Paha Review | 2017

Paha Review Writing and Art from the Hill Mount Mercy University Cedar Rapids, Iowa

2017

The term paha comes from Dakota Sioux dialect meaning “hill” or “ridge,” and it was first applied in 1891 by W.J. McGee to the special hill forms in this region of Iowa…

Their distribution and alignment parallel to (and very often near) river valleys strongly suggest that paha are actually wind-aligned dunes that accumulated in response to the strong, prevailing northwest winds that were scouring the Iowan surface during this period of glacial cold.

Jean C. Prior Land Forms of Iowa We need to recover the ancient sense of homeland as an area defined not by armies and flags…but by nature and geography and by the history of human dwelling there, a habitat shared by other creatures, known intimately, carried in the mind as a living presence.

Scott Russell Sanders Mount Mercy University is built on one of the many paha in Iowa, most clustered near or southeast of Cedar Rapids.

Editor Courtney Snodgrass Assistant Editors Cassie Green Jessica Purgett Tyus Thompson Charles Uthe Art Editor Mariah Kidd Copy Editors Anna Bohr Natalie Deister Cassie Green Mariah Kidd Abbey Konzen Jessica Purgett Courtney Snodgrass Tyus Thompson Doriann Whitlock Photographers Anna Bohr Kathryn Hagy Mariah Kidd Cover Art Emma Oldenburg Salient Ocular Sanctuary oil on canvas Cover Design Mariah Kidd

Faculty Advisors Jose Clemente Mary Vermillion Writing Selection Committee Natalie Deister Amber Downs Cassie Green Erin Johnson Abbey Konzen Jessica Purgett Bailey Rickels Zach Salow Courtney Snodgrass Tyus Thompson Charles Uthe Doriann Whitlock Art Selection Committee Mariah Kidd Emma Oldenburg Laura Slovakova Special Thanks Billie Barker Chris DeVault Kathryn Hagy Joseph Hendryx Joy Ochs Joe Sheller John-Thomas Richard Benjamin Thiel Carol Tyx Eden Wales Freedman

in memory of Sarah Riley, Mount Mercy and Aramark employee of seventeen years

Contents Nightmares from the Wife of a Soldier

Courtney Snodgrass

Women Like Me

Natalie Deister

11

Before Trees Bloom

Hannah Schroeder

12

Tomato

Cassie Green

14

Red

Logan Wilkes

15

Midnight Questions

Molly Hahn

17

Thing in Black Gloves (Pain)

Kaytlyn Rumelhart

21

The Power of Four Letters Tyus Thompson

9

23

Endings

Natalie Deister

27

Editorial Revision

Billie Barker

28

The Girl

Charles Uthe

29

I Loved an Alcoholic Once Courtney Snodgrass

31

All Comes Down

Anonymous

33

Head Down

Marlon Pierre-Antoine

36

Life is Doing Laundry

Anna Bohr

38

The Mudslinger

Dia Potter

40

Darkness

Jessica Purgett

42

Going Places

Billie Barker

44

Asleep

Doriann Whitlock

46

Happy Place

Jessica Purgett

47

I Remember

Kayla Hodgson

48

Break Free—Italia Edition Leslie Hoffmann

49

A New Understanding

Lauren Brunson

50

Shark Mermaid Fin Soup

Abbey Konzen

51

Untitled

Jacob Herndon

52

Untitled

McKenzie Mellecker

53

Stone Lips

Mariah Kidd

54

Self Portrait

Mason Evans

55

Views from the Tricks

Quentin Sims

56

Secrets

Laura Slovakova

57

Shadows of Epiphanies

Kelsey Bills

58

Weathered History

Emma Oldenburg

59

Putting the “Goth” in Gothic

60 Lauren Brunson, Emma Oldenburg, Njenga, Gabi Acosta, Mariah Kidd, Molly Metz, Jose Clemente, and Kathryn Hagy

Things Change..

Logan Wilkes

61

Final Road Home

Tanner Childs

62

For the One Around Which My World Orbits

Biance Kesselring

70

Everything You’re Not

Brooke Woolley

71

Earliest

Abbey Konzen

72

The Kind of Kid Who Stole Jilly

Ashley Kofoed

75

The Donut

Mariah Kidd

80

in the beginning

Cassie Green

82

Remembering

Kayla Hodgson

83

Until My Last Heartbeat

Jenna Schutte

85

A Walk in the Apple Orchard

Brooke Woolley

91

Postpartum

Courtney Snodgrass

93

December 10, 1986

Todd Bender

95

Regimented

Logan Wilkes

101

For a Veteran Who Survived

Courtney Snodgrass

105

Contributors

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Nightmares from the Wife of a Soldier Courtney Snodgrass

The Atlantic Ocean stands between us, mocking our size and I wish it were a small lake, one that I could breast stroke my arms through the water, feel the liquid wash over my shoulders and through my hair before I pull myself over to you on the other side, like an Olympic swimmer pulling herself out of the chlorinated pool.

I’d lift my tired body out onto the foreign land where so many soldiers have been deployed and spend months at a time, away from their families and loved ones, away from me.

I’d walk around until I found you, dodging bullets in the middle of a fireworks show.

I’d swim to you if only the current could carry me and I’d bring you home, towing your exhausted body alongside my own until I could finally hold you in our bed.

I’d lay beside you and listen to your heavy breathing, steady like the second hand on the clock in the middle of the night.

I’d watch your chest rise and fall and admire the peace you’re in when your eyes are closed.

I’d wait for the call that will take you away from me again, the call that drags you from our bed and flies you back across that swollen pond of water.

You’re gone again in only an instant and I hate how fast the war can steal you away from me

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before I’ve even had a chance to say goodbye.

But it takes so long for me to save you, to bring you back to my side of the ocean, to familiar land where our sheets cover us in the middle of our bed, our legs embraced.

You’ve only been asleep for a couple hours, but like clockwork, I know the nightmare is brewing inside your head, waiting for the ideal time to strike and rob you from me, take you back to the foreign land I’ll never know.

You’re lost to the unfamiliarity where there’s a show of lights firing from guns I can never remember the name of and screams of fallen soldiers, blood from their wounds, abandoned weapons littering the ground you walk on, run on, hide on.

But I’ll be waiting for this nightmare too because I’ll always be ready to save you, always ready to go to war beside you, ready to pull you back to me, bring you back to my side of the bed and hold you in my arms where you’re safe and alive.

I’m always ready to rescue you from this life of war that you’ll never be able to leave.

And all I have to do is wake you up.

10

Women Like Me Natalie Deister

It happens when you’re not around.

Jeers, yells and taunts masquerading as compliments.

Trash-talk coated with sugar-sweet icing: “You’re beautiful.”

“Look at those legs.”

“I’d tap that.”

When you’re not walking next to me, they’re following for two, five, ten minutes asking questions, making gestures, even after I’ve told them I’m married, coveting like I’m the newest model of iPhone, a thing to be held and touched, then discarded for a newer, better model.

They don’t know that I have two college degrees, that I hate olives on my pizza, that I can’t stand conflict.

I don’t wear makeup to impress them because for me, it’s an art form.

They don’t know that my silence is not consent.

They don’t know that I’m a person.

And they don’t care.

But I know that they know other women like me.

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Before Trees Bloom Hannah Schroeder

Before trees bloom I imagine they could turn Into anything they wanted But they specifically decide Which flower to blossom Which fruit to grow How and when to bloom.

I imagine that I am a tree Before full bloom Still deciding what I am going to turn out To be and when and how.

This is the cocoon stage Of becoming.

I have 21 years behind me And who knows how many In front of me And I am still becoming Something or someone.

Some are lucky That only two roads appeared In front of them.

For me There are five roads Six roads seven and counting And I hate making decisions.

So for now I am still becoming Like a tree on the cusp of spring Before the first life grasps hold And the petals form and open Into magic buds of joy.

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I am the bulb The new green thing Becoming And I am still deciding When and how to bloom.

13

Tomato

Cassie Green As the last Autumn leaf falls to the floor, this fragile fruit unvoicedly rots.

I fear its bright red luster will fade into the falling snowflakes of winter, the crimson color weeping onto the bright white blanket previously swollen with purpose, now decomposing detached from the strong vine that once gave it life.

Innards haphazardly spread across the sea of snow, seeds spilled, frozen in place by the frightening prospect of Spring.

14

Red

Logan Wilkes When she runs at you screaming your name, it is the colour of her hair as it floats around her face.

It is the colour of the heart she draws for your eyes only.

It is the trail of coloured fire she leaves as she caresses your face.

When somebody else gets her attention, it is the colour you see.

When you dance your first dance with her, it is the colour of her dress.

When she says “I love you� for the first time, it is the colour of her lips as they softly press against yours.

It is the passion you feel when you wrap your arms around her waist.

It is the colour of the ruby that you are waiting to put on her finger.

It is the anger that you feel when you realize you are not the only one getting her attention.

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It is the colour of the hand-print she leaves on your face when you confront her.

When she says she is leaving you, it is the taste in your mouth.

It is the blood that drips like water as you look in the shattered mirror at the broken pieces of yourself.

It is the colour of your eyes after you have cried your last tear over her.

It is the colour of your heart as it slowly starts to heal.

16

Midnight Questions Molly Hahn

Have you ever wondered how many people are just aimlessly driving around you? How many people forgot their GPSes and are just mulling about down the streets around you, hoping for the best? How many didn’t even have a reason to get in their cars?

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered how many times you blink every day? How many times your eyes reset the screen of your reality? How many split-second moments you’re missing every day? How many times your eyes get bored and decide to prevent you from seeing? How many times your eyelids act without you?

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered how many people have thought about Rick Astley today? How many people have been rickrolled for the first time today? How many people have inadvertently quoted him while trying to apologize to a loved one? How many people have secretly been in love with Rick Astley since 1987?

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered why people wear orange in prison drama shows? How we’ve created this stigma against poor orange jumpsuits? How people fear that specific shade of orange? How many people have subconsciously learned to dislike orange because it’s the new black?

Have you ever wondered?

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Have you ever wondered how many places you’ve lost parts of yourself? How many hairs you’ve left behind in cars and busses and trains? How many skin cells that have finally let go of you in bookstores and hospitals and classrooms?

How many eyelashes have been lost, wish-less, in bathroom stalls and theaters and Hy-Vee’s?

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered why the Canadian border is a straight line? How cartographers managed to make their jobs easier? How the first guys walked in such a straight line? How long that walk must have been? How many of them were probably eaten by bears along the straight line between the lands of freedom and the sasquatch?

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered how many people have stood exactly where you stand now? How many pilgrims and mobsters stood on this boring piece of soil? How many mammoths roamed the ground before you? How many dinosaurs killed one another right below your feet, as if waiting for your approval 65 million years later?

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered why people leave their gum under their desks? How they thought that wouldn’t be the worst possible thing they could do with their gum? How ignorant they are to the world’s grossest cliché? How they completely forgot about the great invention of the trash can?

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered where you left your keys? How many people have seen them and wondered who was stupid enough to lose their keys at Starbucks? How your keys feel when you walk away from them time and time again?

How many times you’ve lost the things that guarantee your safety day in and day out?

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered how the first horse felt when a

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human decided to sit on its back? How violated that horse must have felt? How totally oblivious that first human rider was? How much chafing he probably had? How long it took before the horse sent that guy flying?

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered how many innocent ants you’ve stepped on? How many helpless little helpers you’ve murdered in cold blood? How many little arthropods you’ve wiped out of existence when you hurry off to your biology course to learn about the importance of arthropods?

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered when exactly your milk went sour? How many moments passed from when it was still good until you checked it this morning? How many molecules of sour it took to cause the pinched look on your face?

How many more days you’ll forget about it and keep trying it every morning?

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered how the first person to take LSD tried to describe it? How everyone around them was simultaneously terrified and imagining their own trips? How long it took for that first guy to take it again? How boring his dreams would seem afterward?

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered how many strangers you’ve fallen in love with for the day? How gratifying it is to imagine yourself happy with a complete nobody? How many times someone has seen you and imagined you as the love of their lives? How many times people have seen you staring at them for too long across the racks at JCPenney’s?

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered how many times people have stepped on the coins in your wallet? How many times those precious currency stones have been stuck in couch

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cushions? How many of them were stuck to some asshole’s gum on the underside of the desk in biology? How many have been dug out of fountains just to be thrown back in?

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered when you’ll need to run next?

How many items you must have forgotten that caused you to sprint back? How many weird stares you’ll get in the Walmart parking lot? How long it will take before you get a stitch in your side? How much you’ll regret all those nights spent watching Cupcake Wars instead of at that damn spin class your best friend made you sign up for?

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered how many grains of sand are stuck under your nails right now? How many tiny little planet-wannabes are confined under your thumb nails? How they got there in the first place since you haven’t been to a beach in over a year?

