The Olivetree Review Issue 65

t h e o l i v e t r e e r e v i e w

s p r i n g

The Olivetree Review - spring 2019

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OTR Errata: In Issue 64 of The Olivetree Review, the painting “Stepping into the Dynamic Equilibrium” was credited to the wrong artist. The artist was not Oscar Lopez, but rather Nino Tsiklauri. The work has been reprinted in this issue under the proper name.

In Issue 64, the poetry piece “Catholic Architecture” by Edwin Bode was mispelled as “Catohic Architecture” on page 11.

Matthew Goldman’s work was not featured in Issue 64.

© The Olivetree Review, CUNY Hunter College, 695 Park Avenue, Hunter North 115, New York, New York 10065, www.theolivetreereview.com This journal is partially funded by Hunter College’s student activity fee, partially by fundraising and donations. This journal is distributed for free.

The artwork featured on the cover is “Tableaux Automatique Pink Lemonade Semigloss” by Robert Matejcek. The fonts used in this book are Gabriel Weiss’ Friends Font and Euphemia UCAS. This book was designed by Melissa Rueda and Kenny Perez.

Submissions are reviewed September through October and February through March. We consider submissions of visual art, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and scripts. All submissions are reviewed anonymously and selected by a jury of staff members. The review is entirely staffed by Hunter College undergraduate students.

Permission to publish the content in this issue was granted to The Olivetree Review by the authors and artists featured throughout. These contributors retain all original copyright ownership of works appearing in The Olivetree Review before and after its publication. Copying, reprinting, or reproducing any material in this journal is strictly prohibited.

Printed by Printing Center USA, MT

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The Olivetree Review

ISSUE 65

Spring 2019

The Literary and Arts Magazine of Hunter College Since 1983

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Administrative & Editorial Staff Srping Editor-in-Chief Melissa Rueda

Vice President Tanisha Williams

Treasurer Kana Tateishi

Secretary Meghan Elberti

Art Editors Kenny Perez

Melissa Rueda

Poetry Editors Sheena Rocke Doria Wohler

Prose Editors

2019

Associate Editors Arifa Baksh Diego Castillo Victoria Cotaj Cole Dempsey Ibtasom Elmaliki Danielle Glants Diana Gor Oneilia Harris Sydney Heidenberg Tasnim Hussain Fhamida Keya Akanksha Kuwar Catalina Meza Seon Pollard Joshebel Ramlakhan Kana Tateishi Yuliya Vayner Mayleen Zhagnay

Andy Lopez Gabrielle Luna

Senior Publicist Sharon Young

Publicity Assistant Srinidhi Rao

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Table of Contents Art Falling

Kana Tateishi

Hephaestus Gabriela Voll

Organs

Ophelia Carrasco

Natural Disasters

Jocelyn Covarrubias

Waste of Time Carlos Rueda

Rainbow

Jocelyn Covarrubias

Golden Cities

Vivian Sanchez

Drink Me

Robert Matejcek

Celestial Body

Katelin Montgomery

Organs

Ophelia Carrasco

Growth

Kana Tateishi

Dual Self Portrait Katelin Montgomery

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Cold Daze

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Tableaux Automatique Pink Lemondae

Nino Tsiklauri

Michael Furio

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Robert Matejcek 7 - 8

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Drama A Lifetime Original Movie: Alisha’s Life Andy Lopez

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Poetry 23

Asteria

Sylvia Welch 25

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Afterglow

Elizabeth Jankovic 30

31 - 32

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On Sasquatch Being A Feared and Hunted Creature: Catalina Meza

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Four of Swords

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Warriors of Wellbeing

Boy Bitten by a Lizard th Tea Rose Robert Matejcek

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Stepping into the Dynamic Equilibrium

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Mad Crawford

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Giovanni Green

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To Write or Not to Write Antonio Codita

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El Baño del Albañil (The Bricklayer’s Bath)

Jose Oseguera 33

Hazeme Daño/Hurt Me Gabriela Voll

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Prose Everything is in the Numbers Merari Hernandez

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Soul Searching Museara Shithee

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The H in Ghost Billy Thompson

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Waltzing in Gethsemane

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Jose Oseguera

Contributions

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Meet the Staff History of The Olivetree Review

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"Letter from the Editor" Because I have never written a letter from the editor before, I thought I would simply explain what this publication means to me. The Olivetree Review has become my home (both figuratively and literally because I find myself there ALL the time) where I am lucky to be surrounded by a family filled with so much talent and love. We’ve shared tears, laughs, great food, some ridiculous memes and I can’t ask for more incredible people to be around everyday. The combination of avid minds constantly brews creativity and inspiration and pushes me as both an artist and as an individuall. Mixed with poets, artists, prosaists, or simply “art enthusiasts”, everyone shares a common passion for the craft and appreciation for the way it touches and moves others. To be honest at the end of the day, we’re just a bunch of goofs who share a common love for this publication.

My first semester as President has been a stressful one that’s had its fair share of ups and downs. I want to thank our Vice President Tanisha Williams for being the Virgil to my Dante and guiding me through the chaos and frenzy of Hunter. She showed me all there is to being president; without her I’m sure the madness of being a college student compiled with the pressures of presidency would’ve consumed me. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you Tanisha. I really don’t.

Special thanks to our wonderful staff who bring life to this club. It’s because of them that OTR has a great presence and is what it is today.

With all the effort they contribute into this publication I know it will continue to grow.

To wrap this up, I want to say thanks to you, the reader because you’re the reason that this has been running for 36 years. I hope that issue 65 brings as much joy to you as this publication does to me.

Till next semester, Melissa Rueda

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Everything is in the Numbers Merari Hernandez

The first hospital Naima had stayed in wasn’t clean enough. The waiting room, the bathrooms, the patients. I remember the gum wrappers in between the seats, the white paper cups on the floor, all those stains on the mirrors. And then there was that smell: a headache inducing mixture of rubbing alcohol, vomit, and urine. It seemed to stick to Naima’s skin after she’d been discharged. This second hospital is too clean, too white, too quiet, nothing like the first one. The visitors don’t look as depressed, the nurses don’t look as negligent, and the doctors don’t look as drained.

Visitor guidelines are the same in both hospitals. No shoelaces, no drawstrings, no knives, no paint in case your loved one might be feeling as suicidal as Van Gogh. No spiral notebooks, no razors, no mirrors because the mirror might fall and break and your loved one can use the shards to hurt themselves by looking in and not recognizing their own face.

In this hospital, the psychiatric center is on the left wing of the tenth floor. The receptionist, a man with a green ribbon pinned to his white shirt collar, greets me and asks me to leave my belongings in one of the lockers beside the desk. His metal frame glasses slide down his face while he looks for Naima’s name on his computer to make sure she’s allowed to have visitors. The second receptionist, who wears the same green ribbon around her wrist, checks the bag I’ve brought for Naima and clears it with a smile I find unsettling. Too much teeth.

The walls in the waiting room are a light blue, a color used to bring serenity to uneasy visitors, but the blue reminds me of the sky at the beach, and that reminds me of the ocean and I think about accidental drownings. A water cooler is in one corner, next to a wooden table with a coffee maker on top. A painting of a sunrise sits above it all and the blatant symbolism almost offends me. A sunrise in the waiting room of a psych ward, as if Naima will leave here after some sort of rebirth, a forced awaken-

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65 ing. On the other side is a TV playing an infomercial for a product that cuts vegetables into perfect cubes.

There are other people here and I try to imagine who they’re visiting. The man with curly red hair reading a gossip magazine is waiting to see his younger sister, a sculptor who couldn’t stop seeing the faces of dead family members in the clay. The couple holding hands and pretending to watch the TV are here to

“...a voice had told her she needed to eat all the fertilizer because it would help her have visions of the future.” see their son. He’s in his third year of law school, but the stress was too much to handle and a failed overdose landed him in here. The elderly woman with the lavender knitted blanket resting on her lap is here to see her neighbor, someone who reminds her of her dead daughter. The woman and her daughter’s doppelgänger used to play chess on Wednesday mornings and work in the community garden on Saturday afternoons, but a voice had told her she needed to eat all the fertilizer because it would help her have visions of the future.

The red-headed man makes eye contact with me and I quickly look away to examine the pattern on the cushioned chair I’m on. When the intricate curves and lines start to give me a headache, I close my eyes and wait to see Naima. I try to remember what she was like before everything, before the first mental breakdown, before she purposely stopped taking her mood stabilizers, but I can’t so I open my eyes and trace the design on my seat despite the headache.

Before I’m allowed to see Naima, another person comes to check the bag I’ve brought, just in case an illegal item was missed. I wait at the table closest to the door Naima will be coming through. It’s the first time I’m seeing her since the night I watched her parents drag her by her arms into the hospital, the streetlights enveloping the scene in a pale orange.

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Asteria

Sylvia Welch Like you, I was always running Changing forms to stay in hiding, And like you, I hated those creatures called men Gods to our Goddesses, chaos to our heads.

Every man is Zeus, fearsome and persistent Every woman is a goddess, each of which he wrongs.

Like you, I was an island; A lone survivor, standing in the ocean.

A house for the pained sisterhood, Pillaged.

Like you, I will call myself Delos, change my name Exit humanity to escape its pain Become an infertile earth So no man, no kingdom may possess me.

I will be a land of living solitude.

I will be a land of untouchable refuge And every Leto, with her every Artemis and Apollo Upon my dead womb and dry breast Will rest.

