Spawning Pool—Prose and Art 2022 by Shippensburg University

SpawningPool Prose: Journeys Big and Small Art: Unfiltered Spring 2022

Shippensburg University

SpawningPool is a literary arts chapbook published at Shippensburg University by a small and dedicated team of undergraduate students. It is composed of art pieces submitted by undergraduate students of the university. SpawningPool accepts rolling submissions throughout the year, and we publish our chapbook every spring semester. Spawning Pool is a publication of The Reflector, which also accepts submissions yearround, and is compiled each fall semester. Questions? Submissions? Contact us at: reflect@ship.edu SpawningPool Prose: Journeys Big and Small, Spring 2022 Text set in Perpetua Printed by Shippensburg University Layout by Isabella Brignola, Megan Williamson, Piper Kull, and Jennie Gildner Cover art by Seth Sjoberg

Prose Editors Isabella Brignola Megan Williamson Prose Committee Members Emily Dziennik Taryn Good Nicole Potts Jailah Wilson Art Editors Piper Kull Jennie Gildner Art Committee Members Alyssa Tilley Elizabeth Peters Kimberly Braet Madison Frain Katie Huston

Letter From the Prose Editors As the light finally flickers at the end of this tunnel that we were plunged into two years ago, questions and uncertainty abound about what the “new normal” will be. The world is reopening but it now juggles the aftermath of a pandemic while trying to safely return to what has been postponed. We wish to thank Dr. Nicole Santalucia, The Reflector’s Executive Board, and the prose committee members for their masterful balancing act of keeping The Reflector safe as we begin to meet in-person once again. Now, we ask ourselves whether the next steps will be part of a new road, a new era, or if this is just another step in the everwinding trail we started in 2020. Whatever the answer may be, we thank the artists, and their works that show the path is just as important as the destination. Every piece of art, whether it is a masterful novel, a cathartic poem, or even a doodle on the side of a notebook, helps light the small torch of hope as we continue to walk, whether in pandemic or not, through the journey that goes on even after we pass it on to the next generation.

Isabella Brignola and Megan Williamson

Letters From the Art Editors Who would have known the world would look like this back in 2020? We have been living through uncertain times, but I feel as though we have entered a period of collective healing. As a sophomore, I have never known a ‘normal’ Shippensburg University experience. Through ‘Unfiltered,’ the art committee has hoped to provide an outlet where we can all express ourselves and our personal views of our lives together. People have been separated for a while; I am so thankful for my ability to work with other creatives through my position at The Reflector. Reading poems, sending jokes and creating SpawningPool together has been such a beautiful experience. Thank you especially to my lovely committee members and the amazing Jennie Gildner, but also you out there, enjoying our labor of love.

Piper Kull

This year I had the honor of working with my fellow members of The Reflector who are not just committee members but people who I call my friends. Within our group we all share a passion for promoting the student made artistic works of the students at Shippensburg University. I’ve immensely enjoyed the time that I’ve spent with my editor and extremely talented friend Piper Kull and I’m incredibly thankful for my hardworking and dedicated committee members, without them this wouldn’t have been possible. I hope that through the careful crafting of these chapbooks, readers can see both our passion for the arts and are able to appreciate the talents of their fellow students.

Jennie Gildner

Journeys Big and Small Within these pages await tales of different treks across space, time, and the mind. Whether the beginning of some unknown adventure, a brief pause along the way, or the emotional walk from one thought to another, assembled here are tales where the journey matters more than the destination.

Unfiltered ‘Unfiltered’ is an opportunity for full expression, a presentation of the ways we see the world. We had many themes in mind for this publication, but we felt that in a world with so many preconceptions and roadblocks, this was the way to go. Others’ personal views are so often lost when we are caught up with ourselves. Enjoy a peek through these talented artists’ eyes.

Table of Contents In The Forest ………………………….…………………..12 Aliyah Rodery Sparkling ice, glazed on fallen, hollow, contorted trees…………………………………….……………..13-14 Elise Hutzell A Clock………………………………………….……..15-16 Amanda Consylman Place of First Permission ……………………………...17-23 Ashleigh Kennedy Scarf in the Wind ………………………….………………24 Brielle Etze Drifting By ………………………….………………….…25 Jack Myers 8

Frog On a Stick……………………..…………………..26-28 Amanda Consylman Lovers ………………………….…………………………29 Jennie Gildner Is the Bar a Place for Love? …………………………...…30-32 April Petesch Cozy ………………………….…………………………..33 Elizabeth Peters The One Way Journey ……………………………………..34 Brielle Etze Somewhere in Time ………………………….……………35 Jennie Gildner

