen worlds withhold? thick thorn thatches that thaw theological thinkers – “theoretically” – threatens things that thieves thrift fidgeting, fetus fables feel frivolous; finding fields for fucking. feeling famous. singles savor sewing socks, sipping suns, saloon swept sails.

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“native fox,” Sabrina Blandon

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the invisible girl versus the world an ode to madness: a bipolar life by marya hornbacher Dickinson-Frevola the outside world presses against the limits of my room like gales of wind, the bones of this decrepit old house creaking and groaning, the chittering and yearning call of whales to open water. i stay here in the pocket of my sheets. if i go outside, i’ll lose my face in the noise and crowds. my head will detach from my body and float away, leaving my confused feet treading on uneven ground. i am unreal. i am invisible. i am playing pretend. i am not really there. i stare at my hands that are not my hands and i look out the window at the paper house next door, with its clear vinyl windows with the tattered mesh screens and the plastic vines crawling their way into the siding. i am standing in the body that is not mine, wondering if the paper people can see in from their silent, still home. no one comes in or out. maybe i am the one who does not go in or out. me and this not-life. with my paper walls. it’s easy to forget you’re underground on the subway. the roaring of this metallic pulse of the city is cold despite its multitude, not warm like the pressing weight of the earth hidden under the concrete. the city hums and clicks and shutters like a swarming thing, a flurry of movement and the ceaseless march of foot soldiers. i sit across from a woman in a red sweater. i crawl inside the crevice of her rib and read the story of her spine like a novel. where are you going. how is your day. i like your style. please stay safe. lover we are like pomegranates. crack me open and pluck the gems from my bleeding body. your lips look so lovely stained red, let me stay here in this sweetness forever. let me hold you if even for six months. i would plant a garden at your feet and make a home for us. for if i am that lonely god then grace this darkness with your light. because i love you more for every moment we’re apart, but my dog might love you more. i was born under the heart of orion. i reach out and grab a handful of stars, scoop them into my mouth like tic-tac’s. they keep telling me stardust is in my veins but i can barely manage a flicker, much less enough to light up a room. but i am very young and i am learning how to live. i rest my head on storm clouds and slamming doors become rolling thunder. dance in the rain with me my love as we did when we were kids. soak through your clothes like a second skin, like an ancestral tie, like an evolutionary calling. and when we wake up in the morning maybe things will be softer.

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be perfect Lauren Ballinger pearl teeth and angel wings and bright white irises, don’t let them catch sight of the gorging red veins that press against them; rivers, bloodshot down by your own fears. your own image in the mirror, your stomach against your waistband, the cold of an empty hand in the winter. i can be her. everything you see, a reflection of your own, but better; magnify it, let it eat you away. what are you insecure about, darling? would it help if i said i didn’t feel the same? clean out your car each evening, cigarette butts lead to cigarette sluts and babies, tucked to sleep by a gory, hoarse, hungry, hum. your child will never want to hear music again; and that’s good for her. she shouldn’t ever dance as the band plays -- no love for drummers, as mom says. no, because you are perfect. headbands hold any stray hair in place. tighter now. the headache means it’s working. and by and by the tylenol on your bedside will keep your throat from burning and if it still hurts, then baby, force the breath down your throat anyway. st. marys who cry don’t see heaven; whores who cry only find love in exceptions, who sell them for parts at the closest walmart. their boyfriends are sweaty and gross, and old. oh but they love them, i’m sure of that. because why else would any man, with a patriarchal

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penis and hairy balls, want to marry a girl if not for her brain? he loves em young and keeps em young because he knows they’ll never change. and sure, their brains a plus -it’s not fully developed -- but it’s the ass and the tits and the knowing sway of hips that keeps them around. i’m going to drown. and you’ll be afraid. no, not our patron saint! even in life, i martyr myself, why should i find a difference in death? left behind will be a clean bed, no mite in sight, and soft dandelions picked from my garden. i’ll have stacks and stacks of books on coffee tables and counters and shelves, but they’ll be made up tightly, my own little cunt for fucking. the stove will be washed, and the bathtub filled with bubbles. even the dagger to my heart will make a clean entrance. i’ll lay on a towel, so you don’t have to scrub my mess for me. when, if, you dig a bit more (which i doubt you’ll do. a lady like this lives life like its meant to be lived, no?) you’ll find there’s blood under my house and that i have needles that stick deep into my mattress. old matches and lighters burrowed into drawers, gasoline in my faucet. rabbits’ feet hang like lanterns in my basement, for good luck, and three wedding veils are steam pressed and ironed. failed marriages, maybe. all this to say, or to keep to myself, that god can’t judge you if you’re already living in your own codified hell, complete with doily cloth and a chiffon table cloth.