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Falling

Kana Tateishi

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Hephaestus Gabriela Voll

Organs

Ophelia Carrasco

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Afterglow Elizabeth Jankovic As the sun goes down, slowly, so does my energy.

It washes away, each last effervescent drop escaping from my cells.

My movements slow, my thoughts relax, the energetic speed that accompanies daylight dwindling into a thin string of oscillation.

My body is at ease, I let the night’s darkness seep into my windows, wiping out the light that reflects off the hardwood floors, each speck gradually consumed by the horizon.

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Natural Disasters Jocelyn Covarrubias

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On Sasquatch Being A Feared and Hunted Creature: Catalina Meza What’d he do other than be large and hairy Hard to understand What separates me from myth From reverence and fear?

I’m large and hairy Hard to understand Hard to box up, hard to unbend If one day I disappear into the forest, Only to be glimpsed every now and then An Instagram of blurred versions of myself Posted years apart, Will I become him?

Large and hairy, Hard to understand, Always lonely but never a moment alone, Followed by men with cameras who just want to Know Just want to Capture The Beast Immortalize the being that dares exists In such a form.

Large. Hairy.

“How could we understand?”

A woman who is not the shadow of her body Who hasn’t torn bits and pieces of herself off For a man, all men A being that isn’t for their consumption That shields itself from their hands, their eyes I don’t want to constantly pick parts of myself off My legs my stomach my face Don’t want to change and rearrange until I’m acceptable Don’t want to have to fight for the parts of myself I don’t like Legs stomach face

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Would rather disappear, become feared, Would rather turn myself into myth.

Large Hairy Hard to understand Footprints in the sand, Don’t come looking for me, I no longer Am, I don’t care If you can’t Won’t Don’t Refuse to understand.

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Soul Searching Museara Shithee

Graduate with a bachelor’s degree in math. Continuously get asked what you plan to do with your life. Think about your future and do a lot of soul searching. Come to the conclusion that you have no idea who you are or what to do and you never did.

Decide one day to teach math. Lie and say that you are certain this is your life’s calling. You like kids. You like math. What could go wrong?

Join a yearlong charity program to assist at-risk children in math. Get assigned to a middle school in the Bronx. You live in Brooklyn. Wake up at 4:30am every morning to take two buses and a train to go to work.

Meet Ron, your assigned partner at work for the year. He is confident, easy going, bottle feeds kittens in his spare time, and once starred in a Japanese shampoo commercial. Decide you don’t like him very much. He is the exact opposite of you.

Try your best to fit in and excel at your new job.

Try to connect with your bosses. Listen to them repeatedly compare your mundane teaching style and vocal projection to your coworker Cassie. Her voice is so loud the entire school can hear her amazingly interesting lesson plans. Resist the urge to quit.

Try to connect with your coworkers. Listen to them talk about all the fun times they had together hanging out at places you weren’t invited to. Try not to feel lonely.

Try to connect with the kids. Get called a bitch by an eleven-year-old. An eleven-year-old.

Complain to the parent of the child. Get called a bitch by the parent. The parent.

Go home and cry.

Be envious of Ron, who can handle the kids with ease.

They go to him for everything. Swallow your pride and ask Ron

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65 for tips. He says: “Try to be their friend. Just hang out with them.”

Look at his carefree smile and his stupid dimples. Quickly look away; his smile makes you nervous. Decide you can’t rely on advice from people who are naturally charismatic.

Try to follow Ron’s advice anyway. Though you’re not sure how to make friends with kids when you currently can’t even make friends with people your own age. Or ever, really. When you were nine, you found out your mother had been bribing your classmates with cookies to play with you.

Make awkward, forced conversation with the kids during

“You don’t believe him, but you don’t say anything back. Don’t reach out and hold his hand like you want to. Instead, just sit there, feeling his shoulder against yours.” breakfast time. One morning, get pelted in the face with a milk carton while trying to break up a fight between two kids. Break into tears in front of the whole school. Run away to the women’s bathroom as fast as you can through chocolate milk-covered eyes.

Hear Ron chase after you into the bathroom.

He doesn’t say anything; he just crouches down and sits next to you silently. When you finally manage to find your voice, say: “I just wish I was good at something. I wish I knew what to do. I don’t know what to do about anything.”

Watch him nod like he understands. He says: “You know, I don’t think anyone really knows what they’re doing. I certainly don’t. I think people just try their best as they go along.”

You don’t believe him, but you don’t say anything back.

Don’t reach out and hold his hand like you want to. Instead, just sit there, feeling his shoulder against yours.

Find out the following day that Ron was written up for going into the women’s bathroom. You want to protest, but you can’t bear to speak up. Avoid Ron out of shame.

Find out three weeks later that Cassie and Ron have start-

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OTR ed dating. Congratulate them. Steal all the Splenda sugar packets from the teacher’s lounge. Cassie is the only one that likes those.

Wake up one day and realize that a school year has already passed. The charity program is ending. Realize you have accomplished nothing. You have not made any lifelong friendships. You have not changed a kid’s life. You’re not even sure you managed to adequately teach a single lesson plan. Come to the conclusion that teaching isn’t for you.

Listen to your coworkers make plans and apply for new jobs. Hear Cassie loudly talk about how she broke up with Ron from the other side of the school. Give back all the Splenda sugar packets that you’ve been hoarding for the past four months. Not that it matters though, because Ron is going to leave for Germany to teach abroad. Why Germany? No one knows.

Wish the kids the best of luck as they move on to the next grade. Give thank you cards and add all former coworkers on social media. Hug Ron goodbye.

Try to find your new life calling.

Apply to jobs you are not qualified for. Apply to jobs you’re qualified for. Apply to jobs you’re overqualified for.

Get a call from a person who won’t give you her name, but repeatedly insists that YOU are the person she’s been seeking for a position she’s desperate to fill. Set up an interview for the very next day, because she insists that she needs to see you immediately. Go home and research the company. Figure out it’s a scam. Consider going anyway. Get talked out of going by your one friend. Listen to her call you gullible.

Apply to a coding school so you can learn programming.

Get rejected. Apply to be a customer service representative for the MTA. Don’t get a response back. Apply to be a part time teacher at the library. Get rejected. Apply to become a postal office worker. Don’t get a response back. Apply to become a data analyst at a hospital. Don’t get a response back.

Stalk your former coworkers on social media. Watch them become real teachers, go on to medical school, travel around the world, get married. Stalk Ron’s page. Look at him bottle feed

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65 kittens in Germany. Don’t message him (even though you want to).

Wonder if that girl in the background is his new girlfriend.

Decide to lie to everyone and say that you’re training to be an actuary at this big company near Wall Street. Fake it on social media till you make it. Put up heavily filtered pictures of you drinking expensive tea and scones. Put up pictures of you

“I did soul searching and I found nothing!

NOTHING! I don’t have a soul! Do you understand?” “exercising” and drinking vile green juices for breakfast. Put up motivational quotes that Abraham Lincoln supposedly once said.

That’ll fool them.

But it doesn’t fool you. Or your one friend. She calls you, concerned. She gives you the address and number of the therapist she goes to.

She says: “I know everything is tough, but you shouldn’t lie. You just need to figure out what you want to do. And even if you don’t it’s ok. Your job doesn’t define you, and whatever job you have won’t matter to the people who truly care about you.

Everything is going to be alright. You just... maybe need to do some soul searching.”

Scream: “I did soul searching and I found nothing! NOTHING! I don’t have a soul! Do you understand? Do you? No soul!”

Hang up and throw the phone.

Don’t pick up when she calls back.

But your one ex-friend is right. You are exhausted of lying and trying to think of new hashtags all the time. Decide it isn’t worth it. Delete all social media without making any announcement.

Look at the therapist’s number for eight days. You know you should call. You know you should also call your ex-friend and apologize, but you are too ashamed to do so. Start applying for jobs again to take your mind off it.

Apply to become a data entry clerk at a real estate com-

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OTR pany. Don’t get a response back. Apply for an internship at an environmental charity. Don’t get a response back. Apply to become a nanny for a five-year-old. Get rejected. Apply to be a waitress at a high-end Mexican restaurant. Get hired.

Try to explain to your mother why you’re a waitress when you have a math degree. Watch your mother fumble and turn pink with embarrassment as she tries to dodge explaining to relatives why you’re a waitress when you have a math degree.

Start your new job. Serve soft shell crab tacos you can’t afford to rich New Yorkers and tourists.

“Wait for him to yank his hand away from yours.

Wait for him to call you a liar.

Fight back the urge to cry.”

Get no tips. Get $30 in tips. Be politely thanked. Be screamed at for not bringing the check fast enough.

Serve a couple on a first date. Serve a man who immediately dives for an Epipen after taking only one bite. Serve a family with five kids that cried the entire time. Serve a group of guys speaking in German. Serve Ron. Lock eyes with him. Wonder when he came back from Germany. Remember that you lied about working at a fancy office in Wall Street. Look down at your restaurant uniform. Drop your order pad and make a run for it.

Two blocks down into your sprint of shame, trip on a crack on the sidewalk and fall. Hear someone anxiously shout: “Are you alright?” Look up. It’s Ron. He ran after you. Of course he would. This is, after all, the man who followed you into the women’s bathroom.

He reaches out and offers you his hand. Stupidly look at it for forty-three seconds then hesitantly take it and stand up.

Mumble: “I’m fine.”

Wait for him to ask why you’re a waitress and not working at a fancy office like you said you did. Wait for him to yank his hand away from yours. Wait for him to call you a liar. Fight back

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Instead he says: “I’m so happy to see you.”

