Perception Magazine Fall 2018

VOLUME XIX | ISSUE 32 Syracuse University

FALL 2018 | 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 Spring 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 Chris Kennedy Melanie Mahoney Stopyra JoAnn Rhoads Student Association 2 | Perception

DEAR PERCEIVERS, Believe it or not, this is technically the first piece I will have published in Perception despite having served on staff for the last two years. Maybe I have never submitted because of how personal writing is to me, or perhaps it’s because the imposter syndrome tells me that no one would think I deserve to be the Editor-in-Chief of the magazine if they ever read my work. But most likely, it is because I choose to stay silent far too often.

I was drawn to the title of our cover image—“Crushed”—because it seems like the perfect word to describe how I (and how I imagine many of the contributors to this issue) frequently feel these days. Emotionally crushed, crushed by the current political climate, crushed by false assumptions about my identity, crushed by the weight of others’ expectations of me. For all of these reasons, my voice has become so intractably crushed that I naturally gravitate toward silence, presuming my words have little to offer.

Now more than ever, it is imperative that you and I reclaim our voices. The charge I want to leave you with is said best by Anis Mojgani in my favorite spoken word piece, “Shake the Dust:” This is for the hard men who want love but know that it won’t come.

For the ones who are forgotten. The ones the amendments do not stand up for. For the ones who are told speak only when you are spoken to and then are never spoken to. Speak every time you stand, so you do not forget yourself. Do not let a moment go by that doesn’t remind you that your heart beats thousands of times every day and that there are enough gallons of blood to make every one of us oceans.

Do not settle for letting these ways settle and for the dust to collect in your veins.

I am tremendously proud of every Perceiver whose truths have been spoken on the pages of an issue of Perception. May this magazine always be a space where all members of the campus community feel comfortable sharing the most intimate, thorny, and contentious parts of themselves.

All the best always, Julia Leyden Editor-in-Chief FALL 2018 | 3

THE INSIDERS JULIA LEYDEN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

LYSSA THOMAS MANAGING EDITOR

BETHANY MARSFELDER

ASSISTANT EDITORIN-CHIEF

HATTIE LINDERT

ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR

BRIDGET SLOMIAN

CHIEF DESIGNER

JEFF NATHAN HEAD EDITOR

CRISTINA COLÓN FELICIANO

ASSITANT EDITOR

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HEAD REVIEW Samantha Aaronson Devan Dachisen Lia Figurelli Code Keminsky EDITORS Jennifer Bancamper Hayden Barry Katie Ferreira David T. Garcia Lindsay Patterson Jonathan Pollock Aishwarya Rane Vivian Wong

REVIEW Sajida Ayyup Jennifer Bancamper Hayden Barry Eleanor Bilodeau Isabelle Collins Laurie Fernandez Maya Gelsi Nikita Kakani Morgan Lyons Jonathan Pollock Yvonne Prieto Aishwarya Rane Maria Tkacz Vivian Wong Kaisen Ye

ASHLEY CLEMENS ASSISTANT EDITOR

CARYN CORLISS ASSISTANT EDITOR

MARRISA POE ASSISTANT DESIGNER

BRIDGET GISMONDI

ASSISTANT DESIGNER

EMILY GRAHAM ASSISTANT DIGITAL EDITOR

ASHLEY JOHNSON

DIGITAL EDITOR

JENNY MEISKIN

SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR

CATALINA GIRALDO

VIDEO EDITOR FALL 2018 | 5

THE CONTRIBUTORS WRITING Lyssa Thomas Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan Chandler Plante

9 60 11 15 95 16 24 64 26 27 29 31 40 43 47 49 58 66 68 97 70 73 75 100

Hypnotized The Day I Turned Black A FULL FUCKIN' BLADDER

4th Ave The Flower Coward Sage Okolo Tragic Mulatto Trope Caryn Corliss Happy Beef Cake Leondra Tyler Moon and Sun Ariel Wodarcyk opal Izzy Bartling Head in the Clouds Maizy Ludden Why Don't You Just Yvonne Prieto I Pledge Allegiance Jonathan Pollock A Bed of Roses A Woman Visiting a Beach Maya Gelsi Forget Hanna Martin Slow Death Hairol Ma suburbia Danni Tiller on ocd on panic Danny Yarnall Arcade Wizard Two Lights Jessie Walker Hemingway This Poem Is About You But It Is Also About Freedom Aishwarya Rane 77 Tropicana Julia Catalano 80 Grandma, 18th Ave Crisanta Wadhams 83 Twin Ashley Clemens 87 Almost Lia Figurelli 90 The Space Between You and Me Cristina Colรณn Feliciano 93 Empty Drawers Ava English 102 Lost Pines Rachel Walton 106 Namesake Jeff Nathan 108 Good Boy

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ART Maizy Ludden Audra Linsner Maria Tkacz Aishwarya Rane Sajida Ayyup Sophia X Sam Bloom Laurie Fernandez

Sam Lee Devan Dachisen Isabelle Collins Rui Sun Julie Swei Randy Matthew Plavajka Taro Takizawa Molly Bolan Li Chen Jenny Suwiwatchai Kaisen Ye Sam Lee Eleanor Bilodeau

10 12 15 23 107 25 28 105 30 38 39 42 63 67 79 46 48 76 51 86 65 69 101 72 74 82 89 92 94 96 99

Define Intelligance Lucky Eye of the Beholder ASYLUM Lehigh London calling Midnight/Midday in Paris Lost in Time fall 1 fall 2 Stardust Women Power This is Not a Trend big mouth My NYC Road Glitch Power Surge Shattered Earth 100 layers of standard beauty Instar Silent Time Hands A Horde Of Frustration Grandpanorama Mail from the river all this happy weather Untitled Join my Fraternity, Scott Floatage Borderline Twisted

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COVER ART Front Cover Back Cover Inside Front Cover Inside Back Cover

Sam Bloom - Crushed | Digital camera and Photoshop Laura Lineback - Community Guidelines | Photography Taro Takizawa - Yugure Ilumination | Relief print Laura Lineback - Naked Truth | Photography

CENTER SPREAD Sajida Ayyup - Inside the Box | Photography [Sony Alpha 58] Jennifer Wanchen Liu - REPULSE | Silver, resin, multimedia Kaisen Ye - The Thinker | Oil paint Sam Lee - My Moon My Man | Photography Jenny Suwiwatchai - Dweller Attack | Digital painting [Photoshop] Sam Bloom - Am I Pretty | Digital camera and Photoshop

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Hypnotized Lyssa Thomas

Hypnotized.

5:10 PM, September 10th, 2018.

In a world where Hhollywood movies start with dramatic narration, People on the streets of L.A. are dying.

They trap us in their trance with twisted tongues, Keep us screaming on sirened street corners, Holding plastered political posters to protest The very people laying on the ground beside us.

Nobody will notice the “other” if I say something fucked up again, Says our current government administration.

Nobody will notice the people that aren’t eating, If I give them shoes they can’t afford.

We’re climbing a ladder that leads to nowhere, The classic never ending staircase illusion.

They snap their fingers and social mobility disappears, Along with everyone’s ability to see past individualism.

I watched an old documentary about Rome in History 305.

“We turn a deaf ear to humanities never ending cry.”

50 years go by without a cure for loss of hearing, 50 days go by with a bigger and better iPphone, 50 seconds go by with a new advertisement on Ffacebook.

5:35 PM, September 10th, 2018.

How many products have been bought and sold?

How many bodies?

How many lives are exchanged for one orange man’s white house?

Hypnotized, Use those eyes to watch the circus, And stuff your mouth with bread so you can’t speak.

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Definte Intelligance

Maizy Ludden | Color pencil and ink

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A FULL FUCKIN' BLADDER Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan

ah the good old days of transit bus heaven before surveillance cameras caught and recorded every fart and burp in and around the bus all a driver needed was an empty coffee cup and a couple of minutes at the end of the line to empty a bladder that made every bump in the road feel like a punch below the belt now the wonders of technology have made a piss in privy impossible gone are those transcendent moments of surreptitious urination when refilling the paper cup that held the elixir that woke you up evoked a satisfying symbiosis that suggested yes everything does make sense now you’re honkin’ along your route with a full fuckin’ bladder and you’ve gotta tune in to potential piss stops what if you’re running late or you’re in some suburban parts unknown or there’s no place to park the bus or the public pot is occupied a bus driver with a full fuckin’ bladder ain’t inclined toward friendliness a paper cup or a camera it’s the full fuckin’ bladder quandary unresolvable in the farebox

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Lucky

Audra Linsner | Digital art

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4th Ave

Chandler Plante My mother used to tell me not to come to this place alone. It was wild and dark and it burned with a type of energy I had never encountered before. There was something aggressive about the worn down buildings with their chipped paint jobs and broken windows; something intoxicating about the streets bathed in flickering neon; something cryptic about the faces imprinted on the tiles that lined the wall of the underpass, each one a faded rendering of an old citizen.

But I wasn’t alone anymore. I walked with a friend who assured me she knew exactly where we were going, but the truth was that neither of us had a specific destination in mind. We liked watching as people rushed past us, reeking of patchouli oil and incense, and we listened as shitty indie bands shouted lyrics of heartbreak into crowds of people who didn’t have time to listen. The place swirled with movement and action and we were caught up in the middle of it, the way we had secretly intended.

We kept walking in order to avoid looking out of place, and started passing smaller vendors and food trucks and artisans, all fighting for their part of the sweaty $20 bill in my jean pocket. There were trucks that promised the best carne asada tacos you’d ever taste, henna tattoo artists shouting out their various designs, and fortune tellers who claimed they could see it all. But oddly enough, it was the quietest woman who caught my eye.

We wandered over to her stand, which was decorated with a singular sign that read “Poems” across the front, and she watched us approach with great interest, clutching a leather notebook in her hand. Her hair fell down to her waist in thick, dark waves and her eyes glittered with a kind of wisdom: the kind that only marks the sorts of people we call “old souls.”

“How much?” we asked curiously, unsure exactly how to behave and proud to have found the courage to talk to the woman at all.

“Oh, I don’t want your money,” she responded. “I want a word.”

We looked at each other with some concern. “What kind of word?”

She laughed and the strands of turquoise beads jangled around her neck as her face lit up in a series of deep laugh lines. “Any word you want, I suppose.”

We chuckled nervously but didn’t respond right away, each of us FALL 2018 | 13

searching frantically for something relevant. I considered giving her something sweet like “love” or “passion;” something that writers love to write about and readers love to read about; something to frame and show off and smile at every now and then. Those were the things I knew I was supposed to say. The things I was supposed to care about.

Because the world is supposed to be a beautiful place and artists are supposed to be the ones to make it even more gorgeous.

But then I thought about the kind of writing I actually needed.

The kind that talks about experiences even when they sting, and sheds light on the things we keep hidden in the darkness. The kind that doesn’t care about “supposed to” the way it cares about truth.

And that’s when my mind started making its way towards you, the way it always does. I began to think that maybe this woman could take my words and say what I had never been able to. Because although I’ve always been good with words, I had the distinct feeling that these were the kind I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about. I remembered the shock and the hurt, and decided I wanted a poem just for me—one that wouldn’t make me smile, but at least might end up being honest. So I told the woman, “Mistake,” because that’s what I thought you were.

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Eye of the Beholder Maria Tkacz | Photography

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Tragic Mulatto Trope Sage Okolo

I. On the day Elizabeth is born, it snows for the first time in thirteen years. The heat from the little fireplace is not enough for her mother.