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it’s hidden Lauren Ballinger you buried your keys in the drawer on the coffee table. and you wrote down your will, on a wash towel which used to hang in the kitchen on the stove, and begged me to sign it. but its conditional. i say to you don’t forget. you nod and pinkie promise and we pretend that our words are law, unbound by science or religion, by synapses snapping and sending signals. your brain is a secret. you say it’s hiding, you say i can find it. so i dig, through daisies and fallen flower petals, under memory and brain matter, tunneling through the trivia answers that sit so easily up there. and oh you were right. your brain, in all its kindness and weather, is beautiful.

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carefully, i unwrap the ribbon you’ve tied into a bow and find land before time, one that you still pick the weeds from and nurture, a garden, a forest, a plot of land in pennsylvania. sycamore trees grow tall, mint leaves chew a bitter taste on your tongue. but a sweet one on my own. a wedding dress, with ruffles like seashore and the dignity of a grown woman. you were never who your mother said you were. i’ll carry you over the threshold, break wine glasses against white table cloth, and vow to you, in front of god and all his kind, an everlasting love. all i ask of you is a pinkie promise that you’ll tie the boots and tin cans to the back of the carriage, and holler with the horses and fanfare as we depart.

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“a home town,” Dickinson-Frevola

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an open letter to luna Marlena Titus Dear Luna, Hi, love. Though I know that you’ve reassured me to speak my mind, I’m afraid I can only muster up the courage to write you a letter today.

You could say that I fought with myself again. I mean, all of the telltale signs were there—I buried my sharp objects and restocked my small fridge. I wore an outfit three sizes too big that didn’t feel like suffocation and covered my mirror with a pillow case. I stared up at the trees that swayed in front of my window and counted my breaths, exactly as I’ve done before.

It’s no surprise that I do this really. You and I both know this all means it’s getting “bad again.” It’s a pattern, it seems. But that’s the funny thing about becoming a so-called “survivor” in your teenage years; you deal with the cycle of consequences for the rest of your life. Repetition isn’t uncommon, and it seems my pessimism isn’t either.

There are levels to survival, each with its own unique appearance, like crossing a busy street and wandering into a winding forest. I’ve crossed my busy street, but I’m well into my forest, growing into labels I’ve found etched along natural paths made in the dirt.

In my trek, there is you, a soft flashlight in my hand. You, who has accepted the outer husks of who I am, which isn’t much. But that hasn’t stopped you, always wanting to explore deeper into the layers underneath. It’s odd having someone want to know the good and the bad of your story wholeheartedly.

You know the gist in the vague hints that I drop here and there, but you remain patient for the day that I tell you it all.

Well, it’s been five—no, six–years now and no matter how much trust I have in you, I still fear what you’ll say. It’s been you and me before I was really me. You and I both know I’m not the same young girl I was back then. When we met, there was no way you’d know of the scars, of my addiction, nor the fears that would soon become a part of me. It’s odd to think of who I was and compare them to who I am now. I feel as though it makes me dirty, sour, expired. I feel like I’ve crusted up along the edges. But you don’t seem to feel the same. You’ve watched my growth, seen me crinkle and age, yet I am still clean in your eyes.

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I want to tell you. I think I’m almost ready to lay all my fears down and spill the countless secrets that have not yet seen the sun. I want you to know all that I am, all the fault lines that run a little too deep. I know that it’ll change my image. I want to remain how I was in your eyes. I want to know that I’m still good. Oh god, just tell me I did good. Tell me I’m still doing everything right.

One day you’ll know of it all. I know you’ve been waiting for so long, but please be patient for just a bit longer, for I’m still fighting my way through the woods. I’m not out of it yet.

Yours, M

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Letter to a Former Friend Gabby Luftschein LI’m four years older than you now.

Are you proud of me for continuing to age?

Every year I am quietly celebrating with each lick of frosting the bittersweet taste of longing, of knowing there is something to be missed.

