VOLUME 2 WINTER 2015
Literary and Arts Magazine Volume 2 Winter 2015 A Production of the Hofstra English Society
HOFSTRA ENGLISH SOCIETY 209 Mason Hall Hofstra University Hempstead, NY 11549 hofenglishsociety@gmail.com facebook.com/hofstraenglishsociety @hofengsoc issuu.com/hofstraenglishsociety Cover art by Brandon Armando Chivers
STAFF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Melissa Rostek
MANAGING EDITOR Melanie Rainone
TEXT EDITOR Gillie Houston
ART EDITOR Lillian (Lilly) Smith
DESIGN EDITOR Alexis Willey COPYEDITORS Elly Weinstock Bryanna Zerella
GENERAL STAFF Sarah Bonamino Rachael Burlette Amy Butenhof Mike Cicchetti Brianna Ciniglio Victoria Cocolaras Alie Coolidge Alyssa Ennis
Alice Gunther Jacqueline Hsu Toby Jaffe Noura Kiridly Amanda Palomino Nick Rizzuti Kirby Sandmeyer Catherine Schmelter
SPECIAL THANKS Eric Brogger Craig Rustici Scott Harshbarger Nicole Thomas Hofstra University English Department Hofstra Print Center
contents Nyctophilia 8
I.S. Jones
Soul Dance 9 Elly Weinstock Wandering 10 Siobahn Casey Constellations 11 Melanie Rainone Illuminate 11 Amanda Palomino The Brunt of It 12 David Yurman Untitled 13 Jenn Smulo Apples 14 Brian Stieglitz Lemon Trees 15 Gillie Houston Midtown Glow 16 Patrick Hopkins A Toast 16 Victoria Snak News from Madison, Wisconsin 17 Lucia Regina Palazzo You Are the Reason I Still Sleep with the Light On 18 Elizabeth Merino My Missing Shoe 19 Eric Crocombe Traveling through Times 19 Noura Kiridly The Ghosts I Love 20 Julie Pate The Impact of Your Photo... 21 William Meade I Am Not Your Princess 22 Melissa Rostek Paint Chips 23 Victoria Cocolaras City Step 23 Amanda Palomino Untitled 24 Jenn Smulo The Sonata 25 Amy Butenhof The Evolution of Dreams 26 Amanda Palomino The Finch & The Minnow 27 Jacqueline Hsu Da Vedere 27 Annie White Spectacle 28 Nelly Nickerson Day le Say 29 Alice Gunther Aquanaut 29 Ainsley Rufer Through the Red Door 30 Ryan Moncrief
Noura Kiridly 33 Within a Daydream Melanie Rainone 33 Impressionism Madeleine Carroll 34 Queen Bulimia Stephanie Kostopoulos 35 Free Fall Rachel Crocetti 35 Expectations Ashanti Davis 36 A Reunion Held in the Desert Victoria Cocolaras 37 Silhouettes Yu-Hsiang Huang 38 Eigengrau Toby Jaffe 39 Xanax Soda Pop Brandon Armando Chivers 39 From My Love I.S. Jones 40 Ablution Patrick C. Koholic 42 Ripped Jeans Mike Ciccetti 42 Brendan Daniel Willis 43 I Guess Natalia Orozco 44 Excuse Me Eric Crocombe 45 Broken Devon Preston 46 Compass Mike Cicchetti 47 Flux (61) Aaron Burger 48 Security Keys Mike Cicchetti 48 Dario Melissa Rostek 49 Every Girl I’ve Ever Kissed Tastes the Same Noura Kiridly 50 Bathe Sea and Skin in Sunset Gillie Houston 51 Last Summer Tristan Wood 52 Skeleton Keys in the Rain Jeffrey Lin 52 Untitled Lisa H.D. Napolitan 53 People of Places Elly Weinstock 54 Comfort (n.) Nick Rizzuti 55 We Are the Universe Experiencing Itself! Evan Gardner 55 Mary
contents
Nyctophilia I.S. Jones I. The desert is a single held breath. The nights here are so empty I forget why I’m alive. Grandma is God’s breath sweeping around me. She is a bundle of unnamed stars, the ones that try to stitch themselves into a different beauty every night. II. This is how the desert settles: When the wind tires of turning sand grains for answers, the arid breath becomes a wave void of water. Sun crosses my window, marking the world for departure. Trains drag their tired ankles full of rust. In evening’s breath: Rest, the echo seems to say. But I can’t. so I step out of myself. In my dreams, Grandma comes for me. She creeps along the walls. Asks me to say her name but I have forgotten. Asks me for water, even though water can’t save her. I am so thirsty where I am. Please Why do my dreams betray me to my fears? Grandma is buried in a village mom does not know the name of. I tell mom demons come to my dreams Wearing Grandma’s skin. Mom still sleeps with Grandma’s Bible under her bed. She doesn’t know how not to. III. The train’s horns come through the open window owning my bones at whim. Grandma’s spirit is cold air passing through me. She tells me she is buried in sky that stars are what happen when the dead refuse to let go of living. 8 WINTER 2015
Soul Dance Elly Weinstock I never slow danced with you in the kitchen at 2 am, we were not fairytale or romance just rude reality but sometimes we stayed up until 3 to talk about string theory over Skype while we both made mac and cheese, or debated the importance of Picasso and Edward Hopper, so for all our differences and faults, for all the cracks in our affection and quakes in our California love, sometimes we were good to each other sometimes we stayed up late to dream together, and our souls danced intertwined in separate kitchens.
WINTER 2015 9
Wandering Siobahn Casey With dirt ingrained and love inferred We will begin the fast fall into the depths of life Understand, you do not own this body. It is mine to destroy. Can you feel the sorrow? The ecstasy? To borrow the brain of the beast, to think you know all the secrets it holds. Blind and bound by this mass of nerves and skin and bones. It is the mess we see. Of the beings without belonging. They, the owners of air. Of the fire in the sky and the indigo sea, yelling. Turn around, I will wait. Understand, you do not own this body. When your eyes open to this world, behind the brick, mortar and glass, Truth and lies and life consumed. Falling and fading, this is how we gain control. And when all is still, silent. Are you truly reclaimed?
