Windhover 2017

WINDHOVER MAGAZINE WINDHOVER

WINDHOVER Vol. 51 | North North Carolina Carolina State State University University | 2016 - 2017

WINDHOVER

Vol. 51 North Carolina State University 2016 - 2017

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A Letter From the Editor

This past year as Editor-in-chief of Windhover has been an incredible opportunity. In my experience, art and literature have an ability to draw people from different backgrounds and walks of life together in a way that no other field can. It encourages empathy and forces us to see lives from perspectives other than our own. Now, more than ever, I think it is important for us to cultivate and celebrate creativity in students from every field. This volume of Windhover is a special testament to the power of art and literature in driving a community together.

I want to give a special thank you to Martha Collins, my advisor, for guiding me through every major hiccup and always being willing to lend a helping hand. I also want to thank Kenny Shepard and the staff at Theo Davis Printing for all their help and willingness to work with the Windhover team to bring to life the vision we had for the book. Finally, I want to thank my incredible staff, especially Trevor Berreth, Ashley Darrisaw, Benjamin Webber, and Alanna Hart, who were there any and every time I needed them. Your willingness to work hard and your commitment to the publication consistently reminds me that together we are able to accomplish and create things we cannot do alone. ✴ Nikita Chintalapudi

6. consider | Joseph Silvers 7. BUNS IN BALANCE | Grace Bilbao 9. HEAT SOURCE | Ashley Hicks

TABLE OF CONTENTS

11. chinatown series | Cristina Wright 12. chinatown series | Cristina Wright 13. HABITS | Nicholas Bradsher 15. ED N’ EIN | Megan Bonner 16. UPPER DECK | Kayla Watson 18. ARMAMENTARIUM | Wyatt Bond 19. slums of india | Laura Wyker 21. Beside Her | Logan Winstead 25. North Carolina State Fair | Maria Martinez 26. How Come Bees Dies Once they Sting? | Reily Fay 29. two boys and the moon | Alexa Molli 30. boy’s ballet | Isaac Smith 31. layers | Emma Yacovelli 32. flowers | Katelynn McCorquodale 33. london | Katelynn McCorquodale 34. inner thigh | Travis Harrington 35. the swamp | Megan Bonner 36. untitled | Jennifer Greig 37. marbles | Threa Almontaser 38. amazonian stars | Charlie Harless 40. dog eat dog | Jessica Bowden 41. Paroxysm | Marcus Reefer 42. hans | Molly Harris 43. golden crane | Tea Blumer 44. golden horizon | Alexa Molli 46. metaxy | Joachim Gawryolek 47. structure variations | Joachim Gawryolek 48. Orderly Dissonance | Dhruvi Suresh Fulfagar 49. lights out | Conor Lenhardt 50. light through door | Logan LaBo 51. uninsurable | Travis Harrington 52. coffee | Samuel Deese

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53. spider baby | Grace Bilbao 54. my friend | Robert Prince 55. psycatdelic | Jennifer Vaughn 56. abstraction of innocence | Zoe Eischen 57. déjà vu | Tea Blumer 58. machu picchu sunrise | Charlie Harless 61. from: remember! | Samuel Deese 67. navajo, or ode to the desert | Samuel Deese 69. untitled | Grace Bilbao 70. helping hand | Monica Galletto 72. bharatanatyam dancer | Umaash Nallainathan 72. Ganesha | Umaash Nallainathan 73. untitled | Katelynn McCorquodale 74. showdown with death | Ryan Lawrence 75. conceal the self | Cyrus Homesley 76. snow’s ghost | Simone Tucker 77. Listen | Zeenat Nadvi 78. five news headlines | Simone Tucker 79. valley lights | Alexa Molli 81. to feel alive | Simone Tucker 82. mountains | Tea Blumer 83. untitled | Julia Conlon 84. open to love | Nicholas Casale 85. troquantaries | Melanie Bodane 86. moore square station at night | Threa Almontaser 87. Reflecting | Monica Galletto 88. to dream of anglerfish | Jessica Bowden 89. dreams ashore | Dhruvi Suresh Fulfagar 90. and tequila | Simone Tucker 92. Yagua tribesman | Charlie Harless 94. Audio submissions | Various Artists

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96. credits

Consider

by Joseph Silvers There’s this book about what to consider when running.

It misses the part where late sunlight becomes conical.

It doesn’t tell me how the birds look near nightfall, their shadows tapering and disappearing against mine.

I wonder if they are called nocturnal.

I wonder how late I should emerge until I am called the same.

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Buns in Balance

| fiber 7

by Grace Bilbao

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I leveled my vision at the horizon made opaque by my thick breath.

Even there the bows of the trees were straining under the weight of all the things you weren’t telling me.

I slid my feet over the thick shelf.

Slipping was inevitable, but pacifying your ire was the only way to survive.

The passing of time brought warmer breezes, thinner ice, and more ghosts of my past self roaring by underneath my feet, scratching messages into the very ice upon which I so carefully trudged.

They told me you were lying and you told me you weren’t, so, of course, I believed you, because things always change.

You showered me with affection, telling me how I was your forever, while the ice continued to thaw.

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Heat Source

by Ashley Hicks The ice had been fissuring underneath my feet from the beginning.

Hairline cracks spread out from my heels.

I could see the icy water through the milky frost.

The river rushed by inches beneath my feet carrying with it the refuse of breakthroughs farther upstream.

The fingernail furrows were indistinguishable from those made by branches.

