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VOLUME XXXIX | ISSUE 39 Syracuse University
Perception is a free arts and literary magazine published once each semester by undergraduate students at Syracuse University. We are now accepting submissions for the Fall 2022 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 5 pages, and we accept submissions in any language with an English translation. All submissions and correspondence can be sent to Theperceptionmagsu@gmail.com.opinionsexpressedherein are not those of Syracuse University, the Office of Student Activities, the Student Association, and the Student ManyBody. thanks to: Sarah Harwell Alicia StudentJoAnnKavonRhoadsAssociation Javali Marri "that's my ego" | Digital Painting GG Delaney "Blue" | Digital McKenzie Gerber "Zebra" | Watercolor and Pen Gabrielle M. Borgia "Night in Seattle" | Photography || Michela Brittis-Tannenbaum "Red Moon" Ana Burwell "Clips" | CharcoalBailee Roberts "Not Good Enough" | Oil on Canvas Noor Zamamiri "Body and Soul" | Graphite || Jake Lunder "Quantum Banana" | Charcoal Michela Brittis-Tannenbaum "Vividly You" "My Perspective" Inside Back Cover Center Spreads Cover Art Front Cover Back InsideCoverFront Cover
Though we never force a theme upon our magazine, throughout this issue, I think you will find a thread of grief and, simultaneously–counterintuitively–a thread of buoyancy. We have bright, exciting art and soul-crushing poetry all in just over 100 pages. Despite everything happening in the world, we continue to create; this magazine stands to that testament. This semester we received more submissions than we have in the past three years, a fact for which I am truly grateful, and that continues to show this campus's resilience in the face of such ongoing hardship.
Editor-in-Chief
There is a poem by German poet, Bertold Brecht called “Motto,” and it goes: In the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will be singing, about the dark times.
My sincerest cowabunga, Ashley Clemens
Throughout my last four years working on this magazine–and working with all of you–I am constantly reminded of the thrill of creating. To handle, hold, sort, and experience your writing and art has been one of my greatest honors here at Syracuse University; I am so thankful that you continued to give me an opportunity to work with your pieces. My deepest thank yous go out to my team, for they are truly the only reason this magazine is in your hands. Thank you to Noor Zamamiri for sending my frantic emails, Maya Fuller for laughing at my jokes when no one else hears them, Kaitlin LaRosa for her emergency Goldfish, Kate Eisinger for indulging my random InDesign whims, Sydney Martinez for being ready with Canva on a moment’s notice, and thank you, truly, to Ariel Samuel who has weathered all of my indecision and pushed this magazine to its fullest potential. I know I am leaving this publication in good hands, and I will be delighted to see what you all accomplish.
So despite the dark times, I encourage you all to keep singing, even if it’s just for yourself.
Spring 2021 | 5
Hello Perceivers,
The Eyes and Ears AssistantAshleyEditor-in-ChiefClemensManagingEditorMayaFuller Managing Editor Ariel Samuel Head Editor Kaitlin LaRosa AssistantNoorEditor-in-ChiefZamamiri
Head Designer Kate Eisinger Assistant Head Designer Brenna Phelan Assistant Designer Colin Mosley Assistant EkaterinaDesignerKladova Assistant Designer Charles Gebbia
The Eyes and Ears Assistant Editor David T. YasminAssistantGarciaEditorNayrouz Assistant Editor KatherineIsabellaAssistantNikolauEditorAlverazCopy-Editors Anna GraceGraceVanessaNguyenWalkerRippergerKatieFerreiraUnderwoodOliviaHarkin
Head Digital Editor Sydney Martinez Assistant Digital Editor Ana Burwell Assistant Digital Editor Michela Flood Assistant Digital Editor Grace “Gray” Reed Head Reviewers Grace Katz Molly Egan Olivia GraceMcKenzieVanessaHarkinWalkerGerberF.MorrisGelbartSophiaHerreraCaitlinGollaCadeKaminskyGabrielleBorgiaIsabellaBrownUnderwood Reviewers
“The Loner's Ballad” Grace Ripperger “Snake Funeral” Isabella Alvarez “Hermosa” GG Delaney “To Lose One's Self” Matthew Brown “Big Brother is Still Watching” Grace Underwood “Tempted Angel” Stephen Cullina Jr. “Solis and the Sea” Alaina Triantafilledes “Forgetting” Kait Nero “The One, The Only” Charles Gebbia “Introduction to Epistemology” Roslyn Lydick “elvis wedding” Kate Brennan “A 10-Second Encounter” Grace “Gray” Reed “Rattle” Guiv Lederer “My Girl Forever” Valerye Hidalgo Garcia “The Lone Flight” Kristin Moffitt “sincerely, an agnostic” Roslyn Lydick 10 | Perception The Contributors Writing 44343020181614232836394649 58 6361
Spring 2022 | 11 “StrikeVanessaTwice”Walker “A Heart-Stopping Trip” Yasmin Nayrouz “The Girl in My Shadow” Grace “Gray” Reed *“Debt” Sofia Rodriguez “Having some water with you” P J Williamson “His Life in Colors” Katie Wells “Breathable” Maya Gelsi “desertsummerlover” Sophia Moore “Do What?” David V. Harvey “New York Minute” Maya Gelsi “If I only Last a Season” Eduardo Torres-Garcia *“Full-thickness Excision” Isabella Alvarez “Tales of an Archer” Eduardo Torres-Garcia “A Collection of Beating Hearts” Grace Underwood “Childhood” Isabella Alvarez “i have my grandmother's fingers” Kate Brennan 65 108106102989694928886848078747269 *Indicates trigger warning: mentions of sexual assault
12 | Perception 15 221719 25 332926 35 43384142 45 48 565557 646062 “What a Headache Life Can Be” McKenzie Gerber “The One Who Never Sleeps” Olivia Thompson “Sunset Peak” Akshara Singh “Fallen Down” Michela Brittis-Tannenbaum "In the in-between" Juliana Lay “Clips” Ana Burwell “American Natures” Renata Lee “God’s Sandcastle” Gabrielle M. Borgia “Treading Water” McKenzie Gerber “Welcome Home, Dear!” Gabrielle M. Borgia “Elements” Olivia Happel “Earth Eater” Jessica Phillips “Self Portrait” Ana Burwell “Love & Desire” Brenna Phelan “Lovie” Michela Brittis-Tannenbaum "Subtle Serenity" Juliana Lay “Grandpa” Brenna Phelan “Purple Study” Bailee Roberts Untitled Andrew Havens “The Watcher” Gabrielle M. Borgia “Grandfather’s Tallis and Tfillen” McKenzie Gerber The Contributors Art
Spring 2022 | 13 “Night in GabrielleSeattle”M. Borgia “Red Moon” MichelaTannenbaumBrittis"The Omen" Gabrielle M. Borgia “Slow Violence” Olivia Happel “Dive” F. Morris Gelbart “Coarse and Continuity” F. Morris Gelbart “Body and Soul” Noor Zamamiri “Quantum Banana” Jake Lunder “My Abstractions” Bailee Roberts “The Finger Trap” Eduardo Torres-Garcia “Le Nom De La Vie” Grace Underwood “Commensalism” Olivia Happel "Embodied Self" Juliana Lay “Behave” Olivia Happel “Poppy” McKenzie Gerber “Vividly You” Michela Brittis-Tannenbaum “My Perspective” MichelaUntitledBrittis-TannenbaumAndrewHavens “Sleeping Fairies” Grace Underwood “Birth” GG Delaney “Pincers!” Noor Zamamiri Untitled Andrew Havens “Home” Akshara Singh “Stages of Grief” Ana Burwell “Self Portrait” Olivia Thompson “Cozy Cafe” Yasmin Nayrouz 7371686766 75 838281797776 85 9391908987 95 1011009997 105 109107
Grace Ripperger There once was a woman Who ripped out her innards, Knobs of intestine delusion-infused. Ignorant of her hidden beauty, she accused. Destined to be alone, she mused. In her brain stabbed thought-knives. And over her misanthrope-mouth: A fleshy garland, her lips unkissable. So quiet her presence, all-too-missable. With her specter composure, invisible. And yet she admired, From a distance great and far, How voices of baritones and tenors floated. The ease with which the choir gloated. The intensity at which her peers–With Emoted.words–
14 | Perception
The Loner's Ballad
Spring 2022 | 15 What a Headache Life Can Be McKenzie Gerber | Graphite, Acrylic, and Pen
Isabella Alvarez
Snake Funeral
16 | Perception
Stains blooming in our armpits, we exhume root from earth. I’m five, maybe seven, skin glistening in the early afternoon light, my two front teeth crooked and ugly, hair wild and matted. A picture of innocence, and you’re there next to me, back curved as you carve through hardened dirt. It doesn’t matter that we are stepping on stolen land, that you call it an Indian summer, that my half-white-half-brownness hangs in humid air, an unanswered question. I haven’t yet smoked my first cigarette, cried over a boy. I just dig and dig and dig, fingernails soiled, knees muddy and scraped. An hour later, maybe three, and we’ve eradicated the weeds, guillotined every last dandelion. At some point you’re crouching over the bell peppers when you feel it press against you: silent, coiling slithering through shadow. Six feet of scales sliding past soil. In a flash we’re sitting in the Jeep and dirt flies from the skidding wheels, and you’re screaming for help as rows of artichokes and zucchini disappear in the rearview window. I scream with you, high-pitched and warbling.