10 WINTER 2015
Illuminate, Amanda Palomino
Constellations Melanie Rainone I miss the way your face looks when you laugh, Eyes crinkling into stars that bend into constellations Pointing me toward home like street signs I can’t always make out. Because home isn’t really a place, It’s the way my head fits into the nook below your shoulder And how when you kiss my forehead My freckles smile like tiny suns over big cities that have seen Rain for far too long. WINTER 2015 11
The Brunt of It David Yurman One-handed he bore the weight of the door. He held the other hand open and patient against the crowd. His leaden palm braced gently against the glassed frame. On warmer days the sweat ran slick off his wrist and traced light paths down his sweltering seersucker. When the seasons aged he kept his hands gloved in callouses. He bore the weight of it, and it did not cost him much, but the steadying of that other hand left him spent. It broke pugnaciously against the flow in a sort of half-masted salute. From time to time throughout the day it would ache at the joints, and the strength in his sloped shoulders waned and waxed with temperature and time. Most of those recycling suits skirted past without so much as a peripheral. But often enough he was dealt a nod, a shake, a small gift in the name of feigned kindness. His spindly legs rooted with languid resolve, irrevocably founded upon the Earth, as concrete and paved as the built world stitched high against the dulled sky. Sometimes the Members would speak to him, but often their vacant looks left him cold and shrouded up against the narrow entrance. In the colder months his coat would lengthen and his boots would grow and his stomach pressed a little tighter against the tails of his frock. Frost would accumulate on the brim of his cap, and his ashen uniform was sculpted flat against the slogged concrete. Forever through wind and whirling was his hand extended, whether received or not, hardened against the insatiable roaring of the crowd. The little color in his life took the shape of leaves. They were so twisted and gnarled and thick and vivant that they obscured completely their wooden stake. During spring, flowers burst wild in coruscating curves. The sallow sun blended gaudy and earthen hues, leaving the flowerpot looking impossible— the spindly twigs and hearty leaves seemed to hover, unsupported, above the crimson carpet bracing the door. The plant grew with the years, and soon he could not have count1 2 WINTER 2015
ed the many unique flowerings if he tried, and the stake had been completely choked by the growing, and the holistic beauty of that growth made him sad sometimes because he knew it had forgotten how precious each leaf had been when it was young. Off and down the cavernous block, he could often see the golden hints of autumn from the Park. The tips of those lurid canopies clawed at the edges of the avenue. It appeared, from the awkward angle of the sidewalk and from behind the jaunted lenience of the shivering glass, that the very street itself thundered indelibly toward some kaleidoscopic vanishing-point, an oft-forgotten moment in which all dust and drab blossomed into wondrous disbelieving. He spent many hours in the depths of westward eyes. The seeing of it was good. It kept him going. Meanwhile, his daughter grew her hair. Then she cut it, grew it back, and cut it again. His other daughter grew tall. Yet another daughter grew in love. Age came easily and lovingly to all his children. The seasons rolled down the avenue. Every spent-year left the next feeling all the shorter for the passing. He often thought of his father-in-law. The thinking never bothered him, but the being-there did—he smiled speciously at those who trotted lively through the doors. His father-in-law had fought against such wanton men many years ago, and whilst his father-inlaw’s ashen months were spent in chains and in fervent fear of rapacious knocks at the door, his own colder days could be chased away by the promise of hot coffee from the kitchen. His father-in-law had borne a heavier weight than he, he thought. The thinking never bothered him but the being-there did—it weighed on him. In those pensive times he looked to the Park and lost himself in the abscission.
But for the doing of it all, the Members treasured him. On wedding days he needn’t worry—both his daughters received pristine silverware sets from the Club, engraved on courtesy. Now, under bruised mornings, I eat breakfast with these same spoons. The weight ofsummer air and strength of winter gales build and blend and it all sounds steady, and I cough, fearfully thinking of how heavy the doors must have been, how thick the sweat must have ran down his back, how haughty and high were those glances as he ushered them to the dapper baroque beyond his post, how though he stood a head above these men he was little more than spoiled slush at the feet of their unlaced dress-shoes, how he must have forced a smile. He wasted so many smiles when holding doors for careless city-men during grand times. Without knowing it was for my sake in the end, he endured. He collected all the years in his calloused hands and worked them dry and bare. In the name of legacy he bore the brunt of time. I am lucky he had smiles left at the end of the day for his daughters. I guess he saved the best for them.
Untitled, Jenn Smulo WINTER 2015 13
Apples Brian Stieglitz What if When God asked Adam why he ate the apple from the tree He didn’t blame Eve, who didn’t blame the snake What if he did something different What if he simply said “Yeah, God. I ate the fruit. And it tasted so good. I know you told us not to. But what was stopping me?” And what if When God told Moses he was forbidden from entering the Promised Land Because he doubted God’s power Moses didn’t let it slide He did something different What if he said, “What’s you deal, God? I got all the way here and you’re not letting me in for this? After all I’ve been through!?” And what if When God spilt fire on Sodom and Gomorrah And Lot watched his wife turn to salt He didn’t move on He did something different What if he said “Screw this.” And joined his brothers. And sisters. And friends. And said, “They don’t deserve this.” I just want to know how He would respond.
14 WINTER 2015
Lemon Tree Gillie Houston I’m sorry for taking the lemons from our yard— large and green and brown where our feet tore up the roots from below— when that tree shed its plump yellow seeds and I ran away that clear-sky morning, tiny sun spark in my palm dimpled and sloping and smooth hills and shaded valleys that I felt below my little red fingers. I wanted to crawl inside and explore them, like light reaching through an iris— a soft blue whisper. You cried in the kitchen while I peeled away that bitter skin. It was tart like sudden springtime and left acid on my tongue. WINTER 2015 15
Midtown Glow, Patrick Hopkins
A Toast Victoria Snak Come take a stroll with me past sunset tulips that flash like match strikes in the mazes of these mini streets. I’ll wrap my words up in a cardigan, catching the scent of a closing spring as we pass under lacy trees and rest on a bench we’ve missed in a million glances. There’re lions here who hold pride in stone— who toast to the places we’ll make landmarks of in time. Till then, you can erase the canopy with me, secluded in a chocolate Kiss-drop cosmos as rain drops extinguish the tulip light. One little walk and I’ll walk from this home feeling a little better, not-knowing a little less, for all the things that aren’t yet and for all the lives I haven’t spent. 16 WINTER 2015
News from Madison, Wisconsin Lucia Regina Palazzo I picture you clasping the noose in those pale hands, slender fingers calloused from wire strings— trembling like the first time you slipped them up my skirt, cautiously, nails long and palms cold. Maybe you shaved your beard— put on my old lipstick and mascara. Perhaps you heard me, tittering, combing through your wiry hair with some cherry scented potion as we talked about Bowie and Chopin. Or you might have kept the beard and put on your leather jacket— cigar in your mouth, Zeppelin on the turntable. Did you ever earn enough change in Penn Station to see the doctor about your cough? Whose stained couch were you sleeping on, and did they know you like your coffee sweet? That you’re afraid of mirrors in the dark? That your hazel eyes turn green before you cry? I hope you told them about the graveyard where we writhed in snarled weeds, and I snagged my yellow dress on a rusty gate. I see you swigging rum and Nyquil in a beat up prom dress, or a faded suit, or your Lennon shirt. It doesn’t matter if you shaved your face, or your legs, or any part of your body I wasn’t there to touch. All I can think of is your hands playing notes in the air— too fine for a man’s, too big for a woman’s, and too soft to pick coins off a bus terminal floor or tune a violin in the cold.
