sink hollow
Time--Samantha Molzon
Molzon
Table of Contents
In_Arduis_Fidelis
Jack Schnepf
Letter from Our Editor
Even nestled in the beautiful mountains of northern Utah, this year has been hard to reckon with. In the same breath you take while playing a card game with friends, or watching rain cascade down a windowpane, there simultaneously exists tragedy and defeat. We all must grapple with this impossible truth, this catch-22 of modern existence. In this issue of Sink Hollow, our contributors are all looking for answers: trying to decipher the meaning in the mundane and determine how to exist in such a polarizing, impossible world.
Sink Hollow seeks to give voice to the off-kilter, the unexpected. As you read this issue, I hope you will be able to find new perspectives and experience camaraderie with things you might never anticipate.
Reflexively, we seek understanding by looking outward; reading Socrates and imploring the cosmos. Often, the answer comes instead when you take a closer look, peeling apart the fabric of the world and relationships around you. Just like Issue XVIII’s writers and artists have, look closer at the iridescent wings of a dragonfly, at the strings that pull two people together. Perhaps, if you’re lucky, you’ll find something whispering back.
Noelani Hadfield Editor-in-Chief
Why Bugs and Girls are Friends
Raya Tost
Because a dandelion traveled across her cheek and the aphid passenger thanked her with softness. Because a silk web cornered her and a crouch won the fight.
Because granddaddy long legs saunter by with purpose and it’s not to melt his maw against her neck. So that fathers will have something else to kill.
To feel a silk moth kiss the oils of her skin and move on like she’s only a pebble, or the same. To be melded with the environment, accepted.
So paper will be creased hotdog-style. To teach fathers and boyfriends how to be gentle with life. Because wolf spiders and Orb weavers have families too. No sourness, squishing, or Swiffer Sweepers needed.
Because a cup and copy paper would otherwise not embrace.
To teach compassion. Because silverfish want to live, too.
Because teenage boys will dangle a mantis by the antenna and ask
“What’s wrong with that one?”
Full of ignorance, judgment, and hormones. Because bugs, too, have thoraxes too flat and eyes too big.
To give the empaths a new child. To give the spiteful a new prey. Because wasps have open seats in their defense class.
Because sparrows aren’t so friendly and bluebirds get hungry, too. To let each other breathe for a half-second Before the boot stomps or the Raid sprays.
Because they’re two pages of the same book. Because the gods knew isolation is a killer and one ladybug is not.
Only Sunshine
Jennie Cao
TRANSGENDER NARCISSUS
CAN’T STAND MIRRORS
Jameson Gillihan
—or springs, or puddles, or his reflection in the droplets on grass stalks and petals, but he’s fixated, anyway, on the minutia of himself, the angle at which his eyelashes curl, the quality of oil in his pores, the fat deposits rounding his cheeks, shit both imbecilic and important. He thinks a lot of himself, except for when he doesn’t, and when he doesn’t, it’s usually because he’s incapable— asleep or dead or dying— he lacks everything but body: flower stem spine, blond[e] corona, stretched-skin leather-silk petals. Inside he finds just more bod[ies]: ovaries and ova. He tries to concede something there, essential in himself. What are you doing, Narcissus? You lean over the water’s edge and watch yourself get thinner.
Fire on Everest
Adeline Jackson
Station - Dalila Mendez
To Be Shot in the Abdominal Area: A Walkthrough
Everett Jones
It could be on a sidewalk, crosswalk or well-kept garden path you’ve never stopped to admire after dusk. In the grand scheme, it doesn’t matter where you find yourself. You could spot
a blur across the way, murky in night air, with two eyes for sight and a third, cobalt, gleaming and soaked in streetlamps. He aims, he fires. And just like that, ownership of your body has shifted to the divot between grass and concrete. You are slipping off. But heaven
is a creekbed—in the wild of moss and wax, of flora and wood, where the sky melts drunk -tank pink and angels creep close, willing you forward to the endless rip
current they cultivate. They know how to tempt. They’re sure you’ve spent this life hungry. They sweeten their tongues to hiss: you deserve to drink milk without taking from a mother. To eat apples without breaking softskinned bruises. Veins tight knit to a sterile bed of steel, the doctor jolts you, fruitless— to life.
