LITERARY AND ARTS MAGAZINE Volume 5 Spring 2016
LITERARY AND ARTS MAGAZINE Volume 5 Spring 2016 A Production of the Hofstra English Society
HOFSTRA ENGLISH SOCIETY 203 Student Center Hofstra University Hempstead, NY 11549 hofenglishsociety@gmail.com facebook.com/hofstraenglishsociety twitter.com/hofengsoc issuu.com/hofstraenglishsociety Cover art: “Poet for Sale,” Amelia Beckerman
STAFF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
MANAGING EDITOR
DESIGN EDITOR
Nick Rizzuti
Brianna Ciniglio
Regina Volpe
ART EDITOR
TEXT EDITOR
Christine Diana
Toby Jaffe
COPYEDITORS Emanuela Ambrosio Amelia Beckerman Hannah Dolan Courtney Zanosky
GENERAL STAFF Dana Aprigliano
Kirsten Rickershauser
Elly Belle
Sarah Robbins
Gabrielle Dina
Erinn Slanina
Lucas Harris
Lillian (Lilly) Smith
Melanie Rainone
Raymond Alexander Turco
Danielle Ribaudo
Matt Wenner
SPECIAL THANKS Eric Brogger Craig Rustici Scott Harshbarger Denise DeGennaro Hofstra University English Department Vicki Dwyer
CONTENTS Sanctuaries Don’t Let It Get You Imaginary Venom Beyond the Gate Try Again A Child Pressing A Button... Sky Fishing Afternoonzzz Dead Bridges Femme Fatale Violet Unsavory Alnilam Breathe Me In Juliet’s Balcony If the Food in My Life... Amelia’s Easy Bake Crunchwrap Supreme Yolks Whisper Conservation Land Green Au Naturel Leaf Exhausted Sundays with Edythe For You, I Guess Lover’s Point II Cages of Sand Black Disc
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Elly Belle Mika Hawley Nick Rizzuti Melanie Rainone Sierra Sharrat Dan Willis Robin Deering Lillian (Lilly) Smith Toby Jaffe Gabrielle Dina Allison Wolf Ryan Douglass Williams Rachel H. Gurevich Juliet Del Rio Raymond A. Turco Jaipreet Ghuman Amelia Beckerman Emanuela Ambrosio Emanuela Ambrosio Elly Belle Abbey Sullivan Erinn Slanina Solange Luftman Kirsten Rickershauser Brianna Ciniglio Rachel H. Gurevich Amelia Beckerman Regina Volpe Raymond A. Turco Nick Rizzuti
Mika Hawley Jackson S. Spear Robin Deering Lucas Harris Josh Wilson Grace Albert t.s Dana Aprigliano Batson Xiang Li ENG Jole Christine Diana Regina Volpe Abbey Sullivan Mack Caldwell Matt Wenner Toby Jaffe Emily Rosa Sarah Robbins Grace Albert Emily Rosa Victoria Snak Regina Volpe Ryan Douglass Williams Dan Willis Raymond A. Turco Mika Hawley ENG Jole
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Cathedral Cove The Eyewitness Oil Pastel Girl A Clock with No Hands Mud and Concrete D.O.A.B Google Searches Scholar Midway It Was 63° in Tokyo (i wish i was your bedsheets) Thoughts From Seat 29A Grandma Dove’s Chandelier Boss-Man Rhyming Didn’t Save JFK Chickweeds Covered Crossing In A Surprising Turn... Vert Comfort Rome Synesthesia Dirt Bed Aloe Vera: A Sonnet Capri 45 Minutes to Sydney See You Space Cowboy
CONTENTS
SANCTUARIES Elly Belle
the man who works at Barnes and Noble in Brooklyn asks me why I am coveting 10 books under my arm at once and I don’t think twice before saying I am trying to build a temple out of things that make me feel safe enough to hide from myself in he says it isn’t possible to build a sanctuary out of something that burns so easy but I think of how quickly my own flesh and blood could burn so if I’m a fool then god is too and then I go to sit in the children’s section where I watch a small girl walk around and look up in awe at all of the shelves where she can find comfort in an unconquered world and I move my tongue around my mouth remembering the stories I’ve stashed and swallowed for safe keeping I can’t remember what it feels like to build a fort out of fantasy in the corner of the bookstore, but I remember how badly I hoped my life was a story, and how I started building sanctuaries from pieces of paper and pens and comfortable desks how sanctuaries don’t need to be indestructible to house a heart that beats for the next time the page turns they are the places we sit in corners that we feel we can call our own.
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“Don’t Let It Get You,” Mika Hawley
IMAGINARY VENOM Nick Rizzuti
Chilly cows eating snowy grass. Imaginary Venom. I open towards the rain like some kind of prophet, is what I tell myself. It’s even what I believed often last year. As I sleep in a mostly glass room the forest stares in the dark. I know that there are animals in there. I know that when they finally wake up, they will come to get me. I don’t know enough about weather to save the world, but I know snow when I see it. I know you are a jacket made of leather and fur, is what I tell myself despite signs to the contrary. There is no future for me in the cards. Chilly cards munching on stale questions. Imaginary cities made of light. SPRING 2016 9
BEYOND THE GATE Melanie Rainone
No one had gone through the gate and into the garden beyond for many years, so many that the hinges had rusted and the wood turned green and soft with moss. A small girl lived in the house next to that which the garden had once belonged. She had only recently begun wandering off on her own to explore the countryside which surrounded her family’s house. Today, she left the gate of her family’s small yard, doll in hand, and left the well kempt lawn for the taller grasses and flowers beyond. The house beside hers had been empty for so long that it did not interest her – a house was just a house, the only difference between this and her own was that there no people and, as everyone knows, people are what make a house interesting. She ran her hands along the fence going around the abandoned house and listened to amusing and rhythmic thump her small fingers made against the old, rotting wood. The weeds grew thick along the fence, but to her they were tall and beautiful flowers, some reaching well above her waist. When she reached a particularly thick patch she abandoned the fence and gently flung herself onto the ground, landing with a small thud. She placed her worn doll on her stomach and looked up at the forest she found herself surrounded by, her small body obscured by the tall, unruly overgrowth. Amused by her makeshift hideaway she had found herself, she almost didn’t notice the irregular clicking sound not too far from where she lay. But children always have a way of hearing such peculiarities, so she used her 10
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hands and knees to return to her feet, forlorn to see her enchanted forest shrink back to a disappointing size. The little girl, with her tangled, red hair trailing behind her, made her way toward the noise. She made her way into the unknown, overgrown areas that were the farthest she had ever been from the familiarity of her home on her own. There was a time when the small spaces behind the furniture and the nook beneath the staircase seemed like entire worlds, but those words had shrunk over the years. Now, it was these tall grasses and dilapidated structures that had once belonged to the house next door to hers that called to her. She imagined that something had happened to the family who had lived there, for she couldn’t remember a time when the house had not been sad and empty. To her, the house must have always been like this. To her, the people who lived in it must have been too. The thought of being afraid hadn’t even crossed her mind, because surely her new forest could not harm her. The faint clicking got louder the closer she got to the edge of far end of the yard. It led her to an area of thick overgrowth so tall that she had to part the thick, vine like plants to allow her small body through. She moved a plant with sticky, yellow flowers emanating from its body out of her way and realized she had come upon what she’d been looking for. In front of her lay the gate to the old house’s garden, its wood so rotted it looked like it would be soft to the touch and its lopsided hinge loose in on spot such that it clicked when the wind blew through its rusted parts.
