Perception Magazine Spring 2019

VOLUME XIX | ISSUE 33 Syracuse University

Spring 2019 | 1

__ Perception is a free arts and literary magazine published once each semester by undergraduate students at Syracuse University.

We are now accepting submissions for the Fall 2019 issue. We accept submissions from undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and staff. We ask that submitters send no more than five art and five writing pieces. Our writing page limit is 10 pages, and we accept submissions in any language with an English translation.

All submissions and correspondence can be sent to perception.syr@gmail.com.

Many thanks to: Sarah Harwell Alicia Kavon JoAnn Rhoads Student Association 2 | Perception

DEAR PERCEIVERS, In her TED Talk, “Poetry as Therapy,” Rachel McKibbens recalls her first encounter with the electric feeling of recognizing oneself in a poem while reading Anne Sexton’s, “Wanting to Die.” McKibbens says, “She not only gave it a name, she gave it a voice: hers was the language inside my blood. And isn’t that the point of self-expression—to release our sweetest or darkest songs out into the ether in hopes that someone somewhere will recognize the song exactly as it was sung?”

Throughout every issue of Perception that I have helped curate, my mission has remained the same: to publish a body of work that gives every reader that electric feeling of being seen in a poem, a prose piece, or a work of art. Starting and ending with two poems by Sean O’Rourke that I think beautifully capture the college experience, this issue is my subtle way of saying goodbye to Syracuse University and the amazing community of writers and artists that Perception has afforded me with over the years. I hope there is something in my final issue of Perception that you identify with and gives you that gripping feeling of connection. If there isn’t, I hope you create that piece and submit it for the next one.

Before I go, I want to thank three departing staff members in particular for their many years on staff alongside me: my wonderful Managing Editor Lyssa Thomas, who gave me endless support and encouragement to be more bold in what we publish; Bridget Slomian for giving Perception the design glow-up the magazine truly needed to showcase the talent of our contributors; and Jeff Nathan for diligently working to preserve the voices of our writers as our Head Editor and for keeping things fun with his great sense of humor.

Lastly, I am glad to be leaving you in the hands of Perception’s next Editor-in-Chief, Bethany Marsfelder. I have the utmost confidence she and the returning staff members will continue making amazing magazines and make me proud with their drive to be honest and refreshing.

All the best always, Julia Leyden Editor-in-Chief Spring 2019 | 3

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THE EYES & EARS

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Editors Katie Ferreira Hyerim Roo Olga Shydlonok Head Reviewers Rachelly Buzzi Evan Carter Lia Figurelli Cade Kaminsky Hyerim Roo Olga Shydlonok

Reviewers Sam Aaronson Desjah Altvater Sajida Ayyup Hayden Barry Evan Carter Isabelle Collins Anna Curtis Genevieve Dominiak Laurie Fernandez Lia Figurelli Alexa Fox Harriet Graham Maya Gelsi Akanksha Gomes Nikita Kakani Laura Lineback Morgan Lyons Sophie Miller Ranielle Navarro Aishwarya Rane Olga Shydlonok Julie Swei Raquel Velez Jessie Walker Danny Walters Vivian Wong Haiyi Xu

Spring 2019 | 5

THE CONTRIBUTERS

Writing Julia Catalano Ashley Clemens Caryn Corliss Justin DiFabritis Linzy Dineen Ian Dorbu Cristina ColÓn Feliciano Lia Figurelli Maya Gelsi Katie Hageman Cade Kaminksy Charles Keppler Hairol Ma Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan Sophie Miller Ranielle Miranda-Navarro Bassam Nasser Sean M. O'Rourke Liam Owens Pauline Pauwels Jonathan Pollock Daniel Preciado Joy Replogle Lianza Reyes Olga Shydlonok Lyssa Thomas

Kelsey Ann Rose Thompson

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Danni Tiller

89 36 45 86 94 96 26 97 107 20 98 69 104 71 74 72 88 18 84 110 63 9 111 60 108 12 25 76 100 91 33 50 103 11 32 43 78 35

February, Seventy Two The Dying Season Roulette Syracuse, N.Y. waves about last night Pinewood Mud Caked Gold Security Just Some Respect Unmade Bed One of My Drawers Escape Ruin Mother Tongue WILD WEST SALOON A POEM FOR THE NEW YORKER midsummer.murder last summer rain Oda para sa Unibersidad ng Syracuse/Ode to Syracuse Univeristy House A Poem About My Weekend The House Bees Playing Hooky Just Above AT LEAST IT'LL GO BACK TO SOMEBODY The Great Deep Jaywalker Calle Primera, Parque Lefevre Spin Cycle (The Until Point) Creation Story I Know Why the Free Bird Flies Permeability SU Hate Crime White Man you have your mother's eyes negative space self-examination

Regina Trejo Raquel Velez Matthew Visker Jessie Walker Danny Walters Cynthia Wang Lev Zetlin

80 39 67 16 101 93 14 82 48

Father?

La Latina Que No Baila My Life in Haiku Maryland Untitled Love The Soldier Forgiven Mama

19 44 102 13 47 49 79 99 31 106 73 62 83 95 38 92

The Swan's Bride Dovima in Dior Almost Complementary C Worth It Boxed In Digital Rocks E-Waste Sorting Spa Love ÂżQuieĂŒn? bourgeois Hawa Mahal Graffiti Alley Reflections Picnic for one you make me feel

17 66 24 70 77 90 109 34 85 81

Zen Mode Rotterdam Emerald Feelings David Mother Nature Calamity Great New York State Fair Ripe In the Practice Room Untitled

Art Sam Bloom Evan Carter Isabelle Collins Genevieve Dominiak Dominiak & Hannah Michaelson Lia Figurelli Catalina Giraldo Nikita Kakani Morgan Lyons Aishwarya Rane Olga Shydlonok Aanya Singh

Julie Swei Jessie Walker

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COVER ART Cover Inside Front Cover Inside Back Cover

Isabelle Collins - Lost in the Crowd | Monotype Catalina Giraldo - Nowhere | Photography Harriet Graham - Free Fall Throw | B&W 35mm Print

CENTER SPREAD Morgan Lyons - Eve in Thailand | Digital Art Sam Bloom - Moon Bathing | Digital Collage Aanya Singh - Victims of Fear | Photography Isabelle Collins - Fading Away | Monoprint

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A Poem About My Weekend Sean M. O'Rourke

Strolling through Spanish Harlem with old friends To a bar that pours good Guinness We rap lines from Nas’ classic debut album To the beat of our footsteps.

I had nicotine for dinner From a battery-powered vaporizer And I’m hungry for a taste Of Sabrett hot dogs But none of the stands are open.

The Oklahoma City Thunder are playing the Utah Jazz tonight And I wonder why the Knicks have been losing for 75 years Despite NYC’s ravenous basketball population.

I think about joining the military and as I do this A woman at the bar combs her hair with her nails.

Her fingers are long, her hair platinum blond, and something about Her patience in fluffing her appearance with Her hands hurts my heart in the best way That I decide it would be best to remain patient too.

I stay up late with my artist friend, Discussing what makes good poetry And we fall in love for a moment When we share our verses With each other.

We wrack our brains over lofty ideas, Trying to capture beauty In ways we think we know how And decide Frank O’Hara is cool While Jackson Pollock is pretentious.

Bud Light isn’t so bad When it’s paired with Flaming Hot Cheetos, Sometimes fast food is better than a porterhouse.

Smoking is bad for my health But so is staying inside too much.

Moving fast is tiring And sitting around is exhausting So, I write a poem about it and Spring 2019 | 9

Read a good book and Listen to good music and Eat some good food and Make some good love and It’s all okay.

10 | Perception

SU Hate Crime Lyssa Thomas

my cheeks are red with anger and nobody understands and i can’t make them understand it’s alright they’re all white they’re “alt-right” i chose this i’m broken i’m angry three black kids get hit get attacked by a hick, by a white they are niggers they are negroes they are broken they are angry i look around the room and i’m different i look around the room and my hair is curly is wurly is big too big i’m too big this campus is broken this campus is angry writing words used to make me ok made me happy i’m not happy fuck not happy make me happy make me white (right) i am broken i am angry they’re all white Spring 2019 | 11

AT LEAST IT'LL GO BACK TO SOMEBODY Pauline Pauwels No, it is not a hole you left behind, I do not feel empty without you.

On the contrary, I’ve been feeling too full, too heavy.

Ever since we’ve said goodbye, I’ve been swelling, I’ve been growing more and more, With all the love you refused to receive.

I beg to be wrung out, Please come back and take all that I’ve been keeping for you.

But your turned back and dry cheek tells me you won’t.

And so, I suppose, I’ll keep swelling and swelling, Until one day I’ll burst, explode, And all the air around will become tinted red.

Then two people holding hands will walk through, Unknowingly, Through the red-tinted air.

They’ll walk through, look at each other, And realize They’re in love.

12 | Perception

C

Evan Carter|Old Crayola markers on paper

Spring 2019 | 13

The Soldier Cynthia Wang

The sweet scent of rosesThe sweet scent of dying fir The scent of something sweet and something sickly patrolled the room, surveying the living with glassy eyes. The open window either let it in, or tried desperately to shoo it out. Death, in other words, hovered about the people huddled with their heads sunk low on their chests. Was Death outside, streaming in from the forest with unseeing hunger? Or was Death in the room, hunting blindly for escape?

A tall man has a jaw like compacted garbage. Smoothed over, but grains and particles writhed beneath the surface. A tall man, not a beautiful man. Big hands, long legs, a crooked mouth. A tall man, not an elegant man. People greeted him with averted eyes.

