SILHOUETTE LITERARY
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SILHOUETTE LITERARY COVER ART BY CARSON ARNOLD
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Hello friends, I’m so excited you’re here! Silhouette really has become quite the passion project for me over the past couple of years. I’ve always believed in the power of creativity and I’m so happy, and honored, to be able to share some of Virginia Tech’s greatest creative talent with you. Special thanks to all of the artists who submitted their work for this issue and to my amazingly creative team of staff members who somehow managed to put up with my less than ordinar y way of doing things. I can’t imagine having produced this magazine without them, especially Richie Parks, my Business Manager and right-hand man. Alright, enough jibber-jabber, let ’s get to the good stuff. Sincerely,
Casey Phillips Editor in Chief
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Silhouette is a literary and arts publication focused on fostering and encouraging creative expression within the Virginia Tech community.
344 Squires Student Center Blacksburg, Virginia 24061 www.silhouette.collegemedia.com
FIRE Nneoma Nwankwo
you told me fire is a miracle It ought to catch us unawares – like love lit you swore this, as I held the blue lighter to your lips. Matching its flame to the butt of your joint I called the flaring iridescence beautiful you called it expected So, on these unfortunate nights when you cross my mind, I flick the blue lighter and watch its singular flame frolic. Glad – you are no longer here to steal its helpless beauty.
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UNTITLED Darren Siler
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PLEASE By Catie Cheek
I stuff my hands into my pockets and clench them rhythmically in an attempt to thaw them out. My breath swirls on the night air and disappears. The soft clack-clack of my heels echoes between the endless skyscrapers and I pull my overcoat a little tighter. A rare kind of silence has settled over the city at this hour, and I find myself entranced in thought as I walk between buildings that stretch past the heavens. I think about being lifted high in the air by the strong hands of my father. In the memory I can see his smile - the rotting spots in his teeth, the matted places in his hair, the gray of his eyes that look like they may once have been green. I know that I didn’t notice them then, but I can’t help seeing them now. He plopped me tenderly onto the passenger’s seat next to him, covered in torn blankets and yellowing pillows. The air in the bedding puffed out and my nose filled with the scent of old fast food and body odor. I remember once he found a five-dollar bill on the street and tucked it in his pocket. Later, he pulled out a pair of worn pink sneakers and pushed a few napkins in each toe before slipping them onto my feet. They were still a little big buthe said you’ll grow into them. I clapped my hands and decided pink was my favorite color. 6
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When I was older I would spend hours cross-legged and shivering, poring over my homework by candlelight. Even as a young girl, I knew that school was my way to electricity and water, to a real bed and three meals a day and spare change in a ceramic pig on my nightstand. I would walk each empty apartment we snuck into and picture it with photographs on the walls, a dog curled up in the corner, and Daddy flipping pancakes in the kitchen. Later, I would light a candle in the room that I had picked as my bedroom and turn to my schoolwork until my father’s withering face poked around the door frame. If he had a good day scavenging he would offer me a stick of jerky or a bag of potato chips for dinner. Some days he brought home books from the ‘free’ table at the library and would read them to me until I fell asleep on the floor. I lose myself in the memory of the day I lost him. That morning I met with a guidance counselor at my school and found out that I could go to college if I kept up my grades and applied for financial aid. She slid two envelopes across the desk with a smile and a here you go, honey. I traced the labels with my fingers – schools and scholarships. I could make this happen for me. I could make this happen for us. Clutching the files to my chest,
I grinned at the counselor and ducked out of the room. That night, at the shelter, Daddy threw his head back in a roar of pride. That’s my girl, he said. He opened his arms wide and I rushed into them. My feet swung off the floor and I felt the ribs under his shirt as he spun me around. He set me down and gripped the tops of my arms. I’ve got an idea. How about - he reached into his backpack and pulled out a single dollar bill – a candy bar? My face split into a grin and I snatched it out of his hand, bolting from the room and out onto the sidewalk. I could hear him laughing as he fought to keep up. It was late, and the streets were empty, so I broke into a run, wrinkling the bill in my hand. He yelled for me to slow down, so I paused for him at a crosswalk, but sped across it as soon as he caught up. The air rushed past my face and I squealed in delight. Tires screamed on the asphalt behind me, and I turned to see my father catapulted into a shop window. The glass cracked and he crumpled into a heap at its base, arms and legs sticking out at unnatural angles. I rushed to his side, shrieking. The taxi driver stood over me saying no, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I pressed my hand into my father’s crimson cheek and turned his face to me. His eyes were only gray, and
