Spectrum: Northeastern University's Literary Arts Magazine: Calendar and Academic Planner 2018-19

Calendar & Academic Planner 2018–19

@NUspectrum @NUspectrum fb.com/spectrumneu

northeastern.edu/spectrum

STAFF Editor-in-Chief Creative Director & Layout Manager Co-Designer Finance Manager Secretary Advertising Director

Natalya Jean Doga Tasdemir Natalya Jean Haniyyah Tobarri Gwen Cusing Remenna Xu

Students, faculty, and alumni of Northeastern University are invited to submit to Spectrum. Submitted work will be considered for our upcoming issues and calendars.

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SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

234 Curry Student Center spectrum.magazine@gmail.com 434 Curry Student Center

Cover art adapted from “One Among Many’ by Jared Hirschfeld.

No part of this publication may be reproduced without the permission of Spectrum Literary Arts Magazine and/or respective authors. Spectrum Literary Arts Magazine reserves the right to edit submissions for layout, grammar, spelling, and punctuation unless otherwise indicated by the author. Any references to people living or dead are purely coincidental except in the case of public figures. The views and opinions represented in this media do not necessarily reflect those of Northeastern University or the staff of Spectrum Literary Arts Magazine.

Copyright© Spectrum Literary Arts Magazine and respective authors.

All rights reserved.

• Save your writing as a word document (.doc), text (.txt), or PDF file • Include only ONE piece per document • Name your submission file “Author – Title” • Include title of work at top of page • Indicate special layout/tabulation specification (if applicable) • Limit submissions to five double-spaced pages at 12pt font

ART & PHOTOGRAPHY • Save images in JPEG, PNG, RTF, or PDF format, 300 dpi resolution • Name your submission “Artist – Title” • Include name, contact info, and any editing restrictions

And so the world turned upside down by Liam O’Donnell

First Spread–go wild!

SEPTEMBER 3 - Labor Day / The Zine Scene 8 - Creative Afternoon in the Public Garden 5 - Fall classes begin 10 - First Spectrum meeting

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Sunburn by Natalya Jean this kind of wind is dangerous– stealing the evening heat from your cheeks before you even suspect a burn. i however know i’m feeling this summer sun beating down on my swaying head unearthing motifs better left alone left buried (settled in the dirt long ago) now cultivating these seasonal blooms. i’m feeling something, for sure, sweltering in this metaphorical greenhouse.

too blinded by the glare of white teeth glinting in the sunlight piercings flashing tattoos tanning to notice summer had arrived. this weather flushes out everything, it seems– limbs exposed feelings exposed i’m sweating, sitting here across from you slowly turning red and waiting for autumn to begin.

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Montreal by Joshua Peyok I’m moving through the clouds, unable to see past my immediate surroundings. The air here is thick, sounds muffled. Slurred silhouettes converse as the ground moves and shakes beneath my feet. I can’t hear them. I’m not even sure I exist.

Moving fast and sitting still, I can’t be sure. Mist is rushing over me. This cavern seems to go on and on, will it ever end?

Maybe I was eaten. The walls bend and constrict, twist and turn, I can’t be sure. One moment I can see for miles, I can see the exit, the next brings darkness. Mouths open and close as the figures wade in the mist. I feel the vibrations left in their wake, I feel the emptiness. Dust.

There is dust here. I can’t trust my eyes to guide me, maybe I should take them out. Remove the lenses blinding me and feel my way. I’ve lied and been lied to, why should I trust this dementia? Without my eyes I am free to trust. The voices are faint and fewer now. I took a chance as the mouth opened, followed the voices out of the beast. It’s screeches are far away, a bad memory. Shades of green and gray surround me. It is pleasant here. Time is passing.

The wind playing through leaves tells me that. I can’t understand the voices but I trust them.

Maybe they will lead me home.

Maybe.

Misty Mountains by Liam O’Donnell

OCTOBER 8 - Spectrum fall submission deadline / Columbus Day 31 - Halloween

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Wonder of the World by Samanjate Sood

NOVEMBER 12 - Veterans’ Day / No classes 21 - Thanksgiving break begins 26 - Classes resume

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waking by Liam Bell i sit awake it’s past three in the am, to be clear i’m not drunk, not anymore why can’t i fall asleep here i’m tired but not sleepy what’s keeping me awake is unknown it’s not worries and it’s not hunger

i wish i had a pill one to make me sleep or make me black out something to help with waking

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DECEMBER

In the Line of Fire by Helena Kang i.