A worker stops us eventually, piecing together our broken Spanish—vibora, snake, mátalo, kill it. He nods, fingers the edge of his pocket knife. I don’t see him behead it. I hear the sharp swing of a blade mid-air, a thump, a quick rustling, and then nothing. You tell me to stay in the car as he drags the decapitated body to a patch of upturned grass and buries it in a shallow hole. We leave unceremoniously, and the worker remains, watching us disappear over the hill. After you tuck me in I dream of a snake funeral with a snake eulogy. Snakes gather and shed snake tears, recite snake Bible passages, sing a sad snake song. A snake wife hugs her snake children, and a snake priest offers his snake condolences.
The worker lurks in the background, face hidden in the brim of a baseball cap. In some nightmares I become the snake, my small, gangly body twitching and twisting. In the worst ones I am the worker, slicing a clean cut between neck and spine. Watching you disappear over the hill.
Spring 2022 | 17 SleepsNeverWhoOneThe MediaMixed|ThompsonOlivia
18 | Perception Hermosa GG Delaney I got this house because it had A great big front door which I assumed could fit many people at once Whether friend or nomad or family withpitchforksofflames at the stake and flowers over ears At dusk I wait on the prairie for the wind & her sisters We sneak in the back to dance in graves dug for sun’s wake My bones ache for the whistling of tornado in absolution of arrival & the kick of thunder in expectation of rain
Spring 2022 | 19 PeakSunset PaintAcrylic|SinghAkshara
20 | Perception To Lose One's Self Matthew Brown It’s the glass that holds you up Threatens to break as Each crack slowly crawls towards you Shatters beneath you It’s the air that rushes out of your lungs As you scream while the Glass lacerates and the blood Streaks down like comets It’s the black clouds above Against a bleached sky while Crows and ravens screech your Last rites It’s the contact with the hard Earth and all these voiceless cries Endlessly break the rhythm Dragging you to an even further low Still the void Creeps in And the AndConsumesdarknessitjustkeeps Giving Promises through Loud lies and Tiny truths laced with Hushed hopes Inked feathers swarm your Body as even the wind Holds its Suffocatingbreathevery unwanted memory
Spring 2022 | 21 Yet this echo chamber Of your own thoughts Continues to fill you with An endlessly rising tide of Malice and dread, Promises no peace–But only pieces of ThatPromisesmake up a creature That You.AndBrokenAndEmptyis
22 | Perception Fallen Down Michela Brittis-Tannenbaum | Photography
Spring 2022 | 23
Big Brother Is Still Watching
Grace Underwood
The TV static has eyes Where it shouldn’t. Pasting caricatures of people, Who look like me And not like me, Into a black, endless void. Invisible strings pulling on Hands and feet. Voices that echo From mouths that don’t move. Letters as thick as blood Painted on the corpses Of Straighttrees from the hands Of the corrupt. Fed into the hands That are weighted down With shackles no one can see. They observe me Through a tracker They would rather embed in our brains. But it is so integral That we have done the work For them; It is attached to our hands. Poisoning our souls. We mindlessly endure Without even recognizing The noose is tightening. They want to put me in a box. A school disguised As a prison.
24 | TheyPerceptionwishIwasn’t taught The definition of A Theyquestion.filterthe truth through A zoomed in lens Obscuring the figure Yanking at strings. They want to seal my lips And pull the platform From beneath those Whose eyes never clouded. They want to pretend I am the prey Too helpless to think for myself. A wolf with cut claws And pulled fangs Raised to think it was A Theysheep.can’t pretend That containing a fire Will not extinguish The spread of Its smoke.
Spring 2022 | 25 Juliana Lay | Copic Markers In the in-between
28 | Perception Tempted Angel Stephen Cullina Jr. My, I detest these wings For they burn when I fly away Ever subtle in the fray The angel pondered its gaze If once I could be aloof I see no beauty in it at all I fear the smoke that takes me there Yet in the moment a siren’s call Tempest it may be And tempt me it does still What mark on your soul do you pay For our momentary thrill ~ 9/16/21
Spring 2022 | 29 American Natures Patrick Riley | Digital
In dreams, the sea comes to her - crawls up the dirt pathway from the beach to the forest, finds her family’s mailbox and floods the driveway, crashes against her bedroom window, rattling the walls. Sometimes, she wakes to the moonlight gleaming through the blinds, and when she hops out of bed, she finds herself standing in ankle-deep gentle saltwater, still dreaming. Lately, the water seeps in from underneath the door, spilling into
But the ocean is an ecosystem in motion. Currents tug and creatures lurk, all out of sight. Something slimy slithers along her thigh and she cringes, stumbles to a different patch of sand to stand on. Standing still, however, is not customary in this environment. The water lifts her up and away from the shifting floor while her legs kick in search of stability.
Waist-deep in the green Atlantic, Solis attempts to ground herself. She digs her feet into the unfamiliar terrain below. From the callouses, rough against the sandy surface, it’s clear her feet have made many journeys. They’ve known the damp wood of the back porch, splinters and all. They’ve met the mulch of the herb garden next to the basement window, where, if she stands on the back of the couch inside, she comes eye to eye with the ants crawling toward the parsley. They’ve felt the lush beige carpet in the living room, toes knotted in the soft threads with a rocking chair nearby, creaking next to the side table covering an apple cider stain created in a wrestling match for the TV remote. They’ve walked the narrow edge of a mossy log in the Azores forest, her father’s gaze on her back, steadying her.
Solis shouts, scowling, and he flashes her a crooked smile that reflects sunlight.