What eyes.

A tall man, not a crying man, stood with a stiffness in his spine like the stiffness in his shirt cuffs. His back was to the open casket. Not once did he turn and look upon the pale face whose words once saved him from feelings of mediocrity. From time to time, he would make a movement as though about to turn, but he caught himself each time. A barely perceptible, spasmodic twist of his powerful core, it might as well have been nothing. A strong man, not a mourning man. A frightened man, not a blind man.

A burning man, not a married man.

He was a soldier through his soul. If you were to open this man’s chest, you would find nods and salutes pushing air through his lungs. His resolve was iron, his morality rigid. The only unexpected thing this man ever did was love his wife the way that he did. He did love her. What is more, he revered her. He begged her to take him with her to the ends of the earth, and followed her happily. His strength and his fidelity bent his assignments into a tunnel she could walk through. A battlefield she could loot.

She was no good, this cherished wife of his. She loved him plenty, but what 14 | Perception

she loved more what how loudly her steps echoed in his ears. She wanted a soldier, not a married man. Their marriage was in this way a compromise of love and power. She did love him, but her love she brandished at him like a stiletto.

They say that the Italian Noblemen who fought duels by the Venetian canals had stilettos so fine a man might not know he was doomed. So it was with her love.

She had long prepared herself to hear tidings of his death. She cried with a certain methodical clear-headedness, conscious of her desire to preemptively purge herself of loss.

They were ready for him to die. Everyone. Especially those who loved him. He was a soldier. He was a useful man, not a brilliant man. He left his mother’s house with every pore of his being crying out for service. They were happy that he was happy in his post. He wanted to die a soldier and rest forever in Her arms in a simpler composition. They were ready for him to die, and they were happy to be conscious of their preparedness.

I cannot predict the future, but I can tell you with certainty that this soldier one day will die. Soldiers, like men, must die. What nobody predicted was his remarkable resilience to death. He returned glowingly to his Wife General. A war hero. He was a good man, not yet a broken man.

She died in a fire that engulfed the embassy where she worked. A Wednesday night. Papers inching toward peace crumbled into ashes. Chocolates from Europe melted and spilled their liquid hearts onto the carpet. The carpet melted with a hiss. How did she die? Did she die running? Gasping? Crying?

Furious?

He imagines her death every night. He sanctifies her in dreams.

“I’m the soldier,” he told her weeping parents. “How can it be that she’s the one lying there?” They drew away from him in their grief and in their confusion. How could they have known that he was a dead man, not a dying man? How could they have known they were ready for him to die, but not to bear witness to his life?

He was a blind man, not a brave man. He’ll die a blind man, eyes trained on the East.

Spring 2019 | 15

Maryland Jessie Walker

Maryland - November 17th, 2018 And in the end Everyone you’ve ever loved Ends up in Maryland Your would-be-lover, Your student teacher, Your grandmother’s ashes You are not from the city, You don’t know how to manage The train or the taxi service or The bus Isn’t it crazy That you mess up my sheets When you aren’t even here

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Spring 2019 | 17

Aishwarya Rane|Photography [iPhone 8+]

Zen Mode

midsummer.murder Sophie Miller

June 6th on your porch i don't like feeling expected by you when you turn your back in the middle of the bed i feel like i may not be there and you would keep sleeping but when you turn around and hold my body against your own i remember that no one has wanted me around like you do my stomach hurts from holding in my humanity for you i read poetry alone with the same focus it takes to cum in bed with you now the same hope that maybe it will stir something legitimate and revelatory inside of me but i fall back on the wish that three weeks apart will make me want you again like how i did before you were mine is it fucked up that i only really want someone when i'm not sure they want me back or is it ingrained in my behavior from development from a mother who i kept trying for trying for again

18 | Perception

The Swan's Bride Sam Bloom|Photography

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Just Some Respect Lia Figurelli

Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

And then she says

that if a guy doesn’t clean you up afterwards, then he doesn’t care.

And he told her this. But what we know now is that he

said he was a senior in college

and didn’t want us to know what we know now: that he graduated two years ago and is actually twenty-four and if Emma had been only a year younger, it would have been different.

But not illegal.

(And the only reason why we know he is 24 now is because he’s in jail.)

In New York, when a person over the age of twenty-one has sex with a person who is under the age of seventeen, it is considered rape in the third degree and is a class E felony offense (“Sex Crimes: Definitions and Penalties New York”).

For Allie, it was hands restrained behind your back and you didn’t like it.

College dorms and small cars and fraternity houses and dark spaces and older guys who don’t want the manacles of a relationship, don’t want to engage in conversation, don’t want you coming up to them at parties because you are too young. too young. too young. she’s still too young.

Statutory rape is defined as sexual intercourse with anyone who is under the age of consent. In New York, persons sixteen years old or younger are legally unable to give consent to sexual activity and thus, any sexual activity with them is a crime (“Consent Laws New York”).

It is

C’mon, love, hushed in the dark, light like feathers. But he wants you to bend over for him, do things you don’t want to do, and not use a condom.

20 | Perception

Virginity

like you think you’ve won some type of prize, like you have a part

of me, like I’m one of your possessions. And then, complains about

the blood.

Wants to leave a mark, he tries to hold back his aggression just a bit. Wants to feel something, and only wants one thing from you, and through the grabbing and choking and slapping and biting, you wonder if he forgets that there’s a person, a beautiful mind inside the body that he’s using.

A part of you wants to understand him, understand the science behind the evil, if it’s gender formation, how our culture promotes aggression in boys and submission in girls, the violence our children see in the media.

But the other part of you doesn’t want to understand.

You wonder about these boys, the ones other people make excuses for. The boys that grab your ass at parties and call you a tease, the ones whose hands you can feel creeping up under your skirt, like spiders, while every muscle in your body tightens. These boys who rate the appearances of women,

who aren’t afraid to call them ugly,

are ignorant of how that might make these women feel.

He lost his mother at a very young age, and he just never had a female figure in his life. There’s nothing wrong with calling other people ugly; it’s just my opinion and I’m allowed to have my own opinion. Well, you’re the one who dresses like a slut. You ask for it. He can grab whatever he wants; he doesn’t need your permission. People today are too fucking sensitive about everything.

Tucker, Taylor, Tommy and Dylin.

Jacob, Mohammed, Matt, Brad, and Brandon.

Nick, Nate, Will, Carl, Achilles, Adam…

Where did we go wrong?

All the names are blending together, adding up, but the feeling never leaves and you’re only seventeen.

It’s that in psychology you learn reaction formation. “A boy will sometimes react against the strong sexual attraction that he feels toward girls by becoming a confirmed ‘woman hater’” (Kellog).

Spring 2019 | 21

How ironic.

But it’s not.

You’re a junior in high school and you don’t like the way that this boy from school is talking to you, so you stop talking to him. But months later, he messages you, telling you how his father is verbally abusive. You almost forget about all the things he has said to you, because of this one moment where he wants to open up to you, says he wants a relationship with you. You don’t trust him about the relationship part, but you ask if he’s okay.

No, he’s not okay.

Can I help you with something? “You could do something to help,

if you want.”

What? “Send some pics of your tits, ass, pussy.”

Despite this, you don’t cut him off completely. This isn’t the first time a guy has wanted something from you, and usually it’s worse. You do cut him off when you realize that the messages he has been sending to you, he has also been sending to two other girls you know. You ask yourself how stupid you could be, why you still feel bad about a guy who you don’t like that much. Later, you learn that he has been bad-mouthing you to other guys, telling them what a

“bitch”

you are.

“Can you help me with something?” sent over Snapchat from a boy you don’t know well.

Ya, what’s up?

A photo of his genitals.

Stop using the word pussy, you say to your boyfriend, I don’t like it.

Well, I don’t like the word vagina.

In a nationally representative poll of 1,0 0 0 children and adolescents conducted by Plan International USA (The State of Gender Equality for U.S. Adolescents), 81 percent of girls ages 14 to 19 reported having at least one friend who had been asked for a sexy or nude photo (Miller).

Why don’t you get it? That joke’s not funny. You’ll never understand because you’re not a girl.

22 | Perception

“Dance for me.”

“Sit on my face.”

“Don’t wear panties and flash me in public” (Anonymous 1).

No, I will fucking not.

“Women just take and take, man. They always want something from you.”

Just some respect.

Works Cited Anonymous 1. Personal interview. 15 Oct. 2018.

Anonymous 2. Personal interview. 17 Oct. 2018.

“Consent Laws New York.” Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, RAINN, Dec. 2017, https://apps.rainn.org/policy/policy-crime-definitions. cfm?state=New%20York&group=9 Kellog, R. Simulation/Gaming News. Sage Publications, Inc., 1976, pp. 13-16.

Miller, Claire Cain. “Many Ways to Be a Girl, but One Way to Be a Boy: The New Gender Rules.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 14 Sept.

2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/14/upshot/gender-stereotypessurvey-girls-boys.html “Sex Crimes: Definitions and Penalties New York.” Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, RAINN, Dec. 2017, https://apps.rainn.org/policy/policycrime-definitions.cfm?state=New%20York&group=3

Spring 2019 | 23

Emerald Feelings

Olga Shydlonok|Mixed media 24 | Perception

The Great Deep Jonathan Pollock

Still water reflects an ocean above, The void's great reef of vibrant color; Great fires distant twinkle locally, Floating islands drift in the black ink Above ignorant fish beauty lays Divine art far from human witness Yet, gone with the slightest of ripples

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Pinewood Ian Dorbu

“What do you remember?”