For the first time since she had ventured out of her back door, the girl paused. She tightened her grasp on her doll, lifting the faithful friend closer to her torso so she could feel the small amounts of warmth it always seem to have in its padded body. She looked at the latch of the gate. It was only a few inches above her shoulder, so reaching out and pushing it open would not be difficult. She was too small to see what was past it, with thick greenery obscuring her view of what lay beyond. She pictured small, dark creatures with legs like spiders and bodies like wisps of smoke dropping down from the willowy overgrowth, burrowing their way into her hair and scratching at her scalp. She looked down at her doll’s scratched face and ruddy dress, and took a deep breath. Reaching her hand upward, she pulled the latch downward and, with some effort, pushed the gate inward. The girl took a step into the garden, still clutching the latch, and felt the ground change beneath her feet. She looked down and was delighted to see that it was covered in flowers. What had once been neat flowerbeds had grown over and crawled onto the narrow path she found herself on – petunias, daisies, and flowers she couldn’t identify were seemingly strewn about, both dead and alive, so they made a carpet of sorts. Once she got over the carpet of petals beneath her feet, she looked up to take in the entire garden. There were tall hedges that had once been well manicured, but had become so jungle-like and infiltrated by other plants that the garden had looked like nothing but overgrowth from the outside. From the
inside, though, it was quite something. Tall bushes, some with waxy leaves, others soft to the touch, towered over the girl and nearly touched the sky. Between them were shorter, flowering plants of varying colors, each overgrown and wild unlike the neat azaleas in her front yard. Toward the center of the garden there was a fountain, no longer functioning, with a cracked cherub emerging from its center. Upon closer examination, she saw that the basin was coated in dry, vibrant green stains. The girl ran her fingers over the stone of the fountain, enjoying the cool roughness against her soft, small fingers. It was at that moment she noticed the spot of red protruding from beneath a stone bench by a towering magnolia. She made her way over to the smear of red, her tattered, well-loved Mary Jane’s padding against the mossy cobblestones around the fountain. She got closer, realizing that the red was a very familiar red. She was looking at her doll. Not her doll, but an identical copy. More worn than hers, its left foot partially buried in the dirt, and its face had a deep, mottled scratch that gave the eerie effect that the doll was missing an eye. The little girl stared down at the doll, clutching hers closer to herself. She wanted to look to see if her trusted friend was still intact, but she feared if she looked while she was in the place that her doll would become this monster before her. She wondered what sort of little girl had left her doll here. She wondered if hers would be next. A noise, possibly a bird, possibly something else, came from just outside the hedges. She imaged it was a crow like the ones that stalked her SPRING 2016 11
mother’s garden when the cat had left mice on the backstep. The garden suddenly felt bigger and darker, the once welcoming hedges now felt like the tall buildings in the city her father had taken her to once. She had clutched his hand tightly that day. She backed away from where the doll lay, slow at first and then faster until she was back out in the open air. She closed the gate, hoping that it would keep the doll and whatever mishap had led to its demise trapped inside. The girl gave her doll a quick squeeze, appreciating her soft hair and two eyes. Tomorrow she’d play inside, she thought. But the next day, or maybe the day after that, she’d go back to her new garden.
“Try Again,” Sierra Sharratt 12
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A CHILD PRESSING A BUTTON IN SAINT AIDAN’S CATHOLIC CHURCH Dan Willis
Could I call it a candle? I press the button after putting my mom’s dollar in the box. I eat the bread but walk past the deacon with the wine. My father stayed at the pew. I ask my mom if I can go back to the room behind the altar where the candles are. I press the button on the candle. The tiny bulb flickers on. I press a few more, kneel, and pray. I prayed beneath a statue of the Virgin Mary. Looking back, the candles feel somewhat false; but what’s not authentic at the Virgin’s feet? Maybe she knew what the bulb represented. Maybe I didn’t turn enough on.
SPRING 2016 13
SKY FISHING
Robin Deering
There was a girl, quite pretty and with a love of stars One day a boy latched onto her after glancing from afar He said he’d give her what she wished, what she dreamed for and declared He spent all day sky fishing for the girl that he so cared Till finally a nibble caught and down came half the sky He walked right up and showed the girl but she’d found another guy This boy she said, already gave me exactly what I pleaded A pair of shoulders to stand upon is all I ever needed So I could reach up to the sky and seek out my new star And share it with the one who helped me make the sky not far
“Afternoonzzz,” Lillian (Lilly) Smith
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DEAD BRIDGES Toby Jaffe
The Brooklyn Bridge is on fire, burning down, burning down in this Times New Roman world and so no, apparently I won’t be in Queens this weekend, for the Manhattan Bridge is diseased with parasite E Trains and the Williamsburg Bridge is blocked by allergens and the Williamsburg Bridge is not toll free in this Times New Roman world no, apparently I won’t be able to ride any metro buses through tri-borough tunnels, for your interest is gone, your kindness a token of empty appreciation, your attention on better things, important shit, professional shit (hardly) in your Times New Roman world so, apparently I’ll hang out in some Plaza along the East River or a bar in Weehawken, gone entirely, for I guess the George Washington Bridge, plain and boring it may be, is still open, snow or sleet in this Times New Roman world SPRING 2016 15
FEMME FATALE Gabrielle Dina
She is not mother or fertility: she is barren; pockmarked with asteroid-scars, and her skin comes up in ashes that can tear the lungs. She has never had a lover; with no one to share her ceaseless orbit she wears darkness as a cloak. The fabric is thin, shifting with every circle. She starves herself into a crescent. She will not die. She has killed a man with the sea, drowned him deep; the scene of crime is fresh at every dusk, and she returns. Her grave is new at every dawn; she is returning. The moon hangs, silent. She will not die. Once when she was sleeping, a mouse jumped on her back and used her spine bone to catalogue the stars. Oh, have they worshipped her – worshipped her as a god, but things fall away. (all they have needed is the sun.) Bitter, bitter, is this heart she holds, empty and colder than space, she says, laughs, and when a child looks up with arms raised in love the moon will sit, silent. she will not weep.
“Violet,” Allison Wolf
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UNSAVORY
Ryan Douglass Williams My bathroom cabinet mudslides bacon grease acne wash, sour cream shave gel, and buttermilk body lotion curdled and foul. From the crack between my closet doors, brown leather leaks one faded and crinkled jacket sleeve. A half-shucked maize pile cornered in the room splatters hair on my scattering of price tags. The price tags turn up all over the carpet to remind me I am cheap and detached. I think on all my old suits, the honey crisp hems, and the winter storms that stole them in their winds. I think of the walls and how differently they lean from the walls as they leaned back then. I can’t remember sun-kissed fruit. The mold destroyed my draperies and everything is ugly. and everything’s unsavory. I’d like to learn to eat again and learn to be eaten. I could make a full tongue crave food. Where is the privilege of lathering a mouth unraveling? Where are teeth that will leave me un-chewed?
