Perception Magazine Spring 2015

Perception.syr@gmail.com

Volume XV Issue 25 S y r a c u s e U n i v e r s i t y spring 2015

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Perception is a free literary and arts magazine published once during each academic semester by undergraduate students at Syracuse University. Address editorial correspondence to perception.syr@gmail.com.

We hope to anger, to unleash, to exalt, to yield, to inspire. We hope we can share what we deem necessary to existence, art, love and words, with those who haven’t been touched yet.

Perception is now accepting submissions for the Fall 2015 issue.

Send visionary pieces of writing and art to perception.syr@gmail.com.

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The Insiders Editor-In-Chief

Yevgeniya “Zhenya” Muravyova

Managing Editor

Brandie “Galy” Pullen

Assistant to Editor-In-Chief Sarah Peck

Assistant Managing Editor Carina Clores

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Chief Designer

Yat Sze Austin Cheng

Designer

Sydney Hirsh

Communications Chair Sylvia Jiang

Treasurer

Nittika Mehra

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Editors

Sarah Peck Sylvia Jiang Carina Clores Nittika Mehra

Advertisers

Eva de Charleroy Taylor Arias Jennifer Rasnovski Nittika Mehra Chrissy Bader Charlotte Lillie Balogh Adrian Lee

Readers

Taylor Arias Sylvia Jiang Adrienne Parsons AbbyLeigh Charbonneau Josh Dolph Jennifer Rasnovski Emily Markowski Rebecca Yelt Hanna Mallette Angelica Welch Chrissy Bader Kellie Miller Eva de Charleroy

Many Thanks,

Sarah Harwell The ETS & WRT Departments Vicki Risa Smith Daphine Stowe Terri Zollo Melanie Ann Stopyra The Student Association All of the Professors who encouraged their students to submit

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The Contributors 9 Editor’s Letter

Undergraduate Writing Linnea Marie Nordgren

11 this, and the bed is shaking too.

26 it was important where we ate potatoes.

142 grow.

Soo Lee

13 [Insert Title Here] 112 Unatural Selection

Yat Sze Austin Cheng

14 如果要為妳寫一首詩 If I am to Write a Poem for You*

Eva De Charleroy

17 Sewn 25 A Hardy People 41 Bury Me

Maya Parthasarathy

19 Doubt

AbbyLeigh Charbonneau

22 Easy Mac 28 How to Not Remember 52 Nineteen

Ali Searcy

23 Love Poem to Venice Beach 108 Sarah and David

Monika Arbaciauskaite

31 Black Hole 39 Chai

Alexander Burgos

32 Ventana hacia el Oeste Window to the West* 80 Una Calle Con Salida A Dead End Exit*

Christina Mastrull

35 Ten

Katherine Anne Fletcher

38 Caution

Alexandra Azzam

43 The Earth Beneath my Soul (See Lost Love)

Morgan Conover

45 Meditation

Zoya Davis

46 A Lesson on Anatomy 55 Feeling a little nostalgic/Do you want to hear it?

90 A Poem Particularly About No One.

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Chrissy Bader

49 Silly Girl

Frieda Projanksy

50 Sidewalk Chalk 57 Lulling Bye 107 Baseline Data

Kat Ferentchak

60 Mama Ling’s

Gabriel Acosta-Mitchell

69 My Tentacles

Taylor Arias

85 Adapt: A Last Name

Carol Pelz

87 Semper Fidelis. Always Faithful 133 Strawberry Smoothie

Eden Lapsley

92 Gold 94 To Have Been the Mother of His Children 117 Evangeline

Kelsey Burke

96 Scholars of War 99 La Peinture de l’Eau et de l’Essence 111 Amusement Park

Farrell Greenwald Brenner

101 Courted By the Snow 105 A Quiet Revolution

Lucy Wickham

103 Untitled

Korey Lane

109 Hands

Steven Young

115 MR. Worry Naught

Tamara Abu-Ramadan

120 I am From

Christina Tavera

123 Apple Spice Febreeze

Adeyemi Adediran

125 Father’s Favorite Boy

Elizabeth Farrow

135 The Boy with the Astronaut Arm

Camille Francis

140 Uncle Bill

Graduate Writing Joseph Baiz

144 Song for the History Channel 147 Eschaton

Dionne Noella Baretto

145 Untitled

Faculty Writing John Colasacco

149 I Became Neutral 150 The low you

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Undergraduate Art Yassah Peace Brooke Bower Sage Cruz Field

Abigail B. Gordon

Hannah Meader

Cover Art 16 21 24 47 27 93 141 30 40 59

Amanda 34 Faith 48 Sophia Lawrence Pennacchio 37 44 84 Carly Elizabeth Benson Aftermath 51 Man on the Moon 68 Stained Glass Ocean 91 Yat Sze Austin Cheng 54 71 Maya Parthasarathy Rooftops 98 Delilah Mulgannon Fun in Ernie Davis 102 Acting like kids in Thornden Park 106 110 Abigail Ryan Latham 119 Nittika Mehra Paisley on My Mind 122 Alex Aronson On a Jet Plane...... 129 Michelle Velasquez Rolling Stones 130 Sara Potocsny It’s Raining 131 Apple Trees 132 Gold Shutter 139 Zhicheng Xie Corner 144

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Front Cover Art by Zhicheng Xie - Lonely

Inside Cover Art by Yat Sze Austin Cheng

Back Cover Art by Sage Cruz Field

Back Inside Cover Art by Zhicheng Xie - NO EXIT

Center Spread In order of appearance Yassah Peace - We Can’t Breathe Sage Cruz Field Abigail B. Gordon Hannah Meader Abigail B. Gordon Yat Sze Austin Cheng Delilah Mulgannon Michelle Valasquez - San Francisco

Editor’s Letter I want to begin by saying that I am so proud and thankful to all the members of the Perception team for making this creative arts and literary magazine a reality.

Over the last few years, each Perception Issue has exceeded the previous Issue by expanding and going beyond the boundaries of all individuals’ expectations. Readers expect words and images that can move them, make the hair on their arms reach forth, make them know they are not alone—and that is exactly what they see. Each piece of art has the power to change one’s perspective; each piece of writing has the power to influence someone’s life. Perception Magazine has become the go to for all creative individuals on the Syracuse University campus.

This Spring 2015 Issue is a collection of some of the finest work from students from all majors and minors, and that is the beauty of it. In my two years as Editor-in-Chief, I have seen brilliant pieces produced both in and outside of the classroom. When I graduate in May, I will continue to work in Publishing, and I will continue to highlight new and upcoming artists and writers, as Perception Magazine has prepared me to do. As this semester comes to a close, I hand over my duties proudly to the successors of Perception.

Thank you to my wonderful team of Insiders and thank you for picking up the 25th Issue of Perception Magazine.

“As you walk and eat and travel, be where you are.

Otherwise you will miss most of your life.”

—Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha

Yevgeniya Muravyova Sincerely,

Yevgeniya Muravyova

Editor-in-Chief

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Undergraduates

This, and the Bed is Shaking too.

Linnea Marie Nordgren

You went to Brooklyn once and you listen to jazz now. Now, when I am in your bed without you, I am writing for the music I have lost. I am always writing for the things I have lost. I wish I could write about my cat or Boston or Poppasquash in the summer.

There is the sharp and lovely voice of a pair of stilettos on the icy sidewalk below the window which you opened just before you left to get to work. It is 9:10 on a Saturday evening and you are off to serve drinks to strangers at a bar downtown and I am sober in your bed trying to string together a phrase that will capture the light and the sound of the room so I can tell you about it – how much I miss you – when you get home at 3:30 in the morning.

This room is heat and the cotton on my skin burns like feathers in a fire.

I am afraid I will not get out of bed and I will lose my hair to the uncontrollable rage that loses itself inside me and then still manages to find its way out. While you are pouring Long Islands and nuclears I am pouring ink into my mouth

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and I am praying – though I don’t – that when I kiss your face you will be so consumed by the poetry that you will read it back to me and when we are in Marshfield again, you will offer me your favorite pillow and the inside.

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[Insert Title Here] Soo Lee

I’ve been smoking weed since I was sixteen, Mom, dad, did you really believe me when I said I was clean?

Let’s face it, we, the team, came overseas to live the American Dream, Live for the thrills and blow greens, Drinking underage in kids’ basements, Fly away for a day or two leave my mind on vacation, Come back with empty hands and empty bags, Now I have to hike back, refuse to wave the white flag, We are outcasts in a land of perceived acceptance, Red white and blue rebels seeking out vengeance, Resting heavily on the shoulders of my parents.

This place has a lot of color but I still see we’re struggling with black and white, As if the words of our ancestors never really clicked quite right.

So let’s sit back and sip brews, You chase shots faster than the last high, And in the morning you wonder where it all went and why, I’m just leading up to my moment with my main crew, But this life is pretty tricky, Every cup can be risky, And the girls might get frisky, But stay classy raise your pinky, Because tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, So live today with extreme speed, Fate will play his cards, And when it all falls down, nothing would’ve been that hard.

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如果要為妳寫一首詩

Yat Sze Austin Cheng

如影，隨風；一千里思憶嫣紅。 浮生，若空；縈繞着妳的臉容。 勞碌，怒冬；茫茫中心血消融。 回甘，蜜衷；枯竭了羈絆未窮。 或風吹而無雪、或水落而不凝： 和煦同步心跳、瞳對相通澄明。 如果要為妳寫一首詩，記下我各種心意； 筆尖醉滿天構思，對月掏盡我心事。 世俗轉鬱不得志，雨夜卻收我放肆； 只等一剎，可跟妳廝守對望的一次。 如果要為妳寫一首詩，請容我妄以春至： 不求花開無盡時，但望春泥可不已。 今朝綿綿相聚時，筆筆刻劃銘心詩； 他朝茲茲隔洋時，念念回鑄刻骨意。 天涯若夢雪未融，夕照西時姍姍遲； 風息雨歇日將昇，如歌倆心泛暖意。

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If I am to Write a Poem For You (Translation) Yat Sze Austin Cheng

Like shades, / with wind; / thousand miles of thoughts flourishing.

Life drifts / with void; / your face in mind lingering.

Humbly busy / (in) raging winter; / far and far, spirit and strength melting.

Re-joice / the sweet start; / dried and withered, relation not yet ending.

Whenever wind blows without snow, / whenever rain drops without congealment: Warmth will synchronize heartbeats, / pupils will connect in clarity.

If I am to write a poem for you / to record my various feelings; My pen is drunk with scattering ideas in the sky, / to Moon I’ll empty my heart.

World changes I’m disappointed, / rainy night tames my wildness; Waiting only that moment, / when I can stay and stare at you.

If I am to write a poem for you / please allow me to assume that spring has arrived: I won’t ask the flower to blossom endlessly, / but hope its fertilized soil can last forever.

Today when we gather heart to heart, / let’s carve the unforgettable poem stroke by stroke; Later when we are separated ocean to ocean, / we can throw back to the moving moments.

Dreams are dreams, snow not yet melted, / the hour of sunset coming late; Wind rests, rain halts, the sun will rise, / like a song, sweetness will flood our hearts.

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Yassah Peace

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Sewn Eva De Charleroy

I am not just Your bright enamel Christmas tree shining Vaseline lips locked; I am a tongue Behind a strong mouth, Soft words upon Rock words, A voice as my home With a decorated door.

I am not just Your media-crazed Thigh-gapped Faceless hands Filling plates on the screen; I am the bread baker, Seller, WinnerI am the buffet, The potatoes and the meat.

I am not just Your right rib, Apple-eating Eve, Bare-footed Mary pleading; I am the daughter And the mother’s sacrifice,

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The bubbles rising To push up the bottle cap; I am the past’s pupil, The future’s teacher, I am your model Without a runway, A wardrobe sewn from The threads of Choice.

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Doubt Maya Parthasarathy

I felt sleepy - as if I can just curl up on this patch of carpeted ground and slip into oblivion. My body tells me this is a bad idea. I will be achy in the morning.

My bed is right there, the soft mattress within reach. But I am uncertain. I know as soon as I slip under the covers, I will be overcome by my restless thoughts.

I roll over onto the wooden floor. I am so tired I could sleep as long as Rip Van Winkle and probably still feel exhausted.

Why is it that I can doze off in random places so easily, yet when it comes to my own bed I am suddenly wide-awake?

-I am paralyzed by worry. I am so afraid of consequences that I find myself unable to do anything. Which makes everything worse.

Instead of worrying about having done a bad job, I’m worrying about how to hide the fact that I haven’t done the job at all.

The floor is hard, and I am getting stiff.

I tell myself to move. To do something. Anything.

No, not that, I think, as I climb onto my bed. I desperately arrange my pillows.

They have to be just right before I even think about lying down.

As I tuck in my sheets, I wonder how to keep myself from telling lies. I know I do it to make others feel reassured about my progress.

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(Or their progress, for that matter.)

But how do I stop telling these lies? And if I can’t stop, how do I become a better liar? Because I am getting all too used to this pattern of lying and disappointing people. And then slipping up and lying again.

If only I had an iron on me. The sheets are almost wrinkle-free. Almost. But it is late, and the bed is too well-made to keep remaking it.