I remember seeing my birth under the glare of bright lights. My mother screamed that day, her howls reaching out to the moon, pleading for it to tear itself down, down, down to earth in an explosion of pale light. My cries were the only response she got that day, but they were enough. They and I were more than enough. The doctor’s office was stark and barren, nothing more than what was necessary and could be afforded for a hospital in 1948. The baby boom was eating up supplies at that time. Even if there was a surplus, why on Earth would it be used on a black woman and whatever bastard she was bringing into the world? The air was cold and harsh on my tender skin. I had never known anything like it and this was the first death I experienced. Autumn is meant for trees to die, slowly or quickly, however it can be accomplished. Shame on me for falling with the leaves. It was never my intention to die.

I remember seeing my childhood shrouded in white starched shirts. My mother raised me as her grandmother raised her. Prim and proper.

Straight as an arrow. A church goer, holy and pious. I was a choirboy, my lips dripping with searing love songs to the Lord Jesus Christ. My hands would find reverent fascination in the sensuously soft satin of my robes. The violet fabric was so contradictory to my shirt underneath. My voice calling out to heaven from the alter deeply inverted how I was taught to silently whisper from the pews. The Lord’s glory sunk into my eyes, drawing all but tears of blood from me. The beauty of a glowing afterlife in the shade of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would make all of my suffering worth it. My passivity was cloaked in a divine shroud and marked me of the holy order of those who would lift no sword. I bore the spit and scorn knowing that God and Jesus were with me, carefully weighing my struggles and only making them as heavy as I could bear. My death would easy for me to bear, closer to the release of everything I had been holding. This was my second death, one smoky with sweet incense and ringing with holy songs of my protectors.

I remember seeing my adolescence sunken in yellowing pages. The sunlight was pale and warm on my skin on the day I met Julius, the wide- and wild-eyed son of a doctor. I had been searching desperately for a copy of some long-forgotten book that his father happened to have. It was that afternoon, the one in his father’s study, that I had my first experience with friendship.

Next to copies of dictionaries and anatomy books, half met half and we 26 | Perception

matched too well to not make a whole. On every level Julius and I met and matched each other better than well. Our conversations grew hurried, breath short to outpace and meet the other’s comments. His pink lips held a silver tongue that knew exactly how to get under my skin in the best way possible, irritating, but not disturbing. Agitating enough to make single statements emerge as smooth pearls but never enough for them to come out as barbed points. Against his sheets, I learned how well he and I could articulate our thoughts by way of action and sighs. My vision would turn white as I saw the light of a new lord and then collapse into the blackness of guilt. This shame would only last so long. I would return again and again to breathe him in like my first spark of life and sigh out every little death that followed.

I remember seeing my late teen years in the brown polished surface of wood. Working at a hardware store made me reek of pine scented cleaners and toxically heavy varnishes. Here, my attention only went as far as it needed to to get a paycheck. I would simper “yes, sir, no, sir, right away, sir,” as I needed, never giving more of myself to these men fixing walls and building treehouses. My money would vanish into weekend train rides to New York. For two days I would resume where Julius and I had left off when I last had to leave him at the mercy of Columbia. We would trapeze drunkenly through the streets, hearing poets call up to our heavenly father and demand he come down and show him how mighty he truly is. My discomfort would evaporate as soon as Julius would take to the stage and whisper what bit of sense he could spin out of our intelligible cries. I became known to the throng of Harlem’s artists as Peace, the figure Julius would mount and marry, ride to Washington and tear down the White House by hand if need be. He would string Johnson up by his toes until we were out of Vietnam and cry Peace! Peace! Peace! all night long. In his dorm, it would be Oliver he would call instead. Quietly enough that no one would hear, loud enough that I would. In every one of these deaths and lives, I would become more and more myself and something completely foreign.

I remember watching Julius lacquer himself in the occult. In apartments and libraries, his mind would grow more and more full with ancient words. His shelves filled with flowers, crystals, symbols known only to the damned and blessed few. My stomach knotted itself with each new moon ritual. In the Sunday light I would pray for protection, for aid, for him to come around to my side and see that he was on the path to Hell. And he sat next to me, dressed appropriately, his face unyieldingly placid. It was afterwards, when he said that he used it for healing and protection, when he asked how different was his practice from my prayers that I finally relented them for him. I made sure his requests for various and varying woods were fulfilled, polished and turned by my own hands. I wondered if this was a new Spring 2019 | 27

death or a new birth for me and decided it was simply an instance of the life of the middle. What a strange and lovely middle it is.

I remember seeing my youth wither away in a haze of fatigues.

My number was called before poets acted and so I went to boot camp before deployment. I was taught to kill against my nature, against my Lord, and my first victim was Oliver, who was replaced with Cadet Rey. Cadet Rey would train, and train, and train, but stay skinny as bone. Underdeveloped, according to doctors, but ready for war, according to Uncle Sam. At night Cadet Rey would scribble chaste letters to Julius, resurrecting Oliver to enough to capitalizing random letters until Julius stopped direct denouncement of the war and participation. “This is a drummed-up war on people who couldn’t afford to go to university and you don’t belong there” became “Looks like it’ll be taking us a bit longer than anticipated to drive out to Big Sur.” Cadet Rey would smirk at this, but I would swallow sobs when the ink smudged and the paper warped due to tears. He and I weep over the same tragedy from different perspectives.

I remember seeing my friends lose themselves in campfires and the ghost stories told around them to forget the myriad of ghost stories they were creating. Each bang of the gun was a new line being etched into the collective memory. Bullets worked better than pens or s’mores at crafting the horror stories. In the dark of the trees, it was easy to lose sight of where reality stopped and mythology began. In being one, the ghosts of victims and friends shuffled side by side with the breathing forms of enemies and allies.

Clarity would only appear with the flash of napalm, the chemical compounds singing nose hairs out of existence. “Remember,” Oliver would beg in the fleeting seconds of consciousness. “Remember Julius and all that he is.” The humidity trapped in the air muffled Oliver’s voice as quickly as he came, letting only the pounding of bullets and bang of bombs sing clear as air.

I remember questioning God. My mouth was acidic and heavy with the blasphemous words and yet I asked them. As villages around me burned from fires I set, I asked why He would let any of this happen. When the screams reached my ears, I wondered why it was me that he had do all of this. When children ran up to me, begging me for help and I put mercy bullets in them, I questioned whether He existed at all. That night I used my Bible to keep the fire burning bright and hot. Despite the heat of the flames, I only felt a cold stagnation like death deep in my body.

I remember the night I died. Getting up from the circle, I went to take a leak. The bullet piercing my body threw me back onto the ground and I heard more than saw my friends fall as I did. There was no shock in me as I lied there on the moist dank earth. How many times have I scorched this very land? How many times had I given someone to fill it temporarily until it 28 | Perception

would consume them? Why should I be surprised that I too have been killed?

It was more of a relief than anything else. The darkness encroaching on my vision was more of a comfort to me than anything I remember. It was only as the image of Julius swam into my vision that I started to panic and fail to reach out to him, dying a thousand times over as I did.

I remember the pinewood casket they dumped my body in. It felt fitting that I would be sent back stateside in some cheap box, hell, the reason I was even over there is because I was too poor to afford to go to college. I don’t quite know whose cries were louder, my mother’s or Julius’. Arlington had never been given such a spectacular display of sorrow as it was on the day of my funeral. Julius’ eyes were red rimmed, his voice wavering as he read his poem, condemning Sam for having taken the goodness out of Peace until Peace was a shell and then killing Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace. My wild-eyed boy had been broken worse than I had been, never once naming me along the perfect rows of marble headstones. I was immortalized to the world as the dead Cadet Rey, who was emptied and killed as Peace, whose was only called Oliver again as tears were being spilled into pillows.

I remember Julius returning to my grave day after day. His lips had lost their rosy hue and his tongue had lost its silver gleam. Mostly he would come and sit on my grave and read, sometimes silently, sometimes aloud as if he knew I was watching. He would whisper how fucked the situation was, how the streets of America were choked with protest groups stomping around the police until we would finally get out of Vietnam. He said that he had unmasked me and now Harlem is ringing with my name as much as it is with Peace. He said that he’ll find some way to be with me again, whether it takes hell or high water, he’ll find a way. The wilderness had returned to his eyes, but in differing levels. The tame sadness still laced its way through his eyes, but there too was unhinged madness, as if the wild had been set on fire.

“Wait,” he told me. “Wait and we’ll be together soon.”

I remember hearing voices chanting. The wood had degraded over time, been eaten away by worms and mildew and me with it, and yet not half so. The voices sang with earnest above me. Desire and desperation held the reins tightly between them and spurred the voices on like an angry coachman. My limbs shimmered and strained to match the strain of the voices. Oliver’s voice rang out sweetly over the chorus as I had heard him do from time to time. With all my soul, I clung to his voice above and begged my decomposing body to comply. For a glimmering moment, I fell completely under his imperious voice and stirred in my coffin. A heartbeat after this shining second, I feel back into the sweet and easy kiss of death.

I remember the sheer emotional outcry as the full glory of Lord God Almighty fell upon me in a rapture. The beautiful sting of a clean air Spring 2019 | 29

embraced my corpse. Off in the distance, the most beautiful note sounded from a horn. It trumpeted on in a toll of gold and cream. Cadet Rey sluiced away in waves of blood and jungle mud. My skin burned in harsh and righteous agony as it grew plump and firm again, dewy as the day I was born.

My howls echoed through the reverent silence of night in Arlington. Sitting up, I cough and touch my chest where the bullet entered and where it was as if it never was. Julius touched my hand, sweetly, his eyes wet with tears and his lips pink again. Touching his face, he turns his head and kisses my palm.

