Perception Magazine Fall 2019

VOL. XX XX •• ISSUE ISSUE 34 34 VOL.

Perception

Your Your Student Student Fee Fee

Fall Fall2019 2019

VOLUME XX | ISSUE 34 Syracuse University

— 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 2020 issue. We accept submissions from undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and staff. We ask that submitters send no more than five art and five writing pieces. Our writing page limit is 10 pages, and we accept submissions in any language with an English translation.

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

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

Dear Perceivers, When I made the offhand, impulse decision to submit something in the fall of my freshman year to this funky little magazine called Perception I had seen around campus, I had no idea what was going to happen. I didn’t expect for my pieces to get in at all, and I certainly had no idea that, four years later, I would be speaking to all of you as Editor in Chief of that same funky little magazine, but for some bizarre reason, I am.

It’s been an incredible journey, and one I feel so honored to share.

Maybe you’ve been following the magazine for a while; maybe you just saw this lying around in one of the campus buildings and decided to pick it up on a whim. Maybe your work or your loved one’s work is in here, or maybe you want your work to be featured here someday. No matter how you came to read this little note and the beautiful work that follows it, I genuinely thank you for doing so, because without you, the reader,.our amazing staff, and our wonderful submitters, none of this would not be possible, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to make this a reality.

I want Perception to always be for all of you what it has been for me: a safe place for everyone to have the freedom to express our secrets, our thoughts, our hopes, our fears, our voice, and indeed, ourselves with the rest of the community.

Thank you for your art and your words, for speaking and listening and being.

Yours sincerely, Bethany Marsfelder Editor in Chief

Fall 2019 | 3

Bethany Marsfelder Editor-in-Chief

Caryn Corliss Head Editor

Ashley Clemens Managing Editor

Hattie Lindert Managing Editor

The Eyes & Ears

Bridget Gismondi Chief Designer

Olga Shydlonok Assistant Editor-in-Chief & Assistant Designer

Ciera Moore Assistant Editor

Ariel Samuel Assistant Editor

Editor Katie Ferreira Head Reviewer Shivani Reddy

Reviewers Catalina Giraldo Nikita Kakani Laura Lineback Shivani Reddy

Fall 2019 | 5

Writing Sarah Alessandrini

Isabella Alvarez

Anonymous Rebecca Balara

Sagnik Basumallik Luyan Cao

Johanna Chojnicki Julia Cleo Fisher

Samantha Fuss Maya Gelsi

Cade Kaminsky Emily Kelly Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan

30 53 88 102 18 34 50 92 104 9 48 80 82 28 71 99 76 16 62 93 85 33 42 74 91 39 67 19 11 36 60 89

The Undefinable It Welcome Home If I held up the Sky LIFE Homeland Nantucket Hereditary Brownblood Anna Goodbye Fire Lie From Karachi to Kolkata Untitled reminiscence They Ode to Frankenstein Eyelashes Forgiving.

Entanglement This is Home Us The Sparrow Like A Father You Have A Forest Autumn Lives in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey Bleecker Winter The Bug Collector The Marquis De Sade Goes Sailing Armageddon for Idiots Inflatable Love Poem Elegy for A Whoopee Cushion

The Contributers

Bethany Marsfelder

Raveena Suman

Art Sam Bloom

Isabelle Collins

Catalina Giraldo

Jennifer Liu Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan Bethany Marsfelder

Bailee Roberts Jessie Zhai

12 40 68 97 44

41 49 66 79 103 32 55 75 96 101 35 81 87 27 37 61 15 17 70 73 90 43 98 10 38 47 84 100

untitled, 1971 repression spring peepers out of time Her Smile

The Drowned Dopamine Twighlight Zone When Andy Met Cindy Midnight Stroll Dive In Craving Sweets Navigating the hedge looking up Alice Ten Feet Tall flat October 19 another day Armor Colorized Haiku Colorized Haiku hometown proud by any other name bloom beachcomber midsummer Where Am I Liar 2 metro shimmer jump gemini parallel

Fall 2019 | 7

Cover Art Front Cover

Bailee Roberts - Bliss | Digital painting

Inside Front Cover

Johanna Chojnicki - Floral pattern | Pen & pencil

Back Cover

Inside Back Cover

Bailee Roberts - Bliss 2 | Digital painting

Johanna Chojnicki - Red flowers and Blue butterflies | Pen & pencil

Center Spread

Thitaree Suwiwatchai - Hiding From the Thieves | Digital painting Thitaree Suwiwatchai - The King and Queen | Digital painting

8 | Perception

Goodbye

Rebecca Balara i love the way you touch my cheek and tell me i am beautiful, but not as much as i love the touch of pen to paper and the way my feet touch the ground as i walk away

ï…­ poemsbyrebecca

Fall 2019 | 9

metro

Jessie Zhai | Digital photography

The Marquis De Sade Goes Sailing

Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan he couldn’t have picked a nicer day a solicitous sun and a benevolent breeze the kind of day when every cell in your body screams “I’M ALIVE!” the Marquis de Sade goes sailing with a few eager mates and the only suspicions aroused are those in everyone’s undergarments how could they not be when the sea rolls out like a satin sheet the sky covers like a canopied poster-bed and the sails fill like perfumed pillow cases as the Marquis unpacks his day bag it’s a rented boat with no real sailors on board but isn’t that the whole point of sailing abandon with no solid ground underfoot a coalescence with nature’s primal will a cooperation with fate

a surrender to the sea the Marquis and his mates strip down rub on some sunblock pop a few bottles of something bubbly and sail a streamlined journey to who knows where as waves slap and spank the boat and wind whips the sail Fall 2019 | 11

untitled, 1971 Bethany Marsfelder

It’s a spur of the moment decision that Lee almost immediately regrets.

He wants to say it’s not his fault because one minute they’re laughing in Lee’s car, full-body, joyous laughter late at night when it feels like they’re the only two people in the world, much less this dead-end town, and he’s still feeling the smug self-congratulatory high at Jamie’s embrace of the good life (sure, some would call him a bad influence, but, really, it’s about time that the guy get his head out of his dumb nerd books, he’s doing him a favor) and then the next he’s looking over to Jamie and he sees his eyes squeezed shut in sheer happiness, his smile toothy and his dimples out in full force and the moonlight is streaming in through the passenger window and then those stupid green eyes look at him and he swears they sparkle and he feels like he belongs and he feels like there’s nowhere else in the world he’d rather be and then all of a sudden he’s kissing his best friend.

It takes another minute to realize that holy shit he’s kissing his best friend and the dread sinks coldly in his stomach and he jerks himself away and the panic starts to hammer in his chest and low grumbled angry repetitions of fags and queers and homos thunder in his ears and he can’t hear anything he can’t and he feels sick and he doesn’t realize he’s white knuckle clenching the steering wheel until a hand is lying over his. “...Lee?” He wants to look but he shouldn’t look he can’t look he’s looking oh fuck why is he looking and why does he look so damn worried and so damn gentle why isn’t he yelling why did he kiss him he’s ruined everything he has he knows he has.

“I’m sorry.” It’s a struggle to get it to come out and it’s hoarse and wrong but he is he’s sorry he’s so damn sorry he really really is he’s so damn sorry he liked it why did he like it he shouldn’t like it he’s dirty he’s a fag he’s a freak and he’s looking at him again. “Can we…” do that again can I kiss you again I want I need “...That never happened.” It’s such a fucking stupid lie but he’s desperate and his mind is spiralling into so many lies lies lies and he’s got to stop them all from spilling out please please let him

12 | Perception

forget let them forget nothing ever happened but it didn’t mean anything but it did it meant the world and they’re fine they’re fine they’re okay but why does forgetting hurt so damn much and why does it mean something because it shouldn’t because it didn’t but it did.

“Okay.” That’s good that’s great that’s what he wanted to hear he’ll forgive him nothing changes but why is the dread getting colder and darker and lonelier and why does he feel like he can’t breathe why does his heart feel like he’s shattering and crumbling and breaking and why is his hand on his hand on the steering wheel the only thing keeping him from falling apart.

“I’ll take you home.” He swallows and he reaches down to turn the ignition like always because nothing happened this is fine this is normal he’s okay he’s not okay he’s falling he fell he’s dying he’s dead he’s alive.

“Why?” His thoughts shudder to a stop because why what why did he kiss him because it was so perfect in the moonlight and he loves his laugh and he loves him when he’s happy and he loves him when he’s sad he loves him he loves him oh fuck he loves him and he’s drowning and why does he ruin everything because he always has and he always will he’s the screw up who nobody wanted and everyone will leave him when they realize his smiles are fake and his confidence is all he has and he tricks people which is why he’ll always be alone and why is he a freak he doesn’t know why and why does he love him because he does he does he does. “..What?”