Then came the thinnest ice yet.

One misstep, one not-so-carefully weighed word, and I was plunged into those freezing depths.

My shadows embraced me and rejoiced, knowing I wouldn’t fall for it again, but still I fought to return to the tenderness of your touch above the ice.

The shards pricked my skin, drawing droplets of red, as I struggled to drag my sopping wet frame up onto the solid surface.

I could not pull myself out in time, though, and through the ensuing months the ice froze over me, sealing me into an arctic prison away from your warmth, away from your rage.

It was there that the cold finally seeped in, when I recognized that the red droplets had their own warmth, that you weren’t the only source of heat in the universe.

I had come to understand that they were cyclical, your emotions, but not before I was already lost.

Now I am just another shadow rushing over and over again beneath the feet of my future self, waiting for the inevitable realization, desperately scratching messages into the ice.

CHINATOWN Series

by Cristina Wright | photography 10

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CHINATOWN Series

by Cristina Wright | photography

90 seconds That’s how long it will take her to enter her car, a charcoal Jaguar in space 1701. I’ve clocked it before, first using the tapes and cameras, then mentally, just to be sure that the margin was low. It wasn’t low, it was non-existent. Never 89, never 91. Always 90. There’s no reason today should be any different. But it would be different. I was in the position to make it so.

85 seconds Ms. Browning is not so much a creature of habit as a force of constancy. Having entered the institution in the same class, I have known her for several years. Even when our tracks diverged, mine to the Hierarchy and hers to Fieldwork, I made a habit of keeping an eye on her. Moreso because I couldn’t help myself. It started harmlessly enough, taking the long way back from my brief lunch break to watch her through the gymnasium windows, frosted from her side of course. This I did for several years, my eyes following her as she spun through the air, more graceful than any olympian I had seen before or since. She had a talent for most things. Agility, munitions, speed, combat, you could be sure, as she was sure, to find her at the top of the wall-encompassing scoreboard on the gym’s north side. Those who were in the top spots often switched between three facial expressions: determination, hostility, and a sort of satisfied confidence. Those at the bottom? You’d be unlikely to see their faces ever again. Regardless, the third expression was owned by Browning, though I often treasured those moments when effort defined her entire body, when a challenge was more than she could manage with her regular coolness. I felt as if I had a piece of her, a truth others could not see, an intimacy that didn’t require her participation. It was an arrangement I was comfortable with.

45 seconds That was before things changed, or rather it was my understanding that changed. The reality of the institution transformed around me as I moved myself deeper inside of it. My superiors say that I have some mix of brutality and calmness that is “an invaluable inspiration and cause for 13

Habits

by Nicholas Bradsher

investment.” I do not see it this way. I am simply pragmatic when it comes to my work. Why do with more subtle and intricate measures when simpler means, means some may see as crude or callous, will do the job with acceptable margins of collateral damage? I am happy to bring what I see as an obvious perspective to the institution. I believe wholeheartedly in its work. Or rather, I did.

39 seconds I have been educated quickly in the preceding years that the institution is not satisfied with its existing enemies, those entities that would prefer to maintain a self serving status quo under the guise of democracy and generosity rather than be shown for the ineffectual, dishonest, and bloated lies that they are and have always been. This is not enough for the institution. It looks inward just as ferociously and with as much dedication, watching both the wolves and the lambs it has itself raised as stock. It goes beyond healthy competition and responsible maintenance to a degree of viciousness I had not imagined. I have discovered the practice is ingrained into the institution, and into its agents as they progress to a certain point into its inner Hierarchy. I reached the inner Hierarchy this morning. Today is my day.

28 seconds Why do they have us do what I am now expected to do? Is it done for power? Is it done to manipulate us, the cogs? For control? I suppose those are not mutually exclusive goals. And I suppose it doesn’t matter. I knew it from the first moment that I entered this office, with its rich mahogany bookcases, its solid, unyielding desk, and in place of windows, a wall completely covered with the institution’s flag, a deep green with trims of yellow and black. I knew I was a career man and that I would be gazing into the eyes of the flag’s depiction of intertwining serpents until I died of old age. Or until it was made to appear that I had done so. Browning knew she could be killed every time she took an assignment. Brushed her teeth.

Started her car.

18 seconds The thrill of seeing Browning return alive from the dangerous assignments I myself had given her has been unmatched in my life, though I take care never to reveal it to her. My hidden pleasure, her interruption of those constant serpents, her shapely figure and the hard blackness of her clothing disrupting the rigid edges and cold metal of my office, a space I could only ever in my mind liken to a prison cell. I have an investment in her that the institution does not share. Unlike the inner hierarchy, men and women who are groomed and valued for their ingenuity, Fieldwork agents are replaceable, and often were replaced at a such a rapid pace that it was pointless to remember their names. But I could not forget Browning. I could not extract her from my mind. So she would be removed from my life.

10 seconds The monitor on my desk shows the parking garage, spot 1701. Echoing beeps accompany the flash of her charcoal Jaguar’s headlights. She’s walking toward it, closer every second.

9 seconds I search the mountain of papers on my desk for a brief moment before I remember that it is no longer there. I had slid the device into my pocket before Browning had ever entered my office, hiding it from her trained eyes. I stand as I bring the detonator into view, its weight suddenly immense and requiring effort to lift. My thumb traces the perfectly circular red button at its top when I suddenly pause.

6 seconds If I detonate the bomb while she’s inside the car, she will die. But even one second before, there might be a chance she survives.