I’m doing better now, are you?

I can no longer feel the cold bathroom tiles beneath my bare legs, your voice in my ears, a salty aftertaste, a blood-soaked bandage.

A part of me misses it.

We both just wanted to live so bad.

-G

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“self portrait,” TD

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it’s not camp you’re just not listening to me Andrew Cardell i go about my day but my day is at night it begins at 3:35 AM it ends at 4:37 AM i sleep for the remainder of said time although sleep involves me laying in a twin XL bed thus, this sleep might not be of a high quality i am not doing a bit this is not improv i am not in chicago and i am not performing at second city speak! that exclamation was to myself you can stay quiet.

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i am overwhelmed Lauren Ballinger pimple popping videos. pimpled poppers up the nostril. polar bear cubs, waiting for their papa. pessimistic grasshoppers pine and pace. a peach. a prophetic pour. pray. god told us it would come, all of it. that poverty works best in couplets, pairs. palm a puckering pre-lit cigarette. power is pain. did you forget the bears? you know, the parents to the tender pups? pooling perspiration. paper presents below the pine tree. a perched mom and her cup. peppermint tea. a poor array of presidents. make a pact with people who are worth it; but wear the pants, because you deserve it.

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general mills Andrew Cardell driving to general mills at night to eat raw cheerio dough…

“(they are friends),” Shura Wyss

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even though Sabrina Blandon even though I write about you, my ink is too blue to ever know you. the flesh of my red heart kept beating, beating, beating for you. my tricked disillusioned blue mind kept erasing, erasing, erasing for you. your green career-fixated eyes were too distracted to focus on the crumbling innocent girl in front of you. the eyes of her blue tears kept crying, crying, crying for you. the endless red stream of words kept remembering, remembering, remembering you. even though I write about you, my ink is too blue to ever know you.

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LUCK AS A CONSTANT “Nimium ne crede colori.”

— Vergil, Eclogae

Ian Kovalev

We were at the house party that I had just left. It was a small thing, only friends and friends of, one degree of separation at most, an intimate aerie where I had veto power over the shitty music queued even though that was breaking the rule, because it wasn’t my speaker. I was a right hand man, so I was allowed some give-me’s.

The thing had died down to a lull, obviously, because that’s what it had been when I’d made for home. We were in the attic, which Bummer Haus didn’t actually have, and it wasn’t a typical New England suburban affair; full a-frame ceiling, floor was finished, bean bag chairs and a dormant fireplace.

The music was muted thumping up from the folding staircase’s trap door.

She and I and the others were sprawled out on the new hardwood floors, but we were the only ones mostly intact, so I knew I didn’t need to filter. And following more than a few shots of Ketel, mimosas, an abandoned bottle of sauvignon and a couple glasses of rosé, I probably wasn’t going to be able to help it, anyway.

I think we all had our sleeping bags but nobody was in them, because most of them were passed out or talking in hushed tones or droning and greening out watching offensive political videos on YouTube.

She was getting tired and ready to leave, even though she was off her face, and I remember that it made me upset. But it made me more upset that I didn’t show up for her in the first place and didn’t give half a damn until I saw her face and heard her making jokes she never would have made when we were freshmen. I wanted someone to blame for her being here, but of course I’d been the one to suggest that we invite more than just our inner circle. And the fact that she was now more easy-going and well-spoken and filled out her clothes like she never did at eighteen made me pissed—wistfully pissed.

And unfortunately I had asked her about Amon, and of course she laughed at me and told me that that was years ago and of course it was because I went off grid for two years. That he was an idiot and Khalil added that he seemed like a shill, even though I didn’t really know what that even meant.

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She played the cards right that she didn’t even know she was playing. Said all the right things to feign moving on, transcendentalism and that she was in some upper echelon of Maslow’s hierarchy that I’d probably never reach.

Instead I was here, blundering in the dark of my id in what Bummer Haus would call the ‘tits in my mouth’ section of the pyramid. And maybe that was the case, or maybe it was just my limited point of view. Didn’t see hers. Didn’t care to, either. Somehow, we both willed it. She let slip that she had been alone for almost as long as I had.

Splayed out on the futons and beanbags and no one in particular was in earshot and no one else was coherent. With my demeanor I begged her not to go.