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ALNILAM
Rachel H. Gurevich Thoughts we ought not to think: How would it feel to shove your hands into the wrinkled grey warmth in your skull?
I am aware of the stinging in my septum when my body tells me to say goodbye.
And how many people will die today with their skeleton wrapped around another, not ready to let go?
You’re not supposed to think about death too much. You’re not supposed to think about gravity.
And how fast are we traveling when we fly over seas and over stars?
If you mourn beyond two months, you become clinical concern for Depression. We ought not to think thoughts that make us dizzy.
Rotating on an axis. Revolving around the Sun. Orbiting through the Milky Way. How many shoes will trample a crisp brown leaf until she disintegrates to dust and becomes new again? I am aware of the ticking in my temple when I press into the vein under the dimple.
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Thoughts that nauseate and overwhelm, drag and claw and strangle us, peel our lids back to force them open, kick us to the concrete, bend down to us and scream until our eardrums explode like supernovas. But how many stars have exploded since 1956? And how many years ago did Alnilam die only to become the middle point in Orion’s Belt?
BREATHE ME IN Juilet Del Rio
the kind of girl who always smells like a different guy’s cologne, never getting the chance to catch her own scent. drifting into another bed before she could shower off the last. cuddled up in the crook of an arm letting him rub off on her change her and mask her. for being casual she absorbed a lot of their essence that’s the fun in hopping from scent to scent you never have to spend time creating your own.
a constant aroma of lovers led to confusing intimacy with feelings one whiff of Romance No. 5 and she smelled like everything you wanted her to be. maybe she wasn’t born with a good sense of smell maybe her scent would never be strong enough. who she is who is she.
imagine an identity that could diffuse with the breath of a “hey” with the gust of a friendly laugh with the panting of release.
“Juliet’s Balcony,” Raymond Alexander Turco SPRING 2016 19
IF THE FOOD IN MY LIFE WERE THE GUYS IN MY LIFE Jaipreet Ghuman
Ice cream. You’re the guy who always gives me a shoulder to cry on. Dependable, but friend-zoned. I’m sorry. I know I take advantage of you. Lamb over rice. The perfect combination of naughty and nice, you always know just what I need. I’d take you to go, meet my parents. I know they’d love you, I don’t know if I do. Spaghetti and meatballs. You’re my go-to guy when I know it’s last minute and I have nowhere to turn to, you satisfy my cravings never asking hard questions. But we both know our tales have different ends. Bangers and Mash. A thing of beauty, the cadence of your voice drives everyone insane. Sexy and soft-hearted, You’re a perfect catch.
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Pizza. I’d have you any day, time or place but you’re my favorite on a Saturday night when I’m drunk at 1. I try not to despair the task at hand is hard. Each one of these foods has my heart when I’m in the mood. So many choices – decisions, decisions. Why can’t I order everything I see on the menu?
AMELIA’S EASY BAKE, LAST THING YOU’LL EVER SWALLOW, FIRST THING YOU’LL NEVER REGRET CHOCOLATE LAYER CAKE Amelia Beckerman Ingredients: 4 cups of sugar because you’ve been lying for 15 years saying you don’t really have a sweet-tooth, devouring celery and peanut butter after school at Jackie’s house like it tastes the same as cafeteria ice cream cups and midnight cool whip. ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract, the same Costco kind your mother rubbed behind your ears when you asked to use her perfume. Like 3 layers I guess, I’m not really sure what a layer cake is. 1 cup of milk and not that fat free water either, the kind that comes in the glass bottle with the blue cap where you can see the cream at the top. 2 eggs from your neighbor’s backyard chicken coop, she brings them by once a week anyway and stays too long, always asking if you’ve found a boyfriend yet. 1 tablespoon of good intentions. 3 pounds of melted chocolate even though when you were a kid you tried making chocolate fondue in the microwave and it set off the fire alarm in your condo complex and your grandma made you eat it anyway so probably don’t melt it that way, you’ll need a pot or something. 1 cup of flour because I think cake needs that. 8 sticks of butter. A dash of metaphor. 2 handfuls of rainbow sprinkles. 1 box of Betty Crocker Cake Mix. Instructions: Preheat the oven as high as it goes. Combine all the ingredients and mix until it looks less like it did and put the batter in a pan and buy a one-way ticket to Amsterdam and leave the oven on and arrive at 11:30 their time and break into the Anne Frank house and write in marker on the walls and call your mom and ask her to take the cake out of the oven and tell her that you’re sorry you lied about skipping choir practice in the sixth grade and also that you didn’t mean it when you said you didn’t ask to be born. SPRING 2016 21
CRUNCHWRAP SUPREME Emanuela Ambrosio
Some people don’t eat taco bell because they think it’s gross Some people get stomach aches when they eat it I’m pretty sure I read an article about people getting E.coli from it back In 2007 In my 7th grade health class The same place where I learned about methamphetamines And HIV Some people enjoy telling me that it’s not real Mexican food They say I have to go to *insert predictable Mexican restaurant name here* to get the “good stuff” but honestly I don’t care about your “carne asada” because I get those tacos from tex mex in my hometown where they make their own tortillas and drown their nachos in thick cheese sauce that there are never enough chips to sop up If people think I eat Taco Bell because I care about what’s real and what’s not They’ve gotta be so naïve To think that I think a dorito taco is native to Mexico I get taco bell because I want to buy five tacos for five dollars and drown them in Verde sauce as I eat them all in the backseat of someone else’s car. I’m sure some other people find their true loves in Chipotle or something but come on three tacos for seven dollars give me a break I’ll stick with my one dollar loaded grillers because they get the job done And they taste like I hate myself mixed with spicy cheese sauce I wonder if the reason why Taco Bell hasn’t made a Crunchwrap supreme with a Dorito disk in the middle is because they know that day will be the death of me.
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YOLKS
Emanuela Ambrosio I don’t really like eggs, but I like you: sunny side, scrambled, over easy, in an omelet, hard boiled. I’ll take you in all the places you take your eggs: at a diner, at home in an old cast iron skillet, at a swanky hotel brunch buffet. I want to make eggs with you even though I’d rather get my protein from bacon. I’ll make them in a frittata that I load up with too many potatoes, or I’ll order them in a skillet at our second favorite diner, the taste of them masked by spinach, onions, sausage, and cheese. We get breakfast at a place the size of my living room with aluminum chairs that weigh less than my coat. That’s our favorite diner. It’s actually called a “General Store,” but it’s easier to tell people “Diner.” They know our faces there even though we only go like three times a year. I like their eggs the best. I wonder how something so ridiculous as an egg can remind me of every time you held my hand next to paper napkins and dull silverware. I wonder if the waiter, Luke, would know my face without you. I wonder if I’ll still get eggs if he ever has to.
SPRING 2016 23
WHISPER Elly Belle
I hate the way people carry my name in their mouths, all edge like a cliff, but the way you speak is full of conviction, your tongue is no longer a weapon but a whisper that keeps my worries quiet.