Alaina Triantafilledes
30 | Perception
Behind her, a laugh splashes against her back. She looks over her shoulder at her older brother, freshly fourteen, snickering at her first steps into the“Shutocean.it,Eli!”
Elijah, three years her senior, has always been a bit stronger than Solis, a bit smoother around the edges like a stone on the riverbed. He learned to swim when he was only five, before she could even babble the words “wait for me!”
Solis and the Sea
Solis never understood how he managed to make so many friends without attending public school—real friends that make noise and spend the night and ride their bikes down the trail to the beach, then leave their towels drying on the porch railing and track black sand through the kitchen. Solis had never been in the ocean - only listened. Most nights, its rhythmic roar and whisper lull her to sleep like a distant storm.
Spring 2022 | 31 her room until Solis is floating above her bed, until her head hits the ceiling, until she wakes up gasping.
Now, she wades in it, driven to extremes by her nightmares. She looks over her shoulder to stick her tongue out at her brother. Behind Elijah, her dad stands, skin bronzed and eyes squinting at something behind her. He begins to motion wildly with his hands, mouthing, “Turn around!”
There is an intimate moment between the two of them, when the wave’s skin stretches thin so that the sun seeps through like light through a stained glass window, a blue sky waiting behind the barrel. There is this feeling of shouting off of the edge of a cliff, of staring into a mirror, of meeting an old friend for the first time in a long time - and then it swallows her whole.
These dreams have occupied her nights for as long as she can remember, for as long as she’s known what happened to her mother. Solis grew up preferring lakes and natural pools to the unpredictable nature of the sea. At first, when she sat underneath the umbrella on the beach with a book, watching her brother’s head dunk in and out of the waves, all she could see was riptides, danger, darkness. Solis could see the beauty in the ocean, of course, but it was the kind of beauty one notices in a wild animal: fascinating, but she mustn’t get too close.
A fragmented array of memories emerge, knocked loose by the impact of the wave: seagulls squawking from a blank sky, casting shadows on the sand; the silhouette of a woman walking into the waves with a surfboard tucked underneath her arm; aquatic charms on on a nursery mobile clattering against each other while tsunami sirens blare from every corner of the island; her dad cradling her in one arm, holding Elijah’s hand with the other, his eyes anxiously scanning the horizon while the town below is consumed by floodwater.
Solis turns. Not far out, the water rises like a beast from a deep slumber, its shoulders shuddering. This, she thinks, is the creature from her dreams. It prowls closer, and she watches as it rears up, up, up onto its hind legs. Nearby swimmers are diving underneath, but Solis is still, staring into the wave’s face with her eyes glazed and mouth ajar at the crest curling above her head at full force.
All at once, Solis is pinned to the seafloor. After the wave’s foam lips close around her, the undercurrent sucks her feet first into its orbit, tossing her onto her back and rolling her into the white trough. As the swash and the backwash spit her back and forth with the pebbles and seashells, and her ears are filled with rumbling foam, Solis thinks of Elijah. She thinks of his rough hands placing a squirming baby sand crab in her cupped palms, then pointing at the tiny tunnels they burrow in. She feels the indignant,
devotedPerceptionaffection
one can only feel for family. She wonders if he is laughing at her tumble, or if he is nervously searching the surf for her brown curls. She imagines his eyebrows are pulled together like they were in the picture of him and Dad at the funeral, standing next to a stroller at the foot of an empty casket, the body buried somewhere in the deep like a sunken ship.
“Lesson one: never turn your back on the ocean,” he says. “That’s when it gets you.” That’s when it gets you , Solis agrees. Her dad’s eyes glisten with something like melancholy, or perhaps recognition. Meanwhile, Elijah runs over to her, explaining that her wipeout is a customary indoctrination. How else should she come to know the ocean without first knowing its power?
Solis introduces herself: young and curious, uncertain but ready. The ocean responds, ferocious and omnipotent, maternal and nurturing. She gazes out at the turquoise expanse and sees this: insurmountable fury, rippling divinity, infinite life.
32 |
Once the ocean has thoroughly pummelled her, it tosses her onto land like a crumpled paper boat. When she comes to, she is on all fours, knees scraped and hair tussled. With every soft wave that washes in, she feels her scratches stinging from the salt, stitching themselves back up. The seawater salves the very wounds it created as if to apologize, as if to invite her back.
Solis looks up and sees that Elijah is indeed laughing, although she detects a fading tension in his shoulders. She scrambles to her feet while her dad, grinning a proud grin, comes to greet her.
Spring 2022 | 33 God's Sandcastle Gabrielle M. Borgia | Photography
34 | Perception
Forgetting Kait Nero
In the winter as I tread carefully through ice and snow I often forget what it feels like to walk in spring. When the grass is green and the sun is high. When I am sick And I struggle to breathe through my nose I forget what a clean, deep breath feels like. When I am utterly exhausted, I forget what full attentiveness feels like. To be exuberant and full of life. But when I am with you, I forget the pain I have been through And finally, It is a sweet pleasure to forget.
Spring 2022 | 35 Treading Water McKenzie Gerber | Watercolor
The One, The Only
36 | Perception
The One would speak, and the visitors would listen. The visitors would try to understand. The visitors would pretend. The visitors would leave. But the town would stay. And The One would stay away. The One would stay in their tower, their colors reflected in its stained glass shining throughdownthecolorless streets in the patterns of their unholy words. theNevertheless,townwould always stay nearby, waiting for The One to thank them for all they sacrificed in the name of their cause.
from all over to see The One, and hear what it was they had to say. The hovels whispered their words of gray skies and hollowed halls memories of the sermons, the monstrous preaching that would haunt them until they would fall upon their end.
The town was quiet, with only the breeze for company. The streets were dormant, reminiscing on the use that once filled them, enveloped Visitorsoverwhelmedthem,them.wouldcome
Charles Gebbia
Spring 2022 | 37
But The One would never say a thing to the town, only to the visitors. The One had decided that the town should not know. What the The One said was not for loving ears, only for those sinful and lost. What The One now said, washowever,nothing at all. Not anymore. Not after the visitors stopped coming and the town stopped staying. Barren streets, lifeless andendlesshomes,silence,atowerfull of light. This is the domain of The One. May their reign be long and their words be empty forevermore.
Gabrielle
M. Borgia | Photography
38 | Perception Welcome Home, Dear!
It was my grandfather’s telescope that first taught me to wonder. Off-white, off-black, unassuming plastic, probably six hundred years old, the first pair of glasses I ever needed.
Spring 2022 | 39
Roslyn Lydick
When I was three I decided it was built for birdwatching (in the general sense: when birds gush by as a collective like jelly beans in that factory that gave my mother a headache). I learned the telescope’s secrets, and the limit was the world— first I had to hunt (like a harmless hawk) for the tiny plastic crank and use my motor skills, spanking new to lower the tube all the way onto its base (even stood on my tiptoes!) at which point I’d scrunch up my face but see only a night sky lit by no stars… but when rubber darkness peeled away in my father’s fingers, through three layers of glass I finally owned an aviary of a world. (There weren’t too many birds in a fourth-floor apartment across the bay, but people were more interesting anyway). I soon became an ornithologist of couples holding hands by the water, a woman in a suit on both a call and a smoke break, a family sharing a picnic (and the ants who showed up uninvited), forty dizzying leaves on a tree, rustling in the salt breeze, and, after dinner, arteries pulsing glowing white and red. Once through the window I saw a man bring a Safeway shopping cart to a stop near a tree. He looked tired. I took hold of the plastic arabesque and filled my vision learning how to pitch a tent.
