(2) Nocturne 2023: Insomnia

INSOMNIA

Blacken silt and silken sallow

Merry wilting in the fallow

Eyes in vein searching sleep

Awaken paining begin to weep

FORESHADOWING

POETRY BY ISABELLE WILIKINSON

It was the kind of sadness that slowly dripped into your heart like rain droplets running through a screen door quietly, quietly, quietly Like a storm with its thunder rolling along the darkened sky The clouds had built up in the sky over time you ignored it giving you a headache

SAD GIRL

PAINTING BY ANONYMOUS

WISTFUL WOES

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LILLIE DIRKS

WILL O’ WISPS

PAINTING BY ELISE HARDING

CLICHÉS

POETRY BY RILEY GAIKOWSKI

Her eyes are like the night sky

I could drown in them

And not in a good way

Her gaze sweeps over me, assessing

Interesting? No.

A star dies

Tolerable? No.

A star dies

All that’s left is annoyance

Her glasses slice through her pupil

Like a knife through butter

No, not a knife

It’s a bullet

Blink

Another shot

Blink twice

Another shot

Blink, blink, blink

She’s carrying the weight of the world

Not on her shoulders

In her eyes

Maybe the weight of the universe

Ten pounds

She falters

A hundred pounds

She falters

A trillion pounds later she falls

I read between the lines

Paragraphs, pages

Third word of every 64th book

In the 16th library of each country

She’s singing

Silence

She’s dreaming

Silence

She’s screaming

It’s an uphill battle

That’s the easier way

Going down means you fall

I just reached the top

I think I’m glaring

I should stop

I don’t mean to glare

I should stop

I’m glaring

COMPOSITION BY JOHNNIE COLLINS

DRAWING BY GRACE CURE

ABSENCE

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DELANEY MCDERMED

UNTITLED

PAINTING BY CHARLIE KEEFE

THE BANSHEE

PAINTING BY ELISE HARDING

TIMELINE OF LOSS

POETRY SERIES BY JESSICA BOUNDS

Question of Life

You must ask the question:

“Have we gone too far?”

When the children hide beneath desks And memorize the locations of bomb shelters. When they see death in the news, Missiles in the seas. Parents fearing another war, Another death. This time, in their own home.

You must ask the question:

“Can we continue?”

When men die across the ocean And others return with no light to be seen. When people scream and yell, Calling for an end.

Blood flowing through the streets Of cities both far and near.

You must ask the question:

“Why should they die?”

When you see your son board the plane And hope he may return with his life. When you watch as he comes back, Looking whole,

Knowing he is broken. And you cry tears

That will never wash away

The blood already spilled.

The Lucky Type

In 1965, a boy receives a letter. The President has sent for him, Sent for him to go Across the sea, where the men go to die.

But he does not know this

As he boards the plane. He learns this

As he rides the bus, The windows with bars. He asks the reason for such precautions, And learns of the hatred contained in a country. Hatred for war and death.

He does not know how his father mourns, Assuming his son will die.

He does not know he is one of the lucky, Sent away to sit in an office

Because he was of the few that knew how to type, Rather than die in a forest Eight thousand miles from home.

Here and Gone

The man rides the plane, The war is over. He wears his uniform with pride, “You served your country well,” His father would say. “You are a killer,”

The passenger next to him says. The stewardess won’t even look his way. He throws away his uniform, Ridding himself of the filth and shame That always follows war.

He doesn’t speak about it again And his father worries.

He pulls back, never sharing what happened, Never speaking about the ignominy he felt. He tells stories about everything, Except that time, That moment.

He jokes and laughs and loves And hides.

Shying away, never to be seen.

FISHBOWL

POETRY BY LILLIE DIRKS

What is to be done?

When your years

Are weeks

And your days

Are circles

Rotations

Repetitions

As the same question

Hounds you from behind

One moment away

From oblivion

What is to be done?

When your bones

Are fragile

And your flesh

Rotten

Righteous

As echoes of past dreams

Now nightmares

Are the only thing

Left to keep you

Afloat

What is to be done?

When the tide returns home

Only to find the same

Sorry

State

Sand and Sediment

Stuck to the ceiling

What can be done?

