The Merrimack Review Fall 2017

The Merrimack Review

Fall 2017

Editorial Staff Managing Editors Rachel MacKelcan & Bridget Kennedy Editors Christina DiMartino Jolene Buczala Shannen Murphy Ashley McLaughlin Eric Gonnam Jessica Melanson Calvin Evans Advisor Andrea Cohen The Merrimack Review is a student-run literary magazine. We accept submissions from undergraduate and graduate students, regardless of academic institution or program of study, with the purpose of giving new and emerging writers/artists a space of their own. We are a proud member of The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, and are sponsored by the Writers House at Merrimack College: www.merrimack.edu/academics/the-writers-house. www.Merrimackreview.com Merrimackreview@gmail.com @merrimackreview We extend a special thanks to Meghan Daum for a wonderful interview.

Front and back covers: Morgan Sewall

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Table of Contents Meghan Daum

|4

Interview

Katya Zinn

|14 |66

Pickled Jessica

Kathleen Radigan

|16 |31 |45 |64 |68

Memory Babysitting A Farmer’s Last Days on Earth Human History Twelve

April Wildes

|17 |46 |72

Father Figure Glass Recorder Little Things

Tiana Murrieta|18

You Are Achilles . . . Maybe

Alyssa Harmon

|19 |42

lacheism Bandaids

Ashley Bingham

|20

Blue

Stephanie Vargas

|22 |29 |43 |62 |71

Dad Cleaning Post Office Wall Called Home In the Chaos of Things

Allison Guenette

|23

Poison the Soil

Emily Yaremchuk

|24 |60 |77

My Great-Grandmother, Dementia, Me Beautiful Village Narrative

Olivia Torres

|26

A Tale of Two Veterans

Haden Riles

|28 |63 |78

Anatomy of a Closet Star Spangled Exit Surely, the Word is Lost!

Michael Chaney

|30

Thoreau’s Pumpkins

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Hannah Cook-Parez |32 |55 |79

Auditory Processing Disorder Hands Salt Water Fairy Tales

Anastasia Jill

|34

The Scrutiny of Fire

Laura Dzubay

|37 |48 |58

Fur Winter in Oz The Tardigrade

Nicole Giannetto

|38

Estimated Profit

Rebecca Kahn

|39 |47 |74

Drowned To my most Recent Lover An August Evening in Tumwater

Sarah Terrazano

|40 |73

Split Going 90 on I-95

Keaton JR Riley

|41

The Fucker Upstairs

Hannah Nelson

|44 |67 |75

Mass Shooting in (Fill in the Blank) The 10 Major Cloud Types Little Black Dress

C. Petrichor

|50

Last April

Angela Ma

|56 |70

Recipe For Marla Maps of Imaginary Places

Emma Cottrell

|61 |76

Silence Why Do they Call it Star Village?

Morgan Sewall `

| |21 |65 |

Front Cover| Untitled 10 p.m. in Paris Untitled Back Cover| Backyard Gems

Contributors’ Notes

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Interview with Meghan Daum Conducted by Rachel MacKelcan and Bridget Kennedy Kennedy: So first off, I loved My Misspent Youth. I literally finished it in a night because I was so excited about it. You talk about your friend’s death in it. You talk about a lot of people you run into. So it made me think: did you ever fear backlash from these people, like if they read your story, are they going to come after you?

Daum: Yes, in a word, yes to varying degrees. You mentioned the essay “Variations on Grief,” which is about a friend who died sort of mysteriously when he was 22, back in 1993. That piece has a funny origin because I never intended it to be published. I wrote it in graduate school; I was in an MFA program. We did workshops, there were pages due, and I wrote it over a weekend. It was workshopped, and the class was divided over it. Some of the class thought it was great, and others were very put off by it. I kind of just put it away; it certainly wasn't anything I was going to submit to a publication.

I ended up doing a reading in New York City at this bar called the KGB bar, which is a bar in the East Village that's always had a lot of literary readings. I read there one night with Elizabeth Gilbert, of all people (of Eat, Pray, Love fame). We were both unknowns. She may have published a book at that point, but she wasn't the Liz Gilbert that we now know. I read from the essay, a little excerpt of it, no big deal. Then a couple years later they made an anthology of writing called The KGB Bar Reader. I let them publish the piece in the book––it’s not like they published it without asking me! I knew the guy who was editing the book, and I thought, “Well, nobody’s going to read this book.” This was before the Internet, mind you, probably 1996. The book came out and was reviewed in The New Yorker by Daphne Merkin. There were many people in the book, but she ended up singling out my piece and talking about how she loved the piece. She praised the essay quite a bit. She described it and said my name and it was a huge break for me, which was like “Wow!” At that point, I had been out of grad school for a few years and trying to make it as a writer, so this was a huge thing that I was being mentioned in The New Yorker. But all of a sudden, this piece that had been under the radar for years was out in the world and everyone was asking, “Wait, what is this? What did you write? What is she talking about?” Because everybody read The New Yorker. I suddenly had to take ownership of the 4

existence of the piece. I had to claim it. I had very mixed feelings about it. I felt it was really the best thing I had ever written at that point in terms of on a literary level, but I felt very guilty about having written it. I guess, at the end of the day it becomes very cynical, but I think it’s possible to say to yourself, “well, this thing I wrote is worthwhile on an artistic level even if it might not have been worth it on a personal level.” The ugly truth is that the art wins a lot of the time. So this probably was the first case for me in my career where I had that dichotomy, the art had to win, and I made changes––that’s not anybody’s real name. There were certainly people who were very hurt by it. I’ve lost a lot of sleep over that piece. I’ve lost a lot of sleep over a couple of other pieces, and I don't really have an excuse. I don't have a big explanation for it. The piece was just too good to abandon, and that sounds really self-serving, but that’s just one of those things. It’s funny because . . . enough people have said to me over the years: “Oh, it really meant a lot to me that you said what you said about death, about friendship, and about the relationship with his parents because it gave me a sense of relief that I’m not the only one who feels this way.” I guess I feel like it’s meaningful enough to me that people would appreciate it.

That makes up a little bit for the guilt I feel over it. I’m a very guilty person, but I do think that it’s okay to feel guilty about your work as long as the guilt doesn't hold you back. Just do it, and feel guilty, but don’t not do it because you feel guilty, if that makes any sense. And change names! Including your own!

MacKelcan: Talking about guilt, and bringing that to light, let’s talk about the “Matricide” essay. There were a lot of things I identified with, especially because my grandmother has breast cancer. So I could see the kind of crazy delusions she had closer to her death, imagining cats there, etc. So that kind of cyclical structure of that story in particular, having you lose your grandmother, then your mother, and almost yourself, what was going through your head coming back to that? You said you don’t keep a journal, so what kind of process do you go through directing that?

Daum: This piece was very, very difficult to write, just structurally. And like we were talking about just now, when I first started writing it and working on it, it just sounded complain-ey. It just sounded like whining, and it was not working. Actually, when I was writing it I was at the MacDowell Colony with Andrea [Cohen]. We were there at the same time, that’s where we met.

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The MacDowell Colony is an artist’s residency in New Hampshire, and it’s really a great thing.

It’s a place for artists and you can apply there, then you go, and you sit in a little cabin for a month or sometimes two months, and you just do your work. They bring you your lunch in a lunch basket and tiptoe away. It’s a beautiful setting and there are visual artists there and writers and architects, and musicians––all kinds of people. It’s a great privilege to be able to go to these places. Everybody gets together for dinner after working all day, and I would be working on this piece all day and I’d just come to dinner and be completely morose, incredibly frustrated because I couldn't get the piece going in the direction that it needed to go, and it was just miserable to try to write this thing. I finally just gave up, and about a year later took it out again and was able to finish. And part of the reason I was able to finish was that, there again, I decided I was never going to publish it. It was too brutal; even by my standards, it was too far. Then I showed it to some friends who are writers, and they said “sorry, but this is the best thing that you ever wrote.

What are you going to do with that?” Again, this is one of these things where the art had to win.

If you were to ask me on a personal level, “Was it worth it to write that piece?” No, because it haunts me. On an artistic level: yes. So, like I said, part of having to do this is just holding your nose, and there are certainly people who would be very critical of you choosing the art over the personal, but that’s what we do.

MacKelcan: Were there any benefits to it personally?

Daum: No. Personally, there were no benefits to it. I mean, it’s not like I had a lot of relatives.

The scope of the damage was extended. People I know very vaguely who knew my mother, I’m sure [they] were devastated and furious, but I don't know those people really. Some of them I do [know] and I feel horrible about it, but all I can do is hope that they would see the complications that I’m trying to convey and just get past it, which they have. People’s lives do not revolve around things I write. But, yeah, this is an issue when you’re writing about yourself. That’s completely true . . . Those two pieces [“Variations on Grief” and “Matricide”] are pretty much bookends. That was a very early piece and a more recent piece. If the first one hadn’t felt worth it artistically, I wouldn’t have done it again. I’d be lying if I said I walked around on this earth congratulating myself for bold expression.

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Kennedy: On a more positive note, the whole universe connects, all topics relate, and Rachel and I were sitting in our Gender, Race, Class and the Media course, and we were talking about “chick lit” culture with Sex and the City and such. Since I had just finished My Misspent Youth, I brought it up as a point in class that you wrote this essay about making it in the city and struggling. I wanted to ask you, how do you think your real life experience influences your opinion of these idealistic shows? Are you cynical about it or do you see that maybe it is something to do in life?

Daum: It’s funny, well, no, there’s such a mythology around being an artist in New York. I think when I was writing that piece, I don't even know that Sex and the City was on yet. I think it started in the 90’s. My Misspent Youth was published in 1999, so it might have been on.

MacKelcan: Maybe you started it!

