ON THE CUSP no. 8
after
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April 2013 Hey there, We’re coming into spring as we put this issue together and every single year I think it’s the most extraordinary thing ever; winter in the Midwest in general means March is only a glimpse at what’s possible (warmth) (blue skies) (leaves on the trees), but it’s April now, and there are flowers coming out of the ground. Things are happening. We did something unusual a few months ago when we actually picked out the themes for the first few issues of On the Cusp 2k13 in advance, and After was our “finally an issue about time” pick. We’ve been trying to come up with some way of talking about time without it being just “time” since our first issue Space, back in 2011, and it didn’t let us down. After isn’t just about time, though. There’s a kind of tension within the past, whether it’s a confrontation with ghosts or simple nostalgia, or death constantly coming toward us– comparing now and then is one of the most human things we do. Even with the basic indefiniteness of After, the ways we learn, remember, love, create our lives, and ultimately live are dependent on the continual progress of leaving things behind. We went into this issue hoping to investigate what all of that means, and now present these submissions with the hope that they get to you like they got to us. Yours, On the Cusp Zine Team Clare, Felicia, Rachel, and Wes
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i: a hospice bed still unslept somewhere out there you will be drinking in the dullness of my days filling the gaps in my light but i’ll find the wind still undoes the progress of the sun soon to wear your gaze in every stitch; preparing to hold my breath at each bottle, to hear bells in every Stairway to Heaven that weren’t there before time to fold the moth wings time to kiss goodnight your heavy lids
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ii: former lung cancer survivor here you aren’t; building a nest of your presence out of fires and mom still sleeps on your side of the bed you would have loved it a new coat for the old snow any chance to hold nature and stroke along its tresses thought about cancelling today closing up the whole month sealing away my years flooding with water and draining a slow puncture but there will always be parts of my head for you to whistle through Mike Boyle 5
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Aimen Azim
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on paint i’ve reached the white wall (the one with the window) which stands west of the one i yellow-washed yesterday. thought a warm palette might make the light alive when the inescapable sun sets west of the white wall— this is indeed our hemisphere where the seasons affect the tides which ride on reason to affirm the rising and that setting— but the blankness seems bleaker at dawn, during day dreaming doing dishes down the hall decked in winter wear when the white wall window doesn’t keep shut and the westward sun doesn’t heat up. i can’t tell Crisp Linen apart from Eggshells nor Napery from the Autumn Sun so i guess they’ve won, these happygold pieces pinned to white wall in the blank room where the west was somehow lost.
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Wesley Schwartz
Clare Vernon
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Smoke—
a pile of ash. I want to see my need(to be)reborn. (an obsidian mane caught fire and turned to gray There’s life in the way things die. What we have confused— in heaven as clouds is snow
10 Corey Galloway
“spectre� my parentheses warmly embraced the secrets you kept locked behind deadbolt doors, clipped from fingernails you shined a light on every wrinkle in the sheet; each divet an excavation to study and restore you rode in cars with girls that barely knew Portland was a pipe dream in the back of your brain slipping down the interstate.
Rachel Frankel 11
The chickens gathered under the porch as the rain began to lay its body down. I left my shoes in the yard. In the kitchen was the smell of bread. There were feathers in the bread box. I scooped them into my arms. I listened to the banjo strings moving under my kneecaps. I couldn’t place the song. I cleaned the butter knives. A brown dog slept under the roses. I watched it from the kitchen window. I listened to my fingers whispering to my heart. I never learned how to pluck strings. My fingers wanted to. My heart wanted to feed the birds. So I did. I told you I was scared of storms. How loudly they rattle their bones. You put your lips on each of my wrists. You sliced the bread. We ate it with butter. I pulled my fingers through your hair like it was a soft instrument. You slept. You dreamt of black berries. Of colts. And I listened to your heart opening like a planet in reverse becoming breadcrumbs. While the chickens huddled close, pecking quietly at the ground.
12 Dalton Day
Kelsey O’Kelley 13
14 Kelsey O’Kelley
(i) One hundred and six late nights alone and the bite of Austin, Texas in the summer. A packed bag, the pock marked sky at night. Abandoned coffee shops with rings on all the tables and a five dollar strip club where most people don’t know my name. His repeating tongue and my unbreakable connection to the past. The missing piece in our relationship, your lips spilling secrets between book pages like an after dinner drink. A black eye with a raw piece of steak over it. The beginning of who I’ve always thought I’d turn out to be. (ii) Hot nights. The souls of my shoes peeling off like a lazy band-aid. I write my art in the cracks of the sidewalk. New York City subway rides and the overwhelming memory of you and I asleep in the rubble of Ground Zero. (iii) My name is Destiny. You have’t been here long, have you? Here, honey, let me show you the ropes. (iv) And after it all, we were motionless, slipping in and out of mirrors like blue-eyed prom queens. You were the poet I’ll never be. The only famous man I’ve ever fucked with my eyes open.