With hollow eyes, with a grimy smirk, with a sedative set over my motion. I’m tired of playing the game. And she let me know with her body that she was, too.

I remember that we were on opposite ends of the semicircle of seating and I found some poor excuse to move to her, though there was no reason. But she just giggled and bubbled for a sub-second. I knew she was a giant brat. I also knew I was a giant idiot who let a flare of dopamine lead me by the pants when it came to girls with just a little too much eyeliner and just a little too orange red hair.

Our hips brushed. I don’t remember the space-time between but I remember when she kissed me. Fireworks. In my cheeks, the bridge of my nose. Superimposed over the weightlessness of alcohol. Fireworks. When she unpinned her hair, the almost neon tangerine splayed over her small pale shoulders. It was like the first time I took hydrocodone when I had my wisdom teeth out.

It was like nothing, and for no good reason. There was no love, there was no logic.

As if to say my body had complete executive power over every red flag. As usual. We’d all taken that abhorrent BDSM test a few hours and a few drinks prior and she had ‘non-monogamist’ at a simple majority, maybe 55%. Well vermillion flags in the summer sky. But who cares when the fireworks are brighter and more beautiful.

We didn’t go any further, as far as I know. She smelled like blue dream and I smelled like camel crush baked into my wool coat. The cologne that reminded me of my first girlfriend had long worn off.

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Then it all went slack; at her lips with avarice. The winter fissures on the outside that I traced with my tongue. I wondered, if I bit at them enough, would they irrigate with her blood? The seminal warmth of the soft flesh on the inside. Everything washed out around me. Like looking through a straw.

Shoving your hand blindly into the drain to fish out an earring, to hope no one switches on the trash compactor.

She’d said “What are you on about?”

And I laughed a bit because she had been raving an hour ago when she was even more drunk, telling me about how we should support our friends, achieve our dreams, astral project from our fucking bodies, break out of the cycle of samsara and attain a self-implies other without words and without thoughts and enlightenment.

I don’t know what my witty reply was and I’m glad I wasn’t clear-eyed enough to hold onto it to beat myself up about later.

Then she said “What are you waiting for?”

I remember the look of her back pockets on her jeans, the way they pushed along her curves, the black skinny levi’s. 511s? 501s? Like mail slots, the pockets. And while we kissed I ran my cut-up fingers over them. It was awful in the best way. Fireworks, the illegal kind. I was well aware. We were self-sabotaging. Self-destructing together. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Built on a foundation of sand, of bone. Not meant to last. I looked past the acne. Past the caked on foundation, white printer paper. I thought, doesn’t that redeem me for something? You dumb fucking asshole. What do you think?

I saw beauty where I wanted to. Of course, it wasn’t an embellishment, but it was as wrong as I was about anything.

“Sorry, not sure. My entire body is buzzing and I—” She shut me up. Fireworks, the impressive kind. The kind that makes you feel guilty and ashamed when you ride home in your mom’s sport utility vehicle.

Because you found beauty in something that was never going to last. You evil, irredeemable bastard. A shame indeed.

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“skyline,” Sabrina Blandon

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lycanthropy Andrew Cardell i wake with an innate urge to feel removed from my apartment from the city from the confines i create for myself i want to have control to wake without worry i want to be a creature of the forest a wolf that aims for survival i ask myself if survival is worth it hopefully the answer is yes once i lie on the forest floor releasing my final breath i won’t have any regrets because i survived and there was nothing else to want

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the bowling alley Lauren Ballinger

two shots to make it, three strikes and you’re out, one hour left in the game; throw change into the slot to add more time, but it’ll still slip away, with every cradled candlepin curl you send caravanning down the plastic wood, a bride’s march towards an unyielding army of men in red pinstripe uniforms. arcade games, winners and losers, cries of victory and defeat make a bubble in the air. softly, you’ll lay your head to rest on it. it cushions the blow of falling thirty points short of triumph. place and pluck your fingers in the puckering holes of the bowling ball. get your hands just right and roll the dice. snaking along the track, you’ll find that it has a life, mind, heart, and soul of its own, one that you failed to account for. in a classic pinball fashion, she bounces breathlessly from one side to the other. force your lungs to behave in these trying times. and just like that, you are praying. sugar-soaked toddlers are pious youth, with collared shirts tucked politely under sweaters. benches turned to pews; bowling shoes to sunday’s best. the men in stripes are the holy choir, and as they tumble, angelic voices murmur a hymn. the place echoes with worship.

