Images 2017: Raw by Images Magazine

The Literary Arts Magazine of Fort Lewis College Spring 2017

Я Сделал Всё Что Мог | Matt Lawrence

Images Magazine is Fort Lewis Collegeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s student-run journal of writing and art. Images would like to thank our generous donors, who made the production and publication of this magazine possible. We are grateful for your support. Donors Harvey & Paula Deutsch Dr. Bob & Penny Harrington Ann Korologos Gallery Steve & Debbie Meyers

Special Thanks Anita Cruse Stacia Deutsch Michele Malach Steven Meyers Candace Nadon

Editors-in-Chief Katie Hankinson Alastor Luna Vyohr Design Editors George Bangs Jacquelyn Anthony Staff Rayven Bowman Kayla Cata Deanna Kay Hutton Cher Mulluk Shania Concha-Ortiz Garret Parker Joe Perko MaKenzie Rennick Jeromy Slaby Emma Smith Tanner Wilson Advisor Candace Nadon Printing Basin Printing

Letter From The Editors

IMAGES | Letter From The Editors

Dear Reader, What youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re about to read is open heart surgery a gaze into what is hidden behind well-calculated thoughts and expressions, those internal mechanisms of our creative anatomy that pump out indigo ink and occasionally bleed into our reality. Within this magazine is the potential to learn more about the people around you, those faces that go unnoticed as they drift past you like a waking dream. Here, too, is the potential to learn more about yourself. Why certain lines make you smirk and laugh while others stab you like a rusty blade. Why some lines leave your insides tight and undone all at once. Why this magazine will leave you craving more. This magazine is a call, an urging for you to remember a time you felt raw, uncontrollable, indescribable, a mess of beauty and chaos â&#x20AC;&#x201D; human. Welcome to Images. YoursKatie Hankinson & Alastor Luna Vyohr

Raw Energy | Kate Huxel

IMAGES | Prose

Colorado Columbine | Nikole Simecek

Dear Dyslexia Peter Behm Winter of My Life Zach Bukovich And We Decorated with Purple Bags Anita Cruse When the Devil Knocks Three Times Erin Renner Horseshoes Rachael Ruff

Dear Dyslexia | Peter Behm

IMAGES | Prose

Dear Dyslexia, Since I was five you were sitting next to me. Like a nymph, your smile was serrated, your red fingernails tapping on the table. Tail flicking aimlessly as your hand started pulling on my hair. Giggling. Hi. You jumbled up my words when I tried to talk to girls for a perfect prank. Edited my papers to sound like a ramble. Spell check still doesn’t know what I say. Changed answers on my exams because you wouldn’t listen to the teacher. Gave fuel to my dad’s anger on summer drives after IEP meetings. Why aren’t you doing better, you’ll never go college at this rate, his voice sounding like the devil. You sat in the back seat laughing. I still have scars from your boots in high school. This isn’t going to be easy, you’d say, sweat dripping down our foreheads. You were the overbearing high school coach I never had. While everyone else had adventures between first kisses and first house parties. We got lost on YouTube, hanging on spoken word. Your fingers tapping on the screen, this is good shit. Until Arlo and Will kidnapped me away from your “weekend fun.” But when the devil walked in, wearing a three-piece suit, exhaling flames, your hand wrapped around mine. It’s going to be okay, you’d whisper. For someone who loves messing shit up, you knew how to comfort an innocent kid. Always having my back when I didn’t want your help. Always shoving for adventures, like when I was 16 and you decided to be my partner for salsa when no else would. I know you get tired of

Dear Dyslexia | Peter Behm

seeing my face, but don’t look at your feet. Dancing with you always makes me feel awkward. Four years ago we walked under the stars. I got accepted into college, you were dancing to that terrible Kanye West song that you convinced me was good. You looked at me, grinning up at the stars. Aren’t they beautiful? Your eyes were always dreamy. I wanted to believe I hated you, like the rest of the world. Yet I feel grateful. Your smile washed away hard work with little reward. Your laugh pushed the darkness into the light, your finger pointing at the stars. Let’s chase a dream. IMAGES | Prose

Winter of My Life | Zack Bukovich

IMAGES | Prose

Last fall while I was on retreat in northern New Mexico, I met a woman that gave me a good, sound piece of advice. She said, “There are times when we outgrow our shells and are forced to travel across the desert naked, exposed to many dangers. Sometimes we make it. Sometimes we don’t. What is important is that we make the journey.” At the time, the advice didn’t seem applicable because I didn’t recognize my shortcomings as the result of growth, but rather the result of, well, God knows what. My skin bulged through the cracks, my limbs tingled with the lack of circulation, my head swam with a lack of oxygen, and yet, it wasn’t the shell, it was—well. God knows what. So I pushed the little seed of wisdom that this woman had so kindly given into the dark recesses of my mind and attempted to seek my own solutions. And as the fall came and went, I faced a series of stormy hardships that came with small, intermittent, sunny periods of respite. I had a rough time of it all and yet to my astonishment, I came to find some months down the road I had created the perfect microclimate for this little seed of wisdom to grow and flourish. Under such conditions this seed germinated, sprouted and grew to a height that I simply could no longer ignore. Its leaves were large and obtrusive, its stem hairy and thorny. For some time, I ran into it everywhere I went. As the plant’s thorny limbs begin to give way to sweet and juicy fruits, I could, to a certain extent, live peaceably among both the fruits and the thorns. And yet to my dismay, my future does not consist solely of blue skies and rainbows, as I often hope and occasionally believe. Even now, six months later, I find myself halfway across the