“Conservation Land,” Abbey Sullivan
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GREEN
Erinn Slanina The sky is green. Which is odd, because since you’re old enough to learn Everyone tells you the sky is blue And the grass is green. But I look outside and the sky is green Right between the melting sunset and the navy stratosphere. Not just any green either, Pale green Like a pearl or murky sea water. It reminds me of sea sickness The back and forth of a boat. It makes me uneasy. Maybe my eyes are messing with me But when I showed my roommate, she saw it too. My sister doesn’t believe me. This didn’t happen back in Jersey. Because if the sky is green What’s next? Will pigs fly? Will fish sing? Will there be water on Mars? Wait, there is water on Mars. So, is the sky really green, a supposedly impossible shade that is disappearing every second? Or am I losing my mind. I’m staring at the wrong colored sky, thinking about all the other impossible probabilities And for a second, everything seems possible. The city skyline is drowned in black. The green sky is gone. Back to wherever Oxymorons are made and people are purple. Maybe, if I’m lucky it will be back Tomorrow.
SPRING 2016 25
AU NATUREL Solange Luftman
Rip, pluck, cut, tweeze Red bumps and ingrowns populate the sensitive area Pain for the sake of Looking like a pubescent child When did this all begin? Surely the cavemen and women did not wince when they saw hair Those curlicue’s simply a part of existence In an age where words like ‘natural,’ ‘organic,’ and ‘raw’ Are thrown around And campaigns against body shaming clog the media It’s a wonder why hair is in a separate category I blame porn I blame salons I blame the plethora of hair removal products in the pharmacy I blame myself for participating Hair is not unnatural nor is it unhygienic Hair is hair It exists for protection from bacteria It exists to reduce friction It exists to show maturity The irritation never seems to be worth it Why not leave the inoffensive kinks alone?
“Leaf,” Kirsten Rickershauser 26
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EXHAUSTED Brianna Ciniglio
This is a kind of exhaustion That even a cup of coffee can’t cure. It finds its way inside of you And builds its home right in that space You were saving for tomorrow Or maybe it was yesterday. The days seem to blur together And suddenly it doesn’t matter If it’s Monday morning Or Thursday afternoon. Still, you put on that smile and trudge along Even when the peace of the evening Keeps you up all night.
SUNDAYS WITH EDYTHE Rachel H. Gurevich
“Where’s Leon?” she would ask. I did not want to remind her, for the seventh time that day, that he was gone. So I told her, “He’s out chasing shrews again. Watching the grass for sudden twitches, gathering them for his studies.” She nodded; of course he was. “Did your mother cook this chicken? It’s delicious,” she would ask. I was tired of reminding her, for the fifth time that day, that we’d picked it up from Snider’s. So I told her, “Yes, she baked it with azaleas and hydrangeas and a little bit of flour. Do you taste the hint of nutmeg?” She nodded; of course she did. “Have I told you about my watercolor class?” she would ask. She had. But I shook my head. So she told me for the first time, “I learned to see the liquid in the sunrise. Saw strawberry sorbet melt over satin sheets of emerald. My fingernails scratched the canvas and my veins sank into the page.” I nodded; of course they did.
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FOR YOU, I GUESS Amelia Beckerman
Lately I’ve been getting better at midnight similes and backwards dancing, better at peeling off the parts of myself I don’t like. I’m getting used to needing less space and more time, less distance and more hours. I’m getting better at telling you the opposite. When people ask me what you’ve been up to, I tell them you’ve started living upside down like a bat, blood rushing to your head when you sleep. I tell them you’re racked by dreams of stars turning red and floating out of the sky and when I say this I’m talking about myself. I don’t think they notice. When we were little we used to hold onto the bottom of the garage door when your mom came home and we’d let go when it got to the top because if we held on any longer our fingers would get stuck between the door and wall and that’s what it feels like now, like I forgot to let go and I’m stuck hanging, waiting for your mom to get out of the car and pull me down except your mom left fifteen years ago. Lately, I’ve been getting better at formalities but worse at quieting night time voices and I keep thinking about how your dad called you monkey because you would to swing from tree to tree and you lived without ever touching the ground and now you live in it. I keep thinking about how you learned how to climb out your window even though your parents would have let you out the front door and I’ve been getting better at pretending you’re dead instead of just gone and I’ve been getting worse at pretending that all the metaphors of flying away are just metaphors because I can picture your flight so clearly and I forget the definition of irony but I think it’s funny that my mom named me after Amelia Earhart but you’re the one that disappeared. 28
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“Lover’s Point II,” Regina Volpe
CAGES OF SAND
Raymond Alexander Turco The parrot’s father and I sat at a table in the break room of an inn in the beach town of P—. I had milk. He had less milk (it was for his coffee), but we both got our milk from the scary milk machine that was wondrously difficult to work. We sat in silence. It was early, far too early for lively chatter. I once loved and lusted after his pet bird, which had beautiful black plumage and a melancholy disposition, and often repeated what was already said ad nauseum: a beautiful black parrot with beautiful black plumage had flown from her cage and we were trying unsuccessfully to get her to go back in, coaxing her with nets and platitudes. I suggested he offer her earmuffs in this summer weather to block out the noise. He growled, “She already has earmuffs!” Silence. I no longer loved the stupid black parrot: she had molted and was not very pretty. I had felt ill the day before, on the beach, betraying the graces of the parrot and the parrot-holders. My mouth had moved and words had vomited forth in disjointed bits. My eyes shot from my sockets and flew away to better lands. The coaxing platitudes with which we tried to recover the bird and get her back in the cage were simple: “He loves you still!” “He’s not leaving you!” But these were the lies of the parrot-holders to soothe her cries. he innkeeper came to the breakroom and smiled. “So, you two have managed to get milk from the scary milk machine. That’s no easy task. A couple of geniuses you are.” Milk did not console us. Her father was solemn. His frown melted off his face, sliding into his caffé latte. Tears glazed his brioche. The parrot cage crumbled and turned to sand. SPRING 2016 29
BLACK DISC Nick Rizzuti
Yesterday, the cold froze all of the smog right out of the sky and the night was so clear you could use it as a gigantic mirror, your pupil a black disc over Manhattan, your lips poised above the Rockies, me the tiny clouds too close to look at properly. If I were to turn into rain, that would be just swell. 30
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“Cathedral Cove,” Mika Hawley SPRING 2016 31
THE EYEWITNESS Jackson S. Spear
This morning when I woke up, I found a half smoked cigarette next to my answering machine. When I checked my voicemail, I realized I had no clue when my rent was due. I rolled over and separated my chapped lips to swallow a layer of stale, coagulated saliva that had formed because I had been sleeping with my mouth open. I re-tasted the shitty beer I had from last night and tried to count how many hours of sleep I had gotten on one hand. From where I had passed out on the couch, I could see the droplets of rain race one another down my windowpane between the boogers of my eyes. Each one strived desperately to combine itself into a murky puddle outside my bedroom window. I turned the nodes of my neck and spine to the left, and pushed my shoulder blade out from my back to try to muster some motivation. Stretching wasn’t going to help. I don’t remember getting off the couch, but at 7:57 in the morning I recall staring at a tube of toothpaste in my bathroom, considering what it could possibly be that they make toothpaste out of. Sometimes, in the morning, I’ll brush my teeth without any toothpaste at all. Some people I know think that’s unsophisticated, but if you really spend a decent amount of time on your teeth in the morning, it’s pretty much the same thing. You can remove plaque like any other honest American and all you need is a toothbrush and neat clean circles. Other people are afraid of doing something without every thing they think they need to get the job done. Not me. It was warmer outside than I’d prefer 32
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for a rainy day. Never static, the puddles that coated the sidewalk made me wish I wore better shoes. People can’t ever find the right shoes for November rain in their closets; they rarely need them when the weather is cold and dry in Ireland. Rain sweetly dampened the ground that morning, and kissed the cement quickly and consistently, so droplets bounced on droplets. The rain today did nothing to complement the fact that it must’ve been upwards of 15ºC outside. For as little as I could care to walk in it, this kind of fall weather could always remind me of the day I was born. I was told that that day, when my mother held me in her arms, she told me she couldn’t be any happier now than she was at that moment, and then she cried. I was a baby at the time, so I cried too. My father kissed my mother on the forehead, dried her tears, and told her he’d be fired if he didn’t get back to work before noon. That was the day he would sign the deal on selling his large company to a larger company. The money he’d make that day would entirely support us for the next nineteen years of my life. After that, he would start to collect social security checks and drink beers on the couch, or in the lazy boy recliner. When I arrived at the train station, I didn’t have to wait in line to purchase my ticket. I took out my wallet to pay, and through the plastic lexan pocket I saw the photo on my New York State I.D. I noticed how much I’d changed from the day that picture was taken. Back then, my eyes were hazel, unassuming, and ready to view time and life through the warmed lens of naiveté. My eyes have seen more now, I think.
