Ramapo College's Trillium Publication 2016 by Ramapo College

Trillium 2016-2017

Trillium has been a celebration of Ramapo Collegeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s writers and artists since its establishment in 1971. The magazine, which is staffed by students, proudly features the work of our peers and offers them the opportunity to have their compositions published. The poetry, prose, and visual art highlighted in the magazine are the result of the most compelling works selected from hundreds of submissions. We strive to produce a cohesive magazine while still presenting an array of voices and stylistic sensibilities. This edition of Trillium is not only a continuation of the 45 years of work prior but another advancement in sophisticated style, content and student representation. The magazine is published every spring and is available across campus, free of charge. Trillium can also be viewed online: www.ramapo.edu/trillium/

Ramapo College Established in 1969, Ramapo College offers bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degrees in the arts, business, humanities, social sciences and the sciences, as well as in professional studies, which include nursing and social work. In addition, Ramapo College offers courses leading to teacher certification at the elementary and secondary levels. The College also offers six graduate programs as well as articulated programs with Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New York Chiropractic College, New York University College of Dentistry, SUNY State College of Optometry and New York College of Podiatric Medicine. www.ramapo.edu litr@ramapo.edu

Poetry

Lucky Charms Rebecca Galarza

the Cat 80 Slag Brett Polak

Head 17 Dandelion Samantha Sproviero

82 Laika Kenny Moncayo

Garden 19 Desert Misha Choudry

Old Spoon 83 An Brett Polak

Assholes 20 Uncultured Erik Abdallah

Birthday 86 Happy Rebecca Galarza

Worth 30 Midwest Rebecca Freudenberg

32 Dream Kristen Shelley 34 Parenting Ann Lau Days 35 Two Bryan Potts Soldier 51 Wooden Hayley Bruning at Heart 53 Beast Erica Coslop Mouth 56 Crow Kristen Shelley

Bedroom 61 Her Brendan Payraudeau

Prose

Virtuoso

Bryan Potts

with Jimmy 22 Weeknights Ryan Johnson Butterflies 37 Dead Hayley van Hoek Batmen 59 The Corbin Hirschhorn

63 Pineys Corbin Hirschhorn

Art on Water Cover Bridge Chris Catiis

The Gateway Renee Renna

16 Equilibrium Sarah McGraw 18 17 Gina DeNoia 21 Untitled Sean Wissel Sides 31 Contrasting Angelica Pasquali Swan 33 Origami Chris Catiis

36 Boat Christian Aroca 50 Untitled Paul Ianelli 55 Chameleon Christian Aroca 58 Candles Christine Zielinski 62 Stifled Carly Viemann

79 Untitled Erin Rush 81 Stranded Christine Zielinski 85 21 Gina DeNoia

Lucky Charms Rebecca Galarza I want something so loud and desperate, it bleeds from my ears onto your mom’s kitchen table. I want a poem that spits in my face, and when I wipe it away stays in my hair, and I don’t notice until you kiss me and say, Babe, your hair is wet. I want to be nineteen again, taking off our clothes at center field then screaming, running into the woods, away from old men chasing us with flashlights. To go back, lie naked in the leaves beside myself and whisper, She will try again in two years and you won’t want it anymore. To feel like a sex symbol and your worst ghost. To be a sex symbol and your only synonym for ghost. I want more Xanax. I want a job interview I can’t remember. I want that old belt hugging my waist before it was torn off during a fuck. I want reincarnation in the parking lot, sitting in the driver’s seat eating Lucky Charms, sucking on sugar rainbows until I decide it’s time to go home.

Virtuoso Bryan Potts Greying, weathered shutters flap in the sea wind, battering against the flaking green paint of the house like a writer against an empty page as Lyndis got out of the car and, for the first time in a long while, smiled. It was just as she remembered it: small, cozy, and set on the cliff against the calm sea and the wildly blue sky so perfectly it was almost as if the house was a natural part of the scene. She breathed deeply of the salt air and sighed; it had been an eternity since she felt as at home as she did now. Slowly, she unpacked her belongings from the rented moving truck, taking the time to make sure that each item had a place in the house before either bringing it in or directing the two movers she hired to do so for her. Occasionally, she found herself gazing around a room, wondering where a dresser or table would look best, when a cadence of shutter flapping or a slight creaking would draw her attention to the perfect nook or cranny for the item on her mind. The first few times this happened, Lyndis thought nothing of it, but after the fourth time, when a creaking in the floorboards led her to a great placement for her desk, her curiosity was piqued. The sixth time it happened, when a slight buzzing from a radiator guided her to the perfect spot to place the framed proofs from her first published composition, she stopped and racked her brains for any spirit that would inhabit a house and be as helpful as her house was being to her right now, but came up blank. She shrugged and chalked that and the other occurrences up to coincidence, but still muttered a â&#x20AC;&#x153;thank youâ&#x20AC;? as she placed the frame on the wall. She had few enough possessions that, despite her thoughtful placements and thorough unpacking, everything was moved in a scant four or five hours after she arrived. It was early evening by this point, so she

set a pot of macaroni on the stove, thinking about her father as she did so and how amazed he would have been at the turn of events that brought her back here after so many years of estrangement. Lightning split the air in her memory: her fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thin arms wrapped around her small, eight-year-old frame, stroking her black hair until another flash of light played John the Baptist to a thundering Jesus, causing them both to jump up in terror as the house shook in resonance with the wind. Tears ran down her face, soaking both their shirts through as they waited in terror for the cracking of wood that would be their only warning before the house shattered into a million pieces and sunk into the sea. Gust after gust, sheet of rain after sheet of rain battered the house, but the house stood firm against it all, shielding them from all the storm could bring to bear. As it became clear that the house would hold against the onslaught, their thoughts turned to who should have been in the house with them, to the wife and mother who may even now be trying to beat her way through the storm, who wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t disappear from the face of the Earth, end up swept into the sea or buried in a wave of mud orâ&#x20AC;Ś The bubbling of boiling water broke Lyndis out from her thoughts. After wiping a few tears from her eyes, she stirred in the cheese packet included with the box of macaroni, and then set about putting a pot of tea on the burner. With any luck, her tea would be done just as she finished the macaroni, allowing her to enjoy a nice drink as she went on her post meal walk. As she ate, her thoughts turned towards those mysterious creaks and rattles that had guided her during the move in. Her dad had taught her about all the household spirits, even the uncommon ones that rarely intruded upon the realm of the living. Her father had studied spirits and ghosts extensively during his college days, though he always claimed it was less fueled by a belief in the supernatural than an interest in the strange and often times hilarious stories that accompanied their documentation. Still, he had decided to pass down all his accumulated knowledge to her, saying that someday it could be of use. None of the spirits she could think of fit with this behavior; however, usually, household spirits were pranksters or guardians, not interior

decorators. Could these just be coincidences, or is there a spirit, one that she had never heard of, in the house? The whistling of her tea kettle, a bit sooner than she expected, shook her from that train of thought. She turned off the stove top, quickly washed her dishes, and then poured herself a cup of chamomile tea. She then grabbed her favorite sweatshirt, a faded red hoodie that at one point held legible lettering, and pulled it on, taking care to remove her ponytail from the neckhole. She picked up her still steaming cup of tea and headed out into the evening. As she walked out the door, a gust of wind blew through the gutters, creating a sound similar to a relieved sigh. A gentle mist had risen up from the sea in her absence, filling the air with blurred auras of yellow and white as the lights from town were filtered through the thin fog. Lyndis walked to her car and retrieved a small battery powered lantern from her passenger seat. She then made her way up to the edge of the cliff and carefully began searching until she found it, jutting out of the mist like a turtleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shell in a shallow pond. Her favorite childhood sitting spot, where she had spent many a night watching the waves as her father read to her from his ongoing translation of In Search of Lost Time, was just as she remembered it: cold, a bit lumpy, but still somehow more comfortable than many of the wooden chairs and benches that her butt had graced in concert halls and venues from New York City to Tokyo and almost everywhere in between. She pulled a notebook out of her pocket, turned on the lamp, and started humming out a tune that she hoped would form the basis of the melody for a new composition. A couple of hours later, the light mist had turned to a medium fog, and Lyndis was stuck trying to figure out how to piece her scattered melodic ideas together. She knew the work was lacking something, that some core element that would define the work and pull it together was gone and, try as she might, she could not find it. She had tried everything she knew, from arpeggiated triplet runs to unusual chord progressions