Ali O’Brien 15
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Violet Ryder 17
18 Chloe Monson
“50/50� cancer stain, I carry you not as a wound, but a lesson trailed by an ellipsis, I follow the intemerate mark
Matt Hemmerich
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Jonathan Pivovar 21
Absolution The dirt swallows and opens. I measure the grain, pulse up. I fiddle with the downpour. I let the mud settle. The valley: a hollow hollow, a displaced grace.
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Caitlin Neely
Rob Freimuller
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You will start to see things differently. You will notice the accumulation of dust atop the blades of your bedroom fan, the crookedness in the calendar on your wall, the way things sound so empty when you are only sharing space with yourself. Your eyes will scan over the same general areas you’ve lived in for months but never taken the time to truly notice— (you had previously spent this time scanning things like the freckle under his right eye, the way he looks in-between breaths in his sleep, the duration of time at which his chest rises and falls while your head lies on it’s surface; inhale, exhale.) You will forget to inhale. You will forget to exhale. Your best friend will bring you waffle fries and coca cola and write vaguely inspirational snippets on your mirror in bright red lipstick while you ugly-girl-sob in the fetal position on what was formerly his side of the bed. Your wallet will accumulate handfuls of Starbucks receipts from all of the under-caffeinated, overpriced drinks you will purchase in compensation for lack of sleep. You will be pitifully dragged to a friend’s house where you will end up as the third wheel, resulting in your consumption of one too many bottles of hard cider. You will cry while you compose and send text messages. You will regret this the following morning. You will drink from multiple bottles of wine with seven of your closest friends, but this time, you will not cry. You will sing and dance around someone’s living room until five o’clock in the morning. You will begin to wear your own t-shirts to sleep again and reflect on how comfortable you had forgotten they were. You will laugh hysterically at a line from a movie while sitting alone on your couch. You will notice yourself. You will realize that the allotted amount of time in which you have chosen to act as a dysfunctional member of society is pathetic. You will brush your hair and paint your fingernails and line your eyelids in liquid black. You will be pleasantly surprised when some of your “friends” line up to date you. You will kiss one of them. (It will be weird.) You will receive compliments regarding how great you look, how happy you seem. You will purchase new perfume. You will see musicals and concerts and delve deeply into the work of new authors. You will write again. You will take photographs again. You will be again.
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Jessica Kennedy
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26 Nora Berggren-Jensen
(a catalogue of scars) middle finger of your left hand you were nine and clumsy with scissors also nine chickenpox (five days home from school) smooth shiny circles (arms stomach legs back) sixteen, swimming blind an oyster-encrusted rock your knee you shaved your legs for the first time in the communal showers at the caravan park thirteen (still clumsy) ten years old and drunk on freedom in the empty lot next door leap barbed wire thin line over your ribs a bug tried to make a home in your right shoulder (fourteen? fifteen?) you compress the raised lump with your fingers absent-minded friction burns, abrasions, the back of your hand you are nineteen and the studio floor is not forgiving (you didn’t need that skin anyway)
Keely McDicken
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Lullaby Little has changed in my house in my home since I left, though my mother swore she’d change out the bed – only I know she sleeps there nights when my father’s snores echo in the chamber of her heart & moonlight seeps between her bones like rain, she spends hours at night alone these nights I know she does— She’d climb into bed with me some nights, sleepless, pale in matching pink pajamas, “I couldn’t sleep” she’d whisper into my shoulder blades as I shifted my body over, making room. Our breathing slowed like a lullaby to the blinds, my heartbeat humming with the sound of my mother snoring, ever so slightly, into morning.
28 Jacqueline Krass
Emmy Lou Virginia 29
Between One Shore and Several Others after Vivek Vilasini The ocean backed off, you tossed your towel in a sack. I said we’re not the same and you disagreed. I took your ego in mine; I let you temper. The shore slipped between us. I called for you like a squall (din of ocean). For once, I was honest. The sea settled in. I sent my regards.