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered how many people have actually slipped on a banana peel? How many people it took to create an entire, worldwide joke? How many people are still continuing this majestic cliché every day for the good of humanity? How many poor banana skins have to live with the guilt of tripping someone so hilariously?

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered why people don’t sit alone with their thoughts late at night more often? How many people just go to sleep whenever they’re tired like responsible adults? How many weird thoughts they’re depriving themselves of? How many people have already thought those same thoughts?

Have you ever wondered?

20

Thing in Black Gloves (Pain) Kaytlyn Rumelhart

Pain is a strange thing.

As simple as a bee sting As complex as a heartbeat Shattering Into a million pieces It never waits on your doorstep alone Always accompanied Unlike you With grief Depression Sadness Anger And always a lack of understanding The hardest part However Is not enduring the pain But figuring out what to do with the mark it has left Once its ultimate presence is Gone But the saddest part Is watching its hands take from you Then leave with its own pleasures Black gloved hands shoved in its pockets A smirk and an evil glint in the eye Your husband—friend—brother—father Walking at its side Carrying your heart in their hands Squeezing

21

Aching And hurting With no way for them to turn back

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The Power of Four Letters Tyus Thompson

I didn’t get much sleep last night; I was up just thinking about what to write. Then it hit me like Cupid’s arrow on Saint Valentine’s Day. Love. Does it really matter if you’re straight, bisexual, or gay? The World tells us one of these is right and the other two are wrong. They have brought lots of hatred, discrimination, and fight. Now I’m not here to talk about what’s right and what’s wrong, or to sing you another sappy love song. I’m here to talk about a four-letter, one syllable, multi-defined, multi-dimensional, multi-cultural word: LOVE. Love at a young age is something that we hold, loving our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and grandparents so old. When grade school hits the only love we know is through the front doors of our homes. You can’t fall in love young or you’ll catch the disease…cooties. Spreading like wildfire through the trees. Middle school hits and you start to change; your thoughts about love aren’t the same.

You see a pretty girl and all you can say is, “Wow!” Your hormones are racing and you can’t keep ’em down. You see her in the halls, hormones racing again. You start thinking sexual thoughts. Now is that a sin? Your middle school mind all wrapped up in lust. She is on your thoughts every day but not in a friendly way, in a hormone trapped addiction that won’t go away. I’m not saying that you’re sinning or these lustful thoughts are what you truly desire. Now lust may not be a sin and it may not be a crime but if you can’t deal with the pain and the shame then don’t do that

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crime. The desire keeps growing. You can’t get it to stop and everyday you grow sadder and madder because you don’t know what to do or even who to talk to. Your mom walks in to your room asking you what’s wrong and all you can say is nothing at all. Just had a bad day, tomorrow will be fine, kept having bad days until grade nine.

High school arrived and it was time to change.

Christian clubs would become your source of change. Then you found a love that is surely divine, Jesus Christ the Lord for the rest of time. High school isn’t bad and the rules are pretty strict but there are still lust-driven things that make you feel sick. Four years later, a new journey to begin: the greatest test, no doubt. College is next; so many temptations. In the dorms, cafeteria, and the classrooms, you name it. Young adults all around making child-like choices, not thinking of the consequences, only choosing to avoid them. Playing with love like it is a game where there are no winners and one person is always filled with shame.

Some people find love in the comfort of pain, being beaten, slapped, and emotionally slain. Now this isn’t a path of love you want to walk on. For your heart will be torn and surely stomped on.

Now I may be 20 but I have been through a lot, seen some love grow and some love not. It’s all right to get hurt: you’ll be just fine, love will come again, just give it some time. Love is a thing not to be messed with by recreationally dating, or just hooking up. All you’re doing is pushing the knife further and further into your heart until someone rips it out leaving you for dead only to bleed out. Another person will come and love you for the night but it’s better to wait 18 months for you to get it just right. You don’t want an open type of lover either. You want someone who’s going to hit you with the love fever. You need someone to bring you your favorite flowers, not strip you of your powers. You need someone to hold you tight, not ask for makeup sex after a fight. You need someone to love who

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can be your best friend too, someone to listen and care, not someone whose mind will wander while they are still there.

Finally it happens, you think you have met the one. It’s a real life person and they have your heart. Everything you’ve ever desired in a relationship for sure: a good listener, a friend, and not a bore. The lustful thoughts finally all gone, you don’t feel them no more; the only thing you feel is true love knocking on your door.

Love. Such a small word with so much meaning, it can shine through in a hug, a kiss, or a small greeting. Just like Haddaway I sit here thinking, “What is love; Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me no more.” I sit here and puzzle over this song. What does it mean to truly belong? Does your race, religion, gender, or desire of love matter? Love isn’t black and white or right and wrong, it’s a feeling you can get whether you’re straight, bisexual, trans, lesbian, gay, black, white, brown or purple. It shouldn’t matter. Love is something that has no bounds: it’s endless for sure. Love is true and when you find the one who will tell you those three special words you know that the sun will shine bright the rest of your days. This goes for anyone looking for love.

It’s not fair to judge the love of another or persecute someone because their love is a little different than the norm.

Love takes many a form.

Let us open our eyes to the world and end the pointing of our fingers telling people what’s right and how to love. Instead, let our hearts be led by mercy and show love to everyone that crosses our paths. If this can be done we can stop asking, “Where is the love?” And instead ask, “How is the love?” The smiles on faces would grow, the hearts of people would be repaired, and this four-letter word could finally be shared. Our nation will be “One Republic” that will be united by love and will never have to “Apologize” again. We will have flipped “The Script” on what it means to love by not just “Breaking Even” but going even further.

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Love can be a battle and sometimes disappear, but I want to tell you of a love where I don’t have this fear.

I’ve tasted and seen one of the sweetest of loves, where my heart becomes free. God is my first love, my one love, the one my heart longs for. He has provided me with love and peace in my life for sure because I let him in when he knocked on my door. Having fear in love is an impossible thing because when you reach that state of love where fears disappear happiness creeps in. So from now on, have no worries when someone you trust says those three words: I…Love…You.

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Endings

Natalie Deister .

The ends of things—bookends, dead ends, bread crumbs, tea dregs, the ebb of a wave, sunsets, winters, the last page—are bittersweet.

We have until we don’t; we’re here until we’re not; we give until we can’t anymore.

But we were here: in the space between then and now, between inhale and exhale, gone as quickly as lightning, but staying forever in memory, because we are changed by what we have seen, and done, and been.

We were here: a teenager’s graffiti on a park bench, a child’s scrawlings on a playground slide, two lovers’ initials inside a heart.

Relics of past selves remain while parts of us fade, and die, as we are reborn each day.

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Editorial Revision Billie Barker

But wait, dear sir, I only asked you to examine her.

To look her over and confirm that she’s OK. So why is she strapped to your operating table?

Her middle finger is perfect, please put that scalpel away!

You monster.

I like her the way she is.

And wait, kind ma’am, how dare you suggest her elbow works better as a toe?

Did you labor long to push her into the sunlight?

Tend each strand of DNA and see to its careful arrangement?

I think not.

I like her just the way she is.

You. Sitting smugly in our circle—considering.

Lyposuction? Yes, being thinner would emphasize the soul.

And wouldn’t her impact be greater if her nose protruded whimsically from her right hip?

Good Lord, people.

Leave her alone.

I know you mean well.

You think she would be more lyrical if her navel were a fresh-baked rhubarb pie, and more insightful without spine or mouth or mole.

Yes, I hear you, except— I made her and I like her.

She’s perfect the way she is.

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The Girl

Charles Uthe For a while, I was happy, for once.

I had no complaints about life for once.

I was enjoying being alive for once.

For once, the darkness went away.

I started talking to someone who seemed to like me for once.

We went on our first date, and I got something new for once.

We talked and laughed for hours, no cares in the world for once.

For once, I didn’t feel so alone.

I felt satisfied with who I was for once.

I had someone who made me smile for once.

The girl didn’t leave me right after the first date for once.

For once, I had a girl who felt the same.

However, life stabbed me in the back, once again.

I thought everything would turn out to be completely fine, once again.

Tragedy struck like lightning, once again.

Once again, the cycle came full circle.

She had breast cancer, the doctor said.

She only had a couple days to live, the doctor said.

Chemotherapy would be too risky, the doctor said.

The doctor said the truth, the cancer spread as fast as fire.

I remember those last days with her by my side.

A carriage ride through beautiful Central Park, with her by my side.

Sitting on the beach, staring at the stars, with her by my side.

With her by my side, those days lasted forever.

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I counted the days, the hours, and the minutes I had left with her.

On that last day, I laid in our bed with her.

Suddenly, she felt the agonizing pain that lingered with her.

I left with her, I thought maybe I could save her.

Something told me I would be seeing her for the last time.

I held her warm, pale hand for the last time.

Accepting our fate, I said I love you for the last time.

Time is valuable, for not everything lasts.

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I Loved an Alcoholic Once Courtney Snodgrass

I loved the way she swallowed her whiskey straight from the bottle instead of wasting a glass, the way she spiked her coffee each morning before she left for work, when the parking lot held her within its concrete arms as she poured intoxicating liquid into an innocent water bottle.

I loved the way she stumbled into the elevator when no one was looking, the way her liver hated her.

I loved the way she didn’t care.

I loved the way her marriage ended and how her kids didn’t recognize her as she tucked them in at night, the way the cashier at the wine and spirits store knew her by her first name and the three DUI’s on her driving record.

I loved to watch her falter while trying to balance the thin yellow line on the side of the highway and how she forgot different letters of the alphabet, the way she was comfortable with the cold metal wrapped around her wrists like fashion jewelry or the way she knew to duck her head.

I loved her empty wallet to buy things she might actually remember and wouldn’t regret when she was sober.

I loved her for drinking her first beer at thirteen and being the queen of beer pong in college.

I loved her for living in a sorority house but she could never figure out how to live in sobriety, for vomiting the alcohol she’d drank the night before and knowing what a hangover felt like.

I loved her the most when she said she was never drinking again.

I loved the way she lied.

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I loved an alcoholic once, until I looked in the mirror and realized she didn’t love me back.

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All Comes Down Anonymous

I’m nineteen. It’s a hot July day. Stifling, really.

We are all sitting in the living room. Well—almost all of us. Tyler doesn’t come home much anymore. We can hear the metal cap of the bottle being unscrewed in the kitchen, and the light yellow liquor lap against the bottle as it is poured out. As the shot glass—now empty—hits the countertop, I imagine the burn of alcohol as it rushes down his throat, fueling the flames of anger and hatred.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to pay for the electricity bill!”

Shot.

“How in the hell did you manage to spend $200 on groceries last week!?”

Shot.

“You can’t keep throwing money around like this, woman!”

Shot.

Each word he speaks is laced with the old painful venom known as Tequila. He groans in pain. I am certain it is his pancreas acting up. The doctors recently discovered that it is covered in a dozen cysts. That is the reason he was sent back home in the first place. I have a hard time feeling any sympathy for him. I dare to glance at my mother. Her face is blank, completely expressionless.

This is all just a routine to her. She is numb. Numb to the pain, the sorrow, and even the joy in life. In some ways, I envy this. I envy the wall she puts up against his spiteful words. But most of the time, I just miss the mother she used to be. ~ I’m sixteen. It’s a cold, bitter day in January. My

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mother tells me that she’s going to Hy-Vee, and if I want to tag along I can. Jackie is putting her boots on to join us, but I call shot-gun before she can utter the words. The whole way there, I talk about the basketball team, and how it seems likely that we will go to state this year. My mother thinks that it is very exciting. When we arrive at Hy-Vee, we buy a 24-pack of water and two large bottles of Svedka.

It’s our usual Saturday buy. After we check out, we go to the trunk of our car. Jackie pours out the water, I hold the funnel, and my mother pours the vodka in. We have to be sure to put the lid on tight, or else the postmaster will be suspicious. My father is in Afghanistan, working as a contract worker on the army bases so we can keep our home and pay the bills. He is only home four weeks out of the year. He doesn’t mind it so much over there, except for the water. It’s so much better when it’s spelled V-O-D-K-A. ~ I’m thirteen. It’s September. The leaves have started to change again. The lush green foliage is fading quickly to a dry, besotted brown. Things have been tense lately. I have no clue why. My mother is in the kitchen, baking a chicken in the oven. I know that my father is out in the barn, so I slip on my boots to go out and help him. The grass crunches beneath my feet. I open the barn door. I look to my left, and barely glimpse my father taking a drink of something at his work table. I don’t think much of it. When he sees me, his eyes flash with a look of terror to this day I have not seen replicated. “Get out! Get out! Why are you in here!

GET OUT NOW!” I want to explain that I was just there to help him. I did not mean to make him angry. I want so badly to explain, but he begins to walk towards me, and his boots stomping against the gravel on the ground seem to shake through my bones and incite a fear I have never experienced before. I run back to the kitchen. My mother is cutting potatoes. I tell her everything that happened, hoping that she could explain. She curses softly, tears filling her eyes. “I knew it,” she sighs, barely loud enough to hear. I sit in the silence, unable to comprehend just how much weight

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a whisper can hold.