“Oliver,” he starts. “Peace. What do you remember?”

I remember telling him everything.

I remember telling him I loved him even as I died.

I remember him and all that he is.

30 | Perception

Spring 2019 | 31

Lia Figurelli|Watercolor on paper

Love

White Man Lyssa Thomas

White man stands glorious upon his pedestal in the sky, Nameless against the backdrop of a million suns, Claiming to know God by His name, And 7 billion disciples believe him.

White man trembles with the wrath of one forsaken; With tape and glue he pieces together rubble, Terrified of a landslide that could crack the ceiling.

White man is terrified, And so he ought to be.

In this tragic era of hashtag me too, It could be anyone.

A brother, a father, a son, Subjected to a court date and six months in a castle on the ground.

And the ground is no place for the white man.

White man says we are unjustly taking from him, He releases his exhortation to the world in the form of prayer, “Please stop taking from me.�

He has fought years for his place among the stars.

White man is our savior, thou shalt bless his name.

He throws food to those below him, not a ladder.

He has no need to teach us language, he is interpreter.

He is the master, he will conquer, with his tools.

White man sits behind a desk on the floor above you.

White man sits behind a desk in his white house.

White man stands behind you in an alleyway, expecting you to thank him.

White man stands above you.

White man always will.

32 | Perception

Creation Story Lianza Reyes

https://lianzareyes.bandcamp.com/track/creation-story The story of how I create myself begins with a sin.

I am now touching what the Catholic Church told me not to. I must understand that she is the essence of my womanhood. She is full of endless discoveries. I think oh, there’s the missing quarter for laundry. Here is the other half of the hair comb I broke. I clean my womanhood out gently, until there is no more dust. I don’t bother with the scented candles. I smell good on my own. I create myself to be clean, and awake. I house myself in my body.

Maybe Eve’s forbidden fruit was herself. Perhaps this is why Adam accused her of sin, because he didn’t understand that something taboo can bring an earth-shattering truth. Maybe that’s why rights keep being taken away from women. Why our fruits keep getting destroyed to rot in Western Africa. Why our roots are getting cut, being taken from land to land to escape a poisoned growth, to escape war. Maybe that’s why our tools keep being taken away.

God banished us from Eden in fear we’d kill the trees too soon.

In response, I pick out my fruit. The ripest pieces. I am careful with who I allow to taste. This fruit is mine, I make that clear. I took back the roots, the branches, the trunk, the leaves. I fight for other women and their trees, even if they look way different from mine. I fight for trees who don’t bear fruit but are still beautiful, beautiful trees. I fight for small trees, for big trees. I hope the world shall flourish underneath the water and sun and good fertilizer.

A garden of trees, all growing in peace. Their fruit given to those who deserve it. This is how the world was created.

Spring 2019 | 33

Ripe

Julie Swei|Acrylic paint

34 | Perception

self-examination Danni Tiller

After you left I began to see The lines in my hands Deep blue, running down my fingers Like the rainwater, down those New England rock formations.

Like the dog, I find it difficult to picture the rain evaporating.

When I was with you I never stared at my hands Because I always had yours, like a comforter.

My expression of distraction— From the moment I wake up I have my eyes on the alarm clock I put “well done” in my planner—linear hours all stacked up, so precisely inaccurate And I was used to you Entering there too—1-way ticket to my head, less red pen Breathe distraction into me.

Lines on my fingers that I’m suddenly forced to reckon with Reminding me that somehow my Blood is still warm.

Spring 2019 | 35

The Dying Season Ashley Clemens

One. Leaves have begun to die. All around us they shrivel and crumple on the branch, painting the roads in seas of reds, oranges, and yellows. Grass, too, loses the green pigment that proved it was summer, and the wind stops brushing cheeks, now deciding to bite.

We slowly begin digging through old baskets of clothing, trying to avoid the inevitable for as long as possible. Gradually, the layers we put on to traverse the outdoors get heavier and heavier.

My dad, sister, dog, and I, adventure in our blood, will occasionally explore woods near our house. We climb old fallen trees whose remains stand taller than us, and crunch through the leaves, each step a satisfaction of sounds. It is as if you are in a different world. The entire forest is dense with sturdy trees covered in browns, yellows, and oranges. We are canopied by the leaves, and the forest remains a haven. Silent, but for our heavy steps. The trees hover around us in a sheltering, but not in an isolating, way. I feel out of touch with reality. It is easy to lose time, breathing in the fresh air, clearing your mind, and tuning into the natural world.

Two. Whenever my mom senses that something is troubling me, she’ll open my door without knocking, and peek her head in. “Let’s go for a walk,” she starts, and I groan in response. “Come on, let’s go,” she continues, disregarding my protest. After watching me blatantly refuse to move for a moment she drags the blanket I am under off of me, and leaves my door open.

It’s an invitation to join her. Sighing, I stand up and lumber downstairs, her guilt-trip successful. We leash the dogs, Gus and Teddy, and open the garage door.

Walking, though I hate the process of it, always brings me moments of reflection and realization, which my mother is well aware of.

She pokes and prods me with questions, until she finds answers we are both satisfied with.

Trees surround us, lining the gravel path we march down. At this point of the year they are just branches, with nothing to display but their skeletons. They reach up like fingers to the sky, as though begging for the new beginning they will be gifted in a few months time.

My feet are rolling in rhythm with my breath, and though it is brisk, I feel beads of sweat begin to form. At this point of the year we may be simultaneously kissed and frozen by a gentle, silent snow, which covers the world in a layer of peace and quiet, aching for a time of reflection.

36 | Perception

Three. Apple orchards are the fairs of the fall. Leaves coat the ground, but pieces of dry, dying grass can be seen poking through the gaps.

At every apple orchard there are hay rides, corn mazes, petting zoos and, unsurprisingly, apple trees.

The petting zoos are filled primarily with children, their hands full of seeds trying to catch the attention of any animal. They screech and run after annoyed goats and weary chickens; they end up exhausted with smelly hands, but smiling faces.

Though I used to love the petting zoo, I now gravitate towards my current favorite attraction, the corn maze. Corn mazes are fields of corn plowed in certain paths, encouraging people to explore. Alone in a corn maze, you feel like the only person in the world. Small and inconsequential surrounded by--usually dead--stalks of corn hulking around you. Though it may sound scary, it’s actually quite peaceful. It reminds you that you are still small, you are still human, and ultimately corn has held out longer than you have. It’s humbling.

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Picnic for one

Morgan Lyons|Digital Art 38 | Perception

La Latina Que No Baila Raquel Velez

Ellos cuestionan mi Latinidad Porque mi piel Es el color de La carne de manzanas, Pero no las que están Caramelizadas.

Ellos me cuestionan Porque cuando están tocando Celia y Eddie por la radio Prefiero quedarme sentadita Y dejar que la música me llene La cabeza Dulcemente y Con mis ojos cerrados Dejar mi cuerpo entrar en un vaivén.

Me cuestionan porque Yo no crecí en las islas Donde mis padres Tan desesperadamente Fugaron Para dar a mis hermanas y yo Un atisbo de la oportunidad.

Mis caderas débiles No justifican mis raíces Que se pueden ver en mis venas que arden Al toque.

Si alguien me fuera a cortar Estas venas, El río de sangre fluiría con los Gritos de oro Y las pasiones Spring 2019 | 39

De mi herencia.

Cuando pronuncio mal Una palabra De la lengua en que Mi madre me cantaba Antes de dormir, Sus ojos críticos perforan Mi espíritu y Mei descartan a un lado.

“Tú no eres como nosotros”, Me susurran.

Gente que ni apenas me conocen Y hasta gente que si me conoce Quieren determinar quién soy.

Pero les digo yo ahora Que sus suposiciones están Vacías.

Nunca me quitaran mi individualidad Ni la canción Que retumbe por mi sangre.

The Latina Who Doesn’t Dance (English Translation) They question my Latinidad Because my skin Is the color Of apple flesh But not the caramelized kind.

They question me Because when they’re playing Celia and Eddie on the radio, I prefer to stay seated and Let the music fill my head 40 | Perception

sweetly and with my eyes closed let my body sway.

They question me because I did not grow up on the islands From which my parents So desperately Fled To give my sisters and I A glimpse of opportunity.

My weak hips Do not justify my roots That can be seen through my veins that burn To the touch.

If someone were to cut These veins, The river of blood would flow With the golden screams And passions Of my heritage.

When I mispronounce A word Of the tongue That my mother would sing to me in Before sleep, Their critical eyes penetrate My spirit and They cast me to the side. “You are not like us,�

They whisper.

People who hardly know me And even people who do Want to determine who I am.

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But I tell them now That their assumptions are Empty.

They will never strip away my individuality Nor the song That reverberates through my blood.

42 | Perception

you have your mother's eyes Kelsey Ann Rose Thompson the eyes of my mother the gait of my father the fabric of my bones the rivers in my veins breathe the greatest love story i’ve yet to see. because love is not merely these moments of grandeur, their cinematography escaping monotony. love is the softness of pink morning light tracing the outlines of your cheekbones, breathing life out of the darkest night. it’s the sensation of calloused hands, weather-worn skin enveloped in gratitude and grace: that i am here, and living now, along the same spectrum of time and existence as you.

Spring 2019 | 43

Dovima In Dior

Sam Bloom|Digital collage 44 | Perception

Roulette

Ashley Clemens When you are a woman, Do not walk alone after the sun has finished kissing the horizon.