It has always been holy here.

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aneurysm Thomas Doherty the small dose of oxycodone they feed me with breakfast isn’t enough to escape the linoleum floor rubber-grip-sock reality of circumstance.

in the room next door i heard the doctors confess it was much too late. you would think Death is closer friends with subarachnoid hemorrhages than with car crashes but maybe they had a falling out over me and my short-lived neighbor.

the nurses smile on my daily walk as if i hadn’t heard them cursing my wrist unable to find a vein at four in the morning. or so the clock said bright red digital and easy to read i thought it was beautiful and comforting until i realized the clock had probably seen some shit and only existed to record when i checked out one way or the other.

but he was twenty-one. free from the shackles i still possessed and in that moment when machines stopped beeping and hearts ceased to beat i would have traded myself to be twenty forever so his mother could change the motive of her tears. i learned the names of my nurses. the nurses smile because i’m walking. walking people don’t often inhabit the intensive care unit.

a boy crashed his car near a lake.

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“rippled dance,” Sabrina Blandon

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Mum Ian Kovalev The year is nineteen-seventy-something she is immaculate in her collared dress of baby blues.

There are ten thousand volts of bedlam in her hazel eyes.

She can still hear her zipper fall to this day as it disappears between her brother his coked out friends and the couch cushions, alabaster off-white.

She was not old enough to know, they’d wilted the chrysanthemum in her guts, buds pruned before they learned to bloom.

Hours later, crying on the linoleum tiles father wouldn’t have it.

Years later, crying on a good man’s shoulder.

Decades later, when they could have swabbed blood caked in cuticles she had clung onto life, made something worth fighting for.

The year is two-thousand-and-something he is anything but immaculate, picking at his cuticles in class until he draws blood.

There is chrysanthemum in his hazel eyes blooming, as he wishes to backtrack through time, to plow through that elm street front door to raise the boys off the couch by their veiny throats if only to return the gift she gave him that she could not give herself.

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. . .and many more to come Yashu Pericherla I turned 18 last night. It was a sordid affair, lighting a bodega cupcake, singing to myself soft enough that my roommate’s snoring drowned it out, the wisps of smoke from the blown-out wick curling like hands reaching for salvation travelling up, up, upwards climbing a staircase made of moonlight until the breeze from the open window carried them along the North wind, for the Sandman to pick them up on his way back home from work.

Does adulthood disqualify you from making wishes on stars, or near-expired grocery store cupcakes, the candle’s melted wax rendering it even further inedible mimicking your prospects of a dream come true?

I made one anyway.

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Look Up Khiya I love you the way stars would love roses if they ever got to meet, how the sun grows the flower and makes its life complete I love you the way a rose would love a river if its petals ever pitter-pattered past people who were throwing away beaten bouquets of broken hearts I love you the way rivers would love oceans if they ever got the chance to actually flow into them, instead of wasting water at dead ends I love you the way oceans would love mountains if their waves could ever cover summits, sending away the sinister I love you the way a mountain would love a single ant for all its might— all its confidence in lifting that so much greater than itself And I love you the way an ant would love the stars, if he could ever just look up.

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IANKA Ian Kovalev “…and after the fire, a still, small voice.”

— 1 Kings 19:12 Spat burning words weft like venom No, we’re sorry, seethed believers, twisted scripture’s fleshly plenum, but we don’t think you’ll get to see her, as if pearloid gates could discriminate And I left; the deepest cut blood drew to disengage the ignorance without defending you.

Like ghastly badges I present the scars you gave I regret it to this day, and only in sleep does the thunder roil deep enough to bring you back to me Phenytoin huffing, drool pooled matted fur where the paw was shaved, shaking weakly the Styx ran frothy from your jowls first time they’d ever curved into a frown I’m sorry my last kisses left tears like stains

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Over your perihelion crown, a coat like lustrous black your sunbeams fade eyes paling slivers of a moon, I held you whispered, nose to runny nose, “Laika, baby, you’re coming home soon.”

You might still find, on our paint-chipped sills a shadowbox that’s little justice, less for solace when you’re slipping through the currents somewhere in a landfill, stuck frozen in place refuse littered with your ichor refusing to coagulate.

