Perception Magazine Fall 2020

VOLUME XXI | ISSUE 36 Syracuse University

— Perception is a free arts and literar y magazine published once each semester by undergraduate students at Syracuse University.

We are now accepting submissions for the Spring 2021 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 perceptionmagsu@gmail.com.

The opinions expressed herein are not those of Syracuse Universit y, t he Office of Student Act iv it ies, t he Student Association, and the Student Body.

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

Dear Perceivers, I have long awaited this issue; to be able to hold it in my hands and hear that little sound when riffling through its pages. This semester has been the most uncertain, unique, and at some points surreal.

The days have blurred together from a routine of familiarity and the same four walls. Through all this, expression and art have kept me inspired and chugging along towards a successful end to this semester.

I am so honored to get the chance to work on Perception magazine.

Your poems, prose, and stories are so rich in imagery, food for thought, and compelling perspectives. They have transported me to scenes of shared love and reminded me of universal heartbreak.

They express your sorrow, one that hopefully we can share the burden of carrying by reading each other’s work. They express the intimacy of daily lives in kitchens, in homes not our own but could have been our own. They empower us to leave, to stay, to claim what has always been ours, ourselves.

I hope you, reader, enjoy all that this body of work has in store for you. A big thank you to all of you who have contributed your writing and art, and to the Perception staff who have worked so hard to put it all together!

Until next time,

Olga Shydlonok Editor-in-Chief

Fall 2020 | 3

The

Eyes andEars Olga Shydlonok Editor-in-Chief

Noor Zamamiri Assistant Editorin-Chief

Bridget Gismondi Chief Designer

Ashley Clemens Managing Editor

4 | Perception

Ariel Samuel Head Editor

Kaitlin LaRosa Assistant Editor

Ekaterina Kladova Assistant Editor

Editor

Cade Kaminsky

Head Reviewer Danielle Clough

Reviewers

Mark Jankowski Nikita Kakani zuzanna mlynarczy Fall 2020 | 5

Contributers

The

Writing Sagnik Basumallik

83 জীবনমু�তি (জীবন = Everyday life,

David Chappell Brandon Clesen

76 60 69 90 73 29 53 65

Camille Daniels Zoya Davis

Julia Cleo Fisher

David T. Garcia Maya Gelsi

Jennifer Glass melina iavarone Cade Kaminsky

Patrick Lee

6 | Perception

33 56 64 75 13 10 17 51 82 100 23 20 31 21 26 41 54 9 12 18 50 62

মু�তি = Liberation) Lying in the Grave so Long An American Nightmare Today, Yesterday, Tomorrow Remembrance Paying Attention How "i love you" really feels A Lesson on Anatomy "Feeling a little nostalgic/Do you want to hear it?"

Butterfl ies Auf Wiedersehen or not Guilty Quarantine Coffee and Strawberries Alone in Your Apartment.

Motzi Watching Your Hands Stroll Waking Up on retroactivity On Parole Vulnerable Westcott & Dell, 4:32 P.M. Autumn Lives in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey The Owl Bleecker Winter A proper dance Kintsugi And. Went to a better place The Solution

87 THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS REVAMPED

Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan Yasmin Nayrouz

24 34 57 71 38 98 27 37 43

Sameeha Saied Gina Trejo

One Sea, Two Views Orange Flowers Where to Go? My Never Goodbye Wood Totem I Almost Cried Today Ole Faithful Walking by the Pond

Art Gabrielle M. Borgia melina iavarone

Mark Jankowski Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan zuzanna mlynarczyk Olga Shydlonok

Noor Zamamiri

22 25 32 52 68 81 28 40 59 63 74 19 101 11 16 45 55 36 72 86 89

On the Corner Sunset on the Edge of Heaven I Have Nightmares Too Equal Born Again Pieces of You Toothpick Scuttle Tree DANCE BONES ROADS Shroom From Me to You Moth Instinct Fading Memory Drive Be Still little turtle let's make abigail remember her suffering but make it pretty leo sun pisces moon type beat look at my garden!

Fall 2020 | 7

Cover Art Front Cover

Mark Jankowski – Big Traveler

Back Cover

Mark Jankowski – Señor Face

Inside Front Cover

zuzanna mlynarczyk – Eyes for Only You

Inside Back Cover

melina iavarone – My Third Eye

Center Spreads Mark Jankowski – Dissection Table Olga Shydlonok – Time Travel

8 | Perception

A proper dance Patrick Lee I locked the door to my house and turned around. My gaze met a new friend.

One orange leaf laying on my car windshield.

Was it sad, with no friends nearby?

A newly weathered ache must inhabit its stem. But it told me it was free.

Like the honey I drizzled over my morning coffee with cream. It sank to the ground of the glass, a golden speck surrendered to an unknown.

I started to ponder what else could be free.

Her dance last night when she thought I wasn’t looking. I could see the smile from the back of her head. I wonder if I could one day be free.

An orange leaf that flies from the nearest tree and sinks as honey. That could be a proper dance.

Fall 2020 | 9

Alone in Your Apartment.

Maya Gelsi “Therese took a sip from Carol’s half-finished coffee on the kitchen table, drank from the place where the lipstick was.”—The Price of Salt Alone in Your Apartment to feed the cat. I’m trapped in all this breathing room.

I clean your kitchen tenderly, gliding the sponge over soap-shined silverware.

I’m hungry. The red diary shines on the table.

I pet and pet your cat, wanting the love you spread thick on her like butter To flake off and puddle in my palm.

We join over the space your body left.

If I stay, maybe you won’t notice me sitting still among your things, wanting possession wanting your ownership.

I make my apartment smell like your apartment. Your diary has names that aren’t mine. I read it, darling, you never should have trusted me.

10 | Perception

Fall 2020 | 11

Olga Shydlonok

Moth Instinct

Kintsugi Patrick Lee My mother has a white bowl sporting a small crack down its side.

A chasm dividing eastern and western seas.

I remember she cried when first seeing the damage inflicted by accidentally hitting it against the sink; it was like she hurt a dear friend.

I took it last weekend to have the crack filled with gold.

When I showed her the repair, she cried again.

A white bowl sporting a small crack down its side let her finally see the beauty in a mistake.

12 | Perception

Coffee and Strawberries David T. Garcia They sat along the pier where they could see the entiret y of Manhattan. Its buildings reflected the gleam of midday. The sun was setting on a pale blue sky streaked with peach colored clouds.

They had laid a blanket over the lawn and rested on their backs.

Austin had an arm rested behind his head and the other was gently scratching Sara’s head as she lay on his chest. The two gazed at the purple orange sky in silence. Silence was a luxury with the right person.

“You know what I like about us?” Sara said.

“What’s that?”

“That coffee is our thing.”

“What do you mean?” Austin asked

“You k now, cafés, hot coffee, good conversation. It's simple, but meaningful. It’s almost symbolic, how we like to sit in warm cafés with nothing but coffee and conversation.”

Austin laughed and gazed over at her. She liked to talk with her hands, and so the hand resting on his stomach now gestured along with her words. Sara had smooth brown hair that fell past her shoulders. Her smile was playful and always a little bit shy, and she had dimples that he would kiss when she laughed. Sara’s eyes were special too; they were almond shaped, the color of honey when under sunlight, and they seemed to contort when she smiled so that her eyes would smile, too.

“And strawberries!” Sara jumped up, excited. Austin laughed and began scratching her back in gentle circles. She looked back at him and her eyes were smiling.

“Strawberries, too, that’s our other thing.” Sara said.

“My love, you’re a bit hyper right now.”

“I know, but it’s true. Coffee and strawberries.”

“And what’s the symbolism behind strawberries?”

“We just like them a lot. And we like eating them with our coffee.”

“Alright, Hemingway,” Austin teased, “that does feel like us. Come back to me.” he motioned to her with his outstretched arms. She laid on his chest and kissed him three quick times, right on his neck under the jaw.

Fall 2020 | 13

“That’s a fantastic title,” Austin said. “I need to do something with that.”

“There you go, you’re welcome.” She scratched his face where the stubble grew before grabbing his cheeks and planting a kiss on his lips. “Make it sweet, romantic. I wonder how you’ll write me.”

“Who said it’d be about you?”

“It better be. That title isn’t free.”

“Alright then, but when it’s so sweet that you ugly cry don’t blame me.”

“We’ll see,” she said before rubbing her nose against his and then wrapping her arms around Austin and resting on his chest.

The moment was like good movies, good music, and good food, all come to an end. The season was passing. With Summer coming to pass and their return to separate schools on the horizon, Austin could not help but feel a quiet sadness. Every moment was made more beautiful because they had an end, and the two would go on to have more moments, he knew, but they were not there yet. For now, there was this moment of ephemeral beauty.

“We never did get to go into the city together,” Austin said.

“I know, but we’ve got time,” Sara said.

“Oh? You won’t get sick of me?” Austin teased.

“I don’t think so. Besides, I need someone to go with me in December, and if we break up I won’t have the time to meet someone else I like, much less love.”

“Well New York is beautiful in the winter...and I am a delight.”

“But after that we’re done,” Sara joked.

