Folio Spring 2021

LIMINALITY FOLIO Spring 2021

Don’t forget to explore the amazing works published online at SLCCfolio.org

© Folio Literary Magazine, Volume 22 #1, Salt Lake Community College’s award-winning literary and arts magazine that is a compilation of student-submitted artistic pieces. The works included in this spring 2021 edition, “Liminality,” are published with permission from their respective creator(s). All rights are reserved by this publication and the creators whose works are published in “Liminality.”

Folio is curated, edited, formatted, designed, and published by SLCC students each fall and spring semester. This edition is intended for free public distribution and is not for sale.

The cover is one of three versions published for the Spring 2021 edition. Art for the three covers created by Emily Nina (“Life’s a Trip” & “Femininity”), Kenneth Sanchez (“Luna” & “Malinche”), Sarah Kennedy (“Radiance”), and Tina Gifford (“Proportions”) respectively.

Contact folioslcc@gmail.com for information on enrolling in ENGL 1830: Literary Magazine Studies—the class that produces Folio.

Special Thanks To:

Professor Lisa Bickmore, Interim Associate Dean, English Department

Dr. Roderic Land, Dean, School of Humanities and Social Sciences

SLCC Printing Services

All of the SLCC students, faculty, and staff who shared their voices and creations with Folio.

Stay safe. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Take care of yourselves and your communities.

Interim Associate Dean

Lisa Bickmore

Folio Advisors

Kati Lewis

Daniel Baird

Folio Literary Editor

Carly Gooch

Folio Design Editor

Sarah Kennedy

Folio Web Editor

Allison Hutto

Folio Literary Staff

Cass Potter

Henry Knudson

Folio Design Staff

N.F. Kimball

J.A. Harris

lim·​i·​nal | \ ˈli-mə-nᵊl

“Liminality”: A threshold. Crossing a boundary into somewhere, something new. Rite of passage. The spaces of “used to be” and “desire to be.” Started and unfinished. Phase amidst evolutions. Soaking in of recent happenings, often accompanied by protracted periods of seclusion. A transitioning. Who will we be at the end of this? Stretching, reaching, desiring the tangible, the reward, the answer. In medias res. In the middle of things. In between. Neither here nor there. Fluidity. Making more expansive our understanding of who we are and what it means to be human. In-between spaces of sexuality, gender, identity, cultures, ethnicity, spirituality, knowledge, community in order to embrace ourselves. Self-identifying beyond the binaries. Dismantling of binaries. Moving between the present, past, and future. Physical, figurative, and metaphysical sites of resistance. Malleable situation enabling new ideas, traditions, institutions to be established. Reckoning with the past—pause, reflect, connect—to imagine and create possible futures…Spring 2021.

Deconstruction/Reconstruction

The Folio Conspiracy

Love Life Sarah Kennedy

Twenty-five and still CarlyGooch fragile, expectations break. memories shatter

Grasping our crumpled map, sweat and Allison Hutto

History between our hands

But always turned back

Averting our eyes, because seeing is believing Masks, sanitizer, and shots

Hide under my warm blanket

Allison Hutto

Daniel Baird

The people were scared J.A. Harris fire spread throughout the town with burning desire

From one place to the next, the Carly Gooch changing never stops. please stop.

Venus flowers grow

Cass Potter out of poison and conflict. Still come wide-eyed buds.

History: Miscarried Futures, Kati Lewis palimpsests possess our past.

Your great knowledge fails

Henry Knudson in the face of sincere love you chose not to see.

Anguish feeds Despair, but when Cass Potter Sun joins Moon, Gaia spies Hope.

In silent shadows

Two notes ring or maybe sing

Wailing on my bass

Daniel Baird

Breath fogs across the early Henry Knudson morning, transformed in new light

Somewhere in your sands

Lies feet of this survival

N.F. Kimball

Nesting in the heat when things were said and J.A. Harris done, the wind and water saved us

Guides embracing our Kati Lewis worn stories and deepwide grief, our dead are with us

To become the growth we seek, N.F. Kimball Warmth, life, and soul rebirthing.

of Synapse Part 1

Repercussions

Allison Hutto

Uncertain times Emily Spacek

I don’t want to walk to get donuts at 2am, we don’t live on the coast anymore, where—just past midnight—a soft fog spilled over the hills and into the street and, there were others walking with us, all around, because really it was a ghost town, like full of ghosts, generations of us all trying to stay awake. (alive)

these days we’re just coping. managing, muddling through, enduring. drink on. like it’s so mellow (shameless). but truth it’s different. because alone drunk equals entering the hollow. like I’m still thinking, but it’s thought whisps. like really I’m just trying to keep from slipping in the shower and cracking my head open. maybe I’m in there for so long it’s all just a huge waste of water and time. the wolf outside the door (is knocking). I don’t want these horrible thoughts to come alive but pls don’t die I need to be on the cusp of being overcome like my existence depends on it.

drunk with old memories, half alive, confused by the words coming out of me. and this poem, it was supposed to be about how we’re all sad— like my friend. like Yoga with Adrian when she’s telling me to drop my shoulders, open my heart to the sky. and she’s like, this is medicine for uncertain times. and I’m like my body is getting stretchier, i can feel it moving around my skeleton.

my friend is like, I’ve been drinking more these pandemic days. and they live in a house with some friends who have run out of stuff to do. to talk about.

Seat Yourself Cass Potter

Gender Reveal Comet Higley

Mom wanted a daughter. Pink carpet, floral bedding, a barbie mansion. Dresses. Teddy bears. Isolation from my brothers. No climbing trees. No playing in the sandbox. No video games.

Mom wanted a daughter. A ‘she’ in a home of ‘he’s. Two older brothers. Close in age. One daughter. Age gap. The youngest. The female. New clothes. No hand me downs. Extra attention. Extra protection.

Mom wanted an American Girl doll. Dresses. Makeup. Beauty Pageants. High heels. Flat stomach. Perfect teeth.

Mom wanted a mannequin. A display. Be seen. Not heard.

Bishop says gender is value. Motherhood is the greatest gift given to women. Childbirth is a sacred duty. The youth leaders say to cover up my shoulders so my body doesn’t distract the men. My body is sacred and has to be saved for my future husband.

I want a comfortable body. I want to be feminine without the strings attached. I want to wear makeup despite my anatomy.

Mom wanted to name me “daughter.” I wanted to name myself.

Mom wanted long hair to braid and brush. I would cut it short behind her back.

Mom wanted a daughter. She wanted to celebrate the binary. The pink box. The stereotypes of ribbons and curls and dolls. The soft. The gentle. The submissive. A

future mom. A homemaker. A domestic worker.

Mom got a human. A ball of energy. An artist. A composer. A smile. Two hands that could create. A mind fascinated with numbers and patterns. A contagious laugh. An actor. A director. An observer of humanity.

Well, I will have my own gender reveal party. There will be no blue or pink balloons. No colorful cake to cut into. No surprises. There will be no boxes to shoot open. No teddy bears wearing a dress or a suit.

The main color will be beige. Or cream. Or maroon. Or navy blue. Or the whole rainbow just because those are my favorite colors at the moment. There will be chocolate-vanilla-marble cake with vanilla frosting. There will be white balloons because they look classy. Streamers of every color.

An envelope that says, “Gender.”

A paper inside that says, “Sorry, mom. Sometimes we don’t get what we want.”

Mom wanted a daughter. But she got a Comet.

Sit down

Scoot in

Back straight

Move hair

Grab paper

Grab pencil

T

Stop

Move hair

Grab pencil

T

Stop

Check phone

Check time

Drop phone

Grab phone

Move hair

Grab pencil

Th Stop

Grab eraser

Move hair

Erase

Grab pencil

T

Stop

Scoot In Will Fluetsch

Grab eraser

Drop eraser

Bend down

Grab eraser

Move hair

Erase

Grab pencil

The Stop

Get up

Grab paper

Crumple paper

Throw paper

Sit down

Grab pencil

Stop

Penumbra

Cass Potter

Long Division Tristin McCarthy

I have been obsessed with flesh recently.

Its subtle give against my molars as I bite my arm, its sharp edges scraping my tongue and teeth as I bite my fingers - I’m anxious. Its ability to rebuild the broken bridge of the split in my soft tissue, its mystical properties that draw me to you, soft and warm.

How many times have I shed my skin, as a snake, every lesson I learn leaves my hands peeling - my fingerprint won’t open my phone anymoreand in every sense, a new me to feel the sun on his face. No molecular cell in my body is an original. Just copies of copies of copies for a quarter of a century.

In exactly 5 weeks, I’ll be 25 and two days ago, I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror.

Remnants

J.A. Harris

“Say goodbye to your world,” a voice rang throughout the ears of the little town. The foriegn voice was deep and gravelly. No one knew where it came from exactly, but it was near, and that was all the people knew. It was all they needed to know to get out of there. These strange creatures’ skin was the color of the purple berries that grew all around the land. Their teeth were as sharp as carnivores; their faces were of a strange looking goat, yet their body (including their head) was of a reptilian beast.

“Mia!” A young voice called. “Come on! Ma and dad are worried about you! We need to go now!”

I turned to face my younger sister whose eyes seemed to have grown larger than normal as they stared into mine. She wanted to get out of there and as far away as possible, and of course I could not blame her. I wanted to leave these beasts as soon as possible too. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I would never see our little home again, but I still held hope that we would be able to return to our village someday. Though for now, my mind shifted back to finding the rest of my family and getting as far away as possible.

I was only a few feet away from my sister as we ran to search for our family. The worry that was plastered on her face didn’t leave, but she couldn’t help but smile as she saw me. I smiled in return as we were close enough to reach and touch hands, but as soon as we tried connecting, the Earth started to shake causing a sudden earthquake. I’m not sure if the Earth was reacting to the invasion, or from some natural causes that managed to time themselves perfectly.

Both of us tried to run from the quake’s destruction, but I had a strange feeling that we wouldn’t make it in time. I wanted my sister to be safe, so I did what anyone that cared about their family would do and tried to escape the broken Earth that felt like it was following us everywhere we went. Like it was waiting for the perfect moment to strike and swallow us whole, gravity forced me down to the dirt no matter how hard I desperately held onto the surface of the ground, but I knew I couldn’t give up. Not now.. I could hear my sister yell something, but I couldn’t tell what she was saying. I was losing consciousness, and before long, everything around me went black.

I woke up to pitch black darkness, and looking around was pointless, and trying to move around wouldn’t do much good either. I wouldn’t know where I was going, and I knew for a fact that I would

accidentally fall again and have the worst come to me. I did want to try to stand though. As I let out a sigh, pain flashed through my body like a tidal wave. So much that it took my breath away, and breathing felt impossible. I clutched my hands into fists, and my teeth grinded against each other violently. I wasn’t sure how I didn’t notice it right when I woke up. Maybe my body was delayed and finally realized what was happening to it. As if on cue, my head started pounding, and my body ached. Soon, the pain was too much to bear, and once again, I blacked out.

I woke up a second time, but this time to light. Am I dead? Am I in some sort of after life? What about my family? What will happen to them? They will only know of my disappearance, and not what truly happened to me. They would probably assume I had died. Would they be searching for me? If I did pass into the veil, would they be able to find the peace they deserve?

What woke me up from my slumber were strange voices that I did not recognize.

“How did a human get here?”

“She must have fallen like the others.”

“What is going up out there to make these humans come to us through this past week?”

“Must be a battle raging above.”

“Obviously!”

I could hear two males arguing; as the one that last spoke slapped his hand to his face.

“What I mean is the Earth hasn’t crumbled like this since the Dark Ages!”

“E-Excuse me...” I spoke up softly, still unable to move. The only part of my body I could move to look at them was my head, but even that was uncomfortable to do.

The strange creatures turned to me with a puzzled look, but they didn’t say anything as if waiting to hear what I had to say.

I had to admit that I was surprised by their reactions, but I did my best not to show it as I spoke up, “Where am I, and more importantly, who in the world are you two?”