they stared past me unblinkingly. I let out a choked, sobbing Daddy and curled into his chest. It was warm, but silent. By the time an officer pulled me off and wrapped me in a blanket, my hair was stained red and hardened. The police told me to stay at the shelter until they could get me into a foster home. They couldn’t believe I wasn’t in one already. When they left I sat in the shower until morning, put on jeans and one of my father’s sweaters, and went to sit on the front stoop in the sunlight. I stayed there most of the day, until I saw a dad holding his little girl’s hand and asking about school. I heard her squeal Daddy! as he lifted her onto his shoulders. After they passed I cut around to the alleyway and got sick. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve, crossed my arms, and just started walking. I think about the young woman who wrapped an arm around me and brought me inside when she found me shaking and stiff in a doorway two days later. I spent a week on her couch; she fed me hot soup and brushed my hair back from my face and told me I was going to be okay. At night I would hear the clack of her heels across the linoleum, smell her perfume from across the room. In the morning I’d hear her unlock the deadbolt and come in barefoot, dropping her shoes by the door. VOL. 38
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Once, I woke up to her sitting at the dining room table in a short red dress, counting a large stack of money and making notes on a spreadsheet. When she saw me watching she smiled and knelt down in front of me, tugging the blankets up over my shoulders. When you’re feeling better, I’ll show you how to have that too. I smiled and drifted back to sleep. When I was healthy she told me many men would pay for a girl as young and pretty as I was. It will only hurt a little, she said, and even then maybe only the first time. My eyes welled up but I nodded. If I tried to get a regular job, I would end up in a foster home. I trusted her, and looked up to her like the sister I never had. When you’re ready, let me know. It was just weeks later, as the first man entered me, that I truly accepted my father’s death. A world where he was alive could not exist at the same time as a world where I needed to use my body to survive. The physical pain was nothing compared to the wreckage of grief and disgust that filled me to bursting. The man grunted and asked you like that? I said yes but tears threatened to leak from the corners of my eyes. When he was finished he passed me a stack of bills, but it was fifty short. I asked him for it but he laughed at me. The least you can do is fucking fake it, he said. 8
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When I was able to put down my first deposit on an apartment, I managed to convince myself that it was okay. I told myself that it was good that my father was dead. He was free from this, in a place where his teeth were whole, his hair was smooth, and his eyes were green. His death brought food to my stomach and warmth to my toes. Over time I became numb to the world, numb to the men, numb to myself. *** I shiver as I break out of my stream of memories. Tears are freezing on my face and I stop to wipe them away in the reflection of a shop window. My hair whips frantically around my head like angry snakes. I look myself in the eye and for one absurd moment I wonder if I was born with gray eyes or if they’ve turned that way over my lifetime in this cold, colorless world. My stomach clenches. I am ashamed of who I’ve become, of what I’ve done to have this coat, these shoes, the mascara on my lashes. I turn away from the window and tuck my chin into my scarf, resuming the clack-clack of my heels on the sidewalk. I’m so focused on getting home and out of the cold that I almost step on her as I dash up the front stoop. The girl is around my age, maybe eighteen or twenty, and
moans softly. Her thin arms peek through the holes in her sweater, and her hair is in a matted ponytail. Deep purple bruises surround one eye and blood runs from the corner of her mouth. I stand very still, my shadow lying softly over her body like the blanket she so desperately needs. I know that I can help her, to be the sister she needs. I can show her how to have more than matted hair and holey sweaters and blood on her mouth. I can tell that she is very pretty beneath the injuries. I crouch down and shake her shoulder gently. Our faces are very close, and she stirs. Her eyebrows pinch together for a moment as I brush the hair back from her face. She opens her eyes and locks them onto mine. I freeze. Behind the purple bruising and smudges of dirt are ice blue irises with just a tinge of gray around the edges. She shudders as she draws breath and her lips move soundlessly before uttering a broken please. Her breath rattles in her chest and barely shows in the cold night air. I do not move. Her eyes accuse me and pardon me. They know what I am and they know what I was and they know what I could be. They are eyes that can live, but they are in a body that could spend its last night here on my doorstep. They roll back and disappear behind her lids as she shudders and
loses consciousness. The street is deserted, so I decide to give her what I could never have. I decide to set her free before the clothes she’s wearing are earned from the body they are covering and the last of the blue is gone from her eyes. I step over her and into my apartment, locking the deadbolt behind me.