Crackling………………………………………….……36-39 Anonymous Headspace ………………………….……………………..40 Piper Kull Road to Nowhere ……………………………………...41-44 Lewis Minor Unfiltered ………………………….……………………..45 Taryn Good Lips of an Angel ………………………….……………46-54 Jordan Seig My Wife ………………………….……………………….55 Alyssa Tilley

A Rock Goes on a Journey to a Cool Place on Earth in the Universe at a Time in History ……………………..……56-57 Amanda Consylman The Little Red Hat …………………………………………58 Brielle Etze Aorta of Change ………………………….………………..59 Samuel Pittenger Choices ………………………………………………..60-63 April Petesch

In The Forest By Aliyah Rodery

Sparkling ice, glazed on fallen, hollow, contorted trees No one saw the world the way he did. Violent shades of deep blues and sunny yellows. Swirling echoes of wintry white, dark channels and branches of brown. Waking to the whistling breeze of north-bound gusts, his world was covered in sheets of glass. Trees dazzled, twinkled, and twisted in the presence of the rising sun. Contortionists covered in ice. Fields of wheat, which once swayed in the cool summer breeze, now stood motionless. Drops of frozen water hung as if indefinitely suspended in time. Blistering wind greeted him as he traversed the pristine ground, the ice breaking under his weight like splintering bones. Golden rays stretched across his unclouded sky, and he closed his eyes, exhaling a cloud of smoky breath. He traveled to town, a boy not yet a man, and the townspeople looked and waved with their Cheshire Cat smiles. Their roads were cleared, snow plows had scatter salt on these black, one-way streets. Their trees were bare. No ice danced 13

across their branches or powdered their fields. Town was fine. Life in town was fine. But once he reached the railroad tracks, he covered his head with a crimson cap, and witnessed his mountains change from expanses of barren trees to sparkling glass beings. Alas, no one saw the world the way he did. And he was a boy, not a man.

Elise Hutzell

A Clock Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The clock likes to tick. The clock likes to tock. The ticking and tocking does not stop. Until the batteries die. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. A clock is a good thing. Nay, a great thing. Why? Because it tells time. It tells time. It is so good at telling time, with its ticks and its tock. It’s really good.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. A clock.

Amanda Consylman

Place of First Permission I didn’t dream of poetry. I didn’t even dream of writing. So when I found myself standing outside of Messiah College’s Grantham dorm, freshly arrived for the annual Young Writers Workshop, I glanced around, slightly perturbed. It was July 2017, two months before my junior year. The air was damp, the summer was saturated, and I was 15 staring into the Fishbowl with a pillow under my arm and a humming in my head. I had written a total of one story when my mother signed me up for the camp, but my parents coughed up the $600 to send me, so here I was. The story I had written the winter before was a four-page diatribe about two Filipino brothers targeted by President Duerte’s still ongoing War on Drugs. One of the boys, of course, dies in the end after a Fast-and-Furious style motorcycle chase with the police. An added paragraph filled with copious amounts of weeping topped those emotional heights. The story managed to garner a silver key from the regional Scholastic awards. 17

Yet as fun as old Angel and poor, deceased Alon were, they were no preparation for an entire week plunging in the Yellow Breeches Creek with writers. I had read all my life, it was 18

true, and I did well in English, but suddenly I found myself living down the hall from songwriters, poets, storytellers, most of whom were older than me. I had no writing schedule, no publications, not even a proper portfolio. My school had no literary journal, or even a student newspaper, to speak of. I didn’t even know what a literary journal was. And when the group watched Pride and Prejudice later that first evening, I struggled to follow along with the story, having never read the book, all the while the rest of the campers shrieked over the film as they quoted the famous scenes with the occasional toss of popcorn. How could I compete with Austen aficionados? My little story and its key seemed to shrink. The next morning at a crisp 8:15am was our first workshop session. It was during that morning that I met none other than Dr. Windholz. The day passed in a blur. I oddly enough don’t remember the introductions that must have occurred, but I do remember Dr. Windholz sending us out of the classroom and into the lobby to analyze Robert Duncan’s “Often I am Permitted to Return to a Meadow.” The light fumbled through

Boyer Hall. I remember not understanding the poem. I remember some of the others and their equally clouded discussions. Just who is The Queen Under the Hill? What does ring-a-round-a-rosy have to do with grass? This is a poem about death, right? Most of all I distinctly remember thinking to myself, “At least I’m not a poet.” Sure, it was hard writing dialogue and denouement, but at least fiction writers could write things people understand (and make money while doing so). If poetry was “a disturbance of words within words,” I didn’t want it. And yet I felt drawn to this puzzle of a poem. I might not have recognized it then, pushed the poem into the back of my folder, but it was true. The language was, to use Messiah language, a divine mystery. What was this place that was “as if it were a scene made-up by the mind, / that is not mine, but is a made place, / that is mine indeed”? I had lived my life thousands of miles from my birthplace, in a town where I met few children and no adults who looked like me. Could I invoke Duncan’s masters to permit me a place of my own?

