SPRING 2014
SPECTRUM LITERARY ARTS MAGAZINE
spectrum.magazine@gmail.com www.spectrum.neu.edu 234 Curry Student Center Mailbox: 240 Curry
Spectrum Literary Arts Magazine showcases the talents of writers and artists at Northeastern University. All members of the Northeastern community are encouraged to submit original works of poetry, prose, and visual art.
EXECUTIVE STAFF
EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jennifer Kronmiller LAYOUT AND DESIGN: Evangeline Fachon SECRETARY: Aislyn Fredsall FINANCIAL MANAGER: Eryn Carlson ADVERTISING MANAGER: Liam Dyer ASSISTANT EDITOR: Lauren Smith GENERAL MEMBERS
Kelly Burgess, Joe Columbus, Alana Dore, Emily Good, James Griffin, Will Jackson, Anika Krause, Julia Renner, Eliza Swieczkowski Cover Art adapated from “Salamanca Markets” by Victoria Butler Spectrum Literary Arts Magazine, Spring 2013 Edition Copyright ©Spectrum Literary Arts Magazine and respective authors. All rights reserved. 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, layout, grammar, spelling and punctuation unless explicitly instructed otherwise by the author or artist. Any references to people living or dead are purely coincidental. The views and opinions in this medium do not necessarily reflect those of Northeastern University or the staff of Spectrum Literary Arts Magazine.
CONTENTS... 3. LITERARY DEVICES Julia Renner BLUE LAKE - Victoria Butler
23. VOICE - Holly Van Hare TEMPUS VINCIT OMNIA Mario Petrucci
5. A THOUSAND APOLOGIES Beth Hutchings FLATTENED - Leah Corbett
25.BUTT OF THE JOKE Anika Krause FAIRY LAND - Leah Corbett
7. BITE ME - Laurel Whelan DON’T FORGET YOUR WINDBREAKER David Boudreau
27. HOMERIC SIREN SPOTTED AT LOCAL RESTAURANT Bianca Zabala ROSIE - Zoe Gregoric
9. REBELLION - Lindsey Ashe FRIDAY NIGHT (TRAFFIC) LIGHTS Elena Roffel
29. WHERE’S THE THRONE Robin Reyes CORROSION - Stephanie Eng
11. MACHINE WASH WARM Bianca Zabala THE LOOKOUT - Caroline Malouse
31. SNELL - E.C.E HORSIE - Murat Uzer
13. SIX DAYS BEFORE YOUR FIRST REAL KISS Jennifer Kronmiller RIGID ENTRANCE POLICY Ben Landsberg 15. PREDATORS - Alana Dore TARONGA TIGRIS - Victoria Butler
33. DUNES - Julia Renner STATE OF FUGUE Julia Boudreau 35. PURPLED HEARTS Jennifer Kronmiller BONDI - Julia Butler
17. IT’S AN ART - Anika Krause GEM - Zoe Gregoric
37. GRADUATION GOGGLES Lindsey Ashe SOMETHING’S UP IN PARADISE Henni Sundlun
19. MY-SELF-LOVE-LETTER Amy Hood ANGEL IN COMMUTE Ben Landsberg
39. NIGHTFALL, FRIDAY AFTER FIVE Amy Hood UNTITLED - Zoe Gregoric
21. OCTOBER 31, 1979 David Boudreau
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Blue Lake VICTORIA BUTLER
Literary Devices JULIA RENNER
I will say this without metaphor: poetry is not real. This poem is imaginary unless did it make someone hurt? did it make someone feel? did it make something real? Do you whisper, zeugma, when you hand someone your ink and your heart? Our pencils do not fit into the narrow alleys between our hearts and our bones and we are all bruised in places that syntax and metaphor can never reach and never mend These words are pointless because it’s not the rhythm of syllables but the staccato measures of our pulse not where the lines end but our seams and scars Enjambment: the moments that spill helplessly into each other the summers that trip into falls the round the sun and back again until another repeat of the day you were born because poetry is life is breath the lines share space we share the very breath that we question The only real poem I ever wrote was to someone I loved She had been hurt from beneath the skin the very insides of the hollow bird bones I could not stop the reef of bruises from surfacing so I gathered the words I trailed and condensed them into something solid nothing about the words mattered they dissolved into reality with her tears and sublimated into ghosts of fog and apologies They burst from the seeds of pain so something about them was real after all.
