Montage 2013

MONTAGE VOLUME 32 2013

MONTAGE VOLUME 32 2013

Quinnipiac University Hamden, CT

STAFF DANIELLE SUSI

editor

GABY CATALANO

editor

MICHELE SNOW KEN CORMIER LILA CARNEY

designer faculty advisor assistant director of student media

EDITORS’ NOTE After celebrating its thirtieth anniversary last year, Montage had the opportunity for renovation and redesign, and we’ve been looking forward to surprising everyone.

We’re trying to do our part to make literature and art as essential to human life as breathing. We wanted to showcase the most innovative, fearless writing and artwork This year is a new and exciting one for Montage.

Enjoy.

DANIELLE SUSI AND GABY CATALANO

TABLE OF CONTENTS 13 POETRY 14

The Tree of Life KELSEY BROWN

15

The Hardest Choice ERICA CELSO

16

No Rules Apply THOMAS FRISINA

17

I Consider it Immoral that I Missed BENJAMIN GOODHEART

18

Sorry I gave a fuck about you.

Won’t happen again.

MEGHAN GUILFOYLE

19 20 21

Turning Gears All Goes Tumbling Southbound KERRI HAERINCK

22 24

Travelers with an L Death-Sonnet MARISSA HIMBELE

25

Mindful CAMILLE LAVACHE

27 29

REM Conspiracy LAUREN MANNA

31

The Jungle Gym ERIN SPERLING

33 34

15 October I Cannot JOE VIRGILLITO DONALD HALL POETRY PRIZE WINNER

36

Hit JUSTIN GOLDSMITH

39 40 41

PHOTOS Flamenco La Republica Dominicana MEGHAN GUILFOYLE

42 43

Baby in Sand Maine Coastline DEVAN KINGSTON

44

Surf Dogs TYLER MELANSON

45

Be Seen LINDSAY NOLAN

46

Giverny, France TERESA PELLICANO

47

Dandelion KATIE THOMPSON

49 50

PROSE Miss Blue GABY CATALANO

56

Trail of Tears ANTHONY DIMARTINO

62

My Friend Jenny NATHALIE DONALDSON

66

Bloodmask JUSTIN GOLDSMITH

71

The Role of the Hole: A Meditation BENJAMIN GOODHEART

73

No Pasa Nada, living where your feet are.

MEGHAN GUILFOYLE

75

The Tattoo CHELSEA LOGANO

81

Cutter VALERIE MASSA

83 84

Love Water FARAH SALAM

86

Doctors Log, Stardate: 31482PD BRIEN SLATE

93

Adjacent DANIELLE SUSI

99

MONTAGE PRESENTS LITERARY DEATH MATCH WINNER

101

Upon Viewing RT 17 Out of the Window of My Drug Dealer’s 1994 Hundyai Sonata BENJAMIN GOODHEART

106 111

CONTRIBUTER BIOS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

POETRY “I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.”

STEVEN WRIGHT

13

The Tree of Life KELSEY BROWN

POETRY

Explode with color: red like lust and orange More bright than fury; yellow quietude.

The boy approaches cautiously, so as

14

He places one foot on a crook formed by Broken bark. It’s a stepping stool made just For him, and hesitantly he begins To climb. His movements clumsy at the start, Ascending farther, climbing turns to grace.

He leaps from branch to branch with fearlessness Proportionate to lions. Looking down, The ground is barely visible and he Is growing weary. Wondering how long This climb must last, he forces himself on Like soldiers heading into battle’s fray.

When seconds, minutes, hours, years have passed, Again he looks down. Now the ground is just For the next branch—it crumbles in his hand Like buildings turned to rubble. Nothing left To anchor him, the climb has reached its end.

The Hardest Choice ERICA CELSO

Childless by nature and by occupation; still childless due to chosen thought and deed.

Much thought given and years of contemplation of never bearing fruit nor planting seed.

A decision of such import not made lightly; it weighs upon my heart as loads of lead.

Increasing burden as each new year passes,

For children feel the depths of pain and strife.

Each day their light grows dim while they endure. hurtful words will spoil hopes that once were pure.

Predators prey upon their ignorance.

Diamond tears carve trails through their rosy cheeks.

Parents disregard the taint of innocence, shushing children each time they try to speak.

15

Although I’ve always longed to be a mother; to raise my child with love, courage, and truth.

People are compelled to hurt each other; each day the news report stands as my proof: The reason I have chosen to abstain: Society ignores children’s pain. if ever I sentenced my child to live.

No Rules Apply THOMAS FRISINA

We came here as some kids No idea what to expect Our parents would forbid Everything to follow next

POETRY

The empty cans all scattered Had obligations soon But it really didn’t matter They tried to tell us how to live We sarcastically just nodded With alcohol against our lips Our friends they all applauded We can worry when we’re older We can sleep when we are dead And the nights are getting colder As we shoot liquor to the head

16

I Consider It Immoral That I Missed BENJAMIN GOODHEART

Completely egocentric Suburbs, mortgages Mops and baby shit Ugly decors, billboards, Highways, cars, garbage Trucks, and most notably Half dead He is aware of what he is and isn’t Knows he’s a worthless piece of shit All diseases are curable The suit of the chimp The treacherous veneration of art and culture Critic knows best Father knows best how to Groove in an ungroovy world The maleman always rings twice Evasiveness, indirectness Ambiguity and boredom Do not indicate depth They indicate emptiness Source: SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas

17

Sorry I gave a fuck about you. Won’t happen again.

MEGHAN GUILFOYLE

POETRY

In the middle of a Sevillan art gallery, Lust walked in with a face of handsome ruggedness.

Scruff dimples and a side-crooked smile.

That raspy hearty laugh complimented with the deepest of brown smiling eyes.

Whiffs of sweet tobacco, natural pheromones, and Spanish cologne

18

stolen secretive late night moments.

Getting to know one another through passion and desire.

Cinder block after cinder block, the emotional wall deconstructs itself with every phantasmal word rolling off the Spanish tongue.

His hands adored every part of her physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Promises made to always stay in touch‌ As time was consumed with previously created lives, connection lessened.

And with the fateful accident of a late night phone call, true colors were shown, and all was gone and forever lost to memory.

Turning Gears KERRI HAERINCK

What language can instruct a whole chance to be reasonable?

A single example of excellence shows no shade.

A hurt mended stick is a little thing, also a prison.

A remarkable degree of red in pain soup.

The best remains to stay, a colored loss.

19

All Goes Tumbling KERRI HAERINCK

In the beginning, everything was blue.

Wilting trees hung low, shadowing the sunken faces of townspeople.

They walked on uneven ground,

Suddenly scuffed knees and scratched palms froze time.

The townspeople turned their heads from their feet, their routine disrupted by a misstep, a careless tumble.

A tiny sound escaped one mouth, then another, slowly overtaking the entire population, Time began to tick again,

POETRY

but on skips and jumps and strides.

20

Southbound KERRI HAERINCK

After mom kicks me out, I have nowhere else to go.

Hours pass as I lay on the spring mattress.

I notice a tear in the painting above the bed.

I want to pick at it.

78 cents.

I can’t even buy a soda.

Maybe I could buy a condom for the moaners next door.

They don’t realize how thin these walls are, like two sides of a paperclip.

I’m the underside.

21

Travelers with an L MARISSA HIMBELE

And we aim for the journey of it all, dirtbags to some, and adventurers to others.

We envelop ourselves in greens with purple or orange hues that are quite majestic.

A gypsy’s remedy that spells us to embrace our desires and freefall into what is not the unknown because we know it very well

POETRY

while the gypsy transforms us. Socrates, Credo, Buddha sitting in a car with their faded coughs; and their ideals overpower even the most brilliant of sober minds; birthing ideas of mermaids and galaxies, to aliens next door.

22

Salvador Dali lives within our minds, our brains his easel, he paints the impossible.

Our thoughts race to beat the others at what great idea could cross the tape, but sometimes they get tangled in their own feet from the frustrating laces of every detail and possibility. of Abu Dhabi to the locomotive fumes of sour diesel.

Buddha is our master; taking hits from his ceramic being we pray to him.

We rub his belly and suck his knowledge from his head until we are paralyzed by his power.

MARISSA HIMBELE

Our lives have meaning, though others say it does not.

Like kids on a playground so carefree, the mind is our jungle gym.

Our lives venture us to worlds unknown where we meet the unseen.

Our lives are gray, a tie-dye of black and white; we see what is and what is not, what has and what has not, what can and what will, as opposed to those of black and white.

Our horizons are the oceans with wonders right under our wading boats There is too much to catch at once.

Ideas tumble in an endless effort, effective to our growing knowledge.

Our voyages are not legal but we’re always on guard; we peer from the crow’s nest.

We stand ready for a hijack but would never want to face one.

We are travelers by both land and sea guided by maps of our minds.

We travel from a backyard, or travel from a bedroom, we travel from a car or travel from woods. Although, Our destination is where we started, the journey, is what we aim for.

It’s where we get lost and where we get wiser. It’s where we meet that gypsy or Socrates We may not have seen the Eiffel Tower or the sphinx, but we’ve seen peace and gratitude and ecstasy, with a plant that must be made by sprites We see what never is to be seen.

23

MARISSA HIMBELE

It then reaches out with a moldy hand White with innocence and the gold it bears The paralyzing beauty is not bland The daisy, of ox-eyed, slurps old beings It gives sight to see what has not been there Love-me-not petals then hide those seeings Like an oystered pearl so smooth and so rare Hugging leaves relieves the body of aches Infest it will, daisies are all you greet But forever youngs show route to the lakes And those immortal seeds are there to eat

POETRY

That daisy is your home and your last breath Your casket holds the ornament of death

24

Mindful CAMILLE LAVACHE

There was something odd about this girl, I couldn’t read her mind.

She loves to make her dresses twirl, Nothing was on her mind.

Someone else’s long tresses swirl in time, In time, against the time— The time of that faithful day When she went to the doctor— They thought that she had swine, She lets the memory fall behind the blank matter of her mind.

Her eyes, mirroring every move, A needle injection leads to sunken eyes— The same eyes that capture the glint of the needle, A needle made of brass.

