volition
George Mason’s Literary and Arts Journal
Volume 21 Volition Spring 2016.indd 1
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CONTENTS POETRY Kailey Graham Colin Hicklin Emily Hunt 2
Elizabeth Vanna Molly Doak Menatallah Mohamed Meaghan Rachal Ethar Hamid
Pillows | 3 Ambitions of a Hustler | 6 What are you looking for? | 7 Expectations | 10 Origins | 37 chaos | 9 The Family Poor-trait | 28 Where the Doldrums Rest | 13 Why the Bird Sings | 22 Krystallnacht | 26 Super Hair | 31
PROSE Bird Ozark Hansen Allison Raines
Retirement Match | 14 Never Let Go | 32
SPRING 2016
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PHOTOGRAPHY Reed Griffith Mari Baz Kailey Graham Jordan Ingram Kath Gayle
The Abandoned Church of Vieques | 5 Isabel at Midday | 20 Nazar (Evil Eye) | 12 Untitled | 25 Me, According to Them | 30 Boy with Cape | 31
ART Kath Gayle Jordan Ingram Olga Rachenova Nicole Hedgepeth
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Muddle-Headed | Cover To Feel Everything | 8 Heart of the Tree | 11 I am a Wild Thing | 38
MISSION STATEMENT Volition serves to elevate the creative capacity of the Mason community by fostering freedom of expression across diverse mediums.
SPRING 2016
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Pillows Oh, the mornings when I wake up And the sunlight is soft The world is melting like sweet chocolate And not boxing me awake Pillows in the morning On the inside of my skull Bouncing, ‘Kailey, it’s okay.’ They grow to soften my falls
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Oh, the mornings when I’m walking And the cold air is fresh The scent of rotting’s gone away To wake me with snowy perfume Pillows in my blush Flames to love and feed you With colors and seasons to inspire Oh, the mornings when it’s silent And the silence doesn’t kill When the words for wordless resonance Are in calm and gentle still When the glory of the warm sky And the chill of thawing ground Tempt me, not impose me And call me with mystery still
| Kailey Graham
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The Abandoned Church of Vieques | Reed Griffith | digital photograph
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Ambitions of a Hustler
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I move like a thief in the night seeking the right object for profit, then sell it for the steepest price. My joints make you lean back for greenbacks. You will either - relax or relapse. Working this strip for some twenty odd years Posting on the block like Wall or Paul Pierce. Protection definitely a must in my section. Avoid the mistakes that could get me in corrections, The hunger of a man to maintain his own Can provoke sudden plans that can take his soul. I move covertly Show no mercy and avoid cheap thrills cause these fiends are thirsty. Baseheads - take bread on concrete believing in God but preying like zombies. From Wall Street, back to the Columbian District We’re all victims - cause we’re stuck in the system
| Colin Hicklin
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What are you looking for? Driven by obsession— in particular, obsession with sharp sunlight smothering the sea, with the salt wind tangling its sticky fingers in hair; the waves are opaque, so pry off wet clothes, pull them, unsuction. Fling bare body into surf but know the waves hide more than just naked flesh.
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| Emily Hunt
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To Feel Everything| Jordan Ingram | acrylic on canvas
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chaos the world is a tsunami or some other natural disaster, is everything bumping together, tumbling around in color lumps and movement flashes, each wave fighting to break the surface, each crack in the earth trying to survive. it does not pause. though, in fairness, only hurricanes can pause, and even then, not fully. and even then, they don’t like to.
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the world is not sentient, but it’s parts are sentient, these wriggles that are self aware, conscious of how cold air brings clarity, how the weight of knowing is heaviest on the roof of the mouth, how water flow discovers everything assures nothing. it is destruction in terms of: the now creation in terms of: the aftermath
| Elizabeth Vanna
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Expectations There, in the orchard apples had dangled, budding breasts dripping from tree limbs. You liked the nondescript golden delicious, you ducked your head under branches but we knew nothing about fruit— we trampled more than we picked.
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We ran away that day, stamping down rows upon rows of overripe, rot, injected into grooves on the soles of our shoes, we Looked for fuji, red as the lipstick I would wear if we weren’t teething upon juicy, pungent flesh; come upon fuji, brown and invaded, dug out by ants, we were never excellent with timing
| Emily Hunt
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Heart of the Tree | Olga Rachenova | digital painting
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Nazar (Evil Eye) | Mari Baz | digital photograph
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Where the Doldrums Rest I will meet where the doldrums rest Where the trade winds and stagnation collide In the Intertropical Convergence Zone Till the violent squalls come alive.