They’re tired, and they sit in dark pockets on the skin of my face, drained but still looking and noticing. Candice says I look lost nowadays, but if I listen to Candice too much I usually get frustrated. It’s not that she isn’t right; I just never expected how hard it’d be to remember being eighteen after only four years. Back then, I was scared of anyone messed up, dangerous, or out of their mind enough to flare up and cause a scene. Not anymore. I stood aside for two short women to get off the train after it arrived. They held hands, and then I held the door for a gentleman who boarded after me. I chose a comfortable seat at the near the door where I didn’t think anyone would sit next to me. I don’t think anyone would sit next to me regardless of where I sat, in all honesty. In fact, no one was sitting next to anyone on this train. There was at least one seat open between every person on this train, and that meant something quiet and comfortable to everyone on board. Then, I noticed I had to pee. I didn’t have my headphones, but I wanted to listen to music. I fiddled with my thumbs, unwinding, sinking into my seat, and growing rapidly unstimulated. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the gentleman I held the door for produce a bouquet of roses from where he must have been hiding them in his coat pocket. I can’t imagine he bought those flowers for himself. I’ve known Candice for a while now, but I don’t think any man had ever bought her flowers. I don’t think she’d like something like that. The train stopped at Pembroke Station, and the doors slid apart to welcome the
weight of new commuters. Among their huddled masses, one of them refused to take a seat. The non-conformist stood with his back bent, still close to three meters in height. His face was sharp, gaunt, and he smiled like he didn’t know how to get out of trouble. When he scanned the train, I noticed the man’s eyes were two different colors. They complemented his tandem disregard for both the realms of personal hygiene and physical space. The man stomped down the train, appraising and exploring, snapping his fingers and his gaze at other riders on the train, guided only by his momentary presence and shifting grasp on where he might be. He certainly wasn’t calm. Cursing under his breath, the madman divulged in a face-reddening fury his hate for his mother to a middle aged man on the train. He got louder and whined, then screamed to anyone that could hear him that no one had ever told him, “I love you.” Who couldn’t love a face like this, he begged, asking anyone. Spinning around, he began to cry and demanded an answer to the same question from a young Asian woman. She couldn’t answer him. I don’t think he knew that. He certainly wasn’t sad. The man romped back up the aisle and ripped another man’s newspaper out of his hands, threw it to the ground, and then just stared at him, waiting for a response. When the newspaper-man responded by gingerly picking his story back up off the ground, the troublemaker spat a wad of phlegm onto the floor of the train car. I wasn’t sitting far away; it didn’t look like a healthy color for mucus. The man then turned his focus to an agSPRING 2016 33
ing woman. Leaning down to look her right in her eyes, he contorted the muscles of his face in a rage so quiet and out of control it stopped either of them from speaking entirely. They remained there for a while, locked, just looking into one another. The older woman extended herself from her seat and held the man’s right hand between her wrinkled palms. She rubbed that hand softly, and invited politely him to sit next to her. Slowly, he did, never saying a word. I watched that man unwind. He unraveled and collected himself beside this woman. He stopped twitching, and his breath became even. When he had leaned his head on his companion’s shoulder and finally exhaled, the train came to a complete stop. A pre-recorded voice over the speaker told us we had arrived in Side Yard Station. The gaunt man hugged the woman close and stood to leave the train. Several commuter’s apprehensions left with him. I leaned across my seat and asked the old woman why she had done what she had done. She told me she was a mother and couldn’t stand to see someone else’s child in such disrepair. She told me that was the kind of thing that hurt her heart to see. I heard her words with my ears, but I didn’t know what they meant to me or how they made me feel. I checked my phone for something new. The date was February 14th, 2016. A rainy warm Valentine’s Day. I’ll buy Candice flowers today even though it’s raining. I think she’ll like that.
“Oil Pastel Girl,” Robin Deering
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A CLOCK WITH NO HANDS Lucas Harris
I want a clock with no hands So everyday Will be today. I want a clock with no hands Because I actually can’t tell time And it’d be a great conversation piece. But I want a clock with no hands So I don’t feel tethered to Some obligation I don’t need to remember. I want a clock with no hands So I don’t feel rushed for time, Like I’m on someone’s beck and call, if only on a small level. I want a clock with no hands So I can’t feel as though I’m chained To a past that I never wanted. I want a clock with no hands So I have something tangible, of value, to pass on to someone I love. I want a clock with no hands Because someday, I want to be remembered. Just like a clock with no hands.
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MUD AND CONCRETE Josh Wilson
I used to live next to someone who tended a garden in their backyard. A neatly woven, white fence surrounded the garden. Rows of delightful English Lavender, velvet night embers, rich green hostas, and sweet cotton candy lilacs lined a luscious chorus of color and harmony. Some shriveled up, singed looking flowers lay defeated among the rows of popping palettes. Once beautiful because of their vibrance, much as the other flowers were, the black lotus was no longer able to stand straight. I found out that the lotus flowers were a late addition to the garden. Before they were ripped from their roots, they stood tall in their own home. They were overlooked: never watered, nor cared for. How do you blame the black lotuses for struggling to stand after they were brought in with broken stems? How do you criticize a flower’s integrity when it is planted but not given a chance to grow? One neighbor would say “those lotuses destroy the beauty of the garden. They should be uprooted.” How ironic. Another neighbor thought the lotuses should be thrown away. But there was much beauty in the lotus, if for no other reason than its resilience.
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“D.O.A.B,” Grace Albert
GOOGLE SEARCHES t.s
Summer drinks and bar-top dancing, How to clean your room. STDs and margaritas, The age you find your soulmate. Sometimes I think That google searches predict the future. But the fun fact is, Instead, It’s a diary of your past.