~ I’m ten. It’s a beautiful evening in June, when the sunset looks like melting butterscotch and the clouds look like cotton candy strung across the sky. My parents are sitting on our swinging bench, Dad sipping on one of his O’Doul’s. My father says he drinks it because it tastes like beer. I smelled it once, and I don’t know why anyone would ever enjoy that particular taste. The three of us kids are playing fetch with the dog. My father says a joke that makes my mother smile. She looks so happy and beautiful, her eyes dancing in the sunlight with laughter. The dog is running back towards us with the stick we had thrown, but he dodges every attempt Tyler makes to get the stick back. We all double over laughing at the sight. We laugh so much, it seems as if the laughter may never end. ~ I’m seven. It’s bedtime. Mom has just finished reading us the latest edition of Junie B. Jones. My favorite part is when my mother imitates Junie B.’s angry voice. It always makes the three of us giggle. We all say our prayers, and jump into bed. “Good-night! I love you!” She kisses my forehead and touches my cheek. “Good-night, love you too Mom.” Dad comes in after Mom leaves. His mustache tickles my forehead as he kisses me goodnight. “I love you, Jessie.”

I love you too, Dad.

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Head Down

Marlon Pierre-Antoine It’s not about me, you know? No matter what they say, I never wanted it to be all about me.

Growing up, I always tried to keep my head down.

Show up, blend in, skate by—that’s how you get on in school, that’s how you get a decent job, that’s how you keep from becoming another one of those faces on the news, someone the talking heads say was “no angel,” someone they dig up old Facebook pictures of to show you might’ve been a “thug” who deserved what he got, a picture to plant the suggestion that you might’a stole something or ran or had a gun. Another statistic. But that wasn’t going to be me.

Keep your head down. Show up, blend in, skate right on by. That was me, and that’s what I was always telling Rus. Now, don’t get me wrong, Rus was my boy—we were on that spit-in-your-palm-and-press-your-hands-together shit in first grade. We looked out for each other —but man could he be dense sometimes. We were both invisibles at school, you know? Not jocks, geeks, goths or wannabe Crips. Not popular, but not bullied either. We had it made, far as I was concerned. But Rus didn’t get that. He wanted to be special. Well, maybe not special, but acknowledged.

Had something in him he wanted to let out. I had been dodging him for almost a week— ’cause I knew what it was he wanted to tell me, and I didn’t want to hear it—but he caught me after third period, right before math class.

“Not now,” I told him, before he could even draw his breath to steel himself. “There’s people around. Later, okay? Meet me at my place tonight.”

So he did. Or tried to, anyway. I never saw Rus again alive. He was coming to me, he was going to confide to me

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what he couldn’t tell anyone else—but what I already knew in the back of my mind—but he got stopped along the way.

Suspicious individual, nice neighborhood, sky darker than his skin. I couldn’t keep my head down anymore after that.

Before I knew it I was making phone calls, running down to Kinkos to copy leaflets, painting picket signs… Guess I’m not blending in anymore. But I didn’t do it for me. I do it because his life matters to me, and it turns out, to a whole lot of other people too.

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Life is Doing Laundry Anna Bohr

We wear the clothes And they become comfortable And dirty We make mistakes We get hurt We try to do what makes us happy To create the stains we see Life is doing laundry The stains become too much To heal we head to the washer To be cleaned of who we were And start over again Now clean But healing can hurt us as well Drowning in the cycles of the washing machine As we are spun around to clean the stains Sometimes at high speed So fast we can’t keep up with the chaos Life’s chores are not very fun at times Life is doing laundry Just when we think we are clean We go to the dryer or the clothes line To be burned or whipped by the wind Injured again Setting in the stains that didn’t heal Leaving the scars on our seams

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But we have to admit We are better than we began The scars and stains become our experience Who is perfect anyway?

Worn clothes have stories to tell As they go through the cycles and spins Life is doing laundry

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The Mudslinger Dia Potter

With just a filament a tiny thread the mudslinger spins his web.

Putrid jimsonweed disguised as a flower.

Charming appearance.

Don’t be deceived his bitter leaves end bound in sheaves.

The complainer, vilifier, malicious attacker.

He delights in leading you astray.

Please remember, in the end there’s no pay.

Tidewater floods it pulls you in.

Don’t take the bait.

Find higher ground.

His desires? Simple.

Defeat, destroy, hold you down.

Stay clear of any mob united by disorder.

Release frustration.

Consider instead, fortitude is patience under adverse situations.

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Maybe there’s a purpose.

A sturdy refuge needs a strong foundation.

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Darkness

Jessica Purgett All the color is gone.

Darkness now surrounds me, an endless wall of black. I feel claustrophobic, like the mass of people is slowly pushing towards me, suffocating me, punishing me. I look up towards the stained glass window, hoping for some respite from this crushing weight of guilt. Dark tendrils of light pour into the church; where there should be color, there is only black.

I want to remember colors. Blue, purple, green, yellow. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red was the color of his shirt. Stained that way. I can still see it: the blood. I can still feel it on my hands, sticky and warm as it pumped out of his body and onto mine. Hot tears burn my eyes, rolling down my mascara-stained face.

If only tears could bring a lifeless body back to the realm of the living, I would have enough for the both of us.

My breathing comes rapidly. My heart thuds so hard I can feel it behind my eyes. I can’t stay here.

I can’t.

I can’t.

I can’t.

Suddenly, I jolt to my feet, much to the astonishment of the people sitting around me. His father, who is delivering the eulogy, eyes sharp as daggers, glares at me from the front of the church.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, the words raspy. My throat feels like sandpaper.

“I’m so, so sorry,” I plead with him. Louder this

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time. “I could have...and...I was there...my fault…” My feet lead me closer to his father but I stop before I take more than three steps. His face looks down at me from the altar and for a moment, it almost seems like he has sympathy for me. His eyes soften for the first time since the murder. They almost invite me in but his eyes flicker to the cold, lifeless casket in front of him and the wall slams down so hard I stumble backwards, falling, just as he did when the bullet hit him. The impact sends more tears down my face.

Tears.

Tears.

Tears.

Tears he cried at my apartment during our fight.

Tears he cried when he found me with another man. Tears he cried as he ran down the stairs to the front door. Tears he cried as the bullet pierced through the cold February air, right through his heart.

All those tears flow from my eyes now, his casket blurred from my vision. The sobs rack my entire body and I’m sure those in attendance hate me. No one comes to remove me. No one comes to comfort me. I am utterly, soullessly, alone.

If we hadn’t fought...If I hadn’t cheated...If I hadn’t failed him… Now he lays in front of me. Not breathing, not living, not smiling, not loving. Nothing. Because he’s dead.

And now the world is black.

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Going Places Billie Barker

I just gave an ugly battered brown plastic suitcase the longest hug.

You would have done the same if your husband was taking stuff out of the attic and asked if he could throw it out.

Sure you can throw it out. When I quit holding it tight and smelling the vinyl.

This is the brown plastic suitcase my favorite grandparents sacrificed to buy for me as a little girl that disappointed me horribly because it wasn’t whatever the doll was that year that all my friends were asking for and that my sister and I had specifically asked for too. Our grandparents, in their far-reaching wisdom, chose to give us these hideous matching brown suitcases instead.

My grandparents had never left the state of Iowa.

The suitcases they gave us went on family vacations to the St. Louis zoo and to a miserable Minnesota cabin where I swam in the lake and turned complaining into an art form.

In high school, the suitcase escorted me on 4-H and band trips.

My grandparents’ suitcase carried as many clothes as it could when I moved out the minute, no the second, I graduated from high school. It held my hand when I walked up three flights of stairs to my first apartment that I’d share with a girl I’d met at a party and barely knew.

My grandparents’ suitcase went with me and my best friend Cyndi to Washington D.C., just because we’d met someone who told us if we were ever in town we should stay at their place. We slept in their spare bed at night, and experimented with mass transit and history during the day. I bought a new suitcase that trip—it was a stylish red

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ticking print with a red lining and it came with a matching tote—but the zipper broke a couple years later. This was ten years before I sat with Cyndi, still young, while she died of breast cancer, lungs drowning in their own rebellion, her two-year-old daughter asleep in the next room.

The suitcase, now scuffed and modestly bristling with airline tags, went with me on my honeymoon. I held onto it tight, wondering as my grandparents threw rice if I’d made a mistake.

I almost lost my grandparents’ suitcase in Siberia when a small-town government agent said it looked suspicious and kept it for “observation.” It had a couple outfits and hundreds of bottles of bubbles to share with kids in orphanages and hospitals and Inuit villages. Pretty disappointing for a security agent waiting for his big break.

My grandparents’ cheap plastic suitcase outlasted my grandparents. My repressed Quaker grandmother quit garden club and took to wearing Converse high-tops with her housedresses and swearing like a sailor. I couldn’t tell if she was lost or found. Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she died two years later. My grandfather died of being old and alone.

My suitcase has been on family vacations where I’m suddenly the mom letting boys jump on hotel beds and throw Bugles. It’s been camping and to sleepovers with kids older than I was when I glumly said “thank you for the suitcase.”

Now my grandparents’ suitcase is walking with my husband out to the garage.

My friends say I should have repurposed it as a dog bed or planter. They don’t realize that this suitcase isn’t the charming, country-crafty kind of we-could-make-it-into-a-coffee-table suitcase. It’s been god-awful ugly from the day my grandparents believed I would need it. Non-descript brown, unapologetically dull, it never tried to be more than it needed to be.

My husband says let it go. It’s fulfilled its purpose.

So long suitcase. I love you and I’m sorry I didn’t like you at first.

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Asleep

Doriann Whitlock I must be asleep This is not real How do I know I am asleep?

My world is Blue But...

This world is Green Green forests and trees Green horses and seas I look to the sky and all I see is Green‌ Green birds and clouds Green stars in the night I must be asleep This is not real If I am still asleep Blue is on the run Green is giving chase I should be scared of this Green I should be running far away, Yet I am not scared of this Green nor am I running very fast All I feel is peace Peace is feeling safe Safe in this world of Green I must be awake This is real How do I know I am awake?

His eyes are Green

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Happy Place Jessica Purgett

Mountains rising to meet the silky white clouds fog wrapping around trees in a gray mist clear blue rivers drift slowly on, making their way to a pool of turquoise.

Cottages cuddled together on the hills, candles burning bright in their windows, welcome in all those that pass by.

Snow hurries from the sky to the earth, threatening to shut everyone up in their houses.

But fires burn golden, and boisterous music explodes on the mountain, waiting for the storm to pass.

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I Remember Kayla Hodgson

I remember wanting to forget everything.

My heart used to beat out of my chest at the mere thought of having to speak to others.

I remember the cruel looks and whispered insults and the fierce desire to be accepted and loved.

I remember hiding in the basement closet, desperately trying to muffle my tears.

I remember punching a wall so hard my knuckles fractured and the pain took away the anger.

I remember feeling hated.

I remember the exact moment I met him.

The sunlight dazzled the trees.

I remember the precise green shade of my childhood home; the thrill of reading at night with only the bright beam of a flashlight.

I remember swinging until my calves ached.

I remember dancing in the pouring rain as the water dripped slowly down my arms.

I remember feeling loved.

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Leslie Hoffmann

Break Free—Italia Edition, digital photograph

Lauren Brunson

A New Understanding, gouache and oil on canvas

Abbey Konzen

Shark Mermaid Fin Soup, hand-colored woodcut print

Jacob Herndon Untitled, ceramic

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McKenzie Mellecker

Untitled, ceramic

Mariah Kidd

Stone Lips, black and white photograph

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Mason Evans

Self Portrait, charcoal on paper

Quentin Sims

Views from the Tricks, digital print

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Laura Slovakova

Secrets, digital print

Kelsey Bills

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Shadows of Epiphanies, hand-colored intaglio print

Emma Oldenburg

Weathered History, digital print

Lauren Brunson, Emma Oldenburg, Njenga, Gabi Acosta, Molly Metz, Mariah Kidd, Jose Clemente, and Kathryn Hagy Putting the “Goth� in Gothic, mixed media sculpture

Things Change...

Logan Wilkes

I remember the first time our lips met in a dance that would become all too familiar in time.

I remember waking up to face full of her hair as she moved closer to me in sleep, making me wish I didn’t have to leave before everyone woke up.

I remember jumping away from her like I had been electrocuted when someone knocked on the door that I was trapped against.

I remember the day that she fixed my tie before saying that I should dress up for her more often if I would always look that handsome.

I remember the day she kissed me before saying that she wished that I was a guy so that she could date me.

I remember looking in a mirror and wanting to smash it to pieces so that I wouldn’t have to look at the reflection that disgusted me so.