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I DON’T MIND Libby Howe
I don’t mind my mind. Most of the time, that is. Sometimes I feel like I’m losing it, sometimes it won’t shut up, one time I tried to turn it off, but mostly I don’t mind it. I never really thought anything was wrong with it. Everyone has some mean voice talking shit constantly, gets lost reliving old memories every once in a while, deciphers multiple simultaneous trains of thought all day. But in my mind the mean voice is in charge most of the time, I’ve half convinced myself that I imagined everything that’s happened longer than a year ago and if most people have 2 or 3 trains I have 7 to 10 and they intersect and they crash and they go off cliffs and they run out of coal (and now I have another train of thought choo-chooing through my mind about whether or not trains really run on coal and then another one stuck on that one time I was on a train with him) and some of the tracks run stacked on top of each other like subway systems and some run in figure eights and some are wrapped vertically and diagonally around the inside of my brain like the loopy types of Hot Wheels tracks.
“I’ve half convinced myself that I imagined everything that’s happened longer than a year ago”
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If inner thoughts could be transcribed, maybe through a gadget worn like a cochlear device or maybe that’s not even remotely possible but if it were, at the end of the day you could go back and read 7:26:54AM Slept through my alarm 11:36:12AM My GPA is 3.5, not 3.9. If she finds out, yikes 2:47:42PM He doesn’t keep eye contact when he talks to her 5:18:03PM Othello smothers Desdemona this class blows and so on and so forth, but if you tried to read my transcript it would look like IfMy heHe’s toes was the are here only boney that person wouldn’t as I want have tell and I can’t How could you notfuck want to to gohappened home 7:26:54AM Slept through my alarm Qdoba I didn’t Does sheknow knowthat would notthat paying be theattention? last time Yes 11:36:12AM You really need toI’m clean 2:47:42PM Wow, way to forget tothis do that This is it. The You hammock, knew though. would What happen. about It is. that? You can’t walk in those heels worth shit This debate getting heated 5:18:03PM You don’t really want this You I could chose really this use because $1000 He ofis but him, couldn’t this you ispretty even dumbfuck sketchy look at you. It’s loud. And without this little transcription device, I’ll bet there’s a lot in there that I’ll never make heads or tails of like why I think the way I do, if it’s because of something wrong or something right, if there’s a way to quiet it when I’m sleeping or sitting still or breathing. But at the same time, so many ideas that don’t cross anyone else’s mind take regular strolls around mine. Maybe some of those will make a difference one day. So I don’t mind my mind.
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VERTIGO Stefnie Cerny
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SZA Deia Green 16 SILHOUETTE
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HOW TO BE A WHORE: And Leave a Trail of Teary-Eyed, Blue-Balled Man Sluts in your Wake By Libby Howe
I don’t need to know your back-story. I couldn’t give fewer shits about your back-story. You know why? Because every single one is the same. Don’t you No, this guy was different me, because no he wasn’t. If he had been even marginally different you wouldn’t be here, whimpering and snotting tears all over the place. It’s time to pull yourself together. I am not the useless, emotional, shoulder to cry on. I’m the bitch that’s going to show you how to never let it happen again. Pay attention. Step One Cross the line. The first one isn’t going to be easy. You’re crossing a line you’ve never even gone near before. Even if you’ve done the dirty before (Remember? That night in your dorm room when he started talking about kids and houses and white picket fences and you fell for it?), this is different. This is a whole new level of dirty for you. You’ll learn to love it, I promise. He’s been checking out your ass every time you turn around at the gym. Surprised? You should be. Why on earth would that pre-law hunk of a man your older sister’s age even spare your scrawny ass a second glance? 18 SILHOUETTE
Don’t question it. Never question anything. Just pay attention next time he’s got his hands wrapped around your waist to boost you to the pull up bar. He leaves his hands there a few moments longer than necessary. You would’ve noticed it earlier if you hadn’t been too busy glancing at your phone on the bench praying the screen would light up with a text from him. Aren’t you tired of waiting for him yet? He’s not going to text you. Not even to get that hoodie back. Burn it. Text him around 11PM. You 11:00PM I want to workout Him 11:04PM Haha what? The gym is closed You 11:05PM I know something else we can do that’ll be a good workout Him 11:05PM What? You 11:05PM Come get me Yes. It is that easy. A lot of them will happen this way. With little to no effort on your part. They’ll happen without you ever figuring out how. One