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A Thousand Apologies BETH HUTCHINGS A thousand apologies of scripted significance Lay Between them on the linoleum floor Mingling With razor clear shards And the Jack pooling outward Like the golden-honeyed blood Of murdered intentions The ghosts Of words that might have been Lingered in the air infinitesimally Then Snatched back Before they could be said Then, A tipping point And there was only an Echo of heels and The sillage of her perfume The silhouette of a man was left there; The dim glow of the television Reflected in his eyes.
Flattened
LEAH CORBETT
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Don't Forget Your Windbreaker DAVID BOUDREAU
Bite Me
LAUREL WHELAN There’s a bruise blooming on my neck in the shape of your lips, peeking out from under the collar of my shirt. In three days it’s faded from the purple-red of taboo roses to the rusty brown of the birch leaves in the winter that go through the phoenix motions but refuse to blow away. I walked home from your place Saturday afternoon in an unexpected snowstorm, wearing the black velvet dress and patent leather heels that spent the night sighing on your floor. I refuse to call it a walk of shame. People stared at me as my shoes left small square imprints in the virginal snow, wondering what I was so fucking happy about. The January wind can’t make me shiver the way your hands do as they caress the knobs of my spine. Let everyone stare and wonder why the full moon is shining out of my eyes. I find myself tugging at the scarves and rubbing off the thick lines of make-up. I like having something that marks me as yours, a souvenir from a night spent trying to touch every part of you at once.
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Rebellion
LINDSEY ASHE
you were the vodka I never filled a water bottle with in my high school biology class and the joint I never smoked under the bleachers you were the cigarette ash I never stamped out with the toe of my blue plaid Chuck Taylors in the parking lot by my car my grade point average and my lungs are intact but humans all have the urge to destroy and prove that rules are made of glass only so you can put a fist through them. and you broke the rule I made with my best friend while she chain-smoked out the window of her car that I had to date a girl with a two syllable name so that it would fit into the melody of our favorite song and every rule I always ignore about not expecting from someone what they can’t give you I wanted to pour oceans into paper cups and roll up continents like turf for a football field put sunsets into jars like fireflies uproot redwoods and put them in clay pots put every language in the world on a mixtape and coax every nearly extinct animal into a bag of crackers so maybe this would be enough I would have handed you our planet instead of flowers before I took you out to dinner but you didn’t want my world and just because glass can be broken doesn’t mean you won’t slice your palms right down the crease of your love line on the shards
Friday Night (Traffic) Lights
ELENA ROFFEL
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Machine Wash Warm BIANCA ZABALA
you’ve had it for a few years now. polyester, probably, and never bleeds onto anything, which is convenient. there used to be sequins, red ones above the anchor, but too many washes gets rid of a lot of things. it’s obviously been through a lot— the neckline’s stretched, and so is the fabric. when your mother tells you to get rid of it, you don’t speak to her for a day and wear it as an act of defiance, pretending like the hole on the front doesn’t exist. thank god it’s small enough that you can. you hold onto it like you do with everything else you have the potential to outgrow.