That time when she was oh so little— How could she forget?

She continues to push that memory out, With no remorse and no regret, For that time in her life was a painful one.

She cared for as long as time allowed, But now she cares no more.

She’s proud, she takes a bow.

But she’s okay now, She has accepted her newfound fate.

25

CAMILLE LAVACHE

She knows eventually she’ll be dead.

The dress stops twirling, her mind becomes still, There’s no expression on her face.

Pale and lifeless, they roll her body on the stretcher right down to the morgue, Her burial takes place and the pastor stands up, The silence so loud, it roared.

He bows his head and says a prayer,

POETRY

But there was just something odd about that girl, I just couldn’t read her mind.”

26

REM LAUREN MANNA

I can’t think, nocan’t operate I’m too tired, too wired; brittle and rusty with caffeinated beverages fancy names funny colors bottles in contour, boasting wood chips and motor oil.

Always a power animal, gilded and charming perspiring condensation alarming colors and a metal face like mine.

My stomach is bloating sour; specious substitute synthetic something no fat, though, thank God. They don’t work, not anymore, not behind the eyes but there; my spastic muscles my jaw my knuckles and underneath the wrists.

How many so far? too manyit’s only two-thirty.

I’m crossing my wires between night and day social mores and acting my age.

My circuits are fraying overheating, that’s all

27

LAUREN MANNA

I’m on rebound, I can reboot in the summer.

POETRY

Blearily shake hands with the man I’ve been hallucinating; the one in the black suit with the broken neck and no eyelids; he’s in my desk chair.

He’s speaking in tongues above my sleeping friends tempting me congratulating me on earning my wings.

28

Conspiracy LAUREN MANNA

In the last summer of America their elastic purple tongues will envelop the White Mansion and the Monument, and Lincoln’s copper legs and the venom in the bubbles of their spittle will reduce those statues of grandeur to the chewed wet pencil nub of a nervous schoolboy.

The father who sent his child into the sky will nod his head and point to Draco to D.C. and back again with a knowing look in his eye.

In the last summer of America will ascend again, stamping their crop circles onto Midwestern corn.

Covered in gritty frost and hanging icicles from their time spent among the penguins, so that you can barely see the red swastika tattooed to its underbelly.

Those who knew will be so pleased as they too dodge abduction among more ignorant men.

In the last summer of America the cheaply made artifacts those time-spinning tricksters created will turn to dust, and reveal that the coins of Angkor were wooden the trials of the Buddhists embellished as if to the adolescent it were any surprise.

And the crown of the Emperor to the West was paper We counted our lives in dog years to stretch the time before the sun falls upon us.

29

LAUREN MANNA

POETRY

But likely the last summer of America will look very much like this; slow and untitled no Annunaki or Huanebu or Phantom Time.

They listened for the bang and so missed Her nameless whimpers.

The best part will be the silence, and surprise, because if we must all die at once- I’d rather not hear I Told You So.

30

The Jungle Gym ERIN SPERLING

Since the time of thick scared knees, each with a tale or two of a tall, twisted slide that forced you down onto the pebbles, while thick red color seeped and ran down the twigs you walked on.

When you jumped from one island to the next careful not to step on the hot lava below that would melt the bottom of you shoes, then leave you hoping that someone would risk the leap to save you.

The line for the tire swing was around the monkey bars because that familiar “eye lids nailed shut, neck muscles wrestling against the centripetal force, school lunch about to hurl itself back into the cafeteria” feeling of a good ride made you that much cooler once you had survived.

The cannot stand still, practically jumping up and down pointing at yourself moment when you are praying not to be the last one picked for the dodge ball team, even though your next hope is that you can keep your eyes on the red ball long enough to avoid the hive of bees’ sting when it hits your face. order to avoid the boy who just told you he has a crush on the girl you just shared your snack with during that day’s morning meeting.

Hearing the teacher say you get to pick your own groups, glancing at your best because that is how it always works and you know your

31

ERIN SPERLING

POETRY

mom just bought good snacks for your house, only to see that person staring at the one they had a play date with the night before.

32

the dark wooden cabinet saying that Dad’s out of town, Mom’s working late, and your siblings have soccer practice, with a $20 bill to order dinner from the pizza place.

Sending in that last hand written envelope that will earn a response you feel will change your life forever, cause you to move out of town and start for real in a book with blank, perforated pages.

Forgetting about the loop-de-loop, around the world, stomach in your throat vomit thought of almost going all the way around the swing bar, but then landing in the pebbles.

Until the surface of the sun summer when you put on your shorts and your mother noticed the imperfect white patches on the front of your young tree trunks you ran on.

15 October JOE VIRGILLITO

They say the kitchen greased over from lunch.

The janitor tossed his cigarette and the whole damn thing was set ablaze.

now it’s red and a little boy is crying.

I took my car down that same school road, never feeling alright in the street.

The Fire Bell rang out on 9th, cutting into morning coffee with two donuts left in a heap of powdered sugar.

33

I cannot JOE VIRGILLITO

I cannot write.

I cannot match Whitman or Wordsworth, I cannot sway my pen across unused page, twisting and winding curved characters upon the forgotten wood, I cannot make a world of blankness compel the masses into freeform hysteria experienced by the likes of the learned,

POETRY

I cannot be the fabled artist, automatic in his wrists, perverse in diction, robbed of distraction, mindful in

34

I cannot but idly sit among sitters, stillborn thoughts calmly dripping from my spinal, columns of lines drolly inscribed, I cannot turn emotion into verse or line or script or any stanza-smelling excrement, I cannot shave away my inhibition; grand and lucid dull the razor hacking my poor face to shreds, I cannot tickle the linguistic fancy that has been prodded to pieces and splayed across dim walls in shades of orange and gold and delightful autumnal hues, I cannot take upon myself the burden of poetic mind, whispering softly to my ear, pleading until waking hours, I cannot sing unto my reader songs of sympathy abound, unwitting, I cannot blow the winds of inspiration through the sails of borrowed beggars free from passing over hallowed seas,

JOE VIRGILLITO

I cannot break apart monotonous attribution, yelling in brightened darkness, with voices of the past, And I cannot bring myself to punctuate my thought and turn it to cohesion.

I cannot write.

35

DONALD HALL POETRY PRIZE WINNER

Hit JUSTIN GOLDSMITH

POETRY

I remember that time when I hated some girl for a few days because I thought she beat me.

Then I hit someone else, and I wish more than anything that she hit me, Because then I would have just told her that it was alright.

Even if she just hit someone else, I wish she just hit someone else.

Then she would have known what it was like to hit someone.

If anyone ever hits me I’ll tell them that it’s alright.

36

I hope someone hits me.

Not too hard though, just enough to shake me.

I’ll ask them if they’re okay and tell them that it’s alright.

Then later they will think about the time when they hit someone And the person that they hit was a good person.

They’ll sort of love me.

I hate that girl that I hit because of the way she treated me.

Even though it was my fault I sort of hate her.

But I miss her because I constantly think about how I could have stopped it.

I miss everyone I’ve never hit.

I sort of love everyone that I’ve never hit for the way that they treat me.

Everyone thinks I’m a good person for the way that I’ve never hit them.

PHOTOS “There are no bad pictures; that’s just how your face looks sometimes.”

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

39

PHOTOS 40

Flamenco MEGHAN GUILFOYLE

41

La Republica Dominicana MEGHAN GUILFOYLE

PHOTOS 42

Baby in Sand DEVAN KINGSTON

43

Maine Coastline DEVAN KINGSTON

PHOTOS

Surf Dogs

44

TYLER MELANSON

Be Seen LINDSAY NOLAN

45

PHOTOS 46

Giverny, France TERESA PELLICANO

47

Dandelion KATIE THOMPSON

PROSE “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

49

Miss Blue GABY CATALANO

She is blue. She has blue hair, blue eyes, and blue metal piercings in both of her ears. What we try to force out of her is not blue, though. Her appendix is about to burst and I’m staring at her, ready to operate. Come to think of it, we’re all blue. The surrounding nurses, the doctor, and myself, are caught in a wave and rush of lighter blue than the ocean.

I look at her and remember what she looked like when I saw

popping and he had told doctors that he didn’t understand why he wasn’t losing weight.

The ridiculous things I see at this hospital are incredible, but for that one day, Miss Blue seemed to be a blessing in disguise.

“She’s about to burst,” Frank said as he rolled her into PROSE

Emergency two hours before.

50

Frank is always stating the obvious; always giving us the summaries that no one asks for, the details that no one wants to hear. His mouth never stays shut and he’s always pushing for more. That’s how he had always been, even in college. We both graduated at the top of our class from Hopkins—with me spending more time in the library, and him spending more time at the bar. But he was a genius nonetheless, and despite his crude and blatant remarks, he was brilliant.

She was unconscious. Her abdomen was swelling. She would rupture soon, causing her body to go into peritonitis and shock.

GABY CATALANO

Checking her pupils to see if they had dilated, I could tell that they weren’t and I could see the sapphires of her eyes overpowering the black retina that were hidden by the captivating iris. She has eyes like my mother.

Dr. Josner rushes over to us, instantly silencing Frank, his and checks her pulse.

“Get her to operation immediately. She needs a laparoscopy.” role very well, even when he doesn’t mean too. His words have purpose.

“Code Blue. Doctor Josner please report to Oncology,” emits from the small gray box in the ceiling. The small gray box always seems to be buzzing silently when codes are not called out loudly and unannounced.

But blue is for the rare, the immediate, and the necessary. It sends Josner in a haste.

Before Josner rushes away, he gives us the go ahead to take Miss Blue. Frank, the other nurses, and I are on a mission. We are on a mission not for Josner, but for Miss Blue.

We wheel her around and rush down the hallway, shouting what medical school has taught us. Things like “What is her total There is a man with a yellow trench coat, who paces furiously outside of the room where his wife is giving birth. He is too squeamish to be inside the room and nervously breathes in an out of a brown paper bag. We push him aside: “Sir, please move. Sir. Please move.”

51

GABY CATALANO

He is stuck in his own world, staring blankly into space. He keeps pacing back and forth. We hear the crunching of the brown paper bag as we way try to duck and dodge our way past him.

