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Reflect
REFLECT L E TT ER F RO M THE E DITOR As university students, we face an overwhelming amount of pressure. All decisions we make at this transitory time in our lives will have an impact, and we may also be forced to recognize what influential events came before this moment. This is a heavy process of introspection that can pull us far from comfort, but the result of self awareness and the ability to move forward will be meaningful. Volume 138 is about reflecting on the past, present, and future. In these pages, you will find a collection of images, poems, and stories related to the experiences that have made the creators who they are, allowed them to express where they see themselves now, and given them the chance to think about what will come next. This edition represents the process of exploring your own experiences and emotions. I hope that the creativity throughout these pages will help you learn about your own movements over the course of your life, guide you into accepting the present, and inspire you to take action for your future. I would like to acknowledge the amazing Prism team for this edition including Ardea Eichner, Mara Weeks, and Christina Wright, for all they have given to this publication. In addition, I would like to thank the incredible Prism volunteers and review committee, who truly made “Reflect� what it is. Finally, our contributors, who shared their creativity with us, deserve utmost recognition. Thank you for sharing your vulnerability with our community. To all reading this, thank you for listening to the voices of Oregon State University.
Erin Dose
VO LUME C XXXVIII
OUR MI SSI ON Prism is dedicated to the self-expression and creativity of Oregon State University students. Any student, regardless of major, may submit visual and literary art pieces to the journal via our website. Submissions are always evaluated by a review committee comprised of student volunteers and the Prism editorial team. Three print editions are released each academic year with the intent of sharing the creativity and values of OSU students. In addition, Prism runs a blog entitled Backmatter and a podcast called Beyond the Page. Both feature more student work, as well as explorations into the artisitc climate of our community and world. Visit our website weekly for more! orangemedianetwork.com/prism
W I NTE R 2 0 1 9
OREGON BEAUTY
Y UHENG Z H AO | P HOTOGRAP HY
E D I TO R- I N - C H IE F
REVIEW COMMI TTEE
Erin Dose
Bailey Hill Carly Werdel Christopher Hoskins Gabriela Griffin Hayden Still Johnny Brunac Kara Traffas Lauren Miller Lisa Wilson Mara Weeks
ASSI STA N T EDITOR Ardea Eichner
G R A P H I C DES IGN E R Mara Weeks
COV ER A RT I ST S Plane from Above by Maximillian Fulton | Photography Float by April James | Ink
Prism Art and Literary Journal Published by Orange Media Network Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 97331
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Ore go n B e auty ...th e t u r n i n g n eve r s to p s . . . Embodied Souve n i rs Fro m My Yo ut h * B re a k i n g Fre e G o o g l y B i rd Re d - Eye Wi n d ow S a i l 9 P M : Swe e t & S o u r Po r k . . . L i g ht n i n g f o r Ve i n s T h e T i e s t h at B i n d h e re i s h ow to l o s e a g i r l i n t h e d r ye r Fr i d ay A b i q u a Fa l l s A Fore st G row n f ro m i t s O w n A s h e s A m e r i c a n D re a m ve nu s i n t ra n s i t T h e Pi e ce s o f Yo u a n d Me G ra ce f u l Jo u r n ey “ H olo f e r n e s by Ju d i t h , B l u e ” How to B r u s h Yo u r Te e t h L a c to s e I nto l e ra nt T h e Fl owe r a n d t h e Fro g Wo m e n & B i rd s C i rc l e s * T h e G o l d e n Ro o m C o nt ro l l e d C h a o s Colorful Bones A n atom i cal Ly r i c i s m : T h e B o n e Ha i k u s T i p o f t h e I ce b e rg Re a c h i n g Wa r y To a Mo t h e r * T h e F ive (cl o s e te d ) L ove L a n g u a ge s Re a p p ro p r i at i o n V I Twe nty C e nt u r i e s L ate r Air He l l o C a r l *CONTENT WARNING
1 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
YU HE NG Z HAO N I SHA NA HA MA N N L I SA WI L SO N I N D I CA BLU E GRACE PA RI S A N NASO P HI A O ’ DAY K ASSI DY BE NSO N RYA N CA MP CE P H P O K L E MBA GA BRI E L A GRI FFI N E MMA L A RK I NS ASHL E Y HAY A RD E N SMI T H MA X I MI L L I A N FU LTO N MEGA N T UCK E R ANIA TY ASHL E Y HAY NATA L I E HA RRI S A D D I E MI L L E R E I L I SH GO RML E Y A MY K RAGE R HE L E N LUCAS CA RYN CHI N E N JI NA L PAT E L HA N NA H HU N I CK E CA RLY WE RD E L MCK E N NA MO O RE I SA BE L L A KO O N T Z MA RY WO NG T I FFA N Y T RA N MI RI A M BA RN E S RO MA N BAT TAGL I A WRE N A L MA N A MY K RAGE R CA RME N MCCO RMACK MU RP HY CA L DW E L L A N D RE A MI T E V A NA P E A RSE
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...THE TURNING NEVER STOPS...
