Perception Fall 2022 Issue

Rapacity

Madeline Rommer

Tonight I saw the most beautiful carbon dioxide sunset

And a magnificent oil spill rainbow

This world is wicked and it’s wonderful

And I want it all

To my future husband

Roslyn Lydick

Enough of this make yourself at home bullshit. Oh, I will make you feel at home. I will make you a perfect dinner and I will make love or extra money or chicken soup (even though I’m raw and tired and abhor cooking meat); I will be so goddamn perfect and you’ll fall in love with me. I will make you fall in love with me—and the saddest thing, the saddest fucking thing is that you’ll be smart enough to know the great concept of it, the my wife works miracles of it, and man enough to leave the dishes beside the sink, knowing always that I’ll come along and make them disappear.

Julia Provvisionato | Mixed Media Such a Nice Girl

On Clara

Eva Greene

I somehow ended up in Paris. Clara had a Paris travel guide on her bookshelf and told me that she’d always dreamed of going, but never could, of course. So, I’m in Paris now, waiting for her, actually. I write long letters to her and call her every day. I’ve skipped several dinners in order to pay the monstrous phone bill. My colleagues at the journal I now work for call me crazy. I’m a fool to them for waiting on a girl so far away and so absorbed in daily domestic life. There really is no way of telling whether she’ll ever end up coming here to live with me, but she answers the phone and tells me all about her father and the people of the town. How he’s still drinking, but he’s still around and leaves the money on the table. How everybody misses me, how Ms. Suzanne tears up a little every time she bakes the apple pie I liked so much. She sends me photographs of herself smiling. Her hair’s grown long again within this year, but she wears it down now, just pinning back the front few strands out of her face. I’d love to have a way of knowing for sure that she’ll come here, but I don’t, and it almost doesn’t matter. It matters a little on particularly stormy days when I’m forced to lie in bed alone and listen to the thunder all night long. Sometimes I get angry when I see a couple in the park holding hands. I envy their certainty and the way the fellow gets to see his lady’s face outside of a shiny photograph. I get so angry that I just want to get on a plane to Florida and beg on my knees for her to come to me...But most of the time, it doesn’t matter.

Sometimes in life, it’s enough to wait. Sometimes the anticipation is so passionate and loving in itself, that you’d die happy either way, because you’ve met exactly who you needed all this time.

Clara is who I needed as a little boy with no friends to race bikes with. She’s who I needed as I tossed and turned every night in college, drowning in my thoughts, unable to fall asleep. Clara is who I needed to finally give me my story. After saying goodbye to her and kissing her at the train station, I arrived back in New York at my apartment and sat down at the table covered in stacks of notes I’ve been making since deciding that I want to write a novel. The hundreds of nonsensical notes that didn’t fit together. After Clara, I had my novel. She handed it to me, with perfect plot and diction. I no longer felt the weight of lethargy, because although the story had just happened to me, I didn’t mind reliving it through pen and paper. In fact, I was thrilled to do it. Sometimes, it’s enough.

Autumnal River Taylor | Photo Manipulation

the trees

Roslyn Lydick

once upon a time: there lived three of them in our backyard (an alder, an elm, and a little pine just my height.) they’re all dead now, and it went—as it tends to go—just like this, just like in a fairy tale, one after another after another: disease, hunger, heartbreak (the end).

Ronan Mansfield

Todo lo que brilla no es oro

Sofia Rodriguez

Supuestamente, voy a comprarme Jupina En la bodeguita que hace esquina Mi papa no lo sabe, siempre en el aire El no nació ayer, pero me deja pensar Como si fueras el mar con el sol encima Con puro brillo y la fuerza de Yemaya Te di mi todo, pero no fue suficiente Me corte entrando al mar con pura sal, ardor Tu mintiendome y el lleno de esperenzas Aunque el mar te ahoga y el sol te quema Donde hubo fuego cenizas quedan Y en el camino pa’ mi casita No me queda ni una gota más de Jupina Esperandome con agua limpia en un baso dorado “Todo lo que brilla no es oro,” me dice el desesperado

Translation: Supposedly, I'm going to buy Jupina

In the little store on the corner My dad doesn't know, always up in the air He wasn't born yesterday, but he lets me think so As if you were the ocean with the sun above With pure shine and the strength of Yemaya I gave you my all, but it wasn't enough I cut myself entering the sea with pure salt, stinging You lying to me and he full of hope Although the ocean drowns you and the sun burns you Where there was fire ashes remain And on the way to my little house I don't have one more drop of Jupina left Waiting for me with clean water in a golden cup "All that shines is not gold," says he desperately

Iona Volynets | Mixed Media Angel of Love, In Pain, In Agony

It's Only Natural

Rachel Pahl

i had been hiding in a forest of overgrown trees, my limbs tied in sage and spanish moss to age-addled bark; it felt like i was locked in a natural coffin. i grew from my head a bouquet of rhododendron and queen anne’s lace, purple hyacinth framed my eyes and hydrangeas were tangled in my hair. my body melted into the moss and the lichen until i was one with the world and those who would once have called my name now passed me over with fading interest.

in waltzed a woman made of fire and brimstone, sparks in her eyes and flame on her skin, and she brushed up against my roots and my branches and she made them sing. every night was a new wildfire, and in the morning, surrounded by ash and charred petals, she stroked my hair and kissed my head and told me i looked beautiful, even when i was burnt, and i believed her.

she coaxed out of me a strength i had never thought i needed, she brought light to my dark, shady clearings,

burnt away the dead leaves of my self-hatred. and while i slept, she lit my world aflame and carved apologies into the bark of the dying evergreen trees. eventually, i said “please, spare my fragile, impermanent foliage. if you must burn, burn my soul instead, and leave my forest untouched.”

she told me, “i wish i could, darling, but i am fire, and fire knows only to burn. until i am embers and you are kindling for a pyre, that is how it shall be.” she said this to me and i understood, because for all of our bad parts i thought our shared blaze was beautiful. but fire cannot last forever.

i was visited in my little corner of the world by a rain so pure and clear i could see my charred, broken reflection in its graceful drops. the rain came with a golden, pastel girl whose eyes swam with flakes of life which i had never known.

i had been buried in snow, i had melted in heat, i had been drowned and pelted and burned, oh so burned, but there had never been a weight so heavy as the fire-girl’s,

and there had never been a sight so sweet as burned-out fog in the air as it drifted far, far away from me. and the rain came to my roots, my flowers, my branches and my bark, and she pushed my dead leaves away and sat on my dirt floor and she smiled at me like a new dawn and she said “what’s next?” and now i swim in the ocean, and i walk the desert daily; i have seen the world twice over, the rain-girl my guide and my companion. when i finally returned to the forest and settled in under the canopy of leaves, aster and lavender and lilac and snapdragon grew about my head, and the rain-girl and i made flower crowns and held hands and when the sun shone i worried she would evaporate. she didn’t, the way her water kept my leaves alive and my leaves gave her water a home, so i could keep holding her in my arms in the way all symbiotic relationships are good.

Antagonist Over Villain

Sofia Rodriguez

I want to ruin your life the minor inconvenience that can't leave your mind With littleto-no pain such discomfort that you won't feel sane

A constant reminder of what we could have been through every touch, you feel me Not to hurt you with my hands but enough to feel your joy be stripped away

When you cue the record player and listen to some Frank That you think how you could've had “Something just like this."

With every sip of chocolate milk reminding you of who we were A glass bottle pressed against your lips

Like the kisses around my neck

The desire in your eyes to quench your thirst I want to leave you questioning us whether I meant the “I love yous” or the “Did you eat today?”

With every handfed spoonful of that DQ Blizzard And note on the receipt Reminded of how we made driving while eating work That you will never unsee my hands on that plastic utensil

In a few years, I become the one you lost You continue your life knowing it would've been best with me

As I say my final goodbyes Know that in every touch, you are present Not because I'm a villain in your story But the antagonist of your journey

Alex Cao

The Mohgoyle Ger Jenny Su | Digital Art

(Based on a true story)

Roslyn Lydick

In my dream, I met a woman on the stairs She was crying for the daughter that she’d lost Just ten minutes having held her in her arms Tries to rise from bed—forgets—she starts to slip—

Drops her child on the hospital room floor

Though the nurses and the spouse dive to the ground How could the baby girl survive the fall The funeral was quiet, queasy, quick.