I think it was then, looking back, that I fell in love, though I didn’t know it yet. I started scribbling in my little Moleskine. The definitions of “enjambment,” “adage,” “volta.” Dickinson, Auden, and Sandburg quotes. “Terrence Hayes,” one portion reads, a note to look up this new name back at the dorm. “The leaves look like God took a paintbrush but ending up spilling the paint!” another cries. And there were just so many good things to read in Dr. Windholz’s handouts, words blowing through like seedlings. Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. Annie Dillard’s “Living Like Weasels.” Haryette Mullen’s “Black Nikes.” Tess Gallagher’s “Under Stars.” C.D. Wright’s “Crescent.” So many stars. The world opened like a palm. I wrote my first poem.

It was not, to be sure, a particularly good (or any good) poem, this diatribe about my since long-forgotten crush. It also clearly copied the syntax of Duncan’s poem. But it was a beginning, the first poem I wrote outside of an exercise for class or even the camp. It was mine. By the end of the week I’d have ten more, or at least ten drafts. I remember finally mustering up the courage to stick around after a session towards the end of the week and show Dr. Windholz one of them. Had I been in his place, I’d probably have had an exercise on biting back laughter, rather than poetics, on hand. But he smiled, told me which lines had promise, which could be remolded. What exactly he said, I don’t remember. What I do know is that by the end of the week, I felt like somebody worth becoming. 22

I wasn’t all the way there. At the closing reading for the parents, I opted for a prose piece instead of the more publicly (and privately) embarrassing poems. I still didn’t consider myself a poet; such a proclamation seemed to be reserved for the confident, the qualified, and I was a playground girl learning to swing. Yet it was with Dr. Windholz that I learned to root myself, to strip the skin to get to song. Without him, I don’t know if I’d be studying literature today, let alone writing it too. When I look back on that week – on the water swaying through the Breeches, the glassy air in Boyer Hall, the hours pilfering through stacks in Murray Library, the brush of pen on paper – the words of Duncan come once more to me. It is a place “that is mine, it is so near to the heart, / an eternal pasture folded in all thought… that is a place of first permission, / everlasting omen of what is.”

Ashleigh Kennedy

Scarf in the Wind I have been drifting for days now. Touched by many hands. I have seen many things. Things that I would rather not have seen. Humans. Who invented them, anyway? Kinda ugly in my opinion, not gonna lie. All too unique and sleek. Selfish. But the dogs. Dogs are good. I wanna keep a dog warm someday. That is my goal. To warm all the dogs. I shall start with the small ones and move to the big ones. Yes. This is my life plan.

Brielle Etze

Drifting By By Jack Myers

A Frog On A Stick I am a frog. I sit on a stick. I like my life on this stick. It has nice bark, very brown. It lets me sit just above the stream. I only sit on my side of the stick. Mr. Snail sits on the other side, right above the water. He calls me Mr. Frog, and he's a polite snail. I'm happy as a frog on a stick. Until Mr. Beetle decides to tell me that Mr. Snail has the better spot, and maybe I'm being dumb by staying on my side of the stick. I love my stick, but who am I to question Mr. Beetle? Maybe I do want the other side of the stick. "Can I sit on that side of the stick?" I ask Mr. Snail. "No," he says.

"Okay," I say. I tell Mr. Beetle just so. "You're a pushover, Froggy," he says. I don't know what a pushover is. It sounds French. Maybe it's not so bad, but Mr.Beetle made it sound mean. So, I ask Mr. Snail again for his side of the stick. "No," he says again. Well, I guess this side of this stick is just for me. Mr. Snail likes his side, and I like mine. Except Mr. Beetle is just such a smart beetle. And I am just a frog. "Just take his spot, Froggy. He'll have to move," Mr. Beetle advises. So I do.

The stick doesn't like that. It falls right into cold water as I step forward. Mr. Snail floats away, clinging to the stick, and now I am wet and cold. And not a happy frog. I won't listen to Mr. Beetle anymore. It's time to find a new stick. The End.