They looked at me as if I had spoken another language. Though if I had to be honest with myself, I had no idea if they could understand me or not. It sounded like they could speak English, but there was a possibility that I tricked myself into believing that they were speaking English. To my relief, I was happy that I wasn’t going crazy.

The taller looking one was the one that finally replied to my innocent question, “Before we tell you who we are, who are you?”

I didn’t trust them and was afraid of revealing my real name to them in case they somehow could track me and use my own identity against me later on. It was a crazy thought, but I knew it was possible. I quickly thought of a name, afraid that these two would suspect something, “Alic. My name is Alic,” the ‘i’ had more emphasis to it, as if someone was speaking French.

“Do you have another name with Alic?” The shorter one asked curiously.

“Uh-” again, I had to think fast, I panicked, and after what felt like hours, I finally had a name chosen, “Hendrick... It’s Hendrick,” I did my best to hide my shaky breath, but it was hard. I could only hope now that they believed me.

They glanced at each other for a moment before replying, “I am Dunkton, and this is Duniton,” the taller one said as he introduced himself and his companion. “It is a pleasure to meet you Ms...” he had already forgotten what my “name” was. I didn’t blame him. I was afraid that I would do the same.

Thankfully, my memory saved me at the last second, “Hendrick.”

“Ms. Hendrick,” he concluded his sentence.

“It is a pleasure to meet you both as well. Now,” I started, and once again, they focused all of their attention toward me, “I do not mean to sound impatient, but I want to go home back to my family. Is there a way to get out of here?”

“Is there a war in your town?”

I nodded, “Y-Yes...” I replied slowly. “How did you know? Were you there?”

He shook his head, “No, but we can feel the Earth shake all around us,” before they could continue, I interrupted them.

“Will you take me back?” I repeated. To me it felt like they were rambling, and I didn’t have time for that. Not right now anyway.

“It will be a dangerous adventure, but yes, there is a way to take you back. Though for now you must rest. You are too weak to face what is ahead of all of us. You shall need your strength if you are able to make it out alive. We will fill you in on anything else once you are awake.”

As much as I wanted to protest, I had neither the strength nor energy to do so. My body took over. I laid down, forcing me to shut my eyes to finally get some well deserved rest.

CAGED BLOSSOMS

Stephanie Dowdle-Maenhardt

Nanoo

Tina Gifford

Listen

Heather

Graham

The cacophony of change grows

Smothered by revisionist prose

Power polluted

Disdain disputed

Memories muted “Status-quos”

Purse-Lipped Paramour Iris LaFontaine

City Girl

Iris LaFontaine

the day my mother finally mentioned your name

Emily Spacek

the day my mother finally mentioned your name

Was the day a train derailed into my heart. my lips turned white, and my hands shook.

i talked to myself all day and came to no consolation.

i began a new journey on foot, walked across the state line and kept trekking.

it followed from kitchen windows while yard dogs barked.

it tipped its hat at stop lights blasting swollen country hits.

with skin cracked and eyes darkened— the glare of the sun on black pavement—

i reached the mountains at once, made a hut out of pine needles and slept on the ice.

at night, i wished on every star to fall down and crack the earth.

then, caught a semi-truck home and slept all day with the horses.

their coarse skin and marble eyes reminding me of power contained.

the day my mother finally mentioned your name was all of time wasted and empty vowels

A.L.

1943

Sydney Sijan

May, 1943

Jervis Bay

New South Wales, Australia

Twilight stole the afternoon sun and colored the Australian outback in indigo shadows. Orange roads wove through shack towns, driftwood walls eaten away by Jervis Bay’s salt. Nine hours away from the U.S. Marines’ temporary base in Melbourne and still Eloise would never admit to Aggie just how many favors he had to call in to secure a leave of absence for the both of them.

Outlined by gum tree branches, the white beaches bleached everything set before them. As the truck bounced over the uneven backroads, Eloise chanced another look at Aggie. Her wind tousled, dusty curls framed her sunburnt cheeks and the broken bridge of her crooked nose. Laughter threw her head back. The noise was drowned out by the truck’s shrieking protests over each pothole they couldn’t avoid. Eloise, a blush creeping up his neck, grabbed onto the steering wheel with both sweaty hands -- was he really about to do this?

The ring weighed heavy in his uniform’s pocket.

They rounded the last bend in the road, and, with their freshly starched uniform coats officially wrinkled, they found themselves driving down the beach. The waves roared against the shoreline, vibrant blue with every crash. Glowing seafoam blanketed the sand. Giddiness knotted Eloise’s stomach as the truck lurched into park, kicking up wet sand and shells behind them. Aggie spared a pointed look at him, biting back a grin.

“Are you going to watch me change into my civvies, or are you gonna get out of the truck?”

“Fuck--” His cheeks burned as his even sweatier hands fumbled with the door handle. Giggles bubbled from Aggie while she mockingly scolded him.

“And I thought you were a gentleman!”

The door groaned as it struggled to swing open. Eloise all but fell out of his seat and into the sand. Ducking his head beneath the glassless windows to give Aggie her privacy, Eloise trotted to the back of the truck. He toed his combat boots off, peeled away his socks and threw them into

the truck bed. The grains between his toes were nothing less than a taste of the freedom he tried not to miss during his deployment.

Eloise shouldered off his uniform coat and threw it into the back. It caught on the side of the truck, precariously hanging while he rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. The passenger door opened, screaming against its rusted bolts. Eloise’s fingers hesitated over his collar’s buttons as he peeked past the side of the truck.

On the horizon, the moon climbed the night sky, washing everything white. From the truck, a bare foot stepped into the sand. The hush of tulle spilled down Aggie’s scarred calf, swished around her legs as she slid out of the truck. Moonlight kissed her bare shoulders as she slammed the door shut behind her back. Eloise gulped, hands falling to his sides -buttons long forgotten when Aggie was painted with that smile he knew was meant only for him.

“It’s colder than I expected it to be.” As she came to stand before him, she grabbed his uniform jacket from where it was haphazardly thrown onto the side of the truck. Aggie brushed red paint flecks from its wrinkles before she threw her arms down its sleeves. “You’d think our commanding officers would let their newly promoted Captain borrow a truck other than the only one in the service that saw combat in the Great War too, yeah?”

“They’ve already done enough favors for me.” He stepped closer to her. Half of his jacket lapel poked out, but Aggie hadn’t noticed. Eloise carefully laid it flat for her while she looked up at him.

“Maybe.” Aggie’s smile fluttered. He paused, outstretched hand frozen in the space between them. Eloise lifted her chin with his finger. A thumb traced over its lines.

“How do I look?” She breathed.

October, 1942

The Battle of Henderson Field Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands

The night was black: moonless. Flashing machine guns lit the palm trees monstrous. Bullets booming past their ears drowned out the mosquitos’ incessant buzzing, silenced the dead men’s screams as Japanese guns obliterated U.S. Marines’ bodies. Flares whizzed into the starless sky. Guadalcanal was drowned in red light. As men were thrown back by shells, death throws for the medics were the only sounds heard above the Japanese onslaught.

In the dark, Eloise couldn’t see the clouds of blood spray that haunted the front lines, but he knew they floated just above their bowed

heads, vulturous. The adrenaline pumping through Eloise’s ringing ears dared to drown it all out as he scurried into and out of flooded fox holes. Bootsteps pounded past him, kicking up mud and spilled blood as the medic surged forward.

The rain plaguing Guadalcanal tasted sour in Eloise’s mouth as he watched the medic drop onto a knee beside the broken shape of a brother. Eloise couldn’t leave the medic without cover. He threw his Tommy gun over his shoulders, cursing under his breath when the fox hole’s wall dissolved into slop beneath his weight. Stubbornly, his combat boots fought for purchase as he launched himself onto the open battlefield.

The flares overhead sunk below the treeline, elongating the medic’s shadow. Viscera caught the flare light, burned itself into Eloise’s brain as he dropped onto his stomach beside the medic. Blood staining the medic’s steady hands was bright in the machine gun fire. Scissors ripped through their comrade’s shredded uniform, a strip of gauze hanging from the medic’s teeth. Eloise freed his gun and tucked it against his shoulder.

“I’ll cover you,” he shouted over the chaos. Men fell all around them, sprayed them with rain and blood and the white hot need to carry on the memories of the people they once were.

“Fuck, Doc,” their comrade spluttered past the heaviness settling into his muscles. “I don’t wanna go out like this.”

Across the Henderson River, a grenade detonated. Light burst across the battlefield, tore up the earth beneath it. In the blaze, Eloise saw the medic’s hands still over the black pool that was once the man’s stomach. And Eloise recognized the guy. Yeah, they’d sat at the same lunch table during their days as cadets down in California.

Why, of all times, did Eloise have to draw blank on his name?

The man cried out to the medic again, hands going limp over his heaving chest. The medic leaned forward and clasped their hands together as they spoke.

“Tell me, did I do anything to actually help, really?” The man yanked the medic down, their faces so close Eloise wondered if the guy was going to spit into the medic’s face. The medic’s fingers fell onto his chest, rested just above his heart.

“Was this all for nothin’? My sacrifice?”

“No.” The medic held the man’s gaze like they could see each other in the dark. “Never.”

He barked out a laugh, blood dribbling down his quivering chin. “You’re nothin’ but a goddamn liar --”

“-- I’m not!” The medic pressed into the man’s chest to quiet his

hacking. “You wanna know how I know?”

Their brother quieted down, skin cold beneath the medic’s. The gauze fell from their chapped lips, forgotten.

“Because I’ll remember you. And you’ll be what drives me forward. The shit that’ll always remind me why we’re fighting. Why I’ll always try to be as strong as you, soldier.”

The man at their feet laid stiller than the earth that shook all around them. Eloise’s gun barrel dipped low, eyes glued to the corpse’s silhouette. The medic’s head shot up, shoulders shaking.

Gunfire tore through the sky, thwacked tree trunks and flailing bodies without descrimination. Eloise knew this medic; knew and fought to protect their secret. The uniform before Eloise bore the name D. Peters, but Douglas Peters died of tuberculosis days before his little sister received his war draft summons in the mail.

The medic’s eyes stood out from the death all around them. Gore and sweat stained their face. The palest green Eloise had ever seen was lit by the machine gun fire. Desperation blew their pupils wide, creased the purple from sleepless nights just beneath their color. Disguised as her brother, crouching over the corpse between them, was Aggie Peters.

“Did he hear me?”

May, 1943 Jervis Bay New South Wales, Australia

“Did you hear me?” Those eyes watched him even now, never faded by the hell they had witnessed. Jerkily, Eloise nodded.

“There’s no words for what I see in you,” he whispered. His hand cupped her cheek, and Aggie melted into the gentleness. Her hand found his, fingertips tracing over his calloused knuckles.

“You’re too good to me.”

Eloise’s other hand fell to the small of her back. Aggie stepped into his embrace’s warmth. She laid her cheek against his chest.

“Never good enough, my love.” Eloise brushed through the curls on her nape as her arms encircled him. Aggie pressed a quick kiss onto his breast pocket.

“Not true.” She pulled away, rested her chin on his chest to look up at him. “But let’s go see the water. I want to find out if the bioluminescence will make my toes glow in the dark too.”

Chuckles shook Eloise’s shoulders as Aggie all but danced away from him, cream skirt swishing behind in her wake. As if pulled by their distance, Eloise went after her.

Once the Marine Raiders from Guadalcanal were given permission to enter Melbourne, a few of the locals told them the best place to take a girl on a date was Jervis Bay in late spring. They told the soldiers the ocean water glowed bright blue at night around that time of year, but most of the Marines believed those stories were nothing more than tall tales inspired by too many drinks. As Eloise watched D. Peters, the marine corpsman, hold onto every word of those locals’ stories, he knew he’d have to take Aggie to discover the truth of the matter once and for all.