Introduction to Epistemology
40 | Perception I didn’t understand why anyone would want to IinincampaparkSanFrancisco.knowmorethings now and the telescope has been cleared away to make room for books and magazines from Taiwan, which I cannot read.
Spring 2022 | 41 Elements Olivia Happel | Mixed Media
42 | Perception Self Portrait Ana Burwell | Acrylic
Spring 2021 | 43 Earth Eater Jessica Phillips | Multi-Layer Screen Print
44 | Perception elvis wedding Kate Brennan i can’t see myself loving you but sometimes i see an elvis wedding and plastic petals on a motel bed where you’re drunk and i’ve got pearls draped over my head sometimes i see us in the middle of the sea you’re the pirate and i’m ardita you’re seizing my ship and i don’t mind you carry just enough scandal the healthy kind i always thought you were the sun and i was the moon you make dead things alive again in spring then break out the funeral clothes mid-june people say the world’s gonna end with you and i believe it i do
Spring 2022 | 45 Love & Desire Brenna Phelan | Acrylic and Magazine Collage
A
“Are you alright?”
The normal thing to do would have been to respond, but I stared. Thousands of people walked this promenade every day. Dozens have slipped on ice; such a fall is commonplace. Why stop for me, a random person along the way? Why show concern? Yet here I was, with my dumb ass planted firmly on the ground - getting wetter by the second—with wide eyes looming over me. I had to speak eventually.
Grace “Gray” Reed
10-Second Encounter
quickly“Fuck,” followed by a crunch as canvas met iced-coated concrete. For a brief moment the world fell silent, and all that could be seen were thick chunks of snow falling from the seemingly blank sky. Stillness erupted around me, but as quickly as it disappeared the sound of students emerged once more. Before I could even convince myself that no one had witnessed my misstep, a girl appeared in front me. I could barely make out her features due to the heavy scarf wrapped around her lower face, but that did not stop me from locking my gaze with a pair of verdant eyes. From behind the fabric, I was able to decipher simple, concern-filled, words.
“I’m fine,” I made a move to plant my hands on the ground to push myself up, but my right was quickly intercepted by gloved fingers. Unanticipated force lifted me off the ground, but I somehow managed to keep my feet below me. I looked up once again to be met by those sincere green eyes. Upon further inspection, I noticed a few strands of blonde peeking out from under her hood, yet I still had no way of properly identifying the person in front of me. Almost immediately she pressed, “Are you sure?”
46 | Perception
“I think so,” I responded. It felt accurate enough. Maybe it wasn’t necessarily committal, but it got the point across. A relieving breath was released behind her scarf, and I could tell she had accepted my answer.
“Okay then,” she paused. “Do you have class? Do you want to get lunch? The student center is just two buildings down.”
Looking back, it feels almost cliché to be approached by an unknown individual after making a complete fool of yourself, and then almost immediately being invited to lunch. But at the time, it felt fitting. It felt right. Besides, the new shade of excitement that entered her eyes was endearing.
“Sure, I could actually go for a rice bowl right now,” I agreed as I offered her a smile, which seemed to seal the deal. “Perfect!” She tugged me forward—she had yet to let go of my hand.
She cared. I couldn’t see her face; I didn’t know anything about her. But her voice wavered as her eyes shifted from mere concern to pure worry. The grip she had on my hand tightened and I found myself genuinely reflecting: am I alright? I must be. Sure, my jeans looked like I just pissed myself, but I wasn’t in any kind of physical pain. My backpack was still intact, and it’s not like I hit my head. But I still questioned it. There was something about her demeanor that made me want to ensure she got the truth—she deserved the truth.
Spring 2022 | 47
48 | Perception Lovie Michela Brittis-Tannenbaum
Lederer
I stood on the empty platform. I could not remember what staircase I took to get into this subway station. I could not remember where I was hoping to go. A train already stood there, stoic, beckoning me to get on. I listened to the call of the train. I felt the train buckle under my weight as I got on. Immediately after both my feet were inside the car, I could hear the steam being let out the tires. The first sound other than my own breathing I had heard since I had found myself here. It was far longer than the station. I could not see the beginning nor the end. In both directions the cars went on and on, each window was dusty, and in the dim you could not see who was on board, though I could tell I was the only soul in the train. The doors closed quickly behind me, making sure I could not escape. But it was not as if I wanted to, I felt comfortable there. I took a seat in the middle of the rows of seats, I could watch my own reflection in the dusty window across from me. As soon as I sat, I heard the sound of more steam being let out of the brakes. The train jerked forward, and slowly the wheels began to turn beneath me. I could feel the train begin to pick up speed. The wheels screeched under the pressure of metal against metal. The rusted tracks, well worn since being laid by people we have long forgotten. I could feel myself growing tired. I watched my own reflection in the mirror, watching myself doze off. My breathing began to slow as I neared sleep. I could feel the train breathing beneath me. Each time I dozed off my eyelids would cover the world, and each time I’d snap awake I’d watch myself in the window again, until the world vanished once more. When I woke up I noticed someone sitting in the far corner of the traincar. I wondered where he had gotten on, I must have slept through a stop. I perked up in my seat and from the corner of my eye watched as he rose. He was a tall man. All his clothes were dark. He wore a tattered parka with the hood all the way up. A homeless man, I thought. He had a scarf tucked into his coat that he pulled up over his mouth, and he wore sunglasses. No part of his face was visible. He began walking over to me. His right hand was covered in a pale, white glove. It was the only part of him not cloaked in black. He walked awkwardly, leaning heavily on a cane he held in his gloved hand. His left hand remained in his pocket. Despite his large coat, I could tell he was very skinny. He walked until he was standing across from me. With very stiff movement, he slowly rested his cane on
Rattle Guiv
Spring 2022 | 49
“Because we have all our passengers.” I wondered what he meant by “we.” I could feel the train moving faster, as if more engines had come to life. The wheels began clicking on the track in a pattern. Two beats and then a pause, two beats and then a pause. The train had a heartbeat. The man sat once again with his chin resting in his palm. I could see him tapping his finger against his cheekbone in unison with the pulse of the beast we sat in. Despite his appearance the man did not scare me, nor did the train. There was something welcoming about it. How eloquently the man spoke and the warmth of the train car. I felt as if I could lay there forever. The sound of the heartbeat was broken up suddenly by the metal wheels screeching in agony as the train began to slow. I looked out the window and could see light in the distance. We were pulling into a station. There were no markings or benches. I saw one lone staircase with light shining down onto it. I realized it was the only sunlight I had seen in hours.
Had it been hours?
50 | Perception the seat behind him. He then reached out with his now free right hand and grabbed onto the metal pole that jutted out between us. He lowered himself into the seat with a large breath out, as if the very effort of sitting down was too much for him to bear. He slumped back and caught his breath for a moment. He leaned forward in his seat. He propped his elbow against his knee and rested his chin on his palm. He sat there like he had said something and was waiting for a response.
“Hello,” I said. “Hello,” He said. “When did you get on the train?” I asked. “I got on before you did,” He said. I never remembered seeing him there. I realized I did not know what train we were on.
“This is your stop,” the man said. “How do you know?” “This is your stop,” he repeated. “Who are you?” He paused for a moment. “An old friend,” He said. I could feel him staring at me through the sunglasses. He seemed to be waiting for me to do something. I simply sat for a while, wondering what he could want.