to just straight quarter notes, all of which have failed. Lyndis kicked a rock into the sea in frustration, picked up her stuff and headed back into the house for the evening. The flickering porch light looked more soothing and welcoming than she remembered, and by the time she reached the kitchen to wash her cup, most of her frustration had faded. Even when she was a small child, she had been able to tell that she was different from those around her. Where the other children had been able to read each other and interact and have it be fine, Lyndis never quite meshed with her peer, the dynamics of her emotions never really meshing with what they expected from her. Sometimes, she underreacted, like when Thomas had scrawled “bug eater” on her least favorite notebook in first grade. The proper thing to have done, she gathered later, was to have cried her eyes out at the horridness of the slander, but she simply shrugged and went on with her day. Other times, she overreacted, like when Thomas’s friend Elissa accidentally got a bit of mustard on the notebook that held her first attempts at musical composition in fourth grade. Lyndis had spent the rest of the lunch period in After washing the cup, Lyndis sat at her kitchen table, chin resting on her hands as she gazed at the sea outside her window. Despite the calming effect that being here for the first time in years was having on her, the music still refused to flow like it once did, and when it did it was strange to her ears, like classmates’ conversations back in school. the girls’ bathroom, crying her eyes out and desperately dabbing at the stain with a slightly wet piece of paper towel. Nobody, not even the small circle of people she had taken to hanging around, could quite tell how she would react to any one thing, and their actions and reactions read strange to Lyndis. Nobody, except for her father, had been able to breach that gulf that seemed to exist between her and the world. He understood the logic that her mind ran on, was the first to notice her fixation on music and encourage her into growing that, and was in many ways her only friend. As she settled into bed that evening, memories of the last days she had spent here crept into her mind. Leukemia, a testament to childhood

days spent in the desert downwind of Los Alamos, cut through her father like a spoon through jell-o, scooping the life out of him until he breathed his last, a husk of a man. She was eighteen when he died, her acceptance letter for her top choice school having come in the mail on the same day that he was diagnosed. For a eulogy, she played a movement from the concerto she had composed about him and his life, the movement that detailed his time as her dad. She drifted off to sleep that night with an image of his wrinkled frame in the coffin haunting her mind. Suddenly, she found herself outside, on the area of the cliff where they had performed a burial at sea for her father. She didn’t remember grabbing the flute that was in her hand, didn’t remember leaving her room, didn’t even remember waking up. All she remembered was drifting off to sleep and then suddenly being here. Was it a dream? She pinched herself hard on the right arm. The world around her didn’t suddenly fragment, and she didn’t suddenly find herself awake in bed, yet something… She turned around and stared at the house. Her father had told her about the history of the house, how it had been built long ago, how each owner had changed some small thing about it, added a room or a window or updated the plumbing, until the house became a weird mix of old and new, vintage and modern, and had taken on a bit of a life of its own. For all his talk and knowledge of spirits, Lyndis had always assumed that he was speaking metaphorically about the house. When it came to these things, he usually liked to be as precise as possible in his definitions, avoiding vague terms like “life of its own.” Yet, she had definitely felt as though something was watching over her in there, was stopping her from going too far down certain paths with little creaking and vibrations. Was this then the doing of the house? Suddenly, a gust of wind sprang up from off the sea, and Lyndis remembered the other reason she had buried her father at sea here,

besides being a flat space where a funeral could be held. In the cliffs below, the sea and the wind conditions of this particular location had worn holes into the rock, holes that, when the wind gusted, produced a sound like a woodwind with the voice of God. She remembered coming here with her dad when she was about seven, sitting here and throwing rocks into the sea while waiting for the gusts to start so they could hear the rocks sing. She had asked him a lot of questions that day, including one that took him completely by surprise. “Daddy…who will I come here with if you’re gone?” she suddenly asked in that earnest, seven-year-old way. Her father thought for a moment, then responded in a deep, measured voice. “Sweetheart, you’ll have to come here on your own if I’m not here, but that won’t be for a while yet.” He pulled her close. “But…what if you’re gone tomorrow? Then what will I do? I don’t want to be alone…” He turned to her, pulling her up onto his lap as the gusts came. “Darling, my little virtuoso, I’ll always be with you. If you ever forget that, just come here and listen to the wind, and you’ll remember.” Lyndis rose to a sitting position, tears once more in her eyes as she brought her flute to her lips. She waited for a second, a still moment where she listened to the heart of that wondrous sound. Then, she played, weaving her song with that of the wind as, in the back of her mind, she heard her father whisper “my little virtuoso.” Behind her, the house shutters start fluttering in the wind, fluttering so hard and fast that by the time she stopped playing, they sounded like applause. The next morning, Lyndis woke up in her bed. She remembered being outside last night, remembered her realization about the house, but didn’t remember anything after she finished playing, which was as she expected.

Spirits do like to keep their air of mystery about them, after all. She did a few stretches, then made herself breakfast. Afterwards, she went upstairs to her fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s old room, where the movers had placed her old piano. She tentatively played a few notes, listening carefully to the sound each key press produced. She shook her head at the tones; she would have to call in a tuner. For a piano like this, a limited run Tolkien from the 1800s, some special care and tools would be needed, and the tuner would probably be here for days, if not weeks. Normally, an interaction of that length would have made her nervous, but for some reason, the prospect excited her now. The spirits of the house would watch over and guide her, so somehow she knew that this could be the start of something good.

Dandelion Head Samantha Sproviero “Just rip it out like a band-aid!” she said as I closed the door. Looking in the mirror, I grimaced at the thought. They said one girl pulled it all out early and stuck on the walls of the hospital room. “She was crazy!” said the nurse. But I wondered if she was… I took a brush to it, it dragged out strands in chunks but that wasn’t right at all— it needed to be gentle, but not too slow. I fluffed it with my fingers— watching in the mirror. Little wasps fluttered to the ceramic sink. A dandelion in a spring breeze, each piece seemed to have a life of its own— for a moment, floating away. Fluff and fluff and fluff, each strand floating into the dry sink. I was no longer a flower, but just stem— strong and flexible and ready to grow again. I leaned down into the sink, sucked in a deep breath and blew.

Desert Garden Misha Choudhry You water the cracks in your skin, paying close attention to elbows, veins, fingers. You sit directly in the sun, but shadows still find their way into your pores, navigating the root of you. Nothing has grown here for years. You find a garden and plant yourself, dirt up to your knees. Surrounding yourself with flowers, you ask them how to bloom.

Uncultured Assholes Erik Abdallah My professor just strolled nonchalantly into her favorite painting at her favorite museum. I’ve had enough of you uncultured assholes, she said. You don’t know shit about art. The painting had an empty sofa with a bowl of grapes on the side table. It was her favorite because she could picture herself sitting there, eating grapes naked. She took off her clothes and went at it. It was nice to watch for a while, until we all realized that she had the bus service’s number. We begged her to come out, but she wasn’t listening, just gradually eating each individual grape. Everyone else got together to get cabs and ferry rides, but I just remained in front of our professor, and eventually jumped into the painting to join her. We sat on the couch, nude, eating our beloved fruit, enjoying our high throne of hedonism. Laughing at all the uncultured assholes who passed by, and failed to understand our conceit.

Weeknights with Jimmy Ryan Johnson A dead man was glaring at me. I stared back into his lifeless eyes, raised a glass of red to him and put it to my lips. I gulped it down and immediately started wishing I had more. The depressant couldn’t hinder productivity that wasn’t there to begin with could it? Fuckin’ Jimmy the Mick…you could see the camera flash in his eyes as he challenged lookers with his gaze, saying, “Show me what you’re made of.” Saying, “That’s not good enough.” His stoic features immortalized on a glossy poster paper framed behind glass, prop gun gripped in a hairy paw, pointed right at me, as if to say, “Grab a seat. Keep tryin’. Make my day.” I sat back down in front of a stark white Microsoft Word document, cursor flashing impatiently. Don’t hold your breath… Some strenuous, hollow-feeling key tapping produced a few words until Backspace ate them back up. My thirst grew as the taste of red on my tongue receded. Maybe if I just had one more glass I could calm down a bit and just let it flow out of me. I looked up at Jimmy, feeling his stare: What you talkin’ ‘bout son? Ain’t nothin’ gonna flow outta you if there ain’t nothin’ there when the levee breaks. I had half a mind to take the poster off the wall but knew how it would upset my father. Jimmy the Mick was his hero, his brainchild, but I never understood why he chose to mount the premiere poster for the third one. Ethics in Drought, what the hell was he thinking with that one, projecting complicated meditations of morality and the lie of American exceptionalism onto a Western backdrop, the medium devoid of the former and drowning in the latter. Just give ‘em a bloodbath and put a bow on the trilogy, I always said. But Dad couldn’t be contained,

always thought that was his best work, even though it grossed so significantly lower than the previous two films at the box office that the offer for running a Jimmy prequel on network television was taken off the table. He just shrugged. People would return to Drought, see it for the masterpiece it was, it would take time is all, no one appreciated the Greats during their lifetime. Bullshit. Maybe that was true in Melville’s time but not now. With the dawn of the Internet and the quicker circulation of content you’re either good or you’re not, and that’s not likely to change. Definitely not with Ethics in Drought. That’s jealousy talkin’ hoss. How ‘bout puttin’ somethin’ out there, takin’ risks, like I do.—Jimmy the Mick. You didn’t take any risks in that movie! The Indian clothes (a racist and narrow-minded costume I might add) aren’t even real, that whole part was a dream sequence! And one dream of mine’s worth ten of yours. Where’s your sleep journal? Don’t let your mom find it when she’s cleanin’ your room. Last night’s was dirty. Wet if I ‘member correct. I wasn’t drunk enough for this. I looked back at my computer screen, wiggling the mouse to illuminate the screen. With my fingers poised over the home row, I willed the screenplay to form in my head, move through my fingertips, and explode onto the screen. But nothing came. Not even a spark or the most minute of flares. My frustration grew. I shot to my feet and began pacing the room in aggravation. I watched the neighbors across the street return from an outing in a nice white Lexus that shined even in the nighttime. I wondered where they had gone. The man of the house had to be my age, maybe even a few years younger. I didn’t want to think about it. I went back to the computer.