There are fields of cotton that shudder under the earth's cold breath, yet there are others who are still picking and pulling at them. They have never had snow yet they have always had work, so they go on.

Elizabeth's mother shivers. Two midwives pick up buckets of reddened water and toss it outside, where it stains the ground in a pale pink.

Elizabeth is crying. Her mother is too cold to offer her the world, as she becomes small and weak. Elizabeth's real father is displeased with her, displeased by her yellow skin and tight eyes that he sees too much of himself in. He thinks about drowning it...but when he meets her eyes, he bitterly falls in love. He breathes in and marches out of the cabin, passing the man who Elizabeth will call her father. He is dark and tall and composed of muscles. He has a fine dust of snow on him.

The smell of the wood prickles at Elizabeth's mother's nose. It is home and the red earth that she can taste. She thinks about grass and mud huts and praying to the night sky–these are things she has not thought about in years. She can almost feel the grit between her tongue and molars, rolling over it. It was warm there. Elizabeth cries. The hand of her husband is warm too, and now she is back. The cold meets her. It hugs her. It sits between the gaps of her bones and threatens to stay there. Elizabeth cries more and it starts to sound like rain to her mother. A string of humming. Her "father" scoops Elizabeth up, cradling her from the body that's running too cold. Elizabeth has taken the last life her mother could have given her.

II. Elizabeth swallows oatmeal, the warm lump sinking down her throat.

It steams even in the cabin in the corpse of summer. Her hair is tied into stiff plaits, each bubble of perspiration uncoiling the late­ night work of Miss Amma, who now works in the field after she got pregnant. She looks like her mother. At least that is what Elizabeth is told. Her father carves pictures of her mother and keeps them 16 | Perception

hidden, taped under the toolbox in the shed. Elizabeth snuck in there yesterday to catch her first glance of her mother. A stranger who leaves an anomalous taste on her tongue. Kind of like eating a sugar cube; too much of it turns sour in the mouth. Today, Elizabeth stays in her cabin, eating her sugarless oatmeal. From her spot on the table, she can see the rows of cotton, their swelling, blistering and bulging bodies extending from the dirt. She can see that peering from the road, are figures. There's a young boy Elizabeth can see if she stretches forward. He walks amongst much bigger men as they are held together by thick silver chains. She can see this boy. He is so dark–maybe the darkest Elizabeth has ever seen. She thinks about what if this boy is like a god. One of the ones from the storybooks Mister Wilcox gives her. What if this godboy was swallowed up by the sun, and when he tore out from its stomach, like some kind of victor, and signs of the sun's attempt were everywhere. Perhaps Memnon.

The chain on his leg yanks, and they're all herded into the field.

Elizabeth finishes up her oatmeal, now much cooler, and ventures to the porch steps. From there godboy can see her. She can look at him more. He looks blue. He holds her gaze, eyes so wide it is as if he is taking in the world around him for the first time.

III. "You are to stay away from him." Master Wilcox tells her. "Niggers that dark will ruin you." Master Wilcox does not let her leave the Big House sometimes. She is to serve dutifully under the nose of her real father as he presents spare ribs and chicken spreads for guests, who when Master Wilcox is not looking, grab her thighs, grab her waist if they're feeling bold. The night her godboy is whipped, Elizabeth turns fifteen and is working in the Big House full time. Her father almost feels like a stranger, much like her mother. Though tonight, he leaves her a present on the steps like an offering; it’s her very own carving of her mother. In this one, she’s strong j­awed, eyes determined.

Elizabeth likes this one more than any other; she is undeniably her mother’s daughter in this one. She sees it for the first time and feels...a swelling in her stomach. It makes tendrils of pride that pervade and stir a deepness that she has not felt in years. Her godboy lurks in the kitchen, fooling with Amma, and fooling around by picking at food and spitting it out so that the “white people will have a lil' black in 'em.” Elizabeth wants to tell him that it doesn’t work like that. She begs Amma for a piece of pound cake, and Amma refuses. She begs again, FALL 2018 | 17

and Amma sharpens her gaze and spikes of fear sew themselves into Elizabeth. Elizabeth sighs and picks up a rack of lamb, glossy with globs of honey and freshly picked rosemary. When she turns around godboy stands in front of her, his smile reveals whitish teeth (good teeth that Elizabeth is surprised by). “Birthday girl!” he says and dives his finger into the sticky glaze, drops a swiped slice of pound cake wrapped in cheesecloth into her apron, and pushes her outside the French doors. Elizabeth is so shocked she almost drops the whole platter but catches their blue eyes, all an unforgiving ocean. She places it by Master Wilcox, who gives her a tight, loving squeeze of her thigh. He smiles, like a burden on Elizabeth. She feels it for the first time. A hatred for Master Wilcox. It must permeate and steam off of her, smoke off the lamb. Master Wilcox stares at her as if he could reprimand his house girl in front of these men. He could just feel it, her stiffening smile and posture like an ironing board. He thinks about whipping her, lash against skin, split, ripped, slowly fastening together. As Elizabeth disappears into the kitchen, Master Wilcox catches a young, too dark for his creamy walls, boy. He can see this boy grabbing small glances at Elizabeth. Master Wilcox will make her kneel in mounds of salt as punishment, till her knees are softened and bloody. While kneeling, she will listen to the sound his whip against her godboy's back. Her godboy is in danger.

IV. He carries lightning strikes on his back. They protrude from his skin, the closest to heaven, to the sky, Elizabeth has felt. She traces it as often as she can. She grabs his hand when he brings groceries into the kitchen on her seventeenth birthday. It is unusually cold. It shakes everyone. She gently strokes his hand in their shared second. He doesn’t look at her. She doesn’t look at him. She chops the fresh onions like Miss Amma has done, but now too sick to do it to move her hands. She cuts celery and carrots. She fries slabs of ham and chicken. It is a shame that her birthday and Miss Wilcox’s are so close together. Bourbon glazed ham, fried chicken, greens smothered in bacon grease, cornbread with cans of creamed kernels folded in, mac and cheese, yams, sweet potato biscuits, and two loaves of brown sugar pound cake. It is almost too much to make, and Elizabeth is alone. No one produces magic from their fingers like Elizabeth, so Mistress Wilcox insists that she is the only one to touch the food. She starts making a third pound cake in the smallest 18 | Perception

tin she has. She makes him the most she can between meals. When she’s done, she sneaks him pieces of bacon and peaches that he'd thumb open in front of her window while she was in the kitchen.

She makes a feast and has it done by sundown, where the gold drenches the Wilcox plantation. Guests have already arrived. June, Eloise, and Will gather to help set up. Platters sit before an endless sea of blue, green and gray eyes, each one having a gnawing hunger than Elizabeth deeply hates. She stands outside the french doors, in uniform (now neat and free of flour) and performs her duties of wine pouring for the next three hours. Master Wilcox congratulates her during dinner; people clap as they believe that this is the utmost kindness; she is his favorite, he announces, and a handful of men chuckle as if they understand. Perhaps they do. Master Wilcox cracks a joke. "How do you know Adam and Eve were not black? You ever try to take a rib from a nigger?" The sea of blue and green eyes erupt in laughter. Master Wilcox looks to Elizabeth, smile hanging off his mouth. She does not laugh like she is supposed to. She moves away slightly, trying to think of her godboy in delicate thoughts.

Master Wilcox notices this, and offended, instructs her to pour more wine. His stare is bitter and exigent. He has lost touch with her, and she has become a house girl. At least that's what he will tell himself.

VII. Elizabeth calls him Dante. It isn't his real name; it's Omari. Dante so black, he looks blue, his skin (at least to Elizabeth) looks like the deep oceans, inexhaustible deep in his crudeness. He bends sun and moonlight, making their luster do backflips against his skin.

She calls him a magician sometimes. He tells Elizabeth that she is like the Behemoth, the one in the Bible. He says this as the two lie, naked, against the wood's ground, doused in layers of sweat. Love lingers between Elizabeth's legs, thin and almost undetectable for those not searching hard enough for it. There are things that are not hers tangled up in her; twigs caught in her hair, the bite marks on her thighs, and leaves scratching her toes. In this forest, trees droop heavily like that of grand arches, an affluence of leaves still on their branch dangle, glazed in moonlight. There is a cease of movement; the forest had implored the two with its stillness, and they continued to lie in awe of it. Elizabeth and Dante lie next to each other, and Elizabeth watches his chest rise and fall. She runs her hands against him. She might explode, as if she is tied round and round and round FALL 2018 | 19

with strings and with his touch, they will all snap. The urge to be bound to him, tied and tethered. Behemoth the hybrid of God's scariest creations–an amalgamation of fears. Dante tells her she will be his downfall, like that of knowledge in the garden. She is irresistible to him. Dante thinks he's fallen in love and is quite terrified that it has been with this creamy little creature. Elizabeth has loved him since he trudged alongside the rest of the gang. This summer heat is despotic. A sweltering of heat needles themselves inside her. She feels like she had swallowed the sun, heat erupting itself in her most carnal places. Starting in her stomach, it stays, until it flares up through her, and nestles itself like a rock in her lungs. Finally, in gasping breaths, which get tangled in the summer heat, Elizabeth exhales, “Dante!”

VIII. It’s quick, but it’s the heat of it that hurts more. He whips her hands, so any delicacy of her former self was eviscerated. Lace ripped and cut and seized by Master Wilcox's whip. Dante keeps his teeth together, almost crushed in anger. He keeps his head down and others hold him back.Elizabeth's father watches from a plot of uneven soil. He does not get a marker. Elizabeth is trying not to scream. Things slip out, but she hushes them up. There isn't a soul in the big house who can't hear it, can't see it. Master Wilcox makes sure that everyone is there to see it. Any time the whip is brought out, time stops. He does it at high noon when the sun's reign does not give, and the heat presses itself to the ground. The typical household chats cease and any type of chores abruptly stop. Today, a bowl of dough left in its tin, unbeaten; jars of honey, left uncapped. "Dante!" Master Wilcox shouts. It isn't at first, but meekly, her godboy makes his way through the crowd. He doesn't try to size Master Wilcox up, he doesn't try to show any kind of hurt. "Here," Master Wilcox says, shoving the whip into his hands, and it drops like a weight. The air seems to be pulled out of him. It feels like water filling up his lungs, something is there that was not meant for him. "I could hang you, boy," Master Wilcox whispers. Elizabeth can hear it and words dangle from her teeth as she thinks about uttering them. Master Wilcox stares at him. The pot on the stove froths. Elizabeth nods as if she has the choice. He clings to the handle and starts the splitting of her skin. Like ripping open browning peaches, flicking away rot. Even the sound is a little similar. When Master Wilcox says "Stop." it looks like, from afar, one could mistake Elizabeth's hands for gloves, a pair of deep red ones.

20 | Perception

But who could wear a pair in this heat–then it would hit them that her hands had been whipped. The water starts up, just a bucket, enough to have Elizabeth's hands soaked in saltwater. It burns her so badly that everything she had guarded inside her, plummets to the ground in deep wails, each one bile­bodied in their form. Dante tells Elizabeth that he has a friend, one who travels back and forth. It is that night that the three of them decide they will run.

IX. Running. Running. Tired legs. They're burning. They leave candles in the window. They wait. They are supposed to wait. Why isn't anyone here? They lie flat in the cabin basement. They dream of running, sprinting, fleeing. They wake up, still in darkness. It gnaws. There are lights in outside the cabin. They are torches. They are on horseback.