Despite the fact that their breath fogged in front of their faces, Aggie still raced down to the water, footsteps in the wet sand glowing bright enough to guide Eloise in the dark. He jammed his hands into his pockets, a finger tracing over the engravings on the ring’s inner band as he stood ankle-deep in the water.

“In my hometown, Catawba Island,” Eloise called out to Aggie, “Lake Eerie turns green. It grows thick with algae. Folks tell ya not to swim in the springtime or it’ll kill you. But I don’t think that’s really true.”

Aggie, fists full of soaking tulle, splashed in the water. The bioluminescence lit her face. As a wave barrelled past her, she hiked her skirt up higher and tiptoed to Eloise.

“That sounds disgusting, L.”

“You ain’t wrong.” He shrugged. “It’s home, though. But there’s one thing the north does better than Louisiana. I’ll have you know, Mister Bill Harolds runs the best burger joint in all of the Ohio Valley.”

“I’ll have you know, no burger can beat my daddy’s crawdads.”

Eloise gawked.

“You Southerners are all the same; thinking y’all know cooking better than anyone else.”

“Only because it’s true, Yank.” Brows raised, Aggie gave a lopsided smirk.

Eloise circled Aggie before he took her elbow. His hand followed the length of her forearm until they laced their fingers together.

“Put your money where your mouth is.” A wave rushed past them, splashed their legs. As the tide fled the shore, their toes sank deeper into the sand. Blue light billowed about their ankles. Swallowing, Eloise’s feet shuffled.

“What do you mean?” The smile slipped from Aggie’s lips. It was now or never.

Heart in his throat and bared on his rolled up sleeves, Eloise sank to a knee before Aggie as he withdrew the ring from his pocket. A wave

dared to try to knock him down. Sand flooded his uniform pants, but he held his ground. Eloise met Aggie’s gaze. Shock shot her thin brows into her curls. A blush kissed her face, jaw slack. Her fingertips brushed over her parted lips.

“Return with me once the war is over. Sit in that diner by my side, and I’ll show you just how good Bill’s fries are when you dip them in his chocolate shakes. And I’ll go anywhere with ya, Aggie -- try your pa’s crawfish even though I hate those buggers. Shit --”

Her tulle fell into the water. The tide carried its soaked hem to Eloise’s knee before clinging to Aggie’s shins. Eloise dropped his gaze to her feet.

“-- You know I ain’t good at this whole confessing my feelings bullshit, and I know I’m startin’ to ramble, but, Aggie,” Eloise looked up at her in earnest, brows pinched together, “my heart knows you’ll be the only woman for me, and I’d be damned if I didn’t at least try to make you mine.”

Like lightning, Aggie lunged down, smashing their lips together as her fingers tangled with his undercut. Eloise fell backwards into the sand. With white knuckles, he held onto the ring, another hand steady on Aggie’s back. A wave crashed over them, brilliant as they kissed in its colors. Eloise’s lids fluttered closed when he let himself taste her lips.

“Yes,” she gasped between kisses. “A thousand times yes, L.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” he mumbled against her skin.

They clung to each other on the beach, sharing kisses between their shivers.

“Let’s get the hell out of this water before I lose the ring.”

Aggie laughed, scrambling off Eloise. She offered him her hand, and, as she pulled him onto his feet, he nearly threatened to take her back into the water again. Salt dripped down the rise and fall of Eloise’s face. His bangs were plastered against his forehead. Aggie held out her hand for him while he swiped his hair back. Once again, Eloise took Aggie’s hand into his. Their numb fingers were red with the cold. The ring slipped over her knuckle.

“Oh,” she cooed. “It’s gorgeous, L.” A smile screwed up his face. His hands cupped her cold cheeks. She looked up at him as he leaned forward and pressed kisses to her lips. Eloise ate up her smile.

“There’s something special about that ring too, Aggie.” For him, she displayed her hand. The diamond caught the moonlight. “On the inner band, I got something engraved.”

She looked up at him. Her curls plastered her flushed skin. Those eyes held him in place, made his breath catch in his lungs to know he’d

see their green every day ‘til he died. God, he hoped he’d live forever just so he could always look upon her sweetness.

“What did you get engraved?”

“Our initials: A.L. 1943.”A.L. 1943

The Veins

N.F. Kimball

They studied

The blueness Of a birthed sapphire

And so,

In turn

They augmented death

Manifestation

Emily Nina

Jumprope and N.F. Kimball

it was red/or/i like to imagine it was red/the heart’s very oxygen/carrying synchronicity/through chambers/reverberations/hollowing out the already empty chest/this was the red/that bitbiting a hole through the night/this was the red/that took the voice out of speech/this was the red/that carved empty figures from breathing things/breathing things/exhaling beings/that turned hearths of familial entity/hearth of teeth and nail and childhood and boredom/ clasped around farm/and swine and gritty milk/that doused its own ink/ miles of heatless filth/that questioned the question/is red a name/or/ is it colorless this was the colorless/that hung him by his toes/the soles of his shoes throbbing/ withered down to the skeleton thin/and stick/a kingdom’s feet sewn into the floor/ the bestiality of ape and monkey/heaving and pounding again and again/ and/ if he hangs there long enough/maybe he’ll become lifeless/for all of them

Mother Brianna Mason

Her skin sags loosely from the cheek bones, the elasticity broken.

She stares vacantly up toward the ceiling counting the tiles, counting the days left.

I brush her hair with my fingers, strands between them, lifeless.

She lies still, every moment of movement agonizing.

She reaches for the ice chips, unable to clench them.

Her fingers are flimsy and useless Humiliated and overworked already, she groans in deep pain. Her body is shutting down.

I grab the ice chips and feed them to her silently.

This gesture is my voice.

Oliver, Oliver, Oliver Brynn Bunker

(i don’t want to grow to resent you as i grew to resent him.)

every waking moment, his hands wrapped around my mind drove me mad with a yearning i still haven’t been able to find.

one minute there was love, he held my heart with such care, then he dissipated sparsely, like he’d been taken away with the air.

(i don’t want to grow to resent you as i grew to resent him.)

to leave without a word, then to come back without warning, makes my skin itch with a discomfort, leaves my heart with a sense of mourning.

he would be there right in front of me, then leave within a split second. and despite his sudden abandonment, the love he promised seemed to beckon.

(i don’t want to grow to resent you as i grew to resent him.)

if you choose to leave me, if you choose to go without word, i will not bear to have the same compliance i did with him, and you will cause me unforgivable hurt.

for i am tired of being walked upon, stepped on and controlled by men who only love in the fake sense, by men whose feelings are fools gold.

i don’t want to grow to resent you, as i have grown to resent these men. and i will not be a fool for love, as i have been fooled time and time again.

if you love me, don’t you leave me, don’t be like these men, like a follower. if you love me, love me devotedly and don’t make me resent you, oliver.

Proportions

Tina Gifford

Body

Melissa Anne Kohler

Trigger Warning: Vivid descriptions of death and dying

I have often wondered in what manner I would find my body. The manner and method has never repeated itself. In the parts of my mind that are shadowed and curious, I have sometimes fantasized of a sunny meadow in springtime. The carrion beetles capture gold in their wings as they dance a ballet above my barren bones. Dazzling dewdrops decorate the verdant grasses that serve as my pillow, creating a seeming diadem, gleaming about my dreaming skull. But it has never happened that way, and I doubt that it ever will.

I was young the first time, a whisper in the ear of fifteen, and eyes like freshly-plucked red roses. I beheld a breeze on my face as magic or a miracle and thought not of any trouble it could bring. He spoke in a voice like a purr whose tumbling tones tranquilized my trembles, but his words hung in the air, curdling and congealing. Hot breath against my skin that thickened the air into a miasma, fogging my thoughts. I began to choke and gasp, but the smog never ceased its emission from his throat. Desperate, I clawed at my neck and waved my arms in a fruitless effort to free myself of the fumes, but another waft of smoke, internal and eternal, suddenly claimed my vision. He smirked at me as I sunk to the ground, billowing clouds of black and gray for my bed.

It was a few months before I found her, lying flat on a hard floor, her dark hair fanned out around her head. Her lips were a pale, blue line, and her eyes glowed as red as embers. She gazed back at me, recognition in her eyes, and a silent plea wheezing through her teeth. Curious though: I do not recognize her. Innocuous and indifferent, I carried her off and put her away.

Years passed before it happened again, and in my naivete, I had begun to think it never would. But perhaps that was the way it was intended: a silent drip, a quiet trickle. He lived in waves that crashed against soft beach sands, and over months of wading in the ebb and flow, our toes and fingers had pruned to match. But a wave never makes the same return; one a splash, one a crash. His hands moved like rivulets poured over uneven ground, spreading, creeping like chains across me until I was completely

submerged. Vicious tides tugged and ripped at me, exposing and flooding every niche and crevice. The surface drifted further and further away as the deluge consumed me, pulling me deeper and deeper. Silence roared around me and my arms fell limp, framing my body, a pirouette to the sea. My breath escaped. Six bubbles. Vision faded, my open eyes empty, vast, and blue.

She washed up after an age. Skin--yellow paper, torn and sloughed off, exposing pale, drowned muscle. A snarl of hair upon her head, tangled in debris and speckles of sand, covering the swollen lips and bulbous eyes. Revolting. I thought to go, to leave her there, but I couldn’t. Instead, like the others, I carried her off and put her away.

Sometimes after that, I felt water pooling in my ears, a wetness I could not shake. The earth, in its solid and constant state, had become an altar. I sometimes came to pray but most often I would lay myself across it and wait, shrouded in the suppressive embrace of sleep. It’s in that slumber that his fingers began to wander, exploring caves and hollows that I had thought to have buried. I felt them smear and sully, a dark stain across me, and somehow my arms petrify at my sides. A tremble and a rumble, and I was Moses in a sea of brown. Shifting around me, grasping, cool and inviting silt and soil. Swallowing and swallowed by the earth, the sanctuary I hardly knew. Mired, polluted. I became a part of the altar and slept once more.

Months of digging is what it took to find her bones. Her flesh, unprotected from the earth’s inhabitants, had been eaten away. A skull, dirty and yellow with thin strands of red hair stares back at me. Her empty sockets echoed back in my eyes, but I thought nothing of it. I gathered what I could, then I carried her off and put her away.

The last time it happened, the phantom weight of the earth that had buried me had disappeared. Five years since the first time, and my eyes were thin panes of glass, open and inviting. His hands were the heat of the sun on my skin on a hot summer day. Eyes that blazed in an orange heat, I thought I’d never escape their enveloping gaze. For years I warmed myself in his smoldering, consuming appetite, ignorant of its growing intensity. Searing, his hands branded me when they touched my flesh which boiled and blistered. Each touch ignited a new inferno that sought to envelope and destroy me. Unable to stop, unable to drop, unable to roll. I watched my skin curl and darken as the flames licked their way up

my arms, and then the heat grew to be too much.

I closed my eyes to the girl-shaped charcoal I found the day I went looking. She wasn’t too far, and it hadn’t taken very long to find her. Her face was gone, the mask of pain and horror melted away, and for that, I felt lucky. Delicately, I scooped her up, carried her off, and put her away.

This time, I prepared, laying myself out in the meadow of my fantasy. I let the sunlight caress my face the way I imagined it would and felt the silvery dew under my fingers, the soft grass between my toes. She moved like a doe amongst the trees, timid and gentle. She lay herself out beside me, her eyes pools of gold. Her touch was fairy wings that beg forgiveness for their presence. And her kiss was a burble of laughter. Before long, she uncovered the covert coffin that I carried, a lone pall-bearer. Inside she found the girl who suffocated, the girl who drowned, the girl who was buried, and the girl who burned. With an open heart and lips like rose petals, she placed a kiss on each of them, and I felt them all. Together, we closed the coffin and placed it at the base of our meadow tree, then hand-in-hand, we walked away and journeyed off into the trees.