I said to her, I can’t imagine how Horrific an affair that must have been She held my gaze and said, oh yes you can— I woke up then and haven’t slept since June.

Iona Volynets | Mixed Media Made of My Memories

Keep My Head Above the Waves

Grace Underwood

The first time I met you was one week after the incident. Not that you really knew that. It was a bright summer day: The sky as blue as the ocean, the clouds as white as glistening snow, and the breeze felt like a hand brushing away the tears. The stone was sitting by a tree covered in shade, but I sat so far away that the back of my neck was already starting to burn.

I imagine you may have wandered in from the neighborhood across from the stone riddled landscape. You never told me if you were visiting anyone. You sat down next to me with this odd smile on your face, wearing clothes that looked familiar, and a water bottle covered with so many stickers I couldn’t tell what color was underneath. You smiled at me. I thought this was odd all things considered. You told me to drink it. Whether it was the emptiness inside me or the absurd notion that somehow I could trust you, I didn’t stop to question it and chugged down the ice water like someone who has been wandering the desert for days. Maybe I had. I gasped when I finally stopped drowning myself. It startled a laugh from you. A laugh that sent vibrations through the cavern in my chest. You told me I should go home before I burn myself anymore. I told you I wasn’t burning. You didn’t correct me. You smiled and didn’t say anything at all.

I don’t know how but ten minutes after I sat down you would suddenly be there. You would sit down with that same water bottle and a smile as bright as the sun reflecting off snow fall. The sound of your clothes wrinkling next to me and your insistence that I drink something started to set my

teeth on edge. Every day was just a new spark dancing over the flames, every day a risk before the gasoline heated up too much and erupted. You asked me why I sat there. As if I hadn’t explained why a billion times before. I asked you how big your ego was that you thought it was okay to boss around a random stranger. Your smile didn’t fade. And you didn’t walk away like I feared you would once the vile seeped into your veins. You reached over and took my hand. It felt cool, like it had just been dipped in the river I haven’t visited since that day.

I was talking before you even had a chance to press the water bottle to my lips. I was spinning a tale that I knew had been a lie. You didn’t try to stop me. By the time I had finished talking I could no longer make out the words on the stone I always sat too far away from. I waited for you to say something. I didn’t want to look at you so I looked up at the sky and pretended it wasn’t blue and it didn’t make my stomach churn. You told me I should have a drink. The tears seeping between my lips was enough.

I didn’t want to talk today. I think you knew that before you sat down. I didn’t bother getting dressed today. It was probably an odd sight: a girl in fluffy pajama pants with little dogs pictured on them and a sweatshirt to mask that she couldn’t even be bothered to put on a bra. I didn’t care for the sweat dripping down my neck. But the weight of my arms felt like boulders against my knees. You asked me if I needed a life preserver. I looked at you then. I felt that the words didn’t make sense. You didn’t explain yourself. I guess I was barely holding myself above the water at that point. And I finally realized that you tried to push me up. The last time I visited, school had already started. You didn’t bother to bring me the water bottle today. The air had

already started to chill. And I took comfort in the fact that it was no longer summer. That it was no longer yesterday that I lost you. I knew something had changed that day. I knew something had been admitted before I even opened my mouth. But even if the knot loosened and my lungs had started to breathe again there would always be something bringing me back to here.

“They think I’m crazy.”

“You’re not crazy.”

“I am.” You pretended not to hear me that time. I knew because you always did that when you corrected me and I didn’t listen.

“You’re grieving.”

“You’re dead.” And you laid down in front of me.

“I am.”

Indecision's Frequent Dawning

Julia Gershowitz

One step forward One step back A step to the side A step on a crack

Who decides which way it goes The way you think The river flows

The path you take It’s never clear It’s pieces are there And then disappear

You can scream out the window You can scream at the wall You can cry to your pillow Or do nothing at all

Once it is done There is no going back A moment of glory Or it all fades to black

Will the flame then go out? Or will the fire blaze too bright? Will there be a tomorrow, Just because there was tonight?

Is there ever a step that is right? Or always one that is wrong?

Who knew Each decision Would take So long

It is Good

Vanessa Walker

God has no lover, So she creates one from the dust of scattered words and fashions them a soulmate in her image from the rib of her psyche.

She writes of their romance, a love that is heaven’s envy and man’s craving, sacred, unbreakable, ferally passionate, the figment of her imagination she could only mourn if she did not make art of it, ceaselessly imagined but never made real. She breathes life into her fantasy with words that would make the angels blush, pulling it from the grave of longing thought into the limbo of poetry.

Her fulfillment lies in the praise of her readers. It fills the void in her heart just enough, but not in the way she has written. She resigns herself to a life of singularity and the worship of her work.

Her most coveted wish, the most fervent of all her desires given away to two fictional lovers sentenced to the paper by the pen, knowing only the fate she planned for them. And she says, “It is good.”

Katherine "Katya" Nikolau

you dreamed me up, and so i came to life. it was autumn, and i bloomed while the leaves died, leaving colorful ghosts behind.

i loved you blind, wanted to live inside your chest, ached deep like the bones of a grandfather tree. branded by your gentle touch, i sang hey, hey, hey, lover, and kissed you on each kissable place. i wanted to be your bridge between here and there, and you wanted to be my bridge between before and after. we wanted each other, pure and simple. afterwards, i consumed all your soul-songs

like a famished child, swallowed without chewing first.

my eyes were honey-wild and my cheeks were frostbitten but hey, it’s summer now and warm enough for the both of us. i knew it was love because even the tears felt beautiful. i knew it was love because it kept coming back to me.

Mom Isabella Alvarez

I cut my gum while I brush my teeth, split the skin open clean, red pouring out like a secret. You always wanted me to get braces but my mouth refused to still. Blood circling the drain and I’m still waiting for you to come wipe it clean. You smell like bleach when I’m mad at you and patchouli when we aren’t fighting. In those rare moments I study how you move your body, so effortlessly feminine, and I wish I looked like you. I’m all corners where you’re curves. Somehow I came out wrong, harsh and sharp and knife-like. I’m still waiting for you to mold me into a woman, to tame my voice and soften my hips.

Ilana Robbins | Oil Pastel Mama

Ode to the Poor Stitch

Charles Gebbia

The rhythmic pull of thread through cloth over and over as I sit and wonder about the times she sat and mended my clothes and pulled this thread patching my shirts and my sister’s and my mother’s and my father’s. how she must have felt mending and patching and sewing our family together over and over? how she must have felt sewing countless families and clothes and garments her entire life?

she made her living in dresses and worked her way from a sweatshop and patched my shirts when they tore and my father’s car cover with he and I at her side and she made me a bow tie from scratch just because I asked.

and yet here I sit pulling on a thread and remembering all she told me, taught me, and thinking only she would do better. her seamwork would be perfect and that she’s watching me quite literally from the picture hanging above my desk. her own sewing tools behind her as I struggle and prick my fingers with the needle just so I know the stitch is in the right place. her thimble by my side knowing I won’t be able to use it and feel correct and yet the others pass me, toiling over the cloth, the patch, the stitch and tell me: Your grandmother would be proud. but all I think is her stitch would be perfect and mine is just poor.

the Ice

the woman Katherine

"Katya" Nikolau

the woman pierces. polyester, tears the dress of the forked-tongue serpent with bare hands. she sees right through, down to the rotted rib-bones. she hears the shriek of the offended. the woman escapes. on foot, on caravan, on back of motorcycle, in a velvet backseat with her beloved (but who isn’t the beloved of such a woman)... the taste of ripe springtime watermelon rests like dew on her hungry mouth. the woman laughs.

loud, crazy, crystalline, the energy of her voice stirs the bones of her house, shakes the trees, wakes the birds, draws cracks on the pavement. the woman loves. to stack her words like beaded bracelets, to pull the strings of painted puppets, to dip her spoon into the bubbling

red borscht, to spread her arms wide for deliverance and close them tight for protection. the woman dies. suddenly. her time cut short like brunette curls snipped, brushed aside on yellowed floors. her body lies in rome with emperors and commoners and hills too green to call green. the decades swim, her memory is held. and held. and held. and heldandheldandheld and held. under tongues and over eyes, held in each enemy’s demise, she spits in wells that thirst for lies, she walks the earth in no disguise. held everywhere including between two hands, but she is not a prayer. the woman lives.

my tea has grown cold

Jackie Arbogast

my tea has grown cold and my hands have grown wet, i’ve not watched it fade, rather felt it slip away. my tea has grown cold and i spent my life letting it go; my tea has grown cold and all i’m told–i only care about it. my tea has grown cold and although i think about it, i let it go. my tea grows cold every instance i close my door and every time i stand, stoic, anxious, ready at any moment to move, afraid to, posture corrected, eyebrows furrowed, feet pulsed; i am not reminded of my tea at present but all the years it’s escaped me.

my tea has now grown cold and to reheat it i must go back into that line of fire a kind of unwavering, standstill sound of a microwave, hoping that the buttons won’t spark any kind of fire, that the only thing to stay hot be my tea.