“Why do you need to take me home? You just said nothing happened.”

What the hell is he talking about? He looks at him again and he’s not smiling but he almost is because his eyes are and there’s something in his mouth and his lips that wants to and his hand still hasn’t moved why hasn’t his hand moved and why are his eyes still sparkling and why are his cheeks pink and flush. Why does his heart jump when the not but almost smile turns into that irritating know-it-all half smile and why does it skip even more now that it’s aimed at him.

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“If nothing happened, we got nothing to worry about, right?”

He can’t possibly mean what he thinks he means it’s impossible it has to be something else it just has to his mind is racing trying to find something anything that would make more sense than this and he’s trying to get his heart to stop beating and the darkness in his stomach to stay even when it’s clearing up by sunshine and light and he can’t breathe because it won’t be it can’t be he’ll just be disappointed because he’s ruined this he’s a screw up but what if but what if but-

“...my brother’s gone with a fella before...”

It’s a quiet admission to fill the silence and Jamie’s eyes go off of Lee shyly but that’s all he needs because his eyes are wide and his ears are ringing and his heart is pounding because it can’t be it can’t possibly be he’s never this lucky not even when he cheats and the light in his stomach is getting brighter and brighter and being carried further and further up up up up because please let this be true if he can’t have anything in the world let him have this please.

“...So I was just thinkin’, maybe…”

“...You mean that?” he asks, stronger now, desperate, aching, burning in stark contrast to softness and gentleness and light that’s beginning to fade and he turns and his hands find shoulders and wants so badly to pull him close and hold him but he fumbles up to cup his cheeks and wild, desperate brown looks into shy green that’s starting to sparkle again. “Jamie. You mean that?”

There’s a nod and a little smile and he closes the gap between them and he’s kissing his best friend who is kissing him back whose arms find their way around his shoulders and tangle in his hair and his own hands move from his face and move down his sides to grasp at his waist to pull him impossibly closer in the moonlight and it’s perfect he’s perfect they’re perfect it’s perfect.

14 | Perception

Bethany Marsfelder | Digital photography

hometown proud

Eyelashes

Julia Cleo Fisher eyelashes catching the tail end of the horizon shadowing a mossy green fingers curling, catching, phantom moments surfacing a familiar, flighty breeze tickling the ferns lingering in the irises of a world gone by strands of hair winding across the collarbone of a gravel road conforming to scars long past down around curling a faithful hopeful yearning leap Pause in the swirling of water drain Faint thrums of music coating the dust floating down the stairs in the still ozone of silence of a seasonless morning

16 | Perception

Bethany Marsfelder | Digital photography

by any other name

Homeland Isabella Alvarez

The Colombian word for faggot marica sits too pretty between my teeth, but slut zurrón slips slow and easy past my lips.

Here we drink aguardiente, slice tongues free from unforgiving mouths.

One aluminum boat-tail twists us into trenches for fifty years— guerilleras tucking bullets under breasts, ribs folding towards crystalline dust— and my grandfather remembers mountains pulling airplanes into wallowing cave-mouths, pupils collapsing like clean silence.

In Colombia we call pretty girls monas— whities.

To make cocaine we burn fingers, shed skin, coax powder from gasoline.

My uncle died afraid of the color green: he saw shadow-men lurking in syringes, breath heavy with copper.

Here we swallow emeralds, chew bitter leaves.

The Colombian word for son-of-a-bitch hijueputa curls down spines like shrapnel.

18 | Perception

The Bug Collector Emily Kelly

Sitting beside a burning fireplace, Mara stroked her oversized millipede named Cynthia. Cynthia was the 1,029th bug in her collection, but Mara couldn’t shake a feeling of fondness and dependency towards the creature. So, she let her live as a pet. Though Cynthia wasn’t the only bug Mara had adopted as a pet, she was the only one with the honor of joining her in fireside chats.

Taking in the peaceful silence that passed between them, Mara cradled Cynthia like a puppy on her lap. They sat in Mara’s favorite armchair. It was the only item that she had taken with her from her life before she moved out into the woods — before she was rid of those humans. After years of use, the chair had retained a gentle imprint of Mara’s body.

She watched the clock on the far wall and then looked over at the stovetop. “Stew should be ready soon, dear,” Mara said, lifting Cynthia’s face close to hers. “I know you don’t like the taste of beetles, but they’re all I could part with at the moment.”

Cynthia stared at Mara but didn’t utter a word. Mara laughed and answered, “No, don’t worry, I didn’t cook Theodore… though he might be next. The mouth on that one, huh?”

The millipede again locked eyes with the old woman, and they both grew serious. “Don’t believe me?” Mara asked, furrowing her eyebrows. “Fine, I’ll show you.”

Placing Cynthia on her shoulder like a pirate would a parrot, Mara stood up from her chair and made her way to the kitchen. Above the counters cluttered with captured bugs and used dishes, large windows revealed an overgrown front yard filled with unkempt gardens and bug traps. Her kitchen shelves held hundreds of jars and containers of various bugs, ranging from bird-sized spiders to fleas — she let the worms roam free. Free-range worms always tasted better.

She approached the top shelf beside the left sink and grabbed one of the jars. “See, I told you Theodore was okay. You should be more trusting Cynthia,” Mara suggested.

Cynthia burrowed her head against Mara’s neck, which Mara correctly took as an apology. Smiling, Mara added the final spices into her beetle stew and mindlessly observed her front yard. She hummed along to some indeterminate tune, stirring the pot without thinking. Mara shut the

Fall 2019 | 19

stove off and crouched down to retrieve two bowls from underneath the sink. A few runaway slugs had escaped from their jars and sought refuge in the cabinet. She would take care of them another day.

Just as she found the bowls she was looking for, her guardroaches started hissing violently. Mara dropped the bowls and bolted upright to see who or what had trespassed on her property. Dirty and worn out, two people stood in front of her porch, shifting uneasily at the sight of the cockroaches that manned their posts.

“Eww, what do they want?” Mara spat, petting Cynthia in the hopes that the millipede’s skin would calm her nerves.

Millipede in hand, the old woman stepped outside to face the intruders. At the sight of Cynthia, the two trespassers coiled backwards.

The young man turned away from his friend and vomited on the lawn. He hastily wiped his mouth with his shirt, struggling to keep his stomach even as he eyed Cynthia. His friend rubbed his back as she gestured for them to leave.

Mara’s booming voice cut through the woods. “Such a rude thing it is to vomit at the sight of such a beautiful creature.” She inched closer to the strangers and continued, “Get off my property before I release these roaches.”

She began to turn around and head into her home when the young woman jumped forward, pleading, “Wait, please! We’re lost, and it’s getting dark.”

“Excellent observation,” Mara replied, not even bothering to turn around.

The young woman ventured another step forward, but stopped at the sight of the hissing cockroaches. “Ma’am, we just need a place to stay for the night,” she said, toying with the loose strands of her hair.

At the advice of Cynthia, Mara faced the young woman and her friend. She sighed and relented, “If a place to stay is all you need, then this front porch will do you just fine.” And with those words, Mara walked inside and shut the door. The click of locks unnerved the lost strangers but pacified the hissing roaches.

“I’m such a good person, aren’t I Cynthia?” Mara concluded. She placed the millipede on a purple booster seat, retrieved her and Cynthia’s bowls from the cabinet, and served them both some of the beetle stew.

“Still hot,” Mara added as she slurped down her meal. Cynthia nodded and politely ate her dinner, relieved that she was not eating her friend Theodore.

Though the pair dined in silence, the meal was not void of entertainment. Mara’s fourth and seventh favorite bugs in her collection 20 | Perception

— Penelope and Prudence the praying mantises — fled from their cages.

Seeing as they’re the feistiest of creatures, Mara immediately captured them and put the custom leashes she made for the duo around their necks and tied them to the legs of her chair. “I know you like to fight, dears, but it’s not Sunday yet.” She smiled and patted each of them once on the head.

As Mara finished her bowl of stew, she heard a knock on the door. Rolling her eyes, she stood up from the table and thudded over to the door. She unbolted the three locks she had installed years ago and cracked the door open. “Can I help you?” she hissed.

“It’s getting pretty cold out here. Can we have some blankets please?” the young woman asked, clutching her arms and moving in place.

The old woman bit her lip and eyed the pair up and down. “Fine.