Daum: No, I definitely did not [laughs]. I was writing it in 1998, I guess. I was really just more interested in the historical mythology of bohemian life in New York. The real inspiration for that piece is The House of Mirth, the Edith Wharton piece, which is about this woman, Lily Bart, who really fancies herself a kind of elite even though she doesn’t personally have any money. She hangs around with a lot of people who do have money, and she doesn’t want to marry anybody and waits around until she finds a suitor who is of a high enough level so she can maintain this life. This was in the beginning of the 20th century. She would have friends with estates in the Hamptons and she would go out there with this character. Then she ended up just going totally broke and losing all her money and dying destitute because she wanted to uphold this fantasy of having a certain kind of life in New York. This was taking place in the early 1900’s, so I was interested in the legacy of this mentality. In a way, Sex and the City is its own version of The House of Mirth. I don't know if they would lay claim to that, but I was interested in the sort of broader canvas there. It’s funny that you ask that because when I watch Girls now, I think that is a much more realistic portrayal of living in New York. It’s so anti-romantic, and it looks so grim.

It’s kind of the opposite of aspirational. Sex and the City really made New York look like something that it’s not. It was a fairy tale. Girls just makes New York look like a hellhole, in my opinion, which is more accurate if you don’t have any money. I mean, it’s fantastic if you have a 7

lot of money. Joan Didion wrote, “New York is for the very rich and the very young.” That piece [My Misspent Youth] was also really controversial because writing about class is like the last taboo, especially back then. You write about money, and you are just signing up for annihilation because nobody wants to talk about that. And it’s subtle, really, nuances. And if you are a relatively privileged person, which I was, even $80,000 in debt . . . that was a different kind of $80,000 in debt. But even to try to talk about that, I think people really get their backs up, like “who are you to say?” or “why are you complaining?” There was some of that, and actually, when the piece was first published, it didn't have a completely positive reception . . . I haven’t heard a bad word about it in the last 15 years, but when it first came out it was quite a scandal in some circles.

MacKelcan: I wonder how place has played a role in your career. You talk a lot about the themes or the people that have surrounded you. You have met a lot of great people and you have had a lot of adventures that way. How much has place played a role in that?

Daum: I hate to travel, but I love to move. I like living in different places. I’ve lived in New York, Nebraska, Los Angeles, so you meet different kinds of people. You meet different kinds of people in Nebraska than you would in New York or LA. I think it’s more just being able to be a creative person. So much of the reward is not financial as much as it is experiential. I really feel like being a writer or musician or an artist affords you the opportunity of an interesting life. I don't make that much money, but I get to have an interesting life, and that actually is worth it to me. But I think people kind of forget that. It’s easier to get caught up in “I’m not making enough money” or “this isn’t worth it,” and maybe it’s not worth it to some people, but at the end of the day, I get to come here. I find this really fun. I find this a great way to have a life, and I like talking, so if I can go and have conversations with people, then it’s worth it.

MacKelcan: What places inspired you the most?

Daum: I like writing about places. I can’t say what’s inspired me the most. I like writing about places in ways that are different from how they’re usually written about. Writing about Nebraska was fascinating because I had this whole idea about the wide margin of error, the theme in the 8

novel that I wrote. The novel never mentioned Nebraska. It took place in an unnamed state in a city called Prairie City. I was really interested in the idea of what quality of life meant in a place like New York versus the Midwest, for instance, and just what it was like to live in a place where the stakes feel really high, like in a big city versus a place like Nebraska, where I felt like people had the freedom to make mistakes in their lives without the consequences being insurmountable.

The metaphor that I used in the novel has to do with when the plane lands on the runway. When the plane lands at LaGuardia, the runway is really short, so there’s no margin for error. If the pilot makes one little mistake, it’s over, the plane crashes. In Nebraska, literally, in Lincoln, the runway was an alternate landing for the space shuttle, it’s so wide. So when you land, the pilot can go this way and that way, but it doesn’t matter, we’re still going to land. I felt like that was the ultimate metaphor for living in the Midwest because the prices were low, the costs of living were low, people were sort of generally forgiving. There wasn't this sort of rabid ambition that made people super competitive, hoping that someone else would fail. So people were able to take chances with their lives in ways that if they screwed up, it wasn't the end of the world. People would have a baby when they were 25, and [think], “okay, what could go wrong?” And in a way, they're right. In New York . . . if you don't stay exactly on the track that you're supposed to be on, it’s going to be a disaster. I noticed there is this paralysis when you're living in a hypercompetitive environment, [so] that in a strange way, you end up doing less with your life than people who on the surface just seemed like they were less ambitious. But in reality they were having a richer experience because they were just living their lives and doing things, and if they messed up, so what? That kind of idea was really interesting to me about that place. And In Los Angeles I’m interested in talking about the city in a way that's not really about Hollywood.

People talk about LA noir and Hollywood, but I actually think Los Angeles is a more Midwestern city in a lot of ways. I would think about that, and part of the reason I like LA is it just doesn't take itself seriously. No one will ever claim they live in the most beautiful place in the world, because it’s not. But it is what it is, and that’s what great about it. It’s not like San Francisco, where they're always bragging about how they have the best heirloom tomatoes or something. I like to take a little counterintuitive approach when I write about place. I try to find the weird corner about something. There’s nothing worse than when people write about California and they just make a joke about the traffic or something lame.

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Kennedy: I read “Inside the Tube” and have to ask how you get all these crazy experiences. Who first pitched the idea, and what made you want to go in?

Daum: I was really interested in flying. I’m kind of obsessed with planes. Like I just said, I had my whole runway idea. I pitched that story to GQ. That was back in 1997, before 9/11. You wouldn't believe the stuff––you could walk around on a plane and go into the cockpit and hang out with the pilots if they invited you. It was a totally different world with flying. This story would never have happened post 9/11. I mean, just to put a reporter on a plane, always wandering around with the crew––it was crazy. I was doing some things for GQ , and at that time, it was a magazine that had a big budget for reporting. I pitched the story, I worked on it for months, they were paying for this reporting. At the time, I had this idea that it might be a book; I was really young and wanted to find a book topic. I think there was a moment when I even thought about becoming a flight attendant in order to write a book about it. I went to the flight attendant school to observe, and then the piece ended up getting killed. I think the editors of GQ really thought it was going to be more sexy, like old-fashioned stewardess kind of stories, and I wasn't coming up with that. So I ended up having this 10,000-word thing just sitting there. I don't think it was ever published anywhere, maybe in Open City magazine. GQ financed this essay and never ran it. That’s what I mean. That’s super fun. It’s an interesting life. I didn't get paid for the story, but I got paid to do the interesting thing.

MacKelcan: I particularly liked that you’re not a foodie. You don’t just hate food––you really hate food.

Daum: Well, I mean I eat food. If I hated food, I think I’d be a lot skinnier! [Laughs] MacKelcan: What does that stem from? You like to clean more than you like to cook–– that’s a very non-standard opinion for a lot of people.

Daum: I don’t know. I think I’m just impatient. My mother was not an enthusiastic cook; it wasn't part of our family.

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MacKelcan: One of the interesting things you said is how she put more value in how the tableware looked. In the first essay in this [book], she says she was in the theatre, so I thought of how she’s putting on that show. So you’re more of a fan of the show ending.

Daum: I’m a fan of the set design. My mother had fabulous interior design taste, even before she got into the theatre. She had amazing table settings; our house was always really beautiful, even though we had no money. She had a great eye; she would do really interesting things. I completely have that. I would never cook, but I’m really into houses and real estate, and I would imagine what my kitchen would look like even though I would never use any of the stuff. I like having dinner parties. I do cook a few things, but I get totally stressed out about it and convinced that they’re going to hate it. Or the next day I worry if they got food poisoning. I don't know where it comes from. It might be the most controversial piece in the book.

MacKelcan: I was looking through it last night and when I opened it up and saw that, I was like, “We’re going to have an issue!” But I loved what you were saying. I liked the list of things you’d never do, like math above a third grade level, and I could identify with each one of those things. One of the things I admire about these pieces is that you're honest.

You're saying things that people are afraid to say, and we need more people like that. This was an inspiration for me personally because I hope to do this one day. It’s not a bravery thing; you just have to do it.

Daum: Exactly, it’s your job. I think it’s hard though, because you have to contend with this reaction that I didn’t have to when I started out. I mean this book [My Misspent Youth], could you imagine if “Variations on Grief” were published when Facebook was around? Forget it. I don’t even think a publication would publish it. They didn’t, for starters. It was published in an anthology that was read at this bar. I think nobody would have read it and taken time to digest it the way they could before social media.

MacKelcan: Also, having it in hard copy rather than so many other mediums that we have these days, I find it easier to focus on the words and the format. You were very privileged to have that.

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Daum: That's why I wanted to do the essays specifically for the book. I wanted to do essays that hadn’t appeared in publications first. People could just jump to the comments now. I’m guilty of it; I read something and wonder what people think of it, so I jump to the comments. Why do I need to know that?

MacKelcan: From a published writer to an unpublished writer, what would you tell your unpublished self back then that you wish you had done?

Daum: I wish I had changed my name. Not like a pen name, like I’m going to hide forever, but I think I would have written under a different last name just to protect my family a little bit. There are always going to be a certain amount of people who read your stuff because they know you, and they never read that kind of thing, and it’s like they had no business reading it. But unfortunately, because they’re related to you, they read it, or because they’re related to you and people will come up to them and ask if this is your relation because you have the same last name.

I would have changed my last name. So change your last names right now!

MacKelcan: Were you ever worried about being published when you were grinding out [work], trying to make your name? And what would you say to yourself?

Daum: I guess I would say, be patient. This goes back to the cooking thing. I was a very impatient person; I am now. I don’t have the patience, that’s a lot of it.

MacKelcan: It’s funny because you have the patience to write down these stories and be creative, and yet you can't make a soufflé!