I take the initiative; I give him a gentle push and shove.

Frank gives me a smirk; it is one of the shoves that I used to give the winner of Mortal Combat.

The man with the yellow trench coat rebounds quickly to the pastel yellow walls. He is still breathing in and out of the bag, his back up against the wall. We continue on our way, rushing down the hallway, still hearing the man with the yellow trench coat’s heavy breathing. We continue to hear him until we round the corner. begins to put his gloves on. By the look on his face, I can tell PROSE

that they lost another one in Oncology. Maybe even two or three.

They seem to be going at a steady rate these days.

52

I feel the sweat on the back of my neck and I can just imagine it

We haven’t even begun, and sweat pours into the sterile air. dripping down from the beige walls, drowning us all before we even have time to save Miss Blue.

“Who is she?” Dr. Josner asks a detail nurse. She is Miss Blue, I think.

“Seventeen. Miriam Laxman. No previous health problems.

Lives right around the corner on Killington Street.”

1. Her blue features made her look twenty-something, not seventeen. Her features in general are much too severe for a

GABY CATALANO

teenager. Her nose is prominent but petite; her lips are full and angled. She looks like a woman. And that is why I say that she was a blessing in disguise; she was much different than any of the patients we’ve had before. She was captivatingly beautiful, and I couldn’t help but stare at her. I found myself wanting to help, not just because it was my job, but because I actually wanted to see her live again. I wanted to see what those eyes were capable of when they were open to the world.

2. The name Miriam does Miss Blue no justice. She is not a Miriam. Miriam is too classy, too tasteful. It is too sophisticated and proper. Miss Blue has fun and is wild and carefree. When she laughs, everyone else laughs. When she cries, people hold her with purpose. She is not fake. She speaks the truth. She is too beautiful to be a snobby Miriam, and her hair is too brilliantly vibrant. Miriam is a girl at a Sock Hop wearing a poodle skirt, with a ribbon in her hair.

3. Killington Street is not a street; it is a row of estates that is different from the rest of this urban city. Killington Street is the exception to everything here; it is its own country. It deserves its own zip code. It’s difference lie in its beauty and the people who reside there. They are not gods like Dr. Josner; they are gods who control the way this town is run, the way people who don’t live lawyers, and the town’s privileged who keep to their bubble and never venture out of its manicured streets and 1900s street lamps.

Miss Blue does not belong on Killington Street. Her blue eyes are too kind and she does not deserve to be laying here in front of us.

53

GABY CATALANO

We are ready for surgery and most of the people from my shift are here. I stand next to Frank, like I always do. He says something, but I tune him out, like I usually do.

She is not blue when we cut her open. She is red. Very red.

Red oozes out of the open incision from her abdomen that Dr. Josner just made.

She has already burst by the time we open her up. The infection has started to spread, and I can just imagine the bacteria working its way through the tiny crevasses of her insides. She is too perfect to be diseased.

Dr. Josner begins, pushing some the main organs aside, even see it through the puss and infection covering that part of her body.

She twitches once; a sudden jerk that breaks. Dr. Josner PROSE

continues to push and shove her, looking for her appendix. She continues to twitch for a few minutes until her twitches become

54

oxygen mask.

violent and her breathing gets heavy under the translucent plastic I know what’s going to happen next and I don’t want to deal with it. I don’t want to lose this precious blue in front of me. I don’t want to lose the woman who has eyes like my mother; eyes that I have not seen in seventeen years since she passed away. reaches the appendix. Miss Blue keeps spazzing and twitching until we have to physically hold her down on the table.

“We’re losing her!”

GABY CATALANO

I look at the monitor. The fast paced beeps were a background to the rush of movements and yells of doctors and nurses. The beeps of the heart monitor, respiration, blood pressure, and cardiac output are too fast to count, and before I know it, the red lifeless. We stand there for a brief moment, contemplating what just happened. We are all used to this and we have all seen this happen more times than it should.

Finally, we slowly gravitate away from her body in unison. It was as if we were giving her soul room to expand and escape into the beyond. I can just feel the blue pulsating through the room, doors. From down the hall I can still hear the man in the yellow trench coat pacing, and the sounds of a newly born baby crying through the hallway.

55

Trail of Tears ANTHONY DIMARTINO

Slingshot knew the path back to his farm in Winston County naturally. He followed it like the wolf followed the scent of its prey, like a hunter followed tracks in the woods. The Native Americans had carved his path centuries ago. He studied their culture for years after sundown, when he no longer could work on the farm. He loved them like friends, brothers, and members of the same pack. They represented what he saw in himself, and he represented them by honoring their traditions. His radio was off. He only heard the wheels of the car grinding and the sound of a siren calling his name. His real name. The road stretched on past the capital and further into the heart of Alabama; he knew it all. In lonesomeness, he drove and the road winded onward like a

PROSE

narrow, slithery snake caught by its tail by a Cherokee on the hunt.

56

On the way home, while thinking about the Native American tribes and their collective values, he recalled a repressed memory from his youth. He drove on with it in mind. dinner when they looked out the window. Fog clouded the sun. A dry mist enveloped the farm. The cows and the horses were lost They wanted to gather the frenzied animals, and then herd them into the farmhouse by the ranch. They hoped that, by that time, the fog would have cleared.

“We should split up! Meet back here!” his mother shouted to him. “Stay here and wait awhile if we’re too slow for you. We’ll

ANTHONY DIMARTINO

table!�

They had not predicted this thick of a fog. If so, they would have cooperated. Slingshot ran deeper into it, disobeying his his feet, as he slowly recalled the feel of the soil on his toes. His surroundings came to life in his head. He pictured where he was and he knew where the animals would be. He picked hollow nuts from the ground. To alert the cows, he pelted them with the nuts.

The horses scurried rampantly. They trampled fervently over the grass they ate and the soil. In their confusion, they were angry.

Anger translated into fear. Fear made them run uncontrollably.

The fog was growing. It was late at night, and so they could not see.

They could not hear each other’s voices. He gathered the animals quickly by instinct and ran with them. When Slingshot made his trip back to the farmhouse, with cows and horses in tow, he realized that his father and mother were still missing. He shouted, but heard nothing. He herded the animals into the farmhouse, then sat outside and waited.

He was patient. During this time, he imagined himself riding his horses into romantic sunsets. He imagined his family and him together eating the rest of their dinner. He imagined the animals grazing in the grass carelessly, not frightened or confused. He and feeding them. He imagined the animals stampeding through the farm, but then he cast that dream away. He imagined them frolicking, then he was happy again. He loved to imagine.

After twenty minutes, his patience wore thin. He replaced

57

ANTHONY DIMARTINO

wishful imagination with worriment. He returned into the fog once more. He traveled aimlessly. He could no longer see his toes, but he felt the trickling blood that streamed off of them. He shouted into the depths of the mist and began to cry teenage tears. He ran for what seemed like an endless stream of time, a cycle. The fog never ended, like his running. It rose upwards in the sky and above the trees. It brought him chaos. Chaos like he had never experienced before. He yelled: “Mom! Dad!” His bare feet bled more as he stepped through rough, unfamiliar ground. Jutting rocks and stones from beneath. He wasn’t sure where he was going. The unforgiving nature burdened him. It had never betrayed him this way; they were always together, like partners of a tribe, like members of a family. They understood each other, he thought. He ran faster and screamed louder. The

PROSE

earth had betrayed its most appreciative and loving son.

58

“Mom! Dad! Where are you?”

He thought the fog had thickened even more. It encompassed his entire world, threatening not only his vision and emotional stability, but his family. He valued his family far above the horses and the cows or the nature of the farm. He cared for his parents true fear. Fright. Anguish. His childish imagination would not cast save his world. It was time to grow up. And in that instant, Lawrence Sloane, Jr., matured. He reached somewhere deep into his frightened mind and found solace. He discovered security and sanctity. Now, he stepped forward into the breach as an adult. The

ANTHONY DIMARTINO

chaos inside the fog rose. His feet sobbed red tears uncontrollably.

He felt an imprint on the soil, maybe Cherokee, but he could not make out what it resembled.

His father’s arm covered his mother’s back. They must have found each other in the fog, and then died. He wanted to protect her.

They were buried in the same way.

The fog had now faded.

He looted a slingshot from his father’s back pocket. He held it dear to his heart and felt the wet wood of the weapon against his jacket like his father’s embrace. ranch and slept in his bedroom for what seemed like days. No one saw him or knew what happened; their ranch was located so far after the event. When he awoke, he had adapted to the changes he would have needed to make; he had accepted their deaths. He had moved on. He was an adult. On the next day, he awoke early renewing the calmness that once settled abound. His presence brought renewed faith to his farm. Nothing had changed, so the they did not know any better. They were as afraid as he was. In their fright they ran, just like he did.

Slingshot drove back to the farm he had inherited and opened the rickety front door to utter silence, for he lived and maintained the whole three-hundred acres on his own. He kept

59

ANTHONY DIMARTINO

the ranch clean and tidy. He neglected fancy machinery and newfound advancements. He used proper tools, the same ones his parents used years ago. He kept the slingshot hanging from his back pocket like his father had on his dead body; it was his way to remember and accept his self-induced loneliness.

The memory of his parents’ deaths had not haunted him; it had enlightened him. He embraced it. Slingshot would never

year-old Lawrence Sloane, Jr., evolved into the stoic, unforgiving twenty-six-year-old Slingshot. When a fog rose again in Winston County, Slingshot was prepared; this time, there was no one to lose but himself.

And the memory remained with him for the rest of his existence, but he never felt sad; he felt assured. He realized the

PROSE

nature of evil. In the time since their deaths, through ancient

60

Cherokee teachings which he read from books and further outside learning, he discovered that all humans contain the same evil that nature possesses; they all acquire instinct and they all act unreasonably. Some humans are left behind, while others carry on. Animals are excused, for they do not act superior to their environment like the urban human-machines act. He despised the machines as his father did, as his grandfather did, and as his children will in the future, if he even has children to whom he will tell stories and raise up to till the farm for generations to come.