Wait here,” she said. Mara closed the door and walked to the nearest closet, pulling out the smallest, thinnest blanket she could find. She opened the front door again and threw the blanket at the young woman.

“Enjoy.”

Feeling its weight (or lack thereof), the young woman began to protest. Mara slammed the door before she could get a word out. “So entitled, these humans,” she announced to no bug in particular. Exhausted from the unwanted human interaction, Mara neglected the dishes and stumbled to her familiar chair by the fire. Mara returned Cynthia to the floor, so that she could spend some quality time with the worms down there.

Deep in thought, Mara placed her face into her open palms and massaged her temples. She sipped some whiskey from last night’s glass and closed her eyes. Cynthia decided to ignore the worms and curled up beneath Mara’s feet instead.

A second knock on the door woke Mara up from her nap. She waited in her seat, hoping that the young woman would just give up and stop knocking. But the young woman didn’t stop, and so Mara reluctantly trudged over to the front door. Flinging the door open, Mara barked, “Any other requests?”

It had started to rain, and Mara could see the young woman’s breath as she spoke. “Can we please come inside? It’s so cold, and we can’t get warm,” the young woman begged. Tears shone in her eyes, as the young man coughed and shivered.

“Oh, I’m sorry, but did you happen to see a ‘vacancy’ sign anywhere on my front lawn when you willingly trespassed on my property?” Mara growled.

For the first time since the pair arrived at Mara’s house, the young man spoke, saying, “No, but…”

“Close your mouth before you throw up again,” Mara interrupted.

Fall 2019 | 21

With a wave of her hand, she dismissed him and advised, “Maybe you should have thought of the time and weather before you decided to get lost in the woods.”

The young woman coughed and swore under her breath. “We won’t get in your way. Just let us inside for God’s sake, lady,” she implored, taking one step closer to the entrance.

Mara grimaced and eyed the pair one more time. “Have a seat at the table,” she commanded. She waved her hand for the hikers to follow her.

Hesitantly, the pair passed the threshold and gagged. “I made beetle stew for dinner. The smell punches you in the face, but the taste is much kinder,” Mara said. The hikers sat around the table, careful to not squish the two praying mantises tied to the chair legs or the worms inching around the floor. They eyed each other fearfully and watched Mara pour the stew into their dirty bowls. Neither of them asked for clean ones for fear of retribution.

Dumping the bowls on the table and tossing crusted metal spoons beside them, Mara lingered where she stood and observed the young hikers eat her stew. The hikers glared at the soup and shakily grabbed their filthy spoons and took their first bites.

“What’s in it?” the young woman asked, putting down her spoon.

Mara smirked and answered, “It’s dung beetle mixed with various spices.”

The young man, who had been shoveling the stew down, abruptly returned the spoon to the table.

“What an ass,” Mara muttered under her breath. She turned her back to the pair and began rearranging her jars and containers of bugs.

Her hands shook as she switched the ant jars with the spider containers.

Mara dashed away from the kitchen and into her bedroom. She slammed the door shut.

The young man frantically looked at the young woman and whispered, “Kaia, we have to get out of here.”

Kaia rolled her eyes and answered, “And go where exactly, Zach?”

“Anywhere but this crazy woman’s house!” He accidently raised his voice amidst the chaos of his nerves. Lowering his voice, Zach continued, “She probably poisoned the stew. This place isn’t safe.”

“Right because it’s so much safer outside,” Kaia shot back. At her words, Zach shook his head.

Soundlessly, Mara had returned from her bedroom, startling the pair into silence. “Did I give you two enough time to gossip about me?”

Mara asked. When neither of them spoke, she said, “Well, instead of just 22 | Perception

staring at your bowls like fools, why don’t you follow me into the living room so we can discuss the terms and conditions of your stay?”

Kaia and Zach obediently followed Mara into the living room and plopped down on the worn, blanket-covered couch. Mara sat in her usual armchair. The fire hadn’t dimmed since the early afternoon, and the hikers enjoyed the warmth and comfort it emitted. Taking another small sip of whiskey, Mara winced and explained, “You will sleep here in the living room and will leave as soon as the sun rises. Any questions?”

The pair faced each other and quickly turned back to Mara. Kaia tucked her hair behind her ear and said, “But there’s only one couch. My brother and I can’t both fit on it.”

Zach nodded and Mara laughed. She pointed to the floor and replied, “Your brother can sleep on the floor.” Looking at Zach, Mara added, “I can tell the worms to leave you alone if that’s what you want.

Though, I can’t guarantee that Cynthia will let you be.”

Swallowing and shifting in his seat, Zach nodded again. He watched Cynthia crawl up Mara’s armchair and nestle herself in the old woman’s lap. Cynthia stared at the young man until he turned away from her gaze.

For several minutes, no one spoke. Kaia and Zach surveyed the old woman’s home with disgust and wonder. It wasn’t just the kitchen that held dozens of jars and containers of bugs — Mara had transformed every possible nook and cranny into a home for her collection. Cages by the bathroom housed an anthill that Mara had dug up four years ago.

Hundreds of ants lived in the anthill, going about their lives without a hitch.

From the back window, Kaia counted five beehives and shivered at the thought of a bee invasion.

“The bees in hive number two almost led an uprising against me, but I threatened to bring in six hornet nests and they promptly disbanded their forces,” Mara explained.

Kaia nodded, and the trio returned to its silence. Mara absentmindedly stroked Cynthia and frowned at the hikers. Zach started to get up from his seat, but Mara’s eyes told him to sit down, so he stayed where he was.

“Would you like some tea?” Mara asked the two.

Kaia smiled. “Yes, I’d like some, thank you.” Zach nodded his head in agreement.

“That’s too bad… I don’t have any,” Mara declared, taking another sip of whiskey.

Standing up, Kaia countered, “Then why offer it to us in the first place?”

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“I wanted you to know what it was like to not get what you asked for,” Mara said, leering as she continued to pet Cynthia.

Crossing her arms in half-defeat, Kaia sighed and slumped into the couch cushions. Unsure of what to do next, Zach crossed his legs and started humming to mask the tension in the room. Mara finished off the glass of whiskey and checked the clock. She needed to go outside and inspect the bug traps in the front yard, but she didn’t trust the hikers to be in her house alone. Mara told herself that tomorrow would yield more desirables than tonight.

A loud bang from the kitchen shattered the quiet, and the trio jumped at the crash. Mara turned around and found one of the kitchen chairs sideways on the floor. “Penelope! Prudence! What did I say about fighting before Sunday?” Mara screamed, stomping over to punish the praying mantises.

Kaia and Zach rose to their feet and slinked over to the kitchen to observe the commotion. Mara untied the praying mantises from the chair and gripped their leashes tight. With her free hand, she lifted the chair and put it back in its place.

Getting really close to Penelope and Prudence’s faces, Mara spat, “Since when do we fight on Wednesdays?” She shifted her gaze to meet with each praying mantis and said, “I know it’s against the constitution, but I will take away your fighting privileges on Sunday if I must.” Penelope and Prudence lowered their eyes in shame.

Mara, praying mantises in hand, darted to their separate cages and threw the misbehaved bugs inside. She slammed the gates closed, locking and then taping the doors shut to ensure that they would not be able to escape again.

“They like to fight,” Mara said, wiping the sweat off her brows.

Gaining the courage to speak, Zach joked, “They should be called fighting mantises instead, huh?” He looked to his sister for encouragement, but Kaia said nothing.

For a few seconds, Mara searched her brain for a proper response. She smirked and replied, “What’s the difference?”

Chuckling, Kaia locked arms with Zach as they walked back to the couch. Walking with a bit more bounce in her step, Mara returned to her chair and played with the empty whiskey glass. Swirling pretendwhiskey in the glass, Mara noted, “The bugs are acting more childish than usual. It’s been so long since another human has been here.”

Once again mustering up the strength to speak, Zach quipped, “Well technically praying mantises are insects so…”

“Your parents must be so proud of the man you’ve become,” 24 | Perception

Mara snapped. Zach bowed his head in painful regret.

Yawning, Mara mumbled, “I’m going to bed. I suggest you do the same.” She stood up from her chair and headed over to her bedroom.

Before going inside for the night, Mara threatened, “I better not see you both when I wake up in the morning.”

Kaia slowly nodded and watched Mara and Cynthia leave the room. Anger flashed in her eyes as she mocked, “‘Well technically praying mantises are insects.’” Flicking him on the arm, she roared, “Why would you say something so stupid?”

Throwing his hands up in defense, he clarified, “I was just trying to be funny.”