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second you’re texting him under the table at the Christmas dinner, the next, he’s got you bent over a table. Now, you’ve only ever done this with one person. You know the feel of his fingers in your hair, the curve of his back, the taste of his lips. This one is going to be different. He’s going to grab the back of your neck, run his fingers in a different pattern between your legs, arch his back in the opposite direction, feel different, smell different, taste different. And for Christ’s sake when he pulls his little buddy out of his boxers for the first time you need to hide your astonishment by how different that is (yes, they get that small). He’s going to make you nervous in a way you haven’t been before. You have no reason to be. You don’t even realize it yet, but you’re good at this. Not just the sex. All of it. And the whole time you’ll be thinking about nothing but him. Why is it him and not him with arms wrapped around you? His arms are the safest place in the world and you don’t understand why you aren’t allowed there anymore. What did he want that you didn’t have? What did you do wrong? Step Two Establish a headquarters. Vehicles are always an option. Whether it’s your family’s ’99 Chevy Suburban while you’re home on break or his shitty Honda Civic
parked behind the Baptist church behind the Baptist church because he was DDing for you and doesn’t want to leave you alone until you sober up a little. If it’s the cab of a pick-up truck don’t put your foot against the windshield. On the off chance he gets you to orgasm, you’ll put a soccer ball sized shatter in it and have to wiggle out of paying for repairs by sucking him off a few more times. Don’t make it too easy. Tell him to meet you in that room in the English building you happen to have the door code for but don’t tell him which room so he wanders around the building forever with a hard-on. Wait for a rainy night to tell him you left your bike locked to a rack on campus and he can use it to get to your place. Forget to mention you left it on campus because the tires are flat and the brakes don’t work. I guaranfucking-tee he’ll still show up (with a couple scrapes and soaked to the bone). Be careful about smells. You do this right and your sheets will always smell like him or him or him or maybe all three of them because you pulled a triple shifter this weekend without even a spare hour to throw your sheets in the laundry machine. If he notices just say it’s your ex’s cologne and you still miss him. These talking penises love the recently dumped, brokenhearted, vulnerable-as-shit peaches. Little do they know, that’s not you. You’re going to VOL. 38
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develop defense mechanisms that no one will ever break through. Never again. Step Three Pick carefully Leave good guys alone. Got it? You don’t deserve them now and they did nothing to deserve you. No one knows better than you what happens to good people when they break. The good girl loved him. The good girl knew he would always be there like he promised. She swallowed every lie he fed her. Hell, she would swallow poison if it tasted like him. She built a life around him. And when he left, she used the pieces of him that he didn’t want, that he left behind, to patch the holes in that life as best she could. She took his ugliest parts and made them her own. Because that’s all he left her. You were a good girl. You know what bad people can do to good people. Don’t do it. There are plenty of bad guys out there for you to take down. You are an anti-hero, fucking for vigilante justice, wrapped up with a pretty little bow. Disguised as an angel but the furthest thing from it. A black lacy enigma with edges sharp as hell. Stopping him in his tracks before he makes it to her. But if you start juggling around good guy hearts, you’ve lost sight of why you’re doing what you’re doing. You’re going to have your hands full with assholes and bastards anyway. 20 SILHOUETTE
Sometimes you’ll find out he wasn’t single when you let him in. That’s not your fault. Nor is it any of your business. It really isn’t. And more often than not you’ll spot him a couple months later holding hands with her as if he wasn’t just fumbling after you with his dick out. Only take on enlisted marines after you’ve had some practice. Anything involving marines generally ends up crossing into threesome territory. The majority of them are on steroids, so two enlisted marine penises combine to about the size of one average penis. But they move like they have Red Bull for blood. You’ll get dizzy trying to figure out what’s going on. Or maybe that’s from that drink they gave you. If he starts asking questions, ask him to leave. If it’s before sex then he’s just trying to pretend he gives a damn so you’ll give him what he wants. Hint: it’s not the answers to his questions he actually wants. He’s fine. If he asks questions after sex, though? When you’re partially re-dressed and laid out across the back seat of the Suburban with your head in his lap or wrapped in his arms with your fingers all tangled up? If that’s when he starts asking questions and saying shit like I feel like you have to have this incredible back story then you need to ask him to leave. He’s starting to think you’re interested in sharing more than bodily fluids. It’s not true. Don’t answer the questions.