It has been years, and I’ve had no need to look for a new body. Sometimes, I go back to visit the ones that we left at the base of the meadow tree, but they no longer stare back. Able to rest now, they wish me well as I pay them my respects. And the carrion beetles capture gold in their wings as they dance a ballet above their heads with crowns of dew diamonds that shine in the sunlight.

I Have to Leave

Jaszmine Mayhew

Trigger Warning: Child Abuse

I stood void of any feeling, any thought, listening to the static of the spraying water. It was hypnotizing. I breathed in the steam as the water scorched my skin to a blotchy red. Numb was better than the constant fear I lived in. The knot in my stomach, the pit in the back of my throat, painful to swallow. I lived in a kind of hell where I could never be myself. Home was not a safe haven; it was a place of fear. If I didn’t stand there, void of any thought or feeling, I might let my mind drift.

I might relive the time I thought my stepfather Jack killed my little brother Michael. I was ten years old. Michael was only seven. I begged my mom to stop him. As Jack shut the door, I pleaded with her, frantic, screaming and paralyzed with fear. The sharp crack of the metal dog chain beating his fragile, tiny body. Michael’s piercing cries will haunt my dreams forever. I counted Two… three… the more Jack went on, the more I became unable to think or respond... Twelve... then nothing but the deafening sound of silence. Michael didn’t come out of his room for three whole days. I went to bed that night unsure if I would ever see him again.

No, I couldn’t let my mind wander. Vacant was better than anything else. I might relive screaming in Jack’s face, “I hate you!” The glazed over rage in his eyes snapped me back into my place. I was so small. I wouldn’t think about how he pulled his giant fist back, how my heart leapt as I ran down the hall, into the bathroom, locked the door, and hid in the cold tub, or how he punched a hole in the door. I had never been more scared for my life......Bang, Bang!

“Hurry up!” Jack shouted, pounding on the door.

Startled, I snapped out of it. Shit! I thought. How much time had I wasted? Clumsily, I smeared shampoo and conditioner through my hair and rinsed as quickly as I could. As I touched a razor to my right ankle, the water went frigid, causing me to tense up.

“Ouch! Shit!” I shrieked, as blood welled up from where my razor had just been. I heard the fast-paced pitter patter of footsteps come down

the hall.

My mom called, “You better watch your mouth! When you get out of there...”

Shivering from the freezing cold water, watching the blood run bright red, I called back, “The water is ice cold. I cut myself.”

Jack laughed. I hated that laugh. It was pure evil. He said from the other side of the door, “I told you to hurry up.”

Realizing that he turned the hot water heater off, I became enraged. I roared, “Are you serious?! What the hell is wrong with you?” The muffled sound of arguing seeped through the door. Impatient and shivering, I cried, “Are you going to get the warm water back on?”

Finally Mom said, “Just a minute, but you need to hurry up and get to bed.” I turned the water down to a trickle and applied a clump of toilet paper to my stinging ankle which was still bleeding and now throbbing. It wasn’t just a cut. I sliced from my ankle bone, up about two inches. It was long, deep and jagged. Watching the red running water, an image flashed in my mind; of myself, laying in the tub, the water deep crimson with blood, myself drained of color, drained of life.

“Stop it.” I cried. “Stop it!”

I felt the water, now turning luke-warm. This time, I sat, folded in half, as I cupped and poured water on my legs from the bath faucet. I rinsed and I sobbed. I got out, feeling my ankle sting more with the chilly air, dried off, careful not to rub it and got dressed. We didn’t have a large enough band aid. Hairy, dripping wet, and unbrushed, I walked out of the bathroom. They both stood there with judgement and disappointment in their eyes.

Smiling, Jack said, “I’m sorry.”

Without thinking, I bellowed out in pain and anger, “No you’re not! You don’t care.”

Mom snapped, “You have no right to talk to your father like that.”

“He’s not my father!” I growled “Why do you do that?”

She sighed, exasperated, and asked, “Do what?”

“You always take his side. Why do you defend him instead of protecting us?”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Jack shushed us. “I didn’t know you were shaving. It was a joke. I wanted you to hurry because it’s time for bed.” He finished in a sardonic tone.

“See? He apologized, again. Forgive him and get in bed,” Mom said, voice agitated.

I’m going to die if I stay here. One way or another. I backed up and sank onto my old, pokey twin bed.

“Fine,” I answered, pointedly not forgiving him.

“Get some sleep,” Mom said and added, “I love you.” As they turned to walk out of the room, she paused and glared at Jack expectantly.

Jack moved toward me, “Goodnight. I love you,” he said as he kissed his hand and shoved his poisonous fingertips into my throbbing head, jamming them further into the pillow. He smiled, turned around and closed the door. I lay there quietly sobbing and made a decision that would change my life forever.

“I have to leave.” I told myself. “I’m leaving.” I said this over and over in a whispered voice, like a prayer. Knowing it would be my last night in that hell hole was the only thing that helped me to eventually cry myself to sleep. The next afternoon, I ran away, feeling sick because I knew I was leaving Michael behind. It felt like my only options were leaving, or dying.

Piece of Heaven

Stephanie Myers

The Art Gallery

Henry Knudson

Our mourning adorns the gallery’s walls, the only response we have death’s call. Unwilling artists treat their brush, the paint a hue of final words and fallen tears.

We, curators, expose grief among silent crowds— dissecting a life, retrospective displays framing still-ed body with final prayers installations for his specter-ed possibilities

Or is he muse painted in deep-red shrouds, life’s cheap imitation, colors fading lips? The bullet hole turns gaze away, the sight a scar against his star, a soul eclipse.

each brush stroke, a pastiche of the past and imagining of a future hanging empty on the walls.

Hitting Edge Damien Ricks

Fed-Up Black Mother

Krystle Snow

Dear Mr. and Mrs. All Wrong,

I hope you are doing marvelous and I mean this in the sincerest way. I just wanted to clear up some confusion that you may have on people that you know, look like me, Black. I understand that a lot of beliefs of the individuals in my generation are based on years of myths and because of this you have a hard time processing your privilege or even grasping the idea that you may be racist. Trust me, it is cool with me only if we are honest with ourselves.

Just like everyone, I did not have the opportunity while in my mother’s womb to choose my features. However, please know I was made with love and in the image of God. Despite this endless and tiring battle of having to explain what inequality and injustice is for someone that looks like me, Black, there is not one feature about me that I would change.

So, please don’t call the cops on me because you feel like I don’t belong in your community when $1452.16 is automatically withdrawn from my account the 1st of every month for me and my children to use this community pool. Please do not be offended when I correct you when you say that WE cannot say Black Lives Matter if WE are killing each other, when in fact all crime is crime regardless of race. And yes, I did roll my eyes when you asked to see my ID because the customer in front me also used a credit card and was not carded. But let me put my screaming kids down for you to see if my name and address match this AMEX. I totally love the super services I get because people that look like me, Black, enter stores with the intention to get a five-finger discount... So no for the 6th time I do not need any help. I lied yes; I want the corporate number to make a complaint. These are just the little issues I personally face that I could bring to your intention in 500 words or less.

The conversation you must talk to your children about is not talking to strangers and respecting boundaries. I must do that too, but I also must talk to my children about discrimination and racism because of their beautiful skin, a conversation you do not have to ever worry about. Regardless, moving out of the hood and educating myself does not deem me worthy to live.

I understand at times your racism is not always intentional but when it is it causes emotional bruising that takes time to heal. People fear things that we do not understand, but know fear builds hatred. We need to be able to talk about racism without people getting offensive; it is the only way to save lives. So please take the time to get to know me because to know me is to love me.

Sincerely,

Fed-up Black Mother

PART 1

I am the result of broken virtues

PART 2

God and the angel forgot how to love a difficult girl with a helpless mind

PART 3

Tragedies sleep in many places like a sentimental heart or like years of love painted with anonymity like for instance a girl that God blessed to be servant

Saints do not trust the rest of us to be given free will

The angel told me to be obedient as Mary was God called on us to do the impossible the answer is no Not as I have to endure the loss of me

Last winter killed me. This year, I bloom for spring I learn to change

A lovely coming and going of my days

Life's a Trip

Emily Nina

Shadowboxer

Allison Hutto

If the Moon Could Talk

Emmalie Rawlings

If the moon could talk,

He would tell the sun, how bright she truly is and how the thousands of other stars in other solar systems and galaxies, can’t compare to her.

He would tell the sun, That even the Big Bang was not as impressive as she is, And that he has never seen hydrogen and helium form something as beautiful as her.

He would tell the sun, that the creation of stars is not as striking as her rays, and that her density is his destiny. That the Milky Way placed them here together for a reason.

He would tell her, how he missed her when she couldn’t stay, and how he waits for the times that they can share the sky together.

He would tell her, That he has been singing her love songs, Wishing that eclipses came more often. I imagine if the moon could talk, We all might believe in love.

Twirling Universe Amy HJ

Dear Local Bakery Brielle

Knerr

Dear local bakery, the one with six steps between me and the pastries:

I went out of my way today, on a public forum, to ask you why there is not an accessible entrance into your shop. I cautiously crafted a diplomatic and polite post to you, when really, I was seething. This is not the first time I have brought this to your attention. This was the first time I did not keep it private. In truth, I was testing you. I was hoping that an audience of current and potential customers, in your esteemed vegan support group, would encourage you to maybe feel taken aback. To want to think outside of the box, to be inclusive of all of your customers. I really did not want to say it, but after three failed attempts, this business faux pas cannot be an issue of ignorance or innocence. You failed the test.

In 2020, it is a surmountable task to offer inclusivity. Yet I find myself barred from bakeries, bars, clothing stores, apartment buildings, clubs... you can see my point. I have heard it before: “The building is old enough that city ordinances keep us from getting a building permit.” The business next door put a foldable ramp in the back of the same brick-and-mortar you both share. They let me enter through the kitchen. They are one of many businesses that extend similar options.

Though I would not call that a royal entrance, I can admit that a fair share of their ice cream has made its way home sitting in a pint on my lap. Is it not a simple notion that members of society with disabilities deserve to partake in activities of daily living? We are human beings that sometimes crave indulgence. More importantly, our money should speak as fluently to your business as someone with an easy gait. I like cake and cannolis as much as the next person, I just do not see myself with the ability to defy my circumstances in this case. I will not be crawling to the door for a superb slice of pie; I am sorry.

I realize that running a business is difficult, all-encompassing, and sometimes overwhelming. I thank you for being inclusive of people with vegan diets. I thank you for offering to “meet outside at the bottom of the steps with food.” I appreciate the efforts you do take. All I ask is for you and your sister-businesses to please try to consider those of us with

disabilities that limit us. Please ask how you can help me because I am happy to help you back. I want to give you my money and my patronage. I cannot do so if my community continues to be excluded from the conversation, or my requests for you to think outside of the box are ignored with shady alternative platitudes, offered as a conciliatory prize. Meanwhile, my autonomy is at stake. My money is burning in my pocket.

Yours truly,

Brielle

“Girl in the Wheelchair”

Sequins

Sydney Sijan

Morning seeped through the blind’s slates like a trespasser in Andie’s bedroom. It lit up the clothing racks that were pushed in front of the window, a thousand sequins of designs-in-progress glittering on hangers. Cloudlight stumbled past the plastic bins spilling over with swatches of colorful fabric. Against one of the walls was Andie’s bunk bed -- the same one from his mom’s house -- and it was special; it only had the top bunk. Where the bottom bunk had been removed, his collection of vintage cameras were mounted to the wall with little placards underneath them that told what states and antique stores he had found them in. A few of the older cameras were from his mother’s study abroad program in France. Light traced their edges, reflected across his desk and sewing machine that were nestled into the space as well.

Flicking on his lamp, Andie plopped down in front of his desk. Sighing as he put in his headphones, he settled in. Fabric and ribbon, pierced by needlefuls of brilliant thread, laid across his lap while he clicked his mother’s hand-me-down sewing machine on. It purred awake. Dented thimble secured onto his finger, he placed his fabric beneath its needle, and his socks peddled the machine alive. As Andie crouched closer to watch his nimble fingers, his thoughts drifted to memories of his mother.