Anatomy 101
Dalila Mendez
Hold On
Amita Mridha
DHAKA, BANGLADESH
June 6th, 2002
You were strange. You used to wear men’s clothes, flat slippers on your ruddy feet. You took me on your motorcycle, revved the engine, told me to “hold on”. You never went to the mosque, yet your prayer mat was worn at home. You asked me what they said about you, the aunties, the uncles, asked for leftovers from iftar—there were none. You asked me if I loved you. You held my hand.
I, upon your bed and you with your hair slicked back in a braid. I, upon your bed and you with your strong shoulders and awful tattoos. I, upon your bed underneath the pink mosquito net--slapping your arm. I held on. I said I wish you were a man. I asked if you were one.
You took my hand again at the fingers rather than at the palms. You said no. I pulled the band at the end of your braid, moved closer and combed it out for you. With you in my arms I said: “Take me to the mosque tomorrow.”
“No, no-”
“Please.”
You lived alone then. I saw the extent of it--the rough kameez you wore, all your jama kapor tossed on the floor, the broken-in books and the unused makeup on the dresser… Oh, how I desired to fit myself in. Clean up. Shower after you got me a bucket full of hot water. Do my eyeliner and go out to the bookstore with you.
I kissed your forehead.
You smiled. You wanted more but you pushed me back. You looked so pretty with your hair down like that.
Lights-out. We heard the rain, the whip of a monsoon taking her first breath.
Take me to the mosque.
I’ll sleep here. We will listen to the first prayers at daybreak. I’ll hold your hand. Or not. We’ll pray.
Hold on.
June 5th, 2002
I pulled a dull green dupatta over my head. I took off my golden jhumkas and laid them to rest. I fought the urge to pull out my hair and give form to my body like I want to, and instead have to think about men’s wandering eyes.
I only thought about you, my love. How you couldn’t hide what’s underneath. You didn’t say it, but you didn’t feel at home in your body like I did- back in permanent slouch, those awful tattoos, a ruin on every centimeter of skin. You said you wanted facial hair, a deeper voice, but the moment I said if you wanted to be a man you looked the other way. You cannot bear to be covered like I can. You’re stubborn. So handsomely stubborn.
I walk to the mosque past the market. Watch the chains of Fair and Lovely soaps on the stands, and behind them dark skinned men. I must admit, I have picked up bad habits from you. Under my dupatta, I let my body hair grow thick like a jungle—-beautiful and coarse and wicked. I harbor a secret joy when men criticize me for being too bulky, too dark, too much, because I am. I crave for moments of light like that.
I am a little late and sneak onto a mat near the back of the mosque. It’s terrifying. The arcs, the patterns, the lines of Arabic draped black upon too white marble. Foreign yet holy. I don’t understand it--the burgeoning of a god so far from our own soil, our own culture— and yet I do. There’s comfort in a single all knowing God, there’s comfort when the prayer is done and we finally get to eat. A regimen, a sacrifice.
Men shuffle past me. Women look at me for a second too long. There’s something different. They know what I am, and it isn’t the light I crave. It’s a fire. I hunch, minimize my body, cover up the lovely hair on my arms.
The iftar is almost finished. A few chickpeas and nothing more. I shuffle home and pick up fourteen pani puris from a stall. The man asks me if I’m going anywhere tonight.
“Not with you,” I say. I hold the dupatta tighter around my neck and leave, stuffing pani puri into my mouth. Sweet sour tamarind.
Whimsical
Riley Whipple
May 15th, 1999
Love you. Love you not.
I peeled the petals off your jasmine flower headpiece. The world was hazy around us, bathed in lush grasses and soft, flaky sun. We were only teenagers then. My eldest sister was getting married and yet all I thought about was you, laying in my lap. What was underneath that scowl of yours?
Your outfit was stunning, but you said it didn’t fit you. Long netted sleeves, cinched around the waist, a deep indigo salwar kameez stitched with jewels. I wore a saree--old fashioned, I know, but it was what my sister wanted. I wore the exact same shade as you. Even with all this effort, would anyone believe we could be in love too?