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SCHOLAR
Dana Aprigliano
There’s an old, empty school On the corner of progress and thought And I want to re-enter it But as much as I think I want to, I can’t. It’s too old. I don’t like to think of the past Except when I realize There’s nowhere else I feel comfortable. Is it okay to say what I think? I worry I’ll be alone But then I realize I’m alone now And so it’s okay; The thought was for nothing, so There’s only progress left. I wish I could accept it like I accept everything else. My destination is past the horizon And I hate that I can’t feel my feet Because they’re sinking into stagnation But for now, there’s nothing I can do. I hope that eventually there might be something.
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MIDWAY
Baston Xiang Li ————————Through my long journey On an unpaved road between two cities, I stop and listen to the hastening river Roaming and clashing rocks under My feet. I stand in the midway Of a suspended bridge and stay To watch the sun set on a peaceful sea Fed by passionate water below me. I’m not shocked by the rampage Of overgrowth where I wage Through, until I see the endless Grassland, a new kind of menace, Awaiting; two worlds between Me are split by a blue beam Shooting from a mighty waterfall Churning between two cliff walls. Afar, the sun-kissed shy sky tries To cool its face with an ocean-size Water supply: it drops the red Diamond and the payment is met. My heart follows a lone seagull Forging ahead with a never dull Spirit to where the sun sinks, A bright place without its ink-An illustrious sky-meets-sea line Where the wings can never arrive.
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IT WAS 63° IN TOKYO ENG Jole
It was 63° in Tokyo. Fahrenheit, of course. I don’t know why I still need to use that relic of the past. Fahrenheit is such an American thing. So backwards and idiosyncratic. Celsius is cleaner, sharper, more analytical and acute. So instead of reminding myself of the darkness inside of my soul, whatever remains of that other self, well, I know who you are, so why don’t we start again? It was 17° in Tokyo. There was a light rain, a refreshing rain, even though it wasn’t the tropical rains of Japan’s far-flung islands, and it certainly was a bit chilling, but it was a clean rain. It washed the already near-spotless streets with the reflection of the neon lights of Shinjuku and the grey suits of the intellectuals of Hongo, with a flash of a floral pattern darting through the water like some demented, manic, independent fish. I looked down from sixteen stories up standing stalwartly at the window, observing the pulse and flow, pulse and flow, of a civilization. A single golden butterfly floated down into the picture. They had returned. I walked down the street with my umbrella over my shoulder, the butterflies drifting around the edges of my coat as it flapped gently in the wind. I had been waiting for them to join me once again, bring the frantic, glass-like music to my head. I’m still not sure if it was the rain that brought them, or something else; this type of cleansing wash was rare. But the point was they were back, and I felt alive and acute once again. A butterfly darted out onto the street and swept around and up to the forefront 40
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signage. The rain stopped for a minute. The sun was setting. The sky was turning a deep, deep, red, the red of those that had perished under robber-barons and the great wars. The clouds wafted away, and the rest of the golden butterflies fluttered upward. Some said it was beautiful. I was one of them. It was 17° in Tokyo. The shopkeepers strode out to look at the sky. No one knew what was happening. This was new, like what it was going to create. Some brave new world, some utopia of the working class, some crystal city across the fruited plains and down the yellow road. I always thought that the people staring upwards were trying to figure out what to name it. It needed a name, one that had the entirety of humanity’s free will invested inside of its power, a permanent legacy on the pale blue dot, the pixel, the milquetoast mote of dust. That’s all we were on. A pale blue dot. That thought came to me, fluttered by me like the golden butterflies, through the streets of Tokyo. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. But I didn’t need Sagan to tell me that. I didn’t need science to tell me that. I saw it in the butterflies and the people and heard it in the music, the heroes for a lonely day. The lonely dot. It was a profound, humiliating experience, one that puts your entire life into a single pixel, but that changed. The pale blue dot was a pale red dot, a permanent record, an everlasting tattoo on the skin of the universe, right there on the street. It was 17° in Tokyo.
I don’t remember what happened after that. The butterflies tend to do that. Well, let me rephrase that: I don’t remember exactly what happened. These golden insects make me focus on the big picture. I like the big concepts. They work with who I am. I flesh out the details only when they are salient to my plan. That sunset, that rain, that temperature was salient. It allowed me to continue what was started. I myself washed the already near-spotless streets with the neon light of Shinjuku, and the grey suits of the intellectuals of Hongo, this time with a flash of blood red darting through the water like some glorious, stalwart, all-encompassing fish. I washed past Tokyo and the Pacific, past the amber waves of grain and wrapped around the green floating mountains of the dragon. The gold swept across the universe and the collective consciousness of every single living organism.
from doing that. Stop getting hung up on yourself, the tangibles and the intangibles. Let the butterflies take you away. Well, if you can see them; I’m pretty sure only I can, and I accept that. It is a destiny of being a sinner and a saint to humanity, maybe even a martyr to some souls that have a patina like mine. Either way, it doesn’t matter; it is a destiny I accept readily, assuming that I’m still right about what events occurred. But whatever it was, whatever really happened, whatever sin-eating acts I may or may have not done, I trust them. I trust the golden butterflies as they flew across the world. And I still remember the start of it all. It was 63° in Tokyo.