“Yeah, because you’re a regular John Mulaney,” she scolded, already pushing him off the couch so she could go to sleep. He didn’t say anything else, retreating to the floor and praying that none of the bugs touched him.

In her room, Mara tossed and turned, desperately trying to forget the two humans in her home. Cynthia slept beside her.

Nobody had a decent night of rest, yet as soon as the sun rose, Kaia and Zach sprung from the bed and the floor, nearly flying to the front door. But in his sleep-deprived stupor, Zach forgot to watch out for the free-range worms. Hearing a shrill, tiny shriek from beneath his foot, Zach stopped in his tracks to check his shoe. Blissfully unaware of Zach’s murder, Kaia reached the front door with a beaming smile. When she turned around to see what was taking her brother so long, she gulped, “Zach… no no no no no no… you didn’t, did you?”

Paling, he confirmed, “I did.”

Sensing that something was terribly wrong, Mara bolted out of bed and ventured out towards the kitchen to investigate. At the sight of the murder, Mara froze in place, unable to form words. Horrified, Kaia saw Mara standing outside of her bedroom door and explained, “It was an accident.

He didn’t mean to.”

Mara put up one hand to silence Kaia and strode towards Zach and the crushed worm. Gesturing to the shoe, Mara demanded that the young man hand it over. Heeding her command, Zach ripped off his shoe and placed it in Mara’s hand. She grabbed the spoon from the kitchen table, recovered a petri dish from a nearby drawer, and gently pushed the worm’s corpse into the container.

Throwing the shoe at Zach, Mara clutched onto the container with tears streaming down her face. “Get out… now!”

Not wanting to leave on such bad terms, Zach said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but it’s just a bug. Nothing that special, right?”

Fall 2019 | 25

Kaia slapped her hand to her face in astonishment. Mara’s eyes narrowed and she breathed, “This bug never hurt me. No bug ever has.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Kaia offered, wanting to help the old woman in some way.

Shaking her head, Mara admitted, “There’s nothing left for you to do. The damage has been done.” And seeing the sadness and remorse in the hikers’ eyes, she finished, “It’s all you’re ever good for, isn’t it?”

Kaia and Zach, heads bowed in guilt, scurried out the front door and never returned.

Once she was certain that the hikers were gone, Mara headed outside. She grabbed a shovel from the side of the porch and strode to the quaint bug cemetery she had constructed years ago when she lost her first bug. His name was Roger. Not every bug gets the honor of burial in the bug cemetery, but Mara felt that the worm deserved such a designation.

Digging a small grave for the worm, Mara then placed the worm’s corpse in the ground. She filled the grave back in with dirt and tenderly patted the gravesite. Mara knelt in front of the worm’s body and cried until her eyes burned. Peacefully shining down on her and the bug cemetery, the morning sun had no idea of the tragedy that had just unfolded.

Knowing that something was wrong, Cynthia emerged from the house and slithered her way over to Mara. Curling up beside the old woman’s thigh, Cynthia looked up at her. Mara smiled and lamented, “Another one gone, Cynthia,” she wiped the remaining tears from her face and asked, “Who’s next?”

Cynthia crawled up Mara’s body to rest on her shoulder.

Positioning herself against the old woman’s neck, the millipede closed her eyes. Mara sighed and walked back inside.

26 | Perception

Armor

Jennifer Liu | Cicada, resin, gold leaf, CZ stone, misc.

Untitled Luyan Cao

The lives under the ocean are reviving Orchestra intertwined Heard the decadent music Mermen send pearl to mermaid Nights after dark are always complicated Didn’t realized the ugly truth Until opening my eyes But it was too late to separate both blood and bones Slaves sacrificed their hearts Alone when blood permeated through the soil with soul Their body and consciousness entangled by noble fame If slaves, meaning there is no dignity, Then how could nobility who have lowly souls Yet basked in other’s fears and reverent glory Silent street seems to ignore the crying sound of a maiden The life who carried another life Wear out her limps and heart Shed tears over some loss Thousands of pity isn’t worth any money The maiden’s life was saved by that money Yet pity treads on her sanctity And on any of many busy nights A life silently passes away A lion and a bull are chatting at an abattoir Showing off their fangs and horns Which aggravate blood and sins After every survived duel To earn another tomorrow It is honor to be smitten under the fifth rib It is bravery to be hunted and killed Yet nature’s resistance is rebellious Had to be chastened by certain death If you only ask to survive

28 | Perception

Why should you be censured Ah ah Because you pillaged others Because you hurt the system That being the case When I turn plunder to be victim Turn harm to hurt Birth, death, illness and old age is all my fault By then Would it be the justice you said Would it become glory Fairness shall never come Fireworks with grey sparkler shall never burn out Bystanders combine together like a surging river Pushed someone to pick up the tempting fruit inside fire The one who was later engulfed in a sea of flames Their body can never be retrieved from the river Fruit rotten under waves Goes to that far distance with no direction And it is good It would be good Not until the end of the world

Fall 2019 | 29

The Undefinable It Sarah Alessandrini

It is not the crosses I counted down the highway, but the foliage that burned orange, before the gray sky.

Orange, like a warm kitchen and the sweet smell of maple on a Saturday morning.

It is a family’s laughter in a new home over old photographs and Chinese takeout: a Friday night well spent.

It is the scent hanging in the hall on a student’s first day of school and last— the scent of a new beginning.

It is the first warm day of spring and the first crisp wind of fall.

The first dance, light as a cloud with the hope of flight.

It is the chilling Church choir, singing at Christmas mass Hallelujah, Oh Holy Night.

The sunlight woke me Sunday.

It is that sunlight, and, I believe a rainbow in the early November without a cloud in sight.

It is the hope in what we leave behind— that my words will suffice and survive.

30 | Perception

It is this, all this, and so much more.

It is all we know and hope to find, yet we can never define It.

Fall 2019 | 31

Dive In

Isabelle Collins | Graphite

32 | Perception

Us

Maya Gelsi The ocean stretches out like a skin, Drumming on itself.

I want to see the waves break Through our house, Scatter glass and Burst apart the wood, Splintering doors we used to Leave wide, swinging Open and joyous.

When did we start the grim Turn-click of keys in locks?

I want the house washed away, with Our chairs and paintings and silverware.

Ruin and wreck it, Flood it and sweep it Through riptides and Out to sea.

Fall 2019 | 33

Nantucket Isabella Alvarez

In the undoing I catch your breath, a foreign tongue on mine and we exhale a silent song of understanding: moments fade and hearts petrify.

To forget, we slip brine and beer beneath folds of soft sand. Sea curls into toes and a breeze, promising the fleeting nature of your lips, caresses dusk. Somewhere on the horizon a boat sinks into the haze. Later I stumble through cobbled streets, wreak havoc on shards of light that spill from loud bars and unfamiliar music. Night glasses over in your eyes, violently green — hungry for my arm, my mouth, my spine. I collapse towards your unforgiving embrace, press the entirety of my being into your body until I can almost feel it snap into place. If only we could stay here forever, drunk and young and naked. If only the sun could drown in the Atlantic, light the ocean ablaze, rapture us toward clean nothingness.

I roll over and remove myself from your touch. Sometimes, it becomes all too much.

34 | Perception

flat

Catalina Giraldo | Photography

Armageddon for Idiots

Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan the first thing to remember is DON’T PANIC! Armageddon isn’t what it used to be good and evil have gone the way of portable tv sets and rosary beads as relativity stretches until it shrink-wraps the globe all literature scribbled in the service of doomsday and all the naysayers with their noses up the Almighty’s ass all the skies that threaten to fall through holes in the ozone layer and all the barefoot ascetics happily hopping over anthills can’t make anyone swallow a single crumb of annihilation who hasn’t already had a bellyful of mushroom clouds so DON’T WORRY! Armageddon’s teeth have fallen out just like yours will someday if you keep eating those chocolate donuts covered with candy sprinkles now on the outside chance that the cosmos does crack in half you’re going to want to have your act together enough to tell the difference between survival and extinction and since the difference is only a matter of degree go for broke you’re going to croak either way 36 | Perception

Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan | India ink, crayon, colored pencil, watercolor, oil & pastel crayons

Colorized Haiku

shimmer

Jessie Zhai | Digital phobtography

Autmn Lives in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey Cade Kaminsky

In the middle of Woodside Field In a rocking chair of junkyard rubber Surrounded by dying armies of scarlet and orange I think of families at Conklin Farm gorging on cider donuts And the smell of homemade cider that floats in fleeting winds of yesteryears And the scarecrow who grins at dusk behind his burlap face Dreaming of walking through the corn fields to the glory of old age As Ella Fitzgerald croons in my ear about Autumn in New York All the triumphant sons hop on the Hudson River Line To go home, hug their fathers, and watch Daniel Jones on Sunday And the mothers’ smiles radiantly beam in their eyes Suggesting a natural happiness I know I will never have Neath the cover of October clouds Therefore, I live coldly and unholy until Autumn At the end of September when Autumn Grows prepubescently in the bluets of Conklin Farm And in Autumn In Franklin Lakes, I know that in Autumn I am my best self-- then and only then.