Amanda Consylman

Lovers By Jennie Gildner

Is the Bar a Place for Love? Trigger Warning: Suicidal Thoughts and Sex Under the Influence The bar was dimly lit, with dust scattering the light. The neon lights flickered on and off, enticing patrons with advertisements of beer and liquor. The signs dangled from the walls, a few struggling to stay lit. It was a quiet night with a few dozen patrons laughing in a melancholy melody. There were drinks scattered over the tables, with lipstick on the rim of a halfdrunk mixed cocktail. The lipstick was smudged red on the glass, glistening in the dim lights. Music pulsed softly in the background a sad love song. It was faint but the beat enclosed the bar as the last few customers mingled and tried to milk any extra time they could from the bar. The tired bartender just wanted to go home. In the bathroom, two hungry lovers were desperate to caress each other. The mirror was cracked, scattering their image every which way. Hidden in the corner, there were two stalls, 30

one which had a broken lock. The ceiling was high with vents while the floor was dirty and grimy. The lights, for some ungodly reason, were even dimmer in the bathroom. Darkness crept in the corners, shadows creeping on the outskirts of the lover’s sensual hands. Moans were soft and blended right into the sad love song. She felt so good, she could die happy for once. In some ways she did. The ecstasy she felt with her lover was unmatched by the pain she tried to outdrink. Drunk, vulnerable to anybody else that wasn’t her lover, she was desperate to be taken advantage of in that dimly lit bar. She wanted to flirt with death, as she felt so much pain in her life. She didn’t feel as if she was worthy of pleasure. She simply wanted to end her misery. She begged and begged her lover to end her misery, much to her lover’s dismay. She wanted to tongue taste death- gun or rope- it didn’t matter as long as she was dead. Her lover loved her with a love that was so strong, it pained to see her darling in such a state. She whispered praises to her pained lover, caressing her and holding her as she cried in the bar’s bathroom

The bartender opened the bathroom, with the hinges creaking and lights ominously flicking as they tend to do in after hours. They saw the scene of the two lovers holding each other crying uncontrollably. They closed the door quickly, pretending not to see them, and trying not to cry themselves. The tired bartender just wanted to go home.

April Petesch

Cozy By Elizabeth Peters

The One Way Journey I am on a journey. It is in one direction. North. I cannot speak or walk so this journey is hard. I have to rely on dumb humans for things. They carry me. I point to where I want to go. They do not take me there. They wander in circles. It is very frustrating. I get mad. I have one goal, one place to be. How can they not understand? I point with my red arrow to where I want to go. Simple. Don’t they understand? Apparently not. I am just a compass who cannot speak. I cannot walk. Will my journey ever be complete?

Brielle Etze

Somewhere in Time By Jennie Gildner

Crackling Trigger Warning: Addiction I peered within the thin tubular glass piece. The copper wire was the only source of construction in the tube, that would catch and gleam the light from the sun. This piece of glass was both everything I wanted and resented in life. I tried to convince myself this glass was one of the keys of releasing me from the chains of existence, but it always seemed to tighten the chains anyhow. I wasn’t freed in the slightest, it just kept me placid. Complacency is the sin of growth, the anti-agent of change, and change is the guide in the pursuit of progress. I’m tired of being heavy and sedated with poison and that’s exactly what these were. It went beyond the glass piece and it’s offending agents from the devil. Crack was such a short lived high but damn, it was such a head rush. A thrill. Euphoric. Until the crash came after the high was said and done. My journey with drugs did not start until I was a young teen with marijuana. It stayed consistent until I hit 19 when I tried 36

acid. Then I turned 20 and met the love of my life, who was also my drug dealer, and tried everything. Cocaine. Pills. Meth. The works. The hard shit. Admittedly, the meth was my idea, she hated it. Yet, it did not matter where the drugs came from or who supplied it, because at the end of the day it was my choice to try them. While it was my choice to try them, it was not my choice to be addicted. Yet, if you were once an addict, you will always be an addict. That is just a fact of life, the temptation from the devil will always be there. I wasn’t just fucking around with green tree and psychedelics like a good California sober citizen would, like a good California sober teen I used to be would. That was my mistake. I was experimenting with my freedom and my life, and I did not care about the consequences in case things went awry for me on a personal level. I just wanted to get high, I just wanted to feel good, but feeling good is not always being good. Even amidst the journey of my budding addictions, I used to excel in life. I excelled despite the challenges of my mental health. Then I slipped. I started doing things regularly, on the dot, around the clock. It got out of control, I lost what discipline I had