I settle back. I’m never ready to begin the battle against my own brain, but I have to start sometime. I just wish it didn’t have to be now.

Can I really stop being afraid? I’ve tried so many times, but I always find myself alone with my anxiety again.

If only I had more self-confidence. If only I had less doubts.

-Maybe I should spend less time alone in my room.

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Yassah Peace

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Easy Mac AbbyLeigh Charbonneau

microwaves are the nemesis of integrity. undulations penetrate at the molecular level, wreaking havoc in a panicking mosh pit of atoms. every wave is another vital blow to tradition and to la famiglia; an attack against calloused, sure hands which more steadily than a surgeon's slice into a thousand years of family tradition, passed down da madre a figlia. i'm not some relic reading tree bark by candlelight but there is a sanctity in fragile Tuscan dough handled so tenderly and infused with generations of a mother's love.

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Love Poem to Venice Beach Ali Searcy

Longboarding past the mini muscle beach, squinting at the gymnasts Twisting and turning their abdomens, flipping and flying as if performing a show, I notice tourists parking in the $10 lot, blissfully unaware, As they hand their crisp bill to the mustached man sweating uncontrollably in his small troll box, That there’s free parking on Rose, only two streets back Smiling, capitalism at its best Blistering hot but I’d have it no other way Like pulling on a fresh t-shirt out of the dryer I push harder, creating a stronger ocean breeze to cauterize the burns A cool, salty breeze is more healing to burns than any kind of aloe vera Almost there now, I laugh at the pedestrians walking on the bike path, Thinking they’re safe; do they know where they are?

Then suddenly, I find myself leaning to avoid the middle aged sun spotted woman In her bikini-top-shorts-combo on her yellow sticker-bombed rollerblades, coke in hand A Danish family of four snap a not-so-secretive picture of her I’ve arrived To the most beautiful place of graffiti and fighting the man Where weed and weirdos go hand in hand And screen printed tees are exchanged like currency A place where the homeless fight seagulls over pizza and charge money to onlookers And struggling artists band with their mothers to create Truffula trees And turtle figurines out of washed up pebbles and shells To sell to tourists I look to my left as a young couple barters with a Reggae musician Linger here | 23

Because they didn’t know his mix tape had a price Trying to get to my friends and the beach, I push harder Glass shop, green tent, pizza, glass shop, green tent, pizza Reaching the sand I pick up the longboard and head towards my friends Nothing but sand in my pockets.

Brooke Bower

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A Hardy People Eva De Charleroy

Land of the salted sidewalks, Growing where an orange Could never flower.

Compacted snow, Cold as marble and Solid as brick togetherYet each handful exists Soft and supple, A melting mirror in the palm.

We are a people Alight to the wind when thrown.

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It was important where we ate potatoes.

Linnea Marie Nordgren

Once, on the Finnish Archipelago – it was summer, the ozone thin, my skin browned, my sister’s burned, my father happy – on Farfar’s Island, Pappa caught a perch.

He would not let us touch it. Its fins, he said, are sharp and could cut us – browned or burned.

I watched him take the hook out of its jaw, and I guess perch have sharp teeth too. I saw Pappa’s finger catch, bleed as he returned that mean, dark, old fish to the Baltic Sea. Off the island, we walked to the house. Birch trees and pines lined the path, the ground sappy.

The country house is gone now. We went in winter – we saw the cold. We had to go.

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Sage Cruz Field

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How to Not Remember AbbyLeigh Charbonneau

Some things, I will never forget.

My childhood home address, the first six digits of pi, how to spell onomatopoeia, my mother’s maiden name- these things all may escape my mind. But you, fragments of you, seem to be embedded in my skin, on my eyelids, in my fingertips, like glass shards lying just beneath the surface. They haunt me, too small to notice until you touch them and the pain becomes fresh again and all at once I remember. These things, I will never forget: How you’d wake up in the morning, peering at me like a crocodile with first one eye before prying open the second, pulling me in closer even as you slept. Sleep has never been easy for me, but I silently thanked the sunlight that woke me each morning for granting me extra time in the heavenly purgatory between dreaming and wakefulness with you and your drowsy affection.How you looked when you played piano, the soft white cotton of your shirt stretching over your shoulders. You pushed each key with a meticulous urgency as if it would sing louder for you underneath your touch just like I did- I remember how you held my hands beneath yours and guided them across a scale, whispering lyrics in my ear, promising things we both knew were not within our reach.

How your voice sounds on the phone from 3,000 miles away- always dripping-molasses, slow and sweet. “Hey, baby.” How you have quicksand smiles, the kind that suck me down until I am encompassed in nothing but you. Every time, I would find myself descending into the depths of us, sinking further into a pit, succumbing to a euphoric sweet suffocation.

How you gathered up the pieces of me after him and handed them back to me one by one; how you taught me to stop apologizing unless I had something to be sorry for, and that it is okay to be selfish sometimes. How you let me collapse into you; how you let me fill the empty spaces of myself with you. How you showed me 28 | Perception

how to be okay. How you showed me how to not be okay. How you showed me that love did not come with disclaimers and footnotes. How you showed me the virescence of my irises and the softness of my skin. How your fingers whispered secrets across my thighs while your eyes challenged me with dares. How yours was the first name I called when I awoke from surgery, my tongue laboriously moving to form the sounds of your name. How it tasted like cherry pie and lies when you said the words “some day”.

You see, these – these are the things that I keep with me, that I carry like a pebble in my shoe, that I breathe like a malignant curse in my lungs. These are the slivers of you that remain under my skin.

Please don’t think I haven’t tried to forget. I just cannot remember how.

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Abigail B. Gordon

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Black Hole Monika Arbaciauskaite

Your eyes look like a black hole.

Your lips feel like negative space.

Your body envelopes me like a galaxy and I’m scared.

I’m scared of the emptiness and the nothingness and the wonder.

I’m scared of the unknown.

Your eyes are holes and your lips are nothing but I keep thinking that these planets and stars are what I’ve been searching for.

Darling, you’re a galaxy.

You’re a galaxy but you read like an empty book.

Where are your constellations?

Darling, please show me your planets.

Because I’m a galaxy, too.

And my eyes are showing stars.

Stars that can’t be swallowed.

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Ventana hacia el Oeste Alexander Burgos

Dicen los pajaritos por ahí que cuando tu cantas anuncias el retiro de las estrellas.

Dicen también, aquellos pajaritos, que cuando tú amaneces por las cunetas del oeste, toda vida silvestre se reúne a cantar frente a tu ventana, esperanzados que la melodía te arrastre por los cielos y por el día cantes: “Buenos días, despierta, comienza un nuevo día.

Anda, levanta, sacúdete de las sábanas.

Invierte, convierte, el descanso en energía, soñar mientras caminas, al paso que sostiene vida.”

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Window to the West (Translation) Alexander Burgos

The birds in the wild say that, when you sing, it announces the withdrawal of the stars.

They also say, those birds, that when you wake up through the gutters of the west all wildlife reunites to sing outside your window, hoping that your melody will drag you through the skies and throughout the day sing: "Good morning, wake up, start a new day.

Come on, get up, shake off from the sheets.

Invests, convert, rest into energy., dreaming while you walk, the step that sustains life."

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Hannah Meader

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Ten Christina Mastrull

Ten times In the last nine years You asked me for my favorite Number; I had declined.

Tonight, I caved And said eight Because it looks nice No matter which way It’s flipped.

You drew it with circles, Hatched with lines, Made it real.

It took you seven minutes.

For six of those minutes, We sat in silence Burning under red light At the bar on Fifth and Main And I reminisced about How close Your four sisters and I were Growing up, Before you ruined me.

I remembered how Jamie threatened To break up with you Three times But never mentioned why, And I wondered

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What you’ve done with your lonely life Since.

And I recalled two occasions When I had actually wanted you So bad That I almost let you Fuck me Taint me In my father’s old Sedan.

A lot has changed Since high school.

You gave me the drawing Autograph in the bottom right With your number; Paper stabbed Ten times, Pen bleeding Permanent.

“It was nice bumping into you Again.

Call me Sometime.”

But I knew if I did Call you Twice or even three times, You probably Wouldn’t even Call me Once.

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Sophia Lawrence Pennacchio

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Caution Katherine Anne Fletcher

I breathe tentatively, afraid Of startling you, acting as one often acts Around sleeping children or new animals.

Your hand is tense on my shoulder, And I feel the gentle touch Along every inch of my nerves.

Eventually your hand settles, And your fingers unfurl onto my skin Like flags on boats returning home, Unfurling into a welcoming summer breeze.

I feel your fingers moving, Tracing patterns onto the fabric of my t-shirt.

It feels like you are writing A forgotten love song From a thousand winters ago That we both long to remember.

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Chai Monika Arbaciauskaite

The way that chai grazed your tongue. The spice of the cinnamon warmed your soul and you then knew. You knew that your chai will exist and then, when you least expect it, it will be gone. The warm feeling in your soul will feel like a long lost dream of soothing comfort. Your chai will leave you like everything else has.

You’ve been sitting there with that mug hoping it will last forever, knowing that you were fooling yourself with a beautiful lie. But then you realize that just because it is gone doesn’t mean it was never there. Just because your soul is distraught doesn’t mean it didn’t feel warm.

You wrap your fingers around that mug and strengthen your grip to thank that cinnamon... to hold on to it for as long as you can… You turn to move and your grip fails you; the mug shatters beneath your fingers.

Your grip has always failed you.

But at one point, it was enough.

If only for a little while.

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Abigail B. Gordon

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Bury Me Eva De Charleroy They tried to bury me But they didn’t know I’d Take to soil like a seed.

Burst, I came out of my bulb like A guiltless criminal Bending barsI am the bloom And the weed.

The topsoil that nurtures The roots that suck with greedEverything that lies between Heaven and feet is Me. Burst, I came out of my bulb like A guiltless criminalI am nectar to the butterfly And venom to the bee.

So bury me, Let me lie in wait As the seed, A shell full of Ambivalent dreams.

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Bury me, And upon the breast of life I will feed, Rain falling as Mother’s milk runs free.

An infant yet to See the view from The top of the canopyBury me to understand the bloom But also the weed.

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The Earth Beneath my Soul (See Lost Love) Alexandra Azzam

The feeling In your feet, deep in your toes At the end of a long, long day Itching to be set free Of confinement Inside a dark and vast cave eager to see the light of a summer day To flap their wings in the cool breeze To feel the soft bed of grass beneath the pads of their soles To capture a little bit of earth between their toes To scrunch deep into the land Refreshing and moist and liberating To be young again with no care in the world no societal pressure for shoes to confine your feet even for just a moment Wiggle, stretch, and set free Running Finally I am able to breathe Linger here | 43

Sophia Lawrence Pennacchio

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Meditation Morgan Conover

Eight minutes.

Eight minutes is everything.

Hold still. Feel the breath.

You are the breath and the being.

Any attachments between the world and this soul Are imagined.

“I have an itch.”

“No! Don’t move—” With a touch The world drops The concentration falters The interruption in appeased.

With that movement, that moment We resigned.

The discomfort always passes.

In your infinity That itch will be scratched.

We strayed from the mystical meaning Of just being. Just breathing.

Just for an itch.

It feels better now though.

I know.

Let’s start again. Let’s forgive it.

Just sit with it.

Eight minutes.

Breathe infinite for eight minutes.

In and out. Slowly.

And so it goes.

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A Lesson on Anatomy Zoya Davis

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

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Brooke Bower

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Amanda Hannah Meader

Silly Girl Chrissy Bader

Silly girl, you are made of glass.

You feel so fragile like you just might crack.

You’ve been smudged with dirt and you wear the past.

It’s amazing that you’re here at last.

Silly girl, cover up your wounds.

They shine so dark, too dark for you.

You search for someone to understand, to see through the scratches on your glass.

Silly girl, made of glass, here’s what you don’t know: You come from fire; that’s a fact.

You are strong and bright and you will not crack.

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Sidewalk Chalk Frieda Projanksy

Wait my hands are full, Can you hold my breath?

It’s fulfilling to watch you Grasp my decisiveness Like it is tied to the Bike’s Handlebars Can you hold me next?

When we jump rope Circumstantial clauses Can you watch me double check?

The lanes of errors makes me eerie Yet I’m the clearest I’ll ever get.

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Aftermath Carly Elizabeth Benson

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Nineteen AbbyLeigh Charbonneau

The peak of my naivete was probably at nineteen years old. That was also the year that I lost most of it. I balanced precariously on the cusp of adulthood, one foot in my ripped six-year-old Converse and the other in black heels and panty hose. I kept my panicking, white-knuckled grip on adolescence, while curiously peering ahead to what was coming, like a shy child peeking from behind the skirts of her mother.

Meeting him pulled me out of that, thrust me into a period of my life that would change the way I act and think and feel.

I couldn’t say why. If it was dealing with the spite of the person he became when he drank, or if it was just playing the role of the adult in both of our lives, or if it was just that time in the course of my aging. Maybe it was because his life was so different from mine; he was everything that wasn’t a part of my world.

