Spectrum Literary Arts Magazine: Spring 2015 by Northeastern University Library

Spectrum www.spectrum.neu.edu

Literary Arts Magazine spring 2015

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: Aislyn Fredsall Layout and Design: Rowan Walrath Secretary: Julia Renner Financial Manager: William Jackson Advertising Manager: Elke Thoms LAYOUT COMMITTEE Douglas Russo, Anna Driscoll, Courtney Langdell, Lin Qi, Candace Gabel, Devanshi Patel GENERAL MEMBERS Kathleen Doughty, Natalya Jean, Abbie Doane-Simon, Kaley Bachelder, Joe Forti, Camilla Hao, Kelly Burgess, Courtney Langdell, Alana Dore, Jessica Lucas 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. The views and opinions in this medium do not necessarily reflect those of Northeastern University or the staff of Spectrum Literary Arts Magazine. Cover art adapted from “Caught” by Elke Thoms. Contents page art adapted from “The Lone Shoveller” by Erica Hinck.

Contents 4. Indulgence 26. Thunderclap Ash Liu Lindsey Ashe Berry Acres, Hopkinton, MA storm wings Jillian Murphy Abbie Doane-Simon 6. Neat, Love 28. Valentine'’' s Day Melissa Fitzgerald Grant Simon Without Violets 30. Constellations Douglas Russo Jacqueline Ali 8. Tired Oaks and Old Eyes Fontana dei Quattro Holly Van Hare Fiumi Ashlyn Wiebalck Faceless Malcolm Khaldi 32. dinner date ##3 10. Talking to Birds Anika Krause Joe Columbus The Lone Shoveller Carla Erica Hinck Kelly Burgess 34. A "”Would you rather” 12. to the ghost still for existentialists Holly Van Hare sleeping underneath my bedstand In her palm Amy hood Georgeanne Oliver 14. Last stop 36. 13.1.2013 Alyssa Rubin Amy hood Five children dead at the Outside Looking in bottom of a well (but at Ashlyn Wiebalck least my outfit matches) 38. Dress Rehearsal jennifer kronmiller Anika Krause 16. The Best Friend Caught Elke Thoms Elke Thoms Same Place, Different Time 40. Andromeda nate Casale Kayla Allen 18. Liquid tongues Comm Ave. At Night Jess imbro Carlos Arzaga Footsteps, a 42. Where I live Now Demonstration Jennifer Kronmiller Ben landsberg Disgusted Jill 20. Nsoromma Georgeanne Oliver Malcolm Khaldi 44. Pine Jess Imbro 22. Pulse Julia Renner Spring, contained Ben Landsberg Industrial Paradise Ashlyn Wiebalck 46. In a relationship 24. father daughter dance Alana Dore Anonymous Having fun in the storm the blind side Erica Hinck Vanessa esther Cohen

Berry Acres, Hopkinton, MA Jillian Murphy

indulgence Ash Liu i spoon chocolate cake into my mouth at 2 am and tell myself, this is your indulgence the lipstick smears off my face when i finally kiss him he tastes like cloves all innocence and warmth in the semi-darkness he could be anybody another blind reveler of mine so sweet on the tongue (cinnamon) whiskey, whiskey easy, easy and oh, he is going down 4