For walking alone is a game of roulette.

It is chance alone that allows you to make it to your destination.

It does not matter how many apps you have downloaded, or how much money you have spent on pepper spray.

You are still at risk.

You are always at risk.

At night, though, the monsters can hide in the shadows.

Everyone you will see, you will analyze Is this one the bullet? Or another empty chamber?

Look at their face, but don’t look long Memorize their face, but glance away before your eyes have the chance to do the waltz.

Do not make eye contact.

Never make eye contact.

If you are lucky everyone passing you will be just clouds to your airplane If you are lucky you will not have to use your voice.

Walk fast.

Do not run.

Running sends a message that you need to be chased.

Do not raise suspicion.

Keep your eyes low, but your ears open.

Do not listen to music, music makes it hard to hear people behind you.

Do not breathe too loudly, breathing makes it hard to hear people behind you.

Do not stop walking.

This night is suffocating.

Do not get lost. You will not be found.

Keep clutching your pepper spray with white knuckles.

Do not move your hand.

Pray that shadow in the corner of your eye is a shadow.

Hope that branch rustling isn’t hiding anyone underneath.

Continue to believe that measly pepper spray is enough.

Spring 2019 | 45

Do not look at your phone, you will look like a target.

Walk briskly, Do Not Run. If you’re lucky tonight the gun will not be loaded.

You will find nothing but empty chambers, clicking each time the trigger is pulled.

46 | Perception

Worth It

Evan Carter|Acrylic paint on canvas board Spring 2019 | 47

Mama Lev Zetlin

And now I’m anxious about what they’re gonna think mama.

Are they gonna be mad that I allowed myself to plummet while I could have been soaring mama?

Are they gonna lock me away with their iron doors that were just recently open for me mama, all because I let my weakness and isolation overload on me mama?

Is this gonna be over soon mama?

Because my hands can’t bear to feel this filling of water each time the needles have to go in mama-mama, am I truly alone?

Or is the whole idea of isolation a mindset that I have allowed myself to become entrapped in because it’s easier to feel pity than to pick yourself up and get out of it mama?

I’m scared mama, scared of the future and everything it holds, scared of the past and everything it molds, scared of the present, as I lay victim to the past, which ultimately disfigures my future, and ruins my now.

Is this my last breath mama?

The one where the boy who could have had it all chose to blow and knocked the cards upon the floor, yet there is no floor because I’m suddenly sinking and falling through time and space.

Am I alive, or have I always been this light mama?

So transient like the screaming of a train that jerks corners and rushes past commuters while it is stuck ingrained within its mind.

Mama, do I want to die?

Or is it only that I want to live so badly in my own way- that if it cannot be, I would rather discard it all?

48 | Perception

Boxed In

Isabelle Collins|Pastel on paper Spring 2019 | 49

I Know Why the Free Bird Flies Lianza Reyes

https://lianzareyes.bandcamp.com/track/i-know-why-the-free-bird-flies After Maya Angelou I know why the free bird flies, Why it sings some filthy lies.

I know why the free bird is blind.

Why it never seems to mind The war on the ground, Because it’s always in the sky.

I know why the free bird flies, Why it never hears a brother’s cries, I know why the free bird ties Its bona fide ignorance without asking why.

You never ask questions if you restin’ You don’t put yourself back together If you never been broken.

I know why the free bird flies, Why it always seems to abide To law, to rules, Because they never been beaten By a police officer for believin’ They are innocent.

They have never had to fight To survive the night, because The world is designed To let them thrive.

I know why the free bird flies, Why it turns it beak to the sky, Dirt poor never been a consideration, Discrimination never in the equation, Slavery never been in they history, Having darker skin always been a mystery.

50 | Perception

I know why the free bird flies, So pull them down and show them now Why they gotta stop flying When some minorities are dying Why they gotta fight For others’ rights.

Why they need to sing With the caged birds, Everything, everything.

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58 | Perception

Spring 2019 | 59

Bees Playing Hooky Liam Owens

Your father? He did not Eat them like so?

With a thumb and a knife? As juice leaks from his lips and down his wrists?

I remember a man who’s holding an apple with burlap fingers.

In the fragrance of turns and molding, bees played hooky with dripping stingers.

Around his dome their wings Would roam and stings Of pollen would mind their own.

I remember how he Would look with grease From the day’s work In between his Fingers. He’d be in the shine Of summer, dodging The danger of the world around him, In a world full Of bees playing hooky, He stands among them, In a world he’s not sure he’s Happy he put me.

He would slice The Empire to his thumb But juice would only Fall from the red Apple. His burlap fingers Held the fruit Balanced in his bowl Of a palm I’d nibble on a piece 60 | Perception

He’d give to me Because God forbid I ever Held a blade that sharp.

All around his head The bees were drunk off Juice, the sweet temptation Of fruit had them hooked And loose, In a circle of goldenYellow, the bees knew not of the danger in this world.

Spring 2019 | 61

Hawa Mahal

Nikita Kakani|Photography 62 | Perception

House

Bassam Nasser House tells the true story of Abdullah: a Kuwaiti child with gender dysphoria.

Being a trans person is not easy in Kuwait, let alone being different. Abdullah has since undergone top and bottom surgery, and escaped his family; Coco Moreno now lives in the United States.

I am a seamstress. Not a tailor, but a seamstress. We were playing pretend like we always did every Thursday at the zwara from my father’s side of the family. While the adults sat in the first floor, eating their sweets and drinking their tea, my cousins Noura, Rawa, Deema and I sat upstairs in Noura’s room and played House.

“You’re the only boy Abdullah,” Rawa would always nag. “I’m always the father and you’re always the seamstress.”

“Why are you never the tailor?” barged Deema.

“Seamstresses are better,” I always said. “Women have smaller hands, so they do a better job at sewing.” I pointed upwards to the sign I made that read: KHAYATAT AHLAM in big bold letters. I was Ahlam, a recreation of Ahlam Alfadalah, my favorite actress. I loved the name Ahlam like a dream. It was the fluffy cloud that weighed out a terrible hot and sticky day, and like mid-December tea, that kept you warm when the desert’s cold could pierce your bones.

“You can never be Ahlam,” Rawa said. “Your name is Abdullah, and you’re a boy.”

“It’s just playing pretend Rawa,” Noura said, defending me. I’ve never connected with any of my cousins except for Noura – she was different.

She liked it when I came over and played pretend with her and her dolls. We would sometimes sneak into her family’s kitchen and throw eggs and flour into a bowl, posing as world class chefs. She would always play with knives when her mother told her not to, and always jumped over the fence instead of just walking through the gate. She always walked against the tide, and I loved her for that. She would listen with one ear, and dispose with the other.

Her irrationality, for the longest time, proved to be a source of inspiration for me.

“It’s called ‘playing pretend,’” I reasoned. “What’s the point of me playing a boy, when I’m actually a boy?”

“Ahlam’s right,” Noura smiled.

Deema and Rawa were furious. Noura was right, and they weren’t Spring 2019 | 63

very willing to accept her logic. Deema began to slowly shake, and her skin turned a light shade of red. This never bore good news.

“I’m not playing anymore,” Deema’s voice cracked. She stormed out the door.

“Do you really want to spend time with the old people downstairs, Deema?”

There was a short silence. “No.”

“Care to join us?” said Noura sympathetically. “I can be the uboo this time, and you can be the um. Rawa can be our daughter, and Abdullah can just be Ahlam.”

T he g irls ag reed to the modified scenario, although the negotiations dragged on longer than anyone thought they would, we had all eventually gotten into position. I sat right under the sign I made, crisscrossed with Noura’s room key in one hand — my ‘needle’. I held one of her skirts in the other hand, and I looked down, pretending to do what a seamstress was best at. Often times I would use Noura’s wooden box as my sewing machine, which unarguably made things much easier than they would be had I used a regular needle. Noura was forgetful, and she had forgotten where the box was that day. Luckily however, Ahlam the seamstress was a mistress of her craft, and she sowed faster with her one needle than any sewing machine could.

Noura stole her older brother’s dishdasha, and threw on her father’s chmaakh, setting her flat childish chest upwards towards the ceiling, “I’m the man of the house,” she would brag, making more out of her role than either Rawa or Deema ever have. She walked into the room with her wife Deema by her side. Deema had borrowed her aunt’s hijab, and slipped on her mother’s spare pair of heels, which she always managed to steal from the car without her noticing.

But Rawa was the least creative of us all, and came as she always did. She came as herself, and she played roles that only suited her. To this day she lives inside a box — trapped.

The family of three had come to my shop, Rawa held a small bag in her hand, which she handed to me. As I opened, I saw a jumble of clothing, which I unloaded from the bag. I counted the pieces, and gave them my price.

“That’s too expensive Abdulla,” Deema said.

“Abdulla? Who’s that?” said Noura, improvising like she always did.

“You know?” Deema said. “Abdulla, the tailor.”

This happened every time, and I wasn’t willing to stand for it again. I rejoiced the days when Deema and Rawa had to go to their grandmother’s house instead of coming to the zwara. Most days we were 64 | Perception

stuck with two brainless sticks of skin and bones.

“My name is Ahlam,” I mumbled.

Deema passed me, took aim at the sign I made, and slowly ripped in half. The half hour of effort I had spent decorating the poster had gone to waste. I was angry. I could have reacted before she finished ripping the poster in its entirety, but the slow ripping of the paper’s fibers had felt like a punch in the gut, and I almost couldn’t move. When I felt her hair behind me, turning back to where she was, I stood up, and I pushed her. She fell with a loud thump, but she didn’t cry. She smiled meticulously, then ran out the door screaming.