Daum: Because it’s boring to me to make a soufflé for some reason. Be patient. I was very ambitious when I was in my 20s. I worked constantly. Maybe I would say: bottle your energy because you're not going to have that much energy when you're older. I would work at temp jobs all day and then come home and write. I had a lot of office jobs. I did not wait tables, but I had office jobs because I was good at them. I was good at handling a room, figuring out dynamics of 12

people, so that made me a good office temp, and I did that all the time. Don’t feel like if you miss some party that you're not going to make it because you missed some opportunity there somewhere. Just give it a chance. Be patient . . . and watch that Visa bill! It’s so hard to think what your older self would tell your younger self because your older self is made up of all the mistakes that your younger self made.

MacKelcan: For us in particular, it’s nice seeing authors like you who have accomplished a lot in your life. It’s nice to hear that “hey, we’re doing things!”

Kennedy: It’s nice to hear we’re going somewhere!

Daum: That’s the thing! I guess I would say: try to just connect with your gut instincts. I just had a sense that I would eventually make a sharp left turn and do something like move to Nebraska. I kind of knew deep down that stuff was coming. Listen to that stuff, because every time I’ve ignored that sort of impulse it has not gone well. Every time I’ve done something and had to talk myself into it, it’s never been the right thing to do. Don't talk yourself into big decisions. Don't talk yourself into marrying someone, or buying a house, or moving somewhere. If it doesn't feel right on a gut level, then there’s probably a reason for that.

Pickled Katya Zinn A boy I once thought I was in love with told me he has a passion for pickling.

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He said it’s a good way to store fresh produce. I took his word for it. I wouldn’t know because all I could think was how do people like him find the time for things like soaking cucumbers in brine, when I seem to take up so much just existing. and futilely resisting the urge to resent people who keep up obscure hobbies like cross-stitching and philately and pickling shit I know there’s no harm being done by it & it’s not that I have some untapped desire for vegetable preservation I just envy anyone with the motivation for anything beyond keeping their head above water & my mom keeps saying we’re so glad we got back our daughter but much like a brine-soaked cucumber, I have spent so long drowning in chemicals I have been fundamentally altered I have stumbled and faltered over messes I’ve made, of who or what or why I used to be before this toxic sludge got ahold of me I never wanted to be a pickle.

I never wanted to be trapped in a jar growing more sour by the minute, but I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be ripe and alive and unencumbered.

All I know is what it’s like to be un-cucumbered: (to drift a little bit further everyday from what you were meant to be; to wonder if being shriveled and bitter is your destiny to feel it seep through your pores and settle in your skin) How do you fight against something when you can’t tell where it stops and you begin? & Believe me when I say that I have fought, but it turns out that cucumber and I have more in common than I thought because at the end of the day, as pathetic as it sounds, What we both want is just to be back in the ground.

I never wanted to be a pickle, Mom. but I don’t know how to tell you that after awhile it stops feeling like sad and just starts feeling like tired.

Tired of moving, tired of staying still. Tired of choking on I’m fines, of trying to be your own savior; tired of talking about the future like it could ever work out in your favor.

Tired of bargaining, of making empty deals, and the lonely heat of microwaved meals.

Tired of sunshine, and hospital bills; tired of wasting and waiting and chasing cheap 14

thrills just to hold on for one more day just to not take someone’s daughter away.

I really thought that I loved this boy, Mom. But it seems that much like a pickle, I’m doomed to either sit on a shelf collecting dust or to be split open & left to dry before something whole and well-balanced, like a sandwich.

Or a new girl wearing a scarf she spent all day making from scraps And a smile that she didn’t have to

Memory Kathleen Radigan

Screen door gleams with light. My sister 15

in purple fleecies. My father with coffee on the porch.

We splash turtles in a plastic pool.

When they snap, we shriek.

Sun leaks in our brains.

Plane trails carve the eggshell sky. I bet this is a day we’ll forget but it’s far too soon to tell.

Father Figure April Wildes His hands caked 16

with dried caulk, layers of calloused skin, creases released from knuckles – lines stretched across palms.

His wrist flexes as the wrench turns, loosening bolts and his grip.

Taking apart a part of himself, and the small wheels that keep me from tumbling down the driveway.

A machine mechanically winding – skin turns to mudden covered grasps.

Until, they turn to stone – still.

You Are Achilles . . . Maybe Tiana Murrieta In the days when hands gripped God-made shields in frustration 17

making knuckles turn white, trying to get a handle on things not tangible.

Pride so alive in the head, feel its dry breath against a Peter Pan collar, whispering sweet nothings about sweet glory. Fill the brain with sweet dreams of a romanticized future. What a nice dream: to be a name spilled from lips everyday, stringing words together in a garland of praise.

But maybe you would sleep better if you knew how to wake up everyday in the early rising of the sun and sit at a kitchen table with a cup of coffee warm in the palm. Drink hot coffee and feel it rinse down your chest, running like a river that splits up into small streams around the ribs. Sling a silk robe around your back to shield the small breeze, there is no need to run when on heels covered by cotton.

lacheism Alyssa Harmon english, the desire to be struck by a disaster 18

you know you’re fucked when you find peace in something so poetic yet so violent and damaging like a rainbow in a hurricane so maybe that’s why i ignored all the dead end signs as we drove by why i thought i could brave your storm as i watched everyone else evacuate why i ignored the sirens going off in my head as we spent the night in an abandoned house why i just simply turned the fire alarms off as you watched me turn into ashes i watched the flames dance in your eyes

Blue Ashley Bingham Blue 19

My eyes.

Clear, crisp and cobalt.

Turbid telescopes to the center of my soul.

Silent sadness carefully kept behind the yellow mask of sunny smiles and loud laughter.

It’s not an easy task.

Blue My favorite color.

I want it to mean more than depressed daydreams that cut to the core.

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10 p.m. in Paris Morgan Sewall Dad Stephanie Vargas I wonder if he knows I love him Like his mother wonders Like his sisters and his brothers wonder It’s easy to wonder for people like him People like him who have so much to say Whose words seem to get in the way Always getting stuck inside Swallowed down like a pill discrimination prescribed The people like him who have a lived a life never having said “I love you” Because love wasn’t a thing that was said Love was a thing that you do By bringing home milk and bread It’s easy to wonder for people like him People like him who found love at 16 in her Her, who showed him love in new places and family Her, who at 19, said the word baby A baby not yet born A baby who love had formed For a baby new, He would wonder what love say and how love do?

How could he be sure?

He would wonder if she knew he loved her And Little baby would wonder How to show love to people too 22

Dad, I wonder if you know I love you Poison the Soil Allison Guenette after “I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -” by Emily Dickinson I reached out for Earth’s vibrating buzz to savor lively kin.

But with arms stretched out, I realized I was trapped beneath my skin.

He rid me of the precious sleep and left my soul enclosed.

I want his wings between my teeth, That curs-ed, interposed.

Instead, I had to break my flesh, to escape from sinner’s bone.

Now, he will eat a feast of me and I! In nothingness, alone.

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My Great-Grandmother, Dementia, Me Emily Yaremchuk Walter, she says, he wants my money.

It’s not that I don’t believe her, it’s more that I don’t believe she knows what money is anymore Two emerald rings she gave my Mother, one with a scar lancing through we couldn’t polish out so it sits on the surface like a cut on the green eye of the neighborhood cat.

For a long time, I think money must be the same four baseball cards she’s been trading with me for months.

She’s rich, she knows, taking the baby-doll we hand her like it’s her due.And it’s a kind of therapy believing everything that is handed to you could be real.

Still, money is the marble on her tongue and it survives bedrest and swallow tests.

I wonder how she remembers all this wealth even as her brain turns black, the night janitor at a playhouse, sweeping its last circle of light into itself.

But sure enough, months later as we clean out her dresser, under the kit gloves and lilac drawer-liners: the musky scent of cash.

It’s frittered, folded, leafed, thumbed like the pages of a primer or a children’s bible.

24

And all of the president’s daguerreotypes stare up, joyless even at their own discovery, greener than the rings she gave away

or the hard vein of a branch when you cut it to the quick.

25

A Tale of Two Veterans Olivia Torres The veteran stood tall, his posture insurmountably straight despite the heavy emotion pressing down upon his shoulders. The sky was hazy and gray, swollen with clouds that muted the heavens, and rain was beginning to fall. The veteran’s blue eyes were sharp against the bleary weather, striking back at the gray and the emotion and the glassy, endless wall in front of him.

His grip on a brass saxophone in his left hand tightened momentarily as his eyes raked over the wall and its etchings, slowing so significantly that it was as if they were afraid of what they’d find. After some time, however, all of the symbols started to blend together, swirling and gathering into one mass of loss.

Endless, meaningless loss.

On display, the loss was rather beautiful—every inch of the memorial was immaculate, as if time and gnarled hands could not fingerprint the meaning behind the wall and was therefore powerless against it. But the veteran knew otherwise—that the wall was a gilded thing, its shine and glimmer merely glued over the destruction it held underneath. And that was all.

He didn’t know how long he stood there before discovering what it is he came for. A single name printed in bold, capital letters captured his gaze as he stared: Edward J Ginter. Immediately, the name looked wrong and out of place settled in between two others that were unfamiliar. The artistic calligraphy was arbitrary, not really the representation of the person himself but of his death, which—the veteran thought bitterly—was all that really mattered in the end.

In this setting, would his name look any other way? How could Ed be truly represented when the memorial’s architect did know not know of him and of the way his laughter once boomed like cannonfire? Where was his grin, his strength, his vulgar vocabulary in all of the curled, elegant curves of the wall’s appellation?

Where were all of the Friday nights on their high-school’s football field, Ed with the school’s colors wrapped around him and the veteran, easy at the sidelines with the rest of the band? How could anyone but him know of the long talks spent discussing girls or of the dull professors who could barely remember their names? What of the churlish insults hurled at each other under stadium lights, as both friends and enemies walked past them?