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CAROLINE MALOUSE
The Lookout
Six Days Before Your First Real Kiss mopping was like painting the floor, she thought, except that a canvas was added to, while a floor was swept bare. the water was no paint, certainly; it hardly conveyed her worries, the steady back and forth zig-zag that varied only to swerve around the dining hall table, but it was soothing, in a way, just to see her efforts darken the tile, change the color of the hardwood, to see the dust and sweat and footprints vanish into the knotted strings of her brush. the boy walked by, not bothering to step around her segmented wet patches - “you missed a spot!� he laughed, tracking the brackish swamp onto the living room carpet - but she was the painter and this was her impressionist piece and if there was a strip she had neglected, well, it was surely a deliberate symbol. putting on make-up was no art, however. tuesday morning, 7:34am: she tries to mix the dark purple with the metallic blue but it only comes out faint, blurred, not an electrifying strip on her eyelids to make Bowie proud. she twists the lipstick once, twice, charming the snake out of the metallic tube. her lips are too chapped to spread it smooth, and the result
JENNIFER KRONMILLER is like dry brush on a sheet of sandpaper. the boy does not tell her that her skin is porcelain. he glances at her through the mirror, shoving his books into a backpack and combing a hand over the absence a buzz-cut now fills: “that’s a little thick, ain’t it?” he says, and she wishes she could find that goldilocks golden ratio so that every spot would radiate beauty, or confidence, or some other lesser god. in art class, her teacher shows them how to sketch flowers, and she sharpens the pencil until the shavings make a ring around her notepad. paralysis sets in: a line will never be a petal, no matter how hard she tries. there is no attempt at what will not be perfection, no redemption to be found in fingers that cannot paint beauty even on their own master. out of the corner of his mouth, the boy mumbles, “i didn’t know flowers were invisible.” the birds outside are singing, but she swears even they sound off-key.
Rigid Entrance Policy BEN LANDSBERG
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Taronga Tigris
VICTORIA BUTLER
Predators
ALANA DORE
It comes {defeated} in boxes large, square, hot in the car it warms my lap every few minutes I lift the pile so my legs don’t burn the windows fog every inhale is toasted crust anticipation is a killer there is no waiting: no hellos, no inquiries, no niceties a cardboard top arcs its way to the granite the thwap marks the massacre our tongues water our insides howl bloody crust paints our mouths fills our famished stomachs a masterpiece like the first wheel those cavemen invented previously undisturbed by rumbling stomachs and glassy eyes greedy, greasy hands devour each morsel slices folded neatly in half [and here is attempted civility] not a single breath is taken without a savage rip of food And, as quickly as it came it leaves {dismembered} in boxes large, square, empty with only scarlet stains as a reminder of the carnage
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It's An Art
ANIKA KRAUSE
I was surprised to see you misty-eyed at the museum, but then i remembered that your whole world was watercolor, blurred reality, muddy dreams, crayola set splattered, embryonic sketches eraser burned, and to see the colors running together, harmonious and holy on sanctified walls, must have broken your stratified heart.
Gem ZOE GREGORIC
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Angel in Commute BEN LANDSBERG
my-self-love-letter AMY HOOD “I am a beautiful, smart, attractive, Compassionate Wo-man who has done Very well for herself, Considering, Not considering.�
you tell me to repeat this like a mantra, like a meditation, like a medicine. you tell me to repeat it over and over like the steps of a dance until my feet are familiar with the rhythms of loving oneself. you tell me that perspective is something soft, bendable, something you can mold with your hands. i tell you my heart is some old closet filled with dust and postcards and letters from relatives i had never quite met. i tell you my heart is a toolbox with a few rusty nails and bits of newspaper inside. i tell you my body fits me like an overwashed cotton sweater a few sizes too small. i tell you my skin fits me like steel wool fits the side of a dirty saucepan. you smile. you tell me i am a beautifulsmartattractive wo-man, a beautiful-smart-woman, your hands on my cheeks, your hands on my waist, your hands, your hands, my heart.