“Where is this train going?” I asked him. “Oh, you know where it’s going.” He spoke with an indiscernible accent, very deliberately and very slowly, like speaking to someone learning a language for the first time. “Why are you here?” He asked me. “I’m not sure why. I don’t ever remember coming here.” “I see.” He shifted slightly in his seat. “Why hasn’t this train stopped anywhere?”
“It matters to me, when’s your stop. There’s only two stops left.”
“What does it matter to you?”
“Because there is nothing for me up there.” I pointed up. “Quite the contrary.” He said. On cue, the train came out of the ground and onto elevated tracks. The train climbed high above the city. There was a fog just below the train, and I couldn’t make out much from looking out the window behind me.
The train stood in the station for a long time. It was catching its breath. The man sat silent throughout. Finally, the train hissed again and the doors closed. As the wheels began turning the man let out an annoyed sigh. I wondered what he was thinking. We sat for a while as the train picked up speed again.
Spring 2022 | 51
“I’ll ride this train as long as it takes me.” I told the man. “Why is that?” He asked.
“Why didn’t you get off at that stop?” He said. “It’s not my stop.” I replied. He sat up in his chair and tapped his finger against his cane. “When is your stop then?”
“I don’t know what stop I’m getting off at,” I said, simply. “That’s what I thought.” He rested his cane against the seat and returned his head to his palm, tapping the side of his face. “What do you plan to do then?”
I watched the passing clouds through the window. I tried to look down at the streets below. I watched the people walking in every direction. Their movements looked so predictable. Cross the street or turn. Cross or turn. I watched the pieces trapped on their chess board. The street took up far more space than the sidewalk. We ceded everything to let the metal beasts run for us. I watched birds perched on streetlights. The trees were gone, all they had were streetlights. They must look down at us and wonder why we ever let the cars take so much from us. I wondered why they didn’t just fly away. If I could fly I would have flown away long ago. I would have flown away somewhere lonely. Somewhere away from the chess pieces and the cars and the birds that perched comfortably in their misery. I knew they were miserable because they never sang. They tweeted back and forth over the sounds of construction but they never played a melody for me. Maybe they thought we didn’t deserve it, maybe they looked down on us. The only birdsong I had ever heard was in movies. City birds don’t sing. I would fly elsewhere to where the birds did sing. And if they sing nowhere then I would fly to where there are no birds at all. That way I would never long for the singing that they would not give to me. I could not fly. But I decided to leaveInanyway.mythoughts
I forgot about the man sitting across from me.
52 | Perception“Whatdo you want?” I asked the man. “Oh, nothing.” He said, taking his head off his palm and sitting back in his chair. “I’m only trying to point out the obvious.”
“And what’s that?” “It isn’t your time yet.” “That’s not for you to decide,” I told him. “Isn’t it?” His gaze burned into me. The glasses protected me more than him. “You don’t know me. There’s nothing for me here.” I turned around towards the window. “Look down there. Look at this world. It will look the same whether I am there or not. It will be just as colorful and just as busy and just as empty.” “It will be all the more empty without you.” He said. “You don’t know a thing.” “Your job?” He asked. “They’ll find someone else.” “Your “Morehome?”spacefor my little brother.” “Your friends?” He began to sound desperate. “Better off without me.” “Your family?” “They won’t miss me.” “LIAR!” The man shot up from his seat, yelling. He pounded his cane into the ground as he stood. “I will deal with murderers, and thieves and the very worst of men, and it’s all the same to me! But I will not give my time to a liar,” He began waving his cane furiously at me. “You are a rat, not even a rat, rats care for their families. Not even an insect. You’re a wisp. A wisp that dances through the sky and when they reach out their hands to grab it you’ve vanished. You spent all your life being beautiful. You spent all your life building memories and meeting people and stamping the soles of your feet into the earth. The soil has bent under the weight of who you are. You imprinted yourself on this world whether you chose to or not. There is nothing more selfish than to leave an empty space where your soul once stood. You disgust me, you’re a wisp.”
“YOU DON’T KNOW A THING!” I yelled back. “I have tried to live and there is nothing for me. The world doesn’t want me; they were forced to love me. I wanted to share that love with them and their hopeless minds chose to love me. That is not my fault!” I stood up in my chair and pointed out the window behind me. “They clawed and they fought and they did everything for me and I still feel no gratitude. Only hatred that I was forced to live on this earth. I’m the most selfish person there is, by leaving I will leave a space for someone better.” I sat down in my seat. Slumping back
Spring 2022 | 53 until I felt as small as possible.
He sat down, too.
“Look outside,” He said. I turned around towards the window. I could see the fog clear in one spot. I saw the building where I lived. I looked through the window to my apartment. I saw my mother crying in one room. I saw my brother pacing back and forth in another. I could also see my father. His back was turned to me. I could see his shoulders shaking. His hands covered his face. I had never seen my father cry before. I turned back towards the man. He simply was pointing his cane at the window, I listened and turned back around. I watched as I entered through the front door. They all tried to collect themselves and came to me smiling. I remembered this day, they were coming to congratulate me for something. I had been none the wiser. “Wisp,” I heard the man mutter. I stared out the window for a while. When I turned back around the man no longer had his sunglasses. He had large eyes, darker than the night. His sockets were so deep and he looked like a skeleton. Bags hung down below his eyes from years of life. His skin was as pale as bone. The corners of his eyes sagged heavily. The lines on his face looked like the footprints of robins hopping through the sand.
“There is no one better. You took up your space in the universe and there is no other piece that will fit in your place. The picture will remain forever incomplete for your selfish actions. You have lived selflessly. You have hidden your pain to try and show gratitude. You are not selfish for feeling pain, you are selfless for trying to show gratitude regardless of it. This will be your selfish act, and I will see to it that is how you are remembered.”
“Ifhim.only it were that easy, my friend.” I held out my hand to shake his. He shook his head. “Other hand,” He said, “The right is for other kinds of handshakes.”
As the train pulled into the final stop, I stood up to leave. I nodded at him and began to walk towards the doors. He stood up and shuffled behind me. I stepped off the train and onto the platform, and made room for him to follow. He stayed on the train, feet inches from the doors. “Come with me.”
“You’ve got it all wrong,” He said, “City birds sing the loudest.”
He laughed, it was the only time I heard him laugh. I held out my left hand. He pulled his left hand from his pocket. It was ungloved, his fingers were frail and slender. He looked at me and weakly shook my hand before returning his hand to his pocket. The man then turned around and walked back to his seat. He sat down as slowly and deliberately as before.
The train pulled into another station, an elevated one now. I did not leave my seat. It seemed he had expected that, because the man did not even turn towards me. It was a long time before either of us spoke again.
I told
The doors closed and the windows were not clear enough to see through anymore. Behind me the fog had cleared and I could see the city below me. I watched the people walking, I watched them laugh, I watched how some walked with a purpose and some without. Then I saw the birds, perched high above the city. I listened as they tweeted back and forth to one another. They had been singing all this time.
54 | Perception
The brakes hissed and the train lurched forward. With all the effort in the world the wheels began turning and I watched it pull away. The tracks curved downward back underground. I watched the train leave until the last car disappeared into the darkness.
Spring 2022 | 55 Juliana Lay | Acrylic Paint Subtle Serenity
56 | Perception Brenna Phelan | Collage Grandpa
Spring 2021 | 57 Bailee Roberts | Digital Purple Study
I pretend I don’t hear you and keep staring at the sun. The sun has been out for three days and I miss the stars. It’s funny how we mourn even before we know what death is.
We always knew this day would come, we just didn’t know when. All we know is that it shouldn’t be this soon.