It’s hard not to laugh now, thinking back about the week I’d met him - doodling his name in my planner and giggling in class like a schoolgirl. I had only just turned nineteen a few weeks before, but despite the small gap of time between graduation and the start the of fall semester it felt grossly superior and vastly different from my high school years. Retrospectively, I was just a child - and while I’m sure that sentiment holds ever-true for anyone looking back on their younger days, I would be scrubbing blood stains out of wood floors and pouring toxic amber liquid down the sink while learning how to do laundry and write a check.

I was practically still wiping the horse shit off my boots when I got into the city, a wide-eyed little country girl with hay in her hair. I called my parents every day, gave change to each homeless person I saw, pensively mulled over the decision between med school and law school. Josh was anything but naive. He was older, much older - but it was more than that. He’d been in jail- he smoked cigarettes- he’d lived in homeless shelters. He took me to parts of town where he’d instruct me to stay in the car with the doors locked and not make eye contact with anyone. He’d worked construction, food service, landscaping. More than anything, he was broken.

He wasn’t the one that was going to save me. That was clear from the beginning to me, anyways. Truthfully, I’m not entirely sure if I needed saving. I think more than anything I was desperate to take care of someone other than myself. I’d spent 52 | Perception

the past 18 years living in my parents’ house, under my mother’s fretful watch and my father’s stern gaze. All I really wanted was to be the one who got to take care of someone else for once. I wanted someone to depend on me.

At least, that’s what I think when I look back now and try to remember it all - why I stayed; why I would spend hours hiding bottles and counting empty beer cans; why I would let him lash me with the whip of his insecurity; why I would make excuse night after night to my friends for why I could not go out; why I would scream “I love you” at him til my throat was raw, in the hopes that that would be enough to make him believe it, though even to my ears it sounded more like a plea than a statement; why I would let myself become worn away and faded by the time I was 20; why I would spent seventeen months of my life trying to save someone determined to drown. If I were just the shell of a human, he was just the mere impression of one. His job, his rent, his friendships would filter through his kidneys with the rest of last night’s regrets - the accusations and shattered dishes, the words we could never retrieve, the hatred we could never quite convince ourselves we felt - making everything tolerable in the light of day.

I was going to fix him, and I knew how I was going to fix him. I was going to love him. And at nineteen years old, I believed that that would be enough.

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Yat Sze Austin Cheng

54 | Perception

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

Zoya Davis

You didn’t give me any time Any warning, no flashing red and blue lights No whistling siren to follow in the distance Not a sound where your body erupted from the ocean bed and crashed down above my head like unruly waves at 3 am no, you didn’t give me any time any time to hastily gather up our last nightly conversations the ones where we shed our coffee and skim milk skin, voluntarily exposing our bones to the wind, flesh raw and bare, souls bruised, minds cloudy, like the morning after a late night with our friends Jack and Daniel no time to tuck your last words within the slight crack you left on my skin the day you left me no time to quickly hide the sudden glances to stole, before you took that away from me too, the ones where your eyes caressed mine, almost weary but not enough tear for me to notice no time to turn off the lamp before the lampshade unfairly displayed the shadow of your slender figure against my walls, as if to say, I could turn you off but never turn you away no time no time to un-see, to un-know, to un-feel to un-love you no time before your words broke the floor between my toes and your face tore threw my brain, oh, but you were skilled you performed an unprofessional lobotomy without morphine revealing the mis-firing neurons that were not used to your absence just yet no time or maybe you did and I just didn’t allow myself to look hard enough Linger here | 55

I didn’t see that you were stained glass, weakened from too much sun in a place that required a little too much praise I didn’t notice that you were gentle porcelain, delicate china The kind your mother took out and tenderly wiped down once a year I didn’t see that you required so much more maintenance I didn’t see that you were broken And you didn’t see that I couldn’t fix you But after all we all know light travels faster than sound And I did see your eyes that used to be my lighthouse flicker then decease long before I heard your goodbyes But I told you I hated you way before my heart meant it, the light trapped within the dents of my soul shone just a little too bright for your eyes; weak from receding into the darkness you let build a home inside you with a lease you couldn’t quite break You said I was too good for you As if to ignore that you were once the only good in me And yes I imagined you in me In more ways than one, you took root into my earth, convincing me you’d stay a little while and let me count your tree rings but instead of reliable soil you settled for loose uncertain sand, and though a lightning strike could mold you into beautiful crystalline geometry I wasn’t enough to set you on fire Like metal against metal Scraping to see who erodes the most, Who ruins whom first?

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

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Lulling Bye Frieda Projanksy

You lull me to a funk groove.

I look at you and think oh my gosh Your eyes are naked. And so am I. And somehow your stories are clothed.

I want to hand you a towel But your skin is warmer than your breath.

I dreamt we kissed and woke up locked.

Moving my toes felt laborious.

Maybe I don’t dream of you Every night because it feels this Stiff waking up still without you.

You lull me to a funk groove.

I wrung out our biography And mopped up the letters on my floor.

I turned on my speakers as I collected them.

You lull me to a funk groove.

I couldn’t even stand back up Because emptiness is a constraint too.

I’m pushing myself Not really I’m pulling Myself out of What we had a few

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Weeks ago And that’s all the Nourishment I have, Pulling myself back.

Your lulling is you living and I need that to surround me.

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Linger here | 59

Abigail B. Gordon

Mama Ling’s Kat Ferentchak

“We really do know how to desecrate just about everything in America.” She said it to herself, more a curse than a statement. With disgruntled snort she hefted the black trash bag up and into the dumpster. It made a FUHPLOP as it landed, rather like, she thought, a bag of meat. Flesh. Either human or pig. It didn’t matter, most days the two were hardly a species apart.

Her name was Delilah, but she went by Lil. It was not a choice anyone except her father begrudged her. “What’s wrong with Delilah?” he would ask, his ample mustache rolling with the words like a sock in the sea. She would reply that she didn’t even have a boyfriend, much less one called Samson, but that if he wanted, she could help him shave that ‘stache. The last threat was all in good fun. Really it just about had her in stitches, sometimes, watching her Dad’s caterpillar mustache crawl around in accordance with his moods.

Lil wiped her hands on her overalls, throwing out the garbage always made her feel a little greasy, and turned her back on the alley. Her footprints lingered behind in the slush.

She went back through the kitchen. The room was sweltering as always—summer, winter, it hardly made a difference. Venturing into Mama Ling’s kitchen was like making the descent into hell. There was even a little demon man, Lil noted, as she watched Hai hop off his stool and march to the prep bar, wiping pudgy fingers on a yellowing apron. Lil smiled.

Hai might have been the real deal, a genuine first generation Chinese immigrant with the best recipe for kung pao this side of the Pacific, but Mama Ling was not.

Mama was born in Seattle. Sometime after or maybe during college, Mama and one of her girlfriends (“Girlfriend?” Lil had asked, but Mama had hushed and swore she wouldn’t tell the damn story if there were going to be any more interruptions) had decided to join the Peace Corps. The girlfriend had pulled out (“Phrasing,” interjected Lil, earning a robust laugh from Mama and a swat) while Mama was still saddled with commitment. After three months of training she was shipped overseas, which 60 | Perception

was, as she put it, “The first step to enlightenment.”

Mama was sent to Thailand. After completing her two years “of active duty,” she didn’t leave. Instead she migrated to India. There she attained enlightenment.

“You’re a skeptic!” Mama had exclaimed when Lil asked how she stayed abroad without a visa and how many international codes that broke. “There’s more to life than laws and taxes.” Which was apparently enough of an answer.

In India, Mama was mugged. That was the second step. The third came almost immediately after, when she fell in with a band of Buddhist monks. She went from an agnostic existentialist to a devout Buddhist. “I nearly joined them for good,” Mama said to Lil as she stirred her cup of tea. “But Mama,” Mama winked, “was never meant to be chaste.”

It was late. The restaurant had closed, now that the last customers, a young couple that had lingered too long, withdrew with to-go boxes of leftover Chow Mein and Dou Ban Yu. The two had been high. They were skinny with sallow skin and their pupils had been overlarge, too large, even for the paper lantern fluorescents. Lil stacked the plates, stuffed the wads of paper napkin in the empty coke glass and carried it into the kitchen. Tonight Jimmy was supposed to be on sink, so she left the lot in the basin and returned to wipe the table. The two hadn’t left a tip. Lil did not bother trying to feel charitable. She swabbed and straightened, and put it all away, and left.

It was crisp outside, the street lights bright flares overhead. Occasionally a car would pass Lil as she walked, hands in pockets, black scarf loose around her face. She wished she had a hat. It was not winter yet, but the first snowfall had been a few days ago and more was forecasted Sunday.

Lana hadn’t come home again. When Lil swung the door open, everything was exactly as it had been that morning. There weren’t even new dirty dishes. That would have been a dead give away. Lana couldn’t clean a dish to save her life. Lil had caved early on. Really she didn’t mind being elbow deep in soap. She had enough practice at Mama Ling’s. Here at least she knew what the organic material she scraped off had Linger here | 61

been. Anyway Lana had a thing for vacuuming.

Lil shrugged off her jacket and tossed it at the couch.

In her bedroom, in the back of her sock drawer was a wooden cigar case. She’d bought it for a dollar last year when the smoke bar was clearing them out. There was a picture on the lid of a woman with black hair, tied up 19th century style.

That night, she watched an episode of Criminal Minds. The weed did its work, and Lil barely made it to the killer’s confession. As the credits rolled, she put the bowl back in the box and swept the crumbs off the table. She brushed her teeth. The moment her head hit the pillow, Lil was out.

What she dreamed was beautiful.

Mama Ling stood in front of the restaurant. She smiled and her mouth was filled with gold teeth. “You have to climb the mountain,” she said.

The door opened and the snow covered slopes soared into the sky. There was a red and yellow gondola, but when Lil reached to take the handle it was scales her fingers scraped against. The gondola was an enormous tortoise. He turned his great yellow head towards her. An eye the size of a bowling bowl met hers. He turned back and took a step that shook the ground.

Mama Ling spoke from behind her. “You must climb, or you will never reach the top.”

There were stairs in the mountain, carved of ice. Lil ran up them. The snow began to fall. It piled across the steps and soon Lil was wading, knee deep through the drifts.

She stopped in front of a small mound of snow and began to dig, pushing off the snowfall. Brown fur became visible. She reached into the hole and pulled out Pat. The Labrador was dead. She held him close and kissed his muzzle.

When she woke in the morning, Lana was home. She was making pancakes. A real treat. The sink already held a mixing bowl, a measuring cup and rather more utensils than anyone else would have used.

“Good morning!” Lana beamed. “Coffee?”

Lil made her way to the machine. Lana had brewed hazelnut. The milk was sitting 62 | Perception

out on the counter. Lil returned it to the fridge before pouring herself a cup of joe.

Her mug had a “Hang in there, Baby” cat on it.

Lil drifted to the table and sat down. She watched Lana fuss over the stove. Her roommate was humming some stupid pop song. It had been on the radio frequently this week, but Lil couldn’t remember the name.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

Lana giggled. She turned, performing a balancing trick one-handed, plates on the bottom, pancakes piled on top. “What, never?” A plate was set in front of Lil. She waited until Lana sat before standing to retrieve forks.

“Oh, thanks!”

Lil slid back into her seat. Lana was drowning her pancake in syrup.

“How’s Rob?” “Oh… good, you know. He got that new job, down at Lucy’s. It’s good money.”

Lil took a long drink of coffee. “I dreamed about Pat last night, you know, my old dog.”

“Pat? Oh, um—the retriever?”

“A lab.”

“That’s right! What about him?”

Lil slowly chewed her bite of pancake. Swallowing she offered, “…Not about him, exactly… I don’t remember much. There was snow.”

“I used to have dreams about my cat Millie when I was little. Except, of course we never had a cat in my family. Dad hated cats. But anyway, in my dreams, I always had this cat friend, Millie.” Lana laughed. “Like an invisible friend, but only at night! I swear, now that I’m grown up, my dreams are never as fun.”

“Sit with me, Lil.” There was a two hour break between lunch and dinner. Mama was sitting at the window bar. Lil left the damp cloth and suds bucket at the booth, taking the stool next to Mama. The window bar afforded a view of the street, a post office, a Chipotle and some office building called Cybex. Every so often a passing car would obstruct the scene.

Mama seemed to be watching the two Pomeranians someone had tied on the bench outside the post office. The larger one was lying head on paws, the smaller pacing, Linger here | 63

wrapping himself slowly but surely around the bench leg.

“You know,” Lil looked at Mama. The older woman was gently tapping her lip with her pointer finger. “I never could stand little dogs.” She turned to Lil then, a smile stretching her face. “Although add enough teriyaki and it all starts to taste like duck.”

Lil snorted. Across the street a man in gray pants and a yellow jacket had emerged from the post office and was kneeling to untie the dogs. The little one was yelping madly, leaping against a leash now the length of just over a foot while the other was sniffing the man’s boots.

“There’s a moral there.” Mama nodded at the scene. “No need to get yourself all tied up and agitated. Patience…it is a virtue. Kinhin…he should have gone straight.”

The man pushed himself up, leashes in hand. A blue sedan pulled up and into the 15 minute parking lane, obscuring the pets.