The sails they dangle limp Hovering above the crystal blue A quiver sends the heart ablaze A hope the wind is coming soon.
It is dull and quiet, one can think Some might claim unbearable But silence is meant to awaken genius Enough to shock and baffle.
I will meet you where the doldrums rest Where time equates with motion and only when the waves dare dance Will I be free from this forsaken ocean.
This region holds true to neutrality and keeps with a calm consensus Enough to drive a mind insane and severely skew the senses. Eventually the silence breaks and the gulls screech up above The doldrums claimed many spirits before Their souls beat below like a drum.
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| Molly Doak
One could paint this solemn scene But you would have to come aboard Yet the stillness is a painter’s dream Until the final stroke is done.
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Retirement Match And here’s your winner, from Parts Unknown, 6’8” Weighing 322 Pounds Ursaaaaa MAJOR! Mask over hair, fists taped tight, head smashing concrete, and were on for the main event!
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Two men fought to the fall. Two men fought for the belt. Two men fought. The roar of the crowd, the entrance theme blaring, controlled explosions and electrifying stunts. No disqualification match! No holds barred street fight! No ropes barbed wire fight! The match to end all matches! ----------“Time to make Necro Butcher look like a pussy, eh Urs?” “Yeah I suppose so.” The tape hiding the knife on Ursa’s thigh was beginning to loosen from the sweat. It wasn’t the nerves, not anymore. It was the shakes. Another week and Ursa Major would be dead, another supernova in the prime of career. But today Ursa had a fight, against The Slovenian Suplex no less.
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They’d both been practicing for weeks, and the pain of it showed on Ursa’s arms and face. The only stipulation for the match was that Ursa had to be clean for it, no juicing, no heroin, nothing. Not even a caffeine pill to stay awake through the “See you on the other side, Comrade. And remember, when I go for the missile dropkick, land on your feet and ass, then I’ll go into the figure 4” The Suplex’s words whistled through Ursa’s brain, addled as it was, and Ursa squatted down for one last innerpeptalk. -------------forehead glistening with sweat and blood on the ropes of gum tissue dangling off the marks in flesh and as the crowd electric sings fire and fireworks and theme songs belts held high and spirits underfoot a limp back behind the curtain fist held high but only one crossing the threshold the pain comes a pain for every week out on the road {thepainthepainthepainthepainthepainthepain thepainthepainthepainthepainthepainthepain thepainthepainthepainthepainthepainthepain thepainthepainthepainthepainthepainthepain thepainthepainthepainthepainthepainthepain thepainthepainthepainthepainthepainthepain thepainthepainthepainthepainthepainthepain thepainthepainthepainthepainthepainthepain thepainthepainthepainthepain} the rush of medicine and cocaine that turns 52 weeks of ache
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and one very bad night into another fuzzy suggestion and in the low lit fluorescence of that night’s hotel room that glimpse of diamond and gold is just a little more sour and the next night in the next town over -------------“Don’t forget the flag, you’re gonna bash Ursa’s head in with it about halfway through.” The Slovenian Suplex had been through it all, coming up from Perth Amboy. He started with NWS and moved on to a brief stint in Chikara. Suplex never did get over the humiliation he suffered there. Always with the fucking ant masks, like some kind of deranged insect. Suplex started out as the Amboy Assassin, making a name for himself by faking a blackout then surprising the opponent with a spinebuster before the ref got to 10. Man I miss those days, nothing better than the collective gasps when they see a face buckle over my knees. The Slovenian Suplex was a new thing, the brains up in Connecticut thought it was still the 1980s and Brezhnev was still a threat; apparently it goes over real well when an audience thinks the real enemy is the Commie and not the suits sucking them dry. But the suits do provide. Fair enough, brain of Suplex, they do. --------------the inheritance of family and the rush of adrenal energy methamphetamine addiction and a need for steroidal injections daily brass knuckles worn and yellowed tape faded brown leather of the old mask you fight for some misplaced familial honor