I remember my mother telling me that if I had acted more like a girl from the start, none of this would have happened.

I remember telling my dad that my body didn’t come with a rulebook after he nearly grounded me for going to school in a suit and tie.

I remember hating myself every time I woke up.

I remember buying boys shirts and ties for the first time without trying to hide it from my parents.

I remember the Christmas my mother said that just because I was gay I didn’t have to dress like a boy.

I remember telling her that before she knew I was going to be a girl, all she wanted was a healthy child, so why does she suddenly care that Lauren wants to be Logan?

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Final Road Home Tanner Childs

A heavy rain drop splattered across Desmon’s face, jolting him awake. The harsh shriek of a crow split the air as it fluttered in and landed on the ground. Thick smoke clung to the land, swirling in the mists that had been brought in by the storm. The rancid smell of death hung heavy in the air, leaving Desmon coughing for breath.

He tried to pull himself up, but a sharp pain shot through his side. He fell back down, gasping for breath as he struggled with the straps of his armor. The metal was bent against his skin, the cold iron cutting into his flesh.

His chest felt constricted, as if a great weight was bearing down on him. He loosened the straps and slipped free of the metal prison. He rolled to his knees and immediately fell back to the ground, screaming. Countless bloody corpses lay about him, their limbs severed and their bodies broken.

Blood mixed with the rain and dirt to form thick, gritty mud that clung to the corpses.

Desmon’s heart hammered within his chest. He looked about, allowing his memories to trickle back into him mind. The bodies that lay strewn about the hillside were his men, his soldiers. Birds of prey and small rodents had already begun to feast upon the carnage, diving into the flesh to feed their shrunken bellies. There had been a battle, a war. The skeletons of war machines smoldered several hundred yards away, providing the thick smoke that choked the lungs and obscured the vision. The bodies of horses clad in heavy armor lay among that of the men, all fallen in the bloodshed, all lost to death. Nothing moved except the birds.

Desmon reached up and pulled the helmet from his head, casting it among the bodies. He forced himself into a sitting position and looked about the hill. He suddenly

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lurched to one side and was violently sick. It was not the carnage that made him so. He had seen battles before and knew of their horrors, but something was different. It simply felt as if everything within him had a desperate need to escape. He vomited until his stomach was empty and he was left breathless and exhausted. A raven landed on a corpse nearby and began to peck at the sightless eyes.

“Hey, hey!” Desmon shouted. He threw a fist at the bird, falling over on his side in his attempt. The raven gave an agitated shriek and fled from the attacker.

“Get out of here!” Desmon cried.

He fell silent, listening to his voice echo about the desolate hillside. Words sounded unnatural in this place.

The dead never spoke, and words spoken were like ghosts among the living, foreign and unwelcome.

Desmon pushed himself to his feet and tried to clear his head. His sword, where was his sword? He never went anywhere without his sword!

He cast about the bodies, but knew it was hopeless.

To find a single blade in the sea of discarded weapons and bloodied bodies was impossible. That’s if it hadn’t been taken.

Desmon raised a scarred hand and tried to clear his vision. What about Jacob? Where was Jacob?

“Jacob?” Desmon screamed. “Jacob?!” But the only response was his echo.

“Maybe he got away alive,” Desmon said to himself.

But he didn’t believe the words. He couldn’t, not with so much death around him.

He searched through the bodies but found nothing.

Each soldier he recognized as serving under him, but he knew none of them by name.

What had happened? The last thing he could remember was leading a charge to destroy the enemy’s siege equipment. The front line of the enemy had been at the top of the hill, waiting for them, so why was he near the hill’s base? Had they been flanked? Was it all just a trap? It had to be. There was no other explanation.

Desmon shook his head, clearing his thoughts.

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He had to get away from the battlefield, from the death.

He rummaged through the bodies until he found a decent sword and scabbard. He stripped the last of his armor off and strapped the sword to his waist. He took one last glance at the fallen soldiers. Men from both sides, each serving their country bravely, lay strewn across the ground like broken toys discarded by a child. Now they were destined to rot in the sun after being picked clean by the scavengers. They deserved better, even those Desmon had fought against.

But there was nothing he could do for them, and he set out to get away from their bereavement.

At first Desmon felt unsteady on his feet. He tripped and fell to the ground on several occasions, but with each step away from the battlefield his head became clearer.

Within a short time he was striding across the grass of the prairie headed back towards Gale, his hometown. He moved through the flattened grass, the rain beating down upon his head. Lighting forked across the sky behind him as he marched. It was as if the heavens were weeping for what had taken place while screaming out their rage in the claps of thunder.

Desmon came to a stumbling halt and leaned against a solitary tree that stood defiant against the endless grass. He slumped to the ground, gasping for breath. His heart pounded in his chest, and a deep ache spread through his body. He leaned against the tree as the clouds raced overhead, casting everything in a grey light. Desmon’s eyes fluttered. Exhaustion overcame him. His head lolled to one side and he slipped into unconsciousness. ~ “I still don’t think it’s fair. You have already served the emperor longer than any of his generals. Why should you have to go back?”

“Because it is my duty, Synthia,” Desmon said. He pulled on his leather gloves before leaning over and planting a kiss on his wife’s cheek. “The invaders are advancing faster than expected, and everyone is being called to duty.”

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“But he retired you,” Synthia argued. “I just… I just don’t want to lose you again.”

“And you won’t,” Desmon whispered. He took his wife and pulled her close. It tore him apart every time he was forced to leave home to perform his duties, but what choice did he have?

“Death itself could not keep me from coming home to you.”

Synthia laughed coldly and pulled away from her husband. “That may be so, but I still don’t like it.”

“Well—“ “Daddy!”

Desmon turned just in time to catch his daughter as she threw herself into his arms. “Hey, Terisa. What is my big girl up to?”

“Hugging you,” the little girl giggled as she squirmed in her father’s arms.

“See, how can you leave this?” Synthia asked. Her voice was tense and her face strained.

“Don’t do this to me,” Desmon growled, turning Terisa away from her arguing parents. “You think this is easy for me? You think I enjoy leaving?”

“Then don’t,” Synthia begged.

There was a light knock at the door. Desmon set Terisa down and moved past his wife. He threw the door open to find a tall man with sharp features and a strong jaw mulling about on the front step. He gave Desmon a weak smile and nodded.

“Evening Desmon.”

“Evening Jacob,” Desmon replied. “How are things?”

“As best as they can be at the moment.” Jacob sighed.

He looked past his friend and nodded. “Evening, Synthia.”

“Jacob,” Synthia sniffed between her tears.

Jacob nodded uncomfortably and turned back to Desmon.

“You ready to go?”

“Almost,” Desmon said. He turned back to his family and knelt down to Terisa. The little girl giggled as he

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tickled her under the chin. “Alright Terisa, I need you to take care of Mommy while I’m away. Can you do that?”

The little girl looked up at her mother with a smile and nodded. “Yes!” “That’s my girl.” Desmon chuckled and ruffled Terisa’s hair. He pushed himself up and looked at his wife.

Tears welled up in the corner of his eyes and he struggled to control them. He tried to speak, but she threw herself in his arms and held him tight, pressing her face into his shoulder.

“No matter what happens, come home to me,” she whispered.

“I will.”

“I’ll wait for you. Every day I’ll watch out the window until you return. Promise me you will come home safe.”

“I promise.” Desmon pulled away and smiled at his wife. He wiped a tear from his eye and turned towards the door.

“Desmon.” He turned back as his wife held out his sword and scabbard. “Don’t forget your sword. Can’t defend your country without it.” Synthia reached around her husband and strapped his sword on, giving him one last kiss as she did.

Jacob gave a light cough, separating the couple from their embrace. Synthia put a hand to her lips and stifled a sob.

“Now, you make sure he comes home safe, Jacob, you hear?” she said from behind her fingers.

“Aye Miss, I’ll be sure he makes it home in one piece.”

“Thank you,” Synthia sighed, wiping away her tears.

Jacob gave a slight nod. “Come on Desmon, the men are waiting.”

“Alright,” Desmon sighed. He ducked out the door and blew one last kiss to his wife. “I’ll be back before the

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first snow falls.”

“Make sure you are,” Synthia called out as she hugged Terisa close.

Desmon took a deep breath and followed Jacob down the small dirt lane towards a group of fifty cavalry. “I need you to promise me something, Jacob.”

“Oh, what’s that?” Jacob asked.

“I need you to promise me that if I don’t make it through this, that you’ll take care of Synthia and Terisa for me.”

Jacob ran a hand through his hair. “Desmon I…” “No, no arguments this time. Just promise me.”

Jacob closed his eyes and swallowed against the lump in his throat. “Alright, I promise. But don’t think for one second that I’m going to let you die in this war. We’ve been through too much for me to let that happen.”

“Maybe,” Desmon said as they reached the end of the lane. They mounted two large stallions and kicked their horses into a trot. “I just don’t want to leave anything to chance.” ~ Desmon jolted awake as a crow cawed in the branches above him. He sat up and gripped the hilt of his sword, his chest heaving. The memory of leaving his family burned through him like fire. It had torn his heart out to leave them, but what choice had he had?

He blinked, trying to clear his vision. Mist swam before his eyes, shrouding the world from sight. Desmon rolled to his feet and took a step forward. The tree fell away behind him and the mist lifted in a flash of light.

“What?” Desmon whispered. He stepped out into the open plains, staring at the small cottage before him.

“I don’t believe it. I’m home.” He rushed through the grass towards the small house, his sword slipping from his waist. A light snow began to fall as he reached the front door, the fat, white flakes muffling the world. He pushed

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the door open and stepped into the dim room.

“Synthia!” Desmon cried. “Synthia, I’m home…”

His voice fell away as he stepped into the living room.

Synthia sat in her rocking chair staring out the window.

A gentle creak filled the room as she rocked gently back and forth. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she pressed a hand to her face.

“Synthia,” Desmon whispered, a smile creeping across his face. “Synthia, I—“ “Mommy?”

Desmon turned as Terisa walked in from the other room pulling her blanket. She walked over to her mom and leaned against her. “What’s wrong, Mommy?”

Synthia wiped her eyes and sniffed. “Oh, nothing dear. Nothing.” She pulled Teresa into her lap and held her tight.

Desmon walked across the room and stood before his wife. “Synthia?” he said. “Synthia. Synthia, look at me. Look at me!”

Rage burned through his chest. He reached out and threw a table aside, sending glasses and plates flying through the air. They shattered as they struck the ground, littering the floor with shards of crystal. Both girls jumped and Synthia covered Terisa’s head. Her eyes swept the room, frightened and confused.

“Look at me, damn it!” Desmon screamed. He raised his hand ready to strike when a knock at the door reverberated through the house. Desmon turned and looked towards the wood frame. Synthia placed Terisa in the chair and rushed to the door, Desmon only a step behind her. She flung it open and stepped out into the snow.

“Desmon?”

Desmon froze just inside the house. His chest constricted and his throat ran dry.

“Synthia.”

Jacob stood on the front step, tattered and bloody.

He was still in full battle gear and his arm was splinted

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to the elbow. Tears filled his eyes, and he shook his head.

“I’m so sorry, Synthia. I did everything I could, but… but I wasn’t strong enough.”

“What?” Synthia asked.

Jacob reached behind his back and pulled out a broken sword. Desmon felt his breath catch in his throat. It was his sword.

“They were drawn in and flanked. There was nothing I could do.”

Synthia let out a wail. She struck Jacob in the chest then fell into him, sobbing on his shoulder. He wrapped his good arm around her and held her tight, tears spilling down his cheeks.

“I’m so sorry, Synthia. If only I could…”

“No,” Desmon cried. “No, Synthia, I’m right here!

I’m…” He reached out for her, but stopped halfway. He turned his palm up, feeling his heart slow until it was still.

His hand was covered in blood. He took a step back and looked down at his chest. A bloody hole opened up where his heart should have been.

“He’s gone, Synthia,” Jacob said. “Desmon’s gone.”

Desmon took a step forward, feeling suddenly empty. He reached out for his wife, but the wind came and carried him away.

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For the One Around Which My World Orbits Bianca Kesselring

You are brilliant; the brightest star in the sky.

But right now, the clouds are covering you up.

My sun is refusing to shine.

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Everything You’re Not Brooke Woolley

I remember the stench of your breath and the smell of smoke in the air.

I remember the snap of the belt and the slamming doors.

I remember the smell of burning Ramen noodles on the stove and the fear that came over me.

I remember having to creep quietly during the day so you would not awake.

I remember the noise that woke you up and then your hands around my throat.

I remember the endless counseling sessions and trying to understand why this was happening.

I remember hearing the shower running, you trying to sober yourself up.

I remember seeing the red and blue lights flashing on the night we had enough.

I remember the day you moved away and left your only daughter.

I remember the day I turned 18 and you no longer had to pay child support.