4 seconds It occurs to me only now exactly how I have found myself in this position, and how I have placed Browning in hers. Through no fault of her own. An object in my view. A habit I couldn’t break.

2 seconds I suppose it doesn’t matter.

1 second

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by Megan Bonner

Upper Deck

by Kayla Watson

| watercolor

| photography

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Ed n’ Ein

Consider

by Grace Bilbao

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by Grace Bilbao

| medium 17

Needs Title

[armamentarium]

by Wyatt Bond with reference to E.C. Corral when I am gone wage for me a heavy peace build tanks from love letters roll them over the lines and trenches of the uncertain ground ahead fold flowers a million times and drop them like bombs to explode in shards of petals lodging themselves in the hearts of hard men. remove all the thorns from the bare feet of refugees and turn them into the nibs of pens with which poems can be written in Arabic, Hebrew, Armenian. read over loud speakers like propaganda the words of the children of immigrants shout ‘it’s my turn to ask for a bit more from you’ and weep into the dirty hands of migrant farmers. look boldly down the black eye of a leveled rifle and kiss it with your tongue. grasp firmly the nightstick, caress it like a lover or like yourself. put your body in the way of water cannons and thank god for rain for everyday rain, for water. throw yourself down on black boots keep them from treading forward. allow the line to advance no further.

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Slums of India

| pencil

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by Laura Wyker

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Beside Her

by Logan Winstead He traced the outline of the Earth on the surface of the porthole. Seeing the world within the boundaries of a smudged finger drawing wasn’t new to him. Despite the regularity of the action, it was hard for him to believe all that it held.

His suit was heavy. Its weight held him to the floor. The metallic knobs and switches, running the length of its sleeve and across the breastplate, caught the light, showering the floor in spastic reflections. A helmet sat beside him.

He ventured out only for maintenance. The cumbersome apparel, even in all its modernity, was a source of claustrophobia. His eyes fell from the glass and he ran a tired hand through his hair, a movement of his memory. Those same hands once ran through hair much longer and softer. He could feel her hands, gentle on his wrists, following the intimacy of the motions. Then she was gone, her presence coming and going in equal silence. There is nothing comparable to the quiet of infinity.

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The ship was built for long term residents. Years of research and engineering gave the ship gravity. Earthly accommodations followed. He sauntered among the books in the library. In some way he was their keeper now, the celestial librarian. An ephemeral grin found his face – what a job it was to be the ‘shush’er of no one, the lone reader of the ages. The room was appropriately musky, filled with old print organized along ornate mahogany shelves. He studied the end of one of crafted supports, eyes following each unique knot from the bottom up, until his gaze met the contemporary light source that ran through the middle of the ceiling. Irreverent, he thought. The wood, the books, the words, and then some inexplicably complex ray of light, cutting perfectly through it all. A lamp would have been nice. He imagined a soft glow, radiating from the back corner of the space.

Walden is the one he chose. The book was visibly ancient, with its lack of cover art an yellowing pages. Aside from the permanent creasing of some of the internals – the slightly destructive result of previous readers too lazy to find a bookmark – the book had survived the physical and literary worlds. He had read the text before in his university years, understanding its words as much as any nineteen year old would. It was incredibly ironic now, given his situation.

It was Thoreau who so eloquently described the beauty in isolation, the coexistence of nature and people. It was Thoreau who insisted on living a self-reliant life, abundant in happiness and not material possessions, and it was Thoreau who offered no word, no footnotes, and no second edition on how such things would play out in space. He wondered what the transcendentalist would say about a nature observable only through twelve inches of glass. What may change in his themes without greenery or blue skies or chipped bark, crystal waters, autumn tones, cawing crows and whistling sparrows? It is a relationship devoid of any interaction – man cannot exist with, beside, above or below this space. He asked the long deceased author where exactly the beauty lie in the isolation of everything.

He flipped through the book, skimming the dated ink. He looked for no set of words or phrases in particular, but he hoped to find something that could offer him any amount of solace.

Instead he found only more irony, reading “move in the direction of dreams, live a life one has imagined.” He sat on the end of his bed. He laid the prose beside him. Hunched forward, he spoke the line aloud to no one. At one time he had done so. He had gone in the direction of what he wanted. The education he wanted, the job he want-

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He had stayed longer than anyone at the facility, working diligently to finish what engineering business still needed tweaking for the seemingly complete ship. There were many nights out of the year that he returned to that cozy house in the dark hours just before dawn. He would lay in their bed for a while before sleeping, bloodshot eyes to the ceiling, following the slow moving fan at its center. He prayed he would have more time in the future for them. He hated the days that began with a few rushed words in the morning and ended with sleeping bodies at night. That time never came. Sirens blasted through the empty offices and labs. Through primal fear and the instinctual execution of take-off procedures, he brought the ship to life. He had only enough time to throw himself onto the vessel and careen into the atmosphere, narrowly escaping a leveled wasteland. He fractured his wrists beating on its hull, screaming, wailing, and retching for a world and a life he would never return to. The ship entered its eternal orbit.

The book in his ribcage woke him. He rolled off the bed and shuffled into the bathroom.

A strange man peered at him from within the mirror. He shook his head. The stranger lifted his chin and felt the scruff hidden under his sharp jaw line. He raised the straight razor and

steadied his hand. For a moment he contemplated which it would be: the laborious art of shaving or an easier, singular incision on the right side of his neck. A soft hum hugged the surfaces of the wide corridors woven into the interior of the ship.