He’s going to start asking What happened? What do you mean what happened? Every girl like you has a story. Every girl like what? You fuck with people like it’s a game. It’s a hobby to you, seeing how far you can push people. You fuck with other people that well, it’s because someone showed you how to do it. This is a perfect example of one that thinks with his brain instead of entirely with his penis. These are bad news. You are least vulnerable when you’re completely naked. Every inch of your skin exposed and every brain cell in his head focused on the way your skin feels or your hair falls down your back. He won’t ask questions. That’s when you’re safest. And when he knocks on your door again, please, please, please, please don’t let him in. I know you will. Because I did. And as badly as he broke you, he’s the only person you think will ever be able to put you back together. But he can’t, okay? He’s not there to apologize. He’s not there to fix you. Whether you let him back in your front door once, twice, or every weekend for the next two years, he won’t fix you. Even if he answers when you call him crying and he comes over when you can’t take it anymore, he won’t fix you. If for a few months he texts you every morning, brings up that inside joke you thought he forgot, invites you over to his place one weekend, makes you think he’ll
come back, he won’t. He won’t fix you. You can’t expect the same person who broke you to fix you. Please understand that. Step Four Don’t admit to it. Don’t deny it. People are going to start talking about you and it’s not all going to be nice stuff. He’s not going to take you to semi-formals or ring dance or even ask you to grab coffee between classes. But he’s going to talk about you. Without ever saying your name, they’ll know the girl he’s talking about. And the girl he’s talking about. And the girl he’s talking about. And the girl he’s talking about. They’ll make up their own stories about who got caught in your crosshairs and which relationships ended because of you. You’ll be that toxic person everyone keeps telling him to purge from his life. You’ll be the reason he carries a condom in his wallet and the girl he texts with his phone angled in the opposite direction so his friends don’t know it’s you. You’ll be that girl no one can quite figure out. They’ll try and define you. Your cross-country teammate from high school will drunkenly announce at a party that you have a bigger schlong than anyone in the room. Your best friend since sixth grade will explain your lifelong friendship as See that’s why I like you. You’re basically a dude. You just don’t have a penis. VOL. 38
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Your domestic female friend will refer to you as the epitome of “Ain’t no wifey.” He’ll watch you slip back into your jeans with his eyebrows all scrunched up and when you ask him what he’s staring at he’ll just say they write songs about girls like you. She’ll whisper slut when you walk by. Which is absurd. There’s a difference between a whore and a slut and if she’s going to label you she could at least use the right fucking label. It’s more like a title than a label. A title this makeup caked, walking Lily Pulitzer advertisement with her nose in the air will never earn. To earn this title you’re going to spend a little time with your nose shoved in the dirt. Sometimes literally. Just always check for ticks after those ones. This is all about throwing punches. You have to step into the fighter’s ring and you’re not going to come out without taking a few hits. Step Five Let him go. You’ll know. After a few shots at this, you’ll know exactly when it’s time to let him go. Obviously, when you find out he has a girlfriend, it’s time to let him go. But not without mentioning something along the lines of I’ve known about Melissa this whole time and you’re a worthless piece of shit. When you find out he’s been telling his friends that you’re his girlfriend, it’s time to let him go. Don’t sugarcoat it. Tell him we are not in a relationship nor will we 22 SILHOUETTE
ever be in a relationship, you presumptuous asshat. When he drives a Ford F-150 and you have one lined up that drives a Ford Raptor, it’s time to let him go. When you find out he broke his girlfriend’s heart for you, it’s time to let him go. Not without breaking his heart right back, of course. Pull him along on your leash for a little while until he’s as loyal as a puppy, and then drop him on his ass. He’ll try and justify it, of course. He’ll say he couldn’t stay with Lauren when he didn’t love her. He was doing them both a favor. He still cares about her. He even went to the hospital after her suicide attempt. God will forgive him. God will help her. He knows it was wrong, but he won’t crawl in a hole and die because of it. Tell him keep telling yourself all those lies. And pray that no one ever does to you what you did to her because you’ll end up down in this hole with us. And there’s no God down here. It’s going to be easier than you think it will. To not fall for one. It’ll be so easy to waltz in and out of their lives, no tummy butterflies, no heartstrings pulled. You’ll surprise even yourself. Because he pulled the wings off the butterflies. And if you still think you have any heart left to give after how much you gave to him, I’m sorry. You don’t. So when you find yourself smiling at his name lighting up your phone screen, it’s time to let him go. Don’t kid yourself. Every once in a while you’ll find one that’s
a little harder to cut loose. You’ll find one that makes you laugh or kisses your forehead when he says goodbye or brings you coffee. And if you dare hesitate to delete his number from your phone and keep moving, for even a second, all you have to do is know that you are the way you are because you failed to let him go when it was time. This isn’t easy to do, kid. You have to want it. The few friends you let know what you’re doing aren’t going to like it. They’ll try to put a stop to it one way or another. When they say that there is a person out there that might want to know you with your clothes on, they’re wrong and you know better. They’ll tell you they’re worried. This isn’t the girl you used to be. What you’re doing is so selfdestructive. You can’t keep doing this to yourself. Don’t believe them. They don’t understand what you’re doing and they never will. When they beg you to give it another shot don’t even try to reason with them. They’ll figure it out. They’ll figure out you don’t have even the slightest shot. People do nothing but ruin each other. And he damn near killed you. You need to forget him but you never will. So never forget what he taught you. He taught you how to ruin. And he taught you how to spot the ones doing the ruining. And if snubbing out the ruiners one by one isn’t your purpose at this point then I don’t know what is.