Austin laughed and said, “Sure,” but he wasn’t listening now. He thought of Winter, a December in the city with snowflakes dancing dow n and covering the sidewalk s in white. He could imagine Sara in a puffy winter coat, making her look even smaller, with a scarf pulled up to her chin, her cheeks rosy, and their hands interlocked as they walked through Washington Square park. There was nothing Austin wanted more.

“Or maybe by then you won’t want to get rid of me,” Austin said, “Maybe that’ll be it.”

“And we’ll be with each other as we start our lives?” Sara was playful.

“Maybe, who knows,” Austin said.

“It’s nice,” Sara said, “I wouldn’t argue.”

14 | Perception

“Oh? It was that easy to convince you, huh? Well I’ll be a struggling writer, we wouldn’t have much.”

“Hey, I can support myself,” Sara said. “Besides, we wouldn’t need much.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, we’d only need coffee and strawberries.”

“Just coffee and strawberries?”

“Just coffee and strawberries.”

The End

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Fading Memory Olga Shydlonok

16 | Perception

Motzi Maya Gelsi Air breathes deathly in the kitchen as we braid bread, silence wrinkles like the dough in our hands.

Flies loll in the overripe heat.

I find weapons in my stomach and bake them into the floury flesh.

This is the summer my sister chewed off a chunk of her own bottom lip, the wound red and ragged like splintered brick.

It made no noise.

We blessed the bread before it bulleted our throats. tearing itself from the inside.

Many nights passed.

When we rose in the morning, we opened up the windows and did not speak.

The Egyptians buried their rich beloved with food, bread for their murky journey to Other.

How our meals can bury us.

Dirt crumb, crust of earth.

Fall 2020 | 17

And. Patrick Lee And would it be odd if we disobeyed the rules and started new lives crashed together without that horrid sound of metal and perhaps the rules were only made to be broken like a dried-out black rose stem that hopes to live forever not understanding the complexities of life and what if this “life� is simply a story we pass on before starting again and we add it all up like a mirage of signals that send the action potential through our heads we ramble and run on and on and on in a continuous blurb of hopelessness without saying a single word and what if I end this the way you don’t want me to And.

18 | Perception

Shroom zuzanna mlynarczyk Fall 2020 | 19

On Parole melina iavarone Setting aside the tears and frustration I can vaguely remember the smell of fresh air But the memory of suffocation Tells me, “don’t you dare” Only God Himself could stop me From abandoning this dreadful place I’d like to be where the sunshine meets the sea Want to race?

But now the sun is hanging by a thread It will drop and shatter, wherever it lands I think I’ll wrap my fingers around it instead Though I’m afraid it will burst inside my hands Is a risk a photograph? I’ve taken far too many But fear is what holds us hostage And believe me I’m no inmate.

20 | Perception

Westcott & Dell, 4:32 P.M. Cade Kaminsky At least that’s what my watch read While I waited for the bus I knew was Going to be late yet again.

Across the street, I saw two boys Pluck pure, unfiltered snow From the filthy ground and stride over to New Garden Chinese Takeout (NGCT).

With a fling of the door, the duo Hurled the ammunition without Mercy or warning into the shop Before making a not so swift getaway, As the second boy slipped in the ice.

He wasn’t hurt. He ran on, patting his ass I laughed, heartily, at the boys’ mischief and Low-level delinquency born of Mutual chaos and the need to have a good laugh.

When the Madam proprietor of the Joint came out, calmly and icily, phone In a blue otter box in hand, I shouted “Hey! The shits went down there.” from across the way.

She took snapshots of the fleeting flyers And went back to assess the damage.

Even as the cold air scraped at my cheeks, I felt some weird warmth playing both sides. *** The man who waited with me at The bus stop looked almost shocked At the visible pleasure on my face From my endeavor, almost incredulously, and With a hint of disdain and judgment.

This, of course, being the same man who Mere moments later stuck his freshly-lit Newport on a potted plant.

Fall 2020 | 21

On the Corner Gabrielle M. Borgia 22 | Perception

on retroactivity Jennifer Glass sometimes I find myself halfway curled around materiality, my brain a cloud to hold the mist in.

I don’t worry if I should mention this when they ask me for spiraled scrapbooks and postcards. to me this cloud I took home in a doggy bag. often the memories grow tart, salt shaker, match on the side of my pillowcase. when you stare at a photograph until the background becomes familiar: can’t place the focal point, blurry among the foliage. because truthfully 5 months all still watercolor: the French bread in the autumnal kitchen with the Canadien high schooler, 5’3, off to Europe for a year, so brash, so uninhibited; the gnocchi, six glasses of wine, blaring alarm clocks, headaches; the curling of the Sehnsucht around the fairy lights, forced the consonants on my tongue like split pea, blend in and soak; the slanted sidewalks of the secondhand shops who greeted me with bienvenida, but who kept time charts: who lied about their recurring emails; here, I am a snow angel. Here, I live in the margins. when I am home, my family gifts me a photo album.

I fill only 50 of the 60 pages the others are use-proof. when I try it all looks so foggy, the colors look so dull next to the others. now it’s looping songs that wore out so long ago.

Shudder enough and they sound new.

I wonder if it is okay to hold up my mind’s cache like siblings competing for who grows fastest.

I never knew I’d get this tall—suddenly, I am so focused on how romantic the world looks from this angle.

Like moonbeams and cigarettes.

Fall 2020 | 23

One Sea, Two Views Yasmin Nayrouz I was by the sea When she asked me What do I see I see water and sunshine and a never-ending horizon But she viewed the sea much differently than me She saw the waves like flames The darkness of its depth and the fear of being lost I asked her why She began to cry with a different lens on her eye Each teardrop added to the waves her vision blurry—a haze silver dripping down her face I wiped her eyes to help her see There is beauty in this unforgiving sea

24 | Perception

Sunset on the Edge of Heaven Gabrielle M. Borgia Fall 2020 | 25

Autumn 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 Eli Manning 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.

26 | Perception

I Almost Cried Today Gina Trejo

Today I was in the car listening to public radio and I wanted to cr y. I listened to what the entiret y of the global population is enduring: teachers on screens, planes on the ground, teens attempting to leave their mortality at the foot of their childhood beds. I almost cried, but I felt the tears that were welled up in my eyes fighting back against whatever force it is that would have made them roll down my cheeks and into the creases of my nose. Like a child doing everything they can on the first day of preschool to not let go of Mommy’s leg, my tears stayed inside my eyes in fear of entering a pandemic. I swear the tears whispered to one another, I better get paid for this and I’ve heard about the market.

I wanted to shake the tears out of my eyes. I wanted to drain them like dirty bathwater. I wanted to cry. I could have been a driving hazard, eyes clouded up with tears. If I had caused an accident next to the lake, it would have been just another tragedy sitting on top of the world’s pain. I gripped the steering wheel harder. The news anchor said, In other news, but at the end of each story, she asks And how has coronavirus affected this operation? or What would this look like if we weren’t in lockdown? So, it’s all in the same news. And it’s all on the radio, blasting out to the informed citizens of the world. And all the informed citizens are gripping their steering wheels. They don’t have it the worst. I don’t have it the worst. I’m living through it, but what does my inability to get out of bed in the morning mean to the world? I almost cried today, but I couldn’t.

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Toothpick Mark Jankowski

28 | Perception

How "i love you' Really Feels Zoya Davis stop using me like some cheap whore whose number belongs on a bathroom stall above the glory hole no, you probably don’t love him, or her, or....that stop confusing me with my sister, "i love that thing you do with your mouth" or my cousin, "i love how you make me feel" please refrain from using me on the first date or 50 times in the 10 voicemails you'll leave your ex after the 5th bad breakup stop using me as a pick up line for losing your virginity, i don’t like to be mistaken for, " I’m desperate and horny" instead save me for the 2 am poetr y and sleepless nights of realization save me for the days when you wake up and are confronted by an unforgiving mirror save me for the spontaneous first kisses or the hundredth kiss avoid using me during those Ben and Jerry's at 12 am nights to the boy who broke your heart over and over again instead, find me in the whisper of a friend who knows how too good you are for him anyway and then replace me with "i hate you" when you block his number try to use the other billion nouns in the world when you find yourself captivated by your endless collection of playboy Fall 2020 | 29

don’t waste me on the first girl you see naked or the second, or the third instead, wrap me up and place me in the center of the palm of your best friend since first grade write me a dozen and one times in a hand written letter to your mother after your first week of college put me to adjectival use as you describe the curve of his lips when he sleeps or her infinite eyelashes combing at your chest. murmur me, almost incoherently into the hair of the girl who’s loved you since middle school then forget to write me on the note by her bedside table when you leave before the sun kisses the sky the next morning hold on to me like pocket change and expend me cautiously because one day when you need the comfort of my syllables or the certainty of my letters I’ll be long gone, escaped from the breath within your bones and caught in the ears of those who weren’t listening

30 | Perception

Vulnerable melina iavarone exposed nothing is guaranteed, but there is faith in what I’ve composed no protection. no armor. no shield. it is an undeniable risk, do not blame me when I yield step by step, a layer at a time I begin to commit what feels like a crime pounding heart, beating faster than the speed of light as the words sail out, my throat grows tight the key has rotated, a treasure chest unlocked I have opened the door you knocked tattered & torn, visible are my scars revealing one’s pain is rare like shooting stars the butterflies that once fluttered deep have soared off my lips, with my secrets I now see that intimacy is what transparency emits because a naked body alights a flame but a naked soul ignites the fire.