I promise, Laika, I think upon you often awaken sweating through my threadbare sheets I promise, Laika, there’s room for two inside my coffin it’s the least that I could do, you smile, bared teeth I promise, Laika, when the air runs out up there and you find yourself alone we’ll meet again, unbound from atmosphere and call the stars our home.

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the magician issue and its relation to the STEM shortage Andrew Cardell Magicians always say that they cannot tell you how to do their tricks. That is not very scientific. Thus, science is dead. Maybe that is why you are a political science major.

“morbidly beautiful,” Sabrina Blandon

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In 7.59 Billion Years the Sun Will Swallow the Earth E. Stultz It’s the end of the world and you’re sitting with your ma waiting for the sun to explode.

You all got cryogenically frozen, or something. You don’t remember the actual process all too well. Too much time spent in the freezer will do that, they said — but you and Ma knew what you wanted to see. You’d done everything on Earth already. You wanted to see it die. So you’re sitting on the floor of a quiet deck of the station floating thousands of miles above Earth, staring at the sun through special filters in the massive windows, watching the red gasses pop and glow and melt.

“Tristan,” Ma says, and then says it again, “Tristan — do you remember?”

It’s June and she’s punched the bastard in the teeth on the front porch while you sit in the car with your suitcase in the back, terrified, because your father is a good foot and a half taller than your ma and twice as broad. He holds his mouth, blood streaming down his face, as your ma hisses and shakes her hand out. “If you ever call our son that again I’ll slit your throat in your goddamned sleep,” she says, and your father crowds in on her, 6’3” of Good American Country Boy. “I don’t have a fucking son,” he barks, and moves as if to hit her back. She does not flinch and he does not know what to do about that, when his only real reason for doing anything is to keep you two scared shitless, so his hand lowers, and your ma runs to the car and slams the door shut. The car pulls out of the gravel driveway with the headlights on. Your father’s already gone back inside, but you can see him at the window staring out. “Tristan,” she says, “God help me but I feel like I broke my hand on the bastard’s teeth.” So you hold her hand in your lap as she pulls onto the freeway and pretend you don’t feel her shaking with you.

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The thing about the end of the world is that it takes a while. Ma is surprised by this. She says she doesn’t want to wait around for the shithole to burn. So you tell her how it works, from the astronomy course you took in the one semester of college you had before you dropped out because the two of you couldn’t pay for it anymore. You all got sent to space the next year, anyway, and what’s a better hands-on learning opportunity than that? “The sun’s gotta turn into a red giant, Ma,” you explain. “It’ll get real big and then all those layers will puff away and it’ll get real hot but real small. And then it’ll keep dying until we can’t see it anymore. A big hunk of diamond.”

“Okay,” she says, “But what about down there? How long till that’s gone?” and points down and out the big viewing window to where you think the Earth might be. You’re so high up you can’t even see it: a speck of dust that’s slowly boiling below you.

“I dunno,” you say. “Years and years and years. I guess till we feel like we’re done watching it.”

You do not mention the one fact you both know: that the Earth is empty now anyways, and she won’t get any real vindication from watching it die. That’s not what this is about.

When you, terrified, tell your parents you want to change your name and dress like a boy — a few months before you leave that house, a few years before they announce everyone’s got to leave Earth — it only half works. Your father stills, in the same way he does when you bring home anything less than a perfect grade on a test or when he’s decided you’ve not done a good enough job of your chores, and stares at you. You almost get tunnel vision, waiting for the moment that always happens where the silence bubbles over and he lashes out. And then your ma steps in front of him — carefully, delicately, not turning around — and looks you straight in the eye so you’re focused on her instead. “Okay, baby,” she says. “What should we call you?”

In the background your father storms out the front door; through the ringing in your ears you can hear the screen slam shut. “Tristan,” you say.

“Tristan,” she repeats, and then pulls you up from the chair at the kitchen table into a hug so tight you almost can’t breathe.

You love the way she says your name. When you chose it you hadn’t thought

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much about the sound of it, having not had a chance to practice it much yourself, only scrawled on paper with your last name to see how it looks. She says it right, all sharp consonants that still somehow feel as soft and smooth as honey coming out of her mouth.