Julia Provvisionato Girl

Chloe Langerman

i see my smile in your teeth glistening pearls a fleck of gold you like when we’re at the zoo barbed wire singing along to your favorite song i’m here when you need when you want when you don’t sit and listen in my leather chair give you cake and watch you eat it

Self Portrait in Color Ana Burwell

Under Absolutely No Circumstances

Rachel Pahl

This is not a horror story.

Repeating this is how she reminds herself.

Maybe it looks like one. The old house with its turrets. The dead and dying flowers along the walk. The dark shadows that cloud the corners of her vision. But this is not a horror story.

It’s not the opposite of a horror story. In fact, if she focuses very, very, hard, this could not even be a story at all.

The house itself is old. Old, old house. Built well over a hundred years ago, as old as anything is in this part of Europe. It’s big and it’s wide and it yawns open from the front doorway like some great cavernous beast. Like a living, breathing old house.

The house is alone for an expanse of a hundred miles in any direction, declares the tingling sensation at the back of her skull. She is not alone within the house, though the house, itself, is alone. A singularity striking out from the gaping darkness at the center of the clearing. The trees, breathing though they be, are not suitable company.

There is a gravel driveway that has not seen a single car since it was laid, read the tire tracks or lack thereof. The gravel driveway is lined with flowers that have not been watered, read their wilted petals. This is not a horror story, groans the metal gate. This is not a horror story, whispers the wind through the trees. This is not a horror story, says the girl and her camera and her fearless, fearless eyes.

The front entryway is as normal as normal gets. A plush carpet leads halfway down the hallway, stopping at the foot of the stairs. There are picture frames, though empty, on a shelf. There is an open doorway leading to a dusty sitting room that contains a large grand piano. There is a key in

a door that appears simply closed; when she tugs on it, the knob doesn’t budge. Locked doors in old houses make noises like swelling wood in sickly summer heat, but it’s autumn now and she doesn’t trust this house.

Good evening, says the first picture she takes, of the chandelier in the dining room. Someone has died here. You won’t know how, you won’t know who, you won’t know where. But someone has died here. Wandered into the dark and got a little too lost. The tinkling of the chandelier like a schoolgirl’s laugh.

The second picture she takes, of the curvature of the stairs, reminds her that she is here to tell someone how good this house is, this good old house. The house with three floors in the forest all alone for a hundred miles would make a wonderful place for you to raise a family, what space. It yawns like an open mouth for you if you want it to. You won’t feel like you don’t belong here, no, never: says the painting hanging in the piano room. Says the dust on the keys captured by the camera’s shutter.

Someone played me once and died. Who was it? Why was it? Where do you find more dust than usual: the fireplace or the kitchen stove? Hot, heat, sweltering. The camera lens fogs with a breath she did not breathe, and she wipes it away.

A quick shot of the locked unlocked door in the hallway. To reassure herself, upon returning to the sensible rental car parked at the head of the road, that there was at least one thing she didn’t imagine. Perhaps on the way out she might be able to spot the realtor’s sign she meant to look out for on the way in.

This is not a horror story written in flame on the kitchen walls, in lighter fluid. The stove is turned on and just barely warm. The whistling of a tea kettle makes her want something to drink. Someone died here. Someone drank poison tea and swallowed the swallow. Where is the bird cage? If you leave a body for long enough, she wonders, does the soul leak into the floorboards?

The greenroom has beautiful windows, she says with pictures, and the dining room has a table long enough for a hundred guests. These are all good things, part of this good, old house.

Upstairs the camera shutter says check for ghosts in each dark corner, but looking through the fisheye makes her smell smoke and oil and burnt leaves. First bedroom with a blue duvet and sunlight on the walls. The bedroom faces east.

Under dark corners in dark corners around dark corners insists the camera shutter and the house whispers back a soothing lullaby about cats and cradles. She takes pictures of a dresser and a rug old enough to be dust and smooths the tip of her tongue against the top of her teeth. Drawing it back, she hears a hiss, she tastes burning metals. Rugs turn to dust turns to char under her feet.

In the nursery there is a bassinet, in the bassinet there is a baby doll with its hands sticking straight up for a shadowmother to rock it. The wallpaper tells her it’s not there, the camera shutter says maybe this is a horror story, she says is the baby getting enough sleep? With all of this rocking? She undulates. She’s undone.

Underneath the tables and chairs there is nothing but shadows and she takes pictures of them anyway. She finds motor oil tread into the carpeting in the master bedroom and empty perfume bottles in the sink and this is the only sign she can recognize that someone was ever here. You didn’t believe us, says the house, and look how foolish you’ve been. Everything smells like the whistling teakettle, left too long on the stove. The camera shutter flinches when it closes.

In the bathroom the mirror looks empty and the camera asks is this a horror story?

Who can tell anymore?

My Nuisance

S.M.

I love the sand. I love it stuck in my hair. Stuck in my socks. Lodged in my mouth to be crunched away. Except I lied. I have a confession. I never liked the sand. The same way I hate the way the sun creeps in over the horizon to end the fun. The weights over my eyelids. A nuisance, tracked all across the premises.w The sand inside my pillowcase and places I dare not mention. The ticking of the clock; my bedtime was so long ago. But it doesn't matter. I can sleep when it’s cold. I can sleep when the beach is vacant and blanketed in snowflakes.

For now, I’ll find a way to trick myself that I’m back in heaven. I know it’s impossible, But I can make mental magic in the meantime and fabricate sweet dreams, Letting my heart write the story. I find myself wishing on every star. Every constellation. On 11:11s and 4:44s. There’s a mermaid, you know, and the only place to find her is by the sand. Her pull is strong and I can’t resist. She’s never disappointed. Laughs drowned by gusts of wind and crashing waves. A smile and perfect tan skin lit by moonlight and UFOs. Fruity perfume fills my nose, mincing every one of my words. Tell me there’s something better out there. Go ahead and try. I won’t listen. There’s no point. I’ve already had the best.

So I go and I chase.

I take the sand with me everywhere I go, So I can remember a time when everything hurt a little less, and I smiled a little more.

Maybe I do love the sand.

Miranda Anastasakis | Micron Pens Labyrinth

Ode to the Strung, Tethered Poison of Covet

Marlena Duliga

and if i were left on gritted sand salt painted upon my tongue and wrists ground bound but still your heart beat breaths and eyes open opposing overt oasis i would evermore hallucinate my crawl towards a body not of water and if i were to breathe in meadow no weight on my craven spine nor cacophony in my senses yet you called the name you sealed me with, seared my wit would flee and my spine too until i shadowed them back to you

Eva Greene

skip walk stumble amble babbling brook pretty girl, maybe not so pretty to the others but to me—most heavenly sight I’ve ever felt. ever experienced. see a tree she starts to cry liquid silver from her eyes. beautiful as she is to me the tree is to her, mother nature’s daughter. think about the people getting into scraps for scraps of food. think about the children without toys to play with. think about all the reasons in the world to cry. it’s a gray area, life— how gorgeous it can be, how sad. my girl will buy a tin of cat food for her baby best friend and feed it and sleep soundly through the night. wake up and feel it all again. the cycle will repeat until the curtain closes and we exit stage left or right the answer is unclear and will remain unanswered until then.