WINTER 2015 17
You Are the Reason I Still Sleep with a Light On Elizabeth Merino Heat engulfs me, can’t breathe, can’t move blinded by my glasses on the floor I lurch up The bed has shifted, the weight of you next to me Heavy and searching, legs tangling “It’s just me, I can sleep here too” ba dum ba dum ba dum my heart blocks out your voice, I am going to die Your voice is garbled like you’re yelling underwater I stifle the throw up, my scream be normal, it’s fine, it’s fine Alone, the darkness swallows me into him I need to move. I need to move, but my legs won’t respond The surprise hurts more than the shame Breathe. Breathe. Escape. No words, no response the fight or flight kicks in Up the stairs I go, hurry, quickly, quiet. No one can know Covers over my head I turn to the doorway waiting to see your shadow slink into the room, back into my bed. Searching. Waiting. I swear my heartbeat will wake up the room The world. Breathe, don’t close your eyes It’s not safe here.
1 8 WINTER 2015
My Missing Shoe Eric Crocombe I walked from San Jose to Boston with shoes draped Over and around my blackened sun-burnt neck. Those shoes brought me way up through to rainy Quebec, Where they ripped at the seams though I had had them taped. They fell apart like Dali’s melting clock, Plastic folds caved on in, the laces come undone. Nothing could save them, not even the baking sun. I carried on, barefoot in the summertime: I walked. The grass beneath my feet felt vaguely of molasses, Wet from that morning’s dew; remember: I need new shoes. I dreamt of going home, of staying there, Reading newspapers with coke-bottle glasses. The shoes I like are soft and kind, and come in many shades, hues Of white, brown, and black, and always come in pairs.
Traveling through Times, Noura Kiridly WINTER 2015 19
The Ghosts I Love Julie Pate I have never known what it is like to live with a man. Four opportunities have presented themselves over my twenty-one years of life and have all failed to come to fruition. My first true memory as a child is of the morning my father moved out, his truck pulling away in the new light of the day. There are a few hazy ones before he left, of the smell of coffee and his ratty blue sweatpants, but they are so faded they have instead become a memory of remembering the memory. So while I’ve since visited him and spent time with him, I’ve never truly lived with him. My older brother died as a baby. He didn’t get to grow up, to go to kindergarten and scrape his knees, let alone learn how to drive or earn his first paycheck. He didn’t have the chance to be my big brother. Never taught me to play tee ball and soccer, couldn’t put gum in my hair and later clean it out with peanut butter. He couldn’t cheer and whistle from the back of the auditorium with his obnoxious friends when I walked across the stage at middle school graduation. So I never got the chance to be a little sister. And while his presence is still here in this house, in this family, his baby pictures on the fridge, I’ve never truly lived with him. My little brother died. He had been eighteen for two months when it happened. He probably thought being that age made him a man, but as anyone who has ever met a teenage boy knows, it didn’t. Being a man is about a lot more than a number. But he didn’t know that. He died not knowing that. He was still a boy, intent on mastering the next skateboard trick, on getting the next girl, the next bag of weed. So I never got to see him go past that. To mature, to grow up, to learn that strength can be sitting down and listening. I never got to live with the man he could have become. My other little brother became a man overnight when his best friend died. I blinked and gone was the boy who cried easily and had a smile like sunshine, replaced by a stranger. Tom Hanks in Big, he was suddenly a new person, but not one who danced on oversized pianos in toy stores. He was a silent giant, a shadow of his old self. I don’t live with him and he doesn’t live with me. I’ll catch traces of his new, grown-up manhood littered around the house, pieces of a puzzle I can never complete. Clues to an unsolvable mystery in the stubble that hasn’t been washed out of the sink, his tools lying in the driveway, the door closing at seven A.M. when he goes to work. But nothing permanent that stays. Most nights he spends at my dad’s or at a friend’s or as my mother too often says only God knows where. So I don’t really count him. He’s just another man I’ve never lived with. All these men and these boys who never became men are in my life, every day. But they don’t live in it. The ones who are still alive are just as much ghosts as the ones who died, slipping in and out, talking in whispers, avoiding contact. So I don’t know what it’s like to live with a man, but maybe one day I’ll find out. I hope it might be something more than the four unfinished promises I have been given so far.
20 WINTER 2015
The impact of your photo is never related to the model of your camera. Shot with an iPhone, William Meade
WINTER 2015 21
I Am Not Your Princess Melissa Rostek The mountains will shake when I arch my long serpentine neck down to meet you, each scale glinting in turn until I open both wings to block out the sun and watch you cower in my shadow. What did you expect— an empty-headed girl singing your praises to talking rodents, Juliet on her balcony pining for her thorned rose, a delicate ice queen whose frozen heart you could crack? I could have been her. Once upon a dream I could have given you my wishing heart, wasted away in a tower with an open door, telling myself that someday my prince will come— but you are no prince and I will not be the sleeping beauty at the top of the tower— only a creature who turns her wishes into wings and tears into sparks and fear into anger and becomes the stuff of legends and with one horrendous shriek the tower will be nothing but flame. Didn’t your mother teach you not to play with fire? I will not let you toy with me, come when you call or keep you warm, you can’t put a leash on a monster or wrap yourself in smoke. You will tremble at my smile— the sword at your side useless when it’s half the length of one bared fang— and before you can ask what happened to your fairy tale I will unleash hell and when you’re nothing but ashes I will not feel a thing. I will not be your princess. I am force of nature and I will wait for no one.
22 WINTER 2015
Paint Chips Victoria Cocolaras I lost myself again. Somewhere in between the Marlin Room and the unfurnished living room of that singer’s downtown apartment with just one too many flights of stairs while the offstage piano traded fours with the drums in my ears. I gave my shoulders away for the beers and expectation I carried for city block after city block, as the plastic of recycled grocery bag handles fused with the tracks in my palms. My gums are still soaked with the tar of car bombs that paved the dance floor for those schoolteachers and ballroom dancers letting loose for the night.