Thinking about life, he walked outside during sunset. He turned to his favorite horse and rode it side-by-side the others into the enveloping, protecting wilderness.

My Friend Jenny NATHALIE DONALDSON

I’ve always had a hard time making friends. It’s not that I never tried because I have. The other kids at school just don’t seem to like me. I think that’s why I have Jenny. But Jenny can be really bossy and when I play with her at school the other kids begin to laugh at me and call me weird. I don’t think they like Jenny.

One time, Jenny and I were playing on the swings and Nina she couldn’t swing because Jenny was swinging, but Nina said she didn’t see her. I knew Nina was just being mean and trying to make me feel bad. That made Jenny really mad, so she hopped off the swing and told me to let Nina swing, but to push her off because that’s what a good friend would do. I didn’t want to be a bad friend so I did what she said. But as soon as I did, Nina fell off the swing and started to cry, and Jenny left.

All the other kids on the playground were standing around staring at me and whispering. I felt really sad about what I’d done, and Jenny had left me to get in trouble alone. Ms. Simmons came running over as soon as she saw everyone standing around Nina, and I had to tell her that I was the one who pushed Nina, but it Simmons looked at me kind of funny and said I had to come inside with her.

She called my parents and told them what happened on the playground… she also said that they had to come in so we could all talk together about my friend Jenny.

I thought they were going to be really mad at me, but they

61

NATHALIE DONALDSON

weren’t. They just said that they thought it would be better if I stayed home from school for a little while. soon she got me to do even worse things. Like when she came to my family Christmas party.

I’d just turned seven years old and Jenny hadn’t been around for a few weeks. My parents said they were happy to see her go and that maybe we could go to the family Christmas party this year as long as I didn’t invite her. I promised I wouldn’t because I didn’t like Jenny very much anymore. She always got me in trouble.

I was so excited to see my family and unwrap all my presents with my cousins. It had been a long time since I’d seen them. My cousin Sarah used to go to school with me before my mom decided to teach me at my house. Sarah was always a little nicer than the other kids, but it was still hard for me to play with her with Jenny

PROSE

around.

62

We opened all the presents from our aunts and uncles, and Sarah and I decided to play with her new Barbie dream house.

That’s when Jenny showed up.

She didn’t like when I played with other kids, especially Sarah. She didn’t like Sarah because Sarah was nice to me and played with me. I knew Jenny would be mad… But I’ve always liked playing with Sarah. She’s fun and doesn’t make me do things I don’t want to. Jenny was really mad... I tried to tell her she shouldn’t be mad and we could all play together, but she wouldn’t listen to me.

Sarah started to cry, and my parents came in to see what was going on. And that’s when Jenny grabbed me and pushed me

NATHALIE DONALDSON

I caught myself before hitting the ground. Sarah didn’t open her eyes, and her parents rushed over and pushed me out of the way.

After that everything became a little fuzzy. An ambulance came and took Sarah to the hospital. Then another one came for me. My parents said I didn’t have to go, but Grandma insisted I needed to take a test. I still don’t know what she means…

We spent a long time at the hospital. Sarah ended up being okay, but she hit her head real bad and had to lie in bed for a while. The doctors took a little longer with me… and Jenny never showed up so I had to be the one in trouble.

After what felt like forever, the doctors said there was only one thing they could do to help me. My parents looked really sad and started hugging each other. But they said they understood that it’s what would be best.

My mom walked over to my bed and told me that Jenny was a bad friend to me, and that I had to go somewhere that she couldn’t bother me so much. I didn’t want to go anywhere but home, but I also didn’t want Jenny to keep doing this to me.

Now I’m here in this small white room. With blank walls and nothing in it. The people here make me wear pajamas all the time.

They’re really soft and plain, but they come in different colors.

The ones I’m wearing now are pink. Pink’s my favorite color. But not bright pink, I like pale pink.

And I have a nice lady named Doctor Wood follow me around everywhere I go. She follows me with a pen and paper and writes things down when I say them. I think it’s to see how what I say changes. At least, that’s what she told me when I asked her. She

63

NATHALIE DONALDSON

said I’m not weird and that the kids at school just don’t understand me. She also said that I “have a condition.” I’m not really sure what that means, but she said Jenny was my “condition” and that I shouldn’t worry because “conditions can change with time and help.”

I really miss my room at my house. I miss my mom tucking me in, and my dad kissing my forehead to say goodnight. I miss my pink blanket, and my soft teddy, and my cloud night-light. I miss the way my mom sings when she cooks, and watching my dad take off his boots when he gets home from work. I think about these things and it makes me sad.

I’ve been here a few months, and Jenny’s only come to visit me one time, but she didn’t stay long before Doctor Wood made her leave. I guess “conditions” really can change. But I don’t know how long they can make Jenny stay away because she can be really

PROSE

nosy. When she doesn’t come to visit, a lot of the time I hear her

64

yelling at me to stop listening to everyone else, but I can’t see her.

Doctor Wood says I scrunch up my face every time it happens. So when it does, she plays music and asks me to lie down and tell her a story. I like telling her stories. A lot of them I make up myself, but she knows that so I’m not a liar.

Sometimes my mom and dad visit me. They bring me homemade meals and little treats and sit with me in this little room. Sometimes Doctor Wood comes too and I give her a cookie.

We sit and talk about our days and I ask how home is. My mom usually cries when she sees me and that makes me really sad. My dad just sits and stares at the wall. Doctor Wood says it’s normal.

My mom misses me, and my dad is just sad that he can’t help me.

NATHALIE DONALDSON

I’m still not sure what I need help with though. It’s not even my fault I’m here, its Jenny’s. But they all say I need to be here to be safe from Jenny. I don’t like Jenny and I don’t like what she makes me do, but she’s never hurt me before. I tried telling that to Doctor Wood but she said that Jenny was “hurting me a lot more then I knew,” and that one day I might understand.

It doesn’t seem like I’ll be going home anytime soon. Jenny doesn’t visit me but she still talks to me in my head, and Doctor Wood says there’s not much we can do until that stops. I guess I don’t mind it that much because Doctor Wood is nice and she keeps me company, but I wish I had friends to play with every once in awhile.

I noticed there were other kids here too, and Doctor Wood says that a lot of them have friends like Jenny too. She says that in a little while I can meet some of the kids because they’ll understand me better. I really like that idea but it makes me nervous. Jenny doesn’t like when I play with other kids and that’s usually when she comes to visit me. When Doctor Wood talks to me about meeting the other kids, that’s when Jenny talks to me in my head. So I scrunch up my face and Doctor Wood plays that nice music and I tell her a story. That’s why Doctor Wood says I have to wait. I have to wait until Jenny leaves me for good and I really hope that’s soon.

65

Bloodmask JUSTIN GOLDSMITH

In a distant and majestic land, it is said that there is a river made of tears. These tears were shed by those who had suffered themselves to the great land, a single tear was shed for each soul that was lost. Soon, there was enough death, enough suffering, and great world. None visited this river because they feared its contents would bring about their own suffering.

However, one man sought aid from the river, aid for the thoughts that he had. His thoughts troubled his mind. He felt as though the world was too dark. He felt as though there was not enough beauty. And he felt as though he had no purpose. These

PROSE

feelings had cursed him with suffering, and he traveled to the river

66

As he stepped within the river’s waters, he heard the echoing voices of those who had contributed to the river’s formation. The man wished to turn back; he felt the pain of the voices that were calling out to him. The pain was too great, each word that was the words shake his very soul. But these voices, they begged the man to continue, they needed him to continue into the waters.

The man listened, and with each step he took into the river, he sank deeper, and his pain grew larger. He felt as if he would collapse from sorrow and pity, but he continued. Until his head was completely covered within the waters of the river, the man stepped forward.

JUSTIN GOLDSMITH

But then, the man emerged from the depths of the river, and in his hand he held the Bloodmask, a gift to him from those who cried the river’s contents. The voices told him that if he wanted to justify the pain of death, if he wanted to end the suffering that he felt for the spirits he must wear the mask forever. The man put on the mask and felt the suffering lift from his body. The voices told the man in the Bloodmask that he must unite his people under one empire, so that they all feel the same suffering, and the same happiness.

The man, who now called himself Bloodmask, began his campaign across his great homeland. His people sensed his power and will to unite them, and most accepted this emotion

under his leadership. From his rule, the suffering of his people was discontinued, and Bloodmask assured his people that they would never suffer alone again. No one person was hampered with the pain of loss alone. Emperor Bloodmask taught his people to look past the severity of death, pain and suffering. He showed them that together, the problems of one were overshadowed by the presence of many.

At the peak of his rule, the emperor looked upon his newly smiles from the people’s happiness caused the sun and the stars to shine brighter, and he no longer felt the world was too dark. When the sun and stars shined brighter the trees grew more splendid and fruitful, and he no longer felt there was a lack of beauty. And with

67

JUSTIN GOLDSMITH

the new beauty of the land, Bloodmask felt accomplished and content. He cherished all of this.

Until one day, upon his travels, Bloodmask came across a great dragon sitting beneath a dead tree. The tree cast a colossal shadow that hid the dragon’s features. Bloodmask could only see the dragon’s dark silhouette and his marvelous red eyes. The dragon looked tired and angry and Bloodmask felt the dragon’s suffering.

“What bothers you, dragon? That you would sit and suffer alone? The very tree you sit beneath looks as if it has seen a dreadful winter. Its leaves are dead and gone; its once-great trunk now glows with the greyness of death,” Bloodmask said.

“I cannot preserve the sanctity of this tree any longer. I suffer,” The dragon said. “You must step forward, beneath the shadow of this great tree if you wish to help.”

PROSE

Bloodmask looked at the shadow that the great tree cast and

68

“I will not step beneath that shadow,” Bloodmask said.

“But the rays of the great stars that illuminate this world are too boundless. It is too hot to stand under them any longer. And the heat is tiring,” The dragon told the emperor.

“You are right, dragon. The heat does exhaust me and the bright lights strain my gaze. The rays are too great, and they bring me suffering,” Bloodmask said as he took one step closer to the “And the beauty of the trees in bloom, do their leaves, fruits, and blossoms all not tire your eyes as well? The colors of the world ask too much, they ask for us to see and love too much. The leaves

JUSTIN GOLDSMITH

provide air, the fruits are good, and the blossoms show life, but do they not also bring about complexity? Is complexity not suffering?”