Winter of My Life | Zack Bukovich

desert without a shell on my back, painfully exposed and thirsty as hell. The poems that follow are a testament to my journey across this cruel desolate desert, and in them contains every thorny cactus I’ve kicked, every drop of water that quenched my parched mouth and, well, every bloody step I’ve ever taken. Naked in the sun The next shell is so far and I am so slow.

Oh, won’t you stop it?! I know I’ve long been your fool. Must you rub it in?

Are you to tell me That they do not serve pancakes On this dusty road? My bath is too hot But I don’t think I’ll cool it. I’ve grown fond of sweat.

Good lovers: thought And emotion climax Together in my head.

On seeing a rainbow at sea: I’d like to gather My gold, but I just can’t swim That far anymore.

IMAGES | Prose

Winter of My Life | Zack Bukovich

Rainbow in the sea Tell me what it means to be Bold in uncertainty.

IMAGES | Prose

On calloused feet: The children they weep And it all means nothing, nothing To me, the weeping. On selfishness: In the large window That overlooks the town, I Admire my beard.

By the nose, my thoughts Pull me to the alluring Smell of fried dog shit.

Will you desert me Too, dear heart, to speak with life In such foreign tones?

It is a cruel tide That washes away these old Blood stained tracks of mine.

And We Decorated with Purple Bags | Anita Cruse

It’s the weekend of my 21st birthday and he says he’ll meet us down there. God, he’s hot. Broad shoulders with a narrow waist. Shaggy hair that falls over blue eyes with a plan, blue eyes with a joke. When I find him, he picks me up and hugs me, a tight squeeze from large arms built from wrestling matches, farming hay, and drumming in his family’s band. “Do you like my shirt?” He stands back with arms spread out wide to show off the design. It’s adorned with a photo of the lead singer of The Doors passed out on stage, the party going on without him. “He’s cool as fuck, dude! I want to rock hard like him!” Why, Cogburn? The party goes on without him, but we damn sure can’t party without you. That night we fucked. We sat on the couch alone in the house while the party raged on in the barn, and he played music for me. Texas country, rock, some of the songs he

IMAGES | Prose

We’re all out on the patio now, loading a bowl with that hippie lettuce J-Dub brought back from the ranch. I’ve never smoked out of a pipe before and don’t want them to know it. I discreetly lift it to my mouth and wrap my lips around it. “Goddammit Cruse! Don’t bogart the fuckin thing!” I flush beet red and try to just pass it without taking a hit, too embarrassed that I have shown my inexperience. “No, don’t worry about it sweetheart.” He looks down and smiles at me, taking the pipe from my hand. “You do it like this.” Cogburn mimes barely putting his mouth to the hole and taking a hit, then hands it back to me- fingers entwining with mine as I take it from him. He winks and says, “Go ahead Em, you got it.” Oh, I got it alright.

IMAGES | Prose

And We Decorated with Purple Bags | Anita Cruse

wrote. I put on pajamas that were his in the bathroom with the door locked, though I knew well and good he would be taking them off soon. Taking them off gently, peeling away the layers —kissing the newly exposed spots. He moved over me slowly, his mouth on mine. In the morning, I woke up first and snuck back to my bed. I acted as if nothing had happened at breakfast. He didn’t. His sad eyes and red face watched closely as I talked and laughed and ate away my hangover. Business as usual. It was just a one-time thing, right? We were just friends. The party must go on. He moved back home to be with his family on their farm, and came back to visit with a girlfriend. They tell me she’s tall, like me. They tell me she’s smart, like me. They tell me he got drunk and pissed all over her couch and accidentally locked her out of her house. And she just laughed. Guess she’s got what it takes to handle the Cog. That wasn’t the first time he peed on someone’s couch. Makes me think of the night he ran a mile wasted. I — being the least drunk of the bunch and the only one without a DUI — was driving, hot rodding the Cummins down our county road and throwing around the guys piled on top of each other in the back seat. They were arguing over who was the best athlete back in the day, and Cogburn was adamant that it was him. “Fuck that, Cog! You were a wrestler, everybody knows that wrestlers can’t do anything else. I bet you can’t even run a mile!” “What-the-fuck-ever! I bet I can run a mile right now in under seven minutes!” “Prove it, fucker! Em, pull over! Cog’s gonna run a mile right now!” And so, he struggled over the other bodies and fell out