I looked around at the guests, candied with pastels, their cheeks red and rosy with appetizers- samosas, chaat and conversation about their children’s achievements. I spotted your mother in the crowd. She was beaming with pride, bragging about your brother who was doing Computer Science in the United States. “Stanford,” she said to a cluster of aunties, curling her jet black hair around her finger. Even from here, meters away, you can tell they were jealous- leaving their samosas untouched on the appetizer tables. One aunty found your mother’s weak spot: “How about your daughter?”
You saw her grimace. “I’ll probably marry her off to one of his friends. You never know.”
Love you. I placed the last jasmine flower I pulled into your hand, holding it between the two of us. I asked, “How is your brother doing anyways?”
“ I don’t know. He doesn’t even call us anymore.”
“Oh.”
My mother approached us. “Don’t you girls want some food?”
“Of course, auntie!” You tried to be polite, but your boyish eagerness shined through. You tried again, “Of course.”
We watched the couple. The two sat together, they talked, they ate, they said their vows and went through too many ceremonies. They exchanged garlands, drank water from each other’s palms, walked four times around a fire, and my sister was blessed with a line of sindoor on her scalp. She was draped in a lovely red saree, jewels sparkling gold in the sun, churi on her fair arms and floral mehendi on her hands and feet.
Remember when you and I kissed after the sangeet? On my roof, after all the adults were drunk and feverish, you showed me your first tattoo. It was on your bicep, a big stupid “OM” you spent nothing on, inked by the guy who sold sweets on the street corner. I told you I didn’t know he had a dark side.
My sister’s husband was tall and lean, and he towered above the rest of us Bengalis. A fair skinned man from Delhi, he wore dark red chunni and a black suit stiched with gold. His chin was sharp, and there was a pronounced Adam’s apple when he spoke. I gazed at you. You stared, in envy or desire, I wasn’t sure, but you were mesmerized when he said his vows. Your back stiffened, you bit the insides of your cheeks and you narrowed your eyes back at me. You rubbed your right bicep.
That night was the first time I saw your beauty. Half-drunk, dazed on what you have done—the stars in the sky wouldn’t dare outshine your eyes. And half-sober, I kissed your tattoo. We were on the roof of my apartment then, the cars zipping past us, the city lights, crossed legged on a game of hopscotch we played when we were younger. That night, I took your collar and embraced you again. What would our parents think? You’re not a boy and I failed to be a girl; I was taken by you, by your stupid tattoo, the electricity of that night in our veins. The halud too- the parade, bright blaring saxophone, the dancers on stage, my Bollywood playlist that made everyone dance and let us steal away. Up here.
I pulled out the jasmine flowers from my hair and placed them in your lap. Love you not. Love you. ~
“So what did you think of him?” I asked, somewhat doozy.
“Of who?”
“My sister’s husband, stupid.”
“He was so cool!” You shrieked.
“You think so?”
“And manly!”
“And what else-? I noticed his chin, his Adam’s apple-”
“Do you like him? More than me?”
“No- I just…”
“What?”
“Was envious, is all.”
“Hmm-” you murmured, the blue light of the convenience store against your neck. Highlighting your jaw. As if the neon lights were the moon beholding your beauty. I took
your chin, rubbed my thumb against the skin there and you know what comes next— I didn’t kiss you.
There was a man behind us on a stool making jalebis. He squeezed dough out of a plastic bag, and we watched as it crisped up, tiny fizzles of oil on the edges. He flipped them with his fingers. I asked him for one, paid more than enough and took it between my teeth. I stuck my chin out. Take it.
You took a bite, hand secured below to catch the crumbs. And another bite. I saw the flavor on your face. Too sweet! Your nose was wrinkled in the same way your grandmother’s once was.
I followed your lead, and grimaced as the golden-copper syrup melted on my tongue. The man watched us and didn’t say a thing. We halved the rest of it, fingers sticky. I wiped my hands against your hips, and held on.
“Envy. I can’t imagine you being envious of anyone--you have everything you want,” You said.
“Not everything.” My eyes darted between you and the man.
You repeated, “Not everything, but enough. You paid for those sweets without much of a thought.”
“I bought it for you, love—”
The man did a double take.
“I could buy you more things…” I said. My hands found themselves against your chest.