But what I do know was that I tasted it in the air, that ringing metallic feel, like a crisp, unyielding, detached coldness that was quickly replaced with an anxious heat and unsettling gust, some testament to the greater good that does—or should—surround us all. It made me cuddle and cry and become manic and escape. People blurred into one, and one person blurred into many, like some Salvador Dali painting on LSD. I think there was some LSD and other noxious cocktails involved once or twice, some lithium too, but I’m not sure. I could be mistaken. I forgot and misremembered a lot of things. That’s how you change history, after all. You consciously rewrite both time and yourself. That’s something I learned early on. There’s nothing stopping you SPRING 2016 41
(I WISH I WAS YOUR BEDSHEETS) Christine Diana
smothered in purple morning your fingers wound through mine skin traced white with sunlight in vertical slants across your arms i wish i was your first cup of coffee when you’re still draped over the counter i wish you needed me the way i need you and i wish you’d say you hate me one more time so i can finally forget all those mornings in the cradle of your arms all those empty white mugs in the sink condensation rings on the table packets of sugar spilling tiny silver granules across the counter i wish i could forget all those times i said i loved you and pull those words back behind my teeth i can’t forget your heartbeat your smile, your eyes i can’t forget the way you loved me or the way you said goodbye
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THOUGHTS FROM SEAT 29A
Regina Volpe
Aerodynamically, bees shouldn’t fly their wings too light their bodies too much that they should be sentenced to a life on foot not in air And linguistically, “decadence” shouldn’t describe desserts or one’s lavish lifestyle but the ruins of times forgotten signifying such crumbled broken things And realistically, the world’s a contradiction brimming with liars and mistruths left for people to ponder traveling faster than humans probably should watching the world through the clouds
“Grandma Dove’s Chandelier,” Abbey Sullivan SPRING 2016 43
BOSS-MAN Mack Caldwell
Pull the pizza out of the oven and place it onto a dirty pan the Boss-man wobbles over forty-three years old a dry mouth and frog-like body wide, tired, fake tanned fake bleached beach hair open work shirt gold chain a smoke and liquor wrinkled face He coughs up tar into his hand “Hey ha, look at that one up there!” grunt he points his phallic, sausage finger toward the white countertoward a mother and daughter holding hands sunglasses, beach day, and bright faces standing attentively waiting to order “I’d like to take you back to the cooler, girl” barked Mark, through his dope ripped throat from the safety of the plate clinking kitchen He grins at the Boss-man showing a few black rotted teeth, and a white tongue he aggressively humps the air, motioning at the two I drag my head up With a melting expression of total disinterest “The mother?” I exhale. The Boss-man crinkles his face in disgust “No, you moron the young one” A phone rings from the mother’s purse she walks away urgently The daughter is left isolated, exposed The Boss-man crosses his arms pressing against his sugar fat belly His eyes shoot back at the lonely thirteen year old standing quietly, in her bikini, still wet from the ocean 44
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she glances up at the menu biting her pink lip clenching her mother’s money nervously ready to order on her own I look at her into her innocence her ignorance a fresh smile healthy and flushed the warmth of red over pale cheeks The Boss-man gazes up and down her bikini strewn body his eyes violating every curve of her prepubescent figure I stare at him into those cracked yellow eyes and say nothing My head drops back down staring at the floor The Boss-man wobbles away I cough and turn Mark’s still staring at the girl his mouth open and dumb I pull the pizza out of the oven and place it onto a dirty pan
RHYMING DIDN’T SAVE JFK
Matt Wenner
I’ve never really liked rhyming that much. The whole concept about it is just odd and when I try it out I need a crutch. I end up using weird words like “petard.” Wait, that kinda rhymed, but hell, it works. Help is always welcomed when I try it because I never figure out the quirks. Once again, stretching what’s a rhyming bit. I thought that these were only two quatrains, however there are actually three. Guess I get to ride more of the rhyme trains... ...Wait! What goes with three? Spree? Tree? The Baltic Sea? I really did try and rhyme a lot here, but I’m all rhymed out so I’ll grab a beer. SPRING 2016 45
CHICKWEEDS Toby Jaffe
Across the street from the UN sits Trump International Tower: a tall, dark, falsely empowered building that one assumes houses lonely diplomats. And across from there is a giant fenced-in field, abandoned by its creator, decorated by dirty ice and views of Brooklyn High Rises. No one dares enter thanks to all the tramply weeds and sinkholes and the horrible dinge of commuter traffic on the East River Drive, and it’s funny because Donald Trump taught me that Vitriolic Chickweeds can flow from the mouth, planted with help from his phlegm, working as soil, sowed by Ted Cruz, dressed in farm garb, surrounded by horse flies and cattle, just a filthy, filthy man plowing with his play shovel, scraping in a back and forth motion like a quiet madman, rapturously inviting the clouds to pour down on him to cleanse his oafishly forgotten soul and Ben Carson knocks on the wall, its patterned slices of chain-link, weeping for Senator Cruz and his own blind demons which fly high as the Empire State Building. “Doctor Carson”, says Cruz, “your hands are bleeding!” and Jeb Bush watches from the Tudor City sign overlooking it all, laughing like the joker, smelling like all hell, a kind of expensive boozy hell, managing to duck glances and lob candy apples onto First Avenue as pedestrians curse at the gusting winds and John Kasich and Marco Rubio enter the sprawling abandoned field where Cruz does his hard labor; arms locked, dressed like mid-century explorers with feathered hats, frolicking as they did in kindergarten, kicking the dirt so sidesplittingly as to create a dusty tornado. What a frenzied scene with the chickweeds flying all around like smoking sunflowers a distraction from the work that has to be done and maybe it was all part of the plan all part of some plan devised across the street at the UN in a darkened conference room with 12 spring interns sitting in a row with their brown bag lunches colored with the pretend poetry of Chipotle, downtown, South End Avenue. 46
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Somehow, The chickweeds float on, beyond this dirty tornado, and Cruz lectures the others not to be so damn excited all the time, Jeb, John, Marco, Ben. All the while Mr. Trump dines on lobster and frozen lemonade talking to a 30 something reporter on CNN, by way of speaker phone across the street in his international tower.
“Covered Crossing,� Emily Rosa SPRING 2016 47
IN A SURPISING TURN OF EVENTS, WOMEN ARE MULTIFACETED HUMAN BEINGS Sarah Robbins
I am female. I am nurture. Caretaker of all the babies, defender of all my sisters. I will always have a shoulder to cry on, always have a listening ear, and I will always have ibuprofen in my purse. I am nurture. I am female. I am lady. I am boss. Do no harm but take no shit. Call me a bitch but get your work done. I didn’t get here by sitting on my ass I got here by working! Bussing tables, studying hard, And maybe you think you’re better than me, but fact of the matter is I paid all my debt. I am boss. I am lady. I am girlfriend. I am moon and stars. I am better than that, I am the sun. Mankind’s favorite star because I give light and life to everything I touch. I am an endless galaxy. I am the milky way. I am moon and stars. I am girlfriend . I am girl. I am fright. I tread carefully and cautiously and I always wear my seatbelt and I always pack Band-Aids. When I go to the city I clutch my purse to my chest like it is my life vest, and I do not make eye contact. 48
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I know to watch my drink. I know to walk with my keys between my fingers in a fist, and I know to yell fire if I am ever raped. I am fright. I am girl. I am woman. I am monster. Some days I wake up and my claws are already out and my fangs are bared. some days I go looking for a fight. For today I am a black hole. I am the stuff of nightmares, violent, furious. I am no siren. Too many say I am weak, but little do they know that I can destroy everything! I can destroy you. I can destroy myself. I am monster. I am woman.
I am fright. I am girl. I am moon and stars. I am girlfriend. I am boss. I am lady. I am nurture. I am female. I am protective, abrasive, wild, and predictable, happy, angry, sad, calm, and absolutely merciless. I am not your stereotype, archetype, analogy, simile,or metaphor, but a person.
“Vert,� Grace Albert SPRING 2016 49
ROME Victoria Snak We tore the sky apart. There are places to break its ends like glow sticks and watch the fever run out. In its course of healing we too run high, betting how much heaven will spill to us in its delirium. We were closer to answers than we’d been, this time. The sky rasped, clearing atoms from its throat, bonding beginnings in atavistic bursts. But as we pressed for more, firsts formed our cabin and the temperature broke, cooling off into night. 50
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“Comfort,” Emily Rosa
SYNESTHESIA Regina Volpe
June 2015 is burning wood, a joke, release. Saying everything that we held in for four years, burning away people we’ll never see again in a literal and figurative sense. Paper names withering away, forging new memories to replace them. June is something chemical. August 2011 is fresh mud, a hush, peace. Taking salvage on the riverbed, falling asleep under the stars, taking in the moonlight after a day’s worth of sun. Bodies worn out in only a physical way. Every other care a million miles from here. August is crisp air. April 2012 is stale beer, my favorite song, connection. Standing too close to people that don’t really feel like strangers. Staying in the crowd begging for one more, not wanting to leave once it’s over. April is body odor. May 2013 is wet asphalt, a boom, breaking apart. Clouds parting only to be filled again. Celebrating a life taken too soon by lighting up the sky. Until the tears streaking below reflect the colors spreading above. May is lingering sulfur.