Sunset of the Red Man Highlight. Delete. Sun Sets on the Red Man Highlight. Dusk of the Red Man? No, that doesn’t make sense. More importantly it doesn’t sound good. Red Man Dusk? Sun Sets on the Red Man (?)—the title will come later. But damn it all, I need a story then. No, too overwhelming. A scene. A scene. A single scene. Doesn’t even have to be the opening scene. It doesn’t even have to make it past the first draft. Just something to get me going. Get the wheels turning… You can make ‘nother flick ‘bout me. Continue the legacy of your pop. No. You’re dead. You died. Did not. Clyde Wilson’s still ‘live and well. Oh so you’re the actor now? I’m nobody, just an indifferent representation of somethin’ hauntin’ to you. Don’t be so modest. I won’t be. Clyde Wilson is a millionaire actor and Jimmy the Mick is the biggest badass of his fictional Wild Western universe. I got two closets full a’ trophies I don’t know what to do with, an’ that’s sayin’ nothin’ a’ the bedroom and the rest of the house. What you got Reed Johnson Jr. who lives at home? Shut up.

One more an’ I’m gone: Take me. It’s a gimme, I see tha’ you’re already workin’ on a Western, so jus’ swallow your pride an’ ask daddy about spearheadin’ the fourth installment. C’mon, even if its bad people will jump for it, son inherits his father’s characters, puts his own twist on ‘em, people love that shit! No. I’m not just going to make the same movie my dad made. All he really did with Jimmy the Mick: Irish Outlaw and Jimmy the Mick: Revenge of the Indian Prince was conform to a mold John Wayne and Clint Eastwood created years ago. And—and with the last one…he just screwed himself over…ended his career, why should I shoot for that kind of trajectory? Why not? Got somethin’ better you cookin’ up you jus’ not showin’ me?...I didn’t think so. Best swallow that pride son. I’ll tell you what, and this one’s for free, why not tell ‘bout my son, can even make it true to life—Jimmy the badass written by daddy the star writer—Jimmy Jr. the klutzy lil’ goodfor-nothin’ written by Reed Jr. the wannabe star writer, could make it a comedy! I started to panic, partly because of a feeling like this unwritten screenplay was trapping me and partly because, in order to get out of the trap, a small part of me wanted to give in to Jimmy the Mick’s suggestion. I needed another drink. I made my way to my parents’ liquor cabinet and poured myself a glass of scotch. Down the hatch it went. I felt the warmth but not much else so I had another swallow. Starting to feel a little better I poured one more to take with me and drink at my leisure, then returned to the office. There was a resounding silence from Jimmy. Maybe now I could get some work done. I retreated into my mind and seized hold of the first thing that came to me. A grizzly Civil War veteran (Confederate obviously, this was a Western after all) was headed out West by train searching for work. He needed to get away from his homeland for a while, maybe even forever, but at least until he could come to terms with the atrocity he’d faced and participated in, much of which had unfolded literally in his backyard. To pay some tribute to that last bit there will be a black and white montage of his charred home, slaughtered cattle, (and even household pets) as well as quick sequences of

war, screams, friends dying, orders to drop a couple Northern guys from an officer not keen on keeping prisoners. All of this will be alternating on scenes of the hero’s face, face like a chipped and weathered rock face, full of experience and sadness. He gets to where they’re building the railroad and gets a job there laying the tracks down, working hard in the hot sun with whites and, more interesting, blacks, who will scrap with him ceaselessly because of this Confederate Army jacket he won’t take off (we find out later it belonged to his friend who was killed ((took a bullet for him maybe???))) Then, when they make camp for the night, his crew is attacked by Indians who come in murdering and scalping the dead (this will be shown in gruesome detail). They gravely wound the hero and one sets his jacket ablaze or takes it to wear or something, and this being his only possession in this world anymore he will go after them and butcher every last man, woman and child of the tribe. These horrific killings at the end will not only show his own depravity but that of his entire race that was wrought on the red man till there were no more of them. I could probably even cast a few Native Americans. If I can get one solid elder, one of the ones with those faces that seem to tell a story that only they can read, to play the chief—that’d be sick. Wouldn’t that be sick Jimmy? Aw well, ain’t this adorable. You really are your father’s son, though if I’d ‘a not known you way I do I’d ‘a thought you was the one who created me, I mean the scripts basically the same as Irish Outlaw. No it isn’t, it’s totally different, what are you talking about? What I’m talkin’ bout is a man wearin’ a cowboy hat, goin’ strapped and bringin’ a lot of Injuns to an early grave. Then to make seem like y’all did somethin’ new you put the spin on it when you turn the mirror around and have people walk out wonderin’ ‘bout all the bad stuff their grandparents did. But that’s all Westerns…

So you admit it then! Look kid, I admire the effort, I do, but all you did there, whether not you know it’s ‘side the point, you just mashed up the story for my first two movies and threw daddy’s philosophical bullshit from the third on top and put Jr. behind the last name. Why not jus’ go ‘head and name the lead Jimmy the Mick, and get Clyde on the phone, or, or shoot ‘im a text, tell ‘im we’re shootin’ a prequel. Well, first off Wilson’s directing movies now in his own right. (Even better, he’ll be even more useful getting’ this train wreck off the ground!) And second, you have an origin story, it would make no sense to rewrite it, we’d have to get rid of your being Irish and whatnot, and speaking of that, why the hell do you have a Southern accent when you’re legendary for being an Irish outlaw? By me Lucky Charms ah couldnae tell ya lad, I’m not the writer here. Ask your daddy. And while you’re at it get his permission to put my name in that there script o’ yours. What I have here is perfectly fine, I just need to organize it into coherent scenes with dialogue and everything else. As long as I have the bare bones they can help me put together the rest. If this is what you want to be your legacy. What’s that supposed to mean? You know, legacy, what you’re gonna leave behind when you die. That just isn’t what I’d want to be remembered for is all. What? You were the one who told me I should make a fourth Jimmy movie! Yeah, to get started, and of course I’d tell you that, I’m Jimmy. I drained the swallow of scotch and put the cup down with a little more force compared to what I’d used to pick it up. The alcohol worked its magic and increased the wicked buzz I was already feeling. This was good work I

was doing. Good. As long as I believed in it it didn’t matter what other people thought. I’d be like my dad with Ethics in Drought: unmovable as to the film’s merit. Jimmy was laughing. What’s so damn funny?! He had retreated from the forefront of the poster and was now leaning on a cactus shoveling chewing tobacco under his lips in a double horseshoe fashion. His gun he’d left lying on the ground, fearing little the enraged painted faces wielding tomahawks and bows. But even with the added distance between the two of us, I could still hear him as if he were standing right next to me. Jus’ think your little pep talk is cute, that’s all. I worked with a lot of cowboys and the ones had to convince me they could shoot straight and lasso cattle prop’ly were normally the ones couldn’t. Big words coming from a guy who died from a heart attack from dream Indians hog tying him and preparing to roast him for dinner. What guy? You! That’s how you died in the last movie! Me? What you mean me? I’m not here. This ain’t no two way conversation. Oh no, you don’t get to do that. You can’t evoke your reality as soon as I back you into some kind of corner. Jimmy laughed and stood up straight, spitting a small stream of brown spit on the dusty desert floor. Jus’ write your play. He started walking off into the cheap watercolor sunset. Wait! You never told me if it was good or not! Jimmy the Mick extended a hand and waved, his back still to me. Jimmy! Hey, Jimmy! Come on Jimmy, at least tell me if you thought it was a good idea! Jimmy! I need your feedback! Jimmy! Jimmy!

I hurled the empty scotch glass across the room, my poor aim placing it several feet from the now vacant Ethics in Drought poster where it exploded against the wooden wall sending crystalline shards and drops of alcohol all over the place.

Midwest Worth Rebecca Freudenberg To reap the benefits of death, cousins came up from Carolina, gave condolences to Father by breaking my mother’s china. Father fell to his knees, watched as familial fleas projected dissatisfaction with what’s been left behind for them. What’s a life in the Midwest worth? Ears of corn, stacked high, grain spilling from our insides? Beyond that of another farmer’s wife harvesting moons and the limited light, what’s a life in the Midwest worth? Tire swings sway beneath the towering willows countless winters since family had come around. Like the swallows in springtime, perched on her grave where she becomes well acquainted with death —an everlasting Honeymoon Phase, until she falls in love with the other side. While swallows fly to shallow graves and wallow through distressing days, willows will sweep the wicked grounds whose boughs and burrows know no bounds. Silos of grain near a mile high retracting from the vacant sky, to reach an end in Mother Earth —where the swallows cannot fly.