Lift your head to look at his face clearly for the first time.

Say: “Really?”

Look at him smile at you, his cheeks forming dimples. You love his dimples.

Gently squeeze his hand back. Say: “Me too.” You mean it.

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Waste of Time Carlos Rueda

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Four of Swords Mad Crawford

more or less I know how my bones will be laid in the ground or in dust (like my granddaddy) we have a way: we are found, checked, carried out, eyes closed, dressed, box closed, speeches sung, mourned, forgotten until we are dug up by students and scholars, who forget we once were what papers will be published about how no dolls protect us how we aren’t placed with our earrings, pots, pets, loved ones how we each return to her on our own without a hand in the shape of another hand as we lived remains pile up and I am reminded to dress them well, position them gently, carry them high whether flesh or dust

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Warriors of Wellbeing Giovanni Green

I will not apologize For being sick and tired Of being sick and tired Bearing the black women’s burden Born on our backs Wombs housing herds of the unheard For in speeches of four score and seven years ago We still sought our emancipation Agency, autonomy, yet anonymous Will you witness our blood, sweat, tears? Feet bare, souls sinking into the Earth To honor dust, Access the ancestors How much is my tribe worth?

Beyond the GDP of stolen bodies Bodies that brought The birth of a nation Harriet Tubman must have been a healer She would hold space for these tired bones Slave together Tuskegee, syphilis, AIDS together Must be a difference Whose race is better?

Doctors break our flesh up Hypocrite Hippocratic Politic separatist Seeking ways to be a health activist Community organized Educate our sisters to transform our family’s lives Black Panther banquets From Oakland to Portland, Oregon From Boston to the belly of the beast Health clinics Free breakfast for children to feast

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Your child is living well We must protect our own I test my child for sickle cell In our hope for heaven We will give you hell Equal social services Is not what the government’s purpose is Clean water, fresh air We could probably fix Flint if we get there We built pyramids Worked as kings and queens Plantations were a play thing So yes, all Power to the People! For 400 years we tried to be equal And you lynched us, snatched us Henrietta Lacks’d us Black Wall Street smashed up Babies born in the trash but We phoenix from the ashes Midwives, teachers, volunteers, leaders, Warriors, genius, Mother Earth in our features Heal from the secrets Bring life Black Venus In epidemics we educate And eradicate when you leave us We live cause we love us No Diaspora could disrupt us Civil Rights and justice Black self-help and substance Resistance the reason Public health is achieved Doctors don’t treat us right So, we plant one seed To share with you the tree of life

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To Write or Not to Write

Antonio Codita

It has been previously said To speak only if silence can be improved.

Biting your tongue instead, Would be greatly, quietly approved.

To write beyond words would be the goal, And should you ever open your soul, Avoid a storm of words on a desert of ideas to pour, As that will only beg to ignore.

One writes to entertain, To heal wounds or open minds, to make a point.

Out of anger, out of love, out of frustration Or the inspiration of the occasional joint.

With the hope to come across, Lighten the burden of one’s cross, Making a well-deserved gain From a very unwarranted loss.

One could write from the heart And successfully fail, Or shallowly attractive And profitably sell.

And as I have the feeling, That only happens if you do it for a living, I have every intention To produce living proof, I’m not kidding.

To write or not to write?

To flee or to fight?

Darkness or light?

Questions for all humanity to ask, All as appropriate task.

The answer lies within us all, Depending on our willingness to play ball.

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The ball is in my court, I hear the whistling referee, And I decide to begin.

Words ready to sort, For pleasing Thee, From deep within.

Rainbow Jocelyn Covarrubias

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Golden Cities

Vivian Sanchez

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Ode to a single mother of three from three different fathers Jose Oseguera She had to carry the world, And that of her children, On a back condemned only To suffer the weight of two breasts.

Pinche puta was the nickname Her parents, siblings, and church members Fashioned for her Out of murmurs, stares, and avoided eye contact.

Men loved her for making them feel like men, For giving them a child so that they’d stay And the freedom to abandon her and her other children From fathers who also didn’t want them.

Sex was forbidden when her uncle gagged her little mouth, Holy when she married the dad of her oldest at 16, Forgiven when the dad of her youngest started fucking her cousin, Sinful when she fucked his brother, A weapon to fight— not for love— For stability, gambling with her desire, Wagering her fertility: To win another man lost, another son birthed.

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drink me Robert Matejcek

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A LIFETIME ORIGINAL MOVIE: ALISHA'S LIFE Andy Lopez FADE IN:

INT. ALISHA’S BEDROOM Alisha runs into her bedroom, distraught. Her mother, Susan, follows her in.

SUSAN Pills? Alisha, do you know how dangerous these things can be?

Susan has a bottle of pills in her hand. She shakes them.

ALISHA You don’t get it mom! You were a teen mom in high school. You were cool! I need those AC/DC pills to fit in with the cool kids who smoke pot and flirt with the weirdly young gym teacher who walks around in super tight short shorts.

Alisha throws herself onto her bed.

SUSAN Alisha, I did all of that without pills, and so can you! You have so many other things going for you.

Susan sits down at the edge of Alisha’s bed. She tries to comfort her.

ALISHA Oh yeah, mom? Like what? Being a nerd on the honor roll?

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Sad string music plays.

ALISHA I’m dyslexic? What are you talking about?

SUSAN Your real name isn’t Alisha. It’s actually Alisha, but you confuse the two A’s in your name.

ALISHA I don’t get it.

SUSAN That’s because you’re dyslexic.

Alisha’s father, Robert, walks in.

ROBERT Hey, what’s all this yelling about?

ALISHA She’s ruining my life! Why can’t you two just leave me alone. All I want is to leave and go to New York, where I can work as an Elmo in Times Square and forget all about this small town.

Susan, hopeless, walks out of the room.

ROBERT You shouldn’t be so cold to her.

ALISHA Why not? She’s the worst!

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65 ROBERT You shouldn’t be mean to her because…she’s your long lost sister.

Sad string music returns.

ALISHA What?

ROBERT Your real mother ran away to join the circus, so your sister stepped up. Better for you to lose a sister than a mother.

ALISHA But, if she’s actually my sister, then aren’t you herROBERT Father? No, that’d be gross—and illegal—but not in most Southern states.

Sad string music returns.

ROBERT I’m actually…a D-list celebrity who needs this movie to pay for my hamster sitter while I work on this movie.

ALISHA What?

ROBERT I know. You must be thinking, “Why not just stay with your hamster instead of doing this movie?” but it’s not so easy, Alisha.

See? I say that name right.

ALISHA Just get out of here!

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OTR Robert leaves the room. Alisha cries into her pillow. Her dog, Small White Fluffy Dog, walks in. She goes to pet it.

ALISHA Oh, Small White Fluffy Dog, my family doesn’t understand me. I’m so desperate for the kids to like me. I’m so tired of being cyber bullied by the librarians at school. And on top of that, I think I’m being stalked by my old babysitter.

Her babysitter, a nerdy teenager with a dramatic retainer, is seen peeking through her window. Alisha cries again.

SMALL WHITE FLUFFY DOG Don’t cry, Alisha. This is all just a part of high school. Your family loves you. Your friends love you. None of this will matter when you grow up.

Alisha grows calmer.

ALISHA You’re so right, Small White Fluffy Dog. I’m going to go get my G.E.D., win back my wife, reclaim my family’s plot of land, and win Ashley’s love.

SMALL WHITE FLUFFY DOG None of those things are a part of your story in this movie, and I think that last part was a reference to Gone with the Wind?

ALISHA Well, Small White Fluffy Dog, this is Lifetime, and I get to make them a part of my story.

FADE OUT.

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Celestial Body Katelin Montgomery

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Organs

Ophelia Carrasco

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El Baño del Albañil (The Bricklayer's Bath) Jose Oseguera

At night, things are as they are During the day, but no longer hidden.

The sky— a canopy papier-mâchéd with strips Of indigo, cobalt, and onyx— Reveals animals unseen Under the blind of day: The colors, sounds, and smells they cowl Themselves with smear into the blood of what they do— Their purpose as stealthed as their pain— why do they even exist If no one would miss them if they didn’t?

All is quiet: they work— voiced without voices, Unwittingly willing, strong for their weak— we sleep.

The sun will smile again— but not for another fifth of day— Their effort will be erased, blended away with the starry black.

To them, oranges are obsidian ball ornaments hanging off gunmetal coat racks, Water is tar oozing into charred rib cage drains, People are walking trees— or trees, frozen people Moving only when you blink— splatter-painted by motor oil raindrops.

The dirge of dump trucks rumbling slowly down the boulevard, As if mourning the death of a young princess who was to set them free.

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65 Their vests— bondage in fluorescent-orange, sterling, and highlighter-yellow— Sparkle as if their bodies were as precious as garden ants were indispensable.

Sign of the cross to Jesus— a skyward kiss eleison— Trikonasana stretches to Shiva at the crater’s lips to avoid injuries: Their blood for our honey, our vinegar as their water, Insomnia as their life to have our amnesia lifestyle.

Forty-odd charcoal-feathered birds surveille as they roost— A string of Tahitian pearls draped on milky-white moon flesh— One cackles, and thrashes like a trash bag— Its scowl as heartfelt as the back of a Polaroid— In the smog, clear as air, and all remains as it was.

What would it be like to suffocate in the plentiful Lack of space growing under their feet, lungs inhaled to raisins.

At night, the crow is just wind.