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Rob Freimuller 31
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Nora Berggren-Jensen
minizine
Tyler Meese 33
CONTRIBUTORS Mike Boyle 18, connecticut. mikeboyle.tumblr.com Aimen Azim is a fifteen year old art enthusiast currently residing in Dubai. She is a full-time cat lover, and occasionally an aspiring writer and photographer. Wesley Schwartz caffeine slave, slant heart, slight, and often anxious Clare Vernon indiana-hearted. i don’t need your friends, i’ve got my own. Corey Galloway I’m a soon to be senior poetry major living in Chicago. I work within slight surrealism and am attempting to expand into cubist styles. My work will be presented in a multi-sensory exhibit held during Columbia College Chicago’s end of the year art show, Manifest. Besides that you can find me doodling and wishing I had a bear. Rachel Frankel is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in San Francisco. She is fascinated by narrative, animal instinct, human nature, and the complexities of memory. You can find her visual work at www.speakeasyillustrations.com. Dalton Day has spent two decades on this flying chunk of rock. There is a birdhouse where his heart should be. He leaves feathers on the tops of mountains. He wants a silkie chicken named Mrs. Mulberry. Kelsey O’Kelley is studying English at the University of Illinois, and her writing and photography has appeared in Cicada Magazine, the Prairie Light Review, and the Sun Day Newspaper. In her free time, she works at a library and drinks green tea. Ali O’Brien is so official, all she needs is a whistle. Violet Ryder I’m an ex-pat Midwesterner currently enjoying the sunshine of Northern California. I blog whatever strikes my fancy at: weatherthisdanger.tumblr.com 34
Chloe Monson 19, Salt Lake City. chloemonson.tumblr.com ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Matt Hemmerich is the bastard son of Donald Trump. His first chapbook White Moon was released February this year. You can give him a hug at matthemmerich.com. Jonathan Pivovar I’m a chicago-native artist. I typically work in the field of photography, though much of my work leads up to the photograph its self. I’m also a writer, woodworker, bike builder, and sculpture artist. You can find more work at my website: www.jonathanpivovar.com and follow my thoughts and ideas at jonathanpivovar.tumblr.com Caitlin Neely is a student at Northern Kentucky University. She is the poetry editor for Loch Norse Magazine. Her work has appeared in Loch Norse Magazine and is forthcoming in Licking River Review. Rob Freimuller I graduated in 2012 from Norwich University College of the arts with a degree in Fine art. Within my work I employ a documentary style approach, wandering different locations in search of the uncanny, unpredictable and unappreciated. Chelsea Du Devoire I am twenty years old, from Bradenton, Florida, and currently studying Editing, Writing & Media at Florida State University. I’m a dancer and a big fan of eating hummus. I have a huge crush on Elvis Presley, and I’m pretty positive that I’m a living hybrid of Julie Andrews + Beyonce. Jessica Kennedy is a 22-year-old senior at UNC-Chapel Hill studying journalism and trying to figure out what’s next. You can find more of her work at jrskimbued.tumblr.com. Nora Berggren-Jensen I am an earthquake of a girl. Keely McDicken wears too much blue and drinks too much tea and spends too much time on the internet: versary.tumblr.com Jacqueline Krass I’m an 18-year-old poet/writer/library assistant from Brooklyn, NY. I study at 35
Vassar College, and am an English and Women’s Studies major. I like philosophy, feminism, and literature, and collaborate with my best friend on a social justice zine that we put out bimonthly. You can find more of my writing at my personal blog, galactical.tumblr.com, or the site for my zine, monsterzine.tumblr.com. Emmy Lou Virginia I am a self-taught Vancouver photographer who specializes in natural light photography. I love coffee, with a mix of really good rainy day music, and old typewriters, and the smell of hyacinths, and the way people look when they first wake up in the morning, and apricot jam with cheese. Tyler Meese was born in Michigan but now lives in Indiana and may very well die in the Midwest. E-mail him anything at tylermeese@gmail.com.
All copyrights remain with contributors upon publication. Please respect these submissions and seek permission from any author or artist before reproducing the work in any way.
On The Cusp began in 2011 as a vision shared between three budding Chicago artists to lend a megaphone to those peers of ours whose voices get lost in the noise of Today. In an age where everyone with a smart phone is a photographer and everyone with a blog is a writer, we dreamed simply of spotlighting and showcasing those who deserve recognition, those who quietly devote their lives tirelessly to their craft, those who are skirting the edge of anonymity and esteem. The OTC Zine Team meets weekly on one of two of The Coziest Couches in Chicago. We talk about art and not art and we laugh about things that probably aren’t that funny. We have all agreed that OTC is the best thing to happen to us since Domino’s improved their pizza recipe. On the Cusp works from onthecuspzine.com and has a storefront at onthecuspzine. bigcartel.com. We welcome feedback and hellos at onthecuspzine@gmail.com. Thank you for your support!
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