58 | Perception My Girl Forever Valerye Hidalgo Garcia Today the sky is falling.
I watch the sky and wrap my bubblegum around my finger, stretching it thin before pulling it back into my mouth. You sigh, “I hate when you play with your gum. It’s gross.”
You turn your head and look at me like you won’t ever see me again, and part of you is right–You won’t. At least not in this lifetime, at least not in this plane of existence.
But see, I don’t care because the sky is falling and the trees are singing and what difference does it make if my gum is in my mouth or in my hands.
The wood is soft and rotted, threatening to give way to the weight of our bodies. There’s something strangely girlish about having your hips sink into decay.
I hear your nails digging into the skin of a tangerine, making sure that you save half for me because you know it’s the last time you’ll ever peel fruit for me. You know it’s the last time that you’ll save half for me
I sit next to you on the porch of your neighbor’s old house, they’ve been dead for years. I guess they saved themselves from the fear that runs through you and me, but goes unmentioned. We talk about anything but the fire we both know is coming.
“I know, you shouldn’t stare at the sun—something about your eyes burning. But I mean, they’re going to burn either way so why not indulge now?”
Your head rests on my shoulder as we watch the flames encroach your yard. White fence turns to ash and that silly looking car that you’ve always despised roars in what I imagine is an ache, as he too joins the flames.
“Do you think you’ll still be my girl even when the sky finishes falling?”
And you know, your best friend’s house was one of the first to go and not even a skeleton of your memories is left.
because even though I never ask, I always want.
Whatever I guess. You aren’t wrong anyway. The yard is unraveling now, the grass beneath our feet turning to grey ash. At best we have a minute.
You stick your tongue out to catch pieces of ash, like you always did as soon as the first snowfall of the year swirled outside your bedroom window: You’d drag me out into your yard and throw your head back, face pointed towards the sky in prayer.
Your cheeks would burn red and we wouldn’t go inside until you said you felt the cold in your bones. You urge me to do the same and for once I oblige. For once I let go of that cynicism you claim to hate.
“You’re a cynical girl, you know that? ”
You tell me to stop talking and to stop committing ‘self inflicted arson’ before the flames come.
“Why are you setting yourself on fire now? Don’t you know it won’t be long before we’re consumed too?”
The ash tastes bitter but you tell me it’s because I hold too much fear and not enough joy. Promise me you’ll love me forever? Do you think it’ll hurt? Do you think it’ll feel like air? Do you think it’ll—
That grocery store down the street that you loved to run around in, sprinting down the aisles with that stupid laugh of yours, isn’t standing anymore.
Spring 2022 | 59
And the park we used to lay in, pressing sticky kisses between each other’s shoulder blades, burnt down a day ago. Nobody told me the end of the world would take so long. I always thought it’d be over before we even knew it was happening.
And your old school and church disintegrated last night too, I thought you should know.
60 | Perception Photography|HavensAndrew Untitled
Spring 2022 | 61
Even though the sky is crying, I fly my lemon kite against the wind. All around me, children run inside, away from the sudden, raging storm. I’m the only one left to fight as the rain falls. Resilient in the storm, my kite flaunts its blue and pink bows. No one could shake my hand’s grip on the string that brings the kite so close to my heart. A crow circles in the purple-grey sky, weaving around my string like a twirling dancer.
The Lone Flight Kristin Moffitt
With matted, worn feathers like old book pages handled too many times, The lone bird soon finds me a bore. So it is just me again and my flowing, sunny kite. We strain against the gusts of wind that try to shake us like cold ghosts. What contrast between the dark sky and my happy kite. It stands out against this night like a beacon of Ifsafety.only there were more like it to brighten up this sky. Then again, who really knows? Another kite could get tangled if too close. Like how on a crowded city street it’s fun to walk together, but you’ll soon lose your way in the crowd. Going at it alone might get you to your goal. I wonder if I let the kite go, would the skies close? No, they wouldn’t. I must keep raging on even if alone, Because someone has to keep this sun in the sky.
62 | Perception The Watcher Gabrielle M. Borgia | Photography
Spring 2022 | 63 sincerely, an agnostic Roslyn Lydick after "Chinese Satellite" by Bridgers et al. please, someone, how i with the force of nuclear fusion or a black hole want a past where i was dumber—oh, but to think a twelve-year-old might believe she went peacefully—instead even with the heaviest lack of ignorance i cannot look at myself screaming voicelessly, at myself staring leaking ash into the dead mall of a sky silently bleeding starlight and void and exploding gas—it couldn’t be cremated—and i , stricken silent as a box, feel certain that i know absolutely nothing
64 | Perception Grandfather’s Tallis and Tfillen McKenzie Gerber | Graphite
The thunder roared with a ferocity and conviction that mirrored our love. We ran into the rain together, lightning flashing all around us, but with him I was not afraid. I would never be struck as long as he was next to me. We were Massiveinvincible.clouds
Spring 2022 | 65
swollen with rain turn the world dark. His hand grasps mine as we cross the field, and I squeeze back. His hold is my only assurance that I haven’t lost him. He pulls me in for a kiss, and a flash of lightning streaks across the sky as his lips meet mine. The electricity of the bolt and his kiss blind me, and the dark is a safe place when it returns.
Strike Twice Vanessa Walker
Now I am alone, in that same field under pouring rain, and I stand here waiting for a bolt to hit the ground where I stand. He is no longer my protection; I welcome the strike. I let the rain soak me and my tears mix with the drops that fall on my skin. The thunder rumbles, but I have no response. I can only pray that lightning will strike twice for me.
68 | Perception The Omen Gabrielle M. Borgia | Photography
Hey, get up.
“Weightless,” I respond.
“I don’t want to.”
It’s even better when you go outside. I open the door, and the sun never seemed so bright. So hot. So painful. Falling to the soft grass. The blades dull to form a lush bed of green just for me. They flicker into different colors, like yellow, purple, and green again.
What do you feel? You don’t feel that pain anymore, right?
“I can’t. I found everything at fault with him to avoid looking at my own flaws.”
Spring 2022 | 69
You don’t want to disappoint him again, do you?
Tears run down my face. My eyes won’t stop pouring my heart out. They feel sticky. Hot. Like water turning to blood. I wipe my tears with my hand, and my palm becomes painted red. Rushing to my feet, I keep wiping my face, but my hands just get covered in more blood. I wipe my palms on my jeans, leaving crimson handprints. Looking around, I make sure no one sees me as I start to run. I don’t know where I’m going. Yes, you do. “I have to apologize.”
A Heart Stopping Trip Yasmin Nayrouz
You’ve done so a hundred times. Leave him be.
As I run, I see my breath form shapes in front of me. The trees reach out their branches to grab me, but I outwit them. Buildings sway along the street. I guess the wind must be strong today.
I see the familiar pale green townhouse. It glows. Stars shine through the windows. When I knock on the door, it sounds like a thundering boom. The creak of the door seems even louder. As soon as he opens the door, I throw my arms around him. “I’m sorry. I was an awful girlfriend, and I should never have–“
His voice sounds muffled. I pull away to look at his face, but it’s blurred out. He starts to melt. I hug him tighter.
70 | Perception
“Please stop! Don’t disappear again,” I scream as he begins to melt in my arms. A force hits my chest, and I swear my heart explodes. With love or sadness, I can’t tell. My mind’s gone silent.