Your ma doesn’t know what to do about the fact that they treat you right up here on the station. You feel it deep and heavy and happy in your bones: it’s a far step from your father, who calls you the wrong name and insists you’re his daughter. Ma, though — she’s used to setting herself on fire for you and doesn’t know what to do without any gasoline to keep the flame going.

Wednesday afternoons you go in for your shot, and she spends the whole 20 minutes fluttering anxiously around your rooms or the viewing deck. Sometimes she comes with you and flutters around the doctor’s office until it’s time for the injection, when she stands stock still and holds your hand like you’re ten again, getting your double-digits shots back on Earth and crying about it. On days she doesn’t come with you she interrogates you as soon as you get back. “Were they good to you?” she demands the second you step in the door, boots half off even though there isn’t any mud to track in in space. “Did they get your name right?”

“Yes, Ma,” you say, knowing full well she knows this too, knows the doctors and nurses don’t say a thing wrong from all the times she’s come with you.

“Good,” she says, “Good — because if they didn’t, I’d — I’d —” She sits down hard on the bed and stares at her hands. You can tell she’s thinking about blood and teeth and the I-81 at night.

“I know, Ma,” you say, and kiss the top of her head and hold her hands so she quits looking at them.

About a month or so into watching the world end your ma lays back against the sparkly-clean station floor with a thud, buffeted by her hands behind her head. She sighs at the ceiling. “It doesn’t feel any better,” she says. “It doesn’t feel any damn different.”

You keep watching the sun, fingers fidgeting across the frayed edge of your hoodie. “I don’t know that it’s supposed to,” you say.

“It is,” she insists, “it is. I wanted it to feel different. I wanted it to feel good.”

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“You wanted it to feel good, watching the Earth die?”

“Yes,” she says. “How many people down there hurt you, baby? How many times did I want to do what the sun’s doing right now and burn them up until they couldn’t call you names anymore?”

“A lot,” you say, wryly. The injustice is exhausting to you in a way that she does not experience, and you gladly accept her furious, relentless protection.

She sits back up and stares at the sun again, eyes a little unfocused. “Not a lot,” she says. “All the time. Always.”

The day you finally see an article that all the microorganisms on Earth — the only things left, at this point — are probably finally dead you’re not even out on the deck watching. You’re in your place in the lower decks of the station, making tea for the both of you with the fancy kettle in the fancy kitchen while your ma sits on the couch and reads a book. You bring the tea out and tell her the news, and she freezes a little bit and then stares at the pages. “Hmm,” she says, and then, a bit helplessly, “What do we do now?”

“I don’t know,” you say. “We can keep watching. The sun’s going to keep dying.

I kind of want to see if we can watch it become a black dwarf.”

“Ain’t that the one where you can’t see it anymore? When it finally cools off?”

“Yeah. We didn’t know about any when we were on Earth. Universe wasn’t old enough yet. But we’ll know it’s there, even if we can’t see it. We still know where the sun is.”

That seems to unhook her a little, and she turns back to her book like, for the first time, she’s determined to finish it. “Okay, Tristan,” she says. “We’ll keep watching. We can still do that.”

You smile a little, and sit next to her, putting the warm mug into her hands.

All the while the Earth continues to burn below.

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data log: subject 4.54.0.05 Dickinson-Frevola humans will always make art. because of the twitch of the fingers, and the shaking of the hands. because of the colors. because of the grief. because of the rage. because of the cause of many hardships that our tongues can no longer taste the sound of. when the world stopped we turned to art, and when the sun rises again we will still reach out to hold that gleam in the riverbed; no matter how many times it rises it will still hold you like you need. but i am staring at this page that wants to devour me entirely into its open sky, until i am plummeting past clouds almost as hazy as the smoke wrapped around my eyes. hold me close here in these mangled messy sheets. when my legs give out underneath me and the earth is cool and damp under my cheek. when my breath tickles my face and reminds me that i am alive. know that you are alive, and that that is a good thing to be.

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DISCLAIMER Font exclusively features the work of Hofstra University students.

Each staff member reviewed and ranked submissions blindly.

Font Literary and Arts Magazine, Volume 17, Fall 2021. Hofstra University. Copyright 2021 Font Literary and Art. All artwork and literature contained in this publication are copyright 2021 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 are purely coincidental. None of the contents of this publication may be reprinted without the permission of the individual authors or artists.

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