The veteran focused his eyes once more on Ed’s embossed name. It was a nice sentiment, and a needed one, but this exhibit was no closer to the truth than a life was to death.

26

The veteran bowed his head, saluting quietly so as to not attract other’s attention. With careful, deliberate movements, the veteran squared his shoulders and clapped his suitcase closer to his body, closing his eyes against the wall’s presence before turning them to the sky. The clouds had parted, making way for shallow curtains of sunlight to peek onto the horizon, and the veteran began to walk away from the memorial, wondering all the while if Ed had come to watch him play.

27

Anatomy of a Closet Haden Riles I am insane at the fury I found at the back of my father’s closet, and I am driven mad with the passion I recalled from the deepest recesses of my rib-cage I am cold-shouldering the emptiness I discovered in the attic, and I am shrugging off the angst I noticed eyeing me from the corner I am un-donning the magnificence handed to me by some ordained individuals that time has been making shadows of in my marrow I am livid with having had to step out of my bones covered in soul, and a flesh-sack that I did not ask for this Christmas Here I dreamt I found God or Other, descending in faith upon emboldened wings of virtue, where all of the fatherless closets are illuminated and freedom is but a door-frame away

28

Cleaning Stephanie Vargas She only cleans the bathroom when she’s feeling blue I know because she cries until the yellow stained bowl is white again She watches as the bleach foams up, soft and bubbly, like the woman she used to be Then she wipes it away with the scum of her yesterdays She scrubs the tiled floor until she can see a woman staring back at her Worn and tired, like the rag she has overused She sits in the shower, cleaning each corner until there’s nothing left Not even a dust particle of herself Little does she know, it will all be back tomorrow Yellow stains and dirty tiles She only cleans the bathroom when she's feeling blue She's been blue a lot lately

29

Thoreau’s Pumpkins Michael Chaney

30

Babysitting Kathleen Radigan

You won’t remember me. Timid proxy.

In the night light your skin glows lemony, one luminous body of many.

You lob saliva globes, blink between bars, chew a bear’s satin ear.

I am falling asleep in a snow-grey rocker Linen hills slush glistening.

Snow blows brindle flickers on the lids, Cracking through years.

I once slept wrapped like fish in a plastic crib, sheets wet.

I swished my net through warm dream cellars of womb. not knowing I’d grow teeth, needing.

31

Auditory Processing Disorder Hannah Cook-Parez Okay, so, you’re anti-vaccine.

You are saving the world from CHEMICALS from learning disabilities from autism.

A pinprick of the needle went inside of your child’s skin, into their blood, and rearranged their neurons, or something up there, that you do not know the name of and now little River has autism.

The magazine was called Mommy Organic, every page is filled with white feminists preaching child rearing.

The idea screamed from the pages.

They say a person becomes who they were always meant to be when they have a baby and your personality has begun to shine.

The word ableist is highlighted above your head, like an open sign in a shitty bar, right above the budweiser sign.

I see your post on Facebook.

My fingers become prepped over the keyboard, a knight withdrawing her sword.

I want to argue, to scream, to fightMy fingers move to type and the sound of clicking keys starts a slideshow of memories.

The past takes the reins and I see myself in kindergarten, a teacher treating me with frustration rather than kindness.

Memory flashes, a wheel of painful reminders.

Kids making fun of my speaking voice, my eyes roll back into my head when I try so hard to concentrate on the correct pronunciation.

My hand remembers the fear of being raised, of being wrong.

“No, Hannah, I said 324 not 342” The wheel turns slides of years of tears of frustration of fear.

32

You are afraid of the needle in your son’s skin and I am afraid of the knife through my heart because your precious child may not be NEUROTYPICAL. and you would rather they die of measles than be someone like me.

33

The Scrutiny of Fire Anastasia Jill Zohra’s girlfriend Jasmine didn’t allow her to leave the house often, but that didn’t stop me from sneaking her out once in awhile. Today, we sat at a park while she covered notable abrasions.

As always, I turned from people to experiments.

Without a word, I set a chemistry encyclopedia out, turning it into a makeshift table. Set up three beakers. Unbent a paperclip. Zohra goggled my movements, too distant to be observant.

“What are you doing?” She finally asked.

I shrugged. “Playing with fire.”

“Why?” “Would you rather sit here in silence?” This time I looked at her face, her cheekbones still holding gasps of a bruise.

Crossing her arms, she looked down at the ground. “Shouldn’t we be in a lab or somewhere . . . safe?”

I pretended I didn’t hear her, or the way her tongue staggered over ‘safe’. Using the caps as cups, I poured small amounts of powder into each one.

“So,” she said after a while. “Fire?”

“Something about chemical coordination.”

She snickered, slightly, before calling me a dolt.

I didn’t laugh back. “Do you have a lighter?”

She nodded, pulling the red BIC and a pack of Newports out of her other pocket. At the same time, a piece of paper fell out, and I knew what it was before she unfolded it; the picture of her and Jasmine she’d carried around since their second date. They’d printed it at a kiosk in Walmart and added heart shaped stickers around the borders, Jasmine promising that one day, it’d be framed in an apartment they bought together.

Of course, that day never came. Zohra kept it in her pocket wherever she went, holding onto that promise that she’d soon have a mantle to display it on. That promise was gritty, as their affair went from passionate to dull to violent, both girls expecting us all to leave them to their own devices.

I took the lighter without comment and thanked her. Grabbing the paper clip, I stirred the water and the white particles with the paper clip. “Alright, so this first one, calcium chloride, is very reactive.”

“You know how stupid this is, right?”

I shrugged, sparking the lighter before her eyes. “Possibly, but it looks cool, right?”

34

The wonder on her face was indisputable as she watched the dull orange flame blaze to a bright red.

The color faded out and I set the lighter down. Dunking the paper clip into the water and burning off the last of the calcium, I turned to the next lid. “Sodium chloride—salt.” I did the same as I had before, watching the amazement in her face as the flame grew, orange and yellow lighting up our scleras like a citrus.

“This is amazing,” she said. “Why does it do that?”

“Oxidation movement and energy, with some chemical megillah thrown in.” I didn’t bother to tell her I hadn’t paid much attention in the lab. She wouldn’t have cared, because she was too transfixed by the light.

With the grin on her cheeks, it was hard to note her sadness, even if it was persistent and present.

For once, however, she wasn’t incessantly checking her phone; even the most tense of muscles unfurled from tension’s hold.

I had to keep going while I had my roll. Moving on to the next lid, I mixed the water and blue powder. “Boric acid. Don’t get too excited though. It’s not very reactive.”

Even the small, sad looking green flame was impressive to her, the smile on her face stuck as she watched me set up the last one. Inching closer, she said, “What is it?”

“Potassium chloride. Should turn violet.”

The flame was more white than violet, but the purple sparks were enough to entice her, watching as the color faded back to yellow. Like a bruise, it appeared and died out, camouflaging against the devolving oxygen. I dipped the paper clip into the mix again and again, illuminating the flame as many times as it took for her to get the message.

When she didn’t, I spoke it out: “Burn it.”

A long moment passed between us. Her hand then cupped her pocket, protecting the picture within.

I took my hand off the trigger. “It’ll make this easier. You know it will.”

Her no came so faint, I should have tried to respect it. Instead, I threw the lighter down in frustration. “How long am I supposed to ignore the fact that she’s hurting you?”

She pressed her palms together, fingers pulsing against themselves in anger. Her arms wrapped tighter around herself and her jaw shuddered open, which always happened before she started to cry.

“Oh Lord, please don’t,” I said, but tears were already falling into her lap, head sinking down in shame. I brought my chair over to her side and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, letting her hide in the crux of my neck.

“It’s not fair.”

35

“I know.”

“I didn’t even . . . ” A shudder ripped through her body, and I held her even tighter. Rubbed her back a little, stroked her hair, even if I was unsure that was right. It seemed to work enough; over time, she started to calm.

A short time later, she pulled herself up and wiped her nose, taking the picture from her pocket.

It looked the same as it always had; two girls, four brown eyes, olive arms wrapped around waists and dark hair framing smiling lips. I noticed, for the first time, that Zohra wasn’t present, not really. Her grin was lopsided and distant, her eyes out of focus, and her arms, which at one point looked to be in a loving embrace, were hanging there limp, hands not even pressed into Zohra’s back.

The distance between that Zohra and the one in front of me weren’t all that staggering. Both held secrets between grit teeth like plaque, too emotional to learn to walk away.

My voice was cold, matter of fact. “You need to leave her, you know.”

“I . . . love her.”

“Gross, why?”

She shrugged and didn’t reply at first, until she said, “She buys me things, sometimes.”

I told her that wasn’t good enough for me, and she groaned, lying down so she was practically in my lap.

“We’ll get into it sometimes and I’ll get upset . . . but then she’ll bring me bento to make up for it. It’s hard to explain, but––” “But nothing.” This time, I was more rigid, even if she wasn’t receptive. “I’m not sure how to help you, but I can’t help you if it’s not wanted.”

She shuffled a bit until her face was pressed in my sternum. “I can’t brush off my feelings. That’s not enough reason to leave.”

My arms were awkward around her but my tone was straight to the point as I listed off the facts of her situation, the most notable being, “You don’t deserve abuse.”

She looked at me, eyes glossy and cheeks deflated. “Why are you being so nice to me Felicity?”

“Because,” was my sole explanation. Picking the lighter back up, I made the blaze purple again.

“Burn it now, or go back to her house.”

This time there was no hesitation. She held it out, the prospect of chayim turning itself in her eye.

I counted down the seconds it took for the chemical paper to succumb to ash. We sat there, together, long after the picture curled under the empurpled flame.

36

Fur Laura Dzubay The lady sitting next to me looks like the queen from Narnia when first she drew up in her silent carriage, the only solid thing in a land of blurry white, right up next to poor Edmund standing stupid in the snow.