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Growth

Kana Tateishi

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The H in Ghost Billy Thompson

When I was young, maybe five or six, my dad used to tell me stories before bed. I loved it, though more than any one story in particular, I remember how when the house would creak he didn’t tell me it was the house creaking or settling or whatever – our house was an old house so it made a lot of random noises.

No, my dad would tell me it was ghosts. Ghosts of the house’s previous owners, ghosts just visiting, maybe ghosts that were just there by accident, lost. Surely, that wasn’t a typical parental bedtime ritual, and it rarely put me to sleep, but I loved it. Or maybe ‘love’ isn’t exactly the right word. It scared me. A lot. But I was fascinated, too. I wanted to hear more. My dad was happy to oblige, probably a few scotches in by my bedtime and loving to tell a story. And my dad was a spectral raconteur.

“Did you hear that?” I’d ask him, and he’d tell me about the guy who lived in the house three owners before us, who, as my dad told it, fell off the roof putting up Christmas lights and still wanted to get up there and do it again. Or the ghost who was looking for her husband, or the ghost who was a teacher and was looking for little kids like me. I didn’t believe him, not really, but I wasn’t sure. And I kind of wanted to believe him, so ultimately I did.

“Why do these ghosts always come to our house?” I’d ask him.

“Because we acknowledge them,” he’d answer. “We leave them alone, but we acknowledge them. And that feels good.”

My dad, as he told it – when he wasn’t telling me about ghosts – never got a fair shake. First, he was kept from reaching his full potential as a baseball player by bad coaches, dumb scouts and financial want. Then, when he went to work, he was always overlooked in favor of the squeaky wheels and the boss’ friends, or so he’d tell my mom.

“Meritocracy is a sham,” I overheard him say to her. He

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OTR would also tell me, when we heard the steps shifting or the glass in the windows expanding, that he, too, felt like a ghost sometimes. He told me how he just wanted to feel appreciated, like anyone does, and that he didn’t, and that that’s just how it was sometimes. My dad wasn’t one for sugarcoating. He told me there was a reason there was an ‘h’ in ghost, silent, a ghost itself, a ghost among ghosts.

“There are ghosts everywhere. There are ghosts here even when you don’t hear any creaking. There are other ghosts here when you do hear the creaking, too. Other ghosts just being ghosts. Ghosts among ghosts. The h’s,” he told me.

It all seemed so magical to me. I liked the idea of fantastical company. And of life going on like that, of there being more than just this, even at five or six. I think that was a lot of what my dad liked about the idea, too.

“There are ghosts everywhere. There are ghosts here even when you don’t hear any creaking. There are other ghosts here when you do hear the creaking, too. Other ghosts just being ghosts.

Ghosts among ghosts.”

Flynn’s Funeral Home is the reason I thought of that story about my dad.

It could have been Yummy Tummy Bakery on the back of Jasper’s jersey. Or Mike and Manny’s Tree Service. Or Love Your Smile Dentistry or Tip Top Tap Saloon, and I wouldn’t have thought a thing of it. But Jasper’s Little League team was sponsored by Flynn’s Funeral Home, and the league likes for the kids to go in uniform to deliver their team sponsor a plaque and a thank you at the end of the season.

Jasper’s six. My dad probably would have had no trouble explaining a trip to the funeral home, but I hadn’t prepared my son with bedtime ghost stories.

Ironically, or maybe not, his team name this season was

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65 the Angels. I hadn’t made any connection until the end of the year when the boys were going to deliver the plaque. But now I wonder if that was intentional, if someone on the board, or whoever runs the league, had thought when Flynn’s offered to sponsor a team that well obviously that team would be the Angels. That’d be clever, and I wonder if among all the worked they do, voluntarily, someone or a few of them saw the humor or possibly the poignancy in that.

How does every town seem to have a little league? How are there that many parents and other community members that inevitably make sure of it? It’s a wonderful thing. I coach, but it never occurred to me to have to make sure of the league’s existence. It just exists. Always has as far as I know. Same as Parent-Teacher Associations and school boards and town planning commissions and the like. Of all the bad stuff in the world, all the mean things we do to each other, there’s always that, those. It’s no small thing.

Jasper loves it. He did tee-ball last year. This year was coach pitch, and he did well. In fact, he did really well. He’s talented. I didn’t need him to be. To be honest, I didn’t even really want him to be. I didn’t want him to be not good, I just mean it didn’t matter to me that he be good. I just wanted him to like it, like I liked it when I was a kid, when parents and community members had made sure we had a little league to play in.

But then when Jasper was good, it changed things. For me, it did. I had to recalibrate. This was going to be fun, I thought. I loved when other parents told me how good he was.

His swing is so smooth and so natural. He had the potential to be really good. But now he could fail. You know what I mean? I thought of my dad, of the psychic scars he bore all those years later. I remember his scotches and his ghosts, and baseball became a different thing for me now.

I was good when I was younger, but not great. I wish I was better. My dad probably wished I was better, too. Actually, I know he did. It had to do, I’m sure, with the psychic scars from his own playing days. The urge to see Jasper as a corrective to

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OTR my own shortcomings was strong. I knew it was wrong, though.

When he turned five, things changed, too, before he was good at baseball. Just simply by his going from four years old to five.

I love being a father, and I’m crazy about Jasper. Annie let me name him that. She liked the name, too. I was going to call him Jazz; I thought that would be such a cool nickname. Plus, I played trumpet for a time when I was younger. I loved Miles Davis, but actually gave up the instrument when I knew I was never going to be that good. I went into filmmaking instead, and with some friends in college made a documentary I was really proud of. We travelled the country and interviewed subjects in inner-city Chicago, rural West Virginia and even on an Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The film was on poverty. How poverty is poverty is poverty, and it’s devastating.

Doing the film was fun.

And I felt smarter than other people when it was done, and morally superior, and on my way to accomplishing great things. I graduated and got a job – to support my next film project, of course, whatever that would turn out to be. Then I met Annie and we got serious and we got married and we had Jasper.

When I saw his face, even in the delivery room, I saw that the name Jasper, in its entirety, fit him better than Jazz. I don’t know how else to say it: he was a Jasper. It makes no sense. Unless you’ve had and named a child.

I still want him to like jazz, so I play it in the house. And anytime he hears a horn, he says it’s Miles Davis, which makes me feel like a good father.

But anyway, as I was saying, when he turned five, things changed, too. When he was a baby, I wasn’t sure what I was actually giving him or ‘teaching’ him by smothering him in hugs and kisses, other than letting him know he was loved and he was safe. I hoped it just embedded in him a sense of comfort and happiness. Annie and others told me I was a good dad, which felt good, though honestly it was easy hugging my baby and holding him and checking on him. But then he turned five and just being

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65 there didn’t seem quite sufficient. Now, I had to actually give and teach him things he would use. Now, I could actually mess him up. The pressure of parenthood seemed way ratcheted up.

Now, I always felt like I wasn’t doing something I should be, something he needed, like I wasn’t throwing with him enough or reading with him enough or teaching him how to play trumpet.

I was always failing in some little way.

And now, he is six and he is going to Flynn’s funeral home to deliver a plaque and say thanks, and I don’t know how to prepare him. I can’t just send him, you know what I mean; I have to say something. But what? Something about perspective?

Good fortune? I’m forty, I should have more of this stuff figured out by now. Shouldn’t I? I remembered my dad’s ghost stories, but though I loved them, they were no use, because they always made me feel like I was five or six again. Not like a grownup, a dad, who had a lesson to impart.

“Annie cried harder than I’ve seen her cry in a long time. I think it was because we could all see how it could happen, how it could have been us.”

Only a few weeks ago, a parent in the league died in a car accident. On the way to his son’s game, in fact. I didn’t know what to say to Jasper then either, though luckily the commissioner of the league handled most of the messaging with the kids. A lot of the adults took it really hard. Annie cried harder than I’ve seen her cry in a long time. I think it was because we could all see how it could happen, how it could have been us. We’re all in such a rush. It’s hard with these kids, and working, and not wanting to miss anything, not even an at bat. One fewer little failure.

The games start at 5:45 on weeknights, so I’m always sneaking out of work a little early, changing into my Angels shirt and hat in the bathroom, throwing on some shorts and sneakers and running out. My boss isn’t bad about it – “Go,” she says

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OTR agreeably, kindly – but I still feel sheepish, like I’m getting away with something or letting her and my team down, or worse, giving them a reason to believe they don’t need me. I don’t hate my job.

But I certainly don’t love it. I wish I was more passionate about it. But whatever, you know what the worst part of it is? I need it more than it needs me. This puts me, ever so subtly, on constant alert and makes me vulnerable and anxious. I have mouths to feed now. “Go,” my boss says. She never adds, though: “Just make sure you come back.”

It’s ridiculous to worry about this, to even think about it, I know.

But still.

I don’t remember the last day that passed without at one point or another wishing I was making films. It can feel life-infusing having a thing like that, a passion, a dream. But at forty, it can also start to feel stupid and demoralizing.

Sometimes I wish I had moved to New York City or LA and just taken a shot, you know? I don’t fool myself into believing I was destined to be Paul Thomas Anderson or Jeff Nichols, but I also can’t let go of the feeling that I had another film in me. I also think I would have enjoyed just working in movies, just being on set, a part of the process. But it also seems a silly thing to beat yourself up over. I know.

I think, too, about what goes into being great, all that’s demanded, and what you give up by following your muse wherever it takes you. It’s got to be hard on relationships, and on your own psyche, applying your will and time single-mindedly to something that is most likely to amount to little in the way of public appreciation and remuneration. Being great is not normal.