There are dogs, clawing at the door. These horsebacked men go round and round and round the house hooting and hollering. The lights go so fast, they're blurring. Break down the back window. Crawl into marshy greens. Wade, run, paddle, it's too dark to see. They’ve never felt water this freezing. It’s right next to them. There's a light at the end of the bank. The dog is barking right in their ear. This is it.

Dragged out of the marsh, caked in mosses, sludge, and a single lily pad clings to her. Into the vile hands, she goes. They dig into her, even with legs kicking. Petals from the Wilcox's Cherry Blossom drip to the ground like snowfall. It’s all too chaotic. Struggle. Struggle. Wiggle out, Elizabeth! Caged little bird.

X. Blazing flames. Is it a pyre? They are dragging Dante towards the sun.

They are hanging Dante above it; Master Wilcox has made him an atonement for her lack of abnegation. He screams in a way she's never heard. Cherry blossoms consume her, petals burning in the flames.

Pieces of Dante are falling, skin unraveling, veins festering, eyeballs dripping. His moans are callow, slowing down, name hugging and lynching his lips, “Elizabeth!”

XI. Elizabeth works in the field now. For a young girl, she looks old.

Wrinkles have burrowed their way through her. The others do not FALL 2018 | 21

trust her. She does not keep her hair up, rather she lets it unravel and loosen under the sodden sun. She picks and pulls in silence.

They say you can only hear her when they sing in church, in the fields, in the cabin. The others feel sorry for her. No one left in the world for her to squeeze. Thickened belly– heard Massa gonna sell it. Heard Massa gonna killet. Heard she gonna killet .

XII. The day Elizabeth dies, it snows for the first time in eighteen years.

The river is glassy in coldness. As she steps through the field, it is night. She walks forward, bare feet fumbling in the darkness. The land is mushy, snow being swallowed whole upon hitting the ground.

Elizabeth, in her white dress (still torn and burned), pushes past reeds and lily pads that have fastened themselves to the thin sheets of ice, breaking at her touch. She is the sole warmth of this land. The ice must bask in her. Steam rolls off of her. Smoke skins. Thickened belly pressing against each ice layer. It's past her stomach now. Her breasts are next. The rimy water tongues at her. Pieces of Elizabeth are being tasted by the river. She faultlessly marches onward. She shivers under the world's cold breath. Skin growing paler. There's a new beating pushing inside her. Her hair is unbound. Elizabeth takes a deep breath, toes barely skimming the ground. She is bobbing. Then treading. Her heart is beating like motherland drums. Water climbs into her mouth and slides down her throat. Her toes no longer touch the ground, other than a few fluttering kicks against edged stones.

Water is clawing its way through her. Elizabeth lets it. It is a coldness that she's felt before. She is her own Behemoth. She is of herself and of her child and of her mother and of her father and of her godboy, an amalgamation of everything Elizabeth has made of herself.

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Maria Tkacz | Photography

ASYLUM

Happy

Caryn Corliss I collect confessions, Each one is pretty, and Blue.

I collect half things, Half things play me for a fool.

Faulted under the weight Of satin unrecognition, While cathexis sends me daydreams Of a weightless inhibition.

Days spent on a tightrope Melted gold turns blue A thousand husbands and one lady To them, I’m a thousand fools.

I don’t want to be stupid So I’ll hone my gold-blue skill Confession: I don’t believe in soulmates But I’ll pretend if you will.

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London calling

Aishwarya Rane | Photography FALL 2018 | 25

Moon and Sun Leondra Tyler

As I wake, I hear the church bells ring, and some part of me hopes you lay peacefully.

The sky has stayed an unsettling gray since the day I walked away.

Lightning strikes as a gentle reminder that scars may fade, but, memories remain.

Moving on with depressing thoughts. When I first laid eyes on you, somehow, I felt that you would be my rock. We were kinetic energy from the start. You take what you get and I didn't get a lot. I gave too much. It's time to be my own rock.

Unsettling regrets: an unsolvable concept that polar opposites grew within the same harvest. I am not completely honest as I walk among the forest feeling the warmth of your skin. I can almost taste you on my fingertips.

Fallen leaves in the Autumn breeze, metaphorically. I watched the sunset for the first time since my goodbye. I am now burdened with not knowing where it is you may be going.

Without me.

Without me: I never thought there could be a complete you. We aren't yin and yang. I am the moon and you the sun. Others awe at my beauty, which I have never witnessed, while they see you forsaken and feared. They wanted to be as near as I was to you.

As I was brave enough to love your warm touch, I became inflamed, a burning rush of space dust. Fallen stars we became until the day I shot away.

I heard the angels sing from above praying for the kind of love that I gave, I hold, I own to be spread upon this Earth. I couldn’t accept the gift of loving another and as I listened to the church bells ring, some part of me hopes you lay dreaming of me.

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opal

Ariel Wodarcyk Opals are some of the most fragile jewels. Jewelers recommend wearing them lightly, and not as engagement rings, because they crack so easy. Before I traveled across the country to go to school in New York, my dad and I found a little opal in the shape of California,on a necklace in a little shop in San Francisco. We bought it that day; I think we split the cost, one part me, one part him, a reminder of where I’m from to bring to where I was going next. I’ve had the necklace repaired twice, first when the chain broke during my first time swimming in the ocean two summers ago. People are usually surprised to hear that I live in California and it took me 18 years to swim in the ocean, but what they don’t realize is how cold the Pacific is, how fog rolls in and settles over Northern California beaches like a soft grey blanket. The sun peeks out from behind the clouds and illuminates them to make them a light grey, almost white.

On China Beach in San Francisco, the sand is black. You can see the Golden Gate Bridge peering out from the clouds in the distance, and you are surrounded by black cliffs. The second time the necklace broke was in my sleep. I woke up one morning to find the thin gold chain broken where it connected to the opal on one side, so the necklace hung sideways over my bare chest. I don’t know how the whole thing didn’t fall off overnight, or in the Pacific. I know that the chain is the only part of the necklace that’s ever needed fixing. If the opal is really so fragile, why has it held on so long?

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Midnight/Midday in Paris Sajida Ayyup | Photography [OnePlus 3T]

28 | Perception

Head in the Clouds Izzy Bartling

when my eyes close my soul awakens origami birds flutter above my head the clouds they feel soft taste sweet like a juicy pear we color the world in pastels and chalk love is tangible so is hope our fingers touch ever so lightly i can feel your happiness flood my system i sleep on a flower petal my mind at ease our toes dancing to the buzzing of the lightning bugs

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fall 1

Sophia X | Photography 30 | Perception

Why Don't You Just Maizy Ludden

Names have been changed to protect privacy Perhaps a psychiatric ward is not the most rational choice of setting for a story about normality.

But then, I’m not always a rational person, and I’m positively awful at making choices.

So psychiatric ward it is: the Eating Disorders unit at Brandywine Mental Health Pavilion, to be exact. 100 meters of white-tiled hallway, 20 identical bedrooms with unlockable doors, and one common room filled with couches long past their prime. All kept at a precise 33 degrees Fahrenheit- or so it felt to the inhabitants of this selfcontained wonderland, whose bodies were decidedly lacking in anything resembling insulation.

Cozy, right?

“Why the actual fuck do they keep this place so freezing all the time?”

I was greeted with this cheerful remark from a girl I thought might be called Alyssa, shivering in a teddy-bear patterned hospital gown as she emerged from her room.

“Language, dear,” chided the nurse tech as she clomped past in her absurdly noisy shoes, heading towards the scale room.

“Why the actual frick do they keep this place so freezing all the time?” Alyssa amended herself, tying her gown and following the tech down the hall.

Nobody bothered to answer her. Anyone who’d been here longer than a day- or at least, had been here before, in my case- had heard the techs preach that hospitals must be kept carefully chilled in order to prevent disease.

“I think disease is the least of our worries at this point,” one or another of us would answer, holding out a spindly limb or a feeding tube from the folds of an oversized sweatshirt.

This usually earned a sniff of derision from one of the nurse techs, but it was often followed by an assurance to fetch more blankets that evening. Besides, we only had to stand around in our hospital gowns until we had finished being weighed and assessed by the infamous vitals machine.

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“Ba-do-doo!” chirped the machine from the lounge, eliciting a jump from the patients still in line outside the scale room. The machine was the resident rooster in this barnyard, guaranteed to wake anyone who hadn’t risen to the nurse’s calls at 5:45 am.

As the stragglers gathered to await their turn on the scales, the rest of us collected in the lounge, trying not to jump each time the vitals machine crowed. Usually the rising sun could be seen through the double-paned windows, but not today.

How fitting, I thought to myself as I sank into one of the couches, then stood up again as my brain reminded me that sitting down was a weak thing to do.

How fitting that the sun won’t shine on my first day in this damn place.

Or rather, the first day of my second visit to the Brandywine ED unit, as I explained to the other patients when they kindly attempted to explain the morning routine to me.

“This isn’t my first rodeo,” I’d respond, earning a nod of understanding. There were lots of repeat offenders here- people on their second, third, fourth visits. Usually you don’t find people who’ve been more than that. Either they’ve given up on recovery, or their bodies have given up on them.

“I wish I’d known, when I was younger,” the repeat patients would say to us young’uns on our first or second visit. “Get out while you still can.”

They’d shake their hollow faces at us, pointing a twiggy finger.

“You’ll end up like me if you don’t recover.”

We’d nod, some of us with a real promise that we’d never be back, and others with a half-hearted affirmation of intent to recover. There are always those who don’t want it- life, health, happiness- the disease is strong in these ones. So strong it convinces them that being thin, being strong, becoming nothing is the only purpose in their existence.

These are the saddest patients, but also the ones most encouraging and supportive of others’ recovery.

“It’s too late for me,” they’d say, “But you have to recover! You’re worth it!”

The saddest people smile the brightest, the loneliest people are the wisest- that’s what they say. One girl even had it tattooed on her foot.

When it was my turn to be rigged up to the vitals machine, I smiled at the tech and held out my arm for the blood-pressure cuff.

“Tsk tsk,” she said, reaching for a smaller one. “We’ll have to put 32 | Perception

you in the child’s cuff.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Fucking yes,” said my brain, as I looked around to make sure my wrists were the smallest.

This is the life of an anorexic. Never support anyone else’s illness, but defend your own with your life. Smile at everyone else, but never allow yourself any kindness. Nice words to the outside world, and constant competition on the inside.

Am I the skinniest one here?

I scanned the room, waiting as the cuff inflated.

A couple anorexics, she’s definitely a bulimic, probably an orthorexic, that one’s definitely a binge eater…

I pinched myself, out of sight of the nurse. It’s hard not to compare yourself to others, no matter how disgusting you know it isIt’s difficult not to feel pride in your hard work.

Because it’s hard work to get here, to starve yourself so thin you have to be sent to an inpatient ED unit. From the outside, an eating disorder is a silent thing. But in our heads, it’s loud. A torrent of voices reminding us to be strong, to go just one more hour without food, 10 more minutes on the elliptical.

An alarm jarred me from my reveries: the vitals machine, informing the nurse that my pulse was dangerously low.

“Thirty-two?” she exclaimed, looking at the monitor and then back at me. “Do you feel okay, honey?”

I tried not to smile.

“I’m fine,” I replied, glancing around the room to see if any of the other patients were likely to challenge my place as newly instated queen of Brandywine. Then I pinched myself again.

Stop it, I shouted at myself internally, stop feeling better than everyone just because you’re the sickest one here!

It’s a two-faced disease, anorexia. Constantly feeling like everyone is better than you- skinnier, prettier, stronger, kinder- and yet feeling that pang of pride when you notice you’re just a bit thinner around the waist, your collarbones stick out just a touch farther, or you’ve pushed your heart to beat a few strokes slower.