Horses breathing through thick nostrils, muscles curving in their reins, hoofs pressing hard prints into the ground. The fawn of Lucy’s rumors, nowhere to be seen – here is only this lady, good lady, her face unblemished like the snow, her lips smiling kind, dark hair, passing fair.

Just like that, I think.

The head of the lady sitting next to me disappears under a fine fur hat, nutmeg brown, the color of my childhood doll’s hair, the color of my childhood cat.

More fur sits next to her on the couch, resting a moment while its lady scrolls through a screen. It looks like it’s sleeping. It isn’t. Soon she will rise gracefully, drape the animal back over her shoulders, and glide away through the snow outside. So much fur, I think.

She must be very cold.

37

Estimated Profit Nicole Giannetto

Drowned Rebecca Kahn 38

My mother says the ivory speckled pool water must have entombed my lungs until my skin, heavy with Ophelia’s drink, laid my tiny body to almost-rest to muddy death just below the surface.

The seconds I spent sinking mermaid-like, she imagined one child drowned incapable of my own distress – silent silent death – she broke the foggy surface of the pool broke her chlorine dream and pulled me from her fantasy back to breathing.

Split Sarah Terrazano 39

Long after a tree is struck by lightning, it still remains cracked, trunk torn between skewed limbs that reach apart to the sky that split it, bark peeled to reveal hollow veins around the central cut.

I stand in the back yard, grass still storm-wet.

Can’t the resin skin be fused? Would another bolt destroy the tree or erase its scar?

As cold wind shakes the wood and waters my eyes, I realize these are the same.

The Fucker Upstairs

Keaton JR Riley 40

The only thing I ever knew about you was that the apartment managers didn’t decide to grease the aluminum frame they placed your bed in.

Fortunately, you didn’t seem bothered by the volume of your vigorous Saturday-night squeaks, and while my bed was just as bad, it only sang in performance of acts of self-care, and always seemed a metallic echo of your enthusiastic weekend adventures.

And you were so reliable!

While my life rapidly switched polarities, while the men and women I’d been interested in floated past me like light rails I sprinted for, while I went on dates and exaggerated flaws to close myself off, while I lay in bed for hours staring at the ceiling several inches from my face, I never had to worry about you disappearing and taking with you, that old friend, your bed frame.

Yet while you were so gallantly distracted, your frame eked out a message (in a mortifying morse code) which read: “He’s going to marry her in a few years.

They’ll make three kids on a quiet bed.

And they’ll find happiness while you lay there without knowledge of that deepest human intimacy, and you’ll have traded your youth for knowledge of jazz tunes and a few lines of poetry.”

bandaids Alyssa Harmon 41

if we hurt ourselves when we were little, our mom would put a superhero bandaid wherever it hurt most. we had to show all of our friends, and suddenly the pain wasn't so bad. now we're older, buying superhero bandaids covering our entire body even though there are no visible wounds showing our friends and waiting for someone to ask what happened

Post Office Stephanie Vargas

42

A baneful boy brought me to the post office.

Where they marked me fragile but he mailed me anyway Without the bubble wrap.

Mailmen handled me haphazardly, shaking me up They dropped me a few times too many and misplaced me in shipping Eventually, I was thrown on his doorstep My packaging was pretty, a sight to see Until he opened me.

Pretty package contained broken bits, defiled parts Pretty package was just donning damaged goods and that is not what's

wanted.

“Return to sender” scars the surface of deceptive delivery––defective delivery.

So, off I go again Because I wasn't worth buying the bubble wrap

Mass Shooting in (Fill in the Blank) Hannah Nelson 1.

43

Their footsteps, out of step with the sound of heel-pounds, left, right, left, like an army echoing mismatched marching orders.

And the pavement is a drum that beats a half beat too late to meet the movement of feet running frantic from death by gunshots.

And their fire breath, out of step with the sound of vein-pounds, inhale, exhale, burning beneath blood beating to the surface of broken skin.

And their pain is a panic that spreads to people safe in their second-hand viewing until the panic loses the power to move.

Because this is expected. This is real.

This is America.

2.

Bridges never betrayed me atop brick turtle trying to thrash see red chaos like the crowd around edges of unfurling limbs.

breaking over fluffy blurring

Away ran from taken faceless protest of hand prints like foot steps still Remember invisibility.

Vigilant facelessness.

Don’t shoot.

overturned

running.

A Farmer’s Last Days on Earth Kathleen Radigan

Grow numb in a straw house 44

as dogs roll in gold sawdust.

Kiss a billy-goat blocking roads, your horned girl, willful mule.

Drink gin with ginseng in the brutal moon.

Dying’s a chore. Hear another world’s burnt roar.

Shake bats from the umbrella while lambs graze in rain.

Kick the cock, save the lamb.

Kneel to vomit. Bake a pie.

Die drunk under the Northern lights.

Time thins, smoke off manure.

Glass Recorder April Wildes after Wislawa Symborska 45

I built you a glass recorder to see what music looked like.

Everyone knows how to play the recorder we were forced to learn in elementary school to ritualize Hot Cross Buns and Mary Had A Little Lamb.

I watch as notes escape through your parted lips my skin valleys, mountainous ranges of sound.

I trace the ridges on my arm to my shoulder to my neck and put my fingers in my ears, blocking the tune from bouncing down my canals.

I stare as your breath ricochets off glass sides, fog blurs – opaque muddy with spit. Your breath churns through slightly agaped holes where your fingers lack an air tight seal.

Your face recoils from a high pitched dagger, I see the wind leak and disappear.

To My Most Recent Lover Rebecca Kahn Hello.

46

I wished you to bruise my back against brick wall. Never now to caulk my wounds with kisses, label my chafing bones in chalk or sling your tongue like axes hacking heart into pine pieces. Ball your fists and beat me bleak.

Do you hear the breaking too? Be brave please and try not to choke or swallow me whole, black hole.

Winter in Oz Laura Dzubay Snow has caked the bricks white underfoot.

Leafless trees gnarled with winter, barren branches, 47

the apples all have fallen and been trampled into slush. The scarecrow has been putting up a brave face, joking that at least this way he’ll never catch fire, but nonetheless it’s a season he isn’t used to, and nights after they make camp he wrings out his patched clothing, shakes the melted ice from his straw, thinking back to autumn dryness.

Sometimes he leans into the lap of the lion, who envelops his companions in damp fur, his great body breathing against theirs, whichever one of them feels coldest that night. He’s getting thinner, looking less regal with every passing day, but he doesn’t bring it up.

No apples this time of year, no pastries, no bread.

Once, the tin man, in a fit of frustration, chucked the oil can down a slope and into a ravine where it landed, luckily, at the edge, where the water had frozen over.

Dorothy and the scarecrow were down there for the better part of an hour, up to their knees in white, teeth chattering, frigid wet gloves pawing around in the slush until they found it.

They climbed back up, oiled their friend back to life and said wearily, don’t cry, you will only make it worse.

Dorothy’s purple fleece coat barely fits her anymore.

Likely, they figure, they are close to the Emerald City– this is the road, after all, and they haven’t strayed from it– but there have been no signs, and they’ve heard nothing from the witch in a while. Dorothy almost wishes they would, even though at this point she can hardly remember Kansas, more a name than a place, a landscape of rolling brown hills and houses whose families she knows, a land she knew or maybe dreamt of as a child. She could recall more if she tried, but snow is falling again in the woods of the nameless valley and her eyes are drifting. She burrows her head into the lion’s fur and whispers, I didn’t know it would be this cold, I didn’t know 48

it would take this long. I may not have come, if I’d known it would take this long.

Last April C. Petrichor It was no surprise that he got the call. He had been expecting it, deep down in a place he never dared to acknowledge, and he shed no tears as the words flowed through the telephone into his half tuned ear.

49

“April’s hanged herself,” the officer said.

Metal screeched and sparks flew on all sides as he sat stone still in his office at the chop shop.

The chaos encroached upon him, yearning to burn, yet he was oblivious to outer turmoil. Rather, his eyes were glazed, lost in a sea of memories. His hand twitched, stilled, then twitched again. He took the phone from his ear and softly returned it to its cradle. He felt himself crumble, just a little.

Bob’s house was at the end of a dimly lit street. The white painted wood was defiled with black fertile dirt. Two feral cats prowled under the rickety porch steps. Linda’s damn wind chimes hung everywhere, giving him an ever present migraine. Yet, tonight there was no wind and no music. All was still.

He slid his cool metal key into the lock, opened the door with a resounding squeak. The inside of the house was a black void. There wasn’t even a candle’s glow to guide his way in. His right hand fumbled against the indiscernible wall before grasping the light switch. Numb fingers flipped it. Linda’s eyes bore into his from the tattered living room sofa.

“You never came.”

Her voice was raw. Those baby blues of hers that he once fell in love with were bloodshot and dead. She looked old. He was struck with how empty he felt looking at her. He hadn’t really looked at her in a long time.

“I was working.”

She lifted one frail hand to point accusingly at his chest. It quivered like a loose leaf in a hurricane.

“April’s dead. Our daughter is dead!”

The dam broke. Linda buried her head in her hands and sobbed with no tears. The sound was ugly. Bob flinched.

“T-they took her b-body. S-she’s g-gone.”

Bob couldn’t look at her anymore. He glanced around the house instead. The place was in ruins.

The floor was covered in grime; odd items Linda insisted on hoarding covered every available surface.

His eyes found a rusty spoon lying haphazardly on top of the television set. What kind of nut case felt attached to a rusty spoon? Bob shook his head, walked past his grieving wife, and retrieved a case of beers from the fridge. He retreated to his room. It was the guest room. He hadn’t shared a bed with Linda in nine months. The sound of her dry sobs and the buzz of six beers sent him into an empty sleep. His limbs became looser. He crumbled a little more.