Illusion

Maya Kleinberg | Mixed Media

jitter juice

Katherine "Katya" Nikolau

welcome to this: the sweat of ninety-degree july, and sunday brunch with hometown friends in a diner i couldn’t give five stars to if i tried, even if i did finish all of my soggy chicken fingers. phone calls have been postponed indefinitely, which is definitely a result of the trepidation in my chest, collecting like unlucky rainwater. i rerecorded my voicemail a thousand times, wondered if you would ever hear it and smile. recently i noticed that your eyes are burnt-sienna brown, kind of like coffee-beans roasted just, just right and it was funny, today at work this guy called coffee jitter juice and i think i never want to call it anything else now. which made me think that he probably heard someone else say it first and copied it, and maybe we’re all just mosaics of other people, fragments of something too big to name. in any case, i hid all my lighters, started dreaming in technicolor again. my dreams whirled me whimsical, took me to aquariums where fish did shimmer-dances against the glass until the water spun silver. in the morning, i might call myself content but only because i can’t think of a word that’s more deep-fried by summer heat. in all honesty, i ache for cups of ninety-nine cent coffee in the basement of my campus chapel, the one with all the posters from the sixties and comfy loveseats, and i miss my lonely walks at night in neighborhoods my mother might call seedy, and she wouldn’t be wrong. but once again it’s one am in a town you’d never remember the name of and i’m watching the lights of cars swim by on my ceiling as my legs turn to jelly and my silly little mind churns out a love spell that only enchants my own pitter-pattering heart.

So We Danced

Madeline Rommer

You always were a starchild. You loved to go dancing in starlight. See, most people would call it moonlight, but the moon was a little too ordinary for you. I think what you meant to say was that Earth was a little too ordinary for you, or maybe that was what I meant to say, because I always thought it odd how only one town on Earth could have you and it happened to be mine. But the moon was too ordinary for you, and I thought that I would be too, but you seemed to think I wasn’t, because still you asked me to dance in the starlight. Even in the winter, when white flakes that I called snow and you called star dandruff fluttered down to land on us. And I think maybe you had the right idea calling it star dandruff, because those little white flakes landed in your hair like dust, but the beautiful kind. So we danced in the starlight, not the moonlight, and you always were a starchild.

It's Been Awhile Ryan Mitchell

Photography

She Started Singing Again

Tori Baker

When she was younger, She sang so loud That everyone in the neighborhood could hear The echo of her voice, Even if they were a mile Down the road.

When she was younger, She would hug me every morning And every night Just to say She loved me.

When she was younger, She danced freely Without a care in the world

To songs by Katy Perry And Taylor Swift Playing on the radio.

Then something changed Once she started high school.

I never heard a single note Escape her mouth. The only time she used her voice Was to say hello And goodbye.

She no longer hugged me Before she left Or when she got back. Actually, She didn’t hug me at all anymore.

She stopped listening To Taylor Swift And Katy Perry. Now, distorted songs With a heavy bass Will shake the house. But today, I could’ve sworn I heard The faint Sound of her voice, Humming To the tune of “Firework,” Competing with the white noise Of the shower. And winning.

Existential Dread

Rachel Pahl

it’s three o’clock am; you thought you could hate someone and go to denny’s with them at the same time. they ordered a coke with one straw and proved you wrong. there was nobody else in the denny’s to hate but when are you going to realize there isn’t anybody to love in a denny’s at three am either?

it’s four o’clock am; you thought driving up to thacher with someone who isn’t you who you don’t know but would like to was going to be nothing but easy. sophie b. hawkins is on the radio. what kind of person lies about who they fall in love with because it’s safe?

the way the light doesn’t touch the stolen school bus you’re riding away on feels like a metaphor means you’re doing something right; leave it behind? like you could?

it’s five o’clock am; and you go searching for dead bodies in the library lost and found and you want to hold hands but you aren’t looking for the same dead bodies. which is important.

why would you ever think someone you spent two hours with wants to look for your dead bodies? you don’t even want to look for your own dead bodies. so you leave the sepulcher; when you kiss her you start bleeding. neither of you have been stabbed. you’re just bleeding. it cuts you, this kiss. she tastes like cherry coke. she tastes like ashes. (she holds her ribs when she walks away, doesn’t face you, and ichor and gold rain down through her fingers, splash dandelions and dead grass in her wake. you’ve never seen something beautiful as that. wake up, you idiot, and realize you’re dreaming.)

seven o’clock am; you catch a bus to campus too early so you’re hearing voices echo in empty lecture halls and you’re daydreaming instead of listening to her. she is offering explanations that nonetheless fail to measure up to dancing around the wedding pavilion just after it empties to that song you both swore that you hated but she walks into the room at eight anyway and smiles at you alone.

enemies to lovers enemies to lovers to—

Katherine "Katya" Nikolau

[kiss me. your warm soft lips almost make up for this feeling in my chest, like i have forgotten something important or something important has forgotten me. you look like heaven in a handbasket. you look like heaven in the moonlight, but poets have said that before. i’m nothing special. i’m nothing special and the you in these poems is really me, and the me is you, and look, i know i compared you to someone else and that was really shitty but trust me when i say that that saomeone else meant something else and he’s gone now, kind of. that was confusing, sorry. maybe i’m confusing. maybe i feel confused. maybe all your words are right and i am a bitch, i am a challenge to love. but when my nails circle your temple eversogently, i selfishly believe that no one else will touch you like this. but they will. they’ll touch you better, they’ll touch you the way you need and want. the way someone else needed and wanted me. i want to keep you in my pocket forever. i never want to see you again. i want to watch bob’s burgers on your television with your curly head in my lap. i love you. i hate you. i am very tired of not being tired of you. if i could, i’d always be holding my breath under lilypads and feeling moss under my bare feet. if i could, i would kiss you. kiss me. right now. in this car, in this moment. lean in like you can’t hold yourself back. like you smell the perfume on my neck and know that i was thinking of you when i sprayed it on. someone else is somewhere

else. you asked if we could resolve it so i wrote down all the notes, but you still hung up the phone. it’s no use. you’re under my skin like a scarab but feeling you crawl through me is the only way to get close to you. i am realizing that i want to be close to you. and so the game begins. here’s the deal. if i win, i get to eat your heart on a platter. i’ll slather it in chick-fil-a sauce and forget to use utensils. it’ll taste like the bread of the revolutionists and the blood of the bourgeoisie. it’ll taste fucking delicious. and if you win, i take a breath. i take a moment. i take a long bath in the dark. i use all the conditioner left in the bottle. i scrub you off my skin and then wait for my hair to dry].

Storm in the Eye

Idnani | Mixed Media

Another Night the Heart Tormented

Renata Lee

One morning a young woman visited a witch whose house was at the edge of the forest. The mood of the sorceress fluctuated like the rise and fall of the tide, and many who suffered her wrath were promptly forever silenced. However, the young woman was fueled with unbridled determination and her demeanor was gentle and pleasing. The witch set up two chairs and one table all crafted of old oak. The two sipped barley tea and the lady told her what troubled her heart every time the dark veil of night covered the maiden sun. With a tired sigh, the old enchantress shook her head and in her wrinkly palm held out a shining ruby pendant with a chain of pure silver. She frowned, “Wear it and the longing in your heart will disappear, but the loss will be far more consuming than the hunger you feel now.”

The young woman wore the chain around her neck and thanked the witch as she left her abode. That night the stars and the moon were painted across the sky and the ache the damsel felt before subsided.

The next day the young woman trekked up a tall mountain-side. She traveled along a narrow path made by previous travelers, most of whom did not return after facing the resident of the mountain’s inner tunnels. However, the young woman was fueled with unbridled determination and her demeanor was gentle and pleasing. The mountain dweller was none other than a dragon, whose scales reflected the shine from the mounds of gold he sat atop proudly.

The lady held her hands up and stared into the eyes of the mighty beast. She told him of the cold her hands felt, and the present absence that amplified the emptiness of her heart.