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October 31, 1979 DAVID BOUDREAU
21
Voice
HOLLY VAN HARE I called him, dialed the numbers unnecessary. Clicking call—green means go—was a severed indictment in the making, the action clinging to the consumerism of a Jew drinking an espresso from the gift shop at Auschwitz. It was a sick reverence in the words “I can.” Other words were harder to say; other words caught and tore in my throat like an inhalation of laughing gas. It threatened to kill. Ich bin hass. Ich bin hass. I spit them like sin, a sickening slur of desultory expulsion, emotion expelled like an army-man from an aircraft, his children waiting at home next to a silencing and silent telephone, his body hurled behind the lines of a mob’s mentality and my phone rings. The polemic impeachment of Poland thrust, blood flows to the Sola, a single tear falls on a telephone wire from a child at home and I say hello through the appellate wires and whisper Ich bin hass. I’m yours.
Tempus Vincit Omnia MARIO PETRUCCI
23
Butt of the Joke ANIKA KRAUSE
You like to pretend that your cigarette is a metaphor for pipe dreams, snubbed by the ocean of old age, and that your ash is the spume of foreign seas that you were supposed to sail but, regrets, regrets, dramamine couldn’t drown the beast, and that the scent you leave in the mittens your grandmother braved arthritis for is a clever symphony of memory, an opus imprinted in mottled wool. But I’ve been dying to tell you that the husks of the words I swallowed for your sake are still swilling in my stomach with bile and breakfast. But they are empty and so is your pack. And I know I know I am no longer the ember that lights your December, and perhaps I never was. So I’ll digest my husks, and you’ll suck down your metaphors, and leave symphonies in red wool to rust.
Fairy Land LEAH CORBETT
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Rosie
ZOE GREGORIC
Homeric Siren Spotted at Local Restaurant BIANCA ZABALA
The waiter thinks I am twenty-one, so I encourage him. I make a big show of easing my hair to one side and exposing my neck. I feel a thrill when I shift my dress down and watch him eye me as I cross my legs. I pretend like I don’t notice, and later, when at the end of the night he will give me my bill with his phone number on the back, his name in capital letters and underlined twice, I will smile. The couple at table twelve tries to flag him down twice, but he makes a beeline for me as soon as he exits the kitchen. They know exactly why he keeps checking on my meal. From where they’re sitting, they have a perfect view of him dipping his eyes as if to check the amount of water in my glass when he is only levelling his gaze with the swell of my breasts. Table twelve look like a lovely pair, so I tilt my head in apology. After the last man at the bar leaves, the waiter comes back and confesses hurriedly under his breath that he tried absinthe for the first time in Israel over the summer. I keep my mouth from admitting that I build walls to keep myself from writing about you again, only to end up bloodying my knuckles instead. The shift manager is eyeing us suspiciously, so I run my finger down the laminated menu and ask for a bowl of strawberries. He’s still on the clock so he can’t sit across the booth from me the way he’s wanted to all night. When he brings me the fruit, he asks if I’m sure I don’t want a glass of champagne with it. I pretend like the near-empty restaurant is loud enough for me to mishear him and say yes, I’d like the check, please. He doesn’t want to go, so I set my left hand on my thigh and run my right hand through my hair. It sends him running. I don’t go home with him, but just barely. The way he keeps his eyes on my fingers as I sign the receipt stays with me until the morning, and I wake up to the unfulfilled promise of alcohol and unfamiliar hands in familiar places. I turn and bury my head under my pillows, awash with a sadness heavy as the look he gave me as soon as I sat down. I will make another reservation as soon as I get out of bed.
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Where's the Throne? ROBIN REYES He sounds so happy. If only he saw his audience, But they are drowned Out by the power Of his repetitive declarations. The rebellion is brewing, But instead of bubbling up And exploding at the top They are sinking Like poorly stirred spices. His voice veiling the sound Of neighbors Slaying one another in the night. His music has mesmerized the public; It explodes from the radio, Vibrating every corner of the rust encrusted Camry, Which sits anchored By a meter maid’s long threatened shackles. One of the local kids rolls by, His shirt stained with sweat From the effort of turning his wheels Over the cracked pavement. He nods his head And raps along About gold chains and cocaine As he trudges Through thick summer air And searing shoulder pain. Deftly he maneuvers his chair Around the crowd, Brushing against the drunken dancers, But no one looks down at him. They are too engrossed by the images Spewing from the speakers.