The nurse was still eyeing me suspiciously, so I extended my response.

“It’s normally like that,” I said, “I’m a runner.”

She pursed her lips, noting the 32 bpm pulse on her vitals sheet.

“We’ll have to put you on Gatorade.”

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the pacemakers in your heart give out is definitely a feat. Not one that most people would strive for, that’s for sure. But our goals are different here in the ED unit. Our brains are different, our bodies are different. We are strange creatures, pale and skeletal, dwellers of the night. When the world is sleeping, we are doing sit-ups behind our beds, listening with keen ears for the sound of a nurse approaching on their fifteen-minute rounds. We survive off our own flesh and blood, forcing our bodies to eat themselves as our teeth grow dull from lack of use. We fight to become the alpha, the strongest in the pack- but our definition of strong is what makes our bodies so weak.

Which brings me back to the subject of normality. Why am I telling a story about normality in a place where normal is decidedly not a common trait? Well, perhaps that is the point. Here in the Brandywine ED unit, normal takes on a new meaning. To passersby peering in through the window, we are a collection of bizarre animals trapped in a zoo that is trying very hard to rehabilitate us. But inside the hospital walls, we all understand each other- we are of the same breed. Our symptoms, our motivation, our pasts may be different.

But no one flinches at the sight of another patient crying softly over the butter on their pasta. No one blinks at scarred wrists or casts on bones cracking from malnourishment. And no one speaks to the nurses when their roommate is doing pushups at midnight.

We understand one another in that we know we can never truly understand. We can’t know the individual struggle of our fellow patients. We can’t see or hear what’s going on in their minds, no matter how similar the outward symptoms may look.

We know that normality is relative- an acknowledgement that is sometimes lacking in the populace of the outside world.

Out on the streets (as those of us in our affectionately nicknamed “jail” liked to say) there is a much wider range of pain and problems.

There are those who struggle with drugs, those with cancer or a lessvisible disease. There are people coming to terms with their sexual orientation, people fighting to be heard despite their race or gender or income, people trying to overcome the stigma of a learning disability or a physical one. There are people trying to flee abuse, and people piecing their lives together after the death of a loved one.

Everyone is trailed by a cloud of their own darkness, the rain that falls into every life. Sometimes these personal storms can’t be seen by the people you pass on the sidewalk or the people who sit next to you on the subway. And that means it is easy to forget that we all have something trying to drag us down.

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When we forget, we are so much more likely to lash out at someone when their pain becomes visible to us. Sometimes it manifests in tired eyes, or a terse comment, perhaps lazy driving or even an absence from a social gathering. Why can’t they get their act together, we think, succumbing to the cloying fingers of annoyance.

We might respond with a terse comment of our own, a honk or a middle finger, a glance of derision. Even when our judgment is silent, it is there, building walls and digging trenches between us.

It is not like this in Brandywine. We don’t dig trenches between ourselves because we’re all fighting the same battle. Maybe our opponent looks a bit different to each of us, maybe our wounds all hurt in unique ways. But we never hesitate to give each other a hand, to send words of encouragement down the line when we see someone lagging. If a fellow patient shoots a glare across the dinner table, we don’t respond in kind. Because we know it is not us they’re glaring atit’s the voice in their head, the anxiety, the fear, the pain.

It was a shock when I got out of Brandywine, the first time and the second. It was bizarre to feel like others didn’t understand me, and to feel as though I didn’t understand them. The girl next to me outside the scale room is fighting a monster that at least superficially resembles mine, but the people next to me in the lunch line at school are haunted by beasts that come from an entirely different planet.

Still, I try to remember that they are beasts all the same. The classmate struggling to leave an abusive partner deserves my support as much as the girl I coaxed through her lasagna on my second day in the unit. The bus driver trudging through night school and beating alcoholism is as worthy of a smile as the new patient struggling not to cry because she can’t go for a run. In Brandywine I can better understand the feelings of my peers, but that shouldn’t stop me from acknowledging the feelings I can’t understand when I interact with people in the outside world.

I’m not the first person to have had this idea. “Put yourself in their shoes,” we’re told as children, “We’re all humans,” they say to us now. And yet, it remains so difficult for some of us to act on this sentiment; we’re still out there digging our solitary trenches, and fighting people just because their demons look different than ours.

Normal is too broad a term to encompass all of humanity; someone is always different enough to fall into the category of abnormal and therefore into something less.

Therein lies the problem. Different does not equal lesser; our struggles are all valid, no matter how bizarre they seem to others.

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The most relatable form of this argument came to me while I was in Brandywine the second time; again, not the place you’d expect anything relatable to happen. But I’ll never forget the story told to me by everyone’s favorite nurse tech. Jersey Mike, as we called him, for his accent and the hair he kept carefully gelled.

It was on one of the rare occasions we got to step outside for more than 5 minutes: an after-meal treat for those of us who finished all our food. “Make sure you do 100%,” the nurses encouraged us, “You can go outside with Mike if you do.”

The sun was setting as we trailed slowly around the parking lot- a veritable nature hike after the sterility of the ED unit halls.

Our shadows stretched out long and thin on the faded pavement, but for once we weren’t inspecting the proportions of the dark silhouettes. Mike was telling a story, his hands flying through the sticky summer air.

“So I’m on duty in the psych unit,” he says, jabbing a thumb towards the upper level of the Mental Health Pavilion. We nod, some of us recalling the screams and thumps that echo from the rooms above us in the night. “And I’m hanging with some people who have schizophrenia.”

We’re used to this phrasing by now- people with schizophrenia, not schizophrenics. We’re all people here, not just faces preceded by a disease. But that doesn’t stop us from being frightened when we pass the “upstairs folks” on our way to dinner, or have to stay in the ED wing when a code purple echoes over the intercom and the stronger techs run upstairs to restrain someone.

“Anyway, I’ve got this fellow next to me, munching on an apple, and he’s just finished a conversation with some guy that doesn’t exist.”

We hold back giggles- not at the idea of a delusional patient, but at the nonchalant imitation Mike does of a man chewing on an apple, chatting casually to someone who isn’t really there.

“He turns to me, and he says—” Mike pauses, looking around at us with a grin, “He says, ‘Mike, I just don’t understand them kids downstairs. I mean, why don’t they just eat?”

Mike chews thoughtfully on his imaginary apple, then continues.

“He says to me, ‘I mean, it ain’t that hard- watch!’ and the guy takes another bite of his apple, tells his nonexistent friend to fuck off, and walks away.”

We laugh again, a shy sound. We don’t like to draw attention to ourselves, normally, but on this occasion it’s okay. We’ve all heard it before--why don’t we just eat? And we never bother to explain. There’s 36 | Perception

no need to here: amongst ourselves, it goes unspoken that just eating isn’t as easy as it sounds.

We laugh because we have our own delusions, but the man upstairs has his as well. Will we ever comprehend what goes on in his head? Probably not, and nor will he grasp what happens in ours.

But Mike’s story brings our separate struggles together, the way a month in the Eating Disorder unit brings the patients “downstairs” together too.

I think of Mike and his story a lot: when I couldn’t explain why I needed to run 9 miles a day to feel ok, or why I had to count every calorie that passed my lips. I think of it now, when I feel overcome by anxiety during my first semester back at school after a year on medical leave. But I think about it most often when confronted with someone whose struggle I don’t understand- when I feel my patience wearing thin and I want to say, “Why don’t you just [insert action here].”

Because it’s never that easy. I- we- need to remember that struggling is normal, no matter the form our demons take.

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fall 2

Sophia X | Photography

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Stardust

Sam Bloom | Digital camera & Photoshop FALL 2018 | 39

I Pledge Allegiance Yvonne Prieto

O, let America be America again— The land that has never been yet— And yet must be— the land where every man is free.

- Langston Hughes I was surrounded by brown girls and brown boys.

In school they told us to sing along to a song our parents were unfamiliar with.

Eyes wide and curious, we stared at the colors— blue, red, white. white. white. white.

We memorized the words, our little palms raised to our chests.

We had no clue what the words meant, But in unison we sang anyway.

We were supposed to love the stripes and the stars-blue, red, white. white. white. white.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all--

I am surrounded by fewer brown girls and brown boys.

In school, we do not sing the song anymore.

I still see the colors— blue, red, white. white. white. white.

If I was asked to sing along to the same song, I’m sure I would remember the words— so carefully tucked away, but engraved in the spiderwebs of my brain.

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But you cannot tell kids to salute a flag that does not protect them because when they are 17 they will realize that the flag they are supposed to sing to does not mean anything But the words remain carved in our minds, and they cut us every time we remember.

We are still expected to love the stripes and the stars— (blue, red, white. white. white. white.) even if they don’t love us back.

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Women Power

Laurie Fernandez | Digital illustration 42 | Perception

A Bed of Roses Jonathan Pollock

Under a frail oak tree and submerged by shadows, a woman sat reclined against the waning trunk. Her eyes were glassy and staring forward, blindly observing the stillness while oriented toward a small bed of roses that snuggly embraced two stones of varying size.

The larger obelisk of the two was adorned with vines that seemingly grasped its top in an effort to drag it back into the ground, unseen; the smaller stood as a perfectly smooth stone façade, untouched by the surrounding undergrowth—beside those barbed roses that prevented anyone from getting too close. The woman feared the roses, which grew only in a small area around the object, and she had never approached the site beyond the edge of the canopy’s shadow— something that never seemed to stretch very far beyond its roots.

Whenever she came here, the woman was always alone, yet it never felt that way to her; rather, she felt the whole graveyard was far too crowded, and she often wished she couldn’t hear the thousands of souls’ muffled cries from just beneath the surface. Other days, she was thankful she could not single out one voice over any other, their suffering harmonized in a terrible, but impersonal, cacophony. Had she known what they were wailing about, she thought, it would be much harder to listen to. But it was not their screams that beckoned her to this place each morning and night; instead, it was her family, the only family that remained in her life.

It was nearing 6 in the morning, and the woman was entirely aware that she had fallen asleep beneath the tree at some point in the night. She still had her wits—that was the real trouble, she reasoned, for if she could simply forget, perhaps she would not hear the suffering of the dead any longer. But it had been 9 years now, and her memory remained vivid—she still remembered how her husband’s hand felt in hers, how his lips moved in at a slanted angle when he was excited, and how his naked body looked after he had showered, or during a bath—no, she thought, before shaking her head and looking away from the neglected graves; she would not remember that time again.

That memory was the only force capable of driving her from beneath the tree and back to her home, which scarcely saw her visit, and had not in 9 years witnessed her sleep in the now dusted bed.

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Not once, however, had the memory ever drove her any closer to the roses. Eyes still averted, the woman now looked upon the ground, and found among the dark green and matted grass a single rose petal that had undoubtedly traveled to her with the latest gust of wind. She looked upon the petal and for a moment a ghost of a smile appeared over her features before the fear again took hold.

While shifting her position forward slightly in order to blow at the intruder until it again took flight, away from her, the still cold dew of morning betrayed her and her hands slipped forward, forcing her face and perspective immediately before the dying fragment of rose. In a panic, her figure leaped backwards and into the tree behind her, shaking its foundations and sending a flurry of leaves tumbling into the shrieking air. Terrified, the woman did not even realize that she too, in addition to those beneath the surface, had begun participating in the cacophony—she was bawling, and her glassy eyes had finally flooded over, fresh tears melting away the dirt caked over her countenance.