The dragon snuffed out a stream of gray smoke, before tossing a golden ring towards her position at the tunnel’s opening. He snarled, “Put this ring on your finger and no longer will you feel the cold, but the loss that will replace it is greater in power than the most treacherous tempest.”

The lady wore the ring, exited the tunnel, and as she made her way down the mountain she realized no longer did her hands cool.

The next day the young woman visited the ocean. There was a sea nymph who was hidden among the waves and eluded the gaze of many a sailor. However, the young woman was fueled with unbridled determination and her demeanor was gentle and pleasing. She took off her sandals and stepped into the mass of blue, letting the waves dance around her, droplets of salt and sea hitting her bare ankles. The nymph appeared before the young woman, her figure faint in the distance, yet still more visible than to any human who sought her presence prior to the lady. The young woman lamented over her ears, which made the world around her voiceless.

The sea nymph sent a case made of scallops to the young woman along the waves. The lady picked up the case and inside she found two earrings crafted of pearls. She giggled, “Wear these on your ears and the sounds of the world will be heard once again, but the loss will swallow you with waves mightier.”

The woman put on the pearls and the sounds of the world were pleasing to her again.

The next day the young woman attended a coronation that took place in her homeland’s kingdom by the sea. At fifteen, the king’s son was hardly a man, only placed upon the throne following the death of his father.

As the crowds filed out of the castle after the ceremony’s end, the footsteps of galloping horses shook the ground. In what could only be explained as a miracle, members of the king’s army, presumed dead along with the king, appeared at the foot of the castle gates. Wounded and weary, the soldiers were welcomed with a flurry of joy and tears by their previously grieving homeland.

The young woman struggled to leave the crowd, only for her hand to be grasped by someone she’d forgotten.

The soldier embraced her and eagerly looked upon her precious face again, only to see no recognition in her dull eyes. He loosened his grip and watched his love slip away from him into the crowd once again.

What the soldier did not know was that his beloved was in the belly of her own beast.

It was a beast far more invisible than the throes of war, the clashing of swords, the rain of blood, the last breaths of men once referred to as “brother.”

The beast loomed over the young woman like a never-ending torrent of whistling wind and fiery hail.

Every night she would lay down her head only to find her heart begin to race, her hands begin to burn, her head begin to pound.

With each attack, her skin turned paler and the numbness in her soul rolled itself into a heavier weight.

She could not fathom how long ago these harbingers of chaos were born, as their conception was many moons ago, when she first attained the cursed jewelry. For only during her encounter with the stranger on the day of the coronation did the ailments dare to quiet,

for a brief moment, only to be replaced by a familiar and forgotten feeling she had abandoned for the allure of the jewelry that now clung to her like leech to scarlet skin.

Night fell upon the cliffside kingdom. After returning home devastated, the soldier suddenly remembered an old story from his childhood, told for many centuries by many generations. It was a tale that spoke of a way to heal the pain of losing a valuable and irreplaceable bond, but with a cure flanked by its own consequences more devastating than the loss itself. The panic in his heart rising, the soldier ran to the home of his beloved and knocked on her door. He was only answered by the coos of owls and gentle splashing of the tide as it collided with the cliffside like a child’s game. He did not dare to enter freely, for he feared what dwelled within. With the pit of loss deepening in his heart he departed.

The lady did not hear the knock as she was again plagued by the ailments. Although forgotten was her lover, that night she found that the emptiness in her soul could never be fully removed, even by the darkest of magic, only replaced. Tears poured out of the gray spirals of her eyes, before sleep reluctantly gave her blessing.

In her dreams the young woman was visited by what she thought to be a beautiful goddess. Her hair spilled down her shoulders and caressed her round face like the hands of a lover might. Her dress billowed out and around her thin frame that was brought about not by the life force that created her, but by the illness that destroyed her.

Her face was soft and illuminated, painted with a vague melancholy.

“My love, my joy, my hope,” she spoke tenderly. “I cannot stay for long but there is something I must tell you, please, listen closely my darling.”

The young woman recognized her voice. It enveloped her like the colors of the morning sunrise, the first flowers of spring, a warm quilt on a stormy night, “I am listening, mother.”

The next morning the young woman shed her ruby pendant with a chain of pure silver, the golden ring, and two earrings crafted of pearls. She walked outside and stood on a cliff overlooking the sea. Her mother had said that the curse could only be lifted by an utmost refusal of the jewelry.

With a deep breath, the young woman threw the pieces of metal off the cliffside and with a tiny splash they were absorbed by the sea.

Like a flash of lighting in a summer storm the young woman remembered. The memories poured into her and the moments flowed and spilled into one another as she recalled them.

His hand in hers, his gentle smile, his fingers playing her lyre with a skill she could never match, his kindness, his childish laugh that sent chills up her spine, the way he held her when they danced together along the moonlit shore. Then that night when they first professed their love for one another, professed their desire to be together, professed their future titles of union. “Helena, I must depart.”

As Helena ran to find the soldier, she mapped out the words

she would present to him:

“A witch gave me the pendant, to dull the pain that my heart felt upon losing you. A dragon gave me the ring, to ease my cold hands that could only be warmed by you.

A sea nymph gave me earrings of pearl, to let my ears once again enjoy the sounds of life and not only desire your voice.” But the words vanished as abruptly as they were formed for she was too late. The army had left at dawn.

Helena returned to the beach where she had encountered the nymph so long ago, but this time the nymph hid behind the waves. The numbness spread throughout the veins of her pale and fatigued flesh. She yearned for the sea and the sea beckoned to her as if in response.

She took step after step into the blue and imagined falling into its oneness, until there was darkness, and then fear, but forever, not another night the heart tormented.

That King and

Jenny Su

When I was a little girl, I stepped into a fairy circle

Grace Underwood

The train outside my window wakes me at the break of midnight

My dreams drift along the edges of my perception Clinging to the sand in my eyes Seeping through the grooves of the cullender that’s replaced my consciousness

I go through the day pretending

I don’t daydream of other versions of myself

That’s why I want to say something astonishing like I return to reality in the silence of twilight and drift through my dreams

Where there’s no difference between floating where my lungs need not exhale and sinking to the depths of darkness

She had gills–

This girl who had the same eyes as mine–An extra supply of oxygen

To explain the absurdity of breathing in her soul. And bubbles of content replaced the ability to cry. She had sails grown from her back–This girl whose laugh mimicked my own–

That she knew the tingle of berry juice on her tongue meant she could never leave. So that whatever name was breathed

no one would question a thing.

When sunbeams cast shadows over dust coated lids

And the earth has dragged me back into a cold embrace

I swallow the seeds of forget-me-nots wondering if they’ll do anything at all

DIVINE

Jada Marie Knight | Photography

Sofia Rodriguez

Do you ever think about your childhood doll?

The doll, housed in the attic inside a beige box No longer sheltered in the four-walled bedroom closet Instead plastered, on a couch in some guy's apartment The doll that was full of life, disguised as a future prize Will never leave you, the way you left her Not meant for the little boy, but dressed for his eyes A simple plaything entertaining any human alive Expected to fix what's wrong without compromise Worthy of love, but forgotten with time

A doll that: Listened to you cry Forced to kiss Ken because he needed a wife Alone, plastic with chipped paint on her lips & eyes Only moving when touched by someone else's hands Stripped down to nothing but the tight pink dress and gap in her thighs

Do you ever think about me?

Blown up by your thin lips

Constant moans from “you”, but endless silence from “me” Penetrable, but not pleasurable Fucked raw because I am only yours

An object with no consent granted “So tight” because you aren’t doing it right Truly a prize, when I was brand new Purchased in that Pure Pleasure Sex Shop So you can shove your dick in a place not meant for it Mouth wide open with no words uttered Tears stream down my face because all I want is love from within But now I am just placed in your four-walled bedroom closet

Tell me, do you ever think about your childhood doll?

Iden-titty

Brenna Phelan | Acrylic

Grab Me by the Waist

Kyra Zabretsky

My skin was painted in Green paint only visible To the male gaze.

My insides were tinted yellow, Quietly begging for him To see the hues inside of me.

My brain strobes red, The troubled young girl Has no idea how to be loved.