Bob dreamed of April 1st, 1997. Linda, the love of his life, lay spread on that hospital cot red faced and sweaty. She screamed again and crushed Bob’s slick hand in a desperate grip. He grimaced, but kept quiet. He wasn’t the one giving birth. He whispered reassurances, prayed in his head for the little 50

child he’d loved but never seen. Linda cried out, burned his ears with her desperate screech. Then, a whole new cry came and Bob’s heart all but flew out of his ribcage. A little bundle of baby girl was placed in Linda’s arms. She cooed at the baby. Bob’s throat constricted as he lightly stroked the tiny thing’s cheek.

“April,” Linda whispered. “Our little April.”

In that moment, Bob had never felt lighter.

The funeral was a bleak affair. Linda hadn’t showered or eaten in days and it showed. Everyone stared at her. A priest came and said some sweet nothings. They were meant to comfort, but only served as irritants to Bob. He knew the man of God didn’t mean one word he said about grace. That look was there.

That judgmental stare, so carefully hidden by pitiful smiles, that said, it was only a matter of time with a girl like that.

A few of April’s loser friends came and said empty pretty words about her. One had a pink Mohawk.

Another had on so much eyeliner he looked like a panda. Bob couldn’t look at them. He’d told April to stop hanging around those freaks. Nothin’ but trouble, he’d said. She hadn’t listened. Just like her mother.

She did what she wanted on her terms, consequences be damned.

The coffin shone in the early morning sun. A bundle of sunflowers rested on top, blindingly yellow. It was wrong. In his mind, funerals should’ve been held on rainy days. The sun should’ve mourned, not shone on like everything was the same. Bob scuffed his shoe in the dirt. He had been encouraged to say something but he couldn’t find the words. So, he silently watched dirt cover his April 1st, 1997 baby girl with a blank face. He remained for a few seconds after that shiny black prison could be seen no more. Then, he walked on. The edges of himself crumbled into oblivion.

April started to change when she was fourteen. Before, she was a sunny child. She smiled a big, gapped tooth grin and always tackled her daddy in a hug when he walked in the door at five o’ clock sharp. It was the best part of his day. She had friends, nice normal friends. She did well in school, was liked by all her teachers. She was perfect. And then, she wasn’t.

Suddenly, he was no longer greeted warmly when he walked in the door. He wasn’t greeted at all.

April stayed in her room doing God knows what. She disappeared, became a ghost rather than a child. He was lucky if he got in a one-minute conversation with her everyday.

“Hey, April.”

“Bob.” She didn’t call him dad anymore. It burned in his throat.

“It’s dad.”

“Okay, Bob.” He would clench his fist and fight to stay calm for the sake of their crumbling relationship.

51

“How was school?”

She would stare blankly.

“It was school.”

Then, he would lose it. He would explode into a lecture about respect and she would disappear again and he would hate himself for ruining what they used to be.

The only thing that drove him into madness more than April was Linda, who was descending into her own dark crevices. At first, she began resisting donating old junk that had no purpose in their lives anymore. She’s just sentimental, he reasoned. Then, one day he tried to throw away an old, stained, musty smelling pillow and she lost it. She was screaming and crying like that pillow was her very own child.

Bob dropped it back onto the couch and disappeared.

Linda and April had a special bond of insanity. Linda babied their wayward daughter. She let April wither away in her room, hang out with freaks, and use a crusty razor to tear up her arms.

“It’s just a phase,” she would say. “We need to let her find herself.”

That was what Linda was all about: finding herself. Like she was a teenager again, smoking pot with Bob in the back of his father’s pickup truck and giggling about big dreams she knew she would never reach. Like what they had, what Bob slaved for every day, wasn’t enough.

It was on the morning of April 21st, 2013 that Bob realized he hated his wife. April was sixteen and long gone. Bob was beginning to sink into a daze. The whole family became a broken puzzle, mismatched pieces that no longer fit together. April stood in the doorway slipping on a pair of battered combat boots. She wore slutty black shorts, a black tank top, and too much makeup. A boy that looked like the lost KISS band member waited for her, leaning against the doorway without a care. Linda sat on the couch. She could see it all, but she didn’t move. April finished putting on her shoes and moved in close to the boy. No, Bob thought. She sloppily kissed him, called him baby, and rushed out the door.

Linda still didn’t move. Bob looked at her, then swiveled his head towards the door that was shut forever.

Darkness overtook him. He stared at lovely Linda, the love of his life, the woman who gave him their daughter, and hated every inch of her.

He screamed at Linda and blamed her for it all. Their lost child. Their broken marriage. Their crumbling sanity. Linda started to cry. She pleaded with him to stop. He couldn’t. He was too far gone in a blind blazing rage. He knew his hand was raised. He knew who he was slapping. Linda shrieked. Her face was branded scarlet by her husband’s raging hand. Bob snapped back to reality at the sickening crack of open hand meeting lovely flesh and stumbled away. His chest felt tight. He couldn’t breathe. His hand shook in front of his eyes. It stung with regret.

52

A choked gasp came from behind. He slowly turned. April was crying. She rushed to Linda’s side, screamed at Bob, and called him a monster. He didn’t try to explain. There would be no forgiveness; he could see it in her eyes. Bob never hugged his daughter again.

The house felt empty without her. Even though she had been a ghost, especially to him, Bob was distinctly aware of the emptiness of her room and the meals for two. He felt the ache of his house without his child. Linda was a ghost too. Everyone told her she needed to see someone. The only person she saw was Bob, because she never left the house.

For Bob, life went on. He went to work, made money to buy beer, and came home to drink alone in the guest room. April’s door had been shut for three months. It would be hard to open now. The summer slickness would make the hinges stick after such a long time of disuse. Her room was next to the guest room, across the hall from the master where Linda no longer slept. She’d stopped sleeping too.

Everyday Bob passed that room with his case of beers, eyes resolutely on the floor to avoiding seeing that sticky white door with a rusty faux golden handle. A sign embellished the wood. It was black and had two skulls flanking the words ‘KEEP OUT!’ Bob hadn’t looked at the sign since April left, but he knew it was there. He felt stupid for obeying it.

It was April 29th, one year later, when his routine changed. Linda had started seeing a therapist, some new age goof who told her to join Oprah’s book club and invest in soul healing crystals. Linda started eating, just a little, and actually took the time to comb her hair. She was moving on.

Bob walked in the door at 5 o’ clock sharp and looked around. He was attempting to step over piles the usual piles of crap in an attempt to reach the fridge, when he suddenly stopped cold. The rusty spoon was gone from on top of the T.V. He stared for a long moment. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. His breath went short.

He staggered to the fridge and pulled out his case of beers. His feet were unsteady as he made his way to the guest room. He felt as if he were on a ship, swaying in the midst of a turbulent sea.

He passed April’s door, put his hand on his own door handle, and stopped. His hand was slick against the cool metal. He started to twist, but stopped again. He took a deep breath and looked over his shoulder at that stupid sign. His hand left the handle. He turned on his heel and took a step forward. His mind wandered to April 29th, one long year ago. The last time he saw his daughter out of a casket.

He remembered the resounding knock as his knuckles met the door. The sound was reminiscent of a heartbeat, two measured thumps that tethered him to his lost child. He hadn’t received a response. He hadn’t been expecting one.

“I’m coming in,” he said.

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He opened the door. There was his April 1st, 1997 baby girl, sitting at her cluttered desk writing something. She didn’t acknowledge him for a long moment, not until her hand stopped twitching letters onto the page. At last, she turned.

“What?”

He didn’t know what. He didn’t know why he had come. April had purple streaks in her hair. Her eyes were dark and bone weary. But, her mouth had the tiniest secret smile, as if she knew some wonderful thing she would never tell. It was the first smile he had seen in a long time. His heart pounded in his ears and took his breath away. He stared at her, really stared at her. For just a moment he could see the little girl who rushed to meet him when he came home. He loved her for it.

“I love you. You know that right?”

She met his eyes.

“Yeah.”

She turned away. She would say no more, but she had said enough. Bob left her in peace, turning just once to see her opening the curtains of her window, bathing her in the light of the sun.

Bob snapped back to reality as his hand settled on her door. He swallowed hard. His stomach was in his throat and he felt sick. He thought about turning away, but something deep inside stopped him. He pushed on the door. It didn’t budge. He pushed again, harder. It creaked the tiniest bit. He slammed his shoulder into the wood and it gave way with a bang.

It was just as it was one year ago. The covers on the bed were pulled back, as if she had just gotten out of bed. Dirty laundry littered the floor and her makeup was scattered everywhere. Her desk had an open journal resting on it, embellished with a ball point pen. Bob could feel her, suddenly. He felt like she could walk in any second.

His eyes stayed on the journal. He slowly walked forward and sat down at her desk chair. He took a deep breath and looked down at the journal, at her very last words. There was just one line written in messy cursive script.

April showers bring May flowers.

Bob choked on a sob. He reverently ran his fingers over the words, felt the rough parchment and the smooth ink. He felt something wet and warm on his cheek. He wiped it away, but another took its place. A breeze came through the curtains and the sun bathed his damp face. He wrapped his arms around himself. He pulled himself together. He stood up. He moved on.

Hands Hannah Cook-Parez I am starting to feel sentimental about the whole damn thing.

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Insecurities have plagued me at every corner, suburb no different than the last, filled differently.

Thunderstorms bringing resolutions with every clap and strike of the earth.

I remember how we have all felt soft to someone’s touch.

I regret every moment of money being passed through another’s hand and nothing said.

The softness of their hands became unremarkable.

Hands, their mother held and thought they had the most beautiful child.

Hands, so tender to their lover, reaching across the empty space of their bed, giving oxygen to their love deprived minds.

Hands, held by a friend, tethering their souls to the earth, when the fear wins and our ravaged throats can no longer contain the tears from within.

Your skin is soft.

Your hands are strong.

Your scars, mean everything and nothing- they will fade away with your body and your soul into the earth, until only the dirt remains.