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DIRT BED
Ryan Douglass Williams The shade of your hard shadow buries me bleeding. I could sink into the bed and still be boney. You push until you’re hot enough to suck out my heat. I turn hollow as a bloodstream emptied. I’m not girl enough to hide it. The magazine spread stars my fucking flaccid cock, but laid in this spot, you still like it. I could blend in with the bed and still be everything you want. I could blend in with the bed and still be hot. My creases close up every time you open up. I wish a friend could pick me up but you’re the best ride I’ve got. A sick fire licks anew my old forest fire bruise. I taste the red-black tang of abuse. (I don’t need a candy heart or to close an open hand all I need is to be bigger than a body) I reach down for my flag to surrender and become you as I pull you down further in my tomb. I know it’s not you. It’s just the same old abuse (but I want to be abused like a burn to a bruise) (and to die every night and die used).
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ALOE VERA: A SONNET Dan Willis
The tendrils both go off in separate ways, a toothpick holds the base inside each one. Two more grow between. Inside the space the smaller growths will start to bathe in sun. Some stems have already begun to rot. They lie upon the windowsill having grown to a point where the soil could not hold them. They lie by the window—still. A store by my childhood home sold bottles of Aloe Vera juice. My dad bought some. It was sweet and mixed with mango. There might still be some bottles in the basement. My mother cut the plant and used it on my arm when I got blisters from the sun.
“Capri,” Raymond Alexander Turco SPRING 2016 53
45 MINUTES TO SYDNEY Mika Hawley
Squeeze me until I’m purple and black and blue and use me for whatever you want. Join the mile-high club with me, in a sense. Put me down and look at me thankfully for a second until the woman in the window seat has to get up to pee for the 4th time. What inspired a woman with bladder issues to take the window seat on a 14 hour flight, I’ll never know. Look out the window for those few minutes that she’s gone. See the clouds pass by and your shadow on the ground, coming closer and then meandering farther away as we soar over hill and valley alike. Tell Adam Levine to shut up for a second, your headphones are sore in your ears after these 13 hours. And why are you listening to Adam Levine in the first place? “45 minutes until we begin our descent into Sydney, thank you for flying the beautiful skies with United Airlines.” “You’re welcome!” says the awful man next to you who thinks that that wasn’t a rhetorical statement. He’s going to clap when the plane lands. I just know it. Laugh into your sleeve so that he doesn’t see you making fun. Knock me off of your tray table with your elbow. I fall, along with your 3 inch, flimsy plastic utensils, to the ground somewhere over Eastern Australia; my body becomes a haphazard texture of crevices and embossments that I hope resembles the Rocky Mountains from up above. Look up past the crack in your window that definitely shouldn’t be there and see where the horizon gets soft and textureless; want that instead of me: crumpled uselessness. Admire me from above for the shortest of moments. Look out the window and see the mountains, which I’m identical to. Their purple haze and mine; their ridges and bumps and the valleys and streams that flow through them, the stains on my sides from your greasy, airplane- food-covered fingers. Admire me from above, but not for long enough to realize how much better off I am down here, with the ants and the butterflies and the tendrils of grass already growing up my sides, attaching me to this solid earth. I can breathe for the first time in hours— from the plastic pouch which I was crammed into so that you could have me in pristine condition, straight into the recycled air of the cabin, and now to this. Is this what air is supposed to feel like? Admire me from above and don’t realize how much better I am down here, just out of your reach while your seatbelt is fully tightened. Just out of your reach. Forget how much better I look and feel down here. “Current temperature at Sydney is 23 degrees Celcius, comin’ in at around 77 degrees Fahrenheit. A wind coming in from the East at about 16 miles an hour.” Take this opportunity to chuckle at the pilot for thinking that we care about the 54
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wind speed, and pick me up from the floor. You don’t care that I am so much more beautiful than I could ever be in your sweaty palms; you just feel it’s your duty to pull me from the dirt and grass to which I’ve become so accustomed. It’s not your duty, but I suppose I still appreciate the effort you’ve expended. Forget the knife, which is hiding under the backpack you insist on calling a knapsack for reasons unbeknownst to me. It will stay there until the yellow-vested workers come around, after you’re long gone and have forgotten all about it. After all, you didn’t even use it to butter your dinner roll an hour ago. Fold me up neatly and destroy all that I became for those few precious seconds on the ground.Undo millennia of erosion, the movement of tectonic plates. Iron me out with the same hands that created my beautiful erraticism in the first place. Fold me into half first, then half again, then in half one more time but that last fold won’t stick no matter how many times you try. Make me smaller than I was when I came to you and don’t give a shit about it. The woman sitting next to you returns, blocking your view of the window with her bosom. You would call them boobs but I think it would be abhorrent to call this woman’s bosom anything but a bosom. When the flight attendants come around and ask for your trash, ask, “What’s the local time in Sydney?” in the hopes of adjusting your watch. She doesn’t know exactly, sorry sir. Shrug it off; try to remember for yourself whether the time difference is 16 or 19 hours from New York. Grasp me in your hand tighter for the briefest of seconds and then hand me off, along with your tray with the weirdly sticky bottom so that the food doesn’t fly away in turbulent conditions—but how great would it be if there were an impromptu food fight in United Airlines flight 839? Us, the passengers, versus whatever malevolent god you believe in, whether it is Jesus Christ or gravity. Throwing the cliché airplane food around the cabin, hoping the “lasagna” whacks some sense into the flight attendant and she comes to you to tell you what time it is in Sydney. Release me with no celebration whatsoever into yet another plastic cage. Throw your tray on top of me so that I get pushed right up against the plastic. The polymers cover and suffocate me. Don’t let me breathe again, ever. Graciously take the trash from the woman next to you and toss it on top of me. Don’t give me another thought, ever again, please. Please. “We’re beginning our descent into Sydney; please store your tray tables and bring your seats to their full upright and locked position,” says the flight attendant for the last time. She announces that the local time is 8:17. So she knew after all, you think, twisting the dial on your watch. That bitch. P.S. Your neighbor claps when we land. I told you so. SPRING 2016 55
SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY ENG Jole
See you space cowboy, roped into something that you thought you’d never find another awesome and terrible milquetoast majesty of the depths of the universe itself
See you space cowboy,
You left me long behind when the game turned the tables twisted and i no longer had sympathy for the devil those with wealth and taste rhapsodic in nature self contained explosives and butterflies you know you’ve got to carry that weight
See you space cowboy i’m free now and i found Julia just another bend in the road you made your choice and i made mine 56
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See you space cowboy where’s your messiah now? you drifted off into the solar system but i’m right here not good enough only good enough betray We’re both gone in the same direction lightyears apart you found yours and i know it will crash but you can’t come back to me
SPRING 2016 57
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 5, Spring 2016. Hofstra University. Copyright 2016 Font Literature and Art. All artwork and literature contained in this publication are copyright 2016 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