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NIS HANA HAMAN N | ACRYLIC ON WOOD
W I NTE R 2 0 1 9
EMBODIED After all you led me to believe I didn’t expect to want my body back either worthy cherished defender
broken disordered defenseless
The body gets a bad reputation for wanting to keep itself warm safe fed The body gets a bad reputation for wanting My body didn’t care when I called it selfish, deceitful, distraction knew what I needed kept me afloat in time to change my mind Here’s then to bodies as more than vessels Here’s to the wisdom embedded in your cells and synapses to your racing heartbeat the sinking pit in your stomach the calm that radiates from your chest to warm your fingertips when you know something, anything for certain Here’s to the revelation of your blood and muscle as you course through the tainted glorious world Here’s to your desires, visible and invisible Here’s to your character made manifest in your movements sparks of life ascending actions shouting out their belief their confidence that we are worth the fight Here’s to knowing that for all we know, this is all we have Here’s to blessing and keeping each other whole.
L ISA W IL S ON | POETRY
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SOUVENIRS FROM MY YOUTH C O NT ENT WA RN I NG: V i o l enc e
Weight clings to my chest, stomach, and thighs creating the curves of my home. A home tarnished by greedy fingers and arrogance, hungry to understand love but settling for lust. A faded collection of closed fists stain my upper arms and if you tilt your head and squint just right you can make out the ruptured blood vessels crying for help but never loud enough. Opinions, suggestions, and ideas are held by my lips. Rarely, they release in a whisper but are muffled by silence. The compliments regarding my physical beauty pile so thick in my ears that I cannot hear anything else until I am called vain. This is how I arrive to adulthood. With all my souvenirs in plain sight but hardly seen. This is how I have learned to be a woman.
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INDIC A B LUE | POETRY
W I NTE R 2 0 1 9
BREAKING FREE
GRAC E PARIS | PHOTOG RA PHY
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GOOGLY BIRD
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A NNAS OPHIA O’ DAY | ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
W I NTE R 2 0 1 9
RED-EYE I know it’s called the Emerald City because a hand-painted design on the window of an airport restaurant just told me so. It’s four in the morning, and my mouth barely registers the grotesque texture of the still half-frozen egg juxtaposed with warm sausage in a breakfast croissant. My mother is sick like she always is—but I can see in her eyes that it’s not the selfish complaint I used to assume it was; she’s guilty and sad, but she sticks a smile in front of it. The runway is black and the sky is dark and everything is covered in rain. The lights on the tarmac look like a small grid-system city until we’re up, and then the actual city looks like a whole new sky. The window is still dark when I nod off in an empty row (after all, I only had two hours of sleep last night). The hood of my old fleece sweatshirt is pulled up over my head, my shoes discarded on the floor. I hear the attendants pass by, but my eyes are too stubborn to open. I begin to stir when the sun has decided to meet us on the horizon. I’ve pulled my legs up on the seat next to me, and I wake to a StroopWaffle placed on a napkin at my feet. I’ve never seen the mountains from above before. With the pink-orangegreen gradient in front of us, the peaks and valleys resemble something of an abstractionist garden. They’re a salt-dough topographic map from the seventh grade, but they’re real. The image is too grand and too gentle to comprehend. I let it be.