They say denial is the first part.

But I’m not sure what they’re talking about, I was never in denial, right?

The fluttering of my stomach was just nerves before a big exam, The clammy hands because it was hot outside today and why did nobody think to turn on the air conditioner in here, The involuntary pull of my mouth when I scanned a crowd was because I was people watching and not because I saw your face– fuck, I was gone before I even knew your name.

They say denial is the first stage of acceptance, but how do I accept the fact that I wasn’t what you wanted? ii.

I miss you.

In a new country with no sense of familiarity, In an empty room by myself with only my thoughts for company, In a bed too big for one but small enough for two, I miss you.

I miss the way your raspy voice would sleepily ask for the time.

I miss the way you would move your body closer to mine while refusing to get up.

I miss the way you messily ran your fingers through your hair as you stretched your drowsiness away.

I miss you.

Why couldn’t you have been just another warm body? iii.

I wrote your name on matches Hoping to find closure in watching them go up in flames.

But all I was left with were burned fingers And your name forever branded onto my skin. .

Maybe playing with matches gave her an excuse to let her soul catch on fire from a flame she couldn’t control.

iv.

I took the hit just to spite you, thinking I could finally see the evidence of you leaving my system as I exhaled.

But as my throat burned and my mind started to swim, all I could think about was you and how I’d rather have your arms surrounding me. *** v.

People stay up late thinking about past loves or heartbreak, but you weren’t a “what if,” you were hardly a “maybe.”

Yet I still spent two years drowning deeper and deeper in the thought of you but when I finally broke the surface, I saw that the words coming out of your mouth were saying “not you.” … “love you” too. vi.

I stopped setting myself on fire just to keep you warm because you didn’t know what to do with me– I was always too hot or too bright or too suffocating.

And so every time, You only took the warmth you needed and left.

Left me scraping up my embers with shaking hands and a cold heart, vowing to never touch a match again, not again.

Not until you were cold and lonely did you show up again, and I thought I was too.

Because by keeping you warm, I was kindling my own flame.

But I kept using the wrong firewood– too broken, too toxic, too easily blown away.

And it wasn’t until the fire finally died did I learn how to build a home for it, a real home.

So I’m more than just a warm body now.

I’m a home filled with fire and passion and emotions and love ...and not you. vii. maybe they were right. maybe I did learn how to accept it after all.

3 - Spectrum fall issue release party 5 - Last day of fall classes 6 - Reading Day 7 - Final exams begin 14 - Final exams end

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Girl In Grand Bazaar by Taraneh Azar

JANUARY 7 - First day of spring classes 21 - MLK Day / No classes

I Found You by Carolina Do Nascimento I’d always been in search Of the perfect poem And then I found you

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FEBRUARY

Attack formation by Ben Landsberg

18 - Spectrum spring submission deadline / Presidents’ Day

Cold Water by Samuel Penney I stand at a window overlooking the garden The Maine breeze lapping at me Like the waves of the Atlantic In my mind I slowly step into the windy shore My ankles go numb.

I turn my gaze low to the pinks and yellows The marvelous whites and greens I whisper to myself in my head The haughty words I’ll write about this moment Hoping I’ll remember them another time.

The rustle of leaves The crash of water on sand

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What difference is there?

I am up to my chest in both My trunk goes numb.

Hills here roll as gently as eggs in a nest A curve molded by a mother’s hand Their grassy hides shiver in the ocean Reminding us of something long forgotten It almost becomes too much.

The leaves break on the sand The sea spills over the garden Mother’s symphony cries out My head goes numb.

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to not belong by Sarah Sherard

MARCH 2 - First day of spring break 11 - Classes resume

flowers in Munich graveyard by Aidan Meyer-Golden It’s not time spent in a flooded cellar that teaches what is wet.

Half the beauty is in finding doors closed where once believed open, as for the other half I can only live there, words directed at it fail, but by aiming at edges learn the shape.