Clockwise neck rotations bring street conversations to distant doorbells while children force-feed each other hummus in front of friendly popcorn vendors leaving trails from walls to unlocked seatbelts to bedsheets before we put it in reverse. Inside a singer’s downtown apartment phantoms linger on a broken stairwell to greet the elevator, their youth mocking the years in the mold-colored paint chips that fall to the floor as an offstage piano trades fours with the drums in my ears.
City Step, Amanda Palomino
WINTER 2015 23
Untitled, Jenn Smulo
24 WINTER 2015
The Sonata Amy Butenhof Her fingers flutter over ivory keys, and she’s dressed in the drapes she pulled down from the sky. The blue yards of fabric unfold towards the concrete and the music notes roll down the length of her sleeves. Cloth studded with starlight, she’s accented with twilight, her heart’s bleeding moonlight, and her eyes reflect dawn’s light. In the ruins of abandoned construction, inside walls of crumbling plaster; a roofless and angular structure; there’s no one to hear her frenzied sonata. The music floats up in lilting migrations, echoing through empty halls and out into the vastness of black and blue space overhead. It’s bitter and sorrowful, it’s buoyant and joyful. It captures each fragile emotion like lightning bugs in mason jars. And she plays out affections, desires and despairs, till blood blossoms on her fingertips and brushes each white key red. But she plays on for those mournful, empty hallways. She sings her life in music. Each unfaltering note is perfect, But there’s no one there to hear.
WINTER 2015 25
The Evolution of Dreams Amanda Palomino New York City dreams that walk like starlight are the same sky blue screams in the ocean. They tell me to think of open air while I breathe in gasoline tears from weeping willows. Because bee stings hurt like hell. Don’t die here and now. Dance over piano fortes in gallery ballrooms with laryngitis and collapsing lungs, blue shells in Manhattan, the sun and stars of galaxies blocking black holes and freezing frozen time: Miles Davis’ trumpet still sings at night when I wake to unspoken words. These giants of children’s nightmares in summer songs are where fear defeats me. I can’t win, because sometimes shoes are hard to fill, and admitting I don’t know as much as I should means life isn’t always fun. But I used to paint myself pictures of jumping off Eiffel towers into Lake Michigan; of writing to write written words and bad jokes that make me laugh like fish trying to swim in rush hour traffic. Gallivanting over Doctor Dre’s Beats doesn’t undo the knots already in my sweater, like a bad pun you can’t forget. It turns out kids aren’t toys after all.
26 WINTER 2015
The Finch & The Minnow Jacqueline Hsu Where the sky met the sea, The Finch fell, into the Minnow. They took a dive, into the deep, into the coral reefs, into a world, where the Finch couldn’t be. where the water shimmered, where the air glittered, where the two touched, the Finch fell for the Minnow. but when the night came, the Minnow was called away, He left the Finch in dismay, in trade for a school’s play.
The finch, knew better than to stay, Took her heart, and flew away.
Da Vedere, Annie White
WINTER 2015 27
Spectacle Nelly Nickerson When Fate left her Alone at the top of the fountain With a cigarette And an iPod with no battery He came to her and said “Nice view” And she couldn’t decide Some days she’ll wander And some days She’ll be out of breath And the spray of the fountain Will have no way to find her While she’s stuck by a lamp Gasping in the street She’s aware The sun is up Above the mountains And when it’s not The lights of the city are so bright It simulates the glare of day She’s aware That when lightning strikes In this otherworldly altitude It’s as if God himself With his crazy eyes Is looking for attention
28 WINTER 2015
And she’ll spin around On the cobble stone steps To see the shadow behind her While we wonder How many lights dot the hills And who powers the fountains and lighters It’s something beyond fascinating That puts a person On a ledge at night And asks them To notice Where they are When Fate put her Alone at the top of a fountain With nothing she needed And nothing to do But answer to a stranger And our breathless observation She counted the stars Thought only Of electricity in the mountains And wondered If even in this view She could get a light
Day le Say Alice Gunther Day le Say, her profile painted in triple tandem on the dais, in the skew of three candles, the bracket slope from her brow to her nose to her parted lips, And she sits bent over a dinner dish, or maybe a parted paperback Her eyes darting, black, in the window glass like fish in a bowl containing fish. My heart’s in the crook of your wrist, le Say, and frets and burns when you turn your hand, I’m spider, my web hooked over your neck and threatened thus when you turn your head, My home hung over your finger and thumb, dispelled by the merest finger-flick— O bend your ear with the earring in it! Don’t be so proud! Don’t empty your threats.
Aquanaut, Ainsley Rufer
WINTER 2015 29
Through the Red Door Ryan Moncrief Setting: A room with painted red walls, a red ceiling, a red floor, and a red door on both end walls. Next to one of the red doors is a guy sitting at a red desk with a Bluetooth headset on his left ear, and a clipboard in his hand. Characters: Paul— 35-year-old male, handsome, but something about him looks a little off. He’s wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans. Lou— Male, looks about 40 years old. He sits at the red desk with a slicked back, wet-looking hairstyle. He’s wearing a red t-shirt and red pants. Adam— 25-year-old male, weird looking, wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans. [Lou sits at the red desk. Paul enters the room through one door and reluctantly walks to the side with the other door and the desk.] PAUL: It’s warm in here. LOU: Were you expecting something different? PAUL: No, this is pretty much what I was expecting. [Lou looks at his clipboard.] LOU: Paul Blake? PAUL: That would be me. LOU: [His eyes widen] Wow. PAUL: What? LOU: Just…we don’t get too many people like you. You’re going to be here for a long time. PAUL: I don’t think I will. LOU: What? PAUL: I don’t think I’ll be here for that long. LOU: Why do you think that? PAUL: Well, I’m going to appeal. LOU: Appeal what? PAUL: The length of time I should be here, and the fact that I should be here at all. LOU: We don’t really do that kind of thing here. PAUL: Why not? LOU: [He thinks for a second.] I’m not sure. I guess no one has ever tried. PAUL: I’m going to try. LOU: I really don’t have time for this. Please go on through the door, sir. [He puts his finger on his Bluetooth. Paul doesn’t move.] Bring the next guy in.
[Adam is pushed through the door opposite from the desk. He looks around in shock as he walks towards Paul and Lou.]