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I Have Nightmares Too melina iavarone 32 | Perception

Butterflies Julia Cleo Fisher A lot is transmitted through symbols at the perinatal ward. A pink star on the door, only females can enter. Mother having trouble breastfeeding? Look for a flower. Rainbow? A miracle baby after a death. Lately it’s been different. Isolation precautions; endless slips of purple paper. Not the worst thing ever. The worst thing is the picture with butterflies. Especially knowing that the mother had COVID-19 and a lung problem and that her birth was traumatic and, fuck, I just saw the baby yesterday. It passed its hearing test and I thought the mother was discharged, she was fine, why are there butterflies on the door if she was okay, she was recovering?

Her baby did not recover.

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Orange Flowers Yasmin Nayrouz Orange flowers shine in a dull room— In a cracked, ivory vase, dust gathers by noon.

Soft petals lathered in sunshine.

She carefully waters the flowers, Makes sure they get enough light, Feeds them with love—although she’s deprived.

Her mind is lost and wanders in dark caverns; She holds a torch made up of orange flowers.

Her grip on the waxy stems, strong like death.

Aimlessly wandering the depths of her mind.

Reality—she aimlessly wanders her house, Filled with memories she’d rather forget.

Except the flowers Which burn like fire.

Taken care of more than herself, In a shrine on the top shelf, People whisper and laugh: It’s a waste of time—a distraction—an illusion.

A memory of her past that will fill her future.

Never giving up or doubting the flames of the flowers.

It burns within her, Tends to its fire and feeds it with her breath.

Orange flowers shine in a dark mind, Its truth she can’t deny, Guiding the way to an exit she knows will appear— Orange petals trailing behind, Like fire fluttering to ashes.

Who has the courage To pick them up, To make flowers reborn?

Hope is its name, A never-ending cycle of flame, 34 | Perception

As it dies out in one, it ignites in another.

It withers on graves, But blossoms in the heart of the troubled.

Fall 2020 | 35

little turtle Noor Zamamiri

36 | Perception

Ole Faithful Gina Trejo There’s a dread that overcomes me in the last thirty pages of a good book. And when I see the muted green-blue of old glass. And when I reach the border of my neighborhood on a long walk. And when I lay my head down, ready to talk the night away with my love, but sleep interjects my every other thought. I adore the beginnings of those times, deeply rooted in the end of the middle. But the coattails of those times mark the end. Where they start in the bliss of no conflict, they turn over and show me what can come next. Like a touch-screen menu at a fast-food restaurant, it asks if I want to feel the next consequence in ten minutes or ten hours. It says that I can’t be living a human life without the next problem inching its way toward me. A no-standing zone on the edge of a cliff. “Ole Faithful” is what I call this purgatory-like time. Except that it’s backwards, not like getting into heaven, but like an old car. It got me this far, Ole Faithful did. Its slick leather seats and fresh steel-blue paint job drove me two-hundred-thousand miles and gave me countless memories. My first parking ticket. The loss of my car virginity. The last time I saw home before it was torn down. And right in that moment when the engine is purring, cooing at me with love songs, and when the leather has folded itself and knelt at the curves of my thighs, I see the check engine light come on. It had to happen, but did it have to happen to Ole Faithful? It had to happen at some point, but why when this momentary bliss just pressed its lips to my cheek? Before I can even feel the puckering of that kiss and hear the snap of love on my face, it all melts away and a problem takes root.

Like a weed, the problem doesn’t let me think of what I just lost, but how to fix what’s at hand. A no-turning back zone, a “be happy you’re alive to even start a new book, look at more glass, go on a new walk, or lay down to sleep assuming the first thing you’ll see in the morning is your love’s face waiting to feel it all again with you” zone. I dread the moment where I step back and see all those forces swirling around me before I am sucked back in to living.

Fall 2020 | 37

Wood Sameeha Saied I wander aimlessly One summer night, Streetlights behind me, Warming the aegean lace on my back.

Ahead, cedar branches cradle darkness.

Porcelain zephyr bites my cheekbones.

I stand idle, trapped between frost and ember.

With fisted hands and a misplaced breath, I treat forward.

Five paces ahead, I come to a clearing.

Streaks of jasmine sever the pine darkness.

To the right, a small cascade Joins with a narrow stream.

Jagged, moss-smothered rocks Escort pellucid water downstream, Placating it until the white filters deep blue.

Maroon-painted toes step with haste Across the greensward.

The still air vibrates from a susurration.

My ebony hair lashes my cheek With the force of my neck.

Against a tree trunk sits an agouti rabbit.

Round, hickory eyes level with my own.

I cannot tell which are covered in moisture.

I tear my irises away.

Stepping cautiously, I cross the clearing, Bending toward the stream.

My right hand disappears into the blue, One finger at a time.

38 | Perception

Liquid ice crawls up my arm, Inching closer to the center of my chest.

I catch a glimpse of a face in the water.

A round, sienna face, Lawless curls, Sable, almond-shaped eyes, Empty and unforgiving.

Just as the ice licks my heartbeat, I recoil.

The hoot of an owl ricochets off the branches, Its hallow hands slipping up my throat, Pressing in.

My head tilts upward, Eyebrows furrowing.

I see a raven swirling overhead, Its onyx feathers reflecting a deep blue.

Following its path is a tawny viceroy.

Its wings accelerated, they match pace As though they are tethered together.

The sonic hands continue to tighten And I am overcome with horripilation.

With a clarion exhale, I dip my foot into the stream.

I lay flat and still, Eyes screwed shut.

The ice circumvallates.

Fall 2020 | 39

Scuttle Tree Mark Jankowski

40 | Perception

The Owl Cade Kaminsky On New Year’s Eve, I sat on my customary chair On my porch of worn wood with a glass of red wine When out of the dead of night A sign of life, on tawny, motley wings A Horned Owl perched on the gnarled oak that umbrellaed my abode.

He glared through my soul with gold eyes of conviction.

He did not utter a sound nor a hoot But instead gazed at me like an old friend From a past life, one that was Far better for us both.

“Hello,” I whispered.

“I’m happy to see you. It’s been so long.”

He just stared at me.

Born of the strangest of temptations, I began to sing to the owl A Japanese lullaby my mother used to sing to me The owl still did not respond But instead swooped down, talons out Aimed at my eyes before pulling up and Disappearing into the cavalcade of stars, His percussive wings beating against the wind.

Where my winged friend flew off to In that moment is still a mystery to me-He vanished into a vortex of darkness Going higher and higher with every wingbeat Leaving me hopeless on the Earth and Forbidden from Heaven Which I have come to accept Is my ultimate destiny.

The wonder of the owl’s moonsong Haunted me moments later.

Shameful though- it would be a melody Fall 2020 | 41

Too ornamental and spiritual to recall Later in my life.

But I wouldn’t have to.

Taking his perch back like a warlord Victorious after veritably vicious crusades, The owl returns and stares at me once again, But his bright yellow eyes Carried something else: a message with a truth As he spread his wings beneath the moon’s shade They seemed to beckon for me to react, To learn something I needed to heed and to repent.

“I understand now,” I called to him.

The owl closed his eyes, folded his wings and Dove to the porch railing, talons seeping into the worn wood.

“You ruined it…forever," the owl whispered in my ear Before flying back into the night To be seen nevermore Leaving snow swirls Around my face, and newly formed Scars toughening up around my heart Just as the clock struck midnight

42 | Perception

Walking by the Pond Gina Trejo

She went for a walk. Just something quick enough not to sweat or ache, but long enough to make a dent in her book. She wanted to walk along the lakefront, that blue-green lake expansive enough, to her, to be an ocean. That Tuesday afternoon was to be dedicated to the easy scent of gasoline and slight fish. She wanted to hold the book in front of her face so that the corners of the pages would flap with the wind, so that she could create a physical barrier with words—chaotic peace of nature on one side and chaotic peace of mind on the other. But the water level was too high and the path she would have walked was submerged in a more blue-gray colored water. She opted for a pond behind the museum.

Down at the museum, that elusive historical site decorated with Roman women and hissing cats, she saw too much for reading to be peaceful. She saw two adults crouching and pounding their fists on the cement of a parking lot. They said Fuck You and the Gimme More to each other, occasionally taking their movements to one another’s backs or their own heads. She saw an older man taking photos of a heron at the pond. He hid behind a camera, headphones, a hat, sunglasses, and a mask. She wondered if that bird were truly just a piece of wonder for the man’s lens, or if the bird felt his space was being encroached upon by a spy. The bird flew away. Then, at the abandoned steps behind six large women holding up the old doorway, she saw weeds poking through the stones of the ground in a pattern. She wanted to pull each weed separately, but what would those stone women have said? I’m growing those, one would have lamented. I’m glad those are finally gone…an eyesore! another would have retorted. The girl just sat on a step, in the perfect three-foot space free of goose droppings. She opened her book, and read a single line. Before she could read on, she saw four or five men in white tank-tops dancing and laughing underneath the pond’s bridge. One man was on the other side, pushing a couch into the water to see if it would float. She watched him struggle to get a leg up and over a large tree root. He put the couch in. When the man sat on the couch, it floated for about ten seconds. Then sank down, lower and lower till the man had to climb out of the water.