I see in vibrant color, I feel them so deeply, Though the world only sees A monochrome beacon

Of begging and Consents unspoken.

SKIN

Jada Marie Knight

Yuh skin Rich Dark Divine

Di need tuh rid yuhself ah wah mek yuh beautiful overwhelms yuh

Di need tuh feel wanted inna yuh skin a wah yuh desire di most

Di need tuh hide yuh every blemish is wah scars yuh Di need tuh fit inna ah colorists society tek yuh ova Di need to lighten yuh skin traps yuh

Yuh skin

Elegant Lovely Graceful

Yuh terrified tuh grow ah family inna dis broken an hateful place dat wi call yaad Yuh surrounded by people who refa to yuh Blackness as bein dutty

Yuh hurtin because of di way society treats Black people Yuh a fraid tuh be happy because ih nuh seem tuh laas Yuh constantly doubtin yuh self wuth

Yuh skin

Beautiful Heavenly Magnificent

It’s time tuh recognize dat yuh skin tells ah story whether yuh believe ih ar nuh It’s time tuh realize dat yuh melanin a di strongest paat bout yuh

It’s time tuh reflect pan how much yuh have accomplished It’s time tuh speak bout yuh mental health an well-being It’s time dat yuh staat acceptin yuh beauty

Yuh skin

Rich Dark Divine Elegant Lovely Graceful Beautiful Heavenly Magnificent inna all ways

Nothing Special

Grace Ripperger

From what I can Remember, it was Enough for me. I remember How it made me feel to look at you: A total surrender. The dimple of Space between your shoulder blades. Sometimes, on those In-between days (when I thought of nothing if not you), I felt I had Grown up. Like Everyone else, finally. I thought I knew you. I thought I recognized you From inside my head. I wanted you. I wanted you To look at me with A tender slouch to your Expression until I couldn’t Breathe. I wanted you, I needed you, To say the words my brain thought. Because you knew me. Didn’t you? Didn’t you ever want me, too? But, maybe, the whole thing wasn’t Enough for me to remember Because maybe it wasn’t anything at all.

Boots for Kings

Mehreen Ahmed

I sat here, like a loyal friend, by her floor bed. Waiting for my owner, Samira Khan, to wake up. She did in a while. I saw her frowning and looking groggy. Laying on her pillow, she reached out for a wooden box which held her medication. Last night, like every other night, she’d filled up her small pitcher and placed it beside her bed. She took out a pill blister pack, pinched one out, and popped it into her mouth. She swallowed hard with some water from the pitcher. With a sigh of relief, she lay back on the pillow. She looked vaguely at a pair of pants hanging from a hook on the bedroom door—not hers. The morning was dull and dreary with deep, hanging clouds. She pushed and rolled herself out. A vegetable vendor was shouting on the street. Just as well, I also heard his croaky voice and readied myself. Samira was going to run downstairs. He always came along with his cart at this time of the day. My owner slid her feet and rested them roughly upon my tongue. She checked her vegetable basket, and decided to buy some potatoes and green papaya from him. She craned her neck through the window and told him to pack her one kilo of potatoes and one mediumsized papaya. Quickly, she picked up her purse and climbed down the stairs. On the street, the vendor had wrapped her potatoes and green papaya in an old, crumpled newspaper sheet. Samira opened her purse and gave him the money for a kilo of potato and a green papaya. The vendor took the notes with a polite smile, but said that the price had gone up because of inflation.

“Since when?” Samira asked. I listened.

“There’s an inflation, didn’t you know? It was in the news?”

“I know. High electricity bills, petrol price hike, and what have we. How much?”

The price had doubled. Samira frowned and looked into her purse. There was no money left.

“Stay here, I’ll have to go upstairs to fetch the extra some.”

“Okay. Please don’t be late. Time is money. I got a family of five to feed.”

“I know.”

Samira smiled and left, as he hung around in the dull street. She went upstairs and searched for money. She went through all her purses, scrambling for coins and loose notes here and there. She gathered them in a rush, and sat down to count them. It was barely enough. She took it all and raced downstairs to the waiting vendor. She gave him all she had. Mad, she had the right amount—somehow. As she turned around, I felt a pressure pain and I caved in a little long.

“Uff,” I uttered. Thumbing her temples, she slowly came back up the stairs. She would have to get dressed in an hour to go to work. The bus-stand, thankfully, was not far. She went straight into the kitchen, grabbed a peeler off the rack and began to peel the potatoes and the green papaya. She mixed it with turmeric, red chillies, oil, and a dash of salt. Turning on the stove, she placed the pot and reduced the heat. While it cooked in the gentle flame, she went into the bathroom to take a bucket bath. Her feet released me. I felt relieved. A few mugs of pail water down her back; after the bath, she dried herself with a towel and put on a cotton sari, combing her long black hair. She added some lipstick to her pale lips. The curried potatoes and the green papaya were cooked by now. She sat down in bare feet to have her meal in the kitchen with a couple of dry chapatis, left overnight. There was no time to make tea. She washed her hands, picked up her purse, and slid her feet into me. Off she climbed down the stairs again. On the street, she hurried towards the busstop. But her bus had stopped and left; she was late. Her jaw fell. She called a passing rickshaw and got on it. I felt rested. Just then, she realized that she didn’t have enough money to pay him. Which meant she would have to borrow from a colleague once she reached her office? Unless she went into her bank first. She asked the rickshaw to stop in front of the bank. She told him to wait here. The man wiped off his sweat

with a soft towel around his neck and inclined against the passenger seat where she had been sitting. Samira crossed the street. I was her sturdiest, best pair of sandals she ever had, which she had been wearing for donkey’s years. She crossed the street and entered the bank. A quarter of an hour passed; she returned. Her rickshaw was still there. A good samaritan, at the office, she paid fare and some extra tip to the rickshaw-puller because she made him wait. The man took it happily, not everyone was fair. Most people haggled. But Samira didn’t, not even with the vendor this morning. She walked over five high steps, dipping her weight duly into me and entering the office building where she worked as a secretary. It was awfully noisy today. What was wrong? She asked a colleague. The colleague replied that the company was folding. They were all out of jobs. What? Out of job meant no pay. She saw how the other girls were behaving. Some screamed, some even fainted. Others sobbed silently. She dug her toes deeper into me. She offered them no consolation; soberly, she watched them despair. This level-headed person—my owner chose me as her sensible sandals. In all the world, I could never fail her, nor cause her to break a bone or cause her to lead an invalid life by tripping her over. Such a long journey she walked in me, while I had her back all along: I didn’t fall apart. I knew that she felt strangely secure with me—her trusted sandals.

Samira thought of bootstrapping as an alternative mode. Typically, the vendors were the real battlers of struggle streets: they were her real heroes. They grew and sold their own vegetables. In her view, they never made boots for the kings. Samira decided to strap her boots and invest in a start-up business. She thought of selling jewellery. She took out money from the deep pockets of the pants hanging on her door. She bought jewellery from craftsmen and decided to sell it in a shop. She needed to find a shop. I took her

on paths she never thought of traveling to walk her walks. Without wasting any time, I took her to a developer. She asked them if she could rent a shop in their newly-built, glamorous building. They promised her one. They said she could. On that promise, Samira went ahead to a jeweler and made a deposit of 20%. In one short month, she picked up the jewelery and had a whole load to start her business with. However, when she went back to her developers, they told her that the new shop wasn’t available for rent. This was a setback. It disappointed her. She asked, “Why not?” They told her, because unless all the other new shops were tenanted, she couldn’t have hers. “What? What a crazy idea? You are breaking your promise.” “Well, it’s just a promise. No legal paperwork was in place.” Samira realized that without a shop all she had was this beautiful dream. Still, she had me. I took her back to the same developers. She asked them to help her out. They told her she could rent a kiosk, instead. Samira agreed straightaway. Although she would have preferred a shop, if she had this kiosk, she could at least sell her dream. Every morning, Samira walked to the kiosk, sat here long summer days into sunsets. It wasn’t easy at first, like everything else, nothing was really easy. But my soles had not yet disintegrated. They remained sturdy— a friend by her side, rain or sunshine. I took her places where her dream could become a reality.