And We Decorated with Purple Bags | Anita Cruse

IMAGES | Prose

onto the pavement still warm from the summer day, stretching out muscles he can’t feel or command while steadying himself on my truck. “Ok, I’m gonna drive up the road a mile from here and Amelia’s gonna time you on her phone,” I yell out the window at him. “Go!” He bolts and I drive on up the road a mile, ready to go back if he passes out on the pavement.He’s that drunk. We still tell that story while sitting underneath the purple Crown Royal bags hanging from the lamp over the couch. The ones he drank enough whiskey from one summer that they collected there. Sitting around. Remembering him. He made it in under seven minutes, if you’re wondering. Later that week at the big Beers and Steers party about an hour down the interstate, at old Shane Ohotto’s place, Ohotto woke and drank coffee while kicking awake a naked Cogburn, asleep on the leather couch in a puddle of his own piss. Even though he has a new girlfriend, he still leaves her at home to come visit us—to come visit me. We sit out back here on the patio smoking the Devil’s cabbage again, except this time I know what to do. He still sits next to me, puts his arm around me. Brushes fingers against my breast when no one is looking. I would tell him to stop but I like it too much, like him too much. But we never sleep together again. Because that’s what it had been and I was too dumb to see it—sleeping together. Making love. Cogburn had made love to me that night of my 21st birthday, when I wasn’t nearly as drunk as everyone thought I was and I felt it all even though I told the other girls I barely remembered it. He told them he had really tried, really put the moves on me. I remembered all of it. And now I’m sitting here at the rodeo feeling like the rug

IMAGES | Prose

And We Decorated with Purple Bags | Anita Cruse

has been pulled out from under all of these fun, beautiful, ugly memories as I read a message from a friend saying Cogburn will never go home again, never make it to the ranch again. I will never see him again. Back then, at the ranch, I sit next to him on the couch, his leg pressed up against mine. His drug box is open on his lap as he rolls a few joints to take with him over to a friend’s house, a heartbroken friend. “I know exactly what’ll make old Konkel feel better,” he tells me. “I’m gonna help him go to the spirit world.” Now here at the rodeo, tears streaming down my face and the ground dropped out from under my feet I wonder where he is, with his little metal box. The spirit world? My job won’t let me off to travel to the front range for his service. I hear it’s not going to be good anyways, not going to be Cogburn. So I sit and scroll through picture after picture on his Facebook, remembering.Wishing I could hug him one last time. I stop at one photo. It’s a picture of Cogburn leaping off a cliff into a lake. The caption is a quote from a Soundgarden song, “Black hole sun, won’t you come? Won’t you come?” If he were here, I would tell him. Tell him that he didn’t get his wish. Jim Morrison he is not because after he went out like a light the party did not go on without him. The band has stopped. All of us that used to live at the ranch have scattered to the winds. But every time I hear that song, I see him with his little metal box running up the county road inviting us to join him in the spirit world. Black hole sun, won’t you come? And wash away the rain? Black hole sun, won’t you come, won’t you come?

Inverted Nature | Molly Wooliver

IMAGES | Prose

When the Devil Knocks Three Times | Erin Renner

The lights are dim in the dressing room as if they’re waiting in anticipation of the next bout of horrors that will occur after the show. Ballet slippers are scattered across the room, no longer in pairs and no longer intact at the big toe where blood soaked holes have been worn through. The dresser is a frenzied display of makeup brushes, used tissues, and a rustic, discolored razor. Above the dresser is a mirror lined with bottles. Bottles of laxatives, bottles of vodka, and bottles with the labels scratched off of them. Disorder mangles from the edge of the dresser as cigarettes have spilled from the box onto the floor. A corset hangs from the bathroom door, tattered from squeezing an already small waist into a shape that it was not biologically supposed to fit. The bathroom reeks of stomach bile where a particular dancer practices a habit taught from an unstable mother who would force her fingers down the child’s throat for sneaking downstairs late at night to silence the roaring grumbles of a hollow stomach. An act deliberately passed down from mother to child. If it weren’t her fingers down the child’s throat, it was the mother’s fingers down her own throat. The child would often find her caressing a toilet bowl surrounded by candy wrappers. It was not the first time the child’s tendencies drove the mother into complete madness. On a quiet afternoon where the child played in the mother’s bathroom, smearing on lipstick and eyeshadow until catching a glimpse of a dark shadow of a woman creeping into the room. A dead silence that anticipated the worst possible deteriorations of sanity. The mother grabbed the child by his hair and turned on the showerhead, slapping his face under the running water until that face of black

When the Devil Knocks Three Times | Erin Renner

streaking water could not gasp another breath. He lay semiconscious on the bottom of the shower floor while the water continued running. The mother is out of sight, and the child’s ears ring with the sound of the mother’s distant screams. The child stumbled to his feet and followed the sound that led downstairs into the kitchen to find the mother’s head in the oven. Wailing with horror, the child struggled to pull her out. This would be the beginning of the mother’s contagious instability that would be instilled in all of her children, but most of all her third child, the dancer.