Dream Kristen Shelley In the dream I had we were sitting under a pear tree, there was juice all over my lips, your hands were so sticky you could climb the tree with one arm. I kept telling you to go higher. You were lying backed down on the highway, As the birds circled around your chest, like you were their mother too. You were screaming and naked on a hospital floor, because your body did not look like your body. In the dream I was the one that tried to kill herself, not you. Instead you mopped up my blood from the floor, made tea, tucked me into bed and smiled because you were a mother again. You tell me you’re sorry but you cannot save me. I hold your hands, you scream, “They sewed them on backwards!” I tell you to just cut them off.

Parenting Ann Lau As a child my father taught me how to peel fruit with a knife, how to cut out the stemmed tops, skin in one long strand without removing too much flesh. I practiced with persimmons, eating four at a time, but I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t eat enough fruit. This is why you get sick, why you will never be beautiful. My mother would prepare Korean melons, Asian pears, dragon fruit, watch until I ate slice after slice. My father gave me lychee and dragon eyes until I grew to hate them. Two weeks ago, they gave me a bag of persimmons. I peeled one yesterday, having forgotten them in my fridge. Overripe, it tasted of .a cloying sweetness, a parentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s love I no longer stomach.

Two Days Bryan Potts For two days I held onto hopes of you like a little boy clutching a mass of balloons as he floats into the sky; I take a first elated step onto the clouds and fall.

Dead Butterflies Hayley van Hoek It was Claire who’d insisted we sleep outside on the trampoline the first Saturday of spring break. It had been the beginning of the first nice days of spring, the ones that only come along in mid-April in New Jersey, the kinds that still left dew on the grass in the mornings but let you sleep without three blankets and a million layers of pajamas on. I hadn’t want to sleep there, but I only gave in because I felt bad for her. Claire’s mother had left her all alone for spring break while she went on a cruise with her new boyfriend, who happened to have a job as a magician on a ship. “Your mother has weird boyfriends,” I pointed out before we fell asleep, looking up at the sky for constellations. My dad had been an astronomer, studied stars for a living, and as hard as I tried I could never see any big constellations from my town, which was too bright at night, the neon signs for stores along the highway a poor substitute for real stars. He was the one who’d gotten me the trampoline, the same summer before he died in a pileup on the highway, the same summer Claire moved to town and I had too much pent-up energy and hadn’t joined track yet. Claire and I would bounce for hours on that thing, until our legs got sore and Claire was too tired to walk back home, so we would always convince my mom to let her sleep over. Claire was already half asleep, her eyelids heavy over her eyes that were almost as dark as the night themselves. “Screw you, Morgan,” she said thickly before her eyes shut completely and she dozed off, cheek resting against my shoulder. That morning, woke up at the same time, facing each other, so close together we could smell each other’s morning breath, the grass below us still wet from the dew, though the droplets themselves were gone.

We’d slept in too late to see the sun reflecting in them, slept in late enough that I was going to be late for work if I didn’t move my ass. Mom had forgotten to wake me up before she took my four-year-old brother, Noah, to Mommy and Me classes. “Crap,” I said, jumping up and running into the house up into my room, Claire following behind me. “Can I come with you?” Claire asked as I quickly changed into jeans and a t-shirt. I shrugged. “I guess,” I said as I ran down the stairs and out the door to the library, where I worked as a page. One of the best benefits to the job was that Claire could hang out there with me without being too much of a bother. The library was right across from our high school, so during my shifts she’d hide in the back and wait until I had to go to the very last shelves to put back those tacky paperback romance novels. This happened frequently often since most of our library patrons seemed to be middle-aged ladies in unsatisfying marriages. They nearly always took out those books, the ones with the ridiculous covers with some tanned Italian-looking dude with a six-pack holding a scantily clad lady with huge boobs. I found her that day in the romance section, as usual, one of the books propped open in her lap, biting her lip to hold back her laughter. “No lady has boobs that round,” she said as I reorganized the shelves. She showed me the cover which had a woman on it wearing a wispy blue gown, her boobs perky and round and practically spilling out of the front of her dress in an cartoonish way. “Like you would know,” I responded teasingly. Claire looked up at me, her eyes narrowed.

“Well you wouldn’t,” she said testily. “Since you never let your stupid boyfriend anywhere near you. Besides, you’ll never have boobs big enough to fill in anything bigger than a training bra.” I scoffed. She was right. I was 16 and as flat as a board, unlike her. “That’s harsh. And Jason is not my boyfriend,” I added carefully. Claire raised a perfectly penciled in eyebrow. “He wants to be.” “Well he won’t be.” Claire seemed satisfied with that answer, lowering her brow and returning to her book as I pushed my book trolley to the front of the library to get more recently-returned books. By the time I got off work, Claire had a pile of romances next to her, and she was almost finished with another one. I wondered how fast she could read—I’d only been working for four hours. We biked around town, around our high school, our old middle school, past the town pool and Ted’s Deli, where we picked up snacks and drinks, before we finally stopped at the kissing rock, which was our favorite spot, deep in a thicket of trees past the field where the peewee football players and cheerleaders practiced and past the playground where my brother and mom so often frequented. Kissing rock was named not because people actually came to kiss on a giant rock—though there was one in the clearing where Claire and I usually sat—but because around the rock many of the trees were engraved with initials of couples who had come there for the privacy. A few months before my dad died, we’d discovered one with “RC + KC” surrounded by a heart, which I knew deep down in my gut were my parents—Richard Collins and Kathy Collins—because they’d both grown up here and had probably come to this kissing rock before.

So Kissing Rock was, in a way, holy ground, at least for me, and I tried to treat it as such. Claire, though, who somehow didn’t believe in love—probably because her dad walked out on her and her mom right before they moved here—didn’t think so. “Maybe if Jason brought you here you’d take enough pity on him to kiss him,” Claire teased after she took a sip of her fruit punch Gatorade. If she drank the whole bottle, which I knew she would, her tongue would turn a deep red and her breath would smell super sweet. I nearly cringed at the thought. “Don’t say that in front of him. It’ll give him an idea.” “I’m just saying,” Claire replied, shrugging. “Why do you even bring him up at all?” I asked. “Because he clearly likes you.” “Okay, but I don’t like him,” I said, trying not to sound annoyed. Jason was a real sore spot for me, and, for some reason, for Claire, too. She loved bringing him up at any opportunity just to tease me but always seemed irritated over him. I didn’t understand why she ever had to bring him up at all, but she always found a way to, and it always seemed to piss me off as much as it did her. Claire had pulled a piece of grass from the ground and was concentrating on pulling it apart. “Why?” she asked, trying to act like she wasn’t looking at me while giving me side-glances. I shrugged. I suddenly felt hot all over, and itchy, like I was allergic to the grass. “Because I don’t.” Claire finished pulling apart the blade and stuck her face really close to mine. She smelled like strawberry shampoo and, I was right, fruit punch Gatorade.

“But why?” she said, and stuck me with her signature stare. I opened my mouth to say something back, but her eyes met mine in a hard, daring gaze, and I found myself unable to look away. When we were kids, maybe 10 or 11, we’d have staring contests, and Claire always won. That’s probably why she won student council president. She must’ve stared down the two guys who ran against her. It was the stare, those eyes, and her one raised eyebrow that dared me to do most, if not all, of the stupid things I’d done since our friendship began, like skinny dipping at her aunt’s lake house or putting tacks on my 5th grade math teacher’s chair. I hated it and I loved it all the same. “Because,” I said finally. I usually lost these staring contests, but not today. “I just don’t.” She wasn’t backing down, either. She hadn’t blinked for a full minute. Then she looked down, maybe at my mouth, and looked back up at me. “You lost,” I said. I wanted to gloat, but everything seemed too still. “Did not.” “Did too.” Her face was much closer now. Somewhere behind me a bird chirped once, then again, like it was lost or lonely. “Did not.” “Yeah, you did—” My phone went off suddenly, and the sound made Claire jump about five feet away from me. I looked at my phone. Then I groaned. “It’s Jason.” From her new spot several feet away from me, Claire glared at the phone as if it had personally offended her. “Don’t pick it up.”

“If I don’t, he’ll just keep calling.” “So?” Claire asked as I picked it up. “Hey Jason,” I said, nearly surprising myself at how little effort it took for me to keep my tone uneven and uninterested. “Hey Morgan,” Jason said, his voice very nearly the opposite of mine—enthusiastic, even excited. “Are you free tonight? My parents aren’t home for the weekend, and Nick and I are throwing a party.” “Uh, okay.” I said, as uninterested as possible, looking over towards Claire, who raised an eyebrow. There was a careful line between letting Jason down easy and not pissing off Claire by being too nice, and I always found myself never quite sure how to toe either. I settled with telling him Claire was with me at the moment, so yeah I was busy. Unsurprisingly, Jason didn’t pick up the hint. “You, uh, should come. Claire, too, if you guys aren’t busy,” he added, almost as an afterthought. Glancing over at Claire, I noticed that she had turned slightly, so that I couldn’t read her expression from her profile, but she was still watching me from the corner of my eye, the top of her purple windbreaker grazing her chin ever so slightly. “Maybe,” I said, thinking Claire couldn’t get mad at me for giving him a noncommittal answer. “Even if you come by just for a little bit,” Jason urged. “It’d be cool to see you.” “I said maybe,” I said, annoyed now, not bothering to dignify his final statement with a response. “It depends on whatever Claire is up for.”