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His friends laughed, said he got his daily bath then implored him to come over to their side.

The men quieted down, presumably telling stories to pass the day, and she tried to read more. It was no use. The stone women were staring, the weeds were nagging, and the lily pads curled up against themselves when the wind blew eastward. She decided to keep walking. She attempted to go around the pond, but the bustle of traffic going into the city, just next to what seemed to be a slice of a world outside the metropolis, made her uneasy. Vehicles careened toward her on the curved road, the grinding of engines filled her ears. But when the red light hit and no cars came past, the silence of the pond made her want to throw up. She took two steps forward, saw the green light flick back on, and walked back with the hum of the traffic. She greeted more stone women with her eyes. Some of them rested on their right legs, some on their left, but they all had long ringlets flowing down their shoulders. She touched her own hair, thin and limp—it would never be longer than where she had it at her jaw, and she would never be forty feet tall. How easy it must be to walk across a city and find somewhere to read when you are forty feet tall. If you can’t see anything, people might just get out of your way and give you their seats.

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Drive Olga Shydlonok Fall 2020 | 45

Went to a better place Patrick Lee A bright incandescent glow greets me.

I feel my eyes flicker back and forth a rhythmic beat louder than the bass drum scorching triplets.

My heart has a similar ferocity ringing a single tone.

“Where am I?” Reality hits briefly, then fleets away like snow bursting in the wind.

Life can be short; we have our time to make it great before the final drop hits our eyes and we wander into the unknown.

I remember now…

Everything makes sense.

I have the munchies, but there’s nothing left in this fridge.

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Watching Your Hands Maya Gelsi near me: their steep creased cathedral peaks,

narrow alleys of holy stone, cool dense earth

and its hard-shelled creatures, Heat unveils me, strips my

face bare of detachment, Eyes on palms—

which seem to encase crystal, the dream-joints of

steady airy evergreen, birds singing singing in old wood barns, your hands,

bone-flashes on dark ocean, dancing close to my hands, and

our fingers love each other like flames.

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Equal melina iavarone 52 | Perception

A Lesson on Anatomy Zoya Davis Your hands, calloused at your fingertips grew softer within your palms Your chest, broad and bold like the moon, with a humble crater in the middle shaped almost exactly like the outline of my head Your arms, a string of veins extending, looping, curving as if they were trying to run away from your blood Your body a fountain of discovery for my parched lips I watch my fingertips trace the crevices over your skin, Over the arch in your back and down the dip in your spine, Across the vast ocean held within the plunge of your collarbones And past the endless blushing horizon of your clavicle To your ribcage, each connecting bone a highway of accelerating comets, You defied the basic principles of physics With every ragged breath you expanded, taking in the universe, taking in me The two were directly proportional, as the world around you lessened so did i I fell apart, not all at once, but gradually, grain by grain , atom by atom Every electron for every proton, You were almost infinite, Your infinity being inversely proportional to my lack of You were the love story I had and wasn’t sure I wanted

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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 Brick and mortar 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

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Olga Shydlonok

Be Still

Auf Wiedersehen or not Julia Cleo Fisher Loss feels like we’re leav ing Austria and t he empt y seat nex t to me aches.

Mentally, physically, dry-heaving against the swaying of the train.

The ligaments holding me together tugged apart from all that I have worked for—bare and crushed. Grüß Gott. Vielen Dank. I can’t read, won’t read the email in front of me that I cannot understand.

Haven’t I waited long enough to leave you? Anxiety in every train station switch. Barred from Switzerland, delayed because of a suicide a splattered body across the steel that leaves us huddled in the Nacht—four hours late, four months too early, sure, ja, the bombs dog can search my bag and paw through my underwear— take some for the road along with your M4. so many „angenehme Reise”s fuck you. Edelweiß tattooing across my Gehirn and shaky Schlaf studded, shredded Seele. Ich vermisse dich. The Newark attendant greets in English and I forget my own name.

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Where to Go? Yasmin Nayrouz Broken English Broken dreams A heart of hope A heart of love; Journeys you would never believe— For an education, Finding an occupation, To be out of harm’s way.

Bye to the motherland, Hello, America!

I expected Miss Liberty’s torch To blaze with warmth, Instead, eyes burned with hate.

I did nothing wrong.

Haven’t you heard all the songs?

The land of opportunity, Yet I’m under constant scrutiny.

Where can a shattered soul go?

If the land of dreams says no— If the land of the free jails them.

Where can a father with empty pockets go?

If a drone hits his home, And a statistic he becomes.

Where can a daughter go?

Who fears the streets at night And journeys in hope of a light.

They do not beg to leave home But ask to be welcomed.

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The world belongs to no one The world belongs to everyone.

Make room.

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DANCE Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan Fall 2020 | 59

An American Nightmare Brandon Clesen

A child adopted, born in Guatemala, emerging from poverty, reached the new world, supposedly holding the secret to contentment and freedom: the American Dream. His mother said he was “the smallest child who slept all throughout the flight”. As he was brought into this country on Independence Day, each year the fireworks would go ablaze above his home; he would watch and credit them as a celebration of his acceptance into the United States.

As the child grew up, he found himself at odds with the others in his family: for his skin did not match theirs. Every time he saw a relative, they would compliment the darkened pigment, wishing they could trade. They would say, “You’re so lucky that you never have to tan” or “Your skin is so much better.” Confusion pestered him after they made these comments; why did they want his skin type and not their own? The boy questioned his color, as he believed they were trying to comfort him on having an undesirable look. He never asked for them to clarify though, as their comments made him uncomfortable on the notion something was wrong with him. Could they read his mind or identify his disdain for his color?

He soon faced the true American Dream, the desire to conform.

Curiosity rose to a degree where he could not contain questions on his heritage. To give the child what he desired, the mother bought a small book entitled, “Trouble Dolls: A Guatemalan Legend”. In this beautifully colored book, tiny figures, crafted by pressed paper and decorated by pieces of wool, were placed along with their story. They claimed to take your worries away if you whispered your secrets to them and then hid the dolls under your pillow. By morning, all your problems would be gone, taken by your new friends during the night. The boy would say his prayer, nestle into his Scooby Doo covers, and hide the dolls under his pillow.

He claimed that they worked, his childish fears had vanished the following night. Yet, as the days passed, his worries seemed to be too powerful for his little friends. He experienced a sense of embarrassment, as how could he put all his trust in paper toys.

He felt ashamed of his own heritage since their customs could not resolve his growing discomfort in his racial background. The boy 60 | Perception

grabbed that piece of himself and set it on his bookshelf, where it proceeds to collect dust.

The child entered grade school, where the dissimilarity became clear. While, in the past, his family would make remarks on his skin color (to make him feel proud), he never realized how different he was from everybody else. However, it became known to him through some children remarking on how he looked different from the rest of the children. On one occasion in the fourth grade, the students learned about the Civil War. One child remarked how they should ask Brandon for his opinion of the matter, since he was the only child of color. It had become officially apparent that he would never look like them. The discomfort rested in him for many days. The boy began to realize how, in many instances, he had been treated differently. Often, people would stare at him as he held hands with his mom. At restaurants and stores, individuals would ask if his parents were babysitting. Since he was one of four nonwhite kids, he stood out in the neighborhood. Everywhere he went, people would just stare at him like he was an oddity. In church, a group of older women would whisper and tell each other to clutch their purses, “Just in case.� He promised himself that he would become them. He would mimic their behavior and customs. He would no longer be the kid born in Guatemala; the child wanted to be reborn in America.

He talked like them, acted like them, he became them.

The boy forgot his Guatemalan heritage. He assimilated with the customs of his friends and family. He pretended he could not tell the difference between his white friends and himself. The child no longer exhibited any connections to his heritage so there was nothing for him to be ashamed of anymore. He thought he would never be hurt again. He was the American he dreamed of being.

Now on Independence Day, he celebrates, with grilled foods and sparkling fireworks, the true American Dream: assimilation. For, even though some may never see me as a flesh and blood citizen, I am America’s dream.

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The Solution Patrick Lee We lost again—a fall down the dark valley where sanity and morning make no sense, only chaos and mourning bear a sound.

Of fearful moments the storm clouds gather, thunder roars but no lightning can be found, no path of light… we went under the waves.

There lies a grave we can fall in, or, bury our troubles.

I know which choice I would choose.

I fell for you and do not want condolences.

I only seek love… you.

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BONES Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan Fall 2020 | 63

Guilty Julia Cleo Fisher One Overlapping day off But your arm was there Bare chest bearing dried tears Falling I slept colored dreams chasing anxiety adventure uncertainty I am sure your arm was bent crooked wrong numb I am sure this was not what you had in mind our one overlapping day off But your arm was there I slept head floating on dried tears And you were there I was there you are here.

I think this is a bit of what love looks like.

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"Feeling a little nostalgic/Do you want to hear it?"