In his mind, her dark hair was always tied up as she bent over the very sewing machine he now used. Even when her sewing room door was shut, when he was just a boy that never mattered to him. His feet would patter quietly across the carpet, wide eyes completely enraptured by his mother’s flittering hands and the machine’s needle as its thread thunked through fabric. Sometimes, she sat him in her lap and told him about how life was like a swatch of fabric and people the seamstresses. Whispering in his ear, the hush of her breath brushing his bangs away from his chubby cheeks, she told him people created the thread of events that sewed designs and all sorts of patterns into their lives, and people could add whatever they liked to their lives: buttons, lace --

Andie took in the sight of his mother’s sewing room. Books about sewing, knitting, and quilting lined the walls in white bookcases. Big bins filled with sewing materials were neatly organized and pushed up against the closet doors. The desk they sat at was placed in front of the window, and the crowning gem of the room -- the sewing machine itself -- stared

back at Andie. Strewn about the desk were needles, thimbles of varying sizes, all colors of thread, and a clear plastic container of bright sequins.

“-- Even sequins, Ma?”

His mother pulled him closer against her chest and kissed the top of his head. “Yes, baby.” She smoothed his hair back into place. “Even sequins.”

Now as a senior at Pratt University, Andie sometimes reflected on what designs he had woven into his own life. All he did was go to school, go to work, and sew. The fabric of his life felt threadbare in his hands. Chewing his cheek, Andie pushed down those thoughts and focused on the work in front of him. The minutes bled into hours with nothing but his music, his sewing machine’s tack tack tack, and the gentle swish of fabric to keep him company before his phone alarm went off to remind him of his appointment with his psychotherapist, Dr. Cindy Howard.

Reluctantly, Andie slumped against his chair, his foot coming off the sewing machine’s pedal. The needle stopped while he carefully placed his design on the empty space next to it. He moved out from under his workspace, and groaning, climbed up the bunk bed stairs that led to his bed. His laptop sat on his pillow, beckoning him to curl up under the sheets while he had his therapy session. It took a few moments to get his laptop turned on and the Zoom meeting room loaded, but there he sat, criss-cross applesauce with his computer nestled into his lap and his gray comforter thrown over his head and shoulders like a great big cloak. Nervously, he clutched it in his fists, a frayed hem ticklish between his fingers while he looked at anything else to avoid his all but scowling therapist.

“Mr. Rowberry,” Dr. Howard, from the plushy comfort of her far away New York City office, laid her clipboard on her lap as she leaned forward towards her computer camera, resting her forearms on her knees. “We’ve talked about coping mechanisms for your anxiety --”

“Cindy.” Andie’s shoulders fell, his comforter slipping down his arm as he held his chin in his hand. Fingers itched his scruff, tapped his chapped lips. “How many times do I have to tell you that I --”

“-- don’t have anxiety?” She finished, eyeing him over the rim of her slim

glasses. She brushed her auburn hair behind her ear and sighed. The audio cracked with her breath. “May I be frank with you?” She chewed her cheek.

Huffing, he nodded, drawing his blanket closer to his face.

“We need to start from the beginning again.” As she spoke, her glasses began to slip down her nose. “Because of your roommates’ urging, you sought out therapy. During our first appointment just a couple of months ago, you told me about the symptoms you’ve been experiencing for a few years now. You detailed minor experiences that caused you shortness of breath, rapid heart rate, dizziness, overwhelming feelings of something like being crushed. You told me your thoughts would race, and you felt like you had to flee all sorts of situations that didn’t warrant this type of bone deep fear.” Dr. Howard paused just long enough to push the brim of her glasses back into place. “What you’ve described -- these symptoms that have stopped you from going to events, seeing friends, even leaving your house sometimes -- is a classic case of Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

“And now you’re going through a time of mourning, mourning the loss of the standard of normal you had been accustomed to for most of your life before being accepted into Pratt, and that’s okay. And mourning means the stages of grief, one of which is denial.”

Andie rolled his eyes.

“You’re in denial that you have anxiety, but you’re bordering on agoraphobic--”

“I’m not agoraphobic. I’m introverted!”

“Then let’s redefine what introversion is versus what you’ve been experiencing. The spectrum of extroversion and introversion is simple. Extroverts require more stimulation from their environment to reach their potential whereas introverts thrive in environments with much less stimulation and are still able to reach the same levels of success. However, that does not mean that introverts are introverted because they have varying degrees of social anxiety or incompetence: it all has to do with environmental stimulation.” Dr. Howard looked at him over her ever slipping glasses, as stern as she could be through the computer. “It’s okay

to be introverted, but introversion does not explain the symptoms you’ve been experiencing.

“We’ve talked about this, Andie. The first step we need to take is defining what it means to be introverted versus having Generalized Anxiety Disorder.” Dr. Howard straightened and looked at her feet, fidgeting with her blazer’s lapel. “If we can’t even do that,” she held his eye, “then I have other therapists I can recommend that would be able to help you more than me.”

Andie straightened, thin brows shooting into his hairline. Dread filled his stomach at the thinly veiled threat of starting over with a brand new therapist. That was the last thing he wanted to do; it had taken month after arduous month to build the shaky rapport he and Dr. Howard had cultivated. But Cindy, acrylic nails clicking across the expanse of her keyboard, ignored him. The Zoom application on Andie’s computer dinged, signaling a new message from her. He leaned forward to check it.

“I sent you a message. It’s the title of a book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. It’s a great book that distinguishes the differences between extroversion and introversion and other things like anxiety. It’ll hopefully give you some perspective about what you’re experiencing. Plus,” a mischievous glint flashed across her pixelated face, “I’d like to offer you a challenge.”

“Alright,” Andie grumbled, jotting down the book title on a neon sticky note so he wouldn’t lose the recommendation.

“I’d like you to try to pick the book up from the library.” Andie raised a curious brow. “Going to the library will give you the opportunity to flex your social interaction muscles and to put into practice those anti-anxiety tools we’ve been working on. What do you think about that?”

Andie gave a resigned sigh. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try.”

“You can do this, Andie.”

Andie never backed down from a challenge. That’s why he found himself not so reluctantly rummaging around his disastrous room for a pair of mismatched socks and his worn out Converse high tops. By the time he locked up his apartment front door behind his back, the sky had opened up, and it was pouring. Hastily pulling his hoodie over his head, Andie’s

shoes splashed through puddles as he made his way to the train station. The train station bustled with people, and, as he watched the crowd interact with each other, Andie felt alone. It was a suffocating feeling. He praised a God he didn’t believe in when the train finally rolled up. He scanned his trashed Public Transport card and ducked inside. Ignoring the incessant overhead announcements about upcoming stops, Andie flew up the stairs took two steps at a time to the top floor. He slid into an empty seat and, heart racing, popped in his headphones.

It was less crowded at the top. Some college students huddled together over a table between their seats. Andie watched them uncap a Sharpie and scribble their names alongside the table’s faded graffiti. A few rows down from them, a businessman typed away on his laptop with a bored expression plastered across his middle-aged face, and holy hell Andie’d bet his entire camera collection and his mom’s old sewing machine that that man typed 105 words per minute. In a section up ahead, a rather frazzled mother hissed at her kid to stop bolting up and down the aisles. Andie smirked at the laughing little boy and tried to relax in his chair.

With his temple pressed against the window’s cold glass, Andie counted the skyscrapers as they flew past, towering over the brick neighborhoods and leafless trees. It wasn’t as calming as he had hoped. Alone with his mind, his thoughts returned to what he had done with his life. Yeah, he had been accepted into Pratt University a few years ago. Yeah, he and his roommates went on trips where he took opportunities to hunt through antique stores for old movies and older cameras. But what else was he doing to weave some vibrancy into his life?

Toes tapping against the floor, a sigh escaped his lips as he thought about what Dr. Howard had said. God, with all of her nagging she was like the second mother he never had, and yet he couldn’t entirely push away the points she’d brought up; the anxiety; the agoraphobia. The taste of panic, as he dared to step outside of his apartment, his bedroom, never left the back of his throat. Something needed to change, his roommates insisted, and fast, before he stopped leaving the house, allowing himself to succumb to the rising panic entirely.

So when the train pulled into his stop, he swallowed down that foul taste, and, hood flicked up, he wove through the exiting crowd. He walked fast, bolting down the sidewalk. Raindrops dripped down the edges of his slouching silhouette. A few turns down a couple of blessedly deserted

blocks and the library’s brick and glass entrance jutted into view. Rosebush planters lined the building sides, promising blooms as soon as Spring stayed longer than a handful of days. As Andie crossed the quiet street, he wasn’t surprised to see hardly any cars parked in front of the building.

The automatic doors zipped open for him, and the heater’s whoosh met him as he sauntered inside, hands jammed into his jeans pockets. Warm overhead light flooded the library. Its nearly empty aisles and overfilled shelves almost scraped the popcorn ceiling. His nose scrunched up at the smell of old lady perfume and lemon-scented Febreeze, the shitty kind in the little plastic bottle that was attached to wall corners and sprayed obnoxiously all over people’s heads. Directed by laminated Dewey Decimal System signs on the sides of scuffed shelves, Andie made a beeline for the nonfiction “C” section, weaving past new arrival displays.

The aisle, dustier than Andie had ever seen a library, was devoid of all life. He clicked his tongue as he trudged up and down the aisle once, twice, thumbing the sticky tab of Dr. Howard’s book recommendation. He couldn’t find the book. At the end of the aisle where the shelves met the wall, a poster of Belle the Disney Princess surrounded by all of her well-organized books all but laughed at him as he, frustrated, spun on his heel for the third time and collided, face first, with a blond tower of rolled up sleeves and relaxed tie. Andie stumbled back, hands already curling into fists and tongue forked with profanity. Surprised, a broad-shouldered man more than a head taller than him took a step back and flashed him a perfect smile of commercial-worthy white teeth. When Andie caught those hellishly blue eyes peering down at him apologetically, he swallowed every dirty curse he had for the shithead.

The gorgeous shithead...

To finish reading this piece, visit slccfolio.org!

Havens

Kati Lewis

Crochet Pink Bag

Genine Miranda

I took on crocheting when I was diagnosed with chronic rheumatoid arthritis and was put on disability. Believe me I had a wonderful life of traveling and loving my job. I really didn’t know what to do with myself, after having worked since I was sixteen but that stopped when I became ill.

One day I got on YouTube, mind you I had never been on YouTube until then. It opened a new world for me. Now, I follow many talented women across the world who have taught me many amazing things. I even wanted to be a YouTuber.

Learning to crochet wasn’t easy but not impossible

Peach Jam

Arianna Rose

She had me carry in boxes of peaches she picked up from a small farm I have no idea of where it was located, but was happy she had. She told me she was going to teach me how to make her mother Margret’s recipe for peach jam and she would show me how to can and jar things for the first time. Her short dyed blond hair was still messy to match her robe as she took a sip of coffee and told me the things to collect from the basement, and shuffled around to find her recipe box she had placed “somewhere around here I swear it…” and then few trips to the basement later we had everything needed to begin.

She had already begun by peeling peaches and telling me about the ones she had shared with the neighbours cow while getting the mail the day before, and the general neighbourhood gossip. We loaded up the old dishwasher with the glass jars and started a pot of boiling water to sanitize the lids, and kept peeling and slicing those peaches right into the pot on the stove. “I once tried to make the sugar free, don’t even bother because it’s crap anyways” note taken grams. She continued to mozy about collecting the rest of the ingredients, and I’ll say I never really knew exactly how much sugar goes into jams until that day, and boy is it plenty. She went about telling me about all the different spices she uses, has used in the past, and will never use again. Even telling me about what spices will go well with obscure foods I would definitely never put nutmeg of all things on, and was too afraid to ask why she would. Her reader glasses came on and off as she went from looking at what she was doing to reading my great grandmother’s delicate cursive on the old index card while the house filled with sweet, earthy and peachy smells.