I didn’t mean to say it, but it was apparently the right thing to say to get Claire to turn around completely and face me, showing off her smile—not her high school politician smile, her real smile, the one that didn’t make her face look like it was seriously hurting her. It made my stomach flip, but not in the same way Jason made it churn. “Hold on,” I said to Jason. Then, to Claire, I asked, “Do you want to go to Jason’s party tonight?” “Do you?” she asked. I had to read her face to see if she was trying to test me for a response, but both her eyebrows were raised in general curiosity. “Not really. Unless you want to go.” “We should,” Claire said, without a hint of sarcasm. “What?” she added when I widened my eyes in shock. “It’s not like we have anything else to do tonight.” I opened my mouth as if to question it, but Claire was in a good mood, and I wasn’t about to risk it. “Alright, I guess.” Claire shot me another toothy grin, her dark eyes dancing dangerously. The party was in full swing by the time we arrived—a full hour late since it had taken me a good half hour to succumb to defeat and let Claire dress me in one of her crop tops and matching skirts and paint my face with her makeup. As soon as we entered the house, we ran right into Jason by the stairs, and his eyes immediately fell on me. I agreed to go to the party with the sole intention of hiding amongst the many various partygoers who would stop by, but Jason had caught me before I could melt into the crowd. As we made our way toward Jason and the group of people

congregating near the flight of stairs, I gave Claire a knowing look, which she returned. He’d probably been waiting there all night, just to make sure he didn’t miss me. “Heya, Jason,” she said over the music, grinning when she saw him. “Thanks for inviting us.” Jason was looking at me, either confused by her sudden niceness or because if I was anywhere within eyesight, his eyes were always on me. Despite the house being so warm that the makeup Claire had made me wear felt like it was gonna to melt right into my pores, the goosebumps returned to my exposed skin. “Yeah, thanks,” I said halfheartedly, which made Jason drop his confusion about Claire entirely. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Claire go into the kitchen, which she must’ve known was the exact thing I didn’t want her to do. “You look nice,” Jason said to me. “Where did you get the beer?” I dodged, looking at my shoes instead of at Jason’s face. “Nick bought it,” Jason answered. “How’s your spring break going?” It occurred to me that I could read the dictionary and Jason would still probably be interested in this conversation. “Well, it just started,” I said. When he didn’t respond, I answered, “Claire’s staying over for most of it.” Jason’s ears perked up. “Really?” he said. I had a feeling he liked Claire about as much as Claire liked him, but I couldn’t read it either way on his face, mostly because that face was very intent on looking straight at me, or right through me, trying to read my mind.

I nodded. “Really.” “How’s it going?” Jason asked. He’d posed the question to me, but it was Claire who answered. “It’s been a blast,” Claire said. “We always have fun when we’re together, right, Morgan?” She didn’t say it sarcastically, but in a dry enough tone that Jason almost dismissed her remark with the shake of his head. Claire grinned like a cheshire cat behind him. “That’s cool,” he said, taking his eyes off me for a moment to look at the ceiling, like he was praying to God. Of course, his eyes fell back on me eventually, in that strange time span that feels both like the blink of an eye and a lightyear. “Do you think you’re free any time this week?” Jason finally got around to asking, “We can go see a movie or something.” “Uh,” was my initial response. I was at a standstill, struck and horrified by the inevitable, the flat-out invitation for a date, but still trying to catch Claire’s eye, but she was refusing, watching us with a mix of disgust and amusement. Jason stood there, waiting for a response. I couldn’t give him one. All I had for him was her name on my lips, one last desperate attempt for divine intervention. “Claire, did you say something?” I asked. And finally, finally, she looked back at me, nodded her head slightly, then chugged her half-finished beer. She’d regret that later—she was too small and too much of a lightweight to be so careless with her drinking.

“Yeah, I did,” she said after wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her hard stare, the one I was so familiar with, wasn’t directed at me, but rather, at Jason’s back. “I said I wanna play a game.” Jason opened his mouth to speak, but Claire quelled, her tiny frame somehow 100 times more imposing than his tall one. In his defense, better men than he had succumbed to that look. “Okay, sure,” he said, turning to look at me. “What do you want to play?” Claire held out the bottle like it was the Holy Grail. “Seven minutes in Heaven.” I bit my lip. “Claire,” I said. “It’s fine,” Jason said. Of course it was fine. Of course he would have no objections. Of course he wouldn’t think it was too juvenile, too middle school. Of course I was the only one who could see the number of ways this could go wrong. Jason led us towards the basement, along with some other people at various levels of intoxication who agreed to play. On the way down, I gave Claire my dirtiest look, and she shot an equally awful one back. We gathered in the basement in a circle around the TV, Claire’s empty beer bottle placed in the middle as if we were all about to worship it and sacrifice ourselves to it. Claire sat next to me, Jason sat directly across. I guess he thought he would have a better chance if he wasn’t next to me. Of course, Claire picked me to start, so I put the bottle on the rug and made a silent prayer to God, noticing that Claire’s lipstick stains were on the top of the bottle. Then I spun it and it went, and with every

rotation my heart beat faster, Jason’s gaze became more intense, and he was wishing and so was I, but for two different things, and what would I even say if we wound up in that closet together? I met his eye, his look so eager and honestly earnest that I decided I would just go ahead and do it and kiss him, and maybe I would like it and maybe if I didn’t I would grow to like it the way I’d grown to like broccoli when I was seven. It wasn’t impossible. It wasn’t undoable, and the odds were for him. At the sound of people’s snickers I glanced down at the bottle. It had found its home a little skewed toward the right, but nevertheless still pointing directly at Claire. Her eyebrow was raised. She sighed, and it was louder than the laughing and snide comments from the guys. “Alright, Morgan,” she said, her face perfectly unreadable. “Let’s do this.” Whistles and jeers followed us into the closet, but neither of us turned back. In a different life, maybe I would’ve turned around to see Jason’s face. In a different life maybe I would pity him instead of myself. “Don’t give me that look,” I said, after we’d shut the door behind us, echoing her words from earlier that night. We were practically squished together since the closet was so small. “This was your idea.” “My idea wasn’t to be here with you,” she said. My stomach clenched. My cheeks burned as I said, “Yeah, this isn’t exactly paradise for me, either.” The stare was back, and I think it was because she was offended, but

it melted just as quickly as it had crossed her face. “I can’t,” she said, breaking her gaze. “We don’t have to. We can just stand here and insult each other for another five and a half minutes.” “That’s not what I mean. I can’t—God,” she said, trying to back up but walking into a stack of books behind her. She cursed. “What were you going to say to Jason?” I thought about how I’d decided to kiss Jason if we’d wound up in this closet. With Claire so close, the idea seemed suddenly ridiculously stupid. “I would’ve said no.” “Why?” “I’ve told you a thousand times—I don’t like him like that, Claire.” “Morgan,” she said after a pause, her look soft for the first time in what seemed like forever. It wasn’t just soft—it was sad, too. “Claire,” I replied. I was going to say something after it, too, something snarky and kind of mean, but then Claire titled her head up and kissed me so sadly that I completely forgot what it was to be mean. We broke away for a second. Whatever had been cocooning in my stomach all night had exploded into a million butterflies and all those wings fluttered helplessly against my stomach. Claire looked less sad now, but there were tears on her cheeks, too. I reached my hand forward carefully and dried them, and then Claire kissed me again with more determination. And somehow those kisses became more desperate, with her hands in my hair and my hands pulling her closer, her mouth tasting like cheap beer. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than any kiss I’d ever had with any guy. But it still wasn’t enough to get

my head to stop screaming, and it wasn’t enough to get an image of Jason out of my head. It was that image that made me pull away from her. “What?” Claire asked, looking up at me, her eyes trying to read right through me. I bit my lip and closed my eyes. “I have to say yes to Jason.” Claire could’ve lied, could’ve said she only did kiss me because it was the rules, it was all just a game, all part of the fun of parties. But she didn’t. She removed her hands from my hair, looking at me hopelessly. “I know.” We came out of the closet a few minutes later, after someone came and released us, allowing us to go back to the party. There was no way people didn’t know we’d kissed—Claire’s lips were too swollen, and I guess mine were, too, not to mention my hair, which must’ve been a mess from Claire’s tugging. But everyone passed it off as one big joke, two drunk straight girls at a party. And I’m sure Jason only joined in on the laughter because he believed it, because he was stupid and terrible and my butterflies were all dead now, digested in my stomach, and I hated all of them. I hated myself, too, seeing my future spiral out before me, out of control, out of reach, all the possibilities laid out in my mind, already bad memories plating themselves into my head. But then there was Claire, so still next to me, so silent, with her hand just barely touching mine, comforting me, breaking me, haunting me, almost making me wish I’d never kissed her at all.