You can stop this. Even if it’s only a handful of people and even if they never know what you did, you can stop it. You can stand between him and her as a defense. The shattered pieces he left you in are now lethal weapons, and the thick skin you grew trying to save yourself can now save her. Things would have been so different if there had been someone there to save you. One day you’ll almost feel like you should thank him. You’re going to come out of this invincible, unbeatable, untouchable, unbreakable. Because he broke you first. It wasn’t for nothing. And it’ll never happen again.
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Solitude Alex Chiles
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Me (ft. You) – Electrohouse Remix Alyssa Lentz
You’ve got me listening to the radio again, like someone out of an old movie. It’s the last thing I do before I go to sleep—after I wash my face and pour myself a glass of water and slather five different products on my skin, I curl up in bed with a book, turn off the big light and put the little ones on. All the things you’ve seen me do a million times. But then I put the radio on low. It’s not long until my phone buzzes and there you are on the other end, talking about what someone just said on air or the song that’s playing, like you aren’t thousands of miles and a few time zones away. You’re starting your day as I’m finishing mine, but as long as we’re doing it over these invisible waves I can’t understand, it feels closer. Did you know you’ve got me making playlists to mark time? A full-circle year flashing by in a pair of briefly-shared headphones: sax solos and steel drums and shuffling hi hats. Last summer was the longest weekend: Friday night drinks and Saturday morning breakfasts and Sunday afternoon picnics. June’s got Sam Smith, August has Rudimental, December has Gorgon City and February’s got Rene LaVice, Alex Adair. Banks’ “Bedroom Wall” for the long ride home. Last track.
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“Turn this shit off, put on something we can dance to.” The Internet showed me a digital radio the other day— “recommended for you”—it came in electric blue color with gold plated fittings, FM/DAB+ wavebands. (I don’t know what all that means, but you probably do.) The Internet, unlike you, doesn’t know my dad lost his job in September, or the “do you want fries with that” gig I picked up. The secrets we spill between records. I forgot how to read music years ago, but sometimes I still feel like I can when I remember the way you looked with your eyes closed, face tilted up to the sun, feet tapping softly in the long long grass. Or the night you explained that house is the sound your soul makes when you wake up in love but out of aspirin. The way your mouth always, always smiled when you took the phone or the laptop out of my hands— Turn this shit off, put on something we can dance to. Did you know I don’t know why I ever stopped? Laughter and conversation come easier to me sandwiched in-between fadeouts.
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SMOKE Carson Arnold 28 SILHOUETTE
CALL ME BY MY SINGING NAME Gabriella Jacobsen
I am hooked on a four-letter drug called love. I smoke jokes he hides in the crease of his eyes, and shoot up on a coffee-d kiss compromise. The little blue memories of past laughter and cries, left on the counter to live or to die. I keep memories in stones from the sea My thoughts never stay for long in my head. So to keep them I put them in stones instead. My family, the ocean, a hike where we tread, are trapped in small rocks I keep close to my bed. I am a beholder of the baby girl’s burden. Pumping red loyalty is pooled in my veins, a cradle, a saddle, a horse and its reins, the crazy dark cackle of my father’s terrain, an earthen urge to protect and pertain. I was made in no ones image. But I think all those that have ever loved me, have taken a knife to the soul of my tree, and carved me out to the person they sought to see, and let me fill in the grooves to what I will be.`
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DEATH BED: A SONNET Clint Whitten
The lukewarm tear dropped into the box of pillows. Glossy mahogany comforts the solidary tear. It will only be moist for a brief period of time. The chilled black hole sucks the warmth away. Now, she will be cold, depleted, unreceptive to thawing touches. Her tear will evaporate, but his stain will last for an eternally and affect her internally As she plummets into the pit of womanhood.