In Autumn

Fall 2019 | 39

repression

Bethany Marsfelder it crawls through your chest, encircles your ribcage, slips up your throat, slides into your lungs. you choke breathing in noxious, acrid smoke and slippery poison. it grows and grows and then

it BURSTS you are dying, darling. (you are killing yourself from within.)

40 | Perception

The Drowned

Sam Bloom | Photography

The Sparrow Maya Gelsi

A patch of grass, midday, and a Sparrow at my foot.

Sheathed in tautened skin and Smooth brown feathers, its Delicate bones quiver And tremble Extremely breakable.

And beside it, my Sister, Fragile under her thin sweater Shoulder blades like two wings.

42 | Perception

Where Am I?

Bailee Rogers | Mixed media

Her Smile

Raveena Suman

I was fifteen. And I loved her. She was everything that I wanted to be, and I had been so lonely. She was the definition of beauty. Now that I look back, she was nothing but hauntingly empty. At points in my life, I thought she had loved me too. I should have realized that her pain was greater than the love she had for me, for anyone. She had sat next to me in my history class and I got a red painted smile when I complimented the single thin mint green bracelet lining her left wrist. It started from there.

Soon enough we did everything together, or from what I would later learn to understand, I did everything for her. She was my relief from abandonment, and I was her relief from life. I wanted to be like her. Unafraid and noticed.

When I was sixteen, there was a boy. He sat across the room during lunch. He only knew my name; I only knew my desires. She knew it too. She did all the talking while I painted my body for his bright blue eyes.

Give it a week and he became my everything. Give it a month and I had to watch them leave a room together. Her playing with her bracelet while he drunkenly smiled at nothing. A light within me had softly dimmed, but the greater part, a darker part of me drank in the sight of her walking towards me. I relished in her want for me. Or my want for her.

It went on for another year. We went out to party, to shop, to eat, to live. I met her parents, her father smiled at me. His smile held a softness I had never experienced before. It was cruel to see the corners of it tip downward in just a few passing months. She met my empty apartment, my skeletons locked tight in a closet as her hand rested steadily on my shoulder.

There was no comfort, just a sad silence. It crept up on the both of us.

Sometimes I think it hurt her more than it ever did me. For my loneliness was just another shadow I walked with. She seemed to have befriended hers, fed into its darkness and allowed it to fester within her. But, as time goes by, there continued to be more parties, more boys, more drugs, more life, more lies.

At eighteen, we went for a walk with no clear destination in mind.

She took me to get her favorite mango smoothie at a local diner. She asked me to pay for her and I did. I wasn’t offered a sip. The sky slowly grew dark as we continued down the road. There was a long-eared owl perched up on a tree, its yellow eyes bore into mine. Sometimes I wish I had listened to them.

44 | Perception

She took me to one of our town’s old bridges. It overlooked beautiful clear waters. The wood was always creaky with damp spots as the seas’ water would splash on it during the heavier storms. The sky was darkening as the Sun softly set. There were the sounds of passing trains in the distance. She was standing near the railing, watching a bird ruffling its feathers as it picked at a soggy fry on the ground. She caught me watching her, a soft thud of my heart. She nimbly stood up on the ledge, her right leg lazily swaying as she balanced herself on her left. My eyes followed her, trailing up to her face, to a smile I had never seen before. A smile that would forever remind me of the wickedness that was her soul. She looked down at me and told me to get on the ledge with her. She saw my hesitation; she took it in. She loved it. Despite my growing unease, I got on the railing next to her. We looked at the water for a long time. There was a calming sensation flowing down my chest as the water moved soothingly. I could see our reflection, the only image that would appear behind my closed eyes when the light fades from them. For a moment I felt peace.

She turned her head and told me to jump. I looked at her horrified and she simply laughed. She told me I did everything she asked me to, so why couldn’t I jump for her? She faced away from me, a sight that caused a nasty feeling to crawl up my spine. My heart beat wildly, in fear of her turning away from me and the only thought that I had was: is this what she needed from me? I looked at her, but she was already watching me. Was this the first time she has truly seen me? She looked away. I noticed the craze in her eyes and the wickedness in her smile. I could only watch helplessly as she lost herself. She jumped.

My ears were ringing. The roar of the train engines, birds screeching, water, a bird eating a fry, a splash, her laugh, an owl’s whistle, my cry. I was numb. Arms grabbing me, sirens, questions, a man’s yell. Shaking.

The world fell dark.

I was eighteen when there was a knock on my door. I had invited him in with a sad smile, he had a look in his eyes, one that I could not recognize. His lips curled downwards; the softness gone. In place was loathing, so wrong it caused a sadness I had only felt when I knew I was truly alone. He pushed me against a wall. Hands around my throat. I looked at him in confusion. He was painted with hate. Turning blue, he let go of me as I slid down the wall, gasping for breath only to lose it again. With a kick to my ribs he crouched down and looked at me. His dark eyes, the sinister look in them so like the ones passed out drunk next room over. He roughly grabbed my jaw and told me to leave before he did something he would never regret. My heart had already been frozen. Never to have thawed one month prior.

Fall 2019 | 45

I left four days later. There was nothing for me there anymore.

Besides the empty fear, the constant looks over my shoulders. I was plagued with terror, waiting for his cold smile, for her memories. The guilt suffocated me. I had lost the little I had tried to protect. But it was never enough. To think about it now, I was never meant to have her, as she was never mine to hold onto.

I was nineteen in a new town, darker than the last. Heavy kohl on my eyes, an impatient tap of my foot. I waited. I watched as a car window rolled down, the passing of words I have lost all feeling for. I entered, watching myself retreat into the crevices of my mind as he has his way. The green in my pocket and the ice in my heart. With nothing to shelter from the cold world, I learned to survive in the only way I was able to.

I had been in this town for a little over four months. But the day I had looked across the street to see him standing there, it was a moment of longing. For a short life I never truly lived. Staring at his blue eyes now, the brightness in them had vanished. His watchful eyes confused yet I knew he understood with the way his eyes crawled up my naked legs. I let him look.

I wasn’t ashamed. She showed me how to become visible, I found it in men who made my skin crawl. But there was no depravity, nothing for me to cry over anymore. Nothing left for me to lose. I let him stare at me and I noticed the sadness in them, the regret. A spark of hate lit within me at the memory of her, at the regret he felt. A moment passed by until I noticed the other man standing behind him, smirking at me. The glass within me broke. The ice slowly melting, dripping down towards my heels.

Broad-shouldered man. He reached for me when I was eighteen, a broken girl unsure of what to do with her tired soul. He took me in. Promises of food on the table and a roof over my head. Only it came with a payment, one that delivered me pain if I chose to refuse. Within a street filled with lust filled men and broken young girls, I played my part. And I played it well. I vanished into the darkest part of my being to give the man his money.

My back burned in memory of his belt on me. The absence of money, the punishment that ensued. The secrets I told him. I fell in love with him. I fell for the way his hand would lay on my shoulder after every punishment. No comfort, just silence. But it was all the same. I looked at him just as I looked at her. In need. And he took that and continued to break me. I had told him about the boy with bright eyes.

My eyes burned at the sight of the broad-shouldered man standing behind the one with bright eyes. He was here for me, to see me. To see all of me. As the last piece of glass cluttered to my toes, I let my red stilettos walk me towards the next payment. To the next man.

My life was over the night she looked at me with that smile.