T he house had thought she cried murder before she ran downstairs.

“Mama,” she yelled. “Abdulla wants to be a girl. I told him he was a boy, but he pushed me and said he was a girl,” she lightly sobbed.

“What do you mean, habeebti?” asked my aunt.

“We were playing, and Abdulla doesn’t want to be the uboo, he only wants to be the seamstress. I told him to be the tailor, but he only wants to be the seamstress, and he calls himself Ahlam, like Ahlam Al-Fadalah.”

I sat by the stairs, hands clinged to the railing, hiding in the shadows – too late to stop Deema. The living room had burst into laughter. I felt ridiculous. It wasn’t until my father had seen me through the bars of the railing and had given me my first glimpse of disappointment that the shame had set in.

So I ran.

Glossary Chmaakh – Traditional Kuwaiti male headdress Dishdasha – Traditional Kuwaiti male clothing Habeebti – A term of affection conjugated towards women. Males are called habeebi Hijab – Female headscarf worn by many Muslim women Uboo – Father Um – Mother Zwara – family gathering

Spring 2019 | 65

Rotterdam

Aishwarya Rane|Photography [iPhone8+]

66 | Perception

My Life in Haiku Matthew Visker

First light, fresh air, tears, Eat, sleep, poop, rolling over, Crawling, standing, walk!

I Solid foods, where did My binky go? In my own Bed now. Nighty night II The dog is bigger Than me now. Watching him swim, I Jumped in, Swam too.

III Tricycle riding Talking more. Dad put on IT, The Clown, nightmares, scared.

IV Starting Pre-K now, First crush, got married at home Still have clown nightmares.

V Lion King came out In the summer. Best movie Ever. School is fun.

VI First grade, no more naps.

Woke up sick, mom is worried.

Diabetic now.

VII Teacher always had

Sugar-free candy for me, Best thing about school.

VIII Diabetes camp Was fun, until he kept me Underwater. Gasp!

IX Spent weekend in the Mountains, views are breathtaking, Lots of walking though.

X Grandpa died this sumMer. Funerals are weird, not Sure how to feel now.

XI Friends need a goalie, Became a star, won playoffs.

Lots of fun with them.

XII Only class with a Tube. Saw the second plane hit, Then they fell. Silence.

XIII Summer love, teen night At the rink, couples only She asked and I said‌ XIV I got suspended From school. Thought my friends would back Me up. I was wrong.

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XV In High school now, same People, same bullshit. Found something New to waste my time.

XXIII Unicorn hunting.

Drunk, drive, ditch, road, car, lights, dead?

My new life starts now.

XVI Got a new crush that Would last a while but nevVer amount to much

XXIV A year sober, not Really tempted, no more friends.

Spend all time gaming.

XVII Drivers license, new Job, lots of parties, got a Girl, lost a girl, but…

XXV Work at ‘Cuse now. Met A girl, we went to Europe, She may be the one.

XVIII Got her back missed last Class. New city, in college, New girl, dropped her though.

XXVI She got me to go Back to class, part time. Thanks ‘Cuse Love English Lit class.

XIX Old crush back, took to Sisters wedding, drinking more.

I need a new school.

XXVII Moved in together, Place is small but love abounds.

School is hard, she'sshes done.

XX Study at ‘Cuse now.

Tipp Phils all weekend. Friends did Not change, but I did.

XXVIII She stuck around. Taught Her to drive. Moms sick again.

I asked, she said yes.

XXI Legal now, suit up.

Wasted night with her. Lot of Missed cues. Dropped out, work.

XXII She's happy, not me.

Drink more then I don’t. Got a Promotion though. Yay.

XXIX Got in Johns Hopkins, Futures bright, first wedding bells, Then grad, then B’More.

68 | Perception

FUTURE Tough roads are ahead.

With you by me, they noth’n. I Raise you, you raise me.

One of My Drawers Katie Hageman

Penguins, purple fish, monkeys, movies, bananas and brown stripes Avocados, apple orchard, cereal bowls, cows and trees Lights, letters, ducks, diamonds, zig zags and zebra skin Penguins are adaptable and monkeys are mischievous Movies bring entertainment and stripes bring order Avocados are versatile and trees are trustworthy Lights bring smiles and diamonds bring joy My socks conceal themselves in boots But they have a lot to say About me About impulse purchase habits Bananas because they were a good color Cows because they seemed like a good investment Zig zags because they were fun Ducks because they seemed like they would get a laugh Everything has a meaning if you give it one Even white socks They mean it’s laundry day

Spring 2019 | 69

David

Aanya Singh|Ink on paper (scan) 70 | Perception

Ruin

Charles Keppler How does one come to know

The buttressing love of another?

To me it seems to come and go

Leaving broken halls to saunter

So I see no point in the lover’s folly

And I build my walls, my heart a quarry

And with each foreign siege the outlook is bleaker

To fix what they leave, into my heart I dig deeper

A forest torn down to carve out the ground An ocean fished clean for the hungry and lean A mined, mine, raw, for a furnace to draw Walls built high, and higher each time

Require more stone for this dire catacomb

And the soldiers of my heart die or building start

So that next time,

The siege of me-

Next time,

The burning trees,

The bellowing seas,

The cold winter freeze-

Might not me leave

In such ruin.

Spring 2019 | 71

WILD WEST SALOON

Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan candles in the chandeliers spilled wax everywhere when some yahoo decided to swing from the rafters there was no law against it or anything else but he might get his brains blown out by an irate saloon owner packing a derringer who doubled as pimp and policeman in those territories where gold revealed itself as a glittering blood red rock of ages the Wild West saloon was the only institution solid enough to survive the routine skull cracking the backroom muckraking the non-stop backstabbing the gabbing the jabbing the blabbing every crap table croupier handled the dice the way a priest holds the body of Christ talk about taking matters into your own hands every whore worked the bar the tables the beds upstairs wiping silly confessions off the limp dick of every two-bit pioneer dust-choked miner and saddle-chafed cowpoke a bawdy psychiatrist with a bordello divan if she had a beard she could’ve written book but in the end it was all about the whiskey the free flowing gold standard that kept everyone oiled gunslingers and card sharks cavalry scouts and itinerant evangelists an establishment founded on whiskey’s ability to fuel or quell a brouhaha the saloon kept roughnecks smooth around the edges with shot glasses stacked so high every dusty eye in the Wild West failed to see what was coming

72 | Perception

bourgeois

Catalina Giraldo|Collage Spring 2019 | 73

Mother Tongue Hairol Ma

I cut my mother’s tongue when I was forty-two.

It was monsoon season and she was hard of hearing. She was an old woman by then. When I visited she was squatted on the newspapercovered floor of her apartment, her yellow fingernails stained green as she ripped the stalk of snow peas. The upstairs neighbors were burning incense again.

“ 你回家了,” she exclaimed.

I assured her that I wasn’t staying, only visiting. The kitchen was more of a hallway. I waded in. Flames licked the edges of the medicinal broths boiling on the stove and the pig’s feet stewing in a large pot.

“ 來女兒，添飯，添飯，我早就把晚飯煮好了,” she said. She wobbled unsteadily as she clung to the edge of the sofa to stand. I didn’t come to eat dinner, I explain. Besides, I’m on a low carb diet now. I can’t eat rice. I came here to tell you it’s monsoon season.

She pushed past me, lifting the lid of the decade-old rice cooker on the counter. The white grains were limp and dead. Her fingers smelled like snow peas and fish sauce. I didn’t come to eat, I say again. Can’t you see that the storm is coming? I must leave. She lurched into the dining room, bearing plates of pig feet and snow peas bruised in soy sauce and rice vinegar.

I knew where she kept the sharp knives, the kind she used to slice the pig feet. Massive steel knives with strong wooden handles and blades the size of cutting boards. There it was, in the sink, still soaked in pig blood. The fan rattled the ceiling dust. I could feel it in my hair. “ 女兒，來吃吧。” She’d placed a pair of metal chopsticks by a bowl of rice.

I didn’t come here to eat, I yelled. Her hands shook as she slammed her bowl back onto the table. I hated looking at her face, the fat wrinkles that folded over her cheeks, her sagging breasts that melted into her belly, her gray and white streaked hair. The storm is coming. “ 我當然知道。雨的味道我都聞得出來。我在美國也聞得出來。你這個美國傢伙， 你根本就聞不到雨的味道！” Of course I can smell the damn rain on the concrete. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I looked at the pig feet soaked in brown sauce and green onion. It smells like sewage in here. It always has, I told her. Her hands shook in fury. I blinked her spit from my eyes.

I know I’ve always been disrespectful, I shouted. I can’t stand any of it. Get over the fact that I married a white man. White man, he treats me better than 74 | Perception

any of the family friends you expected me to date. You don’t know anything about love. Or the damn weather.

Her lips quivered, two fat gray caterpillars hiding a pink-red larva.

Bits of rice stick to her tongue. They were moving, little white maggots crawling up and down the bumpy flesh. She was yelling, screaming, gibberish and curses spewing from those crusted lips, her fat tongue swelling and swelling, writhing wildly in the monsoon air.

I knew I had to do it then. The rain was coming, you see. I ran to the sink and grabbed the huge knife. There was no time to wash off the pig blood. I yanked her tongue from her mouth, dragged the pulsating thing against my cheek. It had a life of its own. I knew I had to cut it out by then. It was growing too fast.