“I dreamed about Pat last night.” Lil shot a glance at Mama, but the older woman was still watching as a young man hops out of the sedan. He dropped his head out of sight to say speak with the driver before stepping onto the curb.

“It is better to spend one day… contemplating the birth and death of all things than a hundred years… never contemplating beginnings and endings.” Lil glanced back at Mama, who had turned her head fully to the girl. The look Mama gave Lil made her skin itch. She looked away hastily. The blue sedan was still idling, the driver had rolled down a window to smoke a cigarette.

“I was, uh, looking at flights.,” said Lil. The thin line of smoke was just visible in the daylight, a white-gray streamer that fell to threads as it rose. “Online, you know, discount tickets.” She glanced at Mama. The woman’s smile was tight and private, her small dark eyes—her eyes gazed past the bubbling turmoil of Lil’s conscious mind, into some still, deep waters the girl had yet to find.

“There are some great deals,” she found herself continuing. “One-way tickets to Buffalo, or Phoenix, super cheap. Flying out of here, or maybe I could get a ride to Bishop International.”

Mama nodded, her lips, a natural cherry red, parted ever so slightly. She left a space in the conversation, and just like a vacuum it drew the words from Lil. “I was thinking that, since my lease expires soon, that maybe I’ll just pack up and leave. Maybe ask Aunt Jaime to store some of my things, but just, I dunno, just 64 | Perception

move on.”

This time Lil resisted the vacuum’s pull. She bit the inside of her lip, watching Mama.

“Hmmm…” Mama looked away from Lil and back across the street. “Phoenix or Buffalo…? Hot or cold, yes? Both animals too, although whether you can say a phoenix is an animal…” Mama shrugged.

“I’m leaning towards Phoenix,” Lil said. “I’ve never been to the Southwest.”

“And if not now, then when?”

Lil nodded. Across the street, the young man returned to the sedan. The driver tossed his cigarette and rolling the window up, pulled away. Lil wondered what it was like to be half a cigarette burning on the asphalt. She pictured the glowing tip burning on and on until the tobacco was stripped away, nothing but smoke, a few more chemicals joining the smog which was a more constant presence than the sun.

Mama had been a bhikkhu, a monk, for under a year. Lil had been surprised when Mama had told her that. Lil had been only fifteen at the time, her only exposure to religion—although Mama would leap to correct her should she so err as to refer to Buddhism as religion, “It is a lifestyle, it is bodhisattva”—had been three years of Catholic grade school and an aunt who had at one time regularly enlisted Lil and her mother for Sunday worship. Catholicism was big on permanence. No slipping out of marriage, no casting aside vows, monastic ones included.

The things Mama preached were different.

“Life is dukkha,” she had said.

“Such is karma,” she had warned.

“Let go of your māna,” she admonished.

And above all she would say, “You must invest in anatta. Things are less than they seem.”

That night Mama offered to drive Lil home, not an unusual occurrence, and Lil accepted, which was much rarer. She liked walking home—was her usual excuse. And she did too. One foot in front of the other, with almost no one around to see. It was an excuse that Mama could appreciate, and the woman was apt to lament that she Linger here | 65

lived too far for such luxuries as pedestrian commute.

There was another reason Lil seldom took a ride from Mama. After a hard day at the restaurant, she all wanted was to rest, but when Mama drove, home was the last stop on the list.

Tonight, Mama drove two miles east of Lil’s apartment, to one of the city’s parks. Lil stepped out and onto the parking lot asphalt, a little before Mama did the same on the driver’s side. Lil stared ahead.

Twenty meters away was a lake, not much more than a pond. It was silver under the light of a hazy moon, frosted with ice, dusted with snow. It glowed.

Snow crunched and Lil jerked to look at Mama. The older woman, now bundled in a red down jacket, with a brown scarf wrapped around her face, was walking forward, onto the frozen turf. She paused at the split rail fence that separated the parking area from what constituted urban nature. Mama looked at Lil, black eyes gleaming, somehow smaller than ever, peaking through the gap in the scarf as they were. Lil nodded and stepped onto the snow as well.

She was not wearing proper boots and the few feet to the fence line were enough to let the chill seep through her sneakers. Mama hoisted one leg over, straddled the top spar and swung the other across. Lil followed.

By the edge of the frozen lake was a metal bench. Mama let her gloved hand rest on the back. Lil kept hers in the pockets of her jacket. Together their breath made twin clouds in the raw night.

“Things are not so easy,” Mama said.

“No…” Lil’s agreement was just another breath of hot air, lost, dissipating only moments after her exhale.

“I would say to you, do not go to Buffalo, or to Phoenix.” Beside Lil Mama was gazing up, at the moon high over head, slowly dancing with soft streamers of cloud.

“I wish I could tell you to go to Asia instead. New York, Arizona, it will just be more of the same. To go even to Europe… It would be something else.”

In the distance, a world away, there was the sound of an ambulance, searing to life and dimly crying for help. On the lake, the ice was untouched. Snow and ice.

“But, things are not so simple.” Mama was looking at Lil now. “There’s difficulties for young people today. There are visas, much stricter, and nothing is ever cheap. It 66 | Perception

is hard to run away anymore.”

Lil looked down. Her feet were icy cold, snow clung to the hem of her pants.

“Delilah, look at me.” Lil’s shoulders stiffened, but she looked up. “Oh child…”

Mama stepped closer, her eyes shined brighter than ever. She raised her arms and pulled Lil inside. “Moksha… You must promise me to write.”

And Lil felt her head fall onto Mama’s jacket and her shoulders begin to shake. And from her eyes came shining dew drops, warm and salty.

When Lil left that world behind, she was alone. She took almost nothing with her, only a few essentials. In a sky of cerulean blue, she flew above the material world.

We are always sleeping. Our life is not but dreams. In the shadow of the morning we fall into slumber. None of these things are true. Let go. Let go of the taste. Let go of the smell. Let go of the sound. Let go of the feel. And at last, let go of the sight. You must be extinguished. You must go extinct. That is the nirvana we crave.

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Man on the Moon Carly Elizabeth Benson

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My Tentacles Gabriel Acosta-Mitchell

Thoughts smashed, wages slashed.

"Man it's tiring to be me" That's what we all say right?

But it isn't right.

Things are tight.

In our wallets, in our minds, In our hearts and chest.

Why does it feel like those we care about most are the ones we see In an empty hearted "R.I.P." post?

Good luck, bad luck we've all got our time.

I don't want to want but I'm confined Working multiple jobs for one person while they take and take like a parasite Not being accustomed to it is hard to fake I'm ashamed, spoiled, and agitated I'm deranged, toiled with, and seemingly hated.

What did I do?

Who did I screw over, have I not pursued nothing but virtue?

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I'm aggravated, I do good, but good don't always come quick enough.

I'm courteous and honest, only to get blown up on I detest everyone’s emotions.

Everyone’s notions, compulsions, impulsions. etcetera, it's all eccentric, egocentric!

Concentrically centered around other people.

Disregard women, love, and Valentines Day. The lonely's kicking rocks What about intrinsic love?

That can't be put in a box.

So I'd like to take a vat of acid make the worlds heart placid.

Burnt of that caring factor as if it were all once acted Truth is I love them all but it's hard to love when it's not given back after you've taken a fall.

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Linger here | 71

Yat Sze Austin Cheng

Una Calle Con Salida Alexander Burgos

Doy un paso y lo siento.

Carne, pellejo y piel sobre la superficie.

A veces fría, a veces caliente; a veces lisa, a veces áspera.

Cada día doy un paso.

Sobre la Rosa del Viento dejo mis huellas de rastro.

A veces Norte, a veces Sur; a veces Este, a veces Oeste.

Sobre la Tierra doy un paso.

Día, tarde y noche camino sin mucho descanso.

A veces sigo, a veces pauso; a veces duele, a veces aguanto. ¡Hasta en los sueños doy un paso!

Pensamientos flotando como Luna castigando mi cuerpo con insomnio de tortura.

A veces cierro, a veces abro; a veces entiendo, a veces pretendo.

En esta ruta que llamamos vida he aprendido que, aunque cada paso que doy lo siento,

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cada paso que doy, no lo doy por cierto.

Porque, a pesar que el camino se hace muy largo, y el horizonte no conoce fin, más hacia adelante habrá una salida.

Y, si en malos pasos te encuentras, y el camino no tiene salida, despega hacia arriba, que entonces entenderás el secreto de la vida.

Mirarás desde lo alto lo que jamás pensarías.

Un globo flotando sin fronteras dividida. ¿Alguna vez pensabas que la paz existía?

Mira hacia las estrellas, ellas tampoco son fijas.

No pretendas ver lo que nunca has visto.

Mucho menos ser lo que nunca has sido.

Pero, si es verdad que quieres cambiar tu camino, navega el Universo que es infinito.

Así también, será tu destino.

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A Dead End Exit (Translation) Alexander Burgos

I take a step and I feel it.

Muscle, peel and skin over the surface.

Sometimes cold, sometimes hot; sometimes flat, sometimes rough.

Every day I take a step.

Over the wind rose I leave footprints as a trail.

Sometimes North, sometimes South; sometimes East, sometimes West.

Over Earth I take a step.

Day, evening and night I walk without much rest.

Sometimes I push, sometimes pause; sometimes its painful, sometimes I deal with it.

Even in dreams I take a step!

Thoughts floating like the Moon torturing my body with insomnia.

Sometimes I close, sometimes I open; sometimes I understand, sometimes I pretend to.

On this route we call life I have learned that, even though every step I take I feel,

82 | Perception

every step I take I don’t take for granted.

Because, although the road is very long, and the horizon knows no end, more forward there will be an outlet.

And if in bad steps you find yourself following, and the road has no outlet, take-off upwards, for then you will understand the secret of life.

You will look from the top that which you would never think.

A floating balloon without borders to divide it.

Have you ever thought that peace existed?

Look at the stars, they are not fixed either.

Do not pretend to see what you’ve never seen.

Let alone be what you've never been.

But if it is true that you want to change your way, float through the Universe, it is infinite.

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Sophia Lawrence Pennacchio

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Adapt: A Last Name Taylor Arias

First semester at college, a floormate made an ignorant comment at my last name and I wondered if they would’ve made the same lighthearted remark to either my mother or father when they were just teenagers in high school before the prejudicial outbursts and protest walk-outs.

Sometimes I confuse myself trying to distinguish my memories from those with an agony filled past.

A name my father bestowed upon me flutters in my head.

Or rather it showers over my face and body, the characteristics of such a name certainly displays my origins, but one would say I‘m overly “self-conscious” the way people glower at the way I carry myself and the way that I speak makes my stained set of teeth quiver and clatter and bite down tightly to the inside of my cheeks I, in the core of my being, sense my parents, my parents’ love, their parents’ parents’ everlasting, eternal affection.

I dress my last name the way the women in my family taught me to. Occasionally, when friends smile, I contemplate whether they assume I’m naively trying to preserve my traditional ways.

My pronunciation from the first syllable to the last, with just a hint of zing, necessary due to my enriched roots and a pinch of uncontrollable twang that instantly exhibits my surrounding audience I am both proud and embarrassed of my heritages regardless that I am of American upbringing.

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I most certainly do not acquire any generic physical features that are customary, but I would hate to be mistaken as anything other than my mix of cultures. (As if it matters to anyone.)

At my sixteenth birthday, an elderly woman taught me how to dress my last name. I sat next to her in a room full of dancing relatives, twisting and twirling about. The father’s last name is usually given to children to carry on the lineage, so my mother’s family was slightly helpful in my situation while my father’s relatives couldn’t grasp the concept why it was necessary for me to keep both essences of my family names.

There is just too much history involved with both families. Why am I just given a title to only one?

As of now, I am only able to present my father’s family name and question myself if others imagine my invisible last name that I am unable to proudly carry.

There are times I wish last names did not matter. Other times I wish it was mandatory to carry both.

My last name is snuggling comfortably in the cavern of my chest again. When I sit in silence, I can feel it pulsating and surging a familiar warmth throughout my body. Yet when I speak, I lose the warm embrace to the sound of my voice and I am unable to hear even the loudest of hums, after all it is just a name.

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Semper Fidelis. Always Faithful Carol Pelz

He left for Marine boot camp on September 8th, 2014. His plane departed from New York City and landed in Parris Island, South Carolina. Hell on Earth, as he described it. Beautiful on the outside, torture once you pass through the gates.

Which of course, he did.

This wasn’t an experiment in distance. This wasn’t an experiment involving 1,000 miles, seven states that acted as an unforgiving fortress between him and I. This was an experiment in us. He was the independent variable, ever changing. I was the dependent variable, a result of his decisions. Now that he’s gone, we are only able to communicate through letters, letters that I reflect on often.

2300, Parris Island “Write as much as you want baby, I like to stay up and read them.”