46 | Perception

jump

Jessie Zhai | Digital photography

Fire

Rebecca Balara I bloomed with fiery flowers and I rose up as I realized that in every way my eagerness for a life lived in color was stronger than my fear that someone wouldn’t like the brightness or the intensity of my petals

ď…­ poemsbyrebecca

48 | Perception

Dopamine

Sam Bloom | Photography

Hereditary Isabella Alvarez i. Paternal

Love, his mother used to say, is not pure and unwavering; not a gift from God, an untouchable entity. And there is some truth to this. In his parent’s marriage, for example, where words are mean and black like bitter coffee and breath is foul; damp whiskey hands and yellowing skin, lungs like parchment singed from twenty-four years of smoking two Newports a day. His father sits alone at a hissing stove, alone on the red-eye train to Medellín, alone on the back steps of the Waldorf Astoria kitchen, smoke curling into tepid New York air. Love, his mother used to say, is ugly. Love is buñuelos and natilla on Christmas Eve; love is putting up with Guillermo’s bipolar schizophrenic tendencies; love is not accompanying your son to the airport because it’s too difficult to watch him duck into the front seat of the taxi cab and know that during the forty-eight years he’ll spend in America while you’re alive, you will only visit once. Love is Gloria’s hallucinations, the priest reciting incantations over her quivering body, and love is sitting by the bedside table, watching her eyes roll back and her fingers curl and uncurl over the edge of the bedframe like stringy spiders.

My father is afraid of airplanes. Every time turbulence hits he trembles along with the plane, gripping the seat rest until his knuckles turn white. When the captain announces something over the intercom in a low, crackling voice, my father asks me to repeat it aloud in slow, careful words.

My father never gets out of his seat until the plane has landed. During the taxiing and the takeoff, he closes his eyes. ii. Maternal

Her mother — her mother is different, with long hair, silver and fraying, pulled back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck until the wrinkles that pepper weathered skin smooth into a blank white sky splattered with moles. Love is not a word spoken in that household, with a cold basement and even colder eyes. Her mother’s back curves into a sad “C” shape as she plants peppers in the garden, as she kneels on a pew, hands folded, mouth moving in silent prayer. Her father crumples into a black box from time to time, emerges smelling like air freshener and guilt and radiation. Love isn’t a familiar word. It’s an entire different tongue. Love

50 | Perception

is looking down at your blood-soaked hospital gown and then back up to the TV, set to the Holiday Carols channel, and not wanting to sing along to “Jingle Bells” because there’s a lump in your throat and a purpling fetus in a metal box somewhere close — too close.

My mother is afraid of churches. We go every Christmas and Easter, and each time she smells like patchouli oil; Buddhist beads dangling around her small wrists, specks of myrrh and gold lining her eyelids, a Hamsa hand necklace dotting her chest. As soon as we step between the brassy, wooden doors and shake hands with a priest, she is silent and reverent. She is humble in the presence of Jesus slung across the wooden panels. Perhaps this is something she inherited from her own mother, too; the fear of fiery depths so deeply instilled within her being that she still remembers the Lord’s Prayer by heart. iii. ;

Maybe this is what puts me in the emergency room at 2 am: this inheritance of complicated love, something too complex to grasp. At the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital they draw sticky fluid from thin veins, separate urine into vials, ask me, “How often are you sad?” My mother falls asleep with one arm crooked into the back of my wheelchair.

“How often are you sad?” they ask again when she begins to snore.

I’m allowed visitors once a day for an hour. My mother wears an unreadable expression the first time she visits. She fingers the itchy fabric of my scrubs, touches the blemish under my nose. “I’ll bring face wash next time,” she says, and then she leaves for yoga class without saying goodbye. In art therapy that night, I cry, and no matter how many times the nurses ask, I can’t explain why.

My father calls on the third day, and for the first time in my life he apologizes for his mistakes. He doesn’t correct my broken Spanish. He asks, softly, almost in a whisper, “Why haven’t you told me about this? Why haven’t you told anyone about this?”

Night is the hardest: the autistic patients scream and throw chairs against walls and don’t sleep.

I’m discharged on my birthday, a muggy, uneventful Tuesday. It is the day that the Virgin Mary ascended into heaven: August 15. There are no candles, no cake, no presents waiting for me at home. My mom watches me take off my sweatpants, my baggy T-shirt. She examines my bare legs, wordless, and presses a razor into my hands. The water scalds me until my skin is raw and red. I say nothing.

Sinking beneath the surface, my eyes sting and I taste bitter Fall 2019 | 51

soap against my tongue. In my wavering reflection I can grasp at my imperfections: crooked nose, thick lower lip, heavily-lidded eyes, unfading mole. I know that if I look hard enough I can find these flaws in my mother, in my father; I can find in them my nervous ticks, my tendency to raise my voice when I’m frustrated, my fixation on perfection, my compulsion, at times, to lie. Tucked further beneath my awkward laugh and too-deep voice: anger, sadness, shame, all passed down through chromosomes and genetic accidents.

I am afraid of loneliness. That night after I dry my hair and brush my teeth in silence, I crawl beneath the covers, restless. A framed photograph of my family sits on my windowsill and I am too scared to look at it; I know that a younger, happier me will smile back, wave with chubby fingers, my hair up in messy pigtails, my father’s arm wrapped loosely around my waist, my mother’s lips warm against my cheek. Love is playing hide and seek and stumbling across the divorce papers at age nine. Love is messy; it’s hereditary.

There’s a sudden knock against the door, and my mother pushes it in tentatively, standing awkwardly with her arms crossed over her bony chest. “I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay,” she murmurs gently, soft light spilling over her sunken cheekbones and weary eyes. I nod and turn over again, pulling the covers up to my chin. “Well... goodnight.”

“I love you,” I say, my voice barely a whisper. The door slams behind her sharply.

52 | Perception

Welcome Home Sarah Alessandrini I used to lose myself in labyrinth aisles of Targets, Walmarts and grocery stores filled with wonders a little mind could explore.

Well, this mind is wider now, too grand for this room where I am still lost with a roof over my head.

Yet you only say, When I’m older.

If I’m older, I say.

What if traffic stops and I’ve gone nowhere?

I swear, this map is more than decorative and this home is more than I could ask for but cannot make me stay.

You treasure this chest, but inside’s and overlap of highways and byways I must follow.

But know, I’ll never say goodbye before planning on hello.

Fall 2019 | 53

And my greatest hope is seeing you there holding high the sign, “Welcome Home.�

54 | Perception

Isabelle Collins | Mixed Media

Craving sweets

Inflatable Love Poem

Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan blow hard take another deep breath and read slowly I’m yours I’m yours I’m yours I’m yours how do those words feel in your mouth roll them around on your tongue you like those syllables don’t you go ahead and nibble a little but gently the money back guarantee isn’t honored if there’s teeth marks in the poem touch me and pretend I’m moaning run your fingers over the page dog-ear the corner if you’re feeling frisky oooooohhhhhh yyyeaaaahhhhhhhhh maybe you’d like to lie down and read with me on top does that feel good isn’t that nice you’re enjoying this aren’t you and you didn’t think you liked poetry you were afraid you wouldn’t understand it now you know there’s nothing to understand just read me read me wherever you like read me whenever you like read me however you like

............read me until you can’t read anymore do you love me it’s okay you don’t have to say it I love you just feeling your breath on my words makes me hot enough to gush on forever but I’ll leave you with the promise that I’m yours I’m yours I’m yours I’m yours 60 | Perception

Colorized Haiku

Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan | India ink, crayon, colored pencil, watercolor, oil & pastel crayons

Forgiving.

Julia Cleo Fisher November I am not a perfect person. I am not in love.

I can not forget your black coffee your hands on the freckles dotting my shoulder blades your fingers trailing silent phrases across my skin your smile as you tell me “your body is beautiful, you know that?” your frown as I ask what you’re looking for still looking

The way your legs flex as we crest the hill your sweater falls along the ridges of your shoulders the valley of your collarbone the slopes of your arms cool green over a land of startling warmth your eyes, smiling talking about your mother you don’t mind being far away your fingers and their twitch 62 | Perception

says otherwise

you correct me gently it’s been awhile since an opinion has not targeted the weakest parts of me

you listen like you’re not waiting to respond but that you’re okay with my words curling forever smoke in the sky of your irises

bursts of remembering burning ice a balm that quickly turns me numb

I can’t imagine moving on which is rich I cling Fall 2019 | 63

mostly to dreams ahead not the past.

I am not sure what happened but for me myself I am changed by you I am changed for myself I go home my head not quite high because I am not a perfect person

But I regret nothing.

February I am proud of who I am Surprised at who I’ve become I am impatient with your reluctance impatient with the other one’s ego I am not quite whole being alone you bear it I still daydream clouds obstructions buzzing thoughts 64 | Perception

distracting confusing reality. it’s lacking today was lacking interaction breath uncomfortable pauses on thin ice an impossible b ridge between us breathe I don’t know where I am starting over or repairing getting over you.

Fall 2019 | 65

Twighlight Zone

Sam Bloom | Photography

Bleecker Winter Cade Kaminsky

On Bleecker Street, it is Winter’s primal age.