My mother resisted. She stabbed the metal chopsticks into my belly, my ears, my eyes, drawing blood. I was grim. I couldn’t stop now. I sawed at the wriggling organ with the dulled blade. She screamed at first, yelling more sounds and shapes until all I could feel was hoarse fish-sauce breath against my wrist. Brown blood flowed freely over my fingers. Her tongue was so swollen. It was like a balloon. It flailed and shuddered violently. I hacked and sawed, cutting through the tendons I never knew were there. The purple veins on the belly of her tongue were especially difficult to slice. The pig blood was an excellent lubricant.

Eventually, she gave up and her hands went slack, the metal chopsticks clattering to the floor. The last tendon snapped and I dropped the blade.

I held the limp flesh in my hands, panting. The tongue was the size of my entire arm. I had no idea how it’d gotten so big. Blackened blood flowed from my mother’s mouth, mixing into the spilled dishes of pig stew and snow peas, where she lay limp on the ground. That’s why I was late on my way home, I had to clean the blood off my feet. It was a swamp. It’s still crusted between my toenails. Thanks for picking up Kevin from after school today.

Anyway, that’s what happened. Now if you please, pass the pork chops.

Spring 2019 | 75

Jaywalker

Daniel Preciado My mother breathes on endless green While I breathe on concrete.

She dances free through lands unseen And I live on my feet.

She treks by tides birthed fast by light And dances in mid-air.

The songs of clouds do gift delight As wind slides through her hair.

She waits and waits for lifetimes dire As muscles live and die.

All just to glimpse that heaven fire Where ocean meets the sky.

And as she dreams in Earthly lush, I dash through traffic flow.

My pace is fueled by flimsy rush, Unscathed by God’s red glow.

Yet I still know that she would sink That green in fiery blaze If she could spend a shredded blink Within my city haze.

And though I shake my youth’s attack And try to hold my kin, I still cannot disrupt a crack To let her flora in.

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Mother Nature

Aanya Singh|Digital collage & illustration Spring 2019 | 77

negative space

Kelsey Ann Rose Thompson when i was a child, i was taught that crossing my legs was more valuable than learning to read. that women are to speak when spoken to, in dainty voices and soothing tones. that venomous words men spit at me were only meant to make me clean. woman: what is it, to be? is my worth nothing more than a size on a dress, a number on a scale, or the notches in someone’s bedpost? to exist as nothing more than negative space passively living in a man’s world? so when i expand my body like a parting sea, and my voice crackles with years of pent-up rage, profanities trickling off my tongue like sweet molasses — it isn’t because i don’t love myself. it’s because i spent so fucking long thinking that wasn’t an option.

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Digital Rocks

Genevieve Dominiak|Rhinoceros & Vray for Rhino Spring 2019 | 79

Father?

Regina Trejo

Dotted with crimson, a three-inch panel captured every pupil, eyelash, face, head twice over – could they see the heart fading into a sleepy, dissonant, self-loathing gray?

Or better yet, could that speckled panel see the lungs, chest, ribs, and spine burning up into an unremorseful, unappreciative, jaded ash?

I did not see it, but felt it I felt it in t he ic y glass t hat masqueraded as skin and the begging look of an accidental murderer.

I felt it in the quivering voice and shallow breaths that took over, an impatient boss intolerable of his employee’s nine-to-five efforts that extended to the car, bills, home, seven children.

Seven children have a bond not with gray or ash.

They had one with crimson b efor e it s t a i ne d t hei r p upi l s, eyelashes, faces, heads fourteen times over – they had to have seen the heart it fell asleep next to them on a cushioned serving platter 80 | Perception

in a crisp tile box – where they formed a bond with white.

White glides as water over hands pur if y ing toxicit y of sedentar y animation – absorbs as tissues sitting on tables where coffee should go even when stomaching anything is torturous – erases as sheets draped over a once-stippled panel beautified by a man in black.

Or was he in white?

Untitled

Jessie Walker|Linocut relief print on printing paper Spring 2019 | 81

Forgiven

Cynthia Wang The train flew dizzy and smooth from the choking city straight into a Smell.

A cloud of Damp and Decay.

Festering Garbage, Unholy Muck.

A proud tradition of Going To Bed Hungry Dad was born in this swollen place.

I don’t know what kiln he fell into, for my porcelain father was a river clay baby.

I discovered, from examining the stripes on my city-soft hands, that I was a most willful and clumsy child.

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Spring 2019 | 83

Garffiti Alley Nikita Kakani|Photography

last summer rain Sophie Miller December 15 2014 one of my last summer days in new york ‘14 i was wearing a sundress it had just rained i was waiting for you as usual 2 hours at that point i was crying a black man in a suit passed by when i sat down he was there smoking . there was also fog from the rain but it was sunny. i asked him if i could bum a cigarette he pulled a newport out of a marlboro case i thought that was weird he asked me what was wrong and i told him because i didnt care i met up with you later never talked about it everything was ok i guess but i wasnt ok in that moment and you didnt care. that was the last time it rained

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Spring 2019 | 85

Julie Swei|Graphite pencil

In the Practice Room

Syracuse, N.Y. Caryn Corliss

A woman with less luck than I would be Drinking a sweet tea, Cold, and saccharine, and pale.

She would be under the sun. There might be a mellow breeze, threaded into the warmth of the air, Unencumbered, and un-wet.

There might be music playing, from speakers set on the steps of Schine, pouring out the windows, of a frat house, Dance anthems from the 80s onward.

As if the gods themselves shared in the exaltation, And wash the mites from our hair with their nectar.

A woman with less luck than I would Crack the fibers in her delicate spine, Letting the air clap, in the wet spaces between Ligaments, and sigh, Under the sheets that smother, snuff Out a beating red bone, Like a candle light, under the pad of a thumb.

Someone less lucky than I would have the sun Shine a blonde, beam onto the pages of her Paper pulp book, The ablution of the rays, Cleansing. Quiet. An unscented and unsweetened alcohol.

If I were an unlucky woman the sun would be out, right now But, I Am lucky, Because, here I, am, In the city of the midday moon, Remembering, The cake, 86 | Perception

That I wrapped in paper at set aside, That was starting to rot.

Spring 2019 | 87

A POEM FOR THE NEW YORKER Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan this is a poem for THE NEW YORKER magazine they’re probably going to want punctuation so here’s a comma , since I’m so desperate to get something published ANYWHERE here’s a semicolon too ; (look for more parentheses later in the poem) they probably don’t want words like “double-dong” “buttwad” “shitload” (as a noun) “assface” (as verb or adjective) “dicklicker” or “cuntlapper” (as modifiers) that’s understandable even New Yorkers have their limits I never read THE NEW YORKER but I’m assuming they like references to New York City so lets throw in Grand Central Station SOHO The Brooklyn Bridge Harlem Hell’s Kitchen The Grand Concourse Times Square Coney Island MOMA and Central Park (am I using the words New York too much) I do sometimes flip through THE NEW YORKER to check out the cartoons and believe me if I could draw I’d do a cartoon for THE NEW YORKER too (am I using the word “too” too much) now I’m guessing because THE NEW YORKER is a magazine they probably don’t want poems that are too long so this is a good place to end this poem and there you have it a poem THE NEW YORKER will be proud to publish and if they aren’t and don’t fuck ‘em

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February, Seventy Two Julia Catalano

Bones rattle to footstep rhythm, breath warming against the soles like a shower steam, like westward streams.

Last week glaciers fluttered through my ribcage, traced my contours blue.

Today my pores unpour to melted snow.

Plastic bags glue to graveled pavement.

The salt dissolves, the hands heal.

We are lifted an inch closer to the sun, hung from our shoulders, wrung out souls.

The scent of Spring's future, its inevitable spirit, its time-traveled voice roving from the distant there– chlorine drenched vanilla, puddled gasoline and misted smoke set a table and hang their coats, right before they pass again.

A ghost, postponed.

Spring 2019 | 89

Calamity

Aanya Singh|Digital collage

90 | Perception

Spin Cycle (The Until Point) Joy Replogle

Just a touch of that ember liquid to her lips and again that creature would come to her and reach out and latch onto her with

long piercing claws as she would choke back the tears and pain.

“I knew you’d be back,” it says to her.

“You’ll always come back to me, you need me.” as it lifts the cup back up to her lips and she keeps sipping, no - gulping and with every drop the creature grows larger and its influence grows stronger and its claws latch harder until her cup is as empty as she is.

It pours her another drink “This will make you feel better, happier.” he grins, as her relapse continues until her head is spinning until the room is spinning around her spiraling hand in hand with the creature who’s now towering over her cackling with joy in her face tumbling - free falling into oblivion until her body gives way until she’s hunched over on the floor hugged by the cold linoleum tiles “Until next time.” it whispers in her ear, as it waves and slithers down the drain.

Spring 2019 | 91

you make me feel Morgan Lyons|Digital art 92 | Perception

Love

Danny Walters Everyone wants something. My mom wants my dad to stop leaving his empty beer cans on the coffee table. My dad wants my mom to find a goddamn hobby other than busting his balls. I want them both to shut the fuck up.

I am the embodiment of decay. Nothing ever stops changing. Hold tight but keep one eye watching. The thing is not the thing you grabbed. It is a new and different thing. You can not ask the thing to be the other thing. It is a new and different thing. And so the thing leaves you. And you are left holding tight to nothing in the shape of the old thing.

Nobody got what they wanted.

Spring 2019 | 93

waves

Justin DiFabritis The sound of the rain masks the waves inside my head crashing to break loose The tide that pulls is strong, but sometimes it loosens and out comes a peek into myself a tear, frown, or warning, a subtle scream for help It grasps onto everything, hoping that it will catch on to something, to anything, that someone will pull and save it from the water that slowly fills its lungs.

