White Flags Blue Green Grey

Moljavka

White Flags

LINDSAY PHILLIPS

Separated and sent to our rooms because we’d been Fighting, my brother winds up a hot wheels car and Sends it racing down the hallway and into my room. It is a peace offering because our rooms are too quiet And we are too lonely and we don’t want to fight Anymore because today is rainy and we are the only Playmates each other has. I wind up the car and send It back to show that I accept his offering and the car Speeds back and forth across the wooden floors and Through doorways and likely scratches the floorboards But we don’t care because we are absolved and laughing In whispers so mom and dad don’t hear (though they Can certainly hear). We don’t know yet that forgiveness Won’t always be this easy. That white flags can be too Heavy if you wait too long.

Lindsay Phillips is a Chicago-based writer and editor whose work has previously been featured in The Vanguard and at UW-Madison’s Literati Conference. Her writing deals primarily with memory and the contrasting emotions that arise when examining the past. When not reading or writing, she can likely be found drinking too much iced coffee or accidentally overwatering her plants.

Maria Kuza

Blue Green Grey

LINDSAY PHILLIPS

Lying in bed, he is looking at me With his blue green eyes, which sometimes look grey, And I feel a chill descend my spine And re-rise to settle in the base of my neck It makes part of me wonder if you can feel A dopamine release as it happens

But another part of me tells myself To shut my brain off just for now, And look at his blue green eyes, which sometimes look grey, Because there may come a time when I can’t.

There may come a time when He won’t look at me the way he looks at me After I’ve made him laugh. Won’t reach to hold my hands in his When mine are cold - which is always He finds that charming - but charm can fade

Maybe one day I won’t feel his breath On my neck while he falls asleep holding me Marvel at the thought that his body is as close To mine as it can be and still I want it closer. Or maybe there will come a day When I look into his eyes and they Won’t look blue green and sometimes grey they’ll just look dull And I’ll wonder how I ever thought them remarkable.

I’ll forget that they once moved me to write. Forget I wore out minutes like an old sweater Stretched the memory of them around me To keep me warm until I saw them again.

Lying in bed, he is looking at me With those eyes that yes, change color, But I know there’s still more magic to be found.

I squeeze my own eyes shut and hope To hold onto those colors forever, Blue green and sometimes grey Dancing on the inside of my eyelids.

When I open my eyes back up his are still there waiting for me I tell myself that for this moment, that’s enough