As her shriek echoed through the surrounding hills and reverberated in the trees, she realized her eyes had yet to steal themselves away from the sight of the petal which still laid lifelessly upon the ground. Coming to her senses, her yell was replaced by panted breathing. In relative silence, aside from her labored breaths, the woman continued to stare, seemingly enthralled by the lifeless crimson form before her. Unblinking, her eyes remained unremoved, even as her cognizance slowly returned to her and she became aware of the silence that now hung in the air as it never had before. The howling souls now bated their breath and watched in wonder as the unspoken woman broke her quietude, and apparently the last thread of her sanity.

Under the weight of the silence, she fell to her knees before the petal, and with body trembling she extended her delicate hands out toward the shafts of sunlight which now shined through the patches of the oak leaves and illuminated the object of her desire. With a profound gentleness, the woman cupped the crimson speck in her palms and hoisted it up close to her vision, and with eyes wide, gazed in a mix of fear, guilt, and misunderstood amazement.

But the strange catharsis would not last. In a moment, the brief silence was again interrupted by screams, again, emanating from the woman now frozen in glaring obsession—as the cacophony began again, so too did the world begin to spin, faster and faster, until she could no longer see the rose petal before her, but her Rose.

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In the bathroom, yellow rubber gloves still on—her husband’s face, eyes meeting, knife penetrating, her body then his—Rose, no— from torn skin, the blade rises and falls again—not her too—falling again, now stuck—shaking, crimson dripping hands, tumbling to pink-stained water—Rose—kneeling, a woman’s hand grips the hilt and yanks—no—his eyes open, large hands clasp atop hers—no, stop— pleading eyes begin to fade—please—the pale hand falls, a red splash, it sinks, lifeless—please—blade dislodging, she falls to the tile, but rising again, still healthy arms embrace a small, still-warm frame— Rose, please—limply resting atop her breast, breathless, lifeless—no— a woman looks at the face, staring at a crimson Rose.

Her screams echo again and her hands clasp, eyes a torrent, she glances again at the stones among the bed of roses and her blood leaves her just as theirs did. Turning, she dashes to the hills opposite the obelisk of evil and with a piece of rose still held tightly in a wet fist. As the spectacle of true suffering vanishes, the cacophony returns louder than before.

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Road Glitch

Michele Abercrombie & Geena Matuson Fuji camera; digital photograph 46 | Perception

A Woman Visiting a Beach Jonathan Pollock

Nature's anguish floats above, And mesmeric pitter patter darkens a beach While dull thuds echo under umbrella.

Her flooded heels creak and moan Beneath the blue dress of yesterday; Polka dotted white, speckled yellow-Its tattered fibers drag and drip.

She rests her knees on rocky sands stained red And stares above, eyes wetter than the sky Which pours an endless torrent.

She’s lying now, like they said she was, But the waves have almost won-Hair, sand and flesh floating in the puddle.

The tide is coming in now, And the waves have finally taken her, A ship of limp flesh destined to rot Upon a blind and uncaring sea.

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Power Surge

Devan Dachisen | Photography [iPhone 7] 48 | Perception

Forget

Maya Gelsi In the shower, I forget I forget my thighs Touch That my waist isn’t Narrow That my stomach pushes Out, out, out, And there is only the sound Of my fingers gliding through My silkified curly hair And the thick soapy smell of Mist and conditioner.

Wet with the tears that Women and I cry for Our poor abused bodies, Judged, molded, sliced open By laser-like eyes, but No more Than our own.

My own tears choke me, shrink me, Cripple me so that I do not Recognize The beauty in my body.

Would I trade my IQ for a flatter stomach?

She asked.

No. But the imaginary cautionary barter Does not assuage my hate For myself.

My logical brain is crushed And overwhelmed By the searing force of Pages upon pages upon pictures in Fashion magazines.

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“I don’t look like that”s A thousand “I’m fat”s A thousand “No one will ever want me”s And so My poor, murdered confidence Cannot stand up and fend for Itself Herself Who am I supposed to be?

The water pounds my body.

In the shower I can almost forget.

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100 layers of standard beauty Isabelle Collins | Digital compilation

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Slow Death Hanna Martin

I Tobacco on my keyboard; The poison is in my lungs; I’m slowly killing myself.

Sometimes I think that A slow death will be worse Than a fast one.

That I will suffer a lot And ache Before I eventually succumb to death.

But isn’t that life?

Maybe life and death Are not so different After all.

II “I’m here for a good time, Not for a long time,” She screams over the Blaring music of the Concert venue That smells like weed And sweat And beer And youth.

I think about it.

A good time or a long time?

This is my predicament: I am afraid of the unknown; I want to go out early with a bang Before I become too old To be able to.

But I also want to see My family grow; To get married; Have a life of my own.

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Life terrifies me.

III I sometimes wish that I Could have a family: A husband A daughter A house.

But settling down Makes me feel like I’m drowning under A ton of water.

I would rather float In the Mediterranean In Barcelona, Free, Knowing my youth Is still vibrant in my heart Despite my age.

IV It scares me that I might not ever See every inch of the globe.

It scares me that I might not ever Have a family of my own.

I am terrified Of this slow death.

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The Day I Turned Black Lyssa Thomas

It was a normal day at school for a loser like me. Maybe I had a buffalo chicken wrap for lunch and ate it sitting at a around a table of friends that didn’t mind my silence. They made fun of the cool kids, pointing fingers at the way the football players laughed and sat up straight. Nobody made fun of the ghetto kids. Nobody was brave enough to talk about their shoes, or their braids, or their ability to be heard.

Or maybe I had gone to the library during lunch that day to hide among the bookshelves and avoid the knowing glances when I did not eat. My step dad had told me I had an affinity for those black girl hips, laughing with his yellow teeth and greedy tongue. He took pieces of me with each comment; he took pounds from my flesh with jeering fingers.

Or maybe it was a bad hair day. The naps behind my neck could be seen beneath my ponytail and I was afraid I broke the illusion. I was afraid that the pale faces of the soccer players would point them out, unaware of their true name: the kitchen. It would be ten years until I heard my first friend of color call them “nigger naps”. It would be ten years before I would yell at them in the mirror for their inability to stay detangled, but simultaneously love them. I would oil them. I would caress them. I would sing to my curls.

Or maybe it was the day Tolu had his outburst in history class; the only dark man on the honor roll. He wore sharp shoes, sweater vests, and khakis. His dad was a doctor. He made sure to tell us all of the time. He was not black. He also told us that all of the time too. He was African. Ten years ago I pretended to understand the divide, but even now I cannot swallow his words without a grimace. Tolu did not understand his own slavery to the still very present master; the white man will divide and conquer.

Or maybe it was the morning after an unfortunate family meal in which my little brother made fun of Jamal. Jamal was a fictional character in a math book that beat up his friends and my little brother was not surprised. Jamal was black. Jamal was born beating up his friends. When a brown sister corrects a white brother, racism suddenly has an age limit. “He’s too young, he doesn’t understand,” the mother says. He understands that he is white; that is all he needs 60 | Perception

to know.

Or maybe I was feeling nostalgic that day and thought back to my days at summer camp in the YMCA. I wanted to play with the black little boys and girls on the balance beam. I wanted to balance. They told me I was not allowed to play with them on account of my cream colored skin. They did not care about the braids in my hair. They knew my true identity. The white camp counselor told me to play with the white camp children, only she did not understand. I had already tried to play with the white camp children. They cared about the braids in my hair.

The day I turned black, I took the yellow bus home from the blue school. I sat two rows from the front with my best friend Nicole who had blonde hair, blue eyes, and grandparents waiting at home.

She had a crush on a black boy at school so I thought this meant she understood me. We sat behind two little black boys, that lived on the other side of town in yellow apartments called the projects. The people who lived there were not the projects. The people who lived there were just black.

The black little boys on the brown seats had their red bags and their opened mouths pointed at Nicole, who was very unhappy.

They probably had a crush on her beauty because pale skin is always in and black girls were too scary for their lanky limbs.

After five whole excruciating minutes of being subject to their harassment Nicole forces us to change seats, sits down with a sigh and looks out the window.

“They were acting like such niggers,” says Nicole.

The day I turned black my world started turning a little bit slower to help me adjust to the news. I was offended. The anger and the hopelessness hit me like the bus itself was hitting me, like Nicole took her fist and hit me, like my stepfather’s words had hit me, like a watermelon full of fried chicken and collard greens was hurled into my stomach. I said nothing to Nicole; I got off the bus and took the long way home to avoid her; I regretted it for the rest of my high school career not spitting in her face and stomping on her porcelain toes. I would show her acting like a nigger.

The day I turned black everyone told me I was not. I speak white, I dress white, I have white skin, white freckles, and a white mom. It didn’t matter when I reminded them of my nose, hair, lips, or father.

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were enslaved, and my father could be shot, and my step mother had that black woman attitude. It didn’t matter that I, a black woman, had that black woman attitude.

The day I turned black I was graciously reminded that I was not born by a river in a little tent. I was graciously reminded that slavery is over and jim crow laws are over and can’t black people just get over it too? The day I turned black I finally understood the master’s tools and started dreaming of the day we burn the shed down. I became the black friend that could answer questions about being color blind and affirmative action, as if the act of having an opinion was not racist in itself. The day I turned black the N word became cultural appropriation and the whip became gentrification.

I started wearing my curly hair proudly and told every black baby girl that her hair was pretty too. The day I turned black I told Uncle Tom to go fuck himself. I told my white stepfather to go fuck himself on his white picket fence. I told my mother that my lips were thick and luxurious and she was jealous. The day I turned black is the day I turned angry.

The day I turned black is the day the world turned black too.

The day I turned black is the day the world went black too.

The day I turned black is the day I got my magic.

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This is Not a Trend Laurie Fernandez | Oil paint

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Beef Cake Caryn Corliss Part I: Tart In the delicate light of early morning I think of carving congealed blood out of veins, Like seeds out of a vanilla bean And I’m thinking people taste like butter And I must too Cause I’m eating chocolate and milk And spilling over bra bands like whipped cream, and out of elastic like egg whites And I think I’d eat myself, if I could Part II: Beef Cake I’ve been writing poems about cannibalism in my dreams, and I think it’s because of the prosciutto I’m trying not to crave, a saline skin coating over my tongue, the beef stew in a past, pastoral life I ate in February, the eggs I boil for my summer salads, like broiled menstruation, little ruby red human caviar.

And even now I wonder how much pain the stalks of sugar feel, when they’re severed at the ankles Part III: Ginger I’m thinking about the egg cream I made over a low flame and a cup of air A paste of egg and butter, so rich it made me sick So, I cleansed myself with brown carbonation And sparkly syrup And like charcoal it absorbed the little bubbles of grease lining my cheeks, and I burped up every bad feeling inside of me Like a quiet exorcism

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FALL 2018 | 65

Rui Sun | Photography

Silent Time

suburbia Hairol Ma

I wanted to dance with you last night.

I don’t know what I was doing — perhaps it was the disco funk, the strobing lights, the glasses rolling around on the tequila soaked floor — it was a knowledge of our mutual sobriety, endearing affection towards your small hand movements and your black sweatshirt tied around your waist. I wanted to take your hands and teach you how to dance a little.

But those are meaningless moments, aren’t they? I cannot take your hands without considering the scope of my actions. We can sustain surface conversations but you will never understand who I am and what breaks my heart. I want to dance with you, but I cannot leave us both with lingering thoughts of who we are to one another. In the end we worship different gods.