He lingered only in the places he felt comfortable, or the places that required his attention. The organs of the orbital residence were darkened, where cog this and cog that kept things operational - kept its only inhabitant alive. He didn’t frequent these control centers often. They were only reminders of the infinite and inevitable problems that may one day kill him (that is if the art of shaving always prevailed).

He sat in a chair at the center of the bridge.

Through a horizontally elongated window, he gazed at the greyed planet. Some sort of officer or commander of the fleet would have occupied such a place of power. He didn’t feel so powerful, slightly slumped in the chair, left leg poised on the knee of his right, slipper dangling from his toes. Shatner would be displeased, he thought.

The charismatic Captain Kirk was better than that.

He thought about traversing the universe, with his family and with his mates, saving many and defeating others, ending the day with a few laughs and a couple “Dammit Spock”s. He thought about the technology used to “beam” the Enterprise crew back onboard the ship, and how things would be so different if that same technology had existed that night. He would have been able to hold what was most important to him until cog this and cog that rotated no more. A small saline droplet fell from his cheek.

He made his way to the dining hall, now an oversized dining room for one. The same light that perfectly cut through all the rooms followed him turn for turn, correctly anticipating his

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ed, the girl he wanted. Holistically, it was life as he imagined, as he had dreamed. And yet, this life so confidently imagined had brought him here, forever separated from what imagination became reality. Separated from her and separated from that little one, with small blue eyes that looked up to him from under pink blankets. His work had caused him to be away from them when the world caught fire.

path and growing brighter as he approached. He gnawed at his cuticles (a habit even global thermonuclear war couldn’t erase). He let his mind wander over flavorless spaghetti and meatballs. He thought on things so distant from his place here. On a napkin, he wrote his first draft of what would have happened if those large bombs had not passed each other in the stratosphere – who would have won the next World Series, who would have been the next president, and so on. And then he thought about lying next to her.

And how he would have insisted on visiting the agitated little one in the middle of the night. He thought about all the stories he would have read to that little one as she grew older. And all the boys he would’ve been dissatisfied with as her feelings spread outside the family. He thought about walking her between those pews. And how one day he would have visited her home, making old man jokes and wishing a rock had been placed on her head. She would have grown up so fast. He dreamed he would have been there, for the life he had started, for the life he had imagined.

any nook. He hadn’t been so good at being the celestial keeper of literature. He knew its upkeep was idle. The steady hum of the halls drove him mad. He had fits, just as he had the night the ship roared in youth. And the Earth remained a solemn grey.

The sterile airlock was cold on his bare feet. He had on no suit. It was too heavy, too uncomfortable, too expertly engineered for protection. He knew even as an old man, even with his shakes, he would be strong enough. He glared at the large red panel, covered in a thin sheet of glass. He stood in that place for a while. Finally, he brought every bit of energy left in his life down in two fists, smashing the pane. He thought one last time, in the instant before being sucked into the darkness, about that author, whose name he had long forgotten. That man had known nothing about the beauty of isolation because there was no beauty in isolation. The only real beauty of anything lie in those little blue eyes under pink blankets. He leaned in and kissed the little one’s head and quietly moved into the adjacent bedroom.

He laid down beside her.

Things went on in this way for years. A sophisticated work of metal and air, floating in the void. He grew weary of the stranger in the mirror. He didn’t bother with the straight razor, for his hands shook unceasingly. A dense clump of tangled beard hugged his chest. Oiled locks draped his ears and rested on his back. The irreverent light still followed him as he wandered the halls. It made adjustments for his slower pace. He was hunched. The knobs and switches that had once shimmered so brilliantly on the front of his garments and on the walls of the control centers, had lost their luster. A thousand napkins with a thousand histories cluttered his room, some books were never returned to their warped mahog-

North Carolina State Fair

by Maria Martinez | photography 24

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How come bees die once they sting?

by Reily Fay my first memory of you and I was a wasp landing on your shoulder not stinging you your hammock cracking the sound of metal hitting your head. today I saw a bee it landed on my shoulder whispered in the softest tone its melodies and secrets of its world within the tubes of the flowers it has traveled to it stung my bone and stretched its wings, died. yesterday I heard the most wretched noise 9:20 in the morning a steel can screeched its way against another it yelled get the fuck back into your bed at me from down below my window I yelled back fuck off until 9:46 that morning. you thought I wasn’t looking I was you were piercing your way into my brain with those freezing eyes the way that steel did my ear whispering with your lashes the way that bee did my skin. list of loving names for body parts, mine and yours, neck pussy dick g-spot, girl

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tongue against them all lips cursed to let tongue out.

how no tube, feels like home feels like me

here’s a story I don’t remember anymore, I don’t remember the way you once felt about your right elbow digging into my side or the way I once felt about my thighs wrapping around yours.

there is one thing I saw today that no one else saw the buzzing step you took in the other direction now you are three questions I will never get answered the reason half of me is missing the way my insides are twisted the length this welt is going to last

the beautiful terrible is you left your stinger inside of me after you rubbed your tin elbow against my steel side now you fly into other tubes you let me rest at 9:46 now I’m alone in pain while I sleep.

I wish I could read you this poem sting you the way you did me I wish I could scar you the way you did me or startle you at 9:20 not let you rest you’d know that nothing ever sounds feels the same.

a memory I know is true, but I may have it wrong, that night in your car when we fucked after someone else forced himself upon me, I looked for your touch to heal me although I didn’t really want your touch to heal me. the first five histories that come to my mind sexual assault sexual abuse when the only love I knew, played me when the only love I knew, did not assault, abuse Me--played, assaulted, abused.