After they were finished I pulled out the assortment of mason jars that had been procured in the basement over the years, and even some new ones because “They’ll be perfect little goodies for my book club!”.I placed them each on the counter side by side and grabbed a ladle to fill each. Once it was ready, we began to fill the jars and systematically place lids on them as we went, and once each was finger-tight (very important! ONLY finger tight!) she placed 6 at a time into her stove top canner than I’m sure was just as old as she was and the next set of instructions came.

“You just boil em for a long while since we’re so high up, or until you hear those lids start ‘clok ‘clok’ clok” mimicking the lids vacuum seals popping with a click of her tongue. Once they were done we tightened the lids off, dated them, and counted how many were going to who. Many jars were kept for ourselves and enjoyed thoroughly. A year later I’m moved into a house of my own, with 2 peach trees out back, time to finally make some more jam. The only thing missing was her.

the fool

Brynn Bunker

you deserve better than what you’ve been given.

you were handed a deck of cards and expected to find the diamonds, only to discover besides one fool, it was purely blank. and how could the universe make such a cruel mistake?

you decided to mine for diamonds instead but were only given another card, and how can you find beauty with such a flimsy tool? the universe was against you, your deck of cards made you the fool.

your self-worth was deprecated by your lack of cards, you tried to stack them high so you could build yourself a house that’s paper thin. but those walls could never protect you and the pain you’ve felt has broken in.

they never treated you right since the beginning, they gave you a shitty deck to work with and since then it’s been hard to not be hurting. and recovering isn’t easy, but it’s easy to keep learning.

you may think less of yourself, you may think yourself to be unworthy, so instead you hide from those who love you, conceal your cards behind a mask.

but i would never judge you for your cards, so please don’t hide from me, is all I ask.

you deserve worlds beyond your deck of cards, but you can never truly change what you have, which may seem hopeless and cruel to your demise. but really, your deck is dusted with diamonds, or, at least, that’s how it looks within my eyes.

so you may have been given nothing, but to someone, in you, they see stars, and all the diamonds upon diamonds and jewels. sometimes discovering how much you shine just takes meeting another fool.

What Were You Wearing? Emmalie Rawlings

Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault

“What were you wearing?”

And I wonder what answer would justify this.

Gorgon Girl

Olivia Valdez

The final girl

Jacia Carlile

Femininity

Emily Nina

Depressed, But I’m Okay

J.A. Harris

Sometimes I’m more broken than normal. Sometimes your harmless words hurt.

I’m sorry if I can’t handle it today. I’m sorry if I take things too personally.

Certain words and phrases trigger me, And just like that, the depression returns. I know it’s not your fault. It’s mine and mine alone.

I fall into my own world of hurt and pain, Because that’s all I’ve ever known.

I’m expected to feel better Because life is so much better now.

Then why does it hurt so much? How do you expect me to follow you, In a path where I can’t reach you? Why am I forced to feel okay?

I don’t feel okay. I’ve tried so hard, But I don’t feel okay. I’m so sorry.

I’m so sorry that I let you down. I’m someone so much different Than what I let on. You think you know me.

But really, you have no idea.

I’m sorry if I lead you astray, But if I am to survive, I cannot trust anyone no matter what.

Even if it’s you.

I’m sorry if I must do this to you, But it’s what I know.

I’m sorry.

Time grew older, And so did I.

But one thing’s for certain, That I’m better for it all. Do I still struggle with this? Of course I do! It won’t ever go away completely, But I’ll be okay.

I’ll get through it. I have my ups And my downs, Even if I fake it.

Depression will come at me, Making my mind a dark place, But I manage to pull though, Knowing I’m not alone.

It will take time, And I’ll never be the same again, But I hope to one day Shape a stronger me Who I see distantly.

It’s exhausting, And some days I don’t feel like I can make it. But I keep my head up.

I try to make the most everyday. I’ll do my best to heal, Even though it’s hard. I’ll get through it.

I’ll eventually get better, But for now, On hard days like these, I’ll let myself not be okay.

Repercussions of Synapse Part 2

Allison Hutto

Malinche KS

Dear Nightingale

Rachel Broom

It’s not my habit to sing at night. what I thought was isolation turned out to be a hushed audience. in the beds of children, well-wishers, fishes in bowls and dogs on mats. we’ve sung such sweetness. small voices make big waves. Our little wings, resting now. you may go to sleep if you please. I may keep watch a while longer. echoing our sweet sentiments across the continent. where one nightingale sings, another listens. tiny lungs, rest now. beating heart, slowing down. steady hum of crickets, how they play along. mirroring our song until the sticky rays of sun latch onto porches, swings, and tabletops, kissing every flower good morning. we may both rest now. our job is done.

Untitled Tina Gifford

Two Sisters

Amy HJ

garden snakes

Emily Spacek

my sister says our father was in the garden more this year said it helps his temper to plant his expectations into the ground focus on molding earth manipulate only what needs him to when i was young i watched him pick up the garden snakes so gently loving them then it was easy to love him

picking up snakes

watching trust weave between his swollen fingers before

I let it go

A Letter to my Sister Emmalie Rawlings

In the maze of my memories, a still picture of you is held. You were 12 years old.

Your brown hair blew lightly in the breezeA smile spread across your face

As if this were the happiest time to be alive; As if from this moment forward it could only go down. Well, it did.

You were 14 years old when I noticed you being methodically led into depression.

You had your arm outstretched, holding onto his hand. Step by step, you walked with him and away from me.

At 16, you acted as if you had fallen in love with a razor. You let the blade nick at your skin like a lover kissing up your arms.

I helped you clean up the blood.

You were 18 years old the first time you told me that drinking was fun.

You then proceeded to come home late at night with the smell of her clinging to your skin. There was evidence of her in every step yet you denied it. You stumbled over your own feet and I had to hold you up because your legs couldn’t.

At 20, you had a nasty breakup. You had cut your ties with him but reacted as if abandoned. Screaming for him with a dry throat. But in return, you were left only with hot flashes, hallucinations, and overwhelming nausea. I had to hold you as your body tried to get revenge for the years of ill-treatment.

You are 22 years old and those memories of how laughter turned into

yelling continue to echo in my mind. Smiles turned into swollen red eyes. You have to understand, I can’t just forgive you.

Silence is a force stronger than words, and it’s worked its way down my throat. Silence has lived there now for years. But I couldn’t leave those things unsaid any longer. Your secrets, I couldn’t put them as a burden on my shoulders anymore.

Because.. because it’s not normal to be awoken by your sister at 2 am lying on the floor in a fit of laughter.

Halfway yelling between breaths, “Come to the land of drunken unicorns.”

It’s not normal to hide out of sight because vodka gives you the words that you couldn’t say while sober. It’s not normal to be collateral damage.

I’m sorry, but you... You are not my sister. Addiction stole you away. Stole your personality and innocent smile. You have to understand I can’t just forgive you

Because how many second chances can I give you until I’m enabling your addiction?

I’m sorry. You are not my sister. You are simply a stranger that I know very well.

Grasshoppers Amy HJ

I sat in the chair across from the teacher’s desk at my first parent/ teacher conference. I’d never been a parent, but somehow I’d managed to inherit my grandnephew.

“Who better than Aunt Elsa to take care of Skipper while we’re in Asia?” His mother, my youngest niece, had asked. “She’s only working part time at the U now and they get along so well.”

“Who else would agree,” would have been a more accurate question.

The kid had a reputation, well deserved. I figured a whole lot of the problem was being saddled with a name like Skipper, which was almost as bad as that old song about “A Boy Named Sue.” Fortunately, Skip wasn’t the sort of tough, burly kid who dealt with his fists. Instead he used his wit and wicked sense of humor. Unfortunately, Skip wasn’t very subtle. Of course, you can’t really expect subtlety from an eight year old.

Miss Marsh cleared her throat with a rather snotty little sound. Annoying, but I did my best to look alert, attentive, and respectful. Seeing she had my attention, she shuffled the papers before her and slid one to the top.

“I see, Mrs. Blue, that you are temporarily guardian over Skipper and, at your age, perhaps not used to coping with a boy with his unique... problems.”

That snotty little throat clearing had turned into a smug and condescending vocalization. Not something I tolerate well.

“That’s Doctor Blue. Neuro-chemistry.”

“Oh. Well, Doctor Blue.” She sat back a moment before continuing. “Skipper has only been here a week, yet in that short time he has managed to disrupt the class multiple times.

“This,” she held up an elaborate paper airplane, “is the way he typically turns in his work. By air. He has hidden my course materials. He mimics me when my back is turned. He put a very vulgar screen saver on the computers. It had horribly offensive sound effects. And he fixed it so I could not turn it off.”

I tried not to grin; I’d thought the flying, flatulent zeppelins were pretty funny when he’d put them on my computer. We’d had a talk about respecting other people’s property and privacy, then I’d password protected my machine – guess that’s where he’d gotten the idea of how to stop her from turning off his master work.

Miss Marsh rattled her papers and glared at me. “But today was the worst. He disrupted the entire class for almost half an hour. He brought in a big paper bag and when I asked him what was in it, he dumped it out!”

She thumped her papers down on the desk and leaned over them towards me. “It was full of grasshoppers. Big, nasty, brown grasshoppers. Hundreds of them! They were all over the room. All the children were screaming and running around trying to either catch them or get away from them, and some of the girls were crying. They knocked over chairs and scattered papers everywhere. The room was in shambles!”

“Oh, my!” I said, trying to sound suitably appalled.

My mind rolled back to Mrs. Rickmond’s second grade class. My choice of creepy-crawly had been spiders. Mrs. Rickmond had a horror of spiders. I put spiders in the cupboards, in her desk drawers, in her pencil cup, in her coat pockets and boots, on the bookshelves, anyplace I could think of to hide them that they might stay put until she found them. The bigger, fatter, and harrier the spider, the better.

The coupe de grace, though, had happened one spring morning by serendipity. I’d gone off by myself at recess and lain in the long grass between the woods and the schoolyard.. As I lay there on my stomach, daydreaming, a mouse had crept out from under some rubbish and sat in front of me, grooming its long white whiskers. I watched it, fascinated, thinking what a wonderful thing a mouse was, how quivery and lovely. Very slowly, very carefully and quietly, I lifted my jacket. Holding it poised, I waited my moment. When the mouse tucked its head under to clean its tummy, I pounced. I tossed the jacket over it and followed up with a fast scooping motion of my hands, gathering in the mouse, jacket and all.

My heart pounded. I could feel the mouse kicking inside the jacket. But what would I do with it? I couldn’t take it home, it was too long before school got out. It would surely chew through my jacket and get away, leaving me with a hole in my jacket and trouble explaining it. But to have a mouse and not do something with it, I just couldn’t do that.

Tucking my jacket securely under my arm, I headed back to the school building. When I reached the bathroom door, I scoped out the hallway – no signs of life. So I quickly scuttled two doors down and into the classroom. No one there. I zipped over to Mrs. Rickmond’s desk, opened the bottom right door, where I knew she kept her lunch, and shook my jacket out over it. The mouse fell into the drawer. I shut the drawer fast, before it could jump out. Then, thinking I had enough time, I got two

erasers from the tray on the blackboard and dusted Mrs. Rickmond’s chair.

There’s a technique for dusting a teacher’s chair. First, you have to wait for the right day, one when she’s wearing a dark colored skirt. Second, you have to find two erasers that are just right, chalky, but not too loaded. You hold them high over the chair and brush the business sides very gently together, releasing a fine, even snow of chalk dust. Then you have to make sure not to snicker when she sits down.