Sirens sing me to sleep most nights now. What sound sings him to sleep? Is it the frantic sound of secret writing, stealthy thieves pilfering words in the shadowy night? Or is he the one being robbed? Being robbed of time to write to his family, being robbed of sleep, being robbed of comfort? No one believes a recruit will get a decent amount of sleep at boot camp. I at least thought he would get enough sleep that he would be able to rest his weary eyes. I didn’t think his eyelids would weigh him down like an anchor, heavy steel constantly dragging him under. Exhaustion was a well-known enemy for him before he went to basic training, an enemy who always kept the fight dragging on for too damn long, never compromising, never allowing peace. Thoughts often kept him up at night, nagging at him like flies.

Now, he denies the sandman, ignores his drooping eyelids, just to read my messily scrawled words, elaborate music notes to his worn-out eyes. Words of reassurance, words of comfort, words from me to you.

2100, Parris Island I’m here without you baby, but you’re still on my lonely mind. I think about you baby, and I dream about you all the time. I’m here without you baby, but you’re still with me in my dreams. And tonight, it’s only you and me.

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felt the feelings that only come around during tender summer nights. Carelessness swirled inside of us. The nights were endless. Dark skies and light hearts. Loud laughs, quiet houses. Tired eyes, the most awake laughs. Tonight, our stomachs were full of chocolate rum cake. We were outside Wal-Mart, a flimsy bag with 3 boxes of Jell-o when we saw the stand selling cake. Thick rich frosting melted like butter in the sweltering summer atmosphere, the plastic cover offering no protection from the ever-present heat. We rescued the chocolate rum cake, a knight and a princess, sweeping up the cake before it melted underneath the fiery breath of the dragon sun.

It was safe until we devoured it in a booth in the back of McDonalds, with plastic forks held like pitchforks between our sweaty fingers.

The Jell-o was cooling as I sat cross-legged on a stool in his kitchen, while he leaned against the table, mixing water and cotton candy blue powder like a chemist.

Blaring from his ipod came the lyrics, “A hundred days have made me older, since the last time that I saw your pretty face. A thousand lies have made me colder, and I don’t think I’ll ever look at this the same.”

“Who do you think he’s singing about” he asked me.

I contemplated this for a moment before responding, “I don’t know, probably some girl.”

He opened his fridge, which was vacant except for two other bowls containing artificial red and orange liquid, “Why do you think he can’t see her?”

“I don’t know, sounds like he’s in the military or something.” I said this cautiously, carefully watching his face.

He had told me he enlisted in the Marines two weeks before this. It wasn’t an easy time for me. It started with him ignoring me for weeks, being more distant than Neptune. He was Neptune, the coldest planet, constantly freezing me out, and I was Earth, small and blue with ocean tears. Took forever to get him to finally talk to me about what was going on. Finally, he told me he enlisted in the Marines and could leave as early as next June, right after graduation.

I could lie and say this was a surprise to me, but it wasn’t. I knew the boy I met in 9th grade wanted to be a Marine. He wanted to be brave. He wanted to be unafraid. He wanted to be a hero.

He just didn’t realize he already was my hero.

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felt to be so far away from someone you love. I didn’t understand how the pain of loneliness feels sharper than the blade of any knife. I didn’t understand how memories could pierce through your mind and make your stomach drop lower than the Mariana Trench.

I get it now.

“We all talk about what we miss most and what we are going to do when we get out, and literally all I want to do is see you.”

Fall. Wind blows the golden and auburn puckered leaves through the crisp fall air.

The sweet smell of apple fills my nostrils. Thick chunky knit sweaters cover my skin.

I clutch my sleeves over my hands as the wind stings my nose and gives me earaches.

47 days.

The Gas Chamber. The gas blows into his reddening face as he is forced to stand in the Gas Chamber. The Chamber is made to teach recruits how to protect themselves and breathe calmly wearing a protective mask. It’s a psychological test as well as physical. The recruits aren’t allowed to leave the smoke-filled room until they take their masks off.

35 days Winter. Crystal snow will coat the ground, the perfect foundation for improv snow angels and slushy snowball wars between flirty campus couples. I’ll pull my scarf tighter to my neck. Romanticism will fill the freezing air. The fur from my parka will tickle my goose bumped neck, and walking to Marshall Street to mail your letters will leave me icy and red cheeked.

14 days.

The crucible. Sweat coats the recruits as they march. They march for over 45 miles.

They are subjected to 54 hours of hell. Sleep deprivation and lack of food is the name of the game. He is going to give it his all, no matter what. The recruits won’t forget this experience for as long as they live.

Who would forget Hell?

He will leave Parris Island on December 6th, 2014. Waiting to go home to see him will be torturous, but will all be worth it when I walk through the door and finally jump into his beautiful arms. Which of course, I will.

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A Poem Particularly About No One Zoya Davis

You told me you used to hide under your bed I’ve wished for the million and tenth time to have known you then Just maybe we could have bottled every tear you’ve shed And pour it on the shore; the sea and you heavenly wed And oh baby you told me your body was getting a bit too heavy Well here, let’s shake the skin we’re in; the past, we can bury Not of this earth, just soul to soul And if that’s not enough, I’ll give you half of me, maybe then you’ll feel whole But I’m not your cure As much as you wanted me to be Some things you just have to do yourself

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Stained Glass Ocean Carly Elizabeth Benson

Gold Eden Lapsley

Would you like to know why I love you darling?

I know that while many call me adventurer I do not journey into the deeper valleys of emotion, And all though others call me fearless I do not like to look my heart in the eye.

You see I'm not like you, my heart isn't so lovely, It doesn't sparkle or invite the gaze of onlookers, Or fill your soul's coffer like a beloved king.

But that is why I love you, because you're not like me.

Your heart is made of gold and mine, it roars And this you know, I'm dangerous.

I do not purr or kiss your hand, I am not a flower If I were I'd be a Venus, but then you're not a fly.

No, you are a man aren't you, a man With flecks of gold in your eyes, not fire And you're not afraid of me at all.

And above all things you do not come at me With whips, or spears, or cages, They all love to bring their cages.

And they come at your chest with spades, don't they, They want it for themselves. The greedy dogs They hurt you, didn't they. I know they hurt you And just at the thought I bare my pointed teeth, I'm sorry that they hurt you, but I'm glad your heart won't roar, Because if it did we'd only battle.

We'd tear each other apart until we were nothing Except old and broken bodies in pools of cooling blood, But we don't have to worry, you are pure and gold And lions care nothing for riches.

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Still, they will fight for their pride, so I will keep you safe, And I won't let them near you with their picks If you don't put me in a cage like a pet.

And I know you won't just like you know I can't hurt you Because my one and only darling, Your heart is made of gold and mine, it roars.

Sage Cruz Field

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To Have Been the Mother of His Children Eden Lapsley

This, this is what it is: This soft skin, this kiss, holding this child in my arms so careful, so steady, it doesn’t make sense.

I am wild. I am harm. I am not held.

This lovely, giggling vessel, nearly toothless and loving to chew, but fully pink as a petal and white, like a window, like truth, without a fingerprint or tint.

I see my face in the black centers, in that black space, untainted.

He laughs and I am brought back into the blue of the eye, out of my dark with a flash, with a coo, to the tiny sphere of firmaments where it is so warm and just born.

And it is a gasp, and an “Oh my God,” and a vision, for the first time a vision that will never, not ever, come to fruition.

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And it is a whip, and a resounding ache and open skin.

Just look at him, the child is so beautiful it’s almost cruel, the way his eyes pull.

I’ve never seen such happiness, for me I don’t remember what took the last of it.

And it never bothered me. Never, not ever.

Until now when a great, lost face appears: A nonexistent father, not even, rears before my eyes and in between this child.

I wish I weren’t so wild, so alone and the cut of the rope bites me past the bone.

Now I am imbued with jealousy of the child, a humor not common of me.

I look at him and his pink, and white, and stainless clarity…

I wish to take him and his heart for my own.

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Scholars of War Kelsey Burke

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,” –Allen Ginsberg

I I took a step back from the smoke filled bar with the tatted up barely legal bottle blonde bimbos in their pleather jackets and alcohol-induced decisions to fuck 35 year old men with drug problems across the street, I wander trying to find a good time that doesn’t promise an arrest accompanying a poorly told story or hookers float up on the moon without an astronaut suit, look back to the supernaturally dark streets of a city humans are from and hallucinate a scenario where the stars kiss my feet and I try to write about it but get fired from a newspaper even though I don’t work there.

From the tops of buildings I crouch positioned to pounce, hearing the heels of college freshmen and high school seniors who impersonate college freshmen click clack clanking upon the sidewalks and stick in the lawns of resentful old men who yell about crazy kids whose innocently befuddled cat lady neighbors stare at me as I pass, reminiscing their own promise purple envy coats the dead grass we stagger and stumble through Wednesday to Sunday and sometimes on Tuesdays because fifty-six thousand dollars a year plus booze money goes towards hangovers, streetwalking, drugs, and mediocre strippers on sidewalks with Zach Wright or Zayn Williams or Zelda Washington’s poorly chiseled initials that were carved an hour too late in the setting cement with dad’s stolen pocket knife next to shitty peace signs.

The stars illuminate dreams of finding a great love to lock on a bridge in Paris that doesn’t end in distance or lies or death or running or “maybe somedays” because always, he thought we had time.

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Most of my generation uses brightness adjust to better their vision and plays Halo to learn war tactics while juggling True Blood and Breaking Bad following each fad and hairstyle for their well-to-do-dad to charge on the platinum between tennis rounds and therapy sessions with a quick latte and addition to the fifty shades of orange spray tan while great literature sits in leather bound sets idly in the study on shelves so they can read the popular piece of the utmost canonicity “Fifty Shades of Grey”.

The eye is not the window to the soul it is the lens by which the truth is seen by those who don’t think they can see it but can find it at the bottom of the ocean or when they learn how to ride a bike or see the tooth fairy or draw a hat that is actually a snake eating an elephant which is actually quite terrifying if you think about it

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Rooftops Maya Parthasarathy

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La Peinture de l'Eau et de l'Essence Kelsey Burke

When I find myself in a room with your laughter, I instantly move, adjusting my molecules to fit with you.

Est-ce coup de foudre? we clash, burn wild fire, and limbs root together, a puzzle scrutinized with eyes of brown green blue.

In inappropriate proximity, you’re giving me lady blue balls, fuck your grins and hand grazes. With a sigh I say, I see we have ourselves a puzzle.

Because of shell-shocked sex gazes and flirty hands that move up my outer thigh, it’s clear you’d love me on fire.

We’re sprawled as one in a doorway. Legs twist together, you won't move for your roommates or mine and I won’t fucking kiss you, (at this point you’re feeling the mean reds and I will lie until I am blue in the face) no, even if it kills me I won’t just ignite this fire.

Every night we’re here again, you’re holding hands with me between your living room and kitchen; we move closer, as we’re designed to intertwine, but we’re still a puzzle.

Reculer pour mieux sauter, and you’re lost in the puzzle of your current “relationship”… there’s a fine line you toe between staring and that damn striptease move you use to stop me from tearing up. We cover more in blue than Majorelle. We’re painted one, brush in hand with ferocity. I’m catching snowflakes on my tongue & you’re afire

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remembering your favorite Peanuts special then you rapid-fire pull my football again; the zodiac created our puzzle, both our destiny and our sign, erected in November, but with a cruel twist of fate I met you three years too late, and I’ve got you burning red and topaz. One night as midnight blue as the moon would allow, we collided. Yet, I may have to move forward, paint with some other green-blue, move on, and change into flame-retardant clothing. Leave our fire, métier, et grand amour: there are slightly too similar shades of blue in the painting we created and cut into a complicated puzzle, those stains have seeped into the wood so deeply that perhaps you can’t remove them. So, in this doorway, you with me, between blue and green, I’ll root limb with limb with you and misconstrue. You’ll laugh so I’ll move to readjust to you hoping tonight you’ll realize I’m the fire missing from your puzzle.

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Courted By the Snow Farrell Greenwald Brenner

I was once courted by the snow she called on me late at night climbed up my stairs tapped at my window rested against my door left me little doodles that were both charming and magnificent and notes saying good morning angel I will be out today, there is a new milk delivery outside xoxo soft like baby's breath I'd stick out my tongue to taste her and sharp as the razor blade I'd wear gloves when we held hands but even as she fell from the sky spread-eagle she would not fall for me hard to tell where she began and ended drifting transient infectious to the last, glowing covering sighing stopping stunning everyone and everything in their tracks

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Fun in Ernie Davis Delilah Mulgannon

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Lucy Wickham

At three in the morning we were still on the phone. It is said that nothing good ever happens past two, but I disagree. That is when a person can truly get to know someone else. That is when I truly get to know you. For see, you begin to forget about the walls that you built so high, and just let go. Things that might not be funny in the morning we would laugh about in the late hours of the night, just the two of us.

Right now though, at three in the morning, things feel different. A silence loiters over the phone. I can hear your deep breathing, and as I’m about to speak, you gently say, “Lilly, what are you thinking about?”

“At this moment?”

“Yeah. I want to know what’s on your mind.”

I have thoughts, sure, but I don’t want to share them. Sharing them would mean feelings, and feelings are an area I just do not want to cover. Especially with him.

And especially when my thoughts are of him. How I love staying up late talking with him, and watching films with him, and riding in the car with him, and the way he gets really intense when he speaks of things that are of importance to him.

You. I could say.

“Blueberries,” I say instead.

