Vestigial Year March

2

March

MARCH thawing out

“ Vestigial Year is

monthly literature, photography, poetry, and art. In March, we are all thawing out.

”

2

non.

Untitled

Don't change on me.

Just because this side of earth has turned it's back on the sun, Does not mean you must turn your back on me.

Just because the world is dark, Does not mean your heart must also be.

When the world is bright again, Promise you'll come back.

Sarah

Carpenter

3

4 non.

42 - Degrees

You know the feeling of chapped lips? the sensation when you run your tongue along the base of your mouth and each crack and crease feels like sliding your knuckles across rocky pavement?

I felt that there.

I felt my mouth dry up, each drop of saliva that was painted on my teeth and stained on my gums dissolved.

I stood there.

My worn-out boots drowning in the melting snow my toes swallowing up the frozen water that had leaked into my socks.

Her voice faded as the cold began to blow it away from her the sleeves of her jacket rolled over her hands and the season was biting at her fingertips.

The sky was void of anything.

The Earth was dragging winter through the year.

It fought, digging it’s fingernails into the ground, scratching trying to escape.

But Earth’s grasp would not let go at least not for another month.

I finally spoke.

“I’m sorry.”

I stood motionless.

As I looked into her hazel eyes slowly brimming with tears her dirty blonde hair that fell just beneath her shoulders her cheeks colored with a soft pink.

I couldn’t say anything.

Her words dripped out one by one each one calculated and purposeful I could hear her emotions in each letter she spoke.

I could tell how she felt with each enunciated syllable.

“I love you.” she stuttered.

It was the first time her composure broke.

My shoulders felt like anchors sinking into my body.

There was silence.

N.A

5

6

non.

Constellations in F-Minor

Taking pulls from my cigarette as if it were your last. I can see the holes in your sundress formed over time, as if imitating the stars. Few words were spoken, mostly monotonous, but I could differentiate your speech between poignant poetry and pretentious novels. I can feel your eagerness drain as your stares gaze through me waiting for my grin to meet yours.

Anxiety filled my car battling the lingering smoke as I drove to The End. I could still taste her on my filter poisoning my lips knowing my subconscious longed for something so painful.

I lay awake creating constellations on the ceiling from the holes that lined her dress. The light between the moon and the sun bled through the blinds forcing me to get lost in thoughts of traveling to your stars. My head resting where someone laid theirs many times before me. The path under my feet became the road past now leading to the moment your lighthouse was bright enough to lead me.

Ryan

Yero

non.

Cyanotypes

Hannah

Hahn

10 non.

Fifth Season

Early March, trees and heart are sparse.

Cigar smoke billows in the scene where leaves once hung from trees//where covering was clarity that the strippings of Fall could never bring.

They say the heart has many seasons but mine seems affixed in this – an unblinking in-between where leaves and snow, bullfrogs and frost all bleed together in a confused fifth season. And in the great opacity of a day spent by myself, I soon find family in the strangest places. Among twigs and trees and creepy, crawly things, I find an inexplicable comfort that seems to escape the endlessly occupied. They despise boredom and claim busyness as a virtue while much of actual LIFE remains unexplored and uncared for…

Every few days, I’d slip up to the woods to smoke a cigar and try to figure out how to untie this knot in my chest. The frosted dogwoods looked on for my months and months of rope-burn and quieted hope. Those days holding on felt a lot like letting go…

But in the great futility of trying to hold onto this vaporous life like the last toke of these smokes, I have give up to Your Gospel. And I will walk, smoke in hand, toward a punishment because, in some strange way, I want to get caught. I want my soul to burn as hot as my lips and lungs do.

Oh, to be caught by God! How long did I smoke, long and slow, to toughen up my voice and convince you that I was someone worth listening to. And everyone would walk by and say, “Oh, there’s that great author, singer, man! Off to the woods to revelate again! To arrange the words on the page that would in some ways rearrange the contents of someone’s soul!” But my pages remain as vacant as those beautifully irresponsible walks among the trees…

And I am no one admirable.

I have nothing figured out. I have problems with doubting the doubts that I have not quite yet figured out. But in the quiet of this place, I find solace.

And in the friends that I keep, I find peace.

And in the Jesus that say that He loves me as I am, I find home.

Seth

Kennedy

11 non.

Unattended

In the woods, the deeper woods, frustrated fires grow in the eyes of a great and terrible neglect – unattended heat yawning in a wordless dark. or so,

Snowed in in springtime for a century We are removed.