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my last dream was you at a bar you turned into a bee you came over and sweetened me up told me you were sorry how no flower tastes the same

by Alexa Molli

| photography

Two Boys and the Moon

Consider

by Grace Bilbao

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Boy’s Ballet

by Isaac Smith Dark amber richness The supple mahogany Rich heartwood Beating silently still My hands brush The finest sawdust dancers From its smooth face To spin freely on the stale air My fingers trace The grainy roads And rivers winding A map to my history My hand careens Over drillbit sinkholes And overcut mountain ranges Of grandfather’s workbench I fear the unknown Of the winding road While that garage on the alley Soothes my soul The smells of dust Chaw spit, and fire Of pungent lacquer like words Yet gentle stain clothes Marked me Just the same

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Layers

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by Emma Yacovelli | fiber

Flowers

by Katelynn McCorquodale

| photography

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| photography

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London

by Katelynn McCorquodale

by Travis Harrington is there still a home for my cheekbone to nuzzle face obscured

Inner Thigh

sunk into the muted down of the kindest soft within the tender hemisphere a place just below where i visit to feel you become inside and outside of yourself at the same time the coiled fox decorated with feathers will always sleep next to embossed magenta scar but will i be able to still feel only one part and know you are all there?

The Swamp

by Megan Bonner

| mixed media collage

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35

36

by Jennifer Greig

Untitled

| mixed media collage

| photography

A child picks one up that zoomed out of its makeshift arena. He pets it.

Thinks it feels like the body of his dead goldfish, only warmer.

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by Charlie Harless

Amazonian Stars

Marbles

by Threa Almontaser Children cluster in the yard, absorbed in their game: squinty eyes, peeking pink tongues, knees dusty as they kneel in the dirt. Glass balls - emerald with auburn swirls like tiger eyes are tucked neatly between their thumbs and forefingers, then rocket into the chalk circle to clink with a dozen more.

Consider

by Grace Bilbao

38

by Grace Bilbao

| medium 39

Needs Title

Dog Eat Dog

by Jessica Bowden Outside, turkey buzzards made their breakfast from the innards of a deer they found strewn across the highway. Pink chunks flew through the morning fog, landed with a soft thud on the grass, glistening with dew.

Inside, she turned over in bed, and stared at the pink roses painted on her bedroom walls, wondering, as the fog of sleep dissipated, if any sausage had been left for her, or if her brother, the strong, growing boy, had eaten it all.

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by Marcus Reefer

| digital illustration 41

Paroxysm

Hans

by Molly Harris dutiful son sews the wings for his brothers whispers illuminated under the blankets in the attic heartbeats synchronizing in the nest don’t throw your cell phone off the side of the boat let them tug on your sleeves let them crawl around in your bookcase let me hold your pinky finger mold blossoms in the tiny house no foundation below shag carpet our lungs share identical blemishes shadows on the x ray i don’t want to face alone i can’t survive unless you pick me up, bring the bagels, carry me home again when you smile the creases form your teeth hide behind your lips eyes shut tight and waiting i wanted you to consume me but you could only hold me still i never knew what you were waiting for or what you tried to say in your sleep

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| photography

by Alexa Molli

Golden Horizon Golden Crane

| fiber embroidery 43

by Tea Blumer

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45

46

Structure Variations

by Joachim Gawryolek

| wood, steel, concrete

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Metaxy

by Joachim Gawryolek

| steel and concrete

Orderly Dissonance 48

by Dhruvi Suresh Fulfagar

| watercolor

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50

Lights Out

by Conor Lenhardt | photography

by Travis Harrington I have seen a home burn completely

Uninsurable

for the sake of ventilation love that it’s called closure when it happens, feels like every shudder is every door ripping out splinters before smoke stale strangles each guest bedroom or utility closet in my skull. if any word is born when it is spoken, there are so many ways to linger: single unmatched shoes,

bounce of a screen door when slammed,

a place you don’t not want to be when it comes down to it though, I have seen people throw something away because they are afraid of wasting it

Light Through the Door | photography

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by Logan LaBo

Coffee

by Samuel Deese Shall we drink coffee in the garden, And read today’s times, While cicada chirps and wind sings, In the grass and in the chimes.

My hair’s not growing back, The orchid won’t bloom again this year, Those clouds on the horizon, Will only get closer.

We should drink before it gets cold.

Spiderbaby

by Grace Bilbao

| fiber

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53

My Friend

by Robert Prince Are any of us free?

You’re so Stuck In your own head Regretful bonds Fear forged bars, and things said They make you move In the same directions As you strive To be Free You see So very much But can’t touch Aren’t permitted to feel Aren’t permitted to be Real And while you make most Of your rusted armor So concerned with the Distance Of Farther I watch, tearful Because you have wounds, wrongfully Healed You have bones bent, mind rent, forcing your Repent Forcing you upright, keeping you all night, but in other’s eyes Kneeled Dear god let you feel Dear god let you heal When you’re so spite

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Filled despite When things go right Fight Fight Fight Fight me, you, her, we Everyone becomes enemy Everyone becomes injury And your mind locks up Your heart fills up With you And now nothing Not any action Nor greatest kindness That one can do Will ever be good enough Proof Or large enough Proof For you Because you’re so Stuck In your own head And so long as you never Ever Accept yourself Never will you ever Accept Someone else Or someone else’s self, in your stead Are any of us free?