Berry Acres, Hopkinton, MA Jillian Murphy

Neat, Love Melissa Fitzgerald

Without Violets Douglas Russo

The door swings open. His face appears, knotted, brows furrowed, but smiling, too. “Did you bring the stuff?” The stuff…what stuff? Panicking. I’m pan-ic-king. I forgot the stuff. He looks up and down, smiling uncertainly. Cute, so obnoxiously cute. “We’re baking cookies, right?” Right. He was right. “Yes, I have the stuff. In my backpack. See?” I turn around to reveal said backpack to him. He nods. We shuffle into the kitchen. It’s neat as a pin (whatever that means). Clean counters. Empty sink. Shiny handles. The faucet has a drip, though. One solitary drip after drip after drip after drip, real delicate, though, elegant—like a swan sobbing. I’m the only thing out of place. But no time for that. Stir the dough. Sift the flour. Turn on the oven. Melt the butter. Make perfectly-proportioned dainty scoops of cookie dough so boy thinks I am dainty too. Pam the pan. Lick the spoon (No, don’t. Because that’s unsanitary and very not dainty-like). Put on the timer. Lick the spoon—no, damn it. Oh, but it’s all wrong. The butter’s burnt and the flour’s chunky and the pan refuses to be Pam-ed properly and the words I need to say but can’t are stuck in my throat alongside the multitudes of uneven balls of cookie dough I cannot. stop. eating. “Is something wrong?” he asks as I’m reaching for another ball. Yes. “No. Did you set the timer?” “You’re just being really quiet. Like you’re not even there.” “I’m… tired.” It was the truth (sort of). “Did you set the timer?” He throws his hands up, all exasperated and dramatic. “I don’t get you. I thought you were all excited to bake—you know we don’t have to bake cookies. I like cookies as much as the next guy but I’m not some sort of cookie dictator. We could do something else—a movie, go out to dinner…” He runs his fingers through his hair, thinking all cutely (damn it). “…Have a cookie-dough eating contest and the loser is the one who vomits and the winner didn’t vomit so that’s winning enough…” He goes on like this, all rambling and adorable but for the sake of time, here is the point. “The point is we don’t have to make these—if that is what is bothering you. If not—” “I’m in love with you.” It surprises me, too. I had a speech, a big flowery one. I was going to get on my knees, maybe throw in a few tears for good measure. Real corny, passionate stuff, lots of hyperboles and end-of-our-day declarations. But instead that is what I say and this, this, is what he says. “Oh.” Oh. I’m plotting ways to kill him when he takes me in his arms and kisses me and won’t stop kissing me and whispering “Iloveyoutoo. Iloveyoutoo” like he’s running out of breath. It’s all so cheesy and so full of emotion I kind of want to run out of the kitchen but I don’t. I stuff the panic in my backpack and just stand there and take all the love I can. We stay like that until all the cookies are burnt to embers and we bake a new batch.

Neat, Love Melissa Fitzgerald

Without Violets Douglas Russo

Tired Oaks and Old Eyes Holly Van Hare The train click clack delayed from the peril of snowflakes-too much of a good thing, they’ll tell ya-clogged in irritants and snowdrifts like that old man’s arteries, I’m sure; lower eyelids weighted by anchors hooked fish flesh molding wrinkles from malleable skin. Clogged like thoughts; all dead deliquesced into a day’s empty work the world goes ‘round without’cha the crowded click clack whispers in a hundred lithe tongues in a thousand drooping ears. The weight of it, interim finality-- the commute, the forced restart tomorrow, gaddamnit, doll, why’d ya let me miss the stahp–drags eyes away and morphs mouths’ corners and loiters misty gray thoughts to the grit-glazed ground where it sits like fog, collecting and we all swim in it waiting for this damn train to jolt alive like we were told we would you did already last spring. “Great, how are you?” comes coated with lacquer. My throat’s lined with it, slick tar: I spit it up and it splat fell, too with the wheels’ wet squeaks and the woman’s grunt grumbles and the crazed jacket shouts; we all swim in it. The train jolts to life in unison but we don’t.

Faceless Malcolm Khaldi

CARLA kelly burgess

talking to birds joe columbus

She used to know the names of all the birds in the forest. Not just the difference between a blue bird and blue jay, or that scientists sometimes called ravens Corvus corax. She knew that there was a bird named Kimberly, another named Anabelle, an old owl whose name sounded like a low growl in the back of your throat. When she was a child she could speak bird. She knew what their songs and whistles meant. She’d listen to them chatter on about the weather, hear them sing out to their loves. The ducks would coo over their children, and the geese would shout mean things as people passed by. The ravens would sometimes gather in big groups and talk about things that flew over her head, things that a first grader could never have known. But now, when her professors lectured at length about the nature of life or the universe, she’d remember when the ravens tried to teach her the same things. The birds had always tried things a little too soon. She sat in her dorm, the silence engulfing her. She missed the chatter of the birds in her forest, perched high up in their tall pines. She missed Kimberly and Annabelle. She wondered if Mother Beth, the old hen duck, was still having chicks. There was noise here, sometimes – her friends down the hall would laugh and shout, and music would bump from the other rooms. Sometimes she’d be there for the laughing and the music. Tonight, though, she was alone with an organic chemistry textbook and her memories of the birds. The owl had rarely talked to her. She went to the forest after school, and the old owl wouldn’t wake up until the sun was going down, when she had to go home. But one day a blue jay named Brrrk had woken him early, and he’d happened across her. “Child, you’re still here?” “It’s still light,” she said. “Right. But you’re getting too old to talk to birds.” “Too old?” “All the little girls who come to talk to the birds stop eventually. You go on to greater things.” “But I like talking to birds.” “Do you understand the things the ravens tell you?” “Sometimes.” “One day you will understand it all.” She hadn’t known what to say to that. Now, though, as she read about epoxidation reactions and thioethers, she remembered the cawing of the ravens. She had thought about them when her genetics professor told them about polymerase. She thought of them when she read a book about World War II. The old growl was right. She was learning, more quickly than she could have ever imagined. Someday soon she could go home and find the ravens and teach them new things. She’d stand in front of the birds and she’d tell them the mysteries of the universe. Maybe it would go over their heads. Maybe they’d stare at her in wonder, the way she had stared at them as a child. She smiled at her memories. She’d never know what they’d say in response. She couldn’t understand the birds anymore, but she could tell them what she learned and hope they passed it on to the next little girl. Then she could tell everyone else.