“Not like that—”
“Not like what?”
“Like this.” You threw my arms away. “Stop.”
“I should go.”
“No, don’t… Avni!”
I disappeared across the street, body in a blur of mini taxis rushing home just before midnight.
May 13th, 1999
You lived two bus rides away. You wait, scrunched between two scrappy men, arms crossed over your chest, the drone of townspeople increasing in volume as the blue bus rolls along the brand new Jamuna bridge, bumping through fruit markets and street food stands and past the city square. You stare through the black barred gates. I always looked out my window at the same time everyday--4:00pm when your dad let you off work.
Then I heard the knock.
“Hey,” you said, with a crooked smile, “I brought you something.” You’re wearing a white kurta, a size too big.
“What’s the special occasion?” I asked, as you took off your slippers.
You pop something into your mouth, “Phushka.” you chewed.
“Let me have some!”
You snatched a box out of your bag and ran about as I tried to reach for it.
“Come back!”
“No-!” You ran headfirst into my mother. You looked at the phushka first; none cracked, thank God, and then gazed up at auntie. She’s wearing her favorite midnight pantsuit. You bit your lip.
“Noor, tumi kemon acho?” How are you? she asked, unfazed.
“Ami b-bhalo achi.” Doing well.
“Hmm” She ruffled your hair, and let you go. “Avni! Did you do all your studies? Geometry? Also dress up a little like your friend because Dad is coming home tonight.”
“Okay, Ma.”
We heard another knock. “Baba ashsay?” Is Dad here? Ma asked as she opened the door. My stomach dropped. Noor crunched on another phuska.
The jalebi seller from the night before was standing at the foyer, thick eyebrows scrunched in dismay. He pulled my mother outside and they discussed in hushed voices, suspicious eyes darting towards us as we slowly ate what was left in the box. Whispers of “lesbian” and “wrong” in the same sentence, how you being so masculine must have seduced me to be so disobedient.
Ma was silent when she walked up to us. A look of either fear or anger—I couldn’t place it. She only glared at me. The look on her face was as if she didn’t even know who I was. She took my shoulder and gave me a swift slap across the cheek. I knew I had to go to my room.
I locked eyes with you one last time as I closed the door. I covered my ears.
I heard the jalebi seller leave. My mother screamed and screamed and screamed. I didn’t hear a thing.
“What’s wrong with you? I spent so much money to get you this lehenga and now you don’t want to wear it? Other girls, you know those girls on the street eating shit and begging for cash. They would sell everything they have to wear this. And you want to wear your father’s clothes?”
“I like it,” I pouted, arms crossed in an oversized button down that covered my knees.
She slapped me again. Maybe the fourth time.
“Did that poor bitch, Noor, get in your head? She can dress like that- But not you. Never you.”
“I like it!”
My mother took my wrist and pulled me from the bedroom to the kitchen, “Shurer baacha!-”
I began to feel a little remorse, “Don’t say those words, Ma.”
“Then what will I say?”
I was quiet.
She took a large kitchen knife out of the drawer. “What? Do you want me to kill myself? I spent years trying to get you- a perfect little girl-into this world and this is how you repay me?” Her voice was raw, tearing at the edges as she held the weapon against her neck.
“Ma, don’t.” Tears were on my cheeks.
“What’s wrong with you? Do you want me to die?”
“I will wear the lehenga,” I said as I unbuttoned my shirt, “Don’t worry, Ma. I will wear it.”
May 15th, 1999
I met you at the train station, drowned in fluorescent blue lights and surrounded by deep indigo bodies bathed in midnight’s soft glow. No one knew us here, no faces cleared from the crowd. We were safe.
I don’t remember where you went. You said an auntie lived there, and you forgot to disclose the address. Maybe you didn’t want to be found. I gave you a news cone of jal muri, without green chilis just the way you like it. And I did kiss you: hands tangled in your hair, trailing down the tense muscles in your back, your shoulder and bicep, your first awful tattoo. You took my hand as you stepped up onto the train and I passed the red line, my feet at the edge of the tracks. Your hand was warm. You took me by the palm, the fingers and eventually caught my eyes in the movement—the tired wail of the wheels, the damp footsteps of the station; you found me again under the noise.