A scream rings throughout every backstage dressing room of the concert hall. The startled dancers seek out where this wretched scream came from and open a door to the room where the dancer is. Frozen in their tracks, they observe

IMAGES | Prose

Tortured from birth to adulthood, the dancer wonders why there were only two daughters instead of three, and why the third child was regarded by the mother as a curse from the Devil, the curse being the grotesque appendage between the child’s legs. If only this dancer had been blessed with a perfect U-shaped gap up one thigh and down the other like the two sisters and the mother. Instead, the dancer views every part of the body as a deformed reflection of the soul where adolescence broadened the shoulders and ribcage and thickened the limbs, a thickness that has spread like a disease from the appendage to the rest of the body. When the dancer walks into the dressing room and looks in the mirror, he sees what the mother sees: a disobedient pervert, a poor excuse of a man.

When the Devil Knocks Three Times | Erin Renner

IMAGES | Prose

the razor on the floor followed by a trail of blood into the bathroom where the door is cracked open. Stealthily creeping towards the bathroom, they see feeble legs dangling outside of its entrance. They inch closer to find the dancer in a vomitcovered corset, an empty prescription bottle in his hand. His eyes drift towards the horrified dancers and only utters the words, “She’s screaming again.” His life tightens its grip on the unknown while the dresser and its objects quiver in terror. The soul cries red tears for a girl that is lied to by the Devil who hides his smirk behind the mirror.

Agoraphobia | Kayla Shaggy

IMAGES | Prose

Horseshoes | Rachael Ruff

IMAGES | Prose

I should be watching my feet as I walk because the ground is just uneven enough to where I could fall on my face if I’m not careful. But the crisp autumn air draws my nose skywards and my eyelids closed. I inhale the clear blueness, letting it ruminate in my lungs for as long as possible. Exhaling, I open my eyes to the burgundies and golds painted across the landscape in splotches. Tufts of hearty grass and shrubbery poke out from the packed dirt and to my left, mounds of earth rise up to become towering hills. Every part of this scraggly environment is worth studying. Still gazing all around me, my foot strikes something with a dull thud, causing me to finally glance down. At the tip of my boot are two rusty horseshoes, the right end of one overlapping the left of the other. With even nature’s soundtrack of birds and a breeze uninhibited by cars, this is really the first sign of civilization I’ve encountered since leaving the cozy town. Squatting, I see the grooves in the horseshoes have been worn down. Several of the holes are plugged with coagulated silt and oxidized metal. The patterns of rust on each are unique—even beautiful. I trace along the surface of both with my index finger, never breaking contact. The metal isn’t as cold as I’d anticipate: the horseshoes have had time in the sun today. Their surfaces are rough with divots and tiny bumps. Even the light caress of my finger dislodges flakes of rust, which is somehow satisfying. Without quite knowing why, I put my finger to my lips and touch the flakes to my tongue. It’s like sucking on a fresh paper cut when just the hint of blood is intriguing.

Horseshoes | Rachael Ruff

I stand to stretch out my aching thighs, but do not yet leave the horseshoes. I imagine someone placing them here, making them lean on each other—holding hands. The pair clearly belongs in this field, where mirages of horses gallop across the acres and the ghost riders are melded to the powerful muscles of their animals. The shoes block the hooves from burs and sticks. Such a simple design helps horses create rolling thunder through the earth. And now the horseshoes are here—still here—old and worn, marking the passage of lives through time. IMAGES | Prose

Let Them Eat Stones Kirbie Bennett O, NestlĂŠ Douglas DuPont How to Fly a Plane, and Everything About Vectors Jack Ellmer Plastic Surgery for the Soul Grace Hubby Holyfuck Merkin Karr Ivy on the Pillar Hannah McCormick Justice for a Bee Gemma McLarty Untitled #1 Campbell Morgan She Entered Steven Meyers Lost Soul Avery Scott Erosion Cara Sheahan Always Christina Stanton 1/2 Eskimo Tutussaq Stauffer Fall Allie Wilder

Let Them Eat Stones | Kirbie Bennett

As the days march toward centuries of slaughter and our bones sing toward the insatiable blade and we make our wish under shooting stars, broken taillights, tear gas and mushroom clouds

and Justice stands blindfolded before the firing squad of the Fraternal Order of Police and the body count from our wars overseas rises to fill a city of World Trade Center buildings, and we resurrect the memory from the tomb of revolt, the history of defiant defeat that our love is cut in stone, and we hurl these heart-shaped rocks at walls of hate and the teeth of power is only made of glass.

IMAGES | Poetry

and we wait for the autopsy report on the American Dream

O, Nestlé | Douglas DuPont

O so pure: your bottled water is the cure for emphatic feelings and motivations. Congrats—hopes obsolete o’er most nations. O your Earthly penetration is frequent as man’s perspiration.