I remember the day you missed my birthday.

I remember my graduation when there was no sign of you.

I remember the months that went by when you didn’t call.

I remember the first time to see you in years, you arrived an hour late to the airport.

I remember having to hold you up to get to the car because one just wasn’t enough.

I remember you crawling to your bed on all fours and wasting our time together that weekend.

I remember, Dad, I remember, and I’ll never forget to be the person you’re not.

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Earliest

Abbey Konzen When I make an effort to think of my earliest, earliest memory as a child, my brain tries to shut down.

Error 404: File Not Found, it says. The memory you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. Or at least, that’s what I imagine is going on inside my head when I ask it to recall my first memory. I simply can’t do it, not with any degree of certainty. There is no solid memory that sticks out as The First in my mind. But there is one little sliver of a moment…

It doesn’t even feel like a memory, more like a snapshot of the feeling of a dream. Maybe it didn’t even happen. Maybe my brain just pulls it up from the depths of my subconscious as a last-minute excuse for a memory.

Like some kid tearing out a page with a doodle on it when it’s time to collect the homework they didn’t do.

Whatever it is, memory or dream, it’s not a bad image at all. In the glimmering dream-memory, I am simultaneously looking through a sheer curtain onto the scene from about ten feet above the ground and seeing through what would be my eyes as a very small child.

Mostly the second option. This is just a moment, just a moment that produces a feeling, and that feeling is what I believe to be the “memory.” It takes place in the most peaceful setting imaginable.

For me, it’s a comfortably bright, warm day and I’m lying on a picnic blanket in a park. I’m gazing heavenward with wide, slowly blinking eyes to see my affectionate godmother, Aunt Jeanne, smiling sweetly above me. She looks the same as she does even today, apart from perhaps

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fewer wrinkles lining her face. Her light, almost white, hair puffs out from her centered part line, in a smooth curve that curls in under her ears. The cerulean sky frames her calm aura, golden sunlight touching the outline of her hair. There are clouds, white and puffy, at the edges of the beautiful blue dome. And although I’m not looking in his direction, I know my dad is here, too. We must be on a picnic in the park, enjoying the weather and my aunt’s visit from Illinois.

When I’m thinking of this moment, something tells me that it is specifically my second birthday—I’m so small.

I’m laying down flat on our puffy blue floral picnic blanket that seems so vast compared to me. I am content to simply lay here on my back, the sun forever shining on my face. My tiny, happy face. But how could it be my second birthday?

That defies all logic—I don’t think people are supposed to have memories until at least three years of age. All I can remember is the feeling this memory produces—innocent bliss—yet my brain has the audacity to tell me it must be the day I turned two? I doubt that! At the same time, well, it’s kind of nice to pretend.

Yes. I can remember my second birthday.

I think I’ve told my dad about this memory, but it’s so hard to put a fragment of an old feeling into words.

Whatever I managed to describe to him did not ring any bells. I’m not surprised; he has more memories to sift through of his own than I can comprehend. But still. It would be nice to know if this moment happened in real life. I wonder if Aunt Jeanne remembers? Maybe I’ll ask her this summer or Thanksgiving when she visits next. Or I’ll just have to let Clippy, the little paperclip of my mind, run a system search. If my memory didn’t really happen, then I suppose it was something from a dream… But even if that is the case, wouldn’t it still be a memory? A memory of a dream? How is that any less tangible than a memory of something that physically happened? The moment is over now; the physical situation doesn’t exist apart from the life it lives within my mind’s memory bank,

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in those unorganized files with names like 8342WMF-74.

No wonder I can’t find anything in there. Anyway, all of those mixed up folders have a point here. I would say, after just a bit of reflection, that “real-life memories” and “dream memories” are complete equals in their afterlives.

Hopefully that statement isn’t so bold as to upset those who tend to favor real life over dreams. If you find yourself now questioning the concept or existence of memories, dreams, or real life, and you would like to talk about it, I would suggest visiting a psychologist. Or maybe a philosopher. That’s right, I don’t have the answers for which you’re seeking—only more questions. Don’t believe me? Just try to remember your earliest memory. Can you do it? Oh wait, you think you can—easy as that? Am I the only one that struggles so much? Well. Fine, now tell me: do you know if that memory is real?

What is real?

What is a memory? Why do we have them? Why can they change? Why do we forget some and not others?

How many memories have I forgotten forever? Will I ever reconnect with those lost memories of mine, like that one file that was never saved but then was somehow resurrected

by Microsoft Word’s miraculous AutoSave feature when the computer restarted itself? Will I always remember writing this document, or will it, one day, only exist as some forgotten file on a broken laptop or old flash drive piled in a box somewhere, never to be thought of again?

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The Kind of Kid Who Stole Jilly Ashley Kofoed

My sister killed herself.

No, wait, sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. I guess I need to start from the beginning: it all started with my father.

He believed that women were less, were inferior to men. He treated my mother like shit and hated me because I wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t what he believed a son should be, or should act. His friends’ kids were all perfect from what he could tell. They were all Ivy League-bound from birth. Me, I liked to read and write. I liked to volunteer for charities instead of getting wasted on the weekends. I was, in every sense of the word, a disappointment to him.

When my sister was born, I was five. I was taken to the hospital by my nanny and was made to wait until my mother had her face on. The doctors brought my sister in to my mother. My father never allowed her to see people without being presentable.

I hated that.

I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Well, until I met Jilly.

Jillian Marie Taylor.

She took my mother’s deep blue eyes and my father’s deep dark ebony hair. The first time that I saw her, I made her a silent promise that no one would hurt her.

The first time the nurses placed her in my arms, I made a

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vow that I would make sure she would never feel the way I did when my father looked at me. She would not be a disappointment. No one would make her feel small because she loved something that others, namely my father, thought was wrong. I promised her that I would protect her from everything bad in this world.

I failed her. I was wrong.

By the time she was thirteen, boys would push each other out of the way so they could walk her home from school. She could stop traffic by a toss of her hair, and she loved me. She told me I was her favorite brother. I would smile and tell her I was her only brother and that I better be her favorite. That always made her laugh. She had such a beautiful laugh. She always made everyone around her feel at ease. Especially my father. I was his ultimate fuck up, she was my polar opposite. I think he saw her as his chance to get it right.

He made sure she had everything money could buy: dance lessons, music lessons, friends, play dates.

Everything that would make sure she didn’t turn out like me. That she wouldn’t disappoint him. I think in a way he loved her more than me, and sadly I was ok with that.

When I went away to college, she was barely a freshman in high school. I got into NYU and was going for film studies. It pissed off my dad because he wanted me to go to Berkeley and become a doctor. He swore he wouldn’t pay for my education, so when I got a full ride it pissed him off even more. It was great.

Jilly was beside herself when I left. She said that she would be taking the train to visit me every chance she got. I told her she would be too busy with school to want to visit me, and besides I would come home every chance I got. She called me a liar. She knew how strained the relationship between my dad and me had become.

It was December and I was studying for finals right in the middle of my freshman year. My mother called

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me. I could tell immediately that there was something wrong. I could hear it in her voice, and when she told me that I needed to come home, my blood ran cold. She said something happened to Jilly. I didn’t ask any questions. I just got on the next train and came home.

When I walked into the house, the police were there. A lot of police were there. My father was speaking with them and barely looked at me when I came in the front door. My mother rushed to me and pulled me into a hug that I thought would break my bones. “I think you need to sit down” was all she said as she tried to lead me to a chair. I pushed past her and walked to my dad, asking what happened.

I had never before seen my dad cry. Ever.

“She is gone, she, she’s gone,” he kept repeating after I asked him what was going on. I had to yell at him to tell me what happened. I just wanted to know what happened to Jilly. A police officer walked up to me and introduced himself as the detective on her case. I still didn’t get it. What case and what the hell was going on with Jilly?

The officer explained that Jilly had been raped three months before. No one knew. She told no one.

The detective later explained that they found out about the rape only after they had looked through her things. Cataloging, they called it. They took her journal, computer, phone, iPad. They took everything that could have linked her to what happened. I gave her that journal for Christmas two years before. It was black leather with “Jilly” bound on the spine and her initials on the front. She really loved it. She said that it was one of the most beautiful things she had ever gotten. She was always saying things like that to make me feel better about not being able to buy her expensive things since I had been paying my own way since earning my driver’s license. I had refused to take money from my father for things that I needed and worked

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for every penny I had. When my car broke down I refused to ask my father for help. She knew that and still loved me for it.

She wrote that she had gone to a Halloween party with some of her friends. They had dressed up, and she was a brooding film school student. An ode to me no doubt. She wrote that her friends had left for another party without her. She had gone to the bathroom and when she came back out they were gone. There was a guy she knew from school and he offered to take her to the party so that she could meet up with her friends. They never made it.

I wasn’t able to read the journal entry myself.

From what the police explained, the kid who offered her a ride stopped in a secluded parking lot on the way to the party and took what he wanted. The detective said that in the diary she explained how she started looking for ways out. She couldn’t stand being around her friends anymore. She didn’t want to live with the shame and see the guy on a daily basis.

She never told me what happened, and I wasn’t there to protect her. I wasn’t there to make sure she was safe. She was treated like my father treats my mother: like she was beneath this guy that decided what she had was his and nothing was going to stop him from getting it.

She never told anyone. Not me. Not her friends.

She had to deal with this guy every day. I never knew what was going on. I didn’t keep my promise to come home when I could. I was wrapped up in college, the city, and just being out from under my father’s thumb. I left her alone to deal with things by herself.

It got too bad: the pain was too much and she slit her wrists.

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I guess she had researched how to do it exactly right.

At least that’s what the detective said. There were websites on her computer’s history about it. She joined Facebook groups that talked about death and how to kill yourself.

She had written down ways she could kill herself and what would be the least painful.

The detective explained that in her journal, she wrote about how she had started cutting herself. She started cutting at her ribs so that no one would see it and so she wouldn’t have to answer any questions.

She slit her wrists while my parents were at a charity event. While I was studying, she bled out in her bathroom floor staining the white marble floor red with her blood.

She let her life slip out of her, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I couldn’t protect her.

The kid that raped her claims she asked for it. He claims that she had teased him every time they saw each other. He said she would flirt with him and had been asking for what happened.

The police say they are going to go ahead with trying to make a case stick. They say there’s a possibility he will get off because of the connections his father has.

This is the kind of kid that my father wanted me to be.

The kind of kid who stole Jilly.

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The Donut Mariah Kidd

Jon walked into the kitchen, straight to the refrigerator. He was home for his dad’s birthday party. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something; he looked around the refrigerator door to the counter and saw a box of donuts right next to the kitchen knives. Hurriedly, Jon went to the box.

What luck! A single donut in the box, and no Mike in sight. As Jon moved to open the box, something whooshed past him, and Jon’s hand hit the countertop where the donut box had been.

Mike stood opening the box of donuts. Of freaking course.

Action had to be taken immediately.

“Mike!” Jon said, “That’s my donut!”

Miraculously, Mike didn’t remove the donut from the box. If he had, all would have been lost.

“No it’s not. Mom bought the donuts for everyone.

I’ve only had three.”

Jon blinked. “I didn’t even know she got donuts. I haven’t had any. So that one is mine.”

Mike rolled his eyes. “It’s just a donut. Let it go.”

Years of pent up frustration bubbled up from deep within Jon like a volcano.

“It’s…” Jon drew each word out, his eyes growing more and more manic with each word, “not… just… the… donut.”

Mike was unfazed by the sudden insanity. “Okay then. What is it?”

“You stole my toy car when I was six—” “I asked Santa for it two minutes before you did and

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he brought it for me, that’s not really steal—” “You stole every girlfriend I ever had—” “One date does not make a girlfriend—” “The college I wanted—” “Oh come on, it’s not possible to steal that.”

“My dream job—” “Not my fault I interview better than you.”

“The apartment I wanted—” “I didn’t know you wanted it.”

“You even stole the part in the play that I wanted!”

“Then you better learn how to act.”

“You are not taking this donut from me.”

Mike whipped the donut out of the box and bit down. “Looks like I am after all.”

Jon felt something in his head snap. He reached for the kitchen knives.

“Oh! I need those!” Mike said, grabbing the block of knives and darting to the refrigerator. “Mom wanted me to get some cheese cubes ready for the party tonight.” He had stuffed the donut into his mouth and had devoured the rest of the pastry in one bite.

Jon sank to the floor, broken beyond repair.

“Oh, I saw that you printed off information about a car that’s at the local dealership. I think I’m going to go ahead and buy it. It has good mileage.”

Well, knives weren’t really required. Bare hands would do the trick.

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in the beginning Cassie Green

Boom! Crash! BANG! earthandstarsandanimalsandplantsand Two brown bodies free one brown knowledgeable tree fresh, full unforgiving fruit blood at the leaves and snakes at the root.