Zoya Davis You didn’t give me any time Any warning, no flashing red and blue lights No whistling siren to follow in the distance, Not a sound where your body erupted from the ocean bed and crashed down above my head like unruly waves at 3 am no, you didn’t give me any time any time to hastily gather up our last nightly conversations the ones where we shed our coffee and skim milk skin, voluntarily exposing our bones to the wind, flesh raw and bare, souls bruised, minds cloudy as the morning after a late night with our friends Jack and Daniel no time to tuck your last words within the slight crack you left on my skin the day you left me no time to quickly hide the sudden glances to stole, before you took that away from me too, the ones where your eyes caressed mine, almost weary but not enough tear for me to notice no time to tur n off the lamp before the lampshade unfairly displayed the shadow of your slender figure against my walls, as if to say, I could turn you off but never turn you away no time no time to un-see, to un-know, to un-feel to un-love you Fall 2020 | 65

no time before your words broke the floor between my toes and your face tore threw my brain, oh, but you were skilled you performed an unprofessional lobotomy without morphine revealing the mis-firing neurons that were not used to your absence just yet no time or maybe you did and I just didn’t allow myself to look hard enough I didn’t see that you were stained glass, weakened from too much sun in a place that required a little too much praise I didn’t notice that you were gentle porcelain, delicate china The kind your mother took out and tenderly wiped down once a year I didn’t see that you required so much more maintenance I didn’t see that you were broken And you didn’t see that I couldn’t fix you But after all we all know light travels faster than sound And I did see your eyes that used to be my lighthouse flicker then decease long before I heard your goodbyes But I told you I hated you way before my heart meant it, the light trapped within the dents of my soul shone just a little too bright for your eyes; weak from receding into the darkness you let build a home inside you with a lease you couldn’t quite break You said I was too good for you As if to ignore that you were once the only good in me And yes I imagined you in me In more ways than one, you took root into my earth, convincing me you’d stay a little while and let me count your tree rings 66 | Perception

but instead of reliable soil you settled for loose uncertain sand, and though a lightning strike could mold you into beautiful crystalline geometry I wasn’t enough to set you on fire Like metal against metal Scraping to see who erodes the most, Who ruins whom first?

You won So, To let you know that I’m alive More or less But more so the latter I just wrote a poem about you Do you want to hear it?

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Born Again melina iavarone 68 | Perception

Today, Yesterday, Tomorrow Brandon Clesen

Today, I stand in a pasture of trampled grass. The baseball field, where children giggle and throw their feet from one base to the next, stands in my peripheral vision. The school also rests there.

Its brick exterior welcomes the children as they tread into the doors of their overpopulated institution. A red playground once faced me, now gone and demolished with time. A fence, cold with its steel frame, faces me today.

Yesterday, a small boy, with midnight black hair and a scrawny frame, dashed passed me, grinning at the prospect of beginning another adventure. He leapt up onto the black platform.

Would he glide down the pole, slip down the slide, or attempt the monkey bars? He did not know nor did he care. He was only awaiting friends to begin another game of tag. His brother arrived after ambling from their home nearby. Two young children, a boy and girl, both slim with blue eyes and brunette hair, sauntered from their home across the street from the playground. They greeted each other with warmth, believing their friendship would last forever. The kids dashed around the frame of the site where their imaginations could run wild and free. Laughter and unintelligible speech under their heavy breathing punctured the humid air of the summer day. Playing for hours, they began to settle and departed with goodbyes from that evening. The boy wandered home beside his brother gasping from exhaustion, praying to the hot summer day that this play and happiness would last forever. I wonder if he is disappointed in me.

Yesterday, the boy came back along with the girl, both having grown a few inches. Proceeding to the park, they brought a new girl: long brunette hair with touches of a reddish undertone hinted at by the sun’s beams caressing it, with a lacrosse stick in her right hand. They did not proceed to the playground, as that was too childish for young adults; rather, they turned to the school’s wall next to it, throwing a ball, bashing it against the brick. Their feet skidded across the burning pavement as they raced each other for the ball. They laughed and muttered secrets, allowed only for their ears. The boy glanced at his two best friends whilst one girl rushed Fall 2020 | 69

to catch the ball, unable to catch it on her first attempt. He hoped that this would last forever. I hope so as well.

Yesterday, I stood in the pasture alone, the quietness deafening my ears with isolation. My eyes were alerted by a car blaring music for all to hear. The boy, in the backseat, sang to the tune materializing from the radio; the two girls joined in, jostling their bodies within the seats to the rhythm. One girl, taken from the moment, grabbed onto the steering wheel to once again maintain control. Where could they go? Anywhere, I suppose. They had liberty to be free, to enjoy life’s moments together. The boy’s attention gravitated towards the park outside his window. He remembered how the plot would be demolished soon but he gave no further thought to it. The boy and girls established their own playground within the musty 2005 Mazda hatchback: a sanctuary for their freedom to run wild. The boy stared out at his yesterday knowing this will endlessly occur. I know he is right.

Tomorrow, I will no longer stand here. The cold fence, guarding the construction of a new green-colored playground, will let down its frame. The piles of dirt will be compacted back into the earth, setting a foundation for memories to be formed by the next generation. New children will begin grand adventures on the erected swings, monkey bars, and slides. Those memories will stay with them, as mine, too, shall last.

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My Never Goodbye Yasmin Nayrouz I say goodbye Yet don’t cry And wonder why Do I not love you?

No— This is not our end No tears to drown our future Dry eyes knowing There will be another time I collect my thoughts and wonder What is this new life— Oh world of possibilities Please be kind My eyes have not cried But my heart sighs With worries for tomorrow I do not cry— Why? Because you will be there to ease my worries I miss you But I crave independence To learn my own lessons And begin to count my blessings Starting with you My never goodbye

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let's make abigail remember her suffering but make it pretty Noor Zamamiri

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Paying Attention Camille Daniels Don’t’ stop, don’t breathe, Just keep going, Go to school, land a job, just keep going, But can’t land a job, or start a career, Taking anything just to hold on. Thanks, Great Recession, Just keeping going.

Feeling empty for every job I take, feeling unconnected to what I do, Just keep going.

Never remain in one space, Just keep going, Get another degree, ignore the debt, Then a pandemic hits, Better believe it will all make sense, Just keep going.

Don’t stop, don’t breathe, Just keep going.

The air is polluted, It won’t help you, You’re not good enough, that’s why they don’t want you.

You’re crazy to think that this will work, Why would it?

Why would anything?

Just keep going.

Go, where? I don’t know, But you what? You know that, you must keep going.

Stopping is not an option, Look at how much time has past, You’re running out of time in your “youth,” Just keep going, Nothing is going the way it is supposed to go, Just keep going, Never stop, never question, just keep going.

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ROADS Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan 74 | Perception

Quarantine Julia Cleo Fisher I can’t focus.

I can’t listen.

I cannot stand another goddamn minute of holding up the weight of a Facetime call.

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Lying in the Grave so Long David Chappell Hang me, oh hang me, And I’ll be dead and gone.

Wouldn’t mind the hangin’ But the lyin’ in the grave so long, Poor boy…

I been all around this world.

They always said my head was too big. Extra large hats and stretched shirt necks ran in the family, on my pa’s side, and so did curiosity. The earth turned too slowly for pa. He must have thought his feet could make it spin faster, get him more days and nights than he was entitled to. Nobody could get him to sit still, let alone settle down and raise me. Not even the all-new twentieth century could scare my pa. He said he loved to watch Life change her clothes and traveled around the world to enjoy the peep show. Grandpa Wilbur said big heads explained a lot of things.

I grew up mostly with my ma’s parents, the Wilburs, because she died just after I was born. Complications, they told me when they thought I was old enough to understand a halftruth. What’s so complicated about death? My pa figured it was simple enough. He lived as if it were breathing in his ear, as if every morning might be his last. After my ma died, he gave up milking other people’s cows and joined the navy, finally wound up in a war over in the Philippines and sank the whole Spanish fleet.

He kept right on sailing after that, as a civilian, a reckless farm boy ploughing the seas of the Far East aboard a rusty prow, a hired hand turned pirate raiding the ports of Hong Kong and Bombay and Zanzibar. With his energ y, he could have built a pyramid or straightened out the Great Wall of China, if he’d had the patience to finish the job. Pa said the world was a huge carnival that each of us was given a ticket to at birth. Why waste what was free?

Grandpa Wilbur always told me nothing was free. He sat in his stuffed chair as his maid poured his tea and explained that work was the key to success. If everyone did just as he pleased, who would grow the food, who would raise the babies, who would build the houses, who would bury the dead? Two lumps, please. Grandma 76 | Perception

said the very same thing, as if her husband were a ventriloquist.

And why not? She worked her servants as hard as it took to keep the mansion fit for decent folk. She worked them so hard it tired her out, so she needed a stuffed chair and a cup of tea too. Two lumps, thank you. I knew the kindly servants better than their two bosses, except on special occasions.

Wilbur heads looked normal enough, all right, but they lived in a house big enough for six families and did nothing to earn it, as far as I could tell. Grandpa Wilbur had done only one thing in his life. He got an idea and sold it. That simple. People paid him enough for it for him to pay other people to do all his work. He got fat and lazy and preached the Protestant ethic to me all my life. He even claimed that my pa would up and disappear for good one of these days and nobody would be there to bury him.