So I didn’t take your hands — I only peered at you from the corner of my eye, watching your hands stuffed in your pockets, your head gently bobbing to disco funk, the fuchsia strobe lights dousing your face in a deep pink glow. I laid in bed that night and prayed to God He’d wash your ghosts from the recesses of my mind.

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Laurie Fernandez | Digital illustration

big mouth

on ocd

Danni Tiller my enemies are cracks in the sidewalk baby baby baby my enemies are cracks in the sidewalk i can’t even walk over-baby baby mania! baby you don’t hate cracks in the sidewalk? it’s like when i was little and i thought everyone hated b-pluses and everyone in their head 1234 1234 123 123 12 12 1234 1234 123-thought loop can you help me turn it off? can’t turn IT off, need one more ketchup small ketchup small ketchup packet i have a collection i have 25 thought loop during dinner baby, you really don’t hate cracks in the sidewalk? i tell my therapist i don’t even wash my hands that much for me, my head is kaboom 1234 1234 1234 mundane explosion i love silence sure looks fun for everyone else my ENEMIES are CRACKS in the sidewalk can’t stop stepping please god just let me step on them 68 | Perception

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Julie Swei | Watercolor and pen

Hands

Arcade Wizard Danny Yarnall

He shuffles in mumbling to himself in Spanish, the ratty soles of his shoes dragging against the linoleum with short, staggered strides.

A few people in their seats glance his way, more keep their eyes locked on their phones or the TV in the corner. The game is on, St. Louis is up by a touchdown going into the half. Cuts to commercial.

He digs into the pocket of his sweatpants and pulls out two quarters and grasps them tightly in his palm like a clam around its pearl. He takes his position in front of the machine, hunched like an animal about to pounce. He mumbles some more as hands cracked from the November night slip the coins into their slots. Let there be light.

The machine bleep-bloops to life. The machine emits a carnival of sounds signaling the beginning of the test trial game match battle as he waka waka’s through the maze. He is alert, hyper-aware and jerks the joystick violently, jockeying for space as the ghosts surround him.

Cherry. He howls with delight. Now begins the offensive, consuming everything in his path. Now begins the work. Hands flicking and snapping the controls, bending the pixels at angles the dusty screen seemed not to allow. Stage clear. Each new challenge falls before him with increasing difficulty.

The empty outlines of the ghosts retreat before his avatar’s maw.

His back shudders with rapid wrists and plastic clicks as he lifts himself onto his toes for a particularly difficult maneuver. Death and lamentation escape his lips. “I’m a dumb ass nigga,” he moans, turning a few more heads from screens and empty space. But there’s a second chance and he begins again, leaning in closer, nearly obscuring the screen from outside view. It is his world to master now.

He’s hunched with a fighter’s intensity and hunger, a thirst for the pixelated paranormals that populate his screen. He eats the cherry and drums the side of the of the machine with delight.

Some ghost not in the machine disrupts his concentration and he waves his hand at the spirit to shoo it away, but it’s too late. The wahwahwah of his character’s demise ignites his rage. He manages to contain himself to the stamping of feet and a few curses and hexes grunted in Spanish.

He begins his goodwill tour. Competing with cellphones and the Rams game, he sticks out hands cracked from the blue-black cold 70 | Perception

outside. He wants to stay longer, he needs to stay longer. One more game at least. Just a dollar to make change- he’ll give you back the rest. As he passes by I notice how his thin nylon jacket and stainedbrown sweatshirt hang over his body. I reach my hand in my pocket feeling the spare change I received from my purchase at the vending machine a few feet away. But I pause and avert my gaze out the window into my own reflection as he comes nearer. The nylon coat obscures my view for a moment as he passes me. A surge of shame washes over and propels my hand out my pocket and words out of my mouth but then one of the two men sitting by the bathroom extends a dollar towards the man in the nylon jacket and ratty shoes.

I swallow my words back with a sip of water and my hand retreats back into my pocket.

He returns from the ticket counter with the change but the man by the bathroom waves him. They nod at each other and he sticks the quarters back in. It's Asteroid now. My bus pulls up and the driver comes in to announce it's arrival. I walk up with my bags and get in line as he checks tickets. I keep looking at the hunched prized fighter back of the man at the machine until it's my turn. I wonder if he'll get a high score this time. The TV roars. The Rams score again with a minute to go. The line shuffles on, coaxing me out the door until the reflection of the man at the machine’s reflection is out of view.

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Grandpanorama

Randy Matthew Plavajka | Polaroids

72 | Perception

Two Lights Danny Yarnall

There are two lights One is a street lamp Its new blue-tinged fluorescence opposes the waxy yellows that line the street ahead of it Stretching and pooling across the dark asphalt It flickers and flits Irregular and frantic in the night Straining itself against the dark it buzzes and sputters its plea to make it till morning The other Attached to the same pole A recently-installed security camera Rhythmically blinking blue with a watchful eye Catching wanderers and stumblers And late night cyclists But missing the crickets in the shadows of the leaves It is a steady, constant, reassuring older brother as it illuminates my room in a sleepy rave But without the streetlamp flickering in its tenuous existence The camera would see nothing at all

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Mail from the river Taro Takizawa | Relief print

74 | Perception

Hemingway Jessie Walker

August 8th, 2018 Ernest Hemingway is a man in the way that A beer can is a man or A closed fist is a man Like how All these stories about war are getting old, Not because they don’t matter, But because they are all the same Ernest Hemingway is a man in the way A football game is a man A well-done steak is a good idea A woman belongs in the kitchen Which is to say The success of the society builds On the success Of it’s misogyny

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Shattered Earth

Devan Dachisen | Photography [iPhone 7] 76 | Perception

Tropicana Aishwarya Rane

Each day began by stretching myself out of bed and crawling out of a floral plush quilt set against a bedsheet plastered with the face of Barbie, making me reminisce about childhood bliss. I placed my feet on a velvety soft lavender rug thinking to myself how my room provided comfort that was like no other. Gazing out of a window I could see tall coconut trees swaying in the wind almost at parallel with the multi-story buildings that looked like they were in desperate need of a coat of fresh beige paint. I felt satiated with the taste of chocolate milk gliding down my throat against my tongue, followed by a potato snack that resembled a smiling face, but not as joyous as a smiling emoji.

Unlike most parts of the world, my hometown that is Goa was graced with two seasons and not four. Each passing season evoked a different feeling in me while my eyes captured serene views like an instant camera. My mouth savored food that matched the setting after which I slept soundly to the sounds of nature. Summer and Monsoon perfectly portrayed my habitat. Summer filled me up with zest and vibrancy while Monsoon, on the other hand, made me feel calm and refreshed.

Whenever the sun shone brightly, I hoped that my future would be just as bright. I entered the school through green gates longing for the bell to ring on the last day of March so that I could commence my Summer break. I spent my evenings with my feet immersed in the sand, looking at the deep blue sky and watching the waves crash against the shore, making it sound like a thunderous roar. As the sky was painted in shades of orange and red, I ran around the beach collecting seashells of all shapes and sizes. I bounced my way back home and gave the artist in me a go by painting every large shell in the most vibrant colors; some sea shells had polka dots on them, whereas others had stripes.

The sour taste of green grapes, juicy red strawberries mixed with sugar and cream, seafood stirred or fried accompanied with the smell of coconut oil and at least three large yellow mangoes are what served my palate on a Summer day. When rain poured down the window pane, I could smell the earthiness and saw a red Hibiscus and purple Petunia in full bloom with water droplets on their petals.

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Nothing made me happier than mixing yogurt, rice and pickle relish, or excitedly eating Indian street food such as “paani puri” or “sabudana vada” on those calming rainy days while I took shelter in my cocoon.

Falling asleep with a ceiling above my head that illuminated the room to resemble a starry night sky, the smell of lavender or aloe vera, and having a slice of juicy turkey with some colorful sugary sweets will always feel like the place I call home. The journey of life may have placed me miles away from home, but I will hold on to all the sights, sounds, smells and tastes on all those days I miss the feeling of warmth and the lights around me are dimmer than usual. As I reside on another continent chasing my dreams, I will also explore another continent that is me in the process.

In the process of transitioning from adolescence to adulthood, not only do I have to unravel unknown parts of me but I also am yet to discover multiple gems in the place I call home, and that will always keep pulling me back. No matter how far I go, these memories will always remain in the treasure box of my mind.

78 | Perception

My NYC

Laurie Fernandez | Permanent marker on map

FALL 2018 | 79

Grandma, 18th Ave Julia Catalano

The first time I swam in the ocean was in your house.

Your voice carried all of Shore Parkway and in every breath you poured the waters of generations past into my blood.

You taught how to dip my toes in first, to wade up to my knees and look out to the anchors that have sunk just to keep us afloat.

Those navy stairs were the first mountains I climbed, my hands were always quicker than my feet, you told me to stand up reach out to the bannister, hold on to the bannister.

It’s there for a reason, you said.

Only the pull of seventy five years could make a spine align so seamlessly with the moon, only the pain of shelves heavy with photo albums and lost names could mold eyes so free, so sea glass clear.

Second sister of two, fifth sister to those your mother couldn't keep, the ghosts you had to make room for beside your bed and in the spaces that stay between questions and their answers.

I walk in the sandy brown of your iris for miles before finding the beginning, 80 | Perception

Where pebbles meet grain, where gray horizon lines meet golden sunsets.

You taught me how to dive.

How to open my eyes underwater and commit to memory what lies below us.

Your love is rooted in the highest tide on the most abandoned shorelines.

Your soul is stitched into every crochet memory, every turn of the needle and unraveling of yarn.

You taught me that there is relief in being washed up on the sand, scarred from rocks and waves that tried to claim you as their own.

There's relief in lungs gasping for oxygen, in salt-dried skin and sore muscles, in the strain of tired eyes against a bright sun.

You are an open book with no words on the pages.

You are the flame of the candle you light in front of his photograph, You are the wax that drips onto the kitchen sink, seeping into where the edge meets the faucet, the sparks you can't quite wash away.

I grasp onto you like lungs grasp on to fresh air, in these waters that have battered and drained us.

I hold my breath for as long as its willing to stay in my gut, and my veins reach out to catch a piece to take with them for the road.

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all this happy weather Molly Bolan | Digital photography

82 | Perception

Twin

Crisanta Wadhams Growing up, my existence always felt eclipsed by hers and my identity never felt independent. As a young girl it’s difficult to see yourself as valuable or unique when there’s someone next to you who is reaching higher than your fingers can touch. Your heart breaks because you want to be her and you’re so close to being her. You share everything.

The same face is just the beginning of your similarities, yet you can feel her pulling away from you, an absolute dream of a girl. You sit behind her in class and when she raises her hand, always reaching higher, the shadow of her stretched fingers casts a shadow over the piece of paper on your desk. When she talks, everything she says is right.

My first memory is of her. I follow her through the small door on my hands and knees. It’s dark and my eyes can’t even find my hands, but I can feel the dust magnetizing to them and the cold wood underneath. “Come on!” she says, and her voice feels far away.