It was hard to sit still in my seat after recess. A couple of times during the arithmetic quiz, when all was quiet except for the scratching of pencils on paper, Mrs. Rickmond cocked her head with a questioning, listening look on her face. I was so tense, I thought I was going to wet my pants, but nothing happened. We changed papers and corrected the quizzes – I got them all right. Then we passed our papers forward. Mrs. Rickmond had her pet girls in the front row collect them, then told us to straighten up our desks and get ready for lunch. She leaned over and opened her bottom right drawer. I sat stiff in my seat. I couldn’t look away; I couldn’t even breath.

She reached into the drawer. I heard the crackle of paper as she grabbed her lunch bag.

“EEEEEEE!” she shrieked! The mouse ran up her sleeve, across her chest and into her collar. Still shrieking, she leaped from her chair, dancing, and ripping the bottom of her shirt out of her skirt.

The mouse fell out, bounced off her knee, and ran under her desk. Mrs. Rickmond kept screaming. She tried to get away. She turned around, got tangled in her chair, and fell over. The two big white spots on the back of her navy blue skirt stared at us like startled eyes. The kids all jumped out of their seats and started yelling. One boy yelled, “Rat!” and the screams got louder. Most of the kids either ran to the far end of the room or jammed up trying to get through the door. I could hear doors slamming open up and down the hall and teachers running towards our room to see what was happening.

I bounced around on pogo stick legs, amazed, delighted and terrified by the chaos I had wrought.

The next day, and for the rest of the week, we had a substitute. The next school year, I got sent to private school. They did figure out it was me; I’d forgotten my jacket under Mrs. Rickmond’s desk. By the time the principal and my parents were done with me, I didn’t think my ears or my rear would ever recover. It was worth it, though.

“Something is going to have to be done about his behavior,” Miss

Marsh stated determinedly. “For now, I have given him two weeks after school detention. If this behavior continues, the punishment will escalate.”

I nodded solemnly. “I understand.”

Miss Marsh preceded me down the hall to the detention room, her bony bottom switching indignantly. For a few seconds, I saw in its place, Mrs. Rickmond’s lushly curved and white blotched bottom stalking before me as I had so many times on my way to the office in second grade. I bit my lip.

On our way to the car, I asked Skip, “Why grasshoppers?”

“It was a class project. She gave each one of us a state and said we were supposed to do a report about an important event in its early history. I got Utah.”

“Oh. Well, next time, can the visual aids.”

“Or put ‘em in a glass jar,” he grinned.

I rolled my eyes and asked, “Was it worth two weeks detention?”

“Yeah.”

I couldn’t help myself. I put my arm around his shoulder, gave him a squeeze, and scrubbed his hair with my knuckles.

Around and around Dances these thoughts in my mind Snap! my head breaks off

Heather Graham

Waltz Daniel Baird

Day of the Deer

N.F. Kimball

The day the deer spoke was also the day all the other deer died. I warned them the grass would turn brown soon, but they continued to eat it like there was no green grass left elsewhere. The burning heartbeat of the sun somehow got tired of warming the seeds, and in their frustration they dug themselves deeper. The soil was never dirty anymore. The hunters came wandering this time, with no place to go, with no reason left behind in their footprints. They were holding no guns, no earplugs to shield them from the screaming the blood made as it flowed down the stream so heavy from the rain. On most days I liked to believe the blood a deer spilled as his neck was slit under the tired sun was colorless. It was too polite to show forbidden violence to the one holding him at his mercy. It was only on the days I became tired too that I sat alone watching the blood become red.

Ready for Autumn Iris LaFontaine

The Boxer Allison Hutto

I feel the need to say Cass

Potter

I feel the need to say ...

That I can’t ignore this feeling of urgency. This feeling that if I don’t chase after it, I will never again have the opportunity to.

To feel her serene head on my thumping chest,

To feel the graciousness of her calming kiss,

To feel the reassurance of her admiring gaze,

To feel the hidden abundance of her quieting embrace,

To see those forbidden grins and snickers quickly hidden by a turned head,

Almost as if to put on display the same unsteadiness I had felt until now.

I feel the need to say ...

That I am afraid.

That if I don’t find her,

That I won’t know happiness. That I will live the rest of my days

Wondering what it would have been. Wondering why I chose otherwise. Wondering why I didn’t search harder

For the woman I have always dreamt of Holding, Kissing, Touching, Licking.

The instances I have always dreamt of Running my fingers through her hair, And hers, mine.

Chortling until our bellies cramp, From the pure joy.

Making homemade meals together, Though I am no cook.

Embracing me--her,

Guiding me, Through the motions of the recipe.

Reducing a fancy fruit sauce, Tranquilly checking on a stuffed breast, Drinking whiskey from teacups

As we bellow from deep within.

Gentle hands--hers

Leading mine along the path

To creating

The second-best thing

Either of us has put in our mouths.

I feel the need to say ... Is it really

The fear of becoming the Dependent, Submissive, Misguided

Mother I have been led by

That plagues me most?

Or rather the fear

Of never meeting Her--the dreamt of?

Kati Lewis

Flower Garden

Rachel Broom

Trigger Warning: Sexual assault

Let’s plant flowers, he says. black mulch. fresh soil.

look, he says. they’re growing. yellow suns and dancing daffodils.

the curtains close. i can’t see the yellow suns anymore. all i see is him on top of me. i don’t feel the sun anymore. i feel a different kind of heat

it’s hot and sticky. drowning me. there’s a ringing in my ear. water in my throat to help you grow, he says.

under the earth it is dark. moist. warm. water my flower, he says. i will show you how. he makes it rain again and again. do flowers survive pain like this?

i am a wreath of baby’s breath- delicate and dried. find me a box- he says. for the flowers we grew. the cardboard box I found is big and stiff. he takes the box and covers them up- my yellow-sunned daffodils.

he plants me in his room and tells me he is the sun. shut up, he says, it will be over soon. his knee digs a hole in my chest i will never fill. it hurts to breathe. he laughs.

outside I hear the sunit is crying. weeping for me and my lost flowers.

The Reaping

Heather Graham

Sunlight ’s Precipice

Andrew Thorell

Between Heather Graham

Source: In Between - Originally published in “Rhaspody,” Folio Spring 2017

Rhapsody

Heather Graham

(Poem from which “Between” was created)

A hundred melodies can create a song to lull the in between spaces of I miss you and I wish you were here. Writers and artists can find the ways to fill the silences after I’m thinking of you. But I am stuck in your darkness, pleading. Without color. Without sound. Without word.

Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go.

I would compose you a symphony. I’d author you a library. I’d decorate entire galleries. I’d say too much and make you run. Or not enough at all. Is that what you’re waiting for? A word. A note. A brushstroke.

Any reason to run.

Maybe you’re waiting for Shakespeare or Van Gogh to show you how you fit into my every color and verse. Maybe you’re stalling in rain puddles trying to hear the way the strings and percussion sing to know if it is right

Maybe you’re waiting to hear me echo back. In pitch. In phrase. In hue.

It’s right. It’s right. It’s right.

If this is what you’re waiting for all of the songs and books and art in the entire world will say it better. But never mean it more. Forgive me for being lost somewhere in these in betweens. Drawing a bow. Drawing a breath. Drawing a heart.

Radiance Sarah Kennedy

Your Own Pathway

Stephanie Velazquez

The Broken River Will Fluetsch

As I paddle down The river styx

My mind betrays What my eyes do see

As I gaze into That consciousness

The hardened gold Turns rusted debris

So I reach my arm Into its embrace

But a sudden urge Then takes its place

It breeds a thought One cold and broken

A change it whispers A gilded potion

All memories Lost The fears Forgotten

All whisked away It’s only option

But I stop And I think

For my fate Is not this

That these gods Who do sing

Lay atop Painted cliffs

So I reach Back my hand

I pick up My paddle

Past stroke Into stroke

Past pain Into pain

I guide My boat

Past Death’s Domain

What It Feels Like to Love You

Emily Nina

Is a beating heart against my own Love

Separate from meIt’s existence persists And I notice at the cost of peace Atrocity may wonder Why I never backed away But this heart within me Met a rhythm so clearly You And I didn’t want to leave.

A Writing Game

Aloyious Soranno

There are a number of games out there to challenge a writer’s mind. This one in particular is fairly easy and a bit of fun. Here’s how to play:

Go to a bookshelf and choose a book at random; close your eyes and just grab something.

Out of all the books I could be drawn to, I selected Plato, written by Walter J. Black and translated by B. Jowett and Louise Ropes Loomis. It could have been any number of Goosebumps or Harry Potter, or even an instructional guide to being a copywriter. But no, it was this one that I never read before. Who am I kidding, I have not read most of the books in my selection. I had to find out why, why this particular piece of literature. It could just be coincidental or maybe deep down I wanted this choice because I have yet to read it.

Open the book to any page and put your finger down randomly. After flipping nearly halfway through the book, the word I point ed to was “deity”. I think about Aphrodite, Hera, Artemis, and the other pagan goddesses of old. Greek mythology was one of my favorite classes in middle school and my favorite written work those days was the Odyssey, a renown poem written by Homer. The events of Odyssey take place immediately following the Trojan war and tell the tale of Ithaca’s king, Odysseus, and his tragic journey home.

Whatever word you land on, read the three before and the three after.

When read altogether, it reads: “universal is the deity of love, whose…” Immediately, I can already see what speaks to me, what makes the most sense. But I am not there just yet.

Now get out some blank pieces of paper, set a timer to five minutes, and write those seven words over and over again. Do not think about anything but those seven words, let there be no distractions. Once the time is up, take the phrase out of the seven words that resonates with you the most.

Besides bringing up childhood memories of having to write certain phrases over and over again as punishment, the phrase that stuck out to me was “universal is the deity of love.” I revised that to make a little more sense; the “universe is the deity of love.”

Alternatively, the same thing can be accomplished by sitting and thinking on the words for a few minutes.

Let everything around you go quiet and focus on just those words. Say them again and again and ponder the meaning of your seven words. The one phrase will reveal itself to you, speak to you, resonate with you.

Lastly, write a short paragraph, poem, or lyrics that includes the phrase chosen.

We live our lives based on two things: logic and emotion. The best course of action is often the most reasonable one. But the strongest of our feelings are really the core of the decisions we make. Fear and hate can lead one down a dark path that has no return. But by not giving into our darkest thoughts and worse emotions, we can find true happiness and peace. It does not have to be in any particular person or thing we place our trust but perhaps the universe itself, the one true deity of love. Listen to the universe.

Poppies Stephanie Dowdle Maenhardt

Because I’m a military spouse and we moved frequently, I taught my full course load online for about 6 years. In those years when I was away from all that was familiar, I explored my new surroundings through the lens of my camera. Focusing on minute details helped me see the beauty in the new, the strange, the unfamiliar.

Resilience Lindsay Simons

How It Feels to Sit with Your Wet Sweater On

Emily Spacek

How it feels to sit with your wet sweater on

you are sitting outside and the rain has just stopped. squirrels chittering, bird talk, wheels hitting puddles, puddle spray hitting sidewalk. it’s time to sweep the house, like you do every evening, only-a neighbor’s window lurches open, interrupting-it is almost too much to stand up.

it is like that time you sat cross-legged on the cathedral steps (high out of your mind, hunched over) and the southern California air-that heavy heavy air-pinned you to the stone. for days you collected what people threw from deep pockets, and for days thought about how people envision more perfect worlds when they are still very little.

if you look at the horizon, just the part you can see through the trees now, the receding rain clouds and fog are a streak across blue reflection and the desert flat almost looks like the ocean. it is rolling and falling, carrying with it that time you sat by your grandmother at the boardwalk. the wind chimes sing as a soft wind blows by.

you expected to be alone but she spoke of squeezing lemon juice and milking cows, all in one sentence and you felt sick looking at the amusement rides and listening to the shrilling screams rolling and falling by.

i want to take my sweater off is how you responded. i want to take off my shoes and feel the warmth of the cement below, the bubble gum stains on the walkways squishy in the heat, is what you were thinking. i will stay here forever, trapped in discomfort, is what you didn’t know.

the trash can lid in your yard was left open during the night and the bin is full of rainwater and you want to go over and smell it. this is something

you don’t like about yourself. you are so dirty and you need to sweep the house.

drips falling from the balcony above you are like ghost taps from people always watching and you feel exposed. you need to go inside. you need to sweep the house.

eyes squinting, mental capture of earthworms come to find refuge in the damp soil or your rotting feet. sniff. the breeze makes your nose drip but the liquid is warm and you take off your wet sweater, the one you wore all night. you stand up for the first time since yesterday maybe. you hang your sweater to dry on the back of an empty chair. you go in to sweep.