30 WINTER 2015
ADAM: [shouting] No! Fuck! No! This can’t be happening! This fucking can’t be happening! Fucking fuck! Oh God no! PAUL: [To Adam] Hey buddy, you’re not the only one with problems. ADAM: [still shouting] I knew I shouldn’t have burned down that fucking house! Son of a bitch! Shit! Shit! Fuck! PAUL: [nudging Adam ahead of himself] Do him first, I can’t think with him screaming. LOU: [looking at his clipboard] Adam Greenwood? ADAM: [crying] Fucking shit that’s me. LOU: Take it easy, it won’t be so bad for you. ADAM: Really? LOU: I mean, don’t get excited. You’re going to have a horrible time in there, but it’s nothing compared him. [pointing to Paul] I almost feel bad for him.
[Paul is deep in thought.] LOU: We have to keep this moving though, so head on in. ADAM: But I don’t want to! LOU: Please, don’t be that guy. For every second you are on this side of the door I am going to make your punishment worse and worse. ADAM: [crying again] Shit! No! No! No!
[Adam runs through the door.] LOU: [to Paul] Alright, your turn. Let’s not make this difficult. PAUL: Well wait, just hear me out. I don’t belong here. LOU: Are you joking? PAUL: No seriously, I don’t. LOU: You are joking. PAUL: Not in the slightest. Sure I’ve done some things, but I’ve been a good person all my life. I held the door open for people walking behind me when I could; I paid my taxes like everyone else. I picked on my little brother a lot, but I never meant anything I said or did. And one time I even gave a homeless person some of my extra change when I passed him on the street. That was really nice of me. LOU: [sighs] I don’t care about any of the good things you do or did. I just care about you walking through that door right now. PAUL: You didn’t even hear me out. Can’t I file an appeal or something? Plead my case? LOU: You just pleaded your case. And I don’t know where you heard about this appeal thing. We don’t do appeals. Please, with a cherry on top, walk through that door. I hate having to bring in the muscle to escort people out. It slows this whole process down. PAUL: How about we make a deal? I’ve heard stories about you making deals before.
[Lou sighs and puts his face in his hands for a second.]
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LOU: Why does everyone think that? Goddamn Charlie Daniels makes my life so much harder than it needs to be. I don’t do deals, I don’t do trades, I don’t do appeals, I don’t steal souls, I don’t give any special powers to people, and I for damn sure have never been down to hot-ass Georgia. I don’t care about the good things people do. I only care about doing my job in a quick and efficient manner. So before I completely lose my cool, get the hell out of here.
[Paul walks up to the door next to the desk and then stops.] PAUL: You win. I’m gonna walk through this door, and face whatever I have coming for me. But before I do, I want to tell you that you’re worse than me, or anyone else who comes through here. You sit there at your desk and judge people. Most of them probably good people like me. Sure, I stole, I cheated, I said things that I regret saying. But deep down I’m a good guy. I feel sorry for the things that I’ve done, and I don’t deserve whatever is about to happen to me. So now is your last chance to change your mind. If you really think a good man like me should be on the other side of this door then you can go forth with that on your conscience. LOU: [pissed off] Paul! You murdered fifty-three people. Fifty-three! If you murdered one person, you would still deserve the cruelest of punishments. You’re one of the worst people I’ve ever encountered! PAUL: But I feel sorry about it.
[Lou gets up from the desk, opens the door, and pushes Paul through it. He then slams the door shut.] LOU: [to himself] Every single damn day I get one of these assholes. I just want things to go smoothly one time. One time! [puts his finger on his Bluetooth] Send the next guy in.
THE END
32 WINTER 2015
Within a Daydream, Noura Kiridly
Impressionism Melanie Rainone I want to be a Renaissance painting, a flawless face giving no hint of the turmoil inside. I pass for one at a distance, but I am a work of the Impressionists. The closer they come, the easier it is to see the imperfect brushstrokes. Monet and Renoir made fools of us all. The people stood far away, and saw the ladies and gardens, vivid scenes of idyllic women surrounded by blossoms, until they aproached and saw the distortion. The ladies’ faces twisted. Vivid flowers were unintentional smudges. Tranquil scenery became colorful ideas pressed together out of a desperate desire to be something beautiful. I want to be a Renaissance painting, so I keep them at a distance, hoping they won’t see that up close my poppy fields and lily pads are just as scarred as theirs. WINTER 2015 33
Queen Bulimia Madeleine Carroll Beloved Queen, we welcome you today. We do this every day. You straighten out the crooked crown atop your head. We say, “Colossal Queen, shrink down to us and spout.” You lean against the sparkling porcelain throne and purge the declaration to your kingdom. It burns to spew, chills every bone, but our praise feeds you more than any crumb. You flash your acidic pearls in the mirror as you hold the minty scepter tight— command this molar, that incisor, or else a plague will strike, your treason brought to light. All hail the skinny figure we adore. Why do you scrounge the pantry for more?
34 WINTER 2015
Free Fall Stephanie Kostopoulos When I saw you my head fell to my heart like a bag of sand that falls with a smack and is glad to be rid of its weight; like the snap of a branch when a storm at last, gets its way; like a stone that gets lost in the sea— one drop and it’s gone with the rest. Bliss. I knew it once.
Expectations, Rachel Crocetti WINTER 2015 35
A Reunion Held in the Desert Ashanti Davis You know why you are here. Hell, you knew you would be here twenty years ago. Perhaps, you knew it all your life. So there is no doubt in your mind about why you are here; it was inevitable, really, you tell yourself. You watch your brother slowly withdraw a six-shooter from the holster at his waist—it’s a shiny, silver antique. It looks like he takes good care of it; your father would be proud. In the stretching and almost comical reflection on the silver surface, you think you can see your brother’s image: your father’s nose; your mother’s mouth; your father’s eyes, large, apathetic, raising a revolver into the air, pointing it at a stack of flower five meters off, squinting an eye, popping back the trigger—crack, crack—showing you and your brother how to shoot. That was twenty-two years ago, and you remember it like only a stilled heartbeat had passed, like you could still hear the echoing break in the air.
“So,” he responds quickly; you wonder if you hear eagerness in his voice, and you don’t know whether or not you can come to an objective deduction so you dig your heel into the ground, the dry terra firma cracking and spreading underneath your shoe like sand. When you think of sand you don’t think of the beach, you think of the heirloom hourglass your father gave your brother. You think of how twenty years ago you raised a revolver you’d taken from your now dead father’s shelf at the hourglass. You think of how much more proud your father was of your brother, and you think of how you left the desert for the city after your father died and because your mother died. You left on account of its chrome towers and green-energy and wheel-less and hovering cars and buses and the way your father and brother spat at the people who lived and prospered within the copse of skyscrapers.