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you fight to pop just right for the crowd you fight because the money is running thin and every night you fight hoping one day you feel how it felt when that first pin that first pop hit the canvascrowd ---------------Shards of blood dripping from his hand, Ursa turned to the lopsided mirror and fixated on his hairline. How many years ago was it? Before he moved to the US? The drugs took a lot with them, fond memories included. There was a time when Ursa was a household name. His Uncle was the original. Started up in Guadalajara, taking local matches with Cabello who were trying to make a name for themselves. Ursa Prime’s first big break came when he was offered an invitation to team with El Santo, the match was cancelled but his name became known from the promotion. Ursa Major’s first big break came when LA Parka severed Ursa’s Achilles Tendon with a nailbat by accident. The nails were supposed to graze, not stab. It was supposed to create some color, not split the muscles. That was the start. That was 20 years ago. That was when the habits formed. After all, Ursa had a match the next day and only so much money to his name. ---------------“So before he goes for the finisher you’re gonna give him the suplex out of the ring and he’s gonna grab the knuckles under the apron then go for the mandible claw into the powerbomb for the countout” The Slovenian Suplex grabbed his boots and started lacing up as the manager instructed him once again on the match. He grabbed the fresh scalpels and began to lightly run them over his cheeks and eyebrows. Ursa had left one of the bladed knuckles he uses for the “Clawbomb” for Suplex so he could line up the giglines just right. As the metal ran against the thin skin of his face, Suplex’s shallow breathing betrayed him. The new gimmick was sure to go over well, it’s been too long since the audience saw blood and the marks were gonna flip. That was worth more than
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any belt, and it was all he was going to need. He packed away the scalpel, finished lacing his boots and got ready to die once again in the squared circle. ------------------the philadelphia crowd always the harshest they turn on you by the second fall but when they love it you know and they love you night after night chanting screaming waiting for that turn in the match
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when they’ve got you on the ropes and it looks like the hero’s gonna win again Broad Street never suffered fools or faces and when they see you coming up from behind when the ref ’s count is at eight and your hands clutch bulges of straining neck muscles and your knees hit the cracking bone and spinal nerves that crowd throws bolted seats into piles in front of you and you ascend this metal and cotton throne there’s already a People’s Champ but you are their champion and philadelphia wants you to know it ----------------And his opponent, from Ljubljana, Slovenia
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weighing 290 Pounds The Slooooveniannnnn SUUUUPLEXXXX Grab the flag Cue the music Cut the crap Hit the ramp Two men fighting to the fall Two men fighting for the belt Two men fighting The roaring crowd entrance theme blaring fireworks and explosions electrifying high-flying stunts
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No disqualification match No holds barred dirty street fight No ring ropes barbed wire fight The match to end all matches
| Bird Ozark Hansen
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Isabel at Midday | Reed Griffith | digital photograph
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Why the Bird Sings Once upon a time, a bird confessed to me of his love for a tree. I sat at my window as he sang to me: “Pretty bird, pretty bird, why do you not flee?” asked the tree. “My bark has become brittle and my leaves no longer plenty.”
Devastated that the tree suggested my love for her spawned from her simple ability to provide for
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me I responded furiously:
“Tall and mighty and made of wood but a master of iron-y it is you who taught me, a creature with wings, how to be free!
Yes, between the two of us, it is I who can fly, But you have also journeyed high and wide And of us two travelers, you are most wise Because for every arm your trunk grew Your roots extended two feet. A gift within its own, because no matter how hard the earth quaked it was never able to expel you from the land you call home.
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And so I learned that our binding roots give us the freedom to resist, the freedom to be our own.
And what about your resilience against nature’s elements when they’d betray your trust, Towards war they’d thrust, But your silent prayers for peace were always the loudest, War cry!
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And so I learned that with peace comes freedom of the body and freedom of the mind.
And when night comes, Welcoming phantoms that only accept safety and sanity as ransom, It is you who rids me of my despair, When you remind me that in the grand scheme of things, dark times are as short lived as warm breaths dancing in cold air. And let’s not forget your lessons on generosity Every cold season when you dress the shivering ground with your freshly painted leaves. And so I learned that hope and charity are the soul’s favorite remedies.
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You see tree you don’t give yourself enough credit, Don’t let preconceived notions fool you, The hottest flames are not red but blue, Oceans are colorless, simply reflecting the sky’s hue, And an unmoving tree can be a symbol of freedom too.