Homestead

Dante Rose

Invisible Spectrum

Dante Rose

“Ma! Ma, a river!”

Xingfu looks up sharply and is relieved when he sees that his child is only indicating the silty gutter stream running down the street from whatever the crew of workers is doing over by the intersection. Of course, at three years old, Li is far from having the power to will an entire river into existence, but it doesn’t stop Xingfu’s heart from stuttering every time the child makes casually fantastical remarks like this. His first instinct is often to discourage it—to try and pull Li back to the reality that he is familiar with, but Richard says that this will negatively impact Li’s development.

They’re human as much as anything else—they need to play.

So, now Xingfu does his best to match his child’s enthusiasm as he responds: “Wow! That’s so cool, Li! Should we find some boats?”

Play is not something Xingfu has ever been good at himself, but he’s trying to learn for Li’s sake.

I have shrimp emotions about it, he told Richard back when Li was born.

Shrimp emotions?

You know how shrimp see colors beyond the range of human comprehension?

I see colors beyond the range of human comprehension, Richard pointed out.

My emotions are beyond the range of your comprehension, though.

It was mostly a joke.

Li’s hand slips out of Xingfu’s as the three-year-old bounds onto the grassy strip between the sidewalk and the street, stopping to snatch up some twigs littered among the grass as he goes. Some irresponsible

person has left a large pile of dog doings in the grass, and Xingfu darts forward as his child’s prized light-up sneakers move toward it.

“Look where you’re walking, A-Li,” he instructs, pointing down at the refuse as he pulls them back.

Li follows Xingfu’s finger and their eyes light with interest. “Is it dog poop?” they want to know.

“What do you think?” Xingfu posits, because his child asks him five thousand questions a day and this is one he’s sure they can figure out on their own.

Li wrinkles their nose and bends down to inspect the mess up close.

“Don’t stare at it like that,” Xingfu tells them.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s yucky,” Xingfu explains. “We don’t stare at yucky things.”

“Oh.” Li straightens up. “Why not?”

Xingfu wrinkles his own nose at the question. This seems like it should also be something Li could figure out on their own, but sometimes when they ask questions like this, Xingfu doesn’t know if the misunderstanding is a result of their age or those parts of them they got from their father—the parts that are more than human. It’s frustrating to struggle so much to understand a being that he himself gave birth to, but the other parents at the support group assure him that this struggle is one part of his experiences at least that are entirely human. There’s no parenting guide that tells him what to do when his child takes a sudden interest in dog poop, though.

“Why do you want to look at it?” he eventually settles for.

“I wanna see if the fly babies are there yet,” Li answers without missing a beat.

Xingfu feels his face twist in disgust at the thought and quickly forces it back to neutral. It’s simply a different perspective on the world, he reminds himself. He nearly threw up the first time he saw Richard

feeding, too, but it hardly phases him these days, and… Well, perhaps it’s best not to tell his child that there’s something wrong with “yucky things.” He and Richard are doing their utmost to make sure Li doesn’t grow up with internalized shame about their own identity, after all.

Xingfu drops down to his child’s level as he thinks of a more neutral manner in which to explain the taboo nature of staring at animal waste. “I know you like flies, Li, but poop is full of germs, so we don’t go near it.”

“Oh,” Li says, realization dawning on their round face. Germs they can understand—they get sick just like any human child, after all. “Can I make it go away, then?” they want to know.

Xingfu hesitates and glances around quickly. There’s no one nearby to pay them any attention, and technically it would be a civic service. “Sure,” he says.

Li claps their hands with excitement. There is a moment where reality shimmers around them, and a spot above their right shoulder seems to stare down at the grass. The offending mess fades out of existence, and Li looks up to his mother for approval.

“Good job,” Xingfu tells them, ruffling his child’s thick, dark hair, and then remembers that he’s not supposed to say ‘good job.’

It’s not specific enough—it doesn’t let them know what they did that was good.

It’s all part of the ‘intentional interactions’ that Richard is always encouraging. But Xingfu doesn’t know what his child just did, so how is he supposed to know which parts to praise? And he doesn’t fully understand how ‘good job’ is the wrong thing to say to a child, anyway. Xingfu would have loved to hear those words from his own parents.

Actually, his parents wouldn’t have said ‘good job,’ would they?

“Gān gān jìng jìng,,” Xingfu amends. “Háo tǐ tiè, guāi.”

Li’s face lights up and he switches to Mandarin to ask, “Help me with my boats now, Ma?”

Xingfu plucks a few twigs out of the grass and follows his child to the curb. He doesn’t speak Mandarin with Li as often as he probably should. Richard has shown him enough articles that he understands on a conscious level that being bilingual won’t hurt Li’s chances in school, but Xingfu still has nightmares about sitting in his kindergarten classroom, unable to force his mouth into the shapes of the words that everyone around him is speaking. Not to mention, he isn’t sure how accurate his Mandarin is—he stopped speaking it regularly when he was seven.

Richard’s is perfect, though, and Xingfu has shrimp emotions about that, too. Richard has been speaking the language since long before the concept of ‘Mandarin’ even existed. He wasn’t ‘Richard’ back then, of course. He’s only Richard now because it’s convenient for most of the people around them. Years ago, when they were first beginning to trust one another with such things, Richard asked for Xingfu’s Chinese name, and when Xingfu asked for his in return, he laughed.

From which century? he asked. Or do you mean my birth name? I’m afraid your ears wouldn’t pick it up even if I told you.

Li has only one name: simple enough for the children they meet on the playground, distinctly Chinese, and utterable in the colors of sound their father’s kind uses.

“These ones are Zheng he’s boats,” Li says as they drop their handful of twigs into the gutter.

“Who’s that?” Xingfu asks, squatting down to add a few of his own.

“Baba read him last night,” Li tells him.

“Are you guys reading a new book, then?”

Bedtime has been Richard’s responsibility ever since Xingfu finally weaned Li last year, and Xingfu doesn’t even know how many books they’ve read together now. Li doesn’t absorb all of the content, of course, but more than Xingfu thought a three-year-old could. Sometimes, Xingfu sits outside the door where Li won’t know he’s there and listens to the steady sound of Richard’s voice reading and conversing gently with

their child, but he’s been busy lately.

“Zheng He went exploring,” Li explains, answering the question they’re interested in rather than the one their mother asked last. They select a couple of dead leaves from the grass and set them in the stream. “He went almost everywhere, but then the emperor said he had to bring his boats home. Baba said that made him sad.”

“Did Baba go on one of the boats?” Xingfu wants to know.

“Only one time,” Li says. “Then he did horses for a while.”

Xingfu hums thoughtfully, thinking he’ll have to look up this Zheng He fellow later. Richard has lived far too long for him to keep track of all of it, but he does try to keep a general timeline.

“Baba came here on a boat, right?” Li asks, their eyes fixed intently on a group of sicks that has turned sideways and gotten stuck.

“A long, long time ago,” Xingfu affirms. He nudges the sticks straight again, and the water that had piled up behind them sends the lot surging down the gutter once more.

“Ma came on an airplane?”

“Mhm. With lǎolao and lǎoye.”

“When you were three—like me!”

Li has taken special interest in this story lately for this reason in particular.

“And jiùjiu was in lǎolao’s tummy,” Xingfu adds.

“Ma was in lǎolao’s tummy, too, right?” Li picks up a rock and drops it into the stream. Xingfu is about to tell them that it won’t float when it bobs back to the surface and follows the rest down the street.

“Ah… A few years before that, yeah,” Xingfu says. He picks up a rock of his own and drops it in, just to see. It sinks.

“And I was in your tummy before I was born,” Li concludes with satisfaction.

“Yes,” Xingfu tells them, carefully.

Li is quite proud of recently having pieced together this portion of their own origin story, and Xingfu is just glad that they have yet to start

asking why their mother looks so different from everyone else’s. He frets over it sometimes after Li is in bed for the night. When he does, Richard’s eyes always go soft and delicate, and the other parts of him slip in and out of view.

I could fix it, he offered once.

I don’t want you to, Xingfu told him. I want to be me. I just don’t ever want Li to be ashamed of me.

No one would be ashamed of you, Feng Xingfu.

Which was a sweet thing to say, but they both knew it wasn’t true. Otherwise, Li would be able to hear about how his mother’s family came to America from someone who actually remembers it.

Xingfu is working on not being ashamed. Richard helps. He’s been living around humans long enough to get into their heads when he needs to, and Xingfu isn’t the first one he’s been with like this. This is the first time either of them has been a parent, though, and there are some things that even a being as ancient as Richard cannot fully understand without experience.

Xingfu still remembers the way Richard’s eyes—the ones he calls his ‘inside eyes’—started winking in and out of existence when Xingfu had finally told him what he wanted.

Could you do it, though?

Xing-xing, love, I could take you to the moon if you wanted. It’s just… no one has ever asked me for this before.

I want to create something. I want to use my body to create something precious—with you. I don’t want the fact that I was born a man to get in the way of that.

Xingfu had more shrimp emotions when he was pregnant than any other time in his life. That was when Richard found him the support group—a handful of other parents who can relate to various parts of Xingfu’s experience, and he to theirs. There’s Kent, who went off his hormones so that he and his husband could have a biological child; Suying, whose parents haven’t spoken to her since they found out that she

was expecting via a sperm donor; Miranda and Jin Soon and they baby they adopted from Rwanda; Zhao-pópó, who is raising her grandchild after her son and daughter-in-law decided they didn’t know what to do with a child who refused to be either a boy or a girl. They take Xingfu and his family for what they are.

Nǐwǒ jǔwù múqīn, Zhao-pópó said at the beginning.

Jǔwù múqīn. To raise one’s eyes and see no kin. Xingfu remembers his mother saying it when they first left China. He hasn’t seen his mother in years. She knows he is married and has a child, but none of the specifics. But Xingfu is not alone. He has Richard and Li. He has people who understand that having Li was the best choice he ever made, and also that he still gets dizzy sometimes when he thinks of his family ever finding out where exactly Li came from. It’s another shrimp emotions kind of thing.

Xingfu absently picks up another rock and drops it into the stream.

“Yours sink,” Li observes, pulling Xingfu from his thoughts.

“Well, yeah,” he says. “Rocks don’t float.”

Li blinks up at him, their round eyes suddenly pinched with concern. “They don’t?”

Of course rocks don’t float. Rocks have never floated. Xingfu knows this as fundamentally as he knows that the sky is blue… But Richard and Li can see colors that he doesn’t. And maybe Xingfu would rather overturn all the laws of nature than let his child grow up thinking there’s anything wrong with the way they are.

“Well, they can’t if they’re gonna be submarines,” he says, giving Li a reassuring smile.

Li cocks their head to the side with a bemused expression that puts Xingfu in mind of Richard.

“Ma, you’re so silly,” they say with three-year-old exasperation.

“Well,” Xingfu muses, leaning over to bump his forehead gently against theirs. “I suppose that’s something.”

Kati Lewis

Eva Garcia

Artist’s Note: This is a song I wrote and recorded during this month with friends. I play the drums, bass, acoustic guitar 1, and the Electric guitar in this song. My friend Spencer added in some last-minute acoustic guitar as guitar 2, and it was recorded by Cameron Zitting, and Spencer Gundersen at Cameron's home studio. I wrote it after I saw the poster for this, and completed it all within the month. It has been a really fun journey, and I hope you like it!

—Sam Jessing

Flower Garden by Rachel Broom

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