The Tower 2022

Page 84

Jelly Brain, Carina Lopez Segura, oil painting

this pain has possessed in a long time. Four years have passed since the headaches began, and although they are no longer constant, the pain comes and goes like the tide, as I, like Fitzgerald’s boat, am borne back into my past. I don’t know whether this episode is a blessing or a curse for my writing, or perhaps a simple manifestation of the pain I can’t quite capture in words. I’ve never been good at describing pain in doctors’ offices either, removed from the sensation. But here and now, my head feels like a desolate beach, its sand the same color as 82

the slate-gray sky. The pain fades for a moment, and I allow myself to hope that the tide has receded, but this is only a swell, a temporary respite before the wave crashes, violent against rocky shorelines. The pain drips down the back of my throat, whether to elicit the sob or the bile that is rising, I cannot tell. The pounding continues, my internal barometer broken, pressure building instead of dropping as the storm rages on. The headache clinic felt like the first sign of a lighthouse after months at sea; finally,


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Ahrenholz 1 | Simone Traband | Visual Art

14min
pages 94-104

“Lion Hair” | Annie Zheng | Nonfiction

5min
pages 87-88

“Shrike” | Jasmine Snow | Poetry

1min
pages 92-93

“Ode to Leaving” | Katharine Anderson | Poetry

0
page 86

Me, Me, and Me | Hyunyoung Cho | Visual Art

4min
pages 89-90

Jelly Brain | Carina Lopez Segura | Visual Art

3min
pages 84-85

From Their Eyes | Samantha Bergren | Visual Art

0
page 83

“Chronicling Chronic Pain” | Marley Richmond | Nonfiction

2min
page 82

Walls and Reflections | Sage Caballero | Visual Art

3min
pages 69-70

“Arturo” | Alessandra Benitez | Poetry

0
page 80

“Graveyard Dirt” | Katharine Anderson | Poetry

1min
pages 78-79

“Writer’s Block” | Trinity V. Fritz Lawrence | Fiction

4min
pages 73-74

Working with (Coral Under the Sun) | Stefanie Amundsen | Visual Art

3min
pages 75-76

“The Caves Beneath Walter Library” | Mustapha Jallow | Poetry

0
page 77

“Seasons, or, Grief Underwater” | Laurel Reynolds | Poetry

0
page 71

“Letter of Termination” | Cole Normandin-Parker | Nonfiction

2min
pages 66-67

“The Modern Tantalus” | Max Pritchard | Fiction

2min
page 68

“Unviolence” | Amital Shaver | Poetry

1min
page 57

“Mullo*” | Trinity Fritz Lawrence | Poetry

1min
pages 62-63

Bridge | Tong Liao | Visual Art

1min
pages 55-56

“Meditations on Grief” | Simon Harms | Poetry

0
page 61

“portrait of an identity crisis, on the borderline” | Alexis Ma | Nonfiction

6min
pages 52-54

Passing (Kissing Couple) | Ruby Cromer | Visual Art

0
page 51

“Taxidermy, Pointillism, & Growing into My Skin” | Erin Mullen | Poetry

2min
page 49

“Realtor” | Rachel Huberty | Poetry

1min
page 50

“Storge” | Ariana Nguyen | Poetry

0
page 48

Purgatory 2 | Anna Mamie Ross | Visual Art

0
page 43

“COLOSSUS” | Ian Krueger | Fiction

4min
pages 44-46

“x.” | K. Mouton | Poetry

0
page 42

“How to Work at Wrigley Field” | Jane Fenske-Newbart | Nonfiction

3min
pages 35-36

Shape | Hyunyoung Cho | Visual Art

2min
pages 37-39

“The Oakridge Herald, Page 5” | Emma Rasmussen | Poetry

1min
page 31

“Living in Minneapolis” | Simon Harms | Poetry

0
page 33

“A Scrap Metal Scorpion” | Stella Mehlhoff | Fiction

4min
pages 28-29

“Autumn Weather Report” | Brynn Nguyen | Nonfiction

5min
pages 19-20

“Hidden Genesis” | Lum Chi | Poetry

2min
pages 21-22

“Snowflakes in Your Hair” | Mahdi Khamseh | Poetry

1min
pages 15-16

“My Wife” | Nate Johnson | Poetry

0
page 12

“Strawberries Are Made to Mold” | Dani Barber | Poetry

2min
page 24

“Plains” | Mustapha Jallow | Poetry

0
page 17

“Last Tuesday I Stuck My Finger Into the Socket of Nomenclature and Suddenly I Was Mr. Bean.” | Trinity V. Fritz Lawrence | Poetry

1min
page 10

“Delicate” | Morgan Coffeen | Poetry

0
page 14
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