I only notice the smell of paint when I’ve just opened the lid.

By a process of disambiguation, samizdat circulation, I come to the dead-ground you directed me towards on account of the flowers.

It is my first Spring outside of Boston and the death will come to me regardless of my pursuit of it, but I am living out my past-lives in a calm-tense of dismantling apparition and finding the clarity of ghosts which cannot be denied. I still haven’t found the flowers but boundaries, or a basement swimming pool tinted by the sunlight (after undergoing the long repudiation of edifice) lavender, like a field of German Spring graveyard flowers.

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Thaw by Hannah Levinson Frozen fingertips print fresh ink, still wet from a newly thawed mind.

Surface ice, but underneath‌ fresh pools teem, ideas leap.

My mind swims with all I have to give.

The day spring comes and the glaciers melt I will trickle down into the clear stream of life, of joy.

Frozen fingertips, post-thaw, will trickle to reach you.

APRIL 8 - Spring issue release party 15 - Patriots’ Day 17 - Last day of spring classes 18 - Reading Day 19 - Final exams begin 16 - Final exams end

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exhale by Gwen Cusing

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Atacama Illuminated by Jared Hirschfield

MAY 3 - Commencement 6 - First day of summer 1 and full summer classes 27 - Memorial Day / No classes

12:59 am by Sarah Better I was swimming through the ocean of my sleep When your name woke me like a storm shakes the sea Then I blinked and I lost you like that one cold night When endless moments became vague memories My thoughts carried the sun and the moon But you taught me to bury them under insecurities You aimed your gun at what freedom could have been I exchanged my body for ephemeral glee

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Stand Back by Yanni Pappas

JUNE 20 - Last day of summer 1 classes 24 - Summer 1 finals begin 25 - Summer 1 finals end

Ante Meridiem by Elke Thoms Alarm in hand, you ask, “‘A.M.’ means morning, right?” not because you are unfamiliar with ante meridiem and post meridiem, but because you must, must wake up early tomorrow.

I whisper-laugh, “Yes.” I am not a morning person, but I’ll keep waking up to your too-early alarms to keep waking up to your trust.

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JULY

Cliffhanger by Doga Tasdemir

4 - Independence Day

Town Whore by J.F. Connolly The red light hung for sex.

In the back room of Hayes’ News we bundled papers for our route, heard drivers’ stories of the red light lady who made them feel like “soup.”

The woman’s name was Eloise.

One story held her at the pond on graduation night, stripped clean like the glossy girls in the magazines we kept hidden behind our church.

That was the year Pavel Menowski said he held Helen Tinsley’s hand. behind the curtain at our seventh grade play, He said he kissed her eyes and kissed her tongue.

We finally saw her on a cold November night.

In the light of her second storey window a man held her and stoked her hair that fell down her bare back.

Under the hemlocks, in the scratch of the their branches against her house, before a siren’s whine broke us into fright, before we abandoned our eyes and ran away, our held breath came forth like incense, rising, hanging in the red light.

We knew he lied.

At altar boy practice we recited the Confiteor by heart.

Father John said that a girl’s breast was a light bulb and we were moths.

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Best Protective Eyewear by Phi Dieu Hang Nguyen

AUGUST 8 - Last day of full summer classes 12 - Full summer final exams begin 15 - Full summer final exams end / Last day of summer 2 classes 19 - Summer 2 final exams begin 20 - Summer 2 final exams end

Origins by Gwen Cusing On a silver bus with bruise-blue crushed velvet seats, my father’s head lolls into the window, his calligraphy ink hair slicing shadows across his face.

Around us: chaos. Slick shards of Mandarin pierce my calves, drawing blood that stains my socks a lucky red. My mother tongue is swollen into something they cannot recognize This window has never been a good mirror.

This face in the glass: blur, whitewash, chrysanthemum-skinned flash burn. I am snow-blank ash, drifting, riding trade winds back to Amoy, China,

Su M 1925. A little boy with calligraphy ink hair reaches out in the thick summer darkness, his almond eyelids seared shut. When he speaks, ash comes pouring out of his mouth and I am folded into my body again, the collection of miles threatening to break through my parchment paper skin.

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