Corrosion
STEPHANIE ENG
29
Horsie MURAT UZER
Snell E.C.E
my life is the portal outside snell: utterly useless and vaguely related to engineering and snowdrifts collect against it in the winter hundreds of people walk through it absent-minded, indifferent, unaffected by its presence
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State of Fugue JULIA BOUDREAU
Dunes JULIA RENNER is this where we buried you four summers ago? the stems of your limbs fading into the sand? your arms were bare, pale hairs rising up sheltering you from the sputtering coughs of the tide. you made footprints that dissolve into sand but your molecules morph to salt and the strained echoes of bird calls. it’s colder than last year or the one before. I try to bind my skin to yours, try to pretend your heat can seep under my nails, into the shells of my ears, the inside corners and cracks there are black logs here, proof of fires: charcoal crumbling, announcing nothing but the lack of heat. your fingerprints are burned dark. draw scars behind my eyes so that I will not remember how to forget your hands when they sleep beneath you, palms parallel to oceans miles, miles from where I’ll be dunes fell but I can almost imagine your imprint remains scratched into what used to be stones before multiplied months broke them down into something less solid, more shifting, nothing you can hold with the impediment of bones. if I lie here— tell me some of your cells remain. tell me we electrified them and left them outside of time tell me I can breathe them, dust off the months and make you real.
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Purpled Hearts JENNIFER KRONMILLER i’ve been trying to be more honest lately like that will solve anything honest, like a drill sergeant must be when his wife asks if she looks fat “you look fine, dear,” he says, and he doesn’t tell her to drop down, do 20 push ups and he doesn’t say, that lump of a stomach could feed my ensigns for weeks that kind of honesty where i tell you what i think you think you need to hear, where the asterisk just gets bigger and bigger. i’m getting carpal tunnel from going through the motions so many times and you keep posing me these questions with your hands clasped tight in prayer with your face turned up to my soul but if everyone’s hurt you in the past why would i be the exception? we are just the same shitty molecules and i drink and smoke and swear too much to ever be your jesus.
35
Bondi
VICTORIA BUTLER
Graduation Goggles LINDSEY ASHE
I read halfway into books before starting a new one and I get Sunday night feelings on Saturday because I know I’ll have them tomorrow I know where all the nearest exits are especially the ones closest to you and I wear nostalgia like perfume but despite how well-versed I am in re-reading old yearbook entries and reminiscing I haven’t been chilled with the feeling you get in the silence after a door slam yet; and I don’t know if that’s intuition or just denial so deep it makes the Grand Canyon look like a cereal bowl.
Something's Up in Paradise HENNI SUNDLIN
37
nightfall, friday after five AMY HOOD
it’s late afternoon, friday after five, and the clouds are these great white beasts that devour the blue patches of irish sky, their great white fur coats whipped by a wind far too cold for september. outside, they cast these long shadows like outstretched arms striping the irish countryside in thick slices of gold and grey. you lie next to me, hot tears caught in my eyelashes, your arms draped lightly like bedlinens over my shoulders, your bare chest rising and falling, a steady rhythm, a tide. you’re whispering, it’s not your fault, hasn’t anyone ever told you that? through the opened window, the sun is bleeding in beneath the cracks in the blinds, patterning all over the wood floor, slightly pink, slightly red. it’s not your fault your dad was never there.
Untitled ZOE GREGORIC
you pull closer to me. your hands in my hair, your thumbs on my cheeks, the night settling, slowly, in shades of grey all over this room. somewhere far above, the clouds are orphans, the clouds are horses, set free. the clouds are wild horses running the lengths of some purple mountain pasture. the clouds are great and white and you’re here, pressing your lovely warm chest against mine, and tears paving small rivers down my cheeks, your hands searching for mine, your whispers some strange melody: it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault, it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault.
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