“Where?” I call after her, my dusty hands waving at the abyss of darkness in front of me. I can hear her knees scraping against the uneven wood and I’m sure that later tonight she’ll be sitting on the bathroom counter while my mother picks out her splinters with tweezers. She’ll complain that it hurts and that they’re deep, that my mother missed one or that she wants to do it herself. Suddenly my nose hits her bottom. “Here.” She lights the flashlight and her face is illuminated. The light is coming from underneath her, her features are shadowed, and her hair is pulled back so that her eyes look like mine. They are the most captivating part of her. Some days they’re undeniably blue, the depth of their blueness drags you in like a current. They could be the sky or the sea or a sapphire, but they exist in the form of her eyes. Some days they tease you with shades of green. Not vibrant or obvious as they are when they’re blue, but soft and subdued. The green you’d see leaves turn on a cloudy day, the brightness disappearing but replaced with an inviting darkness. My favorite days are when her eyes look like globes. A beautiful blend of the green and the blue, the sea and leaves come together and the whole world is suddenly captured within her eyes. In this light, the oceans and trees collide in swirls. “Do you have it?” I hand her the annatto powder and we smile at each other as she rips open the FALL 2018 | 83

package and we let the red substance pour out. The powder creates a red fog over the illumination of the flashlight and it lingers there, dancing with the beams of light. Her eyes grow wide with delight and she says “Okay. Follow me back out.” Then the light came.

I used to have dreams about what my mother first thought when we came out of her stomach. I pictured the fluorescence of hospital lights drowned out by the stream of natural sunlight coming through a window. I imagined my father standing anxiously beside the bed, eyes darting between the face of my mother and the doctors as we met their eyes for the first time. My mother would extend her arms impatiently, our small faces not yet in focus to her tired eyes. She’d pull us into her lap, my head resting in the crease of her elbow, and she’d take notice of my skin. Not like hers at all. She’d hesitate, then look up to my father, who was holding my sister the same way. Again, her tired eyes blurred the image and their skin had no distinction, the new skin of my sister hard to differentiate from my father’s. She’d look back down at me, and even through her exhausted eyes she’d be able to notice the difference in our pigmentations. Then I’d open my eyes and they’d pierce her heart. Their blueness would scream the fact that she already knew: I wasn’t hers. It didn’t matter that I had come from her, or that when I cried through the night it would be her who I wanted. It would matter that in the park people would ask if she were my nanny before she was asked if she were my mom. “Are these your real kids?” “Are you their real mom?” The word “real” stung. It told her that the only thing that made her babies hers would have been the similarities we wore on our faces, and in the color of our skin. But absent of her trace, we couldn’t really be hers.

Suddenly we’re 16 and her hair is brown and it does whatever she wants it to. Most days she combs through it and gets rid of the wrinkles with a flat iron. It sits below her shoulders, but it grows unevenly so some pieces end just under her ears and throughout the day she’ll pull it up away from her face. It’s her favorite nervous habit, she runs her fingers through the dark strands flipping it over and twisting it around. One night a boy broke her heart and she sat in front of a mirror, heavy tears dragging her mascara down her cheeks, and curled her thick brown hair. Separating it into three sectioned layers, she meticulously wrapped each strand around the barrel of the hot iron until a neat curl was produced. For an hour she let the heat transform her hair and when she was done, she went to bed without 84 | Perception

wiping the black mascara streaks from the side of her face. I watched her as she slept. Her body flipped uncomfortably across the mattress, the makeup ending up on her pillowcase, but her hair remained in those perfect curls. In the morning, she sat straight up in bed and ran her fingers through the hair, pulling away the nonexistent mess that sleep had created. She pulled the covers away from her body, got out of bed, stripped naked, and took a shower. She emerged 20 minutes later, dripping hair creating a puddle on the ground. “Do you know where the blow dryer is?� It was a vessel of her confidence, hairspray the glue of her self-image.

I often misinterpret her love.

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Instar

Isabelle Collins | Woodcut on paper 86 | Perception

Almost

Ashley Clemens We almost experienced a school shooting today.

I almost had to watch my friends, my associates, the people I've known, grown with, and loved for 12 years get rained down by bullets.

I almost made my parents go through my pictures and choose which one best represented me in life.

I almost lost my little sister today.

I almost made my parents tell the world why I deserve to be remembered.

I almost had to sit in a silent classroom, with children too afraid to breathe, listening to bullets explode from their chambers, not knowing who would become a hashtag.

We almost had to watch the janitors mop up the carnage and sweep away the bullets, trying to forget these wounds.

But there were no bullets.

There were no body bags.

There will be no change.

Am I supposed to consider myself lucky?

Am I supposed to be thankful that I lived another day, forced to engage in a system that cannot guarantee my safety?

Am I supposed to consider myself blessed that my parents chose Minnesota and not Florida and that ultimately it doesn't matter because evil will find a way?

Because I don't.

Just because we didn't suffer today, doesn't mean that others haven't.

Doesn't mean that others won't.

I am not thankful that I continue to watch the law remain unchanged as our friends, our teachers, our peers almost lost their lives for nothing.

I am not thankful that I have to watch our president remain uninvolved as the future of our country is being gunned down around us.

However I am thankful that I made it through another day.

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And I wonder How many children have to be slaughtered Until we change the system Until we can feel safe Until there are no more hashtags and prayers sent to survivors Until there are no more victims Until there is no more violence

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FALL 2018 | 89

Li Chen | Photography

Untitled

The Space Between You and Me Lia Figurelli

“You’re kind of detached, you know,” he stares at me, his expressive lips with their corners turned downwards, his eyes accusatory.

The sun is heating up my skin in flames, but the hurt in his face makes me feel cold. I’ve never been in a situation like this. I’ve always been the person with more emotions, the one who feels bad in the end. Always.

He’s standing in front of me, but I feel that he’s miles away, and I guess that’s how I feel to him, how I’ve always felt. I’m wondering where he is, where he will be, if he’ll stay with me when fall comes. I don’t know if I can promise him forever, to be there for him when the nights are longer.

“I just want stability,” he had told me in the summer. But I don’t believe in love at first sight, and I don’t have faith in 51 miles, let alone 2,684. I don’t know how he can commit to the current in my mind, let alone the distance.

Sometimes I tell him I love him, but I think he can detect the uncertainty in my voice. If I tell him that he’s beautiful, he asks me what I mean and why. Do I love him for 2,684 miles? Or am I just in love with the beauty of vast distance and the beauty of the fog between it all?

How can I explain to him the feeling of being? Being young and in love with love and possibilities and suffering. I wish I could give him consistency, or at least a mile. Reciprocate. Do more than on-andoff. Be more than an ocean. Yet I always feel like I’m doing more harm than good, and I’m not sure if I can stop.

In some area between exasperation and desolation, he sighs. “Just tell me what you want.”

But I can’t urge the words to come to me and I can’t spell it out for you: I-A-M-O-N-Y-O-U-R-S-I-D-E. Because it will never seem that way, and how can you love a boy that hates silence?

The cars in the street are whizzing past us, and I feel like we’re all just cars on a highway, like bugs, darting at different speeds.

Alone, but only vaguely aware of the others passing, glows of headlamps in the distance. But it doesn’t matter: it’s not worthwhile to slow down or stop.

I’m waiting for the day that he gives up on me, decides that 90 | Perception

ambiguity is not mysterious and indecisiveness is vexing. I’m waiting for him to explode, but I’m not sure if that will ever happen. Our lives don’t coincide, but he doesn’t see it that way. “We’re complements,” he says, but I don’t feel the same way. Am I too critical for realizing our differences, my impulses, his feelings, my obsessions? I’m questioning his values and the significance of the little things and why we never want to do the same thing and why what makes the one laugh, makes the other sigh and how this came to be. Is it possible that we’re not even friends at this point? That we never truly met each other, and we’re both searching for different things?

Does it make sense to love someone in the morning, but not in the evening? How many nights can you lie awake and wonder if it’s worth it?

He no longer looks at you the same way or seems to care, doesn’t do the things he used to do, so maybe you are just prolonging the inevitable descent.

I can’t help but wonder if I’m strong enough to let him go, if I’m strong enough to keep him here, if either of us are strong enough to change.

But right now it’s just a sunny day in July outside the library with cars whizzing past, and I told myself before that I wouldn’t get myself into a situation like this, in case maybe I do get hurt.

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Join my Fraternity, Scott

Jenny Suwiwatchai | Digital painting [Photoshop]

92 | Perception

Empty Drawers Cristina ColĂłn Feliciano

Changing clothes from drawers to hangers Removing our skin at night to show Our scraped bones to each other Closing our eyes; seeing better Natural light hits your eyes and they look Light brown, like that coffee ice cream we ate last night The melted ice cream still lays at the bottom Of the cup on the bedside table Do you think our skin will grow back?

Rejuvenate? Resuscitate?

During our inspection of my spine, We can see the bend, the gaps Your right hand takes in the details As I look at the shadow on the floor.

Our bodies, parallel, our clothes Mixed together. Our skins recoiling.

We lay still holding each other’s hair back.

I grab a fallen eyelash, you place your hands On my eyes and we sleep through the night.

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Floatage

Kaisen Ye | Pen 94 | Perception

The Flower Coward Chandler Plante

Sometimes a part of me thinks you like the pain. You like it because it serves as a reminder that you are still capable of feeling something, which you never take for granted anymore. You put the pen to paper like you put the knife to skin, ripping open old scars just to feel them sting, and when you’re finished, you hate that one day they’ll heal. Because to you, pain means depth, and without it you’re a fraud. You can’t keep up with the emotions you read about in those books with the white, shiny covers, so you cling to the only ones you’ve ever felt. Some days, when the bottle runs out and the sweet taste of tragedy leaves your lips, your mind starts to panic.

Other days, you down the bottle in one night and wish you didn’t feel quite so drunk.

You tell me she’s your muse—or at least she used to be, bragging that your eyes have finally been uncovered and now you can see her for who she really is. You tell me she was one of those girls who wore red lipstick that never smudged and blew cigarette smoke from the corner of her mouth and snapped to poems she didn’t understand.

You talk about how badly she hurt you and how many times she lied to you, and I guess that means you can’t help but write about her.

But just because you’ve noticed you’re bleeding doesn’t mean you’re trying to heal.

I read your poems and they’re about her again. You ask me to look at them because I’m the only one who understands, but you don’t know how much it kills me to pick through your heartbreak with a fine toothed comb. I do it anyway, but I can’t stop thinking about how I keep myself in your little fairy tale, and how afraid I am to leave because I know you won’t come running after me. I hate that. I hate that my pulse quickens when you go to stand up, I hate that I bend over backwards to keep you in my life when I shouldn’t, and I hate that I care so much for someone who can’t see past a beautiful affair that never really existed. And yet with each call, you’re forgiven, and I realize that I can’t think of a way to convince myself that it’s not worth it, no matter how badly I may get hurt.

They have a word for that, I think.

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Borderline

Sam Lee | Photography

96 | Perception

on panic Danni Tiller

this is my explanation: my friend follows me like carbon monoxide, i can’t see him but sometimes at inopportune times he [grips] my throat and whispers sweet-nothings in my ear like a lover. i do love him because loving him is easier than hating my DNA, he is as much of me as hazel eyes and i can’t hate my gaseous friend even though he follows me with a baseball bat. even though the people I love have slipped poison in his coffee in therapy they tell me to put my bad thoughts in a box so i climb inside the casket (with my friend) and he snickers craftier than I am he brings a lock and keeps me prisoner if i handcuffed us together the status quo wouldn’t flinch so yesterday i pulled out my planner and he laughed, smacked my hand, i could hear him cackling through the fog and his amorphous face, face dripping as I sit on the cold bathroom tile trying to move, breathing is so hard and he’s so very loud and i can’t cover his mouth because he pulls the hair from my temples, so i have laid out a lifetime of dinners with carbon monoxide. he has his laundry list and together we check off items in red sharpie.

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And tomorrow morning (is this the only way) i’ll thank some god in heaven (please, please) for how lucky we are.

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Eleanor Bilodeau | Photography

Twisted

This Poem Is About You, But It's Also About Freedom Jessie Walker Jean Paul Sartre tells me to embrace relative freedom And I tell Jean Paul Sartre to go fuck himself.