“Now, she will be cold, depleted, unreceptive to thawing touches.�
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NATURAL B&W Matthew Cox
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UNTILED Austin Ledzian 32 SILHOUETTE
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WHEN YOU MEET HIM Lauren Beames
When you meet the blonde haired, blue-eyed surfer on the beach Do not invite him into the beach house When he’s in the house Do not let him offer you a shot of tequila When you take that shot of tequila Do not take another one And another one And another one When he asks you to sit outside with him Do not cuddle up next to him on the hammock When you are in his arms swinging lightly Do not believe he goes to UNC and his favorite animal is a sheep
“Wondering why it hurts Wondering if those blue eyes will ever stop haunting you”
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When he tells you he wants to be a doctor Do not tell him your dreams When he tells you you’re beautiful You’re sweet Loves your laugh Your smile Respects you Do not let him kiss you When you kiss him back and let his rough hands linger Do not let him lead you away from your friends When the door is closed Do not stumble onto that bed When you’re in that bed Do not let him on top of you Because he will feed you another shot of tequila Tightly grip your wrists You won’t have enough strength to escape You will come-to As you feel the pain of him Stripping you Of your innocence You’ll wake up the next morning naked and bruised Wondering why it hurts Wondering if those blue eyes will ever stop haunting you Wondering if you said no VOL. 38
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UNTITLED Cody Uliasz 36 SILHOUETTE
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Juxtapose Leigh Ann Soistmann VOL. 38
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1:31 AM Alyssa Lentz
How do you complicate a relationship? add 9 hours of drinking cocktails (on and off) (but mostly on) + 3 questions about my ex - any sense of pacing + 2 midnight tequila slammers. (Helps if you’ve never had tequila, especially helps if you’re already too drunk to really taste it.) A kiss on the couch you won’t remember in the morning-you won’t remember for months-subtract any hands, any tongue (multiplied by good intentions). Puking in the toilet you’ll definitely remember before you stumble into bed. Add five minutes of spooning--close pressed bodies everywhere that counts--that feels like home. Fall asleep before the hand on your shoulder, before the tentative whispers in the dark. Fall asleep before the conclusion. Problem is, I’m trying to be one of those Pinterest girls. Who make green smoothies and eat 3 salads a day, wear the perfect nude lipstick and go on second dates. I still try her on occasionally. She is a pair of jeans too tight for me-I spill out the sides.
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EDITOR’S PICK
“I’ve never been good at no strings attached. I should have warned you-there are too many loose threads inside of me.” I am the chipped nail polish girl instead. Who puzzles over your drunken text messages, who is more than happy to talk in the desperate hour, who stress-eats a whole bag of leftover Cadbury Eggs. There was probably a time I wasn’t in love with you. I can’t remember it now. I miss you even when you fall asleep. I’ve never been good at no strings attached. I should have warned you-there are too many loose threads inside of me.
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Fossils Bradley Kaufman
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Oyster Farm Andrew Plante
Tired eyes cast their gaze out over the viscous, murky and barren wasteland of water where the oyster farm once thrived. Sun bleached shells litter the shore of Delmonico, once the largest oyster exporter west of the mountains. The moon no longer shone at night and the sun had not risen since August sold his last batch of mollusks to the highest bidder— a surly finagler with swollen eyes, sweaty palms and a waxy complexion that made my blood thin and my trust wane. August was a man of frayed moral fiber and it came as little surprise that he, despite the cries of our fellow DelmonÊcois, sold the last of our prize oysters, and thus our pride to a man from out of town.