Leaves cover up the sins of the disobedient as the cleansing rain Falls and Falls One scarlet, juicy Temptation damned an entire civilization One world as corrupt as the next, their only flaw? education

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Skin

Remembering Kayla Hodgson

You know, one never fully appreciates the best things in life until they’re gone. You don’t understand how hard it is to pretend that I’m not breaking every time I picture my baby girl. I wish I could have done something different.

Dammit! Why couldn’t I save her? What could have made a difference? Words? Actions? Did I fail as a mother? My heart aches every time I think of how alone she must have felt and how desperate she must have been to take that final dive. The phone call at six A.M. haunts my nightmares and makes me wish I had seen a sign and stopped her downward spiral. I wish I could go back and hug her close, and show her how much I love her.

My memories of her are painful, but so precious. I remember how contagious her dolphin laugh was and how my face used to hurt because I couldn’t stop smiling. She was always so selfless and wanted to follow in my footsteps to be a social worker. You know, that made me so proud. I remember my bubbly little girl whose first words were “uh oh” and “no.” I remember bringing home Matthew, and my bossy two-year-old telling me that she wanted a sister, asking if I could take him back. But it didn’t take long for her to fall in love with her brother even though she never stopped asking me for a sister. She loved bowling and secretly loved dancing in her room. I still can’t believe she’s gone. I keep waiting for her to yell at Matthew and joke at the dinner table, while groaning at Phil’s awful “dad jokes.”

Sometimes I get so mad at myself for not noticing the changes that must have been happening, and other times, I break down and just want my daughter back. You know, it’s been over five years; today my angel would have turned

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twenty-one. It’s been over five years, and the pain isn’t as strong as it used to be, but it will never truly go away. I hold the memories of my times with my baby girl close to my heart, and they give me comfort. The pain will never completely fade, but neither will my memories. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

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Until My Last Heartbeat Jenna Schutte

There’s something strange about sadness. For some it’s just a feeling, but for me it has turned into a lifestyle.

It’s okay if you don’t understand me. No one ever has, at least not until he came around.

He was the most beautiful creature I ever laid eyes on. Dark brown eyes sparkled behind thick, curly lashes.

His nose descended in a soft slope and met his beautifully proportioned lips. Oh, his lips. The lips that once kissed mine with such tenderness that I practically melted to a pool at his feet. He stood at a graceful six feet tall which thankfully complimented my five-foot-ten stature. He had a rather built structure to him, a result of lifting weights religiously. His broad shoulders bared the soft bulge of his muscles, his arms having the same qualities. A strong chest covered with a canvas of smooth skin gradually slipped down to a slim waist. Small, dark moles scattered his body in the most graceful way. He thought these to be flaws, but I’d look at him and see flawless perfection. I guess you could say I loved this boy, but that would be an understatement.

It’s strange how fate decides to lead you to your true love. Sometimes you don’t even realize that one day you may fall in love with the person sitting next to you!

That was the case with us. Casual conversations lead to flirtatious chats, and the flirtatious chats eventually evolved into long, heartfelt talks. Fate was working wonders for us, at least until it took him from me.

Two years, four months and twenty-two days. A

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total of eight hundred seventy-four days, I was privileged enough to feel his love. Eight hundred and seventy-four days of nothing but pure happiness. It was as cliché as your regular romance novel: boy meets girl, they fall in love and live happily ever after. Unfortunately, our fairytale didn’t quite end that way.

Some nights I will snap awake with vivid memories of the accident. The speed of our vehicle streaking by the dense timbers on each side of the road and the feeling of adrenaline surging through our veins at a similar speed.

Gravel flying in all directions. In that moment, we were young, wild, and indestructible. Until that giant oak came crashing down in front of the vehicle. In that last moment he turned to me: a look of despair in his eyes. His expression seemed almost identical to a frightened deer staring into headlights, both taking in their last glimpse of life. Within seconds, we smashed into the tree. Millions of sparkling chards of glass dispersed through the air like delicate snowflakes swarming in a blizzard.

I remember waking up in that hospital bed. I was connected to many little tubes and monitors. I reminded myself of a science experiment in an old horror movie. I shook the thought from my head and tried to remember why I was there.

I replayed the events of the previous night in my head. We had gone out to a friend’s house to watch a football game. The game ended early and I didn’t have to be home for a few more hours so we decided to take some back roads. After a while of aimless driving, he pulled to the side of the road and turned off the engine.

“Is everything alright?” I asked.

He gave a defeated sigh, “After this year, I leave for college…” his voice trailed off as if he was afraid to say what was coming next. My heart sank. I thought to myself, Here it comes. Two and a half years all come to an end right here. I braced myself for the worst as tears formed in my eyes.

“I guess I’m just afraid, I don’t know, that I’ll…lose you.”

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I felt relieved, confused and anxious all at once. It took me a minute to compose what I should say next.

“Babe, you’re never going to lose me, no matter how hard you try!” I smiled and gave him a playful nudge. He half- grinned and leaned in to kiss me. It’s difficult to think about, but that was the last kiss we shared. That simple last kiss stood for the loving and forgiving bond that had held us together for so long. It was in that moment when I decided that he was “The One.” The first person I wanted to see when I wake up and the last when I fall asleep. He was the one I wanted to grow old with one day. We would have been the kind of old couple that sits on their front porch holding hands and watching their grandchildren playing in the yard.

A warm hand gently cupped my chin, drawing me out of my thoughts. He lifted my chin so that my eyes met his and said, “I love you.” I could feel the sincerity in his voice.

“I love you too. Until my last heartbeat.”

Unfortunately, his last would come before mine.

Lying in the hospital bed, I couldn’t remember much of the accident. I knew that he was my last memory and I had obviously been in an accident of some sort. Suddenly, it registered. Oh my god. He was in the accident with me!

Where was he? What condition was he in? I needed to see him! I needed to go find him to make sure he was okay. I attempted to get up, but there was a big white cast on my right leg that extended from my foot to my thigh. With all my strength, I grabbed my casted leg and swung it over one side of the bed. My bare feet (make that foot and exposed toes) touched the cold tile floor. The pain and effort it took to sit up was unbearable, but nothing was going to keep me from finding him!

I grabbed onto the IV pole for support and pulled myself up. My entire body throbbed with every painful shuffle I took. I reached for the heart monitor patches on my chest and pulled. Almost immediately, an alarm sounded from the monitor. I didn’t care. I had to see him.

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A young nurse quickly appeared in the doorway. She saw me standing there, a deranged mess clutching onto an IV pole and awkwardly inching across the floor. Soon she was at my side and asking me to lie down.

“I have to see him,” I heard myself say. It was so strange to hear my own voice. It sounded almost foreign.

“Lie down,” the nurse calmly ordered as she was forcing me into the bed, but I was not about to give up so easily.

“Let me go! I need to see him!” I began to raise my voice, “Let me see him! I need to know he’s okay!” Hearing the chaos, more nurses swarmed into the room to get me into the bed. I began to scream. I had to see him! I was far too weak to get past the nurses, and they eventually got me into the bed. Some held me while others tried calming me down.

“There, there, dear. Just relax now!” an older nurse said.

“Who is she talking about?” whispered a young brunette nurse to the petite blonde next to her.

“The teenage boy from last night. The one in that accident out on Grand Oaks Road. I think she was with him,” she said in a hushed tone.

Grand Oaks Road. That was the road we were on last night! I turned to her. “That boy! The one from last night! Where is he? Is he okay? Can I see him?” My heart was racing with anticipation. I wanted answers. The room suddenly grew very quiet. The oldest nurse was the only one who could seem to look me in the eye. Her dark blue eyes expressed a new kind of sadness; they had almost a grieving look to them.

“He, um, he is not here, sweetheart.” She said it as if the words hurt to say.

“What do you mean? Are you saying he’s okay and doesn’t need to be here?” For a second, my heart got lighter, “Where is he?” My head ached with confusion.Why wouldn’t they just tell me what I want to know? I looked around. All of five nurses were staring at anything but me.

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I started to grow uncomfortable with what the answers to my questions might be.

“No, darling. He’s no longer here. He is in the good hands of the Lord.”

Emptiness.

That’s all I can feel since that day. Tears simply replaced my hobbies. Red swollenness took the place of the makeup I once wore, and scars covered my body. I spend most of my days in the dark comfort of my bedroom. Many days, despite my mother’s desperate pleas, I’ll go without eating. I lay on my bed in the same clothes I wore yesterday and I haven’t showered in a while. I don’t see the need to.

Some days I miss him, other days I hate him for leaving me here.

His funeral was last Tuesday. I couldn’t bring myself to go. I couldn’t bear to see his grieving parents, to listen to some preacher talk about life and death as if he knew it all, or to shake the hands of strangers who think they can relate to how you’re feeling. But my true reason for not attending was because I knew he wasn’t there. Now he’s just a body in the ground buried with the missing half of my heart.

I study my reflection for the first time in days. My light brown hair hangs in tangled strands, unwashed and never combed. Dark circles line my bloodshot eyes and my cheeks seem to have sunken into my cheekbones as if they are trying to hide. My once curvy figure has transformed into a statue of pale skin hanging off bones. My appearance frightens me. I look like the people in those drug ads you see on posters at school: ugly and weak. But vanity is no longer of importance to me, these days all I can do is miss him.

Lately, it seems as if seconds drag by like hours.

Hours drone on like weeks. I often wonder, Why him? I would gladly take his place if fate would let me! But then I think about how if it were to happen that way I would be leaving him in this life of eternal sadness and he didn’t deserve that.

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If I could find the words to express how I felt about him, it would take pages upon pages. Loving him was the greatest experience fate could ever have allowed me. But now he’s gone. All I have left to do is love him‌ Until my last heartbeat.

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A Walk in the Apple Orchard Brooke Woolley

The hills were full of luscious trees all standing perfectly in a row as if the world was calling attention to them. When I walked down the steep hill, I came to the bottom where there was a bridge and underneath it the most peaceful stream. It sang to me quietly as the warm sun danced along my skin.

This is absolutely beautiful I thought to myself. After I snapped some photos, I grabbed my bucket off the bridge and pranced off onto the gravel pavement. I could smell the combination of Autumn Gold, Fuji, Golden Delicious, Honeycrisp, and so many more apples, tickling the inside of my nose and teasing me to be picked. I walked to the back rows to try and get the ones that hadn’t been picked over yet, enjoying the breeze brush past my face along the way.

However, the closer I made my way to the rows, the sooner the sweet aroma turned into a sour smell.

When I met my first serious boyfriend I was immediately drawn into his addictive personality, and I couldn’t get enough of it. He knew all the right things to say, what dates to take me on, and always knew how to have a good time. I fell hard—some would call it young, dumb love. We did everything together from going to movies to me tagging along on his hunts. I was completely infatuated with him but blinded to his rotten core that everyone but me saw. I was oblivious to the girls he hid behind my back and the horrible things he said to me. He said he wished there was another girl with him at times, he had negative things to say about my body—like I wasn’t skinny enough,

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and he talked down to me to make me feel as if I was nothing to him. It’s all so beautiful in the beginning, but once you get closer to figuring who that person really is, sometimes it’s hard to fight your way out.

Throughout the rows there were the most delicious looking apples. Every time I would go to pick one, I would finally think I had picked the right one. However, when I got closer or turned an apple over, I found that the delicious looking apple was full of bruises.

Picking apples was a lot harder than I thought.

There were rotten apples all over the ground and gnats and flies flying every which way. I continued down the row while swatting away the bugs that were flying everywhere making it difficult to move on.

The next and most recent bad apple in my life was someone who came out of nowhere; it was when I least expected it. Like my other disastrous relationship, he had a way with words and knew all the right things to say to me like how he could give me everything and how he wanted to spend his future with me. We were inseparable and fell quickly for each other, but after a few months I started to realize who he really was inside. He was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. One minute everything would be fine, but the next he would be putting me down and blaming everything on me. When he drank it was a nightmare, and I would dread being around him. It wasn’t until lampshades were being thrown across the room that I got the courage to get up and leave. Unfortunately, like the fruit flies and gnats that follow you everywhere in the orchard and can’t seem to go away, I still have to deal with him today.

After I got done picking the best apples I could find, I headed back to weigh them in. When I got back to my house, I washed the dirt off the apples and scrubbed them squeaky clean. After letting them chill in the fridge for a couple of hours, I reached in and took one out. As I took a bite, the juices dripped from the apple.

Inside my mouth, the sweet tastes celebrated, and I thought to myself, maybe there still is hope after all.

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Postpartum

Courtney Snodgrass I remember feeling your tiny kicks inside my womb.

I couldn’t wait to hold you within the crooks of my arms, look into your eyes and admire the way your nose was a perfect resemblance of his and mine combined.

Your precious body curled within my limbs, I rubbed your soft skin, and looked at your dry, wrinkled flesh, and I swear I loved you, I did, I do.