Stolen away into a secret strength.

And I am so much in love with you.

And I bent down on one knee to make you my bride, only to break the ice we stood upon – sending us into the arms of an answerless black. Swallowed by the shadow surf breaking over our bodies – thieves of all breath. And as we both wondrously collapse, we sink to the seafloor and approach the snapping point. Our lungs cave in from the pressure like diamonds pressed from coals.

Seldom does she sleep but, truly, she seems happy (despite the sickness). And I’ve written off the Author for the existence of winters like this one. I’ve blamed God for sending His sun and melting our sure footing. I hate Him for sending this sickness but I hate it more that I pray, And ask that He may Heal the love of my love of my life…

Now seventy-five pounds light.

But now we, in sleep, in deepest sleep of death, dream of days of light caught in the gaze of a beautiful attention.

Held without hands, cables round our necks.

We take our first last breaths and become the flames, unattended…

To increase what light may shine.

Seth

Kennedy

12

13 non.

The Cutting Room Floor

Film editors are always trying to find the best way to tell a clear, succinct, and definitive story with as little film as possible. Whatever doesn’t make it to the final cut can be said to have ended up “on the cutting room floor.” After the cuts are made, what we have left is a clean, organized, and fluid aesthetic for total strangers to stare at. I guess you can say the same thing about haircuts.

As we come to the final act of what will surely go down as one of the most ruthless and unforgiving winters of the 21st century, people can’t help but embrace leaving snow, sleet, and slush behind. Just recently, we had our first ray of hope in a 60-degree day that one could not help but smile at. Everyone approaches the impending spring differently. Someone may buy new clothes while someone else busts out that sundress they bought back in September. For me, I chose to leave winter behind in a completely different manner.

I had spent the past two and a half months applying for internships for the summer, and as this process underwent, I decided to do something I hate (which to this day makes zero sense at all to me): I grew my hair out beyond its normal length.

I’m someone who just doesn’t look good with long hair; I’m not looking for sympathy, I’m just stating the facts. As the weather predicted this 60-degree day of hope, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to change things up – but how? I’ve done clean cut with a fohawk that screams self-obsession and douchebaggery practically all my life. Then a little birdy gave me a suggestion to cut it in a way I never even thought about. After much consideration, I went to a barbershop, and the next thing I knew, this past winter was on that cutting room floor and I felt a sense of relief.

Like I said, we all have different ways of leaving the cold behind once spring has sprung. Long hair isn’t for me and I’ve had just about enough of it, along with the cold.

To tell you the truth, I’m not entirely sure if it’s placebo effect or what; but since my new haircut, I’ve been a lot more positive in general. Maybe it’s the haircut. Maybe it’s the warm weather. Maybe I’m schizophrenic.

Maybe I really don’t care and I just really enjoy my new haircut and the fact that this damn winter is over. Either way, whatever I feel, I like it, and I’m not looking back.

Winter and long hair are behind me and I don’t intend on welcoming them back anytime soon.

Reed

Peraner

14

non.

Wounds.

A graying man sits sober and soft. His laugh-lines lie buried behind his prayerful palms pressed tight and desperate against his mottled temple. He loosens his tie as he rises - he goes to the freezer. His hands tremble. He cannot remember the last time it looked this empty.

The cold scent of formaldehyde rises slow from his shirt. His hands smell of dead flowers. He put on too much cologne that morning, and everything tastes like dry-mouth.

He reaches inside the freezer - withdrawing, holding a frozen container filled with homemade pasta sauce. He looks back in. Only the ice tray remains.

Tactlessly, face stained with guilt, he rubs his grumbling stomach.

The firstborn man with no one left to bury puts the sauce back in the freezer.

It can stay there. He fixes a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich and it is the most delicious thing he has ever tasted.

David

Yurman

15

Josh

Roepe

Vestigial Year March Design Edit Pg 1 Pg 2 Pg 3 Pg 4 Pg 5 Pg 6 Pg 7 Pg 8 Pg 9 Pg 10 Pg 11 Pg 12 Pg 13 Pg 14 Pg 15

James Fitzgerald David Yurman Untitled Sarah Carpenter 42 - Degrees Constellations in F Minor Cyanotypes

R.Y.

Hannah Hahn Fifth Season Seth Kennedy Unattended The Cutting Room Floor R.P. Wounds. David Yurman #thawing Josh Roepe