Psycatdelic

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by Jennifer Vaughn | pen and ink

abstraction of innocence

by Zoe Eischen tense and aching for a moment of reprieve, looking down and wishing for nothing more than the freedom of deep and uninterrupted sleep. Innocence is just a figment of our naivety, so fleeting and abstract. the calloused and dirty fingers of a friend can so easily find their way to places they don’t belong. And in an instant, thirteen years of Barbies and Cul-de-sac games turns into seven years of counseling, of not being able to look a man in the eyes out of fear, wincing when your father hugs you, confused when you pulled away. hands rubbed raw from scrubbing, ridding yourself of the smell of sweat and blood, and the feeling of his cold hands as he penetrated the depths of your soul. stuck bleeding in a tub of lukewarm water trying desperately to carve yourself out of the now empty husk of a stranger you never knew, damning the one who made you feel so broken, who left you all alone, as he walks free, but you don’t dare tell a soul. who could blame him for acting on his impulse? after all, boys will be boys, and it’s your fault for making him feel special.

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by Tea Blumer

| digital illustration 57

Déjà vu

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Machu Picchu Sunrise | photography

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by Charlie Harless

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by Sasha Rogalski

Mush!

| photography

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from: Remember!

by Samuel Deese In memoriam _____ -For the bones ...

Do-you remember when we met, I was little more than a child, as were you.

We both bought lattes and lemon cakes from the same little café in Paris, below the river, Far from the opera house and the Louvre and the “respectable” parts of the city.

A Gypsy village a street over, And a little Moroccan neighborhood a street beyond that.

The “slums”, The only place for artists and dreamers like you to grasp the soul of the world.

Not in the company of lord and duke, doused in jewel and Champaign, But flanked by the beggar, The urchin, The Bohemian, “Diamonds” in the Rough We laughed and joked, And made plans to travel together, Down to the Pyrenees, And the Riviera, And up to Amsterdam, And maybe one day, back to America even.

Whatever brief candle we held against the darkness, Was snuffed out in an instant by a hurricane of fire, And a typhoon of blood.

I was with you when you were thrown into the furnace, I was with you in Rockland.

I held you until the shells stopped falling and the fires burned themselves out, And the ground, spotted with corpse and crater,

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I can see!

- bodies, So many bodies still burn in the east, I can see the flames and smell the smoke from here, It stings the eyes and burns the throat, The ruins of 1000 kings, And the wreckage of each tribe, Broken, reformed, and broken again, Burning, still burning.

Heat of wicked flame, Dries up tears before they leave the eyes, And roar of the blaze and smoke of eternal furnace, That chokes the screams of man, Woman, And child, Before they can escape their throats.

Damascus, Babylon, Palestine, Jerusalem, From the Nile, to the Tigris, From Asia to all Arabia, Burning, All still burning.

I held you close, By the dim firelight, In a simple apartment overlooking the streets,

Market streets, Once lively, busy, crowded, Brimming with heart and song.

Now, Shops are closed, Cobblestone is in disrepair, And faded posters still blanket unpainted brick walls.

The horns are tarnished and dented, The strings have lost their tune, The music has lost its melody, The sun has lost its warmth.

Winds that blow through the streets at dusk, That used to kiss us softly and sing us to sleep, Now cut through the thickest coats and chill the bones, And scream curses in our ears.

Wind that once flowed through meadow and clearing, Now blows only through muddy trench and cratered field of metal and bone.

I’ll be sailing back across the sea to America, New York City, Chicago, Or some tiny town still hidden from the world, As soon as winter ends, I hear there is still music there.

In speakeasies and quiet clubs, (you won’t find them on signs in streets) Trumpet, Saxophone, and Piano play, Music is happy there, Among the dim chandeliers and cigarette smoke, More than a refuge from horror, More than an oasis of wine and rum, The crest on the moving wave of realm of man.

Bringing freedom like rain to parched lands.

Far from the ruins branded on my soul.

But-

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and not a damned speck of life to be found, Was littered with broken crowns and fractured empires that ages built and short months tore down.

Our hearts died within us as we put names to the corpses and stories to the corpses, And families, a broken family, for each soul in that ocean of corpses.

Our gold lost its luster, Our strings and horns lost the melody, And we had only wounds, Hideous deep wounds that burn and itch and would never heal.

The music, and the wine, and cigarette smoke, And you, Make me forget for a while.

We danced for hours to ragtime and swing, Thinking maybe we could learn again, How to dream.

I’ll have to depart from there soon too, I might go to my uncle’s, He hunts lion in South Africa.

I might go to my cousin’s, A tea merchant in Hong Kong.

But I can’t stay here.

Here where the resounding echo of guns drowns out the music, Here where the wine is sour, And clothe with skim and scum of muck and blood, Blood that gets on hands that will never wash off.

-Do you remember!

When the days waned short, And the snow fell, Clothing bare trees in a warm white embrace?

We skated on the lake, And made angels in the snow, And anxiously awaited that Yuletide day?

Innocence lost to time and age, White snow, Now dirty grey with ash, Now searing crimson with blood, A little part of us still wants to believe, That presents and bows in stockings and under trees, Come from afar, But we know the saints died in the bombard, Patrons of the best of us, Let us feast to them!

To time immemorial!