“Blueberries? Why?” he asks.

“Do I have to have a reason for my thoughts?”

“Well, no, actually. I just wanted to know why. I enjoy talking to you. You’re an interesting person.”

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“I’m not interesting,” I negate, “I am just good at talking about random things. For instance, right now I could tell you about how my mom gave me a book on healthy eating for my birthday. I think she’s trying to tell me something…” I say with a cynical tone.

“Hmm, maybe you’re right.”

He didn’t try to convince me otherwise.

He simply agreed with me. The thing is, I was being modest. Stupid, modest me.

I do consider myself interesting, but of course, I would never admit that to him.

“I think it’s time for me to go to bed.”

“Yeah, it is pretty late,” he agrees. Of course I know he says that and then will stay up another hour on Facebook.

“Night, Connor.”

“Night, Lilly.”

The phone clicks and I sit in my bed in silence. I am not tired, but I do not know what to do now that my conversation with Connor ended.

Maybe the people are right. Maybe conversations are not meant for after two in the morning, because then, they just lead to disappointment.

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A Quiet Revolution Farrell Greenwald Brenner

Sometimes I think my revolution will be wild like the forgotten forest of the fae people rising up to drive out dubious intruders I do believe in fairies! dancing like Emma Goldman, screaming in perpetual orgasm like the choking, thrashing of a backyard sprinkler like wrestling with the librarian for the right to whisper like the resounding cry of “NO!� echoed through a canyon, wide and deep But then I know after I wake in a feverish sweat that my revolution will be quiet and slow like the work done after hours to fluorescent lights and AM radio preachers like the creeping sunset, dragging herself to the couch with an ice pack like 4am in the park like places you can only get to with snow shoes like a hand held up, palm forward like riding to the end of the line train steady in its punctuations halting to catch breath with end in sight home-for-now

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Acting like kids in Thornden Park Delilah Mulgannon

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Baseline Data Frieda Projansky

Using last year as our baseline Causes some ill data and worse processes And ill-conceived predecessors And my dorm closet full of saved dresses And stainless steel waistlines.

I’m trying to be proactive And productive and preferably conductive To all our combatteries, I don’t know, I want us to proceed anew.

It’s all a rush of my mid-college crisis, Using last year as our bass lines, Yeah I do.

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Sarah and David Ali Searcy

David went to work.

Sarah stayed at home.

They had two children together, Neither was ever alone.

Sarah kept the house tidy and Had children with well-kept hair.

Yet late she sat at bedtime, no David yet, Anxious in her chair.

David worked very hard, Trying to earn all that he could.

But David also played around, Just like Sarah knew he would.

They had moved twice before, Because of problems just like this.

David coming home too late, Sarah knowing whom he’d kissed.

Tonight the cycle ends, Thought Sarah to herself.

Always waiting for David, Admiring the gun on the shelf.

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Hands Korey Lane

You don’t know your own hand.

The lines, creases, tone, size.

It lights a cigarette and turns a page, pushes your hair back, takes off your glasses.

It twists and spins your words and thoughts and me.

You don’t know your hand and you don’t know you.

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Delilah Mulgannon

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Amusement Park Kelsey Burke

an abandoned amusement park walk through the rusted arches look! ghosts of mirth, eternal aura of giggling children etched and a strangely familiar safe danger. a phantom takes my ticket. i scuffle over ripped rained on remnants of someone else’s vouchers, tattered paper pop cups with split straws (just under the bendy part) tinsel? no streamers of some kind mix with black and grey globs of rejected bubble gum. o’ the hue has faded. the signs are not in their prime colors or without splintered wood, cracked plastic. climb the tallest adventure like a ladder. get a better look of the other ghosts.

December • 2014

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Unnatural Selection Soo Lee

All of the medical records list reasons why I cannot succeed, Been in so many emergency rooms that doctors just allow me to proceed.

Been shooting needles since day 1, And I’ll admit sometimes I did not know where the drugs came from, Been addicted to pills before I knew what pills were, The future was always left unsure.

I see all of your eyes when you first view me, Something seems out of place, That scar they wonder, where did they find me, in what war, At first, it’s a sight to abhor, It felt like turning on the news after a disaster, Wishing, wishing, that time flooded faster, As if this scar was my one and only master.

If I could meet Darwin, I’d use me as a bargain, That being natural, Forgot to teach us how to be fragile, I for one am very unnatural, Medicine is like candy, Satisfying my sweet tooth, With anesthetics, Here goes that problem child, call your paramedics, I’m not one to argue, But did you really think I’d always just drown in sorrow?

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Have you met my mom and dad?

Been fighting my fights soaked in ironclad.

And my brother, A bond that’s thicker than the thickest of blood clots, Will stand before me when they start firing shots.

All of the examinations looked way too deeply into my imperfections, So ready to utilize newly founded injections, To reduce the infections, Rejecting the power of affection, When in reality, I am not here because of the treatments.

My struggles are not my achievements.

And my scar is not my identity.

I will not mask it, But when you approach me, Stare into my pupils, And let my past be.

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Corner Zhicheng Xie

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MR. Worry Naught Steven Young

The world is pretty.

It’s full of nice sound.

But everything has a shadow lurking.

There are shadows all around.

If ever you should start to wonder Why you get out of bed every day, You can silent the voices in your head But to do so you mush pay.

Worry MR. Worry Naught The World is awfully scary.

It’s full of monsters that are huge in size They’re wide shouldered and hairy.

Sometimes they will wake you up, In the middle of the night.

You’ll toss and turn with nowhere to go It will be an awful fright.

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And when all the ones you love are gone There will be no place else to go.

You’ll begin to wonder who you are And hope you have a few things to show.

Till one day all your tears run out.

And there’s no one else to help you.

Cradled you will desperately cry I wish that I would expire too.

Ah! But wait! Here’s something else too.

When everything seems the worst it can be, It’ll prove to you that that’s just not quite true.

The worst you have quite yet to see.

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Evangeline Eden Lapsley

When she knew him he had round, cornflower-blue eyes, just blue, all shades of dawn-light blue and stars, perched above a nose that pointed gently from his gold-crowned forehead down to a poppy-bright smile that she, as a child (for she had only known him as a child), had found merely charming in a way a child fancies a diamond-colored marble until it falls out of a hole in the bottom of a deep pocket and is forgotten altogether.

She couldn't help it, she really was a child. She knew nothing of handling hearts, or dreams, or great celestial futures, only toys. It never occurred to her to treat him any different than the doll with the cracked face in the bottom of her closet.

He had been so beautiful once, so dream-tangled and laced with love-light like a thousand-year tapestry, all brightly colored threads and wonder-stitched stories and he loved her like he loved those stories, innocently.

He let her pull out his hair, and take black marker to his eyes.

She left him on the floor at night and let the dog chew him up and one morning she found him in the corner of the kitchen with his head on backwards and put him on a high shelf where he watched her like a disinherited prince on a hill until she decided she was too old to keep him, that boy all innocent-whipped and white-sleeved, he was too safe and she preferred to pull her life apart, little by little.

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That was ten years ago and he moved on because by fifteen he was hardly a child anymore and he tried like mad to fall in love but he was a wing-stripped bird, still gold, and blue, and blooming but flightless, so they loved him.

All the foolish little hens wanted him and they left pockmarks and shallow hook-holes, and the distant sound of clucking in his ears, but nothing more. They hurt him because they reminded him he was a string-bare puppet and said he deserved it.

Today they found him curled up like a child on the ground weeping bitterly, white shirt unbuttoned, feet bare, lips a life-sucked purple, bleeding through his fingers from a wound: a missing rib.

He had gotten lost in the woods, where all the shadows lived, looking for her. It turned out he came to this pine-sea every night since he was fifteen. Ten years searching the dark for a shadow.

What a child, searching the dark for a shadow. That night he must have seen her, or the ghost whom he truly loved.

For that reason they tied him up and locked him in a room.

For his own safety, that’s what they said. He had become dangerous.

He did nothing but call out her name, Evangeline. Evangeline.

So they brought her to him and upon seeing him she kneeled down, and looked into his eyes that were now scared with green gashes and invaded around the edges with a metal-gray mist. “My God Jack.”

She mused, lifting his chin with her hand so that she could see him and his tornado eyes, and the nose that pointed to his broken crown, and his blood-cracked lips, and she found it merely unseemly in a way a woman considers a stray dog that wandered too far.

A small light flushed across his face like an outpouring of holy water.

Until with a furrowed brow she said, “What happened to you?”

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Abigail Ryan Latham

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I am From Tamara Abu-Ramadan

I am from the noisy neighborhoods. From the planes towering over Palestine. What should have been a clear sky, was actually a sky full of F-16s circling around the area.

Rather than having starry nights in Gaza, we had nights filled with plane lights. My brother would call, “mommy look! The first star of the night, make a wish!” I would sense my mother’s face getting tense, but I’d pretend not to notice. “Yes honey, let’s all take this star and wish for a safe and blessed night.”

That’s exactly what we did.

It’s amazing how even though there is only a three year age gap between my brother and I, his train of thought was always more pure than mine. Although my parents always tried to wear a mask in front of us, going to school exposed me to the real events occurring around us. My brothers however, one being four years old and the other being a newborn, did not sense what was going on around us, simply because they did not know any better. This is why they believed we were okay. I remember having that bit of envy knowing that he could disregard the hardships we were living in -- at least for now. As we all grew older, we became more aware of the horrendous environment that we were living in.

I am from the screaming of children, women and men, the place I shall always be.

No matter how far across the globe I am, those pleas for their lives remain stuck in the back of my mind and grow with me as a person. No matter what I end up doing in the future, it is my duty to take my pride of being Palestinian and give back to the Palestinian people, whether it is appreciated or not.

Every evening after dinner at grandma’s downstairs, we would all gather around the television to watch the 6 O’clock news. The amount of valor seen in the tribe’s eyes gave me a sense of strength. A kind of hope that is so hard to find, especially when you’re living in the middle of a war zone.

I am from six floors of cousins and family, everyone saying “mama.” The feeling of being surrounded by loved ones in the same position as us was always heartwarming.

If all goes wrong, we will all go through it together. Every time my parents would get a hunch that the planes were approaching the sound barrier, I would hear them 120 | Perception

whisper “go get the kids.” My parents thought that it would be easier for us to all go together if it came down to that.

Up I go into my room until the bombs shout kaboom! I don’t understand what’s happening, it all happened so fast. One minute I am reaching for my doll from the shelf, the next I am shivering on the floor, unaware of my surroundings. “I must come down to grandma’s” I think to myself. “I am too scared, and if I’m going to lose my life I can’t lose it when I’m afraid.” I remember the ground shaking beneath me. I could feel the earth crumble underneath my feet, or so it felt. In reality, it was the shattered glass from the windows making the screeching noises beneath my every step. I couldn’t understand the reason for these sonic booms, other than the sole objective of making us live in fear. Making us feel that we could lose everything in a matter of seconds. “I don’t know how much longer she can take this” I heard my mom say to my dad. “I don’t know either” I remember thinking.

I am from the exotic foods lining the table to break our fast. The smell flowing through my nose reminds me to be thankful for everything I have, no matter how basic it seems. I am from a part of my last name, Ramadan. My favorite time of the year. Some people do not understand the objective of fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. At first, it may seem unfeasible to fast from sunrise to sunset day after day for a whole month. The reason we fast during this holy month though, is to feel with the poor who fast on a daily basis for their whole lives, to learn the beauty of patience, to be thankful.

In Gaza, every day of the year is Ramadan. Not because we fast every day of the year, but because every day, we are feeling with the poor, learning to be patient, but most of all, are thankful for the little blessings we have in our lives. Today, I am in a peaceful place, hoping peace will prevail on those whom I left behind.

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Paisley on my mind Nittika Mehra

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Apple Spice Febreeze Christina Tavera

Apple Spice Febreeze, throws me back into her room with the constant soundtrack of an IV filled with lipids.

Syringes.

3 different kinds, eventually just jump into the sharps container.

I watch her breathe.

“Want to press the button?” morphine flows every 15 minutes, on command, like clock work.

Apple Spice Febreeze to cover the smell of vomit, and bile and shit.

It didn’t work.

Just brings me back into her room, on her bed, changing channels.

Watching Scrubs or Golden Girls.

She slept through it, me holding her hand, me bringing her food she couldn’t ingest.

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The wheels of the IV pole rolling around the pergo floors, losing her on the balcony, on her chair, watching her fireworks, for her independence.

Batteries. Change the batteries for the pump.

Pumping fluids through her arm, because her plumbing doesn’t work.

Nothing works.

It’s all artificial.

Tubes, wires, needles, bags. So many bags.

Vomit bags, colostomy bags, overnight bags, dime bags, IV bags.

Apple Spice Febreeze.

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Father’s Favorite Boy Adeyemi Adediran

Death was very black like Mama’s outdoor charcoal kitchen. He always wore dark sunglasses that matched the color of his skin. He was also very tall, even taller than Papa who was a giant at 6 foot 2. Death had big arms that he often wrapped around his enemies’ neck like the fabled Nlanga python that lived in the Mwungu forest.