And not everything about being normal is bad. Having a wife and a child in a home in a community you call your own; being able to enjoy art and sports and an occasional dinner out followed by some drinks on your own time is actually pretty desirable. A lot of times, in fact, it’s actually pretty great.

The grind of this life counter-intuitively keeps alive the need to believe that other life was possible, too, though. To be-

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65 lieve the world grants agency. That I had a choice in this. Even though I also some days find comfort in thinking there was only so much I could have done.

You know? Jesus.

I do love throwing on my Angels shirt, nonetheless, even though it does sometimes feel odd and out of place seeing myself in the mirror at work and having this view of me in baseball gear staring back, and I love going to the ball field and being on the diamond with my son. I have hopes for him, but I’m also able to just be there with him, in the moment, on the field, free and happy. The feel of the ball, the sound of the bat, the taste of the air. It all gets me. It’s the only time I’m not anxious all week. It’s true.

Watching my child do something, anything, is a pride I can’t account for or compare to anything else. To see him do something well? Forget about it. I can hardly breathe.

It’s a lot of time being a volunteer coach, and I’m not sorry the season is over. But I know I’ll miss it all the same.

It’s probably how I’ll feel about this whole period of time in my life; I’ll miss, terribly, all the running around and worrying and teaching, and the baths and homework and Miles Davis that was actually “Can’t Hold Us” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, even if I’ll also be glad that it’s done.

My dad died of heart failure before Jasper was born. It was too soon. And a surprise. Not only because it wasn’t liver damage that got him, but also because there hadn’t previously been heart ailments in my family lineage. Now, I wondered what I had had passed onto me and what I myself was passing along.

When Jasper asked about my dad, I told him he was an angel (when I told him his baseball team this season was the Angels, he said, “Like your dad!”). But I didn’t tell Jasper ghost stories. Even when it would have been a way to talk about Dad. I don’t know why I didn’t. It wasn’t exactly a repudiation of Dad, but it wasn’t not that either. Mostly, I think I just wanted

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OTR to raise my son my own way. I wanted to figure things out and pass along things that were mine. My dad was a good dad. Not the best, definitely not the worst. He wished I had been better at baseball. I was not the corrective he needed, and he was unwilling or unable to stint his desire that I be. He took that from me, that time on the field, made it his, not mine, and I resent that. And it’s that feeling that comes back to me each time I want to yell at Jasper to concentrate harder, to hit the ball farther, to catch it better. It’s that feeling that makes me anxious all the time about messing Jasper up.

I can hardly remember anything from when I was five or six, and so I know Jasper won’t remember the details of our day-to-day now, but it’s what he’ll remember when he’s eight and when he’s older he’ll remember when he was eight. So, it’s setting the table and it’s creating the feelings. And maybe that’s why I don’t tell Jasper the creaks at night are ghosts in the house.

“But then as he continued, I would watch him fade ever so slightly away, almost like he was actually talking to the ghost and no longer me...”

I’m not mad at my dad, though. More than the bad times on the field, I remember his hugs and his laugh and the smell of scotch on his breath. I remember watching him dance with my mom in the kitchen and hoping that one day I’d dance with my wife that way. And I remember his stories about the ghosts in our house, and how I would listen for the sounds to get him talking about them. I think even then, as a child, at some sub-level, I knew he was talking about himself more than any ghost in our house. I think that’s the real reason I wasn’t too scared.

I remember the way we would listen intently together, and how he would look into my eyes when he started telling me the story of that night’s visitor. But then as he continued, I would

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65 watch him fade ever so slightly away, almost like he was actually talking to the ghost and no longer me, like I was just listening in as he found the story of the specter. The stories usually ended with him talking quietly, maybe because I was falling asleep and he didn’t want to rouse me, or maybe because he was devastating himself.

Actually, maybe that’s why I don’t tell Jasper the creaks at night are ghosts in the house. Because ghosts can give way to demons.

“There’s no reason to be scared,” my dad once told me.

“We all end up ghosts.”

“Do the ghosts know they’re ghosts?” I asked him.

“Some of them,” he answered. “But not all. Some are just ghosts among ghosts.”

“The h’s,” six-year-old me said back to him.

My dad chuckled. I’ll always remember. “Exactly,” he said.

I always wanted my dad to be proud of me. Everyone does. But it feels acutely singular for each of us, in each instance. When my dad died, I wondered what his final accounting of me was. I struggled with that, but it also set me on a path to reclaimed agency. I said to myself at the time: starting now, I will be more my own person. I will make him proud in retrospect, and in turn I will make myself happy.

I had a child, and it was the happiest I ever was.

Now, I want to make Jasper proud of me. I feel so pinched for time as a doting father, and I tend to my ceaseless small failures – as a father, a husband and a son – but I don’t want to totally neglect my own life and my responsibilities to myself, because I want Jasper to see me as a grown, put-together man. I want to model a successful, active adult life for him. I want him to see in me something he’d want for himself.

I think about my failings, my small day-to-day ones and my larger, big picture ones. How I achieved so little as an athlete.

How I never made a film after college. How I’ve taken for grant-

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OTR ed my carbon footprint. How I didn’t leave a note on that car I scratched because I didn’t want to tell Annie. How I never ran for the school board.

How my job gives me no pleasure or sense of pride whatsoever.

I think about my work, and how my achievement is in going and keeping the job and in providing for my family. Which is satisfying in its own right, but so unfulfilling too because the work connects to no passion. Five o’clock each day is bittersweet: the start of the best part of my day but also a reminder of the hours lost. I hope against hope that Jasper does not live out his days this way, that he doesn’t experience this pain.

He will, of course. It’s the tax we all pay for being alive.

When I look in the mirror at work on my way out to Jasper’s game, in my Angels garb, I see hints of my past life that jar me, that momentarily remind me of being young and alive in a different way. I hate and appreciate the stabs of nostalgia.

Watching my son on the baseball field is even better than playing, though. I wonder if Jasper’s swing could be my crowning achievement, my life’s work, what I leave behind. I wish my dad could see him, could watch him play ball. I remember my dad’s ghost stories, and I think maybe he does.

I think, on the eve of his trip to the funeral home: it’s time to tell Jasper about ghosts.

It’s nighttime and almost time for bed. I hear Jasper in the bathroom brushing his teeth. I swallow the last of my scotch, then I walk up the stairs to meet him in his bedroom.

As I ascend the staircase, I hear Annie in there talking to him. I get closer to the doorway and stop to listen. His door is open.

Annie says to him, “You know what your grandfather used to tell daddy when he was your age?”

“What?” Jasper asks.

“You know how the house makes sounds at night some-

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65 times?”

“Yeah.”

“Your grandfather used to tell your daddy that those sounds were ghosts walking around.”

She was taking my story, on the night I was going to tell it. What the…?

“He would?” Jasper asks. “Why? Was he trying to scare daddy?”

“I don’t think so. I think he was actually trying to make your daddy not be scared. He was teaching your daddy to not be

“Annie is looking at Jasper; Jasper is looking straight ahead, pensively. Sadly. He tilts his head in my direction but doesn’t meet my eyes. He looks right through me.”

scared of death. And to not be scared of other people dying. I think maybe your grandfather somehow knew he was sick and he didn’t want your daddy to think that when he died that meant he wasn’t going to be around anymore.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way. But yeah, he probably was.

I thought of the h in ghost. My dad called it the ghost among ghosts. Maybe it could be considered, too, as a ghost within ghosts.

I want to be a part of this conversation with Jasper so I go in.

“Hey, guys,” I say.

Annie is looking at Jasper; Jasper is looking straight ahead, pensively. Sadly. He tilts his head in my direction but doesn’t meet my eyes. He looks right through me. His dismissiveness hits me with the full weight of all my fears when I dropped him off for his first day of kindergarten, when I would be occupying less and less of his imagination, would account for less and less of his influence. It’s common but no less painful for that, no

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OTR less diminishing.

I wonder if he was still upset with me for missing his last baseball game, even though I had apologized profusely, and even though I hadn’t meant to miss it. I didn’t choose anything over it, I just couldn’t get there in time. Life interferes with so much.

And yet, I was on my way! I just didn’t make it in time.

I’d had to finish something at work, something I had to drop off with my boss before I hit the bathroom to change into my Angels gear. I had a pit in my stomach as I changed, knowing I was pushing it to make it on time. I calmed down when I took a

“I could get so lost inside that song; I could go to my past, look into my future or become someone else completely. I thought about all the films I never made, the songs I never played. Solea was an escape and a reminder. It was dangerous to drive to. It was the last thing I remember from that night.” second to look at myself in the mirror. I saw a glimpse of my old self and it paralyzed me, just for a second, but now I was another second later for Jasper’s game. I breathed and knew the good part of my day was about to begin.

I ran out to my car and began on my way to the field.

To further relax me, I hit play on Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain. I wished I was on the way to my own game. I wished I didn’t work a job that made me have to rush to the field. I wish I worked a job I loved. I wondered if I should put my name in to be the commissioner next year or at least join the board of the little league.

At a light, I watched two teenage girls cross the street. It pained me that I didn’t flirt enough when I was teenager. It pained me that I couldn’t flirt now. Flirting, just the innocence of it, the openness, the fun of its possibility seemed to signify the essence

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65 of my pain. I hated that this was my pain. So mundane, so undeserved.