Sure, the kiosk wasn’t the best option. But the market was changeable, too. And she also wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. This, her meal ticket, was as real as the cart was to the vendor, and the rickshaw to the puller. Days went by, months and then a whole new year had gone. Samira sold a lot. She bought and she sold. After about a year and a half, the developer came to her and offered her the shop she had desired. She couldn’t believe this. In those same loyal sandals—me—she moved her trinket boxes to the shell of the shop which was now going to house her big dream— all done. I did my diligent miles—the dirt and the grime were

now hard-pressed on my tongue, mapped out a grim, grimy destiny of strife.

Then one night, Samira came home late. She took me off and placed me in my usual place by the bed. She curled up under the blanket. I shivered and sentineled. The next morning, her headaches were also gone. When she woke up, she didn’t look at me even once. Neither were those familiar male pants hanging here anymore. I realized my days were numbered. Where was I? I was right there, where she put me every night. I had done my hard work, bore the brunt of it all without a hitch like a silent sole Scream painting on a wall. I flew her out on her whimsical air; the promised shop or not, her sandals were I, worn out but undeterred. Who took a whole gamut of the idiosyncratic business world in my stride? My tracks marked a solitary, but a solid pathway— she was successful. Just as those pants were gone, I was made redundant too, without any consequence to her. I heard her suppress a giggle and mumble—“funny, this love? You have to have the looks too for me or anyone to love you so?”

Old shoes, she cast me aside like a pair of disposables. Flat on my face, I saw that she took out another expensive pair from a shoe box. She despised the idea of making boots for the kings. Really? In those new shoes, she’d be doing just that. I was morose—someone else’s pants hung on the door.

Everything is Not What it Seems Allie Alongi

India

the ache

Katherine "Katya" Nikolau

patience, child, he tells me, but it’s too late and i’ve grabbed the steering wheel. nothing can be done.

it’s the afterparty and we lie back on asphalt poured by people with names i don’t know. we stare up at stars with names i don’t know, we map out the distance from here to there, and it’s always too long to walk. we pretend our days aren’t numbered.

i have dreams where we meet in my hometown diner for lunch. i scan the menu and for once, i know exactly what i want and you don’t have to choose for me anymore.

you squeeze my hand across the table and i’m not scared. i’m not scared because i know you’ll let it go when it’s time. i sip diner coffee and forgive/forgive/forgive. i wake up full. it’s midday again and the books are unread, the bed is unmade, i think about strawberry pastries and bullfrogs to calm my nerves but my hands won’t stop shaking. i step outside.

it’s raining and at first i don’t like it.

at first it feels cold, and it makes me want to think about all the bad things that have happened, to me and in general, but mostly to me. the worst thing i ever did was romanticize the ache. but then i look down and see earthworms wriggling, bathing, doing a raindance in a traffic of passing sneakers, and i want to enjoy the world with them. i want to enjoy the world.

Bitter Medicine

Kyra Zabretsky

I’ve sunken my fangs Into unsuspecting sheep before. My venom obscuring their trust, Leaving them with questions unanswered.

Snakes bite when they feel threatened, When prey gets too close for comfort, When they feel insecure, When I feel afraid.

Wolves come in sheeps’ clothing Once in a blue moon. You made my scales feel fuzzy And let my venom drip dry.

Bite me, leave a scar, Let that bitter medicine linger in my mouth. Disappear, replicate my dance.

When my scales shed, I am wool.

Identity Crisis

Juhi Idnani | Mixed Media

An Unexpected Kind of Home

Alexandra Stewart

The constant chatter In my brain In the hall Out the door On the square The laughs The cackles The yells At dawn At dusk And everywhere in between

I thought I loved The quiet The peaceful The silent

I thought my mind craved Crickets chirping Wind whistling In a breezy Lonely Forest

Yet it’s the Loudness That grants me Peace

It's the words In between the silence That make me feel The most At home

Beauty Allie Alongi

Tears of the Sky

Kathryn Wood

A typical person would never stand in the rain, But you are different, My Love. Clouds form and there you go running, Drowning yourself with the tears of the sky. Every time you know just how to soak them up; Forgetting that the world will keep turning if you let them fully fall.

God, sometimes I try to piss off the clouds myself, so I can just watch you, How passionate you are spinning, jumping, dancing in the rain. I’ll cry forever if it means you’ll come soak me up—

Just to feel you thumbing away the wetness on my cheeks, Kissing my neck, and whispering in my ear, Love, it will all be okay, I’m right here.

Intuition Nora Benko | Graphite

An Ode to My Feeble Heart

Audrey Weisburd

Golden lamps and candlelight illuminate my midnight bedroom of blankets and bookshelves. Side tables cluttered with half-empty glasses and stale mugs of chamomile tea. Some illusion of moonlight; the mirage of a star-ridden sunrise. My porcelain skin and freckled arms gently traced by the boy that I love. Our heads rest upon branded pillows where the feathers stick out and the cases slide off. Comfortably buried alive under an indigo duvet, childhood dissolved into adolescence into adulthood. I could never subject my precious stuffed animals to a life of choking on dust and cardboard, so their outgrown bodies of soft crusted fur and plastic eyes lined my little bed frame.

I collapse into his arms with melancholy limbs, connecting constellations under the sheets. Our conversations ricochet; we speak of the Everything and the Nothing in the palm of our hands. The temptation of rigid aesthetics and categorical identity. The hypocrisy that runs through the veins of an American flag. Parenting styles and crime and punishment. Choppy bangs and shaggy haircuts. Friends from home and friends from college and forming a friendship with the self. The fading memory of a lucid grandparent. The Everything and the Nothing in the palm of our hands, ebb and flow as our fingers interlock.

I witnessed death the week before. Daily trips to sterilized hospital hallways where crucifixes lined the walls and cycles of delusion circled my ears. Hands cold as ice, rotten skin, and food untouched; a muted contemplation of what lives

on the other side. My grandmother considered reincarnation and told a tale of a Nautical Return.

“I wouldn’t mind coming back as one of those,” her voice trembled under her words and grabbed my attention. She then pointed to the seahorses dancing in the ocean behind her television screen. Lovely, twisted, and morbid;, I shuddered at these deathly desires. On walks to the restroom with the sole purpose of escape, I found myself petrified by accidental side-eyes into ICU rooms, whilst in awe of the hospice workers that filled their lives with the End. I remember the day gravity gave out on her, nothing but denial to break the fall. I extended my hand and poured strength into her shivering arm; my youth into her shriveling fingertips.

I half-heartedly grappled with the sight of death, a reminder of limited time. Forced to wrap my head around the cellophane of the unknown, the evils of the Supreme Court, and the mass shooting that headlined the news,; my soul flatlined and my body went numb. Grief bottled up and stored away, humming and chiming an ode to my feeble heart. I longed for sincerity and beautiful sadness, but I am no stranger to unsettling thoughts.

Hot summer nights bled into one another as June turned into July. Sweat stains and country music, barbecue chips and ice cold beer. Meanwhile, bouquets and cookies of condolences overwhelmed the foot of our front door. The country shot fireworks into polluted, independent air as I binge-watched a series I’ve already seen. But as the monotonous days passed, my feeble heart gathered strength. Yes, we are all helpless to the passage of time, but

the passage of time fosters growth. The passage of time brought me baby cousins with curly blonde hair and bright blue eyes; baby steps towards equality; new books digested, new insights gained; fresh ideas seen to fruition. The passage of time made me more intelligent, more thoughtful, more open. The passage of time is meant to be felt in all of its gruesome glory, not avoided through numb, closed eyes.

Now I bury my nose into the pinstriped button-down he left for me. Traces of his scent seeped from the collar as I drench my soul in drops of his cologne. I see our knees touching at the piano bench and our feet kicked back at the coffee table. I see his body in my shower and smell my coconut conditioner in his hair.