developed over the years. The routine I had grasped, tangled, and stitched together came undone over the series of a couple of years. I lost control. I had no concept of what it meant to be functioning on the level I needed to, the plane I wanted to. The place from where I stood to where I wanted to be…the gap between those destinations got larger, longer, and darker. The glass stem piece is no longer clear. The sun’s rays can no longer penetrate the thin quartz layer. It’s stained dark, with resin from product long used and gone, and has dripped itself into an abyss of rancid impurity. The impure sin has caught itself in my soul once again and I have caved, I have indulged. The crackling sound has drifted away into silence. The smell still pungent the room, despite the copious amounts of scented candles and incense. Or perhaps, it’s just my own craving for the drug that’s impending on my senses. A drug that I had quit on February 20, 2022, at 11:40 am. The piece was clean and new just the night before but now it’s stained with sin.

It did not use to be like this, but alas the end is always self-made. It’s up to me on this journey to decide when to end it. The circle I walked around in insanity, and the pattern that developed because of my predicament, were factors in my pursuit to something greater than myself. I had lost my personal power to drugs, and it is time to change. It is time to take my power back. The time is now. The end is always self-made, as is the beginning, as is the end.

Anonymous

Headspace Piper Kull

Road to Nowhere Trigger Warning: Suicide and Depression It’s 11:38 p.m. on a Sunday night in February. I’m walking down the shoulder of a winding interstate bordered by empty fields somewhere I’ve never been before; and I’m wondering how my life went so horrifically wrong that this is where I’ve come to find myself. The ground is covered in a thin layer of ice and snow shimmering in the winter moonlight, except for the road where blinding pairs of headlights flash by me once every few minutes. With each passing vehicle, I hope that this will finally be the one to slow down, to pull over next to me and ask: “Are you okay?” But I’ve been waiting most of my life for someone to ask me that question – to extend a hand towards my hopelessly flailing body and try to pull me out of the riptide carrying me out to sea – and I’m beginning to come to the conclusion that that’s something I’ll never have the privilege of hearing. I’ve been holding my breath for far too long, submerged

and sinking deeper and deeper into this meaningless void of ocean we call life. My feet have been treading this cold, cracked pavement for what seems like an eternity. I don’t know where I’m going, and I hardly remember where I’ve come from. But it doesn’t seem to matter anymore, it’s beginning to feel like one way or another, aimlessly trudging down this forsaken expanse of asphalt is all I’ve ever been doing, whether I knew it or not. It’s as if nothing has ever existed outside this road, my past and future being just different points along its path. Whether I continue ahead, or turn around, makes no difference; I have no destination, and no home to return to. Yet the world’s undying cruelty has taken its toll, and I’m succumbing to the unrelenting, intoxicating pull of earth’s gravity, dragging me to the bottom of the abyss that shall be my final resting place. I feel that downward force increasing with every step, beckoning me to fall and collapse into the frozen ditch running parallel to the road I’ve been wandering on whatever sick, twisted journey my life has become. And I now realize, my

only purpose in life is its continuation: to take one step after another, and draw out my existence to intolerable extents, for no reason other than prolonging the inevitable destruction that awaits me. Day and night, summer and winter, forward and back, have lost all meaning; time is an endless road to nowhere. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m even real. Have any of the innumerable cars that have driven past even seen me? If I laid down in the middle of the road, would anyone stop for me then? I’ve grown numb beyond the point of recognition, my blood frozen in its veins, my body becoming a lifeless shell being blown onward only by the wind. I’m entering into the final seconds of my existence, and with each tormenting step, I draw closer to my gravestone lurking on the horizon. As my feet make their final movements, I look up as I hear another vehicle approaching in the grim silence of the night, and for a moment, I feel warm. I feel hope and see sunlight, and the blood begins to flow in my veins yet again. For a brief, beautiful moment, I believe that this car will be carrying the one person who will finally see me, who will be my savior and will slow down to offer me hope, and life. I stare

into the phosphorescent radiance of the headlights that look like beaming rays of holy light as it dances across my raw, frozen skin, and I see my life in the reflection of the windshield; and then I see it all dissolve into oblivion, as the taillights are swallowed by darkness. I turn to look down into the frost covered ditch littered with crushed cans and empty grocery bags, and I see my grave, I see my destiny. I see that this has always been my fate, that all my life has amounted to is a slow and meaningless death as I decay back into the nothingness from which I was born. As I collapse and my conscious floats out of my body, I wonder, if anyone sees my frozen corpse, rotting away in this ditch filled with garbage, will they stop for me then? I suppose my life is only worth noticing once it has passed, once my journey has ended.