The boy and I are sitting in the center of the carpet.

We are listening to “Let’s Go to Maine” by the Mountain Goats Because that’s what you do when you’re young and you’re in love and you’re Two kids from Maine.

And I am talking about how I am in love with him And he is talking about how he is in love with Emmanuel Macron, the 25th president of France.

He is wanting to drop out of his taxpayer funded philosophy degree And I am wanting to pack it all up and Move to the woods with him So we can be hill people And raise our five beautiful long-haired children in the stump of a pine tree.

And I remember That he can not love me With all of this In the way.

I am getting on a boat and sailing off the Earth He is getting on a plane and flying across it I’m afraid of the haphazard nightmare my life could become And he may like girls, but I’m not really sure.

I tell him that high school musical is communist propaganda And he tells me that he’s never heard of Allen Ginsberg, We get drunk on the dwindling sunlight between 1:23 and 2:45 P.M. And dance ourselves to death on the top of his 1988 Ford Ranger, the one that doesn’t have any brakes.

He moves away And I go home.

And I sit on my bed reading Jean Paul Sartre, Wondering where the time all went. Feeling less free than fouled Less godless than grateful.

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Julie Swei | Watercolor

A Horde of Frustration

Lost Pines Ava English

"I think the cardinal on the porch is watching us.”

“How do you know?” he asked, humoring her as always.

“I can just feel it, I feel it so strongly. I think he likes us.”

“Maybe so.”

They sat together a while longer and he watched her watch the vibrant bird through the small kitchen window.

“Can we go dancing?”

“Can we walk?”

“Sure, let’s go for a walk.”

It was 8:00 p.m., the time of day when the sun was slowly giving up to the moon.

“Do you ever think about the trees?”

“Always.” He meant it too.

“Why don’t we move there?”

“Where?”

“Into the trees. Just imagine what a lovely life we’d have together.”

They walked and wandered and finally settled on a small plot of land amidst giant pines.

“This is it,” he said.

“It is it, isn’t it?” She knew he understood these things.

He spent the next month carefully crafting their home. She helped him collect pounds of moss, stones, and logs. He spoke to her for hours, describing detailed structural plans for every inch of their home. She couldn’t understand his meticulousness, but she trusted it.

The fourth time the structure didn’t work out as planned she feared he’d lost his mind. But the next morning when she arose on a bed of pine needles, she heard him singing loudly in the distance as he carefully replaced the crumbled stones.

“Come for a swim!” she yelled out to him.

“Sorry dear, I’ve completely misunderstood, I was under the impression you wanted us to have somewhere to live,” he teased .

She ran to him and jumped on his back, causing him to drop the all of the stones he’d collected that morning.

“Even more so, I want us to have a life.” She kissed his cheek.

He yielded to her, “A quick swim.” They raced to the kettle pond 102 | Perception

through their enchanted pines.

And they did have a life, a wonderful life. Every night they nestled together in the scratchy pine filled soil and named the stars.

“I can’t see the moon,” she said, squinting.

He peered around, “Well, I can’t either. Give me a minute.” He hopped up and trailed a patch of light to a corner of the forest where the moon shined brightly.

“I’ve got it!”

She followed his voice and gazed up, “Oh, thank you so much. I wouldn’t have possibly been able to fall asleep without seeing it.”

“I know.”

They stood together quietly and accepted their insignificance in the world and could not have loved each other and their life together any more.

The following morning, she woke and watched the sun and moon competing for the morning sky. Once again, the sun won. She listened for his morning melodies and became uneasy to only hear the birds chirping. She got up and walked toward their growing home. She arrived to find perfectly aligned steps leading to a sturdy stone house.

Each deep gray stone perfectly coordinated with its neighbor and deep green vines appeared to be creeping up the parallel sides. He stained the door red with berries. She cautiously walked up the steps and opened the door.

“Well, what do you think?” he asked, grinning. He was perched on the tree stump chair she had fervently pleaded for him to build.

She began to cry, “Oh, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

He crouched down to examine the wood beams he placed around their porch, “It is, isn’t it?”

That night they didn’t lie in the pine soil and name stars but curled together in their straw bed. She restlessly tried to settle. She nudged his half-asleep chest and looked up at him, “Can we build a kayak for the pond?”

He laughed, “What, you don’t like your house?”

She squirmed into her nook in his arm, “How could I not love this house?” she answered.

“It’s fucking cold,” he muttered as he stretched out his arms, embracing the new day. She rolled over and scrunched her nose to his, “It is fucking cold isn’t it?” she replied, bantering with him. It was FALL 2018 | 103

late October and fall had shifted into itself so subtly they didn’t realize how drastically the season had changed since they first arrived.

“You know, we don’t even know what day it is, it could very well be my birthday today,” she said, acknowledging their lost time.

“Yeah, well then what can we do for you today?” he inquired, indulging her.

“Let’s go for a walk,” she answered, hopping up.

“Have you seen the tadpoles in the kettle pond recently?”

“No, let’s go to them!”

They walked gently through their pines. The silence in the air carried an unusual heaviness that was foreign to them. As they approached the pond his steps became slower. She felt the weight of his thoughts like jagged stones on her shoulders. He stopped walking and put his arm around her and she deeply breathed into him. Softly, as if she didn’t really want him to hear her, she whispered,“We can’t stay here, can we?”

He turned towards her and pulled all the hair back from her face to look at her. They understood he did not need to answer. She closed her eyes with her face in his hands and exhaled, “It’s okay.”

He squeezed her shoulders, “Yeah, it’s okay.”

The week she emerged from the forest she boarded a sailboat heading north out of the Gulf of Mexico. She lies out on the deck of the boat every night and names the stars, but sometimes has trouble finding the moon.

He relatively easily adjusted back into his former life. He was a good at his job and strongly valued doing decent work. By all standards, he carries out a meaningful and moral life. He can no longer stomach the smell of pines and only ever buys artificial Christmas trees, but frequently fills his bird feeder to keep the cardinals around.

The symmetrical stone house stands sturdy, but the tadpoles never hatched.

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FALL 2018 | 105

Sajida Ayyup | Photography [OnePlus 3T]

Lost in Time

Namesake Rachel Walton

Name, mine means “lamb of God” in a language I don’t speak but must claim by being; my being is in my name that was assigned perhaps by the assumption that I’d be like a lamb, or more specifically, a lamb of God which doesn’t follow because of my being unlike a lamb in my human-like ways. 2 syllables might not fit my nature, growth, or reverence for “I AM”, but are pronounced pointed at my person without regards to whether or not the name fits the bill. Name, mine never spoken by myself unless demanded by another name; I think of myself as “me” or “my” or “I” because those I speak more than my own appellation. Thus, for others and not myself, is my name.

--But when I wrote in my notebook the word name, I mistook it for home.

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Lehigh

Maria Tkacz | Photography FALL 2018 | 107

Good Boy Jeff Nathan

“How long has it been?” asks the doctor, his eyes ancient and watering. Gray hairs have snaked their way into his golden blonde fur, collecting in the center of his forehead.

“Well,” I think for a second. “A couple of months now, I guess.

It all really started with one little accident, then boom. Right to the cage.”

“Ahh,” he nods knowingly. “Yes, the cage. A pain far too many of us have suffered.” He scratches his ear with his back paw absentmindedly. “And when was this exactly?”

“About seven or eight months ago, I’d say. There’s just something about that metal, you know. It haunts you. It mocks you.”

He suddenly freezes. I do the same. We can both smell the squirrel, hear it climbing tentatively along the wooden fence. But he remains professional and stays in front of me, so I do the same. He nods for me to continue.

“Plus, they had started letting me up on the big bed with them at night. I mean, I felt like I was part of the pack—like they really wanted me there in their lives. But this one night, I had a dream that they wouldn’t let me outside, like they used to do at that shelter. Even though I was at the door, scratching and begging. They just ignored me. When I woke up in the morning, there it was: a poop right there at the end of the bed where I had been sleeping.” I whimper with the shame I still felt.

Doctor Muffins extends a paw. “It’s okay, Bentley. It wasn’t on purpose.” I give his snout a few licks in appreciation. “How did it taste?”

“That’s the worst part,” I howl, lowering my head and covering my snout with my paws. “I didn’t even get to taste it. The man woke up and started yelling in a very not-happy way, and then the woman woke up and did the same. They put me outside and didn’t give me any food all day.”

“Deep breaths, pup. Deep breaths now.” Doctor Muffins says. I inhale through my nose and sneeze, sending dust and dirt everywhere. Muffins immediately sneezes back. We lick our noses a few dozen times before continuing.

“So then, the man goes out and comes home with this big shiny 108 | Perception

cage with a pad in the bottom,” I say, composing myself. “And he puts my favorite toy in there AND he fills it with peanut butter. So, obviously, I sniff around a bit and start going to town on the thing, you know. Really having a time. But before I know it, the door is shut behind me and I can’t get out. Not even after pawing at it or whining.”

I feel myself shudder, and Doctor Muffins goes to put his paw on me again but I bat it away with my own. “And the worst of it is, the cage was in the corner of the first floor. Nowhere near them. I could barely smell them. And I didn’t think they could hear me at all those first few nights, so I eventually just gave up calling out to them. Each day felt like it was dragging on forever. They both leave in the morning and only let me out once. Then put me back in there all day! Days started to blur into each other.”

“Naturally,” nods Doctor Muffins.

“And so after a few weeks of that, I stopped eating so much.

It wasn’t fun anymore—nothing was. I only ate to stop the pain in my belly, and even then it was a few mouthfuls. The food they gave me changed, and it wasn’t appetizing anymore.” I wasn’t looking at Doctor Muffins.

“Then after a couple months, I got this idea. And…it made me happy”

“Happy?” interrupts Muffins. I nod and continue.

“I thought that—that I shouldn’t be living like this. That they should be the ones in the cage, and I should be sleeping in the big bed. Eating their forbidden foods. I came up with a plan. It would be so simple to just turn that tables…”

Doctor Muffins looks at me, tired old eyes hard in the fading afternoon sun. The sound of a car engine makes both of our ears park up and snaps me out of my moment. My collar jingles as I shake my head.

“But then I got scared and catted out. So I’ve been ignoring it, sleeping in my crate like a good boy is supposed to.”

“Well, Bentley, I’m proud of you. You did the right thing by coming to me, and I want you to keep being a good boy in that cage. I know it seems harsh, but in my experience, they’ll give it a few more months and before you know it they’ll let you sleep in the house instead of that awful box. I’ve seen plenty of cases just like yours.”

He glances over at the fence I had jumped to get into the yard.

“Now I’m afraid my next appointment is here, but I can see you this same time next week.” I look over to see a tiny gray Jack Russell bouncing up and down and up and down and up and down at the FALL 2018 | 109

fence. He smells of anxiety and kitty litter.

“Since this is the first consultation, it’s free. But next week will be two milk bones and a tennis ball, alright?”

“Yeah, that sounds good, Doc. Thanks again.”

I pad back into my house, silent as a ghost. The back door has a doggy flap that I’ve been entering in and out of for the past two days.

I like it because I can see their bodies lying on the floor next to the cage as soon as I go through. The smell was starting to get worse after two days, but I had almost finished off the man’s legs and was getting started on his torso. As I bite into the last part of his thigh, wondering if the woman will go bad by the time I finish him off, a small voice in the back of my head praises me again. Says I made myself proud. Says I took matters into my own paws, and did well. I chew happily. No more cages. Only praises.

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