Wooden Soldier Hayley Bruning Parents die for the phony smiles, never see behindthe-scene screw ups. Back in class the girls laugh, float before a mirrored wall, love watching their perfect bodies bend. They tell stories about lives she wishes she had. And from outside their stories, a retired Rockette screaming point your toe, no, again no, better maybe my body doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t move like theirs. A graceless year-round routine except the year she is a soldier, and they all look the same boxed inside a uniform parading towards the stage on an icy winter morning, her fingers freeze underneath thin white gloves.

The audience applauds her painted-on frown. It feels real for once, like labor.

Beast at Heart Erica Coslop When he approaches you in a crowd, remind him that a great white shark can sense a single drop of blood, hunting down the sole sign of weakness. When he asks you to come inside, tell him that a fish survives outside in a freezing stream by slowing down her heartbeats just like you do as he steps closer. When he asks you to move in, remind him that a turtle drags her own home everywhere she goes and that his house is not your home. When he asks if you are happy with him, enlighten him to the fact that a female brown trout will fake an orgasm so that she can move onto another male. When he asks why you are crying, tell him that wolves howl at the moon to defend their territory and that you will not hesitate to do the same. When he asks if you believe in soul mates, remind him that no two tigers have the same stripes and no matter how many times you try to get the lines of your palms to match, they never will. When he asks if you can picture growing old together, tell him that a jellyfish cannot die of old age and neither will you. When he asks why you wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t let yourself love him, warn him that a black widow eats her lovers, her fangs dripping with a love that she plunges too deep.

When he asks why you have changed, inform him that a chameleon alters her color to show emotion, not to blend in, and that you will not remain the same to fit his life. When he asks why you are leaving, remind him that an octopus has three hearts, but that you have just one.

Crow Mouth Kristen Shelley I imagine my mother, my age, sitting alone backed up against the sun. Cross-legged, dress pinned down to her ankles, eyes set to the countryside. The Georgia sun, her honeyed skin, first love on her mouth flutters her white dove parts. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thinking me up in her head, the way my name would sound on quiet Monday mornings, the shape of my wings, coated in her palm, how soft I would be. And like finding a bird wingless on the front lawn sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d wrap me up in an old shoe box, and feed me sugar water, as she poked holes in the top. I wonder if she imagined taking me home, like removing a wild animal from the ground only to end up resenting for trying to get loose. And if she knew back then, of my desirous need to get loose would she leave me?

Set my body down on the tallest tree ride the wind until my name was just a dirty taste in her mouth I wonder if she imagined me mindless, flightless if she thought that made me ladylike, if she thought that made me a bird.

The Batmen Corbin Hirschhorn Andy ended his day at the multinational insurance corporation to meet John, who was coming from the multinational savings and loan corporation. They had a few drinks at the bar to catch up. Enough time had passed since the last time they met. New hook ups, business deals, recent exes, family in the hospital. At ten oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;clock, both looked at their watches and rushed the bill. Exchanged excuses, rough day, big morning. The bar completely emptied as they departed. Andy got in his lavish sports car and raced home, and John did the same. Andy disrobed, descended to the impossible depths of his bounteous home to his costume, for Andy was Batman, the Dark Knight. He did not know that John was also Batman, the Caped Crusader. Everyone in the city was a Batman. There were black Batmen and gay Batmen. The women were Batmen. Some had minor differences in MO. Some listened to Chopin while others listened to Bach. Some changed their voices, and some wore suits with nipples and codpieces. Each waxed a batmobile, sharpened batarangs, and woke up early after a long night to a hearty bat-breakfast before work. Ever ready. Ever vigilant. Each peered from the window awaiting a bat-signal. No one had a butler or boy wonder. The people that would have been them were Batmen too. Of course, crime was minimal. Multinational business functioned as usual. None of the Batmen knew of other Batmen, because to be a Batman is to live by a secret -- a code. To be the Bat was to be stealthy. To be the Bat was to be the night incarnate. To be the Bat was to be alone. Bars and restaurants were empty by ten. The Batmen donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get into conversations for too long. Dating was difficult in the city. Having never not been Batmen, they wondered, What do the rest of them do? What do they know? What crusade do they uphold during

these precious hours of solitude? Andy asked these questions to himself often. He took to Glenlivet during the night shifts, and sometimes he did not don the armor. He went looking for a bar but everything was closed. He roamed in costume brown bagging on the street looking for crime or someone to talk to. He showed up to work hungover. Asked about his night, he blurted, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am the night.â&#x20AC;? Afraid he had revealed his identity, he cleaned up and resumed his post. The city was safe once again.

Her Bedroom Brendan Payraudeau Waking to the rain in the little room of her chest after a night choked with candlelight and the surgical art of clawing at shadows that mouse over her, starving, indecorous, my limbs like thornbush brambles, begging, I am bathed in blueâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; It is almost a song filtered through a solitary window through gooseflesh, pinches of petite smoke plume each rising from wick extinguished, counting to the moment where our voices warp muffled in small hours of dark, haunt the drywall, aching floorboards the waiting rot that turns every ode gently into a ghost story.

Pineys Corbin Hirschhorn Ray was an average Jewish intellectual. He studied math and science and was applying to medical school, yet he was also eloquent and read novels and wrote poetry. He came from a family of doctors and somewhat notable artists. He played baritone saxophone and flute in a jazz band, but he had quit due to tendonitis of the hands. He did not seem to be a drinker, but when he did drink, he drank to his limits. Ray had an interest in history, specifically local history. He once told me that his parents had pushed him to go to Europe for a year after college, but he explained to me how he preferred the colonial steeples and headstones down the road to gaudy basilicas and cathedrals in France and Spain. “Sometimes I wonder what happened on my street two hundred years ago,” I said half-joking, having come from a town with colonial roots myself. “I know exactly what you mean,” he said excitedly, and he made me borrow a thousand page textbook on the history of his hometown in Bergen County. Though I found his preoccupations strange, Ray’s capacity to be interested impressed me. I talked to him on the phone about a week or two before the trip. “I’ve always had this idea, and I don’t know, but I think you are the only one who would be interested,” I began. “I’ve always wanted to have a kind of road trip, but just in New Jersey. I think there are just a lot of places that we’ve never seen or gone to out of inconvenience even though they’re only a few miles away.” “That sounds interesting,” he replied. “I’ve had my mind set on the Pine Barrens,” I told him. “I figured it’s on the way to Cape May, so maybe we could actually drive through

instead of just going down the Parkway. We’ll finish at my grandparents’ house down there. They’re not there now and they’ll give me a key.” I needed the time to myself after working the whole summer. Ray though -- I wasn’t sure about his motivation. When I mentioned my plan to him, he asked to go, offering to drive. I couldn’t say no to saving a few hundred miles on my car. There were two bedrooms after all. I didn’t want to bore him in Cape May, a town with nothing much to do, so I thought the Pine Barrens idea might add another dimension to the trip. “You know,” he said. “I really like that. It’s funny that you mention it, but I’ve just read a book about the Pine Barrens recently. I’ve been thinking about going.” “Great.” “There are a lot of old historical towns around there. Some of them are abandoned.” To anyone not from New Jersey, there was also the Jersey Devil, Ong’s Hat, an interdimensional rift, haunted ghost towns, occult villages, and a number of other legends that originated there. A few days before we were to leave, I got a call from my grandmother saying that I could not go. She was down there, and friends decided to visit, prompting her to stay, and she still had some chores to do -- even though I would have been more apt to do them myself -- and it just was not a good time, despite the fact that I scheduled the time, just one weekend, over a month and a half in advance. She didn’t seem quite sure on the details, but she certainly did not want anyone outside the family staying there, meaning Ray, despite the fact that strangers were coming. In any case, it would not happen.

I told Ray, but I was still ready for a trip. I suggested that we follow through with the Pine Barrens and posited that we could still end up in Cape May if plans did not follow through. “I guess we can still do that,” he said, “but maybe we’ll just spend more time in the Pine Barrens.” I wanted to go to the shore, but I agreed. The day we were supposed to leave, I heard nothing about changing plans, and I called Ray to let him know. “Are we still going?” I asked. “Yeah. We’re still going to do this. I’m totally for it. I’ll meet you around quarter to eight after physical therapy and we’ll go from there.” “Therapy for what?” “My hand.” “Right. It’s a plan,” I said. I did not pack since I did not think the trip would happen. Ray told me to be prepared since it was determined we would camp in the Pine Barrens, not just to save on lodging, but also to get a better idea of the environment. I liked the idea, and I was surprised that Ray was so committed to it, but I could not really imagine camping with him. Instead of packing, I brought a canvas bag that was already filled with some things that I needed in case I ever had to leave for a few days. I just added the bottle of Red Label and some shirts and underwear, and a blanket instead of a sleeping bag. When we left, he gave me the same speech that he had given a few times before when we talked about the trip the first time. “Look, I know we’re going to drink. But you know, I’m applying to med school and they don’t really take this kind of stuff lightly. I can’t get caught drinking or giving you alcohol or anything, and I definitely can’t allow any other illicit substances in the car.” I was glad he didn’t check my bag. “So what do you think Pineys are like?” Ray asked.