But I couldn’t escape the emptiness that resided below my breasts where you first began to live, where I used to sing to you before we both fell asleep.

I imagine my voice sounded much different from the inside.

I miss your daddy’s hands sprinkled over my swollen body, his soft lips kissed you through the stretch marks that scarred my skin.

We couldn’t wait to meet you.

But after I felt you leave my body and enter my world, I was not prepared to grieve the void in my uterus where your body freed itself from my own.

Three months of maternity leave and I couldn’t wait to leave you, return to the life I had before those two lines on a stick made you real.

I stopped counting how many times I listened to you cry, curled into my own fetal position as my tears soaked the pillow when I couldn’t satisfy you.

I held you to my chest, my racing heart pounded in my ears.

You were less than ten pounds but it felt

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as if you were an anchor sitting on my chest, suffocating me.

My whole body was numb and I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t happy that I got to hold you all day, every day.

My heart broke every time you went hungry when you opened your mouth to feed and I wouldn’t allow you to grasp my nipple because I couldn’t produce enough milk for you.

Your daddy never knew how much pain you caused me, how much doubt I harbored as a mother.

I’m sorry that I am not the mother you thought I’d be.

I’m sorry that I am not the mother I thought I’d be.

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December 10, 1986 Todd Bender

When I look at my friends with teenagers, I shudder, thankful I have no children. There is far too much responsibility, too many ways to screw it up. How do you raise them right, making sure they learn all they need to know, without them hating you in the end? I was always so annoyed with my parents when they used phrases like “I wish I knew then what I know now,” or “you’re going to regret that,” or “don’t drink and drive,” or, the worst, “No.” One thing I have learned as an adult that I didn’t know at 18 is that my parents were not nearly as stupid as I once thought. I have to ask myself, when did you learn this? And the only honest answer I can give myself is I’m not sure. Being an adult is a relative phrase. Legally, I was an adult the day I turned 18; however, what a boy of 18 thinks he knows is far different from what a man of 43 actually knows. Yes, it still sometimes amazes me that my parents knew what they were talking about. As trite as it may sound, I wish I knew then what I know now.

December 10, 1986 dawned as pretty much every other day that semester had. I woke up, left the dorm with my roommate and headed to breakfast. I was kicking myself the whole time because I had not been smart enough to avoid scheduling an eight o’clock class. The day spread out before me much like my life. I was young, intelligent and on my own for the first time. I was invincible; the possibilities were endless. There was nothing about that bright December morning toward the end of my first semester in college that warned me: today your life will change forever. I wish I knew then what I know now.

I went to a small private college in southern Iowa.

It may have been small, but to me it was the world. I was

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finally away from my parents and my hometown of Iowa City. As “on my own” as I could be with my books, tuition and a monthly allowance all provided by the parents I so desperately wanted to be free of. Iowa Wesleyan College was more what I would imagine a boarding school to be. But its smallness made us all very close. We lived together, ate together and went to class together all on one tiny campus where everyone knew your name.

My closest friends at the time were Ben, Heath and Matt. We went everywhere together. That December afternoon we were trying to do anything but study for the finals looming in our future. It was a Wednesday.

In weeks past we had always made the hour long drive into Iowa City on Wednesday nights for “cup night” at a bar called the Field House, and we loved it. In the mid 80’s, fake ID’s were not really looked at too closely, and we all had one. I’m pretty sure that it was me who finally convinced everyone that skipping the study sessions and heading off to drink the night away was a fantastic idea.

Always the ringleader, it could never be said that I was a good influence on anyone.

Usually we had a carload of people that went, though on this night we couldn’t convince the others to go with us. It was starting to snow and finals were just days away. So with books and finals forgotten, the four of us got into the car and headed off into the snow. I knew better. My parents did not raise stupid children. In fact they would have been horrified to know what my plans were that evening and maybe that’s why I did it. I wish I knew then what I know now.

Even if I could remember it all, what happened at the bar that evening is not relevant. We were young men in a bar in the mid-80’s. The music and clothes may have changed over the years, but the activities have remained the same. We drank too much. There were phone numbers exchanged with potential dates. We drank some more. We were young and invincible and we knew it. We acted accordingly.

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The night flew by and it was time to go. What happened over the next couple of hours only exists for me now in brief flashes of my memory. Sometimes I see more in nightmares that I still have 25 years later.

Though when I wake, sitting straight up in bed, covered in sweat, those memories seem to disappear again.

Back to the part of my brain that doesn’t want me to remember. I wish I knew then what I know now.

The snow was falling more heavily than it had before, and it was colder. We didn’t care. Snow balls were thrown, good-byes were said, and I seem to recall a stop for pizza. We all piled back into the car, only this time we had drank more than our fair share of 25-cent beers. As a boy of 18, I thought that to be a great deal.

As a man of 43, I question the intelligence of serving drinks that cheap to anyone, especially college students.

And so I found myself a passenger in a car on a two-lane country highway in the middle of a snow storm. Drunk, I passed out.

I awoke to the sound of gravel hitting the underside of the car. We were on the shoulder of the road going up a hill. My friend Ben had fallen asleep while driving. I sharply said his name, and he jerked awake, also jerking the steering wheel. The tires slid at 60 miles per hour on the snow-slicked highway, and we crossed the center line at the same time headlights from a semi came up over the hill. Everything went black.

When I woke again it was very quiet. I could hear the sound of the wind, and I could feel snow falling on my face. Why was I on the floor? That question really didn’t have time to register before Matt started to scream. I sat up.

How does your mind comprehend what it shouldn’t be seeing? The engine of the car was in the front seat. And there was blood: a lot of it. The night was dark and cold, and we seemed to be alone out there in the snow. I reached forward to Matt. Unbelievably the car seemed to be bent around his head. Again, how

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does your mind comprehend what it shouldn’t be seeing?

He didn’t seem to have a pulse.

On the seat next to me, I could hear Heath crying.

When I asked him if he was okay he told me that he couldn’t feel anything. He couldn’t move. It was then I knew if I didn’t get out of that car I was going to start to scream. I was afraid that if I started I wouldn’t be able to stop. I had to kick the door hard to get it open. I started down the road towards the cars that were beginning to stop, amazed by the cold of the night compared to warmth of the blood streaming down my face. From behind me, I heard Matt calling my name and as I turned to go back to him I really saw the car for the first time. I couldn’t believe that I had walked away from that. There would be hours and days to think about that later. In that moment, I needed to get to Matt. He tried to get out of the car but was unable to walk without help. I went back to him and together we began limping down the road.

By now there were many cars that had stopped.

The people that had gotten out of them were just shadows, lit within my headlights. The snow continued to fall. Someone pressed a towel to my head presumably to stop the bleeding. None of this seemed real to me, and I stood there unable to speak. There were several men helping Matt into the cab of a semi while someone else took me by the hand and led me to the passenger side of the same truck. It was then that I saw another semi flipped on its side in the ditch. Did we hit that? Is that what happened? I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. The inside of the truck was warm and I sat in the passenger seat while Matt lay on a bed in the back, both of us crying, neither of us able to speak. Through the windshield all I could see was chaos. People were running back and forth in the nightmare-like red and blue flash of police cars that were starting to arrive. An ambulance skidded to a stop not far from a twisted piece of metal that only hours before had been filled with the laughter of four teen-aged boys with their whole lives ahead of them. A helicopter

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landed in the middle of the highway. I prayed. Deals that young men make with God are personal. I am not proud to say there is not one of those deals I made where I kept my end of the bargain.

It was then that the door next to me was ripped open. An angry man stood on the side of the road yelling about drunken teen-agers and telling me again and again to look at the truck lying in the ditch beside us. He tried to pull me out of the truck, and I was certain he was going to hit me. Someone pushed him away and the door was slammed shut. Was this really happening to me?

Matt and I were transferred from the truck to the ambulance. I was once again quietly amazed by the amount of blood. Was that coming from me or him, I wondered.

It was coming from both of us. Heath was loaded into the ambulance as well. Paramedics worked frantically over him putting in IV’s and cutting off his clothes. All the while he kept saying, “I can’t move, I can’t move.” It was from this vantage point that Matt and I, holding hands like two scared children, watched them cut our friend Ben out of the car and load him into the helicopter. It was also there that we overheard a paramedic say to a police officer that our friend Ben was not going to make it.

As the ambulance pulled away heading toward the hospital with its siren wailing and lights flashing, all I wanted was for the nightmare to end. Twenty-five years later I found myself wondering if it ever did. I walked out of the emergency room later that morning with only a broken tailbone and some cuts on my head and face. My body was stiff and sore and I was lucky to be alive. Matt was in the hospital for five days after having surgery. There are parts of that night that affect me to this day. I know that Matt feels the same because we’ve talked about it.

Ben did live but he was never the same. A severe brain injury left him in a coma for nine months. When he woke, he was a totally different person who had to learn to walk, talk, and feed himself all over again.

Heath was paralyzed from the chin down. His spinal

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cord severed, his days as an athlete over. He once begged me to turn off the machines that were keeping him alive.

Both are gone now, dying in 2001 and 2002 respectively of complications from their injuries. And I ask myself, what does it all mean? Why did this happen to them? To me? I need for it to mean something. Is it just another cautionary tale about the stupidity of youth? From what I’ve seen most of society still looks at teenage boys raising hell as a rite of passage. Boys will be boys. Most of society hasn’t lived through what I have.

If I could reach even one teenager and stop them from making the same mistake I did maybe it would mean something. Trust me, I have tried. All of my friend’s children have heard the story in gruesome detail either from me or their parents. Most of them have been shown the picture of the car sitting alone in the junk yard and the front page photo from the Iowa City Press Citizen of Ben being removed from the car. Usually right about the time they turn 16 and start to drive. Has it worked? I would like to say it has.

But honestly, would the 18-year-old me ever have listened to the 43-year-old me?

I wish I knew then what I know now.

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Regimented Logan Wilkes

Everything in my life is regimented to the minute.

Everything that I do has to be done at the right time or everything gets messed up and gets me really annoyed. I wake up at exactly 6:50 every morning before spending 16 minutes in the shower before getting myself dressed in the clothes that I set out at 10:00 the night before. I have breakfast at 7:45 and then brush my teeth. Before leaving for school, I watch Sponge Bob Square Pants with my brother for 15 minutes and then walk the 636 steps to my school, where I go straight to my class and read for 10 minutes before the bell rings. Then everything got messy one day.

I did everything that I always do. I woke up at the right time, watched Sponge Bob with my brother and sat in my class. First period went okay, apart from a new girl that kept talking under her breath and agitating me to the point where I nearly walked out. It was on the way to second period that it happened. The new girl blocked my way into my classroom and tried to introduce herself, but I couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying to me. All I could see was the fact that her purple shirt and tie was blocking my way into class. I was shifting from foot to foot and twisting my hands together waiting to get into class. The new girl looked too old to be in a class full of eighth graders anyway, so why was she in my way? The teacher noticed what was going on and told her to move and let me in. She gave me a strange look before moving and I rushed to my seat, but she sat in the empty chair next to me and kept trying to pass me notes. I kept ignoring them and focused on writing neatly, so that it looked like what it does when I practice my writing for exactly one hour every night. But she kept giving me the notes and her shiny silver ring kept catching

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the light, kept distracting me, so I wrote back, telling her to stop and got really annoyed because my writing didn’t look the same as what I did in my writing jotter.

Standing up and stuttering loudly to the teacher that I had to get away from the distractions, I ran out of the room to go to the quiet room that was down the hall.

When I got there, I got really angry and started throwing the books and the pens around the room. The new girl had completely messed up my day and my handwriting. I stood in the corner, facing the wall, and tried to figure out how the rest of my day would go. I imagined that my support teacher would come in and calm me down, then my mum would come and get me, take me home and help me write down what happened, go and get my brother from preschool and then we would watch Sponge Bob before it gets to the time to practice my writing.

I heard someone come into the room while I was looking at the wall and turned around, expecting to see my support teacher, but instead I saw the new girl. I took in her purple shirt and tie, both the same shade, tucked neatly into black jeans with a black belt and silver buckle and shiny black dress shoes, and although the neatness of her clothes made me somewhat calmer, I tried to get her to leave. Instead, she just walked in and shut the door behind her before sitting at the table in the middle of the room. I shouted at her to get out and I hated the way I stuttered as I did it, but she just sat there silently, looking at me. I threw more books around and actually threw a chair before going to stand in the corner again. Usually I only calmed down with my mum or my support teacher, but I eventually realized what the girl was doing. She was getting me used to having her around so that I wouldn’t always react the way I had done. I turned around and she was still quietly looking at me. Still not speaking, she stood up and put the chair that I had thrown back at the table before starting to pick up the books and put them back into the bookcase, motioning for me to sit in the chair she had just put back.