But this is not like winters of yesteryear; the ones that would penetrate my skin and hands and would reveal to me my breath, my essence, in the early light of dawn.

A heavy vapor dissipates and joins the cacophony of other plumes of cigarette smoke born of cast-iron townhouse fire escapes; joined in some art-deco matrimony to create a valley of ubiquity blanketed by familiarity where it’s truly a funny thing to accept and cope with the fact that the only inheritance is unremarkability and the sanctity of knowing we are not alone in this valley of trapped memories It fills our hearts on this cold Bleecker Street as we sit and wait for the sun to rise again

Fall 2019 | 67

spring peepers Bethany Marsfelder

delicate dainty dewdrops press kisses to fleet feet as flickering fireflies flit hither and thither in the twilight skies.

far down beyond the lower lawn lies the pond, littered with lingering lily pads as dozens

of dragonflies

dance,

wandering wistfully in wildflowers.

the river rambles, tripping and skipping and dipping over pebble, rock, and stone. there’s nothing here but evergreen trees and blue-grey-black-blue shadows lingering lovingly and gently over the grass and carefully cradling the clover, yet you hear them: meadowsweet mountain song under the midsummer moon.

68 | Perception

their singing rings out as night is nearly here; an enchanting chorale of chirps. really, it cannot be that amphibians and familiar frogs that hide in canopy are emitting a lovely lilting all-night-long lullaby.

their trilling is filling the air, their voice soaring into the dormer where warped window screen filters their falsetto like flour through a sieve. their thrumming humming is lulling you softly to sleep.

your legs shift in the sheets as you lay, light linen gliding over your thighs, any thought of lifting your eyelids increasingly laborious.

the fan’s breeze carries your hair from your cheeks as you swiftly switch to thinking of the sweet peepers that creep in the trees.

Fall 2019 | 69

bloom

Bethany Marsfelder | Digital photography

reminiscence Luyan Cao

He woke up from dream from the sea of clouds and fog He wheeled in his boat Seemly never woke up Warble skimmed over the around jetty sea water soon closed up The one who possesses the rod hits on the floor That is ground sea That is ground sea make its inroads on rock He waited and watched His eyes are full until blood appears He watched saw that pharos reeks seems appeared soon fading in dark He seems woke up from boat Seemly never woke up does the rod holder still around does the beacon still around does the reefs still at there does the boat still exist He saw that dark wave steal on Engulfed him then waive hime spiraling forever circling forever He smashed his boat He used his stump as oar, his trunk as boat He can no longer endure infringed by darkness He started swim towards the beacon Fall 2019 | 71

That beacon is reef that reef is wave that wave is dark soon beacon arises from dark again The one who possesses the rod hits on the floor Step by step fading away

72 | Perception

Bethany Marsfelder | Digital photography

beachcomber

Like A Father Maya Gelsi

I saw you watch him like a father does.

His celery stalk legs unfolded, Grief blooming.

You bent your head to listen While the rest of us watched Faces like sunflowers, Upturned.

In your eyes I saw you carry Him on your shoulders, Saw you at the stove, Him at the cutting board.

I saw your house fling open its Doors and windows.

I saw you reach for him with your eyes.

74 | Perception

Navigating the hedge Isabelle Collins | Photography

Ode to Frankenstein Johanna Chojnicki

Foreshadow Minds cannot foresee Nor can they learn from their past.

Their curiosity of natural law hinders their ability to see.

Tampering with things they cannot know.

Unable to see the past, Science is the key to comprehension.

But still they cannot understand.

Nature is something incomprehensible Only God can.

Humans can only look in awe Learning from the past in order to foresee.

Find thy self & soul companion Where is my true self?

Whom in this unknown world will share my views?

I explore all, including the frozen realm for my true self.

There at last in the far reaches, I find someone that shares my views.

But will my determination to find a friend blind my eyes to what he truly is?

Patients Every envelope holds a story.

But that story could not be told.

Lost envelopes are missed tales.

Waiting patiently for a new piece of the tale What will unfold?

76 | Perception

Narcissistic Pride of Arrogance Childhood innocence is so sweet.

Parents so sweet to me.

My mother promised a girl to me.

The world was at my feet.

Education was my pride, I took in every stride.

My greatest achievement, Is my great dis-achievement.

Now the price I pay, Is the greatest price to pay.

Abandoned Lover My father gave me away.

Mother died and left me alone.

My father then passed away.

I lived with my poor gardens, Until a privileged family came.

The mother fell in love at first sight.

A reflection of her she saw.

She playfully gave me away, But her son thought it was real.

He loved me tender, Or so I thought.

He left to pursue greatness, But he created tragedy.

Too Sweet We loved each other.

We died for each other.

We gave everything for our children.

Where did we go wrong?

Fall 2019 | 77

Innocence My life was filled with joy.

My family loved me to death.

My mother died and my older brother away.

I played all day and night, I laughed and cried, I ran and walked to my own tune.

Then one day someone or something took my life.

Was is it human or creature that took my life?

I did not break thy commandment of the lord, I loved the boy.

I’ve known him since he was a babe.

We’ve played and ate together.

I did not kill the boy.

I am innocent!

I only confessed to save my life.

But do you truly believe my innocence?

I am after all a condemned women that will do anything to save my life?!

Abandoned Creation My creator left me to die, I had to wonder to survive.

Surviving on roots and berries, Learning life’s lessons on my own.

Seeing cruelty and kindness of humankind.

Seeing how I will never be accepted by humankind.

I seek my creator to ask one thing, Instead he blames me and wants to kill me.

I’m forced to threaten him to listen.

To the tale of my life.

78 | Perception

When Andy Met Cindy Sam Bloom | Photography

Lie

Rebecca Balara pick blueberries with me and tell me i’m pretty pull me in and push me out tell that lie 100 times tell me to go and beg me to stay wouldn’t have it any other way

 poemsbyrebecca

80 | Perception

October 19

Catalina Giraldo | Mixed media

From Karachi to Kolkata Sagnik Basumallik

8th Ave and W 30th, I already perceive you somewhere in the City, Walking towards me.

The asymptotes converged on 15th Waverly, And I ask myself, Was this all meant to be?

A thick glass door of faith, Separates us, but thoughts unite, And on the other side of the road, Penetrate, rise above the concrete, Above the steel stairways, Into the dusk.

Suddenly the City feels so divine.

Crowds merge into the ocean of nothingness, And we stand, lost in the maze of subways....

From Karachi to Kolkata, Our streets sing the same Qawwali.

Unite us both in Eid and Diwali, You call it Allah, I call it Krishna, You call it Quran, I call it Gita, You call it Imam, I call it Guru, Prayers united, Religions separated, We aspired the same liberation‌ Why is it then that we fight over the same Divine?

Unknowingly, we sit in the same train, To the same station, we have our tickets, The pardah veils our journey, 82 | Perception

To the ocean of divinity.

Where we forgive, Rise above the small material self, That does not discriminate. “মোরা একই ব ন ৃ ত ্ ে দ টু ী ক স ু ম ু হিন্দ ু-ম স ু লমান” – Kazi Nazrul Islam “Hindus and Muslims are the flowers on the same branch” – Kazi Nazrul Islam

Fall 2019 | 83

gemini

Jessie Zhai | Digital photography

This is Home Samantha Fuss

I now live at college where crickets and silence are an uncomfortable sound for me. Looking through the window is boring, there are no people in skyscrapers for miles. Before this, I wasn’t itching to turn sixteen to get my learners permit or my first car. I never tripped on a toolbox in a garage. Streets that are not in a grid are confusing. Driving three blocks, when I think going thirty blocks is a moderate walk, is foreign. Two or three-story buildings are small. My backyard is 840 acres.

I walk forty steps to get to my grocery, drug, and clothing store. Sirens and construction are my forms of lullaby. Bagels, water, and pizza are best from home. This is New York City.

A night owl is always entertained. Windows in a form are extensions of individual reality: a snippet of what eight million lives, capriciously boxed yet quite physically framed are doing. One is brought into the theatre of daily routine despite the distance. When your world is silent, all you are capable of is quietly observing. The picture is not something you can sway. The typical family meal or quiet lady reading a novel becomes blurred through your sleep deprived creativity. Movement turns into a colorful nothingness. Fatigue makes the figures dance like northern lights. Your stare becomes fuzzier. Yet, sporadically, sirens and unloading garbage trucks disrupt the performance in the window. The drama is ongoing whether you’re looking or not. You have no influence.