The dragon asked.

“You are right, dragon. The shade of a dead tree seems very artless. Beauty is pleasing, but also dependent on judgment and it brings me suffering,” Bloodmask then took one step closer to the “But emperor, will you not take the last step into the shadow, to be shaded from the light and heat, and to be struck with the joy of its simplicity?”

“I am still unsure,” Bloodmask said, “If I join you beneath this tree, I will be away from my people. I will be shaded from the absent from the people that need me. I will no longer be able to heal their suffering.”

“But emperor,” the great dragon said. “If you step beneath

would suffer alone, but has that caused you to forget the suffering mask allows you to hide your own suffering, and absorb the pain of others and feel nothing, but does this not all make you weary?

You suffer for so many. You must be tired. If you come within the shade, you indeed will be away from others, and they will suffer rest, unburdened by the burdens of others. You will not suffer.”

“You are right, dragon. I am weary from relieving my people’s suffering, and I would like to rest and be away from it.”

69

JUSTIN GOLDSMITH

Bloodmask said.

“So do you suffer? Do you suffer beneath the Bloodmask?”

The dragon called out to the emperor, who was ready to take the “I do,” Bloodmask answered. “I suffer from the light of the hot suns. I suffer from the beauty, succulence, and purity of life. I suffer from being tired of purpose, tired of the weight of thousands of souls dragging on my shoulders.’

“Then remove your mask and forget all of that. Beneath your suffering,” The great dragon said.

The emperor removed the Bloodmask and placed it on the ground. He took one more step into the shadow, and its power spilled over him in the form of blackness. None know if his pains were relieved, because he had vanished under the shadow of the

PROSE

dead tree forever.

70

The Role of the Hole: A Meditation BENJAMIN GOODHEART

black hole for thought. It is the circle that separates the bagel from the fascists that lives inside Cousin Donut. I wholly believe this circle distinguishes the aware from the un-informed.

After all, is it not a hole that motivates us on a very primal level?1 Do people not worship holes in any of their iterations?

Well then, I put forth that I too worship an entity containing a hole. I bow down before the god named Bagel. Babble on about worshiping false idols all you want, but there is no idol more worthy than the bagel.

It’s certainly more satisfying than a wafer, am I right Catholics?2 71

Regardless, the hole is the soul of the bagel. It allows you to gaze upon its innards with a powerful subjectivity. Look on one side, you see tantalizing bacon. The other, a weird circle of cheese.

And how! You munch through the sandwich easily, but you pay more attention to one half than their other. Suddenly, you We at Toasted Coffee Regular do not condone fucking your bagel. We do not not condone it. Frankly, we couldn’t give a shit. You do you, man.

2 This is a joke because Catholics have a tendency to lean towards the conservative side of the spectrum. A “double entendre,” if you will.

1

BENJAMIN GOODHEART

have the aforementioned cheese circle going rogue, ruining the weight distribution of your meal. Your response to this incident may vary. You may just eat the cheese solo, which is strange. You may rip the cheese off and continue on, holding your sanity like an adult. You may scream “fuck” continuously as you have a panic

That’s the thing about the hole. It commands your attention.

All holes do. Human holes. Wheat holes. Black holes. Even the word holy has the same phonetic root.

Holy hell a holy hole.

Pay attention to your bagel or you will fall into a grief-ridden hole. The relationship is not parasitic, but symbiotic. Give the hole

PROSE

your whole and the hole will give you its yeasty comfort.

72

You will be one with the hole. You will be the bagel; the bagel, you. Your god is you and you are your own god. That’s what separates the bagel hole from all the other wholes. This hole allows you total transcendental freedom. Be the bagel. Be your own god.

No pasa nada, living where your feet are.

MEGHAN GUILFOYLE

No matter how the night turned out it always started with a bottle of wine and the river. The cheaper it was, the better, craving to come out, while still staying responsible and alert.

Adapting to my new home, soaking up all the sights, smells and sounds of the Andalusian accent. Connecting while conversing in broken languages over sangria and tapas. Serenaded by the colorful synchronization of emotional wails, guitar strings, claps, Spanish winding streets: Sidesplitting laughter always leaving us in on the top of our lungs, one-liter par coring mojitos, and fresh Spanish air mixed with polluted cigarette lungs. Free roses and birthday party crashes, gay bars with ‘80s décor, and dancing our asses off as the night turned to day.

Many late nights walking home watching the sunrise and eating chocolate con churros. By day metro rides to classes, appreciation of my surroundings even more as the history of starvation and oppression during the times of Franco and his civil and sporadic siesta sessions. Alejandro and Zaida singing while cooking paella and tortilla. Sharing their home and lives with us as they showered us with love. “Mi casa es tu casa.” Endless

73

MEGHAN GUILFOYLE

discussions over dinner of whatever came to mind and silly YouTube videos. No matter how the night turned out it always started with a bottle of wine and the river. The cheaper it was, the better, never in a box...always a bottle.

Planes, trains, and automobiles that drove the mantra, “Living where your feet are.� My travels consisting of Portuguese fado, Parisian cities, Italian piazzas, Moroccan spice markets, Hungarian tours, Slovakian mountainsides, Polish perogies, and Jewish history. Passing countless faces while befriending and putting faces to a name. Though there were many exciting travels, returning to our new Spanish home always was a breath of fresh air. Sevilla, the city that stole many hearts. No matter how the night turned out it always started with a bottle of wine and the river. The cheaper it was, the better, never in a box...always a

PROSE

bottle.

74

The Tattoo CHELSEA LOGANO

Look at all the Christmas stuff !! Wow, Christmas. We love Christmas, don’t we? We need to get juice, your favorite! I have grown accustomed to this sing song voice ever since Ben Jr. was born. I have unfortunately exchanged nights at the bar with the guys for Saturday nights at Target getting juice, and on top of the horrible Target experiences, it leads me to spend more time with my wife. I would not say I rushed into marriage and the whole deal, but rather got bombarded into it. As if it was something I had to do rather than something I wanted to do. I would not say I had it all, but I basically had it all before Emma and Ben Jr. came along. Graduated from Brown and landed the huge executive job in Manhattan I had always been told to strive for. Now, I am stuck in the suburbs commuting to the city every day. Walking the streets of Manhattan are exhilarating and painful at the same time, exhilarating because I am in the one place in the world where I belong, and painful because I know it all has to end by 5 p.m.

“Ben!” Emma yells from across the store. You would think she would stick to only yelling at home, but she always seems to continue yelling at a high pitched voice all times of the day. It may even be possible she has been yelling for four years straight.

“I have been looking for you guys for like a half hour! We need to get juice! Did you get juice? Are you even listening to anything that I am saying?” Emma says this all in one breath, it is usually how she speaks all the time. Yes, I say, I got the juice and we picked out Christmas stuff for the house. Emma wrinkles her nose at the sight of the blue and purple velvet stocking Ben and I picked out

75

CHELSEA LOGANO

than the golden retriever I had wanted because of the shedding.

She vacuums 22 hours out of the day anyway, what is one more?

“We can’t get this stocking! It doesn’t match the red and gold ones I ordered out of that expensive catalog last year.” That is another thing about this whole suburban lifestyle, why does everything in the house, including our toothbrushes, have to match? It is called variety; something Emma probably does not know exists.

“Alright she says, I think we have got everything we need.” I so desperately wanted to say, “what about some makeup for those bags under your eyes, and maybe a little mascara?” I think Emma is beautiful, but lately she looks like someone punched her in the

Emma who would not be caught dead out in sweatpants, hair up,

PROSE

and no makeup. She is a completely different person than when

76

and a slinky dress at 10 a.m. Her beautiful, long, curly blonde hair was always parted down the middle, the shorter pieces in the front always delicately hitting her face. Now, it is short and an awkward brown color which is usually kept in a ponytail.

While in line waiting to be checked out, Emma starts to complain again about her sister, Sam. I know more about Sam’s life than I do my own sister’s. This week’s dilemma is what Sam wants for Christmas. Sam is twenty two and worlds apart from her sister. She is ten times more attractive than Emma is, even at the stiletto and slinky dress stage of her life. I do not know if husbands are not supposed to say things like that, but to be honest, I do not

CHELSEA LOGANO

really care. Sam has the same long curly hair Emma used to have, except Sam’s is dark brown. She has bright blue eyes, tanned skin and freckles. Her body is similar to Emma’s before she had Ben Jr, tall and slim, but curvy in all of the right places.

Emma blurts out in line “Sam is asking me for money for Christmas, so she can get another tattoo. My mom and I both think it is ridiculous, just ridiculous. Don’t you think so Ben?” Obviously I have to agree with her, if I do not, I will most likely be sleeping in my Mercedes for the rest of the year, and it is starting to get cold. “Yeah, absolutely ridiculous, I say. What is wrong with your sister? She should be focusing on getting a job.” Emma’s eyes light up at the thought of me saying something that she one hundred percent approves of, and she shouts out, “I know!!” I am almost certain all of Target heard our conversation. She is always talking so loud like she is oblivious to all of her surroundings. All that little head of hers thinks about is when she will be able to order all of the newest arrivals form Pottery Barn, and perfecting the holiday meal she has been brainstorming since May. “Mommy!!”

Ben Jr. says, interrupting my thoughts and in a split second he is lifted out of the carriage and into Emma’s arms. She babies him to no end, trying to satisfy his every need. She is always holding him; it seems weird to see her with her hands free. I would not say I am jealous of their relationship, just maybe a bit guilty for not being able to be there as much as Emma is for him. I pretty much do not exist in Ben’s eyes when she is around.

When we arrive home, it is always the same. She puts Ben to bed and I plop down on the couch and turn on the T.V. Hoping there will be a good movie on so I can look distracted and not

77

CHELSEA LOGANO

wanting to be bothered. With Christmas in about two weeks, our house obviously looks like something out of a magazine.