When homes turn

Hostile

Cages grow tighter

Playful paralysis

(She loves you

She swears)

Blind Affection

Poisonous Pride

When you find me

Among the clouds

Floating

On thin air

Serene

Sensationless

Satisfied

What will you do?

BLEED

SCULPTURE BY LOLA SIDIE

ALMOST 18/THEY ASK ME TO DESCRIBE MYSELF

SPOKEN WORD BY JEANNE OZKAN

I am sitting in class, it is the first day of a new year, and the teacher has asked me to describe myself in one sentence. I want to say,

I am at once the host and the parasite. I have carved myself out of extremes and with careful precision. I am the owl hole in the drawing of a tree, and I am the tire swing, and I am the tree itself. I am waiting for the part where I die, and I am waiting for this place to feel like home. And I am waiting to get bored of the people I love. I am made of violence and guilt. I am logic, but the kind of logic that’s hard to conceptualize. I am a scattering of… something—bones probably. I am dubious morals and mental illness and platonic love. I am you and you are me, and I am being born. I am being reborn. I am dying. I am dying, I am dying! Someone help, I am dying!

Instead, “I’m a little bit obsessed with fictional characters.”

I am at my first interview ever. It is for a food service job. I am 16, the interviewer is 19 and beautiful. She asks me to describe what kind of person I am.

I like to drive but I can’t afford gas. I like to cook but I can’t afford groceries. I am in anguish that I am putting out fires…that I may or may not have started. I am street parking and city pigeons. I am the rising sun. And I am the daughter too. I am the coward and I am the man made of flies. I am scared of what I can achieve with these hands I inherited from my father. And I am not my father’s daughter. And I am lying. I am lying right now. I am lying!

“I foster cats.”

I am writing my college application essay. I’ve been asked to describe why I would be a good fit for their university.

the daughter of my mother, and I am the son and “the people.” I am Mecca and Jersulam and the cross. I am scream-singing in my car. I am doing parkour in my room because I can’t see the floor anymore. I am the quadratic formula and I am the square root of pi. The color of my personhood is dulling and weak and one of those colors only shrimp can see. I am a child and I am almost 18. I am not ready. I’m not ready! Wait, stop! Don’t leave me behind!

I type, “I have 100 hours of community service.”

They ask me to desribe myself, and I do not say that I am happy.

STITCHES

MIXED MEDIA BY JAXTON TAYLOR

I am “the light around the moon,” and I am “God is gracious.” I am

PROSE BY SOPHIE SHROYER

The fact that his disease is common brings me no comfort. His destruction began quickly and is ending agonizingly slow. He was frail to begin with, a skinny old man, but still with relentless determination to do work. He is little more than bones and confusion now.

Pieces of his life and his home have been placed here to comfort him, remind him. It’s evident though, that he will never be home again. His room will be easy to take down, scarce signs that life ever was there. His room is too quiet, the carpet too cream, walls too unscathed.

We visited his old office recently, and even though his body (his dying, old body) is still here, most of him is gone. His office is bright with the Florida sunlight, white papers covering his deep brown desk like snow on a log; frozen in time.

I never noticed it before, how in his own way he was always in motion. It’s only clear now that he is incapable of anything. His arms, which danced with me, taught me to

drive a golf cart; his arms and hands that held mine as we crossed the street do little more now than shake and reach out for a life he cannot go back to.

The most heartbreaking part of it all, though, is when everyone reminds me how his heart loves me in a way it never could for anyone else. Me, who is not related to him by any blood, who is too cowardly to visit him often. Me. He loves me. He is at his brightest and sharpest with me, finding some sort of memory of life to cling to.

Knowing all this, knowing that in some way once he forgets me he is all gone, knowing that, I still cannot bear to witness him fading away. I can’t stand how slow his frail legs move, how frightened his eyes look when Grandma leaves his sight. I can’t stand his tidy room.

It all is too slow, it all is happening too fast. He is supposed to dance with me at my wedding. He promised. He swore.