Spring 2022 | 71 Slow Violence Olivia Happel | Mixed Media
And in the form of my shadow there was a girl
Her plan to find solitude never wavered against my harsh words She always prevailed against my desire for her absence
And I realize that now She deserves peace—a truth she knows So I hug the girl
Because it wasn’t the girl but the forest around her It wasn’t the girl but the halls she walked
The Girl in my Shadow
Grace “Gray” Reed
So today I looked at the girl She stood still—a relic of the past I once knew Staring into my eyes she waited for me to say something She waited for me to do anything I hugged the girl that lives in my shadow
72 | Perception
A girl who knew she deserved better despite my own negligence
Spring 2022 | 73 Dive F. Morris Gelbart | Graphite
74 | Perception Debt Sofia Rodriguez TW: SA I don’t owe you a single thing. Not an excuse for existing or for the choices I make with my body or who I decide to love or what I decide to do I’m Notmine.yours, not his, not hers, not theirs—Mine. Used to being paralyzed with fear The thought of “home” Numbingly Dreading Reality A stranger does more for me than you No deadnaming or she/her exclusivity Listening and not a student No longer a lesson No empty promises No surface apologies The lack of no doesn’t mean consent. It seems that’s what you all need to hear. No. No. No. My silence means no. My tears mean no. My staleness means no. You should know better. Their boundaries crossed for a lifetime. Vulnerability shared with little to no pride/ feeling unwanted and unloved by those she would give her life/ Tired and ready to wave that white flag. For all she knows is lack of kindness; nothing but unhappiness.
Spring 2022 | 75 ContinuityandCoarse Digital|GelbartMorrisF.
78 | Perception
I think you can say “cheers” without locking pupils, without slamming the glass down on sticky tables, before slipping lukewarm liquid straight into your heart, through the cup, the lips, the esophagus, the blood.
Of course, it’s Europeans who are that superstitious.
Bad luck for years if we won’t stare each other down. At least that’s what they say. Except everything goes right for you and me. And we hardly need anything, but the God we haven’t agreed upon, if you’ll stay thirsty too.
But who cares about bad luck anyway?
Having some water with you
P J Williamson is more fun than having a coke because you haven’t drank soda in ten years. And because we both like water best of all, sometimes holding it on our palates like wine. Passing the bottle with wide open eyes, except when we don’t make much eye contact (nervous, out on the town), and won’t touch because it’s sacred.
Spring 2022 | 79 My Abstractions Bailee Roberts | Oil on Canvas
When he was 31 years old his favorite color was purple. It was the color his daughter loved to wear day after day, and nothing warmed his heart more than watching his little girl run around with a big smile on her face as she shouted and played all the different games that she invented. When he was 57 years old his favorite color was white. It was the color of the dress that his only daughter was wearing on her wedding day, and he couldn’t be prouder of his little girl. He was sad to give her away, but he was happy that he was there to be able to walk her down the aisle to her husband-to-be.Heisnow 89 years old, and his favorite color is yellow. He doesn’t remember why, only that it is the color of the room that he is in day after day. He closes his eyes for possibly the last time and all he sees is a beautiful soft yellow color.
His Life in Colors
When he was six years old his favorite color was red because that was the color of firetrucks. He liked the way that the firemen worked and were always there to help vulnerable people out in their time of need.
When he was 20 years old his favorite color was gray. He received news that his father and uncle had passed away in a car accident and all he could see was gray. The sun never seemed to come out anymore and the world had been swallowed in a bleak gray darkness. There seemed to be no hope left for him. When he was 26 years old his favorite color was green. Not the neon, dirty puke green color or the green of dark sludge but rather a softer forest green. He liked this color because it was the color of her eyes. She was always there for him, even in his darkest, most gray moments. She brought some color into his life again.
Katie Wells
When he was 11 years old his favorite color was blue because he wore it all the time and it was cool. A lot of his guy friends liked blue, so why shouldn’t he? It was a color that could be worn everywhere and for anything and didn’t look bad on anyone, as long as you picked the right shade to wear. When he was 15 years old his favorite color was black. He had moved schools for the first time and couldn’t find it in him to be anything else besides quiet. He found that the color black helped him to blend in better and that no one would give him a second look. He could fit in and be left alone.
80 | Perception
Spring 2022 | 81 Times)(FourVersionOrange1,Landscape Digital|GelbartMorrisF.
82 | Perception Grace Underwood | Photography Le Nom De La Vie
Spring 2021 | 83 Olivia Happel | Mixed Media Commensalism
84 | Perception Breathable Maya Gelsi Evening arrives like a silver bride, gathering light to itself like we gather food. I’ve lost you among the hard arches of this city, and so I stand dissolved, saturated with wind, gray and mutable as the sky. Waiting for my own evaporation, for the air to take me in and swing me over rivers stitched with bridges, galleries of mountains, the cold holy oceans until I am everywhere diffused, breathable, the breeze through your opened window, a scent you may dimly remember.
Spring 2022 | 85 Juliana Lay | Graphite Embodied Self
there was a time Before You. before we tanned under california desert sun, skin peeling and browning, and i called us lizards on the pavement. before we drank so much raspberry lemonade we were sure our teeth would stain pink. before i taught you how to swim and you taught me how to love and we held hands underwater—lopsided whirlpools & junebugs in greenlit ponds at night, always, always under full moon & singing ‘how deep is your love’ by the bee gees. when we played mermaids and sharks and i tried to see how long i could hold my breath. when you hoisted me on your shoulders and catapulted me into the deep end, you always came back for me: forehead kisses, shallow step embraces, ducking from honeybees and searching for butterflies. i think we lived in that pool that year, with perpetually pruney fingers and chlorine in our lungs. they drained the pool and the hornets built their nest over where the butterflies used to play. our plumerias died and cacti grew up in their place, they’ll be just as beautiful some day. whenever the bee gees come on, do you think of me? or maybe when you see a garden gnome or a sea star. and that ancient time Before You has since been lost to the open skies of arizona and buried in rare california rain. when the dust settles on that summer, only six things remain: the three words i’ll never be able to say, and the three words i wish i could.
Perception desertsummerlover Sophia Moore
86 |
Spring 2022 | 87 Behave Olivia Happel | Mixed Media
Don’t even get me started on her. How do I know when it’s the last time I’ll see her? Every walk down the promenade, every trip down Ackerman, it really could be the last. Time has gotten away from me, don’t get me wrong, but I have finally realized something I should’ve done. Enjoy it. Enjoy it before you can’t.
This experience has been exhausted; four years of memories. Of people. Of Imoments.walkaround looking at every building, every spot that I have touched.
David V. Harvey
I’m probably staying, working off-campus at some job, but living in the same apartment, nonetheless. How can I? How can I make that walk with an ocean of memories drowning me? Without the chance of seeing those familiar faces anymore?
There’s not one place that doesn’t bring something back. Anything, honestly. I can’t look at Link without thinking about those shared cannolis at 9 am. Kimmel without that half-forgotten quest for drunken snack wraps. The Quad without that snow-covered bench facing a lit-up Dome and Hendricks. The Falk lookout without that year of BBB, Sadler, and ESF united under the Harveys.
88 | Perception Do What?
Don’t worry, I’ll still be here, trying to figure that out.
Do I even stay? Am I simply just savoring the few crumbs still left on the plate now that my time has passed?
Spring 2022 | 89 Poppy CanvasonOil|GerberMcKenzie
We walk through the bright coarse city, me stealing sights of you, slipping them into a silent bruised corner of memory. You watch the buildings, raising your camera to fix them in place. Let me sit across from you, let us together melt into the wind-laced bridges, clinging concretely like the streets do, or if not, allow one more monument in this city of pillars: let me become stone tribute dedicated to your being.