Everywhere I turn there is some sort of absurd Christmas decoration. Is there really a need for a Christmas tree in every room? I know Emma will want to talk more later about Sam and all of her bad decisions, but I personally do not think that being a wild, eccentric, twenty-two-year-old makes someone a bad person. If she wants to get a tattoo, I do not see why she has to get the approval from Emma and her mom. Did I mention her mom?

Emma’s mom is exactly what Emma will be like in about ten to twenty years. That thought alone freaks me out. Everything about the two of them is their way or the highway. No room for anyone else’s opinions. They object every new idea that the family raises and have this very self-righteous attitude to them.

So, when Christmas day arrives I am very curious as to what

PROSE

Emma has decided to get Sam for a present. Surprisingly, she has

78

not discussed Sam’s past tattoo proposal at all with me, except for that one dreadful Saturday night at Target.

The doorbell rings and I feel a pit in my stomach at the thought of what the day will bring. I open the door to see Sam, smiling, screaming, “Ben! I haven’t seen you in forever, how are you?” It has been a while since I have seen a woman smile a genuine smile. She is wearing black pants and leather boots that go up to her knees. Her hair is pulled tightly back and allowing her tanned face to be completely exposed, something Emma would never have done. She is wearing a long white shirt that has a huge skinny black cross on it, which identically matches her cross tattoo on her wrist. I always treasure the holidays that are

CHELSEA LOGANO

spent with Sam, because she has so much more life and excitement to her than Emma does. She is actually fun to talk to. She does not worry about petty things like matching tablecloths. She is free and values other people’s opinions and ideas. We are interrupted from our conversation by Emma coming down the stairs wearing the same tired face she has embodied, but instead of the usual sweatpants and sweatshirt attire, today she is wearing a bulky Christmas sweater to cover her stomach. She has also chosen jeans and snowman slippers. “Hey Sam,” she says in a monotonous voice, and then quickly goes right back into the kitchen, her favorite room of the house. While we wait for dinner and the rest of the family to arrive, Sam tells me about her recent move to New York City, and I inform her of all of my favorite places that I can no longer attend.

After dinner, it is present time, and I have this sort of nervous feeling. I am hoping Emma does not cause a scene, which I know will prompt Sam to leave. She is the only excitement I have had in my life for the past two months. Emma hands Sam a lonely card, and I think for a second that she must have given Sam the money after all. I watch Sam’s smile fade into a look of disgust and her rushes out the nearest door. Emma and her mother are smirking to each other and that is when I start to get extremely heated. I sitting on the curb smoking a cigarette. I immediately ask her what was in the card but she can only keep shaking her head and inhaling her cigarette. She looks up at me with her blue eyes which create a huge contrast to the white snow around us. “Want one?”

79

CHELSEA LOGANO

she says. I take one even though I know I should not since I gave up smoking right around the time I met Emma. She eventually tattoo place in the city. Inside the card Emma wrote, “No one will ever hire you with a tattoo on your wrist.” The only thing I can do is laugh at the way Emma thinks. It is none of her business what Sam does with her life, and she should accept her family for what it is. I am starting to see exactly what type of person she is.

Sam gets up from the curb and announces that she is leaving, and will not be talking to Emma for a long time. Sam is not even out of the driveway yet when I decide to hop into my Mercedes and drive to the train station. A lot of thoughts are racing through my mind as I’m driving. I am guilty about leaving abruptly like this on Emma and I know I will miss Ben, but at the same time

PROSE

Manhattan.

80

Cutter VALERIE MASSA

There are thousands of ways to hurt, to feel, to die. But the knife, the razor; oh man, that sharp blade. Sends shivers down my spine. You can carve, and I do, however deep you want. Sometimes it’s only a little; just enough to take the edge off.

Then, though, you might go so deep, so deep that you can’t even feel anymore. Can’t feel yourself. Lost in your own skin; lost for layer of tears and realize there’s blood streaming down your arm. wounded animal. You feel dizzy, exhilarated, near the edge. You step close, ready to jump off, but you take a step back so you can do it again.

My skin screams at me through the angry, red gash that makes up its mouth. Band-Aids are forever my savior; covering my scars to hear them. Begging, pleading. They say things to me; Make me eyes and ears so I can see right through you, hear your every thought. Make me a nose so I can smell your fear; that metallic red. I tell them to get out, to go. But they have stayed with me from the beginning. Running up my arms, they are like sleeves, protecting me from myself. How much deeper will I plunge next time? I make more cracks in myself to fall through. Penetrating into the depths of my soul, my veins, my blood. I spill my secrets, rid myself of their evils. I wipe away the sin, the regret, the tears, until I am pure, free, nothing. I am nothing, Nothing but an ant

81

VALERIE MASSA

on. Will I make it today? Life is unpredictable. I know nothing.

I fear nothing because I’ve been through it all. I have faced the world and it has shut me down, turned me out. Yet I cannot face

PROSE

myself, what I’ve done, who I am. Who am I? I am a cutter.

82

Love FARAH SALAM

I realized that I had fallen in love when my pen wrote words heavy with love. Each word was sodden with emotion, dripping with fear and uncertainty. Each letter intertwined with another, forming horizontal cascades along paper.

I hated you at that moment, because you were the cause.

My writing was no longer apathetic, which I believed to be deep.

Instead, my pieces were sappy, gushing with unwanted emotion and a lack of control. Every letter beat in tune with my heart, erratic, rushed, and crazy.

Nothing made sense. From that moment on, my words were incoherent, simply stating emotions without context. These stupid, ugly words no longer held the emotion I wished it could, because these feelings were more intense than what I could muster.

I longed to talk to you, because that’s where my words made sense, absorbed by you, no longer caressed carelessly by paper.

Every day I waited for those moments, because I could see you and no longer have to resort to words to feel your beauty.

The day you left, the words became heavier, as if on purpose.

I began to whittle down the words, unable to carry their weight.

It was because of you I stopped writing, and started to love.

I didn’t know which was worse.

83

Water FARAH SALAM

and crisp. The geometric and rust-colored tiles appeared cleaner,

would have been traditional, in another country of another world.

-

There were children laughing, playing, throwing candies into the bouquets meant for the guests. Scarcely covered with her lace veil, the bride was adorned with bright crimson clothing and semiprecious manmade jewels. Her husband-to-be was a dashing

PROSE

man wearing silks of an emperor, and he grinned widely. Upon

84

seeing his grin, the bride smiled, attempting to be inconspicuous, but failed.

The wedding guests twittered around, astonished that the groom’s family lived in such a place. They blessed the groom and his family and the bride and her family. Mothers with younger groom, hoping that he would consider marrying into their families. Perhaps he would marry all of the young daughters. After all, there was enough room in the mansion‌ The ceremony continued, and pale faced children ran sweets from the family kitchen. The more expensive chocolates

FARAH SALAM

and fruits were locked away on a lower level, but the children did not care.

The adults, like their children, picked up small trinkets and nivorous for trinkets and baubles. No one noticed, because no one cared.

Eventually, they left, leaving nothing but ochre petals on the

85

Doctors Log, Stardate: 31482PD BRIEN SLATE

I think I left the water running again. I tend to do that from time to time, these bouts of forgetfulness are becoming more and more regular. It’s not Alzheimer’s, I know that for sure. But who am I trying to deceive; I know exactly what the problem is. Sleep deprivation. Insomnia. Whatever, call it what you want. I splash leave the water running, I realized, no I had turned it on when standing here, but he doesn’t answer. He never answers. Good god, is that me? I’ve really let myself go, haven’t I? I didn’t realize

PROSE

I could actually grow a beard like this, I’m almost impressed, but

86

these bags under my eyes, don’t look healthy at all. Is pallid a word?

I think I read it somewhere but honestly, who can remember these days, am I right? I laugh at my own joke; I am not pleased with what I hear. God, my laugh sounds as hollow as I feel and how that me sane of late. Isn’t that a hilarious concept though? Sanity…

The word feels dirty in my mouth, like some taboo slur that I have no right making my tongue create. I notice I’m grinning and what I see scares me, makes me feel sick. Somewhere in my mouth, the roots of a tooth are rotting and liquefying, oozing blackened blood. I wasn’t aware that sleep deprivation could cause this sort of physical trauma. How long has the water been running? Better

BRIEN SLATE

question, how much more water is there? I splash water on my face and straighten up, consciously making an effort to turn the

They say that if you question your own sanity, you’re not insane. That’s a thing, right? Maybe I should record my thoughts in hopes that I’ll start remembering. Maybe. You’d think someone in my profession would have something I could use to record…

I patrol the cafeteria like I expect it to be different than last time. I don’t like it in here, never did. After Kendrick’s body was found though, that’s what really set off the alarms. I didn’t know someone could have the willpower to do that to themselves. Isn’t there some sort of mental mechanism that stops that kind of thing from happening? Surely some part deep in the brain exists that shouts “No, stop, leave your eyeballs in your head, this is a I assure you he wasn’t the last. Those of us that remained tried our best to clean up the mess, but as I stand here staring at the small round table in the back left corner, it’s as if it’s the moment it happened. That terrible moment with his eye and his throat…

Out of all the things I’ve grown to forget, I prayed this would be one of the memories to go. It hasn’t yet. I wish I could tear my eyes away, but that’d be just a little too ironic, no?

Suicide? Nope. Hasn’t crossed my mind once. I mean, if it had, why not just go to sleep, right? I think that’s when it started for the others. I don’t know if I can tell you how they

87

BRIEN SLATE

died, though. Unlike Kendrick, I wasn’t there when it happened, lucky for me. One by one, as if being picked off by some invisible shooter, people began to die. Shit, I think a shooter would’ve probably been preferred. Would’ve been less painful and a sure lot quicker. We lost primary power three days ago and I can’t imagine the reserves will last for much longer. I tell myself the noises I’ve started hearing are due to the ship’s age, but most if not all of me knows that’s not quite true, is it? Ships don’t skitter about on legs.

I can’t look out the window anymore, that’s when I start to lose track of things. Blackness, all-encompassing blackness, I don’t know what I’d do if I ever saw a star again. We’ve been lost in deep space for what feels like forever. In a funny way, I guess I’m kind of like this ship, if you think about it. Dead inside, running low on power, drifting aimlessly through space…

PROSE

My body has become reliant on caffeine. I blow on my

88

steaming coffee to cool it, and then take a sip. I know I should be conserving the water but… priorities. Can’t sleep won’t sleep.