Through the Mud a Lotus Blooms
Jack Schnepf page 20
Kate Sanchez Mi_Pias 5
Jack Schnepf Towards the Light page 24
Adeline Jackson
“Dragonfly, Utah: 2024-2024”
Indiana Plant
This little jewel-chested thing Shudders exhausted to the pavement. What brought you here, Heavy as gemstone? Being So small, I barely notice Your twitching gold wing Which gestures, ancient, of your lifeblood. What stories do you have for me?
Politics of dandelion, Lovemaking in August sun. Sweet reek of marshlands and toadspawn come undone (Unspooled, knit yarn, double helix) in water shunned By its Mother river, at rest, at long last —
And of course, you do not speak, Only shimmer, your frame like stained glass. Who forgot you, Glimpsed like a fairy? King Of bugs, I too-late worship Your dewdrop blessing Which murmurs, reverent, of your deathmarch. Any last words?
Whispers of your dreamed-for Zion, Horizoning in air salt-stung. Mountain breath for young seagulls swaying wind drunk (Unmoored, beak wide, cricket hungry) in stormclouds stunned By the cities they drown, the people They give and give to, Only to take nothing In return.
Amita Mridha
the word lesbian is swallowed back peaks out like an adam’s apple you take a bite of it tell me again to not be afraid but it falls on deaf ears jhumkas ashen in silver tell me again
the word lesbian is a myth told between our bodies genderless yet adorned in gorgeous guilt lehengas worn once by our mothers worn once by our mistakes tell me again, how will i swallow all of it? the swaths of net & organza georgette & silk the bracelets i sectioned off just for a chance at lovei picked them all out for you once for my mother- now you only you
Opium Daydream
Jennie Cao
Orchid Bee
Saige Jeffs
Eating Out
Jameson Gillihan
I must be the loudest chewer on the planet. Here’s me: spit-spotted jowls, gum-juice leaking out the lipseams, smacking, mouth breathing, gingivitising the air. Can I share this room with you? Is there air in here for two. Can I drool over your shoulder rest my teeth on your collar, dig in or should I serve you tender, kiss gristle in your mouth and tongue your insides clean. Cheekchewed molar-marked mucosa: We’ll have matching scars. Cannibal love is so played out I know but I’m sick of taking risks and ready to lose my body—cliché, chlamydia, prion disease—I’ll take them all into me, learn new words for the parts of the mouth (your retromolar trigone, your maxillary alveolar ridge, your superior lip), take up dentistry, start filling cavities. Or I could go fuck myself. It’s just I need a you in me in you again, someone else’s spit in my mouth for a change, tasting sucking gagging, recursing, regurgitating me back into me. Teach me who I am again, teach me how I taste. How to eat someone alive. How to sit still while being eaten. Or pinch my clit between your teeth and bite me sexless, pucker your lips, roll me over that tongue of yours, roleplay sommelier. Say something smart about me: say notes of sin and citrus, say you’d taste me over and over again if it didn’t mean using me up. Say didn’t your mother ever teach you to chew with your mouth closed.
Bios
Jennie Cao is a sophomore studying Painting at RISD. Their paintings visualize Asian American experiences and explore dependency and trauma within interpersonal relationships. In their free time, they love hiking, biking, cooking, and listening to bedroom pop.
Born in the Philippines, Eben-ezer Gonzales is a current student at Brigham Young UniversityHawaii currently pursuing a BFA in Graphic Design. He lives for anything art & design and takes inspiration from music, film, odd things.
Jameson Gillihan is a senior studying English at Wheaton College, MA. Outside class, they can usually be found reading, writing, or spending time with their cats Butter and Toast. Their work can be found online at jamesongillihan.com.
Adeline Jackson is an undergraduate student at The University of Southern California. She is a writer and painter and loves nature. At the tender age of 22, Jackson embarks to encapsulate the ineffable beauty and complexity of the human experience. Each brushstroke, every hue, is an exploration into the depths of emotion and perception.
Saige Jeffs is an undergraduate student at Idaho State University. She loves crochet, knitting, embroidery, drawing or anything that she can express herself creatively. She also loves backpacking and hiking with her three dogs and boyfriend.