After putting all of the books back, the girl sat across

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from me and watched my hands as they were on the table repeatedly clenching and unclenching. While she watched my hands, I watched her and tried to match my breathing to hers. I saw long black hair tickle her collarbones as her chest moved with every breath. A couple of minutes later, she pulled out a small notebook from her pocket with a pen attached to it and slid it across the table towards me, motioning for me to write in it. I was about to pick it up, but there was a knock on the door that I had known was my mum, and I slid the book back to the girl and walked out of the room, as calm as I had been this morning. When I got home, everything was how I envisioned it. I wrote down why I had gotten angry, watched Sponge Bob for exactly three hours before taking a walk to get my brother from pre-school, played in the park for exactly an hour, and got back in time to practice my writing.

Usually when I practiced my writing, I wrote down an extract from my favourite book. I have a whole book with the quote, “The darkest places in Hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.” I had found it while reading Dan Brown’s newest book Inferno. The new girl changed that as well. I found myself writing about her and what happened in the Quiet Room. That was completely new to me; I didn’t know how to handle it, so I got my mum to help me find the words to write down. I didn’t know her name, so I just called her “The Girl.” I wrote about how her clothes made me happy because they were so neat and pretty, and how I actually calmed down with her. When my hour was finished, I had my dinner, did my homework, caught up on the school work I missed that my mum got from my teachers and then went to bed as normal.

I gradually fell into a new regime with the girl.

After my big scene, the girl realized that I spent my lunches in the Quiet Room, so she came and sat with me ever day.

One day she picked up a book and started to read aloud to me. I realized I liked the sound of her voice. It was very husky and calming. That was the only time the girl talked,

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to read to me at 1:15 so that we had 15 minutes to eat our lunch. I never spoke; I just listened and laughed when she made funny accents up for different people. She never asked me to speak, and I never did, but I did show her my writing practice book, as I always wrote about the book that she had read to me that day. Whenever she saw that I had written that I liked a certain part, she would find that part again and re-read it to me. This went on for months, and during that time, I only got angry three times, for all of which the girl would get called to the Quiet Room and she would sit with me and calm me down until my mum came and got me.

The girl changed everything again during the weekend before Christmas. I was at my house in the middle of my writing practice when the doorbell rang. I knew my mum would answer it so I carried on writing. The next thing I knew, the girl’s voice was floating through my door.

Then I heard my door open and she was kneeling across from me with a wrapped present in her arms, watching me write, but my writing was getting worse and worse, so I ended up throwing my pen across the room in agitation.

She immediately pulled me from my desk and sat me on my front step.

She pushed the present at me. I all but ripped the paper off, as I was still annoyed. and saw a leather-bound version of Inferno sitting on my lap. She slowly took the book from me, flipped to what she knew was my favourite part, and proceeded to read to me for about half an hour.

Eventually I stopped her and spoke to her for the first time.

“Why?” Turning to face me and slowly closing the book, the girl smiled a 100-watt smile at me, and her violet eyes sparkled as she held out her hand for me to shake. “Hi. I’m Zosia, and my sister is autistic too.”

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For a Veteran Who Survived Courtney Snodgrass

After the rain of summer, the foliage fades and a body is buried in a casket with a flag draped over the top while funeral goers dressed in black circle around, Dalmatian spots in the white winter after the trees have undressed and stand naked.

A prayer is said and tears are shed through eyes who’ll never know what it feels like to watch their brother in arms collapse beside them.

A hero is lowered into the earth, the ultimate sacrifice paid and gunshots fire in the distance as the remaining man in the distance jumps at the sound and remembers when his partner fell beside him, eyes spread wide open with no life behind them, escaping without hearing a goodbye in the midst of machine guns firing.

A soldier carried his brother to safety and cried in the silence of the plane that flew both of their bodies home for the last time.

I sit behind the desk and watch the camouflaged man in front of me as he plays the war in the blue of his eyes for me to see without realizing he’s turned the horror movie on and he asks me why God chose to have him walk home and why they both couldn’t be carried.

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Contributors Gabriel Acosta graduated with a major in Art in December 2016. He is working as an Admissions Counselor at Mount Mercy.

Billie Barker is a 2016 graduate with a major in English and minors in Communications and Creative Writing. She lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where she seeks work as a writer and time to rejuvenate body, soul, and spirit.

Todd Bender is a junior transfer student from Kirkwood, in the Social Work Program. Originally from Iowa City, Iowa, he made his home on both the east and west coasts for many years before returning to Iowa to finally finish his education. Upon graduation, he plans to attend the MSW Program at the University of Iowa and eventually work with children in need.

Kelsey Bills is an Art and Marketing double major. She lets the environment around her inspire and shape the way she sees the world. She strives to create authentic, original works of art that depict her vision. She’s from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Anna Bohr is a senior Communications Media major and Writing minor from Wichita, Kansas. She is involved with The Mount Mercy Times, improv club, and campus ministry.

After graduation, she wants to work in digital-content marketing or a related field.

Lauren Brunson is a senior Graphic Design major and Philosophy minor native to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She hopes to be a freelance illustrator with her own gallery someday, but is currently setting her sights on a smaller scale designing

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job in either the local area or, eventually, Colorado. She hopes to visit Europe in the near future to learn more about art and culture there. She enjoys listening to music, reading, philosophizing, and drawing in her spare time, and is interested in the cultures and countercultures of the 1970s to the 1990s. Her work tends to be reflections of her everyday experiences, understandings and influences and how they relate spiritually or psychologically to her.

Tanner Childs grew up in the small town of Keystone, Iowa.

He comes from a large family of nine children, and is the fifth. He’s a junior currently studying Finance, though his true passion lies in writing. He’s been writing for seven years and has completed over seven novels in the fantasy genre. His overall goal is to one day get published and potentially make a living off of his stories.

Jose Clemente is an Assistant Professor of Art and Design.

Natalie Deister graduated in the fall of 2016 with a major in English and a minor in Psychology. Ideally, she would love to have a job that involves writing or editing, and psychology research interests her as well. Originally she’s from Olathe, Kansas, but currently lives in Marion, Iowa with her family. She has an equal passion for both exercise and chocolate chip cookies.

Mason Evans is a sophomore double majoring in Art and Graphic Design. He is from Des Moines, Iowa and is on the bowling team.

Cassie Green is a senior from Anamosa, Iowa. She’ll be earning her bachelor’s degree in English and Secondary Education with a minor in Creative Writing. She is a part of the Mount Mercy Dance Team, the Mount Mercy Improv Troupe, and is currently working on getting her first book published.

Kathryn Hagy is a Professor of Art and Design.

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Molly Hahn is a sophomore Biology major. She’s from the small town of Dyersville, Iowa and she has no idea what she wants to do with her life post-college. She loves watching and critiquing movies as well spending time in the kitchen (both cooking and eating). She also enjoys quality time with her cats and friends (especially when it involves movies or food).

Jacob Herndon is a senior Graphic Design major from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He is a member of Mount Mercy’s track and cross country teams. This ceramic vase is one of several that he has made. What is special about this one is that it was the first time he had a piece soda fired. The extreme changes in texture and color really helped the piece stand out compared to a normal firing.

Kayla Hodgson is a senior Religious Studies major with a minor in English. After graduating, she plans to get her Masters in Library and Information Science. She is from Urbandale, Iowa and enjoys reading and organizing in her free time.

Leslie Hoffmann is a senior Graphic Design major with a Business minor. She took this photo in Venice, Italy while she was on a study abroad trip to Europe during J-Term, 2017. This photo captures a fleeting moment of a bird, which she thought was going to ruin the picture but didn’t!

Similar to the fleeting bird, it also captures the moments of a trip that seem just as fleeting now, looking back on it. Just as the bird takes flight, so does she.

Bianca Kesselring is a senior Human Resource Management major. In January, 2017 she accepted a full-time position in the Admissions Office as the Campus Visit Coordinator.

She enjoys staying active on campus and in the community.

Mariah Kidd is a senior Graphic Design and Art double major. She lives in Hiawatha, Iowa. She is engaged and loves being creative with both art and writing.

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Ashley Kofoed is a senior working towards her bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education with endorsements in Middle School. She grew up in Kentucky and has served in the United States Army. Ashley started writing for her Creative Writing class and has found that she enjoys writing poetry and short stories.

Abbey Konzen is a senior Art/Graphic Design major and Creative Writing minor, from Marion, Iowa. She enjoys visiting her friend’s animal farm, which she hopes to be more involved with in the future, along with making a name (or at least a living) for herself in the art world!

McKenzie Mellecker is a sophomore Graphic Design major from Coralville, Iowa. She is a member of Mount Mercy’s track and cross country teams. This ceramic vase is one of the first that she’s made, and she looks forward to bettering her skills from here.

Molly Metz, from Riverside, Iowa, graduated in May 2016 with a major in Graphic Design.

Njenga graduated in Spring 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in Art. Emma Oldenburg is a senior studying Art and minoring in Spanish and English. She enjoys all art mediums and hopes to some day teach at the collegiate level.

Marlon Pierre-Antoine is an Elementary Education major living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Outside of work and school, Marlon enjoys reading, politics, and rekindling his interest in writing fiction.

Jessica Purgett is a freshman double-majoring in Marketing and English with a minor in Spanish. She is from Marshfield, Wisconsin and hates being five hours away from her three dogs. When she’s not studying, she likes to read, watch

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Netflix, and hang out with friends. After she graduates, she would love to become an author or be involved in the publishing industry.

Dia Potter is a junior in the Education Program, working towards her Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education with a Reading Endorsement as well as a Language Arts and English Endorsement. Her writing is inspired by some real-life experiences and her faith. She loves to read and drink overpriced lattes.

Kaytlyn Rumelhart is from Medford, Oregon. She’s a freshman studying International Studies. She aspires to work with small countries and tribes on keeping peace helping women advance. She also enjoys composing music for piano and vocals.

Hannah Schroeder is a junior from Cedar Rapids, Iowa majoring in Criminal Justice. She’s on the soccer team at Mount Mercy, and she’s an avid pool player. She likes trees and Twenty One Pilots.

Jenna Schutte is a freshman Nursing major. She’s from the small town of Castalia, Iowa, where she discovered her love for literature and creative writting. She enjoys the outdoors, playing sports, and working as a CNA. Upon my graduation, she plans to work as an ER nurse while continuing her education towards her master’s degree. With that degree she hopes to one day become a Nurse Practitioner.

Quentin Sims is a senior Graphic Design major from Grinnell, Iowa. Quentin enjoys skateboarding, traveling, hanging out with friends, and music.

Laura Slovakova is a sophomore Graphic Design major.

Originally from the Czech Republic, she enjoys travelling, live music, and clearing her thoughts with reading and art.

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Courtney Snodgrass is a senior English major with minors in Creative Writing and Psychology. She’s from the Cedar Rapids/Marion, Iowa area. Upon graduating, Courtney would like to begin her own literary magazine and continue writing poetry and eventually publish a novel.

Tyus Thompson is a junior in his first year at Mount Mercy University. He’s majoring in English with a minor in Creative Writing. Some of his hobbies include writing, playing video games, ping pong, and running on both the cross-country and track teams here at Mount Mercy. In the future, he hopes to take his knowledge of running to become a college cross-country coach, and if that doesn’t work out, would love to be a professor of English.

Charles Uthe is a sophomore and a graduate of West Delaware High School. In high school, Charles was an active member in the Speech team, and was well-known for his roles in musicals and play productions. Charles came to Mount Mercy to study English, and he hopes that one day he can become an inspiring poet and writer.

Doriann Whitlock (Dori) is a sophomore English major with minors in Creative Writing and Oral Communication.

She has lived in Iowa all her life, traveling only within the United States. She enjoys being outdoors, reading books, and spending time with family and friends. She has written for The Mount Mercy Times for the last two years and helped with copy-editing Paha this year. Last year she also published a piece in the Dubuque Archdiocese newspaper.

By the end of her senior year she plans on becoming a book editor with a publishing firm somewhere in the Midwest.

She wants to take part in the process required to make books help people of all ages find themselves.

Logan Wilkes is a Criminal Justice and English major from Scotland and is part of the Mount Mercy Mustangs women’s soccer team. Soccer is her main interest with

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writing poetry and short stories a close second, and she hopes to be able to travel the world and live her life by her own rules.

Brooke Woolley is originally from Texas and moved to Iowa in 2014. She attended Kirkwood Community College, where she received her Associate of Arts. She was active in Student Leadership Council, Kirkwood Communique, and Kirkwood Student Productions. She is a senior, graduating in December. She was a staff writer for The Mount Mercy Times during her first semester, and is currently Editorin-Chief. In her spare time she enjoys being outdoors and playing both sand and indoor volleyball. After she graduates, she plans on moving back to Texas in hopes of becoming an event coordinator for an organization in Austin.

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Paha was composed in 11 point Iowan Old Style and printed on Cougar Opaque Natural 70 lb. text.

80 lb. Flo Gloss and 80 lb. White Flo Gloss Cover.

The printer was Welu Printing Company.

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