Why am I drinking cold coffee? And why are the lights brighter?

They’re starting to hurt my eyes.

Even now, as I force my body to destroy itself as I withhold sleep, I ask why. The voice echoes hauntingly down the corridors, searching out someone to hear it and respond, but they’re all dead, aren’t they? Sometimes I do remember when I concentrate really, really hard. Sometimes I can remember what they sounded like, Allana’s laugh, the way Burt’s drawl added extra syllables to his words… I don’t remember the others.

I begin to question if my mind isn’t playing tricks on me.

BRIEN SLATE

Days are now just a notion, time has started blending together.

There are times when I remember why I’m on this ship, how things started falling apart. There are times when I remember my own name, but even those have grown more infrequent. I can’t keep forgetting to turn the water off ! Stupid!

There are times when I let myself just sit and stare, taking myself out of the equation. I start by trying to collect my thoughts, but that’s more of a joke, something to keep me in light spirits. I try to remember if I have a family. Had. Whatever. I’m malnourished, why am I so hungry? I’m not that far gone, I remember to eat, I remember to drink, I remember to stay alive. Don’t I? Maybe this is all my doing, and I don’t know it?

I realized I had been staring at the dead communicator hub, as if expecting a light to turn on or something. I try not think about this, how as each hour passes, I could be drifting farther and farther from salvation.

I now know that I am for certain not insane, I assure you.

Why? Because I felt it move. I was walking the aft deck when I must’ve stared off again. I’m unsure how long I was away for, but what brought me back was the feeling of it moving, not too different from a slither. I remember feeling scared. I’m oddly calm now, though. I now have a why. I wonder if it can hear me talk. I laugh I haven’t felt in some time erupts from my disgusting mouth.

Grotesque-sounding. I was a little taken aback when I lost hearing in my left ear.

There’s a scalpel in my hand, and I don’t know how. I’m in

89

BRIEN SLATE

me. I looked around, too. I looked for some sort of clue as to which of my dead friends (they were my friends, right?) worked here. I stare at the paper on the desk but the letters and words are a jumble, like a foreign language. This thing in my head, this is what’s doing it. This is what’s trying to make me sleep. It won’t win! I pocket the scalpel, hoping it doesn’t notice.

I’m throwing up, or trying to. And I thought my laugh sounded terrifying! The horrible sound of my insides trying to climb up and out my throat reverberates in the bowl, sickening my working ear. I stare down at what I’ve expelled. Just a few teeth. natural progression of things. I think it’s starting to let me feel fear again. look like? I should’ve tried to mark time, stupid! I don’t know when

PROSE

I started recording these thoughts, how long has it been? I didn’t

90

realize I was shaking as much as I am, or is the mirror shaking?

Wait, that wouldn’t make any sense, what am I thinking. What am I thinking, with this scalpel in hand? I throw it into the sink basin and stare at the wild man in the mirror. My vision does it again,

my god what am I seeing?!

I won’t put the scalpel down. I refuse to. It can’t make me, I won’t let it. I’m pacing. Is it because I’m nervous, or is this thing trying to wear me down? I’ve been trying to piece things together but memories have started overlapping. All I can remember is this ship. Have I always been here? No! I can’t get distracted! I need to

BRIEN SLATE

to move, my grip a vice on the blade. It hurts to move my arm, like my shoulder is a gear grinding in the wrong direction, like I’m forcing a break. I don’t know when I started screaming, but it got much louder when I buried the tip of the blade into my forehead and began to carve. The pain blinds me, and my nose has started if… I remove the blade with a sickeningly slick slurp, and run, forward, as fast as I can. I lower my head and hope. I hear my skull crack against the door to the mess hall just before I black out.

Is this what sleep feels like?

I jolt awake, slurring a scream as reality tries to realign itself.

I don’t know how long I was out. I look at the massive smear of blood. My blood. Wait! Something feels different! It feels…clear.

Have I knocked the thing unconscious?! I remember stumbling into the mess hall, my hand trying to stop the blood leaking from my forehead, stupid! What was I thinking? I paid no notice to the sizable gash in my dented skull leaking down the side of my person.

I stumble, I think from blood loss, and have to catch myself on a table. I collapse in exhaustion, slumping to the ground, leaning against the table; my head weighs more than my neck can bear.

But I do lift it, somehow. My eyes fall over the spot. The spot.

Kendrick’s spot. Synapses connect, pieces fall together, dots align.

I understood, I understood it all. He did what he had to. He did the only thing he could think of to get that goddamn thing out of his head. I don’t hesitate, I can’t hesitate. suddenly sharp. My vision reeled, like a newborn staring at a solar

91

BRIEN SLATE

eclipse, blinding light seared into permanent darkness. Then I feel the pop of my left eye, and my face and hands quickly coat with hot blood. I start screaming, but not out of pain. I start screaming because I can’t stop. My right eye pops next, like a grape. It’s in this moment I realize everything. I never stood a chance. I was never in control. As my right hand digs at my face, my left hand win, and I won’t either. I try to dig the blade into my neck, my arm refuses. My scream slowly ceases to be mine and starts to belong to the something else, but my smile doesn’t, no that’s all me. As

PROSE

hideous as it is, it’s a smile of victory.

92

Adjacent DANIELLE SUSI

Our neighbors to the right both died last month. (To the right if you’re sitting on our front steps). There’s an empty driveway, now, where my brother and I used to ride our bikes up into when we were kids. The neighbors to the left are gone too, though only one of them has died.

The neighbors to the left used to be my favorite, because they were quiet. The husband, Stanley, drew pictures of Disney characters, like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and would show me and my brother over the chain-link fence. We used to have to step up on the splintering wooden bench next to the fence to reach his height.

We grew up on a postage stamp lawn in a house my mother called “just the right size” for the four of us. There were few deadend streets in our city, and we lived on one of them. My parents worked hard in jobs they hated, and I think my brother and I both knew.

Our neighbors to the right were quiet too, but only when I wasn’t riding my bike into their driveway with the other kids that lived on the street, or hopping the fence to their yard to rescue a alright if we fell and skinned our knees. You could see them look out their windows, though. We knew it wasn’t just the shadows playing games with us either, because you could see the curtains push to the side and a pale face was blurred through the glass panes.

My mother told me in an email that Mr. and Mrs. Wilson

93

DANIELLE SUSI

out that she meant Jean and Vinnie. We had never called our neighbors by their last names, and I didn’t even know it was Wilson until after the fact.

Vinnie was of very poor health, and had always been, even when I was growing up. My mom didn’t tell me exactly how he died, because I don’t think anyone on our street was really sure.

She did tell me that Jean died only a few days after he did.

There were three people that lived on our street with the same birthday: August 23rd. My brother was one of them, along of the street, and Bobby McCarthy, who lived in the last house that was built on our street. I remember that they cleared out a bunch of trees to build the McCarthys’ house. My brother and I were upset because we used to play in that tiny patch of forest.

PROSE

Though, it did seem a lot bigger when we were younger.

94

I don’t know if anyone on our street was particularly sad that Jean and Vinnie had died. I don’t think anyone was really close with them, or even liked them to be honest. They were kind of mean. And crotchety. That’s the word people use to describe people in their old age once they’ve lost their sense of humor. Jean and Vinnie lost their humor a long time ago.

Jean was a small woman, with curly, white hair, cut short. I remember she went blind when I was about fourteen years old.

Maybe earlier than that. She wore those slacks with the elastic waistband like so many older women do. She usually wore a thin, variations of pale pastels like robin’s egg blue or were horribly

DANIELLE SUSI

boring and beige.

I never knew much of Vinnie, except that he used to mow their lawn early on Saturday mornings when I was still sleeping.

All of the houses in my neighborhood were close together because that’s what happened when you lived in a city. Every year in the early summer, usually around the middle of May, Jean and Vinnie would set up a small screened-in room in their backyard. Our lawns were all so small that the tiny room took up most of the grassy area behind their house.

They had a tiny garden, which occupied the rest of the space in their yard, besides their tin shed. During the wind storms and snow storms, I could hear bits of branches fall from trees and hit the tin roof of their shed late at night when I was trying to fall asleep.

Sometimes, their son Rick would come over to their house with his family. They would bring their dog; a weimaraner that barked incessantly. After Jean and Vinnie died, their son and his wife, Sue, came to clean out some things from the house. I heard their dark blue pick-up truck roll into the driveway that my brother and I used to ride our bikes up into. In the bed of the truck were three two-by-four planks and a bag of dog food. I saw Rick load on old bird bath from the backyard into the bed of the truck, too.

At the end of the street I grew up on, there are tangles of thorn bushes and dead trees. And beyond those, there are the brick walls of the projects. No one ever talked about the bad parts of town, even when one was breathing down the neck of your property line.

I only ever knew one boy who lived in the projects, though

95

DANIELLE SUSI

I never knew his name. We used to stand in silence on the corner at the intersection of Shaw and Hayward and wait for the bus when we were in middle school. He didn’t know Jean and Vinnie and I doubt he knew anyone on my street but me; though he never really knew me either I suppose.

After Jean and Vinnie died, I heard my dad talking to Rick and Sue over the fence the day they took the bird bath. They asked my dad if he wouldn’t mind parking his car in Jean and Vinnie’s driveway to make it look like the house was occupied.

They didn’t want people to break in, they said.

I borrowed my father’s car that night and when I came home I parked it behind the green dumpster in Jean and Vinnie’s driveway at midnight. It was eerie and forbidden. I had spent an entire childhood avoiding this tiny patch of asphalt, and now I was asked to roll up toward their house.

PROSE

As I opened the door and walked away from the car, I

96

looked back at their house to make sure they weren’t peering out of the window with pale faces, watching me click my boots across their driveway. Instead of walking to my own door, I padded through the thick, over-grown grass in front of Jean and Vinnie’s house and sat on their damp front steps.