IMAGES | Poetry

O Profit, utilize these complacent nations, as their societies run out of patience. Can’t have your chemically Mac N’ Cheese without children working from their knees. the true beauty of Stouffers’ meals are the rich man’s loafers, and his wheels. But really? what can be done? without your sustenance we cannot run. plus, damage existing can’t be undone. I would be happiest if complacency would go ahead and envelop m— *microwave DINGS. after one more minute of marinating in residual radiation and further melting the plastic into your Stouffers food, your meal will be ready to consume. give it a healthy stir, and be sure to wash it down with plenty of Nestlé→ Pure Life→ bottled water*

Animals for Dinner | Megan Williams

IMAGES | Poetry

How to Fly a Plane, and Everything About Vectors Jack Ellmer

IMAGES | Poetry

One of the dangers of flying is that the plane will be pointed one degree too far to the left. Everybody knows that one degree isn’t very much But not everybody flies planes. I’ll show you one degree. Hop in your car and go get on I-70 Accelerate to about six hundred and thirty-two miles per hour Then, I dare you! to veer one degree off course. Well, by god! If you don’t crash that old steel death box into a cow or a corn or something, Then you’ll be in Nebraska, Which is slightly worse than Kansas which you were aiming for. Well, in the air, There aren’t any cows And I’d be willing to bet the corns are few And far between. So you’ll just keep going and going one degree at a time Till slowly you’ve veered so far off course you don’t even remember where you were trying to go!

How to Fly a Plane, and Everything About Vectors Jack Ellmer

In theory I could make four of these and I’d be right back on course, but I’d be willing to bet that by then, I’ll hit my fair share of cows and corns.

IMAGES | Poetry

That’s kinda like my life, except for a few things. The first is that I am, unfortunately, not a plane. The second is that I actually don’t do that at all because I get so scared about degrees That every so often I make a big ol’ sharp left turn – Like Ms. Lou’s nice square lawn that I used to mow – and I’ll completely forget my course and everybody on it!

IMAGES | Poetry

Insidious | Kayla Shaggy

La Lorona | Kayla Shaggy

IMAGES | Poetry

Plastic Surgery for the Soul | Grace Hubby

A red-bricked school of thousands, I one of the many faces dozens of spaces to occupy in the mighty Billings Senior High Yet I am welcome in none of them I am an invader, a New Mexico girl in a Montana world a naive, small town teen in the big city As hard as I try to hide behind a guise, they still figure out who I am in time. Different. Not like them. An outsider. I wonder now Why isn’t there plastic surgery for the soul? Maybe they just think I’m ugly, like others did before them. I’ve heard that from people one too many times in my life, after all. But money and effort can change all of that. The knife can fix my big nose and odd face. Magazines show me how to conform to their taste. And makeup conceals the breakouts and exhaustion. If it is change on the outside I want, then change I can have. But the inside is always different. I can’t cut out the depression that haunts me like the ghost of my former, happy self. I can’t inject the extroverted, charming personality that everybody seems to like and I can’t Botox away the anxiety that shows on my face like the deepest of wrinkles. And no hammer or surgeon’s hand can break the wall that

Plastic Surgery for the Soul | Grace Hubby

I have built around myself that denies me of any chance of obtaining the happiness that I desperately want. So like an aging Hollywood star who lets herself age naturally and embraces her real body And turns her nose up at the prospect of plastic surgery, I am washed up and unneeded, and I am fading away.

IMAGES | Poetry

I eat lunch alone every day, hidden in a seldom used stairwell. Never am I the recipient of the many smiles exchanged between members of the crowd in these bright, muraled, and music filled halls. As I head to class I dread to face that all too familiar and embarrassing moment when the teacher says, â&#x20AC;&#x153;You may work in groups. Choose anyone you want,â&#x20AC;? and I know that I will always end up on my own. There are dances, football games, and after-parties full of excitement and laughs, I can only dream of taking part of because instead, I am damned to isolation, prison of my own making. I am powerless to escape. In the countless hours I spend by myself, trying to answer the simple question of Why I wish, I hope, and I pray for plastic surgery for the soul.

IMAGES | Poetry

Holyfuck | Merkin Karr

blasphemy echoes between the church pews as hearts begin to explore every valley of darkness they come across fearfully he tells me “you were wonderfully made” he touches his fingers to my temple and murmurs “no more of this” healing my every insecurity salutations wander onto my savior’s tongue my lips trace every perfection in his creation he laughs “are you trying to betray the son of man with a kiss?” he adorns my neck with reverence reminding me of my salvation every one of my lamentations affirming his blessings turning my water into wine and for him I’d gouged out my eyes if they’d cause me to stumble from him cut off every limb if it sinned against him

Holyfuck | Merkin Karr

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but for now they worship his every touch washing his feet his body with my hair my mouth loving my neighbor as myself I react with praise and admiration as we approach the death but I do not walk alone my Lord by my side my eyes sigh one last time in the end I will murder him laid out like a crucifix he will perish with my name the last words on his breath â&#x20AC;&#x153;Judasâ&#x20AC;? only be resurrected once again

Ivy on the Pillar | Hannah McCormick

Hello. What a lovely day

BAM.

his fingers laced ‘round me like ivy ‘round a pillar entangling me in a mess so sudden That I could not escape my heart froze in an attempt to protect itself from penetration But numbed my body and left my mind blank

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the rest—

A blur

i shook as i walked back

It’s over.