K AS S IDY B E NSON | PROSE
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WINDOW SAIL
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RYAN C AMP | MIXED MEDIA
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9 PM: SWEET AND SOUR PORK, AND A HOME THAT IS NOT MINE
Nostalgia hits me like falling down when I was three: I don’t know how to feel until I look at someone else. —
How we would wear our favorite colors whenever we were allowed to dress ourselves.
I remember my Aunt, and her cooking, her long black hair, and her language; one I was never able to pick up.
How we used to go to cheap buffets after swim lessons, and fall asleep in our mother’s laps.
I remember food that I can no longer eat, Sour and Sweet, stories, that I can only remember parts of.
How we were best friends.
Her hair was almost at her waist, it hung over her shoulders when she leaned Forward.
That innocent kind of kinship.
I don’t know where my Aunt is. Probably back in Korea, But I learned recently how much She loved to Travel.
There is a window open, to an apartment by campus.
And I begin to hope that she is in Egypt, or Paris, somewhere I would ogle at, somewhere that she is happy. somewhere I would still feel three, and unharmed by the world.
—
I can smell Sweet and Sour Pork, and Fresh Jasmine Rice. I remember people I miss. And I keep walking.
— I remember Yuval’s house, how it always smelled like Fresh Jasmine Rice.
C E PH POK L E MBA | POETRY
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LIGHTNING FOR VEINS
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GAB RIE L A GR I F F I N | INK
W I NTE R 2 0 1 9
THE TIES THAT BIND
My mom prays for my unborn babies their imagined salvation hangs in the balance spirits I don’t know I want to carry to bring into a world alit with anger prickles of pain full moons forests on fire don’t you want to see your babies in heaven? Love that cuts security that suffocates support so heavy it sits on my chest pins my arms makes me wriggle certitude that burns You tell me sabr layer it over my wounds a balm a kiss that can’t make it better
E MMA L ARK INS | POETRY
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HERE IS HOW TO LOSE A GIRL IN THE DRYER
first, toss her in the wash. watch her grow and swell, plump with water and dye. tell her that to be clean is the most important thing in the world. tell her that you are the only one that will ensure she is clean. next, pull her out of the wash. wring her out dry, pull the water from her lips and her hair. tell her she is dripping on the ground, she is taking up all the space, she is making you fall, fall, fall onto her slippery floor. tell her she is clean, but not smooth. tell her you will fix her. give her a dryer sheet, teach her how to be a sweet something, a pretty thing, a gentle thing. tell her to fear her plumpness, her wrinkles, her balled-up-ness.
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then tell her about the dryer. tell her that to exist in the dryer is a wonderful thing. tell her that before the dryer and after the dryer are worthless. tell her that the only place she will love is in the dryer. do not forget to put her in the dryer. and then tell her that her wrinkles are terrible, but she needs to be crumpled. tell her that her corners are loose but are impossible to straighten. tell her she will never be clean. open the dryer; you will find a girl frayed so loose she is lost.
AS HL E Y HAY | POETRY
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FRIDAY
A RDEN SMITH ACRYLIC ON CA NVA S
PR IS M A R T & LITE R ARY J OU RNAL
ABIQUA FALLS
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MAXIMIL L IAN FULTON | PHOTOG RA PHY
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A FOREST GROWN FROM ITS OWN ASHES
Your voice breaks like a song aching for a breath. I stand, hands holding your grief, holding my breath. Not thinking is like walking on razor blades with my toe nails: Look down. Do not take a breath. You are a specter in my bed haunting me, speaking in dreams, chilling me with winter breath. The letters of my future memories burn off the chill; hope curls in my lungs with each breath. Smiling, your nebulous body dissipates. The embers flair with each glowing garnet breath. Laughter spirals from the trees, soothing worn eyes. My ashes feed the forest; I hear its breath. “Megan” the wind whispers a weight on my skin; a smell of salt and the ocean’s loving breath.