“Long time,” your brother says, because, you think, someone has to say something. He holds the six-shooter loosely at his hip, almost like an afterthought, and with his blue jeans and silver-toed boots you can almost imagine him as a cowboy in those drive-in thrillers your mama always raved about going to when she was young and hip and hadn’t even known your father existed.
As he raises the gun, levels it at your heart, you look over your brother’s right shoulder. You see the cactus—look over his left shoulder, see his truck and its dust-plastered wheels. You look just below the setting sun and you see the city your brother—but for some strange, lonesome reason not you— might call your home. The shining, reflective towers are about thirteen, maybe fourteen, miles away, and you wonder if anyone will miss you—the people at your job, the neighbors across the hall, the co-worker you carpool with, the red, yellow, blue, green, purple, orange birds speaking music at the park.
You look up at the sky; it’s a blue that reflects well off the mile-high towers and high-rises about thirteen miles in the distance, hovering upon the horizon like a mirage of wealth and prosperity. You are in the middle of the desert; there are no clouds in the sky; you were born and raised in a desert. As your brother stands before you—there is a small, green cactus off behind his shoulder—you feel as though this is a homecoming, and you say, “Yes.”
36 WINTER 2015
Silhouettes Victoria Cocolaras Again we find ourselves coerced by the night, ions lost for eons amidst greater masses drifting in and out of black holes and sleep. Somewhere, amongst stellar remnants, towers are silhouetted by the dim glow of the ether, outlines of oak protruding through the dense shadows. Inside, we sit, sobered only by the clarity in the silence. Contradictory, drawn by intrinsic forces; the tranquility makes me anxious and my hands search until they close around a pebble. I heave it, leaving wine trickling down your forehead, falling dry onto my lips, red as the string tied to our fingers. The only light comes from a desk lamp as we sit, featureless in the faded glow, figures projected onto stained walls. Our fingers meet but never touch and we remain, silhouettes. WINTER 2015 37
Eigengrau Yu-Hsiang Huang In the mist of the mystical fog, searching within the hollow world, a sea of flowing thoughts, or a space crammed with nothingness. The man lingers for another sleepless night perhaps haunted by words he cannot say? Maybe a remembrance of great exhilaration? Once again, the lost soul searches for an answer Floating, wandering without a destination. His mind, occupied with vacant clarity diving deep and seeking within the subconscious. Finally, he shall find the light he longed for. What euphoria it is to escape an imprisonment that has stripped his right to hope finally able to pierce through the metal wall and reveal a world of forgotten words.
38 WINTER 2015
Xanax Soda Pop Toby Jaffe I want to drink Xanax soda pop. I want to mix it with a spiced latte and endless jetlag. Yum. Two o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, where the hell am I going? The belly of a lion, I guess. Some bald greying lion telling me about stocks, dividends, whatever the fuck. The pop tastes good, like the ocean. I dip my feet in, quickly engulfed by the whirlpool of plastic bags and bloated salmon. I’m handed Adderall cupcakes, forced to swallow Lexapro parm heroes. The lonely upright piano sounds in the cafeteria, the player intoning a miserable howl. Great.
From My Love, Brandon Armando Chivers WINTER 2015 39
Ablution I.S. Jones Act 1: Scene: 5 Setting: A church sitting on the edge of dusk. Every pew is empty with the exception of one body. The room is heavy in the throat with incense; the room is drenched in a red light—a blending of wall and sun. The single body in the sea of pews is not holding a line of rosary beads, not mumbling something under the eyes. The eyes, the hands tell a story about living in the middle of loss. It’s fall now where we are. The sky is evacuating clouds west. If departure is your legacy to this life, then your absence is a church I come to sit in but cannot pray. I want to believe if I’m alone in a pew or in a room of unstirred air, you are here a whisper of incense ready to take my hand. Explain to me what leaving tastes like, or are these things ever that simple. I breathe smoke, even though nothing is burning imagining dusk as a prayer you wrote before packing yourself into a suitcase, leaving time in your wake. I am moved by the space you don’t inhabit: places where lifelines on my palms cannot connect, where prayers go on unanswered.
Act 3: Scene: 2 Setting: Outside, perhaps downtown. A place where people come to unwind, to let their relaxed, irreverent selves loose. The air is warm with laughter and heat lamps; people walk in large groups. The throngs of bodies are unmoved by ambulance cars which seem to pass by every eight or nine minutes. But who is keeping track? People are vivacious. The night is open for purchase and such hollow screams of a distant worry are someone else’s problem. They are here for a good time at a cheap price. The last thing you told me was, “Life is a constant state of crisis” and I was reminded how I burned my tongue outside a coffee shop and the fury stayed with me.
40 WINTER 2015
I wander through most evening in a breath of absence. Disembodied laughter and conversation overflowing with either wine bubbles or coffee, stark or soft light depending on location. The universe understands loss in a way only humans can fathom: Clumps of ice and rock forever whipping towards a distant future, not even two feet in its present. The way stars can cave in on themselves at the end of their lives only to become something of nightmares, so vicious in its ending neither light nor time can escape. But when nights likes these bend a certain way, stars live in the crevices of a constant life, brilliant in a dead light. There is no crisis out there. The universe will keep expanding no matter what is happening down here.
Act: 3, Scene: 3 Setting: An apartment. The person from the church and downtown has come home to find something burning in the oven. This person takes a beat, still standing in the doorway, and stares at the billowing dark. They toss their belongings onto the sofa, turn off the oven, open all the windows and back porch door. They walk. This person does not bother to remove what’s in the oven. Smoke floods out of the apartment. Even in the smoke, the kitchen is still a holy white. My mouth is dry in the way that what I left in the oven is beyond saving. I kneel into my bed, a church I need my whole body to pray in, and imagine you— night air that has re-owned my lungs. I drift back into the desert inside me but write Stay, write Rain. in my palms because some part of me wants it to come true. Write: run for a while towards a future where nothing is certain or promised but come back. Come find me in an empty pew. Let’s not talk. Just sit here and revere that tonight the stars are so close to us all is forgiven in their light.
WINTER 2015 41
RIPPED JEANS Patrick C. Koholic Did you know some people want jeans with rips already in them? They’ll pay to have something somebody else already damaged. I like that. Maybe it means there’s some people who would want a person somebody else already damaged.