Old Wilbur was an expert on bur ying. That idea he’d gotten, which made him so wealthy because there never was a lack of need for it, was coffins. Not your plain pine boxes, mind you, but deluxe, plush, gift-wrapped coffins to comfort the dead in their long slumber. He’d founded the American Casket Company and made millions off the sorrow of the rich and their imitators.

I tried to imagine, as I sat in my stale-smelling room next to the servants’ quarters, the life that pa led. I kept a map on my wall of all the places I thought he had visited and read whatever I could about them, aloud, to a picture of my ma. She seemed to smile back knowingly from the cracked, yellowing photograph in which she remained forever young and pretty and proud, like a flower determined to survive the winter. Grandma Wilbur said my ma had been very bright and educated, had met pa when she lived with his relatives and had taught in a country one-room school for the kids of dairy farmers.

The Wilburs always grew sad when they talked about her leaving home. They rarely left their heavily curtained and carpeted mausoleum themselves, except to play croquet on the vast, hedge-lined back lawn. Grandpa wanted me to go to college, study business and marry some smart woman who’d say yes to me in five languages, two of them dead, settle down and bury whoever outlasted him.

Pa came back to see me sometimes, drunk and loud and ready to argue with Old Wilbur. I used to hide in the garden while they hashed out the secrets of life at the top of their lungs. When the older man was exhausted, pa would call me over to him and tell Fall 2020 | 77

me how he had seen people who just burned each other’s corpses in a pile of logs. They bent over the arms and legs as they cooked so the body would burn better, then dumped the ashes in the water to float away in a river in India. Indecent, Wilbur huffed with a shaky teacup hand.

Pa told me all sorts of things I could never find in books.

For example, some people wipe their butts by washing them with their left hands, and the best way to tell women from men dressed as women is by the size of their Adam’s apples. He told me that people in China stick bamboo poles through the arms of their shirts and the legs of their trousers and hang the wash out the window over the street to drip dry. Up pa would jump like a magician clown and bring the far corners of the planet to life right there in front of me.

The Wilburs complained that I was only interested in geography and rode my bicycle too far off. My head was just as big as pa’s, they said, especially when I insisted on continuing to see him even after they tried to shut him out of their perfect peace for good. How could I help daydreaming about his exotic adventures?

My fishbowl existence was only preparation for the coffin, Old Wilbur’s inevitable triumph over everyone else.

I felt like a parasite supported by a leech and asked ma every night what to do. Once, on Father’s Day, pa whistled to me from the meadow outside my window. I snuck out to meet him and saw that he was limping. He said he’d been wounded in a knife fight on Bugis Street in Singapore and hadn’t walked right since. He said he was getting tired, too, worn out from so much wandering.

I sat next to him under a big elm tree and a full moon, and watched the breeze pet the restless grasses as if they were dog’s fur.

“But pa, how can you get enough of traveling?”

His eyes, already red from whisky, got moist. “You know, this tree reminds me of one I sat under in Panama once, a leafy giant that fought off the tropical heat for me. Suddenly I realized I was a fool to sail halfway around the world looking for shade when I could get it right here!”

“What started you sailing in the first place?”

He studied my wide face with a level gaze. “Because I was lonely, I guess. I’ve never found a home as fine and safe as your ma’s love.”

“You mean you’ve roamed all over just to find her again?”

“Maybe,” he shrugged. “Maybe to escape her.”

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I started to cry. “I don’t understand. How can you do so much living over somebody’s dying?”

He didn’t say a thing after that, just picked up a rock and threw that sucker as far as he could. We never even heard it come down.

Grandpa Wilbur came to life all of a sudden when he bought a motorcar. It was shiny and noisy and the first in our valley.

A man in a white overcoat and goggles and hat and gloves and rubber boots delivered it almost in person and drove us everywhere.

Grandma stuck her feet out the back passenger door, just in case she had to jump. People ran in terror, geese honked and Jacobs the shopkeeper’s horse reared up and dumped his wagon of freshbought milk and eggs into a ditch.

Gra ndpa Wi lbur laughed l i ke a baby a nd poi nted at everything for Grandma, who kept her eyes closed most of the time next to me. From the top of the meadow we looked through the exhaust smoke and radiator steam at the whole dairy farm hollow and Old Wilbur cackled, “Praise God, they will really hate me now!”

We got out and watched as he took the wheel himself, swerved off the road at high speed, hit a cow and flew through the air into the elm tree trunk and split his skull.

Grandma said most of the money was hers, but I could have enough to go for a college education and then some. I found pa living with a waitress in sin on the edge of town and offered him my share. He stared his woman out of the room and opened a couple of warm beers for us. First we drank to Old Wilbur, all packaged up in one of his own coffins, and laughed about that. Then pa got serious.

“You take that money and go to college. Your ma was educated. Smart as a preacher, she was.”

“I’m joining the navy to see the world, pa.”

Pa seemed shocked, then slapped his knee and laughed again. “I’ll be tied up and civilized—your head’s as big as mine, all right.”

I heard t he woman snoring loudly t hrough t he plasterboard wall. “You going to marry her, pa? Do you love her?”

“I can’t rightly decide. She works nights and I work days.”

I grabbed his wrist and looked him right in the eye. “Take my money and buy a farm and build a marriage, pa, so I’ll have a home to come back to after I sail the seven seas. Please?”

He stood up and looked out the screen door at a freight train that came up fast and roared by for a few minutes. The late Fall 2020 | 79

afternoon light flickered across his balding, swollen bank of memories. “I never owned a farm before,” he smiled, “just worked for other folks. O.K. son, you’ll always be welcome.” He and I hugged heads.

I stayed in town long enough to be pa’s best man and see him moved into a nice cottage behind the meadow, with a cornfield and a few cows and chickens. Even Grandma gave the bride some antique furniture, and the neighbors came over with food and drinks. We all danced to fiddle music and a professional caller and pa gave me the names of more buddies to look up than a phone directory could list. And I was free!

After basic training, I went back to check up on pa and his happy home, only to find him sitting on the porch drinking whiskey and chewing the stub of a cigar. He hardly acknowledged me, just turned up his bottle. The house seemed quiet and mostly empty.

“Where’s your wife, pa?”

“Ran off with Jacobs the shopkeeper. She’s no farmer, can’t stand the smell of cow shit.”

I tried to keep calm. “She’ll be back, I bet.” Pa snarled and broke his bottle, waved the jagged glass at me menacingly.

I stepped back quickly. “What’s the matter? What have I done?”

“You killed her, you bastard!”

“Killed who? I never killed anybody.”

“You killed your ma, dammit! You and that big head of yours. They should’ve cut her open, but you tore her apart. You and that goddamned big head of yours!”

My mind went blank. I saw him knock a lantern onto the floor inside, and his cigar dropped into the kerosene spill. Dry cobs and husks began exploding like popcorn, and my own frustration surfaced. “Where you think I got this head, pa, where else but you!”

He knew I was right. Angry and weeping, he staggered and fell into the engulfing flames. I turned my back on the horror of it, saw caskets lined up in front of me forever.

I picked up a stone and hurled it as far as I could. It landed a little ways up the road.

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Pieces of You melina iavarone Fall 2020 | 81

Stroll Maya Gelsi Eyes like high beams, hot cocktails in poison summer.

If one more person looks at me, I’ll scream.

I itch to sit hidden, the raw meat of me trembling and picking at its own fingers Plain of soft belly eating itself.

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জ ীবনম ুক্তি (জ ীবন = Everyday life, ম ুক্তি = Liberation) Sagnik Basumallik Unborn: Who am I? Born: You are the unborn, and the born: the eternal Self.

Unborn: Will I be born as a white, a black or a brown?

Born: You are the Self, you are colorless.

Unborn: Will I be born as a male, a female or any other form?

Bor n: You a re t he Sel f, bot h t he ma le a nd t he fema le, a nd everything else.

Unborn: Is my body my Self?

Born: The body decays, you do not.

Unborn: Is my mind my Self?

Born: The mind decays, you do not.

Unborn: Is my ego, my intellect or my pride, my Self?

Born: No. The ego, intellect and pride are temporary.

Unborn: Do my experiences constitute my Self?

Born: You are neither the experiencer nor the experience itself.

Unborn: Who am I? Born: You are the cause of the experience.

Unborn: What causes experience?

Born: The eternal consciousness.

Unborn: What is consciousness?

Born: It is the principle, the essence of ever ything, both the manifested and the un-manifested.

Unborn: Why is it eternal?

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Born: It is without a beginning and without an end. It always exists.

It manifests out of itself, exists in itself and un-manifests in itself.

Unborn: How is the Self different from the God? Born: The Self is the God. The God is the Self.

Unborn: Is God eternal?

Born: God is your own Self. The Self is eternal.

Unborn: Did God create me?

Born: The Self was never created, never destroyed.

Unborn: Who do these people worship?

Born: They worship God. Unborn: Why do they worship God? Born: They worship God to know the Self.

Unborn: What is the nature of the Self?