CARLA kelly burgess

talking to birds joe columbus

to the ghost still sleeping underneath my bedstand Amy Hood 1. remember that time we fucked in that field by the sea? that blue, just high enough in the Irish hills to catch the edge of it, the colour of old turquoise jewellery, carefully laid atop the green velvet of Irish countryside. you laid down in that tall grass and watched the clouds, big, white things, rush by, like horses set free. 2. there were nights where you made me feel so full that my heart was a throbbing, red thing caught in my ribs, desperate for escape, to swallow the world whole, to devour it, to nibble at its marrow, to consume its very bones. 3. you broke up with me on a Saturday afternoon. it was one of those rare times when the clouds agreed with the moment: big grey things layered on top of each other in thick stripes, like the bristled back of some extinct grey sky-leopard.

4. I tried to tell you, I tried to tell you that sometimes life is a bitch with clammed white fingers, far too skinny to be pretty, with steel wires for a heart. I tried to tell you to fight, to grab her by her shoulders, catch her by her bruised wrists, tear at her sallow cheeks. 5. you told me no, you told me that life was just some great wave swallowing up the shore and we’re all lying in the sand, trying to spit out the bits of beach caught in the mouth, to cough out the salt, to drown another day. 6. every now and then, you’d relax a bit, put your fears in their small wooden box, stretch your long white arms, and talk to me about the Future. we’d write it out: somewhere in there we’d climb mountains, eat fried pork and chive dumplings on the great wall of china, french at the top of the eiffel tower, drink cider in open fields. we’d be free and wonderful. we’d be the clouds, rushing, palms wide open, horses set free. 12

I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know why itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easier to put my faith into a departing 747 with an unknown destination likely to disappear somewhere in the South China Sea than the local public transportation system whose destination is never any farther than six stops outbound and that will never be more than ten minutes late during my morning commute.

Five Children Dead at the Bottom of a WelL (But at Least My Outfit Matches)) jennifer kronmiller

last stop alyssa rubin

Five Children Dead at the Bottom of a WelL (But at Least My Outfit Matches)) jennifer kronmiller

last stop alyssa rubin

The Best Friend Elke Thoms Under the sun, skin burning, I sat on the fence. I thought maybe he’d have regrets by now. The last time we were together we sat where I did, freezing on the edge of the highest plank on this lone, forgotten segment of wood. The temperature let our walls fall – we had to hold each other if we didn’t want the night to end. This time, it was hot out. She joined me instead. She reassured me of what I knew–I could not wait on him. His games, his give and take–a best friend wouldn’t do that, a boyfriend wouldn’t do that. She worked quickly, snapping me out of my pity party wih her humor and famed stories of women who’d come back from this. Sensing I needed a change of scenery, she led me to her car. “But I don’t want to leave,” I said. “Oh,” she grinned. “Trust me, we’ll be back.” I remember keys in the ignition. Pop music, volume up. Leaning into her Acura’s vanity mirrors at the first red light, coating our lips with bright red gloss. We were out for revenge, powering just-over-the-speed-limit fast to the grocery store. There, we grabbed all we needed–one can of iced tea for her, one bottle of lemonade for me, and two free balloons that only kids were supposed to take. Back at the fence, she pulled a Sharpie from her purse. We scrawled what we knew. I wrote everything about him from “traitor” to “OBSESSED with dubstep.” She blackened her balloon with phrases hating on the calculus class torpedoing her GPA. We released the balloons into that optimistic sky–only to watch mine get jammed in a tree. For ten minutes, we looked on as it untangled itself, laughing like our laughter would propel it free. Of course it would be my balloon to get stuck–between the two of us, I was always the klutzy one. As my balloon finally disappeared, my sadness returned. She saw it, and she faced it. Grabbing my half-full bottle of lemonade, she leapt from the fence and urged me to stand. “We have to purify it!” she screamed, as though if we didn’t right now he would reappear, ready to take over my life again. Both of us armed with a bottle in hand, we ran in circles around the fence. The lemonade and tea spilt as we went, hydrating the grass, igniting this patch of land. It was four in the afternoon. We laughed at the neighbors who might be watching us–two teenage girls no doubt on the wrong side of the tracks, presumably getting mixed up with drugs and alcohol. She smiled maniacally as the last drop of Arizona tea fell from the can. She said, “It is done.” And I was going to be okay.