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So yes, your bark has become brittle, and your leaves no longer plenty, But I will forever be perched atop your branch singing your praises, All hail the mighty tree, That taught a bird how to be free.” .
| Menatallah Mohamed
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Untitled| Kailey Graham | digital photograph
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Krystallnacht i. Like diamonds scattered across a dark blue blanket, the glass glittered under the stars The distant sea sparkles soft and cold in the moonlight If you listen closely, you can hear my heart breaking As I drop bombs, like love letters— or kisses
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ii. On the ground, wooden soldiers are marching Over the hills and valleys of a virgin’s body, conquering Much like you and I— Me, cut and mangled and You, who could not forebear weeping At the sight of once-perfect flesh now perverted-Stained like the blood-soaked snow; or children’s clothes iii. We are lost in love, sex-soaked suicide poetry Outside, the rain pours down- saturating. The tears of another one, asking questions What will you do if my soul invites you in? Will you love me as I have loved all others?
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iv. A bright light fills the window The sounds of shattering windows Can be heard all around— Our world explodes in one magnificent moment v. My hand finds itself in yours, our fingers braid together, Much like the braids on the little girls skipping down the street. When the night is over, find me in your arms. Lying, twisted together, in the bed, in the attic room, in the blue house on Middlebury.
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| Meaghan Rachal
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Family Poor-trait
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The Aunt Her smile is the biggest in the frame. The blue eyes and blonde hair seal the deal of picturesque Americana, the kind of neurochemical physical perfection that alienates the blemished people around her. The five year plan speaks of quiet sanity. We will never understand, because we cannot organize our red-circled calendars by priority. When I was a child, I used to brag about how much we resembled each other. It wasn’t until years later reality told me I never looked like anyone but myself. The Mother What did the man say when his wife said she felt like being run over by a bus, and he wasn’t doing anything to help? “Here’s the bus schedule!” The Father When I turn the picture back and forth, he reappears and disappears depending on the lighting. He is only present when he benefits. A shadow crawling through the hall, an endless maw that devours the fridge. Dutifully, the appliance is replaced in the morning like the liver of Prometheus. He could teach that titan a thing or two about stealing someone’s fire, about taking all the light for himself.
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The Sister What did the perfectionist say to her left-handed mother? “You’re the worst! Why can’t you ever do anything right?” The Grandfather Let me tell you the story about the boxes of cereal. No, let me tell you about the spoons. Spoons are required to eat cereal with, this is known and widely accepted by the scientific community. Known and widely accepted by the family community is that two boxes of cereal cannot be open at one time, do not finish the first second, time is of the essence, all the spoons must point north. If not, proper lab procedure dictates they will be thrown on the floor next to the yellowing pools of Agent Orange. Now, do you see why everyone hides when the electrician brings his power home?
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| Elizabeth Vanna
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Me, According to Them | Jordan Ingram | digital photograph
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Super Hair As my mama twisted and turned my hair into braids, The turn of the century came; It took three years to finish my hair (1997—2000. I was three years old when she started, And six when she finished.) ~ My hair, though, is super-hair: It only grows longer through the years
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Of people putting it down— Through the years of disparagement, it lives on. Coily and frizzy and poofy— Every word you can think of that is the opposite of straight— That is my hair. And when it defies gravity and grows three inches above my scalp (because it’s super-hair), It is a halo around my head.
| Ethar Hamid
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Never Let Go “The worst part about cancer isn’t what it does to you, but what it does to the people you love.” — Deadpool
I love the rare moments in which she breaks through the borders of mother and scratches the surface of friend. Indeed, these were rare moments before the cancer.
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I welcomed her cancer with surprised tears, a sharp gasp for air, and gentle sadness that transformed into fierce, throbbing hatred. I remember two things from the night she told me about her diagnosis: One, the words from her mouth — “I have skin cancer” — two, my body, cold and abandoned and disturbed, lying in bed hours later, wishing everything could all end faster than I’d ever wished before. I was a senior in high school and editor-in-chief of our literary-arts magazine, Delphi, at the time. I was juggling the necessities, like eating, sleeping, doing homework, designing a volume of a magazine, and keeping up a healthy social life. So, the news of my mother’s cancer hit me harder than anything else at that point in my adolescence. It was the bitter cherry on top of an already hectic, lifechanging year. I heard somewhere that cancer only wins if you believe it will. My after-school routine consisted of lying on the couch, dozing off to Cash Cab and The New Adventures of Old Christine, and waking up to the noisy garage door. Mike, my stepdad,
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walked in the living room with my mother next to him, securely holding onto each other. He led her to the couch beside me and asked her questions, one after the other. “Do you want your blanket? Can I get you some tea? What do you want to watch? Do you need your heating pad?” The surgeries drained life from her; it was the least Mike and I could do to make her feel comfortable and safe.