MEGAN TUC K ER | POETRY
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AMERICAN DREAM
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AN IA TY | INK
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VENUS IN TRANSIT
venus sits in her cosmic heaven, taps one impatient toe against an asteroid— a crown of stars wreaths her, makes her the loveliest thing in existence, and it’s still not enough. venus waits for implosion. she hums with pursed lips, crosses coiled sunspot arms. venus swallows everything down, including her rage, and taps one more time. venus realizes she is not enough for her tiny galactic mars. she wreaths herself again and again, asks herself why, knows she already knows the answer. venus learns she must make gravity of his empty space. her wreath becomes brighter and heavier in his absence. she cools down the universe, except for pockets of fire and dust, drowns herself in her own blistering constellations. it is enough.
AS HL E Y HAY | POETRY
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THE PIECES OF YOU AND ME And you have broken jagged pieces— pieces with edges too sharp, or weird angles that stick out no matter where you put them. You push aside the ones you wish no one would see because you don’t know how they could ever fit into any puzzle. But I have broken jagged pieces— pieces with curves so slick they don’t stay attached to anything, or odd colors that don’t seem to fit into any particular pattern. I push aside the ones I don’t think are worth showing, because what’s the point if they don’t fit into any puzzle. But just like how puzzle pieces get mixed into the wrong box as frantic kids hurry to clean up before dinner, pieces of a heart can get mixed up too. You take a step back, to look at the work you’ve done. You are complete and beautiful. Your heart is full. Yet you notice the pieces that don’t seem to have a home. Instead they are left to the side, wondering where they can belong.
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You cup them in your hand, jagged edges and all. Where do they go? Where do they fit? And in an aha moment like a parent has when they realize something didn’t get cleaned up properly, you turn around. And there I am. In my outstretched hand I offer you my puzzle pieces. They are so bold they don’t quite fit in, they are trying to find the corners they can call home, the jagged nooks that can make them feel safe instead of lost and searching. Together we lay out our pieces, side by side and frame by frame, and start to build our own puzzle. It’s made of crooked angles but also smooth edges. Filled with wacky colors and pieces we are still trying to forgive. And the pieces— they start to find a sense of home. Together, we build our puzzle, and learn what it means to build once more.
NATAL IE HARRI S | POETRY
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GRACEFUL JOURNEY
ADDIE MIL L E R | DIG I TAL ART
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“HOLOFERNES BY JUDITH, BLUE”
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E IL IS H GORMLE Y | ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
W I NTE R 2 0 1 9
HOW TO BRUSH YOUR TEETH First, you have to catch them. You have to shine a flashlight out on the lawn at night and whatever glints back at you in the dew is yours. But if you don’t see them out there, leave a saucer of tuna on the porch and they will come. This, at least, is how you catch a cat. Or a shark. Sharks shed 35 thousand teeth in their lifetime, so it is only logical to think that we would find one out here in this floodplain that once was the sea. And after all, the sea is nothing but a glass bowl of teeth. Second, if weeks have passed and you have yet to find enough teeth from lifting stones and sewer grates, muck bubbling up from beneath, you might try opening an oyster to see if a pearl has caramelized there for your taking. When you have stockpiled up a heap of shiny white things, whatever they may be, dry them off and assemble them in rows of sixteen. Third, on the Discovery Channel I once heard anything floating in the water can be classified as plankton.
Anything wandering, anything lost in the baleen of the earth, so it is in your best interest to tame your teeth before they wander away, lest they get misidentified and eaten up. It is in your best interest to anchor them to something: tie them to a piece of string. Or stick them with gum to the underside of a desk. Keep them in a jar with your tongue where they will exchange secrets about you. Fourth, remember to brush your tongue. It may be forked but it still needs to be scrubbed clean. Remember to scrape the coral off the skin of the sea, masts of ships snagged on the horizon like jagged teeth, the words of sirens sung with morning breath for the dentist-recommended two minutes. The ocean is awash with floating teeth: 35 thousand from each shark skull. None of them brushed, none of them kept, the shark’s boneless bodies twisting out of the fossil record (cartilage doesn’t fossilize well). All that is left of history is teeth. All you have ever had is your teeth. But you have nothing if you can’t keep them clean.