To be washed away, by the rain.

The beautiful sounds of thunder will mean nothing to you.

And out there in another suburb.

Two lovers will be thinking, they have never felt softer hands.

Recipe for Marla Angela Ma 1 XXL sheet of damaged yeast dough 1 L bushel of matted corn silk 55

1 M snub cauliflower ,to be wrinkled 2 M baby cabbages ,to be pierced & hung w shitty fake jewelry 2S blue beads soaked in cobwebs & sour milk 1 S pink rose ,puckered ,that may be opened & closed quickly on any occasion 1 XS beating heart (i.e. ,mouse ,shrew ,meerkat ,ewe) , * do not knead the dough properly ;instead leave clumps & humps | on & around like accidental molehills do not give the rose any shape or form ;instead let it fall open | fall closed | of its own accord ,petals not strong now wilted a sag along the edges do not place the blue beads with care do not unfurl the curled-in cabbages do not brush the tangles from the tassels, and do not attach the cauliflower so that it rises squarely in the midst of it all ;instead toss it from a distance ,let it stick ,only somewhat , like you do not care all that much do not give her pride do not give her fortune do not give her love or joy or bliss ;instead give her a name and put her on the train perfume her with cheese and old sponges dress her in filthy capris and an ugly pink blouse sandals and toe rings egg yolks | broken shells give her resent give her hate give her the piss hot remnants of yesterday’s sick senseless fury left overnight | to fester and one last reminder: 56

do not knead the dough properly

The Tardigrade Laura Dzubay When I first got a look at the animal That will outlast all other life on earth, 57

I had to look twice At the shapeless grey thing, the eight Pudgy legs, strange round snout, eyes lost In the folds (or did it have eyes?)– The tough colorless skin, more like the skin Of an alien than of anything I’ve seen here. When I saw pictures Of the animal that will bear witness To the death of our sun, I couldn’t stop Looking. Tardigrades Make their homes in mud volcanoes and in The thick of rainforests where the monsoons Hit yearly, along the dusky skin Of mountains and in the deep sea Where only blackness sleeps and species Still unknown to us turn and whisper.

They’ve even survived in outer space, All the places where humans only barely Belong. When I first saw the creatures That will know our planet longer and better Than anyone, I thought this makes sense–– After a moment of it not making sense at all–– No, it does, for it to be them. Then, When the scientists are all dead, And the politicians and the warmakers, The postmen and the artists and me, The rationalizers and the rationalized (for We all have been both, at some point Or another), this will be what is left––not only Something other than us, but something Practically alien, foreign to us on our own Land, older and better, which none of us Will ever touch or see.

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Beautiful Village Emily Yaremchuk On those January trips to Florida, my Grandfather told me all kinds of things he wasn’t supposed to.

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Why Grandma left, the right way to say bride price, what happened to all the Russian poets.

I was five, I ate ten of his heart pills because they were blue.

When they found the rest laid out in constellation, My parents took off my clothes and fed me a spoonful of clear Ipecac.

In the bathtub, I vomited over the drain feeling betrayed, the green stuff that came up oddly floral as if made from the crushed stems of every flower I had ever picked, my first taste of penitence and something to be remembered, like the Russian poets buried with the ball of their femurs in their mouths.

Silence Emma Cottrell My tongue is tied with daises; Petunias o’er my eyes.

My hands are bound in roses’ thorns, 60

And vines tie down my thighs.

The scale is crushing me, Into the ocean deep.

Water rushing in my mouth, Drowning words I want to keep.

The welcome gates, glowing, are Not welcoming to me. I will sneak in to save my words But survive we will see.

The scale is tipping faster Into the ocean darker.

Will you be on the side That drowns in flowery water?

Wall Called Home Stephanie Vargas We built a wall of flesh and bone God, it was a sight to see 61

A wall that uses skin as stone Our wondrous wall was not a home No doors to set us free We built a wall of flesh and bone Pierced skin, rusted blood–– a new cologne Will make the floor mahogany By a wall that uses skin as stone My own flesh, you will postpone By pretending we are happy We built a wall of flesh and bone My skin is soaked in acetone Now I’m shackled- never free To a wall that uses skin as stone Our wall called home construction zone.

With the stolen soul of me We built a wall of flesh and bone A wall that uses skin as stone

Star-spangled Exit Haden Riles Let us look, with what remains of the star-spangled eyes we made 62

in kindergarten class where starving teachers handed out preparatory tests safely establishing the maxim: Children are robots in flesh suits.

And let’s lay together, gazing up at the plaster ceiling glistening like starlight when cars pass your living room window on the way down the exit ramp into Oblivion, shoulder to shoulder — hopeful, ignoring the fragility of that window pane.

Maybe tomorrow will be different, and the shovels we borrowed will be where they started — trees without the metal tips we used to dig bite-sized graves for your sister, and my cousins, nations.

Show me, too, that the country we were relentlessly learn-ed of, its Shining City on the Hill geography and patriotic contour, is still our home — Sin-sin-att-ie and Missi(s)sip(p)ee — crackling, an empty Yahtzee cup Show me, too, that we are worth more than we feel, that fear is only a child-like dream, that it is not “real” that your ceiling is not a true-to-form prediction of our flaming exit from Orbit

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Human History Kathleen Radigan

Before we grew eyes, we sensed with meat sockets the earth and its movements.

Crawling in dirt down hot rocks, our backs pale twists in heat.

We slept in stacks.

Our muscles were plush sacs bleeding dreamless.

We felt slimy throbs, and slithered in tunnels ‘til we couldn’t tell the difference in between ourselves.

And one day we heard sun’s frail sizzle.

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Untitled Morgan Sewall

Jessica 65

Katya Zinn does your disease bring you closer to God? do you count the bumps on your rosary bead spine? twist your neck like one possessed to see your shoulder-blades fan out like the wings of an angel feel the splay of your collarbones against waxy skin like the embedded wicks of candles on your altar and have you been exorcised, or does the blood on your knuckles still make you feel alive? the way it dribbles down your translucent skin like sacramental wine into glass and is your own descent not unlike this pilgrimage of your insides; beginning pure and sinless in the bowl you hate, meditating in the porcelain God you so love and fear resurrected in its pipes narrowing, as it snakes through the bowels of the earth— You can almost feel it moving underneath you, but perhaps that is just the ground.

So intent upon movement these days.

It pitches and writhes, and you sway where you stand, gripping the towel rack, afraid to fall as Lucifer did from Heaven narrowing still until it reaches that wide expanse of water, where sea and sky mask the scent of decay you’ll get there one day to that Nirvana where the buttery sunshine beats down on the winking sand. each grain so alive, and yet so small littered with the bones of its inhabitants and the shells of those tiny sea creatures who have shed their earthly forms and, my love, wasn’t that what you always wanted? to rip away this mask of flesh and bone to bury your soul (naked, bleeding, and raw) in the dust of your ancestors And does that ever seem like such a sweet release, to cease to exist at all?

For even in the creamy sand and frothy sea, does the spray not taste a bit like loneliness?

Does the sun never cease its relentless beating on those things you’d rather not see?

Maybe you were just born too big for this world And too hopeful and too defeatist You smell flowers and look for the funeral, stand on rooftops just to contemplate the abyss beneath your feet but mostly you’ve been trying to shrink to fit A world that will always be too small But it was never really about size for you, was it?

You just wanted your bones to show so they would finally see everything that was inside of you

The 10 Major Cloud Types 66

Hannah Nelson In second grade science class, school snatched spontaneity right out of the sky and replaced it with the conformity of cloud types.

But I’d never asked for names when I could conjure up my own that changed as fast as the clouds changed shape.

But my teacher still scolded me, saying, the clouds were classified long before you, as she wiped away my imagination with rain water that tasted like textbooks.

And suddenly the sky shrank as it recoiled in tighter to the earth, becoming smaller, more predictable as it shed its fluffy layer of infinity.

There were no clouds left to be classified, no discoveries to be made by taking time to look up.

There was no mystery to discern in the morphing mass above me, so I trained my eyes to focus below.

Twelve 67

Kathleen Radigan

Getting too old for it, we pattered down the back stairs anyway after lights out, toes slick on wood quiet as fish past her parents’ room.

A knife of light in the door.

When the screen door clicked we ran on rain drenched grass into the yard the warm world.

Streetlights in neighbors’ pools.

She said In Never Land I’ll be a little boy forever. I said I’m a Tinkerbell light-ball flashlight.

Our spinning bent me back.

Sky lunged.

Blade bitten ankles, branches shook dew loose.

We lay in her plastic play house and practiced kissing.

Her tongue moved in my mouth.

Earwigs burrowed in the pink stove, glistening piles of skins.

I watched rainbows swill on my eyelids, held her sweaty hand.

She said I am so afraid to have sex someday. her breath caught there.

I wonder what it feels like.

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Maps of Imaginary Places Angela Ma 69

In any case I am

You strike a match, light a

no longer an imperial

flame, watch it catch to

prude: baby’s breath, white

dance for ghosts—

cotton sheets, starch,

a tough audience.

I tongue

smelling of dahlias.

Back then I was

paper fingerprints.

We inhale:

grotesque in my perfection.

feathers waft down, kiss

I’d wager my soul slept

the surface of some pond

better that way. Nevertheless

Teeming with pale dawn

I may prefer the lingering

and gerridae.

We exhale: wind steals

aftertaste of sin on soil.

the smoke— wings in an riptide.

In the Chaos of Things Stephanie Vargas 70

Someplace near where the sea kisses the shore is where I’ll be I’ll watch them embrace––only to part again I’ll watch them continue on as the gulls circle high above, singing Children will join in, laughing languidly, the chorus to a song I’ve heard many times While I am watching and waiting, I’ll use tiny, crystallized grains of hope to build myself a castle With the gentle breeze, hope will slowly leave my castle one grain at a time The fragile little thing But, when the sun is high, you’ll see it glisten Each grain glowing pure hope For a moment––everything will be still The sea will freeze, its supple lips just kissing the shore.