Born: The Self is eternal.

Unborn: Will the Self die?

Born: The Self never dies, and the Self is never born.

Unborn: What is my purpose?

Born: Your purpose is to know the Self.

Unborn: How do I fulfill this purpose?

Born: Through work (Karma Yoga). Through knowledge (Gyana Yoga). Through meditation (Raja Yoga). Through devotion (Bhakti Yoga).

Unborn: How should I work?

Born: “You work for the sake of work, not for the fruits thereof. Give up the fruits of your actions, and embrace both success and failure.�

Unborn: What knowledge should I obtain?

Born: The knowledge of the true nature of the Self, or God. Unborn: On what should I meditate?

Born: Meditate on the true nature of the Self, or God. 84 | Perception

Unborn: Who should I be devoted to?

Born: Devote yourself to the true nature of Self, or God. Unborn: What will I get out of it?

Born: Equanimity of the mind.

Unborn: What will it lead to? ু তি (Liberation from everyday life) Born: জ ীবনম ক্

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leo sun pisces moon type beat Noor Zamamiri

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THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS REVAMPED Mickey "The Flying Busman" Mahan ANGER is a way of seeing yourself through your enemies’ eyes think of it as empathy on steroids where you reach out with fist and fiery tongue for a scrap of flesh or a handful of hair a keepsake for the moment you came to your senses and realized the depth of your affection ENVY gives you everything you’ve always wanted as a bitter pill too big to swallow it won’t bounce and it makes a lousy soup bone but it’s no cause for concern because the essence of everything desired is in the inexhaustible spark envy engenders that little light almost as bright as the diamond on your neighbor’s bony finger GREED goes a long way towards setting you free from the responsibility of being more or less human it pinches every penny and hoards hell-fire and heavenly peace holding in every thought and feeling like constipated turds until your death grip on life becomes a ruby studded collar around your wrinkled neck LUST turns a lazy libido into love just long enough to scorch you to singe the fringe around your soul so that whatever petticoat you prance around in can go up in an amoral flame of irresponsibility Fall 2020 | 87

and bury you again in the sticky ashes of a slippery moment GLUTTONY empties you of your last morsel of good taste it plucks whatever fruit grows in your mind and shovels it in with both hands until you sink like a waterlogged spud in an undulating ocean of fat rolls a warm and wonderful place to be where no one goes hungry except those trying to suck satisfaction through a straw PRIDE fits nicely inside a silk purse as long as it isn’t stuffed with used tissue and is easily carried to any occasion where you might be humiliated berated or embarrassed if spent wisely it could last a lifetime but good luck trying to buy off death SLOTH secures you in your own inertia it anchors you in ambiguity and puts a seal of approval on procrastination “who cares” is its prayer “so what” is its mantra and when the inner sloth is enthusiastically embraced a fart is as good as an orgasm

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look at my garden!

Noor Zamamiri Fall 2020 | 89

Remembrance Brandon Clesen I get woken up by the screams of my brother. I feel his hot breath on my ear as he yells, “GET UP. IT’S CHRISTMAS.” My blurred eyes try to adjust to my surroundings: my brother’s bed with the teal comforter with tiny black dogs, the accessories to dolls on our desk, and my brother’s annoyed face above me.

“Why are you so slow Brandon? MOM. DAD. BRANDON WON’T GET UP FAST ENOUGH!”

I maneuver my body so that my feet are touching the ground but my body and head are still grasping to the comfort of my bed. After slowly moving from the bed, I tiptoe across the carpeted floor trying not to fall on the train set we created earlier that winter.

I see the cross outside the door, trudge over to Jesus, kiss my hand and place my fingers on the cross saying the customary, “Happy Birthday Jesus.” I view my dad from the hallway walking into the bathroom. “MOVE IT DAD. I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR FIVE MINUTES NOW!” My mom dashes down the stairs, either to grab the camera or run away from her child. My father leaves the bathroom after what my brother says was an eternity and escapes downstairs, locking the gate on the top of the stairs before he goes. My brother and I sit next to the gate (previously used so I wouldn't sleepwalk dow nsta i rs), w a it i ng for my parents to fi n ish t hei r a n nua l Christmas routine: turn on the Christmas music, get the camera ready, place the coffee cake on the table, and pick up my grandpa from a few blocks down the street. He loved watching his grandkids open their gifts as he loved to watch the smiles on their faces when they did. I hear the door open and the voice of my grandpa after fifteen minutes of my brother asking, “When will they be here?” It’s finally time for presents. My dad appears at the bottom of the steps holding the camera saying, “Christmas 2008. I wonder if Santa came to visit. I don't think he did.”

“Stop dad," my brother and I say in unison.

We sprint dow n the stairs, our eyes widening on the bottom step as we see the toys in the living room: the American Girl doll Mia and her accessories for my brother and Ben 10 figures for me. I grab one of the figurines and shove it in front of the camera.

“Isn’t it cool?” I say.

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“Go show poppop,” my dad tells me.

I move away from the camera and amble my way to the chair next to our Christmas tree. There he sits: a bald scalp with white hairs on either side of his head, visible blue veins wrapping around his arms, a yellowing smile, deep ocean blue eyes, pure joy on his face. I can smell the smoke lingering on his clothes.

“Poppop look at him!”

“He’s very cool bud,” my poppop says. My dad interrupts my showcase with, “Let’s go outside and see if the reindeer ate the food we left out.” My father leads me out the front door, the brisk air sweeping across my exposed cheeks. A chill creeps inside me as I begin to walk into the depths of the cold.

He seemed cold. I felt frozen in that room. My body ached with a sense of grief: a profound and heavy grief not on the account of what was about to occur but what I couldn't feel internally. I could only feel the physical sensation of the pamphlet in my hands.

“September 7, 1928- August 5, 2011,” I read. I heard whispers everywhere, quiet sounds of brief tears escaping the eyes and the sniffling that accompanies it. It was motionless in there. I looked over to my mom; she tried to convey a calm composure but I knew she just wanted to scream in agony. She didn’t want to deal with a wake, yet the rest of the family wanted some time with the body before the funeral. My Aunt Kim walked up to my brother and me.

“How are you guys? I k now you k now this but you’re poppop isn't hurting anymore.”

“We know.”

She knew we were too afraid to see the body by ourselves, as we were huddled in the farthest corner from the coffin. I knew they covered up his bruises, but the makeup now made him look so pale, so lifeless, so unlike himself. I didn't know the man in that coffin, nor did I want to meet him. After telling us that this would be the final moment for us to say goodbye, my Aunt Kim took our hands and told us to walk with her to say farewell.

Holding baby TJ in her arms and wiping the sweat off her head from the heat, my Aunt Kim walks into the kitchen and announces, “Happy Gotcha Day Brandon!” I tell her thank you and start playing with my newborn cousin. My brother glares at this sight, since he is no longer the youngest in the family. My Aunt Kathy walks in from outside and tells Aunt Kim, “I’m glad you Fall 2020 | 91

guys could make it. Mostly everyone is in the pool.” I beam with excitement on the idea of going into the pool soon; I am just waiting for my brother to be in the mood to go in. It was my favorite time with my family, as, each Independence Day, my Aunt Kathy would throw a pool party with fireworks to conclude the night.

I open the back door and stride my way to the table outside.

My poppop accompanies my mom who watches my other cousins splashing each other in the pool. He asks me, “What shirt is that?”

I grab my shirt and do a little twist while I say, “It’s a tie dye guitar. Mom got it for me.”

“Looks very good. You going to go into the pool shoeless?”

He loved to call me shoe or shoeless, my family’s secret name for me. While my grandma was in the hospital, my mother would take me, as a small child, to go visit her. Always an antsy child, I would kick off my shoes. My uncle laughed at my rebellious act and said, “That’s our shoeless B.” It was then that I would be called “shoe” by my closest family members.

“Soon," I reply, as I plan to force my brother into the pool.

My mom winks at me, signaling that this talk with my grandpa made him happy. She has told me before that he misses spending time with his entire family. As I walk back towards the door, my cousin announces in the pool, “Get your butt in here” while spraying me with her water gun.

The rain hit my face while we departed from the funeral home. I watched as all of the cars formed a line behind the hearse.

My family said very few words in the car, each of us looking at our surroundings passing by. I focused on the tiny raindrops hitting my window; I just wanted to skip today, pretend like he was still alive.

“We’re here”.

We quickly escaped the car, as it had begun to rain harder.

My mom tried to not step in any puddles with her high heels as she held both of her sons’ hands. We entered the church, the lights illuminating the dark atmosphere seen outside; the marble exterior looked particularly beautiful today as the light danced on its reflection. People began to approach my mom. She told my brother and me, “Go to your Aunt Mary.” We obliged and walked over to my Aunt Mary.

I look out the window and see my Aunt Mary approaching

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the door to my grandpa’s house. My Uncle Tom and Aunt Kim have already arrived to the home, as my poppop invited us over for a family gathering.

“Aunt Mary!”

“Brandon,” she says as she hugs me. “How’s my favorite nephew?”