Holding on is most important as the salty grasp puts up a fight; lying, smiling, emitting a false lull of low tide, unintentional deception Often, let go.

A quick and dangerous plunge back into dark waters; fear of never swimming again.

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Reflections

Nikita Kakani|Photography Spring 2019 | 95

about last night Linzy Dineen

my friend asked my advice she did not want the boy to think her easy nor did she want him to think her a tease do it whenever you want with whomever you want so long as you want I said slut said a boy, grazing my arm I pulled away from a touch too often felt a shy slut he sang through a sly smile I walked away from a feeling too often felt the words followed me through the crowd the lights chased me in the dark the music taunted me with its laughter his face was the same as the boys of my youth though different still; they had called me prude for daring to say no daring to reject that which they felt entitled to they gave me that same feeling too often felt the liberated labeled as licentious the abstinent attributed as insubordinate shamed for one, shunned for the other reprehended regardless a standardized double standard subjected unto so-called sluts and celibates solidified by a society who objectifies before it listens to feelings too often felt

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Mud Caked Gold Ian Dorbu

My fingers aren't cornrow nimble.

They never learned the black art of taming kinky nappy hair to protective designs.

They learned to spread lotion over skin to bring out the gold and hide the ash.

They learned about European monsters with crowns in AP classes, But learned nothing of the royal blood flowing in them.

They became a foreigner to raw black power of the Harlem Renaissance And pictured milk pale skin as the hallmark of beauty, But never of permanently sun darkened brown, undershot by red, or yellow, or blue.

It was after centuries years of underlying self hatred that I broke free.

Golden light spilled forward from the darkness the world wanted to force on me.

I fashioned myself as the sun's son, Found the matter of my black life, not defined by stereotypes.

It was hidden right there, in the grace of a black swan, Polished by a foot in the mud.

Polished by calves in the mud.

Shining bright as gold still caked in mud.

Spring 2019 | 97

Unmade Bed Maya Gelsi

You have made me An unmade bed.

Creases and folds thrown aside, Carelessly.

Your lion-smile, your sunny pavement smile, your campfire smile Coats me, like chocolate, like snow, Until the weight pushes me backwards.

I am cracked open, a window, a nut, I am loosened, a book without a spine, Opaque, now clear, the wind can Whistle through me, I slosh around in your cup, Stirred, unfrightened, flung wide.

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E-Waste Sorting Spa

Genevieve Dominiak & Hannah Michaelson |Rhinoceros & Vray for Rhino (made in Daniele Profeta's ARC409 Studio) Spring 2019 | 99

Calle Primera, Parque Lefevre Daniel Preciado

In syllables and sighs And sullen scraps of time I drink in my land.

Like a dance in limbo, Uneasy and ethereal, A window display, twinkling.

And torn from our claws Breathing, gasping, scratching at scars.

It is it and I am I but never are we.

And it screams, it screams.

Within me, without me, As I struggle to find sweet in the bitter He seeks happiness with no map.

Does he run through the air?

He’s never felt it before.

And to the winds of the jungle, I scream back, Do you miss my grasping touch, too?

Yet beyond that beyond I drift in stubbled kisses And twirl in the colors of silk.

And there’s love and there’s air, But the warning lies still: We are not birthed where we die.

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Untitled

Jessie Walker When I said I loved you What I meant to say is that When I remember you I’m afraid I’m Getting details wrong. Your hair is not so straight, your eyes neither hazel nor brown; Slipping away is the worst thing you’ve Done to me today When I said I loved you What I meant to say is that I am unafraid to love you with no Something in return. My love for you is hung on the wall in a House I built for myself, And the cracks in my walls don’t need you To seal them When I said I loved you What I meant to say is that Without you I find pieces of myself missing. A collar bone abandoned on the sidewalk, A lazy arm left on the bus. You never saw them wander off, yet You would always remind me to pick them up

Spring 2019 | 101

Almost Complementary Sam Bloom|Photography 102 | Perception

Permeability Olga Shydlonok

Tomorrow, I will pick up the glass off my floor, and reassemble the pieces into a stained-glass mural.

But tonight, I’d like to rest here a while and watch the Moon reflect golden light through my window.

I let the gold kiss my eyelids, I let myself melt I’m not here, not tonight.

I am mercury Pouring heavy I let the weight close my eyes.

I sleep on Mercury, front row seat to the Sun I let the blanket of light warm me.

Spring 2019 | 103

Escape

Cade Kaminsky Thick trees and thin white lines Pass me by with supersonic speed The God of sun so proud Several miles away he leads, Ruling over a battalion of clouds The scarlet horse gallops Through the towns and forests And over hills; through valleys Her rubber hooves are unchained I am finally free With the wheel’s grip My treasured Manhattan Turns to trinket from treasure I escape from being a combatant My mind is as light as finch’s feather The penchant for being enrobed Like Caesar, Embraced in royal violet velvet Erratically morphs into desires Simplistic in nature, naked In my warped mind’s eye I have the desire to go meditate Under a willow with Siddhartha No reason, no worries No rhyme, no wants Free from asking: “Is this it” Free from that conscience of guilt Free from the caretaker position Free from that awful mission I cannot tell you the truth Of why I do what I do Why I obsess to abscond But you’ll find out soon 104 | Perception

I want to come back I truly do And you deserve to know that But the force pushing me away is you My wild heart needs to explore It needs to roam free And seek out danger Alone and free, that’s when I’m happy The truth would break your heart Cause you’ll see I’ve been living a lie I’ll come home soon And everything will be fine The way it should be

Spring 2019 | 105

Author Name

Title goes here

ÂżQuieĂ­n?

Lia Figurelli|Sharpie on poster board (words by Valeria Molinari)

106 | Perception

Security

Cristina Colón Feliciano She moved through them quickly. A quick kiss on the cheek. A pat on the back.

Goodbye. Bye. Adiós. Hasta pronto. Hold on, not yet, her mother said. I have to go. The line. Look at the line. They stood in front of it. Her backpack weighed on her shoulders. Inside, she had three books, a journal, headphones, a laptop, a charger, rice-crispy treats, a Subway chicken bacon sandwich, an empty bottle of water. She kneeled down. Give titi a hug. No. Come on, she’s leaving.

No. She wrapped her arms around him, barely touching him. His small hands on her backpack. She turned around. I have to go. Mom held her and gave her twelve kisses on the cheek. I love you. I love you. I love you. She didn’t dare to hold her tight. She took her phone out. Go ahead. Titi, ven. Come back. She smiled and waved. A black Labrador sat in front of her. The owner pulled the leash. Ven, titi, ven. Please. The woman behind her was chewing gum. Come back. Pop. Plastic bins against rolling metal. Next. Pop. Titi. Hands up. She turned and waved. Next. Please. Boarding pass.

Spring 2019 | 107

Just Above Liam Owens

I’m building shoulders for my children to see from.

I want their eyes just above my head.

When I go under, they’ll keep swimming.

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Spring 2019 | 109

Aanya Singh|Digital collage & photography

Great New York State Fair

Oda para sa Unibersidad ng Syracuse/Ode to Syracuse University Ranielle Miranda-Navarro Ganda mo ay kakaiba, Misteryo ang iyong pagbabago sa tuwina.

Iyong pabugbugso-bugso ay nakakaintriga, Lahat ng iyong kulay ay nagpamangha, napatulala.

Ikaw, luma ngunit marikit, ay nakakapangilabot.

Sa unang tingin, gusto ko na umalis at mag-alsa balot.

Ngunit sa kaluwalhatian mo ako ay gustong magpabalot.

Tila nadiwata, hayaang ako’y mamangha na may pahintulot.

Oh Syracuse na sinisinta, Wala ng idadahilan pa.

Sa iyong natatanging ganda, Kahit si Venus na dyosa ay kaiinggitan ka!

You have an odd beauty, your changing mood is a mystery.

Your unpredictability intrigues me, All of the changing colors you want me to see.

You, being old yet ethereal, intimidates me.

At first glance, all I want to do is flee.

Yet now all I want is to bask in your glory, All I can do is stare in awe and glee.

Oh dear Syracuse, I won't make any excuse.

You are so beauteous, you make goddess Venus jealous.

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The House

Sean M. O'Rourke Chips of milky pink paint are scattered Throughout the yard like dandruff. The house, Tireless and alive, sheds its flayed skin Like an insect undergoing metamorphosis— An exposure of true form, a maturity Beautiful in its process.

Red plastic cups and clear bottles Pepper the neglected lawn grass as if Planted there like flower seeds.

Shrubs, stripped of their leaves, hug The house and bud Cigarette filters on Their warped twig branches. I light A smoke of my own and feed The shrubs. Splintered wood boards crunch Beneath my old white sneakers, the splinters Curling upward as if to grab the soles and root Them to the porch forever. A friend Is on the porch with me, he’s perched On its ledge smoking his fourth Cigarette. I ask if he’s comfortable.

He responds by blowing smoke In my face. The clean autumn breeze Invades my jacket and I feel the house Shiver. I place my hand on the ledge And tell him I’ll miss him.

I back out the driveway, my life packed Away in a car, and give the house A final farewell. The window to my room Winks at me, the air of consummated love Trapped within its walls eternal. Glad shouts Ride the wind if you listen hard enough, pink walls Vibrating with the sweet candy of Youth, for the home’s foundations are built On rotting wood that never seems to give away.

Spring 2019 | 111

The leaves are gone now, Rotted in the soil, making way for A fresh batch of life-giving children To absorb the sun’s rays anew as they Shade the pink house for another year.

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