When I looked out and the air was dark, a harsh glow of buildings and lit up the lower half of the street near the McCarthy house. Red, blinking airplane warning lights signaled from the Boston skyline from the tops of buildings. And the ceiling of the Earth was never really, truly black in a city.

MONTAGE PRESENTS Literary Death Match In November of 2012, Montage produced an episode of the international reading series competition, Literary Death Match.

In this competition, four Quinnipiac students were pitted against each other to see who would come out on top. After two intense Literary Death Match Champion.

Benjamin Goodheart’s winning piece is in the pages that follow.

99

Champion Benjamin Goodheart accepts his medal.

100

Judges, from left to right: Edith Zimmerman, Colin Kuusisto, and Timothy Dansdill.

PHOTO CREDIT: Samantha Dudley / The Quad News

Upon Viewing RT 17 Out of the Window of My Drug Dealer’s 1994 Hundyai Sonata BENJAMIN GOODHEART

In conjunction with the majority of my graduating class, I found myself unemployed out of graduation and for a few months thereafter. Unable to pay the rent for a swagger-driven studio loft, I made the regrettable but inevitable decision to move back in with my parents in Mahwah.

looking through Craigslist, but nothing I found felt satisfactory.

Come nightfall though, I had one thought on my mind: where the

the time. These were different days though. Most of my classmates with whom I’d shared a blunt had either moved away to become want to buy from high schoolers again; I respected myself a bit too much for that. I asked everyone I could think of, and eventually pondered if this was a coincidence or a chosen pseudonym that

got in his car and introduced myself.

101

BENJAMIN GOODHEART

“What can I get for you today?” he asked.

“Just a dub.”

“Really man?”

I never knew a dealer to second guess their customer.

“Yeah, just a dub.”

“Alright, dude, let me know how YouPorn and those Funyuns treat you.”

I muttered fake gratitude and went on my way.

MONTAGE PRESENTS

About a quarter into my bowl-pack later that night and dick half-in-hand, I wondered again if third-party-candidate-turnedbag-slinger was always this condescending when dealing with

102

A few days later, I found myself in his car in the parking lot of a Shop Rite.

“What’ll it be today?”

“A dub…and do you have some coke?”

His stare penetrated my mind.

“What, we go to Wesleyan now?” he barked.

“Easy, Gary, I was just wonderi-” “YEAH I GOT IT. 80 bucks” I wondered how far this tic went. Surely, you didn’t get ahead in the game by being a dick to your customers. Gary wasn’t even a large intimidating guy. He was a scrawny white kid with a penchant for riling people up.

A few days later, I found myself in his car outside of a Bank of America.

“You want more coke, you yipped-out fuck?”

BENJAMIN GOODHEART

We were off to a great start.

“I’m good on the coke today” “A little too intense, I feel ya. How about a dip of molly?”

“How’s that?”

“What you’ve never been to a rave before?”

“Can’t say I have.”

He shook his head. “Amateur.”

“Is it good?”

“Just fucking take it, man.”

Several days and a bizarre solo dance party in my basement later, I once again found myself in Gary’s car.

“Can I get a dub and some Acid?”

“So you can have a pseudo-intellectual epiphany and tell all your friends about it like they give a shit?”

“Nail meet head.”

“What are you saying to me?”

“That’s exactly why, Gary.”

Having had enough of my social experiment, the next time I sat in Gary’s car, I only had one question to ask him.

103

“What drugs do you take Gary?”

“I get wet.”

“Wet?” I asked, confusing his answer with the seminal Andrew W.K. record.

“Like PCP, bitch,” he yelled as he launched for jugular.

A few days later, I awoke in a hospital lacking half a neck.

According to the cops who gunned him down, no trace of narcotics were found in Gary’s system. As it turns out, the guy was a congressional would-be who resorted to selling drugs after,

BENJAMIN GOODHEART

he claimed, his identity was stolen and reappropriated by a better looking man with decent foreign policy. I sighed through my neck hole, silently wishing I would have been surprised.

MONTAGE PRESENTS

from Gary Johnson: always buy drugs from high schoolers.

104

CONTRIBUTER BIOS KELSEY BROWN is a junior Psychology and English doubleat the Undergraduate Conference in Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She is involved in Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology, as well as Sigma Tau Delta, the English International Honor Society.

GABY CATALANO is a senior English major with a minor in Art History. She is the co-editor of Montage and is a captain

places such as Nicaragua and Peru.

ERICA CELSO is a senior majoring in Accounting with a minor

issues and emotions that people prefer to ignore, because she feels ignorance is not bliss ‌ it is cowardice.

ANTHONY DIMARTINO is a freshman English major who enjoys writing unique and captivating stories more than anything else. He is a staff writer for The Quad News and also hosts a radio 106

as well. He received an honorable mention in the Donald Hall Poetry Prize.

NATHALIE DONALDSON is a junior Broadcast Journalism major. She is a member of Alpha Chi Omega fraternity and dreams of being on the Today show. She loves spending time with friends and family whenever she can.

THOMAS FRISINA is a senior majoring in Film, Video, and Interactive Media. He is from Long Island, New York and this is performs hip-hop music.

JUSTIN GOLDSMITH is a junior majoring in English with a concentration in Creative Writing and minoring in Public Relations. He has read as a feature for the Montage Writer's Series in spring of 2013 and is the 2013 Donald Hall Poetry Prize winner.

BENJAMIN GOODHEART exists in this realm as a senior Film, Video, and Interactive media student with a minor in Music. Last November he won the Montage's Literary Death Match and was featured in their writer's series as well. He is the General Manager of

MEGHAN GUILFOYLE international studies. She dreams of traveling the world making documentaries that tell others stories.

KERRI HAERINCK is a junior Psychology major in the Masters of Arts in Teaching program. This year, her poems have been contest. In her free time, she enjoys reading and listening to Michael BublÊ’s Christmas album.

MARISSA HIMBELE is a junior majoring in Media Studies with a minor in English. From a young age, Marissa has been passionate about writing and within the last couple of years has become more DEVAN KINGSTON is a freshman Health Science major and Psychology minor. She is a photographer for the Summit Yearbook CAMILLE LAVACHE is a junior majoring in Legal Studies and with a minor in English. She is a member of Dance Fusion and enjoys writing very much and strives toward perfection with each and every piece that is produced.

107

CHELSEA LOGANO is a junior majoring in Public Relations with a minor in English. She is a campus correspondent and LAUREN MANNA is a freshman majoring in English. She has Dear Mr. Potter: Letters of Love, Loss, and Magic recipient of the 2011 English Book Award and is currently working VALERIE MASSA is a senior English major, and is a member of the National English Honor Society. She will be attending graduate school in the fall for her master's degree in secondary education.

TYLER MELANSON is a freshman Criminal Justice major from Boston, Massachusetts. Takes action/auto/landscape photos; Instagram: t_melanson LINDSAY NOLAN is a senior Psychology major in the human services concentration, with a minor in anthropology. She is a takes athletics photos for The Quad News.

108

TERESA PELLICANO is a junior English major with a Creative Writing concentration, and a French and Screenwriting double Commuter Club for three years. In 2012, Teresa was featured at the Montage Writer's Series, and is currently working on turning her travel blog into a novel.

FARAH SALAM is a junior majoring in Psychology and Political Science, though she spends most of her time drawing in her Often, she has the inability to follow deadlines, which is reasonable, since she was late for her own birth.

BRIEN SLATE is a Film, Video, and Interactive Media major from Granby, Massachusetts who focuses on writing and directing.

He once took a Creative Writing class.

ERIN SPERLING is a senior Mathematics major and Psychology minor. She is in the Masters of Arts in Teaching program for Big Event Committee for the past three years.

DANIELLE SUSI is a senior majoring in Political Science and Creative Writing. She is the co-editor of Montage and Senior Managing Editor of The Quad News. She has been a featured Conference in 2012 and 2013, and is also the recipient of a writer’s grant and residency from the Vermont Studio Center. She placed second in the Donald Hall Poetry Prize.

KATIE THOMPSON is a senior Mathematics major in the Master of Arts in Teaching program for secondary education.

She is a Resident Assistant on the York Hill campus as well as a member of the Honors Leadership Board.

JOE VIRGILLITO is a junior Print Journalism major with a minor in History. He is from Leonia, New Jersey and is the Sports Editor of The Quad News.

109

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, we offer our most sincere and heartfelt thanks to Professor Ken Cormier, who is not only the Montage faculty advisor, but a pioneer for creativity and an inspiration to us both. Ken was the force driving us to become editors and to put together a magazine with a unique aesthetic. We admire him in every conceivable way.

Michele Snow is a design goddess and is perhaps the only reason this book actually looks as amazing as it does. Michele helped us take our vision for this year’s Montage and make it a envisioned aesthetic for literary quality and carry it throughout an entire design plan.

Thank you to the amazing Lila Carney, Assistant Director ease. She is the powerful, intelligent woman behind Student Media’s success on this campus.

Of course, Montage would be nothing without the support 111

English department has also proven invaluable.

Additional thanks to Professor Robert Smart, Professor Jason Koo, our academic advisors Professor Sean Duffy and Professor Valerie Smith, Vinny Morrotti at TYCO printing, Adrian Todd Zuniga of Literary Death Match, LDM judges: Professor Timothy Dansdill, Colin Kuusisto, and Edith Zimmerman; and

literary journal, Rebel 54 arts and literary magazine,

and Folio all served as design inspiration.

Finally, our applause goes to those who are brave enough to write and produce art. The world would not be the beautiful, messy place it is without you. To those who submitted to Montage, we owe you.

112

Gaby and Danielle thank Ken all the way from Nicaragua.

DANIELLE’S INSPIRATIONS

Ernest Hemingway Roxane Gay Nicaragua journalism Latin American art social movements Chicago Dublin pen and ink drawings & my staff at The Quad News

GABY’S INSPIRATIONS

William Shakespeare Stephen King the English language Peruvian sunsets loud music & the kindness of strangers

113

PRODUCTION

PRINTER

TYCO Printing

EDITION

750 books

STOCK

Cover: 80lb. cardstock Text: 70lb. text stock

TYPOGRAPHY Baskerville Gotham

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

So what are you going to do now?