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This is the image I remember: she, my mother, lying on the couch for all hours of the evening, bruised, stitched, lethargic, and helpless, never moving, never making a sound — the image is permanently burned in my mind. She was like this almost every day for the rest of my senior year of high school. I recall Memorial Day weekend that we spent at our house at Smith Mountain Lake. We were relaxing on the dock when she asked me to rub sunscreen on her back, and while applying it, I quietly cried at the site of her stitches — the places where the cancer used to live and tried to win, the marks of the pain she suffered, the shrouds for the skin that couldn’t fight hard enough. Most of my time was spent thinking of the right words to say. How do you tell someone you love them when you know with absolute certainty that those three words are never going to be enough? How can you hug someone long enough for them to know you care? My words were more calculated than ever. I wanted to say
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the right things and do the right things. Fulfilling those desires was the hard part; doing the right things is hard when you’re seventeen. In the mornings I opened my eyes, squinting at the sunlight through my blinds, terrified to face another day of her pain, of my pain. I came to school late and zombie-eyed, and left early, walking to my car as the sun glistened against my skin and pierced my eyes like a bee sting. I sat in my car, sweating, watching the clouds pass, Kendrick Lamar’s “Swimming Pools” consoling me. I looked to the sun, I looked directly at it and said with raging passion, “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.”
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Cancer lives in all of us. It is the self-deprecating darkness that seeks to control us — our minds, our bodies, our souls, every ounce of our being. Many days I spent wishing I hadn’t said or done many of the things I said and did to her. For a moment I am fourteen, a few years before her diagnosis, and she won’t let go of my wrist. “Let go!” I scream at her, “Let GO!” I don’t hesitate to smack her hand from my wrist. She releases. And she has no other reaction than to stare at me in shock, with only one thought fixed in her mind: My daughter just hit me. I was dangerous. We were dangerous to each other. But then the cancer happened, and that’s when we realized, we are our own worst enemies. Before, we blamed our flaws on one another. We were both hateful, and we directed our darkness
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toward each other. Now, at twenty, I shine with the glow of anxiety and depression; my mother, over fifty, she shines with the aura of survivor. She is a survivor. I didn’t know it then, but I know now: Mom didn’t believe the cancer would win for a second. When she could go to work, she would work. When she couldn’t work, she wouldn’t. For the first time in both of our lives’, we can actually have conversations like the ones I dreamed of having with her. Before, every interaction I could remember with her was full of anger and frustration. But the cancer hardened and softened us. We both became stronger, and in that way, we were softer toward each other. We are soft enough to pass the boundaries of mother and daughter and enter the reassuring space of friendship.
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Years ago, I was too scared to hold on. Now, I never want to let go.
| Allison Raines
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Boy with Cape | Kath Gayle | digital photograph
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Origins Sitting in a rocking chair creaky, made of white pine. Turn tattered pages I’ve read many times— I’ve been sitting here a while, and I’m desperate for fresh clothes. I rock back and forward, back and forward, the chair back makes me achy so I become fetal in my white pine chair I return, crawling, into the womb of my mother. She read to me Austen and Tolstoy as she reads them now, hand caressing belly, stretched flesh around my pale, puzzled body. “You’re too old for this” she says, “Come out now.” I don’t often bow to her wishes but now she pushes down on her abdomen, spits me from her pulsing uterus— me, wet and writhing onto the chair of white pine stained now with my blood and my mother’s but my book, that at least is clean
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| Emily Hunt
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I am a Wild Thing | Nicole Hedgepeth | graphite on paper
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STAFF
In Association with the Office of Student Media
Executive Editor Adelaide Nguyen
Faculty Advisor Jason Hartsel
Prose/Poetry Prose and Poetry Editor Emma Howk
Mary Cuccio Nate Eom 39
Art and Photography Art and Photography Editor Dominic Fiedtkou-Leonard
Karolina Blaziak Caroline Cho Garrett Fojtik Maggie Shaw
Graphic Design Design Director Jodie Custodio
Public Relations Public Relations Officer Gia Primerano
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Fizza Fatima Ayleah Hanton Miguel Ventura Ayleah Hanton Loren Nebrich Evan Roberts Erica Vo
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Get published! Submit your prose, poetry, art, photography, and short screenplays to:
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Volition – GMU’s Literary & Arts Magazine twitter: @volitiongmu
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