“They’re simpler people.” “They’re light, long haired and they have a lot of cousins.” “Most of the family lives in one house though.” “They have strong family values.” “They live to one hundred and twenty.” “Do they pray to the lord, our God?” “They pay tribute to the Jersey Devil, and they have knowledge of time-waves.” Ten minutes in, the mood lightened. “I just really don’t know what we’re going to do though. I didn’t plan anything. I barely know where we are going.” “Well where are we going now?” I asked. “Honestly, I just picked a town around there. I think it’s close to stuff.” I was uncertain but intrigued by Ray’s spontaneity, which was unlike him. “I can’t believe you just brought that little brown bag. And no sleeping bag,” he said. “What if it gets cold?” “Look,” I said. “That bag has everything we need in it to survive. I’ve done this shit before. Anyway, here’s something that I do in situations like this.” I was not sure if I was lying, but I liked where I was going. “Just visualize something to the fullest extent, and make sure it happens. It’s all about frame of mind.” “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean just think of something you want to find or see, or experience, and make sure it happens. I think that that’s at least more possible in the Barrens than anywhere else.” “I think I get it,” he said. “So what do you want?” “Well, I’m always on the lookout for anything rabbit related -- you know, like figurines or art or something like that.” “No,” I said surprised and somewhat disconcerted, “I didn’t know that.” “I guess I never showed you my rabbit collection then. I used to have rabbits, and ever since then, my family has been collecting rabbit related things.” “I see,” I replied. “What are you visualizing?” he asked, and I realized that I actually had to have something since I suggested the idea in the first place. “I think...” I began. “I think I want to actually hook up with a Piney -but that’s a little ambitious,” I added. “Yeah. That is.” We continued driving, and I was questioning my claim of wanting to know a Piney intimately. It was absurd when I said it, but since I had said it with confidence, I was more driven by a need to prove myself. “Ray,” I said. “When we get there, we are going to find something.” “What?” he asked naturally.

“Something fantastic. We’re going to find something that may change everything. We may just find that portal and come out in the eighties. That or we’ll hook up with Pineys or rabbit stuff. Something.” We drove for hours. Luckily, though I was somewhat nervous with Ray as a companion, we complemented each other well for people who had not known each other long. I told stories, and he replied for most of the time, and I offered to drive if he wanted to pull over. About half an hour from the motel we booked, we decided to stop at a diner. We sat at the bar and took menus, but the waitress insisted that we wait and read the whole thing before ordering. She was blonde and very cute with a young and narrow face. She came again and offered more time to read the extensive menu, and I figured that it was just because in South Jersey, there were not as many diners with encyclopedic menus like we were used to in the North. We waited anyway. We ordered on her third coming, and though we were not expecting much, the food was very good. Ray and I talked at the bar, and it was almost ten-thirty. He was saying something to me when the waitress walked past, and I called to her. “Excuse me,” I said. “We’re not from around here but we’ll be staying here tonight. We were actually wondering if you could point us to anywhere special to go.” “We’re from around New York,” Ray added. She put away her pad and mentioned towns and attractions, and nearby cities. “Believe it or not,” I interrupted, “we’re more interested in stuff in the Barrens.” She stopped what she was doing and found a piece of paper, writing things to do on it. Her blonde hair was tied up in a ponytail. I think it is a fact that most blondes really aren’t, but I think I could tell there was no bleach or dye in her hair that matched her skin tone, and

I imagined it let down over her shoulders as she wrote the note in miniscule handwriting. Her nose was just slightly upturned, and blue eyes looked intently to make sure that everything we needed was on that note. I hadn’t expected that much help. She said she would have loved to camp if she didn’t have to work the whole weekend. She was working on a master’s degree. The motel was obviously cheap, and it had an old, humid smell inside. I tried to stay positive, but we both braced ourselves and each other for the night. “It’s just the night,” I said. “You’re going to fall asleep drunk, and that’s not so bad.” I pulled out the handle of Red Label, and Ray contributed a six-pack of Stella Artois. I pulled out two bottles and brought the rest to the refrigerator. “You see? I’ve been to a lot of nice hotels that didn’t even have refrigerators.” “I really can’t drink that much on this trip,” he said and surprised me. “Why? That’s why we came here.” “The prescriptions I’m on?” he asserted. “I’m on NSAIDs for this thing with my hand.” “So they’re not metabolized by the liver,” I added “But they cause stomach bleeding.” “Whatever.” I opened two bottles, and we drank. I had four against his two, and he said he was done, but I opened the Red Label. He wanted to try it. He took it as a shot, so I followed, but I suggested that scotch was for sipping and he should have another serving. He had some, and while he was in the bathroom, I finished my own glass and poured more in each.

I took a shower that night to save time in the morning and found an old blood stain on one of the towels. I threw it on the floor by the toilet and did not mention it. We fell asleep by five for an eleven a.m. check-out. Ray woke up slightly earlier than me, and prompted me to get out before eleven. I told him that no hotels really cared when you check out, but we were on the road by eleven-fifteen. He seemed hungover, leaning forward as he drove. I had just begun to feel fine, and I reminded him that I could take the wheel at any time. In the Pine Barrens, there are only a few roads that go east-west and north-south, and everything in between was still unpaved. We had a few ideas of places we wanted to see, some from Ray’s research and some from the waitress’s list. At that time, however, we weren’t really sure of where we were going. We drove east, and in the daylight, we saw conifers on both sides of the road. Of course that is what we expected, but for some reason we did not believe it would be as different as it was. We were constantly looking down. Looking down at sand that shouldn’t have been able to sustain life, or anything for that matter -- even a footstep. Looking down to see strange fungi growing from other foliage we had never seen before. And we were less than one hundred miles from home. That day, we went to an abandoned nineteenth century plantationstyle community, but rather than farming, they mined bog-iron. In the middle of miles of pines and small, far apart houses, there were a few square miles of cleared space that had everything a community needed -- but all empty. There was a post office, a general store, stables, a mill, and a large mansion in the center. One must have been able to see the entirety of the Barrens from the tower. We waited outside for twenty minutes, still hungover in the heat, for a guide to open the door for a tour. There were no Pineys in there, so we left early, passing a Civil War reenactors to find a soda machine instead. At about the same time, we remarked on the bounty of monster trucks that towered over his Toyota Camry. “Why would so many people have

monster trucks in one place?” I asked. “They cost so much.” “And there isn’t exactly a lot of money down here,” Ray added. “Federally subsidized monster trucks,” I suggested. Off the five or six major roads that run through the Barrens, there are sandy dirt trails without signs that go for miles. We wanted to turn down every one but hesitated. Then we tried, and made it down about quarter of a mile until the Camry couldn’t make it over the three-foot mounds that followed. I kept telling him to go to get as far as we could, but he argued. It was his car after all. “Why? What’s the point? I can’t afford to get stuck in the Barrens now.” “Look at it this way,” I said. “It may seem like only a few more feet to us, but because of time dilation in the Pine Barrens, it’s like driving another five years into the past. How do you think everyone stays so young and friendly? Time never advances.” It got us a little further, but we did turn around when it got too rough. A lot of paths like this in the Barrens, and they are actually still used as main roads. Hence the monster trucks. Instead we parked and walked down some trails, noting each time our feet sank into sandy soil that we thought should hold us, turning over every rock, inspecting every fungus, and getting dug into ourselves by mosquitoes. For some reason, it was hard for northerners to accept that over thirty miles in from the shore, we walked on sand. For the next half of the day, we did nothing but look for somewhere to stay. Motels were somewhat expensive given their sordidness. Instead, we decided to actually go with our plan to camp. Jewish New Yorkers and New Jerseyans camping in the Pine Barrens -- maybe it was more for a story than anything else. Besides, camping was cheap, and what’s one night? I had done it before, and maybe Ray had too, because he had the tent. However, it had never been used.

We drove for most of the day, sometimes stopping on trails and scouting campgrounds. Perhaps we looked strange not just making a decision off the bat, but we interviewed every site we went to. Most of them were private, so someone sat at a counter that could answer our naive nasally questions.We didn’t know what we wanted out of a campground in the Barrens, but we realized the night wouldn’t be much if we hadn’t actually met Pineys. Private campgrounds with six or seven visitors were out of the question, so we drove twenty miles back in the opposite direction to Bass River State Park, a staterun campground. “I’ve been to big campgrounds before,” I said. “Everyone just hangs out together telling stories. We’ll be hooking up with Piney’s in no time.” Ray wasn’t happy with the choice when we got there, however, because they seemed to express a strict no-alcohol policy. He hesitated, and we pulled out and back in once or twice, telling them we were still deciding where to stay. “It’s bullshit,” I kept saying. “What do you think they’re going to do, check your tent? They just have to say that because it’s government.” We went ahead and got in the door about twenty minutes before closing, but the woman at the desk still seemed to think that was close enough to rush us out. Naturally, we had questions about where to stay since we had never been there. “Most people like you go to the North Shore. It’s quiet over there. Lots’a privacy.” “We just want company,” I suggested. “Where do people hang out?” She just handed us a paper to pick a plot on the North Shore, but we still had questions. “Ok. You two have five minutes to drive up there and pick out a plot and come back to tell me.” The North Shore was hidden deep in the woods, and there were hundreds of feet between sites. Everyone there was already nestled in a tent. “This isn’t what we came here for,” I said.