Blame floods memory— what escape was there what did i not pick up on? Engrained in survivors the question : How : how did this happen : Why : why me &&it seems—

Ivy on the Pillar | Hannah McCormick

The only men who get me are those who are too scared of the stigma the silent victims never heard or else are you gay; didn’t you enjoy it; why are you complaining-i’d be ecstatic &&it seems— Women who think they understand because they’ve been catcalled and a man bumped into them IMAGES | Poetry

but, This is mine to joke about like my bruise Is not yours to poke at

Justice for a Bee | Gemma McLarty

Imagine youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re a bee.

IMAGES | Poetry

Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve spent your entire life Working hard to provide. Finding the beautiful stocks of blooming liveness, Collecting the sweetness from their juices, Greeting your family as you buzz into a burrow. On this day, there are more seagulls out on the beach than usual. You are hunting for ripeness. The buzz of your wings pushes you along, A zippy rhythm synchronized to your duties, Hurrying along when there is no such thing as time. You make your way to the beach. The misty air Creates tension. But you buzz, You fly. Other fuzzy bees scurry around you. The hum is consistent, You are not alone in the choir. A small figure in the sand stands. Pink ruffles of fabric flow from her stomach, Her blonde hair matches the shells on the beach,

Justice for a Bee | Gemma McLarty

A sand castle stands beside her toes. A rip of bread, A crumb escapes her fingers. The glutenous chunk flies past you. The birds, flapping with haste Attempt a nibble.

A crumb of bread flies to your face. Rip, toss, chunk, CLUNK Your buzz has stopped, The rhythm of life is halted, You see the world spinning away. Out of line from your flight, Smacked by a toddlerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s carelessness. A rush of power floods From your head, To your thorax, To your abdomen, To a deadly point at which your body ends.

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Rip, toss, chunk, wings, screech, quack, flap, mine! Rip, toss, chunk, wings, screech, quack, flap, mine! Rip, toss, chunk, wings, screech, quack, flap, mine!

Justice for a Bee | Gemma McLarty

IMAGES | Poetry

Courageously, you fly upward Towards the pink monster, Hobbling in the sand With bread in her hands. Here is where you put an end to her madness. You land on her hand, And like that, With an instant, Your body pushes itself outward. And you feel yourself melting into sticky goo, Like the honey you make so well. And it all goes black. And the little girl cries. And no more bread is thrown.

Untitled #1 | Campbell Morgan

Being alive is constantly justifying your experience. Give me a fucking break.

I am a spiraling astronaut billowing through the pinpoint confines of a black hole. Call me an amateur cartographer. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got my pen. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all I need.

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These two imperfect hands may not have any grasp on reality, but they sure as hell have a firm hold on infinity.

She Entered | Steven Meyers

alone, arrogance her entourage and wandered sullenly; a hollow scarlet blossom with an affinity for flash â&#x20AC;&#x201D;boys in big black beemers, girls in rhinestone crusted cowboy bootsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;choosing.

IMAGES | Poetry

Badly wanting her gaze, the favorable look (just a hint of smile crossing those frowning lips) they preened girls sitting splayed in low-slung seats, boys leaning like guns in a rack against a sushi strewn table, slouching knowingly before a Warhol littered wall. Not finding fare to her liking she left, kicking an empty beer can through the open door as if to say this is how I would treat you. Still, they remained strangely eager in the plume of her neglect.

She Entered | Steven Meyers

IMAGES | Poetry

Lost Soul | Avery Scott

After you’ve worked some time on a railroad, you begin to get a little superstitious. You can’t help it - something about trains is just downright ancient, and alive. And in your time there, you’re bound to meet a fellow traveler, much older or much younger. This is one that I met some time ago. This is a poetization of a true story, and my Great-Grand-Daddy knew it. He lived it.

IMAGES | Poetry

Let me tell you of Kate, Oh, man what a life, Thought she’d be a fireman’s wife, She found love about ’38, Twisted by luck and the turns of fate.

Up in the tree line where no station man might see. Now she’s dead and gone, Dead and gone, Broken heart with a broken dream, Cracked by murder in the headlight’s gleam, Pain and tears were ridin’ the rear, The whistle blasted from a-feared engineer, She met her maker on a night so clear, But don’t you worry, she’s still here.