AMY K RAGE R | POETRY
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LACTOSE INTOLERANT
Don’t cry over spilled milk. But the stain was bad. The milk lingered. And smelled. It soaked into the carpets and there was no way to clean it out. Either had to get new carpet or deal with it. Spilling milk is easy when you’re unaware that it’s there. Unaware of the consequences of rotten milk. He was stained 40%. He spilled the milk on me. I’ll never be able to wash it out. I can’t get it out of my carpet. He broke the glass. It was my favorite and now it’s gone and now I can’t get it back. There’s bits of glass in the carpet and they cut my feet when I revisit that place. I have bloody footprints wherever I walk and I know my trail goes unnoticed. The prints I try to put behind me still follow me. I became tired of walking barefoot so I got socks. The blood soaked into them and the world fell in love with my garnet socks. But the blood is dry on my feet and my socks are stuck to me.
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HE LE N LUC AS | POETRY
W I NTE R 2 0 1 9
THE FLOWER AND THE FROG
C ARY N C HINE N | PHOTOG RA PHY
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WOMEN AND BIRDS
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J INAL PATE L | COLLAG E
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CIRCLES C ONT ENT WA RNING: Sex ua l A s s a ul t
Sometimes I like to pretend that everything leads back to you. I imagine that maps in my glovebox take me back to the streets we drove. My GPS is set to a location with no address but plenty of secrets. Somehow, I connect Crown Royal to weddings and Super Smash Bros to taking you home to meet my family. I fantasize the day when picking you up from the airport is something more than just what friends do. Your dad forgets my name but always remembers to say “it’s nice to meet you.” But to be fair, my mom has never heard of you outside of a fake context in which I lie about how we met and where we meet now. You know when you lay on the ceiling and stare up at the fan and its going faster and faster and faster and at first it’s hard to tell where one blade ends and the next begins? But then you focus really hard and you can watch it, just for a split second before it disappears until the next rotation. My memory is like that ceiling fan. In a panic I think back to us and I’m traumatized over remembering nothing but a blur. But the longer I sit and the longer I think the more I can grab those memories out. Like the time we watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer or when you left the smell of mini liquor bottles on my skin after saying you loved me for the first and only time. Because in my head it doesn’t matter that you shoved your hands down my pants 5 years ago when I said no. It doesn’t matter that you only call when somehow, we’re both home. It doesn’t matter that you called when you were drunk and begged me to come over. All that matters is that it comes back to you. It comes back to kissing you in the terminal. It comes back to dinners with our friends and watching your niece’s eyes light up when she saw you. It comes back to that one ceiling fan reminding me that you apologized again and again and again. I pretend that sloppy kisses could lead to something more than 20 minutes of movement under shitty sheets. The veins in my body act like a city grid of bad ideas that you trace. A circle has no beginning or ending, and although I remember the moment I let you in, it all comes back around.
