FALL 2017 CONTEST WINNERS THEME: UNKEMPT
JUDGES: KATIE HANKINSON GEORGE BANGS
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Bill Me
Poetry Contest Winner – Rachael Ruff
So you’re saying it’s something I can’t see with my eyes, You’re saying it’s something in my mind… Yeah, but it’s fine. Nothing to fear: abnormal is normal, it happens all the time. F33.1 Major Depressive Disorder, recurrent, moderate Good to see you again, how are things? Um… well… you know… I’m still quite tired and… I don’t like those pills you gave me last time, I just… feel dull… numb Hmm, have you tried any other therapies? … No. Well, I think I have F41.1 Generalized Anxiety Disorder just the pill for you!
Hold on. Why don’t we take a moment and
F43.10 2
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
calm down? Now you can get the help you need.
There is no Help I need
I’m Weak Don’t ask me to Talk about this Can’t you see I just need Time You can’t tell me
to be Me again It’s not a bad thing F90.9 Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder
for him to be this active
Hey mom, Are
you sure?
Well— Sometimes I just don’t know
Mom there are medications
options— how to handle him. that we can try I want ice cream That could work
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If you want, F42 Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
I can refer you to a therapist. I don’t want someone to tell me what to do. I don’t want to be fo rced to sit in a bunch of g erms. I don’t want to chan ge how I live. I just want to feel better th an how I feel now. I guess you can’t hel p me at all all all. Well, thank you for coming in. I hope you have found what you’re looking for.
It’s fine. I suppose I’ll take this prescription, and you can
Bill me.
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Cube Face
Art Contest Winner – Matt Lawrence
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Kept Unknown
Fiction Contest Winner – Kayla Cata
My daddy was a quiet man. The kind of man who kept to himself and never spoke a word more than he thought necessary. He spoke with his eyes and they said it all. Every ounce of anger, pain, and resentment was always swimming round, like he could never calm the storm that was always raging on inside him. Don’t get me wrong, he was a good man and a damn good father, too, despite everything he went through. It wasn’t until after Daddy passed that I uncovered his hidden secrets. When I found out that he was born Cal Greenaway but died Marcus James, I felt as though I didn’t know who my own father was anymore. I asked myself why did he change his name? Why didn’t he ever tell me? What has he hiding? Who was this man? At the time, it was hard to separate the man I knew and loved from this new man, Cal Greenaway, who was not the father I knew at all. Had I found out all I did when my father was still alive I never would have believed it. I never would have believed that what he went through as Cal Greenaway would turn him into the loving Marcus James. I am grateful that I knew him as the man he became and not the man he was. Who knew that finding an old photo of a little boy and a wood cabin in my father’s journal would cause me to reevaluate everything in my life. That photo led me to an alternate reality I didn’t want to believe could be true. Everyone has buried secrets, but slowly, one at a time, without anyone really noticing, they all eventually begin to surface.
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Glitter Eyes
Photography Contest Winner – Regan Umberger
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Hey Oprah! Santa Isn’t Real, Now Bum Me a Cigarette: An Inebriated Precursor to Inevitable Alcoholism Creative Nonfiction Contest Winner – Marshall Dunham
The first time I ever blacked out from drinking, I was on a beautiful beach in the Dominican Republic. It was roughly 9:30 in the morning, and I was 13. The resort was one of those built to cater to rich, white twats, with the walls around the perimeter that were high enough so you couldn’t view the shanty towns on the other side. With all the food, alcohol, atmosphere and gluttony, it was easy to forget that you were partying paces away from poverty. Everything at the resort was all-inclusive, which is important to remember, because this, along with my complete lack of self-control and knowledge of alcohol were the three key contributing factors leading up to my family nearly stomping my teeth in and leaving me for dead on a beach chair with a towel over my head while I scooped sand onto my bare chest like an overly-inebriated seal. If you’re trying to get plastered enough to lose all recollection of the following 12 hours along with your sense of self and your family’s respect, it is absolutely paramount that you start drinking early. I didn’t know this then, but I know this now.
An experienced drinker might start light – perhaps with a mimosa, or maybe a beer – before sliding into hard liquor. An inexperienced drinker might wander over to the hotel room’s mini bar and make a concoction similar to slamming a little bit of every available soda into the same glass at the local Taco Bell’s soda fountain line. 8
This, I did. I hope you’re enjoying the picture I’ve painted so far, because my memory of what happened next is pretty fuckin’ shitty. The following are things that I had relayed to me the next day through my family’s haggard, disapproving and clenched teeth: ● Met up with family an hour after they left the room and, in plain view of them, took an accidental running stumble into the pool. ● Attempted to order multiple beers at multiple bars on multiple occasions. ● Repeatedly referred to my mother as “Oprah.” ● Frequently wondered aloud why “my entire family has their panties in a wad.” ● Spoiled Santa Claus for my little sister and possibly two or three other kids within earshot. ● Wondered across the pool yard, had an unheard conversation with a man who had a goatee and a backwards-facing baseball cap, and returned with a handful of cigarettes. ● Slurred, “I GOT THIS!” (pronounced “AH GAHHT DISHHHHHHH!”) after every single stumble, stutter or mechanical fuck-up. ● Passed out on a beach chair with a towel on my head, scooping sand off the beach and putting it onto my chest for more than an hour. Just as my dad was about to pull my tongue out through my asshole, my uncle stepped in and baby-sat my drunken ass for the rest of the escapade. Although we laugh about it now, and the entire clusterfuck of a shitshow was absolutely hilarious, 9
at the time it was just the beginning of a long, definitive series of self-destructive choices that not even the most facetious of individuals should use for comedic fuel in a liberal arts college literary magazine. I won’t lie, shit got pretty rough for me after this. But, even if this was the beginning of the end of the beginning for me, I take a certain amount of comfort and pride in knowing that a baby-faced child with a Justin Bieber haircut that was three sheets to the wind can still approach a man on the other side of the pool and return to his horror-struck family with a fist full of crumpled, soggy Marlboro Reds. Yeah, that fuckin’ kills me.
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