Brendan, Mike Cicchetti
42 WINTER 2015
I Guess Daniel Willis Once, in a doorway in Williston Park, New York, I saw a ten month old collie fresh from the pet store struggling to walk upstairs. Often, from that same doorway, I saw an aging woman forgetting her age forgetting her grandson forgetting her daughter. Since last year, everywhere I’ve gone I’ve felt my interests fade. I no longer make music. I don’t want to teach anymore. I thought: now I will write a poem, I guess. Maybe this will spark something if I keep going; I will say simply “I don’t know.” I don’t know.
WINTER 2015 43
Excuse Me Natalia Orozco “Excuse me…” The words trail behind me as I walk From home To class To my internship To the Chinese restaurant around the corner It’s in between all of my places, it fills in all those silent spaces When I wish all I could hear was the sound of engines racing by. It’s not a question, it’s a proposal “Turn around,” it says. I used to. I used to turn when I heard someone say, “Excuse me,” It meant, “could you help?” It meant, “do you know?” I was so eager to say yes I was so eager to point towards this, to recommend that Even to just smile and shrug, “I have no idea, sorry” But I’m tired. Tired of the times I turned To find men, a man, a boy A smirk that underscores a very real threat Spewing sounds and syllables that wrap me in shame From the hem of my skirt to my ankles I had no idea But like every other woman I now know Because the once silent spaces in my mind fill to the brim when I walk down the street Contemplating my dress length in accordance with the time of day, counting the items within reach I might use as a weapon, scouting out a person or two who might help me if I scream. Because women daily picture the day when a man puts his undesired fingers on her body, when a man pulls her unwillingly into his car, when a group of men overpowers her When they kick and they fight physically, a daily threat materialized The day they can’t find a glowing exit sign, the day it’s late and they’re alone, the day they forgot to wear their rohypnol detecting nail polish, and couldn’t afford the female-only cab service. 44 WINTER 2015
Because it’s not a paranoid fear, it’s a practical one. Today I heard a man call out “Excuse me…” And I didn’t turn his way It persisted at my back so much That I’m not sure if he really said it more than once Or if it just echoed through my head. I used to turn around. So excuse me, If you wanted to know where the library is If I dropped a dollar on the ground If you wanted to know where the bus stops Excuse me because I’m a woman And your “excuse me” might just be an excuse To see the helplessness on my face when you tell me how fucking hot I am To see the weakness in my legs when the stop sign keeps me from walking away To mock the vulnerability of my sex I can’t keep excusing your behavior I can’t excuse a woman’s constant fear of danger
Broken, Eric Crocombe
WINTER 2015 45
Compass Devon Preston You are my 5th Your sticky sweetness melting all over my palms You are the sun draped over my back Your fiery annoyances beating down on my shoulders You are the thousand sticky notes on my bathroom mirror You remind me that I’m beautiful even when I can’t see it You are the wind nipping at my coat tails Your relentless praises pulling me in the wrong direction You are the blinding sun ripping my eyelids open You are the only thing I’d want to be woken up to You are the pots and pans clattering on the kitchen floor You wake up the neighbors, you should know better by now You evaporate into steam with hands like a storm You are stronger than you realize You pattern purple smoke on relenting bones Your kisses sucking out the venom from stinging bites You want your Baby Doll to stop playing games But the blissfully blind are only steps away from tumbling My head has stopped spinning; I’m no longer your compass You can no longer use me to find your way
46 WINTER 2015
Flux (61) Mike Cicchetti Hair loose like fire, Eyes big and emerald Colored, with a Sundress to contrast. A blue pack of Spirits half empty, over Long periods of time. Twig limbs, seeming Fragile as sculpted Glass art pieces. Under all of this, A heart uncontainable, With a mind Troubled by the state of things. I saw these in you and Felt an itch unscratchable. Insomniac nights spurred on from Guessing what it feels like To press fingers through The webs in between, Palms nervously locked. All to feel the slight touch Of lips that spoke more sense Than I could grasp alone. To stare through those green globes, Glistening and to not Feel intruding. Giving you All of me while you gave Some here and there. This Was some love.
Months have changed this State, for these sensations Did not stay. Hair is now Just hair, eyes be eyes, Limbs limbs, lips lips, Hands all the same. Heart and mind still large And troubled, both now Contained. To lose these notions Stir as the everyday. I Have not lost love, it has Only disappeared, sudden. I’m forced to find them Again, in someone new, Same motions repeating. Thrown off course For not finding that Sensation in you, now When you seem ready to slip My hand in yours, Our eyes locking, Lips... Quiver. All in fear Of making the Initiative A real thing. Impossible To let go And stay Tangled in You. Looping forever.
WINTER 2015 47
Security Keys Aaron Burger On the corkboard of all humanity, our sticky notes spread out side by side. We are each other’s enzymes: amity in the abstruse cogs where atoms collide and stride about in our kindred red ink. We are just software in development, but our clockwork code will so often sync I think there must be more that circumvents the most basic laws of quantum theory; I imagine the energy our words and thoughts radiate in flares of fury. Is truth so futile? It may sound absurd, but we are data bursting through the spout of infinity. Of that, I’ve no doubt.
Dario, Mike Cicchetti
48 WINTER 2015
Every Girl I’ve Ever Kissed Tastes the Same Melissa Rostek You taste like a cliché. How many high school wannabe poets have scrawled about coffee and cigarettes in their Moleskins? How many college kids in intro writing courses have composed lines about cigarette ashes and coffee stains? When did we decide, as a generation, that those are good things to taste like anyway? Coffee’s delicious, sure, when it’s in a cup, not leftovers stuck to someone’s tongue. Smoke doesn’t smell great when fresh; it doesn’t improve when someone breathes it back out of their mouth and into yours. When it’s you, though, it’s the best taste in the world. Someone could offer me crème brûlée, or a glass of hundred-dollar wine, and I’d still choose the taste of your morning latte and stale Newports. Life is not a John Green novel and you are not the protagonist, but nobody’s told you yet. It’s 2014, everyone listens to indie rock and likes Tarantino movies. Shopping at thrift stores stopped being unique when a white Top 40 rapper made a song about it. Spending ten minutes picking out an Instagram filter a professional photographer does not make. Everybody likes tea and oversized sweaters. And somehow you make it all seem so…cool. It’s another cliché, but it’s true. All you need to do is smile and touch my arm, and I’ll agree with every single overdone opinion you can think of: Yes, Holden Caulfield is the voice of a generation. Yes, reality TV is making people dumber. You’re right, e-readers just don’t count as reading books. You should totally be Mia Wallace for Halloween, I bet no one will think of that costume. You hold yourself like you’re one of a kind and I’m willing to play along for the promise of your coffee-and-cigarette kisses, to the point where I’ve almost convinced myself it’s true. You’re my manic pixie nightmare girl and I’ll never be able to quit you.