I wouldn’t change anything in my life. Just the past. Some of the past. The parts of my past that made me close my eyes and bask in the brilliance and warmth of Miles’ song-length trumpet solo on my favorite track, Solea. I could get so lost inside that song; I could go to my past, look into my future or become someone else completely. I thought about all the films I never made, the songs I never played. Solea was an escape and a reminder. It was dangerous to drive to. It was the last thing I remember from that night.

I sit down on Jasper’s bed. Sometimes, I felt like I was everywhere but here. Not now.

There is a creak from the staircase.

Before I could invoke my dad’s lessons, though, Jasper asks, “Think that’s daddy?”

But I’m right here.

“I think so,” Annie answers him.

But I’m right here.

“He’ll always be here, buddy,” Annie adds.

Oh god.

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Dual Self Portrait Katelin Montgomery

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boy bitten by a lizard with tea rose Robert Matejcek

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Hazme Daño Gabriela Voll Hazme Daño Que no te olvido Déjame con tu marcas Pégame Muérdame Rómpeme el culo Déjame con la garganta magullada Perfóreme con esa mirada de desprecio Ámame sin amor Que no te olvido Tu olor que me transporta Tus ojos que me atreve Házme daño Porque contigo soy otra persona Una persona sin reglas, sin límites Todo de mi es tuyo Por eso pégame, muérdame Déjame con tus marcas en mi piel Déjame mojada y dolorida Hazme daño Que no te olvido

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Hurt Me Hurt Me So that I don’t forget you Leave me with your marks Hit me Bite me Break my ass Leave my throat bruised Pierce me with that look of contempt Love me without love So I don’t forget you Your smell that transports me You eyes that dare me Hurt me Because with you I’m another person A person without rules, without limits All of me is yours So for that reason hit me, bite me Leave me with your marks on my skin Leave me wet and sore Hurt me So I don’t forget you

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Stepping into the Dynamic Equilibrium Nino Tsiklauri

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Waltzing in Gethsemane Jose Oseguera

As Julian Izaguirre Jr. lay in his child-sized hospital bed, in complete darkness—halfway reclined between the seated and lying positions—he asked himself, Am I going to die?

Dying to Juliancito—as his family referred to him mainly to distinguish him from his father, Julian—meant going to Heaven.

It meant seeing God, the same one nobody could see, but were afraid of angering. Dying meant moving into God’s house and living in His constant presence.

How can God be doing this to me? Juliancito asked himself. I thought He was supposed to be my friend.

He had played baby Jesus in a Nativity play as a newborn to some critical acclaim. Having been born to church-going parents, he had been praising His name even before he could speak.

His mom used to tell him that as an infant, he used to cry whenever the hymn “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” was sung.

“I was scared,” Susana, Juliancito’s mom, would say. Being the wonderful pessimist that she was, she’d ask the pastor if there was something wrong with her son. “Shoo, part of me thought that you were a demon-baby. Sometimes, I was afraid of you turning on me that I’d wait until your dad got home to change your diaper.”

The pastor reassured Susana that nothing was the matter with her baby. “Small children and animals often feel the spirit of God in different ways,” Pastor said, “ways that we as adults or older children find mysterious or ‘supernatural.’ Juliancito is merely expressing his fervor by crying, and tossing and turning.”

A couple of days before he lay dehydrated in a hospital bed, Juliancito tossed and turned in writhing pain, definitely feeling the spirit of God possessing his body, ripping and breaking everything inside of him like an angry host his house. He had just served himself a bowl of his favorite cereal, Cocoa Pebbles, drowning the brown, crispy flakes with an eighth of a gallon of milk. After only two spoonfuls, the pain began to set in. He doubled over while still in his seat, but the pain was too overwhelm-

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“Don’t be afraid, my son,” Jesus said in echoes, His mouth moved slower than his words. “I’ll never let anything bad happen to you. You’ll suffer because of me, yes. But I’ll never let anyone else hurt you. I won’t let you die… I won’t let you die… ”

Julian allowed Jesus’s sweet voice to guide him through a valley that seemed to have no beginning or end. Only white yawns, and sleepy clouds.

The absence of light in the hospital room made it possible for the moon to shine in slivers through the window blinds. These white strands stretched across the room like gigantic Corinthian columns. Julian couldn’t bring himself to see his 4-year-old son teetering between the world of the living and the dead, at Hades’ gate.

“Why him, Lord?” Julian said, gripping tight to a gold medallion—the ferryman’s fair—cast with his Lord Jesus Christ’s battered, cross-ridden body. He wasn’t expecting God to give him an answer that he could understand. He was simply asking for a miracle. He welded his fingers shut around it, hoping to delay payment hence delaying his son’s fate.

A few hours before, Juliancito had emerged from the operating room as another successful gastrointestinal procedure.

A simple procedure, that was it. The doctors and nurses seemed to be talking about a small animal they had saved off the road, not a person. The procedure corrected what is known as abdominal adhesion, a condition which constricts or pulls the intestines,

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65 completely blocking anything from going through. Juliancito, later in life, came to think of it as God’s finger sucker-punching him in the gut.

For a total of 8 hours and 34 minutes, Juliancito had gone from being the youngest kid in his entire family—one who used to chase after cockroaches, crawling furiously after them, and who had never received a grade lower than a happy face on his preschool homework—to a piece of inert flesh. Just as easily as his gurney was rolled into the elevator with an ascending trajectory to his recovery room, it could’ve been rolled into the elevator with a downward trajectory into the morgue.

Juliancito was barely conscious and aware of where he

“Death didn’t give any warnings. It didn’t care if you were a child living life by the handfuls or an old man waiting for the sweet release of death, rich or poor, man or woman. It didn’t give a shit. Death just took you.” was. His knowledge of good and evil was elementary at best to know that he was trudging deep in the valley of the shadow of death. But even at his young age, his parents had taught him that whenever something bad happened—to him or because of him—it was someone’s fault. What happened to him couldn’t have been God’s fault because no matter how mean He was, He was always good. His parents weren’t home when he ate the bowl of Cocoa Pebbles, so it wasn’t their fault either. Julian knew it was his fault.

Maybe he didn’t understand the two states of being, the cold binary of biology, but of the two, it was death that was imminent.

Death didn’t give any warnings. It didn’t care if you were a child living life by the handfuls or an old man waiting for the sweet release of death, rich or poor, man or woman. It didn’t give a shit.

Death just took you. Life, on the other hand, left you dangling on the edge, halfway reclined, between the healthy and dying positions.

Death is rest. Life is unrest. It is struggle: autonomous, anatomical atomic-anarchy against oneself.

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Juliancito’s eyes opened slowly as tears and eye boogers had sewn them shut. He emerged from his 21-hour slumber not knowing where he was. It was dark, quiet, save for the green, red, and blue lights flickering from the various machines he was hooked up to. The noises emanating from them resembled the colorful bebop spoken by an angry R2-D2. The pneumatic tubework protruding from his nose and upper hand—transporting fluids in and out of his depleted body—would have made any 1940s office worker proud. All of these eerie cues told Juliancito that the bed he was lying on wasn’t his own. He looked at his hands, they looked like his hands, but they didn’t feel like his hands. Still under the drowsy effects of the morphine, Juliancito didn’t know why he felt the way he felt. Why the world didn’t seem as it used to. Why he couldn’t quite be sure if what he was experiencing was real or a dream. He felt trapped.

To him, the tubes keeping him alive were tethering him to this strange reality. He saw his dad sitting next to him, sleeping with his eyes half-closed and mouth fully open. Papi, he wanted to yell, tears welling up in his eyes, but nothing came out. Papá, wake up. Juliancito wasn’t able to speak, an aftereffect of having been entombed in his dreams for an extended period of time.

The plastic tubes holding him down needed to be expelled from his body. The sooner he did so, the faster he could jump off the bed and shake his dad awake. Using his right hand—the only appendage that didn’t seem to have anything coming out of it—Juliancito began to remove things at random, pulling the straps velcroing his left hand against a flat piece of plywood. The ripping of the fibers sounded like the loudest sound in the world.

He looked over at his dad; he didn’t even flinch. Juliancito then moved on to remove the needle lodged impossibly deep inside his upper hand—a vein between his index and middle finger. Just to make sure his hand wasn’t impaled like Christ’s, he quickly flipped it over. To his relief, the piece of wood was needle and bloodfree.

The needle and the deep purple-red tube to which it was connected, were taped down to his forearm. Removing each strip,

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65 from end to sticky end, sounded louder than the velcro. With each strip removed, Juliancito felt individual follicles of hair being plucked hard out of his skin. The tube, heavy with blood, began to tug away at the buried needle as someone who is pinching

“He watched the needle come out slowly, feeling every centimeter of it exiting his body. As he pulled, red discharge began to pool between his knuckles, dripping delicately like espresso onto his virginal white bed covers, blossoming on contact all around, as miniature roses in the infancy of spring.” your skin while walking away. By the time he removed the last strip, the needle itself was begging to get dislodged from within him like an arm out of a long-sleeved shirt. Juliancito took the deepest breath he could muster this side of reality, held it in, his face growing increasingly warm, eyes bulging out. He kept it in for what felt like hours, images of blood rivers swimming in his head.

He bit his bottom lip with just the right amount of pressure as to not puncture it with his baby teeth. He tugged at the blood-warm cord, and the anchored needle began to recede from his frigid knuckles.

Juliancito exhaled.