Glancing at faces for less than three seconds resonates a sense of unfamiliarity for most, but not me. On the corner of 96th street and Columbus avenue you’ll find a small coffee shop. Peering through the window, with coffee stains on the bottom right corner, you see people working and chatting. It’s almost too picture perfect, with a red head barista quietly designing art on lattes, conversation starter cards on the bar, and small tables of people in scarves and Warby Parker glasses. You’ll think nothing of it besides a hipster coffee shop trying to stay relevant and unique. I see Emily who occasionally gives me free granola bars. I see hours, days, weeks of studying, laughing, and much needed caffeine breaks. All three blocks from my high school. Through my windows, I see the homeless woman on the corner of 72nd and 3rd avenue who spit on us as twelve year olds if we did not give her money.

Fall 2019 | 85

I see cranes atop of giant new skyscrapers. I am not marveled, but washed by nostalgia as I remember planting a daffodil in the lobby of the first apartment building I ever lived in.

The late hour permeates through my eyes as my mind begins to wander. What did people see through the windows I’ve been in? The ninety degree days spent on the Great Lawn with gumballs melting off Spongebob ice pops from street carts? The cuts I have on my ankles from jumping off my Razor scooter too fast? The sweaty taxi or subway ride back from preseason on “Poop Factory” Randall’s island? Midnight thirtysecond walks to CVS to get art supplies upon forgetting there’s a project due tomorrow? The late night jay walks between friends houses?

Sure, it’s loud and polluted. Gum can get stuck to your sneakers and you can miss your bus by just a few seconds. It’s overwhelming during rush hour. But when you’re looking out your window—an extension of individual reality—you’ll realize how lucky I am to call this city my home.

86 | Perception

another day

Catalina Giraldo | Mixed media

If I held up the Sky Sarah Alessandrini If God ever asked me, Would you be Atlas hold the sky and clouds soaked with tears of humanity?

Would you bear a family’s grief over their child you never knew so they could be free?

I would say yes.

I would dwell in all nine rings of hell not to earn heaven but so no one burns again.

No heart would ever ache from a missing part.

No child would have to grow up in a night.

I’d keep the storm clouds at bay except for those who love the rain, and leave space for the sun to shine on those who shiver.

And how much happier, brighter, lighter more beautiful this world would be if I held up the sky, for everyone but me.

88 | Perception

Elegy For A Whoopee Cushion Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan unlike the wheel that rolls big ideas toward new frontiers or the lightbulb that dispels the darkness for illuminated exploration or the X-ray that reveals the frailties of anatomy the whoopee cushion makes no claim on progress ten bucks to anyone who can name its inventor had for next to nothing in any novelty shop inflated with a few good breaths to the size of a sofa pillow the lowly whoopee cushion assumes its proper place beneath the cheeks of some smartass poised to break wind at the drop of an arse and let a phony rip-roaring fart fly as high as laughter can carry it

Fall 2019 | 89

midsummer

Bethany Marsfelder | Digital photography

You Have A Forest Maya Gelsi

You have many sharp and Jagged edges, which snag things easily And unravel them.

I want to take the bitten fingernail Of your life, fill it with soil And a seed of your choosing.

Rich green sprouting from your ears And knees, silent blooms kissing your Eyes, moving away from plastic reality, Rubbery small existences.

Embrace your forest-- it has Moss and insects and vines and worms.

Praise mud, sink into grass, let ants Crawl into your palms, filling the crevices.

Become roots, become leaves lifted by wind.

Become the brilliant heat of a blooming flower.

Become the deer, stepping softly Through undergrowth, blinking velvet eyes, Shy and radiant.

Fall 2019 | 91

Brownblood Isabella Alvarez

The summer water ran red, post-apocalyptic picket signs screamed go home.

As if with one crooked finger Mexico could beckon her love-children back, wrap barbed-wire snares around thin ankles and lift bodies past clouds.

We sweat dollars here, shedding pennies when the AC breaks; yellow teeth stained by Backwoods and Bud Light, prophetic spit wads landing at bare feet.

We familiarize family by scent: Papi comes home reeking of fertilizer and anti-fungal, Mami smells like lemons and ammonia. In the evenings sisters braid sunshine into black hair, hands thick and steady, beating rhythms into scalps. In the evenings brothers gather to forget, beady-eyed and stumbling, empty 40s swinging from finger-tips. On Sundays we peel away a layer of skin, tuck bruises behind cowlicks, baptized by the promise of new dawns and distant deserts.

Someday Mexio will come calling for us and we’ll return, fold into her rheumy eyes and let the cicadas lull us to sleep.

The hollow ache of her absence burns deep tonight, tamarindo juice dripping down chins like blood, and we whisper a silent prayer. Go home.

92 | Perception

Entanglement Julia Cleo Fisher

it comes with a tightening of skin thorns winding, entangling cutting into flesh the xylem throat closing up bleeding green don’t touch me crooked flowering memories fulgurated baren stems who am I to grow from here x can you make it stop sticking to the earth scarred stigma fluorescent nightmare

mucilaginous poison

Fall 2019 | 93

blooming in the brain Clerodendrum thomsoniae invasive species just one an arm vines digging into the wood of a doorway withering sunlight alone sepals cutting your throat upstairs smothering nightmare

sickly pollen aconit e eyes watering a hazy purple hue wilting refusal

cut the stem and the flower dies flay the pedicel a weeping wound taken by the roots 94 | Perception

forced into a bed of unfamiliar soil b

u

r

i

e d and waterlogged do you think you could find some sun drownin g pulverized in myself.

Fall 2019 | 95

looking up

Isabelle Collins | Lithography

out of time

Bethany Marsfelder my soul is ancient as the ground we walk and the sky we dream beneath my heart is big enough to enfold the universe my mind yearns to understand the stardust that makes us. (i am happiest thinking of sepia-toned days listening to black and white memories reading wrinkled parchment and yellow-stained pages.) my body is trapped in the renaissance, (they would have thought me divine. a temple, a vision on a sea shell bathed in blossoms and honeysuckle rhyme.) but here i am left out of sight out of mind out of time.

Fall 2019 | 97

Liar 2

Bailee Roberts | Photography

They

Luyan Cao They twittering about love with lust Burning sensation was phrasing as art Electric chimera was mixed with Durer’s black Another charming face was hiding under luxury feather Gilded caparison with diamond topping cannot heat up the air This is an end creature from a desperado Cave flower grows over corpses They see through a peak of pink from hidden lust under eyes Flexible twisted body reveals freedom Tentacles are drooling toward the prey There was raddled violet golden Ulster covered her face This is a nightmare belongs to a possessed her Screaming sounds rise and fell They once used black fraction sweeps up whole gale Defiant blood already shacking inside of body Release that fulminating bleeding sound As if someone tooled sleeping sun’s light Chaotic land thrives upon here Ocean exudes sparks as they were stars They couldn’t stifle screams and cries of violence No, no, no, no Obvious grieved shouts heap up skip formed human Every eye can see turns to living hell Roaring north wind carried nostalgia away This is a day without reason law and justice No one lives in the desert anymore They returned to earth with their gentle pace Everything returned to the never come imagine New borns split out from lurid After baptism of cries is the new round of world Fall 2019 | 99

parallel

Jessie Zhai | Digital photography

Alice Ten Feet Tall

Isabelle Collins | Mixed Media

LIFE

Sarah Alessandrini You ask me how I’m doing.

I say I’m loving LIFE. You could say I’m addicted?

We all draw comfort from somewhere.

I find it in a familiar crunch, a few handfuls an hour at least a box a week.

I don’t even need a bowl or a spoon.

These colorful words don’t match a thing in my room: My walls, my sweatshirt, my sweatpants all match the sky.

But I guess happiness has to subside sometimes.

Otherwise, I’d never write and black coffee might taste too bitter to wash down this lowercase life I only wish tasted better.

102 | Perception

Midnight Stroll

Sam Bloom | Photography

Anna

Anonymous The girl—angel-faced jewel-eyed perfect fingers able toes; she lithes around my words and she laughs around my lips she speaks out of her tongue and I always listen.

Once, I saw her, lost, in a jungle, I pulled her from jaws and the snake’s hands, another time, in a bar, she spun a quarter and it never stopped (I am; we are) I thought about her eyes over a drink where we shared pearls, we shared words 104 | Perception

& we spoke no language and laughed without our heads, she smiled like the daughter we could have had and as she went home to her love, and me to mine, we looked for so long our eyes felt like wheels, “Goodnight” she said “It was” I said.

Fall 2019 | 105