Same Place, Different Time Nate Casale

Outside they speak in a thousand tongues, new and old, twisted tongues you’ve seen on the street and tongues you wouldn’t recognize in subtitles. Tongues that slap you upside, tongues that sneak up behind you. I have a book of tongues but I haven’t touched it. I’m scared. Outside the tongues are drawn on walls and stuck to the ground. Everyone you meet will have one, two, three. I knew a man with as many tongues as taste buds. Lurking tongues. Tubes of tongues, hundreds of them squeezed inside, line the gutters of the streets. Put your hand out the window of a moving car and you feel them rush between your fingertips. Here, the tongues reign. She opens her mouth and the sounds that emerge are collaged on the walls around us. You stand with your feet spread out. You’re scared. I am, too.

Footsteps, a demonstration Ben Landsberg

Liquid Tongues Jess imbro

Outside they taste like sugar water, they taste like cigarettes, they taste like Paris. Tongues dipped in gold. Dried out tongues. Tongues that dance, tongues that whisper. Outside the tongues know you are hiding from them. Open your mouth. They don’t need you. 18

Footsteps, a demonstration Ben Landsberg

Liquid Tongues Jess imbro

Nsoromma malcolm khaldi

Industrial Paradise Ashlyn wiebalck

pulse Julia Renner I have a friend who wrote metaphors of ventricles into everything and it made sense after I cut a dozen things open on a lab bench and realized circulation is more subjective than I ever thought. Yesterday I sliced through a shark’s chest, peeled it apart and set it on the scale, not the first time I’ve tried to weigh a heart, but the first time I’ve been able to rinse the blood off my hands. People think scientists are heartless, the graduate student told me as we drove across the causeway that links Nahant to the bleeding streets of the cities, heartless because we take life away when we’re trying to understand it. That’s wrong, I said, and I wanted to use someone else’s words, to say either everything’s sublime or nothing is. instead I thought about the rusty smudge I found across my collarbone that afternoon and hadn’t bothered to scrub off. I remember the diagrams from biology classes, the veins stitched in to prevent backflow— see, millions of years of so many mutations, so much evolution towards functionality if never perfection, can’t keep the blood from slipping away. You’re on the Pacific tonight, your window looking out across the Bay, and you should be asleep but then again I shouldn’t be awake to write this. I miss the unsteady waltz of your pulse, the only proof I have that hearts exist before I slice them out.

Industrial Paradise Ashlyn wiebalck

the blind side vanessa esther cohen

father daughter dance anonymous my mother watching you held the knife to your neck and said that if it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t for me youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d do it so I laid down held a pillow to my chest and prayed that you fucking would

the blind side vanessa esther cohen

thunderclap lindsey ashe My roommate smells the air and says that it's about to rain, and I imagine the world like a bubble, a child spinning it under grubby fingers, letting a lightbulb shine on different parts and taking his new toy watering can half the size of any self-respecting one and showering it over entire continents like they're sprouts he planted in his second grade class to learn about photosynthesis.