NATE SPARKS

HERE TODAY, GONE TOMOROW

PAINTING BY CLOVER TYLER

LOOKING GLASS INTO THE FOURTH DIMENSION:

MIRROR ON THE WALL

SCULPTURE

BY THOMAS GARMON

QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

POETRY BY ISABELLE WILKINSON

time slowing, running ebb and flow the weight of growing knowing there’s an end

i cannot bear to stand anymore my hands are working faster, faster than my mind shadowed by blocked windows and walls, insults

people moving constantly and surely i will be able to rest one day

under dirt and dust lost dreams

and when i’m dreaming, working i can’t stand certain noises pens scratching people sighing wasting time meant to be spent somewhere new didn’t we do this to ourselves?

is it better to speak or to die is it better to work or to lie

you’re going to do both anyways they ask me my fears i say i’m scared of never learning never really working

because the work has no outcome no reward

nothing ventured nothing gained nothing scarred nothing made still we keep going to get to somewhere better maybe circle, cycle the shape we learned when we were kids

i’m older in my mind young but losing time and restless because i shouldn’t be here in fear of breaking a broken clock is right twice a day which means i get kept without getting paid

they tell you

the time is now always now now to not be wasted

and it’s confusing with a forest in my mind but a clock on an office wall is ticking ticking without warning and warming up for a race we might win ten thousand years from now

i hate being here let me go

quality over quantity we forget how that can mean our thoughts too

it’s cold here cold because it’s supposed to keep you awake enough to dream of your sins

sins of who i’m not meant to be are they mine if it’s not me

there’s no ending to this none that we know none that we’ll let go we live like we’ll die when we’re supposed to when they say we will

and when someone young dies we cry and forget forget they had no chance to live because we couldn’t show them there was something better

c’est la vie, it’s just life

to live for something better they tell me to live for something better i have seen something better get destroyed in a morning

will you live for a new day?

we will

continue, weary tired and broken for a purpose that’s forgotten when it doesn’t work out

some things don’t change some times stay the same

and we have to live with our consequences a baby you’ll kick out of the house when it’s too much too handle because you’ve spent your life working, bleeding and you thought it would give you a break

don’t worry don’t let go now time is desensitized and will forget about you anyway we’re all dead anyways is it too much to live first

BY RILEY GAIKOWSKI

COMPOSITION

INFATUATION, UNSURITY, AND CLOSURE POETRY

SERIES BY OLIVE GOLDMAN

Infatuation

Crawl into my mind like the maggots that penetrate flesh. The flesh of the sick, and the poor, and the weak. I’ll tie down the sun because you hate your shadow, and the way that it follows you. It follows you like the guilt and the sin that settles in your throat. So wash it down with my perfume, And don’t let me see you spit and gag at the mist.

Hyperfixation turn to desperation

Settling for scraps, Like a dog tripping over their own paws.

Unsurity

You didn’t ask me to untie the sun. But I could see the color dropping from your cheeks. I have so much to say

But you’ve asked me to cut out my tongue. I dry off with a wet towel day after day, And tell myself this is warmth. The warmth that gives goosebumps

And shivers down my spine.

Closure

Darkness erodes me, But I don’t have fear; For the erosion lets me see the light. It peeks through the shut blinds And holds my eyes open.

It sharpens my teeth

And lifts my head to the sky. The blue doesn’t turn to black And the sun doesn’t melt for the moon. I don’t sit in the rays and feel cold anymore. No longer a sheep in wolf’s clothing, Or a wolf in sheep’s. These are just my clothes.

The kind of warmth that makes the rings fall from my fingers, Or the blood flow thicker in my body.

I’ve molded you in my mind

But the clay is starting to clump, and crack my hands.

THE BODY I ONCE KNEW AND THE MIND I ONCE LOVED

POETRY BY LENIX WELSH

The rough lips that kissed the scars over my heart. Why do they not move with the intention to speak?

Clear my mind I beg.

Let me see through the eyes I only peer into. The eyes I look into, and the eyes I crave to look back into mine.

Why do you look away?

Why do you not return something as simple as a glance?

Have I asked too much?

Let me knock upon the door that is your mind.

Let me ring the doorbell that is your thoughts. Let me see what is behind that door. Ease the pain you’ve placed upon me.

Why must I melt under your touch?

Why must I melt under your gaze?

What do you have that I don’t?

I long for your knowledge, your skill, The will to be better, And the opportunity is like the light at the end of a never-ending hallway. Running out of breath the room goes dark.

With my anxieties proven true, I gave up on you.

PATHWAY

TEXTILE BY AUDREY MOREHEAD