Even our first kiss is a cliché. We’re running home in the rain, laughing and splashing in puddles, when you grab my hand and pull me around to face you. It’s a scene worthy of Zach Braff’s next movie. We break away and you smirk at the dazed expression on my face, lifting your lipstick-stained cigarette to your mouth. You always do it with the same deliberate flourish, as if this is an eighties teen movie and smoking means you’re a rebel. The air of superiority falls away when you realize the rain put out your cigarette. “Didn’t someone tell you? Smoking isn’t cool anymore,” I tease, pushing wet hair out of your eyes. “Everyone knows you’re just giving yourself cancer.” “I’m too pretty to die,” you say, throwing the cigarette to the ground. You start to run again, and I chase after. Every writing teacher I’ve ever had warned us not to resort to clichés, but I’ve never seen the problem with using them.
WINTER 2015 49
Bathe Sea and Skin in Sunset, Noura Kiridly
50 WINTER 2015
Last Summer Gillie Houston At 2 a.m. we slip out of the tent lit from the inside with yellow light— shadow limbs still stirring against the canvas like fingers on walls formed into absent beasts with vacant tongues We find again that little lake tucked and shivering against the trees, naked and opened to her star-freckled lover pressing into that jewelry box skin translucent as air In the sheer darkness our flesh is the face of the moon grey and dimpled and the surface trembles when we enter, breaking the tense thin silver silence Beneath cloud-drunk sky the water is black the cold, white-hot veins blue breath quick lips red and stirring The pale moon pours into us, a faucet of steel sky and soft rain
WINTER 2015 51
Skeleton Keys in the rain Tristan Wood She is so entwined. Straight back and lips curved into the smile she uses to react to one out of every three things she hears. She laughs like someone accustomed to salvation. Louise is conscious exploding and her words ring like skeleton keys in rain. She won’t last but she’s perfect while still in my field of vision. We’re alone in a park because she likes the rain and so do I. I stick my hands in my sleeves for at least five minutes before taking hers so I can warm her. It’s innocent enough and she smiles, seeing right through it. I get a little sea sick every time she smiles at me. Eyes on the horizon and ginger ale. A year and a half, that’s how long it takes for me to notice the bags under her eyes and the way she hesitates when I ask a question. The delicacy has left her eyes. She’s covered now. But I know that’s not entirely my fault. Being raised by a single father gives you more than an appreciation for Clint Eastwood movies. I don’t know what to do, even when it comes to admitting my lack of solutions to her. I don’t say anything because being a post to lean on for someone else means that the rot and termites have to stay on the inside. Because I’d rather feel alone when I’m with her than feel happy with anyone else. This is my fourth time around and admitting weakness seems like a sure way of getting crossed off her list. I allowed myself to roll down the hill because I assumed she would be there too. I never asked for her crutch, but she took mine.
Untitled, Jeffrey Lin
52 WINTER 2015
PEOPLE OF PLACES Lisa H.D. Napolitan A Young Woman The Coronado Bakery is on the corner, just a block from my hotel. A young woman, maybe gay, seems to run the place. Couldn’t be more than twenty-five. Very thin, genes I think, not lack of eating. Dark hair flung back in a ponytail, the rest hidden beneath a white bandana with black paisley. There’s just something about her vibe that says, “cool.” Bet she’s got a dozen girlfriends, and a dozen more right around the bend. She burnt my bagel this morning. I told her that’s the way I like it. * A Man I passed, today, a man on the street. A street man, if you will. Six foot or more. Deep, earthy black skin. Through stalled traffic we passed, traversing the street from opposite directions. I tugged an overnight bag on wheels through the city streets on the way to a friend’s apartment for my evening’s stay. He carried in only his left hand a tremendous, milky-clear plastic bag bulging with soda cans. While his left hand strained, his right hand enjoyed its lazy hold on a freshly lit cigarette. With only inches of space between rush hour cars lining Lexington Avenue, we stood face-to-face, uncertain how to squeeze through, how we would pass. Not so much to me, but to the air around us, he instructed, “You go to that side and I’ll go to this side, yeah,” and sure enough, I passed him to the left, he to my right. * A Woman She was a really savvy cook. Knew how to stretch a dime. Had dry toast each day. Saved the breadcrumbs. Used her breadcrumbs to crust a rack of lamb on Christmas. * A Child The majestic, old hotel rests upon the bluff, a million stories to tell of movie stars and ghosts, weddings and affairs. Its haunches are traced by an iron-railed, meandering walkway, rust in its rocks, looking down upon the sea. A chubby, little girl, her Spanish black hair in pigtails, strides by in pink-striped pants and white, daisy-plumed sandals. She holds tight to her mother’s hand. “Mira, Mama!” she says. “Mira, todo!” Palm trees prattle secrets on the breeze.
WINTER 2015 53
We are the Universe Experiencing Itself! Nick Rizzuti The weather is: there is no weather. A tower covered completely in salt My life is what sharks do when they think they are alone in the emptiest parts of the ocean. In two years I will do something elaborate and universal. In two years, something can lose a lot of heat. Fire is planet is myth is the art of weaving and I use my basket to touch your recorder, spinning yarns about electric policemen in their tower made of salt, dancing in private. The universe doesn’t even have a mirror to dance in front of, but it still uses our bodies to dance and dance.
Mary, Evan Gardner 54 WINTER 2015
Comfort, (n.); Elly Weinstock we are all earthquakes waiting to happen but loving each other is the best chance we have at surviving the aftershocks.
WINTER 2015 55
Font’s Winter 2015 issue is sponsored by: Shelly Houston Rising Graphics + Printing Pam and Lou Rainone Font staff members Various anonymous contributors Thank you for helping us showcase the writing and artwork of Hofstra students!
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 2, Fall 2014. Hofstra University. Copyright 2014 Font Literature and Art. All artwork and literature contained in this publication are copyright 2014 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 THE USA
A PRODUCTION OF THE HOFSTRA ENGLISH SOCIET Y 2 0 9 M AS O N H A L L HOFSTRA UNIVERSIT Y H E M P S T E AD , N Y 1 1 5 4 9