And I wish he was old enough to know what only time and experience can teach because maybe he would pop the bubble and rearrange the continents because although rain always sends me drifting off I don't know if I'll be able to sleep tonight without her arms around my waist and her lips on my vertebrae telling me that she can handle any storm, no matter how much rain falls; so I'll listen to the drops falling in sheets and stare at the ceiling with the whispered hiss of her name on my lips.

storm wings abbie doane-simon

And I wonder why he's learning how to spell and that the antonym for love is hate but nobody is teaching him that lightning strikes when you least expect it-and that sometimes lightning has a name that sounds like the hiss of a snake even though they terrify her, that sounds like the way she whispers when she's tucked in my arms that sounds like the entire Universe breathed into one too many syllables to fit that song with the metaphor I love and have finally found a girl sexy enough to live into. He doesn't know that heartbeats can sound like thunder, not yet.

storm wings abbie doane-simon

Valentine's day grant simon

constellations jacqueline ali “I want to show you the Milky Way someday.” It’s almost funny how I can say that As if the stars are just some gift to give away. I like to pretend the light pollution is just wrapping paper.

Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi ashlyn wiebalck 30

You mentioned, offhand, that you were concerned about your brother’s rapid development into a Washington man. You flinch at the thought of crinkling suits and quivering coffee mugs, of trying to rescue a tattered quilt-country on so little sleep. (I don’t sleep. My coffee mugs all quiver, and if I had a suit it would be crinkled)

the lone shoveller erica hinck

dinner date #3 anika krause

I mentioned, offhand, That I was concerned about diplomatic conversations, uncommitted chases, losing the race to shirtsleeve aces. (I don’t think you sleep, either) Tonight, I’ll fold into a tattered quilt and lie awake, dreaming of the future.

the lone shoveller erica hinck

dinner date #3 anika krause

A ““Would You Rather“ for Existentialists” Holly Van Hare Open the first box. “Oh, the places you’ll go”s whiz past your ear and crash to the ground like balloons that rocket through the air only to run out of steam and plummet limp. Songs leaks from every crevice, as if growing inside, bursting from lips, exceeding small capacities of such timid entities.

has trained you a lush already.

Open the second box. Lined with smile-speckled wallpaper, there isn’t a crack in sight. In the crevices, things shine: a plastic flower of the aura you’d expect to birth beneath it a line of script reading “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” draws passersby who sniff ignorantly at the cellophane. They watch art from afar— appraising from a safe distance to mar themselves from its various possible afflictions.

“We’re not timid,” they whisper, Suddenly you’re swarmed by laughter. crawling up your vertebrae “Join in, join in,” they chide, and crouching inside your ear; a tidal pressure of thought they’re depositing understanding, la that the mundane is crouching on the edge connaissance de dieu, of hilarity. and the sharp edges of such sediments graze and gash. Why is it funny? You realize no one understands. “The road less traveled by”— Everyone inside flutters Frost’s ubiquitous advice through successful falsehoods, glimmers like a beacon on the edge glamorously giddy to stroll ignorantly, of the sullen wood, humming well-known tunes, the pieces of oak past plastic roses sagging and empty promises. under the pressure, Money falls from the sky creaking, and the earth trembles with laughter, groaning, though everyone strides with steady feet. splintering like fragments of augmented minds. They are balloons, too, you discover, Tearful questions like “Is all art desperate?” infinitely inflating with vacuous air. flutter in the perfidious air. Even when they sing, their blissful words say The beauty that resides in the midst nothing of the sprints of desperation that splatter and dissolve in the gentle, non-destructive a struggle of rich life wind.

In her palm georgeanne oliver

has trained you a lush already.

In her palm georgeanne oliver

If Death were a lover, he would not be the dinner type. Death would not romance you in a dimly-lit bistro, he would not talk about the weather, about the environment, about toothy politicians with just the right amount of grey hair. If Death were a lover, he would ravage. He would have clean teeth and a crisp suit. Black shoes shined like a new car. Death would not be a skeleton, with bones for a heart. He would knock on your door, and when you greet him with those wild green eyes of yours, he would push you inside, onto your bedroom floor. You would smell all the dirt in your carpet, you would remember that you needed to vacuum, feed the cat, email your boss about referrals. Death would undress you like peeling a blood orange. He would not be kind, he would not touch your face or kiss your forehead. His fingers would be cold on your breasts, his teeth leaving bright bruises above your ribs. If Death were a lover, he’d have a watch heavy with the weight of Italian silver. He would not take it off while he’s inside you; Death would leave his socks on. His skin like refrigerated lemons, like bathroom cleaner: cold and sterile and faintly mint. His eyes would remind you of broken lightbulbs, such thinned glass, such lost light. You would think of that, broken lightbulbs spread all over your kitchen floor, when his cold thumbs touch the soft skin on your hips, your jawline.