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Paint dries on the untouched brush, Broken pen with no words to write, Songbird with broken wings, In a cage, she does not sing.

Age to age we stand, Wandering bards on that twilight road, At the edge of life and death.

Only, Our songs are not joyous, they do not lift spirits and bring warmth to hearts, You will find no heroes here.

Only, Monster, marauder, goblin, ghoul, Tyrant, dragon, beasts most hideous, No redemption, deliverance, rhyme or reason, No beginning or end, Only, Chaotic flurry, Of sound and fury, Then nothing.

Songs, out of tune, played on broken instruments, with no verse or chorus, But still it drills into skull, And demands to be remembered, “Remember!”

Maybe we can learn from it, From our leaden hearts, and darkened souls, Maybe.

(but not likely) Now, Let us walk in the park, Where eventually the peach tree will bloom again, And the cherry blossoms will coat the air and ground, and lift the heart a bit.

The candlesticks still burn apparently, The angels are still tuning the trumpets, The whirlwind that whips through the thorn tree has died down, Maybe we’ll even see the sun through the clouds.

Let us walk through the gardens, With the gates now open, Let us come out of the crevice in the rock where we were hidden to look upon the light, Kiss us with the kisses of your mouth, We, the city, adorned as a bride, Delivered from the screaming fire and roaring guns, Where we can hear the sound of horn and lyre again, And bathe in crystal waters finally free of soot and blood...

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And, When we’re drunk on dandelion wine and mead, The dragons and marauders will drop their masks and raise their knives, And cut us apart.

Our kingdom will be dead before the cock crows at dawn.

We won’t feel the blades, wine will do its work.

Out, Out brief candle!

I’ve seen the end of the world, I wish to see no more!

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And in that desert stood the Navajo, Village of dry stick and orange stone, That’s been for a thousand years.

Wool blanket that tells of ages, Chieftain, warrior, battle, and sages, Stewards of the desert, with only sparse shrub and bird for company, Confident of rock, and friend to tumbleweed.

Moon above red mesa, Wolf and coyote calling out to the stars, Wicker baskets, woven by dry hands, Overflow with serenity and admiration.

Medicine man and shaman, With eagle feather and beaded rattle, Calling the fire to dance and sway, Beneath the calm of a desert night.

Mountain wind chills my bones, In the distance thunder rolledAnd scorpions scutter to and fro.

Song of shaman, howl of coyote, dancing fireSinuous song that permeates my soul, I take the pipe, The smoke glows, I feel earth turn, and stars dance, Age before time, and before the white man.

When there was flower in the desert after driving rain, The saguaro bloomed, And call of desert owl filled the searing air.

Ancestral desert, Ancient desert,

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Navajo, or Ode to The Desert

by Samuel Deese Somewhere between mountain and river, Cracked earth scorched by brazen sun, Cool singing winds at night that makes one shiver, Across sand and rock, scorpion and lizard run-

Beneath fist of Helios, Precarious balance of earth and man, First world, then blue, now yellow, And now to cross into glittering realm, To guard the peaks and holy land, To lift our feet off of rock and sand, And join the holy people again.

Desert, holy stone and sand, Comfort me.

In Tsegihi, In the house made of the dawn, In the house made of the evening light

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Untitled

by Grace Bilbao

| woven cotton, natural fibers

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Helping Hand

by Monica Galletto | photography

Consider

by Grace Bilbao

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by Grace Bilbao

| medium 71

Needs Title

Bharatanatyam Dancer

by Umaash Nallainathan

Ganesha

by Umaash Nallainathan

| cut-paper collage

| cut-paper collage

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by Katelynn McCorquodale

| photography 73

Untitled

Showdown with Death

by Ryan Lawrence The din of the saloon does nothing to stifle the creak of the door when Death pushes in, doesn’t drown out the jingle of his spurs, the thud of his boot-heels or the rain dripping off his hat-brim, and even though I’m drunk, I hear it all. I hear him say Which one of you shitheads is Ryan.

The floor empties, the bar clears, cigars are left to smolder, mugs of beer abandoned.

I want to be unflinching and brave, to pinch my brow and look down the six-shooter of Death, the hammer clicking, down the endless barrel to his snarling mouth and glowing aim, and make him be scared of missing, make him be scared of something, like he’s a servant dressed in black, overdue, flustered, and running, a yes-man, gofer, a flunky with another round of gin: I knew I had it coming.

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Conceal the Self

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by Cyrus Homesley | digital manipulation

Snow’s ghost

by Simone Tucker Mama always said the worst kind of people go to purgatory because they can never fucking decide and I guess that’s about where I’m at right now, with you I get lost on the way to your house, falling in love with winter’s immaculate blanket hiding spring’s love beneath it.

The snow’s ghost rests in the bottoms of my boots, with any memories from those months ago.

I love you behind the safety net of a closed dooronly the slightest glimpse, the trails of whispers can be caught the heat of bodies, together, underneath, in slight light You paint elaboratelypictures of things that have never happened, screaming in color, never raising your voice, always expecting compassion It takes two to tangle things this intricately your tears are salty, but they’re sweet on my tongue and your sins managed to wash away God, or any semblance of divinity.

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by Zeenat Nadvi

| photo manipulation

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Listen

Five News Headlines

by Simone Tucker “Attempted Armed Robbery” by a young black man, never seen, but somehow known to be black.

“Another [Innocent] Black Man Shot” another black body Lost, added to the growing pile by another [innocent] police officer.