Everett Jones is an undergraduate student at Salisbury University. He is both a poet and a short fiction author. Outside of the writing world, he is a multi-instrumentalist with a love for alternative music.
Dalila Mendez is an undergraduate student at Northeastern Illinois University. She loves collecting toys that inspire her to create thought provoking and unsettling illustration. Additionally, her work is inspired by the novel Animal Farm, Victorian photography, and children’s book illustration. Her favorite mediums are oil paint and colored pencil.
Samantha Molzon is an undergraduate student at Eastern Connecticut State University. She is a junior firefighter and takes inspiration for her artwork from her experiences with the fire department.
Amita Mridha (they/she) is a third-year undergraduate student at Michigan State University, majoring in English with a concentration in Creative Writing. Their work explores the intersection of their South Asian heritage and queer identity, excavating themes of the personal vs. the political and the timeless beauty of nature. Through their writing, Amita aims to amplify underrepresented voices and unearth new narratives through poetry and prose.
Indiana Plant is a freshman studying QAMO and Anthropology at the University of Utah. Some of her other poetry has been published by the Live Poets Society of NJ, The Palouse Review, and the Penguin Random House U.S. Creative Writing Awards. In her free time, Indiana likes to walk to her neighborhood graveyard and dreams about a career at the Smithsonian.
Twyla Roberts is a senior undergraduate student at the College of Wooster. She loves being outdoors and spending time with her tortoise, Palpatine.
Kate Sanchez is an undergraduate student at San Jose State University studying Photography. Born and raised in Los Angeles and moved to San Jose recently. They love to attend local shows and traveling for them, cycling, writing, and film cameras.
Jack Schnepf is a 21-year-old studio artist with a focus on drawing and painting. Originally from Snoqualmie, WA, Jack currently resides in Bozeman, MT, where he is pursuing a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts at Montana State University. Through his work, he seeks to inspire conversations that nurture empathy—for one another, for ourselves, and the world around us. Jack’s creative journey began after a life-threatening illness in 8th grade, which became a turning point for self-discovery and introspection. Today, Jack’s art transforms these experiences into spaces for connection, resilience, and empathy. You can find more of Jack’s work @jackschnepf_art on Instagram.
Raya Tost is an undergraduate student at Georgia Southern University studying English with an Art History minor. She loves cats, herbal tea, and collecting obscure trinkets. When creating, she enjoys bringing odd concepts to life.
Riley Whipple was born in Beijing, China, and has lived in Newark, Delaware, for most of her life. She is currently working toward earning her BFA from the University of Delaware. She explores her fascination with experimentation, repetition, and the creative process through ceramics, sculpture, printmaking, and photography. Her work has been featured at the University’s Annual Undergrad Juried Exhibitions and she completed photography-based research through the Summer Scholars Program at UD. She has just finished jurying the ceramic show, Reclaimed: Transformation Through Clay, and will be going abroad to study in Santiago and Valparaíso, Chile.
Staff
Editor-in-Chief
Noelani Hadfield
Managing Editor
Zachariah Baker
Poetry Genre Co-Editors
McKinlee Roberts
Brook Haight
Poetry Readers
Addie Hemsley
Aimee Hamblin
Brady Parsons
Eliza Saunders
Eva Meyer
Indigo Mardis
Linn Egget
Sid Lefevre
Fiction Genre Co-Editors
Chloe Scheve
Bee Pickering Fiction Readers
Brooklyn Hibshman (she/her)
Izzy Telford
Jonathan Walker
Lily Webb
Madison Kolstad
Nicole Sadler
Taryn Dy
Nonfiction Genre Co-Editors
Eli Moss
Woodrow Laing Nonfiction Readers
Colby David
Ella Unguren
Eliza Oscarson
Kayleigh Kearsley
Magazine Layout and Design
Cade Taylor
Faculty Advisors
Ashley Wells--Poetry
Charles Waugh--Fiction
Robb Kunz--Art and Design
Russ Beck--Nonfiction
Cover Art Lily -Riley Whipple
Tools of the Trade
Roberts page 33
Samantha Molzon
Twyla
Metamorphosis
Twyla Roberts
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