HANNAH HUN ICKE | POETRY
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THE GOLDEN ROOM I want to talk to you about something. I don’t know what it is yet, and neither do you, but maybe we’ll find out together. Like clay held tightly between our hands, maybe we don’t know which words to say until the words dance with life. Here’s the clay. I’ll show you. Press a thumb for “Hello.” Smooth the edges to say, “I love you.” Knead the center to tell a story. “Once,” you might start, “I stood in a room made of gold. The walls were so polished they shone like the sunrise on a newly woken pond.” You’d stretch the clay like soft taffy, letting it sink into a heavy swirl. And I’d smile. Were you there alone? Grandma, were you alone? “Back then I was never left alone.” And now you only are. I’d pinch the clay so that sharp spikes grow from the smooth exterior. You’d flinch imperceptibly. “I was wearing a dress in the golden room!” you’d say, meeting my eyes sheepishly. “It was my party dress, yellow, with silver rhinestones along the bodice. I wore a silk hat.” And in the golden room, what did you say? “My husband talked with the Lieutenant the whole time. It was a prestigious Navy party that he was invited to. We had just won The War you see.” But what did you say? When you saw yourself glittering on every surface? Grandma, what did you say when you realized you were the brightest thing in the room? And I’d press the clay all the way into your arthritic fingers. But I think you’d be still. A meaningless blob would sit in your hands. You didn’t say anything. You looked up at the ceiling and saw yourself radiating light, you saw magnificence all around you and you stayed silent, let the men talk about the war. You let them have their dark suits, their deep laughs, let them have their stories to tell. But I’ll ask you once more, Grandma, you now stand in a room made of gold with walls that glow like the setting sun and you are that sun, Grandma, you made that room gold, so what do you say? This clay is yours, Grandma, what do you say? And maybe you’d look down at the damp slab, alone in your hands, and maybe you’d see it for the first time. “I say… I say no.” And you’d work the clay, pinching and pushing and pulling and kneading. Your face would set. Your hands would grow strong. “No, Father… No, Husband… No, Son. I say no.” I’d gaze in awe as a magnificent shape takes form. “No,” you’d command as your masterpiece comes to life in your hands. And maybe then you’d remember me. You’d look up hopefully. “Do you see her?” I’d see a beautiful bronze face. She’d look a little like you, and a little like me. I’d reach over and swipe my thumb across her soft cheek— smoothing the edges to say I love you.
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C ARLY W E RD EL | PROSE
W I NTE R 2 0 1 9
CONTROLLED CHAOS
MC K E N NA MOORE | OIL ON CANVAS
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COLORFUL BONES
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I SAB E L L A KOONTZ | PENCIL A ND G EL PEN
W I NTE R 2 0 1 9
ANATOMICAL LYRICISM: THE BONE HAIKUS Longest and strongest Two trochanters define me Pray tell what am I
Brave malleolus Intrepid soldier down low Jutting out fiercely
Rounded prominence Attach muscle if you will Tuberosity
20 specimens Elegant in your display Distal phalanges
Two-hundred and six Trabecular and compound Detailed living stone
Partnership of three Auditory ossicles Liquid sound machine
Styloid process breaks Meaningless proximity Mastoid process lives
Gatekeeper of nerves Permitting spinal passage Foramen magnum
Flat bone prevailing Underneath lies mystery The curious sheath
Occipital condyle My globe rests upon you now Clever foot stand firm
Superciliary arch Rise and fall with expression Please contain yourself
Divulge your story Secrets are hidden in me Speak truth in angles
radius rotate Obedient Ulna serves Pivot splendid joint
Peer inside this cave Testimony lurks within Silent piercing cry
Strong and controlled Unwavering midline groove Sagittal sulcus
Center of burden Fuse three to create just one Acetabulum
Long thin phalange You find your strength in numbers Grasp and grip with pride
Strange and wonderful Fits purposefully Inside Ball and socket joint
MARY WONG | POETRY
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TIP OF THE ICEBERG
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T I F FANY TRAN | TIS S UE PAPER AND REED WOOD
W I NTE R 2 0 1 9
REACHING
do you truly believe that I have a bone in my body built for settling? I refuse to grind in the dirt for pennies when I could dance in the sky collecting stars the chance of a of a broken neck is better than asphyxiating on the mundane I stretch for love like a little girl stretches for candle flames unaware of how they’ll burn only, I have a penchant for bonfires and 4th of July fireworks laughter is the only thing I’ll pick up stones to look under dig a trench or half drown in a puddle searching for because sometimes I find myself there anyway and merry always makes misery less frightful