On the subway where I almost told you, another train passed ours, windows quickly eclipsing each other like film strips. I lifted towards you, invisibly, missing you before you were gone.
92 | Perception New York Minute Maya Gelsi
Spring 2022 | 93 Photography|HavensAndrewUntitled
If I Only Last a Season
Eduardo Torres-Garcia
Do you see the way the leaves wilt with red, blushing at the chill in the air? From solstice to solstice, when the air sharpens, the days darken, and the quiet deafens? They crumple until they no longer resist the temptation to get swept off their branches. Until the enticement and entanglement of the other is a thought too warm to keep to yourself. And then the more you think about it, the stronger the desire becomes and the day couldn’t come sooner till it finally does, but with a tinge of unexpected anxiety if you're new to this type of thing because it's been a long time coming, so you hesitate, but you jump. If you jump far enough, you get showered with the rush of broken hydrogen bonds. If you psych yourself out, at least the soil will thank you. Crumpled, brown, and left for dead. I was beautiful once, you know
94 | Perception
Spring 2022 | 95 Sleeping Fairies Grace Underwood | Photography
96 | Perception
Full-thickness
Excision
Isabella Alvarez TW: SA I breathe in, I andexhale,then there is no more, clean silence on the operating table. I do not know how anesthesia works. When I’m awoken and there’s four stitches above my pubic bone, I remember nothing. The mole, ugly and raised, was cut from my skin. No Thecomplications.surgeongives me a Barbie sticker. I am a brave girl he tells me. What is forgetting? What does it mean, this blackness of the mind? Years later I awaken in blood-soaked sweatpants, and I am once again grasping for memory. Strangely there are fragments that fleetingly come to me but again, that clean silence. There is no Barbie sticker this time. I am a brave girl everyone tells me. In the shower I look down at my Beneathnakedness.mybreasts and past my stomach the scar is still there, barely noticeable. The memory of the mole, however faint, remains.
Spring 2022 | 97 Tar GG Delaney | Digital
A broken promise, a sinful rue. Life of the party, no longer alive. That crazy cowboy called his lasso a noose.
98 | Perception Tales of the Archer
Eduardo Torres-Garcia Blue and red illuminate the night.
The archer who overshot, lands an arrow in his back. A scorpion doesn’t sting, and its decision stings it back.
When there’s no one left to share with, there’s no reason for me to stay.
It’s funny how I pray that I’m the one that got away.
Spring 2022 | 99 Pincers! Noor Zamamiri | Charcoal
100 | Perception Photography|UnderwoodGrace VieLaDeNomLe
Spring 2021 | 101 MediaMixed|HappelOliviaCommensalism
2. The Ledge
102 | Perception
Grace Underwood
1. Winter Joy
We walked back drunk on laughter and youth and the euphoric feeling of pretending the world wasn’t fucked. We opted out of rainboots or jackets. We wanted to dance in a waterfall. The spray from tires turning against the concrete cast droplets of water that almost looked like snow. And we laughed and laughed at the absurdity of it all. From head to toe soaked in wannabe snow.
I stared at her sleeping soundly next to me. Her soft breathing and the constant pattering of raindrops dancing on the roof were lulling me to sleep. Even through my tiredness I couldn’t help but keep myself awake. The world was calm, but even with the absence of lightning electricity vibrated through the air. It pricked my skin and buried deep in my chest. Stealing the air from my lungs. I tried to take a breath. It felt like I had been thrown to the ground, panic rushing through my veins but the lack of oxygen forcing me into frozen submission. I tried to ignore the deep wrenching fear seeded in the back of my brain. But images of broken glass and water-soaked roads blurred my vision. I let my hand rest over the ugly star shaped scar on her back that ruined the intricate tree inked into her skin. My thumb rubbed at the mark gently, feeling her life, warm and steady, just below my fingertips.
“So come here often?” “No.” They whispered. “But in my mind? Yes.” They nodded, their voice bordering on desperate and broken. “So many times.”
3. Memories
A Collection of Beating Hearts
Spring 2022 | 103 4. Music and Lose it
He was always tapping his foot. Incessant. Pattering. Itching. Echoing through my mind, collapsing any new thought or word into a pile of broken letters.
“Stop.” I gasped. Loud enough to make me blush. He blinked at me. His face looked like a loading screen before the screen updated to show my grade. “Sorry.” He shrugged, a small careless smile on his face. He hadn’t touched his notebooks since he got here. I wanted to sneer at him. But I just looked back down at my computer screen pretending that didn’t just happen. The pattern started again.
5. The Cell
6. Too Young I’ve been doing it since I could walk. When my father gets worked up, I walk over and climb into his lap. I wrap my arms around him and press my ear to his chest. The first time I did it I think I was curious. After a while he started pulling me up into his lap. Always without a word. Always with tense muscles. I would hug him and listen to the way his heart was beating as if it was trying to punch through his ribs and spill out into the world so he wouldn’t have to feel it anymore. And all I could think was his heart has been beating a million times more than mine. When it matches mine, he puts me down with a kiss to my forehead. We never mention it again.
The walls were made of mirrors. All facing each other. Seamless and fluid. She stared into them. Searching for herself. Searching for the ache in her chest to stain the glass with poison and ash. She didn’t bother to find a way out. She had forgotten how she got there in the first place. She stared. And saw absolutely nothing.
chair was the one closest to the window that looks into the backyard. It was brown and worn from years of being used. Sun stained where the side was pressed so close to the window. My daughter always moved it away, grumbling to herself. I would always move it back so I could press my face to the window when deer wandered by or when the sun would hit the right angle to warm my gaunt face. It was deteriorating. As was I, at this point I was more bone than muscle. But I always managed to drag myself to that chair every morning, a smile on my face.
104 | Perception
8. BeforeAlighta campfire, in a pocket of darkness all their own, the two of them sit silently on uncomfortable log stumps. Their heads bowed together. They trace symbols and words onto each other’s palms. Relishing in the feeling of tingling lightning pulsing through their veins. Wasting no time shooting to the others heart, stuttering and pounding.
Two years before society claimed I was an adult I screamed and cried, he pulled me to his chest. Wordless. Emotionless. Our hearts beating more in sync than they ever had before. He told me I was too young to have a heart beating that fast. I told him I was too old to pretend I was okay.
7. MyIcarusfavorite
Spring 2022 | 105 Stages of Grief Ana Burwell | Film Photography
106 | Perception Childhood Isabella Alvarez myEarth-born,breathsighs with the grapevines, my skin brown like 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.
Spring 2022 | 107 Self Portrait Olivia Thompson | Mixed Media
Kate Brennan she could play the piano with them everyone said but I never practiced and instead callused my skin on tree bark and monkey bars her fingers were white like the pearls she’d clasp around her neck, the pearls my grandfather gave her they divorced after 27 years and he died shortly after i wonder if she ever missed him in the same way those pearls missed the japanese sea they came from i think they buried her next to him because they know she forgives him sometimes I like to think they whisper to each other underground at night, like siblings in bunk beds, voices muffled by buzzing insects in the grass and the veils of snow every december, their voices still running like warm blood under the skin of this world i try to listen when I drive past the cemetery on slow, shadowy evenings when the air smells like lilacs as my long fingers grip the steering wheel her fingers i say i’m sorry for painting your fingernails black and she says i forgive you
108 | Perception i have my grandmother’s fingers
Spring 2022 | 109 CafeCozy Photography|NayrouzYasmin
110 | Perception
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