“It’s Not an Epidemic”, Just killings; causeless, careless, chargeless.-Is it still a tragedy if it happens to a thug?

“Muslim Woman Lit on Fire” for beliefs presumed with no intentions, because she’s the one being terrorized.

“No Such Thing as Racism” screams the white page masked with its black ink, screams the white alt-right masked with its hatred, as if to say this is the same.

Valley Lights

by Alexa Molli

| photography

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dull mirrors masked in fingerprints to hide behind because I can’t look myself in the eyes I carved fuck you into my arms because red always was my favorite color And you said it looked good on me it takes 30 grams of tylenol to die.

I took 30 grams of tylenol to die but it’s okay because the poster on my wall tells me I’m beautiful every day and my phone background reminds me that I deserve love but I know that I don’t because when I was ten I almost drowned by jumping into the deep end, trying to prove it to myself A life of almosts; almost died almost happy almost enough almost alive It takes 30 years to feel alive but who knows if I’ll make it that long

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To Feel Alive

by Simone Tucker I can’t get out of bed mornings are the hardest especially when nights stretch themselves until the last bit of light licks at their heels

Mountains

| digital illustration

Untitled

by Julia Conlon

| photography

by Tea Blumer

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Open to Love

by Nicholas Casale fuck this unprecedented body all its joy all its sorrow exists on the edge of existence I treat the world like a crystal ball the wing of a butterfly like I’m gonna break it at the slightest overreach I am not blistering fury I am silent thunder my baptism of fire yields a peace you might admire “.. spent half a year on the verge of tears, just cause nothing ever feels like it did before ...” so now I just want to cry in public all the time because ‘public’ is no longer public people exist in space together but apart delineated by digital dreams the internet makes you seem more interesting than you are

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Troquantaries

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by Melanie Bodane | pen and digital illustration

There are three waiting colors: green, red, blue.

Beneath each bus stop pillar are drained bodies sick with symptoms of a night submerged in dull white light and insistent beeps.

Underneath red, a little girl carries a cloud of patched blankets in her reedy arms.

The bundled baby squirms, slips down her short body. Their mother chats loudly on a flip phone about nail appointments, a new man.

The girl does not complain or ask for help.

Reflecting

by Monica Galletto | photography

Moore Square Station at Night

by Threa Almontaser Cigarette smoke makes faces murky.

Spectral oil leaks on bland pavement.

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by Grace Bilbao

| medium 87

Needs Title

To Dream of Anglerfish

by Jessica Bowden She was at long last, gone from him: pulled by the waves into an iridescent sea, with no need to strain or swim, She had been lured in by the lights of strange, bioluminescing things; their glowing probed her curiosity.

Before descending to the depths, the stars reflected in her eyes and she knew there was no need for breath. ~ He rowed his tiny yellow boat far from the small, familiar shore-Ebbed and flowed: his oars, his hope.

He slowly flipped the lantern On, mounted it to the flimsy mast, and waited silently for her return.

The light cut through the morning fog, and dispersed fully across the waves.

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by Dhruvi Suresh Fulfagar

| watercolor 89

Dreams Ashore

and Tequila

by Simone Tucker my dispossession of my own body was borne from his disposition; he never spoke, but his words still stick to my neck like sweat he grabbed my ass as easily as the handrail on the smoky bus. i was eleven. the next time, i was alone and he was her brother so i let silence choke me hoarse. maybe whores like you just need to get fucked harder he stuck his hand down there, where momma said was private and no one could see. i was fourteen. i liked harry potter and soccer but afterwards i liked nothing. i grew used to the whistles and the jeers by the time i was fifteen, they wouldn’t stop. a high pain tolerance isn’t a good sign But i’ve been told that i should be flattered. if i know one thing it’s that if you’re a damn, girl then you aren’t a damn girl at all, but a vessel to catch their words. i can’t stand not to be in control anymore so i lose control until i can’t stand anymore because it will happen anyway.

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i’ve found tequila works the best. to drown the feelings threatening to claw their way out of my esophagus, leaving my throat raw and bleeding and you pushed your way inside my building, my room, my body, my life. you’re still in it, because i can’t find it inside me to say no to anyone. you said you’ve never come so quickly before. maybe it was the soft kiss of sleep my hesitation, your insistence

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i’m still sticky after showering every hour, still smell like scotch and whatever else you dumped on me

Yagua Tribesman

by Charlie Harless

| photography

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Consider

AUDIO

by Grace Bilbao windhoveraudio.bandcamp.com

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1. parking decks | Cyrus Homesley 2. strider | David Storelli 3. who knows | H. H. Leroy & Brandon Beng 4. love | Justin Kuhn 5. captain planet | Rhea Lewis 6. hood dreams | Ty Flow 7. dysfunctional | FilthMoth 8. vuio | Robert Hooper 9. water rat | Outlet 10. yikes! a feminist! | Taha Arif 11. crescentia shop | William Collins

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12. the line for space mountain | thetallesttree

Credits

WINDHOVER Editor-in-chief

Nikita Chintalapudi

Managing Editor

Ashley Darrisaw

Designing Editor

Trevor Berreth

Designer

Eden Faulkner

Visual Editor Alanna Hart Literary Editor Sarah Alford Audio Editor Benjamin Webber Promotions Manager

C Phillips

Visual Committee

Abby Redus

Sasha Rogalski

Literary Committee

Kali Fillhart

Holly Bair Lucy Marcum

Printer Theo Davis Printing

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