Lewis Minor

Unfiltered By Taryn Good

Lips of an Angel Music pumps through my veins alongside the alcohol that I have been downing for the past four hours. Pulling a cigarette from the packet put the end to my lips, lighting the butt and taking a long drag. Pulling the cigarette away, I blow the smoke out. It clouds my vision wrapping around my head and mind like a toxic snake squeezing its prey to death. My tongue tastes of smoke and alcohol. "Happy Birthday to me." I mumble taking another hit before finishing the last of my drink and letting the cup drop to the counter with a sickening thud. I couldn't be sure how much I had already drunk but there was no way I was driving home. I could use the fresh air and exercise anyway. Finishing the last of my cigarette I smudge the tip into the bottom on the ashtray, watching as the glowing embers die into nothing but lifeless ash. I swing my legs around, the world spinning around me as I grip the edge of the bar to push myself off 46

the chair. The music is loud, and I can feel the bass pounding in my stomach. Everything looks like a video game that is lagging. I stare at my feet, willing my legs to move, to push me off the chair but I just can't move. I squeeze my eyes shut as the world sways around me. A warm hand is pressed into my forearm and I barely open my eye lids, trying to focus my eyes on the person who is touching me. "W-What?" I slur. I find myself making eye contact with a beautiful brunette. Her hair is pulled up into an updo and a few flyaway hairs line the outside of her face. Her eyes appear to be a vibrant brown almost gold but the way the lights are flashing, I can't focus enough to tell for sure. She isn't skinny, but she isn't overweight, but her arms are extremely toned and muscular. No taller than 5'8, she wears black heels with a black lacy top jumpsuit. She smiles. If I wasn't so out of it, I would try to convince her to give

me her number. Instead, my eyes droop closed for a few seconds before I reopen them and find her in the same position. "Are you okay?" Over the roaring of the music and the pounding in my head, her voice barely registers. Am I okay? I think I am. I am drunk. On my birthday, alone. I am good. "I th- think... I think so." She laughs, and it sends me into a fit of giggles, "You definitely don't look okay." "What...what makes you...say that?" I question blinking multiple times to clear my vision. "You are drinking alone on a Friday night. It's only 10:24 and you are already wasted. Why don't I call a cab for you?" I nod my head and mumble what I thought was a solid thank you. I am not sure how much time has passed before I am

being helped into the back of a car. My head lolls to the side and I take a deep breath closing my eyes. "Here is the money for the ride, keep the change. Just make sure he gets home please. Here is his address..." I wonder how she had gotten my address but in all honestly, I didn't have the energy to question anything. An overwhelming sensation of despair gnaws away at my insides tearing my heart into shreds. It feels as if my insides are burning, and my eyes fill with tears. Refusing to allow anyone see me so weak, I take a shuddering breath. Before I know it, I am holding onto someone as we stumble into an apartment. My apartment. Sitting down on the coach I grip onto a water bottle the man holds out for me. "Th-thanks man..." I draw out as I lean against the back of the couch. He pats my shoulder.

"Have a goodnight man. Be careful and if you feel wrong, call 911. I found a trashcan; it is next to your right foot. Your keys, wallet and ID are on the coffee table. I will lock your apartment as I leave. Have a good night bro.” I have no idea what all the man said. I only heard half of it as I try to focus. With a grumble of a thank you, the man leaves, and I wonder if he told the truth. Sitting there on the couch, I open my eyes staring at tv. With the light of the lamp on, I stare at my reflection in the screen. My hair is completely messed up and my shirt is covered in alcohol. What a joke. I laugh and laugh until my laughter turns into sobs. Tears stream down my cheeks as my chest painfully tightens. I am a mess. I don't deserve to have the life I was given. I was always a good kid. A straight A student who not only was great at academics but at lacrosse and football. Nothing was ever

good enough. I am not good enough. I still sit alone in my apartment drowning. I am choking. Demons are wrapping their hands around my throat as their glass shattering screams pierce my ears. I am trying to push them away. To get away. To do anything that will keep them away. Sometimes I escape but the moment something bad happens, they are there clawing against my skin, crying for me to just give up. To kill myself. I find myself stuffing a gun into the inside of my pocket. I know I shouldn't be doing it, but I can't seem to stop. It feels as if I have no control over my body. Sitting down in my normal booth, I clutch my hot cup of coffee. Without realizing it, I had made my way to Hostler's Family Restaurant. I have always enjoyed coming here. Sometimes I could sit for hours just watching the world. Whether it be a sports team getting together, college or high school students hanging out together after school or watching people enjoy Pop's famous milkshakes.