“Hey! I thought I was your favorite,” my brother says from inside the kitchen. My aunt and I walk into the kitchen and form a group hug with Patrick. My mom sits beside my grandpa at the dark blue table. She has Lou Malnati’s Pizza on the phone. We end our hug and my aunt begins to talk with the rest of the adults. I wander into the living room which held the Lego Duplo blocks he bought for us. I start to play with the blocks, creating a giant tower first and then a tall giraffe. I can hear them talking to my grandpa about how he cannot drive anymore. He isn’t capable enough to do it anymore they say. The delivery man outside the window draws my attention away from their conversation.

“Mom the food is here.”

“Mom, is Aunt Mary going to give the speech now?” My mom nodded. My Aunt Mary walked onto the marble altar. The light from the stained glass projected an array of beautiful colors on the floor. My eyes tried to focus on this, as I did not want to make eye contact with anyone else, especially my aunt at this time.

She stood behind the wooden podium, stared out at the crowd for a moment and began, “Dad was always a good man. I remember a time when my car got stolen. It was taken from the driveway. He spent the entire day searching for it and asking people if they had seen anything. He was always that kind of father. Later that night, he came home with my car. He had found it within the neighborhood. He had spent that night searching for my stolen car which I never asked him to. He was such a kind and caring father…”

I sit in the backseat of the car on the way to my grandpa’s house. I know my mom didn’t want me to come with her today as she did not know what condition he would be in. I pestered her though saying, “But I want to… Don’t you want me to be with poppop?… He’ll love a visit from me.” She told me it was going to be a quick visit. I don’t mind. I am happy that I get to spend short time with him but I am even happier that I had won this battle with my mom. As I gleam in the backseat, I notice the places that indicate I Fall 2020 | 93

am almost to my poppop’s house: the playground, the hedge outside the grey house, the large blue porch with the wooden bench.

My grandpa’s home was only a five minute drive. The brick bungalow exterior held an array of flowers, each with their own significant beauty of colors. Today, it felt unusual. Maybe it was because we didn’t walk and use the wagon to pull my body to his house. Maybe it was the odd detail that the day seemed so bright and everyone played outside, yet my mother’s demeanor exuded isolation and dread.

I walk into the living room filled with the smell of his cigarettes. My mother hated the smell and would often comment on how suffocating it was; I, however, found it to be welcoming, as it invited me on my visits to my grandpa’s house. I listen for the distinct sounds of numerous figures shuffling but there were none.

I figure that his caregivers were given the day off. Disappointed, as they would make me smoothies with my grandpa, who would use them to swallow his pills easier, I continue walking to the back of the house searching for him.

“Hi dad how are you doing, “ my mother says from inside the kitchen.

“Good good.”

I walk back down the hallway into the kitchen to finally greet my grandpa.

“Hi poppop.”

“Hi shoe. How are you?”

“I’m good poppop. I just wanted to see you today.”

“I’m happy to see you too.”

My mom tells me to go play with the Legos in the other room. I oblige, since I don’t think I am going to win two battles with my mom today. I spend the next few minutes trying to build a giraffe. After playing for only a few moments, I hear a loud thud and my mom yell, “Dad. Dad. Can you get up? Please can you get up?”

“Mom what happened?”

“Stay in there Brandon.”

I know he has fallen before. He fell and spent hours on the kitchen floor a few months ago. Then, it happened again. And then he tripped and couldn't get back up a month ago. Finally, my parents got him a caregiver. But they weren't here today. It was only my mom and me.

My mom runs over to me and says, “I called 911. Don't worry. Everything will be fine.” She takes me outside and tells me 94 | Perception

to wait there. I stand there listening to the children laughing, the birds chirping, while my poppop sits in his home in anguish.

The paramedics come and bring him into the ambulance.

My mom grabs me and tells me to get in the car. We drive to the hospital. My dad meets us there. I sit in the waiting room alone, as my mom gestures for my dad to talk to her in private. I can still hear them though.

“I don't know what happened. He just fell down the stairs.

I don’t know what to do.”

I only have my thoughts to keep me company. The sirens blare in my memory. The thud rings in my ears. I wonder if my friends were still at the pool as I sit in the quiet, empty space of the hospital.

“He is in a better place now. Better than the hospital,” I heard someone say. I couldn't tell who said it, since there were many people who came to the reception held at the local Irish pub after the funeral. I tried to maintain some composure. I walked over to the table with my brother and friends. To get our minds off this moment, we grabbed all of the desserts off the table and began stuffing them into our mouths. As a joke, I kept taking the cookies and lemon squares off my brothers and began eating them. My brother then kept taking more and more, with me continuing my process. Soon enough, my brother said he felt sick and threw up.

Anger fell over me. How could I make this day a joke? I am disgusted with myself. I walk over to my mom and beg for forgiveness, “I’m sorry. I didn't mean to make this day worse.”

“Okay.”

“I really am sorry.”

“Okay.”

I don’t forgive myself though. I made my brother throw up on the day of my grandpa’s funeral.

As I sit at the table doing homework, my mom tells me she has to leave and visit my grandpa at the hospital. He choked on his food. They had to take a metal hook and grab the food out of his throat. That made me gag thinking about a sharp tool in my poppop’s throat. He almost died that day. She tells me that dad will finish cooking us dinner. I want to go and see him though, as does my brother. My mom looks at my dad and sighs. She agrees that we can go with her.

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We drive together as a family, but there is very little talk between us, especially mom who only utters a few words, “Everything will be fine.” Once we approach the hospital, my mom tells me that only she and my dad would actually see him. We have to stay in the waiting room. I try to remain calm for my brother, since he fears poppop would die today. I want to take away as much pain for my brother as possible. I have to remain optimistic for the sake of Patrick.

“You were always so hopeful Brandon. Your grandpa would be so happy that you believed in him so much,” someone told me as I sat at the corner table inside the pub. But that wasn't true. I remembered when I lost hope.

My mom, after many sleepless nights in the hospital, decided it would be best for her children to stay with their Aunt Kathy for the summer of 2011. My brother and I didn't mind since we got to spend time in their pool and play with their dog Finn. Yet, as the days drew closer to the 5th of August, I could sense my aunt trying to hide something from us. One day, she took us and my two cousins shopping. While at the store, Aunt Kathy told her sons to look for suits for the funeral. I realized at that moment everyone had given up hope except for me. Everyone was now awaiting his death.

Later that day, my aunt came up to me and told me he was going to pass soon.

A week later, my mom came to their house to finally see her children again. She came into the door holding back tears. “Guys your grandfather passed away… He loved you dearly…He will always love you.” We stood there holding each other, while I wish I could have said goodbye.

I stopped thinking about that summer when I felt tears starting to form. Even though I was alone at the table, I didn’t feel safe to cry. I didn't want to show my pain in front of these mourners, especially my mom. I still needed to be strong for her. I was happy when people began to leave shortly after, since I could tell the emotional toll this event took on my mom. We quickly went home. My mom was silent throughout the drive and, even at home, she spoke no words, only taking off her shoes and walking into her room. My brother tried to make small talk with me, but I gave him a look that showed I had no energy left. I followed my mom and closed myself off in my own room. I sat on my bed, finally letting myself 96 | Perception

cry. It felt relieving to let myself feel regret, anger, resentment, sadness, pain, after making myself feel nothing to protect everyone else. I closed my eyes, picturing all these memories I held of him.

Tears streamed across my cheeks and a smile grew across my face as I began to remember him.

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Totem Sameeha Saied The space between my ears swirls violet.

Flashes of fulgent eyes, Of fingers setting lambent fires, Of distinct and fumbling pressure, Flood evanescent.

You are a fusion of every stranger, Every fictional love.

My eyes close to red, pink, yellow.

They open to brown, gray.

Your chimerical touch spreads from the inside.

Trembling vines travel down, up, back down, Flame and frost.

Your impression is arcane.

I ponder how reality will contend.

My totem spins, unwavering.

A stark contrast to my conviction, Which oscillates in a gentle, wild breeze Bending further with each despondent day.

I am, suddenly, floating.

Not in water, though my skin is washed clean.

My left arm ghosts across a sphere of light 98 | Perception

With a soft haze in place of an exterior.

I look up, eyes met with an off-white crescent.

Nebulous orbs languidly drift closer, Dull heat approaching from all angles.

I feel a white-hot flicker attach to my shoulder, Followed by my elbow, hand, hip, Until I am bound by a pulsing glow.

The lights detach from me but maintain shape.

I move up and to the right.

Looking back, I see a silhouette.

Not shadowed, but lit a pale, shimmering pink.

It has my head, my body, But it feels awry.

A pulse of cinder smolders in my abdomen.

Looking down, I see a lone freckle of light, The same sparkling blush, Below my chest.

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Waking Up Maya Gelsi There is a certain way I stand so I feel my skeleton.

Everything else— fleshy fig-bits and tough muscle— hangs like empty clothes.

Flowers speak to their stems, I hear it when I press an ear to the wind and the other to the soil.

They chant thanks, grateful for their xylems and phloems, for being held aloft, sipped by bees and ants.

We stretch always toward the sun, moored to grass and mud.

Hinged between these two gently opposing forces, our frameworks and fulcrums, water and sugar and bone, faithful, unfelt.

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From Me to You zuzanna mlynarczyk Fall 2020 | 101