The gulls will pause mid-flight, admiring my brilliant castle.

The children calm the chorus to watch You––and me: your eyes locked in mine.

But moments pass And the sun, like people, gets low As the sun sinks off the edge of the world, I’ll watch–– I’ll watch the love affair between the sea and the shore I’ll watch the gulls arrow on to the highest of places I’ll watch the notes decrescendo with the sun And I’ll watch you. watching as every last grain of hope in my castle grows dim Once again, I’ll watch you lose me

in the chaos of things

Little Things April Wildes 71

❖ Nobody writes a poem about the shadows of the branches, how they create unsolvable mazes on the ground. ❖ It’s an odd thing to force a smile, a crescent moon to glow through darkness. ❖ Leave crumble & break apart & become compost for the dead for the living ❖ I stepped on an ant and it’s life ended and I kept walking. ❖ Do you think other living things celebrate their mattering?

Going 90 on I-95 72

Sarah Terrazano At 4 a.m., all roads look the same.

Like the inside of your eyelids, but darker. The radio sputters love songs you can’t listen to anymore without wanting to drift, slowly, to the side of the road. You’d call someone, but she’s who you’re driving away from— Ahead, a doe. White tail raised like a match, shocked into stillness by the beams, like an interrogation room: Did you see the blue sedan, and what swerved first, you or the car— All you know is that somehow you didn’t crash and you’re a few dozen feet past the deer. Shakily, you brake and look back to see it blink once before springing into the forest. You turn off the radio and hope she makes it home.

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An August Evening in Tumwater Rebecca Kahn Trails End Lake a rippling of prayer beneath algae bosom, rippling of my past along this water, past crisp between my teeth, the marshmallow browned by fire under impatient night skies. Naked on the sand we invite the moon into our mouths. It laps our faces with stars, ash, whispered stories sway evergreen shadows.

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Little Black Dress Hannah Nelson I need it spread on me sultry, like suffocating snakeskin, like shedding seduction displaying gasping flesh underneath.

Wide grips of flesh flashing before man-eyes that feast on fearless as I sway down streets, ruling my realm, choosing sheep for the slaughter.

I need it to play you like a trifle worth less than discarding.

For I am control.

I am power slathered on my body and my corpse.

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Why Do They Call It the Star Village?

Emma Cottrell Once upon a time In a land faraway There lived a town of people Who had a lot to say.

They talked about the sun, And they talked about the rain.

But the one thing they liked to do The most was complain.

They complained when it was wet, And they complained when it was dry.

But what they most complained about Were the stars in the sky.

“How dare they!” they cried; Their fists in the air.

“Hang themselves in the sky Without a thought or a care.”

“They think themselves better.

They think themselves grand.

As they shine their bright light All over the land.”

So they came up with a plan, A dastardly scheme.

To forever hide the stars.

And snuff out their gleam.

So they gathered some rope, And they wove it together To make a net As light as a feather.

So later that night, After the sun waved goodbye,

The stars came out To light up the sky.

The people all gathered In the center of town.

To carry out their plan To bring the stars down.

With smirks on their faces And glints in their eyes, They tossed the net up, Up into the skies.

The net covered the stars, Drowning their light, Pitching the town Into everlasting night.

The people all scrambled This way and that.

One tripped over a rock, And the other a cat.

The people all wept And filled with regret, cried “We’re sorry! We need All the light we can get!”

So they opened the net And watched in awe.

As the stars painted the sky In midnight dawn.

Then the villagers danced With joy, so then They never complained About anything again.

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Narrative Emily Yaremchuk Truth is just a serious accident, though the driver never sees his day in court, and no one follows behind in fugue with a flower of white apology in the bowl of their hands.

Only the man outside the corner grocery who wields his styrofoam cup like a Commandment and shrieks: You! Bitch with the blonde hair!

He’s got his hand on the olive branch and when he shakes it, the sound is harsh with the clatter of beer money.

You’d better listen, Lady.

No one likes to admit that the only god they talk to is themselves, at night when the man follows and a coded light falls from doors.

You can fit a fan of keys between your knuckles and listen, like he tells you to.

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Surely, the Word is Lost!

Haden Riles Consider the word—misled mired, or swamped—something like that in moss-green countryside moors leaning, doomed without hope such a monolith grown soft and bending sourly making angry snort-faces at passersby resenting them for their—upright they, who with their Kodak lenses and shiny-light crayon-color’d parkas, a lovely—parental—shade of yellow, feel no gradation of shame, or hint at any form of reparation for the word—who stands in such a lonely state of affairs Consider, if only partially—even if only for a second— how far astray we all are, and how simply the word—misled— talled though it is, puts it all into perspective

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Salt Water Fairy Tales Hannah Cook-Parez I weep for you salt water tears rinsing away an avalanche of emotions like the old man on your street, with his hose, does every Sunday.

We cry when we are born.

Tears become traces of a past long forgotten.

Into this world, we come weeping, and in our last we left with salt water on our faces.

The ocean refused to be lost, the tide always tries to sweep you back in, and mermaids try to drown you with their voices.

They sing to remind you of home.

Born from the sea.

The first humans, gazing at the sky above, clouded by the water’s view as we swam closer and closer to the surface and one by one, dared.

The salt dried on our faces as memento from our past, treasure within the body.

The gift of your tears how I wish you could feel this most ancient part of you, formed by your eyes and the ravaging of your throat.

They are here to save you and I weep for you.

I cry for your repressed tears deep inside, screaming to be released. You are here, you are emotion and You are alive and you are of this earth.

But, you do not cry.

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Contributors Ashley Bingham was born and raised on a small farm in Neola, Utah. She's currently a student at Utah State University. In addition to writing, she also enjoys music, photography, and traveling.

Michael Chaney has been published in Michigan Quarterly Review, Fourth Genre, Los Angeles Review, Minnesota Review, and Prairie Schooner. He lives in Vermont Hannah Cook-Parez is a student living in Brooklyn, NY. She is working on her B.A. in creative writing from Brooklyn College.

Her work is influenced by her working class background, groomed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the voice of David Sedaris.

Emma Cottrell is a freshman English major at Illinois Wesleyan University and is from Champaign, Illinois.

Laura Dzubay is an undergraduate studying English and creative writing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her work has appeared in Ginosko Literary Review, The Oleander Review, Fortnight Literary Press, Xylem Magazine, and elsewhere. Recent awards include first prize in the Caldwell Poetry Competition and a Hopwood Underclassmen Fiction Award.

Nicole Giannetto is a second year student at Merrimack College and is majoring in psychology and minoring in social justice.

Nicole has been practicing a lot with acrylic pouring, a technique taught to her by her best friend Mady. The friends share a love for the Grateful Dead, and Nicole titled "Estimated Profit," after one of their favorite songs.

Allison Guenettte is an English major at Iowa State University. Her poetry is inspired by Beat literature as well as her preoccupation with spirituality.

Alyssa Harmon is an English Writing Studies major at University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. She has published creative nonfiction and several poems in Papercut, and is the senior editor for USFSP Her Campus.

Anastasia Jill is a queer poet and fiction writer attending Rollins College. Her work has been published or is forthcoming with Poets.org, Deep South Magazine, Cleaver Magazine, , The Flash Fiction Press, and elsewhere.

Rebecca Kahn is a junior at Brandeis University, where she is majoring in English and creative writing, and minoring in art history. Her work has been published in Polaris Literary Magazine, Laurel Moon Magazine, and Revolving Door Journal.

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Angela Ma is a junior at the University of Chicago, studying economics and creative writing. She spends her time freelancing for small businesses, cleaning dinosaur bones, and working heavy bags at fight class.

Hannah Nelson is a senior at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, majoring in English and minoring in creative writing.

She’s published work in the Belleville Park Pages, Blue Heron Review, Indiana Review, and The 2017 Scythe Prize: Stories and Essays from College Writers anthology.

C. Petrichor is studying creative writing at the collegiate level. Her work has appeared in Neon Dreams, Aspirations, and Adelaide.

She aspires to be a published novelist and an advocate for victims of domestic violence.

Kathleen Radigan recently graduated from Wesleyan University and is currently getting her MFA in poetry at Boston University. She makes money by watching dogs and babies.

Haden Riles is an English major at the University of Minnesota. His poetry has never been seen, really, by anyone. The restaurant industry has claimed the entirety of his twenties thus far; it will likely continue to do so.

Keaton JR Riley is a University of Minnesota undergraduate student in his third year. He's studying English and psychology and works as a programmer at a tech firm.

He mostly writes about mental illness in an attempt to control his struggle with it.

Tiana Murrieta is an undergraduate at Brandeis University, where she is studying English Literature.

Morgan Sewall is a marketing and graphic design major at Merrimack College. Art has been a hobby of hers for as long as she can remember. She hopes to become a creative/art director one day.

Sarah Terrazano grew up in the greater Boston area. She is an undergraduate student at Brandeis University. Her work has appeared in Revolving Door Journal.

Olivia Torres is a junior at Westfield State University in Westfield, MA. She studies with a concentration in writing, and when not at school, is an avid gamer and exercise enthusiast.

Stephanie Vargas is an English writing student at Illinois Wesleyan University. She enjoys reading and writing poetry.

April Wildes received her BA at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse, and is currently an MFA candidate at Emerson College with a focus in poetry. She has been published in Red Cedar Review and Z Publishing House.

Emily Yaremchuk is an alumna of the Area Program in Poetry Writing at the University of Virginia. Her work has appeared in Raw Feet, The Turnip Trucks, Corks and Curls and The Virginia Literary Review. She is 81

currently an MFA candidate for Creative Writing at Boston University.

performance poetry, creative nonfiction, and prose.

Katya Zinn is an expressive therapy major at Lesley University. She writes

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