I once saw him grab a man by the neck, the man’s hands flailed wildly at his side before his neck snapped and his body fell to the ground never to rise up to defy Death again.

The mat I laid on did nothing to reduce the scorch of the sun on my back. It was a bright day that promised good tidings, just like the day Death snatched Papa away… I quickly redirected my train of thoughts from the images that were about to pop into my head. Instead, I focused on the sun burning my chest as I laid on my back looking straight up to the sky. I was locking stares with the sun. We were engaged in a contest that I always lost. I wondered if the sun would ever avert its gaze from mine in deference. I was a scared puppy once, now, I was strong. I was the son of a Lion. As always, I was trying not to think of Papa. I wished I could forget the hurt he had in his eyes the last time I saw him. I would give anything to dry the tears that betrayed his fears. I vaguely remember the courage beneath his tears- his fear was only for Mama and me. Death told me that I have only one father after he took me. He said that the other one I called Papa was a mere guardian who was saddled with the protection of a special boy until his real father came to claim him.

I became Death’s favorite son, his soldier, and his ears and eyes among the boys. I was the captain of Death’s little soldiers on the few occasions we were allowed into battle without adult supervision. I tried to consign Papa to faded memories, but he often resurfaced in my dreams. The dreams were vivid as the morning sun, and they tugged my heart with pain and guilt.

My reverie was broken by the rustling of skin against cloth and a familiar gentle footsteps. I looked to my left in the direction of the sound, and there she was as I expected, walking towards the makeshift bathroom in the woods. She was taller than most of the girls in our camp, and she was definitely the most beautiful. She had a supple ebony skin and a smile that could tame even the wildest leopard in the Msanga forest. Her wrapper only covered her breasts down to her upper thighs. As Linger here | 125

she walked by, I stared at her thick black thighs and the long legs that carried them.

Her ample buttocks swayed provocatively, threatening to push her stark clothing up to reveal what laid beneath. I wanted her so bad. I wanted to bury myself deep inside her, to put her on top of me and watch her ride me like a horse. I sighed deeply, and quickly caught myself before my thoughts wandered too far adrift. Mwatha was beyond my reach. All of the girls at the camp were my sisters, and the boys were my brothers. Mwatha was beyond my reach because she was my sister. A brother could not love a sister the way I loved Mwatha. Siblings were not supposed to yearn for one another’s bodies the way I yearned for her.

I always found it strange that I developed sexual desires after I came to Death’s camp.

I used to play with girls when I lived in Papa’s village, but with them I never felt the strange rumblings in my stomach that I had with Mwatha. Maybe it was part of growing up. I was a puppy at Papa’s village, I grew into a roaring lion in Death’s camp. I could not love Mwatha the way I wanted because she was my sister. Father said that siblings could not have sex with one another. I was not allowed to touch Mwatha, but Father touched her. He touched her many times. I heard her screams whenever it was her turn to grace Father’s bed. I wondered if they were screams of pleasure. I could not tell the difference. I often saw goats mating on Papa’s farm, but they never shouted awfully the way Mwatha did.

Mwatha always had her head bent after leaving Father’s tent. Tears would roll down her eyes, and her body shook violently as she sobbed. She was withdrawn and quiet on those days. But she had springs in her feet when she did not have to go in to Father. She laughed hard and played boisterously with the other girls. Those were the times that she had winks and naughty smiles for me. The fear would be gone from her eyes; replaced with a mischievous glint that brightened her face. I liked to watch her play with her friends, especially when they played some of the games from their time in high school. They would sometimes pretend to be back in school, and Mwatha always played the teacher. They said she was the most intelligent pupil at the school where Death took her from.

I was in middle school when Death took me. I was Papa’s son before I became Death’s favorite boy. I was a puppy then, but I became the son of the lion. Death told me that I was a warrior Prince, specially ordained to aid my King in the libera126 | Perception

tion of our people. The King was a mighty ruler who was betrayed by an evil clique in his kingdom. I was a soldier in a holy war that God sanctioned against the men who rebelled against his anointed King. I refused to believe this story when I first got to Death’s camp because my Papa had told me a different version. While we tilled the farm, or cowered in our huts in the night as we listened to the loud sounds of guns and bazookas, many times Papa told me stories of a horde of barbarians led by a heartless man who once held sway over our country as a ruthless dictator. Papa told me how Death once violently ruled our country before he was ousted by a rebel army. He told me that Death now led his own rebel army against a government constituted by people who were once in rebellion against him. Those who were once derided as rebels now controlled the country, and the erstwhile King became a nomad revolutionary who waged war against an ‘evil’ government. Papa told me that poor people like us were the victims in these shifting patterns in politics. He once said to Mama, “We are like the proverbial hen, stuck between death at the end of a hungry man’s knife or watching our children hatched, and stolen from us.” Papa was a poor man, but he was very intelligent.

Everyone in the village respected Papa as an honest man, so at first, I refused to believe the story that Death told. I eventually accepted the story after a few weeks.

It was easier to sleep at night knowing that the brutal massacres we carried out in the day were done for God and his ordained King. The white powder we took to channel God’s strength in battle wore out before the sun went to sleep. I needed to believe in Death and his God to be able to sleep. The knowledge that we were part of God’s righteous justice kept nightmares at bay. * * * * * * * * * * My name is Rambo but I used to be Dembe, I no longer remember Dembe very well because he was a coward and I cannot not bring a coward with me to battles.

Father told me that Dembe was a Mama’s boy that had to be strengthened and later rechristened after the American action film hero- Rambo. I still remember Mama’s face even though I tried to forget. I pretend as if I do not remember either Mama or Papa, but I do. They still visit me in dreams that leave me drenched in sweat when I wake up. I still see Mama’s teary eyes as the gun was pointed down at Papa’s head. Her shrill cry after the gunshot rang out still haunt my dreams. I struggle with Linger here | 127

nightmares of the dreadful day Papa and Mama died. God’s white powder stays the punishing hands of conscience during the day, but it returns at night to torment me with vivid images of Papa and Mama.

I still dream of the day I became Death’s favorite boy. I was working in the farm with Papa and Mama. I had on a white singlet. I remember the singlet because Papa had just bought it for me. It was still white, and it shone bright in the sun. I loved the singlet because it was still white unlike the old one I had before. I used the old singlet for two years before Papa could buy another for me. It had turned brown from sweat and dust. The day Death took me, we were singing while we cut the weeds on our farm. The song told the story of a hero and his mermaid wife who did everything they could to protect their innocent son. It was a beautiful day at first, but I remember that I noticed the clouds cover up the sun about thirty minutes before Death and his hordes of barbarians came riding through the field…

My dreams always jump to the end, and the images come thick and fast… I had a gun pointed at Papa’s head. The sweat came down my face in trickles. Mama was on one side sobbing quietly. A gun was pressed to my head urging me to kill Papa and prove my courage or be shot through the head. Papa begged with his eyes for me to shoot. He loved me that much. He wanted me to take his life so mine could be spared. I looked at Mama sprawled on the ground, and her eyes also begged me to pull the trigger and save myself. They never said the words but I could see it in their eyes, or maybe I simply wish I did. They must have wanted me to save myself though, a son knows enough of his parents’ deepest desires to be able to decipher such profound requests. When I turned the gun at Mama, her large eyes did not plead for life. Papa was her life, and he was gone. She had love in her eyes, the type that only a mother could have for a child. I could see fear in her eyes too. But the fear was not for herself, it was for me. I could see the question in her eyes- of what would become of me, her 13 years old son since she would no longer be there to protect him.

I often dream of the day Papa and Mama died, but sometimes the man who kneels before me is not Papa, it is Death. Mwatha usually stands on the spot where Mama sat, and instead of tears, her eyes has the familiar mischievous glint. Every time, Death pleads for his life. He is never quiet and brave like Papa. Mwatha urges me 128 | Perception

to take the shot. She begs me to kill Death so we could be free to live; free to love each other. But I could never shoot. My hand freezes. I could never pull the trigger even though Mwatha screams beside me, begging me to save us. I shot a father once, I could not rid myself of another. I could not shoot Death. I could not shoot my Father. I wake up every time drenched in sweat, and Mwatha’s screams are the first thing I hear tearing through the night from Father’s tent…

On a Jet Plane......

Alex Aronson

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Rolling Stones Michelle Velasquez

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It’s Raining Sara Potocsny Who is that man over there? Standing by himself under the light? Who is it? Do you think we should ask his name? Or why he’s just standing there in the dark all alone like that? Do you think he feels alone? Does the man over there seem okay to you? Would you like to touch that man? Would you like it if that man were to put his cold damp hands all over your body? Do you desire his thick, calloused skin pressing with its fingers and the fullness of its palm into the most tender region of your belly? Would you be okay with a pain like that? Would you tell it to stop?

He is removing his coat from his shoulders and drops it onto the pavement beside him. He is young, fit, and attractive. It is the winter and now the man has on only a black t-shirt, and he’s wrapping his large muscular arms around himself tightly, constricting the bulging features of his upper abdomen. Can you feel yourself throbbing? Are you unsure of anything else?

Suddenly there are fingers on their way inside with you. This speaks. I need that you continue taking long deep breaths. I want you to imagine that this is not what it is, but still be fully engaged in the present now. Relax everything. I need you to fill every fleeting speck of your body, but still imagine that you are somehow disconnected with what is being done to you. There are things being done to you. Part of you is just watching. You here in this car with no one else. We are parked in a place in time, and you are near. You feel yourself swelling. There is action in this. There is action all around and yet none of it is relative to the state in which you are- at which this is. There is a ringing in your ears and someone is pressing down on you hard. I am so proud of you. Warm fingers toy your skin. You begin to quake, casually. Quake casually.

You are both trapped in this way, and totally free because of it. Things stay the same for a long time after this. Because I have written nothing. Because we have writte nothng. This will take years, but you can rest assured that it has. Quake.

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Apple Trees Sara Potocsny

If the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and the tree is hell I’m close but not quite there.

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Strawberry Smoothie Carol Pelz

The car was going much too fast. The golden leaves flew into the crisp fall air and spun through the sky almost as quickly as my head was spinning. Every time we fight I get an instant headache. It’s the cruelest clockwork. I try to focus on the road ahead, pleading quietly for something, anything, to distract me from your harsh words. No relief comes as we are speeding through an abandoned countryside, never a final destination, just a place you have to go through to get somewhere better. I was focusing so hard on trying to drown out your incoherent yelling; I didn’t even notice when you finally quieted. The sudden silence was alarming. It is now that I realize you need distracting from yourself more than I do. You need a lot of things more than I do. As I think about how true this is, whatever anger I was feeling turned into pity. No one ever taught you how to control your anger and it rages through you no matter how hard you try to push it below the surface. The car was going much too fast.

The red line on the speedometer is quickly pushing past the 100 mark. As the road winds on, it becomes increasingly curvy. My stomach does a flip.

We had come from the Grape Festival, a festival our town has each fall. Third week of September. My town is known for grapes. We grow grapes here. We are grape growers. It’s our finest accomplishment. Of course we fought within the first 5 minutes of being there. Like always. You promised to pick me up from work and you didn’t. Like always. We only had time to get French fries and a strawberry smoothie before you concededly threatened to take me home because I was still upset about you not picking me up and being no fun. Cue eye roll. I was over your threats, and I know you wouldn’t call my bluff, so I said I would walk home.

I turned on my heel, letting my hair flip dramatically, and strut down the sidewalk in my dirty sneakers. I walked with confidence, confident that you were already chasing after me. You were. Like always. You touched my arm gently, and said you would drive me home. My olive eyes met your indigo eyes, and I nodded slowly and followed you to the car. Like always.

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The car was going much too fast. This was the car ride that would never end.

You draw your fist back punching the consul in the car over and over and over and I watch helplessly as the strawberry smoothie I was so looking forward to drinking splashes all over the floor of your busted up car. Damn. When that doesn’t do it for you, you move to the car window. You bash your now red fist against it and I cover my ears expecting to hear glass break right about now. I can easily envision shards of thick, but delicate, glass spraying out on the side of the empty road, being left there forever. You start yelling at me to listen to you, so loud. I keep my hands over my ears and watch the golden leaves fly through the sky, so peaceful.

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The Boy With the Astronaut Arm Elizabeth Farrow

There once was a boy with an astronaut arm. It looked like any other arm- pale in the winter and reddish when the sun said hello. There was a freckle on the elbow and a small crease near the shoulder, and it could reach all the way into the stars.

He didn’t know about this at first. It was just his arm. Nothing special. A perfectly ordinary arm. He used it to carry his coffee and write his articles; to scratch his head and flick open the flame on his lighter. Nothing changed, until he met… her.

At first glance, she was ordinary too. An amalgamation of girls distilled down to create one perfect, generic “girl”: brown hair, brown eyes, skin as tawny as a bird’s wing. When you spoke to her, her voice was extraordinarily forgettable, her words as simple of small talk as you would ever hear. But to him, this girl was the sun and the stars and every beautiful thing on Earth put together in one single, perfect form.

And so, he decided to give her a star.

Not the typical cold stars that we usually give our loves, no. This would be no facsimile of starlight, reflected in the facets of stolen diamonds. To him, she shone like a star. Only a true star would do.