The Two of Us Miranda Anastasakis

Roslyn Lydick

a word salad took it out of the fridge found it all soggy. ate a leaf choked put it back & shut the door. word salad revision took it out of the fridge found it all soggy. ate a leaf choked & ordered pizza instead. word salad take 3 took it out of the fridge found it all soggy. ate a leaf choked burned the salad & scattered its ashes on the Thames. word salad took it out of the fridge, which was my first mistake it was soggy and i couldn’t tell if that blue spot was mold or a wayward ice cream sprinkle & i wouldn’t eat it for fifty bucks

(although i might for fifty-one) but yeah i threw that shit in the compost—

LydickRoslyn_word salad took it out of the fridge found it all soggy. fed it to the parrot: it gave him indigestion but now he speaks in verse & has gotten quite good at sonnets I daresay.

When is Then?

Grace Ripperger

Sometimes I feel

Tangled when things change. Too much knotted up in me

At once: past, present, future. (I don’t know what to do.) So, instead, I do nothing and let the glob inside of me rot and watch the sky pinch from Blue to Black and black

To blue. Day after day after day after day. Until I am just a Spooled clump of cell fibers again and I am brave enough to keep feeling.

Dove for Dinner

My Lottery Dream Home

Madeline Rommer

If I were rich, I’d put big spiral staircases in my big fancy house. There’d be at least six, huge staircases swirling toward the ceiling. Except they’d lead exactly nowhere. When you’d get to the top, the stairs would just end. But you wouldn’t know that they lead nowhere until you got to nowhere, because spiral staircases are really good at hiding what’s above you because you only see the below of what’s above, so what’s above the above is a mystery until you get there. At the bottom you’d be nervous because you wouldn’t know which of the six staircases to take to get to where you were going. But eventually you’d pick one, by gut instinct alone, and you’d spend all day climbing a staircase that might not even be the right one. And you’d worry about it all day, too, afraid you were climbing the wrong one. And then, when you got to the top, you would be so relieved because you’d see that all the staircases lead to the same place. Nowhere. You’d be standing on the top stair of whichever one you happened to pick, good job trusting you gut by the way, you got exactly where you were going, and you’d look around to see the tops of five other staircases that look a lot like yours. And all the staircases would be tall, really tall, so when you were at the top you’d be suspended there up in the sky, and you’d feel like you were flying but you wouldn’t be, because you’d be standing on a stair just like you were a few stairs below you, and you’d feel untouchable, but you wouldn’t be, because there’d be quite a plunge beside you, but you wouldn’t fall, because you’d be standing on a stair just like you were a few stairs below, and you didn’t fall then, did you? You’d be just

close enough to death to feel alive, and you’d feel invincible, though you wouldn’t be, of course. There would be nothing in the house but the staircases and they would be very, very tall, so I guess what I’m constructing in both our heads right now is a tower, not a house. If I were rich, I’d put six big spiral staircases in my big fancy tower. And you’d come visit me, wouldn’t you, because you just can’t seem to stay away from me, can you, not even when I make you spend all day climbing spiral staircases that lead nowhere.

Morris Gelbart

Graphite and Digital

Liver

Infancia

Isabella Alvarez

Mortal, mi aliento suspira con las vides, mi piel oscura como la tierra. La mitad de mí susurra secretos borrachos de vino mientras un relámpago púrpura rompe el astillado en mi diente frontal. Te espero aquí, entre los morteros de lecho rocoso haciendo eco de una canción prohibida, granito contra granito, machacar bellotas hasta convertirlas en pulpa.

Translation: Earth-born, my breath sighs with the grapevines, my skin dark as dirt. Half of me whispers wine-drunk secrets as purple lightning cracks the chip in my front tooth. I wait for you here, amongst the bedrock mortars echoing a forbidden song, granite against granite, mashing acorns to a pulp.

When I was a kid, I killed bugs

Rosemary Crist

When I was a kid, I killed bugs.

On the playground, crouched down around a swarm of ants, I took a twig off the ground and began smashing them one by one, not letting them get past an arbitrary crack in the hard pavement. By the end of recess, I ended up with circles of dead ants all around the sidewalk, and other kids would scowl looking at the carcass piles that surrounded me—who was all dirty knees and wide-eyed intrigue.

Christmas of third grade, my dad got me a Nerf slingshot toy. I took a whole lot of joy in building my arsenal of perfectly fitted projectile rocks and plastic scrap. I sat out that Spring in my yard most days, shooting my pebbles, lids, Lego bricks, and dog treats into the trees and bushes. One particular, more cloudy evening after school, I was at my routine when one particular tree let out a loud, unidentifiable SQUAK when I shot. I jumped. Then ran. Under the tree, there was a dead baby bird, oil slick colored feathers wet with scarlet blood. I picked up the bird, less scared than curious, and brought it in the kitchen on a paper towel. I pried with my fat fingers the perfectly sharp pebble I had shot from it’s neck, observing how the red on the slate of the stone was so beautiful to me.

I learned to drive early, dad taking me to drive his golf cart some time before I was sixteen. Once I turned sixteen, I got my license as soon as I could, eager to get out on the road. I had become a boundless child who could be kept captivated by no one thing for longer than a couple of minutes. I ran with friends and slept in beds that weren’t mine, school had

fallen away from me and the open world was where I turned my focus. The moment I could drive, I never got out from behind the wheel. The streets of my small town became so closely ingrained in my mind that I could’ve perfectly recreated all the routes I traveled each day and night. Fall when I was seventeen, I noticed something odd each time I drove. It began with squirrels cut straight in half on the concrete. I saw maybe a dozen in the course of a week. Then, it was cats. All kinds of colors of fur painted on the roads, once I saw a huge tuft of orange sticking out of a gravel path I drove fairly frequently. Morbid curiosity took me out of my old sedan, inspecting the scene. I crouched down to find under a bush a cat whose head was hardly attached and was a marbled mixture of red and ginger orange. I felt bad for the thing, enough to find it a small ditch in the thick trees I was surrounded by and give it the closest I could to a real burial. After that day, I spotted a groundhog, a raccoon, and a stray dog. It was in this week of the abundance of roadkill I really became aware of the part of my brain that lacked the ordinary aversion to death. The corpses only occasionally made me feel sad, most often I felt nothing except an appreciation for the beauty of the red blood over a freshly dead animal. It was merely a conscious acknowledgement of this facet of my mind, neither a damnation or appreciation.

One cold November night, I found myself out by four in the morning with a couple of friends. We made our way around the town to all of the late night shops, and finally once we had run out, I insisted we walked to my favorite locale: a small clearing cut perfectly in half by a railroad track. We sat on the gravel ground, chatting emptily and blowing gray tendrils into the chilled air. Finally, the urgent

energy overflowed in my brain, jumping up as quick as I could. I gathered the few bottles we had accrued from the bar crawl we did, and lined them up on the tracks. Then, reaching into my coat pocket, I revealed the pistol I usually kept in my car or on me. It was my dad’s, but he most often did not mind when I took it out of the house.

“I’m going to shoot these,” I said. My friends all looked up, interested in the small game. I felt like a kid again, shooting with my slingshot. I had gathered about eight bottles between everyone, and each one exploded with a satisfying SMASH. The glass shards captured me. But I felt I needed more. I shot the last glass. Then, I raised my gun up to eye level. Then, I fired a shot at the tree line. And another. The pressure of my arm jerking back was so addicting. Subconsciously, I noted the single bullet left in my barrel. I shot at the darkness between trees.

There was a loud scream. Every one of my friends jumped up. For some reason, I was not startled. I dropped the pistol and ran across the glass remnants over to the opposite end of the clearing. With myself in front and a few of my friends behind me, I walked a few yards into the woods until some of the dawn illuminated an old woman, limp in the bushes. She was clearly homeless, a ragged flannel jacket and men’s trousers on. She had a few bags around the area and a bottle of Coke shattered next to her head. She was face down, but I could visibly see a line of shining black blood soaking the dirt around my boots. I bent over next to her body, staring at the bullet wound just shy of her shoulder blade.

Far away there was a sound of crying and panicked voices. My brain felt remarkably quiet. All I could really think was how beautifully rich the blood looked at this time

of morning, and how I don’t know if I could have drawn a better color palette than her mahogany hair, pale skin, and vermillion red injury.

I looked up. In the shuttering windows of the leaves, the sky was a deep teal, the sun slowly overtaking the dominance of the night.

Anatomical Abstraction

Brenna Phelan | Pen and Ink