We got back to the lodge, and I remembered her saying there was more noise on the South Shore. Wondering why she didn’t recommend us going there after we suggested it, I realized she thought we were a gay couple looking for privacy. But I supposed anyone who saw two foreign males would think they are gay. “We’ll take the South Shore,” I said. “I don’t have time to let you drive around and find some place to stay,” she said, even though there were fifteen minutes until close. I looked down at the paper and circled campground thirteen to book it and turned to Ray. “More chance we’ll see the Jersey Devil I guess.” We pitched, set up and drove to the lake at the center of the park where people were supposed to be congregating -- grilling and drinking in my mind. There were only a few couples leaving and a large group of about thirty of all ages on a Latino Catholic retreat. Ray and I sat on a dock and analyzed the water of this strange place, noting the rich orange color of the soil beneath. We only dipped our feet in, and every time the sand was churned, rusty orange clouds tinted the water. Bog iron we figured. That’s what must keep the Pineys immortal. The time dilation, the iron rich diet, and the enhanced magnetism that must deflect cosmic rays. We tried to get as much of that as we could with our feet in the water. Behind us, all thirty of the congregation minus one gathered and held each other’s shoulders for a picture, and the dock sank, drenching our legs and asses as we sat. Ray stood up, and offered to take the picture for them so the one could join, but they declined. Before we walked away, Ray talked to one of the young Latina girls, because he was interested in their group. “You come to the Pine Barrens every year?” he asked in response. “Yeah. It’s easy to get here and it’s cheap.”

We left, walking past a couple holding hands, moving languidly across the beach. “They know what they’re doing,” Ray said to me. “They’re not lost.” Then it occurred to me. We had made a plan, changed it, driven for miles without detour, booked a motel, seen some sights, walked some trails, found a campground for the night, and we may have still been lost. “Fuck, man,” I think I said. “Sorry I dragged you into this.” “It’s ok. It’s still a good trip. It’ll be a good story.” “I can hold your hand like them if that will make you feel better,” I suggested. We started a fire from wood and tinder on the ground back at our site. It took about an hour digging in the Barrens to find it, left over from abandoned wood and old fallen limbs, but it burned nonetheless. We drank in the tent, finishing a second six pack of Stella and a significant amount of Red Label. We wondered what the waitress from the diner was doing that night. We forgot to bring a light, and we had nothing but the fire to help us pour scotch into glasses. Then we heard noise from a couple sites over. They were the unmistakable musings of drunk college kids, and I suggested we go over. “We’ll just ask to borrow a light and then we’ll end up staying there and drinking with them. They could be Pineys.” Out of everything we planned, that worked the most perfectly. We had a few beers, and they said that they were running low. “It’s ok. We can contribute,” and the Red Label filled the bottoms of their Solo cups. Ray and I drank from the bottle. I remembered that that night was the start of a meteor shower, and when I drifted, I looked up instead of down for once. I watched every one of them. One was beautiful, but after we spoke

for a while, she retreated to the arms of her boyfriend, the one who seemed to be in charge. There was another one I watched whom Ray had interest in as well. She was sober, and she had a certain motherly quality, watching over two guys who had been drinking since eight in the morning. “There’s one. I just saw one,” I said, probably drunkenly wishing as a streak went steadily down into the pines. They all missed it. We talked for awhile, but they revealed they weren’t Pineys. They were from Pennsylvania, and they came every year for a reunion. But still, we drank. We drank until there was no one left except the two apparent alcoholics, who curiously disappeared into the woods occasionally. One was going into medical school, and Ray struck up a conversation. They weren’t evenly intoxicated, however. “Ah. Another,” I said, but they hadn’t looked. When the two mysterious ones went to the woods, the others told us stories about them, especially the medical school one. He got this drunk often, and he usually lost control. He was violent and he punched things sometimes, but every time someone got a rise out of him that night, the motherly one put her hand on him to calm him. It was just the four of us now, the mother, the two drunks, and us -the other two drunks. “You want to see something?” one asked. The mother seemed to say no and that she gave up with her body language, and she retired to the tent. “See what?” Ray asked. “Just follow us,” they suggested. Both were shirtless, skinny, and wearing only shorts despite the mosquitoes. One, however, wore a cowboy hat.

“Where?” I asked. “To the water.” Ray stood up and started following before they moved, but I tried to argue. Nothing seemed right about a Pine Barrens lake at three in the morning. But Ray followed, and after I drank again from the handle, I followed too. We pushed back branches, finding pieces of trail and ignoring them until we saw the water. Ray took off his shirt and walked in with them. The moon reflected nicely on the black, iron rich water, and though I had only one pair of jeans, I rolled them up and walked in too. “Just wait, and they’ll come,” one of them said. “What will,” Ray and I asked. “They will, and you’ll see.” I stood still in the water like they said and sank into the sand. “Still,” they reminded us. “Oh. Did you see that?” I asked pointing toward the tail of another meteor. Ray splashed, shaking his leg. “Jesus fuck!” he shouted. “What the fuck is that?” “Shh, shh,” they uttered. “Let them come.” Ray stopped flailing and looked down. “What is that?” Then he fell backwards, his whole body and the back of his head dipping into the water, and he laughed doing a backstroke.

At night, smelling us in the water, catfish came. They gently suck on ankles and toes, and the coy ones just brush their tails against you, maybe judging before they kissed. We stood there for an hour, and maybe then we were Pineys. But probably not.

Slag the Cat Brett Polak I’ve done battle with bruisers barking mad, ringing from hollow depths—mangled matted hairy beasts with tearing teeth and hot breath reeking of death and rot—big and bulging rats, fat from trash—a hoard—cast deep into the forgotten realms—dark tunnels venting air throughout rusty hull. Now the rats are smaller and they struggle less— hiding in the corners of the mess deck, but I prowl the ducts of this HMS bucket. An old fighter, still breathing.

Laika Kenny Moncayo A morning cold enough to see your own breath carved out from a stone tape. There is a rosary hanging like doll flesh on our clothesline in the backyard. Little sister reminds me over breakfast, “Blessings for the chickens and their babies.” Through a mouthful of scrambled eggs I speak in our Abuelo’s voice, “Lonely must be their war.” It is always 1941 here; a window the size of a large dog left wide open in the kitchen, Abuela’s cigarette smoke pissing against the wind. It is still the time of Peruvian occupation. Abuelo in the parlor letting his coffee grow impossible skin, too busy digging bullets out of his buddies. The same message scratched on each warm shell with the teeth of a key or, maybe, a nail reading I hope this hits you in the dick. Soon we’ll carry his bloody basket away and make small holes in the dirt with our fingertips, plant together enemy bullets in the frozen silent earth. “They are too dangerous to throw away,” is our warning then the chicken coop starts to scream. Laika is eating the babies again.

An Old Spoon Brett Polak The brass spoon lies in wait— watching—reflecting a distorted room in shades of dull gold on an old desk within specks of floating dust. It still reeks of grandma’s house— speaking echoes of the past— vibrating tones of sound waves from years away, reverberating her words—just as imperceptible as they were when I was five in front of an old television clattering buttons on a controller— spinning slam dunks in NBA Jam— that spoon listening from the kitchen resonating with her soft words about what to eat for lunch, or cucumber sandwiches, or my favorite color for a quilted cover— blue, on my bed in my room still— recording each prayer at the dinner table, cousins laughing in the backyard, and parents conversing with her. The spoon vibrates subtly forever with her cadence— trapped a piece of her spirit within the residue of split-pea left behind to dissolve into its gold folds— capturing scents into its bowl:

musty mothballs, peppermint candy, casseroles, perogies, and kielbasa. Like the keys of St. Peter, the brass spoon projects her spirit while laying motionless on a desk— watching from the fringes of perception. I was still Catholic when she died— served as an altar boy at her funeral. I didn’t really know what that meant then.

Happy Birthday Rebecca Galarza It’s your birthday. The party is just outside your bedroom. Holding a beer so tightly it becomes another hand. Brains flooded with the child you were, picking at plastic tablecloths, shaping your mouth along the lines of words you couldn’t sing, back when cake was just cake and you could count on mothers to know when it was time to go home. Now here you are, lighting joints like candles, wishing for a game of tag in the dark where it’s all touching & touching. Time, being ribbon, unravels toward this moment acknowledging you are alive, and you’re finally thanked for it. And the years always hit like punches, forcing you to recall what you dreamt of when you first gripped the knife, and every wish that grew from there. Consider yourself born from sugar. A cake with a layer for each birthday. Imagine today as a party with all the girls you’ve ever been. Talking to yourself in the corner, touching your own shoulder saying, Just wait until you’re my age. Feeling 12 years old, you watch one self leave early, while another hits the piñata. Which you is she? Can you remember what she thinks to make herself angry? Which girl picked this cake? And when she says the icing is sweet, how does it taste?