outside looking in Ashlyn Wiebalck

13.1.2013 Amy Hood

If Death were a lover, he’d leave just late enough for you to hear the light footsteps of his clean feet walk across your unvacuumed carpet, to close the door just loudly enough to wake you, so you too can see the pink morning stream in through your curtains, to crack your dry lips into a half-smile, so you too can think of your soul like laundry on a line, forgotten for months in someone’s backyard, still clean, still smelling like pine and mountain spring.

outside looking in Ashlyn Wiebalck

13.1.2013 Amy Hood

dress rehearsal anika krause The lining of my stomach is pink sugar satin and brittle layers of cardboard and glue. It pirouettes as they check the lights and unravel the ribbon-bound curtain. I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe that you still instill the same fear of slipping, of a sloppy, too-heavy-to-be-prima thud where tulle meets with the dust of the better and the backhand whispers of razor-hipped girls. We have been rehearsing ad infinitum. The shouts of horns signal your entrance, and my thick thighs shake, brushing as I try to escape beating feathers, shadows in the wings. To the point: You sicken me, primarily. Bow out. Exeunt.

caught elke thoms

comm ave. at night Carlos Arzaga

Andromeda Kayla Allen She mixes stars from her constellation into her coffee like sugar. They fizz and pop, and they stick to the bottom of her mug. When she takes a sip she tastes their sweetness. She is ancient and young, and she is drinking away her image in the heavens. She is not in chains anymore. She finishes her coffee, crunching each star between her teeth.

comm ave. at night Carlos Arzaga

disgusted jill Georgeanne Oliver

Where I Live Now Jennifer Kronmiller coffeecup piss snow Destination Park Street the flashing Tedeschiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sign two corners wide neon sidewalk puddles that are here until fucking April, at the earliest and 30pack Coors lite for $24.99. the constellations of CVS, Bottled Liquors, Inbound Pizza guide us home. the mug in the sink is full of commas toe nail clippings and sunflower shells we pile the garbage up until it wilts three dumpster barrel toothed lumbering alleyways i could sleep here if i remembered to shut the goddamn window. and hunger aches in my belly like a muddy brick in a toilet pump rainwater cross-eyed jaundice lovers trying to save on the utilities bill. that damned radiator shivers like snowdrifts in a siberian blizzard pipes howl like huskies begging to be put down melted urban chic doc martens, laces, tongues untied, we always fuck with our eyes open.

disgusted jill Georgeanne Oliver

spring, contained ben landsberg

pine jess imbro You weren’t there the whole time. You were sliding your fingers on the rusted rail of frozen metal outside your dead grandmother’s house while everyone was inside eating. You were smiling from the pain. Your parents were painted before you in utter holiness and then one day they were there, beside you, equals. Chips formed in the stone statues you had constructed. Their bodies weren’t solid anymore. Their smiles weren’t natural anymore. But part of you had always known. You weren’t there the whole time; you were here, with me. You were holding my hand and whispering liquid coos into my ear at the funeral you weren’t invited to. It’s not that I didn’t want you there. I just didn’t know you yet. Outside your home, birds dig their wiry claws into the lawn, your father’s dry scalp. You don’t hear the screams. You’re in the attic drawing a map of the United States from memory on the ceiling in crayon. The stool beneath your feet squeaks. You weren’t there the whole time. You first started closing your eyes in the fourth grade when you teared up reading a Robert Frost poem to the class. Since, your presence has only been partial. In the past few years your eyelids have gotten heavier and heavier, but you’re still here. You’re still here. Now all your relatives are dead and the birds swarm about. Tomorrow at noon, lightning will strike, and you, too, will be on your way out. But for now, the metal rail is close enough to home. You’ve stepped outside, but you’re still here.

spring, contained ben landsberg

having fun in the storm erica hinck

in a relationship alana dore There was no juice in the fridge so we drank flat white wine from our glossy, oversized mugs. We curled up on the living room floor in front of my laptop which we propped up on an empty shoebox. The blankets shielded us from the morning as we hid from the day-to-day not yet ready to emerge from our hideaway. You cupped my hands in yours shielding my gloveless fingers sharing my fear in introducing us to the world.

having fun in the storm erica hinck

Spectrum www.spectrum.neu.edu

Literary Arts Magazine spring 2015