Chugging the last of my hot coffee, I relish at the warmth that spreads down my chest and into my stomach. If I was going to die, it would be with a belly full of hot coffee. Setting the empty cup down I grab a fifty-dollar bill from my wallet and place it under the cup before leaving. I can hear the older waitress Judy calling after me in confusion and disbelief, but I ignore her and continue. I don't know how long I walk until I find myself standing at the edge of the bridge. Why should I keep living? I hated my job, my group of "friends" are toxic; always encourage me to try drugs. I can never fit in. My father never once told me he was proud of me. Not even when I made the winning goal at our national lacrosse game. He wasn't even there. When he lied in his death bed my junior year of college, I asked him if he ever had a moment when he was genuinely proud of me. When he told me no, my heart shattered. I left the hospital and never acknowledged my family again. I didn't even attend his funeral.

I am exactly what my family called me: worthless, selfish, waste of space, a mistake. For years I denied every bad thought and thing I was told. I tried to believe that I was anything but what they called me. But I was wrong. I crawl up onto the ledge of the bridge to the best I can. The world still slightly sways but I manage to keep my balance. I picked a bridge that was big but barely got any traffic. With a sigh I close my eyes leaning my head back praying aloud, "I do not know if there truly a God or if heaven exist. I am sorry. I just can't do this anymore. I hope you can forgive me." Heavy, hot tears stream down my face as I sob. "I tried man, I tried so hard. I thought maybe, just maybe, that one day I would be good enough for someone. I am sorry." I open my arms with my eyes still closed, crying softly.

"Forgive me God" Everything happens so fast. I can feel myself falling but then suddenly my feet are touching the ground again as the world spins around me. When the world seems to slow down, I pry my eyes open finding myself staring at the brunette from earlier. Her eyes are wet with tears as they slip down her cheeks. She grabs my face and places her soft lips against mine. My eyes fall shut as a deep sense of warm engulfs my being. It feels as if I am being kissed by an angel. When I open my eyes, I am left alone, standing on the bridge with a new sense of warmth burning in my heart.

Jordan Seig

My Wife By Alyssa Tilley

A Rock Goes on a Journey to a Cool Place on Earth in the Universe at a Time in History I am a rock. Rocks are pretty cool. If you don’t think so, then I hate you because I am a rock. And I am cool. I am really old. I am just a bunch of elements melded into a rock. I like myself. I am pretty. I am brown and lumpy in all the right places. That's what my girlfriend told me, and she’s a cool rock too, so I know she is right. I lost Lina to a kid and his grubby hand. He threw her. Just because throwing is easy. But do these stupid, uncool humans ever think of what us rocks feel? Because I feel a lot of cool things. I feel dirt and water and things that aren’t grubby kid hands. I miss Lina. She always sat with me. In the dirt.

I want to follow her. I will follow her. I have been with her for a thousand years, and this is not how I lose her. But I don’t have legs. Or hands. Or… limbs. So, I’ll sit in my really cool place alone. I guess.

Amanda Consylman

The Little Red Hat Darkness. That is all I remembered before I was ripped from the depths of soft carpet fibers. A sandpaper tongue and piercing yellow teeth clenched me tightly as I was blinded with light. Little did I know that these teeth would carry me for hours at a time for many days. It all happened so fast, I do not know how long I was in that darkness before I was found by this raging beast. The beast dragged me this way and that, dropping me to the ground carelessly then hitting me with its sharp talons. I was thrown across the room and picked back up again, just to have the process repeated. When the beast was satisfied, it would pick me up again in its teeth and carry me to a new location, just to drop me and try to rip me apart. If the beast got distracted, I would just lay there in the light hoping it would forget about me. It never did. I miss the comfortable darkness of before. I suppose this is life when you are a little wool hat, the size of a thimble, living with a fearsome cat.

Brielle Etze 58

Aorta of Change By Samuel Pittenger

Choices Trigger Warning: Suicidal Thoughts I always had the choice, so why did it seem I always choose wrong? Keep going. Wrong. Stop. Wrong. Backwards, forwards, sideways. Wrong, wrong, wrong. That’s alright, I must pick myself up. Keep going, keep coming, and keep on keeping on. Where to? Circles. It feels like circles, this pattern I’ve been treading. It’s a difficult, daunting, and dark maze I find myself trapped in. I need to find a light, an end, a light, an end. Yet, it’s missing, the ending that I’m pining for; that will hopefully lead me to a beginning that I’ve been dreaming of. In the meantime, I am digging myself a grave. Not quite six feet deep yet, but close enough to consider Hell a cozy home if there ever was one nestled beneath the Earth’s crust. A Hell I desperately want to crawl out of. I need to...but the questions loom over me. How? Where to? Progress? Forward? Backward? Forward? The anxiety of what could be and what should be plague me as I keep kicking the dirt up in my eyes. The grave descends deeper into the depths. I feel insane, deranged…off kelter. I cannot seem to stand back up, no 60