He started out on the roof of his building, looking up at the sky. The sun shot its last, brilliant rays over the city, and the sky faded into the false twilight of city night. He stood on the roof with his arm up, reaching and reaching until his fingertips just barely brushed the bowl of darkness he stood under. But the stars were too far and cold over the light of the city. They just couldn’t be reached where he stood.

He let his arm fall (tired, half-frozen), and went inside. Discouragement seeped through his bones like lead, dragging him down the stairs back to his apartment.

Who was he kidding? He couldn’t reach a star. He couldn’t even come close.

He rounded the corner to his apartment, and there she was. She almost glowed under the harsh fluorescent light, the bags under her eyes nearly disappearing as she cast him a half-smile. His arm almost raised in greeting, but something froze it. It wasn’t the right time. Not yet. He didn’t have a star to give her yet. What would he say? What would she say? Too late. There was a rattle of keys, and she vanished into her own apartment, the door closing sharply behind her. A breath escaped his lungs in a sigh, echoing through the empty air in front of him. His fingers uncurled in the Linger here | 135

warmth of the building, his arm ready to reach once more.

The next day, he hopped on a bus and rode it as far as it would go. Quiet streets surrounded him, trees waving timidly in the breeze and kids riding by on bikes nearly as old as they were. He didn’t stop when he got off the bus, oh no. He walked on down those quiet streets, past the timid trees and old bikes, out to a field striped with dandelions. They nodded at him as he crossed the field to a spot right in the middle. He spread out his coat and waited. Here. Here, he would finally reach a star.

The sunset lasted much longer in the suburbs. There were no skyscrapers to swallow its light out here. It shone unobstructed until his patience was almost gone, and then, just as he was about to pick up his coat and walk back to the bus, the first star faded into view. He scrambled to his feet as more blinked into view, scattered like gems shaken out over a jeweler’s counter. Up his arm went and out it reached, reaching much further than it could in the city. He even brushed a few stars, white hot and pure and perfect. But not perfect enough. No, it could only be the best, most beautiful star in the sky. Only that would be good enough for her.

As he reached, he saw it. It shone high above, higher than he could reach even out here. He stretched as far as he could, but he couldn’t even come close to grasping it. His arm fell to his side again, fingers clenching against the cold. He stared up at that star, memorizing where it was. He would get that star for her, he decided. No other would do. Then, he bent down, picked up his coat, and began the long walk back to the bus station.

Going back to the city was a tightening around his chest, a tingling numbness that spread down his arms into his fingers, down his legs into his feet. A cough escaped his chest as he got off the bus, but he ignored it. He had a star to reach.

From the bus station he went right to the train station. The trains went further than buses, and so he hopped on and rode it until the sky no longer echoed yellow from the city, so swollen with light that it spilled over and soaked into the black canvas like rain. The air when he got off the train was crisp and clearer, cleaner than he ever breathed. The slow drift of cigarette smoke down the platform blew away in a breath of wind that smelled of starlight, so he followed it. The starlight wind lead him away from the tracks, away from the soft pool of light that the train station created, away, away into the velvety black that enfolded him in such a familiar embrace.

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He inhaled and felt the stars above hum to life in his veins. They hung overhead, fat with darkness and atmosphere, so much closer than he had ever seen. It was hardly an effort to reach out his arm and pluck his perfect star right out of the sky.

It fit right in the palm of his hand, a tiny cradle of pure, perfect brilliance. It was warm, but not hot, a tiny, fluttering almost-heartbeat pulsing through to seep into his bones. He wrapped his fingers around it ever so carefully and began the long walk back to the train station.

The train rattled its way back into the city. He dozed against the window, hand still wrapped around the star as it nestled deep in his pocket. The sky without the field of stars was almost unbearable, but he bore it. This was for her, he told himself. All for her. The tiny star in his pocket, bright and beautiful and warm, would pale against the light in her eyes when she saw it. He almost had himself convinced by the time he got back to his apartment building.

And then he was standing in front of her door, arm raised, ready to knock. The cheap wood rubbed against his knuckles as he pressed them down, feeling the pulse of the star in his pocket. He leaned his weight on the door, waiting to feel the pain he knew would jolt him back to how he was, who he was before. This star was not for him. It was for her, all for her. There was a whole field of stars back where he came from, if he wanted. But of course, he didn’t want. He wanted her, and her brown hair and brown eyes and tawny skin. He wanted, he wanted, he wanted. His hand clasped around the star in his pocket, the memory of the star field leaking through his fingers and lighting up his palm, his arm, his heart.

He pushed off the door and settled back on his heels. There was really only one thing to do. His hand rapped against the wood once, twice, thrice, and his arm dropped.

Steps echoed behind the door and it opened. “Hi,” she said, clearly surprised to see him. He didn’t reply; he only took in the sight like he breathed the city air. “Can I help you?” She asked after the silence had lasted just long enough to be uncomfortable.

“Yeah,” he said at last. “I just wanted to say…” his hand clenched around the star, light leaking out between his fingers and warming near to scorching. “I’m moving out. I was your neighbor across the hall,” he jerked a thumb at his apartment behind him, “but, I found something better,” his fingers loosened and the star cooled, and Linger here | 137

confusion creased her forehead.

“That’s… good, I suppose,” she said.

He nodded. “It is. Goodbye, then.”

“Bye,” she said with her usual half-smile, bemusement curling the edges before she closed the door.

It was with a true smile that he walked down to the train station and bought a single ticket, away.

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Gold Shutter

D’feel.

Makes feel, Something about the grass outside, I love you baby.

Wednesday nights have never looked so alike.

I will play chess with you but only until the game is over.

The looks we get from neighbors, this neighborhood.

We must be so distinctive looking, distinguished looking, It’s the ninth day in a row it’s been raining a lot.

I’m wet too, soaked.

Comes.

Sara Potocsny

somewhere in the middle when the time the same fire name and you want close

to cover the entire wheel

em , el, e es th m wh nt es. eti re i wa R t m u com ry so o. en TE e t s g yo e UT an off has the clo nd tim SH ou sed e ver en. oo ea e m th e y pis eon co e . e t ak g m to etw me om na hen n i o t b g, I m cki d, s ave in he t bec r. firs le w . ot in fu o h es l t er la e d a l ook d. r. so G we ad al ev u m id u nk s sh in n tic sa m ng l oo ve yo a f u e ra nd par the he ni ed rh s o et Th o o of th s to n a in are in t ed. rai uish hbo e i . w e k n g g m e Ig a te e e t all It h e of yon to sh her soa bee stin nei e ga alik th v n ll w o, t’s di is h o t a e s o n i h , m ee to m a som et to ow ing rs, t ntil ked . ld tw he e w r k o u o de ou Be t t ttl m n a loo hb ly lo tsi h an ll se I’ ay i ive eig t on ever by. ou es d t n u n a ss W I w e’ h inc m b e b ra n w nt st ro ou av u, g re so ni di et f y s h yo the el, ild ss he so g ith ht ve t fe ch ele s t be e w ig lo ou es l. ve am It’ t s w ss n I g ab ak ’fee s y e k ha n a u h n in M D m loo c sd we ai y e e n m eth he l pla edn W t he o re m il W t So Iw

sometimes, W

Them to remain nameless so we’ll settle When we have children I want them all to share To anyone in particular.

We should move often and never become too It has to rain all the time.

All of the shades in between.

Because the two of us together we have Thank God, someone has to.

I get you so fucking pissed off I make you angry.

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Uncle Bill Camille Francis

My mother’s brother is the one we don’t ask about. He’s my mother’s problem—not my dad or I’s. He just shows up on holidays because that’s what’s supposed to happen. We’re the only family he’s got. He’s the only family we’ve got too.

This taboo of “uncle” has existed for as long as I can remember. I never knew enough to know why we didn’t like him, only bits and pieces gathered in passing. A phone conversation here, a word to my father there, were all that I had to make sense of him. I discovered that he is ten years younger than my mother. His father is not my mother’s father, which I did not know until I was 15. He went to college and then dropped out for a life in the city. Then he drunk drove after a nasty break up with a girlfriend and totaled his car on the highway—came out totally unscathed. He was the one to tell me this, not my mother. Now he lives in New York City, the pinnacle of existence for this middle-aged party boy. He works as an extra on movie sets, but the government considers him “unemployed.” It’s a lifestyle; just not one my mother wanted me to know about.

You’ve got to hand it to him he’s quite resourceful. He knows the ins and outs of the city better than any visitor’s manual could tell you. While my mother considers him family with a sigh on her breath, I consider him family for another reason. Without him a holiday in my household would be spent in separate rooms. Anything merry, or happy, or festive would be treated as an obligatory tradition. Once done we would retreat back to our rooms and wait to do it all again the following year. When he’s here he wants to do all the clichés. When he’s here he wants to know how I’ve been, wants to meet my friends, my boyfriend even. Eventually I discovered he does everything that my parents don’t. He cares.

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Sage Cruz Field

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grow.

Linnea Marie Nordgren

Anonymous bear, you run toward my moving, my heirloom house.

A tiny lake in your eye cannot be a reason for growing older, but you cannot love me like you do water. Fairies like to lie to me and I can’t bleed my sickness.

I’m a witch, baby. I’m a penny in a mirror, I am a skipped rock on a breeze. There is mud in my hair, wind in my toes and when I run, my brainchildren dig sun into the earth.

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Graduates

Song for the History Channel Joseph Baiz

Perhaps when all the world is rubble, hundreds of human lifetimes hence, they'll wonder how much toil and trouble we weathered, building monuments.

How could so primitive a people build such a wall, so high a steeple?

Or rear those cities, neon-crowned?

Or pave those roads upon the ground?

And, in a flash of inspiration, someone will sit up straight and say: "I've got it! What you see today "are relics of a visitation-"some men from space did all of it!

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Dionne Noella Barretto

With Communication and Networking Protocols, Along tags Transmitting information phone calls, With Fiber, Policy & Management Charts, Ties in Security, Compression & Encryption parts..

All together with Analytics and Sampling , These subjects merge & start mingling, Making it all so jumbled & confusing, That we tend to miss out on the important things..

You then come and save us from stressful nights, By getting started our engine's, our rustic minds, Like as said, 'A Stitch in Time Saves Nine,' You bring to all our faces, that one big smile..

A substitute for our busy mommy-daddy's at work, You’re the one who taught life's not plain luck, The one who made us learn to toil hard, Is You Professor, who encouraged from the very start..

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You're to us, like Angels from up above, Sent down by God, to shower us love, Especially in times, when no one hears us, You add on our grade sheets, that extra plus..

Wonder how all adjectives, fit right in one, Would we disregard You, be it eve or sun..

Thank You Professor, Thank You tons, It means a lot to us, Your daughter's, Your son's, That You're now etched in our hearts, Friendly, Lenient, Strict and Stern, Yet not for just the heck of it or fun, For all You do and all You've done, As our dear, very own number 1!

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Eschaton Josheph Baiz

Four armored horses stuck in a traffic jam, one white, one red, one black, and the last just "pale."

The cop stares down the pallid rider:

"Whaddya mean you ain't got a license?"

The Scarlet Woman rides through the crowded streets, nudges the Beast past tourists and queues and says:

"I thought it'd all be more climactic...

"Everyone thinks I'm a street performer."

And some rough beast awakens and lifts its head to slouch toward Bethlehem to the blare of horns.

But first it eyes the clock and grumbles:

“Morning already? Just five more minutes...�

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Faculty

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I became neutral John Colasacco

My house the article for an answer. My yesterday a house by rain. Your yesterday a good city shows a cigar, will show my sofa to the well, will prolong the option when it closes. When your viciousness closes over the well, good, it closes, this major stretch will answer. For my rain. It will. Your option shows real odds for rain.

This cigar over this house, my option will walk when it gives the lake an answer, to confuse yesterday when it closes, has a real major city to give to your rain. It wants to prolong my viciousness. For yesterday, when fifty-one percent wants a glove for an answer, when the canal wants to confuse this apartment, my viciousness has an answer. Your house will walk by the lake. My house will walk by the lake. The real house will confuse rain with a glove for this stretch. Good, my house, my answer, a cigar to prolong your walk. Good that the city over the rain has rain to give. To answer the well when it closes. By the viciousness that wants an answer from you. It can give. Without an option. It shows the rain my house.

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The low you John Colasacco

I like the defeated talk before always. I miss the little grandmothers too strange to notice in the wilderness. Before the talk I was of the typical impression, I was defeated like stairs that continue, I visit that lifetime always. To be a drink you have use for. Like clothes get illegal for the visit to continue, too many grandmothers to drink. The clothes are a little defeated. You work, I drink the defeated, you continue to work, after much impression. The little drink was essential to what the grandmothers did. A little net of grandmothers you notice for a lifetime. A strange visit of stairs, as many grandmothers I defeated get low. It was always that. It was always you before the typical drink. It did get low, very low. I did visit the illegal stairs, always after you, after the wilderness that you notice. You have more of what you did after you have more. I have more too. I get very defeated. The low you is as illegal as the lifetime I visit. I like to have the low you back, I miss the strange impression of the low you. I visit it before I get more.​

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