Now she’s dead and gone, Dead and gone, Broken heart with a broken dream, Cracked by murder in the headlight’s gleam, Pain and tears were ridin’ the rear, The whistle blasted from a-feared engineer, She met her maker on a night so clear, But don’t you worry, she’s still here. She came to Colorado in Dust Bowl Days, Up in the Rockies where the ponies graze. Workin’ nights in the lonely railroad towns, Under lace light at the Palace Grounds, Takin’ trainmen at a dollar a day, Two black eyes & spit they’d pay. Big railyard where the narrow-gauge switched, Salida yard was a place to get hitched, She was as soft as lace - pretty as the pines, Had ‘suitors’ comin’ up and down the mainlines, There was a young fireman- Mighty bold, And his home bed was- Mighty cold, They took bareback rides cross the Ark Valle-e,

It was long ago and on my train, As DRGW workmen climbed on in the pourin’rain, The Fireman asked if Kate could bide, But on my train a girl like her couldn’t ride. So, the Fireman took her into the cab, But Head-End Brakeman had the gift of gab. Sixty lonely men, two ditchers, and one whore. This stretch of track never been the same anymore. We came up the line, headed for Sap, When the Fireman took Kate over the gap, I got word and headed for the hog, Each one of us was a tickin’ cog. Fireman dropped Kate in the Sleeper with a thud, Lonely faces starin’ at the figures covered in mud. She was as pretty as the wind in the trees,

Lost Soul | Avery Scott

Broken heart with a broken dream, Cracked by murder in the headlight’s gleam, Pain and tears were ridin’ the rear, The whistle blasted from a-feared engineer, She met her maker on a night so clear, But don’t you worry, she’s still here.

Some eyes in that car begged her please, Her eyes were large and awful tired, Engineer was drivin’ as he fired. Big Brakeman was drinkin’ beer, Dealin’ cards when a soft voice caught his ear, Fireman poured a drink for himself and Kate, Moon was high, the night was late.

Gandy dancers, gin drippin’ down their chin, Ditchers stopped shavin’ tuned right in, Silence fell on a rundown scene, Big Brakeman stood up tall, looked awful mean, Wiped the beer from his thick beard clean, Let out a growl, Pointed to Kate and let out a howl, ‘She’s anyman’s woman,’ said Big Brakeman, ‘And since there’s plenty of us, she’ll take all she can.’ Fireman felt firebox heat in his blood, Stepped front of his Kate and there he stood. ‘We’ll be getting’ hitched up the line, At Sapinero, Holt, or Ochre Pine, That gal there’s only mine.’ Now she’s dead and gone, Dead and gone,

Kerosene lamps bounced in the breeze, All the movement in the car came to freeze. Kate stepped forward, tears on her cheek, Fireman’s arm stopped her with a sudden streak. Big Brakeman pulled out cold steel, The drivers runin’ 60 let out a deadly squeal. Knife blade came up the air, Fireman’s knuckle hittin’ square, Threw the Brakeman up ‘gainst the stove, Engine thrown smoke through a silent grove, Sectionmen took to fight, Thirty men breakin’ teeth throughout the night, Men circled ‘round the Engine-man, Cook hides Kate as best he can, Big Brakeman, murder in his eyes, A broken woman the only prize, Fireman fought like a hundred men, But Big Brakeman hated no sin. Big Brakeman flung cold steel bone handle deep,

IMAGES | Poetry

Big Brakeman let out a laugh and scream, Whistle howling out bone-chilling steam, Section men grabbed their seats, Cook distracted burnin’ meats, ‘She’s anyman’s woman, Coaler,’ Said Big Brakeman mighty sore, ‘An’ tonight she’ll be my lill’e whore.’

Lost Soul | Avery Scott

Fireman’s soul took to sleep. His fist grabbed to the hilt, Blood stainin’ his shirt of quilt. With an ounce of courage, and the strength of all, He grabbed Brakeman flung him over the squall, Kate let out a scream as the Fireman fall.

IMAGES | Poetry

Her long dark hair was drenched in red, Big Brakeman had killed him dead. The men in the car lost their smarts, And animal instinct took over their hearts. Screams, whistles, and punches in cacophony, Pistons runnin’ hard out of harmony. Head Brakeman ran to the engine fast, Told me that my fireman passed. I pulled my pistol with a feelin’, And fired three shots through the ceilin’, Pulled the air on that there car, Sent a crew lookin’ for Big Brakeman far. Gun in hand, and a howlin’ whore, Never had somethin’ like this on the Line before.

Closed fireman’s eyes, She hollered screamin’ goodbyes. Regret fillin’ my heart, Still got a train to start, Unloaded all of the sixty men, Told them to go outside and calm ‘fore startin’ again. Woman finally calmed down and sat quietly starin’, Her broken heart and sullen face hard for bearin’. Found Big Brakeman down the line, Broken shoulder and screamin’, but he’s fine. Took the girl on in to Sapinero, Put her on the Shavano Express bound to go. Never saw her before, Heard too much of her forever more. Let me tell you of Kate. Oh, man what a life, A lost soul for sojo’rnin’, But loss of her promised sent her forlornin’, Her heart took her over the ledge, She fell several hundred feet, Her beloved once more to meet.