matter how hard I try. The grave sinks deeper with no intention of allowing me to escape. I need to free myself and crawl out but my teeth are numb and my nails have chipped away. I am exhausted and weak. It is not going to be easy, not that suffering, or soaring, ever really was easy. Easy is an illusion designed to keep us going. However, when you look at me sincerely, not at my face but my heart, I know I am found. I am not an easy person by any stretch of the means, not easy to understand nor love nor even tolerate. Despite this inherent innate challenge I continuously find within myself, you managed to see me. I need my eyes to follow yours, deep down into the depths of a soul plane you penetrate. You peeled my layers back and revealed something unmatched to anything else no one’s ever uncovered before. You found a light in me when all I felt inside was darkness. You made the choice to see something different in me…It led me to choose something different for myself.

Choices are around us every day, and our future is riddled with the consequences of them. I struggled with mine for so long, to come to terms with my decisions and their underlying implications. You showed me something different, not only within myself but outside in this world. A fresh perspective of which grass to water, and which grass’s smoke to let whither away and let the wind carry it elsewhere. I wish the wind could take my troubles away as easily as it carries smoke to other horizons. Yet, the wind can only do so much. I must stand on my own two feet. I must find my own self-worth. I must cultivate self-love. Yet, selflove sometimes needs a seed planted, and you are my gardener. You took my grave plot and turned it into a flower bed, full of roses, tulips, and sunflowers. Pops of color dotting the previously barren landscape, bringing forth a life I’ve never known before. You’ve shown me I do not have to dig my own grave any longer. I’m not a groundskeeper at a graveyard. I’m a gardener cultivating my own sense of self-worth because you showed me how to weed out my thoughts, behaviors, and resulting choices. If I always had the choice and I always choose wrong on my own, you showed me how to choose right. I choose wrong because I did not know any

better beyond my own self-absorbed lens of desire. Desire can only take us so far, but it usually ends in a grave. You created a garden out of my grave’s mess. For that, I can never show you my appreciation enough, nor thank you enough, nor love you enough. You’ve guided me tremendously on this journey, and because of so, I’m able to start navigating from death to rebirth. The destination is still so far away, but it does not feel out of reach anymore.

April Petesch

Acknowledgments When it comes to going from one place to the next, the more the merrier. When it comes to making a chapbook like this one, it’s simply better to have a team. Below are just some of the people who helped make this literary journey possible. Dr. Nicole Santalucia, advisor of both The Reflector and the SpawningPool: Your leadership and support are what allow this group of artists and editors to flourish. Beyond the list of tasks needed for keeping The Reflector together, you have inspired and encouraged the growth and expression of countless students. Thank you for being not just an advisor, but a mentor to everyone you meet. Our Executive Board, Megan Gardenhour, Hannah Cornell, and Autumn Jones: Through this time of uncertainty where we stand both at the end of a historical change and at the start of a hopeful return to the new, you have managed to navigate the confusing maze of leadership. Through your relentless 64

efforts and constant encouragements, you have allowed The Reflector to thrive. Without your support and experience, this book would not exist, nor would many of the people here have the courage to take up the journey of creation. Thank you for your work and your belief that the creative talents at Shippensburg are worth the effort. Our Committee Members: Thank you for walking down the long hectic road of creating a chapbook. From spreading the word about events, offering important opinions and feedback, and completing the long process of ranking, you have defended and fought for the creators found within these pages. Each smile they shine from seeing this book is owed to you. Kim Hess: Thank you for guiding us through the exciting, though sometimes confusing world of formatting a chapbook. Your kindness and willingness to work with us allows this chapbook to go from an average Word Document to

something polished. Your expertise allows our creator’s work to shine. Our Creators: The only thing that can be more daunting than looking at an empty page or screen is mustering the courage to share what you’ve created. The value of art is the emotions it makes you and others feel. So, to the artists who submitted, whether your piece unloads the weight of some story, sheds light on the world around you, or even if it was made merely to illicit a single laugh, thank you. Thank you for entrusting us and the world with your creativity and perspective. Keep writing even if only to your page or your screen. We at The Reflector will wait in Horton 128, hoping to hear more of your journeys, big and small.