MIRIAM BARNES | POETRY
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WARY
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ROMAN BATTAGLIA | PHOTOGRA PHY
W I NTE R 2 0 1 9
TO A MOTHER C ONT ENT WA RNING: A l c o ho l A b us e
Emotion at the bottom of a bottle like back-wash swill. Second thought, second nature it is not your own, but hers to drink down. Putrid rotten-sweet and purple. Red wine she likes worse than white but red wine is cheaper, so your fridge is stacked with box reds and a bottle of white shoved to the far-back. Eggs sit on the counter. Fruit goes in bowls. Milk sits out. Fruit rots, bleeds into the bowl. Milk spoils. But the wine is chilled. Hot wine, she says, is the worst. You think its hot wine that runs through her veins, sometimes. The worst. If she cries, she is yelling, when she yells, she cries. Sometimes she sleeps all day but, in the night, she walks around without anything on. You find her in the kitchen, in the bathroom. Once, she creeps in and pisses on your floor. Once she comes in and pours a bottle of white across the hardwood, fingers pinched around nothing in the shape of a wine-glass stem. Anger feels like this. Boiled over, pouring across the floor. Misplaced and acrid. Sorrow feels like this. Hand clutched around nothing, in the shape of something else. Mulled wine is fine in the winter, the only sort of hot wine worth having. She is sallow in the winter. The kitchen smells sweet like rotten fruit, boiled now. You sneak a cup from the pot. Pour it on her bedsheets and wonder if she’ll notice. She doesn’t. She spills her own cup down her front at dinner and you spill peas down your sister’s shirt. Just like me. Sticks and stones, you think, was not a rhyme made by someone who had heard that.
W RE N ALMA N | PROSE
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THE FIVE (CLOSETED) LOVE LANGUAGES 1. personal space requirements greater than what is physically possible in the current room. sweater threads caught on the splinters of the wood paneling as we cling to opposite walls. affection from across county lines and boundaries of tributaries. my feet are always wet from wading across streams to give myself space. 2. eye contact in the dark only. you can’t see how my hands are clasped in prayer. lit by a sandalwood candle you can make out only the hollows of my cheekbones and the whites of my eyes. they are flickering. yearning. you can’t see it but my heartbeat is flickering, too. 3. lending of hair ties. your grown-out bangs are in your eyes again. do you need a bobby pin? do you want a scrunchie so it won’t leave a mark? I make sure to leave one in your car accidentally so I at least will leave a mark. look at me when you’re driving with the windows down and all you see is hair. 4. silence over the phone for longer than either of us can bear. I hear only my own breathing and pretend it is yours. empty space crackles and pops. the absence of our voices is molasses. finally you break and ask me if I can hear the wind in your town. I laugh and set the phone down so you can’t hear me tell you I love you. 5. the secondary, cleistogamous flower of the common violet, which stays underground and never opens. aboveground, you fashion me a chain of violets and I tell you about the other, secret blooms. when you hang the metaphor around my neck it glints in the sun.
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AMY K RAGE R | POETRY
W I NTE R 2 0 1 9
REAPPROPRIATION VI
CARME N MCCORMACK | OI L ON CANVAS
PR IS M A R T & LITE R ARY J OU RNAL
TWENTY CENTURIES LATER
In sight, in mind A ramped up pitch of black Looking at the Earth Rendered in the ramifications the expectations that technicolor will burn brightly Saturation on cue The fantasy, the fascination of how it’s done The rockets, bleeding, bursting out all candor Waving hands, a paused flag, sour smoke Leaving floating mirrors Commemorating our small step for mankind
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MURP HY C ALDWELL | POETRY
W I NTE R 2 0 1 9
AIR
A N D R EA M I T E V | P HOTOGRAP HY
PR IS M A R T & LITE R ARY J OU RNAL
HELLO CARL
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A NA P E ARS E | AC RY L IC A ND COLORED PENCI L
Open to students of all majors and works of all mediums
Spring Deadline:
April 19th
Submit to prism@oregonstate.edu or orangemedianetwork.com/prism
Oh, how I’ve missed the stars Living in the city, the sky is never free With the street lights and restaurants and buildings and cars One forgets just how fortunate the darkness can be NOTE IN A CAR VISOR | KASSIDY BENSON