Dragged her away from her beloved, Removed the knife mighty coveted,

Let me tell you of Kate, Oh, man, what a life,

Lost Soul | Avery Scott

She thought she’d be a fireman’s wife, Month later orders come down the grate, Take the Sleeper back over the pass, as if by fate, Around nine-thirty runnin’ right on time, I heard an unfamiliar whistle chime. As if perhaps, I wasn’t alone in there, My whiskers stood on end- so did my hair, Cause I knew that… she was there.

That car’s a-sittin’ just as it sat that night, Forgotten and forsaken from the light. But if you’re there late into the night, You can just barely hear the start of a fight. And if you’re lucky, the world might spout, You’ll feel that car pullin’ outKate’s takin’ you back to her line, But for an old timer like me, that’s just fine.

Vision | Nikole Simecek

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Let me tell you of Kate, Oh man, what a life, Thought she’d be a fireman’s wife, A pretty girl with a hard life. She rests someplace between here and there, I feel she sits in that there chair,

In that old car that’s silent and overgrown, For seventy-eight years she been all alone. So she sits, and waits, for trains to ride, But the rails are gone, the trains all tied. Most don’t remember when she fell, But it keeps me up at night mighty well.

IMAGES | Poetry

Carnivorous | Gemma McLarty

She Persisted | Anonymous

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Apache Dancer | Crystal Ashike

Erosion | Cara Sheahan

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll uncover the fossils in your heart And brush them off in a sea of wind and dust and breath I will study them closely Then toss them from the cliffs of your chest Til you hear the echo in the pit of your stomach Where you will forget about them Until sudden moments of sorrow and fear

Where you can hear yourself swallow So loud in your head you swore it was thunder And you will count the space between each breath And remember to forget again And youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll go on Your feet being the rivers of time Carving canyons for paths As you make your way to a new home Layer upon layer of sediment and memory You will build a mountain So high it will kiss the clouds And be softened by fog And from up here You will wait for spring

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Our favorite star, the alchemist in the sky Has turned your skin to gold Veins of silver rush through your body Mapping sacred land With softly weathered hands I will mine it out And trace the contours Rising and falling with a sigh

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1/2 Eskimo | Tutussaq Stauffer

Beneath the red stained snow Lay the bodies who Once fought to be called human. Old bones, yellow with age, creaking with the weight of Disease, famine, sorrow, anguish, history. Quivering, quiet, silenced by time and shrouded with the past, Underneath my fingertips, smooth and pallid. And they tell me something once I am close enough. Naturally, I listen, eyes wide, attentive, These bones, my past, whispers to me that once, they were not considered human beings. Underneath the red stained snow, they weep, My ancestors.

Always | Christina Stanton

You always know when you’re invisible. His eyes flicker past you without hesitation Their laughter spreads to every corner of the room, somehow skirting around you. You always know when you’re in trouble. Your full name bellowed through the halls, a cherry red blush creeping through you, the desire to turn back time.

You always know when you’re in love. A perfect peace fills your heart, joy floods from within, And words simply aren’t enough. And yet we forget that we’re human. Confused, worried, flawed, exposed. Raw. And we are one. We are free. We are loved.

IMAGES | Poetry

You always know when you’re afraid. Every possible scenario races through your mind, and you’re left to contemplate the absolute worst – convinced that will be reality.

Fall | Allie Wilder

IMAGES | Poetry

It seems fine and people are telling you to be strong and they’re telling you you are strong and it finally feels like you’ve got it and then the next moment you’re lying on the ground your walker pushed by gravity over you hung up on your head and all you can do is lie there and scream: It’s not fair it’s not fair it’s not fair! And it’s not. Because you didn’t do anything wrong, In all the stories you’ve ever read this happens to the villains and justice for bad guys was always broken bodies and missing limbs and somehow that teaches them to be Good. But you were never, you can’t think of one time you were as bad as the guys in their stories. So you scream lying on the ground in the entrance to the courtyard: It’s not fair it’s not fair. And then you’re angry because you always thought you were the hero but what hero is this broken this wrong so maybe there’s not a single story you fit into and you’re mad so; You get up and you stand Your anger fuels your steps until You can hardly feel the pain but then; You go down again head bouncing and rolling tangling in the leaves like the jack-o-lantern you still haven’t carved and there

Fall | Allie Wilder

are leaves in your hair and leaves in your bra and it’s cold and you can see your apartment just a few feet away and

Lay on the pavement with the fallen leaves and smell the smoke rising from chimneys and listen to the cars on the road and just let yourself feel weak because what you want right now what you need right now is just to feel, is just to let yourself be weak. For a moment and strength, that can come later will have to come later but for now You are a leaf Lying on the autumn ground where you fell and you are far from alone– Thousands of your siblings lie with you tonight.

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You should be inside but you’re tired and angry but you’re not sure if you’re mad at the broken betrayal of your battered body or at the storytellers who insist you’re no hero or at yourself for not feeling for not wanting to be strong right now so you just

Thank you for reading.

Unfiltered Stare | Kennedy Clark

Control | Molly Wooliver