He watched the needle come out slowly, feeling every centimeter of it exiting his body. As he pulled, red discharge began to pool between his knuckles, dripping delicately like espresso onto his virginal white bed covers, blossoming on contact all around, as miniature roses in the infancy of spring. The more Juliancito pulled, the more blood gushed out. As all three inches of the needle lay weeping crimson tears, Juliancito moved onto the tube coming out of his nose.

As was the case with the needle in his hand, the tube needled in his nose was taped to his right nostril, something he discovered on his first attempt at yanking it out. Based on his previous success, Juliancito simply ripped off the tape in one swift move.

Pulling this tube out of my nose will be a breeze, Juliancito thought.

He assumed that his nose’s depth was as far as his little

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He was finally free.

Wait, Juliancito thought.

Something was terribly wrong. Everything he did to himself didn’t make him feel better. It made him feel worse. He let out a loud cry that woke up the whole hospital, including his dad.

“What the fuck did you do?” Julian asked upon seeing what his little boy had done, his eyes not completely open yet.

He opened the room door and a wave of piercing light drowned his son’s retinas. “Nurse! I need a nurse over here.”

Two nurses quickly ran in—one in lime green scrubs, the other in pink. Juliancito was crying, not due to the pain of his two exit wounds, but due to the amount of commotion and hecticness coming from the three adults in the room.

“What did you do, sweetie?” the pink nurse asked in a motherly tone.

Juliancito’s small ribcage—big enough to hold only a tiny bird—was heaving spastically.

“Just relax, my dear,” green nurse yelled, which only made Juliancito more panicked.

Pink nurse was younger, scrawny and of an olive complexion; she reminded him of his mom. He knew that she cared enough to distract him from what he knew was coming: sharp

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65 needles. While the green nurse was diligently preparing all of the materials for intravenous reinsertion, she hummed “Brahms’s Lullaby.”

First, came the hand needle. The resourceful nurses used the same fresh hole between Juliancito’s knuckles. It was still open as not enough time had transpired in order for it to heal itself closed. The prepared needle had been sterilized and looked thicker and longer than the one he had just pulled out moments before. More like a soft drink straw than a sewing needle.

“No, no, no,” Juliancito spat out. His dad held him down as the nurses tag-teamed him: one holding down his floundering hand, the other going in for the final lunge.

“Don’t pull this one out, my dear baby,” pink nurse said, wiping the sweat off his tiny forehead, which fit perfectly inside her palm.

“Yep, you better listen to her,” green nurse said, followed by a smirk. “Every time you take it out, we’re going to come in here and stick it back in.” She seemed to derive some kind of twisted pleasure in torturing children, especially in the way she said, “Stick it back in.” In Juliancito’s mind, it was the equivalent to “Fuck it back in.”

The worst was over. Juliancito took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, his eyes ready to fall back asleep. He leaned his head back and lay it on his pillow, the only white surface on the bed not soiled with blood. He allowed the warm hint of morphine to course through his veins.

“Okay, now let’s stick in your nose tube,” green nurse said, as if she were waiting for Juliancito to feel comfortable again before breaking the terrible news. “All the way down.” What proceeded can be best depicted by images of ancient Egyptians performing the mummification ritual of brain removal.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” said the pink nurse. But everything wasn’t okay.

The plastic tube green nurse jammed up his nose scratched and poked every surface inside his nose, head and throat, bringing about the feeling of sneezing.

“Whatever you do, my sweet prince,” pink nurse said, “try not to sneeze.”

Juliancito gulped a torrential amount of saliva, which

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OTR helped with the sliding of the tube. If he had known the word and meaning of “Fuck!” then that’s what he would’ve yelled instead of the unpitched, crying drone. He actually only knew one curse word, “bitch,” and only because both his parents used it all the time. Mainly, to refer to their sisters, female coworkers, strange women driving poorly, their mothers—sometimes—and, on one occasion, his father to his brother for refusing to date a girl he would’ve loved to date himself, but couldn’t because he was married to Susana. Juliancito had uttered the derogatory term once before as he came out into a crowded living room, full of his aunts and uncles who were all saying it. In spite of the positive reaction from his relatives in the form of side-splitting laughter, his mom’s feedback was a hard smack on the lips, sealing them from ever saying it again.

After the nurses left and his dad went back to sleep, Juliancito felt as though he was invisible, stuck inside a prison, incarcerating and eviscerating him from the inside. He slept in what felt like intervals of a minute, closing his eyes and immediately opening them again. His eyelids felt heavy, his eyeballs dry,

“Juliancito felt as though he was invisible, stuck inside a prison, incarcerating and eviscerating him from the inside.” he wanted to sleep, but didn’t know how or why. He woke up to his cousins’ laughter, then night’s complete darkness, then daylight again. It seemed as though he hadn’t seen a real person in days.

It was becoming more difficult for Juliancito to distinguish between dreams, hallucinations, thoughts and reality. At times, he’d see Susana sitting at the foot of the bed just looking at him. Other times he’d see her holding him in her arms, like Mary holding Jesus’s flagellated body. Juliancito’s face looked gaunt, elongated like that of an old man, the whites of his eyes yellowed and without pupils. Susana was taking care of him as she had every cursed day of his four years on Earth. Both of them in a different state from what they each were used to: hers meditative, Juliancito’s vegetative.

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Juliancito opened his eyes to a man dressed in gray robes, his face concealed by a hood. He stood tall, between two giant trees. Juliancito knew that it was a man because his hands were vascular and worn from too much work. His mom would often tell him that that was what real men’s hands looked like. The tree to the man’s right was leaf-less, barren, white as dry bone.

A river of milk ran from it. The tree to the man’s left was green, greener than any tree Juliancito had ever seen, it was robust with fruits of all kinds, such as pomegranates, apples and tangerines.

His parents were bathing in the pristine, blue water running out of it, touching each other as they had when he walked into the bathroom late one night because he couldn’t hold it in and was afraid to pee his bed. They were feeding tangerine wedges to one another, making sounds that he had never heard them make.

Sounds that made him not want to be able to hear, ones that made him feel ill.

The two rivers—the white and the blue—met at the feet of the cloaked man. At the point where they crossed, the two liquids spontaneously combusted into a warm mist, tender and silky to the touch. The cloaked man rolled back his hood over his head with both hands. Juliancito saw the man’s face, it was the face of God. His mind became burdened with questions as did his vocal folds with muteness. God’s face was like the Sun and His hands were as gray as his robes, withered from having created everything he knew of, including every person that had existed, existed now, and would ever exist. God was silent. Juliancito remembered that whenever God spoke, something got created.

Maybe God isn’t in a creative mood, he thought.

As God’s hands descended, they pointed out to the two trees. The tree to His left—the one with his parents—was shaking.

Although Juliancito’s parents were gone, the sounds they were making were now coming out of the tree, dropping fruit onto the grassy knoll, spilling their seeds all about. The white, withered tree had morphed into a crucifix, and the river of milk into blood.

There was a person nailed to it, but it wasn’t Jesus. It was someone else that Juliancito had never seen before. He walked closer to get a better look and God allowed him to. The face looked familiar: it was him.

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God began to chant in an echoing boom: I-N-R-I… I-N-R-I… I-N-R-I… Juliancito didn’t know what “INRI” stood for, but he had seen these letters countless times, at church and at his grandma’s house, written on a tiny piece of wrinkled paper, nailed above Jesus’s wounded head. He had always wanted to ask his parents what that meant. Maybe it explained why Jesus looked so damn miserable on the cross. But when it came to God or anything church-related, it was a sin to ask for an explanation. Everything was a secret and no one was allowed to be curious. Suddenly, Juliancito was no longer looking up at his own crucified body, but rather down from the cross at his naked parents. Their genitals, the ones his mom and dad hid from him any time he walked into their room when they were changing, and had told him to hide his own, were covered with green flames. They were standing still and quiet as his body was being nailed to a cross with three, eight-inch nails. The pounding of the hammer was loud like thunder radiating through his body like the pain of the nails perforating his hands and feet.

“Mami, Papi,” Juliancito yelled.

It was dark outside. The trees were gone. God had left him too. His parents were fully clothed, his dad sleeping on a chair across the hospital room and his mom on one next to his bed.

“What happened?” Julian said, jumping out of his seat.

“Are you okay, baby?” Susana asked, finding a seat on his bed. Juliancito, his body beaded with sweat, scooted himself toward his mom and lay his head on her lap.

“Why does God hate me?” Juliancito asked, tears rolling down his cheeks and onto his mom’s worn out blue jeans.

“Son, He doesn’t hate you,” Julian rebutted.

“Yeah, he does. He really does. I can feel it.”

“Now listen,” Susana said, propping Juliancito up so that their eyes met. She always did this for serious matters, so that he could see that she wasn’t kidding. “I know that you’re upset right now, but you don’t talk about God that way. You hear me?”

Juliancito was using the name of God in vain, and he knew it. He held this and all of the other 9 commandments to

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65 heart, including ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife,’ although he didn’t really know what that one was referring to. Susana wiped the tears away from his eyes.

“Well, if he doesn’t hate me, then why did he make me this way?”

Juliancito asked. “Why did he make me broken?”

His parents looked at each other and released a collective sigh, the kind you take before telling a lie.

“God works in mysterious ways, son,” Julian said, scratching the overgrown hairs above the nape of his neck. “We shouldn’t question His ways.”

“Your father’s right,” Susana added. “We just need to learn to live with what God gives us. There’s nothing else we can do.”

After his parents each kissed him on his forehead, they turned off the lights and snuggled up in their respective chairs.