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Family Portrait Laura Skinner
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At the Beach Lei Zhang 46 SILHOUETTE
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RACE By Nneoma Nwankwo
i became my mother sooner than i intended. i had hoped to become as she was, when i too became a mother. it had been carefully planned: i would sit underneath the mango trees in the compound of a h¬ouse i had purchased with my quiet husband. on saturdays, i would drive my own car to the country club in ikoyi, and swim 30 laps in quick succession, as other swimmers marvel at my technique and speed, and i would pretend like i cannot hear their praises, but would fall asleep replaying their comments in my mind, no wonder her skin is so luminous! see how fast she kicks! how is she breathing? on sundays, i would stand by the big black gate, beside the tiny shrubs of ixora flowers, and yell for the house boys. i will not shout their names more than three times, otherwise when i ask ‘sunday! james! how many times did i call your names?’ they might reply something higher than ‘two times madam!’ or ‘ma, tiri times.’ i have never heard them tell mother, ‘four times ma!’ or ‘ma, it’s like five times.’ i have never heard them tell mother, ‘four times ma!’ or ‘ma, it’s like five times.’ i am not certain james and sunday can count beyond three, so i will only call them three times. i will tell them ‘bia, must i always pull your 48 SILHOUETTE
ears to remind you to start boiling the meat in this house? or must we eat it raw?’ sunday and james will push each other sheepishly, and say ‘sorry madam.’ when i become mother, i hope they will love me the way i know they love her. the way they always wait for her to call them on sundays, even though they knew exactly what to do, the way they jostle for her attention, the way they quietly protect her on the fridays they follow her to the market. fridays, too, i will be my mother. i will bargain in igbo with the garri sellers in the open-air market, even if to convince myself that i still am, as i was before. i will remember not to flinch when mud from the hawkers’ slippers land squarely on my chin, or when a trader leans too close to me with breath of rotten fish, and whispers ‘fine lady.’ i will pretend not to notice when sunday pulls the trader away, knocking him squarely in the head. some weeks, i will have to travel somewhere for something important. i will kiss my husband on the cheeks, or on other places, and i will say ‘i love you’ or something else we only say to one another, and i will call him every night. i will not see the way his eyes light up when i call, or how he carefully tells me about every facet
of our daughter’s day—as though i need to know that chioma wore her left shoe first in the morning; his eyes will crinkle when he tells me that sunday asked him when i am coming back, because james called him an idiot, and it is me who handles such things. these weeks i’m away from our home, i will not see the way my husband loves me, but i will feel it in such an engulfing manner that makes me sit on my bed in a five star hotel somewhere i do not want to be, and cry when i hang up. later, when chioma tells me that her father is even more quiet when i’m away, i will tell her that we do not always enjoy things we do, but we must not stop doing them.
her dresser and put that gold clip in my hair like she did hers, rub her deep red lipstick across my lips, clasp the gold crucifix along my neck and spray her perfume, and even if only to the mirror, even if only to my senses, i am my mother—ready. one of these days, i will walk downstairs and tell father that we should go dancing, as we used to on thursdays at the jazz club on the island, and i will instruct sunday and james to fry yams on time, so that i don’t have to jam their skulls together when i return, and i will repeat over and over to myself, that even if we do not always enjoy things we do, we must not stop doing them.
now i have become my mother, unprepared. i do not know how to hold my head up—in that way that she did—as though i can confront god if i so please. on tuesdays, i go to school, not the office, and i keep my head down, because so is the language of loss, permitted only to say ‘yes, thank you,’ or ‘we are getting through it’ because saying anything more means that i am overcoming my pain too fast. in the evenings, i watch father through the banisters, and wonder if he wishes he could call her. i want to call her—i tried it once; held the phone to my ear and realized i had not dialed a number. sunday and james are painfully silent too. last sunday, the meat was boiled unceremoniously, and i wished for their sakes that i could stand outside like she did, and call them; but i was unprepared. today, i sit at VOL. 38
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WHITE STAIRWAY Daniel Darnell
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MEET THE STAFF Casey Phillips Editor in Chief
Allie Carr Marketing Director
Richie Parks Business Manager
Hollis Brown Marketing Team
Celsea Copas Poetry Editor
Charlotte Kuhn Marketing Team
Layne Mandros Assistant Poetry Editor
Gabrielle Sanderson Alumni Outreach
Kayla Schoch Prose Editor
Katie Simmons Lead Designer
Peter Volpone Assistant Prose Editor
Michael Watanabe Design Team
Joe Mrava Photography Editor
Gloria Boland Design Team
Kiki Simpson Art Editor
Laurie Booth Design Team
Derek Ho Assistant Art Editor
Elizabeth Harris Design Team
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In memor y of
LYNN NYSTROM who championed Virginia Tech Student Media for over four decades.
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