They instantly went back to sleep, but Juliancito couldn’t. His head was still burdened with questions. Looking up to the ceiling he noticed the reflection cast by the tiny sequins embroidered on

“God, I hate you,” Juliancito said, placing his hand on his chin so that it’d stop shaking. “I don’t know if you love me or hate me, but I do know that I hate you.” his mom’s green leather bag. The refracted light glimmered like stars. Although they weren’t the Sun, he began to talk to them as if they were, as if they were God Himself.

“God, I hate you,” Juliancito said, placing his hand on his chin so that it’d stop shaking. “I don’t know if you love me or hate me, but I do know that I hate you.”

He spoke the harsh words cautiously, not wanting to wake his parents up. He lowered his voice to just below a whisper, and mouthed, “I really hate you.” This time, he didn’t even want God to hear him. Deep in his heart, Juliancito didn’t really hate God or His only begotten Son, Jesus. Especially, not Jesus, as He Himself had felt the cold fingers of death impaling his hands and feet.

However, Juliancito did hate God’s sense of humor, his fucked up punchlines. Ones that placed a pleasure button on his intestines, to detonate at His random, inscrutable will.

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I wonder why He plays this cruel game with me, Juliancito thought. It was the same one he played when he used to mutilate insects on the playground, peeling away the exoskeleton, ripping away leg after leg. Juliancito realized that he would never be able to break away from God’s will, no matter how hard he tried.

He had to learn to deal with God’s cruelty, His warped sense of compassion, that undying clinging to life He placed in every living thing.

As sleep finally draped over his eyes, Juliancito accepted that he was a sinner and that all that befell him was his fault, not God’s. His parents hadn’t said those words exactly, but he knew what they meant. He was supposed to fear God and follow His commandments as if He was his mom or dad. Juliancito would do His will, but he didn’t have to like it. From time to time, he would allow himself to tell God just how much he hated what He expected of him. In secret, of course. This thought comforted him.

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Cold Daze Michael Furio

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tableaux automatique pink lemonade semigloss Robert Matejcek

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"Contributions" Antonio Codita is a junior, full-time student at Hunter and throughout their journey as an American by choice, husband, parent and weaver of future. They have a passion for poetry. At this point in their maturity, their favorite poets are George Eliot, Edgar Albert Guest and Rudyard Kipling.

Mad Crawford is a senior at Hunter College in New York, NY. They major in Greek & Latin. They have been previously published in The Olivetree Review, The Candy Zine, and Loser Zine.

Jocelyn Covarrubias has always gravitated towards art in many mediums for fun, expression, and therapy. Although she sometimes take long breaks, she most recently started sharing her work on her account on Instagram which she’s enjoyed very much. It’s given her a chance to share her work, thoughts, and expressions in a way that encourages her to keep going at it.

Michael Furio has been shooting photography for a long time. He started with his phone, moved to digital, and somewhere along the way fell in love with analogue photography He loves the juxtaposition of the reality of the subjects with the artificiality of things like framing.

Giovanni Green is driven by the goal of creating self-determination and increasing the capacity of those who they are surrounded with, they create art to inspire and empower. With over two decades of pleasure sourced from song writing, poetry, and prose, they continually seek new ways to express their literary desires while also remaining rooted in the hip hop culture which shaped them.

Merari Hernandez is a creative writer from the South Bronx who, lately, feels like they need to mention they’re from the Bronx every chance they get mainly because the other boroughs don’t respect them enough. Thank you to their family and friends for always supporting and encouraging them!

Elizabeth Jankovic and I am a sophomore Muse scholar studying media journalism and theatre. I love performing and am looking to act in more short and student films. I have always loved words, poetry, and creative writing. I write poetry in my free time and whenever inspiration hits; it’s a dream of mine to get a poem book published one day!

Andy Lopez is a senior at Hunter College studying Creative Writing. He enjoys writing short stories and hanging out with his dog. His work has appeared in previous issues of The Olivetree Review.

Robert Matejcek obtained his BA in Art from Fontbonne University in St. Louis, Missouri. Robert’s work, a combination of traditional and new media, has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. Originally from North Dakota, Robert currently resides with his wife and their three guinea pigs in Boise, Idaho.

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65 Catalina Meza is an immigrant from Costa Rica with Georgian roots.

Is really passionate about telling stories, especially because a lot of people don’t have the opportunity to tell theirs.

Katelin Montgomery is a first year student at Hunter pursuing their second bachelors degree in studio art. Their first degree is in computer science. They have a background in ceramics from high school, but is now studying other media.

Jose Oseguera is an LA-based writer of poetry, short fiction and literary nonfiction. Having grown up in a diverse urban environment, Jose has always been interested in the people and places around him, and the stories that each of these has to share; those that often go untold. His writing has been featured in Meat for Tea, Sky Island Journal, The Esthetic Apostle, The McNeese Review, and The Main Street Rag. His work has also been nominated for the “Best of the Net” award and the “Pushcart Prize.”

Carlos Rueda enjoys drumming, painting, and roaming the streets of New York City.

Vivian Sanchez is currently in her senior year as an art major at Hunter College. She was born in Colombia, raised in Florida, lives in New York, and likes pineapple on pizza.

Museara Shithee is a student at Hunter College pursuing an economics degree. She is an aspiring writer working on her first novel while trying to balance school and full-time work. She lives in Queens with her eight dying houseplants.

Kana Tateishi is a sophomore at Hunter College studying sociology.

Billy Thompson’s fiction has appeared in several journals, including The Louisville Review and Word Riot. He lives in Media, PA, with his wife Abby and their two sons, Joey and Declan.

Nino Tsiklauri is the former President of Happenings. Arts. Presence. For her,

art and life cannot be separated, as it is a reflection of self. The more you separate from what it is to be human, darker things appear, such can be unconscious ideas and human aspects that haven’t been fully explored yet. These dark aspects of being human is what makes people more aware of themselves so they shy away from them and neglect them, but she embraces them in her own experience and translates them unto the work. Her main medium is painting; from there she started creating immersive environments for her paintings to inhabit. Now she is working on creating installations, sculptures, and immersive environments that deal with her own experiences, emotions, new materials, and intuition, but at the same time are ineffable. She transfers the emotions that are blistering inside of her into a piece of work and create an experience of space, which you have occupied as an entity. Thus, you are occupying her internal state.

Gabriela Voll is a Gabriela Voll is a half-Colombian NYC native who is a multi-disciplinary artist; sculpture, photographer, writer, director, painter half-Colombian NYC native who is a multi-disciplinary artist; sculpture, photographer, writer, director, painter.

Sylvia Welch has been writing for most of her life, discovering her passion for poetry at the age of seven. She is mainly influenced by Greek mythology, various poets, and spirituality. She uses poetry as an outlet for philosophical and spiritual deliberations.

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Meet the Staff Editor-in-Chief and Art Editor

Melissa Rueda loves art history, cats, cool socks, and gummies.

Vice President

Tanisha Williams is a person who is still learning how to adult, wears mismatched socks, sleeps in, calls everyone “bro” and steals junk food from her nieces and nephews. On her free time, she goes to Hunter College where she majors in Film and minors in English.

Treasurer

Kana Tateishi is a mess but it’s okay it’s a good type of mess like when you put literally every candy bar you can think of in cookie dough. She likes spending a lot of money on books. Her angst is expressed through her love for Sylvia Plath. She hopes everyone has a wonderful day.

Secretary Meghan Elberti thinks, therefore, is baby.

Art Editor

Kenny Perez is so clumsy that it is amazing he is still alive. He thinks that perhaps God keeps her around as comic relief. He uses humor and excessive amounts of Honey Nut Cheerios to mask the pain of existence - Ariel Tsai

Poetry Editors

Doria Wohler, fifth grade spelling bee champion and owner of several striped shirts, is determined to capture all of her antics in this small body of text. She is left-handed, has illegally streamed the Jane Jacobs documentary several times, and hopes to one day find herself a life partner who loves her as much as she loves kimchi.

Sheena Rocke is a passionate poet in love with none other than (herself) poetry.

Prose Editors

Andy Lopez is overworked and underfed. Regarding his blurb on the previous issue, he says, “I was right.”

Gabrielle Luna is a conspiracy theorist. .

Senior Publicist

Sharon Young is a Junior majoring in Political Science. You’ll probably see her on the streets of New York with a book tucked under her shoulder whilst photographing dogs.

Publicity Assistant

Srinidhi Rao is majoring in TV Studio Production. She solely pursues this major because she likes pressing red buttons. She is a level 10 Memer and has mastered all the tiers of dankness. She looks like a twelve year old and acts like one too. Requires cuddles. 10/10 would recommend.

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The Olivetree Review

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"History of The Olivetree Review" Since the fall semester of the year 1983, The Olivetree Review has been a Hunter institution allowing a place for student writers to submit their work and see it published. Under the auspices of their faculty advisor, Professor David Winn, a small group of Hunter students successfully petitioned Hunter for the funds to start a publication. This allowed The Olivetree’s original staff members, Pamela Barbell, Michael Harriton, Mimi Ross DeMars, and Adam Vinueva to create their issue of student work and dedicate it to the memory of the late Hunter College professor and poet, James Wright.

The Olivetree Review has come a long way since that first issue.

Digital painting allows for both the inclusion of full color images and extra design elements to be available for all projects. We began including photography submissons in Issue #7, and advancements in scanning and digital photography have allowed for us to accept nearly any form of art that can be captured in one or more frames. We have also begun accepting drama writing submissions as of Issue #52, meaning we are finally accepting and printing all forms of creative writing and art that is currently possible to.

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